June 27, 2024 • 42 mins
On July 25, 2015, 21 year old college student, Lauren Taylor Agee, left her home to attend an annual wakeboarding event at Center Hill Lake in Tennessee. What should have been a fun and care-free weekend with friends, ended in Lauren’s death. The subsequent investigation revealed little information into the details surrounding Lauren’s death and has left her family with many unanswered questions to this day.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello and welcome to Mr. Zimamosas and thank you for listening.
(00:15):
My name is Max and with me is your favorite co-host, Aria.
Hi everyone.
Hi Aria.
Are you ready to present today's episode?
I am.
And so what do you have in store for us today?
This case is an unbelievable case out of DeKalb County, Tennessee and technically it's a solved
case.
A solved case.
I can't wait to hear about it.
(00:35):
But first, I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of mysteries and mimosas.
As usual, please visit us at mysteries and mimosas.net.
Follow us on social media as well.
You can find us on Instagram at mysteries and mimosas podcast.
We're also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
But before we get started, we're going to go through the trivia questions from the year
(00:56):
of this incident, which is 2015.
The idea behind doing this trivia segment is to mentally bring you back to the year
of the episode by asking Aria several easy trivia questions and maybe one hard one.
Question number one.
This rap star was commended in the 2015 Guinness Book of World Records for having the most
(01:17):
words in a hit single titled Rap God, totaling 1,560 words in six minutes and four seconds.
That's easy.
Is it?
It's Eminem.
Yeah, it is Eminem.
Well, I guess we're off to a good start on this one.
Good job.
I'm proud of you.
(01:40):
Question number two.
Name the notable politician who used her personal email address for official business while
she was secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton.
It is Hillary Clinton.
I feel like these questions are way too easy for you.
Anybody could get that one.
Maybe not.
All right.
Question number three.
(02:00):
Name the super discount member chain, which sold over 128 million hot dogs on their food
courts in 2015.
Costco, of course.
Why do you say of course?
Because everybody goes there for the whatever that remember they were like, we're not going
to ever raise the price of the hot dog drink combo or whatever.
(02:21):
Yeah, I think I do remember something about how it's the same price as it's always been
or something.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's an easy question.
All right.
Last one.
See if you can get 100%.
Everybody's really hoping that you can.
Of course, I have my doubts, but I think actually this one's so easy, even Aria can get it.
(02:41):
Why do you have your doubts?
You said you were rooting for me.
I know, I'm just kidding.
I am rooting for you.
In 2015, this famous late night television personality hosted the late show for the final
time.
David Letterman.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
It's not David Letterman.
Nope, it's not.
(03:02):
Oh.
It's Jay Leno.
Oh, it was Jay Leno?
Nope.
I'm just kidding.
It's David Letterman.
You won 100%.
I don't want to give you another one because I don't want you to fail 100%.
Next week, I will be in the hot seat.
You are responsible for making trivia questions and let's see how long you can reign.
Oh, it'll be a while.
(03:24):
I'm going to pick some.
Last time I picked easy ones for you.
This time I'm not showing you any mercy.
Really?
The stamp question was easy?
I don't think so.
Did you even get that one exactly right?
I did.
Yeah.
Well.
You actually mentioned it like an episode or two away how you were surprised that I
got the stamp question right.
I forgotten all about it until you mentioned it.
(03:45):
Yeah.
So there you have it.
Aria finally wins trivia.
I think you need, go ahead, reach over there, help yourself to an Airhead.
You deserve it.
Airhead candy.
I'm good.
Thanks.
You're good?
All right.
Okay.
That's all I get though for winning is an Airhead candy?
Well, no, but no, you don't just get an Airhead candy.
(04:07):
You also get to ask me trivia questions until I get 100%.
Okay.
So you can make fun of me and entertain people at my expense.
Perfect.
Okay.
That's worth it then.
Okay.
So moving on and thank you for doing that.
And of course it wouldn't be a complete episode without a mimosa recipe.
So Aria, what are we drinking today?
(04:29):
Today is the raspberry lemon mimosa.
So you'll take a quarter cup of raspberry lemonade and then top it with your favorite
champagne and use raspberries as a garnish.
Super easy.
I love raspberries.
I love lemonade and I love champagne.
This is the perfect combo.
It is delicious and I really like it.
(04:49):
Thank you for sharing that with us.
You're welcome.
I just want to give our only sponsor, Dragon Glassware, a shout out.
I know I always mention it, but Dragon Glassware has been with us since we started this podcast.
In fact, they sponsored us before we even published one episode.
And it's really because we reached out and we're like, hey, any chance you want to give
(05:09):
us a sponsorship?
We really don't know what we're doing yet, but we love your glasses.
And they're like, yeah, let's do it.
So that was pretty awesome.
If you're interested in supporting our show, head on over to Dragon Glassware, pick up
one of their amazing cocktail glasses.
If you enter the promo code mysteries and mimosa's podcast at checkout, you'll get
a 10% discount off your entire order.
And they make a small donation back to mysteries and mimosa's to help us out with this show.
(05:35):
Yeah.
So I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
No, you go ahead.
I was just going to get into the episode.
Oh, go ahead.
Get into the episode.
All right.
Today's.
Today's case?
Yes.
Okay.
I'll just help you out.
Today's case.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
All right.
So let's get into today's case.
(05:56):
Today's case is about 21 year old Lauren Taylor Agee from Hendersonville, Tennessee.
Lauren excelled in both academics and sports, specifically dancing.
Lauren was a straight A student in her second year of college majoring in criminal science.
The one thing that stood out about Lauren was her outgoing personality.
She was a fun, energetic person who was always smiling and always laughing.
(06:21):
On July 25th of 2015, Lauren told her mom she was going to a local community get together
called Wake Fest with her friend Hannah Palmer, Hannah's new boyfriend, Aaron Lilly, and
Aaron's friend, Chris Stout.
That sounds fun.
Wake Fest?
Yeah.
Let me tell you what it is first.
Okay.
(06:41):
Wake Fest is a wakeboarding tournament that takes place annually on Center Hill Lake, which
is approximately two hours outside of Nashville.
Hundreds of fans attend Wake Fest to watch the professional wakeboarders during the day
and then party at the Marina Bar and in houseboats on the lake in the evening.
Like I said, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah.
I didn't even have to have your explanation to know I want to go check out Wake Fest.
(07:04):
Right?
I think, I mean, especially for college kids, right?
That age group, I think probably would have a really good time.
Oh yeah.
No, I would like to go to a Wake Fest where they have like a 9 p.m. curfew bedtime where
I get to just crawl into bed and watch a scary movie or something.
Yeah.
(07:24):
That'd be up my alley.
Yeah.
That's our fun.
We're not staying up all night partying, but for college kids, it sounds like a great time.
So Lauren's mom, Sherry Smith, said she felt uneasy about Lauren going to Wake Fest with
this group of friends because although Hannah was Lauren's friend and they had known each
other for years, she really only came around when she was in between boyfriends.
(07:47):
Interesting.
So she only came around when she was like in between boyfriends, meaning she was single
and she'd come around.
I don't really necessarily think that makes her a bad friend.
I mean, I think all of us can relate when we have friends and we're spending a lot of
time with them and then they find somebody, you know, a love interest and they start spending
time with them.
You kind of go by the wayside.
(08:07):
So I don't necessarily think she's bad for that.
No, I don't necessarily say she's a bad friend because of that.
But I think as a mom, you know, when you see that happening to your child and, you know,
they have this really good friend and then friend goes off with boyfriend and then they
break up and then she comes back kind of sounded more like it was when it was convenient for
(08:30):
her.
So I can see a mom saying, oh, you know, I don't I don't want to see my daughter upset
or sad.
Right.
And protective.
Yeah, I can see that.
But sure.
Additionally, Hannah had never met Aaron or Chris before this day.
When Sherry asked Hannah where she would be staying while at Wakefest, Hannah reportedly
told her mom they were staying in a cabin at the lake.
(08:52):
Although Sherry was reluctant, she gave Lauren a big hug and center on her way, never knowing
this would be the last time she would see her daughter alive.
That's really sad.
You know, to think of hugging your child before they walk out the door, not knowing that you
might not ever see them again, it kind of reminds me and I know it's not the same, but
(09:12):
it kind of reminds me of like you heard, you know, you hear people say, oh, you know, at
one point in time you picked up your kid when they're a toddler or whatever, a child and
you put them back down and never picked them up again.
There was that time your parents picked you up, put you back down and never picked you
up again.
That's why I make it a point to pick up my teenager every chance I get.
(09:33):
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, especially as a mom, that's, that's heartbreaking to me because I can just
imagine that, you know, because I hug my daughter every day, you know, I hug her every day before
she goes to school.
Even when she doesn't want me to, I would just always give her a hug.
And so to think that that would be the last time that would happen is, is so heartbreaking.
(09:54):
Lauren and Hannah documented the car ride to center Hill Lake on social media and by
all accounts, the first day there went well and Lauren was having a good time.
The group of four spent the evening into the early morning hours of July 26th at the Marina
bar laughing and having a good time.
Lauren ran into one of her other high school friends, Cassie Franks on the dock of the
(10:17):
lake that night.
What's interesting though is that Cassie is actually the ex-girlfriend of Aaron.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Kind of a small community then maybe.
I mean, maybe it sounds kind of like it.
At around 2 a.m. that morning, the group of four decided to head to bed for the night.
This is when Lauren found out the plan was not to stay in a cabin as she had been told
(10:40):
earlier, but rather to camp on a rocky outcropping across the lake from the Marina.
The outcropping was rocky and steep with a 90-foot drop on one side and a 45-foot drop
on the other side.
The outcropping is surrounded by Center Hill Lake on both sides and it's very difficult
to climb to the top.
That sounds scary.
Yeah, for sure.
(11:01):
Lauren didn't feel good about this sleeping arrangement, so she asked her friend Cassie
if she could stay with her group.
Unfortunately, Cassie told her they didn't have enough room for Lauren in their cabin,
which was the last time Cassie saw Lauren alive.
So because there wasn't enough room for Lauren to stay with Cassie, the group of four headed
to their camp in a canoe at approximately 2 to 2.30 a.m.
(11:25):
When they arrived at the camp, Hannah and Erin retreated to the only tent, leaving Lauren
to share a hammock with Chris.
The hammock, by the way, was stretched loosely between two trees with a rope and hanging
precariously above the jagged rocks and water below.
It's kind of scary, seriously.
That's really scary.
Like, yeah, I mean, and if you see pictures of this outcropping, you'll see, and how that
(11:50):
hammock kind of hung over the edge, it's terrifying.
I mean, I wouldn't trust it, you know, with just me, let alone two people laying in that
that that rope was going to hold and I wasn't just going to go falling down the side of
that cliff.
That's terrifying.
Yeah.
So on top of it just being scary, I find it kind of hard to believe that Lauren would
want to share a hammock hanging over a cliff with Chris, whom she had just met that day.
(12:15):
According to an article by Chilling Crimes, Cassie said Lauren made it clear to Chris
that she was not interested in him romantically.
Okay, that's interesting.
Yeah.
But she still went up there.
Yeah.
You know, according to everybody's story with that group, they went back and went up there
together.
Okay.
So this afternoon on July 26, around 430 p.m., a man named Lynn Blair and his son were out
(12:42):
fishing on Center Hill Lake when they came across a body floating face down in the water.
Around the same time the body was discovered, Chris and Aaron showed up at the scene in
their canoe and said their friend was missing.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Very convenient.
Mm hmm.
The body was determined to be that of Lauren.
The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate Lauren's death, and Detective
(13:06):
Jeremy Taylor was assigned as the lead investigator on the case.
When questioned by the police, Chris, Aaron, and Hannah reported that the group of four
had all returned to the campsite together drunk, and Aaron and Hannah went to sleep
in the tent while Chris and Lauren went to sleep in the hammock.
When they woke up on the morning of July 26, Lauren was not at the camp.
(13:26):
However, Lauren's shoes, phone, and wallet were still at the campsite.
Oddly enough, none of Lauren's friends ever reported that Lauren was missing.
Hannah told police she never reported Lauren is missing because she had just assumed Lauren
had gone off to meet someone.
I mean, that excuse makes sense.
I mean, you know, if you're all out partying on this wake fest on boats and stuff, you
(13:48):
know, I could see that as a possibility.
So I don't know.
I okay, I'll play the devil's advocate on that because who is Lauren going to see at
2 30 a.m. after having to climb all the way up that that cliff and flip flops and drunk
as the group described her when I watched the crime watch daily episode on this, they
(14:11):
showed the cliff that the group climbed to get to the campsite.
It was extremely steep and there was a white rope they had to hold on to and pull themselves
up with.
It looked like it would be difficult to climb sober, let alone intoxicated and in flip flops.
And the other reason that seems odd to me is why if she was going to meet someone, why
would she leave her shoes there?
(14:32):
I mean, she's going down a rocky cliff.
Would she not at least put her flip flops back on?
That doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
So I guess I was under the impression that Hannah woke up in the morning to find Lauren
gone.
And that would make sense to me that it would be a reasonable explanation that maybe Lauren
could have gotten up and ventured off to go meet someone.
Yeah, no, that's exactly what Hannah is saying happened.
(14:53):
I'm just saying that seems off because her shoes are still there.
Why would you not take your shoes or your phone or anything with you?
To me that kind of sent up red flags.
But after the autopsy, the medical examiner reported their findings of an accidental death
by blunt force trauma and possible drowning.
(15:14):
The autopsy also found Lauren's BAC to be twice the legal limit.
Okay.
So if it's twice the legal limit, I'm assuming most states it's 0.08 even in 2015.
So at a 0.16 roughly for a female especially is a pretty high BAC.
Unless you're an avid alcoholic that drinks all the time, then it doesn't really affect
(15:37):
you as much.
I think climbing that cliff with that high of a BAC the next day after your blood is
taken postmortem and tested, that means her alcohol content was much higher.
Possibly.
Yeah, it had to be because it was at least a 1.6 up until the point where her body could
no longer metabolize it, which would have been the point that she was deceased.
(16:02):
Right.
I wonder though, does death affect the alcohol level at all?
Her being in the water floating for 12 hours or however long it was, would that affect
her blood alcohol level?
We know that alcohol levels go down with time through metabolism.
So I think that when you die, your body is no longer metabolizing it.
So I think it would dissipate much slower if at all.
(16:26):
And so I guess depending on whether or not she was, when she stopped drinking, whether
she was going up or even coming down, at one point in time, I'm just confident to say that
was not her most intoxicated state that night.
That would be my educated guess.
And so my point is even at that high of a level, we're splitting hairs here, but even
(16:47):
at that higher alcohol level, it would be almost impossible for somebody to climb that
outcropping without even, with the help of a rope, it's going to be extremely difficult.
And so to think that she would have came back down on her own doesn't make sense.
That's my point.
That's what I was saying before too.
Yeah.
(17:07):
On top of being intoxicated, you don't have shoes or anything.
That doesn't make sense to me.
So two months after Lauren's body was found, Detective Taylor completed his three paragraph
police report and noted Lauren had died when she accidentally fell off the cliff she was
camping on, hit her head and possibly drowned in the water below.
(17:28):
The case was closed.
Okay, hold on.
You said a three paragraph death investigation report.
Yeah, that's all.
That's what it was.
Three paragraphs.
Okay.
So, you know, I've done lots of death investigations.
Most detectives have.
I can tell you right now in a situation like this where there's alcohol involved, people
(17:48):
drinking, obviously being where they're not supposed to be, and just a mysterious unattended
death quote unquote at that time, that's what they're investigating is an unattended death
because these three people have alibis or, you know, stories or whatever you want to
call it, not alibis, but stories.
You're going to put a lot more effort into this investigation than three paragraphs worth
(18:09):
of work.
I write three paragraphs opening a case, right?
Reviewing somebody else's stuff to open a case.
I write way more than three paragraphs.
So I'm just going to say three paragraphs on a death investigation report, unless it's
an assisted living, you know, hospice type situation, even then three paragraphs is,
(18:31):
I'm just going to say it, it's shoddy work.
It's laziness.
Well, I think Sherry felt that way too, because when she received the completed report of
her daughter's death investigation, she did not believe what she was reading.
She did not believe her daughter had accidentally fallen off that cliff and drowned.
For one, there was no water in her lungs.
Lauren's body also showed signs of a possible struggle.
(18:53):
Lauren was found to have a large contusion to the back of her head, bruising on her back,
bruising on her thighs, and a strange looking bite mark on her chest.
In addition, Lauren had a strange looking triangle imprint on her upper abdomen area.
There was also blood found in Lauren's throat.
Lauren also had a broken nose and a busted lip.
Sherry expressed her concerns to DeKalb County authorities, but her pleas to reopen the investigation
(19:18):
into her daughter's death fell on deaf ears.
Yeah, and obviously you would want your daughter's death investigation reopened with that poor
of a job.
And I saw these triangle marks on her abdomen, this is what we call pattern bruising, and
so some sort of device made that imprint on her.
(19:40):
In order to have that type of bruising or that type of marking, it's indicative of something
making that impression.
I mean, the example I can give to kind of paint the picture is I do child abuse investigations,
and so sometimes you could tell the difference between like when a child, I don't know, falls
down and hits their back on a slide or the monkey bars or something versus when you see
(20:03):
a child that's been abused with a belt buckle and a belt, you'll see the pattern bruising
of the belt.
Sometimes you'll even see the holes from the belt, but you'll even see the buckle outline
imprinted on them, and that's what's called pattern bruising, and that's what this looked
like to me.
Yeah, and there's speculation that that imprint or that mark or the bruising, whatever you
(20:26):
want to call it, came from the front of the canoe that they had.
So if you imagine a canoe, it comes to a point at the front, and it has like this piece of
... There's a picture of it online, like this plastic piece in the shape of that triangle,
and within that triangle, there's like a cutout square, and that mark matches up with that
(20:49):
pretty well.
Almost exactly.
Yeah, so the thought is that that would have been from her body laying over top of that
triangle piece- And being moved.
As she's being moved, yes, essentially.
That is what, as I'll get into this, her mom hired a private investigator, and that is
(21:12):
what they thought about that pattern bruising.
But then investigators came back and said, oh no, that was from when we put her in the
cooler, her body in the cooler on the boat to transport her back to shore.
Right, but did they have any of those patterns in that boat?
Not that they could reveal.
It didn't seem like the angles or anything would have matched up to that.
Yeah, and if you look at the photo, based on my observations, just on the very poor
(21:37):
picture that I was able to look at, to me, it looks like those are postmortem pattern
marks, only because you can see where the blood kind of pulls around it to formulate
that mark.
And so for people who don't know what the levitity is, you look at the way that the
blood settles with gravity in a dead body, because then if it doesn't match with the
(22:00):
way the body's laying, you can say, okay, this body wasn't like this when they passed.
Right, they were moved.
They were moved because of the way that the blood settles.
And to me, it's very faint, but to me it looks like there's some blood settling that causes
that pattern mark with the triangle.
That's what it looks like to me.
But again, it's one picture.
(22:22):
It's very hard to see, but just based on my experience, I've seen a lot of stuff like
that, and that's what it looked like.
Right, exactly.
And of course, these are just opinions, right?
But it looked very similar to the front of that canoe from the photos that I saw.
Yeah, had they done more than three paragraphs, they probably could have measured that pattern
(22:45):
bruising or that pattern impression, and they probably would have matched it up with
that canoe.
I almost guarantee it.
Yeah.
So like I said, Sherry hired a private investigator.
She hired Sheila Wysocki to look into her daughter's death.
Sheila was as shocked as Sherry when she read the findings from the investigation conducted
by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.
(23:06):
Sheila discovered that there was no report indicating that any DNA had ever been collected
from Lauren's body.
And that goes for under her fingernails or from that possible bite mark on her chest.
Further, no sex assault kit had ever been completed on Lauren.
Investigator Taylor cited the fact that Lauren was on her period as the reason a rape kit
(23:27):
was not conducted.
Okay, so this is in my wheelhouse.
This is what I do for a living.
I investigate sex crimes, crimes against children, sex crimes.
And I can tell you this is the most asinine thing that I've ever heard of.
Yeah.
And I don't think you have to be a detective or a world-class investigator to know that
you can be sexually assaulted with a tampon in, with a tampon out.
(23:52):
It doesn't matter.
Right.
And so when you have a dead body under suspicious circumstances with a bite mark on an abdomen.
And then bruising on her thighs that looked kind of like she could have possibly been
being held down.
Yes.
And then bruising on her injuries to her neck, to me that screams, okay, this person may
(24:12):
have been sexually assaulted.
And so regardless of whether there's a tampon in, how they're clothed, it doesn't matter
whether they're nude or fully clothed.
No matter the circumstances, you're still going to go through your necessary due diligence
to collect DNA evidence by conducting.
(24:33):
Most people know it as a rape kit.
It's actually not called a rape kit.
It is called a SANE exam.
And SANE is an acronym for sexual assault nurse examiner.
The other terminology that is used commonly as a forensic nurse examiner, but these SANE
exams on the living are conducted by these nurses who have special skills and training
(24:56):
to collect DNA evidence, collect evidence in the form of biological samples from various
parts of the body, right?
They swab the vagina, they swab the anus, the skin all around in that area, and then
they swab the breast, the neck.
They swab specific areas to collect that DNA.
(25:17):
In addition, they're noting all their medical findings about injuries, bruises, tears, things
of that nature in order to provide the investigator and the court system eventually a really good
picture of what this body or this person experienced.
And the medical examiner does the same thing.
(25:38):
And so really the burden to have that kit done or that SANE done on the decedent is
really, it's the burden is on the investigator to make sure that that happens.
Right.
Because once it's too late, it's too late, and it was just never done in this case.
So it's disappointing because now we'll never know.
(25:58):
And we'll never know because it's gone.
You know that the evidence is no longer here.
And so you're right.
We will never know if there was anything there.
So also bewildering was the fact that after Chris, Aaron, and Hannah were interviewed
and released by investigators, they were allowed to return to the campsite to gather their
belongings.
It was reported from witnesses around the lake that a fire could be seen burning when
(26:21):
the three went to collect their belongings.
Apparently investigators had never considered the campsite to be a crime scene and assumed
Lauren had been drinking too much and fell from the cliff in the middle of the night.
So the area was never processed.
This was bolstered by Chris's story that they fell asleep in the hammock together and Lauren
must have gotten up to use the restroom, lost her balance due to intoxication and fallen
(26:43):
all without him feeling her get up or hearing any commotion.
Okay.
So hold on a minute.
So they never considered the campsite up there to be a crime scene?
No, it was never processed or anything.
They went up there, I believe, but like didn't...
I'm going to be honest with you.
It doesn't surprise me because they didn't even consider Lauren's body to be a crime
scene.
(27:03):
Right.
I mean it is and now they know that.
What I'm seeing here is something that you typically see in new police officers without
experience very rarely with new detectives, but sometimes what I see here is Taylor, Investigator
Taylor is forming this investigation to match his theory and when you do that, you get it
(27:27):
wrong, right?
100% of the time you're going to get it wrong because what you really should be doing is
it's really simple.
The only rule to do an investigation and do a thorough, fair investigation is to follow
the truth, whatever that truth may be, whether or not it clears these three kids of any wrongdoing,
which in this case it did because Taylor almost immediately believed that all it was was a
(27:51):
fall and just an accident, or it could prove that they did something wrong.
And I'm just saying based on the information you're giving me and what I know about this,
I think if a competent investigator did a fair and unbiased investigation into Lauren's
death, I think that one of those or all of those three kids up there or adults, I guess,
(28:13):
I think they probably would have been looking at some charges.
I mean, they'd have been in trouble.
I think they probably had something to do with it.
That's just my opinion.
Yeah.
I mean, it's possible, right?
One way or the other, but had a thorough investigation taken place, maybe we would have that answer.
And we will never know.
Right.
They call that confirmation bias, correct?
(28:34):
That's what the term is, right?
When you formulate an opinion right away and then you look for the evidence to back that
opinion up instead of coming into an investigation with an open mind and just going where the
evidence leads you, you already have your mind made up.
And then the only evidence you're looking at is any evidence that will back up what's
in your mind.
Correct.
Yeah.
(28:54):
That's not a good way to conduct an investigation, especially one like this.
So Lauren's mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Hannah, Chris, and Aaron in
hopes they would be forced to answer questions.
However, unbelievably, each one of them pled the fifth.
One good thing that came out of the lawsuit though was the fact that lead investigator
(29:15):
Taylor was deposed.
Fox 17 was able to get the video recording and an excerpt can be heard here.
Now did you ever listen to the 911 calls that were called in that initiated this case?
I didn't, no.
Why not?
I just didn't.
Did you interview any of the people who had made those calls?
No, I did not.
Sitting here today, do you know when she was last seen alive?
(29:37):
No, I don't.
And there were houseboats, were there not, that were somewhat near this campsite that
the individual has been at?
There was at the dock.
Did you do anything to talk to them about what they may have seen the evening of Lauren's
death?
No, I didn't.
Why not?
I just didn't.
Did you ever look for blood on the rocks at the bottom beneath the campsite?
(29:57):
No, not specifically, no.
Now if you later learned that Lauren had hemorrhaging within her throat that could be consistent
with choking, would you have taken the additional steps to investigate that?
It's possible.
Yeah that deposition is extremely infuriating.
It just speaks volumes about the level of his ability.
(30:21):
If that's his theory and he is formulating this investigation around his theory that
she fell and it was an accident, that's the first thing you're going to do or one of the
first things you're going to do is go try to find, okay, where did she fall?
Let's take pictures of where she fell, where she landed, how did she get in the water,
where did her head hit?
(30:42):
She has this contusion to the back of her head.
How did this happen?
Where could she have fallen from?
Because you just need to find that evidence to validate what you believe it to be true
if that's what you're doing.
Yeah, he didn't even look to see if the rocks or anywhere had blood on it or anything.
And the correct answer when they said, hey, if you would have known or at that time that
(31:06):
there was hemorrhaging in her throat consistent with a strangulation, so to speak, or pressure
on the neck, would you have done things different?
His answer was, possibly.
No, the answer is yes, absolutely.
You should be doing things different that should at least pique your interest to say,
okay, how did this happen?
Right.
(31:26):
I mean, I also find it really odd that he never interviewed the people who called 911.
Yeah, I mean, it is odd.
You know, I hate to say it, but man, you know, he did a poor job.
I mean, less than poor job on this investigation because he didn't even consider doing, you
(31:47):
know, collecting DNA.
I just want to put this out there.
So even if he didn't suspect these other people of having anything to do with anything of,
you know, anything to do with Lauren's death, if this were my case, and I think any, I mean,
mediocre investigator, I would like to hope, they would be doing those necessary steps
(32:11):
not only to try to prove what happened, but to try to clear these people's names to say,
okay, yeah, we did do the testing.
There was no DNA underneath her fingernails.
There was no evidence of a sex assault.
There was, you know, there's no indication to believe that this happened.
But you know, that ship has sailed.
Right.
You can't go back now and do it.
(32:33):
And speaking of that 911 call, also, Sherry tried to go get a copy of that from the sheriff's
office and they told her that it had been lost.
The 911 call?
Yeah, it's been lost due to a computer glitch.
So they don't even have that anymore.
You know, I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist person, but based on this botched investigation,
(32:55):
it doesn't surprise me that that 911 tape is quote unquote lost.
Yeah, it makes you wonder a little bit.
So Sheila hired a hydrologist during her investigation into Lauren's death.
A hydrologist essentially studies how water moves across the Earth's crust.
Typically hydrologists are used on projects such as dams, bridges, and flood protection.
(33:16):
The hydrologist found that due to the current in the lake that's caused by the dam, Lauren's
body would not have ended up where she was found.
Lauren's body would have had to float against the current to get to the cove she was found
in.
Conversely, Lauren's body would have floated toward the marina had she fallen off the cliff
as the DECAB investigators claimed.
(33:36):
In addition, Sheila conducted tests using a dummy the same size and weight as Lauren
to see what would happen if she had fallen off the cliff.
This test was conducted approximately 50 times at various locations on the outcropping and
not once was the dummy able to fall through all the trees and into the water.
Okay, so it sounds like Sheila is doing all the right things that DECAB County did not
(34:01):
do.
Yeah.
I mean, this is not a super difficult case to investigate.
It's not.
I mean, you have a person who's missing who wasn't reported.
There's suspicious circumstances such as, you know, the fact that her shoes and everything
else is up there.
The fact that, you know, this guy on the canoe shows up just, you know, out of the blue where
(34:22):
the body is found.
I mean, to me, it's real easy.
You just work backwards.
How did this body get here?
Okay, it's impossible for it to have floated here.
And then from there, it becomes super easy to be like, okay, you guys tell me what happened.
Oh, she must have fallen off the cliff and floated over there.
Well, now you know there's inconsistencies in their statements and you start working
(34:45):
those small inconsistencies to try to get to the truth.
Right.
So I don't think that detective or investigator Taylor, like, just went out to maliciously
do a bad job.
But I think he had a lack of experience and training.
And that's exactly what it led to.
(35:05):
Yeah, I would agree with you.
I think that it is a there.
There is a lot of fault on the sheriff's office because I don't know a single detective that
would botch an investigation this bad.
And you're right, it probably has mostly to do with his inexperience at that time.
I think that obviously he would give the legal answer of I didn't do it just because and
(35:30):
maybe that would have changed.
Probably things would have changed.
He would have to give the legal answers to obviously try to protect himself and stand
behind his work.
But what he really should be doing is saying, you know what, I and I guarantee intrinsically
inside he's thinking I wish I would have done more.
Sure.
He needs to be in the shoes that he now is in.
(35:50):
Right.
Adding to the mystery in this case is the fact that Hannah, Chris and Aaron never attended
Lauren's funeral services.
Chris also posted to social media the day after Lauren's body was found that he had
the quote, best weekend ever.
End quote.
Okay, so the timing of that.
(36:14):
Not only is it suspicious, but it's distasteful.
Sick, yeah.
Whether or not, I mean, you didn't know her well, right?
They just met that day.
I get that you didn't have a close bond or anything, but even if I just met a person
for the day and we hung out all day and then we go camping or whatever, I'm going to feel
(36:35):
really bad that that happened to this person.
I'm most certainly not going to post that I was the best weekend ever.
No.
And I think most people would have a hard time even coping and going through that day
as a normal day.
I know.
So whether everyone can agree if Lauren was murdered or died accidentally when she fell,
I think we can all agree that the investigation into her death was not thorough.
(36:59):
Due to the missed opportunities to collect potential evidence, Lauren's family may never
know what happened to her that early July morning in 2015.
Yeah, I think they know.
Deep down inside, I think they know, but they're never going to get the justice that they really
deserve.
Because I don't want to come on here and say, oh, these three people did something to her.
(37:20):
They're guilty.
No, something happened to her.
There is foul play here.
I can just tell you based on everything that we know, Sheila uncovered that very easily
with a simple hydrologist test, with a simple dummy test.
These are things that can be done very easily that were just missed.
These opportunities were missed.
(37:41):
And it really infuriates me because you have victims who deserve answers and deserve justice
and deserve to know the truth, but they don't get it because, well, quite frankly, it's
just laziness and it's ignorance.
Yeah, for sure.
It's a really sad case.
(38:03):
I think based on what we know, yes, something else happened that day.
But we don't know for sure what and we don't know for sure who.
Right?
Well, I would say we do know for sure what.
The medical examiner said she died because of blunt force trauma to her head.
(38:23):
Or possible drowning.
Or possible drowning, although she didn't have any water in her lungs.
Most likely that was not the cause.
I'm guessing the medical examiner listed that because she may have had water exposure on
her skin, some evidence in the autopsy to reveal that she had been waterlogged, but
there's no evidence in her lungs to indicate that she drowned.
(38:46):
But there is evidence on her head to say that she died of blunt force trauma.
And I mean, I guess you can say, okay, well, maybe she still fell down, but the dummy test
proved that she couldn't have fallen into the water.
She couldn't have floated to the location that she floated to.
There's no evidence of a boat or anything that she made it all the way over there on
(39:08):
her own accord.
So somebody put her there.
So foul play is suspected just based on those factors.
Right.
And so that's why I say, I think deep down inside the family does know.
I think we all know that there's foul play here.
Who did it?
We'll never know.
Right.
Unless somebody gets a conscience and decides to say something.
(39:30):
Because unfortunately, it's too late to get all that evidence back.
It's gone now.
It is gone.
But you know, the nice thing about, I mean, I hate to say the nice thing about it, but
the good thing about cases like this, when they're closed and you have an agency that
doesn't want to reopen it, obviously they have egg on their face in this case.
(39:52):
And that would be a very good reason for them not to want to reopen it.
The good thing about it though is if somebody does know something and they bring forward
that information, this case can be reopened.
Right.
And Lauren and her family deserve that.
They deserved to have a thorough investigation.
You know?
(40:12):
No.
Yeah.
Everybody deserves to have a thorough investigation.
It doesn't matter what the case is.
I mean, everybody who's the victim of a purse snatching deserves just as thorough of an
investigation as the victim of a murder.
Because you know, as police officers, we, you know, we take the oath to serve and protect
(40:32):
and that's what we're trained and we're paid to do.
And it's really not that hard to just do a good job and take pride in your work.
That's my, that's my opinion.
Okay, Aria.
Well, thank you.
You know what?
You did a phenomenal job at the episode.
You did a phenomenal job at trivia.
I'm going to let you close this one out.
Let's see if you can make it a trifecta.
You did a phenomenal job at closing out this episode.
(40:54):
All right, I'll try.
So last week we talked about, or we asked you to send in pictures of your pets and that
we would present a pet for each episode.
Well, we did receive some pet pictures and our first one comes to us from listener Rita
(41:14):
and it is Minnie Pearl, who is a two and a half year old Morky, which is a Maltese and
Yorkshire Terrier cross.
And then she also in the same picture sent us a Dolly Ann, her three year old cat.
Well, I'm just going to tell you, I love this idea and I love Minnie Pearl and I love Dolly
(41:35):
Ann and you will see them if you visit us on our Instagram page at mysteries and mimosas
podcast.
This episode is dedicated to those two cute fur babies and to Rita.
Thank you for sending that in.
And if you would like to have your pet highlighted and an episode dedicated to your pet, please
email us your pet picture at mysteries and mimosas at gmail.com.
(42:00):
Thank you.
Yes, please do.
We love to see them.
Yeah, I think we already have some for next week's episode too, but I'm really excited
that Rita sent these in so that we can kick it off the right way with a dog and a cat.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you for listening.
Please do us a favor.
If you want to support us, you can obviously shop at Dragon Glassware, but if you want
(42:20):
to support us in another way, you don't have to buy those awesome glasses.
You can drink your mimosas out of your lame plastic glasses.
Don't do that.
That would probably ruin a mimosa, but you can drink them out of your lame glassware
that you have in your cabinet or you can go get a super fancy one at dragonglassware.com.
And if you don't want to do that, that's okay too.
(42:42):
You can support us by giving us five stars, leave us a review, reach out to us, interact
with us, tell your friends and your family about us.
And of course, let's raise our glasses to Lauren Agee and her family.
Cheers.
plus
Hello and welcome to Mr. Zimamosas and thank you for listening.
(00:15):
My name is Max and with me is your favorite co-host, Aria.
Hi everyone.
Hi Aria.
Are you ready to present today's episode?
I am.
And so what do you have in store for us today?
This case is an unbelievable case out of DeKalb County, Tennessee and technically it's a solved
case.
A solved case.
I can't wait to hear about it.
(00:35):
But first, I just want to thank you for listening to this episode of mysteries and mimosas.
As usual, please visit us at mysteries and mimosas.net.
Follow us on social media as well.
You can find us on Instagram at mysteries and mimosas podcast.
We're also on Facebook, TikTok and YouTube.
But before we get started, we're going to go through the trivia questions from the year
(00:56):
of this incident, which is 2015.
The idea behind doing this trivia segment is to mentally bring you back to the year
of the episode by asking Aria several easy trivia questions and maybe one hard one.
Question number one.
This rap star was commended in the 2015 Guinness Book of World Records for having the most
(01:17):
words in a hit single titled Rap God, totaling 1,560 words in six minutes and four seconds.
That's easy.
Is it?
It's Eminem.
Yeah, it is Eminem.
Well, I guess we're off to a good start on this one.
Good job.
I'm proud of you.
(01:40):
Question number two.
Name the notable politician who used her personal email address for official business while
she was secretary of state.
Hillary Clinton.
It is Hillary Clinton.
I feel like these questions are way too easy for you.
Anybody could get that one.
Maybe not.
All right.
Question number three.
(02:00):
Name the super discount member chain, which sold over 128 million hot dogs on their food
courts in 2015.
Costco, of course.
Why do you say of course?
Because everybody goes there for the whatever that remember they were like, we're not going
to ever raise the price of the hot dog drink combo or whatever.
(02:21):
Yeah, I think I do remember something about how it's the same price as it's always been
or something.
Yeah.
Okay.
So that's an easy question.
All right.
Last one.
See if you can get 100%.
Everybody's really hoping that you can.
Of course, I have my doubts, but I think actually this one's so easy, even Aria can get it.
(02:41):
Why do you have your doubts?
You said you were rooting for me.
I know, I'm just kidding.
I am rooting for you.
In 2015, this famous late night television personality hosted the late show for the final
time.
David Letterman.
Oh, I'm so sorry.
It's not David Letterman.
Nope, it's not.
(03:02):
Oh.
It's Jay Leno.
Oh, it was Jay Leno?
Nope.
I'm just kidding.
It's David Letterman.
You won 100%.
I don't want to give you another one because I don't want you to fail 100%.
Next week, I will be in the hot seat.
You are responsible for making trivia questions and let's see how long you can reign.
Oh, it'll be a while.
(03:24):
I'm going to pick some.
Last time I picked easy ones for you.
This time I'm not showing you any mercy.
Really?
The stamp question was easy?
I don't think so.
Did you even get that one exactly right?
I did.
Yeah.
Well.
You actually mentioned it like an episode or two away how you were surprised that I
got the stamp question right.
I forgotten all about it until you mentioned it.
(03:45):
Yeah.
So there you have it.
Aria finally wins trivia.
I think you need, go ahead, reach over there, help yourself to an Airhead.
You deserve it.
Airhead candy.
I'm good.
Thanks.
You're good?
All right.
Okay.
That's all I get though for winning is an Airhead candy?
Well, no, but no, you don't just get an Airhead candy.
(04:07):
You also get to ask me trivia questions until I get 100%.
Okay.
So you can make fun of me and entertain people at my expense.
Perfect.
Okay.
That's worth it then.
Okay.
So moving on and thank you for doing that.
And of course it wouldn't be a complete episode without a mimosa recipe.
So Aria, what are we drinking today?
(04:29):
Today is the raspberry lemon mimosa.
So you'll take a quarter cup of raspberry lemonade and then top it with your favorite
champagne and use raspberries as a garnish.
Super easy.
I love raspberries.
I love lemonade and I love champagne.
This is the perfect combo.
It is delicious and I really like it.
(04:49):
Thank you for sharing that with us.
You're welcome.
I just want to give our only sponsor, Dragon Glassware, a shout out.
I know I always mention it, but Dragon Glassware has been with us since we started this podcast.
In fact, they sponsored us before we even published one episode.
And it's really because we reached out and we're like, hey, any chance you want to give
(05:09):
us a sponsorship?
We really don't know what we're doing yet, but we love your glasses.
And they're like, yeah, let's do it.
So that was pretty awesome.
If you're interested in supporting our show, head on over to Dragon Glassware, pick up
one of their amazing cocktail glasses.
If you enter the promo code mysteries and mimosa's podcast at checkout, you'll get
a 10% discount off your entire order.
And they make a small donation back to mysteries and mimosa's to help us out with this show.
(05:35):
Yeah.
So I'm sorry.
No, go ahead.
No, you go ahead.
I was just going to get into the episode.
Oh, go ahead.
Get into the episode.
All right.
Today's.
Today's case?
Yes.
Okay.
I'll just help you out.
Today's case.
Go ahead.
Sorry.
All right.
So let's get into today's case.
(05:56):
Today's case is about 21 year old Lauren Taylor Agee from Hendersonville, Tennessee.
Lauren excelled in both academics and sports, specifically dancing.
Lauren was a straight A student in her second year of college majoring in criminal science.
The one thing that stood out about Lauren was her outgoing personality.
She was a fun, energetic person who was always smiling and always laughing.
(06:21):
On July 25th of 2015, Lauren told her mom she was going to a local community get together
called Wake Fest with her friend Hannah Palmer, Hannah's new boyfriend, Aaron Lilly, and
Aaron's friend, Chris Stout.
That sounds fun.
Wake Fest?
Yeah.
Let me tell you what it is first.
Okay.
(06:41):
Wake Fest is a wakeboarding tournament that takes place annually on Center Hill Lake, which
is approximately two hours outside of Nashville.
Hundreds of fans attend Wake Fest to watch the professional wakeboarders during the day
and then party at the Marina Bar and in houseboats on the lake in the evening.
Like I said, that sounds like a lot of fun.
Yeah.
I didn't even have to have your explanation to know I want to go check out Wake Fest.
(07:04):
Right?
I think, I mean, especially for college kids, right?
That age group, I think probably would have a really good time.
Oh yeah.
No, I would like to go to a Wake Fest where they have like a 9 p.m. curfew bedtime where
I get to just crawl into bed and watch a scary movie or something.
Yeah.
(07:24):
That'd be up my alley.
Yeah.
That's our fun.
We're not staying up all night partying, but for college kids, it sounds like a great time.
So Lauren's mom, Sherry Smith, said she felt uneasy about Lauren going to Wake Fest with
this group of friends because although Hannah was Lauren's friend and they had known each
other for years, she really only came around when she was in between boyfriends.
(07:47):
Interesting.
So she only came around when she was like in between boyfriends, meaning she was single
and she'd come around.
I don't really necessarily think that makes her a bad friend.
I mean, I think all of us can relate when we have friends and we're spending a lot of
time with them and then they find somebody, you know, a love interest and they start spending
time with them.
You kind of go by the wayside.
(08:07):
So I don't necessarily think she's bad for that.
No, I don't necessarily say she's a bad friend because of that.
But I think as a mom, you know, when you see that happening to your child and, you know,
they have this really good friend and then friend goes off with boyfriend and then they
break up and then she comes back kind of sounded more like it was when it was convenient for
(08:30):
her.
So I can see a mom saying, oh, you know, I don't I don't want to see my daughter upset
or sad.
Right.
And protective.
Yeah, I can see that.
But sure.
Additionally, Hannah had never met Aaron or Chris before this day.
When Sherry asked Hannah where she would be staying while at Wakefest, Hannah reportedly
told her mom they were staying in a cabin at the lake.
(08:52):
Although Sherry was reluctant, she gave Lauren a big hug and center on her way, never knowing
this would be the last time she would see her daughter alive.
That's really sad.
You know, to think of hugging your child before they walk out the door, not knowing that you
might not ever see them again, it kind of reminds me and I know it's not the same, but
(09:12):
it kind of reminds me of like you heard, you know, you hear people say, oh, you know, at
one point in time you picked up your kid when they're a toddler or whatever, a child and
you put them back down and never picked them up again.
There was that time your parents picked you up, put you back down and never picked you
up again.
That's why I make it a point to pick up my teenager every chance I get.
(09:33):
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, especially as a mom, that's, that's heartbreaking to me because I can just
imagine that, you know, because I hug my daughter every day, you know, I hug her every day before
she goes to school.
Even when she doesn't want me to, I would just always give her a hug.
And so to think that that would be the last time that would happen is, is so heartbreaking.
(09:54):
Lauren and Hannah documented the car ride to center Hill Lake on social media and by
all accounts, the first day there went well and Lauren was having a good time.
The group of four spent the evening into the early morning hours of July 26th at the Marina
bar laughing and having a good time.
Lauren ran into one of her other high school friends, Cassie Franks on the dock of the
(10:17):
lake that night.
What's interesting though is that Cassie is actually the ex-girlfriend of Aaron.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Kind of a small community then maybe.
I mean, maybe it sounds kind of like it.
At around 2 a.m. that morning, the group of four decided to head to bed for the night.
This is when Lauren found out the plan was not to stay in a cabin as she had been told
(10:40):
earlier, but rather to camp on a rocky outcropping across the lake from the Marina.
The outcropping was rocky and steep with a 90-foot drop on one side and a 45-foot drop
on the other side.
The outcropping is surrounded by Center Hill Lake on both sides and it's very difficult
to climb to the top.
That sounds scary.
Yeah, for sure.
(11:01):
Lauren didn't feel good about this sleeping arrangement, so she asked her friend Cassie
if she could stay with her group.
Unfortunately, Cassie told her they didn't have enough room for Lauren in their cabin,
which was the last time Cassie saw Lauren alive.
So because there wasn't enough room for Lauren to stay with Cassie, the group of four headed
to their camp in a canoe at approximately 2 to 2.30 a.m.
(11:25):
When they arrived at the camp, Hannah and Erin retreated to the only tent, leaving Lauren
to share a hammock with Chris.
The hammock, by the way, was stretched loosely between two trees with a rope and hanging
precariously above the jagged rocks and water below.
It's kind of scary, seriously.
That's really scary.
Like, yeah, I mean, and if you see pictures of this outcropping, you'll see, and how that
(11:50):
hammock kind of hung over the edge, it's terrifying.
I mean, I wouldn't trust it, you know, with just me, let alone two people laying in that
that that rope was going to hold and I wasn't just going to go falling down the side of
that cliff.
That's terrifying.
Yeah.
So on top of it just being scary, I find it kind of hard to believe that Lauren would
want to share a hammock hanging over a cliff with Chris, whom she had just met that day.
(12:15):
According to an article by Chilling Crimes, Cassie said Lauren made it clear to Chris
that she was not interested in him romantically.
Okay, that's interesting.
Yeah.
But she still went up there.
Yeah.
You know, according to everybody's story with that group, they went back and went up there
together.
Okay.
So this afternoon on July 26, around 430 p.m., a man named Lynn Blair and his son were out
(12:42):
fishing on Center Hill Lake when they came across a body floating face down in the water.
Around the same time the body was discovered, Chris and Aaron showed up at the scene in
their canoe and said their friend was missing.
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.
Very convenient.
Mm hmm.
The body was determined to be that of Lauren.
The DeKalb County Sheriff's Office was called in to investigate Lauren's death, and Detective
(13:06):
Jeremy Taylor was assigned as the lead investigator on the case.
When questioned by the police, Chris, Aaron, and Hannah reported that the group of four
had all returned to the campsite together drunk, and Aaron and Hannah went to sleep
in the tent while Chris and Lauren went to sleep in the hammock.
When they woke up on the morning of July 26, Lauren was not at the camp.
(13:26):
However, Lauren's shoes, phone, and wallet were still at the campsite.
Oddly enough, none of Lauren's friends ever reported that Lauren was missing.
Hannah told police she never reported Lauren is missing because she had just assumed Lauren
had gone off to meet someone.
I mean, that excuse makes sense.
I mean, you know, if you're all out partying on this wake fest on boats and stuff, you
(13:48):
know, I could see that as a possibility.
So I don't know.
I okay, I'll play the devil's advocate on that because who is Lauren going to see at
2 30 a.m. after having to climb all the way up that that cliff and flip flops and drunk
as the group described her when I watched the crime watch daily episode on this, they
(14:11):
showed the cliff that the group climbed to get to the campsite.
It was extremely steep and there was a white rope they had to hold on to and pull themselves
up with.
It looked like it would be difficult to climb sober, let alone intoxicated and in flip flops.
And the other reason that seems odd to me is why if she was going to meet someone, why
would she leave her shoes there?
(14:32):
I mean, she's going down a rocky cliff.
Would she not at least put her flip flops back on?
That doesn't make sense.
Yeah.
So I guess I was under the impression that Hannah woke up in the morning to find Lauren
gone.
And that would make sense to me that it would be a reasonable explanation that maybe Lauren
could have gotten up and ventured off to go meet someone.
Yeah, no, that's exactly what Hannah is saying happened.
(14:53):
I'm just saying that seems off because her shoes are still there.
Why would you not take your shoes or your phone or anything with you?
To me that kind of sent up red flags.
But after the autopsy, the medical examiner reported their findings of an accidental death
by blunt force trauma and possible drowning.
(15:14):
The autopsy also found Lauren's BAC to be twice the legal limit.
Okay.
So if it's twice the legal limit, I'm assuming most states it's 0.08 even in 2015.
So at a 0.16 roughly for a female especially is a pretty high BAC.
Unless you're an avid alcoholic that drinks all the time, then it doesn't really affect
(15:37):
you as much.
I think climbing that cliff with that high of a BAC the next day after your blood is
taken postmortem and tested, that means her alcohol content was much higher.
Possibly.
Yeah, it had to be because it was at least a 1.6 up until the point where her body could
no longer metabolize it, which would have been the point that she was deceased.
(16:02):
Right.
I wonder though, does death affect the alcohol level at all?
Her being in the water floating for 12 hours or however long it was, would that affect
her blood alcohol level?
We know that alcohol levels go down with time through metabolism.
So I think that when you die, your body is no longer metabolizing it.
So I think it would dissipate much slower if at all.
(16:26):
And so I guess depending on whether or not she was, when she stopped drinking, whether
she was going up or even coming down, at one point in time, I'm just confident to say that
was not her most intoxicated state that night.
That would be my educated guess.
And so my point is even at that high of a level, we're splitting hairs here, but even
(16:47):
at that higher alcohol level, it would be almost impossible for somebody to climb that
outcropping without even, with the help of a rope, it's going to be extremely difficult.
And so to think that she would have came back down on her own doesn't make sense.
That's my point.
That's what I was saying before too.
Yeah.
(17:07):
On top of being intoxicated, you don't have shoes or anything.
That doesn't make sense to me.
So two months after Lauren's body was found, Detective Taylor completed his three paragraph
police report and noted Lauren had died when she accidentally fell off the cliff she was
camping on, hit her head and possibly drowned in the water below.
(17:28):
The case was closed.
Okay, hold on.
You said a three paragraph death investigation report.
Yeah, that's all.
That's what it was.
Three paragraphs.
Okay.
So, you know, I've done lots of death investigations.
Most detectives have.
I can tell you right now in a situation like this where there's alcohol involved, people
(17:48):
drinking, obviously being where they're not supposed to be, and just a mysterious unattended
death quote unquote at that time, that's what they're investigating is an unattended death
because these three people have alibis or, you know, stories or whatever you want to
call it, not alibis, but stories.
You're going to put a lot more effort into this investigation than three paragraphs worth
(18:09):
of work.
I write three paragraphs opening a case, right?
Reviewing somebody else's stuff to open a case.
I write way more than three paragraphs.
So I'm just going to say three paragraphs on a death investigation report, unless it's
an assisted living, you know, hospice type situation, even then three paragraphs is,
(18:31):
I'm just going to say it, it's shoddy work.
It's laziness.
Well, I think Sherry felt that way too, because when she received the completed report of
her daughter's death investigation, she did not believe what she was reading.
She did not believe her daughter had accidentally fallen off that cliff and drowned.
For one, there was no water in her lungs.
Lauren's body also showed signs of a possible struggle.
(18:53):
Lauren was found to have a large contusion to the back of her head, bruising on her back,
bruising on her thighs, and a strange looking bite mark on her chest.
In addition, Lauren had a strange looking triangle imprint on her upper abdomen area.
There was also blood found in Lauren's throat.
Lauren also had a broken nose and a busted lip.
Sherry expressed her concerns to DeKalb County authorities, but her pleas to reopen the investigation
(19:18):
into her daughter's death fell on deaf ears.
Yeah, and obviously you would want your daughter's death investigation reopened with that poor
of a job.
And I saw these triangle marks on her abdomen, this is what we call pattern bruising, and
so some sort of device made that imprint on her.
(19:40):
In order to have that type of bruising or that type of marking, it's indicative of something
making that impression.
I mean, the example I can give to kind of paint the picture is I do child abuse investigations,
and so sometimes you could tell the difference between like when a child, I don't know, falls
down and hits their back on a slide or the monkey bars or something versus when you see
(20:03):
a child that's been abused with a belt buckle and a belt, you'll see the pattern bruising
of the belt.
Sometimes you'll even see the holes from the belt, but you'll even see the buckle outline
imprinted on them, and that's what's called pattern bruising, and that's what this looked
like to me.
Yeah, and there's speculation that that imprint or that mark or the bruising, whatever you
(20:26):
want to call it, came from the front of the canoe that they had.
So if you imagine a canoe, it comes to a point at the front, and it has like this piece of
... There's a picture of it online, like this plastic piece in the shape of that triangle,
and within that triangle, there's like a cutout square, and that mark matches up with that
(20:49):
pretty well.
Almost exactly.
Yeah, so the thought is that that would have been from her body laying over top of that
triangle piece- And being moved.
As she's being moved, yes, essentially.
That is what, as I'll get into this, her mom hired a private investigator, and that is
(21:12):
what they thought about that pattern bruising.
But then investigators came back and said, oh no, that was from when we put her in the
cooler, her body in the cooler on the boat to transport her back to shore.
Right, but did they have any of those patterns in that boat?
Not that they could reveal.
It didn't seem like the angles or anything would have matched up to that.
Yeah, and if you look at the photo, based on my observations, just on the very poor
(21:37):
picture that I was able to look at, to me, it looks like those are postmortem pattern
marks, only because you can see where the blood kind of pulls around it to formulate
that mark.
And so for people who don't know what the levitity is, you look at the way that the
blood settles with gravity in a dead body, because then if it doesn't match with the
(22:00):
way the body's laying, you can say, okay, this body wasn't like this when they passed.
Right, they were moved.
They were moved because of the way that the blood settles.
And to me, it's very faint, but to me it looks like there's some blood settling that causes
that pattern mark with the triangle.
That's what it looks like to me.
But again, it's one picture.
(22:22):
It's very hard to see, but just based on my experience, I've seen a lot of stuff like
that, and that's what it looked like.
Right, exactly.
And of course, these are just opinions, right?
But it looked very similar to the front of that canoe from the photos that I saw.
Yeah, had they done more than three paragraphs, they probably could have measured that pattern
(22:45):
bruising or that pattern impression, and they probably would have matched it up with
that canoe.
I almost guarantee it.
Yeah.
So like I said, Sherry hired a private investigator.
She hired Sheila Wysocki to look into her daughter's death.
Sheila was as shocked as Sherry when she read the findings from the investigation conducted
by the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office.
(23:06):
Sheila discovered that there was no report indicating that any DNA had ever been collected
from Lauren's body.
And that goes for under her fingernails or from that possible bite mark on her chest.
Further, no sex assault kit had ever been completed on Lauren.
Investigator Taylor cited the fact that Lauren was on her period as the reason a rape kit
(23:27):
was not conducted.
Okay, so this is in my wheelhouse.
This is what I do for a living.
I investigate sex crimes, crimes against children, sex crimes.
And I can tell you this is the most asinine thing that I've ever heard of.
Yeah.
And I don't think you have to be a detective or a world-class investigator to know that
you can be sexually assaulted with a tampon in, with a tampon out.
(23:52):
It doesn't matter.
Right.
And so when you have a dead body under suspicious circumstances with a bite mark on an abdomen.
And then bruising on her thighs that looked kind of like she could have possibly been
being held down.
Yes.
And then bruising on her injuries to her neck, to me that screams, okay, this person may
(24:12):
have been sexually assaulted.
And so regardless of whether there's a tampon in, how they're clothed, it doesn't matter
whether they're nude or fully clothed.
No matter the circumstances, you're still going to go through your necessary due diligence
to collect DNA evidence by conducting.
(24:33):
Most people know it as a rape kit.
It's actually not called a rape kit.
It is called a SANE exam.
And SANE is an acronym for sexual assault nurse examiner.
The other terminology that is used commonly as a forensic nurse examiner, but these SANE
exams on the living are conducted by these nurses who have special skills and training
(24:56):
to collect DNA evidence, collect evidence in the form of biological samples from various
parts of the body, right?
They swab the vagina, they swab the anus, the skin all around in that area, and then
they swab the breast, the neck.
They swab specific areas to collect that DNA.
(25:17):
In addition, they're noting all their medical findings about injuries, bruises, tears, things
of that nature in order to provide the investigator and the court system eventually a really good
picture of what this body or this person experienced.
And the medical examiner does the same thing.
(25:38):
And so really the burden to have that kit done or that SANE done on the decedent is
really, it's the burden is on the investigator to make sure that that happens.
Right.
Because once it's too late, it's too late, and it was just never done in this case.
So it's disappointing because now we'll never know.
(25:58):
And we'll never know because it's gone.
You know that the evidence is no longer here.
And so you're right.
We will never know if there was anything there.
So also bewildering was the fact that after Chris, Aaron, and Hannah were interviewed
and released by investigators, they were allowed to return to the campsite to gather their
belongings.
It was reported from witnesses around the lake that a fire could be seen burning when
(26:21):
the three went to collect their belongings.
Apparently investigators had never considered the campsite to be a crime scene and assumed
Lauren had been drinking too much and fell from the cliff in the middle of the night.
So the area was never processed.
This was bolstered by Chris's story that they fell asleep in the hammock together and Lauren
must have gotten up to use the restroom, lost her balance due to intoxication and fallen
(26:43):
all without him feeling her get up or hearing any commotion.
Okay.
So hold on a minute.
So they never considered the campsite up there to be a crime scene?
No, it was never processed or anything.
They went up there, I believe, but like didn't...
I'm going to be honest with you.
It doesn't surprise me because they didn't even consider Lauren's body to be a crime
scene.
(27:03):
Right.
I mean it is and now they know that.
What I'm seeing here is something that you typically see in new police officers without
experience very rarely with new detectives, but sometimes what I see here is Taylor, Investigator
Taylor is forming this investigation to match his theory and when you do that, you get it
(27:27):
wrong, right?
100% of the time you're going to get it wrong because what you really should be doing is
it's really simple.
The only rule to do an investigation and do a thorough, fair investigation is to follow
the truth, whatever that truth may be, whether or not it clears these three kids of any wrongdoing,
which in this case it did because Taylor almost immediately believed that all it was was a
(27:51):
fall and just an accident, or it could prove that they did something wrong.
And I'm just saying based on the information you're giving me and what I know about this,
I think if a competent investigator did a fair and unbiased investigation into Lauren's
death, I think that one of those or all of those three kids up there or adults, I guess,
(28:13):
I think they probably would have been looking at some charges.
I mean, they'd have been in trouble.
I think they probably had something to do with it.
That's just my opinion.
Yeah.
I mean, it's possible, right?
One way or the other, but had a thorough investigation taken place, maybe we would have that answer.
And we will never know.
Right.
They call that confirmation bias, correct?
(28:34):
That's what the term is, right?
When you formulate an opinion right away and then you look for the evidence to back that
opinion up instead of coming into an investigation with an open mind and just going where the
evidence leads you, you already have your mind made up.
And then the only evidence you're looking at is any evidence that will back up what's
in your mind.
Correct.
Yeah.
(28:54):
That's not a good way to conduct an investigation, especially one like this.
So Lauren's mother filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Hannah, Chris, and Aaron in
hopes they would be forced to answer questions.
However, unbelievably, each one of them pled the fifth.
One good thing that came out of the lawsuit though was the fact that lead investigator
(29:15):
Taylor was deposed.
Fox 17 was able to get the video recording and an excerpt can be heard here.
Now did you ever listen to the 911 calls that were called in that initiated this case?
I didn't, no.
Why not?
I just didn't.
Did you interview any of the people who had made those calls?
No, I did not.
Sitting here today, do you know when she was last seen alive?
(29:37):
No, I don't.
And there were houseboats, were there not, that were somewhat near this campsite that
the individual has been at?
There was at the dock.
Did you do anything to talk to them about what they may have seen the evening of Lauren's
death?
No, I didn't.
Why not?
I just didn't.
Did you ever look for blood on the rocks at the bottom beneath the campsite?
(29:57):
No, not specifically, no.
Now if you later learned that Lauren had hemorrhaging within her throat that could be consistent
with choking, would you have taken the additional steps to investigate that?
It's possible.
Yeah that deposition is extremely infuriating.
It just speaks volumes about the level of his ability.
(30:21):
If that's his theory and he is formulating this investigation around his theory that
she fell and it was an accident, that's the first thing you're going to do or one of the
first things you're going to do is go try to find, okay, where did she fall?
Let's take pictures of where she fell, where she landed, how did she get in the water,
where did her head hit?
(30:42):
She has this contusion to the back of her head.
How did this happen?
Where could she have fallen from?
Because you just need to find that evidence to validate what you believe it to be true
if that's what you're doing.
Yeah, he didn't even look to see if the rocks or anywhere had blood on it or anything.
And the correct answer when they said, hey, if you would have known or at that time that
(31:06):
there was hemorrhaging in her throat consistent with a strangulation, so to speak, or pressure
on the neck, would you have done things different?
His answer was, possibly.
No, the answer is yes, absolutely.
You should be doing things different that should at least pique your interest to say,
okay, how did this happen?
Right.
(31:26):
I mean, I also find it really odd that he never interviewed the people who called 911.
Yeah, I mean, it is odd.
You know, I hate to say it, but man, you know, he did a poor job.
I mean, less than poor job on this investigation because he didn't even consider doing, you
(31:47):
know, collecting DNA.
I just want to put this out there.
So even if he didn't suspect these other people of having anything to do with anything of,
you know, anything to do with Lauren's death, if this were my case, and I think any, I mean,
mediocre investigator, I would like to hope, they would be doing those necessary steps
(32:11):
not only to try to prove what happened, but to try to clear these people's names to say,
okay, yeah, we did do the testing.
There was no DNA underneath her fingernails.
There was no evidence of a sex assault.
There was, you know, there's no indication to believe that this happened.
But you know, that ship has sailed.
Right.
You can't go back now and do it.
(32:33):
And speaking of that 911 call, also, Sherry tried to go get a copy of that from the sheriff's
office and they told her that it had been lost.
The 911 call?
Yeah, it's been lost due to a computer glitch.
So they don't even have that anymore.
You know, I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist person, but based on this botched investigation,
(32:55):
it doesn't surprise me that that 911 tape is quote unquote lost.
Yeah, it makes you wonder a little bit.
So Sheila hired a hydrologist during her investigation into Lauren's death.
A hydrologist essentially studies how water moves across the Earth's crust.
Typically hydrologists are used on projects such as dams, bridges, and flood protection.
(33:16):
The hydrologist found that due to the current in the lake that's caused by the dam, Lauren's
body would not have ended up where she was found.
Lauren's body would have had to float against the current to get to the cove she was found
in.
Conversely, Lauren's body would have floated toward the marina had she fallen off the cliff
as the DECAB investigators claimed.
(33:36):
In addition, Sheila conducted tests using a dummy the same size and weight as Lauren
to see what would happen if she had fallen off the cliff.
This test was conducted approximately 50 times at various locations on the outcropping and
not once was the dummy able to fall through all the trees and into the water.
Okay, so it sounds like Sheila is doing all the right things that DECAB County did not
(34:01):
do.
Yeah.
I mean, this is not a super difficult case to investigate.
It's not.
I mean, you have a person who's missing who wasn't reported.
There's suspicious circumstances such as, you know, the fact that her shoes and everything
else is up there.
The fact that, you know, this guy on the canoe shows up just, you know, out of the blue where
(34:22):
the body is found.
I mean, to me, it's real easy.
You just work backwards.
How did this body get here?
Okay, it's impossible for it to have floated here.
And then from there, it becomes super easy to be like, okay, you guys tell me what happened.
Oh, she must have fallen off the cliff and floated over there.
Well, now you know there's inconsistencies in their statements and you start working
(34:45):
those small inconsistencies to try to get to the truth.
Right.
So I don't think that detective or investigator Taylor, like, just went out to maliciously
do a bad job.
But I think he had a lack of experience and training.
And that's exactly what it led to.
(35:05):
Yeah, I would agree with you.
I think that it is a there.
There is a lot of fault on the sheriff's office because I don't know a single detective that
would botch an investigation this bad.
And you're right, it probably has mostly to do with his inexperience at that time.
I think that obviously he would give the legal answer of I didn't do it just because and
(35:30):
maybe that would have changed.
Probably things would have changed.
He would have to give the legal answers to obviously try to protect himself and stand
behind his work.
But what he really should be doing is saying, you know what, I and I guarantee intrinsically
inside he's thinking I wish I would have done more.
Sure.
He needs to be in the shoes that he now is in.
(35:50):
Right.
Adding to the mystery in this case is the fact that Hannah, Chris and Aaron never attended
Lauren's funeral services.
Chris also posted to social media the day after Lauren's body was found that he had
the quote, best weekend ever.
End quote.
Okay, so the timing of that.
(36:14):
Not only is it suspicious, but it's distasteful.
Sick, yeah.
Whether or not, I mean, you didn't know her well, right?
They just met that day.
I get that you didn't have a close bond or anything, but even if I just met a person
for the day and we hung out all day and then we go camping or whatever, I'm going to feel
(36:35):
really bad that that happened to this person.
I'm most certainly not going to post that I was the best weekend ever.
No.
And I think most people would have a hard time even coping and going through that day
as a normal day.
I know.
So whether everyone can agree if Lauren was murdered or died accidentally when she fell,
I think we can all agree that the investigation into her death was not thorough.
(36:59):
Due to the missed opportunities to collect potential evidence, Lauren's family may never
know what happened to her that early July morning in 2015.
Yeah, I think they know.
Deep down inside, I think they know, but they're never going to get the justice that they really
deserve.
Because I don't want to come on here and say, oh, these three people did something to her.
(37:20):
They're guilty.
No, something happened to her.
There is foul play here.
I can just tell you based on everything that we know, Sheila uncovered that very easily
with a simple hydrologist test, with a simple dummy test.
These are things that can be done very easily that were just missed.
These opportunities were missed.
(37:41):
And it really infuriates me because you have victims who deserve answers and deserve justice
and deserve to know the truth, but they don't get it because, well, quite frankly, it's
just laziness and it's ignorance.
Yeah, for sure.
It's a really sad case.
(38:03):
I think based on what we know, yes, something else happened that day.
But we don't know for sure what and we don't know for sure who.
Right?
Well, I would say we do know for sure what.
The medical examiner said she died because of blunt force trauma to her head.
(38:23):
Or possible drowning.
Or possible drowning, although she didn't have any water in her lungs.
Most likely that was not the cause.
I'm guessing the medical examiner listed that because she may have had water exposure on
her skin, some evidence in the autopsy to reveal that she had been waterlogged, but
there's no evidence in her lungs to indicate that she drowned.
(38:46):
But there is evidence on her head to say that she died of blunt force trauma.
And I mean, I guess you can say, okay, well, maybe she still fell down, but the dummy test
proved that she couldn't have fallen into the water.
She couldn't have floated to the location that she floated to.
There's no evidence of a boat or anything that she made it all the way over there on
(39:08):
her own accord.
So somebody put her there.
So foul play is suspected just based on those factors.
Right.
And so that's why I say, I think deep down inside the family does know.
I think we all know that there's foul play here.
Who did it?
We'll never know.
Right.
Unless somebody gets a conscience and decides to say something.
(39:30):
Because unfortunately, it's too late to get all that evidence back.
It's gone now.
It is gone.
But you know, the nice thing about, I mean, I hate to say the nice thing about it, but
the good thing about cases like this, when they're closed and you have an agency that
doesn't want to reopen it, obviously they have egg on their face in this case.
(39:52):
And that would be a very good reason for them not to want to reopen it.
The good thing about it though is if somebody does know something and they bring forward
that information, this case can be reopened.
Right.
And Lauren and her family deserve that.
They deserved to have a thorough investigation.
You know?
(40:12):
No.
Yeah.
Everybody deserves to have a thorough investigation.
It doesn't matter what the case is.
I mean, everybody who's the victim of a purse snatching deserves just as thorough of an
investigation as the victim of a murder.
Because you know, as police officers, we, you know, we take the oath to serve and protect
(40:32):
and that's what we're trained and we're paid to do.
And it's really not that hard to just do a good job and take pride in your work.
That's my, that's my opinion.
Okay, Aria.
Well, thank you.
You know what?
You did a phenomenal job at the episode.
You did a phenomenal job at trivia.
I'm going to let you close this one out.
Let's see if you can make it a trifecta.
You did a phenomenal job at closing out this episode.
(40:54):
All right, I'll try.
So last week we talked about, or we asked you to send in pictures of your pets and that
we would present a pet for each episode.
Well, we did receive some pet pictures and our first one comes to us from listener Rita
(41:14):
and it is Minnie Pearl, who is a two and a half year old Morky, which is a Maltese and
Yorkshire Terrier cross.
And then she also in the same picture sent us a Dolly Ann, her three year old cat.
Well, I'm just going to tell you, I love this idea and I love Minnie Pearl and I love Dolly
(41:35):
Ann and you will see them if you visit us on our Instagram page at mysteries and mimosas
podcast.
This episode is dedicated to those two cute fur babies and to Rita.
Thank you for sending that in.
And if you would like to have your pet highlighted and an episode dedicated to your pet, please
email us your pet picture at mysteries and mimosas at gmail.com.
(42:00):
Thank you.
Yes, please do.
We love to see them.
Yeah, I think we already have some for next week's episode too, but I'm really excited
that Rita sent these in so that we can kick it off the right way with a dog and a cat.
Yes.
Okay.
Thank you for listening.
Please do us a favor.
If you want to support us, you can obviously shop at Dragon Glassware, but if you want
(42:20):
to support us in another way, you don't have to buy those awesome glasses.
You can drink your mimosas out of your lame plastic glasses.
Don't do that.
That would probably ruin a mimosa, but you can drink them out of your lame glassware
that you have in your cabinet or you can go get a super fancy one at dragonglassware.com.
And if you don't want to do that, that's okay too.
(42:42):
You can support us by giving us five stars, leave us a review, reach out to us, interact
with us, tell your friends and your family about us.
And of course, let's raise our glasses to Lauren Agee and her family.
Cheers.
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