Caravan to Catch the Killer: Dr. Maggie Zingman’s Devotion to her Daughter

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode on Britney Phillips. We need to start over
completely on this case. In my opinion, we need fresh eyes,
fresh ears, even fresh legs on this thing. We need
to go back to the community. Law enforcement needs time
to re examine, reinterview, reinvestigate, and I believe resubmit evidence.

(00:33):
I have now dropped to both my son and daughter
off at college. Moving them into their first apartment was
like a success and a heartbreak at the exact same time.
I was so happy for them, but at the same
time I was gonna miss them something terrible. Anything that
could make that experience easier, I just lunge toward it.

(00:56):
And one of the things that I found comfort in
is they were both living with friends since they had
known from elementary school or middle school that came from
wonderful families, and this helped ease my mind. So in
our case today, when the mom leaves her daughter in

(01:16):
her first apartment, knowing the apartment is right across the
street from her old high school, there has to be
comfort in that her old school resource officers right there,
just yards away from her front door, old teachers and
administrators that knew her and cared about her. Old coaches
that would have helped her in a heartbeat if anything

(01:39):
were to happen. You're talking about roughly fifty adults that
could have helped her child any minute, from about seven
in the morning till dinner time when practices were over.
She had access to those people to help her. I'm
Cheryl McCollum, and this his own seven. I started my

(02:03):
career in the trenches, and honey, I've stayed there for
the past forty years. I've worked every facet of the
criminal justice system, police, courts and corrections. I've worked with
law enforcement, victims of crime, and criminals to solve complex cases,
and I have genuinely befriended most of them. I've had

(02:25):
the opportunity to work on hundreds of some of the
most intriguing cold cases you've heard of, and thousands that
you haven't. I'm not a first responder, I'm a last responder.
Today we are talking about the murder of beautiful Brittney Phillips.
She was killed in her off campus apartment and there

(02:49):
was no forced entry. So let's start where it ended.
This case takes us to Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tultsa sits on
the Arkansas River. Second largest city in Oklahoma. It is
part of the Mother Road Honey Root, SI. Population is
just over four hundred thousand people. It's the home of

(03:11):
Garth Brooks, Alfrey Woodard, Paul Harvey, and others. But on September,
just after nine pm, the worst happened. Brittney Phillips in
her own apartment. Again no forced entry. A killer finds her,
sexually assaults her and leaves her on the floor of

(03:33):
her bedroom. Now did he knock on the door and
Brett let him in? Was this somebody she knew? Was
this a stranger or was he already inside the apartment?
Because there's one fact about this apartment that is the
stuff of horror movies. In her closet, there was a
little doorway, a doorway she didn't even notice, didn't know

(03:57):
anything about her mom never even noticed it. But that
little doorway connected Britt's apartment with other apartments, so somebody
in another area of that building could have accessed her apartment.
Friends were concerned when she didn't show back up for
school for work. She never missed work, she never miss class.

(04:23):
She was an honor student, she was brilliant. Police did
a welfare check and that's when the horrible discovery was made.
Brett had no boyfriend, she had no known stalker, There
was no drug use, There was no police issues. This
was a good kid, a devoted student, a good friend.

(04:48):
Family and friends had no idea who would want to
harm her. Police did find DNA at the same but
there were no matches in Codis. Law enforcement believes it
might be somebody that she knew, and that person might
have been aware that she lived alone. Just because she
didn't know she had a talker doesn't mean she didn't
have one. Brittany had no known enemies. Police had again,

(05:13):
never been to the house for any reason. No drugs,
no alcohol, no abusive behavior, nothing, nothing that gave them
cause to suspect anyone of hurting her. This case has
been cold for eighteen years. Brittany was eighteen years old.

(05:36):
This case has been as cold as she was alive.
Let's talk about her circle. She had good friends, she
had classmates, a lot of them. She had people that
she knew in the apartment, even a handyman. Neighbors, past
high school connections. Again, all of her teachers and coaches

(05:57):
are right across the street. In there were the known
sex offenders in the area, and then they looked for
similar transaction. The sheriff, Rigaldo said, at one point and
he had two hundred and seventies six potential suspects. Let
that marinate a minute. Two hundred and seventies six suspects

(06:23):
in a area of town known to have no problems,
no violent crimes, no police issues. Everybody that so far
submitted their DNA didn't match anything in Codis. Nobody popped up. Now,
there was one person. They found his DNA in her

(06:45):
bedroom and in the kitchen, but he explained it away.
He explained why his DNA would be in there. And
I'm gonna get right to our guest. Y'all. This woman
is a road warrior, there is no two ways about it.
She's Brittany's mama, she's got a PhD. She's a hard worker,

(07:10):
she's a good friend. But when I tell you, she
is tireless and fearless. She did something that is so
remarkable and just cool that when you hear what she's
done to try to find the killer of her child,

(07:31):
I think it's gonna just make you fall in love
with her. So I'm gonna welcome Dr Maggie Zingman and
doctor welcome to Zone s Heaven. Thank you, Cheryl. It's
always great and it's always invigorating talking to you. Well,
let's get right to it. Worse happens. You get a

(07:53):
knock at the door. I get a knock at the door,
and I'm fifty miles away from Tulsa in Chandler, Oklahoma, Alma.
And the knock on the door that I get, which
was after my son was notified, was a young sheriff
who just has a little piece of paper and he
asked me, are you Maggie Zingman And I said yes,
And you hanced me this piece of paper and goes,
you need to call detective felt In your daughter has

(08:16):
been murdered, and then he leaves. I mean, that was
my notification. You know. I found out later my son
had been notified because they thought I was still in
Tulsa with a chaplain with two detectives. You know, he
was notified in the right way, but mine. It was
shocking anyways to hear my daughter was murdered, but to
be told in that way was even more unbelievable. It's

(08:39):
gut wrenching. And you had tried to call her a
couple of days before. Well, I actually talked her Monday night.
She was at school and she was having problems with
her sinuses and trying to get into doctors and she
couldn't and she would always get really upset when things
wouldn't go her way. And so I told her i'd
meet with her on the weekend like when you usually do,

(09:00):
and find her a doctor to go see. And then
I called her. That was Monday night, and then Tuesday
night I called her. Wednesday night, I called her, and
I knew she was in classes late those nights, so
I thought nothing of it. But Thursday night I called
her and left that typical mom message, Brittany, I know
you're okay, but please please just call me. I know

(09:21):
you're fine. And that was probably a like ten at night,
and at one am the next morning, which was October one,
that's when I received that knock on the door. We
all know that desperate need just let me know you're okay.
I think every mom whose child has been away from
them for ten minutes, if their next door playing with neighbors,

(09:43):
just let me know you're okay. You know that's instinctual.
I mean, you can't help that, you can't. And then
every time that you do that call, you get a
call back. You know, you are used to getting those
calls back. You don't expect that knock on the door. Oh,
and there's no way to prepare for that. So a

(10:04):
lot of times, you know, people will say, oh, you
know the worst thing, What in the world would I do? Like,
what would you do if this happened? Well, I know
what you did, and it is unbelievable. So you go
to Parabon and you get a composite made of the
suspect from the DNA the police have. So with phenotyping,

(10:28):
you basically have his picture. All right, y'all, Parabond, I'm
going to explain my way. I am a crime scene investigator.
I'm not a scientist. I collect evidence to sin to
scientists to tell me what we can get from it.
But the Parabond nano labs they do something so extraordinary.

(10:51):
They take this nano pharmaceutical and develop DNA from phenotypes.
And what that basically means is inside your DNA are
all these little phenotype and things running all around, and
they inside tell everything about you. Your hair color, your

(11:13):
eye color, whether or not you have freckles, anything about
you physically is in phenotypes. Inside your body, and that
Parabond takes and develops a composite of what the person
looks like that left behind this DNA sample. So Parabon

(11:37):
literally puts together a composite of what the suspect looks
like based on the DNA left behind. You know, he's
a white guy with blue eyes and blonde hair and
a little bit of freckles. And what do you do
with that composite? Well, you know, it's interesting, But I

(11:59):
just want to step back for one second, real quickly
and say that composite was done that year fifteen after
like you said earlier, hundreds and hundreds there was Jeff Felt,
and then there was Vic and then there was Eddie Majors.
But we had ruled out almost a thousand suspects and finally,

(12:20):
through me pushing for funding and getting some funding for
it to be sent to Parabond, that's where we finally,
in your sixteen and seventeen got the phenotype sketch. And
I had already wrapped three different cars that I travel
across the country, and and so this time I took
his picture and I put it on my hood of

(12:40):
my car. I didn't want it on the side because
I didn't want to look at his face, but I
wanted other people to look at his face. So it
was on the hood of my car. When I went
to hotels, people would be on balconies, people would come
up to the car, and so that also got us
a lot of tips. Okay, I just want to be
sure people understand what you just said, y'all. She took

(13:01):
that composite of the person she believed killed her daughter
and slapped it on the hood of the car and drove.
Drove to the grocery store, drove to the bank, drove
wherever she needed to go during the day. But then
she put together a road trip where she went across
the United States and back. She logged over three hundred

(13:23):
thousand miles. Now I was lucky enough to sit shotgun
while she came through Georgia. When I tell you the
attention she got from this car, the people that would
at a stop like give a thumbs up or take
a picture of the car. When we would stop to
talk to people, they would come up. They would want

(13:44):
to hear the whole story. And what struck me again
as a mama myself, you were champion for your child.
One person at a time you would stop and talk
to one person for thirty minutes. I saw you do it.
You came to my police department and talked to everybody
in c I d you and I even went to

(14:05):
some private homes and talk to people so that you
could get the word out. And then you would leave
the next day and go to another state. I mean,
it was a remarkable thing to see that sort of drive.
That's sort of just I'm gonna, you know, take this
on the road because I don't know where he's at,
but whether he's on a highway or a back road

(14:27):
or a dirt road, that's where I'm going. Really. In
two thousand seven, when I started, it was only for
our story and stuff, But by about two thousand and fifteen,
because I had met so many other homicide families and
most aren't as crazy as me. You know, they're not
driving three hundred thousand miles alone by themselves. And so

(14:50):
I really started focusing on every city where I was
doing a story, asking homicide survivor families to connect with
me because so many, I mean, I've met thousands who
don't have a voice, and that's a problem. Sometimes it
seems like the cold cases get the least coverage because
the missing and unidentified. You know, these are still stories

(15:13):
that could be solved either way, so you know there
is a sort of urgent need to solve them. But
these are urgent too because our killers, if they're not dead,
they're killing and raping. Still absolutely all right, So you're
hitting the road, you're meeting people. How does this help

(15:35):
bolster your case? Like, what does your local law enforcement
think about your caravan injuice? Well, it depends which ones
you're talking about. Um. For the first ten years of
my case, Jeff felt In, my detective was so unbelievable.
He was my champion. He would allow me into getting

(15:55):
some information on where they were because he would tell me.
And I always try to talk with criminal justice people
and I say, tell people what you can and tell
them why you can't, you know, And he would say, well,
I can't share this with you, or I'm going to
share it with you, but if it is shared with media,
you know, it could hurt our stoice. I really learned
a lot about criminal justice through that, and so he

(16:17):
and Mike Cupp, who was head of homicide, they were
my champions. Every new car because I'm on my fourth
car now that's been wrapped, every car that I got wrapped,
my cuffed, the head of homicide would be there. And
Mike used to say, if we solve this case, Maggie,
it's going to be because of you, because you're out there.
That changed with the third detective, Vic Regulatto, was only

(16:41):
my detective for one year. I didn't know he was
going to become head sheriff, which now he's there, you know,
helping out as much as he can. But after that,
there was blockage to use in cold case groups. There
was a lack of information shared, and even though he's retired,
that is pretty much. I really feel TPDE even though

(17:03):
I've done nothing to break their trust, They've become very
untrusting and they also don't have the resources. Every city
that I've gone to has has formed, like you, all
cold case groups. You know, they don't just put one
person into the second major city of Oklahoma over cold cases.

(17:24):
I mean, it's ridiculous. And the thing is, if they
would reach out, there are resources out there that would
be willingly given to them at no cost. In the
decades since Brittany's murder, technology has advanced just ridiculously, So

(17:45):
you think if we could go back in time and
it her crime scene have what we have today. We
would have had access to Francine Bardola, the Bardol method
in that and Jared Bradley working it. We would have
had CC more immediately helping with the ancestry connections. We

(18:06):
would have had folks like Dr David Middleman, an authorom
that almost in real time can tell you who the
DNA belongs to. We wouldn't have wasted years in decades
testing and experts and flying people, you know, back and forth.
It wouldn't cast him a dime if they would just
reach out to these people that are more than willing

(18:28):
to help out, and they're saying that they are, but
so far uh from what people are telling me. I
don't know this maybe is my assumption, but dragging their
feet on allowing it. So you know, we're meeting more
and more because like you said, eighteen years alive, eighteen
years of cold case, this anniversary on October four, because

(18:49):
we buried her on her nineteenth birthday. It just broke
my heart because every story I did, I was saying
she was alive eighteen years, we buried her on our
nineteenth birthday. And now it's been a cold case for
eighteen years, although the first ten years they never really
called it cold because Jeff kept turning over every single suspect.

(19:13):
And I also wanted to just add something here. When
we discovered that DNA belonged to, you know, someone who
they said wasn't her killer. That was after using it
until two thousand nineteen to compare against suspects, every single

(19:33):
suspects that profile was used to, you know, say most
likely this isn't our killer because their DNA isn't matching.
So what I fought with since two thousand nineteen is
getting tell us the police to go back over a
lot of those suspects. We had some great, very bizarre

(19:53):
ones that you know, Jeff would go, I'm so surprised,
as DNA doesn't match. Yeah, so you drive around with
this guy's picture on your car, We all take pictures
of your hood, we all share it, and then they
call you and they say it's not him. After all

(20:16):
those miles and all those years, it's not him. I
got the call. I was on I think my twenty
caravan and I was in Yacoma, Washington, and I got
the call and when and I knew that they possibly
had a hit, but I didn't know exactly. And when

(20:36):
I got a call from him and it said from
Detective Majors and he said, we got a direct hit
and he's not our killer. I felt almost the same
exact way that I did when I got that notice
that she had been murdered. You know, it was like,

(20:57):
oh my god, that means we're back to ground zero.
How can I And one of the things I said
to him, and I said to everybody else during that
whole month long of torture, while we were explaining to
people what happened, I said, I can't. I'm not going
to live in another nineteen years. I don't think I'll
be alive to solve this. And that's how I felt.

(21:19):
And I was told that there was a good alibi,
air tight. So Mr X left seminal DNA in Brittany's
bedroom and blood evidence in the kitchen, and he explained that, hey,
sometimes my girlfriend and I would use Brittany's department for

(21:39):
a little tryst, and you know, possibly I got hurt
once whatever, and that was it. They accepted it had
moved on. When you and I talked, one of the
things that we agreed on is if that is true,
then there should be vaginal fluid from another female, not Brittany,

(22:01):
on that same piece of evidence. And if that's not
the case, then we have an issue that needs to
be cleared up. And each meeting that I've had, a
meeting I had in February and one later, um I
was told they were going to analyze it. Of course,
since they don't share anything with me, I don't know
if they had, but I know both you and you're

(22:23):
a code case group, and I know Sheriff Regulatto and
his code case group, which also includes FBI agents. I mean,
it includes a lot of retired experts. I know. Those
are the questions you asked and the feeling I get
when I asked these questions, and it's like, you can't
see this, but a little pat on the shoulder. You're

(22:45):
just a homicide mother. It's okay. You don't understand this stuff.
I'm sorry. Maybe some don't, but I've been educated by
some of the best, like you, like Jeff, like vic
so I do understand that. Along with that, you know,
there's stuff that in two thousand four, we didn't have

(23:05):
the ability to analyze DNA the way we do now. Absolutely.
We have such gift nowadays with Francine Bardole and Jared
Bradley and orthrom Are you kidding me? It's a whole
different world today. There's touch DNA, there's the m VAC,
you know. And I had a meeting and I asked him,

(23:25):
are you using these things you know and stuff? And
I was totally were. But again, everywhere I travel, and
that's three hundred thousand miles, and that's probably three hundred
cities and probably at least two hundred police departments I've
talked to, every single one of them says hell, yeah,

(23:47):
we have asked this cold case group to come in,
or yeah, hey we got funding to develop our own
nonprofit cold case group from all the experts. And when
I first was asking at Majors about this, way back
in the early years of him doing this, every time
I asked him until the year he retired, I kept saying,

(24:09):
he goes, well, you know, we have such great detectives here.
I said, it's not about great detectives or anything. It's
on old cases having a fresh set advice. You know what,
They might prove that you've done everything that is possible,
or they might be able to see some corners that
you couldn't see around. It's about wanting help to solve

(24:32):
these cases. And on the front line, I'm always told,
you know, we're dedicated, you know, and you shouldn't feel
this way, you know how Almost some meetings I've had
it's like, how dare you feel like we're not working
the case? How dare you ask for a cold case investigators?
It's ridiculous. I'm tired, you know, and you know me. Uh.

(24:55):
In earlier interviews, I've I've been good, you know with Jeff,
I applauded tp D. You know I had no reason
to complain. Um, but this is ridiculous. Well, here's the
bottom line. I believe they're dedicated, I know they're good,
but that doesn't mean you don't need some help exactly.

(25:16):
I mean I was a dedicated, good parent, but honey,
I needed help a lot. And that doesn't do and
that that's not a negative thing. I mean, I've got
four sisters that absolutely helped raise my children. There's nothing
negative with that. If anything, it made my children more
incredible people, period. Bottom line. So ask for help, and

(25:38):
even if you don't ask it, if it's offered, freaking
take it. It's important to get that, you know, fresh
set of eyes, and to learn about these new people
and these new tools that maybe you don't know. And
people ask me all the time, hey, do you know
so and so that's a medical examine or do you
know so and so a homicide detective? Just because I've
never heard of them, don't And that doesn't mean they're

(25:59):
not faculous. It just means I haven't heard of them yet.
But tell me about them now. I know. Now they
can go in my Rolo dex. Happy day. It's all good,
all right, Let's walk through the crime step by step.
Like I said, I called her at nine nine pm
was probably when I talked to her on the so

(26:19):
what they told me and I met Jeff the next morning.
I drove down there by myself, and you know, her
body had already been taken away. They identified it by
the license, which upset me. But Jeff was there relatively soon,
and what he initially told me was that some time
between nine pm and eight am, which would have been

(26:45):
the Tuesday morning, that she was raped and suffocated, and
that she probably died immediately. That they didn't find any
literature marks on her. But I remember them telling me
that possibly there was some very faint thumb prints. And
the fact was that she was dead for three days.

(27:06):
That friend who you know, had them do a wellness check.
That was after she didn't show up at school on Wednesday. Thursday,
she came there and that's when she called the Tulsa Police.
So I don't know a lot about dead buddies, but
you know, because of the swelling, because of all that,
and then she was also found beside her bed on

(27:28):
the floor. Normally her pillow would be up near the
wall and so she would be lying with her head
near the wall. She was beside the bed on the
side with her head in the opposite direction, on her back,
And I remember the detective telling me it seemed like
possibly somebody had placed her clothes back on her made

(27:50):
it look like she had just fallen out of bed,
and she had her t shirt and underwear on. And
so they also when I came there, because they had
already done the crime scene investigation, there is a love
that spray or whatever on the walls. They really do
feel she put up a fight, which breaks my heart.

(28:13):
But they also said that she died they think from
something collapsing in her neck. That happens with some wrestlers
that pressures put on the neck. So that's what I
was told then, you know, And that's also you mentioned
this earlier. That's when Jeff, who was I still think

(28:33):
he is six ft three six ft four, went into
the closet and he said, are you aware of this?
And he pointed up to the ceiling and there was
maybe a three foot square piece of wood up in
the ceiling which was access to the attic, and he
moved and showed that he could pull himself up. And

(28:53):
he was a pretty big guy, you know, not just tall,
but also not he may she eat it or anything,
and he could have pulled it. So, yes, all four
of the upstairs apartments had attic access two and so
they all joined kind in the middle, like if you
think of the middle of the wheel, you can go
to either of the apartments from that center. That's the

(29:15):
thing of a horror movie, it is. It is just
the idea, whether it's a handyman, whether it's a neighbor,
whether it's somebody that used to work there or used
to live there, laying cable, laying telephone bugga, you know,
And were they up there observing her before that. I mean,
I know they searched up there. I don't think they
found anything, but you know, you just if it was

(29:38):
a stalker, how long was he up there? You know?
And there's another thing too, is that gosh, I think
before she went away because she went down to Texas
to visit a friend. And that's a whole another thing
about the case. But she went down to visit a
friend in Texas and then she was killed about less

(30:00):
than a month when she got back, because that was
in August. Before that, she had said that she came
home and she found urine in the toilet and she
didn't remember doing that, and there was no toilet paper. Yeah,
but again I didn't think anything really about it. Tell
me how many interviews you think you've done with media, Well,

(30:22):
tell us a media. Channel six, especially Laurie Fulbright, Channel
two and Channel six and Fox twenty three have followed
me religiously, even though I've retired a number of reporters.
But between them and all my travels, at least three
hundred on the road and probably another hundred um here.

(30:43):
I'm very lucky that Tulsa still follows us and everything,
and sometimes especially with Channel six we've shared information that
tp D did not share. And one of the major
things is, and this is still causing problems, is when

(31:04):
I got back to Tulsa after I was informed about
the DNA not matching. The reason we knew it didn't
match was because C. C. Moore analyzed it and found
a direct hit to the owner. That's the same DNA
that the picture was made from. When Tulsa Police announced it,

(31:24):
they announced it as DNA was used to create a
picture and a tip came in from the picture and
that individual was ruled out. So tell me what's the difference.
I mean, I know, you know, what's the difference between
saying a tip came in and we ruled out this
individual versus we had a direct hit to the DNA

(31:50):
We identified the owner of that DNA, that blood sample,
that semen, that DNA which said he was Caucasian, which
said he looked like this that DNA. If we're saying
it's not our killer, it's no longer viable. So a
lot of people were still thinking he was you know,
and he may well be, but it started still restricting

(32:13):
our pool of tips because they were still thinking he's Caucasian,
he's mid twenties. They weren't thinking that he could be Asian, African, American, Polynesian, whatever,
you know. And so I, with Laurie Philby, broke the
news that you know, it was the DNA because it's

(32:34):
so important. And I still get people whose go, oh,
so a tip came in and it wasn't the killer.
It's so different. I mean, you know that I was
utterly god smacked by the whole thing. I mean, I
was so knocked out. I mean I talked to you
that day and I'm like, Maggie, how in the world.
And the other thing that crossed my mind is, how

(32:56):
does this guy watch you drive a hundred thousand miles,
two hundred thousand miles, three hundred thousand miles a year
after year after year and he don't say, Hey, the
hood of your car looks like me. But I didn't
do it. I've already got an alibi. Hey, don't say
a word. Hey, let you drive all over creation never
says a word. Yeah, I go both ways. Part of

(33:17):
me says, you know, back in two thousand four, I
didn't understand DNA, and what I was told by some
people back then who were aware of it, him and
her back then said they all thought that the DNA
was found inside of Britty and it wasn't. And so

(33:38):
I understand that a little bit. But the fact is
is we just need to have everything really looked at again.
We need to be understanding that the possible killer could
be of any culture of anywhere. Now let's talk about
the suspects in this case. They looked at friends, neighbors,

(33:59):
local criminal, still nobody, They still have no clue. And
all these people they looked at, they compared that DNA
profile and I go fault them. In those early years,
blood and seamen from the same person, even a non detective,
I would think that's the killer. So I don't fault that.
And in those first ten years, that's where the thousands

(34:20):
of suspects came. So law enforcement got the DNA and
they connected it to a young man that had access
to Britney's apartment that sometimes would use her apartment and
her bedroom supposedly to have a sexual tryst with his girlfriend.

(34:41):
This explained why his DNA would be on her sheets
or bedspread. I feel very differently about that. Re submit
evidence start over look harder, because not only did this
young man have eminal fluid present. He had blood evidence

(35:03):
present in the sink. I would start over. Nobody's off
the table if we don't have a suspect. There were
relatives of people who lived in the apartment that we
found out had some sexual crimes, which if we find
out that's one of the individuals, that apartment complex is
going to find a very large lawsuit because they've let

(35:25):
a lot of people be at risk there. They never
told people that Britty was murdered there, and I would
tell families and people moving in. We had some suspects
that we're pretending to be part of the investigation that
we ruled out through the d NA. We had some
people who were violent, you know. We had some old
boyfriends that Britty had some issues with, all ruled out

(35:50):
through the d NA. The thing is, if this young
man is truly not our killer, we need to be
looking at every single one of those suspects again. And
when I say that to the current detective and the
one before Eddie, I'm told, well, you know, all the
other DNA was up in codis and now I think

(36:12):
that they were interviewed, they've already been ruled out. The
DNA we used is constantly not the killer. Yeah, I mean,
it's just crazy. There's even an individual. You know, my daughter.
What I found out, god like eight years after her
murder is that part of the reason I didn't know this,
she went down to Texas. It's a big beach down

(36:35):
in southern Texas. Now it's glo Galveston. I can hear
it in the back of my head. Anyway, she went
down to Southern Texas. A friend of hers that she
went to school with, it I knew very well was
living down there. What I didn't know is that her
friend had been assaulted and she and one her classmate
actually who I think was the one who did the

(36:55):
wellness check on her, went down there to support the friend.
And about years after the murder, her friend called me
and said, do you know why Brittany came down here?
And that it had been a boyfriend of the friends
that has assaulted her and raped her. And so you know,
I gave the police his name. I don't remember it
anymore because we didn't know if because Brittie was down

(37:18):
there helping her and telling him to stay away, he
could have followed her back. You know, these are all
these really good suspects that were ruled out with the
d n A. And and again, if we're right that
this young man is not her killer, all these suspects
need to be looked at. And that's why a group

(37:39):
like yours, vic's cold case group, let them look at it,
you know, let them look at these suspects again. And
even Jeff sometime, I mean, he still stays in touch,
and he said, you know, I wish I was a
little bit more old school. I wish I hadn't fully
focused on that DNA. And he he of that case.

(38:00):
He still lives the case. He's an encyclopedia, and there's
the current detectives only briefly talks to him every now
and then. Well, you know my mantra, every tool on
every case, every time. That's it. You don't pick and
choose or we're gonna polygraph on this one and we're
gonna you know, do or thro them on this one. No,
every time, everything you got, full court press, period. I

(38:23):
think everybody needs to be reinterviewed. I think the evidence
needs to be retested. I think they need to go
back ground zero, walk it again, do it again. Well,
there's a good story even in CC more analyzing this
DNA and not finding the killer. The one good point
that I use about c C is that you know,

(38:46):
when I have traveled across country, because along with trying
to solve our murder, I've been an advocate for DNA
at arrest, which we took me nine years to get
it past here in Oklahoma. But people go, oh, well,
they can just take that DNA and put it somewhere
and falsely convict somebody. And so now I can go, hey,
guess what our case, we had a direct hit to

(39:08):
the DNA, and because there was no more evidence, we
couldn't commit. That's a really important fact, you know, to
argue tells the police Eddie Majors would not let media
talk to cecmore because they were contracted and with parabun
she couldn't you know, And that was we were going

(39:28):
to even do the story nationally, but they wouldn't allow it.
Why don't you tell everybody about what happened to you
between Montana and Wyoming? Talk about off the beaten path. Well,
you know, Cheryl, along with many other people, admire greatly
what I do, but they also think them a little
bit crazy. Yeah, because since two thousand seven, I've traveled

(39:54):
three hundred thousand miles through forty eight states, all self funded,
and it's been about twenty two tours for the first
ten years. Even though I know there was GPS, I
didn't use GPS, you know, I used if people are familiar,
those big foot big atlas is and so I would

(40:16):
just find a route. Well, I was traveling, I forget
what year in two thousand and twelve, between Wyoming and Montana,
and back then I would drive, you know, ten hours
it took me to get to city. So I started
off in the day in Wyoming on this seemingly okay road.
I mean, it was too late, but it seemed okay.

(40:37):
As it got darker and darker, all of a sudden,
I started seeing free rome animals. Beware. So for the
next four hours, I'm driving in the dark back on
some country road of Wyoming, and I'm just waiting for
a buffalo or a cow or a chicken, And luckily
nothing came out. But every five miles ago, beware, free

(41:01):
roam animals or free range animals, you know, I mean,
you know, those were things that I took a big
chance with. I mean I have a number of stories
like that, but that one was just crazy, and so finally,
after a couple of years, I started using GPS and
staying on you know, because part of the thing was,
especially on those back country roads. I mean, half the

(41:22):
reason I've had four cars wrapped with pictures of her
and caravan to catch a killer on the sides is
so that people can see the car, because just from
seeing caravan, they searched me out on a back country
road in the middle of the night with free roaming animals,
and nobody sees the car. That's right, though. Well, you

(41:43):
and I have talked a lot, and I know you
have said you're not stopping even if they take your
driver's license. So I'm just telling you I will one
day go on Facebook and see you head down the
road and your motorized wheelchair, probably speeding, probably though it
might take me five hours to go ten miles. Hopefully

(42:05):
I will do this until I can't drive anymore. I'm
getting older. I really want to do this more. And
I you know, back in the first uh fifteen years
really of doing this, um or probably first twelve, I
really had no money. I would live without heat in
my house, I would live without food, I would live

(42:28):
when my water heat it broke. I didn't replace it.
For years. I would borrow on my cards which were
falling apart um, just so I could do at least
two caravans every year, you know. I mean, I lived
without a lot because I worked for the state and
I didn't have a great income, And so now I
really can afford to do it more so I'm trying.

(42:49):
Although I'm a trauma psychologist, I work with veteran God
bless them, today I'd like to sort of slow down
a little bit and work or do it as I travel,
and just get out there because I'm gonna be sixty
eight next February. I can't believe I've been doing this
for sixteen of the eighteen years that she's been dead. Well,

(43:10):
I appreciate you, and I just I'm so thankful you're
here to talk to us today, and I am gonna
just pray that year nineteen is the year ever since
I met you. You've been such a bright light in
my life, and you know, you have a place in
my heart, so I couldn't do it without you. My opinion,

(43:30):
law enforcement needs to reinterview every single one of Britney's
friends who had access to her apartment, who had an
extra key? Did she have a spare key hidden somewhere
that a few people knew about. Some of these friends
are now parents themselves. Help Maggie with answers. Even if

(43:54):
you don't think it's something significant law enforcement might. Let's
help law enforcement by spreading the word to encourage witnesses
to come forward. The phone number for the talks that
he did, it's five nine six nine one three five.

(44:18):
I'm gonna end Zone seven the way I always do
with a quote from a friend, and this comes from
Dr Christine Middleman, and she says, work on things that
keep you up at night, be the change every single day.
Never give up and know that one day your work
will be the answer in the change in someone else's life.

(44:41):
I'm Cheryl McCollum, and this is Zone seven.

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