October 20, 2025 • 56 mins
Steven Roberts was hiking through Rock Bridge Memorial State Park in Missouri, one morning in March of 2020. Something unusual caught his eye. Just beyond the treeline, something sharp and rectangular broke the natural shape of the landscape…
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
And he said five about five am, the babies.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Up, Yeah, and she was crying so and uh, I
was really surprised.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That she wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Rockbridge Memorial State Park is a place of beauty nestled
in the heart of Missouri. It's a stretch of wilderness
where nature shows both its gentle and untamed sides. The
park's grand dule is its namesake, Rockbridge, a towering natural
limestone arch carved over thousands of years by water pressing
through the stone around it. The land on folds like
(01:15):
a labyrinth. More in two thousy two hundred acres of
dense hardwood forest, winding trails, sinkhals caves, and the famous
Stevil's Ice Box, a cavern where underground streams snake through
Missouri's ancient coarse landscape. In early spring, when the frost
finally loosens its grip, the forest floor awakens. Wild floors
(01:36):
dot the trails with color, birds return, filling the canopy
with songs. On the morning of March fifteenth, two thousand
and twenty, a man named Stephen Roberts decided to take
advantage of the good weather. He laysd up his hiking
boots and headed out to the trails at Rockbridge Memorial.
The forest was alive around him. The path was familiar,
(01:59):
but as he walked, something unusual caught his attention. Just
beyond the tree line, something sharp and rectangular broke the
natural shape of bank and leaves. Curiosity tugged at him.
He stepped off the trail and made his way through
the undergrowth, but when he drew closer, he froze. On
(02:20):
the ground, half covered by foliage, was a human skull.
Mung Chiji Elige was born on the eighteenth of April
(02:40):
nineteen ninety one in China, during the nation's strict one
child policy. Her parents Ki Ren and Shaolinji had only
ever planned for one child, and mung Chi was their everything.
Our mother would later recall, we only ever wanted one child.
We wanted to give all of our love to this child.
Mungchi was kind of daughter that most parents dreamed of.
(03:02):
She was gentle, well behaved, but also lively and curious.
Her parents placed a strong emphasis on education, and from
an early age, Munchi thrived. By the time she was five,
she was already practicing calligraphy and painting, carefully guided by
her parents belief in cultivating hobbies. At seven, she added
swimming and ping pong to her routine. English tutoring followed
(03:25):
soon after, and by the time she was ten, she
had taken up the guitar. Photography was another passion, one
her father nurtured by making sure she always had the
best cameras, but painting remained her true love. Her mother
remembered proudly. We thought that the development of hobbies was
important for the growth of Mungchi. It was clear from
(03:46):
the start that Mungchi was remarkable. In two thousand and nine,
she was accepted into the prestigious East China University of
Science and Technology in Shanghai. Three years later, an opportunity
presented itself that we changed the course of her life forever.
She was accepted into an exchange program in the United
States and enrolled at the University of Missouri. There, Mungchi
(04:09):
completed her undergraduate studies and went on to earn a
master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She excelled at
the point that one of her professors, who was impressed
by her intelligence and dedication, hired her straight out of skill.
The company was a biomaterials firm called Nonva and It
was there within the sterile technical halls of Science and
(04:31):
Innovation that Mungchi met Joseph Elich. Joseph had grown up
in Kansas City and was studying engineering at the same
university at No Nova. Mungchi was technically his supervisor, but
soon enough professional boundaries blurred and the two started dating.
Her friend Chui Jang remembered she didn't know why, but
(04:53):
she was crazy about Joe. A year and a half
into their relationship, Joseph proposed while they were hiking at
Rockbridge Memorials step Park. Two weeks later, Munchi and Joseph
were married. It was a whirlwind. Love was part of it, certainly,
but so too with circumstances. Mung Chi's visa was set
to expire, and marriage meant that she could stay in
(05:15):
the United States and stay with Joseph. The couple moved
into an apartment on Eastwood Drive. Just months into the marriage,
mung Chi was offered a big job opportunity. It could
have been a pivotal moment in her career, but then
came unexpected news she was pregnant. At that time, mung
Chi was the sole bread winner. Joseph had quit his
(05:37):
job to finish school, and he was a senior mechanical
engineering student with no steady income. But the decision was
made Mung Chi would turn down the job and become
a step at home mother. In October of twenty eighteen,
their daughter Anna was born. In Chinese tradition, the first
one hundred days after a baby's birth, at a sacred period,
(06:00):
it's customary for the grandparents to come and stay, helping
to care for both mother and child, enduring rest, protection
and a smooth transition into new life. True to tradition,
Mungchi's parents flew in from China to help their daughter
and meet their granddaughter. For a time, life seemed stable,
(06:20):
but beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form. Mung
Chain Joseph was once dreamed of building a big family together.
They spoke of three, maybe even five children, and imagined
raising them in a house that blended both American and
Chinese traditions. It was the kind of vision that many
(06:43):
young couple share, a house filled with laughter, a mix
of cultures, and the promise of a future built together.
But after their daughter Anna was born, things began to shift.
Mungchi loved her baby deeply, but the ache of homesickness
grew strong her, especially after her parents returned to China.
(07:04):
The apartment that had once felt like a new beginning
now seemed almost isolating. Her lifeline to home became her
daily phone call with her mother, ki Ren. Every day
without fail, they spoke, sharing the ups and downs of motherhood,
the quiet frustrations, and the joy of watching Anna grow.
But then, on the ninth of October twenty and nineteen,
(07:26):
the phone never rang. At first, ki Ran tried to
brush away her unease. Maybe Mungchi was tired, maybe she
was busy. But when ours passed with no word, she
began to call again and again. Her daughter never picked up.
The next day, silence continued. Ki Ran reached out to
(07:47):
Joseph directly, calling and texting, but he didn't respond either.
Panic began to settle in desper She asked one of
Munchi's friends to check on her. When that friend arrived
at the Eastwood Drive apartment, Joseph was there alone with Anna.
Munk Chi was nowhere to be found. Joseph told the
(08:08):
friend that when he woke up on the morning of
the ninth of October, his wife was simply gone. Despite
his wife being missing. Joseph's demeanor was strange, calm, detached,
even nonchalant. He ran confronted him over a video call,
demanding he take action. She urged him to report her
daughter missing. Joseph sent a few casual texts to friends
(08:32):
asking if they had seen mun Chi. Eventually, he phoned
three to one one, the non emergency line, to report
his wife missing.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yesterday morning, I just woke up and then she was gone.
You wasn't here the night before. I went to sleep
with her at the thing, you know, we said at
the same time, but whether it was just the next
morning she was gone and HeLa her her wedding rings,
(09:01):
and she left her phone and her car with her keys.
I think her.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
After making the missing person's report, detectives arrived at Joseph
and Mungchi's apartment. When they sat down with Joseph after
the report, they asked him to explain what had happened.
Joseph's story went like this. On the evening of October eighth,
mung Chi had gone to bed, Joseph steed up in
the living room, watching YouTube videos and playing video games
(09:43):
at her On eleven thirty pm, he finally joined her
she was in bed when he fell asleep. He said.
At five am, their daughter Anna's cries woke him. He
rolled over and noticed that mung Chi was no longer
in bed. She wasn't in the apart either. Her keys
were there, her phone was there, but Joseph didn't look
(10:04):
for her. Instead, he climbed back into bed and fell
asleep again. Three hours later, on his cries will come
up once more. This time, Joseph said, he got up
and fed her. He said it was the first time
he had ever fed his daughter himself munk. She had
been brast feeding, although she sometimes left bottles of expressed milk.
(10:28):
Joseph explained that he simply mimicked what he had seen
his wife do.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And he said five about five am, the babies up. Yeah, yeah, baby,
look up and she was crying.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So I woke up, and I was really surprised that
the munk she wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And then I went to get Anna.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I kind of thought that Munchie might be in the
room with Anna.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But she wasn't, and started putting in it down. See
by looking all the way the place of the career,
she wasn't there. Her purse was.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Gone, so I don't think she took us per what kind.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Of her she have? It's how jess a fabric curse
has what color?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Black is a bass color and has like white stars,
and inside the star it actually has red stripes, and
I think has like a little blue corner.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Like an American players. So that's all she All she
took was her person. Yeah, and he said, says she's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I noticed her black nikes are missing, so I.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Guess she must be wearing those.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
It was only then that Joseph noticed that munk Chi's
car was still parked out side. Even so, he didn't search,
she didn't call friends, and he didn't alert police. He
said he thought that munk She might have gone on
an errand or perhaps he speculated that she had even
left him for another month. According to Joseph, while combing
(11:49):
through her laptop after she vanished, he found journal anddrees
in which she admitted to having an emotional affair with
someone back in China.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
There is I actually found this earlier. It's like a
journal tucolate document. It's just a word file and it
talks about her I feeling like some secret love. She
mentioned this guy's name and actually it turns out it's
this guy right here. Yeah, I just I just messaged
(12:23):
him earlier and he responded to me. But I think
he's in China right now. But anyway, I think this
is her secret love or something.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's probably back in China.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I suppose I think he was here though, because he says,
I'll be back in Shanghai tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'll be busy. I'll be in Shanghai for the for
the next week or for the next few days. I'll
be out of time. And I don't know when that was.
It just says ten thirty three again.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
He recalled one line in particular, which read, it's sad
though that I have no interest in my husband but.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That but that she's married and she had bating and
so she has to stop like doing this message in
him there. I think, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
don't know if she's seen this guy, but right so
she might not even have met this dude, is what
you're thinking.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I kind of think that she has because, like I
said that, I think there's been about four times where
she's gone out and she's been out for like an
a reasonably long time a time. Yeah, pretty much, and
then she always gives some weird excuse. The first, the
weirdest time was she went out. She was walking out
(13:37):
the door, who has And I asked her where she
was going, and she said that she has to get
something from her car. And it was about forty five
minutes later she came back with the spoon that was
in her car for like probably two years.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I remember really spoon, Yeah, and she came back with
that spoon.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
For detectives, none of this stot right. It was highly
unusual for her husband to wait so long before reporting
his wife missinggan to press harder. Had there been an
argument before she disappeared? Joseph claimed no. Then, almost as
an afterthought, he admitted they had what he described as
a small fight about a week earlier. Nothing serious, he insisted,
(14:16):
but he went on to paint a picture of a
strained marriage. Intimacy had waned Mungchie, he said, had become withdrawn.
He admitted that it left him frustrated. The night before
she disappeared, Joseph described giving her a massage. He told detectives,
I was going kind of slow. I was trying to
(14:36):
drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount
of time that we were together doing something. He said
that Mungchi seemed tense. She then told them she needed
to be somewhere in the morning. Curious, Joseph pressed her,
asking three separate times who she was meeting. Her response
each time was the same me she wouldn't elaborate what
(14:59):
Joseph I did the next day, the day he discovered
his wife missing, only deep in detective suspicions. Instead of
searching for Mungchi, he packed Anna into the car and
took two long drives in mung Chi's vehicle. He wasn't
looking for his wife, he said, he was looking for
new hiking trails. He said to investigators, there's this big
(15:22):
area that's all grain on Google Maps, and so I
wanted to go and see if there were walking paths
back there. His route wandered through Ashland, then back and
forth to Guthrie before heading towards Columbia and Rockport. By
his own account, he drove around aimlessly until around ten pm.
Detective John Voss asked the obvious question, did you lock
(15:44):
your door when you left the apartment. You've got her
keys in her car, her phones in the house. She
can't even call anybody, Joseph sammed. Caught off guard, he replied, yeah,
I don't know. Police quickly went public with news of
(16:12):
Mungchi's disappearance, appealing to the community for help. Missing person
posters were circulated with her description a young Chinese woman
with brown eyes and shoulder length black hair, often worn
in a neat bun. She said somewhere between five foot
one inch and five foot three inches, with both ears pierced.
(16:33):
At first, investigators considered the possibility that Joseph's claim might
be true, that mung Chi had left him for another man,
perhaps even returned to China, but that theory crumbled almost immediately.
All of her essentials were still in the apartment. Her phone,
her iPod, her passport, even her clothing. Everything she would
(16:54):
have needed to leave had simply been left behind. It
was impossible to believe she had gone very far without them,
and more importantly, Mungchi's one year old daughter, Anna was
still at home. Those who knew her bath said that
Anna was their entire world. The idea that she would
abandon her child was unthinkable. As the search intensified, Joseph
(17:16):
Alich made his first public appearance. He sat down with
CBS affiliate KRCG and give his version of events.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Talk to me about Menji is Menji, that's how you
pronounced me.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
It's actually mung Chi and it has talne to it's mung.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Chi looking Subdurity told the reporter he believed that mung
Chi had left him for another mom.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
What do you think about the fact that she left
behind for Wallee and everything, uh, while at her passport
and her fond So that suffs very weird to me.
I know she was talking to somebody else on the side,
and I didn't know that until after she had left.
But uh, you know, whatever, whatever she's doing, I just
(18:02):
hope she's safe. And I really hope that she can,
you know, find herself and come back to me and
and and we can just have a big long talk
and that's all we need, but we can work things out.
I think she's she's just confused and maybe scared, and
I don't know if she felt alone. But I just
(18:22):
really want her to come back. And it does worry
me she doesn't have any of that stuff. I just
really yeah, I just hope that she's safe. I hope
that she's with at least with somebody who cares for her,
you know, enough to keep her safe.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And came across is awkward, even smiling. Several times. He
described her as a joting mother, but quickly turned the
focus back to their martal problems.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
I have absolutely no idea where she might be. It's
just all so strange. She just disappeared. I don't know.
I just really don't know. She hasn't contacted anybody. She
talked to her mom, I think probably two or three
times every single day. The fact that she hasn't heard
from her really worries me is very surprising. At it's
(19:13):
just hard to think about what's going on.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
To Manny, Joseph sounded like a husband grasping for answers,
but to detectives, his behavior seemed almost rehearsed, and his
words raised more questions than they answered. Behind the scene,
suspicion was already turning squarely in Joseph's direction. The first
(19:38):
red flag was how little concern he seemed to show
for his wife's disappearance. Detectives discovered that on the ninth
of October, the very morning he claimed to have found
her missing, Joseph texted his mother a birthday greeting in
that message, he never mentioned that his wife was missing.
It wasn't until the following day that he casually took
(20:00):
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(21:23):
classmate saying he wouldn't be a school to work on
a project. He offered no explanation. The next day, he
followed up with another text, I'm kind of stuck at
home and busy with my daughter again, not a single
mention of his wife being missing. The investigators it was baffling.
A spouse disappearing would normally spark panic phone calls, questions,
(21:48):
frantic searches, but Joseph behaved as if nothing had changed
at all. He later told detectives he avoided thinking about
it because he had classwork to focus on. This was
his last semester of skill, he explained, and he wanted
to give attention to that and to his daughter Anna.
The explanation rang hollow. Detective stuck deeper. They learned that
(22:11):
Mungchi's marriage was far from happy friends and acquaintances painted
a picture of a relationship that was weighed down by resentment, loneliness,
and cultural clashes. One interview stood out. Daniel Culp, a
former boyfriend of Mungchi, revealed that she had reached out
to him in late August twenty nineteen, just weeks before
(22:34):
she disappeared. She asked for information about a divorce attorney.
It was a crucial detail. It meant that Mungchi hadn't
simply disappeared into the night. She was actively considering leaving Joseph.
Detectives called Joseph back in for another round of questioning.
This time, their tone was sharper less accommodating.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
I get to relax at the same time.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Wait a minute, you got to relax. Your wife is missing,
You're now the sole caregiver of a one year old child,
and you went on a relaxing drive. I gotta tell you,
you know that strikes me as strange, and I don't
think I'm alone in that. I think Alan here would
probably agree with that. I think ninety nine out of
(23:22):
one hundred people on the street would say that's not
the time to relax. I mean, you haven't even told
anybody I don't know where my wife is. Yeah, you got.
I'm asking you to look at this from my standpoint, right, Yeah,
because I have a job to do. My job is
define mention, Right, I understand, for good or for bad,
it's the finest. If she left on her own and
(23:43):
she wants to stay gone, that's her right the boy,
or she didn't. We got a whole different situation, doesn't we.
If somebody did something to her, or if she accidentally
did something to herself, we absolutely cannot stop until we
find her. You understand that, right.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah. I want to hope you guy as much as I.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
Can, and I will not apologize for doing my job
and asking to some questions. You understand that too, Right,
did you kill your wife?
Speaker 5 (24:10):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I did not, But detectives weren't convinced. The pieces weren't
fitting together, and Joseph Ellige was looking more and more
like the only person who knew the truth. Detective suspicions
of Joseph Villige were growing by the day. They obtained
(24:33):
a search weren't for his cell phone, hoping it would
shed light on his movements or his concern for his
missing wife. Instead, what they found only deep in there
on ease. On October ninth, Joseph made no attempt to
contact anybody about his wife's whereabouts. Not a single call,
not a single message. It wasn't until the next day,
(24:55):
after mung Chi's mother, ky Wren, began sounding the alarm
the joseh have reached out. He contacted his brother Richard,
asking if he had seen her. Soon after, somebody identified
as Deway messaged Joseph, offering suggestions on how to track
mung Chi down, but Joseph's responses revealed little urgency. Just
(25:18):
fifty minutes later, he texted Richard again, not about Munchi,
but to ask if he wanted to play online games.
He then replied to Deway, saying he contacted police and
was exhausted. After that, Joseph got online and played video
games with a relative while his wife was missing. He
(25:38):
was gaming, But the most damning discoveries weren't about what
Joseph didn't do. They were about what he had been
doing on his phone. Detectives uncovered ours of secret recordings
Joseph had made of his wife dan Ors in total
in June of twenty nineteen. One recording captured him coldly
(25:59):
saying I'm ready to be done talking to you forever.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
I don't like being married to you. I don't like
living with you.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Just a month later, another recording, I would like to
discuss our relationship, and I'm kind of ready to discuss
the end of it as well, Joseph Bluntley told mung
Chi he wanted a divorce.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I want to divorce you, okay. I want that to
happen during this semester. I want it to happen soon,
sooner or better, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
In his own words, I'm open to joint custody of
your staying in America. Anna is not leaving America. I
can tell you that. He then mocked her, saying he
didn't like being married to her, didn't like living with her,
and was eager for the relationship to end. He even
made fun of her appearance. In other moments, he veered
(26:49):
into threats. He pressured her to operate with a quick
and cheap divorce, warning that if she refused, he would
tell the court she had been abusive to him.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
You find all those stories about men and or women
rather spouse killed them whatever, because you weren't trying to
live peacefully with me.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
You want me to do you want me to hurt somebody.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He even threatened her immigration start us, telling her, should
I mention in court that you're abusive to me? Should
I ask him to deport you? In another recording, Joseph
told Mungchi he would stop sponsoring her for citizenship, promising
she would be deported while he stayed in America with Anna,
you probably would.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Get deported as mine. So I don't know. Are you
gonna play nice? Are you gonna try and play good?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Obviously I'm not gonna represent you to stay in America anymore.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
But Anna's not leaving America. I can't tell you that.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Only months later, Mungchi vanished. The most disturbing evidence of
all didn't come from Joseph's secret recordings. It came from
Mungchi herself. She too had been quietly recording her husband
(28:03):
since two thousand and eighteen, capturing the dark reality of
life inside their home. On October twenty ninth, two thousand
and eighteen, a year before her disappearance, Mungchi recorded nearly
an r long rant. Joseph's voice thundered with anger as
he said, what are you trying to do? Are you
trying to make me go crazy? So that you can
(28:25):
call police on me and take my fucking baby from me.
His fury spiraled and his threats escalated. Do you want
me to fucking breakshit? Do you want me to hurt somebody?
The source of that argument was her parents. After Anna
was born, Mungchi's mother and father had traveled from China
to help for the first one hundred days of the
(28:45):
baby's life. Instead of gratitude, Joseph reacted with anger and hostility.
I don't want your mom here. Your mom is causing problems.
Your mom should fucking leave. Mungchi, who was exhausted and
recovering from childbirth, pushed back. She told him that she
needed her mother's help to care for herself and their baby.
(29:07):
Her reply was calm and defiant. If I don't take
care of my own body, my own health, it's not
responsible for me of this family. But Joseph's hatred of
her mother only deepened. He told her flatly, I don't
like that woman, and I don't think you should either.
He seemed particularly annoyed whenever they spoke Chinese in the home,
(29:28):
accusing them of speaking behind his back. Eventually, Mungchi's father
returned to China, but her mother, Kiren remained to help
her daughter. That only fueled Joseph's anger. One afternoon, while
kai Rehn was making dumplings for Joseph's birthday, a trivial
dispute over a cutting board erupted into another rage filled rant.
(29:50):
Joseph's voice thundered through the recording, don't do my cutting
board like that. I'm telling you cutting board doesn't like that.
The argument asked related until Joseph screamed at his wife
that her mother needed to go. There's going to be
fucking problems if she tries sting. I'm gonna make it
fucking go away. Munchi tried to raise him with him,
(30:11):
she told him he wasn't god, that he didn't understand.
His response was chilling. I am a fucking god. I say, mom,
don't stay here. She don't stay here. The rank grew uglier,
with Joseph bleddling her as a woman, telling her she
was incapable, that she was only impowered because of society,
(30:33):
and then, perhaps most disturbingly, he launched into a bizarre monologue.
You know how I conquer nature. I fucking kill it.
I grab its head and break its fucking neck. That's
how you conquer fucking nature. Through these recordings, the truth
was undeniable. Munchi was living in a marriage marked by control, intimidation,
(30:55):
and abuse, and Joseph Elige, who police now suspected far worse,
seemed determined to assert power overhear at any cost. After
that explosive argument about her mother, mung Chi did something desperate.
(31:19):
She picked up the phone and called Joseph's mother, Jeane Gerringer.
Jane lived two hours away, but she came immediately, hoping
to mediate the situation. On a recording mung Chi made
that night, she can be heard telling Jane, I have
no choice. I had to call you. I'm sorry. He's
gonna come back and just I don't know, unpredictable things
(31:42):
are gonna happen. Jean told her daughter in law that
she wasn't there to take sides, she was simply there
to offer advice and guidance, but Joseph didn't back down,
even with his own mother in the room.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Join this smacker his beer down. You wanted to I
have that? Yes, you can't. I'm not going ago there.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
The confrontation eventually killed, and Joseph even apologized, But despite
tradition and despite munk Cheese please, he forced Ki Ran
to return to China before the one hundred days of
help were up. On October twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, just
two weeks after Munkchie vanished, police escalated her case from
(32:25):
a missing person to a criminal investigation. Detectives believed that
Joseph Elige had killed his wife. They just needed enough
evidence to prove it. That same day, officers arrived at
Joseph's apartment. What they found raised immediate alarm. Joseph was
outside in a car with his daughter Anna and his
(32:46):
mother Jean. Their bags were packed. It looked like they
were preparing to flee. Detectives arrested him on the spot.
Jean spoke with an officer as her son was arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Were expecting this.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
At that point, detectives didn't yet have enough to charge
Joseph with murder. Instead, they arrested him on child abuse
and neglect charges. When detectives had sat down with Mungchi's mother,
she revealed something deeply disturbing. She said that one night,
Mungchie had noticed bruises on Anna's botocks. When she confronted
(33:24):
Joseph about them, he initially denied knowing how they got there,
but when Mungchi threatened to take their daughter to the hospital,
his story changed. Joseph admitted that one night, Anna wouldn't
stop crying. In his words, he pinched her. Munchie didn't
report it to police because Joseph swore it would never
happen again, but Ki Ran had proof. She sowed detectives
(33:48):
a photograph her daughter had taken of the bruises. When
they searched Mungche's iPad, they found the same images, along
with others. Some were too small to see clearly, as
though the full size originals had been deleted on her laptop.
Investigators found even more disturbing evidence, full sized photos and
(34:09):
videos of Anna's injuries that were saved from her iPhone
back up. One of the photographs matched exactly the one
that Munchi had sent her mother. With this evidence, prosecutors
increased the charges. Joseph was now facing first degree child
in dangerment. His bond was set at half a million dollars. Jean,
(34:29):
his mother, was given custody of Anna. When questioned, Joseph
admitted to causing the bruises, but insisted they only came
from a pinch. Medical experts disagreed the injuries were consistent
with being struck, not pinched. With Joseph behind bars, detectives
executed a search warrant on the couple's apartment. Inside they
(34:50):
found a bag that belonged to Joseph. Stuffed inside were
written notes, statements almost identical to the ones he had
given investigators that were also hand written reminders to himself.
One note instructed refer to mung Chi in the present tents,
not the past tense. And then detectives discovered something, And
(35:14):
then detectives discovered something darker. Another page was titled simply Grievances.
Underneath Joseph had listed all the reasons he hated his wife.
One said, mung Chi is toxic and I thoroughly believe
she enjoys poisoning other people. It was a disturbing window
(35:36):
into Joseph's mindset and the detectives. It was one more
sign pointing to a calculated, controlling man who may have
already silenced his wife forever. As the investigation pressed forward,
(35:58):
another battle began, this one over the custody of Anna.
At the time, Anna was living with Joseph's mother, Jane,
but Mungchi's parents had flown all the way from China
to Missouri, determined to care for their granddaughter. They argued
that it was in Anna's best interest to live with
them and that it was exactly what Mungchi would have wanted.
(36:19):
In a statement, their attorney wrote, Jane Elige continues to
withhold information from Mungchi's parents and failed to inform them
of the pending case for guardianship of their granddaughter. There
was also the troubling detail that when Joseph was arrested,
bags were packed and Jane was right there with him
in the car, seemingly preparing to flee with Anna. In
(36:41):
the end, both sides reached an agreement shared custody between
Jane and Mungchi's parents and a no contact order between
Joseph and his daughter. Meanwhile, the search for Mungji pressed forward.
Detectives turned their attention to Joseph's movements in the days
after she disappeared. He had given a detail the count
(37:01):
of where he claimed he had driven, telling police he
was out looking for hiking trails, but cell phone data
told a different story. Yes, his phone had pinged off
tars in the areas he had mentioned, but then it
deviated instead of heading home after Rockport. His phone data
showed him traveling west towards Boonville and later to the
(37:23):
area of Highway forty one and the Lemine River. He
said in that area for roughly forty five minutes before
turning back east and heading home. The detectives the detour
was damming, Joseph never being to these locations before, and
both areas sat directly on the Missouri River, perfect places
they feared for a body to be dumped and swept away.
(37:47):
Investigators quickly deployed cadaver dogs to the Lemine River near
Highway forty one. The dogs hid on the scent of
human decomposition in the water. Divers were called in, but
the task was nearly impossible. Visibility was poor debris clogged
the river. The next day, detectives brought in heavy machinery,
(38:09):
using a boom truck and dredging bucket to remove logs
and flood debris before sending divers back in. Still there
was no sign of mung chi. With deer hunting season beginning,
detectives turned to the community. They urged hunters and landowners
to check their trail cameras for any suspicious activity from
October eighth to October eleventh. By December, the search was
(38:33):
still sandered on the river. Detectives were convinced that Joseph
had killed his wife and left her there. They explained
the grim reality. A body can think if it's weighted
or if water fills the lungs, but its decomposition sets
in gases build up, causing the body to resurface currents,
though can move at Milestone Stream, investigators focus their efforts
(38:57):
on the easternmost bridge, piling underhead Yghway forty one, just
north of Interstate seventies exit ninety eighth. But no matter
how hard they searched, they couldn't find mung Chi and
in the meantime, Joseph's legal trouble escalated. He was already
facing trial for child abuse and in dangerment. In January,
his attorney, John O'Connor requested that the trial be moved,
(39:21):
claiming substantial media buzz would prevent the fair hearing. Judge
Brock Jacobs denied the move, but allowed for an outside
jury to be brought in, and then just a month later,
in February, prosecutors made their move. Even without a body,
Joseph Ellige was officially charged with murder. Detectives believed that
(39:42):
Joseph had suffocated or strangled mung Chi, possibly while giving
her a massage. There was no blood, no sign of
a violent struggle, and no defensive wounds on Joseph himself.
The motive, they speculated, was simple and disturbing. He simply
didn't want to go through with the divorce. Joseph Ellige
(40:02):
pleaded not guilty. In Abril, detectives announced a new tactic.
They were building a levee into the Lemine River to
aid in the search for mung Ches's body. For weeks,
crews inched forward, mud sucked at boots, spring rains clawed
back their progress. Still they kept going. They searched all
(40:23):
the way up until December. Then came the announcement that
nobody wanted to hear. The river search was being called
off online, the legal machinery was grinding forward. Prosecution and
defense teams were busy preparing for the upcoming trial. Prosecutors
knew that the road ahead would be steep without a
body nobody, convictions are notoriously difficult. Without remains, you can't
(40:48):
prove cause or even manner of death. Time of death
is gaswork. Physical evidence is scarce. Defense attorneys can argue
reasonable doubt at every turn. Maybe the person left voluntary,
maybe they had an accident elsewhere. Maybe there's simply not
enough proof someone is dead, let alone murdered. In those cases,
(41:08):
the state lives and dies on circumstantial evidence, timelines, behavior,
and motive. Then on the twenty fifth of March, everything changed.
A man named Stephen Roberts was hiking in an isolated
area off South rock Quarry Road in Rockbridge Memorial State Park,
not far from the trail where Joseph had once proposed
(41:31):
to mung chi. The woods there are quiet, the kind
of quiet that makes small things stand out. While hiking,
a rectangular object caught Stephen's eye, out of place among
roots and leaves. He moved closer. It was a purse,
and then he spotted something else, a human skull faiths
(41:53):
down in the earth. Stephen immediately called police. Within ours
the isolated trail wasn't i anymore. Detectives, crime scene investigators,
and evidence technicians converged on the site. As they carefully
combed the area, they found more human remains near the skull.
Some bones were missing, including the right arm and right leg.
(42:16):
Inside the purse, they found mung cheese, driver's license, her
credit and bank cards. The remains were transported to the
Medical Examiner's office. DNA testing confirmed what detectives already knew
they had just found mung Chi. At the lab, the
bones were analyzed. A portion of her fourth rib was fractured.
(42:39):
Another portion of that rib was missing on the left side.
Ribs four through six showed complete fractures near the spine.
The sequence of brakes mattered, the pathologists believed they were
not likely caused by animals scattering remains. Instead, he concluded
that they were consistent with blunt force trauma. It was devastating,
(43:00):
but it brought a measure of clarity and for Mungchi's family,
a difficult kind of peace. That Attorney Amy Saladay released
a statement that read, in part, as parents of a
missing child, they always hoped for their daughter's return and
for this to be a bad dream. At the same time,
they have wanted answers about what happened to Mungchi, and
(43:21):
this information now gives them some closure and a body
so that a funeral can be planned for some time
in the future. The murder trial of Joseph ellige began
on the second of November twenty twenty one. During opening statements,
(43:42):
Joseph's defense attorney Scott Rosenblum, called Mungchi's death a tragic accident.
For the first time, their full theory emerged. He said
that during an argument, which was sparked by Joseph's belief
that Mungchie was having an affair, she pushed him. He
shoved her back, she fell and hit her head. According
(44:04):
to Joseph, she got up and went to bed and
he found her dad there the next morning. The defense
attributed her death to a subjural hamatoma, a build up
of blood on the brain. Prosecutor Don Knight refuted this.
He told the jury that Joseph had abused Munkchi throughout
their marriage, and that Joseph and his mother had worked
in tandem to keep Munchi compliant to make sure she
(44:28):
did what Joseph wanted.
Speaker 9 (44:30):
Everything in this case is going to be the munk
She was a great mother. She loved Anna with everything
she had after she gave birth to Anna, the defendant,
You're going to hear multiple recordings where the defendant would
(44:51):
threaten her and abuse her, call her names things, like
this and this one on for about a year, all
the way up until the time the defendant killed Munshie
on October eighth of twenty nineteen, when Anna was one
year old.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
He played a recording in which Joseph criticized Mungchi for
eating like a pig, sworet her repeatedly and belittled her mother.
At one point, Joseph had asked, do you want me
to leave? I'll leave and never come back. I'm not happy.
Here on the recording, Munchie could be heard sobbing. Night
(45:33):
then told the jury the defendant thought that the hierarchy
of human beings was where men were always superior to women.
He told the jury about the gravances list found on
Joseph's notes and the script he drafted about what to
say to detectives. Testimony then began. Jurors listened to nine
(45:54):
hours of audio recordings between Joseph and Mungchi from the
ten months before she disappeared. The couple had often given
each other massages as a way to be intimate, but
even those moments had become rare and, by Joseph's own
words in one recording, unsatisfying to him. Then came the
technical evidence. Self phone data plotted Joseph's movements after munk
(46:17):
Chie vanished maps that placed him in the area of
South Rock Quarry Road, the very place where her remains
would later be found. It had rained on the day
he drove out there. Investigators searched the apartment on the
seventeenth of October. Police photographed muddy boots and collected them
as evidence. A trial, Will Randall of the Missouri Highway
(46:39):
Patrol Crime Lab testified that soil from those boots was
similar to soil at the site where Munchie's body was found.
Another expert testified that juniper needles recovered from the boots
and from the gravesite were also a match. Patholo just
Keith Norton told the jury he couldn't establish a precise
time of death due to the passage of time and
(46:59):
the condition of the remains, but he confirmed that her
death was caused by another person. He also said it
was highly unlikely that the pattern of broken ribs had
come from a simple fall. On the ninth of November,
the court room fell silent as Joseph Ellige took to
the stand. He described a turbulent relationship. He said that
he and mung Chi communicated differently because of their backgrounds
(47:22):
and cultures, claiming he spoke in metaphors she didn't understand,
while she raised unrelated past events During arguments that spiraled,
He told the jury he sometimes perceived misunderstandings as attacks
because it was difficult to understand each other. He spoke
about the period when Mungchi's parents came from China to
help with the baby. I felt very isolated and like
(47:44):
I was being pushed out of my own home. By
twenty nineteen, he said, he'd begun contemplating divorce. Their intimacy
had dwindled, and in October, he claimed he discovered Mungchi
had been having an emotional affair with a man in
China on wee chat. They argued on the it of
October twenty to nineteen, he said, and.
Speaker 10 (48:04):
She pushed me once or twice, and before I pushed
her back.
Speaker 8 (48:08):
Well, you say you pushed her back? Was it just
a gentle push?
Speaker 1 (48:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (48:13):
It was it was hard.
Speaker 8 (48:15):
How hard tell the jury how hard you pushed her back?
Speaker 5 (48:20):
It was very hard. I was. Do you remember she
ran into like the kitchen counter.
Speaker 8 (48:30):
And when she hit the kitchen counter, did you know
whether she was hurt.
Speaker 5 (48:35):
She kind of like screamed about it.
Speaker 8 (48:38):
Did she come back at you?
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yes, she did very quickly.
Speaker 8 (48:43):
Very quickly. So this is happening in what a blink
of an eye?
Speaker 5 (48:47):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (48:48):
Were you choreographing it? Were you figuring out every move?
Or was it just happening in the blink of an eye?
Speaker 5 (48:53):
It was just happening.
Speaker 8 (48:54):
And when she was hit on the counter and she
came at you again, what was your reaction?
Speaker 10 (49:00):
I pushed her again, hard hard, I believen harder. She
fell down here, her hit anything, she fell, she.
Speaker 6 (49:11):
Fell in the kitchen, and she her head hit with
a big bug.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
I felt it.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
According to Joseph, Mungchi went to bed and when he
woke the next morning, she was dead. He admitted he
put her body in the trunk of the car and
waited almost two days before driving to Rockbridge stay at
Park with their daughter. There, he said he dug a
grave and buried her. Prosecutor Knight challenged that version directly.
(49:38):
He suggested that Joseph had killed Mungchi while giving her
a massage, an intimate routine turned lethal. He asked, do
you want to tell the jury how you really killed
your wife?
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
He revealed that urine was fond on the bed sheets,
noting that people often urinate while being killed by asphyxiation.
Speaker 9 (49:57):
Did you hit her with a toolbox real hard, come
down straight on that back.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
No?
Speaker 9 (50:03):
Did you maybe stand up on top of her it
chunk on top of her back?
Speaker 8 (50:08):
No?
Speaker 5 (50:12):
Did you suffocate her? No?
Speaker 9 (50:16):
Did just strangle her a cause of her urinates on
the bed?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
No?
Speaker 9 (50:21):
You admitted there was urine on that bed, correct, Yes,
you killed.
Speaker 5 (50:29):
Her on that bed of your honor overruled No.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
The defense floated an alternative explanation, the wild animals could
have broken muncheese ribs after death. The prosecution conjured with
the pathologist's assessment the sequence and location of the fractures
were far more consistent with force applied by a person
than with post mortem animal activity. With thought, the two
competing narratives stood in stark relief. A fatal fall after
(51:00):
a shove or deliberate killing carried out in the privacy
of a home where fear and control had been documented
for months. The trial drew to a close, and with
it came the final words from both sides. Prosecutor Dan
Knight stood before the jury and described Joseph ellige as
nothing less than a stone cold killer. He reminded them
(51:22):
of the damning audio recordings they had listened to throughout
the trial, in which Joseph belittled, insulted, and threatened his
wife over and over again. And I told the jury
that these tapes revealed the true character of Joseph, a
man who sought to control mung Chi and who ultimately
silenced her forever. He urged them to hold him accountable,
(51:42):
to find him guilty of firstgree murder. The defense, however,
tried to paint a different picture. Joseph's attorney, Scott Rosenblum,
acknowledged that his client was awkward, that he made dumb decisions,
and that his actions in the day after Mungchi's disappearance
were deeply sen suspicious, but he insisted that Joseph never
(52:03):
in's handed to kill his wife. He argued that what
happened wasn't murder but a tragic accident, and that Joseph's
flaws as a husband didn't make him a killer. When
the jury retired to deliberate, there was a heavy tension
in the courtroom, or stracked on almost seven in total
before the word finally came back that the jury had
(52:25):
reached a verdict. The verdict was then read aloud, guilty
of second degree murder. He was acquitted of the more
serious charge of first degree murder. The jury then recommended
a maximum sentence of twenty eight years in prison, and
while the final decision would rest with the judge, the
(52:46):
sentence couldn't exceed the jury's recommendation. On the seventh of
January twenty twenty two, everybody returned to court for sentencing.
Monky's parents weren't there, but her friend Louise Hall invited
a victim impact statement.
Speaker 11 (53:02):
I still can't hear her, loving her voice, her lovely face,
Like still can see that. So this is really pample
to me. He want us to kind of play with us,
He told us when she was gone, because she was
a bad mother, she left her baby away. He wanted
(53:24):
us to think Moncei is.
Speaker 8 (53:25):
A bad person.
Speaker 11 (53:27):
So this really hurt us a lot, and especially what
he did to Mons.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
The judge then handed down the maximum punishment alloud, twenty
eight years behind bars. It was a number that felt
both heavy and to some insufficient. Outside the courtroom, Monchi's family,
represented by their attorney, Amy Saladay spoke to the wedding
cameras her husband received one year for every year of
(53:56):
her life. This doesn't bring her back, It doesn't mean
the nightmare of waking up every day and not being
able to talk or see your child go away. But
it is justice in terms of what the American court
system can provide. In February of twenty twenty two, Joseph
Ellich returned to court to resolve the remaining charges against him.
(54:17):
He pleaded guilty to child abuse and endangerment stemming from
the injuries he had inflicted on his daughter Anna. The
judge ordered him to serve an additional ten years on
top of his twenty eight year sentence for Munchie's murder.
The case marked the end of a long chapter for
prosecutor Dan Knight, who had guided the investigation and trial
(54:39):
from the earliest days of Munchie's disappearance. On the fourth
of June twenty twenty two, just months after the trial concluded,
news broke that night had been found dead in his home.
He had taken his own life. Well that is it
(55:21):
for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so
much for listening, and I'd like to say a massive
thank you to my newest supporters up on petron Kalia, Rebecca, Chris, Justin,
and Kelly. You're support upon their seriously goes such a
long way and I am eternally grateful. In exchange for
your support, I upload add free and early release episodes
(55:42):
of Morbidology, and I also upload behind the scenes which
includes bonus audio videos and case files. This episode actually
has a whole bunch of bonus videos into the investigation
that I received via a freedom of information request, so
head on over there if you're interested. I also upload
both episodes of Morbidology plus that aren't on the regular
(56:02):
podcast platforms, and these are also available on Apple subscriptions
as well. Remember to check as out at morbidology dot
com for more information about this episode and to read
some true Grime articles. Until next time, take care of yourselves,
stay safe, and have an amazing week.
And he said five about five am, the babies.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Up, Yeah, and she was crying so and uh, I
was really surprised.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
That she wasn't there.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
Rockbridge Memorial State Park is a place of beauty nestled
in the heart of Missouri. It's a stretch of wilderness
where nature shows both its gentle and untamed sides. The
park's grand dule is its namesake, Rockbridge, a towering natural
limestone arch carved over thousands of years by water pressing
through the stone around it. The land on folds like
(01:15):
a labyrinth. More in two thousy two hundred acres of
dense hardwood forest, winding trails, sinkhals caves, and the famous
Stevil's Ice Box, a cavern where underground streams snake through
Missouri's ancient coarse landscape. In early spring, when the frost
finally loosens its grip, the forest floor awakens. Wild floors
(01:36):
dot the trails with color, birds return, filling the canopy
with songs. On the morning of March fifteenth, two thousand
and twenty, a man named Stephen Roberts decided to take
advantage of the good weather. He laysd up his hiking
boots and headed out to the trails at Rockbridge Memorial.
The forest was alive around him. The path was familiar,
(01:59):
but as he walked, something unusual caught his attention. Just
beyond the tree line, something sharp and rectangular broke the
natural shape of bank and leaves. Curiosity tugged at him.
He stepped off the trail and made his way through
the undergrowth, but when he drew closer, he froze. On
(02:20):
the ground, half covered by foliage, was a human skull.
Mung Chiji Elige was born on the eighteenth of April
(02:40):
nineteen ninety one in China, during the nation's strict one
child policy. Her parents Ki Ren and Shaolinji had only
ever planned for one child, and mung Chi was their everything.
Our mother would later recall, we only ever wanted one child.
We wanted to give all of our love to this child.
Mungchi was kind of daughter that most parents dreamed of.
(03:02):
She was gentle, well behaved, but also lively and curious.
Her parents placed a strong emphasis on education, and from
an early age, Munchi thrived. By the time she was five,
she was already practicing calligraphy and painting, carefully guided by
her parents belief in cultivating hobbies. At seven, she added
swimming and ping pong to her routine. English tutoring followed
(03:25):
soon after, and by the time she was ten, she
had taken up the guitar. Photography was another passion, one
her father nurtured by making sure she always had the
best cameras, but painting remained her true love. Her mother
remembered proudly. We thought that the development of hobbies was
important for the growth of Mungchi. It was clear from
(03:46):
the start that Mungchi was remarkable. In two thousand and nine,
she was accepted into the prestigious East China University of
Science and Technology in Shanghai. Three years later, an opportunity
presented itself that we changed the course of her life forever.
She was accepted into an exchange program in the United
States and enrolled at the University of Missouri. There, Mungchi
(04:09):
completed her undergraduate studies and went on to earn a
master's degree in mechanical and aerospace engineering. She excelled at
the point that one of her professors, who was impressed
by her intelligence and dedication, hired her straight out of skill.
The company was a biomaterials firm called Nonva and It
was there within the sterile technical halls of Science and
(04:31):
Innovation that Mungchi met Joseph Elich. Joseph had grown up
in Kansas City and was studying engineering at the same
university at No Nova. Mungchi was technically his supervisor, but
soon enough professional boundaries blurred and the two started dating.
Her friend Chui Jang remembered she didn't know why, but
(04:53):
she was crazy about Joe. A year and a half
into their relationship, Joseph proposed while they were hiking at
Rockbridge Memorials step Park. Two weeks later, Munchi and Joseph
were married. It was a whirlwind. Love was part of it, certainly,
but so too with circumstances. Mung Chi's visa was set
to expire, and marriage meant that she could stay in
(05:15):
the United States and stay with Joseph. The couple moved
into an apartment on Eastwood Drive. Just months into the marriage,
mung Chi was offered a big job opportunity. It could
have been a pivotal moment in her career, but then
came unexpected news she was pregnant. At that time, mung
Chi was the sole bread winner. Joseph had quit his
(05:37):
job to finish school, and he was a senior mechanical
engineering student with no steady income. But the decision was
made Mung Chi would turn down the job and become
a step at home mother. In October of twenty eighteen,
their daughter Anna was born. In Chinese tradition, the first
one hundred days after a baby's birth, at a sacred period,
(06:00):
it's customary for the grandparents to come and stay, helping
to care for both mother and child, enduring rest, protection
and a smooth transition into new life. True to tradition,
Mungchi's parents flew in from China to help their daughter
and meet their granddaughter. For a time, life seemed stable,
(06:20):
but beneath the surface, cracks were beginning to form. Mung
Chain Joseph was once dreamed of building a big family together.
They spoke of three, maybe even five children, and imagined
raising them in a house that blended both American and
Chinese traditions. It was the kind of vision that many
(06:43):
young couple share, a house filled with laughter, a mix
of cultures, and the promise of a future built together.
But after their daughter Anna was born, things began to shift.
Mungchi loved her baby deeply, but the ache of homesickness
grew strong her, especially after her parents returned to China.
(07:04):
The apartment that had once felt like a new beginning
now seemed almost isolating. Her lifeline to home became her
daily phone call with her mother, ki Ren. Every day
without fail, they spoke, sharing the ups and downs of motherhood,
the quiet frustrations, and the joy of watching Anna grow.
But then, on the ninth of October twenty and nineteen,
(07:26):
the phone never rang. At first, ki Ran tried to
brush away her unease. Maybe Mungchi was tired, maybe she
was busy. But when ours passed with no word, she
began to call again and again. Her daughter never picked up.
The next day, silence continued. Ki Ran reached out to
(07:47):
Joseph directly, calling and texting, but he didn't respond either.
Panic began to settle in desper She asked one of
Munchi's friends to check on her. When that friend arrived
at the Eastwood Drive apartment, Joseph was there alone with Anna.
Munk Chi was nowhere to be found. Joseph told the
(08:08):
friend that when he woke up on the morning of
the ninth of October, his wife was simply gone. Despite
his wife being missing. Joseph's demeanor was strange, calm, detached,
even nonchalant. He ran confronted him over a video call,
demanding he take action. She urged him to report her
daughter missing. Joseph sent a few casual texts to friends
(08:32):
asking if they had seen mun Chi. Eventually, he phoned
three to one one, the non emergency line, to report
his wife missing.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
Yesterday morning, I just woke up and then she was gone.
You wasn't here the night before. I went to sleep
with her at the thing, you know, we said at
the same time, but whether it was just the next
morning she was gone and HeLa her her wedding rings,
(09:01):
and she left her phone and her car with her keys.
I think her.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
After making the missing person's report, detectives arrived at Joseph
and Mungchi's apartment. When they sat down with Joseph after
the report, they asked him to explain what had happened.
Joseph's story went like this. On the evening of October eighth,
mung Chi had gone to bed, Joseph steed up in
the living room, watching YouTube videos and playing video games
(09:43):
at her On eleven thirty pm, he finally joined her
she was in bed when he fell asleep. He said.
At five am, their daughter Anna's cries woke him. He
rolled over and noticed that mung Chi was no longer
in bed. She wasn't in the apart either. Her keys
were there, her phone was there, but Joseph didn't look
(10:04):
for her. Instead, he climbed back into bed and fell
asleep again. Three hours later, on his cries will come
up once more. This time, Joseph said, he got up
and fed her. He said it was the first time
he had ever fed his daughter himself munk. She had
been brast feeding, although she sometimes left bottles of expressed milk.
(10:28):
Joseph explained that he simply mimicked what he had seen
his wife do.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
And he said five about five am, the babies up. Yeah, yeah, baby,
look up and she was crying.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
So I woke up, and I was really surprised that
the munk she wasn't there.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
And then I went to get Anna.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
I kind of thought that Munchie might be in the
room with Anna.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
But she wasn't, and started putting in it down. See
by looking all the way the place of the career,
she wasn't there. Her purse was.
Speaker 5 (10:58):
Gone, so I don't think she took us per what kind.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
Of her she have? It's how jess a fabric curse
has what color?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Black is a bass color and has like white stars,
and inside the star it actually has red stripes, and
I think has like a little blue corner.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
Like an American players. So that's all she All she
took was her person. Yeah, and he said, says she's yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
I noticed her black nikes are missing, so I.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
Guess she must be wearing those.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
It was only then that Joseph noticed that munk Chi's
car was still parked out side. Even so, he didn't search,
she didn't call friends, and he didn't alert police. He
said he thought that munk She might have gone on
an errand or perhaps he speculated that she had even
left him for another month. According to Joseph, while combing
(11:49):
through her laptop after she vanished, he found journal anddrees
in which she admitted to having an emotional affair with
someone back in China.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
There is I actually found this earlier. It's like a
journal tucolate document. It's just a word file and it
talks about her I feeling like some secret love. She
mentioned this guy's name and actually it turns out it's
this guy right here. Yeah, I just I just messaged
(12:23):
him earlier and he responded to me. But I think
he's in China right now. But anyway, I think this
is her secret love or something.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's probably back in China.
Speaker 2 (12:35):
I suppose I think he was here though, because he says,
I'll be back in Shanghai tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
I'll be busy. I'll be in Shanghai for the for
the next week or for the next few days. I'll
be out of time. And I don't know when that was.
It just says ten thirty three again.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
He recalled one line in particular, which read, it's sad
though that I have no interest in my husband but.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
That but that she's married and she had bating and
so she has to stop like doing this message in
him there. I think, yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
don't know if she's seen this guy, but right so
she might not even have met this dude, is what
you're thinking.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I kind of think that she has because, like I
said that, I think there's been about four times where
she's gone out and she's been out for like an
a reasonably long time a time. Yeah, pretty much, and
then she always gives some weird excuse. The first, the
weirdest time was she went out. She was walking out
(13:37):
the door, who has And I asked her where she
was going, and she said that she has to get
something from her car. And it was about forty five
minutes later she came back with the spoon that was
in her car for like probably two years.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
I remember really spoon, Yeah, and she came back with
that spoon.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
For detectives, none of this stot right. It was highly
unusual for her husband to wait so long before reporting
his wife missinggan to press harder. Had there been an
argument before she disappeared? Joseph claimed no. Then, almost as
an afterthought, he admitted they had what he described as
a small fight about a week earlier. Nothing serious, he insisted,
(14:16):
but he went on to paint a picture of a
strained marriage. Intimacy had waned Mungchie, he said, had become withdrawn.
He admitted that it left him frustrated. The night before
she disappeared, Joseph described giving her a massage. He told detectives,
I was going kind of slow. I was trying to
(14:36):
drag it out because I wanted to extend the amount
of time that we were together doing something. He said
that Mungchi seemed tense. She then told them she needed
to be somewhere in the morning. Curious, Joseph pressed her,
asking three separate times who she was meeting. Her response
each time was the same me she wouldn't elaborate what
(14:59):
Joseph I did the next day, the day he discovered
his wife missing, only deep in detective suspicions. Instead of
searching for Mungchi, he packed Anna into the car and
took two long drives in mung Chi's vehicle. He wasn't
looking for his wife, he said, he was looking for
new hiking trails. He said to investigators, there's this big
(15:22):
area that's all grain on Google Maps, and so I
wanted to go and see if there were walking paths
back there. His route wandered through Ashland, then back and
forth to Guthrie before heading towards Columbia and Rockport. By
his own account, he drove around aimlessly until around ten pm.
Detective John Voss asked the obvious question, did you lock
(15:44):
your door when you left the apartment. You've got her
keys in her car, her phones in the house. She
can't even call anybody, Joseph sammed. Caught off guard, he replied, yeah,
I don't know. Police quickly went public with news of
(16:12):
Mungchi's disappearance, appealing to the community for help. Missing person
posters were circulated with her description a young Chinese woman
with brown eyes and shoulder length black hair, often worn
in a neat bun. She said somewhere between five foot
one inch and five foot three inches, with both ears pierced.
(16:33):
At first, investigators considered the possibility that Joseph's claim might
be true, that mung Chi had left him for another man,
perhaps even returned to China, but that theory crumbled almost immediately.
All of her essentials were still in the apartment. Her phone,
her iPod, her passport, even her clothing. Everything she would
(16:54):
have needed to leave had simply been left behind. It
was impossible to believe she had gone very far without them,
and more importantly, Mungchi's one year old daughter, Anna was
still at home. Those who knew her bath said that
Anna was their entire world. The idea that she would
abandon her child was unthinkable. As the search intensified, Joseph
(17:16):
Alich made his first public appearance. He sat down with
CBS affiliate KRCG and give his version of events.
Speaker 6 (17:26):
Talk to me about Menji is Menji, that's how you
pronounced me.
Speaker 5 (17:29):
It's actually mung Chi and it has talne to it's mung.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Chi looking Subdurity told the reporter he believed that mung
Chi had left him for another mom.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
What do you think about the fact that she left
behind for Wallee and everything, uh, while at her passport
and her fond So that suffs very weird to me.
I know she was talking to somebody else on the side,
and I didn't know that until after she had left.
But uh, you know, whatever, whatever she's doing, I just
(18:02):
hope she's safe. And I really hope that she can,
you know, find herself and come back to me and
and and we can just have a big long talk
and that's all we need, but we can work things out.
I think she's she's just confused and maybe scared, and
I don't know if she felt alone. But I just
(18:22):
really want her to come back. And it does worry
me she doesn't have any of that stuff. I just
really yeah, I just hope that she's safe. I hope
that she's with at least with somebody who cares for her,
you know, enough to keep her safe.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
And came across is awkward, even smiling. Several times. He
described her as a joting mother, but quickly turned the
focus back to their martal problems.
Speaker 6 (18:48):
I have absolutely no idea where she might be. It's
just all so strange. She just disappeared. I don't know.
I just really don't know. She hasn't contacted anybody. She
talked to her mom, I think probably two or three
times every single day. The fact that she hasn't heard
from her really worries me is very surprising. At it's
(19:13):
just hard to think about what's going on.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
To Manny, Joseph sounded like a husband grasping for answers,
but to detectives, his behavior seemed almost rehearsed, and his
words raised more questions than they answered. Behind the scene,
suspicion was already turning squarely in Joseph's direction. The first
(19:38):
red flag was how little concern he seemed to show
for his wife's disappearance. Detectives discovered that on the ninth
of October, the very morning he claimed to have found
her missing, Joseph texted his mother a birthday greeting in
that message, he never mentioned that his wife was missing.
It wasn't until the following day that he casually took
(20:00):
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(21:23):
classmate saying he wouldn't be a school to work on
a project. He offered no explanation. The next day, he
followed up with another text, I'm kind of stuck at
home and busy with my daughter again, not a single
mention of his wife being missing. The investigators it was baffling.
A spouse disappearing would normally spark panic phone calls, questions,
(21:48):
frantic searches, but Joseph behaved as if nothing had changed
at all. He later told detectives he avoided thinking about
it because he had classwork to focus on. This was
his last semester of skill, he explained, and he wanted
to give attention to that and to his daughter Anna.
The explanation rang hollow. Detective stuck deeper. They learned that
(22:11):
Mungchi's marriage was far from happy friends and acquaintances painted
a picture of a relationship that was weighed down by resentment, loneliness,
and cultural clashes. One interview stood out. Daniel Culp, a
former boyfriend of Mungchi, revealed that she had reached out
to him in late August twenty nineteen, just weeks before
(22:34):
she disappeared. She asked for information about a divorce attorney.
It was a crucial detail. It meant that Mungchi hadn't
simply disappeared into the night. She was actively considering leaving Joseph.
Detectives called Joseph back in for another round of questioning.
This time, their tone was sharper less accommodating.
Speaker 5 (22:57):
I get to relax at the same time.
Speaker 7 (23:00):
Wait a minute, you got to relax. Your wife is missing,
You're now the sole caregiver of a one year old child,
and you went on a relaxing drive. I gotta tell you,
you know that strikes me as strange, and I don't
think I'm alone in that. I think Alan here would
probably agree with that. I think ninety nine out of
(23:22):
one hundred people on the street would say that's not
the time to relax. I mean, you haven't even told
anybody I don't know where my wife is. Yeah, you got.
I'm asking you to look at this from my standpoint, right, Yeah,
because I have a job to do. My job is
define mention, Right, I understand, for good or for bad,
it's the finest. If she left on her own and
(23:43):
she wants to stay gone, that's her right the boy,
or she didn't. We got a whole different situation, doesn't we.
If somebody did something to her, or if she accidentally
did something to herself, we absolutely cannot stop until we
find her. You understand that, right.
Speaker 5 (24:00):
Yeah. I want to hope you guy as much as I.
Speaker 7 (24:02):
Can, and I will not apologize for doing my job
and asking to some questions. You understand that too, Right,
did you kill your wife?
Speaker 5 (24:10):
No?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
I did not, But detectives weren't convinced. The pieces weren't
fitting together, and Joseph Ellige was looking more and more
like the only person who knew the truth. Detective suspicions
of Joseph Villige were growing by the day. They obtained
(24:33):
a search weren't for his cell phone, hoping it would
shed light on his movements or his concern for his
missing wife. Instead, what they found only deep in there
on ease. On October ninth, Joseph made no attempt to
contact anybody about his wife's whereabouts. Not a single call,
not a single message. It wasn't until the next day,
(24:55):
after mung Chi's mother, ky Wren, began sounding the alarm
the joseh have reached out. He contacted his brother Richard,
asking if he had seen her. Soon after, somebody identified
as Deway messaged Joseph, offering suggestions on how to track
mung Chi down, but Joseph's responses revealed little urgency. Just
(25:18):
fifty minutes later, he texted Richard again, not about Munchi,
but to ask if he wanted to play online games.
He then replied to Deway, saying he contacted police and
was exhausted. After that, Joseph got online and played video
games with a relative while his wife was missing. He
(25:38):
was gaming, But the most damning discoveries weren't about what
Joseph didn't do. They were about what he had been
doing on his phone. Detectives uncovered ours of secret recordings
Joseph had made of his wife dan Ors in total
in June of twenty nineteen. One recording captured him coldly
(25:59):
saying I'm ready to be done talking to you forever.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
I don't like being married to you. I don't like
living with you.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
Just a month later, another recording, I would like to
discuss our relationship, and I'm kind of ready to discuss
the end of it as well, Joseph Bluntley told mung
Chi he wanted a divorce.
Speaker 6 (26:20):
I want to divorce you, okay. I want that to
happen during this semester. I want it to happen soon,
sooner or better, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
In his own words, I'm open to joint custody of
your staying in America. Anna is not leaving America. I
can tell you that. He then mocked her, saying he
didn't like being married to her, didn't like living with her,
and was eager for the relationship to end. He even
made fun of her appearance. In other moments, he veered
(26:49):
into threats. He pressured her to operate with a quick
and cheap divorce, warning that if she refused, he would
tell the court she had been abusive to him.
Speaker 6 (26:58):
You find all those stories about men and or women
rather spouse killed them whatever, because you weren't trying to
live peacefully with me.
Speaker 8 (27:08):
You want me to do you want me to hurt somebody.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
He even threatened her immigration start us, telling her, should
I mention in court that you're abusive to me? Should
I ask him to deport you? In another recording, Joseph
told Mungchi he would stop sponsoring her for citizenship, promising
she would be deported while he stayed in America with Anna,
you probably would.
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Get deported as mine. So I don't know. Are you
gonna play nice? Are you gonna try and play good?
Speaker 6 (27:35):
Obviously I'm not gonna represent you to stay in America anymore.
Speaker 5 (27:39):
But Anna's not leaving America. I can't tell you that.
Speaker 3 (27:42):
Only months later, Mungchi vanished. The most disturbing evidence of
all didn't come from Joseph's secret recordings. It came from
Mungchi herself. She too had been quietly recording her husband
(28:03):
since two thousand and eighteen, capturing the dark reality of
life inside their home. On October twenty ninth, two thousand
and eighteen, a year before her disappearance, Mungchi recorded nearly
an r long rant. Joseph's voice thundered with anger as
he said, what are you trying to do? Are you
trying to make me go crazy? So that you can
(28:25):
call police on me and take my fucking baby from me.
His fury spiraled and his threats escalated. Do you want
me to fucking breakshit? Do you want me to hurt somebody?
The source of that argument was her parents. After Anna
was born, Mungchi's mother and father had traveled from China
to help for the first one hundred days of the
(28:45):
baby's life. Instead of gratitude, Joseph reacted with anger and hostility.
I don't want your mom here. Your mom is causing problems.
Your mom should fucking leave. Mungchi, who was exhausted and
recovering from childbirth, pushed back. She told him that she
needed her mother's help to care for herself and their baby.
(29:07):
Her reply was calm and defiant. If I don't take
care of my own body, my own health, it's not
responsible for me of this family. But Joseph's hatred of
her mother only deepened. He told her flatly, I don't
like that woman, and I don't think you should either.
He seemed particularly annoyed whenever they spoke Chinese in the home,
(29:28):
accusing them of speaking behind his back. Eventually, Mungchi's father
returned to China, but her mother, Kiren remained to help
her daughter. That only fueled Joseph's anger. One afternoon, while
kai Rehn was making dumplings for Joseph's birthday, a trivial
dispute over a cutting board erupted into another rage filled rant.
(29:50):
Joseph's voice thundered through the recording, don't do my cutting
board like that. I'm telling you cutting board doesn't like that.
The argument asked related until Joseph screamed at his wife
that her mother needed to go. There's going to be
fucking problems if she tries sting. I'm gonna make it
fucking go away. Munchi tried to raise him with him,
(30:11):
she told him he wasn't god, that he didn't understand.
His response was chilling. I am a fucking god. I say, mom,
don't stay here. She don't stay here. The rank grew uglier,
with Joseph bleddling her as a woman, telling her she
was incapable, that she was only impowered because of society,
(30:33):
and then, perhaps most disturbingly, he launched into a bizarre monologue.
You know how I conquer nature. I fucking kill it.
I grab its head and break its fucking neck. That's
how you conquer fucking nature. Through these recordings, the truth
was undeniable. Munchi was living in a marriage marked by control, intimidation,
(30:55):
and abuse, and Joseph Elige, who police now suspected far worse,
seemed determined to assert power overhear at any cost. After
that explosive argument about her mother, mung Chi did something desperate.
(31:19):
She picked up the phone and called Joseph's mother, Jeane Gerringer.
Jane lived two hours away, but she came immediately, hoping
to mediate the situation. On a recording mung Chi made
that night, she can be heard telling Jane, I have
no choice. I had to call you. I'm sorry. He's
gonna come back and just I don't know, unpredictable things
(31:42):
are gonna happen. Jean told her daughter in law that
she wasn't there to take sides, she was simply there
to offer advice and guidance, but Joseph didn't back down,
even with his own mother in the room.
Speaker 5 (31:55):
Join this smacker his beer down. You wanted to I
have that? Yes, you can't. I'm not going ago there.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
The confrontation eventually killed, and Joseph even apologized, But despite
tradition and despite munk Cheese please, he forced Ki Ran
to return to China before the one hundred days of
help were up. On October twenty fifth, twenty nineteen, just
two weeks after Munkchie vanished, police escalated her case from
(32:25):
a missing person to a criminal investigation. Detectives believed that
Joseph Elige had killed his wife. They just needed enough
evidence to prove it. That same day, officers arrived at
Joseph's apartment. What they found raised immediate alarm. Joseph was
outside in a car with his daughter Anna and his
(32:46):
mother Jean. Their bags were packed. It looked like they
were preparing to flee. Detectives arrested him on the spot.
Jean spoke with an officer as her son was arrested.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Were expecting this.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
At that point, detectives didn't yet have enough to charge
Joseph with murder. Instead, they arrested him on child abuse
and neglect charges. When detectives had sat down with Mungchi's mother,
she revealed something deeply disturbing. She said that one night,
Mungchie had noticed bruises on Anna's botocks. When she confronted
(33:24):
Joseph about them, he initially denied knowing how they got there,
but when Mungchi threatened to take their daughter to the hospital,
his story changed. Joseph admitted that one night, Anna wouldn't
stop crying. In his words, he pinched her. Munchie didn't
report it to police because Joseph swore it would never
happen again, but Ki Ran had proof. She sowed detectives
(33:48):
a photograph her daughter had taken of the bruises. When
they searched Mungche's iPad, they found the same images, along
with others. Some were too small to see clearly, as
though the full size originals had been deleted on her laptop.
Investigators found even more disturbing evidence, full sized photos and
(34:09):
videos of Anna's injuries that were saved from her iPhone
back up. One of the photographs matched exactly the one
that Munchi had sent her mother. With this evidence, prosecutors
increased the charges. Joseph was now facing first degree child
in dangerment. His bond was set at half a million dollars. Jean,
(34:29):
his mother, was given custody of Anna. When questioned, Joseph
admitted to causing the bruises, but insisted they only came
from a pinch. Medical experts disagreed the injuries were consistent
with being struck, not pinched. With Joseph behind bars, detectives
executed a search warrant on the couple's apartment. Inside they
(34:50):
found a bag that belonged to Joseph. Stuffed inside were
written notes, statements almost identical to the ones he had
given investigators that were also hand written reminders to himself.
One note instructed refer to mung Chi in the present tents,
not the past tense. And then detectives discovered something, And
(35:14):
then detectives discovered something darker. Another page was titled simply Grievances.
Underneath Joseph had listed all the reasons he hated his wife.
One said, mung Chi is toxic and I thoroughly believe
she enjoys poisoning other people. It was a disturbing window
(35:36):
into Joseph's mindset and the detectives. It was one more
sign pointing to a calculated, controlling man who may have
already silenced his wife forever. As the investigation pressed forward,
(35:58):
another battle began, this one over the custody of Anna.
At the time, Anna was living with Joseph's mother, Jane,
but Mungchi's parents had flown all the way from China
to Missouri, determined to care for their granddaughter. They argued
that it was in Anna's best interest to live with
them and that it was exactly what Mungchi would have wanted.
(36:19):
In a statement, their attorney wrote, Jane Elige continues to
withhold information from Mungchi's parents and failed to inform them
of the pending case for guardianship of their granddaughter. There
was also the troubling detail that when Joseph was arrested,
bags were packed and Jane was right there with him
in the car, seemingly preparing to flee with Anna. In
(36:41):
the end, both sides reached an agreement shared custody between
Jane and Mungchi's parents and a no contact order between
Joseph and his daughter. Meanwhile, the search for Mungji pressed forward.
Detectives turned their attention to Joseph's movements in the days
after she disappeared. He had given a detail the count
(37:01):
of where he claimed he had driven, telling police he
was out looking for hiking trails, but cell phone data
told a different story. Yes, his phone had pinged off
tars in the areas he had mentioned, but then it
deviated instead of heading home after Rockport. His phone data
showed him traveling west towards Boonville and later to the
(37:23):
area of Highway forty one and the Lemine River. He
said in that area for roughly forty five minutes before
turning back east and heading home. The detectives the detour
was damming, Joseph never being to these locations before, and
both areas sat directly on the Missouri River, perfect places
they feared for a body to be dumped and swept away.
(37:47):
Investigators quickly deployed cadaver dogs to the Lemine River near
Highway forty one. The dogs hid on the scent of
human decomposition in the water. Divers were called in, but
the task was nearly impossible. Visibility was poor debris clogged
the river. The next day, detectives brought in heavy machinery,
(38:09):
using a boom truck and dredging bucket to remove logs
and flood debris before sending divers back in. Still there
was no sign of mung chi. With deer hunting season beginning,
detectives turned to the community. They urged hunters and landowners
to check their trail cameras for any suspicious activity from
October eighth to October eleventh. By December, the search was
(38:33):
still sandered on the river. Detectives were convinced that Joseph
had killed his wife and left her there. They explained
the grim reality. A body can think if it's weighted
or if water fills the lungs, but its decomposition sets
in gases build up, causing the body to resurface currents,
though can move at Milestone Stream, investigators focus their efforts
(38:57):
on the easternmost bridge, piling underhead Yghway forty one, just
north of Interstate seventies exit ninety eighth. But no matter
how hard they searched, they couldn't find mung Chi and
in the meantime, Joseph's legal trouble escalated. He was already
facing trial for child abuse and in dangerment. In January,
his attorney, John O'Connor requested that the trial be moved,
(39:21):
claiming substantial media buzz would prevent the fair hearing. Judge
Brock Jacobs denied the move, but allowed for an outside
jury to be brought in, and then just a month later,
in February, prosecutors made their move. Even without a body,
Joseph Ellige was officially charged with murder. Detectives believed that
(39:42):
Joseph had suffocated or strangled mung Chi, possibly while giving
her a massage. There was no blood, no sign of
a violent struggle, and no defensive wounds on Joseph himself.
The motive, they speculated, was simple and disturbing. He simply
didn't want to go through with the divorce. Joseph Ellige
(40:02):
pleaded not guilty. In Abril, detectives announced a new tactic.
They were building a levee into the Lemine River to
aid in the search for mung Ches's body. For weeks,
crews inched forward, mud sucked at boots, spring rains clawed
back their progress. Still they kept going. They searched all
(40:23):
the way up until December. Then came the announcement that
nobody wanted to hear. The river search was being called
off online, the legal machinery was grinding forward. Prosecution and
defense teams were busy preparing for the upcoming trial. Prosecutors
knew that the road ahead would be steep without a
body nobody, convictions are notoriously difficult. Without remains, you can't
(40:48):
prove cause or even manner of death. Time of death
is gaswork. Physical evidence is scarce. Defense attorneys can argue
reasonable doubt at every turn. Maybe the person left voluntary,
maybe they had an accident elsewhere. Maybe there's simply not
enough proof someone is dead, let alone murdered. In those cases,
(41:08):
the state lives and dies on circumstantial evidence, timelines, behavior,
and motive. Then on the twenty fifth of March, everything changed.
A man named Stephen Roberts was hiking in an isolated
area off South rock Quarry Road in Rockbridge Memorial State Park,
not far from the trail where Joseph had once proposed
(41:31):
to mung chi. The woods there are quiet, the kind
of quiet that makes small things stand out. While hiking,
a rectangular object caught Stephen's eye, out of place among
roots and leaves. He moved closer. It was a purse,
and then he spotted something else, a human skull faiths
(41:53):
down in the earth. Stephen immediately called police. Within ours
the isolated trail wasn't i anymore. Detectives, crime scene investigators,
and evidence technicians converged on the site. As they carefully
combed the area, they found more human remains near the skull.
Some bones were missing, including the right arm and right leg.
(42:16):
Inside the purse, they found mung cheese, driver's license, her
credit and bank cards. The remains were transported to the
Medical Examiner's office. DNA testing confirmed what detectives already knew
they had just found mung Chi. At the lab, the
bones were analyzed. A portion of her fourth rib was fractured.
(42:39):
Another portion of that rib was missing on the left side.
Ribs four through six showed complete fractures near the spine.
The sequence of brakes mattered, the pathologists believed they were
not likely caused by animals scattering remains. Instead, he concluded
that they were consistent with blunt force trauma. It was devastating,
(43:00):
but it brought a measure of clarity and for Mungchi's family,
a difficult kind of peace. That Attorney Amy Saladay released
a statement that read, in part, as parents of a
missing child, they always hoped for their daughter's return and
for this to be a bad dream. At the same time,
they have wanted answers about what happened to Mungchi, and
(43:21):
this information now gives them some closure and a body
so that a funeral can be planned for some time
in the future. The murder trial of Joseph ellige began
on the second of November twenty twenty one. During opening statements,
(43:42):
Joseph's defense attorney Scott Rosenblum, called Mungchi's death a tragic accident.
For the first time, their full theory emerged. He said
that during an argument, which was sparked by Joseph's belief
that Mungchie was having an affair, she pushed him. He
shoved her back, she fell and hit her head. According
(44:04):
to Joseph, she got up and went to bed and
he found her dad there the next morning. The defense
attributed her death to a subjural hamatoma, a build up
of blood on the brain. Prosecutor Don Knight refuted this.
He told the jury that Joseph had abused Munkchi throughout
their marriage, and that Joseph and his mother had worked
in tandem to keep Munchi compliant to make sure she
(44:28):
did what Joseph wanted.
Speaker 9 (44:30):
Everything in this case is going to be the munk
She was a great mother. She loved Anna with everything
she had after she gave birth to Anna, the defendant,
You're going to hear multiple recordings where the defendant would
(44:51):
threaten her and abuse her, call her names things, like
this and this one on for about a year, all
the way up until the time the defendant killed Munshie
on October eighth of twenty nineteen, when Anna was one
year old.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
He played a recording in which Joseph criticized Mungchi for
eating like a pig, sworet her repeatedly and belittled her mother.
At one point, Joseph had asked, do you want me
to leave? I'll leave and never come back. I'm not happy.
Here on the recording, Munchie could be heard sobbing. Night
(45:33):
then told the jury the defendant thought that the hierarchy
of human beings was where men were always superior to women.
He told the jury about the gravances list found on
Joseph's notes and the script he drafted about what to
say to detectives. Testimony then began. Jurors listened to nine
(45:54):
hours of audio recordings between Joseph and Mungchi from the
ten months before she disappeared. The couple had often given
each other massages as a way to be intimate, but
even those moments had become rare and, by Joseph's own
words in one recording, unsatisfying to him. Then came the
technical evidence. Self phone data plotted Joseph's movements after munk
(46:17):
Chie vanished maps that placed him in the area of
South Rock Quarry Road, the very place where her remains
would later be found. It had rained on the day
he drove out there. Investigators searched the apartment on the
seventeenth of October. Police photographed muddy boots and collected them
as evidence. A trial, Will Randall of the Missouri Highway
(46:39):
Patrol Crime Lab testified that soil from those boots was
similar to soil at the site where Munchie's body was found.
Another expert testified that juniper needles recovered from the boots
and from the gravesite were also a match. Patholo just
Keith Norton told the jury he couldn't establish a precise
time of death due to the passage of time and
(46:59):
the condition of the remains, but he confirmed that her
death was caused by another person. He also said it
was highly unlikely that the pattern of broken ribs had
come from a simple fall. On the ninth of November,
the court room fell silent as Joseph Ellige took to
the stand. He described a turbulent relationship. He said that
he and mung Chi communicated differently because of their backgrounds
(47:22):
and cultures, claiming he spoke in metaphors she didn't understand,
while she raised unrelated past events During arguments that spiraled,
He told the jury he sometimes perceived misunderstandings as attacks
because it was difficult to understand each other. He spoke
about the period when Mungchi's parents came from China to
help with the baby. I felt very isolated and like
(47:44):
I was being pushed out of my own home. By
twenty nineteen, he said, he'd begun contemplating divorce. Their intimacy
had dwindled, and in October, he claimed he discovered Mungchi
had been having an emotional affair with a man in
China on wee chat. They argued on the it of
October twenty to nineteen, he said, and.
Speaker 10 (48:04):
She pushed me once or twice, and before I pushed
her back.
Speaker 8 (48:08):
Well, you say you pushed her back? Was it just
a gentle push?
Speaker 1 (48:12):
No?
Speaker 5 (48:13):
It was it was hard.
Speaker 8 (48:15):
How hard tell the jury how hard you pushed her back?
Speaker 5 (48:20):
It was very hard. I was. Do you remember she
ran into like the kitchen counter.
Speaker 8 (48:30):
And when she hit the kitchen counter, did you know
whether she was hurt.
Speaker 5 (48:35):
She kind of like screamed about it.
Speaker 8 (48:38):
Did she come back at you?
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Yes, she did very quickly.
Speaker 8 (48:43):
Very quickly. So this is happening in what a blink
of an eye?
Speaker 5 (48:47):
Yes?
Speaker 8 (48:48):
Were you choreographing it? Were you figuring out every move?
Or was it just happening in the blink of an eye?
Speaker 5 (48:53):
It was just happening.
Speaker 8 (48:54):
And when she was hit on the counter and she
came at you again, what was your reaction?
Speaker 10 (49:00):
I pushed her again, hard hard, I believen harder. She
fell down here, her hit anything, she fell, she.
Speaker 6 (49:11):
Fell in the kitchen, and she her head hit with
a big bug.
Speaker 5 (49:16):
I felt it.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
According to Joseph, Mungchi went to bed and when he
woke the next morning, she was dead. He admitted he
put her body in the trunk of the car and
waited almost two days before driving to Rockbridge stay at
Park with their daughter. There, he said he dug a
grave and buried her. Prosecutor Knight challenged that version directly.
(49:38):
He suggested that Joseph had killed Mungchi while giving her
a massage, an intimate routine turned lethal. He asked, do
you want to tell the jury how you really killed
your wife?
Speaker 5 (49:49):
Joe.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
He revealed that urine was fond on the bed sheets,
noting that people often urinate while being killed by asphyxiation.
Speaker 9 (49:57):
Did you hit her with a toolbox real hard, come
down straight on that back.
Speaker 5 (50:02):
No?
Speaker 9 (50:03):
Did you maybe stand up on top of her it
chunk on top of her back?
Speaker 8 (50:08):
No?
Speaker 5 (50:12):
Did you suffocate her? No?
Speaker 9 (50:16):
Did just strangle her a cause of her urinates on
the bed?
Speaker 1 (50:21):
No?
Speaker 9 (50:21):
You admitted there was urine on that bed, correct, Yes,
you killed.
Speaker 5 (50:29):
Her on that bed of your honor overruled No.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
The defense floated an alternative explanation, the wild animals could
have broken muncheese ribs after death. The prosecution conjured with
the pathologist's assessment the sequence and location of the fractures
were far more consistent with force applied by a person
than with post mortem animal activity. With thought, the two
competing narratives stood in stark relief. A fatal fall after
(51:00):
a shove or deliberate killing carried out in the privacy
of a home where fear and control had been documented
for months. The trial drew to a close, and with
it came the final words from both sides. Prosecutor Dan
Knight stood before the jury and described Joseph ellige as
nothing less than a stone cold killer. He reminded them
(51:22):
of the damning audio recordings they had listened to throughout
the trial, in which Joseph belittled, insulted, and threatened his
wife over and over again. And I told the jury
that these tapes revealed the true character of Joseph, a
man who sought to control mung Chi and who ultimately
silenced her forever. He urged them to hold him accountable,
(51:42):
to find him guilty of firstgree murder. The defense, however,
tried to paint a different picture. Joseph's attorney, Scott Rosenblum,
acknowledged that his client was awkward, that he made dumb decisions,
and that his actions in the day after Mungchi's disappearance
were deeply sen suspicious, but he insisted that Joseph never
(52:03):
in's handed to kill his wife. He argued that what
happened wasn't murder but a tragic accident, and that Joseph's
flaws as a husband didn't make him a killer. When
the jury retired to deliberate, there was a heavy tension
in the courtroom, or stracked on almost seven in total
before the word finally came back that the jury had
(52:25):
reached a verdict. The verdict was then read aloud, guilty
of second degree murder. He was acquitted of the more
serious charge of first degree murder. The jury then recommended
a maximum sentence of twenty eight years in prison, and
while the final decision would rest with the judge, the
(52:46):
sentence couldn't exceed the jury's recommendation. On the seventh of
January twenty twenty two, everybody returned to court for sentencing.
Monky's parents weren't there, but her friend Louise Hall invited
a victim impact statement.
Speaker 11 (53:02):
I still can't hear her, loving her voice, her lovely face,
Like still can see that. So this is really pample
to me. He want us to kind of play with us,
He told us when she was gone, because she was
a bad mother, she left her baby away. He wanted
(53:24):
us to think Moncei is.
Speaker 8 (53:25):
A bad person.
Speaker 11 (53:27):
So this really hurt us a lot, and especially what
he did to Mons.
Speaker 3 (53:33):
The judge then handed down the maximum punishment alloud, twenty
eight years behind bars. It was a number that felt
both heavy and to some insufficient. Outside the courtroom, Monchi's family,
represented by their attorney, Amy Saladay spoke to the wedding
cameras her husband received one year for every year of
(53:56):
her life. This doesn't bring her back, It doesn't mean
the nightmare of waking up every day and not being
able to talk or see your child go away. But
it is justice in terms of what the American court
system can provide. In February of twenty twenty two, Joseph
Ellich returned to court to resolve the remaining charges against him.
(54:17):
He pleaded guilty to child abuse and endangerment stemming from
the injuries he had inflicted on his daughter Anna. The
judge ordered him to serve an additional ten years on
top of his twenty eight year sentence for Munchie's murder.
The case marked the end of a long chapter for
prosecutor Dan Knight, who had guided the investigation and trial
(54:39):
from the earliest days of Munchie's disappearance. On the fourth
of June twenty twenty two, just months after the trial concluded,
news broke that night had been found dead in his home.
He had taken his own life. Well that is it
(55:21):
for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so
much for listening, and I'd like to say a massive
thank you to my newest supporters up on petron Kalia, Rebecca, Chris, Justin,
and Kelly. You're support upon their seriously goes such a
long way and I am eternally grateful. In exchange for
your support, I upload add free and early release episodes
(55:42):
of Morbidology, and I also upload behind the scenes which
includes bonus audio videos and case files. This episode actually
has a whole bunch of bonus videos into the investigation
that I received via a freedom of information request, so
head on over there if you're interested. I also upload
both episodes of Morbidology plus that aren't on the regular
(56:02):
podcast platforms, and these are also available on Apple subscriptions
as well. Remember to check as out at morbidology dot
com for more information about this episode and to read
some true Grime articles. Until next time, take care of yourselves,
stay safe, and have an amazing week.
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