Missing in Truro: Zachery Kellock and Troy Cook

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:20):
The Lord and Arts team is off to celebrate the
holiday with our families, but I couldn't leave you without
a new episode of Seriously Mysterious. So today we're going
to do a rebroadcast of our most popular episode of
Brain Scratch Searchlight from twenty twenty five, the disappearance of
two men in Truro Nova, Scotia, Zachary Kellock and Troy Cook.

(00:41):
And we're asking a question, can an innovative crime rewards
program help solve these two missing persons cases. Two individuals
have picked Zack up at four o'clock that afternoon and
Zach told them Me'd be right back. He didn't come back.

(01:02):
My first thought was that they did. Somebody did one
of these guys did something to them. A mother that
is clearly fearing the worse in this case of her
missing son. He's been missing for about eighteen months at
this point. It was actually another family member that reached
out and asked for this coverage that we're doing here today. Unfortunately,

(01:22):
there's not a lot of details in that case, so
we're going to try to help someone else along the way.
We're profiling two cases from Truro Nova, Scotia, Canada outside
of both of these cases being from the same area,
there's another thing that's unifying them, a bit of a
unique approach that's being used by law enforcement. Is it
really being effective or not. We're going to touch on

(01:44):
that as well after we profile both of these cases,
but let's go ahead and get started. Trueau is a
town in central Nova Scotia, Canada, located on the south
side of the Salmon River Floodplain. The area has been
home to the Mequamock people for several centuries. They can
continue to live in the area at the Millbrook and
tro reserves of the Millbrook. Apparently, I think there's about

(02:06):
eight different reserves that they have in that area. Let's
go ahead and get started with the first case. We're profiling,
this young man, Zachary Kellock. On January fourteenth, twenty twenty four,
at approximately four pm, Kellock left his home in Truro
in a vehicle with two other people. When he had
not returned two days later, his family reported him to

(02:27):
police as a missing person. At the time of his disappearance,
Kellock was described as five feet ten inches tall, one
hundred and fifty nine pounds, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
He was last seen wearing a dark gray leather jacket.
He was twenty three years old at the time. Continuing
at Globalnews dot Ca, let's get some more details from

(02:47):
his mother as the weeks drag on and questions remain unanswered.
Joanne Bootski, the missing man's mother, hasn't lost hope. Right
off the bat. I knew something was wrong, she said.
Upon hearing that her son might be missing, she walked
to James Street in Truro, where Zachary had been staying
with his girlfriend. She said that two individuals had picked

(03:08):
Zack up at four o'clock that afternoon and he told
them he'd be right back, and he didn't come back.
His mother said, they messaged the two guys to see
where zach was, and they said they dropped him off
at the end of James Street. So a little interesting.
He's apparently getting a ride from these guys and rather
than them bring him back to the I believe he

(03:30):
was living in apartments. Rather than bring him back to
the apartment for some reason, they're saying, well, we brought
him back, but we just dropped him off at the
end of the street. But Kelloc never returned. His mom
then phoned the Truro Police and an investigation into her
son's disappearance began. She's holding onto thoughts of her son's character.
I know he loved his friends. If you had Zack

(03:53):
as a friend, you had a good one. He never
judged anyone. I learned a lot from him, she said.
It's really a difficult time. She said that Kellock was
registered to start a social work program in a nearby
Nova Scotia Community College in September. Sometimes I don't even
think it's real. If I needed anything, I'd just call
him up and he'd be right over to help me.

(04:14):
It's just something I'll never get over. My life changed.
This family needs him brought home, and of course that's
a very similar urgency and concern that we hear from
any family member that has a missing loved one. But
pretty soon there would be some news put out through
the press and conversations being had with the family that

(04:37):
would kind of escalate things. Let's go ahead and get
just some more details here. Kellock had entered a vehicle
with two men and traveled to Millbrook, so I believe
he actually went on to one of the reserves there.
She noted Kellock's girlfriend's statement that the two men allegedly
dropped him off at the end of James Street rather
than his apartment building around four pm after she called

(05:00):
to ask where he was. He never made it to
the apartment, his mother said. She's also said that his
girlfriend was supposed to go with Kellock and the other
two men in the vehicle, but was allegedly told there
was no room in the car. And a very interesting
question here, Whizac was with these two I don't know,
says his mother. Why am I so confused about that? Well,

(05:24):
because the girlfriend is available and apparently she was going
to be part of this trip, I have to imagine
that she has some idea of where they were going. Now,
if that's not being brought forth, it just makes you wonder,
is this something that they're trying to hide from his
mother for some reason? You know? Was it some activity

(05:44):
she wouldn't be happy with hearing that he might have
been conducting in or something along those lines, or possibly worse,
does the girlfriend have more information than she's actually offering up.
It's just curious to see that statement. And there Whizac
was with these two. I don't know. She should be
able to know he's been in contact with a girlfriend.
She's definitely in contact with the investigators, and I'm sure

(06:04):
the investigators have questioned the girlfriend as well. So the
motive for whatever this trip is, I would think is known.
But let's continue here, and it's fairly soon that law
enforcement says there's something wrong with this disappearance. Plice in Truro, Nova,
Scotia describing a man's recent disappearance as suspicious. This is

(06:26):
within a week or two of him actually disappearing. Please say,
they've determined that Kellock was last confirmed to be at
an address in Millbrook, First Nation, so definitely on a reserve.
Truro police say the RCMP Northeast Nova Major Crime Unit
is now taking over the case as Millbrook First Nation
is outside their jurisdiction. Something that we run into with

(06:48):
these cases that do wind up on reservations. And if
that wasn't enough cause for concern where police think something suspicious,
it would be a few months later that they just
come outright and say that they're investigating it as a homicide.
Nova Scotia offering cash reward for information about missing Truman's homicide.

(07:09):
Now his body has not been found, there's something in
the investigation that's leading them to that conclusion, and they're
being public about it fairly quickly. Investigators quickly determined his
disappearance was suspicious. Last week, they confirm they are now
treating the case as a homicide, though his body has
not been found. The Nova Scotia government said it has
added Kellock's homicide to its Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes program,

(07:33):
which offers up to a one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars reward for information that leads to an arrest and
conviction in certain unsolved cases. So it's interesting to me
because obviously we have crime stoppers programs. They're not just
here in the US, but in the US that's kind
of the primary place where we will see a reward

(07:55):
get attached to a case. But the crime Stoppers' rewards
are usually not very big unless there's been private citizens
that have contributed to that, or the families have contributed
to that themselves. Typical crime stoppers rewards are somewhere in
the one thousand to two thousand dollars range. It's interesting
to me to hear about a program like this. Rewards
for Major Unsolved Crimes program one hundred and fifty thousand

(08:19):
dollars for information that leads to that arrest. That seems
significant to me. It seems like an amount of money
that could move the needle maybe in terms of someone
thinking should I call this information in or not? That
seems like it should be effective for helping a case
like this. And as a matter of fact, the second

(08:40):
case that we're going to talk about today part of
this program as well. The province says there are now
one hundred and twenty active cases in the Rewards for
Major Unsolved Crimes program. Both these cases we're talking about
today unsolved, and we'll talk a little bit later about
why that might be. Despite this program that I'm pretty
impressed by. Here is their website for the Rewards for

(09:02):
Major Unsolved Crimes. The Department of Justice is offering cash
rewards of up to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
I know that sounds a little different. We'll get into
the conditions on it, leading to the arrest and conviction
of persons responsible for specified major unsolved crimes. Unsolved cases
are submitted by the policing agency of jurisdiction to the
Department of Justice for consideration and approval into the Rewards

(09:24):
for Major Unsolved Crimes program, So basically, your local police
force that's responsible for that case has to submit this
case and say we think that this should be considered.
Will you guys add this to this reward program. And
we can see here in terms of the recently added
it's the third one down, and I believe that these
are showing the order that they were added, because obviously

(09:47):
they're not in alphabetical order, which in a way I
think is kind of unfortunate. It's a little messy to
come here and to try to figure out exactly where
the case you're looking for is. Maybe that's part of
the issue. I mean, we've got this huge reward amount,
but if it's difficult to find which cases are eligible
for that, or if that isn't publicized in the best way,

(10:11):
could that be impacting the progress? I think is a possibility.
A few more things about this program. The Rewards for
Major Unsolved Crimes program is an additional tool to help
police in major unsolved crime cases. The reward amount will
be based on the investigative value of the information provided,
so that's where we get this condition about it's up

(10:32):
to one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Now, from what
I can see, every case that's listed on there is
eligible for up to that amount. So I would think
that if you were the one that called in the
information that actually located the missing person, located the remains,
if that was the case, helped police move forward to

(10:53):
a conviction in any of those types of cases, I
think you're going to be seeing the upper end of
that reward range. Just keep in mind there's different levels
of tips and different amounts of help that those bring
to cases. If you're someone that calls in a tip
and it's like, well, I know that he was hanging
out with these people in particular, and at some point
down the road, one of those people is investigated and

(11:14):
found to be part of it in some way, but
it's you didn't provide the information that actually cracks the case.
I think they're going to adjust that amount for the
impact that you have there. So is that potentially another
problem with it. I don't think so necessarily. I'm going
to keep the analysis till the end. But from what
I can see, there's been a few payouts, and the

(11:35):
payouts are edging into the higher portion of that eligible payment.
So if history is any consideration with this, it seems
like they're willing to pay to get these cases solved.
But let's go ahead and continue back in Zachary's case
with the details we do have. RCMP continues to seek

(11:56):
tips the Northeast Nova RCMP, May Your Crime Unit or
any NMCU continues to seek information from the public regarding
the suspicious disappearance of Zachary Kellock. Zach's disappearance was considered
suspicious from day one, says Corporal Jennifer Tekinchuk. Since Kellock's disappearance,

(12:16):
investigators have continued to follow up on leads with assistants
from Colchester County District, our CMP, our CMP Forensic Identification Services,
and the Truro Police Service. We know there are people
out there who have information about Zach's suspicious disappearance, information
that will help us find answers for Zach's loved ones,
said the corporal. We're asking them to come forward and

(12:37):
share what they know. Even the smallest detail could help
our investigation. And once again, I just want to put
this out very strongly with this video. That information could
lead to you getting a part or even all of
that one hundred and fifty thousand dollars reward, and if
we are talking about you know, people in their early

(13:00):
to mid twenties that have that information that might be
able to kick it into play. That could be substantial,
That could be an amount of money that changes your life.
That could be money to help you buy a home,
that could be money to start a new business. I
hope that if you have that information, you're really thinking
about it and picking up that phone and doing the

(13:20):
right thing. In this case. Unfortunately, that is all the
information that is publicly available for Zachary's case. Let's go
ahead and get into our next case today, and that

(13:42):
is the case of Troy Cook. We're actually starting again
at the Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes page here with
some details on Troy Cook's case. Troy Cook has been
missing since June twelfth, nineteen ninety eight, so we have
decades on this case. Mister Cook was dropped off near
his apartment. An employee at the Atlantic Superstore received a

(14:05):
call from a person claiming to be Troy, and that's
basically kind of a big supermarket that you would have
in Canada. The employee got called by someone that was
claiming be Troy, but the employees saying he sounded different,
So they're not exactly sure if they believe that this
was Troy. But the person that said that they were

(14:27):
Troy advised her that he would not be into work
for his evening shift. Mister Cook has not been heard
from since, so really troubling setup to this. Let's just
get the basics here. Brown eyes, black hair, stands at
five feet seven inches tall, ways around one hundred and
twenty pounds. Born in July sixteenth, nineteen seventy eight, so

(14:50):
I believe he'd be coming up on be around forty
seven years old at this point. And of course, with
someone that's been missing this long, especially with the efforts
that his father has put out to try to find him,
his father is also in the same boat, thinking that
he's never going to see his son alive again. Let's

(15:12):
go ahead and continue at saltwire dot com and get
some more details about this case. As a young adult,
Troy decided to move into his own apartment on Willis
Street in Truro. I said, no problem, I'll help you
set up an apartment, said his father, Tom Cook. He
was nineteen and he just wanted to spread his wings.
You know. He had a good social life. Troy lived

(15:33):
there for less than a month before he disappeared, being
very close with Cook. He was still coming home lots
to do laundry and have meals. Cook always left care
packages at his place. After Troy spent a night at
home in Kemptown, Cook dropped Troy off at the apartment
in Truro around ten am on a Thursday, June eleventh,

(15:54):
nineteen ninety eight. He never saw the driveway or if
Troy went through the door, and he continued to appointment
at the garage. Basically he was having car trouble. At
the point he gets his son home, he says, I
got a head off to the garage. He sees his
son walking towards the house and that's the last moment
that he sees his son. Also worth noting there's a

(16:16):
roommate that lives at the same place. Interestingly, none of
the articles really mentioned the roommate. We'll talk more about
that in a little bit. At about ten thirty am,
someone made a call to Atlantic Superstore claiming to be Troy,
saying he would not be able to work his shift
there that evening. The employee who answered thought it was Troy,
but couldn't say it with absolute certainty, noting that he

(16:38):
sounded sick and strange. The call was made from a
phone booth by the tim Hortons in Bible Hill. No
security cameras captured footage. What's interesting about that is I've
actually run the addresses I know where Troy was living
at the time. That Tim Hortons is about two and
a half miles away, not super interesting if Troy's car

(17:02):
is working, but it's not. So somehow he gets dropped off,
and there seems to be about a forty minute window
between where he's dropped off and when that phone call
happens two and a half miles. You could certainly run
it in forty minutes or kind of jog it in
forty minutes, but walking it would be a little tight.

(17:25):
It would be I mean, it's possible you'd have to
be walking at a pretty brisk clip to make it
within forty minutes to go about two and a half miles.
And it's just curious because apparently Troy did not have
a cell phone, so and I guess he didn't have
a phone at his home either, so it was normal

(17:46):
for him to use payphones. But why would you have
to walk two and a half miles in a city
like Truro to do that doesn't make a lot of sense.
So either we're talking about a situation where Troy was
going to another part of town for some reason, might
have been assisted by somebody, might have been picked up
something along those lines, or there's still a possibility that

(18:09):
it's someone acting like it's Troy, And would there be
a reason. I'm not saying that the roommate has anything
to do with this, but if you're going to make
a phone call like that, and you're going to run
it from a payphone, if you're going to try to
throw an investigation off, might you drive to another location
or walk to another location, try to make it a

(18:29):
payphone that's not immediately around the house. Something that is
just running through my mind in terms of the considerations
on this case. His father, Tom Cook, said that it
would have been odd for Troy to call in sick
shortly after Cook dropped him off, and Troy seemed well
during his visit with family. He never mentioned plans to
go anywhere, so his father had just seen him probably

(18:53):
would have had some indicator if Troy wasn't feeling well
for some reason. It was also odd for Troy to
call in sick. Just wasn't something he would normally do.
The only thing missing from his apartment was his driver's license.
He lived at home for nineteen years, never, never in trouble,
Never gave me an ounce of trouble, said his father.

(19:14):
He did not have access to a car since his
was broken at home. Why would he go back the
way we came. So that's another interesting point. Apparently this
payphone that he used, they passed it on the drive in,
So why would he go back two and a half
miles to use that payphone for that phone call? We
timed it to walk. He couldn't walk it within that time,

(19:36):
so he had to get a drive from somebody, said
his father. So there were plans made with somebody to
do something. Cook does not believe that Troy was involved
in crime, and thinks that he could have just gotten
in with the wrong person. If he had any kind
of debt, he'd come to me first. He wasn't into drugs,
said his father. Now keep in mind, it's his father.

(19:57):
I always try to keep that in mind where that
statement comes up, because quite frequently parents don't know all
the things that their children are into particularly I think
in their young adult years, and those are years where
kids are going to be experimenting with stuff. But according
to his father, he smoked a little weed and stuff

(20:17):
like that, but nothing heavier. He was just a typical teenager.
Tom is dedicated to finding out what happened to his boy.
He makes sure to reach out to others whose loved
ones have also gone missing. So, you know, his father
for years was literally driving around with posters all over
his vehicle, always had a notebook in his car with

(20:40):
tons of information, would talk to anyone that he could
keep in mind. Like this started back in the late nineties.
We didn't quite have the Internet in place for this
kind of stuff yet, so his father was doing it
on foot, essentially driving around talking to people. And then
as the years went on, his father kind of hits

(21:00):
really hard medical challenges took him out of the game
for a little bit. Troy also has a brother, and
his father kind of struggles with that a little bit.
Just all the time that he's dedicated to trying to
find a Troy, like he struggles with, you know, did
my other son miss out on some things as well?
But as the Internet comes up and these great communities

(21:20):
that are looking to be helpful come about. Tom basically
starts doing interviews and things like that, and that's where
some of the additional details come out. Thankfully. One of
them was done on a podcast that I really like
is called night Time. It's hosted by Jordan Bonaparte. If
you go back in their episode list far enough, you

(21:43):
might even find an episode featuring myself. But Jordan did
an excellent interview with Tom Cook about this case, and
that's where some additional details came out, one of them
being the roommate who is apparently at the time twenty
nine years old, so he's ten years older than Troy.

(22:04):
I don't know if that's exactly strange. In my mind,
it's not. I've seen enough roommate situations where it's just
you're trying to find someone that you can get along
with and help each other out in terms of cutting
the bills. So it's a twenty nine year old man
that Troy's living with. There is apparently a strange moment
that happened a week or two after Troy's disappearance, and

(22:27):
that's when his father goes over to Troy's place to
collect his son. His son's things, and Troy apparently loved
to play guitar and had a few and his father
went to get them, and the roommate said, I believe
Troy wanted me to have those kind of a strange statement.

(22:50):
Now I believe the father wound up taking them and leaving.
And is it just something as as someone that's maybe
socially awkward a bit, or someone that doesn't understand the
gravity of the situation, or something along those lines. You
never know, we don't know enough about this person, We
have no insight into their personality at all to try

(23:11):
to judge or weigh that. But to his father, it
did strike him as an odd statement and just makes
you wonder about the possibility that the roommate has something
to do with his disappearance. There was one other strong
possibility that came up in the Nighttime podcast, and that
is that Troy's father had a friend that worked at

(23:34):
a local bar, and it was a bar that Troy
was beginning to frequent, and this friend at one point
had a conversation with Tom saying, you know, you might
want to talk to your boy because he really likes
giving the ladies attention, but he doesn't seem to care
if they're there with other men, like he'll just go

(23:54):
up and start talking to ladies. And basically this friend
was trying to tell Tom like you got to talk
to him, like he's really gonna get himself in trouble
at some point, He's gonna go up and talk to
the wrong woman and kind of upset the wrong guy
and there will be serious trouble for him. Is that
a possibility in this case, I don't know. We're talking
as a disappearance that happens at ten o'clock in the morning,

(24:16):
but you never know if there was someone following him around,
or someone that waited for him at home in particular,
saw him get dropped off, his father goes driving off,
then the person comes up and tries to speak to Troy,
takes him something along those lines. It's still a possibility,
So I thought it was it was worth bringing up

(24:37):
here now outside of all that, there was a little
bit more done in terms of the investigation, and just
wanted to touch on this. He'd never mentioned leaving town.

(25:00):
There's been no confirmed sidings his wallet and his ID.
It's saying here we're actually located in his apartment, and
there have been no transactions on his bank account, so
we have a little bit of mismatching information unless it's
a different ID. But they're basically saying the driver's license
was the only thing missing in the news reports. Here

(25:22):
we're hearing everything was found and it was at his apartment, which, again,
roommate situation is kind of just hitting me in the forehead.
But we really we don't know enough about this case.
It's also been established that he has no history of
compulsive behavior or mental illness. The police ruled out any
theories that Troy was involved in illegal activity, so this

(25:46):
is just a tough place that this case winds up.
Over at web Sleuth's we had someone that mentioned the
roommate Troy was nineteen, but his roommate was another twenty
nine year old male, a person he worked with. That's
another important consideration in my mind, because keep in mind,
someone made a phone call to their workplace, the same

(26:08):
place both of them work at, and said I'm Troy
and I'm not coming in today, And the person that
received the call said it sounded strange and they're not
sure that it really was Troy. So maybe another little
tick in terms of something odd going on with the
roommate here. Unfortunately, this conversation on websleuths is like I think,

(26:32):
eight posts and that's about it. It's just not going
very strongly. It's part of the reason why I wanted
to help both these cases today by kind of coupling
them up. These are two cases that need attention, and
I hope you'll help me with that. I grouped them
in this way so that if you have friends in
Nova Scotia, please send them this video. Please help both

(26:54):
these families by raising exposure to both these cases, and
if you do want to show your support for the
Troy Cook case in particular, I did find a Facebook group.
I believe this was started by his brother. I can
see very recent posts from his cousin on here, So
even though I'm not seeing anything about it being, you know,
kind of the started necessarily by his family, I did

(27:18):
see news articles that said his brother started this group
in particular. Unfortunately, I am not finding any pages or
groups currently for Zachary Kellock. However, if you are the
family member that reached out to me, and if you
want to send me a link to one that maybe
I'm not finding for some reason, please do and I

(27:38):
will add it to the description down below as well. Now,
I did start this conversation talking about the Major Unsolved
Crimes Program and is it really effective or not. There
was an article that came out about five years ago
at this point over at CBC dot Ca kind of

(27:58):
wondering the same things, and it's hitting on a few
different notes about this, and I just wanted to share
my thoughts on it as well. Lure of big money
not enough to break Nova Scotia cold cases. In the
almost fourteen years since it started, the Rewards for Major
Unsolved Crimes program has received one hundred and sixty three

(28:19):
tips according to the Department of Justice. That's about twelve
tips per year on average. That's somewhat surprisingly low, said
criminologist Michael Boudreau, a professor of criminology and criminal justice
at Saint Thomas University in Fredericton. Only three tipsters have
actually been awarded money in that time. Two were given

(28:41):
one hundred and fifty thousand dollars while a third received
one hundred thousand dollars. So, like I mentioned before, for
the payouts that are happening here, they're substantial and they
go into the cases of each year of course, I'll
have the link here if you want to read about
those cases, But he said many programs that offer money
for rimetips in Canada have the same problem. Arguably for

(29:04):
from a more pessimistic perspective, these are not very effective programs,
but they allow governments to say, well, we're doing something
to try to help, said Boudreau. There is something about
that statement that nags at me a little bit, and
I think it's just because I'm so sensitive to hearing
from families in these situations about how law enforcement isn't helping,

(29:27):
law enforcement isn't helping, and this does seem like, I
don't want to say, like a softball approach, but it
does seem like something where you know, law enforcement can like, Okay, well, hey,
we've got this big giant reward we're going to slap
on this. And does that stop them from continuing the

(29:48):
investigation on their own? Like I worry about the aspect
for the local police force, the local department that submits
this and gets it approved, does that that kind of
for their lead investigator give them a little sigh of
relief about like, Okay, well we've done what we can
and now it's off here and there's this giant reward

(30:09):
on it. So if anyone knows anything, they're gonna they're
gonna call me. My phone's gonna ring. And I just
worry about that because I think a lot of cases
hit that point. We know a lot of cases hit
that point. The families don't just tell me, the experts
tell us. Also, there is prioritization that has to happen
on these cases constantly, and there's new cases coming in constantly.

(30:29):
So you know, today we've looked into a case that's
a year and a half old and a case that
has a few decades on it. Are those being treated equally? No,
there's no way. There's no way. And even outside of that,
a case that has just started a week or two ago,
is that going to be treated differently than those two cases? Absolutely,

(30:52):
that's just what happens. So this comment in particular, it
does make me concerned, But more from the perspective of
that lead investigator, I just I don't want them to
feel like, Okay, well that's it now, I'm just waiting
for the phone to ring, and that's I think. I'm
just sensitive to that because of how often I hear
about these things on the flip side. If that lead

(31:15):
investigator is using that as okay, I'm going to submit
it there. When it gets approved, we're going to put
out a press release and we're going to drum up
a bunch of press on this case. Then to me,
I think that that is more active, it's more helpful,
and I can tell you in the case of Zachary Kellock,

(31:37):
that's definitely what happened because as little information as we
have about that case, most of it came out in
one day, the day that they announced that they were
attaching this reward to it, someone did a run of
press release and got a bunch of attention around that,
and that is a good use. If that tip doesn't
get called in, there's still a bunch of press. It's

(32:00):
because of that roundepress that we've even been able to
talk about this here today, So that does help in
some way. Let's get back to his points. One of
the reasons more tips don't come in, according to Boudreau,
is that most people aren't that interested in the money. Now,
I would say for the type of rewards we see

(32:20):
here with crime stoppers, one thousand to two thousand dollars,
especially if there's any element of risks to that person
calling in that information that's not going to do it.
I think that starts changing. And once again I've spoken
to experts that tell me this that starts changing when
that reward amount gets above three thousand dollars. That's that's

(32:41):
enough of a consideration for most people. I think when
you're figuring that you know your your mortgage has been
paid for the month, or your monthly bills have been paid.
For some people, that's going to hit them a little
bit differently for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I
don't think this point is very accurate for this particul
the rewards program. And I'm not saying that I think

(33:03):
that people are only motivated by money to call in tips.
He goes on to say most people call in tips
for altruistic reasons and because they want justice. I completely agree.
But those same people could still also do with one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Is that going to motivate
them to, you know, finally pick up the phone or not?
That That is a person by person situation, and I

(33:25):
don't think it can make a hard fast rule on
that one way or the other. But it does raise
the concern for me about is it enough to have
that monetary amount attached to these cases or do you
need the information that helps the public call in the
right tip. And that is something I'm struggling with with

(33:49):
both these cases, because admittedly we have one case where
they did a bunch of press, but we don't have
a ton of detail. So what exactly are we asking
the public for. We don't know about these two guys
that drove off with Zachary at all. We don't know
if they live on the reservation, we don't know their age,

(34:10):
we don't know what potential business they had with him.
There is so few details that the public chatter that
should be spun up to help that case really doesn't exist.
On the flip side, for Troy's case, we have articles
with quite a bit of detail missing the most important components.

(34:32):
The most important components locked up in a podcast somewhere
that you have to know enough to go and find.
So it's interesting to me. I wish that part of this,
when they decide they're going to use this program and
attach this giant reward, I want them to almost do
what I do in terms of prepping an episode. Here

(34:53):
go through all the publicly available information, including this. Don't
just read your own press releases, go through the podcasts,
go through everything that's been put out, and then knock together, Okay,
here's the stuff we're going to acknowledge. Boom boom boom,
boom boom. Here's the stuff that his father talked about it.

(35:14):
We'll put it out in the release, but say that
we can't confirm it or something along those lines. Just
put together some comprehensive view of the case that's going
to be helpful to the public in terms of helping
you guys. That I think is a component that's missing.
It's missing from this conversation for sure, but I think
it's missing just in terms of understanding if there is

(35:36):
a shortcoming about this system. In my mind, that's what
it is. As a result, most tips come in shortly
after a crime is committed. Once a case goes cold,
few tips come in, despite the potential for a big payout,
he said. And there's other factors when it comes to that, like,
of course tips are going to come in shortly after

(35:58):
the crime because people have the information, it's fresh in
their mind. They're trying to act on it while they
still have it, and then you know, months later, years later,
even if they witness something, they might not understand the
importance of it. That's the thing that drives me crazy
about not having the solid information put out into the
public so people can act on it, because someone might

(36:21):
have a piece of that puzzle and just not know
it because the two suspects weren't named, or the type
of car that they were in wasn't divulged, or something
along those lines. However, the program has their own comment
on it. This said by Heather MacDonald Chisholm, a case
manager with the Department of Justice. If the program can

(36:42):
assist even one of those families with find enclosure, then
we would define that as a success. And at this
point there's been three families held by that and I
certainly agree with that as well. She also said that
the program can be improved. Part of that could be
a higher public profile to generate more calls. Just looking
at these two cases as a little sampling, it looks

(37:05):
like they're getting better about that because the round of
press on Zachary's case pretty impressive. Outside of I think
the next shortcoming is what I'm talking about, just adding
that additional level of detail While Boudreaux questions how well
rewards programs work overall, he says that they do have
some benefits. If this program of offering money for tips

(37:26):
keeps the public engaged and aware of the case, maybe
that's a good thing. If it jogs someone's memory, But
oftentimes that just doesn't happen. Again, in my opinion, it
doesn't happen because we don't have the right information going
out with that big reward. But what do you guys think?
Tell me about it in the comments down below. I'd
really appreciate it, and I want to foster some good

(37:48):
communication to help with this kind of thing. Maybe I'll
see if I can kick this information into someone just
to give them to take a look at it and
read it. But of course, our main objective here today
is about Zachary Kellock and Troy Cook. Please share this
with any friends that you have in Nova Scotia. Let's
raise exposure to those cases. And of course I can't

(38:11):
do this without the help from my amazing supporters. You
might notice we run very few commercials in these presentations.
A big thank you to PayPal supporters. Brandy Frye, Hillary Green,
all the PayPal supporters. Thank you all our patrons, thank
you as well. If you would like to join, please
go to Lordenarts dot com. There you can sign up
for Patreon, sign up for PayPal, buy merchandise, or even

(38:34):
just buy us a coffee like Fanasas has started doing
recently every month. Thank you Fanasas, We really appreciate it.
As we keep the ads down, try to keep the
awareness up and try to help these families in these
very tough situations

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