Shallow Grave: The Murder of Amy St. Laurent

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Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime
podcast where I tell stories of real crimes

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with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how

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is this even real? I use
my experiences in law enforcement corrections, and

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combined with my years as a criminal
justice educator, dig deep into complex cases

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of evil acts, some so evil
many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

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Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences.
If you are easily offended, then I'm

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not your girl. Listening discretion is
advised. Hey, y'all, kJ You're

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back for another episode of Unspeakable.
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excited. I can't wait to meet
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coming, do not worry, because
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It's gonna be fun. Remember food, trucks and drinks and merch and camaraderie,

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right, So, I can't wait
to see y'all there. I'm gonna

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jump right into this story though today, and this one's gonna take place in

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two thousand and one, and it's
gonna involve a twenty five year old named

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Amy Saint Lawrence. And Amy was
described as a hard working and independent minded

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New Englander, and she was full
of life, and she wanted to live

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life to every extent of the word. She was someone that just would not

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settle for average. She wanted all
of the color and all of the sparkle

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and the fun. She wanted all
of it in her life. And she

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was described by her friends as someone
that just wanted more in every sense of

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the word. And Amy had always
been driven. She had goals that she

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wanted to reach and even as a
teenager, she was, you know,

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financially responsible. She worked at a
Donkin Donuts on Broadway in South Portland all

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throughout high school. She was so
she was a committed employee, and they

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thought she was great. She was
very intelligent and charismatic. But to her,

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even though she was a high schooler, high school just seemed bland.

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You know, it didn't spark any
imagination. She didn't feel like she was

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growing in any way. It was
more of like the rat race of life.

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Just show up and you know,
go through the jump through the hoops

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and then get your degree. And
to be honest, I've seen a lot

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of kids even today that feel like
that. You know, it's like it's

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not inspiring. It doesn't make you
think, it doesn't make you grow.

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It's like I just have to show
up and punch the clock and you know,

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check the boxes. And that's pretty
much how Amy felt. She just

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thought it to be flat out uninspiring. You know, she would graduate though,

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she would graduate high school in nineteen
ninety four with honors because she was

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a smart girl. But when asked
about you know, how was you know,

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what was it? Like, how
do you feel you're graduate? She

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just was kind of like, I
guess it was great. I don't feel

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like I accomplished much. I mean
it was easy, you know, it

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was boring. It was I don't
know that I've done some grandiose thing like

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people make it out to be.
So she did have plans to go to

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college, and she was hoping that
it would be this huge boom in life,

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right and she would really get to
start experiencing things. And she prayed

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to God, you know, please
don't let this be like high school,

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because if it was, my God, the next few years are about to

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be pretty boring. But a few
years after high school, she ended up

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finding a job as a third shift
assembler at the Pratt and Whitney aerospace manufacturing

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plant in North Berwick, Maine.
And she wasn't by herself while this was

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happening. She was dreaming of this
life, you know, she was dreaming

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of this life together with her boyfriend
at the time. His name was Richard

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Sparrow, and together they moved to
South Berwick so her commute would be shorter

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and she could excel at her new
job and really, you know, be

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firmly planted in the area where she
was working. And the employers noticed her

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from the get go, you know, they saw things about her that not

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everybody has. She was a self
starter, a consummate, professional which didn't

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go unnoticed, and soon she advanced. It had her in a junior level

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administrative position, and she was proud
to work there. You know, this

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was this was going to be almost
like a career for her. She was

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really proud to work there. She
was always sporting this favorite sweatshirt of hers.

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It had the name of her agency
across the front of it, and

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she was so proud to work there. She didn't care if anybody knew it

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either. She sported that shirt with, you know, just a smile on

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her face. So while Amy and
Richard had talked about marriage before, this

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relationship, by the way, had
been going on for five years, by

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the summer of two thousand and one, things were getting a little bit shaky.

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I guess this is one of those
things where it's kind of like if

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he wanted to, he would,
but he hadn't. Okay, he hadn't

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proposed. And you know, Amy's
over here dreaming of this bigger than bigger

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than life existence and full of travel
and going to art museums and talking,

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loving and laughing and doing, and
it just wasn't going that way. And

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part of the problem was that Richard, it was a bit of a couch

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potato, y'all. He was happy
sitting at home just kind of doing nothing,

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you know, just kind of the
mundane ins and outs of life,

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and you know, doing basically what
she did in high school, just show

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up, punch the clock, and
kind of go about your day. And

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that's not what she wanted. She
wanted so much more. She wanted to

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be out there and living and doing
and seeing and smelling, you know what

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I'm saying, really taking it all
in. One of those people that when

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life is over, she wants to
just come just sliding through the finish line,

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you know, torn up and have
done it all. And I just

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felt that, you know, when
I was reading about her, that she

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was not going to be just one
of the regulars. She was going to

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slay life. And basically what it
boiled down to was Richard just couldn't keep

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up with her, and the relationship
fizzled and they ended up splitting up,

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but they would remain friends. This
was this was not you know, a

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bad thing, It just kind of
it had run its course. So after

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the breakup, life had to go
on, right You can't just sit there

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and be sad about it. So
she decided to keep moving and to keep

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going and keep doing. And on
a Saturday night in the fall of two

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thousand and one, that's when the
pretty young Amy Saint Lawrence decided to go

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out on the town with a new
friend she had met and go try out

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the night life along the Old Port
section of Portland, Maine. And this

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friend that she was taken happened to
be someone that she had met on a

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trip a previous trip at Fort Myers, Florida, just a few weeks before,

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and his name was Eric Rubright.
So when they met, they really

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seemed to hit it off, and
Rubright felt like she was quote really cool

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end quote I hope I'm described as
more as quote really cool. Like that's

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what he thought, right, She
was a cool girl, and he wanted

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to see her again. Now,
we've all met people that, you know,

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that we thought were really cool and
we liked him, but were we

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willing to fly from Florida to Maine
just a few weeks later to go be

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with them some more. Well,
this cat was. He was really into

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her, and he made that trip
all the way and he flew to Maine

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to go be with her. The
trip had really come to fruition and during

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the day that Saturday, Like during
the day, they spent it in Boston,

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and they were touring museums and doing
you know what young adults would do,

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checking out all the sites, and
they got along really well. But

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by the time the evening rolled around
and they reached Oldport where they were headed,

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it was about ten thirty at night, and Amy just kind of wasn't

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feeling it. You know, it
had been made pretty clear by this point

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that this wasn't going to be a
relationship, but the friendship was fun and

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they could continue to hang out,
but she just wasn't She really wasn't into

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him after spending all day with him, So what had started out, you

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know, as a spark on a
trip, had really fizzled after spending that

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time together. But that wasn't going
to stop them from having fun and enjoying

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the evening. So they decided to
stop at a sports bar called the four

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Play Sports Bar. Telling not really
because she wasn't into him, but they're

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at the four Play Sports Bar,
and there she played some pool with some

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other men while Rubright sipped on a
beer and he watched them play well.

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After she completed a few games,
they moved on and they ended up at

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a different dance club called Pavilion.
Now it turns out that Rubyright wasn't much

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of a dancer, but that was
okay. Right. He kind of sat

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off to the side and he sat
watching people, and he was drinking his

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beers while Amy hit the dance floor
and coincidentally, two of those men that

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she had been playing pool with before
at the four play bar they showed up

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and she ended up dancing with those
two men. So Amy continued to have

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fun dancing and Rubright was watching the
nightlife around him, and it was just

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it was going, you know,
it was going okay. But it was

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about one am when Rubright got up
and he said, you know, I

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got to use the restroom. I'll
be back, and it was getting closer

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to closing time. So when he
returned from the bathroom, he started looking

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for Amy, but she was really
nowhere to be found. And he looked

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around, he walked around, asked
around, but Amy seemed to have simply

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just disappeared. He couldn't find her
anywhere. So curiously, the men that

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he was, you know, that
she had been out there dancing with and

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he was watching, they weren't there
either. But Amy wasn't like flaky,

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you know. Amy wasn't a flaky
girl who was just gonna up and just

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disappear, So it seemed really odd
to him, even though he had just

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known her a short while. But
even stranger was the fact that he was

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her ride home. They had ridden
together, so for her to not ride

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back home with him was extremely odd. Right, that drive would have taken

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her all the way back to South
Berwick, which is a you know,

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a main New Hampshire border town,
about forty miles of Portland, So it

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really wasn't sitting right with him because
even if she had been flaky and gone

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off with someone, she left her
coat and her purse and her cell phone

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and everything that a woman would never
leave, you know, behind, it

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was still left in his rental car, so he was kind of confused.

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So he went outside and he waited
by the door until the bar closed and

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waited for her to come out,
but he didn't see her, and as

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time passed and the bar emptied,
eventually the last person came out and Amy

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wasn't one of them. So by
this point, and I think it only

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human, Rubright was frustrated and he
realized, my god, she left me,

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she went with those other people and
she left me like what the hell.

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So, you know, as you
can imagine, it left him completely

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annoyed. But he decided that he
would just drive back to her place,

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considering she had already gone and she
probably had gotten another ride and she had

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gotten from point A to point B
on her own. So on his way

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back to her house, he did
stop, he got some gas, and

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then he took a toll road that
eventually led him to the Wells exit.

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But see, he wasn't familiar with
the area, and so when he went

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down the road and he realized,
oh crap, it's a toll, he

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didn't have any money. He didn't
have any cash on him to pay the

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toll. So luckily for him,
he was able to talk the toll taker,

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you know, into letting him drive
through. The guy understood his predicament

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and he just let him drive through. But things were just not going well

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for rubright at this point. But
eventually he did make it back to Amy's

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house, but she wasn't there.
So she he looks around and he's like,

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well, she didn't drive herself anywhere, because her car is still in

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the driveway right where we had left
it that morning when they rode out together

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to go to Boston. So with
no way of getting inside of the house,

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and he's in another state with you
know, no other contacts that he

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can get a hold of, and
it's two o'clock in the morning. He

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kind of felt weird about it,
but he went through Amy's purse and he

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dug for the keys to her house. So he pulls the keys out and

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he decides that he's going to go
in the house. But it just didn't

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sit right. You know, this
is her house, and I don't have

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her permission, and I don't want
to look like a creep or anything.

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So he made the uncomfortable yet gentlemanly
decision to sleep in his rental car.

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So he spent the night in the
rental car, and by the next morning

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he woke up, Amy still hadn't
returned. So he's very angry at this

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point, right I would be too, So he makes the decision to hell

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with it. He grabs the keys, he opens up her house, and

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he goes inside and what he sees. He looks around and this is an

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extremely neat home. It's very clean, and it's filled with potted plants.

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You can see just she loved potted
plants and they were growing and had ivs

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everywhere, lots of pictures of her
family and whatnot. But he went inside

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and he found the bathroom and he
took a shower. But as he's showering,

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he's becoming increasingly more irritated. I
mean, who goes out on what

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should have been a date? Right? Even though it went south? It

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wasn't you know, there was no
spark. Really, who just up and

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leaves and abandons someone in a strange
city when they've come all the way from

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Florida to Maine to have a date
with you? Obviously you knew I was

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interested, right, It's extremely rude
ed at minimum, And even though it

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wasn't a formal date and they weren't
a couple or anything, it just was

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very rude. But once he finished
his shower, he decided, whatever,

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I'm done with this, and he
drove back to Portland, where he wanted

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to spend a few days there and
check out the sights. But before he

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left the house, he put all
of her belongings back in. He went

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to the rental car and he got
her purse, her cell phone and all

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the kind of stuff and He put
it on the kitchen table, and then

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he found a sheet of paper and
he wrote a note on it. He

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left it on the door when he
left, and it said, where the

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fuck did you go? And then
he shut the door and he left.

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He drove away. But little did
he know that that note was a great

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question that many people would soon be
asking themselves where did Amy go? Now?

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Without me even telling you, I'm
sure you could guess who was one

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of the first people to grow extremely
concerned when Amy didn't show up on that

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Sunday. That's right, it was
mama. A mama is gonna worry when

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her baby doesn't show back up.
So Amy's mother, Diane Jenkins, was

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00:15:09.360 --> 00:15:15.240
very upset because it was not like
her to leave without making arrangements. It

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wasn't like her to not tell someone
where she was, and specifically, it

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00:15:18.559 --> 00:15:22.000
wasn't like her to not make plans
for her beloved cat Alex. She would

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not have left that animal unattended.
There was no question in her mother's mind

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that something was amiss and that Amy
was in trouble, so she called the

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sheriff's department with hopes of making a
missing person's report. The main issue is

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00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:39.360
one though that I've mentioned a million
times, and that's that Amy was an

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adult and she's allowed to go missing
if she wants to. Also, there

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was no immediate evidence of a crime. The house was tidy, all of

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00:15:46.840 --> 00:15:52.440
her things were there. No you
know, breaking in, no blood,

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no nothing. Amy could be anywhere. I mean, she could have run

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off to start a new life.
She could have decided to go on an

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ill advised you know, fleeing away
with a random person she was dancing with

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at the club. She could have
flown back to Florida with the guy that

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came to meet her. Nobody really
knew where she was or what she could

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have done, and honestly, it
was her prerogative. You can do that.

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00:16:14.559 --> 00:16:18.080
Police did, though, look into
it, and they even tracked down

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00:16:18.240 --> 00:16:22.600
Eric Rubright and asked him some questions
about that Saturday night. And the way

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that they found him was they went
through the rental car company and that's how

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00:16:26.639 --> 00:16:29.799
they were able to find the records
and that's what drew them straight to his

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door. And no lie. When
Rubright explained to the police what had happened,

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from the get go, red flags
were going off and it seemed extremely

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00:16:38.720 --> 00:16:44.120
suspicious. I mean, you're telling
the police that you're standing in line to

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00:16:44.159 --> 00:16:49.320
go to the bathroom and the girl
that you arrived with just randomly disappeared after

242
00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:53.759
admittedly dancing and playing pool with another
man, and you just accepted thattis fact

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00:16:55.279 --> 00:16:59.279
randomly found your way back to her
home and slept in your car. Sure

244
00:17:00.120 --> 00:17:02.919
right, I mean, doesn't that
just sound like something that happens every day.

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00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:07.319
Well. Adding to that was the
fact that Rubright also came across as

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00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:11.160
extremely nervous, but he said,
look, I'll take a polygraph test.

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00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:14.880
I have no problems because the police
asked if he would, and when it

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00:17:14.920 --> 00:17:18.200
was all said and done, the
test came back inconclusive, so police had

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00:17:18.240 --> 00:17:22.640
to go another route to try to
find more concrete evidence, but they surely

250
00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:29.519
were sniffing on on Eric Rubright's trail. Here. Amazingly, though, everything

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00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:33.359
that Rubright had told them seemed to
pan out whenever the police contacted people that

252
00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:37.039
could could verify it. They spoke
to the toll taker on the road,

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who confirmed that he did in fact
come through, and that he didn't have

254
00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:45.559
the money, but that tolltaker allowed
him to pass through anyway. The police

255
00:17:45.599 --> 00:17:48.920
then went to the gas station,
where he claimed he went, they pulled

256
00:17:48.920 --> 00:17:52.559
security camera. Sure enough, he
stopped by at one thirty eight am,

257
00:17:52.640 --> 00:17:57.680
which indeed showed him getting gas.
So by the next Tuesday morning, after

258
00:17:57.720 --> 00:18:03.559
Amy seemed to have just van police
decided to hold a press conference because their

259
00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:07.640
belief was now that this likely was
a criminal situation based on the type of

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00:18:07.640 --> 00:18:12.160
person that Amy was, So Portland
Police Chief Michael Chitwood would advise the community

261
00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:18.039
that he felt that this was quote
not a typical missing person and that all

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00:18:18.079 --> 00:18:23.279
investigative leads led to the fact that
something criminal was happening here end quote.

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00:18:23.559 --> 00:18:27.319
So adding to the intensity of the
situation was the fact that Amy, the

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consummate professional, also did not show
up for work that following Monday, and

265
00:18:33.680 --> 00:18:37.400
she was just simply too ambitious and
too dedicated to her job for this to

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00:18:37.440 --> 00:18:41.920
be the case. Call it a
mother's intuition, but Mama Diane knew something

267
00:18:41.960 --> 00:18:45.279
had happened to her girl from the
get go, and she didn't just walk

268
00:18:45.319 --> 00:18:49.160
away from this. And her mom
even said, this is literally my worst

269
00:18:49.240 --> 00:18:56.680
nightmare coming true. Where is my
baby? So, hoping to spark some

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00:18:56.720 --> 00:19:00.319
movement in the community, Amy's family
held another pet press conference just two days

271
00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:06.160
later, where they offered a thirty
five thousand dollars reward for information for her

272
00:19:06.240 --> 00:19:08.920
return. They were willing to put
up their own money. Just give her

273
00:19:08.960 --> 00:19:15.640
back to us. And you know, you read enough cases, and you

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00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:18.720
watch enough press conferences, and you
see enough trauma of people going missing in

275
00:19:18.759 --> 00:19:23.359
your life, and the desperation in
a mother's voice when she is pleading she

276
00:19:23.400 --> 00:19:27.559
will give you everything she owns,
Just give her her baby back. It's

277
00:19:27.599 --> 00:19:33.480
sickening. It makes your heart hurt. You know, you can have whatever

278
00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:37.000
you want, Just give me my
child back. Well, obviously, the

279
00:19:37.039 --> 00:19:41.400
investigation had to continue, and there
were many detectives and investigators on the case

280
00:19:41.400 --> 00:19:47.880
who kept looking back at Rubrit no
matter what was asked of him. Though

281
00:19:48.279 --> 00:19:52.559
his story was consistent, and while
it was strange as hell, everything that

282
00:19:52.640 --> 00:19:57.880
he said it just continued to be
truthful. It was at his suggestion that

283
00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:02.720
the police decided to try and track
down the two men who Amy had played

284
00:20:02.759 --> 00:20:06.640
pool with and was doing all the
dancing with the night before she disappeared.

285
00:20:06.759 --> 00:20:08.400
He's like, talk to them,
I don't know where she is. I

286
00:20:08.480 --> 00:20:14.039
told you what happened, You've checked
it out. What else can I do?

287
00:20:14.240 --> 00:20:18.359
What else can I say? Rub
Wright was also able to give a

288
00:20:18.359 --> 00:20:22.119
description of the men, saying that
one had long hair and the other one

289
00:20:22.240 --> 00:20:26.680
was about five foot nine and his
hair was gelled back with blonde streaks in

290
00:20:26.759 --> 00:20:29.640
it. Well, I mean,
I guess he was able to give a

291
00:20:29.640 --> 00:20:33.599
description because that was like a description
in the man's sense of the word.

292
00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:37.440
Right, It wasn't very detailed.
I mean, it's super basic and literally

293
00:20:37.480 --> 00:20:41.720
could fit anyone. But he did
give the descriptions, and the police would

294
00:20:41.720 --> 00:20:45.920
then get a lucky break because they
set up a tip line. They were

295
00:20:45.920 --> 00:20:48.880
like, let's put a tip line. Let's just see if people can call

296
00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:52.480
in and see what we can drum
up. And you'll never guess who was

297
00:20:52.559 --> 00:20:56.480
one of the first callers to the
tip line. You got it, it's

298
00:20:56.559 --> 00:21:03.119
one of the men that Rubright was
talking. He called in himself and he

299
00:21:03.160 --> 00:21:07.200
would be identified as twenty one year
old Jeffrey Gorman. Now to his friends

300
00:21:07.240 --> 00:21:11.759
and family, they referred to him
as Russ and coincidentally, Russ also had

301
00:21:11.799 --> 00:21:15.680
been raised in Florida, but it
was a different city than Rubright had been

302
00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:19.480
raised him, and he came from
a family divorced parents and he had a

303
00:21:19.519 --> 00:21:23.119
record of a rather troubled childhood,
and it seemed to be one of those

304
00:21:23.160 --> 00:21:27.799
typical stories where a kid goes between
his mother and his grandmother and you know,

305
00:21:29.079 --> 00:21:30.960
just kind of a blase childhood.
But other than that, there was

306
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.599
nothing incredibly impressive about him. Now
as an adult, he had moved to

307
00:21:36.640 --> 00:21:40.400
the Portland area around the year two
thousand and he was working as a part

308
00:21:40.440 --> 00:21:45.640
time car detailer, So he wasn't
like this huge success or anything, and

309
00:21:45.680 --> 00:21:48.599
he was a bit of a couch
surfer from what I understand. He spent

310
00:21:48.680 --> 00:21:52.000
a lot of time at an apartment
on Brighton Avenue in Portland, which was

311
00:21:52.200 --> 00:21:56.519
just a short drive from Old Port
where Amy and Rubright had gone out for

312
00:21:56.559 --> 00:22:02.559
that casual date. Now, when
Ross called into the tip line, it

313
00:22:02.680 --> 00:22:06.799
wasn't necessarily out of you know,
the straight up goodness of his heart.

314
00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:10.000
You know, it wasn't anything good. He was doing it out of he

315
00:22:10.039 --> 00:22:11.960
was really out of the pressure he
was feeling from his friends. Because it

316
00:22:12.000 --> 00:22:17.319
turns out that when Amy's family and
her sisters had been putting up those missing

317
00:22:17.359 --> 00:22:19.839
person flyers all over the Oldport area, they were trying to drum up some

318
00:22:19.880 --> 00:22:26.079
interest in the case. Well it
worked because the friends of Ross Gorman saw

319
00:22:26.160 --> 00:22:30.519
these posters and were kind of curious
as to why, you know, she

320
00:22:30.559 --> 00:22:33.559
had gone missing, what could have
happened to her? And specifically they recognized

321
00:22:33.559 --> 00:22:38.279
her as having been with Russ the
night in question. So, as you

322
00:22:38.319 --> 00:22:42.839
can imagine, after he called the
police wanting to give up this information,

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00:22:44.880 --> 00:22:48.599
police wanted to have a word with
him. So during their questioning, Russ

324
00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:52.640
Gorman said that he and his roommate
named Cush Sharma met Amy at the club

325
00:22:52.680 --> 00:22:56.200
for play, and then he gave
a story that really aligned with what Rubright

326
00:22:56.279 --> 00:23:00.440
had said. He said they had
played pool while Rubright sat back and was

327
00:23:00.440 --> 00:23:03.640
watching them play, and then later
on the night they went to a place

328
00:23:03.680 --> 00:23:07.200
called the Pavilion where they met up
with Amy again it was just by chance,

329
00:23:07.440 --> 00:23:10.680
and they were dancing, and then
at some point, he said,

330
00:23:10.759 --> 00:23:14.240
he and Amy got lost, you
know, in the time and the fun,

331
00:23:14.319 --> 00:23:18.680
they lost track and they didn't see
where Rubright was. It had become

332
00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:22.960
closing time, and so she agreed
to just go back to that Brighton Avenue

333
00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:26.799
apartment with he and his roommates and
they were going to have like a little

334
00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:30.599
after party there that they would be
throwing and so Amy agreed. She said,

335
00:23:30.599 --> 00:23:33.640
sure, I'll go, no problem. Well, once they got back

336
00:23:33.640 --> 00:23:37.920
to the apartment, he said that
people didn't show up like they were expected

337
00:23:37.960 --> 00:23:41.559
to, and so when the party
really didn't take off like they imagined it

338
00:23:41.559 --> 00:23:45.519
would, she started becoming uncomfortable because
she was at this house with these two

339
00:23:45.680 --> 00:23:48.680
basic, you know, strangers that
she had met, and she she just

340
00:23:48.720 --> 00:23:53.400
didn't want to be there anymore.
So he started sensing her discomfort and said,

341
00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.200
look, let's just get in the
car and I'll take you back to

342
00:23:56.240 --> 00:24:00.799
Oldport and I'll bring you back to
the Pavilion. And she was like cool,

343
00:24:00.119 --> 00:24:03.920
So they did just that. They
got back to the Pavilion nightclub at

344
00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:08.200
around one forty five that morning,
she got out and then he went back

345
00:24:08.200 --> 00:24:14.279
home. So as investigators would question
him about what he knew, they noted

346
00:24:14.480 --> 00:24:18.279
that he was extremely skittish while they
were talking to him. And he was

347
00:24:18.319 --> 00:24:26.160
so skittish that it was like bizarre, because, dude, you voluntarily called

348
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:30.079
us. You made yourself a witness, you know, to her disappearance.

349
00:24:30.559 --> 00:24:34.160
So I don't understand why we are
making you so nervous. You called us.

350
00:24:36.559 --> 00:24:38.640
So police said, well, look, let's go ahead and take a

351
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:42.359
polygraph and we'll just you know,
see where it takes us. And he

352
00:24:42.440 --> 00:24:45.680
declined, He said, no,
I think that I want a lawyer first.

353
00:24:45.920 --> 00:24:48.640
Well, cool, all right,
you have rights, you can you

354
00:24:48.720 --> 00:24:52.759
can you can ask for that if
you'd like. So then police said,

355
00:24:52.799 --> 00:24:55.559
well, can we go ahead and
look at your vehicle? And he said

356
00:24:55.559 --> 00:24:59.440
that he was a little too busy
for that, And even though that was

357
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:02.839
literally based on his own story,
the last place that she would have been

358
00:25:03.440 --> 00:25:07.480
known whereabouts. He said, no, I don't think we're gonna do that.

359
00:25:07.519 --> 00:25:10.960
I've got things I need to go
do. But just because you refuse

360
00:25:11.079 --> 00:25:14.799
to go along with everything the police
ask of you doesn't make you guilty by

361
00:25:14.839 --> 00:25:18.880
any stretch of the imagination. It
does, however, make you look suspicious

362
00:25:18.920 --> 00:25:22.079
as hell. So that's why the
police decided to go and talk to his

363
00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:26.720
roommates and see what they had to
say about him the night that Amy went

364
00:25:26.720 --> 00:25:32.279
missing. So they talked to Sharma. So his roommate, Sharma confirmed everything

365
00:25:32.400 --> 00:25:36.319
Russ stated, and he even added
that Russ was at home and was definitely

366
00:25:36.359 --> 00:25:40.119
in the bed by two a m. It lined up right, I mean,

367
00:25:40.440 --> 00:25:45.079
if he dropped her off at you
know, the early morning hours and

368
00:25:45.119 --> 00:25:48.839
then was in the bed by two. It's really making sense. And this

369
00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:52.680
was nice and all, but the
police were not gonna take anyone at their

370
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:56.200
word, and you know, they
were gonna need some more to go off

371
00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.680
of to really solidify the story that
these men had given. The good news

372
00:26:00.160 --> 00:26:04.920
was that Russ remembered lots of details
of that evening, including the fact that

373
00:26:06.160 --> 00:26:08.759
when he got home, his roommate
Jason Cook, had been on the computer

374
00:26:08.880 --> 00:26:15.960
and was sending emails, specifically to
one of his aunts in Florida. He

375
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:18.799
also said, and I made a
phone call. I don't remember who I

376
00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:21.319
was talking to exactly. You know, they'd been out dancing and drinking and

377
00:26:21.400 --> 00:26:23.960
whatnot. But I did make a
phone call, and I made that right

378
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.000
before I went to bed. So
the police did what police do, and

379
00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:33.759
they pulled the computer and cell phone
records to verify the story. And this

380
00:26:33.799 --> 00:26:40.799
is where the problems begin, because
there was no email whatsoever sent, and

381
00:26:40.880 --> 00:26:45.160
the cell phone records did not show
us a phone call during any of the

382
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:52.079
times that he says he definitely made
a phone call. Now that doesn't necessarily

383
00:26:52.119 --> 00:26:56.440
mean you did anything. Your timeline
could be wrong, but it just seemed

384
00:26:56.440 --> 00:27:00.319
super detailed to be wrong, right. I mean, he was sending an

385
00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:04.319
email to his aunt and then there's
no email at all, and you would

386
00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:08.759
know if it was one am versus
the afternoon before. But again not a

387
00:27:08.799 --> 00:27:14.640
smoking gun, but it was a
u oh. So while this information was

388
00:27:14.680 --> 00:27:19.519
definitely not looking good for Russ,
it was additional information from another roommate named

389
00:27:19.960 --> 00:27:25.279
Dave Grasier. That's how I would
say it. Dave Grasier. That would

390
00:27:25.319 --> 00:27:30.160
become rather damning for Old Russ because
it turns out that Dave and his girlfriend

391
00:27:30.240 --> 00:27:36.160
Dawn were together that night and had
gone out for a really early breakfast Saturday

392
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:40.599
night, which rolled into Sunday morning. So that being said, they returned

393
00:27:40.599 --> 00:27:45.039
back to the apartment and it was
between three and three point fifteen am.

394
00:27:45.599 --> 00:27:49.799
And guess who wasn't there when they
returned, Old Russy Boy. So now

395
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:56.839
the timeline isn't making sense. Additionally, roommate Dave also said that he woke

396
00:27:56.920 --> 00:28:00.440
back up early in those morning hours, between four thirty and five because he

397
00:28:00.480 --> 00:28:03.039
had to use the bathroom. And
when he got up to go use the

398
00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:06.680
bathroom, he found Russ in there
and he was washing his hands and kind

399
00:28:06.680 --> 00:28:10.720
of cleaning up and while washing your
hands, y'all. It's not criminal,

400
00:28:10.759 --> 00:28:15.680
Okay. The timeline wasn't adding up, and the roommate said that Russ was

401
00:28:15.799 --> 00:28:19.559
fully clothed while he was in the
bathroom washing his hands. He wasn't in

402
00:28:19.599 --> 00:28:25.640
his boxers or in his pajamas as
one would expect if someone had woken up

403
00:28:25.640 --> 00:28:29.039
and gone to use the bathroom.
He was fully dressed and was kind of

404
00:28:29.119 --> 00:28:33.640
like cleaning up for the evening.
So now it was time to really apply

405
00:28:33.720 --> 00:28:37.240
the pressure, as we call it, and the police started honing in on

406
00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:41.519
old Cush Sharma, saying, look, I think we need to get a

407
00:28:41.559 --> 00:28:45.440
polygraph test from you as well,
if you would be so inclined. But

408
00:28:45.480 --> 00:28:48.720
whenever it was time for him to
take the polygraph, that's when Sharma's story

409
00:28:48.920 --> 00:28:52.720
changed, and it changed a little
bit because now he says, well,

410
00:28:53.119 --> 00:28:57.319
maybe my timeline wasn't right, Maybe
it wasn't quite correct. I can be

411
00:28:57.400 --> 00:29:03.000
certain though, that Russ was home
by four point fifteen. Am okay,

412
00:29:03.519 --> 00:29:08.400
Well that's great, Sharma, But
that changes everything. That changes everything.

413
00:29:08.480 --> 00:29:11.240
Right, if before he dropped her
off and then he was in bed by

414
00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.599
two, now we've added an additional
two hours and fifteen minutes and we have

415
00:29:15.640 --> 00:29:22.079
a missing girl. Do the math. So, as you can imagine,

416
00:29:22.079 --> 00:29:26.680
the bullshit meter is flashing big time
now and police have just about had enough,

417
00:29:27.279 --> 00:29:30.400
so they say, look, Russ, we need to look at your

418
00:29:30.400 --> 00:29:33.079
car. We need to check out
and see if there's any evidence inside.

419
00:29:33.079 --> 00:29:38.160
Now. People have habits, right, people have habits. If you look

420
00:29:38.160 --> 00:29:41.200
in my car right now, I
guarantee you there's gonna be some kind of

421
00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:45.720
can drink can in the bag,
and probably some spilled nerds on the floor,

422
00:29:47.000 --> 00:29:48.799
and some candy and a whole bunch
of other crap I don't want want

423
00:29:48.839 --> 00:29:52.279
back there. And there's always one
sock. I don't know where the other

424
00:29:52.279 --> 00:29:56.920
sock went. But my children that's
what they do, all right. That's

425
00:29:56.920 --> 00:29:59.680
not gonna change until they're older.
All right. There's always going to be

426
00:29:59.680 --> 00:30:03.119
a mess in the back of my
car. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows

427
00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:07.720
it. Well, Ross is no
different. He was a creature of habit,

428
00:30:07.920 --> 00:30:11.119
and he was known to drive a
red Pontiac Sedan, and he was

429
00:30:11.200 --> 00:30:15.559
also known to be absolutely filthy,
disgusting. The car was always an absolute

430
00:30:17.119 --> 00:30:22.119
you know, filth fest. Well
about that time another call would come into

431
00:30:22.119 --> 00:30:26.359
the tip line, but what was
interesting about this one is that it was

432
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.160
a friend of Russ's roommate. Okay, so it wasn't a roommate. It

433
00:30:30.200 --> 00:30:33.599
was a friend of a roommate and
his name was Matt Despin's and he had

434
00:30:33.680 --> 00:30:37.000
called in to tell police. Look, then, maybe this is nothing.

435
00:30:37.119 --> 00:30:41.799
I don't know, but I do
find it really odd that right after that

436
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:47.559
Amy girl went missing, Russ's car, which is normally a complete and total

437
00:30:47.559 --> 00:30:51.759
wreck. He took it and he
got a deluxe bumper to bumper detailed job

438
00:30:51.799 --> 00:30:56.519
on the car, and it just
stood out as weird because it just wasn't

439
00:30:56.519 --> 00:31:00.119
something he usually cared about. So
police still want it inside of that car,

440
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:04.519
and they wanted inside of it now, so as expected, when they

441
00:31:04.559 --> 00:31:08.960
were inside of the car, it
had been cleaned. However, something extremely

442
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:15.880
strange had happened to it, either
during or after the cleaning. It turned

443
00:31:15.880 --> 00:31:19.319
out that parts of the paneling on
the doors had literally been cut away,

444
00:31:21.240 --> 00:31:26.279
as in like it was down to
the internal mechanisms of the door. So

445
00:31:26.359 --> 00:31:30.400
there's literally no explanation cosmetically to have
done that, and there's also no explanation

446
00:31:30.519 --> 00:31:37.400
and functionality as to why you would
do that either. So sometimes it's it's

447
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:44.359
the lack of evidence that's overshadowed by
the extreme unexplained circumstantial evidence that you have

448
00:31:44.400 --> 00:31:48.079
to pay attention to. It's kind
of like in that Zachariah Anderson case that

449
00:31:48.119 --> 00:31:51.400
I did, where the body is
missing and he's the only one who had

450
00:31:51.400 --> 00:31:56.000
emotive to do so, and all
of the evidence points to him, and

451
00:31:56.359 --> 00:31:57.680
he's all like, oh, well, no body's ever been found, so

452
00:31:57.720 --> 00:32:00.599
he must. You know, you
can't say I did something. Well,

453
00:32:00.680 --> 00:32:04.200
yeah, actually I can. And
that doesn't mean that something hasn't happened to

454
00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:07.519
him. It just means that his
body had been found, right, And

455
00:32:07.559 --> 00:32:10.960
it's crazy to think otherwise. You
are wilfully ignorant if you think something didn't

456
00:32:12.000 --> 00:32:15.039
happen to him in that case,
you know what I mean, And that's

457
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:19.640
it's no different in this situation.
So the police took a step and they

458
00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:22.400
decided to run a check through NCIC, which is the National Crime Information Center,

459
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.880
and it houses a ton of information
about you know, criminals and vehicles,

460
00:32:25.920 --> 00:32:30.559
et cetera. And what was most
impressive about that is the fact that

461
00:32:30.680 --> 00:32:37.440
Russ had actually been stopped by police
recently, and most stunningly was that he

462
00:32:37.519 --> 00:32:40.160
not only had been pulled over recently, but one of the violations he was

463
00:32:40.160 --> 00:32:45.720
pulled over for it was for a
headlight issue, but it happened at a

464
00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:51.319
time that was really glaring. He
had been pulled over in the Portland suburb

465
00:32:51.400 --> 00:32:58.079
of Westbrook at three point fourteen am
on the very morning that Amy went missing,

466
00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:01.160
and more than an hour or after
he claimed that he was in bed,

467
00:33:02.200 --> 00:33:07.160
and definitely after his roommate originally said
that he was in bed. So

468
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:10.880
if you can't tell by now,
the lies are catching up and the story's

469
00:33:10.920 --> 00:33:16.440
fallen apart. And what's worse is
that Amy was still missing and no one

470
00:33:16.440 --> 00:33:22.319
had heard from her. So where
is Amy? Russ? Quit thinking about

471
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:27.880
yourself and tell us where Amy is. As any investigation goes on, I

472
00:33:27.920 --> 00:33:30.640
know you know that it takes time
and everything is kind of slow, and

473
00:33:30.680 --> 00:33:35.359
it's frustrating for everyone involved. But
only so much can be done in a

474
00:33:35.440 --> 00:33:40.279
day, and sometimes that time that
it takes can actually make a picture come

475
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:45.880
together in a weird way, because
originally, when Russ came and met with

476
00:33:45.920 --> 00:33:50.200
the police, he was a very
salt of the earth looking guy, very

477
00:33:50.480 --> 00:33:54.000
very wholesome. By looking at him, he almost had like a childlikeness about

478
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:59.680
him. He dressed nicely, his
hair was well groomed. He just looked

479
00:33:59.720 --> 00:34:04.920
like the boy next door. And
once the questioning was over, I guess

480
00:34:05.279 --> 00:34:09.519
that's when things really changed drastically,
because as that time went on, and

481
00:34:09.599 --> 00:34:15.360
I guess Russ thought that he wasn't
really being looked at. That's whenever he

482
00:34:16.480 --> 00:34:21.880
switched from that boyish look, it
faded and Russ started doing a little shape

483
00:34:21.880 --> 00:34:25.039
shifting. I mean like his head
was now shaved, he was covered in

484
00:34:25.159 --> 00:34:30.840
tattoos, he had multiple piercings about
him, and if you looked at him

485
00:34:30.840 --> 00:34:34.159
and sized him up, he'd be
like, dude, he looks like he's

486
00:34:34.159 --> 00:34:37.199
gonna be the main act in like
a punk rock band or something. Now,

487
00:34:38.440 --> 00:34:42.079
don't come after me. I'm not
saying tattoos and piercings and all of

488
00:34:42.119 --> 00:34:45.599
that makes you, you know,
a murderer. My own husband has tattoos

489
00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:47.639
and used to have a bunch of
piercings. Okay, Mama liked the Mama

490
00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:53.119
likes some wild. But it does
make you wonder why someone would do this.

491
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:59.360
You know, onein eighty and now
be no one near what they looked

492
00:34:59.360 --> 00:35:00.880
like when they went in and spoke
to the police. So were you faking

493
00:35:00.920 --> 00:35:05.679
it before or are you trying to
all of a sudden look hard now,

494
00:35:05.760 --> 00:35:08.400
which wouldn't make sense because you're kind
of under investigation. You know it,

495
00:35:08.639 --> 00:35:15.079
Just it wasn't normal. Okay.
Ross was no longer though the person of

496
00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:22.559
interest, he was the main suspect. More information was also being fed to

497
00:35:22.599 --> 00:35:27.480
the police, and this time it
came from Russ's mother's boyfriend. Let me

498
00:35:27.559 --> 00:35:30.719
tell you something. This is a
warning. If you're ever gonna borrow a

499
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:36.039
tool from a man, you better
return the damn thing. You better return

500
00:35:36.079 --> 00:35:37.480
his tools. I mean, I
learned this when I was eight years old

501
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:42.280
from my own stepdaddy. You don't
take a man's tool and not return it.

502
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:46.119
You put the screwdriver back in the
exact drawer where you borrowed it from,

503
00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:51.039
or there will be hell to pay. You don't go around borrow a

504
00:35:51.039 --> 00:35:54.840
man's tools unless you're gonna return them. And in this case, that's what

505
00:35:54.960 --> 00:36:00.800
came back to bite Ross in the
ass, because he had borrowed a shovel

506
00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:07.199
two days after Amy went missing.
This led to the obvious assumption that not

507
00:36:07.280 --> 00:36:13.199
only was Amy dead, but possibly
she had been buried, but I mean

508
00:36:13.239 --> 00:36:15.960
her body could be anywhere. I
mean some people might go, man,

509
00:36:15.960 --> 00:36:17.920
that's a large jump, but I
mean when you have no other evidence to

510
00:36:17.960 --> 00:36:22.320
go off of, I mean,
that's really the only conclusion they could come

511
00:36:22.360 --> 00:36:29.119
to. So taking everything into account
that investigators knew, a multi agency task

512
00:36:29.199 --> 00:36:36.159
force came together and they started considering
likely locations based on the disappearance location and

513
00:36:36.199 --> 00:36:42.079
the apartment where he stayed, where
Russ stayed, and they came up with

514
00:36:42.239 --> 00:36:46.639
nineteen likely sites of where Amy would
possibly be buried, and it consisted of

515
00:36:46.719 --> 00:36:51.960
multiple wooded remote locations right where someone
would be able to go kind of hide

516
00:36:52.280 --> 00:36:55.679
a body and it not be noticed. And in their early morning hours of

517
00:36:55.719 --> 00:37:01.440
December eighth, over one hundred officers
plus a search and rescue team started searching

518
00:37:01.440 --> 00:37:07.280
one of those nineteen sites that they
had narrowed down. And this location was

519
00:37:07.320 --> 00:37:14.039
also chosen because it was just minutes
from where Russ had gotten that headlight violation

520
00:37:14.559 --> 00:37:22.280
triangulated with his home and the bar. So this is actually genius, right,

521
00:37:22.280 --> 00:37:25.360
It's kind of a it's a good
plan in my opinion. Another tool

522
00:37:25.400 --> 00:37:29.440
that they were using while they were
doing all of this were cadaver dogs,

523
00:37:29.519 --> 00:37:34.760
and they covered several one hundred acres
during the process. And it was about

524
00:37:34.719 --> 00:37:39.679
two thirty pm and eight hours in
when they were passing through a Macadam road

525
00:37:40.400 --> 00:37:45.239
and this road was, you know, had lots of mud and lots of

526
00:37:45.320 --> 00:37:50.719
thick overgrowth. So a cadaver dog
was with them, and as they were

527
00:37:50.760 --> 00:37:54.559
walking, a volunteer stepped on what
appeared to be like some recently removed dirt.

528
00:37:55.119 --> 00:37:59.920
So the volunteer stepped back. I
was like this done, look right.

529
00:38:00.159 --> 00:38:04.239
They bring over the cadaver dog,
and as you've already probably expected,

530
00:38:04.480 --> 00:38:10.719
the dog positively hit on the scent
of decomposition. So one detective was literally

531
00:38:12.079 --> 00:38:15.880
on his hands and knees and he
was kind of digging through the dirt carefully

532
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:21.320
when he finally pulled what seemed to
be a piece of gray fleece from the

533
00:38:21.360 --> 00:38:25.280
dirt, and as he pulled up, it was a visual match for the

534
00:38:25.360 --> 00:38:31.320
sweatshirt that Amy was last seen wearing
when she vanished. So they did a

535
00:38:31.320 --> 00:38:38.079
little bit further digging and police found
what they already knew. Amy was dead

536
00:38:39.079 --> 00:38:45.880
and she had been buried by her
killer. Amy had been found, so

537
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:52.119
now they shifted gears and the hunt
was on for the predator. So her

538
00:38:52.159 --> 00:38:57.599
body was collected and immediately was sent
to the medical Examiner's office. And this

539
00:38:57.679 --> 00:39:01.079
murder had an element that I don't
often see in a lot of cases that

540
00:39:01.119 --> 00:39:07.079
I cover, at least not in
more recent times. But not only had

541
00:39:07.079 --> 00:39:13.679
Amy been brutally assaulted, but in
this case, she also had been drugged.

542
00:39:14.159 --> 00:39:17.199
And GHB, which is commonly known
as the date rape drug, was

543
00:39:17.239 --> 00:39:22.840
the drug that was used on her. Now, what was interesting about that

544
00:39:22.840 --> 00:39:29.559
was police had been told through accounts
of some of Russ's friends that he wasn't

545
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:32.280
necessarily above drugging women to get them
to go to bed with him. Now

546
00:39:32.280 --> 00:39:37.000
that's not concrete evidence by any means, but what are the chances, right

547
00:39:37.039 --> 00:39:38.960
of your friend group being like,
he ain't above it. You know,

548
00:39:39.000 --> 00:39:42.320
he would drug a girl if he
thought he could sleep with her, And

549
00:39:42.360 --> 00:39:47.519
then they find a dead girl,
buried and she has GHB in her system.

550
00:39:47.599 --> 00:39:52.800
Also adding to that was the fact
that she was not a drug user,

551
00:39:52.800 --> 00:39:54.320
and she was not a recreational drug
user, and she would not have

552
00:39:54.400 --> 00:40:00.440
used GHB. So obviously something more
sinister was at play here, and she

553
00:40:00.480 --> 00:40:07.159
had definitely struggled in this fight for
her life. Her panties were twisted around

554
00:40:07.159 --> 00:40:13.280
her ankles and they remained there even
after death. The killer didn't even finish

555
00:40:13.360 --> 00:40:17.079
undressing her like they were fighting in
any you know, her panties just got

556
00:40:17.119 --> 00:40:22.199
twisted up and rolled down to her
ankles while he raped her. Can you

557
00:40:22.239 --> 00:40:29.960
imagine disgusting And looking at the autopsy
report, you can see multiple head wounds

558
00:40:30.480 --> 00:40:35.079
and there's a large one above her
ear. Some are straight on top of

559
00:40:35.119 --> 00:40:37.440
her scalp, and she also had
damage to her lips. I guess as

560
00:40:37.480 --> 00:40:43.000
if she was punched or cut in
the face. There were cuts on her

561
00:40:43.159 --> 00:40:46.400
arms, on the tops of her
legs where the leg bends, like where

562
00:40:46.400 --> 00:40:51.280
your leg comes up and meets your
vagina, she had cuts there. She

563
00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:54.840
had damage to her ankles and the
backs of both of her legs as well.

564
00:40:57.519 --> 00:41:05.840
And not only had she been violently
raped, but sadly, there was

565
00:41:05.960 --> 00:41:10.960
no seamen or other bodily fluids and
enough of a quantity to be tested for

566
00:41:12.119 --> 00:41:17.119
DNA, so that kind of put
a little hindrance to the investigation. But

567
00:41:17.199 --> 00:41:22.440
the autopsy also showed that not only
had Amy been beaten, she had also

568
00:41:22.480 --> 00:41:29.280
been raped, but she had also
been shot in the head executed with a

569
00:41:29.400 --> 00:41:36.280
nine millimeter weapon. Now, that
weapon would never be recovered, But a

570
00:41:36.400 --> 00:41:42.599
suspect's behavior is so telling when they
start to panic, and Russ was no

571
00:41:42.719 --> 00:41:47.239
different. It turns out, right
before they found Amy's body, Russ randomly

572
00:41:47.280 --> 00:41:52.880
decided that he needed to get out
of town, so he headed to Troy,

573
00:41:53.039 --> 00:41:57.719
Alabama. Now, any movie you
watch where there's a bad guy,

574
00:41:58.320 --> 00:42:00.760
you know, who's going to go
kill other people, well, they cast

575
00:42:00.760 --> 00:42:05.079
a certain character to play that killer, right, Well, it's my humble

576
00:42:05.119 --> 00:42:08.639
opinion that Russ would never be cast
as that character because it turns out that

577
00:42:08.719 --> 00:42:13.519
Russ is a little bitch, all
right. No, sooner did he get

578
00:42:13.559 --> 00:42:16.599
back to Alabama did he place a
phone call on December ninth, at two

579
00:42:16.639 --> 00:42:22.559
thirty pm to his mother, Tammy
Westbrook. Now, while growing up their

580
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:24.719
relationship it hadn't been perfect. Rememory
bounced back and forth between his grandma and

581
00:42:24.760 --> 00:42:29.599
his mama. He now felt that
it was time to make sure his mother

582
00:42:29.679 --> 00:42:36.840
knew that her terrible parenting had caused
him such distress that he had acted out.

583
00:42:37.679 --> 00:42:40.960
He also decided, over the next
couple of weeks to just give her

584
00:42:40.960 --> 00:42:46.039
a confession of what he had done. His own mother felt that he was

585
00:42:46.079 --> 00:42:51.119
involved in some way, and she
kept asking him and asking him, but

586
00:42:51.159 --> 00:42:53.840
he continued to deny it until her
body was found, and that's when he

587
00:42:53.880 --> 00:42:58.000
completely fell apart and he told his
mother, Yes, I did it.

588
00:42:58.800 --> 00:43:06.199
Quote, I killed that girl end
quote. He also added the sick twist

589
00:43:06.320 --> 00:43:09.880
that while he was killing her,
he supposedly it was imagining that it was

590
00:43:09.880 --> 00:43:16.239
his own mother and he just snapped. So this grown ass man is now

591
00:43:16.320 --> 00:43:25.360
so wounded by his mother that it
caused him to drug a girl, rape

592
00:43:25.360 --> 00:43:30.079
her, and shoot her in the
head. Sounds like a friggin cop out

593
00:43:30.079 --> 00:43:35.079
to me. Why would you date
rape a girl if you snapped, you

594
00:43:35.119 --> 00:43:38.519
wouldn't you imagining you date rape in
your own mom. I mean, that's

595
00:43:38.519 --> 00:43:43.800
a whole new set of problems.
That's what we call bullshit. It sounds

596
00:43:43.840 --> 00:43:47.119
to me like you couldn't take accountability
for your own actions, so you're immediately

597
00:43:47.119 --> 00:43:52.719
trying to minimize and self preserve by
placing distance and reasoning as far as you

598
00:43:52.719 --> 00:43:57.519
see it between you and what you've
done to a girl that you killed.

599
00:44:00.440 --> 00:44:05.280
In his less than remorseful twenty two
minute conversation with his mom, he claimed

600
00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:07.079
that he was just walking with her
in the woods, which I'm gonna call

601
00:44:07.119 --> 00:44:10.400
bullshit there too. I don't see
her just walking randomly in the woods through

602
00:44:10.440 --> 00:44:14.920
the thick overgrowth and mud. Don't
see it happening. But they were just

603
00:44:15.039 --> 00:44:19.800
walking through the woods when Amy said
something that irritated him, so he just

604
00:44:19.800 --> 00:44:23.199
started beating her and then shot her
in the head. I don't believe that

605
00:44:23.280 --> 00:44:27.079
as far as I can throw him. Why do you have a gun on

606
00:44:27.119 --> 00:44:30.679
you in the first place? Where
did the GHB come from? How did

607
00:44:30.719 --> 00:44:37.079
she have time to metabolize it?
When did she take the drink? Why

608
00:44:37.079 --> 00:44:40.920
would she go from clubbing to randomly
walking out in the woods with you?

609
00:44:42.360 --> 00:44:45.559
Sorry, don't buy it that dog. Don't hunt. Then, in a

610
00:44:45.559 --> 00:44:50.239
total bitch move, he decides that
he's gonna pull a gun on a man

611
00:44:50.280 --> 00:44:53.119
outside of a gas station because he
said that the guy was quote staring at

612
00:44:53.199 --> 00:44:57.239
him end quote, I mean,
what are we? Are we in the

613
00:44:57.280 --> 00:45:00.400
fourth grade now? So he pulls
a gun on the start screaming at him

614
00:45:00.440 --> 00:45:04.320
what are you looking at? And
obviously the guy was freaked out, like

615
00:45:04.360 --> 00:45:06.079
what do you mean? What am
I looking at? And he reported the

616
00:45:06.079 --> 00:45:09.000
incident to the police. So the
following day police were able to identify who

617
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:14.840
it was, and they cornered Russ
at a family friend's home, and this

618
00:45:14.920 --> 00:45:20.159
is where the douchebag kept the police
watching him for six hours with two guns

619
00:45:20.159 --> 00:45:23.400
in his hands, claiming that he
was gonna kill himself. Well call me

620
00:45:23.440 --> 00:45:28.320
the Meani Weeni of Reddit if you
will, but maybe you should have just

621
00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:30.519
killed yourself, bro, before you
went and did that to an innocent woman

622
00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:36.960
and raped her in all of the
above, but I digress. Then,

623
00:45:37.000 --> 00:45:43.559
in typical trash fashion, he decided
to trade his guns for cigarettes and a

624
00:45:43.599 --> 00:45:50.159
cold drink, and that's when the
police promptly took him into custody at that

625
00:45:50.280 --> 00:45:52.639
moment. But guess why they took
him into custody. You're gonna love this

626
00:45:53.320 --> 00:46:00.079
on a probation violation from a charge
that was completely unrelated. So this dude's

627
00:46:00.119 --> 00:46:06.679
been a little asshole for a while
committing crimes for a minute. Are you

628
00:46:06.760 --> 00:46:12.639
shocked? Because I'm not. And
it was around this same time that Russ's

629
00:46:12.679 --> 00:46:15.000
mom was upset about the fact that
her son had admitted to killing someone,

630
00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:19.760
but she refused to call the police
because that was quote unquote her baby.

631
00:46:20.559 --> 00:46:25.280
So she called a close friend and
told the close friend and this is where

632
00:46:25.320 --> 00:46:30.000
the beauty of the courts come in, because she was pulled in front of

633
00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:32.360
a grand jury and she was told
that she was going to be held in

634
00:46:32.400 --> 00:46:37.880
contempt of court and threatened with criminal
charges if she would not speak. So,

635
00:46:38.039 --> 00:46:42.400
just a little side note for you, real quick. Spouses cannot be

636
00:46:42.440 --> 00:46:49.480
compelled to testify against spouses, but
parents can be compelled to testify against criminals

637
00:46:49.480 --> 00:46:54.000
in trials. So on February eighth
of two thousand and two, Russ's mother

638
00:46:54.039 --> 00:46:59.480
gave a grand jury a full account
of the confession from her son. She

639
00:46:59.559 --> 00:47:01.760
was crying and sobbing through it all, and I imagine it hurt as a

640
00:47:01.800 --> 00:47:08.400
mother, but she gave the full, detailed confession and shortly thereafter Russ Gorman

641
00:47:08.519 --> 00:47:15.920
was indicted for murder. Now he
would ultimately go on trial on January thirteenth,

642
00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.159
two thousand and three, when,
like something out of a down soap

643
00:47:19.199 --> 00:47:24.960
opera, Russ's mother now claimed that
she had developed amnesia and she couldn't remember

644
00:47:25.119 --> 00:47:30.280
anything about the conversation, nor did
she ever give testimony to a grand jury

645
00:47:30.320 --> 00:47:36.280
about her son's confession. Well,
maybe that might work in a movie script,

646
00:47:36.320 --> 00:47:40.239
but here on earth, here in
real life. Nobody was buying that,

647
00:47:40.960 --> 00:47:46.159
okay. But also in current times
we have things called tape recorders,

648
00:47:47.159 --> 00:47:52.800
and I guess Russ's mom hadn't taken
that into consideration. But her testimony before

649
00:47:52.840 --> 00:47:58.719
the grand jury had been taped,
so although she was not wanting to speak,

650
00:47:58.760 --> 00:48:04.719
now we got the record of it. But the judge was a reluctant

651
00:48:04.880 --> 00:48:08.760
to play that tape at first because
she knew that there could be an issue

652
00:48:08.840 --> 00:48:16.840
as you normally apparently don't let grand
jury testimony apply in the court case at

653
00:48:16.880 --> 00:48:22.679
trial. But the trial was a
short one and Russ Gorman would not take

654
00:48:22.679 --> 00:48:27.000
the stand in his own defense,
and as you can imagine, the jury

655
00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:30.800
quickly returned a guilty verdict and he
was sentenced to sixty years in prison.

656
00:48:30.960 --> 00:48:37.360
Now, from my other MENI weenies
out there, the unspeakable mini weens,

657
00:48:37.280 --> 00:48:39.320
some of y'all have to be like, why didn't he get the damn death

658
00:48:39.320 --> 00:48:44.920
penalty? He drugged, raped,
and executed a girl. Why didn't he

659
00:48:44.960 --> 00:48:49.199
get the death penalty? It's because
Maine doesn't have the death penalty, so

660
00:48:49.239 --> 00:48:52.280
he got sixty years. And I
wanted to give you a little follow up

661
00:48:53.480 --> 00:49:00.440
to about a year later, the
main Supreme Judicial Court received an appeal request

662
00:49:00.559 --> 00:49:02.880
on behalf of Russ Gorman. Do
you remember how the judge in the original

663
00:49:02.920 --> 00:49:07.480
case I told you was hesitant to
allow that recorded testimony in of the grand

664
00:49:07.559 --> 00:49:10.639
jury. Well, it did turn
out to be a legitimate issue and it

665
00:49:10.719 --> 00:49:16.360
grounds for appeal. Thus his appeal
was considered, and Russ's mama was in

666
00:49:16.400 --> 00:49:21.559
the gallery, and she read her
Bible the entire time that she was in

667
00:49:21.559 --> 00:49:25.440
the gallery and was even quoted by
a reporter as having said, my son

668
00:49:25.559 --> 00:49:30.119
is innocent in my heart. He
is a good boy, and this is

669
00:49:30.119 --> 00:49:36.599
in the Lord's hands now. And
y'all, I know this mother didn't do

670
00:49:36.679 --> 00:49:40.960
it, but I have to emphatically
say to her that it was always actually

671
00:49:40.960 --> 00:49:45.400
in the Lord's hands. If we're
going to bring that up. Bringing a

672
00:49:45.440 --> 00:49:50.639
Bible to court didn't change that.
It turns out the Lord's hands were busy

673
00:49:50.679 --> 00:49:55.360
dealing with reality, and he sprinkled
a little Psalm thirty seven thirteen on Russ

674
00:49:55.360 --> 00:50:05.320
that day, because the High Court
justices held the conviction would stand. Having

675
00:50:05.360 --> 00:50:12.239
to date rape someone to have sex
with them is beyond reprehensible. I mean,

676
00:50:12.280 --> 00:50:15.480
even if you're ugly, a good
personality can take you a long way.

677
00:50:16.079 --> 00:50:21.000
The reality is that Amy was too
good for him. She was a

678
00:50:21.079 --> 00:50:24.679
winner and he never had a chance
with her. So he did what cowards

679
00:50:24.760 --> 00:50:30.679
do. He drugged her, He
injured her so she couldn't defend herself before

680
00:50:30.679 --> 00:50:37.320
blowing a bullet through her brain and
taking away her life. You Russ are

681
00:50:37.360 --> 00:50:46.039
the ultimate loser, and Amy deserved
better. But some things won't ever change.

682
00:50:46.119 --> 00:50:51.280
However, even a blind dog gets
a bone sometimes, So while attracting

683
00:50:51.280 --> 00:50:54.039
women isn't your skill set, you
can at least still count on mosquitoes.