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Welcome to Postmortem. I'm 48 hours correspondent [music] Natalie Morales, filling in for Anarie
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Green, who is on the other side of the mic to talk about her latest report on the murder of 19-year-old Shadeai
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Robinson. Thanks for joining me, Anie. Thanks, Natalie. I'm looking forward to talking about this. Now, this all
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started when the Milwaukee Fire Department responded to a vehicle that was set on fire in April of 2024.
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Turns out that car belonged to Sha Day, but nobody could get a hold of her. Well, that same day, a body part from an
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unidentified female washed up on a remote beach on the Wisconsin shoreline of Lake Michigan. And Emory Shade's
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friends also hadn't heard from her since she went on a date the night before. Right. Yeah. And in fact, it was one of
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her co-workers at Pizza Shuttle that really raised the alarm. She was concerned that Shade hadn't showed up
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for work. She's such a good employee. She would never just not show up. She just couldn't let it go. And she was the
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one who contacted police. Well, good for her for for following through with that.
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And you you also talk about in this hour as we see how much security footage played a part in in helping you know
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police put the pieces of this puzzle together. Absolutely. I mean I think we all know that there's a lot of you know
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surveillance cameras around security cameras ring cameras. We know that we're on camera a lot, but in this case, it
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wasn't just sort of the places that you would expect, like the lobby of her apartment building, but that remote area
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of the park, WMAR Park, was just it was remarkable that they even had video from
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there. And Shade in particular left kind of digital breadcrumbs pretty much everywhere. And that is part of what led
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to police honing in on Maxwell Anderson so quickly. There are eyes in the sky everywhere as we can see throughout this
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hour. We're going to talk about it all. But first, I want to remind our listeners and our viewers, if you
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haven't listened or watched this episode yet, please go ahead and do that right now. Go check it out and come on back
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and join our conversation. So, Ann Marie, at first while watching the episode, I thought that this was going
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to be one of those dating app horror stories. Turns out though that Shadeai actually met Maxwell Anderson in person
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before their date, right? I mean, this is the oldfashioned way, right? Um, she was looking for yet another job. She
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already had two jobs and she was looking for a third one at the bar. Uh, she meets him there. He's working there. And
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so, yeah, why not think it's okay to go out on a date? This is a young woman who
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has everything going for her. She's unbelievably driven. She wants to enter the Air Force. She's finishing up uh her
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education. She's going places. And this one person, you know, ruined everything.
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Such a tragic turn. She had everything and was seemed to be doing everything right. The first person we meet in this
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episode, she's so fascinating is the detective Joe Donner. And you know, I wasn't quite sure what to make of her
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fashion sense. I mean, she's incredible. it. She's like something out of another
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era almost and and that is deliberate. That is by design. Um she is just one of those people that's really into 1940s
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and 1950s fashion and the aesthetic of the time. She actually owns a vintage clothing
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store and she does these like online social media sales where she, you know, well, she'll show like the latest haul
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that she's gotten and people all over the world tune in to buy stuff from her. Um, she does these, I guess, pinup
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contests. We're not talking burlesque stuff, right? We're talking about people who dress like in the era. Her pinup
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name is misdemeanor. How appropriate is that, Natalie? Um, and so, yeah, she's got this whole fascinating other side to
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her, but boy is she a damn good investigator. >> She sure is. And when she gets down to
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business, she really gets down to business as we see. Now, it was Detective Donner who took you to that
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remote beach, showed you around. Uh, what was it like? The beach is an interesting spot. It's quite desolate,
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though. There's a road leading down there. There's a big fence. You can't drive down there. You have to know the
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pathway to take to get down there. And certainly people come down there to walk their dogs or maybe just to get away,
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but you would have to really know that that spot is there to venture down there. I wouldn't go down there, and I
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wouldn't go down there alone. She also took you to the place where they have Shade's burned vehicle. Yeah. So, seeing
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the car, I mean, it was almost a little emotional because it is absolutely charred. But even though Maxwell
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Anderson tried to get rid of every stitch of evidence, he fails to get rid of some really crucial evidence, three
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pieces of crucial evidence. Where the driver's seat is situated, that doesn't change. So, they know that, you know,
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Shade probably wasn't driving that car. But then her purse is found basically intact. I mean, it's singed, but it's
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found underneath the car seat and the clothes she was wearing that night, those are in the trunk of the car. And
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finding that car really helped to speed up this investigation as well. Yeah, that was what was so fascinating. I
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never thought about that clue of measuring the seat distance and that being a a big clue into the height of
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the individual who last drove the car, which would turn out to be really important in helping solve this case.
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And I should say that the other officer, right, uh Donigan, who was the one who was called to do a check on her
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apartment, she was crucial. She said to us that that day she was getting ready for work and like the news was on in the
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background and she kind of heard about a body part being found, you know, and then she gets this call to go to the
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apartment and like immediately she has this gut reaction. She went on a date. She's not here now. I heard about this
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this news report about a body part and she was also really significant in speeding up the investigation because if
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it had not moved forward as quickly as it did. Uh Donna really feels like there's a good possibility that a lot of
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that really crucial video would have been lost. Let's also talk though about Shadeai's younger sister Adriana. I
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mean, her ability to offer up data on Shade Day via Life 360, the app, I mean, it proved to be invaluable, right?
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>> Yeah, exactly. Um, Detective Donner calls Adriana the quiet backbone of the family. And I don't know how Adriana was
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able to keep a level head in the middle of all of this chaos. I've never ever ever met an adult, much less a teenager,
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with the type of presence that this young girl has. I'm glad it came through in the hour. She's remarkable. And she
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was able to provide the information about the Life 360 app. She could show them um where Shade had gone. She could
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show them that she had been at Maxwell Anderson's house at around 9:30. she could show according to the life 360 app
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that at 253 the phone arrived at Warnmont Park. All of these things were crucial. That Life 360 app, that was
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something the minute my kids got their driver's license, I put it on their phones because it goes beyond the find
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my feature. You can actually track if they're going and driving above the speed limit. It gives you an alert. So,
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it's an incredible tool. Yeah, I had never heard of the app before. I have since put it on my phone. Yeah.
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>> Um because it really is um remarkable the amount of detail. It helped investigators literally kind of like
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walk the path that Shade did um to figure this whole thing out. >> Well, this brings us to the man who was
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then charged with Shadeai Robinson's murder, Maxwell Anderson. Tell us about him. So, this guy's, you know, as you
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can imagine, an interesting character. He's 33 years old. Shade was a teenager. She's 19. We spoke to his ex-girlfriend
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Khloe. And Khloe also was very young when they started dating. Perhaps praying on their vulnerability.
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>> Exactly. Even before he met Shade, he had a criminal record, operating a vehicle while intoxicated, disorderly
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conduct. And you saw in the hour that he was arrested for battery against a bystander who tried to intervene. He he
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was apparently having an argument with one of his girlfriends and he ended up pleading guilty to a lesser charge for
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that. What was really fascinating and and kind of alarming in my opinion was when detectives did search his
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apartment, they found he had a large collection of knives in his apartment, which I mean that really raised my
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eyebrow. Yeah. 51 knives in the kitchen alone. Um I like to cook. I have a lot of knives, but I certainly don't have a
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collection like that. >> No, I know. And and you know, I'm I'm pretty sure investigators were hopeful
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that amongst those knives, they would find something that maybe he played a role in this case, and that that simply
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wasn't the case. Chloe says that he sort of fancied himself a handyman, but he was always starting projects that he
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would never finish. But there were two projects she said that he did finish in the time that she knew him and they were
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both secret compartments and she sort of described how you would like touch something and then a a compartment would
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pop out. Um we we didn't know what he was hiding in those compartments. The other curious tidbit, investigators
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found tons of women's clothing in his house. random items. Um, you know, shirts, pants, not necessarily like all
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intimate items. Um, Khloe wonders if some of the clothes might be hers. They also found the ID of a woman. They did
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track the woman down. She's alive and well. Um, a couple of other interesting things about that house. The house is
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actually sort of split. He owns the house, but he lived on the second floor and then there was a tenant on the first
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floor. Apparently, the tenant complained a lot about the noise. Uh Anderson, Maxwell Anderson had um dogs. He would
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complain about the dogs making too much noise upstairs. The tenant was home the night Shade went over there and never
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heard a thing. Did investigators have a theory as to how Shadeai Robinson could have been killed without making any sort
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of noise? Strangulation perhaps? It's a silent death. Yeah, I was going to say that could have been, you know, a way
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someone could have been killed without making a lot of noise and and certainly without a lot of blood, which is also
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something else that they didn't find. Um, you know, he goes on the date with her April 1st. He's arrested by April
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4th. On April 12th, 2024, the sheriff's office announced that the remains found on that remote beach were identified as
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belonging to Shadeai Robinson. And on that same day, Maxwell Anderson was formally charged with firstdegree
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intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson. He would plead not guilty to all the charges. Now, one of
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the worries for Detective Joe Donner was that there wasn't any direct evidence linking Maxwell Anderson to the case,
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but it didn't seem Anmarie that the jury really needed that so much, right? No, it was really the last piece of evidence
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that sealed his fate. We spoke to a number of jurors, but one juror, Becca, talked about seeing those photos that
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Maxwell Anderson had taken on his phone and then deleted. They are photos of Shade. You can see his hand on her. he's
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touching, you know, intimate areas of her body. And that basically did it for these jurors. I want to read a little
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bit of what Becca had to say about this. She said, "I mean, I personally felt like I had lived the last few hours of
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Shade's life with her. And to see her end up like that was disgusting, humiliating, just horrible."
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>> Yeah. To think that to not know if she was dead or alive when those photos were
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taken. They seem staged almost like a trophy, but then he deletes them. I mean, that tells you a lot if you're a
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juror, right? >> It was perhaps the most powerful piece of evidence that the juror saw,
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>> right? That along with, you know, we did see the footage of the man on the beach
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with the backpack. Yeah. >> Also then you saw the surveillance footage of the man leaving the burnt car
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and then you see clearly Maxwell Anderson's face when he hops onto a city bus. I mean, thank goodness that
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security footage was very crisp and clear. You could clearly see his face. >> Oh, absolutely. Well, and then it turns
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out the defense didn't call any witnesses. So, the jury didn't take very long to deliberate. Anderson was found
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guilty of intentional homicide, mutilation of a corpse, and arson. Although he continues to maintain his
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innocence at his sentencing, Shadeai's mother, father, and sister, they weren't having any of that.
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>> No. Um, they were very outspoken. Shade's mother is, you know, really, she's been dealing with a lot of stuff
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even before the disappearance and the murder of her daughter. um she's been dealing with sort of health stuff and so
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it it really took a lot out of her and she has kept the fight going but it wasn't just the family members that
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spoke. Maxwell Anderson's father also spoke. Um he was crying. He said Shade's family he thought about them every
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single day. He said that he loved his son and that he hoped for a path for his son uh that would allow his son to
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become a positive influence in some way. There was also members of the community
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that sent in letters because like the whole city was moved by this murder. And there was one particular letter from an
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anonymous person that even the jurors said had a significant impact on them. And I just I'm going to read some
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portions of this because I think it really captures the way the entire city of Milwaukee felt about Shade. Shade
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Robinson was not a torso. She was not evidence. She was a full living radiant human being. She had dreams, plans, and
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a future she was building with pride. She had people who loved her and that still love her more than words can hold.
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and she had a right to live, to breathe, to laugh, to grow old. That right was stolen. And it continues, "But here's
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what you couldn't take. You could not mutilate her soul. You could not silence the scream of justice. You could not
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prevent an entire community from rising up in Shade's name." >> So beautiful and so moving. I love that
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the judge read that letter. It's not surprising because I really felt like she became the daughter of the entire
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city. People either saw something in her that they felt was also in them or in, you
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know, a young woman that they know, whether it was a daughter or a friend. Um, and they really rallied around this
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family, which I thought was significant, Natalie, because the reality of it is is
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that there often are times when young black women are victims of crime and they don't get the same level of
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attention, right? And I just want to read a statistic out. This is Columbia University study. In Wisconsin, black
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women are 20 times more likely to be murdered than white women. It's the worst statistic in the country. The
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other thing is that Milwaukee is home to Jeffrey Dawnmer. And when you think of of Dawnmer's crimes, there's a sickening
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feeling that comes with it. And this reminded Milwaukee of that sickening feeling. Um, and just as a kind of a
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side note, when we um traveled there to do some of our interviews, we stayed in this really nice old hotel. It was built
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sort of in the I think it's in like 1920s, 1930s. But I kind of like cracked a little joke with the guy at the front
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desk and asked him if there were any ghosts. And then I struck up a conversation with someone in the
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elevator and I mentioned that I was inquiring about ghosts. And he said, "Well, you know, you know what happened
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on the fifth floor?" And it turns out the hotel we stayed in was a hotel that Jeffrey Dawnmer killed one of his
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victims in. But I gotta tell you, I slept with the lights on. I would have too. >> Yeah.
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>> Oh my gosh. I'm surprised you slept at all. >> Yeah, I know. >> Back to Shade. As we know, her remains,
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they were spread all over the county. We learned from some friends that they even
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found a blanket that had belonged to Shade, as well as they found what they believed was a a human bone in an area
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that investigators had already searched. Um, you talked to Shadeai's sister Adriana as well about the ongoing search
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for Shadeai's remains. I wanted to play a little piece of that. >> Does it bother you that you know parts
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of your sister are still missing? >> Yeah, it definitely does. I have this necklace and another one which is a star
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that I wear every day that has some of her ashes in it. So, it's like a part of her is with me,
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but knowing that a part of her isn't with anyone, that it's floating around somewhere, decomposed,
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it's like she hasn't been allowed to to to stop fighting, like her battle's not over. Like, she's
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never going to be able to rest in some sense. Heartbreakingly, you know, as we saw in the sentencing, um Shade's mother
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asked Maxwell Anderson to confess where her daughter's crown was. And we're talking about her head, of course. Um he
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though maintained his innocence, but we do hope that Shade's family will will get an answer someday. And I know
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that's that search is ongoing. Yeah, this is the kind of continued heartbreak for everyone who cares about Shade that
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all of her has not been found. Before we go though, let's end on something that is so hopeful and positive and uplifting
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I think and that is that Shade's legacy is her younger sister Adriana. Adriana, as we mentioned, such a a bright light
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in this world. Well, she accepted Shadeai's graduation diploma um for her associates degree, but she also has some
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big news, right? Yeah. So, Adriana is in the top 5% of high school kids in Wisconsin. She's been accepted to
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Harvard. She has a 99% scholarship. She doesn't know what she's going to do, where she's going to go. But when I say
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I've never met anyone like this, um, I wish her all the luck in the world. I she I don't think she needs it. I expect
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great things from Adriana, and I cannot wait to watch her continue to strive and
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rise and accomplish and be all the things that we all know she can be, but also that her sister knew she could be.
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Well, that is a hopeful way to end this. And uh thank you again for uh your incredible reporting and Marie on this
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one. Appreciate it. >> Always great talking to you, Natalie. >> And if you liked this episode, please
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rate or review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify.