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It's been 7,680 days since my sister disappeared, and I've been waiting for answers on what
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happened to her. This is one of those cases that has haunted me my entire career. I was there
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from day one. This could be a very significant break in this case. June 27th, 2000, I was a reporter at WBZ
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TV in Boston. We received word that there was a teenager missing in Warren, Massachusetts. It was a lifeguard who
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was supposed to be working at this pond. Do you remember coming here? >> Yes. >> It started like every other missing
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person case that I've ever worked. >> And about what time did Molly arrived here?
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>> We believe sometime after 9:50. Molly went to work that day. Uh it was her eighth day as a lifeguard at Cumins
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Pond. She drove with her mom to work. She stopped at a extra mart and purchased a bottle of water. She went to
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the police station, secured a police radio, her mom, and she then drove the short distance down to Cumins Pond.
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>> I was with Molly and they dropped her off and everything seemed fine. >> And the rest is a mystery at this point.
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>> And what was left behind? >> Chair, radio, uh her flip-flops, a bottle of water. It was all all right
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there. They said that she would she would she possibly drowned knowing that she probably didn't, but I ran into the
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water. >> He did. He was trying to get to the deep end. >> You just going on adrenaline.
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It's your baby sister. >> You saw, you know, fireboats coming in. You saw dive teams coming in.
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The state police helicopter was hovering from up above. They had cadetses from the state police.
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>> Take your time. >> Doing grid searches all throughout the town in the woods and they were stopping
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cars. >> Was it an abduction? Did she drown? Um, did she walk away? >> I was like frantic. My mom and I were
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frantic and we were just staring into this pond like it'll resurrect her or it'll tell us what happened to her. Like
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it had the answers that we didn't have. We had to sleep with no knowing where she was the first time in our life.
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>> You were actually on this case from the very beginning. >> Yes. My role as the anthropologist, the
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archaeologist. They were coming to me and saying, "Dr. Myers, we're not finding her. Where
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could she be?" They were focusing down around Cummings Pot and I said, "You need to branch out.
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>> The months went by, the years went by, and then the decades went by." >> So that's when I became a warrior.
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>> Ever since that day, I've been trying to find the person who took my sister. I'm
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asking you for help. I picked up that sword and I started marching on. >> To the man responsible for the abduction
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of my sister, Molly Bish, >> I want you to know I'm coming for you. >> I will never give up. Maybe we won't
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know why, but we at least deserve to know who. >> I will use science. I will use
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technology. I will use my voice. I will not stop screaming from the mountain tops for justice for Molly. I'm coming
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for you. I'm coming. Have you heard of Molly Bish? She looks like this. She was abducted in 2000. She
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was only 16 years old. >> In 2021, two decades after her sister went missing, Heather Bish did something
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she never thought she would do. >> 40-year-old me got into the Tik Tok game. It's allowed me to like share my
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story and share Molly's story and really just be honest. It's been 7,680 days since my sister disappeared, and
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I've been waiting for answers on what happened to her. >> She hopes that by going public with her
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Tik Tok videos online, she will generate tips that will finally solve her sister's case and put an end to a
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painful 25-year-old mystery. >> If you know something, please say something. The wait needs to be over.
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The last time Heather saw her little sister Molly was the morning of June 27th, 2000, just before Molly left
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for her job as a lifeguard at Cumins Pond in Warren, Massachusetts. Molly was playing with Heather's
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11-month-old daughter, Michaela. >> She was having fun with Michaela, and I remember my mom saying, "Come on, we got
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to go. We got to go. You're going to be late." But shortly after Molly was dropped off,
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beachgoers arrived and she wasn't there. Police were eventually called to the scene. By the time they told Maggie Bish
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Molly had been missing for 3 hours. >> And my mom was frantic on the phone. She said, "She's not there. She's not there.
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Her shoes are there." My heart dropped. I just knew something was wrong because I knew Molly wouldn't go anywhere
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without her shoes on. >> Why? >> Because she didn't like icky feet. When you first heard that she was
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missing, did you think maybe she had gone off with friends? >> John Jr. is Molly Bish's brother.
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>> It's not what we do. It's not our personal, our character. We were raised better than that.
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>> 16-year-old Molly was Maggie and John Bish's third and youngest child. 48 Hours interviewed John back in 2003. She
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was heavily involved in school, with sports, with her friends. >> Molly was an honorroll student, varsity
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athlete, and she had just completed her junior year of high school. >> Molly was just very loud and fun.
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>> Heather says despite their six-year age difference, they were extremely close.
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It was a bond she had had with Molly ever since the day she was born. I do remember thinking that, oh, that baby is
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my baby, too. I'm going to teach her everything I know and um, you know, we're going to do this life together.
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>> Molly also had a close relationship with her brother. >> She very much wanted to be like my
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brother. >> I took her underneath my wing. You know, I was a lifeguard before her. She wanted
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to be a lifeguard. Um, we played soccer together, baseball together. >> Molly was 5'7. You know, she was
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athletic and in shape and strong. So when police suggested that Molly could have drowned, they didn't believe it.
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>> When Molly went missing, I mean, we it was inconceivable. And then what I was
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told was the first aid kit was open. >> Adding to the mystery, the police radio was there, but Molly had not used it for
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her required morning check-in. >> Why? So what was what happened? Very good. >> Later that afternoon, when it became
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clear to local police that Molly had not just walked off with friends, >> the K9 commences water search.
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>> State police took over the investigation and launched an extensive search. >> We're looking for a 16-year-old. Her
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name's Molly Bish. She's the life captain of the town beach. Massachusetts State Police Lieutenant
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Colonel Dan Richard headed to Warren to help out. >> I had a three-year-old daughter. Her
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name was Molly. She had blonde hair. She has blue eyes. This case has every day been with me
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from that day to today. >> Also present at the scene was then Worcester District Attorney John Ki.
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>> The state police are working around the clock on this. Okay. Detectives zeroed in on everyone who was
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close to Molly, including family members, friends, and Molly's boyfriend, Steven Lucas. They had only been dating
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for 3 months and had just gone to the prom together. >> What raised some suspicion was that
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Steven Lucas had a fat lip and he had some scratches on him. former WBZ investigative reporter Kathy Curran.
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>> Could a young kid pull off this crime in such a short amount of time? >> The bishes never believed that Steven
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was involved. Within 24 hours, authorities were looking at known sex offenders in the
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area. >> We've looked at 35 to 45 uh sex offenders uh in the area. That's been the scariest part about all this is
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realizing how many bad people were within the fabric of our of our community. >> Molly's dad worked tirelessly with
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police. >> He was always going every weekend trying to work with the police and trying to
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find different ways to to find Molly. And despite the fact that DNA testing was still in its early stages back in
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2000, Detective Richard says they did collect and document many items found in and around the pond area, including
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discarded cigarettes and trash. >> When we did the initial search, anything that wasn't there by nature or by God
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was at least identified as as potential evidence. As the days went by, the vicious despair
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grew. >> It wasn't like Molly was hit by a car or got sick. She was just suddenly gone,
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and we didn't know where she was. >> But it would be Maggie Bish who would give detectives
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their biggest lead. >> We pulled into the parking lot here. The morning before Molly disappeared, as
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Maggie went to drop Molly off at work at Cumins Pond, she recalled seeing a man sitting alone in a white car that
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resembled this one. >> And I see this guy and he's just smoking a cigarette and he just gives me a like
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a little look and I said, "Oh, I can't leave her here." You know, it's like the mama bear comes out.
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>> Maggie says she waited for 20 minutes until they finally left. When she brought it up with Molly that evening,
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Molly didn't seem concerned. >> She says, "Oh, no, Ma. It's just fisherman. Don't be I'm not afraid."
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>> The next day, when Molly disappeared, Maggie told the police about what she had seen.
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>> That became very significant because now we had a piece of information. >> A sketch was composed based on Maggie's
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description, and it was released to the public. this is the individual that we're looking for. Uh in that white car,
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>> I had seen the hair. It was gray. It was very thick. There's just that smoking,
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you know, that dog on smok. And that's what I remembered. >> Almost immediately, hundreds of tips
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started flooding in. >> If you were a a 50-year-old white male with a mustache and salt and pepper
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hair, somebody may have wanted to give us a call. Many months later, authorities released
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a second different sketch. >> I believe that this sketch is a remarkable sketch and it's very
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distinctive and I think it's going to help us a great deal. >> But still no Molly.
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>> I think that's what makes this case so difficult. You know, you have so many people who resemble that sketch.
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You know, when when time kept going and passing, you knew it wasn't good. You just know that somebody either has her,
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and that's horrendous. >> And then almost 3 years after Molly disappeared. >> Live from Warren, Kathy Curran, WBZ4
00:13:06
News. >> Police were notified that a bathing suit had been found in the woods just 5 miles
00:13:13
from Cumins Pond. It's the first major break in this case in years and a very anxious time for Molly's parents.
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>> Do you remember the very first time you came here? >> Yes, I do. It was May of 2003.
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We came here from what we thought would be the recovery of Molly Bish. >> 3 years after Molly Bish disappeared,
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Dr. Amory Meyers, a forensic anthropologist for the Boston Medical Examiner's Office, was summoned by
00:14:00
police to the area known as Whiskey Hill, located about 5 miles from Cumins Pond.
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This is how we came in at first. So, right above us here are these rock ledges, and this is where the bathing
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suit was found. A local hunter had stumbled upon pieces of a weatherbeaten blue bathing suit,
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much like the one that Molly Bish was wearing when she disappeared. When I saw the bathing suit, I said, "This has
00:14:32
probably been up here for roughly 3 years." >> And how could you tell? was covered by
00:14:37
deadfall, so leaves and debris from three years of uh foliage dropping, but then it had also grown into the surface
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and roots had come up through it. >> I arrived with my photographer and I was let in.
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>> Acting on a tip, Kathy Curran and her crew got there in time to take pictures
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of the bathing suit. >> What's going through your head? >> I was sick to my stomach.
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just thinking about Maggie and John and knowing what it could mean. >> As Kathy left Whiskey Hill, she called
00:15:20
Maggie >> and she said, you know, could you show us the video? And I said, "Maggie, you know,
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I I really don't want to do that, but you know, if that's what you want to do, I I want to do whatever I can to help."
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She just had a little van and had the six little TVs or whatever inside and she showed it to us.
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So distinctive. It looks like her and I knew I knew that was Mos right then and there.
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>> Let's go in the house. >> Okay. >> And I went up. I locked myself in the room. I cried so hard. There was
00:16:23
nothing. I was gut-wrenched. >> It was one of the toughest days of my career because,
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you know, for 3 years there was still hope and she knew at that moment that something was drastically wrong and
00:16:47
something horrible had happened. Investigators sent the bathing suit to the Massachusetts State Police Lab and a
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private lab in Virginia for DNA testing. >> So now we've got to search the area and
00:17:03
see if we can find evidence that can help us determine what happened up there. >> As they waited for DNA results, under
00:17:16
Dr. Meyer's instruction. >> You all know what we're looking for. >> A new search was launched.
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>> And that's when I basically said, "We're going to grid this area. >> Anyone who has compasses, you're working
00:17:35
off 110 as 110 magnetic field." >> We did grid searching arm to arm. They were within sight of each other. They
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rad. They combed the forest with rakes. >> And had any of that area been searched
00:17:50
before? >> No. >> When John Bish arrived to the scene, Dr. Meyers assured him of one thing.
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>> You know, I looked him straight in the face and I I shook his hand and I said,
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"Mr. Bish, if you're if your daughter's remains are are here, we're going to bring her home to you."
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>> DA John Ki announced that the DNA results came back as inconclusive. The search continued and intensified
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>> and it was the biggest search that's ever been conducted in Massachusetts history.
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>> And almost two weeks later, they made an horrific discovery. >> This afternoon,
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we did discover a human bone. It's the upper arm bone. And Dr. Myers does describe it as the bone of a person
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between 14 and 20 years of age. >> What did that feel like to finally find a bone?
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>> Unbelievable. But immediately I thought of the family. >> We've now established the area as a
00:19:01
crime scene area. >> As days went by, investigators would come to find more human bones.
00:19:08
It was like every day they came with small rib bones. It was like uh agonizing and and you know they were
00:19:14
trying to find M. And we went out every morning. We thanked the the searchers. We were so grateful that people would
00:19:21
continued to look and help us find Maul. >> By the end of the 3-week search, investigators found as many as 27 bones
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and a human skull spread across 35 acres of forest. It was confirmed through DNA
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testing and dental identification that the bones were Molly's. Dr. Meyers believes that Molly's killer
00:19:47
most likely picked Whiskey Hill because of its hidden location. >> Do you believe the killer might have
00:19:54
been a hunter? Been that familiar with the area? >> It's possible. She also believes that
00:20:00
after Molly was killed, a mountain lion may have scattered her remains among the
00:20:06
35 acres of forest. I often felt that the person knew the area and knew that there was uh a large animal up there.
00:20:24
We want to tell you that Molly's come home. We are extremely saddened. The depth of our sadness no
00:20:35
family should have to endure. >> With the discovery of her sister's remains, Heather had a hard time
00:20:44
accepting the tragic news. >> I wanted to run away. Honestly, I just wanted to run outside of this nightmare
00:20:54
and this life and maybe my even my own body, but I remember feeling like I wanted to run away immensely.
00:21:03
>> The search for Molly Bish was now over, but the search for her killer was never
00:21:11
more urgent. 2 months after Molly Bish's bones were discovered in August of 2003 on what
00:21:44
would have been her 20th birthday, Molly was laid to rest. >> And we commend you now to the loving
00:21:54
care of the Lord of us all. >> We were so blessed we got to have it in a church.
00:22:10
But after three years, the bishes still had no answers as to who could have murdered Molly. And the man in the white
00:22:18
car who Maggie had seen the day before Molly disappeared had never been identified.
00:22:25
>> Frustrating is a reoccurring word in in this case. >> Maggie wasn't the only one who reported
00:22:31
seeing a suspicious white car in the vicinity. say investigators. On the day that Molly went missing, a
00:22:39
white car was spotted at a car wash right down the street from the pond. And again in the cemetery behind the pond.
00:22:48
>> So where is Cummings Pond? Right from here. >> It's that direction straight down. And
00:22:53
you can see there's a p a path opening there. >> Yes. So somebody saw a white car where?
00:23:00
Right down on that road down there. >> Yes. So, is the thought that if somebody brought the car down there, they could
00:23:09
maybe grab her, pull her back up, get in the car before, >> that's a theory. >> In fact, in the early days of the
00:23:17
investigation, search dogs did follow Molly sent from the pond leading up to the cemetery.
00:23:26
>> You don't just stumble upon Cum's pond. That's why the person who killed Molly
00:23:31
Bish had to have watched her and they had to have had a plan. >> But there were still so many unanswered
00:23:40
questions like why was the first aid kit left open? Kathy Curran believes that Molly's abductor may have pretended to
00:23:49
be injured >> and then someone either forced her or threatened her to get her up that hill
00:23:58
because she she's athletic. She's not going to go easily. >> Then in May of 2004,
00:24:07
four years after Molly disappeared, DA John Ki called for a grand jury to be convened.
00:24:15
Whenever you hear a grand jury in a criminal case, you think, "Oh, they have evidence against someone." So, the hope
00:24:22
was that the case was moving forward. Heather along with her family were called to testify. They say that many of
00:24:31
the DA's questions seem to be focused on Molly's friends. >> I remember we were all kind of like mad
00:24:40
because we didn't feel like they were really significant. But detectives had learned that some of
00:24:46
Molly's friends had gathered at her boyfriend Steven Lucas's house the morning of Molly's disappearance.
00:24:54
>> We have a timeline. >> And they were telling police conflicting stories about what happened in the hours
00:25:01
before and after Molly went missing. The grand jury transcripts are sealed, so it is not known whom the
00:25:12
investigators actually questioned, but they would later clear Steven Lucas as a person of interest.
00:25:21
After two long years, in December of 2006, the grand jury was dismissed without an indictment.
00:25:32
>> It was disappointing. It was incredibly disappointing. Just weeks after the grand jury was
00:25:38
dismissed, John Ki retired and Joe Early Jr. took over as Worcester District Attorney. He says the grand jury was
00:25:48
used as an investigative tool to preserve witnesses testimony. >> You get them right in. You get them
00:25:56
under oath and there's a criminal penalty if they lie in the grand jury. And they can't say later, "I didn't say
00:26:03
that." Because it's right there. And that is something that helps us get cases beyond a reasonable doubt and
00:26:08
prove guilt. >> But Heather says not having answers as to who murdered her sister was taking
00:26:15
its toll. >> I was giving up hope in a lot of areas. >> And things only got worse. In 2007, her
00:26:24
father, John Bish, who worked so closely with police, had a stroke. Heather would
00:26:31
now face the daunting task to take over where her father had left off. And it would not be easy.
00:26:40
>> The police have always stayed very careful about what they'd let us know. The police kept saying it. We're just
00:26:46
one piece of information away. Well, where is that piece? Sunday. >> In 2008, a man who resembled the sketch
00:26:54
named Rodney Stanganger was arrested for murdering his girlfriend in Florida. The
00:27:00
victim's sister reached out to Heather and claimed that Stanganger may have been involved in Molly's murder as well.
00:27:09
>> He has this violent history. He lived um very close to where Molly trained to be
00:27:14
a lifeguard. >> Was he a smoker? >> He was also a smoker. He was known to fish at Cumins Pond and hunt in the area
00:27:21
where Molly was found. >> Police were notified about this tip, but Heather says she was told that
00:27:28
Stanganger had been on one of the investigators lists of persons of interest from the very beginning.
00:27:36
>> I've actually visited him in prison. >> Shawn Murphy is a lieutenant with the
00:27:40
Massachusetts State Police. He didn't have much to say to me, but I attempted and so so have other
00:27:47
investigators as well. >> Stanganger was convicted of murdering his girlfriend and was sentenced to 25
00:27:55
years in prison. In 2012, state police went down to Florida again to search Stanganger's
00:28:04
trailer. >> We did execute a search warrant at his residence with our law enforcement
00:28:08
partners and we did take items. Detective Murphy says the items were tested for DNA to see if they could be
00:28:17
connected to Molly. >> We've tested and continue to test and and move forward. >> But there was not enough evidence to
00:28:26
make him an official suspect. And then in 2011, a private investigator came to Heather with a new tip about a man named
00:28:36
Gerald Batistone. He had actually raped a woman in the woods where Molly was found. His ex-wife
00:28:45
had a white car that she reported he was driving in Warren the day Molly disappeared.
00:28:51
>> Heather says she took this tip to the state police who have confirmed that Battis Stony who died in prison in 2014
00:29:01
was on their radar along with many others. There are times you could say, "This person's really good for this. This
00:29:09
person's really good for that." That's not how you solve a crime. You know, you have to have the evidence to support it.
00:29:16
Finally, in 2021, 21 years after Molly disappeared, it looked like investigators had enough
00:29:25
evidence. The district attorney's office officially named a person of interest. For the first time, I thought this is
00:29:36
it. There will be justice. On June 3rd, 2021, more than two decades after Molly Bish disappeared, there was
00:29:55
finally news. >> Tonight, a break in the murder of Molly Bish. More than 20 years after the
00:30:01
teenager was killed, investigators have named a new person of interest. Molly, >> we named the person of interest.
00:30:08
>> But you had never done that before. >> Never done that. Never done that in this
00:30:11
case. But we did get more information to come in. We pursued those leads. And at
00:30:15
that point, I was comfortable saying this person is a person of interest. Yes. Francis Frank Sumar Senior was a local
00:30:26
auto repair shop owner with an extensive criminal record. Kathy Curran was the first to report the details.
00:30:36
>> Frank Sumner seemed like a great suspect. Frank Sumner has a violent past. He was convicted of rape and
00:30:46
kidnapping. >> Was he familiar with the area? >> He was he was familiar with the area. He
00:30:51
was from the area. He had access to a white car. And when you compare the photo of him smoking the cigarette to
00:31:00
the sketch, you can see a resemblance there. And just like the sketch, Sumner was
00:31:07
photographed smoking with his left hand. DA Joe Early says Sumner, who died in 2016,
00:31:16
had been well known to investigators working the Bish case for years. >> What made Frank Sumner rise to that top
00:31:24
to actually be called a suspect? >> Information that came in, some dots that were connected.
00:31:30
Although tight-lipped about the details, the Worcester DA's office was confident
00:31:36
that Sumner was a viable suspect and planned to compare his DNA to DNA found at the crime scenes. But as it turned
00:31:46
out, they couldn't obtain Sumar's DNA. Sumner had been cremated, and his DNA had never been submitted to the National
00:31:56
COTUS database. I don't know who dropped the ball, but somebody dropped the ball.
00:32:02
>> So, authorities traveled to Ohio to get DNA from his son, Frank Sumner Jr., he
00:32:09
was serving time in prison for robbery. >> And so, we waited and we waited cuz they
00:32:16
said, "We're going to, you know, do some DNA analysis." Heather, who had started
00:32:21
that Tik Tok months earlier, reached out to her followers to see if she could drum up more evidence. If you know
00:32:29
something, if you've heard something, please call the state police tip line. We are still waiting for answers.
00:32:39
>> Heather says it took investigators about a year before they finally told her the
00:32:44
results of the DNA testing. >> It was inconclusive. What do you mean inconclusive?
00:32:51
Was he eliminated from the DNA? >> I don't know what that means. >> Oh, you don't.
00:32:56
>> And they won't tell me. >> Heather wonders if authorities who collected discarded cigarettes and other
00:33:03
evidence at Cumins's Pond even have a viable sample of the killer's DNA. Do you have enough DNA that you could do
00:33:15
genetic genealogy? And have you done any? can't speak to the DNA. I can speak in this way. We continue to test and
00:33:22
we've gotten well over hundred uh pieces of information tested and we continue to
00:33:28
test. >> You know that the bishes have been frustrated. They don't feel they're getting enough information from your
00:33:34
office. They want to know is the DNA being preserved properly? What kind of DNA? As a general rule of thumb, no
00:33:42
matter what family it is, the bishious other families that we have, we just don't share the information because
00:33:50
someone might say something they shouldn't say and it can compromise the entire case.
00:33:54
>> However, he says DNA is just one piece of the puzzle. >> This isn't just a DNA case. There's a a
00:34:04
lot of investigation that's been done. We need a little bit more. I'm not going to say what it is, but we need a little
00:34:10
bit more to get to where we want need to get to name a person as the as a defendant in this case.
00:34:16
>> But Heather says she's losing faith in the investigators. >> It's really a sad situation to be a
00:34:24
victim family member in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. >> Investigator Shawn Murphy says he
00:34:31
understands Heather's frustration. Heather is a fierce advocate for her sister and her family and I wouldn't
00:34:38
have it any other way and I have no problem being held accountable by Heather and I'm happy that she holds me
00:34:43
accountable. >> 25 years after Molly Bish's murder, the case remains active and there is a new
00:34:51
detective who has recently joined the investigation. She has a plan. When I dedicate myself to something, I
00:35:01
do not stop until it's accomplished. In March of 2025, Detective Chelsea Safford was hired
00:35:24
to take over the Bish investigation. It's a perfect job for someone that has an overactive mind, thrives on
00:35:39
challenges, and doesn't sleep much. >> One of her first tasks has been to weed through and organize over 80 boxes of
00:35:48
case files that have accumulated over the years. >> I saw all those boxes and I just wanted
00:35:54
to dive in. I just wanted to learn more. Detective Safford believes the answer to
00:35:59
who killed Molly may just lie within these 80 boxes. This one I found Molly's um high school yearbook
00:36:11
and I went through that um you know that I have a few tips that I was trying to track down. It's part of her strategy.
00:36:20
>> These are all tips to organize and look at past tips with fresh eyes. Who else might have heard or seen
00:36:29
something that they didn't realize was significant? That one person that we haven't spoken to, they might be the
00:36:37
missing piece that we've been searching for this entire time. I believe that that one more piece is out there. I just
00:36:43
have to keep digging. And Detective Safford faces an overwhelming task. She says there has been almost 8,000 tips
00:36:52
that have come in since Molly went missing and they keep coming. >> I can honestly say that since I've been
00:36:59
in this office, I don't think a week has gone by where we haven't received a Molly Bish tip, if not multiple
00:37:05
throughout the weeks. >> Detective Safford says she's also studying the many pieces of evidence
00:37:11
involved in Molly's case. She allowed 48 hours to accompany her to the Massachusetts State Police Crime
00:37:20
Labs DNA cold storage facility in Sudbury, Massachusetts. Boy, it's shivery in here.
00:37:29
>> Sherry Middhhoer is a forensic support section manager at the crime lab. >> And what am I looking at right in front
00:37:36
of me? So, this is a bay um full of evidence. And all of these items here go with the Molly Bish case.
00:37:44
>> Inside some of these brown paper bags are items taken from the crime scenes. Is a swimsuit here? It is. Um Oh, it's
00:37:53
this one, I believe. I don't think it says it on it, but I know it was sent out for additional testing. Are there
00:37:59
any cigarettes here? Are any >> There definitely are cigarettes. Containers. ABC. There are a lot of them in ABC.
00:38:07
>> ABC is this one here. >> They've been repackaged over time. Have they been tested?
00:38:13
>> Oh, yeah. >> Chelsea, are you going to be looking at this to see if there's something else?
00:38:18
You're thinking, "What? Why don't we try to test that?" >> Absolutely. Yes. >> Today, Detective Safford has her eye on
00:38:24
one piece of evidence in particular, Molly's backpack. >> I'll tell you, this is the number one
00:38:30
item that I've been looking for. >> Why? I think what we carry in our backpack or our pocketbook, uh, I think
00:38:38
it says a lot. And I I personally think learning about the person, the victim, I
00:38:44
think, is a very important part of each case. Despite the challenges, Detective Safford says she is determined
00:38:56
to find answers for the Bish family. None of us can bring Molly back, but the best thing I can do was find out what
00:39:03
happened. >> I see you have some of these solved, guilty, captured. Is that what you want
00:39:10
to do in this case? It's not what I want to do. It's what I'm going to do. Yes, we we will do it. Heather Bish, who has
00:39:18
been critical of the Massachusetts State Police investigation in the past, says she is encouraged by Detective Safford's
00:39:27
passion. I feel like she has the same energy and commitment to solving this as I do.
00:39:33
>> Heather still makes Tik Tok videos about Molly's case, hoping her efforts will
00:39:39
one day generate a tip that can help investigators. >> Somebody knows something and somebody
00:39:45
knows who killed Molly Bish. >> I will never give up. I I'll fight. Molly deserves
00:39:53
that justice. >> Da Joe Early Jr. insists that investigators are moving in the right
00:40:00
direction. As you sit here, is Frank Sumner still on the top of the list of people of interest?
00:40:07
>> He's the only person of interest we've named. The only person of interest that's been named in this case? Yes.
00:40:14
>> On June 27th, 2025, the Bish family gathered with friends and family to remember Molly 25 years
00:40:23
after her death. resting etal grant. >> First at the cemetery >> and then at a more formal ceremony in
00:40:39
the center of Warren. >> I feel her beside me. Because of Molly, I have become braver than I ever thought
00:40:47
possible. I have faced my deepest fears. I have endured unimaginable heartbreak. I have
00:40:54
survived. I believe Molly's love and light have guided us through these 25 years. So today, we share our family's
00:41:03
gratitude. And because of Molly, we have conquered what evil could not. For love
00:41:09
is much stronger. The evening ended with a gathering at Cumins Pond. I don't want people to ever
00:41:24
forget Molly and we will never stop honoring her. Welcome to Postmortem. I'm your host,
00:42:20
Ann Marie Green, and today we're discussing the case of Molly Bish, a 16-year-old lifeguard who disappeared
00:42:27
from a local pond in Warren, Massachusetts on June 27th, 2000. Her remains were found 3 years later, but
00:42:36
the big question still lingers today, which is who killed Molly Bish? Her sister Heather has taken to Tik Tok
00:42:43
pleading for leads. So joining me now to talk about this case is 48 hours correspondent Erin Morardi. Thanks for
00:42:50
joining us again Erin. >> Oh well I love being here but a little warning. This is a tough story to talk
00:42:55
about. An important story but it's tough. >> It is. And before we get into it, if you
00:43:02
have not listened to this episode yet, head on over to your podcast feed. The full audio version of this episode of 48
00:43:08
Hours is here. It's in your podcast feed right beneath this one. Go listen and then come on over for this conversation.
00:43:15
And yes, Erin, this is a tough one because unlike a lot of the cases that we do for 48 hours, you know, there's
00:43:23
isn't a resolution yet. We don't know who's responsible for her murder, 48 Hours actually covered this case back in
00:43:31
2003. Why revisit it now? Well, one thing, 48 hours, we stick with stories for a long time till they are resolved.
00:43:39
But most important is there's an unidentified killer and what happened to Molly, nobody wants to happen to any
00:43:47
other child. And so, it is important to try to get answers in this case. Plus, there have been updates, important
00:43:56
updates since we first aired this story. Um, number one, there's a person of interest. there had never been a person
00:44:04
of interest named. And there's also a new detective who was uh assigned the case who is going to give new eyes to
00:44:13
the evidence. >> And it's the 25th anniversary. And I think most police officers will tell you
00:44:21
and investigators will tell you that when you go back on a story, when there's an anniversary, there's always a
00:44:27
chance that you'll get new tips. And this story is worth pursuing. >> Yeah. And you know, Erin, one of the
00:44:34
things that we have noticed with some cases that have gone unsolved for even decades, you know, things change, people
00:44:40
get older, they may decide to come forward. So, you never know uh who may remember something that they had buried
00:44:48
that may help with this case once they hear about the hour. So, just to remind people, on the morning of June 27th,
00:44:55
2000, Molly's mom, Maggie, dropped her off at Cumins Pond after 9:50 a.m., where Molly was working as a lifeguard.
00:45:05
Shortly after that, beachgoers arrived, but Molly was not there. Police were eventually called to the scene, but
00:45:13
Maggie wasn't notified until Molly had been missing for 3 hours. First question, why did they wait so
00:45:22
long to tell her family that she was missing? I think they didn't want to overly alarm her family. They thought,
00:45:29
"Hey, maybe she just walked off with friends and took too long." Think back to 2000. Of course, this was 25 years
00:45:38
ago. Warren is a small town. I think a lot of people kid themselves, but they think these things don't happen in a
00:45:45
small town. Um, I think that sadly they didn't have a plan in place. I don't think it occurred to anyone this
00:45:54
would happen. In fact, with hindsight, you look back, she actually had a police radio that she went to pick up and she's
00:46:01
supposed to call in and check in. And I don't think anybody noticed that she didn't. or it's possible she never got a
00:46:10
chance to because we do know that whatever happened to her happened to her within minutes, a very short period of
00:46:17
time. I got to tell you, one of the things that sort of struck me being the mom of a semi newly minted teenager is
00:46:24
that I was surprised she was working at the pond alone. >> I have to agree with you, Amory, that
00:46:31
was concerning. Um, I was a lifeguard many years before that and I was never alone. Um, not because anyone feared I
00:46:41
was going to get kidnapped, but because if I had to go in, and I did have to do that once, go in for a child, someone
00:46:47
else has to be there to call the alarm to, you know, help me bring the the child in if the child needs CPR,
00:46:55
anything like that. So, it really surprised me that she would be alone there. M. So, here's the thing, though.
00:47:04
Once they determine that she's missing, I mean, they really do spring into action. There's an extensive search
00:47:09
that's launched. Hundreds of tips start flooding in after police release a sketch. It is a description that Maggie
00:47:18
gives them of a man that she remembers seeing in the parking lot. Um, he has a white car with him and he's at Cummins
00:47:27
Pond the day before Molly disappeared. What about this man really stuck out to Maggie?
00:47:34
>> Well, according to Maggie, here's this man sitting in this white car. Um, usually families go there to go swimming
00:47:43
and he's just sitting there smoking a cigarette with his left hand. Um, clearly it was a little bit of mother's
00:47:51
instinct and just like concerned, why is he there? She tried to put it out of her
00:47:56
head, but it it just kept bugging her. So that night she was concerned enough that she raised it with Molly and Molly
00:48:04
just as 16-year-olds might do um said, "Oh, mom, he's probably a fisherman." And she just kind of dismissed it. But
00:48:13
it clearly bugged Maggie. Um but then the next day when Maggie did drop Molly off, there was nobody sitting there. So
00:48:21
I think it was after her daughter disappeared that she realized that really may have been important. So,
00:48:28
after 3 years, there was a breakthrough in the case. Uh, police are notified that there's a blue bathing suit that
00:48:35
was found about 5 miles from Cumins Pond. It resembles the one that Molly was wearing on the day she disappeared.
00:48:43
You interviewed a local reporter, Kathy Curran, who described what that moment was like for Maggie and John Bish, and
00:48:50
it was, you know, obviously very emotional uh for them as parents, that kind of realization that if you're
00:48:58
finding the bathing suit and you're not finding her, this is not a good sign. Um, but what I was surprised about was
00:49:04
how emotional Kathy was. They trusted Kathy. Um, that's the benefit of reporters staying on a story from the
00:49:14
beginning and staying on it. They trusted her and they needed to have that information. And let's be honest, as we
00:49:22
also know, police sometimes and investigators don't share everything with the family and the family wanted to
00:49:28
know and they pushed Kathy to tell them and I think she struggled with it and that's why she's tearful. But um they
00:49:37
wanted to know. >> Yeah. And and I think you know when you're a journalist um and you know that
00:49:46
maybe you have an awareness of of news that will be heartbreaking to the family. It's really difficult to
00:49:52
determine what the right thing to do is in that moment. But it certainly seems like, you know, Maggie and her husband
00:50:00
were were appreciative to get that opportunity to uh know, you know, what police already knew.
00:50:06
>> That is one of the most moving parts of the hour. When we realize that a mother
00:50:13
is about to face reality, if you didn't have that bathing suit, you always had hope. And that bathing suit meant there
00:50:23
was no more hope. Yeah. So, another really fascinating person that you spoke to uh during this hour was Dr. Ann Marie
00:50:31
Meyers. She is a forensic anthropologist who works for the Boston Medical Examiner's Office. I had never heard of
00:50:39
a forensic anthropologist before. I mean, how rare is it to come across one of those?
00:50:45
>> Well, it's not as rare anymore. I mean, I've run into the forensic anthropologists on quite a number of
00:50:52
stories very similar to this. What happens is, you know, investigators are determined not just to solve the case,
00:50:59
but also, especially when someone's missing, to bring that person back to his or her family. But sometimes it's
00:51:07
difficult I mean after in this case just 3 years um to determine whether first if
00:51:14
bones are found whether they are animal or human and that's something a forensic
00:51:19
anthropologist can do right away. I should also talk a little bit about the search which is really interesting to me
00:51:27
and that was organized by the anthropologists. It's a grid search when they're looking
00:51:33
for bones. And so you see these lines of police officers and investigators and volunteers who are going with rakes and
00:51:41
walking looking for even tiny bones. So they they have to just really scour every part of that area. And we're
00:51:50
talking about 35 acres. So it did take days and weeks to do that. And one other thing I thought was so interesting that
00:51:58
we learned from Dr. Myers is that when someone disappears, she tells investigators,
00:52:03
if you're in a urban area, that person could be found within a mile and a half radius. In a rural area, it's going to
00:52:12
be maybe up to 5 miles. And guess what? In this case, Molly was found about 5 miles away from Cumins Pond.
00:52:22
>> She was spot on. but also she was able to tell us that this young woman Molly
00:52:29
was left there but wasn't buried there. And you're about to hear something that we didn't even air in our hour. Why that
00:52:37
matters. We could tell that she was placed there because the the the fluids from decomposition are so costic. Okay.
00:52:48
Um that they burn the foliage. It literally doesn't allow the foliage to grow for a while.
00:52:55
>> So you could actually see kind of an imprint of her body. >> You could see an imprint
00:53:00
>> three years later. >> Even 3 years later because the foliage had not recovered from that where she
00:53:05
was was >> they did not find all the remains. They found up to 27 bones and her skull. And
00:53:14
why it matters that you could determine whether she was actually buried or laid there was Dr. Meyer said it's very
00:53:23
likely that the person who killed Molly and left her there was in a rush. Um and
00:53:30
and Dr. Meyers also believed that it happened very shortly after she disappeared and was murdered.
00:53:39
>> And then sadly, and this was something else Dr. Myers told us um is that there
00:53:44
was a large animal there who scattered the bones and made it so difficult for searchers to find uh Molly. So, you
00:53:54
know, once bones are are found, the Bish family are able to have a funeral. But what I thought was really interesting
00:54:02
about something that Molly's mom, Maggie, said, um it stuck out to me. She said she felt blessed that she could
00:54:11
have a funeral in a church. Amory, I think what she was also saying was that she had her baby back. Um,
00:54:20
they are religious. Um, and they they relied on their faith and have always relied on their faith to get through
00:54:27
this. But I think it was also the idea um, we see this time and time again. There's nothing worse, nothing worse for
00:54:35
a family than when someone disappears and they are not found. And they at least knew where Molly was and they
00:54:44
could go visit Molly and it was a huge funeral. So, they got the comfort of the entire community coming out um mourning
00:54:54
with them. But you know, anyone who watches this hour, you'll see almost the entire time Maggie cries through the
00:55:02
interview. So, the pain is still there. Welcome back. In May of 2004, uh 4 years
00:55:10
after Molly disappeared, then DA John Ki called for a grand jury to be convened.
00:55:17
Now, according to the Bish family, who were called to testify, many of the questions focused on Molly's friends,
00:55:24
but then 2 years later, the grand jury was dismissed without an indictment. This seems unusual to me, Aaron. Well,
00:55:35
dissolving after two years, that's a long time, but the whole thing was rare. Let's be honest, your instincts are
00:55:40
right. Um, usually grand juries are used so that prosecutors who think they're very close to being able to bring
00:55:48
charges um will bring in witnesses where they think they can get probable cause or enough probable cause to convince a
00:55:57
judge that they should be able to bring charges against someone. That's what grand juries are usually used for. But
00:56:04
there are investigative grand juries and that's what in fact the now current DA Joe Early says this was for. Um, and
00:56:14
that is possible because the benefit of a grand jury is that you can pull people
00:56:21
in who don't want to talk and they have to. There's a subpoena. Um, and they have to tell the truth because they're
00:56:28
under oath. So, it's it's very possible that this was from the beginning an investigative grand jury. Two years is a
00:56:37
long time and very expensive, but because all the testimony is sealed, we really can't tell exactly what happened,
00:56:47
but we do know that it is unusual and no indictments came out of it. >> I mean, for the Bish family, it must
00:56:56
have been incredibly frustrating. They are sitting there, they're hearing all these questions about Molly's friends,
00:57:01
and I'm sure they're wondering, well, what do they know that we should know? Um, and then at the end of two years,
00:57:07
they they really get no answers. And not only do they not get answers from the grand jury, and they can't find out what
00:57:15
people said, but the investigators aren't telling them much either. And you and I both know this, Amory, this
00:57:21
happens all the time because investigators are always worried if they say something to the family, the
00:57:26
family's going to tell friends that it's going to get out. So, it was very, very
00:57:31
difficult for the family, as you can imagine. Heather was so frustrated. Um, she's the older sister. She doesn't have
00:57:39
answers and she wants answers like everybody else. >> Wow. And this is what's particularly
00:57:45
impressive about Heather because she is of course a very vocal advocate. She's been so throughout the years, but she
00:57:53
wants to raise public awareness about this case and she does something that is sort of not not natural for her to do.
00:58:01
She heads to Tik Tok. She does head to Tik Tok and you and I are both seeing that more and more now. Heather so much
00:58:09
believes that she might be able to keep this case alive and and get tips that as
00:58:15
of now she's done about 250 videos. Think about that. And has 12,000 followers. But even before there was Tik
00:58:25
Tok, Heather was already on the case. And she would get tips from people and bring them to the police. She heard
00:58:34
about a man who had been charged um with killing his girlfriend in Florida, a guy
00:58:40
by the name of Rodney Stanganger, who was familiar with War in Massachusetts, but had moved to Florida. And the
00:58:48
victim's sister had actually reached out and said he might be involved in Molly's
00:58:53
murder. And so that was one of the tips that Heather gave police. And it turned out that Rodney Sanger had been on their
00:59:01
radar. And in fact, they went and talked to him and later searched his trailer. And then later on, a private
00:59:10
investigator told Heather about a man by the name of Gerald Batiston. Um, who also had an extensive police
00:59:19
record and and in fact, again, Heather found out that he was also someone that they had looked at from the beginning.
00:59:26
And we want to remind our listeners that there was not enough evidence to name Rodney Stanganger or Derald Badeston as
00:59:33
suspects. Um it does take, you know, more than two decades after Molly disappears. It's June 3rd, 2021, and
00:59:42
police actually do name a person of interest. His name is Frank Sumner. Uh we learned in the hour that he's a local
00:59:51
auto repair shop owner. He looks like that police sketch. He resembles it. He has access or had access to a white car
01:00:00
and he was previously convicted of rape and kidnapping >> and smoking with the left hand.
01:00:08
>> Right. So that to me is so significant. I mean that just stays in your head when
01:00:14
you watch the hour. But I should point out a little bit of background on Sumar. He was convicted back in 1982 for
01:00:22
aggravated rape and kidnapping after luring a woman to an apartment, choking her, and then threatening to kill her
01:00:30
and raping her. He was parrolled in 1998, which was 2 years before Molly disappeared. And after his release, he
01:00:40
accumulated a lengthy criminal record over 20 pages long that included multiple charges, failure to register as
01:00:49
a sex offender, disorderly conduct, and harassment. And all those were still pending when he died. And um after the
01:00:59
current DA had named Frank Sumner as a person of interest, Sumner's family became very upset and they said, you
01:01:08
know, where's where's the proof? You know, um we have a large family. You know, we all share his name. Where's the
01:01:15
proof? The DA tried to compare Sumner's DNA with DNA found at the crime scene, but the problem was Sumner was cremated.
01:01:30
And somehow they had never taken his DNA while he was in prison. It was not in the FBI KOTA system. So, uh, they sent
01:01:40
investigators to Ohio and they took the DNA of his son and then after a year or so they announced that it's inconclusive
01:01:51
and but won't explain what that means. That is so disappointing. Clearly, you know, COTUS has its limitations because
01:01:59
it's only a certain pool of individuals that are going to be found in Cotus. But
01:02:03
you would think somebody convicted of rape, it would be guaranteed that his DNA would be on file somewhere,
01:02:09
>> right? But you know what? Some of the older cases, they weren't doing DNA back
01:02:13
then. I think it's more common now that they're making sure that uh particularly
01:02:18
people convicted of very serious crimes have their DNA in the system. But um I think that there's still a lot of hope
01:02:25
as we've seen in so many cases recently as the testing for DNA gets better. I think the big question in this case is
01:02:35
do they even have the killer's DNA? Um, if you remember the three hours of a delay before they really took this as a
01:02:44
kidnapping, not just a young woman who disappeared. So, you had a contaminated crime scene. And so, while investigators
01:02:52
did pick up cigarette butts and picked up everything, do they actually have DNA evidence from the killer? You actually
01:03:01
went someplace really interesting for this hour. You visited the Massachusetts State Police Crime Labs DNA cold storage
01:03:08
facility. What was that like? >> Well, I had never been number one in a storage facility like that. That was so
01:03:16
cold. And um it gave me great comfort to see how much evidence has been preserved. Um, and what we also learned
01:03:26
while we were there is that um, as DNA tests improve, then that means that some of the evidence that they think is most
01:03:34
important or could be important can be tested. I mean, even though it's been decades, there's at least one person who
01:03:41
is confident that Molly's killer will be found, and it's a new detective, Detective Chelsea Safford. She was hired
01:03:48
to take over the Bish investigation. I mean, she was very clear um that she believes that she will find they will
01:03:57
find Molly's killer. I appreciate the confidence. What I kept on thinking was, well, what are you going to do
01:04:06
differently? Well, you know, I know this sounds a little cliche, but she is going
01:04:11
to add fresh eyes. And I have seen that where young investigators, she's young, she's a woman, might bring new ideas,
01:04:21
might find something. She's going back through. She said there were like 8,000 tips that had come in. She's going back
01:04:28
through those to see if there's a tip that maybe now 25 years later, you look at and you go, "Oh my god." Um, and so,
01:04:37
you know, I appreciate her optimism and it's important for the community and it's important for the family. I'm I'm
01:04:45
hoping for the family and everyone that is so invested in this that there is an end to this case and uh 48 hours can do
01:04:52
that followup as well. Um, thank you so much for talking with us, Erin. >> Well, it's always great talking about
01:04:58
these cases and they stay in our hearts for a long time. >> Yeah. Um, and thank you all for
01:05:04
listening. If you like this podcast, please rate and review on Apple Podcast or Spotify. And if you have any
01:05:12
information that can help authorities find Molly's killer, please reach out to the Molly Bish tip line. That number is
01:05:20
5084537575.