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I once spoke with a mother whose four-year-old daughter was kidnapped from her front yard picked up over their
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fence as the child's older siblings had their backs turned for maybe 30 seconds 11 days later her body was found in a
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cotton field her name was Jessica Martinez she was the most beautiful little girl the only daughter in a
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family of boys she was their princess a real life doll her murder was never solved it'd been nearly 30 years since
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her kidnapping when her mother told me that trying to explain the pain of losing a child is like trying to explain
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what a rainbow is like to someone who can't see color I think that's the most simple way to put it you can try to
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explain the pain and the person hearing about it can try to imagine it telling themselves it would be horrible a
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nightmare pain they can't imagine but that's just it they can't imagine it they can't understand
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I think that's why Cheryl Dy and Jane latched on to each other and became so close so quickly after that first
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meeting back then they could say we're all in the same boat especially Jane and Cheryl but now Cheryl was in a boat all
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alone floating endlessly through a new kind of grief she didn't think was possible I can think of maybe a few very
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very few people who are in this horrible Club that can say um not only did they kill your son
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but they probably hurt him really badly before he was killed and then they decided that they' just chop him up and
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throw him away like garbage in a bag in the river who can say that nobody can say
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that we have no peers to talk to all of a sudden Diane doesn't understand that side of the story I mean her son was
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gunned down in the middle of a street right all of a sudden Jane these these women that I've been relying on and
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talking to all of a sudden Jane doesn't know this part who do I talk to about this you can't just walk into you know
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go have coffee with someone talk about your son being cut up [Music] I'm Olivia Lavo and this is the Bakers
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field 3 [Music] [Music] and so it becomes very very lonely very almost I would I don't even know
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how to express it really it's you had this loneliness before and this kind of self-imposed isolation because you know
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you just don't feel like being around people and you're crying all the time and and then all of a sudden that circle
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gets smaller and smaller smaller smaller smaller at the same time Jane was also going through a new kind of pain that
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neither Dy or Cheryl could relate to a lot of people assumed that the news that neither body part belonged to Bailey
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would be incredible for her mother and her entire family which Jane understands as she even says herself what kind of
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mom hopes a body parts their daughter it's a deeply complicated mind set of course Jane wants Bailey to be
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found alive but at this point it had been 8 months with no signs of life and countless people telling her that they
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had heard that Bailey was dead she'd been hearing lots of horrific stories of the various possibilities of what
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happened to her daughter but none was worse than hearing she might never find her if the leg had matched to Bailey as
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Dreadful as the thought was that her body was just stuck out there in the lake as Jane puts it at least she would
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have found found her I know it sounds weird and I just want to find her or pie of
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her I need to bring my daughter home I don't know where to look for her and somebody needs
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to you know just give me GPS points and or send me a picture from the map where she is and I'll go out and get
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her though dy's son James was never missing Dy understood a little bit of what Jane was going through before D was
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born she had an ant go missing she was in all the detective books whatever happened to Genie
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long they never found her the prime suspect was always her ants estranged husband who was a police
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officer they investigated but they could never find anything he had taken a shovel from my grandmother's house that
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night asked for a shovel the two little boys um weren't old enough they just remember waking up
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in the dark and he said your your mom isn't here when they were asking where's Mommy while Dy never knew her aunt Genie
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she grew up seeing the life-altering effects her disappearance had my grandmother you know having a child that
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was missing and not knowing what happened to her was very difficult for her and so I can relate to Jane and not wanting
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to be that person you know wanting to find Bailey now even though the lake was really no
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longer a place where Jane could go look for Bailey she still kept going I would always go out to the lake I'd kind of
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become attached to the leg and I've said that before because I thought it was Bailey but it wasn't Bailey so it was
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somebody else's daughter out there and they didn't know she was there so as moms would you know do little memorials
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for her after the female leg didn't match to Bailey it solidified her identity as a
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Jane Doe but the moms didn't think that was fitting we always called her lady in
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the lake and I forget which one of us said oh liil it might have been D or Cheryl but it's like okay liil we'll
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call her Li for lady in the lake the moms vowed to continue their mission to raise money for the
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specialized soner equipment to search the lake for the rest of Lil's body if it wasn't my daughter it was somebody's
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daughter out there true to their word they formed a nonprofit called the Bakersfield 3 and got to work planning a
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fundraiser to bring in the 20 grand or so for the equipment in some ways I think advocating for Lil short for lady
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in the lake was almost a bit of a distraction for the moms as they were still processing the gravity of the arm
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in the river matching to to Micah this meant the rest of Micah was likely in the river and the river is far more
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difficult and dangerous to search and then there was the horrifying story his remains told unlike the leg
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found in the lake that was believed to have detached naturally Micah's arm was clearly severed by a saw and placed into
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a bag weighted down with rocks great effort was put into trying to ensure he'd never be found there was also a zip
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tie around Micah's wrist here's Sergeant Garrett how unusual is it to have a case
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with dismemberment highly unusual have you ever had a case before no that you know
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is a whole another uh degree of craziness in this case that uh kind of goes to the character of the person if
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you're willing to to do that that's uh not very common you might remember Sergeant Garrett at
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the time was a homicide detective so he was only officially assigned to work James's case but after the confirmation
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that mic's arm was found the top law enforcement officials agreed it was best Sergeant Garrett officially be the lead
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detective on all three cases Bailey's case up until this point was being handled by a different agency the
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sheriff's office and we had never seen the sheriff hand over one of their cases to the police Department to us in the 17
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News Room this felt significant here's 17 news anchor and reporter Alex fiser once we heard law
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enforcement say that we knew okay there's something big about about what's going on there's something something
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crazy about this case paired with the gruesome revelation of Micah's dismemberment it fueled a lot of
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suspicion that myself and others had already been hearing here's 17 news reporter Jason katowski
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there were all sorts of rumors about who might be involved in this the two big ones were the cartel and the Hell's
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Angels motorcycle club some people swore it were true others were skeptical here's me talking to a friend of Micah
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James and Bailey Jeremy Bell so what's up with all the Hell's Angels talk about this case I think it's just talk H
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Angels wouldn't not get involved with this [ __ ] they have no reason to they're probably trying to keep their
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name as far away from this as possible I mean I didn't even know there were Hell's Angels in
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Bakersfield to be honest with you uh any true patched in members you won't know who they are oh they're not like wearing
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there absolutely not this [ __ ] no a true patch in Hell's Angel member is you wouldn't be able to tell him from from
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any other Regular Joe they come off as very polite and well-mannered guys right they did the Toys for Tots
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and that image [ __ ] but if you're not a p member they'll cut your throat before
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you can even blink an eye during their own investigation the three moms were warned to stay away from
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anyone in an outlaw motorcycle gang but Jane of course couldn't help herself if there was a chance a biker had
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information Jane was going to talk to them I would even so up to motorcycle groups when I would see on like how they
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would have Gatherings at places like the motorcycle clubs I didn't really know who was who at the time you know and I'd
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hand out my flyers one time Jane walked up to a group of bikers at a diner and handed
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them Bailey's flyer when one of the members said to her why would you give us a flyer do you think we know where
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she's at and I go no I just know that you guys know a lot of people and if you could help you know spread
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the word to find my daughter I believe something happened to her and kind of give like the quick spill about Bailey
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and the three and and they're like oh okay unlike other gangs biker gangs and Bakersfield seem to fly under the radar
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when it came to being connected to any crimes it was very rare we in news would ever hear them come up maybe once every
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few years of that I can only only think of two cases in Bakersfield they were linked to one was a suspicious death and
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the other a suspicious disappearance charges have never been filed in either more recently the president of the
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Fresno chapter of Hell's Angels a city 2 hours north of Bakersfield was convicted
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of murder charges along with two other chapter presidents for reportedly killing a fellow ha member and somehow
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illegally cremating his body at a local Funeral Home alls this to say when the hell's
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angel's name was brought up in the Bakersfield 3 case people thought yeah that's a group who could make people
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disappear and it goes without saying the Mexican drug cartel had no shortage of horror stories of making people go
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missing torture and dismemberment around this time I got an email from Matt Queen throughout the
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last 9 months or so covering the three cases I had periodically tried to get him to do an interview with me the email
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said first and foremost before he'd ever consider sitting down with me I would need to issue a public apology for
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trying to crucify him by giving Jane Bailey's Mama platform part of the email read this story is too big for you
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Olivia I need a real reporter I applied your efforts but I question your motives
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the email continues in regards to Bailey and Micah they were both very careful not to say too much about quote the
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family whoever they are they were very dangerous people according to Micah on two occasions Micah handed me a folded
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up piece of paper and instructed me only to open it if he didn't contact me in one hour that it would probably mean
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he's dead I laughed at him I used to think he was skitso the things Bailey told me I dare not repeat I just want to
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keep my family safe there isn't much more I can say or do to help so it seemed like many other people
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I'd spoken with regarding the Bakersfield 3 case Queen was also scared of whatever and whomever Bailey and
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Micah were wrapped up with and then two months after we'd filmed it the Dr Phil episode aired The
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Bakers field 3 two missing and one killed is it three mysteries or one which started its own sort of [ __ ] storm
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of rumors and chatter about the case I thought that Dr Phil Show to be honest was a big mistake huge mistake as a
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detective that would have really hindered my investigation this is retired Bakersfield Police detective Bill Darby
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bill is someone who lives and breathes the police department as he'd say it he was born into it Bill's Father Bill
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Darby senior was a detective at the same Department Bill remembers being a teenager in the '90s piling into his
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dad's yellow pickup truck and seeing a photo of a little girl tucked into the visor the little girl in the photo is
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the same little girl I mentioned at the beginning of the episode Jessica Martinez who was abducted and murdered
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at age 4 Bill Darby senior was assigned to the case before her little body was found in a cotton field driving along
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one day Bill Jr asked his dad why do you keep that photo in your personal car why
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not your police car bill senior told him every minute I'm in my police car I will
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always be working her case and she knows that and so does her mother but that little girl needs to know I'm thinking
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of her every day day every second of my life this last June on his 77th birthday
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Bill senior suffered a massive stroke as he struggled on life support his wife told him you will see Jessica in heaven
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within minutes after that he passed peacefully after his death Bill Jr found that same picture of Jessica still
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tucked into his dad's sun visor not every detective has that same passion and dedication but Bill Senor
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did and it's the same kind of passion I see in his son Bill Jr worked for the police
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department for 20 years before breaking his back on the job and he was not ready
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to retire not even close there's just a couple passion cases that I wanted to close out before I left so those those
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stick with anybody forever one of Bill's passion cases became one of mine and even though I was
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at the time a young fairly inexperienced reporter Bill became almost an informal
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invest instigative partner of mine and then you got involved with a Bakersville 3 case which I avoided like the plague
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because of the media tension and I just thought something I don't want to get into it cuz I know I get sucked in and
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you sucked me in bill is a Burly guy who could certainly come off intimidating but he's really a big teddy bear he's
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compassionate and truly wants to help victim's families I knew he'd be perfect to speak with the moms when you're
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talking to the victim's family you treat it has the most important thing going on
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because it is and that's something and I'm not casting any Stones I know historically not specifically this case
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that an overwhelmed detective can sometime sometimes lack that empathy I certainly lack the empathy at times but
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I could certainly fake it you know I my own stressors at the time I had three four three young kids and a baby and
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stressful work but damn it if one of my kids wasn't here dinner if there were only three and not four I would want the
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detach giv me all their attention so you when you're in front of him when you're
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talking to him you give them that respect Bill agreed to meet with the moms and let me pick his brain about the
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case not long after the doct Phil special aired which he calls a huge mistake his reasoning is he says it
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dramatized an already dramatic case which in turn spurred tons of rumors talk and outlandish tips investigators
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had to track down Sergeant Garrett will tell you they weren't all bad some turned out to be good but for a minute
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there it certainly seemed to cause a bit of a headache for the department and for
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the moms there seemed to be an uptick in horror stories they were hearing about their kids Jane was consumed with
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thoughts about Bailey being tortured and dismembered like Micah she couldn't sleep at night she was struggling to
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function I saw she was just going crazy not literally just she's losing her mind
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over her kid as we all would part of the struggle was the mom's feeling like the
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police department wouldn't share anything with them and to the police department's credit that's pretty
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typical for them with any families but having a case that involved three families three families who were going
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on national TV Together made them I think even a little more reserved than usual which to be frank drove the moms a
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little crazy at times and Bill thought he could help with that originally I wanted to not really help in the
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investigation but to walk the victims through the investigation to give them comfort and
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let them know hey this is what's happening here this is why they're doing there's a method to the madness in my
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mind I honestly thought I was helping the police department by answering their questions so that they they weren't
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bugging them to be honest I introduced Bill to the moms in a conference room at the news station where the three of them
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had a massive table nearly completely covered in their notes and charts and documents they'
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created almost immediately I saw that they were 24/7 talking to each other and talking
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to people that were involved and getting a lot of information and I thinking as a
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detective man this would be information overload I'll admit this is around the same time I myself started to get
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slightly overwhelmed with the amount of different players different crimes different connections that were being
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thrown out there I remember one night I was Home Alone unable to sleep and I found myself messaging with a
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self-proclaimed drug dealer who knew the circle and who told me that Micah was wrapped up with the cartel and his body
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was dumped in a minine shaft in the desert then at some point the conversation shifted to talk that a
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white supremacist Neo-Nazi gang member ordered a hit on Micah from prison it became increasingly harder to know what
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was a red herring and what was a lead worth chasing I mean for a while there you
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remember it was the Talk of the Town and everybody has their opinions and everybody solved the crime within a
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week another problem was a lot of people who wanted to give their two cents on the case had no actual involvement it
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was all pure hearsay happening at dive bars and hair salons making its way back to us look how many people are suspects
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in this in different genres of people you had bikers you had Mexican Mafia you had you know cartels all sorts of stuff
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it's just it I saw it the snowball going downhill Bill wanted to try to boil it down go back to
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the basics if you will focus on the most logical explanation for things which is
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what Sergeant Garrett was also doing the simple answer is usually the the correct
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answer to things and people tend to make things more complex at a certain point part of what made the case start to feel
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complex to me at least was trying to find a direct link between James's murder and Micah and Bailey's
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disappearances as I looked into it early on without having a lot of evidence in front of me one thing was becoming
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glaringly obvious is that Bailey and Micah were most likely related for sure James I still think was a
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coincidence I mean nefarious as it was I don't think James's murder was directly
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related to those other two to be clear the three moms never thought there was one singular killer responsible for all
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three cases but for a while at least it seemed like there had to be something between the one Monon time frame and the
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overlap of friends here's Jeremy Bell again I'm almost like 100% positive that that Micah and Bailey's Micah and Bailey
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had nothing to do with with James they might have known each other they might have hung out but they those were two
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two separate interest and Bailey and James's friend Jessica I think this is something totally
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different that his brother probably knows more about this brings us to a part of
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James's case that is difficult to say the least for his brother Ryan Google my name just Google my name and see what
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comes up you know that's what I have to deal with now after the do Phil Special Air in early 2019 it became apparent
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that a lot of people thought Ryan had information about his brother's murder he wasn't sharing including Dr Phil
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apparently here's a clip of the episode you know who shot your brother why haven't you told the police if I
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knew who if I knew I would have told him give me a polygraph please please you don't know who shot your
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brother no and if I did I don't even think I'd let the cops have their chance bill when looking at the case took the
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Dr Phil approach Ryan's the key I could be wrong my earliest instinct is Ryan knows every freaking thing about
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that he's lining up his ass sorry I'm very passionate about that CU I think he's a
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punk he's hiding behind his addiction his crap it's his damn brother he either saw it knew it was going to happen or
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knows afterwards he knows the whole story people's main reason for thinking Ryan could know more is simply that Ryan
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was at the chiropractor's house that night when the chiropractor allegedly said he was going to quote call his boys
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who'd be strapped if James came by James did come by and as Ryan was apparently driving out of the chiropractor's
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neighborhood James was shot to be clear Ryan isn't the only person who's told me the chiropractor
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made a threatening comment towards James someone else told me that about a week before James's murder he heard the
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chiropractor say something similar to what Ryan shared here's James's friend Jeremy
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again they knew who shot him who sh all of us did Ryan had to have known Ryan had to have known Jesus Christ James's
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car James was found literally within a 100 yards from that dude's house right right he wasn't a bad neighborhood he
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wasn't in gang territory he was in it was a nice brand new neighborhood there's no crime over there there's no
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driveby shootings no none of that [ __ ] like there's no other possible person that could have
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done other than other than that chiropractor the overall consensus was the chiropractor would be pretty unlucky
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if he really had nothing to do with it to have allegedly made the comments he did and afterwards James is
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coincidentally killed outside his house people people also zeroed in on Ryan essentially being an eyewitness to all
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of it but the information he' shared with police wasn't resulting in an arrest which people thought was strange
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even Matt Queen had something to say about it Matt pulled Cheryl and I aside in court one day in in the hall and he
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looked at Cheryl and he goes I don't know what to tell you you know I have no idea where Mike
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is he told me I needed to talk to Ryan he goes your son knows what happened I asked D how she felt seeing
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one of her sons be scrutinized so much over her other son's murder I feel like he's been put through the
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ringer do I still believe he knows more than he knows I do only in that I know he was on drugs
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and I know that that night I know he had been taking drugs and I sometimes think
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when you go through a traumatic experience your brain protects yourself do I think Ryan shot his
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brother absolutely not do I think Ryan was involved in having his brother shot absolutely
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not but do I think there's little nuances I do nuances I mean when you're saying
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that are you saying um well like for instance can't remember that he can't remember like for instance Ryan went in
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and out of that neighborhood twice and that silver sedan was sitting there Ryan knows cars like the back of
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his hand he can look at a mirror a grill but yet he doesn't remember the make of the car for the life of me
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trying to [ __ ] remember what kind of car was that what kind of car was that silver car it was a silver four-door car
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full size but what kind like God damn it Ryan [ __ ] think I mean people have said he's purposefully doing that
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because he's afraid for his life D doesn't think his lack of memory is intentional but others do and believe
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that he's afraid for his life because one theory of James's murder is that it was supposed to be RH who was killed
00:27:59
even D has considered it two weeks prior to James being killed I had a really bad
00:28:06
dream that Ryan was killed and I was just hysterically shaken and James said Mom you don't understand
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he goes Ryan's dealing with some really bad people and so I wonder if it was meant
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for Ryan and not James if possibly Ryan was involved with something or someone and James was trying to help help
00:28:34
him here's Ryan's take on that theory I thought about it for a minute and considered it but anybody around us
00:28:45
knows what I look like and they know what he looks like they know what kind of car I drive and what kind of car
00:28:52
James drove a quick editor's note here the interview you just heard with Ryan and
00:28:58
Dy were recorded when Ryan was still using drugs he's been clean now for over a year and a half but D says his
00:29:06
recollection of the night of the murder is still the same whatever the twist in James's case
00:29:13
may be many assume there must be one if there's been no arrest though shortly after James's murder the chiropractor
00:29:20
did spend a little time Behind Bars after making a plea deal in a Narcotics case however after meeting the required
00:29:28
for his probation that charge was expunged from his record so technically he's not considered a convicted felon
00:29:36
he's also no longer considered a chiropractor four months after James's murder He was ordered to surrender his
00:29:42
medical license the board of Chiropractic examiners cited his drug conviction as unprofessional conduct at
00:29:50
last check he has not tried to get his license reinstated no one I spoke with could
00:29:56
tell me what he's been up to in recent years it seems he's kept a low profile and my attempts to speak with him have
00:30:03
been unsuccessful as of this recording the chiropractor has never been charged with
00:30:08
the male theft and check fraud you've heard a couple people implicate him in and when it comes to James's murder he's
00:30:15
never been publicly named a suspect by law enforcement how has there not been an
00:30:20
arrest in the case so there's a lot of cases that as a homicide investigator works that uh you kind of know what
00:30:27
happened but you can't always prove like for court purposes what happened to Sergeant Garrett I'm sure the talk about
00:30:34
how James's case seems solvable from people outside of the investigation can be frankly annoying we're essentially
00:30:42
like football fans screaming at the TV about the quarterback's performance from the comfort of our couch and I can
00:30:49
imagine unsolicited advice and criticism is particularly irritating seeing as in
00:30:56
homicide cases you have to keep everything then close to the chest so Sergeant Garrett isn't really able to
00:31:01
defend his investigation his responses have to be vague at best here's what he could say well in any homicide case you
00:31:10
can't approach it with a narrow scope of view you want to be able to look at everything you just never know what
00:31:16
evidence you'll have that leads you in a certain direction on any investigation so James's case is more complex than
00:31:24
than it appears I was being pulled in a lot of directions by people related to the
00:31:30
case a few months into 2019 the one-year anniversaries passed for the three cases
00:31:37
as spring crept into summer we got an unexpected announcement from the police department they sent out a press release
00:31:44
confirming that Micah and Bailey's cases were believed to be connected to each other but they said they could find no
00:31:51
direct link to James's murder and the two disappearances it wasn't that the news
00:31:56
itself was groundbreaking as most people including the moms had essentially already come to that conclusion but it
00:32:03
still felt significant and sort of odd did this mean the Bakersfield 3 was really the Bakersfield 2 and if all
00:32:12
three victims knew each other and all died or disappeared within a month what made Bailey and Micah's cases connected
00:32:19
but not James did Micah and Bailey disappear for the same reason was the same person or
00:32:26
persons responsible [Music] it doesn't matter if you're Olivia Lavo 5 foot nothing and 100 nothing or big
00:32:37
fat build Arby with a gun on his hip if he wants to kill you he's going to kill you that's next time on the Bakers field
00:32:44
[Music] 3 for