00:00:00
There's something intuitive in [music] us that if we trust can tell us when we're in trouble.
00:00:06
It's not always an alarm. Sometimes [music] it's a quiet feeling warning you of someone's presence
00:00:13
telling you that you're not alone. That is the very feeling that woke up 19-year-old Rachel Hansen from sleep one
00:00:19
June night in 2022. The adrenaline coursing through her spiked when she opened her eyes to find someone standing
00:00:27
over her bed staring at her. Rachel let out a scream and that sent the person running out of her room and
00:00:34
then out of the apartment completely without ever uttering a word. And that should have been the worst thing that
00:00:41
happened to Rachel in that Gilbert, Arizona apartment, but it wasn't. Because the very next night when Rachel
00:00:48
was asleep in bed just after 2:00 a.m. a dark figure entered her bedroom again held up a gun and shot her in the
00:00:57
abdomen before fleeing. Was the first break-in unrelated? Or was it a warning? A bad omen of what was to come? To this
00:01:06
day no suspects have been named. And if you read the heavily redacted 338-page police file that Gilbert Police
00:01:14
Department released in 2024, you'll learn a whole lot of nothing. But to leave it at that is not exactly
00:01:20
the Crime Junkie nature. So our team did some investigating. Join us as we unravel the mystery of who killed Rachel
00:01:29
Hansen. >> one. Rachel knows that she's in bad condition, [music] so she wastes no time
00:01:58
when the call connects. "I've been shot," she tells them. "Someone broke in and shot me." In about 5 minutes, first
00:02:05
responders are there at the scene. They start working on her there before rushing her to the hospital, but the
00:02:10
bullet that went [music] through her just did too much damage, and after 3 hours in surgery, doctors couldn't save
00:02:17
her. But here's the tragedy on top of the tragedy. When Rachel went to the hospital [music] and while she was in
00:02:24
surgery, her family had no idea. Our reporter Nicole Kagan spoke to Rachel's mom, Kim Hansen, and she said that no
00:02:31
one came to notify the family until 7:00 a.m. after Rachel had died. No one called them when Rachel was found or
00:02:39
when she was in surgery at the hospital, which still bothers Kim to this day knowing that her daughter was there all
00:02:46
alone. But that is far from the only thing that bothers her. There would be plenty more heartbreak and
00:02:52
disappointment [music] coming. She just didn't know it yet. Because like so many
00:02:56
people who never have to live the true crime story, when this all unfolded, Kim was under the impression that the
00:03:02
criminal justice system worked, that all detectives knew how to do their jobs, and that they did them well. Well, that
00:03:08
bubble would burst in a hard [music] way, which brings me back to the crime scene. Now, as far as scenes go,
00:03:14
Rachel's was simple to process. According to the police file, aside from the blood on her mattress and in her
00:03:21
[music] bathroom and the bullet and shell casing, nothing seemed out of place. In fact, there was barely any
00:03:27
furniture at all in sight, just her box spring and mattress. I mean, the only thing really notable about the state of
00:03:33
the apartment that I can tell from the police file is the smell because apparently it like reeks of marijuana.
00:03:39
And as officers began canvassing neighbors, they learned that this smell had been there for like the last 6
00:03:45
months. And over that time, there were random people coming and going from the unit and loud arguments. And those who
00:03:52
lived around unit 3133 assumed that drugs were being sold out of there and that the young woman who lived there
00:03:58
clearly had a bad relationship with her boyfriend, which they would have gotten a front row to because when Nicole went
00:04:03
to this apartment complex, not only are the units pretty close together, but like just walking the hallway, she could
00:04:08
clearly hear people talking and watching TV inside their apartments. >> Paper-thin walls.
00:04:12
>> Yeah. But here's what's so strange. On the night Rachel died, they heard nothing. How? I mean, even if you were
00:04:19
sleeping, I mean, I feel like you would hear a gunshot. Like that would totally wake you up. Which Yeah, I mean, could
00:04:25
they have used a silencer on the gun? So, that was my first thought, right? But I don't know if this killer was
00:04:31
being mindful of noise because while there were no signs of forced entry to Rachel's front door, we actually know
00:04:37
from pictures of the apartment that Kim took after it was cleared by police that
00:04:40
someone kicked the crap out of Rachel's bedroom door. And this is one of those details that just like doesn't compute
00:04:48
for me. Like even if Rachel's bedroom door was locked, you can see from the picture, I don't know if like you had
00:04:53
those where it's like you can like use a nail to like Yeah. turn it. So, why go through the trouble of like kicking it
00:04:58
in and making all that noise? [music] And what's even weirder still is that even with the door kicked in, apparently
00:05:04
the neighbors still heard nothing. Like I personally spoke to the neighbor who lived right across from Rachel and they
00:05:09
said that they weren't even sleeping when this happened. They had just gotten back from bowling at like 1:30 or 2:00
00:05:15
in the morning. They're like fully awake when the shot would have been fired, which means they would have been awake
00:05:21
when the door was kicked in. If it happened then, too. And they were awake when Rachel would have called 911 and
00:05:27
awake when police were showing up to the apartment and like talking to the people
00:05:31
who are now across the hall. How did they hear nothing? Not just like the stuff I mentioned, but like no hurried
00:05:36
footsteps, no no running away, no no argument. Yeah, they didn't see anything either. And a shady person lingering, I
00:05:42
think would have stood out because despite whatever was going on for 6 months in unit 3133, this was a nice and
00:05:49
safe area, like a gated community, in fact. >> Does it have any cameras then? Oh, it
00:05:54
does, but kind of like the gatedness of this community, it feels like it was a little all for show. The leasing office
00:06:02
told investigators that there were no operational cameras anywhere in the complex. And when Nicole went to the
00:06:09
complex, now mind you, this is like 3-plus years post homicide, but every time she went down to check the gate,
00:06:14
it's just like wide open. Cool. But building security aside, one of Rachel's neighbors did have a working Ring
00:06:22
camera. And this is the first frustrating roadblock in the highly redacted records that we got. Nearly all
00:06:29
of what they learned from the Ring camera footage is redacted. Some of the only information that is not says that a
00:06:35
camera caught Rachel on June 3rd, like 5 hours before the shooting, so it'd have
00:06:40
been like 9:15 p.m. And she was with a long-haired man walking to the east on the first floor hall. Now, she lived on
00:06:47
the third floor, so this might have been when she like first gets there. Then, a
00:06:51
different investigator wrote in another report that at 9:33, quote, "The two are
00:06:55
seen walking away from her apartment." And that Rachel is dressed in what looks like a swimsuit when they come back.
00:07:02
What other cameras they might have been seen on, I don't know, all redacted. But
00:07:07
listen, we don't need to spiral and speculate too much, at least about who this long-haired man was, because once
00:07:13
police finally do notify Rachel's family of her death, again, 5 hours after she [music] was shot, they figure that out
00:07:20
pretty quickly. When police knock on Rachel's parents' door, her dad Todd answers. Her mom Kim was actually in
00:07:25
Indiana visiting grandchildren. But officers figure out that the guy with long hair, that is probably Rachel's
00:07:31
fiance, Joe Met Bailey. And they learn something else critical. Rachel had just moved back into that apartment. June 2nd
00:07:40
was her very first night staying there. So, she's not who everyone thought was selling drugs and fighting with her
00:07:47
boyfriend. She hasn't been there. No, no. And that's also why the apartment was empty. Her dad tells police that the
00:07:53
apartment, it was in Rachel's name, but she had been doing like an off-the-books
00:07:58
subletting thing for like the last 6 months. >> And who is this subletter? In that
00:08:03
moment, dad's not sure. I mean, it it wasn't someone she was super close with. So, it like takes a minute to track
00:08:08
[music] that down. Which honestly is like fine because first things first, detectives want to talk to her fiance,
00:08:15
Joe Metheny. Now, the police report says that they bring Joe Metheny the next day, which
00:08:21
would have been Sunday, June 5th. But, Rachel's mom told us that that's wrong. That they brought Joe Metheny right in
00:08:27
after [music] they talked to Todd. So, this would have been like 8:00 a.m. on the 4th. And she's certain of it. We
00:08:33
tried to ask [music] police to verify this, but a spokesperson for the department said that they could not
00:08:37
provide clarifying information citing [music] an active investigation. And Joe Metheny didn't respond to our request
00:08:43
for comment. But, either way, in this interview, which lasts about 4 hours, Joe Metheny is super distraught. But, he
00:08:51
readily admits to being with Rachel that night. He says that he stayed with her at the apartment until around midnight
00:08:57
when he went home. >> And of course, we can't corroborate that because we don't know what else was on
00:09:02
the Ring cameras. >> Yeah, we can't. But, I assume police did because they end up clearing him after
00:09:08
what Kim described as like weeks of merciless interrogation. And Kim and Todd are on the same page as police?
00:09:14
Like, they're not suspicious of Joe Metheny? Well, Kim told Nicole that they didn't have an ounce of doubt that Joe
00:09:20
Metheny was innocent. I mean, day one when like, you know, they were fresh and like the throws of things, Todd did sit
00:09:25
him down and was basically like, "Look, look me in the eyes. Tell me the truth, man-to-man, did you kill my daughter?"
00:09:32
And apparently, Joe Metheny looks right at him and without even wavering says, "No, I would never do that." And they
00:09:37
believe him. Kim and Todd had gotten to know Joe Matt really well since he proposed to Rachel earlier that year.
00:09:43
Like they just couldn't see him doing something like this. And Kim says that Joe Matt was absolutely destroyed in the
00:09:49
wake of Rachel's death. And for like 6 months afterwards, he couldn't eat. He had this like tremendous guilt. He
00:09:55
couldn't hold down a job. And he actually lived with the Hansens for a good portion of that time.
00:10:00
>> Did he and Rachel live together? No, they didn't. But he did stay with her a lot. And actually, between him and Kim,
00:10:08
they're actually able to give police one of the most interesting leads in this whole case because they both knew about
00:10:14
the intruder who'd come into Rachel's room and stood over her the night before she was killed.
00:10:19
>> Wait, did police not know about that right away? Well, no, because after it happened, Rachel didn't call the police
00:10:25
about it. >> What? Yeah, so let me just tell you like the whole story that got pieced together
00:10:30
because it is really strange. In the parks [music] and forests you love, there are stories waiting to be
00:10:39
told. I'm Dilia D'Ambra, the host of Park Predators, a true crime podcast that reminds you sometimes the most
00:10:46
beautiful places hide the darkest secrets. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
00:10:54
So Thursday, June 1st, is the first [music] day that Rachel gets access back to her apartment in like the last 6
00:11:00
months. Now she had no idea what had been going on there while she was gone. So she was pretty shocked to find the
00:11:05
place a mess. Like super dirty and the smell of marijuana was so strong. Like replace the [music] carpet strong. So
00:11:13
she knew that before she began moving any of her stuff back in, she was going to need to do like a really
00:11:17
>> [music] >> deep clean of this place. So that's what she spent Thursday doing. She literally
00:11:22
had next to nothing in the place. Just her box spring and her mattress. I mean, there wasn't even food in the kitchen.
00:11:28
So that first night she ends up staying with Joe Matt. She comes back the next day, does like more cleaning. And that
00:11:33
second day is the first night she's like staying in her place. And that was the opening of this story. She is just woken
00:11:39
up by this feeling of someone there watching her in her room. But when she wakes up, the person runs. And
00:11:47
afterward, Rachel didn't want to be alone, so she texts Joe Matt and asked him to come over.
00:11:51
>> I I don't get why she didn't want to call the police. Because I don't think she actually believed that she was in
00:11:56
danger. So her door had been locked. So for this person to get in, they had to have had a key. And because they didn't
00:12:03
actually do anything, she kind of figured that it was someone who was maybe connected to her subletter,
00:12:08
someone who had a key, came in, and then when they saw that she was someone else,
00:12:13
they realized their mistake and just like booked it. So she's like chalking this whole thing up to like a
00:12:16
misunderstanding. But here's a weird little fact I cannot let go of. This person didn't do anything, didn't take
00:12:24
anything, >> Not much to take. but they did leave something behind. A jar of pickles. Like
00:12:31
sitting right there on the kitchen counter. Okay, I didn't know what I thought you were going to say, but jar
00:12:37
of pickles was like very, very far down on the list. >> It's It's so odd. I mean, so weird that
00:12:44
Rachel pointed it out to her mom and >> Well, yeah. >> Joe Matt. And I mean, the benignness of
00:12:48
this is probably part of what made her think that this wasn't some like knife-wielding maniac and just like a
00:12:53
friend coming to see the wrong person with a jar of pickles. Anyway, that night when she texts Joe Matt, they
00:13:01
decide that like at a minimum, they need to change the locks, right? Like cuz even if this person didn't do anything,
00:13:06
who knows how many other people might have keys, right? So Joe Matt grabbed this spare deadbolt from his dad's house
00:13:13
and installed it on her door that night. Situation handled. Wait, then how would
00:13:18
an intruder be able to get into her apartment the next night? This is the part of the story that makes you just
00:13:24
want to like reach back into the past and like if we could change one thing, maybe everything would be different. So,
00:13:31
so this this night, Friday, June 3rd, we know her and Jomant are at the apartment
00:13:35
together. And by the time Jomant leaves around midnight, Rachel was asleep. Now, according to what he told [music]
00:13:42
Kim and his own mom, who we talked to as well, Jomant woke Rachel up and he's like, "Listen, I have to go, but when I
00:13:48
leave, I need you to get up and lock the door behind me." And it was like a deadbolt, so you had to physically turn
00:13:54
and lock the door. And Rachel agreed, but then when Jomant left, he said he didn't hear the door lock. So, he
00:14:00
actually went back inside and told Rachel again, like, "Listen, you have to get up and lock the door behind me. Are
00:14:05
you going to get up?" And she said yes, and so he left, but apparently, he never
00:14:10
heard the door lock. So, if she fell back asleep, uh someone didn't even need a key. They could have just walked right
00:14:17
in. Yeah, it seems that way. But, they wouldn't have known that. So, this person was either planning on using an
00:14:23
old key, which wouldn't have worked, or breaking in. Yeah, I I mean, I guess so.
00:14:29
I don't know what it means. Everything I just told you is about the extent of what you can learn from the police
00:14:35
report. There are a lot of little snippets of information, but with all the redactions, it's almost impossible
00:14:40
to piece together anything coherent. And when we reached out to Gilbert PD to try
00:14:44
and get some clarity, they said that they, quote, "continue to actively investigate Rachel's case," end quote,
00:14:50
but that was about it. And by the way, this isn't just like all we have to work with. This is all that Rachel's own
00:14:55
family has to work with. I mean, for the first 2 years, Kim was meeting with detectives every 4 months or so, but she
00:15:02
rarely learned anything new. And she believed that investigators were working on her daughter's case because that's
00:15:08
what they kept telling her they were doing. And she doesn't know how this works, right? Like, she has to trust
00:15:13
them. But, a lot of trust is lost by the winter of 2024 when Gilbert PD declares
00:15:19
Rachel's case inactive. And that's right about the same time that the Hansons start working with a private
00:15:24
investigator named Justin Yentes. He said that he kind of went into the meeting with them more to just like
00:15:30
listen, see how he could advise them, but after learning Rachel's story, Justin knew that he needed to help. So,
00:15:36
he took on the case pro bono and has been working it ever since. And after talking with him and Rachel's mom and
00:15:43
Joe Metz mom and others, it is safe to say that there is way more bubbling under the surface of
00:15:50
this case than the police report would lead you to believe. Specifically, these conversations that we had revealed three
00:15:57
investigative theories. None of them are perfect, they all have holes, but each also has the potential to be the answer
00:16:05
as to what happened to Rachel and why. But to understand each [music] of them, we almost need to work backwards from
00:16:12
the shooting and take them one by one. Starting with the subletter theory. Now, I'm starting with the subletter theory
00:16:19
because if you were looking at this case from [music] the outside, it seems the most obvious. So, let's rewind to a year
00:16:25
before the shooting, June 2021. That is when Rachel moved out of her childhood home and rented that one-bedroom
00:16:31
apartment at the Redstone at Santan Village complex in Gilbert. She was there for about 6 months when she got
00:16:39
her dream job. Basically, she was offered to live and work at a horse ranch less than 30 minutes away in Queen
00:16:44
Creek, Arizona. And Rachel had been working with horses her entire life. Like this job would allow her to live in
00:16:50
this little casita on the ranch with the horses literally right outside her window, plus she could bring her own
00:16:56
horse Dash with her. Like she just could not pass this up. But that meant that she had to find someone to sublet her
00:17:02
apartment and like pretty quick. So, she posted an ad on Facebook Marketplace and
00:17:07
through that she connected with a woman named America [music] and they basically
00:17:10
just like work out this deal. So, they didn't know each other before this. According to Kim, no. Rachel and America
00:17:15
only met like once or twice and then America moved in. And remember, Rachel didn't quite go through the proper
00:17:21
channels at her apartment complex to get permission to sublease. It was very like
00:17:25
off the books, which her parents say they were not supportive of. Both of them tried to talk Rachel out of this
00:17:30
arrangement, but she assured them that she and America had met everything would be fine. So for 6 months, Rachel and
00:17:37
America had a strictly business relationship. So Rachel had no idea what she was up to at the apartment. But
00:17:44
Rachel's neighbors had their guesses, like I said before. They believed that there were drug sales happening out of
00:17:50
the unit. But again, Rachel knew none of that. So it's not like she kicked America out because of everything going
00:17:54
on or because she was afraid she was in trouble or going to get in trouble or anything.
00:17:58
>> No, she ended up kicking America out because she got fired from her job at the ranch. And so without her ranch job,
00:18:04
she didn't have a place to live. >> Exactly, which meant that she had to tell America that she needed to like get
00:18:09
out of the apartment ASAP. So everything moved kind of quick. America leaving, Rachel coming back. And this is the
00:18:14
basis for the subletter theory, which is that Rachel was the unintended target. That whoever shot her was actually
00:18:21
targeting America and didn't know that she had moved out 2 days prior. So in this theory, are the intruder and the
00:18:30
shooter the same person? In this theory, that wouldn't really make sense for them
00:18:34
to be the same person because the intruder would have realized that Rachel wasn't America on that first night. But
00:18:40
I mean, we know from neighbors that like people would come and go from there. So
00:18:44
like even if they weren't the same person, it doesn't mean that they weren't both there for America, if that
00:18:50
makes sense. Yeah, but don't you think if they weren't the same person that the first intruder would have come forward
00:18:57
though? Like and said like, "Hey, like this happened. It wasn't me the second night."
00:19:00
>> Not necessarily. I mean, like as sad as it sounds, if that person's not the shooter, they could be afraid of being
00:19:06
pinned as the perpetrator. Or like maybe they were there to buy drugs and they don't want to put themselves on police's
00:19:11
radar for that. Especially if, and this is just a theory, but they especially don't want to be associated with
00:19:17
anything drug-related happening out of there if there's any chance the shooter could have been targeting America for a
00:19:23
related reason. Can you tell if police ever looked into this theory? We think so based on what Kim told Nicole. Like
00:19:29
she said that early on in the investigation police took Rachel's devices. So they had access to everybody
00:19:35
she had talked to, and they told Kim that they were bringing in people for questioning every day as they went
00:19:41
through Rachel's contacts and got warrants for her social media accounts, including Facebook, which Kim knows is
00:19:47
how Rachel met America. Now from what I can make out reading between the redactions, it looks like at least one
00:19:54
individual who was involved in drug sales while America was living in Rachel's apartment was questioned, but
00:20:01
that seemingly [music] went nowhere. In fact, all we and Rachel's family know about America is her first name. We
00:20:08
don't even know what she looked like. I was just going to ask if she and Rachel like resembled each other at all. No
00:20:13
idea. Justin the PI said that he's actively working to connect with America, but he wouldn't give us any
00:20:19
more information about how. So at least in his eyes this theory [music] is still
00:20:25
very much like on the table. I feel like it seems so unlikely that two different
00:20:30
people would enter the same apartment two nights in a row. >> I know. And so it's more likely to be
00:20:36
the same person, and if it's the same person it can't be mistaken identity. Which
00:20:42
brings me to theory number two. The horse ranch theory. Now I want to note, this is one of the theories that the
00:20:48
public really ran with after Rachel's death. But to be upfront with everyone, at least at this point, I think it's the
00:20:56
least likely for reasons that we'll get into. But I am going to lay it out because the context around it is really
00:21:02
important in terms of understanding Rachel's mental state at the time of her death. So, let me rewind to before the
00:21:10
shooting in June 2022, before Rachel ever even moved out of her childhood home in June 2021. We're going to go all
00:21:17
the way back to Rachel's childhood. Specifically, a period of time that Kim refers to as the dark years.
00:21:29
Kim and Todd brought Rachel into their family in February of 2009, and she was just 6 years old. They were experienced
00:21:37
foster parents active in the system for about 18 years, and there were about a hundred kids that passed through their
00:21:43
home. Now, in 2009, they weren't actively looking to take in any more kids, so it was a surprise when Rachel's
00:21:49
case worker reached out, but it quickly became clear that this wasn't just like a routine call. This was a last resort
00:21:55
because Rachel was in a really bad situation, [music] and she needed a new home like right then.
00:22:01
You see, Rachel's bio mom had her while she was in rehab, and when she got out, she and Rachel went to live with a man
00:22:08
that Rachel assumed was her father or grandfather, but Kim says that this guy was actually an unrelated cocaine
00:22:15
dealer. Now, Rachel remembered very little from this time of her life, but she told Kim that one night her birth
00:22:23
mom said that she was going to go to the store for some milk, and then she just never came back. [music] And from then
00:22:29
on, it was just Rachel and this older guy. And it is like during this time that people seem to know nothing about.
00:22:35
[music] These are the dark years. Like, even Rachel couldn't or wouldn't fill in
00:22:40
the blanks. But she was little. All Kim knows is that one day Rachel came home from
00:22:47
kindergarten to find the man that she lived with dead on the floor of the apartment, apparently an accident, and
00:22:53
then 5-year-old Rachel was promptly taken into a child crisis center in Phoenix, and then placed into a foster
00:22:59
home with a couple who promised that they would adopt her. But, 6 months later, they changed their
00:23:05
minds. So, that is when Rachel's case worker called Kim. Now, when Rachel got to the Hansen house, she fit in
00:23:12
perfectly. I mean, there were nine other little boys and girls, and Rachel like fell right in the middle, which meant
00:23:17
that there were always like other kids to play with. Plus, she loved her new school, but the trauma from those dark
00:23:24
years was like impossible to ignore. And Rachel ended up being diagnosed with reactive attachment [music]
00:23:30
disorder. Which meant that like forming, I'm sure you know this, forming healthy
00:23:33
relationships with caregivers was like incredibly hard for her. And for a while, nothing seemed to break through.
00:23:39
Until Rachel herself suggested something unexpected. Horses. Oh, like equine therapy. Exactly. Like 6-year-old Rachel
00:23:47
likely didn't know that equine therapy was a thing. >> Right. But like Kim says she was just
00:23:52
drawn to horses. Like she would ask to be around them constantly. So, I mean, Kim's like, "Why not?"
00:23:59
>> Yeah. And from the moment that they got Rachel her first horse, there was like
00:24:02
no going back. She fell head over heels in love with being a horse owner, and it
00:24:06
helped her build confidence and just like blossom as a young girl. >> Horse girl. As a as a horse girl, I'm
00:24:12
sure you know. [laughter] And listen, this passion stuck with her through middle school and high school.
00:24:17
She ended up graduating early at just 16. She earned a full scholarship to Northern Arizona University. And all the
00:24:24
while, in her free time, she was still riding, still caring for, still working with horses. First her own, and then she
00:24:30
was being hired to care for theirs. And after graduating from high school, she decided to make these gigs official
00:24:37
by like starting her own business with it. >> like a college side hustle. >> No, so Rachel never ended up actually
00:24:43
like going to college. She enrolled, she made the arrangements, right? She got that full scholarship. But she was going
00:24:49
to begin her freshman year, and then like a week before move-in, Kim said that Rachel had this like panic attack.
00:24:54
Like being that far from home suddenly felt super overwhelming to her. So, instead of going to college, Rachel told
00:25:00
her mom that she was ready to start her life now. Like she'd get her own place, focus on her business. Like if she
00:25:06
wanted a degree, like she could go back and do that later. But I mean it's also pretty rare to like know what you want
00:25:10
to do that young. So, when Rachel got the offer to live and work at the horse ranch in Queen Creek, clearly she
00:25:17
couldn't turn it down. This was her dream job and it only took her 30 minutes away from home. So, how did
00:25:24
things go sideways? It sounds like it happened gradually. So, the owners of the ranch, Liz
00:25:31
Robinson and Amanda Krueger, they didn't respond to us on advice of their attorney and they wouldn't [music] speak
00:25:37
to Kim and Todd's PI either. But our reporter Nicole was able to reach their attorney. So,
00:25:42
what I'm going to outline is everything I know from Nicole's conversation with their attorney, her conversation with
00:25:48
Kim, and then the little we can glean from the police file. So, it sounds like things at the ranch started out great. I
00:25:55
mean Rachel got the impression that the owners didn't necessarily know a whole lot about horses, but like she didn't
00:26:00
mind. Like this is her job. I mean she loved the work and she was getting paid to do it. Like this was amazing.
00:26:06
But then things started going wrong. In an interview in the police file, which I'm going to guess is with Amanda, like
00:26:13
her name I only guess this because her name was left unredacted one time. Like I don't know if that was a mistake, but
00:26:18
in this interview it says, quote, Rachel was not keeping up with the agreement regarding training the horses, end
00:26:25
quote. What was the agreement? >> Nicole asked Kim and she gave us this example. So,
00:26:32
there was a young horse that Rachel was training for riding and if you know anything about horses, you know that you
00:26:37
can't just like hop on one once it's big enough and expect to be able to ride it.
00:26:41
Like It's like a process. >> Yeah. A long thing. >> Yeah. Like it it takes a while before
00:26:47
someone can get on a horse and like get on a horse and it be safe. >> Mhm. But Kim says that apparently the
00:26:52
owners felt like Rachel was moving too slowly. They wanted her to get on this horse like ASAP. Now, Rachel told her
00:26:58
mom that she knew the horse wasn't ready, but she was afraid that if she refused, she would get in trouble.
00:27:04
So, she got on the horse, and within like 30 seconds, the horse threw her off. Now, she wasn't injured, but that moment
00:27:11
created a trust fracture, basically, between Rachel and the owners. And it feels like things just went
00:27:17
downhill from there. Like, there was this one time that Rachel, quote, caused approximately $10,000 worth of damage to
00:27:25
a horse trailer, end quote. There was another time that Rachel needed surgery on her finger after being kicked by a
00:27:31
horse, which led to a disagreement with the owners about when she could safely return to work. But the final straw came
00:27:37
in May of 2022. So, Rachel had helped broker a sale, like one of the horse at the ranch in exchange for three other
00:27:44
horses. But, only one horse arrived. And so, because this deal fell apart, layered on top of everything else, the
00:27:52
owners fired Rachel. And so, this is right around May 24th, 2022. And this took a huge toll on Rachel's mental
00:27:59
health. There's actually an incident outlined in the police report that says on May 27th, so this is 3 days later,
00:28:05
Rachel took her handgun and drove up to Sedona, and she called the ranch owners,
00:28:10
told them she was thinking about suicide. Thankfully, they called 911, and police were able to get to her
00:28:16
before she did anything. [music] And they were able to convince her to check herself into Verde Valley Medical
00:28:20
Center for treatment. And I want to add that it wasn't just the job that was weighing on Rachel. She and Joe Matt
00:28:27
were having relationship troubles, too. And to make everything worse, the day after Rachel was admitted for treatment,
00:28:33
she learned that the owners of the ranch were refusing to return her horse, Dash,
00:28:37
until they received $5,000 that Rachel allegedly owed them for services rendered to Dash while she was living on
00:28:44
the property, like things like vet care, feed, stuff like that. The owners basically gave Rachel's dad, Todd, their
00:28:50
attorney's number and is like, "Listen, work it out with him." So, hearing that her horse was essentially
00:28:56
being held for ransom, Rachel decided she needed to like get out of this treatment center ASAP. Like, she had to
00:29:01
sort everything out. Dash's return, her relationship with Joe Met, moving back to her apartment now that she had
00:29:06
nowhere to live. So, on June 1st, we're now like right here. This is the first day she's back.
00:29:12
She checks out. As we know, the next day we get the pickle intruder. Mhm. And then after that we get the shooting.
00:29:19
So, I guess what's the theory that the owners targeted Rachel? Basically. And this is this is what I'm saying, like it
00:29:27
it's it's far-fetched in my mind. >> Well, yeah, especially when they were the ones to call 911 about Rachel's like
00:29:33
mental health incident. >> but for some reason this is the one theory that got like a ton of traction
00:29:40
online and even in the news. Liz and Amanda's attorney said that everybody was taking to Facebook and like dragging
00:29:46
his clients' names [music] through the mud, accusing them of Rachel's murder. People started leaving them harassing
00:29:51
messages and like calling investigators about them. I mean, are these women dangerous? Like, I don't I I guess I'm
00:29:57
like missing the jump here. So, like from what we found, like they both have criminal records, but like mostly for
00:30:04
driving infractions, nothing violent. >> Okay. And Kim said that Rachel never felt like she was in danger at the
00:30:09
ranch. It was actually Amanda and Liz who gave Rachel the handgun that she took to Sedona. They gave it to her for
00:30:16
protection like earlier on. But because there was so much negativity swirling around the ranch owners with Dash and
00:30:22
the job, everyone I think just like kind of jumped to this conclusion. Now, Liz and Amanda's attorney said that they
00:30:30
both spoke to investigators within the first few days of the murder and they were cleared based on alibis.
00:30:36
And he also said that he thought the police files were over redacted, which like
00:30:42
same. But in his case, if Liz and Amanda really were cleared right away, then I would think that there are lines that
00:30:49
could actually like prove their innocence like in the file. Like why wouldn't we and I think they would even
00:30:53
want that. >> Yeah, and with the files being so redacted, it's just keeping Liz and
00:30:57
Amanda under public suspicion. >> Exactly. Did the Hansens ever get Dash back? I don't want to like force them
00:31:02
too hard. >> Yeah, no, they did. So, Liz and Amanda's attorney said that the fee was paid and
00:31:06
that the Hansens were able to get Dash back like I think it was like a month after Rachel was killed. So.
00:31:12
This brings me to my third theory. The Gary Bailey theory. AKA Joe Metheny's dad. What?
00:31:26
So, remember how I said Rachel and Joe Metheny were having relationship trouble around the time she was fired?
00:31:33
>> Yeah. Well, a lot of that tension centered around Gary, his dad. By all accounts,
00:31:40
he and Rachel did not get along. Joe Metheny was extremely close with his dad [music] and Nicole actually spoke with
00:31:48
Joe Metheny's mom, Ava, for this episode and she said that Joe Metheny didn't have many friends because he and Gary
00:31:54
would just like do everything together. Like to the point where Ava actually felt bad for her other son. Now, things
00:32:01
were fine at first when Rachel and Joe Metheny got together. But their relationship progressed pretty fast.
00:32:06
Like 8 months after they met, they got engaged. And the closer Rachel and Joe Metheny got, the more Gary had someone
00:32:13
to compete for Joe Metheny's attention. And Rachel told her mom, Kim, that she felt like Gary was disturbed by the
00:32:20
possibility of losing Joe Metheny. So, he intentionally would try to cause conflict between them. And to make
00:32:26
everything worse, right around the time Rachel and Joe Metheny were getting really serious,
00:32:32
Ava filed for divorce from Gary. Something that she'd been wanting to do for a long time. And may I take you on a quick
00:32:40
side quest? >> [laughter] >> You never have to ask for permission, but of course.
00:32:45
>> So, I need to tell you about Ava and Gary's relationship. So, back in 2015, she told us that she
00:32:51
had been suspicious Gary was cheating on her. So, she put a recording device in his
00:32:56
work truck every day for a month. He ran a landscaping business, spent a lot of time riding around his truck. So,
00:33:02
if something was going down, she knew this is where she would catch him in the act.
00:33:06
Girl got more than just wind. >> [laughter] >> She got recordings of Gary on tape
00:33:12
>> Mhm. cheating on her with the men he employed. What? Yeah, so she went to Gary with these recordings being like, I
00:33:20
know what you've been doing. I want a divorce. Literally, you can have everything. I just [music] want the
00:33:26
kids. But freaking Gary, he's like, oh, that's not me cheating. I knew you were recording, so I staged all of this. I'm
00:33:35
sorry. >> [laughter] >> I know. We tried every possible way to reach Gary for this episode, but he
00:33:43
never got back to us. But I know from Ava that in response to her request for a divorce, Gary apparently said that he
00:33:50
wanted to take Ava to court over it. So, not wanting to lose her kids, Ava promised herself that she would stay
00:33:57
with Gary until all the kids were adults. Whoop, which brings us to September 2021.
00:34:05
Ava was ready to end it, and she texted her bishop to like let him know. But what she didn't know is that [music]
00:34:13
when she texted her bishop, she made a group chat with bishop and Gary. That's like constantly my worst
00:34:20
nightmare. >> And when Gary received that text, dude lost it. Apparently, he had this major
00:34:28
personality shift, and he started acting really strangely. Him and Ava started sleeping in different rooms, and Ava
00:34:35
said that she heard that Gary was badmouthing her all over town and at church. Nicole actually spoke to one of
00:34:41
these church members. Her name's Jennifer Simmons. And she said that Gary's whole temperament [music] changed
00:34:47
so much. Like he was just angry all the time and constantly ranting that they started referring to him as scary Gary
00:34:55
>> [music] >> and like avoiding him at all costs. And things just escalated from there. In
00:35:00
November 2021, there was this one day where Gary recorded himself barging into an apartment that Ava was staying at
00:35:08
saying like awful things about how she was cheating on him and that he was there to catch her having sex. Mind you,
00:35:15
Ava was like fully clothed watching TV in her bedroom. And she called the police after this, but not before Gary
00:35:21
sent the video to their entire family and like people from church. >> A video of her watching TV? Yeah.
00:35:28
[laughter] Dude, you're the only one who looks bad in this video, scary Gary. >> I know. So after this incident, that's
00:35:36
when Ava got an order of protection against him. Then in December, there was an instance where the Hansons actually
00:35:42
had to kick Gary out of their home because of the way he was speaking about Ava at their dinner table. That was like
00:35:48
the first and only time that he was ever in their house. And right after that, Joe Matt proposed to Rachel,
00:35:55
which apparently just like sent Gary off [music] even more. He started conflating the two women in
00:36:02
his head. Ava said that he started calling Ava Rachel and Rachel Ava. And according to what Kim said happened
00:36:08
next, it sounds like things might have finally come to a head. On April 27th, 2022, this is like just over a month
00:36:18
before Rachel would be murdered. Everything boiled over. So Rachel was at a point where she was like fed up with
00:36:24
Gary inserting himself into her relationship with Joe Matt. So, according to Ava, Rachel texted Joe Matt
00:36:30
an ultimatum. It is either your dad or it's me. The conversation spiraled. Joe Matt
00:36:37
messaged back that he was tired of life and that he was experiencing suicidal thoughts. So, Rachel panicked, tried
00:36:44
calling him, but he like wasn't answering. Wasn't even answering for his mom, either. So, Rachel drove to Gary's
00:36:50
house to see if Joe Matt was [music] there. He wasn't, but Gary was. He was actually
00:36:55
in his car in the driveway. And at this point, Rachel might have actually been happy to see him because she knew if Joe
00:37:00
Matt was going to answer the phone for anyone, it was going It was his dad, right.
00:37:05
But she asked Gary to call him and Gary's like, "No." He refused. Why? Gary's like, "Well, you know, I don't I
00:37:11
like basically he said he didn't take the suicide [music] threat seriously." But like Rachel still was. So, she
00:37:16
blocked the driveway with the car that she was driving and refused to let Gary leave until he would call his son. And
00:37:22
what happens next happened fast. Gary put his car in reverse, backed into the car that Rachel was in, tried and failed
00:37:30
to pull her out of it, and then like gave up and drove away right over the front lawn. Now, when this happened,
00:37:36
Rachel called police, and then shortly after they arrived, Joe Matt was found. He's safe. But Rachel, understandably,
00:37:43
is like totally shaken up. >> Yeah. According to the police report, officers found her crying in front of
00:37:48
Gary's house, and she recounted the whole confrontation to them. Including another chilling detail. She
00:37:55
said that day Gary sent her a text that read, "If I ever see you in my house again, I will shoot you in the head."
00:38:04
And she said that he had been threatening her for a while. Now, no charges were filed after this.
00:38:12
And then, Rachel was killed. And what is Joe Matt saying about all this? Like whose side is he taking? He
00:38:19
seemed to have been torn down the middle. Like I said, he never got back to us for this episode, but what I do
00:38:25
know from his mom, Eva, is that he and Rachel's relationship got so rocky after this that they actually called off their
00:38:32
engagement. And then, as you know, Rachel gets fired, her mental health declined, she spends some time in that
00:38:38
facility, but her first night out, remember she goes to clean her apartment, but then rather than staying
00:38:43
there or going to her parents, she actually went to Eva's to stay the night with Joe Metheny. And Eva said they
00:38:49
basically just like she called it like hitting the reset button. They talked everything out and
00:38:55
got to a really good place. So, that's June 1st. >> June 1st, yes. And Eva said the next
00:39:03
day, June 2nd, legal intruder. Yes. That day, one of her daughters told Gary that
00:39:10
about the rekindling, that they're like back together. >> Oh. And Gary is pissed. Then,
00:39:16
there is a part of June 3rd that I haven't told you yet. So, the night of the shooting, Joe Metheny
00:39:23
is with Rachel, right? >> Yeah. And he's there till like midnight. Well, here's the interesting part.
00:39:28
He wasn't planning to leave. He was actually sleeping shortly before he left. The only reason he left was
00:39:37
because he got a call from his dad telling him to come home. >> [snorts] >> What? Mhm. Wait, what he
00:39:48
like why did he tell him to come home in the middle of the night on the same night that Rachel got
00:39:54
murdered? There is no explanation in the police records that you could see. But, we
00:40:00
found one somewhere else. So, remember that woman, Jennifer, who went to church with Gary? The woman who gave us the
00:40:07
scary Gary moniker. >> Jennifer. So, she said that Gary told the whole congregation why he called on the
00:40:17
morning of June 5th at church. So, apparently it's scary Gary showed up to church by himself, went up to the pulpit
00:40:23
to you're going to love this phrase, give testimony. And he allegedly said of the night
00:40:29
before, quote, I called Joe Matt to come home because the Holy Spirit told me so
00:40:34
and it saved his life. End quote. So, So, he called Joe Matt home because he had some kind of revelation?
00:40:43
>> That's what Jennifer said, yeah. I still don't understand the reason for the call
00:40:47
though. Like did he just say, come home? And Joe Matt is just so loyal to his dad still that he
00:40:53
leaves no questions asked? Or was it something like I know something bad's going to happen,
00:40:58
get home, and then Joe Matt just left his fiance to fend for herself. Like and if that's it, like this would have been
00:41:04
after an intruder had been there the night before. >> change the lock? >> Right, like when she's already scared
00:41:10
and like maybe needs someone there. Also, if it's really the Holy Spirit speaking to Gary,
00:41:17
why didn't he mention anything about Rachel? Literally, Jennifer said that she asked
00:41:22
him that and he said, I only received revelation about my son, not her. Yeah. Okay. Listen, the more
00:41:31
conversations people at church had with Gary, the more suspicious they became of
00:41:35
him. We haven't been able to corroborate this, but Jennifer said that many of the
00:41:39
women in her ward called the police to report him acting strangely. So, then that means the police looked into him. I
00:41:47
mean, he's actually mentioned on the second page of the police chronology report from the night of Rachel's death,
00:41:52
which in the timeline is before Rachel even had been pronounced dead. An officer noted the death threats from
00:41:58
Gary that Rachel had reported weeks before. But get this, according to Kim and Ava, to this day, Gary has never
00:42:07
been brought in for questioning. Now, Nicole asked like how they knew this and Kim said that she had asked the chief of
00:42:12
police face-to-face [music] why Gary was never interviewed and he said, "Because
00:42:17
we can't force somebody to talk." Have they tried? Kim said that the police told her that
00:42:24
they left a phone message, they've tried to follow him, they've reached out in all these like different ways and he's
00:42:30
just never responded. Much like, by the way, we reached out to him in all these different ways and Gary has never
00:42:35
responded to us. And we tried phone, mail, text, Nicole even stopped by his church in Gilbert,
00:42:41
but we have not been able to make contact with him either. I mean if you have nothing to hide, why not
00:42:48
clear your name? Especially because according to Ava, Gary couldn't have been the one to pull the trigger. What
00:42:54
do you mean? So, she told us that Gary [music] was home with their daughter the night of
00:43:00
the shooting. All night? I don't know, but like that's what Ava told us. And listen, I don't think she
00:43:07
has a reason to want to give this guy an alibi. So, I don't think she's covering
00:43:12
for him. In fact, basically in the same breath she was saying he couldn't have pulled the trigger, but she was also
00:43:19
telling us that Gary had a history of talking about hitmen. And Jennifer from his church backs this up, too. They both
00:43:27
told us that he would go around basically telling people that if you ever want to like off someone, the best
00:43:32
thing to do would be to hire someone who is really hard to track and like the case would just be impossible to solve.
00:43:38
Cool. Cools. So, let me just play this out for a sec. If Gary hired someone to kill Rachel,
00:43:46
where does the intruder the night before come in? All I can put together is that
00:43:52
maybe the first night was like a trial run or like a super inexperienced hitman. Like one that
00:43:59
would use a silencer, but then kick down a door. Yeah, like maybe I I maybe the first one wasn't even like a hitman at
00:44:06
all. Maybe the first one was someone Gary knew, then like they go in Well, they realize they're not a hit
00:44:12
man. >> Yeah, Rachel wakes up and they're like, yep, yeah, in over my skis, but also
00:44:16
brought pickles. Dude, the pickles. I am obsessed with the pickles. I was trying
00:44:22
to look up like, was this a symbol? Like, what could this mean? Like, I even made Nicole find out exactly what kind
00:44:28
of pickles? [laughter] Like, and Kim Kim's like, it's a medium-size standard jar of pickles, kosher dill, in case
00:44:33
you're wondering. Got it. And it didn't look like they had been opened. >> Wait, so Kim saw the pickles herself? Oh
00:44:38
my god. I have it I have to tell you about this part. So, I think this encapsulates so well why
00:44:48
Kim, Rachel's mom, has lost so much faith in the investigation and those leading it. So, Kim knew about the
00:44:55
pickle jar because after that person came into Rachel's apartment the first night
00:44:59
>> She's like, "Hey, Mom, this weird thing happened and also they left pickles."
00:45:02
>> Yeah, here's a super weird detail. Well, Kim said in the days after the shooting, when her and Todd were told by
00:45:10
police that they could finally go get Rachel's things from the apartment, they opened the door and the pickle jar is
00:45:16
just like sitting right there on the counter. Police didn't collect it. I mean, Kim and Todd at the time assumed that
00:45:23
they must have like at least like fingerprinted it or something cuz by then they told police the story of the
00:45:28
person who came in the night before and left the pickles. >> Mhm. So, they're assuming police, you
00:45:33
know, did the bare minimum. Yeah, did did their job. >> Right, like fingerprinted it to see what
00:45:38
strange person was in her place. >> Right. So, Kim just like took it home along with Rachel's clothing, which by
00:45:45
the way was also left behind. And the jar sat in her garage for a while until she ultimately decided that it was time
00:45:52
to throw it away. But Kim has come to regret that now because she told Nicole that in one recent conversation with
00:46:00
police she asked them about the pickle jar. And they looked right at her. And they said, "What pickle jar?"
00:46:09
You've got to be kidding me. Nope. They said that they never saw a pickle jar. What do you mean never saw one? There
00:46:18
was nothing else in the apartment. It was literally just her bed and pickles. >> Which this started to make us feel like
00:46:26
maybe we were losing our minds or like the whole pickle thing got conflated with something else over the years. Like
00:46:31
maybe people are mistaken. Like we just couldn't make sense of it. Why would you
00:46:36
not take the one thing that might be evidence in an apartment where you have barely anything to work with.
00:46:41
>> nothing. So, [clears throat] our amazing reporter Nicole culled through everything that we have from
00:46:47
Gilbert PD. Files, blurred body cam footage, and there are no mention of pickles at all.
00:46:55
Except God bless this tenacious little reporter. There is one barely audible offhanded comment caught at the very end
00:47:05
of one officer's police body cam as he's walking through Rachel's apartment. And
00:47:11
I've got it here for you to see. Oh, watch the blood on the floor. Very empty. Guess the store was closed.
00:47:40
I don't know. All right. That's kind of weird. Kind of a weird thing to ask for, huh?
00:47:59
I don't know what that >> No pickles. No pickles. No pickles. Now, here's the tricky part. I don't
00:48:09
know the date of this video. And Gilbert PD wouldn't give us the date. >> [laughter]
00:48:15
>> But it must have been after the Hansens took the pickle jar home because Kim said that in the empty apartment, it was
00:48:21
[music] like impossible to miss. And yet, we're here. Was it I don't even know how
00:48:29
important [music] the pickle jar is to this investigation. But now we will never know. I mean, at
00:48:35
the very least, it could have helped identify the first intruder. Yeah, and by the way, speaking of other
00:48:42
identifiable things, when the shooter kicked in Rachel's bedroom door, they left a pretty clear
00:48:47
partial shoe print. Like, did police do anything with that? I mean, they left the door. There's not
00:48:52
like they took it. So, I don't know. And listen, this is my call out to all the sneaker heads. Like, come out and tell
00:48:59
me if you recognize this pattern on the door. But you can see like all of this it like this is what makes Kim worried
00:49:05
that she'll never know who killed her daughter. Kim said Gilbert police told her that they have exhausted every lead.
00:49:12
But even Justin the PI doesn't know what Gilbert PD is up to with anything. And he is probably the closest with the
00:49:18
department of anyone that we spoke to. According to him, if this case is going to be solved, it's because someone
00:49:24
courageous is going to come forward with information, which is why Kim wanted us
00:49:28
to share Rachel's story with Crime Junkies. Coming up on 4 years, Kim's greatest fear is that Rachel's story
00:49:35
will be forgotten. It's actually why she created Rachel's Rescue, which is a dog
00:49:40
and puppy rescue in her daughter's memory to keep Rachel's story alive. We're actually going to link out to it
00:49:46
in the show notes. If you're in Arizona and looking for a new furry family member. Kim wants people to keep talking
00:49:53
about Rachel, to know her case, and most importantly to speak up if they know something, anything, about her murder.
00:50:01
So, if you have even the smallest bit of information that could help move Rachel's case in the right direction,
00:50:07
listen, there are a lot of ways you can come forward. [music] You can reach out to the Gilbert Police
00:50:11
Department at 480-503-6500. Or if you want to remain anonymous, you can call Silent Witness [music] 480-
00:50:20
948-6377. There is a posted reward for information that's now up to $20,000. [music]
00:50:28
And listen, if you feel more comfortable or have any trouble reaching Gilbert PD,
00:50:31
you can reach out to Justin Yentis at Arizona Investigative Associates by calling 602-252-2474.
00:50:38
[music] You can find all the source material for this episode on our website crimejunkie.com.
00:50:44
And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.