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[Music] n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:46
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just keeps trying to get a little better a
00:01:52
little better than before he is the captain and it's not working it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks
00:01:58
for listening thanks than for telling a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to
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be slow sipping on a delicious IPA from the good folks over at Boulevard Brewing
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Company this one is called space camper Cosmic IPA this is a massively hoppy IPA
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more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show code off the record you can do so at True Crime
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garage.com and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:02:51
talk some true crime [Music] I'm on I'm on I'm on [Music] Sunday night May 24th 2009 Monroe County
00:03:40
Michigan authorities issued an amber alert for 5-year-old Navea Buchanan that night the alert indicated that she was
00:03:48
last seen at the Charlotte Arms apartment complex in the parking lot area around 630
00:03:54
p.m. she was 3 10 in tall and about 45 lb was wearing a light blue sleeveless shirt with red and white horizontal
00:04:05
stripes and a white v-neck collar and knee length jeans she was barefoot when she left her
00:04:12
mother's apartment police swarmed the large apartment complex and started talking to the
00:04:18
residents search parties comprising of 100 law enforcement personnel and 500 volunteers fanned out from the complex
00:04:26
and checked everywhere they could think of helicopters scann the area from overhead divers Plumb the depths of
00:04:33
local quaries her mother Jennifer said she spent all day and all night looking everywhere for her little girl people
00:04:41
searched frantically for days to no avail within 5 days it was reported that the local sheriff's department had
00:04:49
talked to 250 people the Michigan State Police and FBI helped out making up a task force with
00:04:56
the local police all the the tactics and strategies for locating someone were deployed but NAA was
00:05:06
gone this is true crime [Music] garage 5-year-old Navea Buchanan loved her scooter and neighbor were accustomed
00:05:30
to seeing the little girl zipping around in their Charlotte Arms apartment complex parking lot the apartment
00:05:37
complex is located on North Malcolm Street in Monroe Michigan it was May 24th 2009 This Is The Day Before
00:05:45
Memorial Day it's a sunny day and a great time for children to be outside playing with friends NAA and other kids
00:05:54
from the complex like to cut through a hole in the fence and play at a playground that Abed to the complex's
00:06:02
grounds sometimes they stuck to the parking lot some kids saw NAA here that day on her scooter speeding around and
00:06:11
then she was gone nave's mother Jennifer was used to her daughter running around
00:06:17
the complex with the other kids it's unclear whether NAA had rules in place about being allowed to go outside on her
00:06:25
own after all she was only 5 years old Jennifer was home sitting on the couch in their apartment around 6:30 p.m.
00:06:34
watching the TV show John and Kate Plus 8 Navea was bored and tells her mom mom I'm going upstairs to
00:06:43
Austin's Austin was an 8-year-old boy that lived in the apartment one floor up from NAA and Jennifer NAA and Austin
00:06:52
were buddies and his apartment was somewhere where she hung out regularly we will go through the events as they
00:06:59
have been reported that led up to The Disappearance of NAA but it is important to note that at the time 5-year-old NAA
00:07:07
her mother Jennifer are living with Jennifer's mother Sherry the apartment is technically the grandmother's
00:07:15
apartment so Sherry's apartment and on this Memorial Day Weekend Jennifer had a friend of hers and the friend's little
00:07:23
daughter staying with them in the apartment as well so it's a little cramped Na's mother says around the 6:30
00:07:31
time period She Comes In to change her clothes yeah she changes her clothes she grabs a popsicle and then Jennifer says
00:07:38
that Navea went back outside Jennifer would later say that she assumed that her daughter went to 8-year-old Austin's
00:07:46
apartment unit to play there she assumed the two friends were playing with toys or watching TV now Jennifer says that
00:07:53
about 30 minutes later or so Jennifer's friend's daughter which is a little girl as well she came into the
00:08:02
apartment said NAA is riding her scooter in the road you know one little kid tattling on another little kid Jennifer
00:08:10
spent some time looking for her shoes because she wanted to go outside and confront her daughter and let her know
00:08:16
you can't be riding your scooter in the road right so she spent some time looking for her shoes we don't know
00:08:22
exactly how much time and this is kind of key because this is something we will Circle back to around in a little bit
00:08:29
but she makes her way outside and she's looking in all the normal spots and cannot find her daughter Jennifer
00:08:37
checked at other units in the apartment complex as well where she knew that Navea had some friends this including
00:08:44
the little boy Austin's apartment she could not locate her daughter well and at this point you're looking around this
00:08:51
complex you know where she plays you can't find her obviously some Panic is going to start setting in with her
00:08:58
mother so she calls the apartment manager to help her look for her daughter and Jennifer does a lap around
00:09:06
the building and around the other side and this is where she finds a big major red flag here because
00:09:17
leaning up against the back of the building Jennifer found her daughter's purple and green
00:09:23
scooter abandoned it seems that Jennifer may have underestimated how long NAA was
00:09:29
gone we have to note here that she told many people this included reporters and this included True Crime TV personality
00:09:38
Nancy Grace that it was only about 30 minutes that her little girl was gone but in reality all the news outlets
00:09:45
later have reported that she didn't actually start looking for her daughter until closer to 8:00 P.M right so we
00:09:53
have a bit of a Time discrepancy there and it could just be you know mother's panicking she's
00:10:00
nervous she gets her times wrong or as we will see there are reasons later to call into question Jennifer's behaviors
00:10:10
and her words yeah or she doesn't want to look like a horrible individual so she's going to tell everybody that she's
00:10:17
been searching all day when really she didn't pay much attention to her daughter that's a very good possibility
00:10:25
and often I find when my mind is racing my time are a little off because things seem to be happening rather quickly when
00:10:33
you're in that Panic state right so Jennifer calls her mother Sherry whom she and NAA are living with Sherry was
00:10:42
at work she's finishing up her shift at a Food Town grocery store in Monroe with
00:10:47
this News Sherry puts down what she's doing she leaves work and raced home to help look for NAA well let's give a
00:10:56
little bit of background on NAA there is a Justice for Navea website so we gathered a lot of the following
00:11:03
information from that website and the site says that NAA Buchanan was a typical 5-year-old girl she loved
00:11:10
stuffed animals and like most little girls she named them all her favorite was a stuffed beagle that she named
00:11:19
Harley now she named him Harley because in addition to stuffed animals NAA loved
00:11:25
motorcycles she was born February 3rd 20 0 4 people that knew NAA described her as shy
00:11:34
adorable a little girl who liked to wear her hair and a ponytail neighbors described her as timid with a soft voice
00:11:42
real fragile and then someone said NAA had a smile that could melt a glacier her mother Jennifer told the media that
00:11:50
her daughter loved motorcycles and trucks she was a tomboy and was obsessed with the movie Jungle Book well who
00:11:57
isn't now a more complete history of NAA is that she had just graduated from preschool and was heading off to
00:12:06
kindergarten in the fall she lived in the Charlotte Arms apartment complex with her maternal grandmother Sherry now
00:12:14
one detail here Captain is that Sherry actually had legal guardianship of NAA had legal guardianship of her for some
00:12:22
time this was because Jennifer Na's mom at one time was a drug addict and was sent to prison when this went down
00:12:32
Sherry had taken her granddaughter in and Navea had lived with Sherry in that apartment under Sherry's care for
00:12:40
several years Jennifer serves her time in prison and then when she's released in early 2009 she moved in with her mom
00:12:49
and her daughter so this has been her home for quite some time yes it has been and one thing that is kind of clear here
00:12:57
is that as far as being taken care of and being raised it looked like Navea considered Sherry more of her mother
00:13:05
because that's what she knew for most of her life well and NAA goes missing in May
00:13:13
2009 and so her her mom gets out of prison early 2009 so she's really not back in her child's life for that long
00:13:23
until she goes missing I think that might be kind of key here as well well now we ALS we also should note that
00:13:33
Jennifer nave's mom was only 24 years of age when her 5-year-old daughter NAA went missing the father Shane honen josa
00:13:45
was only 22 at the time when Navea went missing so he was 17ish when Navea was conceived he wasn't
00:13:57
really in her life um according to medium.com Shane the father had not spoken to his daughter Navea in 3 years
00:14:07
but when she went missing he traveled to Monroe he lived in Ohio so Monroe is very close to Monroe Michigan is very
00:14:17
close to the Ohio border and Shane from my understanding lives in Toledo Ohio which is the northern part of our state
00:14:27
he travels to Monroe to help look for his daughter even though he's not spoken to her in quite some time this I I think
00:14:36
we need to commend him a little bit we we don't want to applaud him for not being a part of her life but at the same
00:14:43
time he actually risk being arrested going to Monroe he had recently not been able to pay his child support since
00:14:51
losing his job so he goes in there with the intention of of helping now what we can see see here Captain very quickly in
00:15:00
this case and we're going to Fan out quite a bit ourselves in our search looking for actual suspects but we need
00:15:07
to paint this the picture for what it is this other than Sherry the grandmother this is not a great
00:15:16
situation for young NAA her father's absent he's he's a boy pretty much when she's born mother's absent because she's
00:15:26
got drug addiction problems and then commits crimes I mean she's she was in prison for actual crimes not drug rated
00:15:34
crimes from my understanding so not a great situation as far as mom and dad goes Sherry the grandmothers stepping up
00:15:42
stepping in and trying to help and trying to raise this this beautiful little girl well it's so sad because
00:15:48
it's like the odds are stacked against her and that's sad so where we stand now Captain we have a little girl missing
00:15:56
from her apartment complex in Monroe Michigan let's look at the earliest stages of
00:16:01
this investigation first someone and this is a little weird but it's never been reported exactly who
00:16:10
this could have been Jennifer her mom could have been Grandma Sherry could have been the apartment manager could be
00:16:16
somebody else entirely somebody called 911 at 8:15 p.m. and police issued the amber alert for 5-year-old NAA that same
00:16:26
night now NAA was gone Monroe County Sheriff Tillman Crutchfield announced that they were looking for two witnesses
00:16:35
this is very early on in their investigation announces to the public we're looking for two witnesses and he
00:16:41
states that these are Elementary age boys who were seen playing on the playground at the Hollywood Elementary
00:16:49
School that backed up to the charlot arms apartment complex and he said that this would have been around the last
00:16:56
time that Navea was seen they were also seeking a green boxy minivan that was seen parked at the
00:17:04
playground between 6:00 and 7 pm on the evening that NAA disappeared he said that they thought that the van driver
00:17:11
might be a witness but of course an unknown van in the area where a child went missing was caused for raised
00:17:19
eyebrows ban the green minivan well like you said this case is going to be tough
00:17:24
CU we know that she's outside playing but we don't know how long she was gone once she was reported gone again for
00:17:32
those not familiar Monroe Michigan is a small town about 20,000 people somewhat near the Ohio line the River Raisin runs
00:17:42
through the middle of town the apartment complex itself the Charlotte arms is located between North Malcolm Street and
00:17:49
Riverview Avenue next to that Hollywood Elementary School reportedly this apartment complex has 180 units so this
00:17:59
is a rather large apartment complex in my opinion and it's made up of a number of buildings these buildings Captain are
00:18:07
only three stories high I've seen it reported that the residents were on the lower end of the socioeconomic Spectrum
00:18:16
as with most neighborhoods some of these residents have a somewhat checkered past
00:18:22
now Navea Sherry and Jennifer's unit was on the ground level this is important to
00:18:27
me when we're looking at this case so for anyone or in this case NAA to get from the
00:18:35
apartment where we know she was safe well and fine to the parking lot area where it's suspected that she was would
00:18:43
have been last seen or went missing from this based off of the scooter where the
00:18:49
scooters later located all the little girl had to do was walk out the front door which is what Jennifer seemingly
00:18:57
allowed her her to do the other thing too we got to note this is a 5-year-old girl yes she's probably used to playing
00:19:05
outside with other kids but we get the Jennifer's friend's daughter who seems to be keeping an eye on NAA but not
00:19:16
Jennifer herself so it would be a tough situation because essentially your daughter's
00:19:21
being raised by your mother you then come into the picture there is some kind of routine
00:19:28
there's some kind of familiarity already happening with discipline and who's telling you what to do and and all that
00:19:37
stuff that you almost have to take a backseat as a as a parent and these cases are incredibly difficult to
00:19:45
report and it's not just because we're talking about a little girl that's missing but it's also because when you
00:19:53
have a situation like this it's easy to blame the parent or the parents and you also have to keep in mind that
00:20:04
they if they're innocent if they did nothing wrong here you know maybe they could have been a little more strict or
00:20:12
kept in better a better eye on NAA or obviously put her in a better situation in her young life as far as being a
00:20:20
father or mother goes but if neither of them did anything wrong well then they're very much victims too so these
00:20:28
are difficult to to try to walk that fine line of telling not just what we think and what we see but also trying to
00:20:40
stay keep an open heart to to these victims it's absolutely irresponsible and unimaginable to spend
00:20:50
years not talking with your daughter not being involved in your daughter's life it's ridiculous now we will fast forward
00:20:58
to June 4th 2009 by this time NAA has been missing for almost 2 weeks now in many of these true crime stories we hear
00:21:08
about fishermen finding Bodies In The Water unaware that a person is actually missing they catch a glimpse of
00:21:16
something unusual maybe bobbing in the river or stream as they cast in their line but fishermen don't usually find
00:21:26
bodies by stepping on them like we have here in this week's case but here in the
00:21:33
garage Captain there's a first time for everything right so now we introduce guy
00:21:39
Bickley his 15-year-old son Ryan and guy's father LOL so we have three generations of the
00:21:47
Bley family setting out to spend some time fishing on the River Raisin near Dixon Road in raisinville Township this
00:21:57
part of the river is roughly about 30 or so feet across this particular spot is about 10
00:22:05
mil away from the Charlotte Arms apartment complex they the bices had never fished
00:22:13
this part of the river before they said that they parked off of Dixon Road inside the guard rail on the edge of a
00:22:20
steep slope that led down to the river the trio followed an overgrown path down through Brushy terrain leading to a good
00:22:31
spot along the riverbank at this spot there were some rocks which is typically ideal for fishermen in this situation
00:22:41
because you can stand or perch up on these rocks while casting another group of rocks was
00:22:47
easily accessible by walking across a small patch of concrete that looked as though it may have tumbled there from
00:22:55
the roadway above so guy Bickley is standing on that concrete patch and he says a chunk of it broke
00:23:06
off he noted that the concrete was thinly spread so when what we would later find
00:23:15
out would be an 8 in by 6 in chunk of this concrete breaks off he says right away he smelled and
00:23:25
saw that something was not right he said flies were buzzing around in the area guy chipped off a little more of
00:23:33
the concrete to see what was going on then he stops because he does see something under the concrete was what
00:23:42
looked like human skin and hair and he said it smelled like death so they called the
00:23:51
authorities excavation of that concrete revealed a shallow grave containing an INT attacked corpse of a
00:23:59
child everyone knew who it was that kind of situation even before NAA was formally
00:24:07
ided the shirt on the little body fit the description of the one NAA was last seen
00:24:13
wearing it was not immediately apparent what the cause of death was very sad scene per ABC News Monroe County Sheriff
00:24:21
Tillman Crutchfield said shortly after the discovery of Na's body that there were no VIs ible signs of abuse and that
00:24:29
she had been buried along the River Raisin for quote a while he declined to comment specifically about how the body
00:24:38
was buried only that it had some type of concrete or cement on top he also would
00:24:44
not say what else investigators recovered from the grave obviously somebody that's trying to conceal her
00:24:50
her body yes very much so and went to some Great Lengths to do so now you know the the sheriff himself is
00:25:00
probably in a bit of a State of Shock as well they've spent almost two weeks now
00:25:06
looking for this little girl this is how she's found nobody wanted to find her this way he does
00:25:13
throw in the comment when he's being asked about what they found he says authorities are looking for a
00:25:20
disturbed individual which I I feel like that's kind of a throw your hands in the air kind of
00:25:28
not in a good way you know throw your hands in the air like I don't know I I'm kind of at a loss here for words I don't
00:25:34
know exactly who we are looking for at this point to go back to the day she went missing like you said
00:25:40
there's over 180 units so that's a lot of individuals in this town looking for this little girl and talking and
00:25:48
spreading the word that this little girl is missing so this is going to be big news when they end up finding her in the
00:25:56
concrete yeah and from my experience following these cases and from what we've covered
00:26:03
here in the garage Captain we know that these stranger child abductions are rather
00:26:09
rare now I'm not saying that that's an impossibility here it certainly could be the situation but often times it's
00:26:17
somebody somewhat close to the child that is responsible either somebody that is known to the family or in this case
00:26:24
and what I think you're circling around here is that the possibility is that the threat or or
00:26:31
or whoever is responsible could be somebody that that lived in that apartment complex or had reason to be
00:26:40
there for any number of reasons and also like you said there's a this playground
00:26:46
that's AB budding the property that's beside the apartment property creeps are going to find out about that pretty
00:26:55
quickly yeah that's that's the thing for me that I kept I I can't shake off is this idea that if you
00:27:05
were somewhat local stranger to the family stranger to people from that apartment complex we've always said this
00:27:13
with when it comes to especially serial offenders right serial offenders typically have a victim type and they
00:27:20
know where to go looking for their victim that they prefer it's almost like you and I going to the grocer store we I
00:27:28
don't go out and Hunt my own meat because there's a store right down the street where will it will have plenty of
00:27:34
it there and well I do I hunt my own meat all the time but here here's the thing though too is what do we know so
00:27:43
far this girl is taken from apartment complex she is now found the same town right about 10 miles away from the
00:27:54
apartment complex but before we move on to something else what what I wanted wanted to point out was if if a predator
00:28:02
was looking for this type of victim a younger child boy or girl unfortunately this is an ideal
00:28:12
place to find said Victim Because as you pointed out the playground the elementary school the apartment complex
00:28:19
where there's kids outside buzzing and zipping around and playing all day long and there's a pool there as well I mean
00:28:26
that's that's some of the key locations for these types of creeps to find this type of victim and this is
00:28:35
all smashed together all in one local right and what the point I was trying to get at before rudely being cut off no uh
00:28:46
is this to me seems like a location that you'd have to know by being a local and being where
00:28:55
her body was found yes no no I'm talking about the apartment complex look if you if you're not a
00:29:03
local you're just going to drive to the next part of town and go oh let here's this playground that's connected to this
00:29:11
uh apartment complex connected to a pool which is connected to this elementary school like you said this is probably
00:29:19
somebody that lives in the area or knows the area is familiar with the area and then she's found 10 miles away so to me
00:29:28
this evidence is saying that this person is local you know and when we mean when
00:29:33
we say local you know 20 30 mile radius from the abduction point or the the point where um her body was found now I
00:29:44
want to hit on some things before we move on to our next items here in this investigation and this is in regards to
00:29:53
the body being found so we we should note here that the police have never said said what state of
00:29:59
undress or dress that NAA was in but there was a now deleted Fox Detroit News piece that said she was in the
00:30:12
hole without clothing and her clothing and a bush beer can were thrown in the hole with her uh FBI have traced the
00:30:23
beer can to a highlight Market in Monroe so they were able to trace where this beer can came from or at least where it
00:30:32
was purchased from the thing here is what's not clear is this beer can being found it's
00:30:41
actually not clear whether it was found in the hole or just nearby that makes sense but one thing that kind of
00:30:49
confirms the clothing being tossed in on top of the girl was that one of the guys
00:30:57
guy Bickley who found her confirmed that he could see her bear back when the concrete broke
00:31:05
apart so that gives a little more some of that's speculation some of that's rumor again a lot of those details
00:31:13
coming from what is a now deleted article news article about uh this case but if those if that information is in
00:31:21
fact true it gives a little more insight to the scene but just to be clear this this is um a hole that was covered by
00:31:31
concrete to describe it as plain and simple as I can it appears that somebody dug a somewhat shallow grave placed
00:31:40
items in there and then created this concrete slab there likely there or brought it with
00:31:49
them right and placed it over top whoever did this was really hoping that she would never be
00:31:56
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00:34:32
cheers Captain to the windows to the walls cheers to everybody in the front and the back let's get back into it so
00:34:39
police searched the river area near where the body was found they spent two days there pouring over the area looking
00:34:47
for any Footprints any possible debris that they could find in the area and see if it's connected to their case they did
00:34:54
take DNA from the three Bley boys so they could eliminate anything with their DNA on it they issued a press release
00:35:02
asking all who may have fished in that area to call the police call the sheriff's department if they had seen
00:35:09
anything at all during their time spent there because keep in mind at this point
00:35:16
as far as what the public knows is this girl goes missing and then just a little
00:35:22
under two weeks later her body is found in this location 10 miles away we don't know us the public we don't
00:35:30
know when she was placed there was it the same day she was abducted was it a day before she was found I mean there's
00:35:39
a there's a considerable gap of time there my guess is that she was kidnapped and taken somewhere else but this
00:35:47
location's weird to me because it would be somewhat remote because it's for fishermen but it would seem like maybe
00:35:55
that this spot would be known by fishermen almost like the person would want to put her oh well this is a
00:36:01
secluded area but I'm going to cover up so well that like this dark Secret's going to be right underneath everybody's
00:36:10
feet while they're fishing yeah I can't speak as to how popular this fishing spot was because we have kind of
00:36:19
conflicting thoughts when you want to create an educated guess on that one we have the bleys who say they fished often
00:36:25
and had never fished that spot before but at the same time we have guy Bley who says that he was told of the spot
00:36:34
from other fisherman so right it it is somewhat known this particular spot anyway even though investigators
00:36:42
wouldn't address it they clearly did find something else at the grave maybe it was the clothing maybe it was the
00:36:48
beer can as we mentioned earlier but we do know that they did find something else at this site where her body was
00:36:56
recovered from because in mid June articles said that investigators were awaiting results of forensic testing on
00:37:04
items recovered with Na's body at the riverfront Sheriff Crutchfield told the Detroit Free Press quote we have
00:37:12
specific information that is known to the perpetrator and we are going to hold that near and dear to us end quote the
00:37:20
police have never discussed what else was found in the area and never really gave details about the concrete that was
00:37:27
found on top of NAA we should note here that this particular area was a fishing spot known to some locals like we just
00:37:35
said but the Detroit Free Press reported that on the day after the body was found
00:37:41
investigators were contacting area Home Improvement and hardware stores this is because they were trying to track down
00:37:48
purchases of quick setting concrete mixes reportedly specifically 90b bags so this is from medium and it says only
00:37:59
a few stores in the area sold such large bags one of them being Colman cement company now this could be this is likely
00:38:09
unrelated but it's interesting to note that the fence outside of the Coleman cement company had recently been cut now
00:38:21
there's no report of if anything was stolen and if it if things were stolen what they would have
00:38:30
been did they find something at the scene that indicated to them that they are looking for a 90 PB bag search
00:38:37
because uh sorry a 90b bag purchase because that's what they were specifically asking for when they were
00:38:44
calling all these different places and medium is saying that Coleman cement company was one of the few places that
00:38:53
sold bags that size and and it was also reported that it that sometime around this time frame that a fence outside of
00:39:03
the company had been cut outside of their building had been cut right so I'm saying that we have that report that
00:39:11
there's damage to the fence which would indicate to me or most people that someone was trying to steal something
00:39:20
however that report does not tell us that one that anything was stolen and two if any was stolen what it was yeah
00:39:28
they probably did some kind of measurement of the concrete and and maybe that's how they got to the 90 lbs
00:39:34
possibly I mean you could buy two bags of a smaller size yeah no very good point and maybe like you said
00:39:42
there's a a flap from the from the concrete because you know these bags when you go to make the concrete you
00:39:50
just rip them open and and toss them to the side so heck maybe they're there was
00:39:56
the bag there well and that's what I'm saying I you know they spent two days at that crime scene looking over all of the
00:40:05
debris in the area maybe they came across a 90 lb bag of concrete mix and I say that because Guy Bickley who found
00:40:14
the grave just so happened to be familiar with concrete and the general workings of concrete he tells the
00:40:23
news that in his opinion whoever buried NAA probably used river water to mix the
00:40:28
concrete he said it looked to him as though someone had dug a hole put the girl in poured a bag of concrete mix on
00:40:36
top and poured water over the whole thing so not actually mixing it up in a proper way kind of hastily doing it
00:40:47
there on the scene so not a professional job not really the proper method for for
00:40:52
making the concrete right but maybe that's be you know good because the concrete cracked and we were able to see
00:41:01
that she was buried if if they would have done a better job maybe that concrete never cracks and we we never
00:41:08
find her there was a reward for finding NAA at the time of discovering her body so after the body was positively
00:41:19
identified using DNA the Bley split $20,000 this was reward money that was being offered by the FBI now reportedly
00:41:29
guy Bickley the Bickley were a little they accepted the money begrudgingly right
00:41:37
they guy Bley says on record if the reward money came from the community he would have declined it but since it was
00:41:44
funds from the federal government he accepted it and he told the news screw the money it has released a lot of
00:41:51
emotions that I don't like what he meant was he hated being the one find finding
00:41:56
Na's body he said he would have preferred that someone else had found her he found himself breaking down at
00:42:03
the memory of seeing her little body in the concrete grave and said that the emotional impact was wreaking havoc on
00:42:10
his daily life well that's something he's never going to forget and how could you I mean that' be devastating for
00:42:16
anybody I feel compelled to give a warning here I know that a lot of shows give you a warning at the top of the
00:42:24
show saying that some of the the information discussed here might be graphic in nature or disturbing to hear
00:42:32
we here at the garage don't feel the need to to always give those warnings at the top of the show because it's a true
00:42:39
crime show it's dark material you should expect to hear something that's uncomfortable maybe even something that
00:42:45
you don't want to hear but you know I've I've become a little thick skinned when
00:42:51
it comes to a lot of this stuff and this part still bothered me a little bit so I
00:42:57
feel compelled to give a little bit of a warning here because we are going to go
00:43:01
very briefly through the autopsy not not the entire thing an autopsy on the remains was performed by Dr Carl Schmidt
00:43:09
of the Wayne County Medical Examiner office the next part that I'm going to read is directly from the autopsy report
00:43:17
it says quote this child was found in a Shallow Grave part of the body was interred was found face down and the
00:43:25
back was covered by by a layer of cement likee material the body showed moderate
00:43:30
signs of decomposition Dr Schmidt's opinion was that the death was caused by aspiration
00:43:38
of fine particulate material here he means dirt her death was caused by her not being able to
00:43:46
breathe and she couldn't breathe because of dirt the particulate material was found in the upper Airway the trachea
00:43:56
and the medium of the small caliber Airways this means that the child's face was forcibly maintained or embedded into
00:44:05
a dirt surface now whether this resulted from another person forcibly pressing the child's face into dirt or whether
00:44:14
she was buried alive cannot be determined by this autopsy but the manner of death of course was ruled a
00:44:23
homicide well and this is difficult too because you don't know if the killer put
00:44:29
her in there knowing that she was dead or not you know what I mean like exactly he
00:44:36
could have put her in there assuming at that point she was dead then obviously we now know um the cause of death yes
00:44:44
and again there was a certain level of decomposition that had already taken place this to me indicates that she was
00:44:50
likely there for a considerable amount of time likely shortly after the abduction or
00:44:59
closer to the time of and date of the abduction and you're exactly right Captain we've seen plenty of cases where
00:45:08
someone attempts to smother or strangle a victim and they come to and maybe this
00:45:15
monster thought that she was already dead before placing her in in the ground and then leaving her there but
00:45:25
the again it's it's the autopsy gives us some insights but not a whole lot as far
00:45:34
as figuring some things out right because we don't know the facts of it is that she was still breathing when she
00:45:41
was either buried alive under this concrete or suffocated by someone holding her face into the dirt those are
00:45:47
pretty much the two options that we're left with but there was no visible trauma to her body such as blows to the
00:45:54
head or Sharp Force injuries seems like we have no puncture wounds we don't have
00:46:00
any bruising around the neck or even around our arms that the autopsy tells us about nothing that came up in the
00:46:07
autopsy it doesn't mean that it didn't happen it just means that the state that her body was found in those things could
00:46:15
not be determined but yes there's no what is clear in the oopsy is there's no visible signs of trauma to her body such
00:46:22
as blows to the head or sharp force injury so that clears up that in my opinion now
00:46:29
Sheriff Crutchfield is on record saying that the body had evidently been there for quite
00:46:36
some time those were his words this leading many to conclude that Nea was killed
00:46:42
shortly after she was last seen yeah it's a tough one because if if I'm playing detective here again 10 Mile
00:46:52
gap between where she is abducted and where she is found so I'm thinking local both spots I
00:47:02
think you could argue that you need to be local to know them well or feel safe around because again if you're not from
00:47:13
that area and you go to that apartment complex with the the play area and the pool and
00:47:19
everything you you might not feel as Brazen to to try to take a victim if you know the area better if
00:47:29
youve studied the area better you're going to feel more inclined and feel safer as the killer to
00:47:37
to try to take a victim but then we have this half ass shallow grave with some concrete that we
00:47:49
don't even think that the individual took the time to mix so that so that means on some level this guy is
00:47:56
halfhazard I I I think that could play into the you know the the psyche of this individual oh I'm going to take the time
00:48:05
to bury her to make this grave but I'm not going to do a good job doing it if that makes any sense so when I look at
00:48:16
this spot where the body's recovered from it's remote you're getting there by one of
00:48:24
two methods boat or vehicle and I purposely described how the Bley had to park and where they
00:48:33
chose to park their vehicle to go fishing in the spot to demonstrate what it would take somebody to get from the
00:48:42
road to this spot where NAA is found and what I see here what what I tend to believe is that the perpetrator is
00:48:58
haphazardly putting together this air quotes grave to conceal the body but does not feel comfortable and
00:49:08
does not have a lot of time to do this if a body's going to be discovered there you really don't want your car
00:49:18
your vehicle your truck your license plate being spotted parked on the side of this country road
00:49:27
right you know the the Bley said that they parked on the other side of the guard rail I live near water I live near
00:49:33
an area that that a lot of people fish and a lot of people Park like that they park off of the side of the road uh off
00:49:41
of the Guard you know behind the guard rails so some drunk doesn't come along and accidentally crash into their car
00:49:48
and it it has nothing to do with True Crime it has nothing to do with the our job here in the garage but for what
00:49:55
whatever reason I take mental note when I'm driving and see somebody parked especially at night even though they're
00:50:03
off fishermen you know what I mean like it this is an area where people fish but
00:50:07
it's it's easy to spot a vehicle when it's parked there by itself when you don't see anything in the immediate area
00:50:14
it's easy to go oh I saw a green Bronco there or a red S10 pickup truck right well it sticks out because it sticks out
00:50:24
yeah and if the other method would be for somebody to use a boat or some kind of watercraft
00:50:30
to get there I don't know a lot about this this water way here um so I I I can't really speculate on that angle too
00:50:41
much but I see somebody that's hastily putting together and trying to conceal the body that to me would indicate or I
00:50:49
would lean toward the opinion of they probably drove to this location now it's also important to note
00:50:55
here captain that the autopsy report did not even address the following item so we don't know one way or the other what
00:51:04
the conclusion was but it did not address whether the victim was sexually assaulted now per Fox News Jennifer
00:51:12
Buchanan the mother said that police told her that NAA was not sexually assaulted and that no drugs were found
00:51:18
in her system again on record police would not discuss whether the child was sexually abused but there was a
00:51:25
detective on record stating that the toxicology reports came back negative here I want to point out something and
00:51:34
be perfectly clear Jennifer Buchanan says that police told her that she was not the victim was not sexually
00:51:42
assaulted I don't have a strong belief that they would tell her I agree factual information about the case especially
00:51:51
given the the living situation and given Jennifer her situation her past her police record
00:51:59
I don't know that they're going to be giving Mom all of the facts here in this case and when we get when we get
00:52:07
eyeballs deep into this investigation you will see why it's it's normal It's Perfectly
00:52:14
Normal for these types of Investigations to have hold back information and what the public doesn't always understand is
00:52:19
that hold back information is not just hold back information from the general public it's often times hold back
00:52:25
information from the person's closest to the victim and closest to the investigation itself meaning mom likely
00:52:32
does not know much more about this investigation than the public does once we get eyeballs deep in this we will see
00:52:39
and you will understand very quickly why police would be hesitant to discuss particular details about this case
00:52:50
evidentiary details about this case with Jennifer for a second here let's pretend
00:52:58
that there was no sexual assault right right that makes me go well what the hell's going on here why would someone
00:53:06
kidnap and murder a child if not to sexually assault them typically unfortunately that is the motive in a
00:53:16
lot of these cases so to offer up an educated guess here we have a couple of options in my opinion Captain one NAA
00:53:24
could have been a source of some type of sexual pleasure for the abductor without any actual
00:53:30
contact taking place two perhaps her abductor had every intention of sexually assaulting the
00:53:39
victim but something happened she fought back he panicked and killed her before going
00:53:46
through with it three maybe the abduction and the murder was the goal the entire time and was the only goal
00:53:55
perhaps to I don't know silence her over previous abuse send a message to someone
00:54:01
get back at someone or even potentially set someone up and again to be clear that the body being found in a state of
00:54:11
undress is from one source that Source has deleted the article we do not know why they deleted the article so
00:54:21
something could be wrong could be factually incorrect that was in that article and the the factually incorrect item
00:54:29
could be that she was in fact clothed when she was found but there seems to be a lot indicating that that she was in
00:54:36
some form of undress when she was discovered now the community really pulled together here they went all out
00:54:44
they donated for nave's funeral services the funeral was attended by a thousand people there were funeral homes that
00:54:52
offered to donate their services to the family so kudos to the community for for
00:54:58
pulling together to help this this young girl and to help out uh her family in this worst of situations now everyone
00:55:08
described Monroe as a quiet little town a tranquil Community where things like this don't happen that's what we hear so
00:55:16
often when things like this do happen is this is an area where these things don't
00:55:21
happen but her horrific murder was absolutely devastating and terrifying to the residents nave's
00:55:32
headstone which she was buried in St Joseph cemetery in Monroe Michigan it reads Monroe's little angel the entrance
00:55:41
to the Steep Rocky path leading to the riverbank where her body was found was marked by a cross and rock
00:55:50
sculptures and momentos of things like stuffed animals were placed there by people in the
00:55:58
community now before Navea was found of course police were focusing in on finding her and the investigation
00:56:05
centered on interviewing residents of the apartment complex following leads generated from eyewitness statements and
00:56:15
interviewing those residents and also tracking down registered sex offenders and so on but
00:56:21
of course after she was found the investigation went down a little bit of a different
00:56:26
avenue they started following up on the 1,00 tips that they had received remember they were very quickly and
00:56:35
actively asking the public for help right from Jump Street on this case and it appears that the public responded in
00:56:44
the form of over 1,200 tips that were received by law enforcement well that's a lot of tips but what a devastating
00:56:52
situation for the the parents in that community Community you'd be afraid that this could happen to your child and if
00:56:58
you're a child in this community you're afraid that this could happen to you next but as said in the early stages of
00:57:04
the investigation they focused on sketchy people in the apartment complex and of
00:57:10
course they visited the apartment where nave's little friend Austin Baker lived with his parents she had played there
00:57:17
with Austin earlier that day this fills out the timeline a little bit more so at
00:57:22
some point she's at Austin's house her apartment earlier that day and then Jennifer comes to the apartment to
00:57:30
collect NAA and the two of them walk to Kmart now Austin is also the same boy whose
00:57:39
apartment Jennifer said that she assumed Navea was heading to when she left the apartment later around 6:30 and then
00:57:48
vanished police took carpet samples this was a little confusing to me here Captain when when they visited Austin's
00:57:56
Place interviewed his parents and interviewed him they took carpet samples from the apartment I guess they're
00:58:01
trying to match fibers uh it's been reported that possibly fibers were found under Na's
00:58:07
fingernails but what's been reported is that all most if not all of the apartment units
00:58:17
were believed to have the same carpeting so it's not really clear to me how matching the
00:58:23
fibers from Austin's apartment or really any other apartment at Charlotte arms would help them focus in on a specific
00:58:30
suspect and keep in mind Navea lived in an apartment complex in another unit so right the carpeting in her own
00:58:40
apartment could be identical to those in the other apartments unless it's one of
00:58:45
those situations I actually used to work for a company that would when the people
00:58:49
would move out we'd go in and we'd change the carpet and would paint and so is it it possible that they changed the
00:58:56
carpet and so they know that some of the buildings have older carpet some of the
00:59:00
buildings have newer carpet and that would give us some kind of look if we have 180 units that maybe that uh
00:59:11
divides that in half right and so now now I'm looking at 90 some people that could be involved not 180 one thing that
00:59:20
we weren't able to find was the surveillance situation if there were any type of security cameras
00:59:28
at this apartment complex it's hard to believe that in 2009 that there would be none at all but if there had been in
00:59:36
this case to me it seems very likely that at least there were no cameras on the back of the building where her
00:59:43
scooter was later found because if we had that information if we had surveillance from that area I feel like
00:59:51
we're not sitting here over a decade later with with an unsolved case now I mentioned earlier that we are going to
00:59:59
call into question a lot of Jennifer's behaviors and to me it's not so much about the time frame in which her
01:00:07
daughter goes missing it's more about her actions leading up to her daughter's disappearance so even before nave's body
01:00:16
was found police already had suspects and these were publicly named suspects before the body was even found
01:00:24
in fact this was within 24 hours of the little girl missing police were already honing in on a couple of potential
01:00:32
suspects it was two guys and these two guys were both exes ex-boyfriends of Jennifers and they were both immediately
01:00:40
picked up on probation violations as soon as investigators got their names from Jennifer so what probation
01:00:48
violations were they picked up on they're picked up because they were both registered sex offenders who had
01:00:55
victimized children in the past El Creos so after it came out that they were each
01:01:02
hanging out with Jennifer each of these and kudos to the police for doing this they get these guys names and
01:01:12
they're like you know what it's a probation violation for each one of these guys to be associated with the
01:01:17
child a parole violation so let's go find these guys pick them up arrest them and throw their asses in some jail cells
01:01:27
and we can interview them talk to them see if we can get them to talk because we're interested in what these guys have
01:01:34
to say and what they may know because of for so many obvious reasons this a very cold cold world we
01:01:44
live in I mean go take a look at her and to imagine that somebody would want to harm her just makes no sense so
01:01:54
technically Captain both of these guys are arrested for quote simply being associated with a child this per ABC
01:02:03
News their parole conditions requir that they have no association with children and that they not even have romantic
01:02:11
relationships with women who have children the sheriff publicly named both of them as Persons of Interest and threw
01:02:19
them in cells while the investigators did their thing [Music] all right thank you so much for joining
01:02:39
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