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[Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] garage wherever you are whatever you are
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doing thank you for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who is every bit as good as advertised
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and that's pretty pretty good he is the captain I might be as good as the side effects that are advertised
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he might cause diarrhea thank you thank you thank you thanks for listening and thanks for telling a friend
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[Music] foreign to be featuring speed wobbles by the forward thinkers at Key Brewing speed
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wobbles is an American sessions IPA and for those who may not know the idea behind a sessions IPA is you combine the
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hoppiness of an IPA with the lower alcohol content of a sessions beer and speed wobbles does that perfectly with
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an ABV of 4.6 percent garage grade four and a quarter bottle caps out of five and this week our fridge is full thanks
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to these Drinking Buddies right here first up a cheers and a big say hello to your mother for me to my good good
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friend Brad in Grove City Ohio thanks for the beer Bradford and a big shout out to Mike W from Niles Michigan and
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here's one to Chad aka Mr buckles delivering the mail and Parts Unknown and all the way in Fargo we have a big
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shout out to Ashley and we have Ricky and Lindsay who started listening to TCG while road tripping and last but
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certainly not least a big cheers and thank you to Stephen and Santa Barbara California everyone that we just
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mentioned went to True Crime garage.com and clicked on the Donate button and for
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sign up on the mailing list at truecrime garage.com and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather
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round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime good [Music] thank you
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[Music] each year as we venture through life there are markers along our journey
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holidays birthdays and anniversaries these can be cause for celebration gift giving and reflection
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these markers along Life's Highway are not only something we welcome but something we look forward to
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we all will celebrate a birthday in 2019. and I like so many of you out there I will observe my own holidays and
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anniversaries throughout this year think about your life your loved ones and celebrations you've had so far
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and the ones you are looking forward to now put yourself in the shoes of the loved one or family member of a victim
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of someone no longer with us of course these loved ones are victims as well but these victims so very unfortunately
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are victimized repeatedly over and over again each year they experience holidays
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birthdays and anniversaries but without their loved one unlike the rest of us these are not dates or markers
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that they look forward to often choosing to spend this time alone unable to celebrate
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the days that we are often the happiest are the times that they struggle the most
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and then they get to do it all over again next year and the next year the year after that
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next week we will recognize an anniversary but not one that anyone will be looking
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forward to next week marks the 10-year anniversary of when Tony Lee sharpless vanished
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ten years have gone by and there's still no trace of her or is there this is true crime garage
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and this is the case of Tony Lee sharpless [Music] [Music] Tony Lee sharpless was born on December
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27 1979. her father was killed in an accident when she was just six years old later Tony's mother remarried so Tony
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and her sister candy were raised by her mother and stepfather in West Brandywine
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Township an area of about 4 500 people West Brandywine is about 60 miles west of Philadelphia from what we can tell
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the parents provided a loving and supportive home to the two girls but Tony would struggle getting involved
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in her teen years with drugs and alcohol at 17 she was pregnant her mom says Tony
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was determined to keep the baby and to get herself together and be a good mother
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Tony started working full time leaving her daughter in the care of her parents and she focused on being a good
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parent herself Tony wanted to provide a good life for her daughter and be a good example but
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life as a young single mother was not easy and her mom says Tony had her first breakdown at either age 19 or 20.
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Tony suddenly lapsed into several days of uncontrollable crying she was hospitalized and examined but wasn't
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diagnosed with any condition at that time she went back to drinking and occasionally taking drugs and even
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totaled her car now this was very traumatic and it was something that she vowed never to repeat
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unfortunately there were two suicide attempts as well she and her daughter moved to Florida
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briefly Tony and her daughter moved back in with Tony's mom and stepdad in Pennsylvania after this short trip to
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Florida these Behavior Cycles continued until 2005 when Tony was diagnosed bipolar and
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placed on prescription medication this was to allow her to stabilize to the point
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that she could be able to enroll in a nursing program Tony's parents helped her as she worked
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on the weekends as a nurse's aide and navigated nursing school everyone says Tony was managing well for
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most of this time she stayed stable throughout nursing school and in 2007 started working at
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Lancaster General Hospital friends describe Tony as a brilliant woman who loved her job
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it seems she had put her addiction issues behind her and her disease was under control thanks to proper
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medication and things seem to be looking up for her yeah but at some point she's
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going to be convicted of a DUI and in early 2009 she started behaving erratically her friend Crystal Johns
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says that in early 2009 Tony was cycling between Mania and depression Tony entered a three-week stint in a
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psych rehab facility in April of 2009 according to her family it was here that Tony was issued a new prescription for
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bipolar disorder and treated for alcohol abuse and she came out of rehab A Renewed person she stabilized and was
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able to return to work and resumed her routine as a Dependable mom to her now 12 year old daughter right but let's be
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clear there's no test that they can give somebody to be like oh you took this test you are bipolar so most
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psychologists won't diagnose somebody with bipolar disease they monitor it for years actually so with therapy and
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trying different prescriptions and this is kind of what they're doing so when they said that but some doctors will
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diagnose right away and start prescribing right away well at this point Tony was working as
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an infectious disease nurse typically working a 12-hour night shift than coming home in the morning
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things went smoothly for about four months the one thing that seemed to have been very tough for Tony to adjust to
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was her bipolar meds prohibited her from drinking just like a lot of other medications alcohol and her medications
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they do not mix well together basically giving you undesirable side effects to things like mood behavior and your
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health well some of the antipsychotics if you drink on them they actually could cause death so we know that Tony had a
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problem with alcohol in the past but after this relapse Tony seems to have changed her lifestyle to avoid drinking
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at least initially she wasn't going out she was staying focused on work and family
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now Captain we need to talk about the events of August 22nd and 23rd 2019. August 22nd was a Saturday and Tony
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finished a long shift at the hospital she was down because of a couple different reasons a patient had
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committed suicide at the hospital by jumping out of the window just weeks earlier and a close
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friend of hers her her brother had been killed in a car accident so she's got her own struggles
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but there's there's some other things going on here to add to this at a a different layer to this
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now Saturday morning after getting off work Tony went over to her sister Candy's apartment remember they're very
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close these two sisters she hung out with Candy's kids and and helped candy clean her apartment then they picked up
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Tony's daughter and they went to a mall a shopping mall for a day of shopping now the shopping group was joined by
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Tony's old friend Crystal Johns Tony bought some new clothes and and some new hair color and the two friends caught up
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on life it's my understanding that these two are are old friends and they didn't have a relationship for quite
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some time and at some point this relationship is renewed now crystal said she was going to go out
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that night to some clubs to meet up with some of her friends and she encouraged Tony to join her candy was also included
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in this invitation but candy declined she said later that she was somewhat surprised that Tony agreed to go out
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because this was going to be a partying situation but she guessed that Tony felt
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that you know maybe she deserves some fun after not being out for several months
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now Tony dropped off her daughter with her parents and said goodbye to the three of them this is around like 9 30
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P.M Tony's friend from nursing school Gigi Hayes told us that she spoke with Tony
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that day and she believes Tony was clearly in or possibly entering a manic stage which
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Gigi had seen and witnessed before she says that in those stages Tony would do very impulsive things
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Gigi cautioned her about going out with Crystal and says that she and Tony's mother Donna both were concerned
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now Donna says that while Tony most of the time took her medications as required the day before she called and
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asked Donna to call into the pharmacy for refills apparently Tony would often fail to take
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medication when she decided she was feeling good you know she would kind of we see this a lot where where people
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decide they don't need their medication because of the way they feel um and this seems to be the case here as
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well well I'm not a doctor I'm a captain and all medicines work differently but skipping one day of these medications
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are not going to derail you completely we don't know this for certain but what we can say is that Tony's Family seems
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to think that it's possible that Tony did not take her pills that day or maybe in the past day or past few days leading
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up to this day again we don't know for certain and again we don't know how these medications are going to react
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with her that's correct after saying goodbye Tony went over to crystals where the two got glammed up to go out Tony
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wore black pants or tights and a turquoise top and sandals a crystal later said in an interview
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that she didn't know that Tony wasn't supposed to drink while on her medication according to her she didn't
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even know that Tony was bipolar remember we said that the the relationship is uh
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kind of a new spark to an old friendship right according to Tony's friend Gigi Crystal
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was not a great influence for Tony that's that's Gigi's opinion she had serious reservations about Tony's
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decision to go out with Crystal that night now the two young women went off to two
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different clubs first they hit up Club Ice and King of Prussia which is in Lower Marion Township and then they
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drove to G Lounge in Philly yeah G Lounge right that's where I get my swerve on it was here that they met up with Matt
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Greene who was hanging out with his brother his brother at the time played for the 76ers a professional basketball
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team in the NBA his name is Willie Green it's not really clear what exactly the relationship was between Crystal and
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Matt we know that they met up that night we know that Crystal told Tony earlier that day hey I'm going out with friends
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meeting up with some friends why don't you come with me what I've heard is that it that
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sometimes this relationship between Crystal and Matt may have just been a casual hookup you know that they were
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had some type of relationship when he was around kind of thing right now the girls from what we've been told received
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VIP treatment at G Lounge drinking champagne vodka doing shots sounds like they're having a good time
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now Tony spent quite a bit of time on the Dance Floor One incident did happen here at the club that upset Tony this is
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according to Crystal apparently two Hispanic men who were hitting on her they were conversing in
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Spanish about Tony and one of them said that Tony looked like she was 35 years old now remember
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Tony is only 29 at this time Tony actually spoke fluent Spanish and could understand everything that they
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were saying and this really upset her now clubs in Philly stop serving alcohol at 2 A.M and everybody has to be out of
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the bars at 2 30. they are with a crew of about six or seven total and it sounds like they wanted to keep
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partying so Willie Willie Green the basketball player invited everyone back to his
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Mansion this is in Gladwin Pennsylvania this is about a 30 to 40 minute drive from where they are currently located
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yeah that's that's never good hey we've been drinking and doing a bunch of drugs
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let's drive 30 40 minutes and I'm I'm not certain as to what time they arrived at the first Club but one thing we do
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know is they stayed at the second Club until closing time so we can assume that most of them are pretty Sauced up by
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this one what's closing time there because closing time here is 2 A.M but well serving stops at 2 A.M and everyone
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has to be out of the bar at 2 30. okay so same same as us Tony drove herself and Crystal in her black four-door 2002
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Pontiac Grand Prix GT which had tinted windows whether or not she should have been
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driving is not clear this has never been made clear by anybody that night but Tony was operating on from what we know
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36 hours of no sleep medication which is either wearing off or no medication right bipolar disorder and
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plenty of alcohol a crystal categorically denies that either she or Tony did any drugs that
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night so we'll give Crystal a benefit of the doubt and say we won't include drugs
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in that in that statement now Tony was also very bad with directions she was driving to an unfamiliar area
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she had a new phone that she had just got like a few days before and she wasn't able to figure out
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the GPS on this new phone in fact they had a real tough go of it trying to get to the G Lounge I guess they drove
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around a lot longer than the normal trying to find this place because they didn't know where they're going they
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went to H Lounge first that's right they had the circle background up to the M Lounge down to the Z yeah back to the a
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found found themselves at the Jeep the B yeah apparently when they were heading out to
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Willie Green's house Crystal was the one who was able to figure out the GPS so they used GPS to get to his house
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now Gladwin is a very Upper Crust suburb of Philadelphia One news article says that it's one of the most expensive
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towns in the United States the NBA player and party host Willie Green was making quite a bit of money uh
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in those days and his house that he lived in cost about seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars this was uh
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purchased in 2006 from my understanding it's not totally clear how many people ended up at his house we have heard that
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it was Willie Matt their Uncle another girl also named Crystal and according to Crystal John's this
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other Crystal wasn't too happy that she and Tony were there and possibly one other person that I
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don't have a name for we also don't know exactly what what happened there you know we do know that
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Tony texted her daughter at 2 57 am this is while on these on the school kill Expressway
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I hope I said that right this is Interstate 76 and it was on the way to the house party
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now Tony is responding to a text from her daughter the daughter saying hey I can't sleep and Tony texts back saying
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something like honey I'll be home soon get some sleep or I hope you can get to sleep see you soon love you something
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like that right which is the typical parent [ __ ] text like hey we'll be back soon which really means just go to
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sleep and I'll see you in the morning whatever the exact wording of this response was it sounded totally normal
00:21:27
although moving forward I want everybody to keep in mind there's no proof that it was
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actually Tony that that sent that text well if she's driving she could have just had her friend send the text her
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friend figured out the GPS right right but it but again what I want to point out is I I don't mean just whose fingers
00:21:49
were on the phone I mean we there's a lot of questions about that night and you and that will become very
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clear very soon but just to point out even though the text came from Tony's phone and it was to her daughter in
00:22:04
response to a text I don't want anybody to believe 100 that that Tony sent this text or was the one
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that chose the words for the text now only Crystal Johns out of all the people that apparently were there or
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could have been there that night only Crystal Johns has spoken publicly about that night she has done interviews TV
00:22:28
shows blogs and other forms of media about what she says exactly went down at Willie Green's home
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now she was initially very eager to talk right you know right from the get yeah but to be clear Crystal's story of what
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occurred that evening is the only narrative we have to go on while it appears that her story has changed in in
00:22:54
little ways somewhat in the especially in the early days the gist of what she said happened is
00:23:01
this the crew at the house was playing a drinking game that involves the card game Taboo
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at some point during the game Tony made again she's she's worded this several different ways and I don't want to upset
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anybody here but from my understanding she Tony made a joking comment that either was or could have been a racial
00:23:25
slur now it's worth noting that both Crystal and Tony are white and Willie and Matt are black
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also Tony's daughter is mixed race and just pointing all that out I wasn't at the party I don't know exactly what went
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down right when Willy expressed displeasure at Tony's word choice yeah I guess Tony lost it according to
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Crystal she started pouring champagne on the floor and getting belligerent now in
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another account crystal says she herself was in the pool and someone came out and
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found her and said there was something going on or something wrong with her friend and she found Tony kicking
00:24:14
Furniture cursing and throwing things and acting extremely drunk pulling a Rick James
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yeah that [ __ ] yo couch this Behavior was out of character for Tony said Crystal but others who knew Tony
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said that it was not totally out of character if she was having an episode and crystal says that Willie asked the
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two of them to leave and angry and crying Tony grabbed her keys and said that she was she was
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driving well in all fairness I mean you go to a house party with Willie Green basketball player NBA right
00:24:59
and they You're Expecting the party and they pull out taboo give me a break yeah yeah I again I don't know what was
00:25:09
going on but but when she says that she's Pictionary no I want to party she's asked to leave and
00:25:18
she you know she grabs her keys she says she's driving I guess some of the guys in the group started laughing
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and told her you know hey by the way don't hit any of our cars on the way out of the driveway
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as soon as she and Crystal got to Tony's Grand Prix Tony started yelling at Crystal
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accusing her of laughing at her with the others you know hey you you you brought me here you asked me to
00:25:47
join Along on this party maybe maybe she screwed up maybe she didn't I don't know
00:25:52
but whatever went down according to Crystal Tony at this point not only feels like the people that stayed at the
00:25:58
party are against her but her friend or so-called friend crystal is now against her as well well this is a tough
00:26:06
situation there's a lot of people that are uh suffering with bipolar or mental illnesses that that
00:26:14
um once they get their medication right they might be advised from their psychologist that it yeah maybe some of
00:26:21
the side effects aren't great but it's okay if you you drink a little bit on your medication but like you said they
00:26:28
switched her medication so maybe she drank drank on her old medication and she kind of knew how to handle this but
00:26:35
now she's having a different effect um with the new medication my general understanding was I don't think she was
00:26:43
supposed to be drinking at all and then top that off with it looks like she had a bit of a roller
00:26:51
coaster ride with drinking alone you know with with having some times in her life where she was abusing alcohol and
00:27:01
and you know and I'm here's the thing in Tony's defense she obviously was somebody that wanted
00:27:10
to make the right decisions I think sometimes she struggled with that and we all do on some level right if you have a
00:27:17
mental illness that's a you know that's an obstacle that that a lot of people can't get over yeah and
00:27:25
and I don't want to uh pretend like I'm I'm better than anybody I was actually thinking about this on my way here and
00:27:33
and really doing some self-reflecting and thinking to myself you know I'm in my 30s now and I think I could probably
00:27:41
handle being told hey you can't drink I don't know if I would have been able to roll with that very well in my 20s well
00:27:48
and it's not like she's been irresponsible with her whole life she's taking care of her kid uh she went to
00:27:56
school she's a she's a hard worker everybody should have the right to let their hair down a little bit
00:28:03
foreign [Music] [Music] we're back cheers everybody cheers to you Captain where we left off
00:28:27
Tony was asked to leave or told to leave this party yeah so she decides she's going to drive and she's taking her
00:28:36
friend Crystal who arrived with her she's taking Crystal with her now once they're at Tony's car
00:28:43
Tony starts yelling at Crystal and in fact crystal says Tony got so mad and became so unreasonable that just within
00:28:53
two blocks from Willie's house she pulled over and yelled at Crystal telling her to get out of the car
00:29:01
now crystal said later that she knew Tony shouldn't have been driving crystal said she was so shocked and
00:29:08
surprised by Tony's behavior that she did exactly as she said she was told and she in fact got out of the car now this
00:29:17
put Crystal alone on the side of the road in a somewhat strange place around 4 45 A.M
00:29:26
she says that Tony sped off taking a left turn toward Hollow Road heading back in the direction of the interstate
00:29:35
heading back in the direction in which they came right but we don't know if Tony knew where she was going
00:29:41
after this takes place there are two phone calls on the call logs to Tony's phone
00:29:49
one at 4 47 a.m and one at 4 53 a.m so two phone calls six minutes apart some reports state that these calls were
00:30:00
at 4 53 a.m and 4 59 a.m but the key thing to mention here and to keep in mind here is
00:30:09
there's not a big discrepancy in these two times that were given from different reports and it's very clear and all the
00:30:16
reports that there were two calls that took place and they occurred six minutes apart these match up with the panicked
00:30:24
calls crystal said she made to Tony in the minutes after Tony told her to get out of the car
00:30:31
she said she was sure that Tony would come back for her and she said that her calls the two calls went straight to
00:30:40
Tony's voicemail crystal says to her it was obvious that the phone was turned off that's her
00:30:48
opinion we've seen reports that Tony's phone last pinged a cell tower that serves
00:30:54
near the area where the party was located what's strange here to me is the crystal
00:31:01
story uh I don't know if it makes a whole lot of sense to me right so she told what
00:31:08
was that well I'm gonna get into that okay she told the TV show ID disappeared that
00:31:14
she was stranded there within walking distance from the party house right and that even men some of the men at the
00:31:21
party even yelled at her to come back but she refused because she said she was embarrassed about the whole episode so
00:31:28
instead she started walking alone in the direction of the interstate now this seems
00:31:34
it just seems to me very unlikely unless unless I do believe that that she's stating that she thought Tony would
00:31:43
eventually turn around right um but to take that a step further then you have to believe that she continued
00:31:49
to walk and at some point got to a point where she just felt like she was too far
00:31:53
away to turn around again I I if she she said she was scared she was alone she felt abandoned on the side of the road
00:32:01
yet she's within just a couple blocks of of the party that she just left now mind
00:32:05
you according to Crystal's story she's not the one that did the party Foul that made made them have to exit
00:32:14
the party right right she says that that she's dropped off she starts walking refuses to turn around to
00:32:22
the party um here's the thing we we don't know how intoxicated Tony is at this point we don't know how
00:32:32
intoxicated Crystal was at this point so maybe Crystal's just making a bad irrational illogical decision
00:32:39
and other accounts Crystal was already far enough away from the party that she didn't know where to
00:32:47
go she says in any event crystal says that she sat on a curb on the side of the road and
00:32:54
started calling family finally getting a hold of a 17 year old nephew of hers who
00:32:59
agreed to make the 40-minute drive to come and get her now crystal says that she was scared and
00:33:06
a little mad at Tony Little did she know that this would be the last time anyone would see Tony
00:33:15
the two calls to Tony's phone from Crystal were the last activity ever recorded on Tony's cell phone
00:33:22
Tony sharpless disappeared sometime around 5 a.m on Sunday August 23rd 2009. at some point after she failed to reach
00:33:34
Tony Crystal called Tony's sister candy and left a voicemail for her explaining what had happened and saying that she
00:33:41
would drop off Tony's things later that day when candy got the voicemail from Crystal she called over to her mom's
00:33:51
house and was immediately concerned when she discovered that Tony did not come home that night Crystal and Tony's
00:33:57
family started calling local police stations to see if Tony could have been pulled over for a DUI and then they
00:34:04
tried local hospitals as well to see if she would end it up in a hospital neither was the case Crystal called the
00:34:12
West Brandywine PD around 9pm to report Tony missing and Candy Tony's sister went in and filed a missing person's
00:34:21
report Tony Lee sharpless officially became a missing person at this time officer Russell Moore with the
00:34:30
Brandywine Police Department told ID disappeared that he was immediately concerned about Tony after hearing of
00:34:37
her unstable past and a night of partying although her family insisted that she would never have hurt herself
00:34:44
or take off leaving her daughter they say that her daughter was her whole world and she never would have left her
00:34:54
now the family told officer more that Tony had plans on Monday to take her daughter to a state park in the area
00:35:01
with a lifelong friend and her kids this is to further bolster the the point that they would not be uh she would not
00:35:10
be taking off now officer Moore entered Tony's car into a missing vehicle database but like Tony
00:35:20
her Grand Prix seemed to have disappeared Into Thin Air while the police geared up to search for
00:35:27
Tony her family took matters into their own hands Crystal and some of Tony's other friends helped print off flyers
00:35:35
describing her including pictures of Tony and her car they had Tony listed as five foot five
00:35:44
inches tall 135 pounds auburn hair blue and gray eyes last scene wearing a turquoise top and
00:35:52
black pants Tony's mother and stepfather drove out to the neighborhood where the party was
00:35:59
and scoped out this whole area they drove the routes that Tony could have taken to get home and Crystal told
00:36:07
them that Tony's car had been low on gas maybe a quarter of a tank and that would
00:36:13
possibly not have been enough to get her home suggesting that Tony would likely have
00:36:19
to be looking for a gas station at some point family and friends stopped at local gas
00:36:25
stations asking about sightings of Tony but came up empty-handed now I want to talk about the
00:36:31
geographical location of that party Willie Green's address was 1317 bow Barn Drive in Gladwin to get here
00:36:42
Tony and Crystal took Interstate 76 and would have got off on the Hollow Road exit remember crystal said that when
00:36:50
Tony ditched her Tony took a left toward Hollow Road presumably looking for a way
00:36:56
back onto the Interstate but at this time it would have been dark all of the unlit small roads in that
00:37:04
area probably look very much alike there are no commercial areas or businesses and it's likely that Tony's perceptions
00:37:12
were significantly impaired so on Hollow Road there is no Entrance Ramp leading to the highway in the
00:37:21
direction Tony should have gone assuming she intended to go home she would have been looking for
00:37:28
Interstate 76 West the access ramp accessible here leads only in the direction of Philadelphia it's
00:37:37
Interstate 76 East the opposite way from where Tony would have logically wanted to go toward her home right but like
00:37:46
they stated before she's pretty bad with directions and we don't know if she knew
00:37:50
how to use her GPS well and she didn't know this area right so very likely not knowing that if she does in fact get it
00:37:58
on that freeway it's going to send her in the wrong direction right so now one very simple possibility here could be
00:38:08
just some kind of tragic accident so let's say Tony didn't take the ramp that we just discussed because it is
00:38:16
going in the wrong direction so if she didn't take the ramp Hollow Road ends up just a few feet further on going under
00:38:24
the interstate crossing train tracks and then it dead ends into River Road which
00:38:29
runs along the SKU kill River a Sharp 90 degree left turn onto River Road would have wound Tony along the
00:38:39
river and led right to the Flat Rock Park boat access ramp that could possibly be mistaken for a highway
00:38:48
on-ramp could Tony have driven her car off the boat ramp and into the river now even if she didn't the road
00:38:56
continues closely along the river for quite some time at any point she could have veered off and then went into the
00:39:03
water yeah or if she had turned right onto River Road which really is just a dirt road in
00:39:11
it the easterly direction from Hollow Road could she have accidentally just have driven right into the river at that
00:39:18
point as well so her family and friends drove all along this stretch of River Road looking for things like tire marks
00:39:27
or busted guard rails they didn't find anything now many of the areas along the riverfront contain homes featuring
00:39:35
manicured Lawns so it seems to me like it would have been obvious if a car had you know mowed through these Lawns and
00:39:43
went into to the river right and then we have Lieutenant Frank Higgins of the Lower Marion Township Police Department
00:39:51
he said quote there are very few areas where you cannot find a guard rail or somebody's front lawn and quote when
00:40:00
Tony's Family expressed concern about the possibility that Tony could have gone into this River at or near the boat
00:40:07
ramp the Lower Marion Police Department did not see probable cause to search the
00:40:14
river so remember Tony's friend Gigi she contacted Texas equisearch and anybody that's listened to this show for
00:40:25
any length of time they they come up like every three or four cases that we cover this is a this is a a top of the
00:40:32
line search company that was founded by a victim's father search and rescue team
00:40:37
yeah so Texas equiseearch was lined up by Gigi and this was all scheduled and arranged by GG to search the river this
00:40:48
search took place on September 11th a law enforcement dive team from Philadelphia
00:40:55
was sent to supervise the search and they actually limited the parameters of the search area to
00:41:04
just a stretch of the river that they stated was most likely where Tony could have gone in
00:41:11
this area started at the Flat Rock boat ramp and proceeded up the river away from Flat Rock Dam to the next boat ramp
00:41:21
Where the River starts to curve to the left the river was about 25 feet deep at its
00:41:29
deepest points Texas equisearch sonar equipment scanned the bottom of the river looking for
00:41:36
anomalies that could be Tony's car and to the shock of pretty much everyone they found one very quickly
00:41:46
when news of this spread Tony's friends including Crystal and family gathered they're certain that Tony had been found
00:41:54
by this point now Texas equisearch sonar continued to scan the river it found another anomaly on the riverbed
00:42:03
below and then another and another divers confirmed that there was not one car but multiple cars on the bottom of
00:42:11
the Schuylkill River off of that boat ramp wow 11 cars were down there 11. I've I've seen used car lots with
00:42:21
less cars yeah all right 11 cars were down there at the bottom of the river that's a lot of cars man yeah the the
00:42:29
river the divers found based on the license plates you know some of these cars still had license plates on them
00:42:37
and this was then confirmed when the crane came in and pulled cars out of the river
00:42:43
I mean I I don't want to get too far off the subject but do you roughly know how
00:42:48
long these cars were in River four I I don't and it it will become you'll see why that's probably not important
00:42:57
yeah I know it's I I think it's not important but what I'm saying is like if these cars if it's a span of 20 years or
00:43:06
30 years well maybe 11 cars that's not much you know but uh it seems like there's a lot of accidents over there
00:43:13
well actually what they learned is they they believe this area was a Dumping Ground for stolen vehicles okay and so
00:43:22
these all of these vehicles could have been put there by the same person or the same group okay
00:43:30
um yeah so these were all and that's easily confirmed you know when they look up the VIN numbers and things like that
00:43:36
they go oh this this vehicle was reported stolen now Tony's Grand Prix remained missing even after they found
00:43:43
all these other cars unless the sophisticated sonar equipment missed something Tony was not in that part of the river
00:43:51
she did not enter that part of the river after this police were just at a loss saying quote we checked all the bridges
00:44:00
bank statements her telephone followed up on all the leads we could electronically
00:44:07
and we just never came up with anything this is a quote from Lieutenant Higgins and he went on to say it's still quite a
00:44:14
mystery that her car was never turned up people disappear with no Trace but the car usually turns up at some point well
00:44:22
I know she wasn't using her cell phone but I would assume at this point she had a charger in her car for her phone and
00:44:31
that we would get some kind of cell phone ping from her just moving areas you know like
00:44:38
you said it's 30 some minutes away so maybe you'd have to stop and get gas maybe nobody saw you to get gas maybe
00:44:44
you did that with cash and not a debit card but wouldn't at some point um you you would think one
00:44:52
there's just not going to be that many drivers on the road that that day so maybe one would get eyewitness that came
00:44:58
forward or again maybe we get that cell phone ping uh you know maybe not again not using the phone but you'd get it by
00:45:06
switching locations wouldn't you yeah and so what that means is that the phone is off or dead by that time right and we
00:45:16
do have Crystal John's statement where she said hey it seemed obvious to me that my two calls placed to her went
00:45:23
straight to voicemail because the phone was was off now I often wondered about this when looking into this case one
00:45:31
thing that I was highly suspicious of because some of the reports the way that they report it
00:45:37
it makes it sound like magically Tony kicks crystal out of her car and then about the same time her phone goes
00:45:47
dead or is shut off we don't know that to be true so when when I see these reports and watch them
00:45:55
on on YouTube or on TV and the way that they word it it makes it seem like that and I think to me that's just that's
00:46:03
wrong because look I have a lot of suspicions of the people that she was hanging out with
00:46:08
that night and Crystal's story in particular and the the biggest part of the story that I didn't like was that
00:46:15
magically at the same time she's kicked out of the car and the phone goes dead or is shut off that just seemed like way
00:46:22
too much of a coincidence but when we really examine this thing and really take a deep dive and look at it here
00:46:29
we don't know what time if the phone did die if it lost power we don't know what
00:46:34
time that it that it went down right and anybody using G GPS knows that there's several things that you can do on your
00:46:42
phone that will drain the battery battery significantly faster and if you're not plugged into your your car
00:46:48
dash or or running off of some other power supply yeah the GPS could very likely drain her battery quite quickly
00:46:57
we know that she was up for quite some time who knows the last time that she charged
00:47:04
her phone one and two if she didn't know how to use the GPS how do we know she didn't leave it on after arriving at the
00:47:10
party and it continued to drain the battery while there so that's one thing I've always been
00:47:15
very suspicious with in this case but I just find it to be that it's not this magical
00:47:22
coincidence so the other thing while we're on the topic of the geographical location of
00:47:29
that party I think it's also important to point out here for those that are unfamiliar with
00:47:35
this region the area of Pennsylvania where Tony disappeared from is close to several large cities where
00:47:42
it would be easy to disappear or encounter trouble so we have Camden New Jersey was just a
00:47:51
20-minute Drive East this is a notoriously dangerous city also North Philly has some sketchy areas
00:48:01
as well both of these Urban trouble zones are within a reasonably short drive from where Tony was last seen well
00:48:09
let's kind of go over this so she she's low on gas right a quarter of a tank roughly according to Tony she's I'm
00:48:17
sorry according to Crystal which is possibly impaired one she's impaired because she's tired she's impaired
00:48:24
because we know that she's at least had a couple drinks um we we don't know if she's on
00:48:30
medication or not but she could be an impaired either way she's not good with directions
00:48:36
[Music] phone might not be working and if it is she seems to be not know how to use the
00:48:43
GPS right and then she's in an unfamiliar area right so really the this is where this gets very problematic
00:48:53
for this whole case and the the story of this disappearance the possibilities here
00:49:01
seem somewhat endless right when you talk about these two let's call them danger zones all right these this
00:49:07
dangerous areas of that are short drives from where she was known to have been according to Crystal's story and
00:49:16
according to the cell phone ping that happened roughly in that area right she could have ended up in these danger
00:49:25
zones in any by any way I mean it could have been just as simple as she took a wrong turn
00:49:30
or was heading in the wrong direction on the interstate this could have put her in the very very
00:49:38
wrong side of town on the bad side of the tracks as they say and then the other side of the tracks
00:49:47
but yeah yeah so but it also could put you in an area again you're not familiar with
00:49:53
uh might not be the safest of areas and you're low on gas if not running out of gas at that point
00:50:04
so police determined that none of Tony's credit or debit cards to this day they've still not been used so
00:50:15
what does that tell us well we know that she did not buy gas unless she paid cash
00:50:20
that night further since none of her cards or bank accounts were accessed it seems very
00:50:28
unlikely that she was the victim of a robbery gone bad right and she's not running away I mean
00:50:37
she had too much going on she's a mother she had a good relationship with her family she had a good job she she was
00:50:46
working uh higher education to to further her career she's not running away from her life
00:50:53
no she might have been somebody that needed a temporary break a night out a night out we all do
00:51:02
um she was working very hard and look single mom yes Mom and stepdad are helping her out she's probably getting
00:51:10
some help from her sister but she's helping her sister as well we know that according to her sister she came over
00:51:16
that day hung out with her sister's kids helped her clean her apartment right as
00:51:20
you said she's very close to her family and it seems like while we can't rule it
00:51:27
out 100 percent it seems an extremely low probability that she went out got blasted and just decided to take off
00:51:37
extremely low probability well very yeah and on on top of that we don't have any
00:51:42
record of her having cash and we know that she's low on gas and there's no you know activity on her debit card
00:51:53
I saw rumors that her car her her model of vehicle uh Grand Prix GT was considered a
00:52:04
desirable Target for carjackers uh I could see that I'm not into boosting cars never have been uh
00:52:14
boosting yeah is that like a term for stealing yes um but it shows you how hip I am what
00:52:21
seems strange to me it's a seven-year-old Pontiac Pontiac owners out there but this is a
00:52:29
seven-year-old Pontiac so I I just don't I don't get it but again I don't I don't
00:52:32
know maybe it's targeted for some other reason no I could see that um these these these cars drove really
00:52:39
well uh they had a pretty cool aesthetic to them so even though they'd be seven years old the the aesthetic to these
00:52:47
cars um didn't date themselves so I I could see why they said that because this this was the type of car that it kind of
00:52:58
appealed to the the a younger crowd so I think that's why they're saying these are cars that people look to steal
00:53:07
well and the other thing that's always confused me and I think that the media flubs this up pretty good
00:53:15
is there's a big difference between a stolen car and a carjacking and so to say that it's a desirable
00:53:21
Target for a carjacker is one thing and but I know that when stealing cars there
00:53:30
are desirable targets for stolen cars because of the way that they are it's easy to break into them it's easy to
00:53:39
hotwire the vehicle something like that so I when I when I see these things and I see that uh media is saying that news
00:53:48
outlets saying that this is a desirable Target for carjackers I that's when I want to ask the person telling me that
00:53:54
information maybe lean carjacking or do you mean stealing a car because those are two completely completely different
00:54:01
things so I mean jacking or do you mean stealing do you mean jacking so here's the other thing this is is the
00:54:11
big question and a lot of people ask this time and time again regarding this case
00:54:17
if in fact she ended up in a bad area town or did she end up out in the middle of nowhere
00:54:24
a stranded because she ran out of gas because her vehicle as reported by Crystal was a quarter of a tank or less
00:54:32
crystal says she would have been likely looking for a gas station because I don't believe she had enough gas in the
00:54:40
tank to make it home that night right but this should uh kind of limit our radius of search and we should be able
00:54:48
to at least find her car or find some evidence thank you of Tony thank you because that's the thing that people
00:54:55
point out a lot with this case they go well she could have run out of gas and somebody evil some evil monster could
00:55:02
have just happened upon her taken the opportunity to abduct her you bring up the most obvious answer to
00:55:10
why that's that seems also very unlikely here because if in fact her car was incapacitated at all
00:55:18
where is it where is it just like the officer says that the people disappear cars usually
00:55:26
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00:56:43
thank you [Music]