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[Music] Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks
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for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me as always is a man who is excited that we are less than 100 days
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from a regular season NFL kickoff. That's right. So, hang in there, folks. Here is the captain. We're also less
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than 100 days away from Crime Con Denver. So get you some. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for
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listening. Thanks for telling a friend. That's exactly right, Captain. We will be in Denver, Colorado that night that
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the NFL kicks off because Crime Con starts the very next day. We hope all of you can join us in Denver this
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September. Use our code TCG. Save some cash if you want some tickets. This week we are drinking Pepe Loco by the fine
00:01:29
folks over at the Santa Fe Brewing Company. Pepe Loco is not just a beer. It's a challenge to all of the other
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Mexicanstyle loggers out there. As the Santa Fe Brewing Company says, Pepe Loco was built to crush other beers. But you,
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my friends, were built to crush Pepe Loco. This is a delicious, crisp, and lighter, little lighter than I had
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expected Mexican style logger. ABV, 4.8% garage grade, three and a half bottle caps out of five. And here's some cheers
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and thanks to our good friends who are out there crushing it as well. First up, a big shout out to Connor Martin of
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Oakford, Illinois. And a big we like your jib goes out to Kelly from Crown Point, Indiana. Next up, we have a
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cheers to Penny Barry from Fagatville, West Virginia. Next up, a tall hands in the air to Rebecca Hope from Gold Coast,
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Australia. Cheers, mate. Cheers. Here's a cheers, Captain To Jill up in Lancing,
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Michigan. And last, but certainly not least, we have Miam from West Milford, New Jersey. Everybody we just mentioned
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went to true crimegar.com and helped us out with the beer fund for this week's beer run. And
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for that we thank you. Yeah. BWR in beerun. For everything true crime, check out true
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crimegar.com. While you're there, sign up on the mailing list. And Colonel, that's enough of the Boss Neos. All
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right, everybody. Gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true
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crime. I don't want to be I don't want to be here. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to be I don't want to
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be here. I don't want to wake up. [Music] While every murder represents a tragic,
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personal, and familial loss, the case we are covering today is sadly just one among many. Far, far too many.
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The statistics on the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous relatives in the
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United States reveal a substantial and distressing issue. Not limited to a specific region or area, but rather the
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entire country. Before we dive into the case, let's examine the numbers. In the United
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States, American Indian and Alaskan Native populations experience much higher death rates for assault,
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homicide, and intentional self harm and suicide compared to other Americans. And
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indigenous women in particular face disproportionately high rates of violence. More than 84% will experience
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violence in their lifetime, meaning they have a better chance of being a victim of sexual or domestic violence than they
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would of attending college. These statistics emphasize an urgent need for continued efforts to address and prevent
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violence against indigenous communities. However, it is crucial to first closely
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examine the underlying causes of these widespread failures. First and foremost, a complex and jurisdictional landscape.
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Depending on location and other specifics, crimes involving Native Americans can fall under multiple
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jurisdictions, federal, state, or tribal. However, it isn't always clear which agency is in charge. And this
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complexity often leads to confusion and delays in investigations. Anyone who follows true crime understands that a
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lack of coordination and poor communication leads to cases going neglected, unworked, and cold. Moreover,
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tribal law enforcement frequently faces challenges stemming from a lack of resources, including inadequate funding,
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limited staffing, and restricted access to technology. Finally, there are also legal barriers to contend with,
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including laws restricting the ability of tribes to prosecute non-native offenders who commit crimes on tribal
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lands. When 23-year-old New Mexico resident Zachariah Jawan Shorty was found murdered on Navajo Nation land in
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2020, his mother, Evangelene Randall Shorty, would embark on a mission to hold accountable those responsible for
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his death. Along the way, she would find herself becoming a powerful advocate for
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a larger movement. She became a spokesperson for the loved ones of missing and murdered indigenous
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relatives across the country. One woman's quest to attain justice for her son would lead to the exposure of a
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broken system, one hampered by a dismal mix of jurisdictional confusion, a lack of law enforcement resources, and a
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culture of indifference. This is True Crime Garage and this is the still unsolved murder of Zachariah
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Jawan Shorty. I don't want to be here. I don't want to wake up. I don't want to be I don't want to
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be here. I don't want to wake up. Zachariah Jawan Shorty was born May 5th, 1997. He was the youngest child of
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Evangelene Randall Shorty's three children and the only child of Father Myron Shorty. Evangelene prefers to be
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called Vanie, so we shall do just that. Zach had an older brother, his name is Christian, and a sister, Katrina. For
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simplicity sake, we will refer to him as Zach going forward. However, it should be noted that his mother, Vanie,
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alternatively called him Zach, but also called him by his middle name, Jawan. This family of five, they were lifelong
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residents of Kirtland, New Mexico, and enrolled members of the Navajo Nation, more accurately known as the Den Nation.
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My apologies if I'm not saying that correctly. Zach was a happy baby, a chunky, lovable toddler who adored his
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siblings, particularly his older brother, Christian. Growing up, Zach enjoyed all of the everyday kid stuff,
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but he especially enjoyed football as well as chess and cooking. Now, as he matured, his creative tendencies began
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to emerge. Music became his passion, particularly rap and hiphop music. He also became a skilled tattoo artist and
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had an interest in welding. In 2015, sadly, Zach and the family suffered an unspeakable loss. This is when brother
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Christian was killed in a tragic vehicle accident. Zach both admired and idolized
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his older brother. Christian was driving drunk the night of his death and he was
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not wearing his seat belt. There were some other persons in the vehicle with Christian and thankfully they survived
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and from my understanding, Captain, there was not another vehicle that was involved in this accident, this very
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tragic accident that will forever change this family. Vanji and Zach witnessed Christian's broken, lifeless
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body at the scene of this accident, and both mother and son would be forever traumatized by the site. In the
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following year, Zach graduated high school in nearby Farmington, New Mexico, but he had at some point turned
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to drugs and alcohol. And it's believed, and there's proof of this, that this was
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straight up an attempt to cope with the bottomless sorrow that he felt from losing his older brother. Something
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that's pretty common, especially with a young person dealing with such a traumatic time in their life, and they
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start self-medicating. And not just a loss that is this profound and this significant, but it's also you got you
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compound that with the fact that he went to the scene and witnessed his brother dead there. I mean, that's with some of
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what we do here. I have to remind myself sometimes that we can't, as much as we want to get handson with the evidence in
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these cases, we have to remind ourselves that there are things that you cannot unsee and things that you cannot unhear.
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These can have a very longlasting and profound effect on people, especially when we're talking about a loved one.
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And Zach was very close with his family. He also began expressing suicidal ideations as he descended further into
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this drugfueled darkness that he was kind of putting himself into. Although undoubtedly troubled, Zach consistently
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shared a deep and loving bond with the remaining family members, particularly his mother. He even went to this this is
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such a nice kind gesture that and and I always fear that families don't communicate and don't talk enough and
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don't tell each other what they actually mean to to one another. But Zach often would tell his mother that she was his
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best friend. He was a devoted father. He after high school had a young daughter.
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Her name was Cristiana. clearly named after his older brother. At the time when he was taking care of his daughter,
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his young daughter, he did share this baby with his live-in girlfriend. Her name is Ingred Toledo. So, they did she
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did live with Zach's family for a period of time. That will change at some point
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in the timeline. When I don't I don't know exactly. Despite these challenges, Zach worked several jobs and supported
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his loved ones the best he could. Zach worked for a while as a tire technician at a place called Desert Mountain. He
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enjoyed his work changing tires on semitrs, always challenging himself to perform faster than his previous times.
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Beyond trying to be the best tire guy in the biz, Zach had a big heart. Was known
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to go out of his way to help hungry and homeless people, even at times coming up
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with creative ways when needed to figure out how to feed the needy. Not unlike many of the victims discussed here in
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the garage, Zach, while a great guy and a kind man to his family and even strangers, he was no saint. due to the
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deep depression caused by the death of his older brother along with his increased drug and alcohol use and then
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exacerbated by all of that with the fact that Zach was seeking comfort and friendship from others who were
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regularly doing drugs and abusing alcohol as well. This truly captain was setting the table for something terrible
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to happen to this young man. Eventually, Zach becomes seriously dependent on drugs and alcohol and often talking
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about suicide. His drug of choice was methamphetamine. Our good garage friend Mike Morford's show, The Murder in My
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Family, featured Zach's mother. And with brutal honesty, his mother shared on that show that Zach was a totally
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different person under the influence of meth to the point of calling him a monster and characterizing him as an
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angry and hateful young man when he was under the spell of of this terrible drug. Yeah, it's a sad story because you
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don't know if he would have went down this path if his brother didn't pass away. Then it's hard to wrap your head
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around why anybody would want to do methamphetamines. But it it also just didn't seem like he had much of a will
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to live. So, it's like, well, if I do methamphetamines and they kill me, well, that's not going to be that bad cuz
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whatever I'm dealing with in my head and my heart is something that I'm not able
00:14:03
to cope with right now. This is one of those horrific, horrifically sad situations. And we've seen it. We've all
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seen it. And a lot of us listening to this and even us here in the garage, we have either experienced this with
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somebody in in our family, somebody we're related to, or friends of friends, friends of of family that there's
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somebody out there, this this young man desperately needs help. He desperately wants help. And what I'm talking about
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is at the core of it, not help from getting clean from these drugs. He wants help to just feel better. he's choosing
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and finding whatever comfort that is or whatever help that he thinks he can get,
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even if it's just temporary, from the use of these drugs where he has loving individuals around him that could help
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him in a in a different healthy manner. And I I just hate to I I hate telling this story, but it needs to be told, but
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I hate telling it because we've all in some form and fashion, I believe, witnessed this where the individual
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needs help and they just got blinders on. And it's a very it's a very difficult situation. Very difficult
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situation, not just in Zach's, but in in all of our experiences out there. And Vanie, his mom, is doing the very best
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she can with this. She says that on every anniversary of Christian's death or Christian's birthday, she feared that
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her youngest son, Zach, would that she would find him dead from suicide cuz she was monitoring like she was aware of his
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drug use and she would keep keep mental note of that it seemed to escalate and his suicidal thoughts seem to escalate
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around these difficult times. Well, sometimes because they feel that the pain is so deep in their heart and in
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their head, they overdose on purpose or they just or they feel like if I just keep
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taking more drugs, it will it will eventually numb the pain and it and it doesn't. It cause it causes a accidental
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overdose. Zach was always turning to music in dark times. He he it's he begins to write song lyrics and
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to express his pain and anguish over his brother's death. He's getting creative and he's writing music. He's making
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music. He created a YouTube channel where he wrote and produced original rap music. He began under the moniker of
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Shorty Styles, which eventually morphed into isolated. Music helped him process the loss, but it wasn't enough to quiet
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his addictions. Due to his drug use, Zach began to get into trouble with law enforcement. But the other problem with
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music, especially this style of music in the early 2000s, that's mainly the work
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that I would get was guys that wanted to be rappers or wanted to be producers. And every time there was a session, it
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wasn't a guy showing up by himself with acoustic guitar singing love songs. It was 20 people in the mixing room
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drinking and smoking pot. And so even though some people would view this as like a positive thing, normally the
00:17:21
people in those sessions, it's a party. It's not just a positive outlet. It can be also a negative thing when you have a
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drug addiction. Let's go to 2019. And many people wonder if this next event in this young man's life if it may have had
00:17:37
some direct relation to Zach's murder. This is when Zach gets arrested on drug charges. Several of these charges come
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as a big surprise to Zach's mother, Vanie. Now, she was worried about her son, obviously, right? Knowing about his
00:17:53
drug use and addiction, but this is when she finds out that Zach gets caught for
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selling drugs. She's worried about her son knowing that he's a user. He gets busted for selling. And that was news to
00:18:07
Vanie. She had no idea that he was selling drugs. And it gets even worse than that for Vanie because the arrest
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is it's both her son Zach and his father Myin who get arrested for selling drugs
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to an undercover police officer. Zach's father had also at some point become dependent upon drugs.
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This leads to the San Juan County Sheriff's Office attempting to get Zach to turn babyface and become a police
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informant or a CI, confidential informant, in exchange for reduced charges. Now, I want to be clear on this
00:18:44
matter here, Captain. It sounds to me they call them confidential informants for a reason.
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It's not it's not known. And it's not supposed to be known that somebody is doing this work or turning in people,
00:18:58
snitching on people. And we need to be clear here. I couldn't find a statement that 100%
00:19:07
confirms that that is what Zach did. All I can say is it appears to be there was
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speculation and that people close to Zach believe that the San Juan County Sheriff's Office attempted to get him to
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be a police informant. Now whether he did or not, we don't know. The police would know, of course. Zach pleads
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guilty to one felony count of trafficking a controlled substance, and his father pleads guilty to one felony
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count of conspiracy to commit drug trafficking. Both men were convicted and given probation as their punishment.
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Vanie puts Zach into counseling, but his dark thoughts persist to the point where
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in June of 2020, Zach attempts to hang himself in the backyard. However, the belt that he used broke. So, he survives
00:20:01
this when he comes to and finds himself lying on on a punching bag. So, the way that I understand this, Captain, you
00:20:09
know, people will hang up a punching bag. I think he may have removed the punching bag and set it down to put the
00:20:16
belt up there, right? And the belt broke. He So, he comes to and he actually assumes that either his mother
00:20:25
or father had cut him down. And he approaches them and and he is angry. He is extremely angry at them for cutting
00:20:34
them down. And both of them tell them like, "We did we didn't even know you were doing this. They were asleep." So
00:20:40
they deny this. And then he wonders if maybe perhaps the spirit of his brother somehow saved him from death. I went on
00:20:49
to YouTube and I found some of Zach's music. And while a musician's lyrics are not always about the musician themselves
00:20:56
and what they are feeling, but in Zach's case, it seems kind of obvious to me that going off of his words and the
00:21:05
songs I listen to, he mentions his brother and his brother's tragic death often. And what I heard in those
00:21:13
sounds like Zach was very angry at God for taking his brother. Right. To simplify what I heard, it it it was
00:21:22
because of his brother's death that it sounds like he lost his faith and his hope in this life. Yeah. And he's
00:21:29
probably a little bit mad at his brother for drinking and driving. He's probably disappointed in
00:21:39
his brother because of that. And so that's those are just layers of emotion. And then obviously, like you said,
00:21:46
probably mad at at the world, mad at God, mad at his family. And and that's when I I just wish he was here so I
00:21:53
could shake him and just go, "Dude, and and I don't know. I'm not pretending to be any kind of therapist or anything. I
00:22:00
don't know what's up or down when it comes to mental health, but I just want to shake this guy and go, dude, use this
00:22:07
anger. Use this anger that you have for your brother making mistakes. Use this anger you have at God or or for this
00:22:13
situation and let it fuel you and drive you to take care of your daughter. Focus
00:22:19
on the on the living more and not the dead. And and don't make the same mistake that your brother did. Don't do
00:22:27
I I'm not trying to accuse his brother of anything, but his brother made choices that were bad choices, right?
00:22:33
And don't do to your daughter what your brother did to you. Sorry. Yeah, going to be a little worked up here, a little
00:22:40
heated in the garage. No, but I I had a a friend I grew up with that became a junkie and then we don't know if it was
00:22:48
an accidental overdose or if it was on purpose, but after his death, uh I ran into his his older brother and his older
00:22:56
brother was mad and angry, but seemed mad at his brother like and and he he used terms like, "Well, my brother was a
00:23:06
loser and he was a junkie." And then cut to 5 years later, the older brother just couldn't get past that hurt
00:23:13
and the anger and he became a junkie as well. And you you like you said, you just want to shake the
00:23:22
individual and say you're going to put your mom through all this [ __ ] again. Like you you see how much you're
00:23:30
grieving and you can see how much your family's grieving and you're making these decisions. And I think, you know,
00:23:37
I think it's fair to say, I think his family would say because of Zach's grief and anger that he's making decisions
00:23:46
that are putting him in bad situations. Eventually, Vanie calls Zach's probation
00:23:53
officer in Aztec, telling him that her son desperately needs help. The social worker contacts him, Zach, persuading
00:24:03
him to check himself into the San Juan Regional for a mental health evaluation. Upon
00:24:11
arrival, Zach decides he doesn't want to be there. He's attempting to leave. So,
00:24:17
the facility puts him on suicide watch to which he's then flown to Albuquerque so he could be observed more closely.
00:24:26
He does remain in Albuquerque for a week, at which time Vanie asks his probation officer at Aztec if Zach could
00:24:35
be fitted with an ankle monitor. They agree, but when she takes her son to the facility, he leaves the next day without
00:24:45
an ankle monitor. Okay. So, he's not given a GPS or an alcohol monitor, which could at least have prevented drug and
00:24:54
alcohol use. Vanie has is on the record saying that he did at some point have an
00:25:01
alcohol and drug monitor which helped him to get clean and sober and he was much better when when that was taking
00:25:10
place. However, it doesn't take place here. What's interesting to me is because he's an adult but still lives
00:25:18
with mom and dad, he's not he's not leaving their house and property to go out and do drugs and alcohol. He he he
00:25:28
is on occasion, but he's also doing a lot of this at home. And mom and dad have to work and they can only monitor
00:25:34
him so much. And this monitor, while the GPS might make sense to some, I think the alcohol and drug monitor makes more
00:25:43
sense in this scenario because he's he's not leaving to go Yeah. Or to go get messed up. Yeah. Or they could try to
00:25:52
put him on a prescription that would just make him sick anytime he uses. But I mean this would be a very difficult
00:26:00
situation because obviously their decisions are going to be different now that they lost a
00:26:08
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[Music] quint.com/goo. I don't want to be I don't want to be here. I don't want to
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wake up. All right, we are back. Cheers, mates. Cheers to you, Colonel. Cheers to you,
00:32:16
Captain. Look, I know we promote uh sipping cold beers here in the garage, and we always will. Uh but of course,
00:32:24
drink responsibly, and if u you know, this is one of these cases, and this is not, you know, while he he went by the
00:32:31
name isolated on on his YouTube channel, this is not an isolated incident as far
00:32:36
as the garage is concerned. We've featured many cases that have similarities to to this one. And um
00:32:43
well, no, and it's it's it's sad. I mean, because one, let's just state the obvious.
00:32:49
There's people out there that if something bad happens to somebody that's doing bad things, some people just don't
00:32:58
care. But the problem is you have this young individual that went through a tough time, didn't know how to deal with
00:33:04
it. Mhm. And the other difficult thing too is a lot of these families, they lose the person before they lose the
00:33:12
person. Yeah. And you know, like I said with with my buddy, it was like when I'd
00:33:18
run into him, it was it was sad. And if I found out that he was working as a cook or somewhere, you know, at a local
00:33:28
restaurant, I'd not go there because I one, I couldn't get through to him. I couldn't get him to change his
00:33:36
lifestyle. And every time I saw him, he was so happy to see me. And I think it's
00:33:41
because I was a representation of what life was before this mess that he got into. And there are people out there
00:33:52
that lack empathy for these types of victims, for persons who are in the throws of alcohol and drug abuse. I I
00:34:00
want to to point out here in this specific situation and in others, but this one specifically, we are talking
00:34:08
about a young man here. He was very early in his life and he he may have gotten clean. He may have turned this
00:34:16
around. He didn't get the opportunity to. Somebody denied him and his family of that opportunity. And if you ever
00:34:24
have a friend that turns their life around, it's it's one of the most amazing things and you cherish those
00:34:34
moments. In the back of your head, you can remember when you almost lost them or when you did lose them for a time
00:34:40
period cuz they weren't the person that you knew well. And we can see evidence of Zach fighting as well and trying to
00:34:48
get better. He he maintains a job. He continues working despite all of his his troubles. He maintains a relationship
00:34:56
with his daughter and close relationship with his mom and dad. He does talk about
00:35:02
a desire to get clean and he is busy working on his passion project creating content for his YouTube channel, more
00:35:10
music, more songs under the name Isolated. This provides his what may be his only outlet for his his own only
00:35:18
positive outlet for his grief over the loss of his brother. Creating these songs was truly a powerful thing for
00:35:25
this young man. He had so many reasons to keep fighting. And when I say keep fighting, it was a fight for this young
00:35:30
man. A fight to just keep going. Many, many of these days and nights were a struggle, not just with the addiction,
00:35:37
but with a lot of inner demons. And he fought because of his daughter. and he fought because of his music and his
00:35:43
mother. On July 20th, 2020, Zach goes out to record music with some of his friends. According to his mother, one of
00:35:52
the guys that he was meeting was someone that he had a strained relationship with
00:35:57
for years. So, this is sounds like it was somebody that he was friends with when he was a youngster. And at some
00:36:03
point, these two had beef. They didn't get along. It sounds like this was an ongoing theme that she was a little
00:36:10
curious why he was hanging out with this guy because they didn't seem to like each other. They didn't seem to get
00:36:16
along, but they were going to get together with some other folks and make some music. I guess the way this was
00:36:23
originally going to go down here, Captain, is that Zach wanted to have these people over at his house work on
00:36:29
the music there, record the music there, but Zach's father was not having it. He
00:36:36
did not want these people coming over. He didn't want them in his house. So instead of doing it at the Shorty's
00:36:43
house, they, this group, Zach and this group, they go to a a motel. This is the nearby Journey in Motel in Farmington.
00:36:53
The plan is to stay there all evening and all through the night working on their beats and creating music. Well,
00:36:59
like I said, some of these music creating sessions were also aka a party. They were going to be renting a room for
00:37:09
at least one night. Now, in the room, Vanie, Zach's mom, would later confirm that four people in addition to Zach
00:37:18
were in this room. So, two men and two women. One of these people was a young woman named Kay, or that could be a
00:37:26
fictitious name, and we'll get into that here in a minute. Now, I have to be perfectly honest, I couldn't sort out
00:37:31
what kind of relationship these two, Zach and Kay, had, but they were definitely in some kind of relationship.
00:37:40
I don't know if they were just having fun or if they were simply in the early stages of a relationship, but there's
00:37:47
conflicting reports on what kind of relationship they they had. But it was kind of ongoing and it was there was
00:37:56
romance involved as I understand it. According to what I heard from more than one interview with Zach's mother, Vanie,
00:38:04
her thoughts were that Kay considered herself to be in a serious relationship with Zach. But Vanie thinks that Zach
00:38:11
was trying to and hoping to work things out with his daughter's mother, Ingred. Unfortunately, Zach is not here to tell
00:38:18
us any better. But we know that Kay is one of the people staying at this journey in motel. The other people are
00:38:26
known to people close to this case, but I've not seen their names in any publications. All right. Now, pay
00:38:32
attention closely because in these next several paragraphs here in our notes, these are the details to concern
00:38:39
yourself with, in my opinion, in this mystery. Let's start at 4:00 a.m. So, it's now July 21st. At 4:00 a.m., this
00:38:47
is when Vanie receives a call from Zach asking if she can come and pick him up from the motel. She and Zach's father
00:38:55
get in the car and drive to the journey in to pick up their son. When they get there, Zach gets in the car with a
00:39:02
friend. This is the woman Vanie identifies as Kay. Right now, this could be a pseudonym as I have not seen a last
00:39:10
name from K provided in any publication. Vanie assumes that they will drop Kay off somewhere on the way home, but on
00:39:20
the ride, Zach asks if she can come over to their house. And mom is uneasy with this idea and denies the request, right?
00:39:30
She knows her son is in this what she refers to as a short-term relationship with this woman. Vanie believes that
00:39:36
he's only in this short-term relationship with this woman simply in order for Zach to have easy access to
00:39:42
drugs, which it sounds like persons believe that this Kay did have easy access to drugs. They argue a bit, mom
00:39:50
and son, but ultimately Vanie drops off both her son and Kay at the Troy King at
00:39:57
Troy King Road. This is where Kay's family lives. She then returns. Mom returns home to sleep before she had to
00:40:05
go to work the following morning. A few hours later at 7:00 a.m., Zach calls again asking for another ride. Vanji
00:40:12
agrees, but knowing that he had stayed with Kay, reminds her son before agreeing to pick him up that she's not
00:40:20
welcome to come home with him or not welcome to come with him. He says, "Okay, let me call you back." He calls
00:40:25
back 5 minutes later and asks her to drop them both off at the journey end. So now he wants to return to the motel
00:40:32
where they they were previous. He says they needed to finish some of the music that they were working on prior. It's
00:40:39
still July 21st on our timeline. Vanji picks Zach and Kay up, drives him back to the journey in. On the way, she
00:40:47
repeatedly reminds her son that he has a virtual court date. We are in the co year, so he has a court date that he
00:40:56
absolutely cannot miss. After dropping them off at the motel, she texts him throughout the morning until around
00:41:02
noon, reminding him of the appointment. He's responding up until about noonish. Then it is nothing from Zach until
00:41:10
around 3:00 p.m., so 3 hours later when Vanie hears from her son, who is now calling from a phone number that is
00:41:17
different from his own. She doesn't recognize his phone number. He tells her his battery, his phone battery has died.
00:41:24
He's requesting that she bring him a charger for his phone. She's only like 5 minutes away. Mom's only about 5 minutes
00:41:31
away. So, she does leave the home to drop off a phone charger. When she arrives at the journey in, she says her
00:41:40
son was intoxicated and probably high. She gives Zach the charger. She's warning him, "You better be careful."
00:41:47
She tells him she gets off work at 6:00 and she can come back and get him then. No, but think about this situation. I
00:41:54
mean, Zach's at the point in his life that he's supposed to be going off into the real world and being an adult and
00:42:02
all day long, you're now having to give your adult kid rides to places. You're not picking him up and sending him to
00:42:10
places to make his life better. But because of this tragic situation with your other son, it's understandable why
00:42:18
she's doing this cuz somebody from the outside could look in and go, "Man, she seems like she's really babying her
00:42:24
adult son." But that's the situation that a lot of these people put their parents in. Yes. And it's a unique
00:42:32
situation when we're viewing everything here. I think one factor we need to remind ourselves about is his age,
00:42:40
right? He's of age and and he could he could walk away from this family if he wanted to and I'm sure the family feared
00:42:48
that outcome because at least with at least in this world that they're living in at the moment they feel some control
00:42:57
over the situation that they that they can at least are there to help. And while I believe for a very long time up
00:43:07
until a few years ago, maybe 10, that the word enabler or enabling was not used enough. And then at some point, I
00:43:16
think it's overused. And I think that somebody could look at this scenario and say, well, she's enabling him. She's
00:43:22
practically waiting on him hand and foot. But I don't I don't see it at that. I I almost feel like as much as he
00:43:30
loved his mother, his addiction and his demons are kind of holding his mother and his family hostage in a way. Well,
00:43:37
again, I think if you ask her personally, would would she change anything or or how she was reacting? She
00:43:46
already lost a son. So when you watch shows like Intervention, you'll hear the people doing the intervention or telling
00:43:56
the parents, you got to let him sink or swim on his own. But that becomes way more difficult when you've already lost
00:44:04
one of your kids. Zach calls his mother back around 6:45, maybe 700 p.m.ish to tell her that they are still
00:44:14
working on their music, but they're hungry. He's requesting if she could pick up some food. She agrees. She goes
00:44:19
to a nearby Little Caesars. Picks up a pizza for Zach and his friends or or people he thought is was were his
00:44:27
friends. While she is picking up the food, she gets a call, another call from Zach, and he's asking if she could go
00:44:35
pick up Kay on her way to the motel to drop off the pizza to them. Yeah. And this is confusing to Vanie because she
00:44:45
was under the idea that Kay was still with the group, right? But Zach tells her that actually that Kay had left
00:44:52
earlier and was now at the Economy Hotel in Farmington. So Vanie drives to the hotel in Farmington. Kay's waiting
00:45:02
outside and then now they're on their way to the the journey end. And as Vanie and Kay are pulling up to the journey
00:45:11
in, they can see Zach. He's outside talking to someone on the phone. He's talking to the mother of his child and
00:45:19
he's begging her. It's I mean, this is it's obvious to everybody what's going on. He's begging the mother of his
00:45:27
daughter that they work things out between the two and that they get married at some point. Kay, who he has
00:45:34
this short-term relationship with, is standing right there listening to the man that she believes she's in a
00:45:39
relationship with, begging the mother of his child to give him a second chance. Zach sends Kay into the room while
00:45:46
handing the phone to his mother, pleading with her to fix the relationship for him. Get on the phone,
00:45:53
talk to talk to Ingred, and fix this relationship for me. Vanie gets on the phone, tells Ingred, "Look, my son is
00:46:00
completely out of it. Zach's completely out of it. he's not in his right mind. And she is going to try to talk some
00:46:05
sense into him once he soers up. She tells her son, "You better get something to eat, eat some pizza, and ask him if
00:46:13
he's ready to come home." He tells her he just has to finish up the track they were working on before returning home
00:46:20
and that he'll call soon when he's ready. Vanie tells her son that she loves him. She gives him a hug. She
00:46:28
cautions him to be careful and then leaves. this will be the last time that she sees her son alive. At 11:30 p.m.,
00:46:36
Vanie receives a Facebook Messenger call from Kay. Kay claims that Zach had stepped outside for a cigarette and
00:46:43
never returned to the room. Vanie asked Kay to go back outside, look around, see
00:46:48
if she could find him, and then call her back. Meanwhile, she calls her son's phone, right? She's on high alert now. I
00:46:56
got to get a hold of my son. She calls her son's phone, but Kay picks up the phone. Vanji's baffled, obviously. Why
00:47:04
would Kay have his phone? Weird. Yeah. Kay brushes it off, claiming saying that, "Well, the phone kept falling out
00:47:10
of his pocket, so I held it for him." He went out and smoked the cigarette, never
00:47:15
came back. So, Vanie and Zach's father, Myin, they drive to the journey in. They
00:47:21
decide to take two separate vehicles. So once there, if they have to drive around
00:47:26
looking for him, they they can cover more ground more quickly. Kay is waiting for them there. Vanie and Kay Kay gets
00:47:33
in the car with Vanie and drives around the neighborhood looking for any sign of
00:47:37
Zach. It's very late at night, very early in the next morning when they agree that they they simply can't find
00:47:47
any trace of Zach. It will be on July 23rd that after the family and Kay continue to search for
00:47:56
Zach, finding nothing, they've been reaching out to family and friends, but no one has seen the young man. So, Vanie
00:48:02
makes it official and calls the Farmington Police Department for a missing person's report. After giving
00:48:08
them the details of her son's disappearance, they make flyers. Vanie and supporters are passing out these
00:48:14
flyers, handing them out, posting them. Zach is listed as an endangered missing person. Vanie goes to the journey in
00:48:22
with the purpose of handing out flyers. She's going door todo asking people that
00:48:28
are there if they had seen her son. Several people actually say yes, they had seen him but didn't know where he
00:48:34
was currently. One man who introduced himself as Justin confirms that he had seen Zach and that he was quote starting
00:48:44
[ __ ] around here. No further details are available to us at this time on on this
00:48:49
matter. On Friday, July 24th, they decide to organize a search party since law enforcement, according to the
00:48:56
family, did not appear to be doing much of anything to find Zach. Vanie receives
00:49:01
some strange phone calls that day as well. One from a person who claimed to be in the motel at the recording
00:49:09
session. She claims she'd heard, so it's a female caller. She claims she had heard that Zach was gone, meaning dead.
00:49:17
Then Kay contacted her again through Facebook Messenger, alleging that she was being held hostage and needed Vanie
00:49:26
and Myin to rescue her. Vanie suspected Yeah. Vanie suspected that she was being
00:49:32
set up and she's too smart for this. So she wisely contacts the Farmington Police Department who locate Kay along
00:49:39
with a female friend of Kay's. find the two young women unharmed. The friend, however, has an outstanding warrant is
00:49:46
and is promptly arrested. Well, a big problem with this investigation is and it's not privy to the public, so we
00:49:53
don't know who was in this quote unquote recording session, but like I said, I've
00:49:59
been the producer behind the computer in these quote unquote recording sessions.
00:50:05
It wasn't uncommon for throughout, let's say, a four or five hour period for people just to stop by and maybe it's
00:50:15
just a group of five people or maybe it's a group of 10 people or it's a group of two people and they stay for 30
00:50:21
minutes and get bored and they leave. So, who knows how many individuals were coming and going from this quote unquote
00:50:29
recording session that lasted all night and until the next day. And a recording session at a [ __ ] motel.
00:50:38
Okay, this motel is this is not the only room at the motel that has drug activity
00:50:45
and people without standing warrants, right? So, how many people were just staying there? It had nothing to do with
00:50:52
this recording session that just dropped by and some of these look I I've done it
00:50:58
myself just um I've stood on corners of the street just handing out free records
00:51:04
before cuz you're just trying to get noticed. So somebody just stumbles upon the recording session and goes, "Hey,
00:51:10
what are you guys doing in there?" "Oh, we're making some music. Come check it out. I I'll be in in a minute with my
00:51:16
glass pipe." Right? Or, "Hey man, I'm a rapper, too. Let me let me spit everybody real quick. Yeah, I mean
00:51:23
that's why it's so hard to break into the biz. So, let's go back. Speaking of warrants, let's go back to this this
00:51:28
female friend of K's getting picked up, right? She has an outstanding warrant. She has a boyfriend there. The friend
00:51:34
that gets picked up has a boyfriend there with her who is upset about the arrest. This boyfriend with his phone is
00:51:43
taking pictures of Vanie's car and license plate. His name has been mentioned several times as the group was
00:51:50
searching for any signs of Zach. Later, Vanie would surmise that this had been orchestrated as some kind of distraction
00:51:57
that the we've been taken hostage ruse, right? This is was just meant to be a distraction. This makes a whole lot of
00:52:05
sense because later we're going to learn that they're only a few miles away from
00:52:11
the site where Zach was murdered. On Sunday, July 26th, Vanie takes a break from the search, but Myron, her husband,
00:52:20
continues looking for their son. Vanie had heard a rumor that a body had been found, and it may have matched, maybe a
00:52:28
match for Zach's description. On Monday the 27th, she learns that the body at San Juan Regional Hospital had been
00:52:36
taken to the office of the medical investigator in Albuquerque. She tried calling Farmington PD, but no one
00:52:42
answered the phone despite it only being late Monday afternoon. She drives to Farmington only to find the police
00:52:49
station closed and locked up. This is what this is what she's saying. I can't verify that this is fact, but if if this
00:52:55
is if if this is correct, this is right. This is 5 years ago. Not even 5 years ago. So, it sounds to me like if if
00:53:04
you're looking to do something bad, do it on a on a Monday evening. Uh, the police might have be gone there in
00:53:10
Farmington, gone for the night. Nobody's watching. Nobody's watching the place. Meanwhile, Vanie's calling the medical
00:53:18
examiner's office. She gives the person that she speaks with a description of her son. This includes like what he was
00:53:25
wearing and his tattoos. And this person does confirm that they do have a body there that is
00:53:31
matching that description. However, they would not confirm it was or was not Zach
00:53:36
without running the fingerprints first. Right? So, mom and dad are desperate. They're trying to figure out what's
00:53:43
going on here. The family is simply told to wait for these fingerprints to come back. Throughout this night, while
00:53:50
they're waiting to to receive information if it was if the body was that of their son or not, Vanie receives
00:53:58
this is a more strange communication. Receives text messages and phone calls from a phone number that she does not
00:54:05
recognize. The mystery caller is demanding ransom, a ransom for the release of her son, Zach, and telling
00:54:13
them, "Do not contact the police." The contact, the caller is demanding $7,000 for the safe return of Zach. Think about
00:54:23
this. There's no way for any of us to put ourselves in the shoes of this poor woman. But you are holding on to
00:54:30
desperation. You are holding on to any glimmer of hope out of desperation. Given the options of your son being on
00:54:38
the slab at the medical examiner's office or being held for a ransom, you're hoping he's being held for a
00:54:45
ransom, right? As strange as it may sound to some people, this is some new hope. They decide to drive around
00:54:53
Kirkland. This is very smart. These people are very smart, Zach's parents, because they decide, you know what we
00:54:59
need? We can't call this in. We want to we want to notify law enforcement about this ransom demand, but we we don't want
00:55:06
to call it in because what if they send out a call over the scanner and and and this is real
00:55:12
and the people that took our son hostage would may hear on the scanner about this call to send an
00:55:22
officer to the home to take a report or to meet with these people. So, they decide, let's go out, hop in the car,
00:55:27
we'll drive around until we find a cop car. and they do. So, they're telling the police officer that they talked to
00:55:34
what's going on so he can communicate in person with with the other officers, not
00:55:40
over CB or not over the scanner. She, Vanie, surrenders her phone to the officers, so that they can use her phone
00:55:49
in an attempt to get to the bottom of whatever these messages are. At 5:00 pm on that same
00:55:55
day, a couple of police officers along with a family advocate show up at the doorstep of Vanie and Myron's
00:56:05
home. The couple invite the officers in. The family sits down with the officers only to learn that the body had
00:56:14
been confirmed as belonging to their beloved son. The officers would not, they declined to
00:56:22
say where Zach had been found or how he had died, claiming that they could not share the information at the time. Vanie
00:56:31
is not told that her son was a homicide victim, nor is she provided any details around the discovery of his remains.
00:56:40
Some time goes by, she receives the death certificate and she makes a request for
00:56:47
the autopsy. It is only then that she learns that her son died of gunshot wounds. She requests uh not just the
00:56:57
autopsy report but toxicology reports as well and is traumatized to learn the details regarding his death. So Zach was
00:57:08
shot seven times. There were seven gunshot wounds and he the evidence says he was
00:57:16
killed where he was found. Now she still doesn't know where her son was found. I
00:57:23
mean this is so bizarre. So she's going to start pretty much her own investigation to try to fill in the
00:57:31
blanks of the mystery of her son's murder. She goes to a location called Nenina Nazad. And
00:57:39
I I probably butchered that. We you know I I researched how to say that. Uh and then we talked for two hours before we
00:57:48
hit record. So I've I've done forgotten. Well, say this is a small If you're going to be wrong, u like Miles Davis
00:57:55
said, if you're going to be wrong, be wrong twice. Well, if I say it slow, I'm a little more confident.
00:58:02
Nenina Nazad. I think I added an extra N in there, but that's people in this general area know what I'm talking
00:58:08
about. This is a small community in San Juan County, New Mexico. It's located on
00:58:14
the Navajo Nation lands. It lies about So, this is like 15 miles west of Farmington and about 24 miles east of
00:58:23
Shiprock. Poor mother Vanie is going doortodo and just asking the people whoever answers the door if they knew
00:58:31
anything about what was going on. I'm guessing she could she learned from the paperwork that that is the approximate
00:58:39
area right the the the small community where he was found and so she's there going door to door. She eventually
00:58:47
learns the name of someone who seemed to know something and she goes and finds this person. This person tells Vanie
00:58:55
that it was his daughter who had found Zach's lifeless body. The way I understand this is this man's daughter
00:59:03
would go out for a jog or for a run typically every day, weather permitting, but the weather didn't permit for a
00:59:11
couple of days. that likely that couple of days when Zach was missing and when the weather when there's a break in the
00:59:18
weather, she goes out and jogs her typical route and it's on that route that she sees something that catches her
00:59:24
eye and sadly we learn that it was Zach's body. So, he was found on a dirt road trail. Oh, sorry. He was found on a dirt
00:59:35
trail south of the San Juan River approximately a half mile west of a chapter house there. The family takes
00:59:45
her to this location so she can see where they had found Zach. It's basically an isolated field. Later,
00:59:54
Vanie would refer to it as the lonely spot where Zach's body was was laying. And again, the evidence says he was
01:00:03
killed there. There's some things about this case that really stand out to me. One, there's some troubling hurdles to
01:00:10
get over. Now, I'm not saying these are hurdles that cannot be cleared, right? Maybe there could be some justification
01:00:17
on some of these hurdles. They might be able to be cleared, but I'm having a hard time getting getting over them
01:00:23
without further information. One, it's very strange to me that this air quotes K friend, there's obvious speculation
01:00:31
that she could have been upset with Zach given the circumstances. She's the one that messenger calls Vanie, but then
01:00:40
she's in possession of Zach's phone. Now, maybe she couldn't unlock it to to call her or or what have you. That would
01:00:48
stand to some reason, but that one seems strange to me. family of course saying he's never without his phone. We do know
01:00:56
by his own family's admission that he was intoxicated and probably high. So maybe he wasn't thinking straight. Maybe
01:01:04
he just set his phone down and went out to grab a smoke, right? I feel like given the location, it it's not out of
01:01:13
the realm of possibility that he may have started something with somebody or somebody started something with him
01:01:19
while he was outside. as said, this is a shady uh maybe while the owners are not
01:01:25
trying to have a shady operation, there are shady people that are in and out of the place, right? And I just feel like
01:01:31
with so much drugs involved with the persons that were sharing the room with him not being named where he's found
01:01:38
being shot seven times, this this feels very much to me like we're talking about
01:01:45
friends or not friends, but people that were on at least on the fringes of this young man's social circles. This all
01:01:52
screams to me that these were young people that killed this young man, that they were about his they were in Zach's
01:02:01
age group. Definitely. And I think that there are not only I think there's a chance that there we know there's at
01:02:08
least one trigger person. There could be more than one person that pulled the trigger, but but there's every reason.
01:02:15
And we don't even have to go down this road too far. You can just hear the words that we said during this episode
01:02:21
and it's it's not difficult to believe that that several people believe or several people know who's responsible
01:02:29
and what happened to this young man. Well, you're not even saying the obvious. I mean, when you have
01:02:35
individuals calling saying, "Hey, you give us $7,000, we're going to release your son." Those individuals have to be
01:02:44
suspects. This K individual has to be a suspect. But again, it gets very complicated
01:02:51
because what do we see from this quote unquote recording session? Okay, she she came and went. Zach himself came and
01:03:01
went. Who else came and went? Or is it or is it a possibility that there's just some
01:03:10
scumbag that comes around uh doesn't know any of these individuals gets involved in the situation and there's an
01:03:20
altercation between that individual or multiple individuals and and Zach and some called us crazy when we reviewed
01:03:27
John Benet multiple times and we were just looking at the information and questioning it and and throwing out some
01:03:35
options and some possibilities. But the push back we received from some people that heard
01:03:41
those episodes was, "Well, why would why in the hell would the person that may the person that already knows that she's
01:03:49
dead be trying to get a ransom?" And we said, "It's simply because you got nothing to lose, right? You got
01:03:56
everything to gain." And here's a situation, Captain, where we might be faced with a similar idea. We can't rule
01:04:05
out the idea of these people that were trying to squeeze a ransom out of these poor folks of $7,000 that they weren't
01:04:12
the ones responsible for killing the young man. Right. And and Zach has his issues with drugs. He's a drug addict.
01:04:19
He's hanging out with other drug addicts. What do drug addicts need to keep their addiction going? money. On
01:04:27
August 5th, 2020, the family laid 23-year-old Zachariah Jawan Shorty to rest. Mourners gathered to
01:04:36
remember the beloved son, brother, father, and friend at a funeral ceremony at the Journey Church in Farmington,
01:04:45
followed by his burial in Kirtland. One thing that struck a chord with me, well,
01:04:51
there were multiple things obviously, but one thing that stands out that I want to make sure we point out before we
01:04:57
wrap up here today in the garage is the interviews I heard with Zach's mother, Vanie, she pointed out that some of the
01:05:07
people that she thought were her son's friends, whether she liked them or not, right? because some of these persons
01:05:13
were in and out of trouble and using drugs as well, whether she liked them or not, but these were people that he hung
01:05:20
out with, people that he shared time with, so he would believe that they were friends. These people were not present
01:05:29
at the gathering to lay this young man to to rest or to remember his life. Right. See, I don't find that
01:05:37
suspicious, though, in in the sense of what are these individuals? They're drug addicts. They
01:05:45
might not even know what day of the week it is. They might not even have heard what really happened to
01:05:55
him. I mean, this case is so frustrating. And like I said, there's going to be some people going, he was a
01:06:02
drug addict. Who cares? Normally, I'd say somebody knows something. Somebody needs to say something and we need to
01:06:09
get justice for Zach. But I say in this case, we need to get justice for Zach's mother and for for Zach's family.
01:06:20
Because could you imagine one, you lose one son, now you have another son that's
01:06:26
going down the wrong path. You're basically waiting on him hand and foot. And then this bad thing happens. And and
01:06:33
on top of that, it's the cause and it's the wild goose chase that these horrible
01:06:39
people sent her on. She deserves justice. She deserves some answers. Zach's mother, Vanie Randall Shorty, is
01:06:48
her son's unshakable and relentless advocate. Following his July 2020 death and months after his burial, Vanie was
01:06:58
at a loss how to cope with her anger and sadness over her son's unsolved murder.
01:07:04
In October, she attended a memorial for victims of gun violence in Albuquerque called Robbed. And thus started her
01:07:14
advocacy journey. Law enforcement offered help and she began to realize the power of collective action. At her
01:07:22
first missing and murdered indigenous women rally, she was able to publicly speak of her son's unsolved murder. She
01:07:31
continues to advocate for families of the missing and murdered in the four corners, traveling the country and
01:07:38
speaking on her son's death and the tragedy of missing and murdered indigenous people. Zach went missing
01:07:43
from a motel room at the Journey Inn located at 317 North Airport Drive in Farmington, New Mexico. It was a typical
01:07:53
New Mexico summer night. According to Vanie's account, there were four individuals at the recording session in
01:07:59
addition to her son, two men and two women. The room number was 129. In terms of overall crime rate in 2020,
01:08:08
Farmington, New Mexico had a crime rate of 36 per 10,000 residents, making it one of the higher crime rates in the US
01:08:15
compared to communities of all sizes. Violent crime in particular was notably high with offenses including rape,
01:08:22
murder, and armed robbery, and aggravated assault. The chance of becoming a victim of violent crime was 1
01:08:28
in 94. Farmington's crime rate was higher than an astonishing 92% of the communities in New Mexico. As an overall
01:08:37
crime grade, Farmington was awarded a dismal Dminus. Zach's music videos can be viewed on his YouTube channel,
01:08:46
Isolated. The FBI has announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for
01:08:53
the death of Zachariah Jawan Shorty. If you have any information regarding the still unsolved murder of Zachariah Joan
01:09:00
Shorty, please contact both the FBI at 15058891300 and tips atfbi.gov and the Farmington Police
01:09:13
Department at [Music] 155-5991053. Want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage. Make sure you go to
01:09:35
true crimegar.com and sign up on our mailing list. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful
01:09:42
listeners? Yes, we do, Captain. This week, you've seen him on TV. He's a great storyteller and so I'm happy to
01:09:48
recommend I Will Find You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime by Detective Lieutenant Joe Kinda. This
01:09:56
is a collection of different stories from his now historical police and detective career throughout uh the
01:10:04
years. This one's as good of a read, if not better, than the shows that I've seen him on. So check out I Will Find
01:10:11
You: Solving Killer Cases from My Life Fighting Crime by Detective Lieutenant Joe Kenda. You can find that
01:10:18
recommendation and many more on our website, true crimegar.com. And until next week, be good, be kind, and don't
01:10:25
litter. [Music]