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Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230

November 25, 2022 / 50:48

This episode covers the disappearance of William Paul Smolinski Jr., the challenges families face in missing adult cases, and the investigation into his last known whereabouts.

William "Billy" Smolinski Jr. was last seen on August 24, 2004, in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was 31 years old and had a troubled personal life, including a recent breakup and a complicated relationship with his girlfriend, Madeline Gleason. His last known actions included a visit to a Burger King and a conversation with his neighbor, Roy Henley, where he mentioned going "up North" for three days.

After Billy's disappearance, his family faced difficulties in getting law enforcement to take the case seriously. They discovered inconsistencies in his last known whereabouts, including the odd choice of leaving his dog with a neighbor instead of his ex-girlfriend, Mary Ellen Noble. The family also found a Burger King receipt that provided a timeline of his last known activities.

Investigators later learned that Billy had been fired from his job shortly before he vanished, adding to the concerns about his mental state. The episode discusses the various theories surrounding his disappearance, including the possibility of foul play and the involvement of individuals in his life.

As the investigation unfolded, the family organized searches and sought help from the community, but no significant leads emerged. The episode highlights the emotional toll of unresolved disappearances on families and the complexities of adult missing persons cases.

TLDR

William Smolinski Jr. vanished in 2004, leaving behind troubling circumstances and unanswered questions about his disappearance.

Episode

50:48
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foreign [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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the shitter's full well somebody needs to empty it Captain that's enough of the business everybody gather around grab a
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chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime [Music] when an adult goes missing Without a
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Trace often families struggle to get law enforcement to take the case of their loved ones disappearance seriously and
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urgently adults after all are capable of making their own decisions leading their own
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lives without answering to others as adults we have the freedom to take off at a moment's notice
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and the freedom to make drastic decisions some that can lead to devastating consequences
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it is the missing person's family that is Left Behind to put the pieces of the puzzle together
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some families have been left searching forever we have heard so many times that mother
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will always leave the light on for you but parents brothers and sisters sometimes pass away
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never knowing what happened to their loved one all of their questions go unanswered
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don't let this be one of those cases William Paul smolinski Jr was born January 14 1973.
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he went by the name of Billy his missing Flyers describe him as a Caucasian male
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six foot tall 200 pounds with brown hair and blue eyes he had a pierced left ear
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a tattoo of a blue cross on his left shoulder and a tattoo on his forearm that read Pruitt pru Itt
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the last reported sighting of him was August 24th 2004 at his home in Waterbury Connecticut Billy smolinski
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was 31 years old when he disappeared this is true crime garage [Music] foreign at the time of his disappearance Billy
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smolinski lived in Waterbury a working-class town located about a half hour from Hartford Connecticut
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Billy worked three jobs and he loved wrenching on cars Captain there are several problems with Billy's
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disappearance but the one of most concern is plain and simply this since Billy disappeared Without a Trace
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and Foul Play is suspected no one can be 100 percent certain who was the last person to see him or to talk to him lots
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of people could have motivation to lie about their last contact with Billy some things have been verified by police
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which we will indicate when we discuss them but the general facts according to Billy's family friends and police
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reports are these on Tuesday August 24th Billy purchased a meal at a Burger King restaurant in
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Waterbury Connecticut he ordered Burger King's signature hamburger the Whopper I'm getting hungry for lunch here and he
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got a cheeseburger medium fries and a Coca-Cola the receipt for this meal was time stamped 2 59 PM according to police
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reports at around 5 PM on August 24th Billy knocked on the door of his neighbor this is Roy Henley and said the
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following I'm heading up North and I put that in air quotes there up North for three days to look at a car
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that I'm considering buying could you please look after Harley a Harley is Billy's beloved German Shepherd
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Billy told the neighbor where he had placed a key to the house so that Roy could get in and feed the dog and let
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the dog out now according to Roy he and Billy also briefly discussed Billy's very fresh
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breakup with his girlfriend after this conversation with Roy Billy returned home and Roy never saw him after that
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so let's stop here captain and think about this story for a second Billy was known to buy and fix up old cars so this
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story makes some sense is there any animosity between him and his neighbor well I think the thought here is
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this this would be the reported last sighting of Billy that we would know of okay and the thought here is there's
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Foul Play suspected against Billy and that's why we believe he's still missing to this day now who was the perpetrator
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of that we don't know so therefore if Roy had been somebody to have done something to him then he could have
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fabricated this story that hey he came over and asked me to watch the dog right but there's is there evidence or not of
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animosity between the two okay so I don't know I don't know how much animosity there would have been other
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than we have some reports of of two things one Billy it wouldn't be common for him to ask somebody to watch his dog
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for so that seems odd and two there are people that say Billy didn't really care
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for Roy and that's about as much of a description as we have about the relationship between the two now we all
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know you know you live next to people you have friends you have family there are times that there are people that you
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like in the long run but you may have a bad day with them from time to time and maybe you just tell somebody hey don't
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really care for Roy you know maybe you just had a bad day with Roy and Roy's actually pretty fine in your
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relationship together is pretty fine overall well sometimes with specially with neighbors you can have a neighbor
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that's very friendly and a good neighbor and a good person but because they're always in a good mood
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you're like yeah guys okay well the other thing though too that's tricky here is why would it take three days he
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says hey can you watch my dog and I need you to watch him for three days why does
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it take three days for him to just go simply check out a car that he's thinking of purchasing do we have any
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more reports of Billy telling anybody else that he's going to go check out a car
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no we do not but I think the thing that's that's tough here is that he doesn't really give a great description
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of where he may be going so maybe that is why it's going to take three days because you know simply saying I'm going
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up no up north is not a great description of where he is heading to find this car I have a lot of buddies
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that buy cars and flip them and or do some repairs on them and then sell them and it's you know when you get a lead or
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a bite on something you have to go immediately so it could be something that Billy found out about 20 minutes
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before he decided hey I'm going to go talk to my neighbor and see if he can watch the dog
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so the next morning around 10 a.m Roy went to Billy's house to let Harley out but the key was not where Billy said he
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would have left it so Roy was locked out of Billy's house he couldn't get in to take care of the dog so Roy went back to
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his home and called Mary Ellen Noble and this is Billy's ex-girlfriend yes and I'm guessing that Roy would have had her
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phone number in case of an emergency with the dog maybe it was left with him that night I don't or maybe he had it on
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file let's say because of the dog and I think it'll become clear later while he might have had that number so alarm
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Bells immediately went off in Mary Ellen's mind she called Billy's sister Paula who
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called her mother Jan all of them the three of them are trying to contact Billy none of them ever get a hold of
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him the two decide to meet at Billy's house so this is his sister and his mother and
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when they arrive they become more concerned yeah they become more concerned because his pickup truck he
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has a white pickup truck which you assume he'd be using the drive up north is parked in his driveway but it's also
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parked oddly because it's really close to the street yeah it's at the bottom of the driveway so the two the mother and
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sister are alarmed and according to them Billy leaving Harley in the hands of the
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neighbor was completely out of character so on top of that he neglected to leave
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a key remember he said he was going to leave a key this was so the dog could be let out yeah but he didn't do that right
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but this does not rule out the fact that he is leaving in a hurry for some reason
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and he just forgets to leave the key for the neighbor again odd that the neighbor
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is watching the dog but not that odd if you have to go immediately for some unknown reason right according to the
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family his dog was his best friend and according to his ex-girlfriend Mary Ellen Billy didn't even like Roy now we
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don't have a great description of what that means or a good understanding of what that means we just have one person
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with the very simple statement of I don't even think Billy liked Roy right so Paula and Jan they went to the police
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station at Waterbury to file a missing persons report police listened to their story particularly the part about the
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neighbor saying that Billy had said he was leaving to go out of town for three days and the two ladies were told hey
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you're going to have to wait 72 hours to file this report which I mean it's aggravating after the
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fact because we sit here today knowing that he's still missing but at the same time like we've kind of
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talked about in the trailer this guy's 31 years old if he says I'm going out of town for three days I think
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the police are saying look you might just be having a hard time getting a hold of the guy I understand that he did
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some things out of character but he's allowed to leave to go out of town why don't we become concerned when he
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doesn't reappear after this trip the troubling things though the you know like we said Roy's story being the only
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story we have is a little troubling the dog thing is is troubling in the in the sense of this
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Mary Ellen and and Billy had got that dog together they got Harley together when they were in
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their long-term relationship and so the way that this kind of worked is they jokingly said hey after they
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split up they remained friends and they said hey we got we got joint custody of our dog Harley
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my understanding is that the dog primarily lived with Billy but if he were to go out of town or need someone
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to take care of the dog Mary Ellen was his go-to like that was the regular thing she wanted the dog at her house
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she wanted to help out with the dog take care of the dog and so everybody found it very strange that Billy would choose
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Roy who we have the ex-girlfriend saying that he might not have really cared for
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Roy over this designated spot that the dog would often go to to be taken care of regularly very strange but again to
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play Devil's Advocate we have a situation where maybe Billy had to leave immediately and maybe he didn't want his
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ex to know where he was going so we have a situation where they're not going to take the police report for 72
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hours so his mother and sister are going to return to Billy's home to look for Clues they're kind of on their own
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they're going to try to piece This Together by themselves this is when they found the Burger King receipt which was
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located they found it in a trash can time stamped 259 the day that he was last seen right the house was neat and
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nothing appeared to have been Disturbed according to them they called his friend
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this man's name is Chris who lived in New Hampshire because he was the only friend that they could think of who
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lived quote up north where Billy had told Roy he was headed Chris had not heard from Billy the biggest part of
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this investigation to me Captain is Billy because always you know the possibility in these cases
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is Billy could be the reason that we can't find Billy so none of his family has ever
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acknowledged the possibility that Billy would ever voluntarily disappear to start a new life or
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harm himself I got a question because back to this truck so this white truck his pickup truck that's his main vehicle
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or does he have is that his main vehicle and he has multiple vehicles I mean if he's selling or fixing up cars then one
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would assume that he has access to other vehicles I believe he has two vehicles one being
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the truck and I think the other is either a motorcycle or a dirt bike Okay so here's the thing
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and God bless all the motorcyclists out there uh God bless you actually I hung out with a guy last weekend listen this
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is craziness this is borderline Insanity the guy drove on his motorcycle rode his motorcycle
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to and from Alaska from Ohio nice that's one hell of a trip but like that seems Seems incredibly dangerous to me but
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sorry what I meant to be saying though is under this assumption with the the motorcycle and the um dirt bike
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possibility I think that was located at his home in his garage okay I was gonna say because one could assume you pull
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the truck out just enough where you can get the motorcycle around and when you go to take off you're just like yeah I'm
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not gonna pull my truck in I'll be back in a couple days his but if you find his
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motorcycle at his house then what did he take his truck was his main source of transportation and believed to have been
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the vehicle he would have chosen for this three-day trip right but hold on a second if you have to go pick up a car
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if you like the car and you don't want it towed then maybe you could drive something you
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see what I'm saying like maybe maybe what he was going to go look at was a truck and he could throw the motorcycle
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in the back of the truck just just throwing it out there no I get you but the that vehicle is not missing
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right but what I'm saying is we have a guy that deals with vehicles so I'm just wondering
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all my buddies that sell vehicles I cannot tell you how many vehicles they have at a single time
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oh I see what you mean that there could have been some other vehicle I mean I'd pull up at my buddy's house that sells
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cars and there's two new cars that week right you know or two motorcycles in the
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garage well then or one time uh they got back uh from a trip from Indiana and they bought eight motorcycles who
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buys eight motorcycles a possibility but if this were the case it would have to be an unregistered
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vehicle to him um but regarding him harming himself or taking off starting a new life like I
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said his family just they do not seem to think that that's a possibility given what they know about their son and their
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brother um the questionable thing here though is that he recently had some turmoil in his
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personal life we know this because he was talking to Roy about how he had just recently broke up with a girlfriend
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and this is not the girlfriend that was going to take care of the dog right this
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is a different girlfriend okay so Billy had personally relayed to his sister the
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following information in the day or two leading up to his disappearance Billy was seeing a woman named Madeline
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Gleason the two had been dating for about a year they met when they both worked at a school bus they were school
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bus drivers for a company called B B transportation this is a huge busing company Madeline was 16 years older than
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Billy she had been married three times and had five children from these different relationships she was a little
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rough around the edges and I'm using other people's description of her Billy's family was not a big fan of hers
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they did not see what he saw in her they much preferred Billy's ex of eight years
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Mary Ellen who we've discussed already ready Mary Ellen and Billy had broken up just before he started dating Madeline
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and his parents said outright that they still had hope that Mary Ellen would one
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day be their daughter-in-law Mary Ellen and Billy had adopted Harley together as we said as a puppy and they
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considered that they had this joint custody of the dog Mary Ellen would later say that him
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leaving the dog with anybody other than her would just flat out never happen so Roy is just a flaming pile of dog [ __ ]
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well I don't think we can say that for certain but what we should point out is this okay the information that he gave
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to his sister well I'm just saying she said he'd never leave the dog with anybody
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but her well he did during this time Roy killed him during the course of the relationship with Madeleine uh Billy was
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committed to her and to her young son who was about 14 at the time there were reports that he had planned on having
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the two of them move in with him at some point Paula and Jan told police that Billy had gone with Madeline to Florida
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the week before he had vanished despite the fact that he hated to fly and never took vacations
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Billy's parents said despite his anxiety about flying and traveling in general he
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was excited about this trip he even came over to their home to borrow their luggage to use on this trip and this
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trip was going to be to visit one of Madeline's older Sons who was about Billy's age this is her son Tom
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true to their agreement say what the sun is the same age as Billy yeah she's 16 years older than Billy true to
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their agreement Mary Ellen had Harley for the days that Billy was in Florida on this vacation according to Mary Ellen
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she spoke to Billy from Florida and said that he told her that he had noticed that his girlfriend was receiving phone
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calls on her cell phone and was hiding these calls from him he became suspicious that Madeline was seeing
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somebody else Mary Ellen told one story that Billy had caught her standing in the shower
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pretending to shower but secretly on the phone Madeline was on the phone with another
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man the way that Madeline told this story in court later Billy had snatched the phone from her and went through the
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call log and the contacts on her phone look I'm just gonna put this out there been there done that did the whole
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disappearing cell phone trick to the whole who's texting you a bit if you're at that point where you have
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to ask just get up walk away get up and walk away well that's pretty much what happens because she admits
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that she is seeing somebody she's seeing a married man this is a businessman uh from Connecticut and Billy and her broke
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up uh and returned to Connecticut this on Sunday August 22nd and they went their separate ways both Mary Ellen and
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Paula said that Billy took or I'm sorry talked to both of them the day after he got back okay he told them both he was
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through with his girlfriend he said that he told his boss you know mind you he's working
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several jobs at durable Towing that he was absolutely devastated by this whole thing like I said there's every
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indication to believe that he was having her and her son move in with him relatively soon they were going to take
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the relationships she had five children correct so there's only one that's young
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enough to be in her care okay yeah yeah he was he was 14 years old now we don't know if Jan or Paula called Madeline to
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ask if she had seen or heard from Billy if they did they likely heard this story
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from her this is what she had told police after Billy had disappeared all all of this is recorded in the police
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report she said Billy called her home on the night of Monday August 23rd but she had not picked up then at four
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or five a.m on the morning of Tuesday August 24th the the day that he vanished Billy set a ladder next to her window at
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her home and attempted to climb in the window she ended up letting him in through the the door
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and they talked for about an hour we we don't really know what was said or where
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the two left things but later she told police that Billy wanted to get back together and he still wanted the two of
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them to move in with him according to their plan you know stick with the plan she told him she needed time to think
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about it and he left as she put it he appeared to be depressed when he left it's likely he left her home because of
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three phone calls made from his home later that day these calls appeared on Billy's call records and were found in
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the course of a police warrant they all were placed between 11 44 a.m and 11 58 a.m now the three calls that were made
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were all to the same number and that was of Chris Swanson who is a kind of a low-level politician he was the
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businessman that was having the affair with Madeline so he's a prominent businessman too he's
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pretty pretty well to do Chris and Billy would likely have known each other as well because Chris was involved with a
00:25:34
he owned a trucking company so it's thought that their paths would have crossed at some point just through their
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lines of work right Chris's father Christopher was a business partner with Billy's boss at the bot at the bus
00:25:48
company so another link there the Waterbury Observer calls Chris Swanson a quote an elected public
00:25:56
official with power and influence now the first two calls of those three calls they were both Hang-Ups but the third
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call there was a message and a message was left once police began to consider Billy's disappearance a
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serious case they questioned Swanson about Billy and confiscated the answering machine tape the message said
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quote Chris you better watch your back at all times Chris denied knowing who had made the calls
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the message was left anonymously so after these phone calls and then the conversation with the neighbor which
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took place much later in the day no one has admitted to ever seeing or hearing from Billy again
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foreign [Music] [Music] cheers how you doing tonight colonel cheers to you captain
00:27:09
after 72 hours had elapsed Jan and Paula were finally able to file a missing persons report and they did so close to
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midnight on August 27th the authorities then searched Billy's home and as stated
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nothing seemed amiss they searched his truck but they did not check for fingerprints despite the family
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insisting that it was parked in an inconsistent manner police did test the house garage and truck for signs of
00:27:39
blood but found none bizarrely according to the Waterbury Observer several days after Billy vanished Billy's truck was
00:27:48
broken into in the middle of the night and papers were strewn about the cab it's unknown whether this is a
00:27:55
coincidence the theft is a theft is a problem in this area right so it could have just been a coincidence as for the
00:28:04
neighbor Roy per his statement about Billy saying he was leaving was apparently believed by investigators and
00:28:11
prevented them from considering Foul Play early in this investigation the police interviewed Roy on August 31st
00:28:19
according to the report and we have to hope that they have reason to believe that he is not in any way involved since
00:28:28
they you know he's never been labeled a suspect or Person of Interest one piece of information that the family
00:28:35
has never revealed but that was in a police report was that Billy had been fired that day from his job at Midland
00:28:44
HVAC how was he fired was he fired in person yes he was fired in person so he went to
00:28:54
work he gets fired then at some point he goes to his ex-girlfriend's house that she's seeing
00:29:01
another man she's seen this crisp guy he then comes back to his house between now
00:29:07
now he so they sent someone to his home the the company sent somebody to his home to retrieve he drove a truck for
00:29:15
them an HVAC truck it was a company's truck and so they sent someone to his home on the morning of the 24th and at
00:29:23
that time they collected the truck and Billy was given a pink slip and why was he fired well we don't know the
00:29:29
motivation behind this firing One news report attributed attributed to a slow season which doesn't make a whole lot of
00:29:37
sense for HVAC company in August or the yeah but I mean it's very possible could be any trade
00:29:49
um is going to have layoffs so I could see that being a possibility so again that the the problem becomes if it's
00:29:58
just the layoff somebody like Billy that works in that field is going to go this
00:30:03
happens but if it's not that then this just adds fuel to the depression that conflict he's having with his
00:30:12
ex-girlfriend well yeah and and that's what's going to be troubling for detectives and what's
00:30:19
going to make it hard for them to have maybe a proper investigation early on because they hear about his recent
00:30:26
breakup they hear that he's been laid off or fired from Midland and they kind of they didn't say it outwardly but
00:30:32
they're kind of implying to the family that suicide might have to be considered or that Billy had taken off okay let's
00:30:39
run this down really quick so in the morning somebody sends over somebody to his house to fire Billy
00:30:47
they take back their truck their work truck at some point he goes to his ex-girlfriend's house he puts the ladder
00:30:54
up to the window he tries to that happened the night before okay that happened the night before so the night
00:30:59
before he goes and confesses his love he wants to make it work she says I have to think
00:31:05
about it he wakes up in the morning he's fired at some point he makes calls to Chris just before noon which is the
00:31:16
guy three calls two Hang-Ups one message one message that could be considered a threatening message too right and then
00:31:25
so that's between 11 44 and uh 12 o'clock by noon all three calls have happened and at some point then he goes
00:31:33
to Burger King and that receipt is at 259 correct and then what time does he go talk to Roy around five o'clock
00:31:42
around five o'clock and then what time does Roy say that he that's just the last he talked to Billy
00:31:48
he didn't actually see Billy leave his house yeah and Roy didn't really let anybody know that anything could be
00:31:56
wrong because he didn't realize anything was wrong until 10 a.m the next morning
00:32:00
when he goes to let the dog out and he can't get into the home he can't find the key so he calls the ex-girlfriend
00:32:06
Mary Ellis so what now well even though the police are kind of implying to Billy's family that suicide might be
00:32:16
likely or that he may have taken off the family isn't going to stop searching they're going to ask the community and
00:32:25
volunteers to come forward and over the three-day Labor Day weekend 200 Searchers starting at Billy's house
00:32:33
fanned out through the greater Waterbury area looking for Billy or clues of what
00:32:39
could have happened to him then as the result of a tip volunteers scoured every inch of the nagatuck Naugatuck close
00:32:49
enough River from Watertown to the Naugatuck area they found homeless encampments and dead deer but they never
00:32:57
found Billy now his sister Paula contacted a group called dogs d-a-w-g-s disaster and Wilderness ground
00:33:06
Searchers Inc local law enforcement did work with the dogs group following along
00:33:12
in case anything was found that a member of law enforcement would be present at that time
00:33:18
but 10 days after Billy disappeared his sister went down to Police Headquarters and she said quote I was a little Snappy
00:33:27
about she was concerned about the lack of attention the police were giving to Billy's investigation now at that time
00:33:34
after her going in there and kind of giving them the business a new detective was a place business a new detective was
00:33:42
placed on the case and he went to Billy's house to have a look around within 15 minutes the sergeant came back
00:33:52
into the house with Billy's keys and Billy's wallet Paula said he had found them tucked underneath the
00:33:59
driver's seat in Billy's Truck the family took this discovery as a very very bad sign Billy could not have left
00:34:08
of his own accord they believed without any money or a vehicle so searches of Billy's bank accounts showed no activity
00:34:18
after the August 24th purchase at the Burger King in fact one report says that he had just deposited his paycheck when
00:34:27
he went missing speaking of the Burger King in the three-day window when they were told to wait to see if
00:34:36
Billy turned up Jan and Paula had gone to that Burger King to try to view the surveillance tapes to see if there was
00:34:44
anyone with Billy or what his mood appeared to be right and it also makes you just want to Whopper
00:34:51
they were told that the tapes were erased after 24 hours and that they were too late that they couldn't view
00:34:57
anything one interesting addition to the timeline was posted on an online chat forum and this is by Billy's mother she
00:35:06
pointed out that Billy must have gone missing in the evening time she said hardly could not have gone longer than
00:35:14
11 hours without making a mess in the house and when Mary Ellen got to the home this was around 10 a.m on the
00:35:22
morning on the 25th on the on August so she's using that 10 o'clock marker as if
00:35:29
we backtrack this it's got to be less than 11 hours from that time frame yeah I would agree with them on that but
00:35:37
here's what's my gut is telling me right I mean other than wanting Burger King is
00:35:46
we have a situation right we have a poly D situation where he tells his neighbor that he
00:35:55
quote unquote doesn't even like hey Roy can you watch my dog I'm going somewhere
00:36:00
for a few days by the way don't check on my dog until the morning and I'm going to leave a key for you underneath the
00:36:08
mat now I know that Roy me being Billy I know that Roy has the number to probably
00:36:17
family or my ex ex-girlfriend that helps take care of the dog right so when there
00:36:23
is no key found then he's going to make a phone call hey there's this dog he left
00:36:31
that gives him a heads up to get wherever he's going um and then we have another situation where you have this
00:36:38
truck his primary vehicle and the keys his keys and his wallet are underneath the seat
00:36:46
yeah almost like he's leaving it for you almost like he's leaving hey anything in
00:36:52
my wallet it's yours you can have it and like we said he sells Vehicles he buys Vehicles is it possible that he had
00:37:01
an unregistered vehicle of some kind and is in his garage and that would be another reason why the truck would be
00:37:08
pulled out a little bit so they could get the vehicle around and he took off and this was a way of taking off
00:37:17
um possibly to commit suicide and leaving everything in its place for people to find it
00:37:24
okay let's work backwards through that we'll start with the truck and then we'll get to the dog here are my
00:37:29
thoughts the keys in the wallet are found in his truck 10 days after he went missing
00:37:35
three days after he went missing the truck is quote unquote broken into so if the keys and wallet were in the
00:37:45
truck at that time those seem like items that somebody breaking into a truck would want to find so either they didn't
00:37:52
find them or those items weren't there when the truck was broken into yeah but didn't you say that they were underneath
00:37:58
a seat yeah right I don't know what would make me think that the thief would not check
00:38:04
underneath the seat I mean I can't say for certain that they would but I don't see why it works so what I'm
00:38:11
going I'm going there with that just keep that in mind just just because the wallet and the keys are found in the
00:38:17
truck there are reasons why they may have been found there without Billy having left them there on purpose
00:38:23
meaning one of two things either somebody either Billy was met with Foul Play and killed somewhere disposed of
00:38:32
somewhere and they returned his truck to his home and stuffed the keys in the wallet underneath his seat or
00:38:39
Billy left him there or did something happen to Billy and then later at some point somebody goes me having this
00:38:46
wallet and these Keys is a really bad idea maybe I should figure out what to do with them oh I'll put them back in
00:38:52
his truck let me break in right and then then you know I'll throw some I'll throw
00:38:58
some trash all about the the truck and maybe police will just go well maybe we missed it maybe we just happen to miss
00:39:05
that when we look through the truck I don't know that they really spent a good time looking through the truck at the
00:39:11
first time that they showed up to the house okay um so if they did in those those items had
00:39:19
been there the entire time they couldn't have they could not have done a good job
00:39:23
searching the truck if those items were there the entire time correct yeah yeah so all right let's agree on
00:39:30
that at least we know that they did not do a very good search of his truck the first time now regarding the dog I
00:39:38
believe the mom and I know that other people are like that seems weird that she would say 11 hours no no no no I
00:39:47
think that's I think that's so honest I know with my own experience with my dogs
00:39:52
when I go somewhere often if I go somewhere just for like a quick overnight trip I do have somebody show
00:39:59
up and let my dogs out in the late evening and then again early in the morning right I have a bit of a Time
00:40:06
marker where I know hey uh I don't want my dogs to be uncomfortable and it starts to get a little uncomfortable for
00:40:12
them after a certain period of time I actually think a couple of things are going on here let's say the story that
00:40:20
Roy provides us that the neighbor provides us is in fact true yeah and please believe him
00:40:26
well if again and I understand that people are like but he doesn't like Roy but he might like again he might like
00:40:35
Roy he might said that offhanded it could be a very nice neighbor Billy either left in a hurry
00:40:43
or he left with the purpose of not coming back that's why he left the dog you know that's why he talked to Roy but
00:40:50
that's kind of a conflicting statement there and what I mean by this is is the following so
00:40:56
let's it for him to leave the dog with Roy would be out of character right yeah that from what everyone has said
00:41:05
so but we have the situation where where the dog is not he doesn't show Roy doesn't show up to let the dog out until
00:41:15
10 a.m what I would like to have a clear understanding of is was that the time that he was instructed to show up hey
00:41:22
are you gonna be home tomorrow sure could you come over around 9 30 10 a.m and let the dog out because if that was
00:41:29
a time that was instructed and this 11 hour marker of the dog making a mess in the house or being uncomfortable right
00:41:37
well then that would indicate to me that Billy didn't leave the home until 11 pm
00:41:41
that night okay which is pretty late it's six hours after he all of a sudden has to leave the house in a hurry to the
00:41:48
point where he's got to leave the dog with his neighbor you see what I mean if if Billy knew that he was going to have
00:41:53
a five six hour time window before you had to leave he would have left the dog with his ex-girlfriend it's it's all
00:42:00
very strange I would like to know maybe right but I think the problem with that is that if they have a pretty good
00:42:08
relationship right and maybe Billy's a pretty honest guy and he's not one that is good at let's say lying
00:42:16
right and she starts asking him questions about where he's going whether he's going to go after this Chris guy whether
00:42:25
he's gonna go somewhere to hurt himself maybe he's just going somewhere to think
00:42:32
right or maybe he's going to confront his ex-girlfriend he might not want this person that's been in his life for
00:42:40
eight years or more to ask questions you see what I'm saying like that's why he would leave the dog with Roy because
00:42:49
Roy's not gonna ask that many questions and if he does it's like well I'm just going up I came up with the story I'm
00:42:55
looking for a car I'm going to be gone three days do you mind helping me out yeah
00:43:00
good I'll help you out right no and I agree with that no questions asked but if you ask hey can you take the dog your
00:43:08
ex-girlfriend's gonna go yeah where are you going right I'm going to go up North and look
00:43:13
at a car but maybe that doesn't work with her right that's all I'm saying no and I agree Billy would know that more
00:43:18
than me or you would I agree and what I'm saying is if the the story of him leaving the dog with Roy is in fact true
00:43:26
then that was purposeful by Billy there was a reason for doing such and it was either he was in a hurry or he was felt
00:43:34
he needed to hide or conceal something from the ex-girlfriend right right so before Billy dated Madeline the one that
00:43:40
he had all the problems with you know they recently broke up the one with five kids the one that was 16 years older the
00:43:46
one that was cheating on him with Chris right he was involved in an eight-year relationship with Mary Ellen Noble they
00:43:54
had known each other since high school they said that their breakup was a mutual decision and that they remained
00:44:00
close friends right up until the point Billy disappeared the last time that Mary Ellen saw Billy or spoke with him
00:44:07
she said Billy was sad about the breakup but he also seemed fine and that the two
00:44:14
of them actually made plans to go to Six Flags to the amusement park the next weekend and Mary Ellen quoted Billy as
00:44:22
saying the last words he said to me were don't forget sad Saturday don't forget don't forget
00:44:28
you know Billy would not have this is what she points to as Billy would not have committed suicide bringing up that
00:44:35
he had something that he was looking forward to according to her now in a missing person's case we really only
00:44:42
have one side of the story of what the missing person was like the family generally controls The Narrative of what
00:44:50
the person was like and what was going on in their life at the time who they were close with what their plans were
00:44:57
what they were you know into or or likely or not likely to do right Billy's family has been more involved than most
00:45:08
in the investigation into his disappearance they paint a fairly Rosy picture of him according to the
00:45:14
smolinsky's Billy was a really caring giving guy who would drop everything to help someone in need he had a tattoo on
00:45:22
his arm that was the name of a friend who had passed away and they said that Billy was a creature of habit he loved
00:45:30
his truck his motorcycle his dog and his girlfriend he was an avid snowmobiler and fisherman and he drove a drove in
00:45:39
demolition derbies sometimes on the weekends yeah those are I actually had a old student that did that it was a lot
00:45:46
of fun to go watch and they would create you had to create the vehicle and then just go Smash It Up well Billy was
00:45:55
described by both family and friends as an incredibly hard worker who always showed up for work and took very little
00:46:01
time off well that's what makes me believe that he got laid off more than he got fired and as far as any of them
00:46:09
know he did not do drugs and he only drank occasionally Okay so but likely Captain we have to believe
00:46:18
that there are other aspects to Billy's personality that that we're not going to receive from the
00:46:26
family well first of all if I ever go missing please tell the public that he was a curmudgeon that he was a nasty man
00:46:35
and he was um is very mean and and bitter towards the world please don't tell people that every time
00:46:43
I walked into the room I I lit it up like roses and sunshine well according to media and some things that we can
00:46:50
find online there are several articles about Billy's case referring to him as a quote-unquote tough guy and this seems
00:46:59
to be in the context of he wouldn't let anyone push him around or he wouldn't take any [ __ ] from anyone there are
00:47:06
hints that he may have had a temper there are several discussions online in which people claim to know for a fact
00:47:13
that Billy was the type to get into bar room brawls another word that has been used to describe Billy is
00:47:20
confrontational now I only saw this a couple of times but police reports indicate that Chris the remember the
00:47:28
secret lover told police that he had never had any interaction or trouble with Billy but then admitted after
00:47:36
continued questioning that Billy had in fact broken the windows on a bus on by Chris several months earlier Madeline
00:47:45
stated in court documents that she thinks Billy suspected something was going on between the two of them for
00:47:51
quite some time before it was confirmed on the Florida trip well let's Okay so let's be a little clear right now this
00:48:00
Chris guy is a cheater right he's married right right cheater and he's a liar I mean how many times he
00:48:12
gets three calls from the guy that goes missing I don't know who he is right and then after more questioning
00:48:21
yeah we had some run-ins with each other so I I don't know if he's involved but I
00:48:28
know he's a liar yeah but the thing here is with these broken windows it may just
00:48:35
simply be a situation where he thinks Billy is a likely culprit and doesn't really have anything to go off of and
00:48:42
right at all Billy broke these windows and Billy in all fairness may not have done that well no [ __ ] because two
00:48:50
seconds earlier you didn't have any confrontations with him this one I'm State that's what I'm stating it's hard
00:48:56
to believe anything that this Chris guy says well one thing to point out that Billy might have been confrontational or
00:49:02
at least to the point of him not taking any [ __ ] from anybody would be the fact
00:49:07
that take no [ __ ] would take a little [ __ ] but we're not gonna take no [ __ ] but yeah but the
00:49:14
thing would be that he we know he left the the threatening voicemail on Chris's phone right you know we we have this
00:49:20
confirmed by his family saying yes that is his voice on that message the local newspaper and Billy's family believed
00:49:29
that having heard that message of you better watch your back at all times that after that message Billy possibly had
00:49:38
set out to do something to Chris or to at least confront Chris and that something bad had happened in that
00:49:45
process Billy's Father Bill senior said quote Billy wasn't one to start anything
00:49:50
but if someone started something with him he would finish it this time it looks like someone got the better of him
00:49:58
foreign [Music] we have so much more to get to in the search for Billy smolinski join us back
00:50:14
here in the garage tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't litter [Music] thank you

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 70
    Most heartbreaking
  • 60
    Most shocking

Episode Highlights

  • Family's Urgent Search
    Billy's family struggles to get law enforcement to take his disappearance seriously.
    @ 02m 47s
    November 25, 2022
  • The Disappearance of Billy Smolinski
    Billy Smolinski went missing without a trace, leaving his family searching for answers.
    “Don't let this be one of those cases.”
    @ 03m 39s
    November 25, 2022
  • A Mysterious Last Sighting
    Billy's last known sighting was on August 24, 2004, before he vanished.
    @ 04m 23s
    November 25, 2022
  • The Disappearance of Billy
    Billy vanished after a series of troubling events, including a breakup and being fired.
    “He appeared to be depressed when he left.”
    @ 24m 44s
    November 25, 2022
  • The Threatening Message
    A message left for Chris Swanson raised suspicions during the investigation.
    “You better watch your back at all times.”
    @ 26m 19s
    November 25, 2022
  • Search Efforts Intensify
    200 volunteers searched for Billy over Labor Day weekend, but found no clues.
    @ 32m 30s
    November 25, 2022
  • Billy's Tough Reputation
    Billy was known as a tough guy who wouldn't let anyone push him around.
    “He wouldn't take any [ __ ] from anyone.”
    @ 46m 56s
    November 25, 2022

Episode Quotes

  • The shitter's full, well somebody needs to empty it!
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230
  • Don't let this be one of those cases.
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230
  • You better watch your back at all times.
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230
  • I was a little Snappy about the lack of attention.
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230
  • Don't forget sad Saturday.
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230
  • Billy wasn't one to start anything, but he would finish it.
    Billy Smolinski /// Part 1 /// 230

Key Moments

  • Humor02:02
  • Billy's Last Call24:31
  • Missing Persons Report Filed27:15
  • Police Search Begins27:21
  • Family's Frustration33:27
  • Creature of Habit45:28
  • Confrontational Nature47:20
  • Threatening Voicemail49:16

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown