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2023 [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
00:01:46
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that can throw a strawberry through a battleship
00:01:52
because he's just that strong he is the captain thank you thank you thank you it's good to be seen and it's good to
00:01:59
see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a friend we are drinking little Heaven
00:02:08
sessions IPA by Two Roads Brewing Company in Stratford Connecticut garage grade let's do it 4 and A4 bottle caps
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out of five this is a Session IPA in a can made with three exotic hops lots of great citrus fruit flavors here and
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finishes with just enough toasted malt character to balance this baby out and Lil heaven was brought To Us by Destiny
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in Nashville and we also have Lee in cerville Tennessee and a big shout out to Roselle and Brian from Memphis let's
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go up North and give a cheers to our friend Kimberly in Sterling Ontario and a big cheers mates to Chad in Greenwood
00:02:45
Indiana and last but not least we go over the pond and thank Christine from Maidstone Kent UK thanks to everybody
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for filling up the fridge for this week's shows if you want to help us out with next week's shows go to True Crim
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Instagram Facebook Twitter all that stuff @ True Crime garage all right Captain that's enough of the business
00:03:07
everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true [Music] crime Billy lski was 31 years old when
00:03:32
he disappeared and he was last seen on August 24th 2004 now Billy's family was the first and always the driving force
00:03:42
behind the search for their son and brother within days as we had mentioned the family brought in search dogs they
00:03:50
organized their own search party of 200 people later they hired private investigators Billy's mother started the
00:03:58
justice for Billy website spending hours daily checking messages emails and following up on correspondence maybe the
00:04:06
most baffling part of this investigation is the missing persons Flyers themselves and let's go through this
00:04:14
Captain cuz this is a weird one mhm determined to find leads the smolinsky family paid the New Haven Register
00:04:22
$1,200 to print 20,000 Flyers that were to be distributed in uh in all through out the local area the Flyers advertised
00:04:32
a $155,000 reward for information leading to Billy's recovery and had a photo of Billy and a description the
00:04:40
family printed a few thousand more flyers later for distribution and displayed them in restaurants businesses
00:04:50
public areas around the state a big batch of these flyers were going to go they were going to be stuffed into
00:04:57
newspapers okay so any anybody that subscribed to that newspaper they're going to receive a flyer inside their
00:05:04
newspaper alerting them that somebody in their Community is missing right family
00:05:10
members and friends they began stapling Flyers to utility polls in towns where Billy lived worked in businesses that he
00:05:18
frequented they also began posting flyers in and around matalin's home and and workplace it's pretty clear that very
00:05:29
early on on the smolinsky belied that mateline knew more than she was telling about what had happened to Billy and
00:05:36
that's Billy's recent ex-girlfriend yes that he had caught cheating on him in regards to their suspicions well best
00:05:44
case scenario was that meline had innocently and unknowingly she was withholding information that could prove
00:05:52
crucial to finding Billy right worst case she had something to do with it or knew who did mhm now we we do know that
00:06:00
she did refuse a polygraph test and this contributed to the family's perception that Not only was she not being helpful
00:06:08
in the search but she was also hiding something Waterberry police though they say they don't consider meline to be a
00:06:16
suspect although their case notes indicate that they told her she could only be cleared by taking a polygraph
00:06:24
test which we do know that she refused right so basically she's saying don't clear well the smolinsky they began
00:06:31
posting Flyers all over the town of Woodbridge which is not where Billy lived this is yeah this is near where
00:06:39
meline lived and meline she kept moving around during this time she was like staying with various friends and family
00:06:47
but it seemed like at least to her anyway that the posters and the Flyers would follow her wherever she would go
00:06:54
apparently the family posted them along her bus route you know where she worked they they posted them all over at the
00:07:01
school uh in the area of the school where she drove to and from the posters were everywhere this is what we're what
00:07:09
we know in the business has putting the heat on you well the Flyers made no mention of anyone but Billy you know it
00:07:17
was just simply a missing person it had his picture and his description okay they did not in any shape any form point
00:07:25
the finger to her or anyone else but as you said turning up the heat and likely IND intended to pressure her what
00:07:37
happened next was detailed in the Waterbury observer in several lengthy feature articles about Billy's case a
00:07:44
month after Billy vanished a good friend of the smolinsky family telephoned to tell them that she had witnessed a woman
00:07:52
ripping down Billy's missing Flyers off of utility poles in the in the nearby Town M so the family friend wrote down
00:08:01
the woman's license plate number and gave it to the family don't say it the family figured out they checked the
00:08:07
plate number and uh they were stunned when the car turned out to be registered to meline they weren't
00:08:15
stunned well here's the thing what a [ __ ] of radone I actually I actually think that they probably were stunned in
00:08:24
for a couple of reasons even if they think she may have knew more than what she was telling the police mhm I think
00:08:30
that they thought look how how brazenly stupid do you have to be to be running around town tearing down these posters
00:08:38
first of all and then second of all look one of their suspicions was that maybe she unknowingly was not being helpful in
00:08:45
the investigation maybe unknowingly and innocently she was not providing information to police well it seems like
00:08:53
she does know something and I think that she got some confidence when the police
00:08:57
said that she's not a suspect and now maybe the police now justes to play Devil's Advocate and and and be a little
00:09:03
blue blood here right mm maybe the cops were saying hey let's say that she's not
00:09:09
a suspect and maybe we'll catch her doing something right you know I mean you never know how they're playing their
00:09:15
hand sometimes they want to say hey let's turn up the heat let's say that she's a suspect maybe she'll then start
00:09:21
talking or maybe let's back off a little bit and see if she does something stupid
00:09:26
well the family starts driving around they're going to visit places that they've put up all these flyers and this
00:09:32
is several towns Captain it's not like they just put them on the street where she lives the street where she works and
00:09:39
on her bus route and that's it they they put these babies all over town in several towns so they start driving
00:09:47
around to see what's going on and they found that in several of these towns M that the missing Flyers have been ripped
00:09:55
down tore down some of them remained up but they were disfigured and that on some of them even more odd
00:10:03
someone had wrote on some of them who cares across them in Sharpie according to the family the only
00:10:10
places where the posters were being tore down or vandalized were in the areas near where this woman lived and worked
00:10:18
right it could be her it also could be friends and families of her where they feel like uh maybe she's being harassed
00:10:26
by these posters by some some way somehow these posters harassing her well the family Billy's family decided they
00:10:35
were going to replace all the missing posters and all of the defaced posters as well not only did they replace them
00:10:42
but they decided they were going to keep an eye on their missing person's flyers
00:10:47
and sure enough they witnessed M they witnessed meline and her teenage son pull up to a utility poll and rip down a
00:10:57
poster then later they videotaped a similar incident and think about this [ __ ] okay here's what pisses me off
00:11:04
is that you have this guy this hard worker Billy he's going to take your ass in right you you have five kids you have
00:11:13
one kid living with you he's saying I care about you I care about your kid I want you to come live with me and you're
00:11:23
having a relationship behind his back fine but then after the fact that he goes missing you know for a year year
00:11:30
and a half you know Billy's being some kind of a adult figure in your teenage boy's life mhm and now you're having him
00:11:41
be accomplice in ripping down missing posters yeah he's a piece of [ __ ] well and this is going to get worse okay
00:11:50
because basically what you're going to have here is a situation where the family's going to put up posters she's
00:11:57
going to tear them down she's going to to get her son involved and later she'll get a friend of hers involved too this
00:12:04
is uh Francis Vel now so the family puts them up and then her and her friends and
00:12:11
her son tear them down that's and then the family puts them up again then they tear him down they put them up they tear
00:12:16
him down and throughout this the family is going to set up these I guess it's like a sting operation or whatever of
00:12:24
all right we're going to put this poster up now let's sit back and see what happens to it we're going to videotape
00:12:28
her ripping them down or somebody that is friends with her ripping them down okay now you're at the police you have
00:12:35
somebody that is not being cooperative enough to give you a lie detector mhm test and now we have this individual
00:12:44
that you saw supposedly you saw Billy the the night before he went missing this individual is ripping down the
00:12:53
posters you think that should' become highly suspect the the family is going to present these vide tapes the tapes of
00:13:02
her tearing down the posters they take the tapes to the police and say look what she's doing and unfortunately the
00:13:09
police say you know we're sorry but there's really nothing illegal about her ripping down the
00:13:16
Flyers this is common decency they should arrest her on that I I don't know that that's a charge but regardless
00:13:23
Billy's family they're determined to get to the bottom of why this woman her increasingly bizarre behavior why she is
00:13:32
doing what she is doing and it's not bizarre behavior if you're guilty well this would begin what the Waterbury
00:13:40
Observer would end up calling a daily cat and mouse game again the family going around putting up posters and her
00:13:50
going around and continually pulling them down at some point there was some kind of
00:13:57
altercation where so she's tearing them down and they decide all right we're going to go up right behind her and put
00:14:03
one up immediately afterwards I thought they're going to like go up right when she's ripping it down and grab her butt
00:14:10
no so Goose her what ended up happening was there's some kind of Confrontation and some kind of dispute as to she's
00:14:18
going to say that they tried to put a staple in her hand and the family's the family's going to claim look that
00:14:24
happened because you stuck your hand up there as we were trying to put in the staple and you were trying to prevent us
00:14:30
from putting up the next poster and just think of you're Billy's mom don't you just want to walk up to this lady and
00:14:36
punch her in her [ __ ] ass mouth here's some problems I understand their frustration and I understand how angry
00:14:42
they are and how angry they are with this situation and this woman mhm the problem is you're allowing this
00:14:49
situation to take you away from the investigation potential bigger investigation in my opinion this this
00:14:57
kind of derails the whole thing thing and again keep in mind the family as we said is the driving force behind the
00:15:04
search the driving force behind the investigation now every day they're waking up and they're occupied with this
00:15:10
cat and mouse game of putting up posters and tearing them down but you think that
00:15:15
this confirmed more so confirmed their belief that that Billy was met with Foul Play I
00:15:22
think this more confirmed their belief that meline was involved mhm and I think that they thought from the very get-go
00:15:30
that he was met with Foul Play they never thought once that he harmed himself or took off on his own accord
00:15:36
and he was a tough guy had something minor happened to him he would have returned by now something happened to
00:15:41
him to the point where he's no longer with us so is there anything more to do with this we'll call it flyer gate yeah
00:15:48
well on April 4th 2005 we have another situation of them putting up posters and her tearing them down or she's tearing
00:15:58
them down in they're following behind her and putting them up I'm uncertain which was happening on this day but the
00:16:04
result is that they both ended up at the police department and I think the way that this
00:16:10
works is that meline had drove to the police department they follow her there and the smolinsky their thought is guess
00:16:17
what now we get to confront her in front of police so this is good we'll follow her there right mine's thought is I'm
00:16:24
going to file charges against them for harassing me while I'm here so so once inside the police department both Paula
00:16:31
and Jan the uh sister and mother of Billy state that meline started taunting them and they thought that maybe she was
00:16:39
trying to get them to lose their cool and you know smack her or something like that nothing like that appeared to have
00:16:47
happened but according to the Waterbury Observer which accessed a police report that was filed that day the incident
00:16:55
report states that meline complained that the insk had been smothering the areas along her bus route and in front
00:17:02
of her residence including areas around the bank that she goes to and the gym that she attended now meline stated that
00:17:10
she has been tearing down these posters because she felt harassed by their placement near her work and home and
00:17:17
that she was being targeted by the family another officer reported that Jan had admittedly she admitted to putting
00:17:24
the Flyers up wherever they knew meline went because she was quote trying to break meline gleon the police asked the
00:17:33
smolinsky to stop Distributing Flyers around her school where she worked but they could continue to hang Flyers
00:17:41
around town they should also stop videotaping her and her friend and her son tearing down the posters because
00:17:51
videotaping them without them wanting to be videotaped could be considered harassment MH now according to the
00:17:58
molinsky though the wood Woodbridge Police agreed to let them go okay if they didn't take the
00:18:07
videotape of meline ripping down the posters to the media to which Jan agreed but the truce was short lived because
00:18:15
the smolinsky consulted with an attorney who advised them that they had every right to hang posters near the school
00:18:23
yeah they do and the following day after that meeting this is on April 10th Jan once again started hanging posters near
00:18:31
the school two weeks later the Woodbridge Police called and asked Jan to come down to the Woodbridge Police
00:18:37
Department they had a couple of incidences they had to deal with there's this man named Brad Cohen MH okay this
00:18:45
is of the B&B Transportation he had filed a complaint saying that someone had paintballed two of the school buses
00:18:52
now these school buses were the ones driven by meline and by her friend Fran Vel mhm Fran had also filed a statement
00:19:00
saying that on April 15th 2 weeks after the incident in the police department Lobby that she has seen Jan hanging
00:19:07
posters on school property to to which they end up arresting Jan that's okay yeah she's arrested for
00:19:18
first-degree harassment disorderly conduct and trespassing it seems like the police it seems like they' wanted this
00:19:27
situation to go away this is in an increasingly Disturbing Behavior and I'm going to be I'm going to be honest with
00:19:35
you captain and I hate to kind of go after a victim's family here but I I kind of see a little wrongdoing on both
00:19:42
parts of course yeah I would well that's because you're thinking like an adult but it's weird it's weird to say this
00:19:49
it's like I don't agree with their behavior but at the same time I understand it yes their loved one is
00:19:55
missing and they need answers well and I think if you're the police department you you simply tell the
00:20:04
ex-girlfriend hey I'm sorry but your ex-boyfriend went missing he was you know seen with you
00:20:12
you had a relationship with him the family has every right to plast plaster his um missing signs wherever they would
00:20:20
like you should be supportive and not rip these things down you should be supportive and talk to the police and
00:20:27
then you state to the family hey if she does rip them down don't film her don't make contact with her don't
00:20:37
follow her that's getting a little ridiculous spend your time getting the word out about your missing son spend
00:20:44
the time on on collecting evidence if you think that she is somewhat involved you're going to find evidence somewhere
00:20:52
else other than following her around and finding evidence of her ripping down signs that's the only evidence you're
00:20:59
going to find uh to help bring answers to your son's case well Jan is processed and jailed only only temporarily and
00:21:08
then her daughter Paula Billy Billy's sister says to the media it was so backwards the police tried to make us
00:21:15
seem crazy but we were just trying to find my brother stating that the only arrest in this case so far was my mother
00:21:24
right and the media quickly took to having the family's backs here and they said you know this does seem backwards
00:21:32
this does seem not right that this situation of a missing child or missing grown man but their child MH and there's
00:21:41
getting they're getting no answers other than one of them getting slapped with cuffs on there's no way if I was a
00:21:47
police officer I'd be arresting anybody and Billy's family eventually the charges against Jan were dismissed this
00:21:54
was when prosecutors determined that the case was without Mar uh amazingly in a police interview dated
00:22:01
August 5th 2005 so well after she had been videotaped taking down the Flyers and after Jan's arrest meline Gleason
00:22:10
denied ever taking down the Flyers of course she did right uh here here's what I want to know who does meline know in
00:22:18
the police department or who does her uh lover or the person that she was cheating on Billy with Chris who does he
00:22:27
know at the police Department personally I don't think that anybody has an in with the police I don't really find the
00:22:34
it's difficult to say that I maybe it's just a bad judgment on the police I think the police had to arrest someone
00:22:41
mhm because here's the problem these two parties are making a problem for the police they're making extra work for the
00:22:47
police this is stuff that the police should not have to deal with this is like two children on a playground
00:22:52
smacking each other agreed I just and I think the way I think the way that the police are thinking is look smolinsky
00:23:00
family we told you you could keep putting up your Flyers all over town and she was going to play it cool as long as
00:23:06
you didn't put them around her school they're kind of mediators at this point and then when they can when they have a
00:23:12
report that hey the smolinsky kind of went against their Wishes the police's wishes and started putting them around
00:23:19
the school again I think they found fault with the smolinsky and that they thought hey look we we specifically told
00:23:26
you to quit doing this because making a bunch of problems for us right and it's just I mean it's a difficult situation
00:23:32
it really is 18 months after Billy had vanished there was still no movement whatsoever on the case the family
00:23:39
acknowledged to the Waterbury Observer that they believed that Billy was dead at this time and that the Waterbury
00:23:45
Police acknowledged that they were out of leads according to the newspaper officially the Waterbury Police
00:23:51
Department hadn't ruled out any scenario regarding Billy's disappearance although
00:23:56
investigators seem to be gravitating ating toward the suicide angle they cited the fact that Billy had personal
00:24:03
problems in the days before he disappeared and they stated that it was unlikely that he had just run off
00:24:10
knowing that his social security number had not been used since his disappearance and his bank accounts were
00:24:16
untouched so a year and a half after Billy vanished the Waterbury Police Department continued to say there was
00:24:23
likely no foul play and that they felt that an accidental death was unlikely as well this has to be pretty frustrating
00:24:31
for the family well yeah cuz not only do they believe that the exact opposite happened you know that something
00:24:37
terrible had happened to Billy but his family was also convinced that police had dropped the ball on the
00:24:43
investigation and they cite the following that in the first 18 months six detectives had come and gone on the
00:24:51
case more so none of Billy's DNA had been entered into any kind of database after Billy disappeared the Waterbury
00:24:58
Police took his razor and his hairbrush to collect DNA samples they also took blood samples from his family these
00:25:06
samples provided by the smolinsky were lost of course the smolinsky were able to provide additional samples but what
00:25:14
Jan ended up discovering was that the detectives working the case weren't familiar with codus the FBI's laboratory
00:25:22
uh laboratory's combined DNA index system right cotus according to its we site enables federal state and local
00:25:29
crime labs to exchange and compare DNA profiles electronically effectively linking crimes to each other and to
00:25:37
convicted killers and offenders it enables investigators to identify remains and to link DNA left at crime
00:25:46
scenes with DNA already entered in the system the fact that no one knew what it was much less had attempted to enter
00:25:54
Billy's DNA into cotus was very discouraging in 2 years after Billy went missing the Waterbury Police Department
00:26:04
had still not managed to get DNA samples from the case into local state or national databases Jan started to
00:26:12
educate herself on missing person's protocols information sharing procedures DNA databases and intra agency
00:26:20
communication methologies she was surprised to find a complete lack of any kind of coherent procedure for listing a
00:26:29
missing person or sharing information regarding adults who like Billy just [Music]
00:26:49
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[Music] today [Music] all right we're back cheers cheers to you Captain I'm putting down the beer
00:29:07
picking up the booze the first person in law enforcement to finally acknowledge that perhaps Billy had not disappeared
00:29:14
voluntarily was the chief of the Waterbury Police this is Neil o about 2 years after his disappearance oi
00:29:23
apologized to the family for his Department's failure to aggressively investigate the case and he promised a
00:29:31
reinvigorated investigation in 2006 August of 2006 Billy's case had become cold and
00:29:40
the Waterbury Police called in the FBI for help the FBI agreed to assist in the investigation and the family began to
00:29:48
hope that this important shift would bring the results that they sought in 2007 private investigator Mike Ward
00:29:56
filed a a Freedom of Information Act request for records of the smolinsky case in the possession of the Waterbury
00:30:04
Police Department the family well they were shocked at what this request would uncover MH the Police Department Records
00:30:13
documented a Crim Stoppers tip detailing who murdered Billy and where he was buried specifically the records revealed
00:30:22
that in June of 2006 a tip was called into Crim Stoppers stating sha kpek who is Madeline's son this guy died in 2005
00:30:33
of a drug overdose that he was the one that had killed Billy now a confidential informant Who police records indicated
00:30:42
was named William fast Bender told police that back in October 2004 so two months after Billy's disappearance that
00:30:51
fast Bender was sitting at a Dunkin Donuts restaurant with another man when the two of them spotted uh the missing
00:30:59
person's picture of smolinsky mhm that had been tacked up you know throughout the area fast Bender said that he had
00:31:07
once employed Shawn in his contracting business and fast Bender remarked to the other man that was with him that that
00:31:15
Billy's case was quote too bad he said that the other man this is Dwayne McLean then told him according to the police
00:31:24
report that Shawn had killed Billy because Billy beat up Shawn's mother meline McLean stated that Shawn
00:31:33
supposedly choked Billy and killed him when they were in mine's apartment Shawn then called his friend Jason Lee and
00:31:41
they buried Billy at a jobsite that Shawn was working as a carpenter this was in the white Hills area in
00:31:49
Shelton he stated that they dug a hole and buried Billy under a spot that concrete was poured over the next day
00:31:58
fast Bender directed police to the this area of Shelton right and he says that he believe the story because Dwayne
00:32:07
Shawn and Jason all three of the people that were mentioned in that report they're all lifelong friends so he
00:32:15
believed that this was something that they would you know people that he would call upon when they needed something now
00:32:23
Shawn died before he could ever be questioned and interestingly there is a waterburry
00:32:30
police department report dated August 2nd 2005 so before they had received this tip about Shawn killing Billy
00:32:38
police questioned someone named Stephanie Shawn's then girlfriend specifically asking her if Shawn had any
00:32:46
beef with Billy the interesting thing here Captain is the fact that in 2005 police were questioning somebody about
00:32:55
possible Foul Play being involved in the missing person's case of Billy smolinsky
00:33:01
even before the tip actually had come in as far as the 2006 Crim Stoppers tip about Billy being murdered by Shawn this
00:33:09
would lead to several searches in that Shelton area for him they they used dogs they were digging several holes
00:33:18
unfortunately these were all unsuccessful attempts to find Billy's body which this all makes sense on why
00:33:25
then the mom would be going around town pulling down missing person Flyers cuz she's then trying to protect her son
00:33:33
that killed her ex-boyfriend well and it's great that they're out digging in these areas and they're searching for
00:33:38
Billy finally but according to the private investigator ward he believed that the police were looking in the
00:33:46
wrong areas and he believes that the police missed their Mark stating that the 2004 permits in Shelton for pouring
00:33:55
concrete these should have all been pulled but they were not I mean we have this situation here Captain where this
00:34:02
guy who we've received a tip about who have may have killed this guy may have killed Billy right he works in a line of
00:34:10
work that would be easy for him to conceal the body yeah put him under a patio put him under put him in the
00:34:17
ground in a place where we're going to pour lots of concrete the next day mhm Captain just to be clear we should
00:34:23
mention just so no one gets confused that this son of hers Shawn is not the 14-year-old that was going to move in
00:34:32
with Billy okay uh this was old saying that the 14-year-old is doing construction and digging holes and and
00:34:40
doing concrete work right and regardless that all of those searches with that information that was provided to police
00:34:49
regarding this lead of Shawn having killed Billy regardless that those searches led to
00:34:54
nothing the key thing that we need to factor in here and take away from this story is that this is the first lead of
00:35:02
Shawn having killed Billy and then we find out later that that Shawn he he had ODed right so he's never there's no
00:35:12
opportunity to question this individual if he had in fact killed Billy and hi hid the body right now the crazy thing
00:35:19
then you also wonder too let's say this Shan character was using drugs before beforehand that after you murder
00:35:29
somebody your drug use might go up a little bit mhm and maybe one of the causes for the overdose well so in 2010
00:35:39
the family announced its intentions to put up a billboard along I 84 a major highway in Connecticut featuring Billy's
00:35:47
photo and you and I have both seen pictures of this where they ultimately did so and they adverti a $60,000 reward
00:35:54
in the case now the FBI did pull out of the investigation in 2011 and the case was handed over to the Connecticut State
00:36:04
Police here's some weird things because after this transference of the investigation there is a show there's a
00:36:14
show that came out on Discovery ID that featured Billy's case and a woman that had seen that show called uh into the
00:36:22
Waterbury Police Department to report a tip okay okay and she stated hey after seeing this on TV I realized something
00:36:30
was going on at that time and I recall having seen a white truck similar to Billy's and I also recall seeing a small
00:36:38
red car they were both driving up a steep embankment in the woods behind her house late in August of 2004 she
00:36:48
couldn't say the exact date just late in 2004 but this would line up with the time that Billy disappeared yeah correct
00:36:55
she stated that this area cars never drove back there like you might see an ATV or something that's built for that
00:37:01
terrain but never cars and that's why it stood out in her mind okay Billy had a white truck Shawn
00:37:10
the son who had died of the drug overdose red car he had a small red car he had a small uh Ford a red Ford Escort
00:37:18
mhm now we know that he had this vehicle why he ODed in his vehicle he died in his vehicle mhm he was found when his
00:37:27
body was found he was found with three other men in his vehicle at the time now one of these guys this is Chad Hansen in
00:37:36
2010 he was ARR arrested for several different things yeah this is a great group of fellas well what's going to
00:37:45
happen here Captain is they're going to now hear from CH Chad Hansen a very similar story that they heard earlier
00:37:53
and this being that Shawn had killed Billy and that Chad had helped him dispose of the body so now let's be
00:38:00
clear though this Chad dude is not one of the two other people that we've already mentioned from a separate tip
00:38:08
right right now Chad is going to get the police involved and they are going to do
00:38:13
a massive dig this information triggered a massive dig and so the guy that's claiming that his friend Shan mhm the
00:38:24
son of the ex-girlfriend of Billy mhm he's claiming that Shawn killed Billy and he helped dispose of the body
00:38:36
right and he is going to go to law enforcement and he's going to say here's where we did it and they're going to do
00:38:45
a big search I'm a little unclear on this but I think there's a the likelihood here is that Chad was already
00:38:52
locked up for something else right and I think once police received this tip about the red car and the white truck
00:38:59
they're like okay well we've already talked to these other two survivors they didn't provide us with anything so who
00:39:05
else did this Shawn guy know oh well we know that he knew these three dudes because they happened to be in the
00:39:10
vehicle with him when he ODed right so they they probably went and tried to find these people and questioned them
00:39:17
well I'm pretty certain Chad has a lengthy arrest record and conviction list here is it safe to
00:39:25
assume that he's drug user as well yes yes it's very safe and and it's likely that the three men that were in the car
00:39:33
with Shawn when he was found there's a chance they might have been passed out or you know incapacitated at the time
00:39:39
when this when Shawn died so I find it I I couldn't find an exact statement to back this up but my what I did find
00:39:49
leads me to believe that there's a very high likelihood that Chad was already locked up and police were able to go to
00:39:55
him and say look all right look dude what do you know about this situation we keep hearing tip after tip and getting
00:40:02
information after information that this Shawn dude was involved in Billy's disappearance that he killed him they
00:40:08
said help me help you so I don't know if it's one of those deals Captain where Chad then thinks he can work a deal
00:40:17
strike a deal with these guys hey I didn't kill Billy but I was aware that Shawn did and I helped him get rid of
00:40:23
the body and guess what here here we go here's the location where we can go find
00:40:28
his body and what this leads to is a massive dig it triggers uh this massive dig and the terrible thing here is it
00:40:38
they end up finding nothing this never reveals the truth what it ends up doing is it ends up costing the state over
00:40:45
$100,000 to to do perform this dig right and this is something that I think it lasted 10 days it was a large area well
00:40:54
at least at least they're trying to get to the bottom I mean they they brought in sonar and all kinds of stuff to try
00:41:01
to pinpoint where he might be and they never found anything well and the problem is that you can't throw out this
00:41:10
let's say confession right you can't throw that out you can't also throw out the tips before the problem is the
00:41:17
people that are trying to tell you where possibly you can find bil's Body they're they're drug addicts oh
00:41:25
yeah yeah they don't know they probably don't even know what they did uh two days ago and I I just found
00:41:31
this in my notes and I do want to have to I have to make a an apology here I keep saying Hansen it could be
00:41:38
Hansen uh s o n or senen I have it listed differently in my notes but here's the thing do not throw my Hansen
00:41:47
Brothers the three Hansen Brothers under the bus according to according to this here uh this Chad dude has multiple
00:41:57
arrests and on top of some other charges he's been arrested 11 times on charges ranging from forgery to possession of
00:42:06
Narcotics assault burglary and resisting arrest so he's he's known to the police
00:42:12
pretty well later Chad would end up being charged with another charge and this is for providing law enforcement
00:42:19
with false information okay and this is directly the result of the tip that he gave them
00:42:26
of Shawn having killed Billy and him having helped hide the body mhm we to sum this up though we got to be smart
00:42:36
here this doesn't necessarily mean that police think that Chad and and Shawn had
00:42:41
nothing to do with why we don't know where Billy is MH this is simply pointing out that this guy let us on a
00:42:48
wild goose chase where we spent over $100,000 and spent days and days and days of manh hours right
00:42:57
and wherever you told us he was he's not there you've provided us with nothing we're not saying you weren't involved in
00:43:04
his disappearance we're just saying the place that you told us he was we've proved that he's not there it's false
00:43:10
information and I wonder if they have to do that because they struck a deal with
00:43:13
him before and then therefore to offset that deal you charge him with this probably that that's that's a good
00:43:21
assumption to make the result would end up being Chad saying that hey I had nothing to do with The Disappearance of
00:43:28
Billy and and you know he he claims that still to this day as far as I could fine so now he's claiming that he had
00:43:37
nothing to do with it yes yes a this guy's a real Turd Ferguson well remember the drama involving the Flyers yeah
00:43:45
there's still how can I forget right there's still more of this because incredibly in 2006 meline gleon and B&B
00:43:53
Transportation they sued the smolinsky as well as John Murray he's somebody who worked for the Waterbury Observer they
00:44:01
were sued for inflictions of emotional distress defamation of character and invasion of privacy mateline alleged
00:44:09
that the smolinsky knowingly intentionally and maliciously followed her posted flyers in the vicinity of her
00:44:16
workplace and home photographed videotaped and threatened her photographed her and videotaped her
00:44:24
acting like a real turd bag so okay she claims that they put posters on her car and stalked her uh trespassed onto
00:44:33
private property and told people that she was a murderer she claimed that the Observer ran photos of her and
00:44:40
publicized information about her amounting to an invasion of privacy the case against the Observer was dismissed
00:44:48
in 2010 as found the paper was reporting on factual matters of public interest but but the case against the smolinsky
00:44:57
proceeded to trial the smolinsky did not deny that they belied that meline had information regarding their son Billy
00:45:05
and that they intended to pressure her to cooperate with the investigation well she's not going to cooperate because
00:45:11
she's not going to if this the allegations against her son is true she is not especially now with the son being
00:45:22
dead she is not going to come forward and say that he was responsible for it Captain I see that we're we're getting
00:45:28
we're getting tight on time here and this is kind of a lengthy portion of the story tight to toght in the ponts
00:45:36
getting real tight in the ponts the shocking result of the first trial is that meline was she won and was awarded
00:45:44
$52,000 in Damages from the smolinsky family anyone that followed the case was obviously horrified and at this
00:45:52
ridiculous result to sum it up for you though the smolinsky rightfully so are going to appeal this they lose the first
00:46:00
couple of appeals but in 2015 the Connecticut Supreme Court reversed the decision citing thank you First
00:46:10
Amendment freedom of speech with regards to the posting of the Flyers and the burden of proof being on meline on the
00:46:18
defamation of character charges meaning look they're saying we didn't say you were a murderer you you can tell
00:46:26
everybody that you can tell the court that we called you a murderer but we're saying we didn't and the court is saying
00:46:33
if you're saying this is defaming your character you have to prove that you haven't had any wrongdoing in Billy's
00:46:39
case right and I also think that anytime there's a character quote unquote brought into the court of law I think
00:46:48
you should have to prove that you actually have good character she from what we can find does
00:46:54
not right so uh I mean I can't find anything to say that she she does have good charact I
00:47:00
mean other than maybe her work record no I think you should have to prove it you
00:47:05
have to prove that you're it's there should be a law that makes you have to prove that you're not a piece of [ __ ]
00:47:12
there should be a law these people were calling me a POS and I cannot prove that
00:47:16
I'm not right so thankfully and rightfully so it ends up getting overturned and the smolinsky don't have
00:47:23
to pay this woman dime what's crazy here though captain and what I couldn't get over when I was digging into this thing
00:47:31
and really sifting through the players and potential players involved and why this young man has
00:47:38
disappeared it's almost a similar situation to we saw in a recent case that we covered sha McDuffy Jr yeah
00:47:46
where once you really start getting into the people that knew him the most right
00:47:53
before he disappeared there seems to be some rumor rumors amongst the group as to who could have been involved on the
00:48:00
surface this thing really straight up looked like maybe mine and her who she was running around with Chris were
00:48:06
involved because Chris received the threat but it's starting to look like like it's confusing because here we have
00:48:16
this thing where Chris could have been involved he still could have been involved but he's never implicated by
00:48:22
any of the tips that come in well well we know he's a liar here's what I also wonder too is did Billy actually commit
00:48:30
any domestic violence against meline or was that just fabricated by Chris or fabricated by somebody else well no I
00:48:40
mean the way that the there is no there's no evidence of it there's no real proof of that right the only and
00:48:45
the only accusation we have comes from the result of Billy being murdered by Shawn saying that hey he beat up my mom
00:48:53
so I choked him to death mhm and we don't have Shawn here to question him about that here's a very interesting
00:49:02
thing about that trial that they had about going to court suing the smolinsky for money because they harassed her or
00:49:11
whatever the interesting thing here is Chris Swenson the the the married guy that she was running around with he had
00:49:19
to take the stand during that and so they question him during those Court proceedings about what went on shortly
00:49:26
around the time Billy went missing shortly afterwards and so on and so forth what I found really interesting
00:49:32
was in his testimony he says that he was told by meline that the person that left
00:49:39
that threatening message on his machine was in fact Billy remember he told police their police report that they
00:49:48
took was he stated that look I don't know who left that message right so interestingly enough I think that those
00:49:56
Court proceedings prove that you know we already thought Chris Swenson was a liar
00:50:01
mhm I think that Court proceedings prove that either he lied in court when he said it I was told it was Billy by
00:50:09
somebody that knew him very well or that he lied on the police report when he told the police I don't know who that
00:50:15
was I didn't know that it was Billy it seems like in this case that we we know what the answer is we just can't find
00:50:23
the definitive proof mhm and hopefully the fact that they did such a extensive dig that that doesn't
00:50:34
persuade them to go off these tips MH and then actually persuades them to dive into these tips further and try to find
00:50:43
the right location so we can find definitive proof of these allegations well and understandably this case has
00:50:50
been unspeakably frustrating for the smolinsky family for all these years now now they know that Billy isn't coming
00:50:59
home suspects have died his dog Harley has died we have to wonder would the case have dragged on for so long if
00:51:08
police had initially responded with urgency efficiency and purpose as the Waterberry Observer put it Law
00:51:16
Enforcement Officers across the country go into a heightened state of alert if a
00:51:21
child goes missing the Amber Alert System allows for for immediate Interstate notification of a missing
00:51:28
child the media snaap to attention when children or attractive young women disappear but when a 31-year-old man
00:51:37
goes missing it seems like nobody cares except his family yeah sadly several suspects have provided detailed
00:51:45
information about what happened to Billy and even though the stories contradict each other they all have the same ending
00:51:52
Billy was murdered and his body was buried somewhere the case has turned his parents into advocates for missing
00:51:59
adults everywhere that at least can be Billy's [Music] Legacy I want to thank everybody for
00:52:22
listening thanks for sharing on social media if you'd like to check out our show off the Record that's on Stitcher
00:52:29
premium and for a free month of listening you can go to Stitcher premium.com truecrimegarage and use promo code
00:52:38
garage and also you can find all of our old episodes on the Stitcher app exclusively on the Stitcher app a lot of
00:52:44
people are asking me how do I find the old ones well in the Le hand corner there's a date I'll say
00:52:50
2018 you there's a drop- down menu so you got to pick the year 2015 or 16 or 17 and then you pick the episode from
00:52:59
there so anyways I appreciate you guys listening until next week be good be kind and don't
00:53:07
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