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off your tickets and that's enough of the business everybody gather round grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
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crime [Music] thank you [Music] foreign [Music] picture this your mother or father for the sake of
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this week's True Crime Story will make more sense from the perspective of the mother
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it's the middle of summer in Austin Texas and it's plenty hot outside your oldest is your 18 year old daughter
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now at this age she's your daughter but she's not really a child but she is still not yet a woman
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she's really still a girl but she's finding her way she's just starting to carve out her
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little place her soon to be well deserved little place in this world she's had some ups and downs
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but it's really starting to feel like she has put most of those Downs behind her
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and through her own hard work and dedication to herself she's really starting to put it all
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together but there's this let's call it a large anchor attached to a short chain
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that's wrapped around her throat and it's holding her back she is so close to spreading her wings
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and finally taking flight but that dead weight is holding her down it's her boyfriend
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and he's a real piece of work but to mention work in the boyfriend in the same sentence
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really just seems kind of silly it's funny and you really think about it because this guy does not know the
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meaning of the word work he's a loser and why the heck your daughter hits her wagon to his star
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well no one has a clue and you didn't like this guy to begin with you knew he was a loser
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when she first started to bring him around it was obvious and she's still with them
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if she could just wake up and leave this guy then she would most certainly be on a
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bridge to Better Days but she's 18. and she's in that weird space where she's still your daughter
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but she's not really her own woman she does not have to listen and obey your every command
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and she's not your only kid you have others younger ones that still require more
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attention regardless of the boyfriend situation everything between you and your oldest
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daughter is good and you are working on each other growing as ladies together and
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separately but tonight she's staying at a hotel with the loser boyfriend because he certainly is not welcome in
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your home morning rolls around and the two of you had plans to go shopping but your daughter
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doesn't show up and now you're angry but it's not the first time that plans have been broken or mom got stood up
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we'll go shopping without her you decide after all she's the one that promised that she'd be home first thing in the
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morning as this was a special shopping trip mom and her four girls we're going shopping in San Marcos
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but your 18 year old daughter never showed and now it's 15 years later and you're still waiting
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waiting for her to come home this is true crime garage [Music] foreign Elizabeth paltoff was born on January
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3rd 1988 and 18 years later Roxanne is living at home with her mother Elizabeth Harris and her sisters and one brother
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in Texas Roxanne was the oldest of the five siblings and the family was super close the people close to her called her
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Roxy her sisters and her mom described Roxanne as hilarious sweet fun-loving maybe a little naive
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she and her mom spoke numerous times a day and everyone who has been involved in this case describes the two as having
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a very special relationship closer than most moms and 18 year old daughters one of Roxanne's friends said that whenever
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she would sleep over at Roxy's house they would hang out on her mother's bed just chatting with Elizabeth for hours
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Roxanne went through some things some difficult things in her teen years and dropped out of McCollum High School in
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her junior year but was slowly working on obtaining her GED now captain from what I've heard in my
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limited understanding of what was going on with the family during her high school years is that Mom and Dad were
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separating and I don't know the details of the divorce but it sounds like there was a lot of moving around you know Dad
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moves mom moves kids are being moved around this might have added some difficulty to her high school years and
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led her to dropping out well divorce becomes a lot more difficult when you have that large of a family and now
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she's working to get that GED and it sounds like she only had one test remaining a math test before she
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completed obtaining her degree her deal with her mom was that if she got her GED
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her mom would purchase her a vehicle which she was super excited about for now she was taking the bus or would
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get a ride from Friends whenever she needed to go somewhere she was also working two jobs on that
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summer Roxanne had enrolled in the Goodwill job training program and through that she
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had obtained an internship at Charlotte's Fiesta Flowers on Lamar Boulevard according to the Austin
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Chronicle for which the journalist Jordan Smith extensively covered Roxanne's case quote everyone loved
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working with her said flower shop owner Charlotte Wainscott she was just such a sweet and nice
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person when the internship ended Wayne Scott hired Roxanne as a paid employee according to her caseworker Roxanne
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hoped that one day she might be able to have her own flower shop she also aspired to get into fashion
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perhaps being a designer but for now Roxanne picked up a second job at the Census Bureau so she's really working
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things out here in my opinion Captain she's got two jobs she's trying to finalize this GED she certainly has some
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short-term and long-term goals now even though Roxanne was technically an adult she's 18. she was still dependent on her
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mother living at home and she had just got off of her mother's cell phone plan and recently purchased her own cell
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phone and was working towards saving money and establishing good credit she spoke with her mom and her sisters
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constantly this would be via text or phone calls any time that she wasn't at home she stayed in close in constant
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communication with Mom and the sisters now at this time on our timeline the summer of 2006 Roxanne had been dating a
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guy named Lewis walls for about two years the timeline of their relationship is a
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little foggy and this is coming from the people that knew Roxanne the best but the best we can figure out is that it's
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roughly since she was 16 that she had been dating this guy it sounds like it started off pretty casual in the
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beginning and then got pretty serious at some point now Lewis walls he's bad news and he's bad news from the
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get-go Roxanne's mom said that she never approved of him and he was not allowed in their home
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according to the Mother Elizabeth Louis was abusive and violent in fact there was an incident where Elizabeth
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and some of her younger daughters had just by chance come upon Roxanne sitting at a bus stop across town from their
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home wearing big giant sunglasses when she got in the car they saw that her nose was severely injured Roxanne lied
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to her family and said something accidental had happened to her it looked like she got beat up by her
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boyfriend but the story that she was going to tell is that some guys were harassing her and her boyfriend Louis
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decided to defend her and this broke out into a fight and during the course of the fight
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that Roxanne and accidentally got hit in the face but some of her very close friends seemed to know the truth
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and after Roxanne disappeared her friend Elizabeth Ellis told Roxanne's mother that actually Lewis had punched Roxanne
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in the face and broken her nose so badly that Roxanne had to have surgery to repair the damage how old was Lewis well
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Lewis is quite a bit older than Roxanne and that does not help the situation for
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anybody to try to like this guy it's a little weird though here Captain because the waters are very murky and it sounds
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to me like Roxanne and her friends and family were not fully aware of this guy's age when they first started dating
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right so from my understanding it sounds a little happenstance that these two met
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and I'll just go ahead and cut through it right now but he was like in his late 20s when they met well he's probably
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showing up to high school parties so of course it should be it should be kind of
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happenstance right they probably shouldn't be running in the same circles if she's 16 and he's in his late 20s
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but from my understanding they meet each other and it sounds like most of her close
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friends and family seem to say that Roxanne was not fully aware that this guy probably lied to her in the
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beginning he did say he was an adult but it sounds like Roxanne thought that this dude was
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like 19 or 20. and most of the people seem to agree that this guy is younger looking
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and did even kind of pass as 19 or 20 when they first met this guy but again in the beginning of their relationship
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it was extremely casual they were dating and this would be for about six months so it wasn't like she was bringing him
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around a lot during this six-month time period yeah she's probably a pretty naive
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16 year old when they started dating but at some point when she turned 17 18 knowing the age difference that's either
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something you need to be explaining to your parents or you need to be cutting off ties with this individual yourself
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and of course after this incident with the broken nose and the nose surgery of course her mother Elizabeth and her
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family they're doing their best or at least what they could to try to keep Roxanne away from Lewis or encourage her
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to not be with this guy anymore but since her 18th birthday in January of 2006 as we said in the trailer she's now
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an adult Technically she's an adult and sometimes she's going to go out and do what she wants to do hang out with who
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she wants to hang out with regardless of what others may say well right and she has that right because she has a she's
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an adult but as a parent these are my rules you live if you live under my roof then you have to follow my
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rules but back to the the broken nose even if he's not abusive physically abusive because we don't know if that is
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true or not but even if her story is correct and you're but that means you're now hanging out with somebody that's
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getting into violent altercations while you're around and you become uh innocent
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bystander well and if you're trying to sell the story to Mom and friends what a better story to come up with than oh he
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was defending me he you know he's you might think he's a bad guy but he was really just doing the right thing
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here and I ended up getting accidentally hit or injured during the course of him
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defending me the thing here though is we have close friends of hers that have come forward and say that look she may
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have told Mom and her family this one story about this fight breaking out with these guys that were rude to her
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and knight in shining armor Lewis defending her yeah but she told them a completely different story her her two
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friends and that involved him punching her in the face so when they met captain my notes say that Lewis was 28 years old
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and he had two kids at that time and at some point of course Roxanne had to learn of this dude's age and of
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course she becomes aware of these children and in fact there's a lot of speculation that over the course of this
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two-year relationship when she's being told to leave this guy by practically everybody
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that not only did she seem to love this Lewis character but she probably fell in
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love with these two children as well because it seems like she was helping out a good deal with these kids now
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Lewis lives at home or from what I could find was living mostly at home with his
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mother and at least his two children seem to be mostly in the care of his mother but
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Roxanne's trying to help out with these kids Louis well they probably rode the bus
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together is the opposite of Roxanne and what I mean by that is he doesn't seem to be doing anything to get
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his life together we have Roxanne who's out there working multiple jobs she's trying to line up future better jobs she
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has goals short term long term she's working on that GED if she gets the GED she's going to get a vehicle for Mom
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she's got her own cell phone Louis doesn't have his own phone doesn't have a driver's license doesn't have a car
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doesn't have a job what he's got is a girlfriend that seems to be paying for a lot of his stuff in his children's stuff
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with a mom that's helping out yeah which would be fine if you're in your late teens in your in between that high
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school and college or High School in real life but he's 10 years past that and he has
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two children that he's responsible for and then it makes you wonder are these kids
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primarily with him or technically his mother was he such a loser that he corrupted the mother of these
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children and now she became even a bigger loser than Lewis well the the kids seem to be mostly in the care of
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his mother I don't know what the situation was with the children's no that's what I'm saying
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is like where she had like did he corrupt her so bad that she's a bigger loser than him
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it sounds to me Captain like most people seem to agree that they believe that Roxanne probably did not
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know Lewis's true age until about a year into their relationship according to the Austin
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Chronicle this citing Jordan Smith's interview with Roxanne's friend Elizabeth Ellis quote Roxanne was simply
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too trusting and too generous Roxanne stayed with walls Lewis walls in part she believes to help take care of his
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kids his two children to whom she had grown attached she would buy them presents at the dollar store dinosaur
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toys for his son for example and pretty accessories for his daughter's hair she'd go to the apartment Lewis wall
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shared with his mother and babysit for the kids by herself when Lewis wanted to go out sometimes overnight
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she had a big heart and was a nurturer says Ellis she was watching the kids when he was going out to see his other
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girlfriend Ellis says that she and Harris tried to convince Roxanne that she was being used quote she really
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didn't know how to pick him Ellis were called recently Roxanne was always trying to get Lewis walls to get himself
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a job to be a man and that's something that her mom and I would always tell her you can't tell a man to be a man he
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needs to just be one but Roxanne would always stick up for him and perhaps lie for him Roxanne's junior high school
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friend Rachel Gonzalez said that Lewis regularly cheated on Roxanne and pushed her around but Roxanne refused to leave
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him and instead as so often happens pushed her friends away to still be with this guy
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still in the summer of 2006 her friends believed that Roxanne was in fact done with this guy done with the loser Lewis
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but he would not let her go Rachel Gonzalez told the Austin Chronicle that the two weren't getting along quote she
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told me that they were arguing she recalls she was trying to leave him alone but he wasn't letting her I said
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to her just leave don't talk to him anymore but you can only tell a person so much let's just State what this
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wanker is he's a pedophile I mean he met her when she was 16. he was grooming her
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that's one of the big things when you're grooming individuals separate them from
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their friends and their family and and have it where your their whole existence that's what he did he groomed her
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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] all right we're back cheers mates cheers to everybody in the front and in the
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back cheers to you Captain all right let's start talking about July of 2006. we have 18 year old Roxanne who had been
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staying with Lewis her then 30 year old boyfriend for several days at various motels around runberg Texas this is a
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high crime area near the City of Austin or in the city of Austin now from my understanding here Captain is that this
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area this general area of runberg they've done a lot to really clean it up in the past several years but a quick
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check of crime in that area and this was studies as of 2012 state that 11 over 11
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of the Greater Austin area's crime takes place in this space in this runberg area
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which is only about six square miles wow so that's a good amount now while Lewis
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wasn't welcome in Roxanne's family home it sounds like for whatever reason Roxanne was not welcomed into Lewis's
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mother's home where she lived with Lewis's two kids so the two of them would have a difficult time being
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together hanging out together spending time together because it doesn't seem like anybody wanted the two of them to
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be together or that's just what he's telling her well so they're hanging out at these motels these are overnight
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stays over the course of several days now on July 4th God Bless America rocks and stopped in at home this was to grab
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some clothes at her mother's house she talked to her mom daily for the next couple of days as one would expect as we
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said they have a close relationship then Roxanne called her mother this is around
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4 30 p.m on Friday July 7th this was to say hey I'm not coming home tonight I'm staying out one more night
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and her mother Elizabeth said that she thought that she had been spending way too much time with Lewis yeah well and I
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don't want you to spend time with him anyway but let's not do one more night here's my problem so if he doesn't have
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a job and she has two jobs but she has some bills and look when you're 18 you're just the jobs that you have don't
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pay that much money where are they staying motel flicky flicky Long Dong Hotel I mean they're
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they're PL they're staying in crap hotels agreed and you have a couple where only one person seems to have any
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kind of income and two defend Roxanne here a little bit I I do think she was making pretty good money at the time
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given her age anyway as you said a lot of jobs when you're 18 don't pay a whole heck of a lot no no and I'm not I'm not
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knocking her what I'm saying is when you're 18 your jobs don't pay that well and plus she has these expenses he she
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has to support him and so she's probably paying for these hotels I mean this this
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guy is just a manipulator a user he should have these expenses he just doesn't he just chooses not to have them
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and I kind of go back to what her friend and her mom were saying about you can't
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tell a man to be a man he just has to be a man and one thing I've always thought
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here we're talking about a 30 year old for crying out loud but one thing I've always tried to tell younger people and
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even myself in my younger days is age does not dictate whether a boy becomes a man you know just because you
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wake up one day and you're 18 you're not a man a man is someone that upholds their responsibilities in life and this
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dude certainly is not that yes some boys never become men and I could get past the age thing a little bit not not when
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she's 16. if he was 30 years old and he met an 18 year old technically that's legal in the eyes of the law
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but if this guy had a job was supporting her taking her nice places buying her nice things telling her to go to college
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I could get past that I can't get past a 28 year old manipulating and grooming a
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minor well and you're exactly right what you have here is when she's 16 and leading up to this time of her
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actually being an adult at 18. he is in fact grooming her because by this point she's I can't say for certain
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what was going on in the relation relationship at this very day in our timeline in July of 2006 but what's
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clear to everyone is at some point she fell in love with this dude and so she was blinded by that love that affection
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and so of course she's probably not making the best judgments and decisions at the time because her love was blind
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and unfortunately she fell in love with this loser guy now on this night okay we're at Friday July 7th at 4 30 in the
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afternoon we have Roxanne calling home calling home to speak with her mother Elizabeth saying hey I'm going to be out
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for one more night and of course we know Elizabeth doesn't love this because she
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knows this means Roxanne's spending another night with Lewis who she doesn't like at all but on top of that there's
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an added urgency to getting Roxanne to come home because they had already agreed that
00:29:13
Elizabeth Roxanne and Roxanne's sisters they were all going to go on this big shopping trip in the morning and this
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was kind of a special to do for the group you know it's hard to get everybody together it sounds like
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Elizabeth and Roxanne both had a little extra money at this time and there were some new stores opening up nearby and
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they wanted to go check them out together so this was kind of an event that was planned in advance and she's a
00:29:41
little worried that this extra night out another night out at the motel with Lewis might mean she doesn't show up for
00:29:50
the morning's shopping trip her mother Elizabeth says okay fine reluctantly agrees I don't really know that she has
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to agree for her 18 year old daughter to stay out another night but she accepts it a Saturday morning came and went and
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Roxanne never showed up the family waited and waited and then gave up at some point and just went shopping
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without her they you know you've promised these other kids that we're going to go out and have this
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fun day yeah so now you're out you got to take the other kids but her mother Elizabeth obviously is
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not pleased and in fact she was a little ticked off to the point of saying you know what I'm
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I could reach out to her I could give her the business for not showing up today but I'm not going to call her I'm not
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going to call and bother not going to waste my time to call my daughter's cell phone she thought you know what I will
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let her let her be the one that has to call me and apologize or make up some excuse while why she couldn't be on this
00:30:56
shopping trip that we had all planned together when the family gets home from this trip the shopping trip this is
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around 4 30 on Saturday afternoon so if you're filling out a timeline here this is almost exactly at the 24 hour mark
00:31:12
since she has last heard from her daughter Elizabeth's phone rings and it was Roxanne's cell phone number
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that was calling her so Elizabeth answered it she's thinking all right here come the excuses or here
00:31:28
comes the apology for missing the shopping trip right but she's immediately surprised
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when it's not Roxanne on the other end of the phone in fact she's quite surprised to hear
00:31:39
that it's Lewis that is calling her a guy that she does not like that probably has no reason nor business to
00:31:47
be calling her she says and this is Elizabeth's words that Lewis did sound concerned he
00:31:54
sounded concerned and he asked Elizabeth if she had seen or heard from Roxanne recently now as you can imagine Captain
00:32:03
Elizabeth is very alarmed by this she says no I thought she was with you of course
00:32:11
yeah you know this this is a situation you know she's been staying in a motel with this guy if she's not at home
00:32:18
they're close you're she doesn't have a driver's license she may have had a driver's license pardon me but I know
00:32:23
she didn't have a vehicle at this time right so at the very least you're thinking in your mind I don't like this
00:32:30
guy but at least I know where my daughter is she would either be at home at work one of her two jobs or out with
00:32:36
this dude now this dude's calling me wondering where she is it's strange it's very strange so this is what Lewis tells
00:32:44
Elizabeth on the phone he says that the previous night sometime around 8 30 PM that he and Roxanne they got into an
00:32:54
argument in the hotel room hold on because I I'm trying to follow this this is Saturday right so Lewis is calling
00:33:02
Elizabeth on Saturday asking where Roxanne is right now he's talking about his story of Friday the last time he saw
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her and he he says this is about 8 30 p.m on Friday night wow so he's saying hey we had an argument at
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the motel room the argument was about an old girlfriend of his or something or other and Roxanne storms out yeah do you
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know what her name was I do not skankosaurus Rex she sounds lovely yeah she was a dinosaur of a
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woman whatever went down Roxanne according to Lewis underlined that stormed out of the motel
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room and left walking out walking away from the hotel right Lewis says hey he tried to go after her but
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she wanted nothing to do with him finally you would think right he saw her walking along the service
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road out in front of the motel and then he says that he saw her make a left again she's on foot onto Middle Lane
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so he went back to the room and he says that you know he's gonna try to cool down it was a heated
00:34:10
argument he was just going to let her blow off some steam he's going to chill out in the hotel room wait for her to
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come back well in his defense right and his defense she doesn't have a car she you're in a bad area she's probably
00:34:28
not going to just take off on foot so she might just pace around a little bit in the parking lot and come back in
00:34:36
yeah this is one of those times when you know look if you've if you've lived in a
00:34:41
city long enough you are aware of the bad areas the bad parts of town yeah and you just hope and pray and I do this
00:34:49
with even people I don't know kids I don't know I hope that 16 17 18 19 year old young people
00:34:57
that they realize what could happen what can happen when you are in a bad area of
00:35:03
course bad things can happen anywhere right but there's a higher risk level in certain areas now we're talking about
00:35:11
a pretty 18 year old woman walking around on her own in what we've already clearly laid out is a high
00:35:19
crime area on a Friday night according to again according to Lewis's story well and given her size should be a lot
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easier to take control of correct I mean obviously Rick Rude was much easier to body slam than Andre the Giant so size
00:35:38
always plays a factor in these situations I gotta point this out too because if I'm Elizabeth and I'm on
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the phone talking to Lewis and he's telling me this story not only am I immediately alarmed that my daughter has
00:35:57
gone off on her own on foot he hasn't seemed to seen her overnight now she never returned overnight right but my
00:36:04
mind's also going wait a second this dude's calling me on her phone her phone number was the one that came up on my
00:36:10
phone yeah so did she storm out and just leave her phone that doesn't seem like something that it doesn't seem right a
00:36:17
woman would do doesn't make sense but okay let's give Lewis the benefit of the doubt here if he is in fact telling me
00:36:24
the truth well then that means my daughter went out on her own on foot in a high crime area without even a cell
00:36:30
phone yeah again it could have just been a situation where she gets an argument with him and
00:36:39
thinks that she's going to eventually cool off and come back in that she wasn't going to take off yeah there's a
00:36:45
little more to Lewis's story he says that after some time passed so he says roughly about 20 30 minutes she doesn't
00:36:53
return he must have cooled off or chilled out by that point he says that he went out to go look for her now keep
00:37:00
in mind this dude does not have a driver's license nor a vehicle so he's out looking for her on foot as well so
00:37:07
this is roughly let's say like 9 00 p.m 9-ish yeah that would be correct he says
00:37:12
look I I went out there looking for it and I could not find her and then she never at any point comes back to the
00:37:19
hotel room and then he adds when telling Mom the story that oh Roxanne also left without any of her
00:37:29
stuff right but she took her ID that seems like a weird thing to kind of throw in there but that's what she says
00:37:37
that that Lewis said you think that'd be in your purse it sounds like according to all parties involved that Roxanne
00:37:46
walked away from this motel room if this story is to be believed wearing a pink tank top white shorts and a pair
00:37:55
of flip-flops so normal summer attire Elizabeth and some of her daughters well they're
00:38:04
they're nervous they're anxious they want to go find Roxy so they all jump into the car and they went down to
00:38:12
the area this is the Budget Inn where the two were staying right off of Interstate 35.
00:38:19
this was an area of Austin as we said called runberg which was to put it mildly sketchy the hotel was basically a
00:38:27
cheapo Motel on a city dangerous strip that was known for drugs and even sex work and things of that
00:38:37
nature there was crime going on in and around those streets Elizabeth was angst to see that area where her daughter had
00:38:47
walked off into the night alone oh first of all you like we said she doesn't have a lot of
00:38:54
money so she you know that your daughter is staying the night in these hotels can't really say much because she is 18
00:39:04
and but at some point as the mother then you have to decide how long are you going to put up with this until you put
00:39:11
your foot down and say hey if you're going to keep doing this stuff you're going to just have to move out well in
00:39:16
in Elizabeth's defense with Roxanne here too we have a situation where mom probably doesn't fully know exactly
00:39:24
what's going on other than what she's being told by Roxanne so Elizabeth says she shows up to this area to this place
00:39:31
and she's like oh I was kind of under the impression that they were staying at a nice hotel
00:39:37
not some run-down place that's you know a dump near the highway it's nice to Lewis
00:39:44
right she opened up the door and she's like oh my God it smells like feed in here to Lewis it's like Disney World
00:39:51
yeah he's like man it's so nice to be out of my mama's house for the night so Elizabeth and family and friends spent
00:39:58
the next couple of days trying to track down Roxy and of course searching the area around the motel they peered into
00:40:07
ditches and climbed the sides of dumpsters but found nothing no sign of of Roxanne or where she could be can we
00:40:16
take a step back for a second because okay if we believe Lewis then I applaud him for calling
00:40:28
his girlfriend's mom he knows she don't like me but it's gotten to a point where I have
00:40:37
to call her so I would applaud him for that my big issue is why did you wait till
00:40:44
the next day once you go out looking for her and you can't find her and you know that she doesn't have her
00:40:53
cell phone on her so she wasn't able to contact anybody that she knows there would be no way for her to get to
00:41:03
an area of safety that she knows that Roxanne knows once you know that around 9 00 pm
00:41:12
that's when you call you don't hesitate and wait till the next morning well he's likely calling it this time
00:41:20
because he knows that the parents her mother being close with Roxanne her family being close with her at some
00:41:27
point they're going to come looking for Roxanne and the longer I delay telling anybody that I think she's missing or or
00:41:36
at least throw out there the possibility that I might be worried or concerned about her
00:41:41
the worst this is going to look for me later so at some point yeah he decides I got
00:41:46
to reach out to Mom I got to reach out to her family and see where she is now the other thing that goes down here too
00:41:53
and I've seen several different reports about this and I I don't know in all honesty which one is the most
00:41:59
accurate but some Reports say that that day that later that night this is after Roxanne's Mother Elizabeth shows up on
00:42:08
scene with her daughters actively looking for Roxanne some Reports say that it was that night
00:42:14
and other Reports say that it was the next day but regardless what we do know that did happen
00:42:22
is that both Roxanne's Mother Elizabeth Falls Austin PD to report Roxanne is missing
00:42:31
and she also convinced Lewis at the same time she says no you got the call as well because according to your story
00:42:41
and what you told me on the phone you are the last person to see her so we need you to call this in as well
00:42:49
so kudos to Elizabeth for sounding the alarm so police received two calls both of them for the purpose of filing
00:42:58
missing persons reports on Roxanne and the police responded they looked around for Roxanne when they
00:43:05
showed up in the area they did make some inquiries but of course this is the situation they assumed that
00:43:12
the young adult 18 years old gets in a fight with her boyfriend they probably seen the story a million times
00:43:19
everybody anybody who's watched cops knows that that show is just filled with calls of of boyfriend and girlfriend
00:43:25
yelling and screaming at each other and a lot of them one of them takes off in the middle of the night
00:43:30
so after all we do have Lewis who's admitting to police and to Mom that yeah we got into
00:43:38
an argument and then he's saying that Roxanne stormed off after this argument during the course of
00:43:46
and Elizabeth stressed to the detectives to the officers that responded saying look
00:43:52
there's no way I don't care what you think happened I don't think I don't care if you think that she's just going
00:43:58
to go somewhere and hide out and stay away from this guy but she would have come home
00:44:03
she would have figured out a way to get home she would have contacted me at the very least to call me tell me what's up
00:44:10
and to top that off she would have never have left without her purse her phone and these are all things that Lewis was
00:44:16
saying that Roxanne had left behind in the motel room disco and played devil's advocate here for a second it is
00:44:23
possible though get in a fight you're at a hotel I'm guessing their door doesn't go to a
00:44:31
Lobby or go to some fancy area their door probably goes outside that she storms off and she goes into
00:44:41
the parking lot and she doesn't leave with anything but her ID and and the reason why maybe I'd buy the
00:44:51
ID if he can put if if there was two Hotel keys if there was two Hotel keys and she left
00:44:59
with her ID and a hotel Key I could buy his story a little bit more yeah that's one thing I questioned myself as well
00:45:07
here Captain I couldn't find anywhere anybody stating whether she or Lewis even claiming if she left with
00:45:15
a hotel key or not and I'm guessing the way that it's described that this might be a an actual
00:45:21
physical key for her to get into the motel room that they were staying not one of the little plastic credit card
00:45:29
keys I'm just guessing now the other major red flag here though is going to be a few days after Roxanne disappears
00:45:38
this is when Lewis finally brought back Elizabeth brought to Elizabeth sorry Roxanne's thinks this is five days after
00:45:47
she had gone missing on the 12th of July he comes over he hands her a bag of clothes
00:45:54
Roxanne's phone Roxanne's jewelry her toothbrush and makeup and her pink purse saying these are the items that she left
00:46:03
behind when she stormed off immediately her mother and Roxanne's sisters were concerned
00:46:09
when they saw this stuff that Lewis brought back of course it was her phone and it was her pink purse
00:46:18
but in regards to the clothing immediately this wasn't like okay more time goes by and they start to get
00:46:26
concerned and then notice this this was immediately they noticed that the clothes they were given
00:46:32
none of them believed that they belonged to Roxanne at all and in fact her sisters swore that they knew every
00:46:40
article of Roxanne's clothing because her and her sisters all kind of shared clothing even you know fighting arguing
00:46:48
over clothes at times the way that sisters will do and not only was this stuff that they said was not Roxanne's
00:46:55
wasn't her style wasn't something that she would wear but it's also stuff that's all the wrong size
00:47:01
and Roxanne's purse still contained her wallet and her ID is missing further that wallet did contain some items that
00:47:11
the family observed with horror these were Roxanne's Rings according to her mother Elizabeth quote even when she
00:47:20
went swimming that girl wore accessories why on Earth would Roxanne take off all
00:47:26
of her jewelry and leave it behind and then storm off into the night as you pointed out Captain she's leaving with
00:47:32
if we are to believe Lewis she's leaving with no money no phone and in an unsafe
00:47:37
and unfamiliar area my answer would be that she would and that Lewis is probably not really
00:47:47
telling the truth here regardless of my feelings what we do know is that this story that
00:47:54
Lewis is telling it does not sit well with Roxanne's family I I hate to play devil's advocate
00:48:01
for this giant pile of dog [ __ ] you know but is it possible she took off her rings
00:48:07
why would he return these items if there weren't hers no one's questioning the Rings
00:48:17
it sounds to me like they're concerned that the clothing I understand and maybe he maybe this son
00:48:25
of a [ __ ] returned a skankosaurus Rex close clothing to the wrong house several days after she goes missing he's
00:48:33
still in contact with the family then he takes every item that he claims that she
00:48:37
left behind look within seconds you can explain away certain things somebody says well shoot that girl would swim in
00:48:45
her rings well maybe she took a shower maybe she was put it on lotion and she took off the Rings as they were in a
00:48:54
fight and then she got pissed off and she walked out of the room every little thing that they're pissed
00:49:00
off about you can explain away within seconds he he returned the cell phone he returned clothes oh well we
00:49:07
don't recognize those clothes she stayed a lot over at Lewis's house before there was confrontation and she wasn't
00:49:17
allowed to stay there so is it possible when they were at these hotels did they go buy clothes and she didn't take a
00:49:23
bunch of clothes with her or did she just get clothes from Lewis's house and then they went and stayed in these
00:49:29
hotels I just think you can explain away some of these things that they don't like of course you can you absolutely
00:49:36
can does become a little difficult that the clothing size does not seem to match
00:49:41
up but you're right you can't explain some of these things away the problem though
00:49:46
being it's been five days you've not seen her nor heard from her in this suspicious activity continues
00:49:54
and a lot of it is circling around one dude and I want to make sure that we're not painting the wrong picture here
00:50:01
because this is not Lewis spending five days with these women trying to look for
00:50:07
Roxanne now he has very very limited communication with Elizabeth and the sisters right so much so that yeah he
00:50:17
called Elizabeth yeah he agreed to file a missing persons report but other than that nine o'clock time that he says he
00:50:26
went out and looked for for a little bit and couldn't find her nobody else is saying that he was actively looking for
00:50:33
Roxanna any other point ever that he was assisting Elizabeth and the sisters looking for Roxanne no he wasn't
00:50:41
in fact that he was so limited access to Roxanne's family that even though he says hey she stormed
00:50:50
off and left all this stuff here he wasn't available to give them that stuff until five days later and when he shows
00:50:57
up with it it's not a meeting of the minds it's oh here's a bag of your sister's stuff right peace out and then
00:51:04
you open up the bag after dude leaves and the items in there are not checking out with what you know about your sister
00:51:12
my biggest problem with Lewis is the hesitation to call especially her being in that area you know what she doesn't
00:51:20
have honor you don't hesitate you don't hesitate that long to call so what's going on hold on a second how the hell
00:51:27
did they get to the hotel in the first place there's public transportation in these cities well now I understand that
00:51:33
but I'm saying do we do we know how they did it did they take a bus do they get a
00:51:38
cab do they you know because neither one of them Drive correct they're both known to frequent
00:51:45
the bus note to all the little ladies out there if you if your boyfriend asks you to spend the night in a hotel and
00:51:51
you have to take a bus to get there don't don't do it tell them to save his money or save your money so you can get
00:51:57
a car yeah she's probably paying for the motel room now in the meantime of what's
00:52:03
going on I want to make sure that everybody understands what's going on here again saying he's not actively out
00:52:09
looking for Roxanne as far as we know right there's no one to say that that's what was going on again look even if the
00:52:17
family doesn't like me if I supposedly love this woman and she's missing I'm going to be bothering them saying hey
00:52:24
how can I help what can I do I'm going to be out there actively looking if he was that is not known to anybody
00:52:30
other than Lewis but what we can tell everybody and what we do know is the following Lewis
00:52:38
checked out of that motel room this was before reporting Roxanne missing to her mother on Saturday
00:52:46
afternoon so Roxanne never shows back up he went ahead and checked out of the motel room
00:52:52
and leaves leaves the immediate area he's at his sister's apartment this is a Walnut Creek complex is what I have in
00:53:01
my notes and he supposedly took Roxanne's things with him to his sister's apartment then calls her
00:53:10
mother to say hey by the way your daughter stormed off I don't know where she is now by the time the Austin Police
00:53:16
got around to checking the motel for anything suspicious well it seems like it was far too late for one thing the
00:53:22
motel records were a mess as you can imagine in this type of area they're just happy that someone rented the room
00:53:30
good luck keeping tabs on everybody and probably often charging cash rather than
00:53:37
any kind of paper trail that way the person that's working the desk can just pocket the money as said
00:53:45
the motel records were a mess it was the kind of place where where I guess you could get rooms by the hour
00:53:51
and as you pointed out Captain a lot of people probably paid under the table some clerks kept records some didn't
00:53:59
detectives believed that they figured out which room Roxanne and Lewis had shared but by the time they took a look
00:54:06
at it days had passed and it had been cleaned and reoccupied several times think about that statement
00:54:14
okay one it's disappointing that detectives weren't in that room faster looking for evidence looking for things
00:54:21
that could help lead them to Roxanne I get that but within that same statement is
00:54:28
something that's even more alarming that's not super obvious detectives believed they figured out
00:54:37
which room Roxanne and Lewis had shared that means Lewis is not cooperating with
00:54:42
the detectives he's not helping them he's not providing information to them to even tell them this was the room we
00:54:50
were staying God I hate this I hate this case because I keep feeling like I'm defending this
00:54:56
dick I love that you start off by saying I hate to play Devil's Advocate but here
00:55:00
I am doing it for the Dozen for the for the tenth time today yeah but we that's what we're supposed to do I think you
00:55:06
enjoy it no I mean that's that's why we're here is here's this case this girl went missing this guy seems like a giant
00:55:15
bag of turds my question to this guy would be does he just not remember the room number and I know that seems like
00:55:21
uh like something you would remember but they've stayed in multiple hotels a couple days later I don't have a great
00:55:29
memory if somebody said well where did you what was your room number I'd be like I I don't remember
00:55:34
or can you take us there I think so you know I mean so the fact that they stayed in multiple
00:55:41
hotels leading up to all this again I I hate to say that I don't think that's as
00:55:48
suspicious as people were making that out to be but what is suspicious is that he's not cooperating with the detective
00:55:54
but how do we know that because they have no clue what room that they stayed in yeah but if he doesn't
00:56:00
know then he can't tell police so it's not that's not evidence of him not being cooperative if they came out and said
00:56:07
hey we asked Louis and he said I don't remember it I don't give a [ __ ] or I remember but I'm not telling you that's
00:56:15
that's being uncooperative or they're calling Lewis and he's never answered on the phone or never calling him back
00:56:20
which I believe is probably the case and I have every reason to believe that he is fully aware of where they stayed the
00:56:28
room that they stayed in I believe he's not being cooperative because he's got a
00:56:32
lot to hide either he did something or he knows a lot more than what he's saying
00:56:39
and I think it's easy to see this and go yeah he probably does know more than what he's saying because he ain't saying
00:56:46
anything so it's difficult for me to believe that when you are reporting your girlfriend missing
00:56:53
within 24 to 48 hours of the last time that you saw her think about that he checked out his
00:57:01
words the morning after he last saw her so that means within 20 to 30 hours of the time that you checked out of the
00:57:10
hotel room you don't know what room you stayed in if it's somebody that I truly cared
00:57:15
about if if I'm contacted by police or talking to police and I say this is the last time I saw so and so
00:57:21
what room did he stay in I can't remember if it was 3 18 or 308 maybe it was 218 I can't remember
00:57:29
I'd be happy to meet you guys there or could you pick me up and we'll go over there and I can look maybe if I see the
00:57:36
door or walk to it I can walk to the door and show you where we stayed but also what we're assuming is that she
00:57:42
paid for the room so she got the room number told to her she grabs the keys they walk down she might have never told
00:57:52
him we're staying in this room you know other than leaving uh for 30 minutes to look for
00:58:00
and I'm I'm sure he didn't go that far it's amazing he found his way back to the hotel room to begin with like a lost
00:58:07
puppy he had no idea where they were staying well it might have been on the key I'm just saying that especially somebody
00:58:13
that stayed in multiple hotels I don't it's possible that you wouldn't remember and I and I would just like to know what
00:58:22
the conversation was between him police well let's get into Lewis's background here to put it bluntly
00:58:30
he's a thug he'd been involved in criminal activity for years he has a record dating back to 1995 for felonies
00:58:39
like robbery burglary and drug dealing he has been in and out of prison multiple times Austin Police Department
00:58:46
detective James Scott who is now working Roxanne's case told the Austin Chronicle
00:58:52
quote Lewis among his peers is an idiot I mean you can look at his criminal record and tell he's not the smartest
00:59:01
criminal out there end quote the chronicle gives an example in March of 2005 Lewis was arrested agreeing to
00:59:10
sell three rocks of crack cocaine for fifty dollars unbeknownst to him he was selling three rocks of crack cocaine to
00:59:19
an undercover Austin police officer who had offered him a ride to runberg well we've heard of that place and it
00:59:27
turned out that the crack was fake so Lewis got off with only a 120 day jail sentence but selling fake crack to a
00:59:38
real cop not so bright Lucy's crimes weren't just drug related two of his exes had taken out
00:59:45
restraining orders against him and Lewis had been arrested for violating one of those restraining orders as we know
00:59:52
Lewis was 28 when he started dating 16 year old Roxanne it seems he preferred younger girls although another of his
01:00:01
exes was also underage when they were together Elizabeth Harris Roxanne's mother considers him to be a pedophile
01:00:08
there are rumors based on some things some of his exes have implied that Lewis tried to get some of his girlfriends to
01:00:18
sell their bodies for him that he tried to pimp them out now according to Roxanne's mother Lewis was a bragger and
01:00:28
a poser a wannabe big man she said he boasted of being a member of the Bloods street gang but that he was
01:00:36
most likely only marginally involved basically a small time crook but still Big Time dangerous to women
01:00:44
[Music] yeah foreign [Music] so much more to get to in this episode stay tuned till tomorrow if you need
01:01:00
more True Crime garage and your earballs check out our show called off the Record
01:01:05
it's exclusively on the Stitcher app to find that just go to the Stitcher app or
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go to our website truecrimegarage.com and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't litter
01:01:18
[Music] thank you thank you [Music]