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prescription medicine [music] used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with
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moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions and
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[music] increased risk of infections and liver problems may occur. Before treatment, your doctor should check you
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for infections [music] and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or if you
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need a vaccine. [music] Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tremfya today. Call [music]
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1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit [music] tremfyaradio.com. Having the right people in your corner
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for life's biggest milestones makes all the difference. Like a friend who's there when you're house hunting or
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milestones. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. >> [music] [music] >> Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever
00:02:11
you are, whatever you are doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host Nick, and here at the garage, we say fat bottom
00:02:18
girls, you make the rocking world go round. With me, ladies and gentlemen, of course, the captain. And don't forget
00:02:26
about those fat bottom boys. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening.
00:02:30
Thanks for [music] telling a friend. This week in the garage, we are drinking Knockout by longtime friends of the
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show, Fat Bottom Brewing Company in Nashville. Knockout is an American IPA loaded with hops, first brewed, then
00:02:47
triple dry hopped, and plenty of citrus as well. Knockout is hoppy, smooth, light-bodied, and dry. Garage grade four
00:02:56
[music] out of five bottle caps. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good garage friends. First up, a cheers
00:03:02
to Akira in Boyd, Maryland by way of St. Louis, Missouri. And a big we like the jib goes
00:03:09
out to Jeff. Jeff in Paris, Tennessee. >> Next up, here's a cheers to Kim in Highland, Illinois. And last, but
00:03:17
certainly not least, we have a double-fisted cheers that goes out to Tom and Corey in Dyer, Indiana. Everyone
00:03:24
we just mentioned went to truecrimegarage.com and helped us out with the beer fund for
00:03:30
the beer run. And for that, we thank you. Yeah, b e e r u n beer run. Hey, we're less than a month
00:03:37
[music] away from my birthday, and we're going to be celebrating by talking true
00:03:41
crime and talking about the Brian Shaffer case in Columbus, Ohio at BrewDog. There's a
00:03:46
few tickets left, so get [music] those at truecrimegarage.com and come celebrate my birthday with me and the
00:03:54
crispy colonel, cuz I guarantee you we're going to have him [music] extra crispy that night. And colonel, that's
00:03:59
enough of the business. >> All right, everybody, gather around, grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk
00:04:04
some true crime. When and where we left off from episode one was the largest, the biggest pivotal
00:04:34
moment in our timeline, and that is Thursday, March 25th, 2004. This is when Jennifer, age 22, and her
00:04:43
little daughter, age two, Adriana Wix, vanished. After that date, we have no sight, no sound of either.
00:04:54
So March 26th and 27th, 2004, are going to be filled with alarm, conflicting stories,
00:05:04
and a missing person's report. On March 26th, 2004, Jennifer's mother, Kathy, became alarmed when she couldn't reach
00:05:14
her daughter, Jennifer. Now, as we had said before, Jennifer might not have spoken to her mother daily, but Jennifer
00:05:21
rarely went a full day without speaking to someone in the family. And remember, she had
00:05:28
promised to call her mother on this day. Now, as Kathy searched for a way to reach Jennifer,
00:05:37
the family learned some information that immediately felt very wrong. Joey told Jennifer's sister, Heather, that he and
00:05:47
Jennifer had broken up, and that he had dropped Jennifer and Adriana off at a gas station. But Joey gave a different
00:05:55
explanation to Jennifer's cousin, Jeremy. Remember, Jeremy is Joey's good friend, the one that introduced
00:06:03
Jennifer to Joey. Right. >> So Joey tells Jennifer's cousin, Jeremy, his friend, saying that Jennifer had
00:06:11
gone to a friend's house, naming a friend identified as Helga. So I want to I want to go into this a little bit more
00:06:18
here. We're going to We'll circle back to the gas station story in just a bit. But for this story
00:06:26
of him telling Jeremy that Jennifer had gone to a friend's house, the way that this comes about is
00:06:32
that night, on the 26th, they are Jeremy and his significant other, along with another couple, they are at Joey's
00:06:43
property for a bonfire that night. This was prearranged. It was They were plans that
00:06:50
they had made earlier in the week. And it was supposed to be a couple's thing. So there should be three couples there.
00:06:57
However, missing from that equation is Jennifer. So when the other couples inquired as to, well, you know, where's
00:07:05
Jennifer? Thought we were all hanging out. He says, "Oh, she's at a friend's house."
00:07:10
And he references this friend named Helga. Does he say that they broke up? That part is missing from the story.
00:07:19
That's interesting. I I don't know if that was part of the equation or part of the story, but it
00:07:26
it's not as far of as what I have been able to find. Now, that doesn't gel well with him telling
00:07:34
Jennifer's sister, Heather, that they had broken up. So Yeah. On March 27th, Kathy calls Helga. This is somebody that
00:07:44
the family knew, knew well. Helga says she hadn't heard from Jennifer, and actually
00:07:51
being told that she [snorts] was at Helga's, this made Helga think something must be very wrong here. And
00:07:58
Kathy agrees, she thinks something's very wrong. She already thought something was very wrong the prior day.
00:08:04
Now, this Helga story gets to her, she reaches out to Helga, there's no Jennifer. So Kathy filed a missing
00:08:09
person's report for Jennifer and Adriana on March 27th, 2004. They filed this report with the Robertson County
00:08:19
Sheriff's Department. To which the Robertson County Sheriff's Department then issued a bolo, a be on the lookout
00:08:26
for mother and daughter. That same night, a deputy from the Sheriff's Department
00:08:32
went to the Benton home to perform a welfare check. Joey, as the report goes, is the only one that
00:08:39
is home at the time of this welfare check. Or at least, he answers the door, and the deputy does not believe anybody
00:08:47
else to be in the home. Joey tells the deputy, "Look, I understand that you're here for
00:08:54
a welfare check. However, she's not here. Jennifer's not here. Adriana's not here. I haven't seen them." And he tells
00:09:01
the officer, "If you want to come inside, you're going to need to come back with a warrant if you want to search
00:09:08
this property." Back to the gas station story here, captain. Joey's Joey Benton's accounts
00:09:15
of what happened involved a gas station, a white car, and then Jennifer returning. Okay, so the way that this
00:09:23
goes down, Joey provided law enforcement with a nice little narrative here. He claimed that he and Jennifer argued.
00:09:31
They broke up, and Jennifer asked for a ride to a grocery store in Cross Plains so that she could use the phone. Joey
00:09:39
said that he drove Jennifer and Adriana to the grocery store, and then drove the
00:09:44
two of them to an Exxon gas station near exit 112. This is off of Interstate 65,
00:09:52
and he said that this would have been around 9:30 p.m. on March 25th, 2004, the night the day in question. He claims
00:10:02
that he parked his vehicle in a church lot, which is across the street from the gas station.
00:10:09
He wants to keep an eye on Jennifer. And he says while he's parked over there, he
00:10:13
watched Jennifer and Adriana get into a white four-door early 1990s mid-size car
00:10:23
as he described it, though he did not see the driver. Over time, my friend, accounts of Joey's car description
00:10:31
became and should be and should remain a focal point, okay? Because Joey initially
00:10:37
described this to be a {quote} white four-door Mustang or a {quote} white four-door Camry. The problem with that
00:10:47
statement, Captain, is those cars don't exist. 2004, they don't exist. There's not a four-door Mustang.
00:10:56
There's not a four-door Camry. Right. Jennifer's family says this is nonsensical. This cannot be. The
00:11:03
family also stated that an original police report containing that early description of the white vehicle,
00:11:10
they say it was later amended and that a conflict arose over what Joey actually said or did not say, all right? What did
00:11:20
he say in that report? What did he not say because they say that it he said it was a white
00:11:26
four-door Mustang doesn't exist. White four-door Camry doesn't exist. And that that was later changed in the police
00:11:34
report. And the family says, "We can prove that he originally made those statements because we have retained the
00:11:41
original version of that report stating those statements to the sheriff's department." The way that this goes
00:11:49
down, as I understand it, is that after Joey gave his initial statement to the sheriff's department, that his
00:11:59
father or somebody in Joey's family went to the sheriff's department in protest to get the statement changed. As I
00:12:10
understand it, the statement was then changed, the official record, as it were, was changed.
00:12:17
And I do believe there were some kind of repercussions for whoever amended that statement within the
00:12:25
sheriff's department. Had some kind of punishment, I guess, or consequence. That's bizarre. The bizarre-ness
00:12:33
continues. It continues. Continuation of bizarre-ness. Yeah. To be continued with bizarre-ness.
00:12:40
>> that a lot. I question if it's a word. It's a garage word, if you will. Joey claims that on March 26th, so this would
00:12:47
be the following day, 2004, so the day after the gas station story, Yeah. that Jennifer returned to his house, the
00:12:55
Benton house. He says she was alone. She was driving that same white vehicle. He said that
00:13:02
she came there with the purpose of retrieving her income tax refund money, which
00:13:08
that does make some sense, okay? There there is some sense to this statement because what we do know took place is
00:13:17
she did get a tax refund that year. And that's about the time of year when you you get your tax return money.
00:13:26
She didn't >> any resources. She doesn't have resources. She doesn't have a bank
00:13:30
account. And so when the check came in, the check was given to Joey's parents so
00:13:36
one of them could cash it or put it in their bank account. He says she returned to the house to
00:13:42
retrieve the tax refund money. Joey claims his parents weren't home, so she would have to come back at another
00:13:49
time to to gather the money, but she did, according to Joey, collect some of Adriana's
00:13:57
and her personal things while she was there, saying that she took Adriana's diaper bag and other items and then
00:14:03
left, saying she would return later at a later time or date for the money. Jennifer's family
00:14:11
saying, "Look, okay, whatever, good story, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us because later they're
00:14:18
going to find other items that Jennifer would have had to have left behind. And they say that these items
00:14:25
would have been essential for Jennifer to take with her. These are not items that she would have abandoned and
00:14:32
just left at Joey's property. And these items include we we we don't have a full
00:14:38
inventory here, but Jennifer's glasses, which she she didn't need all the time, but needed a decent amount of the time.
00:14:45
It's a valuable item to somebody. A safety item here, too, Captain. Adriana's car seat. There there was a
00:14:51
time in my life where I was terrified to be without a car seat. The problem with
00:14:55
all these stories is leading up to all this, we have a a child with an infection. So we have no record
00:15:04
of her getting treatment for that infection. >> That's correct. I I don't know if
00:15:08
treatment was was required. We do know that she did see and receive medical attention,
00:15:16
right? She was a a diagnosis, had the advice of the persons in the ER, as well as her regular physician. So I don't
00:15:26
know if it was required, but she did see and receive medical attention as far as
00:15:31
that is concerned. But that's that's an interesting thing here, too, because often times if you're prescribed
00:15:37
medicine, I would think in that case maybe that's some kind of topical or something that
00:15:42
you might need. I don't I don't know. Uh but you often times you can't pick that
00:15:47
up right away. It's got to be called in. But yeah, you're exactly right. But the
00:15:52
list, while we don't have the inventory, there's a kind of general statement of well, she left a lot of her belongings
00:15:58
behind. And what her family is saying is a lot of that included what they deemed
00:16:04
to be daily necessities, be it either for Jennifer or Adriana or both. Her family also emphasized the emotional
00:16:13
reality of taking a 2-year-old and going away with somebody, leaving on her own, or what
00:16:21
have you. They're saying that Adriana had a lot of comfort items. You know, even
00:16:27
us as adults, we have comfort items, but especially a 2-year-old is going to have
00:16:32
comfort items. And the one of the things they specifically reference here is an Elmo toy
00:16:39
that the little girl was known to be obsessed with. This wasn't one person in the family saying this. This was a lot
00:16:46
of people in the family saying this. And they all found it very difficult to believe that Jennifer would leave
00:16:53
without these things, but especially without the Elmo toy that the kid carried around 24/7.
00:17:01
Especially you got all this movement going on. Th- This would be something that would calm and soothe the little
00:17:08
girl. You're taking this item. I mean, there's parents out there listening to this right now going, "Yeah.
00:17:14
Yeah, I'm I'm I'm going way out of my way to find that Elmo toy and deliver it to the toddler and keep it with her."
00:17:22
They get it. Another detail heightened the family's suspicion around the the whole timeline
00:17:31
and all the events within the timeline. One one event we didn't get to yet actually took place on March 25th. So
00:17:38
this would be the day in question, right? This This to me, and I hope we have time to circle back to this before
00:17:45
we wrap today because uh this one, my friend, I I put a big big question mark on this this
00:17:53
event here. So on March 25th, 2004, Joey got a ride to work in Franklin, Kentucky from Jennifer's cousin,
00:18:03
Jeffrey. Remember, Jeffrey's his real good friend. This is a matter of fact because Jeffrey
00:18:08
told this to police. Jeffrey told police that Joey, at some point during the work
00:18:13
day, received a call at work and then abruptly said to Jeffrey, who he's relying on transportation
00:18:22
from, he says, {quote} "We have to leave now." End quote. citing a family matter.
00:18:30
And Jeffrey says that they left Franklin they left Franklin, Kentucky shortly after this request, heading home,
00:18:37
heading back to the Benton family property. And within within the family's understanding here, this fell close to
00:18:45
the last confirmed time that anyone had heard from Jennifer Wix. Well, yeah, and
00:18:51
this goes back to my statement is is Joey involved or is his mother involved or is the father involved or
00:18:59
anybody on this compound or is it a combination of people? Exactly. And of course, the search is
00:19:08
going to begin the 26th, carry on through the 27th. The the searches will escalate
00:19:15
on March 29th. This is when searches escalate, but the Benton family cooperation
00:19:23
will seemingly end Oh, surprise, surprise. timeline. Yeah. So law enforcement, they're seeking
00:19:30
answers to the missing individuals. They are seeking these answers. They or at least they sought these answers on the
00:19:37
Benton property. And to which the Benton family initially agrees to allowing them to search. On
00:19:44
March 29th, Robertson County Sheriff's deputies conducted a walk-through of the Benton home looking for signs of a
00:19:51
struggle or evidence of foul play. Over time, multiple searches occurred in parts of the property or on parts of the
00:19:58
property. Authorities reported draining a pond and searching surrounding areas without
00:20:05
finding Jennifer or Adriana. The Benton family was questioned and claimed to know nothing. After four searches, they
00:20:13
stopped cooperating. Okay, so keep in mind though if something bad happened >> to give them a little bit of a pass,
00:20:21
right? Yeah. >> Cuz they were being cooperative, right? So if they're not involved at all, you
00:20:28
could see a situation where you go, "Well, yeah, I understand that we have a [ __ ] ton of land and I understand that
00:20:36
we have a [ __ ] ton of [ __ ] trees here and that you want to go sniffing around
00:20:41
our [ __ ] But you did four searches. Okay. We we are now going to say you want to search more,
00:20:54
you're going to have to force us to let you search our property again." Yeah, and
00:20:59
the other thing we need to point out, too, is Joey did agree to a polygraph examination. Oh, really?
00:21:07
He submitted to a polygraph and he and he passed it. Oh, [ __ ] He passed it now
00:21:12
>> coming. So the thing I wanted to point out before we got to the polygraph portion of this was
00:21:18
yes, they agreed to the search. Yes, they agreed to allow them to walk through the Benton home, the the ranch
00:21:25
home. I think one thing that complicates this searching scenario is that other families live on this very large
00:21:33
property. Right. >> So who owns what, who can give permission for what seems a little
00:21:38
dicey, little shaky to me, but they allowed the walk-through, but keep in mind this walk-through that they're
00:21:45
allowing is taking place March 29th. The day in question, night in question is March 25th. So you got
00:21:53
about three, four days to clean up any messes, hide things if you need to. Not saying that that's what
00:21:59
happened, but my pushback would be that when they first went out to the property, when first called on the 26th
00:22:07
or 27th, they got told no. And yes, they did agree on the 29th, but originally and it sounds like it was only Joey's
00:22:16
call. Maybe he made a bad call and told them no, but or maybe he was just angry,
00:22:20
what have you, but earlier he told them no on the 29th, they're allowed in. And it could be as
00:22:27
simple as Joey thinking, "Look, this isn't my home, it's my parents' home, they're not home, I'm not giving you a
00:22:31
permission unless you speak to my parents." The way that the record is or what has been reported
00:22:38
all these years is that he said, "You got to come back with a search warrant." Now, back to the polygraph here,
00:22:43
Captain. He agreed to the polygraph, he passed it. And that's according to Robertson County
00:22:49
Sheriff's Department. Right. He was asked at a later date, I don't I don't know how much time
00:22:57
transpired between test number one and then the request for a second polygraph examination,
00:23:04
but you read some of these reports and it's kind of short and sweet where it says he declined a second polygraph.
00:23:13
One version that's much more interesting, however, is that he agreed to the second polygraph examination, got
00:23:21
as far as being in the building and but before the test could start, his dad, Joe Sr.,
00:23:30
starts acting up and yelling about something, causing a commotion, and then during which Joe Jr. says, "Nope, I'm
00:23:37
out of here, I'm not taking your test." Yeah. Now, while investigators worked, Jennifer's mother, Kathy, did what
00:23:45
families often do when silence stretches too long without answers. She tried to replace that silence with
00:23:54
getting vocal, getting out there. She took time off of work, put up flyers, she was searching for and pushing leads.
00:24:04
The Robertson County Sheriff's Department would very quickly start working with the
00:24:09
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to generate national publicity. We do have a little girl
00:24:16
missing here. Tips do come in, but as we know, none none, unfortunately, brought
00:24:24
Jennifer or Adriana home. >> [music] >> Security usually means extra steps [music] and complications, but with
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00:25:19
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00:25:26
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00:27:22
the air. Cheers to you, Colonel. Raise them high, my friends. Raise them >> Raise them high in the sky.
00:27:30
Over time, authorities moved on they they started treating the case differently. They moved on from treating
00:27:41
the case as a missing person's case toward investigating a double homicide. Reports cited
00:27:49
investigators acknowledging by the third anniversary of this disappearance that the case was being investigated as a
00:27:56
double homicide with leads pursued across the country. So they said they they were receiving leads
00:28:03
that they pursued that came in from California, Florida, Michigan, and Oklahoma.
00:28:11
Unfortunately, these leads seem to have dried up, didn't go very far, even though it took them very far. In
00:28:19
July of 2011, they're working once again with the National Center for Missing and
00:28:24
Exploited Children. This was with the purpose of releasing an aged an age-progressed image showing what
00:28:32
Adriana might look like as a 9-year-old little girl. Again, this produced tips. Again, none produced answers. Yeah, but
00:28:42
a a lot of times with these cases, people want to help. So they might have saw something small and and they don't
00:28:50
know if it it matters to the case, so let's call it in. Or how many times do we get emails after we cover a case
00:28:58
where somebody says, "Hey, I was listening to your podcast and I had a hunch." And again, they're not they're
00:29:04
not stupid or naive, they just want to try to help. And if I could give this information to somebody, maybe it could
00:29:11
move the needle forward. But it's also just difficult when you have missing people and no sign of a
00:29:19
crime or no sign of a homicide, because really you need to investigate all these cases as a
00:29:25
homicide first. But and then it's hard to go back I'm just going to use the Brian Shaffer case as example, cuz you
00:29:35
know, we we've been trying to collect some more evidence behind the scenes on that case, but when
00:29:42
you're talking to these investigators and these detectives, certain steps didn't happen because it was just a
00:29:49
missing person case and he could show up the next day and then no big deal. But now 20 years
00:29:56
later and he's still missing, they wish they could go back and go, "Well, I wish
00:30:01
I would have talked to that person more or I wish I would have followed up on this other lead that I got a little bit
00:30:06
more." But at the time it was just a missing person case. >> In 2013, this case was formally reclassified
00:30:15
as a homicide. So, there was talks of it being looked at that way around the third
00:30:22
anniversary, but it would be 2013 that it was formally reclassified. Robertson County authorities held a
00:30:29
press conference. The sheriff announced that investigators believed Jennifer and
00:30:35
Adriana were dead. He said new information developed in the prior weeks led them to conclude there had been foul
00:30:44
play and that investigators with the cooperation between the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and
00:30:54
the Robertson County Sheriff's Department. The Sheriff's Department underscored a key point during the press
00:31:01
conference saying despite years of investigative work and numerous interviews Joey Benton's story of taking
00:31:09
Jennifer and Adriana to the grocery store then the Exxon gas station and then seeing Jennifer return the next day
00:31:16
was never independently corroborated. Sheriff Holtz did not publicly label Joey as a suspect, but he did state that
00:31:26
no one had been eliminated as a suspect including Joey. Yeah, because when somebody's
00:31:33
telling you the story and like you said he passes a test. But if they're calling
00:31:38
him back in, I wonder if it's just like faulty equipment possibly or maybe they just felt like there was some reason
00:31:47
that maybe he passed or maybe they weren't happy with the questions that they gave him so they called in another
00:31:53
expert just to get a second opinion. But he tells you this story about a vehicle or two vehicles that don't
00:32:01
really exist and then I'm sure investigators then go back to the gas station and go, "Hey, did you see a
00:32:09
lady with her kid here? And did you see her get picked up by this person?" And so we have the the gas station story and
00:32:18
then we have the story of her coming back to his property and then I'm sure they talked to the other family members
00:32:25
on the compound and go, "Did you see this vehicle?" And if nobody's coming out and saying that we saw this vehicle
00:32:31
or we saw, you know, a lady with her kid then you go well this story could be complete horse [ __ ]
00:32:40
Joey's grandmother, this is Carol Benton she spoke publicly spoke out publicly as
00:32:48
well at this point. She said the family had cooperated initially and she did express
00:32:56
a lot of sorrow that Jennifer and Adriana were missing but insisted that the the missing two they were not on the
00:33:05
Benton family property and that the Benton family knows nothing. They they have no idea where the two have gone.
00:33:13
She also acknowledged that the openly that the family later refused additional searches when those searches were
00:33:22
requested. In February of 2014, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam announced a $15,000 reward for information leading
00:33:31
to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible in this case. Jennifer's family added an
00:33:39
additional $10,000 bringing the total to 25 K. The family later emphasized regardless of bureaucracy or the age of
00:33:50
the pledges that came to get to that $25,000 that they would do what they had to do to ensure that someone who came
00:33:57
forward to help would be paid in some form or fashion possibly the full amount. We've had, you know, many years
00:34:06
have gone by since those that reward money was presented so I I don't know the state of it. In 2021
00:34:14
Jennifer's family arranged for a private search using cadaver dogs on parts of the Benton property where permission was
00:34:24
obtained. The way that this works is the grandfather Joey's grandfather was getting up there
00:34:30
in age. The case was still in the media. The story was still in the media and I don't know if it was under pressure or
00:34:37
if, you know, just hey, let's let's let them search one last time and and kind of be done with this. Uh so, the
00:34:44
grandfather agreed to allow them to bring cadaver dogs. This was a private search though. This wasn't police
00:34:50
conducting it. It wasn't the Sheriff's Department conducting it. I am a little disappointed in the way this was
00:34:56
reported that the family Jennifer's family reached out to the Sheriff's Department said, "Hey, we're we're doing
00:35:03
the search using cadaver dogs. We have permission from the Benton family. Uh can you be out here during this time?"
00:35:09
And from from the way that it's been reported and from my review, the Sheriff's Department was kind of like,
00:35:15
"Well, if you find anything, let us know." I don't want to beat up on anybody too badly here, but chain of
00:35:19
custody is extremely important when we're talking about evidence. I don't know why you wouldn't at least send one
00:35:26
one car out there, one badge and one car out there to just sit sip water and and observe. Anyway. Yeah,
00:35:36
pick up on >> But nobody's paying me to run a run a county, but so what do I know? The dogs
00:35:40
reportedly here Captain alerted >> alerted on a at a spot at a location in the woods.
00:35:48
>> Yeah. The family dug but found nothing. They did report this to law enforcement
00:35:53
and as far as as far as the public record goes or as far as I know, law enforcement had
00:36:00
no follow-up to to finding this. Now, the dogs, you've heard me say it. If you listen to this isn't your first time
00:36:06
listening to the show, I look, I love these dogs. Years ago, we True Crime Garage, we
00:36:13
provided a county with a with a police dog. They're very expensive. We provided a county in Florida with a police dog.
00:36:22
So, I'm very proud that we were able to do that. These dogs are incredibly valuable to police. They're to police
00:36:30
work. We're still paying on the dog. The one part of this though that is always kind of a hiccup is the dogs can't talk.
00:36:39
Even if no matter how smart they are, no matter how well trained they are, no matter how well trained the handler is,
00:36:45
the dogs can't talk. They were hitting on that location for a reason. What that reason is is left to our interpretation.
00:36:53
Now >> Yeah, but they find nothing. >> Well, just to be clear dogs can't talk, but you have to be extremely high
00:37:01
and they really just they talk a lot of gibberish. >> Well, the thing I wanted to point out
00:37:07
here though Captain is that our date in question when our our individuals that we're looking for go
00:37:14
missing is 2004. This private search is conducted in 2021. A lot of stuff can happen in that time
00:37:22
period and >> Absolutely. >> what I'm getting at in a very roundabout way and it's not out of the realm of possibility
00:37:31
that someone or something could have been buried there or concealed at that spot in haste and then at a later date
00:37:41
and time removed. Yeah, and just to play devil's advocate when you have a [ __ ] ton of property then and now I'm
00:37:50
going by the the real estate >> and under on the S word for these episodes is at 30. [laughter]
00:37:59
It's uh my new favorite word this week. But when you have a lot of property there there's a very good possibility
00:38:06
that you have an animal that dies and then there's decomposition and I know that the decomposition is
00:38:13
different for animal than for a human, but if you have a lot of property, I'm sure there's plenty of
00:38:20
animals that have passed away on your land and you didn't even know know about it.
00:38:25
>> A question for you my friend, does a body in this particular case, in your opinion, does it lead to
00:38:33
an arrest here Captain? >> Does a body? I think you need a body in order to try to get a conviction. Yes.
00:38:40
>> Right. I agree on that, but what what I'm getting what I'm saying is I guess my question was flawed. I apologize.
00:38:48
Uh you know, we've seen cases where all they are is waiting on finding that body
00:38:52
and then then charges will be filed. Right? We've seen those cases. This case to me feels like and I apologize to
00:39:02
Jennifer's family for saying this, but from what I've reviewed, it feels like there's a lot missing. So, to me
00:39:09
where where the body could be helpful to getting to those charges I think what is very key here and it
00:39:19
keeps that's where my mind keeps going back to the idea of maybe something could have been concealed or buried in
00:39:24
haste and then later removed. Right. I think that a very important part here would not just be
00:39:33
the discovery of a body, but where the body or bodies were found. Right? Like I mean, if
00:39:38
they're found on the Benton property, that's a whole bigger can of worms than if Jennifer unfortunately would be found
00:39:49
several counties away. >> Yeah, yeah. >> Yes. All right. So, I've [clears throat]
00:39:54
already opened up the crazy door here. So, I'll just I'll just keep it going. Cuz some other things that I cannot
00:40:00
shake some other suspicions and ideas that I cannot shake. And there's no polite way
00:40:06
to say this, so I'll just say it. I'm sure there's Look, our listeners are fantastic, extremely bright, most of
00:40:12
them smarter than us. But I'm So, I know somebody out there driving their car jogging on the treadmill, lifting
00:40:21
weights, cutting the grass, they're thinking the same thing. Somebody out there is
00:40:26
thinking this crazy garage theory here, Captain. With the child's illness, let's call it an illness, but
00:40:34
we we know the the part of the body, the portions of the body that uh they were examining and what the
00:40:42
medical findings were were were. They said it could be as simple as staying in a diaper too long, but they did say it's
00:40:52
uncommon to professionals as far as everything I've reviewed, at least two professionals said this was uncommon.
00:41:01
Could this be a an indicator of some form of sexual abuse on this child? If it were to be evidence or indicators
00:41:13
of such the persons that would have to be looked at the most in my humble garage opinion
00:41:20
would be Joey or his father, Joe. And that create You want to say that there was
00:41:27
stress, turmoil, conflict within that home prior to going to the ER? Can you imagine if that was the suspicion after
00:41:36
leaving the ER and what that could result in? Well, and that could have also been their motivation for saying,
00:41:43
"Hey, you don't need to take her to the doctor." True. Right. Hide it. Um it's very difficult for us to determine
00:41:50
what was going on inside those four walls. Very suspicious of the diagnosis that takes place and also the timing of
00:41:58
that diagnosis. That happens Look, there was problems before. There was There were severe,
00:42:04
horrible problems before going to the ER. They disappear almost immediately after, right? Within within
00:42:12
days, 48 hours, 72 hours of that that of of the ER visit? Absolutely. Timing timing is everything
00:42:21
in these cases. We say it time and time again, but it's all it can also be revealing. It can also be revealing. And
00:42:28
then then let's go down a a whole different other road here, please. Let's Let's
00:42:33
ignore everything that I just said. We do know that there were heated arguments, violent arguments between
00:42:41
Joey and Jennifer. We have at least one family member We have multiple family members on Jennifer's side reporting
00:42:49
that there were arguments and problems between her and Joey's mom. And we have at least one family member on Jennifer's
00:42:57
side saying that Jennifer at some point expressed that she was scared. She was afraid of Joey's mom. And then you have
00:43:05
that story from Jeffrey saying, "Look, we were at work and all of a sudden we get this he get he gets a call and says,
00:43:12
"We got to leave now. We have to leave now." And says there's like a family issue. But no no better description than
00:43:18
that. We have to leave now. If the path I'm trying to take you all down is this.
00:43:25
Was he able to pass that polygraph examination because he doesn't fully he didn't witness what happened, but he
00:43:33
came home to help clean it up? He He kind of knows, but he doesn't know Right. I was going to That could be a
00:43:41
t-shirt. He kind of knows, but he doesn't know know. Like he doesn't know. But And then like then I have to wonder,
00:43:48
too if this case has not allowed me to sleep very much in the past couple of days.
00:43:53
The other thing I have to wonder about, too, is like let's say that something sporadic took place, something
00:43:59
instantaneous, there's some kind of eruption, some kind of fight that breaks out, parties involved don't know, but
00:44:06
it's Jennifer and somebody and something happens, knee-jerk reaction, smack her over the head with
00:44:12
something or a trigger is pulled or or choking, whatever. There's We've reviewed hundreds of cases. There
00:44:21
are bad people out there. There are people that do things in one moment that they would never do for the rest of
00:44:26
their lives. That could be here, too. But there are there are people out there that in the heat of the moment they
00:44:33
would be they would strike out, lash out, and harm someone, hurt someone, kill an adult would never be able to
00:44:40
harm a little tiny kid. And is Is there a possibility you know, I've heard the family say that
00:44:50
you know, we've kind of lost hope in that regard of them being alive, but is there possibility that something
00:44:57
terrible happened to Jennifer and then this this little girl, only two at the time
00:45:03
she could have been re-homed. She'd be in her 20s now. Yeah. Anything is possible. I mean, all All of
00:45:11
the time in these cases when uh NCMEC when National Center for Missing Exploited Children are involved and they
00:45:17
do these age progressed images and I've been lucky enough to meet uh the the team members there in
00:45:26
one of their in their home office in Virginia that that work on these every day. That's That's
00:45:31
their only job is to work on age progressions uh of these missing little kids. They do a fantastic It's It's really
00:45:41
truly fascinating the way that they do it. You guys should reach out to us. We'll
00:45:45
have you on the podcast. I'd love to I I can't explain it. It's too it it's too involved for me to be able to explain it
00:45:52
in any intelligent manner to our listeners. But in this case, you know, it's always important to have those age
00:45:58
progression images, but in this case, I mean, I see it as it being a a strong possibility here uh in this.
00:46:08
And And speaking of which, in 2022, so very recently, Tennessee officials did release another age progressed photo of
00:46:17
Adriana Wix. And 2023, Captain, they assigned a new detective to the case. The Robertson County
00:46:24
Sheriff's Department has assigned a new detective. The family for all these years, they've continued
00:46:30
pushing the case publicly through vigils, rallies, balloon releases, billboards, podcasts, social media,
00:46:38
keeping Jennifer and Adriana's names in circulation long after most of the public had stopped looking.
00:46:46
And always with these types of cases alongside the official timeline runs the family's private
00:46:55
and sad reality. A grief made sharper by the absence of certainty. Jennifer's sister, Casey
00:47:06
in multiple interviews, described how the family's greatest desire was not even punishment
00:47:13
but to find Jennifer and to find Adriana and to lay them to rest. She acknowledged the haunting thought
00:47:20
that sometimes visits the families of the missing, that maybe someone could still be alive somewhere even though
00:47:28
as said, her family don't truly believe it here. She also described the on these podcasts, the kind of mother
00:47:35
Jennifer was and the kind of child Adriana was. And she said that Adriana was born
00:47:43
when she was born, Jennifer sometimes worked late shifts and family members would help out. Jennifer's sister
00:47:49
recalled being 13, 14 years old at this time and spending nights caring for her niece her for little Adriana,
00:47:59
feeding her, comforting her when she cried, feeling proud to be needed, feeling proud to be an aunt.
00:48:05
She described Adriana as a sweet and bubbly child who didn't get enough time in this world.
00:48:15
This case is a sad one, a frightening one. And upon review of this true crime story, instantly we have to accept a
00:48:22
sobering acknowledgement that this case has never been about a single disappearance.
00:48:29
And now more than 20 years have passed without answers for Jennifer and her little daughter, Adriana. And sadly,
00:48:35
time has a way of burying unresolved stories unless someone keeps digging them up.
00:48:42
Jennifer's sister, Casey, she has done so many interviews, especially podcasts, trying to keep this story visible.
00:48:51
Peace, she says, would come from certainty, bringing them home, giving them dignity, ending the endless
00:48:59
waiting. Casey and the family, they they they also maintain case-focused social media
00:49:08
with Facebook. Justice for Jennifer and Adriana Wix is the Facebook page. Instagram, Jennifer and Adriana Wix.
00:49:18
TikTok. The Facebook page Casey says, is the primary hub. The place that she keeps
00:49:26
most actively updated. >> Well, like you said, this is probably not a simple situation like some other
00:49:33
crimes where you discover a body and there, bam, you have all the answers that you need or all the evidence that
00:49:41
you need to to get charges at least and then you can start building a case. I It'd be interesting to know what
00:49:49
holdback information law enforcement has on this particular case. I want to give
00:49:55
a shoutout to Kathy, Jennifer's mother, and to her sister Casey, and all of the family, of course.
00:50:01
But specifically them for keeping the story alive in the media. Casey has done a lot of podcast interviews, as we said,
00:50:08
about this disappearance. If you would like to listen to one, I recommend our friends Mike Morford and Jess
00:50:13
Bettencourt over at Missing Persons, who long time listeners of this show, our show True Crime Garage, will
00:50:20
remember we have worked with them over the years. Their podcast Missing Persons featured this case October 7th, 2023.
00:50:30
Go hear Casey, Jennifer's sister, Adriana's aunt, keeping the story in people's minds and
00:50:36
on their hearts. Without knowing where Jennifer and Adriana are, there is no end to this story. No final chapter.
00:50:45
No body to mourn, no certainty to hold. It is mourning suspended, as I see it. And
00:50:55
the family is desperately trying to keep Jennifer and Adriana from becoming forgotten.
00:51:03
You know, we said long cases go quiet. We know leads dry up. The world moves on. The family doesn't.
00:51:11
So, they keep pushing because attention is often the only force that keeps a cold case from freezing entirely.
00:51:18
They point out time and time again here, Captain, that Jennifer didn't have much.
00:51:22
She didn't have a car. She didn't have a phone. She didn't have money. But Adriana was cared for.
00:51:28
Saying that Jennifer found ways. We know living with a boyfriend and his family at times, living with her mother
00:51:35
and sisters at others, relying on relatives when she needed to because everything she had went to her daughter.
00:51:43
And they point out that Jennifer wasn't the type of person to even casually disappear.
00:51:49
The thing The thing that you have If you're not seeing it, do not miss the fact that she depended
00:51:56
on her family. That That makes it even more That makes it like we said in episode one, squash the
00:52:03
idea that she just walked out. The idea that Jennifer left without essentials, without the car seat,
00:52:10
without key belongings. Yeah, my gut feeling is that whole story that Joey told was completely fabricated. He
00:52:20
knows more. I don't I'm left here wondering if he knows everything, but I know that he knows more.
00:52:29
I know that he knows more. Jennifer's normal life ended on March 25th, 2004. After that, everything
00:52:36
became second-hand stories, conflicting explanations, searches that fell incomplete, reports argued over, leads
00:52:42
that collapsed, and a long public waiting for the one thing that could change the shape of the
00:52:49
case, credible information that says where Jennifer and Adriana went and why they never came home. If anyone
00:52:59
has information about the disappearance of Jennifer and Adriana Wix, contact the
00:53:05
Robertson County Sheriff's Department at 615-384-7981 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation
00:53:15
at 1-800-TBI-FIND. >> [music] [music] >> I want to thank everybody for joining us
00:53:35
here in the garage each and every week. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother.
00:53:40
Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners? Well, it's a bit self-serving here,
00:53:45
Captain. It's not lost on me, but I'm going to recommend my book, The Delphi Murders: The Quest to Find the Man on
00:53:51
the Bridge. Still available on Amazon. Unfortunately, we don't have any left in stock. And the reason why I'm bringing
00:53:57
that up is we have our great event that I'm so looking forward to April 18th, BrewDog Columbus, which is technically
00:54:07
Canal Winchester. If you If you've been in Ohio, you know what we're talking about. BrewDog is a fantastic place to
00:54:14
go even if the Captain and the Colonel are not there. But guess what? Double down, baby, cuz it's extra exciting.
00:54:20
It's going to be extra fun because we're going to be there. We're going to be having fun, talking and chatting with
00:54:24
you, raising money for a good cause, the Porchlight Project. And it occurred to me
00:54:30
there might be some folks that want to pick up a book and have you or I or both sign them.
00:54:37
You can't pick up a book, so get it on Amazon. Bring it with you to the show. We'll sign it. We'll take a picture.
00:54:41
We'll have fun. And we will have some merch there, but we are out of stock of that book
00:54:48
on our website. So, can't wait to see everybody that can make it Saturday, April 18th. We're going to have a fun
00:54:57
evening, folks. Tickets are available on our website, truecrimegarage.com. On the left of your screen there, you'll
00:55:04
see a tab for live events. So, click on that and get your tickets before they are sold out.
00:55:11
>> Yeah, not many tickets left and we want to see you there. Want to smell your musk, like they say. Until
00:55:18
next week. Be good. [music] Be kind. And don't litter. >> [music] [music] [music]
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