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