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our website and that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
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talk some true crime [Music] [Applause] [Music] in 1979 17 year old Holly Brannigan was
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killed and murdered inside her home now throughout the years Captain there are still four very prominent theories
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regarding this case and I think we should take this time now to go through some of these now while some of them are
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very general in thought they may lead us to some more specific theories with inside each one I've listed these in
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order of what I consider to be least profitable to most probable okay the first Theory
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is a mob hit related to her father's work now this one I put is least probable because
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I absolutely find that it to be a very ridiculous Theory I can't find reason for this to have even occurred to even
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be probable at all I think the reason why this comes up is that we have a man that's doing pretty well for himself
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doing well for his family so there's a thought that there's money there money involved and his company that he works
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for is based out of the New Jersey area so I think what we have here Captain is just some creative minds uh or either
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maybe lazy Minds coming up with a theory that doesn't really seem to hold any weight well not so fast because he's in
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concrete correct so so leading to the idea that he's involved and and this is a industry
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Construction hugely connected to organized crime and so possibly what they're thinking is
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Holly called to see if her dad was available so possibly some of that was there to see her father then takes her
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out and then that the supposed accident with the brother that could be mob related and then where was that power
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washer this guy is Poison the guy that owns the power washers poison so if you connect them all
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you could put them all under the umbrella of some kind of mob hit it just seems to when I specifically look at the
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situation with Holly it just seems to me to be a very strange quote unquote hit to show up hang out in
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the house for a while presumably not bring a murder weapon with you and then hang out for a while
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after the murder leaving the house it's it's it's interesting because the thought of
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cleaning up the scene afterwards would go to that of somebody with experience the problem I have with it is it seems
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to me that this person that the killer spent uh an extraordinary amount of time inside
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the home during the committing of this murder and afterwards and that to me doesn't seem
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to be very quote unquote professional as is using a weapon found inside the home
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again maybe the perpetrator was trying to wait for the brother to come back home well and then that's that's a good
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leading Captain to to the second theory that's often discussed and that is that Sean bran again the brother was the
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Killer and the thing about this one I put this more towards the end of not as probable why for so many reasons that we
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discussed yesterday but a few things that we didn't talk about were this one plain and simple I couldn't find
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anything to suggest that Sean was not a good guy that he was not a decent guy he
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and Holly's mom as we stated had passed away from leukemia just three years prior to Holly's death and it was one of
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those unfortunate things that actually brought the rest of the family closer together everyone said no one ever says
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that he didn't love his sister okay everyone says he loved his sister and we we have no signs of him being violent
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towards anybody else no no and and furthermore the whole the whole motive for him being a suspect this is all I
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could find was that Sean that the police saw Sean as a guy who was kind of going
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nowhere in his life yes he attended Lehigh University but was more or less just kind of going through the motions
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he didn't really it didn't seem like he really cared about attending the university well it seems like he was a
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car guy yes his real passion was fixing and building cars and he was more content working with his hands as a
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mechanic than going to school the other thing here too may be to kind of point to how uh lackadaisical he was
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about his education Lehigh University is literally right next to Freedom High School which is where Sean graduated
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from so it's kind of like uh all right well I'm done with this school I'm going to high school number two dad says I
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need to go to further my education all right I'll go to this one um now but he has a lot more going for
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him than than a lot of people in this world and he had a passion he had a passion for automobiles and so maybe
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some people didn't see that but I think that is that's the first step in going somewhere you know successful and while
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that might have been looked differently in the 70s late 70s early 80s what's crazy is the talk of today is
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to go into a trade you know people are being advised to go into a trade learn a skill that most people don't have and
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guess what there's so many people with college educations these days so many people with degrees these days that some
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of these Tradesmen And Trades women are standing out from the crowd and they're able to make very good money and have
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very good careers yeah I have I have huge respect for that so it seems like jealousy was what the police thought
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Sean's motive would be to kill his sister uh being Holly was bright she was a young girl she was going to graduate
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soon and she was going to move on to better and bigger things in her life she was going to attend Penn State
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University well let's just back that for a little bit so basically the cops are saying this individual doesn't really
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give a [ __ ] about higher education but he's so jealous of his sister because she is smart that he's going to kill her
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that just seems fairy in all fairness they don't outwardly say what assessment Spec's motives would be this is what has
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been put put together and pieced together by others there was nowhere anywhere to say that there was anything
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weird about their relationship that there there was no motive for him to kill his sister that's what I'm getting
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at right and so to to Peg it as jealousy being the motive it's super flimsy I mean it it it holds no water for me it
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holds it has no legs to stand on this thought and this Theory and furthermore like we said we have multiple people
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that can account for his aware for his whereabouts the night that it's believed that she was killed right and then we
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also have a situation where he could have had a deathbed confession and still could you imagine you're burnt all over
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your body and they're still asking you questions about your sister this is this is how you're going to leave this earth
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well and I think two things on that one I think it does point out to how much the police might have thought of
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him to be a suspect because when he arrives at the hospital I believe they only gave him like a 20
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chance of living and so the police and this is not an uncommon tactic this is not an unpracticed tactic this happens a
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lot when you have somebody that you consider to be a suspect or maybe he at least has some information that before
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this accident he wasn't willing to give you right and so you show up and you question the guy and he has nothing to
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say there he has nothing to provide you with he didn't kill his sister and he doesn't know who did all right so the
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first theory is possibly some kind of mob hit the third Theory would be possibly that Sean was the murderer so
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what is theory number three those first two are a little more specific than these next two but we can get into this
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further as we go so the next Theory would be that an unknown attacker was Holly's killer in this Theory I do
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think is possible although there was no forced entry so maybe the the murderer posed as somebody that she would open
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the door for maybe a utility worker or a police officer or as a friend of her father's as you pointed out right there
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weren't any reports of any Vehicles spotted in the area at the time of the murder when Holly called her dad's
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office she was not panicked or concerned according to his secretary so did someone pretend to be invited
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there by her father right you know hey I'm here to see your father like you suggested and oh he's not here well I'm
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going to have to call him okay go ahead and call him right or I'm here to do work on something
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um and then she would say I need to call my father to see if this is okay but I think that was a ruse on on some level
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that's the only reason why the the phone call makes sense you know or again it's a guy that she is
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seeing on the side that nobody knows about and she's calling the dad to kind of get his whereabouts is he leaving
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straight from work or is he coming home I'm not very for sure you know I'm not sure so now we have uh you know this boy
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that I'm seeing Little Tommy he's over and I need to check out to make sure my dad's not going to come home and
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interrupt us well that would that would be the next Theory but sticking to this one for a
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second here the thing that I have to wonder about is so Richard's co-workers would know
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likely know that he would be out of town that night they may not know about Sean
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being gone or even know that Sean exists we don't know but what I'm getting at well you would assume that
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that maybe they would know because we just had a death in the family and normally when there's the death of the
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family then people start talking oh it's so sad now now this guy has to raise his
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his daughter and his son oh he has two kids all that sad but I that makes me wonder if Richard's co-workers were
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investigated or at least looked at to get a uh a time you know where you were at this time of day because under this
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situation then you have to wonder did somebody gain entry into the home that she let into the home for whatever
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reason at all and at some point once she realized that there was some form of a threat or if she was in some type of
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danger did she in fact run to the kitchen and grab the kitchen knife we have to keep in mind she was she was
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stabbed in the kitchen she was found in the kitchen whatever went down went down
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in the kitchen and so did she in fact run and grab the knife and then the knife was used against her was pulled
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from her by her then attacker the other thing though that makes me wonder about is what would be the motive for that to
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me there's only really two reasons to break into that home or to want to be in that home one would be for rape or
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sexual assault of the victim and there was none and there was none found to be by the corner or to you know some form
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of robbery which it doesn't appear that that was what went down and again I think what we're going to find here is
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some loose evidence to suggest that the killer may have remained in the home for
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a portion of time meaning he didn't kill her and flee the scene why we know that
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right away because of the fingerprints being wiped away being wiped away and so that's but anybody at that time that
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read any murder mystery or knew anything about crimes at all might wipe down the
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the weapon correct I I get that but at the same time Captain what I'm getting at is if if she was were to be if this
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was an unplanned murder that went down during the course of the attempt of committing another crime often often we
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see a very high probability that the individual flees the scene quickly after the attack on the on the victim right
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the other one uh which is also very possible is known attacker okay and this does not necessarily mean that she knew
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the attacker extremely well or had been intimate with this person um but I think what this goes to and
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where this leads to be maybe the most probable is the fact that there is no sign of forced entry into the home one
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and two when she goes back to the phone and tells her friend hey you know somebody's here I'm gonna have
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to call you back she doesn't seem to be threatened by this person one and two she doesn't seem to not know you know
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what I mean it seems I think there would be different words that would be had if
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she did not know this person right I mean just look look and it has nothing to do with True Crime has nothing to do
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with True Crime garage but if I'm in a conversation too long with somebody that was standing at my front door it's it's
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a little strange I find it a little odd if you're a talker though okay but regardless it seems to me if if
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somebody's there there there's a reason for them to be there there's a reason why we are engaged in that conversation
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and nine times out of ten it can either go down it should go down very quickly so let's get into this a little bit
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because there are some people that have become suspects over the years okay we've already gone through her brother
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and I don't think there's any reason to discuss him anymore yes there are questions about his death was it an
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accident was he murdered it looks to be an accident but there were some individuals that were investigated
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throughout the years well the okay I'm just I want to bring this up about the about Sean's death is it's as simple as
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a faulty switch on a power washer now I don't know much about these investigations but
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I'm assuming that technology has advanced a lot further now in investigating arsons or any type
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of fire that we would know for sure if that faulty um switch had anything to do with the
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fire we'd know that now but back then I just wonder as they're doing the investigation they figure out there's a
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faulty switch on this power washer but that might not have had anything to do with the fire just that information
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could change the whole perspective on Sean's death for me right so sticking to the thought and theory of the murderer
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being someone that was known to Holly right was all right let's get into this it's a little more specific here okay
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there is a thought and there has been an existing rumor that Holly was supposedly
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into older men as well as guys her own age now some believe that she was possibly
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seeing an older man his name being George Wilson so this is how this story goes after Holly's murder detectives
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went through her diary trying to find anything of relevance they kept finding mention of someone
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listed as simply 30. the number 30 3-0 so someone listed under the possible code name of 30. some of Holly's friends
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told police that 30 was George Wilson a local guy who was 30 years old at that time this put him on the suspect list so
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is George married okay my notes Here don't indicate that he was I seem to recall seeing something that he was
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married but again in all honesty I don't have that information here or either it
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wasn't provided right okay but here's what I want to be very clear about regarding George Wilson
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we don't know what the extent of any possible relationship being the relationship is completely unknown this
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was a code name taken from a girl's diary her friends could have the code name wrong you know so we don't even
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know if in fact they could but it's highly unlikely I I believe I mean if she's saying hey
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I'm if she's writing about this guy multiple times in a journal she's calling him 30.
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you ask multiple friends who's this 30 they say it's George I get that no I totally get what you're saying but I I
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want to make sure that we include that in all fairness to George Wilson right okay first of all we don't know for
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certain that 30 meant George Wilson all we have to go off of is a couple girls that were friends of her saying that
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could have meant George Wilson or that did mean George Wilson well we also don't know the details of the journal
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either that's what I'm saying as far as the public goes we we don't know the details of the journal and we don't know
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the details of the relationship with this person referred to as 30. as far as we know Captain it could be as something
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as innocent as she liked this guy and he didn't return he didn't have the same feelings right you know maybe she
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flirted with him on several occasions and mentioned that in her diary but he never he never pursued a relationship
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with her or had no interest in it and or it could be the exact opposite it could be a full-on relationship between
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her and this person named 30. the thing that I could find though and I don't have the full details of this
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information but it seems that The Alibi for Mr Wilson was confirmed that that information was vetted and it
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checks out plus we also have to keep in mind there does not seem to be any physical
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evidence tying him to the murder scene while the father would have this journal so it's like I think if you're trying to
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get answers especially this many years later he could release some of the pat passages in this journal so we can get
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clearer vision of what was going on in her life at the time unless once he provided that to police they have kept
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the journal all of these years true and but if they did have a relationship then
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you also have to look at anybody else George was in a relationship with and would this be a murder over jealousy or
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hey you need to stop seeing my husband you know that's a possibility too just I mean hypothetically his wife comes over
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knocks on the door to tell this girl hey leave my husband alone conversation escalates
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maybe you know Holly is saying I'm not gonna leave him alone and then there's uh attack
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because I mean this is a this is definitely a crime of passion I believe 100 we'll get back to this case right
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after this quick beer break [Applause] [Music] thank you all right cheers cheers to you captain now staying on the
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thought that the possibility of the murderer being known to our victim Holly Brannigan we have to go into a slightly
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different Theory okay this is someone still known to her but somebody much different than George Wilson
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and for this we need to introduce a guy named David elderingham okay he was a little bit older than Holly everything I
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could find it seems like David was the same age as her older brother Sean and that the two of them had actually been
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friends or at least friendly with one another okay and I've also been told that the elteringham family
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was friends with the brannigans or at least again knew each other and were friendly right so Sydney elderingham is
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David's father he was a professor at Northampton college so a professional man but a guy with a bad reputation
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nonetheless and we'll get into that now according to police Holly was sexually active three days
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prior to her murder the autopsy showed this I'm not really sure how they come up with that
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um that she was sexually active three days prior to her murder but that's the information that I've found out there
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all right so where are you going with this well under this theory in the days before her murder Holly had told a few
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people that she was pregnant now the autopsy showed that she was not pregnant but right we have a couple of
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different situations here one she could have just been saying that or two she may have had sex with somebody and
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thought that there was a possibility that she was pregnant or going to be pregnant right so let's keep in check
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that she's a she's a junior in high school so word of this under this Theory word of this
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started getting around and it seems that she was sleeping with David eltringham okay
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this is the David's the same age as her brother right a little bit older than her and may have been friends with her
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brother Sean at one point they may not have been officially dating but according to this Theory the two of them
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had some type of relationship together the following is a mix of facts police Theory and testimony from the people
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Holly had spoken to before her murder and I'm going to kind of take you through how this Theory works out minute
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by minute on the night that she was killed Holly and her friends planned to go get pizza that's a fact we know that
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that was going to happen at 6 PM Holly is on the phone with a friend between 4 30 p.m and 5pm during this call the
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doorbell rings Holly then implicates to her friend who is at the door and tells her she'll be back she'll call back by
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that what I mean is one of the following either Holly literally says the name of
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the person she thinks is at the door or is at the door right or says something along the lines of it's him or there's a
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man at the door right this could either imply that it was someone she was expecting or imply that Holly knew who
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it was from something as simple as recognizing a car possibly outside of her home
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law enforcement has never announced publicly who she said or who she believed was at the door however there
00:26:49
are statements Captain out there that law enforcement seems to believe that there was that she said something that
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implicated that there was a man at the door that the the person at the door was male right so the initial report that we
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said was when she's on the phone with her friend she said someone's at the door but but we have a reason to believe
00:27:09
that there was more information given of course what you're saying correct that there was one statement that was given
00:27:14
to the public and another statement that was given or kept by police in law enforcement right that would make sense
00:27:20
though because if that's a very strong lead then you don't want to show your hand right so
00:27:26
continuing on Holly hangs up the phone and goes to answer the door the theory says that it's Sydney at the
00:27:35
door David's father I've straight up asked this question because I've wondered why the police
00:27:41
seem to think it's Sydney more so than David it seems to me almost like David would have more reason to be there than
00:27:48
Sydney correct and what I've been told is that something that Holly said to her friend or something that was later
00:27:58
witnessed has led law enforcement to believe that it was in fact Sydney at the home and not his son David very
00:28:06
interesting apparently under this Theory Sydney is there and he's confronting her
00:28:11
about her being pregnant or the possibility of her being pregnant right right because because if she's pregnant
00:28:18
his son's life is over well it's at least going to change in in his mind it might be over right that's what I mean
00:28:26
and so he's confronting her about being pregnant and the thought is that he's trying to talk
00:28:32
her into getting an abortion he is worried that David is going to drop out of college because of this
00:28:39
pregnancy so during her talk with Sydney Holly decides to call her father's office but is told by
00:28:47
the receptionist that her father already left for his meeting in Atlantic City so okay so maybe
00:28:55
he's like call your father I want to talk to your father right possibly okay well but two things
00:29:02
could happen under this situation yeah so one let's say the information that we saw is correct in the families did know
00:29:09
each other okay once he's talking to Holly and he's not getting he's not talking any sense into her let's say
00:29:18
from what he wants to have happen right right then he's like okay well maybe we should get your father here and continue
00:29:23
this conversation with your father so she makes the phone call or you have the other thing of maybe this guy's a little
00:29:31
bit of an angry dude and he's a Loose Cannon and he's starting to show signs that he's getting angry he's raising his
00:29:37
voice the conversation's not going the way he wants to so Holly decides to call her father can we can we dive into this
00:29:46
guy's character a little bit more yes so we we will let let me cycle Circle back
00:29:51
to that okay because I mean you'd think like if it's a respectable father that they're just going to come in and maybe
00:29:57
they just have questions hey I heard there's rumor that you're you're pregnant is that true is there anything
00:30:03
we can do to help I mean like when you think of an a normal caring father what they possibly would do right 100
00:30:13
and that may be why Holly let him inside to the home to have that conversation as
00:30:20
I mentioned this guy is a professor at a college so he's a professional man and even though we're going to see that he
00:30:26
does have a reputation the thing is for to be a professor regardless of your reputation regardless of who you
00:30:35
actually are to be a professor professor excuse me you have to at least be able to carry
00:30:42
yourself in a certain way for a certain number of hours each day day after day after day right it's not that many
00:30:48
though okay I'm just going to bring this point up because it would be a lot easier for you to be
00:30:55
alcoholic Professor than it would be for you to be an alcoholic third grade teacher because you know a third grade
00:31:02
teacher is going to get there in the morning and they're there from let's say eight to three or whatever where a
00:31:08
professor is going to have constantly has a lot of different hours under the hours that they're not teaching they're
00:31:14
in their office but it's a lot less hours than most teaching professions does it no I get what you're saying I'm
00:31:22
saying this is a guy that's been able to hold a professional job where he would be scrutinized by supervisors and and
00:31:30
other people uh his peers throughout the years well I'm just basing this off of I
00:31:37
had a professor that was a cokehead and it took I don't know over 10 years over 15 years
00:31:46
for them to find reason to fire him that's all I'm saying at some point during this
00:31:53
conversation between Holly and Sydney it gets increasingly heated this was a man with a short fuse there's
00:32:01
there's a door that leads outside in the kitchen and it's theorized that that's where Holly either tells this person to
00:32:10
leave who then picks up a kitchen knife or she is attempting to leave through the store
00:32:16
and he picks up a kitchen knife and stabs her out of rage and as we know it was truly Abu a brutal attack with the
00:32:26
edge of the knife snapping off in Holly's back she stabbed 15 to 18 times their deep fatal cuts and
00:32:35
she has a few other injuries that are considered to be defensive wounds or mind you this if she's attacked 100 from
00:32:43
behind and Falls hard to the ground to the floor those what might be thought of as defensive wounds could be her falling
00:32:51
to the floor at this point Ali would be dead and Sydney is a family friend let's
00:32:59
say he knows their mom has passed away and from the phone call he may know that the father is in another city that he's
00:33:08
already out of town so this may lead him to believe or have reason to believe that he has ample time to clean up the
00:33:18
scene to wipe off his fingerprints and to pick up any evidence that he may have left at the scene and he does so well
00:33:25
and if somebody comes in on him he could just be like I found her I stopped by for whatever reason I found
00:33:33
her I mean if you're a family friend right but you're you're still gonna have a lot
00:33:38
of questions to answer if you're there alone with a murdered girl no I understand that I'm just saying that
00:33:45
that would be a plausible explanation somebody has to find her let's go through this because this part is pretty
00:33:51
interesting here so the same friend same friend that had uh was on the phone before tries to call back and is
00:34:00
receiving the Busy Signal okay the house phone stays off the hook until Holly is
00:34:06
discovered the next day so anybody calling during that time is going to get a busy signal
00:34:12
I actually think that there there's some people that theorize that the phone remained off the hook the
00:34:20
entire time that remember she was on the phone in her her bedroom and then she ends up picking up the kitchen phone to
00:34:27
say hey I'm gonna have to call you back and for some reason she failed to ever return to her bedroom and hang up that
00:34:33
phone there's nothing released publicly from law enforcement to suggest that the the
00:34:40
her bedroom phone remained off the hook the reason why you're getting the busy signal is because we do know from the
00:34:48
crime scene report that the kitchen phone was off of the hook right there's a chance that she was attacked and
00:34:55
killed in the kitchen and then the killer decided for whatever reason maybe to have her body go undetected for a
00:35:04
further amount of time I'll just take the phone off the hook people people might call and think oh
00:35:10
well she's home or somebody's home everything must be fine because somebody's talking on the phone right or
00:35:16
or just didn't think about it and took off so then remember we have the friend that
00:35:22
shows up her friend Sally goes to pick her up to go out for pizza around six maybe as late as 6 30 but they believe
00:35:29
it to be about six o'clock she goes no one answers the door so she decides to go around to the back of the
00:35:36
house and try the kitchen door but gets a quote weird feeling end quote and leaves without going up the stairs or
00:35:44
going and knocking on the back door so while publicly the publicly known statement of Sally having a magical
00:35:52
weird feeling has been told that kept her away from the house there's a chance that
00:36:00
that is not true that there was no magical weird feeling there's a chance under this Theory and what this Theory
00:36:07
believes is that she saw something that made her want to leave the house now some say that she could have seen a
00:36:16
car in front of the house and some people say that maybe once she went to the back of the house that she
00:36:23
saw a person moving inside of the home so the car under this Theory would have to belong to the outringhams so she
00:36:33
could have thought one of two things either the car was there because David who has some kind of relationship with
00:36:40
Holly is inside and she doesn't want to disrupt anything you know her her friends in there with her guy right or a
00:36:49
little Oinky Blinky or she sees the elderingham car in the front of the house goes around to the back and the
00:36:57
person that she sees through the window is not David she may not even recognize this person
00:37:04
she may just say it was an older man right so basically the police have two witnesses an eyewitness possible
00:37:12
eyewitness and an ear Witness and the thought of this theory is that those two between those two at least one
00:37:20
of them or both of them can put Sydney there that day around the time that Holly was killed so there's possibly
00:37:27
some evidence that puts Sydney at the crime scene but is there anything other than that would that would make us
00:37:34
believe he's even capable of a crime like this I mean he is a college professor to be
00:37:40
perfectly honest with you there's no strong indicators that would say this guy is likely to commit murder or to
00:37:48
have been involved in Holly's murder other than just that kind of mixmash of what I just gave you of facts in theory
00:37:56
police theory that does include some testimony uh regarding Sydney in that whole Theory now earlier you asked about
00:38:04
his background while I couldn't find anything 100 definitive as far as his police records go I could find stories
00:38:13
to indicate that he was had some run-ins with the law let's say Okay um one of these stories refers to
00:38:23
multiple times that the police were called to their home over the years and it's believed that these were for calls
00:38:31
of domestic disturbance now what the specifics of that would be is not known okay this is also before
00:38:39
the days of police showing up to houses and if there is any sign of injury that they take somebody away prices back in
00:38:46
the day where if somebody's not going to press charges they're not going to do anything correct now we do have one
00:38:52
instance of Sydney who was arrested for assaulting a police officer by running into him with his car and the way that
00:39:01
this story works is this the police showed up to the elderingham home and when he arrived there the police officer
00:39:10
arrived there he parked his car behind Sydney's car in the driveway he goes out and he's trying to confront
00:39:18
Sydney who does not want to speak to the officer Sydney tells the officer repeatedly to move his vehicle so he can
00:39:25
leave the property and his vehicle the officer refuses to do so because he wants to speak with him right Sydney
00:39:33
gets in his car and decides to go through his yard to get out of you know out onto the street and drive off
00:39:42
when this happens is when he runs into the officer with his car I'm assuming here captain that it's one of those
00:39:50
situations where as soon as the officer realizes what Sydney's doing he thought I could jump in front of the vehicle and
00:39:57
and this is a sane man this is a college professor this is someone that would stop their vehicle and apparently no
00:40:05
that's that's not who this guy was at least in that moment according to this story he said oh smart move copper
00:40:13
you're gonna beat my car yeah really the the here's a very weird story and this is that Sydney attended the
00:40:22
American detective School in Bethlehem to get a private investigator's license apparently he was working to solve
00:40:31
Holly's murder and going around town questioning people trying to collect information
00:40:37
so very weird stuff not that weird I mean um let's just let's just for a second assume he's innocent and he's never been
00:40:46
convicted of this murder you know so we we got to air you should assume that he's right you're you're right I'm sorry
00:40:52
but if you're in a small town this girl that you know family friend let's just assume that's correct but a lot of
00:41:01
people are pointing the finger at you and a lot of the suspicion is being pointed at you the best way to if you're
00:41:09
an innocent person to get that suspicion off of you is to solve that case right maybe he thought he was smart enough to
00:41:16
do so and I want to be 100 clear when we you know when people think about this Sydney individual does he look like a
00:41:24
good suspect yes if you can believe in that theory first of all second of all what makes him a
00:41:32
good suspect is that it is hearsay it is 100 hearsay right these two witnesses the girl on the phone and the girl that
00:41:40
showed up at Holly's house saw something or were told something that indicate that Sydney was the man at
00:41:49
the home around the time of her murder right and what I mean by hearsay it's things that
00:41:54
police within the last handful of years so not not guys that worked the crime the day that it happened not guys that
00:42:02
worked the murder case and investigation within months of the murder these are a
00:42:07
lot of Cold Case detectives these are a lot of individuals that were able to review the case File they have told
00:42:14
individuals that they believe Sydney is the guy or that it's tied to Sydney in some fashion
00:42:22
now we do know this though Sydney elderingham was brought in front of a grand jury several times over the years
00:42:29
and as recently as 2010 and it seems that they law enforcement have people to place him there but very little physical
00:42:40
evidence and thus were unable to bring him to an actual trial Sydney was diagnosed with pancreatic
00:42:47
cancer and it spread rapidly he knew he was dying the lead investigator at the time Tom Galloway went to visit Sydney
00:42:57
at the hospital many times but Sydney and his wife refused to let him in on all occasions Sydney died on February 12
00:43:07
2016. his son David eltringham does not want to talk about Holly's murder case and some to this day say that it's just
00:43:17
a well-kept family secret now Captain I tell you what chicken butt the cases we cover here always remind me of one very
00:43:26
important thing and that is to enjoy life and enjoy it with the family and friends that you have in love
00:43:34
this story this case especially points out that we should always appreciate the time spent with loved ones because you
00:43:43
never know when they will be gone researching this case several times I found my mind slipping away and trying
00:43:50
to put myself in the shoes of Richard Branigan a man who had to go out on the road often leaving his family at home
00:43:58
for sometimes several days at a time but working very hard to provide for his family and then in the period of just
00:44:06
three years they are all gone between 1976 and 1979 Richard lost his wife from illness his daughter from murder and his
00:44:18
son in a tragic accident so from a family of four to just one solo voice One Voice looking for justice
00:44:27
Richard Branigan remarried and shared in the lives of his new wife's children and
00:44:32
grandchildren Richard lived in the house where his daughter was killed until he was well into his 90s and then relocated
00:44:41
to an assisted living facility as of this day Captain it is very sad that her father is dead and there is no
00:44:49
one left in her family to push this investigation further foreign [Music] thanks for listening make sure you tell
00:45:05
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this week's episode we covered the updates of the Molly Tippets case so you want to check that out thank you Captain
00:45:47
everybody out there have a good holiday you too as well captain and be good be kind and don't litter
00:45:53
[Music] thank you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]