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Crime Junkie

MURDERED: Scott Johnson

Mon Apr 22 2024

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But she's not the last person to talk to him because later that morning, his professor got a call from Scott to go over his dissertation, and they set another meeting for the following Wednesday. Then that same day at around noon, a friend of Michael's had called the house wanting to talk to Michael, but, you know, Michael wasn't there. So this friend and Scott chatted for a bit before hanging up, and that friend says that Scott sounded totally fine. The conversation was perfectly normal. But that phone call, that is the last time anyone heard from Scott. And then fast forward to 2 days later, that's when his body is found at the bottom of the cliffs. So do we know how he got to the cliffs? No. This was a question I had too. It could have been public transportation. I don't know if he had a car. I mean, there's nothing in the source material that says where exactly in Sydney Michael's parents live, so I don't even know if it's feasible for him to walk or ride a bike there. Now to go back to Dan and his reporting while he's doing all of this digging, he also starts talking to local reporters. And one person he talks to is so invested in what he's doing that he writes an article about Dan and why he's investigating Scott's case. And at the end of the article, the reporter writes that Dan's interested in speaking to gay men from the area who would have been around, like, in the late eighties. And this article stirs up a bunch of leads for Dan to follow as well as an influx of media attention. And not only do numerous men come forward confirming once and for all that the Cliffs were a beat, others tell Dan about the horrific levels of violence that they lived in fear of. Even though homosexuality was decriminalized in Australia in 1984, it was still super dangerous to be openly gay. In fact, assaults on gay men were disgustingly commonplace in the eighties nineties, specifically with the rise due to the AIDS epidemic. And so much so that there were these groups of people who would

Crime Junkie

MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Franchesca Alvarado

Mon Apr 15 2024

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And they were planning to stay out there for a couple of weeks. So she's like, it's gonna be a minute before she's even back. And right away, when Mia hears this, she's like, no. Franchesca doesn't do Atlantic City? Well, she does. I mean, it's only an hour away. She's taken some quick trips there before, but she doesn't do Atlantic City for weeks. And when she travels, she usually brings her three year old daughter with her, which this time she didn't, because Tara tells Mia that Francesca dropped the little girl off with a family friend before leaving. But there's even another reason that Mia is so concerned. You see Francesca is about 8 weeks pregnant. And she has an important doctor's appointment coming up on Tuesday, March 20th, one that Mia planned to go to with her. She wouldn't just miss it. Is Tracy the guy that's the dad? No. They're not romantically involved. Francesca's actually pregnant by her boyfriend who I'll talk more about in a minute. This Tracy guy is more of, I guess, just like a friend. I mean, Neo only met him a couple of times, but she knows that he is significantly older than her like Francesca is only 22 and Tracy's, like, 50. That reminds me of Jody Hoosinger and John Van Cice. Ominous comparison, but you're right. Similar. Cause Again, as far as Mia knows, there's, like, nothing going on between the two of them. He's just been, like, helping Francesca out. Brings her some groceries sometimes. He's apparently trying to get her a job in real estate. And even though he lives in Philly, he actually does spend a lot of time in Atlantic City. So Mia tries to stay calm. Maybe there's some great business opportunity in Jersey that Francesco just couldn't turn down or away. I don't know. And Mia kind of fights with herself internally debating back and forth? Like, should I go to the police? Am I gonna make my sister mad for overreacting? It's gonna, like, turn out to be nothing. So she lets a couple of days pass, and then a couple more. But by that point, Mia's sufficiently freaked out. And so is the rest of Francesca's family. And I assume this whole time she's still not answering any message.

Crime Junkie

MISSING: Steven Clark

Mon Apr 08 2024

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Contact with her parents. Now while police still don't seem to be helping in the search at all, word is spreading throughout the community that Steven's missing. Shortly after his disappearance, Doris and Charles start hearing about sightings of Steven in the Sulphurm, mask area as well as this area called Redcar, which is just a town over. Basically, these three towns are all like in a line on the coast and Masc is in the middle. Okay. But what's significant is that these sightings aren't happening or they're not, like, from the day that Steven went missing. People are contacting them saying that they saw Steven days after he disappeared. Real quick. Did anyone ever track down the 2 guys Doris saw near the restrooms that Steven went missing from? No. I mean, again, like, she noticed them, but she didn't even take, like, detailed notes of their features or anything specific about them. And she wasn't expecting that day to turn out like it did, which I totally understand. So they have not even the first clue how to track them down. Anyway, out of all of these sightings, 2 of them seem promising to the Clark family because they're from people who actually knew Steven. So on January 3rd, this would have been almost a week after Steven went missing. A family friend comes forward and says that he saw Steven 2 days after he vanished, which would have been on December 30th in Redcar. This friend says that he's pretty positive it was Steven. He just didn't even know he was considered missing at the time, so he says he didn't actually approach him or anything. Oh, what was he doing? Did he seem fine, normal? Yeah. I mean, it was like the quickest interaction. At least I think the story, it varies a little bit depending on who tells it, but the gist of it is that Steven just kinda walked past this family friend. I mean, this guy's wife later says that the husband actually stopped and talked to Steven, but he never says that himself. So I'm not really sure. Again, he didn't know he was missing. It's kinda like Doris with the 2 guys. Like, it's you didn't know this was gonna be important. But the significant part is that this man is positive that it was Steven. And Steven was alone?

Crime Junkie

MURDERED: María Marta García Belsunce Part 2

Tue Apr 02 2024

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And so he doesn't bring it up at trial. And even all these years later, he's, like, defensive about it because, again, you would think if you had the proof to back it up, you bring it at trial. This is your whole motive. Why wasn't it included? And in the Netflix series, he basically insists, like, listen, I'm under no obligation to provide a motive. I can just provide everything else. I don't have to do that. Okay. No obligation is one thing, but, like It's a big omission. Right? If you have it, you should. Right? Well, yeah. Especially considering how much he harped on it in those court documents. And is all this what he still believes, though? To this day. Like, to this day, he is still a true believer in his theory. On July 11, 2007, the judges are ready to render their verdict. They find Carlos not guilty on the murder charge, but on the cover up charge, guilty. He's sentenced to 5 years 6 months in prison. But what murderer is he covering up if it's not the one he's accused of committing? Like, if there's a cover up of a murder, then there should there's a murder. Also a murder? I cannot wrap my head around it either. It feels like they just wanna give the prosecution some sort of win. It's like a sympathy verdict. Even one that makes no sense. Okay. Yeah. Now before long, both Carlos and Diego appeal the verdict, and Carlos is able to post bail while that all plays out. The prosecution can appeal a not guilty verdict? Yeah. Depending on the circumstances, apparently. Now it takes the appeals nearly 2 full years to play out, but on June 18, 2009, the Buenos Aires Criminal Court of Cassation issues a stunning ruling. They uphold the conviction for the cover up, but they also say that the exact same evidence that, quote, unquote, proved the cover up could also prove the murder charge. So they convict Carlos of murdering Maria Marta, and they sentence him to life. They all

Crime Junkie

MURDERED: María Marta García Belsunce Part 1

Mon Apr 01 2024

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So, initially, when doctor Flores calls, he is like, this is weird, but he suggests that maybe the holes were made by, like, some kind of blows, maybe from a hammer. But he's like, listen. I'm just calling you because this is wild. Nothing definitive yet. I'm still doing the thing. I'll call you when I know more. Well, then not long after that call, Flores calls back even more agitated than before. And he's like, FYI, we are up to 5 holes now. And then he calls back again a little bit later, and he's like, yeah, my man, you are never gonna believe this, but throw the hammer theory out the window. When we opened her skull, we found 5 bullets lodged in her head. Oh my god. Obviously, any notion of Maria Marta's death being anything but a homicide is set firmly aside at this point. And confirming that the cause of death was gunshot wounds makes the thingy pretty freaking relevant to the investigation now, which has suddenly gone from a standard cause of death inquest to a full blown homicide investigation. Yeah. Super glad their best piece of evidence was literally just flushed out a toilet. I mean, not ideal, but also not game over either. Because you see, it turns out that their neighborhood isn't hooked up to any kind of municipal sewage system. Instead, each house has an underground septic tank where all their sewage is collected, which means that investigators are about to go through some literally. So they dig into the septic tanks, search through the contents for 9 full hours, and get down to the very last bucket of waste when suddenly, finally, their metal detector starts beeping. They've got it, a 32 caliber long projectile, but not that they have anything to match it to though. Because their searches in and around Maria Marta's house, trusty metal detectors in hand, don't turn up any signs of a weapon. Well, yeah. No shit. I don't think anyone can