Hi, CrimeJenkies. I'm yourhost, AshleyFlowers.
And I'mBrett. And the story I have for you today is a testament to a love so deep and profound that it exists almost outside of timeitself.
And that's the love of a parent for theirchild.
This is the story of KristenModiferry.
Your college years are supposed to be a time ofexploration, a time to push the boundaries alittle,hopefully,safely, a time to findyourself, especially back in the 90s when without tech your world could feel really small until you got to leave home for the firsttime.
And in1997,nothing, and I meannothing, was going to stop Kristen Modiferry from doing justthat.
She just finished her freshman year at North Carolina StateUniversity, where she's one of 25 people in her class on a full ride as a parkscholar.
So girls are smartcookie, like skipped a grade and scored of 1570 out of 1600 on the SATs kind ofsmart.
And she's also brave and bold andadventurous, one of those people who wants to experience as much of life as she possiblycan.
So when it's time for her to plan hersummer, it's no surprise that she's like dreaming reallybig, she wanted to push herself even farther outside of herbubble.
College had been a good firststep, but NC State is still just a few hours fromhome, and like besides her big sister Allison is a student theretoo.
So she wanted something forherself, she wanted to spend the summer clear across the country in the Bayarea.
The plan was for her to get ajob, take photography courses at UCBerkeley, and she would explore the Bay area in her freetime.
But when she pitched this idea to herparents, her mom Debbie was a little freakedout.
Imean, afterall, she'd be going on herown.
Buteventually, Kristen and herdad,Bob, were able to get Debbie onboard.
So on June1st,1997, her 18thbirthday, she kissed her parents and her three sistersgoodbye, boarded a plane and headed west for her big San Franciscosummer.
When she gotthere, she rented a room with four male housemates across the Bay inOakland, and she picked up a couple of part-time jobs almost as soon as she gotthere.
She hadwon, which was this weekday gig at a coffee shop calledSpanelli's, and a week and one at the San Francisco Museum of ModernArt.
And since classes weren't going to start until June24th, she had managed to get a whole lot of exploring in during those first threeweeks.
And the wholetime, like she's calling homefrequently, telling her family all about everything that she's been upto, everything she's seen anddone.
So it's a little unusual when June 24th passes without acall.
Imean, bigday,right? Peoplestarting, normally that's the kind of thing she would want to update themon.
Butstill, it's easy enough to writeoff, like classes juststarted.
No bigdeal, maybe she's adjusting to her newschedule.
Andeventually, her dad Bob figures he's just going to callher.
Imean, the phone works two ways afterall.
So he dials the landline number for the house that she's stayingin, but when no oneanswers, Bob is forced to leave amessage.
Nothingpanicky, justlike,hey, it'sus,like, give us acall, hope you're having the time of yourlife, but don't forget about us littlepeople.
In his office phone rings one morning soonafter, he probably expects to hear Kristen's cheerful voice on the otherend.
But that's not whathappens.
Instead, it's one of Kristen's housemates namedGriffin.
And what Griffin says sends chills down Bob'sspine.
Matt Burkeback reports for Reader's Digest that there's no smalltalk.
He cuts right to the chase andsays,quote, I don't know how to tell youthis.
Your daughter'smissing.
Griffin says that none of the housemates have seen Kristen in threedays.
Atfirst, they just figured she was out of friends orsomething, but after hearing Bob's voicemail, they started toworry.
So they actually called the Oakland police and reported her missing and then Griffin calledBob.
Now Bob and Debbie are on the first available flight out to San Francisco thatFriday, the27th.
And when they layon, they don't even drop their stuff off at ahotel.
They just go straight to the Oakland police department to figure out what has happened so far and what they can do to help find theirdaughter.
But the urgency that they feel isn't shared in the slightest by the desk officer who just kind of shrugs points out the time a little after four and says that they're going to have to come back Monday because the investigators assigned to Kristen's missing persons file are already gone for theweekend.
But eventhat, they shouldn't really worrybecause.
Okay, here's athing. Missing kids aren't really a nine to fivejob.
Isn't thatstrange?Like, no nights orweekends,what?
And Oakland isn't some like one stoplighttown.
It's not like there's one detective on thefours.
I think it'swild. But they go on tosay,like,listen, she's technically not akid.
She's18. She's out here for her bigadventure.
Like we see this all thetime.
She probably left on her own either to runaway, maybe just out having too muchfun.
But she'll turnup. And this practically knocks the wind out of Bob and Debbie who know that that can't betrue.
Imean, forone, she has no reason to runaway.
She's been living the dream and loving every minute ofit.
But more thanthat, she wouldn't put her family through something likethis.
Not Bob andDebbie, not hersisters, not if she could helpit.
So without any help over the weekendhours, they spend the next few days doing the only thing they can think to do and are capable of doing on theirown.
They hit the streets to try and findsomeone, anyone who might have seen or interacted with theirdaughter.
And knowing that that's not going to beenough, they also hire aPI, this retired FBI agent named GrahamDesverine.
Now nothing comes of their weekendsearches.
So come Mondaymorning, they head straight back to OaklandPD, where thistime, they're able to convince the leadinvestigator, this guy named Officer PatrickMahaney, that whatever thisis, it is definitely not a runawaysituation.
And as soon as he rules out that theory in his ownmind, he and SergeantBradley, the other investigator assigned to thecase, hit the groundrunning.
They interview herhousemates,obviously, who tell them what they'd already told Bob and Debbie by thatpoint.
They haven't seen Kristen since she left for work on the23rd.
And since that would have been aweekday, they knew she was headed to her job at the coffee shopSpinelli's.
So police go there to talk to her co-workers and they sayyes, she did show up for work on the23rd.
She was there for her wholeshift, everything seemedfine.
And she left when the shift ended at3pm.
Butluckily, something she said or really asked for during her shift gave police their nextbreadcrump.
As apparently her co-workers said that thatday, she'd been asking around for directions to a park on the shoreline called LanzEnd.
And his Lanz End connection only gets stronger when investigators bring out scent dogs to try and trace Kristen's scent from Spinelli's since they know for sure that she wasthere.
And the dogs go right from the coffee shop to this busstop, the very stop that you would go to to catch a bus to LanzEnd.
So they head out toward Lanz End and the dogs pick up Kristen's scent right back up where Officer Mahaney takes them out to the beachnearby.
And they follow it past the ruins of this giant bath house from the1890s, then on to the cliffhouse, which sitson, you guessedit, a giant ocean sidecliff.
But Officer Mahaney's stomach drops when the dogs lose the scent near the cliffhouse, right at what reporting in the Charlotte Observer calls aquote, rocky vista overlooking the PacificOcean.
And this is concerning to him because he knows that the beauty of this place can bedeceiving.
In that samearticle, he used the word treacherous to describeit, saying thatquote, people fall off into the ocean everyyear.
Was Kristen a strongswimmer?
Imean, I thinkso, but this isn't the kind of situation where you can really swim your way outof.
Imean, what happens is that a rogue wave will come out of nowhere and just literally sweep youaway, sometimes to be found on shorelater, sometimes never to befound.
In describingthis, it doesn't feel like this is in the middle ofnowhere,right?
Like, wouldn't someone have seen something like that happen in the middle of theafternoon?
So,yeah, that's the thing they should have because you'reright.
This area is super popular withtourists, but if that's whathappened, no one seems to have seen a thing because there aren't any reports of anyone falling in over the last couple ofdays.
And as hard as theytry, they can't find any witnesses who even saw Kristenthere, much less saw her fallin.
So if there aren't even witnesses to hersightseeing, isn't it still possible she fell in without someoneseeing?
Imean, it'spossible, but it feels a little bit like a stretch because I guess in my mind I'm thinking like a solo person just kind of walking aroundsightseeing.
Like that wouldn't drawattention.
Like I don't think it necessarily like precludes her having beenthere.
So like I don't think anyone not seeing her is mindblowing, but like if someone would have fallen in like that would have drawnattention, Ithink.
So I think it's just more proof that that didn'thappen.
Okay, but then why does her scent stopthere?
No oneknows. Imean, maybe she followed the exact same path back down the cliff to the bus station and went somewhere elselike, I don't know if that's how it works or what or if they have anexplanation, but all they can do is keep looking and keep talking to the few people who knewKristen.
And the list out there was short since she just got in there less than a monthago, but police are desperate for aleave.
Was there anyone she metrecently?
Anyone she didn't get alongwith?
So they go back to her housematesagain, trying to get as much insight as they can into her life in the Bayarea.
And while they don't identify anyone who'd want to hurther, they do say that heropen, bubbly personality may have gotten her intotrouble.
Like she was assuming the best of everyone to the point that someone could have taken advantage ofthat.
Like forexample, the housemates say that she was known to catch rides withstrangers.
And when she missed the last train back to Oakland after a concert onenight, she with her glass always have full was justlike, no bigdeal.
I'm just going to catch a few Zs on this bench at thestation.
And the guy she was with waslike,uh, that's like not really an optionhere.
It's a pretty badidea. So why don't you just like sleep on my brother's couchinstead.
And so in thatinstant, shedid, even though she really didn't even know thatguy, she had just met him thatnight.
And she had gotten home safe and sound the nextday.
And whoever this guyis, he's ruled out as asuspect.
But it left investigators wondering how many other similar encounters Kristen hadhad.
And how on earth were they going to find thosepeople?
The best answer to everyone felt like just getting her face outthere.
Have as many people as possible know that she's missing and see who comesforward.
So for the next twoweeks, Bob and Debbie practically move in at Kinkos where they print out missing person flyers right andleft.
And they even tap local media to get her picture out on TV aswell.
But those two weeks passed without any real breaks in thecase.
And Debbie and Bob are faced with this awfulreality.
They're going to have to leave California without theirdaughter.
Imean, they've got three other kids to worryabout.
Allison, who's20, but also a 15 yearold, a seven yearold.
And the impression I get is that Allison has kind of been holding down the fort while they've beengone.
So like they have to make this unbearable trade off between being on one coast looking for their daughter or being at home across the country for their other threekids.
Bob tells Erin Lee Martin with the Charlotte Observerquote, if we felt like we were closing in on findingher, we certainly wouldn't have comehome.
And Debbieadds, we just didn't know what else we coulddo.
So they make the difficult decision toleave.
But just two days after theydid, Oakland PD gets a tip that actually might be the key to findingKristen.
A local news station had gotten an anonymous call aboutKristen, which they immediately passed along to the OaklandPD.
The man on the other end of the line said that she was killed by two women who dumped her body under a wooden bridge in MarinCounty, which is like an hour or two north of SanFrancisco.
I have all thequestions.
Does he say why she waskilled?
Where this bridgewas? Who these womenwere?
How he knows any ofthis?
All of the aboveactually.
So he claims that the threewomen, so Kristen and these othertwo, were caught up in some sort of love triangle or maybe like Kristen rebuffed theiradvances, but the just being that someone rejected someone and Kristen was killed as aresult.
And then as far as where he says that the bridge is near pointraise, but that's as specific as he gets or as specific as has beenreported.
Because that's what I found from Burbex reporting and readersdigest.
But he does get specific onnames, just not hisname, but he gives the full names of these other twowomen.
And when officer Mahaney tracks these two women down to say that their flabbergasted would be anunderstatement, because they'relike, we've never even met Kristen and we definitely didn't do anything to hurther.
So it doesn't take long for him to kind of suss out that this tip is starting to feel a bitbogus.
Which if I had to put my money onit, he probably might have suspected allalong.
But that's not to say that he dismissed this whole bridge in Marin County thingaltogether.
Imean,again, he at least went and talked to thesewomen.
He's got to be thinkinglike,okay, maybe there's some truth tothis, even if it's not the fulltruth, youknow, like why would someone point the finger at these two women atall?
So while he's talking tothem, he'slike,okay,listen,look, someone wants to cause problems foryou.
Any idea who that mightbe?
Do you haveenemies? Anyone with agrudge?
Basically who's list are youon?
Exactly. And the women both come up with the samename, JohnOnuma.
See, John's got a girlfriend named Jill Lampo who worked with the women at theYMCA.
And for somereason, he is convinced that these two women have plotted to get his girlfriend Jillfired.
And basically he's had it out for them eversince.
So maybe this John guy was theircaller.
And that's the first thing they ask him when they go straight to confront him aboutthis.
And atfirst, he denies any involvement with Kristen with even the anonymouscall.
Buteventually, he fesses up thatyeah, he did make the call out ofspite.
But he doesn't know Kristen or anything that he like knew about her disappearance and basically just decided to quit thesewomen.
But headds, even though he doesn't knowanything, he might be able to help them solve Kristen'scase.
I wish Icould, except for there is no reporting on what he means bythat.
What?Yeah, it's reallystrange.
Like both the Charlotte observer and the San Francisco examiner reference him saying this like in theirreporting.
But it's just this like offhanded mention and then they like moveon.
So I don'tknow. Imean, I assume that investigators like looked intoit, but maybe they didn't make anything ofit.
I don'tknow. I just know that afterthis, they weren't done withJohn.
Like it was at least suspicious whether they knew what it meant ornot.
And I know they weren't done with him becausea, I know they go looking at woodenbridges.
I don't know where exactly or when thishappened, but officer Mahaney coordinates with a Marin County deputy to have every last wooden bridge in the county lookedat.
But the unhelpful fact is given flooding and animalactivity,etc.
Like they'd have to be like really damn lucky to find any trace of Kristen even if she was dumped at one of them and their luck just isn't thatgood.
Nothing has ever been reported as being found in thosesearches.
But the other thing they do at this time is they start digging into John's background to see if he's got any skeletons in hiscloset.
But as sus as John maybe, which by the way is like supersus.
It's still early days and they don't want to get tunnelvision.
So even while they're investigating him kind of on the downlow, they're still running down all of the leads that are comingin.
And there are more than just afew, mostly about possible sightings of Kristeneverywhere, not just like in the Bayarea, but from Texas toCanada.
But every time they run those down or look intohim, they leadnowhere.
Andmeanwhile, her parents are working as hard as ever to get her name and her picture in front of as many people aspossible.
Bymid-October, they've already appeared on hard copy and America's most wanted and Debbie's even a guest on a talk show featuring a psychic who agrees to work with them on Kristen'scase.
And they're not like true believers oranything, like they know it's a HailMary, but if a psychic is what it takes to find theirdaughter, like so beit.
They'd meet with the Wizard ofFrickin' A's if he could offerhelp.
But spoileralert, whether it's wizards orpsychics, they never end up being the all-powerful all-seeingforce.
It's always just a man behind thecurtain.
Sometimes, a human man can help in his own humanway.
Because around thistime, October of97, Kristen's parents are approached by a guy named DennisMann.
Dennis lives there inCharlotte, NorthCarolina, where her familylives.
He's this perfect stranger mindyou.
But he tells them that he wants to move to San Francisco and look for Kristen fulltime, or free if they give him theirblessing.
Who does this guy workfor?
Well, if you're asking police oranything, noone, he's kind of this jack-of-all-trades as far as I can puttogether.
I know at one point he was a supervisor at a local Charlotte shelter for theunhoused.
That's what he was doing when he approached his Kristen'sparents.
And I know he's got some sort of deliverybusiness, but no experience with missing people orinvestigations.
He's going to have to learn that stuff on thefly.
How hard could it possiblybe?
Andlisten, let's just sayit.
The offer isodd. I don't think I've ever seen this in any othercase.
But he swears up anddown.
His intentions aregood.
He says he's got some money savedup, and he just wants tohelp.
Because for somereason, what he knows of Kristen's disappearance has just really affectedhim.
So a bitstrange,sure. But it seems like he's one of thosedo-gooters.
He's just going to look out for the next righteouscause.
And I don't know how you're takingthis, but I do not mean this in a negative way atall.
Like when this guy finds acause, dude is allin.
Like in the early90s, he even walked across the country to raise money for a homeless shelter that he wanted toopen.
He walked for nine monthsstraight, covering 3,000miles.
And I think he's just one of thosepeople.
Like I think there are some people in the world who can hear a bad thing and belike,wow, thatsucks.
And then there's other people who feel like a very deep weight when they hear that same badthing, a weight that'slike, I have to dosomething.
Aresponsibility,yeah.
Yeah, if notme, thenwho?
Yeah, so this guy's kind of like theglinda, the good witch to John's wicked witch of thewest, if we're still talkingus.
Basically,yeah. You've got these two men who have inserted themselves into theinvestigation, but in very different ways for very differentreasons.
And Dennis even gives Kristen's parentsreferences, and beforelong, they are fully onboard.
One more set of boots on the ground couldn'thurt, especially when they can't be on the other side of the countrythemselves.
So Dennis closes hisbusiness, packs up hisvan, and headswest, spending the next six months living in thatvan, catching a shower at a cheap gym when hecan, handing out as many business cards about Kristen's disappearance as hecan, and following up on every lead that hegets.
And he calls or emails the modiferies daily withupdates.
So how do investigators feel about theserendiment?
I'm not sure what their initial gut reactionis, but I actually think they're good withit, at leasteventually.
Because Debbie says that they even pass along some leads to Dennis for him to lookinto.
And the PI that they had hired sings hispraises, telling Diane Suhetka with the Charlotte Observerquote, he has a heart as big as alloutdoors, he's justdifferent.
And Debbie echoesthat,saying, we have talked to other parents of missing children and they say we are just so lucky to haveDennis, whichman, the more I dothis, the more Irealize, in like90% ofcases, it's how good are the investigators and how much support does a casehave.
And even in thiscase, with aPI, with aDennis, basically out there fulltime, and officer Mahaney still running the officialinvestigation, the year draws to aclose.
And I can't imagine how hard that is for Kristen'sfamily.
Like I know thattechnically,again, the end of the year is just one day leading into the next like anyother.
But it's just this reminder that with each passingminute, every day and month andyear, they just keep getting further and further away fromKristen.
But no one is letting her beforgotten.
In January of98, her fellow Park scholars at NC State come up with a clever idea to keep her name in thespotlight.
They hand out 25,000 yellow ribbons before a basketball game that's going to be aired onESPN.
The players can't wearthem, it's against NCAArules, but the coachescan, and so can thefans.
So they'rethinking, let's get so many yellow ribbons out there that the commentators have to mention that maybe they'll even broadcast Kristen'spicture.
And to behonest, I'm not sure if thisworked, but I know that Alison Modifari addressed the crowd from the court athalftime.
So you've got to think that ESPN saidsomething.
And while the Modifari family is as busy as ever in NorthCarolina, back in the Bayarea, investigators still have John on thebrain.
And given what they've beenuncovering, they've got good reason forthat.
Like they find out that he likes to meet women via personal ads in theclassifies.
And when they're able to track some of these womendown, they make some disturbingallegations.
Wait, what was happening between week two where they get this jauntip and all these monthslater?
Dude, I don'tknow. I was in circles over that because promiseyou, John doesn't even appear in the reporting until1999.
There is just nothing explaining why they sat on this guy for solong.
Okay, because I waslike, I'm glad we know about Dennis and when he entered thepicture, but if this stuff is going on in thebackground, I kind of want to know aboutit.
That's what theheck,yeah.
But here weare. So they track down some of thesewomen.
And maybe that's what took them all thistime.
Imean, this is the90s. I don'tknow.
But when they findthem, the women have harrowingstories, stories of torture and sexualassault.
Like, he would allegedly hold these womencaptive, sexually assaultthem, deprive them ofsleep, and physically abusethem, like burn themeven.
Diane Suheta even writes that John threatened the life of one woman who tried to escape hisapartment.
He said to herquote, You know I'm going to have to killyou.
I can't let yougo. Now you know what happened to KristenModiferry.
Now that alone would have been enough to make Debbie and Bob's stomachsdrop.
But it was actually something that they'd found in Kristen's room back when she first went missing that made them fear that John's words were completelytrue.
In the days after Kristen'sdisappearance, her parents found something in her room that maybe didn't seem all that significant at thetime.
It was a personal ad that had run in the classifieds the week of June11,1997.
Brett, I'm going to have you read this forus.
Friends, female seeking friends to share activities who enjoymusic,photography, workingout,walks,coffee, or simply exploring the BayArea.
Interested? Callme. Now there are some conflicting reports about the timeline of this wholething.
But Matt Berkbeck reports that Officer Mahaney doesn't find out about the ad until months after Kristendisappeared.
And so when he finallydoes, Kristen'sparents, like they tell them that this ad that they find sounds a lot likeKristen, like all the hobbies that arelisted, those were herhobbies.
And she had complained to her mom that making friends out there was harder than she'dexpected.
So when the San Francisco Bay Guardian ran a promotion offering free personalads, they're like that's totally something Kristen might have jumpedon.
Like where's the bumble BFF when you needit?
And so you can probably see where this isgoing.
Yeah, Imean, John's red flags have redflags, but Iknow.
I don't understand why they can't for sure link it back toKristen.
Like wouldn't there be a phone number with thead?
Like how else would people be able to contacther?
Iknow. So the way that personal adsworked, at least in thisinstance, is that each poster was given their own voicemail box or like this individual access code to this voicemailsystem.
So basically the ad would list some generic number that people could call and leave a voicemail ad and then only the poster had access and could decide whether or not to followup.
Like you're not giving your home line or something like that if that makessense.
So it's like giving a PO box versus your homeaddress.
Yeah. So this is what I'msaying.
They can't prove that it wasKristen, but youknow, they find this ad in herroom.
It sounds a lot likeher.
They think it'sher. Now could this ad think be acoincidence?
Itcould. Stranger things havehappened.
What they need to do is figure out if it was even Kristen's ad in the firstplace.
Except like Isaid, theycan't.
When investigators contact thepaper, the paperslike, ohshoot, like badnews, we actually don't have the computer filesanymore.
We deletedthem. Like our bad got a free up space on the harddrive.
Like thefloppiness. How in the 1990s ofthem?
Iknow. So they don'tknow, but knowing it sounded likeKristen, knowing it's in herroom, knowing that we have John that's responding to and posting his own personalads, John is looking like a bad dude that is looking pretty good for thiscrime.
Like there's no question aboutthat.
So investigators get a searchwarrant.
And at thispoint, his red flags have redflags, which have redflags.
Because in John'sapartment, they find traces ofblood.
Although there's no reporting on where they find it or how they findit.
And I'm not going to bury the lead onthis.
Like when they send it off ortesting, it's not humanblood.
Although their theory on where the blood came from is actually quiteawful.
Basically, they think that he hurt an ex's cat after a fight orsomething.
Just want this guylike, you think you can't getworse?
Iknow, Iknow. This comesup.
Ugh. But it's actually what they find that belongs to Jill that really has mespiraling.
According to an episode of UnsolvedMysteries, we're talking like seasonseven, like the reboots by Dennis Farinahere.
Gotit, not theOG. Not theOG,yeah.
Investigators find Jill'sdiary.
But go figure some pages aregone.
Tornout. Do you want to guess when those pages werefrom?
Obviously from when Kristendisappeared.
Obviously. And investigators arelike,yo,Jill, what thef- where did these pagesgo?
And she tells them that John tore the pagesout.
Why would he dothat? According to OfficerMahaney, Jillsaid,quote, some of this stuff that was in there could come back to hurthim.
Endquote.Okay.Which,hello, Captain Obvioushere, like what kind ofstuff?
And in mymind, I'mlike,Jill, you wrote theentries.
You should know what was inthem.
Like, even if they'remissing, but I can't find anything about whether she's pressed onit, whether she says she doesn'tremember.
Becauselike, if you're saying the stuff that was written could hurthim, then don't you know what stuff itwas?
Yes, they'renot. And what did youwrite?
Nothing. There's nothing reported outthere.
And so the one year anniversary of Kristen's disappearanceapproaches.
But it doesn't seem like investigators are any closer to making amove.
There is a brief flash of hope when the Charlotte Observer publishes a reporttitled, Police Have Possible Suspect in Kristen ModifairyCase.
And that's published on June18th.
But Officer Mahaney shoots that down the nextday, telling Don Woodtapka in reporting for the news and observer that at best all he's got is some circumstantial evidence and a person ofinterest.
And although investigators haven't named him at thispoint, the person of interest he's referring to is obviouslyJohn.
But they never make a move to arresthim.
By July of1998, the Modifaries are on their fifth trip out toCalifornia, and they arrange for a full page ad in a local newspaper around the sametime.
They also more than double the reward that they're offering to $25,000 and then they double it again inNovember, even taking out a loan to coverit.
And they arrange for 20 billboards to go up in the Bay Area aswell.
Now in either the winter of $98.99 or the early springof $99, investigators decide it's high time to bring John in for another heart toheart.
But when they try and findhim, theycan't.
He left the Bay Area and movedsomewhere.
So they spend the next few months just trying to find thisguy, but it's not until America's most wanted features Kristen's case again in May of 99 that in acquaintance catches the episode and finally tips them off that John is inHawaii.
The San Francisco Examiner reports that same month that Officer Mahaney convinces him to come back to California for a lie detectortest.
But I have no clue if that happens or even what the resultsare.
There's some suggestion that he sits for a polygraph with his own hand chosenexaminer, but is thatconfirmed?
Is the examinercredible?
What are theresults? I don'tknow.
I know he claims to have passed apolygraph, but I'm not exactly taking this guy at his word and mums the word forinvestigators.
And alsopolygraphs. Iknow.
So another grueling 18 monthspasses, but in November of 2000 something kind of amazinghappens.
But I actually need to back up just a little bit for it to makesense.
So going all the way back to those first few weeks after Kristen'sdisappearance, Kristen's parents had reached out to the National Center for Missing and ExploitedChildren, better known as NickMac.
They were trying to see if they could help in someway.
They have tons of resources at theirdisposal.
Imean, one of which at the time they were known for these huge direct mailing campaigns which could reach more mailboxes and eyes than they could even dreamof.
But back then to theirdevastation, Nick Mac couldn't do anything for them because Kristen was18.
Imean,barely. Literally like22, 23 days into being18, but who'scounting?
And Imean, let that sinkin.
She was just three weeks too old to qualify for theirhelp.
But there was truly nothing they could do about it because Nick Mac is federally funded and the charter isn'tambiguous.
They can only help in cases involvingminors, which was super discouraging to Kristen'sfamily, especially once they realized that there actually weren't any similar organizations for missingadults.
And for most people in theirsituation, that might have been where it wouldend.
But Bob and Debbie aren't mostpeople.
So at the same time that they're flying back and forth across the country on the regular tryingto, youknow, find their missingdaughter, they were also organizing and collecting signatures and raising absolute hell and itworked.
Because in November of2000, President Clinton signs Kristen's law intoeffect, which officially establishes and funds the National Center for MissingAdults.
But while that organization would hopefully go on to help a ton of otherfamilies, it didn't helpKristen's.
As for the next 11 and a halfyears, there is no resolution in hercase.
But remember our oldfriend, DennisMann.
Well, he's not in San Franciscoanymore, or at least not fulltime, but he's never given up onKristen.
He's still searching for that one piece of evidence that could crack the case wideopen.
And in June of2012, he just might have foundit.
Orrather, it might just have foundhim.
Now everything I'm about to say comes from either Dennis'spodcast, which you can find onSpotify.
It's called Find Kristen All OneWord.
Or it comes from hiswebsite, which isfindcristin.com.
But according toDennis, he is just minding his own business one day when he sees this email comethrough.
He doesn't recognize thesender, but that's like50% of anyone's inbox thesedays.
So click open scanthrough.
And what pops outimmediately?
A familiarname.Jill. So the email isfrom, follow mehere.
You're not payingattention.
Now's the time to honein.
The email is from Jill's uncle'swife.
Soaunt? So TBDmaybe. I don't know the familydynamics, but that's notimportant.
Pointbeing, this person didn't know Jill or even ofher.
Apparently, the uncle wasn't around when Jill was growingup, but somehow they had like reconnected asadults, the uncle andJill.
But the wife hadn't really known that until this one day when her husband gets a call fromJill.
And Jill's saying strangethings, things that kind of start to worryhim.
Tohim, she sounds unwell like she's going through a mental health crisis orsomething.
According toDennis, this conversation went on forhours, likefour.
Andliterally, number fourhours.
And once the uncle realizes that something's notright, he starts taking notes about like what she'ssaying.
And when he hangsup, he tells his wife that Jill had said something reallyconcerning.
Back when she lived in the Bayarea, she dated aquote-unquote, very controllingman.
Who? And I'm going to quote the uncle's noteshere.
Quote. Convince her to assist in an unspeakable kidnap andmurder.
Endquote.Now, theuncle, when he got thiscall, wants like absolutely nothing to do withthis.
Imean, to befair, there's no suggestion he ever heard of Kristen Modiferry or hercase.
All he knows is that this is not a tree that he wants to go barkingup.
He'd like to just tuck those notes into the junk drawer and forget about them alltogether.
Thank you verymuch.But, like Isaid, the wife's never heard of thisniece, so she'slike, youknow, I havequestions, like he might not want to knowmore, but like Ido.
Andyeah, metoo. Iknow.
She'sjunky. I seeyou.Yeah, so this is what'swild.
She Googles Jill'sname.
Again, this niece she'd never heardof.
Only to see that like holy effinghell, Jill very well might be connected to an unsolveddisappearance, a likely kidnap and murder in SanFrancisco, involving her abusive POS boyfriend at thetime.
And you want to know the bestpart?
The wife sends Dennis copies of thenotes.
Now, we're obviously going to link out to those in the shownotes.
They are admittedly not the mostlegible, but we're talking about copies of a copyhere.
And if you like really pull out your monocles or your magnifyingglasses, you can see the words they are plain asday.
But,Britt, this is where things getfrustrating.
I don't know what happensnext.
What do youmean? Why assume Dennis passed the notes along toinvestigators?
But there hasn't been an official statement from investigators about this or any kind of reporting outside ofDennis' own publications onthis.
So that is worth noting as you're kind of vetting this information foryourself.
What do her parents say aboutit?
Youknow, I'm not sure that they've ever addressed this incidentspecifically, but I do know for sure that they thought John and Jill were hidingsomething.
Imean, how could you not thinkthat?
Right, but Imean, that'sit.
This is where weare. We've never been found and no one's ever beencharged.
Well, no to both ofthose, but they'reactually, it's notit.
So there were a few more interesting things that happened in the lastdecade.
And Imean,like, brief things that popped up on theradar.
Solike, I know Robert Durs somehow gets thrown into the mix as a potential person ofinterest, but that theory turns out to be every bit as ridiculous as itsounds.
So I'm not even going to waste yourtime.
And ofcourse, anytime there is a missingperson, you're going to find the name IsraelKeys.
Because ofcourse, there's an Israel Keyscampaign.
It should always be on your bingocard, though to befair, this one does have a decentreason.
So after keys wasarrested, there was a list of nameless profiles or pictures or something on hiscomputer.
So basically like missing people more than 40 ofthem.
And according to what Josh Hallmark says on hispodcast, True Crime Bullshit in a specific episode aboutKristen, she was one of the people on thatlist.
Now if Josh's theory about the list isright, her being on there doesn't necessarily mean that Keys wasconnected.
Like some people on the listare, somearen't.
He thinks that sometimes Keys would look up cases similar to the ones he actuallydid, or maybe he was just infatuated with missing person'scases.
Eitherway, Kristen has never been linked to Keys officially more than justthat.
But then there's this other rabbit hole that I found prettyinteresting.
In June of2015, Dennis introduces Kristen's parents to a PI that he knows with a cadaverdog.
And they asked the current owner of the house Kristen was living at if perhaps Buster this puppy could have just a little like sniffer ortwo.
And the owner agrees and Buster actually alerts in the basement for humandecomposition, which could be a major like holymowment.
But the PI retires detective Paul Dosty cautions against jumping toconclusions.
According to reporting by DedrickRussell, he saysquote, we don't know if that'sKristen.
There are otherexplanations.
He goes on to listcremation,ashes, indigenous burial sites aspossibilities.
Now I know the Oakland PD does at least bring in ground penetratingradar, but that reveals nothing other than some very hard to shovel soil andclay.
And then this is where things get a littlecomplicated.
Okay, so in 2017 comes this guy namedDr.
R. PadVass. And I don't know if you remember him from a zillion years ago our Brandy Hallepisode.
I do like because it was that name brings a lot back because it waswild.
It waswild. So same thing going onhere,Dr.
Vass developed this specific tech that is supposed to detect what ABC 7 news refers to asquote, humandecomposition.
And as we talked about in that episode and we're going to link out to it in the shownotes, it is worth arevisit.
Thisdevice, what it says is like basically can detect samples with ties to specific DNAprofile.
So where a sniffer dog is like just ecomp, I think this thing is sayinglike, oh specificdecom.
And whether this thing is a revolutionary advancements in forensic or pure snake oil science is still veryTV.
Right. Using thisdevice,Dr.
Vass says he finds human DNA in the places where the dogs detecteddecom.
They think it's fromblood.
That matches DNA samples fromChristians,parents.
Wait, whatblood?Yeah, that's thequestion.
Whatblood? Oakland PD didn't see any blood when they were there doing their GPR ordigging.
But according to reporting by Bill Moffitt forSFGate,Dr.
Vass says his technology can detectquote, a chemical signature indicating humanblood.
So basically the police arelike,listen, we're happy to hear youout.
Send us the samples and we're going to need some details on yourprocess.
We can verify yourresults.
Like, youknow, we just need to like take more than your word forit.
That our source isyeah.
Yeah, exceptDr. Vass isn't giving up hissecrets.
He says he has to protect his proprietarytechnology.
So an Oakland PD spokeswoman says in a 2018 emailquote, at thistime, the information we need fromDr.
Vass to collect samples for his human decomposition testing has not been forwarded to thedepartment.
Endquote.Dr. Vass and Dosty claim that this is totalBS, that they absolutely have thetechnology.
They say it's not even that complicated oradvanced, but the Oakland PD sticks to theirguns.
And no one isbudging. So those test results never get confirmed byanyone, butDr.
Vasshimself. Andlisten, I don't want to dive too deep into thistheory, but I am going to give a few details because at thispoint, this is when like a dividedevelops.
So you haveofficer, Mahaney and Dennis who think onething.
You have Dosty andDr. Vass who thinkanother.
And then you have the FBI and then I'll get to them in asecond.
Basically, the PI andDr.
Vass think that maybe Kristen did make it back to Oakland that day in1997, which in theory could potentially implicate the four men that she was livingwith.
Those four men have no connection to John or Jill and the investigators never really consider them serious persons ofinterest.
Has there ever been any follow up on those guysthough?
Like, where are theynow?
Have they gotten in anytrouble?
Honestly, I'm not sure I know officer Mahaney felt like they were super cooperative and forthright during the initialinvestigation.
And Dennis has spoken to three of four and he felt like mostly kind of the sameway.
And he also point something out that feels important in the context of thehousemates.
It's not like Kristen joined this like group of four long time besties when she moved out to that house inOakland.
Like, they were all just renting rooms that happened to be in the samehouse.
Like that was their entire connection to oneanother.
Except for two ofthem, two of them werebrothers, but for the mostpart, it was just this house sharingarrangement.
So in my personalopinion, like any theory that they've all been keeping thisdirty, shared secret for the past 27years, it's like it's more of astretch,right?
Like they have no obligation to do that for eachother.
Right. But maybe there was a threat that was close tohome.
You see unbeknownst to investigators on Kristen's case for the first year of theinvestigation, the house directly next door to hers operated as some sort of transitional housing for criminaloffenders.
And as far as I cantell, and it could bewrong, information isscarce.
It might have been used for juvenileoffenders, which isn't to say that you have to be a legal adult to bedangerous, but a house full of wayward teens seems a lot less threatening than like a house full of adultoffenders, I don'tknow.
But eitherway, like I wassaying, there's adivide.
Sarah Mahaney doesn't buy any of thistheory, neither doesDennis.
They still seem pretty certain that all roads lead back to JohnOnuma.
When he was asked in 2023 where he thinks Kristen's remainsare, Officer Mahaney told Andrew Chamings and Katie Dowd with the FSKquote, I'd say she was dumped off a bridge in MarinCounty.
Endquote. Marin County where John claimed her body had been dumped all those yearsago.
Butinterestingly, a 2017 ABC 7 article states that the FBI has cleared John and Jill as persons of interest and they have closed their case onKristen.
The reporter for that article Katie Udice actually reached out to John for herpiece.
And he admitted to calling the initial tip in way back when but says that he regretsit.
He told herquote, I put the attention on me when I shouldn't have and I screwedup.
I took the focus off of theinvestigation.
Endquote. But and I feel like this is an important but a spokesperson for the FBI put out a statement in 2023 indicating that they didn't see anything suggesting that Kristen actually met with foul play atall.
Which seems to be a page that literally no one else ison.
I was going to say I didn't even realize that was like a page in the book we werereading.
And I don't know if I don't have enough information about what the FBI means bythat.
I don't know if they go to thescent,right?
Like the dogs tractor sent to thecliff.
Did she follow thecliff?
Is that what theybelieve?
And that's why they're saying no foul play or are they suggesting that she walkedaway?
Like they don't say any ofthat.
They just say that there's no foul play atall.
So not only did they like write off persons ofinterest, they're like there's no persons ofinterest.
There's no reason for a person ofinterest.
Yeah. Don't get it twisted like FBI sayingthat, but I don't I don't think that's what local police aresaying.
What does her familythink?
Well, I don't know if they subscribe to any onetheory.
Imean, that's hard to do when your loved one ismissing.
Like, at least the people that I've talked to who have a missing lovedone, it's like every day you could feeldifferently.
Like because anything and everything seems possible when you don't know what actuallyhappened.
So that's kind of where Kristen's case standstoday.
Her dad Bob died in 2022 fromleukemia.
And maybe there are answers afterdeath.
I like to thinkso. Debbie says that as she was saying hergoodbye, she asked him to give Kristen hugs from herself and from Kristen'ssisters.
If you know anything about the disappearance of Kristen Modiferry from the Bay Area in June of1997, please pass your information along to the Oakland Police Department Missing PersonsUnit.
They can be reached at510-238-3641.
You can find all the source material for this episode on ourwebsite,crimejunkipodcast.com.
And you can follow us on Instagram atcrimejunkipodcast.
We're going to be back next week with a brand newepisode, but if you want to stick around for a couple ofminutes, we've got some good news foryou.
Alright, crimejunkies, let's lighten things up a littlebit.
We got another tried and true good segment for you thismonth.
Thank goodnesstoo. Iknow, I know I could use a little good thismonth.
Yeah, and likealways, this story isamazing, but the timing within it isjust, it's reallysomething.
Dear Ashley andBritt, I can't even believe the timing on what justhappened.
I'm a long time crime junkie and decided to listen to your most recent episode on scams on my neighborhood walk justnow.
I literally still had my AirPods in from finishing the episode when my phone rang with a blockedcall.
I don't knowwhy. I don't even know why I decided to answer because I usually screencalls, but I didanswer.
They verified my name and identified themselves as from the city policedepartment.
Shutup. The initial statement was that they had an official notification for me and my thoughts instantly went to the worst casescenario.
That's something that happened to someone in myfamily.
So I was emotionally revved up and then he started to talk about how they had assigned document by me saying I would appear in court on a certaindate.
Shutup. I had missed the courtappearance.
They said they were calling on behalf of a judge and that there was now a misdemeanor charge in my name for failure toappear.
Obviously, I never assigned anything and had no knowledge of what they were talkingabout.
This is a big deal toanyone, but particularly to me because my professional license is affected by any non-trafficcharge.
However, I had finished your scam episode just 30 secondsprior.
So even though I was freakingout, I told them to please repeat their name and I'd be coming in person with my uncle who is alawyer.
This istrue. He's actually a retiredlawyer.
He went on about how I didn't alawyer, but X and Y werehappening, but I maintained that I would come inperson.
And then he said that if I would not follow the instructions on thephone, he needed me to verbally repeat some statement with my information saying I wouldn'tproceed.
I told him I would not give any personal information over thephone, but wanted his name and I am coming inperson.
He then started getting flustered and putting me onhold, presumably to readjust thescript, but I held to the statement that I needed his name and would come inperson.
I offered to call back to the non-emergencyline.
He kept trying to push for additional personalinformation, but I ultimately sure hedid.
Hung up when he kept putting me onhold.
He immediately called back and I told him that he had 30 seconds to tell me his name and where I should come in person for which he had noanswer.
So I hung up again and declined the subsequent three or fourcalls.
I cannot believe thetiming.
If I hadn't heard this episode when Idid, I think I could have been so flustered by everything in the phone call that I would have at least provided a lot more at theminimum.
It's absolutely terrifying to receive a notificationcall,quote, from thepolice.
And even as a well-educated long-standing crimejunkie, I waspanicking.
Your episode saved my personal information and possibly my bankaccount.
I have the utmost respect for those that shared their stories so I could learn from them and besafe.
Muchlove.I.Sarah. I literally have full-bodychills.
The time that is breakingunbelievable.
That has to feel like you're in amovie.
It's madeup,right? Like you're listening to this episode onScam.
Yeah. And thenyou, someone tries to scam you 30 secondslater.
You couldn't convince me like I wasn't on my own version of the TrumanShow.
Really?Oh,man, that is really stinkingcool.
Likeagain, myhope,obviously, was that we helped a person or two with thatepisode.
I didn't think it would happen thatfast.
But that quickly isunbelievable.
Also, I love to know that we're blowing up theirspot.
These people are going to need a newscam.
Yeah. That'samazing.Oh, loveit.
Crime junkie is an audio checkproduction.
So what do youthink,Chuck?
