The Disappearance of Melissa Ortiz-Rodriguez

In 2013, Melissa dropped her girls off at school and hasn't been seen or heard from since. In this episode, I break down the timeline of Melissa’s disappearance, the last known moments before she vanished, and the unsettling details that have left her family and investigators searching for answers for over a decade.

Someone knows something, and it's time we ask louder questions.

Song of the Week: "Ash and Tears" by Last Good Chat

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:42

I just have to tell you that I've recorded this little intro part like three different times because I kept talking like this. I kept going, Hey. So yeah. Hopefully I can prevent myself from doing it, but I feel like I want to do it right now. Anyway, welcome back to Don't Quote Me, it's probably nothing. I'm Kelly, and this is a podcast where I get high and talk about weird stuff. Today is Tuesday, which means it's true crime Tuesday, which means we're gonna talk about a crime. I wish you could see how my cat's looking at me right now. She's so cute. It's one of my old cats. They're like 10. But I think I said this before, but one's nigh and one's shy. But one I call one crazy cat and the other one fat cat because I can't tell them apart. But anyway, um, we were downstairs, and by we, I mean me, the cat, and Claribel. And the cat was walking up to me and Clarabelle was standing there, and like they kind of looked at each other. So I was like, fat cat, say hi to Bert. And then two seconds later, they looked at each other again, and the cat was like, and I was like, My cat's a genius, and I always knew I could talk to animals. It made me feel like Snow White because I really do think that I can talk to animals sometimes. Like, I feel like if I were to be out in the wild, a wild animal would come up to me and like we'd lock eyes and like we would see each other's souls, and the animal would know that like I just want to smother it aggressively with kisses, you know, and like wouldn't attack me at all. But anyway, so this true crime Tuesday episode is something that I've been putting off for like a really long time. And dude, I wanted to be a true crime podcaster so bad. Like, so during COVID, I was still working, like here and there, like when we wouldn't have off, and there was nothing to do, like court they didn't have court because of COVID and restrictions and stuff like that. So I would just literally do paperwork all day. Like we were scanning stuff in and like shredding, and it was mindless work. But anyway, I started listening to true crime podcasts, and I was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm sorry to laugh. I was trying to hold my composure. I was like, I'm gonna do this. I'm sorry to keep chuckling. I was like, I'm gonna be the best true crime podcaster ever, ever, ever. And hold on one second, because I'm just gonna play you the beginning of this, like what I'm gonna talk about, and like we're just gonna chuckle at it together for a second before I tell you the rest of this case. Because what even what even was I doing? When you hear that someone is missing, your mind can run wild with all of the things that could have possibly happened to them. Maybe they wanted to get away for a little while. Or maybe it's possible that something sinister happened from the person that you would never expect. Or would you? In April of 2013, Melissa Rodriguez was reported missing by her estranged husband, Jose. None of her family or friends have seen or talk to her since. A missed train, no contact from Melissa, a sabotaged investigation, and almost 10 years of no answers. Her family, police, and myself want to know what happened to Melissa Rodriguez. I'm Kellyanne Rue, and this is who you let in. Oh Kelly, you sweet child. So I have something wrong with me where, like, if I get an idea about something, I actually, like, for the most part, will do it like 95% of the time. I do too many things, and so many things. But anyway, so yeah, this was one of those things a couple years ago. And I was like, I interviewed some officers and some of Melissa's family and stuff like that. So I'll play interviews for you while I'm like telling you about it. So yeah, let's see if I can be the coolest true crime lady your ears have ever heard. Also, I know my laughs are not ladylike. You should see it in person. If something's really funny, I literally cackle like that bird video that people send around. That's like me when something's funny and the bird like shoots its head back and just like lets out a noise. That's literally what I do. I throw my head back for some reason when something's really funny. Okay, so Melissa grew up in Newark, New Jersey, which is a couple hours away from Collingdale. So one of the first people that I was able to talk to was her one friend, but she didn't want me to say her name. So I called her Maria. And I was thinking about it for the past six years about how I probably should have picked a different name. I like I should have let her choose her name that she wanted to go by, you know? Because like, what if she doesn't like that name? And what if she's like, I prefer the name Ashley, or like Margot or something, you know? I'll call her Margot. I'm changing her name to Margot. So this is her friend Margot talking about Melissa. Also, before I play some of this audio, a lot of the audio on here is probably like the quality is probably not great, and I may have mentioned that already. And also with now Margot's interview, I'm so mad at myself because I had an hour-long interview with her, and it was the most amazing interview I've ever done. Like it was so like you can feel the emotion in like obviously, but I don't know how to explain it. Like, I don't know, like when we were talking, it felt like Melissa was like there with us, you know? It's a weird thing to say, but like, and then the whole entire interview is somehow just compressed into a blank file. Like everything she said was gone, and it was just so good, and I feel terrible for that. I did apologize to her in person, like not in person, but on the phone again when I interviewed her for the second time. But it sucks because it was so good. It was such a good interview.

SPEAKER_07 6:53

Melissa and I met during my sophomore year. Uh we uh were at our time our time is going north and wear like these cool DKY sneakers and uh like these colorful glasses because it was um the 90s. Uh and she'd wear her like in this huge bun. And I just thought she had such a cool style.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

And instead of hating her, like you always want to hate the ex-girlfriend, I just couldn't bring myself to it because of um she was so sweet and bubbly and fun and outgoing that we ended up just So I don't know if I told you if Melissa was in the Navy, but she was in the Navy and she ended up being medically discharged, and then she met Jose through friends, and then ended up getting married and having a child like shortly after that. And then that's when they moved to Collingdale a couple hours away. And he started, and by he I mean Jose, started training as a mechanic, and then he got a job at Amtrak, and then he was like, Hey, this drives too much for me. So I'm gonna get my own place and I'll be home on the weekends. Which if my kids were little, I'd probably lose it. Now I'd be like, okay, okay, okay, I think I can get behind this. But anyway, so Melissa stayed in Collingdale all the time, and then Jose lived in New Jersey during the week since he had work. So Melissa's family and friends had nothing but nice things to say about her and who she was as a person. But one of the things that they did say was that she was a little bit naive when it came to Jose.

SPEAKER_10 8:26

She um, you know, she was very protective of Jose, you know, like nothing that he can do, you know, who was wrong.

SPEAKER_09 8:32

We felt like he was real manipulated with her, you know, and she was naive. She's way younger than home.

SPEAKER_05 8:38

So because she was so young and naive, like many young people are, she believed like anything he said and definitely ignored some red flags for sure. So after Jose had moved Melissa to Collingdale, that's when all of his like controlling behaviors really started to escalate. He needed to know where she was at all times. She wasn't allowed to have a cell phone. Like, if he was mad at her, he would cut the wires on her car so that she wasn't able to drive anywhere. And then she wasn't allowed to have like money. He would take her Scepticard because he worked for Amtrak. She like had a septic card. He would take that so that she couldn't go anywhere. And like he wouldn't give her, I think I said she wasn't allowed to have a debit card, but like she didn't have a debit card. If she would go food shopping, he would be like, Oh, you can have this much money. And then this is when you have to come back. So while all of this was going on, I don't know if Melissa like would talk to her family that often and friends that often. So she would write everything down in this journal. And supposedly, I wasn't able to confirm because I don't have the journal. Supposedly, this journal contained a whole bunch of information about like her and Jose's relationship. And she carried that journal everywhere. Like, I don't know if she ever left it out of her sight from what I've heard. It was always in her purse or like close to her. So sometime in 2012, Melissa takes her girls and she's like, I'm gonna go visit Margot. I'm sorry for calling you Margie if you if you hear this. I just I don't know. I I don't know. You can call yourself whatever you'd like, preferably your your real name. But anyway, when I was talking to Margot, she told me that she had a really great time with Melissa and the girls while they were there. And they got to do fun things and they went to Disney and they went to the beach and they just had so much fun. She did tell me that one of the days they wanted to go out to like like they wanted to go dancing, you know, probably wanted to go dancing, I'm assuming. And um, Jose actually took Melissa's ID so that she couldn't go out anywhere, but they still ended up having a pretty fun night. But one of the things that she said that stuck out to me was that Melissa was like so free when she was down there and not near Jose because she didn't have to worry about like not having any money. Like, is he gonna cut the wires on my car? Is he gonna do this, do that? You know what I mean? And also for dramatic effect. Remember how earlier I told you that Jose got an apartment. I don't even know if I said an apartment, but he got an apartment in Jersey while Melissa stayed in Collingdale. Well, he was not the only one living there. So Jose ended up having a whole other girlfriend that Melissa had no idea about, obviously. But not only was Jose living with someone else, he was about to have a baby with someone else. And I heard a couple different things. One of them is that um Melissa received something in the mail with insurance or something like that. Like it went to that address and she saw that there was like a baby added or something like that. And then the other one that I heard was that she found out because there was like a receipt for a baby bottle or something like that. So after that happened, Melissa told Jose that she wanted a divorce, but he did not want her to leave.

SPEAKER_10 11:57

He didn't want her to leave, you know, because you know he's just was a controlling individual and um he wanted to, you know, just have control over her. And unfortunately, my niece, like I said, you know, she was uh his preferred relationship and so she she didn't really know that. He he was saying, I guess, with the other other young lady that he had a child with. It was later discovered that he had a child out of Well.

SPEAKER_05 12:29

That was Melissa's Uncle Edwin. Also, fun fact, this happened in 2013, and now it's been hold on, I gotta pause this to do my math because you know how my math is. So it was 13 years ago. And 10 years ago, they had like a vigil type thing for Melissa, and I went because this is when I had done like all the research on this case and interviewed the families and stuff like that. And I'm standing there and I'm talking to the one officer who I was talking to this case about, and when I had got there, I saw this guy standing across the street, and he had a fancied suit jacket on, and I thought he was a reporter, and I was like, I'm not talking to a reporter. I am too shy. Well, also to talk to other people too. But anyway, I asked the officer, I'm like, oh, who is that? Like thinking like maybe he would say his like it was a reporter guy. And he was like, Oh, that's Melissa's uncle. I was like, Oh my gosh, I am so dumb. And I felt terrible because like I didn't talk to him for a little while. So then I went over and said hi. And then I was my awkward self, you know, just standing there in awkward silence because who who who do I think I am talking to people face to face? But anyway, so after all of that happened, Jose stayed in New York permanently, and Melissa stayed not New York, New Jersey permanently, and then Melissa stayed in Collingdale, and then Jose would get the girls every other weekend, and Melissa would take that time to visit her friend Evie, who lived in Newark where she grew up. So on the weekend of April 19th of 2013, Melissa was supposed to go meet her friend Evie to stay at her house for the weekend, but she had never showed up. And I was talking to Margot, and she said that the week before Melissa went missing, Jose was living, and I'm using air quotes to say living, back at the house. He wasn't like, I don't know if he was there permanently. He was at the house sleeping on the couch that weekend. Like he called her on the phone and was like begging her to come home, like probably saying stuff like, I miss you, I love you, which ew, my guy. I'm gonna make you dislike him. Just kidding, I'm probably gonna delete that. I probably should delete that, but I'm not going to also form your own opinions about Jose. He somehow got into her good graces and she was letting him sleep on the couch. So going back to the 19th, so Melissa started her day just like any other day. She got up, she got the kids ready for school, brought them to school, and then was supposed to head to Jersey to visit her friend. So when Melissa would go to the train station, she would drive her car, and I want you to remember this for future reference. She would drive her car to the train station, take the Amtrak train to Newark, and her friend Evie or a family member would pick her up. So on Tuesday, April 23rd at 9.16 in the morning, Colliendale police took a missing person's report from Jose. And he told the police that Melissa had been missing since Friday, April 19th, and that he picked the girls up from school on Friday and brought them to his house in Jersey because it was his weekend, and that on Monday he dropped them back off at school like he usually does, but that he hadn't heard from Melissa all weekend, and that on Monday he sent her a text but got no response. Then he told them that around like four o'clock on Monday afternoon, he received a call from the girls' school that they hadn't been picked up. So I'm gonna play a clip. His name's Bobby Adams. He was the I think police chief at the time, but he's gonna explain it to you.

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Bob Adams, ADAMS. I was hired in con May 23rd, 1980. Started part-time patrolman. In 1988, I became full-time. And then in 2007, I was promoted to police chief. And then in 2017, October, I retired. While I was there, of course, while I was there, I started as part-time patrolman, patrolman, juvenile officer, detective sergeant, and ultimately retired as police chief. I was here a total of 38 years. We only had at each time I won at any given time there's only one detective. So for major cases, major incidences, homicides, shootings, we were calling the county detectives to assist because it was only one there was only one person myself. Hadn't heard or talk to her since Friday. It was very unusual. He had the kids that weekend. He spoke to her on Friday. It was his weekend with the kids, and she was going to a friend's house, and that's the last they spoke. Question was raised initially why did he wait till Monday to report her missing? And he didn't his his answer at time was he didn't really realize she was missing because it was his weekend with the kids. The one thing that I distinctly I remember that just really I just keep going over my head is that she had no credit cards, no debit cards, nothing in her name. He would give her cash. Car was in his name. Something of us wasn't right. We spoke to some neighbors. They said they constantly fought. We had a I think we had a couple prior domestics there. He was very standoffish. He was very protective of the house initially. And we just something just wasn't right with with the entire scenario. We interviewed him, it was very standoffish, wouldn't wouldn't really talk to us that much. And I I specifically remember on the front lawn, Channel Six was interviewing him with Dan Quayar, and in the middle of the interview, he just stopped and walked away in the house and stopped talking.

SPEAKER_05 18:06

So I'm gonna play you that news interview, and then I'm gonna play you another one that I found. I really had to dig for this one, but it kept cutting off like 40 seconds in, and I was getting so mad. But I'll play like the news interview first.

SPEAKER_06 18:20

Melissa Doligas, a 21-year-old mother of two children, was supposed to go visit a friend in North Jersey on Friday, April 19th, but she never made it. She was reported missing by a restrange husband on April 23rd. After she failed to pick up their kids from school. Back then, we asked him, what was the best that he could hope for?

SPEAKER_11 18:36

We have uh two daughters, and I just wanted to just, I don't know, uh come back. I mean, be safe.

SPEAKER_05 18:48

Okay, so here is a couple seconds of the unedited part of that interview. And I did email like the news company and put in like a request for the file, like or video or whatever, because they can send it to you if it's archived, which it is, but I just never heard back from them, which is kind of annoying. Because I wanted to hear the entire thing. Because he literally like you can look it up on YouTube and still find it, but it's the one that I just showed you where they should and but like he really does just stop and walk away in the middle of the interview. But I need to hear the rest of the unedited interview because I want to know what they asked that made him get up and walk away. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_11 19:24

Tell us about your wife that last time you saw her and everything that was going on before. Um Friday. What did you say? Walk there or drive there?

SPEAKER_05 20:04

Um it stopped abruptly because it like ended up playing an ad and then went to like some current video, so I couldn't see the rest of that. But if you heard him towards the end, when they asked how she would get there, and he said train, and then well, how did she get to the train? And he said, walk. Okay. And then also I want you to remember, tuck it away, like SpongeBob's little filing cabinet in his mind, tuck it away in your mind that he mentioned a suitcase, which was really odd, and that it was pink. So just remember that too. So in February of 2013, the police ended up being called to Melissa's house because she had tried to leave Jose. So she took all of, well, whatever belongings she could, and she packed stuff up for her and the girls, and she put them in bags. And Jose pushed her out of the way and then grabbed the bags and tore them up and like threw them all over the front lawn. So she ended up going to the courthouse to file a PFA, but she was denied. Now, I will say, since working there, because of this case, I think that is the reason why now a lot of the temporary PFAs are approved until you go to the like the main hearing to have like a PFA like put on or or denied, um, instead of it being temporary, more of like a permanent thing. But anyway, so when I was researching all of this, my friend Chris, who is like a literal saint, okay? So we used to work together at the courthouse and he did a lot of like PFA stuff. So I'm gonna play the interview that I did with him of him explaining it. But I just want to say the reason why I called him a saint is because I have bothered him so much about this case. Like I would ask him questions, like lawyer questions, be like, okay, so what if they did this? Or what if they charged him with this? And basically it was me asking. Asking the same question, just with the words rearranged differently, hoping for a different answer. But I will say every time he was very respectful in telling me no.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Currently, I work for uh Mark Much. Uh we have a pretty concentrated practice, um, but we have branched out into municipal law. We represent um some local governments were special solicitor for some issues across Delaware County. Prior to working with Mr. Mutch, I was chief of the special victims unit in the DA's office. For two years prior to that, I was on the special victims trial team in the Delaware County DA's office. And then um I started my career in the public defender's office. So I've kind of returned to more of the defense side. But I am proud and grateful to uh have done both sides. And it it does help either side that you're currently on of having known how the the other side thinks about things. The last two years that I was in the DA's office, I kind of assigned myself PFA court. We were under the gun with a lot of the stress of COVID and whatnot. And the rest of the people on my team, I thought they were better served to have more cases, so I went to PFA court. So I made a lot of those decisions and worked with Delaware County's judges, their family court judges, um, to try to make that a better process. Just from the get-go, um, the 2019 numbers, because we were trying to the DA's office and the third floor, were the judges were working together to try to create a domestic violence court, which would have a special judge, it would have a special DA, it would have a special public defender, the defense bar would be um a part of that, and it was trained probation officers so that everybody would kind of understand the the cycle of domestic violence that would always kind of be on the judge's mind, the defense's mind, the prosecution's mind, and you wouldn't have to constantly educate the system every time you have one of these cases. So, in that process, we got the numbers for 2019. 28% of all PFAs that are applied for get a final order. So that means that 72% of all PFAs that come before a judge are denied. They are not given order. Why is that? The skeptic in me would say that that shows you how much the system is abused. Now, from being in PFA court, you are as a prosecutor, you are constantly looking for Ted Bundy. That's where he is. However, normal people going through divorces are also scattered around him and they all look the same. And the system is, I believe, constantly abused. The when you have people going through a divorce, it doesn't matter if it's the man or the woman, if there is a PFA against one of the parties, the other party gets exclusive control of the property and of the children. It is a huge leg up in divorces. So therefore, a lot of these things are filed and a lot of them are denied. So this puts a huge stress on prosecutors and judges who are constantly and feverishly looking for Ted Bundy amongst people that are you know just going through divorces. So why a PFA would be granted or denied is more specifically for um judges because they are the ones that have the ex part type hearings. Once someone files with the court, they file for an emergency PFA, they will take them before a judge, and that judge hears only one side of the story. They then will either grant or deny a temporary PFA. If it is denied, it ends there. If there's a temporary granted, then it's basically like having one until you can have a hearing. And then at that hearing, a judge would hear from both sides and then determine whether or not someone is truly in fear and whether or not this other person um is true poses a danger to this person. You also have to have a relationship. It can't just be neighbors, it has to be an intimate relationship or a familiar relationship. I think you that's not really relevant to you in what you're looking at. It was a domestic violence situation that you're dealing with. But what you're what you're looking at is is really those those hearings in front of judges where only 28% result in a final order. Now, in addition to my skepticism, what probably also is pervasive in the system is plaintiffs that don't show up. As I'm sure you're saying in researching the domestic violence cycle, people forgive their abuser a lot, or they are incredibly terrified of their abuser. So while in that moment where they're trying to survive, then they reach out to the police, then the police come, or they they help them file, um, fill out a PFA application, um, or a family member helped in that moment of crisis. But then, you know, a week later, a month later, um, things get continued, as you know, in the criminal justice system, these processes take a long time. And sometimes right away, the person is back with the defendant or is terrified of the defendant and never wants to go and publicly make a statement against them in court. So if they don't show up, the case has to be dismissed, even if the defendant, if we didn't catch them, but if the defendant um scared the the victim into not coming, that still would not result in a final order. This case is is your Ted Bundy case. That's that's the guy that we're looking for.

SPEAKER_05 27:36

Sorry, that was a little windy. That clip was a little windy. Funny story about that word. So at my cousin's wedding, which if he hears this, just know I laughed pretty hard at this for about three months. So it was my cousin's wedding, and it my pop up was sitting next to me. And Lauren, who is my cousin's wife, her sister was giving her speech for being the maid of honor or whatever. I think she was really nervous because she was talking really fast and she had this paper with her, and we thought it was like just the front, and then like so she goes through this long thing, and she's she's reading from a paper, and she's like, I'm so glad Lauren and Jared are getting married, like like that, you know, except like a high-pitched voice kind of and she flips to the next page, and you can literally hear everybody kind of like uh but that's sorry, I'm trying to compose myself. That's not the funny part. The funny part is that my grandpa is very hard of hearing and it's really quiet, and she's in the middle of talking, and my grandpa was just like boy, she's wendy. Oh man. Good times, good times. I love old people, they are just the best because they're just great. Why am I telling you this? So Chris also mentioned that sometimes the person like will forgive the abuser or they'll get back together. And I mentioned earlier that Jose was living back at Melissa's right before she went missing. He was sleeping on the couch.

SPEAKER_09 29:21

I met Jose. I mean, he he came here one time to pick her up a couple times to pick her up and the kids. It was okay. It was well. Jose daddy gave her any money. Jose is the one who controlled everything. Because one time she was here and she her arm was bruised. And I asked her, What happened to your arm? And she said, uh, you know, Jose had a fight, you know, we argued, I was trying to walk away, and he grabbed my arm. I said, but that's a bruise. What the hell? Like, you know, and she was like, Yeah, but it's okay. We're okay now. But this used to come here, used to come here, and he used to go visit his father. She would drop her her and the kids here. His father was not too far away from me. So I I know Jose. We had smoking. I went to a birthday party. He was there with her, you know, like a family. He was he was a normal guy, except one day he was here. We went. Where did we go? It was me and my friend, the hack company, just a bunch of girls. So I don't remember. I all I know that we ended up at his father's house. And that's when I saw him, he was aggressive because he she was gonna get back in the car with us, and she said, if you get back into the car, you'll see what's gonna happen. So one of my friends was like, wait a minute, you see threatening, huh?

SPEAKER_05 30:37

So, just to recap real quick, to get back on track because I think I talked about a bunch of different things. Melissa dropped the girls off on Friday, April 19th. She was supposed to go to Newark, New Jersey to spend the weekend with her friend Evie, but she never made it. Around 4 p.m. Monday afternoon, Jose received a phone call from the girls' school saying that they were never picked up. And then the next morning, on April 23rd, that Tuesday, he called Collingdale police to report Melissa missing. However, two days, like two full days before Jose reported Melissa missing, he went to his work unannounced and signed out two mop heads and a gallon of industrial strength cleaner. So, what would you need that for, my guy? But anyway, so Jose goes into work and he ends up running into one of his co-workers, and his coworker was the one who like they had to like sign out a thing or charge it out, I think they call it. So like there's receipts and stuff. So his coworker was the one who like witnessed the purchasing or the charging out of the mop buckets and the cleaner. So Calino police are like, okay, obviously we have to go talk to this guy. So they go in and talk to him, and then they see like the video footage on the camera of him like pulling into the place, going inside, and then coming back out with the supplies. And don't forget, this was two days before he reported her missing.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

Without being 100% accurate, I know we got mop heads, bleach, a bucket, rags, trash bags, all things. In my opinion, that we'd be consistent with cleaning up and disposing of something.

SPEAKER_05 32:19

Okay, so I'm gonna go back a little bit and talk about Jose's initial interview with police. So Jose reported Melissa missing on the 23rd. No one had seen her since the 19th. And then on the 24th, the police contacted Jose. And he basically told them the same thing that he originally did, that he dropped the girls off at school, like after he had them for the weekend, and he didn't know she was missing until he got the phone call that they were never picked up from school. But the crazy thing that I want to tell you is that when the officers were like, hey, dude, they didn't call him dude, but they were like, hey, do you know why we called? And this guy said, and I quote, because they found a woman's body floating in the Passaic River. Like, I think I had like a record scratch in like the other episode, but like record scratch that, okay? Because who even says something like that? You sound guilty, my guy. But anyway, so the officer that he said that to ended up contacting police in New Jersey or New York or something, because I think the Passaic River from like all the times I looked on Google Earth is like it kind of goes between the two. And so he called the police up there and they found out that yes, a woman's body in fact was found earlier that I think it was earlier that day or the day before or something like that. Which is such an odd thing to say, you know, because what does that have to do with your wife missing? But I spent a ridiculous amount of time on Google Earth looking at the Passaic River, and I was like zooming in, like this was all when I was researching all this years ago, but I was like zooming in to see if I could find like something in the water, you know? And then I have checked like Namus and I had emails out to like other places to see if there were any like Jane Doe's found. But what I found in my little slew thing that I did, so the Basaic River is like a big long river, okay? And when I was talking to Melissa's friend Evie, she mentioned that Jose's dad lived like kind of not far from her, so I was able to like figure some stuff out on Google Earth because like you can see everything, but also the internet, you can find anything on the internet, okay? And Jose's dad's house. If I picked the correct area, the Passaic River is close to his dad's house and Melissa's friend Evie's house and Penn Station, which I forgot to mention that Penn Station was the train station that she would come in at when she took the train to visit. Like that's where she got off. But anyway, so after Jose makes that comment when he was on the phone with the officers, they were obviously like, Okay, this guy needs to come in so we can talk to him. So he's like, Yeah, okay, I'll come in. I'll come talk to you. He was like, I'll be there by like 12 30. And then 12 30 rolls around and he doesn't show up. So they call him again and he's like, I'll be there this afternoon. And then this afternoon rolls around and he doesn't show up. So they call him again, but he ended up showing up around like 6 30 that evening. So I'm just reminding you that when he talked to the police the first time and then on the phone again, he told them the same thing that he picked the girls up from school and brought them to his house, dropped the girls off at school on Monday, and then didn't know she was missing until he got the phone call Monday afternoon. So, in this interview, the face-to-face police interview, he told the officers that he was at the house Friday morning and was there with Melissa while she was getting the girls ready for school. And he said that he watched Melissa pack her stuff, put the girls in the car, and specifically said he watched her put a pink suitcase in her trunk and then drive off to take the girls to school. So then police, while they're talking to Evie, they asked her about the suitcase that she would bring when she came to visit, and Evie was like, Yeah, the suitcase is a black suitcase. I've never seen a pink suitcase in my life. But anyway, so then he tells the police that Melissa asked him to keep the girls for an extra day and that she was gonna pick them up on the 24th, which was Tuesday. However, what Jose didn't know is that Melissa was supposed to start a new job on the 24th. So she had every intention of going to Evie's house for the weekend and then coming home and starting her new job. To start like her new life, you know, without him. Which I'm just gonna give my opinion for a second. Considering how controlling he was, it does not surprise me one bit that he would get angry over Melissa wanting to separate herself from him and to get a job to better herself. But anyway, Jose also originally told the police that he had left for work early in the morning before she had gotten up to take the kids to school. And that when he found out that the girls hadn't been picked up, he called a friend to go get them. And then during this like face-to-face in-person interview, um, he said that he called his friend's wife to pick the girls up and that he drove down to the house in Collingdale and he got there around 5 30. Which I just want to point out a time thing here. Okay. He didn't get a call until around 4-ish that the girls were never picked up from school. Between like 4 and 4 30, he got that call. He lives in northern Jersey. I think it was like Neptune maybe at the time. So just for context, or is that the correct word for me to use? Oh, I feel like I sound so smart right now. Anyway, just for like, I don't know, that context was good. We'll go with that. Okay. So if he got the call between like 4 and 4:30 and he arrived in Collingdale at around like 5:30, the distance from Neptune to Collingdale is about like 90 to 100 miles. So it would take about like an hour and a half to two hours to get there. So if you got there by 5:30 and you were coming from that area, or even if you were at work and you're coming from Newark, I think Newark was even a little further. But anyway, what I'm trying to say is that he made it there pretty quickly, like in pretty good timing, because maybe he was at the house in Collingdale. You know, but that's just my opinion. That's not like a fact or anything like that. So when Melissa would go visit her friend Evie, she would take her car to the train station and then take the train into Newark. Jose told them that he was using the car all weekend because Melissa left it at the house. And in that interview that I played back for you a little while ago, he told the journalists that he was talking to, or the reporters or whatever, whatever the word is. Um, he told them that she would walk.

SPEAKER_11 39:06

How was she gonna get there? Um, she gets there um trying to train. Which train? Um, set the am track. Did she normally walk there or drive there? Um walk.

SPEAKER_05 39:17

Prepare to get angry with me for the rest of this episode. Because like, I lost sleep, so much sleep. I mean, I can't even imagine how much sleep her family has lost. So, like, I feel sad for them, you know, that for having to go through with this. However, I would be is the word remiss or umus? I'm not even gonna try and sound fancy. I would be lying if I said that this case did not keep me awake at night. But anyway, so Melissa always took her car to the train station, which Jose did say initially, and then in person, like at that interview that I just played for you, he said she walked. And then she told he told police that he had the car all weekend. And like Melissa didn't have any other family, like her family did not live in this area, so it's not like her family member could pick her up. She had like a couple friends, but anyway, so I reached out to one of Melissa's other friends, but she wouldn't talk to me because it still makes her upset, so she didn't want to, which I respect. And so I'm just gonna call her Brittany and I'm gonna like read some stuff from her from like the information that was given to me from the police. So they're on the phone with Britney, right? They talked to her on the 27th, and they asked her when, like, the last time she saw her. So she didn't see Melissa in person since February, but she did speak with her on the 18th. That I think which it was like that Thursday before um she was last seen. So she spoke with her on the phone then, and when she was talking to her, she said that Melissa told her about like the affair and how she wanted to divorce Jose, but she didn't have any money to do it. And I just want to remind you, I mentioned earlier that like she wasn't allowed to have credit cards or a job or any of that. He was just so controlling, you know. So anyway, so Britney's talking to police and her phone rings, and she looked to see who was calling, and it was Jose. But she was like, uh, not answering. Okay, so I wouldn't answer either. But anyway, so then when she didn't answer, Jose called her husband and he answered. And you want to know what he told him? He said, Oh, you don't have to worry anymore. Melissa's been found. She was just hiding out somewhere. I should put another record scratch in here. There's more, there's a couple more record scratches coming, I promise. So when he said that, one of the detectives looked on Facebook and like quickly realized that Melissa is still missing and she had not been found.

SPEAKER_10 41:46

He was doing things to try to sabotage the investigation. Um, you know, like telling people, Oh, Melissa was found. And so he went around the stores and take take tried taking down you know the missing person side, you know, he was you know, saying, Oh, they found Melissa was found. So which wasn't true.

SPEAKER_05 42:07

So Brittany then in the interview mentions Melissa's journal, and she confirmed that Melissa writes absolutely everything in this journal. But then she was like, I think Jose has it. Which, if she brought it everywhere with her, why would Jose have it? So while this is going on, Melissa's family is like canvassing the neighborhood, they're asking people stuff, they're hanging missing posters on like the telephone poles. There's wahwa down the street, and they were hanging the missing flyers on the bulletin board in there, like they were just everywhere doing their thing, okay? And from talking with Evie, I remember her telling me that Jose was there, but he was like not interacting with anyone. Like you they they said he was so uncomfortable, and he didn't say hi or anything. So, like, not only was he being shady AF, he was ripping the posters down and then going up to people and being like, She was found. You don't need to hang these up. She was found. We found her. Just kidding. She's not missing. That's basically what he said. And then he ended up getting a lawyer not long after that.

SPEAKER_09 43:15

I was like, why? Before he lowering it up. Real fast. And we was like, Why do you lower it up? Nobody saying pointing fingers at him at all. We never once said, Oh, you know, you know what you did to her, or where was she with no, we never nothing. We were just like wonder where she's at. What could have happened to her? But him clause and saying that he did something to her, not at that moment, but when he lowered it up, that means he was hiding something. That's when I said, uh uh, something's not right here. He lowered it up. That's called guilt.

SPEAKER_05 43:51

So fast forward to April twenty ninth, Jose's work truck ends up getting like confiscated, if that's the word I should use. The police ended up. Issuing a search warrant so they were able to take the truck and look through it.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

And eventually we did find the truck and we towed it and impounded it. Because I remember the night we impounded it, all the news crews showed up at the police station as we flatbedded it from the police station out to the county. And initially on the truck, they found a speck of blood, but later it was determined to be fish blood. Thought it might have been her blood.

SPEAKER_05 44:25

On May 1st, Jose's friend's wife, the one who picked the kids up from school, she was interviewed by police. So she tells them that she picked up the girls on Monday and then brought them to another friend's house. And we'll call that friend S. So then S tells police that Jose stayed with the kids from the 19th to the 22nd, which was that Monday. But then she also mentioned Melissa's journal. And then later that day, the police interviewed Melissa's kids, and then they also mentioned Melissa's journal that she like brought everywhere. So on May 1st, a neighbor was walking by the house around like 1 a.m. And he saw that Jose was digging in the backyard. And so he they had a pool and he was digging by the pool. And then he was taking the dirt and then moving it to like the side part of their yard, but the whole yard wasn't closed. And so when the officers heard this, they went to look for themselves. And they stood on the public sidewalk. And the he was looking in and he said that he noticed that there was like in the side yard, there was like a mound of dirt that had like weeds growing out of it and like a shovel sticking straight up. And that not far away from there, there was like a wheelbarrow just like propped against the side of the house. And he said that like the yard was so overgrown that he couldn't even see where the dirt had originally come from. So, based on all of the information that I have told you so far, the officers were like, Okay, let's see if we can get a search warrant to search the house. So they did. Also, I'm gonna play a clip real quick. And I just want to let you know that the whole time that Mr. Adams was talking in this clip in the beginning, he kept tapping his pen against the desk. So that's the clicking you hear. I will do my best to edit it out, but I cannot make any promises.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

But at some point in the investigation, a neighbor came forward and said about 1.30 in the morning of that weekend, he saw him in the backyard with a shovel. We did a search warrant on the house and we brought in dogs.

SPEAKER_05 46:31

So when I was reading the affidavit, like the search warrant application thing that they gave me, that's where I got like most of this information from. Well, actually, all of the information I got from this, other than like what the family has told me. But anyway, so obviously I was like, I need to go full detective here, okay? I have to do this for sure. And I was like, I'm gonna contact the guy who had the dog to do the search warrant, the cadaver dog, you know? I was like, I want to talk to him, I want to talk to that guy. And then I was like, this is gonna be the best podcast ever. So anyway, this is James McCann's explaining his cute little doggo and his background and all of that fun stuff, and this stuff with the search warrant.

SPEAKER_08 47:19

My background is in EMS in emergency medical services. I've been in a very long time. Left because I finished a master's degree at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine, and my master's is in forensic medicine. When this case was around, I was like the guy in Delaware County to call. I remember getting a call to come to Collingdale and to look for this to cover this case. And what I remember correctly was hey, we're not gonna tell you anything about this. Just can you search this area? And it was near this house. And it was at uh like a dead end street that we parked on. He says, Come down here, the detective medicine had given me the rundown and said, Hey, I need uh I need for the search warrant, I need Stash's background. Like, what does he like tell me about him? I said, you know, continuously certified, you had to recertify every so often and had this many fines, this many awards, like had done great stuff. He was reliable. And they're like, okay, yeah, cool. Like uh this will be good. And but in true professional fashion, they didn't tell me, like, don't like look over there under that pile. You know, they didn't do anything like that. They're like, this is your search zone, and gave me the area around like these two houses, one being like a corner house, if I remember correctly. I said, All right, you know, and uh took stash, they made sure there's no traffic, no anything. I'm like, let me just take him off his lead, just don't let anybody walk down the street because he's gonna go, he's gonna want to go greet them and then come back to work, you know. But I don't want to distract them, no other dogs out and about. So um I put him out, and you know, there's a way to do it where the dog kind of quarters into the wind. See, like, you know, when you're trying to find out who's cooking on the barbecue and it smells great, how you kind of like you adjust where you're standing. Well, you're doing what the dog does. Like you walk until you don't smell it, you turn around and go back to where you did smell it, and you can kind of start angling in. And that's what Stash would do. Well, he went, he started smelling and went up to the fence at this house and was literally trying to like stick his nose under the fence, pulled at the fence, basically telling me, I want to go on the other side of this fence. He didn't do it at the other houses, didn't do it any other place, didn't do any of that. Interestingly, and I I don't want to pollute any of what you're saying or doing, but he wanted to get in there, and that gave them the um that convinced the judge for a warrant to look there. Like we really want this dog is smelling something there. So that opened it up for the warrant. Now, outside of that, I can't tell you what else they had. I can't, I really don't know because I because none of that is the dog handlers. I shouldn't know any of that because I shouldn't influence the dog in any way. And that's where you try to get in the line of influencing a dog. So it's just like search this area, search this area. Now, with that, I'm gonna hold for a second. There's another part to this, but I don't want to go any further. Let me just ask you a question. In what you just in your research, what do you think about her?

SPEAKER_05 50:26

Anyone who knows me, who knows me, who knows me, that I've talked to about this case knows exactly how I feel. And that is that I believe 1000% that Jose murdered Melissa and that he should spend the rest of his life in jail. Or being harassed by billboards, which I actually thought about doing. I looked into purchasing like billboard ads, and I was gonna put Melissa's picture up there and be like, hey, Jose, what happened to Melissa, you know, and then put f like hang flyers around the neighborhood that he lives in. I think I'm a little unhinged sometimes. But maybe he needs to be reminded what he did for real. But also something tells me that he does not forget.

SPEAKER_08 51:15

To me, if Stash could get close to the what he believed was the origin of the scent, he would indicate. If he couldn't get, if he was like frustrated, like it's over there, I can't quite get to it. Then Stash would have a lighter reaction, but stubborn reaction. Like he'd be trying to figure out a way to get there, like there's trying to stick his head under the fence, he'd run his pole down the fence, but wouldn't be looking for his reward, which that's just something he did. Like he would turn around and look at my pocket, like it's time to give it to me. I found it. And that was always like to me, I was like, that was always like such a strong indicator. I'm like, oh, he certainly did find it. I mean, here it is. Dash had that indication of I can't indication, that thing of I can't quite get to where I want to be. And we couldn't because we didn't have a search warrant to go into the house yet. It was Stash's action that got us to the search warrant. To me, it was really obvious that Stash smells something. I'm like, he knows it's there. Where it is, could it be in the house, could it be buried in the ground right there, could it be in the trash can, could be anywhere. He's telling me it's I'm interested in something on the other side of that fence.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

So we established another search warrant, a more probable cause to search the yard with cadavers because at the time of her she went missing, there was a boat in the backyard that we never searched. And subsequently the boat disappeared. We have no idea where the boat went. And then there was a shed on the side closest to Sharon Hill, closest to McDay Boulevard, that is now gone. It's gone. It's it's not there. So we did that with the dogs, and they kept hitting on the back wall of the house where that shed was, and then we took them in the house and they kept hitting on the basement floor in the back of the basement, which would be the opposite wall from the foundation to where that shed was. So our thought might have been in the investigation that at one point she was in the shed. If in fact she was c murdered, was in the shed and secretions from her body went through the stone floor of the shed into the ground and traveled the point of least resistance, which was the foundation, and then worked their way underneath the house with the secretions with rain and all. Um so we literally destroyed the basement. And the cadaver kept hitting on it, but there was nothing there. So then we brought a back ham uh a backhoe in the side yard and we dug up where the shed was to see if she in fact was buried there. And again, just the cadavers hitting, but no physical evidence. At that point, we kind of felt that if in fact the there had been a a crime, she was in that boat because the boat was now gone. It was just gone. It's called a grid search. They gritted the hoyar. There's this machine we brought in, a very expensive machine, it x-rays the ground. And we did that, and it kept it would hit it was hit by that dirt mount, so we dug all that up. It's like it almost looks like a lawnmower, but it's an X-ray machine. And it can go so many feet into the ground, it looks for it can see, look, we'd look would see a shelf, I mean a skeleton formation. Um whatever. I mean, there was there was very few places left to search in that house that we didn't search. I mean they even brought luminol in and did the walls. So there's any blood splash or blood. The other thing you have to realize before you ask the question, the other thing you have to realize is if in fact there was a crime committed on Friday, this the suspect, and I'm not saying his name, had three days to dispose. They have all the evidence, and at his at his leisure and his time, the candidate reporter missing. So if this crime committed on Friday, if Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday to to clean up, to dispose, to get rid of everything. And what was really unique with this whole situation was he flew the kids to Puerto Rico, the two daughters. Flew them to Puerto Rico, and I think his belief was that there was no extradition from Pennsylvania from the United States to Puerto Rico, but he failed to realize that it's a tributary of the United States. And there was an FBI office in Puerto Rico that we were in communications with. I mean, his lawyer blasted me in the press, blasted the police department as being, you know, it was too much of a focused investigation. We didn't do a proper search and slandering his client, throwing his name out there, that I'm an incompetent. It did a whole article on me. Because at one point we even, if you remember, because you were f from that area, we s we had we brought in like 20 officers, we searched the entire cemetery. Walked the cemetery looking for any fresh what appeared to be fresh graves that weren't on their registry. They went across the street and dumped their because right in ahead where that backhouse is on Beechwood, that dead ends right into the cemetery.

SPEAKER_10 56:15

You know, to I guess, you know, some uh you know, they have plenty of time to get rid of any evidence that may have existed, you know.

SPEAKER_05 56:24

So they go in to look for everything and then kind of come up empty-handed, kind of don't. But I want to go back to Melissa's journal for a second. So everyone that I talk to, that the police talk to all mention a journal. And her one friend did say that she kept like every single intimate thing in that journal. And Melissa had texted her friend in February, it was like February 25th. The text said that he read my secret journal and he confirmed the baby. So it was around that time that she confronted him about the baby and stuff like that. But with Jose like reading her journal, and especially since she called it a secret journal, I do know that Melissa was kind of seeing someone. It wasn't like anything serious. I don't think like her friends said it wasn't really that serious, it was just like someone that she talked to. And I do know, I believe, I don't know for sure, it's just something I heard that she did write about this person in her journal and how like nice it was to talk to him because like he made her feel good, you know, which I'm sure based off of how Jose was. And I feel like him reading that because he was so controlling and like the type of person that he was at this time, like there's no doubt in my mind that he got super duper jealous, even though he had a whole family, a whole other family in a different state, but couldn't let her have this, like, but anyway, so after all of this, they still haven't found Melissa, and Jose gets a lawyer, he has the girls. Oh, also, fun fact that I just remembered. See, this is why I I I don't know what happened to my notes, and I wish I had all of them, and I'm just going off of memory, but things are like popping in my head as I go, which is no different than any other day. But Jose registered the girls for a school up in New Jersey before Melissa was even reported missing. So that's also that's suspicious number two. That's shady AF number two. But anyway, Jose gets a lawyer after all of this, and the girls end up living with him. And her family did tell me that Jose kept the girls from Melissa's family, so they weren't able to talk to them for like many, many years. So my brain does a normal brain a lot, and what I like to do is consume every bit of information that I can about something until I literally can find no more. Okay, so the internet is a wild place. I know I say this all the time, but it literally is. You can literally find anything on the internet, okay? Jose worked for Amtrak, and I mean this obviously is like was bigger news. This wasn't hard to find. But what I'm telling you after this was hard to find. So Jose had worked for Amtrak, and apparently he was stealing chainsaws from them, and he was selling them on the street. He sold a chainsaw to someone, and something happened with it. The person went to like Home Depot or whatever, they check the VIN number, comes back as stolen, he gets caught, charged, goes to jail. And the day that he was sentenced was on April 19th of that year, and that's the last day that Melissa was seen alive, April 19th of 2013. What a what a wink, what a universal wink that is. But anyway, so in my internet web slew thing that I spent many, many, many sleepless nights on, I found that he is no longer with the woman that he was with when all of this happened. He is remarried, which I wonder if his new wife knows that like he allegedly murdered his ex-wife. Like, I wonder if she knows. But anyway, so I did call the other woman that he had a child with a few times. I left a message, um, but she didn't answer. And then she actually up and moved to a whole different state. I do know what state that is, but I'm not gonna like blast it all over for the internet ears to hear. While I was researching this, at some point, um, Jose was still in prison. So the friend calls Jose, and I guess it's like a three-way call, or like maybe his wife had called the jail and he answered, and then she three-way the friend. I don't know. And either way, it was like a all of them were on the phone call. He was like, Hey, I think the police want to talk to one of your daughters, um, because they're both over 18 now. And because she was older, I guess the police wanted to talk to her. They wanted to ask her questions. And so this friend was like, Oh yeah, maybe I'll I'll call him and and let him know because you know, she's she's still missing. We can't believe she's still missing. So they're on the phone and he's asking about it. And Jose literally starts freaking out, and he is like, This case is closed. I don't know why you're bringing this up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I bet you he was shitting his pants when he found out at that time that this case was not closed and that it's still being actively investigated. I bet you, I bet you, he was shaking in his boots. But also, because I could not be the best true crime podcaster in the world without doing this, I had to call and talk to Jose myself. I'm not gonna lie, I was really nervous to even call, but it didn't last very long. Also, before I play this audio, I just want you to know I was sitting in my car, the windows were down, my daughter was at softball practice. I didn't know what I was doing. This was like it was a thousand percent Jose for sure. There's like no denying it. And also, he sounded literally like you could hear the nervousness in his voice. I know the audio's not great, but like if you go back to the other, like that, the like the Raw interview that he did that wasn't like edited for the news and stuff, he was nervous. Now, he had like the same nervous energy during this conversation as I heard in that other news thing. And this was more like, oh shit, why are you calling me about this? You know what I mean? And I think do in doing that, I think that confirmed for him because it was kind of around the same time. I think it confirmed for him, like, oh crap, like they really are looking into this still. And I am just going to play that part one more time, just because I want you to hear the nervousness in his voice. Like, as soon as I say what I said, and I'm like, is this the correct Jose? Like his voice got a little bit deeper, and you could tell his attitude kind of shifted. I bet you his heart was in his butt. It definitely was. And like, but like you can you, yeah, yeah, you can hear it, and like honestly, it made me feel like a little bit powerful, which I know is probably a wrong thing to feel, but like I felt so good, I felt so amazing. Like I was like, haha, they're on to you, like they're gonna get you soon, you know. I hopefully, maybe. But anyway, I actually did contact the district attorney's office and I spoke to the person who would be handling this case, and I explained like just like the background of the case, what happened, and how there's nobody and stuff like that. And he did say that he is not afraid at all to prosecute a nobody case. And then he said that he was going to talk to the Collindale police and get the case file on it and look into it to see if they could like bring it to a grand jury to move forward with charges. However, I haven't heard back from him in many months, so uh remind me to call him. He's gonna be so mad. He's gonna be like, Ugh, who are you? Why you keep bothering me? But anyway, back to my web slew thing. So I played the one clip earlier where it was mentioned that he had a boat. And I was scrolling on Reddit, and I ended up coming across a post that was by the ex-husband or boyfriend of the woman that. That Jose had the affair with, and he was posting on Reddit. He's he was saying some wild stuff a little bit, but he was posting on there like, Oh, you know what happened to Missa, you need to tell someone, and then I mean the guy was being attacked and being called crazy, but I do think there is a little bit of merit to what he's saying, because I definitely think that everyone who was living in that house at that time knows what happened to Melissa. And I definitely believe that the woman that he was with, I think she knows too. I think she was scared to say anything. I mean, who wouldn't be? And I think that's why she hasn't said anything. Maybe she's afraid of him or was afraid of him. But I'm gonna just say, girl, if you hear this, he's like in his fifties now, okay? You we got this, you got this. You can you can come forward and you can say something. You know? There are a couple other things that I heard. So Jose used to tell the girls that their mom ran away because like they didn't clean their room or something like that, which is such a messed up thing to say. And then also there's a rumor that he had help from one of his cousins who had just recently gotten out of jail around the time that Melissa went missing, and that the cousin supposedly is part of a gang called the Latin Kings, and that they had helped him dispose of Melissa's body. And then there's also another I don't know if this if I could call this a rumor. So, but supposedly Jose was in a bar one night talking to a friend of his and he was really drunk and he confessed to killing Melissa, and this friend told Melissa's dad, but that's like the extent of what I heard. I was trying to like reach out to talk to the dad to see if he remembered the name of the person who told him that, so that I can tell the police so that they can talk to him, but that's as far as I got with that one. But also to backtrack on that comment that he made about a body being found in the Passaic River and then the mention of the boats. So they did end up finding that boat later on, but the carpet was like ripped out of it and stuff. They ended up finding it, I think it was like online that he had posted it for sale or something, and detectives I think came across the pictures of the boat and the c they noticed the carpet was ripped out of it. I feel like I'm all over the place with this, and I feel like I missed so much, and like there's so much more about this, but it sucks because it's there's no ending. She was never found, her she's still missing. And it's gonna it's we're coming up on this year. It's April 14th now. So in five days, it will she will have been missing. Hold on. I'm I'm so sorry to do this. I'm I'm pausing it to do math. Thirteen years. Like imagine your sister or friend or your mom, your daughter, your cousin, your aunt, your grandmom, anyone, any woman in your life goes missing and they're gone for thirteen years and you have no clue what happened to them other than what you suspect happened to them at someone who was supposed to love them, by the way. Would I feel like that's such like a a torturous thing to have to go through. And I really feel for them, for real.

SPEAKER_09 1:09:16

And if you really, really, really wanted to, you know, like he told the police that, oh, I was trying to get in contact with her, or she never picked up and stuff like that. He couldn't find a way for her for to find her.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:28

There's a lot, and we as a society can probably know we know what happened, we know who's responsible.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:37

But since starting all of this with Melissa, I literally made it my personal life's mission that I never told anyone about until now to make sure that Jose is held accountable for his actions and the stuff and things that he did, and that he ends up in prison. Because here's my thing, okay? I think he is scared. For sure. Who wouldn't be? Who who wouldn't be scared doing something like that because everything you ever hear the saying everything that is done in the dark comes out into the light or something like that? I probably messed it up. Basically, no one stays how do I wear this? Like everyone always gets caught most of the time. But one thing that will help this is by talking about it. So after you listen to this episode about Melissa, I don't even you don't even have to share the episode. I want you to tell someone everything you heard about Melissa in this case, and then have them think about posting flyers. In New Jersey, where he lives, harassment by flyers could literally be a thing. And who knows if you even get in trouble for it if you don't put his name, you know. But anyway, for once in all of my time doing these episodes, I hope that this left you with all of the answers and no questions. Usually I hope it leaves you with more questions than answers. But not this time. But I don't know what I'm gonna do after this, you know? This always had a spot in my brain, you know. Like a big spot in my brain, and now that spot's gonna be empty. And I don't know how I feel about it. But anyway, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend if you want to. You don't have to, obviously. And then you can also leave like a five-star rating, or you can hit follow, because if you hit follow, then you'll get notified every time I upload a new episode. And you won't have to be like, dang, her episode's not out yet, because that happens sometimes. But I have like this, this is like a full-time job. Recording and editing and researching and all that stuff. A full-time job on top of my other full-time job, on top of the other stuff that I like to do. Shout out to those listening on Nighthawk Radio. Go check them out, and you might find your new favorite podcast. And then also shout out to those listening on the Screaming Podcast Network. If you love horror and screaming, the Screaming Podcast Network is for you. Maybe. But anyway, there's like tons more that I think I'm supposed to say to you. But I'll just say them on Friday because I just can't remember anything right now. But the song of the week this week is something I can remember. It's by the last good Chad, and it's called Ash in Tears. And I'm gonna play it for you right now so you can listen to it, and then you can go stream it wherever you get your music. Stay weird, stay curious, go be kind to someone for no reason, and go be amazing.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:42

Can we go back in time? Can we save everyone? Can we make it out fun? Can I tell you to run if we go back in time? In a world of ash and tears, another way to new years, cheer. Five we'd start with fireworks. Waiting for the skies to be clear. Imagining you were here. Five minutes to take a big rivers.