S2E38 - Crystal McCrory: The Questions That Started It All

Every investigation begins with a single question. In this episode, we take our first look at the death of Crystal McCrory, introducing the known facts of the case and examining the details that immediately caught our attention.

As we walk through the timeline, we discuss several aspects of the investigation that raised questions for us, from the handling of evidence to the circumstances surrounding Crystal's death. While we're not drawing conclusions, we are identifying the areas that deserve a closer look as this series unfolds.

We also introduce many of the voices you'll hear throughout this investigation, including family members, friends, investigators, and experts who will help us better understand both Crystal's life and the investigation that followed her death. Each conversation adds another piece to a story that is far more complex than it first appears.

This is where the journey begins. Join us as we start asking the questions that continue to surround Crystal McCrory's case and begin searching for the answers.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

In Tragedy, a true crime podcast, we discuss missing persons' cases, violent crime, and other sensitive topics that may be difficult for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Our show is a place where every story matters and every voice deserves to be heard. To support this podcast, you can subscribe at www.tragedy a true crime podcast.com for early access to new episodes. And join our Facebook community, Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast, for updates, discussions, and ways to support the families we feature. Welcome to Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast. I'm Elisa.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

And today we're starting a series and supporting a new family out of the state of Louisiana. But before we get started, we do want to name that this series does include the sensitive topic of suicide. So if this is something that is of concern for you, please listen with care.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

One thing that I thought was unique about this case is when we talk to Jana, which you'll he when and you'll hear her interview later in this in this series, she doesn't really talk about justice in the case. What she talks about instead is wanting to have the investigation reviewed. One of the things that you're going to hear about is this case was discovered and wrapped up by law enforcement in 90 minutes. So 90 minutes from the time that they walked into the home to when they decided it was a suicide. And I know there's probably situations where that could be done, but there's a lot of situations in this case where you look at evidence that was there that makes that questionable. And so what Jan is really looking for is having the case looked at from an investigative set standpoint and determining standards around those investigations. In fact, there's even more to that that she's talked to us about. Do you want to go into that?

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Yes. Janna just recently launched a webpage called Demand the Standard. Now, another thing that is really interesting about this case is the massive amount of information that Janna has collected and that we were able to bring together as we walk through the story, and that is because the case is closed. This isn't a very a thing that's happened to us very often. We're usually banging down the door. Due to Jana, we have that evidence. And Janna's done a couple of things. She's been involved with legislation around the proper handling of human remains. And she's also just created within the past week demand the standard webpage, which is a place where families can go who feel like standards of practice across law enforcement agencies have not been followed. And we you'll notice if you do go visit, Jodi Kilgore is the first person there, of course, after Crystal.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

How did you hear about this case?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

I found out about Crystal through Jana's activity on social media. She's very, very present on Instagram specifically, just trying to get the word out about what happened to her sister. And um that's how I found her. We started talking through Instagram and we put our heads together, and I think this is gonna be a really great support for her.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

All right, so let's get into it.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

February 9, 2023, began much like any other day in the small town of Oak Grove, Louisiana. There was nothing to suggest that within a matter of hours a family's life would be changed forever, or that a case would emerge that continues to generate questions years later. Crystal McCrory had a doctor's appointment scheduled that morning. When she failed to arrive, concern began to grow. Calls went unanswered. Messages weren't returned. As the morning continued, her husband Tony became increasingly concerned. After learning that Crystal had never arrived for her appointment, he contacted a neighbor he trusted, Deputy Harris of the West Carroll Parish Sheriff's Office, who lived just a few houses away. Tony was reportedly at his karate dojo with students and asked Deputy Harris if he could check on Crystal. Deputy Harris went to the residence. He knocked several times, but no one answered. He contacted Tony again, who reportedly told him the front door was unlocked and directed him to the master bedroom. Inside, Deputy Harris found Crystal. She had suffered a single gunshot wound to the head. A handgun was reportedly found in or near one of her hands. A pillow reportedly covered her face. Emergency personnel responded, but Crystal could not be saved. Within approximately 90 minutes of first responders arriving, investigators had effectively determined that Crystal's death would be ruled a suicide. A conclusion that the West Carroll Parish Sheriff's Office continues to stand behind today. For many, that was the end of the investigation. For Crystal's family, it was the beginning. Before we discuss the questions that followed, it's important to understand who Crystal was. She wasn't simply a name in an investigative report. She was a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, a business owner, and an aunt who shared a special bond with her nieces. And perhaps no relationship was closer than the one she shared with her sister, Jana. To the people who loved her, Crystal was remembered far more than the circumstances of her death. She was someone they laughed with, celebrated holidays with, called when life became difficult, and counted on throughout both ordinary days and life's biggest moments. That is the woman her family remembers. And that is the woman at the center of this story. In the days that followed Crystal's death, her family began reviewing records, asking questions, and trying to better understand the investigation. They weren't trying to rewrite history. They wanted to understand how investigators reached such a definitive conclusion so quickly, and whether every reasonable investigative step had been taken before Crystal's manner of death was determined. Over the next several episodes, we'll examine the publicly available records, hear from those who knew Crystal best, and carefully distinguish between documented facts, publicly reported information, and the questions that remain from the family's perspective. Our goal is not to tell you what to believe. Our goal is to give you the information, the context, and the voices behind this case so you can understand why more than three years later, Crystal McCrory's story continues to resonate with those who loved her.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

One of the things that stands out in your story so far is the fact that he didn't just ask, or Tony, I should say that, Tony didn't just ask for a wellness check by this colleague or former colleague that he had and neighbor. He specifically directed him to the bedroom, said that's where Crystal would be found. I find that strange that he knew exactly not just that she was at the house, but specifically which room she would be in. Any any explanation around that?

SPEAKER_01 8:15

I want to start out by saying there are a lot of inconsistencies, even within the evidence that we do have. So we mentioned in the beginning that the case is closed. There's a lot of evidence that was released, but there are several things that still don't add up and don't make sense. Let me give you one example and then I'll go back to your to the comment about directing him to the bedroom. When you listen to the conversations that we have with Crystal's friends and families, you'll hear something different than what the public record says about him being at the dojo. You'll hear people say he was driving around the neighborhood. Tony had gone to pick his daughter up from school and was driving around the neighborhood. Whereas, you know, what we see in the public records and news articles is that he was at the dojo. You will hear that when Tony called his former colleague, one of two things happened. Either A, he stayed on the phone with him the whole time until his colleague got into Crystal's bedroom, or that he hung up and then his colleague called him back when he noticed that the door was unlocked. And that's when Tony told him to enter into the home. So we have to be really careful about these sort of discrete things saying, well, public record says, well, he directed him to the bedroom. Again, we, you know, we've had our experiences with the media and what the media says and what the reports say. I think it's really important that we listen to the stories of those people who were who were there. Jana was there. We're going to, we're going to hear her experience coming up on Crystal's home, knowing that something had happened to Crystal, so that we can begin to get a clear picture because the records that were collected by the local law enforcement have a lot of uh discrepancies within them.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Okay. So my next question really is around the pillow. So is it normal to have a pillow on on the face of someone who's committed suicide, or is that does that seem odd? I mean, when I first heard this story, that stuck out to me as something that was odd.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

It does seem odd to me. Now, I unfortunately do have an experience of suicide in my family, and and it is a woman. And in my case, my family member did not commit suicide using a weapon. I think it is kind of uncommon that a woman use a gun to um kill herself, and even more uncommon that a woman uses a gun to in in her face or in her head or something like that to commit suicide. Because let's just name it, women, we looks are important to us, and that and they might that is just an uncommon thing. So I would really love your take on the pillow because I think it is really odd.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Yeah, I mean, w one of the first things that stuck out to me was a suicide by firearm, and this person was female. Now I did look that up and kind of there's a couple of different statistics that you can find, but the consensus seems to be around the 30% mark. So while it's not a very high number, it's not a super low number either. So you can't look at a woman who's um committed suicide and used a firearm and say right away, oh, that wouldn't have happened that way. Because 30% of the time, on average, it does. Now, the pillow in general bothered me because it was not shot through so she was on laying on it, it was covering her face. Now, from my opinion, that seemed really strange, but we also talked to Kathy Decker about that, and she said that, yeah, while it is strange on one level, it's really not incredibly uncommon either. We know it was in front and shot through first because there was no blood in the track going through the pillow. We know that because that's in the evidence log. I yeah, I still it still bothers me. So I want to see how that aligns with other evidence that we're talking about, but that we talk about. So speaking of other evidence, you talked about a firearm. So I have a question now. We know we have a firearm, and I know there's some details around the shell casing associated with the firearm. Can you go into that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

Yeah, you I really like how you framed the discussion about the pillow in terms of things that bother you. And I think that's going to be a theme that we experienced throughout hearing about Crystal and things that bother um us and bother her family in the course of the investigation. And so let's go back to that bullet casing. The the bullet casing was not found when Crystal's body was found and when the quote investigation happened, which we now know to be roughly around 90 minutes, and then rolled a suicide. You will hear our listener, our the family members t tell you w when and where and by whom the bullet casing was located. And it was several days later that it was located by her husband Tony. Now it was in the bedroom, and if I recall, it was like on a dresser, um, you know, like a vanity where a woman would sit and maybe do her makeup. That seemed really strange to everybody in this closed confined room, this bedroom that it wasn't originally found. And and you will you hear I believe is Jana talk about how the parish offices says, well, here's this picture. Now that we know where it was found, we here's a picture, and they circled it and apparently where it's where it had been sitting the whole time, but it's not a very clear picture, and it's just another one of those things that bothers us. Also, I do want to add, if we're going to talk about the weapon and standard practice, you know, and Jana has created this website now about making sure that law enforcement are following standard practices. I've never been in law enforcement. I know your family has been in law enforcement, and my assumption would be that if you have a crime in which case there is a weapon, that you would probably do some sort of checks for a gunshot residue on the hands, particularly in this case where we have a woman who is on her bed with a pillow over her head and a gunshot wound through the head and gunshot residue, there was never a test for gunshot residue on either of her hands at the time at all. Um, because then what happened is against the wishes of her family, her body was cremated.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

And so that ability to So you're basically saying that we can't ever come back to and do that test, even though it's something that was missing from the evidence upon the the quote 90-minute investigation that I think bothers everyone but the the Parish Sheriff's Office.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

Aaron Powell Yeah, and it does just seem unusual. Why why would you not test for gunshot residue on the hands of someone who supposedly committed suicide?

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Aaron Powell So that's really where we're at with this is again, this 90-minute window with everything was wrapped up with a nice, clean, you know, nice little tidy bow. I don't think anyone involved in the case really believes that it's as clean of a a determination as 90 minutes would have allowed for. And I mean, yeah, that's and that's why we're talking about this case. That's why this case became important. That's why it became something we wanted to focus our attention on.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Now let's talk a little bit about who we're going to hear from so that we can get a better picture of Crystal and her story. And so first uh will be Jana. Not surprisingly, because you know, we've already discussed Jana quite a bit. Jana was Crystal's sister, Jana is her fierce advocate. Our listeners know that every story that we cover has one fierce, fierce person. And in Crystal's case, it is her sister, Jana. We also will be hearing from John, who is Jana's ex-husband. They still have a really good relationship, and his perspective is is quite interesting.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

We're also Well, I want to comment on that real quick because when we talk about John, I was actually very impressed. While their relationship is unique, it's a very mature perspective, and so I can't wait for our listeners to hear about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Yes, thank you for adding that. Um, also, we will hear from Scott, who is Jana's husband and was her husband at the time that Crystal was was killed. We're going to have the opportunity to hear from a good friend of Crystal's. Her name is Lee. And she actually lived with Crystal in New York, when Crystal lived in New York before she moved back to Louisiana. So she brings that, you know, we all have those friends that it doesn't really matter. You can be away from them for a while, and then they call you and they're in town, and it's like you never were away from them. And that's how Crystal and Lee were. And then finally, we were fortunate enough to have yet another private investigator be willing to speak with us. You know, we went on this run of never being able to get any private investigators to come. And then we had Steve come and speak with us about Deanna. And Lindsay spoke with us uh about Crystal, and she came on board when Diana found her to help kind of figure out what went wrong with the investigation and what her recourse was and maybe setting things right. So we have uh five people who are who came forward and we had really great conversations with all of them. You've been listening to Tragedy, a true crime podcast. Our purpose is to honor victims by sharing their stories through the voices of friends, family, and those whose lives were forever changed. If today's episode resonated with you, we encourage you to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast so these important stories continue to be heard. Together, we can preserve their memories and ensure their voices are never forgotten. If you have ideas for cases we should cover or questions about what you heard, you can connect with us through our Facebook group, Tragedy a True Crime Podcast, on X at Tragedy Podcast, by email at Tragedy a True Crime Podcast at gmail.com, or by visiting our website www.tragedy a true crime podcast.com. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.