Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: Her eleven year old granddaughter was grandfather at the bus
Speaker 2: about seven am this morning and never made it on
Speaker 2: the bus and has not been seen since Hey twenty six.
Speaker 2: Female is about approximately four for eleven eighty six pounds
Speaker 2: wand long hair, blue eyes, last nun her dark colored
Speaker 2: jacket un.
Speaker 3: On February fifteenth, twenty twenty four, the day after Valentine's Day,
Speaker 3: eleven year old Audrey Cunningham, a fifth grade student at
Speaker 3: Creekside Elementary in Livingston, Texas, never made it to the
Speaker 3: bus stop. Audrey's parents are divorced. She lived with her father,
Speaker 3: Joshua Lee Cunningham, in Livingston, which is about seventy five
Speaker 3: miles north of Houston in Polk County. Some other family members,
Speaker 3: including her grandmother, also lived on the same property. Audrey
Speaker 3: was born on February fifteenth, twenty thirteen, so she had
Speaker 3: just turned eleven years old. She loved animals. In fact,
Speaker 3: one of her favorite things in the world to do
Speaker 3: was in the morning, when she would walk to the
Speaker 3: bus stop, she would stop to pet her neighbor's dog.
Speaker 3: The first people to notice that Audrey was missing were
Speaker 3: at her school. Apparently school officials notified her father, Joshua
Speaker 3: at around noon that she never made it to school
Speaker 3: that day. Now, that's what law enforcement has stated, but
Speaker 3: I have seen other reports saying that in Texas, like
Speaker 3: in many other states, they have an automated system that
Speaker 3: techts parents when a child doesn't show up, So it
Speaker 3: may have taken longer for that to happen for her
Speaker 3: father to receive that message. But either way, when Audrey
Speaker 3: did not come home after school, her family knew that
Speaker 3: something was very wrong. Audrey's custody situation sounds a little complicated.
Speaker 3: Apparently her dad had full custody and there seemed to
Speaker 3: be some animosity there between her dad and her mom. Apparently,
Speaker 3: Audrey's mother, Cassie, allowed her to live with her father, Joshua,
Speaker 3: and from what the mother has said, it seems like
Speaker 3: that arrangement was not court ordered. It was just something
Speaker 3: they figured out on their own. It had been going on.
Speaker 1: For a few years.
Speaker 3: Cassie said that she allowed Audrey to live with her
Speaker 3: father in order for her daughter to have a better life.
Speaker 3: But as we said, there were other people staying on
Speaker 3: that property. One of the people living there was a
Speaker 3: forty two year old friend of the Famili's. He lived
Speaker 3: in a camper out back, and this was someone who,
Speaker 3: though he had a very disturbing criminal record, he was
Speaker 3: allowed to babysit for Audrey. But apparently this did not
Speaker 3: raise any red flags with anyone until the day when
Speaker 3: Audrey vanished.
Speaker 1: Only then did people.
Speaker 3: Start taking a hard look at what was really going
Speaker 3: on behind the closed doors of this house. In rural Texas,
Speaker 3: we talk a lot about stranger danger and children, but
Speaker 3: with this case, we're going to see that sometimes the
Speaker 3: most terrifying people in a child's life can be living
Speaker 3: inside the home. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past five
Speaker 3: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
Speaker 3: learned that there is no such thing as a small
Speaker 3: town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of
Speaker 3: messages from people all around the country asking for help
Speaker 3: with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and
Speaker 3: their communities. If you have a case you'd like me
Speaker 3: and my team to look into, you can reach out
Speaker 3: to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six
Speaker 3: seven eight seven four four six one four five That
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six '.
Speaker 1: One four or five.
Speaker 4: This is Helen Gone Murder line.
Speaker 3: Now, as listeners of this podcast will know, I very
Speaker 3: rarely do cases that are currently being investigated. I tend
Speaker 3: to focus on cold cases that everyone else has kind
Speaker 3: of forgotten. I also don't tend to do cases where
Speaker 3: there has been a person of interest arrested, where the
Speaker 3: case is closed to being closed. But I'm breaking all
Speaker 3: the rules this week because I think that the Audrey
Speaker 3: Cunningham case is a very important case to cover. First
Speaker 3: of all, I wanted to cover it because it unfolded
Speaker 3: in a really public way. Now, obviously, anytime a young
Speaker 3: girl is murdered or goes missing, this is a tragedy.
Speaker 3: But in in my opinion, in this case, the police
Speaker 3: have shared with the public in a way that has
Speaker 3: been very positive. As we will see, police were able
Speaker 3: to arrest a person of interest very quickly, they communicated
Speaker 3: clearly with the community and with other agencies, and they
Speaker 3: did not withhold information. I want to know what we
Speaker 3: can learn from this going forward, so that in cases
Speaker 3: where there are children and young women missing for such
Speaker 3: a long time. I'm hoping that we can take something
Speaker 3: from this and hopefully apply these lessons to some of
Speaker 3: our other cult cases.
Speaker 2: The missing juvenile called in from the county.
Speaker 1: They want us to take that address with pH There
Speaker 1: still no sign of her negative.
Speaker 3: Audrey Cunningham was officially reported missing to law enforcement at
Speaker 3: around five thirty pm on Thursday, February fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: An Amberlert went out that night for Audrey, describing her
Speaker 3: as four foot eleven seventy five pounds, wearing a black
Speaker 3: hoodie with white lettering, carrying a camel Fflage backpack, black pants,
Speaker 3: and black high top tennis shoes. Police immediately started searching
Speaker 3: in the woods behind her house. At first, they may
Speaker 3: have been thinking maybe she went back there to look
Speaker 3: for animals, since she did love animals, or maybe she
Speaker 3: wandered away and got lost. Audrey's family started posting on
Speaker 3: social media immediately after she went missing. Her father, Joshua Cunningham,
Speaker 3: made a post that read, my daughter, Audrey Cunningham is missing.
Speaker 1: She did not make it to the bus this morning.
Speaker 3: Contact me and the police immediately with any information.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: This seemed to.
Speaker 3: Feed into early media reports that said that Audrey had
Speaker 3: vanished some time on her way to school on Thursday.
Speaker 3: But as I'm going to get into a little bit later.
Speaker 3: I have questions about this timeline and when Audrey really disappeared.
Speaker 3: Of course, police who were looking for Audrey were considering
Speaker 3: all the possibilities. In addition to figuring out if a
Speaker 3: stranger had grabbed her on her way to the bus stop,
Speaker 3: they were also taking a close look at her home life.
Speaker 3: Who was around Audrey, who had access to this little girl. Immediately,
Speaker 3: both the community and friends of hers saw pictures of
Speaker 3: this family friend, forty two year old Don Stephen McDougall,
Speaker 3: who goes by his middle name Stephen, and they were
Speaker 3: asking a lot of questions about Stephen.
Speaker 1: Stephen had a long.
Speaker 3: Criminal history, He had a swastika tattoo on his shoulder,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people commented on social media and
Speaker 3: said this did not look or sound like the type
Speaker 3: of guy you would want to leave in charge of
Speaker 3: your children. People wanted to know who was this friend
Speaker 3: of the famili's and how was he allowed access to
Speaker 3: an eleven year old child. The Polk County Sheriff's Department
Speaker 3: did a press conference and the Polk County Sheriff Byron
Speaker 3: Lyons described Stephen McDougall as a friend of the family,
Speaker 3: a friend of Audrey's father's Stephen McDougall, lived in a
Speaker 3: camper on the property, but he reportedly had access to
Speaker 3: the kitchen in the bathroom area pretty much the entire house.
Speaker 3: Reporters and police talked to Audrey's mom, Cassie. She said
Speaker 3: that it was her understanding that Stephen would sometimes babysit Audrey,
Speaker 3: and Audrey's routine apparently was that every day she walked
Speaker 3: to the bus stop, and often Stephen was the person.
Speaker 1: Who walked with her.
Speaker 3: But on occasion, or if she was running late or
Speaker 3: something like that, Stephen would drive Audrey to the bus
Speaker 3: stop in his two thousand and three navy blue Chevy Suburban,
Speaker 3: or he would drive her to school. Cassie made a
Speaker 3: public plea for help.
Speaker 5: I would just like to get the word out that
Speaker 5: we would like to have her come home. It's not
Speaker 5: like her to, you know, just run off or disappear.
Speaker 5: She has a lot of loving families. She has so
Speaker 5: many people that love her and adore her.
Speaker 3: And she also publicly shared texts that she said were
Speaker 3: from Stephen, in which Stephen said he had dropped Audrey
Speaker 3: off to the bus stop that morning. Yet school officials
Speaker 3: stated they confirmed Audrey was not on that bus.
Speaker 1: She did not ride her.
Speaker 3: Bus to school that day, So these stories conflicted, and
Speaker 3: it didn't take police long to learn that in addition
Speaker 3: to Stephen's criminal history, he had arrests for violent crime
Speaker 3: and sexual crimes against children. The Polk County Police were
Speaker 3: already talking to Stephen. They confirmed Stephen was the last
Speaker 3: person to see Audrey before she disappeared. And I'm not
Speaker 3: exactly sure of the timeline here because they started talking
Speaker 3: to Stephen on Thursday, February fifteenth, But at some point
Speaker 3: during their multiple interviews of Stephen, Stephen apparently admitted to
Speaker 3: police that he did leave the house with Audrey that morning,
Speaker 3: but he wouldn't talk about whether or not she ever
Speaker 3: made it to the bus stop. This regional story very
Speaker 3: quickly made national news. Police were focusing on the area
Speaker 3: around Lake Livingston Dam, a few miles from Audrey's home. Then,
Speaker 3: on Friday, one day after Audrey was reported missing, the
Speaker 3: local news station KHOU eleven reported that searchers had found
Speaker 3: a wet backpack believed to be Audrey's. More items of
Speaker 3: clothing belonging to a child were reportedly found near the waterline.
Speaker 3: The Polk County Sheriff's office held a press conference at
Speaker 3: Bowders Marina. Sheriff Lines announced that the FBI and the
Speaker 3: Texas Rangers and multiple other agencies were involved and said
Speaker 3: they had boats and dogs searching the area. And he
Speaker 3: said in this press conference that police hadn't made any
Speaker 3: rest but he stated that there were persons and he
Speaker 3: used the plural there persons of interest. Meanwhile, police continued
Speaker 3: to talk to Stephen. And what was crazy was this
Speaker 3: entire situation with the police approaching Stephen and talking to
Speaker 3: him was playing out on social media. Were posting Facebook
Speaker 3: videos of the police talking to Stephen outside a donut shop,
Speaker 3: then Stephen getting into a squad car and going to
Speaker 3: the police station. And then it was reported that on
Speaker 3: February fifteenth, very soon after that donut shop confrontation, Stephen
Speaker 3: was arrested and he was taken to the Polk County
Speaker 3: Jail on an unrelated assault charge. So now the public
Speaker 3: is wondering why if Stephen had warrants out on him,
Speaker 3: and given the violence of his past crimes, how was
Speaker 3: he allowed to roam free. Then on February twentieth, there
Speaker 3: was another press conference. That's when the Sheriff's office announced
Speaker 3: that Audrey Cunningham's body had been found. At the press
Speaker 3: conference on February twentieth, Sheriff Lyne said that finding Audrey's
Speaker 3: body had been a coordinated effort, and he talked about
Speaker 3: how many groups were involved in, including the Texas Rangers,
Speaker 3: Game Wardens, FBI, Harris County Sheriff's Office, and there were
Speaker 3: a lot more. The Trinity River Authority actually played a
Speaker 3: key role here because that agency agreed to lower the
Speaker 3: water level so that the divers could do their searches
Speaker 3: around there. The Polk County District Attorney, Shelley Sitton said,
Speaker 3: quote resources that were marshaled by sheriff lines should show
Speaker 3: you that in this county they will come out when
Speaker 3: they need to protect our children.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: The sheriff said that Audrey's body had not been visible
Speaker 3: from the surface, so it required special equipment and teams
Speaker 3: to locate her. There was a sonar boat they used
Speaker 3: to scow the river, and again the River Authority had
Speaker 3: slowed down the outflow from the reservoir so that water
Speaker 3: level could be lowered. After they found Audrey's body, it
Speaker 3: was transported to Harris County Corner's office. They did not
Speaker 3: release any information about the condition of her body, but
Speaker 3: later investigators revealed that Audrey's body had been tied to
Speaker 3: a large rock with a rope. And I just want
Speaker 3: to mention here something that I noticed as an investigator.
Speaker 3: During the press conference, the sheriff talked about how powerful
Speaker 3: social media had been. They said they actually thanked people
Speaker 3: who were communicating on social media. The sheriff said that
Speaker 3: it had helped in their investigation, that it had helped
Speaker 3: pinpoint his location, and that in addition to getting cell
Speaker 3: phone data from Stephen's phone, that the social media chatter
Speaker 3: had really helped the case. This does not often happen
Speaker 3: in criminal investigations. If you listen to this podcast, you
Speaker 3: know we've seen way too many where the police give
Speaker 3: no information out and bodies are not recovered quickly. So
Speaker 3: I have to say I think that Paul County did
Speaker 3: a really good job in communicating with the media and
Speaker 3: the public and maintaining the integrity and investigation while also
Speaker 3: giving people information so that they could help. The sheriff
Speaker 3: also said during the press conference there was no evidence
Speaker 3: that Audrey had been held somewhere else before she was
Speaker 3: put in the water, but he said they were still
Speaker 3: analyzing data. It did not take long for amateur detectives
Speaker 3: and journalists to start delving into Stephen's criminal records.
Speaker 1: The news channel Fox twenty six in.
Speaker 3: Houston reported that he had a string of arrests and
Speaker 3: convictions for violent crimes, including dui theft, drug possession, and
Speaker 3: aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The most shocking, though,
Speaker 3: was enticement of a child. One news channel did an
Speaker 3: interview with a guy who had worked with Stephen and
Speaker 3: said that Stephen seemed like a nice guy. They worked
Speaker 3: together at a body shop and one night they got
Speaker 3: into an argument. Things turned physical and they ended up
Speaker 3: kicking Stephen out of their house. Then Stephen came back
Speaker 3: with a knife and tried to stab this guy. The
Speaker 3: victim called the police and Stephen was arrested. The victim
Speaker 3: told the news channel quote terrifying, it really was. He
Speaker 3: seemed like this nice guy, but he's got this whole
Speaker 3: other side to him that no one seemed to know
Speaker 3: about until now.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: In fact, this guy said he was so horrified by
Speaker 3: everything that he had heard about Stephen that his only
Speaker 3: actual regret was that he didn't kill Stephen that he
Speaker 3: didn't shoot him dead the night that he was attacked.
Speaker 3: On February twenty second, the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office
Speaker 3: released Audrey Cunningham's cause of death. It was blunt head
Speaker 3: trauma and the manner of death was homicide. Again, I
Speaker 3: think it was a very good call to release this information.
Speaker 3: Making it publicly available definitely helped cut down on the
Speaker 3: wild rumors and online speculation. So again, this case is
Speaker 3: happening in real time. Stephen has not been convicted of
Speaker 3: this crime, and we actually don't know if anyone else
Speaker 3: is going to be arrested or charged. But I have
Speaker 3: some questions about this timeline. Let's take a look back,
Speaker 3: because at first, police said their theory was that Stephen
Speaker 3: and Audrey drove in the car on Thursday morning, and
Speaker 3: that he told Audrey he was going to drop her
Speaker 3: off the bus stop as normal. Then they speculated he
Speaker 3: took a detour and took Audrey somewhere else. But again,
Speaker 3: a lot of their information was based on what Stephen
Speaker 3: was telling them. So I'm wondering could something have happened
Speaker 3: to Audrey before Thursday. The first media reports that came
Speaker 3: out said that Audrey had last been seen at around
Speaker 3: seven am on Thursday, February fifteenth, the day she reportedly disappeared,
Speaker 3: but at least according to my research, no one but
Speaker 3: Stephen and possibly others in the home say that she
Speaker 3: was ever seen that morning. There was a neighbor who
Speaker 3: was interviewed by a news channel, and this neighbor said
Speaker 3: she always saw Audrey walk by her house every single
Speaker 3: day on her way to the bus stop, and that
Speaker 3: Audrey would stop to pet her dog well. The neighbor
Speaker 3: told a local news station that she remembered seeing Audrey
Speaker 3: on Valentine's Day, Wednesday, February fourteenth. She had actually said
Speaker 3: Happy Valentine's Day to Audrey, but crucially, she said she
Speaker 3: did not see Audrey on Thursday the fifteenth. And then
Speaker 3: there are the disturbing messages that Stephen was sending. People
Speaker 3: were posting Facebook messages saying that around the time Audrey
Speaker 3: disappeared that Stephen was trying to solicit them for sex.
Speaker 3: Stephen allegedly sent some messages about wanting to hook up
Speaker 3: with someone on the night of Wednesday, February fourteenth. He
Speaker 3: was offering, in exchange for sex, the title to his
Speaker 3: truck meaning the suburban or one thousand dollars. The messages
Speaker 3: are disturbing, not necessarily because he was wanting to hook up,
Speaker 3: but because these women.
Speaker 1: Are saying no.
Speaker 3: One woman responds and says she's engaged. Then she says, look,
Speaker 3: this is disgusting. I'm not a prostitute. I don't know
Speaker 3: why you're offering me money for this. Basically she blew
Speaker 3: him off. And it's also interesting to me that Stephen
Speaker 3: was making comments about trading in the suburban because if
Speaker 3: that's true, if he really wanted to get rid of
Speaker 3: the car, that in itself is interesting. There was potential
Speaker 3: evidence inside that car. Later investigators said they found rope
Speaker 3: inside Stephen's suburban and that that rope was consistent with
Speaker 3: the rope that had been found tied to Audrey's body.
Speaker 1: And then there are.
Speaker 3: The messages that Stephen supposedly sent to Audrey's mother, Cassie.
Speaker 3: Cassie posted text messages she said she exchanged with Stephen,
Speaker 3: and in these text messages, she claims that Stephen was
Speaker 3: trying to entice her to meet with him and with
Speaker 3: Audrey on Thursday, February fifteenth. So, as we mentioned, Cassie
Speaker 3: was having custody issues with her ex husband, and she
Speaker 3: wanted to have more visits with her daughter. So the
Speaker 3: messages that were exchanged between Cassie and Stephen were based
Speaker 3: Stephen offering to intervene and to help Cassie out. Cassie wrote, quote,
Speaker 3: it makes me sick to my stomach that they think
Speaker 3: that's okay. She has an innocent, fragile child's mind and
Speaker 3: them warping it with chaos is not right man end quote.
Speaker 3: So basically, Cassie's saying that she believes that her ex
Speaker 3: husband is kind of turning her daughter against her. Stephen
Speaker 3: seems to be acting like this good guy who's a
Speaker 3: friend of the family who's going to plan a meetup
Speaker 3: with her mother. Stephen replied, quote, I might take you
Speaker 3: out to the doc to fish and accidentally pull up
Speaker 3: with her to fish.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: So here he's offering to set up a meeting with Audrey.
Speaker 3: Cassie replied, quote, I want to meet her too, but
Speaker 3: if this comes back on me in any bad way,
Speaker 3: I can lose her forever and I would kill you
Speaker 3: then myself.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: No threat, but a promise end quote. So then he says,
Speaker 3: quote it wouldn't as long as no one says anything
Speaker 3: about it being set up. No one would even know,
Speaker 3: and she won't say anything to them. I'm your daughter's
Speaker 3: favorite person, and she will not tell she wants to
Speaker 3: meet you. I told you I'm on your team.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: Now, Cassie apparently got cold feet and did not agree
Speaker 3: to this proposed meeting. I've seen reports that once she
Speaker 3: suggested to Stephen that her boyfriend come with her, that
Speaker 3: he kind of cut it off. But either way, the
Speaker 3: meeting didn't happen. But rereading these texts is kind of
Speaker 3: horrifying because I'm wondering what was Stephen planning to do
Speaker 3: on Thursday. Could Audrey have already been dead and he
Speaker 3: was trying to lure her mom out so that he
Speaker 3: could potentially say there had been a parental abduction. Was
Speaker 3: he planning on doing something to Audrey's mother as it
Speaker 3: happened so often in these cases, there was not only
Speaker 3: panic and drama in the community, but there was also
Speaker 3: the family drama that was playing out on social media.
Speaker 3: Early in the search for Audrey, online groups were created that,
Speaker 3: of course friends or people connected to the family were
Speaker 3: contributing to, and then of course a lot of people
Speaker 3: were saying the mother and the father should have known
Speaker 3: what was going on. Audrey's mom, Cassie, confronted these rumors,
Speaker 3: and the rumors included a lot of commenters saying that
Speaker 3: Cassie had lost custody of Audrey because she failed or
Speaker 3: because there were drugs involved in some way. She has
Speaker 3: said that that is an absolute lie. She wrote that
Speaker 3: she had nothing to hide, and she accused people of
Speaker 3: spreading bullshit online. Audrey's mother also spoke out and asked
Speaker 3: anyone with information about Audrey's whereabouts to come forward. She
Speaker 3: told the news channel KPRC, we have no leads, so
Speaker 3: we are grasping at any string, any signs anything. In general,
Speaker 3: you were broken, you're mad, You're empty, and right now
Speaker 3: I am empty. Later, there was an online post that
Speaker 3: Cassie made visible. The Daily Mail reported on it, and
Speaker 3: The Daily Beasts followed up. She wrote, quote, I'll make
Speaker 3: this clear one time, and one time only, I failed
Speaker 3: my daughter by being bullied into submission by her father's
Speaker 3: family and being made to believe she was in a safe,
Speaker 3: loving and normal home with her father.
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: Joshua Cunningham side of the family has been quieter, but
Speaker 3: a man named Chris Booth addressed a crowd of reporters
Speaker 3: and people from the community and said that he was
Speaker 3: speaking on behalf of the family.
Speaker 6: He said, I'm gonna ask that if you don't know anything,
Speaker 6: don't say anything. All you're doing is hurting the family.
Speaker 6: That makes no sense. You don't know what they're going through.
Speaker 6: You don't know the circumstances. I do know Audrey is loved.
Speaker 6: I know Audrey has cared for and I know Audrey
Speaker 6: loved her grandmother, her father, her brother and family. I'm
Speaker 6: asking everybody to stop the BS and I'm sorry for
Speaker 6: the language, the BS on Facebook and all the garbage
Speaker 6: talk on Facebook. You don't know the circumstances. Leave it alone.
Speaker 3: But the truth is, with Stephen living there, clearly this
Speaker 3: was far from a normal and healthy environment for a child.
Speaker 3: One person who knew exactly what Stephen McDougall was capable
Speaker 3: of was another one of his past victims.
Speaker 1: Her name is Carissa Davis.
Speaker 3: ABC thirteen did an interview with her about what happened
Speaker 3: back in two thousand and seven. Back then, Carissa was
Speaker 3: ten years old. She was at a family gathering and Stephen,
Speaker 3: who was a friend of the families, came into the
Speaker 3: bedroom that night where she was sleeping with one of
Speaker 3: her cousins. She said Stephen pulled her cousin out of
Speaker 3: the bed and then crawled in there. She said, quote
Speaker 3: he tried to take down my pants and I immediately
Speaker 3: jumped up at that moment, I remember looking at him.
Speaker 1: I was like, do you know how old I am?
Speaker 1: End quote.
Speaker 3: The grand jury indictment backed up Caris's version of events.
Speaker 3: The indictment explained that Stephen had removed another female from
Speaker 3: the bed where his victim was sleeping, then pulled down
Speaker 3: her pajama bottoms and underwear. But it didn't stop there
Speaker 3: because Carrissa managed to break free and she tried to
Speaker 3: run outside, but then Stephen chased her and grabbed her again.
Speaker 3: She said she started hitting him and she managed to
Speaker 3: break free. Her family called the police and he was arrested.
Speaker 3: Stephen was originally charged with attempted indecency with a child,
Speaker 3: but he was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser
Speaker 3: charge of child enticement. Now crucially, this meant he did
Speaker 3: not have to register as a sex offender, so if
Speaker 3: you look him up in the sex offender registry, nothing
Speaker 3: would come up. Under his name. And in addition to that,
Speaker 3: even though he was sentenced to two years in prison,
Speaker 3: he got credit for time served for the time he'd
Speaker 3: been waiting around for trial, so he was out in
Speaker 3: six months. And even more shocking than this to me
Speaker 3: is the fact that that members of Stephen's family said
Speaker 3: this incident was just exaggerated, They backed him up, and
Speaker 3: some of them actually seemed to blame the victim. I
Speaker 3: have seen this play out in so many other cases,
Speaker 3: and it is always shocking to me. Stephen's mother joined
Speaker 3: one of the social media groups that was created after
Speaker 3: Audrey disappeared. Now, according to commenters, this post has been removed,
Speaker 3: but there were comments in there allegedly made by members
Speaker 3: of Stephen's family that called this ten year old victim
Speaker 3: a little bitch, and there are screenshots that people in
Speaker 3: the group have taken of other people in Stephen's family
Speaker 3: liking that post. And another commenter, someone who said that
Speaker 3: she was a friend of one of Stephen's sisters, said
Speaker 3: she had ended the friendship with that sister because she
Speaker 3: claimed that when she brought up the incident, the sister
Speaker 3: said it was exaggerated and that this little girl had
Speaker 3: made up the story, and this person said they had
Speaker 3: told Stevens sister they don't believe that children make up
Speaker 3: stories like that. The bottom line was this friend of
Speaker 3: Stephen's families absolutely believed there were people in this family
Speaker 3: who knew, or at least should have known, about his proclivities.
Speaker 3: Sheriff Lynes told CNN that before Stephen was arrested, he
Speaker 3: had been out searching for Audrey. Stephen had inserted himself
Speaker 3: into the case. He had been going door to or
Speaker 3: looking for her. We've seen this a lot in these cases.
Speaker 3: There seemed to be two responses.
Speaker 1: In general from guilty people.
Speaker 3: Some people completely avoid looking or being present at all,
Speaker 3: or sometimes they seem a little too overly involved in
Speaker 3: the investigation. Now, again, Stephen is innocent until proven guilty.
Speaker 3: We don't know what he has said to police. Law
Speaker 3: enforcement has stated when the Texas Rangers initially questioned him,
Speaker 3: he said, quote, I'm not guilty. I was there and
Speaker 3: was questioned. I am not running or hiding. I've done
Speaker 3: everything I can to help find her. I've done nothing
Speaker 3: wrong end quote. And again, I just want to say
Speaker 3: I think the police did a great job, not only
Speaker 3: with finding Audrey's body, in cooperating with other agencies, but
Speaker 3: also they put out a photo of Stephen's two thousand
Speaker 3: and three Chevy Suburban and they asked anyone who had
Speaker 3: seen that vehicle to come.
Speaker 1: Forward, and it worked.
Speaker 3: A store clerk at the Exxon in Cold Spring told
Speaker 3: the news channel KPRC two that after she saw the
Speaker 3: Amber alert, she realized she had seen Stephen in her
Speaker 3: convenience store at around nine am on the morning of
Speaker 3: February fifteenth. Now this would have been around two hours
Speaker 3: after Audrey missed her bus. She said she definitely remembered
Speaker 3: Stephen because he's, in her words, so ugly. It's a
Speaker 3: face you don't forget. So because of this quick work
Speaker 3: by the police in issuing the Amber alert and the
Speaker 3: vehicle of interest, the gas station attendant called the police.
Speaker 3: Police came in and they were able to pull the
Speaker 3: gas station video. Again, this is a great thing because
Speaker 3: we know in so many of these cases sometimes law
Speaker 3: enforcement waits too long and the footage has been deleted
Speaker 3: or taped over. Police were also able to obtain social
Speaker 3: media information from Stephen. Later that night, the evening of
Speaker 3: February fifteenth, Stephen or someone using his account, posted his
Speaker 3: Facebook page, Stephen was selling a lot of stuff. According
Speaker 3: to KPRC two, whoever posted those messages wrote all must go.
Speaker 3: This included a set of weights with one of the
Speaker 3: weights missing, an everlast boxing bag, and a green paddle
Speaker 3: and the total for all these items was twelve hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty four dollars. So I have a couple of
Speaker 3: questions about this, like what did he do with the
Speaker 3: twenty five pound weight?
Speaker 1: Why was that missing?
Speaker 3: Was it just a coincidence that Audrey's body was weighed down?
Speaker 3: Is that weight somewhere random or could it be in
Speaker 3: the river too. I'm sure that much more information will
Speaker 3: come out about what actually happened to aud as we
Speaker 3: get closer to a trial or a plea deal. As
Speaker 3: of now, Don Stephen Cunningham is in the Polk County jail.
Speaker 3: So we've talked about the good news, how law enforcement
Speaker 3: has said, how vital citizen information and footage was in
Speaker 3: helping in the search for Audrey and the criminal investigation
Speaker 3: in this case. And now we're going to get to
Speaker 3: the bad news because the reality is, yes, the guy
Speaker 3: was caught quickly, but an eleven year old girl is dead,
Speaker 3: and the fact that this was allowed to happen. That
Speaker 3: she was allowed to be taken care of for so
Speaker 3: long by this sexual predator just shows, in my opinion,
Speaker 3: how she was failed by so many people on so
Speaker 3: many levels. We've seen this over and over in past
Speaker 3: cases with the cass County three, with Christina Pipkin's case,
Speaker 3: how there are sexual predators who were allowed to interact
Speaker 3: with children. And it's too late for little Audrey, but
Speaker 3: there are so many other children out there who can
Speaker 3: be helped. Stephen's former victim, Carrisa Gates, who was attacked
Speaker 3: by Stephen when she was ten years old, the one
Speaker 3: who bravely shared her story, wrote something at the bottom
Speaker 3: of her Facebook post. She wrote, I'm not the only victim,
Speaker 3: and that's the terrifying part. There are so many other
Speaker 3: victims out there. As many of you know, I'm all
Speaker 3: about calls to action on this podcast. So many people
Speaker 3: always ask what can I do? And I'm reading a
Speaker 3: lot of these social media comments and people are leaving
Speaker 3: bouquets of flowers or photoshopping angel wings onto Audrey, or
Speaker 3: suggesting painting a bridge or a park bench in her honor.
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, those.
Speaker 3: Are all lovely sentiments, but for me, honestly, if you
Speaker 3: want to do something to help victims, my suggestion is
Speaker 3: that you take a hard look around your family, your friends,
Speaker 3: and your community and look for situations where children could
Speaker 3: be at risk, because they are everywhere. Let's not wait
Speaker 3: to drag a body out of a river before other
Speaker 3: victims of sexual assault are helped and these predators and
Speaker 3: potential killers are exposed and put behind bars where they belong.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
Speaker 3: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 3: It's written and narrated by me, Catherine Townsend and produced
Speaker 3: by Gabby Watts. Music contributed by Ben Sale. Executive producers
Speaker 3: are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crotley. If you
Speaker 3: have a case you'd like me and my team to
Speaker 3: look into, you can reach out to us at our
Speaker 3: Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four
Speaker 3: four six one four or five. That's six seven eight
Speaker 3: seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans