Speaker 1: Falling in love is the best feeling in the world.
Speaker 1: You see stars, you feel giddy, But sometimes that makes
Speaker 1: you do crazy things, and sometimes that means murder. Just
Speaker 1: because the story starts out with once upon a Times
Speaker 1: doesn't mean it ends happily ever after. Welcome to Crazy
Speaker 1: and Love, a production of Katie Studios and I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Today's guests are true crime producer Chris Graves and Jason Newland.
Speaker 1: Jason is an investigator with the Leon County States Attorney's
Speaker 1: Office in Tallahassee, Florida. He was integral and ultimately solving
Speaker 1: this complex case episode twenty two, the Case of the
Speaker 1: hard working Husband, the wicked Widow, and the Alligator Alibi.
Speaker 1: Growing up, Mike Williams always had dreams, but not the
Speaker 1: kind most kids wish for. He didn't aspire to go
Speaker 1: to space or be a famous actor. Mike schools were
Speaker 1: much more grounded. He hoped for a stable career, a
Speaker 1: loving wife, and a beautiful home. Perhaps his rather unassuming
Speaker 1: wants stemmed from his humble beginnings. Mike's father was a
Speaker 1: greyhound bus driver. His mother worked at a daycare. The
Speaker 1: Williams family lived in a double wide trailer outside of Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker 1: All the while Mr and Mrs Williams squirreled away money,
Speaker 1: hoping to save enough to help Mike and his brother
Speaker 1: with their educations. Throughout high school, mikeer and straight a's,
Speaker 1: played on the football team and worked after school at
Speaker 1: a grocery store. Through all his hard work, Mike did
Speaker 1: manage to find some time for girls. Entered Denise. Tall
Speaker 1: and blonde, Denise was a cheerleader, the perfect counter to
Speaker 1: Mike the football player. One night, after a winning game,
Speaker 1: Mike got off the courage to ask Denise out. Both
Speaker 1: were sporty and popular, and they were the envy of
Speaker 1: everyone in school. Mike also had a best friend, Brian Winchester.
Speaker 1: Like Mike, Brian played on the football team and had
Speaker 1: a serious girlfriend, Kathy. The two couples became a tight
Speaker 1: foursome which continued into adulthood as they all stayed in
Speaker 1: the Tallahassee area. In Mike and Denise got married just
Speaker 1: a few months after Brian and Cathy. Five years later,
Speaker 1: Mike and Denise welcomed a daughter. Mike worked as a
Speaker 1: property appraiser while Denise stayed home. Mike loved his wife.
Speaker 1: He loved his life. At thirty one, he couldn't help
Speaker 1: but feel proud. All of his dreams had seemingly come true.
Speaker 1: Here's Chris. Mike worked really hard to maintain his dream
Speaker 1: life as a property appraiser. You were, you raped in
Speaker 1: about two grand a year, which quite a lot of money,
Speaker 1: but that money came with a cost. To earn that money,
Speaker 1: Mike felt he needed to work and soon now hours
Speaker 1: and I think he actually probably just loved to work.
Speaker 1: He would go into the office before dawn, he'd work
Speaker 1: all day, come home, he'd make dinner, and then once
Speaker 1: Denise and his child were asleep, he would go to
Speaker 1: work more. It was so bad that his boss had
Speaker 1: to take away the office keys so that Mike wouldn't
Speaker 1: come in on the weekends. Apparently, and while Denise liked
Speaker 1: her comfortable lifestyle and not surprisingly, took a toll on
Speaker 1: their relationship. So, Jason, what can you tell me about Mike?
Speaker 1: Everything you said is one hunts in accurate. He worked
Speaker 1: too hard, but he also loved Denise to know in
Speaker 1: on those days where he would be at work on
Speaker 1: a regular day, the middle of the day, Denise would
Speaker 1: run out of gas. She needed gas. She called the office,
Speaker 1: Michael Stoppoli to him to help fulfill up the gas.
Speaker 1: Everybody in that office talked about their relationship and how
Speaker 1: he would beend over backwards to keep perhap. Did Denise
Speaker 1: ever expressed to Mike that he was working too much
Speaker 1: in her viewpoint? Did hear some rumors throughout the investigation
Speaker 1: from everybody that knew both sides that his work damaged
Speaker 1: the relationship as much as it helped provide for it
Speaker 1: and not being home as a young cop, I wanted
Speaker 1: to work. I wanted to work because I wanted to promote,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to move up in this career and
Speaker 1: it was fun. Mike's parents worked to provide for the kids,
Speaker 1: and Mike was going to do the same thing. He
Speaker 1: was going to provide for her, and provide for Annesley,
Speaker 1: or provide for the children. She was working to stay
Speaker 1: at home mom. She didn't have to work because he
Speaker 1: was so successful. I truly don't believe he felt like
Speaker 1: he was doing wrong, And I don't think she ever
Speaker 1: conveyed to him, Hey, I need you here, I'd rather
Speaker 1: you be home. On December six, two thousand, Mike and
Speaker 1: Denise were planning on celebrating their six wedding anniversary. They're
Speaker 1: going to enjoy a weekend away in the small fishing
Speaker 1: town of Appalachicola, about ninety minutes from their home. Mike
Speaker 1: had a lot to look forward to. He and Denisa
Speaker 1: talked about starting to try for baby number two on
Speaker 1: the trip, something Mike was or four. That morning, Mike
Speaker 1: wanted to go on a quick duck hunting expedition, which
Speaker 1: had become his favorite pastime. He figured he would have
Speaker 1: time to hit the water hunt for a bit, and
Speaker 1: then make it back for their romantic getaway. Mike left
Speaker 1: at dawn, telling Denise he'd be back in a few hours,
Speaker 1: but by noon there was no sign of him. Nervous,
Speaker 1: Denise called Mike's best friend, Brian. She asked if he
Speaker 1: could go and check on Mike's hunting spot. Of course,
Speaker 1: he wanted to help, and so Brian and his father
Speaker 1: drove about an hour to Lake Seminole, which is where
Speaker 1: Mike always hunted. On their way to the lake, Brian
Speaker 1: and his father noticed that local law enforcement was out
Speaker 1: looking for Mike. When the pair arrived, they immediately joined
Speaker 1: the search quickly. Mike's truck was located in its usual spot,
Speaker 1: Shortly after, a helicopter found Mike's boat drifting in the lake.
Speaker 1: His shotgun was sitting undisturbed in the hole, but there
Speaker 1: was no sign of like, here's Chris Jason, what do
Speaker 1: you know about what happened immediately after Mike went missing?
Speaker 1: So here's where my career actually takes an interesting path
Speaker 1: with this case. I started with the Fishing Wildlife Commission
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two, so when I was in
Speaker 1: the academy, we had the instructors roll through, and the
Speaker 1: first responder on this case, Auten Renewed, was one of
Speaker 1: my instructors in the academy. The case was less than
Speaker 1: eighteen months old when we started the academy, and he
Speaker 1: talked about this case, so I knew about the case
Speaker 1: back nineteen years ago, shortly after it happened. But in
Speaker 1: a situation like this, they responded to a missing duck.
Speaker 1: I happened to respond to those myself later in my career.
Speaker 1: Man fell overboard. It's cold, You're gonna search and you
Speaker 1: hope you find them alive. You're gonna search for a
Speaker 1: couple of days, and then at some point you know
Speaker 1: it's cold, and when it's cold, it takes people a
Speaker 1: little bit longer to surface after they drowned and when
Speaker 1: it's warm. So in these situations that used a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, everybody talked about might be in an avid
Speaker 1: duck hunter and abbot outdoors man and understanding the water.
Speaker 1: This was his little special place to go hunt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: some people can survive. We have ten shows about it. Now,
Speaker 1: that's what everybody was hoping was happening at this time.
Speaker 1: Ten days after he's gone missing, they find his hat
Speaker 1: floating on the water, which is about two weeks after.
Speaker 1: Like you were saying, you would hope that you'd find
Speaker 1: his body, but in this case, they just found his hat.
Speaker 1: It was assumed at first that Mike had drowned in
Speaker 1: the lake. You know, it's cold, he might have fallen,
Speaker 1: maybe he couldn't get himself back into the boat. The
Speaker 1: area of the lake Mike was last seen was about
Speaker 1: six to eight feet deep. But Mike was wearing waiting boots,
Speaker 1: so the fear was that maybe when he fell in
Speaker 1: the water, his boots filled up. Waiters and waiting boots
Speaker 1: they're like misconception as to what they actually are, so
Speaker 1: they're almost like a full overall. They go all the
Speaker 1: way up above the waist to your chest, and then
Speaker 1: they'll snap across your shoulder like overalls. They initially suction
Speaker 1: cup two. When you get in the water, they just
Speaker 1: they just grab hold of you and keep the water out.
Speaker 1: But if you get too far in the water, they'll
Speaker 1: pressed over the top of it, and then you start
Speaker 1: to fill you up and there's no coming out of
Speaker 1: it because the suction effect is the same trying to
Speaker 1: pull them off, because it is to put them on
Speaker 1: and especially under the water. And so that's a duck
Speaker 1: hunter's worst nightmares to fall over in their waiters because
Speaker 1: you fill up even a lack chack. That was a
Speaker 1: fear of everybody's. They thought that's what might have happened
Speaker 1: to Mica. They did so f WC there a Wildlife
Speaker 1: Enforcement agents investigating crimes and homicides. It's not in port.
Speaker 1: They weren't looking for a missing boater. You don't find
Speaker 1: them immediately, and your helicopter doesn't see, you know, something
Speaker 1: suspicious when you kind of just call it a day,
Speaker 1: come back out when the sunshine comes up tomorrow. I've
Speaker 1: been looking enough flying the helicopters and locate subjects and
Speaker 1: situations like this. And you can find them in the
Speaker 1: air and if they're not there, something is suspicious. And
Speaker 1: this water was six eight deep in certain places, but
Speaker 1: in other places it was one to two feet or
Speaker 1: there was stumps that just at the edge of the surface.
Speaker 1: You know, to the free entrance. Do you hold out hope,
Speaker 1: but after a while you have to change course. You
Speaker 1: call an f ANDW Fishing Wildlife, it's the Florida Fish
Speaker 1: and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They were the initial law enforcement
Speaker 1: unit that responded to Mike. It wasn't like a homicide
Speaker 1: unit from the police department or anything. There was no
Speaker 1: homicide unit that responded. This was merely a missing person,
Speaker 1: a missing voter. And most agencies, particularly in the county
Speaker 1: that this one occurred in in Jackson County, their sheriff's
Speaker 1: offices were small and they don't have a lot of water,
Speaker 1: so they don't have a lot of water resources fish
Speaker 1: and wildlife. That's what we did. We had every piece
Speaker 1: of equipment who think they needed for a water search
Speaker 1: and rescue water mission, whatever it may be, to include helicopters.
Speaker 1: In this North Florida region, Leon Counties one of the
Speaker 1: few agencies small shaff office that actually has helicopters outside
Speaker 1: of a state lone agents. Okay, so two weeks general,
Speaker 1: your body would surface, but a body doesn't in this case,
Speaker 1: what are you thinking? I mean, this isn't normal, right,
Speaker 1: when a body goes down, it doesn't move. Revert cases
Speaker 1: where they're in the river and the body goes down
Speaker 1: and you find it within feet of where they're drowning,
Speaker 1: and they don't move, and that's why you have a boat.
Speaker 1: It maybe drifted, maybe the wind blew it, but in
Speaker 1: this situation, you would have expected something to show up
Speaker 1: or at least see it by helicopter. After two to
Speaker 1: three weeks, something should be visible by them. So this
Speaker 1: is gator infested water? Is big gators from that area.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what happened. They got hungry and took them
Speaker 1: because gators too, they eat when it's warm. That day
Speaker 1: Mike and then went hunting was warm that day the
Speaker 1: search and rescue started. You don't know, So the prevailing
Speaker 1: theory after the body didn't show up was that he
Speaker 1: might have been eaten by an alligator. In the interviews
Speaker 1: that we did on this case, I think I kind
Speaker 1: of figured out where it started, and I do believe
Speaker 1: it started at the law enforcement level. The reason they
Speaker 1: couldn't find Mike was that he was consumed by an
Speaker 1: allogy totally feasible by the size the alligators in that lake.
Speaker 1: There musters, there's record breakers that come up in the
Speaker 1: lakes and rivers in that general area. The alligator theory
Speaker 1: just spread and continue to spread, and I think some
Speaker 1: others started to go a little relief that Okay, we
Speaker 1: got a story, we're gonna stick to it. It colored
Speaker 1: the investigation to probably for quite a while. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: put a damper on any type of investigation. Even when
Speaker 1: you talk to experts, they will tell you that alligators
Speaker 1: don't generally eat when it's cold. What they will as
Speaker 1: law enforcement in northern Florida is the theory that involves
Speaker 1: an alligator far fetched. Alligators are involved in a lot
Speaker 1: of cases in Florida. General in North Florida don't have
Speaker 1: a hold of it. Do you have plenty of alligators
Speaker 1: up here, But I don't know if the interaction with
Speaker 1: them is different or what. Generally the interaction humans have
Speaker 1: with alligators ends up in a limnus or a bite.
Speaker 1: If you don't know, we see the whole body soon.
Speaker 1: What kind of decision goes into when a search could
Speaker 1: be continued or scaled back. From a law enforcement standpoint,
Speaker 1: A lot of it depends on, you know, conditions, preparations, survivability.
Speaker 1: What's the length of time that you would expect somebody
Speaker 1: to survive to survive in those situations this one, I
Speaker 1: actually think the search and rescue went on a little
Speaker 1: longer than most would. It was up to three weeks
Speaker 1: of the rescue mission before it was scaled back slightly
Speaker 1: to a search and recovery mission. What are you feeling
Speaker 1: when you hear a story like this? Face value? This
Speaker 1: is a tragedy. This guy went hunting, fell out, and
Speaker 1: didn't make it well. Denise cut a low profile during
Speaker 1: the search. When she heard it was called off, she
Speaker 1: feared for the worst. Denise planned a memorial service where
Speaker 1: Mike's closest friends and family gathered to say goodbye. It
Speaker 1: seemed like Denise was hoping to close this tragic chapter
Speaker 1: of her life. However, there was one person who could
Speaker 1: not accept that Micah drowned his brother, Cheryl. Cheryl knew
Speaker 1: her son Mike was an avid hunter who knew how
Speaker 1: to take care of himself out in the welchness, and
Speaker 1: even if he had drowned, where was his body? Cheryl wondered.
Speaker 1: She started a grassroots campaign, handing out flyers, paying for
Speaker 1: billboards and TV ads, all demanding answers, here's Jason. Cheryl
Speaker 1: was relentless. She did not stop for pursuit of closure.
Speaker 1: In this case, Cheryl, she knew her son. I have
Speaker 1: to tell the story at this point because it fits best.
Speaker 1: When Mike first got into duck hunt, he was about
Speaker 1: fourteen years old, and they had a family friend who
Speaker 1: took him out duck hunt for the first time, and
Speaker 1: it was immediate that Mike was booked. Their family friend
Speaker 1: knew that, alright, fourteen, I'm gonna be taking with me
Speaker 1: for a while, but I'm going to teach him a
Speaker 1: few of the safety measures that he needs to know.
Speaker 1: One of the things that he taught him the family
Speaker 1: had a pool in their backyard. Mike and Cheryl and
Speaker 1: this guy actually spent time with him learning how to
Speaker 1: get out of waiters if you fell on the water
Speaker 1: in the pool, and he said, by the end of
Speaker 1: about two days of working on it, he knew how
Speaker 1: to shed them down to a certain part of your
Speaker 1: body where you could at least get your hands, go
Speaker 1: and get float and you get back to the top
Speaker 1: at least catch a breath, because he taught him you
Speaker 1: can get the waiters off if you're completely under the water,
Speaker 1: but if you're on the top of the water trying
Speaker 1: to shed him and panicking, they don't come off. Cheryl
Speaker 1: knew he knew that because she watched him do that,
Speaker 1: and it was something she required him to do before.
Speaker 1: He was going to keep duckcotting when he was fourteen, fifteen,
Speaker 1: sixteen years old, and then eventually he went, you know,
Speaker 1: started duck hunting by himself, and for sixteen seventeen years
Speaker 1: he duck hunted numerous times and never had any issues.
Speaker 1: She knew his anniversary was coming up. She knew he
Speaker 1: was talking about having you know, more of a family,
Speaker 1: and he was just happy living in good life. That
Speaker 1: he ran duck hunting. He was gonna come home, he
Speaker 1: was gonna because he had somewhere to be that afternoon
Speaker 1: in athletic Ole, and it just did not sit well
Speaker 1: with them when he didn't show up, When we didn't
Speaker 1: find the body of the searches. She always thought she's
Speaker 1: gonna find it. A love that was always her home,
Speaker 1: which granted it would be all of ours. And I
Speaker 1: think deep down she knew the worst, but she always
Speaker 1: wished she was going to find him, and she wasn't
Speaker 1: going to stop until she did. For years, she would
Speaker 1: walk beside of Thomas Billbroad, one of our busiest streets
Speaker 1: in Tallahassee, and she would hold signs up on the anniversary.
Speaker 1: She would put newspaper ads and where is he? Have
Speaker 1: you seen? And never let the town forget. She never stopped.
Speaker 1: She wrote letters to the governor. I think it was
Speaker 1: every day of like a five year period. She wrote
Speaker 1: almost eighteen hundred letters until the case was opened as
Speaker 1: a criminal investigation by the failing And we have always
Speaker 1: she was going to get her point across, and she did.
Speaker 1: She's just gonna be a champion for her son, and
Speaker 1: listened to her intuition. And so Dese was of wants
Speaker 1: to stay at home mom, And now how she's supporting
Speaker 1: herself without this hard working husband. Well, it turns out
Speaker 1: that nineteen days after Mike disappeared, Denise petition to have
Speaker 1: him declared debt so she could collect his life insurance
Speaker 1: policy to the tune of one point seven five million dollars.
Speaker 1: That's quite a sum. Mike was smart and thoughtful family man,
Speaker 1: so he had set up a policy with his friends,
Speaker 1: Brian's firm that would ensure that his wife and daughter
Speaker 1: would be taken care of, So Jason, people don't take
Speaker 1: kindly to life insurance policies in these types of situations.
Speaker 1: How was the community feeling about Denise at this point?
Speaker 1: Those who knew them closely, and I will say this
Speaker 1: to include her sister's brother in law, I thought something
Speaker 1: was up. They didn't like the way that things went
Speaker 1: the day he went missing. And then when she files
Speaker 1: for the player who deceased nineteen days later, there's still
Speaker 1: people certain and she's folently the flare in the seat,
Speaker 1: and then Alexa and then point seven five millions of
Speaker 1: life insurance policies. Red flags went up everywhere the life insurance.
Speaker 1: I think it triggered a lot of people to flit
Speaker 1: from poor Michael missing to something happening. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a break. We'll be back in just a moment.
Speaker 1: Is there anything specific detectives look at when a large
Speaker 1: life insurance policy payout is involved. Yes, we do. Firstly,
Speaker 1: you know when was it created, how much was it for,
Speaker 1: was it changed, was it renewed, was it adjusted in
Speaker 1: any way? Who the recipients are? Was the recipient added?
Speaker 1: Was a recipient removed? In this situation? Who created it?
Speaker 1: You look at all of it? How often are life
Speaker 1: insurance policies involved in cases that you were investigating? I
Speaker 1: actually have one right now that is a triple homicide
Speaker 1: investigation and a life insurance policies involvement. And it's eerily
Speaker 1: similar in the time framework when it was created. Who
Speaker 1: was created for? And we created still pending case. We
Speaker 1: have a really good idea, but you definitely go there.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, after Mike's mother, Cheryl's continued
Speaker 1: please the case was reopened. The biggest thing police found
Speaker 1: this time around was that the leading theory about how
Speaker 1: m My died did not add up. It turns out
Speaker 1: there was no way alligators could have been the culprint
Speaker 1: in December when Mike disappeared. With the temperatures in the fifties,
Speaker 1: alligators were hibernating. They would not come out to feed
Speaker 1: until temperatures hit around eighty eight degrees. This case is
Speaker 1: a perfect scenario of this is Florida. It was about
Speaker 1: seventy seventy eight. I don't know. It was hot the
Speaker 1: day before this case for the data, and then a
Speaker 1: storm rolled through and it was in the thirties less
Speaker 1: than twenty four hours later. It's Florida with a ring
Speaker 1: on one side of the road tracts and not on
Speaker 1: the other. The weather, you know, determining when wildlife are
Speaker 1: gonna eat. It's hard to predict too, because none of
Speaker 1: it's predictable down here. But also I think Cheryl did
Speaker 1: talk to like an expert right who kind of came
Speaker 1: in with that theory. Cheryl talked to everybody she could
Speaker 1: think we talked to. She truly felt that the story
Speaker 1: of alligators was called to her to appease her. This
Speaker 1: is the best answer we can give. Sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: have any more, but the best answer I can give
Speaker 1: you is probably an any and she would get her
Speaker 1: own reserve. She found somebody that said alligators aren't gonna
Speaker 1: come feed in thirty two degree weather. But the case
Speaker 1: was reopened. Correct, That's when you came in right in
Speaker 1: about twenty and is when HI came right out. So
Speaker 1: the cases being passed onto the next guy trying to
Speaker 1: find answers. Denise Mike's former wife is moving on with
Speaker 1: his best friend, Brian. Five years after his disappearance, Denise
Speaker 1: and Brian got married. Brian even moved in to what
Speaker 1: was once his best friend's house. While the rumor mill
Speaker 1: was an overdrive, the police didn't have a body, so
Speaker 1: the investigation was an uphill battle and the case was
Speaker 1: closed again when they got married. The room mills that
Speaker 1: overdrive as an understatement. I think even some of the
Speaker 1: true believers that believe Mike this was an accident change
Speaker 1: their opinion. I think there was maybe one or two
Speaker 1: people that still believed this was an accident. And Brian
Speaker 1: and Denise got married, there was a big ship. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, per his family's request, Denise returned
Speaker 1: all of Mike's guns to them. However, Mike's brother noticed
Speaker 1: that one gun was missing. Through a court order, Mike's
Speaker 1: family was able to retrieve that gun from Denise. The
Speaker 1: looming question was why she had kept it Around the
Speaker 1: same time, the case was reopened again, but this time
Speaker 1: police found something that they unlike that supposed alligator could
Speaker 1: finally sink their teeth into. Everybody started looking at the
Speaker 1: insurance policies. Something didn't match up. It wasn't a whole
Speaker 1: lot that we could work with, but it was something
Speaker 1: is off here. Why do we have an insurance that
Speaker 1: was ready to inspire came? It was made a lot
Speaker 1: of suspicious activity on one particular insurance in the end
Speaker 1: or one point seven five millions divided amongst the week
Speaker 1: different policies. It just looks suspicious. I assume when you
Speaker 1: went to look at who helped Mike with that insurance
Speaker 1: policy that brand alarm bills too? Right, Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: go tryan interview Brian. Good luck. Everybody has the right
Speaker 1: to romain silent this guy. We had an ability to
Speaker 1: do so. Brian, his best friend who is now married
Speaker 1: to his widow, is the one who helped with the
Speaker 1: life insurance policy, right he is. There was also an
Speaker 1: unearthed nine one one call from before the disappearance. Someone
Speaker 1: reported what they thought was an abandoned car in a
Speaker 1: church parking lot. Police looked up the plate and the
Speaker 1: car belonged to Brian. They called his wife and she
Speaker 1: said Brian was out of the state that week for work.
Speaker 1: When cops arrived to the church, the car was gone,
Speaker 1: and it was believed that Brian and Denise were hooking
Speaker 1: up in that car. Do you have anything to say
Speaker 1: about that or no? Nineteen years later I called that
Speaker 1: officer she remember they liked yesterday called her and talked
Speaker 1: to she was Yeah, he was at the church off
Speaker 1: in the city and fatal strucle. I remember you remember
Speaker 1: that guy? I knew it in if something was that well,
Speaker 1: the nature of the grieving widow and best friend's relationship
Speaker 1: began to unravel, so did the current state of their marriage.
Speaker 1: After eleven years together, to Nice filed for divorce. She
Speaker 1: cited Brian's sex addiction as the main cause of their separation.
Speaker 1: Brian was desperate and angry, and one morning he broke
Speaker 1: into Denise's car as Denise drove to work. Brian popped
Speaker 1: up and attacked her. He held Denise at gunpoint for hours,
Speaker 1: begging her to stay with him. Denise was finally able
Speaker 1: to calm him down and de escalate the situation. She
Speaker 1: got him out of her car. Although Denise promised Brian
Speaker 1: in the moment that she wouldn't go to the police,
Speaker 1: and in fact had no intention of alerting the authorities,
Speaker 1: when Denise told her sister what happened, she forced Denise
Speaker 1: to call the police. She then made shore. Denise follow
Speaker 1: through and went to the police station to file a report.
Speaker 1: Denise's brother in law happened to be a police officer,
Speaker 1: and he escorted her down to the station himself. When
Speaker 1: officers arrested Brian, they found bottles of bleach and at
Speaker 1: harp in his car, suggesting he had nefarious plans for
Speaker 1: his soon to be ex wife. Brian was charged with kidnapping,
Speaker 1: domestic assault, and burglary. He faced life in prison. So
Speaker 1: the day after Brian was sentenced officially, he held a
Speaker 1: surprise news conference. Seventeen years after disappearing, Mike's body had
Speaker 1: been found. This is kind of where you come into this, right,
Speaker 1: This is right where I come in and see this
Speaker 1: kidnapping occurred. There's no doubt about it. And he jumped
Speaker 1: up from the back of the bar, came into the
Speaker 1: middle seat. Tell her at one point go around town
Speaker 1: for a while. We tried to get some videos of
Speaker 1: those of her and Walgreens and CBS. I think it
Speaker 1: was odd for her to not talk to her sister
Speaker 1: every day. Her sister tried calling her any morning. She
Speaker 1: didn't answer the phone, so her sister thought something wrong.
Speaker 1: She went looking for her. She passed her on the
Speaker 1: road she shouldn't be on at that time of day.
Speaker 1: That's when they interacted. That's and she aldre what happened Investrom.
Speaker 1: They said, Brian got arrested for this kidnapping. And the
Speaker 1: first thing, every one of us, somebody needs to sit
Speaker 1: it out right now. This is now's your chance. And
Speaker 1: she's gonna tell us, tell us now. And that's what
Speaker 1: we did. And she I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: She came off with nothing. And Brian, he was lowyer
Speaker 1: enough on everything, so we weren't going to get at
Speaker 1: His attorney approached our office and he's like, probably something
Speaker 1: you guys want to know about. What kind of negotiations
Speaker 1: can we have? The attorneys negotiated this case. While they
Speaker 1: were negotiating the case, there was another jail house snitch.
Speaker 1: I hate it. I hate jail how snitches, but sometimes
Speaker 1: they did give you just enough to get you over her.
Speaker 1: And in this situation, the jail health smitch came over
Speaker 1: and told us that Brian's recruiting him to go do
Speaker 1: some things on the outside to create another alibi for kidnapping,
Speaker 1: to create stories about the niece, and that he had
Speaker 1: a cousin was supposed to meet him and getting money.
Speaker 1: He identified the cousin and the lineup, he described the
Speaker 1: truck that he was driving, and we hit pause right there. Well,
Speaker 1: then F D L. E and SHARE's office and I
Speaker 1: think we need worked this a little bit further. It
Speaker 1: was at that point that the negotiations for the police
Speaker 1: started to pick up a little bit more. The agreement
Speaker 1: was made that you will tell us what you know
Speaker 1: about a missing person takes That was kind of what
Speaker 1: we left. Everybody knew we're talking about Mike Williams, but
Speaker 1: we never specifically said we're talking about my food. The
Speaker 1: agreement was that when we would not seek life and
Speaker 1: the kidnapping case, and he would tell us what he
Speaker 1: knew about disappearance and my Williams or the disappearance he
Speaker 1: was missing. First the day he came over here and
Speaker 1: sat down in the interview room and sat down face
Speaker 1: to face, and I'll never forget it. I just looked
Speaker 1: at and I was like, this is your story, fella,
Speaker 1: and he just really wanting to start from the beginning
Speaker 1: when he started telling you. My partner, as I understand,
Speaker 1: sitting next to me and took everything I had and
Speaker 1: I sitting are you listening to this? I don't believe
Speaker 1: he's telling this, And oh my gosh, it was still
Speaker 1: to this day I sit there. I wish I could
Speaker 1: have seen my book on my face, because I know
Speaker 1: I was trying to keep things together, write little notes down,
Speaker 1: but not look like I was overly interested in the act.
Speaker 1: She could be part of the conversation. It was an
Speaker 1: interesting too, plus outs. I mean, that's every investigator's kind
Speaker 1: of dream, right, that somebody finally just talks and tells
Speaker 1: you something about a case from seventeen years ago. You know,
Speaker 1: when we went into this, it was a risk of
Speaker 1: we just entered into free negotiation with a homicide suspect
Speaker 1: that will never be able to prosecute. It was a
Speaker 1: huge risk. And you know, I will say John fus
Speaker 1: across Heater on it. I think he's the only one
Speaker 1: in the opposite would have made the decision to do.
Speaker 1: You knew what he was getting into the end, it
Speaker 1: was worth it. Let's stop here for another break. So
Speaker 1: in May, on the way to pick up her daughter
Speaker 1: from a birthday dinner, Denise was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder and
Speaker 1: accessory after the fact. What does all of that mean?
Speaker 1: And first degree murder first agree murder in the state
Speaker 1: of Florida in for a couple of ways, one as
Speaker 1: pre meditation, the other is during the commission of a
Speaker 1: belmy um. In this situation, we clearly had a premeditated murder.
Speaker 1: Conspiracy to commit first gree murder is it kind of
Speaker 1: comes with the name. You and I conspire to have
Speaker 1: somebody killed, whether we do it ourselves or have somebody
Speaker 1: else do it. That's where you get tied into a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Accessory after the fact is anything you did to assist
Speaker 1: in hiding the homicide, whether it be an actual act
Speaker 1: or an act of admission, you can still be account
Speaker 1: the precessory af effect. And those are all three the
Speaker 1: charges of the Grand tour in May a few thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. And once that indictment was signed, it becomes
Speaker 1: an active part. And she was located at work, sitting
Speaker 1: at her desk or State University in the account of department.
Speaker 1: And when the police officers walked in, she non Schwak,
Speaker 1: got up, put her hands liner back, walked up the door.
Speaker 1: It was not a what are you here for? What
Speaker 1: are you doing. Oh my god, I have nothing to
Speaker 1: do with this. It was like, I mean, as soon
Speaker 1: as we announced the body was found, I think their
Speaker 1: death order. Yeah, this is what is your reaction to
Speaker 1: somebody's committed one crime and they're kind of getting themselves
Speaker 1: off of that crime by admitting to the other crime
Speaker 1: that you can't really give him the proper sentence for either,
Speaker 1: right at that point. By this point, I was well
Speaker 1: acquainted of Cheryl, and you knew how much effort she
Speaker 1: had put into finding her son, and all she wanted
Speaker 1: was closure. She wanted to know what happened, and we
Speaker 1: wanted to provide the opportunity for them to have the
Speaker 1: proper barrel and proper services for her son. That was
Speaker 1: one of the riskiest moves. I don't think we'll ever
Speaker 1: have one go down like this again, at least while
Speaker 1: I'm working it. Literally made a deal with the devil.
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a chance that Brian was going
Speaker 1: to tell me this was entirely his idea, that Denise
Speaker 1: Williams had zero to do with this, and we were
Speaker 1: literally gonna let him murder a walk free just to
Speaker 1: close out this part of you know, just to close
Speaker 1: bring closure for Cheryl too, the whole family, everybody that
Speaker 1: wanted to know, the whole community. That was how did
Speaker 1: it happen? You did it? Where did it happen. There's
Speaker 1: days where I look back and I'm like, Wow, that
Speaker 1: is a cold blood and murderer that set right next
Speaker 1: to me, shout has been friends in the face. I
Speaker 1: can't process that. I don't know that I have a
Speaker 1: will process that. The way he told the story, it
Speaker 1: was one of those ones everybody says, you have to
Speaker 1: sit there, you have to do there, and you have
Speaker 1: to watch him do it, or I can't do it
Speaker 1: justice And that was a fear we had headed into trial.
Speaker 1: Was he gonna be able to actually come across and
Speaker 1: tell the story the same way he did us. So, Jason,
Speaker 1: can you tell me what when Brian did, in fact
Speaker 1: sit down and you and your partner were listening to
Speaker 1: this confession, what did he lay out for you? So
Speaker 1: if he started with the affair, from there, the two
Speaker 1: started a relationship. I think they went out on a
Speaker 1: double date one night and both families and then he
Speaker 1: and Denise went back out after Kathy and Mike both
Speaker 1: at the time, and that's when it started. It started
Speaker 1: with a simple kiss, and then that led to the
Speaker 1: sneaking out that led to the affair progressing. It led
Speaker 1: to you Brian actually trying to get his wife involved
Speaker 1: in this relationship, and then Denise never tried to bring
Speaker 1: Mike into it. Hers was I don't want to be
Speaker 1: married to Mike anymore. But Denise came from a very
Speaker 1: religious family. Divorce was not gonna happen in this household.
Speaker 1: I think her having to go tell her parents she
Speaker 1: was getting divorced in her mind was worse than having
Speaker 1: from her. The only thing I can make him make sense.
Speaker 1: So the two of them start discussing plans on how
Speaker 1: to murder of Mike, and Denis's, well, we're getting get
Speaker 1: rid of Mike. You gotta do something about Cathie. We
Speaker 1: can get married. And there was a plan to all
Speaker 1: go vote riding one day and the two of them
Speaker 1: fall over. Denise and Brian stay on the vote and survived,
Speaker 1: and Brian's like, I don't know. I guess he does
Speaker 1: have something, and the idea that duck hunt came up.
Speaker 1: He said, let's take a duck ut pushing overboard people
Speaker 1: drowned in its waiters was the home he was a
Speaker 1: portion of Brian's confession and his proper statement stay attorney's office.
Speaker 1: We're here to take a proper from Brown Winchester. We
Speaker 1: launched the boat. It was just like a hunting trup.
Speaker 1: Was supposed to be the plan. The plan that was
Speaker 1: discussed and come up with was that he was going
Speaker 1: to be wearing waiters, and the belief it was somebody
Speaker 1: falls in the water with waiters, you're going down. So
Speaker 1: we went out like we were going honey. We got
Speaker 1: to the area where his waiters and jacket were found.
Speaker 1: I got him to stand up and I pushed him
Speaker 1: into the wall her He he got his jacket off
Speaker 1: and his wayers off, and he was in a panic. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I was in a panic. I was dropping the boat
Speaker 1: and I didn't. I didn't. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: and I ended up shooting him. About two weeks before
Speaker 1: this actually occurred, Brian and Mike, we're gonna go up
Speaker 1: because it was when it was supposed to happen, and
Speaker 1: Denise said, no, I gave it stop. Fast forward to
Speaker 1: the week before the murder. Their anniversary is coming up
Speaker 1: and Brian tells him that there's the thought of Denise
Speaker 1: and Mike hadn't gone chrystogether. It's from a week and
Speaker 1: together and try to make a kid. It just she
Speaker 1: didn't want anything to do with it, and she said
Speaker 1: it's got to happen. I don't want to go on
Speaker 1: the stript him. So they got approval for him each
Speaker 1: each other. Michael checked it from me, hey, and they
Speaker 1: go hunting with Brian before we go on the anniversary
Speaker 1: trip that she like. Of course, so Brian has might
Speaker 1: need him at a store where they would normally right together,
Speaker 1: and made him drive separately. But he also didn't bring
Speaker 1: a cell phone with him, so there was no way
Speaker 1: for him to communicate. But they drive the lake Seminole
Speaker 1: and they get in the water and they go to hunting.
Speaker 1: They get out on the boat Brian, which is Mike
Speaker 1: over and Mike doesn't seek it doesn't crown, And when
Speaker 1: Brian circled him a few times with the boat and
Speaker 1: Mike was trying to swim over to him, Mike actually
Speaker 1: found a stump, grab hold the stump, and Brian pulled
Speaker 1: up to him and shot him straight in the face.
Speaker 1: It was then that Brian realized, I can't leave him here.
Speaker 1: I have to take him with me, so Brian essentially
Speaker 1: drags him next to the boat, which is when the
Speaker 1: waiters came off with the body. They just as the
Speaker 1: boat drug waiters came off, Brian gets in the shore,
Speaker 1: puts him in the back of his truck, partially in
Speaker 1: a dog kennel that Brian had in the back of
Speaker 1: the suburban. He moves Mike's truck to a boat landing
Speaker 1: a little a different boat landing, and then he walks
Speaker 1: back to his truck and use the area. Brian actually
Speaker 1: went home, got in bed, went back to sleep, and
Speaker 1: then later that day goes to Walmart and grabs art.
Speaker 1: Graham said, wait, grab the shovel and bunch green and
Speaker 1: supplies the take markets. Crazy. My body is still in
Speaker 1: the back of the suburb. He was inside his house
Speaker 1: moving next to his wife. He has no ideas. After
Speaker 1: going to Walmart, he decides to drive to another lake
Speaker 1: here in Tallassey. He went home cleaning out his truck
Speaker 1: and on the search prob how to Lake Smole. And
Speaker 1: he spent the next several weeks trying to help with
Speaker 1: the search. And remember him telling us that, you know,
Speaker 1: he's pretty sure if Denise's sister knew something was wrong,
Speaker 1: And at one point I do remember looking at Brian
Speaker 1: and I was like, I feel like you're minimizing to
Speaker 1: niece's involved, and he says, no, I'm really not. I
Speaker 1: said this, Denise know how he died, and she said no,
Speaker 1: as far as Denise was concerned, he died because I
Speaker 1: pushed them overboard. He drowned. It wasn't until after the
Speaker 1: proper with Brian that the whole world found out what
Speaker 1: she shot his best friends. He took you guys out
Speaker 1: to where he buried him. Right. We asked him, do
Speaker 1: you think you can take us to him? We had
Speaker 1: the corroborating store. I still needed a body to prove it.
Speaker 1: He wasn't line us at this point. He's lied for
Speaker 1: sixteen years. Why not put another day? He drove him
Speaker 1: just at the courthouse, and myself as attorney, and the
Speaker 1: other investigators for Brian in the front seat with me
Speaker 1: drove down the road. So we drove up already in roads,
Speaker 1: the gardener landing down at the end of the road.
Speaker 1: It goes from pavement down to this little dirt mud
Speaker 1: fit almost. He's like, all right, let's get out right here.
Speaker 1: He gets out of the car and he starts looking
Speaker 1: around and said, you know what, it's gonna be right
Speaker 1: in this area. How can you tell because because there
Speaker 1: was three trees, and he described the trees, and at
Speaker 1: that point we stopped everything and took him back. And
Speaker 1: this is where I can't believe this didn't get out.
Speaker 1: We dropped the search warrant, got a search warrant for
Speaker 1: the property. We can actually grabbed Leon County's road maintenance
Speaker 1: crew with some excavators and tractors and made them signed
Speaker 1: waves It said you're not gonna tell anybody you're here
Speaker 1: because you don't know what you're doing. They started digging
Speaker 1: and digging and digging, and they went inch fight in
Speaker 1: just moving there, moving there, and moving there. I got
Speaker 1: ahead of myself because they brought into Faber Dollars prior
Speaker 1: to gets Nabor dolls a literally in that area. Two.
Speaker 1: After digging for about a week with twenty four hour
Speaker 1: surveillance and twenty four hour pumps keeping water out of
Speaker 1: the area, one of the excavators took the edge of
Speaker 1: the cart and it pulled it up just briefly, and
Speaker 1: I think at that point they realized what they were
Speaker 1: there for, and one of the guys actually put on running,
Speaker 1: get what anything to do? Now that's pulling the body
Speaker 1: out of the ground. It was the last day we
Speaker 1: were done. We were in in this search. We weren't
Speaker 1: gonna dig anymore. We're gonna call his bluff and you're like,
Speaker 1: full craft, it's gonna try. We offer we ads off
Speaker 1: the table, cheer enough. Everything we find only was exactly
Speaker 1: how it was crack and he had the bullet wound
Speaker 1: two right in school. Yes, you can tell it was
Speaker 1: shot of the shot. You finally found Mike. And you
Speaker 1: were going to not only be able to give Cheryl
Speaker 1: closure for a case, right at least now she can
Speaker 1: bury her son and know exactly what happened. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: what we were able to do. It was closure for
Speaker 1: a lot. We actually told Denise and Cheryl at the
Speaker 1: same time. It's a two separate groups. Woman to Cheryl's house,
Speaker 1: woman to Denise's house, the victim's advocate that went to
Speaker 1: Denise's house. She describes it. She wasn't shop, she wasn't sad.
Speaker 1: He was like, okay, not where, not how? But we
Speaker 1: finally had the closure that she reserved. Gerald, particularly, she
Speaker 1: didn't give up. Had she not walked the streets wrote
Speaker 1: written as letters and literally been a nuisance. We wouldn't
Speaker 1: but there's a sense of relief for her. Now we
Speaker 1: can move on to a new chapter. And she said
Speaker 1: that actually, now we can move on to a new chapter,
Speaker 1: we can find another fight, whatever it will be. Despite
Speaker 1: proclaiming her innocence, after just eight hours of deliberation, Denise
Speaker 1: was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to life
Speaker 1: in prison for kidnapping Denise Bryan was sentenced to twenty
Speaker 1: years in prison. In January. Denise appealed to conviction and
Speaker 1: life sentence. Her attorney argued that there was no evidence
Speaker 1: she was involved in the murder, and while the murder
Speaker 1: conviction was in fact overturned, the conspiracy to commit murder
Speaker 1: conviction was up held, which included the thirty year sentence
Speaker 1: that accompanied it. Denise remains behind bars shameless plug. If
Speaker 1: you're enjoying crazy and Love, leave us a review. Season
Speaker 1: three of the Piked and Massacre Returned to Bike County
Speaker 1: is in the works. We want to hear from you
Speaker 1: for the upcoming season. Do you have a story to
Speaker 1: tell a connection to Pike County or is there another
Speaker 1: case local to Pike County? That you can't let go of.
Speaker 1: Please email info at Katie dash Studios dot com and
Speaker 1: don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Katie Underscore Studios.
Speaker 1: Crazy and Love is produced by Stephanie Lydecker, Jeff Shane,
Speaker 1: Chris Graves, and me Courtney Armstrong. Editing and sound design
Speaker 1: by Jeff Twa. Crazy and Love is a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Katie Studios. For more podcast from
Speaker 1: I heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Stay safe, lovers,