Speaker 1: Do you place your left hand on the bay of
Speaker 1: Bible and raise your right hand and repeat after me.
Speaker 1: I solemnly swear. The jury trying it attended in Ferguson
Speaker 1: and around the country were resisting. You're not makes no sense.
Speaker 1: If it doesn't fit, you must equip judge. You are
Speaker 1: the last line of reason in this case. Every one
Speaker 1: of us took an all sap office and we're scorn
Speaker 1: to uphold the constitution for Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta, this
Speaker 1: is sworn. I'm your host, Philip Holloway. We got about
Speaker 1: a half full parking lot right now. What was it
Speaker 1: like all the night she disappeared? Very few cars. From
Speaker 1: the video that we acquired, you don't get to capture
Speaker 1: much of the parking lot, but descriptions or was that
Speaker 1: it was a quiet n I don't Walmart pretty much
Speaker 1: northwest and you can see the uh the backside of
Speaker 1: the Chick fil A. That's the last general vicinity that
Speaker 1: she was seen running from the Walmart. Hi, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Philip Holloway, and today we're looking into a very different
Speaker 1: kind of missing person's case. As you may recall, at
Speaker 1: the end of the Wideman murders, I posed the question that,
Speaker 1: unlike in the Wideman murders, what would a cold case
Speaker 1: investigation look like if investigators really put their shoulders into solving.
Speaker 1: On September two, thousand thirteen, Tiffany Witten was caught shoplifting
Speaker 1: at a Walmart in Cobb County, Georgia. When she was
Speaker 1: stopped by the loss prevention officers, she ran away from
Speaker 1: the Walmart, never to be seen again. Or was she.
Speaker 1: We've just passed the four year mark and still there's
Speaker 1: no sign of Tiffany. We're going to be exploring what
Speaker 1: makes this case so hard to pin down, namely the
Speaker 1: lack of physical evidence, the lack of witnesses, the lack
Speaker 1: of cooperation, the delay in reporting, and the high possibility
Speaker 1: of foul play. This is sworn. So let's walk while
Speaker 1: we're talking. Let's take a look at I want to
Speaker 1: see for myself what these doors look like. Um, that
Speaker 1: she came out of. That's a that's a fairly typical
Speaker 1: Walmart sort of entrance and exit. But it is a
Speaker 1: large door, right and or they're surveillance video cameras right
Speaker 1: there at that door, uh manner from inside. Yes, there
Speaker 1: were cameras and the doors are those automatic you know,
Speaker 1: the motion centers, and you've come up Fort Belden. So
Speaker 1: how far out of the door did she get before
Speaker 1: she was apprehended by the store security. She wasn't out
Speaker 1: the door yet. She was at the door, um, and
Speaker 1: had not made her way out that that set of
Speaker 1: doors at the time that she was approached by security
Speaker 1: and they kind of got between her and the in
Speaker 1: the parking lot. This is John Dawes, the lead investigator
Speaker 1: of the cold case unit in Cobb County, Georgia, and
Speaker 1: now the lead investigator in the Tiffany Witten case. Mason
Speaker 1: and I decided to go down with John to the
Speaker 1: Walmart where Tiffany was last seen in order to get
Speaker 1: a better feel for the area. Yeah, what was described
Speaker 1: by Walmarts that she was going, uh, pretty much northwest
Speaker 1: and you can see the uh, the backside of the
Speaker 1: Chick fil A. That's the last general vicinity that that
Speaker 1: she was seen running from the Walmart head headed towards
Speaker 1: the back side of Chick fil A. And where she
Speaker 1: went in you can see there's tree growth now, um,
Speaker 1: so you could lose sight of her pretty quickly. Is
Speaker 1: that I hope that we're looking at up there on
Speaker 1: the top of the hills down where she worked. She
Speaker 1: used to work at that I hoop. It's actually on
Speaker 1: the other side of Cop Parker from here, but yes,
Speaker 1: that's the eyehop for the people who are listening to this, John,
Speaker 1: can you describe what co Parkway is and how big
Speaker 1: it is? Uh? Cup Parkway is uh two lanes south
Speaker 1: and two lanes north with a center turn lane between. Uh.
Speaker 1: So it's a wide state route that comes through Marietta
Speaker 1: and normally there's there's a good bit of traffic on
Speaker 1: on Cob Parker. Part of the case that would have
Speaker 1: been really really good to have is all the video
Speaker 1: from all the his neighboring businesses. UM. I was sure
Speaker 1: that most of them, if not all of them, have
Speaker 1: their own systems. Uh. You're talking about probably twenty twenty
Speaker 1: businesses that we could have gotten footage from, including Chick
Speaker 1: fil a. UM. But the problem that we had is
Speaker 1: the delay in reporting. This happened in mid September and
Speaker 1: was reporting in January, so UH, that time frame pretty
Speaker 1: much absolves the opportunity to get video from these commercial businesses.
Speaker 1: John Dawes brings up one of the biggest obstacles in
Speaker 1: this case, several months went by before Tiffany was actually
Speaker 1: reported missing by her mother, and this created lots of
Speaker 1: different problems for law enforcement in terms of creating an
Speaker 1: accurate timeline and in obtaining surveillance footage from businesses before
Speaker 1: it's erased. So you may be wondering, if a young
Speaker 1: girl ran out towards Cole Parkway, a major thoroughfare in
Speaker 1: a suburb just north of Atlanta, and was never seen again,
Speaker 1: why did it take so long to report her as missing?
Speaker 1: Lisa Daniels, My daughter is Tiffany Witten, who disappeared in
Speaker 1: Marietta from the Walmart on Cole Parkway on September. So
Speaker 1: we just passed the four year mark since anyone last
Speaker 1: saw Tiffany. How oh was your daughter at the time
Speaker 1: for her disappearance? She was where she well, she lived
Speaker 1: in Marietta at the time, um or Powder Spring I
Speaker 1: think it might have been Powder Springs area. It's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to say. She was a little nomadic. She
Speaker 1: was a drug addict, so she moved around, stayed where
Speaker 1: she could. I think was kind of the way most
Speaker 1: of these people, um live is wherever they can find
Speaker 1: a place. She would say to me that she wanted
Speaker 1: to get clean, that she wanted to do better, she
Speaker 1: wanted to be a better person. Um. But she also
Speaker 1: stated to me that the only time she felt normal
Speaker 1: is when she was high, and that was sad to
Speaker 1: me because it made me feel like there was probably
Speaker 1: some underlying mental illness there um that we weren't aware of.
Speaker 1: But we as a family did everything we could to
Speaker 1: try to help her get clean, rehab and just everything
Speaker 1: that we could possibly think of, and nothing seemed to work.
Speaker 1: She get clean for a little while, and then as
Speaker 1: soon as she would run into somebody that had a supply,
Speaker 1: she'd be right back into it. What was her drug
Speaker 1: of choice meth and heroin. I thinks she started out
Speaker 1: like a lot of people do with the opioids. UM,
Speaker 1: it was oxy and then I don't know who introduced
Speaker 1: her to meth, but at some point she was introduced
Speaker 1: to heroin and UM that became probably her primary. So
Speaker 1: what happened that caused the delay in reporting her disappearance, Well,
Speaker 1: like I said, she was nomadic and she did not
Speaker 1: always stay in touch with us, so when she was using,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't hear from her. It could be weeks, it
Speaker 1: could be a couple of months. So initially was I worried, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I worried about her every day, but I wasn't worried
Speaker 1: that she was missing or that something had happened to her.
Speaker 1: I was used to not hearing for her from her
Speaker 1: for a couple of months. But when the holidays came
Speaker 1: around and I didn't hear from her at all, that
Speaker 1: was not That was not normal. And um so after
Speaker 1: the holidays we did go down and follow missing person's report.
Speaker 1: To Lisa, this was an abnormal behavior. Admittedly, she'd got
Speaker 1: as long as two months without hearing from Tiffany before,
Speaker 1: but after that time had gone by and the holidays
Speaker 1: came and went, Lisa felt this had escalated past typical
Speaker 1: drug user behavior. Tiffany was last seen in September. Lisa
Speaker 1: reported her missing in January. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. Pretty
Speaker 1: much my entire high school has either you know, I'm
Speaker 1: graduating class is either guy d of whole in some
Speaker 1: sort of treatment or recovery or legal consequences. But no
Speaker 1: one's ever just disappeared. This is Aaron Warren, a close
Speaker 1: friend of Tiffany's. You know a few of us have
Speaker 1: gone missing from time to time, because we're out there
Speaker 1: in active addiction. I did myself, but you eventually reach surface.
Speaker 1: She's known Tiffany for a long time and could offer
Speaker 1: perspective on the drug addiction that apparently ran Tiffany's life.
Speaker 1: Aaron can talk about Tiffany's addiction because she can relate.
Speaker 1: But when the time came and Aaron got clean, Tiffany didn't,
Speaker 1: and that caused them to drift apart. So I've known
Speaker 1: Tiffany actually since middle school, and we've been you know, friends,
Speaker 1: on and off throughout middle school. And when I say
Speaker 1: on an office, you know, I'm I'm in recovering myself.
Speaker 1: So you know, addiction takes you different places and you
Speaker 1: don't always hang around the same group of people. But HM,
Speaker 1: any time we were hanging out throughout middle school and
Speaker 1: high school, we were definitely partying together, which I always
Speaker 1: involved alcohol drugs. And then I got sober in TWN
Speaker 1: and not too long after that I reconnected with Tiffany.
Speaker 1: She had gotten out of prison and um, you know
Speaker 1: it was was sober for a period of time, and
Speaker 1: so we attended meetings together and we're once again a
Speaker 1: part of one another's lives, but in a more healthier
Speaker 1: place for each of us. So when she relapsed, you know,
Speaker 1: I I'm still sober today. So I tried to you know,
Speaker 1: and see her at meetings, meet her at meanings and
Speaker 1: tried to talk to her, but she was so strung
Speaker 1: out on meth again, you just couldn't get through to her.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if she you know, maybe she went
Speaker 1: through our side in prison, but I don't recall her
Speaker 1: going to rehab and when she got out, you know,
Speaker 1: at that point, I don't know why she couldn't go
Speaker 1: back home, you know, if she lost custody of her daughter.
Speaker 1: But she was actually living with a a mutual friend
Speaker 1: for a period of time before she relapsed, mutual friend
Speaker 1: that we also went to school with, and then he
Speaker 1: was a member of you know, recovery also at the time.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was that long before her disappearance.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I saw her at a at a
Speaker 1: a a meeting and that that that was literally our last,
Speaker 1: my last contact with her. She was so strong out,
Speaker 1: you know, high at that time, very emaciated and finn
Speaker 1: um and and just telling me some crazy story. I
Speaker 1: just asked her, like, do you want help? Are you ready?
Speaker 1: To like come off of the stuff again, because you know,
Speaker 1: I'll help you do that, but I can't like enable
Speaker 1: you because she was needing somewhere to stay. No, was
Speaker 1: kind of the crisis at the moment that she was
Speaker 1: back on drugs. But turns out she's like stolen stuff
Speaker 1: from her roommate who was also a co worker, and
Speaker 1: that's why her her roommate kicked her out. That's the
Speaker 1: same coworker she worked with it uh at I hop
Speaker 1: that's actually been interviewed several times for her story. You know,
Speaker 1: the police report and all that she got fired from
Speaker 1: I Hot for stealing from there too, So you can
Speaker 1: just kind of see her pattern with this. We also
Speaker 1: asked Aaron about Ashley Coddle, Tiffany's boyfriend at the time
Speaker 1: and the last person she was with on the night
Speaker 1: that she disappeared on the surveillance tape footage from Walmart.
Speaker 1: They walk around the store together. He like pulled up
Speaker 1: that night outside of the meeting when I was trying
Speaker 1: to talk to her and ask her she wanted help,
Speaker 1: and he picked her up. Um. I mean I heard
Speaker 1: from people that ran with them that he had very
Speaker 1: bad temper. Sketch absolute sketch. I mean, they're both strung
Speaker 1: out on meth. And you know, anytime anybody's on math,
Speaker 1: they're sketchy, they're flighty shifty. You get this feeling, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to describe it, like when someone's on the math
Speaker 1: and they're in the same room as you. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like being around someone who's possessed, Like you instantly feel
Speaker 1: I've got to get away from this person. It's scary,
Speaker 1: it's it's un it's unsettling. And on the inside, if
Speaker 1: you are locked up in Cobb County gel they're always
Speaker 1: a group of tweakers that are locked up in there,
Speaker 1: and all of the gossip, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: in latest news that goes on in the in the
Speaker 1: meth underworld. So the fact that nobody has come forward
Speaker 1: with information, I mean, I feel like she she she
Speaker 1: has to be dead. I was arrested many times when
Speaker 1: I was an active addiction, and but I would be
Speaker 1: in there with a bunch of the you know, the
Speaker 1: the column tweakers. You know, one time in particular, they
Speaker 1: were talking about, oh, she knows something about the body
Speaker 1: that was done somewhere. Now this is unrelated to Tiffany,
Speaker 1: but you hear you hear the gossip in jail. You
Speaker 1: know what I mean because I've heard it myself as
Speaker 1: an innate. I mean, somebody knows something. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: was she picked up in sex traffic? I feel like
Speaker 1: that and and and you know, being killed or the
Speaker 1: two most likely outcomes. Okay. The IHP waitress, the one
Speaker 1: in Marietta that Tiffity worked out, got fired from forestaing.
Speaker 1: I spoke with her, um like, face to face. I
Speaker 1: can't tell you where or when. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: that closer to the times disappeared. And I mean she
Speaker 1: told me straight up, like Ashley came there after her disappearance,
Speaker 1: looking visibly shaken, you know what I mean, like distraught, shifty,
Speaker 1: what you would expect for someone that's til meth. But
Speaker 1: she said like more so and was acting really weird,
Speaker 1: so I mean just her. And then you know, it
Speaker 1: was reported that she said, well, why don't you call
Speaker 1: Tiffany and he pulled out her cell phone and said,
Speaker 1: because I have it. So then if a message wasn't
Speaker 1: a month later to her brother whoever, for Happy Birthday? Okay,
Speaker 1: why the funking that being investigated? Had they looked at
Speaker 1: her phone records, you know what I mean, Like, why
Speaker 1: isn't this stuff being tracked? The birthday message that Aaron
Speaker 1: is referring to is a message that was sent from
Speaker 1: Tiffany's Facebook to her half brother Blake around January. According
Speaker 1: to an interview Blake did in two thousand sixteen, Tiffany
Speaker 1: also called him around his birthday that year, using her
Speaker 1: special nickname for him, Mudbug. Keep in mind, this was
Speaker 1: just about four months since she was last seen. More
Speaker 1: on this later. When you have two drug addicts in
Speaker 1: a relationship, the codependence is so strong that you're not
Speaker 1: going to separate no matter what. So for the fact
Speaker 1: that actually claims she just disappeared into the night, I
Speaker 1: don't fucking believe. You know, toxic codependent relationships just as
Speaker 1: strong as drugs and alcohol. The effect is the same
Speaker 1: for someone, you know what I mean. So if you're
Speaker 1: in that type of relationship and you have to have
Speaker 1: that person to be okay, you're not gonna let them
Speaker 1: wander off into the night. There's just not Because humans, individually,
Speaker 1: we're we're can be unpredictable to an extent, But when
Speaker 1: you add drugs into the months, there's no way to
Speaker 1: predict outcomes. When Lisa found out that her daughter was
Speaker 1: shoplifting for the Walmart at the time she disappeared, her
Speaker 1: first thought was that maybe she was laying low knowing
Speaker 1: she was in trouble. It didn't seem like such a
Speaker 1: crazy idea, especially given the crowd Tiffany ran with and
Speaker 1: her obvious drug usage. On that night, Mason Paine and
Speaker 1: I went to visit Lisa and talk with her about
Speaker 1: her daughter's case. As part of Lisa's effort not to
Speaker 1: let this case rest, she never turns down any interview
Speaker 1: or opportunity to speak about Tiffany. There's no evidence that.
Speaker 1: I mean, initially, my thought was I was suspicious of him. Initially, however,
Speaker 1: I did think, well, you know, she she did get
Speaker 1: caught shop loveding. She knows she's going to be in trouble.
Speaker 1: So my initial thought, like I said to you before,
Speaker 1: was she's laying low, she's out with one of her friends.
Speaker 1: She just she doesn't want to face the music. Um.
Speaker 1: Then I started thinking, what has something happened? What if
Speaker 1: she ran behind behind Sam's and she fell, she got hurt,
Speaker 1: she you know, hit her head, something happened back there.
Speaker 1: And but they've searched all back there and nothing. So, um,
Speaker 1: I don't think that any anything happened in that immediate area.
Speaker 1: I do believe and have always believed, that they somehow
Speaker 1: met back up that night, whether it was you know,
Speaker 1: around that area, maybe at one Stein's. He lived close by.
Speaker 1: She knew a lot of people in the area. You know.
Speaker 1: I told Tom when we first met, and I think
Speaker 1: the first day that we met, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: you look out that one I said, look out that
Speaker 1: window right behind us. What do you see out there?
Speaker 1: He said, trees? Woods, And I said, you know what
Speaker 1: I see somewhere? My daughter could be everywhere I look
Speaker 1: every time I go to the lake, you know, I'm i'm.
Speaker 1: We went to the lake one day. This was the
Speaker 1: first summer that we had our boat, and we were
Speaker 1: in a cove close to Bethany Bridge as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, and we were pulling up anchor to go
Speaker 1: back to the marina, and the anchor was stuck and
Speaker 1: so my husband's you know, pulling and tugg and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something on the anchor. And then my daughter says, um,
Speaker 1: I hope it's not a body. And immediately I thought,
Speaker 1: would that be the craziest thing. I mean, crazy doesn't
Speaker 1: even begin to describe it. But I cannot even tell
Speaker 1: you how sick I felt when he was pulling on
Speaker 1: that rope to see what was at the other end.
Speaker 1: It was an anchor. It was another anchor that we
Speaker 1: pulled up with, you know, part of a rope on it.
Speaker 1: But my gut tells me that she hit out for
Speaker 1: a little while until the police were gone. You know,
Speaker 1: she ran over behind Sam's. They did not give chase,
Speaker 1: They did not take off after her. They had her first,
Speaker 1: they knew who she was. So my gut instinct is
Speaker 1: that she hit out for a while until you know
Speaker 1: that he was off, so to speak. And then when
Speaker 1: Ashley came back to get that truck, she was she
Speaker 1: was in it or buy it or near it, or
Speaker 1: she was there. They they hooked back up that night.
Speaker 1: I have no doubt about that. The truth never changes.
Speaker 1: So if, if truly she ran out of that Walmart
Speaker 1: and he never laid eyes on her again, why he
Speaker 1: told people, Oh yes, she got arrested, Oh yes, she
Speaker 1: went to rehab. Oh yeah, we were arguing and she
Speaker 1: you know, she walked off and I don't know where
Speaker 1: she went. There's no reason to lie unless something happened
Speaker 1: that he doesn't want anyone to know about. There's no
Speaker 1: other reason to lie. I mean, if he had, if
Speaker 1: he had stuck with the same story that I swear
Speaker 1: to you, she ran out the door. I did not
Speaker 1: see her again period. So you can ask me, you know,
Speaker 1: any way you want, or try to trip me up
Speaker 1: or I never saw her again. He but he hasn't
Speaker 1: done that. He hasn't done that. I mean he's kind
Speaker 1: of doing that now because he's on the hot seat.
Speaker 1: But he didn't do that in the beginning. I did
Speaker 1: not get a lot of cooperation in the beginning on
Speaker 1: this case. And you probably saw that with Chase Master's
Speaker 1: case as well. It was the yeah, so if you're
Speaker 1: not a if you're not a you know, blonde hair,
Speaker 1: blue eye, co ed um or a child obviously you know,
Speaker 1: any child, they're gonna go looking for. But the bottom line,
Speaker 1: and it was the same thing I had told my mom,
Speaker 1: And what mom, you know, I don't know about following
Speaker 1: a missing person report. She's gone off the grid like
Speaker 1: this before for a couple of months where she didn't
Speaker 1: when she's using she didn't want to talk to her family.
Speaker 1: She didn't want to talk to anybody who was going
Speaker 1: to try to push her to rehab or you know,
Speaker 1: try to do anything to get her off of that path. So, um,
Speaker 1: maybe two months, maybe two months. So you know that
Speaker 1: that part of it was not out of the ordinary,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't really until we got those letters we
Speaker 1: found out that, you know, the Walmart incident had happened,
Speaker 1: that we really began to think, Okay, there's something more
Speaker 1: to this. But even still, I'm thinking, Okay, she's on parole,
Speaker 1: she just got cop shoplifting. Put two and two together,
Speaker 1: and I said, if I go, if I go down
Speaker 1: to the police department and follow this in person report,
Speaker 1: they are gonna laugh me out the door. And um,
Speaker 1: and you know, of course I did feel that way.
Speaker 1: And of course I look back on it now and think, God,
Speaker 1: your dumbass. You know, maybe if you had gone sooner,
Speaker 1: they would have video from the parking lot that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'd beat myself up every day for that. I can't
Speaker 1: but I can't change that, so I have to move
Speaker 1: on from that. But when I did go, and then
Speaker 1: when I did press the detective, and and the detective
Speaker 1: call and said, yeah, We're we're not even gonna open
Speaker 1: We're not going to open an investigation on this. She's
Speaker 1: just hiding out. She'll she'll turn up. Correct. That was
Speaker 1: in UM. It was in Janue, weary of fourteen, well, September, October, November, December,
Speaker 1: jam four months. You know, she she's on paroll, she
Speaker 1: she was shoplifting, She's in trouble, she's just hiding out. She'll,
Speaker 1: she'll turn up. Yeah. I started calling people. I just
Speaker 1: started calling. I went up the chain at Mary Att
Speaker 1: a p D. And UM was actually called the Chief's
Speaker 1: office and his assistant was amazing and gave me every
Speaker 1: name and number of people I needed to call, and
Speaker 1: she said, if you don't get any satisfaction there, then
Speaker 1: you call me back and I'll make sure that you
Speaker 1: get to talk with Chief Flynn and UM. So I
Speaker 1: went up the chain, and then I got a call
Speaker 1: from a major who UM who basically was not was
Speaker 1: not very nice. He basically told me, we don't even
Speaker 1: know that UM who has jurisdiction on this. And I said,
Speaker 1: and I know who has jurisdiction because it's the last
Speaker 1: place that she was seen and it was in your city. Well,
Speaker 1: she was in our city committing a crime. I really
Speaker 1: don't care what she was doing. Um, she was in
Speaker 1: your city and she's missing. It does not matter what
Speaker 1: she was doing when she went missing. The fact is
Speaker 1: she's missing, and it is your jurisdiction. And um. During
Speaker 1: the course of the conversation, I realized he had mentioned
Speaker 1: that he had a daughter, and I think he has
Speaker 1: to actually, but he had mentioned something about having a daughter,
Speaker 1: and I said, I said, so, I'm just gonna ask
Speaker 1: you this. Um, you mentioned you have a daughter. I said,
Speaker 1: if she went missing, regardless of the circumstances, would you
Speaker 1: not move heaven and earth to find her? And it
Speaker 1: was just complete silence, and he said, I'll be back
Speaker 1: in touch with you. Then he hung up the phone.
Speaker 1: And then later that evening I got the first call
Speaker 1: from Detective Mueller. I don't like to knock any municipality
Speaker 1: or or anything like that, but he's been arrested multiple
Speaker 1: times in cop County. It's always a slap on the rest.
Speaker 1: He's always out in record time. I don't understand how
Speaker 1: somebody can be you know. I mean, my brother works
Speaker 1: at that jail. He said, it's a revolving door. He
Speaker 1: sees the same people in and out of there all
Speaker 1: the time. Ashley's one of them. He's done time there,
Speaker 1: he's done time in prison, he's been in, he's been out.
Speaker 1: But every time he gets in trouble and cop counting
Speaker 1: is the same thing they pleaded. You know, he's a
Speaker 1: little bitty squirt, and I think that he you know,
Speaker 1: tries to talk big and bad, and he tries to
Speaker 1: intimidate people. And he's supposedly a part of this ghost
Speaker 1: Phase gang. Whatever the heck. That is a bunch of losers.
Speaker 1: But I have to say, look, I knew he had
Speaker 1: already set the expectation for me that they were not
Speaker 1: going to be able to get him on trafficking and
Speaker 1: a lot of other things that they wanted to charge
Speaker 1: him with, and that, um, you know, he said, as
Speaker 1: much as I hate to say it, we're not going
Speaker 1: to be able to give him as much time as
Speaker 1: what we're hoping. So my expectations were very low. When
Speaker 1: I heard that he got sentenced to twenty years and
Speaker 1: had to served in I was happy. I was really
Speaker 1: happy because he's not gonna be on the street. He
Speaker 1: can't intimidate witnesses, he can't you know, hide evidence. If
Speaker 1: there is any out there. I mean, I know that
Speaker 1: he saw me. When after the March drug bust, I
Speaker 1: did go to court. Um I went to Yeah, he
Speaker 1: saw me. He definitely saw me. Um. No, Well, when
Speaker 1: he saw me and we did make eye contact, he
Speaker 1: immediately turned and I had on a shirt with her
Speaker 1: picture on it, so there was no doubt who I was.
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to look at me. I don't think
Speaker 1: the guy can look at me. It's just like a
Speaker 1: um never ending nightmare that you can't wake up from.
Speaker 1: You know, you. I go through my day. I take
Speaker 1: care of my family, I do my job. I do
Speaker 1: what I have to do to get through a day.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've had people say, God, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you even how can you even get out
Speaker 1: of bed in the morning if my my child was missing,
Speaker 1: I like what, I have two other kids to take
Speaker 1: care of in a husband, I can't not get out
Speaker 1: of bed. Yeah, I have no choice but to get
Speaker 1: out of bed. And thank God, thank God for that,
Speaker 1: because otherwise, I mean if I just if I didn't
Speaker 1: get out of bed in the morning, I mean I
Speaker 1: would just die. I would just die. I have to
Speaker 1: keep going, I have to keep searching and I have
Speaker 1: to keep doing what I can to try to convince
Speaker 1: people to do the right thing. If you know something,
Speaker 1: you need to say. Something is as simple as that,
Speaker 1: and it's frustrating. What do you tell Tiffany's daughter? You know,
Speaker 1: we don't talk a lot about it. I've kind of
Speaker 1: let her be the lead on them. We do talk
Speaker 1: about her mommy, but we try to. I try to
Speaker 1: talk about her in positive ways. You know, when when
Speaker 1: she'll do something funny that reminds me of her mommy,
Speaker 1: I'll say, oh my gosh, you know you look just
Speaker 1: like your mommy when you did that. Or I'll be
Speaker 1: brushing her hair and say, gosh, you know your hair
Speaker 1: is exactly like hers. I mean, they look exactly alike.
Speaker 1: You look at a picture of Tiffany and you honestly
Speaker 1: accept the fact that the picture is older and the
Speaker 1: styles have changed. There's no difference. You know. She's very
Speaker 1: much like her mommy in a lot of ways, which
Speaker 1: can be worrisome. She's like her in good ways and
Speaker 1: bad ways. She finally got to a point where she
Speaker 1: was she was upset one day and she just told
Speaker 1: me that she was starting to forget what she looked
Speaker 1: like and that just broke my heart. And then she
Speaker 1: wanted to know, you know, she said, is she is
Speaker 1: mo mommy dead? No grandmother should ever have to answer
Speaker 1: that question or never even be asked that question. But um,
Speaker 1: I was honest with her and told her that as
Speaker 1: much as I pray that she's not, that, you know,
Speaker 1: in my heart, I believe that she is. And I
Speaker 1: explained to her what happened, and not only what happened,
Speaker 1: but how she got to that point, you know, what
Speaker 1: what happened in her life that led her down that path.
Speaker 1: And I told her, you know, Tiffany didn't tell the
Speaker 1: truth a lot, and she stole things. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: she was shop flofting in walmartch and she had taken
Speaker 1: things that didn't belong to her. She had an issue
Speaker 1: with the truth. I have felt for a very long
Speaker 1: time that this particular person was the key to blowing
Speaker 1: this case open. And um, I've been saying that to
Speaker 1: law enforcement now for three years. I guess this guy
Speaker 1: right here, I'm telling you right now, this guy right
Speaker 1: here is the key. And here's why abc D. Here's
Speaker 1: why he's the key. And I'm not gonna say that
Speaker 1: that other people necessarily discounted what I was saying, UM,
Speaker 1: But I don't think they really felt as strongly about
Speaker 1: it as I did. John Dawes listened, and John Dawes
Speaker 1: believes the same thing that I believe. I thought about
Speaker 1: it so many times. I thought, what if, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting at home one night and there's a knock
Speaker 1: at the door and it's John Dawes, or you know,
Speaker 1: somebody is knocking out my door to say, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: we found her, even though I know in my heart,
Speaker 1: I feel in my heart that she's gone to get
Speaker 1: that to find that out would be so final. It's
Speaker 1: just final at that point. But the one person who
Speaker 1: I had said has the key. Yeah, that's what I believe.
Speaker 1: You could tell him something right now, would say. I
Speaker 1: would say what I've said, UM directly to him, and
Speaker 1: that is, you know, if the shoe were on the
Speaker 1: other foot and you were missing, and Tiffany knew what happened,
Speaker 1: she would tell. She wouldn't have any problem telling. And
Speaker 1: you know, one day this could be your child, this
Speaker 1: could be your daughter, God forbid. Don't you want somebody
Speaker 1: to do that for you? Wouldn't you want somebody to
Speaker 1: step forward and do the right thing and say what happened.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know how else to put it
Speaker 1: except dude, come on, you know the time is the
Speaker 1: time has come. What is there to be afraid of?
Speaker 1: What is there to be afraid of? If you did
Speaker 1: nothing wrong, then why are you so afraid to come forward?
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what he's afraid of. Maybe maybe, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that could be. I've thought about that too, that maybe
Speaker 1: he did do something wrong and that's why he's so afraid.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think you did something wrong, But I
Speaker 1: don't think he actually I don't think he actually harmed Tiffany. Um,
Speaker 1: but I do think he helped cover it up. Yes,
Speaker 1: is it definitely is. But I think that in the
Speaker 1: interest of information, law enforcement would probably be willing to
Speaker 1: overlook that to get the information if they need. So,
Speaker 1: that's what I would say to him. Quit being a pansy.
Speaker 1: You know, you act all tough with your gang signs
Speaker 1: and your tats and all this kind of stuff. You
Speaker 1: ain't tough. You're not tough at all. Tiffany wouldn't disappeared
Speaker 1: within about a mile or so of my office where
Speaker 1: I work. Every day I drive past the location where
Speaker 1: she was last seen alive. Almost every single day I
Speaker 1: shopped right near there, I near there. I can barely
Speaker 1: imagine how someone could literally disappear without a trace from
Speaker 1: that place. Unlike other cold cases that we've seen, there's
Speaker 1: one factor present here that was not present in anything
Speaker 1: else that really hampered law enforcement when this case started
Speaker 1: as well as today. That factor is the delay in reporting.
Speaker 1: It was four months before Tiffany's mother went to the
Speaker 1: Marriott A police department to report her daughter missing. In
Speaker 1: that four month period of time, just imagine what all
Speaker 1: could have been going on with Tiffany Witten Considering her lifestyle.
Speaker 1: What type of hazards was she facing every day? Was
Speaker 1: she exposing herself to bad people? Was she exposing herself
Speaker 1: to bad habits? Was she perhaps getting herselves in a
Speaker 1: situation where maybe she would overdose or something else tragic
Speaker 1: could happen. The possibilities are seemingly endless. And just how
Speaker 1: regrettable is it that all of those security cameras and
Speaker 1: surveillance videos that I saw just in the parking lot
Speaker 1: of the Walmart alone, not to mention all of the
Speaker 1: nearby stores, they all probably saw where she went. There
Speaker 1: was probably security video showing exactly what happened to her.
Speaker 1: But in that period of time, those recordings went away
Speaker 1: the way that the systems work may usually record over
Speaker 1: themselves after a number of days or perhaps a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks. And so during that four months, think about
Speaker 1: all of the evidence that was simply lost. It's nobody's fault, necessarily,
Speaker 1: it's just the way that it is. That's what happens
Speaker 1: in four months time. Tiffany Whitten was a human being.
Speaker 1: She deserves to be found. It doesn't matter what her
Speaker 1: lifestyle choices may have been, It doesn't matter what her
Speaker 1: past history might have been. She was a human being,
Speaker 1: and she does not deserve to be missing. Her family
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve to go through life. Her daughter doesn't deserve
Speaker 1: to go through life wondering what the hell happened to
Speaker 1: her mother. As much as Tiffany deserves to be found,
Speaker 1: her friends, her family, and her loved ones deserve answers.
Speaker 1: We hear from the Assistant District Attorney in Cobb County
Speaker 1: and discussed the case at length with the current lead investigator,
Speaker 1: John Dawes. Next Time on Sworn. Sworn is produced by
Speaker 1: Tenderfoot TV in Atlanta. Story and production by Payne Lindsay,
Speaker 1: Mason Lindsay and Meredith Steadman and myself Philip Holloway executive
Speaker 1: producers Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay. And if you have
Speaker 1: it yet, please check out our sister podcast, Up and
Speaker 1: Vanished that follows the investigation into the disappearance of Georgia
Speaker 1: High School teacher and beauty queen Tara Grinstead. Up and
Speaker 1: Vantage is available now on Apple Podcasts. Sworn is mixed
Speaker 1: and mastered by Resonate Recordings. If you're in the market
Speaker 1: for podcast production, go to Resonate Recordings dot com to
Speaker 1: get your first episode produced for free. If you haven't already,
Speaker 1: please head over to iTunes now to subscribe, rate, and
Speaker 1: review Sworn and make sure you check us out online
Speaker 1: at sworn podcast dot com and follow us on social
Speaker 1: media at Sworn podcast on Twitter and Instagram, and you
Speaker 1: can follow me your host, Philip Holloway at phil holloway
Speaker 1: e s Q on Twitter. Thanks for listening. This is
Speaker 1: Philip Halloway and I'll see you next time on swarn
Speaker 1: se