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Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: On July twelfth, twenty eighteen, somewhere around the tiny town
Speaker 2: of Oltrough, Arkansas, a thirty seven year old mother of
Speaker 2: three named Brooke Allensworth disappeared. Oltrough is in eastern Arkansas,
Speaker 2: in the flat As soon as you drive out of
Speaker 2: the Ozark Mountains and cross over the White River, you
Speaker 2: can see for miles nothing but flat, delta and farmland.
Speaker 2: French hunters were in the area in the early eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: They extracted oil from the bears who lived in limestone
Speaker 2: caves around there, so According to my dad and a
Speaker 2: local legend, the name of the town Oltrough came from
Speaker 2: the wooden troughs that these hunters would store their barre
Speaker 2: oil in. These days, it's a quiet town, not the
Speaker 2: kind of place where a young mother could vanish in
Speaker 2: the middle of the afternoon. But that's exactly what happened
Speaker 2: to Brooke Allensworth. She disappeared without a trace, and her family,
Speaker 2: including her three children and a father and sister, who
Speaker 2: were still searching for answers, never saw her alive again.
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helling Gone Murder Line. Over
Speaker 2: the past five years of making my true crime podcast, Helling,
Speaker 2: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
Speaker 2: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
Speaker 2: of messages from people all around the country asking for
Speaker 2: help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 2: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 2: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 2: out to us at our Hell and Gone Murder line
Speaker 2: at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 2: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four
Speaker 2: or five. I first heard about Brook's case back in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. Back then, she had only been missing for
Speaker 2: a few months, but her family already had questions about
Speaker 2: how the case was being handled and why there was
Speaker 2: so little information made public about the search for her.
Speaker 2: The last known sighting of Brooke Allensworth was on July twelfth,
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen. Just over two weeks later, on July twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: the police found Brooks car, a black two thousand and
Speaker 2: seven Toyota Camry. The car had been abandoned just off
Speaker 2: Arkansas Highway one twenty two at the White River access
Speaker 2: point in ultrough The bottom of the car was muddy,
Speaker 2: like Brook might have been driving through some rough road,
Speaker 2: which is not by the way, uncommon for that area.
Speaker 2: The front right tire of the car was completely flat.
Speaker 2: The car looked like it had been left there for
Speaker 2: days or possibly weeks. It was parked near a boat ramp.
Speaker 2: Brook's family said that Brooke had been having multiple unexplained
Speaker 2: flat tires in the days and weeks before she went missing.
Speaker 2: The doors of the car were locked, the keys were missing.
Speaker 2: The sheriff at the time, Sean Stevens, told reporters quote
Speaker 2: someone called in about a vehicle sitting under a bridge.
Speaker 2: It was like it was just parked there and walked
Speaker 2: away from The keys were not in the car, and
Speaker 2: we have no information on who put it there end quote.
Speaker 2: Inside the car, police found Brook's personal effects, her wallet
Speaker 2: with money still inside, her cell phone, a can of
Speaker 2: fix a flat, and a pack of cigarettes, but there
Speaker 2: was no sign of Brook now from what they've said,
Speaker 2: although police haven't revealed much information, they seemed to believe
Speaker 2: that Brooke was planning to meet someone at that location
Speaker 2: and that after she got out of her car, she
Speaker 2: took her keys, locked it and went with that person.
Speaker 2: And again, although this is technically an open case, which
Speaker 2: means that the information in the case file has not
Speaker 2: been made public, so I have no access to it.
Speaker 2: From what I know of Brooke, I find it very
Speaker 2: hard to believe that she would have just locked up
Speaker 2: and left all of her personal items behind. At the
Speaker 2: time when she went missing, Brooke had a lot to
Speaker 2: look forward to. In twenty twelve, she graduated from the
Speaker 2: University of Arkansas Community College with an Associate of Applied
Speaker 2: Science degree in nursing. She worked as an LPN or
Speaker 2: a licensed practical nurse. Brooke was divorced from her ex husband, Dustin.
Speaker 2: She had three children, two from her first marriage and
Speaker 2: one with her current partner, Brad. At the time of
Speaker 2: her disappearance, her two older children were in their teens.
Speaker 2: She and Brad had a son who was four years old.
Speaker 2: Brooke was living in Sarce and working as a nurse
Speaker 2: at Newark Medical Clinic, so that route from Circe to Oltrough,
Speaker 2: which Brooke drove right before she disappeared, was one that
Speaker 2: she knew very well. I've been in contact with Brooke's sister,
Speaker 2: Kelly Avensalindsworth for a couple of years now, and I
Speaker 2: followed everything that Kelly has done. She has never stopped
Speaker 2: fighting to get answers about what really happened to Brook. Now.
Speaker 2: Some people have suggested that Brooke, like a lot of
Speaker 2: people in the region, had used some drugs in the past,
Speaker 2: including methamphetamines. But as I've said many times in this podcast,
Speaker 2: drug use or actually anything in a person's life does
Speaker 2: not define them and it should never affect how diligently
Speaker 2: someone's case is pursued. Everyone deserves justice. In my opinion.
Speaker 2: From what the police said when Brooke first went missing,
Speaker 2: it appeared that they did not treat this incident as
Speaker 2: possibly involving I'll play some of that is understandable. Police
Speaker 2: pointed out there was no sign of foul play in
Speaker 2: or around Brook's card, no sign of a struggle, and
Speaker 2: it's not illegal for someone over eighteen to voluntarily go missing. However,
Speaker 2: Brook's family was adamant she never would have dropped out
Speaker 2: of sight and left her children for this long. Leaving
Speaker 2: all of her personal belongings behind, including her cell phone
Speaker 2: and her money, does not make sense. Brook's family insists
Speaker 2: it was completely out of character for her to go
Speaker 2: off somewhere without contacting her father or staying in touch
Speaker 2: with her children. A while back, Brook's father, Aubrey Allensworth,
Speaker 2: said she always stayed in touch with him and with
Speaker 2: her kids. He said, quote, She's a kind, gentle, wonderful,
Speaker 2: loving person. She's the type of person who, if she
Speaker 2: saw a straight dog running by the highway, would stop
Speaker 2: and pick it up and take care of it. End quote.
Speaker 2: Though Brooke had faced demons in the past, she adored
Speaker 2: her children. At the time of Brook's disappearance, things were
Speaker 2: complicated for her at home. Friends and family say she
Speaker 2: was worried about arguments she had been having lately, with
Speaker 2: the father of her four year old son, Brad. Brooke
Speaker 2: was worried about getting custody of her young son. Before
Speaker 2: she disappeared. Brooke also had other suspicions. She believed that
Speaker 2: she was being followed. Now some people seem to have
Speaker 2: written this off as possibly being paranoid, but from what
Speaker 2: I have learned about Brook's life from her family and
Speaker 2: people who knew her, she had valid reasons to be worried.
Speaker 2: I've put together a timeline of Brook's last movements. There
Speaker 2: are a lot of things I'm going to mention here
Speaker 2: that you will not see on the news. I did
Speaker 2: this with help from Brook's sister, Kelly, who has never
Speaker 2: given up on trying to get answers and justice for
Speaker 2: her sister and to find out what really happened to Brook.
Speaker 2: I keep looking back at Brook's face book page, the
Speaker 2: one whose cover quote reads, speak the truth even if
Speaker 2: your voice shakes, all of Brook's photos or Brooke smiling
Speaker 2: with her children. I also notice we have two mutual friends,
Speaker 2: which confirms my long held belief that in many ways,
Speaker 2: the state of Arkansas is one big small town. As
Speaker 2: you know, in this podcast, we try to focus on
Speaker 2: victimology what Brooke was doing, what her state of mind
Speaker 2: was at the time of her disappearance, and what was
Speaker 2: going on in her life. So let's go back to
Speaker 2: July tenth, two days before Brooke disappeared. That day, she
Speaker 2: sent her sister Kelly a message saying, hey girl, what's up.
Speaker 2: Kelly said it was a while before she responded because
Speaker 2: it seemed like a completely normal message. When she did
Speaker 2: get back to Brook, Brooke wrote back saying don't worry.
Speaker 2: I've got it taken care of. Much later, when she
Speaker 2: reflected back on that message, Kelly thought maybe her sister
Speaker 2: needed something, maybe she was trying to tell her something,
Speaker 2: But again time it didn't seem like a big deal.
Speaker 2: On that day, on July tenth, Kelly said that Brooke
Speaker 2: was with Brad, her partner and the father of her
Speaker 2: four year old child. They were together at Brad's home
Speaker 2: in Sarcy, Arkansas, which again is about forty four miles away.
Speaker 2: It takes a little less than an hour to make
Speaker 2: that trip by car. Brooke and Brad went to Newport
Speaker 2: for the day, then back to his place in Sarce
Speaker 2: that night. Kelly said she believes on that day Brook
Speaker 2: and Brad did have some kind of argument.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I want to make absolutely clear here I am not
Speaker 2: in any way suggesting that Brad or anyone else had
Speaker 2: any part in Brook's disappearance. I don't know what happened,
Speaker 2: but because there is no information out there and it's
Speaker 2: been so many years, I want to go through all
Speaker 2: the known facts and hopefully, working together, we can close
Speaker 2: any of these gaps in time. I have reached out
Speaker 2: both to Brad and to Dustin in the past, I
Speaker 2: have not heard back. I would love to talk to
Speaker 2: both of them. As we all know, the tiniest detail
Speaker 2: can sometimes be the missing piece that helps break a case. Now, apparently,
Speaker 2: while Brad was in the shower, Brooke left the residence
Speaker 2: with a couple's son. After Brooke made the decision to
Speaker 2: leave home, she went to stay with a female friend,
Speaker 2: a person who lived in Newport, and then she stayed
Speaker 2: with that female friend overnight. Again. All of this information
Speaker 2: is according to Brook's sister Kelly. Just to clarify some
Speaker 2: geography here, we talk about Newark, Newport, and Oltrough. Those
Speaker 2: three towns are all very close together. Newark is right
Speaker 2: across the bridge from Oltrough across the White River. Newport
Speaker 2: is about ten miles from Oltrough up Arkansas Highway fourteen.
Speaker 2: All of these places were locations where Brook frequented. So
Speaker 2: now we go to the next day, July eleventh. Brooke
Speaker 2: called her two older children, who I believe were in
Speaker 2: their teens at least one of them must have been
Speaker 2: old enough to drive. She arranged for them to come
Speaker 2: pick up her little son, her youngest son, in Oiltrop.
Speaker 2: She told her kids she had a hair appointment in Newport,
Speaker 2: so they did. They took Brook's son with them. She
Speaker 2: went on to her hair appointment. Brooke went into the
Speaker 2: Allure beauty salon. When she went in, she was a brunette.
Speaker 2: She came out a platinum blonde. On that same day,
Speaker 2: I believe she also had her nails done at a different,
Speaker 2: separate appointment. That night, Brook stayed with the same female
Speaker 2: friend she'd stayed with the previous night. And this was
Speaker 2: around the time when Brooke had been telling people she
Speaker 2: was having these car issues. She said she had been
Speaker 2: getting a lot of unexplained flat tires. On the morning
Speaker 2: of July twelfth, Brooke left her friend's residence pretty early
Speaker 2: in the morning. Her sister, Kelly, said that Brook's plan
Speaker 2: was to go back to Sercy and talk to Brad
Speaker 2: to see if they could work things out. She told
Speaker 2: friend she was going to base the music to work
Speaker 2: out her issues with him. Kelly said Brooke did seem
Speaker 2: to be worried about the arguing with Brad, but Brooke
Speaker 2: appeared to have other things on her mind, things that
Speaker 2: were bothering her even more. Kelly said, quote, she was scared.
Speaker 2: She said that a brown truck was following her. End quote.
Speaker 2: Now at some point it seems like Brooke got another flat.
Speaker 2: There a report she was seen on the side of
Speaker 2: the road and that she was using fix a flat,
Speaker 2: which if any of you've never seen fix a flat,
Speaker 2: it's basically compressed air in a can. She was using
Speaker 2: it to put air into her tires. But fix a
Speaker 2: flat is really just a quick fix. If you've got
Speaker 2: a leak, you still have to go get it fixed somewhere,
Speaker 2: which Brooke apparently decided to do. At eight thirty am,
Speaker 2: after leaving her friend's house, Brooke stopped in at Grady's
Speaker 2: Auto Repair in Newport. The mechanic there, a local guy
Speaker 2: named Grady Henson, put oil in her car. I'm not
Speaker 2: exactly sure what else he did to her car. He
Speaker 2: may or may not have done something about the flat tire.
Speaker 2: It's unclear. In all the reports I've seen, it has
Speaker 2: been reported police did ping Brook's cell phone. They figured
Speaker 2: out that at some point during her drive to Circe,
Speaker 2: she made a fateful decision. She chose to turn around
Speaker 2: and drive back toward Olstrough. We do know once she
Speaker 2: got there, she went to the residence of her first husband,
Speaker 2: Dustin and his wife. Brook's family has said they don't
Speaker 2: really know why Brooks stopped there. They have a theory
Speaker 2: that Brooke may have gone there in order to get
Speaker 2: Dustin and his wife to help her with a potential
Speaker 2: custody issue with her four year old son, maybe even
Speaker 2: to ask Dustin and his wife if they could take
Speaker 2: custody of her son. Now, this is all pure speculation.
Speaker 2: This is something that Brook's family, knowing the situation she
Speaker 2: was in, believes might have happened. But we don't know
Speaker 2: for sure. And again it's unclear exactly what the relationship
Speaker 2: between Brook and Dustin was because it's all second and
Speaker 2: third hand. Some people say there had been friction in
Speaker 2: the past between Brook and Dustin and that they had
Speaker 2: argued over child support payments, then again, for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: on that day, she felt comfortable enough to stop at
Speaker 2: his house. Dustin told police that Brooke did stop by,
Speaker 2: they spoke for a while, and then she left his
Speaker 2: house that morning. He said that after Brooke left the house,
Speaker 2: he never saw her again. Brook's father said that apparently
Speaker 2: Dustin had a step son who was in the house
Speaker 2: who saw a digital clock right when Brooke left, and
Speaker 2: apparently that clock read ten thirty eight am. It's my
Speaker 2: understanding from Brook's family and the limited information I've read
Speaker 2: so far, that Dustin and the people in his home
Speaker 2: were the last known people to have seen Brooke. After
Speaker 2: Brooke disappeared, her family began to get seriously worried for her.
Speaker 2: At first, they might have thought maybe she was just
Speaker 2: with a friend, but as the days went on with
Speaker 2: zero contact, they knew that something must be seriously wrong.
Speaker 2: On July twenty sixth, her dad, Aubrey, filed a missing
Speaker 2: persons report in White County because that was where Brook lived.
Speaker 2: They gave police photos and went through her identifying characteristics.
Speaker 2: She was five foot eight, weighing one hundred and eight pounds.
Speaker 2: She had brown hair that had recently been dyed blonde,
Speaker 2: and Brook also had a very distinctive tattoo on the
Speaker 2: left side of her stomach. She has a tattoo that
Speaker 2: has GPS coordinates for a specific location in Newport. Now,
Speaker 2: Brook's father apparently felt that the police were kind of
Speaker 2: giving him the run around. At this point, White County
Speaker 2: put out a bolo or be on the lookout, but
Speaker 2: then apparently they told him he had to talk to
Speaker 2: police in Independence County, where she was last seen, So
Speaker 2: there was a little bit of a delay before the
Speaker 2: bolo actually went to Independence County. Then, on July twenty seventh,
Speaker 2: the day after Brook's dad reported her missing, police found
Speaker 2: her car. As we mentioned before, the black two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven Toyota Camry was under that bridge in Altrop. Again,
Speaker 2: the tire was flat, and actually looking at the pictures,
Speaker 2: it looks like more than one of the tires was
Speaker 2: pretty low, but it's very obvious that the front right
Speaker 2: tire was completely flat. All the doors of the car
Speaker 2: were locked, all of Brooks stuff was inside it, but
Speaker 2: there was no sign of Brook. So here's something else
Speaker 2: about the car that is a little bit strange. Remember,
Speaker 2: Dustin's young step son said the clock read ten thirty
Speaker 2: eight am when Brooke left the house on July twelfth. Now,
Speaker 2: I have multiple media reports that say someone saw brooks
Speaker 2: abandoned car that same day, around forty five minutes later
Speaker 2: under the bridge. Brook's dad said there was a guy
Speaker 2: on his lunch break who saw the car. Unfortunately, though
Speaker 2: that person didn't immediately report it to police. Someone described
Speaker 2: as a family friend of the Allensworth family told the
Speaker 2: news channel Fox sixteen, quote, it sat out here for
Speaker 2: about three weeks with a flat tire before it was
Speaker 2: picked up. End quote. I got more details on the
Speaker 2: timeline when the Independence County Sheriff Stevens did a Monday
Speaker 2: night mystery program. Now this was in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: but in an interview, he said one of his deputies
Speaker 2: had noticed the car under the bridge and logged it,
Speaker 2: but since there was no sign of foul play, the
Speaker 2: deputy didn't connect that car to a missing person because
Speaker 2: the missing person's report, remember, wasn't filed until the twenty sixth,
Speaker 2: so for a couple of weeks. The sheriff actually said
Speaker 2: roughly two weeks they just kept an eye on it.
Speaker 2: The exact timing here would seem to me to be
Speaker 2: really crucial because if it's true that Brook's car was
Speaker 2: definitely seen by someone on that same day when she
Speaker 2: went missing on July twelfth, and it never moved after that,
Speaker 2: that would mean the window of time when Brooke could
Speaker 2: have disappeared would be considerably shorter. I made a freedom
Speaker 2: of information request for any information pertaining to Brook's car
Speaker 2: from both the Independence County Sheriff's Department and the Arkansas
Speaker 2: State Police. The Independence County Sheriff's Department did get back
Speaker 2: to me. Sheriff Sean Stevens was helpful and release the
Speaker 2: information that they were allowed to release. So I have
Speaker 2: the incident report pertaining to Brook's car. There was some
Speaker 2: information there. Unfortunately, the report did not confirm which day
Speaker 2: the car was first seen. It said that on Friday,
Speaker 2: July twenty seventh, the Sheriff's office was notified of a
Speaker 2: vehicle that had been sitting under the bridge for a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks, but it wasn't any more specific than that.
Speaker 2: It didn't say July twelfth, So I'm still looking for
Speaker 2: a way to narrow down that timeline to know for
Speaker 2: sure what happened to Brook on July twelfth. What happened
Speaker 2: when she was finished at Dusson's house. As you may
Speaker 2: remember from Ebbie Steppek's case. Often when there's an open
Speaker 2: case like this, the police will write back and normally
Speaker 2: they'll say no information is available, But sometimes in a
Speaker 2: case where something occurred, like an abandoned car being logged
Speaker 2: before it officially became a missing person's case, sometimes we
Speaker 2: can get more information, which is what I'm trying to do.
Speaker 2: After the car was found and linked to brook several
Speaker 2: police agencies got involved, including the Arkansas State Police. According
Speaker 2: to Brooks family, the Arkansas State Police investigators have conducted
Speaker 2: dozens of interviews and they have searched a large area.
Speaker 2: They dragged the White River and did a comprehensive search
Speaker 2: that covered eleven miles. Police did a ground search, They
Speaker 2: had a dive team out there, They used boats, and
Speaker 2: they used cadaver dogs to search the banks around the
Speaker 2: White River, but never found any sign of brook. Of course,
Speaker 2: police did consider the theory because of where Brooks car was,
Speaker 2: that brooks remains could have been in the White River,
Speaker 2: either because perhaps she was in a depressed state of
Speaker 2: mind and decided to wander in herself somehow, or because
Speaker 2: someone she met at that scene, did something to her
Speaker 2: and then put her in the water. I do want
Speaker 2: to back up and say that there's absolutely no indication
Speaker 2: of Brook being suicidal at all. In fact, she was
Speaker 2: making plans for the future. So I think that theory
Speaker 2: should have been eliminated pretty quickly if I were an investigator. However,
Speaker 2: they do have to consider that possibility. According to Brook's family,
Speaker 2: Arkansas State Police investigators explored the idea that maybe Brooke
Speaker 2: left the area with a friend, or that maybe her
Speaker 2: tire was running flat so she drove down the ramp
Speaker 2: to that access point and parked there and again. Over
Speaker 2: the years, the police have shared very little information except
Speaker 2: what the sheriff told reporters back in twenty eighteen, which
Speaker 2: again was quote it looks like she broke down, had
Speaker 2: a flat, left the car, and someone came through and
Speaker 2: she left end quote. Sheriff Smith did clarify on that
Speaker 2: Monday Night Mystery program that the police have taken other steps.
Speaker 2: He said they swab the car for DNA and that
Speaker 2: they had sent the evidence from the car to the
Speaker 2: state crime Lab. And this was pretty shocking to me, actually,
Speaker 2: I know the Arkansas State Crime Lab has some pretty
Speaker 2: long delays. But in twenty twenty one, when this interview
Speaker 2: was done, the samples that were taken from the car
Speaker 2: still had not come back from the crime lab, and
Speaker 2: I find that pretty shocking. Actually, Brook's family had hoped
Speaker 2: that law enforcement would find answers and that they would
Speaker 2: be able to bring her home, but it's been years
Speaker 2: and there's still nothing. In twenty twenty, Brook's case did
Speaker 2: make headlines again after another young woman was viciously murdered
Speaker 2: in Arkansas. In August of twenty twenty, twenty five year
Speaker 2: old Sidney Sutherland was out for a jog near her
Speaker 2: home in Grubs, which is right outside of Newport Lake Brook.
Speaker 2: She vanished without a trace. This was in an area
Speaker 2: that Brook regularly passed through. It was very close to
Speaker 2: Brooks's house. Like Brook, Sidney disappeared in broad daylight. But
Speaker 2: unlike Brook, law enforcement found out what happened to Sidney
Speaker 2: Sutherland very quickly. I'm sure that many of you are
Speaker 2: familiar with this story because at the time it was everywhere.
Speaker 2: It turned out that a twenty nine year old named
Speaker 2: Quake Llewellyn, who worked on his family's farm nearby, and
Speaker 2: who actually was one of Sidney's acquaintances from high school
Speaker 2: saw Sydney while driving down the road one afternoon, and,
Speaker 2: as he would later tell investigators, he had what he
Speaker 2: called a sick urge, so he turned around and hit
Speaker 2: Sydney with his truck. Then he loaded her into the back,
Speaker 2: drove her to a secluded area, and viciously sexually assaulted her.
Speaker 2: Then he dumped her body in a shallow grave. Unlike
Speaker 2: in Brooks case, Sydney had a more regular routine. So
Speaker 2: when she didn't get home that afternoon from her run,
Speaker 2: her boyfriend reported her missing. Police immediately went out and
Speaker 2: scoured the area for her. And they did something here
Speaker 2: that has been a huge help to law enforcement, but
Speaker 2: it's rarely discussed and it's a really controversial subject. They
Speaker 2: used a technology called fog Reveal to run Sydney's cell
Speaker 2: phone number. Fog Reveal was created by a company called
Speaker 2: fog Data Science. What fog Data Science and other companies
Speaker 2: like it do is aggregate location data for mobile apps,
Speaker 2: the apps that so many of us use every single day.
Speaker 2: You know that moment when you're using an app, maybe
Speaker 2: you're waiting for a ride share to show up. That
Speaker 2: moment when it says on your phone, do you want
Speaker 2: to share location? And you click yes. Well, programs like
Speaker 2: fog Reveal aggregate that data. They collect the location data
Speaker 2: and they give it to law enforcement and sometimes sell
Speaker 2: it to other entities. Normally, in a case, if law
Speaker 2: enforcement want to get access to someone's cell phone, they
Speaker 2: have to file a search warrant. Then they have to
Speaker 2: wait to get the court order, and often there is
Speaker 2: a delay of at least a couple of days, sometimes
Speaker 2: weeks before it's granted by Google or Apple or whichever
Speaker 2: company they're asking from. The data from This is different.
Speaker 2: This doesn't allow police to read text messages or view
Speaker 2: phone records. What it does, though, is each device has
Speaker 2: an ID number that is linked to it. So what
Speaker 2: these services do is they can track the movements of
Speaker 2: these specific devices. Law enforcement can also draw an area
Speaker 2: on a map and they'll specify a time range. The
Speaker 2: service shows a list of all cell phone location signals,
Speaker 2: including the device ID within that area. So they don't
Speaker 2: provide the same thing as a search warrant. You can't
Speaker 2: read someone's text or get names or phone records, but
Speaker 2: you can follow people's movements. You can track their patterns
Speaker 2: of life. These searches are legal for now because police
Speaker 2: claim they don't actually track the person, instead they track
Speaker 2: the advice. But as we all know, so many of
Speaker 2: us are basically surgically attached to our cell phones, so
Speaker 2: in a sense, following your smartphone is following you. But
Speaker 2: this technology is actually how they caught Sydney's killer because
Speaker 2: after they issued search warrants, police knew they didn't have
Speaker 2: any time to lose they used this technology, and when
Speaker 2: they did, when they were able to find Sydney's cell
Speaker 2: phone and then to specify a list of other phones
Speaker 2: that were in that area at the time, it took
Speaker 2: them to Quake Llewellen. Meanwhile, Quake's family members were getting
Speaker 2: suspicious because he had dents in his truck and he
Speaker 2: was acting weird. So long story short, it was not
Speaker 2: long before they pulled him in for questioning and he
Speaker 2: confessed to raping and murdering Sidney. He was charged with
Speaker 2: Sydney's rape and murder, in addition to kidnapping and abusive
Speaker 2: a corpse. In the end, before his trial was due
Speaker 2: to start, his attorneys made a deal. The death penalty
Speaker 2: was taken off the table and he was sentenced to
Speaker 2: life in prison without the possibility of parroll. After Quake's arrest,
Speaker 2: Brook's family started to wonder about the things she said
Speaker 2: about being followed by someone in a truck. Especially after
Speaker 2: some of Quake's acquaintances started to come forward and talk
Speaker 2: about his creepy behavior. People started to wonder if he
Speaker 2: could be a serial killer. Today in Fort Smith also
Speaker 2: said they had reached out to someone who said quote,
Speaker 2: he meaning Quake used to follow my friend, stalk her
Speaker 2: and try to get her to acknowledge him. She was
Speaker 2: very uncomfortable around him. End quote. Today in Fort Smith
Speaker 2: didn't name the person who made those allegations, but it
Speaker 2: did make me wonder if Quake Llewellyn could about anything
Speaker 2: to do with Brook's disappearance. During that time, Quake became
Speaker 2: a member of a Facebook group dedicated to finding Sydney.
Speaker 2: He inserted himself into the investigation several times. He even
Speaker 2: helped the volunteer searchers. Quake showed up at Sidney's funeral
Speaker 2: and he hugged her mother, Maggie Sutherland, which I find horrifying. Maggie,
Speaker 2: who said she was her daughter, Sidney's best friend and
Speaker 2: the last person to see her daughter alive, confronted Quake
Speaker 2: at his sentencing hearing as she made a victim impact
Speaker 2: statement for Sidney. Maggie said, quote, the hands you hugged
Speaker 2: me with are the same hands you killed her with.
Speaker 2: End quote. Since Brook's timeline is still vague, it's hard
Speaker 2: to rule anyone out, and we have no idea what
Speaker 2: Quake Lewelle was doing the day that Brook went missing.
Speaker 2: It's been recorded that police did question Quake about Brook's disappearance.
Speaker 2: They said they would continue to question him until they
Speaker 2: were sure they could rule him out. But again, since
Speaker 2: police understandably keep things close to the vest, it's hard
Speaker 2: to see if and when that happened, if they did
Speaker 2: ever completely rule Quake out as Brooks killer, and if
Speaker 2: they did, how they did it. Now I should say
Speaker 2: that this FOG revealed technology is not a magic bullet.
Speaker 2: Talked to a representative from the company FOG Data Science.
Speaker 2: They said that this technology is not perfect. And I
Speaker 2: know from hard personal experience, if there is an area
Speaker 2: of the country that's going to be prone to patche
Speaker 2: cell service and to technology not working, it is rural Arkansas.
Speaker 2: But I have asked myself many times if this same
Speaker 2: technology that helped find answers in Sydney. Sutherland's case could
Speaker 2: have been used in Brooks case. A while back, I
Speaker 2: asked one of my colleagues, Mike, who I've worked with
Speaker 2: on former cases, and you may remember from season four
Speaker 2: of Hell Gone when we went to Little Rock to
Speaker 2: work on Ebbie Steppeck's case. Mike is an expert in
Speaker 2: cell phone data and he's trained in this type of technology.
Speaker 2: What he told me was that, unfortunately Brooks data was
Speaker 2: too far in the past to track. And when I
Speaker 2: talked to the representative from the company, they confirmed that.
Speaker 2: They said now because there is so much data out there,
Speaker 2: they used to have information that was a few years old,
Speaker 2: but now it basically stopped a three years. But Mike
Speaker 2: was able to run a search on Quake Llewellen's phone
Speaker 2: from the time before he was arrested and he found
Speaker 2: some interesting data there. He found that Quake llewellens regular
Speaker 2: route took him near the neighborhood where Brook's father lived
Speaker 2: at the time. Does this mean anything? Could it be
Speaker 2: a coincidence? Possibly? It's a small town. But I keep
Speaker 2: coming back to that because Brook's sister claimed that she
Speaker 2: was being followed and Quake did drive a truck, though
Speaker 2: not a brown truck. I'm still looking for more information
Speaker 2: on Quake Llewellen's activities during the weeks and months before
Speaker 2: brooks disappearance. So if there is a listener out there
Speaker 2: who has any of that information, even if you think
Speaker 2: it's something totally insignificant, please reach out back to Brooks case.
Speaker 2: In December twenty twenty one, there was a new controversy
Speaker 2: involving a YouTube channel called Adventures with Purpose or AWP.
Speaker 2: AWP is run by a dive team. It's a really
Speaker 2: long story and I feel that it's kind of a
Speaker 2: distraction from the investigation at this point, but I'm just
Speaker 2: going to give a brief synopsis. The guys from AWP
Speaker 2: came down and offered to search the area for free
Speaker 2: to dive into the White River and some other bodies
Speaker 2: of water. According to Kelly, there had been some rumors
Speaker 2: that Brook's body had been dumped into a barrel and
Speaker 2: left in what's called Before Ponds area. Now I don't
Speaker 2: know where this rumor started. I've tried to verify it
Speaker 2: and I cannot figure it out. But since it's not
Speaker 2: totally implausible that Brook's body might be in a body
Speaker 2: of water. I can see why her family would want
Speaker 2: to investigate every possibility. Again, I think the idea that
Speaker 2: she would have wandered in the river herself is ridiculous.
Speaker 2: This was a woman who was making plans to get
Speaker 2: custody of her son. She had just seen her children,
Speaker 2: she was talking about the future, and had literally just
Speaker 2: gotten her hair and nails done. A family friend of
Speaker 2: Brooks said that while the Arkansas A Police had searched
Speaker 2: the White River, they weren't sure if any other bodies
Speaker 2: of water had been searched, so the divers from AWP
Speaker 2: came down. They dove the Four Ponds area and also
Speaker 2: another nearby lake called Bergen Lake. They made a video
Speaker 2: and released it in late twenty twenty one. At the time,
Speaker 2: the dive teams said they had not found anything of
Speaker 2: significance during their dive, but some people who saw the
Speaker 2: video and saw the sonar review that they had taken
Speaker 2: apparently saw what they believed to be a barrel with
Speaker 2: a skeleton in it. Now, there's some other controversy here.
Speaker 2: One of the divers, Jared, made a video a follow
Speaker 2: up video where and this is just from what people
Speaker 2: have told me because I have not seen this video.
Speaker 2: In the end, it seems like Kelly and some other
Speaker 2: members of Brook's family felt that the whole incident really
Speaker 2: just distracted from the investigation and stirred up a lot
Speaker 2: of rumors, but ultimately gave them no answers in terms
Speaker 2: of what actually happened to Brook. I felt for the
Speaker 2: family because it just seemed like something else that got
Speaker 2: their hopes up and in the end turned out to
Speaker 2: provide no answers. Now, I do want to make it
Speaker 2: clear that Adventures with Purpose has helped on other cases.
Speaker 2: In fact, in twenty twenty two, the team went down
Speaker 2: to Marianna, Arkansas to look for Annie Hampton, a sixty
Speaker 2: six year old woman who'd been missing since twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: and they did find her car in Bear Creek Reservoir,
Speaker 2: and there were human remains inside the car that turned
Speaker 2: out to be hers. So it does appear that Adventures
Speaker 2: with Purpose has helped in the past, unfortunately just not
Speaker 2: in Brooks case. I have no idea if what we're
Speaker 2: doing here will help or provide answers, but I believe
Speaker 2: that we need to shut out all the rumors and
Speaker 2: we need to go again back to basics who had
Speaker 2: contact with Brooke last. We need to talk to them
Speaker 2: again and we need to find out what happened to
Speaker 2: her and to people out there. He would say, just
Speaker 2: let the police do their job. I understand that, and
Speaker 2: I will be passing everything that I find onto law
Speaker 2: enforcement if we get tips. But I just want to
Speaker 2: point out that in twenty twenty one, when journalist Mitch
Speaker 2: McCoy did the Monday Night Mysteries program and talked to
Speaker 2: Sheriff Sean Stevens, the sheriff talked about brook cell phone.
Speaker 2: He talked about what steps law enforcement had taken. He
Speaker 2: said that the department did not have the technology to
Speaker 2: dump cell phones, but he said they'd gotten search warrants.
Speaker 2: He said they were in the process of executing those.
Speaker 2: Why did that take three years? If I understood the
Speaker 2: Sheriff's statement correctly, that means in twenty twenty one, Brook's
Speaker 2: cell phone had still not been processed. And there was
Speaker 2: also no mention of things like fog data services, which
Speaker 2: we know were around in twenty eighteen, even in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty after Sidney Sutherland's case, because the technology she goes
Speaker 2: back three years. The Independence County Sheriff's office probably could
Speaker 2: have asked for it at that time. So if that
Speaker 2: didn't happen, If I were Brook's family, I would be
Speaker 2: asking why that didn't happen. Why that same technology that
Speaker 2: was used to find Sydney Southernland was not used to
Speaker 2: find Brook. I also want to know what happened to
Speaker 2: those DNA swabs in twenty twenty one they were still
Speaker 2: being processed. Were they ever process where they ever tested?
Speaker 2: Was it Brooks DNA? Was there foreign DNA? There's so
Speaker 2: many unanswered questions about this case, including did Brook drive
Speaker 2: her car to that location herself or was someone else
Speaker 2: driving it? Could the fresh mud on the car indicate
Speaker 2: that she had been driving through a different area. And
Speaker 2: again I keep mentioning if Brooke was meeting someone there,
Speaker 2: like the police seemed to believe, why would she get
Speaker 2: out of her car and leave her money, her wallet,
Speaker 2: all of her credit cards, and her cell phone inside.
Speaker 2: Kelly has always said this is not make sense to her.
Speaker 2: She said, quote, I never thought she was in the area,
Speaker 2: meaning the area where the car was abandoned. Either she
Speaker 2: was meeting someone there or her car was put there
Speaker 2: end quote. Brook's family and friends continue to search for answers.
Speaker 2: They've held candlelight vigils on that same boat ramp several
Speaker 2: times since she disappeared. Whatever happens, they just want to
Speaker 2: know what happened to Brook, and they want to be
Speaker 2: able to bring her home. They posted a statement that
Speaker 2: was published on White River Now. It reads, in part quote,
Speaker 2: we continue to search for Brook and search for answers.
Speaker 2: There are no words that can express the sorrow and
Speaker 2: chaos that clouds our hearts and minds. The day to
Speaker 2: day routine of our lives will never be the same.
Speaker 2: From this day forward, we are committed to finding this beautiful, vivacious,
Speaker 2: compassionate mother. We are committed to never allowing Brook's voice
Speaker 2: and contagious spirit to be lost beneath the weight of
Speaker 2: time or hidden from view as old news. We ask
Speaker 2: that you will continue to help us search, continue to
Speaker 2: help us cling to hope, continue to help us love
Speaker 2: our daughter, mother's sister and friend. Above all, our prayer
Speaker 2: is that wherever Brook finds herself, that she's overwhelmed by
Speaker 2: the assurance that she is so loved, so completely and
Speaker 2: deeply loved by so many. If you're out there and
Speaker 2: you had any contact with Brooke Allensworth. If you have
Speaker 2: any piece of information, no matter how insignificant, please please
Speaker 2: reach out. Police have asked anyone with information about Brooks
Speaker 2: whereabouts to contact the Arkansas State Police at eight seven
Speaker 2: zero nine three five seven three o two, and you
Speaker 2: can also contact us anytime at the Hell and Gone
Speaker 2: Murder Line. I know when we hear about these cases
Speaker 2: in the news, it can be easy to depersonalize them,
Speaker 2: to think of it as just another mystery. But this
Speaker 2: is someone's mother, sister, daughter, friend. She was just gone
Speaker 2: and they have no idea what happened to her. Just
Speaker 2: imagine if someone in your family disappeared. Imagine how much
Speaker 2: that would torture you. Please, we are asking anyone with
Speaker 2: any information to reach out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a
Speaker 2: production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written
Speaker 2: and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts.
Speaker 2: Music was by Ben Sale and this episode was scored
Speaker 2: and mixed by Miranda Hawkins. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and Elsie Crowley. If you have a case
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into. You
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
Speaker 2: line at six seven eight seven four four six one
Speaker 2: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 2: one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans