Speaker 1: The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely
Speaker 1: those of the authors and participants and do not necessarily
Speaker 1: represent those of iHeart Media, Tenderfoot TV, or their employees.
Speaker 1: This series contains discussions of violence and sexual violence. Listener
Speaker 1: discretion is advised. Previously, an algorithm journalist Thomas Hargrove developed
Speaker 1: a computer program to try to detect serial killers. We
Speaker 1: selected ten major cities that appeared to have a suspicious
Speaker 1: number of algorithm identified murders, and Gary was one of
Speaker 1: those ten. Hargrove reached out to police in Gary, Indiana
Speaker 1: and told them about a suspicious cluster of strangulations in
Speaker 1: the area, but he didn't hear back. He did, however,
Speaker 1: get through to the coroner's office, which assigned one of
Speaker 1: its corners assistants to look at the issue. She totally
Speaker 1: bought into the idea that these could be connected murders
Speaker 1: and was trying to have a conversation with the Gary
Speaker 1: Police department. So what was going on in Gary, Indiana
Speaker 1: And why weren't the Gary police talking to Hargrove from
Speaker 1: iHeart Media and Tenderfoot TV. This is Algorithm. I'm ben Keebrick,
Speaker 1: Gary sits on the sand dunes of Lake Michigan, just
Speaker 1: fifteen miles southeast of downtown Chicago. Growing up in Chicago,
Speaker 1: did you have any kind of sense of Gary? There's
Speaker 1: a whole song about Gary in the musical The Music Man. Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 1: What a wonderful name. That was quite a joke because Gary,
Speaker 1: Indiana was not an attractive place to live. The city
Speaker 1: of Gary was founded by the U. S. Steel Corporation
Speaker 1: in nineteen o six to house a massive new steel mill.
Speaker 1: Every night, this Fourth of July when the best first
Speaker 1: go into action. And here's your action, Roman Candles launching
Speaker 1: the flexness of the n G. Gary shy up like
Speaker 1: a rocket to meet the U. S. Steel Corporation's needs.
Speaker 1: Its population grew to over a hundred thousand people by
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, and it became the second largest city in Indiana.
Speaker 1: The steel jobs and Gary paid well and didn't require
Speaker 1: formal education or even much English, so it became a
Speaker 1: destination for immigrants, especially young men shrouded by smoke from
Speaker 1: the steel mills. It gained a reputation both as a
Speaker 1: city of industry but also a city of vice, with gambling, prostitution,
Speaker 1: and violence. When the Great migration began. Gary Steel jobs
Speaker 1: attracted black workers who were leaving the Jim Crow South
Speaker 1: for better opportunities up north, and in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: Gary became one of the nation's first cities to elect
Speaker 1: a black mayor, Richard de Hatcher. This has been one
Speaker 1: of the most significant campaign in the history of our city.
Speaker 1: Marxian of years of corrupt machines us and did a
Speaker 1: great day for the city of Garret. Gary was also
Speaker 1: the birthplace of Michael Jackson, and the Jackson Five released
Speaker 1: their first single, Big Boy, In on Gary's own Steel
Speaker 1: Town Records label. But just as the U. S. Steel
Speaker 1: Corporation created Gary seemingly overnight, the company also left the
Speaker 1: city and alerch. It summed up well in the film
Speaker 1: Original Gangsters. Back in the fifties, the community was supported
Speaker 1: by the U. S. Steel Mill. It was damn hard work,
Speaker 1: but people raised their family as well. Then, just twenty
Speaker 1: years later, without warning, US Steel shut down the mill. First,
Speaker 1: the workers thought it was temporary, but it wasn't. Their
Speaker 1: savings went unemployment ran out and that has been the
Speaker 1: inheritance of the children of Gary. Gary's story is similar
Speaker 1: to other Respells cities, just more extreme because the whole
Speaker 1: city was built around the steel mill, so the loss
Speaker 1: of steel jobs destroyed the local academy. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, many white residents fled and took their tax
Speaker 1: base with them. The population shrunk and people abandoned their homes,
Speaker 1: and without jobs or money to provide social services, crime grew.
Speaker 1: Throughout the nineties, Gary often had the highest homicide rate
Speaker 1: in the nation. And that period during the nineties when
Speaker 1: Gary was experiencing this extremely high homicide rate, that's the
Speaker 1: same period where Hargrove's algorithms starts detecting unsolved strangulations in Gary,
Speaker 1: and that's probably at least part of the reason why
Speaker 1: when Hargrove reached out to the Gary Police Department, they
Speaker 1: didn't respond. The police already knew that Gary had too
Speaker 1: many unsolved murders, but the department was under resourced. They
Speaker 1: were struggling to investigate recent murders, let alone cold cases
Speaker 1: going back more than a decade. But when Jackie, the
Speaker 1: assistant corner, saw Hargrove's list, it didn't matter to her
Speaker 1: how old these cases were. It was a tragedy that
Speaker 1: they'd gone unsolved in the first place. Hello, Hi, this
Speaker 1: is Ben, I'm the journalist that reached out to you.
Speaker 1: Oh hi, how are you? What can I do for you?
Speaker 1: I told Jackie that I was looking into the cold
Speaker 1: cases from Hargrove's algorithm, and I wanted to know more
Speaker 1: about the investigation she had done. Back in My boss
Speaker 1: came to me with the latter at the time. He
Speaker 1: asked me if I you know, would we didn't look
Speaker 1: into it or whatever? And of course I will, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what our job was. We were supposed
Speaker 1: to look into stuff. So uh. I started by pulling
Speaker 1: the charts because we didn't have no computer system to
Speaker 1: show us that her group's algorithm had identified a cluster
Speaker 1: of fifteen strangulations that had taken place between nineteen and
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, and all of those homicides were listed
Speaker 1: as unsolved. I started just making a chart, you know, females,
Speaker 1: where they were found, how they were killed. And she
Speaker 1: looked to see what evidence had been collected. Importantly, she
Speaker 1: wanted to know if rape kits had been performed. If so,
Speaker 1: there might be DNA evidence that could show if cases
Speaker 1: were linked to each other, were to other cases from
Speaker 1: across the US. As she went through the cases, One
Speaker 1: victim stood out to Jackie, the two thousand six murder
Speaker 1: of S. E. Mitchell. Mitchell was an eighty four year
Speaker 1: old woman who had been strangled and sexually assaulted right
Speaker 1: outside her own home. You don't find that too often.
Speaker 1: Or somebody raped and killed the Graham on their yards.
Speaker 1: So and it reminded Jackie of two other recent murders
Speaker 1: that had stood out to her. Both were old women
Speaker 1: who had been sexually assaulted, it and killed near their homes.
Speaker 1: One of these murders had taken place in Gary, and
Speaker 1: Jackie had worked on the case personally. Another one took
Speaker 1: place in nearby Hammond, and she'd heard about it from
Speaker 1: a coworker. Yeah, it was pretty upsetting that day when
Speaker 1: I had my case and then I found out somebody
Speaker 1: else had one, you know, a town over, and then
Speaker 1: you're like, what in the world. Jackie had already wondered
Speaker 1: if those two cases were connected, and now with the
Speaker 1: extra name on Hargrove's list, she was even more suspicious.
Speaker 1: But you know, I got hurt and then I got
Speaker 1: let go. So I'm curious and no worries if this
Speaker 1: is too personal, but what what happened? Oh, I got
Speaker 1: hurt at work. We were carrying bodies out of a
Speaker 1: house and the other person had dropped their end and
Speaker 1: I hung on and it pulled my vertebrae and my
Speaker 1: neck and busted it. I got a cadaver bone put
Speaker 1: in and a plate, and then I couldn't go back
Speaker 1: to work because I can't physically do the work. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what happens to people all the time. So you know,
Speaker 1: my idea was, you know, stay positive. You can still
Speaker 1: help people, you know, see your grandkids more than you
Speaker 1: ever could. But then you start to look back at
Speaker 1: this stuff and you start to realize how people, you know,
Speaker 1: they could use another head, you know, is that something
Speaker 1: you're interested in, like continuing looking into this stuff? Oh well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I would love to help people find some
Speaker 1: kind of comfort or closure. Working in true crime, you
Speaker 1: hear a lot about the concept of closure. Victims relatives
Speaker 1: sometimes express ambivalence about the idea, but Jackie is speaking
Speaker 1: from a place of personal experience. When she was in college,
Speaker 1: her niece disappeared. She was a Jane Doe. For a
Speaker 1: long time, we didn't know where she was, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, somebody found out and worked hard enough to
Speaker 1: let us know and she went from missing person who
Speaker 1: identify and you know that's nice? Yeah, did they eventually
Speaker 1: find the killer? You know, they've never arrested no one
Speaker 1: for her. So yeah, I twitched my college around and
Speaker 1: and ended up getting into this. You know, I thought
Speaker 1: I could help some other family that would be great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know, you get a a reason why you
Speaker 1: do things. I think, you know, and Jackie wonders if
Speaker 1: there's more that needs to be done with her gross
Speaker 1: list and with the research that she did back in
Speaker 1: I hate to see somebody else's kids get killed when
Speaker 1: there's ways it can possibly be stopped, you know, if
Speaker 1: you have a pattern or something. I'm sure you know
Speaker 1: the police know how to follow all that. So you're saying,
Speaker 1: your boss kind of like told you to look into this.
Speaker 1: Did you ever like go back to him, and do
Speaker 1: you know if that ever like was given to the
Speaker 1: police or Oh yeah, I worked. I saw the Gary
Speaker 1: police going over it how much I detectives went over
Speaker 1: it with me. My chart mad So they were interested
Speaker 1: in it and they were taking it seriously. You felt, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, if you bring something to the police, they
Speaker 1: take it serious normally. Yeah, Well, it's just because her.
Speaker 1: Grow wasn't sure, so I think hard Grow sent them
Speaker 1: the letter and they didn't want to get back to him.
Speaker 1: Maybe they were given hard Grow over harder time. But
Speaker 1: me being at the corner's office and now he's working
Speaker 1: with them, you know, they came down to my office
Speaker 1: more than once, I could say that, and sat down
Speaker 1: with me with the file that I had pulled and
Speaker 1: the chart I'd made. They did do that. The Gary
Speaker 1: detectives did come down and and see what I had,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know, we're not police. I can't
Speaker 1: only do so much, and you don't know what really
Speaker 1: happens in their departments and stuff. Jackie wasn't sure what
Speaker 1: the detectives did with the information she'd given them, and
Speaker 1: she'd still been doing research and pulling document mints when
Speaker 1: she injured her back and lost her job. She doesn't
Speaker 1: think any annelis at the coroner's office picked up the
Speaker 1: project once she left. In October, Hargrove published his story
Speaker 1: about the algorithm and its various findings across the nation.
Speaker 1: The final version included only a few lines on Gary
Speaker 1: about the letter Hardgrove sent to police, describing strangulations going
Speaker 1: back to the nineties and how the letter had prompted
Speaker 1: Jackie's investigation, and it seemed like that was that a
Speaker 1: set of murders in Northwest Indiana unlikely to ever be
Speaker 1: solved until four years later on October, when Africa Hardy
Speaker 1: was strangled, and there's cold cases Hargrove had identified suddenly
Speaker 1: didn't seem so cold. I want to jump away from
Speaker 1: the algorithm for a bit here and focus on Africa
Speaker 1: Hardy's investigation and how her case came to be linked
Speaker 1: to a serial killer. For years, very little was known
Speaker 1: about what happened to Africa Hardy. Police never released much
Speaker 1: about their investigation. Do you do you know what Indiana law?
Speaker 1: Is there any way to get a copy of records
Speaker 1: like that? I have no idea. UM, I don't know
Speaker 1: what the limits are for their open records law. UM
Speaker 1: what Hammond did might be available to you if you
Speaker 1: push for it. They don't want to talk about it either,
Speaker 1: I assume, because they don't want to embarrass their name
Speaker 1: bring police agency. But at the same time it might
Speaker 1: be an open record. I don't know. You should try
Speaker 1: and you should try to find out that would be
Speaker 1: you'd be the first to do that. Last April through
Speaker 1: Indiana's version of the Freedom of Information Act. I requested
Speaker 1: all the information related to Africa's case and cases that
Speaker 1: could be connected. For five months, my request got bounced
Speaker 1: around between the Hammond Police and their legal department. I
Speaker 1: was told they'd have to figure out what, if anything,
Speaker 1: they were allowed to release. I wasn't sure if I'd
Speaker 1: ever get these documents, so I tried to interview any
Speaker 1: and I could who was connected to the case. I
Speaker 1: heard stories of conspiracies and police and competence, but it
Speaker 1: was hard to sort through what was real and what
Speaker 1: was just a rumor, especially because some of the people
Speaker 1: closest to the case, like the officers and the Hammond
Speaker 1: Police Department, had been prohibited from speaking to me on
Speaker 1: the record. Then in September, I got an email with
Speaker 1: the ink. It was a dropbox folder with forty five
Speaker 1: gigs worth of videos, including audio from the night Africa died.
Speaker 1: Yeah and number one, Hey him, and it's Geary transferring
Speaker 1: the calls. You know, the Motel sixth and female is responsible.
Speaker 1: She thinks she did. Okay, ma'am, okay, what room are
Speaker 1: you in, ma'am? One song one was the last time
Speaker 1: you saw her earlier today like, well, ok I need
Speaker 1: you to tell like like three o'clock. Okay, I need
Speaker 1: to is there any blood or anything on her? No?
Speaker 1: Need you know how to take your fingers and put
Speaker 1: him on the side of her neck. I want to
Speaker 1: know if I'm so scared to do that, I'm some scared.
Speaker 1: On October seventem Africa Hardy's friend Shamika, had discovered Africa's
Speaker 1: body in the bathtub of a motel six in him
Speaker 1: in Indiana. The clock was now kicking. The first forty
Speaker 1: eight hours following a murder are the most crucial to
Speaker 1: solving it. Crime scene investigators found signs of a struggle.
Speaker 1: There was a shirt button on the floor, a broken fingernail,
Speaker 1: and a torn condom wrapper. They found blood on a
Speaker 1: pillow case and a knit hat under the bed, and
Speaker 1: it appeared that someone had rifled through Africa's belongings because
Speaker 1: her wallet and I D were there, but her cell
Speaker 1: phone was missing. Police check to see if any nearby
Speaker 1: security cameras had captured footage of the motel parking lot
Speaker 1: or the door outside Africa's room. They brought Shamika back
Speaker 1: to the station and Detective Shaan Ford started interviewing her.
Speaker 1: Just after midnight, how Africa Day detective Forward and Shamika
Speaker 1: sat at a small table in a bear window lists room.
Speaker 1: Shamika was wearing a pink sweatshirt with the hood up
Speaker 1: and looked nervous. Shamika told police that Africa had been
Speaker 1: working as an escort at the Motel six, and that
Speaker 1: she'd sought out clients by posting ads on backpage dot com,
Speaker 1: an online classifieds website that's since been shut down. I
Speaker 1: know you've been through a hard deal tonight. Here's where
Speaker 1: the problem was. I have to start eliminating people as
Speaker 1: much as I put them in. So like, obviously you're
Speaker 1: the last one to see her alive, and you're the
Speaker 1: one to find her. Okay, you've been in our company
Speaker 1: all day long and nobody else now because she had
Speaker 1: contacted some guy on here and he killed her during
Speaker 1: a date or something pretty possible. But as an investigator,
Speaker 1: I have to remain very objective and looked at the
Speaker 1: whole picture. Let's go through today real quick. Where did
Speaker 1: you really up today? Yeah? Yeah, we're geting together, Yeah place?
Speaker 1: What time? Anything? You got up late? Canons of Himika
Speaker 1: says she dropped off Africa at the Mitel six round
Speaker 1: two or two thirty pm. She says Africa met up
Speaker 1: with one client in the early afternoon and another man
Speaker 1: had called and said he was interested in meeting her.
Speaker 1: The guy was called like he really was interesting, that
Speaker 1: he really was come. He helped calling saying he's gonna
Speaker 1: come for shore. You know they he really liked it
Speaker 1: up pictures that he's not come and that you just
Speaker 1: had to get a baby, so and so once you
Speaker 1: get it, he'll calm. So when would you say the
Speaker 1: first time you started calling Africa? I talked to her
Speaker 1: two tigh coup times, just about the stuff here and there,
Speaker 1: even before the first guy came. Um, I know right
Speaker 1: before she had the second kind of talk maybe twice,
Speaker 1: but it was real short being the one that came
Speaker 1: in U five thirteen. Ok she actually called me and
Speaker 1: told me she was like he's here, and that was
Speaker 1: at five thirteen. Is that what you're saying that time? Okay?
Speaker 1: Did you ever hear from her again? It's hard to hear,
Speaker 1: but Schimika said that after Africa called at five thirteen
Speaker 1: to say the second client had arrived, Shimika didn't hear
Speaker 1: from her again after five thirteen. How many times? Do
Speaker 1: you think you call her? Ah? It's a Shimika was
Speaker 1: worried about Africa, so she called up her friend ed Wardo,
Speaker 1: and they headed to the motel. I don't even know
Speaker 1: she's listening one. I don't want to grow, so we
Speaker 1: kind of listen, you know, to the door and for
Speaker 1: the kid. We didn't see anyone. It was just think
Speaker 1: to be like I got away from the wall a
Speaker 1: little bit and then I see her shoe on the
Speaker 1: floor and um. We talked on the light which is
Speaker 1: on the outside of the Bed of Tomorrow, my album.
Speaker 1: I just flying back and he's like called plies, called
Speaker 1: the ambulist, called belief and the end they asked me
Speaker 1: what she um when she breathed her? Did she held
Speaker 1: a post? Come too scared to touch a post? At
Speaker 1: Ronald he touched it and he's like it's nothing him
Speaker 1: had a round twelve thirty am. Another officer enters the
Speaker 1: interrogation room. How it's detective for its boss, Captain Zeke Kinajosa.
Speaker 1: Kinajosa sits down and shake Shamika's hand. Had you guys
Speaker 1: ever dealt what this is gonna before? Did you see
Speaker 1: him at all? You talked? Woman all on the phone. Okay,
Speaker 1: what number did he call her from? What number? I
Speaker 1: made sure I remember his number? Three? One two? What
Speaker 1: made you remember that number? Because I always come phone
Speaker 1: type of prosesssions with each other. Tell each other the normals,
Speaker 1: tell each other. Makes the license place in case somebody
Speaker 1: happen in case? Okay, what else did she say to you?
Speaker 1: She said, he sounded like an older guy. What do
Speaker 1: you consider over what would she consider over that? That's
Speaker 1: important in the nineteen I'm an old man, you know.
Speaker 1: So did she show you the number? She showed me
Speaker 1: a text? You take the whole taste and how wars
Speaker 1: and how much he likes her tittures and stuff like that. Okay, Kinajosa, thanks,
Speaker 1: Shamika shuts down a note and then leaves the room. Obviously,
Speaker 1: like we over this. There's people working on other stuff,
Speaker 1: so we just got to get through, you know, some
Speaker 1: of the stuff here. Now, does she have anybody that
Speaker 1: you know that would want to hurt her or anything
Speaker 1: like that? She was a good girl. She was a
Speaker 1: really good cool I mean, I know it's probably hard
Speaker 1: tool to leave because of the situation that happened, but
Speaker 1: just feels a good heart and personal give you a
Speaker 1: last Now, I don't know how far this is gonna
Speaker 1: progress or how fast. I mean, if we're gonna make
Speaker 1: an arrest tonight. I don't make an arrest tonight. Obviously,
Speaker 1: in an investigation, we have to look at all angles,
Speaker 1: at everything. The phone you have on you right now,
Speaker 1: with the phone around that, do you mind if I
Speaker 1: look in here on this phone. It's not it doesn't
Speaker 1: not link with this. It's not not helping. But well,
Speaker 1: I kind of need to to look. But it's up
Speaker 1: to you. I'm not gonna force you to or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, Um, do you have any other phones
Speaker 1: on you or anything like that? All right, As we
Speaker 1: said here, they had nothing to do it led to
Speaker 1: the death of your friend. No, absolutely no. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: able to try to hanging anybody? So no, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that you killed her, But I'm saying sometimes people here,
Speaker 1: here's what I'm worried about this want this business here?
Speaker 1: All right, Holy Bible. I was not that you make
Speaker 1: it harm anybody I love and I love kids, I
Speaker 1: love just taking know what I'm saying, This business here
Speaker 1: is very bro and sometimes what we find is people
Speaker 1: almost become like a prisoner, a slave, that this kind
Speaker 1: of work, and there are people behind the scenes, pulling
Speaker 1: strangers and making money. And I just want to make
Speaker 1: sure that something didn't happen here today where your good
Speaker 1: friend got killed. And there's a reason that maybe you're scared.
Speaker 1: I can't tell me what append something like that. I
Speaker 1: will tell you didn't thinking everything that I know, I
Speaker 1: would never not tell. I want you to find this person.
Speaker 1: So I was I'm not scared of anybody. I don't
Speaker 1: know abody get me under hostage or controlled. So I'm
Speaker 1: not a decommanded person. I'm want that saying I don't
Speaker 1: about but I'm very strong man, so and I would
Speaker 1: not let anybody scare me or do anything this devilish.
Speaker 1: And you have no idea other than the numbers you
Speaker 1: provided us who could have done this. Will that number
Speaker 1: be in that phone at all? No? What makes you
Speaker 1: uncomfortable about me having the phone because there might be
Speaker 1: like naked pictures or something like that, or piss outfits,
Speaker 1: ang and stuff like that. That's okay, Hey, we could
Speaker 1: look through here together so that I'm not looking through
Speaker 1: your stuff, you know, But where I can you know,
Speaker 1: I actually see the call out. Captain Kinejosa opens the
Speaker 1: door and leans his head into the room just for
Speaker 1: one second. Detective Ford leaves the room for three minutes,
Speaker 1: then he returns with Hinejosa. It's now almost one thirty
Speaker 1: in the morning. All right, real quick, you said you
Speaker 1: called nyme one one? Right? Did you one? Uh? How
Speaker 1: many balls you find you right now? M this is
Speaker 1: easy question. How many faults do we have on you
Speaker 1: right now? I am our? Okay him out? Why didn't
Speaker 1: tell us that I don't want you to know? It's
Speaker 1: now one thirty am on the night of Africa's murder.
Speaker 1: Her friend Shimika has just revealed to police that she's
Speaker 1: had a second phone on her this whole time, and
Speaker 1: it's the one with the number that they posted to
Speaker 1: backpage dot com. Why didn't tell us that, I don't
Speaker 1: want you to know? First out? Looking now, we are
Speaker 1: not worried about that. No, no, no, I promise you
Speaker 1: We're not interested about prostitution. Were interested about solving this
Speaker 1: hot side. The whole encounter shows how difficult it is
Speaker 1: for sex workers to report crimes to police, which then
Speaker 1: in turn complicates trying to solve these crimes. Luckily, in
Speaker 1: this case Detective Forward and Captain Kinahosa managed to convince
Speaker 1: Shamika that they aren't interested in prosecuting her for facilitating
Speaker 1: sex work, and Shamika starts to give them a more
Speaker 1: accurate story of what really happened. She was walking. Also,
Speaker 1: everything is that now, Okay, everything's in there, including the
Speaker 1: number that the guy called. That's why you get the
Speaker 1: number because you actually had the phone. The way the
Speaker 1: system worked, Shamika talked to and booked Africa's clients. Then
Speaker 1: she'd call Africa or text the information to Africa's personal phone.
Speaker 1: Shamika says that when the five thirteen appointment should have
Speaker 1: been finished, Shamika tried to get in touch with Africa
Speaker 1: right away. I'm about al was called her phone, I
Speaker 1: was called his phone, and then I started reading to
Speaker 1: call the police. So I really was just trying to
Speaker 1: tell her this so she could call me and be like, no,
Speaker 1: everything's okay, you don't have to call the police. But
Speaker 1: then she started texting stuff like you're scaring him. You
Speaker 1: gotta text message from her fault saying you're scaring him.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, I don't want to do that. I
Speaker 1: don't want to mess up business. I don't want to
Speaker 1: get him or whatever, okay with After that, she started
Speaker 1: taking stuff that I know she didn't text, like, she
Speaker 1: texts something to say, I have a client's gonna be
Speaker 1: a long date. I'll see in two hours, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: m oh right. These texts that were coming from Africa
Speaker 1: were a big red flag because Shamika was the one
Speaker 1: who talked to and booked Africa's clients. But before Shamika
Speaker 1: could get anything resolved, she says, her phone ran out
Speaker 1: of batteries. When she got the phone charged and turned
Speaker 1: back on, she saw that she'd received more strange messages.
Speaker 1: But these weren't messages from Africa's phone, but from the
Speaker 1: five thirteen client, some about at all that and I'll
Speaker 1: be back if I cannot come back and the years
Speaker 1: still there and LV. Shamika wasn't sure what to make
Speaker 1: of the messages. She was terrified for Africa, but she
Speaker 1: was also worried that if she went to the police,
Speaker 1: she could get them both arrested for prostitution. So she
Speaker 1: decided to check on Africa herself, and that's when she
Speaker 1: went to the motel with Eduardo. Detective Ford starts going
Speaker 1: through Shamika's text messages, and he gets to one that
Speaker 1: she hadn't yet mentioned. Why don't here I want to
Speaker 1: ask you about Here's a text from Shamika's phone to
Speaker 1: Africa's make sure you hide your money good because the
Speaker 1: other client is waiting outside or is referring to she
Speaker 1: was speaking correct, well one of them though. He tells
Speaker 1: the other clan is waiting outside. Some other guys had
Speaker 1: text or whatever saying that he wanted her too, but
Speaker 1: he was he was coming at the same time, and
Speaker 1: the other guy like double bump head. Okay, so where
Speaker 1: is his text? That we guy that was outside? Okay?
Speaker 1: This is him saying you messed out. He's leaving. Man,
Speaker 1: So he's there, he was there. You know who this is? No?
Speaker 1: Oh my, I'm never to pay a pension for him.
Speaker 1: He said he's not kind of jumping out, but he
Speaker 1: never made his and it don't looks like That's why
Speaker 1: I don't think he did. He watched the guy leave.
Speaker 1: It chills your friend. Oh my god. Detective Forward picks
Speaker 1: up the phone and starts walking out the door. Do
Speaker 1: you guys try to we we're sent on a couple
Speaker 1: of different things, and you know that's one of them.
Speaker 1: It was now two thirty AM, around nine hours after
Speaker 1: Africa had been killed. Police continued working through the night,
Speaker 1: chasing down leads using the text messages from Shamika's second
Speaker 1: cell phone. Police requested search warrants for the five thirteen
Speaker 1: Clients phone records. Meanwhile, other detectives poured through surveillance footage
Speaker 1: from the motel and businesses nearby. One camera captured footage
Speaker 1: of a man in a puffy jacket entering Africa's room
Speaker 1: shortly after PM at five. He leaves the room and
Speaker 1: runs out to a blue jeep. Another security camera captured
Speaker 1: the jeep's license plate and Bureau of Motor Vehicle records
Speaker 1: showed it was registered to a woman named Regina Beard,
Speaker 1: who lived in Gary, Indiana. Police found that the five
Speaker 1: thirteen clients cell phone was also registered to Regina b
Speaker 1: Heard at the same address, twenty minutes away from the
Speaker 1: Hammond Police station in the neighborhood on the south side
Speaker 1: of Gary. At five PM, just twenty four hours after
Speaker 1: Africa had been killed, detectives raced out to the address.
Speaker 1: It was a small, one story brick house directly across
Speaker 1: from a church and parked in front of the house
Speaker 1: was the blue jeep they were looking for. Next time
Speaker 1: on Algorithm, I'm not gonna lie. It was scary because
Speaker 1: we would only be maybe floor of us in the house,
Speaker 1: and we don't know who's in the house, so who's
Speaker 1: in the area, and there's they like police officers, a
Speaker 1: want of driving out. What are you trying to get
Speaker 1: out of it? Good thing? You could be crazy, You're
Speaker 1: could be sitting here and talking man already five a
Speaker 1: Most Lakes Room one five shot, Conscious of your fem
Speaker 1: bars and chowder. This episode was written and produced by
Speaker 1: me ben Key Brick. Algorithm is executive produced by Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: Donald Albright, and Matt Frederick. Production assistance in mixing by
Speaker 1: Eric Quintana. The music is by Makeup and Vanity Set
Speaker 1: and Blue Dot Sessions. Thanks to Christina Dana, Miranda Hawkins,
Speaker 1: Jamie Albright, rema El Kaili, Trevor Young, and Josh Thane
Speaker 1: for their help and notes, and thanks for listening. I've
Speaker 1: put a ton of work into this show over the
Speaker 1: last year and I really appreciate all of the feedback
Speaker 1: I got after episodes one and two, So if you
Speaker 1: haven't yet, please reach out subscribe and leave a review.