Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: It was just before seven pm on September fifteenth, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: when a man, his wife, and their young child were
Speaker 2: passing by the train tracks in Gaylsburg, Illinois. They saw
Speaker 2: something that looked like a body lying in the creek
Speaker 2: bed of Cedar Fort Creek below.
Speaker 3: Jail for next year. I mean nine one was your emergency? Well,
Speaker 3: you know what we're walking, me and my wife and
Speaker 3: it is a body academy in faris and what did
Speaker 3: you find? I think there is a body I'm down
Speaker 3: in the creek? Yes it is okay? Can you tell
Speaker 3: us that the male or female?
Speaker 4: I mean, I can get it cool as by. I
Speaker 4: can't walk through it.
Speaker 3: Sold, if you feel comfortable and you're safe doing so? Yes,
Speaker 3: he can't take video?
Speaker 5: Okay? Hell about.
Speaker 3: Are you going down in the creek?
Speaker 2: No, I'm not.
Speaker 3: I'm just looking rome Okay, jumping time by the training clack.
Speaker 3: Is it a male or female?
Speaker 6: It's a male?
Speaker 3: Can you tell if he's breathing? I can't tell anything.
Speaker 3: I have to jump in don no, don't jump, and
Speaker 3: I have an officer coming to you. You can't. Can you
Speaker 3: holler at him and see if they'll move?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Sure sure.
Speaker 2: The body was identified as Tyler Smith, a twenty three
Speaker 2: year old graduate of Western Illinois University who had gone
Speaker 2: out drinking the night before September fourteenth with two friends
Speaker 2: from the Illinois National Guard, his friend Evan, and Evan's
Speaker 2: cousin Robbie. It was supposed to be one last celebration.
Speaker 2: Tyler had had his last drill the next morning, and
Speaker 2: then he was moving to San Jose, California, where he
Speaker 2: had been accepted into the police Academy. He was just
Speaker 2: two days away for leaving for his new life in California.
Speaker 2: His mother, Sandra Halsney, was planning on going to California
Speaker 2: with him to get him set up there, but they
Speaker 2: never got to take that road trip because something happened
Speaker 2: that night. Tyler got separated from his friends shortly after
Speaker 2: eleven PM and then got lost after wandering around for
Speaker 2: almost an hour. According to the health app data from
Speaker 2: the phone that was found in his jean's pocket, Tyler's
Speaker 2: strides got longer like he was running, then about two
Speaker 2: minutes after that, he stopped moving. Tyler's death was ruled
Speaker 2: a drowning after a thirty one minute autopsy, but his mother,
Speaker 2: Sandra had a lot of unanswered questions, including why did
Speaker 2: Tyler start running at eleven to fifty pm and was
Speaker 2: someone stalking him in that darkness.
Speaker 1: I'm Catherine Townsend.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 2: four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five. This is Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line. As we said last week, Tyler's mom,
Speaker 2: Sandra has been her son's greatest advocate. She's filed for
Speaker 2: a request and spent thousands of dollars and thousands of
Speaker 2: hours on his case. The day after he disappeared, Sandra
Speaker 2: could not reach her son. Then she got a text
Speaker 2: from Evan, one of the guys who was out with
Speaker 2: Tyler in September fourteenth, saying that Tyler had not come
Speaker 2: home and never showed up for formation. On the morning
Speaker 2: of the fifteenth, Sandra and Tyler's father, Keith made the
Speaker 2: drive to Gaelsburg. They found Tyler's car in the driveway
Speaker 2: of Evans House. Sandra found Tyler's suitcase inside Evans house packed.
Speaker 2: It looked like Tyler dropped it there without opening it,
Speaker 2: so his stuff was there, but there was no sign
Speaker 2: of Tyler. Sandra said that she did talk to Evan,
Speaker 2: but the guys were apparently not much help, but they
Speaker 2: were able to verify with police some of Tyler's movements.
Speaker 2: The night before, Tyler drove to his friend evans house.
Speaker 2: He arrived there at about six pm. He left his
Speaker 2: car parked on the street. Later, Evans's family told Sandra
Speaker 2: and Keith the car was illegally parked, so they moved
Speaker 2: it to the driveway. When Tyler and Evan left evans house,
Speaker 2: they went to Gailsburg. They ate at Buffalo Wild Wings.
Speaker 2: After that they went to the Cherry Street Bar. That's
Speaker 2: where they met up with Evan's cousin, Robbie. He had
Speaker 2: driven there separately in his truck, so just to clarify,
Speaker 2: they had two vehicles, Evan's car and Robbie's truck. Police
Speaker 2: pinged Tyler's cell phone. It gave a location zero point
Speaker 2: three four miles west of a tower at one hundred
Speaker 2: North Cherry Street, near the bars where the guys had
Speaker 2: been the night before. While at Cherry Street Bar the
Speaker 2: night before, Tyler had sent a couple of snapchats. One
Speaker 2: was captioned Gailsburg with Evan and them. The guys appeared
Speaker 2: to be having a great time. Nothing jumps out a
Speaker 2: sinister in any of these images. After leaving the Cherry
Speaker 2: Street bar, the guys went to the Wells Fargo ATM. Tyler, Evan,
Speaker 2: and Robbie all showed up on surveillance footage there at
Speaker 2: ten forty two. After leaving the ATM, they continued on
Speaker 2: to a bar called Corner Connection. There was live music
Speaker 2: that night until one am. Evan told Sandra they were
Speaker 2: all pretty intoxicated, and he said they can't really remember
Speaker 2: anything after that. They couldn't remember why they split up
Speaker 2: when the plan had been for Tyler to spend the
Speaker 2: night at Evans.
Speaker 1: So I want to look at the.
Speaker 2: Autopsy results, but first I want to dive into the timeline.
Speaker 2: I want to know what exactly happened between Tyler and
Speaker 2: his friends, Robbie and Evan, And is there any way
Speaker 2: considering they were all pretty intoxicated to retrace their steps.
Speaker 2: We know that at some point Tyler ended up with
Speaker 2: Evans keys because they were found the next day in
Speaker 2: Tyler's jeans pockets.
Speaker 1: When Sandra talked to Evan.
Speaker 2: He said he had given Tyler those keys because he
Speaker 2: didn't have pockets in his pants. When the police interviewed
Speaker 2: him a few months later, he said that he left
Speaker 2: Corner Connection, the last bar they were seen in. He
Speaker 2: said he had walked to the area where his car
Speaker 2: in Robbie's truck were parked, and at some point Robbie
Speaker 2: told Tyler to take Evans keys because he was way
Speaker 2: more drunk than Tyler. Now, last week, I said no
Speaker 2: one drove home, but apparently I was wrong about that.
Speaker 2: I assumed no one drove home because everyone was drunk
Speaker 2: and because Tyler had Evans keys. But I've learned not
Speaker 2: to assume anything. Because Evan walked home, Robbie drove. Robbie
Speaker 2: said that he remembered he got back to his truck
Speaker 2: at eleven thirty five. He remembers that because he looked
Speaker 2: at the clock when he got back to his vehicle.
Speaker 2: So another detail that's confusing in all this is who
Speaker 2: was last seen with Tyler. Was it Evan or Robbie
Speaker 2: or someone else. Robbie said the last time that he
Speaker 2: saw Evan and Tyler, they were walking to Evan's car.
Speaker 2: He said that he left and went to his truck,
Speaker 2: but we know Evan walked home alone. Remember, his car
Speaker 2: and house keys were in Tyler's pockets. When Evan got home,
Speaker 2: he apparently realized that he didn't have his keys. Both
Speaker 2: his house and car keys were on the same key ring,
Speaker 2: and those were the keys that were in Tyler's jeans,
Speaker 2: So he had to knock on the door really loudly
Speaker 2: so that his mom would let him in. Now, Evan's
Speaker 2: mother later said that at that time, Evan told her
Speaker 2: Tyler was with Robbie, and then Evan went to bed.
Speaker 2: Evan's mom told Sanders she stayed up for a while
Speaker 2: until around two am, waiting for Tyler, but he never
Speaker 2: made it back home. So back to the night before,
Speaker 2: the three friends are having a good time drinking, etc.
Speaker 2: They go to an atm for an unknown reason at
Speaker 2: ten forty two. We can see in that surveillance footage
Speaker 2: that Tyler already had money on his money clip, yet
Speaker 2: he took out one hundred dollars and remember he only
Speaker 2: had seventy two dollars on him when his body was found.
Speaker 2: The guys stop at a bar called Corner Connection for
Speaker 2: one last round. They all leave together, but at some
Speaker 2: point they split up. Robbie walks to his car, Evan
Speaker 2: walks home. Tyler starts wandering around, lost and confused. He
Speaker 2: starts making calls. At eleven oh five, he calls another
Speaker 2: friend of his name Onie, to see if he can
Speaker 2: stay at his place. Apparently he didn't realize that that
Speaker 2: friend actually live forty minutes away.
Speaker 1: This is Onie.
Speaker 4: Remember the order of events for the text and the
Speaker 4: call we did call. I think either he tried to
Speaker 4: call me or something, but I heard him on the phone,
Speaker 4: and all I remember, this is what I've told Sandy
Speaker 4: and told everybody else, is I feel like he was
Speaker 4: like running, but not in like a scared way, like
Speaker 4: in a fun like he was pooping around like he
Speaker 4: like I don't know, like like think he just threw
Speaker 4: a snowball at your buddy's house or you did ding dung, bitch,
Speaker 4: and he was running obey like ha ha, I just
Speaker 4: pulled a frank on somebody. That's kind of what the
Speaker 4: video or the audio sounded like when he butted out
Speaker 4: me or whatever he did and I and I heard him,
Speaker 4: so I tried to call him back, I think, and
Speaker 4: didn't hear from him.
Speaker 2: So, according to Onnie Tyler kept chatting. He seemed calm
Speaker 2: and happy, even though he seemed to have no idea
Speaker 2: where he was. But then at around eleven fifty, after
Speaker 2: he lost contact with Onie, something changed dramatically.
Speaker 6: I remember seeing I think some of those stories come
Speaker 6: out and like his spirits in me, I wanted to say,
Speaker 6: and I don't know about I'm thinking of this because
Speaker 6: of a story that I saw that maybe somebody saw
Speaker 6: him earlier in the night and saw an opportunity to
Speaker 6: take advantage and beat up a black guy, or maybe
Speaker 6: he just ran into the wrong person, because I think
Speaker 6: around that time period, whenever he was running, and I
Speaker 6: think and I thought that he called me. I think
Speaker 6: was I don't know if he was running from somebody,
Speaker 6: because I remember standy or somebody was asking me. I
Speaker 6: don't know if he's the investigator. Did it sound like
Speaker 6: he was running from someone? Did he sound like he
Speaker 6: was scared? And he didn't sound like he was scared,
Speaker 6: And I couldn't hear anybody else.
Speaker 7: It just sounded like he was running playfully.
Speaker 1: I just I don't know if you remember.
Speaker 2: From last week we talked about the step analysis from
Speaker 2: the health app on Tyler's phone. That was done by
Speaker 2: Mitchell Drake, the retired detective who was helping Sandra months
Speaker 2: after Tyler's death. According to this analysis, something made Tyler
Speaker 2: start running around eleven fifty then at eleven fifty two
Speaker 2: there was no more movement. The next time anyone saw
Speaker 2: Tyler was at the bottom of that creek bed.
Speaker 1: The next day. Here's Tyler's mother, Sandra.
Speaker 8: Someone had called nine one when I saw his body,
Speaker 8: and it kind of freaked like I think of it's
Speaker 8: not a It's like to me where I'm from, a
Speaker 8: creek is like a small river, you know, this is
Speaker 8: this is a concrete canal. He was seventeen feet down
Speaker 8: with the speed up against the walls, arms down at
Speaker 8: his side.
Speaker 2: The position of the body bothered Sandra and later Mitchell Drake,
Speaker 2: the investigator who came into help. They thought it was
Speaker 2: very unlikely that Tyler had walked down there because the
Speaker 2: nearest access point to get there on foot was about
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty feet away. Tyler's shoes were clean
Speaker 2: and white. They did not look like they had been
Speaker 2: walking through that mud. Tyler was lying face down with
Speaker 2: his palms facing up and his feet very close to
Speaker 2: the wall. It seemed like an impossi position to fall from,
Speaker 2: because Sandra and everyone else wondered why if it was
Speaker 2: an accident, like the police apparently believed, why Tyler didn't
Speaker 2: try to break his fall some way. The only way
Speaker 2: that Tyler's body could have fallen that way, Sandra believes,
Speaker 2: is if he was unconscious. So the most likely conclusion
Speaker 2: is that Tyler either fell or he was pushed or
Speaker 2: thrown from above. The next question is did Tyler's body
Speaker 2: fall to where he was found or did someone do
Speaker 2: something to him somewhere else and then drag it down
Speaker 2: there or somehow move it. Afterwards, Sandra goes on to
Speaker 2: say she believes that the crime scene could.
Speaker 1: Have been staged.
Speaker 2: She talks about pieces of evidence, including the beer can,
Speaker 2: the one that was lying very close to Tyler, the
Speaker 2: one that police did not test for fingerprints and threw away.
Speaker 2: She said the beer can didn't fall down there with
Speaker 2: Tyler because he's seen on video minutes before, and he
Speaker 2: doesn't have a beer can in his hand in that footage.
Speaker 8: And there was being the true placed next to him
Speaker 8: like a beer can, which I have a video from walking.
Speaker 8: He doesn't have a beer can just four minutes before
Speaker 8: he steps moving, according to his health up on his phone.
Speaker 8: I mean, I've done a lot to find out what's
Speaker 8: happened to Tyler. I have a timeline.
Speaker 2: Dragging a body from the point where the creek bed
Speaker 2: could be accessed on foot seems unlikely. And as we
Speaker 2: said before, Tyler's shoes are very clean. And then after
Speaker 2: an autopsy that was only thirty one minutes long, Tyler's
Speaker 2: cause of death was ruled as drowning. Now, the length
Speaker 2: of autopsy time does vary, but the average autopsy takes
Speaker 2: a lot longer than thirty one minutes. And again, all deaths,
Speaker 2: especially those of a young, healthy person with no known
Speaker 2: medical issues, should be investigated as homicides until proven otherwise. Outraged,
Speaker 2: Sandra asked how the IMME had come to that conclusion.
Speaker 2: Their results were so unbelievable to her that she demanded
Speaker 2: a second autopsy. So one of the most common questions
Speaker 2: I'm asked is how you go about getting a second autopsy,
Speaker 2: And the answer how to get a second opinion or
Speaker 2: a second autopsy, and also who pays for it can
Speaker 2: be very complicated.
Speaker 1: To me.
Speaker 2: The issues go way beyond Tyler Smith's case, because a
Speaker 2: lot of people unfortunately have this happen to them. What
Speaker 2: do you do when no one, including the authorities, can
Speaker 2: agree on what actually happened to your loved one. People
Speaker 2: interested in a second autopsy would normally ask first for
Speaker 2: something called a medical record review. This is according by
Speaker 2: the way, to the National Institutes of Health. A couple
Speaker 2: of weeks ago, we did an interview on this podcast
Speaker 2: with a company that does provide second opinions on death investigations.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of companies out there like this,
Speaker 2: so I think step one is basically submitting a freedom
Speaker 2: of information request. There are templates online you can use
Speaker 2: depending on what state you're in. We talk about FOYER
Speaker 2: requests a lot, but I just want to say this,
Speaker 2: I think it's something we should all learn how to do,
Speaker 2: how to use, because you don't want to be learning
Speaker 2: when you're in shock after something like this happens to
Speaker 2: you or someone you know. If the case is an
Speaker 2: open investigation, you may not get much back from your
Speaker 2: FOY request, but depending on what state you're in, if
Speaker 2: you're a family member, you probably can get the autopsy
Speaker 2: report then for a few hundred dollars. Usually the person
Speaker 2: who reviews the records. If you do go for a
Speaker 2: company that gives second opinions, can give you an opinion
Speaker 2: on whether a second autopsy would be a good idea.
Speaker 2: After that, if the person who reviews the case says yes,
Speaker 2: a second autopsy would be a good idea, You've then
Speaker 2: got to figure out who's paying for it. And second
Speaker 2: autopsies can be very expensive, several thousand dollars. I've even
Speaker 2: heard quotes of up to ten thousand dollars, plus you
Speaker 2: have the cost.
Speaker 1: Of exhuming the body.
Speaker 2: In Tyler's case, Sandra was working with Mitchell Drake, and
Speaker 2: because Mitchell Drake was a retired police detective with years
Speaker 2: of experience investigating homicides, when he pointed out mistakes and
Speaker 2: oversights in the investigation, he seemed to have the respect
Speaker 2: of law enforcement. So they actually got the coroner to
Speaker 2: agree to his second autopsy, and so the county paid
Speaker 2: to have Tyler's body exoomed. But sadly, there were some
Speaker 2: pieces of evidence they could never get back because the
Speaker 2: police had not, for example, checked for DNA under Tyler's fingernails,
Speaker 2: and Sandra was devastated to learn all of his clothes
Speaker 2: had been thrown away. Sandra talked to us about this,
Speaker 2: and again, this is something so many people are dealing with.
Speaker 2: The exorbitant costs she had to pay just to get
Speaker 2: access to her son's own records. She estimated she spent
Speaker 2: over five thousand dollars and that's even with the county
Speaker 2: covering the second autopsy cost.
Speaker 1: Imagine not being.
Speaker 2: Able to access a copy of your own child's autopsy
Speaker 2: report because you can't afford the fees.
Speaker 8: So basically, Tyler went for his second autopsy, he got
Speaker 8: it zoomed. I guess his body was in good condition.
Speaker 2: Unlike the first autopsy that lasted only thirty one minutes,
Speaker 2: Tyler's second autopsy lasted more than four hours. The pathologists
Speaker 2: found a completely different cause of death and a lot
Speaker 2: of injuries that were not reported on the first autopsy.
Speaker 2: The pathologists concluded that Tyler did not die from drowning.
Speaker 2: In fact, they concluded that Tyler had died of injuries related.
Speaker 1: To the fall.
Speaker 8: But a fall on a chokehold are two things that
Speaker 8: he said. You know, a fall could cause that, But
Speaker 8: Tyler isn't laying in a position of a fall, like
Speaker 8: he didn't even try to catch himself. Like his hanger
Speaker 8: up against the wall, Like there's no way he fell
Speaker 8: straight down and landed in that position. You know, he
Speaker 8: would have been like in a fetal position, trying to help,
Speaker 8: you know what I mean, like trying to catch himself
Speaker 8: or something. And there were no drugs in a system.
Speaker 8: His thought alcohol was zero point two four, which is
Speaker 8: like three times a leag a lemon or something. But
Speaker 8: we also have to remember this as a twenty three
Speaker 8: year old kid who had just finished a four year
Speaker 8: university drinking or you know what I mean, Like if
Speaker 8: you haven't, Like they're like, oh, your son was you know,
Speaker 8: black got drunk. I'm like, no, he wasn't, you know
Speaker 8: what I mean, Like I don't believe that.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Sandra says that she has a hard time believing this
Speaker 2: because she said that her son was a big guy
Speaker 2: and could handle alcohol. But as we all know, it's
Speaker 2: very possible to miscalculate, to have one too many, and
Speaker 2: to become confused, especially in a strange area. Tyler's friend
Speaker 2: Oni also said that Tyler was not the type to
Speaker 2: let himself get out of control or to drink excessively.
Speaker 9: He was smart about his drinking, so for him to
Speaker 9: get three times the legal limit in a town that
Speaker 9: he wasn't familiar with, with people that he really didn't
Speaker 9: know well, didn't really sound like him, didn't.
Speaker 4: Really sound like him. But I'd like to think that
Speaker 4: he knew Hillier well enough, because honestly, if it were
Speaker 4: me and I was in Tyler's shoes, I don't think
Speaker 4: I would I would have gotten as intoxicated as that.
Speaker 4: But I don't know what the context of what they
Speaker 4: were doing, if they were playing games, if they were
Speaker 4: what they were doing exactly from what I remember, they
Speaker 4: went out to a bar, and Tyler wasn't really the
Speaker 4: type to go out to a bar already very drunk,
Speaker 4: So that when I when I heard that they were
Speaker 4: at a bar and he was really drunk already, that.
Speaker 3: Kind of.
Speaker 5: It did.
Speaker 4: I don't know. It just didn't seem like he'd be
Speaker 4: drinking that much at the bar to get that drunk,
Speaker 4: because obviously it's expensive too, and Tyler was not the
Speaker 4: type to spend a.
Speaker 2: Lot of money at the bar, which is why he
Speaker 2: said he was so surprised when he heard what happened.
Speaker 2: But he said the same thing that I've been thinking
Speaker 2: all along. This story is so relatable. We have all
Speaker 2: had moments and we're vulnerable.
Speaker 7: That's hard to say, only because I've been in that
Speaker 7: position where I've been there intoxicated, and I almost turned
Speaker 7: into a different person as far as some of the
Speaker 7: things I do, some of the things I stay. So
Speaker 7: I wouldn't put it past Tyler to be so intoxicated
Speaker 7: that he wanted to stay out and have a good time.
Speaker 7: When you're that intoxicate, you really don't know up from down.
Speaker 8: You don't know.
Speaker 7: You don't have no self awareness, you know, when you're
Speaker 7: past a certain point, you just you just don't know.
Speaker 7: I'm told you hear the stories the next day. But
Speaker 7: if I'm being one hundred percent honest, I wouldn't. It
Speaker 7: does not surprise me that he wanted to stay out drinking.
Speaker 7: If he was less intoxicated and at a point where
Speaker 7: he could still I think maybe logically and remember the
Speaker 7: night before and form his own opinion and decision, I
Speaker 7: think you would have recognized, ya, I need to go home.
Speaker 7: But I think he was just passed that point, and
Speaker 7: it might have something to do with the drug or
Speaker 7: whatever that was found in his system.
Speaker 2: So the second autopsy found that Tyler died due to
Speaker 2: injuries stained in a fall. Some of his injuries, like
Speaker 2: the fact that Tyler bit through his tongue, could be
Speaker 2: potentially explained by landing the way that he did, face
Speaker 2: down on concrete. Others, according to the second pathologist, could
Speaker 2: not be explained, including bruising and blood from his nose
Speaker 2: that was pulled, which could indicate he was bleeding before death,
Speaker 2: not after. Sandra also wondered again about the positions of
Speaker 2: his arms straight behind him, palms up.
Speaker 1: She wondered if he could have.
Speaker 2: Been restrained by handcuffs or something else. This, plus the
Speaker 2: position of his feet so close to the wall, made
Speaker 2: it look like he was either dropped down where he
Speaker 2: was found, possibly while unconscious, or was thrown there. Sandra
Speaker 2: talked about the shock of seeing the sheer number of
Speaker 2: unexplained injuries on her son, injuries that could not be
Speaker 2: explained by drowning.
Speaker 8: At the autopsy, I guess he'd fit through his tongue completely,
Speaker 8: and the first totopsy they said it was normal. He
Speaker 8: had possible I think he said that he had a
Speaker 8: lot of like under one of his arms, a lot
Speaker 8: of deeek tissue, muscular injuries like to his shoulder, there
Speaker 8: are pictures of his first ass he that on the
Speaker 8: second att they said they weren't there and they just
Speaker 8: said it's probably from skin shredding. But he's got these
Speaker 8: marks on his ankles that look like not taser, but
Speaker 8: like a dry stunt, like he'd been stun gunned, which
Speaker 8: you know, they just won't. I mean, that's exactly what
Speaker 8: it looks like. I've even measured the Gilsburg I've gone
Speaker 8: to the chief of police and said, I want to
Speaker 8: measure how far apart your prongs are, you know, and
Speaker 8: then they're you know, almost exact. But anybody could have
Speaker 8: a stun gun. He's got lacerations. He had a watch
Speaker 8: on and it was ripped from his wrist, not undone
Speaker 8: at all, and but took part of the skin off
Speaker 8: his wrist and then it was still together, clastered together,
Speaker 8: kind of like laying like a foot away from his hand,
Speaker 8: like someone just put it there, you know what I mean,
Speaker 8: Like it didn't come off with him that way.
Speaker 2: The second autopsy found that Tyler had twenty nine separate injuries.
Speaker 2: As we said, Tyler did start running at around eleven
Speaker 2: to fifty pm. Sandra started to wonder if it was
Speaker 2: possible that he was running from someone, maybe the police
Speaker 2: car that she had seen pass by shortly after he
Speaker 2: appeared on the surveillance footage, just a few minutes before
Speaker 2: he stopped moving, or she wondered could he have run
Speaker 2: across someone else out there, someone who randomly decided to
Speaker 2: start something or take advantage of Tyler's vulnerability at that moment.
Speaker 2: As we said last week, the area where Tyler was
Speaker 2: found had its share a violent crime like a lot
Speaker 2: of states. And by the way, this is according to
Speaker 2: Pew research. The CDC said that Illinois saw a spike
Speaker 2: in their murder rate between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty
Speaker 2: of thirty eight percent. She considered the possibility that someone
Speaker 2: pushed her son over the edge of that cliff in
Speaker 2: a struggle.
Speaker 8: He was definitely fighting for his life, as fribe, thinking,
Speaker 8: what I'm getting from the police is that he was
Speaker 8: walking in an area. Of course he didn't and he
Speaker 8: is walking in a high methodsetamine area. He didn't know
Speaker 8: where is that he's telling his friends he's lost. He
Speaker 8: actually sent a message on Snapchat that he was lost
Speaker 8: to a friend that never indicated that he was like
Speaker 8: in trouble, but he was looking for another place to stay.
Speaker 2: One of the people who claimed that he knew what
Speaker 2: happened to Tyler was a drug dealer who lived nearby.
Speaker 2: He went by the name ghost and he allegedly told
Speaker 2: people that he and some other associates had been involved
Speaker 2: in Tyler's death. It's not clear where it started, if
Speaker 2: it was just a local rumor, or if it could
Speaker 2: be something more.
Speaker 8: He was basically a psychopath. Everybody was scared of him.
Speaker 8: He was a drug dealer. Some people say he was
Speaker 8: a narch. Some people say that he was you know,
Speaker 8: all this other things that I heard about him. But
Speaker 8: he was a bad person, and so they went to
Speaker 8: his kid's mother to ask, you know, because after he died,
Speaker 8: they're saying that he was. People are saying that he's
Speaker 8: involved in Tyler's death with this other guy. And I
Speaker 8: don't know if it's a ribbery or if they jumped them,
Speaker 8: or if they just did it for the heck of it.
Speaker 1: Ghosts died in a car accident.
Speaker 2: Police have told Sandra that they planned to follow up
Speaker 2: on some of these leads, including another tip that they got.
Speaker 2: And I have to say, on the surface, and without
Speaker 2: more evidence, I find some of these tips very hard
Speaker 2: to believe, because, for example, there was one rumor that
Speaker 2: some guys supposedly tortured Tyler in a basement and filmed
Speaker 2: a video that showed up on the dark web. Honestly,
Speaker 2: looking at the evidence, there are absolutely no signs of
Speaker 2: torture like that. Tyler's injuries appear to have happened when
Speaker 2: he landed in that position. It seems as though he
Speaker 2: landed face down on concrete in a couple of inches
Speaker 2: of water. So I agree with the second autopsy.
Speaker 1: I believe it's.
Speaker 2: Much more likely Tyler's injuries were caused from his fall.
Speaker 2: By the way, it is horrifying to me that Sandra
Speaker 2: has to do her own investigating. She has to be
Speaker 2: doing interviews with people who claim to have heard about
Speaker 2: horrific things that happened to her son, and to go
Speaker 2: through that emotional turmoil. If Tyler's fall was not accidental,
Speaker 2: if someone did attack him, what was their motive. If
Speaker 2: their intention was to rob him, why didn't they take
Speaker 2: his wallet, or his money or his phone, all of
Speaker 2: which were found in his pockets. Tyler did have a
Speaker 2: very high blood alcohol level point two four to six percent,
Speaker 2: almost three times a legal limit, but no other illegal
Speaker 2: drugs in his system. Sandra had the blood retested several
Speaker 2: months after the autopsy and found something else. Tyler's blood
Speaker 2: tested positive for GHB. The GHB in Tyler's blood is
Speaker 2: for me, one of the biggest mysteries of this case,
Speaker 2: because the amount of GHB found in Tyler's blood was
Speaker 2: pretty small. There's the possibility that the GHB could be
Speaker 2: a red herring because I learned something that others may
Speaker 2: find helpful. GHB can be present in blood after death naturally,
Speaker 2: especially if it's a small amount of blood, and there
Speaker 2: can be other factors like if the blood isn't properly
Speaker 2: stored or isn't processed for some time, which may have
Speaker 2: been the case in Tyler's autopsy. Gamma hydroxy beter rate
Speaker 2: is also present in blood and urine, and post mortem
Speaker 2: GHB formation can take place before the sample is taken.
Speaker 2: So what I'm trying to say is it can be
Speaker 2: tricky to figure out if small amounts of GHB are
Speaker 2: naturally occurring or if there had been some exposure to
Speaker 2: the drug. Tyler's percentage was thirteen milligrams per liter, which
Speaker 2: is under the cutoff point for most cases. Of GHB exposure,
Speaker 2: but when mixed with alcohol, GHB is often used as
Speaker 2: a date rape drug. So we also have to consider
Speaker 2: another possibility, the possibility that maybe someone slipped Tyler or
Speaker 2: something and followed him out to where he was found.
Speaker 2: Sandras said she had spoken to the men who first
Speaker 2: came up with a smiley face killer theory. New York
Speaker 2: City detectives Kevin Gannon and a criminal justice professor named
Speaker 2: doctor Lee Gilbertson who goes by Doc have publicly backed
Speaker 2: this theory over the years. Most of you are listening
Speaker 2: to this probably have heard about the smiley faced killers theory,
Speaker 2: but for those of you not familiar with it, it's
Speaker 2: a theory that has gotten a lot of mainstream media attention,
Speaker 2: and it's also very controversial. In a nutshell, these guys
Speaker 2: believe that a person or a group of serial killers
Speaker 2: have been murdering young men, mostly college age and athletic
Speaker 2: young men, around the country and making the deaths look
Speaker 2: like accidental drownings. Between nineteen ninety seven and two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven, around forty five young men have been pulled
Speaker 2: out of bodies of water in the United States. The
Speaker 2: first killing that was supposedly linked to this killer was
Speaker 2: when Fordham University student Patrick McNeil disappeared in New York
Speaker 2: City on February sixteenth, nineteen ninety seven, after being seen
Speaker 2: at the Dapper Dog Bar on the Upper East Side.
Speaker 2: Patrick disappeared on April seventh. His body was found floating
Speaker 2: in the water near a pier in the Bay Ridge
Speaker 2: area of Brooklyn, and after he was pulled out of
Speaker 2: the East River. Patrick's cause of death was listed as drowning,
Speaker 2: manner of death undetermined, like Tyler and like so many
Speaker 2: other men in the United States. Later, Kevin and his
Speaker 2: colleague said they found evidence that made them believe that
Speaker 2: Patrick had been murdered, tortured, and placed in the water
Speaker 2: after being drugged. The detectives believed that there were a
Speaker 2: lot of things that were not consistent with drowning, including
Speaker 2: the position of the body in the water. Now, a
Speaker 2: lot of people, including the FBI and other experts, have
Speaker 2: dismissed this theory. They've said it's just a conspiracy theory,
Speaker 2: it's an urban legend. A lot of people do not
Speaker 2: believe the Smiley Faced Killer is real at all.
Speaker 1: I have mixed feelings about this.
Speaker 2: I do think it's extremely unlikely that one person or
Speaker 2: a gang of killers is responsible for all these deaths. Personally,
Speaker 2: I think the weakest part of the argument is the
Speaker 2: connection to the smiley face graffiti, because one of the
Speaker 2: things that these detectives said the killings had in common
Speaker 2: was the fact that there was smiley face graffiti and
Speaker 2: a lot of these murder sites. But to be honest,
Speaker 2: sometimes there wasn't a smiley face. Sometimes the smiley face
Speaker 2: was found miles away. And the smiley face, by the way,
Speaker 2: is one of the most common symbols in the world.
Speaker 2: That and maybe the peace sign are everywhere, so I
Speaker 2: find that I don't think that there's any link between
Speaker 2: smiley face graffiti and murder. On the other hand, the
Speaker 2: truth is death by drowning is very common in the
Speaker 2: United States. We know that a lot of these young
Speaker 2: men like Tyler, were intoxicated, and young intoxicated men are
Speaker 2: the second group most likely to die from drowning, the
Speaker 2: first being children. According to Sandra, she reached out to
Speaker 2: Kevin and Dock. They said they did look into Tyler's case.
Speaker 2: They said they don't believe that it's connected to the
Speaker 2: other cases, but they did tell her they do believe
Speaker 2: that Tyler was murdered. By the way, that's another possibility
Speaker 2: that a lot of deaths in the United States that
Speaker 2: are supposedly drownings are in fact due to something else,
Speaker 2: either accidental or otherwise. I've seen groups online blaming these
Speaker 2: supposed smiley faced murders on everything from a female cult
Speaker 2: to a shadowy group of Satanists. But honestly, the biggest
Speaker 2: story for me is not the supposed serial killer. It's
Speaker 2: the fact that look at the sheer number of men
Speaker 2: who disappear from areas with busy waterways in cities including
Speaker 2: Austin and Boston. I actually was floored to learn that
Speaker 2: every single day in the United States, eleven people die
Speaker 2: from drowning. So I can see why since it is
Speaker 2: so common, given the number of deaths, the number of
Speaker 2: times the scenario unfolds, why it would be tempting to
Speaker 2: rule a death a drowning. But that's not fair to
Speaker 2: the victims or to their families. Every single person who
Speaker 2: dies deserves a thorough death investigation and not simply to
Speaker 2: be written off as another statistic. In the same way
Speaker 2: we get so outraged about missing young women being dismissed
Speaker 2: simply because they had mental health issues or other problems.
Speaker 2: We should not assume that a young man simply got
Speaker 2: drunk and fell in the water without a thorough investigation.
Speaker 2: Sandra suspected her son did not die from drowning, and
Speaker 2: she was right because in Tyler's case, the second autopsy
Speaker 2: found the fatal injuries were due to the fall and
Speaker 2: not drowning in a couple of inches of water. So
Speaker 2: now the crucial question is what happened right before the fall.
Speaker 2: Though the amount of the GHB in his blood was small,
Speaker 2: we do have to consider the possibility that Tyler could
Speaker 2: have taken GHB either that night or earlier that day.
Speaker 2: GHB is known to be something that bodybuilders do. Tyler
Speaker 2: was in the best shape of his life. He was
Speaker 2: working out a lot. He was really, really, really into fitness,
Speaker 2: and this drug is popular with people who are into fitness.
Speaker 2: It's a fat burner, it doesn't show up on a
Speaker 2: lot of drug screen and it's in and out of
Speaker 2: the system really fast. It is metabolized very quickly. I
Speaker 2: considered this because even with the high level of alcohol
Speaker 2: in Tyler's blood, according to his friends and family, he
Speaker 2: seemed extremely intoxicated to the point of not knowing where
Speaker 2: he was. GHB mixed with alcohol can cause this. Amy
Speaker 2: asked Onny if, to his knowledge, Tyler ever took GHB.
Speaker 4: I know we had a friend who was trying to
Speaker 4: kind of body build and he used he would use staburners.
Speaker 4: I don't know if those are the same. They're probably
Speaker 4: two different things. But no, if he was using that,
Speaker 4: he didn't tell me that. I mean, when we'd hang out,
Speaker 4: he wasn't there were people around us who did drugs
Speaker 4: or did whatever. He wasn't really the type to participate
Speaker 4: in that.
Speaker 2: So this is interesting because in my experience, I have
Speaker 2: written a lot about GHB in the past, and also
Speaker 2: in high school, back when it was legal. I took
Speaker 2: it a few times, and I did drink with GHB
Speaker 2: once and I had a horrific experience that resulted in
Speaker 2: me almost dying. So I've seen firsthand how easy it
Speaker 2: can be to get things slightly wrong and to get
Speaker 2: into a dangerous situation. That's just a complete side note,
Speaker 2: but only seems to be saying that this stuff fat
Speaker 2: burners GHB was something that was around in their social circle.
Speaker 2: It's possible that Tyler took some, maybe even not thinking
Speaker 2: it would affect him at all, and that it combined
Speaker 2: with alcohol with disastrous results. One of Tyler's best friends
Speaker 2: was a guy named Nate. He said that he met
Speaker 2: Tyler when they and another friend of theirs named Tommy,
Speaker 2: went through National Guard training together, but they met again
Speaker 2: when they attended the same college, and that's when their
Speaker 2: friendship really solidified. Nate talked about how much Tyler loved
Speaker 2: listening to EDM music and djaying at home. He said
Speaker 2: they also worked out together almost every day. Nate said
Speaker 2: that he did not know for sure if Tyler would
Speaker 2: have taken GHB, but he said he would not be
Speaker 2: surprised if Tyler had taken some kind of fat burner,
Speaker 2: which is what GHB is called, to get in shape
Speaker 2: for the academy. Nate was far away when Tyler died,
Speaker 2: so our conversation with him was not really related to
Speaker 2: the immediate investigation.
Speaker 1: But I want to.
Speaker 2: Include this because it was so clear how much Nate
Speaker 2: cared about his friend and how much he truly wanted
Speaker 2: to help.
Speaker 1: So I was inspired by that.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to end on something he said, because
Speaker 2: I think it's a crucial message for everyone out there
Speaker 2: who goes on a night out with friends to hear, hey.
Speaker 5: Let Tyler go alone, which is never a good thing.
Speaker 5: I mean, I know, I always tell even my soldiers here,
Speaker 5: because I'm in charge of about fifty of them, I say, like,
Speaker 5: if one of you.
Speaker 6: Get kicked out of a.
Speaker 7: Bar, you all get kicked out of the bar.
Speaker 5: When he goes home, you always need to travel with
Speaker 5: a battle buddy, or at least two or three of
Speaker 5: you go to make sure you know each other gets
Speaker 5: home safe. So the fact that I mean it angers
Speaker 5: me is the fact that they just kind of let
Speaker 5: him go and they're like, Okay, you go see you tomorrow,
Speaker 5: because I mean, you never know, you never know what's
Speaker 5: going to happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then for you know, this this happened.
Speaker 5: And I feel like if somebody else is with him,
Speaker 5: the situation or this outcome would not be the thing.
Speaker 2: Sandra says that, to her knowledge, her son has never
Speaker 2: taken GHB. She says she and her family are not
Speaker 2: giving up in their quests for justice for Tyler. She's
Speaker 2: keeping the Justice for Tyler Smith facebook page going. She's
Speaker 2: continuing to gather evidence any way that she can. I
Speaker 2: also want to help in any way that we can. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: a lot of the surveillance footage that would have shown
Speaker 2: Tyler was deleted after a couple of weeks, so it's
Speaker 2: lost forever. But sometimes social media posts live for much
Speaker 2: longer online. I have found Facebook live footage of the
Speaker 2: Corner Connection bar from the night of September fourteenth and
Speaker 2: the early morning hours of September fifteenth, twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: I believe there is more footage out there.
Speaker 2: If you were there at the Corner Connection that night
Speaker 2: or in that area, please look through your phone.
Speaker 1: You never know.
Speaker 2: A black screen from a photo that you accidentally took
Speaker 2: from your jeans pocket could capture crucial audio. The crucial
Speaker 2: window of time is only a few minutes long. This
Speaker 2: was a small bar with only a few people there,
Speaker 2: and there's always a chance that someone out there saw something.
Speaker 5: It is unfortunate that some people don't want to talk
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 6: I mean, the more.
Speaker 5: The more information provide, the better. I mean, even if
Speaker 5: it's something that you've already you know, somebody's already said.
Speaker 5: I mean, at least it just shows that shows that support,
Speaker 5: and that's definitely you know what I've always.
Speaker 4: Been here for.
Speaker 5: I wear a bracelet on my wrist every single day
Speaker 5: for him. You know, it's in the military. If you
Speaker 5: have a fallen comrade, either in combat or or personal life,
Speaker 5: you know, you wear that kind of represent them, you know,
Speaker 5: you kind of put his what his MOS was, with
Speaker 5: his military occupational specialty, his job, and then like you know,
Speaker 5: the born you know, to and front dates and and
Speaker 5: you know, maybe a little little saying about him. So
Speaker 5: I continuously wear that around my rest every day, and
Speaker 5: then I have one sitting in my office on display,
Speaker 5: and he'd be frankly honest with you, I I definitely
Speaker 5: think that he has protected me in my life when
Speaker 5: I when I needed it the most, when I got
Speaker 5: assaulted back when I was in station in Colorado before
Speaker 5: my first employment. So even still to this day, I
Speaker 5: know that tis he's up there, up there Washington.
Speaker 2: I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen
Speaker 2: Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine
Speaker 2: Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to Amy
Speaker 2: Tubbs for her research assistance. Music contributed by Ben Sale,
Speaker 2: executive producers of Virginia Prescott Brandon Barr and Elsie Crow.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helengong Murder line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 2: four four six one four five. That's six seven eight
Speaker 2: seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans