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Speaker 2: Her eleven year old granddaughter would grow faf at the
Speaker 2: bus about seven am this morning and never made it
Speaker 2: on the bus and has not been seen since ty
Speaker 2: twenty six. Female is about cross my four for eleven
Speaker 2: eighty six pounds, blond, long hair, blue eyes, lasting war
Speaker 2: her dark colored.
Speaker 3: On February fifteenth, twenty twenty four, the day after Valentine's Day,
Speaker 3: eleven year old Audrey Cunningham, a fifth grade student at
Speaker 3: Creekside Elementary in Livingston, Texas, never made it to the
Speaker 3: bus stop. Audrey's parents are divorced. She lived with her father,
Speaker 3: Joshua Lee Cunningham, in Livingston, which is about seventy five
Speaker 3: miles north of Houston in Polk County. Some other family members,
Speaker 3: including her grandmother, also lived on the same property. Audrey
Speaker 3: was born on February fifteenth, twenty thirteen, so she had
Speaker 3: just turned eleven years old. She loved animals. In fact,
Speaker 3: one of her favorite things in the world to do
Speaker 3: was in the morning, when she would walk to the
Speaker 3: bus stop, she would stop to pet her neighbor's dog.
Speaker 3: The first people to notice that Audrey was missing were
Speaker 3: at her school. Apparently, school officials notified her father, Joshua
Speaker 3: at around noon that she never made it to school
Speaker 3: that day. Now, that's what law enforcement has stated, but
Speaker 3: I have seen other reports saying that in Texas, like
Speaker 3: in many other states, they have an automated system that
Speaker 3: techts parents when a child doesn't show up, So it
Speaker 3: may have taken longer for that to happen for her
Speaker 3: father to receive that message. But either way, when Audrey
Speaker 3: did not come home after school, her family knew that
Speaker 3: something was very wrong. Audrey's custody situation sounds a little complicated.
Speaker 3: Apparently her dad had full custody and there seemed to
Speaker 3: be some animosity there between her dad and her mom. Apparently,
Speaker 3: Audrey's mother, Cassie, allowed her to live with her father, Joshua,
Speaker 3: and from what the mother has said, it seems like
Speaker 3: that arrangement was not court ordered. It was just something
Speaker 3: they figured out on their own. It had been going
Speaker 3: on for a few years. Cassie said that she allowed
Speaker 3: Audrey to live with her father in order for her
Speaker 3: daughter to have a better life. But as we said,
Speaker 3: there were other people staying on that property. One of
Speaker 3: the people living there was a forty two year old
Speaker 3: friend of the famili's. He lived in a camper out back,
Speaker 3: and this was someone who, though he had a very
Speaker 3: disturbing criminal record, he was allowed to babysit for Audrey.
Speaker 3: But apparently this did not raise any red flags with
Speaker 3: anyone until the day when Audrey vanished. Only then did
Speaker 3: people start taking a hard look at what was really
Speaker 3: going on behind the closed doors of this house. In
Speaker 3: rural Texas, we talk a lot about stranger danger and children,
Speaker 3: but with this case, we're going to see that sometimes
Speaker 3: the most terrifying people in a child's life can be
Speaker 3: living inside the home. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past
Speaker 3: five years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone,
Speaker 3: I've learned that there is no such thing as a
Speaker 3: small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds
Speaker 3: of men messages from people all around the country asking
Speaker 3: for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families,
Speaker 3: and their communities. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 3: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 3: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 3: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four
Speaker 3: or five. This is Helen Gone Murder Line now. As
Speaker 3: listeners of this podcast will know, I very rarely do
Speaker 3: cases that are currently being investigated. I tend to focus
Speaker 3: on cold cases that everyone else has kind of forgotten.
Speaker 3: I also don't tend to do cases where there has
Speaker 3: been a person of interest arrested, where the case is
Speaker 3: closed to being closed. But I'm breaking all the rules
Speaker 3: this week because I think that the Audrey Cunningham case
Speaker 3: is a very important case to cover. First of all,
Speaker 3: I wanted to cover it because it unfolded in a
Speaker 3: really public way. Now Obviously, anytime a young girl is
Speaker 3: murdered or goes missing, this is a tragedy. But in
Speaker 3: my opinion, in this case, the police have shared with
Speaker 3: the public in a way that has been very positive.
Speaker 3: As we will see, police were able to arrest a
Speaker 3: person of interest very quickly. They communicated clearly with the
Speaker 3: community and with other agencies, and they did not withhold information.
Speaker 3: I want to know what we can learn from this
Speaker 3: going forward, so that in cases where there are children
Speaker 3: and young women missing for such a long time. I'm
Speaker 3: hoping that we can take something from this and hopefully
Speaker 3: apply these lessons to some of her other cult cases.
Speaker 2: The missing juvenile called in from the county. They want
Speaker 2: us to take that address with phus.
Speaker 4: There still no side of her negative.
Speaker 3: Audrey Cunningham was officially reported missing to law enforcement at
Speaker 3: around five thirty pm on Thursday, February fifteenth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 3: An Amberlert went out that night for Audrey, describing her
Speaker 3: as four foot eleven, seventy five pounds, wearing a black
Speaker 3: hoodie with white lettering, carrying a camouflage backpack, black pants,
Speaker 3: and black high top tennis shoes. Police immediately started searching
Speaker 3: in the woods behind her house. At first, they may
Speaker 3: have been thinking maybe she went back there to look
Speaker 3: for animals, since she did love animals, or maybe she
Speaker 3: wandered away and got lost. Audrey's family started posting on
Speaker 3: social media immediately after she went missing. Her father, Joshua Cunningham,
Speaker 3: made a post that read, my daughter Audrey Cunningham is missing.
Speaker 3: She did not make it to the bus this morning.
Speaker 3: Contact me and the police immediately with any information.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: This seemed to feed into early media reports that said
Speaker 3: that Audrey had vanished some time on her way to
Speaker 3: school on Thursday. But as I'm going to get into
Speaker 3: a little bit later, I have questions about this timeline
Speaker 3: and when Audrey really disappeared. Of course, police who were
Speaker 3: looking for Audrey were considering all the possibilities. In addition
Speaker 3: to figuring out if a stranger had grabbed her on
Speaker 3: her way to the bus stop, they were also taking
Speaker 3: a close look at her home life. Who was around Audrey,
Speaker 3: who had access to this little girl. Immediately, both the
Speaker 3: community and friends of hers saw pictures of this family friend,
Speaker 3: forty two year old Don Stephen McDougall, who goes by
Speaker 3: his middle name Stephen, and they were asking a lot
Speaker 3: of questions about Stephen. Stephen had a long criminal history.
Speaker 3: He had a swastika tattoo on his shoulder, and a
Speaker 3: lot of people commented on social media and said this
Speaker 3: did not look or sound like the type of guy
Speaker 3: you would want to leave in charge of your children.
Speaker 3: People wanted to know who was this friend of the
Speaker 3: famili's and how was he allowed access to an eleven
Speaker 3: year old child. The Polk County Sheriff's Department did a
Speaker 3: press conference and the Polk County Sheriff Byron Lyons described
Speaker 3: Stephen McDougall as a friend of the family, a friend
Speaker 3: of Audrey's father's. Stephen McDougall lived in a camper on
Speaker 3: the property, but he reportedly had access to the kitchen
Speaker 3: and the bathroom area pretty much the entire house. Reporters
Speaker 3: and police talked to Audrey's mom, Cassie. She said that
Speaker 3: it was her understanding that Stephen would sometimes babysit Audrey,
Speaker 3: and Audrey's routine apparently was that every day she walked
Speaker 3: to the bus stop, and often Stephen was the person
Speaker 3: who walked with her. On occasion, or if she was
Speaker 3: running late or something like that, Stephen would drive Audrey
Speaker 3: to the bus stop in his two thousand and three
Speaker 3: navy blue Chevy Suburban, or he would drive her to school.
Speaker 3: Cassie made a public plea for help.
Speaker 5: I would just like to get the word out that
Speaker 5: we would like to have her come home. It's not
Speaker 5: like her to, you know, just run off forward disappear.
Speaker 5: She has a lot of loving families. She has so
Speaker 5: many people that love her and adore her.
Speaker 3: And she also publicly shared texts that she said were
Speaker 3: from Stephen in which Stephen said he had dropped Audrey
Speaker 3: off to the bus stop that morning. Yet school officials
Speaker 3: stated they confirmed Audrey was not on that bus. She
Speaker 3: did not ride her bus to school that day. So
Speaker 3: these stories conflicted, and it didn't take police long to
Speaker 3: learn that in addition to Stephen's criminal history, he had
Speaker 3: arrests for violent crime and sexual crimes against children. The
Speaker 3: Polk County Police were already talking to Stephen. They confirmed
Speaker 3: Stephen was the last person to see Audrey before she disappeared.
Speaker 3: And I'm not exactly sure of the timeline here, because
Speaker 3: they started talking to Stephen on Thursday, February fifteenth, but
Speaker 3: at some point during their multiple interviews of Stephen. Stephen
Speaker 3: apparently admitted to police that he did leave the house
Speaker 3: with Audrey that morning, but he wouldn't talk about whether
Speaker 3: or not she ever made it to the bus stop.
Speaker 3: This regional story very quickly made national news. Police were
Speaker 3: focusing on the area around Lake Livingstone Dam, a few
Speaker 3: miles from Audrey's home. Then, on Friday, one day after
Speaker 3: Audrey was reported missing, the local news station KHOU eleven
Speaker 3: reported that searchers had found a wet backpack believed to
Speaker 3: be Audrey's. More items of clothing belonging to a child
Speaker 3: were reportedly found near the waterline. The Polk County Sheriff's
Speaker 3: office held a press conference at Bowders Marina. Sheriff Lines
Speaker 3: announced that the FBI and the Texas Rangers and multiple
Speaker 3: other agencies were involved and said they had boats and
Speaker 3: dogs searching the area. And he said in this press
Speaker 3: conference that police hadn't made any rest, but he stated
Speaker 3: that there were persons and he used the plural there
Speaker 3: persons of interest. Meanwhile, police continued to talk to Stephen.
Speaker 3: And what was crazy was this entire situation with the
Speaker 3: police approaching Stephen and talking to him was playing out
Speaker 3: on social media. People were posting Facebook videos of the
Speaker 3: police talking to Stephen outside a donut shop, then Stephen
Speaker 3: getting into a squad car and going to the police station.
Speaker 3: And then it was reported that on February fifteenth, very
Speaker 3: soon after that donut shop confrontation, Stephen was arrested and
Speaker 3: he was taken to the Polk County Jail on an
Speaker 3: unrelated assault charge. So now the public is wondering why
Speaker 3: if Stephen had warrants out on him, and given the
Speaker 3: violence of his past crimes, how was he allowed to
Speaker 3: roam free. Then on February twentieth, there was another press conference.
Speaker 3: That's when the Sheriff's office announced that Audrey Cunningham's body
Speaker 3: had been found. At the press conference on February twentieth,
Speaker 3: Sheriff Line said that finding Audrey's body had been a
Speaker 3: coordinated effort, and he talked about how many groups were involved,
Speaker 3: including the Texas Rangers, Game Wardens, FBI, Harris County Sheriff's Office,
Speaker 3: and there were a lot more. The Trinity River Authority
Speaker 3: actually played a key role here because that agency agreed
Speaker 3: to lower the water level so that the divers could
Speaker 3: do their searches around there. The Polk County District Attorney
Speaker 3: Shelley Sitton said quota resources that were marshaled by sheriff
Speaker 3: lines should show you that in this county they will
Speaker 3: come out when they need to protect our children. The
Speaker 3: sheriff said that Audrey's body had not been visible from
Speaker 3: the surface, so it required special equipment and teams to
Speaker 3: locate her. There was a sonar boat they used to
Speaker 3: scow the river, and again the river authority had slowed
Speaker 3: down the outflow from the reservoir so that water level
Speaker 3: could be lowered. After they found Audrey's body, it was
Speaker 3: transported to Harris County Coroner's office. They did not release
Speaker 3: any information about the condition of her body, but later
Speaker 3: investigators revealed that Audrey's body had been tied to a
Speaker 3: large rock with a rope. And I just want to
Speaker 3: mention here something that I noticed as an investigator. During
Speaker 3: the press conference, the sheriff talked about how powerful social
Speaker 3: media had been. They said they actually thanked people who
Speaker 3: were communicating on social media. The sheriff said that it
Speaker 3: had helped in their investigation, that it had helped pinpoint
Speaker 3: his location, and that in addition to getting cell phone
Speaker 3: data from Stephen's phone, that the social media chatter had
Speaker 3: really helped the case. This does not often happen in
Speaker 3: criminal investigations. If you listen to this podcast, you know
Speaker 3: we've seen way too many where the police give no
Speaker 3: information out and bodies are not recovered quickly. So I
Speaker 3: have to say I think that Paul County did a
Speaker 3: really good job in communicating with the media and the
Speaker 3: public and maintaining the integrity and investigation while also giving
Speaker 3: people information so that they could help. The sheriff also
Speaker 3: said during the press conference there was no evidence that
Speaker 3: Audrey had been held somewhere else before she was put
Speaker 3: in the water, but he said they were still analyzing data.
Speaker 3: It did not take long for amateur detectives and journalists
Speaker 3: to start delving into Stephen's criminal record. The news channel
Speaker 3: Fox twenty six in Houston reported that he had a
Speaker 3: string of arrests and convictions for violent crimes, including dui theft,
Speaker 3: drug possession, and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. The
Speaker 3: most shocking, though, was enticement of a child. One news
Speaker 3: channel did an interview with a guy who had worked
Speaker 3: with Stephen and said that Stephen seemed like a nice guy.
Speaker 3: They worked together at a body shop and one night,
Speaker 3: they got into an argument. Things turned physical and they
Speaker 3: ended up kicking Stephen out of their house. Then Stephen
Speaker 3: came back with a knife and tried to stab this guy.
Speaker 3: The victim called the police and Stephen was arrested. The
Speaker 3: victim told the news channel quote terrifying, it really was.
Speaker 3: He seemed like this nice guy, but he's got this
Speaker 3: whole other side to him that no one seemed to
Speaker 3: know about until now end quote. In fact, this guy
Speaker 3: said he was so horrified by everything that he had
Speaker 3: heard about Stephen that his only actual regret was that
Speaker 3: he didn't kill Stephen, that he didn't shoot him dead
Speaker 3: the night that he was attacked. On February twenty second,
Speaker 3: the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office released Audrey Cunningham's cause
Speaker 3: of death. It was blunt head trauma and the manner
Speaker 3: of death was homicide. Again, I think it was a
Speaker 3: very good call to release this information. Making it publicly
Speaker 3: available definitely helped cut down on the wild rumors and
Speaker 3: online speculation. So again, this case is happening in real time.
Speaker 3: Stephen has not been convicted of this crime, and we
Speaker 3: actually don't know if anyone else is going to be
Speaker 3: arrested or charged. But I have some questions about this timeline.
Speaker 3: Let's take a look back, because at first, police said
Speaker 3: their theory was that Stephen and Audrey drove in the
Speaker 3: car on Thursday morning and that he told Audrey he
Speaker 3: was going to drop her off the bus stop as normal.
Speaker 3: Then they speculated he took a d tour and took
Speaker 3: Audrey somewhere else. But again a lot of their information
Speaker 3: was based on what Stephen was telling them. So I'm
Speaker 3: wondering could something have happened to Audrey before Thursday. The
Speaker 3: first meetia reports that came out said that Audrey had
Speaker 3: last been seen at around seven am on Thursday, February fifteenth,
Speaker 3: the day she reportedly disappeared, But at least according to
Speaker 3: my research, no one but Stephen and possibly others in
Speaker 3: the home say that she was ever seen that morning.
Speaker 3: There was a neighbor who was interviewed by a news channel,
Speaker 3: and this neighbor said she always saw Audrey walk by
Speaker 3: her house every single day on her way to the
Speaker 3: bus stop, and that Audrey would stop to pet her
Speaker 3: dog well. The neighbor told a local news station that
Speaker 3: she remembered seeing Audrey on Valentine's Day, Wednesday, February fourteenth.
Speaker 3: She had actually said Happy Valentine's Day to Audrey, but
Speaker 3: crucially she said she did not see Audrey on Thursday
Speaker 3: the fifteenth. And then there are the disturbing messages that
Speaker 3: Stephen was sending. People were posting Facebook messages saying that
Speaker 3: around the time Audrey disappeared that Stephen was trying to
Speaker 3: solicit them for sex. Stephen allegedly sent some messages about
Speaker 3: wanting to hook up with someone on the night of Wednesday,
Speaker 3: February fourteenth. He was offering, in exchange for sex, the
Speaker 3: title to his truck, meaning the Suburban, or one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: The messages are disturbing, not necessarily because he was wanting
Speaker 3: to hook up, but because these women are saying no.
Speaker 3: One woman responds and says she's engaged. Then she says, look,
Speaker 3: this is disgusting. I'm not a prostitute. I don't know
Speaker 3: why you're offering me money for this. Basically, she blew
Speaker 3: them off. And it's also interesting to me that Stephen
Speaker 3: was making comments about trading in the suburban, because if
Speaker 3: that's true, if he really wanted to get rid of
Speaker 3: the car that in itself is interesting, there was potential
Speaker 3: evidence inside that car. Later investigators said they found rope
Speaker 3: inside Stephen's suburban and that that rope was consistent with
Speaker 3: the rope that had been found tied to Audrey's body.
Speaker 3: And then there are the messages that Stephen supposedly sent
Speaker 3: to Audrey's mother, Cassie. Cassie posted text messages she said
Speaker 3: she exchanged with Stephen, and in these text messages, she
Speaker 3: claims that Stephen was trying to entice her to meet
Speaker 3: with him and with Audrey on Thursday, February fifteenth. So,
Speaker 3: as we mentioned, Cassie was having custody issues with her
Speaker 3: ex husband and she wanted to have more visits with
Speaker 3: her daughter. So the messages that were exchanged between Cassie
Speaker 3: and Stephen were basically Stephen offering to intervene and to
Speaker 3: help Cassie out. Cassie wrote, quote, it makes me sick
Speaker 3: to my stomach that they think that's okay. She has
Speaker 3: an innocent, fragile child's mind and them warping it with
Speaker 3: chaos is not right man end quote. So basically, Cassie's
Speaker 3: saying that she believes that her ex husband is kind
Speaker 3: of turning her daughter. Against her. Stephen seems to be
Speaker 3: acting like this good guy who's a friend of the
Speaker 3: family who's going to plan a meetup with her mother.
Speaker 3: Stephen replied, quote, I might take you out to the
Speaker 3: doc to fish and accidentally pull up with her to fish.
Speaker 3: End quote. So here he's offering to set up a
Speaker 3: meeting with Audrey. Cassie replied, quote, I want to meet
Speaker 3: her too, but if this comes back on me in
Speaker 3: any bad way, I can lose her forever and I
Speaker 3: would kill you then myself. Man, no threat but a
Speaker 3: promise end quote. So then he says, quote it wouldn't
Speaker 3: as long as no one says anything about it being
Speaker 3: set up. No one would even know, and she won't
Speaker 3: say anything to them. I'm your daughter's favorite person, and
Speaker 3: she will not tell she wants to meet you. I
Speaker 3: told you I'm on your team. End quote. Now, Cassie
Speaker 3: apparently got cold feet and did not agree to this
Speaker 3: proposed meeting. I've seen reports that once she suggested to
Speaker 3: Stephen that her boyfriend with her, that he kind of
Speaker 3: cut it off, But either way, the meeting didn't happen.
Speaker 3: But rereading these texts is kind of horrifying because I'm
Speaker 3: wondering what was Stephen planning to do on Thursday. Could
Speaker 3: Audrey have already been dead and he was trying to
Speaker 3: lure her mom out so that he could potentially say
Speaker 3: there had been a parental abduction? Was he planning on
Speaker 3: doing something to Audrey's mother? As it happened so often
Speaker 3: in these cases, there was not only panic and drama
Speaker 3: in the community, but there was also the family drama
Speaker 3: that was playing out on social media. Early in the
Speaker 3: search for Audrey, online groups were created that, of course
Speaker 3: friends or people connected to the family were contributing to.
Speaker 3: And then of course a lot of people were saying
Speaker 3: the mother and the father should have known what was
Speaker 3: going on. Audrey's mom, Cassie confronted these rumors, and the
Speaker 3: rumors included a lot of commenters saying that Cassie had
Speaker 3: lost custody of Audrey because she failed or because there
Speaker 3: were rug's involved in some way. She has said that
Speaker 3: that is an absolute lie. She wrote that she had
Speaker 3: nothing to hide, and she accused people of spreading bullshit online.
Speaker 3: Audrey's mother also spoke out and asked anyone with information
Speaker 3: about Audrey's whereabouts to come forward. She told the news
Speaker 3: channel KPRC. We have no leads, so we are grasping
Speaker 3: at any string, any signs anything. In general. You were broken,
Speaker 3: you're mad, you're empty, and right now I am empty.
Speaker 3: Later there was an online post that Cassie made visible.
Speaker 3: The Daily Mail reported on it, and the Daily Beasts
Speaker 3: followed up. She wrote, quote, I'll make this clear one time,
Speaker 3: and one time only, I failed my daughter by being
Speaker 3: bullied into submission by her father's family and being made
Speaker 3: to believe she was in a safe, loving and normal
Speaker 3: home with her father. End quote. Joshua Cunningham side of
Speaker 3: the family has been quieter, but a man named Chris
Speaker 3: Booth addressed a crowd of reporters and people from the
Speaker 3: community and said that he was speaking on behalf of
Speaker 3: the family.
Speaker 4: He said, I'm gonna ask that if you don't know anything,
Speaker 4: don't say anything. All you're doing is hurting the family.
Speaker 4: That makes no sense. You don't know what they're going through.
Speaker 4: You don't know the circumstances. I do know Audrey is loved,
Speaker 4: I know Audrey has cared for and I know Audrey
Speaker 4: loved her grandmother, her father, her brother and family. I'm
Speaker 4: asking everybody to stop the bs and I'm sorry for
Speaker 4: the language, the bs on Facebook and all the garbage
Speaker 4: talk on Facebook. You don't know the circumstances. Leave it alone.
Speaker 3: But the truth is, with Stephen living there, clearly this
Speaker 3: was far from a normal and healthy environment for a child.
Speaker 3: One person he knew exactly what Stephen McDougall was capable
Speaker 3: of was another one of his past victims. Her name
Speaker 3: is Carissa Davis. ABC thirteen did an interview with her
Speaker 3: about what happened back in two thousand and seven. Back then,
Speaker 3: Carissa was ten years old. She was at a family
Speaker 3: gathering and Stephen, who was a friend of the families,
Speaker 3: came into the bedroom that night where she was sleeping
Speaker 3: with one of her cousins. She said, Stephen pulled her
Speaker 3: cousin out of the bed and then crawled in there.
Speaker 3: She said, quote he tried to take down my pants
Speaker 3: and I immediately jumped up at that moment. I remember
Speaker 3: looking at him. I was like, do you know how
Speaker 3: old I am? End quote. The grand jury indictment backed
Speaker 3: up Caris's version of events. The indictment explained that Stephen
Speaker 3: had removed another female from the bed where his victim
Speaker 3: was sleeping, then pulled down her pajama bottoms and underwear.
Speaker 3: But it didn't stop there because Carissa managed to break
Speaker 3: free and she tried to run outside, but then Stephen
Speaker 3: chased her and grabbed her again. She said she started
Speaker 3: hitting him and she managed to break free. Her family
Speaker 3: called the police and he was arrested. Stephen was originally
Speaker 3: charged with attempted indecency with a child, but he was
Speaker 3: allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge of child enticement.
Speaker 3: Now crucially, this meant he did not have to register
Speaker 3: as a sex offender, so if you look him up
Speaker 3: in the sex offender registry, nothing would come up under
Speaker 3: his name. And in addition to that, even though he
Speaker 3: was sentenced to two years in prison, he got credit
Speaker 3: for time served for the time he'd been waiting around
Speaker 3: for trial, so he was out in six months. And
Speaker 3: even more shocking than this to me is the fact
Speaker 3: that members of Stephen's family said this incident was just exaggerated.
Speaker 3: They backed him up, and some of them actually seemed
Speaker 3: to blame the victim. I have seen this lay out
Speaker 3: in so many other cases, and it is always shocking
Speaker 3: to me. Stephen's mother joined one of the social media
Speaker 3: groups that was created after Audrey disappeared. Now, according to commenters,
Speaker 3: this post has been removed, but there were comments in there,
Speaker 3: allegedly made by members of Stephen's family that called this
Speaker 3: ten year old victim a little bitch. And there are
Speaker 3: screenshots that people in the group have taken of other
Speaker 3: people in Stephen's family liking that post. And another commenter,
Speaker 3: someone who said that she was a friend of one
Speaker 3: of Stephen's sisters, said she had ended the friendship with
Speaker 3: that sister because she claimed that when she brought up
Speaker 3: the incident, the sister said it was exaggerated and that
Speaker 3: this little girl had made up the story, And this
Speaker 3: person said they had told Stephen's sister they don't believe
Speaker 3: that children make up stories like that. The bottom line
Speaker 3: was this friend of Stephen's family's absolutely believed there were
Speaker 3: people in this family who knew, or at least should
Speaker 3: have known, about his proclivities. Sheriff Lynes told CNN that
Speaker 3: before Stephen was arrested, he had been out searching for Audrey.
Speaker 3: Stephen had inserted himself into the case. He'd been going
Speaker 3: door to or looking for her. We've seen this a
Speaker 3: lot in these cases. There seem to be two responses
Speaker 3: in general from guilty people. Some people completely avoid looking
Speaker 3: or being present at all, or sometimes they seem a
Speaker 3: little too overly involved in the investigation. Now, again, Steven
Speaker 3: is innocent until proven guilty. We don't know what he
Speaker 3: has said to police. Law enforcement has stated when the
Speaker 3: Texas Rangers initially questioned him, he said, quote, I'm not guilty.
Speaker 3: I was there and was questioned. I am not running
Speaker 3: or hiding. I've done everything I can to help find her.
Speaker 3: I've done nothing wrong end quote. And again, I just
Speaker 3: want to say I think the police did a great job,
Speaker 3: not only with finding Audrey's body in cooperating with other agencies,
Speaker 3: but also they put out a photo of Steven's two
Speaker 3: thousand and three Chevy Suburban and they asked anyone who
Speaker 3: had seen that vehicle to come forward, and it worked.
Speaker 3: A store clerk at the Exxon in Cold Spring told
Speaker 3: the news channel KPRC two that after she saw the
Speaker 3: Amber alert, she realized she had seen Stephen in her
Speaker 3: convenience store at around nine am on the morning of
Speaker 3: February fifteenth. Now, this would have been around two hours
Speaker 3: after Audrey missed her bus. She said she definitely remembered Stephen,
Speaker 3: because he's, in her words, so ugly. It's a face
Speaker 3: you don't forget. So because of this quick work by
Speaker 3: the police in issuing the amber alert and the vehicle
Speaker 3: of interest, the gas station attendant called the police. Police
Speaker 3: came in and they were able to pull the gas
Speaker 3: station video. Again, this is a great thing because we
Speaker 3: know in so many of these cases sometimes law enforcement
Speaker 3: waits too long and the footage has been deleted or
Speaker 3: taped over. Police were also able to obtain social media
Speaker 3: information from Stephen. Later that night, the evening of February fifteenth,
Speaker 3: Stephen or someone using his account posted as Faiseo page.
Speaker 3: Stephen was selling a lot of stuff. According to KPRC two,
Speaker 3: whoever posted those messages wrote all must go. This included
Speaker 3: a set of weights with one of the weights missing,
Speaker 3: an everlast boxing bag, and a green paddle and the
Speaker 3: total for all these items was twelve hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: four dollars. So I have a couple of questions about this,
Speaker 3: like what did he do with the twenty five pound weight?
Speaker 3: Why was that missing? Was it just a coincidence that
Speaker 3: Audrey's body was weighed down? Is that weight somewhere random
Speaker 3: or could it be in the river too. I'm sure
Speaker 3: that much more information will come out about what actually
Speaker 3: happened to Audrey as we get closer to a trial
Speaker 3: or a plea deal. As of now, Don Stephen Cunningham
Speaker 3: is in the Polk County jail. So we've talked about
Speaker 3: the good news, how law enforcement has said, how vital
Speaker 3: citizen information and footage was in helping in the search
Speaker 3: for Audrey and the criminal investigation in this case. And
Speaker 3: now we're going to get to the bad news because
Speaker 3: the reality is, yes, the guy was caught quickly, but
Speaker 3: an eleven year old girl is dead, and the fact
Speaker 3: that this was allowed to happen, that she was allowed
Speaker 3: to be taken care of for so long by this
Speaker 3: sexual predator, just shows, in my opinion, how she was
Speaker 3: failed by so many people on so many levels. We've
Speaker 3: seen this over and over in past cases, with the
Speaker 3: Cass County three, with Christina Pipkin's case, how there are
Speaker 3: sexual predators who were allowed to interact with children. And
Speaker 3: it's too late for little Audrey, but there are so
Speaker 3: many other children out there who can be helped. Stephen's
Speaker 3: former victim, Carrissa Gates, who was attacked by Stephen when
Speaker 3: she was ten years old. The one who bravely shared
Speaker 3: her story wrote something at the bottom of her Facebook post.
Speaker 3: She wrote, I'm not the only victim, and that's the
Speaker 3: terrifying part. There are so many other victims out there,
Speaker 3: as many of you know. I'm all about calls to
Speaker 3: action on this podcast. So many people always ask what
Speaker 3: can I do? And I'm reading a lot of these
Speaker 3: social media comments and people are leaving bouquets of flowers
Speaker 3: or photoshopping angel wings onto Audrey, or suggesting painting a
Speaker 3: bridge or a park bench in her honor. And don't
Speaker 3: get me wrong, those are all lovely sentiments, but for me, honestly,
Speaker 3: if you want to do something to help victims, my
Speaker 3: suggestion is that you take a hard look around your family,
Speaker 3: your friends, and your community and look for situations where
Speaker 3: children could be at risk, because they are everywhere. Let's
Speaker 3: not wait to drag a body out of a river
Speaker 3: before other victims of sexual assault are helped and these
Speaker 3: predators and potential killers are exposed and put behind bars
Speaker 3: where they belong. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 3: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
Speaker 3: school of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 3: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Music
Speaker 3: contributed by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 3: and Elsie Crotley. If you have a case you'd like
Speaker 3: me and my team to look into, you can reach
Speaker 3: out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at
Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 3: That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans