Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: When you have a loved one and you find those
Speaker 2: little inconsistencies, It's hard to sleep when you know that
Speaker 2: something is not right.
Speaker 1: I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
Speaker 1: in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
Speaker 1: podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
Speaker 1: research for my many audio and book projects has taken
Speaker 1: me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
Speaker 1: with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
Speaker 1: and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
Speaker 1: crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
Speaker 1: good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
Speaker 1: unpublished details behind their stories. In nineteen eighty six, seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Keith Warren was found hanging from a tree
Speaker 1: in Silver Spring, Maryland. His sister wanted answers how did
Speaker 1: he die? It was ruled a suicide, but there were
Speaker 1: so many suspicious things about Keith's death. I talked to
Speaker 1: filmmaker April Speaks about her docuseries Uprooted, which covers Keith's case.
Speaker 1: So when you talk to people about this series, what
Speaker 1: do you say, what's your kind of really quick elevator pitch,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of sentences of what the story
Speaker 1: is about.
Speaker 2: Typically, the way I would describe this series is to
Speaker 2: kind of talk about what happens. You know, I said,
Speaker 2: you know, there was a seventeen year old young man
Speaker 2: who was killed in a who was found whose body
Speaker 2: was found hanging from a tree in Silver Spring, Maryland
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty six. But you know, the more I
Speaker 2: think about it, and especially now that I've had some
Speaker 2: time to reflect and kind of sort of be distance
Speaker 2: from it a little bit in terms of time, I
Speaker 2: would really describe it as a story about grief, a
Speaker 2: family's grief and loss, and a mixed bag of unanswered questions.
Speaker 2: And you know, it is essentially about a young man
Speaker 2: named Keith Warne who grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty six, he was found hanging from a
Speaker 2: tree and the police immediately ruled it a suicide and
Speaker 2: the family said, no way, this can't be possible. And
Speaker 2: they've been on a quest ever since then to find
Speaker 2: justice for their son, their brother, their nephew, just to
Speaker 2: find answers and ultimately to find their form what they
Speaker 2: would consider to be justice, because I think that, you know,
Speaker 2: justice looks different for different people in terms of what
Speaker 2: that means. And so what they were looking for was
Speaker 2: for the death certificate to be changed because the death
Speaker 2: certificate was ruled suicide on the death certificate and they
Speaker 2: wanted it to be changed from suicide to undetermined because
Speaker 2: there were so many questions. So it wasn't even so
Speaker 2: much that they were, you know, searching for a killer
Speaker 2: or searching for you know, who done it. They just
Speaker 2: wanted a piece of paper changed. So it's a heartbreaking story.
Speaker 1: What was your before we get into the actual story
Speaker 1: about Keith? What was your end? Did you know his
Speaker 1: mom or who did you know? Or did you just
Speaker 1: reach out kind of cold call somebody.
Speaker 3: This story came to me through now this the EP.
Speaker 2: Matt McDonough heard about this story on a podcast and
Speaker 2: reached out to Sherry Warren and just said, this is
Speaker 2: a fascinating story.
Speaker 3: Can I talk to you more about it?
Speaker 2: And became friends with Sherry, and then Matt approached me
Speaker 2: about the story and as someone who used to live
Speaker 2: in Silver Spring, who went to undergrad University of Maryland
Speaker 2: and College Park. Spent a lot of my growing up
Speaker 2: years going back and if I had a lot of
Speaker 2: family in Maryland, so Maryland, that Maryland DC area is
Speaker 2: kind of like a second home to me. And so
Speaker 2: to hear about this story, it piqued my interest. And
Speaker 2: also just hearing about Sherry also just as another black
Speaker 2: woman just trying to find justice for her brother, was
Speaker 2: of interest. So anyways, Matt reached out to me, and
Speaker 2: he and I teamed up and we started developing the
Speaker 2: story and you know, just hearing more from Sherry and
Speaker 2: trying to put pieces together and bring it to life.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of my involvement with this story kind
Speaker 2: of came through through Matt. And like I said, once
Speaker 2: I met Sherry, honestly, like once I heard the story itself,
Speaker 2: it's like just even without meeting Sherry, just the story
Speaker 2: in and of itself. And I think I had actually
Speaker 2: seen some of the photos, the photographs of Keith in
Speaker 2: the woods. I immediately had a bunch of questions which
Speaker 2: we can talk about, but like I just had a
Speaker 2: bunch of questions just off of the photos themselves. And
Speaker 2: like I said, and then after that, then meeting Sherry
Speaker 2: was kind of what I think sort of kickstarted the
Speaker 2: whole journey.
Speaker 1: You know, in my stories, even though I write about
Speaker 1: historical crime and my stories, I'm always searching for the heroes, specifically,
Speaker 1: I'm always on the hunt for female heroes. And we
Speaker 1: have Sherry, and we have his mother. You have women
Speaker 1: who are really in men, but really women who are
Speaker 1: stepping in and I know that they're his family members,
Speaker 1: but they felt so strongly before we jump into Keith's story,
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what your impression of is is
Speaker 1: Why is this so important to them? Is it something
Speaker 1: about saving his reputation? I don't that's not the right phrase,
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean, what is it that drove
Speaker 1: them so much?
Speaker 2: That's a really great question. There's a couple of things
Speaker 2: at play, I think. I think dignity is part of it,
Speaker 2: especially when you know someone so well and you know
Speaker 2: there's always just that nagging you know. It's like it's
Speaker 2: like when someone lies on you, right, Like, I think
Speaker 2: we all have that instinct when someone tells a lie
Speaker 2: about you that you just that you're just like this,
Speaker 2: this is not true about me, And for a lot
Speaker 2: of us, it just continues to nag at you until
Speaker 2: you're able to prove and say, like, this is just
Speaker 2: not the truth. I think that there's a level of
Speaker 2: dignity of a person, that person being Keith Warren, and
Speaker 2: you know your brother, you know your son, you just
Speaker 2: know that this is not something that they would do
Speaker 2: and just want to prove that. I think there's also
Speaker 2: another element of accountability and really wanting the police department
Speaker 2: to take accountability for at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: an investigation that was never conducted. This case would have
Speaker 2: probably been different if an investigation had been done. And
Speaker 2: I think that a big part of it, at the
Speaker 2: at the core of it is that to be so
Speaker 2: sure of yourself to rule it a suicide without an investigation,
Speaker 2: I think that that's something that weighs very heavily on
Speaker 2: the family, that that's something that just needs to be righted,
Speaker 2: it needs to be corrected. And then, like I said,
Speaker 2: you know, in addition to that, it's like we know
Speaker 2: this person and this is just this isn't right, This
Speaker 2: isn't the truth, This isn't the truth of the matter,
Speaker 2: and we don't know what the truth is. You know,
Speaker 2: even to this day, even the family themselves will say
Speaker 2: even Sherry will say, we don't know, we don't know
Speaker 2: what happened. We're not even you know, even when we
Speaker 2: did this series, you know, she would constantly say, I'm
Speaker 2: not looking to find you know, the killer, because we can't.
Speaker 2: There was no investigation, we don't have any evidence.
Speaker 1: In eighty six, gosh, let me mention a story and
Speaker 1: you just tell me what you think, and then I
Speaker 1: promise we will start talking about Keith. So At a
Speaker 1: convention several years ago, I interviewed a man who was
Speaker 1: the father of a geologist named Daniel Robinson. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you've heard about this case in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: He was a black man in Arizona who just disappeared
Speaker 1: in the desert. He went to a site, one of
Speaker 1: his work sites, and he vanished. And the reason that
Speaker 1: we were talking about the story besides that you know
Speaker 1: he was a missing person that you know, this happened
Speaker 1: right when the Gabby Patito case was coming out, and
Speaker 1: his father was disturbed because you know, of course how
Speaker 1: much attension that case received while his son went missing
Speaker 1: under mysterious circumstances, and you know, of course, this is
Speaker 1: we're leading up to how much do you think the
Speaker 1: dismissing from the police in Maryland that this was just
Speaker 1: a suicide and this was nothing else had to do
Speaker 1: with the fact that he was a man of color.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I absolutely think that that had something to do
Speaker 2: with it. And I think that in ruling it a
Speaker 2: suicide was their way of making it go away. And
Speaker 2: I think that they thought they were just gonna, you know,
Speaker 2: come to the scene and just say, you know, write
Speaker 2: something on a piece of paper, and that in no
Speaker 2: time it would be forgotten. And I also think that,
Speaker 2: you know, going back to your question about why have
Speaker 2: they been pursuing why have they been so persistent in this,
Speaker 2: I do think that there's something about erasure, you know,
Speaker 2: of a loved one, that there's just no acknowledgment, there's
Speaker 2: no acknowledgment of the passing of a life, of a
Speaker 2: life gone. And yeah, I do think that the police department,
Speaker 2: the media, there was no media at that time done
Speaker 2: on this case. I think everyone just kind of brushed
Speaker 2: it off. I think labeling it as a suicide was
Speaker 2: an easy way to brush it off without having to
Speaker 2: point fingers at anyone, without having to implicate anyone. He
Speaker 2: acted alone. He did this by himself. He was in
Speaker 2: the woods. This was all him. Case closed, move on.
Speaker 2: So yes, I definitely think that that was part of it.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, I also think that that
Speaker 2: was a big reason why the family was so adamant
Speaker 2: in proving that that could not have been the case.
Speaker 2: There were so many little things, even from from day one,
Speaker 2: there were things that just didn't add up. And I
Speaker 2: don't think when you're when you have a loved one
Speaker 2: and you find those little inconsistencies, it's hard to sleep when, yeah,
Speaker 2: when you know that something is not right.
Speaker 1: Tell me about Keith, kind of start from the beginning.
Speaker 1: What do we know about him? What kind of kid
Speaker 1: is this? He turns into a teenager? What is he like?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So Keith Warren.
Speaker 2: From what we gathered about him through Sherry, through friends
Speaker 2: and artifacts that we found is that Keith was a
Speaker 2: typical teenager. He liked to play basketball, He loved to
Speaker 2: listen to music. You know, he had his favorite rock bands.
Speaker 2: He listened to You Two, he listened to the Police,
Speaker 2: He had friends. He was about to go to college.
Speaker 2: He had just graduated from high school that summer and
Speaker 2: was preparing to go to college.
Speaker 3: He was just a typical teenager.
Speaker 2: He lived in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is right outside
Speaker 2: of the nation's capital, living in a diverse neighborhood, you know,
Speaker 2: being a black family living in what was known as
Speaker 2: Georgian colonies. You know, he some people would describe him
Speaker 2: as different me and you know when they said that,
Speaker 2: they meant he was just kind of the guy that
Speaker 2: knew everybody, that hung out with everyone, but also just
Speaker 2: had his you know, his own way about things and
Speaker 2: his own way of doing things. He was a typical kid,
Speaker 2: you know, atypical kid getting ready to go off to
Speaker 2: college and start his life as an adult and home wife.
Speaker 2: So he lived with his mother. His mother, Mary Cooey,
Speaker 2: raised him and his sisters Sherrie. Their father lived in
Speaker 2: North They were not together. His father lived in North Carolina,
Speaker 2: and they moved, the three of them moved at a
Speaker 2: young age.
Speaker 3: They moved to Silver Spring.
Speaker 2: So he had grown up in the home with Mary
Speaker 2: and with Sherry, and the three of them were like
Speaker 2: the three Musketeers. I mean, they were inseparable. Everyone in
Speaker 2: that community knew Sherry, they knew Keith, they knew Mary,
Speaker 2: you know, and it was a community and they were
Speaker 2: just getting along, you know. But like I said, and
Speaker 2: also I will say too, you know, the three of
Speaker 2: them were close, and they also had a very close
Speaker 2: extended family also, so they had you know, uncles, aunts
Speaker 2: who lived in North Carolina still that they went you
Speaker 2: know to visit very often. Mary had, I know, she
Speaker 2: had a couple of brothers and you know a sister
Speaker 2: as well, sister in New Jersey and a couple of
Speaker 2: brothers in North Carolina. That they were very close as well,
Speaker 2: and they would travel back and forth to visit those
Speaker 2: that family quite often. So they would go back to
Speaker 2: North Carolina. They own you know, acres of land in Behama,
Speaker 2: North Carolina. They would go and spend holidays or you know,
Speaker 2: does at any given moment go there. And then the
Speaker 2: same thing with New Jersey they would go and visit there.
Speaker 2: So they were a tight knit family in terms of
Speaker 2: the three of them, but then also their extended family
Speaker 2: was very close as well.
Speaker 1: So you said he had friends in high school, did
Speaker 1: he date at all?
Speaker 2: There were rumors of you know, he liked this person
Speaker 2: or he liked that person. In all honesty, it's hard
Speaker 2: to get a sense of specifically who was his girlfriend,
Speaker 2: Who was he dating at the time, Who was this?
Speaker 3: Who was that?
Speaker 2: Because none of the friends would talk to us, Sherry
Speaker 2: was not aware of, you know, a specific girlfriend do
Speaker 2: you know that he had. But we did find letters.
Speaker 2: There were letters that you know, some of the girls
Speaker 2: in his class had written him, but all of those
Speaker 2: letters were like very friendly, you know, yeah, close friends,
Speaker 2: but you know, they were all kind of on a
Speaker 2: friendship level. We didn't find any letters that were you know,
Speaker 2: love letters or anything like that.
Speaker 3: So it's kind of it's hard to say.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we've talked to some people and
Speaker 2: there's like rumors that he may have liked this person
Speaker 2: or liked that person, but it's hard to say definitively
Speaker 2: because you know, no one would talk and those people
Speaker 2: that they said it was still a thing of like, well,
Speaker 2: I think I'm not sure, you know, So there was
Speaker 2: never a definitive girlfriend that he had per se.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, you've just said this twice. Why wouldn't
Speaker 1: they talk to you all? Was it just because it
Speaker 1: was so long ago, or were they uncomfortable about something?
Speaker 3: It's TV.
Speaker 1: I get it. A lot of people don't want to
Speaker 1: be on TV.
Speaker 3: That to me is the number one question.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I have many questions after doing this case,
Speaker 2: but that, to me was the most baffling thing because
Speaker 2: we talked to some of his friends, his so called friends.
Speaker 2: They would talk to us on the phone, but when
Speaker 2: it came time to do an interview, they wouldn't say anything.
Speaker 2: And even when we talked to them on the phone,
Speaker 2: they were still being cagey, you know, they were still
Speaker 2: being a little bit well, I don't want to say.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I feel like someone knows something why they won't speak out.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I can make theories assumptions as to what that was,
Speaker 2: what people knew and didn't want to say that they
Speaker 2: knew who people knew. In terms of who was involved,
Speaker 2: I think there may have been some names of people
Speaker 2: that were thrown around that. You know, it's like if
Speaker 2: you know such and such was involved, and you don't
Speaker 2: want to say that person's name, then you just decide
Speaker 2: to stay out of it. There was one person we
Speaker 2: spoke to on the phone. They were great, They said, oh,
Speaker 2: I want to speak out and I want to, you know,
Speaker 2: defend Keith's name. When it came time to do the interview,
Speaker 2: she backed out as almost as if someone had gotten
Speaker 2: into their ear and said, oh, don't do that, because
Speaker 2: they were they were very excited to do the interview
Speaker 2: at one point and then all of a sudden, maybe
Speaker 2: it was cold feet, I don't know, but there's also just,
Speaker 2: you know, this feeling like why is there such a
Speaker 2: hesitance to talk? And did she talk to someone else
Speaker 2: that made them feel like they shouldn't talk to us?
Speaker 3: So I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know that he was from a diverse community, but
Speaker 1: I just wonder if there was in that community the
Speaker 1: same kind of sense I get about, of course police,
Speaker 1: you know, not trusting the police perhaps, but also not
Speaker 1: really not trusting the media either. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: that kind of over to you all, even though you
Speaker 1: were reporting on something that was almost forty years old,
Speaker 1: I mean eighty six and this came out in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two, right on Discovery Plus correct. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I just wonder if that still kind of sticks with
Speaker 1: with people, and maybe they're not hiding anything, but it's
Speaker 1: sort of like, I'm not going to put myself out
Speaker 1: there because I don't like the way other stories have
Speaker 1: been framed in the past.
Speaker 2: It's totally possible, and you know, I've experienced that we
Speaker 2: you know, I've heard that on this show. On other
Speaker 2: shows I've worked on, I've heard that, I heard a
Speaker 2: similar you know, a similar sentiment. I think with this
Speaker 2: with this series, what we really tried to emphasize was
Speaker 2: that we're not trying to We're not trying to implicate
Speaker 2: anyone again because we can't. We literally just wanted someone
Speaker 2: to come on and pretty much just talk about Keith's character.
Speaker 2: You know, our sort of angle with the Friends was simply,
Speaker 2: can you come on and just say Keith was a
Speaker 2: great tell us a story about one time we were
Speaker 2: by the lockers and Keith said this funny joke, like,
Speaker 2: we don't need to ask you anything because again, because
Speaker 2: we're not trying to quote unquote solve the case on this,
Speaker 2: all we want you to do is tell us what
Speaker 2: was great about Keith. And they would tell us on
Speaker 2: the phone, like Keith was such a great guy, he
Speaker 2: was so great, he was so great, he was so great.
Speaker 2: Just say that same thing on camera, and they wouldn't, So,
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, there is a possibility they may not
Speaker 2: trust the media. We try to mitigate that a bit
Speaker 2: by just saying like, we're not trying to pull a gotcha,
Speaker 2: We're not trying to trap you in anything or make
Speaker 2: it look like you're saying something you're not.
Speaker 3: We just want someone to speak for him.
Speaker 2: You know. It's like he's no longer here. He can't
Speaker 2: speak for himself. We have all these family members who
Speaker 2: can speak from that side, but nobody can tell us
Speaker 2: what Keith was like at school except for his friends.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: In doing this show, that was one of those things
Speaker 2: that really kind of struck a nerve for me. You know,
Speaker 2: if you imagine Keith being a young man going about
Speaker 2: his business, and you know, you're having these interactions with
Speaker 2: people you think you believe to be your friends. Right,
Speaker 2: And if I were to think about that, if I
Speaker 2: think about the people who are in my circle who
Speaker 2: I call to be my friends, and God forbid, if
Speaker 2: something were to happen to me at any moment, the
Speaker 2: idea that the people that have been in my.
Speaker 3: House, who have eaten my food, have been in my car.
Speaker 1: Shared your life with you, yeah.
Speaker 2: Shared life with me and know me, and when asked
Speaker 2: about my character or asked about who I am, they
Speaker 2: have nothing to say, Like no one will defend me.
Speaker 2: No one will even just speak a good word about
Speaker 2: that one time I at April's house and we played
Speaker 2: checkers or whatever, Like, no one has anything to say. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just found that to be quite disturbing.
Speaker 1: Take me to wherever we need to go to set
Speaker 1: up this awful event that happens. How far back do
Speaker 1: we go to kind of set this scene up?
Speaker 2: Well, I think we can start in July of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty six. I want to say it was the end
Speaker 2: of July. I think it was July twenty eighth, I
Speaker 2: believe was the date. It was a Tuesday for sure.
Speaker 2: You know, Keith was at home with his sister and
Speaker 2: his Actually he was at home with his mother because
Speaker 2: his sister was in New Jersey at the time visiting
Speaker 2: her aunt that I spoke about earlier. Keith gets a call,
Speaker 2: he talks, he hangs up, and he leaves the house.
Speaker 2: He tells his mother he's gonna go hang out with
Speaker 2: some friends, and he leaves with his backpack. He's wearing
Speaker 2: a pair of shorts and a T shirt. He always
Speaker 2: wore these brown Timberland boots that he wore twenty four
Speaker 2: to seven. He wore them all the time. So it's
Speaker 2: kind of like his signature. Look, but he grabs all
Speaker 2: that and he leaves the house. And that's on Tuesday.
Speaker 2: Wednesday comes there's no Keith. You know, Mary realizes that
Speaker 2: Keith did not come home, as I think, as any
Speaker 2: mother would. She starts to panic a bit and she
Speaker 2: calls the police, and the police tell her that she
Speaker 2: cannot file a missing person's report until he's been gone
Speaker 2: for forty eight hours.
Speaker 3: So she says, okay, she goes back.
Speaker 2: It was July thirty first, nineteen eighty six, when Keith's
Speaker 2: body was found. From what I remember from the case,
Speaker 2: there was a woman that was walking through the woods
Speaker 2: and found his body and called nine one one. She
Speaker 2: found his body, you know, in the woods and called
Speaker 2: nine one one. Now, apparently when the call was made
Speaker 2: it was stated that this is according to the EMT
Speaker 2: who arrived on the scene. When the call was made,
Speaker 2: it was said that there was a body found in
Speaker 2: the basement. So when the EMT came to the house
Speaker 2: where the call came from, there was commotion. Oh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't in the basement. The body was in the woods.
Speaker 2: It was found in the woods, and you know, one
Speaker 2: person came to the door and there was a scuffle,
Speaker 2: and you know, the EMT is like, okay, well wherever
Speaker 2: the body is, like, take us to the body. We
Speaker 2: have to you know, you know, we need to do
Speaker 2: these procedures, like we have to get there right away.
Speaker 2: So the one person says, no, I don't want to
Speaker 2: take you back there. Then another person comes to the door,
Speaker 2: I can take you back there, but they were on crutches,
Speaker 2: so they were gonna go too slow.
Speaker 3: Someone needs to take us to the body.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: A third person comes and they say, okay, I'll take you.
Speaker 2: They take them to the woods and this is where
Speaker 2: they found Keith's body. Within this time, the police arrived
Speaker 2: and it was determined, and they called the coroner and
Speaker 2: determined this to be a suicide. Mind you, they made
Speaker 2: this determination on the scene and the family was not
Speaker 2: notified until several hours after this. So while all this
Speaker 2: is going on, Mary Cooey is at work in I
Speaker 2: believe she worked in Bethesda, Maryland.
Speaker 3: If I remember.
Speaker 1: Correctly, this is his mother, right, This is his mother,
Speaker 1: got it?
Speaker 3: This is his mother Mary.
Speaker 2: So Keith had several forms of identification on him. But
Speaker 2: yet and still she was not notified until several hours later.
Speaker 2: I think we read it was like seven hours later
Speaker 2: that she was notified that all of this happened. Apparently,
Speaker 2: the officer went to the house, there was no one there.
Speaker 2: Like I said, obviously she was at work. They went
Speaker 2: to a neighbor's house and the neighbor said, well, Mary's
Speaker 2: not at home, she's at work.
Speaker 3: Here, I can give you her work number.
Speaker 2: She even offered, like, you can use my telephone, you
Speaker 2: can call her at her job.
Speaker 3: The officer did not call.
Speaker 2: The officer did come to Mary's job many several hours
Speaker 2: later and notified her about what had happened. You know,
Speaker 2: I think the officer said to Mary that he committed suicide.
Speaker 2: And from my reading of the events, it sounds like
Speaker 2: the officer said to Mary, is there any reason why
Speaker 2: you think your son may have ended his own life?
Speaker 2: And in her I'm even at a loss for words,
Speaker 2: like I can't even imagine what's going through her mind
Speaker 2: when you're at work and you're being told this information. Confusion, hurt, anger, sadness,
Speaker 2: all of the things.
Speaker 1: Panic is probably the big one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, panic, I mean all of it, So she says,
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't We had an argument about a car.
Speaker 2: You know, he was like buying a car and they
Speaker 2: had some little, you know, skirmish about a car. And
Speaker 2: so the officer took that and said, oh, well, this
Speaker 2: must have been and I believe that they wrote that
Speaker 2: in the report, like, oh, this is he ended his
Speaker 2: life after an argument with his parents about car. But
Speaker 2: mind you that he had already declared it a suicide
Speaker 2: even after or sorry, before that conversation with Mary. So
Speaker 2: at any rate, Mary comes home. They called the coroner
Speaker 2: ruled it a suicide, and they also ordered the body
Speaker 2: to be taken to Collin's funeral home in Silver Spring.
Speaker 2: So Mary calls the funeral home or goes to the
Speaker 2: funeral home. She also calls her brother in North Carolina
Speaker 2: and asks him to come help, you know, just come
Speaker 2: help her figure all of this out. And the funeral
Speaker 2: home tells them that they can't see the body. This
Speaker 2: is that night, that Thursday night. They tell them that
Speaker 2: they can't see the body because it's decomposed and they
Speaker 2: have to prep the body so they can't see it.
Speaker 2: They wanted to identify the body. They said, you can't
Speaker 2: see it. You have to come back in the morning.
Speaker 2: They go back in the morning. They let them see
Speaker 2: the body briefly.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: According to the uncle Pete Harris, there was nothing like
Speaker 2: decomposed about his body that we couldn't look at him,
Speaker 2: touch him, you know, or just you know, spend a
Speaker 2: little time. At any rate, they gave them supposedly what
Speaker 2: was Keith's belongings, so they handed them the rope.
Speaker 3: Geez.
Speaker 2: Really, yeah, it's terrible. They gave him the rope and
Speaker 2: his boots and a couple of other artifacts that he had,
Speaker 2: you know, in his pockets or what heavy id and
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. They gave that to him. It's
Speaker 2: a sad situation all around, and everyone is grieving obviously.
Speaker 2: Like I said, there's there's these questions that are going
Speaker 2: through their head where they're saying something about this doesn't
Speaker 2: feel right a black man in the woods, you know.
Speaker 2: Even according to Dallas Lip, who was the EMT on
Speaker 2: the scene, he said that when he arrived at the scene,
Speaker 2: it almost looked like Keith was sitting down.
Speaker 3: You know. They said that he jumped off of a log.
Speaker 2: There was no log that was anywhere in that vicinity.
Speaker 2: So there were already these things that were sort of
Speaker 2: like red flags. But the family at that time, they
Speaker 2: are these red flags and they're going something doesn't feel right.
Speaker 2: But Mary Cooey, I think, you know, she had always
Speaker 2: been trying to find out what was the you know,
Speaker 2: what really happened. But there was also this part of them,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe not so much for Mary, but I
Speaker 2: think for some people in the family in the community,
Speaker 2: it was like, I guess that's what happened, you know,
Speaker 2: and you know, let's move on. Definitely for the police department,
Speaker 2: they thought that, you know, that was the end of
Speaker 2: the story. So Mary spent the next few years just
Speaker 2: trying to act on that instinct that something was not right.
Speaker 2: Cut forward to nineteen ninety two. Sherry and Mary Cooey
Speaker 2: are at home and they get a knock on the
Speaker 2: door and they go into the door and there is
Speaker 2: an anonymous envelope with no return address, but it's just
Speaker 2: an envelope left on their door, and their copies of
Speaker 2: the photographs of Keith on that day when he was
Speaker 2: found hanging from the tree.
Speaker 1: They had seen those, right, the police had showed them or.
Speaker 2: No, no, nuts they had not seen those pictures.
Speaker 3: Awful, So they get these.
Speaker 2: Photos and immediately a number of additional alarm bells start
Speaker 2: to ring out, one being his shoes. He has on
Speaker 2: a pair of white tennis shoes. Whose shoes are these?
Speaker 1: Yeah, not the boots.
Speaker 2: Not the boots. Well, because then they had already given
Speaker 2: back the boots and they said these are this is
Speaker 2: what he had on the day of the that he
Speaker 2: was found. But you're looking at these photos and he
Speaker 2: has on white tennis shoes. He has on clothes. It's
Speaker 2: the middle of July. He has on this long sleeve shirt.
Speaker 2: It doesn't even fit him. He left the house in
Speaker 2: a pair of shorts. Now he has on a pair
Speaker 2: of jeans and a button down long sleeve shirt. There's
Speaker 2: a person standing in the background. He's sitting on the floor.
Speaker 2: You can see the ties of the rope and the
Speaker 2: way that it's tied. Even the branch that he's supposedly
Speaker 2: hanging from wouldn't support him in order for him to
Speaker 2: be able to hang him. So so a lot more
Speaker 2: inconsistency started coming out through those photos, And honestly, I
Speaker 2: think that the photos are kind of what reopened this
Speaker 2: case in the eyes of the Warren family, but also
Speaker 2: in terms of the media. That's when the media kind
Speaker 2: of then started to take notice and started reporting on
Speaker 2: this incident, because at that time, in nineteen eighty six,
Speaker 2: there was no report. We didn't find any there's no
Speaker 2: news stories at all about what happened to Keith in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six. So when this happened with the photographs,
Speaker 2: this is what kind of opened up the case, reopened
Speaker 2: the case, and started this chain reaction of a slew
Speaker 2: of other events that took place of this family trying
Speaker 2: to get to the bottom of what happened and essentially
Speaker 2: trying to get the Montgomery County Police Department to admit
Speaker 2: that it was mishandled in the beginning because there was
Speaker 2: no autopsy. There was no autopsy conducted, And at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, I feel like all of the
Speaker 2: issues and all of the red flags and all of
Speaker 2: the question marks surrounding this case come back to that
Speaker 2: there was no autopsy, there was no investigation conducted at
Speaker 2: the scene at all, and there's nothing to go back.
Speaker 1: To when you spoke to Mary and Sherry, Were those
Speaker 1: your two main sources, do you think?
Speaker 2: So we didn't speak to Mary because she had died
Speaker 2: passed away in two thousand and nine. Sorry, so she
Speaker 2: died not knowing what was happening, but Mary Kuei kept
Speaker 2: such detailed notes of everything. When we first came on
Speaker 2: the scene and we first went to Sherry's house, Sherry
Speaker 2: has in her basement boxes and boxes of documents.
Speaker 3: It's documents upon documents upon documents.
Speaker 2: Every single letter she wrote, every single you know, correspondence,
Speaker 2: every single phone call.
Speaker 3: Even she documented everything.
Speaker 2: So I kind of felt like I had Mary's voice
Speaker 2: through her writings and through all of the things that
Speaker 2: she saved. And so between that and then some of
Speaker 2: the people who were in the series that knew her,
Speaker 2: like Darryl Davis, Dell Walters, you know, one of her
Speaker 2: close friends also who doesn't appear in the dock, but
Speaker 2: she was someone that we talked to a lot. So
Speaker 2: it was like, through all of these accounts, this is
Speaker 2: kind of how we pieced together Mary's point of view
Speaker 2: the best that we could. But a big part of
Speaker 2: that came through Sherry. So our big source of information
Speaker 2: was Sherry, and also Mary's detailed documentation of everything that
Speaker 2: had taken place starting in nineteen eighty six.
Speaker 1: So, I mean, I know that you're looking at these
Speaker 1: photos and it is so odd based on what Mary
Speaker 1: had said, and what Sherry was confirming to you, I
Speaker 1: mean clothes and all of that stuff. And you're still
Speaker 1: evaluating as you're doing this series, you still have to evaluate,
Speaker 1: you know, as in journalism, we're having to evaluate both sides.
Speaker 1: Do you feel like Sherry was open with you and
Speaker 1: the crew one hundred percent about any kind of red
Speaker 1: flags besides this dumb fight. It sounds like any kind
Speaker 1: of red flags coming from Keith about any kind of
Speaker 1: mental health struggles or anything like that. I mean, did
Speaker 1: you feel like, Okay, she is putting it all out there,
Speaker 1: or was this rainbows and bunny rabbits in his life
Speaker 1: was perfect?
Speaker 3: No, not at all.
Speaker 2: That was one of the first things that Sherry said
Speaker 2: to us, is that you know she could accept any
Speaker 2: of that.
Speaker 3: Cherry was like, I'm not perfect, He's not.
Speaker 2: You know. There was never a moment where she was
Speaker 2: trying to paint this picture that he was Saint Keith,
Speaker 2: you know, or anyone from that for that matter. But
Speaker 2: she would always say, but even that doesn't take away
Speaker 2: from the fact that there was no autopsy conducted. Yeah,
Speaker 2: do you know what I mean? So like, even even
Speaker 2: if he did, that can be any number of speculations
Speaker 2: about what Keith did, who Keith was, who he dated,
Speaker 2: and that stuff comes up, you know, even even amongst
Speaker 2: ourselves of like maybe he was dating somebody he shouldn't
Speaker 2: have dated, and they were coming after her.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, there's so many things. Maybe there maybe he
Speaker 2: had a mental break, maybe there's there's so many roads
Speaker 2: you could go down. But it doesn't negate the fact
Speaker 2: that there was no autopsy, that there was no investigation,
Speaker 2: and so Sherry, So Sherry was very open about that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, okay, I'll take that if something is found
Speaker 2: he did something, or there was an argument or something.
Speaker 2: How does that negate doing a proper investigation on how
Speaker 2: he died?
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah? And I think that's such an interesting takeaway because,
Speaker 1: especially when I talk to people about missing people or
Speaker 1: unsolved cases, they are making that big point, we want justice,
Speaker 1: we want the person behind bars. We know this was murder,
Speaker 1: and so it's interesting that this is not how Sherry
Speaker 1: and her mother felt. So let me just talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit about forensics and your impression of all
Speaker 1: of this. This bizarro nine to one one call where
Speaker 1: the EMS thought that there was a dead body in
Speaker 1: a basement and as a reminder to listeners eighty six
Speaker 1: no cell phones, So this is a slower process. You
Speaker 1: you know, call nine one one and you're trying to
Speaker 1: get a hold of Mary, and if she's in the bathroom,
Speaker 1: she's going to miss that call and all of that.
Speaker 1: So there's this call saying that there's a body in
Speaker 1: the basement, that that's what they heard. Did anybody in
Speaker 1: that house who seemed very wishy washy with ems person
Speaker 1: on the crutches and you know, we don't want to
Speaker 1: go back out there, did anybody come under suspicion or
Speaker 1: do you feel like there was any reason that this
Speaker 1: was odd?
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, I do think it was odd. One of
Speaker 2: the people in that house knew Keith. Yeah, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I wonder if there was some kind of flub there
Speaker 2: with saying, oh basement, oh woods, you know what did
Speaker 2: they know? You know what, what does this person know
Speaker 2: that made them flub in that way? But yeah, they
Speaker 2: one of the people in that house knew Keith. It
Speaker 2: was very bizarre. And even even the whole the way
Speaker 2: that the EMT describes that scene just is a red
Speaker 2: flag to me, like, why is there such a skifuffle
Speaker 2: about who's gonna take him to the body, and who
Speaker 2: who called? And who's gonna take him? Like why why
Speaker 2: is this such a somebody called? You know who called?
Speaker 2: And just just take them there? Like, whoever called? Just
Speaker 2: take them there? Like why is this such a you know,
Speaker 2: will you take them? No, you're taken you And I
Speaker 2: I'm sure it is traumatic in its own way to
Speaker 2: be walking through the woods and you know, find this
Speaker 2: body there.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 2: We interviewed Rodney Kendall, who was who also lived in
Speaker 2: Georgian colonies and was called to to come in and
Speaker 2: and and identify this body, you know, while Keith was
Speaker 2: still in the woods. And I think he's still traumatized
Speaker 2: to this day, Like it's it's got to do something
Speaker 2: to you to see that. So I can imagine even
Speaker 2: when the EMT shows up at the door, whoever, you know,
Speaker 2: the person who made the initial phone call, I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's a level of like, I don't want to go
Speaker 2: back and see that, right, but it's still it still
Speaker 2: feels a little weird that you made this call and
Speaker 2: you can't remember if it's brasement or woods, and you know,
Speaker 2: and now there's this whole back and forth about who's
Speaker 2: gonna who's gonna go? You know, it just seems really
Speaker 2: especially if you've come across this body and you know that,
Speaker 2: you know you have the e MT here, there's a
Speaker 2: possibility that maybe a life could be saved, maybe, and
Speaker 2: like you're spending time, you know, going back and forth
Speaker 2: about who's going to lead the way.
Speaker 1: A couple more questions about the folks in the house.
Speaker 1: Did you figure out what the relationship was between the
Speaker 1: person in the house and Keith? Was just this an
Speaker 1: acquaintance from around the area? Yeah, No, one close to
Speaker 1: him then, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was more of an acquaintance.
Speaker 3: They weren't.
Speaker 2: They weren't like, you know, close friends. It was more
Speaker 2: of just an acquaintance from from around the way. And
Speaker 2: I think that they they may have had like mutual friends,
Speaker 2: so you know, Keith may have been closer friends with
Speaker 2: someone who knew him, but it was it was more
Speaker 2: just an acquaintance.
Speaker 1: So he did not tell his mother or his sister
Speaker 1: who the friends were. When he left, he just said
Speaker 1: I'm going, and that was normal for Keith. He was
Speaker 1: just saying, I'm bouncing out of here, I'll see you
Speaker 1: a little bit, I'll be home before Dorric or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, he didn't tell. He didn't say who he
Speaker 2: was going with. He just left the house. I mean
Speaker 2: he had kind of a circle of friends, if you will,
Speaker 2: like Sherry tells the story about. You know, they were
Speaker 2: always over the house that would just come over and eat,
Speaker 2: play games, or watch TV or whatever. But no, to
Speaker 2: our knowledge, he did not say I'm going to such
Speaker 2: and such as house or anything like that.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if you know the answer to this.
Speaker 1: But did they know what the distance was between this
Speaker 1: woman who found his body between her house and the woods?
Speaker 1: How long of a walk was this? Do you have
Speaker 1: any idea?
Speaker 2: It's a little hard to say because, especially in us
Speaker 2: investigating it now, that area of woods is now it's
Speaker 2: built up, it's a housing development.
Speaker 1: Now, what I was getting at is if something happened
Speaker 1: in the basement and we don't know what happened. You know,
Speaker 1: he's wearing odd clothes. This is this a nighttime thing?
Speaker 1: I can't remember when you what's the timeframe that we're
Speaker 1: talking about when he was discovered versus when he left
Speaker 1: the house, When was up.
Speaker 3: He was he left at night?
Speaker 2: He or it was almost night when he left and
Speaker 2: when his body was found, I want to say it
Speaker 2: was more morning of Thursday, like that Thursday. So he
Speaker 2: left on a Tuesday, and then that Thursday was when
Speaker 2: he was found Thursday, the thirty first.
Speaker 1: Is this a rural part of the woods? I mean,
Speaker 1: how could he not have been obviously not off a
Speaker 1: major trail, otherwise somebody would have seen him right right.
Speaker 2: Again, it's it's hard to get a sense of what
Speaker 2: those woods look like at that time. But from what
Speaker 2: I from what I gathered from the interviews that we've done,
Speaker 2: it doesn't It didn't sound like it was he was
Speaker 2: like deep in the woods, Like he was like back
Speaker 2: up in there.
Speaker 3: This woman was walking her dog.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, a woman was walking her dog, so
Speaker 2: you know, and she comes across this body. So again,
Speaker 2: like I'm not sure how deep those woods went at
Speaker 2: that particular time, but I don't get the sense that
Speaker 2: it was like they were far off of a beaten path.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't. I don't think that anyone.
Speaker 2: You know, if you were casually driving through that development,
Speaker 2: you probably wouldn't be able to see it. But if
Speaker 2: you walked a few steps in and you were walking
Speaker 2: a dog, you would be able to see.
Speaker 1: This, Okay, So I mean I guess what I had
Speaker 1: been thinking was that something happened in the basement, and
Speaker 1: it happened at night. Could they have conceivably carried him
Speaker 1: dead strangled, you know, from this house into wherever he
Speaker 1: was found in the woods. It's risky, but if it's
Speaker 1: in the middle of the night, two or three in
Speaker 1: the morning, I guess that's what I was thinking. But
Speaker 1: it does sound kind of complicated to sort out what
Speaker 1: that distance would be. And I mean, if you have
Speaker 1: enough people, you can carry one person anywhere if you
Speaker 1: need it to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, again, it's it's hard.
Speaker 2: One of our big challenges with the show is trying
Speaker 2: to piece together what this neighborhood used to look like,
Speaker 2: and trying to piece it together through people who won't
Speaker 2: talk to you, yeah, you know, in terms of like
Speaker 2: the people who were there, and then trying to piece
Speaker 2: it together also with you know, someone like the EMT
Speaker 2: who was very open about what he saw, but you know,
Speaker 2: he came after the fact, right right. But one of
Speaker 2: the things we did learn is that the way that
Speaker 2: the community used to be sort of designed at the
Speaker 2: time was the woods were sort of behind the houses.
Speaker 2: So now there's so many, you know, housing developments that
Speaker 2: are there that everything is kind of like back to back.
Speaker 2: So when you look when you're in someone's backyard, for example,
Speaker 2: you're looking at more house, there's like a little bit
Speaker 2: of woods, but it's like more houses. And my understanding
Speaker 2: is that it used to be that it was just
Speaker 2: all woods back there, So I guess before that other
Speaker 2: development was built. So that has gone through our mind
Speaker 2: that that could be a possibility that something happened in
Speaker 2: that house in the basement and Keith was dragged out
Speaker 2: into the woods out the back.
Speaker 1: It could have been anything. They could have drugged him,
Speaker 1: he could have been drunk, because they never did toxicology
Speaker 1: or anything on him exactly.
Speaker 2: So after the photos were found in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: it kind of kicked off this new investment.
Speaker 3: It was Liker.
Speaker 2: It made it brand new and now you know Mary,
Speaker 2: it kind of solidified or confirmed everything that Mary and
Speaker 2: Sherry had been thinking all along that something was not right,
Speaker 2: and that's how they you know, they went back to
Speaker 2: the police station, but also they went to local news
Speaker 2: and you know, they started reporting about it. At any rate,
Speaker 2: they actually had the body exhumed because they were like,
Speaker 2: we're going to do our own autopsy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So they had their body, they raised money and had
Speaker 2: the body exumed and got you know, forensics to do
Speaker 2: a an autopsy. So mind you this was several years later.
Speaker 2: But they found high doses of TCE in his system.
Speaker 2: There were things found in his system that it's like
Speaker 2: it could be embalming, it could not be embalming, like
Speaker 2: it's it raised some red flags about what was in
Speaker 2: his system. And so going back to your to your point,
Speaker 2: there is a possibility there. I think that something maybe
Speaker 2: happened in the house. Maybe he was at a party
Speaker 2: and maybe he was poisoned.
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe it was drugs.
Speaker 2: We don't know, but there could have been something that
Speaker 2: happened there. If it's a bunch of teenagers going, oh
Speaker 2: my god, you know, freaking out, oh crap, like what happened,
Speaker 2: and they take him out and stage it to look
Speaker 2: like it was something other than what it was, it's
Speaker 2: a possibility. But again because there was no initial autopsy done. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we don't know who had.
Speaker 1: Is this are these police photos? Who had access to
Speaker 1: these photos six years later that they could have anonymously
Speaker 1: dropped them off? Is it just the police do you think.
Speaker 3: That's a good question?
Speaker 2: And you know, another question that has never really been answered.
Speaker 2: I mean, these were copies, the ones that were dropped
Speaker 2: off at Mary's house were copies of police photos. So
Speaker 2: that's also been a question you know throughout, is like
Speaker 2: was this an inside job? Was this someone at the
Speaker 2: police department who realized something was awry and tried to
Speaker 2: give tip them off and give them a heads up?
Speaker 3: Who could have left these?
Speaker 2: There were no there was no return address left, right,
Speaker 2: So it's just very odd, like who would do that
Speaker 2: and what? And it was The other thid part about
Speaker 2: it is it was on Keith's birthday, which I don't know,
Speaker 2: it could be a coincidence that it was left that day,
Speaker 2: but that's so.
Speaker 1: Specific something is happening with his friends, because that's that's weird.
Speaker 1: One thing that is always been a tragedy because I
Speaker 1: you know, I told you, you know, I work most
Speaker 1: of the time with historical crimes. What is so frustrating
Speaker 1: to me is what could be done now in these
Speaker 1: kind of crimes. And it's just I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I know enough about you know, strangling with rope, where
Speaker 1: you've got somebody gripping on and you know, you can
Speaker 1: sometimes get DNA because that person's trying to get out
Speaker 1: of the rope, right and they might scratch them. And that,
Speaker 1: to me is the tragic part of this is if
Speaker 1: they had just done some simple things, some swabs under
Speaker 1: his nails, something like that, I mean, anything that would
Speaker 1: have been difficult. I'm going to ask one more thing
Speaker 1: that I had forgotten to ask. So the police, nobody's
Speaker 1: reported any kind of at the funeral home, nobody reported
Speaker 1: any kind of trauma on him, right, Like there's no
Speaker 1: bruises or scratches or anything weird like that.
Speaker 2: No, And it's weird because you know, like I said earlier,
Speaker 2: the funeral home said that his body was decomposed and
Speaker 2: you can't come and see the body and all this
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But like, there wasn't any reports of
Speaker 2: any scratches, you know. We talked to Roger Mitchell, who
Speaker 2: is a medical examiner. He now works at Howard University
Speaker 2: and he's in the dock. But he talks about those
Speaker 2: signs of strangulation when they did that autopsy. You can
Speaker 2: look at the signs. You can look at the neck,
Speaker 2: you can look at blood vessels, you can none of
Speaker 2: these were obstructed his neck, his spine, his chest, his eyes.
Speaker 2: Nothing indicated strangulation, you know, or hanging. There was there
Speaker 2: was no evidence of that in that report. So that's
Speaker 2: another thing of like a red flag that just physically
Speaker 2: the body, his body did not show signs of doing
Speaker 2: that to himself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't add up with the exception of Mary
Speaker 1: and Sherry. You must know more about this case than
Speaker 1: anybody else. What is your sense about what happened? I mean,
Speaker 1: just flat out what do you think? What is the
Speaker 1: most plausible thing that happened to Keith that night?
Speaker 2: The best thing I can say, I do think something
Speaker 2: happened with his friends. I think something happened that night,
Speaker 2: whether it was a party, whether it was just a
Speaker 2: gathering or something I can't put my finger on, you know,
Speaker 2: what the event was and why, meaning was it an
Speaker 2: argument or you know, or just playing around and something
Speaker 2: went awry. But I do think something happened that night
Speaker 2: with his friends. My sense is that these friends were
Speaker 2: trying to cover up something whatever. They were trying to
Speaker 2: cover up whatever happened in that house so that they
Speaker 2: wouldn't get in trouble for whatever. I'm not, you know,
Speaker 2: like I said, it could have been an accident. It
Speaker 2: could have or maybe it was malicious. But I think
Speaker 2: that they were trying to cover up something that happened,
Speaker 2: and in them trying to cover it, I think they
Speaker 2: did a botch job in trying to cover it up
Speaker 2: by making it look like he tied himself to a tree.
Speaker 3: And on top of.
Speaker 2: That, you had a police department who did not do
Speaker 2: what they were supposed to do, and you know, arrived
Speaker 2: on the scene and then you know, say, oh, we're
Speaker 2: just gonna sweep this under the rug. We're gonna label
Speaker 2: it this way, and let's all move on with our lives.
Speaker 2: There's also I mean, I won't go into all of this,
Speaker 2: but there's rumors and there's talks about the police department,
Speaker 2: the Montgomery County Police Department. The officer in particular, does
Speaker 2: he know the people, you know, in terms of the
Speaker 2: people who were in that house, you know. So I
Speaker 2: just think that something happened in the house, they tried
Speaker 2: to cover it up, and in their trying to cover
Speaker 2: it up, the police came and covered up the cover up.
Speaker 2: So I think that there were multiple things happening in
Speaker 2: this case, and everything just went around and I think
Speaker 2: everything went awry, especially when the photos showed up at
Speaker 2: Mary Coui's store.
Speaker 1: You said that those photos kind of reignited this investigation.
Speaker 1: Is Keith's case an open case right now? With silver Spring.
Speaker 3: Even that is a big question mark.
Speaker 2: So at the time when we were doing this series,
Speaker 2: when you talk to Chief Manger, who was the chief
Speaker 2: of police at that time, he would say, Oh, yes,
Speaker 2: the police messed up. The police have botched up this case.
Speaker 2: We're going to reopen the case. But then when you
Speaker 2: talk to the Montgomery County Police Department, they say it's closed.
Speaker 2: So even within their own department, there's not an agreement
Speaker 2: on whether the case is open or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I would.
Speaker 2: Imagine that if today, if we were to go to
Speaker 2: Montgomery County and ask the police department, they'd probably say
Speaker 2: the case is closed. Yeah, But like I said, there's
Speaker 2: discrepancy there on whether it's officially an open or close case.
Speaker 1: If someone has information on what happened to you know,
Speaker 1: Keith Warren, what should be done? How would they be
Speaker 1: able to pass on information?
Speaker 2: Do you think I think a good way is to,
Speaker 2: you know, contact Sherry Warren.
Speaker 3: You can contact myself, you.
Speaker 2: Can get you know, if anyone has any type of information,
Speaker 2: even though you know, like I said, their whole thing
Speaker 2: was not to find out, you always want that closure.
Speaker 2: If someone knows anything by all means, I would say,
Speaker 2: reach out to any of us first. Like you said,
Speaker 2: I don't know that reaching out to the police department
Speaker 2: would be the way to go initially, But if there's
Speaker 2: anyone that wanted to talk or that or that was
Speaker 2: a witness on that night, or you know, just has
Speaker 2: any information that they could share, by all means, please
Speaker 2: let us know.
Speaker 1: Gosh, I hope that something happens, especially if this is murder,
Speaker 1: there's somebody out there that either knows something more than
Speaker 1: we do or did something very bad to this young
Speaker 1: man who is going to college. Sounds like he has
Speaker 1: a wonderful future. So you know, my hope is with
Speaker 1: this show, with you know, people watching, I mean, I
Speaker 1: just watched your show. It's out there. I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: something new comes. And it's so awful that Mary died
Speaker 1: without having any answers. But let's hope that Sherry in you,
Speaker 1: because you're invested in this, can finally get some kind
Speaker 1: of closure to the story.
Speaker 2: Yes, that would be amazing, and it would be a
Speaker 2: big Like you said, you use the right word is closure.
Speaker 2: You know, just that sense of just finding out what happened.
Speaker 2: There's just so many loose threads, just yeah, to find
Speaker 2: out answers would be a huge help.
Speaker 1: I would imagine it would be like having somebody who's
Speaker 1: missing and you've never found the body, but you just
Speaker 1: know they're gone, they're dead, but you've never located the body.
Speaker 1: I mean that level of like emptiness, and I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry that Mary died without being able to feel that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very sad. It's very sad that she was
Speaker 2: never able to get to the body. You know, she
Speaker 2: died fighting this. She died trying to figure out you know,
Speaker 2: that's cherry believe, because it was like a really weird,
Speaker 2: mysterious illness that she came down with and she died
Speaker 2: like within a matter of days. It just happened so fast.
Speaker 2: And the thinking is that it's just you know, you
Speaker 2: build up that stress and anger and hurt and sometimes
Speaker 2: it manifests itself in the body. And I do believe
Speaker 2: that she died trying to get to the bottom of
Speaker 2: this and trying to find out what happened, which is
Speaker 2: why I was so grateful for Sherry of you know,
Speaker 2: picking up the mantle and carrying it forward and going
Speaker 2: through this whole process of reliving everything for this docu
Speaker 2: series and kind of taking up that mantle for her mom.
Speaker 2: It's very unfortunate that she passed not knowing.
Speaker 1: If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
Speaker 1: audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Speaker 1: Is Wicked, and American Sherlock and Don't Forget. There are
Speaker 1: twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast to More
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Speaker 1: been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis
Speaker 1: a Morosi. Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode
Speaker 1: was mixed by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer,
Speaker 1: artwork by Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen
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