Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 3: They call me Bed. We are joined as always with
Speaker 3: our super producer Andrew Triforce Howard. Most importantly, you are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. Guys,
Speaker 3: we've talked about it before, but you know how social
Speaker 3: media has created a weird double life for people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's sick out as something we have to
Speaker 4: contend with. It's hard, especially for younger folks who are
Speaker 4: just seeing idealized versions of everybody they know and you know,
Speaker 4: kind of forcing them to compare themselves. But it's honestly
Speaker 4: not exclusive to young people. I fight with it myself,
Speaker 4: as I'm sure you guys do from time to time.
Speaker 2: The weirdest thing for me is that people will create
Speaker 2: triple and quadruple and quintuple lives with varying social media
Speaker 2: and other apps where they're interacting with people online as
Speaker 2: varying personas with different names, different looks, different lifestyles. It's fascinating.
Speaker 3: And don't get us started on online dating or do
Speaker 3: because we have an episode coming out about that. It
Speaker 3: is very much a conspiracy. Appreciate that that note too
Speaker 3: about the as a Whitman said, we are vast. We
Speaker 3: contain multitudes that can't be more literally true online and
Speaker 3: even without the social media thing. Some lives look perfect
Speaker 3: on paper, just like some laws look perfect on paper.
Speaker 3: I don't know about how we're all feeling, but it
Speaker 3: seems like, especially in this era of information, it's so
Speaker 3: damningly easy to hear about another person's financial, romantic or
Speaker 3: social success and think, WHOA they have it made right? Oh?
Speaker 4: Absolutely, I mean to quote Biggie once again, I think
Speaker 4: this came up recently. More money, more problems. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's cliche, because it's absolutely true. People get to a
Speaker 4: place where they just kind of want more and more
Speaker 4: and more, and then with that comes more and more
Speaker 4: concessions and more and more kind of issues that they
Speaker 4: have to contend with. It maybe didn't even know existed.
Speaker 3: And past a certain threshold of financial success, it does
Speaker 3: not positively affect your emotional success. We could call it.
Speaker 3: There was a great study I remember seeing a Ted
Speaker 3: talk but not the name of the paper, which proved
Speaker 3: at the time that over a certain US dollar per
Speaker 3: year threshold, money did not necessarily make you happier. It
Speaker 3: makes you happier up to a point.
Speaker 4: I think it's seventy, ok, is what I had heard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, are somewhere around seventy, maybe a little north.
Speaker 3: We'd have to check back with inflation. And really quickly
Speaker 3: I realized that I didn't quote that big a thing
Speaker 3: on this podcast. It was on Ridiculous History where we
Speaker 3: had an episode on the nation of Bhutan and their
Speaker 3: happiness based economy.
Speaker 4: Uh so they kind of have all this stuff figured out,
Speaker 4: but again not perfect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a good one. Everybody go to Bhuta
Speaker 3: because we certainly can't out afford to do so ourselves.
Speaker 2: Well, because the money thing doesn't change, well, I guess
Speaker 2: it does affect like who you hang out with, who
Speaker 2: you end up being able to meet, right and then
Speaker 2: sure access, but it doesn't. The weird thing is that,
Speaker 2: along with having multiple versions of ourselves on you know,
Speaker 2: the Internet, there are multiple versions of ourselves that have
Speaker 2: existed over time. If you think about stuff used to
Speaker 2: be into when you were you know a younger person.
Speaker 2: Of course, people used to know then, people used to date,
Speaker 2: then people you were in love with. All of that
Speaker 2: stuff is wrapped up and they're almost different, like almost
Speaker 2: fully different versions of ourselves that exist in these eras
Speaker 2: or something.
Speaker 4: But even some of those things stick around, even if
Speaker 4: they're not front and center.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, the multi generational consequences of every version of you.
Speaker 3: And let's also keep in mind one thing I appreciate
Speaker 3: about that point is that the version of you that
Speaker 3: interacts with other people currently may not be the version
Speaker 3: of you that you think you are, because they're really
Speaker 3: talking to their opinion about you that has largely been
Speaker 3: determined by their own thing going on.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: There, it's the kind of projecting on you.
Speaker 2: The filters and projections thing that we've been talking about
Speaker 2: over several episodes. Now this keeps coming up, just that
Speaker 2: we project a lot of what we see in here
Speaker 2: onto everything else.
Speaker 3: I mean, classic human Right, you hear something you say, well,
Speaker 3: what is how is that about me? Right? Thea the
Speaker 3: old joke about the narcissist that says, hey, I learned
Speaker 3: what a narcissist is, and I'm trying to figure out
Speaker 3: how that applies to me.
Speaker 4: And let me man explain that to you.
Speaker 2: I think in some way it's less about narcissism and
Speaker 2: more about remember how we talk about when you remember something,
Speaker 2: it's the last time you remembered it. So it's almost
Speaker 2: like when the last time you see a person, the
Speaker 2: last time you have a conversation about a thing, It's
Speaker 2: almost like with that person there really is, truly for
Speaker 2: you a different version of what's being said or how
Speaker 2: it's being said, or even I don't know the objects,
Speaker 2: the physical objects that are being discussed, or the actions
Speaker 2: that are taking place.
Speaker 4: Well, and oftentimes too, when you see like maybe unhappy
Speaker 4: marriages or relationships that deteriorate, it's because one or the
Speaker 4: other have realized that they have given up some of
Speaker 4: that past part of themselves and they are now kind
Speaker 4: of pining for that time and their life, and some
Speaker 4: people go to great lengths to get that back, whether
Speaker 4: it be having an affair with an old lover from
Speaker 4: that era or whatever. That is. The there's a big
Speaker 4: draw to wanting to turn back the clock, like be
Speaker 4: young again.
Speaker 3: Excellent excellent segue, Noel. In tonight's episode, we're exploring a
Speaker 3: tragic tale that true crime enthusiast may have heard of before,
Speaker 3: but we'll find some extra twist along the way, and
Speaker 3: that's what we're setting up tonight's question, what happened to
Speaker 3: Andrene McDonald? Here are the facts, all right, for anybody
Speaker 3: who's unaware. Who was Andrene McDonald.
Speaker 4: Andrew McDonald was born on September twenty third of nineteen
Speaker 4: eighty nine and Port Antonio, Jamaica, Andrene and Nicole McDonald.
Speaker 4: She was the second of three daughters.
Speaker 3: And Jamaica, port Antonio, technically Norwich District, Portland. Their life
Speaker 3: there was tough growing up. The father later left for
Speaker 3: England after serving in the Armed Forces. Lives in England. Now.
Speaker 3: Something of about the life that they lived in childhood
Speaker 3: forged great determination amid the siblings. They believed what we
Speaker 3: call the American dream. Hard work and discipline can make
Speaker 3: all the difference between failure and success. And from the jump,
Speaker 3: Andrea MacDonald was highly driven and there in Norwich District, Portland.
Speaker 3: Again Jamaica, not Oregon. We're going to be saying Jamaica
Speaker 3: pretty often here. You've heard us say it because this
Speaker 3: is a big part of the story. So our protagonist
Speaker 3: graduates from high school in Jamaica in this area in
Speaker 3: Norwich District, Portland, and is an academic powerhouse. She goes
Speaker 3: on to earn her associate degree in marketing by the
Speaker 3: time she's eighteen. And when she's there, right, she has
Speaker 3: a boyfriend before, as many teenagers do. That's important to
Speaker 3: the story. She also meets and falls in love with
Speaker 3: a guy named Andre McDonald. It's about ten years older
Speaker 3: than her. He's a fellow Jamaican kid. He's risen through
Speaker 3: the ranks of the US Air Force. He's becoming a major.
Speaker 3: His special special areas of focus are what Jaysak would
Speaker 3: loosely call cyber because those guys are old.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cybersecurity, not what we used to call cyber yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, but internet activities, monitoring and securing them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, early days for that kind of stuff, right, I mean,
Speaker 4: in terms of like that being a specialty.
Speaker 3: It's definitely forward facing for the Air Force at that point.
Speaker 3: And you know, they have all kinds of toys to
Speaker 3: play with. She and her husband spoiler, they hit it off,
Speaker 3: they got married, that happened, they moved to Florida, and then,
Speaker 3: you know, for anybody who has grown up in a
Speaker 3: military family, or has had a partner who's in the military,
Speaker 3: or if you yourself have served, you know that for
Speaker 3: a great deal of your career, you kind of have
Speaker 3: to go where they tell you to go. So they
Speaker 3: didn't get to stay in Florida forever. They ended up
Speaker 3: moving to Texas, right.
Speaker 4: They moved to the very partially named Canyon Golf and
Speaker 4: Wilderness Oak area of North Bay Are Texas or County
Speaker 4: rather in San Antonio, Texas. Guys, what is going on
Speaker 4: in the Canyon Golf and Wilderness Oak area? Everything?
Speaker 3: I see a lot of internal O rhymes O sounds fascinants.
Speaker 4: By the way, if you see it on paper. Speaking
Speaker 4: of things on paper, they are bear is spelled like bexar.
Speaker 3: So bx aar. And thanks to our fellow conspiracy realist
Speaker 3: from Texas who wrote into us multiple times many years
Speaker 3: ago to U kind fully correct us on that one
Speaker 3: to clarify. We get it. Sometimes there's an X and
Speaker 3: you just don't mention it. Oh, that's gonna have a
Speaker 3: weird level to it later tonight.
Speaker 2: Isn't a little strange.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's just odd to me that they moved from Port Antonio,
Speaker 2: Jamaica to San Antonio.
Speaker 3: Texas, and that they're named Andrene and Andre.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that actually struck me a little lot as well. Guys.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's nothing to it, but it's still those
Speaker 4: kind of synchronicities you can't help but notice them.
Speaker 3: It's such a power couple thing too, you know, because
Speaker 3: these folks do become a power couple in San Antonio.
Speaker 3: Andreing goes on to earn a business administration degree in
Speaker 3: finance from University of Texas, San Antonio, and you can
Speaker 3: find interviews with her from local press, from local community initiatives.
Speaker 3: One we found that I think really speaks to her
Speaker 3: personality is an interview in her a character profile in
Speaker 3: San Antonio Woman, where we learned some of her inspiration, right,
Speaker 3: some of her foundational guiding principles, and honestly, she sounds
Speaker 3: like a badass.
Speaker 4: She seems like a tough cookie. She says, for me
Speaker 4: to get a job, one has to be available. Someone
Speaker 4: has to create a job. But she said, basically she
Speaker 4: decided to create a job for herself at the young
Speaker 4: age of twenty two. Talk about feeling like the stuff
Speaker 4: on paper is making you feel like you're behind the
Speaker 4: eight ball.
Speaker 3: Right right, Yeah, She knew that a college degree does
Speaker 3: not necessarily guarantee a career. Shout out to all her
Speaker 3: fellow English majors. So, like you said, Noel, twenty two
Speaker 3: years old, A lot of people in twenty two are
Speaker 3: farting around, flitting back and forth between, you know, trying
Speaker 3: to find their true north. Not so with McDonald. She
Speaker 3: founds a place called Starlight Homes, a community, a assisted
Speaker 3: living facilitator, right close with real estate, close with recommending care.
Speaker 3: And her reasoning was super sharp. Why would you pursue
Speaker 3: a business like this? Why would you put so much
Speaker 3: money in when you're twenty two years old? Her reasoning
Speaker 3: was if I fail, I'm young, I could do something else,
Speaker 3: which I wish someone had told us earlier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And in that same article you can read about
Speaker 2: how she would often travel back to Jamaica, where she
Speaker 2: grew up, to do things like speak at graduations, you know,
Speaker 2: to hang out with family and friends for specific business stuff.
Speaker 2: So she was constantly I just think it's important to
Speaker 2: mention her she was constantly going back and forth from
Speaker 2: Jamaica to San Antonio, Texas.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she regularly returned to Jamaica for a lot of
Speaker 3: philanthropic endeavors. She was also in many ways a one
Speaker 3: woman army for her business, which she technically owned a
Speaker 3: partnership with her husband. But let's remember being a US
Speaker 3: Air Force major, it's a pretty time consuming job. So
Speaker 3: she was running operations, human resources, she was running marketing.
Speaker 3: She was pretty much responsible for steering the ship. And
Speaker 3: this made her and her hubby a millionaires, maybe not
Speaker 3: you know, billionaires, but doing very well for San Antonio.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting too to think that this you know,
Speaker 4: fortune was made with what would seem like a pretty
Speaker 4: benevolent and charitable business model, you know. I mean, if
Speaker 4: you look up Starlight Holmes, it's basically ready made homes,
Speaker 4: kind of geared towards the elderly, maybe with some subsidies
Speaker 4: of some kind. I don't know exactly the deal, but
Speaker 4: it would seem like it is meant to be a
Speaker 4: positive resource, you know, folks that are entering the ends
Speaker 4: of their lives.
Speaker 2: It was really interesting if you look at the two
Speaker 2: locations that they had on the map, they were just
Speaker 2: kind of it looked like houses where they would have
Speaker 2: people living in the house, the houses in the care
Speaker 2: would be given to them. And it literally started with
Speaker 2: like one person, and then there are over twenty people
Speaker 2: that she was taking care of with you know, or
Speaker 2: I guess they the couple the company was taking care
Speaker 2: of between these two homes.
Speaker 3: And a lot of this was informed by her mother's
Speaker 3: career as a CNA certified nursing assistant and perhaps more
Speaker 3: powerfully informed by watching how her in laws took care
Speaker 3: of Andre's McDonald's grandmother. She had had to have her
Speaker 3: left leg amputated due to an accident. And so Andrena
Speaker 3: is looking at this and thinking, to your point, Noel,
Speaker 3: how can I help people right? What is a good business?
Speaker 3: And of course, yes, we know that assisted living and
Speaker 3: nursing homes are riddled with corruption and abuse often here
Speaker 3: in the United States. It does not appear to be
Speaker 3: the case with Starlight homes. Everything wasn't perfect for the couple,
Speaker 3: even though they are, you know, a power couple and
Speaker 3: I'm sure the envy of many other San Antonians. They
Speaker 3: had a daughter, special needs daughter named Elena, who's on
Speaker 3: the autism spectrum and primarily nonverbal. So if this kid
Speaker 3: see something, this kid can't really communicate what they have seen,
Speaker 3: which will be important later. What we're saying is this
Speaker 3: By her late twenties, Andrea M MacDonald had achieved the
Speaker 3: kind of success most Americans dream about, ticking off every box.
Speaker 3: You know, you got your dream marriage with your adonnas
Speaker 3: or your dream girl. You've got an awesome job, you
Speaker 3: are your own boss, and you're also an amazing powerlifter,
Speaker 3: which I thought was pretty interesting her. She was driven
Speaker 3: and goal oriented and you could set your own watch
Speaker 3: to her schedules. She was she would always be Iron
Speaker 3: Tribe fitness at five thirty am through some big powerless
Speaker 3: they called her the Beast.
Speaker 4: Still don't feel horrible, but now I've been trying to
Speaker 4: gym a little bit more. But I do understand that
Speaker 4: like that drive to you know, have that control and
Speaker 4: that agency over your body. It seems very like in
Speaker 4: keeping and in step with her overall drive.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, man, oh yeah. And we know we're talking
Speaker 3: about this established routine five thirty ish am at the gym,
Speaker 3: to the point where if she was going to miss
Speaker 3: a day, she would call them and let them know, Like,
Speaker 3: if you're a regular at the waffle house, the staff
Speaker 3: is going to miss you. I've got waffle house on
Speaker 3: my mind. Sorry, guys, just get plunch.
Speaker 4: They're very kind of waffle house. They definitely remember you
Speaker 4: and say hello. So this established this routine that she
Speaker 4: had and a sort of predictability to her movements. So
Speaker 4: Ardie McDonald was last seen alive about seven pm on
Speaker 4: February twenty eighth, when she along with her husband and
Speaker 4: then seven year old daughter, We're seen heading home.
Speaker 3: Says twenty nineteen. And the next day, March first, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 3: she has reported missing, no passport activity, no cell phone,
Speaker 3: nothing unusual on the credit cards. So what happened? Here's
Speaker 3: where it gets crazy. Unfortunately, as any true crime aficionado
Speaker 3: in the audience Tonight knows, the disappearance of Andrew McDonald
Speaker 3: has been solved. It's a tale of absolute brutality and heartbreak,
Speaker 3: and you can hear massively exploitative versions of it in
Speaker 3: all sorts of programs. Forty eight hours freely available online,
Speaker 3: you can watch it. And I want to ask you
Speaker 3: guys about this. I think we've spoken about in previous evenings,
Speaker 3: but do do you guys notice how when a true
Speaker 3: crime enterprise is being exploitative, they tend to refer to
Speaker 3: women simply by their first names.
Speaker 4: Yea, I saw an article the other day about how
Speaker 4: that's a thing in general.
Speaker 3: With politics and politics.
Speaker 4: And I felt kind of awful that it had never
Speaker 4: occurred to me in that exact way. But to answer
Speaker 4: your question, and yes, I think that is maybe a
Speaker 4: bigger problem even than just exploitative reporting and true crime.
Speaker 4: But for sure, that's a thing.
Speaker 2: It is a little weird. I think it is hard
Speaker 2: sometimes to do storytelling when you've got a husband and
Speaker 2: wife not to use their first names and not include
Speaker 2: their last name every time you say their names. So
Speaker 2: I don't know, I think it might be a storytelling thing,
Speaker 2: at least in this like with forty eight Hours in particular.
Speaker 3: Well in this case, I would agree, just from a
Speaker 3: writing perspective, you've got two people with the same last name,
Speaker 3: so it's difficult, such like if you were talking about
Speaker 3: Hillary and William Clinton, you would at some point have
Speaker 3: to just go by first name. But what I'm talking
Speaker 3: about in the Exploitati version really is the emotional manipulation
Speaker 3: or even the diminishing to the larger point, you're raising
Speaker 3: all the diminishing of women's work by saying Hillary instead
Speaker 3: of you know, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Things like
Speaker 3: that not a defense of the Clintons and whatsoever. But anyway,
Speaker 3: there's a larger context of this we'll explore in a moment,
Speaker 3: but for now we have to look at events behind
Speaker 3: the curtain to see what led to her disappearance and
Speaker 3: later public realization. One we know now Andrew McDonald was murdered.
Speaker 3: Two The United States has convicted her husband, Andrea McDonald,
Speaker 3: of the murder, and the charge was manslaughter. He had
Speaker 3: some other charges along the way to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I'm sorry to keep bringing this up, but
Speaker 4: I think it's just app the way you run up
Speaker 4: the beginning been on paper, you know, it would seem
Speaker 4: cut and dry, like we know what happened, but there's
Speaker 4: just so much more to it than what's on paper,
Speaker 4: much like the true lives of people hiding behind their
Speaker 4: glossy you know Instagram accounts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you can follow our instagrams. They're the opposite
Speaker 3: of glossy, you know, and they're matt Finish. Yes, there,
Speaker 3: Matte Finish. If you if we go back to the
Speaker 3: day of the reported disappearance, you can see a lot
Speaker 3: of you can see a lot of contemporaneous reporting from
Speaker 3: regional news affiliates and local media because again, this is
Speaker 3: a prominent figure in society, and one of the things
Speaker 3: that stands out, you know, a lot of this reporting
Speaker 3: is the sheer concern of the community, the amount of
Speaker 3: people in the community who were deeply disturbed. Again, could
Speaker 3: set or watch by this lady's routine. There's a great
Speaker 3: interview series with Matthew Seedorff writing for News for San Antonio.
Speaker 3: The coaches thought it was crazy that McDonald did not
Speaker 3: show up to exercise at Irontribe Fitness that early Friday morning,
Speaker 3: because she's there all the time, and a lot of
Speaker 3: the interviews are first, yes, about how they're very concerned
Speaker 3: and they want to help find her. And then you
Speaker 3: notice that all the coaches are so impressed with her
Speaker 3: powerlifting again the beast. The beast is never happy over
Speaker 3: their first set, you know what I mean, She's got
Speaker 3: to lift more. They said, you know, we saw the
Speaker 3: people said, we saw our Thursday evening going home to
Speaker 3: see her daughter. If she wasn't going to be there Friday,
Speaker 3: she would call us in advance. She has not. We
Speaker 3: are worried, and let's be honest, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of us have people in our lives. Thank you, We'll
Speaker 3: keep the cat, and a lot of us have people
Speaker 3: in our lives who cats and cats and animals and
Speaker 3: entities that are more consistent or predictable than others. You know,
Speaker 3: you might have a friend like maybe this is a
Speaker 3: dude thing, But I have friends I don't talk to
Speaker 3: for years at a time, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: I check in, they'll tell me something's important. One buddy
Speaker 3: of mine was like, I had heard from two years
Speaker 3: and then he just hit me up with the text
Speaker 3: he said, and sent a picture and he said, beat
Speaker 3: me here, triforce, He said, the round and got married. Lmao.
Speaker 3: It was true.
Speaker 4: I hope you're good. Yeah, But then you have those
Speaker 4: other friends that like, you know, maybe we'll call every
Speaker 4: single Friday at the exact same time and to the
Speaker 4: point where maybe you know everyone's different, but that friend
Speaker 4: not calling yes will be a big old red flag,
Speaker 4: even if you're not like the worrying type.
Speaker 3: And so here we arrive at one of the myths
Speaker 3: that we've addressed in the past about reporting a missing person.
Speaker 3: You do not have to wait twenty four hours. It
Speaker 3: does not depend upon the person's age, their socioeconomic status,
Speaker 3: does not matter where you saw them last as a
Speaker 3: matter of fact, that twenty four hour window is probably
Speaker 3: the best time to start searching for someone. And so
Speaker 3: the local law enforcement, the sheriff and the deputies at
Speaker 3: Bear County are called in. They go to the couple's home.
Speaker 3: They conduct a welfare check, and this is where they
Speaker 3: discover increasingly disturbing things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this is on the day she disappeared, on
Speaker 2: March first, twenty nineteen. So the friends and everybody that
Speaker 2: were concerned actually went and got Andrine's mom, Maureen Smith,
Speaker 2: and brought her to the house. And that's when they
Speaker 2: called the police. That's when the Sheriff's office shows up
Speaker 2: and they start doing a walk through the house with
Speaker 2: Andre not being present currently.
Speaker 3: Right he is, he is not on the scene. All
Speaker 3: in all, they end up executing two search warrants. Without
Speaker 3: getting too far in the details. Both of these warrants
Speaker 3: were warranted during their investigations in Andrene's car. And you
Speaker 3: know how marriages people are sharing cars and stuff. They
Speaker 3: uncover a shovel and acts work gloves, and gasoline to
Speaker 3: containers of gasoline. Those are curious things. It might remind
Speaker 3: some of us if you've ever spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time in a grocery store or any place with a
Speaker 3: what's that thing called little treadmill for checkout where the
Speaker 3: stuff rolls down.
Speaker 4: The conveyor belt, yes, yes, the cave belt.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. Yeah. So it's a fun game to play
Speaker 3: if you're ever waiting in line, kind of imagining the
Speaker 3: stuff people buy as clues to their lives. Right, what's
Speaker 3: an interesting eclectic mix of stuff?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean if the guy in front of you
Speaker 4: by a bunch of work gloves, heavy duty rope, and
Speaker 4: a bag of lime and a shovel, you might wrinkle
Speaker 4: your nose at that a little bit.
Speaker 2: Right, But that's exactly what he did. He bought all
Speaker 2: of those things in one go, and he had a
Speaker 2: messy There's a receipt that you can find and a
Speaker 2: handwritten note about like things I need to get from
Speaker 2: either Low's or home depot.
Speaker 4: And it's murder stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2: Including a hand axe and a big old axe. And
Speaker 2: you're just like m.
Speaker 3: I already had the hammer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you need big bags also with all of
Speaker 2: this stuff, hefty bags.
Speaker 3: Now, tell me about your burn barrels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Well the burn barrel is really important because
Speaker 2: what they found on that first day on March first,
Speaker 2: So this is what we're talking about here, and finding
Speaker 2: this stuff is just it's like a couple of days
Speaker 2: later when they find this stuff. I think it's March
Speaker 2: second when they find this. But on that first day
Speaker 2: when the sheriff's office shows up, they and the family
Speaker 2: and the sheriff's office find blood and hair on like
Speaker 2: a light switch in the bathroom. And in the backyard
Speaker 2: they find a small what appears to be impromptu little
Speaker 2: not burn pit, but like a burn pile where something
Speaker 2: was piled up and then burned.
Speaker 3: Like if you were cleaning your yard and you burned track,
Speaker 3: like burned leaves. But stuff in there is not leaves.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, exactly. There was clothing. There was a zipper
Speaker 2: that the mother identified as being a zipper from one
Speaker 2: of Andrene's blouses.
Speaker 3: This does not look no, it doesn't. There were also
Speaker 3: cleaning supplies recently purchased. The point about buying those items
Speaker 3: all at once is that if they are purchased separately
Speaker 3: over time, these are all innocuous. Sometimes you need gloves,
Speaker 3: sometimes you need an axe or some gas. But buying
Speaker 3: them all at once is we'll see what happens to
Speaker 3: the receipt look altogether, there's a damning context, and so
Speaker 3: authorities begin to believe that this is not someone skipping town,
Speaker 3: which does sometimes happen. But usually when someone skips town,
Speaker 3: you're gonna find them sooner, yeah or later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, they usually would take their person id and
Speaker 2: you know, important things. If she did leave, the only
Speaker 2: thing she took was her cell phone, and she didn't
Speaker 2: let her mother, her husband, or her daughter or any
Speaker 2: of her friends or family know where she was going, which,
Speaker 2: you know, if you think about somebody like Andrina, at
Speaker 2: least the way she's portrayed, like in that magazine we
Speaker 2: mentioned where she was written up all the people around here.
Speaker 4: And yeah, it just seems, well, she's buttoned up if
Speaker 4: she was, you know, like if if she was gonna
Speaker 4: go like that, she would have taken some key items.
Speaker 4: If she was leaving her husband, you know, there are
Speaker 4: definite signs for that she would I mean, unless that
Speaker 4: is to say, though, unless there was some significant abuse
Speaker 4: and she truly just had to drop everything and leave
Speaker 4: in the night. There are scenarios where that absolutely absolutely
Speaker 4: because there's horrible domestic situations, agreed.
Speaker 3: And that's a great point. We also know the previous
Speaker 3: patterns of behavior which are not necessarily predicted to be fair.
Speaker 3: But we know that when she was returning to Jamaica,
Speaker 3: which was by far her main destination homeway from home,
Speaker 3: she let people know both in Texas and in Jamaica
Speaker 3: where she was going to be a when, because that
Speaker 3: was part of what she was doing. So if somebody
Speaker 3: had to skip down, how do we explain the blood,
Speaker 3: how do we explain the supplies that were around the items,
Speaker 3: the fire, the unburned zipper.
Speaker 2: The stuff that he bought the day after, right right
Speaker 2: the day after your wife goes missing, and when you
Speaker 2: get when you are talking to the sheriff's office, you're
Speaker 2: weird and cagey about it and just like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: don't know, she's not here, and then made up a
Speaker 2: story about her being in the hospital. I don't know.
Speaker 3: Even before that, the authorities started to believe something was
Speaker 3: very up and they were like, we got to look
Speaker 3: at this. Andre mcdonnald guy and Bear County Sheriff's Office
Speaker 3: deputies had already detained him that Saturday for what they
Speaker 3: called mental evaluation.
Speaker 2: By well, yeah, of course, because he went to a
Speaker 2: gun store there he was under investigation. Well yeah, they
Speaker 2: pick him up for an evaluation because because earlier in
Speaker 2: the day, on March second, that's when he's on surveillance
Speaker 2: camera at Low's buying all of that stuff we talked about.
Speaker 2: Right then at two pm, he's under a surveillance an
Speaker 2: undercover officer is watching his house basically, and they watch
Speaker 2: him drive to a local gun store and purchase a
Speaker 2: nine millimeter and ammunition attempt to purchase. Well, no, he does.
Speaker 2: He purchases it, but then he leaves the store without
Speaker 2: taking the gun.
Speaker 3: And leaves his ID behind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he's just who does that? That's bizarre?
Speaker 2: Andre McDonald, Well, something is going on with this guy
Speaker 2: where clearly something's wrong, right, and he's also a pretty
Speaker 2: high level military officer.
Speaker 4: So which, by the way, I was just gonna ask you, guys,
Speaker 4: does that give you more way more leeway when it
Speaker 4: comes to purchasing a firearm as a citizen, Like it
Speaker 4: doesn't supersede the waiting periods or anything like that. Right,
Speaker 4: you don't have like any special treatment because you're a
Speaker 4: ranking military person.
Speaker 3: Shouldn't. You can get as signed weaponry, but that's from
Speaker 3: you and buying.
Speaker 4: Something I didn't think. So I was just wondering, but
Speaker 4: it would seem that he didn't have to. I don't
Speaker 4: know what the laws are there, but he did. There
Speaker 4: was no waiting period for he got spooked. It was
Speaker 4: seeming and it's an almost behavior. Up to this point,
Speaker 4: Bear County sheriffs have not named McDonald as a suspect,
Speaker 4: but they are noting that he is extremely uncooperative, seems
Speaker 4: to be not super worried about where his wife is
Speaker 4: and when they When different people ask him about this,
Speaker 4: he gives them different stories, which is also going to
Speaker 4: come into play later.
Speaker 3: No spoilers. Eventually under question, I don't know how much
Speaker 3: we want to get into the step by step with this,
Speaker 3: but eventually he admits, Okay, my wife and I had
Speaker 3: an argument. We visited our tax dude, basically the person
Speaker 3: who prepares our taxes. We were arguing over our business,
Speaker 3: which would both own.
Speaker 4: I left.
Speaker 3: I left during the argument. I run away during arguments,
Speaker 3: that kind of guy. And I went and got some
Speaker 3: gas and just cool off, get some space, clear my head.
Speaker 3: I have no idea where my wife could be, he
Speaker 3: eventually told the police after you know, saying what was it?
Speaker 3: She was in the hospital floated the idea that she
Speaker 3: might be out of town.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's weird. That hospital thing brings me out
Speaker 2: to you guys. And that's part of this whole thing,
Speaker 2: because it was on that first day, right when she
Speaker 2: was missing and he was at work. He had taken
Speaker 2: his daughter to school or you know, taken her to
Speaker 2: wherever she was going early in the morning, then went
Speaker 2: to work. When he got home, the sheriff's office was
Speaker 2: already there, you know, basically with the rest of his
Speaker 2: family looking for his wife. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know where she is. He thought, oh, well,
Speaker 2: she gets migraines. Maybe she's in the hospital. And he
Speaker 2: goes to the hospital asks the person at the front, hey,
Speaker 2: is McDonald in here, like just asking for a McDonald.
Speaker 2: The person at the front says, yeah, there is a
Speaker 2: McDonald in here, and he goes, oh, okay, and then
Speaker 2: he leaves, but he doesn't check to see if that
Speaker 2: McDonald is his wife. And he goes back and he
Speaker 2: tells that his family, his wife's mother, Yeah, she's in
Speaker 2: the hospital.
Speaker 4: What That's another example of.
Speaker 2: So the mom calls a hospital and the hospital is like, no,
Speaker 2: that is not No, your daughter is not here that
Speaker 2: is a whole different person with the last name McDonald.
Speaker 2: And then immediately after that he has for an attorney
Speaker 2: he doesn't want to talk about it anymore.
Speaker 4: Woof.
Speaker 3: And we know that this kind of behavior increasingly added
Speaker 3: up to a picture that does not look good for
Speaker 3: either member of this couple, particularly Andrew McDonald. Now they
Speaker 3: are thinking less in terms of disappearance and more in
Speaker 3: terms of a fatality. So when McDonald Andre McDonald is arrested,
Speaker 3: he is initially arrested, not on suspicion of this murder,
Speaker 3: not officially, he's initially arrested for evidence tampering because, going
Speaker 3: back to the receipt we mentioned, he had allegedly torn
Speaker 3: up the receipt, the physical receipt he had for these items,
Speaker 3: all of which had been recently purchased. And it's still
Speaker 3: not quite a red flag yet, but it is tampering
Speaker 3: with evidence, and it's definitely on the gradient toward a
Speaker 3: red flag.
Speaker 4: With all the learning that was going on, Why the
Speaker 4: hell didn't he burn it? He just tore it up
Speaker 4: and then they pieced it back together. That's so sloppy
Speaker 4: and bizarre.
Speaker 2: Well, it is, really, it is really weird because it's
Speaker 2: on March second when they find that stuff in his trunk, right,
Speaker 2: it's on March second when the search warrant occurs, and
Speaker 2: that's when he buys the gun, and he gets picked
Speaker 2: up right and gets evaluated. Then on March third, they
Speaker 2: arrest him because he's basically going to walk free again
Speaker 2: and they can't let him do that, so they at
Speaker 2: least get him on that evidence tampering because they already
Speaker 2: thought somebody whose wife is missing and is buying all
Speaker 2: these things the next day, that's disposing of a body,
Speaker 2: and that's all that could be. That's what at least
Speaker 2: the Sheriff's department was thinking.
Speaker 3: And he initially admitted to buying these cleaning supplies. He's
Speaker 3: being led away by deputies. He reportedly kept his statement
Speaker 3: very short. He said, I love my daughter, I love
Speaker 3: my family. That's it. He denied any involvement with his
Speaker 3: wife's disappearance. He got released on bond. Meanwhile, all the
Speaker 3: while the search Frandrine McDonald continued.
Speaker 4: And we're back, guys. This stuff is so damning, Like
Speaker 4: every piece of evidence that has come up, it's borderline
Speaker 4: makes you think was someone setting this guy up? Like
Speaker 4: how could somebody be this stupid and and committing this
Speaker 4: kind of crime. And I'm not suggesting that, but it's
Speaker 4: just good lord.
Speaker 3: It's very hot dog story. Yeah, I think you should leave.
Speaker 3: Uh huh yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, well, to my mind analyzing it, you know, from
Speaker 2: this high up, in this far away in time, it
Speaker 2: does seem like there was a lot of panic happening
Speaker 2: here and that it wasn't fully planned out. It was
Speaker 2: Oh crap, what do I do now? Oh crap, Well,
Speaker 2: I I guess I gotta buy these things. Oh crap,
Speaker 2: I guess I need a gun because if it goes bad.
Speaker 4: Or whatever, be meditated the cover up, it might have
Speaker 4: happened in a big old blow up, knock down, drag
Speaker 4: out fight.
Speaker 2: And that's not according to what he eventually says in
Speaker 2: any either trial or anything. That's just what I'm well,
Speaker 2: actually does kind of line up with what he's.
Speaker 3: Saying he does. Yeah, it's pretty apparent. I think that
Speaker 3: this was not This was not a plan decades in
Speaker 3: the making, you know what I mean. This was not
Speaker 3: a pre medicate, premeditated execution or operation. But we do know,
Speaker 3: if we go back to this twenty nineteen era, we
Speaker 3: do know that the Sheriff of Bear County grows increasingly
Speaker 3: certain that Andre McDonald has for some reason murdered his wife.
Speaker 3: He had killed her during an argument, and then, you know,
Speaker 3: however that argument transpired, he panicked and attempted to dispose
Speaker 3: of her body, and then attempted to erase the evidence
Speaker 3: of his crimes, and every attempt he made only again
Speaker 3: added to suspicion and made him a more prominent suspect
Speaker 3: in the case. After six months of investigation, the community
Speaker 3: members are still searching for this much beloved person, and
Speaker 3: one of the people searching stumbles across scattered remains a
Speaker 3: cadaver on a private ranch six miles away from the
Speaker 3: McDonald family home. It's messed up. The authorities have to
Speaker 3: resort to dental records to confirm identity, and those records
Speaker 3: confirm this is indeed the body of Andrew McDonald. At
Speaker 3: this point, Bear Counting closes in. Andre McDonald is charged
Speaker 3: with first degree murder. It's all over the news. We
Speaker 3: know that sometimes getting to trial in a court of
Speaker 3: law takes longer than getting to trial in public opinion,
Speaker 3: so it might surprise some of us to learn that
Speaker 3: Andre McDonald doesn't go to trial until twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is kind of odd that there would be
Speaker 2: that much of a backlog that you can't even get,
Speaker 2: you know, to a trial unless they were doing some
Speaker 2: kind of investigation still and they had to wait for
Speaker 2: that to conclude before they could take him to trial.
Speaker 4: Just seems so open and shut, you know. I mean,
Speaker 4: but again, we're not, you know, the ones prosecuting cases
Speaker 4: like this, So perhaps there is something to what you're.
Speaker 2: Saying that, Well, if you've got a body that's that
Speaker 2: decomposed and you don't have proof, like, how do you
Speaker 2: convince a jury that he is definitely the guy that
Speaker 2: killed his wife? Right?
Speaker 3: Because technically all the physical evidence we've talked about would
Speaker 3: be deemed circumstantial, all of that stuff that he.
Speaker 2: Bought, right exactly, Yeah, it doesn't prove anything in it,
Speaker 2: and any defense attorney could probably throw that stuff away.
Speaker 2: So what you needed is, I'm assuming a DA would
Speaker 2: say we need to find something that's really going to
Speaker 2: make this.
Speaker 3: Stick Dnair confession. I mean, a defense might not be
Speaker 3: able to sway the jury against the conviction. There there's
Speaker 3: a lot more context to it, I think, but the
Speaker 3: possibilities there and yeah, DA would be much more happy
Speaker 3: with evidence that was conclusive rather than circumstantial. I mean,
Speaker 3: the prosecution establishes McDonald has a history of domestic violence,
Speaker 3: which we'll get to in a moment. They also establish
Speaker 3: all the circumstantial evidence the timeline we're talking about, and
Speaker 3: the scrutiny shows that despite the public image of this
Speaker 3: power couple, this amazing life, things had not been going
Speaker 3: well at the McDonald homestead for a little while now.
Speaker 4: So, on the sixth day of the murder trial, nearly
Speaker 4: four years after Andrea's death, Andre McDonald detailed his version
Speaker 4: of events. This included the sharing of text messages that
Speaker 4: were retrieved from his phone showing that she had likely
Speaker 4: been having an affair.
Speaker 3: Or he believed she was. Allegations of infidel that's right,
Speaker 3: she was still The big point of contention between the
Speaker 3: couple and at this juncture was that we mentioned Andrew
Speaker 3: McDonald grew up in Jamaica and had previous boyfriends. Andre
Speaker 3: McDonald was intensely concerned about Andrene being in contact with
Speaker 3: one of her ex boyfriends, a businessman named Aubin au
Speaker 3: b Yn Hall, who was also from Port Antonio, Jamaica.
Speaker 3: Oh and what his part about leaving to go get
Speaker 3: gas in the night of the argument that checks out.
Speaker 3: He's on camera doing.
Speaker 2: That, and that's when the text chain was happening. That's
Speaker 2: when Andrene says, quote, if you bring up Auben again,
Speaker 2: I will divorce you myself. And then he responds, I
Speaker 2: don't care if you get a divorce. You brought Auben
Speaker 2: into our life, right.
Speaker 3: And one of the some of the high octing gas
Speaker 3: on the fire here is that Andrine had gotten tattoos recently.
Speaker 3: One was the initial A stylistically tattooed on her on
Speaker 3: her hand and that cool little part between the thumb
Speaker 3: and the pointer finger, and then a date tattooed on
Speaker 3: her wrist. Audre is good at the internet, so he
Speaker 3: does the digging, you know, the obsessive partner digging, and
Speaker 3: he finds that the guy he considers his romantic rival, Aubin,
Speaker 3: has the same tattoo.
Speaker 2: Right here on like on his throat, the big A.
Speaker 2: And it's the exact same it's.
Speaker 4: The same style. It's like a twist in a noir,
Speaker 4: you know. I mean, it's the moment that you realize
Speaker 4: what's happening. It all comes into full focus. And this
Speaker 4: guy was clearly a very jealous man. He'd already made
Speaker 4: ultimatums about the stuff, and yeah, it was well.
Speaker 3: Also in a court of law that would still be circumstantially.
Speaker 3: You can't get mad at people for tattoos. But if
Speaker 3: you're a partner and you're already worried about something, just
Speaker 3: imagine if the love of your life you getting a
Speaker 3: tiff with them and then you see, oh, they've got
Speaker 3: your tattoos. Oh they got oh matching tatty makes it
Speaker 3: sound even dirtier.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because it's not just one tattoo, it's multiple tattoos.
Speaker 2: And if if you can just put yourself in that position,
Speaker 2: not to like take sides in any of this stuff,
Speaker 2: but just imagine being the partner in that. You can
Speaker 2: be grumpy, that's what I'm not grumpy. You would be
Speaker 2: betrayed and feel horrible that you would feel. It would
Speaker 2: be like a different it would be like a type
Speaker 2: of death.
Speaker 4: It's level, it's true.
Speaker 2: But so her second tattoo that she gets and her
Speaker 2: husband doesn't know this at the time, she gets it
Speaker 2: on her wrist fourteen three seventy six, and Andrea was
Speaker 2: unsure what it was. Turns out it's the other dude's birthday,
Speaker 2: so the fourteenth of March nineteen seventy six.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's pretty messy too, to be honest.
Speaker 3: And I like that we're unanimously nined on this point
Speaker 3: because this is not victim blaming. This is understanding the
Speaker 3: perspective of another person, I knowing that is still circumstantial
Speaker 3: in the court of law. I think it's fair to
Speaker 3: say that anybody in a committed relationship already with problems
Speaker 3: would be over a very bad moon about this kind
Speaker 3: of activity, for sure.
Speaker 2: Exactly. It's just really important to note that finding out
Speaker 2: about this extramarital affair or whatever was going on there,
Speaker 2: which was at least according to several of Andrean's friends confirmed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it didn't happen just before she was killed, right.
Speaker 3: Just before the disappearance. Yeah it was it was years. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: it was quite a while before. But this did upset
Speaker 3: the balance of the marriage. Andre was convinced his wife
Speaker 3: was cut holding him with her earlier boyfriend, and she
Speaker 3: threatened divorce, you know, unless she promised to do the following,
Speaker 3: cut off contact with this guy, even when and if
Speaker 3: she travels back to Port Antonio, cover up all those
Speaker 3: tattoos that she gets and promises never ever to travel
Speaker 3: to Jamaica without him, without Andre McDonald. These concerns seem
Speaker 3: to smooth the waters a bit temporarily. It's what we
Speaker 3: will call a band aid, But as time goes on,
Speaker 3: they're still arguing about other things. They're arguing about businesses.
Speaker 3: Because now this guy is clocking in right now, he
Speaker 3: is always going to assume there are secrets, and he
Speaker 3: claims that she opens a second business behind his back.
Speaker 3: She keeps it a secret from him for more than
Speaker 3: a year, and this brings more threats of divorce and
Speaker 3: also he from his perspective, Andre McDonald is saying, look,
Speaker 3: we partnered on this first business. She's taking funds from
Speaker 3: what we do to start her own second business. So
Speaker 3: essentially this my wife is robbing me. That the phrase.
Speaker 4: Business as well, it would seem yeah, that's what he said.
Speaker 2: It's not great. It wouldn't be great if that were
Speaker 2: actually the fact. But I don't know how much of
Speaker 2: that is. You know, was established. I guess through discovery
Speaker 2: during the trial that was like, yes, this is definitely happening.
Speaker 2: Here is the business. She was using these funds to
Speaker 2: do whatever we don't have all those facts. We have
Speaker 2: we have what was reported from most of the transcripts
Speaker 2: from the trial right about a lot of that stuff,
Speaker 2: but it's not in full.
Speaker 3: And we don't have Andrea McDonald's testimony.
Speaker 2: Exactly right, So we don't know fully what was happening.
Speaker 2: This is this guy's opinion. There is stuff from there.
Speaker 2: The tax who was it? It was their tax preparer
Speaker 2: that they were using together, right, right, then ended up
Speaker 2: coming up with a lot of that stuff. But theoretically,
Speaker 2: what would that what could that mean? You guys, if
Speaker 2: she's got a secondary.
Speaker 4: Business, she's working our way towards escape.
Speaker 2: Like divorce or or breaking the yeah, the thing into
Speaker 2: like theoretically.
Speaker 4: Having her own thing.
Speaker 3: That's where Yeah, that's that's where they talk about the
Speaker 3: phrase that she would have used or maybe this is
Speaker 3: you know, people quote each other or misquote and misconstrue
Speaker 3: each other all the time in arguments. So we we
Speaker 3: can read a few tea leaves in some of Audrey
Speaker 3: McDonald's court statements at the trial. He says, quote, she
Speaker 3: became extremely angry at the thought of us splitting the business,
Speaker 3: by which I think they mean taking that first business
Speaker 3: and splitting it in Twain.
Speaker 2: Issues the starlight homes Yeah.
Speaker 3: And he says, she charges into the room to confront me.
Speaker 3: She comes right up in my face. At that moment,
Speaker 3: she spat her spits, he says, in my face. So
Speaker 3: at that point I grabbed her, and I think we
Speaker 3: had a clash of heads, and I think it opened
Speaker 3: up a cut somewhere on her face. And the rest
Speaker 3: of his testimony is frankly quite disturbing because he is
Speaker 3: describing in his mind accidentally killing someone but definitely meaning
Speaker 3: to beat the snot out of them. He talks about
Speaker 3: how she falls over and he kicks her twice, and
Speaker 3: on the second kick he hears a wheezing coming out
Speaker 3: of her. Hears the footsteps of what turns out to
Speaker 3: be their daughter, who is detail Yeah, may have witnessed
Speaker 3: the scene, he says. He argued in court that he
Speaker 3: only struck her not because he's a domestic abuser, but
Speaker 3: he only struck her because he was fearful that she
Speaker 3: would harm him. He was frightened of her physical prowess
Speaker 3: as a powerlifter.
Speaker 2: She is significantly taller than him and looks well, you
Speaker 2: don't see a lot of him on Instagram, you know,
Speaker 2: being super strong. But her Instagram is still up and
Speaker 2: you can still find it, and she she was strong
Speaker 2: as well. I can imagine him being intimidated at least,
Speaker 2: but worried that she's gonna kill him or I don't know, I.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's cuily. It doesn't matter in the context
Speaker 4: of things. But like, we can't we weren't in the room.
Speaker 4: We can't. We can't even really speculate on the ferocity
Speaker 4: you know, of an exchange.
Speaker 3: Like this, Right, we only given that the only witness
Speaker 3: is someone largely nonverbal. Right, The only non involved witness
Speaker 3: there physically the child.
Speaker 4: Just to remind me that she was on the spectrum
Speaker 4: like to an extreme degree.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, and we're hearing. We're hearing someone choosing to
Speaker 3: confess to a murder and then choosing the way in
Speaker 3: which they confess it. Now, was Andrening in great shape?
Speaker 3: Absolutely power lifter. Does hype matter that much in a
Speaker 3: fight only if you're fighting with boxing rules or something
Speaker 3: that can strange your activity. But that is what he said.
Speaker 3: He said that he was frightened and he did not
Speaker 3: He meant to hit her to protect himself, but he
Speaker 3: didn't mean to enter life.
Speaker 4: It would seem to that wouldn't be surprised if he
Speaker 4: was coached to set the scene in this fashion.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a great point, Noel, because he did have
Speaker 3: a defense team, and he lawyered up very quickly when
Speaker 3: the sheriffs initially contacted him. So he tells the court
Speaker 3: he puts their daughter back to bed, and after you know,
Speaker 3: he calms the kid down and puts her to bed.
Speaker 4: He returns only to find right that has happened.
Speaker 3: Now instead of calling nine, one.
Speaker 4: Dumps her body in a field.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Christ take her, takes her clothing and burns it.
Speaker 3: And also I would assume you guys told me. I
Speaker 3: would assume this is at the point where he also
Speaker 3: captures the phone, right.
Speaker 4: At least imagine.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So with all this, I mean, it's very
Speaker 3: hard for us to hear an argument that this is circumstantial,
Speaker 3: because it's legal to buy all all those items at
Speaker 3: one point or another. It's also legal to buy a
Speaker 3: gun and leave it in the store, or to go
Speaker 3: to a store not by a gun.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I get I get caught up on this sometimes, guys.
Speaker 4: I'm interested to hear your thoughts, like, you know, yes,
Speaker 4: those things create this like seemingly sure a sense of
Speaker 4: what happened, and yet they are considered circumstantial. I'm just
Speaker 4: wondering what that being considered circumstantial and it admissible or
Speaker 4: whatever for direct you know, conviction. What protects does that
Speaker 4: offer us from that being misused? Because this just seems
Speaker 4: like an example where it should be a slam dunk
Speaker 4: because of these things. But no, it's circumstantial. I was
Speaker 4: wondering what the idea of circumstantial evidence, like, where does
Speaker 4: it actually protect the innocent? I don't know, it's maybe
Speaker 4: all at home think about it. It's just something that
Speaker 4: I get caught up on sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let us know what you think fill a conspiracy realist,
Speaker 3: I believe that's a great question. I mean, you could see,
Speaker 3: we know in the past circumstantial evidence has led to
Speaker 3: wrongful convictions. Right, A kid who maybe buys a cell
Speaker 3: phone from someone who's fencing cell phone, so that cell
Speaker 3: phone was from a murder victim.
Speaker 4: Sure, but why didn't this circumstantial evidence on its own?
Speaker 4: It seemed like it required the confession.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean
Speaker 3: it goes back to the burden of proof, right, What
Speaker 3: is beyond a reasonable doubt, what is a reasonable out?
Speaker 3: The jury Eventually, based on this discourse, they find McDonald
Speaker 3: guilty not a first degree murder to the earlier point,
Speaker 3: but of manslaughter. And like you're saying, it's primarily due
Speaker 3: to his testimony in court, Yeah.
Speaker 2: And we should have mention there too. According to some
Speaker 2: of the jurors after the fact, they were split down
Speaker 2: the middle six and six for manslaughter or murder, and
Speaker 2: nobody thought he was innocent, nobody thought he was self defense.
Speaker 2: They were just like, no, this dude killed his wife,
Speaker 2: but do we charge him with murder or manslaughter because
Speaker 2: of the situation surrounding, you know, whatever was happening and
Speaker 2: the moment of panic and all that other stuff like
Speaker 2: how much do we how much do we weigh that?
Speaker 2: And eventually, and at least according to two jurors that
Speaker 2: are interviewed for that forty eight hours episode, they went
Speaker 2: with manslaughter because they could not get the other six
Speaker 2: people to agree with murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's also another ten gentile twist here. A few days,
Speaker 3: I think, like two days forty eight hours before the trial,
Speaker 3: he texts family members and talks about this, but kind
Speaker 3: of like getting his story straight to them via text,
Speaker 3: in what some called a move to make sure he
Speaker 3: could steer the conversation towards manslaughter rather than murder. Either way,
Speaker 3: he is sentenced. He gets twenty years in prison, where
Speaker 3: he remains at the time of this recording. The public
Speaker 3: as well as Andrew McDonald's family not happy with the verdict.
Speaker 3: Furious in fact, they felt justice was not served. Twenty
Speaker 3: years in prison is a finite amount of time, and
Speaker 3: we'll never know what, you know, his victim would have
Speaker 3: done that shud been allowed to live.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And after all that, a custody battle kind of rages,
Speaker 4: because of course there was the most heartbreaking part of
Speaker 4: this story to me anyway, the child there who might
Speaker 4: have witnessed not only ongoing potentially domestic abuse and you know,
Speaker 4: disturbances between the parents who had seemed perpetrated by by
Speaker 4: mister McDonald, but also potentially was a witness to her
Speaker 4: mother's murder.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And with this, with this custody battle, eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, Andrew McDonald's mother wins the case.
Speaker 4: As civil at this point, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, they're trying to figure out, you know, where's
Speaker 3: the safest home for the kid. So then yes. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three, Andrew McDonald's family wins a pretty significant
Speaker 3: civil that's also wrongful death case for two hundred and
Speaker 3: ten million US dollars and damages against Andre McDonald.
Speaker 4: I had that kind of money, No.
Speaker 3: Not that we know of. And in August of this year,
Speaker 3: as we record August of twenty twenty four, his most
Speaker 3: recent appeal was just denied. So it seems for now
Speaker 3: he will continue to serve the time. But this there's
Speaker 3: a stranger profile here, you guys, because it's portrayed as
Speaker 3: a crime of passion, no premeditation other than post fact
Speaker 3: right trying to cover up the crime. Not long after
Speaker 3: Andre MacDonald was convicted, his own father found himself in
Speaker 3: court accused of murdering both his first and his second wives.
Speaker 4: What the heck? Yeah, that's a twist, I mean, but
Speaker 4: it was also been to your point, especially here in
Speaker 4: the Dog. Perhaps it is an indication of that continuum
Speaker 4: of generational trauma and violence that we talk about a
Speaker 4: lot on the show.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, I'm wondering. We know the father, Everton McDonald,
Speaker 3: known as Beachy Stout to his friends and his co
Speaker 3: defendant Oscar Barnes were later found guilty in Jamaica's Supreme
Speaker 3: Court for at least the death of Tanya McDonald. You
Speaker 3: can find a piece on this in the Jamaica Observer
Speaker 3: and a couple of other local papers. Apparently he had
Speaker 3: tried to pay a guy named Denvelen Bubbla Minote three
Speaker 3: million dollars to kill his wife or Beachy stout hat,
Speaker 3: and he gave him exact instructions. He said, stab her
Speaker 3: and then burn her body. This guy couldn't do it,
Speaker 3: so he sub contracted the hit to a guy named
Speaker 3: Oscar Barnes, and both of those guys got convicted. I
Speaker 3: believe they are in jail for life.
Speaker 4: That's there is this cay getting three million bucks.
Speaker 3: That's another question, right.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry. I do feel like we're ending with a
Speaker 4: few open questions, yes, which is fine.
Speaker 3: And folks, I love the point you made. Know about
Speaker 3: bringing up more questions. There are things we can't answer.
Speaker 3: But we can't answer one question right now. Why are
Speaker 3: we bringing up this case long after it's been solved,
Speaker 3: long after this innocent child has been saved. Well's primarily
Speaker 3: because we see a disturbing trend in violence against women.
Speaker 3: You know, and in these cycles of abuse, did the
Speaker 3: son learn from the father and feel physical violence was appropriate.
Speaker 3: How do we in the audience raise children in community
Speaker 3: to avoid such horrific acts? And you know, right now
Speaker 3: the United States is struggling to preserve the rights of
Speaker 3: women over the next four years and beyond. This is
Speaker 3: something to think about.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a big deal her in Andrea's life too,
Speaker 2: because according to her co workers, according to some of
Speaker 2: her good friends, she was in an abusive relationship and
Speaker 2: she was she would come in with scratches on her
Speaker 2: face that her friends would take note of and ask
Speaker 2: her about, and she would, you know, she would even
Speaker 2: say to them, ohs Andre, you know it's Andre, But
Speaker 2: I don't know, Like how when there's something like that,
Speaker 2: how do we effectively have stuff in place so that
Speaker 2: so that someone can really be loud about it, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm under attack at home.
Speaker 4: It's just so difficult, though, because oftentimes there's that Stockholm
Speaker 4: syndrome of it all, where they know they don't want
Speaker 4: to be loud about her, they feel compelled to defend
Speaker 4: the abuser. And that's the real complex part of it.
Speaker 4: And it also involves a lot of psychological abuse. And
Speaker 4: coercion and just having people breaking people down to make
Speaker 4: them feel as though they need you.
Speaker 3: You know. Normalization and erosion of boundaries can sent the
Speaker 3: one thing and then driving tonimalize your horrific behavior toward others. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I agree with these points. Domestic violence cannot simply be
Speaker 3: legislated away. It's a multi, multi generational pattern. It comes
Speaker 3: from many different sources. There are resources available to help folks,
Speaker 3: and that's why we're looking at this story today. Please please,
Speaker 3: please be safe. Thank you so much for tuning in.
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