Speaker 1: School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold
Speaker 1: case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite
Speaker 1: witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially
Speaker 1: be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights
Speaker 1: from family and community members, their statements should not be
Speaker 1: considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts
Speaker 1: inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has
Speaker 1: presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Speaker 1: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
Speaker 1: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
Speaker 1: is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2: On June twenty seventh, two thousand, Maggie Bish drove her
Speaker 2: sixteen year old daughter, Molly and Bish to her job
Speaker 2: lifeguarding at Commons Pond in the town of Warren, Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Ellie was excited about her new job, which she had
Speaker 2: just started eight days earlier. Mollie came from a close
Speaker 2: knit family. She grew up with her mom Maggie, her
Speaker 2: dad John, her sister Heather, and her brother John Junior.
Speaker 2: Mollie was the baby of the family. According to New
Speaker 2: England dot Com, Molly's father, John, had been living in
Speaker 2: Detroit and was on track to become a priest when
Speaker 2: he met and fell in love with Maggie. Then he
Speaker 2: left seminary and they got married. The newlyweds relocated to
Speaker 2: Warren because it was John's hometown and because they believed
Speaker 2: that it would be a safe place to raise a family,
Speaker 2: and for a long time it was. Maggie was a
Speaker 2: first grade teacher, John was a probation officer. Mollie's brother,
Speaker 2: John Junior, also worked as a lifeguard at Commons Pond.
Speaker 2: He actually trained Mollie during her first six days on
Speaker 2: the job before she started lifeguarding and teaching swimming lessons
Speaker 2: to children on her own. At school, Molly was on
Speaker 2: the Hona roll. She had just been to her first prom,
Speaker 2: and she was looking forward to starting her senior year.
Speaker 2: She was athletic and played soccer, basketball, and softball. Her
Speaker 2: obituary red quote, funny and social, Molly loved everyone. She
Speaker 2: was a blend of lucy and forst gump end quote.
Speaker 2: Maggie and Molly had a routine. Maggie dropped Molly off
Speaker 2: at work every day. She would later tell police that
Speaker 2: the day before on June twenty six, when she dropped
Speaker 2: Molly off at work, she saw something weird in the
Speaker 2: parking lot. She noticed a man with a mustache smoking
Speaker 2: a cigarette. He was driving a white sedan, and this
Speaker 2: man was staring at Molly and at one point, Maggie said,
Speaker 2: she looked over at this man and locked eyes with him.
Speaker 2: Maggie said there was nothing overtly threatening about the guy,
Speaker 2: but as a mother, he made the hair on the
Speaker 2: back of her neck stand up. She was so unnerve
Speaker 2: that on June twenty six she waited for about twenty
Speaker 2: minutes until the mustache stranger drove away. The next morning,
Speaker 2: on June twenty seventh, she didn't see any sign of
Speaker 2: the creepy stranger, so she felt safe dropping Mollie off
Speaker 2: at work.
Speaker 3: When Mollie got out of the car.
Speaker 2: Ahead of the beach that day, her mother later told
Speaker 2: CBS that Mollie's last words to her were.
Speaker 3: I love you, Mom.
Speaker 2: That was the last time that Maggie bish ever saw
Speaker 2: her daughter alive. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past seven
Speaker 2: years of making my true crime podcast, Helen Gone, I've
Speaker 2: learned that there's no such thing as a small town
Speaker 2: where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages
Speaker 2: from people all around the country asking for help with
Speaker 2: an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families and their communities.
Speaker 2: If you have a case you'd like me and my
Speaker 2: team to look into, you can reach out to us
Speaker 2: at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven, eight
Speaker 2: seven even four four, six, one four or five. That's
Speaker 2: six seven eight seven four, four, six, one, four or five,
Speaker 2: or you can send us a message on Instagram at
Speaker 2: Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Police say
Speaker 2: Molly would have been alone at the beach at Commins
Speaker 2: Pond for no more than ten to fifteen minutes before
Speaker 2: the parents started arriving for their children's swimming lessons at
Speaker 2: around ten twenty am. A woman named Sandra Woodworth, who
Speaker 2: was one of the parents and her children showed up
Speaker 2: for the swimming lessons, but they noticed there was no
Speaker 2: one at the lifeguard station. Mollie was gone, but her
Speaker 2: stuff was still there. Mollie's backpack was there with her
Speaker 2: beeper inside it. Remember this was the pre cell phone era,
Speaker 2: so teenagers didn't go anywhere without their beeper and the
Speaker 2: first aid kit that she used was there and open.
Speaker 2: There was also a towel draped over the beach chair
Speaker 2: she was using. Her whistle was there, and so were
Speaker 2: her shoes and her poland Spring's water bottle. Mollie also
Speaker 2: had a radio, so every morning Mollie had to pick
Speaker 2: up her two way radio that she used at work
Speaker 2: from the police station. It was also sitting there. Mollie
Speaker 2: never showed up. At eleven am, Mollie's Bok Park's commissioner
Speaker 2: ed Fett showed up and Sandra told him Mollie was
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. At first, people thought maybe Molly
Speaker 2: had just stepped away for a minute, since all of
Speaker 2: her stuff had been left behind pretty much undisturbed. The
Speaker 2: park's commissioner later told police that at first he thought
Speaker 2: Mollie may be in the water swimming, but when she
Speaker 2: didn't reappear at eleven forty four am, ed Fett called
Speaker 2: the Warren Police department. He called from Mollie's two way
Speaker 2: radio to report that she was missing. Since there were
Speaker 2: no signs of a struggle, the police didn't initially assume
Speaker 2: that Molly had been abducted. They also thought she might
Speaker 2: have ditched work. Maybe she was hanging out with her friends,
Speaker 2: or they even considered the possibility that she'd jumped in
Speaker 2: to go swimming and drowned. Mollie's sister, Heather told a
Speaker 2: journalist much later that, in addition to a delay in
Speaker 2: figuring out that this could be a potential abduction, the
Speaker 2: police were already that day. It was a small town
Speaker 2: with a small police force, and the night before one
Speaker 2: of Molly's friends had been hit by a car, so
Speaker 2: when they got the call about Molly, they were already
Speaker 2: occupied investigating that. But Molly's family points out they believe
Speaker 2: from the beginning they thought it was very unlikely that
Speaker 2: she would have left, because even if she did have
Speaker 2: to step away for some reason, why would she leave
Speaker 2: all of her stuff behind, and why was the first
Speaker 2: aid kit open. Finally, about three hours after Molly's shift started,
Speaker 2: State police showed up and called Molly's family. This was
Speaker 2: at around one thirty PM. That's when Molly's mother, Maggie,
Speaker 2: found out that her daughter was missing. Police talked to
Speaker 2: Maggie about her drive with Mollie and their morning routine.
Speaker 2: Maggie told them she and Molly had stopped by a
Speaker 2: local convenience store at nine to fifty am. The store's
Speaker 2: camera had Molly on camera in that storey water bottles.
Speaker 2: At nine fifty six am, Maggie and Molly stopped by
Speaker 2: the local police station to pick up Molly's two way
Speaker 2: radio that she used for her lifeguarding job. At nine
Speaker 2: fifty eight am, they arrived at Cummens Pond. Maggie said
Speaker 2: that she noticed the parking lot was pretty much deserted
Speaker 2: and the beach was empty except for a dump truck
Speaker 2: that was dropping off a load of sand. Maggie drove
Speaker 2: off at exactly ten am. The police asked Maggie if
Speaker 2: she had seen anyone suspicious lately, and of course, she
Speaker 2: told them about the man in the white car who
Speaker 2: she saw the day before. She said that the man
Speaker 2: was sitting alone in the parking lot, that the man
Speaker 2: was staring at Molly, and that at one point she
Speaker 2: had stared this man straight in the eye.
Speaker 3: She explained to police she.
Speaker 2: Had waited for the guy to leave, which he did
Speaker 2: about twenty minutes later. Maggie clarified that while the guy
Speaker 2: had given her a creepy vibe, he had not been
Speaker 2: overtly threatening. She described him as being between the ages
Speaker 2: of maybe forty five and fifty five years old, with
Speaker 2: dark black and gray hair and a mustache. Once the
Speaker 2: search started that afternoon, it mushroomed fast. Police had a
Speaker 2: ground search with around two hundred people scouring the woods,
Speaker 2: along with police dogs at the scene, helicopters, and police
Speaker 2: from elsewhere in the state. Unfortunately, because at first police
Speaker 2: didn't think this was an abduction, the crime scene was
Speaker 2: not secured properly. Dozens of people were walking through and
Speaker 2: around the area where Molly went missing, and they went
Speaker 2: through her stuff that was left behind. Police questioned a
Speaker 2: lot of people, including Molly's boyfriend at the time and
Speaker 2: people who were at the lake that day. Molly's family
Speaker 2: was adamant she would not have wandered away from her
Speaker 2: new job once she had taken many classes to get
Speaker 2: certifications for They also said they believed she was a
Speaker 2: strong swimmer and would not have Also, investigators started believing
Speaker 2: that she had never gotten into the water because when
Speaker 2: she arrived for her shift, Mollie was wearing a blue
Speaker 2: one piece bathing suit and shorts, and her shorts were
Speaker 2: nowhere to be found. Also, whatever happened to Molly had
Speaker 2: happened within a very narrow window of time. Mollie had
Speaker 2: not called into the police station at the start of
Speaker 2: her shift, which was her regular routine. It seemed as
Speaker 2: though something distracted her Right when she arrived. The next day,
Speaker 2: the police dogs alerted on Molly's scent near the pond
Speaker 2: and tracked it up a rocky steep path that led
Speaker 2: to a cemetery. Now this was a steep path with
Speaker 2: a lot of rocks, so it seemed unlikely she would
Speaker 2: just wander up there, especially because her shoes were left
Speaker 2: behind at the pond. So did someone lure Molly up
Speaker 2: there or incapacitate her somehow and take her there?
Speaker 3: And it so?
Speaker 2: Was it someone she knew or a stranger, But there
Speaker 2: was no sign of Mollie. Then the dogs lost the
Speaker 2: scent en route nineteen Mollie was popular in school and
Speaker 2: had no known enemies. Police considered a lot of possibilities
Speaker 2: about who could have taken her. They even wondered if
Speaker 2: it could be someone who was linked to Molly's father,
Speaker 2: John bish because John was a probation officer at the
Speaker 2: East Brookfield District Court. So they asked if someone would
Speaker 2: have been angry at him and maybe hurt Molly in
Speaker 2: retaliation for something John did, but that possibility was quickly
Speaker 2: ruled out. Police had no obvious suspect, and Molly's sister, Heather,
Speaker 2: said that the family started their own investigation. They were
Speaker 2: calling around to Molly's friends. They were trying to see
Speaker 2: if anyone had seen her during this time. Police stated
Speaker 2: they questioned hundreds of people and ten different people all
Speaker 2: failed by detector tests. It seemed like everyone was a
Speaker 2: suspect and the police seemed to be clueless. They talked
Speaker 2: to Molly's boss, ed Fett. He told investigators that that morning,
Speaker 2: from around nine to fifty am until the time he
Speaker 2: arrived at the beach, he was painting a fence nearby
Speaker 2: with some volunteers. But it was reported elsewhere that John,
Speaker 2: Molly's brother, saw Ed feed at the hardware store at
Speaker 2: nine thirty am, and that Ed had shown up with
Speaker 2: the paint at Cutter Park at around nine to fifty am,
Speaker 2: and then that he had left, so he may not
Speaker 2: have been in that park the entire time. However, there
Speaker 2: is no reason to suspect that ed Fett was in
Speaker 2: any way involved with Molly's disappearance. He was just one
Speaker 2: of the many people who were questioned by police, and
Speaker 2: one of many people whom it was reported in the media,
Speaker 2: failed a light detector test. Ed said to The Boston
Speaker 2: Globe quote, I was treated like a suspect.
Speaker 3: Back then.
Speaker 2: They checked out my story and found out that I
Speaker 2: had an alibi. Ed Fett said police had cleared him
Speaker 2: because of his alibi, and he said he had voluntarily
Speaker 2: submitted DNA along with a lot of other people. He
Speaker 2: said at the time he believed that police got his
Speaker 2: DNA because they wanted to build a large enough database
Speaker 2: to test against. Police continued hunting for a suspect, and
Speaker 2: they seemed to be focusing on the mysterious man with
Speaker 2: the mustache who was in the white car on the
Speaker 2: day Molly went missing. Maggie, Molly's mother, worked with a
Speaker 2: sketch artist. The sketch artist was actually the same person
Speaker 2: who did the very well known sketch of the unibomber.
Speaker 2: So Maggie and this sketch artist created a portrait of
Speaker 2: the suspect police were looking for. They offered one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand dollars reward. This brought in a ton of tips,
Speaker 2: but unfortunately it also led to a lot of dead
Speaker 2: ends for police. The sketch was very detailed, but the
Speaker 2: problem with it was that it looked like a lot
Speaker 2: of people. Also, the suspect could have shaved his mustache,
Speaker 2: which would have completely altered his appearance. Some witnesses told
Speaker 2: police they had seen a man matching this description around
Speaker 2: the area of the pond that day and at the
Speaker 2: end of the rocky trail that led to that cemetery,
Speaker 2: but these IDs were, to my knowledge, never confirmed. Investigators
Speaker 2: continued to track down Leeds, and according to media reports,
Speaker 2: they investigated around one hundred and twenty five men with
Speaker 2: white cars. One person police looked into who resembled the
Speaker 2: sketch was fifty two year old Oscar by Largen, who
Speaker 2: lived in the nearby town of Worcester. Oscar was convicted
Speaker 2: of raping a child and of indecent assault and battery
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety one. He also had a tenuous connection
Speaker 2: to Molly. While attending his nephew's graduation party a few
Speaker 2: weeks before Molly vanished, he told police he had met
Speaker 2: Molly briefly, and, like many of the other men questioned
Speaker 2: by police, he had a mustache. Oscar was interviewed twice
Speaker 2: by the police about any involvement with Molly's disappearance. There
Speaker 2: was no concrete evidence found that he was involved, and
Speaker 2: he always denied any involvement in her disappearance. Police also
Speaker 2: canvassed the area. They interviewed local sex offenders, and they
Speaker 2: started to take a look at people who had similar
Speaker 2: charges against them, but the problem was this was a
Speaker 2: long list. Police also took a look at a local
Speaker 2: hunter and fisherman named Rodney Stanger. He lived locally and
Speaker 2: was convicted of murdering his girlfriend Cristeal Morrison in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. The police reportedly investigated Rodney after his
Speaker 2: girlfriend's sister told them that a week before Cristel died,
Speaker 2: she had told her sister Rodney allegedly killed both Mollie
Speaker 2: and another girl in Massachusetts. Rodney also had a connection
Speaker 2: with the area. He fished at Commons Pond, and according
Speaker 2: to media reports, he had also driven a white cart
Speaker 2: one time when Molly took classes at the YMCA to
Speaker 2: become a lifeguard. Rodney was living in an address just
Speaker 2: a few blocks away, but there was zero evidence that
Speaker 2: linked him in any direct way to Molly's murder. He
Speaker 2: was sentenced to twenty five years for Crystal's murder, but
Speaker 2: always denied any involvement in Molly's murder. In addition to
Speaker 2: considering the possibility that this could have been a random stranger,
Speaker 2: police also talked to people Molly knew. Police talked to
Speaker 2: her boyfriend at the time, Stephen Lucas. According to media reports,
Speaker 2: Stephen and Molly had gone to the prom together and
Speaker 2: they had dated for about three months at the time
Speaker 2: of her disappearance. On the day of Molly's disappearance, Stephen
Speaker 2: said that he was home when the police interviewed him,
Speaker 2: they noticed he had a swollen lip. He told police
Speaker 2: he was getting out of bed and had stumbled and
Speaker 2: bumped his lip on the bedroom door, but it was
Speaker 2: reported on medium dot com that another one of Stephen's
Speaker 2: friends said they were.
Speaker 3: Told he had a cold sore that day.
Speaker 2: CNN also reported that Molly's family was surprised that Stephen
Speaker 2: did not show up at their house and that he
Speaker 2: was not actively participating in the search for Mollie. Whether
Speaker 2: or not he took and passed a lie detector test
Speaker 2: isn't known. Some media reports say he did pass. CNN
Speaker 2: reported he was asked to take a polygraph but declined.
Speaker 2: Channel seven reported that police had questioned Stephen Lucas and
Speaker 2: he had given police a DNA sample. But we can't
Speaker 2: ask Stephen Lucas about Molly because he has also passed away.
Speaker 2: He died in two thousand and eight in a car accident.
Speaker 2: He was twenty five years old. Molly's family has gone
Speaker 2: on record as saying they do not believe that Stephen
Speaker 2: was the killer. They believe the killer was someone who
Speaker 2: was stalking Mollie, and they do not believe that the
Speaker 2: killer was someone Molly knew well. For a long time,
Speaker 2: Molly's case appeared to have gone completely cold until two
Speaker 2: thousand and two. That year, a hunter in the town
Speaker 2: of Palmer, Massachusetts, which was about a twenty minute drive
Speaker 2: away from Warren, saw some blue bathing suit fabric out
Speaker 2: in the woods. At the time, it struck him as
Speaker 2: a bit weird. There was nothing attached to the fabric,
Speaker 2: but he didn't search or pick anything up at the time.
Speaker 3: He just went on with his day.
Speaker 2: Later, he told a friend of his named Tim McGuigan,
Speaker 2: a former police officer and later a true crime writer,
Speaker 2: about the bathing suit fabric he'd found, and Tim McGuigan
Speaker 2: called this tip in to the police, investigators started the search.
Speaker 2: Over two hundred searchers scoured that area. Then on June ninth,
Speaker 2: two thousand and three, they found remains in a wooded
Speaker 2: area about five miles from the pond where Molly disappeared.
Speaker 2: These remains were later identified as Molly's. At the scene,
Speaker 2: searchers found twenty six of Molly's bones. Investigators said that
Speaker 2: due to the decomposition, they were unable to determine a
Speaker 2: definitive cause of death. This was also an area with
Speaker 2: a lot of wildlife, so this made recovery more difficult,
Speaker 2: but at least now Molly's family could lay her to rest,
Speaker 2: and investigators knew definitively that they were dealing with a homicide.
Speaker 2: Tim McGuigan, who reported the tip, was very familiar with
Speaker 2: Molly's case. He had actually written a book about the
Speaker 2: abduction of a ten year old girl named Holly Parinan,
Speaker 2: and he ended up researching Molly's case because he believed
Speaker 2: there were some similarities between the two cases. Holly disappeared
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety three from Stourbridge, Massachusetts, Hollywood, visiting her
Speaker 2: grandmother's cottage. When she and her brother went to see
Speaker 2: a neighbor's puppies. Holly's brother came home without her and
Speaker 2: she was nowhere to be found. Hunters found her body
Speaker 2: two months later on October twenty third, nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: in a wooded area approximately five miles away. Holly's case
Speaker 2: made national news, and in the region that story was massive,
Speaker 2: so many online. Commoners who live in Massachusetts say that
Speaker 2: this was the first time as children they learned about
Speaker 2: stranger danger. Everyone knew about Holly's kidnapping, and strangely, there
Speaker 2: was a connection between Holly and Molly's cases.
Speaker 3: When she was taken.
Speaker 2: Holly was ten years old, the same age Molly was
Speaker 2: at the time, and Mollie had written Holly's parents a
Speaker 2: letter telling them that she was sorry about their daughter
Speaker 2: being missing. At some point, Tim told reporters he became
Speaker 2: obsessed with Holly's case.
Speaker 3: It affected his life.
Speaker 2: He was an alcohol and his drinking was getting more
Speaker 2: and more out of control. His boss has criticized what
Speaker 2: they considered to be his over involvement in the case,
Speaker 2: and eventually he left the police force. He saw similarities
Speaker 2: between Holly Purinan's case and Molly Bsh's case, so he
Speaker 2: contacted Molly's family and asked for permission to look into
Speaker 2: her case.
Speaker 3: As well, and they agreed.
Speaker 2: But later Tim would become a controversial character in this story.
Speaker 3: After the bathing.
Speaker 2: Suit led to Molly's remains. Tim later tried to claim
Speaker 2: the one hundred thousand dollars reward, but it was denied
Speaker 2: and he ended up suing the Worcester District Attorney's office.
Speaker 2: Tim argued he was responsible for leading investigators to that
Speaker 2: bathing suit evidence which led directly to Molly's body being recovered.
Speaker 2: So his argument was that some of the missing posters
Speaker 2: stated the reward would be paid for information leading to Molly,
Speaker 2: but the DA's office stated those posters were for a
Speaker 2: private organization. They said their posters had been very specific
Speaker 2: they would only pay out if the information given led
Speaker 2: to an arrest and a conviction, which has not happened yet. Eventually,
Speaker 2: Tim's lawsuit was dismissed. Tim mcgwigan testified that the lawsuit
Speaker 2: for him was not about the money, but about helping
Speaker 2: solve the case, and in a crazy twist, police actually
Speaker 2: considered Tim a person of interest. At one point, police
Speaker 2: gave him a polygraph test which it was reported that
Speaker 2: he passed later, Molly's mother said she regretted the way
Speaker 2: that Tim mcgwigan was treated. She said while a court
Speaker 2: may have decided that Tim couldn't collect the reward because
Speaker 2: that tip hadn't technically solved the case, she appreciated the
Speaker 2: crucial role that he played in helping find Molly's body.
Speaker 2: Holly Paranan and Molly Bush's case had some other strange connections.
Speaker 2: In twenty twelve, police did hold a press comfort It's
Speaker 2: for Holly's case. They said they were looking for the
Speaker 2: public's help in getting information about a person of interest
Speaker 2: named David Puoliocht. They were seeking information on this person
Speaker 2: in connection with Holly's abduction and murder. David had worked
Speaker 2: as a carpenter at one point. He also worked at
Speaker 2: a juvenile detention center and was in the Coastguard. He
Speaker 2: was a fisherman and a hunter. The district attorney stated
Speaker 2: at the press conference that new forensic evidence in the
Speaker 2: area where Holly's remains were found had what they called
Speaker 2: a link to David. They said they found a match
Speaker 2: to his DNA close to, but not right by, Holly's remains.
Speaker 2: The district attorney said, quote the nature of the items
Speaker 2: suggests either mister Puliocht or people associated with him were
Speaker 2: in the area at a time relevant to the disappearance
Speaker 2: of Holly and the discovery of her remains end quote.
Speaker 2: At the press conference, they showed photographs of David and
Speaker 2: he had a heavy mustache and looked a lot like
Speaker 2: the sketch created in Molly's case. So could David have
Speaker 2: been involved in Molly Bush's death? Unfortunately, investigators couldn't bring
Speaker 2: David in for questioning for Holly or Molly's case because
Speaker 2: he died years earlier in August of two thousand and
Speaker 2: three a congestive heart failure and hypertension. To this day,
Speaker 2: Holly Paranin's murder has never been solved, and even after
Speaker 2: finding Molly's body, investigators seemed no closer to identifying a
Speaker 2: suspect in Molly's murder. So who took Molly that day?
Speaker 2: Was it someone she knew or a stranger? Her father,
Speaker 2: John told New England dot Com in twenty sixteen that
Speaker 2: he believed that Molly's kidnapping and murder were planned. He said, quote,
Speaker 2: what we think happened is someone had stalked her. He
Speaker 2: had a very short window of time to get to her.
Speaker 3: He knew what he was doing.
Speaker 2: He probably feigned injury, maybe a hook in his finger.
Speaker 2: While she opened the first aid kit he got her
Speaker 2: end quote. That was the first thought that I had
Speaker 2: when I was reading about this case, that someone could
Speaker 2: have faked an injury, and that maybe that was why
Speaker 2: the first aid kit was open. It also reminded me
Speaker 2: of the Ted Bundy case, where he was able to
Speaker 2: abduct and murder two women in a single day at
Speaker 2: a lake by wearing a cast and appearing as though
Speaker 2: he needed help. When those two women saw Ted Bundy,
Speaker 2: it only took a second and the same thing could
Speaker 2: have happened to Molly Bush. But if someone did convince
Speaker 2: her that he needed first aid, was it a stranger
Speaker 2: who was able to convince her of that or was
Speaker 2: it someone Molly knew and was comfortable with who lured
Speaker 2: her up the hill to that spot. Police went through
Speaker 2: Molly's room, They read her notebooks and journals. They talked
Speaker 2: to everyone in her family and all of her friends
Speaker 2: over the years. They questioned several people who looked like
Speaker 2: the sketch, including a local man who tried to kidnap
Speaker 2: a teenage girl when she was on her way to work.
Speaker 2: The man was convicted and sentenced to six to eight
Speaker 2: years for attempted kidnapping and assault, but like a lot
Speaker 2: of other people, he completely denied having anything to do
Speaker 2: with Molly's disappearance, and eventually that investigative lead was dropped.
Speaker 2: There were also jailhouse confessions, but according to media reports,
Speaker 2: they turned out to be fake. In twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: Wooster County District Attorney Joseph D. Early Junior named Francis P.
Speaker 2: Sumner a person of interest in Molly's case. Francis Sumner
Speaker 2: worked in an auto body shop. He had been convicted
Speaker 2: of rape and kidnapping in nineteen eighty two. At the time,
Speaker 2: Francis told his twenty one year old victim that he
Speaker 2: had an apartment to rent. While she was looking at
Speaker 2: the apartment, he offered to pay her to clean the apartment.
Speaker 2: When he came back after she was finished cleaning, he
Speaker 2: put money down on a table and then locked the door.
Speaker 2: He forced her into a bedroom and violently raped her.
Speaker 2: She told investigators that he choked her and threatened to
Speaker 2: kill her. Francis Sumner ended up serving eleven years for
Speaker 2: that rape. Francis submitted DNA to Molly's investigators in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, and Mollie's sister Heather later made a
Speaker 2: TikTok video. She said the DNA was not a match
Speaker 2: to evidence from Molly's crime scene. Also, the DA's office
Speaker 2: seemed to be making some mistakes. For example, when they
Speaker 2: named Francis Sumner a person of interest, the district attorney
Speaker 2: stated that Francis's victim was sixteen years old at the
Speaker 2: time of the rape, which was the same age as Molly.
Speaker 2: But Francis's victim was actually twenty one years old and
Speaker 2: it was a different mo Francis raped his victim after
Speaker 2: inviting her into his home to clean his residence. Francis
Speaker 2: Sumner died in twenty sixteen. His half sister, Jackie, talked
Speaker 2: to reporter about the harassment that she and her family
Speaker 2: received after her brother was named a person of interest
Speaker 2: in Molly's case. She said that her brother was no angel,
Speaker 2: but she believed there was never any evidence that he
Speaker 2: had committed this crime. She wondered why his name had
Speaker 2: been put out there publicly. She talked about how locals
Speaker 2: had thrown trash at her car and how his kids
Speaker 2: and family members had been talked about at school and elsewhere.
Speaker 2: This was one of the reasons why I wanted to
Speaker 2: cover this case because I think it illustrates how it's
Speaker 2: possible for investigators to get tunnel vision, and how easy
Speaker 2: it is to focus on suspects because of circumstantial factors,
Speaker 2: and how people's lives can be changed forever because their
Speaker 2: names are mentioned in connection.
Speaker 3: With a violent crime.
Speaker 2: The murder victims are obviously the focus of this podcast,
Speaker 2: but these killings reverberate through these communities, and they continue
Speaker 2: to do damage to generations of people, even people who
Speaker 2: had zero involvement. Jackie also stated that investigation had had
Speaker 2: Francis's DNA since two thousand and three, so she was
Speaker 2: wondering why his name was brought up in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 2: She said she voluntarily gave the Massachusetts State Police a
Speaker 2: familial sample in twenty twenty, and it was reported that
Speaker 2: Francis's son had also given a DNA sample to police.
Speaker 3: Twenty five years later.
Speaker 2: Mollie's family still has no idea who killed their daughter,
Speaker 2: So we're left going back to that scene at Commons
Speaker 2: Pond and seeing if there was anything that anyone missed.
Speaker 3: So what do we know for sure?
Speaker 2: We know that whatever happened to Molly happened fast. She
Speaker 2: didn't even have enough time to grab her shoes, and
Speaker 2: the first aid kid supplies were left out. Her father
Speaker 2: told CBS that he does not believe that she would
Speaker 2: have voluntarily walked up that rocky path near the cemetery
Speaker 2: without her shoes. Her family have publicly stated that they
Speaker 2: believe that the police theory that Molly went somewhere with
Speaker 2: friends should not have been followed from the beginning. The
Speaker 2: guy driving the white car whom Maggie saw the day
Speaker 2: before has been the focus of almost every single investigative lead.
Speaker 2: But what if it wasn't him at all? What if
Speaker 2: the cigarette smoking stranger with the mustache is just a
Speaker 2: red herring? After all, there is zero evidence that he
Speaker 2: was actually at the crime scene on June twenty seventh.
Speaker 2: What if it was someone completely different, someone who has
Speaker 2: been overlooked by law enforcement all this time. Investigators believe
Speaker 2: that whoever did this must have been familiar with the
Speaker 2: area around Coummen's Pond and known about the trails in
Speaker 2: that area, and investigators believed they were probably hunters or
Speaker 2: fishermen who knew the area where Molly's body was dumped,
Speaker 2: and believed that it was unlikely to be disturbed for
Speaker 2: some time. Several commoners online have talked about the effect
Speaker 2: that the case has had on them. For many people
Speaker 2: in that generation who grew up around there, it was
Speaker 2: the first time that they became aware of stranger danger
Speaker 2: and of the possibility of being taken from a public
Speaker 2: place in broad daylight. For children and their parents, it
Speaker 2: was terrifying. Could there be clues in the area where
Speaker 2: Molly was taken. It's described as a beach, which it is,
Speaker 2: but it's not a beach with a big expanse of sand.
Speaker 2: It was somewhere where someone could hide behind trees and
Speaker 2: watch from the woods, So it is certainly possible that
Speaker 2: Molly's killer cased the area before showing up to kidnap her.
Speaker 2: Molly's parents have continued to be extremely active in victim advocacy.
Speaker 2: They have been active in trying to get justice for
Speaker 2: other families. Her parents created the Molly Bush Center and Foundation,
Speaker 2: and have been very active in local politics. They been
Speaker 2: helping craft legislation related to family DNA identification. They have
Speaker 2: been instrumental in creating id kits with the information of
Speaker 2: missing children along with their fingerprints, and gave them to
Speaker 2: hundreds of thousands of families. They also did talks about
Speaker 2: safety at schools to children. The foundation also helped with
Speaker 2: legislation before it went national. Maggie helped bring the Amber
Speaker 2: Alert to Massachusetts. One thing that's pretty unique about this
Speaker 2: case is how many suspects there were and how many
Speaker 2: potential suspects were living locally at the time. But they
Speaker 2: still don't know who kidnapped and murdered her. This year
Speaker 2: marks the twenty five year anniversary since Molly went missing,
Speaker 2: and her mother has said publicly that they still have
Speaker 2: hope that someone out there knows what really happened to
Speaker 2: Molly and who might have been watching and stalking her
Speaker 2: from those woods. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone
Speaker 2: Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of
Speaker 2: School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated
Speaker 2: by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special
Speaker 2: thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and to
Speaker 2: James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Cammer mixed and scored
Speaker 2: this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salek Executive
Speaker 2: producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and LC Curley. Listen
Speaker 2: to Helen Gone ad free by subscribing to the iHeart
Speaker 2: True Crime Flush channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were
Speaker 2: interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you
Speaker 2: can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. If
Speaker 2: you have a case she'd like me and my team
Speaker 2: to look into, you can reach out to us at
Speaker 2: our Helen Gone Murder line at six seven eight seven
Speaker 2: four four six one four or five. That's six seven
Speaker 2: eight seven four four six one four five.
Speaker 1: School of Humans