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Speaker 2: On Saturday, November two, twenty twenty four, fifteen year old
Speaker 2: Trip Brazil headed out of his house in Forest City,
Speaker 2: Arkansas on a four wheeler. Trip grew up and when
Speaker 2: he had been hanging around with his uncle and aunt
Speaker 2: that day, His mother, Jennifer Brazil, told us that Trip,
Speaker 2: her brother, and her sister in law went to a
Speaker 2: party at a friend's house. They were in the area
Speaker 2: of Saint Francis County Road four O nine, near Forest
Speaker 2: City after dark and into the early morning hours of Sunday,
Speaker 2: November three, They continued to hang out in a part
Speaker 2: of the woods called Crow Creek, riding ATVs, which are
Speaker 2: also called four wheelers. Trips aunt and uncle were on
Speaker 2: one four wheeler, Trip was on the other. One of
Speaker 2: his friends was also there at some point riding another atv.
Speaker 2: Now it's mostly illegal to ride four wheelers on paved
Speaker 2: roads in Arkansas and in many other places, but out
Speaker 2: there in the country it is a common mode of
Speaker 2: transportation for teens. His mother, Jennifer Brazil, told us that
Speaker 2: Trip was homeschooled and also had a job at a
Speaker 2: carpet store.
Speaker 3: They love being outside, sweet, respectful kids. He knew how
Speaker 3: to actuards his elders. They had been riding fullers all day, actually,
Speaker 3: his brother and sister. I'm glad that they got to
Speaker 3: send the day with him. Then he went by our
Speaker 3: friend's house, so they were having a party. And if
Speaker 3: it comes back you had alcohol in this system, that's
Speaker 3: not going to shock me. But as far as drugs, no,
Speaker 3: Trip was not a drug user. He told his friends
Speaker 3: to try to stop smoking weeds. Trip was very scared
Speaker 3: of drugs.
Speaker 2: There were police officers near the teens in the woods
Speaker 2: that night. Deputy Tray Bonham and Sergeant David Kenney from
Speaker 2: the Saint Francis County Sheriff's Office had been out there
Speaker 2: responding to a call dealing with a missing eleven year
Speaker 2: old and twelve year old girl and boy from Cross County.
Speaker 2: So Sergeant Kenny and Deputy Bonham got called out to
Speaker 2: an area near Highway three eight because one of the
Speaker 2: missing Cross County kids phones was pinging in that area.
Speaker 2: Deputy Bynham wrote in his report that while they were
Speaker 2: checking out a residence in the woods, they heard ATVs
Speaker 2: driving around erratically. When they finished up and got back
Speaker 2: to their vehicles, Sergeant Kenney went to go find those ATVs.
Speaker 2: He was the first one to make contact with Trip
Speaker 2: and his family members. In his report, he said that
Speaker 2: he was talking to the people who were on one
Speaker 2: of the four wheelers, basically telling everyone to slow down.
Speaker 2: As Deputy Bontam approached, he saw one of the four
Speaker 2: wheelers slow down like it was about to stop, but then,
Speaker 2: he said, the four wheeler took off and passed him
Speaker 2: at a high rate of speed. The driver of that
Speaker 2: ATV was Trip Brazil. The police started talking to Trip's
Speaker 2: aunt and uncle and one of Trip's friends.
Speaker 3: Then He was riding with my brother and sister in
Speaker 3: law who her dad is a state trooper, and the
Speaker 3: cop pulled up to the stop sign and said what
Speaker 3: are y'all doing? They said, oh, we'll just stop riding.
Speaker 3: Looks a little way y'all need to go.
Speaker 2: Sergeant Kenny was interviewed about this incident.
Speaker 4: There's two four wheelers and four individuals there. They all
Speaker 4: looked to be leaked teen's early twenties. As I got
Speaker 4: out of my truck and walked around in front of
Speaker 4: my vehicle, one of the four wheelers took off going
Speaker 4: south on two eighty four. He went a couple hundred
Speaker 4: yards and stopped, looked over his shoulder. I said, where's
Speaker 4: he going. One of the kids popped up and said,
Speaker 4: we don't know, sir. I said, so he's just going
Speaker 4: to leave y'all here. He said, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 4: Will he come back by? And he was approaching. He
Speaker 4: was slowing down like he was going to stop.
Speaker 2: At that point, Deputy Bonham started his pursuit of the
Speaker 2: four wheeler. He was trying to pull trip over. Sergeant
Speaker 2: Kenny said he just wanted the driver of that ATV
Speaker 2: to slow down. He said. He called out on the
Speaker 2: radio to the driver, telling him to watch the hairpin
Speaker 2: turns on the roadway. Trip didn't stop. Instead, he turned
Speaker 2: onto another road, Highway four O nine, and sped away,
Speaker 2: so Deputy Bottom followed him. This high speed chase went
Speaker 2: on up a hill and back down a hill. Technically
Speaker 2: it was a dirt burm, but that's how the deputies
Speaker 2: described it. And that's when something happened, something that caused
Speaker 2: Trip to abruptly stop and jump off his four wheeler
Speaker 2: at twelve forty two am. This is the bodycam footage
Speaker 2: of that chase. In real time. You can hear the
Speaker 2: deputy yell at Trip, but he'd already gotten off the
Speaker 2: four wheeler and was running. Trip was wearing a camouflage hoodie,
Speaker 2: blue jeans, and boots as he took off through the woods.
Speaker 2: In that bodycam footage, it looks like he jumped over
Speaker 2: a barbed wire fence and took off across a field.
Speaker 2: Trip didn't stop or turned back. He fled into the
Speaker 2: woods and kept on running and then he disappeared. I'm
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend. Over the past five years of making my
Speaker 2: true crime podcast Helen Gone, I've learned that there is
Speaker 2: no such thing as a small town where murder never happens.
Speaker 2: I've received hundreds of messages from people all around the
Speaker 2: country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them,
Speaker 2: their families, and their communities. If you have a case
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
Speaker 2: Line at six seven eight seven four four six one
Speaker 2: four five. That's six seven eight seven four four six
Speaker 2: one four five, Or you can send us a message
Speaker 2: on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 2: In that police bodycam footage, you can see trips abandoned
Speaker 2: yellow and dark gray four wheeler. Deputy Bottom runs up
Speaker 2: to the barber Ware fence, where he stops with his
Speaker 2: gun drawn, but there's no sign of trip. He'd already
Speaker 2: run into the dark woods. So Deputy Bottom goes back
Speaker 2: to his vehicle and gets on the radio. Now some
Speaker 2: parts of this are kind of hard to understand, but
Speaker 2: he's saying that they wrecked and that he had the
Speaker 2: four wheeler he wrecked out.
Speaker 3: I got the fooler.
Speaker 5: I'm good, but we went up, bitch, I said, I'm good.
Speaker 5: When we went up that ditch right there, both of us,
Speaker 5: me and him both.
Speaker 2: The second officer on the scene, Sergeant Kenny, shows up.
Speaker 2: They start talking about what happened.
Speaker 5: There's gonna be a white male on a cam flies
Speaker 5: hoodie and blue jays. Looked like he went off that way.
Speaker 4: Did he roll it or something?
Speaker 5: Hey turned it and jumped off and took off running
Speaker 5: across the field.
Speaker 2: At this point, it doesn't seem like they believe that
Speaker 2: this was a super serious situation. The deputy later said
Speaker 2: that he had followed his partner so that he would
Speaker 2: have backup if needed, but at this point they had
Speaker 2: no weapons drawn.
Speaker 4: He had jumped over the fence and we looked called out, hey,
Speaker 4: come back to the road.
Speaker 6: You've been fire a weapon or anything.
Speaker 4: No sir, No sir.
Speaker 2: Later police were able to figure out through examining the
Speaker 2: four wheeler that the connection to the battery was lost somehow.
Speaker 2: There was damage to the hot battery cable. Basically, something
Speaker 2: happened that made the battery die. This was a high
Speaker 2: speed chase, and both the police and trip went over
Speaker 2: a hill, so it might have happened. Then The impact
Speaker 2: was enough that the officers did check for damage on
Speaker 2: his truck, but they said they did not find any
Speaker 2: significant damage. It turned out that after Trip came off
Speaker 2: that four wheeler and ran away, he started making phone calls.
Speaker 2: He called his mother, Jennifer, and was also in touch
Speaker 2: with his father, but at some point his phone died.
Speaker 2: Deputy Bottoms secured the four wheeler and Sergeant Kenny got
Speaker 2: a trailer to take it back to the station. Once
Speaker 2: they got there, they were looking for a VEN number
Speaker 2: on that vehicle. Sergeant Kenny said they couldn't find one. Later,
Speaker 2: he said they figured out that the vehicle had been stolen.
Speaker 2: There is nothing else about that in the reports, so
Speaker 2: I need to say I have no idea if the
Speaker 2: four wheeler was stolen or who allegedly stole it, but
Speaker 2: from the reports, it does not look like that was
Speaker 2: the police priority. They were focused on finding Trip. When
Speaker 2: Deputy Bynum and Sergeant Kenny were trying to pull over Trip,
Speaker 2: they said they didn't know who he was, but they
Speaker 2: didn't know his family.
Speaker 4: This late at night would allowed for the waking folks
Speaker 4: of and I know his dad, I.
Speaker 7: Know his mom, and I know his brother, but I
Speaker 7: wouldn't know him if he walked up and spit on
Speaker 7: it and I don't know if he recognized me, and
Speaker 7: that's why he took off and wanted.
Speaker 2: To be the chasing Deputy Bonum said that another deputy, Deputy, Bradshaw,
Speaker 2: reached out to Tripp's father. This would have been at
Speaker 2: around one am. According to the incident report, Tripp's parents
Speaker 2: said he had still not come home and that they
Speaker 2: were going out to look for him, and according to
Speaker 2: Sergeant Kenney's report, Jennifer was in touch with Trip during
Speaker 2: this time and pleading with her son to come out
Speaker 2: and turn himself in, while at the same time trying
Speaker 2: to calm him down. Both of Tripp's parents were trying
Speaker 2: to reassure him that they were on their way to
Speaker 2: find him. Jennifer said that after Trip was thrown off
Speaker 2: his four wheeler and walked through the woods for a
Speaker 2: period of time, that he called her to come and
Speaker 2: pick him up. So Jennifer and Gil headed out to
Speaker 2: Highway four oh nine to the area where Trip was
Speaker 2: last seen. When they arrived, deputies were still there. Trip
Speaker 2: talked to other people too, and one of his friends,
Speaker 2: who was interviewed by police, said that Trip's location could
Speaker 2: be viewed on Snapchat live. At some point. Sergeant Kenney
Speaker 2: said that he got Trip's phone number. He said he
Speaker 2: sent Trip a text himself, but Trip never responded. He said, quote,
Speaker 2: I only wanted to tell the kids to not drive
Speaker 2: reckless at night. If he had only stopped, then I
Speaker 2: would have just called his dad. His mother showed me
Speaker 2: a text where I was telling her that he was
Speaker 2: a screw up and apologies to both parents. End quote.
Speaker 2: That text was sent at one forty one am, but
Speaker 2: a few minutes after that, sometime around two am, Trip's
Speaker 2: phone went dead. Meanwhile, an anonymous phone call was placed
Speaker 2: to the Sheriff's office.
Speaker 5: We got an unknown anonymous phone call, and the phone
Speaker 5: call whoever it was, stated that he was in the woods.
Speaker 6: He was behind the church on Sec.
Speaker 5: Four O nine in that area.
Speaker 2: Deputy Bonhams said that an anonymous caller told him that
Speaker 2: Trip had been driving the four wheeler. He said that
Speaker 2: some deputies went out to that area behind the church
Speaker 2: and looked for Trip, but couldn't find him. Police talked
Speaker 2: to one of Trip's friends. This is from Deputy Tray
Speaker 2: Bonham's body camp. You can hear him talking to the
Speaker 2: friend asking him if he knows anything about Trip's whereabouts.
Speaker 5: All right, man, you've been bored for a while.
Speaker 6: He's up.
Speaker 5: Tell me the truth.
Speaker 3: It's the truth. You know what, Trips.
Speaker 8: I ain't gonna fucking clue what Trip. I've been trying
Speaker 8: to find Trip, my damn hill to him, get.
Speaker 5: The fuck home, not being a dat When I say
Speaker 5: this ranning, it's Raine ran out of his shoes. It's
Speaker 5: fourteen years old, and nobody's singing or hear.
Speaker 2: Trip's friend shows the deputy where Trip's last location. Pinned.
Speaker 2: Trip was on Snapchat and his friend used a live
Speaker 2: location video to show the deputy trips last location.
Speaker 8: So look right here, you got where four nine splits.
Speaker 8: That's f C four or nine goes two ways. That's
Speaker 8: where it was three hours ago. I'm sure that's where
Speaker 8: he left. The fool was right there over there and
Speaker 8: took off front of him for at the end of
Speaker 8: this day, in or one of the others. That's fourteen
Speaker 8: minute drive from here.
Speaker 5: My main concern is if he's hurt.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean the way y'all said he jumping.
Speaker 4: Ran from the politics.
Speaker 8: I got toldkay when he walked in, it's like a
Speaker 8: little brother to me.
Speaker 6: I got his back like I had my little brother back.
Speaker 8: But in this situation, I tell where my little brother was.
Speaker 3: I have what tripple was.
Speaker 5: I tell you well, I'm heard a bug out there.
Speaker 5: If you hear anything, lemon know.
Speaker 2: Jennifer was also upset that, in her words, that the
Speaker 2: police seemed to be more concerned with securing and taking
Speaker 2: the four wheeler than they were about finding her son.
Speaker 3: I last talked the trip at one and I made
Speaker 3: it to the woods at two o'clock, where his phone
Speaker 3: went dead and the full wheeler was already gone. There
Speaker 3: were no cops out theirs. I hollered, went in the woods,
Speaker 3: hollowed for trip nothing but within that amount of time
Speaker 3: that foll whelller was already gone. They weren't looking for
Speaker 3: my kids. They wanted the full wheeler. He followed his
Speaker 3: vehicle up on the embankment after the trip, where it
Speaker 3: looked like he could I possibly use the vehicle as
Speaker 3: a deadly weapon. Actually called me and said they got
Speaker 3: the full wheeler because he was hiding. Apparently that's what
Speaker 3: it sounded like. And I said, okay, I'm coming to
Speaker 3: get you. He said, well, my phone's about to guy.
Speaker 3: I said, I've got your fans location on all my way.
Speaker 3: She said okay. I said I love you. He said
Speaker 3: love you too. So it wasn't like guy who was
Speaker 3: arguing with him or killing him on the feature foot
Speaker 3: when you get home. It was just coming to get you.
Speaker 3: One I got a weird text message with another County
Speaker 3: Talk who at this time we found out was not
Speaker 3: even on night shift. Pe' dayshift, so why did you
Speaker 3: call my husband's phone at one nine? At the same time,
Speaker 3: I got a weird text on my phone from Trip
Speaker 3: and said they got tripped with then one until ocock
Speaker 3: the foiler was gone.
Speaker 2: Jin and her husband kept searching for Trip throughout the night.
Speaker 2: The police search also went on late into the night
Speaker 2: and into the next day. At four twenty am, Sergeant
Speaker 2: Kenney asked the fire department to send out drones with
Speaker 2: thermal and night vision, but they found no trace of Trip. Later,
Speaker 2: Jen posted on social media that she found that suspicious
Speaker 2: the fact that the drones found no trace of Trip,
Speaker 2: even though he was supposed to have been running through
Speaker 2: the woods. But drones that respond to body heat can
Speaker 2: have lots of obstacles. They don't always work perfectly. They
Speaker 2: can be impeded by trees or outdoor temperature, wind, and
Speaker 2: a lot of other factors. At seven twenty am, the
Speaker 2: East Arkansas Department of Corrections brought in their tracker dogs.
Speaker 2: The dogs were released where Trip had been when he
Speaker 2: fled the Saint but they were unable to get a
Speaker 2: tracking sent on him. Then they were taken to the
Speaker 2: area where Trip's cell phone had last panned. Still no luck.
Speaker 2: The Arkansas State Police were called in to assist. So
Speaker 2: now you have the ASP, the Saint Francis County Sheriff's office,
Speaker 2: the Game and Fish Commission, and multiple other organizations, plus
Speaker 2: tons of local volunteers. Everyone in that county was looking
Speaker 2: for Trip Brazil. Local news crews were talking to Tripp's
Speaker 2: family and word got out fast, both on the news
Speaker 2: and on social media, and a lot of people were
Speaker 2: asking how this happened. This was a kid who knew
Speaker 2: the area well, so they couldn't figure out how he
Speaker 2: had gotten lost out there and just disappeared, and why
Speaker 2: with all the people searching for him, he hadn't been found.
Speaker 2: Searchers fanned out all over the area where Trip was missing,
Speaker 2: a part of the woods near Crow Creek. The area
Speaker 2: near where Trip went missing is basically on the edge
Speaker 2: of Crowley's Ridge, which is a continuous range of rolling
Speaker 2: hills that goes from Missouri across eastern Arkansas. The area
Speaker 2: got its name from the first white settler to reach
Speaker 2: the area, Benjamin Crowley. The ridges happened when the Mississippi
Speaker 2: River changed course at one point and kept cutting into
Speaker 2: the terrain, so you have this really unique geographical feature.
Speaker 2: It goes from flat Delta country to an elevation of
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty feet really quickly. This terrain can
Speaker 2: be pretty unforgiving even for people who know it well,
Speaker 2: and it's very easy to get lost up there. And
Speaker 2: told the local wrig news channel that she thought that
Speaker 2: maybe Trip would walk back to where he believed he
Speaker 2: had left the ATV, and then because the police had
Speaker 2: taken his vehicle, she said maybe he couldn't find it,
Speaker 2: So she reasoned that he may have started walking into
Speaker 2: the woods, gotten disoriented somehow, and gotten lost. His mother
Speaker 2: said that Trip had last been in touch with him
Speaker 2: in the early morning hours on Sunday, that Trip was
Speaker 2: talking about the police chasing him, that he was scared,
Speaker 2: and that he wanted his parents to come get him.
Speaker 2: She said she believed that Trip jumped off his ATV
Speaker 2: and over a barb wire fence in order to escape
Speaker 2: the officer who was pursuing him. She was basing that
Speaker 2: on the fact that near that fence they found Trip's
Speaker 2: hat in his shoe. This was just a few feet
Speaker 2: from where he came off as four wheeler and started
Speaker 2: running from police. They found something else on Monday too.
Speaker 2: Searchers found more of Trip's clothes, his other boot, his hoodie,
Speaker 2: his cell phone, and his wallet, and Jennifer said the
Speaker 2: way that his clothing was found was odd. His sweatshirt
Speaker 2: was lying on some leaves and his phone, wallet, screwdriver,
Speaker 2: and phone charger were laying on top of the sweatshirt.
Speaker 2: So she wondered, why would Trip have left his stuff
Speaker 2: out there in the dark like that, or could something
Speaker 2: else have happened to him? Did someone else leave the
Speaker 2: stuff out there?
Speaker 3: Later well, Monday morning, we mysteriously find his other boot
Speaker 3: and his hoodie and siphon and wallet. It wasn't their Sunday,
Speaker 3: but it was their Monday some reason. His sweatshirts, phone wallet, screwdriver,
Speaker 3: and phone charger were laying on top of his sweatshirt.
Speaker 3: But then he hundred yards up the other side of
Speaker 3: the ridge he found his boots. I don't understand that,
Speaker 3: because if I'm gonna go ahead and take off my
Speaker 3: sweatshirt that I have, I'm going to take off my
Speaker 3: last boot that I had on. Anyway, I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: go further up and then put my boot there and
Speaker 3: then continue to walk. Because we found his boot and hat,
Speaker 3: and they brought dogs in and the dogs never hit
Speaker 3: on anything.
Speaker 2: So now she was thinking that this was seriously odd.
Speaker 2: Why would he start taking off clothes in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night and keep running. And Jennifer said, this
Speaker 2: wasn't the first time that Deputy Bonham had gotten into
Speaker 2: some kind of a confrontation with her son and his
Speaker 2: friends over riding four wheelers in that area.
Speaker 3: Just because Tripp had out Randim on the four wheler before,
Speaker 3: and he told people that he would get him, and
Speaker 3: he made sure that Trip was aware of that that
Speaker 3: he told people. It was supposedly said that this other
Speaker 3: boy he was chasing, he pulled up in their driveway
Speaker 3: one day and Trip his name was mentioned in that
Speaker 3: conversation that if he's seen him again, he would kill him.
Speaker 2: But Deputy Bonham stated in his report that he had
Speaker 2: no idea that the driver who had doubled back and
Speaker 2: passed back by him and turned into a highway four
Speaker 2: O nine was Trip, even when he was close to it.
Speaker 2: On Monday, November fourth, the Arkansas State Police were called
Speaker 2: in to assist. They found Trip's iPhone in the woods.
Speaker 2: It had died, and it was turned over to police
Speaker 2: and taken in for data extraction. Later that afternoon, at
Speaker 2: around four thirty pm, an Arkansas Game and Fish Commission
Speaker 2: officer saw something north of Benner State forty, near the
Speaker 2: two hundred and forty three point seven mile marker. It
Speaker 2: was Trip's body. He was hanging from a tree at
Speaker 2: around four thirty in the afternoon on Monday, November fourth,
Speaker 2: thirty six hours after fifteen year old Trip Brazil got
Speaker 2: into a high speed chase with a police officer in
Speaker 2: Saint Francis County, Arkansas, his body was found hanging from
Speaker 2: a tree. We filed freedom of information requests and we
Speaker 2: were able to get copies of the incident report, though
Speaker 2: parts of it were redacted, probably due to Trip's age.
Speaker 2: I wanted to cover this case because we get a
Speaker 2: lot of calls from parents and from other family members
Speaker 2: who believed that their loved one did not take their
Speaker 2: own life, and that there was some kind of foul
Speaker 2: play not suicide involved. We wanted to see what we
Speaker 2: could do to help Trip's family get answers. At first,
Speaker 2: we wondered if Trip's four wheeler incident could have been
Speaker 2: something else, Maybe the police truck had hit him, or
Speaker 2: there was some kind of automobile accident. There has been
Speaker 2: quite a bit of publicity in recent years about the
Speaker 2: so called pit maneuvers in Arkansas. That's when police try
Speaker 2: to stop a high speed chase by forcing the other
Speaker 2: driver into some kind of a wreck. There have been
Speaker 2: fatalities as a result of some of these maneuvers, so
Speaker 2: we wondered if this could have been a pit maneuver.
Speaker 2: Deputy Bonham was interviewed about the police chase and he
Speaker 2: was asked why he was chasing Trip in the first place.
Speaker 6: So we can get some clarifications on one thing. You know,
Speaker 6: of course it'll be brought up. The reason why he
Speaker 6: was chasing him was because it appeared to you he
Speaker 6: was fleeing from David Kitty. And do you know why
Speaker 6: David Kinny even stopped him for he was just was
Speaker 6: he just doing a welfare check on was there a
Speaker 6: reason for him? Stime was was there on a road
Speaker 6: that went to vote for Adam for wheelers?
Speaker 5: It was on Highway two twenty four and in the
Speaker 5: area of that neighborhood was driving at the redick speed too?
Speaker 6: Yeah, anxiously And so do y'all think that this person
Speaker 6: they may have been a part of that kid that
Speaker 6: may have been missing his opinion from Cross County?
Speaker 5: Nosha, I don't these two, Like I said, it was
Speaker 5: eleven and twelve.
Speaker 6: Years old, okay, So you just in that area, but
Speaker 6: then ran across to them and decided to check him
Speaker 6: on the reason why I was saying that because it's
Speaker 6: late at night.
Speaker 5: Late at night to four, but there's a lot of
Speaker 5: people driving through there at that time. You know, someone's
Speaker 5: intoxicated and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: That give me your reason for chasing him. That's I'm
Speaker 6: gonna make sure I understood your reason.
Speaker 5: The blue lights and the sirens for the four wheeler
Speaker 5: to stop, and it didn't stop.
Speaker 6: Okay, But what was the probable cause?
Speaker 5: I guess what I'm trying to say, the excessive speeds and.
Speaker 6: Did you clock them on radar? Just no, sir, No,
Speaker 6: I'm not trying you know what I'm saying. That's just
Speaker 6: what I won't because what the family gonna say is
Speaker 6: this and that another other you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: He said that he estimated that his speed was around
Speaker 2: eighty miles an hour while chasing the four wheeler. Now,
Speaker 2: apparently some four wheelers can get to speeds of seventy
Speaker 2: to eighty miles per hour. The more average speed on
Speaker 2: four wheelers ranged generally from around fifty to ninety miles
Speaker 2: an hour, though again Deputy Bonum admitted that he had
Speaker 2: no way of checking and did not know how fast
Speaker 2: the fore wheeler was actually going. Trip's mom said that
Speaker 2: he had traveled quite a distance from the spot where
Speaker 2: he left his four wheeler.
Speaker 3: I think they said about sum orles and it's growth terrain.
Speaker 3: It was Crowley's ruge I means hold that you couldn't
Speaker 3: see that was covered up with leaves.
Speaker 2: The police said that early indications pointed to suicide, but
Speaker 2: from the beginning Trip's parents felt that the circumstances around
Speaker 2: his death did not add up. Trip's body was found
Speaker 2: in the middle of some dense woods. He was hanging
Speaker 2: from a tree overlooking a gully. There was a deer
Speaker 2: stand thirty feet south of where the body was found,
Speaker 2: and police figured out that the green rope that was
Speaker 2: removed from Trip's body was actually a ratchet strap. It
Speaker 2: was a match to the green one that was tied
Speaker 2: around the deer stand to secure it to a tree.
Speaker 2: Police cut Trip's body. He was taken to the Morgue
Speaker 2: in for At City, and that's where his mother, Jennifer,
Speaker 2: saw her son for the last time.
Speaker 3: What they're saying, but it's hard to believe that he
Speaker 3: walked up far in the woods and in the creek.
Speaker 3: Did you say he didn't have any damage to the
Speaker 3: bottom of his seat. Nope, none, not a scratch. And
Speaker 3: I walked through those woods for two days and I
Speaker 3: had blisters on my feet and scratches from where Old
Speaker 3: Bob War was laying under leaves.
Speaker 2: His mother wondered why that deer stand, in particular, why
Speaker 2: would he choose that location.
Speaker 3: I didn't get to see him until after he was
Speaker 3: brought back to the funeral home, and the first thing
Speaker 3: I looked at wasn't the bottom of his feet, because
Speaker 3: hesedly went there footed and there was no scratch, no bruise.
Speaker 3: But they had his body to overed up. His doctor
Speaker 3: even came to the house that night and Chris were
Speaker 3: talking now and she said, it's not who Trip was.
Speaker 3: Trip was a I don't give a f kid.
Speaker 2: She said that she was told that the police officer's
Speaker 2: body camera was recording when Trip's body was cut down,
Speaker 2: and the police told her they found no signs of
Speaker 2: foul play, which Jennifer said she found hard to believe.
Speaker 3: Like, I said, there should be something wrong with the
Speaker 3: bottom of his feet, and I thought for myself that
Speaker 3: nothing was wrong with him. Yeah, bruising around the eyes, yeah,
Speaker 3: bruising around the neck, between his big knuckle and ring finger,
Speaker 3: there was a big gash like he had been in
Speaker 3: a fight, Like he was fighting. He was putting up
Speaker 3: a fight.
Speaker 2: Now Trip's devastated family had to try to figure out
Speaker 2: what happened. What would cause a healthy and happy fifteen
Speaker 2: year old to take his own life just because of
Speaker 2: an incident with a four wheeler. Why would he kill
Speaker 2: himself over something that seemed to be so minor. One
Speaker 2: of the questions that I had, and that a lot
Speaker 2: of other people have had in Saint Francis County and
Speaker 2: everywhere else, is how common suicide is and young teens
Speaker 2: and would this even be something that someone that age
Speaker 2: would do on the spur of the moment like that?
Speaker 2: According to report from the National Library of Medicine, which
Speaker 2: looked at patterns and suicides in the United States from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine through twenty twenty, In that twenty one
Speaker 2: year period, there were forty seven thousand, two hundred and
Speaker 2: seventeen adolescent suicide deaths, and hanging in exphyxiation is now
Speaker 2: right up there with firearms as having the highest age
Speaker 2: adjusted suicide rates among Americans of every age. Death rates
Speaker 2: for all means of suicide on average increased annually from
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety nine to twenty twenty, but actually hanging in
Speaker 2: exphyxiation had the largest absolute increase among male and female
Speaker 2: adolescents in a nutshell. Sadly, this is becoming a more
Speaker 2: and more common choice for teens who may be at
Speaker 2: risk of suicide. The Arkansas State Police took over the
Speaker 2: investigation into Trip's death, and it was not long before
Speaker 2: rumors were flying on social media. Suicide is not a
Speaker 2: common occurrence in Saint Francis County. According to data from
Speaker 2: the Arkansas Department of Health, Saint Francis County actually had
Speaker 2: zero suicides in twenty twenty three. However, we do have
Speaker 2: to keep in mind there are only just a little
Speaker 2: over twenty two thousand people in the entire county, so
Speaker 2: it is pretty sparsely populated, but suicide happens everywhere for
Speaker 2: children and teens trips age. The causes of suicide can
Speaker 2: be pretty complicated to figure out. In around forty percent
Speaker 2: of use suicides, there is some sort of precipitating event
Speaker 2: like sexual abuse or the death of someone close to them,
Speaker 2: or even things like divorce, But that also means that
Speaker 2: in sixty percent of cases there is not an obvious cause.
Speaker 2: So in a lot of these cases, teens this age
Speaker 2: can and do make impulsive decisions that can be hard
Speaker 2: to understand. So Trip's devastated family was true trying to
Speaker 2: make sense of why he would do this, and they
Speaker 2: also weren't sure about the police's version of events. Tripp's
Speaker 2: families say there were no mental health issues and zero
Speaker 2: indication that he could be thinking of taking his own life,
Speaker 2: but it turned out that Trip did send another text
Speaker 2: That night, we got more of the Foyer fileback, and
Speaker 2: one of the items that we got was a picture
Speaker 2: of a text message that was sent from Trip to
Speaker 2: a family member shortly after he disappeared at one forty
Speaker 2: one am. It read, in part quote, look, I love
Speaker 2: y'all so much, and I'm so sorry to do this
Speaker 2: to y'all. I love you more than anything. I guess
Speaker 2: it took me till now to realize that y'all have
Speaker 2: been great parents to me. I guess I'm just a
Speaker 2: fuck up and I couldn't change that. I wish I
Speaker 2: could have. I'm sorry. None of this is y'all's fault,
Speaker 2: only mine. I love y'all. I'm sorry I should have stopped.
Speaker 2: I love y'all so much. My phone is about to die,
Speaker 2: so I got to go. I hope this makes it
Speaker 2: to y'all. I never wanted to end this way, but
Speaker 2: I guess it has to end quote. His family reached
Speaker 2: out to him after that to say they were on
Speaker 2: their way, but Tripp never responded, and at some point
Speaker 2: his battery must have died out there. This is such
Speaker 2: a tragic story because I completely understand why Trip's parents
Speaker 2: and many other people in the community may have believed
Speaker 2: that there was some kind of foul play involved, but
Speaker 2: the evidence that we have seen does not support anything
Speaker 2: other than a suicide. It seems as though Trip's death
Speaker 2: was a series of unfortunate events. Each one on its
Speaker 2: own might have seemed small, but taken together, unfortunately, it
Speaker 2: seems they led to a devastating consequence. I wish that
Speaker 2: I had a better answer for Tripp's family, but the
Speaker 2: reality is we may never know why he did what
Speaker 2: he did that night, or what was going on in mind.
Speaker 2: But I believe that Trip's story is important to tell
Speaker 2: because part of this show's mission is helping families get answers,
Speaker 2: even when those answers may not be what they want
Speaker 2: to hear. In twenty twenty, there was one death by
Speaker 2: suicide in the United States every eleven minutes. I want
Speaker 2: to let you know there's now a national number that
Speaker 2: you can call for help. It used to be known
Speaker 2: as the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Now it's called the
Speaker 2: nine eight eight Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. To reach out,
Speaker 2: you just dial nine eight eight and you'll be connected
Speaker 2: directly to a mental health professional. There are versions of
Speaker 2: this service for veterans. There are versions in Spanish. There's
Speaker 2: also a video version for people who may be hard
Speaker 2: of hearing or who use American sign language. There are
Speaker 2: also lgbt QI counselors. There are versions of this service
Speaker 2: for everyone. Trip's death is an absolute tragedy and I
Speaker 2: can only hope that in some small way this might
Speaker 2: help someone else who's struggling out there to reach out
Speaker 2: for help. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line.
Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of
Speaker 2: Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me
Speaker 2: Catherine Townsend and produced by Gabby Watts. Special thanks to
Speaker 2: Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and James Wheaton for
Speaker 2: legal review. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our
Speaker 2: theme song is by Ben Sale. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott,
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, and ELC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad
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Speaker 2: on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested in seeing documents
Speaker 2: and materials from the case, you can follow the show
Speaker 2: on Instagram at Helen gonepod. If you have a case
Speaker 2: you'd like me and my team to look into, you
Speaker 2: can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder
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