Top 5 Movie Monkeys: Thunderbolts//Rust//Pulling John

Transcript

One-Third of all murder cases in America remain open. He had told me that if I opened my eyes, he would slit my throat. Each one is called a cold case. The DNA evidence taken from the victim was a match. The linen rapist was at it again. Based on the hit any television program. A phone call is placed one that changes a family's life forever. Cold case files the podcast. You could see the fire in his eyes. You screamed at me. You wanted to get your tape recorder. Get new episodes of cold case files every Tuesday on PodcastOne Spotify, Apple Podcasts and anywhere you listen to podcasts. Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 254 of The True Crime All the Time Unsolved podcast, I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me, as always, is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm doing okay, man about you. I'm hanging in there. You know, I'm still glued to the news watching this war in the Ukraine. I'm still sick over it. And it's heartbreaking what these people are going through now. At the same time, there are a lot of great humanitarian stories here that are coming through. I mean, the people in Poland are doing amazing things with helping out some of the folks fleeing from Ukraine. Now I just hope it can come to a peaceful resolution soon gives us go ahead and give our patron shout outs. We had Nicole Larimer. Hey, Nicole. Kevin Francis. Hey, Francis. Stephanie Lyn Kovak. Hey, Kovak, Stephen Moore's Steven. Chris Warner. There's Warner. Candice Bohannon. Hey, Candice Kat, what's up, Kat? Carrie Dessau mo d-slr mo Catarina Belle Catarina carried Donna Damas senior Ooh, thank you da Mussina. Kaitlyn Parks. What's up? Parks Vanessa Currie, Vanessa, Salena Sizemore, Selena. And last but not least, Lisa Smith. Well, thank you, Smith Ski and we go back into the vault. This week we selected Tanya and Angie. Hey, thank you, Tanya. And and we also had some PayPal donations from Lisa Layman as awesome. Judy Larson. Hey, thank you. And Jill Sutter. Oh man, amazing. So speaking of patron Gibbs, we had a merch winner for February and that was Walker. We talked about this on T, but you know, I had a really interesting email conversation with Walker. We went back and forth. He wanted me to mention his father, Buddy Marc, who passed away last year. Neil Walker said that it was the podcast that really helped him get through what was, you know, obviously a very difficult time in his life. Yeah. And those type of words, those types of sentiments really mean a lot to you and me makes us feel good. They do think that we can help people in any way. Gibbs, right now on true crime all the time, we have an episode out on the giggling granny killer nanny dos. And you know, we're going back to the 50s and even earlier in this case, but it's a fascinating one. I mean, this was a woman who is suspected and thought to have killed a large number of people, some husbands. And what you would call like a lonely hearts type scheme, but also a large number of her own family members. Yeah. Yes. She had no limits. No, she absolutely did not. All right, Gibbs, are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime all the time unsolved? I'm ready. Today, we're talking about the disappearance of Sofia Suarez. In early 2003, four year old Sofia disappeared from Kennewick in the southeastern part of Washington state, where she lived with her large extended family. Sofia was last seen by her mother just before she left the house one evening to go to the store with her grandmother's boyfriend. But Sofia never made it to the store, and she never came back home. The first her family knew of her disappearance was when her grandmother's boyfriend arrived home without Sofia. Sofia's case was the first time the Amber Alert System was used in Washington. State investigators deployed every resource they could to help find her. The local and state police, the FBI and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children combined their efforts to locate Sofia. But Sofia remains missing to this day, but dedicated investigators are committed to finding out what happened to her. Some of the most typical suspects in these types of cases were scrutinized, but in 2021, information was relayed to the public, which detectives hope can bring them closer to answers. Sofia Luciano Warez was born on February 5th, 1998, to her teen mother, Maria. Sofia never met her biological father, Andrés Gutierrez. He wasn't involved in her life, didn't have any contact with Maria's family and didn't have a permanent address in Washington. The Juarez family was originally from Mexico, but settled in. Kahnawake, Sophia and her 20 year old mother lived with Maria's mother, Ignacio and Ignacio, his boyfriend Jose Lopez Torres, also living at the home where Ignacio has six other kids who were Sofia's aunts and uncles. And there was a pretty big range here. And Ignacio has six kids. You know, some were small children, some were teenagers. So I think what's important here, Gibbs is, like many multi-generational households, there were a lot of people living under one roof. According to the Charlie Project, Sofia was a loving, happy and energetic little girl. She enjoyed playing with her Barbie dolls, putting on makeup, playing with the neighborhood kids, watching cartoons and coloring. Her favorite food was Burger King. OK, I think you could say that about a lot of little girls, those very same thing. Sure, right? Playing with Barbie dolls. Kids love putting on makeup. Who doesn't like watching cartoons? I still watch cartoons at my age and coloring. And Sheila Burger King. OK, I'm not going to go that far. I don't hate it, but it's not my favorite food. That will vary depending on the child in person and by age. Yes. Now I will say, as a kid growing up, I loved McDonald's. That was my favorite. Now I feel like it was more of a special occasion treat when I was a kid, as opposed to the staple that many people use it. As today, we don't eat a lot of McDonald's, but man, there was nothing better. I remember as a kid, then a quarter pounder. Also, I think the fries were better back in the day because they used a less healthy version version of oil to cook them in between 8:15 and 9:15 p.m. on February 4th, 2003. Sofia played in her bedroom with a couple of her uncles. It's kind of strange, right, when you say it that way. You think of an uncle. Most times as an older person. But these were kids and teenagers, you know, older than her, probably, but not that much older. Right? She was excited looking forward to the next day because it was her fifth birthday. Her mom, Maria, was home at the time, as was her grandmother's boyfriend, Jose Tours. Torres had planned to take a short drive to a nearby convenience store about five blocks away from the family home on the 100 block of East 15th Avenue. He asked if any of the kids wanted to come along for the car ride. As far as tourists knew, none of the kids were interested, so he headed off alone at some point. Not long afterwards, Sofia left her bedroom and told Maria she was going to the store. She asked her mom for a dollar to buy some candy. What Maria didn't know was that tourists had already driven away, so she watched Sofia walk out of the room and she heard or closed the front door behind her. Assuming Sofia was in the company of Jose Torres, this was the last time Maria saw her daughter, Gibbs. This was February in Washington state. It was cold. The temperature outside was said to have been around 35 degrees close to freezing. Yeah, very close. But Sofia had left the house without a coat. That's dangerous for anybody but a child without a coat during that type of temperature is not good, and you have to wonder why did she leave the house without a coat? Was it because she thought she was going to be getting, you know, in a car should be warm? My kids do that all the time. Now they're older. Wright and Sofia was then, but you know it can be freezing out. And if they know they only have to walk to the car and from the car to, let's say, a store, they won't take a coat. So we mentioned he gives tours. Is it already driven away? Maria didn't know this, and obviously Torres couldn't have known that if Sofia had changed her mind about wanting to go to the store. Torres stopped to get some gas before arriving at the convenience store alone. He bought some milk before he used the pay phone to call family in Mexico. He returned home around 9:45 p.m., according to the Charlie Project, when Torres returned home alone. Maria quickly started to panic. When Torres said that Sophia was not with him, he said he hadn't seen Sophia at all since leaving the house. Maria frantically searched the house and yard before calling the police about 45 minutes later. Police showed up pretty quickly. It was reported that they were at the Juarez home. Within minutes of the call, Maria told officers Sofia would never have gone off with a stranger on her own because she was quite shocked. If Sophia was to go with someone who wasn't her mother, Maria said, it would only have been with someone Sofia knew or trusted. I mean, I think, you know, right off the bat, Gibbs at this point. There were grave concerns for Sofia safety. I mean, obviously it was dark out, right? We talked about the timing. We also talked about how cold it was. I mean, this was winter 35 degrees cold, dark, scary for a four year old boy, absolutely. But also very scary for Maria, right? That panic sets in very quickly. You and I have talked about it a number of times. Anything having to do with your child, especially a very young child, when you find out that things are not the way you thought they were, right, you thought she was with Torres. He comes home. No, Sofia, boom. Right away, you're in full blown panic mode. Yeah. And everything has to start racing through your mind, right? Did she wander off? Is she lost? Or did she meet some type of bad person intent on doing bad things? Even without all that, you have to be scared because this little girl is at risk just because of the weather. But again, even taking these factors into account, along with her age, police felt it was extremely unlikely that she had become distracted and wandered away from the house, or that she'd been hurt in an accident. And Sofia wasn't the sort of child whose curiosity overrode her fear, and she didn't like venturing outside at night. Maria had already said that she wouldn't go off with someone she didn't know, right? She's pretty much a safe type of child. Yeah, and or scared? Yeah, or scared. And sometimes fear causes you to be safe. It causes you not to do things that could potentially put yourself at risk, according to the Tri-State Herald. Hundreds of police officers and firefighters conducted a door to door search at every home within a three mile radius of the Juarez home. Searchers and Sofia's family left no stone unturned. They looked inside cars. They scoured local parks, playgrounds, vacant lots, trash cans and dumpsters. Neighborhood schools and businesses were also included on the search list. And this is what you want to hear, right? Please show up quickly. They react very quickly. We don't hear that in every single case. Now we are talking about a four year old here, and I do think in some cases, a missing four year old is treated much differently than a 16 17 year old and especially like a 19 year old, four year olds just shouldn't be leaving the house on their own right. Everyone knows that, but they're looking everywhere. Kennewick PD wasted no time getting the FBI involved Gibbs. They were on the scene within an hour, and that's another thing that I like to see. I really like it when police call in all the available assets. Yes. Why wouldn't you? It's what you should do is what you should do. But we see in so many cases where you know, whether it's territorial turf war type stuff, the local police don't want help. They don't want to ask for help because maybe they believe they've got it. They want to be the ones to either solve a crime or find a missing person. My thought is, don't be so proud. Call in anyone and everyone. That's how you get things done, right. But as the hours passed, it became more apparent to police that Sophia hadn't gotten law. She hadn't been involved in an accident. Law enforcement quickly determined that she had been abducted, and they arranged for news of her disappearance to. Be front and center that night with local and major media outlets. Again, I can't say enough about, you know, what this police department is doing. Everybody's hands on one, and I feel like they're doing everything so quickly. They're not waiting around. They're jumping into action at every step of the way, and the community jumped into action as well. Yeah, the people of Kennewick really came together to help. They headed out into the dark winter with local police to conduct thorough shoulder to shoulder quadrant searches. Investigators also alerted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Again, they're doing everything they should be doing at this moment. Yeah, and at this moment, I think, is the key. You know, some of these things often take a while to happen. In cases, this is like, you know, you're there doing everything. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. As quickly as they can, you know, I want to go back to the people of Kennewick, you know, the shoulder to shoulder kind of quadrant searches. It's kind of often what you see on television. You know, people are either holding hands, they have their arms locked and you know, somebody is coordinating it. Sure, they've marked off these areas into grids and they're making sure that each one of these grids gets searched and they're walking so closely together that there's no way anything could be missed. Right? That's the way to do it. We mentioned it upfront. But Sofia's disappearance was the first time Washington's Office of Emergency Management issued an Amber Alert. I think most people are aware of the Amber Alert system. Right? It's an emergency response system that is activated to make communities immediately aware of cases of child abduction. The system was developed in 1996 following the abduction and murder of nine year old Amber Hagerman in Texas, and we profiled Ambers Case Gibbs on an episode of Unsolved. You know, these alerts are not activated lightly. Certain criteria need to be satisfied. As per the alert protocol. Sofia's details were entered into the Washington State and National Crime Information Center database, and she was classified as a missing endangered person. Investigators took steps to send teletypes to law enforcement agencies across the Pacific Northwest, the West Coast and as far as Nevada, Alaska and even to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And Gibbs's Amber Alert system has been a game changer. Sure has. Now does it prevent abductions? No. Has it helped locate a lot of missing children? I believe it has. Yes, I think so, too. You know, a lot of times I'll get alerts on my iPhone. Yeah, about things that have occurred in my area. If you think about it before the Amber Alert system, OK, let's say a child goes missing in the morning. Well, maybe you would find out about it on the evening news, your local evening news. But by that time, what's happened? You've passed a lot of cars, you've passed a lot of people. Did you see the car that the the person is thought to be driving? Well, now all of a sudden you're in your car, you get an alert, you're walking down the street, you get an alert. It's a big deal. Sure, it is. You might see that car. You might recognize that person. Well, you're not going to see it sitting on your couch watching the evening news. Now you might remember that you saw the car, but that could be four five, six, seven hours earlier. You could have been at lunch. It could have been on your drive in to work in the morning. Who knows where that car is now? 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Get a quote today at progressive.com and see why. Four out of five new auto customers recommend Progressive Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national annual average insurance savings by new customers surveyed who saved with progressive between June 2020 and May 2021, potential savings will vary. Discounts vary and are not available in all states and situations. The morning after Sofia's disappearance, a central incident management team was set up to oversee the massive search operation. And over the next three days, more than 500 police officers, FBI agents, dive and rescue personnel and civilian volunteers searched high and low for Sofia. Police helicopters conducted aerial searches of waterways and rural areas using thermal imaging and night vision cameras. According to Kaiama News, both sheriff patrol boats and the Coast Guard searched rivers in the tri cities area. K-9 cadaver search and rescue and scent dog teams were deployed. They even had teams of officers who ventured into Kennewick sewers looking for any trace of Sophia. I mean, I can't think of anything they're not doing at this point. Yeah, that was my thought. Exactly. Now you and I often have to be critical of police failures or what are viewed by many as police failures in an investigation. Now I feel like they are going all out timing wise and resource what. But when 36 hours passed without Sophia being located, her amber alert was canceled. We already mentioned Gibbs that Sophia's father wasn't involved in her life. But even at this early stage, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, police had already eliminated him as a suspect. Apparently, he took a polygraph test and was fully cooperative with the investigation. Sofia's maternal grandfather, Jose Juarez, wasn't living with the family at the time, but he joined them in their efforts to find Sophia. But obviously, Gibbs, everyone in Sofia's life had to be questioned and eliminated as part of the process because typically that's who they are now to duck these little kids, right? Somebody close to the family. Yeah, I would say that's right. I believe the statistics prove or bear out that most child abductions are committed by family members. Now, one thing that's worth pointing out is that police came out and said they had no concerns about Maria's delay in contacting them on the night in question. Yeah, I know it was 45 minutes, but by the time you look through the house and run around the house and search high and low and all that, that time goes by very quickly. Yeah, I agree with you. Obviously, she had tried her best to ensure Sofia wasn't hiding somewhere before she contacted law enforcement. I think I said, you know, she would be panicked and I think any parent would. But at the same time, you have four year olds like too high. So I can understand kind of wanting to check the house real quick before making that kind of. Big call to police to start everything in motion. Now if you said she waited three hours and 45 minutes, OK, that would be a different story. Flyers went out to try city schools and businesses appealing for any information on Sofia's whereabouts. A $5000 reward was announced by the Fraternal Order of Police. In addition to a $1000 reward offered by Crimestoppers, according to CNN. Police described the van scene in the area at the time. It was a light blue silver or gray late 70s to early 80s model full sized panel van with no side windows, according to NBC, the van could have looked like one used by contractors or painters. However, there's nothing to suggest it was solely a contractor or painter's van effort to paint a picture of it. I get it. Yeah, this is what it's going to look like. You see these vans a lot. Now it's also, you know, kind of that term that is thrown around a lot. A windowless van, right? OK. My kids do not like to see windowless vans. They think something hinky is going on. Yeah. Now, if you got a big logo on the side of it, that's one thing, right? But if you're just driving around in a windowless van, you might get a second look, especially if the if you do have a logo on it, it says free candy. Well, then you're going to have parents running out of their house and stopping you in the middle of the street. The FBI was coordinating a central information system to record every tip and piece of information coming in to assist with the investigation. And again, I go back to my earlier statement. This is why you bring other agencies. Absolutely. They have the knowledge, they have the expertise and the technology that you probably don't have, where he talked about the fact that the public answered the call to action. They'd already helped in the searches. But then they started calling in tips. It was reported that police were inundated with over 800 tips. That's a big number. That's a big number to work. But you want as many tips as you can get because one of those tips could be the one that solves the case. Yeah, absolutely. Among these, according to NBC, were 24 tips in relation to the van that we talked about that had been seen by a witness. According to Keepnews, one of Sofia's 10 year old relatives who lived in the warez home told police he'd seen her walking down her driveway with a man dressed in a black sweatshirt, black pants and black shoes. But this lead was later discounted, and I get it, you know, a 10 year old might not be 100 percent accurate. Maybe there's a little bit of a fantasy there. Who knows? I don't know why police discounted this. What I will say is if you're a man walking through a neighborhood wearing a black sweatshirt, black pants and black shoes in the dark, OK? Is that just a fashion choice? Could be, could be, or would some people look at it as though you may be up to no good? You can make the argument. Either way, there's a lot of people that dress all in black. I'm not saying that that means you're, you know, you're about ready to commit a crime. But let's face it, you know, if you're a cat burglar, you're probably dressing up in all black. Yeah, you know, you're not going to be wearing all white or neon green, yellow or, you know, it's not going to happen. NBC reported that a witness saw a girl matching Sophia's description walking along the sidewalk on South Washington Street, near East 15th Avenue, around the time Sophia would have been there if she would have walked from her house to the convenience store. So to me, gives this tip is interesting from the standpoint that if it's true, then it places her at a certain location away from her house. At least a certain distance, really eliminating the possibility that she was abducted from her home or just outside her home gives them a better starting point. Yes, if it's true, according to the Tri-City Herald, four days after Sophia. You went missing on February 8th. Police used dog teams to search three homes in Kennewick and Burbank. The owner of the Burbank home was Katie Vargas, the mother of convicted triple murderer Jeremy Salga Staggie. As reported, Katie refused to cooperate, alleging police were trying to elicit a false confession from her family. Three days later, on the 11th, police searched another home. They received a report that the male occupant had made a harassing phone call to a stranger. This call was sexually explicit, but even that wasn't the most concerning thing during the call. The man had made a troubling comment about Sofia's disappearance, but this man was cleared of having any involvement in Sofia's abduction, and he was only charged with telephone harassment. Katie Vargas and her family were also eliminated as persons of interest. Gibbs, I want to go back to this man who made the harassing phone call, OK? Part of that call was sexually explicit. You can't do that. But to make a very specific reference to the disappearance of this four year old girl, why is the question that you and I ask all the time? Often it's around people calling the family of a missing person and messing with them and saying things that ultimately turn out not to be true. You know, I'm assuming that this was some type of heavy breathing, dirty type of phone call, and then all of a sudden you're going to start talking about this four year old girl. Yeah. And her disappearance a real sicko, right? Yeah, I mean, it's really sick. Both pieces of it. Right? But then to make both references in the same phone call, strange, right? Very strange. A week after Sofia disappeared, about 300 people participated in a candlelight vigil and peaceful march, going from the Juarez home to St. Joseph's Church. By this point, according to the Tri-City Herald, a makeshift memorial outside the house was growing by the day. People were coming by. They were leaving flowers, candles, teddy bears and cards. And this is always heartbreaking. You see this on TV all the time. I mean, it's amazing that so many good people come forward. You know, they're they're praying for this girl. They're helping search for this girl. They're buying things and leaving them at this makeshift memorial. But it's also very sad, very sad. Devastating. Searchers found a pair of overalls and girls shoes in the area, but neither of these was what Sofia had been wearing when she disappeared three weeks after Sofia went missing. Her case was featured nationwide on America's Most Wanted. In response to that episode, further tips came in from as far away as the East Coast. That's a good show to be on if you want some additional tips. Yeah, I mean, you and I have talked about it before. The America's most wanted was big. And to get a case out, a disappearance case out to a national audience, it is a big deal. So we mentioned it right. You know, the authorities felt as though this was a stranger abduction, right? That was their theory as part of their investigative strategy. They focused on investigating sex offenders in the tri cities area. It was reported that there were about 150 sex offenders living in Kennewick alone. So, I mean, just based off that Gibbs, you know, police have had their work cut out for them. I think the other thing that it really demonstrates is you never really know who's living next door to you. Now there are apps and websites and things now that will kind of show where you live and a map of sex offenders in the area. I use it quite a bit just to see what's going on. You do, but it's not. It's not going to be perfect. No, no, because there are a lot of times that, you know, I'll look at it and they'll say the person used to live here, OK, well, where do they live now? And if you think about it, it's only as good as the data that they have, right? Meaning people have to report their whereabouts. Out their address and all that. One of Sophia's close neighbors turned out to be a convicted sex offender, but his investigators looked into his movements and they made their way through the list of other similar offenders in the area. One by one, these men were gradually eliminated. Now I always find this part kind of fascinating because they never really say right how this elimination process went. So how do you eliminate someone? OK, you can do it through alibi. Now we know alibis aren't always 100 percent right. Obviously, if someone is across the country or in another state and has been OK, I understand that. I think all we can do is assume that this elimination process, it was very detailed. Everything was vetted. I don't know. That part always concerns me a little bit. My big thing is the absence of something doesn't mean that someone couldn't have had a hand in something like this, meaning, OK, they can't find anything on them. But do they have enough to eliminate them? Exactly, exactly. They don't. They don't always have that. Yeah. I mean, obviously, you don't have enough to charge anybody or to think that, you know, they did it. But is that enough to say that, OK, we're going to eliminate them? I'm hoping that's not the way it went down to assist with any physical evidence. Sophia's DNA profile was entered in to the FBI's National Combined DNA index system as tips continue to come in. Almost 150 of them were out of area reports sightings of Sophia, so everything had to be charger. People call it in with all sorts of theories. Some claim that a stranger had taken her. Others suggested maybe someone Sophia knew had taken her to Mexico. And you're going to get all those theories coming in, right? Yeah. There was also the theory that she'd accidentally been killed by someone driving a vehicle, and maybe this person got scared and disposed of her body. This actually became one of the more common theories. Yeah, and probably was one of the most persistent rumors in this case. And that was also a rumor and a high profile case here in Dayton with Erica Baker. Well, I can see how people could theorize that you have a four year old girl walking alone in the dark. Could somebody accidentally strike her? Could she have walked out in the street? Someone didn't have time to react, but they got very, very scared because they thought they would go to jail or be prosecuted or something like that. You would hope that wouldn't happen, that a person wouldn't react that way. Right? If they accidentally truly accidentally hit a kid. But people panicked sometimes and do things to try to cover it up. Members of the public called in over 200 tips on this theory alone, reporting that Sophia had been struck by a vehicle driven by someone involved in the local drug scene, and she had been killed instantly, or that she'd been injured and then taken to a remote location where she was murdered and buried as multiple persons of interest were identified. Investigators obtained warrants to acquire telephone records, placed taps on phone lines and search homes in vehicles. All right, Gibbs, let's take our last break. You know, for fans of true crime podcasts, the Generation Y podcast is essential listening. Host Erin and Justin cover cases from all angles. They break down theories, do deep dives into forensic evidence, and they discuss their opinions on the most perplexing cases. In a recent episode, Erin and Justin investigate the case of Charles Cohen in 1988, Charles murder both of his parents in their home in Hakkasan, Delaware, while he was on the run, many speculated that this double homicide had to have been a crime of passion or committed during a fit of rage. But when he was finally apprehended, Charles made it clear that his murderous rampage was more sinister and premeditated than anyone expected. Gibbs, you and I have known Erin and Justin for many years now. We love their work. We love the way they go about putting out their podcasts, and we believe our listeners will to listen to Generation Y podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or you can listen ad free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Hey, folks, can we talk about health for a minute? Because there's nothing more important than taking care of yourself, because if you're not feeling your best, you can't be your best. Sam Boucle helps you feel your best by supporting your immune system with premium black elderberry. Simbu call is the original Black Elderberry brand, so I know I'm getting immune support I can trust. I use Sambuca all because I don't have time to miss work when I'm not feeling my best. These podcasts have to go out, so I take one or two Sambuca old gummies every morning to help make sure I can keep doing what I need to do. And I love these gummies because they taste so good. They're like a little morning treat. I take them with my coffee to get my day started off right. They also have a ton of other formats to choose from, including syrups, drink powders, tablets, capsules and more. They also have products for kids and babies as well. You can help support your entire family's immune systems with Sam Boucle. Get 15 percent off your next order of 999 or more at Sam Boo Call U.S.A. Use Code Tocad. That's 15 percent off your next order of $9 and 99 cents or more with the code T-kash. Sophia's disappearance touched the hearts of not only ordinary members of the Kahnawake community, but some with a public profile. According to the Tri-City Herald, two and a half weeks into the search for Sophia, NASCAR driver and former Kennewick resident Damon Lusk announced he would be forgoing sponsorship revenue in an upcoming Busch Series race in Las Vegas, doing his part to raise national awareness for Sophia at the race. Lusk had a large photo of the missing girl on display on the trunk of his car. This is a big deal. It is a big deal when you think about how much a NASCAR driver makes for, let's just say one race and you're saying, you know, to hell with the sponsorship money, right? I'm going to put this girl's photo on my car. It's more important. Yeah, yeah, it's a big deal and getting that exposure out there, I mean, that's a big race. It is a big race. You know, a lot of people watch NASCAR. In May 2003, there was an updated announcement about the vehicle police were searching for. It was a mid 90s model, full size faded orange van with a license plate with a double j in the No. The driver was said to be between 35 and 45 years old, was a white male with a thick blond beard, according to the Charlie Project. A witness saw the van in the area around the time of Sofia's disappearance. Police didn't know if the van had any connection to the case, but of course they wanted to find this driver. They were committed to chasing down every lead, Kennewick Police Chief Mark Hart told The Seattle Times. Everyone and no one is a person of interest. That's a very interesting statement. You know, basically telling me we don't have anybody right, but we're looking at everyone. So you're all are possible suspects except for the people that they eliminated. In August 2006, investigators thought that they had a new lead, according to The Associated Press. A farmer driving down a field access road south of Richfield, about an hour's drive north of Kennewick, saw a patch of tall weeds that a fire had destroyed. It struck him as very unusual, and when you look closer, he found bone fragments. This field had been searched twice since Sophia's disappearance. So I think one question that some people asked was OK since it had been searched multiple times. Could someone have decided that this was the time to dump her body? Yeah. In an attempt to dispose of her remains, they've already searched it twice. Why would they go back? Now we can finally dispose of the body because now we're going to be found is what maybe the suspect was thinking. Some news reports at the time mentioned the discovery of a skull, but it's not really clear, Gibbs, whether this is actually the case. The FBI did send a team out to search a 100 acre area surrounding the field, but nothing further was recovered. The bones were sent off for DNA testing, however, analysts couldn't determine their origin. But according to the Seattle Times, in November 2007, after some further testing on the remains, investigators had their answer. Carbon dating conclusively showed the bone fragments were around 600 to 700 and 70 years. And belong to someone of Native American ancestry. So obviously, there was no way that they belonged to Sophia. So we have that solved. Doesn't help our case, though. No, it doesn't. What it does is it, you know, for me, brings up the question of how did these bone fragments just kind of all of a sudden surface? Was it because of the fire 600, 700 years old, some old bones there? It means they had been there for a very long time, right? And now all of a sudden they surface. That seems very strange to me around late 2007, early 2008. The warez family, including Maria, moved to California. Maria gave birth to a baby boy in mid-2008. However, tragedy struck the war as family again. Maria wouldn't live to find out what happened to her daughter in January 2009 at the age of 26. She died in Sacramento from medical complications, leaving behind her six month old son, according to Keepnews. The Seattle Times reported that back in Kennewick, Maria's ashes were taken to St. Joseph's Church in a procession from the site of her former home, where she'd live with Sophia. And how many times Gibbs do we see as we're moving along through a case? Multiple tragedies? Yeah, happening to the same family? How did families recover from that? Can you recover from that? Tough to recover from one. Exponentially tougher, I would think, to recover from two three. I mean, we've seen oh, three four tragedies happen to a single family while they're still trying to figure out what happened to one of their loved ones as the years passed without any answers or trace of Sophia. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children released digital age, progressed photos of what they believed Sophia would look like. Senior investigators maintained hope that Sophia was still alive in 2011, one detective told The Seattle Times. My gut is that she's alive. If she's deceased, we'd have found her remains. Now I get it. Investigators want to have hope. The family wants to have hope. I don't know if I quite agree with that logic. You think about a stranger abduction and murder. I think oftentimes murderer will figure out a way to dispose of someone's remains so that they will never be found. That same year, police investigate a report of a girl in her early teens living in Long Beach, California, whose Facebook profile was Sophia Suarez. But this lead didn't pan out, either. Two years later, Kennewick P.D. told NBC there still wasn't any evidence either way, whether Sophia was alive or had been killed in December 2020. Police relaunched the investigation into Sofia's disappearance. This meant undertaking the daunting task of reviewing the 20000 page case file and re-interviewing everyone possible, especially anyone who lived in Kennewick between South Washington Street and South Cedar Street, and between 13th and 16th avenues from the period of December 2002 to March 2003. OK, that is a lot of work. It is going through 20000 pages of a case file. Then you have to figure out who lived, you know, in these areas way back when trying to track them down. Are they still there? No. OK, where are they now if they're even still alive? And then we got to go find them and re-interview them, assuming they interviewed all of these people the first time. Right? In February 2021, on the 18th anniversary of Sofia's disappearance, her and Victoria told the Tri-City Herald, We plead with anybody that knows anything. Please just come forward and let that light shine in that dark area because this family needs closure. It's been very hard just witnessing the ache and the suffering and the pain that it has taken in this family. We want to know what happened. Victoria's appeal coincided with her niece's pictures being featured on semi-trailer trucks owned by Kamui Trucking as part of a campaign called Homeward Bound. The initiative was launched by Washington State Patrol's Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit, focusing on missing people. The semi-trucks cover a lot of ground. Gibbs, if you think about it, really do. Traveling around the Pacific Northwest, across the West Coast, even into Canada and Mexico. To me, this is exactly what needs to happen. Coming up with new ways to profile these missing individuals doesn't cost much. OK, yes, you have to get to trucking company to agree to it, but think about the number of miles they drive, the places they go. That's great exposure, you know, as long as they keep her image out there and never forget, right? Keep the image out there. Keep talking about it. That's what you want. It's like when they used to put missing persons on milk cartons. Yeah, I mean, I guess what I was getting at was, let's just be inventive. Right. And and I think this was that same month a new lead investigator was appointed following the previous lead investigators, retirement veteran detective and retired Richland police captain Al Weiner was brought on board to spearhead the investigation going forward in March 2021. The Kennewick Police Department created a website dedicated to Sofia's case. It describes Sofia as a beacon of sunshine who had a bright and innocent life stolen from her. Her family, friends and community have lived under a dark cloud since she was taken from us. Sofia was and still is loved by all who knew her. The website also makes a special direct appeal to the person or persons involved in Sofia's disappearance, saying If you were involved, it's important, you know, that we will not stop until we bring closure for Sofia's family and our community, regardless of how long it takes. Relationships you've had with others change over time. Allegiances that others may have once had to you are now different. They know about your involvement, or at the very least, are suspicious that you may be involved. This event has had a marked effect on your life. You have been looking over your shoulder since 2003. You may have trouble sleeping, maintaining employment and or changed your consumption of alcohol and or drugs. Each tip brings us closer to you. It is time to relieve this heavy burden that you have carried. It's time to help yourself. We encourage you to contact us. And again, I think this is brilliant. It is brilliant. It's also something that you and I keep talking about if anyone else knows about something you've done. OK, well, we're almost 20 years on. Relationships do change over time, right? People fall out of favor with this person or that person. They get mad at each other. If someone gets upset with you and they know some really dirty stuff about you, you cross them. Sure, things are going to come out. The next thing you know, they're calling in an anonymous tip to police because they're done with you. Yeah, you're going to do that to me. What's what are we going to do to you? Exactly. So I do think it's a brilliant thing number one to have the website. That's great. But to really hammer home this idea of you, you've been looking over your shoulder, this is a heavy burden. We're never going to stop coming after you. You might as well give up now. Is that going to work in many cases? Probably not. I don't know that many people 20 years on are going to see that and say, You know what? That's true. I think it's just time for me to give myself up. I can't live with what I've done. What I think is more likely is that someone else out there knows and at some point their reason for protecting a person goes away. Right within a month of the launch, both the website and the Homeward Bound program elicited new leads into Sophia's disappearance. There's been a lot of attention directed towards particular individuals as potential suspects in the case. We don't know who all these individuals are beyond one of the juarez's neighbors who was convicted of a sex crime but was cleared. Now it's not surprising, Gibbs, that we don't know the identities of all the people that are being investigated. It's an ongoing case. I mean, at this point, as far as we know, there's no physical evidence. Connecting anyone to Sofia's disappearance, at least to the point where no one has been charged as it relates to their involvement. The Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reaffirmed that Sofia's father is not a suspect. Neither is Jose Torres, her grandmother's boyfriend, according to police, after Torres left the house. Sofia also walked out the door to follow him to the store. But like we said, Torres didn't know this. He drove to the store alone and he returned home alone. Investigators obtained CCTV footage from the convenience store, which corroborated his version of events, and it also showed that Sofia was nowhere in sight. We know that Sofia's father didn't have a relationship with his daughter. He also cooperated with law enforcement. Apparently, Gibbs, his alibi, did check out, and he was ruled out as a potential suspect within 48 hours. Pretty quick now. We don't know what his alibi was. So again, you have to assume that it was solid, that it was corroborated by police in order for him to be ruled out, eliminated so quickly. Now it's pretty quick. So it sounds to me like it was so clear cut, right, that they had good evidence. Yes, and that's what we're hoping. Maria, of course, was proven to have been at home the entire time. She didn't follow Sofia out the door, and she didn't leave the house until Jose Torres returned. So I think when you kind of whittle the family away as being involved, it really leans heavily towards the working theory of a stranger abduction. What else could it be? And we know investigators kind of quickly jumped on this as the most likely scenario. Now, detectives still don't know whether Sofia was murdered or whether, you know she's being held alive. If some people might say, Well, how can she be alive after all this time? Well, Gibbs, we've had some fairly recent cases of people who have been abducted in kept for very long periods of time. Yeah. And found and returned home. Yeah. So is it the most likely outcome? I would say no. But can you rule it out? No, I don't think you can. So after all the thousands of tips that have come into this case, it seems to me as though the stranger abduction theory is still the leading theory at this stage in the case. Yeah, it makes the most sense. I think it does, even though we did say. The majority of people, I believe the statistics bear this out are abducted by, you know, someone they know, often a family member, a family friend. It just doesn't seem to be that way in this case. And I think at least as investigators see it. According to CNN, in May 2021, Tik Tok users in Kennewick contacted local police after a video featuring a young woman was uploaded to the social media app. The woman, who appeared to be in her early 20s, which is the age Sophia, would be now bore a striking resemblance to age, progressed photos of Sophia in the video, which was apparently shot in the northwestern Mexican city of kuia. Can the young woman, who was interviewed by a TikTok personality, spoke Spanish. She gave her ages 22, said she hated birthdays and had a drug addiction. She went on to say she hoped to talk with her family because she didn't know where she was from and had been told she'd been abducted. So promising, promising to the point where Kennewick police began investigating the video. A month later, in June 2021, Kennewick PD announced they'd contacted people claiming to be the woman's relatives, according to NBC. They told police the young woman who was in a rehabilitation center was not Sophia, and they asked for privacy over what they called a family matter. But at the time of this recording, my understanding is that police still have not discounted this lead. They're still trying to confirm, yeah, whether Sophia was the woman in the videos somehow, either through DNA testing, and they definitely. You're trying to investigate this woman's claims that she's been abducted. Well, that could be a breakthrough. It really could. Now you have people who are claiming to be relatives of this woman coming forward and saying, No, it's not Sophia. It's, you know, this is a member of our family. OK, maybe, maybe or maybe, maybe you think she's been a member of your family because she's been with you since she was four years old? Maybe you don't know how she came into your family. You just know she's been part of your family. Well, that could be the case. But I think you also have to at least bring up the possibility that these people know exactly who that woman is, for sure. And they have a vested interest in saying it's not Sophia cover up to cover something up. Now I'm not saying that's the case. I'm saying you have to at least bring that up as a as a possibility and a DNA test would clear that up. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Obviously, you can see why police are so interested in this woman this video right? I haven't seen the video, but this woman is said to look a lot like the age progressed photos. She's saying she doesn't know who her family is. She's been told that maybe she was abducted. She's around the right age, sir. OK, man, some you would really want to check out. But that's not the only recent breakthrough in the case. Police released a new description of both a suspect in a vehicle. The person police are now looking for and focusing on is a light complexioned Hispanic boy who was around 11 to 14 years old back when Sophia disappeared. This would now make him somewhere around 30 to 33 years old. In 2003, he would have been around five foot two. Five foot two possibly had big hands for a person his age, and his facial features indicated he was chubby. That's how the police termed it. Sure. They also said that he had a baby face with a possible mark on one cheek. He had bangs and his wavy dark hair was short and it appeared to be slicked back. Police went on to say a witness who was stopped at a stop sign saw the suspect around 8:30 p.m. on the sidewalk at South Washington Street near East 15th Avenue, approaching a girl who they said look like Sophia. According to NBC, the suspect led the girl by the hand towards a van, which was occupied and stopped in a nearby street. The witness saw the suspect laughing, but the young girl was crying. I think what's interesting about this is that the witness made their report the day after Sophia disappeared that long ago. But yet this updated suspect description wasn't released until more than 18 years later. That's a very long time too long, and you have to ask the question of, you know, why that would happen. Police have explained that due to actively investigating other persons of interest in trying to track the suspect down, they purposefully withheld this information from the public. Yeah, for that long, though, after you knew the show was going to be showcased on America's most wanted. Yeah, I mean, this is a discussion that crops up, right? Please hold things back, right? But at a certain point, after so many years have passed and I'm not saying 18, I think the number is much, much less at a certain point. Don't you then have to make the decision? OK, our best chance is to now release this. Yeah. And have people come forward? I don't know. I've been all in on police efforts in this case. I think this claim is a little dubious. I agree. I'm not saying they're lying. It could be exactly how it happened. If it did happen that way, I'm saying, maybe you should have released it a little bit earlier. That's all I'm saying. This new suspect description coincided with an anonymous Kennewick couple offering a $10000 reward for information leading to the discovery of Sophia's whereabouts in this couple's interesting. They don't know the warez family didn't know the war as family back then. They just want to help bring her home. The good family people amaze me. Know you and I talk about a lot of bad people right on tocad, sometimes on unsolved, as well as we dive into. All suspects persons of interest. I still maintain that the overwhelming percentage of people around the world are unbelievably good. I truly believe that this is just one example, a good example at the time of her disappearance. Sophia was around three feet tall. She only weighed 33 pounds. Gibbs, and she was missing her four upper front teeth. I mean, I say she only weighed £33, but she's only four years old. This just shows you how what a little person she was. She has black hair and brown eyes with a mole under one eye and a birthmark on her lower back. Sophia was last seen wearing blue overalls, a red long sleeve shirt, violet socks, white Converse sneakers and gold hoop earrings. If Sophia is alive today and we've already said some police believe she is or could be, she would be 24 years old. If you have any information on the disappearance of Sophia, including information about a person in van seen in the area of South Washington Street, near East 15th Avenue between eight and 9:15 p.m. on February 4th two thousand three, you can contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at one 800 The Lost. Special Investigator Al Wainer at five zero nine five eight two one three three one or the Kennewick Police Department at five zero nine five eight five four two zero eight. You can also submit tips online at Go to Kahnawake dot com, where you can follow the links to make a report. We can't make it any easier than that now. I mean, there's a lot of ways for people to tell someone what they know, and if you know something. It's the time to do it. It is. And you know, I also want to say you may not know exactly what happened. You may not even know who a person is that you saw on the street. You may think it has nothing to do with the case, right? But if you were around that area and you saw anything, why not just call it in? Absolutely, man. What if that was your kid? What if that was your daughter? That was your sister? You would want somebody to call it in, even if it was the smallest detail. I think what people have to be very careful of is assuming that police know. Ex- exactly. I there's no need for me to call because I'm sure police already know this. They may not. Hey, look, no details to small man. Yeah, I think, you know, we say it all the time. But I also think it's important to hammer at home because I've been in situations, not in situations like this, but where I thought, now I don't need to call this person now, even like in a job, I don't need to let this person know. I'm sure they already know, right? What comes out later? They didn't know they would have loved for me to have inform them of whatever it is, whatever knowledge I had. The police are not going to get upset. They're not going to be put off by getting a tip. They'll look at it if they have it great, if they've already checked it out. No need to check it out again. That's it, Gibbs for our episode on the disappearance of Sofia Juarez. You know, you and I do so many unsolved cases and some have been solved. Yeah, not through anything we've done, but they've been solved. And that's awesome. We'd love to see them all solved. We do. I do think that, you know, the technology as it keeps advancing, we're just going to see more and more of these solved. The majority of them are not going to bring back lost loved ones, probably or anything like that. But just the family knowing finally knowing what really happened there has to be huge for them. And on top of that, people need to pay, you know? People have been living their lives for many, many years, and it's time for them to pay for what they've done. So I think both of those things are important. Yes. Nice to know justice is on its way. Yeah, we got some voicemails you and check those out this year. Hey, Matt, can you be? I am Avenger. I've been listening for a while now and I've got through all the way through Seacat. And then I started unsolved and I love those do that on unsolved and notice. I used to listen to it a lot of different true crime podcasts. And once I found. You know, I've never looked back, but I've noticed lately that a lot of the older cases. Well, they're not terribly old on your unsolved have been covered by some of the podcasts that I used to listen to. I can tell you right now for a fact. Y'all do so much more research and you just hate such a better picture of the case. I know everybody always says thank you for the research. I'm going to say that to you. Thank you so much for all you do. Stay safe and secure all the time. S. Gibbs, I can't overstate what something like that means to us, those types of words. We do try very hard on the research. Are we going to miss things? Sure, nobody can ever get everything right, but we strive. We do. We work hard to try to make sure that the research is as thorough as we can make. Hi, my name is Michael, and I'm one of your listeners. I live in Evansville, Indiana, is right on the border with Henderson, Kentucky. I just wanted to give you guys a call. I was listening to episode one. Sixty three or four, I can't remember. It's about a guy who is from North Carolina, Winston-Salem Area as where I was born and grew up just listening to it. I thought of that. I am originally from there. I was born there and lived the first half of my life in Winston-Salem, so it just kind of hit home. Listening to that specific episode, but I've been listening for about two years now. I work in lawn care, so it's nice I can just put my headphones in while I'm working and listen to all the episodes. I started with true crime unsolved and listen all the way through that. And then now I started with the program all the time and I'm working my way through that and I'm in the one sixties right now. So anyway, thank you guys for what you do. I really enjoy it and keep these even keep your own time ticking. Wow, thank you very much. It's awesome. I don't think there's any doubt, Gibbs, I hear it from a lot of people when you hear case that is close to home or someplace that you have lived at some point in your life, right? It hits differently. It does. You know, we've said that about cases we've done here around our hometown. It just hits differently because you know that bar. You know that story. You know that area. Hey, Mike and Debbie, you know again from Logan, Ohio. It is a case, by contrast, commercial with the cowboys sitting out in the woods. And then one guy said something about getting his for his size from New York City. That what it is? Have a good day, guys. New York City, New York City. I remember I don't know what episode we talked about that if I remember. And those ran for a number of years, they did. But I think at one point, one of the Cowboys was one of the cowboys from Blazing Saddles. Yeah. I could be wrong about that. But yeah, I don't know what episode that was in. But uh, yeah, those are pretty famous commercials. They really were. I'm sure we couldn't remember. I'm sure you couldn't remember something about it. Hi, this is calling from Anaheim, California. I'm calling to let you know that I was just listening to one of the episodes. I think it was the Teachout. Maybe. Anyway, so as with the guy that he was wearing the burlap sack overseas, totally creepy. And I have to agree with the guest that is way creepier than the Michael Tyler Myers guy. And I just want to let you know that I really enjoyed listening to you guys. So thank you very much. She was pretty clean again. Sorry, that was a cameo. I have a good day by Tom about The Phantom Killer that the Texarkana. Yeah, yeah, that was on unsolved, though, right? Yeah, yeah. I do remember that case. If you see the pictures, it is scary. It really is to think about and there's not pictures, but there's whatever drawings of what this thing would have looked like to think about seeing that in your window. Yeah, yeah, pretty scary. Although if I see Michael Myers, I'm going to need some new underwear too. So I don't know how you, you know, kind of measure those two against each other. Can you say their acronyms? Did you just say acronyms? Is that what I said? I don't know what you said. You don't know what you said. You just asked me what you said. Can I say what acronyms? Now you know what acronyms? I don't know. Quiet. Yeah. Keep your um, time ticking. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. All right. I think on that, we got to get out better. So that is it for another episode of true crime all the time unsolved. So for Mike and Gabe, stay safe and keep your own time ticking quietly. Watch Yellowstone for free on Pluto TV all this weekend. Pluto TV is streaming a marathon of seasons one to three of Yellowstone. The show The Wrap calls a smash hit series. Pluto TV also has hundreds of channels and thousands of movies and TV shows like Mission Impossible three, Gladiator, CSI and more. Absolutely free. So download the free Pluto TV streaming app and watch Yellowstone Seasons one to three free.