Transcript
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The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
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All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.
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Listener discretion is advised.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
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And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
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And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
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I'm your host, Ali.
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It's just me coming to you this week.
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My darling husband, Eli, as you may remember if you've listened to some of our past episodes,
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his mother passed away recently and he just needed to take a little time this week for
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his mental health.
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So of course he is supported in doing that.
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And I love him very much and miss him very much.
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He's still here in the house, but I just miss him when he's not with me.
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However, I still wanted to bring you a new episode.
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This week we are covering a missing person.
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So let's just get into it.
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This week we are covering the story of Katelin Aikens.
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And this takes place in December of 2015 in Spotslovania, Virginia.
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But first, a little bit about Katelin.
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Katelin is 19 years old in 2015.
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She would be 27 years old today.
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Katelin at this time is living in Lake Havasu City, Arizona with her fiance Amber.
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Amber and Katelin had been friends for years, having grown up on the same street together.
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When Amber was 10, her family moved to Arizona, but her and Katelin remained close throughout
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the years, their friendship growing into a relationship.
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Katelin’s family was supportive when she came out.
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Her mother only wanted her daughter to be happy more than anything.
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Katelin graduated high school at the age of 16.
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She was very smart and very academic.
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Just 10 days after her 18th birthday, she moved to Arizona to be with Amber.
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In the weeks before her disappearance, Katelin was in the process of enrolling in cosmetology
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school in Arizona.
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But she talked with her family in Virginia several times a day, either through text or
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phone calls, often both.
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Her sister was pregnant with her first nephew and Katelin was going to become an aunt for
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the first time and was so excited.
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So now a timeline of events.
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On Tuesday, December 1st, 2015, Katelin flies back to her hometown to celebrate the birth
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of her nephew.
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She grew up in Caroline County, Virginia.
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It was going to be a quick trip, just four days since she was slated to start cosmetology
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school on Monday.
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She just had to finish up her enrollment, which meant bringing her high school diploma
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back to Arizona with her.
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On Thursday, December 3rd, Katelin meets up with old friends and parties at their place.
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They stay up late playing drinking games and Katelin ends up spending the night there.
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She comes home later the next day on Friday so she can pack up her stuff and get ready
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for her flight the next day.
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Saturday, December 5th, 2015.
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Before she leaves for the airport, she makes sure to grab her high school diploma.
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Her mother, Lisa, had to work that day so another family member had promised to take
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her to the airport.
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However, this other family member ended up getting called into work at the last minute.
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In a bind, Katelin reached out to her ex-stepdad, James Branton, to see if he would be able
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to give her a ride.
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James was really the only father figure that Katelin had ever had in her life since her
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biological dad was not in the picture.
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James agrees to take her to the airport, but since he had to work later that day, around
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3pm, he'll have to drop Katelin off four hours before her flight so he can make the
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trip back to get to work in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
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Katelin was flying out of the Ronald Reagan Airport in Washington, DC at 5.40pm.
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Katelin got a ride from her mother to James' house and then Lisa headed to work.
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According to her mother, everything seemed normal when she dropped Katelin off.
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Lisa told Katelin to call her when she got to the airport and when she boarded the plane.
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Katelin said she would.
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Lisa needed to get to work by 10am so she left Katelin and her ex-husband who were chatting
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about Katelin’s plans to enroll in cosmetology school.
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A few hours later, around 1.52pm, Lisa gets a text message from her ex-husband saying
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that he dropped Katelin off.
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Lisa texts back, quote, okay, thank you.
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I was traffic, end quote.
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To which he responds, not bad.
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Eight minutes later, at 2pm, Lisa gets a text message from Katelin’s phone saying, quote,
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I'm at the airport, battery dying so won't be able to text for a bit, end quote.
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Lisa shoots back a text, okay, let me know when you get on the plane.
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A few minutes after this, another series of text messages are sent to Lisa from Amber,
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Katelin’s fiancée.
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Amber says that Katelin isn't getting on the plane.
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When Lisa asks her what she means, she says that something happened and Katelin is waiting
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for a new flight.
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However, Lisa knows that there aren't any other flights that Katelin can get on that
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night.
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This was her only flight.
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Lisa starts to worry.
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She's still at work so in between customers she calls other family members to recruit
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them into helping find out what's happening with Katelin.
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Her sister begins to text her, but she doesn't respond and the calls go straight to voicemail.
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As Lisa leaves work that night, she texts James to ask him where he dropped her off
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at.
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He said that he dropped her off at the Springfield Mall in Virginia.
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This was news to Lisa and when she asked why, he said that Katelin wanted to be dropped
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off there.
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He said that instead of waiting at the airport terminal for four hours, she was going to
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walk around the mall and then take the metro train from the mall to the airport.
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James tells Lisa he had even given her $20 for the metro.
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According to Katelin’s family, this doesn't sound like her.
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Katelin hadn't taken the metro since she was around six years old and didn't really
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know her way around it and she had never been to that mall before.
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She would have either needed to take a bus and then walk to the train in order to get
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to the airport or walk about 16 minutes with her luggage straight to the train from the
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mall.
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Katelin’s mom and sister are convinced that she wouldn't have done this.
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At around 7 and 15, Lisa gets two text messages from Katelin’s phone.
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The first one read, quote, staying with a friend, end quote.
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And the second one said, quote, I need some time alone, end quote.
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This was strange to Lisa since Katelin should have been in the air at this time and unable
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to send a text.
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Lisa was driving home from work when she got the text messages, so she pulled into a gas
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station and attempted to call Kateline, but the calls went straight to voicemail.
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Lisa texted her daughter saying, call me, and then says, I'm very worried about you.
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Shortly after, Amber gets a Facebook message from Katelin that said, quote, I can't come
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back.
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I cheated on you, end quote.
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Amber and Lisa talk and Amber has no idea what is happening.
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Amber and Katelin had not gotten into any fights recently, and there's no reason she
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can think of on why she wouldn't want to come home.
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Lisa decides to call the airport and she finds out that Katelin never even boarded her flight.
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This sends Lisa into a panic and she calls police to report her daughter missing.
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But since Katelin is over the age of 18, police tell her that she hasn't been missing long
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enough yet for them to do anything.
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On Monday, December 7, after agonizing over what's happening with Katelin and trying
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to get a hold of her with no response, Lisa goes to the Spotslovania County Sheriff's
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Department to report Katelin missing since this was the last place that she had seen
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her when she dropped her off at James's house.
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When Lisa tells police everything, police believe that Katelin just needed a few days
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to herself and that she would turn up, that maybe she was getting cold feet and didn't
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want to return back to Arizona.
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Lisa still insists on filing a police report with them.
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While Lisa is in the middle of filling out the form, Katelin’s luggage is found.
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A road crew found her suitcase in a drainage ditch off of River Road near where it intersects
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with Fall Hill Road in Spotslovania County, 50 miles from the airport.
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Police pull Lisa into a room to tell her of the discovery.
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Her luggage was found unzipped.
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Her plane ticket, wallet with her ID and all of her bank cards, toothbrush, and phone charger
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were all in the suitcase, but everything else was missing.
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Her clothes, her cell phone, and her high school diploma.
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The suitcase had a broken wheel and according to Lisa, it looked like it was just tossed
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out of a window.
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Police begin investigating Katelin’s disappearance.
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They find the circumstances suspicious and interview her family at length.
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Katelin’s case is assigned to Detective Rob Marshall, who speaks with James, her former
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stepfather, and his statement remains the same, that around 1pm he dropped her off at
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the mall near the JCPenney entrance.
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James told police he didn't think that it was odd at all that she wanted to take the
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Metro into the airport.
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Police reach out to the mall, the Metro, and the airport for surveillance footage on the
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day that Katelin went missing.
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Later review of the videos will show that Katelin was not caught on any of the security
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cameras at the mall, metro, or airport.
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On Thursday, December 10th, Katelin has been missing for five days.
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Police search the area near where her suitcase was found.
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There is a river near this area and investigators search the shoreline.
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They do aerial searches as well, but nothing additional is found in regards to Katelin,
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so none of her clothing was found, her cell phone wasn't found, her diploma wasn't
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found, and she was not found.
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Police continue to dig into Katelin’s life.
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They find a Facebook message from the early hours of the day she disappeared, when it
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was known that Katelin still was in possession of her phone.
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It said that she didn't want to be here or there, which investigators took to mean
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she didn't want to be in Virginia or Arizona.
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Investigators also talked to the friends that she had spent the night with while she was
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in town visiting.
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The house Katelin crashed at belonged to a couple, and they said that when Katelin was
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over, they were playing drinking games and one thing led to another and they all became
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intimate.
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This does give investigators hope that maybe Katelin is just laying low for a couple days
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and helps support the Facebook message that was sent to her fiance saying that she had
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cheated.
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Police begin to stake out areas that Katelin was known to visit, hoping that maybe some
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family or friends were just helping her lie low for a few days while she figured out her
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life.
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On December 19th, two weeks since Katelin disappeared, police had found no sign of her
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and it did not appear that anybody was helping hide Katelin.
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Police say they're no closer to finding her than the day she vanished.
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Katelin’s family believe that there is no way she would stay out of touch with them
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for this long.
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She would have contacted them by now if she had just needed a few days to herself.
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It's unclear exactly when, but eventually Katelin’s phone records arrived to police
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to review.
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Police find out through the phone records that when Katelin sent the text to her mother
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saying that she was at the airport, that that text message pinged to a tower near Fredericksburg,
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Virginia, about five miles from where her suitcase was found, but far away from the
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airport.
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On December 29th, 2015, James is scheduled to come in that day and take a polygraph test.
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He has been very cooperative with police during their investigation and police really view
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him as a concerned father.
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They scheduled the polygraph as a way to rule him out and move past him since he was the
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last person to see Katelin.
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James calls police to tell him that he spoke with his attorney who advised him not to take
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the polygraph test since he was being looked at as a suspect.
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Police try to assure James that he's not a suspect, but just the last person to see
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Katelin alive, that they need to rule him out before they can start looking at other
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people.
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Still, James refuses to take the polygraph test and really stops being cooperative with
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police after this point.
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In January of 2016, Katelin has been missing for nearly a month at this point.
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Detective Rob Marshall decides to get a search warrant for James' house and the swamp area
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behind his house.
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During the search, investigators seize computers and cell phones and spend hours searching
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his house, property, and vehicles, but they don't find any trace that anything bad happened
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to Katelin in his home or the vehicles.
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Police do, however, obtain James' cell phone records, and they notice that all of the calls
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he made that day and all of the text messages he sent on the day that Katelin disappeared
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pinged off of the tower near his home in Partlow, Virginia, not near the mall or airport or
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even near his job in Fredericksburg.
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His phone records will also show that James never tried to call Katelin once after she
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disappeared.
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Investigators will also come to find out that James called off work that Saturday that Katelin
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disappeared.
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He never went in.
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In June of 2016, it's been over six months since Katelin went missing.
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Katelin’s family is desperate to find her, and they start a GoFundMe in order to hire
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a private investigator.
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They also have started a Facebook group to try to raise awareness for Katelin’s case.
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The Spotslovenia Sheriff's Department says, quote, the case is still open and we have
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a detective who is actively working on it.
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We've looked everywhere we know to look, but at this time we have no new leads or information,
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end quote.
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In May of 2017, Katelin has been missing for about a year and a half now.
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The FBI has joined the search, but investigators are still at a standstill.
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The family is deep in their own investigation into what happened.
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Katelin’s sister Pamela says, quote, we analyze everything all the time, different
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things that could have happened every day, end quote.
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Katelin’s mom checks Facebook first thing in the morning to see if there's any new
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posts about Katelin or Googles her daughter's name to see if anything new pops up.
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Lisa used to talk to detectives every day, but it got depressing.
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Nothing ever changed in the investigation and there was never any new information.
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Lisa has reached out to national TV shows and famous psychics to see if any of them would
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be able to help get Katelin’s story out there.
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The show Disappear does do an episode on Katelin and that helps raise awareness about Katelin’s
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case nationally.
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When Lisa thinks back to the day her daughter disappeared, she thinks of the text messages
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that Katelin sent and Lisa does not believe that they were sent by Katelin.
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She told a local paper that Katelin never double texted unless she had misspelled something.
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And when she texted her mother that she needed time alone and was at a friend's house, it
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was sent as a double text.
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Police Captain Liz Scott told local media that investigators now believe that Katelin
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never left the area.
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Lisa holds out hope that her daughter will be found.
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She says, quote, We don't know if she's lying in a ditch somewhere or if she's going to
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be fine.
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We don't know if she's living it up, partying around.
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If she is out there, is she going to be the same Katelin we know?
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I don't know.
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End quote.
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When Katelin went missing in 2015, she was five foot four and about 145 pounds.
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She had short blonde hair and blue eyes.
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She has a tattoo of three stars on her foot and five butterflies on her arm that are outlined
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in blue.
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Her nose, lip and belly button are pierced and she has gauges in her ears.
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So if you know anything about the disappearance of Katelin Akins in December of 2015 or her
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whereabouts today, please call Crime Solvers at 1-800-928-5822 or you can submit a tip
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on the FBI website.
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And the sources for the timeline today come from Cole Pepper's star exponent, Richard
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Times Dispatch, the Facebook page, help find Katelin Akins, the FBI and Virginia cold case
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database.
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So that is the case of Katelin Akins.
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This is a case that I was not familiar with, but in a comment section of one of our YouTube
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pages, someone suggested that I should look into the case.
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And as soon as I did, I really wanted more information.
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There just seems to be a lot of questions for me, a lot of lot of questions.
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And some of the more obvious ones that I'm sure you all had too is what happened to her
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clothes?
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You know, they find her suitcase, and there's some of her stuff in there, some really important
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stuff, her plane ticket, her wallet, her IDs, her bank cards, her phone charger, but none
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of her clothes are there.
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So what happened to all of them?
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It does seem strange that none of them have turned up, but it does make me hopeful because
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it's like those are a lot of pieces of evidence that could be found somewhere, some way.
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I do share Katelin’s family's thoughts that if she was able to, she would have contacted
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the family by now.
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Her mom was talking about how she would be at work and Katelin would regularly call two
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or three times and text her while she was at work.
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So it wasn't as if she had a very strange relationship with her family, like, you know,
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a lot of LGBTQ people sometimes have.
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She seemed very close with her family, very close with her sister.
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She flew back to meet her nephew.
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So all of that to me just makes it seem like even if she decided to take a couple days
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because she was rethinking her relationship, maybe going through some stuff, you know,
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just growing pains of being 19 and figuring out your life and what you want from it, she
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would have contacted her family.
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I really do believe that, as does her family.
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So it makes me anxious to think about what could have happened to her.
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I also have a lot of questions for her former stepfather.
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He claims that he dropped her off at Springfield Mall in Springfield, Virginia, but no security
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cameras caught him or his car, you know, in the parking lot.
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They didn't catch her walking into the entrance and there were cameras, you know, at that
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entrance, the JCPenney entrance that she was walking into.
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So it just doesn't seem likely that in 2015, especially when, you know, there's a lot of
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camera footage that she would go missed in a mall with security cameras that nobody would
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see her.
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Or I would hope that police went and, you know, kind of canvassed the mall as well,
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like maybe some of the JCPenney workers who were working that day or whatever the stores
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just beyond that are.
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I would hope that would be done.
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Because I think people might remember, you know, a young woman walking in with a suitcase
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kind of dragging it around.
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You don't always see that at a shopping mall, so that might have stuck out to some people.
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So I hope that was done.
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But ultimately, I don't think she was ever at the mall.
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It doesn't sound like she ever made it there.
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And I did notice as well that between the statement that her stepfather gives to police,
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which is that around one, he drops her off, Lisa doesn't get a text from him until 1 52.
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So that's a 52 minute gap.
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And you know, maybe it's as innocent as, oh, like, I dropped her off, I immediately turned
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around because I needed to get to work, which we later find out he called off that day.
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But maybe it is as innocent as I turned around and was in traffic.
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And I just didn't think about it until 52 minutes later.
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And I texted her.
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And maybe him not going to work is as innocent as I got caught in traffic.
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I knew I wasn't going to make it.
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So I had to call off the rest of the day.
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But that doesn't seem to be his story.
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Like that's not included in his statements to police, at least that police have revealed.
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So for me, in order to kind of rule him out as a person of interest, or even like the
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police said, just as the last person who saw her, you kind of have to start there and then
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go beyond.
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I can't rule him out yet.
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Like, you know, no evidence was found that a crime had taken place in his car or in his
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home.
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So I would take that to mean there.
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They didn't find any blood.
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No signs of struggle.
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No recent dig marks on his property.
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You know, there wasn't anything that stood out to them as something bad had happened
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there.
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But I do wonder if they found any evidence of her at all, just because she was in his
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car.
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So you know, did they find a hair?
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Did they find her DNA?
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You know, on the armrest or anything?
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Was her DNA found at all?
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Because it should be there.
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If what he says is true, he drove her, you know, an hour to this mall that she wanted
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to be dropped off there.
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So that way she could kill time at the mall and then head over via the metro in DC.
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I do think that if Katelin was dropped off at the mall, she would have been able to figure
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out the metro system to get to the airport.
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A lot of her family kind of made the comment that she wouldn't have done that because she
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doesn't know how to.
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But you know, Katelin was also very smart.
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She was very book smart.
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I think she could have figured it out, especially if she had a smartphone with her that could
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kind of, you know, give her the step by step directions.
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But I always come back to the fact that she was never seen on any of the cameras at the
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mall.
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So I don't think she was ever there to figure out how to get to the airport from there.
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And you know, all her cell phone, all the texts that were sent from her cell phone pinged
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50 miles away in Spotslovania County where her stepfather lived or her former stepfather
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lived near where her suitcase was eventually found with her plane ticket in it.
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So that just leaves me with a lot of questions that I would love to have answered as I'm
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sure her family and police would love to have answered as far as her former stepfather James
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goes.
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I do hope that this case will get solved.
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You know, this is from 2015, even though, you know, we are in the year of 2024 as I'm
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recording this.
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So you know, this December will be nine years.
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That's a long time to not have somebody and for somebody to be missing.
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But I feel like since it did happen within the last 10 years that there is a lot of information
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that police still have.
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There's a lot of technology that the police have that I think could provide more answers,
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especially if they're able to take newer technology, like maybe there are texts that need to be
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recovered or, you know, things that were kind of hidden on the phone that can be brought
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to light, you know, using new technology.
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I hope that that is done for Katelin and that we're able to get some answers and know what
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happened to her and hopefully bring her home so that way her family can know where she
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is one way or the other.
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And she disappeared during the day.
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So you know, if anybody saw anything from December 5th, 2015, again, you are encouraged
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to call Crime Solvers at 1-800-928-5822.
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You can submit a tip directly to the FBI if you go on their website, especially if you
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search her name.
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So please, if you know anything, if you saw anything in that area, please submit a tip.
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Let's get some answers for Katelin and get this thing solved, get this thing closed.
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We'll be posting pictures of Katelin on our Instagram.
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If you're not following us there, I definitely suggest you check us out.
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We put any updates with the podcast on there as well as post in our stories about cases
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happening here and now.
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We'll of course be posting pictures of Katelin on our Instagram at Cold and Missing.
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You can find us there.
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If you have a second before you move on to the next part of your day, if you could please
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leave us review, especially if you're an Apple podcast, leaving us a written review helps
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others find us and helps bring these cases to more people and get people interested in
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these cold cases, in these unresolved missing person cases.
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So if you've already done that, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
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If you haven't, I strongly encourage you to do it.
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It's such a free way to support this podcast.
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You can always visit us on our website www.coldandmissing.com.
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You can review us there as well.
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If you're not a part of Apple podcasts, you can also donate to us if you wish to support
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us that way.
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And also if you or someone you love is hard of hearing, we have transcripts on the website
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so that way you can follow along with us there.
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Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Zilkowski.
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Have a great week and stay safe, y'all.
