MURDERED: Roberta "Bibi" Lee
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Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. The story I have for you today is kind of a doozy. It's one where, honestly, I was kind of like arguing with people in the office because even we couldn't fully agree on who did it, if they did it, the person who went to court or was put on trial, did they do it?

It's one where I think there are a lot of questions, but if you really dissect it, I think it's very possible that this case is still unsolved, despite what some may say. This is the story of Roberta Lee.

It's 11 p.m., November 4th, 1984, and roommates of Roberta Lee, or Bebe as they call her, they're getting worried. Like, she's gone on a run that morning with her boyfriend and another friend, but that was in the morning. It's 11 p.m. now, and she's still not back.

Have they checked in with her boyfriend? Well, no, because they know that he has actually already called them twice earlier looking for her. Oh, so like she didn't show up for the run? No, no, no. So she showed up for the run. She hadn't stayed with her boyfriend and the friend, though. Like Brad, her boyfriend, says that he and Bebe and this other friend, Robin, all met up that morning. They drove about 20 minutes from UC Berkeley, where they all go to school, to the entrance of the Redwood Park or something.

what is now known as the Dr. Aurelio Reinhart Redwood Regional Park. That's a mouthful. But anyways, from there, they got out. They do all go run, maybe like two, two and a half miles to this like recreation area. But apparently that's the point when Bebe kind of veered away from Brad and Robin. And they all started running in different directions, like Brad and Robin still running together and Bebe kind of off on her own.

Now, according to Brad, this wasn't concerning because apparently she'd been a little frustrated with school, like she had a lot on her mind. But he also says like she hadn't been super upset or anything that morning. So I don't know, maybe he thought she was blowing off some steam or whatever. Either way, him and Robin, they kept on their path. They stopped at like two overlooks just to kind of admire the view over the Bay Area.

And then after that, when they still hadn't, like, run into Bebe, they started to look for her. But she was just completely MIA.

So they assumed that she'd started back to the car. So they walk back there, but of course, she's not there. Brad even gets in his car, starts driving around looking for her while Robin waited there at the entrance of the park just in case she came back. But in the short time he spends, like, I think it's like 15 minutes or so, in that time that he spends driving around, he doesn't see her. And then when he gets back to the entrance of the trail, Robin's, like, she's there by herself waiting. And when the both of them realize, like, she's nowhere around, they decide to leave. Right.

So how was Bebe supposed to get home? Good question. You know, I'm not totally sure, but Brad seemed pretty confident that she was fully capable of making it back on her own. I don't know if you thought she would hitch a ride or...

Right. Right.

So by 2 a.m., they frantically call Brad one more time, who's saying, OK, he's going to come over to the apartment. They're all going to decide what to do together. And once he's there, one of Bebe's roommates starts calling nearby hospitals and police departments. But no one has seen Bebe. At that point, the group agrees that come morning, they have to file a missing persons report, which they do first thing. And an officer comes to the apartment to take that report.

Now, thankfully, it doesn't seem like the officer wastes time with any of this, like, wait 48 hours BS or whatever. Yeah, because the search of the park gets underway pretty much immediately.

And they pull out all the stops. Around 37 officials come out for that initial search, as do five bloodhounds, two horses, and several four-wheelers. And a reservist with the sheriff's search and rescue team named Elir Nashi looks to Brad to help narrow their focus. Like, where should they start? Where did she veer off? What direction was she going in? But Elir is kind of put off by how disinterested Brad seems in helping him.

Like, they're in this building at the park when he's talking to him, and there's this TV inside. And as Aaliyah is trying to ask these questions, an article by Don Martinez for the San Francisco Examiner says that Brad keeps looking over at this TV where a football game is on. Like, he's more interested in that than finding his missing girlfriend.

But still, he gets Brad to answer some of his important questions. Where he last saw her, yada yada, I told you. And he gets him to answer this one too. What do you think might have happened to Bebe?

And according to that same article, he says that she might have hiked to Mount Diablo, which is miles away. Or, he says, maybe she had been, and I quote, kidnapped and put into slave labor. Brad, sir, take several steps back. What? Yeah, it seems like an extreme thing to jump to. I mean, the abduction part... And specific. Yeah, the abduction part I can understand.

Because, again, he thought she was fully capable of getting home, like hitchhiking or whatever. So for her not to have gotten home, like something must have interfered. Right. Like, right. I mean, it's totally possible she made it out of the park and then she realized her ride's gone. She gets another one from the wrong person.

I mean, there's even one source that claims that's actually what Bebe's dad ends up thinking early on, too, even though her friends are quick to say that Bebe would never hitchhike. Okay, but again, like the slave labor part. Right. What does this UC Berkeley kid know about slave labor? Yeah, this doesn't sit well with this Elir guy either. And I'm sure that weird feeling just kind of gets worse.

Because an article in the Oakland Tribune by David Alcott says that Brad changes up the location where he'd last seen her like a few times. But it doesn't matter what direction he sends them in or how many times it changes. No one finds any trace of Bebe. Though the search dogs do find her scent and they track it about 100 feet from one of the areas where Brad said he last saw her. But then they just lose it.

So what's Robin's story in all this? Like, can she corroborate any of what Brad's saying, even just like one of the locations? I'm sure they're talking. They have to be talking to her at some point in all of this. But I actually can't find like anything specific about what she was saying in the very early days, other than the fact that I know she said she wasn't too happy with the idea of leaving without Bebe. But like early on in the park when they're like, we can't find her. And Brad's like, hey, we should just like go. She says it was Brad's idea. And she's like, you know what, Brad?

Brad knew her better, so if he was confident that she was fine and she's going to make it back on her own, like, she trusted that. But that's the only thing I've seen reported about what she says early on. Now, pretty much from the get-go, police announced that they are suspecting foul play. But they don't outright call Bebe's disappearance an abduction. Although it seems like the most likely scenario when a woman calls investigators with an alarming tip.

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Your more colorful life starts at an Ashley store. Shop in-store or online at ashley.com. This woman says that around noon on the day that Bebe went missing, she was driving past the walking trail when she saw a man holding a young woman who looked a lot like Bebe. And he's holding this woman by the arm, dragging her towards this golden brownish Dodge van.

Now, she describes this man as a white guy, about six feet tall, roughly 40, 45 years old, and heavyset with light brown hair. And when is this woman calling this in? It's a little fuzzy. I can't totally, like, dial it in, but it's been at least a few days since she...

Why'd she wait to say anything? Well, because she says that it wasn't until she saw a photo of Bebe, I assume on the news or on a flyer or something, that that's when she realized that the woman she saw being pulled... She put, like, two and two together. Yeah. Though just, like, a quick tip to everyone, I feel like if you see anyone being dragged towards any van, any vehicle, like, feel free to, like, let someone know you don't need to see the missing person flyer. Worst case scenario, you, like, are wrong, but, like...

Hmm. What if it's not? It probably is not. But when police get this tip, they create and distribute a composite sketch of the man stating that they're looking to locate him for questioning. And at the same time, they keep searching the park, even beyond the park, spreading out into the neighborhood next to it.

By November 14th, Beebe's parents have posted a $5,000 reward. And by the 16th, a special task force is established with investigators from several jurisdictions and the FBI. They even go so far as to film a dramatization of what they think happened. Beebe getting pulled into the van by this tall man with brown hair. And they make this available for the news stations to broadcast. I guess hoping it'll like change.

like, trigger someone's memory or, I don't know, just gain attention. And their efforts do result in tips being called in, but none of them lead anywhere. Now, all the while, Bebe's friends and family are doing their own boots-on-the-ground things to try and help find her. One of her roommates, Ann Brad, begin organizing their own search efforts, and they're joined by a small army of volunteers who distribute posters in the Bay Area and conduct their own searches.

They start calling themselves the Friends of B.B. Lee. And they're assisted by a volunteer with the Missing Children Project. They get this headquarters of sorts kind of set up in a donated apartment, and they have phones manned 24-7 taking tips and passing those tips on to law enforcement. It wouldn't be a tip or a poster that helped find B.B.,

It would be a dog. Because on December 9th, the Bay Area Mountain Rescue Unit is doing a walking search through the park when one of their search dogs, trained to find human remains, leads searchers to some thick bushes, maybe like 36, 37 feet from the very same road that Brad said he was driving down when he was trying to find Bebe, calling her name. But in these bushes, this is where the dogs find Bebe.

She's laying on her back, covered in just a few inches of dirt and pine needles. She is severely decomposed by this point, indicating that she had likely been there for weeks and possibly this whole time. But immediately the searchers are confident or fairly confident that this is Bebe because she's wearing the same running clothes that she went missing in. Now, the shirt she's been wearing have both been pushed up to her chest.

And when her body is moved, investigators see that the back of her skull has been severely fractured. How far away was she found from where Robin and Brad had last seen her? Well, this is what's wild. So according to some court documents I found, she's only like 700 feet south of where they last saw her. And all these searches are happening. I mean, how did they miss her the first day? How did...

Like, how did this happen?

But I guess he didn't indicate anything or like do the right indication. So they, you know, he brought them there, but they were like. So maybe she hadn't been there the whole time, but who knows? Either she hadn't or she had, but like the dog didn't indicate the exact right way. And so the handler was like, oh, that's not the indication. Let's keep going. But at this point, no one knows. Was she there? Was she not there? I don't know.

Now, later that evening, she's officially identified. And the next day, her autopsy is conducted. And after consulting with a forensic anthropologist, it's determined that she died after being hit with a blunt instrument in the back of her head, resulting in three skull fractures. Now, her nose and her right eye socket were also fractured. And due to decomposition, they cannot tell.

tell if she was sexually assaulted. But from everything I gathered, again, it was really only her shirts that were pushed up. I'm pretty sure everything that I read said that like her pants were still on and nothing else seemed disturbed. Not that like someone couldn't have put them back on or whatever, but it's just worth noting. Now, the full extent of what is taken from the crime scene for testing isn't clear. The only thing I can confirm is that investigators collect two rocks found near Bebe's body.

So now that their missing person case has become a homicide, they want to go all the way back to the beginning and talk to the last people who saw Bebe. Now, I, again, can't find anything about what Robin says this time either. But Brad, on the other hand, there's plenty about what he says. So Brad's interview begins at like 10, 12 a.m.

And for the next hour, they question him about his relationship with Bebe, how things had been for her at school, and more specifics about the morning that she vanished. They finish that first round of questions, like I said, after about an hour, but they're not done with him yet. The investigator leaves, and then 20 minutes later, they come back in and they tape his statement. Brad says that he loved Bebe, but their relationship had been a little rocky recently.

Specifically, he talks about this party that he'd gone to with another girl the night before, which made Bebe pretty angry. So that morning when they'd gone on that run, he said that she was super upset. Didn't he initially tell police that she wasn't upset? Bingo. Like, frustrated with school, yes, but like, not upset, upset. That's exactly what he said before. But now he's saying that during the drive there and then throughout the run, things were really tense. Yeah.

But other than that, much of his story remains the same. They lost sight of her when they kind of split off. They went back to the car. He drove alongside the road next to the trail, looked for her. And when he didn't see her, he goes back to where Robin was waiting. And he still says he wasn't all that worried because once when they'd gotten into an argument at dinner, Bebe had gotten up and left and ignored him when he tried to follow her. So...

He thought this was another one of those times where she just needed her space. And like even if he kept searching, like if she's this determined not to talk to him, like she's not going to. She'll find her way home. Now, at some point, they just ask him outright, did you hurt her? And Brad says no. They ask him if he'd be willing to submit to a polygraph. And he says yes. Now, I don't have all the questions that he's asked during this polygraph.

But according to David Alcott's reporting, when the examiner asks Brad, did you see Bebe Lee after she disappeared? The test shows inconclusive results. He also is asked, did you injure Bebe Lee twice? And the first time Brad's response is inconclusive. But the second time that he's asked it, the test shows that he's being deceptive.

There are three rounds of questioning during this polygraph in total, but partway through the third round, Brad just breaks down. He puts his face in his hands and makes a sound that I've seen described in articles as wailing.

But the examiner notes that he doesn't see Brad actually crying. Like there's no tears in his eyes. And this makes the examiner end the test because he doesn't think he's going to get any accurate results if it continues like this. So the examiner leaves for a little bit. And when this sergeant that's been talking to him enters the room, he finds Brad with his head in his hands mumbling, I really loved her, but I really loved her. By this point, investigators begin pressing Brad for more information.

I mean, they're thinking, I think at this point, that he did something to her. I mean, they tell him that straight up. But Brad denies having anything to do with her death, although maybe he just doesn't remember. Doesn't remember killing his girlfriend? Well, I think it starts being suggested like maybe he could have blacked out as it was happening.

And the thing is, I don't know who first suggests the amnesia theory. And as soon as I heard it, in my mind, I'm like, immediate red flag. Like, I've seen this interrogation play out. Like, I've seen this play before, right? Yeah. And every time...

I've seen it play out. It's usually the cops that put that idea forward. It's kind of like setting the treat out to see if the dog will come forward. Ooh, like maybe this is an option that you can like easily talk your way into or out of something. And listen, like my crime junkie senses are never wrong. Like I've gotten them pretty honed in by now. We're going to come back to it. But,

What I do know is that at some point the cops suggest like, you know, you had to help him remember. He should close his eyes and try to picture what happened. And it's then that he admits that he remembers hitting and kicking her, but he can't remember when or where it happened. And he says he doesn't remember any more details than that.

So investigators tell him that they know he had something to do with Bebe's death because his fingerprints were found at the crime scene. They didn't have at the crime scene. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know that because we know the game. They're lying to him. They also suggest that maybe he didn't intend to kill Bebe. Maybe something got out of hand. But he keeps on denying it, saying he must have blacked out.

So they tell him another lie, that a witness had come forward and reported seeing Brad's car south of the entrance to the park, which is close to where Bebe's body was found. But Brad says he hadn't gone that far south when he was driving around looking for her. But still, they keep pushing and pushing and pushing until finally Brad magically remembers what happened.

Brad says that when he was driving around looking for her, he had gone south towards where her body was eventually located. And that's where he saw her running up to him. He pulled over, got out, and led her away from the road up this little hill area into a tree area. And, like, that's as specific as it gets, hill area and tree area.

He says once they were shielded from view, he tried to talk to her, even tried to hug and kiss her, but she pulled away, which made him angry. So he backhanded her, which caused her to fall backward.

He thought that she must have hit her head and passed out because she was unresponsive and her nose was bleeding. But instead of helping her, he went home. And then sometime between 7 p.m. and 1 a.m., he came back, found her deceased. So he took a blanket from his car, laid it down, and sexually assaulted her body before moving her body closer to the road and then using a hubcap that he had in his trunk to cover her with a layer of dirt. ♪

I mean, murderers never make sense, but like this does connect a lot of those dots. I don't know. It seems like reasonable. Yes, in theory. So investigators have him repeat the story and then they ask him to tell it again so they can record it. Now he does, but his tone changes. Whereas before the investigators say he was a little more matter of fact, this time he sounds like he's not sure of himself.

And he doesn't provide as much detail. Like when they ask him if he'd sexually assaulted Bebe's body, he says, quote, yeah, I think so. And when they ask him if he said anything when they met up before he let her into the woods, he says, quote, I must have said something. I don't know. And then he goes back to saying that he didn't remember hitting Bebe and he didn't know where her body was.

So, yes, I mean, initially this sounds plausible. And there are enough consistencies, even in this vague one, that investigators feel strongly that they have their guy. So they bring in the deputy district attorney. I'm sure confident that this will all be over soon. But that's far from the case. Because when the deputy DA comes in about an hour and a half later, so this is like 9 p.m., to tape another confession...

This time, Brad recants. Thank God at this point because it's making me believe that the confession isn't actually what happened at all. And he claims that the only reason he said what he said earlier was because he was confused and afraid. This time he's like, I didn't kill Bebe. But his imagination had run wild and almost convinced him that he had.

And again, is that his imagination? Was it the police? A little combination of both. And one of the things he points to, one of the reasons he said he confessed was because the investigators said his fingerprints had been found.

He said the polygraph freaked him out and then investigators told him he was going to, quote, sit in jail and rot away from the inside out if he could not remember, end quote. And he says, listen, every time I told the truth, they would say I was lying. So the only way out was to give them the answers that they wanted. Plus, he says that the whole time, like on top of all of this, he was feeling really guilty because he couldn't help his girlfriend.

So with the help of these officers, he constructed this imaginary story. So just for a second, let's put the confession aside. Why was he lying and saying things were completely fine with their relationship when he then admitted that things had been tense? Or he had that interaction with the searcher where he was more interested in the football game than talking to them? Yeah.

There's a reason they were looking at him to begin with. Like, they didn't just, like, go into, like, it's always the boyfriend mode. Like, he was... I know. There were, like, weird things, right? There were things that looked bad. And I can't explain it, but...

The one thing I'll say, if I've learned, I feel like I've learned a couple of lessons from our time doing this. And one of the things, like, as I've done so much research on so many cases that I've found, is that a newspaper article is black and white, but the story itself isn't always. Like, usually there's so much context missing from those short 500-word stories.

And it's that context that's full of color. And we never get that. So like, all I'm saying is like, yes, there's some stuff that looks bad, but I'm not sure that. Hang on. I'll just keep going and you'll understand. Yeah.

Because I did find more stuff that were not in the news articles, but I found them like the court docs. The important thing at this point that I think people should know is that there are things in his story that don't match up to the crime scene. So take those three fractures to the back of her skull, for instance. So he says that he backhands her, hits her basically, and she falls backward. But the severity of the fractures wouldn't have come from something like a fall.

The fractures to the nose and the eye socket might have come from him hitting her, but he would have had to either use an object like a rock or slammed her head into the ground to injure her that severely. But those inconsistencies, I guess, don't matter to anyone because nobody in the early days is pointing those out. And so Brad is charged with Bebe's murder in the early morning hours of December 11th after his final statement recanting his confession.

Now, in their version of events, Brad killed Bebe, went back to cover her body, and then spent the following five weeks playing the role of the grieving boyfriend and volunteering with the search efforts so that he wouldn't raise suspicion. Now, the whole time, Brad continues to maintain his innocence and pleads not guilty at his arraignment, and he's eventually let out on bail to await his trial. And investigators spend that time looking for more proof to make their case rock solid.

Like, ideally, the blanket and hubcap that Brad said he used. He said he got that blanket, put her on it, sexually assaulted her, used the hubcap to dig. So they end up finding both of those things in his car, and they send off both to be tested, hoping to find proof that will corroborate the original story he gave. Now, while that's happening, the trial gets going on April 14th, 1986.

And David Alcott reports that the trial includes almost 100 witnesses, over 400 items of evidence, and it takes 27 and a half days. So it is a big one. But I'm going to try and keep it as straightforward as I can. I'm kind of going to go point by point as chronologically as I can. So once we get into trial, let's start with Robin's testimony, who we finally get to hear from in a meaningful way.

She claims that Bebe was clearly angry that morning and things between her and Brad were tense. And she says when Bebe broke off from the group, she didn't think too much of it.

Now, after they couldn't find her and they went back to the parking lot, she admits that she was the one who recommended Brad go drive around and look for Bebe while she stayed there at the parking lot. And when Brad came back, she didn't see any evidence of a struggle, but noticed that he looked a little more worried and that he was maybe a little quieter. No big red flags, though.

Now, I should note, this is slightly different than what she said in a pretrial hearing. She apparently testified then for the defense that she didn't notice Brad acting any differently when he came back looking for Bebe on his own, when he was, like, after he was supposed to have killed her. I mean, it's not totally different, no, but just slightly. Yeah.

So let's move on to the search. So the defense argues that searchers and bloodhounds were within 90 feet of where Bebe was eventually found, but they didn't pick up on her scent or find her for five weeks.

However, they also bring up that the dogs did pick up a scent near the area where the woman, remember she called him that tip, the woman who claimed to have seen someone who looked like Bebe with the man in his van? Yeah. So the defense is saying like, okay, we don't have her scent where her body is found, but we have her scent like where this supposedly happened. Like apparently that was the same area. And then all of a sudden it disappears kind of like she would have gotten into a van. Yeah.

But the prosecution tries to explain that away by stating that Bebe's scent could have gotten mixed up or mistaken for that of her family, who by that point had come out to California and been there searching too. Like they had like a similar enough scent that the dogs got confused? I've never heard of that. Me neither. So I don't know. I don't know if that's legit or not. Someone who knows anything about search dog needs to write in and tell us.

But one of the searchers who was actually there with the dog, I told you about this earlier, he's the one that comes forward at trial and says that his dog did lead him to the site where B.B. was found. He claimed that his dog pawed at the ground, but that wasn't the right signal that he was trained to give when he alerted. So the searcher didn't think to report it. So we don't get this until trial.

And he says that he didn't say anything until now because, quote, it's hard to get people to say they or their dog made a mistake. You're walking on very sore toes in that area, end quote. Oh, so this is just an ego thing. Yes. Awesome. Perfect. Yeah, that's what it sounds like. Now, Brad's efforts in the search are disputed.

Some testify that his efforts were minimal and that there were a few times that he was asked to do something that he didn't. But there were others who say that he was boots on the ground as much as possible in doing everything he could. Now, speaking of Brad in those early days...

Remember Elir Nashi, the searcher who interviewed Brad, like, right when BB was reported missing? Okay, so he comes and testifies. And his story hasn't really changed. Like, he stands by it. But the thing I didn't tell you before is that one source claims that he didn't tell any officers about all the supposedly weird stuff Brad said or the way he was acting until after Brad was arrested.

Which the defense was... Yeah, yeah, yeah. The defense was all over. Yeah, because that, like, knowing that someone was arrested can color...

every former interaction you've had with that person. And if you don't have that context, I get that he was one of the last people to like be with her or see her and he's the boyfriend or whatever, but you have less reason to like hone in on him the way that they did. Versus like, oh, this guy's been charged? Yeah. Yeah, I did get a weird feeling from him. Right. He was acting, oh my gosh, yeah, that changes everything. Yeah, plus remember the football game that he said that Brad was like so distracted by during their chat?

Well, an article from the Oakland Tribune states that another person who was there when that conversation was happening actually testifies that Brad wouldn't have been able to see the TV from where they were standing. It was like in a completely different room.

Does that mean he still couldn't have been distracted by the noise? I mean, possible. But it's another point that the defense is able to use to kind of destabilize the prosecution's theory or points or whatever. Right. Now, the prosecution gains a little bit of ground when discussing some of Brad's behavior in the weeks between when Bebe went missing and then when she was found.

People who saw him in that time testified that he was just doing some things that were out of the ordinary for him. Like staying in Bebe's room, wearing one of her shirts, sleeping with her teddy bear, painting his fingernails, wearing her eyeshadow. Which, like, none of those things are crimes.

He just maintains that he was really distressed during that time. Like, we all handle stress differently. And, like, you know, surrounding himself with her things, like, I kind of get it. I was going to say, stress and also, like, potential grief. Grief, yeah. Like, this person you loved isn't here and you don't know where she is. Right. But it was this poem that he wrote that, like, brought people pause. It's titled Suitable Ending. And it's about Bebe going off into the unknown.

The prosecution specifically focuses on one line in particular, which reads, quote, On a warm winter's morning, terror howled in the soul. The appetite of the mind's eye took a second look and didn't see. End quote. The prosecution takes that line and the title to somehow be an admission of guilt, saying that Bebe's death to Brad was a suitable ending for her.

But in one of the sources I found, it says that Brad clarifies the line that they read, says it was referring to the witness who saw the woman who looked like Bebe being pulled toward the van, but then doing nothing about it.

And the title was supposed to mean, quote, you never find out what happened. It was just left up to God to help us, end quote. Now, according to more of David Alcott's reporting, when Bebe's sister testifies, that's when Brad's case takes another hit. Because she says that when she went to help search, Brad was already referring to Bebe in the past tense. Which is just crazy.

never a good look. I know. You mentioned the witness talking about the van and it made me wonder, does anyone ever come back to the man in the van? Like, are we saying that that was Brad, that it never happened? Well, no one's saying that it's

Not even like the police or anyone because the witness description doesn't match him. I mean, if you remember, the guy was supposedly in his 40s. Like even the age aside, even the physical description isn't Brad. And he was not driving a van. He couldn't have gotten a van in that short time. Right. So sure, it's possible that it never happened.

But when I walk you through the next parts of the trial, the sightings of Bebe, I think it's more likely than not that there was a man who wasn't Brad and this did happen. There are three more sightings of Bebe that the defense brings up that investigators don't seem to have put much effort into like sussing out.

One in particular was from another woman who claims that she saw a young woman running down a road close to where Bebe went missing with a man running behind her. Not necessarily in pursuit, though. And what makes this sighting significant is that this was in the same area where the search dog led his handler but didn't alert.

Now, the other two sightings were of Bebe supposedly alive at a grocery store and a shopping center parking lot at times after she is thought to have been murdered. So that doesn't really fit with the man in the van theory, but it does offer a bunch of possibilities of reasonable doubt. Right. Just poking holes in the prosecution's case. Right. OK, so I want to move on to the physical evidence after Bebe's body was found or rather the lack thereof.

So the two rocks police took from the scene don't have any DNA on them. The hubcap and the blanket, like to me, these are the really important pieces. Yeah. Neither one of those can be placed at the scene or be connected to the crime in any way. Now, her body was too decomposed to tell if she'd been sexually assaulted, but there's no evidence whatsoever.

Like that she was based on her clothes or like I said, that blanket that supposedly Brad sexually assaulted her on according to his one story, which he later recanted. And like I said before, the injuries that Bebe sustained don't match up with what Brad's one story was.

The pathologist who did the autopsy even testifies in court that they had never seen someone sustain the injury she had just from a fall backwards. The prosecution tries to say that the lack of physical evidence doesn't mean that the crime didn't occur. But doesn't it? I mean, I'm sorry, you should have something. I mean, truly, what is this case against him even based on? Well, his confession, which like, let's talk about the confession.

Which is one of the biggest points of contention. The prosecution claims that they didn't give Brad any information about where Bebe's body was, what state her body was in, how she died, all of that. And so they're saying, like, we believe his confession because he was able to give us those details. He knew these things. Yeah, stuff that only the killer would know. But, as we speculated...

The defense says that Brad knew all of this because he was told by investigators, not necessarily during the interview, but before. You see, when Bebe's body was located, police called the friends of Bebe Lee headquarters to let them know that she'd been found and identified. And the defense claims that the police told whoever they called those details, like where the body had been found, the condition of her body, the condition of her clothing.

And they claim that though Brad wasn't the one on the phone, Brad was there and he discussed all of that with the other members present. But that ends up being contradicted by one of the volunteers from the Missing Children Project. She says she's the one who actually picked up the phone when they got the call. And she says that all they were told was that Bebe's body was found. Nothing about where she was, what condition her body was in, none of that.

She does say that when she told the people there, including Brad, about the discovery that he broke down and had to leave the room.

But then someone else who was there when the phone call happened admits that there was some discussion about, you know, how it would be possible for police to identify a body if it's so decomposed that it can't be recognized. But that the conversation was more like speculation. No one actually knew anything for sure. And there's a lot of back and forth here because according to an article in the Oakland Tribune, Brad ends up saying that all of that isn't true. He claims that the volunteer from the Missing Children Project is just straight up lying.

Now, when it comes to whether the confession was coerced or not, the defense takes a strong stance that it was. They bring in a psychiatrist who, after reviewing the taped statements, testifies that the level of mental fatigue Brad was experiencing after over 12 hours of grilling, combined with what he calls coercive persuasion by the police and manipulation of his guilt, resulted in a coerced confession.

And the confession is a huge point that Brad talks about when he takes the stand in his own defense. We don't see that a lot. He sticks to his story about how he was threatened with jail time unless he could explain how Bebe died. And he genuinely became convinced that he had done something so heinous, so out of left field that he couldn't remember. And that's why he says he believed police's suggestion, which he says it was their suggestion, that he blacked out.

He also claims that he trusted the polygraph examiner when he was told that he had failed the polygraph. He truly believed that he had done something he couldn't remember. Which, by the way, he didn't fail the polygraph. The results were inconclusive. And the defense actually gets Cleve Baxter, this guy who pioneered a major technique often used today in polygraphs. They get this guy to testify that the examiner who did Brad's test misread some of the results.

And the results for the questions where he showed deception weren't strong enough to actually be considered deceptive. Most everything should have been inconclusive. Wait, we're in trial right now talking about polygraphs? Because it was the defense that actually argued for them to be, like, admitted as evidence.

Because they say that investigators used it as an interrogation tactic rather than a fact-finding tool. So they think it's important because it relates to the confession that Brad went on to make. Oh, and again, speaking of this confession, so remember when Brad broke down and the examiner thought that that was an indication that he was being deceptive? Well, Cleve says that as a polygraph examiner, they shouldn't be reading into that. He says that they should have stopped

and completed the test later when Brad wasn't so emotional. Like, it's not their job to weigh in on the why. Now, police deny threatening him with jail time if he couldn't come up with an explanation for what had happened. They also deny suggesting the amnesia theory. But without the transcript of their conversations, like, I actually don't know one way or another. I mean, at least I think the early ones weren't taped, so I don't know if there is a transcript of anything other than, like, police notes.

So that's the confession. And the final thing that I want to talk about in relation to the trial has to do with the timeline. We're talking about when Brad might have had time to not only kill Bebe, but then go back and hide her body. So he was only searching for Bebe in his car for like 15 to 20 minutes, which Robin confirms. And later that evening, a few people remember seeing him at very key moments.

So first, a young woman named Amy claims that she saw Brad at 8 p.m. and then again between 8.30 and 9 in the co-op dorm where they both lived. And this is during the time that he said in his confession that he went back to bury Bebe's body.

Amy says that she noticed him because she had a crush on him, so she would always, like, be kind of aware when he was in the room. And it's worth noting that by the time this trial is happening and she's testifying to this, they're actually dating. Oh. Yeah, though she is clear that they didn't start dating until after Brad was arrested. Right.

Which to me, that's not the strongest witness. Right. Especially because she didn't mention this until like a month before trial when, oh, by the way, she was now pregnant with his child.

But we also have Brad's roommate who initially says that he saw Brad go to bed between 9.30 and 10 p.m. And then we have 11 p.m. when that first call from Bebe's roommates come who were looking for her. And Brad was definitely there at 11 p.m. Same thing at 2 a.m. for the second call when he got up and went over to their apartment.

Now, on cross-examination, this roommate sort of kind of backtracks, says he can't be 100% sure that Brad was there before 11. But again, 11 p.m., locked in, he's definitely there. So he's there at the co-op between 8.30 and 9, and then he is definitely in his room by 11 to get that call. That's what we have people testifying to, yeah. Right. So we have like two, two and a half hours where we can't be like entirely sure of his whereabouts. Is that right? Yeah.

Yes. Potentially, you know, longer TBD witnesses, but yes. And how long would it have taken him to drive to the park, I mean, bury her body and then drive back? I mean, they talk about this, the rough estimation is like an hour and a half, like total. Okay, so he like could have had the time then? Yes, but you also have to say like, so...

It's in that time when he leaves Robin to go look for Bebe that they say he killed her. So he kills her in 15 to 20 minutes. That's possible, too. But I guess in my mind, like,

it almost isn't because they didn't have like a rendezvous spot for this, right? Like he had to find her first and then have some kind of confrontation, which I know they were already heated. Like she was already kind of upset with him. But I mean, which could be motive, whatever. But you have to go from zero to 60 for like everyone to be like on this run together and like,

things are okay. Robin, you know, Robin says, sure, she was upset, but like, they're not fighting all along this run. They're all running together. She chooses to go off. So this couldn't even have been like premeditated. You know what I mean? Like he didn't know she was going to go off. I guess that's where I'm like, the timeline is really tight because it's not premeditated. He didn't know that she was going to veer off and stop running with them, run somewhere else. He didn't

seemed to know where she was going, he would have to find her immediately. And like you said, start a verbal argument as soon as they get together and escalate it to a murder in that short amount of time. Explain the physical evidence, right? Because you didn't just get in a heated argument, backhand her, and then she falls down and dies. Everyone has said that's physically not possible. It's not how it would have happened. So

So there has to be a murder weapon. There has to be like more of an altercation. And then I always found it so strange because in their story, he leaves and when he comes back and realizes she's dead because again, also like the way he's saying it happened didn't happen. So he would have known she was dead right away. Right. Like based on the physical evidence. But okay, he leaves, he comes back. Because she couldn't have just fallen. He would have had to kill her. Right.

What I never understood either is, like, why he would have moved her closer to the road. They said that, like, because where the fight supposedly happened was, like, deeper in the woods. And why would you move her closer to the road to be found unless you wanted her to be? Like, it doesn't make sense. Right.

It's all a mess. And to go back to like the premeditation of it all, according to an article in the San Francisco Examiner, the prosecution tells the jury that by now he's not even going for a first degree conviction because he doesn't think he can prove premeditation for all the reasons we just said. Yeah. So he ends up asking the jury to convict on second degree murder. But

But even that feels like a little too much, though, because after seven days of deliberation, the jury deadlocks. So the judge, instead of saying, OK, mistrial, the judge tells them that they can consider the lesser charge of manslaughter. This is apparently called the Stone Instruction, based on a 1982 ruling that the court can partially acquit a defendant but convict on a lesser charge manslaughter.

So first and second degree murder is too much, and the jury finds him not guilty there. But maybe they'll come to a verdict on manslaughter.

They don't, though. After another six days, they're still deadlocked, eight to four in favor of conviction. So that's when the judge declares a mistrial. After it's all said and done, some of the jurors speak to the media and explain that they just didn't feel that there was enough solid evidence to point to Brad's guilt. Many of them still had reasonable doubts and didn't believe the police's investigation was thorough enough. There were too many questions with not enough answers.

But a mistrial doesn't mean Brad's out of the woods because he can still be retried for voluntary manslaughter. And he is in early 1988. Now, there is way less reporting on this second trial and there isn't any new evidence brought forward. So I'm going to skip to the end and tell you that Brad ends up getting convicted in this one of voluntary manslaughter. And this is in April of 1988.

He gets sentenced to six years in state prison, but he remains out pending an appeal. And by 1991, his conviction is upheld, though he only ends up serving two years and eight months of his sentence. And he was released in February of 1995, where he stayed out of trouble for a few years until 2002. And this is where it gets a little strange because he ends up being arrested in New Zealand for indecent exposure.

It had something to do with like, I tried looking it up. I can't get to like the New Zealand court records, but something with him exposing himself to a woman like hiking or like what's the like, it's like out in nature. I know there's something a little like strange about it that a lot of people bring up.

And listen, I don't... It's just like something to note that's like a little side eye. Yeah, and I don't know this for sure, but I was, you know, you got to check the forums. Like, what are people saying? And someone was like, you know, in the U.S., like, if you, like, are, like, going to the bathroom outside, you can get, like, clocked with something. And somebody who's claimed that they were from New Zealand was like, no, no, no, that's not happening here. Like, you have to, like...

whip it out for something like this to happen. So I don't know the details around this at all, and neither do the people commenting on Reddit. You know what I mean? But it's weird. It's a thing you'll always see come up, like what was happening there. But whatever it was, it seems like that was the last time he had a brush with the law, though.

From what I can tell, Bebe's family continued to believe that he was responsible for her death. They even filed a wrongful death lawsuit, although I can't find any records of where that ended up going. I mean, I feel like you're right. This does have so many, like, unanswered questions. But I kind of keep wondering about physical evidence and testing. Like, is there anything else that's around that hasn't been tested that we could retest now? I don't know that they would have kept it. Mm-hmm.

because he was tried, convicted, and now, like, he's served his sentence, like, appeals aren't even a thing. Right. And even if stuff was around, you have to get the authorities that, like, have possession of the evidence to do the testing, and in their minds, the case is closed. For this one, I mean, I keep coming back to, like, all they had was his confession, which got recanted. And in Corpus Delecta, you have to have some physical proof that the crime actually happened. You can't just go off the confession. And when I look at it, I'm like...

What did we have? The way he said it happened, you have... Couldn't have happened. The experts saying it couldn't have happened. The only two items of evidence that, in his confessions, you say were connected to the crime, could not be tied to the crime. Mm-hmm. Even, like, so you have opportunity, kind of, question mark, motive, not really. I mean...

I think there is tons of room for questions. I just don't know that anyone is, who's in authority is asking those questions. I think in their mind, it's done. Right. I mean, this story was a difficult one to put together, not only because of the sheer amount of information, but just like, I mean, it all seems to conflict with one another. There was never really one narrative that I could really trust to tell me the truth of what happened. Right.

And I know for me, I keep coming back to the man in the van. I mean, it seems like police were so into that lead at some point. And then as soon as they decided they're suspicious of Brad, it just got dropped because it didn't fit into that theory. Like they had a whole like dramatization of that, that they produced and put out there and then disregarded it. And here's the thing I'll say is like the people who have the evidence and the people who are, you know,

quote-unquote, in charge, they might not be asking questions, but we're not the only ones who haven't forgotten about this or that man. Because while researching this case, we came across a potential serial killer named Michael Patrick Ide, who may have been active in the Bay Area when Bebe went missing. So Connie Chung actually was one of the first people to put his name out there in a segment for her show, Eye to Eye, which used to be on CBS.

And this guy was bad news. I mean, he'd been convicted of sexually assaulting and trying to kill a woman in 1978. And then later he was convicted for killing another woman in November 1984 in San Francisco. And then by 1994, he was investigated for the murders of three other women and girls all near the San Francisco area, all in like 1983 to 1984. Wow.

And according to an article in the San Francisco Examiner, he resembled the man with the van. Now, police came out to say that the connection between Michael and Bebe is circumstantial at best, and they are confident that they got the right guy.

But they have, you know, a lot of reasons to want to be confident and not go digging. I was going to say, and also the chance that Brad killed Bebe is, in my opinion, circumstantial at best. Yeah. Yeah, and this Michael guy ended up getting convicted of one more murder, which actually wasn't even one of the three that he was thought to be connected to in 1994. Oh, wow. So, like, who knows what else is out there? And if nobody is, like,

trying to find out. You know what I mean? Like, I have way more questions than apparently police do. But he died in 2005, so he's not around to ask about this. Which leaves us in a place where we have a conclusion to this case that doesn't really feel like a conclusion. I think there are plenty of questions still to be asked about

that no one is asking except for us. So if you have any information, you can contact the police. But the truth of the matter is, I don't think anyone's taking the call.

But that doesn't mean we should stop talking about Bebe's story because it's in talking about these cases that I've been able to draw so many connections to other things. And this is how you get information out there. And so maybe there's someone out there who has information on Michael Eyde. And maybe there's something that they know. We can put these pieces together. Or maybe the right man got convicted. But we shouldn't stop telling these stories.

You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new story. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?