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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome. Once again, this is Season 10, Episode 248 of Sword and Scale. The show that reveals the worst monsters...
are real.
Well, hope you're having a wonderful day. Thank you once again for joining us. If you haven't heard by now, the place to find all the good stuff is plus just head on over to sword and scale.com slash plus. And for just a small fee, you can access all of our back catalog. You can access all the exclusive plus episodes. Everything's commercial free in a beautiful, pristine 320 kilobyte feed. And if you're interested in
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The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new Toyota truck. Like a rugged, half-ton Tundra, workhorse by nature, powerhouse by design, the Tundra combines raw capability with premium comfort and advanced tech to fuel your wildest adventures. And with the available i-Force Max Hybrid Powertrain, you can take electrifying horsepower farther,
than ever before. Or check out the fully redesigned Tacoma, delivering trail-dominating power and captivating style. The new Tacoma was born to make your off-roading dreams come true. And with the new available tech, this legendary truck is getting even better. And when you buy a Toyota truck, you buy Toyota dependability, meaning your truck will hold its value long into the future.
So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. There's a little saying we repeat here from time to time, something we say out loud sometimes, and sometimes we even print it on merch. Store.sortandscale is where you'll find that, by the way.
It's a pretty simple saying, and we can't really take credit for it because it's just good advice. The saying is, don't talk to cops. And that isn't something we repeat because we don't like law enforcement or believe in the fundamental need for an effective criminal justice system. It's a saying we repeat because, let's face it, most regular people aren't fully versed in the law anymore.
and don't fundamentally understand their own civil rights. Most people are worried about picking up their kids from soccer practice, picking up the dry cleaning, or whether or not they're fully stocked with milk and eggs. By the way, have you seen the price of eggs lately? The bottom line is that if you ever have the misfortune of finding yourself sitting in that cramped, sparsely furnished, fluorescently lit interrogation room,
With nothing but your thoughts and a barrage of cold accusatory questions from the cop across from you, this little simple saying may be the only friend you have left in the world. In the latter part of May 2020, Matt Moore called 911 to report his wife missing. Hey, how you doing? Hi, my wife's missing. Is this her?
That's your wife? No, no, no. Oh. Okay. I'm her friend. You look just like her for like a second. Oh my God, there she is. Okay. And more. Hello. Hi. Celeste. Okay, so what's going on? She's uncharacteristically missing. Okay. Uh...
I just, I have her wallets here. She carries a wallet with her ID's in there. I have some money. Her phone's here. Car's in the garage. When Matt began to worry, he contacted Emily's best friend, Celeste. She arrived just as the police did, and for a moment, to Matt's forlorn eyes, she looked just like Emily. He told the officers that being gone without a word for this long was not like her.
There aren't many places you can go these days without your ID or money, let alone the idea that most people don't go anywhere without their phones. I think you just came by today to see her? No, Matt called me. He asked me, he said I would be a person who might know where she's at. So he called me, so I came over and he was like, well, let me at least try to help. Fine, I mean, it's been a hot day if she had like passed out or something.
As unusual as it was for Emily to go missing, it was more unusual she did so the day after her 52nd birthday than the day of Memorial Day, May 25th, 2020. Okay, you said you guys went to celebrate her birthday? Yeah. Tell me about that. What did we do? We went out to, I'd have to tell you, the town. It was a spring, a water spring. Collected some water.
About halfway back, we stopped, had a picnic, got back in the car, came here, decided to go downtown. We heard that things were opened up. Went to the Cobley, went to the Bagana house, and then we went to Jimmy D's, came home. And we went to bed, and we slept, just like normal.
I got up, it was early, because earlier than I usually get up to go pee with my prostate. So every night, I looked at the clock and it was late, it was early. Earlier than normal, it was like 12:30, one o'clock maybe. And I'm like, okay, go point into this room here. Fell asleep on the couch. It took a while for me to get back to sleep. I woke up, I think around 10:30.
Well, maybe she went for a walk.
Hours went by until I just got to the point where I was just like, I gotta do this. I gotta make a phone call. I gotta apologize. This is so strange that this is happening. That beep beep you heard was the Axon body camera. Unfortunately, you'll hear a lot of that in this episode. Apologies. Per protocol, the officer walked through the home to see if there was any indication of why she was missing. What he saw was an immaculate home.
Everything was neat and tidy. There was nothing out of place and nothing missing. Except for Emily, that is. Does she suffer from any illnesses? Does she have dementia? Has she ever threatened to harm herself? Ever done this before? No. Okay. Is y'all's relationship healthy? Did she never threaten to leave you or anything like that? No. Okay. No more than any other relationship.
I mean you guys, I mean... Never physical, never... Okay. Do your typical, how you do stuff in sync. Okay. Okay. How long you guys been married? We got married August, two Augusts ago. I'm guessing, either two or three, but I think it's two. You don't remember the year?
There was a reason why that came to his mind, though. Um...
Matt's teenage son committed suicide only 10 months prior.
And in the short four years that Emily had known Matt and his son, she'd grown to love him, making it all the more difficult to bear when he killed himself. Suicide, however, was only one of the possibilities at this point. So as of right now, it looked like she deliberately left. We just don't know why she left her stuff behind and no history of mental illness or anything like that. No, man. It's like any other crazy chick.
I don't know. She's so practical. She's so, everything's on, she goes on a con. She's always. Do you guys own any firearms? I do. Have you checked to see if it's still here? You did check or you know it's here? It's here. All the possibilities were running through Matt's mind as well.
After hours of waiting for his wife to return home, he was already imagining the worst case scenario. What can happen to someone at 10 o'clock in Westerville? That part I don't know. And the part that we try to figure out is, there are two things we try to figure out when someone's reported missing. Did they do it on purpose or did someone take them?
And that's what we always try to do. I don't care if it's kids. Odds wise, 10 in the morning. That someone took her? Yeah. Very, very low. If she was to hurt herself, like there was something along those lines, do they try to hide it? Do they go like a long ways away or something? It depends. Everyone's different. Sometimes it depends on the reason why they want to hurt themselves.
All of her belongings left behind were a disturbing sign. The officers, seeing that there was certainly something to Emily's disappearance, started searching immediately rather than waiting the typical 24 hours.
They searched her normal hangouts, the lengthy walking path that intersected the city of Westerville, and the myriad of parks and woodland areas that it connected, but without any luck finding her. After a couple of hours, they returned to update Matt, and he had a new clue. Let me show you one thing. Okay. Just because I'm crazy. No, show me. This thing here, I don't know.
This thing here doesn't belong here. What do you mean, doesn't belong here? It doesn't belong here. That's where it belongs. It's right there. I've never seen it. I got it. I just noticed it. I took it and put it there. I'm positive. This was here and it wasn't there before.
The only thing he found out of place in the entire house was a bright orange extension cord that normally hung on the wall of the garage but was instead laying on top of a table. It didn't seem like much of a clue, but Matt was looking for anything out of the norm. Without filing an official report, they had enough information to begin searching for Emily. They had a physical description of her last known whereabouts. "Oh, I didn't know."
You just keep doing what you've been doing. Trying to get in touch with as many people as possible. So just keep, you know, making a phone call. Yeah. Because at this point now, you got to call as many people as you can. Because now we're at the point, it just doesn't make any sense. You know what I mean? Now, for someone to be gone that long. Ever meet some people before? Oh, yeah. This happens? Mm-hmm. I'm going to say that most people don't. Mm-hmm.
Most people, it's really weird, most people will disappear or disappear, do the same thing, leave all their stuff, and they just need a break. They just go somewhere. You don't hear from them for a few days, and then we'll get information, hey, you know, I just needed a break. We can check. I just, I don't want to spoof things up. What do you mean? I'm really bad with time and dates, and I'm just not good with that shit. I just don't want to, like, give you wrong information.
You know, it doesn't sound like you could. I don't. I screw things up a lot. Matt was being cooperative and helpful with the police. But things he was doing were starting to stand out as more than just quirks of an odd man. The officer already noticed his inability to keep the timeline straight in his story. But he also seemed fixated on the idea that Emily committed suicide.
Maybe it was just the lingering memory of his son's suicide, but even so, statistics weren't on his side. The likelihood that Emily, a 52-year-old woman, was abducted at 10 a.m. off the quaint streets of Westerville, Ohio, was incredibly low. Maybe she took off of her own free will and left all her belongings behind her. Maybe she did indeed end her own life, but the longer she was missing...
the more likely it meant foul play. And we don't need to tell you the statistics of missing wives, but it usually boils down to, well, the husband, of course. The following morning marked a full 24 hours since Emily's disappearance, and the police already suspected the worst. So, she just disappeared. 10 o'clock, he woke up 10, 11 o'clock, the morning he'd gotten up in the middle of the day, knew she was there, didn't know what to do.
So all of a sudden, she's gone this morning. She likes to go forage. That's how they get their meals. So we checked the wooded area over here as best as we could. We got in there, what, about 100 yards or so, I guess. This was yesterday. Yesterday morning at 10, 11 is when we realized she was gone. Okay, so she's been gone for a year. We didn't report until last night, about 5 or 6 o'clock. Okay. So some red flags. We're just trying to cover all our bases. We've been through the house, much like we would with a kid.
immaculate i mean it's nice and clean so our next step was this blood how to see if we get a track someplace if she shoves it took off on foot someplace because her car is here her phone's here doesn't add up yeah we're in so i didn't find i thought maybe you guys were really making a mess so what are you what you guys got telling you they already suspected matt had something to do with emily's disappearance but they couldn't be sure so they brought out the bloodhound just to see where it would lead
just in case. How often do you guys go pillaging? Can we stand it? I'm just, I'm taking it all in. Is that what it's called? Foraging. Foraging. When you go steal stuff. Pilfering maybe. She goes every day, every chance we get. She's home now. I'm unemployed, so we'll take like breaks and the other day I want to go.
And the weather just broke a couple weeks ago. There wasn't a lot to forage. Now with that rain and all of a sudden the sun, it's been like three days. It's just everywhere. Where do you guys usually go? Forage. Forage, there it is. I keep wanting to say the other word. That is wrong, but forage, yes. Pillage.
There's a bridge up there that goes, it's a walk bridge. If you're facing this way, if you go along the left side of it, you don't go up on the bridge, it's just along the side of it. It's right there and there's a wooded area next to it. And then you go up onto the trail, walk down a little bit and take a left and it takes you right back into this neighborhood here. It's about a 10, 15 minute walk. Emily loved nature and spent a lot of time foraging for edible plants. Hence, Matt suggested to search the nearby thicket.
The dog got a scent from some of Emily's belongings that Matt supplied and took off down the road. Matt waited and worried. This is the most bizarre thing in the world and I'm just super, super worried. I don't understand what's going on. I don't understand why this is happening. It's like a movie. It just seems like she would be somewhere. The police shared those very thoughts and were beginning to suspect something far worse.
Then, to add to their suspicions, Matt said this. I hope you don't find her. Well, you want her found, but you want a good outcome. I hope this dog doesn't run. I don't want her found. I want her found, but, you know, I want her just to come out. After a while of waiting, Matt just wanted to go inside. The recent turn in the weather made it quite hot outside. A few moments later, he re-emerged. It went that way. Yeah, we got somebody with him. Any of them?
It was weird if you thought he had anything to do with her disappearance. But it could have just been an honest question from a concerned husband. The dog came up with nothing, which Matt was happy about. His thoughts were that she must be alive somewhere if the bloodhound didn't find her.
The police, however, were less than happy. The only thing they gleaned from that exercise was that Emily didn't leave the house on foot. And if she didn't leave the house on foot and her car was still there, maybe she never left at all. In the coming days, they would dial up the investigation and uncover more troubling information about
From Emily's longtime friend, Suzanne. People lie to my face every day. I don't trust anybody. It's hard to find the good. Yeah, yeah. So I kind of have that approach. Plus, I was a fraud investigator for Nationwide. So again, you see what can motivate people. I do. And that is why, as soon as I...
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Learn more at cbp.gov slash careers. The day after her 52nd birthday, Emily Noble disappeared. The only trace was the things she left behind like her cell phone, purse, money, and keys. A quick search turned up nothing and the police were starting to suspect that Emily wasn't missing but rather murdered.
An interview with a longtime friend, Suzanne, revealed more about Emily's life before Matt, and she would point the finger at nobody else but her husband. She was always very active on online dating, and I'm kind of against it. And she's really little, and like I was mentioning, I always felt very protective of her. Yeah.
And it seemed as though, and it didn't occur to me at first, but every time I'd meet her somewhere, she was meeting up with some guy. - Okay. - From Plenty of Fish or Tinder or this one or that one, I don't even know them all. So I finally said to her, I said, "Emily, you know, this is nuts. You're smarter than this. You can't just be inviting random strangers to your home. People don't know where you live."
And then after the parents and she inherited all the money, she'd get drunk. I got all this money, you know, in the bar. And I'm like, Emily, stop. She just is very, she's a sharer, you know, over sharer. She's very open and bubbly and just kind.
She saw Emily as happy-go-lucky, albeit incredibly naive and overly trusting in people. In her mid-40s, she dated. A lot. And after her parents left her close to a quarter of a million dollars, she was
She went a bit wild. Then she met Matt. She was very cagey about it. Like a lot of her friends still don't know up until Matt posted this is Matt's, Emily's husband. They didn't know she was married. She kept him kind of at arm's length from everybody. And I think that's because she knew none of us were going to like him. She recalled the first time she met Matt.
Emily invited her over and Matt cooked dinner. Drinking the whole time. By the time I finished dinner, he was drinking vodka right out of the bottle. That's a bad sign. And he was getting a little belligerent, you know, and I didn't like it and I'd had enough. She talked this behavior up to the meeting new people jitters. Maybe Matt was nervous and drank a little too much.
Then, the next time they got together...
Not arm around the waist affectionately. It was arm around the neck almost, you know, because she's short. So just squeezing her real tight. She couldn't get like two feet away from him. She did say, and I don't remember the context, but she did say that when he's drunk, he's the devil. That's what she said to me. Suzanne noticed the signs of an overbearing and controlling relationship, and she didn't much care for it.
Her worry was made worse when Emily showed up with a new hairstyle. And Emily has beautiful, naturally curly hair, like the little curly haired girl on the Peanuts. And the next time she came over and I saw her, her hair was straightened. And I remember laughing. I'm like, Jesus, how long did that take? And she's like, well, Matt likes it straight. Matt doesn't like my curly hair. So he prefers it straight.
That's a tell. Yeah. Your man doesn't like the way you look. You got to change the way you look like that. I didn't like that. Emily's relationship with Matt had all the signs of toxicity, except one until she showed up with bruises on her arms. I knew what it was because I've been a victim of domestic violence and I've been held against the wall and I've had those exact bruises and my heart sunk as soon as I saw them. And I remember asking her, what the hell happened?
It was a new bruise and it was concerning enough for me to go, "What happened?" Oh, I hurt myself at the gym. And I walked up to her and I put my hands where the bruises fit. Okay. And I said, "Emily, try again. What happened? You can tell me anything, honey. Are you okay? You know, what's going on?" And that's when she said, "Well, Matt likes it rough." And I was like, "What do you mean? How fucking rough does he like part, my friend? But Emily."
"Are you okay with it?" "Oh yeah." She said, "But he does like to choke me." Did she say she was okay with it? She didn't say, no. She did not say she was okay with it. She didn't say she wasn't. She just kind of, you know, one of those. She just kind of acknowledged the fact that he does choke her during sex. Yeah. But didn't say one way or the other. He likes to choke me. Did you notice any bruising? I did not. Did not.
Suzanne said Emily told her about the rough sex and the choking. And she witnessed what she thought was controlling behavior on Matt's part. With this knowledge, Matt was looking more and more like the number one suspect in her disappearance. And I remember saying to her, I don't know what would make me say this, but it's haunting me. I remember saying to her, Emily, this is going to end in tragedy.
I don't feel like you're safe. With as much time as you've spent with Emily, and clearly you know her very, very well. I've never met her or anything like that. What do you think happened the night of her birthday? I think he took her out for dinner, and I think he took her out. I think he probably choked her. Out.
Suzanne never liked Matt and always feared Emily's relationship with him would end tragically. Is there anything more I can do? Keep an eye on Matt. Okay. That's why I'm still friends with him. Just...
While suspicions seemed to be on Matt, they brought him in for questioning.
You weren't handcuffed coming in, is that correct? Correct. Okay. And that door doesn't lock. This is a voluntary interview. Okay. Obviously, we need to do the best we can to get the full story, which is find your wife and you can get back to normal. Obviously, part of that involves talking with you. So, you know, again, this is a voluntary thing. You know, like I told you out there, I haven't lied to you. I'm not going to start now. We could have done this at my house.
He immediately became defensive. You're not being arrested.
Reluctantly, Matt began answering their questions even though he felt it was a waste of time because he knew he didn't do anything. We were super laid back.
- So you guys were, you were 100% strong? - It wasn't 100%, but it wasn't anything where I would ever harm my wife. - That's all I'm asking. That's all I'm saying. - No. - How was your relationship? How was your marriage doing? - Not any worse than anybody else's.
Just to make sure I have it. So scale of 1 to 10, relationship with her, 10 being bliss, everyday, honeymoon, like a honeymoon, and 1 being can't stand each other. I'm just asking, what would you rate it? It would fluctuate, like a sine wave, but we were on since 6 months, it was an 8. Class 6 months? Absolutely.
Did you read our texts? Well, we didn't go through everything. There might be some old texts that we were like, whatever. But it was after my son died, there was tension. She dealt with it differently than I did. And so there was things that were said back and forth. Of course, they read their texts and more. Some of Emily's texts contradicted Matt's claim of a blissful marriage. Would it surprise you if I said that she didn't seem to be as happy as...
you were led to believe of course it would surprise you it wouldn't surprise you it was sadder than i thought she was um as far as your relationship no she she loved me i would be very surprised if there was like a another man well i'm not saying that but you know literally two weeks ago she there was one person that she kind of confided in through text messages and so forth
And that was just the first message they found. Yeah.
What do you think your spouse says about you when venting to their friends? With Emily missing,
Matt found himself trying to explain away every little fight they ever had. That doesn't sound like somebody who's in a happy relationship. I found out my wife texted that to somebody a month ago. I get it. I'm not going to say that those things, of course, there was a rollercoaster relationship, but it wasn't like anything that was, anything you would think that someone would hurt someone. It just wouldn't.
I'm not, I'm just addressing the fact that you, you just told me that the last six months have been blessed and innate. Not, yes. Okay. There have been levels of that. Okay. And you can check the other texts and they are super, I love you, I'm going to say. I saw that. It's very much a up and down, bipolar type of relationship. That would go away. That would really go away. It would last for a night. Will you, will you acknowledge that that's some pretty heavy shit when your wife says, I took off my wedding ring. I don't think we're going to stay together forever.
It's not as heavy as you think it is. It always swung back. We were always, it just wasn't. Why would you have said that whenever they asked how your relationship, I mean, I didn't even remember that because it's not in my mindset, but good times have been so good. Okay. But those, but you know, you guys are really going to try to, I'm not trying to do anything. I'm, I'm reading your wife's words. I understand that. I understand that.
and you text her on New Year's Eve and say, if you want a divorce, you want me to move out, fine. I mean, these are all things I just printed off, which have very... They aren't the usual fight, like, I'm pissed at you, fuck off, I don't want to talk to you tonight, just leave me alone. It's go golfing because I don't want to see you right now, I want to be alone. That's...
You know, well, we admit that that's pretty. It's not as heavy as you think it is. From looking at it from the outside, I can see why someone would think that. But it's not. It's just she was saying that to her friend. I mean, that's surprising to me because I wasn't like, you know, I mean, at times you say, I don't want to be married to you anymore. If it doesn't go down the lines that I'm sitting in a police station right now being like you're going after me.
He was answering all their questions. They just weren't the answers they wanted to hear. Matt's claim that their marriage was great didn't line up with Emily's texts to friends. There were other things too. Whether or not he made a post to Facebook and which phone he had used. I just need to know if you did it. And there's nothing wrong with it. I just need to know if you did it. I don't know. Matt, this was two days ago.
I know. You can't remember if you were on her phone. I can't recall, but I must have. You don't remember that? It was two days ago. I know, I know. I don't know if it was me that got on my... I must have. I had to. I'm sure I did. I'm sure I did. I can't say I definitively did, but I'm sure I got on my... I did, didn't I? I did. You guys know. I went on and said, hey, this is Matt. I'm Emily's husband. She's missing. I must have. I had to. I just don't recall right now if I did.
Was anything from her? Did you delete the post on her Facebook account? I didn't delete it. Because they're not up there. What? The post. There's no posts that I made from her phone saying that she's missing. Because I didn't make any before the phone was taken from me. That's what that means. Because I didn't, it wasn't like, maybe it wasn't like, hey, I'm guessing. Again, I'm guessing. At some point, I started making posts on Facebook saying my wife's missing.
Whether it was prior to you guys taking the phone from me or after, I don't know. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Matt was talking in circles, seemingly telling the officers what he thought they wanted to hear, and then having to double back when those statements trapped him in a lie.
Then they asked him about the rough sex. She told her girlfriend that I choked her and she didn't like it. Is this what you're saying? No, I just asked. I have no idea. Was it your idea? No, I have no idea if it happened, if it was my idea or not. I have no recollection. But you just talked about your hands had been at her neck. We've been married for two years, guys. I mean, I don't know where you're going with this. I've never...
hurt her. That's not what we asked. Like during sex, have I ever, can I remember a time where I was like, Oh my God, I want to choke her. And this is really great thing I'm doing there. And she was like, okay, it's fine. And then later on, she says something to a girlfriend. I have no idea. Well,
Was that my question? I guess. I'm sorry. I'm being defensive. I'm worried. Look at me. Well, then help us find her. Okay? Yeah. We are on the same team right now. What does this have to do with finding my wife? Because we have to... When I have people calling in concerned about it today, I have to ask these questions. That's my job is to ask questions that suck. You have people calling and say that...
they were concerned, some random person. - Suzanne. - You don't even know. Yes, Suzanne, she's a real great one. - Okay, but you're- - It's a great- - But I'm telling you that clearly you know Suzanne. - Fuck me, of course, yeah. She's not to be someone you should be listening to. - But the- - Did you talk to her? It only takes five seconds to know she's full of shit. - Well, all I asked was a question. - Okay, ask me again and I'll try to answer it the best I can. I'll try, I'm sorry. - When you guys were having sex,
At what point? At a particular time? Can you tell me a particular time we were having sex? Was it a year ago? Last week? Any time when your penis has been in Emily, have your hands been around her neck? I think both of them. A hand? Maybe a hand. Okay. Like, you know what I mean? And I'm not judging either way. Is that your thing or Emily's thing?
both of ours, I would think. If she ever told me to stop, I would stop. Good. That's what I want to hear. Just because I ask a question doesn't mean that I'm attacking you. It's just a question. I promise you. Okay. I don't understand why that would help you find where she is right now. I don't get that. It seems like you're trying to pin something on me or something. I don't feel comfortable.
Matt felt like they were trying to pin her murder on him before they even found a body. Even though he was free to go, he didn't leave because he knew how that would look. Guys, I did not hurt my wife. I did not hurt my wife. I loved her. Would you pass a lie detector test? Absolutely.
I wouldn't want to talk to a lawyer, though. I mean, ask a lawyer. Ask what? If it's, should I take one? I don't even know if they work. Well, the bottom line is we're here trying to find your wife. And right now... You want to do it now? You want to do a lie detector right now? Yeah. Let's do it. You do it? You got it. Okay, go ahead. He agreed to a lie detector test, but this isn't your old-fashioned polygraph. This isn't your...
Grandpa's lie detector test. This is CVSA or computerized voice stress analysis. It uses a microphone and a laptop to measure the smallest of changes in the vocal cords rather than the various heart rate and respiration monitors the polygraph uses. It's supposedly far more accurate and requires less time and fewer questions to get results.
It took longer to explain all of that to you than it did to ask Matt nine questions. Most of the questions were control questions, obviously true or obviously false. The only two questions that pertained to the case were number four, do you know where Emily is? And number six, did you kill Emily? Yeah, it's not good. Number four, this is not good. Yeah, it's not good.
If you answer a question truthfully, your voice pattern will look like a Christmas tree. There were a couple of answers that, to the police, didn't really fit the bill. After studying the results and deciding to confront him about his deception, they brought him back into the room and had him point out his own lies. How do you think you did? Good. I mean...
Which one to you looks like the top of the Christmas tree in your eyes? That one's good, that one's good, that one's good, that one's no good, that one's good, that one's good, that one's no good, that one's no good. So you said like six is no good, but like one, a lot of these are... You tell me, sir. Please just tell me what I do. Tell me I did good. Tell me I'm fine. You did not do good. This one that you picked out? How can this be? I'm just pointing it to you.
You want to do it again? This right here is one that you picked out. And that's what the question is. I need a lawyer, I guess. I don't know what happened to Emily. I don't know what happened to her. He genuinely seemed baffled, but the police weren't buying it. They were convinced he was involved and they just had to get him to confess. What do you think happened to Emily? I was guessing, but I think she hurt herself. How do you think she hurt herself? She would say that...
She was going to do it. She would hang herself. So you think that she hung herself? I don't know. I don't know. Just what does your gut say? That she hurt herself. That's your gut belief right there. Has she ever said... And then I'm going to say to you, now you think I'm lying. We were just talking. Do you think I did something to her in the middle of the night? Took her somewhere and then came back home and went through what I went through? You saw my texting? Did what I did today? Does that seem like something, something killed her would have done? I mean,
I'm leaning that way. I'll be honest with you. I don't know what else to do. I can't. I mean, everything it seems like that I'm telling you now is probably something I shouldn't be saying. What would you do if you were me and you were Anson? What would you do? The exact same thing. That I'm doing right now. I don't know. I don't know what to tell you. This appears to me to be very strange that I would fail something that I know I'm not on.
You were the last person to see her alive. I was. She didn't float into heaven. She didn't. Something happened in that moment. I can't believe this is happening to me right now. I can't believe this is happening. It's okay. It's not okay. We just need to understand that. There's something that might have happened to my wife, and we're in here talking to me about it, and I didn't do anything. This is very odd. I know you can get angry with me about it. Now I'm suspicious of what's going on now. What am I doing? Can I...
Am I? Is this still a consensual thing? Yes, absolutely. Can I leave? Yes, you can do whatever you want. I'm out. I have to leave. You understand how this looks. I didn't do anything. You understand how this looks. You fucking killed her. No, I didn't, sir. Bullshit. I didn't. I didn't kill her. You killed her, and it was an accident, and we need to get this resolved today. It didn't happen. It didn't happen. It did happen. I'm going to tell you. She's dead. Where is she? What are you talking about? That's why we have you here. People are saying they've seen her. People are full of shit.
Her phone says you're full of shit? I'm done. I have to go. That thing's full of shit? You understand how this looks though, don't you? You guys, I didn't do anything to my wife. Trust me. You murdered her and you threw her out like a piece of garbage. I didn't. I didn't. Well then tell me where she is. I don't know. Fix it right now. I didn't. I don't know why this is happening to me. That's fine. Okay. I'm in a dream right now. I didn't do anything to my wife. This is a dream. Matt would get up and leave after that barrage of accusations.
That was two days after Emily went missing. The investigation would seemingly stall after that. Days would turn to weeks and the community continued searching. We love you, we miss you, we care deeply about you, we've not forgotten about you. We will continue this until we get some kind of closure. As time went on, a strange thing happened and people that never knew Emily
flocked to help search for her. I thought to myself one day, I want to go look. She's local. Why not help? And I just felt a connection, like I needed to search. It's been a real big, nice outpouring of support and strength. Overwhelming knowing how many people were willing to put their lives on hold and just walk the miles, take time off of their jobs. The only person not searching for Emily
was Matt. He didn't join a single organized search. Instead, he contacted the Vanished podcast asking for help and peculiarly described Emily as quote, very small. She's like a hundred pounds. Pretty legs, pretty arms. End quote. Despite all the volunteers and the assumption that they were simply looking for remains at this point, Emily was missing for weeks.
and then months. It's been almost 3 months without any real sign of Emily noble. That's why family, friends and a professional team are out here making sure no stone goes unturned from the areas that. Yes, we're going to focus on the island Creek area today. Obviously we're hoping for the best. But we have to look at all possibilities at this point. We're looking for many things from finding Emily hopefully safely to unfortunately possibly
Then, in mid-September, a 911 call came in. 911, what is your emergency? Hi, we are searching for Emily Noble. We are in the wooded area near her condo. And we do, there's a person here with a rope.
It looks like they've hung themselves. It looks like they've hung themselves? Yeah. Can you tell if it's a male or a female? It looks female. Tiny.
And hanging from a tree? Yeah, she came from a tree. There's rope, yeah, coming down from a tree. She's on the ground. Her knees are on the ground. I turned around and I thought I saw a little girl and I said, hi. Oh, okay. But it wasn't a little girl. It was the decomposed body of an apparent suicide victim. The police arrived quickly and sealed off the scene. At first I thought...
I couldn't even tell that that was that. Almost looked like literally a bag. The weathered body resembled the color of a worn out paper bag after being exposed to the elements for an unknown period of time. It was found kneeling with the neck still hanging from the USB cord they used as a ligature. The saddest part of all was the apparent lengths this person went through to be successful.
One hand was still gripping the ankle. You can smell it. You ever smelled decon before? Kind of a hard smell to describe, but it's distinct. Yeah. Does she hang them? Yeah, it looks like there's a rope. Comes from the top of this. Comes over, up. There's a black rope. Whoever it is, they've been there for a while. That's crazy how close it is to the rope. Yeah.
The proximity of the remains to the road was a little suspicious. The body was mere feet off a major thoroughfare in a small valley surrounded by trees and undergrowth. But what was perhaps more suspicious was the fact that the body was only a few hundred feet from Matt's home, and exactly where he said to search for
from the very beginning. So this is really sensitive. You've heard the things I'm asking. This is likely our victim or missing. We've got to worry about what's happening over there at the suspect's house.
They were cautious to identify the remains as Emily's after the exhaustive search for over three months, but the following week they had an update for the public. We've used outside volunteer groups that specialize in these type of searches. All kinds of volunteer groups have been in to help. Like I said, through all kinds of different areas of the city, we've used sonar to search lakes. We've responded to strong odors.
and officers actually found the deer on one search where we went to a strong odor. We've responded to calls where, frankly, people have seen vultures in certain areas circling, and we've responded to those areas. As unpleasant as that sounds, it's just to give you an idea about how seriously we've taken this and that we've utilized every asset available in searching for Emily. Today, we received word from the coroner's office
But Emily Noble's dental records are consistent with the remains that were found off County Line Road last week. WPD is going to continue to conduct our investigation to try to figure out how the body got in the location that did on County Line Road. There's still a lot of work to be done. We can confirm that that area was searched on three separate occasions by Westerville police detectives and Westerville police personnel. And on at least one of those occasions, a cadaver doll was used.
They found her three and a half months after she went missing within walking distance of her home. The announcement that they searched that area three times, one of those times with cadaver dogs, and didn't find her suggested she hadn't been there since May. This only cast more suspicion on Matt, but nothing happened. More months would pass.
Around the time of Emily's 53rd birthday and the anniversary of her disappearance, Matt held a remembrance party. Then, a month later, authorities shared the opinion of the coroner. His findings were very clear. He said that this was clearly a homicide based on the injuries that were sustained and the mechanism of those injuries. He also gave his opinion that her body was staged to appear as though it was a suicide. In his opinion, that was absolutely not the case.
The quiet neighborhood Matt lived in was swarmed by officers and Matt was arrested. The overwhelming police presence seemed to be overkill.
Especially since Matt seemed to be cooperating and was arrested without incident. In the back of the police cruiser, he only had a couple of thoughts. What the fuck, Emily? This is a nightmare. While it seems like the end of the road for Matt Moore and the saga of Emily Noble's disappearance, this story was only just beginning.
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Matt Moore was arrested over a year after he reported his wife missing. Finding Emily's body more than three months later hanging from a USB cord in the very woods he suggested searching only made the police even more suspicious than they already were.
The city of Westerville searched to find Emily, only to find her in the worst possible way. Now, her husband was facing a trial and the community was less than shocked. There's no way this is a mistake like Matt wanted to say. We knew he did this from the beginning, his family, our family and friends. We just bit our tongue and let the officers do what they needed to do.
The running theory was that Matt, after taking Emily out to celebrate her birthday, returned home and put his plan into action. They thought he spent the night carefully crafting his narrative.
His phone and social media both revealed activity during the late night, early morning hours. Odd Facebook posts and 3:00 a.m. texts to his brother, presumably to cover his trail. The next morning, they surmised he followed Emily into those woods and strangled her, staging the scene to look like a suicide. Because there was no way Emily would do that and no one else would want her dead.
They also found it suspicious that he waited so long to report her missing and then had the convenient theory of suicide when he finally did. This was, of course, all built around their experience with Matt and the coroner's opinion that Emily's injuries were not consistent with hanging. None of this was actual evidence that Matt did anything. But further support came when they uncovered a history of abuse against Matt's ex-wife.
And she happened to be pregnant at the time. But that was the only instance in his history that supported their theory. But with suspicion,
comes down. The trial would be postponed until 2022 and then play out over a lengthy seven days of testimony. I want to stop here and ask the audience,
You. You sitting there right now. Or jogging or doing laundry. Whatever the hell you're doing. I want to ask you, do you believe Matt? Did you believe him during his contact with law enforcement? Did you notice anything in his voice that made you suspicious? That made you think that he was guilty? Or did he sound sincere? What was your first gut instinct? And did it change as you kept listening? Hold on to that thought because what happened next...
changed everything. The defense based its argument on how absurd it was for police to suspect Matt at all. It's one of those things that no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't make it true. No one else would do this. No one else would do this. Okay, well, no other suspects were ever developed.
We know on the 25th he's taken into the police station. He's asked to come down in the back of a cruiser. And you saw one of your exhibits is he was read his Miranda rights. This is on the 27th of May. He's their guy. In fact, they continued to work from May 25th all the way to June 17th of the following year to charge him because they kept just looking.
Look, look. They argued that his actions weren't that of a criminal mastermind trying to get away with murder, but those of a concerned husband who loved his wife. The prosecution didn't think any of that mattered. They felt her text messages to friends proved their relationship was on the rocks.
And the evidence of perimortem bone fractures in the neck and the bridge of her nose suggested she was strangled and her body was staged in those woods. The chief of police told Westerville community and the public at large, we searched that area three times with law enforcement and once with dogs. Nobody said the perimeter. And here's what else we know.
If I'm Matt Moore, and if he wants the word, the master, the main criminal mastermind, and I'm going to talk about whether Matt Moore is the main criminal mastermind in a second, he takes them to the exact area and says this is where she forges, and then even the state of Ohio in their closing argument just now had to concede that, do you know what he says? You might want to go in.
Oh, that's a bad fact, right? And you know why he wouldn't want to go in? Is it because he doesn't want to find her? Actually, I agree with that. You know why he doesn't want to find her? Because 10 months earlier, his son was hanging from a tree in the woods. I wouldn't want to go in a wooded area either. The defense claimed the entire case was built on a stack of inferences.
doesn't go into the woods and search for her. And so that inference should lead you to the fact that he didn't want to find her. And that should lead you to the fact that he killed her. I remember asking Amy. The fact that she didn't come to Ohio and search for her sister was no indication of whether she loved her sister or not. She said, that's right. Why is it okay for some and not for others? Not to mention during all those searches, the whole town kind of thought he was the murderer.
But back to inferences. But you cannot draw an inference and an inference. So what does it mean? Literally six days of text loaded, seven today. It is she did she commit suicide? No, she didn't commit suicide. So she must have been killed. Well, if she was killed, it's Matt Moore. That's inference stacking, not supported by the evidence.
We think he did this. We think he did that. Now we think she went for a walk and met because of a text he sent on May 7th to his friend that on May 24th, after they've had a nice day together, that he now is lurking and going and following her and killing her in the woods. That's not just one inference and upon an inference. It's probably eight or nine or ten. But it's speculations.
And then their argument that Emily would have never committed suicide. I tell you, Emily was happy. She was foraging, eating plants, nettles. So there's no way she could have committed suicide. We talked about suicide in voir dire, and we talked about mental health. And I really mean this. We are all smarter. And I know each and every one of you, truly. If mental health were that simple...
we would live in a much different world. It's not. It is not that simple to say they seem happy. It's just not. Because the truth is, and you'll see in the counseling records, that Emily had a history of depression and anxiety, that she had struggled with prior loss and trauma. Look through the records and see how many times you see the word trauma and loss and grief and sadness. Emily had suffered a lot in recent years.
Her former husband committed suicide. A short time later, his brother committed suicide. Then her father fell, hit his head, and never recovered. A short time after that, her mother died in a car accident. Then she met Matt and his son Joey. Not long after they married and moved in together, Joey too committed suicide. That's a lot of trauma for anyone to deal with.
While Emily never expressed struggling emotionally to her friends, Matt did say she had some suicidal ideation and even said if she were to do it, she would hang herself. This has all been made out to be so horrific, right? What really happened is Emily went to nature to find her peace. And you'll see that in counseling records, that that's where she found peace. She went there and she grabbed her ankles. You know why she grabbed her ankles? So that she wouldn't stop herself from killing herself.
And that's what you do. That's what you do because you know that when you kill yourself, your natural instinct is going to be to stop it. That ankle is grabbed. And here's what else we know in terms of the mastermind criminal mind over here. There's alcohol in the water bottle. Her vape pen is in her left pocket. Vape pen on her left side within her reach. Do you know what we do? What's common sense when we're in moments of real stress? We turn to our vices.
But the crux of this case was the suicide being deemed staged by the coroner.
Well, coroners can't really give medical opinions, only medical examiners can. So, the defense argued the Westerville PD operated under presumed guilt and validated their unwarranted suspicions on the opinion of a layman. They claimed the injuries were consistent with strangulation, but those injuries are also consistent with, you guessed it, hanging.
The defense rested after seven days and the decision of Matt's fate was handed to the jury. Verdict on count one. We, the jury, being duly in panel and sworn, find the defendant, Matthew L. Moore, not guilty of murder as he stands charged in count one of the indictment dated the 26th of August, 2022, signed by all 12 members of the panel.
Matt was found not guilty on all counts and was made a free man. The jury had a reasonable doubt that Matt killed Emily. When Matt heard the verdict, he broke down into tears. I thought I was going to get convicted. I didn't have a chance to mourn my wife because of the pressure from police and the community. So it was like I had to put it away so that I could deal with being accused of murder and
Finally, he could mourn the loss of his wife now that he was no longer suspected of her murder. In the months since, he's poured his thoughts about this whole ordeal into a book called Emily, a staged suicide in Ohio. He felt that he needed to tell his
his side of things. What do you think? Do you think my story was out there? You're not going to get the truth from the media. You're not going to get the truth from what the Westboro Police Department fed the media. And if you ever doubted Matt, here's one of the jurors who freed him. I knew from day one I thought he was not guilty. And the prosecutors never changed my mind. I didn't falter on how I felt. Not for one minute. I just thought Matt
Moore seemed very cooperative and wanted to be helpful. And he acted like he was very distraught over his wife disappearing. And that was the first thing that I thought right away that this wasn't-- he wasn't putting on a show. He was truly wanting to help. Honestly, I thought he was a nice guy that was totally manipulated and tricked.
I just will never believe he killed his wife. The people that think I'm guilty, there's nothing I'm going to say to change that. Because there's a lot of stuff that they didn't know that the book will help them with. I hope her family reads it. There's a lot to unpack in this episode. First, don't talk to cops. Without a lawyer, that is. Second, the police seriously failed in this investigation. The criminal justice system failed.
broke down. It didn't work. And sometimes that is the case. Unfortunately. Law enforcement, after all, is made up of humans. And these particular humans hyped themselves up that Matt did it because they couldn't find the body. But they couldn't find the body because they blatantly ignored Matt's direction to the nearest wooded area. After all, it was too thick to traverse. Wow.
All that time and money wasted investigating a widower. Not only did Matt have to suffer another family death, but then he suffered being accused of murder. When asked why he thought Emily committed suicide, he answered simply, Well, I'm not a doctor. Emily was a very deep person. She had a hard life. You know, why did my son commit suicide? Why did he? I mean...
I don't understand it. Who understands suicide? Now, I ask you, do you think if Emily knew that Matt would be accused of a murder, would she have followed through with her plan? Well, that does it again for another one. Thank you so much for joining us and we hope we'll see you again next time.
But in the meantime, I'll be here trying to fix this fucking computer, which has been serving us quite effectively for the last five to ten years. I don't know. I know I should have gotten a new one, but it's about to die, along with my ability to record. So I better get to it pretty soon. Boy, when it rains, it pours, doesn't it? First the website, then the studio.
I wonder what's next. I wonder if the government's going to seize my bank accounts. Who knows? That's why life's a party. You never know what's going to happen. In any case, we hope to see you next time. Until then, stay safe.
Hey, Mike. This is Wyatt calling. I just finished your Plus episode 102. And, man, one of the best episodes I've heard. Crazy as on Plus. I got to say, I love the podcast, man. You know, sometimes I don't agree with your opinion, for sure. But a lot of times I do. And I think that, you know, you got a great show. And...
You don't have to throw someone completely away just because you don't agree with one or two of their opinions or something they said once. So, fantastic show, fantastic plot. I keep getting blown away by the episodes that are on PLUS, so feel free to use this to plug your premium subscription. But man, yeah, great work. Keep it up. Love the stories.
I wish people weren't so fucking bad, but yeah. Thanks, man. Have a good one. Bye.
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