Alex Anaya
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This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series Back in Crime. If you're a follower of true crime, you're probably familiar with some of the most shocking stories from our history. Horrific tragedies like the Columbine Massacre. He turned the gun straight at us and shot. Oh my God, the window went out. And the kid standing there with me, I think he got hit. Okay. Oh God. And notorious criminals like cult leader Charles Manson.

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I want to give you guys a warning at the top of this episode that the case featured does deal with sexual assault and violence against children. If this is something that you don't want to listen to, I understand. But this is an open case, and I do ask that you still share it. Alex Anaya deserves justice. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics including violence, abuse, and murder.

My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice. Today I'm discussing the case of 13-year-old Alex Anaya from Hammond, Indiana.

In 2005, Alex lost her life in what the head of the FBI's Chicago office calls one of the most heinous crimes involving a child that they've ever seen. They have put together a special task force, have done multiple rounds of DNA testing, and while Alex's partial remains were found extremely close to someone who was later arrested for stalking her, her case remains unsolved. This is the case of Alex Zania.

Alex Anaya's life was complicated before her death in 2005. She lived with her mother, Sandra, and her six-year-old twin sisters, Roxy and Romy, in Hammond, Indiana. Sandra worked two jobs to support the family. So, Alex, at age 13, was a mother figure to her sisters. When speaking with Allison Quinn for the Daily Beast, Romy said, quote, "...she would feed us, teach us stuff."

She taught us our colors, our ABCs, our numbers. I know we would get on her nerves. She had to take us everywhere she went because my mom was at work. We were her annoying little sisters. End quote.

When Alex wasn't taking care of the twins, she seemed like a pretty cool, normal kid. She was in the 7th grade at Clark Middle School, liked sports, specifically volleyball and soccer. She had a boyfriend and was bilingual, speaking fluent Spanish. Her mom says that she didn't really act out much and was a nice kid, the kind that hugged everyone when she walked into a room.

One of the few stories shared about Alex comes from her mom as well. Sandra Anaya says that Alex loved animals. She had a pet iguana and a horse at her great uncle's ranch in Moments, Illinois. But she really wanted a ferret. And Sandra was absolutely against this idea. Instead, she took Alex to a pet store to take a picture with a ferret and Santa Claus. Alex did eventually get a hamster, though. Which

which she would often take out of its plastic exercise ball so it could get some real, direct sunlight. Alex dreamed of working with animals someday.

She and her mom took their dog to the vet once, and Alex was just incredibly interested in everything. She was asking questions and began helping the vet. And this veterinarian saw this in Alex, and invited her to help around the office sometimes as a volunteer. Of course, Alex was young, so she was doing things like cleaning the cages and taking the dogs for walks. But like I said, Alex's life was complicated, for lack of a better word.

As of recording this episode, her biological father has never been named in the press, and it doesn't appear that he was in her life before she died. Around 1995 or 1996, when Alex was about three, Sandra met and began dating a man named Rudolfo Heredia when they became neighbors in Chicago.

He eventually moves in and is the biological father of Alex's younger twin sisters. So he's been a prominent male presence in Alex's life for quite some time. It seems Sandra's relationship with Rudolfo was rocky at best, though. In 2003, he's living with Sandra and the girls off and on. And in April 2005, Sandra ended the relationship for good.

When Alex came forward to say that Rudolfo had been sexually abusing her since she was seven, no charges are filed against him at this time, and we don't really have any insight as to why, or whether this was Sandra's choice or Alex's. After this, Sandra takes the girls and moves to an apartment on Pine Street in Hammond, Indiana. But Rudolfo doesn't take the breakup well.

He begins threatening and stalking Sandra and Alex. He would watch them from outside their home. Sometimes neighbors would see him watching from the street. Once he stood on the hood of a vehicle and looked into Sandra's second-story window. And Alex got extremely scared when she saw him standing on the roof of a building across the alleyway, looking down into their apartment.

Not only was this man watching them from afar, he managed to get and make a copy of the key to their home and began breaking in. Sandra says that in one incident, he broke in, found used condoms in the trash, grabbed them, and marched down to her work to confront her about it. After this, Sandra changed the locks. Flash forward a few months to Friday, August 12th, 2005.

Sandra's out on a date, and Alex is home with the twins. Rodolfo calls Sandra's cell phone multiple times that night. When Sandra gets home at about 3.30am on now Saturday the 13th, Alex is awake, and she tells her mom that Rodolfo has also been calling the house. From here, Sandra says that they eat some White Castle together, and Alex says that she's going to bed before Sandra leaves the home again around 4.30am.

Where she goes is unclear, but she gets home about three hours later around 7.30 a.m. When she goes to open the front door, she finds it unlocked, which she thinks is strange. When she gets inside, she checks the twins' room, and they're fast asleep. But when she checks Alex's room, she's not there. Now, we know that Alex is quite independent, so Sandra thinks that maybe she went down to the corner store, but she's not there either.

She's not anywhere around the home at all. So, Sandra calls the police to report Alex missing. And, a tale as old as time, the police take the information and basically say that they'll be on the lookout. And if they pick Alex up, they'll let Sandra know.

They assume that Alex has run away, and while Sandra is concerned, she does consider this to be a possibility at first. She tells police that while she doesn't know exactly what may have triggered Alex to run away since their last interaction was positive, she says Alex is a teenager, so it's possible.

But she still does go look for Alex. Sandra calls her friends, goes to the neighbor's house, and she and the twins drive around the neighborhood. But Alex is nowhere to be found. Roxy tells Allison Quinn with the Daily Beast, quote, What I remember is that just one day she was here, and then one day she wasn't, and we were looking for her. My mom was putting up posters everywhere, looking everywhere, taking phone calls, end quote.

Romy also remembers looking for Alex. But pretty quickly, Sandra's certain that Alex didn't just run away. She goes to the police station to follow up, and they tell her to stay calm. Alex will probably come home. She might just be hiding at a friend's house. The usual. So, Sandra goes home and waits for Alex. But just three days after Alex is reported missing, her partial remains are found just blocks from Rodolfo's home.

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On the morning of Tuesday, August 16th, 2005, a group of boaters are on the Little Calumet River in Chicago when they find Alex's partial remains. Marine unit police officers were ultimately the ones to pull her from the water, and I'll warn you that these next details are difficult to hear, but since there is unrecovered evidence, I think it's important to share. Her torso was nude.

and she'd been wrapped in chains and weighed down with a piece of concrete. Her limbs and head were severed, and have not been found as of recording this episode. While they didn't know it was Alex at the time, she was pronounced dead at 2.42pm.

Her autopsy was later performed by the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office. And while authorities admit that it's impossible to say exactly what happened to Alex, according to reporting by Lauren Fitzpatrick for the Southtown Star, the official cause of Alex's death was listed as undetermined dismembered remains. But her case has been treated as a homicide.

And every official that I've found statements from uses the term murder when referring to Alex's case. So, technicalities aside, I think it's safe to call this a homicide. The medical examiner did find that her limbs were cleanly severed, again suggesting homicide. They also discovered undigested french fries in her stomach, suggesting that she wasn't killed too long after she went missing.

There was also evidence that she was sexually assaulted before her death. While, of course, this information wasn't made public at this time, the process of recovering Alex from the water was well documented by the media. There were videos and pictures. And it sent a shockwave through the local community. The Chicago Police Department and the Medical Examiner's Office gets flooded with calls from loved ones of the missing.

They want to know if the person recovered had specific scars or tattoos that may be a match for their loved one. But these news reports also caught the eye of Special Agent Johnson from the FBI Chicago office. He calls the Chicago PD and says he thinks the description may match 13-year-old Alex Anaya, who went missing just miles away in Hammond, Indiana, three days prior.

The day after Alex is found, Detective Ron Johnson from the Hammond Police Department calls Sandra, and he asks if they can meet at her home to talk about Alex. Detective Johnson explains that remains have been recovered that may belong to Alex. Now, Sandra says that when she was going into this meeting, she didn't know that it was only Alex's torso that was recovered, so she begins telling him about a scar Alex had on her chin, and how she'd sprained her ankle.

They ask Sandra to take her DNA for a comparison, and she agrees. But while waiting for the results of this testing, Sandra and her family held out hope. After all, the media had been reporting that the woman found in the river was white, and Alex was Hispanic. They continue to look for Alex, and so do the police.

Finally, there's a press conference held to discuss her disappearance. While it wasn't confirmed that it was Alex who was found in the river just yet, it seems pretty clear that the police suspected that it was, and began to take her case more seriously. Now, witnesses did come forward about possibly seeing Alex with an adult white male in a red car, possibly a four-door Toyota, but Sandra says she doesn't know who that could be, and it doesn't appear that this lead went anywhere.

It wasn't long before Rodolfo was brought in for questioning, but he repeatedly denies any involvement in Alex's disappearance. Then, three weeks after Alex's remains were recovered, Sandra gets the call. It was Alex who was found in the river.

Sandra says that she doesn't remember much after that, but Agent Johnson does. He tells Dan Hinkle with the Times that Sandra fell to her knees and then was crawling on the floor, screaming and crying. But according to Sandra, investigators told her that there was no time for that. She needed to get it together and answer questions. So she did. Then she had to break the news to the twins.

who Sandra says were angry at their sister. They felt like she'd left them, so she explained that that was not the case. But Alex was dead, and she was not coming home. Just hours after the announcement was made that the remains found in the Little Calumet River belonged to Alex, Chicago homicide detectives searched Rodolfo's home as a possible crime scene.

Items are collected but never specified in the media. The only item confirmed to be found in the home was a key for the new lock Sandra installed after she caught him breaking in. Less than a month later, on September 7th, Rodolfo is arrested, but not for Alex's murder.

He's charged with travel and state commerce for the purpose of killing, injuring, harassing, or intimidating Sandra and Alex. He was formally indicted for stalking. He was also charged with burglary for breaking in and taking items from their home. On the 9th, U.S. Attorney Joseph Van Boekellen filed an interstate domestic violence charge in U.S. District Court.

This does discuss Alex's allegations of sexual assault, but nothing in any of the filings accuses Rodolfo of abducting, raping, murdering, or dismembering Alex. Rodolfo pleaded not guilty, but he does admit to watching Sandra and Alex in their home, as well as entering the home without permission using an unauthorized key.

The court documents outline some of what I already told you. Rodolfo watching them from afar, breaking in, and finding the condoms, and all the calls made to the Anaya residence on the night Alex went missing and was presumably murdered. Rodolfo's lawyer admits that his client and Sandra did have a volatile relationship, but defends him saying that Sandra never reported any of this to the police.

The court documents outline a lot. The stalking, Alex telling her mother about the sexual assault, Alex's murder, but of course, none of that makes it to court. They aren't allowed to discuss Alex's murder at all. In fact, when she's on the stand, Sandra has to tell the jury that she has three children, as if Alex wasn't gone.

Sandra was the first person to take the stand in the trial in January 2006. She outlines her relationship with Rudolfo, saying he was jealous and violent. She said that she was afraid of him, and he had threatened to kill her should she ever break up with him. She also testifies that he once hit a man with his vehicle after insulting Sandra, and he knocked another man out for making a pass at her.

He then stood over the man's unconscious body with a heavy tree stump, ready to drop it on his head, but he was talked out of it by Sandra's sister. The trial went on for a few days, and Rodolfo does not take this stand in his own defense, but his family does. They deny the allegations. They say Rodolfo had never gotten in any type of fight or ever tried to run anyone over with his car. The jury deliberated for three hours.

And on January 7th, Rudolfo is acquitted of all charges. He's found not guilty of crossing state lines for the purpose of harassing, injuring, or killing Sandra and Alex, and not guilty of burglarizing Sandra's apartment. Sandra admits that she lost her cool. She lashes out at the jurors in court, shouting some unspecified expletive at them.

She says that she was also upset that she had to lie in court by saying she had three daughters, as if Alex wasn't brutally murdered. She also accuses Rodolfo's sister of lying in court. She says it was that particular sister who told her she needed to be careful, that Rodolfo was watching her, and that she shouldn't bring men into her home because she knows what'll happen if she does.

While authorities in this case have never named Rodolfo as a suspect or person of interest in Alex's murder, after this trial, Sandra says that he is a suspect, and the only suspect. She also says she's going to file for an order of protection against Rodolfo immediately. His attorney tells the media that he's advised his client not to speak to the media at all, and he doesn't.

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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. After Rodolfo Heredia is acquitted on the stalking and burglary charges, Alex's case kind of falls from the media spotlight. Her family publishes several small remembrance features for Alex in the local paper, though. One for the first Christmas she missed, the first birthday after her murder, and one for her 18th birthday.

In the spring of 2009, Sandra and the twins move to Victoria, Texas. Around the same time, Dan Hinkle with The Times publishes an article featuring Alex's case. It's titled, Daughter Doesn't Rest in Peace. Sandra's interviewed and says that because Alex's other remains have not been found and no one's been charged with her murder, she doesn't feel that Alex can rest in peace.

Of course, the topic of suspects comes up, and Chicago PD homicide detective Sylvia Van Witsenberg says everyone is a suspect. She does also say that she'd like to speak with Alex's classmates and neighbors, though it's unclear if that happened. The next update doesn't come until seven years later, in August of 2016, 11 years after Alex was killed.

Now, it is important to note that because Alex's partial remains were found in the Little Calumet River that spans across Indiana and Illinois, the FBI have always been involved in this case. And over the years, it really seems like this big collaboration between the Chicago PD, the FBI Chicago office, and the Hammond, Indiana PD.

But this update comes from the FBI, in the form of a press conference and press release. They announce that Alex's case, along with some others, have been assigned to a new task force, the FBI Chicago Homicide Initiative Task Force. They say it's a mix of Chicago police detectives and FBI agents. They make it clear that there are no new leads in Alex's case, but they have sent evidence to the FBI's lab for another round of testing.

and should get their results in two months. They again do not specify what was sent, but they say that they're hopeful that since over a decade has passed, advances in testing may yield better results.

At the conference, FBI Special Agent Courtney Corbett says the killer is likely watching these announcements in real time and believes the case will be solved by someone coming forward with information. They also say that they've re-interviewed some people who knew Alex. When asked if Rodolfo Heredia is a suspect, they declined to answer. They also won't confirm if they've recovered any additional remains.

While there don't appear to be any new leads, they do release information that is not new to them, but new to the public. They believe Alex was likely wearing a gold necklace with a religious emblem on it when she went missing. They release a grainy picture of the necklace, and urge the public to be on the lookout, saying the killer may still have it in their possession. They also announce that they believe Alex likely knew her killer.

And the head of the FBI's Chicago office calls Alex's murder one of the most heinous crimes involving a child that they've ever seen. But again, they're hopeful that this passage of time and possibly changing relationships may encourage someone to speak out about what they may know. The results of the testing are never made public.

And it appears that by January, the task force was either disbanded or Alex's case was removed. Because the FBI Cold Case Homicide Squad speaks to the media, and they say that they have a new tip in Alex's case, but they don't reveal what that tip is. On the 13th anniversary of Alex's murder, the FBI announces a $10,000 reward for anyone who can provide information leading to an arrest in her case.

As the years pass, Sandra and the twins move back to the Chicago area. And in December 2021, Alison Quinn for The Daily Beast features Alex's case.

But there are a few updates. In fact, the FBI declined to comment when asked if there were any new developments since the 2016 task force was created. The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Northern District of Indiana also declined to comment. And the Chicago PD never even responded to Quinn's request for comment.

But now-retired FBI agent Johnson did comment. He said he believed a lot of evidence was being held back from the public in the best interest of the investigation. Now, this really struck me.

Not because this is uncommon or I think that they're doing anything wrong, but because this directly conflicts with another statement I found from Detective Von Witzenberg from the Chicago PD. They say Alex's case has been plagued with a lack of forensic evidence from the start. So take that for what you will.

The last update in Alex's case comes from May 2023. This is when the FBI doubled the reward for information to $20,000. And this comes along with the statements we're familiar with. Hopefully the money and passage of time will shake things loose. And Sandra once again pleads for answers. That's pretty much where Alex's case is today. So what happened to Alex Anaya?

The twins say that they don't remember anything, and think that they were asleep when whatever happened, happened. Authorities have repeatedly said now that they think Alex knew her killer, and have said that they think this person has likely done this before. They do not believe that this was a random act of violence, and Sandra says that she's confident she knows who did this, but won't say who. She just hopes that there's enough evidence someday to prove it.

There are some loose ends in this case. The gold necklace they believe Alex was wearing at the time has never been recovered. Neither has the murder weapon. Detective Van Witsenberg believes it's at the bottom of the Little Calumet River, but I wasn't able to find any reporting that the river was ever searched after Alex's partial remains were found. It's been theorized that Alex's identifiable features, such as her fingerprints and teeth, were removed so that they couldn't identify her.

But I'd argue that that doesn't really explain why whoever did this removed her legs. Of course, the massive elephant in the room is Rodolfo Heredia. Alex's remains were found just blocks from his home, easily within walking distance. And of course, a possible motive could be trying to silence Alex, so she couldn't report the sexual abuse to police.

We know he called both Sandra's cell phone and the Anaya's home phone several times that night, and had a key to the residence, which was found unlocked, not broken into. He admitted to watching the house in the past, so it's not a giant leap to entertain the idea that he was watching the house for either Sandra or Alex, saw his opportunity when Sandra left, and struck.

The twins haven't seen their father since the 2005 trial, and now that they're adults, I have to assume that that's by their choice. In 2001, Roxy says that she lives in fear that Alex's killer is out there, and is afraid that they might come back to hurt her. She wonders if the killer may recognize her. Alex now has another sibling.

a younger brother. And while Sandra says he's a bit too young to understand what happened, the family still goes back out to the Little Calumet River every year on Alex's birthday to leave flowers and remember her. Sometimes her family members go alone, whenever they feel they need Alex. Sandra says that something about the river and imagining Alex there by herself compels her to go back. And that brings us right to our call to action.

Please share Alex's case. This is another one with very little coverage, and it's clear that she has left a massive hole in the lives of her family members, and without a resolution to this, has left at least one of her sisters terrified. But if you don't feel compelled to share for them, I ask that you share for Alex. She deserved so much better, and while we unfortunately can't change that,

We can support her now. As a reminder, Alex Anaya was 13 years old when she was murdered in August 2005. Her partial remains were recovered from the Little Calumet River in Chicago, Illinois that same month. The FBI describes Alex as Hispanic, with brown hair and brown eyes. She was 5'1 and weighed approximately 125 pounds at the time of her death.

She was last seen wearing navy blue plaid pajama pants, a red Echo t-shirt, and possibly a gold necklace. There is a $20,000 reward in this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or you can go to tips.fbi.gov. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. Please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. Welcome to the secret after show. The dogs are in, we have our emotional support puppies, they are here to comfort us, and

Let's talk about this case. Obviously, it's extremely horrific. It's always really hard to cover when a child is harmed in this way, and I tried to make it the least graphic I possibly could while still providing what I felt were essential details, so I hope that that came across

It's also why I put that warning at the top of the episode. I know that these topics are extremely difficult, but I can't let that shy me away from covering Alex's case. I know that people don't like episodes like this that involve kids getting harmed, and I wish these things didn't happen, but it did. And that's Alex's reality. And while it's hard to hear...

I still feel compelled to help. This case was extremely hard to research, I'm not going to lie. It was, um, it hit close to home. It really did. Between the abuse to her little sisters being upset, thinking that Alex left them. It was an extremely difficult episode, but I think it's important, and I would hope that

That while we are in this genre of true crime and people who will listen to hours on end of horrific people, serial killers, and the graphic details of, you know, what they've done to people, that hopefully we can carve out a little space for Alex Zania. She more than deserves it.

And it's not as if there's a perfect victim or one person deserves justice over another. It's just hard to see. You know, she was an innocent kid and she didn't deserve any of the abuse that she suffered throughout her life. I will also ask you to, you know, just think before you comment on this case. I've seen a lot of very mean comments towards Sandra recently.

And I would like to take a moment to remind you that she is a victim of Rodolfo Heredia. And if it means anything to you, if you care at all, I will say that when I read comments about my mom being stupid or a bad person for not leaving my father sooner, she was trying to get away before she got cancer. Um, it just makes me sad, you know, and just know that, um,

Most families in true crime do consume content about their loved ones. They will scroll the comments, so you are free to do and feel however you want. However, I would remind you that it's extremely possible that if you comment something negative about Sandra in any of my social media posts, Alex's siblings could see that, but that's up to you whether or not you care.

I will say, one point in this case, I mean, there are so many points, let's be real, but one thing in this case that really hit me for a few different reasons was Sandra having to pretend that Alex was alive in court.

one, it feels cruel. And, you know, I will say I understand why it happened, you know, legally. Why does that happen, right? Because you can't introduce that into evidence. It could sway the jury. The case isn't about that. There's every legal reason in the world, you know, whatever, why they couldn't bring this to court. And I do understand that. I will say from a point of just trying to understand what the truth is and, and,

pursuing the truth, it's hard to see. It's hard to see and reconcile those two ideas, right, of these legal technicalities that decide what makes it to court and what doesn't make it to court and

With seeing Sandra have to talk as if one of her children wasn't brutally murdered to go up on the stand and say, yes, I have three living children. Of course, I don't know if that's exactly what was said. But she did say that she had to pretend essentially that Alex was alive in court. And again, legally, I get it. But there's something that feels so wrong about that.

about the jury not getting the full truth. And I understand it's in the, I keep saying I understand, it's in the protection of the defendant, right? He has rights as well. And that is something I am all too familiar with. And something I stand behind. You know what I mean? I'm not going to say defendants don't have rights, you know, F them, who cares? Lock them away. That's, that's not right either. But there's something about

dishonesty in court in that way. And it is. It is dishonest. I don't care what you say. It's a legality, but it is dishonest. And there's something about that that just doesn't feel right. I don't know. I guess it's one of those things. Let me know what you guys think. And again, I just want to say that no matter how you feel about anyone in this case, please share. Alex needs a lot more coverage. Everyone is deserving of coverage, but...

how a 13 year old girl is killed in this way and it's not everywhere blows my mind so um let's try to share it let's try to get it everywhere maybe some other people pick it up find new things that i didn't find who knows um but um please share on to what's going on with me um it doesn't get any happier from here guys i don't know what to tell you i wish it did and my chair is so loud um

Being back in this place where I am engulfed in Alyssa's case, and, you know, I haven't been here in a really long time. During the trial, you know, I was told to sit tight. There wasn't anything I could really do, just...

do your thing, get ready for court, which meant nothing because I wasn't prepared. What I should say is I haven't been this deep in Alyssa's case in years, and now I am. For a few different projects, I am, you know, reviewing interviews and audio and the case file again, and I am, you know, setting up interviews and getting the next season of Alyssa's story out

ready to go. And it just has been hard.

I don't think, I mean, I know I hadn't really on Voices for Justice season one. I couldn't even get to that part yet. And I was in such a different, oh my gosh, thinking about when I stopped that podcast in 2020 and today, so much has happened between then that I haven't been able to tell you guys about. So it's like this mix of excitement to finally tell you what's been going on because there is so much going on.

Um, and just being back in that place again, you know, when I first started giving interviews in Alyssa's, I mean, I've been giving them for a long time, I mean, forever. But when I really, you know, when the police told me to get media, I should say, and, um, I started really picking up that torch and doing every interview I could and interviewing, you know, every day, what, at least it felt like it. I, I swear it felt like at one point I had a different interview every day for a while. Um,

All that to say, it puts me back in that place, and it's a hard place, and I feel like I have to kind of build that stamina up again. You know, when I first started doing the interviews, it would take me days to recover. I would sit in the bathtub for hours, you know, not really crying, but just trying to numb myself and just disassociating. And I feel like I'm kind of back in that place.

I don't have the strength. It's almost like, I guess, like working a muscle. I feel like I haven't worked that muscle in years and now it's kind of like gone and I have to rebuild it again. So it's just really, really hard. And there is new stuff coming out, which is crazy. I posted on my Instagram and you guys went wild. So I wanted to explain it a little bit more here.

Essentially, I recently found out that a witness that I was told was dead is not dead. And it's a pretty crucial witness in my mind. I did reach out to my brother. We're trying to figure out where we heard this information. We have some people denying that they told us this, though we swear that they did, that they told us that this witness was dead.

Can I prove it? Was it a verbal conversation that we had? Was it in the case file? Was I told that by somebody who researched the case? Was it the police? Do I have documentation? I don't know. I just know that my brother and I swear we were told this. I mean, where else would we get it? We didn't just make up somebody dying. Um...

So I'm trying to get to the bottom of that. I don't know what's going to happen, but yeah, that was a huge shock to find out all of a sudden that this person was not dead. And now I have questions. I want to know if this person was ever interviewed for Alyssa's trial. Were they ever brought in to talk to the state? I want to know, and I am determined to find those answers, so...

Just when I think I know my sister's story forwards and backwards, I guess I don't. And I have some research to do. Let's move right on to our segment of hope. This comes out of Texas, and it's a cold case solve. I am reading from 12newsnow.com. This article came out on June 18th and is written by Scott E. Slinger and Gabby Gaspard.

It appears that Terry Rose, age 67, out of Beaumont, has been indicted for the murder of Kimberly Langwell, who went missing in 1999. It appears that the Beaumont police believe that they found Kimberly's remains buried at his home last week. He is Kimberly's ex-boyfriend, and his bond has been set at $1 million. If he makes bail, he has to wear a GPS monitor and not leave the county.

But this came in because April 2024, police talked to a quote, reliable informant, end quote, who told them that Kimberly had been killed inside of his home in 1999. Of course, because of the wording that they use, it's hard to say if it was a police informant, if it was a tipster, but no matter what happened there, somebody saw something and they said something, and this is the result.

I also wanted to share, Kimberly's daughter, Tiffany, spoke at a news conference about her mom after. She said, quote, I don't think I processed it, to be honest. But in the moment that you hear that they've found your mother, you're elated. End quote. She goes on to say that it's been a long time coming, and she's grateful just to have her mom back. It's not the way that she wanted. But knowing that her mom is no longer being held is a good feeling, she says.

She also says that she knew that her mom would be found there since day one. So again, shout out to whoever this tipster was, whether you worked for the police or you were just a random person with information coming forward. It's the hope that I think every family holds out, you know, at some degree.

So that is our segment of hope for, I think, pretty obvious reasons. Hear about a case, you see something, you say something, and this is the best result. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.