Shownotes Transcript
Today's episode is part two of our three-part series. In part one, we covered the disappearance and murder of 11-year-old Jody Parrick and the investigation that followed, where investigators narrowed in on their number one suspect, Ray McCann. Attorney David Moran is a clinical professor at the University of Michigan's Law School and the co-founder of the Michigan Innocence Clinic.
David plays an important role in this story, and I'll explain more later. Here, he recaps the case we've covered so far. Jodi Parrick, an 11-year-old girl in the little village of Constantine, Michigan, disappeared. And Ray was a factory worker and a volunteer police officer in Constantine. Constantine was so small, it only had one full-time police officer. And he was actually off work at the time because he was suffering from vertigo.
But on this day in October, or the fall anyway, of 2007, Jodi Perrick's mother came by Ray's house and asked if Ray had seen Jodi. Ray had an 11-year-old son who was in the same grade as Jodi. Ray hadn't, but Ray agreed to get dressed. He was actually in pajamas at the time, get dressed and
and go look for her. And so pretty quickly, the local authorities set up search parties. Ray joined the search parties and he drove around town to various places looking for Jodi. And then at some point in the evening, the searchers met up at the police station and Ray suggested the cemetery, wondered if anybody had gone to look at the cemetery.
And so a search party went to the cemetery and that's where they found Jody's body. And she had been strangled and sexually assaulted and left in the cemetery. So this was a horrific murder that shocked Constantine. And the local authorities really didn't get anywhere in their investigation. And eventually the state police came on board. And the state police investigation was largely led by Detective Brian Fuller,
And Detective Fuller quickly came to the view that Ray must have been involved in the murder and or rape of Jody because he was the one who suggested that they go look in the cemetery. Ray has always explained that the reason he thought of cemetery was because he recently visited the grave of his father there a few days before Jody's disappearance. But in any event, Fuller became convinced that Ray knew something and he
Proceeded to interrogate him multiple times over the years. So he would come to Constantine or Ray would go to state police post in Paw Paw, Michigan and answer questions. And over and over again, Fuller asked him about the places that he visited that night.
And Ray said, among other places, he went to a convenience store and asked if he could search behind the store. He said that he had been to this place called the Tumble Dam, which is a ruined dam on the Kalamazoo River. It flows through Constantine, where kids sometimes hang out, and he'd driven to the Tumble Dam.
trailhead to the tumble dam but then got the call to meet up at police headquarters and detective fuller also immediately started lying to ray about the evidence so uh he said how do you explain your evidence on jody's body uh it didn't occur to ray that detective fuller was lying so ray tried to come up with an explanation perhaps he'd hugged
Jody's mom at the cemetery after they found the body. And then maybe mom had the body of Jody and that could explain why Ray's DNA was on the body. Well, Detective Fuller said, how do you explain her DNA in your truck? Ray had no explanation for that. And so he did this over and over again, kept questioning Ray. And Ray's story was extremely consistent over the years as to where he had gone that night. He had no involvement in the murder.
So Fuller then began talking to other people close to Ray in a deliberate strategy to isolate Ray to make him a pariah. So the state police made it publicly known that Ray was a person of interest in the murder and rape of Jody, which meant that he lost his job. All of his relationships were estranged. And then we also got
videos of some of these interviews that Fuller did with people close to Ray, like Ray's wife, Ray's by then teenage son, his sister, in which Fuller would say just terrible things about Ray, lies about Ray, in order to try and turn the people closest to Ray against him. But it still didn't work. Ray still wouldn't admit to having anything to do with the murder of Jodi Parrott.
The investigators' prevailing theories were that Jodi knew her killer and she was not murdered at the graveyard, but her body was dumped there for the community to find. For years, it was still a mystery whose DNA was found on her body. All police knew was that blood on Jodi's sweater collar and DNA on her breast was tied to an unknown male.
About 300 people had provided DNA samples to law enforcement, the Detroit News reported in 2014, nearly seven years after Jody's death. And still, no match. If you were a male in this town, you were lucky if your DNA wasn't sampled for this case, Pat Weiss, president of the Constantine Village Council, told the Detroit News.
Even the council president's adult son was included in the list of DNA samples. So was the funeral home director who drove Jody's body to Grand Rapids for the autopsy. Children as young as 11 gave their DNA. Public pressure was mounting as the case went unsolved and Ray McCann saw his name on the news and in the paper. His friends turned against him.
Jody's mother, Jo Carver, wrote a letter to the St. Joseph County prosecutor begging him to charge Ray with the crime. The letter, penned in 2013, said,
I'm well aware of Ray McCann's lies, and I believe 100% he was involved in what happened to my daughter on 11-8-07. I feel that this case has been at a standstill for way too long. I realize the DNA results are the key to solving her murder, but I also believe Ray McCann is key too. I want you to go forward in proving his lies in my daughter's case.
Bring in everyone he mentioned under oath and anyone he may not have mentioned that was present at the places he mentioned on that night.
Let us tell the truth so you can prosecute him. I want him prosecuted to the fullest extent. He was a police officer who purposely acted like a criminal when no one was looking. Maybe then he would tell the truth, and if not, he can wait behind bars instead of enjoying his life for this case to be solved. I'm asking you, please, move forward with this. Jodi's mom also openly accused Ray in media interviews, too.
She later said police had convinced her of Ray's guilt. But Ray remained unwavering. He said he hadn't killed Jodi, that he was innocent. Detective Brian Fuller, however, thought Ray was lying. By now, the cold case team had disbanded. The case had hit another dead end. But Detective Fuller was going to shake things up, and it would lead to an arrest. This is Jillian in partnership with Law & Crime.
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John McDonough cooked up a scheme to have him testify under oath at the prosecutor's office. In September 2012, Ray McCann was brought into the prosecutor's office to answer more questions about the Jody Parrick case. As attorney David Moran explains, this is likely a process you may have never heard about before.
This is something called investigative subpoena proceeding in Michigan. I think it's unique. I'm not aware of any other state that does this. It's basically like having to testify in front of a grand jury, except there's no grand jury. And the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly held that being interrogated in front of a grand jury is constitutional in part because you have 23 ordinary citizens there
who will be witnesses if there's anything wrong going on, if the defendant is being browbeaten. Michigan procedure is like a grand jury without the grand jury. And so I think it's probably unconstitutional, but we have this proceeding in Michigan. So Ray was called to testify under oath in front of McDonough,
And Fuller was feeding him the questions. And it was the same thing again. And Ray gave the same answers that he'd been giving him for all of these years. Here are excerpts of then-prosecutor John McDonough asking Ray questions about Jody's DNA and the tumble dam during that investigative subpoena. Note they tell him that they have DNA evidence against him. More on that later. We know you weren't at the tumble dam that night.
Explain to me why you think you were there. Because I pulled up right where the path is. Maybe some of us don't... Maybe there's two different spots that maybe we disagree with on what's the Tumulman Path. I don't know. But I pulled up right where the path gets pulled through. There's a video camera that's right on that path, and you weren't there that night. I...
I remember pulling up there. I remember talking to Officer Donner. So you don't have a logical explanation as to why your truck doesn't show up there? I can't explain it, no. Do you have a logical explanation as to why Jody's DNA would have been on your clothing? Why hers would be? Yes. The only thing I can think of is hugging my mother at the end of the night.
Something could have got on my clothing. Did you touch Georgie Parrick at the cemetery? I don't believe I did. Can you come up with a logical explanation why her DNA would be in your truck? Well, like I said in the mother hugging me, if there was anything that was on me in my vehicle, I mean, that's possible. What about the passenger side of your truck? I don't know. My door was left open at the cemetery.
During that evening, if I was originally told, I told them I would just go sit in my truck, whether she did or didn't during that time, I have no clue. I mean, that could be a possibility. Do you have a logical explanation as to why your DNA was on her bike?
One thing I could make possible is when that guy threw the bike, my intentions were to put it in the area back where it was. And I remember Officer Duncan yelling, did I touch it? I don't know. Give me a logical explanation as to why your DNA would be on Jody. Why would it be on Aaron? I don't know how it could be. So you don't have an explanation as to why it would be on him?
You're saying my DNA on her? Yes. I don't know. You cannot come up with a logical explanation why your DNA would be on her. I can't. I mean, I pulled them away from her daughter. Was it possible I touched her? I guess it's possible. If it's possible you had touched her, where would you have touched her? I don't know. I remember Dogger told me to take her away from the scene. I remember I think I had my arms cut around her.
Ray was arrested as he drove to the hospital to meet his newborn grandchild on April 18, 2014. His arrest wasn't for murder, though. It was for perjury. They emerged from that with a perjury charge, five counts of perjury, for everything that
that Ray answered about his activities that night that was contradicted by anything or anyone else. And so, for example, one of the charges was that Ray lied about what he said to the convenience store clerk. Ray's recollection was that he asked if he could search behind the store and also asked if there was a dog chained up back there.
The clerk remembered that Ray asked if he could search behind the store, but doesn't recall him asking anything about a dog. And so they charged him with a count of perjury for that. And in Michigan, committing perjury during a murder investigation is itself punishable by up to life in prison. So it's an extremely serious charge. Some of the other charges were, you know, Ray said, maybe I hugged Jody's mom at the cemetery.
Well, Jody's mom said Ray didn't hug her at the cemetery. So that was another charge. So they lied to him about his DNA being on the grill. He tries to come up with a suggestion as to how that's possible. And he's hit with a perjury charge, punishable up to life in prison for that. Or how did her DNA get in your truck? And Ray came up with some scheme involving multiple transfers from clothing.
And again, they charged him with the count of perjury for that. One of the counts of perjury was Ray had insisted that he had driven to the trailhead to the tumble dam. But before going down the path had been called back for a meeting at the police station. Detective Fuller in these interviews over and over again said, we know you didn't go to the tumble dam. We have video showing you didn't go to the tumble dam. You're lying about that.
When he answered questions from Prosecutor McDonough, Ray again said that he had driven to the tumble dam and parked near the trailhead. And so that was another one of the five counts against him. So he was arrested and jailed, could not possibly make bond because this was a very serious offense with a very high bond. And the whole community turned against him.
Because now he was in jail for his involvement, apparently, in the murder and rape of Jody Parrott. Even though Detective Fuller wrote a probable cause affidavit for perjury charges, he linked the case to Jody's murder. For example, the probable cause affidavit said Ray had told at least four people to search the cemetery for Jody, even though Ray hadn't gone on his own to look in the cemetery.
And it also noted that Jody's injuries on her wrists looked like they were from handcuffs, which it said were something Ray owned as a reserve police officer. As David Moran said, perjury was serious. Remember, one of the charges against Ray was that was a dispute as to whether he had mentioned the dog when he was talking to the convenience store clerk. So you might say, why does that matter?
Why does it matter whether or not he mentioned he asked about a dog when asking the search behind the convenience store? And the answer, of course, is it doesn't. Under the common law, under virtually every perjury statute in America, to prove perjury, the prosecution has to prove the false statement was material. In other words, the false statement really matters in the investigation that's ongoing. And
About 20 years ago, the Michigan Supreme Court issued a decision saying that Michigan's perjury statute doesn't require materiality. So any false statement about anything, no matter how trivial or unimportant, can be the basis of a perjury charge. So if it's a murder investigation, a false statement about whether I was wearing a yellow T-shirt or an orange T-shirt can subject me to life in prison.
And so I am working with State Senator Sue Schenck to reinsert materiality back into Michigan's perjury statute. Michigan Supreme Court read it out. They overruled seven prior decisions going back 150 years that Michigan requires materiality.
There's only two states other than Michigan that have ever held that materiality is not a requirement of perjury. So the idea is to use Ray's case as a cautionary tale as to why Michigan should put the materiality requirement back into our perjury statute. Ray had a lawyer. The lawyer suggested that Ray had no chance.
which is probably right. Ray probably did have no chance in that small community with all the lies and horrible things that have been said about Ray by the state police and repeated in the local media. And the attorney told Ray that, you know, some of these charges, four of these five charges just turn on varying recollections about what happened
But one of them, you know, they've got you dead to rights. And that's that's the video from the tumble dam that shows you didn't go there. And so faced with this advice from his lawyer, Ray ended up pleading no contest to one count of perjury, namely about whether he did or didn't drive to the tumble dam that night. Ray took a plea deal in February 2015 after he had been in jail for nearly one year.
He pleaded no contest to one perjury count, and the other four perjury charges were dismissed. Ray later said he took the plea deal because, "...I believed I would not get a fair trial. I had seen what was happening to me." By pleading no contest, Ray said, "...I didn't do anything wrong. I wasn't admitting to anything." He was sentenced to 20 months in prison.
Ray's name once again appeared in the local newspaper and on TV stations in West Michigan and outlets across the country. In Jodi Perrick's case, Raymond McCann has been a person of interest from day one, detective says. Read the Kalamazoo Gazette headline in 2014.
When interviewed for the story, Michigan State Police Detective Trooper Brian Fuller said, he was in an interview chair at 2.14 a.m. on November 9th, and I assure you that was not a routine fact-finding interview.
Prosecutor John McDonough spoke publicly about Ray too, saying, It's active. Ray was a pariah. He was linked to Jody's murder, undoubtedly the killer, although it was easy to forget Ray hadn't actually been charged with murder.
The Constantine High School, where he had once been a star athlete, live-streamed his arrest. Ray had been held in solitary confinement at the St. Joseph County Jail to protect him from the rest of the inmates. Ray was, after all, a former volunteer police officer and was now branded as a pedophile and child killer.
He later described his cell as, "'Very small. There's a cement slab where you sleep on. You got a little small area where you can move around to try to exercise and a toilet in your room. You're surrounded by four walls.'" Ray passed the time by writing letters, making up card games, keeping his mind busy. He couldn't see the sunlight. He ate meals in his cell.
The lights were on 24-7. So was the noise. There really is no peace there, Ray said later. Mostly, my thought pattern was I couldn't understand why I was there. I think I was just in shock the whole time. I couldn't believe what was going on. He finally got to meet his grandson for the first time, looking at the baby through the glass in the visiting room. No touching.
Ray was credited for the time in the county jail, and after his sentencing, he was transferred to a prison in Jackson, Michigan, to serve out the rest of his sentence. On the bus ride to the prison, one inmate turned around and told Ray he was a dead man. It seemed like maybe the inmate was right. Ray doubted he would survive his incarceration.
He had always been a man of faith. Now he prayed to God to make it through. God keeps me going. You know, I'm a believer. And my children, I know when I was locked up, my daughter, you know, she stuck by my side and that kept me going strong because I wanted to make sure I got to see her again. When I went to prison, I pulled her goodbye because I pretty much thought I knew that that would be the last time I would see her.
I didn't think the outcome of prison was going to be good. I was attacked, you know, the first week or so when I was in there. So I figured, you know, I'm done, you know. And during the time in prison, because of this, I didn't want someone to kill me. I even thought about taking my own life while I was in there. Because basically, I was messed up in the head. I couldn't understand why I was here anyways. Another prisoner attacked him the first week.
I was pulled off my bunk, and I believe they took a padlock to my head and split my head open and pushed my eye back into the socket, Ray said. He couldn't sleep after that. He feared the next attack. He was transferred to another prison, an un-air-conditioned space in the summer, and Ray continued to feel unsafe.
The prison food made him sick, triggering his Crohn's disease. He was 170 pounds the day he went into jail. Now he was down to 117. And during this time, while Ray was locked up, something happened.
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It happened in a mobile home park in White Pigeon, Michigan, another little town not far from Constantine, where Jodi Perrick and Ray McCann were from. A frantic, terrified mother called 911 on July 28, 2015. The call came in around 3 p.m. Somebody tried to take her girl, the mother said.
He grabbed her neck, put his hand over her mouth, and took a knife to her, she said, according to the police report. Some old guy, and I want him arrested. The 10-year-old girl had narrowly escaped with her life. Her shoulders were scratched, but otherwise, she seemed physically okay.
She told White Pigeon Police she was walking down the road when a man called out her name and asked if she would help him. She went into his garage, and that's when he pushed her by his car and put his hand over her mouth. He reached into a drawer and pulled out a steak knife. He ordered her to shut up. The girl escaped, running out, screaming. Her frightened mother called 911.
The crime occurred in the mobile home park, and it didn't take long to track down the old man. It was Daniel Furlong in lot number 77. 65-year-old Daniel looked unassuming on paper. He had never been on the police's radar before. He had been married to his wife for 42 years. He was a father of three grown kids. He was also a grandfather.
He collected cars and was a former factory worker. Later, he worked detailing cars for a dealership. He rarely smiled. He spoke in a low voice. He didn't yell. Former St. Joseph County Prosecutor John McDonough described Daniel Furlong as someone involved in the community and someone who worked with children. He'd done youth baseball and softball on fire there.
You know, for what everybody knew, he was a pretty decent guy, but obviously he's an awful, awful, awful human being. Daniel also had somewhat of a reputation of being a creep in the mobile park where he lived after having moved out of Constantine several years prior. One 16-year-old neighbor told police that just three weeks prior to the attempted abduction, Daniel invited her over to see his car.
If you ever get bored, you can come down, he told her. The teenager just kept walking. Police confronted Daniel about the attempted abduction of the 10-year-old girl. Daniel denied it. He said all that happened was he asked the girl to help move some of his stuff in his garage, and then he put his arm around her, and she took off, running. I was just going to tell her to go, Daniel told police. I didn't grab her or nothing. She jerked away and started screaming.
Daniel wasn't arrested immediately. The White Pigeon police officer told him that he was writing a report that would be sent to the prosecutor's office. He told Daniel not to invite any more girls over. The next day, police executed a search warrant at Daniel's home. They found knives and extension cords that corroborated the 10-year-old girl's story.
There were other weird things as well. Zip ties in his garage, bras size small, and a list with girls' names on it. Prosecutor John McDonough's office authorized unlawful imprisonment and felonious assault charges, and Daniel Furlong was arrested and taken to the St. Joseph County Jail without bond.
Behind bars, the man with no prior criminal history would get his DNA taken, which would then be a match with the DNA in the Jody Parrick cold case. The mystery was finally over in Constantine, Michigan. The community could breathe a collective sigh of relief. Jody's 2007 murder was finally solved in 2015.
Hey, it's Trooper Moore. Hey, look, I heard... Yeah, I know. Hey, I just wanted to let you know we arrested the guy that killed your daughter today. Huh? Hold on, you're breaking up. Can you hear me? Yeah, can you hear me? Yep. We arrested the guy that killed your daughter today.
Oh, my God. Right on, man. Thank you so much. There's going to be a big news conference at 5. All right. His name is Daniel Furlong. Do you know him? No, I've never heard of his name before in my life. He lived on East 5th Street. Oh, wow.
Daniel Furlong's arrest in August 2015 debunked investigators' theories thus far.
Jody hadn't known her killer. Daniel Furlong was a stranger, and there were no handcuffs. She had been bound by zip ties. With the physical evidence implicating him for Jody's murder, Daniel sat down with police, chain-smoking all the while, and confessed. Before today, have you ever told this to anybody? No.
I'm going to play a portion of Daniel's interview with prosecutor John McDonough and others listening in. I want to warn you, this is hard to listen to, but you will not hear the graphic details of the crime. Daniel told investigators he was cleaning out his garage on November 8th, 2007. I don't know, it must have been five o'clock or so. I seen this little girl riding up the street. I thought, well, you know...
I had been taking these pills called Santex, it's a drug to stop smoking and stuff. Plus it makes you hallucinate. And I asked this girl to come over to help me move some stuff. She got off her bike, came up to the house, that's when I grabbed her, took her in the garage, threw her in the back of this boat that was in the garage.
It wasn't moving, she wasn't screaming, nothing. Like, you know, it was an everyday occurrence or something. How long was she in the boat? I probably had her in the boat probably 35, 40 minutes. What kind of boat were we talking about? Was it like on a trailer? Yeah, it was on a trailer. Were you in the boat with her? I got in the boat with her. Had you been watching her in the neighborhood or ride her bike around? No, I didn't know her at all.
The sky had gone dark. Jodi was still alive, Daniel claimed, after he abducted her and put her in the boat in his garage. Yep.
And when you took her to the cemetery, where was her bike? In the back of my truck. And then where did you put the bike? If I'm not mistaken, when we got to the cemetery, the bike was still in the back of my truck. And the gravestone was like right out here somewhere in the cemetery. Then I just tried to shoot it here.
And I just dropped the bike out here in front of her. Did you go to any particular area in the cemetery? Any spot in the cemetery? I took her back, which I thought at that time was the darkest spot in the cemetery. And supposedly, if I'm not mistaken, there was supposed to be, I didn't know at the time, but there was supposed to be a camera on the factory that was across the street from the cemetery. Okay.
And I talked to a couple buddies of mine, and they said that camera don't work. It don't, you know. Is this after or before? After. So I thought, okay, I'm in the clear. Daniel said he used zip ties to restrain Jodi when he abducted her and pulled her into his garage. He suffocated her with a plastic bag.
Daniel's story changed during the interview. So at times he said he killed her at his house. At other times, he claimed she was still alive when she got into his burgundy pickup truck on the drive to the cemetery. But there were many details that matched what little evidence investigators already had.
For example, his vehicle matched the description of a vehicle seen near the cemetery the night of Jody's disappearance. And of course, there was the DNA match. Daniel's wife had been at work that evening, but Daniel acted brazenly as the rest of the neighborhood was unaware what was happening in plain view before dinnertime.
Neighbors were hosting a party for a football game as Daniel put Jody in the truck and drove to the cemetery. Somebody could have seen. It was a cold, dark, rainy night. And it was when the Constantine football team was across the street at my neighbor's who were there for a tomahawk party. And I'm surprised they didn't see the commotion because one side of the garage was closed.
And the other side of the white hole. When you were struggling with her a little bit. Trying to get her in the truck. He was asked what happened to the clothes he was wearing that night. He said if he's not mistaken, he believes he threw them away. He was also asked if he acted alone. There was a video interview of Furlong.
in which Fuller is present. And Fuller tries every which way to get Furlong to implicate Ray McCann as his accomplice. And Furlong won't do it. Furlong insists that he acts alone. In fact, at one point, he says something along the lines of how they had been barking up the wrong tree so long that he, Furlong, felt safe to do it again, which is why he, but for the grace of God, would have killed another little girl.
had she not been able to escape. I'll play more from that part of the interview, although it's partially redacted. Here, Daniel is asked about Ray. Was there anybody with you at all? Nobody. Do you know of them? I don't know the one that they showed on TV. You don't know him? I don't know him. I know... Could I... And you, uh...
Daniel believed he had gotten away with murder. You see, back then when law enforcement was investigating residents, knocking on doors and collecting DNA samples, they had actually stopped at the Furlong home.
Did the police come and talk to you at some point? They came and talked to my wife. They didn't talk to me. Okay. Were you there when that happened? When the police came? Yeah, I was there. Okay. You didn't... Tell me why. Tell me how that happened. Did what? When the police are there talking to your wife and you're there, you're not in the conversation? Nope. Why? I don't know why. I was in the house. They didn't say nothing to me. How did that make you feel?
Daniel said he heard the rumors that Ray McCann was involved, even though he knew very well the gossip was untrue.
And so Daniel fell back under the radar. He went about his business as if nothing had ever happened. When the weather warmed that spring, he cleaned his boat. A few years later, he moved away from Constantine to another nearby town, White Pigeon. Years went by, and by 2015, Daniel was lurking in the community when he tried to kidnap the 10-year-old girl, the one who escaped.
When police searched Daniel's home in White Pigeon after the 2015 attempted abduction, they noticed those odd things, like the bras and the list of girls' names. As far as the old underwear goes, the old underwear was supposed to be pressure on some women's underwear that the police took. And it was old underwear that...
I had detail cars, okay. Bra's? Are you talking about bra's? Just panties. I took them underwear and pushed them back in the back of my toolbox. From detailing cars? From detailing cars. Yeah, I don't know whose they were. Nope, I don't remember whose they were or what they were. That's all I got. There is a list of girls' names in the garage. There's a picture in the garage. There's a list of all the young girls' names.
In the neighborhood, their names, what was that for? I don't know why I had them all wrote down. I think you do. No, I don't really. I had them all wrote down. I don't know why. I just wrote them down. How would you know their names? Well, I found out later on. Well, there were boys in the neighborhood, too. You didn't write any of their names down. Well, I know. You don't write young girls' names down for no reason.
I thought maybe the one on the gorilla would be instead of... But how did you get the names? Did somebody tell you their names? My grandkids all told me my names.
Told you the names of them. So, were you waiting to do this? Waiting for an opportunity for one of these girls to make themselves available to do this again? Oh, I had plenty of opportunities because all these girls were in my house. Hanging out with you. But there were other people there, so were you waiting for an opportunity when you were alone? Right. So...
Then Prosecutor McDonough and the other investigators tried to earn Daniel's trust by offering him pizza. They spoke cordially and came across as friendly. And Daniel kept talking. He told them he had zip ties laying all over the house, probably about 10 or 15 by his back door at all times. By now, Daniel's wife and family knew the truth about him, that he had killed Jody and was a predator.
He said he told them he was sorry. Did you ever cry about this, David? Huh? Did you ever cry about this? I cried about it a lot. Tell me about those feelings. Sad. Very sad. You know, I'm also ashamed of myself. Ashamed I did this to my family. But not without coming out and taking the burden off me. Yeah, how do you feel about that? I'm kind of glad of it. Did you ever think this day would come? No.
Then the tone of the interview seemed to change. The investigator's friendly facade that had helped Daniel confess disappeared. They began pushing him to admit to something else. There was another unsolved missing persons case.
In 1997, in Sturgis, Michigan, a six-year-old girl named Brittany Beers disappeared from her apartment complex. It was a decade before Jodi Perik's death. Brittany had been playing outside with her brother while her mother ran to the store to get milk. She was gone for no more than 15 minutes. When she came back, Brittany was gone.
Police searched the apartment complex, around town, gravel pits, and dumpsters. They never found Brittany, dead or alive. You have more skeletons in your closet than you have told us. We all know this already. No, I don't. Listen to me. Listen to me a second, okay? I don't know how many people you've killed in your life.
I don't know. There are people who have killed countless people, hundreds of people. There are people who have killed five or six. I don't know where in that range you fit. I don't have all those details. But you can fill us in on those because this is your chance today to do that. The investigators in Constantine, Michigan, who were in the process of interviewing Daniel Furlong in the Jody Parrick case, showed him a sketch from 1997. He's got something to show you.
Something that you can't argue with. Okay? When Brian said, we know you have, then he's right. No, he isn't. That ain't me. Are you kidding me? I don't care what that looks like. Let me ask you. What's that look like? I don't know, but it doesn't look like me.
After Daniel was initially arrested and held in jail, police officers from Sturgis came and asked him about Brittany's disappearance. In 1997, a composite sketch was drawn of a man who had been seen talking to Brittany before she disappeared. The man was slender. His eyes looked sunken in. He had a mustache. He seemed to resemble a younger version of the now 65-year-old Daniel Furlong.
According to the police report, the Surges officers confronted Daniel about the composite drawing. I best hold off. My attorney would probably get mad at me if I talked to another police officer. He was mad at me when I talked to the last one, Daniel told them. The officers wrote in their report, It should be noted that Daniel did not exhibit any emotion when shown the photograph of Brittany, nor did he exhibit any emotion when shown the composite.
Daniel was returned to his cell. Now the police asked again if Daniel was involved in Brittany's disappearance. You're talking about other girls? Yes. No. I didn't do it. I'm serious. I'm not taking the fault for them other girls. I'm going to tell you that now. Because I didn't do it. You're only going to tell us what you've done. That's the purpose of this. Is to tell us what you've done. Everything. Completely. Fully. Truthfully. It's a disease, man.
Well, I'm done and assured. I've killed anybody else. And you never raped, had sex with any other young girl? No, I didn't. Never? Never. Touched? Nothing? Nothing. How in the world does that happen? Because I'd always relieved my own self.
And then a new voice began asking Daniel questions. It was Jeff Smith, the public safety director of Sturgis, who had been one of the responding officers when Brittany went missing back in 1997. There was another connection between Daniel Furlong and Brittany Beers that certainly made Jeff Smith suspicious.
It was about the Mottville Speedway, a racetrack in Sturgis. That's where Brittany's dad raced. And that's where Daniel Furlong's wife and his mother-in-law worked at a concession stand. It seemed like a place where, theoretically, Daniel and Brittany could have passed by each other. No. No.
So this, along with other evidence, things like that, would just be coincidental? I really don't want to sit here for two hours rehashing over this entire case for you to tell me whether or not you were involved in that. I know right now I'm not involved in that Bible or any other Bible. I'm not involved in it. Okay. Doesn't that Bible say that it shall not kill? Yes, it does. So how do I know you're not lying to me? I'm not lying to you.
In 20 years of law enforcement, I've never seen anybody go from zero to killing somebody. Here's former prosecutor John McDonough. I spent a few hours with Mr. Hurloss chatting with him about Britney Beers, and he didn't waver that he didn't do it. But there are some things the police still know that we are not going to make public that made him a potential suspect.
But for Jody Parrick's murder, where again, police had direct physical evidence connecting Daniel to the crime. He was very matter-of-fact. You know, at the beginning, he was trying to minimize stuff. But once we told him to cut the bullshit, he started being honest with us. And, you know, he sat in there smoking packet after packet of cigarettes and
And that was one of his requests was that if he was going to talk to us about what happened, he had to have cigarettes. So he smoked and smoked and smoked to his heart's content and finally got into the specifics about Jody. And, you know, I believe he told the truth.
What was it like to hear him talk about that? Because this has been a case on your mind for years and has been a major case for the community for years. We finally have solved it. What was it like in that, to be in the process of that, talking to this guy that did it? It was awful. You know, you don't want to sit two feet from someone like that. You know, just as a human person like that makes you want to go after them. It was awful.
Absolutely gut-wrenching. I think all of us, except for him in that room, were devastated to hear what he was saying and so sad. That included his enemies and stuff. It wasn't pleasant. For sure, it wasn't pleasant. Is there anything you wish you had done or had done differently? I know hindsight is 20-20, obviously, but are there things that you wish...
had happened or had not happened looking at the years of this case? You know, right on the initial canvas of the neighborhood, they went to the Furlong household and did not get his DNA. And I don't remember the reason why or why they didn't push for it, because they certainly pushed to try to get everybody else's DNA. But, you know, they didn't get his.
And that, you know, that's the one thing that I wish would have happened because that would have, you know, made things a whole lot different. As of this recording, Daniel Furlong has not been charged in connection to Brittany Beer's disappearance. As for Jody, he took a plea deal, so there was no trial. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. In court, Daniel told the judge, I put a bag over her head and killed her.
The judge asked Daniel where the crime happened. In my house, Daniel answered. The judge sentenced Daniel Furlong to 30 to 60 years in prison.
On August 31, 2024, Daniel died at age 74 while at the Duane Waters Health Care Center in Jackson, Michigan, according to the Michigan Department of Corrections. The agency's spokeswoman said the cause of death was heart disease and or chronic illness. You might be wondering, where was Ray McCann during the time Jody's killer was confessing? Ray was still in prison.
Honestly, at that time, I thought I was going to get out, Ray said later. But instead of being freed early, Ray remained behind bars. Investigators believed Ray still knew something, even though Daniel Furlong and Ray McCann did not know each other. We'll get into all that next week in part three of this series.
These episodes were researched and written by Gabrielle Rusin, edited and narrated by me, Jillian Jalali. I want to say a special thank you to Ray McCann for talking to us about this case, as well as former St. Joseph County Prosecutor John McDonough, journalist Ken Kolker, and attorney David Moran.
Court Junkies' three-part series was written based on hundreds of pages of police reports and court records, as well as interviews with the people involved. Thanks again for listening. Until next time.