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hey everybody welcome back to our podcast this is murder with my husband i'm peyton moreland and i'm garrett moreland and he's the husband the husband this definitely feels weird because garrett's been a little sick and so yesterday i actually recorded a patreon episode without him
So now it feels a little weird to have you sitting next to me again. I don't know why. - So if you ever wanted a video without me, then you can go check that out. - On our Patreon at patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband. No, that's the first video we've ever filmed without you or a podcast we've ever filmed without you. It was pretty weird.
Speaking of Patreon, I did just want to remind everyone that it is ad-free over there and there is bonus content on there. I don't feel like we talk about our Patreon enough because everyone who joins it just loves it. And so if you do love the show and you want to support, remember that it is ad-free over there if you want to skip the ads. And then also there are two full length bonus episodes
on our Patreon, which is pretty rare. So if you want to check that out, like I said, just go to patreon.com slash murder with my husband. Okay, Gary, do you have your 10 seconds? The last few weeks has been pretty fun.
I got jaw surgery and then we went to one of Peyton's favorite restaurants and I got food poisoning. So that's why my voice sounds like this. The last 48 hours has not been fun. Garrett has been really sick. He slept on the floor by the bathroom. Not last night, but the night before. I was throwing up all night. It was crazy. It was definitely a scary 48 hours. It definitely was.
So it's been a fun couple of weeks, but hopefully now I'm getting over the hump. Other than that, I don't have too much going on. I'm sorry. Thanks to everyone who gave me show suggestions. Because he did use it. Because I did use them because I haven't been doing much the last little bit. Other than that, trying to just kind of relax and chill a little bit.
We are actually heading to CrimeCon soon as I mean, we'll already have been there while you're listening to this, but right after this, we are heading there. So that's kind of fun. All right. So jumping into this. So I see more and more every single day about the dangers of online predators.
And I think it used to be that if you found a predator online back in the day, you kind of really had to be digging and getting pretty deep into the web to run into someone like that. They were definitely there, but I think the threat, at least for children, was more prominent in their real world, like at sports or even in their families.
church, things like that. But now predators are seriously only one click away on kids games, social media apps. And it's so scary to me. I remember being young and impressionable and self-conscious and really just wanting to feel accepted. But imagine having someone on the other end of the phone or the computer to tell you that you are loved, even if you've never met them and they're feeling that desire.
need that you have, but you don't even know who they are. I mean, I think that's so terrifying. And so today we are actually going to be talking about just that, the dangers of online predators. So our episode this week begins in New York City. Now, I'm sure most people listening know the map of New York, but for those who don't, when you think New York, you're probably thinking of the island or peninsula with all of the tall buildings, Central Park and Broadway. That is Manhattan.
But just a short subway or ferry ride away is the more laid back borough of Brooklyn. And that is kind of described more as a family friendly area. It's definitely more out of the way of the hustle and bustle of New York City. And Brooklyn is actually where our case is taking place. And it's where a young girl named Shanisha Forbes was raised.
Now, growing up, Shanisha was described as very fun-loving and caring. She loved to play and dance and make people laugh. And even from a young age, she was happy-go-lucky. Shanisha was extremely close with her mother, Sandra Price, and she also had three other sisters. So it was a very fun and loud household. And I mean, they're growing up in Brooklyn. I think that's just like...
Awesome. Shanisha's uncle named Alton actually lived nearby with his wife and kids, and the families really did spend a lot of time together growing up. Alton was actually a sergeant with the NYPD 77th Precinct, and by the time Shanisha was 14 years old, it was no different that she was spending a lot of time with this family. That Christmas, her family remembers her dancing in the living room and being so excited to finally get a new phone for Christmas.
She had actually lost her old phone. And you remember what it's like being 14. Friends are everything. And nowadays, phones are how you connect with your friends. And this wasn't any different. It was 2012. Do you know what type of phone it was, by chance? I think it was an iPhone. Oh, really? Yeah, because it was 2012. So it was like one of the newer, like very first models of an iPhone. They were expensive then. Yeah, they were. But remember how cool you were when you had one? I know. Like I remember seeing people at school who had the iPhone. Well, I had an Android, so.
Oh, babe. Well, no, no, no. I think I got an iPhone. I can't even remember. But I had an Android at some point. I loved it. I like flipped it up. Anyways, keep going. Well, I had...
flip phone straight to iPhone. But then as I had my flip phone, I got the iPod touch, which was like the iPhone before the iPhone. And so I had flip phone, iPod touch. And then I remember, I think it was like my sophomore year of high school. My parents got me the iPhone because I was dancing a lot and I was away from home. Big baller. I was like, I, and I was one of the first of my friends to get one. And I did think I was pretty cool.
So like I said, Shanisha had actually lost her old phone. And so now she's so excited that this Christmas in 2012, she gets this new phone and now she can finally connect with her friends again.
And one of her friends, Takaya Hayes, is Shanisha's really good friend. And she says that Brooklyn for them was the perfect mix of a small place, big city with a culture. And there was a focus on the arts. And Takaya says that she wouldn't have wanted to live anywhere else and that by the time her and Shanisha were 14,
they were kind of taking the place by storm. Like they loved living there. They were both very artistic and Shanisha was actually this year had just transferred to a, like a writing school. So a school that was centered on writing. So she was very talented in that and was basically going to an art school.
So after spending Christmas together, Shanisha's uncle Alton is actually on duty at the NYPD on the morning of January 5th, 2013. And it's just a normal day until he receives a very distressing call on his personal cell phone. It was from Shanisha's mother, Sandra. And she's shockingly telling Alton that she thinks Shanisha is missing.
Sandra tells Alton that she hasn't seen Shanisha since the day before. And she keeps calling Shanisha, but she won't answer the phone. And she also got a hold of every one of her friends, but none of them have heard from her either. Sad too, because I'm sure as a cop, it's a feeling he knows all too well. Well, and you also just know every single statistic about missing kids. And so it's like, ah. So hard.
And Sandra knows it's only been a day, but she can't, she just can't shake the feeling that something is definitely very wrong here. And Alton, like I said, knows the statistics for missing teenagers, but when it's your own niece, you just, you can't help but jump to the worst conclusions of every bad thing you've ever seen.
So he tells Sandra that to be safe, they should immediately file a missing persons report and that his precinct is going to perform a canvas to kind of help look for Shanisha. That's good. After getting the call, a detective is sent out to Sandra's home that Saturday to grab some details. And the first thing they kind of asked Sandra is why she waited a full day to call her uncle, well, Shanisha's uncle, her brother-in-law and report her daughter missing.
Shanisha went missing, well, was last seen Thursday morning and it was now Friday. Apparently, Sandra thought that you had to wait 24 hours before officially reporting someone missing. Now, I wonder where in the world she would ever get that idea. Maybe it's because of all the departments who have told parents that
But apparently in New York, there's no such rule. As soon as you think someone is missing, you can file a report. It doesn't matter how long it's been. So Sandra explained that she had left for work at 630 a.m. the day before. So Thursday. And on her way, she stopped and saw Shanisha sleeping in bed. So she's leaving for work and she sees Shanisha in her room.
An hour later, she actually texts her daughter to make sure that she woke up and caught the bus and everything's fine. Shanisha immediately replied and let her mom know that yes, she's up and that she's actually on the bus on the way to school as they're texting. Now I wanna point out here that I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from, but multiple sources differ. Some say she went missing on Thursday and some say she went missing on Friday.
So I'm not sure, but I was going off of like her mom's words and she said Thursday. I'm guessing maybe they went reported missing on Friday. That's where I think the confusion might be coming from is that she wasn't reported missing till Friday. So people are saying Friday. That's what I'm guessing. But I'm pretty sure that she, I mean, either way, it's just a, it's just a day, but I just wanted to let that like get that out there.
So after getting the text from her daughter, Shanisha, that she was on her way to school later that day, Sandra Price actually got a notification from Shanisha's school that her daughter had never actually showed up for school that Thursday, even though she had texted her mom and said she was on the bus on the way to school. How does that happen on the bus?
Right. So police asked Sandra if Shanisha had ever done this before. And Sandra was honest with them. Yeah, here and there. I mean, she, you know, it wasn't an all the time thing, but Shanisha had been late for school or cut class before. She'd even snuck out once or twice or not told her mom where she was going. Typical teenager stuff. Right. But the fact
that she is still not home is where normal teenager behavior for Shanisha turns concerning. She never would have stayed out this long without being in contact with not only her mom, but also all of her friends.
So now apparently New York City is so big that every precinct actually gets one to two missing person reports a day. Oh my gosh. That is insane. But most of the time it's just runaways like runaway teens or young adults, that type of thing. But what does that mean? Does that mean they're usually found or not? Yes. Yes. That means they're usually found. Okay.
But Shanisha's family tells police that they wish they could believe that Shanisha ran away, that it would be easier than believing that something bad has happened. And if you think about that, whenever you're like, why can't I mean, when police are telling these families like, well, maybe they're just a runaway. Don't you think they wish they were a runaway?
Like, don't you think they wish it was just their kid being a teenager? I'm like, they wouldn't be going to that extreme if they didn't feel like something was wrong. And this is exactly what Shanisha's mom tells police. So police at this point understand that in order to find Shanisha, they need to reconstruct her life, which is always the first step when you have a missing teenager. They need to find her friends. They need to figure out who she spent time with. They need to figure out her usual schedule, her day, everything like that.
And the biggest question is if 14 year old Shanisha has a boyfriend, like that is obviously going to be the first question, but her sisters and her mother say, no, she's only 14. She doesn't have a boyfriend. They aren't even sure that she's talking to a boy right now.
Police then ask for Shanisha's social media account names so they can learn everything about her on those. Now keep in mind, they're just looking at her profile from another profile. They don't have the passwords. They're not getting into the accounts. They just want to look at her timelines. Have they not tracked her phone yet? It's off.
So they are unable to track where her phone is. But can they see where it pinged last? They can, but that's going to take time to get the records because they're going to have to subpoena those. Got it. Just because it's not a dead body. So they're going to have to say, we have reason to believe that this person is missing. But can't the mom just be like, yeah, here's permission. Go ahead and do it. No, because it's going to be the cell phone company.
And most of the time they're like, oh, hesitant about sharing information. So police get her social media accounts. They can kind of stalk her timeline. And I was just actually thinking about this when I was researching how social media has now created a digital footprint that we otherwise don't have with missing people, especially teenagers, because they are so usually active on their social
you can get to know a lot more about them just by looking at their pages. So it's 2012. So we're not talking Instagram. We're talking Facebook here. So when police gain access to Shanisha's Facebook page, they actually learned that she had updated her status the Thursday afternoon that she went missing. So after texting Shanisha,
her mom on the bus and saying, Hey, I'm on my way to school. And then not showing up to school. She updated her Facebook page. Do you mean like she posted something? A status. She posted a status on Facebook. Like, you know how it used to be like Shanisha is, and then you would say what you were doing.
Oh my gosh. Yeah, I forgot about that. Yeah, so that's what she did. And this was obviously immediately a sigh of relief for everyone because it basically confirms that she willingly didn't go to school and that maybe she wasn't in as much trouble as they previously thought if she had access to her Facebook and was just casually posting. But it's the update on the status that makes everyone, including her sisters, question how well they really knew Shanisha.
That afternoon, she had updated her status saying, going to the movies, dot, dot, dot, with him. Smiley face. Oh my gosh. Oh no. And police are like, who is him? Who is the mysterious man she was with? And no one knew. Her sisters had no idea? No. And before you're like, oh, why didn't her sisters or her mom...
Why didn't they see that? Why didn't they check her Facebook page? This was 2012. I don't think parents at that point even realized how to even get onto Facebook. This was very new. So before we're like, why didn't they immediately check her social media? It's not like it is now. I feel like 2012, 2011 was like Facebook prime. Right. For like younger kids. Right. So it was just kind of barely getting there. So parents...
Parents probably didn't even know that their kids had Facebook pages. It wasn't that public as it is now for like social media channels.
Around this time, word had also spread that Shanisha's family was looking for her. And a community advocate from her own neighborhood named Tony Herbert came forward to help spread the news. And Tony decided to post a missing person poster online to a vast network that he had amassed. And again, I think this is something that we have seen happen in recent years, the power of social media spreading the word for missing persons and how important that actually is.
I think any time that the right sources can spread awareness for a victim, the better. And so when Tony posted his message about Shanisha, the public went to work. Citizens began forwarding the message over to all of the shelters in the area to make sure that no one had seen her and began reposting to missing person boards and meeting in person to hand out flyers.
And I think this is just something that the community can do to help police when we're in like an active missing person search. I think it's amazing. I guess I'm also, gosh, my voice. I'm sorry, guys. But I guess I'm also trying to think if she went to the movies, it's obviously a movie theater closed and that movie theater has to have cameras, correct? In 2012. 2012. Not that I am aware of in this story. Did a movie theater have cameras? So apparently not. Apparently not. Okay. Yeah.
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back at the station, subpoena Shanisha's phone and Facebook records. So at this point, they're like, we need to get the records. We need to see who she's talking to because they need to figure out who the mysterious boy is from her Facebook post. Shanisha actually had over 1600 Facebook friends. So please try. I feel like it's a lot for back then. It is a lot, but I, I think I just friended anyone and everyone when I first got Facebook. So, so,
So police are trying to prioritize who they should talk to based on her social media presence. And they actually start with a young girl named Michelle. Now, apparently Michelle was Shanisha's bestest, bestest friend. And they ask Michelle about the guy from the Facebook post, but she tells them that she isn't for sure who it is either. Or if Shanisha even had a boyfriend at the moment. Hmm.
She tells them that Shanisha always kept the boys she was talking to on the down low. And it was all, you know, she was just very quiet about boys. And so she couldn't be sure. But she tells police that if Shanisha does have a boyfriend, she knows of two names that she thinks she might have been talking to. One was named Marcus and one was named Chris. She's like, I think she's been like conversing with two boys that are have these names, but I don't even know who they are. My guess is it's probably an older boy.
Because she took the school bus and she went to school and he probably drove them to wherever they were going. Good theory, Garrett. Thanks, baby. So detectives take notes of the names, but Michelle also tells them that Shanisha had started her freshman year at the new riding school in September. And that by November, she was kind of having some problems at school. Shanisha was struggling with bullies. And
And it was getting pretty bad. It's horrible. Shanisha's family had known about the bullies and had even set up an appointment with the principal to leave school a couple minutes early so she wouldn't have to run into them, which is so sad that she would have to leave school early so that she doesn't have to like get face to face with her bullies. And although Shanisha was very fun loving at home, she was very shy and quiet at school and was the new girl.
And her main bully was actually a boy named William Harris. And police learned this from Facebook because he had been bullying her on her public timeline.
And it wasn't just in person, like I said. He had taken the bullying to Facebook and was writing awful things on her wall and calling her names. So I don't know if it's still this way, but on Facebook it used to be that you could just like publicly write a message on someone's timeline. That's so messed up. Right. That someone would do that. And he was doing that, calling her the B word, all kinds of names.
So when police learn about the seriousness of Shanisha's bullying, they realize that they could very much right now be dealing with a group of kids who hurt Shanisha. We've seen it before, you know, teenagers who attack another teenager and we will most likely see it again. Teenagers can be cruel. And so police are like, wait, is she missing because a group of her peers have attacked her?
Police head back to the station and decide to dig up what they can on William Harris, the main bully. But when they attempt to find his Facebook page, the one he had been using to bully Shanisha, police discover that it had been deleted. And this alarmed them even more. So police decide to talk to William in person and confront him about the bullying and Shanisha's disappearance. William tells police that he has no idea where Shanisha is, but that he didn't hurt her.
He also explains that he doesn't even really know why he posted the things he did about her other than that he had just kind of seen other kids bullying her. And so he decided to jump on the bandwagon. Oh my gosh. And I sometimes when I think about bullying, I'm like,
Like other stories we've heard about teenagers, there's always like a love triangle or something going on. But this is just a pure case of straight up bullying. Yeah. She has done nothing to instigate it. Most of the time they don't. But there is not even some like drama on the side for a reason for these people to hate her. They are just straight up mean people.
Yep. According to Pacer.org and the National Center for Educational Statistics, one out of every five students reports being bullied. And even scarier, one in five tweens, so ages 9 to 12,
have already reported being cyber bullied. And it's probably so much worse now just because of TikTok and I mean, just all these social media outlets. I bet you it's even worse. Right. I cannot even imagine what it is like to be a kid right now. Horrible. So police ask William, okay, so you're just bullying her for fun. Okay, whatever. Why did you delete your Facebook page around the same time that Shanisha went missing?
Like, did you were you trying to hide the fact that you had been bullying her? What's going on? And he goes, oh, no, I didn't delete my Facebook page. Facebook suspended my account because of the bullying. Oh, my gosh. So William also claims to have an alibi the day of her disappearance, that he was at school and then had basketball practice after school. Police go to confirm his alibi and they do. He was at school the whole time and then had practice.
I'm just annoyed because like he was bullying someone and then Facebook suspended his account because he was bullying and that's just so mean. While all of this is happening, Shanisha's family is still reaching out to the public via the media. It's been a couple days now. You can watch the actual news footage of them and it really is just heartbreaking to see family pleading for her life.
They update the public about her last Facebook status and they say, we're looking for this mysterious guy that she supposedly went to the theaters with and that we still don't know who he is. When police had gone to the local movie theaters and checked to see if she had ever gone, I
I'm assuming checked for cameras, but there weren't any. No one was able to give any information that helped the investigation. No employees remembered seeing her that day. They checked multiple theaters. Nothing happened. And although it feels like police have sifted through Shanice's life and uncovered, honestly, a lot of possible leads, none of them seem to be panning out and they still have no idea who the mysterious guy from her Facebook post is.
Two days later, Shanisha has still not returned, and the search is still going when neighboring police at the 66th Precinct get a 911 call.
A man walking his dog on Garrison Beach had stumbled across a body of a young 14 to 15 year old girl laying naked in the sand. Oh my gosh. When detectives working Shanisha's case hear about the body of a young female being found in a neighboring area, they rush to the scene. They're like, we have to check if this is our missing girl.
But any hope of IDing this victim goes out the window when police discover that the body had been burned badly. The face was unrecognizable and there was no school ID around. It took a couple days to determine who the body was, but it eventually came back to the missing Shanisha Forbes. Oh my gosh. Okay, so...
She was found just on a nearby beach? Yes. What? The burns were actually concentrated near her hands, her arms, and her legs and were post-mortem, which means that she was burned after she was killed. Okay. It was determined that Shanisha died by asphyxia, which means she was smothered or strangled.
There were no other significant injuries or evidence of recent sexual activity. Her uncle Alton and mom were brought in to try and make a positive ID. So because police couldn't really confirm because of the burns, they brought her mother and her uncle in. And despite the burns, they felt like they could
comfortably say that that was Shanisha and no parent should ever have to do that. Should ever have to look at their kid who's burned body and say, okay, yeah, despite the burns, we can tell it's her. I guess I just don't understand what burning the body is going to do too, because people should realize like it's, they're still going to figure out who it is. Right. There's still, unless you took the teeth. Why would you do that? Right.
And Shanisha's mom has actually said that ever since the day that she had to go in and ID her daughter, her life will never be the same from that moment on. - Oh my gosh, so sad. - Police back at the beach decide to comb the beach for clues and notice 20 to 25 feet away there were remnants of a bonfire.
There were empty and full cans of beer laying around and they can't help but wonder if Shanisha had been thrown or fell into this fire and the people that she was there with were maybe too scared or didn't want to get in trouble or had killed her. Another detective came across a receipt from a liquor store in the sand and the liquor was purchased at 2:30 p.m. on Friday, January 5th, which would be the day after Shanisha went missing.
So police head to the store and try to figure out who made that exact purchase and end up getting the credit card and security camera footage from that time. Finally, some security camera footage. They discover a single man came in and bought the exact bottle of liquor and the card belonged to him. It was a 22-year-old pre-med student named Sheeriff who lives in Brooklyn. And detectives eventually track Sheeriff down near his home and he claims to not recognize Sheeriff
Shanisha. He says that him and his friends just came to the beach to drink that day and that they didn't even have a bonfire. They weren't around a bonfire. He insists that he didn't see anything. And this was the day after Shanisha went missing. He tells police that he was smoking some marijuana and that's why he was kind of being hesitant with him. But because they are now suspecting him of murder, he's just going to be honest and be like, well, listen, the reason I'm being hesitant is because I was smoking marijuana.
Detectives decide to ask him to provide a DNA sample, even though they had no DNA to compare it to. They just wanted to see if he would be willing to agree, and he does.
So back at the station, Shanisha's private Facebook records finally come through at this point. And so they now have access to her Facebook messages. Okay. And what about her phone records? Those still haven't come through yet. Okay. So this is when they discover that Shanisha talked to a lot of people, men and women on Facebook and flirted with a couple men on there. Men and women that were not in her everyday life, like random strangers on the internet. Okay.
And this is not weird or alarming in the least. I think a lot of people make online connections. But police know that anyone can hide behind a profile on Facebook. So when it's a 14-year-old girl, it's a little more worrisome.
And so what they figure was the best way to confirm all of these identities is to use the attached phone numbers to each Facebook account that she heavily talked to and to run those numbers through the police database. So they're like, we'll try to figure out if these people are who they say they are by running the phone numbers. I can't even remember. Did you have to put a phone number in to create a Facebook account? I did not know that.
So using those numbers, they ended up speaking to seven to 10 older high school students. So like still, you know, under the age of 18 in the area who had been in contact with Shanisha and all of them were very cooperative and claimed, yeah, I talked to her, but I don't know where she is now. Around this time, her private phone records now come in.
And although they couldn't see the actual nature of the texts or the calls, they could see how often she called or texted a certain number. So all that came in were like her outgoing and incoming. They couldn't see like the actual texts themselves? No, no, that's all they could see. So they discover through going through these records that one number actually called Shanisha 30 to 40 times a day.
before Shanisha went missing and in the days leading up to her death 30 to 40 times a day yeah okay I I I do but also when I was young I talked to a lot of people and that number is not that weird to me 40 times babe that's insane you should have seen me on my iPod touch to the same person yeah oh my god that's what I would do for fun like in the summer I would just call and text people all day
- That's a lot of times the same number. That's crazy. - Yeah, I know. But that same exact number in the days leading up to her death, there was over 120 phone calls and texts to it.
Holy crap. So police are like, okay, we have to figure out who this number belongs to. So they decide to subpoena the name to the number as they believe it is probably the mysterious man from her Facebook page. And they eventually match the number to a man named Christian Ferdinand, whose address says he lives right by Shanisha. Now, if you remember, her friend Michelle said that she knew that she thought she was talking to a boy named Chris. This guy's name is Christian Ferdinand.
So detectives immediately head to Christian's house. On their way to the address, they discover something weird. The address that it was attached to the phone number literally does not exist. It was a fake address to a cell phone store. It's not even a real house. They check the store for any connection to a man named Christian, but the store is like, I have no idea what you're talking about. This is just a cell phone store.
This is a very bad sign that whoever Shanisha was talking to was catfishing her. If their address that is attached to their phone number is not even real, it's a very good sign that he's not real.
Police decide to subpoena the DMV records attached to the Christian character. Cause they don't even know if he's real at this point. - Yeah, because couldn't he have used like a fake second phone number too? - Right, so they're just, they're like, we don't even know if this is a real guy. - Or like a burner phone or something. - Right. Okay, let me guess. Your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work.
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So what are you waiting for? Get Bluehost Cloud today by visiting Bluehost.com. That's Bluehost.com. And while they're subpoenaing the DMV records attached to this name, they also wait and continue to look over the evidence that they have. And this is when they notice a 35-minute call that Shanisha made to an unknown number the night before she went missing. It's not like she called this number a lot, but 35 minutes on the phone. Again, bluehost.com.
Nothing startling to me, but 35 minutes to them the night before she went missing. They're like, we need to figure out who this is because the phone call lasted till 1 a.m. And several texts come from that number the next morning before her cell phone was shut off. So like, hey, we need to figure out who this one is. This looks to be the last person that Shanisha was actually in contact with over the phone before she went missing. And so police trace it back to another high school student named Shania.
Derek and he was from Brooklyn as well. Police tracked down Derek's address and talked to him about Shanisha. Derek says that he met Shanisha online on Facebook and they began speaking pretty regularly. They learned that this was the him from the post and Derek admits it. He's like, yeah, that was about me. We were supposed to go to the movies, but he says that Shanisha stood him up. They were supposed to meet for the first time in person and that she never showed that day.
He says that when he contacted her that morning to confirm their plans, she was acting super shady and she kind of just blew him off. Like, oh, we'll just do it another day. And he felt like when Shanisha was on the phone with him, there was someone else in the room based on how she was talking to him versus how she had been talking to him in the past.
Police check Derek's alibi of being home with his uncle all day and it checks out. So they don't think that Shanisha actually ever made it in person with Derek who she posted about on Facebook. Okay. So at this point, police just don't even know where to go from here. Think of all of the leads they've tried to track down and they went nowhere. Is this a stranger abduction and murder?
Is this the mysterious Christian Ferdinand? Does this have to do with the bullying and the teenagers? Time passes. The family mourns Shanice's loss and police keep chasing clues. Yeah, I don't even know where you go from here. And so at this point, police finally decide to try and triangulate the last place that her cell phone pinged.
Now it will only be near a tower. They're not going to be able to get the exact location, which is probably why they weren't like leaning very heavily on this in the first place. But they're like, we'll see which tower. But in New York, you could be, there's probably blocks and blocks of places you could be if your phone's peeing off a tower. And they notice that when Shanisha sent her mom the text at 815 saying that she was on the bus to her school, um,
her phone was pinging in a completely different area than her bus route. So they're like, she was obviously lying. She never actually did make it to school that day. She was never even on the school bus when she was texting her mom. It appears that she was probably on a city bus going in the opposite direction. Okay. And this bus is also going in a different direction than Derek. So the guy who she was supposedly supposed to be meeting that she posted about, it's also not going to his house, which would also confirm his story.
So police at this point finally received the DMV records for Christian Ferdinand, the name, and they get an address and a picture of this guy claiming to be Christian Ferdinand from his license. And the license says that he's 20 years old and there is now an address, a real address on this license. The
detectives decide to check the address on the ID and discover that Christian is actually living in Maine and that he's learning to be an electrician. Like he doesn't even live in Brooklyn. Okay. So they decided to trace his cell phone records as well. And they discover that his phone was pinging off the same towers. Shanisha's was the morning she went missing, which means not only is he not in Maine, he's in Brooklyn and he's near Shanisha at the time she went missing. Um,
So police have talked to her family at this point and they've shown them pictures of Christian, this guy, the license, the picture. How old is he again? 20. She's 14. Okay. But no one from her family recognizes him. They're like, Oh,
I don't know. I don't, I don't feel like we know him. And they are all even more shocked to learn that Shanisha had been talking to so many people online. Her mom, her mother was like, I had no idea that she had this many, you know, friends and acquaintances and relationships that she was talking to online. And also it's now 2013 at this point. So we knew even less about online predators than we know now. We didn't realize the dangers of this.
Growing up, my mom actually had access to all of my accounts, but now there are fake accounts and secret apps that kids can use. It's just getting harder and harder to keep up with this stuff. It's so easy to catfish. Right. Like people can change things in so many ways. So many ways. It's crazy. So three months after Shanisha's death, police fly to Christian's address in Maine and they request an interview with him and he willingly agrees to speak with them.
So they start off the interrogation, well, interview, by showing him a picture of Shanisha from Facebook and saying, hey, do you know this girl? And he goes, no, I don't. Police are like,
Okay. So right away, there goes the flags. We know you've been talking on Facebook. We know you've been using your phone number to talk to her 30 to 40 times a day. Like already he's starting off with a lie. They decide because of this to turn on the recorder, read him his rights and confront him with what they have. They're like, okay, because he's already lying, we're just going to turn this into falsehood.
interrogation mode. When Christian was confronted with some of the evidence, he finally admits to meeting Shanisha on Facebook. He's like, okay, yes, she slid in my DMs. It's not DMs. She slid in my IMs is what it would have been then. And we started talking. He claims in this interrogation that Shanisha was obsessed with him.
This 14 year old girl was obsessed with him. - What a narcissist, honestly. - Right, and he's like, and she just, she wanted to meet me really bad, but I just kept telling her I'm not interested.
Okay, 30 to 40 times a day. And that's showing you're not interested in her. And then this is probably just the best part of this interrogation. He goes on to say that this is actually a pretty constant problem he has. Is that all these women always fall for him. All these women are always chasing me and I just...
Which I have to say, which is why at 20 years old, this Christian guy had to find a 14 year old to date. He had to have done it. Right. Competent men who have everything going for them date women their own age. It's literally a proven fact. Okay. Not,
literally, but come on. We've seen the science. Like if a 21 year old is talking to a 13 year old, it's probably because he can't get someone legal to take him seriously. So he has to prey on young girls. Christian says that he and Shanisha met in person once. He's like, okay, fine. Yes. Okay. We did talk a lot. She was obsessed with me and we did meet in person once at a park and he goes, and she really wanted to hook up with me at the park, but I just said no.
He informs police that he actually has a girlfriend who lives in Boston. And he was visiting her one day when Shanisha texted him and told him that she was pregnant. And police are like, okay, back up here, Christian. What does that have to do with you if you never hooked up with her? Because obviously it's illegal. Like it's illegal to hook up with her, which is why he said he didn't. But now he's saying that she texted him and said she was pregnant. So they're like, what does this have to do with you? And he's like, okay, well...
okay, if I'm going to be honest, we actually did hook up. We did meet more than once and we had sex at least three times. And so that's why she thought the baby was mine. It's obviously him that he did this. He's just going in circles right now. Christian claims that after he got the pregnancy text, he never saw Shanisha again. He's like a,
After she texted me that, I just never saw her again. And again, police show him the phone records that basically prove their phones were together the day she went missing. So they're like, we know you're lying. You did see her again. You saw her the day she went missing. So Christian pauses for a minute and then he just says,
whatever, I'm just going to tell you guys the truth. He says that he told Shanisha he didn't want her to have the baby, that she begged him to talk to her. Like, please, please just talk to me. We can make a life together. I'm pregnant. I'm scared. She's 14 years old. And he says, I don't care. I don't care. I get rid of the baby. I don't care. He then made arrangements that day for her to come over the day she went missing for her to come over to his cousin's house that was in the area.
He says that day when she got there, everything was going fine and they were kind of just hanging out, chilling. And then Shanisha got the call from Derek, who she was supposed to be meeting at the movies. After the call, Shanisha decides to finally talk about the baby.
and maybe them having a possible future together but christian is like no you're not having the baby okay so first thing is number one this completely coincides with derrick's story of him thinking that someone else was in the room and that's why she was acting so weird number two i have to point out here a 14 year old girl is begging this 20 year old man to please have a life with her
And he's just like, I don't care. And this is what's so scary about predators is she is full blown thinking they're in love. Like she is full into him. And he's just trying to have sex with her. Right. I mean, that's the bottom line. Right. And it's so heartbreaking that she came over here and is like, please, we can raise this baby together. I can't get rid of it. My parents won't. They'll be so mad at me. We have to raise the baby together. And he's like, there's nothing wrong with dating like younger people, right? People who are younger than you, but this is pure madness.
Like there is no and ifs or buts about this whatsoever. Well, and also if it's like, and it's a 14 year old and 20 year old, it's not an 18 year old and a 22 year old. It's definitely illegal. And so it's like, yes, I mean, I don't, I do want to clarify if you have an age gap in your, it's totally fine. But if it's illegal, it's not fine.
and there's a reason that it is illegal because a 14 year old girl can't consent to a 20 year old man. There's just no way that she can clearly even understand what is going on. And so them arguing,
Them arguing about having this baby spurs an argument, like a bigger argument between them. And Christian just admits to police that he eventually took a pillow off the couch and smothered Shanisha. Oh my gosh. In the middle of them arguing about this. Oh my gosh. He says he then drove to the beach, burned her body and used a can of men's body spray and a lighter to light her on fire.
With the confession and the evidence, police arrest Christian Ferdinand and charge him with Shanisha's murder. Police then went back to Shanisha's autopsy and found no evidence of a pregnancy. But they discover that she did call. It wasn't a Planned Parenthood, but that type of establishment in the days leading up to her murder. So they full 100% believe that Shanisha thought she was pregnant, but she wasn't.
In November of 2014, Christian went to trial and the jury convicted him of second degree murder where he was sentenced to 19 years in life. How was it second degree murder? Because it was in the moment. So first degree murder would be premeditated. I just don't understand that. I mean, okay, granted, I'm not an expert in law, but I will never understand that. Because. It's like if you kill someone, okay, I get it. There's differences. Say you hit someone in a car accident and it's something that's an accident. Manslaughter. Manslaughter. But.
But killing someone in a moment versus it being planned out to me, I feel like that's. So I think the reason the law disagrees with you is because. I don't understand the law. Is because if you pre-plan a murder, you have time to think about it and say no. So you're willingly over and over again choosing to murder. Yeah. Whereas if you just do it in the heat of the moment, second degree murder, it's like almost like one choice. It's not like.
I mean, I don't want to say it's not like you had a chance to stop, but I think they think that the heat of the moment, emotions, human emotion is less than,
a person who is under, like, there's no heat of the moment and they're still choosing to premeditate and murder someone. But that is the murder of 14-year-old Shanisha Forbes. Oh my gosh, it's horrible. And before, you know, we wrap up the case, I do just want to end this case with a moment of thinking about Shanisha because she's
anyone could have been Shanisha Forbes I mean it's so easy at 14 and I it breaks my heart that an online predator who knew better took advantage of her and murdered her in such a brutal way all because she thought she was pregnant and thought this guy was in love with her
And so today I want to think about Shanisha and remember her for the way that her family remembers her, which is fun loving, having just being a light in a room, making every moment joyous, dancing around, singing. And that is the Shanisha Forbes that we can remember today. Also,
For anyone that is younger and that is listening or older, please be careful of catfishing out there. It is real. It does exist. And just be careful. And anyone online can tell you that they care about you and tell you that they love you, but they might not even be real. And it's such a hard lesson to learn because it does feel good. It feels good to have people care about you.
But online is, especially when you're young, is not the way to get there. So if anyone online is trying to tell you these things, tell your parents so at least you can double check to make sure that they're real. Okay, you guys. So that was the case for this week. If you're going to be at CrimeCon, I know it's already happened, but I hope we saw you. I hope you had fun. We have had a couple people message, so I think it's going to be awesome. And we will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. Bye.