No Body Homicide
01:03:30 Share

What's something that works so well that it's basically magic? It's summertime, so how about air conditioning? Noise-canceling headphones? Meeting-free Fridays? Well, what about selling with Shopify?

Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business. From the "launch your online shop" stage, to the first "real life store" stage, all the way to the "did we just hit a million orders" stage, Shopify is there to help you grow. Whether you're selling trained detective t-shirts or advocacy gear, Shopify helps you sell everywhere.

From their all-in-one e-commerce platform to their in-person POS system, wherever and whatever you're selling, Shopify's got you covered.

What I love about Shopify is no matter how big you grow, Shopify grows with you. And they give you everything you need to take your business to the next level. Sign up for a $1 per month trial at shopify.com slash justice, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash justice now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash justice.

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.

In a scene described by one investigator as reminiscent of a weird religious rite, five persons, including actress Sharon Tate, were found dead at the home of Miss Tate and her husband, screen director Roman Poliansky. But what if we were to turn back the hands of time and relive these events as they unfolded? Follow along each week as we take a fresh look at crimes from the past. Back in Crime is available now.

Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder. This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney, and this is Voices for Justice.

In this episode of Voices for Justice, I speak with Tad DeBias. Tad was an assistant United States attorney in the District of Columbia for over 12 years. In January of 2006, he prosecuted the second no-body homicide case ever tried in D.C., and he has been passionate about no-body homicide cases ever since.

In fact, Tadd has not only compiled a table of over 500 no-body murder trials in the U.S., dating back to the 1800s, but he also wrote the book, No-Body Homicide Cases, a practical guide to investigating, prosecuting, and winning cases when the victim is missing. And on top of that, he teaches courses on this subject.

This passion and hard work has rightfully earned Tad the title of the nobody guy, and he is truly a leader in his vertical. Although someday I'd love to get Tad's opinion on Alyssa's case, at this time we only discuss nobody homicide cases in a very general sense. And I learned a lot, including that the conviction rate for nobody homicide cases that go to court is 86%.

a staggering 16% above the 70% conviction rate for homicide cases that have recovered remains of the victims. But aside from some very interesting statistics, we discuss what can make a nobody case very strong in court, jury selection, how he feels when people say nobody no crime, the future of nobody homicide cases, and so much more.

So without further introduction, here is my interview with Tad DeBias, the nobody guy. Hi, Tad. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Sarah. Of course. And for anyone who doesn't know who you are or what you do, can you give me a brief overview of your career and what you've done in the past and what you're known for?

So my name is Tad Tobias, and I guess I'm known for being the nobody guy, which is I have spent probably the last 10 to 12 years of my life studying nobody murder cases. That is cases where the victim's body is not found. And I started

becoming interested in that topic when I was a prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office in D.C. And I was given a no body murder case in sometime late 2004, early 2005. And when I started investigating it, I was trying to find out if there were other cases in D.C. that had gone to trial where there hadn't been the victim's body. And I discovered one other one from the early 80s

But I also discovered when that case had gone to trial, there was a conviction and it had gone up on appeal. There really wasn't much information about it, even in the appeal. So I started looking at other jurisdictions and trying to figure out what,

how many other no body murder cases they had been, whether they had anything in common, what was sort of what I call the quantum of evidence you needed in a case, mostly because I was trying to figure out if my case could go to trial. And then I just really became fascinated by the topic because I realized there wasn't much information collected about no body murder cases. So at that point, I decided to sort of anonymously post the

some things on the internet about the cases and a chart I had built. And then ultimately, my case went to trial. We got a conviction. And I left the U.S. Attorney's Office probably about a year later and went to another job that was not a government job. And I decided at that point to kind of come out of the shadows.

and say who I was and running the website. Um, and since that time, um, I've spent a lot of time consulting with police and prosecutors about nobody homicide cases, and then also talking to the press about the cases. And then finally doing, um, a class that I teach, um,

on no body murder cases that I teach to police and prosecutors really across the country about how to best investigate these cases. And then I also wrote a book that came out in 2014 on the same topic. It's kind of a practical guide to how to investigate, prosecute and win no body murder cases. So that's kind of my background. I was with the U.S. Attorney's Office for about 12 years and

And now I am an attorney for another government agency. And so I don't professionally do any prosecution or investigation. It's kind of a sideline. I like to say it's more than a hobby, but less than a job.

Yeah, I would really love to know also what makes you so passionate about it. I mean, it's very obvious from your website and from your work that you've spent a lot of time compiling all these statistics and, you know, researching these cases. So I would love to know the why behind what you do.

Sure. I think it's a couple of elements. One, when I was a prosecutor, the only type of prosecutor I was interested in being in was a homicide prosecutor. That was really why I went to law school to become a prosecutor. And then I discovered really even before I became a prosecutor that I was really interested in homicide cases, because to me, that's the ultimate crime. And

And then once I became a homicide prosecutor, I discovered if a murder is the ultimate crime, a no body murder case is the ultimate homicide because it's the hardest and most difficult case to prosecute. So I became very interested in no body murders. I also I think one of the things I mentioned earlier was I saw that there really wasn't much of a collection of information about these cases anywhere.

And so that became interesting to me. And I'm also someone who likes to count things. I'm very numerically oriented and a little bit anal retentive. Like I've written down every mile I've ever run since seventh grade. So I really like to keep track of things and count things. So I just started counting things.

And I remember when I was at the U.S. attorney's office, a colleague of mine who had investigated a no body murder case, but it had never gone to trial. He gave me a memo a law clerk had done with maybe 50 or 60 cases from around the country. And I thought, oh, wow, I can't believe there's that many of them.

And now, you know, we're up to 356 or so that have gone to trial. And I think finally, I think the last reason why I think missing persons cases are very difficult for the family and every nobody case really starts off for the most part as a missing person case. And I think those cases tend to be overwhelming.

under-investigated often by police departments because they're not typically treated as homicide cases. And I've always felt a real compassion and a sympathy for the family of victims from my time as a homicide prosecutor in D.C. and really some of my

fondest memories, even during these very difficult cases, was the reaction of the family of the victim afterwards and the happiness and appreciation. Even if I didn't win the case, I've never had a family that was mad at me. Even when I lost the homicide case, people always appreciated you making the effort to really give a voice to these people who are disappeared. And it's uniquely difficult

for the families in no body murder cases, because at least in a traditional murder case, you're able to grieve, you're able to have a body, you're able to have a funeral or memorial service, and you really don't have any hope that the person is still alive. And in a missing person case, even when it goes to a no body murder, there still is always rightfully that little bit of hope that maybe the person really isn't

dead. And it becomes difficult because they don't have a body, they don't have a way to properly grieve. And I think, unfortunately, I really understand that more because I lost my wife in March to a long time illness. She was a long term brain tumor survivor. And it is very important to me, we're having the funeral in another week.

I see the importance of that ceremony and knowing that you're, you know, you're kind of closing the door, the chapter on that. And I always felt that intuitively for my family of the victims. But now I really feel it, you know, sort of strongly myself. And I see now how it's even more difficult if you don't have a body to have that final closure. Of course. And my goodness, I'm so sorry, Ted.

Well, thank you. Like I said, it was not it was not unexpected, but it's never it's obviously never happy when it when it happens. Of course. Yeah.

I mean, to be honest, I feel like the courses that you offer to police should be mandatory. I'm not even going to lie. I think that, you know, no body cases are a huge part of the justice system that have this stigma around them. And I think that through education and through the numbers that you have compiled, that stigma can be greatly lessened. Yeah.

How do you feel about that? I really did want to ask you, how do you feel when people say no body, no crime? I think that's a really good point, Sarah. And I would actually say, I think more so the case, if I were to do my course and to make it mandatory, I would make it mandatory for prosecutors because I tend to find that the sticking point in the criminal justice system for bringing a no body case, unfortunately, tends to be with my former colleagues, prosecutors that I've

are very rarely found, with a few exceptions, detectives and police officers who don't want to try and bring a case. It's usually the prosecutors who say, we don't have enough. I can't bring this case. No body cases are difficult. And I think you make a very good point. I think there's a layman's perception that if you don't have a body, you can't possibly make a murder case out of it. And I think

That attitude is slowly changing. I like to say that it used to be seven out of 10 citizens said you couldn't have a no body, you couldn't have a murder trial without the body. And maybe over the last 10 years, we're only down to six out of 10. Because one thing that's really interesting is,

If you look at the cases on the table on my website where I list all the no body cases that have gone to trial in the United States, and I hope I try to find them all. I don't know that I have them all. It's something like we're at 536 or something like that.

What's interesting is half of those cases have gone to trial since the year 2000. So you're talking 536 cases that go all the way back to the early 1800s. Half of them have occurred in the last 20, 21 years now. And I think that's really...

telling. And it means that people are bringing these cases more. People are more understanding that the cases can be made. And what's interesting, too, the conviction rate on a no body murder trial is running right now about 87, 88 percent conviction, which seems counterintuitive because you think if these cases are so hard, how is it that the conviction rate is higher than a regular murder case, which is about 70 percent?

And the answer to that, I think, is really twofold. One, prosecutors and police only take the strongest nobody murder cases to trial. So you're already starting out with a case that's probably fairly strong because otherwise the defense is so obvious. We don't even know if she's dead.

And I think the second reason is most no body murder cases involve people in some type of what I call domestic relationship, which can either mean husband, wife, ex.

ex-husband, ex-wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, parent, child. Those are the kind of three most common scenarios over, you know, 51, 52% of all no body murder cases involve a relationship between the two people that is either a close familial relationship or a close, you know, sexual love relationship. And so when you have cases like that, the, the,

The suspect is often very obvious. If you have a woman who is dead, who has recently been in a bitter divorce with her ex-husband, the suspect is often obvious. It doesn't mean that the husband did it, but it's a lot easier in those cases once

once they are, the evidence is gathered and it does point to the ex-husband, it's a lot easier to bring that case to trial because everyone kind of knows if this person is missing and there doesn't seem to be any sort of lifestyle reason that would cause them to have maybe possibly more murder suspects, you know, are they a drug user? Are they a sex worker? Those types of things. Sometimes when the suspect is obvious. And I say that

And I always add the caveat. I'm not saying those cases are more important where it's, you know, a woman who's a wife, works, has children, doesn't have any contact with the criminal justice system. Those cases aren't more important than when it's a sex worker or someone who maybe unfortunately was a drug or alcohol abuser. But the pool of suspects tends to be much smaller in the first type of case than in the second type of case.

And sometimes that can lead to greater investigative leads than in a case with maybe a sex worker. And you have to figure out, well, who was she with? And we're trying to figure out who this wider circle, who might be a viable suspect in that circle.

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by CB Distillery. If you're anything like me, my medicine cabinet was filled with things that just didn't help me. I still couldn't sleep, I was still in pain, and I was still stressed out. So I gave CB Distillery a try, and it has been a real change. And in two non-clinical surveys, 81% of customers experienced more calm.

and 90% said that they slept better with CBD. And I'm a part of that 90%. I've had trouble sleeping for most of my life, and after trying every tea, every pill that I could get my hands on, CBD distilleries' deep sleep gummies have actually worked for me. It not only helps me fall asleep, but it helps me stay asleep, which has been my big problem in the past.

So if you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like I did to CB Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money-back guarantee, CB Distillery is the source to trust. I have a 20% discount to get you started. Visit cbdistillery.com and use code JUSTICE for 20% off. That's cbdistillery.com, code JUSTICE. cbdistillery.com

Of course. And we do know that, you know, the perpetrators of crimes are most likely related to the victim in some type of way, not familial related, but they happen to know them in some type of way in most cases, is my understanding, though I am no expert like you.

No, that's absolutely true, Sarah. I mean, that's who you start off looking at. And there certainly are stranger on stranger, no body murders, but they're relatively rare. And when they are stranger on stranger, some of the ones that jump to mind are when a defendant is killing a child and they're usually involved some type of of of rape or sexual assault and then a killing of the child. And it's more crime of kind of happenstance than one that's planned out.

But, you know, you have the vast majority of no body murders, like most murders, are between two people who have some type of preexisting relationship. But I would love to know why you think more of these no body cases are being tried in the last few years and whatnot. Do you think that there's a direct correlation to anything, you know, that has changed in the world that is making these cases be tried more?

Absolutely. I think there's really two major reasons. Number one is what I call kind of forensic advances, DNA being the biggest one. I was in the U.S. attorney's office from 1995 and I left in 2007. And in that 12 year period, the amount of.

that DNA evidence change was just incredible. In 1995, it was still a very new science. It was used in cases, but not as heavily. By the time I left in 2007, particularly in domestic homicides and things like that, it was just such a greater explosion of how you could use DNA, what you could use DNA for, the amount of DNA you needed to make a case.

And since 2007, however, was that 13 years since I left the it's again exploded. You can now use DNA to build a profile of what someone might look like, which is just incredible to me. So that's probably reason number one. Reason number two, and arguably maybe a more important reason is all of these electronic trails that.

that we leave behind because years ago, you know, we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have cell towers. We didn't have social media. We didn't have texting or instant messages. And now so many of us use these things daily that when those things stop,

It's very telling, you know, in 30 or 40 years ago, if someone wanted to find me, it'd be difficult because I didn't have any cell phone. I wasn't necessarily seen on closed circuit, you know, TVs. I didn't have an ATM card. I didn't have a credit card or credit cards were much rarer back then.

But now it's so easy. If I were to drop off the face of the earth, people could instantly tell because they'd say my daughters would come forward and say, our dad definitely texts us every day. That's for sure. And he's on Facebook or he's sending a Gmail or he's on his work email or uses his credit card. So when you have the absence of these things, you're able to determine so much more quickly that now.

no, Tad's not missing. Tad's dead because there's no way Tad would fail to text his daughters for a week. That's just not logical. And we didn't have that before. And the thing I'm also discovering in these cases from having studied them now for 10 plus years, almost 15 years, is that the time between when a person went missing and

when the arrest is made and when the trial happens, is greatly reduced. You would used to see five, seven, 10 years between time of disappearance and time of trial or time of arrest. I've been seeing cases lately that that whole cycle happens within a year, which is incredible to me. And it's really because you can now tell so quickly that

That no, this person is not just missing, they're dead because there's no way they wouldn't access their money. They wouldn't collect their paycheck. They wouldn't have gotten their Social Security or their welfare or their Section 8, all of those things. And I think that's made a big difference in the acceleration of these cases that we've had in the last 20 years.

That makes total sense to me. I mean, if I don't post on TikTok for two days, I get messages asking if I'm still alive. So I completely understand that.

And also, like, in my opinion, on TikTok, my daughters would not want me alive. You should give it a try. Oh, my God. They'd be horrified. They love TikTok and they watch it all the time. And so now after I saw the article, I think it was in The New York Times about what has happened with your sister's case. I said to my daughters, well, maybe you actually are watching TikTok to try and solve, you know, murder cases or something. They're like, yeah, Dad, that's what we're doing.

They're like, that's a great cover. Thanks a lot, whoever that girl Sarah Turney is or whatever. Thanks, Sarah.

Oh, too funny. Yeah, I mean, I think just trying to disappear on purpose seems extremely difficult because trust me, the thought has crossed my mind. I'm not even going to lie. But the logistics behind completely erasing a digital trail, I mean, honestly, to me, it seems like a nightmare. It seems like it's nearly impossible unless you have connections or you are highly skilled at that.

It really is difficult, and you have to affirmatively take steps to wipe out your digital presence. But even that doesn't talk about when you use a credit card or when you go to Target or a store and there's a surveillance camera there. I mean, we're not quite like they are in London where they have cameras everywhere. It's really –

either amazing or scary depending on your viewpoint how many cameras they have in the city of London to record the kind of comings and goings of everybody and we're not quite there yet but you

You'd really have to kind of move off the grid completely to kind of try and hide yourself. And I suppose in theory that could happen, but it seems unlikely that someone would suddenly decide to do that without telling anybody or without any preparatory time, you know, towards that goal. And so the reality is when you see someone kind of drop off the face of the earth,

on social media and on cell phones and not using their cell phone, that really is an indication that, no, they're not voluntarily missing or they haven't run away. Something nefarious has happened to them. And I think police have a much better understanding of that now than they did 20 or 30 years ago. There used to be this kind of 24 hour, 48 hour rule. Don't call us until it's been 24 or 40 hours or actually still sadly a few

police departments that have that. But nowadays you just see so many more cases where a friend or a family calls the police right away and says, hey, Tad is missing and that doesn't make any sense. He was supposed to meet me. I've texted him. It goes right into, you know, it's either green. So he's not getting it or my voicemail. I get his voicemail when I call all of these things. And people are much better because we are so connected in such a,

such a significant way that the absence of that connection, I think, rightly sets off alarm bells for people who might be in a precarious situation, maybe getting divorced or being worried about being stalked by an ex-boyfriend, things like that. I agree. Well, and of course, I'm extremely happy that police are becoming more responsive in that 24, 48-hour situation

you know, timeframe that they used to try to say, or I'm sure, like you said, some continue to say, um, it's kind of getting outdated. I think, you know, um, police departments are seeing a little bit more heat in terms of liability for some of these cases, you know, if there's some, yeah. You know, if there's someone like you said, that is always on time and never misses a day of work and all of a sudden, you know, they're wiped off the face of the planet, um,

I think it's worth, even if you're potentially wasting resources, if it doesn't follow through, I think it's worth the police department just dispatching someone. It's worth just going out and taking that report. Yeah, one of the things I really harp on when I teach these classes is talking about, you know, the difference between a missing person case and what might potentially be a homicide. And it's hard to say. It's hard to tell sometimes. You know, particularly difficult cases are when the missing person is a teen, right?

because those are most missing persons cases and runaways are obviously of teenagers. But if you have someone who is not a teen who seems to be having a relatively normal life and all of a sudden disappears, is it likely that that person ran away? Probably not. And so the police need to make a recognition that the vast majority of missing persons cases are resolved very quickly, 24, 48 hours, the person comes back.

And it's also understandable that when the person is a teenager, it's probably a little more likely that they've run away rather than something nefarious. Not always the case, but often the case. But if you have someone who doesn't fall into that category, you need to immediately think about should we treat this as a homicide, not as a missing person? Because one of the arguments I've always made is you have different people investigating in the police department a homicide versus a missing persons case.

generally your homicide investigator or your top investigator, your most experienced investigators, not always, but generally. And if you treat something like a homicide and the person shows up, yay, that's great. They showed up. But if you treat something as a missing persons case and it turns out to be a homicide, you may not have taken the first initial steps in the very important investigative steps

Um, like in the first 48 hours, like the TV show, right? You got to get a lot of stuff done in that first 48 hours because that's the critical time. And if you're treating it like a missing persons case, you're not necessarily going to take the same investigative steps you would if you were treating it like a homicide case.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, and of course, I'm under the mindset of better safe than sorry. I think of, you know, the variety of calls that police get ranging from my neighbor is loud to I saw something to, you know, everything in between. And I don't understand what the hesitation is to just dispatching an officer to take these types of reports or just putting, you know, putting in the same effort for a missing person that they would for a shoplifting complaint, you

I just don't understand that disconnect, but I'm hopeful that it's getting better. It is. I mean, I like to think that hopefully anyone who went to my training classes would know right away that you have to make some judgment about cases. And there will be ones that still fall through the cracks. And I think, unfortunately, the ones most likely are with teenagers missing because that's kind of a fraught area to figure out. Are they a runaway? Is there some other

you know, thing going on, but certainly in the non teenager cases where there's not been a history of any type of disappearance to me, it says from the beginning, you shouldn't really treat it like just a missing persons case. You should, you should figure out if this is something more nefarious, maybe don't send a homicide detective, but think of it as more than just a missing persons case. Because like you said, if you're wrong, okay, fine. The person showed up and yay, everybody's happy. It's better to be, um,

over-investigating that case than under-investigating that case. I couldn't agree more. And I just hope that everyone starts to go through your course so that they can feel the same way. Yeah, I don't charge for it. So whatever some departments charge for, but I don't charge anything. So it's free. You can invite me and I'll do it for free.

That is amazing. Like, to be totally honest, that is amazing. The amount of hours and dedication that you've put into this to offer these services for free for literally just the greater good of the world. I think you're amazing. And I'll never stop saying that.

Well, thanks. Don't don't compliment me too much because there are some ethical constraints in my daytime job that that make it a lot harder to charge. But I've never I've never charged. I mean, I don't feel like charging, you know, state and local or federal police agencies. It just doesn't it just doesn't make sense to me.

because most of them can't afford it. So I do always offer it for free. And obviously my expenses like flying there or whatever are covered, but it is free and I'm happy. I've done it for even as small as one police department and then as large as entire state homicide investigator associations. And I enjoy doing it. I enjoy kind of spreading the word about it. And then I usually get

some follow-up cases to consult on, which is also free, by the way. The only thing I make any money off of is my book, which is not much. But so the consultations are free too. So I always like to get out the word on that, that you get what you pay for, but I don't charge anything to consult on individual cases either. I still think that is incredibly generous of you. And I hope that this podcast, this interview can at least spread to one other department, if not more.

Right. That'd be great. I'd love to get some calls off it to say someone, you know, heard me on a podcast and I've been on a few podcasts and I'm a huge fan of podcasts. So I think it's, you know, particularly in the true crime area, there's a lot of really good ones now. And it's always nice to get out more information about, you know, to departments and people.

who may be family members of missing people and people maybe they believe are murdered to get that word out. Because lots of times I'm contacted by families. And what I always tell them is you have to contact the police department because I don't call police departments on my own. But if families call and say, hey, I talked to this guy, he'd be interested in helping out in your case. And here's his, you know, bona fides and his website and all that. And I've gotten

plenty of cases that way. And it's really, to me, it's a great, it's a great way because the family's kind of advocating and, um, uh, the, the, the police are, are trying to work with the family, which they always should be trying to do. Um, and then they'll take up on calling me and then it's kind of on my own of, you know, helping, helping them. And I, and I think I've had very few police departments that have turned down assistance, maybe, maybe twice, um,

And they really didn't even necessarily turn it down, but they weren't willing to give me the whole case file, which is typically what I need to, you know, to be able to really help on the case. Sure, which I understand that. I'm sure that some cases are just so tricky and there's so much information that they just can't divulge everything. And that's the thing, too, is like every case is just so different. So I know that it's hard to get, you know, a general sense of

of what is best in these cases. But I did want to ask you if there was any type of ideal situation or ideal conditions in which you've seen these no body cases go to trial. Like, I guess what I'm asking is there any type of ideal circumstantial evidence that you would love to see for these no body cases? Yeah.

This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by June's Journey. June's Journey is a hidden object mystery game, and you step into the role of June Parker and search for hidden clues to uncover the mystery of her sister's murder. Basically, you engage your observation skills to quickly uncover key pieces of information that lead to chapters of mystery, danger, and romance.

Throughout your investigation, you also customize your very own luxurious estate island. You collect scraps of information to fill your photo album and learn more about each character. But my favorite part is chatting and playing with or against other players by joining a detective club and putting my skills to the test in a detective league.

So, there's kind of two times that I find myself playing June's Journey. One is kind of throughout the day when I just need like a little decompression break, I play a few scenes and get back to work. Or more often than not, when I'm laying down for the night, I tend to play then too. For me, it's a nice way to unwind, decompress, and get lost in a mystery. Discover your inner detective when you download June's Journey for free today on iOS and Android.

I guess what I'd say, Sarah, is what I've kind of seen over the years is ideally in a no body murder case, the evidence kind of falls into three categories. And I call it the three legs of a stool, meaning if you have all three, you got a pretty solid stool.

If you have two, you don't have a super solid stool, but you kind of hold it up and stand and sit on it. If you have one, it makes it a lot harder, but you can still do it. If you don't have any of these, it makes it really hard. And the quantum of evidence are these three. First is what I would call forensic evidence. And that's a pretty broad category.

clearly means DNA, but it can also mean cell tower records, cell phone records, blood spatter, hair, fiber, trace evidence, even, you know, some of these areas that scientifically have come under a lot more attack recently than even DNA has. The DNA science is pretty well accepted. Most of the attacks have to do with how scenes are processed and how unknown substances are processed or known substances are brought into the case.

And so that's kind of the best part that you'd want in any case is some type of scientific forensic evidence that you can point to. The next most common part in a nobody murder case is what I call confession of friends and family. And that is the suspect or the defendant told someone about it. It could be someone he's close to. It could be a family member. It could be a jailhouse informant.

Then the last leg of the stool is confession to the police, because you do actually have cases where people confess to the police. Believe it or not, there are people who actually have consciences and feel guilty about it and end up telling the police the best confession.

no body murder cases have all three of those types of evidence. The case that I tried in D.C. actually had all three of those. It was of the I like to say of the 20 homicide cases I took to trial, the no body murder one was the strongest one. I mean, we had a confession to the police. We had a confession to friends and family. We had forensic evidence. So we really had a very strong case, even though we didn't have the victim's

you know, body. And so you do see other types of evidence in no body murder cases, but it's rare. You don't generally have an eyewitness, for example, because as you pointed out earlier, a lot of these no body murder cases are some type of domestic relationship.

you know, husband and wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, parent, child. And in those relationships, there tends to not be a third party observing. If a husband and wife are fighting, there's not usually a third person there because they're fighting in their house. Maybe their children are there or something like that. But eyewitnesses tend to be the exception rather than the rule in no body murder cases. So those

Three legs of the stool are what I look for to see. Now, that said, if you don't have any of those, you can still make a case. It'll be harder and it'll be a more challenging case, but you can still make a case. But that's what I'm looking for because those are the types of things you see most commonly. There were other common things in no body murder cases.

You often see things such as cleaning up, an indication at the scene. You might see something with bleach being used, or you might see carpet being thrown out, being cut and thrown out, a mattress thrown out. You see a lot of these things. Typically, you also see, particularly when it involves a defendant who is in a relationship with the missing person, typically a woman because most of our victims are women,

But you'll see the defendant or the suspect, what I call moving on too fast. All of a sudden he's got a new girlfriend and you're like, dude, you were just in a relationship a month ago and now you're off with someone new. So you'll see that you'll often see the suspect throwing out, getting rid of things belonging to the missing person. Well, if they're missing, how do you know she's not coming back and going to want her ring or her pocketbook or her cell phone in your office?

tossing all that shit out. And so those types of things are also things that are very common in no body murder cases. And the last thing I'd say is lies. It's very interesting. I have found in my career that as a law enforcement person becomes so accustomed to lies that we don't really think

much about them and we don't consider them almost much evidentiary value because you're so a nerd to people lying. When my daughters were little, I remember one day I came home and my daughter said, what did you do today, daddy? And I said, I sat at my desk and people came in and lied to me all day because I'd been interviewing a lot of witnesses. And that's literally a normal part of either a police officer or a prosecutor or detective. That's a normal part of your day. You pull people in and they lie to you.

And one of the things I've pointed out to police and prosecutors is lies to us may not mean much, but when you're showing them to a juror, they become much more powerful. So if you have a husband whose wife is missing and he lies about anything, why would he lie about that? Because if I'm trying to find my wife because she's truly missing and I haven't had anything to do with it.

I shouldn't be lying about anything. I should be completely 100% honest. Now, there are some times why people lie for reasons other than they were involved in the murder. But classically, those lies, when you build them up, particularly when you have four or five of them, they become very damning to a jury because the jurors rightly say, why is this guy lying if he has nothing to do with the murder? But

If he is lying, that probably means he had something to do with a murder or knows about it. And as law enforcement, we become kind of immune to these things happening. But you have to understand, well, layperson in the context of a murder investigation, they become very important. So I spend a lot of time with the police and prosecutors saying, what lies can we prove? What can we prove that this guy said that is flatly untrue? Because if we can stack up enough of them, that's really good evidence.

Of course, I couldn't agree more. I think lying in any situation is an indicator of guilt and makes everyone feel uneasy, no matter if it's about murder or it's your significant other talking about going somewhere else.

I think lies are huge in the world in general. I think I said that pretty poorly, but I think you know what I mean. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think you're exactly right. That, you know, even I think sometimes, you know, those of us with kids, you're kind of used to kids lying about stuff all the time. I think lots of times we do become a little inert to it, but

when you put it in the context of something as serious as a criminal investigation or a missing person investigation, you think, well, why would that person have lied about that? And it may even be something fairly insignificant about what time they came home or where they were or what they did. But then when you start stacking these things up, you start to see, well, now I know why they're lying because they didn't want to put themselves in that position where they could have been found and knowing that this is the last place the person was seen.

Right. Of course. The question is always, what is the motive behind this lie? Why lie? In my mind. And that's very important in a no body case is you've got to figure out the motive. It's not legally required for any crime. But if you have a murder case, particularly a no body murder case, and you're not able to prove the motive, you're going to have a real challenge to prove that case. This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Ibotta. Are you planning your dream vacation but dreading the cost?

With Ibotta, you get cash back on all your purchases, so you can spend more time making memories and less time dreaming about them. Ibotta is a free app that lets you earn cash back every time you shop. You can earn on hundreds of items you buy every day, from groceries to beauty supplies and even toys. The average Ibotta user earns $256 per year.

That's a plane ticket, a shopping trip, or even a fancy dinner. And they have so many brands, over 2,400. Lowe's, Macy's, Sephora, Best Buy, and more. I've been using Ibotta for a really long time. It's one way that I make every penny stretch. And right now, Ibotta is offering our listeners $5 just for trying Ibotta by using the code CRIME when you register.

Just go to the App Store or Google Play Store and download the free Ibotta app to start earning cash back and use code CRIME. That's I-B-O-T-T-A in the Google Play Store or App Store and use code CRIME.

You had mentioned jurors, and one thing that I encountered when I was reading up about you and listening to some of the interviews that you've given was you talk about jury selection, and that is something that I have never considered in a no-body homicide case and why that's important. I know that you said something to the effect of them not believing that you can convict

a murder case without a body is somewhat of a bias that could eliminate them from the jury pool. Am I understanding that correctly? Yes. So when you are selecting a juror, a jury, you have a prosecutor and the defense have two types of challenges they can make to get someone tossed off.

You have one that's called for cause, which basically means you're asking the court to toss them off to say, judge, this person just can't be fair for whatever reason. And then you have some that are peremptories and peremptories are purely the selection of the prosecutor or the defense counsel can be made for any reason other than an unconstitutional reason, such as race,

or gender, and there's probably a few more. I've been out of the game for a few years, so I don't quite know all of them. But if I don't like somebody's necktie, I can say, judge, I didn't like the guy's tie. It was stupid. I got rid of him. Or I didn't like the way that lady had her hair. I got rid of her. But the cause challenges are the ones that I'm referring to. If you have a juror who says, even if the government proves its case beyond a reasonable doubt,

that this person committed the murder but the government doesn't have a body i will not find that person guilty that defendant guilty they cannot sit on your jury that is a four cause challenge because what you're saying is if i've proven my case beyond a reasonable doubt as a prosecutor they're saying they still won't find them guilty but if i've proven my case beyond a reasonable doubt you have to find them guilty so you have to get that type of person um off the jury and that is a

critical question that has to be asked of a juror in a no body murder case. It's the same question you ask in death penalty cases. And I've never done

death penalty case because DC locally does not have a death penalty, although they do on the federal side, which I was both a federal and a local prosecutor. But in a death penalty case, if a juror says, I don't believe in the death penalty and I couldn't order, you know, I couldn't vote for the death penalty, they're off the jury. It's the same type of idea. If understanding what the basic is, the

That is, if something is proven on guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, they have to convict. If they can't agree with that, they have to go off. And then on your peremptory challenges, what I tell people in no body murder cases, the type of jury you're looking for is generally someone who's smart.

Because in no body murder cases, the trials are definitely lengthy. They include a lot of circumstantial evidence that you alluded to before. So you're not going to have witnesses coming in and saying, oh, yeah, I saw Sarah shoot somebody. They're going to be people coming in and they're going to be putting in all these details that have to be put together like a puzzle.

And at the end of the puzzle, there's still going to be some missing pieces like the body. When did the murder happen? How did it happen? What was the actual cause of death? You're never going to have all those pieces when you don't have the body. So you want intelligent people who have the patience and can kind of put together the case, you know, for you.

But you also want people with real life practical experience, you know, who understand what love relationships are like and understand how people can have fall out of love and love someone so much they want to kill them, which is crazy. But understand how those types of relationships work. So I tended to favor love.

older jurors and jurors that I perceive to be smart. Now, they don't necessarily have to be educated, but I want someone who is smart. And age is not an unconstitutional reason, at least it wasn't 13 years ago. I hope it hasn't changed under Batson versus Kentucky. But in the law, you can discriminate against someone in jury selection, at least based on their age. So I tended to like older people. And the older I got, I found the older I liked my jurors

It's so interesting to me. To be honest, I know almost nothing about jury selection. So are you able to just keep, you know, going through these jurors until you find what you feel is the most appropriate jury pool?

Well, you only have in my jurisdiction in D.C., I think we had 10 peremptories, which is a lot. That's probably higher than most jurisdictions. So after that, it was kind of a guessing game because you had to figure out, do I want to save one peremptory so that if there is someone I really hate, I can get rid of them or do I want to use them all? So it was a little bit of an art game.

you know, to it, to picking a jury. But in DC, at least you had a pretty decent ability to, to shape it the way that you wanted to have your jury. Now that said, once people get in that box, it's, it's kind of unpredictable what they're going to do. And a lot of,

jury picking is based on stereotypes. And I don't mean that in a negative way. I don't necessarily mean people making stereotypes based on race, but, you know, stereotypes on, oh, this person has a brother who's a cop. So they're probably pro law enforcement. Well, maybe, maybe not, you know, where this person is a professor at a college. So they're probably really liberal and they're going to, you know, favor the defendant. Well, maybe, maybe not. You know, what's the college? What do they teach?

You know, you can't you can kind of generalize that maybe generally college professors are more liberal than most people. But there's a lot of kind of that, you know, almost witchcraft going into it of trying to figure out what you know, what people think. And in different jurisdictions do voir dire, which is the questioning of the jurors differently. Some jurisdictions it's done differently.

by the judge, which is how it is in D.C. It's completely done by the judge. It is not done by the attorneys at all. Other jurisdictions, such as I think Texas, for example, it's completely attorney run and the attorneys are asking the questions and they have wide range as to what questions they're going to ask. So it's sometimes it's really hard to kind of get to know what your jurors are like. So you're going to rely on these kind of preconceived notions or stereotypes.

Of course. It's almost like having to choose a book by the cover. Exactly. That's exactly right. Like, this looks good or, you know, this author always writes good books. Well, you know, if you're looking at Stephen King, yeah, he mostly writes good books, but he had some duds, too. Oh, fair enough. Fair enough. One aspect that always comes up, you know, in my findings for nobody cases is that

This aspect of the person, the victim, being legally declared dead, in your opinion, what type of effect does that have on a no-body homicide case? In this question, very recently, I was talking to some detectives out of Texas who had a no-body case, and then they ended up, thankfully, actually finding the body. And so that was one of the questions they had was whether getting either the medical examiner or the coroner to declare the person dead

made a difference. And I honestly think it doesn't make much of a difference. I think it's maybe a little bit of a help and maybe one juror would be persuaded. And it used to be the case in certain states, you had to wait like seven years before you could be declared dead for insurance purposes. But I just think that at the end of the day, you have to have the evidence that shows the jury that they are dead.

And having a, you know, a certificate from the medical examiner or an insurance company or whoever it is, I don't think honestly adds that much because that doesn't speak to the facts. It only says this is some certificate and we don't necessarily know what did the medical examiner base it on or what did the insurance adjuster base it on. It's just a, you know, here's a piece of paper that says, you know, so-and-so life insurance company says they're dead or this medical examiner says it.

I think it's really more critical to have the facts behind you that show in court why the person is dead. Right. That makes total sense to me. And it's my understanding that it does not take much to get someone legally declared dead if they've been gone for a few years. Yeah, I think sometimes in some jurisdictions, it's almost automatic if there's no record of any contact with a person after three years, four years, seven years, whatever it is.

And I've seen it done in cases. And what I tell detectives is if you can do it, get it great. You know, maybe it convinces one juror and that's that's all you need. You've saved your time of having to convince that juror otherwise. It never it never hurts to do. But I think.

Don't ever think that by doing that, you're going to have to lessen your quantum of proof to show the person is dead because simply putting on a certificate or even some testimony from a medical examiner who's just going to say, well, it's been seven years and I understand no one's heard from her. That's not enough. And it's certainly not enough because, of course, the critical piece is not just proving that she's dead, but proving that the guy sitting over there in the defendant's chair is the one who did it.

Right. Yeah, that makes total sense to me. I think the last thing I had here on my list of questions is, you know, what do you see the future of no body homicide cases being? This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Quince. I can't believe that we are rolling into fall, but we are, which means it's time to refresh your wardrobe. And luckily, Quince offers timeless and high quality pieces that will not blow your budget. Right.

Like cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, and more. All Quince items are priced 50-80% less than similar brands. And they do that by partnering directly with top factories. That way they cut out the cost of the middleman and pass those savings on to us. At this point, I've tried a little bit of everything from Quince.

I'm still in love with their tencel jersey fit and flare dresses. Especially in Arizona, it's really easy to dress them up or dress them down and add some layers if it gets colder.

Make switching seasons a breeze with Quince's high-quality closet essentials. Go to quince.com slash justice for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. That's q-u-i-n-c-e dot com slash justice to get free shipping and 365-day returns. quince.com slash justice

I think the future to me is really promising because we're getting greater forensic advances, you know, more, we're able to do more things with DNA from smaller pieces. And

You know, this whole idea of electronic privacy and all of that is is fraught for many reasons. You know, a lot of us may not like that. You know, Google knows so much about me or Apple or Siri. But from a purely investigative standpoint, which is.

how I tend to look at the world, it's actually a really good thing because having these traces of people that are left when they're using common, you know, daily devices is a really good thing when they go missing because now we're able to say,

she didn't use this after this date. She didn't use her bank card. Nobody's used her bank card. We checked with Siri. She wasn't home. We've downloaded everything that Siri listened to and recorded. And so I think what that means is it's going to be

easier to make cases because it's going to be easier to say this person is not just missing, they are actually dead. And I think that's a good thing. I mean, there's obviously downsides to that loss of privacy, and I'm not discounting those, but from a selfish, you know, no body guy perspective, I think the future is actually bright. And my hope is we'll be able to make more cases. And my hope is that we'll be able to go and make some cases. I'm

that have been around for years of missing persons. I feel very good about new cases going forward, you know, of any people who are going to disappear and be murdered. I feel more confident about those cases, as horrible as that sounds. But I also hope that advances in technology and in forensics make it easier to go back and bring some old cases that, you know, have been around. There are just...

You know, thousands and thousands and thousands of missing persons. I don't know if you ever heard of the Charlie Project, which is really a great website run by a friend of mine who I've worked with professionally. And she just categorizes missing persons cases and does a great job at putting up

some facts about all of them. It'd be great if we could start going back and looking at those cases and say, which ones have some solvability now that we have this different technology?

Yeah, the Charlie Project is amazing. I mean, while you mentioned that, what do you think the obstacle is in seeing those cases and not being able to move forward? I mean, of course, every case is different. But, you know, you say that there's thousands of cases that could potentially be solved. You know, when you see these big databases, what's the obstacle? Is it time? Is it resources? Is it attention to the case? I think it's probably a combination of all those. Time is very difficult. You know, if...

A certain amount of time has gone through. You just lose so much evidence. You know, the show 48 Hours is kind of a fun show to watch. And they have this thing where in the first 48 hours, you don't solve it. It goes down 50 percent. Well, I know on good authority that that was actually kind of a made up stat.

But I think there's some kind of rough reckoning truth to it. And so now when you're talking about missing persons cases going back many, many years, it becomes that much more difficult to find them. Resources is a good question because.

You know, unfortunately, our murder rate in the United States, even though it's dropped significantly since the 1960s and 70s, is still very high compared to any other developed country. So our current homicide prosecutors are really overwhelmed with cases. And most places don't have a cold case squad. But even if they do, it's hard for them to pick out the cases where

If I have a case, I know someone died because I have the body and I have a case where I don't even know if someone died because they're just missing. It does make it harder in the allocation of resources, you know, to do that, to figure that out. But I am hopeful as new technologies, you know, come on board. I do think it's a good thing. There seems to be a real interest now.

as compared to years ago in true crime and looking at cold cases and solving cases, you know, Reddit and the murder squad and all these things that kind of try to crowdsource things. I think those are really good. They have their drawbacks and they have to be done very carefully so that, you know, people aren't just tossing out names of people and slandering and libeling people. But I do think it's good if we can take

advantage of this interest in these types of cases right now, because now it's certainly a hot time for this topic. And it'd be nice to see if we can make some progress on the backlog. Like you said, I think that there are definitely downsides and upsides to this big true crime wave, but hopefully more upsides than downsides. Yeah, I think I think there are. I mean, I hope at last, mostly for

selfish reasons that I enjoy as, you know, I am a true crime aficionado, not just because professionally that's my kind of area, but I just tend to be very interested in those types of things. So I hope it does last and I hope there's some good lasting effects coming out of it.

I'm hopeful because of people like you, to be totally honest. You give me so much hope, the fact that you are so knowledgeable and experienced in this field and that you just care. As a family member of a victim, that is really, really important to me. So I thank you.

Well, thanks. And it's, you know, it's exciting to me that obviously your sister's case, we're not going to talk about it much, but just talk about that there has, you know, been an arrest. And it was a case that happened a long time ago. Um, so that gives me hope, um, that there are, um, police and prosecutors who are looking into these cases. I have to say, I've never, um,

been more impressed with a group of people than when you talk to cold case police and prosecutors and detectives who want to solve these cases. And that's not to say all police are great, because obviously we're going through a time where we recognize there are bad apples. But there are so, so many more, particularly detectives looking at these cases who

really take these cases personally and really want to solve these cases no matter how old they are. And that to me is very heartening. I agree. Yeah, I think that they research these cases and spend so much time on them that they become a part of their lives and a part of their heart, if you will. I've spoken to a lot of detectives who can recite case details off the top of their head better than I can sometimes. And that is always so impressive and just amazing to me.

Yeah, I've often said like when I get a new case file, it's kind of a weird thing that comes over you. And I know other people have said this. It becomes like you're just suddenly in their world and you have your world going on. But it's almost like you have this secret world inside your head of thinking about the case and really getting obsessed about the case. And, you know, it's really captured well, if you've ever seen. They just had the documentary, I'll Be Gone in the Night, about the Golden State Killer and Michelle McNamara.

And I'm watching it and I'm like, I totally get what she says. She's just in this world, even though she has, you know, she has a daughter and she has a husband and all this other stuff going on in her life. You just become consumed by this world and you imagine that you're there forever.

thinking about, well, what would I do? And what do these people look like? I totally got it when she was talking about that. It really kind of spoke to me to say, oh, I thought I was the only weirdo who really created these worlds in my head when I was into a case. And when I was really digging deep into a case, it really does happen. You become part of that world.

Yes, I feel like reading a case file is almost like reading a murder mystery in which it's up to you to solve, which I don't mean to oversimplify. And of course, it's not as glamorous as that. But that, like you said, you imagine what these people look like and then you have to do further research. And yeah, I think that it really does envelop you, but in the best way, especially when people have good intentions like Michelle McNamara.

Right. Absolutely. And that's that's, you know, when looking and trying to solve it is really is really the key. And I think there's a lot of people who are trying to do that. And I think that's I think that's good. As long as people are focused with the right energy and having good intentions, I think it can really be a net plus.

Well, before we close out and I ask you to ask or to tell everyone where they can find you, is there anything else on no body homicides that you think people should know that you wanted to touch on before we close out?

I don't think so. What I would encourage any of your listeners who do know about cases to let me know, because I'm always interested on my Twitter feed at the nobody guy to try and follow these cases and tweet about them and then follow them. I used to blog, but I guess nobody blogs anymore. So I just tweet about them instead.

And then you can find my website at www.nobodymurdercases.com. It's very easy. It's very obvious what my website is about.

Yes, you are definitely the nobody guy. And I will have all of that linked in the show notes for everyone. And again, just thank you so much, Tad. I seriously can't thank you enough for coming on here and for doing what you do. You are definitely a hero to me. Well, thanks, Sarah. And I wish you the best of luck with your sister's case, too.

I have to, of course, extend a huge thank you to Tad Tobias for taking the time to speak with me about No Body Homicide Cases. All of his links are in the show notes, but I definitely encourage you to go check out NoBodyCases.com and give Tad a follow on Twitter. I also have to extend a huge apology for completely messing up Michelle McNamara's name in this interview. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted, produced, and edited by me, Sarah Turney. If you want to learn more about Alyssa's story and how you can help with the case, visit justiceforalyssa.com. And if you love the show, it would really help if you gave me a rating and review in your podcast player. Thank you so much, and I'll talk to you next time.