MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Alyssa Romine-Olson Part 1

When 30-year-old Alyssa Romine-Olson is found floating naked and face down in the pond of a Gilbert, Arizona nature preserve in 2016, online coverage makes the case sound like a suicide. But her missing belongings, an undetermined cause of death, and key evidence found at the scene tell a different story. And investigators soon realize, nothing in this case is as it seems.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:33Speaker 00

  If you know me, you know I love stories that make me go, wait, what? The kind that stop you in your tracks and send you straight down a rabbit hole. And my friend Delia Diambra tells stories just like that on Park Predators. Every Tuesday, Delia investigates true crime cases that unfold in the world's most beautiful places, from national parks to hiking trails. She reveals the shocking crimes, mysterious disappearances, and unsettling encounters hidden beneath the postcard-perfect scenery. If you're ready to discover what's beyond the trailhead, listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  And I'm Brett.

• 1:10Speaker 01

  And guess what, Gilbert PD? We're back. We saw the responses all you crime junkies had to our episodes out of Gilbert, Arizona. Rachel Hansen, Nick Cordova, Laura Sweetman. And we heard your call to tell more of their cases, the lesser-known ones, the ones that you really need to dig into to get to the bottom of. Well, little did you know, we were already waist-deep, and we're about to fill you in. The case I have for you today is one that has been spun every which way by the police and the media. And that's meant that for over 10 years, one family has been forced to bury their grief.

• 1:52Speaker 01

  But today, we're telling you the real story of a woman who was found floating naked and face down in the pond of a local nature preserve in 2016. And the headline is, don't believe the headlines. This is the story of Alyssa Romine Olson.

• 2:45Speaker 01

  It's June 10, 2016, when Alyssa Romine Olson's body is found floating in a pond at the Riparian Preserve in Gilbert, Arizona. And almost as quickly as she is removed from the water, authorities start crafting a story, one about a 30-year-old woman who was depressed, who was suffering due to recent health problems, who just separated from her husband of nearly four years and moved back in with her parents. In local news articles, the word is never used, but to Alyssa's family and friends, the Gilbert community, the insinuation is clear. Whatever happened to Alyssa, she did it to herself. So, no foul play involved, no threat to the public.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  And therefore, those who heard the story in the local community felt no need to put pressure on the Gilbert Police Department to rush their death investigation. In all honesty, when our reporter Nicole started looking into this case, that was her first impression, too. She actually called me from Arizona, and she was like, hey, you know, like, based on what I'm seeing, what's out there, like, I'm not really sure that there's a mystery here. And she was like, so I know I told you we might cover this, but like, I don't think so. But then, we got the case file. And that, combined with conversations that we've had with Alyssa's family and friends or anyone she went to church with, and the media's story began to crumble under its

• 4:14Speaker 01

  own weight. Now, to unravel this thread, we have to start at the beginning so that you can understand who Alyssa was before her body was pulled from that pond and the days, weeks, and months leading up to that moment. So Alyssa was one of 12 children in the Romine household and her parents' only biological daughter. According to her younger sister, Chelsea, she had a quiet way of connecting with people. She was innately nurturing, regularly babysitting younger siblings and neighborhood kids. But she wasn't someone who constantly sought the spotlight. Alyssa was just as content spending time on her own, journaling, or listening to music in her room.

• 4:56Speaker 01

  Now importantly, religion was always a part of Alyssa's life. She grew up in a nondenominational Christian family, but in her late 20s, Alyssa underwent a kind of spiritual awakening, and her faith became the guiding force in nearly every aspect of her life. She joined a new church and threw herself into a level of religious devotion that even her family hadn't practiced. Like, even for the two of us who grew up in like a borderline evangelical world, like, Alyssa was next level. She relied on God to tell her, like, even what clothes to wear or what to eat. She didn't like material things, and she rid herself of most of her personal belongings. So her life became about her religion and evangelizing.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  And it was around this time, which would have been like mid-2012, that Alyssa met her future husband, Brayden, at the International House of Prayer. The two were immediately drawn to each other. They had similar beliefs and specifically valued an evangelical form of Christianity. And their relationship moved really fast. Like, within a couple of months, Chelsea told us that the couple went on a road trip together, and then they got back and, boom, Alyssa told her family that Jesus wanted her to marry Brayden, and they had a wedding that winter.

• 6:11Speaker 00

  And they were cool with that?

• 6:13Speaker 01

  Well, her family wasn't like against it. Like, Brayden seemed nice enough. Alyssa seemed happy. But the truth was, they really didn't even know Brayden. I mean, the siblings that we spoke to said that he was very outgoing and a people person to like the max, but they didn't really get to spend much time with him, partly because the relationship progressed so quickly, but also because after getting married, Alyssa and Brayden began to live a nomadic life. They were traveling around the country together to preach and minister to anyone who would listen.

• 6:43Speaker 00

  And did they work?

• 6:45Speaker 01

  They didn't, right? Like, so they didn't need much. And for around three years, the two of them kind of just couch-surfed or crashed with friends, and Alyssa's parents would help them out sometimes financially. And by all accounts, they were attached at the hip. I mean, like, they shared social media accounts, they shared a cellphone, which they rarely even answered. And speaking to a lot of people who knew Alyssa, it seems like she kind of distanced herself from the rest of her relationships. Like, her whole world became about her husband and her faith, which kept becoming more and more radical. And they likely would have continued down this path, but something happened that altered it around January of 2016.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  That's when Alyssa suffered an ectopic pregnancy and had to be hospitalized because of significant blood loss. That medical event forced her to move back to Gilbert to live with her parents so she could have, like, a home base to rest and to recover. Brayden had moved back to Arizona with her initially, but two months in, they decided to separate.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Because of her pregnancy?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  No, not because of her pregnancy. Actually, the very thing that brought them together is what made them separate, their intense commitment to their faith. That became the primary reason, like, or the thing that drove them apart. Like, as much as he wanted to, Brayden said that he struggled to live up to the strict religious standards which Alyssa held so dear. He said that he couldn't follow the Lord's ways as closely as Alyssa did.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Like, what does that mean? Like, how?

• 8:19Speaker 01

  For him, it was like watching porn, thinking about other women, wanting to drink and smoke, wanting material things like a house and a job so that he could pay for that house. So, the pair decided to separate, and Brayden moved back to Washington to live with his mom. Now, this is all around April of 2016. Now, without Brayden, Alyssa's life honestly didn't change much. She was a woman of routine, and she didn't stray from it. According to her parents, every morning, bright and early, she woke up, had her coffee, drove to the public library in her dad's car, walked through this nature preserve area

• 9:02Speaker 01

  right behind the library called the Riparian, and she would find a spot to journal and read her Bible. She would be there a while, like, from like 7:00 AM to noon, every single day like clockwork. Except on June 9th, 2016. On this day, Alyssa leaves for the Riparian in the morning. But then the clock stops. She never came home, not at noon or by 7:00, which is when her parents start to get worried. I mean, they try calling her, but it's going straight to voicemail. And we know that Alyssa is pretty unplugged, so like, you know, this isn't necessarily weird immediately. But when 10:00 PM rolls around and there is still no word from her, Alyssa's parents, Barbara and Ed,

• 9:46Speaker 01

  they decide to drive over to the library themselves. And right away, they find Ed's blue 2002 Dodge Caravan parked in the lot. It's locked, so Ed opens it up with his spare key, but nothing is amiss, which does really nothing to calm them. In fact, when they call another daughter of theirs, Michelle, who comes rushing over in her pajamas, her first thought is that Alyssa must have been kidnapped. So not knowing what else to do, her and her parents just start running through the Riparian in the dark, screaming Alyssa's name, continuing to call the phone that she isn't answering.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  And how big is this area, like this park?

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Huge. So it's 110 acres with seven different ponds along like hiking trails and a fishing lake. So Alyssa's family quickly realizes that they might be in over their heads. And that's when Ed calls the police. It's Gilbert PD who takes the report. And according to Michelle, they sort of like cordon off some entrances of the park, but they don't really start searching right away. I don't know if it's because it's too dark or what the reasoning is, but it isn't until the next day that a real search ensues. They contact hospitals, churches, jails. They search her room at home to see if maybe she left anything behind, saying where she might be going. She didn't, obviously.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  And when they ping her phone via T-Mobile, they see that it's been turned off since 10:00 AM, the day of her disappearance, which means they can't get a location or apparently even like a location history.

• 11:20Speaker 00

  Well, and now they're a full day behind.

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Right. So their best bet is just to put all their resources into searching the preserve and the area around the library. Now, the public library has a surveillance camera facing the south parking lot where Alyssa parked her dad's car. But according to the police file, the specific spot that Alyssa parked in is of course out of view. And the park itself has no cameras. So investigators have to rely on their own searches of the area to try and understand how Alyssa's last movements may have played out. They bring in tracking dogs, they bring in helicopters with thermal imaging. And at 2:42 PM, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office Air Unit finds her.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  And her body is sort of hidden by brush, but from an aerial view, there is no mistaking what they're looking at. It is a nude body floating face down in one of the ponds. And actually, while we know Alyssa was found in a pond, I'm honestly more inclined to call the exact spot that she was in like a puddle. Like she must be on the water's edge or something because according to the file, the water next to her left ankle was 5.5 inches deep. And next to her right ankle, it wasn't even like an inch.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  She's naked, though.

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. And her clothing, by the way, like all of her belongings, actually, like nothing is around her. It's not there, it's not in her car, nothing. So while they work to remove Alyssa's body from the preserve and send it for autopsy, they go looking for her things, right? Like where are her clothes? Not even just her clothes, where's her journal, where's her cellphone?

• 12:57Speaker 00

  All of her stuff.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  None of those things are ever found. What is found in and around this area are other clothes, some in the dumpster of the library parking lot, some under nearby bushes. There's one sock that they find in the pond. But they end up DNA testing all of this and none of it is Alyssa's. And interestingly, they also find a full latex glove on a dirt path. And there's something else that seems to suggest Alyssa wasn't alone out there when she died. In the mud, there is this set of footprints and a set of prints that show a shoe tread.

• 13:42Speaker 01

  So now the question is, if someone else was out there, who?

• 13:48Speaker 00

  And are they still out there?

• 13:50Speaker 01

  Right. Gilbert PD has an important opportunity here to use the media and the Gilbert community to their advantage, like to put out a press release to canvas for people who had been in or near the park, anyone who had seen or heard anything. But you've probably figured out by now, that is not what is about to happen.

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• 16:30Speaker 01

  When Gilbert PD first makes any kind of statement to the local community via the press, they're not pushing out critical information or warning the public of a possible threat. Rather, the story is spun up for the media, twisted in such a way to assure the Gilbert community that there is nothing to worry about at all.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  I mean, if we aren't going to call this foul play, what are we doing here?

• 16:55Speaker 01

  I think that they're leaning heavily on the autopsy report to justify this stance, which, when that's done, says that Alyssa's cause and manner of death are both undetermined. In her report, the medical examiner writes, "Therefore, because it is unknown how or exactly when the decedent came to be face down within the water, and because there are no gross anatomic abnormalities potentially causing or related to death, it is my opinion that Alyssa Nicole Olson, a 30-year-old Caucasian female, died as a result of undetermined."

• 17:35Speaker 00

  Wait, was there no water in her lungs?

• 17:39Speaker 01

  No, none.

• 17:40Speaker 00

  Are we supposed to accept that people in Gilbert just keep dying without explanation?

• 17:46Speaker 01

  I know. Now, I get why the ME might have ruled undetermined. Like her toxicology was totally clean, no surprise there. And there were no lethal signs of trauma, just some like postmortem abrasions along her right side, which can be caused by a number of like inconsequential things, like contact with debris in the water or animal activity. But also like intentional postmortem actions, like moving or dragging a body.

• 18:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 18:14Speaker 01

  And real quick, interesting tidbit, there is a note about mud being on Alyssa's hands and a significant amount of it being like caked onto her toes and the balls of her feet.

• 18:26Speaker 00

  Which kind of tracks because there's like footprints, right?

• 18:30Speaker 01

  And the shoe prints. But I don't know if they're ever able to determine if those are her prints or not. Because if they did any comparison, it might be in one of the heavily redacted areas of the case file, like the section of her autopsy labeled "evidence."

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  The other heavily redacted area is where they talk about the sexual assault kit that they did at the autopsy. In the file, it says the DNA profile from it matched Alyssa's profile. So like no entry was made into CODIS. But then right after that, there is a line that says, "Scientific lab report continued." Great, would love to read it.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Except the text is all redacted.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Which, I mean, to me, if all the DNA matched Alyssa, why would you need to redact anything?

• 19:22Speaker 01

  And what's even more interesting is that her sister Chelsea told us that the family was told by police that they would never know on the question of sexual assault because Alyssa's body was found in water, which would have washed away any evidence.

• 19:37Speaker 00

  But the water, wasn't it just by her ankles?

• 19:40Speaker 01

  I mean, I guess that's what it was like, like where she was found. But I mean, we don't know if her body was moved around at all in the pond. Plus, like if it did, right? If it was like completely washed away evidence, she's in the water for so long, what are we, what are we redacting?

• 19:53Speaker 00

  I say we're still redacting a bunch of documents.

• 19:55Speaker 01

  What's going on? And you know, while we're on this, like, I can also see the fingernail clippings. Hers were tested. Those results are redacted, too. So with all of this, what's coming into view is the possibility that Alyssa might have been met with foul play in the park. And from the file, I know that Gilbert PD saw that, too. In it, investigators routinely call the area where Alyssa was found "a crime scene." They write that they believe, quote, "someone did cause Alyssa's death." And that, quote, "there were things associated with the way Alyssa was found that may indicate another person was involved."

• 20:37Speaker 00

  So why won't they tell the public that?

• 20:39Speaker 01

  That's what I don't know. Like, I get not giving away case details broadly. And it's not like they're making things up, right? They're not straight up lying to the public, but it's more like they're really not giving any proper context. What is getting published are just stories where all anyone can talk about is Alyssa's depression, her, quote, "health problems," and her recent move back home. And all of that, when they read it, feels like a gut punch to Alyssa's family, who are already in a state of shock and confusion. Because like, one minute, they do, they have police asking them for a list of people that they, like, think they should be looking into.

• 21:22Speaker 01

  And then the next minute, they're reading about her death in the paper like it's a suicide.

• 21:27Speaker 00

  Were reporters getting suicide from police?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Like, this is what I'm saying, they're not getting the word "suicide," no. Like, the police can't say that, that would be a straight up lie, it is undetermined. But after reading the news, Michelle starts to, like, put something together. And she remembers that in her family's initial conversation with police, it felt like they were trying to steer the conversation in a specific direction, asking if Alyssa was depressed. Like, was she sad? Did she eat enough? And if you read the police reports, you'll see that they spend an outsized amount of time explaining that Alyssa had been keeping to herself. She'd barely eaten in the last few days, and she was depressed. But what they neglected to include was that Alyssa was naturally an introverted person,

• 22:15Speaker 01

  that she never had a voracious appetite. And she had recently not been as hungry because she was recovering from her ectopic pregnancy. Which Brayden said she had prayed over and made peace with. And more than anything, core to Alyssa's religious belief was that suicide was wrong. Forget the fact that her family, who had just seen her, said that she was happy and not suicidal, never even talked about suicide. All of that is true, but she had talked about others who committed the act, and she said that those weren't true believers. One of Alyssa's good friends, Blake, told us that there was, quote, "literally almost

• 22:57Speaker 01

  a 0% chance that Alyssa would take her own life," just like, based on her religious values. He said it would go against her whole self. And none of that, that I just told you, made it into the articles about Alyssa.

• 23:14Speaker 00

  Did no reporters reach out to Alyssa's family themselves to get any of this context?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  It's worse than that. The media did try to contact the Romine early on, the family turned them away. Not because they didn't want to speak, though. According to Chelsea, investigators specifically told them not to talk to anyone about anything, especially the media. They say that everything about the case is confidential, and if anyone finds anything out, it could compromise the investigation. And so even feeling like knocked down, confused, at this point, the Romine are still putting their full trust in police. Even as they, like, are reading the stuff that is so blatantly, like, not their view of their Alyssa. And so they do as they're told.

• 24:02Speaker 01

  They don't go to the media, and they don't try to correct the reports that they feel are painting a false and extremely hurtful picture. They sit back and hope that this is all part of a bigger plan. But the bigger plan takes them by complete shock. Because police don't seem to focus heavily on any of the people that the Romine family told them to look into. In fact, investigators start looking at someone that most of the family wasn't suspicious of, for no other reason, it seems, than the fact that he was Alyssa's husband of nearly four years. And Brayden and Alyssa had recently decided to separate.

• 24:46Speaker 01

  And you always look at the husband first, right? Before we get into Brayden's interviews with police, I want to go back to the day that Alyssa was reported missing, which is June 9. Both the police and Alyssa's mom, Barbara, tried calling Brayden to alert him. Both calls went to voicemail. Then her dad, Ed, looked up Alyssa's cellphone activity on their shared account and found that Alyssa and Brayden had spoken over the phone the night before she disappeared for around two hours, which just made him want to reach Brayden even more. So Ed decided to call the family that Brayden was staying with.

• 25:24Speaker 00

  The family, like, not his? He wasn't, wasn't he living with his mom?

• 25:28Speaker 01

  Well, so according to the police report, he was when he first moved back to Washington, but they had a falling out over the extent of his religious beliefs, which ended in him storming out. So he ended up calling this close family friend that he'd stayed with before, this lady named Wendy Phillips, and asked if he could stay with her and her family.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  And still in Washington?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, this is just like an hour away from his mom's place, but in Washington. So Brayden told Wendy that he had been staying with his mom, but that he, quote, "determined that his mom was Satan." So I don't know if she, like, felt for him or what, but Wendy and her husband, Timothy, agreed to take him in. And Brayden joined them and their children, James and Samantha, in Toledo, Washington. Now, our reporter Nicole spoke with both kids, James and Samantha. And they described Brayden as almost like a brother to them. He would go to their family lake days at barbecues, and when he married Alyssa, he would bring her around, too. And they adored her. Samantha and Alyssa actually ended up becoming good friends themselves.

• 26:29Speaker 01

  But when Brayden came to live with the Phillips in 2016, after his separation, Samantha said that he seemed to be in this, like, really weird headspace. She said that Brayden would talk constantly about how much he loved Alyssa and how heartbroken he was, but there seemed to be something else, just like, under the surface. He would say that the separation was God's will, and obviously, something must not be right with Alyssa because God pulled him away from her. Samantha said it actually made Brayden an uncomfortable person to be around. Like, she couldn't quite put her finger on it, but she just got this unsettled feeling in her gut that something was off.

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Which brings me back to the night that Alyssa was reported missing. So Alyssa's family was, like, desperately trying to get a hold of Brayden. They finally reached the Phillips, and they're like, "Sorry, Brayden's asleep." But the Romine were like, "Okay, yeah, but this is really important, please just tell him to, like, listen to the voicemails we left him, like, he'll understand and he'll want to call us back." So Wendy, like, she goes to get Brayden, who is sleeping, she has him, like, listen to the voicemail messages that Barbara and the police officer had left. And per her account in the police file, Brayden apparently showed no visible emotion while listening to the voicemails. And after they finished, he handed the phone back to one of the Phillips and said, "Thank

• 27:54Speaker 01

  you," and went back to bed.

• 27:57Speaker 00

  What?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  Their son, James, said that Brayden just acted like it was any other day. And he remembers Brayden saying, "She's probably off on a spiritual journey, she'll pop back up." Well, guess what? She didn't. So the Phillips managed to convince Brayden to call the police back the next day. This would be June 10. But still, this is before Alyssa's body has been found. And on this call, according to the police files, Brayden does admit to speaking with Alyssa on June 8. He says they spoke about what was going on in each other's lives, about religion, specifically about this trip that they're thinking of going on to Florida to learn more about a certain religious movement.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  They decided to leave the decision up to Jesus. Now, according to Brayden, the conversation was, it was soft, it was sweet, loving. But interestingly, he also says in it, he admitted to Alyssa that he was having thoughts of not being faithful, that he was viewing pornography, and he wanted to drink and smoke and get a house and a job, all those things that, like, were pulling them apart, which were all still things that Alyssa did not approve of.

• 29:06Speaker 00

  And does he seem concerned at this point, like, to the officers, or is he still kind of detached?

• 29:11Speaker 01

  It's hard to tell. Like, I'm just going off of an officer's write-up of this conversation, but it seems like Brayden sort of dismisses the idea that Alyssa is in danger. He says that she didn't mention hanging out with anyone new, that she mostly kept to herself anyway, and she didn't make any indications at all that she was going to harm herself. I mean, he said, quote, "She is probably just at the zoo," end quote. Which is weirder than a spiritual journey.

• 29:36Speaker 00

  I mean, yeah, and like, overnight?

• 29:38Speaker 01

  I guess, yeah, because this is the next day, but like, I don't know, Brayden says that he knows that Alyssa goes to the Riparian, he mentions the Riparian every day. But she'd also recently started visiting the zoo in the mornings, I guess, so like, I don't know if he just assumes that she, she went there instead and was there, like, the whole time? I don't know. But as for his own whereabouts, Brayden tells police that he has been in Washington with the Phillips since the end of April.

• 30:05Speaker 00

  And does he mention anything about the separation?

• 30:08Speaker 01

  He doesn't, but it also doesn't seem like they really ask him about it. Like, at this point, everything investigators seem to know about Brayden and Alyssa's relationship history comes from other sources. And remember, they're talking to him at a time when she has not been found, like, she's just missing, and I think they're really focused on just, like, seeing if he knows where she is. Now, as we know, it's only hours after this call, though, that Alyssa's body ends up being found. And Brayden's mom, her name's Jody, she actually drives down to the Phillips' house herself to tell Brayden once she learns the news. And when she gets there, according to Wendy, who Brayden's staying with, his behavior is weird. Wendy tells police that Jody was trying to talk to him, but he kept screaming at her

• 30:52Speaker 01

  and telling her that she was Satan. And when she finally was able to tell him that Alyssa was dead, Brayden says, quote, "It was prophesied that she would die."

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Prophecy by who? And also, why? Because I'm pretty sure five minutes ago, you were telling us that she was just at the zoo.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  I don't know. Samantha, one of the Phillips, their daughter, she said that he didn't seem distraught, which was really unsettling to her. And her brother, James, thought that it was downright terrifying. Though apparently, Brayden does eventually break down, like screaming and wailing. So he does have some reaction. And later that day, he also starts confiding in James. He says that he's afraid of facing his family or going down to Gilbert and seeing his and Alyssa's things. He says he doesn't want to speak at the funeral or even see Alyssa's body or actually go to the funeral at all. James says that they talk until James's parents come home. And then Brayden says,

• 31:57Speaker 01

  "I don't want you talking about anything we talked about to your parents." But whether James told them or not, Brayden eventually stops trusting any of the Phillips. He starts calling their dad Timothy Satan. And then he stops speaking to all of them altogether. And the last thing he asks for is a ride to the airport the next day, which, at this point, I assume the Phillips are like happy to provide.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, but the airport to go where?

• 32:24Speaker 01

  Back to Arizona. So like Alyssa's family had gotten him a flight so that he could stay with them for a while.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  So they really weren't suspicious of him at all?

• 32:32Speaker 01

  Not at this point, no. But Samantha, who was 18 or 19 at this time, she said that she was, like, the day that he left town, this would have been June 11th. She remembers looking at her mom with this sinking feeling in her stomach and saying, "Mom, did Brayden kill her?" But I don't think the police were asking themselves that same question, at least not yet. So the day after Brayden gets to Arizona, he calls Gilbert PD asking to speak about Alyssa.

• 33:04Speaker 00

  He calls them?

• 33:05Speaker 01

  Proactively. At least, that's what it says in the case file. But when he comes into the station for what they consider his like first formal interview, in it, Brayden does himself zero favors.

• 33:23Speaker 00

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• 34:07Speaker 00

  all genders, and all health journeys. Get more insight on how your body is aging. Function provides over 160 lab tests for a price that comes out to about a dollar a day and member pricing on advanced imaging. Plus, the ability to dive deeper into your results with Function's trusted connections to platforms you already use, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Join at functionhealth.com/crimejunkie and use code CRIMEJUNKIE25 for a $25 credit.

• 34:33Speaker 00

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• 35:17Speaker 00

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• 35:34Speaker 01

  Brayden tells police some things that they already know about his and Alyssa's relationship and the separation. Emphasizing, by the way, though, that they had their disagreements and they were living apart, but they were definitely still married. And then, things start to take a turn. Brayden is asked what he heard happened to Alyssa. And this is when he begins to describe the crime scene in vivid detail.

• 36:04Speaker 00

  Which is like, how do you know what it looked like?

• 36:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. And he tells investigators that he knows because he saw some video of the crime scene on the news.

• 36:15Speaker 00

  Of the crime scene?

• 36:16Speaker 01

  Well, of the investigator saying that they found Alyssa. And then, he said he saw this like overhead view from a helicopter. And he says, quote, "It's kind of hard to see, but you can see it if you look," end quote. And when the detectives ask if anything stuck out to him, he said, "Just her position."

• 36:35Speaker 00

  Okay, but how is he seeing the crime scene video? Like, I'm confused.

• 36:40Speaker 01

  I know, this is what's like kind of wild. According to him, it's just like all over. Like, the local news station, AZ Central, AZ Family, CNN, he's saying it's everywhere. Which, in the moment, I don't think the detective could like prove him wrong. So he kind of just like pivots and he starts down this like different line of questioning. He wants to know Brayden's thoughts about what happened to Alyssa. And Brayden says that the Lord told him Alyssa was attacked by Satan and thrown in the water by a demon. And I'm not quite sure how that goes over with the detective because there is this like whole redaction paragraph after this. And then Brayden starts asking about Alyssa's belongings, specifically, her bag.

• 37:25Speaker 00

  What bag?

• 37:26Speaker 01

  The investigator asks. But Brayden's answer is redacted. I don't know if she always like took a bag with her to the Rhyperian or if Brayden knows more than he should because from like what we can read in the report, there's no mention of a bag at the scene or anywhere. But Brayden is able to describe what is inside of this hypothetical bag. And he says, he doesn't understand if it just sank or what happened, but he wants to know what she was going through and what she was writing about. The investigator says that, you know, "I can't share that information with you." And then he steers Brayden back to that demon theory he mentioned. And he asks Brayden, he's like, you know, "Have you ever been possessed by a demon before?"

• 38:10Speaker 01

  To which Brayden says that he believed demons were making him commit sins, like watching TV and drinking alcohol. And at this point, I think the investigator might be like getting in over his head because he writes in the file that he advises Brayden that he is not a demon expert, and then he just ends the interview.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  That's it?

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Well, it doesn't actually end. He like, he tries to. But what happens is the investigator leaves to like get a witness statement form for Brayden to fill out. I don't know why they're considering him a witness or if this is just like a generic.

• 38:40Speaker 00

  Just like a form?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, for like a statement form, whatever. But when the investigator gets back into the room, it becomes clear that even if he was done asking him questions, Brayden is not done talking.

• 38:50Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 38:51Speaker 01

  And this is where things really start to go off the rails.

• 38:55Speaker 00

  I honestly thought we were already off the rails.

• 38:57Speaker 01

  You have no idea where this goes. So Brayden starts asking about the injuries to Alyssa's body. He's like, obviously, I know there was an investigation into what happened to her, but like, is there anything else that there's an investigation into?

• 39:13Speaker 00

  Uh, should there be, Brayden?

• 39:15Speaker 01

  Right, like, you tell me.

• 39:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  But Brayden's like, I don't know, like, are you investigating a murder? Or are you just like trying to find every detail of what happened? Or are you?

• 39:26Speaker 00

  Can't it be both?

• 39:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, and the detective was like, "Yeah, Brayden, with like all of our investigations, we want to find out what happened."

• 39:33Speaker 00

  We want to know what happened, yeah.

• 39:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, but like, also, I can't go into that in detail with you. And the husband, Brayden's like, okay, so you couldn't tell me if there was anything on her body at all? Like, if I called the medical place, would they tell me what happened to her body? And the detective is like, what do you mean? And he says, like, is there any mangling or strangling? Like, is there any like bruises? Or like, like if somebody like punched her or at least tried to kill her? Is there any of that on her body? What? I, yeah, the detective again is like, "I can't tell you that." Yeah. And that, it says in the case file,

• 40:19Speaker 01

  is when Brayden giggled and was like, "Yeah, I know, I know." Okay, so were there any signs of strangulation, though? Nothing was mentioned in the unredacted areas of the autopsy report, but there are redactions in the file that appear specifically in the sections that are describing Alyssa's neck and nervous system, which like includes her brain and her spinal cord. But that is such a weirdly specific thing for Brayden to ask. In the weirdest way possible, too. At that point, the detective just straight up asked Brayden if he knows anything about what happened to Alyssa or anything that might assist in the investigation. And Brayden says no, but of course, he has not done talking yet.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Dude, go home, get a lawyer. Stop talking. So he proceeds to ask the investigator if he can be notified of any updates instead of Alyssa's family, like specifically Alyssa's mom and dad, because he didn't want anyone to freak out. And he kind of explains that like he's wary of misinformation, so he wants to know directly from the source what happened. And the investigator is like, "Yeah, no, you and the real minds can both have that privilege." Right, not instead, how about in addition to? But Brayden doubles down. He's like, "Yes, these people are her family, but like they weren't very close." She was living with them. Yeah, and also, like, so is Brayden at this point, when he's saying this. Oh, yeah.

• 41:45Speaker 01

  But Brayden just says that he doesn't want anyone knowing anything before him. So the investigator must like take this opportunity to be like, "Maybe we should keep talking," because he starts down this like new, like different line of questioning. He asks Brayden, "If Alyssa was attacked by a person rather than a demon, what should happen to that person?" And Brayden responds that he thinks that person should be punished and thrown in jail, but when they have fully changed and repented, they should be let out. And then the investigator asks about the death penalty, but Brayden says that he wouldn't want that for that person, which I can totally see being against his religious beliefs, right? Like, that's not odd to me.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  But then he's asked, "Okay, well, like, what kind of punishment would you want for them?" I have to read, I know it's like dry to read a report, but I have to read it to you in his words because like, "I don't want you thinking I'm making any of this up." So Brayden then replied, "I wouldn't want that for them." I asked Brayden to clarify, and Brayden replied, "I wouldn't want death for them," right? We, no death penalty, we know that. So this is where he says, "I asked Brayden, what would you want?" And Brayden replied, "I would want them, honestly, I would want them to change. I would want them to know the Lord, and I would want them to find Him and for them to receive forgiveness, but have true, honest repentance. Then there is punishment, and there needs to be change. If there's no change, then that person should have a severe punishment." I asked if the person responsible should be sentenced to prison.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Brayden replied, "I can say possibly, I don't know, because there are so many things that could like go different ways." Brayden went on to say, "I guess I'm judging a man by his heart and what's in his heart. And if the man is turning, and he's changing, and he's willing to turn and obey and follow." Brayden believed that he, the person responsible, should be built up slowly and gradually. Brayden said, "He's still in trouble, he's not off the hook, and there's punishment, but there, I think that if someone is progressing to that there is proof, then I think that maybe a little bit more mercy." Brayden went on to say, "If they have fully changed, I think that maybe they should not be in jail." And at this point, I'm reading still from the file.

• 43:59Speaker 01

  "At this point, I advised Brayden, 'Had this situation occurred to me with my wife being killed, then I would want the person responsible put to death. I advised Brayden, the two of us have separate backgrounds, which is why we have different views.'" Brayden replied, "No, honestly, I feel the same way, actually, what you said." I asked Brayden why he did not tell me this previously. Brayden gave a deep sigh and stated, "I don't know, I just don't want them to be in trouble."

• 44:28Speaker 01

  Okay. I know. You read this whole thing, and I was like, "Okay, okay, I feel like I'm getting a picture of Brayden and like his thought process." And then he's like, "You know, you make a lot of sense." What you said. That, that, just go with what you said. What you said. Write down what you said. At this point, the investigator says to Brayden, point blank, like, "If you want to tell me something, like, now would be the time to tell me." But Brayden says, "There is nothing to tell." So, this is when the interview wraps up. Again? Again, with the investigator asking Brayden if his DNA would be found at the scene. Brayden says, "Nope, he was in Washington the whole day on June 9th,

• 45:11Speaker 01

  which can be verified by the family he was staying with." And he has this sort of defensive moment where he says that he feels like he's being accused of something, and he like needs to prove his innocence, which like... I mean, what you needed to do is stop talking. Exactly. Like, I don't think they were ready to accuse him of anything when he walked in there, for sure. But they're definitely gonna start really looking into him more now. So, on June 16th, officers take a trip up to Washington. And when they talk to Brayden's mom, Jody, she says that she can't imagine Brayden being involved in Alyssa's death. She says that he has never hurt anyone, and until this happened, he's been the best son and brother.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Until Alyssa's death? No, I actually think she means more like since he started becoming more like extreme with his religion and like cut the family off. Here, I actually have another part of the police report I'm gonna have you read.

• 46:10Speaker 00

  He just isn't my son. Like, I don't... His personality used to just be so fun and funny and light and a joy to be around. Him and Alyssa both. They just seem so intense. It's all about God. You can't have a conversation with them without, you know, Jesus being in the mix. So, yeah, it had gotten difficult.

• 46:33Speaker 01

  According to Jody, Brayden is the kind of person where if you're not with him, you're against him. Investigators also have an interesting conversation with Timothy Phillips, right? The dad of the family he's staying with. He says that back when Brayden moved in with them, he kept referring to himself as "the condemned man." Timothy says that he felt like Brayden was implying that his sins were violent or dangerous, and he thought that Brayden must have been worried about getting a divorce from Alyssa because of how that would affect his religious progression. He also says that Brayden's response to Alyssa's death was not "normal." That was a quote, "not normal."

• 47:16Speaker 01

  But the most important conversation investigators had is with Wendy, who indeed confirms that Brayden was at her house every day of the week that Alyssa went missing, and that she saw him physically each day up until she drove him to the airport on the 11th. I mean, you're kidding me. No, like, he has a rock-solid alibi. But it doesn't mean he still wasn't involved. Which is why they keep digging. And luckily for investigators, Wendy hands over something that could help them test this theory, right? Like, was he maybe involved but not like physically responsible? She gives them the devices

• 48:00Speaker 01

  that Brayden had been using while he was staying with them, including a phone and a tablet. And he didn't take those with him to Arizona? No, because they weren't his. Remember, Brayden and Alyssa shared a phone. And so when Brayden left for Washington, Alyssa kept that phone. So while he was staying with the Phillips family, he was borrowing their son's devices. That's how he would communicate with Alyssa. And their son, James, told police that Brayden used his tablet constantly. So, when the forensic analysis comes back a month later on these devices, that's what investigators expect to see, right? Like, all these communications, constant use. But there's a little problem.

• 48:44Speaker 01

  Or if you're Brayden, there is a big problem. Because it turns out Brayden had deleted almost all traces of his activity on the phone and tablet. And according to Wendy, the day he left, Brayden did the same thing with his Xbox Live account. She tells police, quote, "It's like he was never there."

• 49:13Speaker 00

  October is menopause awareness month, and yet, most women wait until symptoms are impossible to ignore to check hormone levels. Instead of just accepting unexplained changes, women need real data. Testing, not guessing, is what matters, and it's Function's core approach. Your hormones, stress response, and inflammation can all show up in your blood, and Function tracks it. These biomarkers provide context about menopause, aging, and overall health, which is just one of the reasons why Function is so great. And I love that through tests accessed via Function, you can look at cortisol, the primary stress hormone, and HSCR-P to monitor inflammation, plus much more. Function members also get access to biomarkers related to DHEAS, an adrenal hormone that can impact your energy, mood, and hormonal balance.

• 49:55Speaker 00

  Function is beneficial for all adults over 18, all genders, and all health journeys. Get more insight on how your body is aging. Function provides over 160 lab tests for a price that comes out to about $1 a day, and member pricing on advanced imaging. Plus, the ability to dive deeper into your results with Function's trusted connections to platforms you already use, like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. Join at functionhealth.com/crimejunkie and use code CRIMEJUNKIE25 for $25 credit. Most people focus purely on where their money is today, but Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where that money is going tomorrow. Acorns offers a smart, effortless way to grow your money. I love that it's an all-in-one platform for investing, saving, and goal-setting. No extra finance apps needed.

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• 51:24Speaker 00

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• 51:37Speaker 01

  Three months after these data records come back, investigators feel like they're ready to talk to Brayden again, to lay out everything that they've learned since their first discussion and see what he has to say. And if you didn't pick up on this from Brayden's first interview, he's gonna have a lot to say.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:55Speaker 01

  This time around, they go to him, because he's back in Washington at this point. And they start off with an open-ended question. What do you know about Alyssa's death? And Brayden answers, "I don't know anything. I know that she went to the Riparian Preserve. I don't know how she died. I literally don't know what happened," is what he said.

• 52:15Speaker 00

  Okay, I thought he knew all about the crime scene.

• 52:18Speaker 01

  That. So that is exactly what they bring it back to. They're like, "Hey, so remember how you said you knew about the crime scene because you saw it on TV? So weird thing, we can't find news coverage of it. We even asked your mom last time that we were in Washington if, like, the media up there was showing something, like, maybe they showed something we can't find here in Arizona? She said no. At one point, she even said information regarding Alyssa's death was nonexistent in the media. But Brayden doubles down, and he starts describing the footage in even more detail. I mean, like, he literally draws a map for investigators with details down to where the bathrooms and the benches were in the preserve.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  He says that he watched a clip on AZ Family of a helicopter flying over a pond, and he saw this hourglass figure that, quote, "looked like my wife." But police are like, "Dude, again, where? Because we cannot find this thing." So Brayden, like, is like, "Okay, whatever." He, like, whips out his phone, like, "Here, I'll show you." But all of a sudden, Brayden can't seem to find it either. And now, he sort of tries to, like, walk the whole thing back. Like, he says, like, "Well, I thought I saw a body, but maybe what I saw was, like, a bush."

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Okay, he just said he saw an hourglass figure that looked like his wife.

• 53:38Speaker 01

  I know. And at this point, investigators are, like, straight up, "Listen, we're having trouble ruling you out as a suspect, and this is the moment where I would say, if this were me, 'I didn't do this. I am innocent.'" Brayden chooses to go with, "Well, there's no evidence or anything."

• 53:56Speaker 00

  No, not, not the right answer.

• 53:59Speaker 01

  And the detective is like, "How do you know there's no evidence?" And Brayden says, "Well, you know, obviously, there isn't." And so the detective asks again, like, "But how do you know that?" And that's when Brayden has to admit he doesn't know that. And at this point, I can only imagine that things are, like, feeling tense. So Brayden takes the opportunity to reiterate what should be his rock-solid alibi. He was in Washington. He didn't have his own devices, or any money, or even a car.

• 54:28Speaker 00

  I mean, but he was still using devices, and they were basically all wiped.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah. Brayden says that that, by the way, was because he was watching porn and sports and didn't want the Phillips to think badly of him. But, like, by the way, he also deleted his communications, so, like, that doesn't totally add up for me. And listen, there are a whole lot of redactions in the file at this point.

• 54:53Speaker 00

  I mean, I can't even imagine what more he could have said.

• 54:56Speaker 01

  I don't know, but the next thing that I can see is the point where the investigator starts walking through some theories. One is that this was a murder. Two is that someone was trying to help Alyssa rid herself of demons, went too far, and this was an accident. And Brayden's like, "Yep, mhm, that second one." But he says he doesn't think that it was an accident because, quote, "demons wanted to kill Alyssa." And then, as if things couldn't get any worse, Brayden, like, sort of goes off on this rant about how he is this, like, wretched and evil man because of the things that he has done. He says that he's hurt people, he's lied to them about who he is.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  Hurt who?

• 55:39Speaker 01

  I don't know. And the detective actually asks a different question. That would've been my question. He wants Brayden to tell him the worst thing he's ever done to a person, so maybe kind of the same question. And Brayden has an answer. He tells this story about this one time, that he and Alyssa were in California together, ministering at a woman's house. And Alyssa was, like, praying to God to rebuke the demons inside of him, but she wouldn't stop when he asked her to. So Brayden threatened her to be quiet with a knife. So now, the detective asks if maybe that same thing happened at the preserve.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  And Brayden says, "The devil, yeah, he manifested. I wasn't physically there, but he manifested." And then, of course, as soon as it feels like we are on the brink of something, redactions. Pages of them. When I can read again, all I can see is that Brayden refused to take a computer voice stress analysis because the Lord told him not to. And that must be good enough for detectives, because that is the last time that they speak to Brayden.

• 57:01Speaker 00

  You're kidding me.

• 57:02Speaker 01

  No. Now, granted, I've told you, there are a lot of redactions in the file, but this is the last interview with him that I can see. And I think that is because they could never put him in Arizona or connect him to someone who was there.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Okay, but, like, how do you explain him drawing a map of the crime scene?

• 57:26Speaker 01

  Our team actually got to the bottom of that. So that video that Brayden was talking about, this aerial footage over the Riparian showing the discovery of Alyssa's body, Alyssa's sister, Michelle, says she saw it too. She said that it was on the evening news a day or two after Alyssa was found, and it was clear enough for her to observe something white in the water, which she also thought was Alyssa's body because she was, like, naturally very pale.

• 57:57Speaker 00

  Okay, so how come the officer couldn't seem to find it?

• 58:01Speaker 01

  Well, that's because by the time the officer was searching for it, I don't think there was anything there to find. It seemed like it had been taken down. And we even dug into this a little deeper with the help of our breaking news reporter, Brianna Whitney.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  She worked for AZ Family.

• 58:15Speaker 01

  Literally, she came here from AZ Family. And that's the station that Brayden specifically referenced in this police interview. And she said that like, as a matter of policy there, the station would not post any footage showing a body or human remains of any kind.

• 58:29Speaker 00

  Which makes sense.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, now Brianna wasn't with the station at this time, but she said what's very likely is that if there was breaking news, like a breaking news broadcast that showed something that the newsroom later realized might depict a body, it would immediately be scrubbed from their channels. Which tells me that Brayden was likely telling the truth in his interview with police. And I know that he drew a map, but like Brayden had been to the Riparian over a dozen times before this, like which he did actually relay to investigators. Now, Michelle and the rest of the Romine family back up Brayden in other ways, too. Yes, the stuff he was saying was off the wall, but they said he had no motive.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  Because even though he and Alyssa were separated, everyone in their lives said that the two were not even close to heading for divorce. They just wanted a little bit of space for like, a hot minute. No one ever witnessed any arguing. They were still talking on the phone for hours a day, even during the separation. And they had plans to go to that like, Bible conference a week or two after Alyssa died. And what's more, according to Chelsea, the only reason that Brayden even went back to Washington, rather than stay in Arizona during this little time apart, was because his grandfather had passed away. Otherwise, she said, he probably would have just stayed local. So, this motive, not really as solid as it seemed.

• 59:55Speaker 00

  And if there's no motive, then you can rule out like, any sort of like, hitman theory, right?

• 59:59Speaker 01

  Listen, I can't say anything for certain. And for what it's worth, the Phillips family, who hosted Brayden after the separation, said the thought has always lingered with them that Brayden knows what happened to Alyssa. They still see him around in Washington sometimes, like at church or the grocery store. But none of them have spoken to him since he got on that airplane to Arizona back in 2016. They actually left a church service and went home after seeing him because they like, didn't even want a deal. But like, I mean, play this theory out, right? So like, we know Brayden didn't have a job. He and Alyssa survived off donations. I mean, the Romines literally had to pay for his travel to Arizona. So if this was a hit-for-hire situation...

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  How's he paying for it?

• 1:00:44Speaker 01

  With what money, exactly. And listen, maybe he had like, a friend in Arizona who would have helped him free of charge. Or maybe, we're trying to connect dots that don't connect, because Brayden had nothing to do with this. Either way, there is no explicit explanation as to why Brayden's name sort of just fades from reports. And I actually can't say for certain that the police have cleared him. Now, I know that James said they still have his cellphone, laptop, and tablet, like all the ones that Brayden was using. But it's hard to say if the police are actually doing anything with them, or if they're just holding on to them.

• 1:01:24Speaker 00

  And I'm assuming we tried reaching Brayden for comment?

• 1:01:27Speaker 01

  Of course. But as of this recording, we haven't gotten a response. Alyssa's sister, Michelle, told us it felt like investigators took one look at Alyssa and Brayden's lifestyle, heard about their religious beliefs, and instantly wrote them off as religious lunatics. And from that point on, she believes the investigation was driven by a simple assumption. Either Alyssa did this to herself, or Brayden did it to her. And they were gonna figure out how to put the pieces together to fit that story. But guess what? It's over 10 years later, and this case is just in undetermined purgatory. And the more that we investigated, the easier it became to see Brayden not as somebody who

• 1:02:10Speaker 01

  killed his beloved wife, but rather somebody who was distraught, overwhelmed, and in desperate need of a lawyer. Because when you remove him from the equation, there are some other, very viable leads that have been haunting not only me, but Alyssa's family too. And when you hear them, I think you'll understand why. Because girl, even through the redactions, what we found is shocking. And this case takes some wild turns, involving a family stalker, an ex-boyfriend, two strangers who knew things they shouldn't have, and Alyssa's ties to a controversial religious

• 1:02:53Speaker 01

  movement, which many online have likened to a cult. But that's on next week's episode. Or, if you're in the Crime Junkie fan club, you can listen to part two right now, ad-free. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

• 1:03:21Speaker 02

  When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.