297. The Cape Cod Murder Mystery

A quiet Cape Cod town is shaken when a young mother is found murdered, her toddler the only witness, and decades later the evidence still raises more questions than answers. Links: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/murderwithmyhusband NEW MERCH LINK: https://mwmhshop.com Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 Case Sources: CapeCodTimes.com - https://www.capecodtimes.com/story/news/crime/2024/08/12/christa-worthington-murder-forensic-test-lost-evidence-truro-christopher-mccowen/74649241007/ CBSNews.com - https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christa-worthington-cape-cod-murder/ ABCNews.go.com - https://abcnews.go.com/US/murder-case-fashion-writer-christa-worthington/story?id=50595995 TheSun.com - https://www.the-sun.com/news/8724894/who-was-christa-worthington-and-what-happened-to-her/ SouthCoastToday.com - https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/2006/10/21/grisly-murder-scene-described/50376221007/ Vassar.edu - https://www.vassar.edu/vq/issues/2004/01/class-notes-profiles/remembering-christa.html Wikipedia.org - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christa_Worthington Oxygen.com - https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/christa-worthingtons-murder-by-christopher-mccowen-revisited People.com - https://people.com/crime/christopher-mccowen-abc-interview-christa-worthington-murder/ NYMag.com - https://nymag.com/news/articles/02/worthington/2.htm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Payton Moreland?

  You're listening to an Ono Media Podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder with my husband. I'm Peyton Marlin.

• 0:07Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm Garrett Marlin.

• 0:08Payton Moreland?

  And he's the husband.

• 0:08Garrett Moreland?

  And I'm the husband. It is currently Peyton's birthday. Happy birthday. By the time you're listening to this, it's not Peyton's birthday anymore.

• 0:15Payton Moreland?

  I'll be 40.

• 0:17Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, you'll be, she'll be 40.

• 0:20Garrett Moreland?

  We're recording early. We're going to visit some family for the holidays. So yeah, that's, that's what we got going on. Daisy also is now three years old. She had her birthday too. Happy birthday, Daisy. I think no other birthdays. Thank you for being here. Before we jump into it, a reminder, if you want bonus content, or if you want ad free content, you can check out Apple subscriptions, or Spotify subscriptions, or Patreon. Patreon and Spotify are basically the same thing. Anyways, if you want ad free content or bonus content, go and check it out. And for my 10 seconds, I don't know, don't know what to say.

• 1:00Garrett Moreland?

  Literally no idea. I don't, I don't have anything.

• 1:02Payton Moreland?

  Someone got me for my birthday.

• 1:04Garrett Moreland?

  Oh, okay. I got Peyton a, for her birthday, it's called a brick.

• 1:10Garrett Moreland?

  And it

• 1:10Payton Moreland?

  Just a solid brick.

• 1:12Garrett Moreland?

  Just a brick, just a red brick. I got her a red brick. It's really sentimental. No, it's called a brick. And this isn't sponsored, by the way. And it, we've never used it, but it helps you manage the time on your phone. It can like lock your phone, correct?

• 1:27Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. So you can sync apps with the brick and then say you're like, I want 15 minutes a day, which yes, you can already do on your iPhone. But it's the app, this brick app is what locks it. And in order for you to get back in, you have to go walk over to wherever your brick is and touch your phone to the brick.

• 1:48Garrett Moreland?

  So like, yeah, you could do it. I mean, sure. But I mean, at some point, you got to have some self.

• 1:54Payton Moreland?

  Well, like I've tried to do the like, oh, time limit.

• 1:57Garrett Moreland?

  And I think it's too easy.

• 1:59Payton Moreland?

  It's just too easy to ignore. And I know it sounds kind of wussy to be like, oh, well, I have to go and lock the brick, but I've heard, just heard, seen a lot of people talk about it and they're like, no, like genuinely, it just gives you that second to really think about like, oh, okay, I'm actually, I don't, I'm just gonna not get on.

• 2:15Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah. So I don't know.

• 2:16Payton Moreland?

  We'll see.

• 2:17Garrett Moreland?

  Peyton's been wanting it.

• 2:18Payton Moreland?

  Maybe I'll hate it.

• 2:20Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know anything about it. Yeah, that's my 10 seconds. Sorry. I don't really have anything else. We're kind of just getting ready for the holidays. So we've just been running around. But we are here recording. And let's get into today's episode.

• 2:36Payton Moreland?

  Our sources for this episode are Cape Cod Times.com, CBS News.com, ABC News dot go.com, The Sun.com, South Coast Today.com, Basser.edu, Oxygen.com, People.com, and New York Mag.com. Now, when a murder happens in a small town, things get handled a lot differently than they do in big cities. I think we've seen this time and time again on the podcast. Oftentimes, the police departments don't know how to handle a case as well as say, a larger department might. And that can lead to botched investigations, forgotten clues, and trashed crime scenes. And in a town where everyone knows everyone, anyone can really be seen as a suspect.

• 3:19Payton Moreland?

  Being in a close knit community can offer some perks to an investigation too, though. Like more access to the people you need to question, maybe even the ability to collect DNA from people in town. Kind of like you'll see in today's case. But when the leads don't pan out, there's usually one person who is left taking the blame in such a small town. And that is the town outcast. The one person who's different from the rest of the town, maybe the town weirdo. But does that make them the culprit? Or does it make them the scapegoat? Especially when they are proclaiming their innocence until the bitter end.

• 3:59Garrett Moreland?

  If anyone lives in a small town, I'm not talking, I'm talking small town. Like, everybody knows each other.

• 4:08Payton Moreland?

  There is an outcast.

• 4:09Garrett Moreland?

  Leave a comment. I'm curious. I didn't grow up in a small town. Peyton did, but not small enough.

• 4:16Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 4:17Garrett Moreland?

  It was small, but not small enough. Anyways, leave a comment. I'm curious. Yeah.

• 4:21Payton Moreland?

  So today, we're taking a trip to a sleepy little Cape Cod, Massachusetts community called Truro. It's basically a seasonal vacation town that sees an influx of tourists by summer. But when the fall arrives, it goes back to being home to the 2,000 or so residents that live there year round. It's the kind of place where people feel safe enough to leave their front doors unlocked, where they trust their neighbors with their kids, as well as their secrets, which Truro has a lot of. One of them being the mysterious, single mom from New York City, named Krista Worthington.

• 5:04Payton Moreland?

  Now Krista was born on December 23rd, 1956, just outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Her dad, Christopher "Toppy" Worthington, people called him Toppy, was a Harvard educated lawyer who gave Krista, his only child, a lot of opportunities. But Krista worked hard to see them through. She was a phenomenal student who graduated with honors and went on to attend Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. And after that, Krista moved to New York City to pursue her dreams of becoming a fashion writer. Now Krista did find a lot of success working for publications like The New York Times, Elle Magazine, Cosmopolitan, and Vogue.

• 5:49Payton Moreland?

  She spent some time living and working in Paris and London even, and co-wrote a few fashion books throughout the years before she kind of started to lose interest in this passion. So for a time, she pivoted, making antiques and collectibles her new focus, before losing interest in column writing altogether. But those who knew Krista said, that was just kind of her. She was always chasing the next big fantasy, whether that was in her job or relationships. Friends of Krista's said she was always dating someone handsome, smart, well-to-do.

• 6:29Payton Moreland?

  For example, her roster included the heiress Gloria Vanderbilt's son, not Anderson Cooper, but Stan Stokowski. But these relationships never lasted very long. Like her work, Krista would inevitably find herself getting bored, seeking a next adventure, the next rush. New romantic endeavors were what seemingly brought her joy. However, this did worry some of her closer friends. They said that over time, her chosen partners just sort of grew a bit stranger. Like, the more relationships she had, the weirder the man kind of became.

• 7:14Payton Moreland?

  Not like the men that she had used to go out with when she was younger. But the truth was, there was something missing from Krista's life. Something she always wanted and was told she would never be able to have. And that was a child. But the issue wasn't just finding the right person to do this with. It was the fact that Krista was nearing 40 and had been told by her doctors that she was unable to ever have a child. It seemed to be the thing that just ate at Krista. The one unattainable goal in her life. At one point, she considered getting a donor, doing IVF. She was fine with the idea of being a single mother who raised a child on her own. But as she was weighing this decision,

• 7:58Payton Moreland?

  she realized she just wanted to slow her life down first. So she decided it was time to move out of New York City. And she chose a quiet little town in Cape Cod where her father actually owned a few different properties. And that is our small town where the case takes place. Now, in 1997, the nearly 41-year-old Krista packed her bags and traveled north. Furo wasn't a random spot on the map for Krista. She had spent some summers here as a kid. So there were a lot of great memories. Of course, life year-round would feel much different, especially when the summer months passed and all the toys.

• 8:39Payton Moreland?

  Forest fled the area, but at least she was familiar with it. She knew it was a slow pace. In many ways, this was more Krista's speed now anyways. Friends said that while she definitely occupied a glamorous little corner of the New York social scene, Krista never really felt like she fit in with the people there. She was more free spirited, less structured. And maybe Truro and Cape Cod would be more accepting of this. So Krista moved into this small little home on the harbor, one that was owned by her grandmother. She was just a stone's throw away from an inlet where people went swimming and kayaking. There was a yacht and tennis club nearby. It was everything Krista was wanting.

• 9:23Payton Moreland?

  Aside from the fact that people often parked their boats right in front of Krista's home, since she was right by the parking lot for the harbor. And although this was like exactly what she was wanting, this move also changed her life in a way that she never anticipated. Because this is how Krista Worthington met Tony Jackett. Tony was, what the locals called, the shellfish constable of Province Town and Truro. But this wasn't just a nickname. That's literally what his job title was. His role was to enforce fishing laws and make sure that fishermen had the proper licenses.

• 10:08Payton Moreland?

  Well, one afternoon, as Krista was complaining to the harbor master about Tony's boat being parked in front of her house, Tony walked into the conversation and the two were formally introduced. But the contentious conversation quickly turned flirtatious. Instead, the two actually took a liking to each other and before long, Tony was going over to Krista's house to help with a repair and then coming over for tea. Eventually, one thing leads to another and soon Tony and Krista are falling in love.

• 10:42Garrett Moreland?

  That sounds like a Hallmark movie.

• 10:43Payton Moreland?

  Exactly. Krista wrote in her diary at this point, quote, "If there was a sweeter person on earth between the hours of eight and nine fifteen, I would not believe it. Tony became tender and we were made new spellbound."

• 10:58Garrett Moreland?

  What?

• 10:59Payton Moreland?

  I love him.

• 11:00Garrett Moreland?

  Between eight and nine fifteen AM, PM, eight AM to nine fifteen PM? What does this mean?

• 11:04Payton Moreland?

  I think that this entry just means she is delusionally in love.

• 11:09Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, got it.

• 11:10Payton Moreland?

  Hallmark. She's been Hallmarked.

• 11:12Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 11:13Payton Moreland?

  So it seemed like for the first time Krista had found someone she could actually settle down with. There was just one huge problem. Tony had been married for 26 years and he had six kids. On top of that, Pearl was a tiny town where everyone knew everyone. So it was only a matter of time before someone found out about what these two were doing.

• 11:38Garrett Moreland?

  Hey, yeah, that's an issue.

• 11:39Payton Moreland?

  Still.

• 11:40Garrett Moreland?

  That's a problem.

• 11:41Payton Moreland?

  Tony and Krista cannot seem to call it quits, which became even more complicated when Krista went to Tony with some news a year later in 1998.

• 11:53Garrett Moreland?

  She's pregnant.

• 11:54Payton Moreland?

  Krista was pregnant with Tony's child, which obviously came as a shock to Krista as well, because she'd been told by her doctors she couldn't get pregnant naturally. And here she was, carrying her lover's child. So Tony asked Krista what she wanted to do and told Krista he wasn't willing to leave his wife or her or the baby.

• 12:17Garrett Moreland?

  Fair.

• 12:18Payton Moreland?

  Krista was fine with that. So she wanted to keep the baby. And if that meant keeping Tony's name detached from the baby, then so be it.

• 12:27Garrett Moreland?

  Sad at the same time, though, because the baby's gonna

• 12:30Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 12:30Garrett Moreland?

  grow up without a father, for the most part. It's, yeah, anyways, keep going.

• 12:34Payton Moreland?

  But the father lives in the same town with six other kids. Kind of sucky.

• 12:38Garrett Moreland?

  Small towns are just, I've always wanted to experience one. Does that make sense? Is that crazy?

• 12:45Payton Moreland?

  No, I get it.

• 12:46Garrett Moreland?

  Like, I don't know. And maybe it just sounds way better than it actually is.

• 12:51Payton Moreland?

  I think, yeah, I mean.

• 12:52Garrett Moreland?

  I think maybe better, it's not that we're different. I don't know, man.

• 12:55Payton Moreland?

  There's something Hallmark dreamy about a small town, but I think it's not all cracked up to be.

• 13:01Garrett Moreland?

  I'm not saying like, oh, I'm gonna go move to a ranch. I'm gonna become a cowboy. I'm not talking about like that. I'm just saying, small towns.

• 13:09Payton Moreland?

  So, this is what she wants. And after telling Tony she was pregnant, the two actually decide to call it quits on their forbidden romance. And Krista gave birth to a little girl named Ava in May of 1999. And around that same time, Krista actually moved to a new property just a short distance away from the harbor. And Krista was basically happy, living life as a single mom. Though, it seems she did want to find someone that Ava could eventually look up to as a father figure, since Tony wasn't exactly in her life anymore. So Krista began dating again.

• 13:50Payton Moreland?

  Though, as the years passed and Krista became more ingrained in this small town, people started to whisper about the single mother because she had never told anyone who the father of her child was. And so people start gossiping. Why did she have so many men coming and going from her life? Which one was the dad? Krista felt like she was kind of becoming the town pariah, a little bit wearing a scarlet letter. But she refused to let the people of Pruro drive her out. This behavior, she could totally get away with in New York City. But she was having a harder time living like this in such a small town.

• 14:31Garrett Moreland?

  Okay, yeah, that makes sense. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. There are plenty of reasons we put off getting support, and for a lot of people, cost is one of them. With BetterHelp, insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average copay for eligible members of just $23 per session.

• 14:49Garrett Moreland?

  And while we're reconsidering old assumptions, maybe there are a few others worth questioning too.

• 14:55Payton Moreland?

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• 15:27Garrett Moreland?

  And Peyton and I are big advocates for therapy. Give it a try. Life can be crazy. There's a lot going on. Like we were talking about, sometimes it feels like you need to have everything figured out. You don't. Go talk to someone. Go see what's going on. Visit betterhelp.com/husband to explore your payment options. That's betterhelp, H E L P dot com slash husband.

• 15:49Payton Moreland?

  This message is sponsored by Greenlight. You know, there were many times growing up in school where I was like, when am I ever going to use this? And let me be real honest with you. A lot of those things have turned out to be true. But you know what I wish they would have taught in school? Financial literacy. So Greenlight takes the mental load of family life and kind of puts it all into one place. It keeps your whole family in sync. Money, safety, and everyday life, all in one place. When you're using it, you can see what your kids are spending, right when they spend it. You can also easily send them money via Greenlight

• 16:31Payton Moreland?

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• 17:16Payton Moreland?

  Go check it out now. So it's now January 2002. The 46-year-old Krista and her two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Ava had just spent the holidays in the city seeing old friends. But after New Year's Eve, they returned back to their modest little bungalow in Truro. And on January 6th, the most recent ex-boyfriend of Krista's, named Tim Arnold, planned to stop by her house to return a flashlight that he had borrowed. Tim was an author himself, mostly of children's books. So he and Krista had a little bit in common because she did use to be a writer. The two had dated for about a year. He'd even offered to help out with Ava quite a bit during their relationship.

• 17:59Payton Moreland?

  But by that point, it seemed the two had just decided to be friends. So that afternoon, Tim drove by the house with his father in tow, thinking it was just going to be a quick drop-off of this flashlight. When he pulled up to the bottom of Krista's driveway, he noticed a few of her newspapers were sitting there. So he scoops them up and then walks up her driveway towards the house. When he gets up there, he sees Krista's car sitting in the driveway. So he knocks on the front door, but there's no answer. And this is when he noticed her side door to the kitchen was just sitting slightly open. So he went over, he lets himself into the house and starts calling Krista's name.

• 18:43Payton Moreland?

  But almost instantly, he spots Krista lying on the floor, motionless. And there's Ava, next to her mother, alive and completely uninjured, but clearly in distress.

• 19:00Garrett Moreland?

  Holy crap. Okay.

• 19:02Payton Moreland?

  Ava turns to Tim, who she knows, and says, "Mommy fell down."

• 19:09Payton Moreland?

  Now, Tim says he didn't notice the blood at first. All he could think about was just getting Ava, like Ava was clearly in distress, a little baby, a little girl. And so he kind of scoops her up and gets her outside, hands her to his father, is like, hey, please, like chill with her, or watch her, I need to go back inside. He rushed-

• 19:30Garrett Moreland?

  Kind of crazy that she said mommy fell down.

• 19:33Payton Moreland?

  Right?

• 19:34Garrett Moreland?

  Interesting.

• 19:35Payton Moreland?

  Then Tim rushes back inside and searches for a phone in the house, but couldn't find any. Remember, this is the early 2000s. The cordless phones seemed to have disappeared. So Tim goes back out and rushes over to the neighbor's house and dials 911.

• 19:52Garrett Moreland?

  911, what is your emergency?

• 19:55Speaker 02

  It's Krista Worthington. I don't know what happened. I think she fell down. I'm sure she's dead.

• 20:00Payton Moreland?

  He tells the dispatcher, because of what Ava said, that she must have fallen down, but he was pretty certain, based on how she looked when he walked in, that she was dead. Like, he wasn't calling to say, hey, she's hurt, can you come help her? He was calling to say, hey, Krista Worthington is dead in her house.

• 20:18Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 20:19Payton Moreland?

  So minutes later, first responders arrived at the scene and they quickly learned, this was not an accident. The front door to the house had been smashed. Krista was half naked, covered in bruises, like she had fought for her life.

• 20:31Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, okay.

• 20:32Payton Moreland?

  There was a terrible wound to the left side of her head. She had been stabbed through her left lung. The blade was sent so forcibly through her body that it was lodged into the floor beneath her.

• 20:45Garrett Moreland?

  So obviously Ava didn't see the murder then, if she said mommy fell down.

• 20:50Payton Moreland?

  I think that was just her assuming-

• 20:52Garrett Moreland?

  Which is good, though.

• 20:53Payton Moreland?

  As a little kid, she's in trouble.

• 20:55Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, at least she didn't see the murder. That's horrible.

• 20:59Payton Moreland?

  Police get here. This is obviously a murder. And from the state of the body, they suspect that Krista had been dead for 24 to 36 hours by now.

• 21:10Garrett Moreland?

  What?

• 21:11Payton Moreland?

  Which means-

• 21:12Garrett Moreland?

  Wait.

• 21:13Payton Moreland?

  If you're putting two and two together, Ava had been all alone during this time at the house with her dead mother.

• 21:23Payton Moreland?

  Now you have to remember, this is a tiny town. It had been the first homicide Truro had seen in more than 30 years. This kind of thing just didn't happen here. So these EMTs and the police officers who responded were not accustomed to dealing with homicide cases like this.

• 21:49Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 21:50Payton Moreland?

  So what does one of the EMTs do when they respond and realize there's no body to resuscitate and get to the hospital? They take a blanket from the couch and they just lay it over Krista's body to cover it up out of respect. And it's obviously not.

• 22:12Garrett Moreland?

  Not, I get it, but you're not supposed to do that.

• 22:14Payton Moreland?

  Right.

• 22:15Garrett Moreland?

  But I understand where they're coming from. I'd probably do the same thing, to be honest.

• 22:19Payton Moreland?

  Not to mention, on top of this, you have Tim Arnold and his father, who had basically walked through the crime scene. And although the police did keep a crime scene login sheet that day, so basically like if you enter the crime scene, you have to write it in. It's incomplete. Not everyone who was there filled it out. They're just, they don't even really know what this protocol is.

• 22:42Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 22:43Payton Moreland?

  There are other EMTs and officers who were first on the scene that didn't even sign the login. So already you have a pretty messy crime scene. But there is some helpful evidence inside, like a cellphone police find that seemingly does belong to Krista. And it has one number dialed in on the screen. And it's just a nine. So clearly Krista was trying to call for help, didn't get the chance to finish. They also found Krista's keys, glasses, and a sock outside near her car. There also appeared to be two drag marks near her vehicle.

• 23:27Payton Moreland?

  And maybe one of the most heartbreaking details I've ever heard was there was a sippy cup and some Cheerios next to Krista on the floor, along with like a child's playroom that appeared to be bloody.

• 23:44Garrett Moreland?

  This is horrible.

• 23:45Payton Moreland?

  There were also just small bloody footprints all around the, there was blood in the sink, which had a tiny step stool like sitting in front of it. So, police realized that during these days that Ava was there alone with her mother who wouldn't get up, Ava had been trying to clean up, she had been getting herself Cheerios and her sippy cup, like, but still sticking around her mother, which is just, it's so sad.

• 24:16Garrett Moreland?

  It's insane.

• 24:17Payton Moreland?

  Also, can we just talk about like, how doubly evil you have to be to not only kill someone, but kill someone and leave a toddler unattended, not knowing when, like what happens next? Like, that is horrible to do. So around midnight that evening, Krista's body was taken to the chief medical examiner's office in Boston. And it was determined that Krista had died somewhere between Friday afternoon, January 4th, and the morning of Saturday, January 5th. There, they took fingernail clippings and photographs. They also discovered that there were blue and white fibers in her

• 24:56Payton Moreland?

  pubic area. The autopsy revealed that Krista had engaged in intercourse before she died. However, no sources mentioned whether they believe this was consensual, or if she had been sexually assaulted. We just know that this had happened before she died. And as for Ava, she was taken to Cape Cod Hospital, and they don't find any physical injuries on her of any kind.

• 25:22Garrett Moreland?

  It's gonna be traumatized for the rest of her life now.

• 25:25Payton Moreland?

  She had a diaper rash, obviously, and just an ear infection.

• 25:31Garrett Moreland?

  I mean, I'm sure we'll get there, but I also... This whole thing is a mess. One, her mom died. Two, her dad's hidden. This whole thing is gonna be a mess.

• 25:42Payton Moreland?

  So, obviously, police are like, I mean, you kind of brought this up. Did Ava see what happened and her brain just said, oh, she fell down? Did she just find her mom like that and didn't actually witness the crime? But did she see who might have been over before this happened? Like, they're just wondering if Ava knows anything. So, police bring her to a children's advocacy center where she was questioned by professionals about what happened. And through the advocates, it is determined that Ava didn't see or witness anything that happened to her mother as far as like violence. When asked, when was the last time she was like changed or fed? Ava can't tell them. She doesn't give a response.

• 26:24Payton Moreland?

  However, when a female state trooper spoke to Ava, she told the woman, quote, "Mommy lying down, tried to get mommy up, mommy dirty, tried to clean mommy."

• 26:37Payton Moreland?

  So she just like,

• 26:38Garrett Moreland?

  Gosh.

• 26:39Payton Moreland?

  Was trying to like take care of her mom.

• 26:41Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I can't. That's so heartbreaking, dude.

• 26:44Payton Moreland?

  But also, my I say goes to show how she was probably loved and taken care of because children model, and so what a good mom Krista was because that was her daughter's first response was to try to fix and take care and love, and it's just heartbreaking. So, one of the incredibly frustrating parts of this case is a guy named Michael O'Keefe. Okay, he's the Cape Cod DA who led the investigation on Krista's murder. And a lot of the comments he made about Krista after this discovery were absolutely vile. Okay, I've already told you the reputation she had in town.

• 27:26Payton Moreland?

  And they do not try to hide what they felt and thought about Krista. So, the DA tells one reporter on record that the case was gonna be difficult because, quote, "Worthington was an equal opportunity employer. She'd F the husbands of her female friends, the butcher, or the baker." So he gets on and he's like, we're gonna have a hard time doing this because she was easy. Is basically what he says. So already there's issues with this case when the people trying to solve it already think of the victim like this.

• 28:05Garrett Moreland?

  And no offense, this all has to do because of a small town. Sorry from a small town, but I mean, my opinion personally, I think that there's more gossip, gossip, there's more judgment. Personally, that's what I think.

• 28:17Payton Moreland?

  Also, who Krista runs around with might have to do with the investigation because you've got to track down everyone in her life.

• 28:26Garrett Moreland?

  But why does that have to do with her being killed?

• 28:28Payton Moreland?

  Well, it's also not something that is like something you need to word to the public of like, well, we know this. It's like, you can be like, hey, she talked to a lot of people. So we're gonna have to track them all down. That has nothing to do with like how she should be treated.

• 28:43Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, as a DA, that's actually extremely weird.

• 28:46Payton Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 28:47Garrett Moreland?

  To even say that.

• 28:48Payton Moreland?

  Because you're supposed to be representing this person.

• 28:53Garrett Moreland?

  Like, oh, sorry.

• 28:53Payton Moreland?

  Like you're fighting for justice for her.

• 28:55Garrett Moreland?

  You're a DA and you have to do your job and like, okay, go get a different job or go somewhere else.

• 29:00Payton Moreland?

  Especially if you think anyone who is murdered like deserves to be talked to or talked about like that.

• 29:06Garrett Moreland?

  That's strange. Good point.

• 29:08Payton Moreland?

  So either way, the police seemed to feel confident it was a local because it was the off season. There wasn't many out of towners. So one of the first people they turned to is Krista's most recent ex boyfriend, the one who discovered her body, Tim Arnold. And that mainly has to do with the blanket that was thrown over Krista's body because it turns out that blanket that an EMT had put on the body had some of Tim's semen on it. And so that DNA was then found on Krista. And after talking to people around town, it seemed like Tim was more into the relationship than Krista was. The two had lived together in her house for some time, but friends of Krista said she didn't see the relationship as something

• 29:53Payton Moreland?

  long term. She never spoke about marriage or a future with him. However, when Tim was questioned, he emphatically denied having anything to do with Krista's death and seemed genuinely distraught over this entire thing. And he says, hey, well, I had a relationship with her. It's not that shocking. You found my DNA.

• 30:11Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Payton Moreland?

  On the blanket. Now, aside from his closeness to Krista, there wasn't much to suggest him as a suspect. So please keep going. And it wasn't long before they figure out their next person of interest. And it actually ends up being Ava's father, Tony. So you remember Tony and Krista were having that secret affair for two years without his wife knowing. Well, eventually after Ava was born, Krista decided she needed some help from Tony. So she had been asking if he would help her with child support, adding Ava to his family's medical insurance plan, things like that. And when Tony was like, no, because my wife can't find out, Krista hired a lawyer.

• 30:57Payton Moreland?

  I'm not sure what came of that, but I can tell you that eventually his wife finds out about this. I don't know if he came clean or if like he was pressured to come clean. And shockingly, it actually went better than anyone would have anticipated. Tony's wife forgave him. And not only that, she was like, you had a baby with this girl. You need to like.

• 31:19Garrett Moreland?

  Take care of it.

• 31:19Payton Moreland?

  Take care of this baby. And they had actually been like inviting Ava and Krista over for dinner and family things. And it was the wife who was like, no, you're going to like man up and handle what you did.

• 31:33Garrett Moreland?

  And props, couldn't be me, but props, honestly.

• 31:36Payton Moreland?

  So Ava actually did know her father after all. And whether or not he did begin helping them out financially, I'm not sure. But in police interviews, Tony's wife is like, no, I knew it was me who was wanting him to have a relationship with her. Like I wasn't leaving him because of what he had done. So there's no motive here. Like there's no reason he would have needed to hurt her. In fact, everything was working out pretty well for them right before Krista died. She also said that Tony was home with her during the time that they believe Krista was killed. And when he took a polygraph test, Tony passed with no issues. Interestingly, after that, there was another unexpected suspect or two added to the list.

• 32:19Payton Moreland?

  Krista's own 72-year-old father, Christopher Toppy Worthington, the lawyer, and his 29-year-old girlfriend, Elizabeth Porter, end up becoming suspects.

• 32:32Garrett Moreland?

  Look, a lot of ages, whatever. It is what it is. Not my business. It doesn't bother me. 29, 72?

• 32:40Payton Moreland?

  Yeah, this is pretty wild.

• 32:42Garrett Moreland?

  You, you take what you want from that, but. Okay, keep going.

• 32:48Payton Moreland?

  So obviously Christopher, her father, the former Harvard-educated lawyer, had been having different relationships since his divorce from Krista's mother, and the newest one was 29-year-old Elizabeth Porter. Apparently, there had been a lot of bad blood between Elizabeth and Krista, because Krista was like, Dad, she's just coming after your estate. She's here for the money, obviously.

• 33:13Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Payton Moreland?

  And there had been several heated exchanges, and Krista tried to prevent Elizabeth from accessing any more of her father's funds. She's like, he's 72, you're taking advantage of him. And when police learn all this, they're like, this is obviously a motive. And frankly, the couple didn't do themselves too many favors when it came to the investigation. For starters, Elizabeth lied about where she was during the time of the murder.

• 33:39Garrett Moreland?

  Geez.

• 33:39Payton Moreland?

  And Christopher seemed to ask a lot of really pointed questions about his daughter's death, referring to things about the crime scene that, like, wasn't exactly public knowledge.

• 33:50Garrett Moreland?

  Your own? Your own dad?

• 33:53Payton Moreland?

  Yes. Though I will say, eventually Elizabeth and Christopher provide an alibi that police were able to confirm.

• 34:02Garrett Moreland?

  Don't believe it.

• 34:03Payton Moreland?

  So it was more just like, wow, this is pretty crappy behavior, but we don't think that they murdered his daughter. I used to think a camera or video doorbell was home security. And then I realized those can only record a break in. They literally can't stop one. And that is the difference with Simply Safe. When an intruder steps onto your property, Simply Safe's AI-powered cameras detect the threat and alert a live US-based agent who can then intervene to stop them before they even get into your door. Because it's not my house or valuables that I'm even worried about. It's a stranger getting anywhere close to the people I love. And I'm obviously taking this way more seriously now, which I already

• 34:46Payton Moreland?

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• 35:29Payton Moreland?

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• 36:08Payton Moreland?

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• 36:52Payton Moreland?

  life. Go to hungryroot.com/husband and use code HUSBAND for that, you guys. That is hungryroot.com/husband code HUSBAND to get 40% off your first box and a free item of your choice for life. So let's just say, police are checking people off this list, but this list keeps growing because there is one piece of evidence that might help them out and it was DNA collected from Krista's body. It takes nearly a year to get these results back and it only complicates things further because the DNA was not a match for Tony, Ava's dad, or Tim, Krista's ex-boyfriend. And with them being over a year into the investigation, investigators are starting to get desperate. So they come up with a pretty wild plan. They say, hey, this is a small town.

• 37:37Payton Moreland?

  We are going to ask every single man in town between the ages of 18 and 70 to come in and offer a sample of their DNA so that we can rule them out in this case.

• 37:48Garrett Moreland?

  So the entire town comes in. I mean, honestly, not a bad idea.

• 37:51Payton Moreland?

  So around 2004, it's now two years after Krista's murder, they start doing this. They get samples from the mailmen, the garbage men, the delivery boys, the grocery store checkout guy. Regardless of whether they had any relationship with Krista or not, over 100 people come in and volunteer their DNA to clear their name. And by the end, they have over 100 samples to compare to the one found on Krista. And meanwhile, Ava is sent to live with a friend of Krista's who she had named as her guardian in her will. And Tony's allowed to visit Ava one day a week. And while he tried to fight for custody of Ava during this time, it definitely wasn't helping that he'd just been ruled out as a suspect.

• 38:34Payton Moreland?

  However, by April of 2005, police finally realized their efforts had paid off. One of the samples that had been volunteered ended up being a match.

• 38:44Garrett Moreland?

  Why would that person volunteer? That seemed, okay.

• 38:47Payton Moreland?

  Maybe not look guilty. I don't know, but his name-

• 38:50Garrett Moreland?

  Strange to me.

• 38:51Payton Moreland?

  Was Christopher McCowen. So we have Krista and Christopher, and Christopher is not her father.

• 38:58Garrett Moreland?

  Got it, yep.

• 39:00Payton Moreland?

  This is new Christopher, Christopher McCowen. I'm just gonna call him Chris to keep it clear. Now, Chris was 33 years old at the time, and he worked as a sanitation worker in Truro. According to Chris's dad, his childhood hadn't been easy. He often had seizures as a kid, which required medication. And perhaps as a result of his illness, Chris found himself struggling in school and ended up in special education classes. He hated it so much, he ended up dropping out of high school before his senior year. And this decision leads Chris to fall in with some bad crowds. He starts getting in trouble with the law, mostly for theft. And then after a brief stint in jail, Chris moved north from Florida to Cape Cod to be with his girlfriend.

• 39:44Payton Moreland?

  And it was around 1998 when he finally settled down in Truro. And it wasn't easy, mainly because Chris was one of the only black men in town. But after finding that job with the sanitation company, Chris began to find a community with his coworkers. One coworker said Chris got so close with him and his family, he began calling his coworker's mom, "Mom." And the same coworker said he never saw a violent side to Chris, ever, in the entire time he knew him. They said he was respectful, he took his job seriously, he was always up for the task, that he had a great rapport with the people along his route. He was generally well-liked and respected.

• 40:26Payton Moreland?

  And according to some of his friends, he even had a few relationships with women around town after breaking things off with his girlfriend that he had moved here for. Now, Chris was called in for questioning early on in the investigation primarily because Krista Worthington's home was one of the houses on his stop. And during those first interviews, he said that he had been seeing Krista for the last two years, since 2000, and that he usually stopped by to pick up the trash on Thursdays. When they asked if he ever went inside Krista's home around the time she died, he said, no. He didn't even know she was dead until he saw it on the news. So they didn't focus on Chris much early in the investigation.

• 41:11Payton Moreland?

  And I want to point out, like Garrett said, he willingly handed over his fingerprints and DNA.

• 41:16Garrett Moreland?

  That just doesn't make sense. I don't know if it's him because that just, that doesn't make sense to me.

• 41:20Payton Moreland?

  So as the years had passed, police had circled back to Chris even before the DNA match came through. They started looking deeper into his background. They saw his history of theft. And apparently he had a restraining order from two former girlfriends who one said he broke her car window and the other claimed he pushed her against a refrigerator. So police had already been zeroing in on Chris when they discovered his DNA sample was a match in April of 2005. So they waste no time getting an arrest warrant. So on April 14th, 2005, police pick Chris up at a rooming house he's living at. And they charge him with aggravated rape and the murder of Krista Worthington.

• 42:04Payton Moreland?

  And this time, when Chris speaks to police, his story changes quite a bit. Now he says, okay, I did see Krista right before she died.

• 42:13Garrett Moreland?

  Interesting.

• 42:14Payton Moreland?

  In fact, he said she had asked him that day to come inside and help her dispose of her Christmas tree. He said that's when one thing led to another. The two of them ended up kissing and having sex. He said it was just once and then he leaves. But he had nothing to do with her death. So he's explaining why his DNA was found on her body.

• 42:37Garrett Moreland?

  He's saying he went in and they had sex.

• 42:39Payton Moreland?

  Yes.

• 42:39Garrett Moreland?

  Did they, was there any? Did they talk before? Was there a relationship with them before? People around town seen them before?

• 42:46Payton Moreland?

  They knew each other because he came to her house every, every week.

• 42:51Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I mean, everyone knows each other in that town, right?

• 42:54Payton Moreland?

  Yeah. And he's like, so yeah, I didn't tell you obviously before because that looks very suspicious for me to have had sex with her and then she dies or is murdered right after. However, this interview becomes a six hour long interview. And they are just pushing Chris, prodding him. And he begins changing his story a few times throughout the six hours. Because later he says, actually, we were having a full blown relationship. We were often intimate on Thursday afternoons when I went by to pick up her trash. In fact, he said, I did this with a few women on my pickup route. It wasn't just her. Police are like, yeah, but we have your DNA. We have a pretty strong evidence against you and

• 43:40Payton Moreland?

  we believe you did something to her. And he changes his story again. He's like, actually, I did go back there Friday. We had sex. I beat her. But there was actually someone with me, someone who killed her. His 23 year old friend.

• 43:54Garrett Moreland?

  What? How? Where did this escalate so fast for him?

• 43:57Payton Moreland?

  Uh, he says it was his 23 year old friend, Jeremy Frazier. He said that Friday, the two were out drinking and partying together when they decided to go over to Krista's house and rob her. She ended up catching them. Chris beat her while Jeremy stabbed her to death.

• 44:11Garrett Moreland?

  I think it's insane that he just starts admitting all this.

• 44:13Payton Moreland?

  So naturally, police bring Jeremy in and he's like, yeah, I was with Chris partying earlier that night, but Chris left and I stayed at the party and before then crashing at a friend's house. He's like, I don't know what Chris is talking about. And this is apparently confirmed. So police are like, we think that Jeremy had nothing to do with this. We think Chris lied and said Jeremy was there with him and we believe Chris did it by himself. And here's what's interesting about all this. Chris does not have a lawyer present during his interrogations. He declines having the interviews recorded. We don't really know what happened during this six hour confession. We're just going off of what police said.

• 44:53Payton Moreland?

  But when Chris later talked to 2020 and was asked about why he said he went to the house with Jeremy, he said, that's what the police said that I did. I didn't say that and I didn't do that. So. Did he actually say it? Or did police say it in the interview? Like as a theory?

• 45:14Garrett Moreland?

  And then he said, okay.

• 45:16Payton Moreland?

  And he doesn't fight it. And then the police are like, yeah, we interrogated him. And he said, this is what happened. Again, I want to mention, he's one of the few black men in town. And he was in special education growing up.

• 45:31Garrett Moreland?

  Okay.

• 45:32Payton Moreland?

  So this is a very common target.

• 45:35Garrett Moreland?

  It's very plausible. I mean, there was a case from Peyton's hometown.

• 45:39Payton Moreland?

  Very similar.

• 45:40Garrett Moreland?

  Very similar. They actually ended up finding later, it wasn't him because they found the actual guy who did it because of DNA. And he spent like 20 years wrongfully in prison. Anyways, curious to see where this goes.

• 45:51Payton Moreland?

  This is not like, we know this happens. This is not inconceivable.

• 45:54Garrett Moreland?

  Saying it happens all the time. We're not saying, I'm just saying it does happen.

• 45:57Payton Moreland?

  It is possible this could be happening.

• 45:58Garrett Moreland?

  It just happens.

• 45:59Payton Moreland?

  So was he an easy target for investigators who don't ever really handle this kind of case? And are eager to close it? Is this an easy target? Could it have been hard for them to believe that a black man was actually just having consensual sex with a wealthy white woman? Or was he actually guilty? Well, it's questions like these that start eating away at the case. Once he gets a lawyer, they seem to believe that the confession was 100% coerced and that we don't actually know anything that happened. And it happened so easily since when they arrested and interrogated Chris, he'd actually been high on painkillers and marijuana during this interrogation.

• 46:40Payton Moreland?

  They also knew the crime scene investigation had been botched from the jump, like we talked about, not to mention, there was never any indication in the autopsy, like we never know whether she'd been sexually assaulted, or it looked like there had been consensual sex. So the charges don't make sense to the lawyers, but the prosecution thinks, no, we have a good case. So when Chris's trial begins in November of 2006, the prosecution paints this picture. That January night, Chris showed up at Krista's house wanting to have sex with her. She denied him, so in a rage, he sexually assaulted and then killed her. That's the motive. You have to remember, they do have a confession, coerced or not, and they do have Chris's DNA on Krista's body.

• 47:24Payton Moreland?

  So his lawyers argue he and Krista had a consensual relationship. They had done this before, but a friend of Krista's also said he didn't think that was the case. He mentioned that when he saw Krista just a week or two before her death, she never mentioned anything about a consensual relationship with a sanitation worker. And this friend says Krista would have usually shared the type of relationship she was having with people. And that's what this case keeps hinging on. Did Krista have consensual sex and a relationship with Chris? Or did he show up that night and sexually assault her?

• 48:00Garrett Moreland?

  I don't know how you.

• 48:01Payton Moreland?

  Both could be true.

• 48:03Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, I don't know how you, I just don't know how you 100% say he, I don't.

• 48:09Garrett Moreland?

  This is confusing. I don't know what else to say. This is extremely confusing.

• 48:13Payton Moreland?

  What are the chances that someone has sex, consensual sex with a woman leaves and then she's murdered? That is kind of hard to like, not feel like that is your prime suspect.

• 48:22Garrett Moreland?

  And that's, that's the other side is, that's true. I mean, what are you supposed to?

• 48:26Payton Moreland?

  But.

• 48:28Garrett Moreland?

  It's always like, right? Is it, is it walk like a duck? The quacks like a duck? Is it a duck? Like, like the coincidences can only be so.

• 48:38Payton Moreland?

  Right.

• 48:38Garrett Moreland?

  Strong sometimes.

• 48:39Payton Moreland?

  But then you have the evidence on the other side.

• 48:42Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 48:42Payton Moreland?

  Being like, well, this feels like coerced. This feels like.

• 48:45Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 48:46Payton Moreland?

  Target. This could be racially motivated. So like I said, the police were desperate to close this case. They found the last person Krista had sex with and they were like, yeah, that's, that's our, that's our suspect. They got a forced confession out of him, maybe while he was under the influence of drugs. Now unfortunately, they do have two pieces of solid evidence that points in Chris's direction. They have DNA and they have a confession. But that's all they have. They don't have fingerprints. They don't have footprints. They don't have any eyewitnesses. And as far as I can tell, they never even questioned Ava to see if she knew who Chris was. But the jury had all they needed and Chris McCowen was found guilty of first degree murder, aggravated rape and aggravated burglary.

• 49:27Garrett Moreland?

  Wow. Okay.

• 49:28Payton Moreland?

  Now, before he was sentenced, Chris said this quote, "This case here is a very horrendous case. I feel sorry for the victim's family, her daughter and her. I have never meant for this to ever take place, but your honor, all I can say is that I am an innocent man in this case. That's all I can say." Christopher McCowen was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

• 49:52Garrett Moreland?

  Man, I, I wouldn't have. I don't think, I don't think there's not enough evidence to say he did it for sure.

• 50:00Payton Moreland?

  Well, even Tony Jackett, Ava's father, comes forward and says, "I'm not convinced Chris is the guy." He says publicly, quote, "I feel that there was reasonable doubt all over the place in this case." Now, shortly after this conviction, several of the jurors said they felt there was racial bias during their deliberations. And Chris's attorney thought, okay, that's definitely grounds for a retrial if some of the jurors are saying other jurors were racially motivated. But after taking it all the way to the state Supreme Judicial Court, they ruled against it, feeling there wasn't enough evidence for a retrial, even though jurors have publicly said they felt like race had something to do with everything.

• 50:45Payton Moreland?

  So in 2022, Ava graduated from college. She has since maintained a relationship with her father, Tony. Both have tried to kind of piece their life together after this.

• 50:57Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 50:57Payton Moreland?

  But in 2024, there was a development in this case. Remember that during the autopsy, I mentioned blue and white fibers were found in Krista's pubic area? Well, they never could figure out how these fibers related to Chris. But it turns out, as this case has been relooked at and people-

• 51:20Garrett Moreland?

  Is uniform or something?

• 51:21Payton Moreland?

  Well, no, people have been like weary about whether he really did it. It has come out that Jeremy Frazier was found wearing a blue and white sweater at the party the night he went to that party with Chris. He was wearing a blue and white sweater the night Krista died.

• 51:42Garrett Moreland?

  So it could have been transferred from him to Chris and Chris to her.

• 51:46Payton Moreland?

  It could have been that Chris's story was real and that him and Jeremy did it together. It could be that Jeremy did it alone.

• 51:53Garrett Moreland?

  It can be.

• 51:53Payton Moreland?

  I mean, there's so many avenues, but people believe they have found the source.

• 52:00Garrett Moreland?

  But still, how do you prove it was either just Chris? How do you prove it was either just Jeremy? How do you prove it was either both of them together? Like, there's not enough.

• 52:08Payton Moreland?

  Right.

• 52:09Garrett Moreland?

  Which it.

• 52:10Payton Moreland?

  But here's the thing. Police actually knew this back in 2005. Okay, they knew about his blue and white sweater. And in May of 2024, a Superior Court Associate approved the order to have these fibers tested against Jeremy's sweater because, like I said, police knew about it back in 2005 and he had turned that sweater into police back in 2005. Which is why the court is like, yeah, can you test those fibers? This should have been done when the case went to trial, but can you test those fibers? And then the police are like, actually, we can't hand the sweater over because we lost it.

• 52:53Payton Moreland?

  So we can't actually test those fibers now in 2024 when we should have tested them back then.

• 53:00Garrett Moreland?

  That's insane. That's insanity, man. Come on.

• 53:04Payton Moreland?

  So eventually, though, this is all up and down because the sweater resurfaces in the custody of Massachusetts State Police. So if these fibers are a match, because they now have the sweater to test, it could mean if they are a match, that there is grounds for a retrial, not grounds for exoneration.

• 53:25Garrett Moreland?

  Yes.

• 53:26Payton Moreland?

  Grounds for a retrial. Now, as of this recording, there's not been any updates on the results of this testing. But in the meantime, Chris McCowen is still in prison and to this day, he still claims to be innocent. And that is where this case is sitting. Basically, waiting for this testing to be done, his lawyers fighting for a retrial. And the future of the case is basically unknown. But that is the complicated murder of Krista Worthington.

• 54:00Garrett Moreland?

  Well, a couple of thoughts. One, um, my heart goes out to Ava. I'm sorry, everything she's had to go through. I don't know her thoughts on it. Maybe she doesn't speak on it. Maybe she doesn't want to talk about it. So I don't blame her. I'm not going to say much about that. I'll just speak to my thoughts. I don't know. I don't know if there was enough evidence. I, but also I don't know if maybe for Ava and some of them, this was closure. I just, I don't know. This is so complicated.

• 54:29Payton Moreland?

  I don't know if there's enough evidence. There just has to be reasonable doubt. Without reasonable doubt, if there is a shred of reasonable doubt, you cannot convict someone.

• 54:40Garrett Moreland?

  I agree with the reasonable doubt, but I also feel like there is some cases that we've covered where it's obviously someone.

• 54:46Payton Moreland?

  Right.

• 54:46Garrett Moreland?

  And you can still create reasonable doubt, right? The reasonable doubt gets hard in my mind. But yes, I agree here. There's, there's too, there's too much in the air that I, I don't think I would have sent him to prison, but I don't know.

• 55:01Payton Moreland?

  Listen, from what I could learn on the surface of this case, so not being there, not interviewing family.

• 55:10Payton Moreland?

  I wish I could, but unfortunately, if you're releasing an episode a week, it's just not possible. But from what I learned, I don't think there is enough evidence to convict. And I also don't think there's enough evidence to say he's not guilty. Like, I don't think there's enough evidence to go one way or the other. I cannot confidently say he's innocent or guilty.

• 55:33Garrett Moreland?

  I agree with that.

• 55:34Payton Moreland?

  It's just from what I know, I do feel like this case has the potential to be investigated like deeply.

• 55:44Garrett Moreland?

  Yeah.

• 55:45Payton Moreland?

  To go and talk and, because it just feels like there's a lot of mystery, mystery clouding it. But that is what we know now. If we hear any updates, I will keep you guys updated. But until then, this is all we have on the case. And that is our episode for this week. We will see you next time with another one. I love it.

• 56:08Garrett Moreland?

  And I hate it.

• 56:09Payton Moreland?

  Goodbye.