2 | The Treasure Hunt of Death

Lauren reaches out to her mother’s old friends and family to find out more about the person she was, in hopes of figuring out what happened to Lori on the fateful night of her death. While she finds out some shocking information from an expert in the case, Lauren continues to press Louise on details of what she knows. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Audible subscribers can binge all episodes of My Mom's Murder early and ad-free. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. This project contains conversations and information obtained over a number of years, and individual memories of events referenced and/or portrayed may differ. Any persons depicted in the project suspected of a crime are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  In January of 2021, seven months after Louise sent me the first Facebook message, I finally received my mom's original autopsy report. The drive home with the envelope next to me on the passenger seat feels like it takes forever.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  When I get home, I sit at my desk and take a deep breath before I begin to read what I know will not be easy.

• 0:59Speaker 00

  I'm also deeply aware that this report could blow open the investigation into what really happened to my mother, Lori Lee Malloy.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  She's got little eyes. They're all around here. Her name is Lori Lee Kelly.

• 1:17Speaker 02

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• 1:37Speaker 03

  I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche. In our latest episode, we go inside the case of Lindsey Clancy, the postpartum psychosis defense, and the stunning mistrial that just reignited a national debate. Listen to Killer Psyche on Audible or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  Episode two, The Treasure Hunt of Death.

• 2:24Speaker 00

  Before I go further into my mom's case, I think it's important for you to hear from her friends and family about who she was as a person.

• 2:33Speaker 00

  Since she died when I was only 18 months old, I remember so little of her, really just how loved she made me feel. It's hard to explain that, but I know that it's true.

• 2:43Speaker 01

  We always hung out together. We used to do each other's hair.

• 2:47Speaker 00

  I talked to her friend Rebecca, who was a kid when her mom Cookie took in my mom at around 21 years old after a stay at a mental hospital where Cookie worked. My mom lived with them for at least two years. No one I've asked knows why my mom was in the hospital in the first place.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  I'm sorry, this is really hard.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  No, it's okay. She was like a sister to you.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  She was my big sister. Yes, she was.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  And we just always hung out together and we had a lot of fun.

• 3:25Speaker 00

  That's so cool that that stands out to you. Like such a special memory to have with her, I feel like.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, she always like would do my hair or I would do her hair and we would just play back and forth. And sometimes we would dress up, which she wasn't keen on. I know that I know that already. I was a little young to acknowledge most of it, but.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  Must have been cool to be around her, though.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Oh, it was great to be around her. I was blessed to be around her.

• 3:58Speaker 00

  I also want to know about drug use in case there's any truth behind the overdose theory as her cause of death.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  I think the addiction part might have been good, okay, but not mental. She was very intelligent.

• 4:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Your mother was very, very, very intelligent.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  Really?

• 4:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  It's so interesting to me because it's like, you know, I just.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  She didn't have mental issues. She had addiction issues. She was a good, good person.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:29Speaker 01

  She might have done drugs, but she was a great, great woman and very intelligent. She would not, she knows her limits.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the thing. It's just so interesting.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  She didn't overdose on her own, anyway. Somebody overdosed her.

• 4:44Speaker 00

  You think, well, that's the thing.

• 4:45Speaker 01

  That's what I feel in my gut and in my heart.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  I grew up with my mom's sister, my Aunt Allison, and I would ask her all the time what my mom was like as a kid, but she would never tell me much. The only story she told me was how one time they went horseback riding as kids and my mom took off galloping on the horse ahead of everyone. This sounds like the mom I've heard about, free spirited and brave. Allison would say that my mom was smart and funny and not much more. I also reach out to my mom and Allison's half-sister Roxanne. They shared a father but have different mothers and didn't grow up together.

• 5:26Speaker 04

  I actually realized I had siblings in middle school. And it wasn't disclosed to me as one would think. It was me finding a photo of your mom, Lori, in Grandpa Malloy's wallet when he opened it. So if one thinks they're an only child, you expect to see your picture on top? So there was another young person there and I said, well, who is that? And then, of course, there were glances all around the room and I was told I had three sisters and a brother. And I said, oh, okay.

• 6:11Speaker 04

  So that was my first awareness that, you know, she actually existed.

• 6:17Speaker 00

  Roxanne is currently the Director of Operations at the Brown University Oncology Research Group, but she used to work at Women and Infants Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, where I was born.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  I unfortunately only met her once. And that is when she was pregnant with you, which was very nice.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  What was that first meeting like, or only meeting, I guess I should say?

• 6:42Speaker 04

  At the time, the OB clinic was actually in the main building where I was working. And Grandpa took her to her appointment and decided it was appropriate to meet during my workday, which was totally fine. It was, both of them and myself have a very outgoing personality. It was not awkward at all, although it probably should have been. It's to some level, right? But he and she came up to my office and she was extremely kind.

• 7:26Speaker 04

  She wanted to meet me. She was so happy that she was pregnant. She actually blowed. I mean, I guess that is appropriately remembered there. But she did blow and Grandpa was happy and it was a real pleasure meeting her.

• 7:47Speaker 00

  Roxanne and my mom were very different people. Roxanne has had a big career, while my mom was definitely a free spirit and more like their dad in personality. But I'm glad he got to introduce two of his daughters before my mom passed. Tommy, my oldest half-brother on my dad's side, was 16 when my mom died, so he remembers her well.

• 8:08Speaker 05

  She was a very nice lady. She was very caring.

• 8:12Speaker 05

  She was always nice to me and my brothers, always made sure we had what we needed. And if we needed something for like school or anything like that, she went out of her way and made sure that we had everything we needed on the days I saw her. Because we shared weekends with my mom. My mom had us during the week and we were on the weekend. So if we were anything, anything, she always asked us the week before and we always made sure, she always made sure we had it for the following week.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  It makes me smile knowing my mom loved my half-brothers like her own. She even kept the drawings that he and his brothers made for her when they were kids, like every proud mom does. I tell Tommy this.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  How does that make you feel knowing that she kept all that stuff?

• 8:55Speaker 05

  Well, I'm happy that she kept all that stuff because every time we, like I did a drawing for her or anything like that, she always put it in a book. And I never knew what happened to that book because we moved from place, they moved from place to place to place to place. And we always made drawings, but she always made sure that she put them somewhere and I never knew where they went. So I didn't know if they were like, some parents like keep collectibles and some parents just like, oh, this is beautiful. And then when we're not around, throw it in the trash.

• 9:27Speaker 00

  It breaks my heart to think about what could have been, how my mom would have kept my own childhood drawings and been the type of parent who was proud of me. And even though I love hearing these memories, I'm still left with the broken pieces of my mom's life, stuck trying to put them together and figure out the puzzle of her death with photographs, interviews, and records.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Speaking of records, in January 2021, seven months after Louise sent me the first Facebook message, I finally received my mom's original autopsy report. I open it when I get home that day and the first thing I read is the description of my mom's bruised body with her hair ripped out. It cuts me like a knife. It says a sexual assault kit was conducted. To picture my beautiful mother so vulnerable and violated by this invasive exam, even after her death, just guts me.

• 10:26Speaker 00

  What comes next is shocking. The toxicology screen is negative. Everyone who knew my mom at this time said she did drugs, but none were found in her system? This contradicts almost everyone's theory about her death. At the very least, I feel misled and worst case outright lied to.

• 10:52Speaker 06

  In that city at that time?

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:57Speaker 06

  I do know that drugs were just rampant.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I talk about the autopsy report with my best friend, Ramona.

• 11:04Speaker 06

  In that, you know, around in the 90s in that timeframe. But I did hear that she did have some struggles with that.

• 11:12Speaker 00

  That's the thing I like, like, I don't care. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care if my mom used drugs. That's always been my thing is like, like her original, like, I remember going over the original autopsy report and it was like, her toxicology report was clean. And does that mean she wasn't using drugs around that time? No, but it means there wasn't anything found in her system, at least through that test.

• 11:35Speaker 06

  Right.

• 11:35Speaker 00

  But it was like, I felt like people just dismissed her case based on these rumors, like, oh, she's a drug user. And it was like, wait, what? Like, what do you mean? You're not going to investigate this? You're just going to like write her off and like, okay, on to the next one?

• 11:52Speaker 06

  Yeah. And I felt that way too, that because of her past, that that almost like they were saying her death didn't matter. You know what I mean? That we're not going to put the effort into this case as we would if it was somebody else. You know, and that's, that's wrong. That whatever she did in her past, she still deserved to have justice. She still deserved to have her case investigated. She still deserved, I mean, that's bare minimum. Because we're not even talking about anything extra. That's bare minimum that you do your job and investigate the case. But because that one fact that they felt like she was a known drug user, that they used that against her and said, basically, she wasn't worth it.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  And that's, that's pretty tough.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  The medical examiner in 1993 marked down that my mom was a known cocaine user. This makes me believe he wanted to just file her away and move on. Also, I should note that from everything I've heard about that time, just about everyone who partied did cocaine in the 80s and early 90s.

• 12:59Speaker 02

  This is not one socioeconomic group using this drug. This isn't rich folks or poor folks. It's rich folks and poor folks. And it's blacks, whites, Hispanics. It's across the board.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  But here's the biggest takeaway from that report. Unlike what the ME said at the time, the autopsy shows there is no evidence to support the existence of a major heart problem.

• 13:24Speaker 00

  This is both shocking and validating. So what I do next is put together an email to the current medical examiner. First, I question the ruling of manner of death citing sources I've researched. Quoting, "Addressing the final cause of death listed as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, I respectfully disagree. Aside from moderate concentric left ventricular hypertrophy, her heart was unremarkable by all accounts." My email also has a long list of questions, including, "What are your thoughts about the acetone found in Lori's blood?" And, "What was Lori's estimated time of death?"

• 14:05Speaker 00

  I want to know that one in order to figure out how long my mom was lying there before she was found. I also ask about the bruises and the clumps of hair found with her. I go on to ask about 15 more questions and then ask for a meeting to discuss the case.

• 14:26Speaker 07

  Journalist Tristan Redman goes where no son-in-law should ever go. Deep into his wife's family history, digging up the cold case of who murdered her great-grandmother. Because, I should mention, he thinks the murderer might actually be the beloved family patriarch. For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

• 14:47Speaker 01

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• 15:49Speaker 00

  So despite what the autopsy report says about there being no heart problems in all of the suspicious surroundings, the medical examiner stated the cause of my mom's death was hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and that the manner was natural. To my untrained eye, that seems pretty suspect. So I talked to Joe Broadmeadow, retired East Providence police captain, who was a lieutenant in charge at the time of my mom's death. I asked him about the day he got the call to send officers to my mom's apartment when she was found dead.

• 16:23Speaker 00

  Do you remember that call at all? Maybe not.

• 16:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. I don't remember that specific call because unfortunately, you know, sudden death calls were, it wasn't something that happened every day, but it certainly did happen.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 05

  And unless something was extremely unusual about it, you know, it may not go much beyond. If I had a moment shows up, the medical examiner shows up. But every one of them, you know, when we first respond to an unattended death or a sudden death, it's, we have to treat it as if it's a crime until somebody says, no, it's not a crime.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:02Speaker 05

  So in your mother's case, you know, the normal process would happen is the caller committed dispatch. You know, somebody found, you know, found them or whatever. And we dispatch a unit, they are supervisor would be sent, the road sergeant would be sent.

• 17:18Speaker 05

  They would assess the situation. Generally, they would ask the detectives and ask for the medical examiner to be called, to be notified.

• 17:28Speaker 05

  And then obviously, there's a lieutenant in charge of the shift that would keep you, you know, up to date on the status, whether the, you know, whenever the medical examiner arrived. Sometimes with those kind of cases, you know, depending on the time of night, when, you know, when it happens, you know, the medical examiner might be there in an hour or he might not be there for eight hours.

• 17:48Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 17:48Speaker 05

  So sometimes these things can carry over until, you know, the next shift. So, you know, that's the way the normal thing would progress. And then the normal case for, for those would be to kick over to detectives. They would take responsibility for the investigation, process the scene as if it were a crime. And then wait, essentially wait for the result of the medical examiner. And once the ME makes a determination that, you know, natural causes or overdose or, or something other than, you know, somebody intentionally inflicting injury on a

• 18:21Speaker 00

  The case would likely be closed.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  And it seems like that's exactly what happened with my mom. The ME ruled it was natural causes, a heart problem, and the case was closed. Why he ruled it a heart problem when there was no sign of that? I don't know. But I do know that just because police couldn't look into a closed case at the time doesn't mean I'm not going to look into it now. In late 2022, I make a TikTok series about my mom's case. This is what I say about my first meeting with the ME. Hey, guys. Okay, so part four of my mom's whole case. That March, I get a meeting with the chief medical examiner. I asked the first case manager if I should prepare for any new info. She's like, no, the case was handled long ago. Nothing new. Bitch.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  That's obviously not what I want to hear. So I speak with the acting chief ME, Dr. Alex Chirkov of the Rhode Island Medical Examiner's Office and his case manager. When I meet him in his office on March 15, 2021, finally, the chief ME tells me something I do want to hear. He says, quote, "I refute the original findings."

• 19:39Speaker 00

  I ask him to repeat what he said because I can't quite believe it. When he does, I burst into tears and say, I knew it. I fucking knew it. For the first time in months, someone has validated my search in the stories I've been told.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  He looks down as I cry, and the secretary stops typing while I collect myself for a moment. I then ask him how my mom died and what we do next. He tells me that he doesn't know what my mom's manner of death was, but he knows it wasn't natural.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  The chief ME also explains that we need state involvement, and I should contact the Attorney General's office. I call them that day immediately, and my mom's case is assigned to a prosecutor for review. After seven months of being told to hurry up and wait, everything is happening so fast I have whiplash.

• 20:35Speaker 04

  It, it doesn't add up, and there, there definitely was some foul play.

• 20:41Speaker 00

  Since my mom's half-sister Roxanne is in the medical field, I ask her personal opinion on the autopsy report as well.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  I, I mean, I'm no forensic scientist. I'm no investigator. You know, I'm not a police officer. I can read path reports. The path report stated that there were no, no drugs in her system. So it's hard to say. Everybody was partying and, you know, one thing led to another. It was accident, you know.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Roxanne had heard the rumors that my mom did drugs too. And she's right. It's hard to say there was a party that got out of hand when the tox report is clean. So she's suspicious, especially when I tell her the description of the scene that Louise and the landlord's family have given me. My mom naked on the floor with hair ripped out and the place amassed with bread on the floor.

• 21:31Speaker 04

  It doesn't seem like it would have been her

• 21:36Speaker 04

  doing anything but maybe in like some sort of a fight. I mean, that's what it makes you think, but just by reading everything, that she was in some kind of fight and pulled someone's hair.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  But who knows?

• 21:55Speaker 00

  I agree with Roxanne that it does look like there was some sort of fight, but I just wish we had more answers.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  I have Louise and the landlord's family's description of the scene, but we still have no proof of how it actually looked and won't until we get the original police reports, which I asked for five months before this. So I go back to the East Providence Police Department and continue to push them to get me the reports. And while all of this is still going on, I'm still talking to Louise in order to get as much information as I can and desperately trying to get a coherent story from her. At this point, it's been seven months since she first reached out to me to tell me that my mom hadn't died of heart disease, that she was actually murdered.

• 22:41Speaker 07

  What's happening, Blueberry?

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Hey, lady. She calls me Blueberry because I had really blue eyes when I was little, and that's apparently what she nicknamed me. The last time I spoke to Louise, she was pushing me to get a paternity test for my mom's alleged secret rich boyfriend, Peter, who may or may not have killed her or supplied drugs that killed her, despite there being no drugs found in her system, according to the tox report.

• 23:05Speaker 07

  DNA test for you and whatever fucking brother Tommy had.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  A reminder that ancestry.com already confirmed that Tommy Kelly is my biological father.

• 23:17Speaker 00

  Nevertheless, I look into this Peter guy. I'd found another old photo of my mom sitting on a fence in front of horses in a field. She must be in her mid 20s, bundled up and smiling widely. On the back of the photo, my mom had written, quote, "Peter's Farm, New Hampshire, Christmas 1985," as well as his last name. This has to be the Peter Louise was talking about. I look him up and find that he's deceased, but he came from a wealthy upbringing and a political family who owned one of the largest Cadillac dealerships on the East Coast. They also raised thoroughbreds for horse racing on their farm in New Hampshire. But I can't find any indication that he had a relationship with my mom beyond that photo and Louise's word.

• 24:03Speaker 07

  Um, still, still ready to do that second floor eviction, that girl, remember?

• 24:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:12Speaker 00

  She tells me about financial issues she's been going through, and when she's finished, I decide to drop the bomb of my paternity on her. I tell her it's confirmed that Tommy Kelly is, in fact, my biological dad. I also got my, um, my DNA results back, and it matched with the Kelly family, which...

• 24:31Speaker 07

  You're fucking kidding me.

• 24:32Speaker 00

  Nope, not at all.

• 24:34Speaker 07

  Wait, hold on. Let me digest this, okay?

• 24:41Speaker 00

  You can hear the difference in our tones of voice. Mine is very matter of fact, and Louise sounds shocked and upset.

• 24:49Speaker 07

  I can't fucking believe that's Tommy's daughter.

• 24:51Speaker 00

  She means me. It's like she's talking to herself. Isn't that crazy?

• 24:57Speaker 07

  Crazy? It's more than crazy. It's absurd. It's ridiculous. It's, it's, I don't even, you get the better vocabulary.

• 25:08Speaker 07

  Un-fucking-believable is more like it.

• 25:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 07

  It's gonna be a fucking, I, I'm gonna say it's gonna be a mistake, but I know DNA testing is not a mistake.

• 25:18Speaker 00

  Louise is clearly worked up, but why does she care so much about who my bio father is? And why doesn't she believe it? All she'll say is...

• 25:27Speaker 07

  I'll never believe that's your fucking father because you are nothing like the Tom I met twice, okay?

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:35Speaker 07

  The stories I heard about Tom from Lori.

• 25:40Speaker 07

  Never.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  Well...

• 25:41Speaker 07

  Just too, I just, I don't, I, I, I, I'll never get it. I can only base my thoughts and opinions on Tom and what I know to be true.

• 25:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:52Speaker 07

  What I witnessed, the things done to your mother.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 25:56Speaker 07

  That's where this is coming from.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Yeah, from...

• 25:58Speaker 07

  Fucking bastard.

• 26:07Speaker 03

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redmond always believed. Sure, odd things happen in his childhood bedroom, but ultimately, he shrugged them off, until he discovered that he wasn't alone, that everyone who lived thereafter him also had bizarre experiences they couldn't explain. And it gets even weirder. It just so happens that his wife's great-grandmother was murdered in the house next door. Is this ghost somehow connected to her murder? He decides to go where no son-in-law should, digging up a cold case and asking questions that nobody wants answered, like, could his wife's great-grandfather have gotten away with the perfect crime? This is a podcast about family secrets, overwhelming coincidence, and the things that come back to haunt us.

• 26:52Speaker 03

  For the best bingeable series like Ghost Story, listen to the Audible True Crime Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can get all episodes early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts. On January 24, 2023, in Ducksbury, Massachusetts, Patrick Clancy called 911. He had found his wife Lindsay badly injured and his three children dead and dying. What followed would become one of the most searing and complicated cases in recent memory, raising hard questions about motherhood, mental illness, and how far our justice system will go to understand what really happened.

• 27:34Speaker 03

  I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche. In our latest episode, we take you inside the case of Lindsay Clancy, the postpartum psychosis defense, the courtroom battle, and the trial that just ended in a stunning mistrial. Follow Killer Psyche wherever you get your podcasts. Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Killer Psyche one week early and ad-free right now. Join Audible in the Audible app or by subscribing on Apple Podcasts.

• 28:10Speaker 00

  According to my half-brothers, my parents didn't have the best relationship since Tommy wasn't the greatest guy, so I guess that's what Louise is referring to. But then Louise changes the subject back to my mom. I send her some more photos I've found of the two of them, and Louise weirdly has a lot to say about my mom's body.

• 28:30Speaker 07

  Your mother was fucking beautiful. To the body of Jennifer Lopez. It's true. I ought to know. I was her best friend. I've seen her many, many bikinis. You think I'm pretty, your mom was?

• 28:40Speaker 00

  I know. She was beautiful.

• 28:41Speaker 07

  You're fucking pretty, your mom was. Look at that fucking ear. It was down to her back. And the, uh, I used to do her makeup. I taught her how to put on eyeliner.

• 28:49Speaker 00

  Did you really?

• 28:51Speaker 07

  It was a nightmare.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  Everyone talks about how beautiful my mom was, and of course, I agree. But Louise talks about it a lot. It's creepy.

• 29:01Speaker 07

  I don't know if you know this. Probably don't know this.

• 29:04Speaker 00

  Probably not.

• 29:05Speaker 07

  I, I forgot what foot, Lori's left foot or her right foot?

• 29:09Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:09Speaker 07

  She has a, um, birth defect.

• 29:12Speaker 00

  Really?

• 29:13Speaker 07

  Now, yeah, so are you looking at your toes?

• 29:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:17Speaker 07

  Okay. So not your big toe, but the next two toes over?

• 29:20Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 29:22Speaker 07

  And the left or the right? I forget which one, but, uh, her toes looked like they were doing peace. The killer signed up peace.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  That's hilarious.

• 29:30Speaker 07

  The spread?

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:32Speaker 07

  Do you have that?

• 29:35Speaker 00

  That's weird. Uh, kinda, yeah. Then Louise goes back to talking about my bio dad.

• 29:40Speaker 07

  I'm so sorry about Tommy Kelly.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  That's alright.

• 29:44Speaker 07

  You don't even look like him.

• 29:46Speaker 00

  Turned me off.

• 29:46Speaker 07

  You don't have his nose, you don't have his eyes.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Louise is basing this off of my Facebook pictures. We've still not met in person and I'm making sure we won't, but I don't tell her that.

• 30:01Speaker 07

  What do you see? The eyes he met with, what do you see?

• 30:03Speaker 00

  I mean, I see a lot of Lori's features. Um, I mean, especially since I lost weight, it got a lot more noticeable. Before I was a lot pudgier, honestly, in my face and you couldn't really tell. But since losing weight, I look a lot more like her, I think. Um, which is funny, like we have the same hairline, same eye shape, same jaw structure, all that good stuff.

• 30:27Speaker 07

  What does your top lip look like?

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Uh, I think it's smaller than my bottom lip.

• 30:36Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 30:36Speaker 07

  Your mother had a very easy, your mother's top lip was like a fine line.

• 30:40Speaker 00

  Yep. Yeah, that's funny. I probably have like the same features she did for the most part, but.

• 30:46Speaker 07

  If you allow me someday to see you, I'll tell you who you look like.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, of course, but, um. Louise says she wants to take me to the apartment where my mom died and was found. But why? She knows I already went and talked to the landlord's family. Why would I need to go again with her?

• 31:07Speaker 07

  I swear to God, you gotta meet me at CVS from Riverside. Just show me where mommy is.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  Whoa, she's referring to where my mom is buried because the cemetery is close to a CVS. This is so odd and unsettling. Also, how does she even know that's where she's buried if she's never seen her grave?

• 31:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, I wanna go to her grave. It's been a long time.

• 31:30Speaker 00

  A long time? I thought she's never been there.

• 31:33Speaker 07

  I wanna drink a flower. Come on, boy.

• 31:35Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 31:37Speaker 07

  You know?

• 31:37Speaker 00

  Absolutely. I, um.

• 31:39Speaker 07

  Spinning in her fucking grave, she's coming with you. You're about fucking time, Louise.

• 31:47Speaker 00

  To be clear, there's no way I'm going with her to my old house or my mom's grave. The list of strange things Louise says on these calls just keeps growing. Next, she mentions my mom was on disability when she died, despite being only 30 and in good shape.

• 32:04Speaker 07

  Because of her history, she was able to get disability.

• 32:09Speaker 00

  What do you mean her history?

• 32:11Speaker 07

  Well, she was deemed a wayward child, like wild, I'm gonna put it in words you'll understand. She was deemed like a wild child.

• 32:19Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 32:20Speaker 07

  You know, bunking school, not going to school, staying out all night, you know, like that. So she already had a record for that shit.

• 32:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, but that's enough to get her disability, you know what I mean?

• 32:32Speaker 07

  Huh?

• 32:32Speaker 00

  But she was like, she was, she was in great shape, you know what I mean? Like when I think of disability, I think of somebody who can't work. So like, how did they ever approve that just because she had behavior issues?

• 32:42Speaker 07

  Well, I think it was a, a mental thing.

• 32:45Speaker 00

  So that's.

• 32:47Speaker 07

  Listen to me, listen to me.

• 32:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 07

  When she was young, your mother had a history of running away.

• 32:54Speaker 07

  You know?

• 32:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:56Speaker 07

  Listen to me, are you ready?

• 32:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:59Speaker 07

  Okay, so Lori applied for SSI SSDI, I think SSDI. And she got shot down. Well, that's just how it is. Everybody gets shot down the first time. You ready?

• 33:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I don't know what that is, but go on.

• 33:14Speaker 07

  Social Security is showing, so.

• 33:16Speaker 00

  Oh, and disability, I see.

• 33:18Speaker 07

  SSI is Adult Welfare, actually.

• 33:20Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 33:21Speaker 07

  And SSDI, which is Social Security disability.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  Louise goes on to say she connected my mom to a quote, "very highly regarded lawyer."

• 33:29Speaker 07

  So it's in downtown Providence.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 33:31Speaker 07

  And that's what he does. He gives people SSI SSDI. That is his, uh, at his forte, and that's what he does.

• 33:39Speaker 00

  I'm not sure why Louise is telling me this, but it seems like she wants me to somehow claim money off the government. Alright.

• 33:47Speaker 07

  You're in touch with the fucking Social Security people. You tell them what your mother received. Be popular. It wouldn't surprise me if they cut you a check for fucking money in holy cards. Because you're entitled to your mother's benefits. Did you understand me, young lady?

• 34:06Speaker 00

  I mean, not really. So in addition to that weird story and all the other creepy comments, there is at least one story I like from this phone call. Louise tells me about the love of my mom's life, a man with the nickname Pirate, who rode motorcycles and was a mechanic in Alaska.

• 34:25Speaker 00

  She explains that Pirate gave my mom the nickname Sled Dog when she followed him to Alaska.

• 34:31Speaker 07

  I gotta finish because I'm a woman. I don't like to be called dog. But your mother thought it was so cute. She's like, what the fuck? She wants to be sled dog, we're in Alaska, there's other sled dogs. Your mother loved dogs, I loved dogs. You know?

• 34:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:44Speaker 07

  That's how she got that. It's not as Lori being part of the motorcycle community? Okay, as a member?

• 34:54Speaker 07

  No, absolutely not. But now, let me tell you this. Lori was very much attracted, okay?

• 35:03Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 35:04Speaker 07

  Attracted to men who hung in motorcycle clubhouses. She loved the ambiance, the atmosphere.

• 35:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:14Speaker 07

  She was never anybody's only. She was there as a guest. And if I gotta break it down any more than that, are you too young for me to go on?

• 35:26Speaker 00

  I think Louise is trying to shame my mom for hanging around with bikers while also talking down to me? Next, I ask Louise what happened to Pirate.

• 35:35Speaker 07

  He's gonna be dead by now. Shit, when she was 20, he was 40. So she's sick, if she's 57 now? But see, I don't know what he had in his pants. Well, your mom knew that, but see, I never, I never, I told you before, I never judged your mother for her libido. And she know, I didn't have a feeling. I wasn't like that. I didn't understand that.

• 35:57Speaker 00

  Comments like that are Louise's MO. She claims not to be judging my mom when she very much is.

• 36:04Speaker 07

  To have an ass like that, that wasn't, back then, it wasn't attractive.

• 36:09Speaker 00

  Like my mom?

• 36:11Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 36:13Speaker 07

  Um, nowadays, you got that J. Lopez ass. Oh, guys, a lot of people. Back then, growing up, it wasn't like that. Back then, that wasn't like J. Lo shit. It was you differently. It was a fat ass. It wasn't a nice looking ass. It was a fat ass.

• 36:31Speaker 00

  While I may come off as cool and friendly in these conversations, I'm wary not to say too much or say the wrong thing. Because behind the scenes, I've been in touch with the East Providence Police Department since October of 2020 and periodically checking in. And each time I do, they warn me about Louise. I discuss all of this with Ramona.

• 36:53Speaker 06

  One of the first detectives was like, oh, you know, we know who she is. Um, don't meet with her in person. She's dangerous. She associates with the drug crowd. And I was like, wait, what? Like, what are you talking about? Like, right, I mean, I heard the same things, dangerous, don't go near her, she's not good, she's not trustworthy, she's, um, in with the same thing, drug crowd, um, but you can't trust her. You know, so I heard the same things from different people that you did, but the same things about this person. But it was just so odd that she continually reached out to you. You know, I was like, what, why is she doing that? You know, what is she trying to get out of this? And what is her motive?

• 37:33Speaker 06

  What, what could she gain from continually contacting you? You know, in some of the conversations, I'm like, wow, that she would talk about your mom, I'm like, mm, I would never want my best friend saying any of those things about me. That's something my enemy would say for sure, not my best friend. So she always struck me as somebody who, um,

• 37:57Speaker 06

  maybe it wasn't genuine, there was something else going on there.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  I just remember thinking like, if this happened to Ramona, I would be banging down the police department door, like, let me talk to somebody.

• 38:09Speaker 06

  Right.

• 38:09Speaker 00

  Here's what I know, what's going on? And it was so weird to me that this person never did that.

• 38:16Speaker 06

  Right, and that was, that was weird to me too, that this person knew detail, like such specific details.

• 38:24Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:25Speaker 06

  Of the scene, of your mom, uh, and so of you and your baby, it's so many details.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 38:33Speaker 06

  And yet she didn't just go to the police and talk to them about it. It's just odd. It was just an odd encounter that, you know, set something off in my, you know, in my heart, like something's not right about this.

• 38:46Speaker 00

  Yeah, that was the one thing that always stood out to me and it was kind of like, why? Like after all these years, you suddenly find me and you're like leading me on this like weird little treasure hunt of death.

• 39:03Speaker 00

  But now that I'm on this treasure hunt, all I can think is, why now? Why didn't Louise say anything about this for 27 years? Even right when my mom died, she never spoke to the police. They didn't look for her because the case was closed so quickly, but she still could have gone to them, so why didn't she? And when Louise does talk, why is it just to me and not particularly helpful? She's obsessed with my mom and her death, but never leads me to any real answers. Of course, I'm obsessed for a different reason. This is my mom. I love her and I never got to really know her. Even after all these years, she deserves justice.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  And I intend to get it.

• 39:49Speaker 06

  I mean, it was dusty, but it was bright red. And I was like, something has to be in here.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  I remember you saying, you were like, the zipper's stuck, this thing is old. You're like, all the answers you're looking for are gonna be in this bag.

• 40:14Speaker 00

  This has been My Mom's Murder, an Audible original, produced by Audible and Ayr Media and hosted by me, Lauren Malloy. Executive produced by MGM Television and Toluca Pictures. Executive producer for Ayr Media, Eliza Rosen. Executive producer for Audible, Laura Regan-Kleinschmidt. Executive producer for Toluca Pictures, Stacy Levin. Executive producers, Lauren Malloy and Chloe Grace Moretz. Produced and written by Michelle Simon. Edited and mixed by Tristan Bankston. Coordinator for Ayr Media, Andy Levine. Audio engineering and mastering by Justin Longerbeam. Theme music by Jonathan Brooke.

• 40:59Speaker 00

  Legal counsel for Ayr Media, Gianni Douglas. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Chief content officer, Rachel Giatza. Copyright 2024 by Ayr Media. Sound recording copyright 2024 by Audible Originals LLC.

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