6 | Justice for Sled Dog

Fed up with red tape and closed doors, Lauren decides to take justice into her own hands. Meanwhile, she tracks down the love of her mother’s life and has a special meeting with him that brings an unexpected connection. 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.

• 0:33Speaker 01

  She was 30 years old, and here we are now. I'm the exact same age she was. This random woman found me a year ago, knew exactly how the crime scene looked. She knew exactly everything that was to do with the investigation, despite the fact that she claimed she was nowhere near it. Police never investigated her or spoke with her at all. And we still don't know how my mom died. So I'm just, I mean, what can be done? Because my mom was supposed to have an autopsy, and the autopsy was wrong.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I can't answer. I don't know.

• 1:12Speaker 00

  On September 21, 2021, I finally get the call back from the Attorney General's office I've been waiting for for so long. But what he has to say is not at all what I was expecting or hoping to hear.

• 1:31Speaker 03

  I'm Candace DeLong, host of the podcast Killer Psyche. In our latest episode, we go inside the case of Lindsay 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.

• 1:51Speaker 04

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• 2:35Speaker 00

  Justice for Sled Dog.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  I got a call from the prosecutor assigned to the case. He said that they weren't going to reopen her case, exhume her body, or retest any of the specimens the ME's office still had, which were never tested for DNA in 1993.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  After a few minutes of speaking with the Attorney General's office, I hit record on my phone.

• 3:01Speaker 02

  He said to me, there could be a million other reasons that could be natural.

• 3:06Speaker 02

  I don't know what to tell you as far as trying to find out.

• 3:10Speaker 00

  The he here is the current Acting Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Alex Chirkov, who told me in person in July that he refuted the findings of the original autopsy. I remind the prosecutor of what Dr. Chirkov said to me, that the original autopsy was not consistent with a natural death.

• 3:28Speaker 02

  Unfortunately, he also can't see a but, you know, a criminal reason based on the autopsy either.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  So.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  It's kind of stuck with sort of an unknown.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  But I don't understand how it's acceptable for me to be stuck with an unknown reason for how my mom died. She was a citizen in Rhode Island.

• 3:48Speaker 02

  I don't think it is acceptable, but I don't know, you know.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  But if it's, okay, so if it's not acceptable, and we can both certainly agree on that, she was a 30-year-old, otherwise healthy woman. I don't, if it was a simple overdose, that's fine. But her tox screen was clean. Everything else seems to point to the fact that there were other people there that weekend, and I got these random people finding me 30 years later, who are still obsessed with it and remember all of these little details. I haven't spent a year of my life investigating this, recording people, getting records, trying to piece my mom's death together, to never know. So I'm asking your help.

• 4:33Speaker 00

  I am trying so incredibly hard to maintain composure, but you can hear in my voice that I am close to my breaking point. And it doesn't help that I'm sick with COVID, so my heart is racing especially hard while I'm pacing around the room.

• 4:51Speaker 01

  Dr. Chirkov, when we met in person last in July, he showed me they have all of the original specimens. I sat two feet away from them.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Okay. Well, I could talk to him again, see if, see if that's something you could do.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  I would very much appreciate it.

• 5:08Speaker 02

  I don't want to get your hopes up that something's kind of, you know, something, that some answers are going to be out there. I don't know if that's going to happen or not.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  I understand what you're, I mean, I appreciate your response. I'm just, you have to see where I'm coming from. I mean, quite honestly, just to level with you, like, I'm not going to give up until I know how my mom died.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, like I said, I'll reach out to him again and see if there's, if there's anything that he can do.

• 5:43Speaker 00

  After I get off the phone with the Attorney General's office, I feel a change inside of me. It feels like he was just crossing off another item on his to-do list. And being told in that condescending tone to not get my hopes up feels infuriating. How can you tell a daughter she'll be stuck with an unknown reason for her mother's death? I decide that I won't allow my mom to just be dismissed again the way she was in 1993. I will hold on to hope as long as I can and will fight as hard as I can until her case is reopened. I don't care what some man in a suit with a fancy title has to say. I'm not backing down.

• 6:29Speaker 05

  Well, I think what's important about that is like, even though that was not a response that you wanted or deserved, but it motivated you.

• 6:38Speaker 00

  I talked to my friend Jolynn Rice. She's the CEO and founder of Cold Case Advocacy, an organization that supports families impacted by unsolved homicides.

• 6:49Speaker 06

  That was the spark that kind of drove me to, to really challenge what people said to me. You know, families don't realize that they can challenge the system and that they can ask questions. That was the moment where I realized, I don't care what someone's title is. This is about my mother, and I'm her voice in this. So I need to give her my best and not care if it offends someone or upsets them. Just do the right thing. And so that was why I was kind of, kind of a little bit of a pit bull when it came to things after that. Like, that really started all of it, I think.

• 7:26Speaker 05

  To have that be an experience you went through, to utilize that as motivation to say, no, it's not going to, it's not going to happen like that, is really, really an important sort of moment, because it wasn't a great moment for you, but in a way, it propelled you to push for the things that you push with. And that's the thing we have to fix, is that communication or lack of communication is a big problem. And a lot of the families that I work with don't even have the ability to pick up the phone and call somebody. They have no idea who's assigned to their case. And when you don't have anything that's sort of promoting that or propelling that or requiring that law enforcement gives you case updates or provides that information to you, you're really just knocking on somebody's door and hoping they answer.

• 8:10Speaker 05

  It's not really a strategy.

• 8:16Speaker 00

  And that's exactly why I decide to make a big move a week after I speak with the AG's office.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  In September of 2021, I create an organization called Unsolved Rhode Island. My goal is to help find missing persons, aid victims' families in raising awareness, and achieve justice across the state. I don't know what made me think I could do this, but all that was guiding me at this point was knowing I had to do something.

• 8:46Speaker 07

  I remember going through that, and you were going back and forth and really grab, you know, grabbing all your ideas of how you want this to look and what did you want it to be like? And.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  I'm talking to my best friend Ramona, who was by my side both then and now. I forget which case it was, but I remember you called me up, and you were like, are you watching the news right now? And I was like, what? And it was another woman who was trying to get justice for her dad. And you were like, are you seeing this? Like, her dad's case is also a cold case. And like, it was the first time I really realized that, like, there's other families out there like mine. And it was like, that was such a moment of enlightenment for me. And that was when I was like, I've got to do something about this. My mom was the type of person, from what I've heard, where like, if the spotlight was on her, she wanted to shine it on somebody else.

• 9:38Speaker 07

  Right.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  And so it was like, this is kind of like my way of honoring her life.

• 9:47Speaker 00

  A few weeks after I speak to the Assistant Attorney General, I request another meeting with the Acting Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Alex Chirkov. It doesn't make sense to me that three months earlier, he said he refuted the original autopsy's findings. But now the AG's office says Dr. Chirkov doesn't see a reason to reopen the case? On October 25, 2021, I get another meeting with him. This time, I'm recording.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Dr. Chirkov has been practicing in the United States for decades, but his accent is still strong, so his audio may be a little tough to understand at some points.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  No, no, no. My desk looks way worse than this.

• 10:33Speaker 00

  Trust me. I dive right in and tell him the assistant AG said there was no reason to reopen the case based on what he, Dr. Cherkov, reported.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  I told him the case has not established cause and manner of death.

• 10:52Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 10:53Speaker 06

  I can give him a say, I have evidence of homicide.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:01Speaker 06

  I can say to him, I have evidence of foul play.

• 11:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:07Speaker 06

  I can say, what I told him, I have no evidence of unnatural death, which is possible drug overdose, which was not determined. And I don't have evidence of the physical homicide, for example. It's like injury which resulted with death. There is no evidence of blood force injury. There is no evidence of a sharp force injury. There is no gunshot wound.

• 11:42Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:43Speaker 06

  There is no evidence of strangulation. You know, realistically, what I have, I have unexplained natural way of death.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  So in summary, Dr. Cherkov says that nothing stood out to categorize my mom's death as anything but an unexplained natural death. But I keep pressing and ask him about the parts of the police report that stand out to me as not, quote unquote, "natural."

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Somebody who was securing the scene, one of the patrolmen, he noticed that there was a clump of light brown hair that looked as if it had been ripped out of someone's head. That's not natural.

• 12:24Speaker 06

  You think you have evidence of foul play?

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 12:30Speaker 06

  Because this is right now, it's a legal implication which is not depend on medical examiner.

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  You know, just if they start investigation based on evidence.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 12:42Speaker 06

  Which you present to them.

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:45Speaker 06

  They have to review this evidence and they have to say, this evidence bearing enough information suspicious or evidence which can ask us to start investigation again. And the next step, they will ask me what I'm supposed to do. And in this condition, I will say to them, okay, give me a judge decision to reopen the case. We open the grave, we examine the body, we do toxicology, comprehensive toxicology, not bullshit which was done 30 years ago.

• 13:28Speaker 06

  And after this, I will examine skeletal remains. I will examine what exists and it will give you a conclusion based on existing level of knowledge.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  So Dr. Cherkov is saying that if I can get the case reopened, then he can do a new autopsy to establish my mom's cause and manner of death.

• 13:59Speaker 06

  One more question.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  But before I leave the ME's office.

• 14:03Speaker 06

  Is your mom was a civilian related to the police department or she?

• 14:09Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, we had family in the police and actually.

• 14:11Speaker 06

  No, no, but she was informant of the police.

• 14:15Speaker 00

  What? Did he just ask if my mom was an informant? I don't know. That's actually a really interesting point because she was keeping tabs on a lot of people. I have found photos, I have found in the back of her planners, every single one has names and numbers of creepy people.

• 14:33Speaker 00

  Yet another mystery in my mom's case. And now I'm wondering if I've been looking at this case all wrong.

• 14:42Speaker 06

  Ghosts aren't real. At least, that's what journalist Tristan Redman 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

• 15:25Speaker 06

  that come back to haunt us. 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. 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.

• 16:05Speaker 00

  You know, the funny thing is, because I was going to ask you. Who better to talk to about this informant theory than retired East Providence Police Captain Joe Broadmeadow? Because this is a theory that I kind of formulated from my mom's notes. Because she had this notebook where she wasn't like, she was writing down, you know, things I have to do, people I have to call. But she was also writing down other things, like people's names who she didn't know. Like, she wasn't friends with these people, but she would write down kind of obscure names. And then she would write down this one guy [BLEEP] and it would be [BLEEP] Radio Shack. And like, she was meeting this person [BLEEP] at the Radio Shack, obviously.

• 16:50Speaker 00

  And reading her notes after working on her case, I noticed that they were very similar to like notes I was taking when I was getting information on people to follow up on later or to relate to somebody. And I started to wonder if my mom could have been an informant. Is it possible? Did you ever hear that or? No. But I'll be honest with you, you know, I treated, as long as my informants were straight with me, I was straight with them. And, you know, I wouldn't give them up. And, you know, there were informants that we might, you know, my partner and I at the time, we both might be aware of who the informant was.

• 17:34Speaker 00

  But, you know, I wouldn't make it common knowledge to other police officers or, and I used to tell my informants that if you get stopped, do not use my name. Yeah. Okay? Do whatever the officer says, take whatever, whatever happens. If you get caught, you get caught. But don't use my name. Let it, let them do what they have to do. And then get ahold of me after you get out, or I'll find out when I come into the station and see that you're locked up, whatever, and then I will try to do something. But don't use my name. Because not, you know, cops, like cops are human beings, believe that or not. And they like to talk. And sometimes they get, they get pissed when they lock somebody up and that person kind of gets away with something.

• 18:18Speaker 00

  You know, they don't always appreciate that. So if you start dropping your name, they're going to start knowing, or you're, you know, you're an informant. The "my mom was a police informant" theory may just be that, a theory. But for now, I need to shelve it and keep moving forward. So I use a tool in my arsenal I've kept tucked away for the right moment: the media. Together with Jolyn's Cold Case Advocacy and the group Uncovered, we make a case page for my mom in order to really go public. I also publish the original police reports and autopsy on Unsolved Rhode Island and start a petition, "Justice for Sled Dog," my mom's nickname, on change.org to try

• 19:02Speaker 00

  and get her body exhumed. I start making social media posts on my own pages and in various other cold case groups, interviewing anyone I can get in touch with who knew my mom. Basically, just blitzing the word out as much as possible.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  And throughout all of this, I'm still talking to Louise and trying to get as much information from her as I can.

• 19:27Speaker 02

  What's happening, Blue Baby?

• 19:29Speaker 00

  Hey, lady. Um, so? It's now been well over a year of us talking, and we still haven't met in person under the advice of the police. But she's still demanding that I take her to see my mom's grave.

• 19:41Speaker 02

  I gotta take a fucking ride up to your house, find you, kidnap you, stick a macaroni sandwich on your throat. You're taking me to her grave?

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely not doing that. Throughout all of our calls, Louise has told me so much. Yes, most of it's contradictory, bizarre, and mostly unhelpful. But she has told me some nuggets that have been worth digging into.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  He's going to be dead by now, shit. When she was 20, he was 40.

• 20:06Speaker 00

  Louise is talking about the love of my mom's life, Pirate, the man I mentioned in episode two, who rode motorcycles and gave my mom the nickname Sled Dog when she followed him to Alaska. There's a photo I found in the duffel bag in my dad's basement from 1981 that my mom has signed Pirate and Sled Dog with his full name and hers. She's in a brown fur coat with a riding cap and goggles resting on top, smiling at the camera like she's having the time of her life. She's sitting in a sidecar beside a tattooed man on a white motorcycle who looks proudly off into the distance. I recognize the stretch of highway, a part of I-95 that I've driven dozens of times.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  There are other photos of them on bikes, some of just Pirate, some of just my mom, that were clearly taken by him. I can tell by the look in her eyes that it's true. He was the love of her life. The night I find these photos, I decide to look for Pirate's obituary. Except, when I search for it, nothing comes up. Puzzled, I log into a subscription background check website and type in his real name. Two results come up. One is the right age. Heart hammering, I head to Facebook and search. As soon as I pull up his profile photo, I know it's him. He's much older, but still looks the same and still very much alive.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  I nervously send Pirate a message, then fear he might not check Facebook messages and scroll a bit, until I find someone who seems to be his son. I send a similar message to his son, saying, I think my mom once dated his dad. Then I wait. That same night, the son responds on Facebook Messenger. I apologize for reaching out so randomly. And as I'm typing, he stops me and says his dad would love to hear from me. And then Pirate messages me himself. He gives me his phone number and I call him right away. I'm smiling as I wonder what my mom would say about all of this. We speak briefly and he invites me to meet him the following week.

• 22:23Speaker 00

  He asks if I want to go shooting at a local gun range and then to a nearby diner for dinner.

• 22:30Speaker 00

  At the diner, I sit across the booth from Pirate, who wears jeans, a plaid shirt, a hat and sunglasses. Where did she get her sled dog nickname from?

• 22:41Speaker 06

  That's when we went to Alaska. And she wanted to learn how to mush, how to run a sled dog team. Because she ended up running a dog sled team in Alaska. So that's, that's how she got her nickname.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  Was she any good at it?

• 22:58Speaker 06

  Well, she was a novice, you know?

• 23:00Speaker 00

  That makes sense.

• 23:01Speaker 06

  Yeah, we didn't get to really spend a lot of time doing it, you know?

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Didn't she try to adopt? I forget if it was a, um, a wolf or a sled dog herself, like what was that?

• 23:15Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, it was a real wolf dog, a puppy.

• 23:19Speaker 00

  That's cool.

• 23:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, no, she tried to adopt it, but they, they wouldn't let us take it.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Nobody wanted to have a wolf dog around the house?

• 23:26Speaker 06

  No, they don't really make good pets.

• 23:31Speaker 00

  Sitting across from the great love of my mom's life fills me with so much calm. I can see in Pirate's eyes, even after all these years, how much he loved her and wants to share their memories with me.

• 23:43Speaker 06

  I got, I got into a, a fight with a, with a doorman. Well, I was going to get it. I didn't actually get into a fight with him. I was going to get into a fight with him. And I stepped back to, to, you know, get into the position.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:58Speaker 06

  And as soon as I did, Lori jumped over my head from the back of me and tackled the guy.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Oh, my God.

• 24:04Speaker 06

  It was like in a movie.

• 24:07Speaker 00

  That's funny. This story fits in perfectly with my image of my mom. Fearless, strong and wild. And I'm desperate to learn as much as I can from Pirate about her and her life. Did you ever meet her family at all, like my grandmother?

• 24:23Speaker 06

  Yes, I did. I met her mother.

• 24:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:25Speaker 06

  I met her sister.

• 24:27Speaker 00

  Huh, that's interesting.

• 24:28Speaker 06

  I met the mother and I could tell the mother didn't like her. The mother, all she did was favor the other daughter, favor the other daughter.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  Allison?

• 24:37Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:38Speaker 06

  She didn't like Lori at all.

• 24:41Speaker 00

  This tracks with what I've been told about my mom and Aunt Allison's childhood. My grandpa favored my mom and my grandma favored Allison. And I always felt like my Aunt Allison didn't like my mom and by association, didn't like me. If you remember our contentious conversation from the last episode, it was like pulling teeth to get her to answer any questions about my mom's death. Why didn't you, but why didn't you tell the police any of that? But there was more to this exchange and it has to do with my grandma.

• 25:12Speaker 07

  Grandma did not want your mother's name brought back into this.

• 25:17Speaker 00

  Why?

• 25:18Speaker 07

  Because she knew of the history she had.

• 25:22Speaker 00

  So why wouldn't she want to solve her daughter's murder?

• 25:25Speaker 07

  Because she found the diary.

• 25:28Speaker 00

  What diary?

• 25:29Speaker 07

  Of your mother.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  The planners, you mean?

• 25:34Speaker 07

  She found a diary. And when I went to, to my mother's house, she was just sitting there crying.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:45Speaker 07

  She found, you know how you like to write everything?

• 25:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:50Speaker 07

  Your mom was, you take after your mom.

• 25:52Speaker 00

  So what was she so upset about in this diary?

• 25:54Speaker 07

  Your mom wrote everything down she did.

• 25:57Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 25:58Speaker 07

  And Grandma read it.

• 25:59Speaker 00

  And?

• 25:59Speaker 07

  Grandma was shocked.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 26:02Speaker 07

  And when I saw Grandma at the house, at her house, she was like, oh, I can't believe this. I said, what? She said, nothing. And she took the diary. I said, Grandma, I said, Mom, let me see the diary. She said, no, no one's ever going to see this. She, she was, she read a lot of stuff that your mom wrote and she was like devastated. And you know what? You don't need to know this because she was your mother. You're not gonna, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna tell you bad things about your mom.

• 26:30Speaker 00

  I don't give a fuck that my mom did coke and had tricks. I really don't. I care that-

• 26:35Speaker 07

  What your mom would, your mom would, okay? Your mom-

• 26:38Speaker 00

  No, she wouldn't.

• 26:39Speaker 07

  Your mom would not want you to know what she, anything she did. No.

• 26:42Speaker 00

  Well, guess what? I'm sure she's pretty proud that I'm going for justice for her.

• 26:47Speaker 07

  Anything bad about her.

• 26:48Speaker 00

  I don't. I don't give a shit that she did drugs. I don't care that she made money from sex work. I don't care.

• 26:55Speaker 07

  And Grandma didn't either.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  But it doesn't matter what they want. It matters what's right and what's right is figuring out what happened to her. What Allison doesn't seem to understand is that learning about my mom's worst moments and biggest mistakes has only made me love her more. She was real. She wasn't the saintly martyr everyone would have had me believe, but a beautifully flawed woman who was never afraid to be herself, no matter how many times the world kicked her for it.

• 27:30Speaker 04

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  On January 24th, 2023, in Duckspree, 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. 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.

• 29:13Speaker 03

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• 29:32Speaker 00

  But back to my conversation with Pirate. What did my mom's family think of you? Were they like supportive of that?

• 29:39Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Oh, they couldn't wait to get rid of her.

• 29:43Speaker 00

  Wow, my heart aches hearing this. If Allison made her sister feel the same way she made me feel, it's no wonder my mom couldn't wait to leave.

• 29:56Speaker 00

  It's so crazy though, because like the pictures of her as a kid, like she is a cheerleader and she is doing, you know, babysitting club and all this stuff. And then all of a sudden she takes off to like go travel around with some bikers. Like, that's ridiculous.

• 30:12Speaker 06

  That's what she did.

• 30:13Speaker 00

  It's so crazy.

• 30:14Speaker 06

  She, she, uh, she, one day she left, she got up in the morning. She says, I'll see you in a couple of weeks. She had a dollar in her pocket. She's going to hitchhike to Daytona for the Bike Week, Daytona Bike Week.

• 30:28Speaker 00

  Get out.

• 30:29Speaker 06

  On a dollar.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. And she made it.

• 30:32Speaker 06

  She did it too.

• 30:33Speaker 00

  That's so funny.

• 30:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 30:35Speaker 00

  It doesn't surprise me that she made it, but like, I'm so different than that. Like I, that gives me a feeling of panic just thinking about like having a dollar in your pocket and going out and doing that. That's crazy. It's hard to express how much I feel my mom's presence when I'm with Pirate. I've just met this guy, but we're laughing and crying together like I've known him my whole life. Where did you get your nickname from?

• 31:02Speaker 06

  I was working on the waterfront, loading a seahorse. That's a, that's a ship that takes cargo out to the well, the well breaks. Okay, and one of the containers, uh, the refrigeration broke down in it. So we had, we had like probably 5,000 pounds of fresh meat. They said, anybody want the meat, take it. So I happened to have an El Camino. I must've put a ton of meat in the back of it. I had it loaded like you wouldn't believe. And I was passing out meat to all my friends. They said, well, where, where, where did you get this meat?

• 31:46Speaker 06

  Well, we got it from a ship.

• 31:50Speaker 06

  And thus came the word to Pirate.

• 31:52Speaker 00

  That's funny. Pirate gives me my mom's Smith & Wesson belt buckle that he saved, along with her old hunting knife. That knife is an antique I proudly display on my own shelf.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Memorial Day of 2021, Pirate and I take the trip Louise has been badgering me about and visit my mom's grave so he can pay his respects. We do a shot of Irish whiskey, place flowers on her headstone, and cry together once more. And I realize that it's not just my mom or myself I'm searching for justice for, but Pirate as well.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  The next time I see Pirate, he gives me another gift in the form of a treasured memory, a beautiful vintage leather jacket from 1970 that not only he wore, but so did my mom. Why am I not surprised it fits perfectly? Putting it on feels like getting my first hug from my mom in more than 30 years.

• 32:54Speaker 02

  Listen, is he alive?

• 32:57Speaker 00

  At the end of 2021, I finally tell Louise about Pirate. Oh, yeah, he's alive. I heard from him. I was actually able to get in touch with him and he, um...

• 33:08Speaker 02

  What's he able to say to, uh, you know, what'd you gain from him? I'm dying of...

• 33:14Speaker 00

  She doesn't sound too surprised to hear he's alive, even though she implied that he was probably dead at least a couple of times. I mean, he was just, he was very kind about her. He didn't have, he didn't know her at the very end of her life, so everything he had was just, you know, the positive memories of when she was younger was what he shared with me.

• 33:36Speaker 02

  And that was what? What do you have to say?

• 33:38Speaker 00

  I mean, she was just, she was brave, she was beautiful, she was funny, she was talented, artistic. I mean, it was, you know, all this stuff you would expect somebody to say, basically.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  She should have brought up my name. She should have said, "Do you know a girl named Louise?"

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Um, actually, no, I did, because I mentioned, I was like, "Oh, I've been trying to find my mom's friends," and he said he didn't quite remember you.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:02Speaker 00

  Louise sounds annoyed about Pirate, both that he and my mom loved each other and that I found him.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  Okay, can we speak frankly?

• 34:11Speaker 00

  And that's not all she's mad about. Yeah, absolutely.

• 34:15Speaker 02

  Okay, so, um, I seen a thing, um, on Facebook, um, Justice for Sled Dog?

• 34:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:24Speaker 02

  Okay, so, um, sweetheart, blueberry.

• 34:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  That name, what I told you, that name was never, like, nobody, nobody knew her by that nickname. That was a pet peeve name. Had a, a pet peeve name for your husband, like, uh, Sweetie Pie or something, you know?

• 34:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  Or Goo Goo Bear, you know what I mean?

• 34:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know. It's an affectionate pet name, not a pet peeve name. Oh.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Um, I got some calls from girls we all went to school with, and they're like, "Who wrote that? Sled Dog. They're gonna be offended by it."

• 35:02Speaker 00

  I'm so sure that Louise has been fielding calls left and right from friends who hate that I used my mom's old nickname.

• 35:09Speaker 02

  I'm so fucking sick and tired of reading about her, her name Sled Dog in public. Her name is Laurie Lee Malloy, not fucking Sled Dog, okay?

• 35:21Speaker 00

  So tired of reading about her best friend? This really seems to hit a nerve with Louise. I wonder why.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  I guess...

• 35:30Speaker 06

  I'm gonna tell you, Sled Dog was an honorable name.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Was it?

• 35:34Speaker 06

  Yeah, it was.

• 35:36Speaker 00

  I want to make sure I'm not way off base, so I talked to one of my mom and Pirate's biker friends about it, too. I'm not naming her because she'd prefer to be anonymous. She insists the nickname was honorable because it meant my mom was with Pirate.

• 35:50Speaker 06

  So that elevated her.

• 35:52Speaker 00

  Really?

• 35:54Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah, baby. Sled Dogs were, fuck, you know, most old ladies that were actually loved by the man they were.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 06

  That's somebody that you picked up down the road and they ride with you. But, uh, Sled Dog was a very impressive name that, it was a nickname, you know, and she didn't call her that, he didn't call her that all the time.

• 36:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:18Speaker 06

  Only depending who he was with.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've noticed that.

• 36:22Speaker 06

  And she was somewhere where people didn't appreciate the value of it.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  My mom clearly liked the nickname since she signed her name with it. It was obviously given to her out of respect by someone who loved her deeply. And beyond that, it was given to her once she truly found herself on the frozen tundra, wild and free. So I don't really care what Louise thinks.

• 36:49Speaker 00

  I remember Louise being so mad when I made the petition for my mom and it was Justice for Sled Dog.

• 36:56Speaker 07

  Yes.

• 36:58Speaker 00

  I talked to Ramona about Louise's dramatic response. And she was like, you know, I talked to some people, I'm sure it was just her. She was like, you know, "Everybody's upset that you're using that Sled Dog name," and like, that made me just want to use it even more.

• 37:16Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah. And I think one of the biggest things, too, about all this is that you have been able to get to know this true, authentic version of your mom.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:30Speaker 07

  Through the journals, through the pictures, through her friends, through her memories, through everyone that knew her about how much she loved you and how much she loved life.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  You would think that would make Louise happy as my mom's supposed best friend, but it just seems to make her angry. But my relationship with Louise is getting more and more strained by the day, and soon, it hits a breaking point.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Come on, Louise, I was born on a day, but it wasn't fucking yesterday.

• 37:59Speaker 02

  This shit's driving you fucking crazy. You're not thinking clearly.

• 38:15Speaker 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-Klein Schmidt. 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. Legal counsel

• 39:00Speaker 00

  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.