4 | The Nature of Crime Scenes

Lauren confronts her Aunt to sort out contradictions in the police report. Lauren finds out about new, shady characters in her mother’s life that, as usual, leads her back to one person—Louise. 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

  They called me and they asked me to come in and talk to them, and I wouldn't.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  And then they said they found her, found her in the bathroom with bread balls.

• 0:47Speaker 00

  In July 2021, police finally find the original reports from my mom's 1993 investigation that I had asked for nine months earlier. I'm overwhelmed holding these pages in my hands that I'd waited so long to read. Would I finally find the answers I've been looking for?

• 1:26Speaker 00

  Episode four, The Nature of Crime Scenes.

• 1:31Speaker 02

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• 1:51Speaker 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.

• 2:14Speaker 00

  Looking at the reports confirms that the case was originally considered a homicide, just like Louise first told me, and that my mom was found exactly as everyone described. The responding officer refers to, quote, "some of the suspicious conditions." I'm quoting the report here. "There were small tufts of the victim's hair found all around the apartment. She was found in the nude on the bathroom floor with slices of bread all around her. The victim herself had pieces of hair wrapped around her left hand and around one foot. The refrigerator in the kitchen was found to be unplugged, and there was food still inside.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  There were two empty glasses found on the table and a small plastic tub of some sort of food salad."

• 3:04Speaker 00

  And there's more. A witness statement from a man named Henry, who police call my mom's boyfriend.

• 3:10Speaker 04

  It wasn't boyfriend, girlfriend. You gotta get that out of your head.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Louise says Henry was more of a so-called sugar daddy to my mom, an older man who helped her out when she needed it. No, I believe you.

• 3:22Speaker 04

  It was a fucking trick.

• 3:23Speaker 00

  I believe you.

• 3:24Speaker 04

  You know what that is?

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, when you're just somebody, you're screwing somebody and they're paying you.

• 3:30Speaker 04

  Right, but his mind was so fucking whatever. She could call him at midnight and say, "Bring me, bring me up a book of matches." He would be like, "I'm on my way."

• 3:41Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 3:42Speaker 04

  You know what I'm trying to say? She used, I don't want to say this, I'm gonna say it, so you don't understand.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  She used and abused him for what she wanted.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Such a nice way to talk about your best friend. But it turns out there's another connection here.

• 4:00Speaker 04

  But I know Henry, well, I know, I went to school with his daughters. His daughters are ahead of me a little bit.

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Is he still alive?

• 4:07Speaker 04

  He's dead.

• 4:09Speaker 00

  So I guess I won't be talking to Henry.

• 4:11Speaker 04

  And, you know, well into our late twenties, at this middle twenties, when I met him, after my first divorce, oh, 23.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 04

  So I said, "I need a ride up to Miami to visit my best friend, Lori." And he goes, "Well, who's Lori?" I said, "Um, Lori Malloy, she went to school with me, we were best friends." I said, um...

• 4:29Speaker 00

  So my mom met Henry through Louise, and Henry was interviewed by police when they were treating my mom's death as a homicide. Is there anyone in this case not connected to Louise?

• 4:43Speaker 00

  But back to Henry's witness statement. It says that around 1:00 PM on Sunday, March 7, 1993, Henry goes to the police seeking a welfare check for my mom. He tells them he hasn't seen her in about a week since they got into an argument about her supposed cocaine use.

• 5:03Speaker 00

  An officer goes with Henry to our apartment. The landlord's family, the ones I recently met with, let them into the front door of the building.

• 5:13Speaker 00

  They find our apartment door ajar. The officer calls out for my mom... Hello, Lori? ...but gets no response. Ms. Malloy? The officer hears the sound of running water, and they go inside. He sees the place is a mess. Then he sees a woman's body lying between the bathroom and kitchen floor. Henry is following the officer, and the officer notes that when Henry sees the scene, he says, "Oh, my God." Oh, my God. The officer orders Henry outside and calls for backup.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  The paramedics arrive, but my mom is obviously dead, so they leave and detectives are dispatched to the scene. It's immediately labeled a homicide, and in 1993, Henry is looked at as a prime suspect. It's so crazy to me that you were the lieutenant who took the original 1056 call from the responding officer.

• 6:11Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  I talked to Joe Broadmeadow, a retired captain from the East Providence Police Department, who was lieutenant in charge when my mom's body was found. Joe sent detectives to the scene and knew all the officers involved, including the one who accompanied Henry to the apartment.

• 6:30Speaker 05

  That created a problem.

• 6:33Speaker 00

  By all accounts, that officer was a great guy and good at his job, but his decision to allow Henry inside the crime scene may not have been the best idea.

• 6:42Speaker 05

  Because if Henry was in fact involved, one of the things we have to prove is that he was there. Well, we brought him there, so of course he was there. And in the crime scene, the thing about a crime scene is, if you were at a crime scene, you always leave something behind and you always take something with you. Okay? That's a reality of the nature of crime scenes. A hair might fall out, you know, you probably lost 10 hairs today. You don't have any idea where they went. Right? You don't know where they went, but they, you've left, and you stepped on, you walked into a CVS pharmacy, and you stepped on their floor, and perhaps you picked up something from that floor.

• 7:26Speaker 05

  So there are, those are issues you have to be aware of. The O.J. Simpson case is probably the best example of that, where those LA detectives took the blood samples that they had recovered from the scene and brought it to another scene.

• 7:39Speaker 06

  Did you see the evidence moved as the bodies were moved? And by the evidence, I mean the cap, the glove, and that envelope. Did you see that evidence move? No.

• 7:49Speaker 05

  That is basic, basic police work, is you never contaminate the scene.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  The police reports state that over 14 items are taken into evidence. But I did find out another thing I promised you I would. I found out as far as evidence goes. I talked to Louise about the police report to see how she'll react. Oh, the evidence that they had back in the day.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Evidence pertaining to what?

• 8:20Speaker 00

  To my mom's homicide.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  So... Yeah, this was something I requested, and they have a whole bunch of evidence. They found a whole, so there were a lot of different human hairs. That they took, um, they took a human hair. I noted all these, um, human hair was off the kitchen rug, off the kitchen floor, off the sneakers that were in the living room. Um, they found, they took a yellow colored infant sweater from the master bedroom bed.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  You should say, yeah, it's mine. Give it back.

• 8:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, right? I know. That's mine. Um, they did find, uh, there was a pink colored towel that had mucus on it from the master bedroom bed. Um, bottom, bottom sheet from the bed in the master bedroom. Um, top bed sheet with apparent hair from the master bedroom. Um, human hair off the rug in the master bedroom, human hair from the chest of drawers in the infants room. Um.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  Do you know your mother had a lot, and I mean a lot of fucking hair on her head?

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:37Speaker 04

  And do you know what's normal for people with a lot of hair to shed? I think my hairdresser said it's normal to shed a hundred strands of hair a day. I mean, your, your, your mother had a fucking mange of hair. Beautiful gorgeous fucking hair.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, they, um, they found her hair and they found other people's hair. So they found.

• 9:57Speaker 04

  Of course. I've been found mine. I had a lot of hair too. I've been up there a few times.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  So I tell Louise that the police had hair as evidence and she immediately says they probably found her hair there? Well, I'm, I'm sure that they found yours. I'm sure they found Allison's, but whoever is, like, they took a whole bunch of hairs from whoever this other person was. They took all their hairs. There's a reason I'm telling Louise all of this. My mom was known for her dark, dark, almost black hair. And one of the samples found is referred to as light brown. So that wouldn't belong to my mom. Who does it belong to? They took, um, the comforter from the bed in the master bedroom. They took an address book in the kitchen and they took the two drinking glasses from the kitchen table.

• 10:44Speaker 04

  The two, out of everything you said, out of everything you said.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  I know.

• 10:49Speaker 04

  Fucking nonsense and bullshit. The only thing that you said that could, that's gonna prove something is the two glasses off the motherfucking table. But those are the two people that were there last. One's gonna come back, mommy, and the other one's coming back, Peter.

• 11:05Speaker 00

  Peter, the guy from New Hampshire who Louise could have sworn was my real father before I set her straight.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  On January 24th, 2023, in Duxbury, 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. Follow

• 12:02Speaker 00

  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.

• 12:18Speaker 02

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• 13:21Speaker 00

  Back to Henry. He's brought into the police station and questioned as a suspect. The reports say he speaks freely without a lawyer and is open about the fight he had with my mom.

• 13:32Speaker 05

  Anybody is capable of murder, but capable of murder under the proper circumstances.

• 13:37Speaker 00

  Joe Broadmeadow actually knew Henry. So I asked him if he thinks that he could have been involved in my mom's death.

• 13:44Speaker 05

  You know, somebody's trying to hurt your child. Sure.

• 13:46Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  Capable of killing somebody? Absolutely. Somebody's trying to hurt your family? Absolutely. No doubt about it. Killing somebody because you're angry with them, you know, you have a fight, or killing somebody just, you know, just because somebody told you to kill somebody, uh, you know, that's a whole different kind of person. These cases are, they're never, they're never as clear part of this TV would like to portray, and that's the problem with a lot of people. You know, most people, that's their experience. What was your opinion of Henry? And Henry was not a, he wasn't a violent guy. You know, there's, there's a certain kind of personality that goes along with, with some areas of East Providence, where he wasn't necessarily, he wasn't necessarily cordial to cops. But, but, but then again,

• 14:32Speaker 05

  the push came to shove, he wasn't somebody you had to worry about pulling a gun on you and shooting. Right. Like everybody else, he has good points and his, you know, good moments and his bad moments. You know, people talking to cops are gonna be nervous. Yes. You know, when you pick somebody up, when you bring them in, say, you know, come on, we have to talk to you. And, you know, you purposely don't tell them why. Well, they start going through in their head everything they did wrong in their last, in their life, thinking, oh my God, he found out about this. Yeah. You know, and you sit them down and they're gonna be nervous. You know, that's a, that's a, you know, it's actually the people who are not nervous, the only people who will fall asleep in the interview room are guilty people because they know they did it, you know? Yeah. They got nothing, you know, it's somebody who's not guilty, who's terrified. They're there for something they didn't do. They're not gonna fall asleep. They're gonna pace

• 15:17Speaker 05

  the room. They're gonna be like, like fidgety. If you fall asleep, something's wrong in there.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  Even though Henry is very open with the police, from their notes, it seems like he is visibly shaken. Interestingly, the person who doesn't seem that upset in their police interview is my mom's sister, my Aunt Allison, the one who adopted me. According to the police reports, Allison is interviewed by a detective at 3:00 PM that afternoon. In her statements, she says she was watching me because my mom wasn't feeling well. She says, quote, "I last saw my sister on Monday, March 1st, 1993. She came over to bring some extra clothes for the baby. She told me that she was still not feeling good." Allison says she went over to see my mom several times because she was getting more and more

• 16:12Speaker 00

  concerned. I talked about her police statement in my TikTok series. Hey, guys. Okay, so part six of my mom's case. Allison's pretty calm and collected and gives details about my mom's wildlife before she had me. She's like, I don't know her friends. I don't know who had a key to her place. She was schizophrenic and had addiction issues. The funny thing is, nothing in my mom's notes pointed to schizophrenia. She was logical, organized, and coherent, but okay.

• 16:41Speaker 00

  I've also asked everyone I speak to who knew my mom what they know about her having schizophrenia.

• 16:47Speaker 04

  I could take patients home for two weeks. Well, I had her for two years.

• 16:52Speaker 00

  Cookie took in my mom after a stay at a mental hospital where she worked. Did she ever seem schizophrenic with you?

• 17:00Speaker 04

  No.

• 17:02Speaker 00

  At all? She never was talking about hearing?

• 17:04Speaker 04

  She didn't have the thing in her body like that.

• 17:08Speaker 00

  Everyone has said there were no signs of schizophrenia, so I'm not sure where Allison got that from. The addiction issues are documented, but remember, the tox report on the autopsy was clean. And as far as not knowing any of my mom's friends, we know that Allison was aware of at least one friend of my mom's, Louise. But I find it hard to believe she didn't know any others. Either way, you'd think she'd try and come up with some names to give the police in order to help find out what happened to her own sister. Wasn't she so worried about her being sick that she kept checking in on her? After looking through Allison's police statement, I want to talk to her about the time leading up to

• 17:50Speaker 00

  my mom's death. Now, remember, Allison adopted me after my mom died, but we've never had a good relationship and still aren't close. We've only spoken a few times since I evicted her from my dad's house after he died. When was the last time you talked to her? I tracked down her new address, close to my dad's old house, and happened to spot her one day as I drive by. She's standing outside, holding a red solo cup and smoking a cigarette. I pull up beside her and say her name. At first, she pretends not to hear me, but I put my car in park and tell her I just have a few questions that need to be answered about her sister's death. She looks at me and I start asking questions about her and my mom.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Uh, the last time I talked to her was when Grandma left for Florida and she was gonna go stay.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  Her new boyfriend, whose parents had a house in, what?

• 18:48Speaker 00

  And she was gonna go there. New boyfriend with a house in New Hampshire. That sounds like the rich boyfriend Peter, who Louise keeps bringing up. I know, I know more than you do. Okay, if you know more than me, then who the fuck was Peter? Peter was the new boyfriend that she just met. I didn't even know. Where did she meet him? No clue. How did she meet him? No clue. What else did she tell you about him? Nothing. At the time, they thought it was Henry. But who thought that it was Henry? It does matter. Who thought? You're asking me to, you need to ask them. No, I'm asking you as somebody who was there in 1993. It was your sister's murder. And we're investigating it, so I need to know what you know about it. I was not there.

• 19:34Speaker 00

  Okay, so when was? I was taking care of my, her baby. Interesting, Allison trips up here and says "my baby," referring to me, until she catches herself. It might seem like nothing, but it reminds me of something I noticed reading her 1993 witness statement. She tells the police how my mom was upset that I'd been acting up. Then she changes her statement at the end and clarifies "the baby," me, "had only been acting up the last couple of days, "which is when I would have been with her," so she puts herself in my mom's shoes there as well.

• 20:11Speaker 00

  I'm not sure if any of this is significant, but it does strike me as odd. As far as I know, Allison taking care of me before my mom died wasn't really a regular thing.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  I ask her about that witness statement. You took a witness statement and you never mentioned anything about Henry, Peter, or anyone else. Why? Of course I did. You didn't. Well, when they called me from the state, they told me that I knew all about Henry and this guy named Peter. How's that? They're not telling you. So, why, but why wouldn't you have said that to police in 1993? I did.

• 20:48Speaker 00

  I'm not gonna argue with this. I did. Because there's no point in arguing. I have Allison's 1993 police statement that she signed, and it doesn't mention Peter or Henry anywhere. And why have I only heard about Peter from Louise and now Allison? Why did neither of them tell the police about him? It may have been a hot, Lauren. It wasn't her heart. The chief medical examiner's already said that. Allison's clearly trying to divert the conversation, and it's impossible to get a straight answer from her. What was your last conversation? Laurie, where are you? You were gonna pick her up. Come on. Richard and I are going out. Where are you? You're supposed to be here now.

• 21:33Speaker 00

  How'd you find out she died?

• 21:36Speaker 00

  Ask, ask everyone. Ask them. Ask them. Ask who? Ask, ask the, what, Peter? The investigator? The investigator's name isn't Peter.

• 21:48Speaker 00

  Allison is as helpful to me as she was to the police.

• 21:54Speaker 00

  In 1993, police also questioned my mom's friend Rebecca, who you heard from before in episode two.

• 22:01Speaker 01

  We were close. She was like my big sister.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. Rebecca was just a kid when her mom Cookie took in my mom. In her witness statement, Rebecca tells the police that, quote, "Lori had told me in the past that she'd been doing drugs since she was 14 and doing tricks since then also." This isn't surprising, and supports Louise referring to Henry as my mom's "trick." Rebecca adds, "I knew that her baby wasn't with her, so I didn't have to be concerned about that."

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Rebecca says she spoke to my mom a week before she was found.

• 22:35Speaker 04

  So I didn't think of it until they asked me, but yes, she sounded high on drugs, which is not uncommon for my big girl, but these weren't the kind of drugs she did. She didn't do...

• 22:51Speaker 00

  Really?

• 22:51Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 22:52Speaker 00

  That's how she sounded? If, all right, if you were talking like her...

• 22:56Speaker 04

  She was very slow.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  That's interesting.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  Like, as if she was fighting the drug, trying to stay awake and... So, something was going on in that fucking apartment, excuse my language?

• 23:08Speaker 00

  No, yeah.

• 23:09Speaker 04

  Somebody was pulling corks, they fucking here out of her, and somebody took her away.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  She knew how to do moderation. She wasn't a junkie junkie. She just...

• 23:22Speaker 04

  To be honest, your mother did it recreationally.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  That's...

• 23:26Speaker 04

  I've never seen your mother whacked out, out of control. She's always looked respectable, even I. She handled herself very well. So no one can ever fucking call her a junkie. Or anything.

• 23:42Speaker 00

  That's...

• 23:42Speaker 04

  She was, anything she played, she played it with high class and balls.

• 23:51Speaker 00

  This is the first I've heard about my mom sounding like she was on drugs in the days leading up to her death. I know she was known to use drugs, but this is more specific than I've heard before. I wonder why no one else mentioned this. And then how was her tox screen clear? In her 1993 statement, Rebecca also says that it sounded like someone was with my mom. Who could that have been? Was it Peter? Louise? Someone else entirely? It probably wasn't Henry, because Rebecca says Henry had called her when he was looking for my mom. That made Rebecca nervous, so she called the police. What about that call made you call police?

• 24:35Speaker 01

  Because I didn't hear from her in seven days.

• 24:37Speaker 00

  And that wasn't usual for you?

• 24:39Speaker 01

  And that was very, very unusual, because she always called me.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  And I called the police, and I said, "I haven't heard from her in seven days, "and I think something's wrong."

• 24:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  And I had to call them like three times or whatever it was.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Rebecca says seven days went by where she couldn't get a hold of my mom. But in her 1993 statement, she says she called on either Tuesday, March 2, or Wednesday, March 3, which is four or five days. It probably just felt like longer.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Phew, um... Did they call you back? Did they have you go into the station? Like, how did you find out that she passed?

• 25:25Speaker 01

  Because they called me and they asked me to come in and talk to them, and I went in. And then they said they found her, found her in the bathroom with bread balls.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  So there were at least four days unaccounted for, where my mom could have been lying on the floor, dead and alone. This could be confirmed had the medical examiner taken the temperature of her body when they found it, but he didn't. The only temperature listed is what the thermostat was set to: 72 degrees. This is why, in my email to the medical examiner back in January 2021, I asked if there was any estimated time of death, because otherwise, there's no real way to know exactly how long my mom was lying there. All the current chief medical examiner could tell me was that he believed she was dead about an hour before she was found by the police at around 1:00 PM,

• 26:22Speaker 00

  but that it likely took several hours for her to die based on the weight of her lungs. Based on all this, the estimated time of death was likely between 8:00 and 11:00 AM of the morning she was found. But where was my mom for the days before she died, when Rebecca couldn't get a hold of her? Even if it was just that morning that she died, hearing that it took hours for my mom to die alone in our apartment rips my heart out.

• 26:56Speaker 00

  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. 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

• 27:37Speaker 00

  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. 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.

• 28:20Speaker 00

  Did you ever think it could have been that guy Henry who called? Like, did you ever meet him or anything?

• 28:26Speaker 01

  Well, Henry and Louise are the only two that stand out to me.

• 28:32Speaker 00

  It seems pretty clear to me that Henry wasn't involved, except for trying to help my mom. And obviously, the police in 1993 agreed with me because they didn't hold him. But hearing Rebecca named Louise as standing out to her, that piques my interest, obviously. But on top of wondering who took my mom's life, I also have questions about how it was taken. All the current ME has said is that it wasn't natural causes. That leaves so many possibilities. It makes me wonder how they would have done it. Like, there were two drinking glasses on the table. The drinking glasses were empty. It'd have been some liquid.

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Apparently, somebody else was there.

• 29:13Speaker 00

  Yeah. And the door was left open. There was also, um...

• 29:17Speaker 01

  They killed her. Of course, they didn't. What are they gonna do? Lock the door and shut it and all that? No. They're getting the fuck out of there.

• 29:24Speaker 00

  Right. And there was also, like, some leftover. It looked like food salad, like a macaroni salad or something on the table. So it makes me wonder, did somebody put something in her drink? Did they put something in the salad? And like, just, you know, it was never found because they weren't looking for poison when they were testing her. You know what I mean?

• 29:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:47Speaker 00

  This talk of salad reminds me of something that Louise said.

• 29:50Speaker 04

  I was having a barbecue for one of my son's birthdays. I have two kids.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 29:55Speaker 04

  And I said, Laurie, you coming? Your mother made the potato salad. I'm gonna make a killer, killer, killer fucking potato salad.

• 30:02Speaker 00

  On its own, that seems like an innocuous statement, and I didn't register it at the time. But that's not the only time Louise mentioned it. She talks about it on another call, too.

• 30:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, we were talking about mashed potatoes.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  Okay, because I love to cook. I always love to cook. And I said, Laurie, do me a favor. Give me the recipe. Because you want to make one fucking mean, mean potato salad.

• 30:31Speaker 00

  Did she?

• 30:32Speaker 04

  The fact that I had... Laurie. And she told me, she wrote down, you know, the ingredients to make the potato salad. She went through the potato salad.

• 30:45Speaker 00

  The fact that Louise repeatedly talks about my mom's potato salad when there was some sort of macaroni or potato salad on the table by her when she died seems strange to me. Could Louise be trying to hint something to me? Or does she just really love my mom's potato salad? I have so many questions, and I'm trying my hardest to get them answered, even 30 years after my mom's death.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  I'd like to find out if it was somebody killed her.

• 31:18Speaker 00

  Rebecca's mom Cookie, who was a surrogate mom to my own mother, has questions, too.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  I believe it was because Laurie... And they had to be, I don't know, they must have had to knock her out or something.

• 31:33Speaker 00

  You think so?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, because she would have fought back.

• 31:37Speaker 00

  The thing that's always bothered me is how the scene was found. So the front door's open, she's naked, she's got some bruises on her.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. It was a guy.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  You think there was a guy involved?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. There was a guy, probably a girl, too.

• 31:53Speaker 00

  I think what made me think that there might have been a girl involved was the clumps of hair everywhere.

• 31:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:59Speaker 00

  What makes you think?

• 32:00Speaker 01

  She pulled, because the girl in her was probably into it, and then the guy went into it.

• 32:06Speaker 00

  You think so?

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's what happened.

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Why do you think somebody would have killed her, though?

• 32:11Speaker 01

  I don't know. She was a good kid.

• 32:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. I agree with Cookie that my mom would have been able to hold her own against one person, especially another woman. She was tall and strong, and my half-brother Tommy told me she taught him how to fight, so I know she knew how. But I still have no clue why anyone would want to kill my mom. It seems like everyone loved her.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  Back in 1993, by the time the police interviewed those few people, Henry, Allison, and Rebecca, they received the medical examiner's report stating that my mom's death was natural. So just like that, they closed the case.

• 32:52Speaker 05

  Once the medical examiner would make a determination, one way or the other, if they determine anything but natural causes, then the investigation obviously would continue.

• 33:03Speaker 00

  Retired Police Captain Joe Broadmeadow explains.

• 33:07Speaker 05

  Well, I reread the investigative reports that you sent. And then I, you know, once I recalled actually having gone over this case, you know, there was nothing unusual about what went on. Police officers are essentially trained, always look for things that are unusual. And those are, those are placed in the report, obviously. They're mentioned in a report. But someone who doesn't have a lot of experience in reviewing police reports, or someone who has never been at the scene of a sudden death, might say, well, the chair was knocked over. There must have been, there must have been a disturbance. There must have been, you know, a struggle. You know, not necessarily. You know, there's all sorts of other explanations.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  You know, I know for sure that some people have expressed frustration with how they believe that the original investigation was handled. You know, some have even gone so far as to suggest, oh, there could have been a cover-up of some sort. But I think when you break it down like that, it shows how it was handled versus, you know, what the medical examiner said in 93, which was, oh, natural causes, and then the case is closed.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  It seems very clear that the East Providence Police Department did things by the book, closing the case as soon as the medical examiner ruled it as natural causes. But it's also clear they were working from a false set of assumptions. So while the East Providence Police Department had no reason to continue looking into the case back in 1993, I have one now.

• 34:46Speaker 00

  As I'm going through the witness statements from 93, something stands out to me. In Henry's statement, he mentions a man he saw going into my mom's apartment the last day he was with her. The police showed him a photo spread, and Henry identified him as my mom's cocaine dealer, Darren. I realized that when we cleaned out my dad's house, I'd found some pictures of Darren tucked into an old pile of mail in my dad's bedroom, of all places. One photo in particular is of Darren and his wife, Kim. They're all dressed up like something out of Miami Vice and posing in the middle of our living room. And in front of them

• 35:26Speaker 00

  is 15-month-old me. On the back, my mom has written, "New Year's, January 1993." So just a few months before she was found dead. I also remember that Louise has mentioned Darren to me before on our calls.

• 35:43Speaker 04

  I also have a childhood friend who's named Darren.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Of course, that's not surprising at this point.

• 35:49Speaker 04

  Now, Darren has an older sister, Donna. So I forgot where me and Laurie was, probably at my apartment, because I had the baby.

• 35:59Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 36:00Speaker 04

  I was sitting around the house. You know, girls bullshit. Donna probably bounced over the house to say hello, because we all live, you know, close. And that's when I introduced Donna to Laurie, my buddy. And, you know, Laurie liked Donna, Donna liked Laurie. Very cool chick. They hit it off. So, you know, every now and again, Laurie would call Donna, you know, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know, you got any weed here? I got some weed. I'm gonna stop. Do you come over and get me ice, Sean? Come over and get you ice.

• 36:32Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. So you introduced her to Donna. Okay.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  And then, and then how your sister met Darren, which would be Donna's younger brother, you know, uh...

• 36:42Speaker 00

  Hold on. Interrupting Louise for a minute here because, did you catch that?

• 36:47Speaker 04

  And then, and then how your sister met...

• 36:51Speaker 00

  Does Louise think I'm my mom's sister, my Aunt Allison? It seems like she's always mixing me up with my mom or Allison. It's really weird. But especially since she claims to hate Allison and never talk to her. Yet another mystery. But anyway, back to Louise's story.

• 37:09Speaker 04

  And then, and then how your sister met Darren, which would be Donna's younger brother, you know, uh...

• 37:17Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 37:18Speaker 04

  Now, listen, so Darren knew a lot of people. You know, hometown knew a lot of people.

• 37:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, of course.

• 37:23Speaker 04

  If you're looking for a $20 bag, you can call Darren. Call Darren. Darren, call your brother Darren. See if he'll bring us a 20.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  Oh, God. So it sounds like Darren was my mom's drug dealer, just like Henry said in his statement. And in a roundabout way, my mom was hooked up with him by Louise. Once again, all roads lead back to Louise.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  But I was speaking to Darren recently, and I said, listen,

• 37:49Speaker 04

  I said, Lauren, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. She would like to speak to you and your wife. And just so you can shed light on any good or bad, you can... Not a mother.

• 38:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Darren looked at me. He goes, Louise, no. He goes, first of all, you know my wife? I said, I know.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  Why? What is it? But Kim seems like she was such a nice lady.

• 38:10Speaker 04

  Right, but Kim isn't very social. So anyway, I said to Darren, will you speak to Lauren? I'll call her now.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:17Speaker 04

  And he said, no. He goes, Louise, just tell Lauren this. My mother always had a smile. She was a good person, and I miss her. He goes, I can't tell Lauren anything much more than that.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  So he, but my mom wrote about him. Like, she, obviously, she partied with him on the, like, her last New Year's weekend. I've got all the pictures. Kim had me in her lap and everything. I was in the picture with him, her, and Darren. Like, you know, and my mom wrote about them. They were friends. Like, she liked them. I'm not, I don't give a fuck. If he's a dealer, who gives a shit? It's fucking 2021. Great, good for you.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  Right, but he, he just feels like he can't add anything up.

• 38:58Speaker 00

  He probably could, though. That's the thing. Like, the tiniest things, you never friggin' know.

• 39:05Speaker 00

  Look, Darren may not want to talk to me, but I want to talk to him. So in August 2021, 14 months after I first heard from Louise, I decide to track him down myself. He lives in East Providence, Rhode Island, less than a mile from my old house and 10 miles from where I live now. Let me tell you, when I texted you when I pulled up in front of his house...

• 39:29Speaker 00

  Obviously, I tell my best friend, Ramona, about this before setting off with my iPhone recorder to show up unannounced at a known drug dealer's house. Mind you, a drug dealer who was placed at my mom's home soon before she died. It was like, if you don't hear from me in like two hours... Well, they call me as soon as you're done, or I'm going over. I remember walking up to that house. It was like the longest walk of my life. And then knocking on the door and hearing his dog barking and him being like, oh, it's a police dog. And I was just like, I don't care what kind of dog it is. Right. Like, open the door. We're having a talk. He could have just said to you, I don't know your mom. Get out of my, get out of my doorway. Get off my property and let his dog loose.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  Darren opens the door. And as soon as he realizes who I am, he has a look on his face like, okay, this day is finally here. Hey, not a good time. Why? What's up?

• 40:35Speaker 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-Kleinman. 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.

• 41:19Speaker 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.

• 41:45Speaker 02

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