Transcript of Alleged double murder at USF. A husband accused of hexes and murder. And "Allegedly,” the new true-crime video podcast. New

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00:00:01

Good morning.

00:00:02

You are listening to the Dateline story meeting.

00:00:05

Josh Flaggness. Josh Mankiewicz.

00:00:07

Our producers are catching up on breaking crime news.

00:00:11

The ambulance driver thought he was just torn up about his son dying.

00:00:15

The local police are now, I think, more on this case.

00:00:19

We definitely have a family divided.

00:00:23

Welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly. I'm Lester Holt. It's April 30th. And here's what's on our docket. In California, a man is heading to trial for allegedly murdering his wife after investigators say he paid a spellcaster to put a hex on her.

00:00:40

He paid hundreds of dollars for dozens of these types of spells or hexes to be cast.

00:00:45

In Dateline Roundup, Jake Reiner, the son of legendary Hollywood director Rob Reiner and producer Michelle Singer Reiner, shares his story for the first time since their murders. And nearly 20 years after the murder of rap star Jam Master OJ, there is a surprise plea.

00:01:03

Bryant told the judge, I knew that what I was doing was wrong and a crime.

00:01:07

Plus, Andrea talks to NBC's Alison Barber about Allegedly, her new video podcast on Netflix that digs deep into some of the most high-profile cases in true crime.

00:01:19

Allegedly is like part a story of this case that you're curious about and then part long-form interview.

00:01:24

But before all that, we're off to Florida and a story that has captured attention across the country— the disappearance of two college students. Two University of South Florida graduate students are missing this morning, and investigators are asking for your help to find them. This week, there was a big break in the case. Two weeks ago, on the morning of April 16th, Nahida Bristy, a doctoral student at the University of South Florida, called her parents back home in Bangladesh. It was the last time her family ever heard from her. A few days later, the University Police Department announced that Nahida's family had reported her missing. And she wasn't the only student who vanished. Nahida's friend, Jamil Lamoun, was missing too. On Friday came the devastating news. Jamil's body had been found about 25 miles from campus on the Howard-Frankland Bridge. And a man was taken into custody and charged with killing not just Jamil, but Nahida too. Who was the alleged killer? And how did he know them? Joining me now to bring us up to speed on this fast-moving investigation is NBC News correspondent Jesse Kirsch. Jesse, thanks for being here.

00:02:38

You bet, great to be with you.

00:02:40

So to start, tell us about these two young people. What do we know about them?

00:02:43

Jamil Limon and Nahida Bristi were both 27 years old, both doctoral students at the University of South Florida. Nahida was studying chemical engineering. Jamil was studying geography, environmental science, and policy. I had the chance to speak with both of their brothers, and both made it clear their siblings would not just go vanish without telling anybody. She would never do that, never do something like this, never put, uh, her family through this pain and everything.

00:03:13

And it wasn't just their family who noticed something was wrong. People close to the students began to raise red flags, we understand.

00:03:19

Yeah, we've learned a whole bunch of information from a filing from prosecutors from over the weekend, and one of the things we learned is that according to prosecutors, a friend of Nahida and Jamil tried calling both of them the day they vanished, and neither friend picked up. Two days later, on a Saturday, Jamil is supposed to have a thesis appointment. His brother says he was very serious about his studies, but he doesn't show up. At the same time, police went to Nahida's office on her campus, and her brother tells me her lunchbox, her laptop, her iPad, and a bag were all still at her office, effectively like she just left in the middle of the workday and left all of her stuff behind.

00:03:56

Yeah, that sounds very alarming. And I know university police were seeking help from wherever they could get it. They contacted local police, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, and their officers began interviewing anyone who might have information, who might know more.

00:04:10

Yeah. According to what prosecutors filed, we know that detectives early on are talking to Jamil's two roommates, and in particular, prosecutors are focusing in on one of these roommates, 26-year-old Hisham Abu Garbia. Hasham winds up becoming the suspect in this case. And according to prosecutors, Hasham told detectives he does not know where Jamil is, he doesn't know where Nahida is. But at the same time, in that early interaction, detectives notice that Hasham has a cut on his left pinky finger. He says it's from cutting onions, but he also couldn't remember what he had been cooking.

00:04:46

So Jesse, according to investigators, if I understand it, the real breakthrough in their case was when they took a closer look at Hasham's movements around the time the students disappeared.

00:04:56

Yeah, that's right, Lester. According to the filing we have from prosecutors, police tracked the suspect's car and Jamil's phone, and they were in the same area around the same time twice. And according to this filing from prosecutors, the suspect told police that the victims had never been in his car, that he never went to that area. Then he said, okay, I went to the area to find fishing spots. And then he said, that Jamil had asked the suspect to drive Jamil and his girlfriend to that area. And he says, quote, he dropped them off and left. So the story from the suspect, according to investigators, keeps changing. So as they keep investigating, detectives get a warrant to search the suspect's phone, and they find a lot of data about where his phone went. And one of the places that the suspect's phone went was the Howard-Frankland Bridge, and that is more than 10 miles from Jamil's apartment. Prosecutors say the phone stopped at specific specific coordinates on the bridge, and police went to that very spot.

00:05:58

And then the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office held a press conference to announce what they found.

00:06:04

I am heartbroken to announce the discovery of human remains discovered on the Howard Franklin Bridge earlier this morning. Just now, those remains were positively identified to Zamile.

00:06:18

But there was still no sign of Nahida.

00:06:20

No, no sign of her whatsoever. And police made clear they were still asking for the public's help to find her.

00:06:27

And again, I implore the community, if you have any tips of where you've seen her or she's just recently seen, please report it immediately.

00:06:36

Do we know how Jamil died?

00:06:38

According to the filing from prosecutors, he had been stabbed numerous times and his cause of death was homicide by, quote, multiple sharp force injuries.

00:06:49

Yeah. And in a motion filed by prosecutors over the weekend, we learned that investigators found what they believe is evidence of some kind of violent encounter at their apartment.

00:06:59

According to prosecutors, investigators found substantial blood evidence at the apartment shared between the suspect and Jamil.

00:07:06

We're also learning that Hisham's phone showed potentially incriminating searches, which prosecutors are saying suggest these murders were premeditated.

00:07:15

Right. One of the potential key pieces of evidence here is that according to prosecutors, 3 days before Jamil and Nihita disappeared, the suspect allegedly asked ChatGPT about putting a human in a black garbage bag and throwing them in a dumpster. Then, according to prosecutors, the chatbot said that sounded dangerous, and the suspect allegedly replied, quote, how would they find out? OpenAI tells us in part, we're looking into these reports and we'll do whatever we can to support law enforcement in their investigation.

00:07:49

So Hisham was arrested last Friday, and we should say Hisham has denied any involvement in the murders and has yet to enter a plea to the charges against him. But is there anything more we know about him at this time, Jesse, and why he would allegedly do this?

00:08:03

And so we've reached out to his attorney. His attorney says they don't have a comment on this case, but there are some questions about his history. According to that filing from prosecutors, investigators talked with the suspect's mother, and she says that her son has a history of struggling to manage his anger and has been violent with family.

00:08:22

And what about Hisham's relationship with Jameel and Nahida? Were they close at all?

00:08:27

Uh, it's not clear if the suspect and Jameel were friends, if they had any history together.

00:08:33

Yeah, this is a curious one. Jesse, thanks very much. We'll certainly be watching as this case continues. We appreciate Thank you for spending some time with us.

00:08:41

Anytime.

00:08:44

Coming up, a naval optician is heading to trial for the alleged murder of his wife. The prosecution's case includes surveillance tape and spells. If you were at Mount San Miguel Park on January 17th, 2026, you would have seen hundreds of people in lime green shirts, each printed with the face of Maya Miyate.

00:09:14

It's just really hard, you know, to see somebody so beautiful and so loving, and, um, she's just vanished. She's just gone.

00:09:23

The gathering marked 5 years since Maya, a 39-year-old mother of 3, vanished from her Chula Vista home just days before a planned family trip for her daughter's birthday. Maya's family says they knew something was wrong almost immediately when she stopped responding to text messages. They organized searches and vigils, but there was no trace of her. Then, 9 months after she went missing, even though her body has never been found, Maya's husband Larry was arrested and charged with her murder. He has pleaded not guilty. Recently, a jury screening got underway in preparation for Larry's trial next month. Here to break it all down for us is NBC7 investigative producer Mike Dorfman. Mike, we appreciate you being here.

00:10:09

Absolutely, sir.

00:10:10

Let's start with Maya. Who was she?

00:10:12

Well, I think you could call it a story of young love. Maya and Larry married pretty young in Hawaii. She was 19, he was 18, and they really built a life together here in San Diego County. They both worked for the U.S. Navy. Maya as an administrative specialist for the Naval Information Warfare Center, and Larry worked as an optician at the Naval Medical Center.

00:10:32

When did her family start to think that something had actually happened to her?

00:10:36

Um, she's very close to her siblings. Um, so within a day of her not responding to messages, they're very concerned. They're going over to the house to find out why she's not responding. Uh, they find Larry there. He tells them, uh, she's upstairs in the bedroom. Uh, that door is locked. Uh, they try to get in and were able to force entry into there— into that bedroom. But she was not inside. At the time, Larry told them that, "Oh, I believe that she probably went for a hike, or maybe she's out with friends." But within a day after that home visit, Maya's sister is making a phone call to the police to officially report her missing.

00:11:13

This case actually landed on Dateline's radar just a few days after Maya disappeared. We featured it in our Missing in America series and reached out to Larry. He told us he hoped our coverage would help bring Maya home. What we didn't know is that behind the scenes, investigators were already building a case. Mike, how did this investigation turn into a case against him?

00:11:36

The arrest affidavit lays out what led investigators to zero in on him specifically. They said that they interviewed 87 different witnesses and quickly learned that the marriage had been under strain for, for some time, for months. One witness in particular told investigators that Maya described incidents of physical abuse, including one particular accusation that Larry once choked her until she lost consciousness. And the day before she disappeared, Mia texted a friend saying, "I'm filing for divorce whether he likes it or not.

00:12:08

I'm done trying to make things amicable for the kids." Do investigators think that Larry knew about her plans to split?

00:12:15

They certainly do. They say that Larry was closely tracking Mia's movements, also accusing him at one point of planting a cell phone in her car, showing up at her workplace because he suspected that she was having an affair and had plans to leave him.

00:12:30

And investigators say Larry took some unusual steps in response to his suspicions that Maya might be leaving, including reaching out to so-called spellcasters. First of all, what's a spellcaster?

00:12:43

Something that I also was wholly unfamiliar with before I started working on this particular story. According to investigators, these are people and provide a specific service online to create charm spells that benefit your life or hexes against the people that you don't like. And they said for Larry, he paid hundreds of dollars for dozens of these types of spells or hexes to be cast. For him, they started out really focused on his own marriage. He wanted to get Maya to fall back in love with him. He wanted to make the relationship be repaired so that they could live happily together. Later on, some of the messages start to reflect his frustration with that not happening. And it gets pretty dark. In December of 2020, he allegedly asked, whether Maya could be hexed in some way that would cause her harm. Essentially, he wanted to incapacitate her in some way so that she would be wholly dependent on him for care. On January 7th, the day that Maya was last seen, investigators say he sent multiple messages to spellcasters, including one that said, quote, "I think she wants me to snap," and quote, "I'm shaking inside, ready to snap." So allegedly lots of tension building up before Maya disappeared, but what do investigators think actually happened that night?

00:14:03

Their case stands upon, this, this circumstantial evidence, uh, and some of it has a lot to do with surveillance video, uh, some from the neighbors around their home in Chula Vista. So according to that arrest affidavit, the video shows Maya arriving back at the home that evening, and investigators say they did not find any footage of her leaving after that. It was really the last time she's been recorded alive. Uh, the same footage from that, that neighbor surveillance camera recorded 9 loud banging sounds just right before 10 PM that night.

00:14:33

To be clear, we don't know for sure what those bangs were. Investigators consulted with the FBI, who could not determine if they were gunshots or not. Mike, what did investigators learn about Larry's whereabouts around the time Maya went missing on January 7th?

00:14:49

Uh, there's a lot of question marks, that's for sure. Investigators say he didn't report to work on January 8th, 9th, or 10th, uh, the days after Maya disappeared. He claimed he'd gone to the beach with his son, but investigators say they just really couldn't confirm that.

00:15:03

We mentioned that Larry Miyate was arrested on charges of first-degree murder and illegal possession of an assault weapon. He pleaded not guilty and remains behind bars. Your team actually sat down with him in 2023. Tell us about that.

00:15:19

It was interesting. It took place over two different recorded interviews, and it was kind of odd from the outset because he didn't want his whole face to be shown. He seemed concerned over whether the things that he would be talking to us about would be used against him by prosecutors. But he did stress repeatedly that he was innocent, but he really wasn't able to provide a lot of answers to a lot of very specific questions and punted repeatedly.

00:15:47

Here's Larry talking to NBC7 investigative reporter Alexis Rivas.

00:15:53

I know you've told me you think she's still alive.

00:15:55

Is that still true?

00:15:56

Yes, ma'am, but, um, I'm, I'm kind of the guy that's like, uh, pray for the best, pray for the worst.

00:16:01

Where did you go for 12 hours with your cell phone turned off the day after Maya vanished?

00:16:06

Again, um, I'd rather not, uh, answer that question.

00:16:11

We've talked a lot about the evidence prosecutors say they have against him. Do we know yet what the main defense points will be?

00:16:18

I think like a lot of defense attorneys, uh, the name of the game for them is injecting as much doubt. They're going to focus on what's missing. No body, no murder weapon, and really no direct forensic evidence that's linking Larry to the killing.

00:16:31

Yeah, and last week, the defense attacked the prosecutor directly, accusing her of misconduct. Tell us about that.

00:16:37

Yeah, last Friday, the defense filed a 29-page motion accusing the prosecutor of eliciting false testimony from witnesses during the preliminary hearing. Uh, the defense has essentially asked not only for the case to be thrown out, but barring that, they want to replace the prosecution's team with the California Attorney General's Office. That would be just a major change in what's been happening, could delay the trial by a year or more. That's happening this week, so we'll find out what a judge will rule. Uh, either way, the trial is still on the books, scheduled for May 11th. We'll see if that changes.

00:17:09

Well, Mike, we really appreciate you coming on and walking us through where this stands. We'll certainly be following this case closely.

00:17:16

All right, sir, thank you.

00:17:19

Up next, it's time for Dateline Roundup. A New Jersey businessman convicted of a quadruple homicide calls out the judge at his trial, and Jake Reiner, son of slain Hollywood director Rob Reiner, shares his story for the first time. Plus, Andrea previews Allegedly, a new video podcast on Netflix about the true crime cases you can't stop talking about. Welcome back, everyone. Joining me for this week's roundup is Dateline field producer Alex Lowry. Thanks for being here.

00:18:02

Thanks for having me.

00:18:03

First up, we're going to head to Los Angeles for updates in the case of Nick Reiner, the son of legendary Hollywood director Rob Reiner and producer Michelle Singer Reiner. What's the latest on this one, Alex?

00:18:16

As you remember, Lester, Rob and Michelle Reiner were found stabbed to death in their Brentwood home in December. The double homicide stunned people around the country who were fans of Rob Reiner's movies. And the couple's charitable work. Even more shocking was the identity of their alleged killer, their younger son, Nick, who was arrested within hours of their bodies being discovered. Nick has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, and he's being held without bail.

00:18:41

We've been hearing bits and pieces about Nick since his arrest, but the public really hasn't heard much from the other two Reiner children, Jake and their daughter, Romy. But that changed last week when Jake shared a personal essay on Substack. What did he say, Alex?

00:18:56

Yeah, so his essay touched on his experience learning about his parents' murders. He wrote, "My world as I knew it had collapsed. I was in a trance. I needed to figure out what the hell just happened." He goes on to say that he was robbed of so many things that day and that this is truly my living nightmare.

00:19:14

Did he say anything about his brother Nick?

00:19:16

He did, though he never mentioned Nick's name. He wrote, Sure, any loss of a parent is devastating, but nothing compares to losing both of them at the same time. And on top of that, having your brother be at the center of it, it's almost too impossible to process. Jake ended his essay asking for love and compassion, the same principles my parents lived by.

00:19:39

Well, for our next story, we're going to head to New Jersey, where the stakes were high at a Monmouth County courthouse last week for Paul Cannaro. He's the businessman convicted in February of murdering his brother Keith, Keith's wife, wife and two children in a plot prosecutors said was motivated by greed and desperation. Alex, remind us what happened here.

00:20:02

Lester, in addition to murdering his brother's family, Paul Cannaro was also convicted of setting fire to his brother's house and his own in an attempt to cover his tracks.

00:20:12

What did the prosecution say the motive was here?

00:20:14

So prosecutors said that Paul was in serious debt and that his brother Keith, who was also his business partner, was threatening to cut him off financially. The day before the murders, Keith confronted Paul about stealing money from a trust that he managed for Keith. And instead of explaining what happened to the money, Paul concocted a plan to murder his brother's family.

00:20:33

After Paul Cannaro was convicted, his team immediately filed a motion requesting a new trial. And the arguments were a little unusual.

00:20:42

They pointed the finger at the judge for turning the jury against Paul. In their brief, they wrote that Judge Lemieux was often impatient, critical, and hostile towards the defense. In contrast, they argue that his demeanor toward the jury was lighthearted, He often made jokes or engaged in banter. And the defense wrote that the jury adopted the judge's unfavorable feelings towards defense, and it meant that Paul couldn't get a fair trial.

00:21:06

Well, Paul and his defense team appeared before Judge Lemieux last week to hear what he had to say. What did he decide?

00:21:12

Judge Lemieux said he didn't show hostility towards Kanera's defense team and ultimately concluded that the trial was fair and said the jurors weren't influenced by anything other than the evidence presented.

00:21:25

What's next then? We move ahead to sentencing?

00:21:27

Yeah. So Paul Cannaro's sentencing is scheduled for May 19th. He faces a max of life in prison without the possibility of parole, and he can still appeal his conviction.

00:21:39

Well, for our final story this week, we're gonna head to Brooklyn, New York, for a big update in a case that made headlines in both the world of true crime and pop culture. I'm talking about the 2002 murder of former Run-DMC member Jam Master Jay. His real name was Jason Mizell. Alex, first off, for listeners who don't know Mizell's work, he was a pretty big deal in the music world.

00:22:03

Yeah, Mizell began working with hip-hop group Run-DMC in the '80s and helped produce some of their biggest hits, like the song "It's Tricky." It's tricky, it's tough, like, here we go. It's tricky to rock around. He also mentored artists like 50 Cent. But in 2002, Mizell was found fatally shot in his Queens studio in what prosecutors say was a killing over a drug deal. No one was prosecuted for the crime until nearly 2 decades later, in 2020, when 2 men were charged with his death. Both were later convicted, but one had his conviction overturned.

00:22:35

But the news this week is about an entirely different defendant, a third man.

00:22:40

Exactly. So in 2023, prosecutors indicted a third person in Mizelle's murder, a man named Jay Bryant. They said that he knew the murder was going to happen and that he opened the door to the studio to let the men in who eventually killed Mizelle Bryant. Bryant initially pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, but on Monday he changed his tune and pleaded guilty to being an accomplice in Mizell's murder. There were no cameras allowed inside the courtroom, but Bryant told the judge, "I helped them kill Jason Mizell. I knew a gun was going to be used to shoot Jason Mizell.

00:23:12

I knew that what I was doing was wrong and a crime." Do we have any idea why he decided to change his plea, and what's next in the case for Bryant?

00:23:21

He didn't say why at the hearing, and his lawyer declined to comment after the fact. He's now facing 15 to 20 years in prison.

00:23:28

All right, well, thanks for all these updates, Alex. We appreciate it.

00:23:31

Sure thing. Thanks for having me, Lester.

00:23:35

For our final story this week, Andrea has a sneak peek of Allegedly. This is Allegedly, a brand new video podcast on Netflix hosted by our NBC News colleague Allison Barber and produced by NBC News Studios. New episodes drop every Wednesday And if you love true crime, you won't want to miss it. Here's Andrea.

00:24:00

Hi everyone, I'm really excited to talk to our next guest, Alison Barber. You've probably seen her reporting from the front lines in Ukraine or Gaza, covering some of the world's most intense conflicts. But now she's taking on a very different kind of story. It turns out Alison, like me, like many of you listening, has a passion for true crime. So every week in her new podcast, Allegedly, Alison and a guest will be digging into a case that's either making headlines right now, or people just can't stop talking about it. They'll be scouring case files and court records for evidence you've probably never seen before and angles you might not have thought of, and breaking it all down in smart, unfiltered conversations. The first episode focuses on a case I know very well, the murder of 22-year-old blogger Gabby Petito. Allison and her team got their hands on some new depositions from a civil suit connected to the case. We'll get into what they uncovered in a minute, but first, Allison, welcome to Dateline True Crime Weekly.

00:24:58

Hi, Andrea. Thank you so much for having me.

00:25:00

Of course. We're so excited about Allegedly. All right. So, Alison, tell me, how did you get interested in true crime? What led you down this path?

00:25:08

I've always been an avid watcher, an avid listener of stories related to crime, true crime, the criminal justice system, all of that. But, like, I don't know if you ever feel this way, but, like, one of the things that kind of sounds cheesy, but it's the same reason, too, of why I— I, like, wanted to cover conflicts when people would be like, "Why do you cover the worst stuff? Like, who did you make mad?" And I would be like, "I asked to cover this." And same when I was in local news, I would be like, "Can I cover this vigil?" after there had been some sort of shooting. And I'm like, for me, it's because I really do care about people, and, like, I'm interested in people, and also trying to look at what maybe led up to this, and is there anything that even me, as just, like, a regular person, can learn from it?

00:25:48

00:25:48

There's a lot of shows out there in the true crime space. What is different? Different about Allegedly, aside from this amazing set that you have, um, that looks like a really cool living room, right?

00:25:59

That's why I keep saying, like, I want it to be my living room. It's, like, dark and moody. A lot of the wall art is based off— like, I have a ton of tattoos— is, like, based off of things from my tattoos. So I'm like, I think this is gonna be it. I— this— I have to put this in my house. Everything that I look at. Um, so yes, our set is different, but I do think, you know, I don't want to rush. And, like, our goal with this podcast, in this video podcast, is not to cover the biggest cases making headlines the fastest. Um, our goal is to cover the biggest cases making headlines accurately and thoughtfully. And something that we're really trying to do is like allow people to sort of experience that process with us, take them through court documents, show them the court documents, all of that, so they can make sense of it on their own and with us. I feel like Allegedly is like part a story of this case that you're curious about, and then part long-form interview with one person who has a specific expertise, or they have a direct connection to the case.

00:26:54

You call them, like, your trusted friends.

00:26:56

Yeah.

00:26:56

And it does feel like you're friends. And you can tell that you like each other because, you know, Misty Maris, the— she's a trial attorney and NBC News legal analyst, and she jokes that, you know, that your set is good for redheads because she's a redhead. So, you know, it's a nice camaraderie that you have with these guests of yours. So, why, for the first episode, the premiere episode, did you choose Gabby Petito? Obviously, so many people know that name. For very sad reasons. It has been a few years. Uh, let's just give a quick recap. Gabby went missing in the summer of 2021 while she was traveling across the country in a van with her fiancé Brian Laundrie. Gabby's body was eventually found in Grand Teton National Park. She'd been strangled, and Brian, her fiancé, was declared a person of interest in the case. But before the investigation, you know, went any further, his body was found in a Florida park, and police determined that he had died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

00:27:54

Well, you know, it was a case that we knew a lot of people, particularly among the Netflix audience, was familiar with in general, but particularly because they had that documentary. And that there was a lot that had happened since the Netflix documentary about Gabby Petito had come out. There have been 3 civil lawsuits related to her case, 2 in Florida, one that was against the estate of Brian Laundrie, one that was against Brian Laundrie's parents as well as their attorney, and then one that is in Utah against Moab City police. And there was so much information in them that we could pull from to help us expand our understanding of what really happened from the time Gabby went missing to when her body was found, and even before that.

00:28:32

So many just really interesting tidbits that you found, especially revolving around Brian Laundrie's parents.

00:28:42

Yeah, I mean, it really is stunning. Like, we know at some point, kind of in late August, Um, if I'm remembering correctly, it's like Gabby's mother, Nicole Schmidt, sent a text after she hadn't heard from Gabby in a while, saying to Brian's mom, Roberta, "Have you heard from the kids?" And they just get nothing. They just get absolute silence. And what you realize when you go back and look through all these documents is that he had called his parents on August 9th and said, "Gabby's gone." All that time that they had an awareness that maybe something wasn't okay, nobody calls Gabby's mom or dad to say, "Hey, have you heard anything? Are they okay? I'm worried about her." They just carry on.

00:29:20

On.

00:29:20

And based on everything they claim in their deposition, they didn't ask. Their son called hysterical saying Gabby's gone, and they didn't have a follow-up.

00:29:28

And you and Misty, you don't shy away from what you discover. I want to play a little bit from the episode. Here's a clip.

00:29:33

Neither parent calls Gabby's parents and says, hey, something's happening with the kids, we're worried, maybe you should call Gabby. Now, their parents calls the police, they call an attorney, they pay a $25,000 retainer, and they do not help or cooperate in looking for Gabby.

00:29:47

And when the "Gabby's gone" call comes in, if they really knew nothing, if they really did not know that something nefarious had happened, why wouldn't you call her parents and say, "This is a concern"?

00:29:59

You know, the thought that came to mind— I watched 3 of your episodes, and the thought that came to mind was, like, "3-dimensional podcast." Oh, wow.

00:30:08

Thank you.

00:30:08

So, it's kind of like you're listening, but then if you're actually also watching on Netflix, you're able to see the podcast come to life with, especially, like, Gabby. You know, you feel like, "Oh my gosh, you're right there with her." The video, you know, the court documents that you're talking about, like the depositions. Or at one point, you show people a letter that Brian's mom wrote him.

00:30:30

This is a photocopy of the letter that they say they found that Roberta had written, handwritten. What stands out to you?

00:30:37

So, I— Obviously, the language in here. "If you're in jail, I'll bake you a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body..." "Body, I will show up with a shovel." Mm-hmm. I mean, of course, there's a huge question mark about when this was written. We know what she says. She says it was written before. I think there's some things that are a little weird about that, to say the least. We have no way of verifying when this was written.

00:31:06

I mean, tell us about this letter. It was chilling.

00:31:10

I mean, you go through that line by line, And every bit, you're just like, "Why would someone say that? Why would someone say that?" She claims that this was a letter she'd written way before any of this happened. And almost every time when the attorney is going through every line of saying, "You said in here, 'If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags.' Why would you say that?" Her answer is, "It's a weird jokey thing." I don't know any mom that jokes like that again and again with their kid. Um, we reached out to the Laundrie family when we were going through this and doing this episode, and they declined our request to do any statements. Sort of interviews or give comment. So the civil lawsuit related to Brian Laundrie's parents, that was settled, I think, publicly since then. They've said they just want to move on from this.

00:31:55

Um, so what other cases can we look forward to on Allegedly?

00:32:00

You know, on some of these, we're gonna try to do some follow-ups, like, particularly with Gabby's case. Like, we are gonna talk to her mom, Nicole. But a lot of it, I mean, it's gonna be anything that you have really seen big in the headlines, right? We're gonna do Corey Richens. We have the Alexander brothers coming up. That's our second episode.

00:32:16

The sky's the limit for Allegedly. Ellison, we can't wait to watch more Allegedly, and it has been a pleasure watching your podcast and having you on this podcast.

00:32:26

Thank you so much. I appreciate you so much, and I literally watch every single episode you ever do, so I can't wait for your next one.

00:32:33

Thank you.

00:32:34

Thanks, Andrea and Ellison. Allegedly drops every Wednesday, only on Netflix. That's it for this episode of Dateline True Crime Weekly. To get ad-free listening for all our podcasts, subscribe to Dateline Premium. Coming up this Friday, Blaine's got an all-new episode. It's a gripping story about the murder of a law student who went unsolved for decades until untested DNA cracked the case. Blaine sits down with Tara's boyfriend, Chris Melton, in his first television interview. I figured that I was gonna have to be involved somehow. Because I was her boyfriend. Watch A Window of Time this Friday at 9/8c on NBC. Or you can stream it starting Saturday on Peacock. I hope you'll join us. Thanks for listening. Dateline: True Crime Weekly is produced by Carson Cummins, Caroline Casey, and Kiani Reid. Our associate producers are Ellery Gladstone Groth and Aria Young. Our senior producer is Liz Brown-Kurland. Veronica Maseka is our digital producer. Rick Kwan is our sound designer. Original music by Jesse McGinty. Paul Ryan is executive producer, and Liz Cole is senior executive producer of Dateline.

00:33:56

See you all soon.

Episode description

The search for two missing University of Southern Florida doctoral students ends in murder charges. Investigators say the alleged killer asked a chatbot how to get away with it. In Southern California, prosecutors are gearing up for the trial of Larry Millete -- the man they say killed his wife Maya after paying spellcasters to hex her. In Dateline Round Up, Jake Reiner, the son of slain Hollywood director Rob Reiner speaks out about his parents' murders, and there's a surprise plea in the 2002 killing of former RUN-DMC member Jam Master Jay. Plus, a sneak peek at “Allegedly,” a new video podcast on Netflix that covers the true-crime cases you can’t stop talking about.

 
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