Transcript of 3 | The Duffel Bag

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There was no way to get out of that basement. There was no door in the basement except for the stairs to go up where this person was.

You know, they say, like, your life flashes before your eyes. Like, that wasn't what happened for me. It was like my death flashed before my eyes. Episode 3, The Duffel Bag.

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.

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Hey guys, okay, so part 5 of my mom's case. At the same time that I'm talking with this woman and working with the state to piece things together, I'm also dealing with another nightmare. That nightmare is the death of my adopted father, Richard, my dad. He died on March 1st, 2019, a little over a year before I began searching for answers in my mom's death. Let me tell you a little bit about this amazing man. While I was growing up, my dad would come home with stains all over his clothes and shoes so dirty they shouldn't have been allowed in the house. And sometimes he had a bad cough or limped from the ache in his feet, but he almost never called in sick. Not only would he make it into work early every morning, he always made me breakfast before he left. Before therapy was a thing, he got me a dog and a bike, still the 2 things that always help even on my worst days. He read me bedtime stories, learned how to do ponytails, and preached the benefits of proper SPF in the summertime. He played pool and drove some fun cars, but never missed a school play, event, or soccer game.

He took me to every appointment and helped with every school project. He actually kept the 6th grade science fair experiment we worked on together, one of many memories uncovered in his basement long after he died. And like most dads, he hated almost every boyfriend and tolerated my endless rambling about every frenemy. When he took me to college, he got into a fight with a campus cop while moving me into a dorm. The cop was mad that my dad parked his car in front of my dorm instead of lugging all my things 100 miles from the parking lot. Back when I worked in retail, I used to call Dad after my shift every night. He was the only person I knew who was always up late. He answered the phone every time. Looking back and knowing how hard he worked, I sometimes wonder if he just stayed up late for me.

Yeah, Lauren, you gave me a call. It's your callback.

I'll call you in a little bit just to make sure everything's cool.

People say I'm lucky I still have some of his voicemails. But all I can think of is the calls I wish I'd answered and can never return.

Just give me a call when you get this if you want to do something today. I don't know if you and Eric have plans, but let me know.

He's been gone 5 years now, and I can still remember his voice when I close my eyes. But sometimes it's worth the pain to actually hear his voice again. Nobody ever inspired me more than my dad.

Love you. Bye.

So let me explain how Richard came to be my dad. My mom died in 1993 when I was 18 months old. Before that, we lived in several places, including one in Foster, Rhode Island, that had no drywall, plumbing, or electricity before my bio dad Thomas installed it himself. Do you remember living in the trailer in Foster? What was that like?

It wasn't even— it wasn't even a trailer. When they first moved there, it was full of trash.

That's my half-brother Tommy, who was already a teen by the time I was born.

The basement was filled to the top because the man that owned it was a hoarder. And it was like pathways to get through stuff. So my dad, every weekend we would work and work and work and clean out a section of the house. And He wouldn't move us in there. He wouldn't move in there until everything was cleared out because you were on the way, or were you on— were you there? I know they had a crib and everything else was set up, but yeah, they wouldn't— they wouldn't let him move in until everything was cleared out. It was bad.

Yeah, I, I've seen a couple of photos and bad sums it up.

When you were born, you lived in Foster? Yeah, for like a second. Yep.

My Aunt Allison, my mom's sister who adopted me when my mom died, remembers the house in Foster too. More specifically, the memories of my bio dad Thomas living there.

He used to steal stuff and then bury them in the yard. Yeah, I know. Yeah, there's a bunch of Harleys buried in there. That story you don't— this story you don't know. And we hated Tom. I mean, we hated him.

Everybody hated him.

Everybody hated him. Everybody hated him. Yes. And she— he was the only one I could talk my sister into getting rid of guys like, like, he's no good, leave him. I couldn't get— I couldn't talk her into getting rid of Tom. I couldn't do that.

He—

she wouldn't listen.

The he here is my bio dad, Thomas. Clearly no love lost between him and my Aunt Allison. Not really surprising since, as you can hear, he did make some questionable choices Which is why my mom left him in July 1992, when I was 10 months old. When that happened, my mom and I moved to the apartment on North Hull Street, my mom's last home, where she was found dead 8 months later. After she died, I was shuffled back and forth from my Aunt Allison's house in Providence to my bio dad Thomas's apartment in Cranston to my maternal grandma's home in East Providence. My grandma originally filed for custody, but she died from cancer while the case was ongoing. Then my Aunt Allison won custody of me in December 1996, along with her boyfriend at the time, Richard. I was 5 years old. Once I was adopted, I never got to say goodbye to my brothers. What was life like before I was adopted? Like, do you remember— do you have any memories of me at all as a little kid?

I remember holding you. I remember spending weekends and you were there, but you would always go to your grandmother's house on Fridays.

Finding Tommy and my other half-brothers again as an adult was one of the first mysteries I successfully solved back in 2017. Well, it's a family reunion more than 20 years in the making.

A Providence woman's efforts pay off after tracking down brothers she hadn't seen since she was a toddler.

The local news even covered the heartwarming first meeting with 2 of my brothers in person.

25-year-old Lauren Malloy reunites with her older brother, Nick Kelly. Then a month ago, through ancestry.com, the pieces all fell together, and she started reaching out to her siblings through Facebook messages.

This is gonna be the most random thing you get today, but I think I'm your sister, and I'd love to know you, and here's my name and number.

I never stopped thinking about her. It's just—

I just honestly never thought I'd see her again. It was very interesting. She's funny, and, uh, we act similar.

So I was like, that's my sister.

On January 24th, 2023, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, Patrick Clancy called 911. He had found his wife, Lindsay, badly injured and his 3 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 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.

After I was adopted at 5, I was still shuffled between 3 houses. On weekdays, I would get off the school bus and go to my adopted dad Richard's house in Providence, Rhode Island. By this time, my Aunt Alison had ended their relationship, but he was still my dad. I wished I could live with him, but I only got to hang out at his house each night until I went back to Alison and her new boyfriend's place in Pawtucket, 3 miles away. At Alison's, we had almost no furniture and slept on blankets on the floor for years. Alison and her boyfriend bought me a bunk bed when I was in the 5th grade, toward the end of my staying there during the week, before I began spending most of my time between my dad's house and Charlotte's as a teen. And I just remember how excited I was to have a nice bedroom set. There were some other good things too. Lots of books, puzzles, and games to keep me occupied. I was really into mysteries, like the game Clue. Big surprise, right? On weekends, I'd stay with my adopted dad Richard's sister Charlotte and her husband in Barrington, Rhode Island, just about 10 minutes away from my 2 other homes.

It was a peaceful home, and I got to see a loving relationship between 2 people for the first time. Charlotte was the closest thing I had to a mom since my own died. She told me that my maternal Grandma Alice had made her promise to protect me, and she did. Charlotte never really knew my mom since the first time she babysat me was during my mom's funeral, and she always believed my mom died from a heart attack. Unfortunately, Charlotte passed away in 2016 after a brave battle with leukemia, but more on that later. Here's some video from my 4th birthday with Charlotte and her husband Ray.

What else is in there?

A shirt.

And a shirt.

Whoa!

What's her name? Uh, Lauren Charlotte.

What?

Charlotte.

You're gonna name the horse Charlotte?

Yeah.

The contrast between Charlotte and my Aunt Allison was drastic.

Lauren, smile, say something. Talk to me. Talk to me.

I love you, Isaiah! I always felt disconnected and hurt by Allison. She always dodged questions about my mom and never wanted to talk about her. That never made sense to me. Why wouldn't you want to bring my mother, your sister's memory alive for me? The biggest memory I have is Allison would drag me along to my mom's grave when I was a kid. We would stand there while she cried, though I never saw actual tears, and it always felt like she wanted to remind me that my mom was dead. As if I could ever forget. From an early age, it seemed like Alison hated me because I looked like my mom and reminded Alison of her sister. The first time I remember clearly thinking this was when she was brushing my hair, an ordeal I dreaded. And she would pull hard on the brush each time, which hurt like hell. She said I had hair like my mom's, and I wondered if she hated me because of that. I never really understood it, but it seemed to stem from jealousy. Alison was a year older than my mom. After their parents divorced, they both lived with their mother, Alice.

From what I've been told, my grandma favored Alison and my grandpa Edward favored my mom. So once Allison got custody of me, it wasn't the best of times. Not only was she sometimes mean to me, but she used most of the money from my mom's death on herself instead of on raising me as it was intended.

Your mother never worked.

But that's not how she remembers it.

To get a Social Security check.

Okay.

So they gave the state minimum, which was $57. Well, they said it was— yeah, but they said it fluctuated and it went up to like $200. It was $57 when she died.

Okay.

Okay. I didn't get it because when I got you and adopted you, you were 5.

Okay.

Okay. Tom tried to get you to get that money. He told everybody that. He was trying to— to get you to get that money.

She's talking about Thomas Kelly, my bio dad.

And it was a joke because he had no clue. Grandma had you legally for 2 years and got the $50.

We laughed.

Okay? That's a joke, Lauren.

Yeah.

What are you gonna do with a kid for $50?

Hmm. Sound familiar?

Fuck you, Madison. Pure and simple. Simple and pure. Excuse me.

That's Louise, my mom's supposed best friend, saying fuck you to Aunt Allison. But they sure sound a lot alike. They do have 2 things in common: their dislike of my bio dad Thomas and an obsession with money.

I put you through private school. I bought you a brand new car. I paid your car insurance for years.

That's a cute fantasy. The reality is that my dad Richard and his sister Charlotte often covered tuition bills when Allison failed to pay and the school withheld my report cards cards or threatened to remove me due to delinquent payments. I ended up taking out student loans to put myself through college. The brand new car that Allison purchased for me as a teenager? It was really a used car with 114,000 miles on the dash that needed several major repairs, which I paid for myself. The insurance payment? Considering Allison lived at my dad's house rent-free and almost never paid for my food, clothing, or other needs at that time, I'd say that $100 or so every month wasn't too a deal for someone who wanted to call themselves my mom, all while she happily used my real mom's death benefits through multiple ATM cash withdrawals and liquor store purchases. And yes, I'm obviously still really pissed about all this. What parent guilt trips their child for an education and their first car? Growing up, I always wondered why I couldn't have one house like the other kids I knew. But eventually I got used to it. The one constant in all 3 houses was the encouragement for me to get a good education and do my best, and for that I'm very grateful.

At school, I was never popular and was mercilessly made fun of for being overweight, having crooked teeth, not being able to afford the coolest clothes, and being socially awkward. Thankfully, I had the support of my dad and Charlotte to get me Dad would always do fun things with me to cheer me up, from building model cars to playing soccer and football in the field next to our house to going to the arcade together. Charlotte would remind me to stay focused on my education and taught me healthy eating and exercise habits. She would tell me that one day all of the hard work would pay off. But the toughest time came in 2019 when my dad unexpectedly passed from a heart attack. And I became the administrator of his estate. All right, so we are rolling now. Do you remember the final night that we saw my dad?

I do. I remember that it seemed like there was a sense of urgency to see him.

I've known my partner, Eric, since high school. So even though we didn't reunite again until 2016, he knew my dad and was by my side when I lost him.

We all went out to Zorba's in North Providence for pizza. He seemed to be a little shaky during the time, but you were really adamant about seeing him. And of course, I'd want to go along with you.

And I remember him introducing me to all the different people who were around the bar and, like, all the ones that he knew who were his friends. And I remember, like, him hugging me outside of the bar before we left. And it was like, I don't know, it was just like a bigger hug than usual. And then when we sat in— do you remember when we sat in the car right before we left and I said to you, wow, I feel like I have like this sense of closure from that, and I feel like those people we met are like gonna be at his funeral one day? I just— I didn't expect to meet them like a week later.

Mm-hmm.

And then, of course, 2 days later or 3 days later, I remember getting that phone call from Allison around 3:25 PM. It felt like somebody shot me. And I just remember, like, I had to sit down because I couldn't stand up anymore. And I remember I called you and—

Uh-huh.

You know, I just, I needed you to come get me because I couldn't drive.

I remember you being hysterical, crying, absolutely distraught. It was a really emotional time for both of us. I was obviously feeling for you and really empathetic to the fact that one of the closest people in your life passed away.

Yeah, it was, um, it was surreal. You don't expect it, like, What was I, like 28 years old? You don't expect at 28 years old to be making funeral arrangements for your dad.

No.

And like, I did okay until they took us into the casket room. And that was just like, I don't know, like you're surrounded by all these things that your loved one is going to be buried in. That was just— I don't think anything can ever prepare you for that. Like, what box do you want your dad's ashes to be in? And that was, that was one of the hardest experiences of my life. Before my dad died, his ex, my Aunt Allison, had been staying on his couch. I asked her to move out so I could sell the house in Providence, but she refused. I had to get an attorney to evict her. Which took over a year because of COVID In February of 2021, Allison leaves my dad's house so I can finally clean it out and sell it. At this point, it's been 8 months since I've been looking into my mom's death. I asked my best friend Ramona and my partner Eric to help me.

Here it is.

It's so weird being back here.

Yes, it is.

Ramona's supposed to be here in another couple minutes.

She just texted me.

You got everything you need for today?

I think so.

It had been years since I'd stepped foot in my dad's house. We would always meet at my house or a restaurant because he was embarrassed of the mess and wanted to avoid Allison's drunken yelling. As a child, I wasn't allowed in the basement of the house because that's where Allison kept all her things. That was no big loss since it was pretty scary down there. Even as a grown woman, I'm still freaked out by the basement.

I remember us getting into the car and us going to your dad's house, walking into the place and seeing, you know, the condition of it.

I'm talking again to my partner, Erik.

It was condemnable. It was— the structure was completely Completely torn and devastated. It looked like it hasn't been updated in forever. Yeah, so we walked into the house. We had face masks on, we had gloves, we had cleaning supplies, we had trash bags, we had everything that we needed to, to kind of get through the disaster that was left behind. Where's the thermostat?

Walking through the house and seeing what a mess it is is really upsetting. It looks like a cyclone tore through it. The first thing that hits me is the smell. Allison had several cats. The ammonia scent from their urine stings my nose. Beyond that, she smoked cigarettes in the house for years. It all lingers, soaked into the yellowed walls and worn furniture. The large picture window in the living room is broken, patched with a trash bag and tape rustling in the breeze. As we step inside, the old floorboards creak beneath the dirty carpet and linoleum tiles. Allison has removed many of her personal belongings, Leaving behind trash bags and piles of clutter. Outside of the back sliding glass door, the wooden deck where I once looked at stars through a telescope with my dad is rotted and collapsing. My old room. I enter my childhood bedroom and notice a large moldy crack in the outer wall. My heart breaks to see a small rainbow sticker still on the window where I put it as a child. And the writing desk where I worked so hard growing up, all to earn a better life. The cracked tiles crunch underfoot, and black mold creeps up the tub.

It's really disgusting.

Spare bedroom.

This room where Alison kept her clothes is shockingly empty, except for a chest of drawers taken from the apartment where I lived with my mom. The same one where she died, and my old pack-and-play crib. Inside, Alison has left drawings, toys, and school projects that were mine. I pick up one of my childhood drawings. It's me and my mother as an angel above. I have tears welling up now. Across the hall, I pause and take a deep breath before opening the door. My dad's room. This is the room where he died. I'm overcome with grief.

Wow.

The entire room is covered in clutter, from empty plastic water bottles to stacks of old mail and clothing. This is where he would go to escape Allison yelling at him. Among the clutter, we find razor blades and empty, unmarked pill bottles. My heart breaks. I had no idea my sweet dad was struggling with addiction and depression. He always laughed and smiled with me, but it's obvious to me now that he was hurting. I sigh and turn away from Dad's room, heading to the place that shifts me from grief to fear.

And—

Okay.

I'm filled with anxiety about going down to the basement, but then I remember a dream I had the night before where my dad came to me at his house and said, why are you afraid? This is your house. You have nothing to be afraid of. Everything you're looking for is in the basement. I switch the first light on and head down to the dark concrete space below. It's cold. The air feels damp and it smells like mold. I remind myself there's nothing to be afraid of and force myself to walk to each light switch in the darkened space, turning them on until the shadows shrink back to the corners of the room. Then I call for Eric and Ramona to come down. They ask what we're looking for. I'm not sure, I say, but we'll know it when we find it. And 6 hours later of sifting through trash bags and piles of Alison's old letters and financial statements, we find some of my mom's old music records, childhood items of mine that my dad has saved, and holiday cards both my mom and Alison kept, but nothing major. It's getting late and we're exhausted, so we head out to move everything to a nearby storage unit.

Ramona and I make a plan to come back the following day. When we come back the next morning, I'm determined to block out my sadness and stay focused on our mission. We go back to the dreaded basement and take a closer look at piles we'd briefly sifted through the day before. After several hours, we still haven't found anything hugely helpful and are about to call it a day. But before we leave, something catches Ramona's eye.

And I saw this big pile of, like, dark, wet cardboard in trash and bags in the right-hand, far back corner of the basement. And I just said, let me just run over there real quick, see what's in there so we can just Go home. And then I was moving trash, and I saw dark bags, dark cardboard that had already so—

Oh, so gross.

Wet, and that was so soaking that it had turned black.

Yeah. I tell her I glanced through those but thought it was just garbage. She decides to look again.

Honestly, I don't know what made me look because I hate trash. I hate dirt. I hate wet, soggy, mildewy anything. But then I saw something red, and I just put my hand in there and grabbed it out.

What Ramona finds is a large red duffel bag that's zip closed.

And I just threw it over onto the pool table. I was like, this has to be something. This has to be something because it just stood out like a light there with all the dark, dingy, dirty—

Yes.

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

Like, Something—

we can't be here for hours with nothing. Like, something has to break in here.

That was so crazy to me because I remember you saying, you were like, the zipper's stuck, this thing is old. And I got so excited. And then when we opened it and saw everything inside, like, I just knew. And you looked at me and it was the most prophetic thing. You're like, all the answers you're looking for are gonna be in this bag. As we look inside the bag, I get chills. It's filled with several planners, a blue spiral-ring notebook, and half a dozen photo albums. Ramona opens one photo album and exclaims, that's my brother! Both of our jaws drop. It's a small, sepia-toned school photo of her brother from his elementary school years. He's smiling and his eyes are sparkling.

Which was shocking because why would his picture be in your dad, who's passed, basement, in a duffel bag that probably hasn't been opened for 30 years. Like, why would his picture be in there? And the second interesting thing is my brother went into the military when he was young, when he was 18, so we don't have hardly any pictures of him as a kid.

Yeah.

So that was like insane that we finally found a picture of him as a kid, and it had his name on it. It had my name on the back, and it was in a pile of your family's belongings.

Yeah.

Yeah, very crazy.

Along with photos of Ramona's siblings as kids, we find the Providence Journal article I mentioned in episode 1, where my mom says she's grateful to live in America because of the freedom she enjoys. She was 10 years old. Tammy, the older sister of my best friend, who I didn't meet until 2015, mind you, is also featured in this article as a 5th grader. Tammy says she's grateful that she gets to visit different places and hopes to go to Spain and France someday. What are the odds that out of all the children in East Providence, Rhode Island, that both my mom and Tammy would be interviewed for this article? And then that we would uncover that article in a duffel bag in my adopted dad's basement? You can't make this stuff up. Ramona and I keep going through the duffel bag and find tons of photos of me and my mom. I'm mesmerized by this beautiful woman I never really knew in these photos I had no idea existed. As I'm sifting through notebooks and planners, I look at the dates on them— 1991 to 1993. I think— Wait a minute. These are from the last years of my mom's life.

I flipped through her 1992 planner and realized she kept these as her journals, with detailed entries from before I was born until the week she died. She mentions names and numbers of people, some of which I recognize, like Cookie, my Aunt Allison, and Louise, but many I don't know. It gives me chills. Then I see a note to me on my first birthday, September 15th, 1992. Happy first birthday, she writes. My one and only. I love you till death. She wrote down every milestone from the first 18 months of my life, from my first words, first steps, and first solid foods to music I enjoyed. Lauren Lake's Steely Dan, she wrote in one entry. She wrote it all down. I run my hands across my mom's handwriting and smile. For the first time in my life, I know how my mother really felt about me. She loved me more than anything.

It's crazy.

That was wild. And, um, oh, do you remember when we were in the basement and like, we're like, oh, so exciting, we found this duffel bag full of stuff, and then all of a sudden we hear the creaking upstairs on the Yes, the happy excitement ended pretty quickly when we— Ramona and I are the only 2 in the house, but we hear the floor creak above our head like another person is walking up there.

We heard loud footsteps.

Yeah.

I felt like coming towards us, knowing that—

Terrifying.

There was no way to get out of that basement. There was no door in the basement.

And the scary part for me was like, The front door of the house was broken.

Right.

So I had to keep it padlocked every time, like, I, you know, left the house or whatever. I'd gone to the house earlier and there was like a crack in the foundation, and somehow all these yellow jackets had like built a nest, which was the creepiest, grossest thing. So I had to get like 5 or 6 cans of Raid.

Right.

And like just spray everything and like get rid of all of them. So there was one can that still had some left and another one that was empty that were both sitting right on the stairs. So I went and grabbed those cans and like ran up the stairs with them, like Tomb Raider style, like one in each hand, and like ran out. And I'm like, I don't know what's gonna be around the corner, but like my best friend's gonna have a fighting chance. Like, I have to do this for her.

And I was like, you know what? I hope this isn't the day. That was the scariest moment.

Well, let me tell you, like, in that moment, it was like, you know, they say like your life flashes before your eyes. Like, that wasn't what happened for me. It was like my death flashed before my eyes. And I see this guy and he's just like— he had to have been over 6 feet tall. Like, I'm 5'4, so everyone seems tall to me, but like, he was extra tall. He's in the doorway. He's on the phone and I started screaming like, get out! And he's like, what? Like, he was so confused, which made me confused. And I'm like—

And he wouldn't get out. And then I'm angry, like, get out!

You know, it was so crazy. And I'm like, I'm holding the cans of Raid up at him like, I will shoot. Like, get out! And he's on the phone, he's like, um, I think I gotta call you back. This girl has like bug spray or something. And I'm like, oh my God, like somebody call the police. And he was like, I'm gonna call the police. And I'm like, please, please do.

Yeah.

Like, explain this to them. Let me tell you how mad I was to find out that that was like somebody with the buyer's company. It was like a developer who bought the house. And like, we hadn't closed Right. But he sent this guy to the house for whatever reason to check it out. But the creepy thing was, like, that guy had to open that door and get past that barricade.

Right.

And, like, not even open the door. The door, you can't open that door. It didn't have hinges. He had to—

I know.

He had to push through the barricade and push through the trash. So I don't care who he is, to this day I think it's sketchy.

Yeah, it was so sketchy. It was so sketchy, but we survived.

Yes.

And, um, I'm, I'm very glad that we did. So at least we know that we can survive a situation like that. I think that was one of the few highlights along the way that I can still laugh about now. At this point, after all the excitement and armed with these new answers in a bag, Ramona and I decide to go home. But the existence of this duffel bag raises so many questions. Why did my family hide this?

Right.

Like, that was just— I couldn't figure that out. And it was like, it almost makes me wonder, like, did they know that there was something to be found and they didn't want me to start looking for it? I don't know. Right.

I mean, that's true. Did they know and they kept it from you, or did they not? You know, did they not even know what was in there?

That's the thing, because that always kind of stood out to me. Growing up, I obviously always asked to see pictures of my mom, and there just weren't a lot. Or at least I was told there weren't a lot, but there were a lot. They were just in a pile of trash in the corner of the basement.

Why?

Every day that passes, I have new questions about my mom's death. Could the answers be in the pages of these planners? And who are all of these people she mentions?

There you are, my blueberry.

Hey, ladies. So sorry.

Back home, I decide to call Louise and tell her about the duffel bag discovery. I want to see what information I can get from her. She's looking at a picture I texted her from what appears to be my first birthday. My mom holds me on her lap and there's a birthday cake in front of us. I can see that we're sitting on the back deck at my grandma's house. Were both smiling widely.

Yeah, it's a good one.

She— see the way she's holding you, very protective like that, her line?

Oh yeah, yep, she was like that for sure.

Yep. Well, you had a good mom. You would have had a better mom if she didn't fucking— hold on.

Didn't fucking what?

You see that damn jacket?

She doesn't have a denim jacket. She's wearing a white Dunkin' Donuts hoodie.

But Louise quickly changes the topic back to the pictures. What was she going to say? Was she going to say something about my mom's death but caught herself? Or about something that may have led to my mom's death?

That you were such a pretty baby, honey. See your mom? She had— this is the picture I'm looking at. She's got the blue and white sweater on. You right here?

Oh yeah, yeah.

All right, now check that hair out. That's short for her. That's short. Picture that hair going down, going down, almost to her asshole when we were kids.

Oh wow, she had really long hair.

It's gorgeous. It's fucking gorgeous. I told you she was gorgeous.

Louise gets back on the topic of my Aunt Allison, and surprise, surprise, it's not positive.

She's getting her fucking just desserts here for what you do. I'm telling you.

She knows I just had to evict her from my dad's house.

You know, the best thing, the best way to be in life, and I've always been like this, always help. If you could— if you can help someone, help them. If you can do a good deed, do it. Never expect anything back, not even a thank you. Just, you know, because that's on them. It's not on you. See what I'm saying? Your good deed gets racked up as your good deed. They don't even say thank you. It's nothing to do with you. That's on them. Report, not yours.

Talking about doing good deeds is rich coming from my mom's supposed best friend, who has been radio silent for the last 27 years since her murder. Where was this attitude when she could have helped my mom by going to the police with what she knew?

When you get older in life, when you get older in life, things will be better for you. Like, you're gonna have a wonderful life. You got a good man. You're a homeowner. You know what I mean? You're beautiful, you got a nice body, your life is gonna be great. You're gonna have all the fun, good things in life. People like Allison, she's old, she's alone, she's got nobody, nobody talks to, nobody likes her. She probably, you know what I mean, she's probably gonna have her golden years in a fucking Pawtucket, uh, subsidized housing, and she's gonna, you know what I'm saying, like that, alone.

Yeah, no, it's sad. It's sad.

Well, you know, she should have been a better person.

So what starts as me trying to get Louise to talk about some pictures I found ends in a rant about my Aunt Allison. Not a huge surprise. I have my work cut out for me sifting through the rest of what I found in that dusty red duffel bag. But then I get a call that changes everything. After months of waiting, the police reports from my mom's case in 1993 are finally being released to me. 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, Aliza Rosen. Executive producer for Audible, Lara Regan Kleinschmidt. Executive producer for Toluca Pictures, Stacy Levin. Executive producers, Lauren Malloy and Chloe Grace Moretz. Produced and written by Michelle Simon. Edited and mixed by Tristan Bankston. Coordinator for AYR Media, Andy Levine. Audio engineering and mastering by Justin Longerbeam. Theme music by Jonatha Brooke. Legal counsel for AYR Media, Gianni Douglas. Head of creative development at Audible, Kate Navin. Chief content officer, Rachael Ghiazzo. Copyright 2024 by AYR Media. Sound recording copyright 2024 by Audible Originals LLC.