Transcript of Episode 2: The Devil in the Details

I don't know what you've come to expect from a true crime podcast, but I guarantee you Crime Junkie is all of that and more. I'm Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Brit.

And every Monday we dissect some of the most mysterious cases. But listen, we're not just rehashing what you can read for yourself online. We have a team of dedicated investigative reporters and producers who I work with for months on every single episode. But the show still feels like having a conversation with your best friend, if your best friend was a detective. But like a good detective. So join us and tune in to Crime Junkie every Monday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

This podcast discusses issues such as drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, violence, and assault. Listener discretion is advised.

Particle Entertainment.

My son was 5 when Natalie was born. He was born in '86. I divorced his dad in '87, so it was just me and him living in an apartment. And then I got pregnant with Natalie, and she was born in 1992. So there's a big age difference between them two, you know. Her daddy was never in the picture, even after I gave his last name to her. You know, he still wasn't involved. And her daddy has like 6 or 7 other kids, you know, that's his, that is her half-brothers and sisters. They never accepted Natalie.

Natalie Jones was born into an unconventional life, a child who didn't even know who her real father was until she was 4 years old. Elaine thought it best to not have him in the picture early on. As she tells me, he lived his life on the fringe of the law. Natalie was an unplanned pregnancy, but Elaine loved her unconditionally nonetheless.

Natalie was a very good, good, good baby. I mean, she was awesome. It was strange, you know, having this 6-year-old little boy that was jealous. Because here comes a little pretty little girl and me trying to teach him to change her diaper or feed her or get him involved with her, you know, to try to get a bond there. But she was a very good baby. She slept a lot and, you know, she, she barely cried.

For the next several years, it was just Elaine, her son, little Mike, and Natalie, often barely eking by, but happy. That is, until the first great tragedy of Elaine's life occurred.

My son was 14 years old when he got run over. It was a hit and run right across the road from our driveway. At that point in time, I went berserk. I mean, I failed Natalie as a mom because I couldn't think, you know? I mean, I'm in shock over losing my son, you know? And it was just horrible. And then she would always say, "Mama, you wish that would have been me instead of little Mike," you know? And she never understood my heart until she had Trent. And then she was looking in her rearview mirror one day, and she said, "Mama, I couldn't imagine, you know, I couldn't imagine what you was going through. And I'm so sorry for saying some things I said to you." But, um, then it was me and Natalee.

In a video posted on Facebook in 2019, Natalee spoke candidly about this time in her life. Videos like this would become a way for her to cope with the more difficult and traumatic parts of her life. They began with more positive and uplifting thoughts, but progressively got darker and darker. It's all part of a series of posts she called My Story. This is the voice of Natalie Jones.

When I was 7 years old, my brother died. My dad was never there. I didn't meet my dad till I was 4 years old. So my mom worked 2 jobs to take care of us and didn't get really no help from neither one of them. My brother was hit by a car, so it was a very sudden death. When my brother got hit, my mom really lost it. I mean, I don't ever want to walk in them shoes. She did keep a roof over my head, though, and food in my mouth. And I had everything I needed and a lot of what I wanted. We moved around a lot when I was a kid. And it has taken its toll on me in my adulthood. I've realized that I have went in the same route a lot. My mom was with a very, very abusive guy. My mom told me I used to sleep with a knife up under my pillow. I'd come home, there'd be holes in the wall. He would tell me to leave.

When her eldest child, 14-year-old Mike, was killed, Elaine fell into a deep depression and struggled to pick up the pieces. She went from one abusive relationship to the next, was continually tormented by the loss of her son, and felt she was failing Natalie as a mother. She eventually sought professional help, but she tells me that ended with an abuse of prescription drugs, further complicating their life at home.

When I lost my son and I went to a psychiatrist, you know, they're going to put you on a lot of meds. Well, I was on meds. Xanax, Effexor, Trazodone. You know, Seroquel. It was crazy. But I abused the Xanax and caused a lot of problems.

It wasn't easy, but somehow she managed and raised Natalee to the best of her ability. And though, admittingly, she made mistakes along the way, the two still shared an unbreakable bond. Through it all, one thing always remained true. Elaine loved her baby girl, but by autumn of 2020, sadly, she had laid both of her children to rest. The white walls of her quaint country house are now lined with pictures of them both, a solemn reminder of the children she once had and of a life that no longer existed outside of her memories. I'm Sean Kipe from Audiochuck and Particle Entertainment. This is The Truth About Natalie. After Natalie had been found deceased and positively identified, The question was no longer "Where is she?" but "How did she die? And why?" They theorized that Natalee's body had been in the car for an extended period and surmised that she'd likely been in the car since she went missing or shortly after. Natalee, still wearing the same clothes she was wearing at the party on July 4th, was slumped over, leaning towards the driver's side door, her right hand resting on the emergency brake handle. Her left hand lay at her left side next to the car door.

Due to the extreme heat Georgia summers often bring, her body had partially mummified. The car was infested with thousands of flies, maggots, and beetles, both living and dead, and the insects had been feeding on Natalee's body. It was a grisly and disturbing scene.

The condition inside the car is probably the thing of nightmares that I will never be able to shake ever again. It's different watching a scary movie, you know, and knowing it's not real. But that was— I had nightmares for probably a couple weeks, and I still get them on occasion. Like, it changed me forever, um, in that sense. I've never— it's different in that this is someone that, that you've now invested time in, right? Like as many of us in Natalee's community had.

I've reviewed all the photos of Natalee and her car from the case file, and it's truly grim. And Jennifer's right, it hits different when it's someone you know or someone you've come to care about, even though you've never met. The gravity of the situation suddenly becomes very real. Jennifer describes the scene.

The car exterior was super clean. The wheels, the rims were super clean. The windows, I need to point out, this is, that's very important. The windows were so clear, like you could see right through the windows. Like I just, I can't, that baffles me.

The windows in the car were all up. And the keys were in the ignition, but the car battery was dead. The trunk was popped and opened several inches, and the windshield wipers were positioned in the middle of the windshield, stopping where they were when the battery apparently died. When the battery was jumped by investigators to move the car, the wipers once again sprang to life on the highest setting, indicating it had possibly been raining heavily when the car came to a stop, or perhaps the wiper controls were bumped at some point.

Inside of the car, there was a— I think Isaac's baby seat in the backseat. There was a bag of what appears to be a swimsuit, possibly some other clothes, papers, just miscellaneous things in the backseat. The passenger console was closed. The center console was closed. In the passenger floor were a white pair of— it looked like knockoff Keds. In the passenger seat was a tropical, kind of, like, mini book bag, like, satchel, and you can see a phone popping out. That phone, turning out, was not Natalee's phone. It was her sister Tabitha's son's phone, who had left his phone in the car from earlier that day.

That phone was initially thought to be Natalee's. When investigators learned that it wasn't, they realized that Natalee's phone was missing. The phone that never left her side. Jennifer also points out that Natalee's seat seemed to be reclined and pushed back quite a bit further than someone her height, just 5'5", would likely drive in.

Like, it just didn't look like a comfortable position to be driving in, you know. Her seatbelt was off. She was slumped down in the seat. She was barefoot.

Police conducted a search of the general area around the car, looking for clues as to what might have happened. Natalee's phone was never recovered, and investigators later discovered that several other items were missing from the car as well, items Natalee had with her when she left the party.

Flip-flops were missing, or sandals, I should say, that had rhinestones. They were black sandals with rhinestones on them. They were nowhere to be found. She's missing her belt that she was wearing that day.

Natalee's favorite sunglasses, Shawn White signature Oakleys, the ones she wore daily, was wearing when she recorded a Snapchat video while driving to the party and was photographed in at the lake, were missing as well. But still, the scene gets stranger the closer you look.

The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous true crime series The First 48.

I'm Carter Roy.

Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

The way Natalee was found is hard for Elaine to discuss. It's even hard for Jennifer to talk about, and she never even met Natalee. She's become a friend to Elaine and a big source of emotional support, even when Elaine initially couldn't seem to fully accept that her daughter was really gone.

I just had to tell her, I said, "Elaine, you know, I know that you don't have the closure that you need. So you're not able to grieve and heal properly as best you can. But I said, that's your baby in the car. That was Natalie.

Aside from the unusual missing items, further inspection of the scene gave more clues that something was off here.

There were horizontal strands of hair that were in the door jamb. Not a ton. It wasn't a chunk of hair, but it was enough when you zoom in on those photos to notice that it was— it appears like it was almost like someone moved her and her hair got caught. Like, your hair just doesn't get caught in the door jamb, even if you are slumped over. That was really strange to me, to many of us.

The hair caught in the door jamb is something that could not be explained. In fact, I'm not even sure that it's something investigators took note of initially. A patch of Natalee's long brown hair was draped inside the jamb where the door closes. Investigator Boswell told me he believed the hair fell into the jamb when Natalee was found and the door was first opened. But Natalee's hair wasn't loosely draped over the jamb as Boswell described. When looking closely at the photos taken by the crime scene tech, you can see that the hair closely follows the shape of the jamb. Meaning the door had to have been closed on the hair and left for an extended period, likely since the night Natalee died. It's also on a vertical part of the door jamb, so the idea that it just fell that way as the door was opened isn't logical either way. It almost had to have happened as the door was quickly closed. This is potentially a very important discovery. Did something happen to Natalee that caused her to hurriedly get into the car? Closing the door on her hair in the process, or is it possible that she was placed in the car by someone else and that's how it happened?

But upon examination of Natalee's remains, one of the biggest mysteries of this case was discovered.

She was missing teeth, multiple teeth, top and bottom, that appeared to be removed or fallen out from the root. Like, it wasn't broken. It was like you just saw no teeth. That is very hard for Elaine to hear. We don't typically discuss that with her because it's very triggering for her.

Elaine, always the proud mother, loved and admired Natalee's perfect teeth.

She had some purry teeth. Natalee had the purriest set of teeth I ever seen and a beautiful smile.

The fact that several of Natalee's front teeth were missing became a focal point for many. Did they fall out? Were they knocked out? Was she tortured and her teeth pulled out? The theories spun out of control, but we know that she had all of her teeth when she left the party that night. I spoke with a local, April Cavender, who searched for and has also become an advocate for Natalee.

I work in the orthodontic field, so the dental field, basically. She was not missing any teeth. On the pictures that was taken of her, like some selfies that she did on July 4th when she was on the lake. Everything was fine, everything looks healthy. A healthy individual like that, and it looks like the teeth were extracted. I mean, to me, the way that the teeth were not broke off, they are totally pulled out by the root. Especially those front lower incisors. She didn't have any dental problems. She didn't have any implants. She didn't even have veneers. Those were her original permanent teeth.

Lori Starnes, another local, echoes April's concerns. Honestly, a lot of people in the community feel this way and are asking the same questions.

The missing teeth. Where are they? You know, they're not in the car. They're not in her clothes.

They're not on the ground when you open the door.

They didn't fall out. You know, where, where are those teeth? Why are they missing? Okay, teeth get a little loose maybe or something, but where is it? It should have fell and still been in the car.

Shortly before she disappeared, Natalie had been to the dentist, which is how so much is known about the condition and health of her teeth around the time of her death.

A week before Natalee went missing, she had gone to the dentist and had a lower number 32, I think, tooth removed. And so I went into full-blown investigative journalist mode. I contacted her dentist. I sent scene photos of her teeth zoomed in with Elaine's permission. I got two separate opinions from an orthodontist. And an oral surgeon. What we know about Natalee and her teeth and why this is a thing, right, is she was super anal about her teeth. I was able to confirm that Natalee had come in, I believe it was about 3 weeks or so before the extraction, had her teeth cleaned. She had that extraction, X-rays looked fine, she had no cavities. Again, she's really anal and took great care of her teeth, but they did prescribe her pain pills.

Natalee's missing teeth have never been recovered. If they fell out after her death, one would expect them to be in her lap or at least in the car, but they were nowhere to be found and no explanation for their absence has ever been given. It's baffling. One thing is for certain though, teeth don't just disappear. Another detail caught the eyes of those who have seen the photos of Natalee in the case file.

Some of her acrylic nails had fallen off.

Natalie had her nails done with Tabitha's kids on the afternoon of July 4th. What could explain the several fingernails laying on the floor of the car?

Women that get their nails done know, like, acrylic is really strong. It's, um, more durable.

It's possible they fell off, but when looking at other strange anomalies at the scene, it makes you wonder, is it also possible that they were broken off in some sort of a struggle? And there are several other things that just don't seem to make sense. Take the missing items. The sandals, the belt, the sunglasses. Where are they? Did Natalee lose them between the time she left the party and the time she died? And if so, that would mean that she was out of her car or made a stop somewhere, possibly engaging with someone else. If so, who was it? Where was she? And why did she stop? If Natalee was robbed that night, Why are these lower value items the only ones that were taken? The only real thing of value missing is Natalee's iPhone.

It perplexes me that those are the missing items compared to the items left in the car, which were a bag, Natalee's purse, if you will, her wallet, cards, credit cards, debit card, you know, personal documents like her driver's license. You have cash, coins.

An autopsy was performed shortly after Natalee was found, and investigators hoped it might shed some light on what happened. But Boswell tells me that even then, there was no clear cause of death. Nothing obvious stood out.

We have an autopsy report that says undetermined cause of death. There's nothing to indicate from the autopsy that she was shot, stabbed, or anything of that sort. Right? There's nothing to indicate that.

I do wonder though, being that Natalee's remains were partially mummified, could that hide any signs of physical trauma? I was also curious if Natalee had any underlying health issues. Elaine told me that she did have at least one prescription medication that she was aware of.

Natalee was diagnosed twice for bipolar, okay? She never did take no medication for it, but You could tell that, you know, she had some of it in her.

Elaine told me that Natalee did have medication prescribed to her for bipolar disorder, but she stopped taking it shortly after because she said it made her feel nauseous. And that was a long time before her disappearance, so how likely is it that she just started taking it again that night? But I asked Elaine if Natalee was one to take other pills for fun, to relax from stress, or for an injury, or any other reason.

Nope.

And there was a round or two, believe me, because I mean, I seen a psychiatrist, so there was Xanax, you know, all that. And then I had a wreck and hit a tree, so there was pain pills, you know. No, Nellie never done none. Nope, no pills, none.

The whole conversation around the bipolar chat, like that medication was never taken. My interpretation, based off of everything that I know about Natalee, is that she self-medicated with marijuana because it helped, like, level her out. I could see, because it does kind of mellow you out in a sense. As far as other medications, I'm going to be very honest here. I think that seeing Elaine struggle through her pill addictions and addictions And she even references this. She didn't want to be like that. And I think that that's something that we as a community and myself have heard from a lot of people, that they, they see what it does to a loved one and they don't want to become that.

At this point, I'm running out of ideas to explain how Natalie Jones died. There are no physical signs of trauma. I'm told she smoked a little pot but didn't take pills. And aside from having mild bipolar disorder, she was physically healthy. But even that wouldn't explain the circumstances surrounding the way she was found or the items missing from her car. So what killed her? It's as if something else was going on in Natalee's life, something unknown to those around her, that might have played a role in her death.

The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous true crime series The First 48.

I'm Carter Roy.

Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I now needed some professional insight. Into the way in which Natalee's remains were found. Could the condition of her body give clues that might help identify if this was a natural cause of death or if something malicious had taken place? Because I'm still trying to determine if a crime has even really been committed or not. Since I'm way out of my wheelhouse here, I needed to speak with someone who knows a lot more about, well, all of this. So I spoke with one of the leading forensic pathologists in the country.

My name is Victor Weedon. I am right now a forensic pathology consultant. I have my own little consulting company.

He's being modest. Dr. Victor Weedon has a very distinguished career, including his roles as Chief Medical Examiner of Maryland, founder of the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory, and former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. He's also a pioneer in forensic DNA testing and has contributed to high-profile cases such as the O.J. Simpson and Saddam Hussein trials. I described in detail the case, what was known, what was unknown, and I relayed as much information about Natalee as I had at that point. I then asked Dr. Weeden about a few unusual things that I touched on earlier, like Natalee's missing teeth.

Usually the teeth will stay in, but they can start dropping out. And if you have, uh, periodontal disease, the teeth are more likely to fall out.

After death, as the soft tissues decompose, what holds the teeth in place, the periodontal ligament and surrounding tissues, tend to dry out and can calcify. This process hardens these structures, making the teeth much more tightly fixed in their sockets. At least, that's one possibility. Another is that the ligaments degrade due to decomposition. Loosening the teeth from their sockets and making them more prone to falling out. Environment and many other factors come into play here.

But as for Natalie, I would say that I would expect the teeth to stay in, but I wouldn't be too surprised if some of the teeth fell out.

Given her overall health and age, while it's not likely that several of Natalie's teeth would fall out, it's also not out of the question either. But I do find it odd I mean, how many times have you seen on TV or in a book where a skeleton has been unearthed from decades or even centuries ago and it still has a full set of teeth? And we know Natalee had very healthy teeth. Natalee had her nails done with Tabitha's Kids on the afternoon of July 4th. I asked Dr. Weeden about the likelihood of her acrylic nails coming off, as several were found on the floor of the car.

The fingernails themselves will dry up. And that means that they will become a little smaller. And so if you have a fingernail covering, that might fall off, it might pop off because the fingernail shrivels a little bit, not a whole lot. But if it's a chemical binds to, to the nail surface, then I could see that's more likely to stay on.

Natalee was in a state of advanced decomposition with partial mummification. That's the technical description. Her remains weighed just £47 when she was found. Investigator Boswell even remarked on this when we spoke as he removed Natalee from the car.

It was me and another investigator with the direction of the crime scene techs that pulled her out of the car. I can still see it in my mind right now. And removing her from the car. She didn't weigh anything, hardly.

I wondered, is that what would be expected after 93 days in a car, assuming Natalee was, in fact, deceased that entire time?

Mummification is not the normal end of the decomposition process. The normal decomposition process goes to skeletonization. But the alternatives are to go to saponification or mummification. So if the conditions are dry enough, then it can go to mummification.

Again, Georgia summers are hot and often humid. Inside a closed car sitting out in the sun, the interior temperature can reach 30 to 40 degrees higher than the ambient temps outside. And it's not uncommon for a July or August day to reach 100 degrees or more here. Learning what is happening during the decomposition process can tell us a lot about the way Natalee was found. It can give clues as to how long she might have been there. With temps like these, the greenhouse effect speeds up decay dramatically, and studies reported by the National Library of Medicine show that bodies inside vehicles in warm climates can reach complete skeletonization with most soft tissue decomposed and only bones left within just 2 weeks.

Decomposition occurs basically from 2 processes. One is autolysis, and the other is putrefaction. Autolysis is the body's own enzymes acting on the body itself. So enzymes will break down the organic compounds, okay? Putrefaction is basically bacterial action. So you have decomposition from enzymes of the body itself as well as enzymes from bacteria. And so you break down the compounds of the body and it leads largely to what are called VOCs, volatile organic compounds. That means you take big molecules and break them into small molecules. So volatile means that they can go into the atmosphere, the gas, you know, they can off-gas. So you have some materials that just go up in smoke, if you will, and you have some other materials that liquefy and often go down in the ground.

When Natalie's remains were removed from the car, the driver's seat was badly stained, a yellowish brown-red color, and it appeared that the seat was wet at one time.

Some of the decrement in weight is due to evaporation and just water loss. Some of it's due to volatiles off-gassing, and some of it's due to liquefaction of the body in leaving. So I'm not too surprised that you're down to a third of the normal body weight.

Does that make sense to you that her remains would have been mummified in that situation?

Well, whether it makes sense to me or not, it did. It speaks for itself. Yeah. Yes, it is plausible that it's mummified.

Natalie's car doors and windows were all closed. And while her trunk was popped open a few inches, there was no real way for fresh air or humidity to get into the rest of the car. This could have provided a climate dry enough to enable mummification, according to Dr. Weeden. And I question everything here because of the odd circumstances surrounding the scene and because of the shocking claims that have been made: that Natalee was held captive, sex trafficked, force-fed drugs, or murdered. Most of these claims were ruled as rumor because there was no evidence to support them. But truthfully, what happened to Natalee is still a mystery. Investigators likely thought all the things Jennifer has pointed out were strange as well. How could they not? Their protocol from the beginning was to gather as much information as they could and go from there. That's pretty standard. But when a case gets national media attention, it can complicate things. Boswell discusses.

When you initially start an investigation, you do a shotgun effect and you start looking at everything, whichever direction it goes, and then you take back the most important pieces of those and start to focus. So with us, I think the biggest difficulty we had was really a lot of the misinformation that was, that was going around.

But while misinformation was certainly being spread around town before and after Natalee was found, some believe that law enforcement didn't fully investigate many of the strange things recovered at the scene.

That's what really gets me heated about Heard County is that we're treating this as a crime scene, but we don't see any evidence of foul play. Where did the red soiled bandana appear out of nowhere? Why wasn't that tested?

Jennifer's talking about a soiled red bandana that was not photographed at the scene, yet appears in later photos where all of the contents of the car were splayed out on a table. The bandana stands out, appearing dirty or even bloody.

Where does this bandana just pop up out of nowhere? And furthermore, the bigger question is why was it not tested? There's some sort of soiling on it that looks dark, whether it's oil or whatever. These are like no-brainer red flags. That is just little due diligence that you should be doing as a law professional. They didn't do any of that.

Police may not have tested the red bandana, but they did find something else when searching Natalee's car. Something that might have changed the way the entire case was handled from that point on.

So in the passenger seat was Natalie's bag, and right next to the bag in the seat was a small plastic bag with some sort of substance in it. It did test positive for methamphetamine.

On Natalie's left side, between the seat and the car door, was also found a rolled up dollar bill. Natalie's family and friends said she didn't have a drug issue that that anyone knew of.

When we did find Natalie, there was methamphetamine that was in the vehicle. Not a big bag, just a small amount. We don't know if that's what she was on that night. I wish we knew what she was on. We can look at the scene and look at her life and look at the situation and say it was probably drugs. The only clear indicator we have is that there's a bag, that there was meth that was there on the scene.

The way in which Natalee was found, coupled with a bag of meth and rolled-up bill next to her, led police to believe that she had overdosed. It seemed the logical explanation, and I might agree with that if it weren't for what was learned shortly after. A toxicology report was ordered and a sample of Natalee's muscular tissue was sent to the GBI's crime lab for testing. But when those results came back and were filed on November 10th, It showed that everything tested for, including barbiturates, cocaine, marijuana, and methamphetamine, was negative.

So if you look at the bag that was in Natalee Jones' passenger seat that tested positive for meth, then you've got an autopsy that came back where she tested negative for methamphetamine, which makes me personally wonder what really happened to her.

Episode 3 will be available next week. New episodes drop weekly, but you can listen to the entire series right now ad-free in the Crime Junkie Junkie Fan Club. Use code TRUTH for 50% off your first month at the link in the show notes. The Truth About Natalie is an Audiochuck original produced by Particle Entertainment. I wrote and produced the series. Executive producer is Ashley Flowers. Additional research provided by Community Advocates for Natalie Jones. Original music written and performed by Jackson Epley. And a special thanks to Elaine Gordon and her family. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available at the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233. You can find me on social media @shane_mitchell. SeanKipeOfficial or @SeanKipe.com. And you can email me any information about this case to info@SeanKipe.com. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts. And as always, thanks for listening.

Every year, millions of people head into the wilderness searching for peace, beauty, and adventure. But hidden in those same scenic landscapes are stories of violence, survival, and lives cut short. I'm Delia D'Ambra, and on my podcast, Park Predators, I uncover the true crimes that happened in the most amazing places on Earth. Listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.