Episode 8: The Forensic Psychologist

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that Ricky and Beth-Ellen were reported to have watched the movie Basic Instinct just hours before she was killed, that stuck out to me.

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it could be completely coincidental but definitely very, very odd because of all the movies that one could have watched that particular night,

[00:00:26] [SPEAKER_00]: this particular movie's plot is about a homicide via stabbing and a lack of evidence connecting the killer to the crime.

[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And here we are 30 years later and there's an unsolved homicide via stabbing and a lack of evidence to result in charges, an indictment or even a trial at this point.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Who Killed Beth-Ellen? Episode 8.

[00:01:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Amy James, Clinical Psychologist,

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm Dr. Amy James. I am a clinical and forensic psychologist.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00]: So I have a doctorate degree in clinical psychology and I specialize in forensic psychology,

[00:01:20] [SPEAKER_00]: which is the application of clinical psychology to questions that involve the legal system.

[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_00]: This point in my career, I've worked between 150 and 170 murder cases.

[00:01:38] [SPEAKER_00]: From what I've been able to review and of course, I'm reviewing information as it comes to me,

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_00]: it seems that there's a pretty good consensus that Beth-Ellen was quite a vibrant, somewhat impulsive and rebellious teenager who liked to test limits.

[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_00]: There was definitely a thrill seeking side of her and she was fearless in many ways.

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: I think she presented herself as strong-willed and strong-minded and she was driven for desire for fame.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_00]: In my review, it seemed that many people who knew her described her as someone who really knew who she was and what she wanted.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: But as a psychologist, I questioned that a little bit.

[00:02:36] [SPEAKER_00]: She had recently changed her appearance to mimic Y.Noda Ryder.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: She appeared to vacillate between wanting to be in Raleigh as a potential step before she made it to New York and coming back to spend time with friends.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Given her age at the time, she was in a developmental phase of what we call individuation.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And individuation is a process that most adolescents and early adults go through and it's a process in which we create and hopefully achieve an identity independent from that of our friends and family.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: That identity is clearly influenced by our friends and family, but the process involves testing situations, testing experiences to determine who one is and who they want to be and will be.

[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It seems that she might have been quite conflicted.

[00:03:38] [SPEAKER_00]: She wanted independence away from her parents, yet she made contact with some people in the area of Goldsboro and Mount Olive.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Who she was in Wayne County may have been a bit different than who she was in Wake County.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And I questioned whether she struggled with loneliness, some desires for acceptance despite her status as a beauty queen and dancer.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And I wonder if she wanted someone to accept her despite those things.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was something she was looking for.

[00:04:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think another thing that really stuck out to me is an interview that was done with Beth Ellen's mother.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: And she said that Beth Ellen never wanted to get old and that Beth Ellen wanted to be famous and die young like Marilyn Monroe.

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: People will often say things like, well, I want to die young.

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to grow old or I don't want to get old because the quality of life isn't good.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But to be that specific, famous and die young like Marilyn Monroe, I really wonder about that and what she saw in Marilyn Monroe.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that also ties back a little bit to this sort of identity that perhaps Beth Ellen was trying to sort out.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Marilyn Monroe, she had a Marilyn Monroe lighter and she was also very intrigued by one owner writer and her character in a particular movie.

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think those things are interesting.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I think those things are interesting is those things tied with the descriptors that have been provided about Beth Ellen set up a situation.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_00]: There's criminology, but there's also victimology.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_00]: And victimology are characteristics of a person who becomes a victim of a crime and individuals who sort of live life in an impulsive, take life by the horns type of way.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00]: They're very focused on that moment.

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes that can make them very vulnerable to adverse outcomes.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: And there may be some interplay here with that.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00]: I have a lot of questions about Ricky as a person.

[00:06:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It was reported that his home life was not good and I would want to know more about that.

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_00]: He was described to have been raised in an abusive household.

[00:06:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would want to know more about that specific environment, what specifically happened physically, emotionally in that household, how the different people in the household interacted with one another.

[00:07:00] [SPEAKER_00]: It was notable to me that people recalled Ricky's quick and aggressive reaction or rage toward a dog.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And even 30 years later that that particular incident stood out.

[00:07:13] [SPEAKER_00]: I also wonder what his behavior was like in school.

[00:07:16] [SPEAKER_00]: How would his teachers describe him as an elementary school student, a middle school student, a high school student to better understand how his home environment and then his school environment and his behaviors all intersected or interacted with one another?

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I know it's hearsay, but at least one person described him as obsessive.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And that word really stuck out to that person, obsessive about Beth Ellen.

[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would want to know more about that.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: What did that mean exactly?

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Did that mean that he thought about her and talked about her all the time?

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Did it mean he was possessive or jealous in some way?

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Did it mean he changed his life and schedule to accommodate her or to spend more time with her or to focus on her more than other things?

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_00]: One thing that really made me sort of, I guess, sort of turn my head a little like, you know, a dog does when they're a bit confused.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, how he described Beth Ellen as the love of his life after under two months of time together.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_00]: That makes me want to know more about other relationships and attachments that he had before and after his involvement with her.

[00:08:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You asked me about the likelihood of committing a murder like this and not having other violent criminal history before or after.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_00]: If you look at individuals who commit violent crimes due to criminogenic risk factors, then criminogenic risk factors are things like anti-social behaviors.

[00:09:05] [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that you don't socialize. Some people use anti-social to say, well, I don't like people.

[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Anti-social is rule breaking, imposing upon others, manipulation, lying, criminal activity.

[00:09:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Individuals who commit violent crimes because of criminogenic risk factors have those anti-social behaviors.

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_00]: They have anti-social thoughts, so deviant thoughts and behaviors.

[00:09:30] [SPEAKER_00]: They have a history of friendships and associations with delinquent individuals.

[00:09:36] [SPEAKER_00]: They have family or marital strain, problems at school or work, and substance use.

[00:09:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Those types of individuals who commit a homicide are more likely to have pre-homicide and post-homicide histories of violence and criminal behavior.

[00:09:58] [SPEAKER_00]: But individuals who commit murder that's classified as a domestic homicide or a homicide that is the result of domestic or intimate partner violence, someone they're in a relationship with,

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_00]: and that murder is spontaneous, they are far less likely to have pre- and post-homicide criminal behavior and pre- and post-homicide violent behavior.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_00]: I also thought quite a bit about this anonymous letter. A lot about the anonymous letter.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Actually, there's a couple things that are really intriguing to me about this letter.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: As was discussed on your podcast but also in the news articles that I read, there was an article previously published about the Triangle Area power exchange.

[00:11:12] [SPEAKER_00]: And that article ran before Beth Ellen was killed and it ran several months before the anonymous letter was received.

[00:11:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So it's possible that the person who wrote the anonymous letter incorporated information from the article that discussed the Triangle Area power exchange into the anonymous letter.

[00:11:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And then the article about the court withholding the autopsy ran on September 17th of 1994.

[00:11:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And the writer claims, the writer of this anonymous letter claims that people with money and power would keep the autopsy from being released and the murder would never be solved.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's 40 years later and the autopsy has not been released and the murder has not been solved.

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that when you talk about the car and the Blue Panda Fury and you talk about this article and the fact that the person who's writing this letter

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_00]: is making these statements that do come to fruition, that's an interesting point.

[00:12:39] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I'm not going to say by any means that somebody in a position of authority is the perpetrator of this crime or anything like that.

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that there are some really interesting coincidences in some of these things.

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_00]: But also on the flip side of that, this letter is really interesting to me because the writer of the letter says that they're concerned about the information that's going to be provided

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_00]: that Beth Ellen's parents were going to receive it because they had suffered enough.

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_00]: So that makes me wonder if the writer of the anonymous letter knew Beth Ellen's parents on some level.

[00:13:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Whether they knew them personally or knew of them from the community or felt some kind of connection with the pain that the parents felt.

[00:13:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I buy the blackmail claim in any way, shape or form, at least not in the way it's detailed in the letter.

[00:13:54] [SPEAKER_00]: From what I gleaned from the interviews of the people who knew Beth Ellen, she was very intelligent but rather impulsive.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And I don't think she would singularly concoct a detailed plan as outlined in that letter.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_00]: However, I would not rule out that someone she knew could have.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_00]: If someone she knew was aware of her involvement with people in high places or wanted to add some extra detail and that person was more methodical or strategic, that is possible.

[00:14:24] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think it's plausible, but it's possible.

[00:14:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think Beth Ellen was exactly methodical in many of her behaviors leading up to her death.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: You can't rule out that it was a hoax, that this whole letter was a hoax, but there was information in that letter that was not public knowledge at the time that the letter was written.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_00]: The fact that they referenced Beth Ellen's involvement in an S-corp service indicates that it is more likely than not that the writer is directly connected either with Beth Ellen or the killer.

[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Or both.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So, the car, I found the car interesting.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_00]: I know I have sort of an advantage of looking at it in hindsight.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Hindsight 2020.

[00:15:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But the first thought I had when I saw the car location was no one pulls in like this to ask for direction.

[00:15:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Because I know that that was one hypothesis as to how the car got like that.

[00:15:42] [SPEAKER_00]: This is Raleigh.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's early morning hours. Some people would call it middle of the night.

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But Raleigh is a large city. It's a busy city.

[00:15:51] [SPEAKER_00]: The convenience stores open 24-7, even back in 1994.

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_00]: So as a 17-year-old female, it would be highly implausible that a 17-year-old female would pull off the side of the road and ask a random stranger for directions when she could just continue down the road and find a convenience store that is well lit.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_00]: She could park, she could go in. Or even if she asked somebody in the parking lot, it's well lit and there's probably other people around.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think that that is likely.

[00:16:31] [SPEAKER_00]: The location of the car, and I will say this caveat, unless the car was staged, indicates that it's more likely she was flagged down by someone she knew or stopped by someone she thought she knew or thought she knew.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Or someone she thought she could trust.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, now why do you say that?

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Given the descriptions that everybody said about Beth Allen's personality, that she was pretty headstrong, she was smart.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't see her just stopping. She's going to stop for someone she knows or someone she thinks she can trust.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't seem to be a person that would have just randomly pulled over.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a couple different hypotheses that I have running through my head about that car.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_00]: So either somebody she knew flagged her down and she stopped and she rolled down the window to talk to them and she was forcibly removed from the car.

[00:17:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Or she was stopped in a routine traffic stop, rolled down the window, something happened, she was forcibly removed from the car.

[00:17:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Or she wasn't alone in the car and somehow the car ends up there but she doesn't.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_02]: Now you're saying with that third theory that someone else was in the vehicle with her?

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:18:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it would be possible.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_00]: When I work cases, no matter what the case is that I'm working, I start with multiple hypotheses and I try to generate as many hypotheses as I possibly can

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and then look at evidence that supports and refutes each hypothesis to come up with a most likely scenario or most likely answer.

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And one hypothesis that I just could not rule out, there was conversation that Ricky was concerned about the time of night that this particular call was going to be.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So is it possible that Ricky offered to drive her and to sit in the car for safety and then for some reason they had an altercation and pulled off to the side of the road?

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Or that Ricky drove her somewhere and then returned the car or someone else rode with her and then left the car there?

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that is also something, you know, not having the actual case file that I would want to know as well.

[00:19:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Or another way that the car could have gotten how it was.

[00:19:48] [SPEAKER_02]: Right. And then if that was the case, you would have to figure, there would have to be, so let's say there's two people in Beth Ellen's car, Beth Ellen and someone else,

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_02]: then it seems like there would have to be another vehicle with another person in play too, right? To move...

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: You would think so to get somebody back to where they came from. Yeah.

[00:20:19] [SPEAKER_02]: So that's kind of the first crime scene where the car was found and then now moving on to the second crime scene when they find that seven days later.

[00:20:29] [SPEAKER_02]: I guess just the nature of the murder. Walk us through that and what all that says to you.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So the nature of the murder being a stabbing and not just one or a couple stabbing, but many stabbing. That's very significant.

[00:20:55] [SPEAKER_00]: There's typically three sort of classifications of people that utilize a knife or an object to impale someone, a stabbing type of tool.

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00]: And those are someone with a close intimate relationship to the victim or someone who perceives themselves to have a close intimate relationship with the victim

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: and who is responding either in an emotionally charged way, impulse a fit of rage with jealous or angry responses or who is retaliating against the person for some type of threat.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So if I break that down in the first classification, so someone who knows this victim, so someone who knows about the felon or perceives themselves to know her and have a relationship.

[00:21:58] [SPEAKER_00]: So when I'm talking about someone who perceives themselves, I'm talking about someone who might have a delusion or an infatuation with her.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think that would be less likely just because if we assume that she stopped for someone, it would be less likely that it would be someone she didn't know who sort of saw her and admired her and had sort of a fixated delusion on her.

[00:22:26] [SPEAKER_00]: So not impossible, but improbable. So it's more likely that it would be someone with a close intimate relationship with her.

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: So why do people who have a close intimate relationship with someone stab them?

[00:22:42] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, usually because of one or three reasons. They are emotionally charged and in an impulsive fit of rage.

[00:22:50] [SPEAKER_00]: So this is a spontaneous action. Something that was said, done or happened caused sort of an explosive anger rage situation and the victim was stabbed.

[00:23:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Or there's some type of jealousy or angry response. So the person, the victim is involving themselves with something that the attacker is jealous of or the victim has acted in a way that did not meet the attacker's expectations.

[00:23:37] [SPEAKER_00]: And I want to be very clear, I'm not victim blaming when I say that.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Individuals that react out of jealousy or angry responses, they have a preconceived idea of how the victim should behave and should act and should respond to them.

[00:23:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And when the victim doesn't do that, then that prompts the attack.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_00]: A victim who rejects a person or who hurts the attacker's emotions or sense of self or exploits or pulls out their vulnerabilities. That's what I'm referring to on that.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: The second type of people who tend to utilize stabbing as the means for homicide are people who confront the victim for another reason.

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_00]: So these people are typically unknown to one another, the perpetrator and the victim don't have a pre-existing relationship.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_00]: This tends to happen in muggings or stalkings or attempts at a sexual assault.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_00]: And when the victim responds with resistance, tries to fight off the attacker or doesn't allow the attacker to do what the attacker set out to do, the attacker then uses a knife and stabs them in an emotional rage again.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_00]: And the third classification would be someone who is psychotic, so a severely mentally ill individual or who is delusional and believes that the victim is going to harm them and that person doesn't have another weapon of choice.

[00:25:22] [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a very rare situation. It does happen, but it is rare.

[00:25:27] [SPEAKER_00]: But given the number of stab wounds and how close you have to be to someone to stab them and you combine that with the assumption, if it is assumed, that she pulled over or was flagged down by someone that she knew, that's a very intimate crime.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_00]: And then when you couple that with the body being covered by cardboard, psychotic delusional killers don't tend to cover the bodies.

[00:26:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They just leave them there or they do other horrible things to them.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Most people who mug, stalk or attempt a sexual assault and ultimately end up stabbing someone, they don't either.

[00:26:23] [SPEAKER_00]: Most bodies that are concealed is in the way that the other body was concealed or as it was reported it was concealed.

[00:26:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have pictures or anything like that, but concealed by putting cardboard over or covering with a sheet or covering with a blanket or a tarp.

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_00]: That concealment, especially in that remote location, suggests to me that it's possible that the person who perpetrated this crime, once that fit of rage subsided, felt some guilt or shame or complete disbelief at what they had done.

[00:27:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They covered the body out of dignity for Beth Ellen.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_00]: I know that sounds like, how could you even say that it would be dignity after what this person did so that she wouldn't be as exposed?

[00:27:27] [SPEAKER_00]: It could be argued that the body was concealed so it wouldn't be found so quickly and I think that's possible.

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_00]: It seems like it was a relatively, I mean there's businesses there but sort of a remote location there.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it would be more likely that it was covered because of some type of guilt or shame or disbelief that this had happened.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_02]: So I think that you've kind of gone down a lot of different avenues, but based on what you know now, what would you say is the most likely avenue?

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_00]: I think when you take in what we know, what decades of research says on violent crime, on homicides, about people who perpetrate crime, about victims of crime, that it is more likely than not that she knew her killer and they had some type of relationship with one another.

[00:28:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And that this was a spontaneous, sort of in the heat of the moment type of killing.

[00:28:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But then there was potentially some remorse or guilt or shame or disbelief after the fact. I think that would pretty much sum it up.

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_02]: And what other additional information in the case file or just any additional evidence would help with your analysis? What else could you use?

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that everybody wants is DNA. Can at least the letter be tested for DNA where it was licked and sealed? I don't think we had self-seal envelopes back in 94.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_00]: The stamp, is there a way to extract DNA on that? And to test that, is that going to get you exactly to the killer? I mean it might.

[00:29:37] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it is more likely to rule out or rule in an association with Beth Ellen or the killer to provide an avenue for pressing for more information.

[00:29:49] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think as far as being able to better understand, you know it's been 30 years and many people are still pointing at Ricky.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And to better understand why Ricky was ruled out or ruled in, I know that Captain Lynch discussed Ricky being ruled out because of some logistics.

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_00]: But if it is true that he had his roommates cover for him and lie and say he was home, then the logistical timeline changes on that.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean that he did it, but it means the timeline changes on that. And he failed the polygraph and the polygraph technician didn't want to do the polygraph because Ricky was too close to it or too emotionally involved.

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And I am not a polygraph expert, but I've watched many polygraphs and police interrogations.

[00:31:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And I've seen polygraphs done when parents are suspected of murdering their children or people are suspected of murdering their intimate partners.

[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And I would think that those people would be equally close to the crime as Ricky would be to this one as far as a relationship.

[00:31:24] [SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think that that would be necessarily a reason to rule out because of the failed polygraph.

[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Now there could have been other factors like exhaustion or medications or substances.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have any information about that. I'm just saying those are reasons that polygraphs can be failed or falsely failed, meaning it's failed but the person was not lying.

[00:31:50] [SPEAKER_00]: If there were audio recordings of the interrogation or the polygraph, that might be worth having someone with fresh eyes or fresh ears, if you will, listen to it.

[00:32:02] [SPEAKER_00]: We've come a long way in research on interview techniques and responses.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_00]: In the past 30 years, we've come a long way in research on why people do what they do, how people interact with the police, how people answer questions, how people deceive, how people tell the truth.

[00:32:21] [SPEAKER_00]: We're not great at determining whether people are telling the truth, but we're better at picking up on inconsistencies and finding things to follow up on, I think, than maybe we used to be.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_00]: So having information about that, I understand that it's an open investigation that's not going to be released to the public.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: But I think it might be helpful for Raleigh Police Department to have someone with some type of psychological training, a forensic psychological training or criminal behavior training, to just take a listen and see if there's anything that stands out to them on that.

[00:32:59] [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and I think another main factor that made at least the original detectives feel like Ricky was not good for the murder, like Ricky was innocent, that the fact that Ricky was able to maintain his innocence in what apparently was a grueling 15-hour interrogation with multiple detectives kind of tag-teaming it,

[00:33:26] [SPEAKER_02]: really trying to squeeze him every which way, and the fact that he never gave up his innocence. What do you think about that? I mean, I think that a 20-year-old kid able to maintain that under such pressure, does that go a long way with you?

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I would have to be more specific about that. The reason I say that is I know that individuals who confess under pretty intense interrogations are more likely to if they are of lower intellectual functioning, and I assume Ricky was not because he was a college student at a good college.

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_00]: Individuals can maintain their innocence in different ways. Was he maintaining his innocence by providing plausible information? That goes a long way with me. Plausible information that can be verified? Absolutely.

[00:34:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Was he maintaining his innocence by not really answering questions and just saying, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I'm innocent, I don't know anything about that. That's sort of a different dynamic.

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_00]: So, I would say I've seen a lot of individuals confess under very intense interrogations. Some of them confessed to things that they did and factually did. I've seen individuals confess to things they didn't do and were later verified to be false confessions.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And I've seen individuals who maintain their innocence under very harsh interrogation tactics. I think there's a lot of different ways for that to be presented as far as maintaining innocence. So, a lot more information on that.

[00:35:29] [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's entirely possible that the way the innocence was maintained does help rule him out. And I think that there might be ways that the innocence was maintained that may not rule him out for me.

[00:35:46] [SPEAKER_00]: I don't have any strong opinion as to whether or who did it. I think that's way outside my scope. I think that there's a lot of information that's not known and rightfully so because it's an open investigation.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_00]: But I do think that there are pieces of information that can be followed up on, especially pieces of information that have come to light through your podcast that could certainly be followed up on and either verified or found to be false information that might provide more information and might steer the investigation in a new direction.

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a few reasons why people might not be coming forward with information. I think that the fear of getting in trouble for withholding information is probably greater than the fear of getting caught up in the truth.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's very high on that list. So, there may be people who do have information that would help provide some clarity to this investigation and to help bring whoever did this to justice.

[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And they fear that there would be some type of legal consequence to them for withholding that information and for withholding that information for so long. So, I think that is a very likely a real concern.

[00:37:48] [SPEAKER_00]: I think along those lines are that there's also a fear of social reprisal or social retaliation across someone with held information or even provided inaccurate information.

[00:38:06] [SPEAKER_00]: So, instead of being concerned of being in legal trouble, being concerned of being verbally attacked or social media attacked or dogged out for not providing information or not providing accurate information. And that can be hard to deal with as well.

[00:38:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Especially with people who have families, most of the people who are the age that Beth Ellen would have been are, you know, they have families and they have careers. So, they may be very concerned about negative impact on that.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_00]: There may be some individuals who are concerned that they might be charged with a crime. So, not just some type of legal pressure but a crime like accessory before or after the fact. They may have questions about that.

[00:38:58] [SPEAKER_00]: They may be sitting with information they really want to provide that they feel that they need some type of assurance that their life isn't going to end if they provide information that leads to, you know, solving this case.

[00:39:13] [SPEAKER_00]: They may fear for personal safety of themselves or safety of their friends and family. And I think another one that is potential is ambivalence. So, yeah, I know I should come forward but it's been so long it just doesn't matter now.

[00:39:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Or people have a certain preconceived idea of who did it or who didn't do it. So, what I have to offer isn't important. They might minimize the importance of the piece of information they have or they may not know that the piece of information they have is important. So, I think that's a bit of it too.

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And what would you say to any of those concerns?

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_00]: I think if the concern is ambivalent, like, you know, I might have information. I might not but it's been so long. Just do the right thing. Provide the information. It's not someone's job to decide whether the information is important or not important or whether it is critical or not critical.

[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00]: If someone has information about anything related to, you know, the days leading up to Bethlehem's murder, to individuals potentially involved, to something they saw, something they heard, something that just didn't seem right or something that maybe at that time it was like, oh, well that's just, you know, and you just blew off an explanation.

[00:40:43] [SPEAKER_00]: But now looking back, it's like, oh, well maybe that was something. Just report it. There is nothing lost by reporting it. For those who fear personal safety for their friends or family or are concerned with social reprisal or getting in trouble, I think it might be worse.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_00]: I am not a legal expert. I am not an attorney, so I'm not providing any legal advice, but it might be worth providing anonymous tips either through the podcast or directly to the police department. If someone's really concerned, it might be worth a conversation to say, listen, I have some information but I'm very concerned about what this information means for me or for the people I love and to have a conversation about that.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_01]: If someone does have a question about that or you know someone that you want to help give information and take it off their conscience, you can reach out to me and without telling me any of the information, I'll connect you with an attorney that will work pro bono for you to assist you in providing information without any consequence to you or the someone you know.

[00:41:55] [SPEAKER_00]: I think that guilt or shame over not reporting information sooner, that's not going to go away by not reporting it. Now you're still going to experience guilt and shame. If you have experienced any guilt or shame for the past 30 years because you didn't report something or you recorded something inaccurately, that's not going to go away because you don't report it. It's just going to continue. So I think you can absolve some guilt or shame by providing that information.

[00:42:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And I think back to the ambivalent one, I think this is probably my last thought on it. We talk a lot on sports. You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. So if there's information and you don't know if it's helpful or not, if you don't report it, nobody can figure it out. You never know if it's going to be the one thing.

[00:42:47] [SPEAKER_00]: But if you do report it and it ends up being something, then I mean, you've done a wonderful thing for a family. So I would say just provide it.

[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: One easy thing you can do to help. If you haven't left a podcast rating on Spotify or iTunes, please consider giving a five star rating that will help with the algorithm and the podcast will be recommended to more people.

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_01]: We need everyone talking about Beth Ellen. Let's turn up the heat.

[00:43:55] [SPEAKER_01]: 2024, the year of closure for her family and justice for Beth Ellen.

[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening and stay tuned.