Crime Junkie: MISSING: Allison and Marie-Josée Benitez

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Britt.

And quick disclaimer today,

we have a story out of France,

and I will tell you that all of our sources,

all the source material are in French that we had to translate.

So you're not going to hear them sighted within the episode,

but as always, we're going to link out to them in the show notes.

Otherwise, I don't think you would even hear the episode.

They're so long and so complicated,

unless we never forget Jacquees.

Jacquees, French is not our strong suit, folks.

No, no.

Just come say it now.

But I didn't want that to stop us from telling this story,

because it's an important one that I want you to hear.

It's about secrets, the price we pay to have them

and the price we pay to keep them.

This is the story of Allison and Marie-José Benitez.

It's a summer evening in 2000.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

I'm going to show you what I'm going to show you today.

It's a summer evening in 2013.

It's a summer evening in 2013.

And Cindy Philippiak, an organizer for the regional

French beauty pageant Miss Roussillon,

is a little concerned

when she doesn't see 19-year-old Alison Benitez

among the girls filing in for the Monday prep meeting.

When she doesn't see 19-year-old Alison Benitez

among the girls filing in for the Monday prep meeting.

A former winner herself, Cindy,

knows how committed her girls are to the contest,

which is less than a month away now.

And this pageant is a big deal.

The winner will compete for the title of Miss Frantz.

And Alison is one of Cindy's

fiercest competitors,

so Cindy can't help but notice her absence,

especially since Alison

had checked in the day before

to confirm what time they were meeting that day.

As the minutes tick by

and there's still no sign of her,

even the other contestants start to worry.

And I mean, they've all been preparing

for this thing for months,

and yeah, they're competitors,

but they've also become friends.

Alison would not be a no-show,

not to this.

Even if she was just going to be like 5 or 10 minutes late,

she would have reached out.

And she easily could reach out,

because she's a teenager, you know?

I mean, her cell phone is practically attached to her body.

Okay, but she's a teenager.

Cell phone fixation or not?

Teenagers aren't really known

to be the most reliable humans on the planet

or the most punctual.

True, but this is an important day,

like I said. I mean, honestly, at this point,

every day is an important day.

It's already the middle of July,

and the pageant is coming up on August 11th.

And not only that,

but everyone knows that Alison's mom, Marie José,

is nearly as excited for the pageant

as Alison is.

Because, duh, pageant moms are like

an elite class.

And they haven't heard from either of them,

so it's not just Alison, it's her mom, too.

However,

even though this seems like

an important time that they would never ever miss,

not everyone knows

every part of your life, right?

I mean, we see a fraction

of the real day-to-day

that people go through,

often a fraction of who they really are

as a whole.

So everyone there might not have known

that Marie José had taken off

out of the blue before.

In fact, that's actually

what her oldest daughter, Lydia, thinks

is going on at this very moment.

You see, she had gotten a text

from her mom the evening before,

and the Google translation of that quote

says,

I made a difficult decision, but it's better this way.

I'm going to to lose with Alison.

I love you, call dad.

And she met her step-dad, Francisco,

who had been in her life since she was like

eleven, like her dad.

Yeah, so Francisco is Lydia's step-dad

and Alison's

biological father? Right.

Now, this text might be weird to some

and it is definitely a little

vague, but Lydia has seen her mom

just take off before.

Just a few weeks ago, she had taken off for four days

and before that, she'd taken off

for as many as ten days at a time.

But most of this taking off

had been happening since

she and Francisco separated around two years ago.

So Lydia thinks

she does this maybe to keep Francisco

on his toes.

Also, they all still live together.

So I get wanting some

space.

Space at the very least.

I'd ever be home by choice, to be honest.

I know. It's a complicated setup.

She's actually going to be moving out in just a couple

of months and Alison is going to go with her

because they're super tight

and Francisco had even agreed to pay

for the new place, which he could afford

because he is this, like, he has a super

successful job basically in the French

foreign legion, which is a branch of the French

army. So it makes sense that

he'll be helping them out financially.

But until then, another last-minute

trip doesn't seem all

that unexpected.

And everyone knows how close Alison

is with her mom, so it makes sense

that they'd be together, even maybe with

all of this pageant stuff going on.

So when she kind of pieced out before

had Alison gone with her,

would that be pretty common for them to both

kind of go away together?

So that is a good question

and something that I actually wondered, but none

of the source material I have says one

way or another, like if she had gone

before, if this was the first time.

But still, whatever the situation was,

this time, her going with her didn't seem

out of the ordinary. Like I said, the two

of them were super close. It's a level

I can only hope to attain with Josie.

Like, Alison's social media pages

are filled with her mom writing these wonderful

things for her daughter to, you know, just

how much she loves her, how proud she is.

And then Alison writes back saying she's proud

of her mom. She even calls

her Mamounette de More.

And I think it roughly translates to Mommy

of Love or Mommy My Love,

which is now going to be the next word I

teach Josie, like F English, it's whole

lame.

But that still doesn't explain why Alison

wouldn't have mentioned this trip to anyone

from the pageant.

That is fair. You're right. It doesn't.

So does Lydia know that they're missing

all of this? I kind of feel like we have

two groups of people here who are

aware that they're missing, but in

completely different circumstances.

Well, that's the thing.

Lydia lives in Bezier,

which is about an hour north of Perpignan

where her family is.

And I mean, she's like a fully grown

adult with her own life, you know, so I don't

think she, when you say they all know she's

missing, I don't think she considers them

missing. And she's not super keyed

into Alison's day to day pageant schedule.

The whole prep meeting, no show,

no call, whatever thing. I don't even think

that's on her radar.

So in relation to those locations,

where's to lose exactly

where they said they were going?

Well, part of these beautiful pictures I endlessly

got lost in, it is this gorgeous

city a little under

three hours away by car.

Oh, that's not a running away forever

trip. That's like a hop, skip,

and a jump, even a day or a weekend kind of

thing. That's me driving to your house.

Yeah, and especially because Europe has amazing

public transport. You could, you know, take

the train, no big deal. Okay, so it's

not too far, beautiful,

all great, but why

to lose? Well, they both love

that area to the point where they've talked

about getting jobs there.

So even though they don't have family or

anything there that's like a real solid

connection, the more Lydia moles it over,

the more kind of makes sense that that's

where they would take off to for some kind of

trip or more or whatever. Oh,

yeah, jobs there sounds like moving

there. So it sounds like maybe

Lydia's not thinking this is just a little weekend

trip. She's thinking they could have like left

left. Well, still not at this point. I don't

think so. I think maybe

she's thinking they decided to visit

before pulling the trigger

on a really big move, especially

again, if they needed a break.

And actually, I say that thinking she

knows things came to a head between her mom

and her stepdad. So she thinks that this

was the outcome of that.

Oh, the outcome of what?

Well, apparently Allison had

found private messages between Francisco

and a woman in Barcelona,

like romantic messages.

Oh, when she confronted him,

Francisco tried to reassure her that it was

no big deal, but he had confided

in Lydia that he was in love

big time.

I guess I don't get it.

What's the big deal then if they've been

separated for two years and she and Allison

are moving out? Well, I'm kind of spitballing

here, but I think it could be a couple

of things. I mean, they've been separated

for two years, but

like I said, they're just now making the move

to live apart. So maybe it wasn't all that

clean of a break, you know, it's totally possible

that the intention was to try and work on

things during the separation or

maybe they just agreed not to see

other people while they were still under the same

roof just out of respect for one another.

I don't know, but either way

Lydia doesn't worry when she gets

that text message on July 14th

because she has all this back history

and she doesn't worry on July 15th

or 16th when she doesn't

hear any updates.

But eventually she does try to call

and to text

and these new communications aren't

getting any kind of response

not from her mom or her

sister and the same can be

said for Lydia's other sister, Roxanne.

In fact, she

didn't even know they were

traveling or off the radar

but eventually both sisters check

Allison's social media and they find

that her pages have gone

dark. And like you said earlier

she's a teenager

teenagers don't go dark on

social media at least not by choice.

Right.

And I assume they've reached out to Francisco by now

what's his read on the whole situation

is he worried? Isn't that the question?

I mean

it seems like no because he says

that him and his estranged wife had gotten into

an argument about bills

and she told him the same thing that she had

texted Lydia that she and Allison were going to go to

to lose. They'd even

packed up a suitcase or two on their way out.

But

by July 22nd Francisco's

changing his tune a bit.

By this time he's worried enough

to actually make a visit to the police

department although he doesn't

stay long or accomplish

much. Like he's not even there longer than 10 minutes

and based on what I could gather

police aren't too interested in

taking a report at this time because

I mean both women are adults.

But again how hard did he

really try? He's only there for 10

minutes max? Well yeah

but we also don't know how hard the cops are pushing

back saying they weren't going to file a report

but maybe he kind of saw it as

like I'm never going to get anywhere with this anyway

yeah I'm going to spend my time elsewhere.

Maybe. But trip or no trip

by July 25th

11 full days of no one

hearing a word from

either woman Lydia

drags Francisco to the police

station again.

She makes sure a report gets filed

this time around and like

right off the bat

when police start looking into things

they notice some

inconsistencies.

One of those inconsistencies

was about how worried

Francisco was and when

like Francisco tells them that he

was worried right away basically

from the 15th on

says he even tried to search for them on his

own which I'm pretty

sure is news to Lydia

and then Allison's best friend comes forward

and tells investigators that he'd

stop by their apartment looking

for Allison on either the 16th

or 17th. So again

after he says he's worried and looking for them

and when this friend stops by

Francisco had told him not

to worry because they're in to lose

they turned off their phones everything's probably

fine. So he's all

worried and searching on the 15th but

he's telling this kid the very

next day or so that nothing's wrong

and he knows exactly where they are. Yeah and obviously

both can't be true

right and at the same time

investigators are figuring out

some other concerning things

like not only have neither

of the women use their phones

since the 14th

and there's no sign of them on the internet

or social media but they also

haven't touched their bank accounts

they're traveling

without spending

a single dollar doesn't add up right

and the whole idea of them traveling

actually doesn't make much sense

either because the family car is

with Francisco

and neither woman have licenses

anyway. When investigators

check the CCTV footage at the train station

they're not on it

there isn't any record of them

taking any form of public

transportation to to lose

or anywhere. Ashley

what are you talking about it all makes sense of course

they haven't spent anybody traveling these

two must have freaking walked to to lose

I mean honestly it's the only

option that makes Francisco's story

make sense nothing is adding

up and at the end of July

investigators put out a national broadcast

asking the public for help

finding the women

and right away a few tips do

filter in possible sightings

of both of them I think

but investigators initial hopes are dashed

when they turn out to be false leads

so on August 1st

they finally turn their attention

to the family apartment for

a search. Forensic texts

comb through the place for like

five hours wait wait

wait I've been stuck on this

it took till August

1st to look at the apartment

yes so

they go missing on the 15th

we think and Francisco

is just being in the

apartment hanging out being

worried then suddenly not being worried

being worried again for

over two weeks before investigators

even take a look at the place

yeah you're not yes there is this

huge gap where

they're not taking a look around

at all and

I know it sounds

suspicious or it sounds like

time was lost but I don't know

if it mattered that they waited

because as far as like

evidence of a crime scene goes

when they do this like five hour long search

two weeks later they don't find any evidence

of foul play

okay but to me that's all the more reason

it does matter I mean saying

nothing's there now again 18

freaking days later

does not mean there was always

nothing there yeah and you're right and listen

what they're saying isn't that they're not saying all

all good here nothing happened here

okay really what they're saying is that they

haven't ruled anything in or out

or any one in or out

I mean they're still open to the possibility

of a voluntary disappearance

but they are still

considering some form of foul play

by August

4th Francisco seems like

he is just crumbling

which becomes super clear

when a video of him is posted online

that day and

just an FYI I'm a little

unclear whether Francisco himself posted

this video or whether it was shared with

the media outlet that then posted it

but either way in it

he's speaking directly to the camera

openly weeping

I'm actually going to play a little bit of the clip

for all of you and obviously

most of us won't be able to understand

the words he's saying but I want you

it's more the emotion I want you to get

because he is clearly distressed

and in the video

he is like declaring his unconditional

love for his daughter

and says that he's hoping for the safe return

of both his daughter and his wife

and he also refers

to all of the pressure that he's under

saying that despite his best efforts to hold on

he's on the verge of exploding

falling apart is exactly

the right term to use

and

he never puts himself back together

because on the morning of August 5th

the very next day

his warrant officer where he works

binds Francisco's body

in the barracks

he died by suicide

between the hours of

5 a.m. and 7 a.m. that Monday

and with this

discovery the video

from the day before

starts seeming

like something of a suicide note

yeah especially

like you said with the translation of it being

like on the verge of exploding

trying to hold himself together

saying how much he loves his daughter

it's heavy stuff

and it also introduces some troubling questions

like yeah it seemed like

he was being sincere in his video

and I do I think he was being

sincere but the question becomes

sincere about what?

Sincerely devastated about the disappearance

of his wife and daughter

or sincerely guilt-stricken

by the knowledge of how they disappeared

and this is really

when investigators change their tune

publicly

whatever discretion they've been exercising

up to this point regarding their suspicions

of Francisco

it's pretty quickly set aside

at a press conference that same day

the deputy prosecutor acknowledges

that the women probably aren't alive

and he indicates

that the chances of any sort of

voluntary disappearance on their part

are rapidly diminishing

and he goes even further

acknowledging that it's quote

difficult to accuse a dead person

but he's also doing little to hide

the fact that that's what he's doing

now that Francisco's gone

basically their only real possible witness

to the women's disappearances

investigators decide to seize

cell phone and laptop as well

as to take another look at the family's apartment

while those items are being analyzed

they also establish a national

tip line because they're having a really

hard time finding witnesses who can

either confirm or dispute elements of

Francisco's story and I think

that's in part just due to the time

of year it is because July and August

are the months that a lot of French people

go on extended vacation

so a lot of people who live in this area

are out of town while all of this is going down

I got to say

Europeans are onto something with the whole

month-long vacation thing

listen I want to want that so badly

and you know this but I'm quite literally

allergic to vacation so

true I might actually

be like taken out by the plague if I was to go out that long

yeah that'd be dangerous for you

agreed anyway even with France

being in its peak season at this point

investigators eventually track down some neighbors

of the family who confirm

overhearing frequent arguments coming

from their apartment but which

we kind of already knew right

I mean we know they were separated

Francisco even said that they left

after an argument that they'd had

right that's true this really isn't new information

although it does tend

to support the conclusions that investigators

are already reaching and

the next tip that they get makes

them certain that they're on the right track

because it turns out this isn't

the first time a woman

closely associated with Francisco

has disappeared under highly

suspicious circumstances

they get this tip

from a man named Claude

but really Claude is calling

on behalf of his four teenage

kids who he had had

with a woman named Simone de Oliveira

Alves because when

Francisco's face flashed across their

television Claude and Simone's

kids couldn't believe what they were

seeing or rather they couldn't believe

who they were seeing you see

and back in 2004

nearly a decade before

Alison and Marie José went missing

40-something year old Francisco

had been stationed in the French city of

Nîmes and although he was

very much married at the

time and a father to

Alison who was around 10 years old

he insisted to Simone

this 28 year old Brazilian

mother of four that he was

single and childless and

having no reason to disbelieve him

Simone and Francisco began this passionate

affair and things got

kind of serious

serious enough that she introduced him

to her kids and based on what

they tell investigators he hadn't just

met them he practically

acted as a stepfather

to them for months

right up until the day

their mother vanished without a trace

according to Simone's sister

it was when Simone found out

about his whole other family

that she disappeared

and not just that

again according to the sister Simone

might have even been pregnant

and it's not like no one noticed

when she went missing back then I mean she had four

kids so authorities opened an

investigation into her disappearance

but it doesn't seem like it got

very far before it went cold

all investigators were really

able to determine was that Simone

and Francisco had gotten into some kind

of argument and on the evening

of November 29, 2004

she had texted him

to say that she was leaving and she wasn't

coming back and then poof

she was gone so this guy

didn't even come up with a new story

she texted him I mean it worked pretty well

the first time because investigators got

nowhere either

they thought she really left or

maybe they had suspicions that

they couldn't prove I don't

know basically a couple of years

after her disappearance her case had pretty

much been abandoned

no one was digging into it

but now in 2013

another woman connected to Francisco

has sent this big text that she's leaving

and basically has fallen off the face of the

earth then he takes his own

life just as police are starting

to like squeeze on him

so yeah maybe it's time

to reopen that 2004 case

and they do

now it's also around this time

that they get results back from Francisco's electronics

and right

away they're pretty interested

in a call he made just

prior to ending his life

it was to a woman in Spain

named Maria Teresa

is this the woman he was

seeing before the one that Allison

had found communications with yes same woman

well literally it was about to follow

up on that like I was wondering if they ever

tracked her down and talked to her

to see if she knew anything I get

the impression they didn't know anything about

her before they found the records

of this call

which is kind of weird like again I don't know if they're not talking

to Lydia it's a little

muddy and again might be getting lost

in the translation as well

but either way they know

about her now they track her down

and she tells them that not

long after the two women

had quote unquote left

she had a romantic rendezvous

with Francisco at the family

apartment

how long is not long

less than a week

I mean I think she was there on July 19

Jesus Christ

we keep it classy Francisco

if I remember correctly

that was before they were even reported missing

right right and that

is an important point because as far as I can

tell Maria Teresa had

no reason to think anything was

amiss when she was there but

there was something that she didn't

fully appreciate at the time

that now she's thinking

might be important

she tells investigators that she had

noticed something disturbing

you see when she was there

the apartment had this

terrible smell

without the necessary

context she didn't really question

Francisco when he told her that the smell

was nothing to worry about

just the smell of the neighbor's garbage

wafting in through the bathroom window

the closed

bathroom window

yeah it's totally that

right so hearing all of this

investigators are thinking that the smell

wasn't trashed

and the woman's bodies

aren't in the apartment by now

they know that they looked through the apartment

but could they have been

on July 19th or in the days leading up to it

which we would have known

if they didn't take nearly

20 days to even look at the apartment

well again I mean they weren't reported missing

even at that 19th

time so

no one would have known to even go there

on an official basis but you do wonder

I mean like if the smell

lingered if there was something to be found on

day 11 when he was dragged to report them

missing

maybe they were still there

maybe there was something too fine then

rather than waiting till day 18 or whatever

I don't know

and was Lydia ever in the house during this time

smell anything or think anything was off

this is so frustrating but I don't know

I can only assume

yes since we know she was in town

on the 25th to go to the police

department with Francisco

but I can't say for sure

so if she saw or smelled anything off

in the apartment I don't know

now around this time investigators

expand their search efforts from

the family home to include the facilities

Francisco had access to

while working with a french foreign legion

because it's not like he just had

your run of the mill office job

he had access to living quarters

and stuff and when they start

poking around in those areas

and interviewing colleagues from the barracks

they realize that he had been

doing some bizarre things

in the days after his wife

and daughter disappeared

like for one they track down

a witness who says that he helped

Francisco transport a freezer

from the family's home to the barracks

on July 17th

seemingly out of nowhere Francisco

had decided he wanted to donate this freezer

to the french foreign legion

you know as one suddenly

wants to do when one's family

is missing so he had this colleague

come to the family's apartment to help him

move this thing

and did this guy notice

a smell in the apartment?

actually that's a great question

but something that again the source material

doesn't say anything

about but what they do mention

is something else that he noticed

he noticed while he was there

that a sink was clogged

with this thick

red liquid

and did he ask

why? I don't think so

but keep in mind

this is all happening before

the women were reported missing

so he just made a mental note of it

probably not even super consciously

and then went about helping Francisco

move this freezer

and when they get the freezer out to the barracks

Francisco decided

it needed a deep cleaning

which

the point you made earlier seems like a strange priority

for him to have at the time

especially in retrospect

and if that isn't chilling enough

another soldier comes forward

and tells them he'd encountered Francisco

washing what looked like

bloodstained sheets and a floor mat

at the barracks in the same time frame

and

no I don't know exactly what this floor mat is

possibly a floor rug

but again translation issues

what I do know is this guy did ask

like what the heck is going on

and Francisco's response was

quote I thawed meat

huh?

I mean yeah so again

like no it's just no

that's not an answer

I think some form was there right

you're trying to explain it like blood

on like a rug or a mat

no it doesn't make sense

so obviously when investigators hear this

they know that they need to check out

this freezer see what might

have been left behind in it

and when they go it's still there

and they secure it they run tests

and what they find

are traces of

Allison's blood

deposited within it

his daughter's blood

investigators find additional traces

DNA definitely Allison's

and possibly also Marie

José's

and that was in a washing machine

at the barracks that Francisco was known to use

when another French

foreign legion colleague comes forward in early September

and tells investigators that he'd

see Francisco washing his hands

in the bathroom at the barracks

and that the sink was stained with red marks

but I probably don't need to tell you

what everyone assumes he'd been washing off

his hands

is there any hope about finding the women alive

at this point or has this

basically become a mission to recover

their remains for the investigators

remains I mean I don't think they've been

super optimistic for a while

but once these traces of DNA are discovered

they know

and actually this is when the case is officially

reclassified as a homicide investigation

and this is at the beginning of September

well what about the remains

I mean even with all this evidence

does any of it help investigators narrow down

to begin to look for it not to mention actually

find their remains

I mean the freezer and the DNA stuff doesn't

but other stuff might because

using geolocation on his

devices and reconstructing

the GPS data on his car

they determined that Francisco

drove to this specific area

a little over 30 minutes away

in the days following the women's disappearance

it was to this nearby resort town

of Lucca

and he didn't just drive there once

they were like three separate times

all between

the 14th and the 17th

of July

so by September 10 they've got

search teams out at a couple of the town's

water treatment plants

as well as in some nearby pine forest

and foothills

so you said they were thinking it was

like the 14th to the 17th

or between them

honestly with the smell and stuff I kind of thought it would be later

yeah that's what they're thinking and I don't have

like the other data from the car

GPS but maybe it shows that

he didn't really travel anywhere

after that

and I mean we know that his girlfriend was at the apartment

with him by the 19th

so that could be part of it

too because remember she smelled this weird smell

but she didn't see anything

but either way they're pretty

sure the women's remains were dumped

in that chunk of

of time from the 14th to the 17th

okay but then what's the smell on the 19th

I think the insinuation is

maybe just lingering odor

from whatever happened to the women

in that apartment

but you're right like I mean I can't quite

wrap my head around the time frame

like to me the way the dates

it's like not lining up quite right

not perfectly but I think we're probably

missing some pieces

but either way within just days by September 12

the search is put on pause

it seems like there's only one organization

in the country that's got

a limited number of cadaver dogs

there's like eight or so

and the dogs get called to another mission

so it's not until the 24th

that they're back at those water treatment plants

this time with dive teams

and I have to tell you this job

whatever the divers are doing

it sounds intense

because I don't think they're just diving

in water

according to what one outlet reported

an engineer familiar with this project

says that they're diving into aeration basins

or something like quote molasses

at least in texture

and density

that sounds incredibly unpleasant

to say the least

but the same engineer suggests

that the swampiness of the liquid

might actually work

if they find anything to investigators

benefit because it would

likely slow down any kind of decomposition

and yet

investigators don't find

any sign of the women's remains

not in the aeration basins

or in the nearby bodies of water

not in the foothills

or in the pine forests

and by October 30th

the search is officially called off

so where the f**k are they

they don't know

they should have been here

or they thought they should have been here

but clearly a piece of the

puzzle is missing

or maybe it's all there and they're just

actually missing the women because of this molasses

that they're diving in

now there is talk at some point

of revisiting the water treatment plants

the next summer of possibly even having them

drain just to be sure

but from what I can tell

these plans run into some kind of technical issues

and they're just not pursued

and the case goes

pretty cold

and it stays cold until

September of 2016

that's when Marie-José's

brother Eric approaches investigators

with a new lead

he'd been contacted

on social media by a woman

who had been vacationing

on the beach near Lubacara

another coastal town close to Perpignan

where the family lived

and this was back in the summer of 2014

and she was shocked

when her dog dug up what appeared

to be human bones

now to be clear another source

says that he found these bones

in April of 2015 so I'm not

sure what's up with that or why she didn't

report it like then

either way though

investigators descend on this beach

in 2016 and they

excavate the spot where the bones had been

found and shockingly

they do find more bones

and for just a few

hopeful days it seems like

maybe finally

Marie-José and

Allison's remains have been found

but it's a crushing blow

and the analysis of the bones comes back

just a few days later and concludes

that the remains were of an animal

not any human

and that is where things

stand to this day

the secrets Francisco took

to his grave all those years ago

in 2013

remain buried with him

I mean there have been theories over the years

Eric even had one

back in 2015 that

he thought investigators failed to explore

he thought that maybe the women never came

out of that apartment building

dead or alive

because apparently in the apartment building that they lived in

there's this crawl space under

the building's garage that contains

an old septic tank filled with sand

and he thought

that the women's remains could be

in that and it's hard for me to wrap

my mind around it exactly but he was

pretty convinced at the time

I mean so much so that his lawyer filed

a formal request for the area to be searched

although they were all ignored

though I will say if this was the case

maybe this to me

is one of the only things that explains the

like timeline and the smell

right like you would still smell it

but eventually it would stop smelling

I don't know like but it's possible

now like I said they never ended up searching it

apparently it's super difficult to access

and police say that even

Francisco wouldn't have been able to

without leaving some kind of trace behind

but at least for a time

some suspected that with his military

training he just might have found

away now as far as I can

tell nothing ever came of

Simone's reopened investigation

to this day neither

Simone's family nor Marie

Jose and Allison's families

have any idea what happened

to them so now all

anyone can do is wait

and hope hope

that with time and with patience

long-buried secrets will

find their way to the surface once again

Francisco's death

was devastating to this case

because it left a void where justice should be

you can find all the

source material for our episode

at crimejunkiepodcast.com

and you can follow us on Instagram

at crimejunkiepodcast

we'll be back next week with a brand new episode

crimejunkie is an audio chuck

production

so what do you think Chuck

do you approve?

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.