[SPEAKER_01]: On July 27, 2021, five-year-old Michael Vaughn's father went to go check on Michael's younger sister and daughter-in-law Pizza.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was out of the room for 15 or 20 minutes, but when he came back, his little boy was gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: Police in Freutland, Idaho, along with other agencies launched a massive search, but no trace of the boy was found.

[SPEAKER_01]: Nearly a year and a half went by until seemingly out of nowhere and a rest was made.

[SPEAKER_01]: Who was arrested in what does this person have to say about what happened to Michael Vaughan?

[SPEAKER_01]: When a person goes missing, there's a special kind of pain in the not knowing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to tell the stories of those who never came home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Today, I want to update you on the story of Michael Vaughan.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I meet them like...

And this is, and then they were gone.

[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back everyone.

[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome back.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there has been huge news this week in the case of Michael Vaughan, which we covered back in December of 2021.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a very new case at that point.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, not even six months old.

[SPEAKER_01]: And usually we don't cover cases that recent because as we talk about many [SPEAKER_01]: Many times in this podcast 99% of missing people are found, you know, fairly quickly, and so, you know, for a case to be, quote unquote, unsolved, you have to wait a while just by the nature of it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: But this one struck me, and it just seemed to be, [SPEAKER_01]: the kind of situation that wasn't going to be resolved easily.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's why I thought it was important to, you know, at least quickly cover it in a bonus episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember it being a bonus episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was because we were on, it was in December, and we were taking a break between seasons.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I, like, I've been seeing so much about him online that I just really wanted to tell his story.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so we did.

[SPEAKER_01]: We came back for a little bonus episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: Well, yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, it was super impactful.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, at least to me, to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and no, absolutely.

[SPEAKER_01]: And what's been really hard about this is that the investigation has been going on.

[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, that's not to say it's, it doesn't have any fault story because we talk even in that episode about how the timeline of events has always been squishy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like the cause haven't really released, [SPEAKER_01]: as much information as they could in order to have people help as much as they could.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because for your employees, have been asking for the public assistance since the beginning, but they're just not giving enough information to work with.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll kind of talk about this a little bit more at the end, but what has happened would I've seen because I'm immersed in the online, like missing person, true crime community [SPEAKER_01]: coupled with, you know, the family and the police asking for help kind of melding together into this situation where people have been going rogue, you know, so people have been doing their own [SPEAKER_01]: real life investigations.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like they have been driving to this neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have been questioning neighbors.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have been like standing in front of houses and screaming.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like they have been staying shit online.

[SPEAKER_01]: They have been accusing people of different things.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it has been intense over the past year and a half.

[SPEAKER_03]: And you think that has to do with the lack of a hard [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I do think that that's a contributing factor for sure because when you have people on one who, you know, genuinely like in their heart, like they start from a good place, right, like they want to help, they want to find a child.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you don't have actual facts, [SPEAKER_01]: people have been doing that and then coming up with these theories and then coming up with like oh well this is suspicious that is suspicious and it's been a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean I don't even know how to explain it for somebody like you who is not involved in this and who does not see this online every day.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, right, I'm what some people would call normal.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I know, I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but yeah, it's been so much.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this arrest that happened this week lies in the face of what a lot of people have been theorizing and about online and kind of making accusations about.

[SPEAKER_01]: But again, [SPEAKER_01]: We don't need to get into all that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk a little bit more about that in the end.

[SPEAKER_01]: I just, you know, it is just one of those things that the rest I mean is one of those things like seemingly came out of nowhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: So on November 11th, 2022, the first arrest was made in this case.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I say first because it is pretty clear based on what fruitland police have said since then that there are more people involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this is not the happy ending that we were all hoping for, of course.

[SPEAKER_01]: Because fuel and police chief JD Huff has publicly stated that they are looking for remains currently.

[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm happy that Michael's family has at least more of a chance to get some answers than they did a week ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I've been talking about all of this all-week on TikTok.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, make sure you're following us there.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to see the real time like unhinged videos that I've been posting.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you're coming here from TikTok, this is actually what we usually do, which is we kind of kind of gather and I research and we put everything together into one coherent place instead of like a million 60 second videos.

[SPEAKER_01]: So this episode is going to be what we've learned in the past week, but this is by no means the end of the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's so much more that's going to be happening in this and we will continue to follow up with us until we have some sort of a resolution.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the purpose of this episode is to gather all the thoughts that I've been putting out in these videos into one like [SPEAKER_01]: And like we usually do when we have updates on cases, I'll also put the original episode at the end of this so that you can get more context as to all of the circumstances behind Michael's disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to have the update first.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then if you want more context, you can listen after the credits to the original episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, with that extremely longer than usual preamble, behind us, let's get to the update in the Michael Vaughn case.

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael Joseph Vaughn is one of four children belonging to Brandy Neal and Tower Vaughn.

[SPEAKER_01]: He has an older brother and sister as well as a younger sister.

[SPEAKER_01]: The family lives in Fruitland, Idaho, which is a small town in southwest Idaho.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about 15 miles from Boise and it borders Oregon.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that's helpful to know because a lot of my research led to Oregon, and I had forgotten because it had been almost a year since we did our first episode on this that fruitland and was basically on the border of Oregon.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just kept on seeing all these references to [SPEAKER_01]: It's really all that is.

[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people in this area can bounce back and forth between the states.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the frustrations with this case is that, like I said, the exact timeline has been hard to nail down.

[SPEAKER_01]: But the best we figured is between 630 and 7pm, Tyler went to go check on [SPEAKER_01]: When he returned to the living room, where Michael was playing video games, like I said about 15 to 20 minutes later, Michael was gone.

[SPEAKER_01]: He, you know, went out and looked for him, couldn't find him, and then immediately called Brandy at work to tell her that...

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael had seemingly disappeared, he couldn't find him.

[SPEAKER_01]: By the time Brandy got home from work, neighbors were out searching and the police had arrived.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a very fast response to this, both from the neighbors and Fruitsland Police.

[SPEAKER_01]: neighbors later said that they witnessed Michael knocking on doors right before his disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: One neighbor who's door he knocked on said that he was asking if her child could come out and play.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the child either wasn't there or the neighbor told Michael to go ask his parents first.

[SPEAKER_01]: Either way, she watched Michael until he got to his yard and then she went back inside.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then, after that, though, another neighbor saw him running down the block, but she didn't think he was weird because he was heading toward, like, where some other kids are playing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So basically, he was just out looking for kids to play with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now when police arrived, they brought K-9s in immediately.

[SPEAKER_01]: According to Brandy, the dogs caught Michael's scent and tracked it to the end of their [SPEAKER_01]: The FBI and other agencies were called in and the search continued.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the the canine losing the scent abruptly indicates that there was a car involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's the only way that the scent breaks.

[SPEAKER_03]: So abruptly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Typically.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about this in the original episode.

[SPEAKER_01]: Fruitland places a very small agency.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're like 11 cops there or something.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they very quickly call it in the FBI, which is great.

[SPEAKER_01]: despite this, there were skint clues, but there were a few vehicles and persons of interest that police released.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then, you know, one was this like white Honda pilots, and that was a whole big thing, and that was something that went on until very recently.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's only recently that police say, like that Honda pilot, which was a white 2010 to 2016 model, that was seen about a block away, [SPEAKER_01]: doesn't have any connection to the house that is in question.

[SPEAKER_01]: LOW.

[SPEAKER_01]: there was also a few people who are caught on like ring doorbell cameras and things like that who police couldn't identify for a long time and who didn't come forward.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's one man who was on Southwest each street again a block away from Michael's home and he was wearing a white t-shirt and black shorts he had dark hair.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now this is the guy that police like apparently could not identify [SPEAKER_01]: although I did just read that they think they know who he is and that they don't think that he's involved.

[SPEAKER_01]: So why he didn't come forward?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but it seems as though maybe he was right hearing along with the Honda pilot.

[SPEAKER_01]: So those were just a few though of the tips that came in, those were like the most actionable ones that they got, but early on police receives like over 500 tips.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, very quickly, but they really didn't seem to lead anywhere.

[SPEAKER_01]: And [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we did the case in December of 2021 and basically all of this year, like, they're really have not been anymore updates.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's why I was really surprised to hear on November 13th that, through when police announced an arrest.

[SPEAKER_01]: Chief JD Huff said that based on what he called, quote, a very credible tip and quote, [SPEAKER_01]: Freutland Police executed a search warrant at 1102 Red Wing Street on November 11th.

[SPEAKER_01]: This led to the arrest of one of the home's occupants 35-year-old Sarah Wandra.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah lives in the home with her husband, Stacey, but Stacey is currently in jail in Washington County Idaho on unrelated charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: On Friday, the 11th Sarah was charged with failure to report a death.

[SPEAKER_03]: So how did they get to the conclusion that she failed to report a death because you said at the beginning that they hadn't found anything yet?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at the time of this recording, they still haven't.

[SPEAKER_01]: So as of this moment, Michael has not been found.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I, and a lot of other people, you know, did find it very interesting that they were confident enough to announce that they were charging her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that particular charge rate because, you know, if it were just an instance that we've seen before in other cases of them trying to find something to charge her with to hold her so that they could try to get more information.

[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they're probably other charges that they could have come up with, that weren't failure to report a death because to me, you have to have something to back that up, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when you don't have a body, [SPEAKER_01]: So you have to have something else that's pretty good.

[SPEAKER_01]: One would think.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't know exactly what that is.

[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, it goes back to JD have saying it was a very credible tip.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we can only infer what that tip must have been at this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the next day, the 12th Saturday, police began digging in the backyard where Sarah and Stacey lived with a backhoe in hopes of finding the missing little boy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, this is not a large yard.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're not talking multiple acres or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking like, you know, a decent sized yard.

[SPEAKER_03]: but like a standard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's a fairly home.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it looks similar to our yard.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's just a yard, you know?

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Despite that chief of warned, the public that this was not going to be a quick process saying, quote, it's going to take us a while to get this done, but we're not going to stop.

[SPEAKER_01]: We're pretty confident in the information we received and quote.

[SPEAKER_03]: Interesting.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that really makes me wonder what the source of the information was.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's whatever it is wondering, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because the other thing that Chief Huff said initially in that like first press conference was that the occupants of the house, who we know now to be certain, Stacey, were renters and that they didn't believe that the owners were involved.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is going to be extremely interesting as we go on.

[SPEAKER_01]: So the dig started Saturday and continued in the days that followed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Huff told reporters that dirt removed from the backyard is being taken to another location for processing.

[SPEAKER_01]: He also confirmed that cadaver dogs are brought in.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, as of this recording, the digs are still happening and are expected to possibly continue for another week.

[SPEAKER_03]: and did he say anything about cadaver dog's hitting on anything?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, somebody it asked me and take a talk through like, like, what are they doing?

[SPEAKER_01]: Are they like literally sifting through every scoop full of dirt?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, that actually does seem pretty much like what they're doing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because I mean, they're literally looking for any human remains.

[SPEAKER_03]: Look, a backhoe is a big machine.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, it digs dirt up quickly, but it can also disturb remains.

[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, they're looking for any kind of evidence of a body being in that backyard.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you listen to our coverage or of the Kristen smart case or if you listen to the you're a backyard podcast, there are a lot of indicators of a body being buried somewhere that go beyond human remains.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think they are looking into all of that very carefully.

[SPEAKER_01]: So at the top of everybody's list of questions of which there are a million, [SPEAKER_01]: has to be who is Sarah Wandra?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like who is this lady who they think knows about Michael's death?

[SPEAKER_01]: We immediately found out that she is not somebody who Michael's family knows.

[SPEAKER_01]: So despite her house being like four minutes away is what the news reports kept saying.

[SPEAKER_01]: I Google mapped it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's about a half mile away.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a four minute drive.

[SPEAKER_03]: But you know, close, but not like a direct neighbor.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it totally makes sense that they wouldn't know each other, but very much in the area.

[SPEAKER_01]: And similar, there has been Stacey.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they don't know him either.

[SPEAKER_01]: They just, they do not know these people.

[SPEAKER_01]: The thing that's so upsetting, I mean, I should say the thing, as if there's only one.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are many things that are so upsetting about this entire situation.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if this tip proves to be accurate, then that means that Michael never will have the area that he has been within a half a mile of his [SPEAKER_01]: Now, keep in mind that Sarah Wanderer hasn't been charged with physically harming Michael, at least not yet.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right now, they're only saying that she knows what happened to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, there was some information that was reported on that came from the probable cause of [SPEAKER_01]: Even though I read some of the information, I was able to get a hold of the documents themselves, but there are a few Idaho newspapers who reported on it before it was sealed.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I was able to read some quotes from the affidavit that were very illuminating.

[SPEAKER_01]: But again, since it has been sealed, I don't want to get into the specifics of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I will say is that her statements on the day of her arrest make it seem like fruitland police are indeed on the right track.

[SPEAKER_01]: So knowing that the answers to Michael's disappearance could very well be in his neighborhood, it's important to talk about the area.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, one of the first things that both police and the public key to in on during like the initial investigation we're talking days after his disappearance is the large number of registered sex offenders near Michael's home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Just to put this in perspective, I put in our address to search for registered sex offenders.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think it might make you feel okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Not great.

[SPEAKER_01]: But if you put in our address, there are seven offenders who pop up nearby.

[SPEAKER_01]: When you put in Michael's address, there are 64.

[SPEAKER_03]: Holy shit.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And to be fair, because they are so close to Oregon, I think part of some of those people are in Oregon, but you know, I don't think like the state borders necessarily matter.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, but yeah, 64, and like, listen, we don't live in a gated community or anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's not like there are so fewer sex offenders here because we live in like some crazy.

[SPEAKER_03]: Don't we go on a main thoroughfare of our town?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So because everybody was aware of this large number of registered sex offenders, [SPEAKER_01]: Investigated.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, they interviewed registered sex offenders early on, like that was very much a part of the investigation, but despite recent speculation that I have been seeing online since the arrest, neither Sarah nor her husband Stacey are on that list.

[SPEAKER_01]: They do, however, [SPEAKER_01]: But not for anything involving sexual assault of a minor or otherwise.

[SPEAKER_01]: In fact, there are crimes are mostly non-violence, like theft, male fraud, identity theft, things like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it's more like financial than anything else.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was looking at, you know, one of their social media accounts and there was like an old business partner who is accusing them of stealing from him.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know?

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like it's stuff like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Seren Stacey were married on April 13th, 2018.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned Seren's 35 Stacey's currently 30.

[SPEAKER_01]: They bounced back and forth between fruitland and Oregon.

[SPEAKER_01]: and they got arrested in both places.

[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, Stacey actually had a fugitive going out for him, like from Oregon, like when they came back to freelance, he was in Oregon, like fugitive.

[SPEAKER_01]: Both of them have a large presence on social media that has not been locked down [SPEAKER_04]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Especially Sarah, like she's very like literally posting multiple times a day like that type.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you take like a basic look at their social media, you see a lot of pictures of them together, a lot of pictures of them embed together, kissing and you know, very a lot of whatever, like very together.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does seem as though their marriage was initially rocky, because Quartricard showed that Sarah filed for divorce in 2019, just before their one year anniversary.

[SPEAKER_01]: But it does seem as though this was abandoned, because [SPEAKER_01]: It seems as though like Stacey didn't respond and then it said it was vacated.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, like it just didn't seem like it actually went through.

[SPEAKER_01]: And by October of that year, they were seemingly back in love and doing crimes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Stacey was arrested in Oregon for several counts of theft and writing a bad check.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah was arrested that same day for multiple counts of theft, as well as theft or receipt of stolen mail and identity theft.

[SPEAKER_01]: On April 13, 2022, their fourth anniversary, the couple was arrested again.

[SPEAKER_03]: Have the anniversary?

[SPEAKER_01]: I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't remember what we did for our fourth anniversary, but I mean nothing that exciting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I can tell you that.

[SPEAKER_01]: they were both charged with unlawful possession of a gun by a felon so by this point they both had felony records but again they were just it's not violent felonies but there's felonies exactly so his was from writing bad checks hers was from like identity theft or something I don't know exactly which one was a felony maybe probably the mail fraud [SPEAKER_01]: Well, yeah, so we'll get to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's what they were arrested for.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's what they were originally charged with.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So on April 13th of this year, Stacey was only charged with that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah was charged with that and aggravated assault with the deadly weapon, destruction of evidence, battery, and possession of a controlled substance.

[SPEAKER_01]: And all of this was very confusing to me because law enforcement records aren't great.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, they are not.

[SPEAKER_01]: Especially when you're skipping around jurisdictions.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it was very confusing to me because they were both arrested on these charges in April.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I had heard before I started looking into this that Stacey was currently in jail.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I saw this for us.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, in April, like, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm going through, because they're arrested and pay at county, which is the county that fruitland is in.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, looking through the pay at county records, it has all like the hearings, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the plea, the evidentiary hearing, the preliminary hearing, did, did, did to do.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then it's like May 17th, the case dismissed.

[SPEAKER_01]: and then the same thing for Sarah, and it's like all of these charges, and then it says case dismissed, and it said, that's weird.

[SPEAKER_03]: case dismissed.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, that's crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so when I, you can see it in one of my videos and I'm like, well, yeah, I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I kept on hearing that he's in jail, but according to this, like his case was dismissed in May.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: But what I have learned from another helpful TikTok watcher is that he is currently being held in Washington County, Idaho.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know why specifically Washington County, but it sounds like he is being held there on the federal gun charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know if this makes sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you tell me, like, is it a thing to be held in a county jail for a federal crime when you're awaiting trial?

[SPEAKER_01]: because he got transferred there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that's the thing, like those charges were dismissed in Payette County because the counties like this is not our deal is what it sounds like.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is we're just kicking it over to the feds.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then Stacey has been in Washington County ever since awaiting his trial on these federal gun charges.

[SPEAKER_03]: That's not actually that surprising, especially considering this seems like not a rural area, but not a big city.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: So the thing about the feds is that they don't have housing facilities for federal violators awaiting trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, so there are no like federal jails that you sit in when you're no one they don't know no so it's it's they obviously use local jails to hold [SPEAKER_03]: until trial.

[SPEAKER_03]: And then yes, there are federal prison obviously.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but there's no there's no like just weird random pop up federal jails where they're just called like the Harry Potter experience.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like a pop up like that's not really a thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in [SPEAKER_03]: So like in D.C., anybody that's arrested on a federal level in D.C., goes to the central cell block in D.C.

[SPEAKER_03]: So it's D.C.

Department of Corrections that's housing them.

[SPEAKER_03]: But then the US marshals will go pick up the federal prisoners and take them to court.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that makes more sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: I unfortunately did not do the research into like the size of pay at county versus the size of Washington County, but if we're thinking that Washington County is like bigger has more capacity, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: That would probably make sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then that's why he's being there.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it does seem like that's why the charges were dismissed and pay at because they're just kicking them over to the feds.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I said, what's interesting is that he's in jail, but Sarah is not and she had many more charges against her.

[SPEAKER_03]: right.

[SPEAKER_03]: But if they're exclusively turning this over to a federal case, the feds are probably going to drop the charges that wouldn't hold up in a federal prosecution.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like the battery charger, whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: So that makes sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's all getting very court.

[SPEAKER_03]: I know.

[SPEAKER_01]: So my guess, and I don't know what this for certain, is that Sarah's family built her out, and Stacey did not get built out, and that's why he's in Washington, because, and again, I didn't know what was going with Sarah, like, I just saw the charges were dismissed, but at her agreement on Monday, the prosecutor mentioned how she is awaiting trial on federal gun charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: So she's awaiting child just like Stacey is, but she's, or she was until last Friday out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And that is important for what, you know, I'm going to go into.

[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, so we talked about who Sarah and Stacey wonder are, but how do this couple who has no known connection to Michael and who mainly just tried to steal money from people for many years get wrapped up in this whole mess?

[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, this is, of course, where we have to start speculating because we don't have any hard answers.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Chief Huff is publicly stated that the credible tip came from someone inside the house.

[SPEAKER_03]: So his words were somebody inside the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: Somebody that lives inside the house or because we're talking about owners versus renters also.

[SPEAKER_01]: He made a point to say that the owners were not involved.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not involved does not mean they were not the tipsters.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's true.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know, but he said inside the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: He didn't see associated with the house.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I feel like inside the house is a very specific thing to say.

[SPEAKER_03]: It does lend itself to being somebody that lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_03]: He didn't use the word [SPEAKER_01]: You know, if we're talking about inside the house to mean people who live inside the house from what I've been able to find despite there have been like some there's been some talk about a roommate or whatever.

[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't been able to find any evidence of a roommate.

[SPEAKER_01]: From what I have been able to find Sarah and Stacey are the only people who currently live in that home.

[SPEAKER_03]: At least legally.

[SPEAKER_01]: right, but I was talking about another case with somebody like yesterday and typically, even if they're not, quote, unquote, legally living there, meaning they're not on the lease or, you know, whatever, if they receive mail at that address, then it does show up on a background [SPEAKER_01]: for that address at this time, we're Sarah and Stacey, and that's on a hundred percent available for sure, but it's what we got.

[SPEAKER_01]: So anyway, Sarah seems caught off guard when police showed up at her home on Friday, and it does not at all seem like this tip came from her.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, she did not seem to know why they were there at first.

[SPEAKER_01]: She obviously quickly figured it out, but it doesn't seem like, oh, I call it you.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now you're here, like, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: If we are talking about somebody who lives in the house, the only person logically who is left to Stacy, he's been sitting in jail for months.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's facing federal gun charges.

[SPEAKER_01]: Could he have had a crisis of conscience?

[SPEAKER_03]: or is this a jailhouse niche?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe not so much a jailhouse niche, because jailhouse niche is generally don't like stitch on themselves, but he could be trying to make a deal with some sort.

[SPEAKER_01]: And if you look at the couple's behavior on social media, a lot of it could, in fact, seem like a crisis of conscience.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah's TikTok account went dormant in 2020, but she came back in September of 2021 with almost exclusively religious content.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of Bible passages and talk about how Jesus loves everyone, but there's also talk about the rapture and how Jesus is coming back soon.

[SPEAKER_01]: So here's a clip from one video just to give you an idea of the general tone of these.

[SPEAKER_00]: So, I don't know if I'm the only Christian that's noticed this lately, but it's not all that's chaos started happening, I just noticed a lot of people who seem to be pushing their witchcraft on here, and I'm not saying that people can't believe what they want to because [SPEAKER_00]: that's totally up to them, but as a fellow believer, I'm just trying to warn my fellow Christians or anybody that is seeking God that that's no good.

[SPEAKER_00]: That is straight talking to the devil and letting him talk to you.

[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget, the Bible says, the devil disguises himself as an angel of [SPEAKER_00]: So just because it looks good doesn't mean the brownies are on points.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they're burnt and you don't even know what type of eat one.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_01]: So that was zero wanderer?

[SPEAKER_03]: Um, okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a lot of that, but then also Bible verses and also the rapture.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, she sounds like a loon, but I don't I don't get any indication of [SPEAKER_03]: kidnapping and murdering a child.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, and and that's what's so confounding about this is they both seem a little off, but not in a way that you're like, oh yes, now it makes sense.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, there has been some more disturbing behavior since July 27, 2021 when Michael went missing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Stacey's posts also had a religious slant to them, but not the extent of Sarah's.

[SPEAKER_01]: His posts to me though were even more disturbing.

[SPEAKER_01]: On July 28th, the day after Michael went missing, he posted about Michael's disappearance on Facebook.

[SPEAKER_01]: okay and on its face on July 28th nobody thought that was red flag because again he lived like in the neighborhood right it's normal to post on Facebook about a missing kid in your neighborhood so this is all of this it's like only upsetting and hindsight [SPEAKER_01]: So he posted about Michael the day after his disappearance, and then temporarily changed his profile picture to Michael's photo, which does seem a bit stranger to me.

[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, yes, but again, we're looking like you said in hindsight at things right through hindsight.

[SPEAKER_01]: He made Michael Spodo his profile picture, like days afterwards, and it was just his picture.

[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't his missing poster, it wasn't anything like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: To the point where one of the comments on it was just from some like, you know, random person, who was like, oh, is that you?

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like when you're a little kid, there's like, no, this is like a kid who's missing in my neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: they're like, oh, okay, like that is a little odd.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a little odd at the time, not just in hindsight.

[SPEAKER_01]: Sarah also started posting about Michael a few days after that, like the beginning of August, August 2nd, I want to say is the first post.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they both continue to like comment on posts and things like that, but what was the most upsetting to me is that after the arrest, when we found out who was arrested and I was looking into her and I found her tick-tock account.

[SPEAKER_01]: video that I clicked on, you can see her fridge in the background and she has Michael's missing poster hanging on her fridge.

[SPEAKER_01]: and it's blurry and it's small and it's like you can barely see it but like again I've been staring at these fucking posters for a year and a half and I knew immediate make oh like that's the poster because there are several versions right i'm like oh that's the poster that has this picture and then has the separate picture of the Minecraft t-shirt he was wearing when he went missing [SPEAKER_01]: And I pulled it up and I reversed it because like TikTok videos, you know, it reverses it and it's the same fucking poster.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think more than the social media stuff, seeing that was really upsetting.

[SPEAKER_01]: His little face has been looking at them every time they went into the fridge to get milk.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't have the answers yet, and we don't know what happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: But after a year and a half of basically nothing, the police felt confident enough to arrest [SPEAKER_01]: knowing that this woman is sitting in jail for concealing the death of their son and this little face was on her fridge the entire time and obviously like I've known about that all week and like [SPEAKER_01]: And, and have watched the videos several times, and I just didn't really hit me until just now.

[SPEAKER_01]: How, how, how truly awful that is.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why do you think they would have that there?

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_03]: If we are to presume that they were one of them, [SPEAKER_03]: took Michael to something terrible.

[SPEAKER_03]: Why would they put his missing poster up on their fridge?

[SPEAKER_01]: Gilt, maybe I don't know, you know, I'm not a religious person and I don't know if there's like some sort of penance and sort of something involved in having to look at him every day.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, we're just so speculating right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, but it's not uncommon for perpetrators to involve themselves in the crime and keep post-tags on the crime and things like that, and so I think a lot of the Facebook posts and things like that could be explained in that way.

[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, the posters just on another level, I feel like, and I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know the answer.

[SPEAKER_01]: But so getting back to like all of what we know now, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: The creepy posts like their criminal history, the proximity to Michael's house, like there still seems to be a major missing piece, if not several major missing pieces, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's still not coming together.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's still not making sense.

[SPEAKER_03]: Correct.

[SPEAKER_03]: That this couple it's not their MO exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't it again.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not something you're like.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yes, of course.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's them like no, of course.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like not at all right.

[SPEAKER_03]: Now, of course, you know, nothing about any of these cases like this ultimately makes any sense right, but This one is like real left field exactly.

[SPEAKER_03]: No indication of [SPEAKER_03]: had a failure.

[SPEAKER_03]: There's no occasion of any real physical harm.

[SPEAKER_03]: No, not that I know of at least not far as that rest records go.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: That I've been able to find because again, when you switch jurisdictions, it's so hard.

[SPEAKER_01]: However, Sarah did talk in a TikTok post about how she [SPEAKER_03]: Right, but that doesn't like, how does that?

[SPEAKER_03]: How does that jump to?

[SPEAKER_01]: Obducting and yeah, no.

[SPEAKER_03]: Obducting a child.

[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right, like that's on an A to B line.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, at all, not like, but that is the only kind of connection, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's more of a connection than male fraud.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, for sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: But.

[SPEAKER_01]: It seems as though if we're talking about Michael being in the neighborhood, then we need to talk about the neighborhood.

[SPEAKER_01]: Seren Stacy had intermittent employment.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mentioned, you know, like previous business partner of Stacey's was accusing them of stealing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So in Oregon, they had like an auto body or auto mechanic kind of place.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I guess like that's what Stacey does.

[SPEAKER_01]: He's mechanic.

[SPEAKER_01]: a business in Oregon.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know if that's the guy who is like accusing them.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't look that deeply into it, but that's what they were doing in Oregon.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now, in Idaho, they have been running some sort of a taxi service.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't know, like some just like weird taxi service like that's what she's been doing and then also on her Facebook she said something about laundry service that she had just launched I don't know much about that the taxi service seems to be like the main thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: So it seems as though, like the couple is largely supported by Sarah's family.

[SPEAKER_01]: At her Raymond on Monday, Sarah said that her only asset is her car, which she co-owned with her father.

[SPEAKER_01]: Her father also owns the house on Redwing Street where she and Stacey live.

[SPEAKER_01]: So they're the owners.

[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, interesting.

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought so.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then what's even more interesting is that I believe, but I'm not 100% I believe it's her father and stepmother who own the house, but they also live in the neighborhood on a [SPEAKER_01]: molestager her biological brother and apparently her biological mother like new about it or was involved somehow that i'm not sure about but i don't again i don't know somebody can correct me who like really did a deep dive into her videos because i just simply could not um i don't believe like her father was involved in any of this okay [SPEAKER_01]: But she does refer to her as her biological mother.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't believe that's who the woman is who lives in the neighborhood now.

[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, so her parents owned the house that they live in on Redwing Street, they live in the scene neighborhood in the same development on a different street.

[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a third relative who I think maybe her uncle, though I'm just kind of guessing on that, who lives directly across [SPEAKER_01]: So three houses in this neighborhood are owned by Sarah's family.

[SPEAKER_01]: So there's that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Then also interesting about this neighborhood is, you know, I talked about this 65 registered sex offenders.

[SPEAKER_01]: Three of them lived together in the [SPEAKER_03]: What the fuck are you kidding me?

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's a family, it's the Starkey family, and three of them who have that as their address are registered sex offenders, and not only that their charges are related to minors.

[SPEAKER_01]: Two men and woman.

[SPEAKER_01]: So we need to take all of that into consideration, keep that over on one side.

[SPEAKER_01]: And on the other side, [SPEAKER_01]: One time, he made a statement that said multiple people are involved, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like when they arrested Sarah, they said, you know, we think that multiple people know what happened to Michael, which makes sense if they're only charging her with concealing a death.

[SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: The other thing, and this is where we kind of get into more theories, is he said more recently within the last layer, so that he believes that multiple people know about the abduction and murder of Michael Vaughn.

[SPEAKER_01]: So he was very clear in that language.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm sorry, like he's been doing this, I mean, he's been doing this for a while in general, but he's been on this case for a year and a half.

[SPEAKER_01]: You don't say abduction and murder without meaning it, you know.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so that brings me to one of the big theories that has been going around because of course, like the theories, you know, Sarah and Stacey or the Starkies or somebody else they were involved with kidnapped Michael murdered him.

[SPEAKER_01]: They know about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's under its head or right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Is that Sarah or Stacey or whomever accidentally hit Michael when he was out running around looking for friends?

[SPEAKER_01]: And they basically got out of a pan.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like they covered it up, like they took him, maybe he passed away then, maybe he passed away later, and they've just been hiding that ever since.

[SPEAKER_03]: normal way to explain things.

[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, but didn't one of the witnesses originally say that there was a group of kids playing in the neighborhood?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_03]: So, if Michael had been hit by a card, don't you think somebody in the group of kids that were playing around there would have seen it and said something or screamed or whatever?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, thank you.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is exactly my point and not even that, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Like even if nobody saw it because it's on like a side street or whatever.

[SPEAKER_03]: heard something.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, because something like this just happened to us.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so I tune the morning like last week or something, somebody got into a single car accident, literally right in front of our house.

[SPEAKER_01]: They actually crashed their car and went on to our next door neighbor's lawn.

[SPEAKER_01]: This is a tune the morning.

[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't wake up because you just will sleep through anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't sleep, so I was already kind of awake and I heard it, but it was loud as shit.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I get it if you're dead asleep like whatever you're not going to wake up.

[SPEAKER_01]: But when Michael went missing, it was the evening.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was like 6.37 o'clock, right, ever.

[SPEAKER_01]: And at the end of July, it's still broad daylight.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are millions kids playing outside.

[SPEAKER_01]: There are people coming and going.

[SPEAKER_01]: There is not a chance in hell that a child could have been run over by a fucking car and nobody would notice, right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[SPEAKER_03]: Let's exclude the group of kids playing because- Yeah, forget about that, kids are dumb.

[SPEAKER_03]: This is a a a a a suburban neighbor.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, where houses are relatively close.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, they're close.

[SPEAKER_03]: Not like they're farmlands.

[SPEAKER_01]: No, it well, there is farmland near them, but there are it's a lot of houses.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, like if a car hits a child, even if the child doesn't make any noise, like there's going to be noise, yes, accident from the people that [SPEAKER_01]: get out and start whatever right yeah no i mean there's just no way it's not like they're driving through the cornfield and then hit him like it you know it had to have been on a street with houses and there's just no feasible way to me that that could have happened at that time of day and nobody would have noticed.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, especially in the past year and a half, nobody would have said, you know, I did hear something kind of weird.

[SPEAKER_01]: Blake.

[SPEAKER_03]: Especially considering the outpouring of neighbors.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, like there's just no way and so that that's the common sense part of it right and then add that to chief of statement where he specifically said abduction and murder, like, no, this was not just some accident that got out of hand.

[SPEAKER_03]: So then the question is, what involvement do the sexual predator neighbors have with Stacy?

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, that's up in the air, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, you hear like some people like, oh, they don't really know each other.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then you hear other people say, well, actually, they would like help out with the taxi business.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, so I don't know.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know the answer to that.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I do kind of wonder if it's like slightly a red hearing only because the sexual offender thing has been on the radar from the very beginning, but I mean, if the police are that confident.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, right, and so I should talk about the search a little bit so you know they were they did slow down the search even though it's not done and the they did say that they were kind of [SPEAKER_01]: doing finer searches, meaning like not so much back-o searches, but like smaller instrument searches, but then also focusing on the inside of the house, too.

[SPEAKER_01]: See, if there's anything they could find there.

[SPEAKER_01]: So like that is shifting in terms of whether or not they'll get probable cause to search the star keys property, we don't know at this point.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you need more than just, exactly.

[SPEAKER_01]: You need more than just like, you know, there's sex offenders like that's not enough, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: So we don't know about that, that part's still up in the air.

[SPEAKER_01]: As I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, this is far from the end of the story.

[SPEAKER_01]: Brandy Neal Michael's mother was caught off guard by the news this weekend.

[SPEAKER_01]: She just wasn't ready to get into the mindset of searching for remains.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is the word that got her, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, what you can understand, does a parent.

[SPEAKER_01]: She wasn't ready to tell her kids that Michael probably wasn't coming back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Lauren Matthias, the family spokesperson, told reporters quote, she is not doing okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: That is a direct quote from her.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are not okay.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've had to tell his siblings that he might not be coming home and quote.

[SPEAKER_01]: In addition to having her child-gum missing Brandy has spent the last year and a half getting bullied on the internet, which is what I was alluding to at the beginning, people judged every word she spoke and every tear she shed, and then gleefully posted about it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Some of it, you know, was the same bullshit we always see like she was crying too much, she wasn't crying enough, blah, blah, blah.

[SPEAKER_01]: But in Brandy's case, the judgment went far beyond that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw people outright accuse her and her family of not only lying about Michael's disappearance, but of being responsible for it themselves.

[SPEAKER_01]: And even today, like literally the morning that we're recording this after the arrest, after everything.

[SPEAKER_01]: I saw two people standing by that on Twitter being like, yeah, no, they were lying like they would have been telling the truth, we were just pointing that out like whatever as horrible as it must be to have to come to the realization that there's a good chance or son is in coming home.

[SPEAKER_01]: My hope is that this arrest and this search will lead not only to answers, but to her and her family regaining some of their dignity and hopefully some measure of peace.

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael just a phone has been missing from Fruitland, Idaho since July 27th, 2021.

[SPEAKER_01]: He was three foot seven and fifty pounds of the time of his disappearance, as blonde hair and blue eyes.

[SPEAKER_01]: Michael was last seen wearing a blue minecraft t-shirt, blue boxer briefs and flip-flops.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was five years old when he went missing, he would be six today.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyone with any information is urged to contact the Fruitland Police Department at 208-642-606-6 Extension Zero, or contact the department through its tipline at findmicole at fruitland.org You can see all the sources for this episode along with photos and videos on our website and then they are gone.com [SPEAKER_03]: and be sure to follow us on social, and then they were gone pod on Facebook and at ATTWG pod on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter.

[SPEAKER_03]: If you like what we're doing, please subscribe and consider leaving a five-star review on Apple Podcasts.

[SPEAKER_03]: It will help new listeners find us.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the more people that listen, the more chances we have of bringing someone home.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to this bonus episode, stay tuned after this for our original episode of Michael Vaughn's Disappearance.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see you here next week for a brand new episode.

[SPEAKER_03]: See you next week.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then they were gone, is hosted by Kona Gallagher and Ethan Flick, our research writing and editing is done by Kona Gallagher.

[SPEAKER_01]: The music is the store by Katza.

[SPEAKER_01]: Additional music is provided by Kai Engel, and then they were gone is a little monster production.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you can do it!