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Kristal Reisinger

2020/3/5
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Up and Vanished

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克里斯塔尔的父亲
唐纳德
播音员
主持著名true crime播客《Crime Junkie》的播音员和创始人。
梅雷迪思
阿拉·麦克唐纳
阿拉·麦克唐纳的邻居
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播音员:本集节目回顾了克里斯塔尔·赖辛格的失踪案,该案发生在科罗拉多州克雷斯顿,一个以其精神中心而闻名的偏远山区小镇。克里斯塔尔于2016年7月失踪,她的公寓被锁上,没有搏斗的迹象。她的失踪引发了各种猜测,有人认为她迷路了,也有人怀疑她遭遇了不测。 克里斯塔尔的父亲:克里斯塔尔是一个聪明、有天赋的年轻女子,她最爱的是她的女儿。他坚信克里斯塔尔不会和她的女儿断绝联系。他怀疑克里斯塔尔遭遇了不测,因为她失踪前正准备报警指控自己被强奸。 阿拉·麦克唐纳:作为克里斯塔尔的房东兼朋友,阿拉·麦克唐纳讲述了她与克里斯塔尔最后一次见面的情景。克里斯塔尔当时非常痛苦,告诉她自己可能被下药强奸了,但没有报警。阿拉·麦克唐纳注意到克里斯塔尔失踪时,公寓里留下了大部分物品,包括手机和烟草,这让她感到非常奇怪。她怀疑克里斯塔尔可能自愿离开或被人带走。她还批评了警方的调查处理方式,认为他们没有及时调查最后与克里斯塔尔联系的人“Catfish”。 阿拉·麦克唐纳的邻居:这位邻居描述了克雷斯顿的独特之处,既有其自然环境的优美,也有其阴暗的一面。她认为克雷斯顿吸引了许多想要逃避外界的人,同时也存在着一些不为人知的黑暗秘密。 唐纳德:节目组在第二季播客之后立即开始拍摄电视节目,并与一位关键人物“Catfish”进行了面对面的交谈。他认为“Catfish”在隐藏某些事情。 梅雷迪思:在克雷斯顿拍摄电视节目时,节目组的出现立即引起了当地居民的注意,这与之前的匿名调查不同。尽管失去了匿名性,但节目组利用了这一点,获得了新的线索并与更多人进行了交谈。

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Kristal Reisinger, a 29-year-old woman, went missing in Crestone, Colorado, in July 2016. Her disappearance is revisited by the Up and Vanished team, who discuss her background, the spiritual nature of Crestone, and the circumstances surrounding her disappearance.

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Hey guys, in today's episode we're going to discuss Crystal Risinger's case, which was featured in the third episode of the Up and Vanished TV series. If you haven't seen the TV show yet, you can stream the episode from the Oxygen app whenever you want. Here's a quick refresher on Crystal's case.

In July of 2016, 29-year-old Crystal Reisinger went missing from Crestone, a spiritual outpost in the mountains of Colorado. The Navajo Indians have considered Crestone sacred ground. It's a haven for people on a spiritual journey. It was a very bright place during the day and then at night it was a very dark place. Her apartment was locked, no sign of a struggle.

Crystal was a very smart, talented young lady. The one thing she loved more than anything in life was our daughter. She would not have severed ties with our daughter. Many speculated that she had gotten lost in the mountains on a spiritually driven walkabout. She was very much into the occult.

However, she was never found along any trail, and she appeared to take none of her valuables. People were afraid to talk. They don't like to get law enforcement involved. Some say she was hanging out with an untrustworthy crowd involved in hard drugs. She was about ready to go to the police about being raped, and people didn't want her to make that report. I suspect foul play.

Up and Vanished covered Crystal's case in season two, and the team is back to follow up on tips and talk to a particular person of interest, who, according to the police report, may have been the last person to see Crystal. Some people were scared after the podcast came out. Justice will be served, and get ready, because we're going to get everybody who's involved. The following is an extended interview from our time on Crystal Reisinger's case. My name is Ara MacDonald.

How would you describe a place like Creston? It changes a lot and it has changed a lot so it's a hard question to really answer. For someone who's never been here though, what would be... How would I describe it? Yeah. I would say that

It's stunning with things like nature, the mountains, clean air, clean water, and that draws a lot of people here. We're also well known for the spiritual centers outside of town. The actual town of Crestone is a mixture. It's a mixture of ages, different kinds of people, different backgrounds, different interests. It's pretty well known for being a free-thinking place where there's a lot of free thinkers, a lot of people that are outside of the box.

a lot of freedom, a lot of open-mindedness. Some people call it a free-range insane asylum, which can be kind of the shadier aspect of it, but really it's just a mixture of really interesting people.

Is there a dark side to Crestone? Yeah, there's pretty much a dark side to every place though, but it's more noticeable in Crestone because the population is so small. So it stands out more when you notice it than in bigger cities and places like that. Do you think that a lot of people come here to get away from the world out there? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, people come here to get silenced, to

get back in touch with themselves. It tends to attract hermits and people that like to, you know, spend time by themselves. A lot of people come out here to get away from the noise, you know? Yeah. How did you first meet Crystal? I first met Crystal, well, I'd seen her at the pub several times just in passing, so I saw her many times before I was introduced to her, but

My ex-husband, David Steele, was friends with her, and he mentioned to her that I had a room becoming available in my building, which I was the property manager of the building. He introduced me to her officially. We got to talking, realized we had a lot of things in common, and we sort of became acquaintance, friends, and she was desperate to find a place to live, and I decided to give her a chance and see how it would go.

When was the last time that you saw Crystal? Um, let's see. Probably the beginning of July. Like the first week of July, I think. Did something happen to her in late June that she was telling you about? Yes. Well, I mean, where would I start with that? Let's see. You came to her door one time, right? Yes. It was to collect rent. It was a little bit late.

I think that was July 1st, if I remember correctly. She was late on rent and you went to her... I think it was July 2nd or July 1st. I just went to knock on her door because the actual landlord of the building needed all of the rent checks to be in the same envelope. And so when one person was late, it threw everyone else off. So I went up there, um...

I'd noticed that something had shifted with her previously to that. Maybe a few weeks before that I noticed she looked more stressed out. She looked like she'd probably fallen back into some drugs again or something about it was getting bad. She was also stressed out and broke at that time too, but I went to go collect rent. I knocked on her door. She didn't answer.

I knocked one last time and I was going to leave when she opened up the door and she had a tear-stained face. She was extremely distraught and I said, "What is going on? Are you okay?" She said, "I don't really want to talk about it, but I went to a party and I'm pretty sure that I was drugged and raped."

She said she couldn't really remember a lot of it, but later on when I spoke with some other people and they said, "How did she know?" I mean, physically you would know. If people were rough with you, you would still feel sore afterwards even if you couldn't really remember anything. So I asked her if she was planning on doing anything about it or

She said she was considering going to a clinic and getting it checked out, but the protocols and how all of that stuff works, I think that she just decided it was too much and she didn't do it. So because of the state that she was in, I said, "Don't worry about your rent. Just come and bring it to me whenever you're ready. And if you need to talk to someone, I'm here for you." And that was pretty much the last real time that I talked to her.

I mean, I might have seen her and she did drop her rent off, I think the next day for me, but I could tell she didn't really want to talk. Whose house was she at that night? She didn't tell me. She didn't tell me, but I do know that after she went missing, her friends were coming around looking for her and all of them were all saying that she had to be at Catfish's.

Her boyfriend said she had to be over it. There were actually people convinced that she was being held there and that she was still there.

And so they were talking about banding up to go and confront him and get her out of his house. But I don't know if they ever did that. I don't know if they ever went over there and did that. What do you think happened? Because all of her stuff is inside of her apartment and she just left or something. Either she went somewhere or someone took her from there. What do you think happened? Well, I can tell you that we could never find her key.

So she may have brought her key with her. We never found a wallet, so she may have had a wallet with her. But she left her tobacco, her phone, and her bag at home. And her computer. You think it's odd she left her phone, though? Yes. To me, that seems like... Well, I think it's weird she left her tobacco at home and her phone. Yeah. And all the lights were on, the fan was on. It was like that for weeks. What does that tell you?

that she probably either left voluntarily on her own or went off with someone or someone came to get her and she had an intention of coming back and she never came back. Maybe she thought it would only last a few minutes and she'd get her stuff in a minute or someone hurried her out of the room. Yeah. Yeah, seems like she thought she was coming right back. Oh yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, it was disturbing. It was disturbing. Even the cop that came the first night had a bad feeling. We all had a bad feeling about it. And we did listen to our phone messages. And there were a lot of back and forth phone tag moments with Catfish. He was the last person to reach her on her phone. Really? Yeah. What was he saying?

I don't, we never got a message from him, a voicemail message from him. But you know how it says you dialed a number or made a call to somebody. The last person that she made a call to was him. - When did you first realize that she was missing?

I had a weird feeling about it, but it's when you're a property manager, you don't want to babysit your tenants and everybody's got their lives. People go away on vacation. They're not going to always tell me where they're going. They have their own lives. So I would say probably by the second week into July, I started to have a bad feeling because at night I would be walking down the street and every night I would look up at her window and all the lights were on and the fan was on.

And I spoke with Jeremy. She did have a car at one point, and then her car was gone. And we didn't know that she had sold her car.

to someone. And so we thought she still had her car and we thought, oh, her car's gone, so maybe she went on a trip or maybe she went someplace. But I had to leave her a number of voicemail messages complaining about some things that had gone on that I needed her to help me clean up. And she never responded and I never heard back from her. And after I had left the fourth voicemail message, I and the fan and the lights were still on in the window.

I asked Jeremy if he had seen her, and Jeremy said no, and that he had a weird feeling about it, but her car was gone. Maybe she just went away. Who's Jeremy again? Her closest neighbor in 202. They shared a very tiny lobby, so he was the closest tenant to her unit. And yeah, he said, I haven't seen her at all, or I haven't heard her at all, but her friends are starting to come by looking for her, and I have a weird feeling about it.

And so we let some time pass, you know, and then towards the end of the month, I just got a really bad feeling. You know, she should have been home by then or contacted me or something. I just started to feel weird about it. So that's when Nathan contacted me on Facebook and said, have you seen Crystal?

and I haven't, I don't know where she is. Is she okay? Did she pay her rent? And when her boyfriend didn't know where she was, then I was like, okay, something's wrong. And that's when I called up the police. Do you think Crystal was murdered? Yeah, I think she's dead. Yeah. I don't know if maybe, I mean, it's all theories, right? Unless you know or were there, but it's either she was murdered deliberately or she was accidentally killed.

But there's, I mean, there's been a lot of things in town about for a number of years now before Crystal, during Crystal, and then after Crystal of women being drugged and raped here by groups of men. And most of them end up being dumped in their driveway with no panties and they can't remember what the heck happened to them. So they can't remember faces, they can't remember what happened, but they know something happened. - Who's doing this? - A group of people.

People you know? Not that I know. Whatever group it is, they're pretty good at hiding it or hiding who they are. And a lot of the women don't remember. But since the podcast came out, I remember going to the liquor store and there was a neighbor of Catfish's who heard my voice and recognized it. And he said, "You're Ara, aren't you?" And he said, "You know, I've been neighbors near Catfish for a long time.

And after the podcast came out, I got weirded out because there were always bright lights, super, super bright lights, not growing pot lights. That's different. These are different lights and they would happen every night and flashes and things like that. And he said that he was walking down the road, ran into catfish and said, "Hey, what's up with all of the bright lights at night?" And he said, "Oh, I'm a photographer."

So my personal feeling, my personal opinion is that they probably document it and have been doing this for a long time. So they either shoot movies or they take pictures. I mean, there was a picture on Dreddy Bryant's phone eight years ago of one of his friends raping his daughter. So they must share that stuff with each other. I don't know. It's creepy. It's really, really, really disturbing.

Really, really disturbing. And the rumor thing is tricky because people chalk it off as all rumors, but rumors usually come from someplace. And if you hear the same rumor from multiple mouths, it probably comes from some kind of truth. In your experience, whose name has come up the most in this case? Catfish. Catfish.

But I, again, I've also heard other things and I have a feeling that he's connected to even more dangerous people that he deals with and probably gets some of his stuff from. So there may be other higher ups involved. It's either, it's either Catfish did something to her or Catfish is connected to people who did something to her and they're all part of that group. You see what I'm saying? So. How are the, how are the cops handling this?

I don't know about these days, but back then they handled it extremely badly. And there were some things that being a mother really rubbed me the wrong way that made me question, you know. I mean, I can't say that the whole sheriff's department is crooked or I don't even know the sheriff. I've never really dealt with the sheriff. Mainly I've dealt with Wayne and I can definitely say that Wayne specifically handled some things extremely weirdly. Like what?

Let's see, I reported her missing. The first cop, Mr. Tyler, showed up. He was super nice. I could tell he was a really good cop and a good guy, and he could sense that something was really wrong. Then all of a sudden they switched it to Wayne, so it was no longer under that guy, it was under Wayne. So because I listened to the messages, and there were a lot of recordings of her contacting Catfish as the last person she spoke to,

I brought it up with him when I said, "Aren't you gonna go talk with Catfish?" I mean, I'm a mom. If my daughter disappeared, I would go straight away to whoever was the last person she spoke to on her phone to ask, "Hey, what's up? Have you seen her? Do you know what happened to her?" That's just a given. You would have to do that right away within 24 hours.

He waited days and days and I said, "Why aren't you talking with Catfish?" He said, "We can't find Catfish's address. I'm sorry, but can't you look that up on a computer in a matter of minutes on where people are located and their names?" And so he said, "We can't find his address. We need his address." And I said, "Okay, I'll go find his address for you."

So Marina knows Catfish, is friends with Catfish's dad. I went up to the liquor store and said, "Do you have Catfish's address?" She gave me a map with the exact right address. I called it into the police station and then

Three or four days later, I ran into my ex-husband and I said, "What are you up to?" He said, "Oh, well, Wayne can't find Catfish's address and so I'm running all over town trying to find the address for him." And I said, "That makes absolutely no sense because I just called it in four days ago." And I got the impression that he was trying to keep people distracted and busy running around. Why would he do that? To hide the fact that they weren't looking into it? I'm not sure.

or to make people think that they were doing something about it, or to distract people with something to give them to do to get them busy. I don't know. But by the time he actually went, there were so many of our friends complaining and not

She had a wide array of friends. Not all of them were in that scene. Not all of them did drugs. Some of them were totally super sweet, amazing person. Not that people who do drugs aren't, but there were all different kinds of people that were friends with her. And a lot of them were complaining, saying, why haven't you gone to catfishes? And I think that's when he finally had to go over there and talk. But that was like a week or two weeks later.

When a lot of, if there was ever any evidence, they could have easily gotten rid of it in that time. Right. So catfish, what's up with catfish? Who is he? I have only met him a few times in person a long time ago. For all I know is that he's the big drug guy that you can get anything you want from. So if you want acid, if you want mushrooms, if you want whatever, whatever, pharmaceuticals, whatever, you go to catfish to go get that.

And I do know he's kind of a recluse. He hangs out in his house all the time. Does he have a job?

Selling drugs? I don't know. I don't know the guy. I briefly met him once for a total of maybe 15 minutes at Saturday Market years ago when he was there with some opals he was selling or something. Is he still in town? No, he skipped town around the time when the podcast came out. And then his house was gutted and they even removed the windows. Really? Yeah.

And I looked into it because I was like, okay, why would they remove windows? Can windows hold meth? Because I know that walls can and the toxins can last in a building for a super long time. But looked into it, meth can get caught in glass.

And so my guess is that at one point they were using it as a place to either do meth, smoke meth, or make meth. And maybe there was some DNA or who knows what embedded in the walls, who knows. But definitely the whole thing was so obvious. I'm sorry.

I mean, the timing. How do you feel about the timing of him leaving? The podcast comes out, he's been here for 17 years. That's what I mean about it being obvious. To me, that's really obvious. Everyone thought so. Yeah. You know? There's a lot of opinions in Crestone, a lot of different kinds of people. Some people blew it off. Some people acted like she...

was just a messed up person and who cares what happened to her or she just ran off and then there's a lot of other people that have been here for years that have children and they really want to know what happened and we're all really concerned. How do you feel about it?

about what? - About Crystal and finding her and her daughter, her family getting answers. - I want Crystal and her family to both, I want Crystal's daughter especially, Crystal's family to have justice. I want Crystal to have justice. And not only that, I want justice for this town because I live here. I have a daughter. I don't want my daughter to be a teenager here.

I don't. If I could move and bring her someplace else, I would. And it doesn't matter whether people think she was messed up or not. She was a human being and everyone should be concerned that things like that are going on. It just blows me away that there's been rumors for years of girls being drugged and raped and nothing has ever been looked into it or done about it.

A lot of people here want to pretend that those things aren't happening or they want to believe that it's not that bad. You know, and the ones that do know it's that bad are probably involved in it or have been a victim of that, you know? From the rumor mill here, have you heard anyone in town talking about where her body might be? I've heard lots of rumors. I've heard one that she was in-- I've heard that her body was moved several times and then incinerated.

I've heard, I heard one rumor that she was buried underneath concrete in somebody's yard. Those are the things that I've heard. Then there's rumors she was dumped down a mine. There were rumors she was carried someplace far away. The thing with the gold van and seeing a body bag, that was much later on from when she disappeared, but it is completely possible they could have been moving her. Yeah.

So, I mean, if you have to like try to imagine to be a drugged out meth head in order to get the mentality, but the adrenaline and the fear that's caused by possibly getting caught, who knows? They could have totally moved her several times and then figured it out from there. There was a girl, dead girl found in a barrel in Moffitt years ago.

So it could be anywhere. That's the thing. It could be on somebody's property. It could be who knows, you know. What do you think it's going to take to solve Crystal's disappearance? Somebody being somebody involved in it or who was there or or who know people who are there who is brave enough to actually speak up about it.

But if you're involved in that scene, those people can be deadly and they're about, I mean, let's face it, like they all get their, there's a larger drug scene going on in our valley that has to do with trafficking things from Mexico. But it would have to take someone being extremely brave.

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The Up and Vantage team, Donald, Meredith, and myself, sat down for a roundtable discussion about our experience revisiting the case. Coming right off of season two of the podcast, Crystal Reisinger's case, we basically immediately started filming. And...

I said we have to do a TV show episode about Crystal. We have to continue covering this story however we can. And so obviously having spent almost a year in Colorado with Crystal's family in Crestone talking to everyone we could think of, we had to try something a little different this go-around. For me, that was getting face-to-face with some people that I had a lot of questions for.

And I think you know who I'm talking about. There's one person in particular. And that was pretty much the game that I was playing. How do I get this particular person to sit down with me, man-to-man, and have a real discussion about what may have happened to Crystal? And thankfully, we accomplished that. And I think that based on the way that it went, it tells you a lot about that person. For me, I felt like this guy...

this guy's hiding something and yeah that's just my gut feeling and i think just it's hard to make excuses for his behavior i don't care how strange you are the way that he is acting on camera and you'll see it tells you a lot and this was your first time face to face with him you've talked to him on the phone exchanged emails and texts but your first time face to face yeah with tara's case being there for so long in in um osceola

But with no cameras. It was definitely different when shooting the pilot coming back. Just the reception from the town, right? You had people who were like, oh yeah, you guys are here finally going to get some closure for this thing. You had people saying, I don't want you in my restaurant because you're just here to kick up more dust. Let's talk about how it was going back to Crestone with cameras this time. And how was that experience so people can know?

I mean, personally, I wasn't very excited about bringing a whole camera crew to Crestone, Colorado. Right. One, because immediately everyone who lives there is going to know exactly who this is and exactly what we're doing. I knew it was just a matter of seconds or minutes before the whole town knew what we were up to. And so I told the entire production crew, literally everyone I could think of,

I mean, but...

That didn't last long. As soon as you pull up in two black SUVs in Crestone, you're pretty much outed, that you're there. You're not a local. Osceola is a small town, right? I mean, but it's the South. It's a unique town, but nowhere near as unique as Crestone. Crestone is this sparsely.

spiritual center you know you're in mountain ranges and just people who are there for various reasons it's not just like your small town in the south so you're gonna stick out like a sore thumb unless you are truly a local no one drives a black SUV in Crestone right

I kind of think I missed the anonymity of coming to Crestone, a really tiny town, and not having some preconceived notion about who we were and what we were doing. But at least I guess people knew immediately, oh, it's for that podcast. Oh, it's for that story. So in some ways, people came to us. Like we got some tips. And I think one of the best things we did in this case right now is follow up on some tips that we hadn't had the opportunity to follow up on before.

Yeah, there's a lot of power in being incognito when it comes to investigating something. And so the first go around in Crestone, we had that. We had this sort of, you know, we were anonymous. No one knew our faces. No one knew what we were doing. It was just us taking notes with a little recorder. But the next time around, you know, flash forward to the TV show, we roll up in these big black SUVs looking like the DEA or something.

And, I mean, instantly everyone knows what's going on. And so in that instance, this go-around, you know, we have to, we had to harness that. We had to use that to our advantage. Obviously, it's not my ideal way of doing things, but that's just what it was. We're filming this. That comes with extra people. You kind of just have to ride the bull. And that's what we did. We followed up on tips and we used that to our advantage as much as we could and talked to some new people and talked

ask some people we talked to before some new questions. It was great to have that opportunity to bring more people out there, have a bigger team there, feel like we could do some more. Yeah, I think it's also good to let, kind of put the town and those who might be responsible on notice that like the podcast was over, but this thing wasn't over for us. And not only did we come back, we came back with cameras. We came back to do it on a different level in a different way. So

You know, as much as we can do that, we like to just because you don't want anyone to ever get comfortable that they've gotten away with this. Yeah, absolutely. And the truth is there's still tips being sent in. There's still people giving information and talking about this case. So it really isn't over. Right. Yeah. There was a lot of pressure, not just in Crystal's case, but all the cases that we looked into, right?

to move the needle in some way in a very short amount of time. And so my head was always going to, okay, where is this person of interest? There always is one. And there's usually one that hasn't been talked to or confronted and find that person, get as much information as you can, and then go talk to them, go talk to them. And, um,

For me, this was, I mean, obviously there's a huge emotional connection to Crystal's case. Spent so much time in Crestone with Crystal's family and her friends. And this go around, we wanted to really fight for answers in a different way. And to me, that was making Catfish sit down with me and have a real conversation.

And essentially preparing myself for that as much as possible. Yeah, that was the one thing that I think was needed in the absence of, you know, answers and justice. It was to get face to face with the person who was

really at the center of this and whose story didn't quite make sense and whose erratic behavior kind of needed to be confronted and explained. And nothing changed, you know, as far as his behavior. One thing that was really interesting about revisiting this case was how much physical ground we covered. In 2018, we did team up with Chris Halsney to search mines, and that was interesting.

totally new experience for our team. But this time we went back and we searched even more tips and we collaborated with Tracy Sargent once again with her search and rescue dogs. And we got to see totally different areas that people said, you know, maybe this could be an area of interest. Maybe this could be something that would help solve this case.

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Well, we got a minute. I'm going to buy that truck I've been wanting.

Wait, don't you need, like, weeks to shop for a car? I don't. Carvana makes it super convenient to find exactly what I want. Hold up. You're buying a car on your phone? Isn't that more of a laptop thing? You can shop wherever you want. I like to do my research, read reviews, compare models. Plus, Carvana has thousands of options. How'd you decide on that truck? Because I like it. Oh, that is a great reason. Go to Carvana.com to sell your car the convenient way. This season, Instacart has your back to school.

As in, they've got your back-to-school lunch favorites like snack packs and fresh fruit. And they've got your back-to-school supplies like backpacks, binders, and pencils. And they've got your back when your kid casually tells you they have a huge school project due tomorrow. Let's face it, we were all that kid.

So first, call your parents to say, I'm sorry, and then download the Instacart app to get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes all school year long. Get a $0 delivery fee for your first three orders while supplies last. Minimum $10 per order. Additional terms apply. Talking to Catfish in person was probably the biggest thing that set this episode apart from season two of the podcast.

To be honest, it was a surreal experience. Getting up close to someone that I'd heard so much about, talked on the phone to for so long, and was still just so perplexed by. My hope was that by maybe talking in person, our conversations would finally take a solid direction. Somewhere closer to straightforward answers and not just weird tangents.

So many people I've directly spoken to have hinted or alluded at Catfish being involved, in some form or another, or at least knowing something. Even Catfish himself says that he has the proof Dready Brian admitted to killing Crystal. But on the phone, it was easier for Catfish to dodge my questions and just go off on tangents. He loves doing that. So the day that I finally met Catfish in person went like this. A few days prior, I had tried to arrange meeting him in person in his hometown in North Carolina.

I knew that later that week, I'd be there with the producers of the TV show. This was my one shot to get him on camera and ask him some hard questions. And to my surprise, Catfish agreed to meet. So he chose a local public park that was apparently not too far from his house. The day comes, I arrive, but there's no Catfish. I wait, I wait, and I wait. And eventually, I reach back out to him on Facebook. And this time, I video call him on Facebook chat.

From the moment he answered, he gave me all these reasons about why he can't go. Basically just excuse after excuse. And even though my patience was wearing thin, I tried my best to convince him to talk to me. Again, in person. Finally, after a back and forth that gave me a headache, we agreed to meet at a local bar that was not too far from the park. This time, he better show up. And to everyone's surprise, he did. For about an hour, Catfish and I sat outside on the patio, talking about Crystal's case.

In the beginning, it was a lot of the same stuff I'd heard before. Random tangents about absolutely nothing. Eventually, I started asking the hard questions. About seeing that Facebook proof that he said he had about Dreddy Bryant killing Crystal. Immediately, he told me that the Colorado Bureau of Investigation said he can't release it. So I called his bluff by calling the CBI right there in person, and they say right there on speakerphone that Catfish can, in fact, release it. So what is he talking about? Again, Catfish is tripping over himself and his lies.

It was after my speakerphone call with the CBI that Catfish had really lost his temper. All of a sudden he just up and leaves, walking the other direction. Then randomly sits down at a booth with another guy. Turns out his dad was there too. When Catfish left the table, he had dropped his glasses. So as a nice guy, I was bringing them back to him. As I approached the table, I tried to introduce myself to Catfish's dad. And Catfish stood up, pulled out his motorcycle helmet, and pretended to swing it at me.

Knowing the guy was obviously a loose cannon, I thought he was really going to do it. As I was leaving the bar in my vehicle, Catfish approached me and reaches inside the vehicle and basically tries to punch me. By the time I actually left, he was just so mad about how our exchange went that he was actually trying to physically take it out on me. If there was any question about this guy's potential of harming somebody, well, I can say that he made a feeble attempt to harm me. Either way, the guy is a loose cannon.

And when faced with real hard questions about what happened, not just that, I mean, Catfish says that he has proof that Dready Brian killed Crystal. When asked about that, he gives me a lie that the CBI won't let him release it. So right then and there,

Before he can go on a tangent and distract me or whoever else, I call the CBI right there to call the bluff, and on the phone, on speakerphone, knowing that Catfish is there, he gives Catfish permission to release that screenshot that Dready Brian killed Crystal. Faced with that right there, he then tells me that he doesn't think that was the CBI.

the agent that he's talked to before his which is who i called that that was someone else who maybe sounded a lot like him as if i maybe hired an actor with people like this the lies just don't stop at a certain point when you push them in a corner and you keep presenting to them why that is a lie

their lives start to make less and less sense. And for me, this is one that made the absolute least amount of sense. That when I call the bluff about the CBI preventing him from releasing that information, he, only when the phone call was ended, says that he thinks that wasn't the CBI and that that's why he won't release it. The bottom line is that there's always going to be a reason or excuse for Catfish to not come forward with something.

And if he has nothing to do with Crystal's disappearance or Crystal's murder, then why does he seemingly have so much to say about it all the time? Why are you meeting me to talk about it? Clearly you have something to say. Catfish, you were the last person to see Crystal alive. And if you weren't, prove that you weren't. So as Catfish had his hands inside the vehicle, obviously I'm driving off, and he proceeds to spit on the back of my rental car.

Basically all this to say that if you heard Catfish talking in the podcast, meeting him in person is exactly what you would expect it to be. To sum it up, my entire interaction with Catfish at the bar that day was full of empty threats on my own life personally. Even as I tried to leave in the end, Catfish approached my vehicle and tried to punch me. Regardless of Catfish's involvement in Crystal's murder, there's something wrong with the guy. And if you don't believe me, just watch the show.

And beyond Catfish John and Crystal's case, there's one or two more guys that I think need to be tracked down and talked to. I personally believe that these conversations are really the way to shake things up. This Saturday at 7, 6 central, Oxygen Network will play the next episode in the Up and Vanish TV series. We'll be covering the Molly Miller and Colt Haynes case. And don't forget to tune in next week for a follow-up podcast episode on the same case. Thanks for listening, guys. See you next week.

We'd like to take this time to remind you that Tenderfoot TV set up a GoFundMe account for Akasha, Crystal's daughter. Donations will help build a brighter future for Akasha, despite the family difficulties since Crystal disappeared. For details and to donate, visit 4kasha.com. That's 4kasha.com. F-O-R-K-A-S-H-A dot com. F-O-R-K-A-S-H-A dot com.

If you have any questions about the cases covered by the Up and Vantage TV series, please call us at 770-545-6411. Again, that's 770-545-6411. Executive produced by Payne Lindsey and Donald Albright. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Meredith Stedman, and Cooper Skinner. Voice narration by Rob Ricotta. Original music by Makeup and Vanity Set.

A big thank you to the crew and everyone we spoke to during filming. Check out the show this weekend, only on Oxygen. Have you made the switch to NYX? Millions of women have made the switch to the revolutionary period underwear from NYX. That's K-N-I-X. Period panties from NYX are like no other, making them the number one leak-proof underwear brand in North America.

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