Episode 3: Red Flags

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“Hey, so I just wanted to come on and say something, I've read something on”

the Facebook about somebody committing suicide. That is a very sensitive subject, and I want to point out something, okay, because the way they said it was that they did not want to wait and finish out God's plan. All right, you cannot kill yourself. Your time of death is already set before you're even born.

The audio you heard is from a video posted to Facebook in 2019, less than a year before her passing. After Natalie's death, and the talk of a potential drug overdose became more widespread, people wondered if it could have been intentional if she had killed herself. Natalie battled with mental struggles from much if not all of her adult life and was not

“taking her prescribed medication for bipolar disorder.”

There are also rumors that she was diagnosed as schizophrenic, the Elaine told me she wasn't. Natalie was strapped financially, had just left an abusive relationship, and was in a custody battle with her ex-husband, all factors that could wear a person down. But there's nothing that can kill you if it is not your time to go. That is one thing that I tell myself when I have suicidal thoughts, because at times I do

I mean it's bad, like I do have depression, my mom has to major depression, my dad has major depression, and I don't even know what all he has, and growing up, and just things that have happened in life, I mean my mom gets a little twisted, you know, and I fight through it, and I keep on going, because there is hope, and there is a way, and I look back, I look at where I'm at now, and I look back a year ago, and it is so different.

My life, my kids life, is so different, and I still believe that to this day, no matter what happens, no matter what goes on, I know in my heart that God has a plan, and I know in my heart that I have a forever home. I'm not going to try to kill myself. The suicide of possibility, no matter how remote, friends and family wonder, could things

have been worse for Natalie than they knew, is there something more they could have done, Natalie was a devout Christian, attending church regularly. Suicide seemed to go against everything she believed, she seemed to be self-aware, competent, and have strong faith in God, at something changed in Natalie's thinking that she lose a battle she had been secretly fighting, or was this her pre-ordained time to die.

I'm Sean Kuy, from Audio Chuk and Particle Entertainment, this is The Truth About Natalie. When a bag containing less than one gram of meth was found on the passenger seat of her car, one immediate and prevailing theory was that Natalie had likely overdosed, as there were no clear signs of any physical trauma. But her toxicology results coming back negative for meth and a myriad of other drugs kind

of turn that theory upside down. Both the toxicology and autopsy reports explicitly stated that no drugs were detected.

I've read them both, but also in Natalie's case file, I found a second copy of the toxicology

report with handwritten notes on it, though I don't know for sure who's handwriting the notes are in.

fentanyl, and referenced the detection of trace amounts of meth, fentanyl, benadrill,

and lidocaine commonly used to cut drugs. However, it remains unclear whether these were theories or conclusions based on additional testing. As none of these were found in Natalie's system, according to the documents I've seen. For clarification on exactly how these toxicology tests are conducted, I went back

to Dr. Weedon, the forensic pathologist I spoke to previously, I asked him specifically about false negatives, meaning Natalie could have had drugs in her system that for whatever reason didn't show up.

“Here's the thing, according to Dr. Weedon, the testing methods used for Natalie's”

toxic screens were by all standards already comprehensive. They're called GCMS, or gas chromatography, mass spectometry, and LCMS, or liquid chromatography mass spectometry. I should tell you that that is the primary way most forensic college psychology is done in this country now. These are very good methods, very good methods.

So then how could Natalie have overdosed and died from meth, and it not show up using these advanced testing methods? How does it all really work? It's generally a process of chemical analysis, and they can discover a large number of organic toxins in the body. Now I'm not trying to take us all back to science class here, but I think it is really

important for us all to understand exactly how these tests work. The GC gas chromatography is a way of separating molecules. So if you take a piece of paper and you put an ink in it, and then at the one edge of the paper you put it in alcohol, that alcohol will diffuse through the paper, and as it gets to the ink, it'll separate the ink into different colors, right? Paper chromatography,

and you're seeing that, that is liquid chromatography. Here is gas chromatography, so it separates the molecules. Mass spec means you're separating the molecules by weight, and so now they're in different compounds are separated when they go in the mass spectrometer, which weighs the compound, and it weighs it for the number of ions. And it does say negative with the liquid chromatography, negative for cocaine, metabolites,

certain barbiturates, certain cannabinoids, negative for all that. Well, certainly it would include Sentinel and Methanphetamine. Those are so common, they make sure that theirants, mental analysis, will test for it. Investigator Boswell also told me that there was no fentanyl found in the meth recovered from a corn.

I mean, obviously it was tested, it was meth, nothing else in it. It came up and testing in the sample, no fentanyl, nothing. No. So, if not from an overdose, how did Natalie die? This got me thinking about the meth that was found in the car, who says it was hers at all,

“could it have been left behind by someone else, or even planted by someone?”

And though the contents of the bag were tested, there were no fingerprints recovered from the bag itself, I'm not even convinced that a real attempt to find Prince on the bag was made, strangely Boswell didn't have much of an answer for me either. Were there fingerprints taken from the baggy that it was in or in attempt was it an attempt made for that?

I know that we sent it to the crime lab to make that attempt. I don't know what the result of that was. Okay. I mean, I don't know because we didn't get anything back from him indicating that they were able to get any fingerprints off of it.

But you never hurt him only or the other?

No. That could be important. It could be, I'm not saying they didn't do it. I'm just saying that, yes, we collected it with the purpose of attempting to get fingerprints off of it.

“It seems like something worth pursuing, so how do we know who handled it?”

And that rolled up dollar bill that was laying just under Natalie's car seat? That was apparently not able to be tested due to the bill being saturated with fluids brought on by decomposition and insect matter in feces. So at this point, there's nothing that tells me unequivocally that the bill or drugs were Natalie's or that she used meth that night.

To complicate things further, in the case file, our several statements from people who attended the Fourth of July party describing Natalie as seemingly under the influence of something when she arrived.

I spoke again with Jennifer Peterson, the first person who told me about Natalie.

She got there and she appeared slurry is how it was described.

Jennifer is referring to Stephen Ford, the ex-boyfriend who invited Natalie to his family's lake house at night.

“Several people described her as being slurry with her words, and while there are any”

number of reasons for it, most would assume alcohol or drugs. All of them said that. All of them said that. All the testimony between him, his brother, and his mother, though it's over the only three that had statements given to law enforcement.

When I talk to him, I met him at a restaurant, set at the bar, and you know, I'm squaring him up, basically.

I'm looking like, do you know something, you know, he was like Natalie has never been

one to do drugs, because she saw so many people around her doing drugs, including family members. She'd never wanted to be that.

“He said now she did smoke pot, it helped level her out, so to speak, and she hardly”

ever drank. So he was like, I knew that it had to be something else. This wasn't meth, it wasn't cocaine, it's not an upper, it's that she was on. This was something that like spaced her out. I'm told Natalie stopped by her house before heading to the party and smoked pot, so maybe

it's as simple as that, though detox report does not indicate that she had pot inner system when she died either. I don't know what to make of that yet. Aside from slurring her words, there were other things, even noticed about Natalie's overall demeanor that night, things that stood out.

She was off, something was off. The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking, 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E in crime house, this is the official podcast from the famous true crime series, the first 48. On Carter Roy, every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with

long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow the first 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. We will focus on one missing person's case, and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them.

Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search date line, missing in America to listen completely pretty, or subscribe to date line premium to unlock new episodes early. After learning that Natalie was described as being under the influence by people at the 4th of July party, I reached out to her ex-boyfriend Steven.

He was polite, said he wanted to help. He was willing to speak with me, although due to some personal issues he was dealing with

at the time, I could never actually get a proper interview schedule.

So this audio is from when Steven was interviewed at the Herd County Sheriff's Office.

“And it's Steven Ford with a P. Yes, sir. How long did you meet Natalie?”

Steven gives investigators some basic information about how he had invited Natalie to his family's lake house. He said he didn't invite her kids because he just didn't feel it was a good environment for children, as everyone was going to be drinking, nothing more. But I suspect it was more that he wanted to rekindle their romance. When she arrived around 630 p.m. or so, he says something immediately felt off about Natalie.

She wasn't quite herself. I didn't know if maybe she was dealing with some of some of those balls in there. She was just kind of spicy. All I know is that when she got there, she walked around, she nursed her beer for like an hour, walked around, and I knew some was kind of

off. She never took her sunglasses off. So I couldn't look into her eyes and see if

her bloodshot. Then Steven begins to reveal more about Natalie's actions and demeanor that night. But she was always a picky eater. It struck him as odd that she had no appetite. We finished up a cornhole game. It was maybe an hour or so. And then we went inside and ate. I was like, "Come on, let's go eat. We got a bunch of food." Anyway, she had five little shrimp on a plate. She wouldn't eat them. So I, and then I, her shrimp, and then after that, we just kind of

milled around and we went to shoot fireworks. I mean, she was off. Something was off. Something like a Texaner. Wow, we were there. She was sitting on my knee right here. Somebody was Texaner, and you know, somebody'll hold their phone off to the side where you can't.

in team, team, team, and this was while the fire we should go on. I wouldn't be trying to pride, right? I tried to restrict her space, her privacy. Because after that, like, her tone kind of changed. Like, she kind of got distant from me. She walked out to the end of the peninsula. She was just looking around, you know? Like, she was indeed thought. I don't really think nothing of it. Steven said that Natalie appeared distracted, even sitting by herself at the edge of the lake.

isolating herself from others at times. What was troubling her? Natalie's phone blowing up is

“the key takeaway here. Her mood appeared to change. Who is she texting? And why was she making”

a concerted effort to keep Steven or anyone else from seeing her phone? A phone that was never found

by police. After fireworks, Steven tells investigators that he went and laid down. It'd been a long day of eating and drinking, corn, hole and boat rides, and he thought Natalie would come to bed with him when she was ready. I eventually went to lay down, fell asleep. I guess she walked around and talked to people for a little while. You know? Then I remember, I guess before she left, she'd come down and kissed me on the cheek. I thought she was spinning the night,

because she was going to stay. So, when I found out she left, it was, you know, I was disappointed because I thought that maybe, you know, you know, maybe she got her hat together and we could, you know, hang out. After Steven went to lay down, Natalie milled around for another hour or so,

“talking to his mother, Cindy Tucker, while waiting out a storm that had blown through. At about”

1045 pm or so, central time, she left, saying she had somewhere she needed to be in the morning. Cindy is who Natalie sent a text message to at 1252 Eastern Time saying, "I made it." Thanks again.

Cindy also told investigators that Natalie acted strange in the first part of the evening.

So we showed up about she was under the influence of something. That words was kind of blurry and her motion's thing to be a little slow. This wasn't the same person that I knew a year ago. But to me, she didn't act like tonight she was all mad. I hate to make an assumption, and it not be right. She actually liked she was high on something. She's kind of slow motion. My mom noticed it. My sister noticed it too.

In a video, Natalie herself posted a Facebook back in 2019, she briefly addressed her own drug use. I'm on a date to the drugs. I've the only day I've done with smoke green, um, like on a normal basis, as far as I've tried a treadmill at one time. I didn't even know what it was. I was 18 years old, so I was like, "Do you want to try this?" Okay, that scared me the crap out of me,

and I never touched it again. It's hard to make out what was going on with Natalie that night.

Was she under the influence of something? Was she honest about her drug habits? No one knows, and likely never will. I've spent so much time already talking about whether or not

“Natalie could have used meth the night she disappeared, because it's really that important.”

It's what law enforcement alleged caused her death despite a negative toxicology report. It's the difference between an accidental overdose and foul play. We now know most of Natalie's movements before and during the party. We've examined the scene where she was found and investigated the state her body was in, but still there are several big unknowns about how and why she ended up there in the first place. Early in the investigation, partial data records were pulled from

Natalie's phone. They used the RTT or round-trip time data and signal things off local cell towers to give an approximation of where she might be located while awaiting detailed data from her cell provider, like text and call history. But even with RTT data, locating her proved difficult. Initially what we did was we got a ping from Verizon and it gave us a general area of where the cell phone had ping from. In this particular case, it's a big area. So one of the things we did

initially was state patrol was like, yeah, well, fly for you. So we had them go up and just fly the area and during that same time, you know, patrols were driving around the area. I'm driving around the area going down logging trails just to see, because you, I mean, you don't know where a person might be. It's almost like the needle in a haystack. Natalie's phone data showed that she made it to within just a few miles of home that night. But then her cell bounced off numerous

other cell towers in the area, some around 30 minutes away. Natalie appeared to be bouncing around from location to location and a crisscross pattern with no apparent reason for her path of travel.

around before stopping where she was found three months later. Her phone pinged all over her

“county back into the current area on the forest when it went dark on the fifth, which is suspicious,”

because it's not, you know, it's not near where her body was found exactly. That area where she was found in comparison to where she was living is way out of the way. It is not any route that she should have taken to get home directly. It's way out of the way. It makes it a zero sense to me. Natalie knew this area well. She grew up here, so she wasn't lost. She deliberately had to have gone out of her way to get to this path. I mean, in theory. Or she made it back and something happened

and her phone was taken. Or as she went, if she met someone that she trusted and they went back out to go do something perhaps. I posed the possibility of Natalie having some kind of location spoofing app on her phone, like a VPN, which is meant to intentionally hide your real location. When you think about using a VPN, right? I mean, it changes your IP address. It makes you look like you're in Washington, DC, or you're over here and Fort Lauderdale, or then you're over in

Rhode Island. So it's essentially throwing off the cell tower and the transmission between the phone and the cell tower. I personally, my theory is that she did make it back somewhere where she was

“parked. And the reason that I believe that to be true is because of the text to Cindy Tucker,”

it is in her style of typing. If you compare different typing styles that she's done in text messages, there is an email draft saved in her Gmail, and it was at 152 a.m. Eastern time.

And it said, I hope you had a great fourth. That draft was never sent. And that was a big red flag to

me, but proved in my opinion that she was stationary and that she was still alive. So now we can assume that Natalie was alive until at least 152 a.m. Eastern time, because she had typed an email, but never sent it. This cell phone data moving around from tower to tower becomes even more strange when remembering that her cell phone was never found. One theory proposed by the district attorney was that perhaps she simply lost it.

Well, yeah, maybe, but to she also lose her sandals, sunglasses in the belt she was wearing in the middle of the night, because those items weren't recovered either. There aren't many ways that a phone can truly go dark. The battery could die, you could lose it, or it could be broken,

whether accidentally or intentionally. Natalie was never without her phone, so her losing it

is a long shot, especially since she was theoretically in her car the entire time that night. The battery wouldn't likely have died because when she was found, she was actually sitting on a charging cable plugged in to her car. One would think that during the hour and a half drive home, her phone would have been plugged in. Most people do that when using apps like Google Maps, which we know she used on the way to the party. We know that from her phone data.

If she lost her phone somehow, her battery likely wouldn't have died so soon afterwards. She had an iPhone, and the battery lasts a long time when idle, which it would have been.

“So what if the phone was stolen, take in, or intentionally broken them?”

That could mean that she was with someone else at some point. Was Natalie really alone that night. Also, if Natalie really did pull off the main road into this turnout to use fentanyl-laced meth, as has been alleged, doesn't that still constitute a crime? Would the person who gave or sold it to her not be liable for her death? These perplexing circumstances lead me to a theory that's gained a lot of traction over the past

several years. It goes against the sternly defended theory that law enforcement believes that Natalie's hot pink car was stationary for over three months, just off a busy road, and no one saw it. Because if by some chance it wasn't, then there is an entire piece of this story missing, opening a Pandora's box of other questions. I asked her mother a lane of she felt that the car was there for the entire three months.

No, I don't think our fault was there. I know her car went there then to put it down. That car was clean is what you could pull out of a showcase, you know, it was that clean. I'm not saying it wasn't there, maybe I'm not the three weeks before, but evidently it wasn't there September 26 because they looked at the land, you know, they wouldn't right there at the land. And it wasn't there. According to supplemental reports in Natalie's case file,

it was actually on September 11th, 2020. When investigator Boswell and fellow

They didn't see the car. I remember that day in that night. I was in that area. In fact,

“the little access cut through where the power lines go through, where you go, where Natalie was located,”

actually, had pulled up in that spot. The grass and everything was grown up and you're talking about September timeframe. So I mean, you think about how it looks now, three months later, it's completely grown. And so I didn't drive up in that area. And at the time, I just didn't think about it because I wasn't thinking somebody would pull off into an area like that. I'm looking more somebody being on a roadway or being on a dirt road, which we have a lot of

hearing heard County. So I went down every driveway. I went down every dirt road to look for that paint car. Just like everybody else had been doing for the last couple months. We just didn't see it. Ebbing, you can't not spot a hot paint car if you're actually looking comprehensively when would think. So maybe they missed it. But could everyone else traveling in this

“part of the county have simply missed this hot paint car as well?”

I'm Josh Mankowitz and I hope you'll join us for Season 5 of Date Line Missing in America. In each episode of Date Line's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing person's case, and hear from the families, the friends, and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Date Line Missing in America to listen completely pretty or subscribe to Date Line Premium to unlock new episodes early.

The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E in crime house, this is the official podcast from the

famous true crime series, The First 48. On Carter Roy, every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide

investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow the first 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts. One major point of contention from the start between many locals and law enforcement in her county was Natalie's car. In particular, whether it was parked at the location where it was discovered for the entire 93 days she was missing, here's Jennifer. We've had people that have

come out from behind the scenes that live on that road, they have stated they drive that road every day. It's a very well-traveled road, most of the people that are driving ethin down that road, a majority of them are in trucks, there are like logging trucks, like bigger, you know, a step above like your normal truck. I mean, we've heard accounts of, yeah, like my kids were riding four wheelers on that exact spot. There was no car there a week before. There were people out there

coon hunting. They were in that exact circular-ish cutout of where Natalie's car was. We are not, you would have seen it. Hot pink stands out against everything. So even if there were some weeds or brush growing up around the car, any visible part of the car would stick out like a sore thumb against the green foliage. And that's if you're not really looking for it, you just happen upon it. But aside from law enforcement, there were dozens of people looking specifically

for Natalie's car nearly every day, people who all save the same thing. We just rode and rode and rode, looking at all of them, the bad roads, and we were riding slow and looking in the woods.

And we never saw anything. We rode that road how many times would have seen that car.

If it was there, I do not believe it was there. She could clearly see that pink car from the main road. If it would have been there the whole time, somebody would have seen it.

“I think that whenever Natalie went missing, that they had her in her car. And I believe that”

that car was kept somewhere out of the weather. That car was not there. When they pulled that car out of their woods, that car was cleaner than my car that I drive on the highway every day. They'll never convince me that car was there. These are just a few of the dozens of people who were out searching for Natalie and her car daily for months. They all mentioned the

possibly housed somewhere else or covered for at least part of the time Natalie was missing.

And while I wouldn't personally say Natalie's car was showroom clean, it wasn't, I would expect it to be dirtier than it appeared.

“Could a car really have been moved there several days or even weeks before being found?”

If so, that's a really big deal. When I asked investigator Boswell about this theory, the car being moved into place shortly before it was found, he seemed almost annoyed at the idea. You know, that car was there the whole time. She was in the car the whole time. I know that. I mean, when I looked down that area, because you could see that there was

then an opening there at one time, right? But there was no tar marks, no tracks, and it was boron up.

The weeds were grown up. That leads me to something else that stands out as odd, the position in which the car was parked. If Natalie had parked there, under her own free will, she wouldn't have been able to get out of the driver's side door. It was budded flush up against brush, briars and trees. And when looking through the file photos, I noticed that while the passenger side door is closed, it's not closed tight. You can see a small gap, meaning the door wasn't

latched all the way. So with someone else in the car that night. And again, the trunk was popped open slightly too. So if Natalie needed to get something out of the trunk, why would she have

“parked so close to the brush that it would force her to climb in and out of the passenger side door?”

It doesn't make sense. And one more strange observation, the lack of animal activity in or around the car. It's subjective, I will say, but like trunk popped open, decaying body. You've got raccoons, possums, coyotes, evalters, buzzards. You've got foxes. It's dense woods out there. Why is there nothing on the head of the car on the top of the car that no bird droppings, no animal poop, no claw marks? While not conclusive by any means, this is a good point. Even though the car was

closed, I would expect to see evidence of some kind of scavengers making attempts to get inside the car. The scent of a decaying body should attract more than just flies and beetles. With the trunk open, one would think that at least one animal over a three-month period would attempt to make their way inside the trunk and start scratching around. If only to inspect before giving up, as the rear seats block access into the rest of the car. But there was no sign of this.

You can drive in a rural remote area and see buzzards swarming, and you know it's probably a dead deer, or something is dead out there. None of that happened, but the point that I want to make with this is you had a herd county corporal that lived right across the street that had a clear view right into that easement from his driveway. At no point in those 93 days, do you ever step outside to go check your mail? Here's something, see something, smell something. You've heard previously that

herd county corporal Nick Coleman assisted Lieutenant Boswell on a search of this area on September 11, 2020. It might be hard to explain this in a way that makes sense without a visual aid,

but basically, at the time, home and lived catty corner to where the car was found just three

weeks after the search of this area was conducted. I wanted to see how this car could have been missed, and what this location looked like for myself, as opposed to relying on the dozens of photos and

“maps I've seen. The only way to do that was to go there myself.”

I met with Elaine, Jennifer, and two other advocates for Natalie, Jen and Becky. We piled in my car and they took me all over her county to see relevant sites from that night. The first place we went was to the location of her car was found. As we pulled off Roosterville Road onto the small access path, I was surprised by the condition of the path leading to Natalie's car. This is not what I thought it was going to be, so like this is almost four-wheel drive.

Yeah, and almost. I don't know. It's not what I was expecting. This little road even going to the path line back in there. I just thought it was more like flat. It's not for our car to go back today. I mean, you certainly, obviously, can get a car back in there, but being a woman alone at night. It's just like it would be so pitch black. Yeah, there's no streetlights. The path leading back to Natalie's car,

well, only about 150 feet or so long, was covered with grass and it places there were weeds almost up to my knees. At night, even with headlights, it would have been a little dicey driving back here in a small Chevy Cavalier. I purchased off the main road and it took less than a minute

is where Natalie was found. The five of us delicately chattered about various aspects of the case

“as to not upset Elaine, and though we all tried our best to downplay the emotional gravity”

housed in this non-descript tract of dirt and weeds, it was there and it was heavy. This was the exact location that Natalie may have taken her final breath. Elaine held strong for a while, but eventually, it all became too much for her. And she was overcome with emotion. I know this is really difficult to be here and to talk about this stuff, Elaine. I just want

you to know that I don't know how to see this at the time. The answer is the final one I would have

liked. In the short time of known Elaine, she's come across as strong and handled the emotional complexity of discussing her daughter's death well. When you're in a continual search for answers like she is, you are forced to talk about and relive traumatic memories over and over, making it

“difficult to move forward, but seeing her break down reminded us all that she simply a mother who's”

lost her baby. I stopped the conversation, just gave her a long hug until she was ready to continue. After comforting Elaine, we all began to dissect different aspects of the case when Becky noticed something. Oh, wait a minute. So we're standing here and I just saw that white truck, all of that.

Yeah, I can see it all the way down here. Right. I've never stood here before just to see,

but I like to see that there's some confirmation here. I can see the cars passing. They should be able to see us staying in here. I'm, I'm 5 foot nothing. It was on a truck and I went down the road. I can see up in their truck. If we can see the drivers of passing cars, then they can see us. And you would think that they would be able to see a hot pink car. When the man that found Natalie's car while bushawking stumbled upon it, he had already done several passes in the clearing.

Initially, he says he thought it was a hunter parked there. I reached out to him several times with no response. When he thought the car he thought it was a hunter, it's still hunt and a potpink heavily. Well, that and why would a hunter be parked with it? Yeah, you know, that just doesn't make sense. I, that wouldn't make sense. In any circumstance, you know, to pull up right against all this, because how are you getting out? Standing in the spot where Natalie's car was parked

up against the tree in brush line, something else becomes apparent to us all. Why would Natalie

“or anyone for that matter have parked in this spot? You have to remember, under the influence of”

something or not, this was an attractive young woman alone in the middle of the night in a very dark wooded area. And Natalie had recently purchased 19 acres of land located just a few minutes away from the spot we were standing in. Why not just pull over there on your land? Why is this location? When she visited several times that night, one just feet away from a herd county police officer's home. So important. Something definitely felt wrong with the theory that Natalie just

owed heed. I began retracing what I'd learned so far, looking for anything that stood out as suspect. For me, the big question became when did things begin to go wrong that night? Natalie's ex, Steven, had mentioned that while at the party, she seemed under the influence of something. He also said that her phone kept blowing up, and that she was constantly checking it and would tilt the phone away from him when she did. So why did she seem so distracted? Who is she

talking to? When police finally received Natalie's full cell phone records from Verizon,

they poured through every text and email, every private message sent or received through her social media accounts and scoured her web history. They wanted to know who she'd communicated with in the days leading up to her disappearance. And what they found from there shocked most people who knew Natalie, and it became clear that she did, in fact, have secrets. She would go up to the ultra cry. She was failing guilty for the things that she was in, but she wanted to get out of it.

We want to paint Natalie as this, you know, angel, sweet, struggling mother, two kids, doing what she had to do, but then when you look at what she was doing and her involvement and her choices,

but you can listen to the entire series right now, add free in the crime junkie fan club,

“use code "truth" for 50% off your first month at the link in the show notes.”

The truth about Natalie is an audio-chuck original, produced by particle entertainment. I wrote and produced the series. Executive producer is Ashley Flowers.

“Additional research provided by community advocates for Natalie Jones,”

original music written and performed by Jackson Epley, and a special thanks to Elaine Gordon and her family. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence,

“help is available at the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 899-7233.”

You can find me on social media @shonkipofficial or @shonkipe.com, and you can email me any information about this case to [email protected]. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts,

and as always, thanks for listening.

Every year, millions of people head into the wilderness searching for peace, beauty, and adventure, but hidden in those same scenic landscapes are stories of violence, survival, and life's cut short. I'm Delia Diambra,

and on my podcast Park Predators, I uncover the true crimes that happen in the most amazing places

on earth. Listen to Park Predators wherever you get your podcasts.