0:00

Nitro Extreme is coming to Marion.

0:02

Experience this motor stunt show June 15th

0:04

to the 18th at Marion County Fairgrounds. Featuring

0:06

auto stunts, two-wheel driving, epic jumps, motorcycle

0:09

tricks, and much more. For tickets, visit nitroextreme.com

0:12

or call 941-704-8572.

0:15

Previously on Unsolved.

0:21

I don't understand why you guys keep going out

0:23

over the place and disturbing me. Oh,

0:26

so I'm really sorry to disturb

0:28

you. You're pleased to do that. You went

0:30

to Lisa's house. You went to her boyfriend's house.

0:32

Why are you doing this? Because there's

0:35

still... Because there's nothing. Well,

0:37

but there's still a lot of questions

0:40

in Milwaukee. So we're not trying to... We're not

0:42

trying to bother anybody.

0:51

From USA Today and the Milwaukee

0:53

Journal Sentinel, this is Unsolved

0:56

Season 4. A missing girl.

0:59

A search for truth.

1:01

I'm Gina Barton. Chapter 7.

1:05

A DNA Discovery. As

1:12

I told you back in the very first episode,

1:15

I started working on this season in

1:17

early 2020. Then the

1:19

pandemic hit and the news business

1:22

and the world got a little crazy. At

1:25

the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where I was

1:28

still working at the time, it was all

1:30

hands on deck. Everyone

1:32

shifted away from other projects

1:35

and toward coverage of the pandemic.

1:38

I was no exception. Our

1:40

country is in the midst of a

1:42

great national trial, unlike

1:45

any we have ever faced before. You

1:48

all see it. You see it probably better

1:50

than most. We're at war

1:52

with a deadly virus.

1:55

About a year later, as the media

1:57

started getting back to covering other things,

1:59

I came... changed jobs. I was finally

2:02

able to shift back to this project in 2022.

2:04

And as I went through

2:06

my old files,

2:08

I realized there were some things

2:10

I hadn't had a chance to follow up on.

2:12

In the early stages of my

2:14

reporting three years ago, I

2:16

was following a thread about a woman

2:19

named Lisa in Ohio whose

2:21

ex-husband Josh thought she

2:23

might be Alexis Patterson.

2:25

Not only did Lisa resemble

2:27

the age-progressed image of Alexis,

2:30

she didn't have a birth certificate or any

2:33

mementos of her past.

2:35

Nothing. No infant pictures, no

2:38

first steps, no pictures in the diaper, no

2:40

kindergarten, no first grade, no nothing.

2:44

Back then, I had talked with Josh's

2:46

new fiancé, Sasha, but

2:48

I hadn't done enough reporting to figure

2:50

out how significant some of the things

2:53

she said might be.

2:55

I uncovered the recording of the conversation

2:57

not long after Ashley and I returned

3:00

from Ohio last summer.

3:02

First, Sasha and I talked

3:04

about the at-home DNA test

3:06

that Ayana, Josh, and Josh's

3:09

son did to determine whether

3:11

Ayana was the boy's grandmother.

3:13

In episode six, I told you

3:15

the results were inconclusive,

3:17

but it turns out

3:19

there's a larger explanation,

3:21

and it's important.

3:22

Sasha and I used the boy's name

3:24

when we talked, but we're going to beep it

3:27

here to protect his privacy.

3:29

We knew it was going to come back inconclusive

3:32

because we didn't have the biological mom. Does

3:35

that make sense? Because

3:37

Ayana would be Alexis, at least as AKA

3:39

Alexis' mom. So to get

3:42

the conclusive results, we

3:44

would have needed Lisa to beep in Ayana,

3:47

but we didn't have Lisa because she's refusing

3:49

to come forward,

3:51

so we used Josh to beep in

3:54

Ayana. And what it did is

3:56

it came back inconclusive because we didn't

3:59

have the biological mom.

3:59

didn't have WISA, but has

4:02

like 17

4:02

matching genetic

4:04

markers as IANA.

4:09

Sasha sent me the results of that test

4:11

from a company called IdentiGene. It

4:15

does show that Josh's son and

4:17

IANA share several genetic

4:19

markers. And it does

4:21

characterize the results as inconclusive

4:24

as to whether or not she's his grandmother. Sasha

4:27

seemed to think that meant the two of them

4:30

were most likely related, but I wasn't

4:32

so sure. To me, inconclusive

4:35

means you can't tell one way or another.

4:37

I also thought Sasha could be mistaken

4:40

about why the test was inconclusive.

4:43

It seems to me that DNA should

4:45

be able to show whether IANA

4:47

was the grandmother without having

4:49

DNA

4:50

directly from LISA. I

4:52

sent the results to Alison Peacock, a

4:54

genetic genealogist we've been working

4:56

with for our larger project on missing

4:59

children of color.

5:00

I found Alison through

5:02

the work she had done on a case known

5:05

as the Baby Holly case. Holly

5:07

Marie Klaus was less than a year

5:10

old when her parents were murdered in 1981. When

5:12

the police found their bodies,

5:16

the baby was nowhere to be found.

5:19

In June 2022, through Alison's work and that

5:23

of other experts, Holly was found

5:25

alive and well and living in Oklahoma.

5:28

When

5:29

I told Alison about Alexis's case,

5:32

she said it reminded her of Holly's.

5:34

Alison shared

5:36

the DNA report Sasha gave me with

5:38

her team. Then she

5:41

called me back with their interpretation. They're

5:43

just saying basically on that

5:45

report that, you know, it's

5:48

infinitesimally small that

5:51

a daughter of hers is the

5:53

mother of this child. And so, but

5:55

because it's not as low as it

5:57

could possibly go, they're saying

5:59

they're

5:59

and inconclusive. But the difference

6:02

between what they say conclusive and inconclusive

6:04

is, it's just noise.

6:08

It's just static. It's not enough to

6:10

be significant. And I would

6:12

never suggest that

6:14

somebody go use a drugstore test

6:16

to determine it. But I mean, when you're a desperate

6:19

grandmother, I mean, your mother, you do what you got to

6:20

do. I understand what she did,

6:23

but I would love to be able to give her

6:25

some more concrete results based on better

6:27

testing.

6:30

One key element of the better testing

6:32

she's referring to is, of

6:35

course, a swab from Lisa,

6:37

which after the encounter with the police

6:40

in Ohio, I

6:41

can pretty much guarantee we

6:43

won't be getting. So there was

6:45

still this sliver of doubt. And

6:48

as it turns out,

6:50

we did have some better testing.

6:52

Sort of. When Josh

6:54

and Lisa got divorced, both of them

6:56

submitted their DNA to a

6:59

family court for paternity testing. Josh's

7:02

second wife, Sasha, had forgotten

7:04

all about it until after the Milwaukee

7:07

police announced in July 2016 that

7:10

Lisa's DNA didn't match Alexis.

7:14

It was quite some time after the

7:17

July DNA test had came back that it

7:19

wasn't her that I

7:21

was just praying

7:22

and

7:23

asking for anything something to prove

7:26

that this is not right. Like something isn't

7:29

right. And I woke up at like 4 45 in

7:31

the morning. And I was

7:33

like, Oh, my gosh, the DNA test with Lisa and

7:35

Josh, that has her DNA

7:37

on it. So I actually

7:40

got up and I flipped on the light and I

7:42

was going through our closet

7:44

because that's where our safe is. And that's where

7:47

I had everything in there. So I got

7:49

it out, I sent it to Ayanna, and it kind

7:51

of went from there. And that's how she was like,

7:54

it's her. I

7:56

asked Sasha how they came to that conclusion.

7:59

they get a lot of the research into

8:02

like

8:02

DNAs and all

8:04

of that. And then I just asked myself,

8:06

well, can't we just take all the genetic

8:09

markers, write them down and compare

8:11

yours from your DNA test with Alexis

8:14

and then match and we says

8:17

to

8:18

the genetic markers. And that's

8:20

how we actually we realize

8:22

that while her DNA is practically identical.

8:25

Do

8:26

you still have

8:27

like the paternity test results

8:29

that have Lisa's

8:32

DNA profile on it? Yeah. Would

8:35

you please send me that? Yeah.

8:39

She emailed me right away and she

8:41

was right. When I compared Lisa's

8:43

results from the paternity test with

8:45

Iona's results from the grandparent test,

8:48

it really did look like the two of them had

8:50

a lot of matching markers.

8:52

But because they were two different types of analysis,

8:55

I couldn't do an apples to apples comparison.

8:58

I needed help from a scientist

9:00

who could tell me how this all worked and

9:03

whether Iona and Sasha had reached

9:05

the right conclusion. So I sent

9:07

the grandparent report and the paternity

9:09

report to Dr. Michael Cox, a

9:12

biochemistry professor at the University

9:14

of Wisconsin who studies DNA.

9:17

First, I asked him about the

9:19

science behind DNA analysis.

9:22

He told me that in Britain in

9:25

the 1990s,

9:26

scientists figured out there are tiny

9:29

pieces of chromosomes that repeat

9:31

in certain places.

9:33

If you could have chromosome seven,

9:35

for example, there'll be one spot on

9:37

that chromosome where one of these repeats will occur.

9:40

And they found examples

9:42

where they only repeated between 10

9:46

and 30 times in whole human population.

9:50

So there wasn't too much variation, but there

9:52

was a fair amount of variation in the size

9:54

that repeat.

9:57

Genes come in pairs called

9:59

alleles.

10:01

You inherit alleles

10:03

from your father and mother, so you get

10:05

one from dad and one from mom.

10:07

So on chromosome 7 at this one locus,

10:11

you might get, on one of your chromosomes,

10:13

you might get a repeat that repeats 12 times.

10:16

And from your dad, you get

10:18

another chromosome 7 and you might get one

10:20

that repeats 17 times from your dad.

10:25

As I listened to this explanation, I finally

10:28

understood what Sasha and I had been

10:30

missing. Simply having

10:32

a lot of matching markers doesn't

10:34

mean two people are related. The

10:37

important thing is where

10:39

those matches occur.

10:41

Two women would need to have the

10:43

same marker on the same chromosomes,

10:46

including chromosome 7, in order

10:48

to be mother and daughter.

10:50

My heart pounded as I waited

10:53

for Dr. Cox to tell me whether

10:55

Iana was Lisa's mother.

10:58

The answer to that is no. She's

11:00

very definitely not her mother. We'll

11:03

have more after the break. Let

11:21

alone do it.

11:23

It may seem noble to put yourself last,

11:26

but it will always catch up with you in the end. When

11:28

we spend all of our time giving, we're sure

11:30

to end up burned out and exhausted. Therapy

11:33

can give you the tools to find balance, so

11:36

you can keep helping others without leaving

11:38

yourself behind. A

11:39

lot of people think therapy is only for times

11:42

of transition or crisis, but it can

11:44

also help improve your everyday life. A

11:47

qualified therapist can help you figure out your

11:49

priorities, set healthy boundaries,

11:51

and stop being so hard on yourself. If

11:54

you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp

11:56

a try. It's entirely online, convenient,

11:59

flexible, and easy to do. and designed to fit into your

12:01

busy schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire

12:03

about yourself and your goals to be matched with

12:05

a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists

12:08

anytime at no additional charge. Find

12:11

more balance with BetterHelp. Visit

12:13

betterhelp.com slash UN

12:15

today to get 10% off your first month.

12:18

That's betterhelp,

12:19

H-E-L-P dot com

12:21

slash UN.

12:28

I had absolutely no idea how

12:32

I was going to break this news to Ayanna.

12:35

For a few fleeting moments, I

12:37

thought about how much easier it would be not

12:40

to. I could just hope she never listened

12:42

to this show and never found out. I

12:44

could ask Ashley to tell her so I

12:47

wouldn't have to. I could scrap this

12:49

whole project and avoid the entire

12:51

issue.

12:54

Obviously, none of those things were

12:56

realistic. I would have to

12:58

talk with Ayanna about this eventually. But

13:00

I decided to take some time to think about

13:02

the best approach, about how to break

13:05

it to her in a way that wouldn't destroy

13:07

her trust yet again.

13:10

In the meantime, I had another

13:12

issue to deal with. From

13:14

the beginning, I knew it would

13:16

be important to talk to Laurent

13:18

Bourgeois, who was married to Ayanna

13:21

at the time of Alexis's disappearance.

13:24

He had told the police and the public

13:26

repeatedly that he walked

13:28

Alexis to the corner on the

13:30

morning of May 3rd, 2002, and

13:33

watched the crossing guard take her across the street

13:37

to the school playground. But the police could

13:40

never get 100% confirmation of that story.

13:44

Some students and teachers said they had seen Alexis

13:47

on the corner with Laurent, or

13:49

at the playground, or even in school

13:52

the morning she disappeared.

13:55

But I was equally convinced she

13:57

hadn't been in any of those places. guard

14:00

was a fifth grader, who said

14:02

she wasn't sure if she had helped Alexis

14:05

cross the street that morning.

14:09

And then there were all the theories and

14:11

pieces of neighborhood gossip that Laurent's

14:13

history as a snitch, or the fact that

14:15

he was a drug dealer, may have led to

14:17

Alexis being kidnapped as some sort

14:20

of revenge.

14:21

In the immediate aftermath of Alexis's

14:24

disappearance, Ayanna backed him up.

14:27

After they split up, the police questioned her

14:29

again, hoping she had been covering up for

14:31

her husband and would finally rat him out.

14:33

She didn't. The

14:35

police kept the pressure on Laurent, too.

14:38

Mark Williams was the prosecutor

14:40

assigned to Alexis's case. He already

14:43

knew Laurent from the bank robbery you

14:45

heard about back in episode two, the one

14:47

where Laurent was the getaway driver and

14:50

testified against a guy who shot a cop.

14:52

So Mark Williams knew Laurent

14:54

might talk if he was offered a deal.

14:58

I certainly told the detectives that

15:01

if he would gather and give any information

15:03

as long as he wasn't the one that killed her, that

15:06

we certainly would be willing to do

15:08

something for him.

15:11

Kathy Spano, one of the cold case

15:13

detectives who worked the case, said

15:15

she and her partner, Eric Villarreal,

15:18

brought up that offer with Laurent.

15:21

He was offered that, and Eric and

15:23

I had spoken

15:23

to him about that while he was

15:25

in custody for a serious offense. I

15:28

don't know if it was a gross

15:31

offense or what it was when he interviewed him

15:33

at the jail, but he was

15:36

certainly told about that, like you say. He knows.

15:39

He knows how one hand washes the other. He

15:41

knew that probably more than anybody.

15:45

But Laurent didn't tell them anything.

15:48

Maybe he didn't agree to that because he was the

15:50

killer. I don't know. I

15:52

don't see that.

16:00

if she believed LaRon really

16:02

had walked Alexis to the corner that morning.

16:05

I don't know. I don't

16:07

trust his soul. By

16:10

then,

16:11

LaRon had a serious drug problem,

16:14

and the two of them were no longer in touch.

16:16

They share a daughter, but she didn't know where

16:18

to find him either.

16:20

I put LaRon on my list of people

16:22

to try and track down,

16:24

but I never got the chance.

16:26

LaRon Bourgeois found dead today.

16:29

The medical examiner says it's being investigated

16:32

as a possible drug overdose, but an official

16:34

autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.

16:37

That news was reported on January 19, 2021.

16:47

LaRon's death was a huge setback

16:50

for the investigation into Alexis's

16:52

disappearance. It was a problem

16:54

for Ayana, too, and not just

16:56

because he was the father of one of

16:59

her daughters. Without a confession

17:01

from LaRon, or a lead about whether

17:04

a rival drug dealer had actually kidnapped

17:06

Alexis, it seemed that law enforcement

17:08

would never stop considering

17:11

Ayana a

17:11

suspect. I've

17:13

come across several indications of

17:15

this while reporting this story. For

17:18

example, when Ashley and I were trying

17:21

to get the Milwaukee Police to talk to us

17:23

about Alexis's case and to release

17:25

at least some of the records of their investigation,

17:28

they said they wouldn't, unless Ayana

17:31

said it was okay. They wouldn't take our

17:33

word for it that she was on board. They

17:35

wanted her to tell the new cold case detective

17:38

directly. So even though Ayana

17:40

was wary of the police, she agreed

17:42

to speak with the detective, Tim Keller,

17:45

when I asked her to. She told him

17:47

it was okay if he spoke with us about

17:50

Alexis's case. She also

17:52

told him she did not trust the

17:54

DNA sample that showed Lisa

17:56

in Ohio wasn't Alexis,

17:58

and she asked him... to go there and

18:01

get another one.

18:25

You

18:30

record it, if I see you record

18:32

it and I see you take it up and everything, I

18:34

see everything being left. But

18:36

the thing is... Now, if I do that

18:39

and I bring it back here and it's not

18:41

a match, okay, and it's not,

18:43

then you tell me what really happened.

18:48

Are you serious? I'm asking,

18:50

I just argue through all of that. You're telling

18:52

me it's going to be a match so it should be more private.

18:55

Wait, wait,

18:55

wait, what you mean, what you mean tell you what really

18:57

happened? Let's get to that. What you mean tell you what really

18:59

happened? Well, if that's not her, if it

19:02

comes back that it's not her, then there's something

19:04

else going on.

19:07

I also got the impression that the

19:09

FBI never stopped thinking of

19:11

IANA as a suspect. Back

19:14

in 2016, after the jurisdictional problems

19:16

arose with collecting DNA from Lisa in Ohio,

19:19

and IANA started to question whether it had been

19:22

faked,

19:23

she called the FBI to see if they would help.

19:26

Instead of listening to what she had to say, the

19:28

agent, whose name is Amy Metzel,

19:31

spent almost the whole conversation

19:33

trying to get IANA to take another polygraph. IANA

19:36

recorded that call too. She

19:38

didn't tell Agent Metzel she was recording,

19:41

but she didn't have to under Wisconsin law.

19:43

So if you called Nick McRae now, and you went

19:45

to Nick McRae, I'm sure you felt it, but the National

19:47

Center for Missing and Exploited Children, if you

19:50

called them, they would tell you, in

19:52

today's environment, this is one of the

19:54

things that's automatically done, polygraph.

19:58

and

20:00

used a handheld recorder, which is

20:02

why Agent Metzl is so hard to hear.

20:05

She's saying, if Ayanna were to call

20:07

the National Center for Missing and Exploited

20:09

Children, they would tell her,

20:11

new polygraphs are automatically

20:13

done on the parents of long-term

20:16

missing children.

20:18

After I heard that tape, I called the National

20:20

Center for myself.

20:22

Rebecca Steinbach, who helps lead

20:24

the Media Relations team, told me,

20:26

she spoke with several people there, and

20:29

they don't believe they recommended that Ayanna

20:31

be given another polygraph.

20:34

Rebecca also sent me the

20:36

National Center's Law Enforcement

20:38

Guide for Investigating Long-Term

20:41

Missing Children,

20:42

which says nothing about automatically

20:45

doing new polygraphs.

20:47

It says, cold case investigators

20:50

should review the suspect information,

20:53

which may include polygraph

20:55

results. It goes on to

20:57

say that a polygraph result,

20:59

quote, can be a

21:02

helpful tool for investigators,

21:04

but it should not be used by itself

21:07

to conclusively identify or

21:09

eliminate a suspect,

21:11

end quote.

21:12

And I think it's worth repeating that in

21:14

Wisconsin, polygraphs are considered

21:17

so unreliable

21:19

that they cannot be used in court.

21:21

Agent Metzl also wouldn't tell

21:23

Ayanna why they wanted her to take

21:26

the test again,

21:27

or what they hoped to gain from it.

21:29

Here's another clip from their conversation.

21:52

Okay, we can relax and

21:52

we don't have to worry about any issues

21:54

coming up with you. Now that there

21:56

would be so many years now, even if

21:59

I would to the moment, police department and

22:01

we said she's the only polygraph, what

22:03

are they going to do with that?

22:06

The FBI agent is telling IANA

22:08

that basically a new polygraph

22:10

was just a formality. If

22:12

she passed, she could breathe easy.

22:15

But if she failed, the

22:16

police couldn't use the results against her because

22:19

too much time had gone by.

22:21

After I listened to this recording, I had

22:24

some questions.

22:25

Why would Agent Metzl tell

22:27

IANA that the National Center for

22:30

Missing and Exploited Children wants

22:32

to check a box when they told me

22:34

they don't?

22:35

If the Milwaukee police really couldn't do

22:38

anything with the results of a new polygraph

22:40

test, what was the point of asking

22:43

IANA to take one in the first place?

22:46

I left a message for Agent Metzl hoping

22:48

to ask her those questions,

22:50

but she didn't call me back.

22:52

Instead, my call was referred

22:55

to Leonard Peace, the PR guy

22:57

in the FBI's Milwaukee office. He

23:00

told me he couldn't answer any questions.

23:03

Number one, we have

23:06

a very strong policy about privacy

23:09

rights and we would

23:11

never be in a position to

23:15

make any kind of acknowledgment,

23:18

you know, positive

23:21

or negative, just to confirm or deny

23:23

contact with a private

23:26

citizen.

23:27

I told him I had a recording, so

23:30

it wasn't about confirming whether

23:32

the conversation had happened,

23:34

but I still got nowhere. We had

23:36

almost a half hour conversation where

23:38

I pushed back and he gave me all

23:40

kinds of examples and reasons and

23:43

said it didn't matter whether IANA was okay

23:45

with him talking to me.

23:46

He also wouldn't address what Agent

23:49

Metzl said on the tape at all.

23:51

When I asked the Milwaukee police chief,

23:54

Jeffrey Norman, for his reaction

23:56

to what Detective Keller said, he was a little

23:59

bit of a bitch. bit more forthcoming,

24:01

but still didn't directly answer

24:03

the question. I always

24:05

hope that we as a department

24:07

be as professional and as honest

24:10

and forthright as possible,

24:13

but we have

24:15

a lot of work to do. More

24:19

after the break.

24:26

It did not make sense that Ayana

24:28

would still be talking to me and

24:30

trying to get publicity on the 20th anniversary

24:32

of Alexis' disappearance if she

24:35

had been involved.

24:37

I asked Gaetan Borders for her thoughts

24:39

about that. Gaetan is

24:41

the president and CEO of Pease

24:44

in Their Pods,

24:45

a nonprofit that aims to give voice

24:47

to missing children of color and their

24:49

families. And I mean,

24:52

to me, like, for 20 years

24:55

she's been like engaging in the media

24:57

and nagging the police

25:00

and even like has called

25:02

the FBI in several different states and gotten

25:04

meetings with them. Like, if you did something

25:07

to your own kid, why

25:08

would you do that? You wouldn't. You

25:11

wouldn't do that. You absolutely

25:13

would not do that. As a matter of fact,

25:16

you wanted to go away. Right. Yeah.

25:19

You live quietly. You don't engage

25:22

like the heads of departments,

25:25

law enforcement departments by any means.

25:27

So it's harsh. It's harsh.

25:32

Kathy Spano, the cold case

25:34

detective, implied that there

25:36

might be something more going

25:39

on.

25:39

Are people like that, even some of the other

25:41

South killers that I've dealt with,

25:43

and they're in denial, because they did such

25:46

a horrible thing, are they able to

25:48

like totally forget what they did? Are

25:50

they able to push that out of their mind because it was

25:52

such an awful tragic thing so

25:55

traumatic that they don't even remember

25:57

the facts anymore? You know, I got

25:59

a feeling that.

25:59

is something that could be going on with the

26:02

young adult that maybe she either just doesn't really

26:04

remember because she was pretty

26:06

screwed up back then, but I don't know, just

26:08

something to think about, I guess.

26:11

Kathy went on to say that she'd

26:13

never gotten around to consulting an expert

26:16

about that possibility before she retired.

26:19

I knew the perfect person to ask, Elizabeth

26:22

Loftus, the expert on repressed

26:24

memories.

26:26

She's the one who did studies where

26:28

her team planted memories in test

26:30

subjects, convincing them they had

26:32

gotten lost in a mall or been saved

26:34

from drowning when those things never happened.

26:38

Is it possible that you could kill

26:40

your daughter and then convince yourself you didn't?

26:43

Can you erase

26:46

a memory? And we've

26:49

tried to erase memories, it's a little bit

26:51

harder to do. We can substitute

26:53

one memory for another and that can

26:56

weaken

26:57

the original memory, weaken

26:59

it. And that maybe

27:01

is a kind of erasure,

27:03

but it's

27:06

a little harder to take a memory away

27:08

than to plant one in somebody's mind.

27:12

By way of example, she said,

27:14

someone could probably convince themselves

27:17

that they'd crashed after driving through

27:19

a green light when the light was actually red.

27:21

But that was a far cry from forgetting

27:24

an accident had happened at all.

27:26

I think it'd be kind of hard to kill

27:28

someone and then convince yourself that you

27:30

didn't. Unless you did it when

27:33

you were

27:34

incredibly inebriated.

27:36

I know alcohol and even

27:39

marijuana can affect the formation

27:41

of new memories.

27:43

The other option of course, would be

27:46

that Iona really did know something

27:48

and she was lying to the police and

27:51

to Crocker and to me and to

27:53

everyone. But in my

27:55

heart of hearts, I just didn't believe

27:58

that was possible. I

28:00

have never been the least bit uneasy

28:02

around Ayanna. She's

28:05

always come across as genuinely

28:07

sad and angry about the fact

28:09

that Alexis disappeared.

28:11

She's never tried to evade any

28:13

question I asked.

28:16

She's always expressed gratitude

28:18

for all the time I've spent with her and

28:21

all the efforts I've made to tell her daughter's

28:23

story.

28:24

I mentioned that to Dr. Loftus.

28:28

And then I guess the other option is that she

28:30

did do it and she did remember

28:32

and she's just been conning

28:34

me for three years. I

28:39

really feel like I'm a pretty good judge of

28:42

when people are telling the truth, but if

28:44

she's actually been lying to me all this time, I

28:47

feel kind of stupid.

28:49

Well, I'll tell you, people

28:52

are not that great at detecting

28:55

deception. They

28:57

use cues that are not diagnostic.

29:00

They think if somebody won't

29:03

make eye contact, that's a sign of,

29:05

they think if somebody is fidgety that

29:08

they're probably deceptive.

29:11

So you may be responding

29:14

to cues that lots

29:16

of people use, but are

29:18

not particularly good cues to whether

29:20

somebody's lying to you.

29:23

Just when I started thinking I would never

29:25

figure any of these things out,

29:27

I got a call from Ashley Lutheran, my

29:29

reporting partner on this project.

29:32

After more than 20 years,

29:34

the police department was finally ready

29:37

to hand over their files from Alexis's

29:39

case. And Ashley was on her way

29:41

over

29:42

with the first batch.

29:44

But instead of providing the answers I've

29:46

been looking for,

29:47

the police reports would just raise more

29:49

questions

29:51

and they would make me doubt

29:53

almost everything I thought

29:55

I knew about this case.

29:58

That's next time on... unsolved.

30:04

This detective then spoke with Ayanna,

30:06

who at this time became very upset and

30:08

accused the Milwaukee Police Department of not

30:11

trying to find her daughter and said

30:13

that she was sick and tired of what was going on.

30:16

This detective then explained to Ayanna

30:18

that we were still actively following

30:21

up on all leads. Ayanna

30:23

then got up in a violent manner and with

30:25

her fists clenched, began knocking

30:28

over candy throughout the store and then threw

30:30

a fan into the wall.

30:33

Unsolved is written and produced

30:36

by me, Gina Barton.

30:38

Ashley Lutheran of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

30:41

assisted with reporting this season. Our

30:44

sound engineer is Bill Schultz. Editors

30:46

are Amy Pyle and Greg

30:49

Borowski. Our theme music

30:51

was composed by Evan Johnson.

30:54

The news clip you heard in this episode

30:56

came from WISN 12 News

31:00

in Milwaukee.

31:00

For more on Alexis's

31:03

case or to sign up for our newsletter,

31:06

visit usatoday.com

31:09

slash unsolved.

31:11

My team's investigation on

31:13

disparities in missing children's cases

31:16

can be found at missing.usatoday.com.