SPEAKER_00 0:00

In Tragedy, a true crime podcast, we discuss missing persons cases, violent crime, and other sensitive topics that may be difficult for some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Our show is a place where every story matters and every voice deserves to be heard. To support this podcast, you can subscribe at www.tragedy a true crime podcast.com for early access to new episodes. And join our Facebook community, Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast, for updates, discussions, and ways to support the families we feature. His last confirmed sighting was on June 21, 2024, in the area of Forest Road 109, a remote stretch inside or near the Apalachicola National Forest. According to reports from the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, deputies responded to an incident involving Cody on June 23, 2024. After that encounter, he was not seen again. Since then, he has not contacted family or friends and no verified sightings have been reported. A vehicle believed to be connected to him was found abandoned near Forest Road 109. Search efforts, both official and volunteer, focused on this rugged, heavily wooded area. Despite extensive searching, no confirmed trace of Cody has been located. Multiple missing person flyers and social media awareness posts continue to circulate, and the case is listed with several national missing person databases, including the Charlie Project and Missing People in America. As of the most recent information, Cody remains missing, and no publicly released evidence clarifies whether he left the area on foot, was with someone, became lost or injured, or encountered foul play. The investigation remains open. Welcome to Tragedy, a true crime podcast. I'm Elisa.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And today we'll be looking into a new missing persons case for us, and this one is out of Liberty County, Florida. And Michael, can you just orient us to where Liberty County, Florida is?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah, I mean, um Liberty County is located almost precisely between Tallahassee and Panama City. Um as far as I remember, the the most eastern border that barely touches Lake Talquin, right there at the dam, and then the western border of Liberty County touches the Appalachic Cola River. The only place that you and I've really spent any time in um in this area has really been Torrea, which is kind of the northwestern part of this county. But then in the the only city I've been in is Bristol.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And it looks like it may border or come pretty close to Tate Hell State Forest as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

That is correct.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

And is the west border to Wakola County. So they're neighboring counties. And that's how we learned about this case. Uh we have obviously extensively covered the disappearance of Ian Rogers, and Ian's mom, Teresa, found out about uh Cody's disappearance, I think, from social media, and she reached out to Cody's mom and then put us in contact with Cody's mom. And so that is how we learned about Cody's disappearance. And we'll be doing some work with speaking with his mom and some other people close to him throughout this series.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Well, keep in mind there was also kind of an overlap when we talk about the body that was discovered at Woodlake. And um that's the other reason this connection kind of happened because both of these families were contacted. Now, granted, we don't know the outcome of that. We just know they've both been contacted to do various DNA um swaps or whatever they did, because again, we don't have that information. We just know they did something, and um they were investigated because they are missing people in the same general area and they were trying to rule these two people out.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

That's very good remembering. And yes, we have spoken about that body, and it was found just west of Sopchapi, still in Wakola County, but like we said, bordering Liberty County. And that is definitely how we were um connected. And as of now, we do not have have not heard anything about who those remains belong to, and we're we are we've not heard from either family as to whether or not they've been contacted by the FDLE.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

All right, so let's start digging into some details here. You mentioned in your summary that there was a vehicle found associated with Cody. Can you tell me anything more than just associated with Cody?

SPEAKER_00 4:47

Yeah, so the last known sighting of Cody was on June 21st, 2024. Now, on Sunday, June 23rd, the Liberty County Sheriff's Deputies responded to an incident that apparently involved Cody at a local business. And at that point, there were two witnesses who stated that they saw Cody drive towards Forest Road 109 in a work truck. So that was on the 23rd. And then on the 25th, the Liberty County Sheriff's Office requested assistance from the neighboring county, Calhoun County, and they deployed a helicopter to conduct aerial searches around Forest Road 109. And it was from that helicopter search that they were able to locate this truck that the two witnesses stated that Cody had driven away in, and they located that two miles away from the road. It was hidden in a densely wooded area. And at that time, they did a bunch of searches, canine teams, deputies, but they were not able to locate um Cody at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Wow, this sounds similar.

SPEAKER_00 5:53

It does sound very similar. Um, it does seem like the this was a work truck. It says local Liberty County Sheriff's Office Facebook page says a local business. But what we do know is that this is the place that Cody and these two witnesses were working. Now let's keep in mind this is over the weekend, and there is, to our knowledge, no proof that Cody was actually there. This is what the two witnesses are saying that he drove away in one of the work trucks. And I think when you're talking about sounding familiar, it it sounds we know for sure that Ian was driving a work truck when he disappeared. We don't know for sure about Cody, but there are some similarities.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

So witness statements only, no camera footage. And um, I take it by your tone that the witness statements you're talking about here are probably not super reliable.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Uh it just says interviewed by two local two witnesses. Uh, we'll find out later when we spoke to Michelle, Cody's mom, that maybe these two witnesses aren't super credible.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah. Um, and then continuing on after this truck was located on June 26th, um, the Liberty County search and rescue team and the deputies and the Florida Wildlife Commission officers conducted several searches of several forest roads. I can see here in this Facebook post at least eight or nine and lots of other areas, um, Florida River Island, some hunting camps, White Oak Landing, lots of places, houseboats along the Apalachicola River as they were continuing the search to try to find Cody.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Was there anything in the truck itself associated with Cody?

SPEAKER_00 7:33

I wasn't able to find any record of anything about the truck or anything inside the truck or associated with the truck. However, I did um put in a FOIA request to the Liberty County Sheriff's Office in hopes of getting any information that they can, including maybe being able to answer your question.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Can I take a guess?

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, take a guess.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

My guess is you either one did not hear from them, or two, you did hear from them, and all you got was it's an open and active case.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Um I'll take door number two, please, which is actually pretty positive if we think about historically how um we started out with our FOIA requests is I got a response from the a records clerk at the Liberty County Sheriff's Office, I believe within 48 hours.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

Wow, that's fast.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

Yes. And it was the oh, we know we cannot release any information as this is open and active. And I honestly think that's a positive. At least we have established um some open lines of communication. I also know the lead detective and will be reaching out to the lead detective to see if that person would like to come on and speak or give us give us any additional information.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Did they indicate whether this would be investigated as a missing person case or a criminal investigation?

SPEAKER_00 8:46

Um well, it's a little bit of of both. And that's because at the time of Cody's disappearance, he was involved with some legal issues with the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. Um, and there are some pending charges for him. So if people are looking into this case, they might see a little bit of both. And I I don't think the criminal investigation piece is about foul play at this point. It seems to be from that perspective, it's really being looked at more as a missing person's case, but they will see people who look into this will see some things about criminal charges because frankly there are some criminal charges um pending against Cody, and this could plausibly be related, or maybe not, to his disappearance.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I thought about right away is whenever you and I first started looking into this, um, we had the conversation around an uh ankle bracelet. Um, could you tell us a bit more about that?

SPEAKER_00 9:44

We do know that Cody was on probation for um some things that he had gotten into trouble with and that he was also on a curfew. And according to his mom, he was kind of pushing that curfew a little bit. Um, and he did have an ankle bracelet associated with that probation, likely um put on by the Liberty County Sheriff's Office. And then we also learned that the ankle bracelet was removed. We don't really know how, but it he did take the ankle bracelet off.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Okay, and so based on that then um you can may I think you may make the assumption, even though no one's officially told us yet, but they would only know that if they were able to recover the ankle bracelet. So at this point, it sounds to me like they've recovered the ankle bracelet. I'd like to know whether it loads I was torn off versus cut off. That would be an interesting thing to consider, but also where they found it. Um, because I I have a hard time believing they haven't found it at this point.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah, and even when, I mean, and this is why uh I iFOIA, because I'm sure that information would be in that FOIA request. It seems like all of this sort of started on June 21st, but I would love to know if the ankle bracelet was taken off before then, or between that time that he was last seen and reported missing. We we just don't really have that information um at this time. But on the positive, uh, we do know that he had just had a uh change in work. He was working for a land surveying company, and that seemed to be going really well. He was getting some kind of independence. He was actually working under another surveyor, like an apprenticeship kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Journeyman.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Yes, thank you. Um and they were going out together and he was teaching Cody how to do the land surveying, a thing he really seemed to love because, like many people in that area, he was really into the outdoors. Like shock of the century. I know this is going to surprise everybody. He loved to fish, right? Again, fishing is a thing. Um, we learned from his mom that he fishing is like his number one favorite thing to do. Anything outside he liked to do, um, four-wheeling, all those kinds of things that seems like are pretty par for the course in that area of the Florida panhandle.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

I want to go back to the summary for a second. You have a couple of dates that you call out, the 21st and then the 23rd, when it comes to references to Cody. Can you describe why there is a discrepancy there?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Yes. The last known sighting of Cody is on Friday, June 21st, 2024. And there's this gap in time from that Friday to the Sunday, because as we hear from Cody's mom, he was kind of hanging around that weekend, spending some time with these two same witnesses that reported that he had stolen the truck. And so there seemed to be these kind of series of phone calls and text messages and things from the 21st through the 22nd to the 23rd that seemed kind of weird to Cody's mom, which we'll hear from her. She'll describe that in a little more detail. And it isn't until the 23rd, then on a Sunday, that these two people that he's kind of been spending most of his time with over those two days, uh, report that he has stolen this work truck. And so I think part of what is really interesting about this is that we've got some work to do. And this is why we speak to people who are close to them, be close to Cody, because they can start kind of filling in this puzzle of what really was happening on the 21st and particularly the 22nd before he was reported to have allegedly stolen this truck on Sunday morning the 23rd.

SPEAKER_01 13:16

All right, so we're only about 12 minutes in and we don't really have a lot of information. So I know we've done our own initial investigation. What can you tell me about what's been in the news?

SPEAKER_00 13:27

So I found one short web-based article from a news channel outside of Panama City Beach, Florida. Now, this might be a little bit confusing because this was published on June 25th. This is the day that he is reported missing. This was published in the late afternoon. Um, and this is in response to the alleged stealing of the truck. Uh, and this is about the Liberty County Sheriff's Office asking for help in locating him because he's wanted for this alleged, again, stealing of the truck, burglary of the place that he worked, and those kinds of things. And this is the same day that he was reported missing by his mom. So, you know, these dates the 21st, the 23rd, the 25th. This is part of why we are doing some work to kind of tease these things out. Also, on the same day, June 25th, 2024, we see a very similar post on Facebook on the Liberty County Sheriff's Office Facebook page. Basically says the same thing. He's wanted for these things. It gives a brief description of him and notes Forest Road 109 and gives the number that people should call. The other thing that I was able to find as far as out in the media is an update that was posted by again the Liberty County Sheriff's Office on July 3rd. And this update is in relationship to the low finding of the truck. So again, he's last seen on June 21st. On June 23rd, the call comes in from these two witnesses who said they were the last to see him and that he stole that truck. And then on June 25th, then they locate the truck, and then on June 26th, they do some search and rescues.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

All right. So it sounds to me like a lot of the media coverage on this so far has really been around criminal behavior rather than missing person. And it wasn't until kind of a few days later that we acknowledge a missing person and we start investigating from that perspective.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Yes. And to be honest, I don't see really anything beyond the finding of the truck and the looking for him. I don't see anything as far as media and police about him being a missing person. This is where I see things on the Charlie Project and some of those other national databases. There's also a Facebook group that was started, but your original question was media coverage, and that's not the media coverage covering his case. That's the people close to him.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Understood. This is starting to feel an awful lot like the Ian Rogers case again. I know we kind of mentioned that a little bit earlier. This feels very marginalized. We understand that this person's probably made some mistakes, but it doesn't change the fact that this is a missing person with a family that's looking for him. And so that's going to be our focus.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Yes, I do want to point out one thing that does feel a little different. Um, in our conversations with Cody's mom, Michelle, it does seem like she has a pretty good relationship with the detective who's leading this case. And that is something different than what we originally heard from Teresa and frankly our other family in Walcala County. And so I do want to point out that the Liberty County Sheriff's Office does seem to be doing a good job of staying in uh contact with Michelle. We just don't see a lot of media around his disappearance.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

That's right, Walcola County. It is okay to call the family of the people who are missing. It's not going to be it's not going to hurt the investigation. If anything, it's going to keep them informed, which is, in our opinion, certainly what you should be doing. All right, Lisa. So you've talked about you know Cody's mom, Michelle, a few times. And did we learn anything about Cody as the person?

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Yeah. So he was, you know, he's 22. That's still really young. He's still very connected to his family when he disappeared. And Michelle really described him as a she says he's a force of life. He was vibrant, energetic. He could change the mood of a room. He's one of those people who would just turn a bad day into a good day. Very energetic, never a dull moment about him. And something that I found very interesting about Cody, um, I don't know if I've said this to our listeners, but I was a special education teacher for over 20 years. And what I learned about Cody from speaking with his mom is that he has a brother who has disabilities. And Cody was very, very connected with that brother. And he would, as we mentioned, fishing was his thing. So he he would take all of his siblings, but particularly that sibling, um, take him fishing and go do things with him and make him feel supported and just make him feel like he was loved, which sometimes isn't the experience of someone with a disability. Um, and that connection was just really something pure, I think, um, about Cody's heart as his mom describes him. And we did talk earlier about how fishing was his thing, but who would also get um go behind those four, get on the four-wheelers and go through the trails and the mud and just live life to the fullest. She also said that he is someone who would just help anyone at any time. If you needed something, he was there. Um, give you a ride, um, give you help fixing something, just really resourceful, willing to support those around him um in any way that he can. Because it's really important for us to be able to tell stories from a victim-centered perspective, it's really important that we share how Cody is to his family when he disappeared and how he still continues to be for them to this day.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

That's true. Um, before we close out for today, can you talk about, you know, what people should be looking for? Let's do a description of Cody.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

At the time of his disappearance, Cody was 22. He's a white male, five foot eight, weighing about 135 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes. Cody has two distinct tattoos that may help identify him: a tattoo of the letter C on his shoulder and a tiny cross tattooed on his right wrist. He was last verifiably seen on June 21st, 2024. And we are urging anyone who may have seen Cody, spoken to him, or has any information, again, no matter how small or insignificant, to please come forward immediately. If you have any information, please contact the Liberty County Sheriff's Office directly at 850-643-2235. You've been listening to Tragedy, a true crime podcast. Our purpose is to honor victims by sharing their stories through the voices of friends, family, and those whose lives were forever changed. If today's episode resonated with you, we encourage you to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast so these important stories continue to be heard. Together, we can preserve their memories and ensure their voices are never forgotten. If you have ideas for cases we should cover or questions about what you heard, you can connect with us through our Facebook group, Tragedy a True Crime Podcast, on X at Tragedy Podcast, by email at Tragedy a True Crime Podcast at gmail.com, or by visiting our website www.tragedy a true crime podcast.com. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.