SPEAKER_01 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.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

And this is our second installment on the missing person case of Cody Haney out of Liberty County, Florida. And Cody was last seen on June 21st, 2024, and he was reported missing on June 25th, 2024, by his mom, Michelle.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah, in this interview with Michelle, one thing that you're going to notice is this is a bizarre and just strange story. And there's going to be some names that Michelle brings up that we're going to redact out for now. And it's not because we don't believe her. It's not because of anything other than the fact we have a lot of investigation ahead of us before we feel comfortable with some of these names. And we're hoping the story still makes sense. We we believe it does, and we're looking forward to sharing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

Yes, and with any case that we're covering, we absolutely want to make sure that we are not getting in the way of any investigation. And because this is so new to us, we want to be very careful with putting names out there, tonight we are speaking with Michelle McCroy, and Michelle is Cody Haney's mom, and we're so grateful that you have um chosen to come and share Cody's story with us. And welcome to the show. Hello. And hi, welcome to the show, Michael.

SPEAKER_02 2:25

I am also at the show.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

It's always nice to have you here. So, Michelle, can you start by telling us who Cody is, not the missing person, but the son you know. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:37

Cody is so vibrant, so full of life. Um, definitely never a dull moment when Cody was around. Uh, you know, he could turn a bad day into a good day. Always like to make people laugh, you know, and he just he loves fishing. You know, we'd be sitting here at the house, and you know, his favorite TV shows were Teen Wolf and Vampire Diaries. You know, and he has siblings and uh he would always take Eli fishing. Elijah is deaf and mute, and he just always took up so much time with Eli. You know, they were like two peas in a pod. Uh you know, when Cody was, he'd be here at the house and you know, we would just, he just he loved to be outside all the time. You know, he liked riding on the four wheeler, the golf carts, anything he could find. Um, and again, he loved fishing. Fishing was his life. And he just, you know, he just always had a way of just brightening up anybody's day. Everybody loved him. He was such a good person.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

And what is one thing about Cody that you wish everyone understood like right from the get-go?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

That Cody's a good loving person and he would never just leave like this. You know, and he just he would do anything to help anybody. You know, he had didn't have a lot of friends, you know. He was a little bit, you know, more of an inside kind of person, but he would just do anything to help anybody. You could ask him, you know, for anything and he would give it to you. And if he didn't have it, he would find a way to get it.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I'm not from the North Florida area, but I'm I'm married into a North Florida family.

SPEAKER_02 4:16

That is correct.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

And I'm hearing a lot of similarities when you're talking about Cody and and some of the other uh families have shared of people that we have covered their cases. There seems to be this sort of pervasive, you will help anybody with anything at any time, and like this real sense of community in the area that being from a metropolitan area uh and from um the Midwest is not something I'm accustomed to. And so I just hear a lot of similarities between Cody and some of the other folks that we've we've covered. And fishing. Fishing is a big fishing appears to be a big deal in that area because I got a pretty expert fisherman uh sitting right here as well. I'm not too bad myself, but I had to learn. Um, so in the weeks leading up to Cody's disappearance, did you notice any changes or anything that um was kind of out of the ordinary?

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Um, I didn't notice that because he was on a curfew. So it seemed like in a couple of weeks leading up to this, like he was he would be pushing that curfew. Like if he had to be in at eight, he'd push it to like 7:30, 740, which was unlike him, because usually when he gets off work, he comes straight to the house, change his clothes, get his fishing pole, and go down to the river, because we don't live, but maybe a mile or two from the river. And he just kind of started like, how did how do you say, um, became more not wanting me so involved. Uh, I got a few phone calls from a few people that were telling me that, you know, a couple of guys that was at his job that maybe he didn't need to be around them. So I would try to talk to Cody about it. And the beginning, you know, when he first started the job, he would always be like, oh my, you know, I'm not doing anything. I promise, you know, I'm always home. And he was. But then he just started kind of staying out later and not wanting to talk to me quite as much about the guys at work. But other than that, he just seemed like his normal self. I mean, like he was still just as happy. You know, he didn't seem depressed or anything. So, you know, when all of this happened, it really caught me off guard because, you know, nobody nobody would ever thought bit.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

I have a couple of clarifiers just to make sure I understand like location. So when you say river, are we talking about the Yokolotney River, Apolechola River, St. Mark's? Which one are we talking about?

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Um Apalachola River.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

Apolechicola. Okay. So trying to get an idea of location because there's a lot of there's a lot of rivers in this area. So I want to make sure that people are listening understand where we're talking about. Um and that was a very common place for him to go fishing and hang out.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Cody was young when he disappeared. I can he was 22 when he went missing, is that right? Yes, ma'am. Yeah, okay. So he's young. And so when you're talking about him sort of wanting to separate a little bit from you, um, that's typical, right? For someone who's in their 20s. We don't have someone who's older who's disappeared.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

He's a young man when he went missing. And he had, yeah, got him a girlfriend. And so, you know, it was kind of, you know, Cody, Cody's my first son. So it just seemed normal, you know, that he didn't want to talk to me of, you know, a little about some things. Uh, yeah, because it was he was only 22 when he went missing. So still got a whole life ahead of him.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

And talk about curfew. What was his curfew about?

SPEAKER_00 7:46

His curfew was because he had gotten into a little bit of trouble and he was on probation. So with him being on probation, they had set him up on a curfew. Um, now he was allowed to go anywhere because his job, he done uh land surveying. So from like seven o'clock in the morning to like eight o'clock in the afternoon, you know, he was allowed to go anywhere. Um, but about eight o'clock was about the curfew time for him to be home. They did have him on an ankle monitor, so which is what has made all of this a little more odd of why the ankle monitor couldn't crack him.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

Yeah, because I mean my first question is, you know, number one, what is he in trouble for? And number two, if we have an ankle monitor on him, why are we missing it?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

Right. Um, well, he had got into a little bit of trouble a few years back with the same guy that he was with the weekend that he went missing. Um apparently they had decided to, I don't know what kind of drug they did, but it violated his probation. So he got in trouble. So when he got out of jail, he it was a lot stricter. That's when the curfew started, and you know, the weekly visits. And so I know he wasn't doing anything that he wasn't supposed to be doing because he had weekly check-ins.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

All right.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

And did he express any concerns or fears, or you're you're talking a little bit about conflicts. Was there anything specific that he said about any of these conflicts in the days and weeks leading up to when he disappeared?

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Well, when I had when I had found out that the guy that has started working for the same company that he was working for was the same guy that he got in trouble with a few years back, I had told Cody, you know, hey, look, if I catch you around him, other, you know, since y'all work together, there's not a whole lot I can do about that. But if I see y'all around one another, I have no problem with going and confronting this guy and telling him, stay away. And uh Cody had it, you know, he was like, Mom, please don't do that. He's like, if you do that, he's like, it might cause trouble. He's like, you know, I I'll just stay away from him as much as I can. And I was like, okay, you know, that that was fine with me, you know, because me and Cody has such a good relationship. You know, if he told me he was going to do something, that's what he did. So when he said that he would just stay away from the guy, you know, other than of course they worked for the same company, then I told him that was okay. But he did not want me to go confront this guy. Now I wish I would have.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

And can you walk us through the last time you saw or spoke to him? It was uh Friday night.

SPEAKER_00 10:34

I had to work the next morning, and Cody had to work the next morning. Um, so I went to get ready to go to bed, and I told him, I said, son, don't stay up too late because you have to work in the morning. And he said, I know, Mom. He said, I'm fit to take a shower and I'm going to bed. So I told him I loved him. He told me he loved me. And I went to bed and he went and got the shower. And that was the last time I seen him. He went to, he went to work the next morning. Because this is where things start getting odd. Because the boss man called me Saturday morning and was wondering where Cody was at. Well, I told him Cody was at work because, well, that's where he was supposed to be. And he said that the truck, the company truck was there, but Cody was not. And then everything just that's when everything just got weird. You know, that's because the same guy that I told him to stay away from was the same guy that he was with the weekend he wouldn't miss. He was actually the last person to see Cody.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Was that person in work that day?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

He was also, I guess he was supposed to work that day, and he didn't show up because the boss man called me back and was asking me, you know, he was like, Hey, I, you know, I called. So he's like, I just got he's like, I called and said that he hadn't seen Cody, but he called in for the day. And I was like, okay. So at this point, we start looking for Cody. Um, and then next thing I know, you know, I get off work, I come home. I'm waiting on Cody to get home, and he doesn't come home. So now I'm, you know, at that point I'm concerned of where's he at? Because he dropped the truck off at work, but I I guess he left with because after that, nobody really knows what happened. Nobody knows for sure what happened after Cody dropped the truck off Saturday morning. Um, but the last people that he was with was now when they were interviewed by the police. They had admitted to the police that they had, I I guess they were smoking mojo or um the little fake weed cigarettes you get out of the grocery st uh convenience store. And they admitted that they had laced it with meth, which was then at that point became mine and the cops' biggest concern because Cody doesn't do drugs. So when you give you can't, well, you shouldn't give anybody something without them knowing what you're giving them. So Saturday goes by. I hadn't heard from Cody. I get up Sunday morning, you know. So Saturday night would go out, we're riding around town, we're looking for him. Nothing. I had to work Sunday morning. Um, I went to work, the boss man called me again and was saying that the had said that Cody had stolen a work truck. And again, this is where it gets very weird because why would you drop off a truck that the bossman knows you have to take a different truck?

SPEAKER_02 13:46

So wait a second, make sure I'm I want to make sure we're telling the story where people can understand it. So he dropped off his assigned truck. Yeah. And then was the other truck missing at the same time? Or was that they did somebody come back for something?

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Um, apparently he dropped off his assigned truck that he had, and then on Sunday I get a call from the boss man fan that Cody had said that Cody had come back to the job and took a different truck.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

And it wasn't notice it was missing earlier.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

No cameras or anything? No. We uh so I left work, went up there to the shop, and I'm talking to the boss man. There's no cameras at the shop, there's no GPS on any of the trucks. Um, you know, and as me and the bossman are talking, you know, he's showing me where a piece of a door had been broke. But like I told him, Cody has a key to the shop.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Why would he break the door?

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Exactly. Why would he break the door when he has a key? Why would he take a truck that he's not supposed to have when he dropped off the truck that he was supposed to have?

SPEAKER_02 14:52

Wow. You know, and that's that's where things start to get really It's getting strange, yes, for sure. The other thing, if any business owners are listening to me that have company trucks, could they please put GPS on the freaking trucks? Because this is the second case in a row where we have a missing truck and no and a work truck and nothing's nothing's low-jacked or GPS or anything.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Exactly. Um, so then I go, and at this point, you know, the probation officer, he's also contacting me. And, you know, I'm you know, I'm like, sir, I I don't know. Like I'm trying to figure this out myself. Um, so we went back out. Um, we had ran and was the last two guys that was with Cody when he went missing. And I had spoken with them, but at the time I didn't know that's who they were. I just seen them in a company truck. So I turned around and started asking them questions. Well, then Sunday says that he called the police because he states that he's seen Cody take the truck. And again, it's not making any sense. And so, you know, now we're all looking for Cody. You know, the police are looking for him, I'm looking for him. And uh we do eventually find the truck. We find the truck on Tuesday, and uh, they brought the K9 dogs out, and Cody's scent was inside the truck, which would be normal because it's a work truck. You know, he's in and out of all these trucks, but the canines could not find his scent outside of the truck. And the truck had been abandoned with all of the windows busted out of it, which again didn't make any sense to me. You know, why was all the windows busted out of it? Why can the canine not pick up a scent outside of the truck? And then things just got really weird. Uh, so then the police started talking to well, so on Tuesday when I had went filed an actual missing persons report because it had then been over 48 hours that I had not seen Cody. And um, so I go up there, I file my missing persons report, and that's when I find out that brothers.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah. And is a former police officer out of Calhoun County. So now things is getting really odd because we still at this point cannot find Cody. And they say that uh, like I said, they admitted to um adding drugs to the synthetic weed, weed, whatever it was that they were smoking. They admitted to adding drugs to it. They said after that, Cody began to hallucinate. And they said that he started hollering about seeing things and hearing things that wasn't there. Um, and then he became very paranoid. So and I'm like, okay, well, dear in this time, y'all have apparently wrote from where they say they went, y'all rode by my house at least four times. Why didn't you drop him off? Nobody thought to drop him off if he's hallucinating and he's paranoid, nobody thought to just bring him home.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

And theoretically, they're all driving around in this work truck that's not Cody's truck. It's the other truck.

SPEAKER_00 18:15

Well, they're they're all in it. Um they're all riding around in a private truck that is owned by either it was owned by one of them. And so all I I'm assuming from what I'm understanding from the police reports and from what was saying is that all day Saturday they were riding around in one of the brothers' personal vehicle. Sunday, they for whatever reason take Cody back to the shop, and that's when he apparently took the truck. So, but on, you know, during this time I'm trying to call Cody because he has his cell phone. So I'm trying to call him. It keeps going straight to voicemail. Well, then, you know, so I'm calling some of Cody's friends and like, hey, this is what's going on. Can't find him. Have y'all seen him? Is one of his friends said, well, yes, you know, said he he called me, but he sounded very strange. And then the phone cut out. He said, when I tried to call him back, it went straight to voicemail. And then somehow or another, the bossman ended up with Cody's cell phone. Um, I don't know if maybe Cody left it there Saturday or maybe he found it on Sunday, but he ended up with Cody's cell phone, which he turned over to the police, you know, because at that point, you know, we're trying to pull in, they're trying to pull any information off of it that they can to try to figure out what's going on. And I said it just gets gets very weird. Um, then the brothers claim that Cody bought another cell phone, which was very odd because he had just got that cell phone, like maybe three weeks prior to all this. But they claimed that Cody had gone to the dollar store and bought another cell phone. Well, nobody was able to find this cell phone. And then three months after all of this happens, one of the brothers take the police out there to where they say they seen Cody throw the cell phone, which arose more questions from why didn't you say this in the beginning? Why did you wait three months later to say anything about the second cell phone? Yeah. So it's like I said, it just gets really weird. Everything they say does not match up to Cody's personality at all.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

So it sounds like you have quite a bit of information. I'm really curious how you got this information. Was it told to you by someone at the sheriff's office? Did you actually read police reports? Um, talk to us about what that looked like.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Um, I got my information through our sheriff um in Liberty County, Dusty Arnold. Um, they never actually showed me any police reports, but I was continuously, you know, going up there and they were telling me what the other two guys that was with Cody was telling them. And but they never actually showed me any police reports about anything. And uh they did tell me that they gave the guys a lie detector test, and they did fail. They failed the part where they asked, did they do anything to Cody to harm him? And did they know where he was at? And that was told to me by our sheriff and the detective that was on the case at the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

So one thing I'm not super clear on, just make sure I understand the story well enough, is you know, at what point in the evening, because if we know they're out together, these three guys, at what point in the evening are they no longer together?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Um, on Sunday. On Sunday claimed that he took Cody back to the shop. Cody took the truck, and he said that they chased Cody into the woods. They were driving their personal truck. Him and his brother was in their personal truck. Cody was allegedly in the company truck. They claimed they chased him into the woods because. He was still hallucinating. He had been hallucinating for apparently two days now. And uh they claim that they chased him into the woods, but they lost him. Now, from where the the dirt road, county road or forest road 109, when you go down that road from where they found the truck, there's no way you could have lost him. That there's just no way. But they claim that when they got out into the woods, they had a flat tire. So after that, they did not see Cody anymore.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

And this is the area that's been, I'm assuming, searched by law enforcement.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

And we didn't find anything. It's my understanding that's we found his ankle bracelet cut off. Is or is that was that done at some other time?

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Uh that was apparently that was the first time. Um, a little over a year ago, but that was the the first time. And that was oh well, about two or three years ago. Um, but this time there we didn't find no ankle monitor. You know, when he went missing this weekend, we did not find any ankle monitor. And when the when I contacted the PO to ask, well, where's the last place that it pinged? He said that the last place that it pinged for them was in Liberty County.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

Around the wooded area or somewhere else.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

As close as they can get.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

That they can't do better than that.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

Uh he just said it was Liberty County. Um, he said it pinged in Liberty County and then it went dead.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

So they know they're just not providing that information.

SPEAKER_00 23:27

Correct. Um because a lot of times when I called them to get any information out of them, it's always the same thing. Michelle, you know, we're still looking. We don't have any new information. It's um hard to figure out what happened when the only people that are saying anything is. And of course, you know, if they did something, they're they're not gonna tell.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Are you aware if there are any traffic cameras or anything in and around this area where they were supposedly riding around all weekend that may have captured any pictures? See, and that that was one of the things that was weird.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

Liberty County did say that they have a picture of the personal truck that they was driving on the Blentstown Bristol Bridge, the bridge that connects Liberty County and Calhoun County, that they have a picture of the truck on Saturday crossing the bridge coming back into Liberty County. But then after that, they say there was nothing. And when I asked about, because after the after when after they claimed that Cody took the truck and went down to Forest Road 109, that's a long stretch of road. It's heavy, there's a lot of traffic on the road. Nobody claimed they saw the truck. Uh, there was no door doorbell cams that caught the truck going down the road. The library, you know, camera doesn't show the truck going down the road. Um, you know, we have a high school and a middle school and a library all on this same stretch of road. And none of the cameras seeing the truck actually go that way. But the guys that was with Cody that said that they followed Cody to 109, well, they're the they're the only ones that, well, I don't want to use the word verify because nothing they've said has been accurate or true. Um, but they claim that's where they went.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

I want to ask a a question about the picture of the truck on the bridge. Are you aware if um it's able to discern how many people are in the truck, who's in the truck?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

They didn't tell me. Um, they just said that they do have the truck on camera coming back into Liberty County on Saturday, um, which would have been June the 22nd. Um, that's all that's all they would say. Um so, you know, and in the very beginning of all of this, I was, I don't know, I not really thinking clearly. Like now I wish there were more questions that I would have asked, but at that point, I was just more concerned with finding Cody as quickly as I could.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

Has anyone come out to you with information that really stood out to you that you feel is credible that maybe isn't looked at?

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Um, well, of course, after that, you know, rumors started to fly very quickly. Um, there was other guys that was mentioned, uh, and which I told the police about. And when they went and interviewed these guys, um individual guys, because it was like three different ones, they say that uh that they felt like that these guys didn't have anything to do with it, that they were just repeating things that they had heard from other people. Um, and I've two of them's in jail, one of them's in rehab. So I've not had a chance to talk to any of these guys. Um, which I was told by law enforcement to be careful because they to not put myself into any kind of predicament where I could put my own self in danger. Uh, of course, my response back was, you know, this is my kid.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

I'm not worried about myself. I'm worried about him.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

If I'll talk to and do what I gotta do in order to find him. But there was um Tate's Hell has been mentioned several times. And every time I mentioned Tate's hell to the sheriff's department because they brought out on Forest Road 109, they've had the canine dogs and the cadaver dogs out there. And I have mentioned to them to check, well, why can't we check Tate Tate's hill? Because that has been brought up several times that these guys had did something to Cody and put him in Tate's hell. Um, but my response back from them is Tate's hell is very large. And without having, you know, an entry point to go on that they didn't have the money or the resources to search out there, which is what when he called me in, when the new detective called me and told me about the remains being found in Walcola County. That's not far from Tate's Hill. But 109 is not far from Tate Hill.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

We are very familiar with Tate's Hill. This is a place that we do a lot of fishing and hiking, and um, it is kind of split up across sort of different areas, and there are several roads that go through and and sneak around in there. Is that an area that you know that you knew Cody to go to at all for fishing?

SPEAKER_00 28:47

Okay. No. No, Cody never went to Tate's Hill because if you're my understanding, if you don't know Tate's Hill, you will get lost in there real quick.

SPEAKER_02 28:57

That's that's I say that's also accurate.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I only go with Michael.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

Yeah. If you don't know the area, you will get lost in there very quickly. Um, but for Cody to try to make it from 109 to Tate's Hill on his own and on foot, yeah, and being paranoid like they say he was and hallucinating. If he made it out there, it's because somebody gave him a ride or somebody took him out there.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Yeah. So you mentioned um a call that you got from a new detective regarding some remains that were recently found in Walcala County. Can you tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

That was actually it. When the Walcola, when it made it to Facebook, is when he called me. Um Detective Tadlock called me because he said that he wanted to tell me before everybody else did. Because of course, you know, everybody started blowing my phone up with text messages and screenshots and calling me.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Um, and then after that, he told me that he would get in contact back with me because the remains were with the forensics office trying to verify whether it was male or female. Um, I've called him twice since then, and I haven't got a call back or a text or an email or anything regarding anything about the remains that was found in Walcola. Um, which has kind of got me a little concerned of because usually they call me back, you know, or I'll call the sheriff and the sheriff will make them call me back, but nobody has responded to my calls or my texts since the Tuesday that the Walcola remains was found and it hit Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

And I think that's two weeks now. I don't think it was last week. Um keep calling. Don't don't stop calling. Keep calling, keep putting the pressure on. If there's one thing that we've learned in in our journey with what we were doing, is sometimes that pressure is what it takes. And it doesn't always get a response. But eventually something, something happens with that. So keep keep the pressure on.

SPEAKER_00 31:03

Oh, and I've went as far as um Cody's grandmother knows a lady that works in the senator's office. Uh, I wrote up a whole paper and uh gave it to her, and she, you know, talked to the senator's pupil. And after that, it was maybe within the week after that, they had the cadaver dogs out there searching for 109. And um, to make sure that they were doing what they were supposed to be doing, I went down there myself um to make sure that they did show up like they were supposed to. Um, and uh let's see, and the detective Tadlock has called me. This one's probably been a little over a month ago, and said that there was that the cadaver dogs had picked up, which is kind of odd because cadaver dogs hasn't been out there in six months. So I don't know why they were just now telling me this. Um, that the cadaver dogs picked up on some human remains that was out there. And they were going to bring the cadaver dogs back, and then they would bring out short estate to start digging. Um, but he also said that those could be remains from, you know, Native Americans from hundreds of years ago. They never brought the cadaver dogs back. I've called to check on that and the keep telling me, well, we're trying to set up a time with FDLE, and I'm like, well, well, what's taking so long?

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 32:32

But they're just just take the dogs back out there.

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

So I haven't really got a lot of information out of Liberty County other than them just constantly telling me the same thing over and over.

SPEAKER_02 32:44

Do you know anything about how they've classified this case? Like, do they do they suspect it's just a standard missing person case? Do they think it's foul play? Is there any has there been any indication to the direction they're taking their investigation?

SPEAKER_00 32:58

As of right now, Detective Tadlock says that it is being worked as a missing person case. Um, because somebody from in town had called me and was like, you know, hey, I heard they're switching it to a homicide case. So I called Detective Tadlock and uh he said no, that they had no evidence to make it a homicide case that it was still being treated as a missing person case.

SPEAKER_02 33:23

Okay, good to know.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

That's a very good question. So what do you wish the public understood about Cody's case that so that it doesn't get overlooked?

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Um, you know, it's just it's time to bring Cody home. You know, I'm not going to let this just go. Uh Cody's a good person, you know, and he deserves to be back home. Uh and I'm not gonna give up, you know. So for anybody that knows something, please come forward and say something. You know, there's no information that is too small. Cody's a good person, you know, he's my son, he has siblings, he has a child himself. So it's, you know, it's time for him to come home. Uh we all miss him, we all love him, and it's not really much we can do until we find him.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

You talked a little bit about rumors and somebody calling you saying something was going on that maybe isn't going on. Are there any misconceptions that you're hearing in the community that you'd like to take an opportunity to clear up?

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Uh not really. Everything that all the rumors were the same thing that were saying. You know, it was one of those they told somebody this, then that person told somebody else. And, you know, by the time it got back to me, it was basically the same story, just worded differently. Um everybody keeps claiming they don't know what happened to Cody or where he's at. And then others claim that others claim that they hurt him and that they left him out there because, you know, there's bears and alligators and coyotes and you know, and even if it was an accident, you know, maybe, you know, even if you accidentally did hurt him and you just left him there, just come say where. So we can go. They just keep telling me, uh law enforcement just keeps telling me that there's not a whole lot that they can do considering that we can't find Cody. They do have him running through two codices. Um uh Neme Nemo Name. Name. Namo Name. Then they also have him running through um something where all these cameras, if it catches a shot of him, it immediately alerts the police. Um, but there's been no use of his bank account. And his bank account was empty, like he had just got paid, so he had over a thousand dollars in there. When we got the uh the bank wouldn't tell me anything, so the you know, FDLE or Liberty County had to get some paperwork to be able to pull Cody's bank records. There was only like $19 in there. And there is surveillance from the ATM machine of using Cody's debit card on Saturday. And when he was questioned about it, he said that Cody had gave him permission to use his debit card. And until we find Cody, we don't know if that's true or not. But we do have a picture of him t off the ATM machine at Cody's bank withdrawing money, and he withdrew everything.

SPEAKER_01 36:37

We're sort of looking at each other.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

Yeah, we're looking at each other because I'm just gonna say it. I may have to edit this part out because I'm very careful about conjecture. I'm like, how are these guys not arrested already?

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Yeah. That was the same believing, that was the first thing.

SPEAKER_02 36:50

On camera taking out the entire guy's savings, and there's no way I buy that that was permission.

SPEAKER_00 36:59

I I seriously doubt that Cody gave um his debit card and allowed him to do that. And when I asked that question, because I was also, you know, wondering, you know, if they well they admitted to giving him drugs, is there nothing that y'all can do, you know, with the video surveillance of him using Cody's debit card? And I was told that they did not want to, the first time I was told they did not want to push the issue too hard because if the guys decided to lawyer up, that we would never get any information out of them. Well, if you're worried about them lawyering up, then y'all have to know something. Y'all have to be thinking something.

SPEAKER_02 37:41

We got people don't lawyer. We we've got camera footage of someone using someone else's debit card and taking all of their money. We've got lie detector tests that have been failed. We've got a strange story about um truck swapping that can't be corroborated, and we have information where they admit to giving him laced drugs with drugs license, you know, well, mojo, I guess, cigarettes laced with meth, and that he was hallucinating and running through the woods and they were chasing him. And yeah, I mean, to I don't know why he's I'm not a law enforcement officer, but I'm like, this thing's pretty s open and shut to me.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

That was my biggest thing when I went to them, and I still asked them why we have not done anything about it, because that was arrested like two weeks after this happened on drug charges but unrelated charges to Cody's case. About three weeks after Cody went missing, he left and went moved to Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

And their brothers.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

And their brothers. So uh, but when they law enforcement tells me that the only reason that they haven't charged them with anything is because it would be mostly misdemeanors. And if this case does turn into a homicide, that those would be the first two guys that they would be looking at.

SPEAKER_02 39:09

Yeah, and something we've noticed, I mean, ever since we've started this podcast, you know, obviously Elisa and I have done a ton of research on how law enforcement operates to try to understand what's reasonable, what's not reasonable, thinking processes, and why they approach things a certain way. And to be fair to law enforcement, um, nobody homicide cases are incredibly difficult. And so um, if that's what happened, then going forward with charges with nobody, there is a much larger chance that they walk than if they had a body. And that's I mean, that's the case law shows us that we already know this.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

And that's yeah, but they that's basically the same thing they told me. Right. That, you know, if this turned into a homicide case, they'd rather be able to charge them with a homicide instead of just drugs um or taking money. Uh but, you know, when that footage, you know, was shown to me, it made sense that one of the other people in the community had mentioned that Cody that they had robbed Cody because since they worked together, they all got paid on the same day. Um, so they knew Cody would have money.

SPEAKER_02 40:21

Well, we know he robbed him because we have footage of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Right.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Check.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

Uh-huh. So that's why I say, you know, it got a lot of I don't know, there's just a lot of empty holes in the whole situation. A lot of it just doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me anyway. You know, like, ah, there was like and and then one of them just leaves, you know, just leaves the hostate.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

I mean, was that not a red flag that, hmm, you know, maybe we should be keeping an eye on this guy or and why wait three months later to take the cops out there where Cody apparently threw the cell phone because then there was they couldn't pull anything off of it because it had been damaged so bad.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

So they found it.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

There is a phone though. They did they they did find the phone.

SPEAKER_02 41:12

Okay, I didn't I didn't catch that when you first mentioned it. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:16

There there's actually there's two phones. The first phone that Cody had that the bulf man found, yeah, which was turned into the police and sent to FDLE. The second phone is a phone that Cody bought from the dollar store, um, which wouldn't make any sense. Why would you buy a cheap phone when you had an iPhone, uh, like the iPhone 10? Um, and then he they claimed they saw him throw the phone, but it was three months later that they took law enforcement out there and showed them where they had where Cody threw the phone, but by that point the phone had been damaged so bad they couldn't get anything off of it.

SPEAKER_02 41:55

Um here's what's interesting too that I know about burner phones. Um they may not be able to get anything off the phone itself, but they can certainly tell when the phone was purchased and activated. Do they have that information?

SPEAKER_00 42:06

They did not change. They just said they found the phone, send it to FDLE, but it had been damaged and they wasn't able to pull anything off of it.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Well, and there's cameras at all those stores. So that would be something they could.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

Well, yeah, you could confirm number one, did Cody buy it, and number two, when and and not not for what purpose, obviously, but they could actually track exactly when it was act they can't track when exactly he purchased it, but they can track when exactly he activated it.

SPEAKER_00 42:32

Um and this this is another thing claimed that um and we do have some footage from the dollar store from Cody inside the dollar store on Saturday. So on Saturday, we know Cody was still okay. Um, well, physically okay, because we do have footage of him in the dollar store. But was he buying the phone? But well, you can't really tell if it's a phone, but he did it does look like a phone, but then he also had uh a couple of bottles of water and a tarp because they said that Cody knew he was in trouble and that he was going to run. If you're gonna run, what you're gonna what walk down the road with a tart and a bottle of water?

SPEAKER_02 43:19

That seemed like a lot of preparation.

SPEAKER_00 43:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:22

And run from what?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

Exactly. Like what do you what is it that you're running from? Because, you know, I mean, yeah, granted, he would have been in trouble, but not like to the point he would would go to prison or anything like that. You know, they would probably just would have cut his curfew back, you know, earlier in the to the day. And because his PO, like he was like you said, he had to go check in once a month, and his PO would just periodically just drop in. And Cody was always here, always made all of his appointments. His PO talked very highly of him. You know, Cody had a job, held down the job, went to work every day, you know, was paying the PO, you know, like he's supposed to. You know, he was doing everything right. So what happened in that one day that turned everything around?

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Is there anything else that you wanted to share that we didn't give you an opportunity to talk about?

SPEAKER_00 44:15

Um well, I've noticed that uh some of the posts that have been made by other people in the community says to approach Cody with caution. Cody is harmless. He is not gonna hurt anybody. He he would never hurt anybody. You know, he would give you the shirt off of his back before he would even try to hurt somebody. Um, so uh and then one other thing that I just thought about was I had also reported to the police that Cody at some point had made the statement that that he would kill a cop. Cody would never hurt anybody. Like I told officers, that's a lie. That that is a straight up lie. To me, that sounded more like if y'all did find him, they want y'all to just automatically open fire on him. He's not even allowed to have a gun. And he had no weapons when he went missing. So what is he, you know, gonna hurt anybody with?

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Thank you for listening to Michelle tell about her son Cody, and we'd like to appreciate her again for coming on with such courage as we can imagine this is a very challenging time for her. At the time of his disappearance, Cody was 22 years old, weighed 135 pounds, and was 5'8. He was described as a white male with brown hair and brown eyes. Cody has a tattoo of the letter C on his shoulder and a tiny cross on his right wrist. If you have any information, please call the Liberty County Sheriff's Office at 850-643-2235, or you can call our tip line at 850-296-8690. 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.