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. Welcome to Tragedy, a True Crime Podcast. I'm Elisa.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Every family responds to tragedy differently. Some lean on memories, some focus on healing, others become researchers, determined to understand every detail surrounding the person they lost. After Crystal McCrory-Jones died on February 9, 2023, her sister, Jana Gayiski-Laudiger, found herself asking questions she believed had never been fully answered. Rather than accepting uncertainty, she began collecting records, preserving digital evidence, documenting timelines, and organizing thousands of pieces of information into what has become an extensive investigative file. Over the past several years, Jana has worked alongside members of her family to assemble a detailed chronology of events before and after Crystal's death. Her timeline includes public records, phone records, digital evidence, meetings with investigators, and dozens of supporting exhibits. Whether every conclusion drawn from that evidence is ultimately accepted or not, the amount of work invested into preserving these records is remarkable. Today we're talking with Jana, not only as Crystal's sister, but as someone who has spent countless hours documenting what happened, identifying questions she believes still deserve answers, and ensuring that Crystal's story continues to be told. Jana, thank you for being here and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Thank you guys for having me and uh for simply mentioning Crystal's name. That means more to me than you'll ever know.

SPEAKER_01 2:24

So we would like to start um with you if you'll tell us a little bit about yourself and your relationship with your sister, Crystal.

SPEAKER_02 2:32

Yeah, so my name's Jana, and uh I'm a mom of two girls, and they were Crystal's uh part of Crystal's entire world. There we that we were part of a group of four siblings. Crystal was 10 years older than I than I am, and we have a brother, he's 14 years older than I am, and then I'm a twin. So essentially my my mom started over with kids, and we my me and my twin brother essentially grew up as my my sister's little babies. We were her baby dolls, and she took us in as that. Like she was our second mom, and all of my siblings have have sons, they all had boy boy children, and I had the only two girls, and so as a teenager, like mine and my sister's relationship was kind of a little rocky because like I just I was hard-headed and I wouldn't listen. And then when I became a mom, that's when the entire relationship changed. Like it was phenomenal because like she taught me everything of how to be a mom and what it was like to be a girl mom and and all the different things, and that's what I'm forever grateful for. And I d I couldn't I don't even have the words to say um about how grateful I am that Crystal taught me how like the ways to be a mom.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

So let's talk a little bit about what happened um in February of 2023. So um tell us the context of what happened on that day and what you remember. On February 9th, I'm a teacher.

SPEAKER_02 3:52

I just got off work. It was just an average, an average day, and I got a t a call from my oldest brother, Dane, and he asked if I was sitting down, and and of course I told I asked what was wrong, and he proceeds to tell me that he got a call from Crystal's husband, Tony, that our sister had been found dead. And I just stopped and I was in shock, and I asked, you know, where and how and what do I do? And I I guess you can say the mom and me told my brothers to just stay where they were. Um I told my other um oldest brother, he lived in that town, uh neighboring town next to me. I said, You just stay where you're at. I'm gonna call Josh, my twin brother, and I'm headed to Crystal's house. I went to the crime scene, and what should have taken me 26 minutes to get to there to the crime scene took me 16 minutes. And when I got there, he told me it's a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. And I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say because in reality I didn't even know if that was my sister in there. And I walked to the crime scene tape and I'm met by a host of relatives of Tony's, and they're telling me that how depressed my sister was, like how she had not been responding normally to text messages and how she was um on an antidepressant and how she was coming off of it. I mean, just all these different things, and it was kind of like bombarding. And I didn't try at that point to defend my sister or defend a suicide ruling or anything. I just listened. Uh eventually they they stopped talking for a little while. I think I was there, I was there a total of 56 minutes, and then I kind of walked away to myself, and about 10 minutes had passed, and Tony turns and he looks at me and he says, Janna, do you want her funeral in Oak Grove, which is the town that they lived in, or in Bastrop, which is the town that I live in, and that's the town Crystal lived in and grew up in as well. And I just looked at him like, what how do you even have time to process this and think of a funeral arrangement? Like, I don't, like, I do not know if that's my sister in there. And I kind of um sternly turned and looked at him and said Bastrop, and that was it. I just said one word. At this point, there's an investigator I d I know coming in and out of the house. Um, I I've seen the coroner, um, and that's really the only two individuals I saw. I didn't see a host of law enforcement and and and people there. I just saw really two people like inside the crime scene tape. Uh a few minutes pass by. I'm still alone at the crime scene tape. They're talking, the investigator, the coroner, they're coming up to the tape and they're talking to the family of Tony that they're not coming to me and they're not asking me questions, they're not asking who I am. And they're on a first name basis with Tony because he was once employed by this agency. Um, not at the time of Crystal's death, but I think he quit like a year prior, maybe a little over a year prior. But he was employed under the same sheriff, under the same lead investigator, with the same coroner, so they knew each other on a first name basis. The only person they didn't know at that crime scene was me. But um I stood there and I listened, and the coroner approached Tony and he said, We still have to send her body off for an autopsy. And I was like thinking to myself, I said, Why are you saying the word still? Like, was there another conversation that you had where you weren't going to send her body off for an autopsy? But I just I just kept my thoughts to myself. I don't know, 10 or 15 minutes passed by after that, and the coroner approaches Tony again and tells Tony that they were bringing her out. He turned turns and he looks at me and he goes, You don't need to see her like this. And at this point in time, like I'm, you know, I'm past the shock stage. I'm really in like disbelief that nobody's came and talked to me. This family's over here acting like it's a family reunion. And nobody's in tears. Nobody's acting like this could possibly be my sister in this house, not alive. And I turn around, I look at him, and I said, see her like what, Tony? And he didn't answer me, and he turned and he walked off. The coroner comes out with a blue body bag, and every part of me wanted to reach across the crime scene tape and unzip the body bag and make and make sure it was my sister in there. And I didn't because I knew if I did, that ultimately I would be the reason why the crime scene was contaminated, or the reason why the investigation couldn't be completed. I I just knew not to do it. Um, I turned around and I walked off. I got in my car and I drove away. I ended up meeting my two brothers at a convenience store with their wives, and we met, talked about things I heard, things that were discussed, what we knew, what we didn't know, and then we went and we told my mom.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Of all of the families uh that we have spoken to, you have done more research, more investigation, created um almost a hundred-page document of a timeline with links and screenshots, which also does not include the folder that you sent me that has all of the information you've collected along the way. So what prompted you to begin creating this record of the event and even going back, you know, to collect things that happened before the day that she died?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

When I started getting the the records, so the first records I got were like from a laptop that Tony had given me that belonged to my sister. And those were the very first records I got before I got a police report, before I got um death certificates or an autopsy, I couldn't make sense of them. Like it was it was emails and it was um Google timeline records, and so I was like, I've got to do something with them. It's just a bunch of documents. And so I put them in just a simple timeline so I could see exactly what happened that day. And then as I did records requests individually, like one at a time. First I started with a police report and things like that. In all honesty, it was my way of staying sane and avoiding grief. And it's probably not the healthiest thing to do because I just I didn't grieve my sister the first year after her death. I went straight from, okay, my sister's gone to not have to fight for my sister. And it's really evident because the night she passed away, after I got home, because my daughter was, you know, blowing up my phone, where are you at? Why are you at my granny's house? And I lied to her and um because I didn't want to tell my daughters that night. And then I text the sheriff in the town that I live in and and I simply told him what the stuff that didn't make sense to me. It was evident that I was in like a fight mode. Like these things don't make sense to me. Um and I'm not questioning the investigation. I'm just saying that I want it investigated as a homicide until you can prove it's not. That's it. Because that's the way investigations are supposed to happen. The investigation should be treated as a homicide until you can prove it's not. Not the other way around. Not treated as a suicide until you can prove it's not. And I knew that from an internship I did with the local sheriff's department. Um, I think back in 2024, 22, something like that. It was just instilled in me that that's how that's how the system worked. I began collecting documents and I put it together in the timeline and I was like, all this is is words. And that, and I was like, if I just have words, it's my, you know, just me saying something against somebody else. And I was like, that's when I figured out how to upload links into Google Drive and attach pictures, because without without documented proof, you're you're risking libel and you're risking defamation and all these kind of things. Um, and that's something I don't I don't want and I don't do because it's not about what I say, it's about what the documents show. So I began just uploading the documents one at a time. And I'm thankful I did do it one at a time as far as records requests, because I didn't get an overload at one time of you know, thousands of pages at at once, because I can only imagine that a family goes back and does this from a case 10 years ago. Um, and then they get all these records at one time because I stayed up like nights of not sleeping, putting it together, because I just knew if I put this together and I did all this work that an attorney would look at it, or that a legislator would look at it, or congressman, or somebody would else would look at the state police because I knew if I did the work, it would be easier for them to look at. And essentially I was wrong. It didn't matter how much work I did, they still weren't gonna look at it because in their eyes I was just a grieving sister. I was in denial. But now it it helps you guys see why I keep asking the same questions over and over again. And I'm thankful that I I did it because I can add um new documents to it because every you know couple weeks or something new, a letter from someone else, and I just add it to the timeline.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Well, we certainly appreciate you sharing it with us, and you know, we're we're still in the process of going through it. Um, who all have you shared this with?

SPEAKER_02 12:47

So I'm not really picky about the Google Drive being shared because it's just it's documents and it's public records. You can request them and you'll be giving them, you know. I mean, some of them are my phone records, and I don't I don't mind that. Um the Dropbox link is uh I'm very particular about the Dropbox link, and I'll tell you why I separate the two. There's they're separated because my my brothers and my cousin in Germany has access to the Google Drive, which is this the story of my sister. They do not have access to the Dropbox link, and that's where the crime scene photos are. And I don't ever want um my brothers or my sister's sons or uh my mom or anybody to see those crime scene photos in their entirety. Now I know some of them have been published, like the bruising and the and the things like that, but there's pictures of of her in there um in that predicament, and that's not something that me that I ever want anybody to see. And then the autopsy photos are actually in a different drive because I don't I don't share those with anybody unless you're a pathologist and you're gonna, you know, do something with pathology because those are even more revealing and and and that kind of thing. So that's the reason for the different drives and you know, sharing it with different people. Um, and I think you guys I did share the um dropbox link with. I do do some research like behind the people that I share it with. The Google drive, not so much. Um if you want just the proof of why I'm asking questions and you want to see a police report, sure. You know, you're more than welcome to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

But you mentioned too that there were people that you shared it with and they just weren't interested in you know moving anything forward or or doing anything about it. Like who was who was who was that?

SPEAKER_02 14:26

Um, so I've shared the link with every legislator like that I I have like in my district. Um the state police has the links to it. Um the Louisiana Attorney General has the links to it. Let's see, like every congresswoman and congressman like in my district, the United States Attorney General's office, the OIG, like any office, public office you can think of has the link. No office, every office report like says that they can't investigate a local sheriff. And the state police has denied investigating it or twice. Like in one letter, they say that we looked at this letter um that's dated this date, and then um, you know, we're we're declining to investigate it. And I'm not quite sure what they're declining to investigate at that point, because that letter was writ written in May of 2024, because there's a difference between investigating my sister's case and investigating the investigation into my sister's case. And I don't think that that there's they realize that. Like the mission has changed because there's nothing to investigate in my sister's case, like no evidence was collected. There's no fingerprints or magic gunshot uh gunpowder residue testing that's gonna show up. It's we can't make up evidence, it's it's not there. No, nothing's there to collect. I quit going down that avenue because I was just hitting dead ends. I'm not gonna know what happened to my sister. So I want her the investigation of her death investigated. Because had it been investigated properly, we would have answers. We would have an answer of suicide or hom or homicide. And to be honest with you, after three years, I'm okay with either one. Because I could either be advocating for mental health right now, or I could be advocating for law enforcement reform, which is what I'm advocating for now, um, and what rights family members have in those investigations. And so there's going to be advocacy work. I just don't know which direction to take it in because I don't know what happened.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

And when I looked at the case too, there was a there was a couple things that really stood out to me. Like, for instance, when you think about gunshot suicides with women, that is that percentage is remarkably lower than men. So right away, to draw that conclusion with with a woman in particular is you know, I wouldn't say is completely unheard of, but something that I've I personally would probably not have chosen to do first. And in this case, part of the controversy was how quickly that conclusion was drawn. It's like it was drawn within just a few hours. And then the second piece that stuck out to me when looking through some of the information is the shell casing um dilemma. Like there was no shell casing found um at the crime scene or it didn't exist in any photos, but then it was produced later. So the question is whenever you're collecting evidence, I would have expected a picture specifically of the shell casing to have been made. And you're telling me, I haven't looked through every file yet, every picture, but you're telling me that that doesn't exist in any of the photos.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Right. And that's what um the sheriff told us. The showcasing that was produced a week later by by Tony. Um he calls my brother and he says, My brother described it as a like a golden ticket finding. Hey, I found this showcasing, but please don't make a b make it a big deal with Detective Alan Irby. That he he's already upset because I found it. And Detective Allen, Detective Herbie was the one that made the drew the conclusion that it was a self-inflicted gushot wound in an hour and 40 minutes. I go back to his years in law enforcement. He's not a rookie, he's 30-year veteran law enforcement. And, you know, these aren't just statements that I'm saying. He turned over these recordings to me, um, knowing that he stated this, he that it was self-inflicted. And I don't know if he just didn't think I was gonna listen to it or what he thought I was gonna do with it, but I mean, you gotta you gotta know what you're turning over. But the shell casing came a week later, and that's what we approached the sheriff with. And again, it's recorded to thank goodness for when you know one party state laws. If you don't know about one-party state laws, just definitely look that up. Uh, Louisiana's a one-party consent state law, so and uh my job as little sister was to basically not say anything. I was gonna let my brother handle it, and um, I was gonna record everything. And I didn't even tell my brother I was recording, I just did it. I'm glad I did because the sheriff states and he said plain as day that the showcasing is plain as day in a crime scene photo. So that was what warranted warranted us to go to the district attorney to look at crime scene photos. And I wasn't looking at for specific pictures of my sister, I was looking for a picture of a showcasing that never came up. I was like, well, maybe the district attorney, if you listen to that recording, she doesn't know how to pull up a file. She called in her investigator to work the computer. So I was like, well, maybe it was just overlooked. So gave them benefit of the doubt again. And I requested that the crime scene photos. And what kind of you know blows my mind is I had to like drive to get a CD of these crime scene photos. So I'm like, it's not like they sent the them to me digitally. Now they did they drop put them in a drop box link and sent them to the attorneys, but they wouldn't do that for me. I had to pay ten dollars and I had to go get them from the sheriff's office from a CD. And I came home and I had to find somehow to play a CD, because who has a CD player that hooks to a computer? And I put it in there, and the first thing I saw was not a picture of a shell casing. The very first picture that came up was something that had never been discussed with us with the sheriff or the district attorney, and that was the pillow that had the the hole in it, the the gunshot stuck through it, that obviously was placed over my sister's head. And that like that stopped me in my tracks because I didn't I'd never been told about that in any conversation I had. And then after I got over that, I went to look for the showcasing, and then it I noticed it wasn't there, and that they had circled something about a reflection off of a makeup brush or something, and they were saying that was the reflection of the showcasing. And clearly it's not, it's not the reflection of the showcasing, but that is not what the sheriff told us. The sheriff said it's plain as day in the crime scene photos, and it's not plain as day. If it's plain as day, you're not you wouldn't be circling a reflection. And that's what we would go back to um not only is it an improper investigation because you didn't find the showcasing, but why are you telling stories to a grieving family? Just tell us the truth. You didn't find it, and it's and you messed up.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Talk to me a little bit about the pillow. Like, you know, when you say you saw this picture of the pillow, and I know, I mean, we've all seen movies, and pillows are often used as a like like a suppressor for a firearm. And so did they give any indication on how the pillow supported suicide in that scenario? Because it seems, I don't know, it seems awkward.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

No, so the pillow is not mentioned in any police report, it's not mentioned in a coroner's report, autopsy report, um, nope, no report. And I don't know who took these pictures because the coroner sent me um through certified mail, that's the only way he would do it. He wouldn't do anything electronic. And one had a the pillow, like the singeing a little bit, you could see it. But whoever took the pictures that were sent of the entire pillow with the hole in it found it very important because there's four of them. There's four pictures showing the hole in the pillow. You know, obviously it was kind of a shock to them for it to be there. Otherwise, why would you take four separate pictures of it? We've never been able to. Able to ask a question about it. The last conversation that w was had was a phone conversation between the sheriff and I about um the time of death, which it we what I was actually referring to was a time of injury that was listed on my sister's uh state issued death certificate, and then all communication stopped.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

It's interesting because when I think about it, I mean, I I one of the very first questions I would think of is was there an indication that the bullet traveled through the pillow prior to the person versus after? I I'm not sure. I haven't I haven't yeah, so and prior it goes back to the whole that you know if if this was a homicide, you know, would it make sense for the pillow to go over that person's face as part of as part of that homicide? Or you know, or would they would they want to put it over their own face to suppress the sound for some reason? You know, I I don't know, like I said, to me it actually asks it it creates a lot of questions. And uh one thing I'm gonna be doing is running some statistics on when the pillow has been used and what that scenario was. I think that'd be an interesting thing for me to look up.

SPEAKER_02 23:00

As far as like how she was found and who found her, and I know we haven't gotten into that yet, but was that pillow moved so that you could see her face, or was it like that when you saw her? Like, because the placement to to me and to to others, it doesn't make sense. Like none of it none of it makes sense of how the pillow is placed and her and her arm and the gun. None of it makes none of it makes sense to us unless she was moved. If she was moved and somebody can justify that or verify that, then you know that it would make more sense. But nobody nobody will answer questions.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah, one thing I want to be super clear on too is you know, we were talking about the shell casing before we talked about the pillow, and to me, it's when the sheriff's office says that the shell casing was obvious, you're saying that you can't find the shell casing in any pictures.

SPEAKER_02 23:48

No, it's not in any pictures. It doesn't ex yeah, it doesn't exist. Um they did put a picture in there uh with a yellow circle, and they say that that is the shell casing that's circled, and it's a reflection of a makeup brush. And that's not it's I mean, you have to look at the photo, it's not a that's not the shellcasing. It's and you it's the reflection of a makeup brush. It's just not there, like it is definitely not plain as day in a crime scene photo.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

Yeah, and even the shellcasing itself, I find problematic listening to this is if if let's go ahead and say, okay, they didn't see it, let's say they missed it. And let's just go make that assumption for a second. You know, that'd be one thing that you wouldn't want to miss, but let's just go ahead and say they missed it. Now it's found by someone else a week later that is also affiliated with that office, at least was at some point. And so this this has a major conflict of interest concern. Right. And here's what I wasn't clear on. Did he collect it and then take it to the sheriff's office, or did he find it and say, come get it?

SPEAKER_02 24:49

Um that's what I'm also not not clear on. Um, and the sheriff admits in in that recording, he I think his statement goes a little like this. Like, I don't I don't know how five sets of eyes missed it, but we did. Like he admits to missing it. Like, there's no there's no question about it. He admits that they missed it.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Wait a second, let me stop you there. He admits to missing it, but yet he also said it's obvious in the photos. Correct. That's good. Those two things can't be the same.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Yes. And that's that's where the questions come from. Like it you're saying one thing in this recording that hasn't been edited. Um, you're not disputing the recording. You never disputed this recording of you and and me and my brother and my sister-in-law and my cousin. Like, nobody's ever disputed any recording or any evidence I've put forth ever. And if they did, it may make me feel a little bit better because at least you know you're you know, you're looking listening to it, and we have some we some have some back and forth conversations, but that's the thing, is nobody's ever done that. So you know what you said and you know what you presented to me, and they they don't line up. And you like the conflict of interests, that's huge because we asked in that same recorded conversation for the state police to come in due to the conflict of interest of Tony once working for the West Carroll Parish Sheriff's Office, and for the information that my brother had obtained from the lead detective that he had known Tony for 30 years. And I'm gonna be super clear, I've never spoken to the lead detective ever, not one time, for the simple fact that the text message that I sent to the sheriff where I live in the parish that I live in, I sent him the text and I said, it's out, you know, I said, Mike, I know it's outside your jurisdiction, but my sister died tonight in West Carroll Parish. And I need to know that everything's being done um and it's being investigated as a homicide until it's proof it's not, I might be under denial. And I listed the three things that bothered me. And it was what the coroner said about the autopsy, it was what Tony said about the funeral, and then um it was about uh Tony knowing that it was a single buttonshot wound to the head. It was those three things. And he said, I he responded immediately and he said, I'm flying in tonight, I'll give him a call tomorrow. He kept his word, he called over to West Carroll and he said, I know this girl or this kid, he calls me a kid, and I know her family, and she just wants answers about her sister. Like they're super close. He explains all that, and that lead detective, Erby, tells my brother that he's not gonna speak to me because I'm just a troublemaker, because I questioned his investigation. That is not what I did. I just simply stated that I wanted it investigated as a Hamas I prove it's not. I knew nothing about the investigation at that time, but but what I knew standing there was the day that she died. It's not it's not two weeks later, it's not when I got a police report. It is the day that she passed away. And so, because of that, the detective has never responded to a phone call. Um, he's never answered the phone for me, he's never replied to an email. Nothing. There's nothing, there's no nothing from the detective between him and I. Absolutely nothing.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

You started out by talking about when you got the phone call and you headed over to the house, and then you also indicated a little bit about your understanding of what happened before you arrived at the house. So can you tell what is your understanding of, you know, the interactions, who was there, all those things that happened before you arrived now that you've gone kind of gone back and thought more about that?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Like I knew where Tony was prior to my sister's death because of the records that I found on the laptop. Like I knew exactly his exact location of where he was at. And again, he he's never disputed this. He had a chance to. He was 14 minutes away from their house when he called for the welfare check. Yeah, Officer Chuck Harris, uh, go do a welfare check on my sister, but he didn't call it into the sheriff's department. He didn't call 911, he called in on a personal cell phone. And like I said, he was 14 minutes away, and we were told, relayed to my brother, that he had a karate studio, because they owned a karate studio in Oak Grove, that he had a classroom full of students, and he couldn't leave to go check on my sister. That narrative has changed, and in Tony's words, um, he he decided to send uh Officer Harris to do a welfare check because his gut told him something was wrong after he had called and texted her and she didn't show up for her doctor's appointment. Officer Harris was a school resource officer at a school in another town, same parish, but just a different town. He said he knew that he was off of work and that he would be like in the vicinity because he says they're neighbors. Now, again, that's not completely true because the address listed on the coroner's report, along with a lot of different other errors on the coroner's report for that officer, is not that address didn't exist in 2023. It exists now because it's a dollar general across the street from the the house where Crystal passed away in. That's the address of the Dollar General. And that officer lives like down the street, like two miles down the road. Now they had neighbors, they had three neighbors like that lived directly next to them. None of them were ever asked any questions, none of them were interviewed about anything. So I don't know why that was so such a big deal in the police reports to say that, you know, that officer and Tony were neighbors. Um, so that's why he checked he called him to check on her because he tried to make out like they were friends. And he ha Tony had to explain to this officer that her name is Crystal. Well, if you're friends and you're neighbors, you're not gonna have to tell her that her name is Crystal. Before that, Tony was around town. I mean, he worked for himself. Um, he was around town, he checked his daughter at school. It wasn't what my brother and I read in the original police report with the district attorney, which stated that his it just stated his whereabouts could be accounted for for the entire day. It didn't go into detail. What ultimately they did in the second police report that we got is they took the details that I gave the sheriff of that Google timeline location record, which is in which is essentially the the beginning of that timeline, and they put it in a second police report. And that's where the second police report came from, with with specific times that he was at Sonic and specific times he was at um some other place to eat and the time he chugged his daughter out of school. It came from the information I gave them, two and a half weeks after my sister passed away. All of that kind of comes together in the in the fact that we were denied a copy of the original police report by the district attorney. And again, it's recorded. And her reasoning for say for denying us a copy was I'm not even sure you're supposed to be reading that. That didn't make sense to us because why wouldn't we be allowed to read a simple police report?

SPEAKER_01 31:44

We've got an autopsy, but we can't read a police report. You started talking a little bit about some contradictions across timelines, and and I know that you have created uh a document that is specific to some of those contradictions. Can you tell us more about that?

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Uh Dr. Peretti did her autopsy. I I wasn't quite sure why she was uh sent from from Louisiana to Arkansas for an autopsy when we have pathologists here, but apparently um Arkansas is contracted through West Carroll Parish. As soon as I saw the autopsy, her name is spelled wrong. And I know that it's that's just you know some clerical issues, but her name was spelled wrong. Well, then her hair color and her eye color were wrong. My sister had black hair and brown eyes, and it said, you know, blondish hair and blue eyes. And so that's you know, external things that could have been maybe, you know, a little off. But then it had the autopsy, original autopsy, had two different case numbers on it, like 0105 and 0106, like one on one page, one on the other. But the probably the most critical thing, I think, in that autopsy, the original one, was the fact that her internal organs were wrong. And I know in autopsies, a lot of it is copying and pasting just things over, um, because they're gonna be the same throughout every autopsy. But you some you have to verify that, you know, and if you don't, then people some people are gonna catch you. And I think that's kind of what happened in this case because my sister had had a hysterectomy, maybe like six months prior to her death, and all of her female organs were listed as present. And so collectively, the autopsy to me meant nothing. Um, there was really no medical or physical evidence to support homicide or suicide, like there was nothing there to to really explain to me how anything happened or or anything. I I held in the discrepancies. Uh, I didn't reach out to the pathologists or anything until uh Christmas day of the same year. So 10 months later. Uh first really big holiday without Crystal and I was super emotional, and I reached out through my just regular Gmail account, not through some government office, not through uh security email, a Gmail account. And I just told him I was Crystal's sister. And he took my word for it. He didn't ask for identifying information, he didn't ask for anything, not even her death certificate. I just sent him her autopsy report. And I listed the things that were wrong, and he changed them on an on the autopsy. He amended the autopsy, changed everything I listed that was wrong, with the exception of her liver amoris status, her liver status. He changed that, but I never said anything about that because at the time I didn't know what that meant. Like I hadn't gotten to that point to where like I was reading every single word and and researching it. And he only changed it by like two words. But those two words are super important because in the original one, it gives the indication her body had been moved after death. In the second autopsy report, not the actual autopsy, because she was cremated against our wishes. So there's no body that he's physically autopsying. It's worded as if um her body, like it had just like she passed away and it stayed at rest. Like it it that was it. That raised a huge red flag to me once I realized that he changed it. Because why would you change something I didn't bring to your attention? It it bothered me so much that I did file uh with the Arkansas State Board of Medical Examiners um against him, not for necessarily amending what I I brought to his attention, although I don't think that that's pro proper procedures and protocols for amending something, but because he amended the liver status. And I asked for the proof that he had that, you know, allowed him to amend all that, not just my word. And they ultimately said that, you know, he, you know, they found that it was some clerical errors and it should have been more thorough, but um there was no wrongdoing because he could support everything he did in his notes. So I asked for the notes, and all of a sudden those notes are not public records, and that's where it ended.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Holy shit. Um I I just need to say that. Sorry, uh you can't see our faces because you know we don't do a video on our podcast, but I'm dumbfounded right now with everything that you're telling me. Because even something as simple as, okay, we have a clerical error on the name, and she has a funny spelling to her last name. And I made the same error when I made the the appointment. So I I get that piece.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

But that's what's her first name, though. Not her last name.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Oh, first name, okay. So I I I got the first name right. And and so, but what what stuck out to me in in what you're saying is we have blonde hair blue eyes, and we have someone who had who's had hysterectomy that now then the report and they had all of their female parts. Um, did anyone ask the question of whether we got the report of some other person?

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah, I proposed that to him. He communicated with me back and forth a little while until ultimately I guess he just got tired of me and redirected me back to the sheriff's department, which is like not gonna happen. So, you know, I questioned that too. I was like, why, you know, if if the communication should have been redirected back to the sheriff's department, why did he communicate with me, you know, and answer some of these questions that I had? Um, because I was very polite, like, and I'm very my sister's case taught me something very important, and that's to put things in writing. If you can't put it in writing, put it in a recording or in a text or an email or something like that, and have verifiable proof. And so, you know, the text or the emails that we had, I I I turned everything in, the whole thread. And, you know, they said that that go, you know, goes against the policy, but he's also a private pathologist. He's not he's not attached to the um Arkansas State Crime Lab anymore. So, you know, there's there's that. And then I, you know, I contacted the Louisiana State Board of Medical Examiners because my sister's case happened in Louisiana. But they can't hold anybody accountable for anything because the autopsy happened in Arkansas. And so it crosses jurisdictions and it it just, you know, there's so many different avenues I could take for uh advocacy for legislation about not moving bodies across state lines. Like leave them in the state, unless there's some sort of extenuating circumstance, leave them in the state where the crime happened. Because if you don't, this happens.

SPEAKER_00 38:08

You run into this problem as clerical slash right, slash, I mean, this this is a mess. This is an app anyone listening to this, is this is just a mess. And I'm even thinking of, you know, we we have a case, um, the Deanna Maryfield case. One of the things that really stuck out to me that's almost similar to this, is some random person from I think Kentucky or maybe we don't even know, called in and said, Oh, you know, Deanna's here, she's fine. And there was no confirmation. They just closed the case, move on. Great, glad somebody found her.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

She's back.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

Um, and this is thinking I mean, that's exactly that's it. Emailed in. Oh, by the way, here's all the details of the autopsy. By the way, I'm not the medical examiner. Um, I'm just sister. I provided no ID. Oh, sure, let's just go and make all these amendments without verifying any information whatsoever. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 38:56

What I'm learning here through this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

I'm just getting mad thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

So originally we came to this work because Michael's uncle uh has murdered and it's an unsolved homicide. And we have been really pushing the family like, can we get medical records? Can we we they give us very little sighting open and active case, which we're about to talk about? My learning here is like that's not the end. Just getting those records, then you have verify, right? Verify, check, read, go back. I I'm learning just so much from speaking to um our families. This is my learning I'm getting right now from you is that's not the end. You get those records, that doesn't mean, yeah, I got the records. You need to check and make sure they're correct before you decide to try to make any determinations or derive any theories from them.

SPEAKER_02 39:44

Well, the truth is, and and I try to be like super realistic, is every professional, like I'm a professional teacher and I'm a professional social worker, but we're all human and we all make mistakes. But it's owning up to those mistakes and what you do after you make those mistakes that really determines who you are as a person. And that thing, like I've even said before, if the sheriff was to come out and publicly, if you publicly had publicly came out and said, you know what, I screwed up, I'm sorry, you know, let the state police come in and investigate, you know, or I, you know, I'm sorry for what we did or we didn't do, I would take the billboard down because there's a billboard in that town of my sister's face that says, why didn't she deserve a proper investigation? And it's got the sheriff's department's name and phone number. It says West Carroll Paris Sheriff's Office. And it stays there, and I will continue to pay for it until we get answers. So it's up there. And I would stop getting her story aired on the news and all that kind of stuff. If you would just take accountability for what you didn't do. Because if you take accountability, then that means maybe the next family you run into, you won't lie to them. Or you won't, you'll think twice before you don't do an investigation just because somebody takes an antidepressant. And if that's all I can get, then that's all I can get. I can't make evidence appear, but I can make it another family not have to go through what we've gone through. And I can't get anybody to even take that simple step.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Yes, and we are in a similar situation with Michael's uncle. And I think there have been some rumblings and maybe some lightly saying, yes, we know we messed up the crime scene, you know, in one venue, they'll say that. But I don't know that anybody's really just stepped forward and named it in the way that I think the family, Michael's family should should hear it, which is exactly the same thing you're asking for. So what is the status of the case right now?

SPEAKER_02 41:35

It was ruled by the lead detective, an hour and 40 minutes, self-inflicted. It was ruled on the pathology report as a suicide. Um, and then on her state-issued death certificate, it is ruled a suicide. And we were under the assumption it was closed because of the fact I I got all the records. Like I I didn't have to have an attorney to get all these records. I got all the records and then I got an attorney. And you shouldn't do that. Like, if you're a family and you're listening to this, don't don't don't try to search for an attorney. Getting a private investigator that really like knows what they're doing and and is in it for the right reasons, it's probably worth more than getting an attorney. So focus more on there to get answers to your questions than an attorney. A private investigator who is invested in in what you are are trying to reach, they're gonna get you the answers that a sheriff's department didn't get you because that's what happened in our case. So her case was ruled as suicide, and I got all the records, and then we got a consultant involved. Um, she's a private investigator, but not licensed in our state, and she did a public records request for the communication between the the lawyers and the sheriff's office because things just didn't line up like we thought they should. And now now they they said this to they gave this letter to the consultant, not anybody in my family. And it states from the sheriff's attorney in his role as the sheriff, not personally, just in his role as the sheriff, we cannot, you know, give you this information due to Crystal Macquarie-Jones' case uh remaining open without a formal disposition. And I still don't really know what that means, but I did talk to a couple of attorneys. It means they don't know what happened. Without a formal disposition means they just reopened it um with no evidence of anything. They don't they don't know if it's suicide or homicide. So her case then, as of June 17th, 2024, remained open without a formal disposition. My thing was if her case remained open without a formal disposition, because you don't know what happened, then I don't want her death certificate to say suicide. I want it to be undetermined. Let's just make everybody happy. Let's go in the middle. So I try to get the sheriff to tell me the status of her case through a through an email, and I couldn't get it through a regular email, so I did a public records request. Eventually, through some channels, he did respond in writing. That there is no status to report on her case. I don't know what that means. It's in response to the public records request. However, he told the local news station in November of this past year, 2025, it was an open case and it was attached to the local crime stoppers. So to me, that indicates it's under an investigation of some sort. And then in January Let me interrupt there.

SPEAKER_00 44:25

That's such a strange thing to say because Crime Stoppers is about reporting crime.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

And so he's saying that it's with the local crime stoppers. That statement makes no sense because all the crime stoppers do is take the tip and then provide it to the associated criminal investigative unit or organization or sheriff's office. The case isn't with the crime stoppers. That's not how that works.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Right. And that's kind of where the um recording we have of the lead detective with a criminologist that called inquiring about Crystal's case. It doesn't match because when it aired on the news station and they attached it, you know, it's a it's the it's attached to crime stoppers, like you can listen to it. His recording states he talked to her for a little while, a little while, and then he says, Well, I can't discuss anything further. We have attorneys involved in this. I don't know why there's attorneys involved in this because I don't have an attorney involved in this. I just want you to tell me what happened to my sister. If you can't tell me what happened to her, then tell me why you didn't investigate it. There's no attorney needed for that. Like I don't have any pending suits. There's no litigation. I'm not suing anybody. I don't want your money. Um, I don't want your role as sheriff. I don't want anything. I just want an answer. So they have it apparently have attorneys involved. That was his first point. And then she said, Well, if there's um, you know, if I investigate this and I come up with some new leads, some new information, can I email you? And he says no. That's what the lady checked.

SPEAKER_01 45:44

That's weird. What? Oh, well, remember, we we have had someone affiliated with the sheriff's office who told one of our families to stop reaching out and talking to us because we were creating too many tips. There were too many tips coming forward. What?

SPEAKER_00 46:00

That's exactly what's exactly what we said.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

We're both sitting here in the wet in the wet chairs.

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Like, how do you know which tips are good or bad if you don't actually investigate them? But he was just, oh, we're not getting any good tips. I was like, well, yeah, well, I'm sorry you have to get up out of your desk, but we need you to investigate a crime.

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Um, I I do want to go back to something real quick because I know any you said it and we kind of went past it, so I need to I need to bring us back to it a little bit because people who heard it are gonna are gonna think this. So I want to get some clarity here. You said that she was on antidepressants. And I know antidepressants, you it says right on the label that you can have thoughts of suicide, but I also know that it's typically with younger people and it's typically only for the first few weeks. And so I want you, I I know what Crystal's age was. I don't I want you to tell our listeners how old she was, but also do you know how long she had been on antidepressants and had that been that prescription changed recently or within a few weeks of when this happened?

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Crystal was 43 when she passed away. I want to be super clear, she was on Zoloft like for for years. That's not what they're they're trying to say that you know caused the suicide. It's actually the antidepressant add-on that was given because her son had moved out of the house, her youngest son, and joined the Navy after high school. And super transparent here, my sister was sad, very sad because she had emptiness syndrome. But there's a difference between being sad and suicidal, totally different. And I mean, she had she just learned she was having a grandbaby, and there's so many things that you know just don't point to suicide. But there was an add-on to her antidepressant, but that add-on was given in June. Like I was able to get access to their prescriptions, a two milligram dose of obilify. Now, this is June of 22, and she passes away in February of 23. And what she was they they're claiming, and this is just from what they told what Tony what Tony says is that she was coming off of the obilify, not the Zoloft. Zoloft was in her system at the time of her death. She was coming off the obilify because she thought that that's what was making her feel like sick to her stomach, and she had scheduled a doctor's appointment the morning that she died for 2 30 about the antidepressant making her sick to her stomach. But then he also states that she had quit cold turkey two days prior, two days um off of a two milligram antidepressant. I will say this I I kind of put myself in my sister's shoes, not necessarily to want to feel what that feels like, whatever whatever that felt like if that was the case. But I wanted to see what it, you know, if you come off of an antidepressant add-on, what does it make you feel like? Because I I'm on an antidepressant and I also take an add-on. And I just take a different one. And I wanted to see. And so I kind of did the same thing and made me feel like like crap, and it didn't make my head hurt. And he did say she complained of a headache, but I absolutely did not have those thoughts. They did not cross my mind. It just didn't make me feel that way. So um I don't know the the ins and outs of of Abilify. I know there's a warning label on it, there's a warning label on every, like you said, every single antidepressant and antidepressant add-on. I'm not gonna like I don't want to justify saying that that that couldn't have happened and she committed suicide. I don't want to say that she didn't, like, because they took a picture of a prescription bottle, um, but it's so blurry you can't see it. But in the third police report they wrote, because there's three of them, um, they clarify that that picture is of Xanax. The amount of Xanax in her system was like it was coming out of her system, like she'd taken it the night before. Completely normal levels. Same with Zoloff, completely normal levels. Matter of fact, Zolov was like she had taken it the day that she passed away. So she got up and she took her medicine, called in a doctor's appointment, supposedly, to her doctor because she wasn't feeling well, and just simply didn't go. And and that's what just doesn't add up to us what happened in the events between the doctor's appointment, but you know, scheduling the doctor's appointment, and then her being found not alive.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

So, first we want to start just by thanking you for being so transparent and and sharing what you've learned and even speaking directly to some of our family members in support of them. And we just want to close by, you know, we always offer, is there anything that you wanted to talk about that we did not give you an opportunity to speak directly to?

SPEAKER_02 50:15

If Tony listens to this and he hears me and he wants to he doesn't even have to join force forces with me. If he wants to attempt to reach out to the state police or the attorney general's officer, whoever to have Crystal's investigation looked at and he needs assistance in in writing something or or guidance or whatever, my email and phone number, and all that's still the same. And uh I'll help you. And you you send it through your email and you communicate as her husband. You don't need me to communicate as your side partner if that's what you if it makes you feel more comfortable, I'll do it. Um, but you have all the power and and I'll help you use it if that's what you're willing to do. Because I I just want this to not happen to somebody else, because it doesn't just affect my family, it affects Tony's family too. And I understand that. But at the end of the day, it's not it's not about who it affects, it's about getting answers for Crystal because Crystal's case, unfortunately, is not unique, like it happens in every small town, and we know that. I'm just the loudest, and that's why her case gets the attention because I don't stop asking questions.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

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.