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_02 0:47

And I'm Michael.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Every case we cover is about more than an investigation. It's about a person whose life mattered, a family whose world was forever changed, and the people who refuse to let their story be forgotten. Today we're joined by Gina Stevens, someone who has stood beside Amber Burbilia's family, offering support, encouragement, and unwavering commitment to seeking answers. In addition to supporting the family, Gina has conducted extensive independent research into Amber's case, carefully reviewing records, examining the evidence, and working to better understand the circumstances surrounding Amber's death. Today we'll talk about Amber's legacy, the family search for answers, what Gina has uncovered through her research, and why continuing to share Amber's story remains so important. Thank you for being here, Gina, and welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

Thank you, Alyssa and Michael, for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

We're so glad to have you here and help us learn about Amber and see what we can do and what our listeners can do to move her case forward. But before we get um really to talking about Amber's murder, would you introduce yourself and tell us how you first came to know Amber's family?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Um, so I know Amber's family, um, her aunts and her uncles through my husband. Some my husband and her aunt Kathy work together at the electric company. And so we have been very close friends for a very long time. Kathy also cuts my hair. So she's also my hairdresser.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

And that's an important relationship.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

That's always a very close relationship. Yes, especially for women.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah, the person's vacation together, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

They're real close. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 2:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

So what was it about Amber's story that that compelled you to walk down this path and do the investigation and become such a fierce advocate for the family?

SPEAKER_00 2:50

When I first found out that Amber was murdered, I was telling her Aunt Kathy, you know, don't worry, look at forensics today. It's come so far from the 90s, they'll have an answer, you know, this will be solved, somebody will be held accountable. And so every time I would get with Kathy, I would ask her, you know, Kathy and Scott, I'd say, you know, any news on Amber's case? And they're like, no, no, nothing. And I was, I'm a tech person. I've been in tech for over 25 years. I said to my husband, I'm like, they're never gonna get this solved. I I can't believe that they've heard absolutely nothing. And the years just kept ticking by. So I decided that I was gonna start a Facebook group, and I was really gonna push hard to try to get Amber's story out there. In that time frame, my own two grandchildren decided that they were gonna go to Coastal Carolina, which is in Conway, which is right next near Myrtle Beach, there. And so I was kind of asking them, like, kind of like, hey, ask your friends who are from this area, have they ever heard of this story? And they were like, Grandma, nobody's heard of this story. And so it dawned on me that most some of this problem is is that maybe people don't know about this story. You know, it is a tourist area, and I I understand where they don't want the bad publicity, but at the same time, that doesn't bring justice to Amber and it doesn't bring closure to her family. No one has ever been held accountable for Amber's murder. I I just have such a deep desire and drive to help them any way I can. You know, I I I believe that God gave me the gift of being in the tech field, especially at a time where people my age didn't go that direction. I feel like it's my calling to take the skills that I was given and to help them any way I can. And one of the things is I'm I'm an advocate for not only Amber's story, um, but in this journey, I've also met some really close friends now and helping them with their um their their stories as well.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

A lot of what you're talking about is just really resonating with us. Our listeners know that we started this journey because Michael's uncle was murdered just a year after Amber was killed, and we're in the same situation that you are, where there have been no arrests, very little communication uh with the family. The sheriff's office did put up a sign on the highway and a reward, and they'll make bracelets and things like that, like justice for Jody. What we really were trying to do is exactly what you're saying, like stir some more light into this case, right? Get people talking about it again. And over the co course of a year and a half, we've learned that what we're really doing is advocacy. We've really shifted, I think, in the last couple months. And then Michael has some very specific tech skills also that I think have really helped us. So there's a lot of commonalities happening between Amber's death and and Jody's death for sure.

SPEAKER_02 6:06

I agree.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Yeah. So did you ever meet Amber, or do you just know of her from speaking to her family members?

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I just know of Amber from speaking to her family members. I may have met Amber at a family function because I kind of vaguely remember this really cheery girl, um, but did not know who she was. So I I I'm gonna say no, but I in the back of my mind, I think I may have met her once.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Can you tell us maybe some of the stories that her aunt and uncle have shared with you that capture her personality?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Well, I'll tell you one that really it brought tears to my eyes. Uh, I'll share one that her dad shared with me, her her dad, Peter. He told me that one of the biggest things, and and Amber's friends will attest to this too, is that Amber had such an upbeat vibe. You know, she she always tried to make people feel comfortable. She was very cheery. But her dad said that when she was little, he remembers taking the kids sledding. And Amber, uh you know the kids, she had her uh her sister and her brother, and they go down the hill and he says he hears this little giggling. And he said, when he looks down, he goes, There's Amber sitting on her sled, just giggling away, waiting for her turn to go down the hill. And he said, It's a it's a giggle that to this day he can still hear about Amber. Amber was also very adventurous. He told me another story about where when they were younger, he was going to work and he said he looked over at the house and he sees this ladder leaning up against the window. And he thought, hmm, when I get home, I'm gonna have to put that ladder away. I don't know why it's there. It was several weeks later that he found out that Amber was sneaking out at night to go to her friend's house.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

She left the ladder out. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

I was like, that wasn't a really good plan. Because Peter, like he goes, Yeah, I guess I'm just looking at this ladder going, now who would leave a ladder there? And I and I had to just laugh to myself because you know, from what Amber's friends have shared with me over the years, is Amber was adventurous too, you know. But aren't aren't we all at that age? You know, she was just a young teenager then. She liked to do karaoke. She wasn't really good at singing, but it didn't stop her from getting up there in front of her mic and doing karaoke and just letting people know, you know something? You don't have to be the best at this to have fun. You can still get up here and do it.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

See, when I was her age, I didn't sneak out of the house. I waited for my parents to go on vacation. And then I invited people over because we had a pool and a hot tub in my backyard. And so I I mean it was much easier just to wait until they left and have people come over.

SPEAKER_02 8:59

Yeah, and I lived on the one story in a one-story house, so I didn't need a ladder.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

You could just jump out the window, right? Just jump out the window. Go out the front door.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah, we do, um, you know, we have done a little bit of our own learning about Amber. And it does seem like she just had she was very high-spirited, super fun, you know, just really enjoyed like living life and actually had been out of the country.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Can you tell us about that? So she attended Orie County Technical College as a fashion designer. That was her passion. You know, she wasn't one that followed the trends, she set her own trends. And so she had the opportunity through the Orie County to go over to London for a couple weeks and study over there. And so that's where she went with uh obviously other classmates. Um, and while she was over there, she met a guy, Jose, who after two years of dating long distance overseas, they actually got engaged. So, you know, the the love of her life, so to speak, she met over in England during that trip.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So she's not someone who's, you know, just gonna hang around. And that's how I I actually did not really leave my hometown really, I think, ever until we just sold our house, at least long term, a few years ago. Like I went to college really close, all of the jobs I had were really close. I certainly wasn't going to take off and go overseas for a few weeks when I was in my 20s. Unlike Michael, who you know took a big what, five-year journey all around the world. That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Yeah. Amber grew up in Prokeepsie, New York. Off her h elementary, middle school, high school years are in Poughkeepsie. She moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to attend college. And of course, her mom, Michelle, was in um Little River, which is close to Myrtle Beach. So that was probably, you know, it gave her the opportunity to reconnect with her mom some and also to attend college there.

SPEAKER_01 11:03

So we had, um, when we were talking earlier, you you had mentioned that not not even people in the Myrtle Beach Conway area are really familiar with what happened to Amber. So, and obviously neither are our listeners. So, would you just kind of walk us through what happened to Amber and when and and how her death unfolded?

SPEAKER_00 11:24

Um, so it was May the 3rd in 2013. Amber started out her day, just running some errands for that day. So she had a hairdresser appointment at like nine at 12 o'clock. Um, she called her friend, Kathy Lee, at like 12:30 that day. And then she did several other errands. Um, one was to return some clothes that she had bought and she needed to return at the Ross's dress for less, which is at the it's 10835 King's Road in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It's like a uh tanger kind of outlet type of place. This is one video and camera that we actually have an actual time for. It is the only stop that day, however, and there are several stops where she's picked up on camera that we have actual an actual time for. She is seen turning off of the main road, the highway, onto a side street, and she is gone for like 30 minutes, out of camera, wasn't picked up anywhere. When she comes back on camera in her car, she is seen at the uh Time Warner cable company paying her bill. That will be the last place that day that Amber is actually seen alive. There's a 911 call that comes in at around 412 that afternoon, which is broad daylight, of a possible homicide, a female victim who's been shot. Now we know since then that Amber was not actually shot. Um she died of blunt force trauma. Her car was still running, her doors were still open, her purse was still in the front seat, nothing had been stolen, and Amber had not been sexually assaulted. The question, you know, we we still have a lot of questions and not a lot of answers as to what really happened that day.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

It seems to be a belief that she did go to her apartment. Obviously, that was not substantiated, right? Nobody sees her there. There's no cameras there, but someone close to her apartment did report something of interest that we'd love for you to share with us.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

So her neighbor upstairs, whose name is Donna, says that around 3.15 to like the 320ish range, she heard Amber yell, What are you doing here? And she said she heard some scuffling noises and then silence. She did not, she thought about calling the office, but then realized that it was a Friday and that they went home early, so there'd be nobody in the apartment office. And she did not think anything of it until the very next day when she saw the detectives there putting crime scene tape out of side of Amber's apartment. And that's when she finally told the police what she had said she heard, and they had told her that they couldn't they that they it didn't fit their timeline. So they they pretty much dismissed her and her statement.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

And do you have knowledge of what their timeline quote their timeline is?

SPEAKER_00 14:42

So according to them, around the 215-ish range, we're gonna say, and all these times are very never been substantiated, but that she is seen at the time Warner Cable Company paying her bill. According to them, there was a man that was standing behind her at the at the cable company, and he was giving a real dirty look. So they picked that up in the camera that they were that they could see. So they questioned him, and he was an older man. And he said told them that he was giving her dirty looks because he wanted to know why such a pretty girl like herself was seen with a black man in her vehicle. So that's at like the 215, 220-ish range. At 230, her friend Kathy Lee and Scott, who was um a manager at a previous employment, received a text message from Amber. And the message asked them if they had heard that she was sleeping with a man by the name of Dick. And I'll leave the last name out. That's the last message that came off of Amber's phone before the 412 call came in. So we're a little bit of an hour between the actual text message, which we know definitely came through, and the call to at 412 that there's been a body found.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

I'm trying to just put all this together and I'm thinking about when I'm, you know, that age, she's in her very early 20s. Yes. And she's running around. And, you know, yes, I remember having to go to the cable place and paying my bill. I I do remember that we used to have to do that. She's returning something. There's just a series of things that she needs to get done while also keeping in mind that she needs to be at work. And correct. While there doesn't seem to be evidence that she did go back to the apartment, to me, that's logical, right? You're running around doing all your errands. You know you need to go back. I used to work at restaurants. Change your clothes.

SPEAKER_02 16:50

Well, she used to work at all the restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah, I worked at all the restaurants. Change your clothes into your, you know, into your restaurant uniform and get on to work. Because within she she did not work, live and work that far. It seems like it was maybe a 25 minute drive.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Probably not even that, really.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

So it's about 15 minutes, maybe. And she was supposed to be work at four o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah. So the 315 thing, uh, it it tracks. It tracks with what she's doing and the time frame that she needs to go to work. But it's still someone who ov s overheard something sort of odd.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah, what's really odd is that like she is seen on cameras. Um let me one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. She's seen on nine different cameras that day before she even gets to the Time Warner cable build uh building. They could not get there the cameras apparently were not working on the outside of that building. So they have no proof of whether she had somebody in her car or she did not.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Because there was no one else in line with her.

SPEAKER_00 17:52

Well, there are some others, but they were they were inside. Yeah. This gentleman's claiming that this guy was sitting in her car. And but there's no there's no camera that picked that up because the cameras apparently were not working that day in the shopping center there on the outside.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Talk to us uh actually, tell us a little bit more about um that time frame where that time is lost. Like where what do you think happened as she's on her way to work?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

If what Donna said is true, the person actually intercepted her in her apartment and she left with this person. Now I can tell you that her car was processed. I talked to her Aunt Jackie, who actually picked up her car after it was processed by the police department. She said that she'd never seen so much dust, powder dust in a vehicle ever. They apparently had gone over Amber's car thoroughly. But according to the detectives, they got no evidence from her car. So it still makes you wonder like, was this person sitting in her car in a bubble suit? Like, how do you get into somebody's car and have an altercation with the person to where obviously something started in her car because she ran out of her car, left the door open, she lost a shoe in the mud as she's running, her sunglasses fly off of her head. So it wasn't something that started outside of the car. All evidence points to whatever happened, that altercation happened in her car.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, one thing interesting too, when I think about that, there's a very, you know, you can say there was no evidence found, which is fine. But there's a very big difference between we found lots of things that were irrelevant to the case versus there was nothing collected that we could find. Those mean two different things. You know, one is nothing happened in the car, there was no evidence of it, versus another one means everything was wiped down and there were no fingerprints or anything like that that could be retrieved. I'd be interested to know what the answer to that question is.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

I I I can tell you that when I asked, when they they told me that they found nothing in her car, my first question to the detective was, How can you find nothing? They didn't touch the doorknob. How did they get out of the car? You know, they touched nothing, the dash, they didn't touch anything, they didn't touch the dash, they didn't touch the doors, like and he said, Well, you know, her car wasn't the cleanest. And I was like, What does that mean exactly? And they would not give me an answer to that. You know, she's a young girl. Let's say she didn't keep a spotless car. You still look, you know, and but you know, I I did talk to her and Jackie um actually just a couple weeks ago. I didn't realize that she was the one who had picked up Amber's car. But when her car was done, they were done processing it, and it was like less than two weeks. They only had her car less than two weeks. She said she drove it away and she's there, there was dust everywhere. And but she said the car was spotless. So for them to sit there and say that, you know, it wasn't the cleanest car, it conflicts. It conflicts with what her aunt tells me. You know, there was not trash in the car. And, you know, and I'm sure the detectives didn't clean it up. I'm sure they didn't do that, you know. So the way her aunt Jackie picked the car is exactly how they how it looked when they processed it.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Now the location of her car and the location uh of her body and where the 911 call was made is not directly en route from her apartment to her to her work. It looks like they took a right turn maybe and went up a different road for a short bit. Can you help us understand that?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Yeah. So from her, if let's say she came from her apartment, she would have come over the Robert Edge Parkway probably, but Old Sanders Road was one of those places where it at the time it was not very developed. Now that has all changed. It does not look anything like today as what it did back in 2013. According to her friends, you know, they had certain routes that they took all the time, and that was not one of the ones that that Amber would have taken. It comes off of um the Robert Edge Parkway, or I should say the Robert Edge Parkway runs over time. Top of it. But again, there was really nothing there. There were a few sporadic houses past the parkway and some open field areas, but really heavily wooded, heavily wooded. And it had rained that day. It was an area, I this is this will probably explain more how the high school kids, a lot of the local kids, they would go mudbogging in that area. They would take their trucks and they would mudbog through the through the mud and stuff there. So it was, it was pretty much all wooded, and it led out to the waterway.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

So it's not a way that she would have gone on her way to work. And I I do want to just thank you for like naming and helping us remember that this was 2013. Because when I was looking at it over the past few weeks as we're getting ready to support you guys, I'm like, wait, there's an apartment complex here, but it wasn't there in 2013. So that's I think very important. It's a lot of our listeners, um, and we're grateful. They kind of start doing their own looking at at cases and stories and you know, maybe go a little deeper than we do. And that's what I did. And so there's no apartment complex there, not in 2013. So thank thank you for that reminder.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yeah, if you go on Google Earth, they archive. So you can actually pull the archive. Uh, I think it's January. They have January of 2013. That's what that area looked like at that time.

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yes. It's a are you referring to a satellite image of that area?

SPEAKER_00 23:26

Yes, yes. And you can actually do a street too. You can go on the street even back in 2013, and you can like go up that road as if you're driving back 2013 and see how there are a couple houses, but they sit like way, way back in some woods or a long driveway. There's nothing right really on that road at that time. So it's it was out of her way for her to go to work. And she wasn't running late. She didn't have to be at work until four o'clock from her apartment. Let's say that she actually was at her apartment at like to say that 3.15, 320 range. It would have only taken her maybe 15 minutes, 20 on a real bad day to get to work. So it's not like she was running late. She wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Are you aware if during the investigation at the scene they looked for other any other tire tracks? I know right now, like the prevailing theory seems to be that someone was in the vehicle with her, as opposed to her being, you know, chased by another vehicle or footprints or anything like that that they were able to capture at the scene.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

So the the sad part about that is, like I said, it had rained earlier that day pretty heavily, I would, I think, um, because you can see from the dash cam videos, water really sitting everywhere where her car was left. It kind of looked like it's, I don't want to say it's a ditch, but it looks like it's a deep cut gully. And again, kids used to mudbog down there, so they kind of really dug in that area with their vehicles. But when they got there initially, the two boys, young boys that had found her, had walked around her vehicle, touched the outside of her vehicle, had picked up her sunglasses, they could hear her call her her cell phone going off. And unfortunately, North Myrtle Beach was called out initially to that scene. Um, and it was not their jurisdiction. But in the meantime of Ori County coming, that scene had actually gotten trampled over by, you know, police officers, the young boys that were there. So they lost, as far as footprints, they look they lost that evidence, if there were any. The detective even told me that they lost that evidence.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

And there is some YouTube clips out there of the the officers responding, and people, you know, we watched that, and you can see it's super muddy and that there's a lot of deep tracks. And then the boys had been out there, the ones who found her, and they'd been out there running around their four-wheelers too. So I can see how there would have been a lot of tire tracks.

SPEAKER_02 26:00

Yeah, and the other thing you notice when I watched that video is it almost seemed like the vehicle was stuck, not just driven into there, but stuck in there. And because I am it's hard to tell from the video, but it looks like it would have had trouble getting out.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, I asked the detectives that too when I saw that video. And they did tell me they were able to drive her vehicle out of there.

SPEAKER_02 26:21

That's good to know. I wasn't sure.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Yeah, I wasn't sure either, because when, like you said, when you look at that video and you look at her vehicle, it kind of looks like it's leaning to the left, to the driver's side. And I thought, there's no way, well, I I still can't imagine that Amber would have ever driven her vehicle there intentionally. In in that position. Obviously, um I thought maybe she had gotten stuck, but they told they assured me that they were able to drive her car out of there. And she she drove a Mishabishi uh Montero.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

You mentioned the cell phone, and you've talked about how there was a pretty good footprint of her activities up until, you know, like the 230 text message. What was happening with the cell phone report? Why you just you just said that they knew that the phone was ringing and that was at like 415. So why do we not have more information about activity around the cell phone beyond the the last text message?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Well, I questioned whether or not they did a deep, thorough, forensic inspection of her phone back in 2013. That is one of the things that I had an advocate, uh, her name was Angie, that was going with Michelle to the detectives. There, because they were they weren't years with Michelle hearing nothing from the detectives at all. The lead detective that originally started Amber's case moved out of the area. It had gotten shifted through several other detectives. And back in 2017, when I had spoken to Michelle, I had said, I'd asked her, when was the last time you've heard from the detectives? And she's like, it's been five years. And I'm like, oh no, no, we can't have this. We're not gonna have this. So I was able to arrange an advocate to go with Michelle. And I'm like, every month you need to sit across from those detectives. And even if they have no updates to give you, you need to be sitting across the table where they have to look at you in the eyes and tell you they have no new new evidence yet. So one of the things that we were questioning was, you know, forensics have changed over the years. And we wanted them to re-look at some of the evidence that they had. And one of the things we wanted them to look at is the cell phone. We are waiting now almost two years. They claim, and we can only take their word for it because we that's all we have is their word, is that they originally started tried to power up her cell phone and it wouldn't power up. Then they sent it to supposedly SLED and to see what they could do with the cell phone, they weren't able to get it powered up or anything off of it. Now, when I had talked to them back in May of this year, they told me they have sent her cell phone outside of the agency. So I asked when they expected to get it back, and again, they have no answers. You know, they're they're backed up, they have this huge backlog. Even Kathy Lee, who was one of the people who had gotten that last message from Amber, they said she said they literally just took her phone, looked at the screen, and handed it right back to her. Like they didn't, they didn't even like even dig further into her phone or Scott's phone. And they were the last two people to ever hear from Amber.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Well, one thing too, I want to just uh point out because I'm if I if I heard it in the interview, I'm sure our listeners are gonna hear it. Her her phone was on the ground and it was working because the kids that discovered her body heard the cell phone going, and they're saying that they couldn't get the phone to power on after that. Do we need to buy the police department a phone charger?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

I don't think that to be I don't think they tried to turn it on. Yeah. I don't think they tried to turn it on for years. That's what I think. I I think they just kind of collected it. It was at the scene. People were, you know, her work was texting her. They were calling her because now she's you know at 412, she's late for work, yeah. Yeah. Not like her. So they're like, now they're concerned. So now they're calling. Are you okay? Are you coming in? Are you sick? You know? And so they're leaving messages for her on her phone, they're leaving text messages, voicemails. And her her phone was inches from her hand. So when she darted out of her car, she grabbed her phone and took it with her.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Yeah, which is good because she was gonna call for help, most likely.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Yeah, but she never she never got to make that call.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

I want to talk another about another piece of evidence because if you go online, you'll find this, you know, very pervasive out there. And let's talk about the rock. And so the rock aspect confuses me because you know, one of the things that stands out was the size of the rock. And so I even did a demonstration with Elisa last night, we're on our way to dinner, and I said this rock conversation bothers me. Because number one, it's a heavy ass rock. I mean, we're talking even your estimates, I think I heard you say in one of another podcast, between 115 pounds and 160, I think is what you said, based on whatever the density of the rock would it would have been, so this type of rock, and we don't really know that. Right. So, but even at the smallest weight, let's just round it out to a hundred pounds. That is a very interesting thing to pick up to hurt someone with. And unless you're a gorilla, or there's more than one person, why was this the choice? And so I even explained to Elisa, I said what I don't have here in any of the evidence or see in the end of in the evidence, is can we tell the rock was even moved? I mean, you know, what would be the difference between this rock being picked up versus her being hit against it? Because I even I I picked a pebble off the ground. I said, look, even a small little pebble creates this little indent in the soil. I would have expected law enforcement to be able to determine that. So where did can you explain where the rock story comes from? Because I don't really believe the rock story.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Well, the rock story actually comes from detective, well, used to be Detective Lent, he is now Captain Lent. A conversation that him and I had about the murder weapon. And he does not call it a rock, by the way. His exact words is it was a boulder.

SPEAKER_02 32:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

And they they and I and I think I live near, I live in Pennsylvania, I live near Gettysburg. And if anybody's been to Gettysburg, we have what we call Devil's Den. And that's a boulder. And I I think, you know, we don't grow potatoes here, we grow rocks. We grow boulders here, huge boulders. And so when he said boulder, I'm like, are are you talking of rock? And he said, No, I'm talking a boulder. And I'm like, well, how big would this boulder be? And he said, about the size of three to four basketballs. So then I'm like visualizing, you know, what a size of a basketball is and what the size of three or four of them would be. And I said, okay, what type of rocks would be in this area? What being native to this area that would be readily now. They also call this boulder a uh weapon of opportunity. So this person, it doesn't sound like if they brought a weapon with them, they didn't use the weapon they brought with them. They used this boulder that was sitting there. And for the longest time, I'm like you, I thought, well, maybe he took her head and pushed it into the rock. But I also have Amber's autopsy. And she suffered four skull fractures. So the question still is, was it two strikes or was it four? I don't believe it was four. I think at most it was three. But she has a fracture to the right side of her skull. She also has a fracture to the left side of her skull. She has a fracture right above uh if you take your neck and it's like right where that knot is on the back of your neck, she has a fracture there. And then she had she suffered a fracture that all went from the right side of her skull clean over to the left side of her skull. So these were very substantial injuries. None of those injuries would have been survivable. I can I can tell you that. I I I can't imagine how somebody would have been able to hit her that many times in those different places if they actually had not picked up the rock.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

How do you count for the weight though? Because I'm still thinking 100 pounds, that is not an easy thing to do. I mean, you're either a massive person or there is more than one person.

SPEAKER_00 34:37

Or you're on total adrenaline. I've seen that in my lifetime. I've seen where people have picked up a car because they, you know, happened to be out of an accident and they're just on pure adrenaline.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

And where is this boulder now? Uh it is still in evidence. So they have it, and that has obviously would have some marks on it, and maybe when they did the autopsy could align those things up and it would have blood evidence as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

Yeah, it has blood evidence. They they did tell me there is blood on the on the rock, um, which is how they knew that that was the the uh weapon, or that they have claimed that that is the weapon. So originally the call came in that she had been shot, and then they had realized um after you know looking at her body a little bit closer that she had not been shot, um, but that she had been struck.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

And we're also aware that she had lots of injuries on her arms and her hands as well, which would be a place where you would think that they would be collecting, you know, a lot of trace evidence.

SPEAKER_00 35:39

So she did. She had cuts from her thumb to the middle of her palm on both of her hands, um, which is would have happened when she was trying to protect herself from being hit. So at some point she did have her back or she was facing her attacker. And then so that's those injuries would have happened there. She had cuts all the way up her arms on both sides and bruises. She had all her fingernails were broken. And they said they were able to get some DNA, but it was only trace DNA, and they got that from her fingernails. So they were not allowed, they were not, and they were not able to get enough DNA to put into CODIS. So for years, it was probably up until what this is 26, 2023, that her family was under the impression that they had all this DNA and that they were able to put it through CODIS, which is the national database, and but they had gotten no hits. And it wasn't until 2023 that we found out that they only had what they called trace DNA and not enough of a profile to even send that to to CODIS. So it's never been through CODIS.

SPEAKER_01 36:50

Yeah, we have a similar as far as um defensive injuries that are quite serious in Michael's uncle's case. And when they have when they held his funeral, there was one hand that just completely needed to be wrapped. And I understand with Amber, they put her, you know, they asked that she'd be wearing long sleeves because, you know, the extent of her defensive injuries were pr they were, they were really, really bad. And they didn't want people to see those. And we see the same thing happening in Jody's case, and the same thing about not being able to do any matches or get enough DNA. And we're like, what are you talking about? Like, this person is scratched, there's cuts, defensive wounds. How can we not gather that information?

SPEAKER_00 37:32

And in Amber's funeral, they requested that people stay away from her casket because of her seriousness of her head fractures. They didn't want anybody touching her. This was somebody who either had a total hate for her, or this person was mad. That's all I that's all I can I don't even have the right words to say. This person was enraged when they attacked her.

SPEAKER_01 37:58

We do want to make sure that we give you an opportunity to talk about some misconceptions that are in the community that are out there regarding her death.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

One of the things that for the longest time, and I and I've read a couple of the blogs, uh like Reddit and stuff like that, about Amber's case is that the police intentionally staged Amber's car underneath the overpass. So it looked like maybe she had it was a road rage incident where maybe somebody bumped her and she pulled over and they attacked her, and that she actually died under the overpass off of Old Sanders Road. But that's not true. Amber's car was found off of a dirt road that ran alongside the overpass in some wooded brush area. When I talk to people, one, it always amazed me when I've been out to uh North Myrtle Beach and Little River, and I talk about Amber's case. People don't even know anything about this case. And if they do know about it, like, oh yeah, you know, she was found under the underpass. And I'm like, no, that's that's not true. And I think some of those misconceptions may be why people haven't come forward because maybe what they thought they saw doesn't actually align with what they've been told by the media or what was originally had come out about Amber. I I want to kind of like address that that no, her car was not found under the underpass. It was beside the overpass. I do have pictures. Um, I can't add any new information to our Facebook page because, like I said, I'm in Facebook prison more than I'm out. But feel free to go to Justice for Amber Babilia on Facebook. I do have pictures of Amber's car out there, where it was found at. And then some other details that that we have over the years, like, you know, there was some speculation that it was a drug gone, it was a drug deal gone bad. And that's one of the things you'll hear that the police say first thing in the in the dash cam. And I'm not going to say that Amber was a perfect angel. Yeah, she partaked in some, you know, marijuana pot smoking. Not unusual for a person her age. She's a she's a college student. Partook, she partook in some Xanax, but her toxicology report comes back. She has none of those. She has a little bit of a trace of marijuana in her blood system, but residual. So they figured that sometime in that week she had smoked, but it definitely wasn't that day. So she wasn't impaired. She wasn't a drug addict. Um, because I hear people, you know, comment, oh, she's a drug addict. She's found in this area, it's a well-known drug area. You know, Amber's toxicology is clean, you know, except for that residual. And she had a little bit of alcohol. She'd been out the night before with friends celebrating. You know, she was getting ready to graduate from college. She was getting married in a month. So she had gone out to celebrate with some friends. And so she did have a little bit of alcohol in her blood system, but well below the legal limit. So she wasn't intoxicated either.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

So if someone is listening today and they live in the Conway or North Myrtle Beach or Myrtle Beach area, and you they may have seen something or heard something. What would you want them to do with that information?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

So if they remember anything, whether it be that they saw something, maybe they were going down Old Sanders Road, uh, you know, whatever. I would ask that you you actually do contact Orie County Police Department. They do have a tip line. You can remain totally anonymous. Um, do you need that number? Because I can definitely get it for you. Yes, that would be great. Okay, so it's 843-915-8477. That's the Orie County tip line. The lead detective right now is Sean Woodraw, and that's W Y D-R-A. He's the lead detective. If you would want to call Ori County that you know and talk to him directly, you could. Um, but even if you heard somebody, like my thing, somebody's gonna talk at some point. And if you maybe were talking to a friend, or maybe they mentioned something and you think, wait a minute, this could be even if you think it's nothing, please just reach out to Ori County and leave it, leave an anonymous tip line.

SPEAKER_01 42:19

And our listeners know they can send us tips as well through our email. Uh I uh often get several tips just through Facebook. People just message me through Facebook directly. And I always share those with whomever is, you know, the law enforcement agent relate related to that case. So that that is one way to do it as well. We always say, we'll say it every single time. It's not up to the public to determine if a tip is relevant. It's up to the public to relay the tip to who needs to hear it. And law enforcement, then it's their job to determine the relevancy of the tip and if it's helpful.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yeah, that's where you know, with Facebook not being able to update that our site. We actually had gotten La Donna, her neighbor who was upstairs, actually reached out to me via the Facebook. Um, there was another group, another young man who was four-wheeling at that time, um, who thinks he saw somebody. He reached out to me via Facebook. And like you said, I've always turned all that information over to the Ori County detectives and let them sort that out and determine whether it's relevant or it's not relevant. But just because you don't want to give your name, please don't let that hesitate. You know, don't let that not let you call them. You can be anonymous.

SPEAKER_01 43:36

We never judge people. There are assorted reasons why someone may not want to be in contact with law enforcement. So that's why we give lots of different options that you can remain anonymous. And we will go ahead and like you do as well, uh, relaying those tips. And before we wrap up, what's one thing you hope our listeners remember about Amber and the people who continue to fight for her?

SPEAKER_00 44:03

So the one thing um that I I would say is that Amber was a friend. She was a daughter, she was an aunt, she was a sister to s to a to her family. She she wasn't just as I I've seen before, where people say, you know, cold cases are not dead cases. And that is so true, even in this case. They have family, their families are looking for justice. Amber deserves justice, and her family deserves that closure to know that somebody was held accountable for her death.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

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.tragedyatrucrime podcast.com. Thank you for listening, and we hope you'll join us next time.