Episode Transcript
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(00:16):
Strange mysteries, unexplained phenomena.
And the shadows in between.
This is The InBetween Official Podcastwith your host,
Carol Ann!
In the case of Henry McCabe,
we have more questionsthan we have answers.
(00:37):
We have a puzzle with a lot of piecesthat just don't fit together.
A truer statement has never been spokenabout the case that I have for you today.
Storyline for this strange truecrime case reads like a cross
between ‘Days of Our Lives’, ‘Murder,She wrote’, and Bridezilla.
We got a crazy obsessed wife,a cheating husband.
(01:00):
Confidential informantsand even civil war.
This is actually an official"Missing 411" case.
But the one piece of evidence thatput it on the radar for the in between
is the final voicemailrecording from this man,
which sounds like somethingstraight out of hell.
This is the case of Henry McCabe.
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Now, in myhumble opinion, this case is a hot mess.
And unfortunately for Henry, it'sa cold, hot mess.
And yes, this is another casefor Minnesota, but what can I say?
We have a lot of weird thingshappening here.
So let's start with the thingsthat seem to be pretty established.
Fact.
Henry McCabe was a 31 yearold Liberian immigrant
(01:48):
who fled his homeland after their yearslong civil war.
He lived in a northern suburbof Minneapolis called Moundsview.
He had a wife, Kareen,whom he'd been married
to for 11 years,and two beautiful daughters.
That is a fact.
They are adorable.
(02:08):
He was an auditor for the MinnesotaDepartment of Revenue and was an active
and respected member of the MinnesotaLiberian community,
who was even thinking about returningto Liberia to enter their political scene.
More on that part later.
But for the most part, just a regular guy.
His wife, Kareen, was in California over
(02:29):
Labor Day weekend 2015.
So Henry decided to have a little funon Sunday, September 6th, 2015.
He goes to a barbecueand meets up with an acquaintance
by the name of William Kennedy.
The two men leave the partysomewhere between 10 and 11:00,
with the intentto go out clubbing that night.
(02:50):
But first, William followsHenry to his house,
where they hang out forjust a little while.
Finally, Henry says, hey,can I get a ride to the club?
Williams is fineand takes Henry to the club.
The club is named Povlitski’s,
but there's something specialthey got going on on Sunday nights
where they call it C’est la Vie,I don't know.
On the way there, they stop at an ATMso Henry can take out $200
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at exactly 11:24 p.m.,then on to the club.
Once they got there,William says Henry spent most of the time
hanging out with another friend of theirscalled Jonathan Thomas, or JT for short.
Henry even gave JT his walletfor the evening,
I guess, to make up for some favorthat he owed JT.
(03:34):
I think he forgot his birthdayor something, but when it's time to go
home, William goes out to his car to findHenry there, waiting for a ride home.
As the two men get in the car,Henry is on the phone
in what sounds like an argumentwith who William assumes was Henry's wife.
Screen.
William starts to driveslowly out of the parking lot,
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but he's waiting for Henryto get off the phone
because he doesn't know exactly whereHenry lives.
He needs Henryto give him some directions.
Once Henryfinally hung up on whomever it was
he was talking to, William's like, dude,I need some directions.
And Henry tells William, don't worry.
Just drop me at the gas station.
And William says, well,why would I do that?
(04:15):
And Henry says, it'sokay, just drop me at the gas station.
I'm going to be fine.
This whole area is my area.
So William dropsHenry off at a SuperAmerican gas station
on highway 65 around 2 a.m.,and then he goes straight home.
The last time William sees Henry, he'swalking to the side of the gas station.
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And William says he was more than willingto give Henry a ride home,
and he doesn't really know why.
Henry insisted on being dropped offat the gas station,
which he evidently didn't even go in.
At 2:28 a.m..
Henry calls his wife Kareen.
Kareen says she could not understanda word that he was saying,
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but it was really obviousthat something was wrong.
So thinking quickly, she conference is inHenry's brother, Tim Borbor.
Tim doesn't answer his phone,so the call rolls to his voicemail,
which ends uprecording one of the most disturbing
pieces of audiothat you hopefully will ever hear.
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The call is about two minutes in length,and I'm going to play the entire clip.
And I know that'sa really big chunk of time,
but when I was listening to itto try to cut it down,
I couldn't figure out where to cut it.
And I just think that you needto hear the whole thing
to get an idea of just how massive
(05:39):
the warning flags should have been.
The smaller clips that you hear onthe internet just don't do it justice.
And please be warnedthat some people might find this clip
very disturbing.
...*GARBLED*
(06:03):
*GARBLED*
*GARBLED*
(07:01):
*GARBLED*
(07:31):
*GARBLED*
*GARBLED*
(07:55):
Koreen filed a missing persons
report the next day with the MoundsviewPolice Department.
She told policethat she had spoken with JT.
Who told her thatHenry left the club around 1:30 a.m.
and had gotten a ride home with William.
So William is where the police started.
William tells his story, and the policego to the SuperAmerica station
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and pull the surveillance footageto verify his account.
But the footage doesn't show Henrybeing dropped off at that gas station.
Kareen supplies investigatorswith snapshots of Henry's
Google timeline, showing the paththat his phone took that night.
And while driving through the area, policesee that there's another gas station,
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a holiday station about three miles south
of the SuperAmericathat they had already checked.
So they go to the holiday stationand check
that camera footage, just to see
if maybe that was the gas stationthat they went to.
And sure enough, there is a carthat looks like William's car dropping off
a guy that looks like Henry at 1:58 a.m..
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Now, the police also pulled Henry'sphone records and yes,
his phone pingsaround that same time in that area.
But no further signs of Henry.
He is just proof dumb.
Fast forward to November 2nd,
two months after Henry has vanished.
A kayaker on RushLake in New Brighton, Minnesota,
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3.5 milesto the east of where Henry was last seen
and two miles south of his apartment,
finds a body that is even identified
through dental recordsas that of Henry McCabe.
He was found with his cell phonein his right pants pocket,
and the battery in the left pantspocket, $15 (enough for a cab fare
(09:49):
if you wanted to do that), his weddingring and a VIP wristband from a club.
Makes sense.
The autopsy apparently discoveredno signs of foul play.
There's no gunshot wounds.
There's no stab wounds, no bruising,no injuries, nothing.
However, the body was so decomposedand covered in algae
that when the officers pulled himout of the water, they could not tell
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by looking at the body what race it is,or even if it was a male or female.
So it seems to me that it is possible
that some proof of some injuriesmay have been lost to nature.
Liveranalysis showed that Henry's blood alcohol
content was about 0.053.
So yes, he had been drinking,but he wasn't stumbling drunk.
(10:37):
But no obviouscause of death could be determined.
So the coroner ruled it as a probabledrowning in fresh water.
At this point, the Moundsview PD missingpersons case is handed over
to the New Brighton PD,and the case remains open to this day
pending new information going forward.
(10:58):
And that is pretty muchthe end of what we know now.
Much.
So let's take a trip down the theoryiceberg into murkier territory.
Here is where things start going.
Murder, She Wrote theorynumber one was an accident.
Henry was very drunk and just wanderedinto the water by himself.
(11:19):
First, Henry's family said he could swim.
And dismissing the fact that walking overthree and a half miles over
an hour is bound to make anybody sober upquite a bit.
But let's go with the ideathat he's too drunk to figure it out,
and that the sounds and the voicemailare the sounds of a drowning man.
Well, how did he manage to walk
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the threeand a half miles in the 30 minute timespan
between when he was dropped offand when the voicemail was recorded?
He would have had to have been booking itto make that happen.
Not likely if he was stumbling drunk.
That would also meanthat Henry would have had
to walk aroundanother lake to get to rush.
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Like if he's going to stumble into a lake,wouldn't he stumble into the first lake?
That's in his path?
Not to mention the factthat he would have to tromp through
rough terrainto get to the water's edge on Rush Lake.
Take a listen to this video,which is from a prayer service
held in the spotthat Henry was discovered.
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And pay particular attention to the soundsthat are being made by people's feet,
as they all try to gatheras close to the water's edge as they can.
When wonder.
Does.
And notice they're not even at the water'sedge yet.
(12:50):
That seems like it would be pretty hardto just stumble into that water.
But not according to police.
The investigators that he andI quote found it would be highly probable
Henry would wind up in RushLake from his prior location.
If Henry had kept walking downRice Creek Road,
he would have come to a intersectionat Long Lake Road.
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He would have followed LongLake and Mississippi around Long Lake,
which would end in a series of trailsbetween
Long Lake and Rush Lake.
End quote. Seriously.
Let's take a listen to that statementone more time
while we follow along on the map.
If Henry had kept walking downrice Creek Road,
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he would have come to a T intersectionat Long Lake Road.
He could have followedLong Lake in Mississippi around Long Lake,
which ended in a series of trails
between Long Lake and Rush Lake.
AssumingHenry was really trying to get home,
and assuming he was at leastsomewhat familiar with the area,
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and assuming that after walking threeand a half miles.
And I think these are all really goodassumptions.
He's not stumbling drunk anymore.
And given the choicebetween staying on paved roads
or heading down lakeside pathways,why did you choose the road?
He had to know that going down the paths
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wasn't taking himin the direction of his home.
Now that's totally my opinion,
but I find the accident theoryjust really hard to swallow.
Theory number two, a wild animalsuch as a wolf
or coyote steered Henry into the waterwhere he drowned.
This could explainsome of the weird noises on the voicemail,
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but again, not likely.
This area is located on the outerring of the Minneapolis
Saint Paul suburbs,but it's still pretty industrial area.
We don't have many reports of largepredator animals in the burbs.
I did see an entry on Web Sleuth stat.
Com mentioned that deer can make somepretty crazy noises if they're startled.
(15:04):
And we certainly have a lot of deerin this area, but
it's not like Henry would have stumbledacross this deer, that he would have felt
the need to run for his lifeand accidentally run into the lake.
And I doubt thatthat kind of an incident would last
the entiretwo minutes of the voicemail recording.
No startled deer is going
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to stick around that long,and the coroner found no evidence
of any bitemarks or scratches on the body.
So that kind of rules out any other largepredator like a wolf or a coyote.
And don't forget to circle back to theoryone and ask,
how did he get the three and a half miles
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to the lakeside side in just 30 minutes?
Theory number three Bigfoot.
Sorry, my BFFs,but this one's just not likely.
The closest sightingI can find is from 1988,
and the most recent onethat is anywhere close to the metro area.
It's pretty fareast along the Mississippi River.
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The area that Henry is inis pretty well cleared out.
Not the kind of areawhere most Bigfoot sightings occur.
Theory number four suicide eyedHenry's brother Timothy,
who also filed the missing personsreport on September 8th,
told police that Henry had no historyof depression or mental health issues,
(16:29):
but it is also reported that he hadjust had a bad
reviewat work and was possibly behind on rent.
Coworkers also statedthat he was occasionally emotional
over some family issues,but he never mentioned anything specific.
But let's look at that map again.
If Henry wanted to drown himself,
why not do it in the first body of waterthat he would have come to?
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Why walk all the way around one lake
just to throw yourself in the next one?
And why would you be on the phonewhile you're drowning yourself?
I don't think so.
Theory number five,the Liberia connection.
Here's where things start to get spicy.
Apparently, Henry's dad was a politicianin Liberia who was assassinated.
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Poisoned,which forced Henry and his brothers
to flee the country where they would beforced to remain in exile.
Kareen told police that Henry had beenoffered a job in the Liberian government.
She said it was his goalto eventually return to Liberia
and run for president, buthe wanted to finish his master's degree
(17:38):
in accounting and get his CPA licenseand save up some more money.
First, the Liberian community, roughly25,000 strong in Minnesota,
has suggestedthat his death could be linked
to the political messthat they have going on back home now.
The Moundsview police, along with an FBIagent, had a conversation
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with a confidential informant or C.I.
for short. At the MoundsviewPolice Department.
The CI said he'd been friendswith Henry for a long time,
and that they talked a lot lately abouthis political aspirations back in Liberia.
He also said thathe was at the search party gathering on
Saturday, September 12th,and he noticed four males
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standing together away from the group,kind of chatting amongst themselves.
In the group was Kennedy White.
Not to be confused with William Kennedy,Jayla Casserly, Calvin Johnson
and Emmanuel Dee, the guy who had thebarbecue at his house that Henry went to.
When the CI starts walking overto the group, they're talking together,
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and as he gets closer to the group,they kind of lie down and split up.
Well, he goes Kennedy white and says,I know what happened to my friend.
And Kennedy White responds with.
I was in Connecticut.
The CIA then says that later that same dayhe called
Charlie Casserly, who basically said,I wasn't there.
Keep me out of it.
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And he talked to Calvin Johnson.
Calvin Johnson says, I'mnot talking about this over the phone.
C.I. also
calledEmmanuel D, the guy that had the barbecue,
and he says,what happened at your barbecue?
And Emmanuel said,I am not going to be involved
and I'm not going to talk about it.
(19:30):
The CI says to Emanuel,talking about William Kennedy,
your friend killed my friend,and I want to know why.
And later, Emanuel brother J.
R calls
the confidential informant and saysthat they can't discuss this on the phone,
but he'll meet him faceto face on Saturday to talk about it.
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Guy says sure.
Now, apparently,
the same day that he's talking to police,the CI got a call from Calvin Johnson,
who asked him, why are you sayingWilliam killed Henry in the C?
I said, I'm saying it because it's trueand you know it.
The CI I also heard that messagethat Henry left on Korean's voicemail.
(20:12):
And he says that in the beginning,Henry is yelling that
he's from Lofa County,which is where he's from in Liberia,
and that later in the recording,Henry says that he has vu in an attempt
to tell other people aroundthat they will be possessed by a demon
if they hurt him.
He then says that at the end of therecording is Henry screaming for help?
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The confidential informantsays he believes that Henry's dead
and he wants his friendto have a proper burial.
So what's up with this little meetingof the minds there?
It suresounds like somebody knows something.
Henry was supposedlya pretty prominent guy back in Liberia,
and has stated to friendsthat he wanted to go back
and jump into politics,just like his dad did.
(20:58):
The wrong people get wind of that.
Some people will do pretty much anythingto get rid of their political enemies.
Loretta Tumbafrom coalition for justice in Liberia
says the Liberian opposition would killwithout remorse.
They've done it for years.
Maybe some of those people Henry calledfriends were not really his friends.
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Theory number six.
Last but not least,we come to our bridezilla.
Henry's wife, Kareen, became said to meanshe seems to be a real piece of work.
Kareen had left for Californiaon August 14th,
where she told policeshe was getting ready to move.
Henry had apparently mentionedin passing to some people at his job
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that he'd like to move back to California,where his family it was originally from.
But hadn't put in his noticeor made any moves to start that process.
So I find it unlikely thathe was getting ready to move anytime soon.
Do I smell divorce in the air?
According to her own statement,Kareen had been tracking Henry's phone
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since 2009 and saidthat he is a chronic cheater.
Henryevidently found out about the tracker
and had just wiped it from his phonea few days
prior to his disappearance,which really pissed her off.
She would even go so faras to remote into his phone
and set off his alarmto get his attention.
(22:28):
Who does that?
No trust issues there.
And the fact that Henrywas found with his phone in one pocket
and the battery in the other pocketis totally Henry's.
And oh, it was not a well-kept secretthat he would
take the battery out of his phoneso that Kareen couldn't track him.
It sounds like everyone knew thisexcept Kareen,
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and she admits that that daybefore Henry disappeared,
she had been trying to call himand texting some pretty awful things.
Like she knew he was cheating andhe was never going to pass his CPA exam.
Wow. I can't imagine why he didn't returnany of her calls that day.
Now, just to give you an evenbetter picture of the real Kareen McCabe.
(23:13):
We have to divert for a secondto talk about precious.
Admittedly, it does seem as if
Henry had been stepping outfrom time to time on Kareen.
And one of those stepswas with a woman named Precious Lackeys.
She managed to infuriate Kareen so bad
that one day, when Henry stepped overto see precious Queen, followed him
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and confronted both of themin front of Patterson's house.
Now what do I know?
But it seems to me that in today's world,
it takes a special kind of nut to gothat far.
This isn't Peyton Place with a weaponof choice is well-placed gossip.
People have been shot for far less.
(24:00):
So not a moment to mess with.
Anyway, back to the club night.
Kareen says she didn't actually speakwith Henry until he picked up the phone
at 1:57 a.m., when she told policethat he sounded like he'd been drinking.
Now, somehow
she can still check Henry's call logto find out who he's been talking to.
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So she does, and she sees thathe's been talking to his friend JT,
and she knows that when he talks to JT,that means it's a club night.
So she calls JT.
JT says I was just with him.
He's on his way home with William.He's fine.
Kareen says.
I don't think so.
And loops Henry in on a conference callwhere
Henry tells JT, I'm fine.
(24:45):
Don't listen to her.
I am almost home.
But Kareen tells JT he's not fine.
Go find him.
But I'm imagining that there was an eyeroll.
I can't do an eye roll from JTand they whatever
because JT just took Henry at his wordand assumed he was fine.
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Kareen saysshe continued to get calls from Henry,
but that it sounded like he was,but dialing her really?
When's the last time you butt downsomebody?
This is 2015, not 1999.
And according to Henry's phone records,she called or texted him
at least ten times between 140 and 12:28a.m..
(25:29):
When did he have time to dial her?
So let's look at this timeline again.
By all accounts, Henry was notat the club at 2:00 when it closed.
So let's say they're out of thereby about 1:50 a.m..
The distance from the club to the holidaystation is about 3.6 miles or so.
So less than a ten minute drive.
(25:49):
When you take stoplightsand things into account.
So that puts them at the gas stationat about 1:58 a.m.
where they're capturedon the security footage.
Perfect.
That's when William says he sawHenry had off walking around
the gas station,presumably on his way home,
but William couldn't rememberwhere exactly Henry lived.
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So he just assumedhe was going in the right direction.
Now, JT says that conference call fromgreen came at 2:09 a.m..
So Henry was probably walking at the time
and should have been a ways down the roadtoward home
already at three milesan hour, a decent walking speed
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that would put him right in the area
where his phone last pinged at 228.
When green received that last harrowingphone call.
But what happened after that?
During our interview, investigatorsbrought up the fact
that car records showed that after Henryleft that terrifying voicemail,
(26:55):
Kareen never tried to call him back.
She said she was tired and went to bed.
Seriously,if I had received that phone call from Mr.
Between, I wouldn't have slept for days.
She goes to bed,but she was back in town from California
by September 10thto help in the search for Henry.
And one of the first things she does
(27:16):
is talk to Minnesota CommunityPolicing Services
and ask them to get involved,which they did.
The MCPS is actually a private,nonprofit organization
that acts as a mediator between citizensand law enforcement, and they are
the ones who organize many of the searchesthat were conducted to find Henry.
(27:37):
On October 17th, the MCPS even offered
a $10,000 reward for informationleading to Henry's recovery.
But then something happenedbetween the MCPS
and Kareen McCabe and Kareen fired them.
According to David Singleton,the chief executive of the MCPS,
(27:58):
there were some inconsistencies in KareenMcCabe’s story.
Singleton still believesshe might have withheld information.
He thinks somebody else was involved inHenry's death,
saying, I don't believe thathe just wandered that far on his own.
And the audio doesn't support the ideathat his death is not suspicious.
(28:20):
And October 23rd, just six days later,
the MCPS rescinds the awardbecause of Kareen's quote,
“...willingness to mislead the publicand this committee”, unquote.
By October 15th, two differentpeople had told police that they believe
that Kareen was not telling everythingthat she knew, and both shared stories
(28:44):
of her telling them that she had withheldinformation from the police
and that she knew Henry was alive,but couldn't say how she knew.
And there's even audio of heradmitting exactly that:
“I know who my husband would have gone to.
The problem is, when I go to to theminformation to the police,
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they messed it up.I don't know where he is.
I have an idea where he is, but I can'tsay to anyone, not even the police.”
Obviously she ended up being wrong,But what did she know?
That she didn't tell police?
Clearly, in my opinion,Kareen has some explaining to do,
and I hope to Godthat there are a lot of details
(29:26):
that police are holding close to the vest,
because it seems like there'squite a bit of smoke here,
and that maybe the policeshould be going to try to find the fire.
I love playing armchair quarterback,and to be honest,
there is even more crazy informationout there
that I trulyjust don't even know what to do with.
(29:49):
Like this letter receivedby the New Brighton Police Department
that was postmarkedOctober 1st from Saint Paul.
That says “Henry McCabe.
His body, next to water.
partially buried.
need search dogs to find.
witness who saw burial scared.
female young.
(30:10):
Ask to come forward, can remain anonymousand will protect.” the letter.
An envelope was sent to the Bureauof Criminal Apprehension for analysis.
But there's not enough DNA for testingand no fingerprints for comparison.
What about that meetingthat the confidential informant
was set to have with Emanuel'sbrother, J.R.,
(30:31):
to discuss thingsthey couldn't discuss over the phone.
Did they meet? And what did they see?
I know that made him so surethat William killed Henry.
Could I get some follow upquestions, please?
Let's talk about Henry's phone.
Moundsview P.D.
received call logs from the previous30 days for Henry's phone, and they showed
that his phone made a call at 3:26 a.m.
(30:56):
on September 7th.
So an hour after that crazy voicemail
and his phone
call, that same number 24 times that day,
and then again on September 9that 1:01 p.m.
and again on September 10th at 9:26 a.m..
(31:16):
The police served T-Mobile a subpoenafor the records for that number,
only to find out that it's the numberthat T-Mobile users
used to call to check their voicemail.
So Henry's phone callto check his voicemail
24 times the day he died,
Keep in mind that the creepy voicemail
(31:38):
was recorded at 2:28 a.m.
on September 7th.
So presumably most of those 24 counts
probably came after 2:28 a.m.
and then another call,another two days later, and another call
another day after that.
Who checks their voicemail24 times in 24 hours?
(31:59):
It seems to me
that Henry's obviously not in the lakeyet, or his phone would have been fried.
Kind of some red flags.God's honest truth.
I don't even know where to gowith this one.
I am hoping this is one of those thingsthat the police
are keeping from the public to protectthe investigation in the future,
but in the end, it'sall about that voicemail.
(32:19):
Some people say that they can hear Henry
shouting things related to Liberia,which could certainly be the case.
I think Henry's talking to somebody,
but I can't understand a thingthat's being said.
Some say thatit sounds like a wild animal attack.
Some animals do sound pretty freakywhen they get startled or angry,
but no wild animal is going to hang aroundfor any length of time,
(32:43):
much less two full minutes.
Some say it's a call for helpfrom a drowning man
or that he's being waterboarded.
But both of those options would mostlikely come with some kind of water sound.
Either Henry splashing in the lakeor water splashing in his face.
Not to mention that the coroner found hisphone and battery in different pockets,
(33:05):
so if he was drowning,I highly doubt he's going to take the time
to remove the battery off his phoneand put them in different pockets.
Or maybe he was being tased,but a taser shock only lasted five to 30s.
So again, not long enough for thattwo minute clip.
Whatever.
The truth is, it's not pleasant.
Only two things remain crystal clear.
(33:27):
One is that this case will never be solved
until somebody puts on eithertheir big girl pants or their big boy
pants, and comes forwardwith the missing information
that the police are waiting for.
And twois that Henry's daughters deserve better.
We here at
(33:47):
The InBetween wish to give our condolences
to Henry's two beautiful daughters,and hope that they do not let their
father's death keep them from achievinganything, their heart's desire.
And a big shout out to The Missing Enigmafor sharing his information, which
in this case was crucial for being ableto weed out fact from fiction
(34:10):
and for sharing the full, originaltwo minute voicemail.
I will put a link in the descriptionbelow to his take on the case.
So go check that outand check out all of his other
amazing Missing Persons videos.
He does an awesome job
Thanks for tuning into The InBetween Podcast.
(34:31):
Enjoy the full visual experiencewith me over on YouTube.
Just search for @TheInBetweentales.
I'm Carol Ann,and until next time, be careful out there.