Transcript
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The views and opinions expressed in Cold and Missing are exclusively those of the hosts.
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All parties mentioned are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
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Cold and Missing also contains adult themes and languages.
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Listener discretion is advised.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
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And I'm your co-host, Eli Sulkowski.
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And this is Cold and Missing, where we cover cold cases and missing person cases.
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Hello everyone and welcome back to Cold and Missing.
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I'm your host, Ali McLaughlin-Sulkowski.
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And I'm so sorry, I just need to have an apology right at the top here.
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There was no new episode last week, which I was not happy about.
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I was having technical difficulties with the new Apple updates.
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But then later in the week when I wanted to get the episode out, I truly was just having
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a really rough mental health week.
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My anxiety was through the roof and I was having like daily panic attacks.
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If you're somebody who struggles with anxiety, maybe you can relate.
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And I'm just so sorry I couldn't get the episode out.
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I had a really difficult time concentrating.
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But, you know, I have a lot of good things in place.
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I have a very supportive family.
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I have a wonderful therapist.
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I do have medication that I take for it.
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So I was able to reach into my tool bag and take care of myself.
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But unfortunately, that took up most of my mental space and just taking care of myself
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and taking care of my husband, who is also grieving his mother.
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So I just needed to take last week off.
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And I am so thankful that you're back, that you're here.
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I hope you can give me the grace and understanding that it just happens sometimes.
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But I intend to be here and to keep putting out new episodes every week, just as often
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as I can.
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So thank you for sticking around.
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Thank you for downloading again, even though last week was an unexpected break.
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I appreciate you being here.
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I really do.
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So with that, I think we should just get into the case.
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So today we are covering a cold case.
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And just as a content warning at the top, this case does involve a young person.
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And there will be some brief mentions of sexual assault throughout the podcast.
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So please take care of yourself.
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But today we are talking about the cold case of Christine Cole.
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And this takes place in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
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In January of 1988.
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But first, a little bit about Christine.
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Christine is 10 years old in 1988.
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She was a third grader at Baldwin Elementary School.
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She lived with her mother, her mother's boyfriend, and three half siblings.
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Her three younger siblings were all under the age of four.
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So Christine was the oldest by a lot and also left to her own devices most days.
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Christine was known to roam the neighborhood and her house wasn't too far from a strip
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of businesses.
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Even after the streetlights came on and more seedy characters started to take over the
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street, Christine would still walk around.
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The owner of the little general store, Marie Mayer, said, quote, Christine would always
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come in no matter how cold, no matter if it was pouring rain out at night.
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Sometimes we'd ask someone in the store to take a few extra minutes to walk her home.
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End quote, her mother, Margaret, believed the neighborhood was safe and would often
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send Christine to the store to grab groceries or diapers.
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But she would, quote, always come home.
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So they never worried about it.
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And unfortunately, that leads us into the timeline of events.
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So on Wednesday, January 6th, 1988, at around 5 p.m., Margaret, Christine's mother, sends
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Christine out of the house with $10 in food stamps to go get clams from Red Seafood, which
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was near their house.
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It was about five blocks from their home on West Avenue in Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
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Christine gets to Red Seafood and gets the clams.
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But instead of heading home, she goes to a friend's house on Wilmarth Court.
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Her friend's house is only about a block from her home, so it is on her way home.
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She stays there until about 6.30 that evening.
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According to Captain Carl Benson with the Pawtucket Police, quote, she told her friend's
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mother that she was walking home.
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But once Christine got out of the house, she walked in the opposite direction away from
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her home, according to her friend's mother.
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End quote.
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Christine ends up back into the business district near her home.
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So Christine ends up heading to the market and gets there around 7 o'clock in the evening.
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Once there, Christine buys 10 gumballs and a quart of milk.
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Nellie Siriva was working the register that evening and saw Christine come in.
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It was a cold night and she noticed that Christine didn't have any gloves on.
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Nellie looked in the lost and found, but there was only one mitten in there.
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She said, quote, it's so sad.
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I wanted to help the little girl because I see the hand so cold.
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The mitten was all I had, so I put it on her.
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End quote.
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Nellie gives Christine the blue mitten to wear on her walk home.
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At this point, Christine is about 10 blocks from her home.
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This was the last positive sighting of Christine.
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Captain Carl Benson says, quote, that was the last positive sighting of her.
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Although a manager of a star market on Barton Street reported two girls coming into a store
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and having to be escorted out at 10 because they were acting up.
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End quote.
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The manager of star market tentatively ID'd one of the girls as Christine, but he couldn't
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be positive that it was her.
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So truly the last sighting comes from that market where she gets the mitten.
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Back at Christine's home, when she hadn't returned with the clams that she was tasked
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with getting, Margaret calls the police to report Christine missing at 8.44 p.m. that
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evening.
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It's unclear what, if any, action is taken that first evening in the search for Christine.
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But by the next day, Thursday, January 7th, police begin to look for Christine and they
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go door to door around the neighborhood and store to store along the businesses that she
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visited.
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During their search, police do find the mitten that Christine was given by Nellie just outside
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of the store in front of the garage.
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From Saturday, January 9th, 1988, so Christine has been missing for three days at this point,
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the community had come together and donated $12,000 for information leading to Christine's
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safe return.
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Police continue to go door to door to canvas the area.
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Captain Carl Benson says, quote, A major concern is how she'll do in this weather.
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Wednesday night it was a very cold night here and today we're getting snow.
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Wherever she is, we hope she was able to get inside somewhere, end quote.
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So if it's not obvious from that quote, police are not overly concerned at this point.
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They believe that Christine is a runaway.
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She had run away in the past, but it had been nearly three years since the last time she
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had done that.
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And she was always found very quickly near her home.
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Police had hopes that since the news was covering Christine's disappearance, that some tips
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and leads would develop, but nobody had really called in and they still didn't have a clue
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as to what happened to Christine.
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On Sunday, January 10th, Christine has been missing for four days.
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Lieutenant Norman Maru of the Pawtucket Police says, quote, Nothing turned up overnight and
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we went out trying to get interviews with people near where she was last seen alive
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to see if and when they might have seen her, end quote.
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Police are focusing heavily on the area where Christine was last positively ID'd, where
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she got that blue mitten.
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Police spent the weekend looking for Christine through cellars, vacant buildings, and empty
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railroad cars, truly thinking that she had run away and was just hiding out.
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With no sign of Christine over that weekend, by Monday, January 11th, so just five days
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she's been missing, police do believe that Christine is dead at this point.
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Again, Lieutenant Norman Maru says, quote, We believe she crawled into an abandoned car,
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shed, garage, or dumpster Wednesday night.
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Fell asleep and died before morning.
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We don't suspect foul play.
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We don't think she could have survived the night, end quote.
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So during that time of year in 1988, it's very cold in Rhode Island and the temperatures
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dipped below zero degrees Fahrenheit the night that Christine disappeared.
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Christine's family, however, are not buying this runaway she's died from exposure.
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They believe that she has been abducted and that she could still be alive.
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Margaret pleads with the kidnappers through the local media saying, quote, Whoever has
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my daughter, please just let her go.
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I just hope she's not being hurt, end quote.
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Even though the police do believe that Christine has died from exposure at this point, they
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continue to search for the missing 10 year old.
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By January 14th, so Christine has been missing for over a week and police have come out publicly
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and say that, you know, they believe that she ran away and died from exposure.
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However, the FBI is now involved in Christine's case.
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Why exactly they got involved is not clear in the reports that I found.
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But both the police and the FBI asked the girl who was in the supermarket at 10 p.m.
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to please come forward.
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So if you remember, this was kind of the tentative idea of Christine and she was with another
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girl.
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So police FBI are asking this girl to come forward and they hope that she might be able
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to shed some light on what happened to Christine.
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About a week passes and on January 21st, the weather had warmed up a little bit enough
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to make the snow melt.
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It was still very cold in January in Rhode Island.
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But with the melting snow, police were able to coordinate a large volunteer search.
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But still from the search, there's no sign of Christine.
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And police basically say that at this point, it's a wait and see game just three weeks
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after she disappeared.
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On Sunday, February 28th, 1988.
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So it's been 53 days since Christine disappeared.
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At around 8 a.m., a man was walking on the Cumnacut beach when he found the fully clothed
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body of a young girl.
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According to the man, the body was on the riverbanks.
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She was found near a little cove near a boat ramp.
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The body is fully clothed, but her shoes and underwear are missing and there is blood on
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her pants.
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The blood is on the inside of her pants.
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And police noticed that her pants had been put back on her, but kind of in a weird way.
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Like it's described as a half hazardous way.
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So there's something askew about how her pants are on her.
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The blood on her pants, ultimately, is not a match for Christine.
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Police are not able to ID the girl right away.
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But her clothing is a match for what Christine was last seen wearing, so police call Margaret
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to try and confirm the clothing is Christine's.
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When Margaret leaves the police station, she's reported as in tears and she does confirm
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that those clothes are Christine's.
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She says, quote, I don't know what happened or who did this, but I hope they find the
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person who did this to my daughter.
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I think somebody else was involved in her death because my daughter being in the water,
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someone had to get her that way.
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They must have picked her up, did whatever they did and threw her in the water.
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End quote.
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So the next day, Monday, February 29th, police at this point are still waiting for autopsy
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results to determine if a crime had even taken place and if they should treat the case as
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a homicide.
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Police do mentioned that through the course of their investigation, they have polygraphed
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several people, including Margaret, Christine's mother in this case, and all have passed.
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On March 1st, just two days after the body was found, the autopsy is complete.
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The medical examiner rules that Christine died by asphyxiation, but the body was in
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the water too long to determine if that happened in the water or before she was put in the
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water.
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Now I found two different reports here and I have to believe that she was in the water
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for a long time.
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But there was a newspaper report saying that police believe that she had been in the water
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for two hours, which after 53 days of being missing, only being in the water for two hours
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is highly, highly suspicious, right?
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But I think the newspaper might have been alluding to the fact that after her body was
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found, it was about two hours before she was removed from the beach.
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So I think that might be the two hours she's referring to there, but police are never able
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to determine how long Christine is in the water for.
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But they do mention that because she had been in the water for however long she was, that
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they were unable to determine a lot about her death because of that.
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So that's why I tend to lean towards that she was in the water for a long time.
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Either way, the medical examiner doesn't immediately rule this as a homicide.
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She rules it as a suspicious death.
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Police tell media that they are determined to figure out how Christine got in the water
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because that would solve everything, right?
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But it will take months before police start to call her case a homicide.
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And it's never really clear what that shift is.
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I think it's, you know, some of this evidence that I've already mentioned about how she
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was found that shifts them, but I still think that there is more that we don't know that
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shifts them to believe firmly that it is a homicide and not a case of Christine running
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away and accidentally drowning and ending up in this river.
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The first suspect in this case comes to police attention in May of 1988, so that's about
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five months since Christine had vanished.
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But the way he gets on police radar is odd.
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The man, Richard Graves, in May of 1988, he was out on bail awaiting trial for sexual
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assault against a child.
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While out on bail, another child came forward saying that the same thing had happened to
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them so additional charges were filed against Graves.
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When police go to take him into custody and charge him with these additional charges,
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he's staying in a motel.
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And in the motel room, they found several newspaper clippings related to Christine's
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disappearance.
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They also found a slip of paper with the telephone number of St. Anne's Cemetery, and this is
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where Christine is laid to rest at.
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On the piece of paper, he had the words, quote, place flowers, regular or otherwise, end quote.
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So that's why he gets on police radar, according to Christine, and also in his room, he has
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stuffed animals, games, greeting cards for children, books about children.
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So just really a nightmare of a motel room.
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Police never publicly rule him out, but he's never really mentioned again in regards to
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Christine's case.
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So I don't know if they were able to rule him out completely as a suspect or if he kind
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of remains in the pool of people of interest.
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Over the years, Christine's case will be brought up in other cold cases from Rhode Island.
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And also, as we've seen before, and as I've mentioned before, in other cases, the Pawtucket
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police do create a cold case deck of cards to put into the Rhode Island correctional
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facilities to try to, you know, generate a jailhouse informant and to keep these cases
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alive.
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So behind the scenes, the cold case unit in Pawtucket is working on this case, but we
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don't really hear anything about the case again until 2019.
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So that's 31 years after Christine was murdered.
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Police announced that they've made an arrest in Christine's case.
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This comes as a surprise to everyone.
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And unfortunately, this also comes as a surprise to the state's attorney's office.
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Usually in murder cases, you know, this prosecutor and the police work pretty closely together
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to make sure that they have a solid case before charges are officially brought against a suspect.
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You know, from the state's perspective, they want to make sure they have a really rock
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solid case because if the suspect decides to go to trial, which is everyone's right
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in America to have a trial, then they have to make sure that they have a very strong
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case beyond a reasonable doubt to put this person in jail for murder because you only
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get one shot at it.
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You can't bring charges again later.
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If you find more evidence later or technology advances, you get the one shot.
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So you have to make it count.
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So the state prosecutor's office is really floored that these charges have come out and
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they get the case that police have been working on and start to review it.
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And to them, it's not a slam dunk.
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So this is the evidence that has come up for this case since then.
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So they have a suspect and I'm not going to name his name here and I'll get into that
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a little bit more as to why in a minute, but we'll just call him the suspect.
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So the suspect in 1988 lived above the market that Christine was last positively ID'd at,
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the one where she got the blue mitten.
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He lived above the market in an apartment.
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The blood that was found on the inside of Christine's jeans, police were able to get
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DNA tested and they were able to find a match, but it's not a positive match.
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It's a partial match.
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So it doesn't exactly pinpoint to the suspect.
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In fact, it pointed to somebody else altogether, but the person that it was pointing to wasn't
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alive in 1988.
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So because of the type of DNA profile they were able to develop, they looked at that
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person's father.
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But the DNA doesn't eliminate anybody in the family.
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So it could be a father, a grandfather, an uncle, cousins.
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Basically any guy in the family is a suspect in this because of the partial DNA match.
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It's not enough to rule anybody is exclusively the DNA.
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But because this man lived above the market and this kind of partial DNA match, the police
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arrested him for Christine Cole's murder.
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Ultimately about 10 months after the arrest, the state drops the charges against him.
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So they decide the case is not strong enough, so they drop it, but they do it in a way so
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that way in the future, if they get more evidence against this person, they can bring the charges
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again.
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But the suspect is now suing the Pawtucket police and just this past week, it has been
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cleared to go to trial.
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So that's personally why I am not naming him here just because he is going to trial to
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clear his name in this case.
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So if you Google Christine Cole, you'll see a lot of news coverage about this specifically.
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And it's actually why I wanted to cover her case because so much of the coverage that
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I could find, especially just typing her name into Google, it's all about this false arrest
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lawsuit that's coming before the Pawtucket police.
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And it really seems like Christine is getting lost in this case, and it's really focusing
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kind of on this blunder that the police made and kind of this premature arrest.
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Or at least that's how it's being portrayed and how he's bringing it to court.
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But Christine is really getting lost in this case, so I just wanted to take this episode
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to focus on her and her case and what we know and what we don't know.
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But as of today, the case is still unsolved.
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So with that, if you know anything about the disappearance of Christine Cole in January
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of 1988, or her murder, please call the Pawtucket police at 1-877-747-6583.
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And the sources, and the sources for the timeline today come from The Boston Globe, The Day,
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The Daily Item, Evening Express, Transcript Telegram, Sun Journal, The Berkshire Eagle,
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Providence Journal, WPRI.
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So that is the case of Christine Cole.
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And like I just mentioned, this case felt important to me to cover because there's
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so much around this false arrest, which I don't, you know, if it is a false arrest and this person,
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this man is innocent, like I don't blame him for wanting to clear his name, bring this
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lawsuit against the police because from everything I read, when he was first charged with this,
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you know, he lost his housing, he lost his job, he ended up becoming homeless.
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So I am all for closing cold cases and getting justice for these families.
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But I deeply believe that we have to do it correctly and we have to get the right people
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because when there's a, you know, a false arrest or, you know, someone who is innocent
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is put into jail, like, it really becomes their story because it's, it is a tragedy.
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You know, it is so scary to think about being pointed at and accused of murder when you're
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completely innocent.
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Like, that is a very scary thought, especially in America where we have more people incarcerated
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than any other first world country.
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So you know, there are people in prison right now that are innocent of the crimes that they
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have against them.
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That is the reality because the justice system is not perfect.
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I start to feel really sad about these cases that are underneath them because while, you
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know, that is its own tragedy, like Christine Cole is also a tragedy and her case still
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deserves the coverage and she still deserves to have people working on her case.
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Like, I really hope that people don't back off of her case.
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But that was, these were just kind of some of the first knee jerk reactions I had as
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I was like learning everything.
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And then, you know, when I really dug into the case, I just felt so overwhelmingly sad
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for Christine.
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Like, it talked a lot about how she seemed to be scared to go home or didn't want to
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go home and was kind of always out going into the markets and, you know, people in the neighborhood
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were looking out for her.
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Definitely, it sounds like.
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But I feel sad that she wasn't getting that same care at home, it sounds like.
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And that her case just like wasn't heavily investigated at the time.
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It just feels like society really failed Christine Cole on a lot of different levels.
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They let her slip through the cracks.
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And I feel sad for her.
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I feel sad for her memory.
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There are obviously a lot of questions I have about the case and I kind of alluded to some
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of them while I was doing the timeline.
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But a big one is just how and when did Christine get into the water because that's a big hole
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in the timeline.
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Was she placed shortly after she vanished or, you know, is that one report where police
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say, you know, she had been in the water for two hours?
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Like is that is that true?
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Was she only in the water for two hours?
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So where was she for those 50 plus days beforehand?
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There's just a lot of things that I would love to clear up in that that I never really
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found answers for even in the more recent news coverage of her case.
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They never really pinpoint, but it did seem to allude that it was a longer time she was
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in the water.
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I also am just so curious why they were so wishy washy on declaring her case as a murder
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or a homicide investigation as opposed to a suspicious death.
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It really seems like it takes a while for them to officially rule her as a homicide
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or classify her as a homicide.
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And I want to know what shifted.
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What was it for police?
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Was it maybe them doing some, you know, more I don't want to say primal is not exactly
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the right word, but like more infantile DNA testing?
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You know, I believe the technology was around where they could test the blood type of samples
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found.
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So maybe it wasn't a match for Christine.
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So they knew it had to have been somebody else.
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Again, her being found without her shoes and missing other parts, you know, her underwear
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was missing, her pants were haphazardly put on.
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So like to me, that would all scream that this is foul play.
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Foul play was absolutely involved in the disappearance of a 10 year old.
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And this is another question that I had, which is so irrelevant, but I just like I was so
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curious as to like, did they ever find those clams that she had?
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Because we know she had clams, 10 gumballs and a quart of milk.
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So was any trace of those items found?
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I just think like those are things that like, I feel like would scatter kind of easily if
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they were dropped, you know, like the milk could open and spill gumballs roll and scatter
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like clams.
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I guess maybe those don't roll and scatter, but like, you know, you would notice clams
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on the sidewalk.
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So like, I always, I wonder was what happened to all those groceries?
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Like was there any answer to that?
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All that was found of her was that mitten that she was given just a few minutes beforehand.
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It was found outside the store near their garage.
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That's all we know.
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As far as evidence found in this case.
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But I just, I really hope that there is still an interest in the police and in the state
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in closing this case with this lawsuit coming, you know, like, I imagine like the police
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are like kind of embarrassed or, you know, they might not be as ready to bring forth
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charges in the future on this case specifically, you know, it's just kind of like a black eye
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on the cold case department.
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I really hope that's not the case.
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I hope that like, whoever is the next person to pick up Christine's case is able to just
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like look at it without prejudice, without like any tainted thoughts and just able to
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like look at the evidence, look at the timeline, what does it tell us and hopefully bring some
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answers for Christine.
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She just deserves it.
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And I've said this before, I'll say it again now, but you know, I really believe as a society,
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not even just America, I think like as a society, any society in this world, we owe our children
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answers.
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If a child does not make it to adulthood, we should have those answers.
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Why?
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Were they sick?
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Did they not have enough food?
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Did they not have enough warmth?
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Like we as a society should always have to answer that I think because these are our
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most vulnerable.
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We should be taking care of them no matter what.
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Yeah, a part of me just like wants to take care of Christine, I want to take care of
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her story and I wanted to say it here because you know, there is a lot of news surrounding
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her case, which is a good thing, but unfortunately, a lot of it doesn't really mention her or
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it just mentions her in passing, which is unfortunate.
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So I just wanted to put Christine's case out there again.
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If you know anything about what happened to her or her murder, please call the Pawtucket
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police at 1-877-747-6583.
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And we will be posting pictures of Christine on our Instagram and please if you're not
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following us there, I noticed we got a lot of followers this week, even though I wasn't,
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you know, active, I was kind of in my mental health this past week, but thank you so much
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if you're following us there, I will always post if an episode is not going to come out
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on Mondays as normally scheduled.
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If I'm not mentioning it here, I will always mention it on our Instagram.
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I want to try to keep you informed.
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It's an honor to be a part of your week, so I take it really seriously and if you expect
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me to be a part of your Mondays or whatever day you listen to this podcast, then I want
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to be there for you and I want to give you new content when you expect it.
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So thank you again for sticking with me.
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You can always head over to our website.
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We have transcripts up there as well.
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If you or somebody you love is hard of hearing, transcripts are there so you can follow along
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with the podcast or read it if that is more comfortable for you.
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If you could take a minute and rate and review us, especially if you're on Apple podcasts,
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it helps others find us and then it just helps get these stories out there more and more
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people listening, more people who know these stories, more people just like trying to be
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part of the solution, which I'm so proud of this little community that we're creating
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and that's passionate about these cases the way that I am.
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So thank you for being a part of it.
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If you could take a minute to rate, review or tell somebody that you know would be interested
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in this to give us a listen, it would mean the world to me and I would appreciate it
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so much.
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But that's all I have.
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Thank you so much for listening to Cold and Missing.
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I'm Allie McLaughlin-Sylkowski.
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Have a good week and stay safe, y'all.
