Nevaeh Buchanan /// Part 1 /// 613 | Forensic Files

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[Music] n [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
for listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man who just keeps trying to get a little better a
little better than before he is the captain and it's not working it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks
for listening thanks than for telling a [Music] friend this week we are very excited to
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more True Crime garage for your earballs check out our bonus show code off the record you can do so at True Crime
garage.com and that is enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
talk some true crime [Music] I'm on I'm on I'm on [Music] Sunday night May 24th 2009 Monroe County
Michigan authorities issued an amber alert for 5-year-old Navea Buchanan that night the alert indicated that she was
last seen at the Charlotte Arms apartment complex in the parking lot area around 630
p.m. she was 3 10 in tall and about 45 lb was wearing a light blue sleeveless shirt with red and white horizontal
stripes and a white v-neck collar and knee length jeans she was barefoot when she left her
mother's apartment police swarmed the large apartment complex and started talking to the
residents search parties comprising of 100 law enforcement personnel and 500 volunteers fanned out from the complex
and checked everywhere they could think of helicopters scann the area from overhead divers Plumb the depths of
local quaries her mother Jennifer said she spent all day and all night looking everywhere for her little girl people
searched frantically for days to no avail within 5 days it was reported that the local sheriff's department had
talked to 250 people the Michigan State Police and FBI helped out making up a task force with
the local police all the the tactics and strategies for locating someone were deployed but NAA was
gone this is true crime [Music] garage 5-year-old Navea Buchanan loved her scooter and neighbor were accustomed
to seeing the little girl zipping around in their Charlotte Arms apartment complex parking lot the apartment
complex is located on North Malcolm Street in Monroe Michigan it was May 24th 2009 This Is The Day Before
Memorial Day it's a sunny day and a great time for children to be outside playing with friends NAA and other kids
from the complex like to cut through a hole in the fence and play at a playground that Abed to the complex's
grounds sometimes they stuck to the parking lot some kids saw NAA here that day on her scooter speeding around and
then she was gone nave's mother Jennifer was used to her daughter running around
the complex with the other kids it's unclear whether NAA had rules in place about being allowed to go outside on her
own after all she was only 5 years old Jennifer was home sitting on the couch in their apartment around 6:30 p.m.
watching the TV show John and Kate Plus 8 Navea was bored and tells her mom mom I'm going upstairs to
Austin's Austin was an 8-year-old boy that lived in the apartment one floor up from NAA and Jennifer NAA and Austin
were buddies and his apartment was somewhere where she hung out regularly we will go through the events as they
have been reported that led up to The Disappearance of NAA but it is important to note that at the time 5-year-old NAA
her mother Jennifer are living with Jennifer's mother Sherry the apartment is technically the grandmother's
apartment so Sherry's apartment and on this Memorial Day Weekend Jennifer had a friend of hers and the friend's little
daughter staying with them in the apartment as well so it's a little cramped Na's mother says around the 6:30
time period She Comes In to change her clothes yeah she changes her clothes she grabs a popsicle and then Jennifer says
that Navea went back outside Jennifer would later say that she assumed that her daughter went to 8-year-old Austin's
apartment unit to play there she assumed the two friends were playing with toys or watching TV now Jennifer says that
about 30 minutes later or so Jennifer's friend's daughter which is a little girl as well she came into the
apartment said NAA is riding her scooter in the road you know one little kid tattling on another little kid Jennifer
spent some time looking for her shoes because she wanted to go outside and confront her daughter and let her know
you can't be riding your scooter in the road right so she spent some time looking for her shoes we don't know
exactly how much time and this is kind of key because this is something we will Circle back to around in a little bit
but she makes her way outside and she's looking in all the normal spots and cannot find her daughter Jennifer
checked at other units in the apartment complex as well where she knew that Navea had some friends this including
the little boy Austin's apartment she could not locate her daughter well and at this point you're looking around this
complex you know where she plays you can't find her obviously some Panic is going to start setting in with her
mother so she calls the apartment manager to help her look for her daughter and Jennifer does a lap around
the building and around the other side and this is where she finds a big major red flag here because
leaning up against the back of the building Jennifer found her daughter's purple and green
scooter abandoned it seems that Jennifer may have underestimated how long NAA was
gone we have to note here that she told many people this included reporters and this included True Crime TV personality
Nancy Grace that it was only about 30 minutes that her little girl was gone but in reality all the news outlets
later have reported that she didn't actually start looking for her daughter until closer to 8:00 P.M right so we
have a bit of a Time discrepancy there and it could just be you know mother's panicking she's
nervous she gets her times wrong or as we will see there are reasons later to call into question Jennifer's behaviors
and her words yeah or she doesn't want to look like a horrible individual so she's going to tell everybody that she's
been searching all day when really she didn't pay much attention to her daughter that's a very good possibility
and often I find when my mind is racing my time are a little off because things seem to be happening rather quickly when
you're in that Panic state right so Jennifer calls her mother Sherry whom she and NAA are living with Sherry was
at work she's finishing up her shift at a Food Town grocery store in Monroe with
this News Sherry puts down what she's doing she leaves work and raced home to help look for NAA well let's give a
little bit of background on NAA there is a Justice for Navea website so we gathered a lot of the following
information from that website and the site says that NAA Buchanan was a typical 5-year-old girl she loved
stuffed animals and like most little girls she named them all her favorite was a stuffed beagle that she named
Harley now she named him Harley because in addition to stuffed animals NAA loved
motorcycles she was born February 3rd 20 0 4 people that knew NAA described her as shy
adorable a little girl who liked to wear her hair and a ponytail neighbors described her as timid with a soft voice
real fragile and then someone said NAA had a smile that could melt a glacier her mother Jennifer told the media that
her daughter loved motorcycles and trucks she was a tomboy and was obsessed with the movie Jungle Book well who
isn't now a more complete history of NAA is that she had just graduated from preschool and was heading off to
kindergarten in the fall she lived in the Charlotte Arms apartment complex with her maternal grandmother Sherry now
one detail here Captain is that Sherry actually had legal guardianship of NAA had legal guardianship of her for some
time this was because Jennifer Na's mom at one time was a drug addict and was sent to prison when this went down
Sherry had taken her granddaughter in and Navea had lived with Sherry in that apartment under Sherry's care for
several years Jennifer serves her time in prison and then when she's released in early 2009 she moved in with her mom
and her daughter so this has been her home for quite some time yes it has been and one thing that is kind of clear here
is that as far as being taken care of and being raised it looked like Navea considered Sherry more of her mother
because that's what she knew for most of her life well and NAA goes missing in May
2009 and so her her mom gets out of prison early 2009 so she's really not back in her child's life for that long
until she goes missing I think that might be kind of key here as well well now we ALS we also should note that
Jennifer nave's mom was only 24 years of age when her 5-year-old daughter NAA went missing the father Shane honen josa
was only 22 at the time when Navea went missing so he was 17ish when Navea was conceived he wasn't
really in her life um according to medium.com Shane the father had not spoken to his daughter Navea in 3 years
but when she went missing he traveled to Monroe he lived in Ohio so Monroe is very close to Monroe Michigan is very
close to the Ohio border and Shane from my understanding lives in Toledo Ohio which is the northern part of our state
he travels to Monroe to help look for his daughter even though he's not spoken to her in quite some time this I I think
we need to commend him a little bit we we don't want to applaud him for not being a part of her life but at the same
time he actually risk being arrested going to Monroe he had recently not been able to pay his child support since
losing his job so he goes in there with the intention of of helping now what we can see see here Captain very quickly in
this case and we're going to Fan out quite a bit ourselves in our search looking for actual suspects but we need
to paint this the picture for what it is this other than Sherry the grandmother this is not a great
situation for young NAA her father's absent he's he's a boy pretty much when she's born mother's absent because she's
got drug addiction problems and then commits crimes I mean she's she was in prison for actual crimes not drug rated
crimes from my understanding so not a great situation as far as mom and dad goes Sherry the grandmothers stepping up
stepping in and trying to help and trying to raise this this beautiful little girl well it's so sad because
it's like the odds are stacked against her and that's sad so where we stand now Captain we have a little girl missing
from her apartment complex in Monroe Michigan let's look at the earliest stages of
this investigation first someone and this is a little weird but it's never been reported exactly who
this could have been Jennifer her mom could have been Grandma Sherry could have been the apartment manager could be
somebody else entirely somebody called 911 at 8:15 p.m. and police issued the amber alert for 5-year-old NAA that same
night now NAA was gone Monroe County Sheriff Tillman Crutchfield announced that they were looking for two witnesses
this is very early on in their investigation announces to the public we're looking for two witnesses and he
states that these are Elementary age boys who were seen playing on the playground at the Hollywood Elementary
School that backed up to the charlot arms apartment complex and he said that this would have been around the last
time that Navea was seen they were also seeking a green boxy minivan that was seen parked at the
playground between 6:00 and 7 pm on the evening that NAA disappeared he said that they thought that the van driver
might be a witness but of course an unknown van in the area where a child went missing was caused for raised
eyebrows ban the green minivan well like you said this case is going to be tough
CU we know that she's outside playing but we don't know how long she was gone once she was reported gone again for
those not familiar Monroe Michigan is a small town about 20,000 people somewhat near the Ohio line the River Raisin runs
through the middle of town the apartment complex itself the Charlotte arms is located between North Malcolm Street and
Riverview Avenue next to that Hollywood Elementary School reportedly this apartment complex has 180 units so this
is a rather large apartment complex in my opinion and it's made up of a number of buildings these buildings Captain are
only three stories high I've seen it reported that the residents were on the lower end of the socioeconomic Spectrum
as with most neighborhoods some of these residents have a somewhat checkered past
now Navea Sherry and Jennifer's unit was on the ground level this is important to
me when we're looking at this case so for anyone or in this case NAA to get from the
apartment where we know she was safe well and fine to the parking lot area where it's suspected that she was would
have been last seen or went missing from this based off of the scooter where the
scooters later located all the little girl had to do was walk out the front door which is what Jennifer seemingly
allowed her her to do the other thing too we got to note this is a 5-year-old girl yes she's probably used to playing
outside with other kids but we get the Jennifer's friend's daughter who seems to be keeping an eye on NAA but not
Jennifer herself so it would be a tough situation because essentially your daughter's
being raised by your mother you then come into the picture there is some kind of routine
there's some kind of familiarity already happening with discipline and who's telling you what to do and and all that
stuff that you almost have to take a backseat as a as a parent and these cases are incredibly difficult to
report and it's not just because we're talking about a little girl that's missing but it's also because when you
have a situation like this it's easy to blame the parent or the parents and you also have to keep in mind that
they if they're innocent if they did nothing wrong here you know maybe they could have been a little more strict or
kept in better a better eye on NAA or obviously put her in a better situation in her young life as far as being a
father or mother goes but if neither of them did anything wrong well then they're very much victims too so these
are difficult to to try to walk that fine line of telling not just what we think and what we see but also trying to
stay keep an open heart to to these victims it's absolutely irresponsible and unimaginable to spend
years not talking with your daughter not being involved in your daughter's life it's ridiculous now we will fast forward
to June 4th 2009 by this time NAA has been missing for almost 2 weeks now in many of these true crime stories we hear
about fishermen finding Bodies In The Water unaware that a person is actually missing they catch a glimpse of
something unusual maybe bobbing in the river or stream as they cast in their line but fishermen don't usually find
bodies by stepping on them like we have here in this week's case but here in the
garage Captain there's a first time for everything right so now we introduce guy
Bickley his 15-year-old son Ryan and guy's father LOL so we have three generations of the
Bley family setting out to spend some time fishing on the River Raisin near Dixon Road in raisinville Township this
part of the river is roughly about 30 or so feet across this particular spot is about 10
mil away from the Charlotte Arms apartment complex they the bices had never fished
this part of the river before they said that they parked off of Dixon Road inside the guard rail on the edge of a
steep slope that led down to the river the trio followed an overgrown path down through Brushy terrain leading to a good
spot along the riverbank at this spot there were some rocks which is typically ideal for fishermen in this situation
because you can stand or perch up on these rocks while casting another group of rocks was
easily accessible by walking across a small patch of concrete that looked as though it may have tumbled there from
the roadway above so guy Bickley is standing on that concrete patch and he says a chunk of it broke
off he noted that the concrete was thinly spread so when what we would later find
out would be an 8 in by 6 in chunk of this concrete breaks off he says right away he smelled and
saw that something was not right he said flies were buzzing around in the area guy chipped off a little more of
the concrete to see what was going on then he stops because he does see something under the concrete was what
looked like human skin and hair and he said it smelled like death so they called the
authorities excavation of that concrete revealed a shallow grave containing an INT attacked corpse of a
child everyone knew who it was that kind of situation even before NAA was formally
ided the shirt on the little body fit the description of the one NAA was last seen
wearing it was not immediately apparent what the cause of death was very sad scene per ABC News Monroe County Sheriff
Tillman Crutchfield said shortly after the discovery of Na's body that there were no VIs ible signs of abuse and that
she had been buried along the River Raisin for quote a while he declined to comment specifically about how the body
was buried only that it had some type of concrete or cement on top he also would
not say what else investigators recovered from the grave obviously somebody that's trying to conceal her
her body yes very much so and went to some Great Lengths to do so now you know the the sheriff himself is
probably in a bit of a State of Shock as well they've spent almost two weeks now
looking for this little girl this is how she's found nobody wanted to find her this way he does
throw in the comment when he's being asked about what they found he says authorities are looking for a
disturbed individual which I I feel like that's kind of a throw your hands in the air kind of
not in a good way you know throw your hands in the air like I don't know I I'm kind of at a loss here for words I don't
know exactly who we are looking for at this point to go back to the day she went missing like you said
there's over 180 units so that's a lot of individuals in this town looking for this little girl and talking and
spreading the word that this little girl is missing so this is going to be big news when they end up finding her in the
concrete yeah and from my experience following these cases and from what we've covered
here in the garage Captain we know that these stranger child abductions are rather
rare now I'm not saying that that's an impossibility here it certainly could be the situation but often times it's
somebody somewhat close to the child that is responsible either somebody that is known to the family or in this case
and what I think you're circling around here is that the possibility is that the threat or or
or whoever is responsible could be somebody that that lived in that apartment complex or had reason to be
there for any number of reasons and also like you said there's a this playground
that's AB budding the property that's beside the apartment property creeps are going to find out about that pretty
quickly yeah that's that's the thing for me that I kept I I can't shake off is this idea that if you
were somewhat local stranger to the family stranger to people from that apartment complex we've always said this
with when it comes to especially serial offenders right serial offenders typically have a victim type and they
know where to go looking for their victim that they prefer it's almost like you and I going to the grocer store we I
don't go out and Hunt my own meat because there's a store right down the street where will it will have plenty of
it there and well I do I hunt my own meat all the time but here here's the thing though too is what do we know so
far this girl is taken from apartment complex she is now found the same town right about 10 miles away from the
apartment complex but before we move on to something else what what I wanted wanted to point out was if if a predator
was looking for this type of victim a younger child boy or girl unfortunately this is an ideal
place to find said Victim Because as you pointed out the playground the elementary school the apartment complex
where there's kids outside buzzing and zipping around and playing all day long and there's a pool there as well I mean
that's that's some of the key locations for these types of creeps to find this type of victim and this is
all smashed together all in one local right and what the point I was trying to get at before rudely being cut off no uh
is this to me seems like a location that you'd have to know by being a local and being where
her body was found yes no no I'm talking about the apartment complex look if you if you're not a
local you're just going to drive to the next part of town and go oh let here's this playground that's connected to this
uh apartment complex connected to a pool which is connected to this elementary school like you said this is probably
somebody that lives in the area or knows the area is familiar with the area and then she's found 10 miles away so to me
this evidence is saying that this person is local you know and when we mean when
we say local you know 20 30 mile radius from the abduction point or the the point where um her body was found now I
want to hit on some things before we move on to our next items here in this investigation and this is in regards to
the body being found so we we should note here that the police have never said said what state of
undress or dress that NAA was in but there was a now deleted Fox Detroit News piece that said she was in the
hole without clothing and her clothing and a bush beer can were thrown in the hole with her uh FBI have traced the
beer can to a highlight Market in Monroe so they were able to trace where this beer can came from or at least where it
was purchased from the thing here is what's not clear is this beer can being found it's
actually not clear whether it was found in the hole or just nearby that makes sense but one thing that kind of
confirms the clothing being tossed in on top of the girl was that one of the guys
guy Bickley who found her confirmed that he could see her bear back when the concrete broke
apart so that gives a little more some of that's speculation some of that's rumor again a lot of those details
coming from what is a now deleted article news article about uh this case but if those if that information is in
fact true it gives a little more insight to the scene but just to be clear this this is um a hole that was covered by
concrete to describe it as plain and simple as I can it appears that somebody dug a somewhat shallow grave placed
items in there and then created this concrete slab there likely there or brought it with
them right and placed it over top whoever did this was really hoping that she would never be
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cheers Captain to the windows to the walls cheers to everybody in the front and the back let's get back into it so
police searched the river area near where the body was found they spent two days there pouring over the area looking
for any Footprints any possible debris that they could find in the area and see if it's connected to their case they did
take DNA from the three Bley boys so they could eliminate anything with their DNA on it they issued a press release
asking all who may have fished in that area to call the police call the sheriff's department if they had seen
anything at all during their time spent there because keep in mind at this point
as far as what the public knows is this girl goes missing and then just a little
under two weeks later her body is found in this location 10 miles away we don't know us the public we don't
know when she was placed there was it the same day she was abducted was it a day before she was found I mean there's
a there's a considerable gap of time there my guess is that she was kidnapped and taken somewhere else but this
location's weird to me because it would be somewhat remote because it's for fishermen but it would seem like maybe
that this spot would be known by fishermen almost like the person would want to put her oh well this is a
secluded area but I'm going to cover up so well that like this dark Secret's going to be right underneath everybody's
feet while they're fishing yeah I can't speak as to how popular this fishing spot was because we have kind of
conflicting thoughts when you want to create an educated guess on that one we have the bleys who say they fished often
and had never fished that spot before but at the same time we have guy Bley who says that he was told of the spot
from other fisherman so right it it is somewhat known this particular spot anyway even though investigators
wouldn't address it they clearly did find something else at the grave maybe it was the clothing maybe it was the
beer can as we mentioned earlier but we do know that they did find something else at this site where her body was
recovered from because in mid June articles said that investigators were awaiting results of forensic testing on
items recovered with Na's body at the riverfront Sheriff Crutchfield told the Detroit Free Press quote we have
specific information that is known to the perpetrator and we are going to hold that near and dear to us end quote the
police have never discussed what else was found in the area and never really gave details about the concrete that was
found on top of NAA we should note here that this particular area was a fishing spot known to some locals like we just
said but the Detroit Free Press reported that on the day after the body was found
investigators were contacting area Home Improvement and hardware stores this is because they were trying to track down
purchases of quick setting concrete mixes reportedly specifically 90b bags so this is from medium and it says only
a few stores in the area sold such large bags one of them being Colman cement company now this could be this is likely
unrelated but it's interesting to note that the fence outside of the Coleman cement company had recently been cut now
there's no report of if anything was stolen and if it if things were stolen what they would have
been did they find something at the scene that indicated to them that they are looking for a 90 PB bag search
because uh sorry a 90b bag purchase because that's what they were specifically asking for when they were
calling all these different places and medium is saying that Coleman cement company was one of the few places that
sold bags that size and and it was also reported that it that sometime around this time frame that a fence outside of
the company had been cut outside of their building had been cut right so I'm saying that we have that report that
there's damage to the fence which would indicate to me or most people that someone was trying to steal something
however that report does not tell us that one that anything was stolen and two if any was stolen what it was yeah
they probably did some kind of measurement of the concrete and and maybe that's how they got to the 90 lbs
possibly I mean you could buy two bags of a smaller size yeah no very good point and maybe like you said
there's a a flap from the from the concrete because you know these bags when you go to make the concrete you
just rip them open and and toss them to the side so heck maybe they're there was
the bag there well and that's what I'm saying I you know they spent two days at that crime scene looking over all of the
debris in the area maybe they came across a 90 lb bag of concrete mix and I say that because Guy Bickley who found
the grave just so happened to be familiar with concrete and the general workings of concrete he tells the
news that in his opinion whoever buried NAA probably used river water to mix the
concrete he said it looked to him as though someone had dug a hole put the girl in poured a bag of concrete mix on
top and poured water over the whole thing so not actually mixing it up in a proper way kind of hastily doing it
there on the scene so not a professional job not really the proper method for for
making the concrete right but maybe that's be you know good because the concrete cracked and we were able to see
that she was buried if if they would have done a better job maybe that concrete never cracks and we we never
find her there was a reward for finding NAA at the time of discovering her body so after the body was positively
identified using DNA the Bley split $20,000 this was reward money that was being offered by the FBI now reportedly
guy Bickley the Bickley were a little they accepted the money begrudgingly right
they guy Bley says on record if the reward money came from the community he would have declined it but since it was
funds from the federal government he accepted it and he told the news screw the money it has released a lot of
emotions that I don't like what he meant was he hated being the one find finding
Na's body he said he would have preferred that someone else had found her he found himself breaking down at
the memory of seeing her little body in the concrete grave and said that the emotional impact was wreaking havoc on
his daily life well that's something he's never going to forget and how could you I mean that' be devastating for
anybody I feel compelled to give a warning here I know that a lot of shows give you a warning at the top of the
show saying that some of the the information discussed here might be graphic in nature or disturbing to hear
we here at the garage don't feel the need to to always give those warnings at the top of the show because it's a true
crime show it's dark material you should expect to hear something that's uncomfortable maybe even something that
you don't want to hear but you know I've I've become a little thick skinned when
it comes to a lot of this stuff and this part still bothered me a little bit so I
feel compelled to give a little bit of a warning here because we are going to go
very briefly through the autopsy not not the entire thing an autopsy on the remains was performed by Dr Carl Schmidt
of the Wayne County Medical Examiner office the next part that I'm going to read is directly from the autopsy report
it says quote this child was found in a Shallow Grave part of the body was interred was found face down and the
back was covered by by a layer of cement likee material the body showed moderate
signs of decomposition Dr Schmidt's opinion was that the death was caused by aspiration
of fine particulate material here he means dirt her death was caused by her not being able to
breathe and she couldn't breathe because of dirt the particulate material was found in the upper Airway the trachea
and the medium of the small caliber Airways this means that the child's face was forcibly maintained or embedded into
a dirt surface now whether this resulted from another person forcibly pressing the child's face into dirt or whether
she was buried alive cannot be determined by this autopsy but the manner of death of course was ruled a
homicide well and this is difficult too because you don't know if the killer put
her in there knowing that she was dead or not you know what I mean like exactly he
could have put her in there assuming at that point she was dead then obviously we now know um the cause of death yes
and again there was a certain level of decomposition that had already taken place this to me indicates that she was
likely there for a considerable amount of time likely shortly after the abduction or
closer to the time of and date of the abduction and you're exactly right Captain we've seen plenty of cases where
someone attempts to smother or strangle a victim and they come to and maybe this
monster thought that she was already dead before placing her in in the ground and then leaving her there but
the again it's it's the autopsy gives us some insights but not a whole lot as far
as figuring some things out right because we don't know the facts of it is that she was still breathing when she
was either buried alive under this concrete or suffocated by someone holding her face into the dirt those are
pretty much the two options that we're left with but there was no visible trauma to her body such as blows to the
head or Sharp Force injuries seems like we have no puncture wounds we don't have
any bruising around the neck or even around our arms that the autopsy tells us about nothing that came up in the
autopsy it doesn't mean that it didn't happen it just means that the state that her body was found in those things could
not be determined but yes there's no what is clear in the oopsy is there's no visible signs of trauma to her body such
as blows to the head or sharp force injury so that clears up that in my opinion now
Sheriff Crutchfield is on record saying that the body had evidently been there for quite
some time those were his words this leading many to conclude that Nea was killed
shortly after she was last seen yeah it's a tough one because if if I'm playing detective here again 10 Mile
gap between where she is abducted and where she is found so I'm thinking local both spots I
think you could argue that you need to be local to know them well or feel safe around because again if you're not from
that area and you go to that apartment complex with the the play area and the pool and
everything you you might not feel as Brazen to to try to take a victim if you know the area better if
youve studied the area better you're going to feel more inclined and feel safer as the killer to
to try to take a victim but then we have this half ass shallow grave with some concrete that we
don't even think that the individual took the time to mix so that so that means on some level this guy is
halfhazard I I I think that could play into the you know the the psyche of this individual oh I'm going to take the time
to bury her to make this grave but I'm not going to do a good job doing it if that makes any sense so when I look at
this spot where the body's recovered from it's remote you're getting there by one of
two methods boat or vehicle and I purposely described how the Bley had to park and where they
chose to park their vehicle to go fishing in the spot to demonstrate what it would take somebody to get from the
road to this spot where NAA is found and what I see here what what I tend to believe is that the perpetrator is
haphazardly putting together this air quotes grave to conceal the body but does not feel comfortable and
does not have a lot of time to do this if a body's going to be discovered there you really don't want your car
your vehicle your truck your license plate being spotted parked on the side of this country road
right you know the the Bley said that they parked on the other side of the guard rail I live near water I live near
an area that that a lot of people fish and a lot of people Park like that they park off of the side of the road uh off
of the Guard you know behind the guard rails so some drunk doesn't come along and accidentally crash into their car
and it it has nothing to do with True Crime it has nothing to do with the our job here in the garage but for what
whatever reason I take mental note when I'm driving and see somebody parked especially at night even though they're
off fishermen you know what I mean like it this is an area where people fish but
it's it's easy to spot a vehicle when it's parked there by itself when you don't see anything in the immediate area
it's easy to go oh I saw a green Bronco there or a red S10 pickup truck right well it sticks out because it sticks out
yeah and if the other method would be for somebody to use a boat or some kind of watercraft
to get there I don't know a lot about this this water way here um so I I I can't really speculate on that angle too
much but I see somebody that's hastily putting together and trying to conceal the body that to me would indicate or I
would lean toward the opinion of they probably drove to this location now it's also important to note
here captain that the autopsy report did not even address the following item so we don't know one way or the other what
the conclusion was but it did not address whether the victim was sexually assaulted now per Fox News Jennifer
Buchanan the mother said that police told her that NAA was not sexually assaulted and that no drugs were found
in her system again on record police would not discuss whether the child was sexually abused but there was a
detective on record stating that the toxicology reports came back negative here I want to point out something and
be perfectly clear Jennifer Buchanan says that police told her that she was not the victim was not sexually
assaulted I don't have a strong belief that they would tell her I agree factual information about the case especially
given the the living situation and given Jennifer her situation her past her police record
I don't know that they're going to be giving Mom all of the facts here in this case and when we get when we get
eyeballs deep into this investigation you will see why it's it's normal It's Perfectly
Normal for these types of Investigations to have hold back information and what the public doesn't always understand is
that hold back information is not just hold back information from the general public it's often times hold back
information from the person's closest to the victim and closest to the investigation itself meaning mom likely
does not know much more about this investigation than the public does once we get eyeballs deep in this we will see
and you will understand very quickly why police would be hesitant to discuss particular details about this case
evidentiary details about this case with Jennifer for a second here let's pretend
that there was no sexual assault right right that makes me go well what the hell's going on here why would someone
kidnap and murder a child if not to sexually assault them typically unfortunately that is the motive in a
lot of these cases so to offer up an educated guess here we have a couple of options in my opinion Captain one NAA
could have been a source of some type of sexual pleasure for the abductor without any actual
contact taking place two perhaps her abductor had every intention of sexually assaulting the
victim but something happened she fought back he panicked and killed her before going
through with it three maybe the abduction and the murder was the goal the entire time and was the only goal
perhaps to I don't know silence her over previous abuse send a message to someone
get back at someone or even potentially set someone up and again to be clear that the body being found in a state of
undress is from one source that Source has deleted the article we do not know why they deleted the article so
something could be wrong could be factually incorrect that was in that article and the the factually incorrect item
could be that she was in fact clothed when she was found but there seems to be a lot indicating that that she was in
some form of undress when she was discovered now the community really pulled together here they went all out
they donated for nave's funeral services the funeral was attended by a thousand people there were funeral homes that
offered to donate their services to the family so kudos to the community for for
pulling together to help this this young girl and to help out uh her family in this worst of situations now everyone
described Monroe as a quiet little town a tranquil Community where things like this don't happen that's what we hear so
often when things like this do happen is this is an area where these things don't
happen but her horrific murder was absolutely devastating and terrifying to the residents nave's
headstone which she was buried in St Joseph cemetery in Monroe Michigan it reads Monroe's little angel the entrance
to the Steep Rocky path leading to the riverbank where her body was found was marked by a cross and rock
sculptures and momentos of things like stuffed animals were placed there by people in the
community now before Navea was found of course police were focusing in on finding her and the investigation
centered on interviewing residents of the apartment complex following leads generated from eyewitness statements and
interviewing those residents and also tracking down registered sex offenders and so on but
of course after she was found the investigation went down a little bit of a different
avenue they started following up on the 1,00 tips that they had received remember they were very quickly and
actively asking the public for help right from Jump Street on this case and it appears that the public responded in
the form of over 1,200 tips that were received by law enforcement well that's a lot of tips but what a devastating
situation for the the parents in that community Community you'd be afraid that this could happen to your child and if
you're a child in this community you're afraid that this could happen to you next but as said in the early stages of
the investigation they focused on sketchy people in the apartment complex and of
course they visited the apartment where nave's little friend Austin Baker lived with his parents she had played there
with Austin earlier that day this fills out the timeline a little bit more so at
some point she's at Austin's house her apartment earlier that day and then Jennifer comes to the apartment to
collect NAA and the two of them walk to Kmart now Austin is also the same boy whose
apartment Jennifer said that she assumed Navea was heading to when she left the apartment later around 6:30 and then
vanished police took carpet samples this was a little confusing to me here Captain when when they visited Austin's
Place interviewed his parents and interviewed him they took carpet samples from the apartment I guess they're
trying to match fibers uh it's been reported that possibly fibers were found under Na's
fingernails but what's been reported is that all most if not all of the apartment units
were believed to have the same carpeting so it's not really clear to me how matching the
fibers from Austin's apartment or really any other apartment at Charlotte arms would help them focus in on a specific
suspect and keep in mind Navea lived in an apartment complex in another unit so right the carpeting in her own
apartment could be identical to those in the other apartments unless it's one of
those situations I actually used to work for a company that would when the people
would move out we'd go in and we'd change the carpet and would paint and so is it it possible that they changed the
carpet and so they know that some of the buildings have older carpet some of the
buildings have newer carpet and that would give us some kind of look if we have 180 units that maybe that uh
divides that in half right and so now now I'm looking at 90 some people that could be involved not 180 one thing that
we weren't able to find was the surveillance situation if there were any type of security cameras
at this apartment complex it's hard to believe that in 2009 that there would be none at all but if there had been in
this case to me it seems very likely that at least there were no cameras on the back of the building where her
scooter was later found because if we had that information if we had surveillance from that area I feel like
we're not sitting here over a decade later with with an unsolved case now I mentioned earlier that we are going to
call into question a lot of Jennifer's behaviors and to me it's not so much about the time frame in which her
daughter goes missing it's more about her actions leading up to her daughter's disappearance so even before nave's body
was found police already had suspects and these were publicly named suspects before the body was even found
in fact this was within 24 hours of the little girl missing police were already honing in on a couple of potential
suspects it was two guys and these two guys were both exes ex-boyfriends of Jennifers and they were both immediately
picked up on probation violations as soon as investigators got their names from Jennifer so what probation
violations were they picked up on they're picked up because they were both registered sex offenders who had
victimized children in the past El Creos so after it came out that they were each
hanging out with Jennifer each of these and kudos to the police for doing this they get these guys names and
they're like you know what it's a probation violation for each one of these guys to be associated with the
child a parole violation so let's go find these guys pick them up arrest them and throw their asses in some jail cells
and we can interview them talk to them see if we can get them to talk because we're interested in what these guys have
to say and what they may know because of for so many obvious reasons this a very cold cold world we
live in I mean go take a look at her and to imagine that somebody would want to harm her just makes no sense so
technically Captain both of these guys are arrested for quote simply being associated with a child this per ABC
News their parole conditions requir that they have no association with children and that they not even have romantic
relationships with women who have children the sheriff publicly named both of them as Persons of Interest and threw
them in cells while the investigators did their thing [Music] all right thank you so much for joining
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Nevaeh Buchanan /// Part 1 /// 613

Part 1 of 2

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On a Sunday night in May, 2009 in Monroe County Michigan an Amber Alert was issued for a little girl. Nevaeh Buchanan was last seen in the 6PM hour riding her scooter near her home. This very quickly was believed to be a child abduction. Local authorities were seeking the public's help looking for several witnesses and the driver of a green minivan. Oddly enough, within forty eight hours of the girl going missing the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office publicly announced two persons of interest. This is a case with no shortage of viable suspects and as you will see this may have helped or it may have hurt the investigation.

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Brief Summary

The episode details the tragic case of Navea Buchanan, who disappeared and was later found murdered in Michigan.

Key points

The Disappearance of Navea Buchanan. Navea Buchanan, a 5-year-old girl, goes missing from her apartment complex in Monroe, Michigan.
Discovery of Navea's Body. Almost two weeks after her disappearance, Navea's body is found in a shallow grave.
Search for Missing Girl Intensifies. Authorities are looking for a disturbed individual in the case of a missing girl.
Discovery of the Body. The body of the missing girl was found in a concrete grave, raising many questions.
Autopsy Reveals Disturbing Details. The autopsy report indicates the child was likely buried alive, leading to a homicide ruling.
Community Support for Navea. The community came together to support Navea's family, attending her funeral in droves.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

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1:56WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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