MURDERED: Esmeralda Gonzalez

Summary

Podcast Summary: "MURDERED: Esmeralda Gonzalez"

Podcast Information:

• Title: Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore
• Episode: MURDERED: Esmeralda Gonzalez
• Host/Author: Crime House
• Release Date: July 23, 2025
• Description: Hosts Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore delve into the mysterious and tragic case of Esmeralda Gonzalez, uncovering the intricate clues that led to the resolution of her disappearance and murder.

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1. Introduction to the Case

In this gripping episode of Clues, hosts Morgan Absher and Kayla Moore navigate the perplexing disappearance and subsequent murder of Esmeralda Gonzalez, a vibrant social media model from Mexico who vanished in Las Vegas in May 2019. The hosts emphasize the importance of small clues in unraveling complex crime cases, setting the stage for a detailed exploration of the investigation that ultimately brought justice to Esmeralda's family.

2. Background of Esmeralda Gonzalez

Esmeralda Gonzalez was born on May 26, 1995, in Michoacan, Mexico, and moved to Las Vegas with her family before turning five. She was widely recognized for her charisma, intelligence, and beauty, balancing her social media presence with academic pursuits. Esmeralda was an active member of her community, participating in school activities like the chess club and beauty pageants, and volunteering with the Clark County Law Foundation's Trial by Peers program.

Key Details:

• Age at Disappearance: 24 years old
• Career: Social media model, real estate investor, humanitarian
• Social Media Following: Over 300,000 Instagram followers by 2018

3. The Disappearance and Initial Investigation

On May 31, 2019, Esmeralda failed to return home, prompting her older brother, Juan, to check on her. Juan found her house in disarray with lights on, her purse intact, and no sign of Esmeralda. Concerned due to her recent struggles with mental health—she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder but had ceased taking her medication—Juan promptly filed a missing persons report.

Notable Quote:

• "Esmeralda just had a really good heart. She was less than 5 years old when her parents moved here, and her two brothers, they all came over to Las Vegas." — Kayla Moore [09:23]

4. Early Clues and Suspect: Luis Merrillo

Initial investigations focused on Esmeralda's boyfriend, Luis Merrillo, who became a person of interest due to a recent altercation with Esmeralda. On the night before her disappearance, Luis had a heated argument with her, during which he took her car keys and cell phone, claiming it was for her safety due to her apparent emotional distress.

Notable Quote:

• "He admits that he took her car keys and her cell phone. So it did get pretty heated." — Kayla Moore [14:22]

Despite these red flags, further investigation revealed discrepancies in Luis's story. Home security footage showed Luis leaving Esmeralda's house without any suspicious activity, and there were no signs of forced entry or theft, weakening the initial suspicion.

5. Breakthrough with Brent Smith and the U Haul Truck

Two months into the investigation, an anonymous tip provided critical information linking Christopher Prestopino and Cassandra Garrett to Esmeralda's disappearance. Detective Tate Sanborn, handling the case, discovered that Christopher had rented a 15-foot U Haul truck shortly after Esmeralda went missing. This truck rental connected Christopher to Esmeralda's neighborhood, as he lived just three blocks away from her residence.

Notable Quote:

• "He realizes that Christopher and Esmeralda are actually neighbors. Christopher actually lives just three blocks away from Esmeralda's house." — Kayla Moore [29:50]

6. Additional Clues: Tricia Ott and Home Depot Footage

Further investigation revealed surveillance footage from Home Depot showing Christopher purchasing 300 pounds of Quikrete concrete mix and other materials essential for constructing a concrete box. Additionally, a witness named Tricia Ott provided a statement about emergency behavior at Christopher's house, including building a massive concrete structure intended to conceal evidence.

Notable Quote:

• "She saw this massive box that looked like a wood and concrete crate, about the size of a freezer chest." — Kayla Moore [27:39]

7. Persisting Towards Evidence and the Concrete Box

Detective Sanborn, leveraging forensic techniques and persistent interrogation, focused on extracting confessions by applying pressure on Christopher's accomplices. Through strategic interactions, Sanborn successfully persuaded Cassandra Garrett to cooperate, leading them to a concrete box in the Nevada desert where Esmeralda's remains were eventually discovered.

Notable Quote:

• "Esmeralda was found in a concrete box, and she is almost unrecognizable. A lot of time had gone by." — Kayla Moore [42:55]

8. Arrests and Legal Proceedings

With the discovery of Esmeralda's remains and gathering of sufficient evidence, police arrested Christopher Prestopino and Cassandra Garrett. Christopher initially resisted charges but eventually entered an Alford plea, acknowledging the strength of the prosecution's case without admitting guilt. Cassandra Garrett accepted a plea deal for voluntary manslaughter, relinquishing some charges in exchange for reduced sentencing.

Notable Quote:

• "He got 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole in just 10 years." — Kayla Moore [50:32]

9. Justice and Ongoing Questions

Despite the arrests, several questions remain unanswered, particularly regarding the exact sequence of events leading to Esmeralda's murder. The investigation highlighted systemic issues, such as the vulnerability of women of color and those with mental health struggles in high-risk environments like Las Vegas.

Notable Quote:

• "She's a woman of color. She was having a really bad mental health issue. She's walking around in, like, heels and lingerie, not really sure of her surroundings. On the street, I could see how, like, a predator would see her and maybe think that she was an easy target." — Kayla Moore [52:27]

10. Conclusion and Impact

The case of Esmeralda Gonzalez serves as a stark reminder of the importance of diligent investigative work and the role of community support in solving complex crimes. Detective Sanborn's unwavering commitment ultimately brought closure to Esmeralda's family, highlighting both the triumphs and tragic losses inherent in true crime investigations.

Final Remarks:

• "This is just heartbreaking to hear, it's really, really heartbreaking." — Detective Sanborn [43:42]
• "Justice for Esmeralda Gonzalez is just within reach." — Kayla Moore [01:14]

The episode also concludes with a heartfelt message emphasizing the availability of mental health resources, underscoring the broader societal implications highlighted by Esmeralda's case.

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Resource Mentioned:

• National Hotline for Mental Health Crises and Suicide Prevention: 988

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This summary encapsulates the key points, discussions, and revelations from the "MURDERED: Esmeralda Gonzalez" episode, providing a comprehensive overview for those unfamiliar with the case.

Transcript

[Morgan Absher]

Foreign. This is Crime House. On that same trip, he also bought wood screws, silicone caulk, WD40 lime, and an ocean mist air freshener.

[Kayla Moore]

Quick Crete is what Scott Peterson had too. Right? And justice for Esmeralda Gonzalez is just within reach.

[Morgan Absher]

Hello, Cluminati. Welcome back to another episode of Clues where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm Kayla Moore and I'm going to be looking into the backstories, the timelines and the court files released on these cases.

[Morgan Absher]

And I'm your Internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I am diving into the Internet and pulling out all of those forums and threads that add up or really don't.

[Kayla Moore]

And each week on Clues, we're going to look into how even the smallest pieces of evidence think. A doorbell, camera, an anonymous tip, or even a rental receipt could lead to groundbreaking discoveries and may even bring long awaited justice.

[Morgan Absher]

At Crime House, we value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show.

[Kayla Moore]

Okay, Today we are diving into the chilling case of Esmeralda Gonzalez, an up and coming social media model born in Mexico who vanished in Las Vegas back in May of 2019.

[Morgan Absher]

Despite their best efforts, police ran into several dead ends. Until a series of hot tips and a few lucky breaks blew the case wide open. It led to a shocking discovery hidden deep within the Nevada desert. Uncovering killers no one saw coming. More on the case and the clues that defined it after this quick break. It's Wednesday. Adams, I see you're trying to distract yourself from your own banal thoughts. Let me help. Here's a recording thing made of my latest root Canal.

[Ryan Reynolds]

Wednesday.

[Morgan Absher]

Season two begins August 6th, only on Netflix. You got a haircut?

[Kayla Moore]

I cut all my hair off.

[Morgan Absher]

It looks great.

[Kayla Moore]

It was a game time decision. I literally was on social media immediately before I sat down to get my hair cut and I saw a bob that I liked and I was like, let's do it.

[Morgan Absher]

That is really brave.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, I mean, I've had short hair before, so it helps. But yeah, it was a game time decision. I actually think I want to keep it this length probably for forever. Do you ever change your hair? Often. They're always the same color, same length.

[Morgan Absher]

I used to have peekaboo back in the day.

[Kayla Moore]

What's that?

[Morgan Absher]

It's where you dye it really dark underneath and then it's like light on top.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, is that what like Dua Lipa.

[Morgan Absher]

Had It used to be black underneath. I was feeling a little sporadic lately. I made the decision, you guys. I did. I did chin lipo. Technically, it's a deep neck contour. I don't know. But I decided to do that within like a month. And then like I decided one day and then a month later I'm like, well, okay, I'm doing it.

[Kayla Moore]

It's a little bit bigger than a bob. It is a bigger to do as a gametime decision. How do you feel about it now that you've had it done?

[Morgan Absher]

10 out of 10. Recommend would do again tomorrow.

[Kayla Moore]

Are you still in pain at all?

[Morgan Absher]

No. Wow. I'm chilling. It just feels like I have a little corset on my neck.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, you, like, feel like there's something on your neck?

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, I feel snatched.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, interesting.

[Morgan Absher]

Okay, we'll talk about it more.

[Kayla Moore]

The recovery wasn't too bad.

[Morgan Absher]

It wasn't.

[Kayla Moore]

You're going to talk about it on two hot takes too.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. I'm going to do some plastic surgery stories that kind of lead into it. But I think this is going to be an interesting case today because this person, Esmeralda, was very forward facing online.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, yeah. There's like a deep Internet component to this story.

[Morgan Absher]

This story is Internet, you guys. So without further ado.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, let's get into it. And just as a quick reminder, anyone who's watching this episode on YouTube, you're going to see some images that help paint a picture of this case. But if you're listening, you can find those same photos. We upload them the day that the episode comes out on our social media. That's at Clues podcast on Instagram.

[Morgan Absher]

Okay, so today's case takes place in Las Vegas. And as a lot of us know, Las Vegas has earned itself a nickname, Sin City. This place where anything goes. It's like a playground for tourists and gamblers. There is the saying, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

[Kayla Moore]

We've all heard it.

[Morgan Absher]

We've all heard it. But beyond the neon lights and tourist traps, Las Vegas metropolitan area is also home to 2 million regular people just going about their lives. There are neighborhoods filled with families raising kids, people who are busy building careers and chasing dreams. Vegas is also a really popular destination for immigrants who arrive looking for work, seeking the American dream.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And that is the version of Vegas where our story starts. It starts with a hardworking family that came to this country to build a new life. And Esmeralda Gonzalez is really at the center of it. She was born in Michoacan, Mexico, on May 26, 1995, and they settled in the west side neighborhood. And Esmeralda really grows up in. In a pretty diverse area, and she loves her new life here. And plus, people really describe her as, like, the total package. She's very smart, she's very beautiful. She was the only girl in her school's chess club, and she would participate in beauty pageants. Like, she really had both sides of the coin. And people who knew Esmeralda said that she was driven and ambitious, but she also knew how to have a good time. Her older brother Juan described her as being the playful sibling. She was both goofy and generous, but at the end of the day, she just had a really good heart. She was less than 5 years old when her parents moved here, and her two brothers, they all came over to Las Vegas. She loves her family. She has this adorable toy poodle named Bonita. And when she's not in college studying for her degree in communications, she's carving out time to volunteer with the Clark County Law Foundation's Trial by Peers program. So that's when Esmeralda starts to kind of set her sights on law school, which is kind of a big transition from the type of life that she lives in that moment, because she is very entrenched in the Las Vegas social scene. I mean, when you look at pictures of her, she's always dressed to the nines. She always has designer clothes on. She's always out on the town. She's definitely taking advantage of the fact that she lives very close to the Strip and can kind of do all the glamorous Las Vegas things. And as she's living this life, she's also, you know, taking pictures of herself and putting them on Instagram. And she gets a huge following from doing that. She gets over 300,000 followers by 2018, which 2018, Instagram was also a different time. Like, 300,000 followers was very.

[Morgan Absher]

I mean, that's huge.

[Kayla Moore]

It was a lot of. I mean, even now, it's a lot of followers.

[Morgan Absher]

Even now, I'm like, that's pretty good. There's a lot in 2018 that's a big following.

[Kayla Moore]

And in her bio on Instagram, Esmeralda describes herself as a real estate investor, a humanitarian, a social scientist, an anthropologist, and a foreign model. She drives a BMW, and she bought her own house when she was just 23 years old. She's very clearly doing pretty well for herself, at least that's what it looks like on social media. As we all know, it's not always like that, and it's around this time too, that she starts dating this new guy, Luis Merrillo. And even though she's living the high life during this time and her social media looks great, she has a new boyfriend. Everything kind of changes for her on May 31, 2019, because that day, Esmeralda's older brother, who we talked about earlier, Juan, he swings by her house after work. He's just gonna check in on her. He actually hasn't heard from her all day, which is very unusual. So he decides to kind of go over and see what's up. He's a little bit worried. When he gets there, he sees that her car is in the driveway, but the front door to her house is unlocked. And like the part of Las Vegas they're in, you don't really leave your door unlocked.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, this is also 2019. Like, I think we as people, I feel like we've kind of got on the board of locking our doors.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it's very. A lot of communities in America, people lock their doors. Yeah, definitely. Especially she's like, single woman living by herself. Also hasn't contacted him all day. I would be panicked if that were my sibling and I went over. I couldn't get a hold of them. And there's also the fact that Juan knows that Esmeralda is this public facing figure. But he also knows that privately she really enjoys having her private life. Like, there's a lot that she doesn't put online. And so when Juan walks into her house, he notices that all of the lights are on in the house. And he figures that maybe she's in the home somewhere. But he also notices the more he walks around that the house is a total mess. Things have been tossed around, it's in complete disarray. He starts wondering if Esmeralda was the one that did this or if someone else, like got into the house and was rummaging around looking for things. So that really starts to worry him. And he runs from room to room. He's calling her name, but there's no answer. And Esmeralda is nowhere to be found. But one thing is interesting about the scene, and that's that Juan sees her purse is still in the home and her wallet is inside that purse. So now the idea that this was maybe a robbery kind of starts leaving his mind. And that's when he decides to call his younger brother. And the two of them together agree that something is wrong. They need to take this to the authorities. So they dial 911 and they officially file a missing persons report.

[Morgan Absher]

Now there's Something we haven't mentioned about Esmeralda yet, that will explain exactly why this situation is also extra alarming for her family. You see, her brother Juan went over to Esmeralda's house that day to check on her, because Esmeralda was dealing with some serious mental health struggles. According to her family, Esmeralda had been diagnosed with both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. And according to Juan, her mental health was usually well controlled with medication. But other relatives said that she had stopped taking her medication in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. So when she celebrated her 24th birthday just a few days before she disappeared on May 26, 2019, Esmeralda told her family that she'd really been struggling with her mental health again. And so her brothers agreed to check on her daily and make sure she was doing all right. Like, she really had a good support system around her. It's also why Juan immediately panics when he sees she's not there and her house is in this disarray, because to him, that's indicative of how her mental health really is doing.

[Kayla Moore]

And thankfully, the police do really take this seriously right away, because when they hear about Esmeralda's mental health, they realize that something really bad could be happening. So that day, the police come over and they decide to canvass the neighborhood. And they speak to a couple of Esmeralda's neighbors at this time. And some of these neighbors say that they do remember seeing her the day before. So that would be May 30, apparently, at least according to these neighbors, Esmeralda looked pretty disheveled. She was walking around just kind of asking strangers for rides, which was very strange behavior from her. And investigators don't find anyone that helped her that day. So they don't find anyone who said, hey, she asked me for a ride, she got in my car, and we, like, went to this place. So they keep canvassing the neighborhood and they're looking for essentially any clues they can. And then they're talking to one of the neighbors, and that neighbor says, oh, well, I have a security camera that I keep up by my garage. Maybe there's something there. And when they go through this footage, they actually see Esmeralda in some of the footage.

[Morgan Absher]

Which brings us to our very first clue. Some home security footage. This neighbor ends up telling police that Esmeralda actually knocked on his door at 2:30 in the morning, early on May 31st. When the homeowner answered, they say they noticed something a bit strange. Esmeralda was wearing nothing but high heels and lingerie. The Neighbor ends up telling her that she had the wrong house, to which Esmeralda responds something like, quote, I do. Okay, thank you. And then she just turns around and walks back into the night. Now, since all of this is captured on that neighbor's security footage, police can confirm the time and the details, like everything is lining up with how the neighbor is describing that encounter. But the footage also shows something else. It's Esmeralda wandering around in their driveway in what can only be described as a state of complete confusion and distress. And this then tells investigators two things. One, that Esmeralda was alive at least until 2:30am on May 31, less than 24 hours before she was reported missing, which is super helpful because we all know how important early on is in these investigations. And two, Esmeralda might have been experiencing a mental health episode that night.

[Kayla Moore]

While both of those pieces of information are helpful, it was not a lot.

[Morgan Absher]

For the police to go off of.

[Kayla Moore]

It didn't really point in a direction of where she could have gone. So detectives decide to dig deeper into Esmeralda's life, and they really start to look where any good investigator would begin their search, and that's with the people who are closest to her. And one of the first people that comes up as police are thinking through what could have happened to Esmeralda is her current boyfriend, Luis. But Luis is not making this necessarily all that easy for the police. He arranges everything through his lawyer, immediately gets a lawyer, and he refuses to speak directly to the investigators. Now, that's not suspicious to everyone, but definitely to the police, it made him seem suspicious. And then they eventually learn that Louise had a fight with Esmeralda the night before on May 30, just hours, really, before she was last seen. During the fight, he did admit that he took her car keys and her cell phone. So it did get pretty heated. And when the cops press him on this, Luis tells them through his lawyer that he really did that for her own safety. He said that Esmeralda appeared to be in a very emotional state. He could tell she was having some sort of mental health episode, and he got really worried about what she might do. And it's unclear here if he knew exactly what Esmeralda's diagnosis was, but it's clear that he was very worried about her. And it's totally understandable to not want someone to operate a vehicle in that state. Taking the phone is a little bit different. I don't know if there was someone he didn't want her to contact or if he Thought maybe if I have her phone, she's not going to leave the house.

[Morgan Absher]

It's strange, but.

[Kayla Moore]

So the police were like, well, why did you have to take her phone if you were just having a fight? And they really, as the more that they're talking to him, or at least to his lawyer, they just don't feel like he's being entirely altruistic because they also learned that two weeks earlier there was a domestic disturbance call to Esmeralda's house involving him. And while the details of that report have not been released, it was enough to set off some red flags for the investigators. And now they're thinking with like so many investigations, like boyfriend doing a couple weird things, there were some fights happening. It really seems like maybe he had something to do with her disappearance.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, I mean, taking a 24 year old adult woman's phone from her is extremely strange.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, it's a choice, especially when she disappears without a trace just a couple hours later. But I will say here, just doing the research, the more that the police dug deeper into the timeline that he was giving them, his story actually does start to check out, especially because they get some additional security camera footage. And when they review it, it really corroborates what Luis was saying.

[Morgan Absher]

Another clue we have in this case is footage from within Esmeralda's home. So you see, Esmeralda had installed her own security cameras in her house. And these cameras ended up showing that Louise did indeed leave her house earlier on May 30 and never returned, didn't come back. And police get a little bit more info because when they review all of these tapes, these cameras don't show any strangers in the house that day. No robbers, no intruders, only Esmeralda. Which means that whatever happened to her likely didn't happen inside the home. That also means that maybe Louise isn't the last person to see her after all. Now, that doesn't completely rule him out, but the cops know they have to start looking at other potential suspects.

[Kayla Moore]

So they turn to this wider pool of suspects that they think they should look into. And that's Esmeralda's 300,000 followers on Instagram. At this point, they're really trying to consider if she had maybe a stalker of some kind, someone who was watching her wander around the neighborhood that night. And maybe it was a person who initially took interest in her online and then wanted to turn this into some sort of real relationship or thought that they were in a relationship with her. You know, as sometimes happens, sometimes people get very obsessed with people they see online. So they start going through Esmeralda's Instagram account, and they read through all of her DMs, and they do find a couple of DMs from people saying things like, you should marry me. We should go out. There's a couple more colorful messages that were thrown in there, a couple that are pretty creepy, but there's nothing that necessarily indicates any specific person was, like, particularly fixated on Esmeralda. And so they eventually turn away from looking at her Instagram followers and continue the investigation. While at the same time, Esmeralda's family are doing their own kind of detective work, trying to find her. The Gonzalez's post flyers all over their community. Her brother Juan creates a Find Esmeralda Gonzalez Facebook page, and they try to basically get her face everywhere and urge anyone who's had any contact with her at all to call the police immediately. And this kind of does work because tips start flooding in from all over Vegas. And despite this, it seems like even though they're getting all these tips, nothing really comes from a lot of them, or there are a lot of dead ends, because things do eventually start cooling off, at least for the next few weeks in the investigation. And then almost two months later, after all of those tips didn't really lead anywhere near the end of July, police receive a phone call from a local BMW dealership. An employee there says that they actually remember Esmeralda coming in on the afternoon of May 30, the day before she disappeared. Apparently, she was looking for a replacement key for her vehicle, since her boyfriend Luis had taken hers. The dealership footage shows Esmeralda arriving at the business again in that outfit of heels and lingerie, just like she was wearing on the security footage, the one that was taken outside of the neighbor's house that night. But while her outfit is maybe a little bit surprising to us, one of the employees did say, quote, don't get me wrong, it was weird, but, you know, it's Vegas. So here's what really catches the cops attention, though, out of this whole interaction. Esmeralda wasn't alone here. There was a man walking around the dealership with her, and it wasn't her boyfriend or anyone else that the investigators recognized. So then the police have another potential person of interest, but they just don't know what this guy's name is. On July 31, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department puts a screenshot from that security footage on Twitter, and they get a hit as to who it is. They ask the community, do you know who this guy is. And immediately someone messages them and is like, I know exactly who that is. And that's because it's the guy himself who reaches out to them and is like, that's me. He turns himself over to the police and says, hi, my name's Brent Smith. I'm one of Esmeralda's neighbors. Brent then tells detectives that Esmeralda approached him and asked if he would give her a ride to the dealership to get a new key that day. Being a good neighbor and a good Samaritan, he could tell that she was in some sort of distress, so he offered to help her. Brent says that ultimately the trip was a bust, though, because Esmeralda couldn't get a new key without having the proper paperwork on her. So Brent just drove her back home, and that was the last time he saw her. When detectives check Brent's story against the security footage from the inside of Esmeralda's house, all the timing lines up. This guy is not lying about this. The cameras show her returning home alone after the dealership trip. Brent never goes inside. So this is just another dead end. And so far, nothing in this case has necessarily led them anywhere. But it does keep getting stranger and stranger. The cops were about to get a huge break in the case. That would change everything.

[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

Function is a near 360 view to see what is happening in your body. That's why a lot of the top health leaders like Dr. Mark Hyman, Dr. Andrew Huberman and Dr. Jeremy London are all behind Function Health. It gives you access to tests that your doctors normally don't do and that can give you a lot of information on your health. Like you were saying about your thyroid. I also was having hormone issues in my 20s, was causing my acne and I didn't know that's what it was until a doctor actually thought to check for it.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, and how do you live your best, healthiest life if you don't have all the information you need? So if you're ready to try it for yourself, learn more and join using our link, visit www.functionhealth.com clues Big break indeed, because on July 18, a homicide detective named Tate Sanborn gets a phone call and that becomes kind of our second big clue in this case, because it takes this case from trending seemingly about to go cold to cracked wide open. Detective Sanborn gets an anonymous tip, but the caller has some very specific information they think might be connected to Esmeralda's disappearance. They tell Sanborn that a man named Christopher Prestopino and his roommate, Cassandra Garrett, killed a woman back in May. Then Christopher rented a U Haul truck and used it to dump the woman's body in the desert. But in his panic, he accidentally left the U Haul dolly at the disposal site. According to the caller, Christopher and Cassandra were still worried that someone might find this dolly out in the desert and then be able to trace it back to them. Now, tips come in all the time in missing person cases, and a lot of them do turn out to be dead ends. But this tip, the investigator thought it just had, like, too many specific details to ignore. So Detective Sanborn knows that if it's not a hoax, the caller could have been an actual witness to the murder or know the killer personally. So Sanborn follows up on this. He learns that Christopher works as a stagehand at the Paris Hotel and Casino. And he makes a request to see any files the police have on Christopher. It turns out he does have a criminal record. He'd been arrested a few times in the past for drug related offenses, but nothing violent. Still, something in Sanborn's gut tells him it's worth digging a little deeper. Which leads us to clue number three, those U Haul records. When Sanborn calls around to different U Haul rental facilities to check on Christopher Prestipino, he finds something interesting. Sure enough, Christopher had rented a 15 foot U Haul moving truck from the location at 8620 Las Vegas Boulevard South. And this rental contract showed that he picked up the truck on June 8, 2019, just a week after Esmeralda's disappearance. And he returned it the night of June 10th. But what really catches Sanborn's attention, the rental contract has Prestipino's full address, phone number, and all of his personal information right there, black and white. And when Sanborn looks up that address, this is when the dots really start connecting. Because he realizes that Christopher and Esmeralda are actually neighbors. Christopher actually lives just three blocks away from Esmeralda's house. And now Sanborn has proof that Christopher rented a truck shortly after she went missing. This is the break that, like, detectives have just been waiting for. And finally, with a suspect, a name and address, a clear connection. Now he just has to prove that Christopher Prestopino had actually used that truck to get rid of evidence. So this case is clearly picking up momentum. And just as this is all kind of connecting and coming together, Sanborn actually receives another anonymous tip. This one tells him that he needs to speak to one of Christopher's friends, a woman named Tricia Ott. Which brings us to clue number four. When Sanborn tracks down Trisha in Las Vegas, she actually agrees to talk to him about what she knows. And she tells a story that makes his blood run cold. She says that in early June, right around the time Christopher rented the U Haul, he called Trisha in the middle of the night asking for help. And when she got to his house, she immediately knew something was wrong. Christopher was acting super paranoid. She could barely hear him when he talked because he had the TV and music just blasting at the top of their volumes. And there in his driveway was that rented U Haul truck. But the really disturbing part was, like, this massive box that Trisha saw Christopher had in his garage. It looked like a crate, but it was made out of wood and concrete. And it was about the size of a freezer chest.

[Kayla Moore]

That's got to be so heavy, too, if it's made out of concrete.

[Morgan Absher]

Insane amount of weight. Meanwhile, Trisha said that Christopher's roommate, Cassidy Cassandra, was frantically cleaning the garage around it. Trisha kind of implied in this that Cassandra was possibly using substances, and she was just scrubbing everything down like she was trying to erase evidence. Christopher didn't tell Trisha what was in that box, but he asked for help getting it out of the garage and into the U Haul, only it was way too heavy. I mean, as you mentioned.

[Kayla Moore]

Right, of course.

[Morgan Absher]

Breezer sized chest.

[Kayla Moore]

Concrete made out of concrete.

[Morgan Absher]

Here's my phone. A scientist button. How much would that weigh?

[Kayla Moore]

Making that in your garage and then being like, okay, I'll just move this out at some point. Not a lot of forethought.

[Morgan Absher]

Sir, you're gonna need a forklift. This is when Trisha said that, like, at some point, she got so spooked that she got out of the truck and just refused to help him anymore. Like, concrete box.

[Kayla Moore]

Okay, Desperately needing a forklift.

[Morgan Absher]

Mm. I'm out. And it wasn't until later, when Trisha saw all of this news coverage about Esmeralda Gonzalez, that she started to put all of these puzzle pieces together on her own. The timeline matched, the location matched, and Christopher's paranoid behavior all made this make sense. And this Trisha's statement was exactly the tip that Sanborn needed to really get this Ball rolling on a formal investigation into Christopher. One of the things that he really latches on to, teeing up this investigation is this box that Tricia describes seeing in Christopher's garage. She said it appeared to be homemade. Which gets the detective wondering, where would he have gotten all these supplies from? Which brings us to clue number five, surveillance footage from inside Home Depot. This footage shows Christopher, clear as day, going on a shopping spree at a local Home Depot on June 6 and June 7, about a week after Esmeralda disappeared. And on June 6, he actually bought 300 pounds of Quikrete concrete mix. Pain in cash, too. Really wanted to make sure no trace there.

[Kayla Moore]

Quikrete is what Scott Peterson had, too. Right? I think that's what he had.

[Morgan Absher]

Quite the little tie there.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

On that same trip, he also bought wood screws, silicone caulk, WD40 lime, and an ocean mist air freshener. The next day, he returned to buy a drill and a concrete mixing paddle. And I think it becomes very clear to detectives at this point, given the statement from Trisha, given the Home Depot receipts, given this U Haul receipt, it's really painting a picture for this detective about what happened to Esmeralda.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, they really start zeroing in on Christopher. They really think that he might be their guy. But they do have kind of a big problem in this, and that's that it's really hard to prove in court that someone was murdered if you don't have a body. If the things that you're seeing are this guy made a weird box in his garage and drove around in a U Haul for a while, not really enough to convict someone of murder. So they really have to find more evidence. But we talked about in Clue two, when the anonymous tipster said that Christopher had dumped Esmeralda's body in the desert. So when Sanborn pulls Christopher's phone records, he learns through the location data that Christopher had made a trip to the desert near the California Nevada border on June 8th of 2019. He spent several hours out there before turning back. But cell reception in the desert can be pretty spotty. And we talked about this when it came to a day of Shabani. Right. If the reception is spotty, sometimes it's pinging a tower that isn't necessarily where you are. So it can look like you're in a different location than you actually are. And because of this, Sanborn feels like he has a general idea of where to look, but there's not like a solid pinpoint of exactly where he was. So the detectives Assemble the search team and they just start combing through hundreds of miles of desert. They're looking for really any sign of disturbed earth. If there's any indication that someone had been digging out there. It's like finding a needle in a haystack.

[Morgan Absher]

I was just gonna say, like needle in a haystack. And again, this could have been a point where this case ran really cold. But like, the efforts that these investigators are going to, I mean, hundreds of miles.

[Kayla Moore]

Hundreds of miles. I am so impressed that we have not had to scratch anything onto the botchboard today. But, yeah, pretty impressive detective work. They're combing through all of these miles and miles of dirt, and they just have multiple failed attempts. Every time they go out there, they come back empty handed and days turn into weeks. The search teams have still found nothing, like nothing out of place, Nothing that looks like overturned dirt, nothing that looks like a piece of clothing, anything. And Sanborn, despite all this, doesn't feel like he's ready to give up, though. He knows that the key to finding Esmeralda's body is getting one of the suspects to cooperate. And he has an idea about how he's going to make that happen. And he wants to turn Christopher's accomplices against each other.

[Morgan Absher]

One of this week's partners is kachava. You need to start your day prepared for anything. And the best way to do it is with proper nourishment. I'm not a big morning person. I'm going to sleep in versus make breakfast, which is why I love kachava.

[Kayla Moore]

I love kachava because I need to start my day like you with a big dose of protein. And kachava is actually so much more than a protein shake. It has 6 grams of fiber, 85 plus superfoods, nutrients, plant based ingredients, 25 grams of plant protein, and 26 vitamins and minerals. That's like a really good way to start the day.

[Morgan Absher]

It leaves you feeling so good after drinking it. My favorite part, too. No artificial flavors, colors, or sweeteners. It's non gmo, no soy, no animal products, no gluten, and no preservatives.

[Kayla Moore]

I feel like I don't have to add much to it. Like when I make a smoothie, I'll just do water or maybe some oat milk, a scoop or two of cachava, maybe like half a banana and some peanut butter. And that's it.

[Morgan Absher]

That's it.

[Kayla Moore]

Perfect.

[Morgan Absher]

And it's so I use the vanilla flavor and it's so good. It's like a little dessert and it's very smooth.

[Kayla Moore]

I've had a lot of powders that are just chalky, almost like unbaked batter. It's just a very straight and I'm not a big fan, but kachava I've never had that issue with.

[Morgan Absher]

I love it.

[Kayla Moore]

Stay sharp and fuel yourself with Cachava. Go to kachava.com and use code CLUZE for 15% off your next order. That's Kachava K-A C-H-A-A.com code CLUZE for 15% OFF.

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[Kayla Moore]

After finding the fifth clue that we talked about, the Home Depot videos and tracking Christopher's phone to the desert, investigators start to feel like they're getting close. They're like honing in on someone. But without Esmeralda's body, it was going to be really difficult to get a conviction. So Detective Sanborn decides he's going to take a different approach. And instead of going after Christopher directly, he pulls a cop trick. One that goes bad a lot of times, but one that we're hoping goes very well this time. And what he's going to do is he's going to put pressure on the people around Christopher. And his first target is this woman, Lisa Mort. It's actually Christopher's girlfriend at the time. She's already in jail on unrelated drug charges. And in mid September 2019, Sanborn shows up at the Clark County Detention center totally unannounced. And he walks into the visiting room and he sits down across from Lisa and he asks her point blank if she knows anything about Esmeralda. Lisa doesn't give up anything. She says she doesn't know what he's talking about. She's never heard of this woman before. Why are you asking me? Sanborn then decides he's going to pivot a little bit. So next, on September 17, he flies all the way to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Cassandra Garrett is staying with her boyfriend. Remember, that's the roommate. And when he knocks on the door, Cassandra is immediately hostile towards him. In a recording, you can actually hear her shouting, quote, I don't care what anyone says. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I didn't know anything about a U haul truck and I don't care to know. It's an awful lot of information that she offers up in just that one sentence. She also denies everything from Trisha's statement. And she insists that she never went into that garage that night that Trisha stopped by. She doesn't know what box anyone's talking about. But here's the thing about Detective Sanborn. He's really persistent in these investigations. And even after Cassandra slams the door in his face, he's not going to give up on her because he has this theory. He believes that Cassandra's lying. He believes, and she knows exactly where Esmeralda's body is. And if he could just get her to trust him somehow, maybe she would be willing to talk. So for the next month, he keeps reaching out to her. He texts her occasionally, he gives her a few phone calls. He's always friendly, he's always patient. And slowly over time, he kind of starts building this relationship with Cassandra and eventually Cassandra does start talking to him.

[Morgan Absher]

And can we just give this detective like some snaps, like a little clap, like it reminds me a little bit about what Denise Huskins talks about with her. Yeah, evidence based interview techniques. Like it just goes to show, like how these techniques can be successful.

[Kayla Moore]

This is like the part of detective work I find the most interesting is interrogations and questioning when you are using it for good and you are trying to get to like the nugget of truth. If you ever watch the interrogation of Chris Watts, who starts in the interrogation saying, I didn't kill my family, I don't know where they are, I don't know anything. And then this one woman just works on him over time and eventually gets him to confess to everything. It's like incredible what some of these people are able to do and how they're able to get people to trust them and give up information. Yeah, absolutely.

[Morgan Absher]

And just as like a little side note here, guys, like, if that is a case you want to see us cover, please put it in the comments now. Like we, we do see your comments about, like, making sure we're hitting lesser known cases, but, like, that is a case that, like, personally really just has stuck with me. So if you want to see that, please let us know in the comments. Obviously, really receptive to your feedback.

[Kayla Moore]

I know, I know that one's been done a lot, but it is.

[Morgan Absher]

I see comments on it, but, like, putting it out there now, like, let's really be sure.

[Kayla Moore]

Definitely. And I want to add here too, if you are interested in a podcast that does a really interesting deep dive into one of the craziest interrogations I've ever heard of Detective Trapp. She's this badass detective in Orange county and she finds two serial killers. And the way she gets them to confess is really cool.

[Morgan Absher]

Wow.

[Kayla Moore]

Really, really smart woman. So anyways, by early October, Detective Sanborn has been working with Cassandra for weeks, gaining her trust. And that's when he kind of goes in for it. He makes his move and he tells Cassandra, listen, we're just inches away from getting an arrest warrant for you. I know you know where Esmeralda's body is. But he tells her, he kind of offers her this, like, olive branch almost. If she cooperates, he's gonna give her time to get her affairs in order before they make an arrest. And that might not sound like a big deal to you and I. Right, like, you're gonna arrest me anyways. Who cares if you're letting me get my affairs in order? It's a huge deal. I actually found this article from prison professors.com that's all about how to get your affairs in order if you are going to prison. Which if anyone listening ever is in this predicament. Prison Professors dot com, they have a lot of good information on what to do if you are going to prison. But, like, think about all the things that you have to do. Like, if you own a business, you have to start shutting parts of it down. You have to get your money in order, talk to your family members about stuff. A lot of people just get sent to jail so quickly, they don't have time to get anything in order. So really, when Cassandra hears this, she agrees to cooperate. That is enough for her to be like, okay, fine, I'll. I'll talk to you. So she flies back to Las Vegas on October 8, 2019, and she gets right into a police car with Detective Sanborn. And Cassandra starts directing them out to the desert right near the California Nevada border. But during that drive, she starts getting really confused. She would say things like, turn left Here. And then they'd go down, and she'd be like, wait, no, I think we need to go back. And this kind of goes on for hours. Sanborn starts getting really annoyed because he thinks that this might all just be this wild goose chase. Like, Cassandra's actually not going to cooperate. She's just messing with them.

[Morgan Absher]

Pull on my leg.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. Which totally. I mean, that's something that people do. Like, serial killers will do that. They'll just, like, lead cops on all these, like, chases, and they'll waste all these resources. But eventually, Cassandra does spot something. Over in the distance. There's this stack of rocks that look just out of place enough, and Cassandra actually recognizes those rocks. So they pull over. Sanborn gets out. He climbs over to this small embankment, looks down into the ravine below, and that's when he sees it. The top of that concrete structure, and it's buried partially in the sand. And he knows at that moment he has just found Esmeralda Gonzalez, and now they're gonna just work on getting her home. After finding that box in the desert, Sanborn calls someone from his squad to drive Cassandra back to the city. And he waits there with Esmerelda as the team comes and recovers the box. And in an interview that we found with Sin City Murders, you can really hear him getting choked up, just remembering that moment that he found the box and knew that Esmeralda was in there. He said, quote, she had been alone enough, which is so heartbreaking to hear, is really, really heartbreaking. Getting the box out of the desert was not easy. I mean, they needed a forklift just to get it onto the U Haul. So to get it out of the desert, they needed a crane. A team of firefighters arrived with special equipment, and they were able to actually carefully just break through the concrete structure instead of just trying to get the whole thing out. And when they finally get inside, they do find that Esmeralda is in there, and she is almost unrecognizable. A lot of time had gone by. She was in the desert. But there are a few things that immediately catch the forensics team's eye, because even though they know in their hearts that it's Esmeralda, they do have to, like, get actual forensic evidence that it is her.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, confirmation.

[Kayla Moore]

Exactly. So wrapped around Esmeralda's wrist is a gold Rolex watch. And Detective Sanborn asks Esmeralda's brother Juan about it, and he finds a receipt and a serial number that does confirm this is Esmeralda's watch. But to be extra sure, Investigators extract bone samples from the remains and they compare them to DNA samples from Esmeralda's parents, and those are a match. But the medical examiner still has to rule that this cause of death is undetermined. Because she's so decomposed, you can't really look at the remains and decide what happened to her. There are ropes around her wrist, though, that they see. So it is very clearly a homicide. I mean, she was found in a concrete box. It would be hard to rule that as natural or accidental.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

So now the police are finally in a place where they can make an arrest for murder. But there's one problem, and this is maybe going to be like half of a tick on the botched board. Christopher Prestopino is not in the country anymore. I mean, we talked about this with the Day of Shabani as well. It's like those moments where you are not watching them, they vanish, they just leave. That's when people can escape. So pretty much the minute that Detective Sanborn left his meeting with Lisa Mort, Christopher's girlfriend, she straight up called him and she obviously knew that the prison phones were tapped and they were going to be listening into her conversations. So she was really careful with what she said on the recording. You can hear her say, quote, I got a visit today. I think you should go. Not really specific in what she's suggesting, but we can kind of like use our imagination here and figure that out. So when he hears that Chris books a one way ticket to Belize.

[Morgan Absher]

Oh yeah, he was really traveling.

[Kayla Moore]

It's going to be hard to get him back from Belize. But a few days after they find Esmeralda, they actually get incredibly lucky because Lisa calls Christopher in Belize to take tell him that she's about to get released from jail and he promises to come back home to get her. And this is like kind of cosmic timing. Like the timing is just so Perfect because on October 11, 2019, Christopher Prestopino lands in Las Vegas thinking that he's going to be reunited with his girlfriend. And instead the cops are right there like at the gate, just waiting for him to get off the plane so they can arrest him. Detective Sanborn is there to make the arrest. Personally, he deserves it. And prosecutors charge Christopher with first degree murder, first degree kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder. And two days later, on October 13th, Sanborn flies back to Milwaukee and arrests Cassandra Garrett for the same exact charges. And Lisa Mort, who has been sitting in jail this whole time on drug charges, finds herself now facing a dead additional charges as an accessory to murder after the fact. So after nearly six months of investigations, all three suspects are finally in custody. And justice for Esmeralda Gonzalez is just within reach.

[Morgan Absher]

And while this is such a win for, you know, Detective Sanborn, and it's really bringing closure to Esmeralda's family, it's not fully closure because they don't really know what happened to Esmeralda yet.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, there's still many questions, like, did Christopher know Esmeralda? Did he just see her out walking that night? And it was an opportunity. Like, they kind of know who did it, but they don't really know what happened.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. How did we get here? How are they connected? And how did she go from, you know, trying to get a car key at the dealership, walking back in her house, to then this to in the desert? In the desert. Apparently, on the night of May 31, after Esmeralda was last seen on her other neighbor's security camera, she kept wandering the neighborhood. And that's when a friend of Christopher's saw Esmeralda and invited her in to party with him. Christopher and Cassandra. A little while later, the friend left, but Christopher, Cassandra and Esmeralda continued the party until things took a dark turn. Christopher had given Esmeralda methamphetamine, which goes without saying. Very dangerous substance. But especially for someone who is already struggling with their mental health.

[Kayla Moore]

Even if you're not struggling with your mental health, even if it's your first time doing the drug, you can get this thing called meth induced psychosis. It is so dangerous to mess with.

[Morgan Absher]

I had quite a few patients that had drug induced schizophrenia at the mental health facility I worked at.

[Kayla Moore]

Oh, wow.

[Morgan Absher]

It is a very real thing. And it's just. It's not something you have to be so careful. You do. You have to be very careful. Christopher later admitted he didn't really know the state Esmeralda was in when she came in to their house to party. And after giving her these drugs, Esmeralda began, quote, acting bizarre and speaking in the devil's tongue. He also said she threatened to call the cops on him for giving her drugs. And so that's when Christopher tied Esmeralda to a stripper pole in his room, thinking that would, quote, calm her down. He left her there for a while, and then when he came back and untied her, Esmeralda ended up punching him in the face. And things just from that point turned really, really violent. Trigger warning for those listening. This could be very triggering. If you have issues surrounding assault, please skip if you can't handle that markers will be in the description. At this point, Christopher absolutely lost it. He began beating Esmeralda, strangling her until she stopped moving. And at this point, he just like threw some blankets over her and went downstairs and then came back with a syringe, A syringe that he had filled with pool cleaner.

[Kayla Moore]

Where in your brain do you come up with that idea?

[Morgan Absher]

Pool cleaner. Specifically hydrochloric acid. And then he injected it into Esmeralda. He said it wasn't until later that morning that he even knew she was dead.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm just confused as to what he thought would happen if he did that to her, if he knew it was going to kill her, if he thought, I don't know, this is also coming from him. He was on a lot of drugs that night. He clearly had other mental health issues. So take it with a grain of salt. Like we don't know that this is the actual way that this went down.

[Morgan Absher]

But pool cleaner, like, just terrible.

[Kayla Moore]

That's absolute torture to do that to someone. So police were really adamant about putting all three people involved in this behind bars. Obviously they are a huge threat to society. But the first person that cut a deal was Lisa Mort. In February of 2020, she was charged with accessory after the fact. And to get a lighter sentence, she did plead guilty. And she was sentenced to two to five years in prison with 151 days credit for time served. So she was released in February of 2022. And even though Cassandra Garrett initially did cooperate with the police, she entered a not guilty plea to the charges of murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in March of 2023. Over three years later, she accepted a lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. As part of the agreement, she confessed to helping Christopher kill Esmeralda and cover it up. In May of 2023, a judge gave her 20 years in prison with the possibility of parole in eight. And that just left Christopher Prestopino, who also, you know what, pleaded not guilty, really thought that he could convince people he didn't do this.

[Morgan Absher]

Get real.

[Kayla Moore]

And he seemed really ready to fight these charges. But in March of 2023, he totally changed his tune and he entered into an Alford plea.

[Morgan Absher]

There it is again.

[Kayla Moore]

Meaning that he didn't admit guilt, but he did acknowledge that the prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him. And what we know about Alford pleas is sometimes it is a great way to get out of serving much time at all. So he ends up pleading guilty to second degree murder, first degree kidnapping, and conspiracy to commit murder. And in exchange. He got 25 years in prison with the possibility of parole in just 10 years.

[Morgan Absher]

Hell, no. Hell, no.

[Kayla Moore]

I don't think someone like that's going to learn their lesson in 10 years.

[Morgan Absher]

Ever. Ever.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

To inject pool cleaner into someone, throw blankets over them, and then you have them in your house for a week.

[Kayla Moore]

And you make a concrete box.

[Morgan Absher]

And then you make a concrete box, drive them out to the desert after you locate a forklift and go about your life.

[Kayla Moore]

That's not really, like, a situation where, oh, I wasn't really thinking clearly. I just, like, I'm not going to do anything like that again. Like, you're a monster at that point.

[Morgan Absher]

Hell, no.

[Kayla Moore]

You are a danger. But with that, the case was officially closed. And although Esmeralda's family still grieved her loss, at least they knew that the people responsible for this were going to be behind bars for some time. I guess at least eight years they were going to be behind bars, which. It's hard to say that that's a long time or enough time, but it's at least some time.

[Morgan Absher]

It's quite sad. There's not a lot on this case on Reddit, on subs. It's pretty cut and dry. And because of, you know, these detectives, hard work, Sanborn being so persistent and patient and just dedicated to helping solve this case, at least we have justice, we have some closure. But people are just left sad and really disgusted at how Esmeralda was treated. I mean, I tried to keep it together for you there, guys, but it's clear, like, this is just devastating.

[Kayla Moore]

I think she was someone that people would have seen as an easy target. Right. She's a woman of color. She was having a really bad mental health issue. She's walking around in, like, heels and lingerie, not really sure of her surroundings. On the street, I could see how, like, a predator would see her and maybe think that she was an easy target. And one thing that's nice is, like, how hard the police pursued finding her killer. To let other people know. If you want to find easy prey out here in Vegas, like, no, we're going to come find you, you know, because I think a lot of women like Esmeralda tend to kind of slip through the cracks.

[Morgan Absher]

I'm very, very thankful for the detectives on this case.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. I think that's really all we have on Esmeralda's case today.

[Morgan Absher]

I do just want to add that there are resources out there if you or a loved one is struggling with mental health. We really want to highlight the national hotline for mental health crises and suicide prevention, which can be reached at 988. This is a difficult thing to navigate when you or a loved one, like how do you get them the help they need without having them hurt themselves further? So we just want to highlight that and let you guys know that there are resources out there.

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Morgan Absher]

Now we have our Missing People of the Week.

[Kayla Moore]

This is one that a lot of you have messaged us about.

[Morgan Absher]

Yes, we have seen your comments on these and we really want to highlight this in hopes that someone has information or if you live in this area, you could help. So we want to highlight Lily Sullivan and Jack Sullivan. They've been missing from their home in Lansdowne Station, nova Scotia since May 2. There has been extensive searches from police, search and rescue teams and volunteers that have yielded no sign of them so far. The RCMP are investigating this disappearance, including the possibility of foul play and a reward of up to 150,000 is being offered for information leading to their safe return. The Sullivan siblings were reported missing after family members could not locate them on their property. The last confirmed sighting of them was on the afternoon of May 1, with Lily being seen inside the home and Jack Heard outside. The RCMP have stated that they are not ruling out abduction, but also haven't found evidence to support it. Lily Sullivan is described as 4ft tall and weighing 60 pounds with light brown hair and hazel eyes at the time of her disappearance, Lily was believed to be wearing a pink Barbie top, pink rubber boots with rainbow print, and carrying a cream colored backpack with strawberry print. Jack Sullivan is described as 3ft 6 inches tall and weighing 40 pounds with dark blonde hair and hazel eyes. At the time of his disappearance, Jack was believed to be wearing a pull up diaper, black Under Armour jogging pants and blue rubber boots with dinosaur prints. And we will include some pictures so you guys can see what they were wearing. Anyone with information should call 1-888-710-9090. And if you would like to remain anonymous, you can call Crime Stoppers of nova Scotia at 1-800-222-8477. Thank you guys and keep your eyes peeled.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, that is a really bizarre one. There's a lot of bizarre stuff happening with that case. But we just wanted to highlight where the kids were seen and what they looked like in case anyone has any information. Absolutely.

[Morgan Absher]

They're so little, six and four. And to just.

[Kayla Moore]

I know the parents are saying that they potentially walked, what was it like? Walked out of the sliding glass door in the back of the house and just into the woods. And a lot of people are not really believing what the parents have to say. But it's still an open investigation. Hoping for the best.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. And search efforts, you know, so far they're doing their efforts. Right. Like home searches surrounding property, heavily wooded areas.

[Kayla Moore]

I don't think they found anything.

[Morgan Absher]

Nothing so far, no success from everything I'm seeing online at the date of today's recording. Yeah, hopefully that changes soon. Yeah, maybe with the help of some of you.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. Well, that is all we have for this episode of Clues. Thank you for helping us unravel the case. It's definitely a very impactful one. But now we want to hear from you guys. Your thoughts, theories, feedback, all of that makes this community really special at Crime House.

[Morgan Absher]

We really value your support. So please share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow clues to help others discover our show. And if you're hungry for even more content, we've got you covered. For more exclusive content, monthly bonus episodes, early access and ad free listening, join our Crime House plus community on Apple podcasts.

[Kayla Moore]

We will be back next week with another case to unravel. Until then, keep searching and we will see you next time on Clues. Bye, guys.

[Morgan Absher]

Bye.