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Savannah Breimer
In January of 2008, real estate agent Lindsay Buziak received a call from a woman who said that she and her husband were urgently seeking a home with a budget of $1 million. Eager for the commission a deal like this would bring, Lindsay found the perfect home and set up a showing. Just one hour after the showing, Buziak's colleagues found her lying in a pool of blood in the master bedroom with multiple stab wounds. To this day, the case remains unsolved. Savannah I'm Savannah Breimer, host of the true crime podcast Killer Instinct, the research backed show that covers cases like Lindsay's and aims to bring justice to the families of victims of horrific crimes. Each month I explore a new sector of true crime, from serial killers to stalkers to female killers. For each case, I break down the moments leading up to the crime, debunk past theories, and share the experiences of those affected by these tragedies. Join me every Wednesday as I unveil the truth behind some of the darkest cases in history. Listen and subscribe to Killer Instinct wherever you get your podcasts. If you have health insurance, you might be able to see a personal dietitian for $0 out of pocket. Nourish connects you with a dietitian that fits your needs covered by your insurance. Nourish accepts hundreds of insurance plans and 94% of patients pay $0 out of pocket. Meet with your dietitian online and message them anytime through the Nourish app. With hundreds of five star reviews from real patients, you know you're in good hands. Find your dietitian@usenourish.com that's usenourish.com.
Suzanne Reed
So Monday, November 13, 1989 I was at work. My mother called me mid afternoon and said that she couldn't find my sister.
Savannah Breimer
That's Suzanne Reed. At the time she was 20 years old and living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and her sister Angie was 24. Her mother said she'd talked with Angie the night before but hadn't been able to reach her since, which was odd because they typically spoke several times a day. Suzanne tried to get in touch as well, but in 1989 her options were limited.
Suzanne Reed
We really had no way to reach her except by landline phone. Kept trying. My sister and her husband owned a small costume jewelry store in the local mall. We called there several times thinking maybe she had gone to work and the employee said no.
Savannah Breimer
Two years earlier, Angie had married a wealthy older man named Joey Smith. When Suzanne's mother finally reached him, he offered no explanation for her disappearance, but later that day, he confessed that the two of them had had a fight the night before. That morning, he said, she packed her suitcase and walked out. That was all he knew.
Suzanne Reed
And my mother and I felt like we knew immediately. This is very, very bad because she had shared with us over the previous months that he had been physically abusing her and that he had even threatened to kill her.
Savannah Breimer
In recent months, Angie's relationship with her husband had turned violent. She'd come to her mother's house covered in bruises and said she feared for her life.
Suzanne Reed
And I would say by Monday night we were convinced that my brother in law had something done to her or done something personally himself.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne and her mother had good reason to think that Angie's husband was behind her disappearance. But they kept their suspicions to themselves. Rather than confront him, they pretended to sympathize.
Suzanne Reed
So we tried for a couple of days to sort of play like, oh my gosh, I can't believe she left. You know, can we come over and talk about it? And he did allow me to come over and look around the house. And he took me into their bathroom and he said, he opened up the cabinets, he said, look, she took her makeup, which the makeup drawer was completely empty, which to me was like, okay, what woman's going to take every piece of makeup she owns? And then he said, look, here's our suitcases. You see this one's missing. What he didn't know was that I knew that she had just bought a brand new suitcase and it was still in the attic.
Savannah Breimer
Angie had disappeared on a Monday. Her mother wanted to report her missing immediately, but she was under the mistaken impression that only her husband, her next of kin, could do that.
Suzanne Reed
And he kept putting that off. It took him about four days to finally go to the police and report her missing. And within a day, I think of that happening, the police were at my mom's house, very first thing out of their mouth. Do you know really who your son in law is?
Savannah Breimer
I'm Jed Lipinski. This is gone south. Suzanne's sister angie was just 22 years old when she met Joey Smith. She'd recently gotten out of a four year relationship with her high school boyfriend to whom she'd been engaged. Not long after, she was introduced to Joey by a mutual friend. A year or so later, they were married.
Suzanne Reed
He was much older than her when they got married. She was 22 and I, I think he was around like 38. So she was immediately swept off her feet by him. He was very wealthy and I think in the beginning Very charming and kind, and when he would come around us, very soft spoken, very gentle, came across as just a really nice guy.
Savannah Breimer
Joey had been married twice before and had a total of four children from those previous marriages. He came from a prominent family in St. Landry Parish, a rural part of south central Louisiana commonly known as Cajun country. His parents owned thousands of acres of land and employed several families of black farm workers who lived on the property and farmed crops like rice, beans, corn and cotton. A prosecutor would later describe Joey's family as part of Louisiana's plantation culture. Angie, by contrast, did not come from money. Her parents had divorced when she and Suzanne were little, and Angie became a kind of surrogate mother to her younger sister.
Suzanne Reed
It's weird to think about when I think about back then because, you know, this early 70s, I mean, you know, if I was sick then my 9 year old sister stayed home and took care of me and nobody thought anything of it. And, you know, we just, we did so much for ourselves. She was cooking dinner for me and taking care of me always. We were very close.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne said Angie grew into an independent young woman. By the time she graduated from high school, she'd saved $20,000 and owned her own car. She moved out of the house the day after graduation.
Suzanne Reed
She just was independent, hardworking, joyful spirit, always. You know, that's cliche, it sounds like, but she really was that person who walked in the room and everybody was like, oh, the fun's here, you know, the light's here. And that's the way it was until she met Joey Sness. And I would say within two years of, he was probably not in her life much more than two years from beginning to end. He was abusing her. I mean, he just turned her into a shell of herself. She no longer had any self esteem, self confidence, anything.
Savannah Breimer
Angie's rapid transformation shocked and confused her younger sister. She couldn't fathom why Angie would stay with a guy who mistreated her.
Suzanne Reed
I was kind of young, I was probably about 19 or so, and I was like, well, he beat you up. You're scared of him. Why are you still married to him? For God's sake, leave, she said. Because, you know, the couple of times that I've said I'm just gonna leave, he has said, first of all, you know too much about me and I'll make sure you're pushing up Daisy somewhere. And also, you're not the only person I can hurt.
Savannah Breimer
That conversation took place in the summer of 1989, only a few months before Angie disappeared. After four days passed with no leads and no word from Angie, she concluded that not only was her sister most likely dead, but Joey was responsible. It was the day after Joey reported his wife missing that a detective showed up at Suzanne's mother's house and asked if they knew who he really was. Their initial response was not really. They knew he had money. They knew he owned a jewelry store called Ms. Bojangles at the local mall. They knew he'd been married twice before. But they also knew something that now seemed glaringly relevant. Four years earlier, Joey's second wife had been brutally murdered in their home. Suzanne was under the impression that this was a terrible tragedy for Joey. The killer had never been caught, and the case remained unsolved. Joey was left to raise their three kids alone again.
Suzanne Reed
1989, no Internet. He lived in a different area of the state. We never really questioned his story. We just thought it was sad that she was killed. And the detective says, are you aware that he is and was the only suspect in the murder of his previous. Previous wife? Where'd you get those shoes? Easy.
Savannah Breimer
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Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
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Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
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Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
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Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
Yeah, sure thing.
Suzanne Reed
Hey, you sold that car yet?
Savannah Breimer
Yeah, sold it to Carvana. Oh, I thought you were selling to that guy. The guy who wanted to pay me in foreign currency. No. No interest. Over 36 months. Yeah, no. Carvana gave me an offer in minutes, picked it up, and paid me on the spot.
Suzanne Reed
It was so convenient.
Savannah Breimer
Just like that. Yep. No hassle. None. That is super convenient.
Suzanne Reed
Sell your car to Carvana and swap Hassle for convenience. Pickup fees may apply.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne Reid was still reeling from the idea that her sister's husband, Joey had something to do with her death. Now a detective was telling her that Joey may have killed his second wife. Joey's second wife, Sheila, was killed on February 12, 1985. She'd been found shot to death on the ground floor of their home in Whiteville, a rural town in St. Landry Parish. The scene looked like a burglary. Two rooms were ransacked, and about $20,000 worth of Sheila's jewelry was reported missing. But there were no signs of forced entry, and the necklace and diamond ring Sheila was wearing were left untouched. Investigators later learned that Joey had collected around half a million dollars in life insurance after Sheila's death. They'd questioned him extensively after the murder. They'd also interviewed a 19 year old farmhand who'd worked for Joey and his family for years. But there was no viable evidence linking either man to the crime. This backstory was alarming enough, but there was more. Joey's first wife, the detective explained, had died from what appeared to be a self inflicted gunshot wound. Though the police had their doubts, her death was officially ruled a suicide and no charges were ever filed. Then in 1987, two years after Sheila's death and a year before Joey and angie met, a 28 year old woman that Joey was dating was found dead in his apartment in Lafayette. This, too was ruled a suicide, Though once again, police suspected Joey may have been involved. Suzanne had known for more than a year that her sister had married the wrong guy. Now it seemed the man she'd married wasn't just violent and abusive. He may have been a serial killer.
Suzanne Reed
At that point, even to my surprise, and definitely to the detective's surprise, my mother says to the detective, I have something for you. And she gets up, disappears to the back of the house, comes back with this little black book, basically an address book.
Savannah Breimer
Shortly before Angie disappeared, she'd begun to suspect that her husband, Joey was having an affair. She'd found the address book in a spot in their garage where Joey seemed to be hiding things. She didn't know any of the names in the book, but if they wound up getting divorced, Angie thought it might be valuable evidence in court. She'd given it to her mother for safekeeping just a few weeks earlier.
Suzanne Reed
But when she handed the address book to the detective and he started thumbing through it, he was like, drug dealer, drug dealer, drug dealer, drug dealer who was recently murdered, drug dealer. I mean, we were just minds, just blown. We had no idea. And I certainly don't think my sister had any idea what was going on.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne was horrified by what she was learning. On top of the dead ex wives and ex girlfriend, Joey was also apparently mixed up with drug dealers. It was a lot to process, But Suzanne was desperate to find her sister, and she was certain that Joey knew where she was. So Suzanne and her mother continued to feign sympathy for him and pretend they were on his side.
Suzanne Reed
So my brother in law was pushing the story that my sister and him had a fight and she packed a bag and left. And for all he knew, in his words, she had run off with another guy. So we're looking, you know, we don't really know where to look. I mean, we're looking in hotel parking lots. We're looking at bus station where I'm kind of looking for her car because her car was gone. And so I believe it was towards the end of that first week that she was missing. Early in the morning, my brother in law called my mother and said, as soon as I get my kids on the school bus, I'm gonna go look for Angie's car. I wonder if she went somewhere, like by plane. I'm gonna go to the New Orleans airport and look for her car.
Savannah Breimer
No more than an hour and a half later, Joey called with an update.
Suzanne Reed
He called and said, I found her car. It's in the New Orleans airport, like, okay. And he's like, yeah. And I found a ticket that she pulled from the meter when you pull in to document when you go into the parking lot. And it says she left Monday morning, just like he said.
Savannah Breimer
The idea that Angie would have left her husband, driven to the airport, and then boarded a flight without bothering to call her mother or her sister, whom she talked with several times a day, struck Suzanne as absurd. So did the idea that Joey had immediately happened upon her Mercedes in the sprawling parking lot of the New Orleans airport. But when the police towed her car back to the crime lab in Baton Rouge, they uncovered another suspicious detail.
Suzanne Reed
They found that there were no fingerprints anywhere, like in the car, inside, outside the steering wheel. There were no fingerprints on that parking ticket that my sister had allegedly pulled. The car had no fingerprints in it at all. Which it should be full of her fingerprints and her husband's, regardless of how it got there.
Savannah Breimer
The cops also questioned whether the Mercedes had really arrived in the lot on Monday, the day that Angie disappeared. To guard against car theft, New Orleans airport security said they took a strict inventory of the number of vehicles in the lot at the end of each day.
Suzanne Reed
And although the ticket said that the car got there Monday morning, the airport security or whoever did that said that the car did not get there until Tuesday afternoon.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne and her mom didn't understand. If Angie's car didn't arrive at the airport until Tuesday afternoon, why was there a ticket inside the car saying it arrived Monday morning? Different scenarios raced through Suzanne's mind. It was possible that the parking lot attendants had made a mistake. But if that were true, why did the ticket have none of Angie's fingerprints on it? Had Joey picked up the ticket himself Monday morning to bolster his story that Angie had left him and hopped on a flight? Had Joey or someone else then returned with Angie's car a day later and slipped the ticket inside to make it seem like the car had been there all along? All she knew for sure was that Joey's story about his wife's disappearance made no sense and that the cops were drawing the same conclusion. But without any hard evidence, what, if anything, what would they be able to do about it? Looking to improve your diet in the new year?
Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
Them anytime through the Nourish app.
Suzanne Reed
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Suzanne Reed
So I must say, within a few days of finding out this information, the police detective called my mom and said that they were issued a search warrant for my brother in law's house, my sister's house, and they were going to go over there and they asked my mother and I to come along and they said maybe you can point out things to us that don't look right or do look right or whatever.
Savannah Breimer
And when Suzanne, her mother and a few detectives arrived at the house, they found Joey's 12 year old daughter home alone.
Suzanne Reed
But her dad came home very quickly and was very, very upset. And he asked my mother if this was her doing and she said, well, I mean, I'm not the police, I'm just here to help them. He's like, well why here? She's got to find my daughter. He said, well you're not going to find her here and if I find out that you're behind this, you're going to be very, very sorry.
Savannah Breimer
During the search, Suzanne and her mother walked through the house again just as they had a few days earlier. But when they got to the master bedroom, they noticed something they hadn't seen before.
Suzanne Reed
There was a spot in the master bedroom at the foot of the bed where a piece of the carpet had been cut out. And when the police asked why was that cut out? My brother in law said, oh, I spilled some coffee on it, so I just cut that piece of carpet out. So the next time they went over there, within like a week or so later for follow up, all the carpet had been replaced in the house. So I don't know what was on that carpet, but if my spouse was missing, probably the last thing I would care about is replacing carpet, you know, unless I had something to hide. That was the end of conversations between me and my mom and our family and my brother in law. That was it.
Savannah Breimer
In the weeks that followed, Suzanne's mother continually reached out to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Department daily for updates about her daughter's disappearance. But when a month passed without any significant developments, a detective called to say the investigation had stalled.
Suzanne Reed
They firmly believed that my brother in law was responsible for her disappearance, but they were out of lead. So he told my mother that she needed to hire a lawyer or investigator, things of her own who would dedicate their time to just looking for my sister.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne and her mother didn't know where to start. Eventually, a friend recommended a prominent criminal defense attorney in Baton Rouge who agreed to meet with them. But he was too busy to take the case. Instead, he suggested they work with one of his employees, a woman named Mary Jane Marcantel.
Suzanne Reed
And I remember him saying, mary Jane is really interested in this case. Like she read the police reports and she's really interested and she really thinks we should take this case. And if we do and you become our client, she's really going to be the point person for you.
Savannah Breimer
You may remember Mary Jane from the story we did about Scott Rogers, the Baton Rouge TV personality who turned out to be a sexual predator from the uk. She worked on that case, too. Mary Jane was technically a paralegal, but she did a lot more than that.
Suzanne Reed
I do murders, I do street crime. I do white collar. That's what I do. I am in the private sector, exactly.
Savannah Breimer
What a cop does.
Suzanne Reed
But I also go to court with the lawyers on cases, because I actually worked the case and put the case.
Savannah Breimer
Together for the lawyers and sit in court.
Suzanne Reed
I am the only paralegal in Louisiana or anywhere else, by the way, that does what I do.
Savannah Breimer
I'm telling you, I'm an oddity. Mary Jane was familiar with the case. She'd read one of the early articles about Angie's disappearance in the Baton Rouge Advocate.
Suzanne Reed
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Lafayette, Louisiana. I was working on a big drug case, and I see the fact that a woman has gone missing here in Baton Rouge, and they were dragging a lake looking for her.
Savannah Breimer
The article piqued Mary Jane's interest. Detectives claimed they were only investigating a missing persons report. And yet a search warrant for Joey Smith's home indicated they were treating the case as a murder investigation. The article also noted that Smith's former wife was murdered and that the case remained unsolved. That was enough for Mary Jane. By the time Suzanne and her mother showed up at her attorney's office. She'd read everything she could find about Angie's disappearance, and we sat and talked.
Suzanne Reed
And, you know, had no idea if I could help her in any way, shape or form. But we said we'd look at it and see and see where we could go.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne and her mom had lost faith in local law enforcement's ability to solve the case. To them, Mary Jane seemed like a godsend.
Suzanne Reed
First impression of Mary Jane Morgentel. Super smart, wicked smart, just on her toes, and an absolute, I'm gonna say an absolute pit bull. She's a tiny little thing. I mean, maybe five foot tall, five foot one, but just, I mean, no is not an answer in her vocabulary, and her vocabulary is very colorful.
Savannah Breimer
Suzanne had worked as a paralegal at law firms herself, and she knew that paralegals do not typically investigate missing person cases. But she later learned that Mary Jane was the first licensed female paralegal in the state of Louisiana. And she'd apparently given the term her own definition.
Suzanne Reed
So we learned really quickly that she did not just work for the attorney we hired, she worked for all the prominent criminal defense attorneys in the state of Louisiana. She had worked on some very high profile cases in our state having to do with defending high profile people like our former governor, Edwin Edwards. I learned very quickly that because of that, she had a lot of connections in law enforcement, in politics, she had a lot, lot of connections that could be useful. She said to my mom that day, I'll do everything I can to find your daughter for you.
Savannah Breimer
That's next time on Gone South. If you have information, story tips or feedback you'd like to share with the Gone south team, please email us@gonesouthpodcastmail.com that's gonesouthpodcastmail.com and for bonus content, you can follow us on Facebook, TikTok and Instagram @GONE SOUTHPodcast. You can also sign up for our newsletter on substack. Gone south with Jed Lipinski. Gone south is an Odyssey original podcast. It's created, written and narrated by by me, Jed Lipinski. Our executive producers are Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddy Sprung Kaiser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and me. Our story editors are Tom Lipinski, Matty Sprunkiser and Joel Lovell. Gone south is edited by Chris Basil and Perry Crowell. It's mixed and mastered by Chris Basel. Production support from Ian Mont and Sean Cherry. Special thanks to J.D. crowley, Leah Reese, Dennis, Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Kurt Courtney and Hilary Shuff.
Suzanne Reed
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Suzanne Reed
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Savannah Breimer
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Suzanne Reed
You can listen to Murder With My Husband now on Apple Podcasts or anywhere you listen to your podcasts or watch on YouTube.
Gone South: S4|E23 - Finding Angie Part 1
Introduction
In Season 4, Episode 23 of Gone South, Audacy Podcasts delves into the mysterious disappearance of Angie Reed, a 24-year-old woman from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Hosted by Jed Lipinski, this episode uncovers the troubling circumstances surrounding Angie's vanishing and the suspicions that point toward her husband, Joey Smith. Through firsthand accounts and investigative insights, the episode paints a chilling picture of deception, abuse, and possible serial offenses.
Background
Angie Reed, known for her vibrant personality and independence, was married to Joey Smith, a wealthy man significantly older than her. Angie’s transformation from a joyful and self-sufficient individual to a diminished shell of herself raised immediate concerns among her family.
Suzanne Reed [01:43]: "So Monday, November 13, 1989, I was at work. My mother called me mid-afternoon and said that she couldn't find my sister."
Angie and her husband owned a small costume jewelry store at the local mall. Two years before her disappearance, Angie had married Joey, whose affluent background starkly contrasted with hers. Joey had been previously married twice, with his second wife, Sheila, brutally murdered in 1985. His first wife and a girlfriend were both found dead under suspicious circumstances, initially ruled as suicides.
Suzanne Reed [07:08]: "She just was independent, hardworking, joyful spirit, always... until she met Joey Sness. And I would say within two years of, he was probably not in her life much more than two years from beginning to end. He was abusing her."
The Disappearance
On Monday, November 13, 1989, Angie failed to return home after an urgent showing arranged by her colleague, Lindsay Buziak. An hour after the showing, Lindsay was found dead in the master bedroom with multiple stab wounds, a case that remains unsolved to this day.
Suzanne and her mother noticed Angie’s absence after several days of no communication. Joey Smith reported Angie missing four days later, claiming she had left after an argument. This delay, coupled with Joey's history, immediately raised red flags for Suzanne and her mother.
Suzanne Reed [04:21]: "And I would say by Monday night we were convinced that my brother-in-law had something done to her or done something personally himself."
Suspicions on Joey Smith
Joey’s previous marriages and the suspicious deaths of his former wives and girlfriend created a perilous web around his character. The additional discovery that Joey was connected to local drug dealers, some of whom had been murdered, further deepened the mystery.
When detectives began to question Suzanne and her mother, they revealed Joey's dark past:
Case Details:
These connections led detectives to suspect Joey as the primary suspect in Angie’s disappearance.
Investigations and Red Herrings
Suzanne and her mother initially maintained a facade of sympathy towards Joey, hoping to uncover the truth without direct confrontation. However, inconsistencies in Joey's story began to emerge:
Angie's Alleged Departure:
Car at New Orleans Airport:
Suzanne Reed [16:03]: "They found that there were no fingerprints anywhere, like in the car, inside, outside the steering wheel. There were no fingerprints on that parking ticket that my sister had allegedly pulled."
These discrepancies suggested that Joey might have tampered with evidence to fabricate Angie’s departure.
Introduction of Mary Jane Marcantel
With the investigation stalling and suspicions mounting against Joey, Suzanne and her mother sought external help. They connected with Mary Jane Marcantel, a unique paralegal renowned for her hands-on investigative approach.
Suzanne Reed [25:18]: "First impression of Mary Jane Marcantel. Super smart, wicked smart, just on her toes, and an absolute... an absolute pit bull."
Mary Jane, the first licensed female paralegal in Louisiana, brought a fresh perspective and determination to the case. Her extensive experience with high-profile cases and strong connections within law enforcement made her an invaluable ally.
Mary Jane Marcantel [23:33]: "I do murders, I do street crime. I do white collar. That's what I do. I am in the private sector, exactly."
Her commitment to uncovering the truth promised a new direction in the search for Angie.
Conclusion
As the investigation progresses, the intertwining of Joey Smith's potentially criminal activities and Angie's disappearance forms the crux of this episode. With Mary Jane Marcantel stepping in, the path toward uncovering the truth becomes clearer, yet the shadows of past crimes loom large.
Suzanne Reed [23:44]: "I am the only paralegal in Louisiana or anywhere else, by the way, that does what I do."
Gone South leaves listeners on a gripping cliffhanger, setting the stage for continued exploration in the following episode.
Notable Quotes
Final Thoughts
Episode 23 of Gone South meticulously unravels the layers of Angie's disappearance, highlighting the complexities of personal relationships intertwined with potential criminal motives. Through Suzanne Reed's heartfelt account and the investigative prowess of Mary Jane Marcantel, listeners gain an in-depth understanding of the case's intricacies and the relentless pursuit of justice.
Stay tuned for Part 2, where further developments promise to shed more light on the fate of Angie Reed and the true nature of Joey Smith.
Follow & Support Gone South
For more intriguing true crime stories and updates, follow Gone South on Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. Subscribe to our newsletter on Substack for exclusive content and behind-the-scenes insights.
If you have information, story tips, or feedback, please reach out to us at gonesouthpodcastmail.com.
Gone South is an Odyssey original podcast, crafted and narrated by Jed Lipinski, with executive production by Jenna Weiss Berman, Maddy Sprung Kaiser, Tom Lipinski, Lloyd Lockridge, and Jed Lipinski himself. Special thanks to our dedicated team and contributors who bring these compelling stories to life.