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REMEMBERING: Marjorie "Christy" Luna (4 of Spades, Florida)
00:39:33
In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we are sharing the story of Marjorie “Christy” Luna to honor her life and amplify the voices of survivors. From the outside, Greenacres seemed like a picture-perfect place to grow up — where kids roamed barefoot between the park, school, and corner store. But beneath that storybook setting, something darker was unfolding, and it came to a head one May evening in 1984 when Christy disappeared. More than 40 years later, her friends are revisiting their childhood memories, uncovering how abuse and violence can exist in plain sight — often hidden or left unspoken. By sharing Christy’s story during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, we hope to raise awareness, support survivors, and remind others that their voices matter.
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- [00:00]
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- [00:29]
Ashley Flowers
Hi everyone, Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me, diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what host Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries, uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard. From cold cases to moments of long awaited justice, Dark down east is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark down east now wherever you're listening. Our card this week is Marjorie Christie Luna, the Four of Spades from Florida. From the outside, Green Acres seemed like a picture perfect place to grow up. A park, a school, a corner store stocked with sugary sweets and arcade games all within walking distance. For Kristi and her friends, weekends were spent roaming the neighborhood and playing outside barefoot. But this storybook community had darkness lurking just under the surface, and it reared its ugly head one May evening in 1984. More than 40 years later, Christy's friends are peeling back the layers and piecing together memories from their childhood, finding that what actually lay beneath was much darker than they ever could have imagined. I'm Ashley Flowers and this is the deck. Was Memorial Day Weekend 1984 and Greenacre's Small town police department was probably preparing for a bit more action than usual. Hopefully nothing too bad, but it was possible that they would get a call to shut down some out of hand fireworks, Bust a rowdy backyard barbecue maybe. But on Sunday, May 27, at around 10:15pm Police got a call for something far more serious. Something I'm almost sure they didn't see coming in their close knit community. A mother phoned to say that her 8 year old daughter Marjorie Luna, who went by Kristi, hadn't come home that evening. Detective William Springer with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office recounts that Kristi's mom, Jenny told police that she, her boyfriend and her two daughters had just returned home that afternoon from a weekend getaway.
- [03:34]
Detective William Springer
They drove up to Titusville, came back, stopped at two parks, Jonathan Dickinson State park, and then they stopped at the Du Bois Park. Then they came home. It was early in the afternoon, they were tired because they traveled all night. Christie slept because she was a little storm and they all went to bed and Christy came in and said, you know, the cats are hungry, I'll go get cat food. And she got some change and she went to the store, which is right around the corner.
- [04:03]
Ashley Flowers
Christy's older sister Allison had woken up their mom around 8:30pm to tell her that Kristi still hadn't come home since taking off sometime between 2 and 3 that afternoon. Now, before getting police involved, the family took to the neighborhood themselves to see if they could find Kristi at any of her usual spots like the store, the park, her friends homes. But after close to two hours of this, the freckled faced, hazel eyed little girl was nowhere to be found. So that's when they called the police. Law enforcement went on to do the same sweep the family had. And since they knew her plan was to pick up cat food, naturally, one of the first places they started at was the neighborhood store. Belks.
- [04:47]
Detective William Springer
Green Acres is just a small, sleepy little town with a store downtown that all, all the kids walked to because it was right there, it's not that big an area and you could almost throw a rock from the house to the store. Everybody's kids walked to the store and they came home.
- [05:05]
Ashley Flowers
Clerks at the store told police they remembered Kristi coming in, buying cat food and watching other kids play arcade games before leaving by herself. Based on all of our research, it sounds like Kristi could have been there anytime between 2 and 5pm right after she left, there were witnesses who placed her outside by a house that was directly across the street within view of the store.
- [05:28]
Detective William Springer
We don't have anybody that said they saw her getting into any type of car or anything. I talked to the people that lived in the house at that time and they were young kids too, and they remembered Christie being there, talking to them and watching the fireworks. And the one girl told me, yeah, I saw her walking back towards her house and that's it.
- [05:48]
Ashley Flowers
In the days following Christy's disappearance, deputies scoured the surrounding areas with canine units and on mounted horses. They searched wooded areas and low lying bodies of water in and around Green Acres, looking for any Signs of Christie. But their findings were about as bleak as the weather. That week. It rained for nearly 10 days straight, which I assume made searching all the more difficult and may have also washed away potential evidence. Of course, like any other missing child's case, the parents had to be closely vetted. Detective Springer told us that Jenny and her live in boyfriend at the time, Larry, cooperated fully. Police questioned them both, and they also agreed to polygraphs, which Springer said they passed. Investigators also looked into Kristi's father, but he'd been living in Atlanta at the time, and they confirmed that he'd been there, hundreds of miles away at the time of the disappearance. In addition, investigators talked to Kristi's neighbors and schoolmates, including her best friend. Since she was a minor at the time. Investigators aren't releasing her name. She was a little girl, just six years old, who bravely shared a disturbing story when police spoke to her.
- [07:01]
Detective William Springer
That's when we discovered one of Christy's friends was being molested by Chuck and Willis Rambo. So they then became a primary people of interest. So warrants were obtained. She only gave us Chuck as one, and later on then, she said Willis,
- [07:20]
Ashley Flowers
both Rambo brothers, lived in Green Acres on the same street as Christie. About a block away, there was Charles, then 31, who went by Chuck and Willis, who was 26 at the time. Now, it doesn't seem like the little girl police spoke to indicated that she had direct knowledge that Kristi had also been sexually assaulted by the Rambo brothers or that they had anything to do with her going missing. From what we can gather, no one police spoke to described Kristi acting differently or distant leading up to her disappearance. The kind of signs that might have been a clue that she, too, was being abused. But still, these men would have had access to Kristi. Detective Springer said that Kristi's friend was often over at the Rambo house because their sister was her babysitter. So Kristi would come by to visit and play. This made investigators theorize that maybe Kristi had wanted to see her friend after stopping for cat food. Her friend wasn't home at the time, so maybe Kristi had pop by the Rambo residence to see if she was there instead. And there was someone else in Green Acres who connected Christy to one of the Rambos, too. An article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel stated that Ellen Belk, a clerk at Belk's General store, told police that she had seen Chuck Rambo giving Christy money at the store on one occasion in the past. Detective Springer thought that both Rambo brothers said that they'd been home at least at some point the day Christy went missing, meaning that they would have been nearby since they lived in the neighborhood. But it sounds like no one police spoke with back then could actually place either of them together with her. Still, they had enough to arrest Chuck. And then pretty soon thereafter, Willis Chuck actually confessed to sexually assaulting Kristi's friend during an early taped interview with police. And although both men ultimately pleaded guilty to lewd assault in that case, for one reason or another, neither of them served any jail time, just 10 years probation apiece. Both Chuck and Willis denied ever assaulting Kristi or having anything to do with her going missing.
- [09:31]
Detective William Springer
We searched the house. We kept the house the whole weekend. I mean, we went through that house top to bottom, everywhere. We couldn't find anything that would indicate that Christy was murdered there.
- [09:42]
Ashley Flowers
But that didn't mean they weren't still suspects. In an attempt to follow up on every single lead, police conducted several searches for Kristi at locations associated with the Rambo brothers.
- [09:55]
Detective William Springer
Willis worked at a retirement place with a golf course, and the rumors were that he put Christy down a well. We went and we dug deep. They had to build a ramp for the front loader to get down in to dig deeper, but we never found anything.
- [10:12]
Ashley Flowers
While there was nothing directly tying the Rambo brothers to Christie's case, they remained on law enforcement's radar until something else, or rather someone else, shifted their focus. Another child predator who may have encountered Christy the day she went missing.
- [10:35]
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- [11:53]
Ashley Flowers
This new person of interest popped up towards the end of 1984. Police in Florida got a new lead when Exeter PD all the way up in New Hampshire tipped them off about a then 41 year old man named Victor Winetti. While Victor was out on parole after serving time for sexually assaulting his 13 year old stepdaughter, he became a suspect in the disappearance of another young girl up there, eight year old Tammy Blanger.
- [12:21]
Detective William Springer
He worked close to the area where she went missing. He didn't show up to work that day that she went missing and somebody got a tag off a car that was his that was somewhere in the area.
- [12:34]
Ashley Flowers
When detectives in New Hampshire started looking into Victor, they were able to arrest him almost right off the bat because they realized he'd violated his protest parole by having previously left the state to go to none other than Green Acres, Florida. In his possession were children's underwear and photos of young girls that appeared to have been taken secretly from outside their windows. Now, just to be clear, the underwear didn't belong to Kristi and none of the photos were of her either. But when detectives in New Hampshire learned of the only girl who went missing while Victor was in the area, they started putting two and two together. According to reporting in the South Florida Sun Sentinel, he was more than just in the general area. They reported that Victor was specifically seen at a party in the neighborhood and matched a description of a man seen outside the corner store the very day Christy vanished. But when we asked Detective Springer about those two specific details we found in the paper, they didn't necessarily ring any bells for him. He recalled that maybe Victor's family had thrown a get together at their house at some point that Memorial Day weekend, which would have been nearby but not in the same vicinity as Kristi. Either way, I thought that this was important to note in case there is any truth to it.
- [13:54]
Detective William Springer
He went back to jail for violating his parole for coming to Florida. In 1990, Victor gets released from prison, comes to Florida, and as soon as he Gets in Florida, The Sheriff's Office tac team starts following him. They follow him 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They have pictures and video of him looking in these bedroom windows. Sure enough, there's little girls in that bedroom that he's looking at. So they follow him. For almost a month. He never tried to pick anybody out. He had a couple locations. He was looking through windows. So anyway, when he started trying to get in through the front door one night, they arrested him. When they put him in jail, there was a group of inmates that said that Victor would sit in a chair and watch little girls on tv, you know, like Sesame Street. And then he would make statements like, well, they'll never find them. And, I mean, he more or less was admitting that he killed both of them, and they'll never find him. And these inmates are just having a field day, throwing Victor under the bus. I interviewed him, and he swore him down. He never had anything to do with Christy or Tammy. He said he wasn't even in the same cell blocks, same part of the jail as these people that were talking and giving him up for all this stuff.
- [15:12]
Ashley Flowers
This could have been encouraging, should have been encouraging for a detective like Springer. If these other inmates were telling the truth, it might help in the case against Victor. But Springer remembers that his gut questioned it because of his years watching how convicted predators behave in prison.
- [15:30]
Detective William Springer
In my experience over the years, child molesters, they don't go to prison and talk about their crimes because they know that the inmates don't like that. So I could not believe that Victor is sitting in a local jail telling everybody how he killed these girls and nobody did anything to him. I just found that a little bit unbelievable. I thought, I'm going to find out if this is the truth, if what they're saying is the truth. So I found the one inmate. I interviewed him, and he said, oh, yeah, he told us all this stuff. So I said, would you be willing to take a polygraph? And he says, yeah, we polygraphed him. He failed. I asked him, why did you lie? He said, we wanted to give her mother some closure. So he admitted it was all fabricated. And then I tracked down another one and talked to him on the phone, and he said, yeah, we made all this stuff up.
- [16:23]
Ashley Flowers
Even though he somewhat saw this coming, it was disappointing. Nonetheless, way down the line, Victor eventually got out of prison and ended up passing away shortly thereafter without ever being charged with anything related to Kristi or the other missing girl from New Hampshire, Tammy. And even though those two inmates admitted to Detective Springer that they'd lied about his alleged confession. He doesn't think that we should count Victor out when it comes to Kristi's case.
- [16:51]
Detective William Springer
I would never say that he didn't. I just don't think that he told anybody he did. In my whole career, I've never had any child molester, anybody like that, really sit down and tell all the other inmates that they did this to some little girl.
- [17:07]
Ashley Flowers
Despite hitting roadblocks with both of the Rambo brothers and Victor, investigators seemed to have a specific profile in mind when it came to identifying potential suspects, men with a track record of grooming and abusing children.
- [17:23]
Detective William Springer
It wasn't like it was a dangerous area where guns are being fired and people were shooting and people were stealing kids. It was just a nice little quiet neighborhood. Except when we started investigating it, we found that there were a few child molesters in the neighborhood. But back then, there was no record of it. Nobody kept any records. You didn't know until you started running their history. You have to realize something. And I'm not defending families, but a lot of times back in the day, they would say, don't let your kids around Uncle Bill or don't let your kids around Uncle Ralph, because they all knew that Uncle Ralph was a molester for some reason. It was like a family secret. They never wanted to do anything. I think it was the embarrassment. We worked and we interviewed so many child molesters back then, and we just couldn't come up with anything. And then eventually, the leads start fading away.
- [18:20]
Ashley Flowers
But there was yet another sexual predator looming in the area who investigators hadn't known about until way later, One who didn't surface until their phone rang out of the blue one day with a distressed woman on the other end. She told them they needed to look at her own husband, William Ferris, for Kristi's disappearance. See, back In May of 1984, this family lived directly behind Kristi, along the same path that she may have taken through her neighborhood that day. And the wife said that she would often be out late with the kids on Sundays, giving her husband ample space and time to commit a potential crime. And now she had discovered that he may have had the MO2.
- [19:08]
Detective William Springer
He would have never came on the radar until he got arrested. He got arrested up in Virginia for molesting his grandkids and, I think another kid. And of course, his wife really, really was upset. And as soon as he got arrested, she called ASA and said, we need to look at him. And she said that Ferris had made a statement One time to her that one of these days one of those girls is going to go missing. And then after Christy went missing, he said, well, they'll never find her. She's down on alligator alley. So I went up to Virginia and I interviewed him, and he denied knowing Christy. He never admitted anything. He said he didn't know Christy and he never said those things. And his attorney was going to get him offed. He was guilty of this.
- [19:58]
Ashley Flowers
Well, that didn't happen. Williams since passed away, but he ended up serving life in prison in Virginia on those other charges. And Detective Springer even tried taking another crack at him post conviction, thinking maybe now that he seemingly had so little left to lose, he'd be more open this time around.
- [20:16]
Detective William Springer
I went up to talk to him. If he ever interviewed a sex offender, especially child molester, it's never their fault. It is never their fault. If you listen to some of these people, I mean, they would make you sick, really sick. That's why I never like working child molestation cases. The sexual batteries were bad enough. The child molestations were really bad.
- [20:41]
Ashley Flowers
It's hard for an investigator to hear about, but it's even harder for the children. Now adults of Green Acres who lived it. Our reporting team met up with two of Kristi's old friends, Brenda and Jennifer. They sat down together for their interview, supporting each other through a difficult conversation as they told us how Kristi's disappearance had a major impact on the kids that she left behind. Here's Brenda.
- [21:09]
Brenda
Anybody from our childhood, anybody from our era who was born in the 70s and the early 80s, and you were growing up in Green Acres, when someone mentions to them, what do you think of when you think of Green Acres? Kristi Luna. That's it. It's Kristi Luna.
- [21:26]
Ashley Flowers
Every time Brenda lived in the same neighborhood as Christy, along with Jennifer, the three would rehearse their cheerleading moves together at the park. But as they grew up, Brenda and Jennifer lost touch. Christy's disappearance had been a poignant part of their childhood. What had happened to her was never really forgotten, of course, but almost repressed. Far in the past, that is, until one day in 2007 when the deeply painful memories from May 27, 1984, came flooding back for Jennifer.
- [22:00]
Jennifer
I was working in healthcare, and we were getting ready for shift change, and I was preparing my report, and we had a big, long table in the department, and there was a TV right there, and I was on a computer, and I hear Jenny, Christy's mom. If anyone has any information about the disappearance of my daughter, Please come forward. Yeah, I heard. Yeah.
- [22:19]
Brenda
Because she would come out every year on the anniversary and they would air
- [22:22]
Jennifer
something and it was like lightning went through my body. It was like lightning went through my body and I knew I had to say something. I didn't know if anything that I told them would be helpful. I was afraid that little girl in me was so alive again.
- [22:41]
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- [23:41]
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- [24:14]
Jennifer
Right after I heard that I had a medical crisis and I thought I was going to die. And I knew I couldn't take it to the grave. And that was when I knew what I had to do. Everything in my life changed at that point. I had to make some healthy changes for myself, my kids at the time. And then I eventually went to Jenny's house and knocked on her door. And she listened.
- [24:39]
Brenda
Sorry.
- [24:40]
Jennifer
She listened.
- [24:42]
Ashley Flowers
I'm going to let Jennifer tell the story. She told Kristi's mom her own story. It's what she's able to recall from the day that she believes was the same day Christy disappeared.
- [24:54]
Jennifer
I remember being in the park, and I remember wanting to play with someone. But, you know, I was just swinging on the swing. Again, the same spot. And Christy came up to the fence. And I just. I remember this part so vividly because she was always full of energy. And the way I remember it is she came up to the fence, and she's bouncing up and down. You know, like, we want to play. You want to play. And I don't know what she said, but she was bouncing up and down. And I told her I was waiting for the man to finish in the bathroom, because he came up. He came up, and he said, did you leave change in the bathroom? And I said, yes. And he said, you can get it
- [25:30]
Brenda
when I get out.
- [25:31]
Jennifer
And I said, okay.
- [25:32]
Ashley Flowers
So, to recap, Jennifer told us a man had approached her at the park, asking if she'd left change behind in the bathroom. While she hadn't actually dropped any change, the little girl said yes. Excited about the prospect of being able to buy herself a treat at Belk's store. Jennifer remembered Brenda also being present there at the park during that first part. But then the man went into the bathroom, and Jennifer did what he'd asked, waited for him to come back outside so she could go in and collect the change. But he never did.
- [26:04]
Jennifer
And I just remember waiting and waiting and waiting. And Christy knew I was waiting for him to get out of the bathroom,
- [26:09]
Brenda
so she took off.
- [26:11]
Jennifer
I'm assuming, as I think back, she probably went to the store. Cause she knew that's where I was going next. And I went up to. Eventually, I went up to the stalls, and I peek in, and I just see. Sorry, go slow. I peeked in the door, and I just see this change scattered all across the floor. It was just. It wasn't pennies. It was quarters and dimes. And, I mean, it was like. It was like a treasure chest, you know? And I just remember seeing that. And I didn't see him anywhere in there. And I went in, and I got on my. I was on my knees, and I'm scooting across the floor, and I was just gathering the change. I could distinctly remember that there was this drain. I just remember this drain in the middle of the floor. It was, like, right smack in the middle of the bathroom, collecting the change. And I hear this sound behind me. And I turned, and that's when I saw him standing there. He wasn't wearing anything. And, like, within, like, a nanosecond within, like a flash, he. He grabbed me, tossed me to the side. I think I must have hit my head. At first, I thought he maybe hit me in the head with something or whatever. I don't know. But I. I smacked my head on the bathroom floor, and he got on top of me, and he was trying to get my underwear off. And the next thing I remember is I hear Christy coming in. What are you doing to my friend? What are you doing to my friend? I hear a loud thud, and I don't remember anything after that. And the next thing I do remember is clank, clank, clank on the door. Someone saying, wrap it up. Park's closing. I come to wake up whatever, and I recollect the change. I get up my hand. I walk out of the bathroom, out of the men's room, and right outside of the men's room, there is a police officer and another man talking by. They had these, like, half sheds, and the police officer's back was towards me and the park. I want to say it was a park attendant. I don't know. And I just remember thinking, I'm gonna get in trouble. I'm gonna get in trouble. And I walked up to him with the change in my hand, and I said, this man left this in the bathroom. He patted me on the back, and he said, I guess it's your lucky day, kid. And that was. That was. I was scared. I was scared to leave. I went over to the slide. I went up on the slide, and I put the. I just remember putting the coins down on the top of the slide. And it was one of the slides that had, like, a cover over top. And I was putting the change. Sorry. I was putting the change in, like, order, you know, quarters, dimes, nickels. And that was it. That was it. And I never said any. I never said anything. I never said anything. I never said anything.
- [29:03]
Ashley Flowers
After Jennifer came forward to Kristi's mom, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office got on board. And everything evolved from there because Jennifer had recalled Brenda being at the park when the man came up asking about the change. Detective Springer tracked her down. And as it turned out, Brenda did remember an unsettling event involving a strange man and pocket change taking place at the park. But in her recollection, Kristi wasn't there, and she and Jennifer got away unharmed. Eventually, Jennifer came to the realization that both incidents had occurred. She'd just been merging bits and pieces from two separate memories together, likely due to the trauma she endured. The time when Brenda and Jennifer were together. Happened about a year or so prior to Kristi's disappearance. And it went like this. A man came up to them at the park and tried luring both girls into the bathroom, using the same ruse with the change. Only this time, Brenda recalled that she and Jennifer never actually entered the restroom, because when they peeked underneath the door grate to see if it was okay to come in and collect the change, Brenda could see that the man was standing there with his pants around his ankles, waiting for them. So she and Jennifer took off and got away safely. Brenda alerted her mom, who then called Greenacres pd. Brenda told us that she and her mom returned to the park with a police officer, and the man was still there. Brenda was able to point him out, saying it was him, but it doesn't appear anything ever came from this. Maybe that was because, technically, a crime hadn't actually occurred, since he was behind a door in the men's restroom, so it probably wouldn't have counted as exposure or anything. But looking back, both Brenda and Jennifer see it for what it was. An attempt to bait two children. Brenda said her mom told her that she remembered the officer telling her that the guy claimed to be from out of town and that he'd ridden a bus in. But there's no record of an official police report, so we don't know what name that man gave, if anyone. In 2009, before the two women ever reconnected, both Brenda and Jennifer separately worked on sketches with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office in an attempt to identify the men from both encounters.
- [31:22]
Brenda
And they put the two. They put the two side by side. And I said to myself, it's not the same person, but they look a lot alike, and I'm wondering if they're not related.
- [31:37]
Ashley Flowers
It wouldn't be until 2016 that Brenda and Jennifer would reunite. They were each vaguely aware that they'd both communicated with law enforcement. But at least for Brenda, she hadn't been fully privy to the details about exactly how this might all be related to Kristi. But finally, Brenda reached out to Jennifer through a Facebook post about Kristi's case, and Jennifer responded. They met up in person and dove headfirst into it all. They shared their experiences at the park, Jennifer's devastating assault, and her memory of Kristi barging in while it was happening. This reunion ignited a spark that has since turned into a raging fire, A quest to find Kristi and figure out who those men were. The two women told our reporters that they'd been shown pictures of suspects in Kristi's case before. But as they would have looked more recently, older men, and none of them triggered any epiphanies.
- [32:34]
Brenda
I don't need a picture of some 70 year old pedophile. It was only until Jenny Christie's mom gave us some of the articles that we were able to come across a newspaper article with Charles Rambo and a newspaper article with Willis Rambo from the time in which everything took place. And then that's when everything made sense.
- [32:56]
Ashley Flowers
And Jennifer says she's so sure of this. I mean, you can hear her hitting the photo she was showing us.
- [33:03]
Jennifer
If you ask me if this is Charles, what I can tell you is it was that man. And if that man is named Charles or Chuck, then yes, that was the man that day in the bathroom with Kristi. That was him.
- [33:18]
Ashley Flowers
And Brenda said she recognized his brother as being the man who tried coercing them both with change during the earlier incident.
- [33:25]
Brenda
I can confidently say from old newspaper articles looking at Willis picture, that that's the man that I saw in the park that day when he approached us and asked us if we had thrown any change on the bathroom floor.
- [33:43]
Ashley Flowers
We'll have photos of the Rambo brothers from these old newspaper articles that covered them, along with Brenda and Jennifer's sketches up on the blog post for this episode, so you can check them out.
- [33:53]
Jennifer
We think they had no problem with a few children together, because maybe one was the luring that day and the other one was look out, because when Christy came into the bathroom, he was on top of me still. So someone silenced her.
- [34:08]
Ashley Flowers
As a reminder, the brothers never served time. After pleading guilty to lewd assaults on Kristi's other young friend, they only served probation. Later on, in 1993, though, Willis Rambo was convicted of sex crimes against his own young stepdaughter. He's currently serving life at a Florida prison for that. However, neither man has ever been charged in connection with the allegations surrounding Jennifer, Brenda, or Kristi. Our reporter Madison reached out to Willis in prison with a letter. But at the time we recorded this episode, she hasn't heard back. As far as Detective Springer knows, Charles Chuck Rambo never had to register as a sex offender and is now living free in Tennessee. Madison tried writing to him, too, tried calling and texting every number she could find associated with him, but so far, nothing. Despite the fresh investigative leads Jennifer and Brenda's courageous accounts had provided, investigators would need corroborating evidence to bring any charges. And finding fresh evidence so many years later is hard. In an effort to bring forward additional Witnesses Brenda and Jennifer got Detective Springer's blessing to set up the missing Marjorie Christina Christy Luna Facebook page dedicated to sharing Kristi's story along with their own, hoping to jog memories and encourage others to come forward, too. And others have. Jennifer told us that several other women who also grew up in Green Acres have opened up about their experiences with child predators. Some thought their assailants resembled the men in Jennifer and Brenda's sketches. At least one recounted a similar ploy of a man trying to lure her into the park bathroom with changes. In turn, Jennifer and Brenda have been able to connect them with Detective Springer so that investigators can keep track of the different reports and try and glean any potential connections with what may have happened to Kristi. And in 2019, investigators received their most promising lead in years, all thanks to that Facebook page. And the tip actually pointed to someone new, a man named Guadalupe Martinez, who has since passed away. Although it doesn't appear he had a documented violent criminal history, Detective Springer told us a witness did recount one.
- [36:24]
Detective William Springer
This person came forward and said that he molested kids and was very violent and that his septic tank was open and that he would always check it. The septic tank lid was busted. And then he would empty it, sometimes with a bucket. He would dump it.
- [36:43]
Ashley Flowers
And get this. This is the same guy whose family was hosting the fireworks that Kristi had reportedly stopped to watch that day after stepping out of Belk's store. So for that reason, this tip felt really promising. Was it possible Kristi had a run in with this man while she was over there? Looking back at old newspaper articles, there was a report from the Orlando Sentinel that mentioned witnesses seeing a Hispanic man talking to Kristi outside of Belk's store and the day she vanished, and that she was possibly offered change by that man to go inside and buy fireworks. While that description is way too vague to decipher if this could have been Guadalupe or not, I thought it was worth noting in case there is any connection. As a result of that 2019 tip, a team of investigators and forensic anthropologists got permission to excavate outside of the home where he'd lived back in 1984, thinking it was possible they'd find Christy's remains.
- [37:42]
Detective William Springer
We were there for a good week with them going through every bit of dirt that we took out. We had a septic tank company that cleaned out their truck so that it was spotless, and we put everything in there. And then when they dumped it, they went through every bit of it, but they got down inside the septic tank and actually scraped the bottom of that septic tank and went through everything in that septic tank, and we come up with nothing.
- [38:08]
Ashley Flowers
A new lead hit another dead end. It was a huge blow for investigators, but both Brenda and Jennifer feel like the key to all of this could still be somewhere buried in their old neighborhood.
- [38:28]
Jennifer
Right now we're at the community center because we went to go over to the. The pavilions in the park and the bathroom, and it's all blocked off because they're getting ready to tear it all down and build. It's a future site of the Green Acres Youth Center.
- [38:43]
Ashley Flowers
Our reporters, Madison and Emily, traveled down to South Florida and took a tour of Green Acres with Jennifer and Brenda. And when they arrived at the Ira Van Bullock park, the site of their own encounters with the men they believed were the Rambo brothers, they were filled with men emotions.
- [38:59]
Brenda
I have a pit in my chest right now, like I really do. It's like the weirdest feeling to stand here and look and see that. I mean, I don't know if it's because we're hoping and thinking that the past holds the secret, and by taking this down, you're removing the past from us. And now I don't know if the secret is going to be buried with it or if this is a good thing and something will come from it.
- [39:27]
Ashley Flowers
Sadly, Christy's mom, Jenny, was diagnosed with leukemia. She wasn't feeling well enough to sit for a formal interview, but as Jennifer and Brenda were showing us around, she popped out of her house to say hi.
- [39:39]
Jenny Luna
Hi.
- [39:40]
Detective William Springer
Hi, Jenny.
- [39:41]
Jennifer
We're sending you all of our love.
- [39:44]
Ashley Flowers
The house on Broward Avenue is the same one she lived in back in 1984. She even moved away for a bit, but ended up returning. She wanted to be there in the same familiar spot in case Kristi ever found her way home. For about a decade or more, she kept a massive missing poster of her precious daughter displayed in the front yard for all to see. She's been fighting for more than 40 years. And while she hasn't given up since she was diagnosed with cancer, she's informally passed the baton to Brenda and Jennifer, who she's dubbed Christy's Angels.
- [40:20]
Jenny Luna
Christy's best friends took over for me. Thank God.
- [40:24]
Ashley Flowers
We love you.
- [40:25]
Jenny Luna
Love you guys, too. It's felt so bad that I couldn't do it, but understand.
- [40:30]
Jennifer
We want you to rest. It's also a lot. It's. You're already not feeling well, then this is a lot to also have to relive.
- [40:38]
Jenny Luna
Yes. And So I knew I couldn't go back to the revolution and do it all because it takes a big toll on me. So they're my fighters now. I thought of them. I said, I can't do it. Who's better to do it than me? As Christy's best friends, she would be so proud of you guys.
- [40:56]
Ashley Flowers
Staying in Green Acres is a complicated dichotomy, even just visiting, and Jennifer and Brenda feel it, too, wanting to move on from this place but still holding on to hope that the truth is somewhere hidden here, just waiting to be uncovered. The mission has always been about Kristi, to find her dead or alive and bring her home. Whether it be sharing Kristi's story here on our platform, searching for answers themselves, or uniting with others who have come forward through the Facebook page, they won't stop, even though it can be triggering. She is why they're more willing to relive the trauma.
- [41:35]
Brenda
There was an absence of her on tv, and it upset me that her face was not still out there. And it made me question why. And I thought, why did they forget about her? And why is she not in the public eye? I think a majority of it is about awareness and letting everybody know that they're not alone and they have someplace that they can go. Helping just one person is a lot, but if you can help more, it's better. And we just want to make sure that we're making a voice for those who can't be heard. Like Christy. She can't speak for herself right now. She needs us more than ever. We are her voice right now. We have to be not just her voice, but all the other voices of those who are missing and can't be found. The rest of the deck, they don't have voices. We need to be their voices now, and that's how we find them and that's how we bring them home.
- [42:27]
Ashley Flowers
If you know anything about the disappearance of Marjorie Christy Luna in Green acres, Florida, on May 27, 1984, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, please come forward. And if you had encounters with anyone named in this episode or even similar encounters as described with men you didn't know, detectives want to hear from you, too. Perhaps you hold the missing piece to solving this mystery and putting a terrible person behind bars for whatever life they have left, you can remain anonymous by calling Crimestoppers of Palm Beach county at 1-800-458-8477. We'll have other ways. You can contact the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office directly in the show notes as well. And on the blog post for this episode, the Deck is an audience Chuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about the Deck and our advocacy work, visit thedeckpodcast.com so what do you think Chuck? Do you approve? If you wish that you could listen to this episode ad free, I've got good news. Right now you can join the Crime Junkie Fan Club for free. And being a member of the fan club gets you ad free listening to some of your favorite audio Chuck shows and and access to exclusive Crime Junkie merch coming soon Only in the fan club. This offer won't last long, so check out the link in the show notes and get your first month free on us.