← The Final Hours with Sarah Turney and Kourtney Nichole
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- [00:01]
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Hey guys. We have exciting news. Crime House plus and True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four part limited series on the crimes that built America.
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These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement.
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Follow Murder True Crime Stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th. Or you can binge all of them right now ad free with Crime House Plus.
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To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of this show's page.
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This is Crime house. You're watching a short video shot on your phone, only about 30 seconds long. It was taken at about 2:30am on Sunday, July 26, 2015. The footage is dark. You can barely see anything aside from a cliff rising above the tree line. But you can hear it all. The sound of the water, the dip of a paddle, the creak of a canoe moving through the waves. And then over the noise of the lake, a woman's voice laughing, but she sounds a little bit nervous saying, oh my gosh, this is crazy. We're going into a death trap.
- [01:27]
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That voice belongs to 21 year old Lauren Agee. Lauren and her friends were canoeing across center hill Lake in DeKalb County, Tennessee. They were headed to a campsite that could only be reached by water. But later that afternoon, Lauren's body was found floating face down in a Cove roughly 600ft away, upstream. Her shoes, phone and purse were still at her campsite and the only people who were there with her were tight lipped about what happened that night. Every year, over half a million people go missing, and that's just in the United States alone. Most of those stories barely get a headline. Some don't even get a flyer or a tip line. And when cases do get media attention, we usually only get the broad strokes.
- [02:17]
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But for those of us who have lived these true crime cases, we know the devil's in the details. This is the final hours. A Crime House Original Powered by Pave Studios I'm Sarah Turney.
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And I'm Courtney Nicole. Every Monday, Sarah and I will be looking at the final hours of someone's disappearance. The small, seemingly mundane moments to see if there was anything hiding in plain sight.
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Looking back at all those last conversations, connections and choices, is critical. And it could be the key to unlocking it all. Each episode, I'll offer insight on what those close to the victim might have been going through And Courtney will use her expertise to give more context into the crime scene, the red flags, and the investigation itself. Crime House exists because of listeners like you want even more. Join Crime House plus and get every episode of the Final Hours and the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early, plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap try free at the top of the Final Hour show page. As always, this show is made and recorded by humans, not AI.
- [03:25]
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This episode we're discussing the death of Lauren Agee, a 21 year old criminal justice student from Hendersonville, Tennessee. Lauren went to a wakeboarding festival in the summer of 2015, but she never came home. Her friend said she wandered away from their campsite in the middle of the night. But when her body was found later that day, it led to a lot of unanswered questions. Her death was ruled an accident, but Lauren's family believes otherwise. Queen Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word. My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it. Tonight we feast. An offer you can feast on.
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Sell your car today on Carvana. Pick up. Fees may apply.
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When you travel with people you trust, there's an unspoken agreement that you'll look out for each other. That if something goes wrong, someone will make the call for help. But when Lauren Agee needed that, nobody picked up the phone. That detail is one of the most maddening things about Lauren Agee's case. Because Lauren didn't disappear without warning. The people who were with her knew something was wrong long before anyone else did, and they chose to stay silent about it. But before we get into what happened to Lauren, let's talk about the woman she was.
- [04:58]
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Lauren agee was a 21 year old from Hendersonville, Tennessee. Everyone who knew Lauren said that when she walked into a room, you noticed she demanded an audience. She was vivacious, loud, funny and popular. Her family described her as everybody's best friend. She had an infectious energy and smile that you didn't forget. She loved Drake, she loved to dance, and she loved to make the people around her laugh. Growing up, Lauren was deeply family oriented. She did everything with her mom, Sherry, and her stepfather Michael, who had been in her life since she was 3. Lauren's biological father, Brian, was also very much in the picture, as were her sisters, Allison and Jordan. And her brother Joshua. As Lauren got older, she started doing gymnastics. Then she joined her high school's award winning dance team. She was good enough to earn a dance scholarship to Bethel University in Arden Hills, Minnesota. But eventually she felt like something wasn't clicking for her there. So she decided to make a change. Lauren transferred to VOL State University in Gallatin, Tennessee to study criminal justice. And this wasn't just a random decision. Lauren had always been drawn to solving crimes. She and Sherry spent hours watching CSI and Law and Order together. She wasn't exactly sure what she wanted to do in the field, but she floated the idea of becoming an attorney or working for the FBI. All Lauren really wanted though was to help people. And she wanted to be close to home too. Vol State was less than 20 minutes away from Hendersonville, so she could spend more time with her family. In July 2015, Lauren was excited about this new adventure. She had registered for her criminal justice classes for the upcoming semester. Plus, she had a boyfriend she really loved. His name was Chase. And things were getting serious between them. Lauren Agee had a lot to look forward to. And then Hannah Palmer called her about Wakefest.
- [06:50]
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Every summer, thousands of people make their way out to Center Hill Lake in Smithsville, Tennessee, about two hours from Hendersonville. There, amateur and professional wakeboarders compete during the day while fans camp out and drink into the night. Lauren was made for weekends like this. She was always the life of the party. And Wakefest was definitely a party. So when her childhood friend Hannah Palmer invited her, Lauren didn't hesitate to say yes. It sounded like a great time. Unfortunately, Lauren's mom wasn't as keen on the idea as she was. It's not that Sherry didn't trust Lauren. In fact, Sherry had complete faith in her daughter. It was Hannah that she was worried about. According to Sherry, Hannah had always been a fair weather friend. She'd call Lauren when she was bored or when she was between boyfriends. But when something better came along, she disappeared. From Sherry's perspective, the friendship was one sided and she didn't trust that dynamic.
- [07:45]
A
Yeah. So Sheri wasn't sure what to tell Lauren. Something about this trip wasn't sitting right with her. She couldn't put it into words. It was just a nagging feeling in her chest that wouldn't go away. But ultimately, she said yes. On the morning of Friday, July 24, 2015, Lauren had her things packed and began to walk out the door. But Sheri called her back for one more hug. She pulled her in tight and told her to be careful. That was the last time Sherri Smith saw her daughter alive.
- [08:14]
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That day, Hannah and Lauren documented their two hour drive on social media, posting on Instagram about how they couldn't wait for the festival. When they got there, they spent the day watching the Wakeboarders in the sunshine and then went to get a drink at the local marina bar, a place called Fish Lips. It's not totally clear where they stayed that night, but the party really kicked off the following morning.
- [08:36]
A
That brings us to July 25. The girls went to the docks where a lot of the drinking and dancing was happening. And there they met up with Hannah's new boyfriend, Aaron Lilly, and his friend Chris Stout. Neither Hannah nor Lauren knew Chris, and Lauren was a bit irritated that the weekend seemed to have turned into a double date, especially since Lauren already had a boyfriend. But luckily for Lauren, there were other people there she knew. Lauren literally bumped into her old high school classmate, a woman named Cassie Franks. Cassie noted that Lauren was tipsy, but she was in a good mood. She dragged Cassie around, introducing her as her twin sister, despite the fact that they didn't look alike. But as soon as Hannah's boyfriend Aaron came into the group, Cassie left to find her own friends. She was Aaron's ex girlfriend and had zero interest in reconnecting with him.
- [09:25]
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Yeah, so there was a little bit of drama there. But Lauren remained determined to have a good time. The guys had been wakeboarding all morning and they were interested in participating in another Wakefest cliff jumping. The cliffs at Center Hill Lake are high and steep and the water below is filled with rocks. But for the thrill seekers at Wakefest, that's part of the adventure and Lauren decided to participate. At the top of one of the cliffs, Lauren looked down. Believing she had a clear landing spot. She sprung forward into the air. But as Lauren approached, the water, rock came into view. She hit the back of her head when she landed. It was hard enough that her friends were concerned she had been drinking and she might have just given herself a concussion. But Lauren managed to swim back to shore and she didn't appear to have any bumps or bruises, so everyone decided that she was fine. This situation is so scary, Sarah, because not only do you have like an injury of hitting your head, but you also have alcohol mixed into the bunch, which, I don't know. Sometimes it's hard enough on your own and sober to not realize that you're actually injured or that you might have a concussion. But you know, that gets even harder when you're intoxicated.
- [10:34]
A
Yeah, I completely agree. It feels like, you know when something like this happens when you're in the middle of a party, like, this is the time to pause and take your friend to the doctor.
- [10:43]
B
I totally agree with you there, but I feel like it's just so unfortunately common when you are around a lot of people that you kind of want to downplay your injury and like not let people know if you're actually hurt. Like you said, you know, if you get hurt, you should definitely, definitely take a pause, especially if you're drinking and especially if there is water involved because that can become so dangerous.
- [11:06]
A
Unfortunately, those measures weren't taken in this situation. Instead, the group decided to go out drinking at Fish Lips that night. But first they wanted to drop their things off at their campsite and change. They took their canoe and docked it at the edge of a steep, narrow cliff. When Lauren asked them what they were doing there, Hannah told her their campsite was at the top. Lauren was confused. She'd been told they were going to stay in a cabin and she told her mom that as well. But apparently her friends had a different plan in mind and not a safe one. The only way to reach that campsite was to climb a thin rope strung between the trees. On one side of the site was a 90 foot drop down to the water. On the other a 45 foot drop to the rock rocks below. Still, Lauren probably felt like she had no choice. The group made the climb and Hannah and Erin took the only tent that left Lauren and Chris, who met less than 24 hours ago, to share a hammock dangling over the edge of a cliff.
- [12:04]
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Lauren was not happy, so she started trying to think of other alternatives. She figured she'd run into more friends at the bar and maybe she'd be able to snag a spot at someone else's place. Over at Fishlips, Lauren ran into Cassie Franks again and chatted with some other high school friends named Samantha Arnold and Evan Shelton. Lauren asked Cassie and Samantha, who were bunking together on a houseboat, if they had room for her. Unfortunately, they did not. Cossie was sympathetic though. She'd stayed at that campsite before and vowed to never do it again. She remembered how dangerous it was, how she was worried about climbing the rope to the site in the the daylight, sober, let alone in the dark and drunk. But Lauren was out of options. I feel so badly for Lauren. I mean, not only was she promised one thing, to stay in a safe cabin where you know your environment, but now the whole environment is changing and your campsite is now at the top of this really steep cliff, that's scary all on its own. But you're also being forced to like, bunk with a random man. I would be so upset. I just feel horrible for her.
- [13:09]
A
Yeah, same. I mean, if you tell me that there's going to be indoor plumbing and there's not, I'm going to be upset. It's. It's about setting those expectations. And I just hate situations like this, especially where you're trapped essentially, right? Going up to this campsite, they've been drinking. It's not like she can just turn tail and go home. It's one of those situations where you really either just have to like sleep it off, try to find other accommodations like she was. It just is a terrible situation to put a friend in. And I feel like, especially at this age, you know, a lot of people can feel this urge to fit in, right? To be cool about situations that are like, definitely not cool. This is not a cool thing to do to your friends. But I think the pressure was definitely there, which I get it, I wish it wasn't, but that's just, I think, how a lot of young people operate. Unfortunately, it is an impossible situation. Which is probably why Lauren stayed at the bar for a few hours trying to put it off. During that time, she struck up a conversation with an off duty officer named Chris Yarchuck. He was a detective from White county working security that night. Lauren wanted to know more about him and his job. She told him about her new major and how she wasn't sure if she wanted to be a police officer like him or an attorney. He said she was super friendly and curious about his profession. Then, around 2:30 in the morning, Lauren, Hannah, Erin and Chris left the bar and headed toward the docks. They hopped into their canoe and paddled out into the dark toward their cliffside campsite.
- [14:37]
B
On the boat, Lauren pulled out her phone and hit record. It was pitch black. No lights anywhere. Just the sound of water and the outline of a cliff rising in the distance. Suddenly, Lauren's voice cut through the dark. Oh my gosh, this is crazy. We're going into a death trap. End quote. Lauren's light heartedness made it seem like she was joking. That even though she was tipsy and nervous, she figured it was going to be fine. She'd be back for another day of fun in the sun tomorrow. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Three decades ago, a young woman named Angie Dodge is found brutally murdered in Idaho Falls. Police put a man behind bars. But as the years pass, doubts emerge about whether the real killer was ever caught. That's when Angie's own mother embarks on a decades long mission to uncover the truth. Listen to the Snare, a new series from ABC Audio. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.
- [15:52]
A
It's 2:30am on Sunday, July 26, 2015. Lauren Agee gets into a canoe with her childhood friend Hannah Palmer, Hannah's boyfriend Aaron Lilly, and Erin's friend Chris Stout. They make the way across the lake over to their campsite. They have to climb a rope up 45ft along the side of a steep rock face in the pitch dark to get there. And after a full day of drinking, no less. But they do get there. Erin and Hannah take the only tent, which means Lauren and Chris are stuck on the hammock together, which is hung off the edge of the cliff. Then around 3am, everyone goes to sleep.
- [16:28]
B
But when Lauren's friends wake up the next morning, she isn't there. Her shoes are, along with her phone in her purse and the canoe is still docked where they left it the night before. Which means Lauren hasn't taken it anywhere. And it's not like Lauren just wandered off from there, especially with no shoes. There are only two ways to get down from their campsite. The first is the way they went up by rope through a maze of trees, bushes and rocks. And the other is even more dangerous, jumping off the cliff itself into the water and then swimming to shore. There are no good options here. But the group doesn't call the police. They don't call Sherry, Lauren's mom. Instead, they continue with their plans for the day. You know, Sarah, when I was researching this case, I looked up if you could actually be held criminally responsible for like failing to report your friend missing. I know there's like a gray area when somebody is no longer a minor anymore, but I actually found that in most jurisdictions you can't be held criminally responsible for failing to report your friend missing, provided you were not involved in their disappearance. I guess maybe that should have been like common knowledge to me, but for some reason it wasn't, so I really wanted to look it up and find out.
- [17:38]
A
No, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. I mean, I think that we see this all too often, right? She's an adult, you know, maybe she's off somewhere doing whatever. I wish I could be inside the heads of these friends right now because I have so many sordid feelings about what just happened. Right. Part of me wants to say, like, they're all young. They don't know any Better. But then the other part of my brain is like, what's going on?
- [18:01]
B
I feel like there's a very fine line. Legally speaking, maybe you can't get in trouble for not reporting your friend missing. But morally speaking, what I envision that I would do is, I mean, like, if that's my childhood friend, I know that I would be at least at the bare minimum, out looking for them. I wouldn't just be making plans to go about my day. Then again, on the flip side of that, I've never been in this situation, so, like, I don't know what I would do realistically, but I. I don't know, morally speaking, I just feel bad. This is just an awful situation from start to finish.
- [18:31]
A
I agree. I agree. I think it's like, it's impossible and it's easier, I think, to see in hindsight. Right. Of course. I think we're going to sit here and say, I would do all these things for our friends, and I have no doubt that we would. Right. It's just I have a hard time judging these kids. I'm not gonna lie. Unfortunately, nobody at Wakefest seems to be looking for Lauren yet. But two hours away in Hendersonville, Tennessee, her mother, Sherry is. She hasn't heard from Lauren all morning, which is odd. Lauren usually stays in constant contact. So Sherry reaches out to Lauren's boyfriend, Chase, but he hasn't heard from her either. She tries the phone number she has for Hannah Palmer, but it isn't working. Nobody's answering, and Sherry has a bad feeling.
- [19:16]
B
And here's why you should always trust a mother's intuition. Because later that afternoon, around 4:30pm on July 26, a fisherman named Lynn Blair and his son Dylan are fishing at Second Cove. This is a section of Center Hill lake, only about 600ft away from the cliff where Lauren and her friends were camping. Lynn and Dylan glance down in the water and they see something. A body floating face down. Horrified, they hop in their boat and drive to the marina to get help. When they get there, Lynne sees Deanna and Harry Elder, a couple who manage a store. He tells them about the body, and Deanna immediately goes to alert the off duty White county police officers working security. That happens to include Chris Yarchuck, who Lauren had met at the bar the night before. He's working with someone named Ryan Malanson. So Harry Elder, Yarchuk and Melanchon on a pontoon boat and follow Lynn out to the COVID There they find the body of an adult woman wearing bright pink shorts and a black tank top. It's Lauren Agee. Yarchuk and Malanson alert the local authorities as they wait for investigators to arrive. A canoe rounds the corner, paddled by Aaron Lilly and Chris Stout. They call out to Yarchuk and Melanson and ask if it's their friend in the water. Yarchuk and Melansin are immediately on high alert. No public announcement has been made yet. The only people who know there's a body in that cove are the two of them, the fisherman who found her and the elders at the marina. And yet here are Erin and Chris, the same two guys who had spent the entire morning going about their day without reporting their friend missing, who, by all accounts, hadn't seemed concerned about Lauren at all. So why were they here now? How did they know where to look? And why are they behaving so oddly? Both Yarchuk and Melanson note that Aaron and Chris body language is robotic, but their eyes are frantic. In the officer's experience, that's not the behavior of innocent people just discovering the death of their friend. I feel like this is a touchy subject because, you know, trauma, shock, grief, all of that. I mean, everybody reacts differently, especially with shocking news like this and all of these things. Sometimes, you know, you don't cry if you have officers who are immediately noticing red flags with, you know, these people's behavior. Like, that kind of sticks out to me.
- [21:34]
A
I mean, I think, like, considering the notes of the officers makes a lot more sense to me than trying to judge the behavior of these people when this was happening. Because to your point, I feel like everybody does react differently. People like to hear these stories and believe that they know exactly what they would do in this situation. And I just don't believe that that's the case. Everybody reacts differently. And so I have a really hard time judging them, to be honest.
- [21:58]
B
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I mean, investigators in law enforcement, they do use behavioral analysis as, like, a tool, but it's not a science. Like, everybody reacts differently. I feel like you can't really use that against somebody. But I will say one thing that does kind of stand out to me about this case is, like, kind of how we mentioned, like, how did those two guys know exactly where to go? And, like, why would their first question be, you know, is that our friend, as far as we know, up until this point, like, they didn't seem concerned. So that does seem weird to me,
- [22:27]
A
I will say, you know, I thought about that, too, and then I thought about how, like, one of the first things they saw were, like, the bright pink shorts. So I wonder if they just saw Lauren's outfit and knew that it was her and they're like, oh, my gosh, is that our friend? I could speculate about this all day. Unless we hear it directly from them, I feel like we're. We're just guessing.
- [22:48]
B
Well, at the moment, the officers have bigger things to deal with. As they wait for the local authorities to arrive, Yarchuk observes the scene. Lauren's body is floating face down at the water's surface. There's blood on the back of her head, her left side and on her shoulder. And she is riddled with injuries, which suggests she had experienced some serious physical trauma before she died. To Yarchuk, the sheer number of marks and the fact that they are spread all over her body doesn't feel consistent with a fall. It looks more like she was dragged through the rough brush. When the local deputies arrive, Yarchak asks them to do a rape kit, to swab her body for DNA and to collect evidence from under her fingernails. Now, he's not within jurisdiction here, so this is just advice. Whether the deputies take it is beyond his control.
- [23:35]
A
Meanwhile, Dekalb county deputies take statements from Aaron, Chris and Hannah, who just arrived at the scene. And their stories don't matter, match. In fact, they seem to change by the second. Aaron says that he thought Lauren had left in the middle of the night to go meet her ex boyfriend, who was also attending Wakefest. Chris says he has no idea what happened, that he was passed out cold. Then he says she might have gone to meet someone, but doesn't know who. Hannah thinks Lauren might have gone back to the bar, or maybe she went to spend the night with a man on his houseboat. Or actually, she probably got up in the middle of the night to pee and fell off the side of the cliff.
- [24:12]
B
Hannah's last theory makes the most sense. Lauren's belongings were still at the campsite when they woke up that morning. If she'd gone out to keep partying or to meet someone, she would have taken them.
- [24:22]
A
And like we said, Courtney going out again wouldn't have been easy. The canoe was still where they left it the night before. If Lauren had wanted to go anywhere, her only other option was to jump off the cliff and swim to the marina. Alone, drunk and in the dark.
- [24:37]
B
In my opinion, this should have been treated like a crime scene. But when DeKalb County Detective Jeremy Taylor arrives, he doesn't do that. He looks around the campsite for a bit and shoots a few photos. But he doesn't tape off the scene. He doesn't preserve it or have it scoured for evidence. And after a little while, he just leaves. If this doesn't sound like the work of an experienced detective, that's because it wasn't. To be fair, Jeremy Taylor had never worked a homicide case before. In fact, he hadn't received any special training in death investigations whatsoever.
- [25:09]
A
What happens next, or rather, what doesn't happen next, will define this case for years, because there's a long list of things Jeremy Taylor fails to do. And when Lauren's family finally gets him under oath to ask him about that, his answers are stunning.
- [25:29]
B
Foreign.
- [25:36]
A
It's early Evening on Sunday, July 26, 2015. Sherry Smith has been trying to reach Lauren all day. Lauren has been at Wakefest all weekend, and cell service at Center Hill Lake is spotty. Radio silence isn't exactly unusual, and yet Sherry still has a nagging feeling that something's wrong. So when Sherry and her husband Michael hear a knock at the door, Sherry's stomach drops. A police officer is standing on their stoop, and he tells them that they need to get to the hospital right away. Something has happened to Lauren. They do not tell them she was found dead.
- [26:13]
B
The situation is so sad because, like, we already know that Sherry had this deep mother's intuition that something wasn't right. And then I just can't imagine to, like, not hear from your daughter when. Which is not normal, and then all of a sudden get a knock on your door from police. That has to be so terrifying. And it's just sad that this all unfolded the way it did.
- [26:32]
A
I know. It's like she knew from the beginning. It just breaks my heart for them, obviously. And I have to wonder what the reasoning behind not giving them the news right there was too. It almost feels like this, like, cruel hope. You know, she has this terrible feeling about Lauren. The officer comes to the door and says that, you know, you have to come to the hospital. And so I feel like on that drive there, within those moments, there was probably hope that, you know, she was still alive. Obviously, it was probably this jumble of feelings of, you know, concerned about her, but you have to get there right away to help versus processing that she's actually gone as soon as possible. I don't know. I don't know why an officer would do this if it was to, like, keep them calm so they could come identify her body. I have no idea. I've never encountered this before. Have you?
- [27:19]
B
No, I haven't. I was just about to ask if you knew, maybe protocol, that's like different in like different jurisdictions. I genuinely don't know either. I do feel like looking at it with what we know now, it seems cruel. I hope that wasn't their intention, but I don't think there would be any way that this family could receive news whether they were told or not that would make them feel any better.
- [27:42]
A
So. Not knowing the reality of the situation, Sherry and Michael make the two hour drive to the hospital. They have no clue that Lauren's body is currently with the forensic pathologist Thomas Deering, or that he's discovered some devastating details about her cause of death.
- [27:57]
B
It turns out that Lauren has fractures to her skull and ribs. Nine ribs on the left and two on the right are broken on the backside. Her spine is compressed, which means that her vertebrae are crushed together. She has significant bleeding inside her brain and in the membrane surrounding it. And she's broken the first bone in her cervical spine, which takes an enormous amount of pressure to break the kind of force that could result from falling from a significant height, which is essentially the conclusion they come to. Lauren had fallen off a cliff onto some rocks and then into the water. Thomas believes that her cause of death was blunt force trauma or possible drowning if she survived the fall.
- [28:37]
A
Meanwhile, Sherry and Michael arrive at the hospital and are told to to sit and wait. For 20 agonizing minutes. Nobody tells them anything about Lauren. Finally, Detective Jeremy Taylor walks in. He leads Sherry and Michael to a private room where he tells them that Lauren didn't make it. Taylor then offers his theory. He knows from speaking to Erin, Chris and Hannah that Lauren had been cliff jumping earlier that day and that she hit her head. He thinks maybe she'd gotten a concussion. But afterward she kept drinking. So when she woke up in the middle of the night, she was drunk and disoriented, which is why she wandered off barefoot and fell off a cliff. Sherry and Michael are skeptical of this, though. They have him walk them through all the details. And that's when Sherry learns something that makes her go from skeptical to furious. Lauren had been missing since early that morning. Her friends knew since they woke up that Lauren was gone. And nobody called Sherry. Nobody even called the police right away. Lauren had been missing for several hours before her body was discovered by strangers who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
- [29:47]
B
I genuinely don't think there's ever a version of me that would understand why they didn't call. And I'm sure I'm probably not alone in that. You would think that Your first instinct would be to at least go look for them or to report them missing and not wait for a gruesome discovery.
- [30:01]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think that's the part that gets me, is how dangerous the sleeping arrangements were. Right. They knew that there was risk. They wake up, their friend's not there, and all of her stuff is. I would be terrified for my friend a thousand percent. But in this situation, just given, like, you're camping on a cliff, this is the time to be concerned.
- [30:20]
B
Yeah. And I'm sure that Sheri is probably just a fuming and is probably just super, like, emotional. I can only imagine, like, she's probably really mad. She's probably going through all of the stages of grief just finding out that her daughter is no longer alive. And I'm sure that kind of confirms her initial hesitations about Hannah. Like, she already didn't really want Lauren to, like, go with Hannah, just be based off of, like, their previous friendship. Yes, they were childhood friends, but it seemed like Hannah wasn't as invested as Lauren was. And I'm sure this kind of all just came crashing down and got brought back up to the surface with this horrifying discovery.
- [30:57]
A
Yeah. I mean, I think it's natural for anyone to try to think back to how could this have been prevented? How did this happen? Who could have stopped it? I mean, she's. This situation is brand new to her. She's processing. She's furious. I get it.
- [31:11]
B
Yeah. And specifically in this situation where the medical examiner, they don't know if she died from the blunt force trauma or, you know, if she survived that, possibly from drowning. So I'm sure there's always, like, a certain level of, could she have been saved had somebody noticed sooner? That thought alone just has to be devastating. One last thing I want to say about this is I recently watched a documentary called the Crash, and one of the victim's fathers in that documentary said something I feel like is super impactful, and I'm probably going to tell my kids growing up. He said, show me your friends and I'll show you your future. And I feel like that is just something that everybody should always have in the back of their mind. Well, Detective Taylor does have more questions for Lauren's friends after this. He heads over to the police station where Hannah, Aaron and Chris are waiting. But they aren't separated, which is usually standard practice, meaning they have time to align their stories before they speak to police. In fact, there are a lot of things that Detective Taylor failed to do during this investigation that seems Critical. Looking back, he doesn't speak to the residents of the houseboats docked near where Lauren's body was found. He never looks for blood on the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, which could have proved that Lauren fell. And despite Chris Yarchuck's reminders, Lauren's body is not swabbed for DNA, nor is a rape kit performed. It's also interesting that just one month after Lauren dies, Hannah and Erin pack up and move away to Florida, which Taylor might have found strange if he'd done background checks on those three friends. Because it turns out Chris Stout has a criminal record involving multiple DUIs. And Aaron Lilly has prior arrests related to domestic violence. On September 23, 2015, two months after Lauren's body was found, Jeremy Taylor does do one thing. He completes his investigative report. He determines that there was no evidence of foul play and declares Lauren's death to be an accident. His report is three paragraphs long. I don't know how long these reports are supposed to be. I know every case is different, but I feel like it has to be more than three paragraphs. Sarah, that's not very long.
- [33:27]
A
Yeah, usually more than three paragraphs. Usually more than three pages, Courtney. Especially when somebody, you know dies. This part really pissed me off, which is no surprise. I don't care if you're new. This is lazy police work. It seems pretty clear to me that they thought it was an accident. They ruled it an accident, wrote three paragraphs, and closed the book on this one.
- [33:47]
B
I'm right there with you. I mean, I feel like there's a difference between a case being ruled an accident and a case being investigated and then ruled an accident. And I feel like in this case, it was just ruled an accident from the very beginning.
- [33:59]
A
No, I totally agree. And the thing is, like, even if you think it's an accident, like, perhaps look into it a little bit deeper to see if anybody's covering up that accident. Right. The accidents come in many different forms, and sometimes people can be held liable for these things, whether in a civil court, whether it's in a criminal court, where it's like manslaughter or something like that. Like, just because it's an accident doesn't mean you just close the book on
- [34:23]
B
it at the bare minimum. Look at the rocks, maybe. See if there's blood, see if she fell.
- [34:30]
A
If we know for sure that this was an accident and there's nowhere further to go with it, we wouldn't be here today. But because of this lazy police work, there are still people debating this case, there is still Lauren's family out there fighting for answers. Well, I can tell you this. Lauren's family is not satisfied. In February 2016, five months after Taylor closes Lauren's case, Sherry Smith hires a private investigator named Sheila Wysocki to dig deeper. Sheila actually became a PI after helping police solve the murder of her own college roommate. She's good at her job. In fact, a lot of the facts we have about this case are thanks to her investigative reporting on it through her podcast, Without Warning, hosted by Sheila Vasaki. From the moment she starts looking at Lauren's case, things don't add up. Sheri connects Sheila with Chris Yarchuck, who has been in contact with the family ever since Lauren's death. Jeremy Taylor's conclusion never sat right with Yarch either, so he and Sheila began working together. Meanwhile, Sheila interviews anyone she can find about the weekend at Wakefest. When she speaks to Cassie Franks, the friend Lauren ran into who had dated Aaron, she learns that he allegedly had a history of choking during sex. Cassie says there were times she had to grab his hand and pull it back because she couldn't breathe. He even caused her to black out. Cassie even has photographs of these injuries from Erin, including bruises and bite marks. She says she offered those photographs to the DeKalb County Sheriff's Department during their investigation, but they declined to look at them.
- [36:06]
B
Cassie wasn't the only one waiting for someone to listen. Chris Yarchuk has been sitting on his concerns since the afternoon of July 26, 2015, when he saw Lauren's body floating in the water. Yarchuk had been a recovery diver for 12 years. At that point point he'd pulled too many bodies out of the water. And based on that experience, he doesn't believe Lauren was in the water for 12 to 15 hours. As the timeline suggests, her body was well preserved and there were no signs of decomposition or marks from marine life. In Yarchuk's opinion, someone put her there later on, he estimated anywhere from 5am to 7am to test that theory, Yarchuk and Sheila performed their own independent tests at the campsite. They use a dummy that weighs the same as Lauren, 105 pounds, and drop it from every possible spot around the cliff. Nearly 50 attempts between them. And not once does the dummy reach the water. Every time it gets tangled in trees and rocks on the way down. Sheila also tracks the current in the lake, and the results are clear. The current moves in the opposite direction from where Laura Lauren was found, which means someone put her there.
- [37:17]
A
Yarchuk keeps returning to something else too. A mark on Lauren's abdomen. He first noticed it when her body was pulled out of the water. It was in the shape of a triangle with 45 degree angles and the imprint resembled something he'd seen before, but he couldn't think of what at the time. Then one day it hit him. The tip of the canoe. The one Lauren's group had used to get back and forth to the campsite all while weekend. Yarchuk believes Lauren was already dead when someone placed her face down on the bow of the boat. Her arms, shoulders and head were draped over the front of the canoe and her feet were dragging in the water behind her. And as her body lay there waiting to be disposed of, the tip of the bow left its mark. When Sheila goes through the autopsy photographs, she sees it too. She agrees with Yarchuk's theory.
- [38:05]
B
The sheriff's department has an explanation. Explanation though. They say the mark came from a storage locker lid on the boat used to transport Lauren's body after she was pulled from the water. They say the imprint was from her body being placed face down on that lid during transport. But Sheila has a problem with that. The lid is square shaped with 90 degree corners. The mark on Lauren's abdomen has 45 degree angles. Plus, Yarchuk saw it on Lauren's body before the police even arrived. So Sheila continues examining the autopsy photographs. And that's when she discovers more injuries not included in Jeremy Taylor's report. For example, Lauren had a broken nose, broken fingers and large bruises on both of her thighs. The kind consistent with someone kneeling on a person's legs to hold them down. And there was hemorrhaging in her throat that hadn't been listed in the autopsy at all. Sheila's certain that would have been pretty difficult to get as a result of a fall. She immediately thinks of Cassie saying that she'd been choked by Aaron. Sarah, I feel like, you know, maybe one or two minor things being missing from an autopsy, maybe not a huge deal, but these are a lot of injuries that are not listed and that is suspicious to me.
- [39:20]
A
I agree. You know me like I normally am, not like that suspicious. But this is suspicious. What is going on in this town?
- [39:27]
B
I have no idea. I mean, I don't know what the investigators would be trying to like hide by not including that. To me it kind of just boils down like they simply just didn't care enough to do a thorough investigation. I don't think they were trying to hide anything. I hope not. But it just seems like they were too lazy to. To give this a thorough look.
- [39:44]
A
Yeah, I mean, it really does seem like they were told this was a clear cut accident. Fall off a cliff, move on.
- [39:51]
B
That's exactly why, even if you think it might be an accident, what does it hurt? Just to tape off the scene and just investigate it as if it could be foul play? I don't see any reason why that would hurt the investigation. If it's an accident, it's an accident. But at this point, there are too many things piling up that just make this theme suspicious.
- [40:09]
A
Yeah, I mean, there's no semblance of answers when you have to kind of go back and redo everything yourself. And I think it inherently creates this doubt within these families that everything could be compromised at this point. And that is a terrible feeling.
- [40:23]
B
Oh, for sure. Especially given that this happened in the water or like near the water, going back and knowing that they didn't even look to see if there was blood on the rocks at this point, any piece of evidence that could have been found is likely just gone at this point. And that is horrible. Well, Sherry's not going to sit idly on this. Armed with this new information, Lauren's family files a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against Aaron Lilly, Hannah Palmer, and Christopher Stout. In their depositions, all three were asked directly whether they had physically touched or harmed Lauren. They all invoked the Fifth Amendment, which is a common legal strategy and doesn't constitute an admission. But it doesn't get Sherry any answers. In March 2017, a judge rules there's insufficient evidence for the case against Hannah to proceed. Sherry appeals this decision, and in February 2019, the court overturns that ruling. Sherry officially has the right to pursue the case against Hannah as well as Aaron and Chris.
- [41:22]
A
But then Sherry makes a decision that surprises a lot of people. She drops the lawsuit, not because she's given up, but because a judge places a gag order on the civil proceedings. To keep fighting in court means being silenced publicly about Lauren's case. Sherry chooses to keep telling her daughter's story story rather than continue with litigation.
- [41:43]
B
No criminal charges have ever been filed. No one has been arrested. But somewhere out there, someone must know what happened to Lauren Agee. For now, though, all we know is this. At around 2:30 in the morning on Sunday, July 26, 2015, Lauren Agee climbed into a canoe with Hannah Palmer, Aaron Lilly and Christopher Stout. They crossed Centerhill Lake in the dark toward a rocky cliff, where they docked their canoe and climbed a rope up to their campsite. Erin and Hannah took the tent. Lauren and Christopher got into a hammock together tied between two trees near the edge of the cliff. On one side of them there was a 90 foot drop to the water, on the other a 45 foot drop to the rocks below. Around 3am everyone went to sleep. At some point in the night Lauren left that hammock. She left behind her shoes, her phone, her purse, everything she had with her and she was never seen alive again.
- [42:43]
A
Lauren Agee and her family deserve so much better than the investigation they got. They deserve the truth and Lauren's mom is still looking for it. If you have any information about what happened to Lauren in the early morning hours of July 27 6, 2015, please contact the DeKalb County Sheriff's Office at 615-597-4935. You can also find the justice for Lauren Agee page on social media, maintained by Lauren's family, who again are still fighting for answers. Thank you for listening to the Final Hours. If you have any other details about Lauren Agee's case, please share it with us on social media. We want to hear from you. Your thoughts, condolences and feedback are what make this community so special.
- [43:37]
B
At Crime House, we value your support. Share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow the Final Hours to help others discover the
- [43:45]
A
show and to enhance your listening experience. Don't forget to join crime house plus at crimehouse plus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts tap try free at the top of the Final Hours show page.
- [43:57]
B
The Final Hours is hosted by Sarah Turney and me, Courtney Nicole and is a Crime House original. Powered by Pave Studios, this episode was brought to life by the Final Hours team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Priptovski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Ellie Reed and Russell Nash. Thank you for listening.