Carnival of Lies ////// Part 1

Summary

True Crime Garage: "Carnival of Lies ////// Part 1"

Release Date: May 26, 2026
Hosts: Nic and the Captain
Case Focus: The Disappearance of Timothy Wiltsey (South Amboy/Sayreville, New Jersey, 1991)

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Episode Overview

This episode marks Part 1 of a multi-part deep dive into the mysterious disappearance of Timothy “Timmy” Wiltsey, a five-year-old who vanished during a Memorial Day weekend carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey in 1991. Hosts Nic and the Captain walk listeners through Timmy and his mother Michelle’s background, the critical day when Timmy disappeared, and the confusing and frustrating early days of the investigation—all while highlighting the pitfalls and complexities of missing child cases in the pre-digital era.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: National Missing Children’s Day & New Jersey’s Reality

• Contextual Opening (03:21): The hosts mark the episode’s release on National Missing Children’s Day—created in the wake of Etan Patz’s 1979 disappearance—to emphasize the scale of the problem.
  • Stat: In 2024, over 12,000 missing children cases were reported in New York State, with 11,000 classified as runaways.
  • Insight: The majority of cases involve girls aged 13–15, yet Timmy's case stands out for the victim's age and the haunting lack of resolution.

2. The Wiltsey Family’s Early Struggles (04:40–13:17)

• Background on Parents:
  • Michelle (Timmy’s mom) became pregnant at 16 and left Iowa for New Jersey, distancing herself—and Timmy—from his father, George, whom she described as abusive.
  • George did not participate in raising Timmy or support him financially.
• Single Motherhood:
  • Michelle juggled multiple low-paying jobs, resisted welfare, and relied on her father and local family for support.
  • Timmy’s school record showed chronic lateness and absenteeism, attributed mainly to unstable childcare arrangements.
• Michelle’s Relationships:
  • Several men expressed fondness for both Michelle and Timmy but felt too young to assume a stepfather role.

Nick (13:10): “Her life really ran on tight margins, right? One missed call, one canceled babysitter, one late shift could throw the entire day into chaos.”

3. The Day Timmy Disappeared: Friday & Saturday, May 24–25, 1991 (14:47–20:00)

• Preceding Plans:
  • Michelle prepares for Timmy’s kindergarten graduation and a summer trip to Disney World with her sister’s family.
  • Friday, Michelle promises a neighbor she’ll take Timmy and a niece to the South Amboy Elks Club Carnival.
• Saturday Morning:
  • Michelle and Timmy are seen leaving the house at 11am by a neighbor—the last confirmed sighting of Timmy by someone other than Michelle.

4. Confusion at the Carnival: Timeline & Initial Search

(20:00–43:35)

• Arrival & Account:
  • Michelle reports to her niece Jennifer at the carnival that Timmy is missing—she claims she left him in a ride line to buy a soda and returned to find him gone.
  • They report the disappearance to a police officer at about 8:30pm.
• Uncertainties:
  • No other witnesses saw Timmy with Michelle at the carnival.
  • Police and hosts question: Was Timothy ever at the carnival at all?
• Law Enforcement Response:
  • The carnival shuts down for a full-scale search, with police, first responders, volunteers, and tracking dogs combing the grounds late into the night (23:01).
  • Nothing belonging to Timmy (not even his scent for the dogs) is found.

Captain (32:46): “If I’m a police officer on the scene… my first thing is, do I have anybody that sees them together?”

5. Michelle’s Demeanor & Public Perception

(34:56–49:50)

• Varied Reports:
  • Michelle is described by some (including a firefighter and a police detective) as distraught, crying, and overwhelmed.
  • Others later claim she appeared unemotional, fueling suspicion.
  • She asks to stop at her boyfriend’s workplace on the way home (raising some eyebrows).

Nick (37:56): “She was... really messed up by this. Because what we do know is... she drove to the carnival. Now, where my mind goes... there was nothing in the car that could provide a scent of the boy.”

• Review of Possible Motives and Suspects:
  • The discussion includes speculation about stranger abduction, trafficking, or abduction by someone seeking a child (“lonely woman”), as well as possible family involvement.
  • Father George is quickly ruled out—living in Iowa, he hadn’t seen Timmy in years.

6. Early Investigation & Search Efforts

(47:56–51:14)

• Massive Search:
  • Coordinated line searches cover nearly a square mile.
  • Searchers find no trace of Timmy—if he had simply wandered off, they believe he would have been found.
• Witness Reports:
  • Police seek to confirm Michelle’s story, but key evidence is missing:
    • No one sees Michelle and Timmy together.
    • Carnival workers and ride operators don’t recall them together.
    • No cash receipts or tickets can corroborate Michelle’s version.

Captain (42:09): “If she’s not [holding a soda], then... is this a ruse? Because... she was supposed to take her niece. So you go, ‘ok, well she doesn’t take her niece because her niece would be an eyewitness...’”

7. Eyewitness Accounts: A Cloudy Picture

(57:11–61:27)

• Possible Sightings:
  • One carnival worker reports seeing a small boy in a red tank top and Ninja Turtle shoes with a woman calling for “Timmy” or “Jimmy.” She picks Timmy out in a photo but can’t confirm Michelle was the woman.
  • Another worker remembers helping such a boy off a ride around 7:15pm.
  • Three teens recall warning a little boy (with three adults) away from a patch of broken glass.
• Skepticism:
  • Some witness credibility is questioned (e.g., a worker described as possibly high).
  • All reports have caveats: Ninja Turtle shoes were common in 1991, and the carnival was crowded.

8. The Aftermath: Media and Public Reaction

(66:00–68:33)

• Media Frenzy:
  • Timmy’s case becomes widely publicized—featured on America’s Most Wanted and on milk cartons.
  • Michelle moves to avoid attention, stating she felt pressured to perform on camera:

    Michelle (as quoted by Nick, 67:21): “Everyone is waiting to see a grieving mother on TV break down, crying hysterical... but I am not going to do that.”

• Public Judgment:
  • Hosts discuss how mothers of missing children (cf. JonBenét Ramsey) are judged on their emotional expression and the double-edged nature of public scrutiny.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• (13:10) Nic: “Her life really ran on tight margins, right? One missed call, one canceled babysitter, one late shift could throw the entire day into chaos.”
• (23:09) Nick: “We get conflicting reports about her demeanor, her actions that night…there's highs and lows in those moments, right?...You may be behaving one way with optimism, or there’s other moments of ‘oh my god, oh my god, where is he?’”
• (32:46) Captain: “If I’m a police officer on the scene or a detective on the scene, my first thing is do I have anybody that sees them together?”
• (42:09) Captain: “If she’s not [holding a soda], then you go, is...this a ruse? Because...she was supposed to take her niece. So you go, ‘ok, well she doesn’t take her niece because her niece would be an eyewitness...So I think this story is very bizarre because I don’t even know if we can prove if Timothy was at the carnival.’”
• (67:21) Michelle (quoted): “Everyone is waiting to see a grieving mother on TV break down, crying hysterical, because the public, they thrive on that stuff. But I am not going to do that.”
• (70:04) Nick: “On a day meant to focus public attention on missing children, one more child’s name had been added to the list. Timothy William Wiltse. Or better yet, simply Timmy. Five years old, last reported missing from a carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey.”

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Key Timestamps

• 03:21 — Context: National Missing Children’s Day
• 04:40–13:17 — Michelle’s early life, relationships, and struggles as a single mother
• 14:47–18:53 — Friday and Saturday before the disappearance; planning and final confirmed sightings
• 20:00–23:01 — Michelle’s account at the carnival and initial missing person report
• 23:01–32:46 — Search mobilization, lack of physical evidence, questioning of timeline
• 34:56–37:56 — Reports on Michelle’s emotional state and behavior post-disappearance
• 42:09–43:35 — Discussion of the plausibility of Michelle’s carnival story
• 57:11–61:27 — Exploration of eyewitness accounts, difficulties in confirmation
• 66:00–68:33 — Michelle’s public image, media involvement, and societal expectations

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Tone & Style

True Crime Garage’s signature blend of detailed, non-sensationalized case breakdowns, skeptical banter, and a dash of dark humor is present throughout. Nic and the Captain bring empathy toward victims while casting a suspicious—but fair—eye toward inconsistent stories and investigative lapses.

Captain (14:30): “Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice, just one episode, we explain this person's background? We...and then we go...Then he went to college and had a successful career, and nothing bad happened.”

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Summary & Lead-In for Next Episode

Part 1 closes with Timmy’s disappearance unresolved, the central mystery deepened by conflicting reports, a lack of physical evidence, and suspicion swirling around Michelle’s narrative. The hosts set the stage for a deeper probe in Part 2: Was Timmy ever at the carnival? Was this a case of abduction, or something far more chilling?

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For Listeners

This episode offers a careful, thorough reconstruction of the early investigation into a haunting missing child case, laying bare the frustrations of policing before routine digital tracking, surveillance, and electronic payments. Nic and the Captain encourage listeners to keep an open mind as they wade into the murky waters of memory, rumor, and evidence in a tragedy that’s haunted New Jersey for more than three decades.

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To be continued in Part 2...

Transcript

[Nick]

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[Captain]

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[Captain]

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[Nick]

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[Captain]

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[Nick]

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[Captain]

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[Nick]

Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing. Thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick, and with me, as always, is a man with sexier legs than Gary Sinise. Here is the captain.

[Captain]

Some say they're magic legs. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling a friend.

[Nick]

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[Captain]

And a big we like your jib goes out to Jessica from Connecticut.

[Nick]

Next, here's a cheers to Laura Painter in Parish, Florida. And a special shout out to the men and women of the Round Lake Fire Department in Illinois. Cheers to you. And cheers to everyone that we just mentioned because they went to trucrimegarage.com and contributed to this week's beer fund. And for that we thank you.

[Captain]

Yeah, BWWAN Beer run for everything. True crime. Check out truecrimegarage.com and if you need more True Crime Garage for your earballs, check us out on Patreon or Apple Podcast subscription. And that's enough of the be needs.

[Nick]

All right, everybody, gather around Grab a chair, grab a beer, let's talk some true crime. Today is National Missing Children's Day. President Ronald Reagan declared the commemoration in 1983. The day was meant to honor the life of six year old Etan Paetz, who went missing on May 25, 1979 in Manhattan. Pates case garnered nationwide attention and sparked prevention and education around missing children. We spoke with a representative from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services about their prevention and education efforts when children go missing, you know, either runaway or abductions, and the importance to be able to have close communication with not only the families, but community organizations and law enforcement agencies that are doing the work. And so I view this as a spectrum of raising awareness, doing preventative efforts, but then also having a strong response to make sure that we're reuniting families wherever possible. According to the New York State Division of criminal justice, in 2024, the state had over 12,000 reported missing children's cases. Over 11,000 were runaway cases and stats show majority of those cases were white and black girls between the ages of 13 and 15. Roughly 7,000 of those children were returned home. Over 4,000 were found. Timothy Wiltse entered this world on August 6, 1985 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. His father was George Wiltse, a man who had grown up in Walker, Iowa. His mother, Michelle Linsky, originally from Lawrence Harbor, New Jersey. Their relationship started the year before Timothy's birth, when Michelle, only 16 years old at the time, traveled out to visit her brother. During that visit, she met George, and what began as a teenage relationship moved quickly into something much more serious. Before long, Michelle was pregnant. Now, not long after Timothy was born, Michelle made a decisive choice about where she wanted her life to be. Within only a few months of giving birth, she chose to leave Iowa and returned to her home state of New Jersey, taking her infant son with her. She said that she did not like Iowa, describing it as dull and isolating. It was an unfamiliar place for her where she knew few people and she felt cut off from the support that she wanted and needed in her life at that time. Now, in the aftermath of that move back to New Jersey, Michelle would later say that George at some point became abusive in that relationship. Whatever the exact nature of their conflict, the result was clear. George did not remain a presence in Timothy's life from that point forward. George had essentially no role in raising his son. He did not pay child support. There were also claims that this distance was at least in part, exactly what Michelle wanted. That she requested that he stay away. George would later Say that when he tried to reach out, she would return the mail that he would send for his son Timothy. By the time Michelle and Timothy were settled back in in the state of New Jersey, the father son connection had pretty much completely been severed. Michelle and Timothy first lived with her sister and brother in law in South Amboy, New Jersey. They stayed there for about two years and after that Michelle moved out on her own, renting the first of what would be three apartments, all of them in the same town. She was a single mother with limited formal education. She had dropped out of high school in her late teens and so she worked a patchwork of low paying jobs to keep their small household afloat. Her work was largely clerical, office task, secretarial duties and at one point employment in a legal office. She also worked in retail and spent some time as a bank teller.

[Captain]

Yeah, it seemed like she had a tough time keeping down a job.

[Nick]

Michelle was determined however, not to go on welfare and she declined public assistance even as money stayed tight. Instead, when she needed help, she relied on support from her father who was willing to step in at different points in her life. There were stretches when Michelle did work two jobs at the same time, pushing herself to cover rent, bills and childcare and such. To friends, she sometimes described herself as a quote, weekend mom, A phrase that reflected how much of her time was consumed by work and how often her weeknights were swallowed by shifts, commutes to and from and simply exhaustion. People who encountered her in day to day life saw both effort and strain. Her landlady described her as a hard working single mother, but maintaining stability required constant coordination. Right. She's a single mother, so this means babysitters, relatives, friends helping out and those arrangements don't always hold, right? So when child care fell through, Michelle sometimes brought Timothy to work with her because she simply there simply wasn't another option for her. Now co workers and employers remembered patterns that suggested how overwhelmed she could be. At times, Michelle was frequently late arriving to work. On other occasions when she knew she would be late getting home, babysitter said that she sometimes failed to call ahead of time to explain or adjust the plans, creating friction and stress for the people watching her son Timothy. So her life really ran on tight margins, right? One missed call, one canceled babysitter, one late shift could throw the entire day into chaos. That fragile system became even harder to maintain in January of 1990. This is when Michelle's sister and brother in law, the very people that she leaned on heavily for help and childcare and general support. The Two of them moved to Florida. Their departure removed a critical safety net for Michelle and Timothy. The everyday help they provided had been woven into their routine and without them, Michelle had to find new solutions quickly.

[Captain]

It might have been one of the reasons why they chose to leave too.

[Nick]

Around this period, when Timothy was about 4 years old, another temporary arrangement was made. Michelle's brother, who lived in another state, took Timothy in for about two months time. So he lived there with his uncle, with Michelle's brother for about two months. The purpose of this was, was very practical, actually. Michelle wanted a window of time to work additional hours, probably working multiple jobs at this time. Captain. She was trying to get ahead financially because what she wanted to do was save up some money with a very particular goal in mind, school tuition. She wanted Timothy to attend private school, and so she needed some time to be able to focus on making that goal possible. Friends and family also remembered her in a more tender, attentive mode with her son. They recalled that she took Timothy to the dentist regularly and brought him on camping trips and vacations. They described her saving carefully so that she could enroll him in kindergarten at St. Mary's School. That's that private school. Once he reached school age old, when Timothy was in school, she did help him with his homework and routinely bought him new clothes. She seemed committed to his care and committed to investing in her son's future. Now, we talked about some of her complications with her work and a lot of that seems to have to do with child care. We're going to see this in Timothy's school life too, once he gets of school age. Because at the same time, the record of Timothy's school life reflected that same instability at the home.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

He had notable attendance problems. He missed 25 days of school, and on 63 of the days that he did attend, he arrived late. So meaning that even on many of the days that he was in school, he started behind.

[Captain]

If you miss so many days or you're late so many times, they won't give you that special permission to go to that school anymore.

[Nick]

So during these years, the time that she moved back and getting Timothy, her son, to school age, Michelle's personal relationships also added tension to their small household. Timothy became a point of friction between Michelle and what's reported as two men that she dated during that five year stretch. One of these men she was briefly engaged to. Both men would later say that they liked Michelle and they really liked Timothy, but they, they felt that they were just simply too young to commit to the role of being A stepfather. You know, being a husband and being a stepfather. Keep in mind, when our case breaks, Michelle's only 23. Now, I don't know the ages of these men, but I'm assuming they're roughly about the same age as young Michelle. Now, thank you for listening, but you knew before you stepped into the garage that this would all lead up to something bad happening. Our good folks listening from the great state of New Jersey, where you never have to pump your own gasoline, have already likely heard of this case. This is a case that has stretched on for decades.

[Captain]

Yeah, but wouldn't it be nice, just one episode, we explain this person's background? We. And then we go. Then he went to college and had a successful career, and nothing bad happened.

[Nick]

Saved 40 kids from a burning building.

[Captain]

Yep. End of the episode. Well, thanks for listening.

[Nick]

In fairness, there are a lot of good people woven into these stories that we've told over the years, but they usually don't take center stage. And if they do, they're usually the victim.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

So if we didn't have your full attention, we are going to need it starting now as we're going to move into the day in question, and things are going to move rather rapidly, and we have a lot of moving parts and pieces here, so pay attention. All right, let's. Let's lead into it. This is Friday, May 24, 1991. It's the first day of the Memorial Day weekend that year. Michelle Ludzinski was in the middle of making small, ordinary plans. It felt big because summer was so close. The school year was winding down, and she was already thinking ahead to what came next for her young son, Timothy. Timothy was nearing the end of kindergarten, and Michelle wanted him to look nice for this milestone. She took him shopping for some new clothes. She wanted things that would go with the graduation gown. You know, sometimes these kids, fifth grade or kindergarten, they'll do these moments where they'll host a graduation for the youngsters. So she wanted to find some clothing that would go along with that graduation gown that she had already purchased for him. And summer break was waiting right around the corner, so probably needed some summer clothes at the same time. Now, the other thing going on in their lives, Captain, was Michelle was also mapping out something bigger. This was a trip. She was making plans to visit her sister who lived in Florida. The idea was, once that the school year had ended, she would take Timothy down to Florida to spend some time with her sister and her sister's family. And while they are there, they would go to Disney world. So this was really something big to look forward to. After the last day of school that Friday evening, Michelle mentioned to a neighbor that the next day, on Saturday, May 25, 1991, she intended to take her son Timothy, along with a niece, to the South Amboy Elks Club Carnival, which was taking place in nearby Sayreville. The carnival was being held at Kennedy Park. The neighbor would later recall that Michelle and Timothy both seemed to be in good spirits. The kind of mood that really matched the vibe of the holiday weekend. Then Saturday, May 25, 1991, arrived around 11am A neighbor saw Michelle and Timothy leaving their home. So mother and son heading out for the day. But we should note here that this became the last time Timothy Wiltse was seen alive by anyone who knew him other than Michelle. Michelle later described the day as a series of normal family activities. She said that she and Timothy went to a park in nearby Holmdel that afternoon. They played kickball. They walked around the lake. They visited the petting zoo. As the day moved toward the evening, the plan about the niece and the carnival began to change. So for reasons that remain unclear, Michelle did not pick up her niece after all. Over the years, two versions of what happened have circulated. In one account, Michelle called the night before and told the parents that she would not be able to pick up the niece and take her to the carnival. In another account, she didn't call at all. So decades later, it's difficult to determine which version is accurate, but remains consistent is the outcome. The niece was not picked up, and according to some reports, the family was not informed beforehand.

[Captain]

Well, and we also have evidence that she wasn't the greatest communicator when it came to plans.

[Nick]

That's true. So instead, Michelle went straight to the carnival. She arrived at Kennedy Park Carnival in Sarahville shortly before 7pm that Saturday. The atmosphere there would have been what people would expect from a community event. Crowds moving between rides and games, families keeping track of children among lights, music and noise and such. At some point after arriving, Michelle encountered another niece. So to be clear, this is a different niece. Her name is Jennifer Blair, who was there with a friend. When Jennifer and her friend saw Michelle, something about her stood out immediately. She appeared to be urgently looking around. Michelle told them that something was wrong, that she had lost sight of Timothy. According to what she said in that moment to her niece Jennifer, she said that she had left Timothy waiting in a ride line while she went to buy a soda. When she returned, he was gone. So with that situation suddenly shifting from an evening Outing to a search, the three of them moved quickly to report the incident. They went to a Sarahville auxiliary police officer at the carnival and told the officer that Timothy, the little boy, five years old, was missing. And this is now the Timothy Wiltsey missing persons investigation.

[Captain]

Yeah, but just to be clear, we don't have anybody saying that they saw them together.

[Nick]

Well, that's where this gets all. It gets all a bit hazy. Right. When we get down into the muck and the mire of this whole situation. It's, it's complex. It might not need to be so complex, but it, but it is now. So to people that closest to the little boy, he's known as Timmy, the five year old boy who loved teenage mutant ninja turtles, lived with his mother Michelle In South Amboy, N.J. is missing. Right. So the story is that on that Saturday, May 25, 1991, Timmy, Timmy disappeared during a trip to a carnival in Sayreville and nearby Sayreville. Let's zoom in a little closer, shall we, to take a look at Kennedy park on that Saturday evening. The carnival was crowded with hundreds of people moving through the park, drawn to rides, the booths and such. This was on the fairgrounds along Washington road in Sayreville. Michelle said that after arriving, remember, she says she arrived there around 7ish. She bought a bunch of ride tickets. Her and Timmy were having a good time. Then the time came for refreshments. Michelle says she was standing in line to get a soda. Then she gets to the front of the line. You know, you got to wait for a bit. Then she gets to the front of the line, she buys the soda. She says she paid with a ten dollar bill. So she is waiting on her change. She's busy watching the people working the refreshment stand. She gets her change, turns around toward Timmy and he's gone. It's just seconds. It was just seconds, maybe two minutes, and Timmy was gone. Michelle starts looking and calling for him. So this is all going down. Described as occurring sometime between 7:30pm and 8:30pm Michelle's niece arrives with another person. We had mentioned her already. Jennifer and the friend. The friend. This someone else. This other person is someone who already knew both Michelle and Timmy.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

They see Michelle, but no Timmy. Michelle said she had not seen Timmy for about 15 minutes by this point. The three searched together and then alerted a police officer who was working the event. This is when mother Michelle officially reports Timmy as missing.

[Captain]

Right. But are they stating what her demeanor was? Was she in a panic? Did she seem calm?

[Nick]

Well, we get conflicting reports about her demeanor, her actions that night. And, and to, to me, there are great contrast in those reports, which makes it difficult for me to figure out what, which side I believe. I also believe that in this state of, let's say, she was panicking. I can't speak for everyone else but me. I know that sometimes there's, there's highs and lows in those moments, right? And anytime I would imagine if you're looking for a child, there's probably moments where you think, oh, I'm just seconds away from finding him. And you may be behaving one way with optimism, or there's other moments of oh my God, oh my God, where is he? This report of the missing little boy sent off an urgent response, obviously. Almost immediately, though, the carnival itself became the center of a widening search operation. Police focused first on the park where the carnival had been held, moving through the grounds with the assumption that if Timmy had wandered off, someone would find him rather quickly. Right. It'd be at a ride or a booth. But as the initial sweep failed to locate him, the situation escalated. The carnival was shut down. A decision that reflected both the seriousness of the missing kid report and the need to freeze the scene before more people came and went.

[Captain]

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[Nick]

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[Captain]

All right, we are back. Tall cans in the air. Cheers to you, Colonel.

[Nick]

Cheers to you, Captain. I'm back. He's back. I wish Timmy was back. We are back at the carnival. But now where we left off, the carnival has been shut down and we have responders moving in force. Eventually this is going to grow capped into police officers, firefighters, even volunteers. And at some point we get trained dogs who are going to spread out across the grounds and the surrounding area, searching with intensity. At a time when time matters most dogs are looking for a scent. Searchers checked places that a small child might hide or even become stuck. They're really looking for any sign that Timmy had been there. Maybe, you know, anything that he could have dropped.

[Captain]

Right. Does the dog pick, do the dogs pick up on any scent?

[Nick]

I think they picked up on a lot of different smells. A lot of smells at this carnival.

[Captain]

This has a lot of smells here,

[Nick]

but I, I nothing that would lead to the boy. Sadly. And really all this effort, the search produced a troubling absence. Right. And a troubling absence of no Timmy, but also no evidence that he had been in the area at all. Yeah.

[Captain]

If I'm a police officer on the scene or a detective on the scene, my first thing is do I have anybody that sees them together? Does anybody see Timmy when she buys the tickets for the rides. Does anybody see Timmy? Does anybody recognize her and Timmy going on any rides? And also, how many tickets did she purchase and were any of them gone? So if we can get a receipt of all. While we know she bought 20 tickets and she has 20 tickets left, but she's telling law enforcement that they went on some rides. Well, how did you get on those rides?

[Nick]

Yeah, and I wouldn't expect a receipt to be available. Maybe it would be. But I, I mean, I, I love these types of festivals and carnivals. Like, I, One of the things that I look forward to the most every summer are these types of events. And oftentimes you buy ride tickets and it's cash only, and you, you, you hand them the cash and they hand you a stack of tickets.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

And, but, but you're on to the right thing here, my friend, because what verification was done to back up any part or portions of Michelle's story gets complicated. And the reason why I think it does is they're not in that mode at that time. It's all hands on deck looking for the boy, not questioning. Mom, I know we're going down a different road here than maybe some expected, but if you're trying, if one were trying to cause confusion, there's a lot of confusion going on at this time. So as that night unfolded and the search continued, attention naturally turned to the people at the center of this report, especially Timmy's mother. So let's get into some. You had asked about her demeanor. We have some stories coming out from that night. One is from a firefighter who says that they drove Michelle back to her house with the purpose of retrieving something for the dogs to use for Timmy scent.

[Captain]

Yeah. Also kind of a weird thing because if you have a small child and you're going to this carnival, you think that should pack an extra jacket or most of the time, when somebody has a child, they have other items in their car just in case this person

[Nick]

who was driving her back to her house to retrieve these items said that they needed to make a stop along the way. This was. Michelle wanted to stop at the bar where her boyfriend, her then boyfriend at the time, was working. She wanted to inform him what was going on. This firefighter says that they remembered Michelle as visibly overwhelmed with the situation, crying and speaking incoherently. The search goes on, and the search is eventually suspended. Around 2:00am A Sville Police detective was in charge of returning Michelle home for the night.

[Captain]

Yeah, but this is not a good sign.

[Nick]

And, and look to back up what you were saying, like, maybe I get it. Maybe whatever extra item she brought with her, the boy had in his possession, and then he went missing, but she had to be driven home. I think this is an indicator as to her state. And to me, this is a bit of evidence backing up these accounts of people saying that, look, she was. She was really messed up by this. Because what we do know is her. She drove to the carnival. Now, where. Where my mind goes to following you, your good lead there, Captain, is there was nothing in the car that could provide a scent of the boy. Anyway, we continue on.

[Captain]

Well, and a couple things, because in the initial moments, I don't know if there's any evidence as far as, like, is she involved? Was Timothy even there? Whether she stays calm. Some people in that moment, in that moment of panic, they're going to stay calm because they're like, if I stay calm, I can figure this out. But once they're stopping the search, once they're saying, we're going to take you home, and like you said, she is in a state where they feel like they have to drive her home. To me, that can go two ways. It's either she is distraught and she's beside herself because she can't find her. Her child. Right. And. And it's appropriate. It's a appropriate time to freak out. But if this is some kind of weird ruse that she has set up, this is all unfolding so you could see why she would be overly emotional also. Or, you know, like, it could be an act or it could be real, because she is now contemplating whatever actions she did, negative actions, if that makes any sense.

[Nick]

Yeah, the. The police detective who drove her home that night. In his report, he wrote that Michelle was tearful. And in the time period after she was returned home, she did call her sister to inform her sister about Timothy's disappearance. Her sister later said that Michelle cried during that phone call. So, kind of taken together here, these accounts form a timeline of the start of the search itself, but also the personal shock that seemed to be going on with Michelle and with Timmy's family as the hours pass without any answers or without finding the boy. This case just by its nature, involves a lot of people, perhaps a lot of witnesses to both what did happen and maybe what did not happen. So to be thorough and to look from all angles, bear with me as we go through a summary from the central New Jersey Home News. The headline was, police believe lost boy abducted. This will lead into some of the key events of the following day as well. On that Sunday. Now, by the time the article was published on May 28, the search had already been been underway for days. The police were continuing their efforts looking for the boy. The disappearance and the search traced back to Michelle realizing that he was missing, or as her story goes, when she notified the carnival authorities. So Then at about 8.30pm ish, the police are called. Security at the carnival that night was said to include about six off duty officers, police officers who were working, working, Some of them were directing traffic and some of them were patrolling the the grounds of the event on foot. But despite the presence of security and the density of the crowd, no witness came forward to say that they had seen what happened, right? No, nobody comes forward at least to say that either. Eyewitness seeing a little boy wandering off or being snatched up.

[Captain]

Right. And this, to me, this would be hunting ground. Right. You have a carnival, there's going to be a lot of kids there, probably more kids to parents. So if you're a pedo, well, this would be a place that you could find a victim. And then the other problem too is with these little carnivals, that some of these individuals are not local. The ones that are providing a ride or possibly setting up to be a vendor of some kind.

[Nick]

And to your point, a lot of the visitors themselves might not be local. Local, right.

[Captain]

I mean, we know that from neighboring counties.

[Nick]

Exactly. We know Michelle and Timothy were from a neighboring town. So as we said, the search expanded quickly and police would later describe the effort as exhaustive. A search that ran for more than seven hours the night that he vanished and then carried on early the next day. So it sounds like I don't know what time these resources were pulled in, Captain, but it's reported that a police helicopter was used, four wheel drive vehicles, a boat, a search boat at one time, yet they get nothing concrete. No trace of Timothy. We know no clothing was found that evening, no confirmed sighting of him being snatched or hey, I saw a boy by himself outside of the festival grounds.

[Captain]

Yeah, and this might be a weird question, but when.

[Nick]

Fire, fire away.

[Captain]

When her family members see her at the carnival, is she holding a soda?

[Nick]

That's a detail that is not clear to me. Because that's her story, right? She should be holding a soda, right?

[Captain]

If she's not, then you go is did. Well one, did she chug the soda, get those fizzy bubbles all up in your nose? Or again, is this is a, is this a ruse? Because like you said, she was supposed to take her niece. So you go, okay, well she doesn't take her niece because her niece would be an eyewitness. That'd be more difficult. So I think this story is very bizarre because I don't even know if we can prove if Timothy was at the carnival.

[Nick]

Well, and the, the flip of that though is I don't know that we can prove that he wasn't right at the carnival. And it goes back to the confusion of the situation. And it's natural confusion. Right. Because in that moment, these details absolutely matter to the story now, and they absolutely matter to the case and the investigation. However, in the moment, living in the moment, what do we have going on? We have everybody that, that's rushed into this idea of looking for this little boy. So you could have. It could be that everything that Michelle is saying is absolutely the truth, but nothing was checked or verified to confirm that because everybody was busy looking for the boy. Or nothing she's saying is the truth. And these details were lost due to the confusion in the haste of looking for the little boy.

[Captain]

In a lot of these cases, it's time, or the time period becomes really a big deal because like you were just saying, oh, well, most of these carnivals you just pay in cash. Well, yeah, in 91 you do. But today most of these places you pay by card or most of these vendors will at least have that option. So if I go to a street festival or these, you know, beer fest or what do they call them, street food fest or whatever, I can go, I went and got this bratwurst at this time. Here's my receipt. And if I didn't get a receipt, you can go, well, I got a bratwurst at this time. You can then go to that vendor and they can look up the credit card transaction. So now we get a better, more precise timeline. But this is 91, so I'm guessing everything that she did was in cash.

[Nick]

Well, and one thing we don't have the advantage of in this story that we did in a story that some might consider to be similar in its nature is, you know, a long time ago we covered the dejuan Sims case. Four year old boy reported missing from a Michigan Mall in 1994. Yeah, it was the Wonderland Mall in Livonia, I think it was Michigan. And in that story, mom says that she lost track of her boy. He was holding his, her hand and then let go. And then like 30, 45 seconds later, she turns to look down at the boy and he's gone. And she says that somewhere between the corridor that ran from the Target store to the Mall, the actual mall. He, he disappears in the crowd. In that story that takes place in 1994, they had security cameras and they reviewed the surveillance footage and those cameras at no point. What the security guards and what the police say is, we never see the little boy with the mother.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

She does point to a little boy on the screen and says, well, that's him. But the two don't seem to be interacting in the way that they thought a mother and son would or that, you know, as she described, by holding the hand of the child. Here. It's a carnival. I mean, we've all been to carnivals and it's not, not everybody. It's, it's, you know, I know you keep going to receipts. I, you know, frankly, some guy asking for receipts at the carnival. We're going to kindly ask you to leave, sir. Like, it's just not, it's really not.

[Captain]

I'll take a handwritten receipt, if that

[Nick]

kind of structure possible.

[Captain]

But here's the other thing though, too. It's hard for us to visualize what this carnival looked like. How many rides were they? How many rides did they have? How many vendors did they have? How large? I mean, just the area. You know, we used to go to a church festival, but everything was contained to the front area of the church. And so, yeah, this was going to

[Nick]

be larger than that from my understanding, as it was held at the fairgrounds. Right.

[Captain]

So you're talking about a larger facility. And so if there's more people, like you said, to your point, you go, well, she bought tickets. Well, does she have those tickets? Is she holding the tickets? Is she holding her soda? Can we go back to that ticket lady? And it might not be possible because that ticket lady or ticket man or whoever sold her those tickets might have said, well, I sold tickets to hundreds of people. I can't remember this person. So it becomes very, this, this story becomes very difficult because there's so much evidence. Well, was he there? We don't know, but we have no evidence that he wasn't there. And every little point in the story, there's an argument for and against evidence of whether it was just a. Just simply a mother taking her son to this event, or was this some kind of ruse?

[Nick]

By morning time, starting at 6am A larger, more systematic effort took hold. A line search was conducted across approximately one square mile around Kennedy Park. Searchers formed a human chain and moved through the area in coordinated sweeps, east to west and then north to south. So by this point, they are scouring locations that bordered the carnival's footprint and then eventually extending into nearby community spaces.

[Captain]

And to me, this is actually scary because sometimes if, if there's a perpetrator in this case, they might have been involved in the searches at the same

[Nick]

time that morning, Michelle brought clothing to the police station. It's my understanding that this clothing was brought there for the purpose that Timmy would. Something for him to change into if he were in fact to be found. A detective who was there at the time would recall Michelle's demeanor as distraught. So that's another person saying that, describing her demeanor one way I'm going to into this in describing her actions and what would be her perceived emotional state because later there are going to be people that say, well, she didn't seem to care at all. She didn't, she seemed unaffected by this. Well, the initial reports are completely different than that.

[Captain]

Yeah. And I actually think, like I said, if she's distraught, well, you can make an argument she's distraught because her son's missing. And you could then make an argument that she's distraught because whatever plan that she had is now unfolding and she has to deal with that. The reality of whatever her plan was. If she had a plan.

[Nick]

Yes, and. But also one could make the argument that police are honing in on the people that say she seem unaffected and unemotional. Unemotional about the situation because she's guilty of something. And they're purposely ignoring these statements, some by their own department members that say the opposite of that. So this news article described more than 200 rescue workers and volunteers involved over a two day period searching for the boy. As said, we used additional specialized resources, all to which no trace of the child was found. Now, a sergeant with the police department would describe the situation as. And the people looking for the boy as discouraging. The reasoning for this statement is blunt. If Timothy had simply wandered off, they believe the search should have found him probably quickly. Instead of the absence of evidence combined with time elapsed. I mean, this is leading to a troubling conclusion. Right. They did not feel that they, that he had wandered off, wandered away. They felt he had been abducted. Yeah.

[Captain]

It'd also be difficult too because during this search they probably found other items left by children or dropped by children that have nothing to do with Timmy. So. But in that moment when you see something, oh, here's a stuffed animal or here's a shoe or here's whatever, probably quickly able to realize that these items didn't have anything to do with Timmy

[Nick]

in the paper they openly spoke and said investigators could not rule out different motives or possible scenarios. A kidnapping by a stranger, an abduction by someone seeking to profit. An individual described as lonely may be a woman who wants a child or someone who is a pedophile. Words straight from the newspaper. Now that widening focus included attention on Timothy's father, George Wilty, who lived in Walker, which is in Lynn County, Iowa. Police said George had not seen Timothy in at least four years. The account stated that the FBI interviewed the father in Iowa. So this would have been the very next day. On that Sunday, he goes missing on a Saturday. The FBI interviewed the father, as well as them sending local police from Walker to interview the father. And they confirmed that he was still in the state of Iowa, so many, many, many miles away at the time that Timothy disappeared in New Jersey. Additional background came through a telephone interview with Jerry Wiltse. This is a man identified as George's brother. So therefore, Timothy's uncle Jerry stated that his brother George did not have a telephone. That. But in their small town, there's only like 600 people that live there. So he said that he would see his brother or bump into his brother almost every day. He did say, he told the newspapers, look, my brother did not see Timothy, nor did he try to gain custody of the child once the mother and the child left for. For New Jersey. And Jerry said, he's quoted as saying there is no question of a custody battle. He says, look, my brother did not want Michelle to leave. He wanted her and the boy to stay. But once she left, she made it clear we don't, you know, we don't want nothing to do with you. When pressed as to, well, why wouldn't your brother own a phone? It's 1991. He simply says, look, the. The place, he lives next door to our mother. And when he bought the place, it didn't have a phone. He never put one in. He doesn't like to be bothered or disturbed. When he needs to use a phone, he just walks next door to his mother's house and uses her phone.

[Captain]

Yeah, that makes sense.

[Nick]

I think the other thing I'm jealous of that. I'm jealous of that. Take away my phone.

[Captain]

Yeah, hold on a second. I'm gonna get this hammer and smash mine real quick. But also, you'd have to go is we don't know if Timothy's father would even know what Timothy looked like.

[Nick]

Right? That's a good point, because there's a.

[Captain]

There's a big difference. He goes missing when he's five and if he didn't see him for four years. So he saw him as a one year old.

[Nick]

He seemed to know where to send the mail, though. And I would like.

[Captain]

Yeah, that's interesting.

[Nick]

But again, she lived with her brother or her sister, one of the two. She lived with relatives for two years. So maybe he was sending the mail there, which are people that he would know or maybe he never knew the address.

[Captain]

Look up.

[Nick]

Yeah, and again, he's not really part of the equation, so I don't know how far down this avenue we need to go. He's ruled out rather quickly. Meanwhile, we have Ron Romano, an FBI special agent based in the area that confirmed the FBI was assisting the sarahville police investigation, Though he stated to the newspaper that he was not authorized to provide any details. A physical description of Timothy was included in the reporting, emphasizing what the public should be looking for, Stating that the little boy was last seen wearing a red tank top, shorts with writing on them, and teenage mutant ninja turtle sneakers. He had brown hair in a crew cut, weighed between 45 and 50 pounds, and was between 3ft 2 inches and 3ft 4 inches tall. Tips did come in within the first couple of days. It's reported that about 30 calls came into police headquarters, and as we know, unfortunately, none of them led to finding Timmy. So that's the search. Let's get into some of the investigation and potential witnesses. Right. And this is, like we said, witnesses to what happened and maybe witnesses to what didn't happen. And this is where it goes back to the question that you would ask or something you had presented earlier, where I said, look, there's kind of conflicting reports here. So police interviewed carnival workers and people visiting the event, trying to reconstruct where Timmy had been and who might have seen him. They listened for details about clothing, timing, other people seen in the area, maybe even direction of travel. If somebody swallowed the boy, small facts that could really mean something lead to something meaningful. One carnival worker reported that shortly after 7pm on Saturday, she had seen a boy come up to her stand. The boy, she said, was wearing a red tank top, red printed shorts. And this all sounds similar to the clothing Michelle said Timmy had been wearing.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

According to that worker, the boy was then called away by a woman roughly 10 minutes later. This same worker said that she saw that same woman walking around calling out loudly, saying either timmy or Jimmy. And she said that the woman she saw appeared to look concerned. The worker later identified Timmy in a group photograph.

[Captain]

That's something.

[Nick]

It is something. When she later saw Michelle in person she said Michelle might have been the woman she had observed, but she couldn't confirm that, which is interesting to me. Right. She picks the boy out of a group photograph and then can't confirm 100% that Michelle is the woman that she saw. This to me, I get the vibe that this woman is doing her best to be truthful. Right. Like, some people are just trying to help the situation, and they're overly helpful to the point of where they go beyond being truthful. And they're like, yeah, that's the boy I saw. And, yeah, that's the woman I saw. 100. Right. That's not what's happening here. So I think this woman's doing her best to try.

[Captain]

Well, it's also possible that she didn't see Timothy's mother. It might have been a. It might have been somebody else that was calling out because at some point, people were looking for Timmy.

[Nick]

Right.

[Captain]

So that becomes interesting.

[Nick]

I've. I didn't want to get to this this early, but maybe I should, because it will make more sense here. But there's a different report of this same situation here. The other report of this was that the officer that one of the officers that spoke with this carnival worker didn't believe her simply because of her appearance. He said that she appeared to have been up all night without saying it. I think he was trying to say that he believed she was on something.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

Because he's like, she looked disheveled. She looked confused. She looked like she had been up all night. She had body odor. And he's like. Based on her appearance, I. He's like, I think she might have been trying to be helpful, but I had a hard time believing what she was saying. I think what he's saying is that given her the way he perceived her to be acting and the way she presented herself presented a less than credible person.

[Captain]

Right. But she could have been on something and still saw what she saw.

[Nick]

Absolutely. Absolutely. Now, another carnival worker gave a separate account that fixed the timeline even a little more tightly. He said he recalled helping a boy in a tank top. Again, we know that Timmy was reported to have been wearing a tank top. He reported helping a boy in a tank top, shorts, and sneakers that were decorated with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He said he helped the boy off of a ride at around 7:15pm so he's working the ride, and the boy was small, so he had to help him off of the ride.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

He later told police that he was certain that the child that he remembered was the same boy. He saw on missing person's posters after the disappearance.

[Captain]

See, and that makes sense to me, because if you're having a bunch of kids get on rides, let's say 90 some percent of the time, you, don't have to help anybody. So the fact that you would have to help this kid off the ride, More likely to remember him.

[Nick]

Then came another piece of recollection from three teenagers who told police that they had interacted briefly with a boy as they were leaving the carnival. They say that they remembered warning the little boy to watch out for broken glass on a walkway. In their account, the boy was accompanied by three adults, Two men and a woman, and the boy was wearing ninja turtle sneakers. Each of these stories came from different people describing different moments and investigators treating them as possible fragments of the same larger picture. A child in recognizable clothing Moving through the carnival during the early evening hours, Seen by multiple witnesses, and then gone.

[Captain]

Yeah, but these shoes, they're not one of one.

[Nick]

Right? I'm glad you pointed that out, because these ninja turtles are making a resurgence. I'm seeing ninja turtles all over the place these days. But there was a. I think there was a big time period, or at least I. I just wasn't paying attention that I didn't see ninja turtles every. Everywhere. 1991.

[Captain]

Doctor, can you help me? What's. What's your symptoms? I'm seeing ninja turtles everywhere. Everywhere.

[Nick]

Lock them up. The. In 1991, the Ninja Turtles would have been extremely popular.

[Captain]

Yeah. I had a friend that went to see him in concert, and I was very jealous.

[Nick]

Was it with vanilla ice?

[Captain]

No, it was just ninja turtles. And I remember, think. And also, I think he went to see the simpsons because the simpsons had a album. Don't know why that's a thing. Anytime somebody gets popular, we're like, they should make a record.

[Nick]

Especially in the 90s, that was a thing. So to add a little bit to this story here, 1990, the movie Teenage mutant ninja turtles come out. And this is after. They're already very popular. Right. The cartoon was a big thing.

[Captain]

I think the arcade game.

[Nick]

Arcade game came out at some point. And then in 1991. So this would be just a couple months before. It would be two months before timmy goes missing. The second movie comes out, Teenage mutant Ninja Turtles 2 the Secret of the ooze, which I think might have been even a bigger hit than the first one.

[Captain]

Well, because it had the ooze.

[Nick]

It had the ooze, and it had vanilla ice.

[Captain]

Ice, ice, baby.

[Nick]

I. I was in that weird age Where I Loved the first movie. And I had outgrown them by the time the second movie came out.

[Captain]

So I don't have in concert.

[Nick]

That's right. I was not lucky enough to witness the turtles in concert.

[Captain]

And you know that there was a kid like that, went to see all their concerts and followed around the Ninja Turtles just like the Grateful Dead.

[Nick]

While investigators gathered statements from people at the carnival, both working and visitors, they worked to eliminate or confirm potential avenues in their investigation. On the day following the disappearance, the Sarahville police searched Michelle's car. This. It was still parked at the carnival when they were searching it. So she didn't have time to go there. You know, she didn't retrieve the vehicle or drive it home and manipulate anything in the vehicle. They said they found nothing that helped their investigation. Two days after that, the county prosecutor's office searched her home again. They sound said that they found nothing that helped the investigation. The FBI also analyzed her garbage. Now, usually when they're searching your garbage, they don't let you know that this is going on.

[Captain]

Right.

[Nick]

So they get permission to search the garbage from the landlord. And they say that effort, too, produced no useful leads as to what could have happened with Timothy. Police also arranged to place a register tap on Michelle's home telephone to record the phone numbers of incoming calls. This is good work, my friends, because in high profile missing child cases, tips, threats and hoaxes can arrive via telephone. And investigators want to. They want a clear record of what comes in on that telephone line and from where does it come.

[Captain]

And like I said, if there's a perpetrator or unknown stranger to Timothy, this individual might insert themselves so into the search. Or they might just call the mother, even. Just. And it might not to be to taunt her. It might just be to offer up some information or to show their concern or whatever. We see that all the time, and especially in child cases.

[Nick]

Yeah. And a hoax. Unfortunately, we've reviewed several missing child cases, especially in the 80s, early 90s, where someone will call in and pretend to be the missing kid. And then later it's proven that that person is not the kid. It's just. Usually it's just some teenager or. Sorry, some deranged woman.

[Captain]

Yeah.

[Nick]

Through this period, people who were regularly in contact with Michelle, they did describe her as deeply affected by Timmy's unexplained absence. She told her sister during this time that she could not sleep at all or eat. Her boyfriend at the time recalled her saying that she could not hold any food down. Now, to me, this goes to the complete opposite of that. But I've never been in these shoes, thank God, and I hope that I never am. But within two weeks of May 25, the day that her son went missing, Michelle moved out of her house in South Amboy, saying that she was doing so to avoid the media attention. Now, this case is a little foreign to us, Captain, as we're Ohio boys. But as I said earlier, people that grew up in New Jersey, they know this case well because it was a bit of a media frenzy and this case did receive nationwide attention very quickly. So she expressed, she being, Michelle expressed frustration with the expectations that she said had been placed upon her by the public. She said so she's describing a sense that people were waiting for a particular kind of televised grief. Quote, everyone is waiting to see a grieving mother on TV break down, crying hysterical, because the public, they thrive on that stuff. But I am not going to do that. End quote.

[Captain]

Well, everybody reacts differently. And I think when we see these cases, we start judging, well, I would handle it this way or I'd handle it this way. I mean, they did so in, like, the JonBenet Ramsey case, every little detail. But, like, remember in the Ramsey case, John Ramsey states, I felt if I could keep my wits about me that I'd be more helpful, that I could solve this. And I feel like that's where I'd go to. So maybe that's where she was going to. And then probably hearing criticism because of that or people turning a suspicious eye towards her because she's not acting in the way that people think that she should.

[Nick]

And she's a single parent, so she's the solo representative of this family at this point.

[Captain]

Yeah, and I think it makes sense, though. I mean, I, I, I have to keep my wits about me to try to figure out what happened.

[Nick]

As the days became weeks and the weeks stretched into an unresolved case, the search for Timmy broadened into the kind of public facing effort familiar to many missing child investigations. The case was televised twice on America's Most Wanted. Timmy's photograph was circulated widely on thousands of missing child flyers and even on milk cartons so that strangers far from Sayreville might recognize the face and connect it to a sighting. And hanging over all of it was additional, painful, additional. A painful detail, Excuse me, noted in a local newspaper on May 25, the day Timothy went missing. This was the same day as National Missing Children's Day. The newspaper called that coincidence a bitter irony, a phrase that underscored how on a day meant to focus public attention on missing children, one more child's name had been added to the list. Timothy William Wiltse. Or better yet, simply Timmy. Five years old, last reported missing from a carnival in Sayreville, New Jersey.

[Captain]

So much more to get to in this true crime story. Thanks for joining us here in the garage. Until the next episode, Be good, be

[Nick]

kind, and don't lose.

[Captain]

Sam. Foreign. Podcast between your Podcast Today's story is shared by one of our listeners.

[Nick]

It's called Betrayed by Bill.

[Captain]

It was in that moment I caught who was staring back at me in betrayal or more like what, my insurance bill. With trembling hands, I grabbed my phone and switched to God geico, saving about $900 in the process and never to be betrayed again. Now that was bloody riveting.

[Nick]

It feels good when the story ends with savings.

[Captain]

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