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Missing Wix Girls /// Part 2 /// 916
00:51:58
The love between a mother and daughter should be sacred shelter; an untouchable sanctuary that no evil can penetrate. In March 2004, that safe haven would be forever shattered for Jennifer Wix and her daughter, Adrianna. The two have been missing since March 25, 2004. The mystery of the missing Wix girls not only exemplifies the boundless love shared between of mothers and daughters, but also depicts a family scarred by untold grief and lingering, unanswered questions. The agony of spending the last 21 years without Jennifer and Adrianna has kept the family stuck in the past - unable to move forward, yet determined to keep fighting until the truth is finally brought to light, and returning the girls back home. With the 22nd anniversary of the girls' disappearance fast approaching, perhaps this will finally be the year we can lay the girls to rest among their loved ones. If anyone has information about the disappearance of Jennifer and Adrianna Wix, contact the Robertson County She...
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Welcome to True Crime Garage. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, thanks for listening. I'm your host, Nick. And here at the Garage we say fat bottom girls, you make the rockin world go round with me. Ladies and gentlemen, of course, the Captain.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
And don't forget about those fat bottom boys. It's good to be seen and good to see you. Thanks for listening. Thanks for telling the friend.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
This week in the Garage we are drinking Knockout by longtime friends of the show Fat Bottom Brewing Company in Nashville. Knockout is an American IPA loaded with hops, first brewed, then triple dry hopped and plenty of citrus as well. Knockout is hoppy, smooth, light bodied and dry Garage grade four out of five bottle caps. And let's give some thanks and praise to our good garage friends. First up, a cheers to Acara in Boyd's, Maryland by way of St. Louis, Missouri.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
And a big wheelaker jib goes out to Jeff, Jeff and Paris, Tennessee.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Next up, here's a cheers to Kim and Highland, Illinois. And last but certainly not least, we have a double fisted cheers that goes out to Tom and Corey and Dyer, Indiana. Everyone we just mentioned went to true crime garage.com and helped us out with the beer fund for the beer run. And for that we thank you.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, PWW and beer run. Hey, we're less than a month away from my birthday and we're going to be celebrating by talking true crime and talking about the Brian Schaefer case in Columbus, Ohio at Brew Dog. There's a few tickets left, so get those atTrue Crime Garage.com and come celebrate my birthday with me and the crispy colonel because I guarantee you we're gonna have him extra crispy that night. And Colonel, that's enough of the B is NEAs.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
All right, everybody, gather round. Grab a chair, grab a beer. Let's talk some true crime. When and where we left off from episode one was the largest, the biggest pivotal moment in our timeline. And that is Thursday, March 25, 2004. This is when Jennifer, age 22, and her little daughter, age 2, Adrianna Wicks, vanished. After that date, we have no sight, no sound of either. So March 26th and 27th, 2004, are going to be filled with alarm, conflicting stories, and a missing person's report. On March 26, 2004, Jennifer's mother, Kathy, became alarmed when she couldn't reach her daughter Jennifer. Now, as we had said before, Jennifer might not have spoken to her mother daily, but Jennifer rarely went a full day without speaking to someone in the family. And remember, she had promised to call her mother on this day. Now, as Kathy searched for a way to reach Jennifer, the family learned some information that immediately felt very wrong. Joey told Jennifer's sister Heather that he and Jennifer, they had broken up and that he had dropped Jennifer and Adriana off at a gas station. But Joey gave a different explanation to Jennifer's cousin Jeremy. Remember, Jeremy is Joey's good friend, the one that introduced Jennifer to Joey. So Joey tells Jennifer's cousin Jeremy, his friend, saying that Jennifer had gone to a friend's house, naming a friend identified as Helga. So I want to. I want to go into this a little bit more here. We're going to. We'll circle back to the gas station story in just a bit. But for this story of him telling Jeremy that Jennifer had gone to a friend's house, the way that this comes about is that night on the 26th, they are Jeremy and his significant other, along with another couple. They are at Joey's property for a bonfire that night. This was pre arranged. It was. They were plans that they had made earlier in the week. And it was supposed to be a couple's thing. So there should be three couples there. However, missing from that equation is Jennifer. So when the other couples inquired as to, well, you know, where's Jennifer? Thought we were all hanging out. He says, oh, she's at a friend's house. And he references this friend named Helga.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
So does he say that they broke up?
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
That part is missing from the story that's interesting. I. I don't know if that was part of the equation or part of the story, but it. It's not as far as what I have been able to find. Now, that doesn't gel well with him telling Jennifer's sister Heather that they had broken up. So, yeah. On March 27th, Kathy calls Helga. This is somebody that the family knew. Knew. Well, Helga says she hadn't heard from Jennifer. And actually being told that she was at Helga's, this made Helga think something must be very wrong here. And Kathy agrees. She thinks something's very wrong. She already thought something was very wrong the prior day. Now, this Helga story gets to her. She reaches out to Helga. There's no Jennifer. So Kathy filed a missing persons report for Jennifer and Adriana on March 27, 2004. They filed this report with the Robertson County Sheriff's Department, to which the Robertson County Sheriff's Department then issued a bolo. A be on the lookout for mother and daughter. That same night, a deputy from the Sheriff's Department went to the Benton home to perform a welfare check. Joey, as the report goes, is the only one that is home at the time of this welfare check, or at least he answers the door. And the deputy does not believe anybody else to be in the home. Joey tells the deputy, look, I understand that you're here for a welfare check. However, she's not here, Jennifer's not here, Adriana's not here. I haven't seen them. And he tells the officer, if you want to come inside, you're going to need to come back with a warrant if you want to search this property. Back to the gas station story here, Captain. Joey's. Joey Benton's accounts of what happened involved a gas station, a white car, and then Jennifer returning. Okay, so the way that this goes down, Joey provided law enforcement with a nice little narrative here. He claimed that he and Jennifer argued, they broke up, and Jennifer asked for a ride to a grocery store and Cross Plains so that she could use the phone. Joey said that he drove Jennifer and Adriana to the grocery store and then drove the two of them to an Exxon gas station near exit 112. This is off of Interstate 65. And he said that this would have been around 9:30pm on March 25, 2004, the night the day in question. He claims that he parked his vehicle in a church lot, which is across the street from the gas station. He wants to keep an eye on Jennifer. And he says while he's parked over there, he watched Jennifer and Adriana get into a white four door, early 1990s mid sized car as he described it, though he did not see the driver. Over time, my friend, accounts of Joey's car description became and should be and should remain a focal point. Okay. Because Joey initially described this to be a quote, white four door Mustang or a, quote, white four door Camry. The problem with that statement, Captain, is those cars don't exist. 2004, they don't exist. There's not a four door Mustang. There's not a four door Camry.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Jennifer's family says this is nonsensical. This cannot be. The family also stated that an original police report containing that early description of the white vehicle. They say it was later amended and that a conflict arose over what Joey actually said or did not say. All right, what did he say in that report? What did he not say? Because they say that it. He said it was a white four door Mustang. Doesn't exist. White four door Camry doesn't exist. And that that was later changed in the police report. And the family says we can prove that he originally made those statements because we have retained the original version of that report stating those statements to the sheriff's department. The way that this goes down, as I understand it, is that after Joey gave his initial statement to the sheriff's department that his father or somebody in Joey's family went to the sheriff's department in protest to get the statement changed. As I understand it, the statement was then changed. The official record, as it were, was changed. And I do believe there was some kind of repercussions for whoever amended that statement within the sheriff's department. Some kind of punishment, I guess, or consequence.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
That's bizarre.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The bizarreness continues.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
It continues.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Continuation of bizarreness.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah. To be continued with bizarreness.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
We're saying that a lot. I question if it's a word, it's a garage word. If you were. Joey claims that on March 26th. So this would be the following day, 2004. So the day after the gas station story.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
That Jennifer returned to his house, the Benton house. He says she was alone, she was driving that same white vehicle. He said that she came there with the purpose of retrieving her income tax refund money, which. That does make some sense. Okay, there, there is some sense to this statement because what we do know took place is she did get a tax refund that year. And that's about the time of year when you, you get your tax return money.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
She doesn't have any resources.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
She doesn't have resources. She doesn't have a bank account. And so when the check came in, the check was given to Joey's parents, so one of them could cash it or put it in their bank account. He says she returned to the house to retrieve the tax refund money. Joey claims his parents weren't home, so she would have to come back at another time to gather the money. But she did, according to Joey, collect some of Adriana's and her personal things while she was there, saying that she took Adriana's diaper bag and other items and then left, saying she would return later at a later time or date for the money. Jennifer's family saying, look, okay, whatever, good story, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to us because later they're going to find other items that Jennifer would have had to have left behind. And they say that these items would have been essential for Jennifer to take with her. These are not items that she would have abandoned and just left at Joey's property. And these items include. We. We don't have a full inventory here, but Jennifer's glasses, which she. She didn't need all the time, but needed a decent amount of the time.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
It's a valuable item to somebody, a
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
safety item here, too. Captain Adriana's car seat. There. There was a time in my life where I was terrified to be without a car seat.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
The problem with all these stories is leading up to all this, we have a child with an infection, so we have no record of her getting treatment for that infection.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
That's correct. I. I don't know if treatment was. Was required. We do know that she did see and receive medical attention. Right. She was a diagnosis, had the advice of the persons in the ER as well as her regular physician. So I don't know if it was required, but she did see.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
And receive medical attention as far as that is concerned. But that's. That's an interesting thing here, too, because oftentimes, if you're prescribed medicine, I would think in that case maybe that's some kind of topical or something that you might need. I don't. I don't know. But you oftentimes, you can't pick that up right away. It's got to be called in. But. Yeah, you're exactly right. But the. The. The list, while we don't have the inventory, there's a kind of general statement of, well, she left a lot of her belongings behind. And what her family is saying is a lot of that included what they deemed to be daily necessities, be it either for Jennifer or Adriana or both. Her family also emphasized the emotional reality of taking a two year old and going away with somebody, leaving on her own or what have you. They're saying that Adriana had a lot of comfort items. You know, even us as adults, we have comfort items, but especially a two year old is going to have comfort items. And the, one of the things they specifically reference here is an Elmo toy that the little girl was known to be obsessed with. This wasn't one person in the family saying this. This was a lot of people in the family saying this. And they all found it very difficult to believe that Jennifer would leave without these things, but especially without the Elmo toy that the kid carried around 24 7, especially you got all this movement going on. This would be something that would calm and soothe the little girl. You're taking this item. I mean, there's parents out there listening to this right now, going, yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm going way out of my way to find that Elmo toy and, and deliver it to the toddler and keep it with her. They get it. Another detail heightened the family suspicion around the, the whole timeline and all the events within the timeline. One, one event we didn't get to yet actually took place on March 25th. So this would be the day in question, right? This, this to me, and I hope we have time to circle back to this before we wrap today, because this one, my friend, I put a big, big question mark on this, this event here. So on March 25, 2004, Joey got a ride to work in Franklin, Kentucky from Jennifer's cousin Jeffrey. Remember, Jeffrey's his real good friend. This is a matter of fact, because Jeffrey told this to police. Jeffrey told police that Joey, at some point during the workday, received a call at work and then abruptly said to Jeffrey, who he's relying on transportation from, he says, quote, we have to leave now, end quote, citing a family matter. And Jeffrey says that they left Franklin. They left Franklin, Kentucky shortly after this request, heading home, heading back to the Benton family property. And within, within the family's understanding here, this fell close to the last confirmed time that anyone had heard from Jennifer Wicks.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Well, yeah, and this goes back to my statement. Is, is Joey involved or is his mother involved or is the father involved or anybody on this compound, or is it a combination of people?
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Exactly. And of course, the search is going to begin the 26th, carry on through the 27th. The, the searches will escalate on March 29th. This is when searches escalate. But the Benton family cooperation will seemingly end around surprise, surprise, timeline. Yeah. So law enforcement, they're seeking answers to the missing individuals. They are seeking these answers. They. Or at least they sought these answers on the Benton property and to which the Benton family initially agrees to allowing them to search. On March 29, Robertson County Sheriff's deputies conducted a walkthrough of the Benton home looking for signs of a struggle or evidence of foul play. Over time, multiple searches occurred in parts of the property or on parts of the property. Authorities reported draining a pond and searching surrounding areas without finding Jennifer or Adriana. The Benton family was questioned and claimed to know nothing. After four searches, they stopped cooperating. Okay, so keep in mind, though, if
- [19:49]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
something, I'm gonna give them a little bit of a pass, right?
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Because they were being cooperative. Right. So if they're not involved at all, you could see a situation where you go, well, you know, yeah, I understand that we have a shit ton of land, and I understand that we have a shit ton of shit trees here and that you want to go sniffing around our shit. But you did four searches. Okay, We. We are now going to say, you want to search more, you're going to have to force us to let you search our property again.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah. And the other thing we need to point out, too, is Joey did agree to a polygraph examination. Oh, really? He submitted to a polygraph and he. And he passed it. Oh, he passed it now.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Coming.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
So the thing I wanted to point out before we got to the polygraph portion of this was, yes, they agreed to the search. Yes, they agreed to allow them to walk through the Benton home, The. The ranch home. I think one thing that complicates this searching scenario is that other families live on this very large property.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
So who owns what? Who can give permission for what? Seems a little dicey, little shaky to me, but they allowed the walk through. But keep in mind, this walkthrough that they're allowing is taking place March 29. The day in question, night in question, is March 25. So you got about three, four days to clean up any messes, hide things if you need to. Not saying that that's what happened, but my pushback would be that when they first went out to the property, when first called on the 26th or 27th, they got told no. And yes, they did agree on the 29th, but originally, and it sounds like it was only Joey's call, maybe he made a bad call and told him no, but. Or maybe he was just angry, what have you. But earlier, he told them no, on the 29th, they're allowed in. And it could be as simple as Joey thinking, look, this isn't my home. It's my parents home. They're not home. I'm not giving you permission unless you speak to my parents. The way that the record is, or what has been reported all these years is that he said, you got to come back with a search warrant. Now, back to the polygraph here, Captain, he agreed to the polygraph. He passed it. And that's according to Robertson County Sheriff's Department.
- [22:21]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
He was asked at a later date. I don't. I don't know how much time transpired between test number one and then the request for a second polygraph examination, but you read some of these reports, and it's kind of short and sweet where it says he declined a second polygraph. One version that's much more interesting, however, is that he agreed to the second polygraph examination, got as far as being in the building, and. But before the test could start, his dad, Joe Senior, starts acting up and yelling about something, causing a commotion, and then during which Joe Jr says, Nope, I'm out of here. I'm not taking your test.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Now, while investigators worked, Jennifer's mother, Kathy, did what families often do when silence stretches too long without answers. She tried to replace that silence with getting vocal, getting out there. She took time off of work, put up flyers. She was searching for and pushing leads. The Robertson County Sheriff's Department would very quickly start working with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children to generate national publicity. We do have a little girl missing here. Tips do come in, but as we know, none. None, unfortunately, brought Jennifer or Adriana home.
- [24:11]
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
All right, we are back. Talk. Hands in the air. Cheers to you, Colonel.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Raise them high, my friends.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Raise them, raise them high in the sky.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Over time, authorities moved on. They they started treating the case differently. They moved on from treating the case as a missing person's case toward investigating a double homicide. Reports cited investigators acknowledging by the third anniversary of this disappearance that the case was being investigated as a double homicide with leads pursued across the country. So they said that they were receiving leads that they pursued that came in from California, Florida, Michigan and Oklahoma. Unfortunately, these leads seem to have dried up. Didn't go very far, even though it took them very far. In July of 2011, they're working once again with the national center for Missing and Exploited Children. This was with the purpose of releasing an aged an age progressed image showing what Adriana might look like as a nine year old little girl. Again, this produced tips. Again, none produced answers.
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Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, but a lot of times with these cases people want to help. So they might have saw something small and, and they don't know if it, it matters to the case. So let's call it in. Or how many times do we get emails after we cover a case where somebody says, hey, I was listening to your podcast and I had a hunch. And again, they're not. They're not stupid or naive. They just want to try to help. And if I could give this information to somebody, maybe it could move the needle forward. But it's also just difficult when you have missing people and no sign of a crime or no sign of a homicide, because really, you need to investigate all these cases as a homicide first. But. And then it's hard to go back. And I'm just going to use the Brian Schaefer case as an example because, you know, we've been trying to collect some more evidence behind the scenes on that case. But when you're talking to these investigators and these detectives, certain steps didn't happen because it was just a missing person case and he could show up the next day and then no big deal. But now, 20 years later and he's still missing, they wish they could go back and go, well, I wish I would have talked to that person more or I wish I would have followed up on this other lead that I got a little bit more. But at the time, it was just a missing person case.
- [29:41]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
2013, this case was formally reclassified as a homicide. So there was talks of it being looked at that way around the third anniversary, but it would be 2013 that it was formally reclassified. Robertson county authorities held a press conference. The sheriff announced that investigators believed Jennifer and Adriana were dead. He said new information developed in the prior weeks led them to conclude there had been foul play and that investigators. The investigation was being renewed with the cooperation between the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Robertson County Sheriff's Department. The sheriff's department underscored a key point during the press conference, saying despite years of investigative work and numerous interviews, Joey Benton's story of taking Jennifer and Adriana to the grocery store, then the Exxon gas station, and then seeing Jennifer return the next day was never independently corroborated. Sheriff Holtz did not publicly label Joey as a suspect, but he did state that no one had been eliminated as a suspect, including Joey.
- [31:02]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, because when somebody's telling you this story, and like you said, he passes a test, but if they're calling him back in, I wonder if it's just, like, faulty equipment, possibly, or maybe they just felt like there was some reason that maybe he passed, or maybe they weren't happy with the questions that they gave him, so they called in another expert just to get a second opinion. But he tells you this story about a vehicle or two vehicles that don't really exist. And then I'm sure investigators then go back to the gas station and go, hey, did you see a. A lady with her kid here? And did you see her get picked up by this person? And so we have the, the gas station story, and then we have the story of her coming back to his property. And then I'm sure they talk to the other family members on the compound and go, did you see this vehicle? And if nobody's coming out and saying that we saw this vehicle or we saw, you know, a lady with her kid, then you go, well, this story could be complete horseshit.
- [32:11]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Joey's grandmother, this is Carol Benton. She spoke publicly, spoke out publicly as well. At this point. She said the family had cooperated initially. And she did express a lot of sorrow that Jennifer and Adriana were missing, but insisted that the. The missing two, they were not on the Benton family property and that the Benton family knows nothing. They have no idea where the two have gone. She also acknowledged that the openly that the family later refused additional searches when those searches were requested. In February of 2014, Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam announced a $15,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and killed conviction of the person or persons responsible. In this case, Jennifer's family added an additional $10,000, bringing the total to 25K. The family later emphasized, regardless of bureaucracy or the age of the pledges that came to get to that $25,000, that they would do what they had to do to ensure that someone who came forward to help would be paid in some form or fashion, possibly the full amount. We've had, you know, many years have gone by since those that reward money was presented, so I don't know the state of it. In 2021, Jennifer's family arranged for a private search using cadaver dogs on parts of the Benton property where permission was obtained. The way that this works is the grandfather, Joey's grandfather, was getting up there in age. The case was still in the media, the story was still in the media. And I don't know if it was under pressure or if, you know, just, hey, let's, let's let them search one last time and, and kind of be done with this. So the grandfather agreed to allow them to bring cadaver dogs. This was a private search, though. This wasn't police conducting it. It wasn't the sheriff's department conducting it. I am a little disappointed in the way this was reported that the Family, Jennifer's family reached out to the sheriff's department, said, hey, we're, we're doing the search using cadaver dogs. We have permission from the Benton family. Can you be out here during this time? And from, from the way that it's been reported and from my review, the sheriff's department was kind of like, well, if you find anything, let us know. I don't want to beat up on anybody too badly here, but chain of custody is extremely important when we're talking about evidence. I don't know why you wouldn't at least send one, one car out there, one badge and one car out there to just sit, sip water and, and observe Anyway.
- [35:06]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, pick up.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
But nobody's paying me to run, run a county, but so what do I know? The dogs reportedly here alerted on a, at a spot, at a location in the woods.
- [35:19]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
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Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The family dug but found nothing. They did report this to law enforcement. And as far as, as far as the public record goes, or as far as I know, law enforcement had no follow up to, to finding this. Now, the dogs, you've heard me say it. If you listen, this isn't your first time listening to the show. I, look, I love these dogs. Years ago, we True Crime Garage, we provided a county with a, with a police dog. They're very expensive. We provided a county in Florida with a police dog. So very proud that we were able to do that. These dogs are incredibly valuable to police there, to police work.
- [36:01]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
We're still paying on the dog.
- [36:03]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The one part of this, though, that is always kind of a hiccup is the dogs can't talk. Even if, no matter how smart they are, no matter how well trained they are, no matter how well trained the handler is, the dogs can't talk. They were hitting on that location for a reason. What that reason is is left to our interpretation now.
- [36:25]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
- [36:25]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
But they find nothing.
- [36:27]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Well, just to be clear, dogs can talk, but you have to be extremely high and they really just, they talk a lot of gibberish.
- [36:36]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well. And the thing I wanted to point out here though, Captain, is that our date in question, when our, our individuals that we're looking for go missing is 2004. This private search is conducted in 2021. A lot of stuff can happen in that time period. And absolutely what I'm getting at in a very roundabout way, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that someone or something could have been buried there or concealed at that spot in haste and then at a later date and time removed.
- [37:14]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah. And discipline Devil's advocate. When you have a ton of property, then. And I'm going by the.
- [37:22]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
The real estate, the over and under on the S word for these episodes is at 30.
- [37:28]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Well, that's my new favorite word this week. But when you have a lot of property there, there's a very good possibility that you have an animal that dies, and then there's decomposition. And I know that the decomposition is different for an animal than for a human. But if you have a lot of property, I'm sure there's plenty of animals that have passed away on your land and you didn't even know. Know about it.
- [37:56]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
A question for you, my friend. Does a body, in this particular case, in your opinion, does it lead to an arrest here? Captain?
- [38:05]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Does a body. I think you need a body in order to try to get a conviction. Yes.
- [38:10]
Charles Barkley
Right.
- [38:11]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I agree on that. But what I'm getting. What I'm saying is, I guess I. My question was flawed. I apologize. You know, we've seen cases where all they are is waiting on finding that body and then. Then charges will be filed. Right. We've seen those cases.
- [38:28]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
They.
- [38:28]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
This case, to me, feels like. And I apologize to Jennifer's family for saying this, but from what I've reviewed, it feels like there's a lot missing. So to me, where. Where the body could be helpful to getting to those charges, I think what is very key here, and it keeps. That's where my mind keeps going back to the idea of maybe something could have been concealed or buried in haste and then later removed.
- [38:58]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [38:59]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I think a very important part here would not just be the discovery of a body, but where the body or bodies were found. Right. Like, I mean, if they're found on the Benton property, that's a whole bigger can of worms than if Jennifer, unfortunately, would be found several counties away.
- [39:21]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
- [39:21]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Yeah. Yes. All right, so I've already opened up the crazy door here, so I'll just. Just keep it going. Because some other things that I cannot shake. Some other.
- [39:33]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah.
- [39:33]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Suspicions and ideas that I cannot shake. And there's no polite way to say this, so I'll just say it. I'm sure there's. Look, our listeners are fantastic, extremely bright, most of them smarter than us. But I. So I know somebody out there driving their car, jogging on the treadmill, lifting weights, cutting the grass, they're thinking the same thing. Somebody out there is thinking this crazy garage theory here, Captain, with the child's illness. Let's call it an illness. But we. We know the. The part of the body, the Portions of the body that they were examining and what the medical findings were were. They said it could be as simple as staying in a diaper too long, but they did say it's uncommon to professionals. As far as everything I've reviewed, at least two professionals said this was uncommon. Could this be an indicator of some form of sexual abuse on this child? If it were to be evidence or indicators of such, the persons that would have to be looked at the most in my humble garage opinion, would be Joey or his father, Joe. And that create. You want to say that there was stress, turmoil, conflict within that home prior to going to the er can you imagine if that was the suspicion after leaving the ER and what that could result in one.
- [41:10]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
And that could have also been their motivation for saying, hey, you don't need to take her to the doctor.
- [41:16]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
True. Right. Hide it. It's very difficult for us to determine what was going on inside those four walls. Very suspicious of the diagnosis that takes place and also the timing of that diagnosis that happens. Look, there was problems before. There were. There were severe, horrible problems before going to the ER. They disappear almost immediately after. Right? Within. Within days, 48 hours, 72 hours of that, that of. Of the ER visit.
- [41:48]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Absolutely.
- [41:49]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Timing. Timing is everything in these cases. We say it time and time again, but it's all. It can also be revealing. It can also be revealing. And then. Then let's go down a whole different other road here, please. Let's. Let's ignore everything that I just said. We do know that there were heated arguments, violent arguments between Joey and Jennifer. We have at least one family member. We have multiple family members on Jennifer's side reporting that there were arguments and problems between her and Joey's mom. And we have at least one family member on Jennifer's side saying that Jennifer at some point expressed that she was scared, she was afraid of Joey's mom. And then you have that story from Jeffrey saying, look, we were at work, and all of a sudden we get this. He get. Gets a call and says, we got to leave now. We have to leave now. And says, there's like a family issue. But no, no better description than that. We have to leave now. If the path I'm trying to take you all down is this. Was he able to pass that polygraph examination? Because he doesn't fully. He didn't witness what happened, but he came home to help clean it up. He. He kind of knows, but he doesn't know.
- [43:10]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Right.
- [43:10]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I was just gonna. That could be a T shirt. He kind of knows, but he doesn't know. No, like he doesn't, but. And then, like, then I have to wonder too, if this case has not allowed me to sleep very much in the past couple days. The other thing I have to wonder about too is like, let's say that something sporadic took place, something instantaneous. There's some kind of eruption, some kind of fight that breaks out. Parties involved, don't know, but it's Jennifer and somebody and something happens. Knee jerk reaction, smacker over the head with something or a trigger is pulled or choking, whatever. There's. We've reviewed hundreds of cases. There are bad people out there. There are people that do things and in one moment that they would never do for the rest of their lives. That could be here too. But there are, there are people out there that in the heat of the moment they would be, they would strike out, lash out and harm someone, hurt someone, kill an adult, would never be able to harm a little tiny kid. And is, is there a possibility, you know, I've heard the family say that, you know, we've kind of lost hope in that regard of them being alive. But is there a possibility that something terrible happened to Jennifer and then this, this little girl, only two at the time, she could have been rehomed. She'd be in her 20s now.
- [44:37]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah. Anything possible?
- [44:40]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I mean all, all of the time in these cases. When Nick Mack, when National center for Missing Exploited Children are involved and they do these age progressed images and I've been lucky enough to meet the team members there in one of their, in their home office in Virginia that, that work on these every day. That's, that's their only job is to work on age progressions of these missing little kids. They do a fantastic, it's, it's really, truly fascinating the way that they do it. You guys should reach out to us. We'll have you on the podcast. I'd love to. I, I can't explain it. It's too, it's too involved for me to be able to explain it in any intelligent manner to our listeners. But in this case, you know, it's always important to have those age progression images. But in this case, I mean, I see it as being a strong possibility here in this. And speaking of which, in 2022, so very recently, Tennessee officials did release another age progressed photo of Adrianna Wicks and 2023 captain, they assigned a new detective to the case. The Robertson County Sheriff's Department assigned a new detective. The family. For all these years, they've continued pushing the case publicly. Through vigils, rallies, balloon releases, billboards, podcasts, social media, keeping Jennifer and Adriana's names in circulation long after most of the public had stopped looking. And always with these types of cases, alongside the official timeline runs the family's private and sad reality, A grief made sharper by the absence of certainty. Jennifer's sister Casey, in multiple interviews described how the family's greatest desire was not even punishment, but to find Jennifer and to find Adrianna and to lay them to rest. She acknowledged the haunting thought that sometimes visits the families of the missing, that maybe someone could still be alive somewhere even though, as said, her family don't truly believe it here. She also described the on these podcasts, the kind of mother Jennifer was and the kind of child Adrianna was. And she said that Adriana was born when she was born. Jennifer sometimes worked late shifts and family members would help out. Jennifer's sister recalled being 13, 14 years old at this time and spending nights caring for her niece, her for little Adriana, feeding her, comforting her when she cried, feeling proud to be needed, feeling proud to be an aunt. She described Adriana as a sweet and bubbly child who didn't get enough time in this world. This case is a sad one, a frightening one. And upon review of this true crime story, instantly we have to accept a sobering acknowledgment that this case has never been about a single disappearance. And now more than 20 years have passed without answers for Jennifer and her little daughter Adrianna. And sadly, time has a way burying unresolved stories unless someone keeps digging them up. Jennifer's sister Casey, she has done so many interviews, especially podcasts, trying to keep this story visible. Peace, she says would come from certainty, bringing them home, giving them dignity, ending the endless waiting. Casey and the family, they, they they also maintain case focused social media with Facebook justice for Jennifer and Adriana Wicks is the Facebook page Instagram Jennifer and Adriana Wicks TikTok the Facebook page Casey says is the primary hub, the place that she keeps most actively updated.
- [48:59]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Well, and like you said, this is probably not a simple situation like some other crimes where you discover a body and there bam, you have all the answers that you need or all the evidence that you need to to get charges at least and then you can start building a case. I it'd be interesting to know what hold back information law enforcement has on this particular case.
- [49:25]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
I want to give a shout out to Kathy, Jennifer's mother and to her sister Casey and all of the family of course, but specifically them for keeping the story alive in the media. Casey has done a lot of podcast interviews, as we said, about this disappearance. If you would like to listen to one, I recommend our friends Mike Morford and Jess Betancourt over at Missing Persons, who, longtime listeners of this show, our show True Crime Garage, will remember. We have worked with them over the years. Their podcast Missing Persons, Featured this case October 7, 2023. Go here, Casey, Jennifer's sister, Adriana's aunt, keeping the story in people's minds and on their hearts without knowing where Jennifer and Adriana are. There is no end to this story, no final chapter, no body to mourn, no certainty to hold. It is mourning, suspended, as I see it. And the family is desperately trying to keep Jennifer and Adriana from becoming forgotten. You know, we said long cases go quiet. We know leads dry up. The world moves on. The family doesn't. So they keep pushing because attention is often the only force that keeps a cold case from freezing entirely. They point out time and time again here. Captain. That Jennifer didn't have much. She didn't have a car. She didn't have a phone. She didn't have money. But Adriana was cared for, saying that Jennifer found ways. We know. Living with a boyfriend and his family at times living with her mother and sisters, at others relying on relatives when she needed to because everything she had went to her daughter. And they point out that Jennifer wasn't the type of person to even casually disappear. The thing, the thing that you have, if you're not seeing it, do not miss the fact that she depended on her family. That. That makes it even more. That makes it, like we said in episode one, squash the idea that she just walked out. The idea that Jennifer left without essentials, without the car seat, without key belongings.
- [51:43]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, my gut feeling is that whole story that Joey told was completely fabricated.
- [51:51]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
He knows more. I don't. I'm left here wondering if he knows everything. But I know that he knows more. I know that he knows more. Jennifer's normal life ended on March 25, 2004. After that, everything became secondhand stories, conflicting explanations, searches that felt incomplete, reports argued over, leads that collapsed, and a long public waiting for the one thing that could change the shape of the case. Credible information that says where Jennifer and Adriana went and why they never came home. If anyone has information about the disappearance of Jennifer and Adriana Wicks, contact the Robertson County Sheriff's Department at 615-384-7981 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBI. Find.
- [53:05]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Thank everybody for joining us here in the garage each and every week. Thanks for telling your mother. Thanks for telling your brother. Colonel, do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners?
- [53:14]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
Well, it's a bit self serving here, Captain. It's lost on me. But I'm going to recommend my book, the Deli Murders. The Quest to Find the man on the Bridge. Still available on Amazon. Unfortunately, we don't have any left in stock. And the reason why I'm bringing that up is we have our great event that I'm so looking Forward to and April 18, BrewDog Columbus, which is technically Canal Winchester. If you, if you've been in Ohio, you know what we're talking about. Brewdog is a fantastic place to go even if the Captain and the Colonel are not there. But guess what? Double down baby. Because it's extra exciting. It's going to be extra fun because we're going to be there. We're going to be having fun, talking and chatting with you. Raising money for a good cause. The Porch Light Project. And it occurred to me there might be some folks that want to pick up a book and have you or I or both sign them. You can't pick up a book. So get it on Amazon, bring it with you to the show. We'll sign it, we'll take a picture, we'll have fun and we will have some merch there. But we are out of stock of that book on our website. So can't wait to see everybody that can make it Saturday, April 18th. We're going to have a fun evening, folks. Tickets are available on our website, truecrimegarage.com on the left of your screen there you'll see a tab for live events. So click on that and get your tickets before they are sold out.
- [54:42]
Co-host (True Crime Garage)
Yeah, not many tickets left and we want to see you there. Want to smell your musk? Like they say, until next week, be
- [54:50]
Nick (True Crime Garage Host)
good, be kind and don't
- [54:54]
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