Awesome - Teen Lifeguard's Unsolved Murder Case Is Cracked Open With Unexpected Evidence
Twenty years of crumbling clues and false leads brought nothing but disappointment to the family of Molly Bish, whose sudden disappearance in 2000 sent the community of Warren, Massachusetts, into high-alert. Eventually, interest in the case dwindled as it became more likely that Molly would never be found alive. Molly's family, however, refused to give up hope. And although time didn't heal their wounds, it ended up cracking open a huge hole in the case...
New start in Warren
Ironically, the Bishes moved to Warren, Massachusetts, out of concern for their children's safety. They had lived in Detroit until a violent crime occurred in their neighborhood, when a woman walking home was kidnapped and murdered. The Bishes relocated to Warren, where they lived comfortably for 15 years.
Lifeguarding at the pond
Their daughter, Molly, was 16 when she was hired as a lifeguard at Comins Pond. The pond wasn't exactly a picturesque vacation spot. It was in a heavily-wooded area, and fairly secluded from the rest of the community. Still, it was a place to have fun — no one worried about anything dangerous happening there.
The unexpected phone call
The only real danger, people thought, was drowning, which is why Molly was there in the first place! So when Magi, Molly's mother, dropped her daughter off for work on June 27, 2000, she did so without hesitation. And when her phone rang three hours later, Magi certainly didn't expect the voice on the other end to be a police officer.
"Molly is missing"
She heard the words every mother dreads hearing: "Your daughter is missing." Molly's lifeguarding equipment, including her shoes, was still at the pool, but the police couldn’t locate the lifeguard herself. Magi and her husband, John, knew immediately that something was very, very wrong.
Alarm bells
Alarm bells went off in the parents' heads. It was unlike Molly to ditch work early, let alone without her shoes and without telling anyone where she was going. Magi and John had the horrible feeling that something had happened to Molly, something out of her control. The police, however, thought otherwise.
No news...
Since there was no obvious sign of a struggle, the police didn't immediately suspect foul play. Weeks passed without any resolution as they searched the wilderness surrounding Comins Pond. Meanwhile, Magi replayed the days leading up to Molly’s disappearance in her mind. With a jolt, she remembered something odd.
There was a strange man
Magi remembered an odd moment a few days before Molly's disappearance. She'd dropped Molly off at work when she noticed a man sitting in a white car in the pond’s parking lot. "I'm kind of nervous, thinking, 'What's this guy doing? Why isn't he at work?'" Magi later said.
Unfriendly neighbor
"Because we're in a small town, people will kind of say hi, or just nod their head, but this guy just stared at me." The brief interaction had sent a chill down Magi's spine, and she couldn't get it out of her mind in the weeks following Molly's disappearance. Something told her that the mysterious man was connected to her daughter.
Suspicious person and no leads
Not long after she had this revelation, Magi learned a disturbing fact: the same man had been seen in the lot on the day of Molly's disappearance. What was strange, however, was how the man left the parking lot just before Magi and Molly arrived. Impatient with the police, the Bishes did what they could to bring more attention to Molly’s case — and to the mysterious man.
Awareness for Molly
They created a website and set up an email chain to raise awareness. In 2001, Magi met with Jeanne Boylan, a famous sketch artist, to draw a composite of the man Magi saw in the parking lot. Jeanne and Magi collaborated for nine hours on the drawing.
Composite sketch
When Jeanne was finished, Magi looked at the drawing and felt certain that Jeanne had perfectly captured the suspect’s likeness, even including the cigarette he smoked as he stared at the mother dropping off her daughter for work. The man was about 50, with brown hair and intense eyes.
More dead ends
Jeanne’s composite sketch was given to police and distributed around the area. Even with the Bishes doing so much on their own to add to the investigation, authorities weren’t any closer to identifying the man in the white car. Cops checked on local sex offenders, which lead to more of the same … nothing.
A potential connection?
Molly wasn’t the only girl to disappear from Warren, either. In 1993, ten-year-old Holly Piirainen, whose family lived in the Warren area, was kidnapped and murdered. After years of work, investigators named David Pouliot as Holly’s murderer using newly recovered forensic evidence. They never filed any charges against David, who died in 2003.
Major news
Meanwhile, in 2003, the Bishes finally got news — but it wasn't good. Molly's remains were recovered in Hampden County, a neighboring community to Warren. It was clearer than ever before that Molly had been murdered, but her case went cold. Years passed, during which the Bishes lived with more questions than answers. Technology hadn't yet caught up to the changing times...until 2016.
Technology on their side
That’s when the police finally obtained better technology to test 24 pieces of evidence from Molly’s case for traces of DNA. For the first time in decades, the Bishes had hope. They knew the chances of finding their daughter alive were slim to none, but with this new technology on their side, they could finally answer questions that had been plaguing them ever since June 2000.
Campsite red herring
Thanks to this technology, they finally had solid leads. The police investigated a campground outside of Warren where a white Buick LeSabre was rumored to be buried — a car that, they hoped, could be connected to the case. They used radar technology to scan the campground for a burial site.
New person of interest
It’s unclear if the investigators uncovered anything at the campsite, but they continued to work Molly’s case with renewed enthusiasm. The DNA testing went on for years, the Bishes desperate to link a suspect to Molly’s case. Finally, after two years of testing and tip taking, authorities publicly named a new person of interest.
Frank Sumner Sr.
Multiple people gave information leading them to Francis "Frank" Sumner Sr. Frank lived about 20 minutes from Warren and spent most of his life in the area. To make matters even more suspicious for Sumner, the police unearthed a disturbing crime from his past.
Back in society
In the '80s, the then-auto mechanic committed a heinous crime: he abducted and raped one of his female customers. Sumner hadn't gotten away with it — he'd spent 16 years in prison — but to the horror of the Bishes, he'd been released back into society in 1998.
Shocking reactions
Molly’s murder happened just two years later. There was another important connection the police wouldn’t discover until they visited Magi and her daughter, Dr. Heather Bish-Martin. The investigative team showed Magi and Heather a picture of Frank without warning, and their reactions told them everything they needed to know.
"He is scary"
Magi and Heather were speechless. "We recognized all the characteristics that my mother has described for police sketches," Heather said. The police also filled the Bishes in on Frank’s background. "It was terrifying," Heather said. "I mean, he's got aggravated rape and kidnapping charges. He brutally beat a woman. He stalked people. He sexually harassed people. He is scary."
Waiting for action
"We might never know what exactly happened to Molly, but we can certainly conjecture what happened to her — based on some of the things he's done," Heather said. The Bishes and the Warren community waited for the police to take action against Sumner.
One silver lining
But due to a lack of concrete evidence, Frank was never officially convicted by the team, and before they could interview him, he died. When Sumner died, so too did the family's hope of answering any questions about Molly's disappearance. Only one silver lining came from the Bishes' lifetime of suffering.
Molly’s legacy
"We are proud of Molly’s legacy of keeping children safe, advocating for families, and we feel it most strongly right now, reflected in our community," Magi and John said. And with technology always advancing, there's still some hope that Molly's case won't be cold forever — stranger things have happened, after all. Remember the Karen Klaas case? There couldn't be a much better example of how technology can blow the lid off decades-old cases.
Aucun commentaire: