[Music] I want to thank everybody for coming out today we're going to talk about a cold case of a missing young girl Autumn Lane McClure who was reported missing in May of 2004 but before we get started you know there's a lot of people that I need to thank who helped in this Captain Paul camera in the back there uh and all of the investigative service unit uh Sergeant Seth Amron who is our uh major case supervisor detective Shawn Maguire who was the assigned detective to this case uh Josh Mott in our forensics unit Dr Sutton who you see on the screen here with the University of Florida Maple center for forensic medicine she is absolutely amazing and when you listen to her talk you're going to see what an incredible person she is uh our Road and Bridge folks who helped us with the uh excavation the medical examiner office that was out there and a company called Ameritech uh they had to help us move the new homeowners home and and get into where we had to get into and I really really want to thank them uh for that and of course the property owners uh the folks that bought the property in 20121 put in a beautiful driveway put in a beautiful modular home and then they had detective Maguire knocking on the door saying hey we got a search warrant and we're going to be tearing your stuff up uh so he did a really great job coordinating uh to keep keep the property owner whole as whole as possible so here's how this all begins in May of in 2014 Autumn's grandmother calls the Sheriff's Office to report her missing uh we contact her boyfriend a Michael camelli who tells us that he dropped her off at the valua mall and he hasn't seen her since so detectives start doing everything they need to do they put the missing person's flyer out there they're doing neighborhood interviews they're doing everything that we do when there is a missing person the grandmother Sher McClure calls us a couple days later and says hey uh Autumn has called me from a 321 area code and I've gotten some letters from her that are postmarked Melbourne Florida so that's the followup that we get uh a little while later in 2004 so so detectives get some information that Autumn was staying at a house or at a trailer 1320 Hand Avenue Lot 32 in Orman Beach with a Brian Donley who is who his wonderful arrest photos up there and a Jessica Freeman so detectives go out and they interview them and they basically tell detectives that well you know Autumn who has never run away before uh this is the first time she had runs away from her family uh he really didn't get along with her grandmother and I you know I work with her at wind Dixie and I we let her stay at the house for a couple days but we don't know anything else so everything goes cold you look from 2005 to 2016 we obtain DNA from family members that we put in the Cota system she's entered into the national Center for missing exploited children uh so everything that we're supposed to do it's in there so God forbid if a if if a body turns up we're able to to try to identify her in 2016 detectives who are still working this case obviously 12 years later they Recon her boyfriend Michael camelli and he admits that he lied to us in 2004 that in fact he didn't drop autumn off at the volucia mall he dropped her off at the seab breze bridge where she got into a car which Jessica Freeman in 2018 two years later detectives are successful in in tracking down Jessica Freeman who now lives in Nevada and she says I have no idea what you're talking about I have no information than what I told you before in 2021 detective Maguire gets a phone call from a Chris Miller Chris Miller is related in certain ways through friendship and marriage to Brian Donley and Jessica Freeman and he basically tells the detective I got to get this off my chest and basically what I need to tell you is there is a teenage girl who's missing and is dead is buried in Valia County and Brian Donley Andor Jessica Freeman had to have something to do with this the detective is able to have Mr Miller make a a controlled call to Jessica Freeman where she basically says in that controlled call that she saw Brian Donley kill Autumn and then he told a myriad of stories that he chopped her up he set her on fire he buried her off a flish Avenue he just tells her a whole bunch of of different things so then we go to 2022 where our suspect in this case dies karma is a [ __ ] he dies on May 26 2022 almost 18 years to the day that we believe Autumn was killed so now detectives go to reinter Jessica Freeman because she now has moved from Nevada back to Florida in Crescent City I believe but she won't talk to us without immunity so the detectives are able to go to state attorney's office tell them what we have State Attorney's Office grants us grants her immunity to talk to us so she gives a statement to us that she basically worked with autumn in the wind Dixie and they allowed her to stay with her and Brian on this 1320 Hand Avenue Lot number 32 uh she tells us that Autumn couldn't live with her grandmother anymore she said her grandmother was mean uh they were involved in a sexual relationship with Autumn now keep in mind Brian was 31 at the time Autumn was 16 uh she also goes on to tell us that she came home one afternoon and saw Brian choking autumn in the bathroom when by the time she intervened she saw that Autumn was lifeless and she left the house she left the trailer two weeks later when she comes home she sees there's plywood on the bedroom floor and asks what happened to Autumn and Autumn stuff and his response to her is shut up or the same thing will happen to you she's dead if you don't want that to happen to you shut up and mind your business so he tells her multiple stories through the years of how he cut autum up and buried her and spread her Parts over different different parts she also stated that in 20 late 2021 or early 2022 Brian paid a visit to 1320 hand and saw the new manufactured home going in there and saw the new driveway going in and was very relieved at the construction that was taking place there Jessica at the time did not tell us the exact she didn't know the exact location so in late 2023 I guess she realizes hey this immunity stuff really works she contacts detective Maguire and says she's buried underneath where that trailer was that's where you'll find her so the detectives get together they get warrants a search warrant obtained and now we have to work with the homeowner because we have a homeowner who now put this brand new modular home in did all this work and now we had to figure out a way to work with him and make him hole so we get the warrant signed on uh the 21st of the month on the 26th of the month we we execute the search warrant that which was Monday on Tuesday we start with the help of meritech and rodent Bridge move the folks modular home out tear up all of the uh uh the concrete and we begin excavation and at this point I will let Dr Sutton jump in from there and thank her again for everything that she did cuz she tell you what had occurred since then all right great uh thank you sherff Chetwood so good afternoon everyone I'm Dr L Sutton with the University of Florida Maples center for forensic medicine and as a alucha county native myself I'm always appreciative of the opportunity to come back to the area and work with the vucha Sheriff's Office on KES so thank you uh to sheriff Chitwood for the request to assist on this case and to work along side your phenomenal deputies and investigators this case in particular we have been discussing and working on the logistics of searching the skain and possibly conducting an excavation at the site for about a year but of course having those structures and the concrete on that site uh really posed quite a unique challenge for the normal types of search techniques that we would ordinarily Implement one of the techniques that we did use on SC to identify areas of interest for excavation is a tool called Ground penetrating radar and I gives us indications we call those anomalies of any areas beneath the soil surface that might be of a different density than the surrounding soil the challenge in many cases is that it doesn't always clearly differentiate what those anomalies specifically are they can really be anything that the different so that could be tree roots utility lines items of evidence or even viewing remains so we used this tool on scene and we located a few specific areas of interest in our search yesterday from there we began the excavation process in those targeted areas and we were very fortunate to be able to locate and recover a set of humaner Bates ultimately this case is a test to the power of effective collaboration within a medical legal death investigation our successful outcome yesterday was the direct result of many different forensic disciplines working together for a common cause we had the solid investigative work in collecting verifying corroborating information from an informant we had proper resource allocation which included access to that heavy equipment used on scene which aided the excavation process itself we had lots of personnel support on SC which was tremendously helpful bringing in working with an ex tral forensic team like ARS from the maple center for forensic medicine which also helps with the access to that specialized equipment and Technology like the ground penetrating radar and of course support from the Sheriff's Office leadership which all allowed us to work this case in the very best way possible every case that work presents its own unique challenges but this was one of the more challenging ones due to the need to relocate entire structures and remove concrete before we can even begin to effectively search and excavate any areas of Interest so overall this this is really an extremely intense and resource heavy operation but all of the factors came together to help us achieve our successful outcome which was locating and recovering these Rems more often than that cold case urations and searches like lead to dead ends but yesterday was a different story I attribute our ability to locate and recover these Remains Not only to effective collaboration but more importantly to the unwavering Persistence of everyone involved because of that we able to recover these rains and thereby start the process of bringing Justice to the victim and offering closure for her families and her loved ones cases like this they're why we do what we do and I'm extremely grateful to have been able to assist in this one doctor don't go anywhere uh gentlemen you guys want to come up here uh we were able to recover 99.9% of Autumn's remains they're with the state where they're with the EM now uh pending positive identification which we we should get here very shortly and we'll see uh you know if they they have a way of determining the cause of death which is going to be kind of difficult so do you guys have any questions because these are the these are the folks who have put all this time in sh Shane detective Maguire was one of the first police reports that were done on this case he actually was the second report that was done back in 2004 for so this is something he started off with as a deputy and now as as a detective in our major case Squad Squad became the assigned investigator that basically led to the recovery of autumn were Jessica and Brian having they in a relationship yes so they were boyfriend and girlfriend living together and she was having sex with that yes how's the family reacted getting some closure now they these guys talk to uh Autumn's twin brother so when you got just get get up here and you know obviously they're they're relieved um but uh he wasn't he wasn't shocked I mean there's been rumors and but they're you know happy that she's been that she's been found I think one of the things that uh was this this guy I mean really he's a piece of [ __ ] is really what he was and apparently he had the ability to instill fear in everybody you know and it took that Chris Miller to finally wake up and say enough's enough I I can't live with my conscience as a father knowing that I I heard him tell people what he did and that's what started the ball rolling on that thing but the fact that you know he would go back and visit the site uh put Jessica Freeman from what she tells us in fear that he would kill her as easily as he killed Autumn you know here's where we are now you know the sad part is he'll never face in this world world for the evil that he perpetrated but sure enough I'm I'm hoping that God when he took his last breath on May 26th of 2022 that maybe he had a vision of where the hell he was headed did Jessica ever tell you why he did it good um so what she told us was Autumn was going to she wanted to go back home and so he was afraid that uh had he she went home told what happened that he would face you know legal troubles you guys ever had any op what happened with Grandmother because you mentioned that she was having some type of um issues with her grandmother and that's why she was supposedly at that place did you ever knew anything about that no I I never spoke with the grandmother and I haven't even since then I've been uh speaking with her twin brother I I spoke to uh one of aum's cousins worked for me when I was at atona beach police chief and she called me this morning and she just said you know like anything else it's a grandparent raising a teenager it just it was just oil and water just wasn't they weren't going to mix sh can you talk about the persistence not only in this case but maybe others you might be working on never giving up no matter how long these things going yeah and you know we talked about this Seth was just talking about this the other day you know technology is emerging so quickly for us whether it's DNA no matter what it is and there really never is a quote unquote Cold Case you know uh the men and women that are assigned to our major case unit and to all of our investigative units they that's what they understand you know you may work a case for 20 years you know and then you're going to retire well you're going to hand that off to the next group of detectives that's going to take that and use technology to our advantage and you know to watch the doctor yesterday I me I do this 36 years I'd like to say I couldn't be surprised by anything or intrigued I couldn't leave there just watching how she was teaching all of our new uh forensics examiners what to look for how to dig how it was just it was fascinating to watch that and you know obviously to be able to come to the family and say look here at least she can be buried with dignity now you know not not folded up and and shoved in in some crawl space is it totally impossible to determine the cause of death Seth it's difficult when you have a skeleton without any soft tissues to go off of they're going to do the best they can um with the laboratory analysis and things of that nature but given the time frame it's really hard to say at this point for us the two witnesses Chris Miller and uh and Jessica Freeman they're they're the ones that really get us where we need to go when they come up and then when she tells us specifically where she's buried that's enough to get the warrant that's enough to start working with with Doctor you know they were working the whole time with the Topography of the land if we have to get under there how we going to do this how we going to do that you know we're it was not it wasn't just something that popped up this has been going on for quite a while since like 2022 I would say 2021 late L 2021 to try to to try to get there and and do what we needed to do I I know she came up and spoke and she's got immunity and help the case but do you suspect her being involved at all we don't suspect that at all um given the cons consistencies of her statement sure they evolved over time but with that emerging comfortability she had as time progressed knowing that Brian was no longer alive she obtained immunity from the state attorney's office she started you know getting her conscience was getting the best of her so all these things kind of lining up um we have no reason to believe that anything she told us to this point is not true in fact more credibility goes to her statement because of what we found yesterday and how did he die he died during a medical procedure on May 26th of 200 2022 which almost almost 18 years to the day it's definitely in a couple days window that we believe that autum was killed early on in your narrative you were talking about grandmother received a phone call from yeah a couple when she ever there was that a reding or we I really don't know if she ever went there just I know that um she called her from phone numbers in the Melbourne area code and they had also sent letters from Palm Bay whether Autumn went there not or this was part of their hoax to hide where she was at we don't know thank you guys very much great job gentlemen thank you sir thank you thank you Doctor anything any last words before they sign off no I think we really covered it I just I'm grateful for the opportunity to have been involved and I'm glad that we were able to get some some justice and some closure in this L it's always a difficult outcome when you find finality that there is in fact a deceased individual but to be able to recover the remains and return them to the family is always a meaningful outcome nevertheless thank you again very much you make fuchia County proud doc