S02E08: THE AMBER TUCCARO CASE (#MMIWG, PART II)

There are hundreds of missing  and murdered Indigenous women and girls across Canada, and these are just some of their stories.

In part 2 of the missing and murdered Indigenous women mini-series, we cover the case of Amber Tuccaro, a 20-year-old Indigenous woman who went missing in August of 2010 during a short vacation with a friend and her young son.  En route to Edmonton, Amber was hitchhiking, grabbed a ride with an unknown man and was never seen again. A portion of this drive is captured in a chilling 60-second piece of audio that was released to the public of a phone call Amber made from inside the vehicle. While the man's voice from that audio has never been identified, it remains a vital clue in the case.

In the eleven years since her murder,  information about the misconduct of the police during the course of the investigation has been revealed, leading to a public inquiry into Amber's murder led by her own family who demands justice. Countless theories are still out there about just who could be responsible- including a possible tie to a notorious string of murders in the US and a man who came forward to accuse his own father.

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EPISODE RESOURCES:

Inquiry Into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/inquiry-into-missing-murdered-indigenous-women-opens-hearings-in-edmonton

RCMP failures in botched Amber Tuccaro Investigation:
https://www.thestar.com/edmonton/2019/06/27/report-outlines-series-of-rcmp-failures-in-botched-amber-tuccaro-investigation.html

CBC MMIW- Amber Alyssa Tuccaro:
https://www.cbc.ca/missingandmurdered/mmiw/profiles/amber-alyssa-tuccaro

CBC's 'The National':
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwqZcfJN6gs

Possible Tip in the case:
https://globalnews.ca/news/6458470/alberta-rcmp-amber-tuccaro-homicide-tip/

RCMP apology to the Tuccaro family:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/rcmp-apology-amber-tuccaro-murder-1.5225042

Audio clip voice comparison:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdUXo9JIV1M

True Crime Times Blog:
https://truecrimetimesblog.medium.com/ten-years-later-who-killed-amber-tuccaro-d9d78beae68f

Another possible lead in the case:
https://globalnews.c

Transcript

Coming up on this episode of Crime Family. 

Where are we by? We're just heading uh, south of Beaumont or, uh, North of Beaumont

Yo, where  are we going? 

One woman actually came forward to say that she knew the man in that recording. Apparently this guy uses, um, a lot of different aliases and he's a previously convicted sex offender and there's actually online websites dedicated to warning the public about him and his ranch. So there were critical mistakes in this investigation that are just glaring, right? From the beginning

Yeah. You think you confirm before you're being like, oh yeah. You know, they found her, I don't even know, obviously they didn't..

 But how do they know that she wasn't in any danger first thing, you can think of? Like she obviously like is in danger if she's missing and nobody knows where she is.

A man allegedly contacted Alberta RCMP to accuse his own father as the man responsible for Amber's murder.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to part two of our missing and murdered indigenous women mini-series. So last week, Katie told you the story of the red river murders and disappearances. We talked about the indigenous issues within Canada and stuff like that. So it was definitely a really interesting episode. Um, and so this is actually part two.

So this week I'm going to be telling you the story of Amber Tuccaro. And this one is actually one that got a little bit more press or attention than like some of the ones that we talked about last week and definitely then a lot of other missing and murdered indigenous women, but still didn't get like a ton of attention.

Um, there's probably many of you who have never heard of this case. Know nothing about the case. Um, so I'm excited to tell you about the case and put it a little bit more on your radar. Uh, I'm assuming you guys know about this case, at least a little bit. 

Yeah, I know a little bit of it, but not a whole lot.

Yeah. What stands out to me of course, is like the audio recording that you're going to hear and just kind of like you to think about what would have went through her mind as she was, you know, she was obviously doing it consciously to help herself, if anything ever happened. You can just tell, I'm not going to talk about too much about the video, but. It's kind of scary of what must have been going through her head when she decided to do that. 

Yeah. Um, and this case. Yeah. Like it has an audio recording that we're going to play for you a little bit later, which is a huge part of the case. Um, but yes, so let's just get into it. Amber Tuccaro uh, she's a 20 year old woman who went missing in Alberta back in 2010.

And, um, there was very little information that was released by police, um, at least initially, um, and the case went cold for a little bit, but there's still some very interesting and unsettling information that is out there and some potential suspects that have been named as well. Uh, so Amber, we don't really know much about her child hood or like her life growing up. But we do know that she was the youngest of five children and she was the only girl in her family. Um, she was a part of the  Mikisew Cree first nation community. And she was living in Fort McMurray, Alberta at the time of her disappearance. And she also had a 14 month old son named Jacob.

So this whole case begins on August 17th, 2010. And on this day, Amber told her mother Vivian "Tootsie" Tuccaro, that she and her son were flying with a female friend to Edmonton Alberta for a short  little vacation. And she told her mother that she would be back in a couple of days. Vivian says that she didn't want Amber to go, but that Amber was stubborn and hardheaded and was kind of just going to do what she wanted.

So she went anyways, Amber, this female friend and her young son, the three of them stayed in a motel just outside of the city called the Nisku Place motel. Amber was always in constant communication with her mother so it was on the evening of the 18th when her mother became worried, because she had not heard from Amber, which was out of character for her.

There's a little bit of conflicting information that's out there like on the official CBC missing and murdered indigenous women and girls website, which is that website that it kind of has information about this case and other missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada. So on that website, it explains that the plan was for the trio to stay in a motel outside of the city that evening, and then all go into Edmonton together the next day but Amber was too excited and just left by herself that night to hitchhike into the city. But other reports and like an episode of the national, which covered this case. And a lot of the other sources, which is most of the other sources say they arrived on the 17th and it wasn't until the next day on the 18th that Amber chose to depart for Edmonton by herself for unknown reasons. And she accepted a ride from an unknown male on this day. So it doesn't really matter like what the exact timeline is, but we know that, you know, they stayed in that motel, the three of them. At some point, Amber left her son with this female friend and went into Edmonton and she was going to hitchhike.

And I think an important thing to note is that hitchhiking was like a regular part of it is a regular part of, you know, a lot of indigenous people do hitchhike. You know, a lot of them live in more rural communities, so they don't see, you know, to get from one place to another. A lot of them don't have the resources to buy a car or have a car. So a lot of them rely on hitchhiking to get from community to community. So, you know, you might think like, why would you ever hitchhike? But she was kind of used to this. Um, and it is kind of a big thing in the indigenous community. Um, so it probably wasn't something either that, you know, the friend was super worried about.

Um, even though in that episode of the national, like Amber's mother does explain that she would always tell Amber, you know, don't get into a car with a stranger, all of that sort of stuff. But obviously, like I said, Amber was kind of stubborn and she obviously did this anyway. So we don't really know why she chose to go into the city alone that day.

Like whether she was planning to meet up with someone or she just wanted the day to herself maybe, or if she had some other plan that we don't really know about. But like I said, she left her friend and her son at the motel and left for Edmonton. And this would be ended up being the last time that anyone would ever see or hear from her again.

And when Amber didn't return by the next day, her friend called Amber's mother, uh, who then called the police. So Vivian explains that her report was downplayed by the police pretty much from the beginning. Vivian says in an interview on CBC's the national that the cops were saying, you know, the classic line of, oh, she's probably out partying, she'll be back soon, et cetera, et cetera.

But Vivian knows her daughter and knows that an extended period of time with no contact with her is very unusual and is usually a sign that something has gone terribly wrong. So right from the beginning, the RCMP dismissed the severity of the case, and this could have impacted the results of the case. Cause as we all know, the first 48 hours of a disappearance are crucial.

So if the police had actually acted when they got that initial call from Vivian, um, that we know that, you know, the results could have been very very different. So we do know a little bit about Amber's  whereabouts after she left the motel, because we know that she gets into a vehicle with an unknown male shortly after she leaves.

And the reason that we know there's this because of a phone call that she makes from inside the vehicle to her brother. Now, her brother was incarcerated at the time of this call. So the only reason that this call was recorded was because she was speaking to, to him, um, from inside the jail and the jail house records all phone calls.

Um, so Amber, I don't know if she necessarily knew that the call was being recorded, but thank God it was because it actually led to a crucial clue in the case. But obviously she called her brother because she wanted to talk on the phone to someone. Cause she was probably a little bit worried. So in a 17 minute phone call, you can hear the fear in Amber's  voice as she realizes that she's not being taken to where she wants to go, which was presumably Edmonton. Instead she speaks with this unidentified male and asks where he's taking her and we hear him reassure her about where they're going multiple times. So I'm going to play some of that taped phone call now and be warned it does contain some explicit language and may be disturbing to some listeners, but, um, in an unprecedented move, the RCMP actually released only one minute of this phone call to the public. So this is the, the 60 seconds that I'm going to play for you. So even though it was 17 minutes in total, only one minute of it was actually ever released.

So I'll play that now. 

Where are we by? We're just heading south of Beaumont or uh, North of Beaumont. We're heading North of Beaumont. 

Yo, where are we going?

No this is.... Are you fucking kidding me? You better not be taking me anywhere I don't wanna go.

I want to go into the city. Yo, we're not going into the city are we?No, we're not! Then where the fuck are these roads going to? To 50th St!. 

Are you sure? Yo, where are we going

50th St. 50th St. East, right??

So what do you guys think of that recording? 

Yeah. So for me, like I'd mentioned earlier, To me, I feel like she probably knew it was recording. Like she called her brother. She'd probably called him before she knew that they record those conversations. Maybe that's why she decided to call him because she knew it was going to be recorded. I feel like she had, she kind of knew what was happening and that was her train of thought. And like I said before, I just, you know, you can just tell that for her to make that decision. She must have known something was happening. Like something bad was going down and she needed to have evidence of her whereabouts and you know, who she was with. So you can just imagine how scared she must've been. 

Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. Like, it always surprised me when people do record like themselves, like in a scary situation, which is always like a good thing for the police and who people who are investigating. But I couldn't imagine like what she was thinking, like what, and like what was going through her mind. Like knowing that she wasn't, I think she knew that she wasn't going into the city when you listen to the, like, when you listen to the recording. So like, Edmonton's like a pretty big city. And like, if you go off a dirt road that doesn't really like an, a dark dirt road, that's like not really going into the city. Like you would see like buildings and stuff like that. So I think she knew right off the bat that the person that she was with was not takingher to where she needed to go. And I think good for her in a way to like, record that. But unfortunately, like, I don't think helped her in any way either though. 

Yeah. And like, you can hear her like questioning the guy saying like, why wanting? She's like, I want to go into the city and she's like, obviously you're not taking me or whatever she says, and he's no 50th street. Like he's confirming over and over again. And at one point he says, we're going south of. South of Beaumont or north of Beaumont, like he corrects himself.

Um, so maybe he's aware that maybe it's being recorded and he's trying to throw off from where they're actually going. Cause you can hear him say, you know, the different directions, like he's correcting himself at one point there, but yeah, I guess Katie you're probably right too, that she probably did know it was being recorded.

If she's calling her brother from the jail, like that's probably what she had assumed. But, yeah, it's just crazy. And that's like, one thing that makes this case stand out is cause we do have like that video or that audio recording, or at least a minute of it. I don't know why the RCMP didn't record or release all of it.

Um, obviously they released it because they were trying to identify the voice. Um, so maybe that's like the most, the parts where he talks the most and they thought that was the most important part. Like maybe they didn't feel that releasing all 17 minutes was necessary, but, um, yeah, it's just interesting that like one minute is all that was released instead of the full.. the full thing..

Yeah. I was kinda thinking that too, like, you don't hear that much of his voice and he only says like a couple things, but I guess they feel like that's sufficient, but I'm also going back to when you said the police were like, oh, you know, give her a couple of days. She's probably partying. Like, to me, the fact that she brought her son with her kind of makes me think like, well, if she wanted a break and like, you know, get away for a little bit, like, why bring her son with her? Right. Like why would she be gone for days? But bring her son like one, or just leave him home. And she could have, you know, a couple of days for herself. So that right away, it was like, well, she didn't intend to be long because she would have been back with him because she brought him. 

Yeah, exactly. Like she's close with her mother. So she could have just left her son with her mother for a couple of days. And I'm sure her mother would have been happy to have him with her. Right. So, yeah, that, that doesn't really line up really at all. Yeah. Like I said before, the RCMP released that portion of the recording that you just heard to the public in an attempt to identify the man that matched that voice.

But they only released that in 2012. Um, so she went missing in 2010 in August of 2010. So they released that two years later. So I don't know why it took them so long to release that. Um, we might, you know, we might never know that. But Amber was like speaking to her brother as it happened. So, you know, as you can tell from that call, it's very sketchy, very unsettling.

So, you know, for brother's aware of this in real time, as he's on the phone with her, like, couldn't, he, if he had alerted someone that maybe told someone in the jail, one of the guards or something, you know, to alert someone maybe that could have gotten out and who knows, maybe could've gotten the ball rolling a little bit.

I don't know how that would've worked, but I'm just thinking like two years is a long time before you release, anything. Um, but there was nothing really happening in the investigation. So she went, she got, it was hitchhiking got picked up by this unknown man, had that phone call. That was the last time she was ever seen from seen or heard again.

And the case really went cold initially. Like there was nothing that was coming out about it, even though there, obviously the family was worried. Um, but yeah, and so that phone call coming out was the first thing that had ever really developed. Um, now in the episode of the national that I talked about before, so Vivian does say that she heard all 17 minutes of the call.

Um, she describes, Amber as laughing in the beginning. You know, just being normal, but that changes to fear pretty quickly towards the end of the call when she likely realizes that this man in the vehicle may intend to do her harm. So strangely, four days after the release of the recording, Amber's remains are found.

So some horseback riders found these remains on a farmer's property in Leduc county, which is just a few kilometers south of Edmonton, which was an Amber's intended destination. So no details regarding like autopsy results or a cause of death have ever been released to the public, but it was a skull that was found and..

In like a chilling detail, the amount of time that it would have taken to drive from the Nisku motel to where Amber's remains were found is roughly 17 minutes, which is the same length as that phone call. So that's pretty eerie. So it's like she like started recording as soon as she got into the car.

And as soon as it ends, like that's where her remains are found. So it's kind of odd that it would be exactly 17 minutes. 

Do we know, like that one minute that you played, like where in the call that is? Because at the end it kind of sounds like maybe the guy like found the phone cause there's like that muffling noise. And then it gets, I mean, there's a sound of like the dial tone, but that doesn't mean it actually was. So like, you know what I mean? 

Yeah. I don't know where exactly in the phone. I mean, obviously her mother would know cause she said she's heard the whole thing. So maybe that is the very end. Um, but she doesn't say that in like this interview with the national or anything or anything that I could find. But, yeah, that is a good question, because if that is exactly where it end ended in that 17 minutes into the call and her remains are found 17 minutes from the motel, like, is that right before the murder happened or..

Yeah, it's like, it's like eerie, you can picture like, cause it does sound like maybe he grabbed the phone or something or like she dropped it or something cause he saw it or something. That's where it ends. 

It takes, yeah, it's creepy. And like, even if that was where it ended, 17 minutes and then he killed her and then like dumped her body right there. Um, no, it's just, yeah, it's weird that her remains would be found exactly 17 or roughly 17 minutes from that motel. Like, I don't know how much of a coincidence that is if that's a coincidence at all. Um, but it's so sketchy. And also in the research that I found, apparently the RCMP allegedly had had possession of this audio tape for about a year before they released it, which is also crazy that they kind of sat on that for a year. Um, it's bizarre in and of itself obviously shows you that they weren't too concerned about getting it out immediately.

And also, I don't even know why it took a year or two for them to get possession of it. Probably because they didn't do an initial investigation right away. So after her remains were found and positively identified through dental records, the family demanded that an investigation into this murder take place.

And in this episode of the national that I mentioned, one woman actually came forward to say that she knew the man in that recording. So they interviewed her in this episode and they hide her identity and they disguise her voice just to keep her anonymous. But she explains that the RCMP dismissed her tip and they did not consider this man that she was naming as a person of interest, even though she was absolutely 100% adamant that she knows the man in that recording.

And interestingly, there's two other women who separately came forward and contacted the RCMP, believing that it was the same man. So you have three different independent people coming forward about the same person that they believe is the man whose that voice belongs to. 

Did they ever investigate this guy or do they just kind of write them off?

Um, I'll get into that just a little bit. Um, in 2014, so here we are, this is four years after her initial disappearance, Amber's mother files a complaint against the Leduc county RCMP because she felt that they failed to investigate that appearance properly from the beginning. And in recent years an inquiry into the investigation was green-lit and throughout the discovery process, the family learned even more information about the failings of the police to properly conduct an investigation. So there were critical mistakes in this investigation that are just glaring right from the beginning. So this includes the fact that Amber was taken off the missing persons list after only one month after being reported missing.

And up to that point, there had only been unconfirmed sightings of Amber and there was nothing really concrete. So there was some tips that came in. Nothing led to anything, but for some reason they took her off the missing persons list. The RCMP claimed that they didn't believe that Amber was in any danger at that time, which was resulting in her removal from that list. And then she was eventually put back onto the list after only one month later. So I don't know what changed in that one month, but they put her back on the list probably when none of those leads panned out. But like, why would you take her off the list? You're just following up on a tip. You can, you're going to take someone off the list because you're following up on a tip. Like you don't know what it's going to lead to ..

Yeah, you think you'd confirm before  you'd be like, oh yeah. You know, they found her don't even know, obviously they didn't! 

Yeah, it's crazy. And then like when they didn't materialize and they just put her back up on the thing.

 I never really heard of anybody being taken off like a missing person's list. And then putting back on like a month later, like, it doesn't make any sense to me. Like, I don't understand why somebody would do that. You'd keep her on the list and go see if that tip panned out. You wouldn't be like, oh, let's just take it off the list and be like, mate, this is it. This is the tip we need. This is like...

I don't know. It's crazy to be like, you, you keep someone on that list until you make an arrest. It's crazy to me that she would get taken off, um, so quickly or no, if they were just like, I dunno, so could appear. And then they said that they didn't think she was in any danger. So like maybe it appeared that they were doing something initially and they're like, oh, this case is getting solved. So we're just gonna take it off, even though obviously they weren't anywhere close for it to being resolved. 

But how did they know that she wasn't in any danger? First thing you can think of, she obviously like is in danger if she's missing and nobody knows where she is. Why would you ... like, I don't know. Why would you even think that?

Because the police, like they said, when, when her mother made the report, they said, oh, she's probably partying. Like, she'll be back. I mean, initially the first few days after, but I don't know what made them think that she wasn't in any danger, but obviously they didn't think that, or they didn't care.

Yeah. It wasn't like her mom called them back and was like, oh, nevermind. Like we got her. Or, you know, I know where she is or something like that never happened. Like, I don't think there was anything that yeah. Where they could have been that confident. And like, I can't imagine what it would have been to make them do that.

I know it's crazy. It's like pretty ballsy of them. Like, they're that confident that they don't have a missing person on their hands. So they just remove her from the list without saying anything. Probably they didn't mention it. They was just, oh, she's off the list. And then they put her back on it and a month later. So .

Always this pattern of like police officers not doing their job properly, like in every fucking case that we've done the last two seasons. 

It's like, when is somebody gonna do something right. For change? 

I know it's crazy! So, yeah, like a lot of the same patterns that we've seen, many other cases are happening here. Um, but also something else that was revealed through the inquiry into the disappearance was the fact that Amber's belongings, including her suitcase from the motel, were thrown out by the RCMP before a thorough search could be done, even though the suitcase and the belongings sat in that hotel or in that motel room for months after it happened.

But nobody did an investigation. No one looked through them. Nothing happened. And then it eventually just got thrown out with the trash somehow and they didn't even conduct the investigation. And then Amber's mother said like, aside from the fact that it could have been used for valuable evidence, potentially, she also said she would have just liked them back her daughter's belongings back. Like they just discarded them without considering anything else, which is pretty sad.

Is that even allowed?

Probably not..

Like, oh, she's not gonna need these anymore. Let's just fucking throw them out. 

Like isn't this like considered evidence tampering? I don't know. I mean, it's not really evidence or it could be though, like, they're not, if they don't search it, they don't know what's in, there could be something that led to something, 

uh, like who chucked them out? The police told the hotel they could chuck them? The hotel just, 

yeah, I don't know who actually did it, 

so the stuff was sitting in that room for how long? 

The reports I saw said months.

My God you'd think that the hotel would be like, you know, take this stuff out of here so we can rent this room out again, at least, you know what I mean?

Like take the, like the police, 

maybe it's not a very busy motel. It goes months without anyone needing a room maybe. 

But I probably like, it wasn't like taped off, like, you know what I mean, people could have went in there and like checked stuff out, like, you know, like, uh, the workers, you know, interested to see what's going on. Like there could have just been like contamination all around. Yeah, maybe the police were like, there's no point anymore. So let's just chuck it. But I don't know. That seems crazy. 

Yeah, it's crazy. But they also don't know what's in those belongings like you never know until you look .Like there could be a letter written by somebody who she was writing to, who she was going to meet in Edmonton or something.

Right. Like you don't know. So it's pretty crazy. Um, and then like in a, in a statement, the RCMP said that, you know, throwing away the suitcase and stuff was due to a series of operational mistakes, miscommunications, and a lack of oversight. That was basically their statement to the Toronto star about why that happened.

It seems like multiple people would have had to like mess up in a chain. Right? Like they didn't collect it to start with, and then it kind of stayed there. Like nobody else followed up, like. And then somebody threw it out. So it was like these like a chain of people fucking up, basically it wasn't like one person made a mistake I feel..

Yeah. Like it hasn't, I feel like I had to get through a lot of different people for that to actually happen. So obviously a lot of different people made a mistake in succession. Um, it's really annoying.. Also ,the Tuccaro family says that a major source of anger over the investigation, um, comes from the fact that the police never interviewed this female friend whom Amber traveled to Edmonton with nor ever considered her a person of interest.

So the RCMP failed to locate or interview her which is pretty crazy in and of itself. Like wouldn't, she have vital information about this case? Like as far as we know, she's the last person to see Amber alive before Amber got into that car. So she must know something like maybe Amber mentioned something to her, about where she was going that day, maybe she noticed like strange behavior from Amber, something was off, or, but she knows something that could provide more information about Amber's case.

Um, or maybe this woman was involved herself potentially. Like maybe she knew knows more than she's saying. Like these are things that we will never know if the police never interview her. And something else that came to light during this discovery process was that the family was tossed around from officer to officer.

The RCMP would really not communicate efficiently at all in a timely fashion with anyone in the family, throughout the investigation. So it seems like the family was left in the dark for a huge portion of this investigation. They never knew the status of what was going on, if there was any leads or anything.

And it's probably to be honest, probably. Not much of an investigation to report on. That's why they're not getting back to them because there's literally nothing happening. So like through this inquiry and through this discovery process. So there was like a series of mistakes that were listed as having been done.

And then there was a series of recommendations on how to like remedy that. One of these recommendations was that the RCMP apologized to the Tuccaro family for their horrible investigation and their misconduct. So on July 25th, 2019, the Alberta RCMP did publicly apologize to the family and Amber's family rejected this apology from the RCMP.

That's pretty much the end of like what we definitively know for sure in this case. Um, the rest I'm going to get into is like possible theories that people have had or possible suspects. And none of the rest of this stuff that I'm going to say has ever been like proven, um, never been confirmed by law enforcement.

So a lot of it is just rumors and stuff that's online. And like the online sleuths that are coming up with stuff in this case. Because this case is still unsolved, there are lots of rumors that are running rampant about who could possibly be responsible. So if you like Google this, if you Google Amber's name, you'll probably come up with a bunch of Reddit forums, a lot of blogs and stuff with potential leads.

Like you'll go down the rabbit hole of this case. It's actually quite interesting. So one of the theories that has been tossed around out there. So many people believed that there was a serial killer in the Leduc county area. That that's the, uh, the area that Amber's body was found. Um, because Amber is one of four women whose remains were discovered in the county around the same time.

Um, so the question was like, could a serial killer be running rampant and using LeDuc county as a dumping ground for the victims. All four victims were Indigenous and Amber was the only one who wasn't a sex worker. So that was kind of like the rumblings initially that some people might've thought that she was a victim of this potential serial killer, but there was never anyone like, definitively like, like thought of as who could be that serial killer per se.

Um, and then there's another interesting theory that's floating around out there. And this was one. Um, so I do have a question for you. Do you guys know anything about the West Mesa bone collector case? 

Yeah, I have heard of it. Um, yeah, you can see like pictures of, out in desert of like holes in places where bodies are put.

Yeah. Yeah. So there's um, between the years of, I believe 2001 and 2005, um, is that they believe that there was, um, 11 women that were murdered by this one person. And if you look at satellite photos  of the area where these bodies were found in the years between 2003, 2005, you can see like visible tire tracks leading to like, like mounds of newly, like formed dirt.

Mounds of dirt that looked like they were like newly created along with these tire tracks. So it's really creepy if you look at the satellite photos. So obviously someone's like driving into this area and dumping bodies, um, and making like new graves in this area. And there was 11 bodies that were eventually found.

Um, and this was in the West Mesa area of New Mexico and 2009, someone just happened upon like, Like bone fragments. And then they did an investigation. They found 11 bodies. Um, a lot of the women were indigenous or Hispanic. Um, so similar demo demographic for all of these victims, but there had not been, they, the bodies were identified. And the last murder was taking place in like 2005 or 2006, I believe. Um, even though the bodies weren't found until three years later, 2009, but anyway, there is a theory floating around out there that the West Mesa bone collector and Amber Tuccaro's murderer are the same person. Now, some people believe this thinking that, you know, he might've fled the country.

When the, when the bodies were discovered in 2009, fled the country, um, which would put him in, they think in Canada in 2009, and then Amber was obviously murdered in 2010. So, um, there was actually a news report. So there was a man who called a private investigator, claiming that he knows what happened to all of those women in the West Mesa area.

And he left a voicemail on this private investigator's voicemail explaining this. And so the voicemail was then released and compared to the man heard in Amber's phone call, and people said that the voices are very eerily similar. Um, and that's what led to this theory for the most part. And so people thought like, this person who's calling this PI like he might feel a little bit more comfortable calling in and explaining this if he's left the country, like if he was still in the area, people might think like, oh, like, why would he like do that? But people think, oh, he might've left the country. And that's why he feels like. Confident in calling, knowing that they might be harder for him, them to find him. So they think he fled the area in 2009 and went to Canada, the Edmonton area and was possibly responsible for Amber's murder.

So like I said, while the voices are definitely similar, if you'll listen to like the side-by-side comparison, other his videos out there that people put together a side by side comparison. So you can look that up, um, and listen to it for yourself. But I will tell you that they are similar sounding, uh, but lots of people have also debunked this.

And they don't really think that there's a ton of legs to it, but it's potentially possible. 

What are the reasons for debunking?

The reasons people... just think like it's a little bit, far-fetched like, there's nothing really concrete, like to actually back it up and I'll go a little bit further. I'll get into a little bit later. One of the other theories kind of ties into. 

Okay. I guess you could say like, it's similar, how like, um, the West Mesa was a lot of sex workers, so that's, those are easy people to pick up and then she was hitchhiking. So that's an easy person to pick up, but I mean, that's they're targets for lots of people. So, you know, being like one person  did it, it's not obvious at all. 

Yeah. Like there's lots of serial killers that target sex workers and stuff. So like that alone isn't and like, yeah, it happened in 2010, which was a year after the west. Like those bones were found. Like to say like, oh, then he fled the country to Edmonton.

Like the timeline adds up. But like, because it could be millions of people, you know what I mean? Like it's...

 yeah. It's.. It's kind of, far-fetched not like detailed enough, I guess.

 I never heard of this West Mesa thing. 

Yeah. It's really like that case is pretty interesting if you look it up, but it's like, like I said, the satellite images, you can see through a couple of year window where like the visible tire tracks, like it's clear someone is driving that route to dispose of these bodies.

It doesn't even cross my mind that boat, that that's those sightings and stuff. And every, I never even heard of it. That's interesting. I'll have to look that up. 

Yeah. And people think like could that tie into the other theory with like the serial killer in the Leduc county area? Like, is that the same serial killer as the West Mesa bone collector?

Like that could be tied. So there was also that talks about that too, but it's been largely like debunked. I don't think it has much legs now, but I think like early on in the investigation, it might've been something that people really believed. 

Were any of these theories like of the people they think that did it were any of these people questioned or any people like, 

well, I'll get into a little bit of that later, but for some of them, but like a lot of this is just online, like sleuths like amateur, like, you know, people who are super into true crime and they're like trying to connect it and trying to solve the case themselves.

So I don't really know the extent of like what the police actually looked into besides a couple of things. Later on. I'll tell you. Um, so the next theory is, um, so the most persistent theory that's out there. I think like if you look up this case, I think the number one theory that you'll kind of see the man in the voice recording belongs to a man named Pat Carson and Pat Carson, he is an Alberta based farmer who is apparently notorious in the local communities for inviting people, especially women out to his ranch to help him, you know, work on the ranch in exchange for free room and board. Um, there are numerous online accounts of people's experiences on this ranch, but none of these has been officially confirmed by law enforcement.

So it's believed that this man is the same man that the three women came forward about just after the audio recording was released. So they there's like speculation that Pat Carson is the man that those three women separately came forward and said, Nope, that's his voice. A hundred percent. Apparently this guy uses, um, a lot of different aliases and he's a previously convicted sex offender and there's actually online websites dedicated to warning the public about him and his ranch.

And so, like I said, he uses multiple aliases and posts Craigslist ads using these fake names to try to encourage people to come out to his ranch and help out. Um, there was one online account. Again, this isn't like confirmed by law enforcement, but it's just kind of what what's out there. Somebody did post saying that they actually had went to his ranch.

It was her and her boyfriend. I believe they went to the ranch after he approached them, um, to help out. And they said that he was very, very creepy. He said, they said one of the first things that he mentioned to them, he asked them, do you believe that people can change? Um, they thought that was kind of weird.

Um, and they said he was just super creepy, like super socially unaware. Like he would ask weird questions. He would like make weird eye contact. This account says that he drove them into the city and he would have the two of them, like get out and talk to people in the community and try to convince more people to come out to the farm or the ranch.

So they would like pretend to talk to people when he wasn't looking. Cause like he was super, super creepy. And then he also mentioned something about how it would be so nice if the couple, like, you know, if they had a baby and then they could like all raise the baby together. It's like very creepy, weird vibe.

So apparently like this couple, like got the fuck out of there. Um, they made like some excuses to how they, why they needed to leave. So they made it out alive, but then they like posted, um, this account of their experience on his ranch and other people have come up forward saying they had a similar experience.

Um, so he lives in the Edmonton area. Um, this ranch, it's like kind of a rural area, but people, they believe that's the man that they were trying to name as the one who was in that recording, because they said that they knew his voice. Like as soon as they heard. So that's definitely like I said one of the most persistent theories that's out there.

 About this guy, was there any like reports that he had, like a lower IQ or something? Like, to me, it kind of sounds like someone that may be like, you know, doesn't have a high IQ. Doesn't really have a lot of friends and is trying to like, you know, gain a community for himself. This is like the only way he knows how, but it's like super awkward, but he doesn't know that.

Yeah. I didn't see any like, official reports about that. And like that could totally be the case. And these people are just saying like, oh, you're super creepy, like super socially inept. Um, but I mean, he is a convicted sex offender, allegedly. That's what's out there. So he has, there has been reports where he has assaulted other women, um, this couple, or this woman that posted this thing that I read, didn't say that that had happened to her, but apparently people in like the community around the ranch and the surrounding communities, like all know of this man.

He's very notorious, like creepy, weird, um, 

So not like an innocent guy, just looking for friends, like, yeah, 

definitely. Allegedly a creep 

an alleged creep. 

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but like I said, if you like Google this, this case, like this would be like probably the number one theory. You'll see that. You'll see that name come up a lot.

Um, a lot of people's accounts. So there is people believe that he picked her up, she was hitchhiking and like assaulted her, murdered her. 

He was probably going to bring, bring her out to the ranch, where they on their way to his ranch? 

I don't know. I mean, I don't know. I didn't find anything like saying like how close the ranch was to like where her remains were found or anything. Like, I don't know that, but it's possible who knows? 

We put up a fight and he probably like had to yeah, definitely fought back 

for sure. Yeah, for sure. And that's also in an interview with Amber's mother, she says like, Amber is the type she would fight back. She's not just going to like, you know, Uh, she doesn't say this, but I'm just extrapolating, but like, she would not be someone who would be like considered quote unquote, easy target.

Like she would fight back. She'd be very hard to, as she put it before. 

Oh yeah. You can just, you can tell them that even though the sixty second video, like how she's like arguing with this guy, like most people would be like too scared to do anything wrong. in that kind of situation where she's like fighting with him.

Like, no, you're not doing this. Like where are you going? Like, so you can tell she would definitely like fight for her life. 

Did she have like defensive wounds when they did like an autopsy? Like 

on, like I said, none of the autopsy findings were ever revealed to the public.

 Oh, okay. 

So they just found her skull.

I don't know if they just found her skull. That might've been the only thing they found. Cause it was two years later. So she would have been probably decomposed. Right. So just her.. I believe just her skull was found, but yeah, nothing was ever released about what her cause of death was or anything. Um, so in the last theory that I'm going to get into, um, this is actually like the most recent one that's come out.

And in January of 2020 was when it was kind of released, um, a man allegedly contacted Alberta RCMP to accuse his own father David McKisson as the man responsible for Amber's murder. So this man posted a lengthy Facebook post explaining all the reasons why he believed his father was responsible for not only Amber's murder, but the murders of several other young women in the surrounding areas.

Um, this post is quickly taken down, um, from Facebook quite soon after it was posted, um, his son, Dustin claims, it was cause he was getting threats. His family was getting threats. So he took the post down. Um, but the post explained that his father had been staying at a rural ranch in the greater Edmonton area since about 2009.

And said that he's an American citizen with no legal standing in Canada. He alleges that the family suspects it's like the entire family suspects that he's linked to other disappearances and murders in the US dating all the way back to 1970s. So people are thinking is this is David McKisson the West Mesa bone collector, a man from the US who has connections to potentially other murders, other disappearances.

He fled in 2009 to Canada. And now he's living on a, in a rural ranch. Could that also connect to Pat Carson, this ranch.. Like is that the ranch he was staying at, so kind of like all comes together and then that serial killer from the Leduc County that they're speculating like, is that the same person? So these kind of all tie together in that way.

Um, so super creepy. If this, uh, David McKisson person is. Is that guy. There's also video that Dustin posted where he plays a voicemail, um, that he received from his father. And he plays that voicemail right next to Amber's.. That call the man in Amber's phone call and the, those voices are similar. I will say that voice that he plays on the voicemail is more similar than that apparent guy who called the PI. But if it's the same guy, I mean, the, they could also be the same guy too, it's like that guy who called the PI was the West Mesa bone collector who was then David McKisson like, you know, kind of all ties in. So maybe it is the same guy, but the voices sound similar. Debates about the veracity of his statements have persisted since it was discovered that the same man.

So Dustin had allegedly contacted RCMP in December, 2019 with similar claims about other missing women whose murders had already been solved so he was kind of coming up with these tips, but their murders were already solved and it wasn't this person and they also there's posts out there. Again, I don't know what I can say against this guy.

Um, they say that he's a novel or horror novel fiction writer, and they think that he's just kind of trying to stir up interest in his books. And this is kind of like this guy genre. So he's kind of one. Be a part of it, but obviously Dustin and his whole family are adamant that no, it is their father.

He's responsible for Amber's murder is releasing like posts, like videos about it. And he's kind of adamant about it. So I don't really know. What do you guys have any thoughts about these series? 

Have the police looked into this guy recently? 

Yeah. So apparently the police they did cause he contacted the RCMP and the police have looked into it.

Um, nothing ever came of it. Didn't consider him to be a person of interest after they contacted him or looked into him or somehow did an investigation of some sort. 

Hm. I wonder if they just like, look at the background and oh, like someone accused him of all these other crimes that were already committed.

It's probably not like reliable or if they actually did like a good search around. 

Yeah. Like who knows? They could have just dropped, been dropping the ball again and again and again, like they've done before, but, um, yeah, they might've said like, oh, this guy also called this RCMP office, about these other murders, but they were already solved and it was someone else.

So they're like, he's probably just like, what are the chances that, you know, it's legitimate or whatever. Um, but yeah, like did that ever, they never released like, full details about like, if they interviewed this guy or like anything they just said. But they weren't really considered like, like there is articles from when that first came out saying like they were looking into it, but then they were also warning the public against like random claims or something.

So it made it seem like they were suspicious that it was just kind of like a random claim that didn't really match, but they were also looking into it. But nothing ever came of it. 

So it's so interesting that it could be like the West Mesa bone collector, like, but how, I don't know how they'd ever be able to connect those cases because they could never find the guy in West Mesa that did it.

They can't find this guy. So like they can't connect them together because they don't know anything about either of them. So it was like, it could be. It's also likely it's not too. 

Yeah. And like I said, the voices were similar that they played, like when you listened to that voicemail of the guy who called the PI and you play it next to this, like, it does sound similar, but like, I feel like it was a lot of voices that might sound similar to that man.

Like, I don't know. But then there was also people who were like from the Edmonton area or from the Alberta area who say that the man in Amber's voice recording. Like they can tell it's a person who's native to that area just based on like the tone, the way he talks, like people from around that area, like talk the same way.

So they say that this guy who's allegedly the West Mesa bone collector, like he's not from that area so he wouldn't sound that way. 

Is it possible that there could be two people involved in this? 

It's very is possible. We have no idea. We don't even really know anything. All we know is she got into it. Well, there's only one, man. And the voice recorded is only one, man. 

Well, maybe like the bone, the West Mesa bone collector, and then this other person could be like together or is that even a possibility, like to be totally two different people? 

Well, it could be, but like I said, there's only one man in that voice recording. So there wasn't two people there. 

No, but the other guy could be there, but not saying anything.

Yeah. I don't know. I mean, anything's possible who knows? Like, I don't know. All these theories could be totally way completely far off. Like I said, nothing's been confirmed by law enforcement or like actually like obviously no charges have been laid, so no one really knows anything more than what they did before. So it's still very much unsolved and all they know is that she got into a car with an unknown man. Her remains were found 17 minutes from the hotel and that's it. So a million possibilities. 

That's crazy. I wonder if like, do they know that that's where she was there the whole time? Or was it looked like it had been recently dumped there the body, like as any of that info come out?

No. That never has come out or wasn't released like the, um, when they were doing like the, the inquiry into the disappearance and stuff, like the full report was sent to the family. Like they got the full, like rundown. The entire investigation, like what went wrong, all that stuff. And the family only released like a part of it.

So like the most important, like the big, huge mistakes that the police made. So there could have been something in there, but like that part of the investigation, like if the body was moved or so they might know a little bit more, but I feel like there's, you know, so heavily advocating for Amber, like they're determined to get this solved.

Like, I feel like if they knew that information, they would put it out there. So the fact that they didn't makes me think that they don't know anything more than, than we do. Yeah. 

That's interesting. Um, or the police, I can't, well, I can't see them releasing it to the, the family, if the police didn't want them to release that kind of stuff. Cause you know how they want to hold stuff back to see who knows what, but I feel like they wouldn't have given that to the family if they didn't want it out there. So they probably don't know... the family doesn't know. 

Yeah. And like, there's so many Reddit forums about this case. Like I said, there's so many internet sleuths, so I didn't go, like I went down the rabbit hole a little bit, obviously when I was looking at these theories, but like, there's probably so much more like rabbit holes down there.

Like there's probably so much other stuff I could find. So like, if you go online and you look at this case, you might come up with a bunch of different things that are possible, but I didn't want to go too far down that. Because we still don't know. Nothing's been confirmed. These are only just kind of the most common ones that I've been seeing.

Hmm. Interesting. I wonder if anything else is going to come out anytime soon about this, if they're ever going to be able to figure it out. 

I know it's been like what, it's been 11 years since she went missing. Like this past August would have been 11 years. So it's really, really hard if the police are not willing to do their job. And like I said, all of this could have been avoided if they had done the initial investigation 11 years ago, they could know maybe so much more than they do now. And the chances of them actually finding out more information that would lead to this arrest, like, you know, more and more unlikely the more time that goes by.

Yeah. So that's the Amber Tuccaro case. Um, it's pretty, it's crazy. Um, and like I said, and also I did just want to say, um, I know we didn't get into the highway of tears, but this area of Alberta is not too far off of the highway of tears. If you look at it, just geographically on the map. So it's not a part of the highway of tears story that we're going to get into later, but it's like adjacent to that, but it just another story of an indigenous woman who died way too young.

And it was one of those unfortunately hundreds or thousands of women on that list of unsolved murder cases. So, yeah. Do you guys have any final thoughts before we wrap it up or...

 I hope she gets like, some justice comes from this. Like they find the person who did it, or, but I feel like nobody's really looking into it anymore. So I feel like it's kind of like a dead end type thing.

 And yeah, there is a lot of I don't want to say grassroots, but there's a lot of like Facebook pages or groups about find Amber Tuccaro um, like there's a lot of that stuff out there. And so there's a lot of, and obviously these people who are like tracking these leads and like posting all this stuff online, like there is a huge... A lot of people online who are doing it, but it's not really a mainstream thing. Like, unless you're looking down the, read the Reddit rabbit holes at this case, like you're not really going to see any of that. So the mainstream media isn't really paying attention, but there is a lot of support like on social media for her.

And it's definitely one of the more prevalent cases of missing and murdered indigenous women. Like, and even this one, isn't like super well-known, but it's one of the more well-known ones, which is sad. But, yeah, it's just crazy. And hopefully they do find justice eventually at some point that would be the ideal outcome.

Anyone with information about Amber's case are encouraged to call the Alberta RCMP at 780- 412-5424. Or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, which is 1-800-222-8477. You can also email the CBC at mmiw@cbc.ca with any credible information or tips about Amber's case or any other missing and murdered indigenous women's case.

So. This has been part two of our mini little mini series here. So stay tuned for part three. Steph is going to tell us, um, the cases of two other missing indigenous women. So we're going to hear those stories next week. Um, until then you can find us on social media on Instagram @crimefamilypodcast, Facebook at Crime Family Podcast, on Twitter @crimefamilypod1.

And as always, you can email us case suggestions, tips, feedback, reviews, ratings, anything like that on our email, which is crimefamilypodcast@gmail.com. So we hope you've enjoyed part two and stay tuned for next week's episode where you hear part three. Thanks. Have a good one. And we'll see you next week.