01x02 - Where is Tom Brown?

[bunniefuu]

Canadian, Texas.

It's everything you think of

when you think of a small town.

And of course it has
Friday night football.

Well, we've got about 31 minutes before we
kick this region one semifinal game off.

Before we take another
quick time out, we wanna say

that we come on the air tonight
with some troubled hearts.

Then in the background,

something dark and
profound was going on.

No one disappears
from Canadian, Texas.

He just vanished.

I was scared. And
I just thought,

I can't lose anybody else.

"There's a k*ller among us."

Our belief is

we are investigating a
homicide at this point.

If you're a student at
Canadian High School,

no need to be charged with a
crime for withholding information.

We're all kinda going,

we don't trust any of you now.

Somebody knows

what happened to Tom Brown.

Somebody surely knows.

I was in town

because we were on Thanksgiving
break out of school.

And, uh, I was
excited to see Tom.

And we had planned... don't remember
what movie we were gonna watch,

but we had planned to watch
a movie when he got home

on Thanksgiving eve.

But you know, he... he
didn't wanna do that.

That was boring.
You know, we...

we had been in the house all day,
so he needed some social time.

Thomas left my house
at about 6:15, 6:20

to go hang out with friends,

which was completely normal.

Especially on, you know, a night

that we would not have
school the next day.

The last thing I said
was, I'll see you later.

There was nothing
abnormal, um...

Nothing out of the ordinary,

it was just, I'll see you later.

- - What you do around here

is drive around and listen
to music with your friends.

That's what he told
me he was gonna go do.

It was Tom,

Christian Webb and Kaleb King

all in the vehicle together.

Tom had a very defined
loop that he liked to drive

and it was out towards
the Canadian bridge.

We'd go out a little
ways out of town

and then we'd turn
onto County Road.

We would pass by a few
friends' houses on the way,

then we would turn at
the football stadium.

Then come back towards town,

out another direction.

Thomas had a curfew of midnight.

12:00.

Thomas had never broken curfew.

So when he wasn't
home by 12:00,

it did worry me,
because he just...

that just didn't happen for him.

So then I texted him.

Hey, you know, where are you,

it's, you know,
past your curfew.

You need to get home.

We didn't get any messages.

And so I called him

and I... it... it got
sent to voicemail.

Your call has been forwarded to an
automated voice messaging system.

806-446...

Then I texted him again.

And I noticed after
my second text

that it was not delivered.

That was more alarming to me,

because teenage kids are
not gonna turn a phone off.

Yeah, I remember looking
on the dot at 12:13,

and I thought,
something's weird.

I said, I'll go see,

um, you know, if,

you know, he's just
talking somewhere,

you know, just a little long, and
I'll go tell him to come home.

My biggest fear, though,

is that we might
not find him in time

to save him if he'd
gotten in a car accident.

I called Kaleb King's mom

because I wasn't
sure if he was there.

She woke Kaleb up,

because he's in bed asleep.

And Kaleb also called
Christian at her house.

The last time Christian
and Kaleb saw Thomas

was about maybe 11:15, 11:20,

when they had gone back to
the middle school parking lot

and had gotten, you know,
into their individual cars

and they were all headed home.

Christian and Kaleb were pretty shocked
that he did not show back up at the house.

I was filled with dread, really.

And that's kinda when I
started to panic and think

maybe something
went utterly wrong.

Just a few years before that,

I had lost my grandmother,
and I just thought,

I... you know, I
really don't...

I can't lose anybody else.

Everyone in town knew Tom.

He had a very outgoing,
light-hearted,

funny personality.

Thomas was the class
president for two years.

I mean, he was just a big kid.

Just a big, lovable
teddy bear almost.

Tom really...

He loved football.

Canadian is as much like any other
small town in Texas, you know.

Football is king.

Every other young boy's dream

is to grow up to be a Canadian
Wildcats Football player.

Tom, he was a starter
his senior year,

and... and he was ecstatic.

Texas football.

That's the only way
to do it. You know,

high school football,
Friday nights, it's...

it's the thing to do. It's
the thing, the place to be.

The stadium in Canadian
has seats for 3,000 people,

which is 300 more than the entire
population of Canadian itself.

Thomas had won two
state championships.

He was good enough to play
on the offensive line.

One of my fondest memories

was winning the state
semifinal football game.

On our way to the state
football game that year.

And me, me and Tom, we hugged
each other and embraced.

I was so pumped about it.

Not many people get
the chance to...

to make it that far.

That's pretty awesome.

But about midway
through the senior year,

Tom was replaced.

It was kind of a
game time decision.

Our coach felt like he could
trust this other player

more than he could Tom.

Tom, he was just,

he was devastated by it.

He decided that he didn't
wanna be on the team any more.

And he quit.

After he left the football team,

I really didn't
know who I would use

to be my partner any more.

It was weird um, not
having him there.

I called the sheriff's
department at about 2:15 or 2:20.

It was about an hour
and a half, I guess,

after I called them before
they showed up at my house.

It was Deputy Pyne Gregory.

I was surprised that
it took so long.

It's a small town.

It only takes about 10 minutes.

I asked the deputy if I could ride
with him, and I would show him

some of the places Tom hung out,

where he might be.

I was getting hysterical.

I was anxious and I
was, you know, I was...

I was scared.

They drove around.

I'm not sure how many hours.

Eventually he said,

I'm gonna take you home,

I'm gonna go off duty,

Sheriff Lewis will
be on in a few hours.

One of the... the
biggest traditions,

um, in Canadian football

is to have practice on
Thanksgiving morning.

It's just a real short
practice, a short run-through,

and I remember we
were in our huddle

and Coach Kennedy came
up and told us, he goes,

be on the lookout for Tom. He
didn't come home last night

and nobody's heard
from him or seen him.

I was at Alexander's.

Our local grocery and deli.

Getting a Coke as usual.

And you know,

everybody was talking about it.

It doesn't take long to find
out something in Canadian.

Thomas is missing.

We had people that,

you know, were willing to do
whatever to try and find Thomas.

That's what we do.

Lots of community members

started gathering
to begin to search.

They had four wheelers,
they had horseback,

they had people driving around.

So I was trying to be hopeful

and not go to the
worst case scenario.

But I did not know
what to think at all.

It's a helpless feeling.

Christian and her
dad are pilots.

He flies helicopters.

They went up and they were
flying over the county.

They were the one that
spotted Tom's car.

Sheriff Lewis receives a call

with a big development.

A car had been found.

The sheriff and his people
immediately respond.

It was a Dodge Durango.

It was red.

All the football boys
have their cars decorated.

Thomas did have writing on his car
from the beginning of the year.

"Go Cats."

So they knew that
it was Thomas' car.

They found it by sewage ponds.

It stinks out there.

Nobody hung out down there.

It was just like Thomas had
driven up and parked it,

except that he wasn't there.

There's absolutely no
sign of Tom at all.

Tom has vanished.

Chris and Jen, weekday mornings.

It's as American as apple pie.

On 98.3, KXDJ.

Every weekday morning,

the people that live
East of the panhandle

turn in to a little
radio station

that is hosted by a local DJ

named Chris Samples.

He's an old fashioned town crier

that lets everybody know
what's going on in town.

Do I understand correctly

that the... the
young man's vehicle

was found abandoned

near your water
treatment plant facility?

Is that correct?

That is correct.

We've got the Randall
County Sheriff's posse

down here with a
search and rescue team.

They are on horseback searching.

The investigation was
led by Nathan Lewis,

the sheriff of the county.

He was a young man who
had just been elected,

had been in office for
only a couple of months.

They begin looking around

and they get inside the
vehicle, which is open.

His wallet, keys,

cell phone, all of
that stuff was gone.

There was this
small smear of blood

which turned out
to be Tom's blood

on the door handle of
the driver's side door.

On the floorboard was found
a .25 caliber b*llet casing.

It's Texas, so
everyone has a g*n,

but not Tom, 'cause
Tom didn't like g*ns.

So...

Not, uh... not something I would
expect him to have his hands on.

They find little
pieces of evidence.

Intriguing. Mysterious.

But there is no sign
of Tom whatsoever.

We had a pack of
bloodhound dogs in here,

and that's what they do
every day. They track scents.

Mmm-hmm.

And we tracked him East of
where the vehicle was found.

They'll come up to a
dead end at that point.

Soon as the bloodhounds got
to the actual water marsh,

they lost the scent.

The clock is ticking.

And you're just kind of
waiting on them to find Tom.

They told us there was
nothing for us to do.

We just trusted
the law enforcement

to do what they felt
like they needed to do.

I really tried to stay on
the positive side of it.

I tried to stay away from
the thought that, um,

that he was dead. Uh, at all.

Because nothing
bad happens here.

Chris, we've had a numerous amount
of people over here helping us,

and this young man's picture,

bolo, the teletypes, it's on the
front of their computer screens.

And so, law enforcement community,
if you will, are just tremendous.

I would say 5:00 on
Thanksgiving Day,

the sheriff brought
Thomas' car to my house.

I said, "You're telling me that
you've already processed the car?"

"Oh, yeah. We don't
need it any more."

It was pretty shocking.

We thought, well,
that's a little odd,

because wouldn't you impound it?

You have, you know, you
have that to fall back on

if you need to do
forensics later.

Wanna say that we come
on the air tonight

with some troubled hearts.

Thinking a lot of
the Brown family

and, uh, thoughts and
prayers to you guys,

and be... we'll be
hoping for the best

and putting this in God's hands.

That Friday at the Wildcat game,

the crowd was very subdued.

What happened?

You know, what happened?

What happened, where was he?

This is crazy.

I was struggling.

Tom had always been the
person who had told me,

you gotta do what you gotta do,

make it happen, do your best.

So I went and I did my best.

But I had just got
a feeling that...

Things were not gonna end up

the way we wanted 'em to.

I was like, man, I'm gonna...
I'm gonna play this for Tom.

Because he was very
important to me.

I was scared that maybe
he wasn't coming home.

No one disappears. I mean,

not from Canadian,
Texas, you know?

I mean, into thin
air, apparently.

Within a few days,

I was very concerned about how
the investigation was going.

And I was so concerned about it

that I went to the
sheriff's office.

And he said to me,

"When we found the
car, I just thought

that Thomas committed
suicide like your dad had."

My mom was a teacher at
Canadian High School,

and Sheriff Nathan
Lewis was a student

when my dad committed suicide.

I guess he thought that it had been
passed down through the family.

I was very angry with
him when he said that.

But it just didn't seem like
something Thomas would do.

He did not seem depressed.

After he quit football,

you know, the first
week or so was, um,

kind of hard.

But he decided to turn
his attention to theater

because that was really something
that he liked to do a lot.

And he was, um,

about to start the fall
production for, um,

theatre or drama.

And he was very
excited about it.

Plus, I didn't know how
it could be a suicide

if you don't find the
body of the person

who committed suicide.

And I had tried to let
the sheriff do his job.

But I was apprehensive because

we did not get off
on the right foot.

About a year-and-a-half
before Thomas went missing,

Nathan Lewis and I
had had an incident.

He's a deputy,

coming in off duty one night.

And Thomas had been downtown
hanging out with some kids.

And he stops them
and accuses them

of trying to break
into a theater

on Main Street.

He singles Thomas
out of the group.

"You need to get in my car."

And the whole time
he's using swear words.

The F word a lot.

And he proceeds
to question Thomas

in the car about what he's
been doing that evening.

And Thomas tells him. He's...

He goes, "I'm on my way home."

Eventually, he lets
Thomas go home.

My mom and I questioned
him numerous times.

You know, did you...
did you break in there?

I mean, was... was
the stop justified?

He said no.

Our friend lives above it.

We didn't break in.

And so we said, okay.

I did have to talk to
the sheriff's department.

I just think that
Lewis was mad at me

because I called him
out for stopping my son.

Well, fast forward to
Tom's disappearance.

And the last cop that Penny wants
investigating the disappearance

is Lewis.

Because she thinks Lewis has
a bias against her own son.

I was so upset

that I started
asking some friends

about private investigators,

and one of them
had given me, um,

Philip Klein's name.

He specialized in
missing persons.

Missing children.

One of her comments to me was,

we need you. This sheriff doesn't
know what he's damn well doing.

Please. Please,
please help us.

She had me at the
first "please".

I packed my bags and I
was headed to Canadian.

Thomas Brown was last seen

just hours before
Thanksgiving Day.

And since then, the story
of his disappearance

has captured the attention of people
in and around the Texas panhandle.

A few days after
Tom's disappearance,

Philip Klein arrives in Canadian

in his big black Suburban,

pulls up to the
Sheriff's Department.

Klein was a big,
bold, bombastic,

opinionated, hard-hitting
private detective.

He introduced himself
to Sheriff Lewis

and says, "I'm Philip Klein and I'm
here to solve the Tom Brown case."

First thing, he started
talking about suicide.

"Oh, Tom k*lled himself."

I just thought that was
BS from the beginning.

He would have been
upfront with people,

because he loved us
and he respected us,

and he didn't want people
to worry about him.

I interviewed some
of his friends,

from his ex-girlfriend Sage

to his good friend Christian.

Other boys that knew
him, who said that Tom

would occasionally
get melancholy.

But I would always ask,

did it feel like he
was acting suicidal.

And they would say no.

Christian and Kaleb, the
friends with him that night,

they just said it
was a normal night.

That, um, they went
and drove around.

Thomas was funnier than he
had been in a long time.

You know, he he was just
rolling with jokes, you know?

His character was at...
you know, at a high.

Tom had never once
mentioned to me

that he was
depressed or anxious,

that he wanted to end his life.

Lewis immediately
distrusts Klein.

Lewis saw Klein as this
overly opinionated figure

who came to conclusions before he had
the evidence to back those conclusions.

Klein saw Lewis as a rookie

who didn't know anything
about investigations,

who was just getting in his way.

So Klein begins to do
his own investigation.

And then within a month
after Tom's disappearance,

Sheriff Lewis made an appearance
on Chris Samples' radio show.

And he said that the
most likely theory

was that Tom had
been hitchhiking

or was picked up by someone

and disappeared from Canadian,

left the town altogether.

I will say that
most of everybody

has been interviewed
by somebody.

What we are coming up
with by these interviews

is going back and determining that
the young man did leave voluntarily.

We're gonna do everything and
still do everything we can

to locate him and
bring him home.

A workman for the
local power company

checking some electric lines

was walking through an area

off of Lake Marvin Road,

and he came across a backpack...

Which had books in it

and a laptop and was sitting
perfectly in an upright position.

It was Tom's backpack.

The backpack had been
there for a while.

It was wet.

Inside the backpack

were Thomas'...

some of his school
papers and notebooks,

um, and his laptop.

The laptop was sent
to a forensics lab.

All it had was his
school work on there.

The laptop had not been used
since Thomas disappeared.

The sheriff told me that

he thought Thomas left it there.

That is not what I believe.

From that parking space

where that Durango was found,

to where the backpack was found,

by air,

would've had to be
five, maybe six miles,

somewhere in there.

You gotta walk through
rugged terrain.

Tom wasn't an outdoors person,

and that night, it
was really cold.

You cannot walk across
the Canadian River.

I mean, you cannot cross
the river bottom by foot.

If he was committing suicide,
why would he do that?

Had someone abducted Tom
and taken the backpack

and put it on the
other side of the fence

so that no one could find it?

It was just another one
of these little mysteries

in a story that was getting more
and more mysterious all the time.

We started thinking,
there's more to this case

going on than a young man

that has just
simply disappeared.

I brought a cadaver dog

and one of the best trainers in
the United States on cadaver dogs

to Canadian.

Remember, the dog doesn't
hit on tracking a person.

It tracks on human death scent.

When you die, immediately
your body releases a scent.

That dog hit all over that car.

There was a dead
body in the car.

We asked them,

can we run the dog on the
backpack and see if it'll hit?

"Why y'all wanna do that?"

They would not allow us to
get close to the backpack.

Now, if that doesn't
tell you something,

nothing does.

We finally look at
each other and go,

we're getting
blocked by the cops.

What in the hell's going on?

Klein begins to get suspicious.

He began to think,

could there be a m*rder going on
here that's getting covered up?

And so his suspicion began
to drive his investigation.

Last time we spoke,
the backpack evidence

had just been unveiled

and that was very
suspicious to you.

Everybody wants to talk about
a guy that's running away.

He never used his credit card.

He hasn't used it.

And he had no cash on him.

You don't have your car.

We know he's not a runner.

The big question is, is why was the
backpack out on Lake Marvin Road?

Was it thrown there?
Was it placed there?

Our team is investigating
this as a homicide.

Our phone lines
lit up like crazy.

Plenty of rumors started up.

Things started getting
a little heavier online.

There were rumors

that someone had k*lled him

and put his body
into a wood chipper,

and... and... and
scattered the remains.

The speculation just went crazy.

The pressure on the great
people of Canadian is...

Is growing.

Banners that would go up, uh,

would declare, "There's
a k*ller among us."

I cannot explain

how many rumors were
going through town

after Tom Brown disappeared.

The rumors about Sheriff Lewis

were just almost insane.

He had some kind of
g*y love ring going.

That he was selling
Tom as a sex sl*ve

to sex traffickers
from out of town.

Completely unfounded.

Completely untrue.

And defamatory.

It's all a big blow up now

of this one says this, one
says this, this one says this.

It kind of split the town.

Either you were for
the sheriff's office,

or you were against
the sheriff's office.

I say this.

She's missing her son.

And I understand
that, and like I said,

it's very emotional for her.

I mean, people
talk gossip and...

And the gospel. You're
always gonna have critics.

Most of 'em don't have a clue
what they're talking about,

and/or don't know
anything about this case.

I don't feel bad for myself

or anybody up here when
those rumors are said,

because we all know
the truth of it.

I don't feel like we have
to say anything against it.

Finally, I just said, quit
listening to the sheriff,

what does your gut tell you?

We were told

that there was a massive search

that was done in the area

where the backpack was found.

Then we started finding the
ranger that was out there.

He said, "We didn't
do a line search."

I mean, I beat my fist on
the table five or six times.

His body's right there.

So I organized a search

on Lake Marvin Road

for Tom Brown's body.

On October the 13th,

uh, there's a little bit
of welcomed good news

when the Canadian
Wildcats won a big game

over the Childress Bobcats.

The next day, some
150 volunteers

gather together on
Lake Marvin Road

to search for Tom.

I was listening to all
of the radio traffic

of all of our people, directing
people and that sort of thing,

and they call me and said hey,

you need to come back up here

to mile marker number one.

We found a phone.

It was a rose
colored cell phone.

And everybody looked
at it and goes,

that's in pristine condition.

And I said it fell
off of somebody's car,

or it's one of the
searchers' phones.

It was sent out to Quantico.

According to the FBI,

it was Tom Brown's phone.

And that's when we all kind of
looked at each other and went

oh my God, what the heck?

It had not been
sitting out there

for nearly a year.

There had been rainstorms,

ice storms, mowers
going over that area.

And the phone was untouched.

It looked like it had
just come out of the box

and had fallen to the ground.

If you thought the backpack
evidence was mysterious,

the discovery of Tom's iPhone

is even more mysterious.

It didn't take long for
that rumor mill to start.

How did it get there? Uh...

The speculation is

that if somebody has
ditched this phone.

I think that Sheriff Lewis

thought Klein did it.

There are people that believe

that was plausible.

I think that

since the sheriff's
department knew

where the search was,

that someone in the department

put the phone out there.

To try to put the
phone into evidence.

Since the night he went missing,

they kept asking me
for that passcode.

You don't need it.

Unless you have the phone.

We're dealing with
an insider job.

We're dealing with
an internal thing.

Somebody that's in a high
place in law enforcement.

I know wholeheartedly

that there's nobody
in this department

that would ever do
something like that.

We took the case as it
come in, and we've done

a heck of a job with it.

I've had the Texas Rangers and
FBI involved in the disappearance.

And then shortly thereafter,
Mr. Klein comes on my radio program,

and says quite the opposite.

Those men do not like
each other. At all.

They did not
respect one another.

And it is still
ugly to this day.

I have a hard time with conspiracy
theories. Some of this suggested stuff

really cast dark shadows on
Hemphill County law enforcement.

Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't
think the Texas Rangers are in

the business of covering up for small
town law enforcement agencies, are they?

No, absolutely not. But every
case takes twists and turns.

I decided to post a petition on our
Facebook - page, called "Moms4 - Tom,"

um, to petition the Attorney
General's office to get involved,

and take over Thomas' case.

I believe that Thomas' disappearance
is a cover-up of something.

So at the beginning of 2018,

myself and another investigator
named Chris Smyth started

visiting Canadian to figure out
what exactly had happened to Thomas,

and try to determine who had
possibly placed the phone outside

just before Philip
Klein's search.

And it was determined that we
would like to polygraph Penny Meek.

Once Tom Brown's
phone was discovered,

in pretty much near-perfect
condition, the OAG determined

it was likely that somebody was
in possession of Tom's phone

since he had
disappeared in 2016.

So, we started steps in trying
to determine who that could be.

You're always going to use every
investigative tool available to you.

Um, and one of those
tools is a polygraph.

We first tested the
mother, Penny Meek,

in relation to questions
about the phone.

Penny Meek showed
deception on her polygraph.

The A.G.'s office could
not substantiate her claims

that the Sheriff's Office
had asked Penny Meek

for the passcode
to Thomas' phone.

Penny Meek had in fact asked
one of Tom Brown's friends

for the passcode to Tom's phone.

Why would Penny want to be
inside Tom's phone so quickly?

Did that mean she had the phone?

And if she did have the phone, that would
mean she knew something about where he was

the night he disappeared.

But, Sheriff Nathan Lewis also
showed deception on his polygraph,

in relation to questions
about the phone.

It just completely baffled me.

And so you added mystery
upon mystery upon mystery.

Penny Meek has said that
Sheriff Nathan Lewis

was the first person
to bring up suicide.

However, in Penny's initial
interview with law enforcement,

just a few days after Thomas went missing,
when she's asked what she believes happened,

she makes the statement, um, that
she thinks he committed suicide.

We know that Tom had
searched "suicide hotline"

at approximately 9:11
p.m. on that evening.

Um, there's three
entries on the phone.

Um, but ultimately we know that he
did not call the suicide hotline.

One of the theories that
allegedly got connected to Penny

was that she was so upset, allegedly,
over the suicide of her own father,

out by Lake Marvin Road, that
she couldn't handle the idea

of her own son
committing suicide.

And so that she
allegedly arranged

for Tom's body to be
taken away and hidden

and...

left.

For years.

Penny Meek also showed deception
on questions about Thomas' body.

They kept insisting that I had
found Thomas and moved his body.

That made me angry,
because that is not true.

That's just a ludicrous,
ridiculous, absurd theory.

I don't know what parent would find
their child in a situation like that,

and then you just walk
away and leave them?

I would stand
before God himself,

and tell you that I don't...
I have not seen Thomas,

since he went missing.

These lie detector tests
are not court evidence,

but they sure are suggestive that
somebody's not telling the entire truth.

In January of 2019,

Sheriff's Deputy Pine Gregory,
even though he was on duty,

had taken an hour off
to walk through an area

near the entrance to
Lake Marvin itself,

where he was looking
for deer shed,

which is a Texas way of
saying "deer antlers,"

because he collects them.

He came across bones.

A skull. A femur.
Assorted smaller bones.

The A.G. investigators showed up
at our house, and they told us that

the remains did, in
fact, belong to Thomas.

Nearly three years after Tom had
disappeared, he finally had been found,

The remains could not give any determination
for a cause or a manner of death.

Penny, does finding his remains
and knowing for sure now that

he's in his heavenly home help
you sleep any better at night?

Not really, because I want
to know what happened.

I deserve to know what happened.

Family, friends, and
community members

overflowed the Canadian high school
gym, all paying their respects

to a son, classmate, and
role model, Thomas Brown.

It was a nice service,
but it was really hard.

It's just hard to talk about, because
it's just so hurtful that he's gone.

They had his letterman jacket
as well as his senior picture.

I'll never forget the
music they played.

I have it on my phone, um, and I
listen to it every once in awhile.

Just 'cause it makes
me think of Tom.

I cried through the whole thing,
just having to realize, like,

this is confirmation, like we lost
Tom, and the mourning of that.

In August of 2019, we held
a meeting with members

of the Hemphill County
Sheriff's Department.

What the Attorney General's report
concluded was that Sheriff Lewis

had nothing to do with the
disappearance of Tom, with his death,

and where his remains
were eventually found.

Until proven otherwise, the only
thing that Sheriff Lewis was guilty of

is getting in over his head.

The conclusion is that
there isn't a conclusion.

We don't know what
happened to Thomas Brown.

And you just shake your
head and say, "My God."

My God.

You really want to know my bottom line? Who
the hell's gonna stand up for Tom Brown?

I believe that
Thomas was m*rder*d.

Maybe there's something bad
going on with the sheriff.

I don't know if he's
covering for himself.

I... It's hard. I cannot process
what happened after that,

'cause I just don't know.

In her desperation and
grief, you could see her

grabbing hold of some
of those theories,

but there are a lot of people in town who
think Penny is putting on a performance.

That her grief is faked.

Or, that she's not revealing what
she really knows happened to Tom.

But none of us really know.

None of us are sure whether it's a
performance or whether it's reality.

In Canadian Wildcat fashion, in
2020, in the middle of COVID,

they win the state championship.

I do think it's helped
with the healing,

but a lot of us now are just
anxious on a general basis,

like, who can we
trust, who can we not?

This is just a
strange, strange case.

I still ask myself
what did happen.

It is crazy that we
cannot solve this mystery.

At all.

There's still a dark,
looming cloud over Canadian.

To me, the thing I miss most
is the closeness that we had.

We, uh, we were the only two
that understood each other.

And I'm afraid that I'm
never gonna have that again.

I just have to keep believing
that someday I'll have answers.

Maybe I don't hope that Thomas
is coming home any more.

He's already home.

But I can still hope
that we have answers.

After all these years, after
all these investigations,

we're still sort of
where we started.

But somebody knows.

Somebody knows the
truth about this.