Episode 6: Run Full Speed

0:00Every story has layers, and sometimes the truth hides in plain sight. I'm Josh Dean, host of Camillean, the podcast about people who transformed, deceived, and survived. From con artists to unbelievable yet true occurrences, we dive into stories where nothing is ever quite as it seems. Because to understand the world, you sometimes have to change the way you see it. Listen to Camillean, wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast discusses issues such as drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, violence, and assault. Listen to discretion is advised. Particle entertainment. Umber, band of low-kid, always maybe eight or nine years old.

1:02This family member would make me do sexual things to her. I didn't even know what I was doing. I just remember crying and being very, very scared. I had to do it numerous times. I was a very little girl. And she never even told me she was sorry. But I'd never gave her. And that's where we'll stop tonight. Watching this video, Natalie posted on social media, I can't help but wonder how much influence did trauma like this have on her as an adult. We know that trauma can shape a person, so could events like this have caused her to have an unhealthy warmth for love, for acceptance, for that ideal life she sought. She looking for an easy way out of the marred life she was living by searching for a benefactor,

2:05while unknowingly putting herself in harm's way. Was Natalie's death the result of one colossal mistake after another? Was it truly an accident? The things I've learned have made that hard to reconcile, and the things I was yet to learn have made it even harder. I'm Sean Kite from AudioChuck and Particle Entertainment. This is The Truth About Natalie. Most of the men in Natalie's life that I've looked into have seemingly been enablers

3:06of her behavior if nothing else. Junior giving her money while in love with her, all the while knowing she was with other men. Ira, who, according to Natalie herself, propositioned her when she was under age, and though she saw him as a father figure, engaged in a romantic relationship. And there's her ex-husband Eric, who had allegedly gotten physical with her throughout their custody battle. She's also stated in various ways that all of these men had screamed in her face during fits of rage multiple times, and she kept coming back. And again, all of these men have denied these claims. But there was another man in Natalie's life shortly before she went missing, one which she actually had documented evidence of physical abuse. That man is Jonathan. Here's Jennifer, Natalie's most outspoken advocate. They dated, they had a whirlwind relationship from, I would say, June of 2019, and they broke it off. She broke up with him on December 28th of 2019 and left.

4:08Jonathan's an interesting, I'm sure a psychologist would have a filled day with him, but he's an interesting personality in that very alpha appearing very secure, but deep rooted, he's a insecure dude. Although the relationship between Natalie and Jonathan ended in 2019, they continued to talk. He was sending regular, I love you, and I want you back, emails and texts. Jennifer shared Natalie's email account passwords and phone records with me, so I've read them all. Jonathan came from a pretty well off family. He'd started a business that he was trying to get off the ground, Southern Sky-Fi. Along with a few investors, he was in the process of purchasing and building cell phone towers in rural areas around her county. One of the documented incorporators, Lin Westmoreland, served for years in the US House of Representatives, and was the chair of the subcommittee on the NSA and Cybersecurity. Natalie also worked for Southern Sky-Fi when they were together, one of the steadiest

5:10jobs she ever had. After they split, the company stripped her of her role because she hadn't responded to Jonathan for 48 hours, citing failure of fiduciary duty, though she maintained a 5% stake in the company. Her mother Elaine tells me that their relationship was unhealthy almost from the start, and it only got worse as time went on, resulting in Jonathan tracking and even stalking Natalie. Yeah, he's a tech guy, you know. One day, this is right after she first made him. She made him at Pops at a little store, but he was standing there and I asked him, I said, where's Natalie at? He said she's about to pull up in about two minutes, and I said, how do you know she's going to pull up in two minutes? He said, just trust me. And no lie, she pulled up. And it's like, how did you know this? How did you know where my baby was at and how do you know when she's going to pull us? I don't like that. I don't like that at all. He said, we're together and we're going to know where each of us at.

6:13We do know that Jonathan was digitally keeping tabs on Natalie. Being intelligent and very tech savvy, he'd hacked into her emails before, and at one point was having her private messages forwarded to his phone. It's believed that he may have even had a tracking device on her car at one point. When she moved briefly to golf shores in Alabama, she didn't tell Jonathan where she was living, but he made sure she was aware that somehow he knew exactly where she was. He even told her, I have ears everywhere. He once showed up at her apartment there and the two got into an altercation that left Natalie with a nasty bite mark on her own. Photos of the wound were found on her phone. Jonathan once gave her a list of demands through email for them to be together. Things like, you can't be out past a certain time, you're home every night, you can't have male friends, and your job is to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. It was bizarre seeing how controlling he was, but when Natalie finally had enough and

7:13left Jonathan after six months of dating, it was because she felt he was spiraling further and further into addiction. That's noted in communications between the two several times, and that addiction had seemingly spilled into Natalie as well for a time, something very few knew until after she disappeared and all this came to light. I didn't like him here, he was, I told Natalie, I said he does drugs, I said he stinks like somebody does drugs. Of course she said no, no, no, no, don't guess what? At the end of the relationship, he made her do drugs. Yep, it was math. He forced her, he made her do it, he tied her up in the chair in his garage, he locked her up in the bathroom, he made her do it. She told me that. After everything was said and done, she said mama, Jonathan made me try math. Several people have said that Natalie was using meth around this time, 2019. Though it doesn't appear it was a daily habit, it was more recreational, or as Elaine

8:16stated, sometimes even by force, or at least with heavy pressure from Jonathan. Jonathan had begun trafficking in selling meth, and Elaine's former housemate, Ricky Warren, tells me about the time he learned of this. He began when he and a young woman were both at Jonathan's house visiting. He asked if we wanted to ride to White's Bird with him. He was going to give him a little marijuana. Well we go to White's Bird, and he and I sit in the car about 30 minutes, we're talking. He gets in the car and he backs up and he stops before he pulled off, he pulled that bag out to have at least an ounce or more. Maybe two ounces of math. And I said Jonathan, I thought you were coming after you a little wee and a little marijuana. You come after this, I said if I had no math I would not ride with you. Oh man, it's all right. And I said no, hell it's not.

9:18It really really is real. The street value of an ounce of meth in Georgia is around $800 to $1,500, according to the Department of Justice. Ricky also tells me that Jonathan made a serious, veiled threat about Natalie directly to him shortly after she broke off their relationship, some seven months before she went missing. He said I'm going to make sure that Natalie will never see her kids again. And I said what are you getting at? Why did you say that? What do you mean by that? He said, you'll find out. Ricky also told me that Jonathan was very interested in getting back Natalie's 5% stake in his company. She had a 5% of that and he was on the bat. You know, being it from her for a little nothing really. He was just constantly after her, you know, getting that back from her.

10:21She knew that she had something good there if it ever started up. The drugs are ultimately why she ended things with Jonathan. The decision he apparently refused to accept. But Jonathan's troubles were just beginning. Unbeknownst to him, he was being investigated by law enforcement since February of 2020. He was arrested in April for possession of more than 28 grams of meth, a trafficking charge, and driving on a suspended license. He bonded out in June and was placed on probation requiring him to wear an ankle monitor. One month later in July, he violated those conditions by allegedly offering $5,000 to have a witness, a man then dating his ex-wife, killed. He was returned to custody. It was in that moment that a far darker dimension of Jonathan's character was revealed, raising serious questions about what he might truly be capable of. During his time of being incarcerated after Natalie vanished, law enforcement allegedly put a plant in with Jonathan.

11:25Jonathan had allegedly tried to take out a hit on the very investigator that was investigating him, starting back in February of 2020. The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous True Crime series, The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth, with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or Wherever You Listen to podcasts.

12:47The first time I've ever tried to date line premium to unlock new episodes early. Days after Natalie vanished, Jonathan was arrested for breaking his bond terms. In August of 2020, while still incarcerated, a jailhouse informant told authorities that Jonathan had solicited the murder of a troop county Georgia deputy, a key witness in his upcoming trial. New developments in the case of a man accused of trying to kill a local deputy. A judge just sentenced Jonathan Lawrence to 35 years in prison investigators, say they found meth in his car in 2020, and that was in True County. An inmate confessed that Lawrence had hired a hit man against a drug investigator, a jury found him guilty of conspiracy to commit malice murder. Evidence used in court included a map to the officer's home that Jonathan had allegedly drawn for another inmate, Toby, who was to facilitate the murder, again for $5,000. What Jonathan didn't know at the time was that Toby was working with investigators and was wearing a wire.

13:50I spoke with one of the jurors in that trial, Leslie Dye, and she filled me in on what transpired. So he's wired up, he says, hey Jonathan, come here. I want to talk to you about what we talked about a couple weeks ago. The law enforcement officer that he was accused of trying to have murder lived down the street from him. They lived in the same subdivision. We're shown this map, and there's the recording, and they play the recording while Toby is on the witness stand. Toby says, well I sat down with him, we were going to go over a map of the neighborhood to map everything out. Can hear them, him saying, okay, what's this road? What's that road? Where does this go? Where does that go? Supposedly, Jonathan is drawing Toby this map to give to him. It's a map of their neighborhood. There are some vehicles. The police officers' vehicles are listed on one of the houses,

14:50but there are also some other neighbors' vehicles listed on their houses. He tells them, hey, when you go on a neighborhood, don't do anything crazy. There's a guy in the corner that's retired military, you might get alarmed, whatever. So we know they're going to Jonathan's house, at least we know they're going to the neighborhood. Then Leslie tells me about another inmate that testified. His name was Clifford. Clifford has brought in finger casted, and one of the first things that they asked him is the Y-He's wearing a cast. He tells everyone that his finger had been cut off. There was his gang affiliation. He was the cellmate of Jonathan. Affiliated with the same gang that Toby is affiliated with. According to Leslie, Clifford stated in court that his gang cut off his finger because he was testifying. So we're all a little in shock at this point, right? Like this is something you see in the movies this can't be for real.

15:53This makes you wonder who Jonathan was really involved with. I mean, that's a serious repercussion. But there was concern from the jury if Jonathan had been put into this situation under questionable pretenses. They wondered if this was entrapment. Toby was facing 38 years and prison himself if he had not agreed to testify against Jonathan. He had been in and out of prison already multiple times. Leslie also told me that at no point in the audio and video evidence presented in court did Jonathan specifically ask for the officer to be killed, murdered, taken out or anything else. It seems it was just implied, which caused speculation by the jury. In the end, he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit malice murder and in addition to the drug charges was sentenced to over 30 years in prison. I wrote to him asking him to speak with me, but never heard back. But how does this all tie into Natalie? Well, when she and Jonathan were together, she was living with him in the same neighborhood as the officer who was investigating him.

16:58The same officer he was allegedly trying to have killed. It made people wonder if Natalie had been approached by law enforcement in the same way that the inmates were. Perhaps even asked to wear a wire and during the trial, it came out. She was on the witness list. That's confirmed via transcripts and court records 100%. And so if you put yourself in Jonathan's mindset, regardless of whether she had been approached or not, if you know that your life is on the line and you're facing a multitude of charges and perhaps Natalie could have been witness to certain things. She knew faces. She had over her conversations. Whether or not you know or thought you knew that she had been approached to be a witness, that would, you know, instill fear in anyone. Could that have instilled fear in Jonathan?

18:00As intriguing as this information is, Jonathan's ankle monitor placed him at a party 30 miles from the site where Natalie's remains were later discovered. Yet the allegations that surfaced during his trial that he had offered payment to have two people killed, cast a long shadow. Could Natalie, scheduled to testify against him, have met the same fate? No evidence confirms she was murdered. But at this point, how many coincidences and anomalies in this case could truly exist if there was no foul play involved? But there is someone else who raised questions after Natalie went missing. Someone whose name I've heard far more than any other. Someone who was not a man in Natalie's life at all. But a sister. Or rather, a half sister. Tabitha was really the one who jumped in very quickly and got close to Elaine. She was constantly back and forth with the detective.

19:03And per Elaine, she's the one who told the detective that she's bipolar. She wanted to run away. She wanted to get away. She had just had a fight a couple of weeks before she vanished with her mom. Tabitha had become one of the go-to people for Lieutenant Boswell regarding information on Natalie. As Elaine at the time was understandably distraught and at times maybe even difficult. She was outspoken in media interviews and was online asking for help in locating Natalie. The two had been spending a lot of time together prior to her disappearance. But it wasn't always that way. Elaine told me that growing up Natalie was shunned by her half siblings. That they never really accepted her. But a month or so before she vanished, that seemed to change. That whole thing is weird to me. Because Tabitha did not get close to Natalie up until about a month before she vanished. And wanted to rebuild their sisterhood. Like, you know, let's work out everything that was done.

20:05Let's go off to eat. So Tabitha moves five minutes, five to seven minutes away from Natalie and Elaine. Gets close. And then they start mirroring each other. It's really weird that mirroring relationship of she gets 11,000 from junior. Tabitha gets the exact same amount from Ira. Different plots of land. They're not right next to each other. Tabitha was still close to Ira at that point. Despite what Natalie had accused him of, which seems odd considering how close these two women were. Or appeared to be. But I've heard from several people that it was a very recent and seemingly sudden reconnection between Natalie and Tabitha. After Natalie came up missing, people began to question if Tabitha's rekindling of their relationship was authentic. Ricky Warren told me his views as he was close to Elaine through all of this. Well, they never really had a relationship until then.

21:05She was jealous of Natalie because Natalie was such a beautiful person inside now. And Tabitha had this really rough look. But when they found Natalie's body and people started coming together and that they had snolored. And they would come back to it every day. How can you be if you're half sister and you say you love her? How can you always be smiling and laughing, joking, hearing all. And they just found your half sister there. I'd heard claims of Tabitha being jealous of Natalie. Natalie was attractive and likable with a personality that lit up the room. I've also heard that Tabitha was jealous of Natalie's relationship with Ira. Ricky wasn't the only one to have questioned her reaction to Natalie's death. Even I noticed during a videotaped interview she gave while searching for Natalie, she seemed almost nervous,

22:07standing with her arms crossed in front of her, fidgeting, showing little emotion, a stark contrast to Elaine and her other sister Jessie who were standing next to her at the time. They were a wreck. Everyone deals with trauma differently though, so honestly that doesn't mean much on its own. But there was more that was called into question concerning Tabitha. Natalie allegedly had plans to babysit Tabitha's kids on July 5th. But the only source we have for this information is from Tabitha herself. There is no documentation other than Tabitha stating in her interview with law enforcement that she was supposed to come back the very next morning to babysit her kids. That's it. What I find really suspicious about that after canvassing all the text messages, there's no communications. There's no text messages between Tabitha and Natalie to confirm this, nor to confirm Tabitha's son's phone that went missing.

23:07Jennifer's right. At no point before it was discovered that Natalie went missing, did Tabitha text to say, Hey, my son left his phone in your car or have you seen his phone? And there were no calls between them that night where it could have been discussed. So how do we know that Natalie had indeed planned on babysitting the day after the party? Elaine said Natalie never mentioned it to her. I also wondered since everyone else involved in Natalie's life has provided an alibi that checked out, what about Tabitha? She stated to investigators that she was at work, but Boswell himself told me that police never contacted her work to verify it. A former coworker of Tabitha's stated that her work station was right next to hers and their schedule was the same. Monday through Friday, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. with the occasional Saturday. So if that's accurate, was Tabitha really at work when Natalie vanished? But still, it gets deeper. The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking.

24:1248 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous True Crime series, The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth with long-form storytelling built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music or Wherever You Listen to Podcasts. I'm Josh Manikowitz and I hope you'll join us for season 5 of Date Line Missing in America. In each episode of Date Line's award-winning series, we will focus on one missing person's case. And here from the families, the friends and the investigators all desperate to find them. Maybe you could help solve a mystery. Search Date Line Missing in America to listen completely pre or subscribe to Date Line Premium to unlock new episodes early.

25:36The first time these suspicions arose came mere hours after she was last heard from. It was something she posted online as Jennifer tells me. She's on Facebook later in the days as she's been driving around all day, which is, you know, if you've been working all day, like, have you been off and looking for your sister or have you been working all day? There was a post. I think it said, man, has anybody seen my sister? A slew of people started commenting underneath that Facebook post. A woman commented and said, have you checked juniors? And she replied, she's not there. I rode by there last night, which would have been the fourth.

26:37I personally found it to be very strange that she said that she rode by there, referring to juniors, way out of the way in the middle of nowhere. On July the 4th, after you take into the totality of its pandemic, she worked all day. One would think she went to go pick up her two kids after work. So it's like, why would you go all the way out there in the middle of nowhere? I mean, what is your motive for going out to that area? You don't know, junior. You're not friends with any of those people out there. It's not your crowd. I found it really weird. And then, how would you know she was missing? This red flag that caught Jennifer's eye also caught the attention of others. That statement is concerning. Why would she have went by juniors looking for Natalie the night of the 4th when she wasn't yet reported or even known to be missing? But perhaps one of the most alarming things I've heard regarding Tabitha occurred weeks after Natalie was last seen.

27:41By that point, her county investigators had enlisted the help of cadaver dogs to attempt to locate Natalie and they were preparing to search areas of interest. Tabitha visited Elaine at her home one night with a request that seemed reasonable at the time. She was heavily medicated, distraught, laid out on the couch essentially. Tabitha came up and she asked if she could get a bag and go in Natalie's room and get something. Because the dog search lady had requested those things. Elaine then goes on to say that she was so out of it clearly that she thought she was going to go into the kitchen and grab a public or a target bag or something. She ended up coming out with a garbage bag full of stuff and left. Remember what Elaine said previously about this? I said what all did you take? I mean I know what Natalie wore. Oh I just got a hairbrush.

28:41Now this immediately struck me as odd when I heard it. Because I've actually worked with cadaver dogs before and I know a little bit about the process. In fact, I worked with and know the very same woman who along with her dogs searched for Natalie Jones. So who better to ask about this? Why, honey? Hey Trace, how are you? I'm doing awesome. How are you doing? I'm busy. Tracey Sargent is like the go to in the South for searches involving cadaver dogs when a police department doesn't have them in house or needs additional assistance. She's extremely passionate about what she does and I think most in law enforcement in the South know her or have at least heard of her. When I reached out to her, she immediately remembered Natalie's case and her pink car. So in Natalie's case, I do recall going to the residence where she was living with her mother and the mother's roommate.

29:44And I recall Natalie's sister, Tabitha being there as well. We searched outside around the property and then inside around the property. I asked Tracey what the process was for retrieving scent articles from a missing person or known victim that the dogs can use to track. When we're involved in these investigations because of each individual having a unique scent, we as can-on handlers will obtain a scent article of that person we're looking for ourselves. Because we want to maintain the integrity of that article not only for investigation purposes but also for the dog itself. So the dog is familiar with my scent that if by some chance I do get my scent on that article, the dog knows, okay, that's my handler scent.

30:45I disregard that. So generally, really without exception, if we are needing a scent article of someone that we're looking for, we as can-on handlers would always obtain those scent articles ourselves. In just in case there was any question about this particular situation, I asked Tracey directly about Tabitha collecting things at her request. No, I would have not told Tabitha or anyone else to get a scent article or clothing or any items from the missing persons for us to use for the dogs to search for that person. Because that would potentially contaminate the scent. Not only contaminate the scent but as an investigator myself is that we have to approach these things. We don't know what's happened, we have a lot of questions, and we want to maintain the integrity of that case at all times, no matter what.

31:50So why would Tabitha go in Natalie's room really if not for scent articles for the dogs? What else could be of interest to her? I asked that question to Elaine. I don't know, I do know that a Trent told me that his mom had told him to not go in that closet because she had money saved up in there that they was going to, you know, get the place and live with. Trent told me that. His mom said, no, everyone would go in the closet. Natalie had allegedly kept a shoebox full of cash that she was saving in her bedroom closet. That shoebox and the money inside have never been located. I also wonder about the CD with supposed evidence against Ira on it that Natalie had taken to an attorney. Could that have been hidden in her room as well? Could that be what was of interest, knowing that Tabitha was close to Ira?

32:52And there's one more thing. When Jennifer and the rest of Natalie's advocates were meticulously pouring over the photos taken by the medical examiner, they spotted something. That's the blonde hair on the driver's side door, the group of people that were canvassing the photos. And again, because when you're looking at especially photos, like you need as many people looking at things as possible. One of those was one of our community advocates and she had zoomed in on the driver's side door. On the driver's side exterior window, there is a, like when I say blonde, like it's bleach blonde. This wasn't like a darker blonde shade. This was a very light pigmented blonde. It was in an upside down U-shaped. In one photo, you can see what does appear to be a shoulder length blonde hair on the outside of Natalie's driver's side window, stuck to the glass.

33:55But what struck Jennifer and others is alarming. That was Tabitha's hair length. Bleached blonde hair, same length. Again, it was never mentioned in the case file we found that. If the car were outside in the elements for 93 days, as believed by law enforcement, how would a single strand of hair still be stuck to the window? This has helped strengthen the theory that the car was potentially moved into place shortly before being discovered. I've also confirmed that there were no agents or officers on scene with similar hair, so it couldn't have come from any of them. The length and color is the same as Tabitha's was at the time. And while I'm sure there were many other women locally whose hair was similar in color and length, did any of them have a connection to Natalie? What would place them at her car? Again, this podcast is not to cast blame or guilt on anyone. It's simply to find the truth, to explore the questions that have arisen during the entire investigation into Natalie. And again, I reached out to Tabitha for comment, but had no luck.

35:00In one final attempt to make sense of all I've learned, to answer arguably the most important question of all concerning the night of July 4th, 2020, what happened to Natalie and was she really alone that night? I looked back to the phone data. It's the only solid evidence that exists tracking Natalie's movements and communications that night. I took every single bit of phone data, every cell tower ping, movement, timestamp, and provided it to a criminal analyst for review. The analyst chose not to be identified in this podcast because they currently work in law enforcement and have for the past 22 years. I asked questions that could hopefully explain the random movements Natalie appeared to make that night, such as the ghost pings seen in the data, meaning that her phone appeared to hit off towers far away. If you need a 30 minutes drive, then appears immediately back where she was centrally located, movements that aren't physically possible. Well, it's not VPNs, cell spoofing or hacking or anything that technical. I'm told it's just an anomaly that happens with Verizon sometimes, which was Natalie's self provider.

36:09Also, line of sight, weather conditions, topography, and trees or other obstructions can make this happen. I can't even bounce off the tower with the clearest line of sight, even if it's not physically closest to the phone. So these theories are pretty much all explained away. But they did tell me that the phone was moving and likely in a vehicle based on the data. But then I learned that if someone had access to Natalie's iCloud account, which we know Jonathan had, not only could they see all of Natalie's messages, pictures, and location, but information could be remotely wiped or deleted as well. And that might prove to be crucial. The official cellular analysis survey team, or CAST report on Natalie's phone data compiled by the FBI, mentions specific activity and possible account control, as well as missing communication logs and states logs appear intentionally missing, deleted or sanitized in their key findings.

37:12This means that data files were missing or intentionally removed. I asked our analyst what that really meant and was told this. It is absolutely suspicious and concerning. Add to that the fact that the top screen and autopsy showed no drugs in her system, the fact that her car was hidden off the roadway, plus her phone being missing and never found, would make me highly doubt that she was alone when she died. Whether it was accidental or intentional, it is my personal opinion that there's someone that knows how she died and was with her at that time. Investigator Boswell, who retired from her county sheriff's office shortly after my interviews with him, told me as much. And that if they could find out who that person was, there may still be a chance at getting Justice for Natalie if they played any role in her death. In our circle of individuals who have looked at this case between me and a couple of the investigators that had looked at it over the years, we believe there's possibility that there was somebody there.

38:17So if we were able to identify that individual, be a far reach, but it's possible it could be still even to this day prosecute because there's no statute of limitations on murder. With no clear cause of death, this is an uphill battle, but it's not impossible. Why would any data be intentionally removed from Natalie's phone? What images, locations, texts, or emails could she have sent or received that night that someone didn't want others to see? And who had the motive, means, an opportunity to do this. But while these questions remain unanswered for now, this gives people, like Jennifer Peterson, hope. To hear a seasoned analyst who specializes in this, after we've been in this case now for three years since it was closed officially, say that there appear to be missing files, things that have potentially been scrubbed, it gives me a little sigh of relief to know that

39:29we're not just these conspiracy theorists that are just looking for something that isn't there. That's always been really important to me. Of course, there are a lot of nefarious people in Natalie's case, but the data leads you where the data leads you, and I believe in data. So if that's the case, and there's missing files, scrub data, controlled access of any capacity, it makes you step back and wonder why. Why did that happen? Who did that? What is the reason for doing that? Really just why? If there was nothing there, if all these events that were put out there took place and were as they were presented, then why would anyone in any capacity need to remove data from Natalie's phone? That's a bigger question. The search for answers will continue until the truth is known, because in the end, the truth about Natalie is what Natalie herself wanted the world to know.

40:37Natalie's story is hard to swallow, especially after death, for a lot of people. We have personally had a lot of people come to us, even not so much today, because I think that they understand who we are, why we're here. But a lot of people that will say, let her rest in peace, or this is over, it's done. And look, all of us in our community were not related to Natalie, we're not her family. Her family, first and foremost, was her mother. For better and for worse, she loved her mama. I've told Elaine, from day one, from the beginning, if there's ever a point that you just can't do this anymore, just need to let it go for your own healing, for the kids, for their healing, we will stop and we will fully walk away, and that will be that, because that's the respectful thing to do.

41:39I've looked at Elaine face to face in person in the eye so many times, and I've asked her, because it's on my conscience as well, to be a good human, do good things, is this what you want to do? And she said, this is what my baby wanted, this was part of her story, run full speed. Jennifer Peterson, like many others alongside her, have spent monumental amounts of their time and energy searching for answers, not for money, or for accolades, but for the truth, simply because it's the right thing to do. I'm very grateful for my life. There was a time that I was not, there was a time that I could not stand myself.

42:39I didn't even know what I wanted, I didn't know who I was, I didn't know anything. Although that was the way that it's just got to be, and it's not the way that it's got to be. There is hope, there is love in this world, and it starts with you as a person, whether you're going through something, or you're not going through something, whether you're in the easy times or the hard times, plus somebody, you get blessed, plus somebody. Don't forget the next person behind you, you know what I mean? Just keep on going and keep on building each other up. I'm not mad at anybody, I don't have a grudge against anybody, through the things that has happened, I'm still going to be me, and I'm still going to love me. I've gotten to know Natalie Jones in some way through her videos and her journals. I feel a tremendous sadness for her, for her friends, her family, her children.

43:45Because as much as Jennifer, you or I want answers, those who knew and loved her are the ones forced to carry the burden of not knowing, of having questions that may forever go unanswered. For as much as she was a funny, attractive young woman, opinionated and strong willed, Natalie Jones was also vulnerable and lost, crying out for help. She made mistakes, and although she made choices, you or I may not have made, she was working to overcome them, one by one, the best that she knew how. Her sole purpose in life, her only real dream, was to give her children the life that she never had, one full of unconditional love, safety and security. She was willing to do anything to give them that. I admire that about her. Elaine still feels certain that Natalie's death was not as simple as an accidental overdose. She'll keep asking questions and continue to be a thorn in the side of anyone who tells her otherwise.

44:49I think she just feels she owes her daughter that much. And the only thing she wishes for now, is just a little more time with Natalie. To hear one more laugh, feel one more embrace, spend one more minute together. Because aside from the visits with her grandchildren, her only tangible connection to her own children, to Natalie, all she really has left until they meet again, is time. So I've got time on my hands. And if I could hold you with me, it wouldn't be enough time still. Oh, you know I've got time on my hands.

45:50Y'all, no matter what's going on in life, if you are up under a bridge and a box and you have lost everything and everybody, you have God. And He loves you more than anything. So love you and keep on going and don't ever give up. No matter what happens, no matter what goes on, I know in my heart that God has a plan. And I know in my heart that I have a forever home. So I love y'all. I want to thank y'all. Stay, Paula. We're going to be alright. We're going to be alright again.

46:54Some days soon, it will. I'm just gazing out the window of a room, on a planet rolling round a star. Oh, you know I've got time on my hands. The truth about Natalie is an audio chuck original produced by particle entertainment. I wrote and produced the series. Executive producer is Ashley Flowers. Additional research provided by community advocates for Natalie Jones. Original music written and performed by Jackson Eppley. And a special thanks to Elaine Gordon and her family. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, help is available at the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233. You can find me on social media at Sean Kipe official or at SeanKipe.com.

47:56And you can email me any information about this case to info at SeanKipe.com. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts. We think Chuck would approve. The moment a body is found, the clock starts ticking. 48 hours before the trail goes cold. From A&E and Crime House, this is the official podcast from the famous True Crime series, The First 48. I'm Carter Roy. Every Thursday, I revisit a landmark homicide investigation in depth, long-form storytelling, built for your ears. Listen to and follow The First 48 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to podcasts.