Episode 4: More Cases

What began as a single investigation into a mysterious suitcase starts widening into something far more unsettling. As additional disappearances, suspicious deaths, and forgotten local cases emerge, a disturbing pattern begins to take shape along Maryland’s coast — one that may connect decades of buried secrets 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Two cases. Three cases. That's a problem today on the beach remains. I'm breaking on the episode four. More cases. Just over a year into starting my investigation, we had learned plenty about the two thousand sixteen and two thousand eighteen stinky beach findings. We spoke to the locals, interviewed eyewitnesses, conducted a rare drone dive into a 60-foot scour hole, we read police reports, and spoke to forensic experts. We even found the people that found 2018's barrel slash suitcase and had time on calendar to ask them questions regarding what they remembered seeing back in 2018 in the shallow waters of Homer Godalski Park's Stinky Beach. To be honest, I was nervous. Because up until that point, I had more questions than answers, and we certainly hadn't solved anything. But we knew it was remains that were found in 2016. And it would be that much harder to give up the investigation if we somehow believed evidence was potentially lost in the inlet current in August of 2018. With a forthcoming conversation with the actual 2018 bone witness, I understood the gravitas my investigation was stepping into. Just like the initial reconnaissance and dive phases of Stinky Beach, I needed a credible set of advisors to guide my investigation. First priority outside of the water was finding someone deeply familiar with policing on the Delmarva shore. Before I got too deep into this investigation, I reached out to my cousin, retired Delaware police detective Ryan Conley.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

I was a Delaware state trooper. I came on in 1984. Um after my initial training, and that was probably this is uh January of 85, is when I first started actually in Delaware.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

Ryan split his rise up of the ranks between Troop 7, the coastal jurisdiction of the Delaware shore, and Troop 4. It is lately an inland jurisdiction, housing the locals and the full-timers and farming community of southernmost Delaware. As a detective, Ryan investigated everything under the sun, from petty theft to fatalities. His work culminated in leading a major crimes investigating unit.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

I was a supervisor there, which is the child sex abuse, the rapist robberies, the death investigations. And I spent a total of just I have 27 years, 26 years, and 10 months, 11 months uh before I retired.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

Of all the people I know personally well, Ryan is by far the best qualified to answer my questions about our stinky beach investigation. As well as policing in the Marva beaches, albeit coming walking 10 miles further up the coastline. So I asked Brian to describe what it was like spending a career policing a major seasonal vacation town.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

When I first started, we my my troop, Troop 7, which is in Lewis, or was in Lewis at the time, our jurisdiction extended from Milford to Fenwick Island and over to 113 in the area of Selbyville, north to Millsboro, north to Georgetown, north all the way up to Milford. So, and those of you that you know, if you're familiar with that area, that that's a tremendous, tremendous amount of area to cover.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

For those not familiar with the region, Brian just described an area roughly the size of the entire city of Washington, D.C.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

And we would have something called minimum staffing. Um the minimum amount of troopers on a road per shift, which was four. So we would have at times four people, especially I remember specifically on a midnight shift in February, um, we would often have four people on the road from Milford to Fenlock Island over to Georgetown. That whole area.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

That's a big area.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Now, when summer the summer months came, that number was increased to five, but still, it's and this state we rode, we didn't have partners, so we're always alone. So if you're on a pretty nasty call or uh, you know, and you need assistance, your backup it could be a good 15-20 minutes away, which is why a lot of times we relied on the local town uh jurisdictions to help us out.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

And while the population economy and even the police force of the Delaware side of Delmarva has grown, in many ways, the challenges of policing a resort town remain.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Times have changed. Um that was 85, 86 when I was a young trooper. Now the the area down here is, as you know, has exploded tremendously with population and growth. And so I believe the last I heard is um the minimum staffing is 10 per shift, which is a lot better than it was, but still you know, the the police are extremely undermanned.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

In addition to understanding beach policing in general, I also asked Brian specific things about our investigation. First and foremost, the prevalence of bone findings in his career as a Delmarva policeman.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I I've been thinking about this since we first talked, and I I don't remember more than possibly two of um bone findings that were actually human remains. In in the 27 years I was on, well, we got called to a lot of bones being found, but majority of that time it was uh animal.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

I was also curious to hear his impression of just how serious the 2018 investigation looked compared to someone who spent decades around Del Marva policing.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

That type of police response, it's something big, something going on. Um you'd be lucky to get a police or helicopter response for an incident, much less 10 or 12 troopers at the scene, in addition to whatever uh uh the other um assets that you have there to help. So that sounds like a tremendous amount of um police presence for something very serious.

SPEAKER_00 8:10

In addition to photojournalist Megan Raymond's multiple snapshots of 2018's search helicopter, remember what we heard from journalist Sarah Swann.

SPEAKER_05 8:20

There were at least six or seven vehicles, police vehicles, um, there.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

So in summary, I heard, one, finding human remains on the beach is a big deal. Even to a Delmarva police detective with decades of experience on the job. And two, the police response to the 2018 Stinky Beach incident I perceived as a big deal, was in fact a big deal. At least to someone closely familiar to Del Marva policing. These two facts had my heart pumping as I waited outside of a suburban Starbucks to meet one of the two people that actually saw what was in the shallows of Stinky Beach. After spending over a year trying to track down and find him, Chris Manifold, the gentleman dialing 911 in the 2018 incident, was more than willing to describe what he and his niece saw on the morning of Tuesday, August 7th, 2018. For context, Chris is no stranger to the Ocean City area.

SPEAKER_03 9:36

Uh I've been going to Ocean City my entire life. Uh I've had a place in Ocean City on the beach for about nine years, and uh my black lab loves the water. Uh so uh during the season when the ocean uh when you're not allowed to have your dog on the beach, um we take him over to uh what's called Stinky Beach by the by the locals. And so we've been going there for years, and uh we go over there and throw in the water. Uh he likes to swim in the water, so pretty familiar with the area.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

The couple, as reported by press and media, were Chris and his niece. The two of them were walking their black lab on Stinky Beach. One of the few beaches in Ocean City where daytime dog walking in tourist season is permitted. I asked Chris to describe what he remembered about that morning of August 7th. Just walk me through at a high level that day, your recollection of it, details. I have a series of questions, but just would love to give your perspective of just that day, what happened, what you came upon, what you can remember off the top of your head.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

Yeah, uh, so we took Dewey, uh, our dog over to the beach, and uh I don't remember anything specific about the day being um anything as far as uh storms or anything that would have uh brought the uh what we thought was a suitcase into the beach area. But um we were playing in the water and my niece actually found the suitcase initially. Uh probably, I would guess 20 feet um from where the water was hitting the beach um in the water, but it was pretty shallow water. Um it was not visible from the shoreline, but it was probably only six inches below the water when we were there. I believe it must have been um lower tide because I know that they ran into issues trying to pull the suitcase out later in the day. Um so uh she stumbled upon it and the uh case, um, the top of the case uh was either open or I forget how that was, but um you know she had reached in and you know pulled out a I believe first thing she pulled out was a piece of pottery, and then um she found a couple other things in there, and then of course we found a bone, and then we then we were like, alright, we better call the police because this is a little crazy that there's some bones in here. Um everything looked like it had been burned, but that may be from the sand, because I know that they were they found a lot of um dark sand in the um in the case, so I don't know if it was burned or if it wasn't burned, but as soon as we saw the bone, uh we were and we also found some women's clothing, I believe it was slipper, and I don't remember what all the items were, um, but as soon as we saw the bones and female um shoes, we we called the police.

SPEAKER_00 12:48

Okay. So then I asked Chris about the initial moments of the investigation, trying to better understand what went down prior to our two witnesses, Megan Raymond and Sarah Swan, arriving on the scene.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

The uh there was one officer that showed up, I don't recall his name, and uh I walked him out to the beach. Uh, we talked about you know what we found given the um summary of what happened. And we hung around for maybe a half hour. Uh we were gonna wait because they were talking about bringing divers in, but to get the divers in there was gonna be hours, so we decided to leave at that point. We had um some family and some other commitments.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

Was there any sort of marking, or did the did the police like investigate the suitcase? Did you take them in back in the water? Like when you went back there with them, what was the activity? What did you do with them?

SPEAKER_03 13:43

Uh so when I was there, I don't believe the officers went in the water. They they they had long pants on and you know they they were waiting for the divers. I think they thought a diver would get there sooner than they did. Initially, I thought they thought somebody would be there within an hour or so. So they did mark the area off with some tape. Um and so no one would was gonna get near um the the area.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

So they they marked uh they marked the area with the on the beach with tape? Crash. Correct. Not not in the water, but around the beach area.

SPEAKER_03 14:19

Right. I believe that they put something on the beach at the point to to show exactly where when you walk straight out uh it would be. But when I was there, it wasn't like they were in the water um going through what was in the suitcase or trying to dig it up.

SPEAKER_00 14:36

Most of what Chris describes aligns with what the media reported, but a few things did jump out as interesting. For starters, we were given further credence to our initial hypothesis back in episode one that the police never visibly saw the suitcase slash barrel until at earliest when the divers showed up several hours later and after the incoming high tide shifted the shoreline and possibly the item of interest. Chris's recollection also aligns with what we heard from eyewitnesses, Megan and Sarah, back in episode one.

SPEAKER_05 15:19

And and yeah, there was a there's a police tape area. Um, we weren't allowed to go very near it.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

Uh a very small area taped off with police lines, please do not cross.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

And they and a dude, probably a police officer, sitting on a it looked like a log that had rolled the head rolled up out of the water. The guy sitting there, I think his job was to watch the suitcase.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Was to watch whatever item was in the water. That was his job. And uh at that time it was a recovery of some sort, so they weren't trained to recover this item, so that's when they had to call to Baltimore or Annapolis to get the dive key.

SPEAKER_05 16:05

There were divers that came uh from Annapolis a few hours into it. We waited a while for them to show up. Um, and they did attempt to go into the water. The only people who went back into the water were the divers once they got there, but no one was going in or out of the water, um, so they didn't pull anything else out during the time I was there.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

The other thing that jumped out was Chris's certitude in that what he and his niece found in the water was a suitcase. I asked him what he could recollect. What do you recall visually about the suitcase? What did it look like from your recollection?

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Uh it was just a dark color. Um and you know, maybe it was maybe it was a foot, maybe it wasn't six inches. It was uh far enough below the water that we couldn't really see that well in. It was more we were reaching our hands in and feeling around. But um I was surprised to hear that they said it was a barrel, I'll say that. Um I thought maybe after the fact that maybe there was a barrel that the suitcase was in side of the barrel was what I originally thought maybe be the case. I don't know if they uh came back and said that there was absolutely no suitcase involved, but I know there was um kind of like a you know the cover of the top of the suitcase, which we were kind of reaching under. Um, so I'm not sure where the barrel um concept came from, but I didn't see a barrel and I didn't see wood. It was more of a suitcase.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And you were interacting with it enough to like like manipulate the top, but like it sounded like you had a a tactile feel to it.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

Yeah, the um the top from my recollection was partially open. I don't I don't know if it was a zipper or what what it was, but um that's what that's my recollection though. I don't it wasn't um I think the the top partially open, I think that's how we initially got it.

SPEAKER_00 18:07

The um the woman's clothes, is there anything like sound like there was a slipper and maybe another dress? Was that also stained with the black, or do you recollect anything visually about the the look of it or the era of it, like timing of it? Did it look like old clothes, new clothes?

SPEAKER_03 18:24

Yeah, the slipper uh and yeah, there was there was some garment in there, I don't recall what it was, but the slipper, yeah, they they seemed like they appeared to be burnt or discolored from the sand. They appeared to be an older version. I would have suspected they had been in the water for a while. Um but I didn't um I didn't look at them very long until before we go in the boys.

SPEAKER_00 18:53

How big suitcase-wise, like approximately approximately, is it like four by two? Like I'm just thinking about a barrel, like a standard whiskey barrel. I have a general size of what like a standard barrel looks like. The suitcase, like scale-wise, how how big of a suitcase item would you think that would be?

SPEAKER_03 19:15

I would say that it was more in the line of say like a maybe foot and a half to two foot by say three feet. So not the largest suitcase, but uh would be bigger than a carry-on.

SPEAKER_00 19:31

And definitely unmistakably not round or circular.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Definitely not round or circular, correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:38

And doesn't appear to be made of anything wooden.

SPEAKER_03 19:41

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

One thing that I thought was interesting after the fact that I had read was the comment was made that it was most, you know, the art of whatever I found was was in this barrel. However, they made it sound like it was, you know, predominantly just sand and some clamshells and things of that nature, which was a little odd to me because it felt like there was more stuff in there. We just didn't want to cut our hands, and also with the bone finding, uh, I didn't want to be in any further involvement uh before the police got there. So I thought that was kind of curious that they didn't find anything in addition to what we found, or it didn't appear to me based on what was written in the newspaper.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

I let the Chris Manifold interview marinate for a few weeks. Like so many prior points of this investigation, I debated on where to go next, or if I should go on at all. I had spent over a year investigating, diving in difficult inlet conditions, reviewing police reports, finding and interviewing eyewitnesses from both the 2016 and 2018 incidents. Definitive answers were few and far between. But we did discover the findings captured via photo in 2016 were human remains. Additionally, there's at least a plausible reason to believe that the suitcase Chris Manifold incident that he and his niece found on Stinky Beach in 2016 may have been lost in the incoming tide. And that same law suitcase, according to Chris, may have included additional evidence, if not more genetic evidence. A suitcase was never found in 2018, nor was my team ever. Able to find it. Not even at the bottom of a 60-foot scour hole. I do believe plausibly that somewhere at the bay's bottom, a suitcase of evidence still exists. I just don't know that I'll ever find it. Five years of inlet storms, heavy tides, and organized dredging make triangulating a recovery location next to impossible. In looking for potential evidence andor unfound remains, we also needed to consider what put them in there in the first place. Any forgotten victim or person would not only leave evidence behind, but potentially an entire cold case. Looking into unsolved open cold cases was another chance to connect the dots. While law enforcement doesn't necessarily keep perfect track of its lost cases, it's getting much, much better. Today, nearly all states maintain a publicly available cold case database, a centralized place to query currently unsolved homicide cases. The Maryland Department of State Police offers this capability on its website. While the data available is not fully comprehensive, meaning not all cold cases are logged and tracked, the site does keep records from present-day back to the 1940s. It also provides regional data, dates, and abbreviated case details. Again, not comprehensive, as say a full case file, but at least a good place to start. Looking back at the known evidence, predominantly the photograph of the 2016 remains, we were searching for cases filtered to a certain set of characteristics. Thanks to qualified forensic opinion, we knew the 2016 remains in photograph were a older and likely originating in the 20th century, b had an adult-sized victim that was both small in stature and young in their adulthood, and C took place in or around Worcester County watersheds. Even with these limited characteristics, two cases popped up when running these limited filters. The first case, that of Donna Ann Riley in 1978, especially jumped out. For starters, Donna was from my hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, having grown up a mere two miles from where I was born. Donna and one of her local girlfriends from Wilmington were visiting Ocean City for a weekend of late season fun. This is a two-hour day trip that most everyone from Delaware eventually does. Her travel group ended up at a nighttime party in nearby Ocean Pines on Saturday night, a local residential area a few miles inland from Ocean City's main island. That party was the last place Donna Riley was seen alive. A few days later, her family filed a missing persons report back in Delaware. A week after that, Worcester County Police Department found Donna's dead body hidden in the marshes of an area known as the Sticks off Sunset Avenue. This area is where the modern-day Sunset Marina sits, a beautiful yacht club built in the 90s, and a spot not more than three-quarters a mile from Stinky Beach. Donna was described by friends as friendly, outgoing, and someone that would quickly get along with just about anyone. She loved to read, loved swimming and visiting the Delmarva shore. She was contemplating whether to return to school or pursue modeling in her near future. She was just 18 years old. Some friends and family speculated that Donna's warm, welcoming personality may have ultimately betrayed her that fateful weekend. After Donna Riley's body was found by two teenage boys in the woods, the medical examiner at the time, Dr. Thomas Jones, reported evidence of foul play and an obvious attempt to hide the body in the marsh. Donna's body had been badly decomposed after laying undiscovered in the marsh for nearly a week. Though a violent attack was obvious, the Office of the Medical Examiner ruled the cause of death inconclusive. No suspects were ever seriously pursued, and the case remains unsolved to this very day. While Donna Riley's body was found close to Stinky Beach, we know through research in autopsy records that her remains were fully recovered, and therefore not possibly the remains found in 2016 and potentially 2018 incidents. Aside from the characteristics previously mentioned about the Donna Riley case, there was one additional aspect of the case that stood out. That detail is the known distance between ocean pines, the neighborhood Donna Riley was last seen alive, and the sticks of Sunset Ave, the location where her body was ultimately found. It was over eight miles away. And even today, certainly back in 1978, no one would make that walk willingly. Not at night, not a local, and most especially not a teenage tourist from two hours away Delaware. This means there was a distinct possibility that Donna Riley was either coerced or accosted into an unfamiliar vehicle. I want you to remember this detail because it is this detail, along with the victim profile, that starts making the second victim we found in the Maryland Cold Case database, one Miss Rosemary Moon McIntyre, all the more interesting. In December of 1969, Rosemary Moon McIntyre disappeared mid-Christmas shopping after being apparently kidnapped from her car on the side of the highway between Salisbury, Maryland, and her home in downtown Ocean City, Maryland. Her body was found in a creek a week later. Similarly, it was found by two schoolboys. But that's only the tip of the iceberg on this story. But I'm not the first person to talk about this cold case. That honor goes to retired Maryland Court of Appeals judge Dale Cathell Jr. His story and life deeply intersected with the Rosemary Moon McIntyre Cold Case and the Decade Era of Ocean City, Maryland that followed. It's important to understand these intersections. Because when you do, you'll start looking at this investigation in an entirely different light. To begin this story, let's meet the most local person I've met over the course of this investigation. Alright, I'm I'm sitting here with uh Judge Dale Caffle. Retired Judge. Retired Judge Dale Cathle. This is retired Judge Dale Cathell. Amongst many things, he's an accomplished Maryland judge and lawyer. He's a veteran, an avid fisherman, and most especially an Ocean City, Maryland, and Worcester County local.

SPEAKER_04 30:16

Ocean City and Worcester County. That's where I grew up. That's where I used to climb up on the buildings in Berlin and throw water balloons down on the parades. And uh that's where I went to school. Used to dance with preachers' daughters. They're good dancers. Uh just I could not I've lived everywhere. I've been to every I've been to a lot of other places. I would never want to live any place else or die anyplace else.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

First time I met Judge Cathell, it was at the Ocean Pines Library, which happens to be on Cathell Road. When I jokingly asked him if they named the road after him, he told me, no. That's for my great-great great-great-great-grandfather, Jonathan Cathell, and his three brothers that all fought for the Worcester Sons of Liberty in the Revolutionary War. You heard that right. The American Revolution. It would be an understatement to say that Dale, now in his late 80s, has a deep love for Worcester County, where aside from his dent in the Air Force and fishing down in Florida, he spent the majority of his life. About a decade ago, Dale wrote a book about his life entitled Wading Through the Swamp. In it, Dale describes a life well lived on the Eastern Shore and his passion for it. His lifetime dedication as a lawyer, later as a judge, and throughout as a true Eastern Shoreman, shine through on every page. When I started investigating the Donna Riley and Rosemary Moon McIntyre cold cases, I quickly found a reference to Dale Cathell's book and the Rosemary Moon McIntyre case on a Facebook page dedicated to the Keepers, a popular Baltimore true crime documentary featured a few years ago back on Netflix. As soon as the book was loaded into my Kindle, I was riveted, staying up till 4 a.m. after reading it cover to cover twice on a weeknight. We'll talk a lot more about retired Judge Dale Cathell's book throughout the remainder of this podcast. Predominantly about the three chapters he wrote on the murder and subsequent cover-up of the Rosemary Moon McIntyre investigation of 1969. This, ultimately, is what brought Dale into my life and into this investigation. I came upon Dale's book after correlating our 2016 bone characteristics to the Maryland Cold Case Database. As mentioned earlier in the episode, we found that Donna Riley's and Rosemary Moon McIntyre's cold cases had particular similarities to what we had been investigating. Both victims were young, petite adults. Both involved cases with remains matching the predicted incident time frame by our own forensic experts. Both found in shallow water marshes between Ocean City, Maryland, and Berlin. Earlier in this episode, we ruled out the likelihood that the 2016 remains findings, or potentially those in 2018, tied directly back to either of our two observed cold cases. However, the proximity of the victim's remains to Stinky Beach, particularly Donna Riley, who was found less than 800 yards as the crow flies from Stinky Beach. And in waters connected to the same watershed. These coincidences were too intriguing to immediately look past. But before we get too deep into the Rosemary Moon McIntyre case, it's important first to tell the story of the Ocean City establishment at that time, especially in the era from the late 1960s to the early 1980s, as retold by Dale Cathell and his book. And the era's potential relationship to multiple cold cases within this time frame. One thing was becoming clear. The deeper I dug into the period in question, the story wasn't just about a single cold case. It was about power. About a system that at one point appeared to decide it didn't want Rosemary's case solved at all. Nor potentially multiple others. We'll talk about all of it. Next time on The Beach Remains. I'm Ricky Conlan. The Beach Remains podcast is produced by Dream Oak Productions, all rights reserved. The song Gods and Ghosts performed by Koy Dog. Follow us on the Beach Remains Facebook page for show updates and fan community. Up ahead on the Beach Remains.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

And the state police, this is my view now, had already determined the father had killed her. And they were upset that the prosecutor was doing whatever he was doing, stopped the case. And that's when I started getting anonymous calls. They did not like what was going on, at least the ones that were calling me, the ones that were the real state policemen. This relative of mine in the office called me up and asked me to be careful. That's when I started carrying the gun.