All language subtitles for Monster.in.the.Shadows.S01E01.720p.WEB.h264-KOGi

A lot of people
believe they know the story

from what they've heard
on the street, seen on TV.

They don't know probably 80%
of the facts of the story.

Oddly enough,
in this relatively small town,

there are a lot of really good
stories, a lot of good stories.

I would classify it
as kind of a clique-ish town.

That area pretty much
sticks to their own.

An outsider
is not always welcome there.

We've had a few missing persons

uncovered in the woods around
there in the last several years.

This one was so... complex,

and so deep, and so disturbing,

that when people caught onto it
and started watching it,

it was probably bigger
than any reality show,

because people were so drawn

into the cast of characters,
and there were many.

I did talk to a detective,
and off the record he said,

"This is an unbelievable case."

"When it goes to trial, you're
gonna be really surprised."

I don't think
she'll ever be forgotten

because she was a young girl.

She had that all-American look

that seems to like to land
on front pages

of newspapers and magazines
and television.

She had that look.

The public
has it all wrong.

Not everybody was involved.

And what they think
doesn't per se mean it's true.

I'm gonna set you straight,
because there's the truth,

and then there's
what the media said,

and you can't always believe
the media.

The media will blow you up

and take the little story
and bits and pieces

and make their own story,

so they get their paycheck.

They don't really care
about the truth.

That's why we're here today,

because this is the truth.

There's a lot of ways
that evil comes up with

to hide their crime,
unimaginable ways.

You know,
people say all the time,

"A person can't just fall off
the face of Earth."

I'm here to say they do.

But where's Brittney?

It's the unanswered question.

It's the perfect whodunit.

May 30th, 2012, I remember it
like it was yesterday.

Brittney said
that she was going to see

a good friend of hers
named Courtney.

Her demeanor changed.

She was aggravated
or frustrated with something,

and she grabbed her bag
with all her stuff in it

and walked out my door.

So when she left
and we couldn't find her,

the first person I called
was Courtney.

And Courtney
had not heard from her,

and it was not the plan for
Brittney to come to her house.

When your child first comes up
missing, believe it or not,

there are just so many scenarios

that a parent
will flash through their head

trying to figure out
what happened to 'em.

One is always they ran away.

Number two is a serial killer
might have come through town.

We really didn't want that one
to happen.

They're hard to solve.

Um, three, human trafficking is
such a big problem in America.

Number four,
somebody we know did it,

which is the saddest answer.

We had no clue what had happened
to my daughter

until the evidence
started coming out.

My name is Eric Winberg.

I'm a former detective

with the Baldwin County
Sheriff's Office

here in Alabama.

I was involved
in an investigation

which precipitated the events

leading up to the disappearance
of Brittney Wood.

Down here in South Alabama,

Baldwin County,
where my investigation began,

is separated from Mobile County,

which is a neighboring county,

and it sits across Mobile Bay.

Due to the close proximity,
there is a lot of transference,

whether it be from offenders

committing a crime
in Baldwin County

and then fleeing to Mobile,
and vice versa.

I believe
in every detective's career,

you have probably
three to five cases

that, no matter what,
you will always remember,

and, for me,
this particular investigation

was probably my number one case
that I will never forget,

and will always have questions,
and will always wonder about.

Brittney was
a very loyal friend,

so I felt like
she opened up and was loyal

to the people that she felt like
she could trust.

My main hope
for this documentary

is that it opens light
to everything that went on,

and I hope people
really, like, open their eyes

to see that this stuff is
really happening, it's not fake,

it's not just something
you see on Facebook,

or something that the news
posted and it went away.

Like, her family still hurts
every single day.

Like, I just hope
that this brings light

to everything that went on.

Brittney was awesome.
She was a little scrapper.

I mean, she was
five foot nothing,

but she'll throw down
with anybody.

Right before
she came up missing,

she... she met my daughter
for the first time.

She wouldn't let me feed her.

She wouldn't let me
change her diapers.

She wanted to hold her.

She wanted to do everything,

because Brittney loves children,

loves children, like,

anything a child would need
and she's there for it.

Brittney's disappearance
has affected me and...

Oh. Not as bad as Chessie,
being her mother.

I mean, I was there
when she was born.

I was there...

with Chessie the whole time
when she was born,

and so I've been there
from the beginning,

and, I mean, she was...
she was my heart.

Chessie's kids are like my kids.

My kids are like Chessie's kids,
you know.

They were always
around each other.

They're more like brothers and
sisters than they are cousins.

Brittney was
my only daughter for 17 years.

I had two sons, one right above
her, one right below her.

And I loved my children,
all of 'em.

But she was my buddy, you know.
She was my only girl.

Um, we did everything together.

So it's like
I didn't lose my daughter,

I lost my best friend,

and that's why
seven years later, it don't...

A lot of people told me just
hang on, time would heal it.

Time heals nothing.

I think it helps you...

to learn how to cope
with the pain,

but it does not heal
a single drop of your pain.

You just know
you gotta live life and...

where I'm kind of struggling.

And I believe
it's because of how she left us.

This is the house
where really my nightmare began.

On May 30th, 2012,

approximately around 7pm,

I was standing at that door.

Brittney walked out the door.

I came out,
probably 10 feet in the yard,

and Brittney walked out
behind me with a tote,

and she said...

I said, "Where are you going?
I thought we had plans."

And she said, "I just don't
think you'd understand, Mom."

And she said,
"But I'll be back."

And I watched her
walk across the yard,

come up to the road,
and shoot down that way.

When she got behind that fence,
I could no longer see her.

At the end of that road
right there

is where Donald Holland
picked her up.

And it's that close,
but with the fence and stuff,

you cannot see it
from where I was standing,

so we had no idea
who picked her up right there.

I believe on the day
that Brittney Wood went missing,

she was picked up by her uncle,
Donald Holland,

who was the prime suspect
in my investigation.

He took her to Styx River,

which is out in the Wilcox area,

which is near
the Alabama-Florida line.

And he was staying
in a friend's home at that time,

and Brittney was there.

Right here behind me
is where Brittney Wood

was last seen to be alive,
May 30th, 2012.

When we first heard

that Brittney had stopped here
at Styx River,

we haul-butted out here
from Theodore.

And my brother
was caught back like this.

He was kicking the door
so we could find

if Brittney or any of her stuff
was in there.

And right when he went
to kick in the door,

we took a right...
we looked to the right,

and there was two detective cars
pulling up.

They walked out to the car,
got out the briefcases, gloves,

all their little CSI equipment,

and they walked in the house,
but they wouldn't let us go.

And when they walked out,
they walked out with a bag
of Brittney's belongings,

which is another
piece of evidence
that shows she was here.

It was a very dynamic situation,
with numerous people involved,

numerous investigators,

and two separate
law-enforcement agencies.

So there was a lot going on.

So, at that time,
I actually had to delegate

and assign
crime scene investigators

to go out
and process that scene.

They were responsible

for organizing the search teams
on the ground,

getting the search dogs

and the cadaver dogs
out there as well,

collecting any physical or
forensic evidence at that time,

in order to submit it
to the state laboratory.

When they searched
and they come out,

they told me that they were
gonna take the bag of clothes,

I had to sign a release,

take the bag of clothes
with them

to search for blood
or any... any kind of evidence.

They kept it
for about three weeks,

which was a little bit too long.

I was giving them a hard time.

But when they were finally done,

we had a meeting,

and they told me
the clothes yielded no evidence,

and they found nothing
in the house,

nor the immediate yard
around the house.

When we first found out
this was the last place

Brittney Wood
was ever seen or heard from,

when we come out here,
there was probably 10 of us,

and when we arrived,
we noticed that there was

this concrete slab
in the yard of that house.

It was about four foot wide,
about six foot long,

and it was brand new pour.

And we do believe
that it is quite possible

that under that slab
was my baby's grave.

So for seven years,
we've been trying
to get up under this slab.

We've been waiting
for Jennifer Gonzales,

which is one of the suspects
in the crimes.

She owned it,
and we knew, with a fact,

she'd never get us...
let us on there.

I still feel like
she could be there.

In seven years, some of
the leads, I'm, like, you know,

I was ready to jump on that
a year ago.

But now that I gave it
some thought,

there's no way that Brittney
Wood could be in that location.

This is a different story.

This is the last place
the neighbors heard her,

the last place
she made phone calls or texts.

I believe this is the most
likely place for her to be.

She was not seen nowhere else
after this.

We just wondered,
since that slab was so new,

had a little disturbed dirt
around it,

could she be under there,
and I need to know.

I believe... I believe she did.

And he later
disposed of her body,

again, where, we don't know.

I have suspicions that
he could have dumped her body

in the truck stop.

And I believe, you know,
with a large dumpster bin,

that would have been
an easy and convenient location

to dispose of a body.

"We checked
every camera and every dumpster

within seven miles."

"Brittney Wood was not placed
in a dumpster."

"I called Eric Winberg
for five whole years."

"When he come up
with that theory

was the last time
I ever talked to him."

First of all,
the ineptness of the detective

that they put on that case.

He was very young,

and I will give him that much,

and that would be Eric Winberg.

Um, to get given a case
of this magnitude

at such a young age

and as recently
as he'd been made detective

seemed to me to be crazy.

He was in way over his head.

I don't think
that he believed...

They came out on the news
and said

that Brittney Wood
was not in Baldwin County.

How did they know that?
I mean, they're guessing?

They didn't want people
to think she was there?

Because Baldwin County
has a reputation

of being squeaky clean
compared to Mobile,

and this was a Mobile problem,

and they subsequently refused
to even consider

that that girl was there,
which made no sense,

since that was the last place
anybody saw her.

A day or two before we
found out she had been missing,

I had a missed call on my phone,
so I really...

I really thought if I would have
picked that phone up,

I could have helped her.

As soon as I noticed
I had a missed call from her,

I tried calling her back, and
she never picked up the phone.

I tried sending text messages.
She wouldn't answer my texts.

I had no idea what was going on.

And all the while, everybody's
gathered in a hospital room

with Donnie Holland.

And I wasn't.
I just never trusted him.

There was something about him
I really did not trust.

So I tried to keep my distance
from him.

Really,
some days I'd hear
from Brittney a hundred times,

and some days,
no, I didn't hear from her,

especially with her being around
her buddies like Courtney.

So therefore
we didn't really think

anything was wrong with Brittney
until two days later

when her uncle was found
with a gunshot wound to his head

and was rushed to the hospital.

Well, initially,
it's a... a missing person.

And then...
I think at the time we did know

that the uncle
had committed suicide.

So then it's like, okay,
what happened?

You know, there's that mystery
of what happened.

And then, of course,
that mystery... kept going.

It's still... It's still there.

One of the odd things
about Brittney's Uncle Donnie

was who he was before
we found out this information.

He was charismatic, friendly,
happy, um, very outgoing.

He rode the roads all the time,
going here, there and yonder.

We thought he was enjoying life
to its fullest,

'cause he used to go in stores
and could talk to anyone.

He can make a friend
with a stranger in five minutes.

He loved Brittney
in like a morb... a weird...

I ain't gonna say morbid.
It was a weird type of way.

More like a sister.

If Brittney needed anything,

Donnie would help her out
with money, if he had it.

He would... He come all the way
up to North Alabama

and got me, you know.

My car broke down.

That was the type of person
Donnie was.

Donald Holland
was a large man,

looked very much like a biker,
if you would.

He had the goatee
and handlebar mustache,

again, large in stature,
barrel-chested.

However, he had
a very soft voice,

so his voice certainly
did not match his build.

And I did interview
Donald Holland

on a number of occasions,

both in person
and over the telephone.

He even consented
to a polygraph,

and which he failed
in the 99th percentile

and made some tacit admissions

during the course
of the post-polygraph interview.

Okay, on June 1st, um,

Donnie was reported to have
shot hisself in the head.

And this is the location
we came to a few days later.

This is the location
that Donald Holland was found,

in his SUV, running,

with a bullet in his head,
gurgling blood.

He was not yet dead.

He was found by Jennifer
Gonzales and Wendy Holland.

We're about a mile
off of the main road.

They weren't even
at the main road.

They were in Magnolia Springs,

which is about 45-minute drive
from here.

And they left Jennifer's house
after Donnie left there,

and they drove all this distance
to this location,

where Donnie was found dead.

Now, we have no idea
how they found this location,

'cause it's so far away
from where they were,

and it's so secluded
away from their regular home.

But when they got here and they
found Donnie gurgling blood,

they did not do what most wives

and friends of the families
would do.

Instead of
calling 911 immediately,

like most of us
believe we would do,

they... Wendy decided
to erase four text messages,

and then Jennifer decided to
call a detective instead of 911.

When I arrived on scene,
it was very chaotic,

a lot of people on scene,
to include Wendy Holland.

Donnie had already been taken

out of the vehicle
by paramedics.

When I saw him,
what appeared to me to be

a self-inflicted gunshot wound
to the side of his head

was readily apparent.

And he was still breathing
and his eyes were open.

When we were
up in this hospital room,

we didn't know
Brittney was missing yet.

We didn't know nothing about it.

And Wendy was sitting there
asking Donnie,

"Donnie, where's Brittney?
Where's Brittney at?"

"Do you know where Brittney...?"

That struck me as odd.

But every time
Brittney's name come up,

his brain activity
was going off on the monitor.

They said he was brain dead.

But every time Brittney come up,
he had brain activity.

Sonia noticed
every time they asked Donnie

questions about Brittney,

his vital signs would go up.

She actually tapped me and said,
"Watch this."

"Donnie, where's Brittney?"
And his vital signs changed.

And we don't know if it's guilt
of what he had done,

or he was dying, literally,
to tell us something.

I was scheduled

to conduct an interview
with Donnie Holland

on the day
that he committed suicide,

and I believe that
Donnie Holland probably knew

that if he showed up,
he was going to be arrested,

and therefore
he actually took his own life,

approximately 30 minutes before
he was due to meet with us.

Donnie went
to an empty lot

to commit suicide in the woods,

two days
after Brittney went missing.

He put a gun to his head,
pulled the trigger.

The biggest shock was it was
my daughter Brittney Wood's gun.

And had it, I guess,
for a little period of time.

She didn't have, like...

We wasn't just, like,
walking around the neighborhood

with her carrying her gun, like.

It was never like that.

So I don't know
if she got it, like,

because of what she was going
to do, or what was happening,

or, like,
what was going on with her

for her to get the gun
or anything like that, like.

Maybe because she was tiny
and she had to protect herself,

but what she was protecting
herself from, I don't know,

like, unless it was them.

It was suspected
for a little while,

or at least a working theory
amongst our agency,

that Dustin Kent,
Donnie Holland's brother-in-law,

who was married to Mendy,

Wendy's sister,

had some involvement,

and Dustin Kent denied
that he had any knowledge

of what happened to Brittney
or where she was.

There was something
just awful

about Donnie and Dustin
and the twins.

Like, the vibe
they'd give off just...

it wasn't right,
so I tried to avoid 'em.

Mendy Kent was identical

to her twin sister,
Wendy Holland

It was often joked
within the family

that each of 'em
have half a brain,

and together they make a whole.

The cell phone tower that sits
right in front of my house

pinged Donnie Holland

later the night
after Brittney's disappearance.

Which is not too far.

Dustin and Mendy Kent's house
is right around this corner.

And we all believe,

law enforcement,
all of us believe,

that for some reason,
after Brittney disappeared

in Styx River that night
and went quiet,

he came back to this area.

All right, we're coming up on
Dustin and Mendy Kent's house,

where they lived at the time,
in this trailer right here.

Um, why this is
of such significance

is because
this neighbor over here

saw Dustin digging a hole
in this backyard, in dark,

and Dustin never did
one inch of manual labor.

So we've always wondered what
was hidden in that backyard.

Something's in that backyard,

but we never
could get permission

to go on the property.

A lady called the police
in Mobile and Baldwin County,

trying to tell 'em
about the hole that was dug,

and they would never
listen to her.

Another big issue besides just
the location of where he parked

was the location
of the gunshot wound, when...

It's kind of hard to believe
that a man of his size

would put a gun
up to his head right here

and fire it to commit suicide,

when it would be so much easier

to put it to the temple
and you're dead.

He probably wouldn't even
gurgle blood then.

But he was shot right here

and it lodged
into his bottom left jaw.

To us, we're not professionals,
but, to us,

that's a very odd spot to put
a gun and pull the trigger.

So what we're looking
at here, this is a .380,

made by Smith & Wesson,

but this is
roughly the same size

as the gun in question,
which was that 25.

The make and model has not been
determined at this time.

But this is real close to what
a size 25 would look like

in comparison to... in my hand.

I've been doing
self-defense training

for the better part of 25 years

in edged weapons, firearms,

empty-hands fighting
or combative hands, we call it.

So the years of that training
has put me in the situation

to be considered a professional
witness in self-defense cases.

There again,
if somebody wants to make sure

they are going to kill
themselves and not survive it,

they're gonna typically
get a larger caliber,

and they're gonna put it
in a location on the body

where they're gonna be
more assured

that it's gonna do its job.

And that being said,
they're gonna do it

in a more relaxed or comfortable
position to do it in.

They may be pointing the barrel
directly at their head,

or in their mouth,
or even to the temple,

but to put the gun behind
your head would seem very odd.

I don't know of any suicide
that was done in that position.

But given the bloodstain
evidence in the vehicle,

and the location of the pistol,

and the entrance wound
on his head,

it was all consistent with
a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Later that was...
that question was raised

through several
jailhouse informants.

We started
getting letters

from all kind of inmates.

I mean, I got plenty
of these letters.

I can't read 'em all.

But it also says:
"Wendy admitted to me

that Donnie
never committed suicide,

and how Brittney's gun
got in the truck."

"Wendy told Donnie
what she did to Brittney,

and she said
that he had threatened her

by saying whenever he talked
to the detectives on that day,

that he was going to tell them
about Brittney."

"That's when she shot him
in the back of the head."

"She planted the gun
in the truck

to make people think
that he used Brittney's gun

to kill Brittney
and then to kill himself."

"The bullet was never removed
from Donnie's head."

"Had it been removed,
they would have known

that it didn't come
from Brittney's gun."

And people wonder
why we started wondering.

I have letter after letter,
and the bad thing is

all these letters
are from different inmates

at different times,
at different facilities.

Where they've angled a gun
the wrong way,

and they shot straight up
and it didn't do the job

because it went straight up
and didn't go back.

Also, the head is very hard,

and penetration becomes an issue
at the angles.

So, for someone,
especially of... of an age

beyond, in my opinion, of 18,
they're not gonna wanna

reach around
to put the gun behind them,

knowing if they're trying
to commit suicide,

the gun could slip and miss.

It's a bad angle.
It's a wrong angle.

And obviously this individual
survived for a period of time.

Ultimately it killed him,
but it didn't do the job

as quickly as he was expecting,
potentially,

if he actually did it.

When I saw Donnie
in the hospital,

he had bags on his hands,
which is what we do here.

You bag the hands to check 'em

for gunshot residue
at the hospital.

And while we were standing
there, the doctor come in

and was removing the bags
off his hands.

And we asked him, "Why in
the world would you do that?"

And he said
the police had just called

and ruled it a 100% suicide.

There was no reason
to test his hands.

Definitely the gunshot residue

should have still been there.

I mean, it's generally
four to five hours

before unpreserved
gunshot residue is gone,

and when your, you know,
hands are bagged,

it's being preserved.

So I don't understand
why that wasn't done,

even if they thought
it was an apparent suicide.

The word "apparent"
is there's a chance it's not.

In Alabama
at that time, in 2012,

gunshot residue test was not
a test that was performed

by the Alabama Department
of Forensic Sciences.

So GSR was not conducted.

You're gonna get
blood spray,

as it enters, back on the hands,
you're gonna get it on the gun.

Even though the bullets
go in that direction,

you get some that's gonna
come out, because it's...

you're hitting blood vessels
at some point,

and you're gonna see some
blowback of gunshot residue,

bone fragments, skin, hair,
bone, brain matter,

you're gonna get
some of that back.

So that would have been
another way to test also

if he had brain matter
and bone fragments

embedded in his hands
or on his hands.

Don't know.
There was no test done.

If you ask law enforcement today

why that was not performed,

they will tell you that in 2012

it was not routinely performed
by law enforcement.

Okay, if that be the case,
which I do not believe it is,

but if that was the case,

why in the world would
the paramedics bag his hands

for later GSR testing?

Wendy Holland's
actions at the scene

were very telling to me,

in that we knew that she had
manipulated the scene.

Her grabbing the phone

and taking time
to delete text messages,

and even having
the presence of mind to do that,

knowing that your husband
is laying there gasping for air,

is pretty cold, but yet
calculated at the same time,

because she knew
what she was doing.

She knew that there was evidence
on that phone

that could implicate him
and/or her,

and something else.

We don't know,
because those messages,

to my knowledge,
were never recovered.

Could one maybe think
that this could have been

a murder/suicide attempt,

and maybe she just
didn't follow through?

I doubt it,
and the reason I say that

is because, one, you have to
put things in perspective.

She was calling me to report
her husband missing, okay?

She was actively
looking for her husband

because she knew
he was in distress, okay?

And if you're gonna stage this
and do all of that,

why notify me?

Why not just carry it out?

See, how do I have
knowledge of detective work

when the detectives don't have
knowledge of detective work,

is my big question of the day.

Why would you call the police
for somebody missing?

Ask all these husbands killing
their wives, and they kill 'em

and five minutes later
report 'em missing.

However,
I go back and I reaffirm

that if anyone knows
what happened to Brittney Wood,

it's gonna be Wendy Holland.

Two weeks after
Fairhope Police Department

gets the SUV
after Donnie's supposed suicide,

Wendy Holland brings this
to my front door

and says that she found it
in the SUV

when the cops
gave it back to her.

This battery is the battery

that come out
of Brittney Wood's phone

after she disappeared.

How do we know this is
Brittney's phone battery?

A lot of people
has asked us this.

It's because
these scars right here,

her stepdad, Paul Houseknecht,
put them scars on there,

trying to get this battery
out of her phone for her

to keep...
to help her phone unfreeze.

I called
Fairhope Police Department

and asked them if indeed
they had seen this battery

in the console
of Uncle Donnie's SUV,

and they told me they had.

I asked them why did they
never contact any of us

about when they found
the battery,

and their response was

they didn't find no significance
in it, it doesn't hold data.

So I just let them know,
you know,

if there's ever another family
looking for a phone

and they come across
anything like this,

it probably would be great
to let the family know.

When we got the telephone pings
back, we started researching,

and we come to find out
that she had talked

to one of her friends
named Bradley

multiple, multiple times
at the end,

right before she quit
responding to this world,

where we believe
that she had done been killed.

We find Bradley, I know Bradley,

and we kept asking him
what they were talking about.

We thought it was the most
important bit of information,

and he just wouldn't tell us.

He just told us
that he couldn't remember.

The Bradley situation
is another red flag to me.

I wouldn't venture to say
he had anything to do with it,

I don't have
enough information on that,

but I do find it a little odd

that he can't remember
her text messages to him,

and... any of them,

and that suddenly
he changed his phone.

Why did that happen?

That's definitely on my top of

let's figure this situation out.

And this is when time
was very crucial

and we just wanted him to tell
us what they were talking about.

And we never
got that answer either.

And now Bradley is deceased.

Here's her and Payton.
I have a lot of Payton.

Because that's what she did.
Look.

They're different pictures,

but every one of 'em
she's kissing her baby.

This is our favorite one
of Brittney.

When I saw her on my couch like
that, I ran and got the camera.

She was mad
when she saw that picture.

And her baby being born.

Her holding Payton.

But if you look at her,

you can tell how happy she is
to have her baby.

That's how we knew
she didn't run off.

When Brittney
first come up missing,

Payton used to look
and tell everybody,

"My mama lives in the TV."

'Cause she was only two years
old. She didn't understand.

But she knew that's
the only time she saw her mom,

was when her face was on the TV.

Because she would have
really been something.

She would have made something of
her life and that baby's life.

I honestly don't feel like

Brittney would have ever left.

Most importantly, Payton, like,

I don't feel like she would have
left her, regardless.

I feel like if she was going
to leave somewhere,

she would have took her
with her, like,

"If I'm leaving, you're leaving
with me. We're both going."

And that's just, like,
understandable to me,

but the way
that her and Chessie,

like, their relationship
that they had,

I don't feel like she would have
left Chessie either.

Not only were they like
mother and daughter,

they were like best friends.

So I don't feel like she would
have left her mama either.

The night
that Brittney did disappear,

she had spoken to a few friends,
Bradley ,

and Andy
was also another one.

Brittney's relationship
with Andy,

which is her daughter's father,

was a very volatile
relationship.

There was a lot of abuse,

mentally, physically,
emotionally.

I even have pictures of her arm
being scrubbed up.

Um, he cheated on her.

I mean, it was just
the most negative relationship

two kids can possibly have.

I have to be
very careful on that one.

At first,
Andy couldn't accept it,

because he thought that maybe
she had just run off.

And, um, and he would go
sometimes at night,

and ride up certain roads,
trying to find her,

just to see if he could see her.

But as a little time went on,

he just... he finally
had to accept the fact

that she's not coming back.

It affected him
in the beginning,

but now that seven years
has passed,

and he's got a new wife,
a new family,

and he's doing really well,
you know.

But he still keeps up, you know.
He watches this stuff.

And of course he's got
a constant reminder of Brittney,

you know, every day
that he sees his little girl.

And she is her mother's child,
believe me. She is.

When I called
and made the report,

I got a feeling right then

that we're gonna have to
do something on our own,

because he did not call in
the troops like I expected,

so I decided I'm gonna call in
my own troops.

I called up my family.

Of course,
they were more than supportive.

So we grouped up
and we searched day after day.

But it would have been nice to
have that support from police,

from anybody,
from the beginning.

They say the most important
hours of a missing person

is the first 24 to 48 hours,

but yet people wanna wait weeks.

Interviewed those
who were searching.

We were told
the family would be there.

Her mother was there.
Her brother was there.

And then we ended up
going with the search crews.

And we're in the background,
of course,

getting video of them
walking through the woods and...

And they were just looking
for whatever they could find.

Her brother
was part of the search.

And her mother was too.

And the brother, you know,

was out there searching,
and we interviewed him,

and then later on, when the...
the evidence came out,

he was one of those who was
tried and convicted, you know.

So, at the time, when he was
searching, he knew something.

"This call
is from a correction facility

and is subject
to monitoring and recording."

Three years
into the journey

of looking for Brittney Wood,

a guy I know
brought to my attention

that a ground-penetrating radar

could be very significant

in looking under that slab
in Styx River.

I went to Mobile
Police Department first

to try to get some help
to get a GPR.

But every time I go
to Mobile Police Department,

I get a no for everything.

We've just been stuck
on that concrete slab.

You gotta have something

to go through
that concrete slab, you know.

And, um, we've thought
about jack-hammering it up.

We've thought about
bulldozing it up.

So I've been trying not to get
drunk 'cause I might do it.

But when a mother tells you,

"I believe
my child's somewhere,"

I don't mean you need to just
go destroy every property,

but I believe if they stick
with that same story

for a long period of time,

I believe somebody
in seven years could have said,

"Okay, Chessie, if you believe
that, let's go get her,

or we'll know she's not there
and you can move on."

Not one person, especially
the organizations in this town,

and surrounding towns,
and law enforcement.

Brittney was last seen
May 30th of 2012.

She was seen at 7:30
in the evening.

She was at the residence
of the mom.

And it was her uncle

who they had driven away with
that evening.

That was the last time
where she was seen.

This is the uncle's property
in which, on June 1st,

he committed suicide,
and he was found,

but Brittney
hasn't been seen since.

Today's search is gonna focus
on the property,

specifically the pad,
with the GPR.

We will have canines available
should Paul see things,

or we need to do some things and
do some probing around the pad,

but that'll be decided after
we get eyes on the property.

Concrete is a wonderful tool

to obscure the easy discovery
of remains and so forth.

So, partnered
with ground-penetrating radar,

it helps the investigation
get a better understanding

of what is there
underneath the concrete,

and, with that,

it has been successfully used
in cases before.

We have originally searched
this property

back in, uh,
January 20th of 2014,

but it was with just canines.

But what we understand is

there had actually been
no searching done

of the uncle's property
until we were first there.

Yeah.

So that had gone
two years being unsearched.

We know
through telephone records

that Wendy and Donald Holland
were in communication.

Wendy actually went out
to the house in Styx River,

for what, we don't know.

It could have been
just to visit her husband.

It could have been
to clean up a crime scene.

We don't know.

This is a rough drawing
of the place

we've been wanting to search
in Styx River.

I drew this map because
this is the house in Styx River.

There's a big slab right here.

I really do not believe Brittney
Wood is under this big slab,

and I didn't want them
to be confused.

We believe the little slab
is probably this size,

compared to this big one,

and her stepdad, Paul, believes
this little slab set right here,

and I believe
the little slab set right here.

Putting a three-meter perimeter

around the slab
that's been there.

So hopefully that will encompass
anything the...

the mom suspected, or the dad
had previously suspected, so...

"Hi, Chessie. How you doing?"

- "Hiya. Can you hear me?"
- "Yeah."

"I just wanted
to keep you in the loop."

- "Thank you, Thomas."
- "Okay, how are you feeling?"

"I can't breathe."

- "You know what I'm saying?"
- "Yeah."

"Just come to the conclusion

that this is a bad day, period,

'cause if she ain't here,
we have nowhere else to look."

"So this is it.
Hopefully she's here."

"But thank you, Thomas.
I'll let you get back to it."

"Okay, thank you.
All right, then. Take care."

We've got
some large disturbances

underneath the grass, um,

but I'm really going to have
pull it off this

and see how it matches up,

to see if it truly is something

or is it just a buried piece
of concrete

that's showing up in this lawn

but not showing up
in the other two lawns, so...

Seven years old, missing.

It's always a challenge.

From this point forward,

the GPR information
will be analyzed and processed

to determine if there is
something significant there

to further investigate,

to go back
to law enforcement with,

or whether there's not.

So Paul can give you more detail

on the GPR processing
that's gonna happen now.

I'm able
to put all of it together

and get a block of data

to actually start
purely analyzing.

With the different colors,

it's just different levels of
intensity of the signal return.

So, like here,
where we have this dark blue,

we have filtered out
some background noise,

and there's really
nothing present in those areas.

Whereas right here
at the corner,

we do have some type of object

that, when we look at it,
has some presence to it, so...

And with that,
I will, you know, try to discern

what that might actually be.

The area that we were
just looking at, at the edge,

is actually
just right off of the concrete.

Mm-hm.

I've gotta continue to process,

take it apart digitally,

before I can make
any type of recommendation.

Brittney was an investigator.

She was the one that always
wanted to bring the truth out.

Somewhere along the lines,

she tried
bringing these things to light,

and something did happen
to her because of this.

Leading up
to Brittney's disappearance,

we had no idea what was going on
with this family.

I do believe, after the fact,

I learned that she got a text
from a cousin

two days before she disappeared.

So when you put
all of this together,

we believe to this day

that Brittney got into the truck
with her Uncle Donnie

to confront him
about what's going on,

maybe not even just him,
maybe a few family members.

Brittney was that person.
She's going to stop a problem.

And I believe
something went horribly wrong

and she paid for it
with her life.

And even the district
attorney sat there and said,

and this is a quote from her,

is that the Wood family didn't
have turkey for Thanksgiving,

we had children.