MISSING: Esther Hollis

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts. [00:31] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And today, we wanted to hop in your feed with an extra special ad-free surprise episode. This is a story about a woman who seemed to have everything she could ever want. She had a steady job, a loving husband, and a lifelong daughter. [00:54] best friend. Everything seemed to be going perfectly until the day she vanished. [01:01] This is the story of Esther Hollis. [01:04] Music

[01:36] On September 13th, 2011, in Bloomington, Indiana, which is like this college town that's about an hour, hour and a half from where I'm sitting right now in Indy. Yeah. This woman named Natalie Starrett is at her favorite restaurant waiting for her very best friend Esther Hollis to come meet her. Now, everyone calls Esther by her nickname Esty. Like, calling her Esther would honestly be like me calling you Brittany. Ew. Yeah, let's not do that. [02:05] Brittany and it honestly like took me by surprise I never even considered that her name was anything other than just yeah like I even I think I even said to that person like most of my friends don't even realize my name is Brittany to be honest yeah so Natalie and Esty I mean honestly they sound a lot like you and me right like they grew up together they've been best friends since forever and regardless of anything else that's going on in their lives they make it a point to get together [02:35] BFF time. They meet up at the Olive Garden. They have dinner. They have wine, maybe split a dessert, talk about life, all the inside jokes like that no one else can understand. I love it. Yeah, it totally sounds like our Wednesday night dollar marg place that we went to literally every Wednesday after like our old jobs for an amount of time and an amount of margs that I personally am just going to keep to myself for now. That much margs now at 32 would probably knock me over. [03:05] For sure. So on this particular night, Esty is running late. Now, Natalie waits for 15 minutes, then a half hour, then a full hour. But there is no sign of Esty anywhere. She's not picking up her phone. She's not answering her texts. And even though this is weird behavior for Esty, Natalie is telling herself, you know, listen,

[03:28] Don't panic. She could have had something come up at work. These things happen. And plus, like if anything was really wrong, like if Esty was in the hospital or something, Natalie knows that she'd have heard about it by now. Esty's husband, Brandon, totally would have called her. [03:43] Natalie just kind of finishes up her wine and as she's leaving the restaurant she kind of gets this idea like you know what I'm just going to drive by her house and just like [03:51] take a look, make sure everything's good. Again, this is a small town. And when she drives by, she sees the lights on like normal, but she also sees Brandon's truck in the driveway, which strikes her as a little bit odd since she spent enough time over there at the house to know that Esty usually is the one who parks in the driveway and Brandon normally parks out on the street. But again, not that weird. And I mean, if Esty wasn't home yet, you can see that, you know, [04:21] get dinged up, whatever. Oh, right. And like maybe he was planning on going out and then moving when she came back. Or I mean, really, does it matter? Right, exactly. So again, this isn't anything that's like keeping her up at night. But the next morning when she still hasn't heard from her best friend, things are starting to feel off. Like she can't deny that she's starting to get nervous. She knows Esty doesn't act like this. And she knows she's going to be worried until she knows her best friend's okay, which I get totally get. I want to know my siblings are okay, my friends [04:51] My husband, otherwise, it just kind of like eats at you. So at about 9 a.m., this is Wednesday morning, Natalie stops by Esty's workplace. She's a receptionist at this car dealership in town. She is always there by 830 on the dot at the absolute latest. But when Natalie goes inside, she sees something strange.

[05:14] Esty's desk is empty. And when one of the sales guys hurries over to answer one of the phones that's ringing, he tells Natalie that Esty never showed up for work that day. And more than just not showing up, like, it's not even like she called in. She was a no-call, no-show. Oh, wow. [05:30] Natalie's heart immediately fell. [05:33] plummets. This isn't right. It's one thing not to show up for dinner. It's a total another thing to miss work without even calling. And that's when this memory creeps into Natalie's mind. This memory that for a second gives her relief. Last Tuesday, when they were having dinner, she remembers that Esty said something about needing to have an important talk with her [06:03] that she actually might go stay with her sister, Bethany, for a bit. So does Natalie call Bethany? Well, more than that. I mean, she wants to, like, at this point, put eyes on her best friend, even, like, just check in and make sure everything's okay, because if she's at her sister's, it means they have this convo and it didn't go well. So Natalie goes over to Bethany's house, hoping against hope that maybe she'll see Esty's car in the driveway, but it's not there when she pulls up. And when she talks to Bethany, who's home, [06:33] Oh, wow.

[07:03] That moment, this moment when they both realized they haven't talked to her, they hadn't seen her, that's when they both knew that they had no other choice. They had to go to the police. [07:15] Now, Natalie and Bethany don't bother calling 911. I mean, they go directly down to the station and tell them that they want to report a missing person. Now, they get the usual, like, questions. How long has this person been gone? Do you have any reason to think that they might be in danger or that they would want to leave themselves? And Natalie kind of shares this look with Bethany, and they both nod a little bit. Natalie tells the officer, yes. [07:41] everything about how they've been looking for her, how it's totally unlike her to not show up for work or just to ghost people. And Natalie also tells the officer something else. So you remember that important thing that she wanted to talk to Brandon about that she had mentioned to Natalie at dinner, mentioned to her sister? Yeah. Now, even though she didn't outright say the word infidelity, Esty made it pretty clear that she had been thinking that her husband, Brandon, had been [08:11] And so that Tuesday before, she said sometime in the next week, she was finally going to confront him about it. Wait, what do you mean that she like had these feelings? Did she have any proof or tips off on this? So a little bit. I mean, no like no solid proof. That's why, again, she wasn't like throwing around the word infidelity, but she kind of walked Natalie through this. [08:32] feeling that she'd been having in her gut for months, that something wasn't right with them. And it was only getting stronger and stronger. And there was like weird things that kept happening. Like he would come home later and later saying that he was working late, but like his lips and teeth were always like red wine stained when he came home. And finally, when her suspicions were at like this all time high, Esty said that she actually checked the monthly statements for their

[09:02] really mysterious charges. One was for a necklace. The other was for a pair of earrings. And the charges were from like months ago. And since Brandon hadn't given her any gifts lately, and she knows she didn't buy them, she knew or at least believed that he was buying them for someone else. Right. So Natalie and Bethany tell all of this to the officer who's taking all this information down. He's like typing it into the computer system. But as the officer is typing [09:32] in her name, he suddenly stops. He says, oh, you don't need to report Esther as missing because, yeah, she's already been reported missing by her husband, Brandon. Oh my God. [09:48] Natalie and Bethany are chilled to the bone, and their shock only gets worse as the officer keeps talking. [09:57] Apparently, Brandon came in late the night before, which is basically like the early morning hours of the same day that they're there, and explained that he and his wife had had an argument earlier in the evening, and she got so heated that she took off. [10:27] at a hospital or a jail or something. As a precaution. Right. So they took the report, but the officer tells Natalie and Bethany that the police are kind of just playing the waiting game. Like, they're like, listen, she hasn't been gone that long. We're pretty sure she's going to come back as soon as she cools down. But all of this feels so wrong to Natalie and Bethany. If she was missing and, like, Brandon was worried about her, why wouldn't Brandon have called either one of them?

[10:57] with them to see if she's at one of their houses before saying she's [11:01] missing and like, I don't know, maybe she's just going to show up at a hospital somewhere. That seems really bizarre to me. Exactly. Like if you get in a fight with your husband, wouldn't you think the first thought is like, oh, she went and stayed with a friend. Like maybe she doesn't want to be home, but like, I'm not going to think that something terrible happened within hours. Right. Like a friend or a sibling or a family member, something, not like a hospital or a prison. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And this is obviously like they're having the same feeling, but no matter how hard [11:31] No matter how much they plead with him to start an investigation, they can't get anywhere. And at some point, they stop wasting their breath because they start realizing something. This guy is never going to take their word over Brandon's because, you see, Brandon is a local prosecutor. This is a small town where all the cops know him, and they're going to listen to their buddy, Brandon. Well, yeah. [12:01] The only thing Natalie and Bethany can do is go home and pray that maybe the police are right and that Esty will be back soon. But... [12:12] A week goes by. [12:14] and then two weeks, and then a month. And nobody hears a thing from her. It's like Esty just fell off the face of the earth and nobody but Natalie and Bethany seem to be doing anything about it. And there's even this one point where Natalie like goes back to the police station one day and basically stages a sit-in. I mean, she brings her iPad, her charger, a pack lunch, and literally refuses to leave until the chief of police himself agrees to talk to her. Girl, that's what I would

[12:44] So, love you. - Same girl, love you. But even this doesn't work. Like, he does talk to her, but he gives her like the same old spiel. Listen, she's a grown woman who had a fight. She wanted to leave. It's not illegal to go missing. And he says there's no signs of foul play. And there's really nothing we can do unless something new turns up to tell us otherwise. So, [13:10] That's kind of where things stood, at least for the next two months, until one day when Natalie gets a call from Bethany. [13:22] Bethany can barely spit the words out when Natalie picks up. She is crying. She's hyperventilating. And when she can finally talk, she tells Natalie that she is at goodwill and something caught her eye. It was one of her sister's feelings. [13:38] favorite, [13:39] shirts. And at first, she thought she was just like losing it, like so grief stricken and just missing Esty so much that she was seeing her in everything. But the closer she looked, she realized she wasn't losing it. This shirt was unique. It was this like Dolly Parton t-shirt that Bethany had made and customized for Esty a couple of years ago. But she's looking at it and she knows she's not [14:09] goodwill and so she goes on to tell natalie that she became so frantic at that point and just kind of started looking around through the racks i mean just like tearing through them all throughout the store and she said that she found 13 items of estes before she called natalie crying oh my god including a mug that she had made at one of those like

[14:31] paint your own pottery places that has her name on it. Like we're talking one of a kind things, not anything that would be mistaken. [14:39] As Natalie is listening to this on the phone, she can like feel her heart down. [14:44] pounding in her ears he had gotten rid of all her stuff he knew she wasn't coming back and honestly to me this is one of the most heartbreaking moments of this whole case like i can't imagine how hard it would be standing in this freaking goodwill and seeing like [15:05] our memories. Like if our Marianne and Wanda shirts that I made for us for the Chicks concert were like hanging up with price tags on them for just anyone to take. I literally cannot imagine I would be bawling that shirt as one of my prized possessions. I literally wore it yesterday. It will like I will be buried in that shirt. Well, somehow though, Natalie keeps it together. Natalie, don't get me wrong. The girl is crying in the parking lot, just totally overcome with [15:35] white hot rage that so little has been done to find Esty and bring her home safe. [15:42] But once Natalie has cried herself out, she drives over to Brandon's to confront him. But before she even does, she notices something strange. His truck is still in the driveway. It's been there all of this time that her best friend's been gone. But now it looks strange. [16:01] different. And it takes her a second to like put her finger on it.

[16:05] But then she realizes that he has four new tires on his truck. Okay, but that's not like that strange. That's because you didn't know Esty. And it wouldn't be strange to anyone who wasn't Natalie. People get new tires all the time. Right. But what Natalie knows that none of us knew until this point is that just a couple of months before Esty went missing, Brandon had just gotten new tires. [16:35] Oh. [16:49] From that moment on, Natalie knew that she and Bethany were on their own. So they watched Brandon. They drove by his house. They would pop into court on their days off. Like they wanted him to know that they knew. But honestly, Brandon didn't care. He felt angry. [17:10] untouchable. So untouchable that Brandon was actually already being seen around town with his new [17:19] girlfriend. It was this woman named Crystal who worked as like a waitress at this like little sandwich shop across the street from the courthouse where Brandon used to always go. And 13 weeks to the day that Esther went missing. [17:35] Wouldn't you know it?

[17:36] Crystal moves into their house. Uh, that seems... [17:41] kind of quick. [17:43] Yeah, and mind you, at this point, Brandon's basically cut off all contact with Esty's family and Natalie. According to Bethany, he told her that it was like just too painful to stay in touch and that he really just like wanted to put this whole thing behind him. Put it behind him? It's only been like three months. Girl, it only gets worse. So that following Tuesday, Natalie and Bethany actually decide to like meet up. [18:13] become like each other's confidants. And they're really the only two people in the world who are like going through the same thing. So they meet up at this like nice little bistro downtown. And as they're walking to their table, they see Brandon and Crystal together, like all cozied up on the same side of the booth, having this romantic candlelit meal. And as you can imagine, I mean, this is super hard to stomach for both of them. But then Crystal looks up. She actually makes [18:43] and crystal puts like one hand up on her chest so that both natalie and bethany can see the ring on her finger oh my god is crystal engaged to brandon [18:54] Maybe. But Natalie and Bethany aren't even like thinking about that right now because they actually recognize the ring. And that's what's like taking them aback. It is this really distinctive piece. It's like a small diamond surrounded by a circle of opals. And it's the exact ring that Grandma Hollis left to Esty in her will. Esty wore that ring every single day and she never took it off,

[19:24] So, I mean, as if there was any question in their minds before, I mean, they know now, like if she really had run away, like the police insist she did, she would have never left that behind. That ring meant the world to her. [19:39] And so this is it. Like, looking at this, both Natalie and Bethany now know the truth. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, in their mind, Esty is never coming back. She's probably dead. And no matter what law enforcement says, they are 150% sure that Brandon had something to do with it. Okay, but they can't prove it. No, not without her body or some, like, really compelling evidence. [20:09] And so... [20:11] They wait. [20:12] Finally, in October of 2012, this is 13 months after Esty disappeared, Natalie comes up with an idea. [20:22] She knows that if she and Bethany ever want to see any kind of justice for Esty, then it's up to them to take things into their own hands. [20:32] And Bethany agrees. [20:33] It takes a little bit of planning, but they're in no hurry. They want to do this right. And first up is Bethany. [20:41] You see, Bethany works in insurance. So she forges this fat life insurance policy in Brandon's name with Crystal listed as the sole beneficiary. [20:54] Before the ink even has time to dry, Natalie is on deck. She calls Brandon's office, pretending to be Crystal. Now, she knows that Brandon's in court, so she leaves this message telling him to meet, you know, quote, Crystal at this motel off Highway 109 after work. She's got a surprise for him.

[21:14] Brandon takes the bait and he heads there straight after work. He's so cocky that he forgets he's heading straight to Natalie's home turf, a place that she's worked at as a housekeeper for years. [21:27] She picks a quiet room down at the end of a long hallway. [21:31] puts a tarp on the floor, [21:34] and waits for the key to turn in the lock. [21:38] If anyone saw a woman in a boat out on Lake Monroe that night, [21:43] They never say anything. You know, if they saw it, it's probably some college kids out skinny dipping, nothing to worry about. It takes a few weeks before the police come by the motel to ask if she'd heard anything from Brandon Hollis. As the officer tells her, Brandon went missing under very mysterious circumstances. And no one's heard from him in several days. And Natalie is shocked. I mean, what a tragedy. [22:13] worried about Brandon's sister-in-law, Bethany, because she's just been through so much, so much loss in such a short time. Yeah, and I'm sure Bethany told the police it's been, you know, really hard to cope with everything that's been going on. Well, yes, that. And police also want to know, can Natalie confirm Bethany's story that they were together the night Brandon disappeared? Oh. Which, [22:37] Yeah, of course she can. You know, they binged some classic Grey's Anatomy. They made a frozen pizza, split a bottle of wine. I mean, if they were to check, their phones are going to ping in the same location. They were together forever.

[22:51] all [22:51] Night. [22:52] When they leave, Natalie can't be anything but angry. It's been a week. They're investigating after a week when Brandon goes missing. But over a year after Esty went missing, there still had never been a real investigation into her case. [23:12] And that's when she knew that they made the right decision. [23:15] Now, the next time that Natalie and Bethany go to Olive Garden together, Brandon's maybe fiance, Crystal, is actually at the bar waiting for them. And girl looks crazy. [23:26] rough. Like her mascara's flaking off. Her lipstick is like a little bit smeared. And as soon as she sees Natalie and Bethany, she freaks out. She starts screaming and making a scene in the middle of this restaurant. She keeps telling them that she knows that they killed Brandon and they're trying to pin it on her. She's like just repeating this over and over. And she keeps saying like, one day she's going to prove it. She's calling them names. She's making threats. I mean, the [23:56] shocked. [23:57] Now, poor Bethany, I mean, she starts crying a little. Natalie tries to comfort her while Crystal makes the worst kind of scene possible until finally this poor waiter manages to, like, get her out the door. They, like, are threatening to call the cops on her, basically, to get her to leave. Oh, my God. [24:11] Now, the Olive Garden manager, you know, he apologizes like 10 ways to Sunday. He says, you know, listen, we're going to take care of the whole meal. Have a nice dinner. Again, so, so, so, so sorry. So they sit down. They each have a glass of wine. And when no one's looking...

[24:28] They do a toast. [24:30] A toast to Esty's memory. [24:32] and to Brandon staying gone for a long time. [24:36] long time. [24:37] Because if there's one thing they learned from him, [24:41] It's that... [24:42] If there's nobody... [24:44] then there's no crime. [24:46] April Fool's Crime Junkies. If you haven't picked up on it by now, then you are definitely not a Taylor Swift fan. But we are. We loved her song, Nobody, No Crime from Evermore. And we thought it'd be really fun to just imagine what the story would be like, you know, if it were a real crime junkie episode. Yeah, you guys, I mean, this was, don't read into it, 100% fiction, not based on [25:16] if Taylor Swift has ever even heard of our tiny show before. But I like to believe that deep down in her heart of hearts that maybe she's a little bit of a true crime junkie. I mean, clearly she is, right? Like nobody writes that song if they don't love true crime a little bit. I mean, and can I maybe throw Natalie Maines into the mix? Because I'm pretty sure I heard some Goodbye Earl references in there as well. I snuck some of those in. You guys, we just wanted to drop something fun in your feed for April Fool's Day. [25:46] if anyone out there knows Taylor, tell her we love her. Bye! Bye! [25:54] Thank you.

[26:24] *music* [26:28] you [26:29] you [26:30] *music* [26:33] Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. [26:36] So? [26:37] What do you think, Chuck? [26:38] Do you approve? [26:42] Okay, crime junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? [27:01] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [27:05] I think you'll love it too. [27:06] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.