MISSING: Sage Smith

[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. [00:30] Welcome back, Crime Junkies. I'm Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And as always, our program is brought to you by Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana. And I have some exciting news. Crime Stoppers is participating in a big nonprofit event here in downtown Indianapolis on June 14, 2018. That's this coming Thursday. [01:00] I hope to see some of you out there.

[01:30] you [01:33] Britt, the story I have today is about the disappearance of Sage Smith. This is one that I remember coming across my Facebook feed a lot in like 2015, 16-ish. And I'm sure you saw it too because we get a lot of the same stuff. And after this quick flurry of information, I never really heard anything else about it until there was a TV special that came out recently and I thought I have to talk about this on Crime Junkie. Yeah, I remember reading a pretty extensive article on it a while back [02:03] lot to take in. Yeah, it's a ton of information. It's a really kind of confusing case, and there's all these different players, but again, nothing really happens. So Sage's story takes place in November of 2012. She is a trans woman who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and at the time, she was 19 years old and really learning to become independent. She had just graduated high school recently, and she's now in school for cosmetology and got in her own apartment with [02:33] other trans girls, one named Shakira and one named Aubrey. [02:37] On Monday, November 19th, all of the girls decide to throw a party for Shakira's 19th birthday. Ooh, it's her golden birthday, I just realized. They had a party at their apartment, and at some point in the night, this random girl comes charging in, all pissed about something over some guy, and she tries to start a fight with one of Sage's friends. The fight gets taken outside, and of course, a bunch of people follow, because that's just what happened. You have to see what goes down.

[03:07] who go outside to follow this fight. Well, while they're fighting outside, the street that they're fighting on is lined with cars, and you... [03:17] Assume, usually, that they're empty, but what they didn't realize is one of the cars is packed full of people who came with that girl who started the fight. So they all hop out of the car, and an actual physical altercation breaks out between multiple people. And at some point, Sage ends up getting her hands dirty and fighting with somebody named Jamel. [03:38] Someone ended up calling the cops and about 11.20 that night, police arrive and are filing a report that Sage is a part of. Sage's friend Shakira said that the whole thing was just so bizarre. [03:51] Like, yes, fights were not totally uncommon in their friend group, but she said that she didn't really even know this girl who came in. She really didn't really understand what she was pissed about. Whatever she was mad about, this guy, had nothing to do with Sage. So how Sage ended up in the middle of all this didn't make any sense. And Shakira actually never even jumped in on the fight. And this pissed Sage off because she's like... [04:15] pretty hurt. Like you, you're my best friend. You need to have my back if I get into a fight. Yeah. And let it be known, I would totally have your back in a fight. And I'm totally going to hold you to that because eventually, you know, of the two of us, I'm definitely going to be the one who's going to get us into trouble and I'm going to need you to back me up. Something's never changed. Yeah. Well, they end up getting in a fight about this and Shakira calls some of her relatives to come pick her up because she didn't even want to stay in her place that night. She doesn't want to deal. She's like, listen, you got in a fight. I'm not obligated to jump in and

[04:45] face just because you're riled up about something that didn't even involve you. [04:48] Just before Shakira left, Sage told her that she hated her. And that was the last time the two friends ever spoke. And they never got a chance to make it right again. [04:59] We also learned that later that same night, [05:02] Jamel tweeted, [05:04] "Been disrespected to the point of no return." - That seems kind of ominous. [05:10] I know, and I'm not sure if that is a threat or like a sign of defeat, but I don't think you tweet any other way than as a threat. Like... [05:18] you're gonna, this is like someone crossed a line and this is just way too far. So the next day, which is November 20th, and keep in mind the 20th is Thanksgiving Eve and Sage had plans to be with her family that whole weekend. Sage is getting ready for a date on the 20th. Shakira still isn't there, but their other roommate, Aubrey, is. She's sleeping on the couch and at about 5.30, Sage wakes up Aubrey and says she's leaving for a date, but she's gonna be back that evening. [05:47] Sage walks out of the front door and this is the last time her other roommate would see or speak to her. [05:54] It's not until the next morning that Aubrey realizes something isn't right. She notices that Sage never came home last night. She tries calling her, and the calls are going straight to voicemail. [06:06] And people said this is so unlike Sage. She was glued to her phone, even carried a charger with her, so she would never have to have a dead phone. So something was absolutely wrong.

[06:18] So Aubrey is calling her family. The family is trying to call Sage. But the same thing, write to voicemail every single time. The family does get in touch with Sage's stepsister, though. And she says she actually saw Sage that night before. Her stepsister said, yeah, I was on my way to this bus stop. And I ran into her. And she was on the phone with somebody. And it sounded like that person was asking where she was. And Sage said something like, I'll be there in five minutes. [06:48] end up parting ways with Sage still on the phone, and that's all she knew. - When did this meeting happen? [06:54] Like... [06:55] Right after Sage left her house? No, this was about an hour after at 6.30 p.m. So we don't know exactly where Sage was between... [07:06] 5.30 when she last saw Aubrey and 6.30 because where they were supposed to meet wasn't that far away. A lot of people think because this person obviously wasn't showing up and they're still trying to connect, maybe Sage was just waiting for this person at their meeting place. [07:22] The whole family knows something is wrong at this point. And even with that brief sighting, it doesn't change anything. Like, okay, she was last seen an hour later, but we still don't know where she is. We still can't get a hold of her. We don't know where she was all night. She never came home. So they have Aubrey call the police to file a report. [07:38] The police respond fairly quickly and they do a grid search of the area where Sage's stepsister last saw her. They canvass nearby businesses looking for anyone with surveillance video, but even in 2012 there just wasn't a ton, which was kind of shocking to me. And the few that they were able to get in their hands, absolutely nothing was captured with Sage on it. Nothing that can help them figure out what path she took that night or where she might be now.

[08:05] The police start building a timeline, and the first thing they want to see are her cell phone records to find out who was she on the phone with that night when her stepsister saw her. Who was the last person she talked to before her phone was turned off? [08:19] Well, they put in a request, but I told you all this before, it takes days, precious days to get these results back. Another great example of why everyone needs an if I go missing folder. A hundred percent. The police have to wait. But if she would have had an if I go missing folder, it could have saved her family some valuable time because they were not going to wait for some paperwork to stand in their way. [08:49] word, and they end up guessing it right. And they're able to see that Sage's last communication was to a phone number with an out-of-state area code that no one in her family recognized. So Sage's dad, Dean, tried calling this number. [09:04] over and over and over with no response back. And there's no voicemail saying who this person is. So, [09:12] Dean does the next best thing. He puts out a call out on Facebook saying basically, hey, everybody, do you recognize this number? We think whoever owns this number was the last person talking to Sage before she went missing. So please help us. If you recognize this number, please reach out. Within just a few hours, Dean gets a message from someone named Yanni. And Yanni is like, yeah, I know that number. And I know exactly why that person would have been talking to Sage.

[09:42] . [09:42] Yanni says that that number belonged to a guy named Eric McFadden, and Eric had been secretly dating Sage. Secretly dating? [09:51] Why the secret? Well, because Eric had a girlfriend who had no idea that A, he was cheating on her, and B, he was cheating on her with a trans woman. [10:02] Okay, then that makes sense. Right. Well, once Dean finds out who this guy is, he wants to talk to him. And obviously he can't reach him by phone. He's been trying that over and over. So again, he does what works for him. He goes to Facebook and Yanni gives him a picture of Eric that he posts and says, listen, has anyone seen this guy? He was last seen with my son before my son went missing. Wait, did Dean say son? [10:32] just started identifying as a trans woman within the last couple of years before she went missing. So her family accepted her, loved her, was okay with her decisions, but it would still take them some time. They'd spent years calling Sage a he, and sometimes they would slip up on their pronouns, calling her he, him, son, and Sage, this didn't bother her. She was used to it, and this is just one of those instances where Dean slipped up and said son. Did Dean share any of this with the [11:02] No, he didn't want the police to shut down his little operation. I mean, he knew that technically he got the information illegally and police are all about going through the red tape. So he felt like he was really getting somewhere and he didn't want to be slowed down by the police.

[11:18] Now, while Dean had his investigation going on, police are just a couple of days behind him. Because just two days later, they also end up at Eric McFadden, but in a totally different way. A student named Esther at the University of Virginia calls police on November 24th. She has left the university to go home for Thanksgiving holiday, but she's really worried because she can't get a hold of her boyfriend. So she wants police to go do a welfare check at the apartment that they share together. Okay. [11:48] Police go there, but nobody is home. They probably would have totally closed the book on this, except for the same day, Yanni, the person who reached out to Dean on Facebook, comes into the station and tells them the whole story that she had told Dean about Eric dating Sage, Dean's Facebook post, this call out for Eric, and him having Sage's cell records, like all of it. So now they know, without them having the records, that this Eric guy is missing. [12:17] Sage is missing. Eric is the last person to talk to them. And now we know Sage's dad, Dean, is looking for him. [12:24] So because police know that he's missing, it's one of two things. Either they're both missing together or Eric is missing because he did something to Sage. So right away, they go public with this information. There's posters, press releases. The police want to talk to Eric, but he's nowhere to be found. Did Eric have a job or anything that he wasn't showing up to? I mean, he could have just been out of touch for normal reasons, right? Unlikely, because he did have a job that he wasn't showing up to either.

[12:54] super fishy here. In an attempt to get more leads, they get Esther's approval to search the apartment that she shared with Eric. And the only real thing of note that they find in the apartment is a CVS receipt from November 22nd. What was the receipt for? It's not what the receipt was for that stood out to police. I think it was pretty innocuous. But rather, when the receipt was [13:24] We know for sure that Eric didn't go missing with Sage. And it's not even like he dropped off the grid right after something happened to Sage. It would almost seem like he was still going about his day-to-day activities on the 22nd like nothing was amiss. [13:39] Then what made him go MIA? Well, some people's best guess is that it was the Facebook post from Sage's dad. Dean didn't call out Eric specifically for having a relationship with Sage, but a lot of people said the fact that Eric would have even been linked to Sage publicly would have been enough to freak him out. Oh, and especially because Dean used the word son. [14:00] If Eric was paranoid about being outed, that probably would have freaked him out even more. Yeah, and that's a total possibility. So at this point, police aren't sure on any angle. Did he run away because he had something to do with Sage's disappearance and people are linking him to the disappearance? Or did he run away because he thought everyone in his life, including his girlfriend, would find out about his secret affair?

[14:25] Now, a couple of days later, police finally get the actual phone records, and they confirm what Yanni and Dean had already pieced together. Eric was, in fact, the last person to talk to Sage on the phone at 6.36 p.m., and so that was the person who was on the phone with him when Sage's stepsister saw her. [14:45] But what the police have that Dean couldn't get was actual transcripts of the text messages that were sent and received from her phone. And in the minutes before that last call between Eric and Sage, it looks like some messages had been sent back and forth where Sage was basically saying, listen, I've been waiting for you. I think I got stood up and I'm only giving you five more minutes. [15:06] So maybe they never even met up that night? [15:08] That's the thought at first, but we know they spoke on the phone after this and Sage was saying that she'd be somewhere in five minutes. [15:17] Oh, yeah, right. So police are more confused than ever. They have to talk to Eric to clear up this mess. And wouldn't you know it? [15:25] Who voluntarily calls them but Eric himself. Mind you, this is now the 27th, seven days after Sage had gone missing. He gives them this whole story. He says that he left Virginia and went to New York City just because he always wanted to go there. Like, that's it. Nothing more. I just up and left my girlfriend and my job and stopped talking to everybody because I wanted to visit this town I've never been to. It doesn't quite feel right. But he does admit to having a sexual relationship with Sage. [15:55] and that night he said they had plans to meet up but sage never showed up eric offers to come back to virginia to get this story straight and he's like listen i'm gonna come by a bus i'll be there in a couple of days but of course eric never shows up

[16:10] But he does keep talking, and not to police, but to other people, specifically his girlfriend, Esther. And he tells her a totally different story. Man, I'm sorry. [16:22] If you're going to lie, you've got to keep your story straight. I feel like this is 90% of the way liars get tripped up. And I feel like you just made up that statistic. 100%. But for real, I'm shocked at how many people will tell wildly different stories to different people thinking like no one is ever going to talk to each other. It's so strange. But in any case, Eric tells Esther that he did meet up with Sage that night and the two of them were walking together when some other people showed up [16:52] So Eric just gets out of there. He thought maybe these people were after Sage because apparently Sage has some enemies. [16:59] So his story now is that [17:02] He and Sage ran into some of Sage's enemies and he just peaced out and left her there? Basically, yeah. And who were these alleged enemies? Well, it turns out that Sage had a history of getting involved with closeted men. Eric said that she was even blackmailing him specifically, threatening to out him if she didn't get the things that she wanted. And this history with these kinds of men had gotten her in hot water before. [17:27] Summer breaks should be fun, but it is also important to keep young minds active. Even though my daughter's out of preschool, we are helping her all summer continue to learn and study and just not give up building that muscle. And IXL is a great way to help kids stay engaged and avoid losing progress between school years. IXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S. And as an award-winning online learning platform, IXL helps kids truly understand what they're learning.

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[19:54] Where was this guy when Sage went missing? That's the thing. He's a great suspect, but he was incarcerated at the time, so there's no way he would have been able to do anything to Sage. [20:05] Fast forward to December 3rd, though, a new suspect emerges. Now, this is two weeks after Sage has been missing. Police are monitoring all of her bank activity, her credit card activity, when boom, they get a hit that Sage's credit card has been used at a convenience store. So they pull the footage and it wasn't anyone they expected to see. [20:29] On the footage was Sage's roommate, Aubrey, the person who last saw Sage before she was said to have left the apartment. Now we know obviously she didn't do anything to her because Sage was seen after she left the apartment, but she had her credit card. And when she gets pulled in by police, she basically says, listen, I took the card to buy food. We leave the card on the counter. We share stuff all the time. Sometimes she takes mine. Sometimes I take hers. It's not a big deal. [20:59] talked to other people, Aubrey's behavior was pretty unusual. She would be wearing Sage's wigs, like using all of her stuff. So she's using her clothes, her wigs, clearly her credit cards, her [21:12] I think it's crazy for your friend that's going missing to just be like, I'm just going to use all their stuff until they come back or maybe because I know they're never coming back. But she swears that it's [21:21] totally normal. And her friends even say this is probably just her way of coping with the fact that her friend is gone, making her feel closer to her. I don't know. She has a couple of other holes in her story as well. Aubrey had originally told police that, yeah, she had heard of this Eric guy. She met him once briefly, like in passing, but she never actually hung out with him, didn't know him super well. Well, there was a witness

[21:51] Saturday slash Sunday before Sage went missing. So that doesn't make sense either. Like you spent a whole evening with this guy, according to a witness, and now you're going to pretend like you don't know the person who was last known to talk to and be with Sage? That doesn't make sense. So all of this seems super fishy to police, but there is nothing they can do to link Aubrey to Sage's disappearance in any way. And things from here just get stale. There's no more credit card transactions, no new leads to follow, [22:21] like this for two more months until February 2013 a new eyewitness comes forward with a new account. It's a girl named Monica who comes forward and says she's known Sage for years so it's not like she would confuse her with anyone else and she said that she saw and spoke to her around 7 p.m. that night that she went missing the 20th at a restaurant and she said that Sage told her she [22:51] in the bar. So the timeline we have now, we know at about 636, she is on the phone with Eric. She sees her stepsister. She's telling somebody who we now we know is Eric that, you know, you stood me up. I'll be there in five minutes. So it sounds like she's going directly to meet somebody. But now, [23:09] At 7 o'clock, about a half hour later, Monica sees her at this Wild Wing Cafe alone. [23:16] Now this Wild Wing Cafe shares a building [23:20] with the Amtrak station. And the Amtrak station is where Eric and Sage were supposed to meet up. So

[23:27] Was Eric later than expected? Did they meet and they only met for a couple of minutes? We don't know. [23:33] Police try and search for more witnesses at the cafe, and they speak with management who remembers seeing a few transgender people together, but nothing specific. They couldn't say for sure if it was Sage. They couldn't say for sure if it was any Sage's friends. So while it seems like it's a likely sighting of not only Sage, but maybe some more people, they... [23:56] don't have anything specifically to say it was and there's no security footage to tie all of this together. [24:01] So even though they have this new sighting, the case goes stale again, this time for years. Until November of 2015, when police make a stunning announcement. They no longer consider Eric a suspect. [24:17] What? What happened in three years to make them say that? They say that his digital footprint doesn't line up with any kind of criminal activity. His phone and computer activity shows that he was occupied almost the whole night. He was on his computer from 11 p.m. to 3 a.m. And they said the activity is super normal, not looking up anything crazy, just normal search history for him. [24:47] Thank you. [24:47] clean up a body or get rid of a body or hide a body. He couldn't even drive either. They said he didn't have a car and the apartment that he was in, he shared with other people. He also didn't have a car, so he wasn't able to drive anywhere. Where would he have taken Sage? And he's in an apartment that he shared with other people. So police say there's just no way he could have been able to hurt, transport, or store Sage anywhere without either getting help from

[25:17] a bunch of people witnessing all of this. We last know of Sage's whereabouts at 7, but [25:23] It's four hours to 11. I feel like he could have gotten a lot done in those four hours. You know, I kind of agree. When they say that, oh, we know for sure because of his computer activity... [25:34] Do you? I don't know what his cell activity was. Maybe there's a way they can track where he was. I don't know when Sage's phone was turned off. Maybe they see that their phone's parted at some reason. All they give in all the stuff they could find was this 11 to 3 window. But I think it does leave four hours where something could have happened. And even though police leave it like this for two years, something makes them reconsider all this too. Because all of a sudden, in March of 2017, [26:04] Two years after they were like, nope, Eric's not a suspect, no big deal, they reclassified the investigation as a homicide. And they say now they think that Eric is a person of interest. Not necessarily a suspect again, but no. [26:20] They think that he knows something. And when they're asked, they say nothing new has spurred this reclassification. We just decided this. [26:30] I'm gonna go ahead and call BS on that. [26:32] Same. I think that something had to make them come back to Eric, whether that's new information, whether that's just them reinvestigating. But at this point, they're saying they think Eric knows more than he's saying. Either... [26:45] He saw something. Like maybe he was a witness to something. Maybe he knows what happened. But they said whatever he has, he has more information that they think will help them. And now they also say that they are for sure that Sage had been murdered. But they don't have anything to push the case forward. Now Eric still...

[27:06] has not been seen since. And this is what, like five plus years later, they can't get Eric in front of them. So he's hiding for some reason. Either he had something to do with it, which for whatever reason, police say they don't think he was responsible, but he probably knows something. Is he afraid of someone else? Is he afraid just to come forward because of the big explosion he [27:31] But basically the case is stalled. They want to find Eric. So we'll post a picture of Eric on our website. And if you know anything, if you're in the Charlottesville, Virginia area or outside, obviously Eric isn't in Charlottesville anymore, you can call Crime Stoppers at [redacted phone]. With any information, you can remain totally anonymous. [27:56] And that's really where things stand. They're waiting for somebody to come in with any kind of tip to push the case forward. And I think it's kind of sad. Again, not a lot of people are talking about this case. You know, there was that recent TV special, thank goodness, and we're trying to keep it alive. But when you compare this case to others, like, I don't know if you know, not long after Sage went missing is when Hannah Graham also went missing from the same area. Yeah, I think I remember that case. Oh, I totally remember. It was on national news. [28:26] search efforts literally thousands of people showed up the police said they had resources they had never seen before and it was the most expansive and intensive search they had ever conducted and within 36 days they were able to recover hannah graham's body and it makes you wonder like

[28:45] If Sage would have had half of those resources, is she somewhere where like a search of the same size that Hannah had would have found her? So many people know Hannah's name and face and her family has closure and Sage hasn't gotten nearly the same attention. I do have to bring something up before we close, though. [29:05] Is there any chance that this was a hate crime? [29:08] You know, when it initially started, police said, of course, there's a chance. They couldn't rule out anything. I think the farther they get into the investigation and trying to talk to Eric and knowing Sage's history, they think that less and less. They think it was more likely that it was someone specifically that Sage had to do with and not somebody who just hated Sage's life. More of a personal conflict. Right. It's kind of sad, though, that it's literally 2018 and we still even have to wonder if that happened. [29:37] is a possibility. Like, I don't, why can't we all just like love each other? I mean, I know that sounds crazy, but just be nice to each other, whether you're LGBTQ, a dog lover, a cat lover, like everyone just be kind, be cool, and let that be your life lesson for the week. No, for the rest of your life. And we will be back next week with another episode. [30:15] Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. For pictures and links about the case, check out our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at CrimeJunkiePod.com.

[30:26] and on Instagram at [30:27] Crime Junkie podcast. Crime Junkie is written and hosted by me. All of our sound production and [30:57] All of our music, including our theme, comes from Justin Daniel. Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [31:05] *Mario* [31:10] 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? [31:28] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [31:32] I think you'll love it too. [31:34] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.