0:00

Etsy has it, everyone. Yes, it's

0:02

true. Etsy is where style seekers,

0:05

vintage hunters, long-time renters, and

0:07

new homeowners alike go to shop for style,

0:09

home decor, and gifts from independent

0:11

sellers. Shop signature jackets,

0:14

jewelry, artwork, furniture, rugs,

0:16

and more. This is your invitation

0:18

to find what your style-seeking, home-upgrading

0:20

heart desires. Find home, style,

0:23

and gifts for you for all budgets and

0:25

any occasion. Shop Etsy.com

0:27

today. Etsy has it.

0:30

Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Mornings

0:33

are for mixing and matching at McDonald's. For

0:35

just $3, mix and match two

0:37

of your favorite breakfast items, including a sausage

0:39

McMuffin, sausage biscuit, sausage burrito,

0:42

and hash browns. Make it even better with

0:44

a delicious medium iced coffee. With

0:46

McDonald's Mix and Match, you can't go wrong. Price

0:49

and participation may vary. Cannot be combined

0:51

with any other offer or combo meal. Single

0:53

item at regular price.

0:55

Two sisters. One,

0:58

a respected TV producer, Jill Blackstone,

1:00

and the other, Wendy. She was

1:02

disabled, nearly blind and deaf, and

1:05

Jill had devoted herself to taking care

1:07

of Wendy. Jill was her best friend,

1:09

her sister, her everything. But

1:11

the sister bond was shattered when Wendy

1:14

and some of the sister's rescue dogs were

1:16

found dead in a garage next

1:18

to a Topolova barbecue grill. Jill

1:21

says accidental carbon monoxide poisoning

1:23

killed everyone. Police do not believe

1:25

her.

1:25

Police arrested Jill Blackstone

1:28

for the murder of her sister. Investigators think

1:30

it was staged to look like an accident. Who

1:32

will you believe, especially now that

1:34

a secret source has come forward with evidence

1:37

never made public before? Jill was a good

1:39

producer.

1:39

There's no doubt about that. But

1:41

would she produce murder is

1:44

the question. Season 2 of Bad, Bad

1:46

Thing, The Blackstone Sisters, available

1:48

now, wherever you get your podcasts. I

1:51

always say, show me a perfect family, I'll show

1:53

you a family with secrets.

2:31

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 333

2:34

of the True Crime All The Time Unsolved Podcast.

2:36

I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always

2:39

is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson.

2:41

Gibby, how are you? I'm doing good. How

2:43

about yourself? I'm doing well, man. I really

2:45

am having a good week. I feel

2:48

good. I said it

2:50

on TCAB, but I'm trying to eat a little bit better.

2:53

That always makes me feel better

2:56

when I don't eat so much junk. That's true.

2:58

If I could mix in the workout part of it,

3:01

which I loathe, I probably would

3:03

feel even better. That's never going to happen.

3:05

It's probably not. You have every piece of equipment

3:08

anybody would ever need to work out. My wife

3:10

uses it all. Yeah. You

3:12

just look at it and then go right

3:14

past it. Right past it. Do something

3:16

else. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout

3:19

outs. We had Lou Lamborn. Hey, Lou. Janice.

3:22

What's going on, Janice? Stacey Simmons. Hey,

3:24

Simmons. Michelle Durst. What's

3:26

up, Durst? Jamzy Scheidel. Catherine

3:29

Tanner. Hey, there's Tanner. Lingal. What

3:32

up, Lingal? Candy Montoya. Ah,

3:34

Montoya. Jackie Rose. What's up,

3:36

Jackie? Karina Yu. Hey, Karina.

3:39

James Grantham. Oh, Grantham. I like

3:41

that. Amber Dunham. What's going

3:43

on, Dunham? And Lian

3:45

jumped out at our highest level. Thanks, Lian.

3:47

Appreciate you. Yeah. Appreciate

3:50

the new support. And then if we go back into the vault,

3:53

we selected Nathaniel Hobbs.

3:57

From, you know, the...

4:00

The elf.

4:01

The elf. The movie, The Elf.

4:04

Elf. Which one was Hobbs? He

4:06

was the one that was running like his dad.

4:09

Oh, okay. Right. You talking about

4:11

the one with Wolf Errol? Yeah, I don't

4:13

remember. I've seen the movie, Ben. I don't remember his first name. I

4:15

think his first name was Hobbs. Okay. Random,

4:18

I know. Well, yeah, very random

4:21

and just have a slight little

4:23

piece of the puzzle. Very slight. But

4:26

it's normal. We also had a great PayPal

4:28

donation from Michelle McCann. Thank you, Michelle. Yeah,

4:32

we appreciate everyone who chooses to support

4:34

the show. Gibbs right now on True Crime

4:36

All the Time. We have an episode out on

4:39

Oscar Pistorius. It's

4:41

a case that fascinated me when it was

4:43

going down and was obviously very heavily covered in the

4:46

media. The Blade Runner.

4:49

The Blade Runner. They called him the

4:51

fastest man on no legs. But

4:54

it's also a case that

4:57

is fascinating from the standpoint of,

5:00

okay, you only have his version of events

5:03

and trying to figure

5:06

out what really did happen

5:08

that night. The prosecution

5:10

has their theory. He has

5:13

what he says happened,

5:16

his story. And it's

5:18

up to the judge to figure it out. All right,

5:20

buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of

5:22

True Crime All the Time Unsolved? I am ready.

5:26

We're talking about the disappearance of Max

5:28

DeVries. 14-year-old Max

5:30

DeVries went missing on a family vacation

5:33

to Aruba in May 2004. Have

5:36

you ever been to Aruba? Once. I

5:39

have never been. Yeah, just once. Only for

5:41

a day, though. Okay. Yeah, one of

5:43

those cruises where

5:45

they dock and you get off for X

5:48

amount of time. Yeah, those are pretty

5:50

fun because you get to

5:53

see what a certain

5:55

place is like without kind

5:57

of locking yourself in for, let's

5:59

say, three, four, five days. Exactly.

6:02

And then you find out, Oh, I made a bad

6:04

mistake, but I got four days left on this

6:06

vacation. I got to finish this out. And

6:08

then if you like it, you can come back and stay,

6:10

which you did. I think at, at

6:12

some place, few of them, um,

6:15

you went for one day, decided you

6:17

really liked it and then you went back for like

6:20

a longer, I did stay. Yeah. Which is

6:22

a good idea. Officials

6:25

declared that Max was lost at sea,

6:27

but his family believes there was foul

6:29

play involved. His family has alleged

6:32

that the local police did not do a thorough

6:35

investigation and they suspect

6:37

that someone they met on vacation could

6:40

be involved in his disappearance,

6:42

although both cases are equally important.

6:45

Max's case has been overshadowed

6:47

by news coverage of the disappearance

6:49

of Natalie. Hollywood. So we

6:52

covered Natalie's disappearance.

6:54

It, she disappeared from Aruba.

6:57

What the next year, I think it was.

6:59

Yeah. Was it 2005? Yeah. A year later.

7:02

But when you compare these two cases, there

7:05

is a significant difference in

7:07

the coverage that

7:10

Natalie's case received

7:13

back then and still does today

7:16

versus the coverage

7:19

that Max's disappearance

7:21

has received. Huge difference. Now

7:24

there are a lot of factors that go into

7:26

that. And one of those, you know,

7:28

is probably that Natalie's mom has

7:30

been so tenacious over the years

7:33

and just everywhere. She

7:35

has trying to get on every program

7:37

and just, and I'm not, I'm not disparaging

7:41

Max's family at all, but that's

7:43

not the only factor. Right. We know

7:45

that we don't always know why

7:48

some cases get covered more than others,

7:50

but we know they do. Max DeVries

7:53

was born on April 18th, 1990. He

7:56

grew up in Brighton, Michigan, located

7:59

in the Detroit. metropolitan area.

8:02

I actually like Brighton. Yeah. Nice

8:04

little community. Yeah, I do too. You

8:06

know, visited Brighton when my

8:09

wife and I lived in Detroit for a number

8:11

of years. Max's parents are

8:14

Yvonne and George DeVries, and

8:16

he has a younger sister named Dominique.

8:19

Yvonne told the show, Still a Mystery.

8:22

Max was extremely intelligent and

8:24

adventurous. Everybody liked him. He

8:27

had a lot of friends. Max was in the

8:29

eighth grade at the time of his disappearance.

8:32

Dominique also pointed out that

8:34

Max was popular in school. People

8:36

seem to gravitate towards him. As

8:39

do people towards you. They can.

8:41

Yeah. They can when, you

8:44

know, it's kind of funny like when we were at Crime Con. That

8:46

is not really my element.

8:49

My element is more

8:53

solitary, but I can

8:55

be very interactive. You can be. And

8:57

that's the perfect setting for me

8:59

to do so. But I can tell you

9:01

by the time Sunday rolled around, I could

9:04

not wait to get on that plane. Oh, I

9:06

know. And get back home so

9:08

that, you know, I could be back in my comfort

9:10

zone. You probably had your bags packed

9:13

Saturday night. I never even unpacked.

9:16

That's probably. No, I'm just kidding. But you know, I've

9:18

said it before, I do have

9:21

some anxiety. Yeah. So those aren't

9:23

always the easiest situations

9:27

for me, but I think I do

9:29

pretty well with them. But we always

9:31

hear about, you know, these people that

9:34

others gravitate towards. And we all

9:36

know people like that, right? They're

9:38

the life of the party. They're interesting.

9:42

So yeah, people want to talk to

9:44

them,

9:44

or they're popular.

9:47

And so they kind of maybe

9:49

dictate a little bit what, you know,

9:51

is going to happen or they lead

9:54

rather than follow, whatever it is. I

9:56

think they're influential. Influential

9:58

is a good word. Yeah.

9:59

And Dan McKean told the Livingston

10:02

County Daily Press in Argus that

10:04

he knew the DeVries family very well.

10:07

He described them as a loving family and

10:09

said they all adored each other. McKean

10:12

described Max as funny, bright,

10:15

a deep thinker, and someone

10:17

who wasn't afraid to ask questions.

10:19

Right. Max had a lot

10:22

going on for him. Sure did. You

10:24

know, adventurous, wasn't afraid to ask questions.

10:27

A deep thinker. In the eighth grade.

10:30

Not sure how many eighth graders are deep thinkers.

10:32

Or thinkers. Or thinkers in

10:34

general. I don't know. The family

10:36

liked to spend a lot of time together. One

10:39

of their favorite activities was to go sailing.

10:42

They loved to be around the water. And

10:45

this reminds me of my family. We

10:47

loved the water. But we were

10:50

lake people. Yeah, you are. So

10:52

we're not sailing. I've

10:54

never actually sailed. I

10:56

love the water. I do too. I would

10:59

love to be on a sailboat

11:01

or

11:02

try something like that. But I'm more

11:05

accustomed to a pontoon

11:08

boat or being on a bass boat or something

11:10

like that. It's not uncommon for me to take

11:12

out my little boat out to the middle of the ocean and

11:14

just float around. I thought you were going to say you're

11:17

little dingy. And then I was

11:19

going to give you a harder time. Because

11:22

you really should be careful when taking out your little

11:24

dingy. Yeah, for sure. But you

11:26

love to hear this, right? A family

11:28

who adores each other.

11:31

They love to spend time together. That's

11:34

awesome. It is. It's

11:36

amazing. You know, to do things with

11:38

each other, have those memories. And

11:40

I've seen that with you, with your family. Yeah,

11:43

you've seen my family

11:46

pretty much in every scenario. Oh, yeah.

11:49

The good, the bad, the ugly. And

11:53

there's been all of it. That's a family. That

11:55

is a family. That we stay together.

11:59

Right? No matter. what through the

12:01

thick and the thin. The kids

12:03

stick with us. They tell us

12:05

stuff and, and you know,

12:07

I think it's been pretty good. Yeah. Sadly,

12:10

George DeVries died of a heart attack

12:12

on November 10th, 2002. This

12:15

was hard for the whole family, especially the

12:17

children. Dominique said it felt

12:20

like no one understood the pain they were

12:22

going through. In May, 2004, the

12:25

DeVries family decided to go on a family

12:28

vacation to Aruba. They had

12:30

been many times before for their

12:32

family vacations. They wanted to

12:34

continue the tradition. After

12:37

George passed away, the trip was

12:39

supposed to be a healing experience,

12:42

the chance for some much needed relaxation

12:46

and a way for them to honor George's memory.

12:48

Instead, Yvonne and Dominique

12:51

would experience another

12:53

tragedy. But

12:54

I get what they're doing here, right? I

12:56

absolutely get it. I mean, it

12:59

sounds like they went to Aruba a lot and

13:01

they knew the, they knew the area. They knew the

13:04

area. They wanted to,

13:06

you know, relax first

13:08

and foremost. That's what a vacation is for. Absolutely.

13:11

But it's going to bring back some great memories

13:14

of, you know, having your, your dad there,

13:16

having George there. And it's

13:19

a good way to honor him. So I do

13:21

understand it. I think there

13:24

are some people who do like

13:26

to kind of go to the same

13:28

area year after year

13:31

because they love it. They they're

13:33

familiar with the, the favorite, their favorite

13:35

spots. And then there's those types

13:37

of people who want to go somewhere different

13:40

each and every time, each and every time

13:42

on vacation because they want a different experience

13:45

and there's no fault in either

13:47

one of those Yvonne, 14 year old Max, 12

13:51

year old Dominique and Yvonne's

13:54

sister-in-law only listed

13:57

as anti-pat. We're going

13:59

on the trip. He was there for emotional

14:01

support and to help Yvonne

14:03

watch over the kids. Everyone

14:06

was excited to spend time at the beach because

14:08

it was the type of environment they loved

14:11

to be in. Yvonne said they planned to

14:13

stay at the resort for the entire trip.

14:16

Everything was going well and everyone was

14:18

having a great time. And

14:21

who's not excited to take

14:23

a trip to a tropical location?

14:28

When you're a kid spending time

14:30

on the beach and

14:33

running around in the water, that's

14:35

awesome. Yeah, some of these pools at

14:37

these mega resorts, interest

14:40

resorts in general, are not your

14:42

typical pool. I mean, they're pretty amazing.

14:45

Yeah, and then there's the ocean

14:47

as well. Then you have the ocean right there. And

14:50

I used to love that when I was a kid. Now,

14:52

I've told you, I hate it now. I

14:54

don't like the beach. I don't like the ocean. But

14:56

as a kid, I'd stay in the ocean all

14:58

day long. Yeah, and then make you little sand castles.

15:01

Yeah, make sand castles. But it was the experiences

15:04

I had over the years that caused me not to want

15:06

to go back in. Too many jellyfish,

15:08

stepping on blowfish. After a

15:10

while, you're just like, there's a lot of really dangerous

15:13

things in here. Getting tired of people peeing on you. Yeah.

15:16

Yeah. Yeah. I hope people

15:19

know what that means. All about the jellyfish. Yeah. Well,

15:22

you and I were eating dinner, I think it was

15:24

last week before we started taping, and

15:26

you were talking about getting stung by

15:28

something. What was the stingray? Stingray, yeah.

15:30

And my wife said, well, you know, you just

15:33

pee on it. I said, honey, I think you're talking

15:35

about jellyfish. You just

15:37

can't pee on everything. That's right. And

15:40

just fix it. I've been stung. Here comes the

15:42

pee. A few days into the trip, Max

15:44

was playing pool at the resort and

15:47

met an American man in his mid-30s.

15:50

They started up a friendly conversation

15:52

with each other. The man's name was not

15:54

listed in any of the sources that

15:57

we use for this episode. Yvonne

15:59

noticed...

18:00

And it was said that Max had a great time.

18:03

He was excited. He was in a great

18:05

mood when he returned. The

18:07

group went out to dinner together

18:09

before they ended the night. The

18:12

next day was May 12th, 2004. The

18:15

DeVries family was spending time at the resort

18:18

pool. David Stacey approached

18:20

them and asked Max if he wanted

18:22

to go jet skiing again. Now, of

18:24

course, 14 year old Max wanted to go

18:27

jet skiing. What 14 year old kid is

18:29

going to say no to jet skiing? It's

18:31

not going to happen. No, they'll be like, let's go. Can

18:34

we go now? But Yvonne said no,

18:36

because he had been out the day before. David

18:39

offered to pay for Max. And

18:41

so Max pleaded with his mother to let

18:44

him go. Yvonne saw how excited

18:46

he was. So she allowed Max

18:48

and David left together and rented

18:51

two wave runners. The jet ski

18:53

ride was only supposed to last 45

18:55

minutes. Yvonne became

18:58

worried when it had been over

19:00

an hour and Max still hadn't returned. She

19:02

went to the beach to check things

19:05

out and saw the resort staff using

19:07

binoculars to look for Max and David.

19:09

This was when Yvonne learned that her

19:12

son was missing. Now the

19:14

anxiety sets in, right? Yeah. I

19:16

mean, you know, let's go back to

19:19

every disappearance

19:21

case we've ever done. There is someone

19:25

who at some point in the story

19:27

realizes that something's

19:30

not right. My loved one is missing

19:33

and, you know, anxiety, fear,

19:36

worry,

19:37

you can name all these different

19:40

things is going to

19:42

set in and it's going to set in

19:44

pretty quickly. Yeah. I'm sure maybe

19:47

Yvonne at that point was like, why did

19:49

I let him go? But I think also she

19:51

wanted him to go because she knew how

19:53

excited he was and how it was going to make him happy.

19:55

And he probably hasn't been happy for a

19:58

while because of the loss of his dad. Well,

20:00

we're going to talk about this decision by

20:03

Yvonne to let Max go out

20:06

with essentially a stranger. They

20:08

had known him for

20:10

a little while. It's discussed a lot

20:13

online. It sure is. And we'll talk about

20:15

that as we go. But

20:18

parents are faced with these types of decisions

20:21

all the time. Maybe not this exact

20:23

one, but there are certain things

20:26

that maybe you say no to

20:28

initially. Maybe your kids wear

20:30

you down because that's what kids

20:32

like to do. They're good at that. They are good

20:35

at that. And sometimes they can

20:37

wear you down to the point where you

20:39

say, okay, all right, I give in. Go

20:42

ahead. Do this or do that. And 99.999%

20:45

of the time, there's nothing detrimental

20:47

that happens. But

20:51

in this case, it did.

20:53

According to reports, the employees

20:56

for Sunshine Water Sports called

20:58

the police after Max and David

21:00

had been out longer than an hour. A

21:02

large search and rescue team was quickly

21:05

dispatched. True crime

21:07

all the time when solved is brought to you by

21:09

progressive insurance. Most of you listening

21:12

right now are probably multitasking. Yep. While

21:15

you're listening to Gibby and I talk, you're probably also

21:17

driving, cleaning, exercising,

21:19

or maybe even grocery shopping. But if

21:21

you're not in some kind of moving vehicle, there's something

21:24

else you can be doing right now. Getting

21:26

an auto quote from progressive insurance. It's

21:28

easy and you can save money by doing

21:31

it right from your phone. Drivers who save by

21:33

switching to progressive save nearly $750 on

21:35

average and auto customers qualify

21:39

for an average of seven discounts. Discounts

21:41

for having multiple vehicles in your policy,

21:44

being a homeowner, and more. So just

21:46

like your favorite podcast, progressive will

21:48

be with you 24 seven, 365 days a year. So

21:52

you're protected no matter what. Multitask

21:54

right now. Quote your car insurance at progressive.com

21:58

to join the over 28 million. drivers

22:00

who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty

22:03

Insurance Company and affiliates national

22:05

average 12 month savings

22:07

of $744 by new customer survey

22:10

who saved with Progressive between June 2022

22:12

and May 2023.

22:15

Potential savings will vary. Discounts

22:17

not available in all states and situations.

22:20

True Crime All The Time Unsolved is sponsored

22:22

by BetterHelp. See if you've ever been in this

22:25

situation where you were going through

22:27

a time in your life where you knew what

22:29

was good for you, but your brain was getting

22:31

in the way. Making it hard to fall

22:33

asleep. You just had these racing

22:36

thoughts about all the things either

22:38

that you had to do or decisions you had to

22:40

make. I've been there. Sometimes I feel

22:42

like my brain is getting in its own way.

22:45

Well, therapy helps you figure out what's

22:47

holding you back so you can work for yourself

22:50

instead of against yourself. I've used the BetterHelp

22:52

service for a while now. So I can say that

22:55

it's extremely beneficial. I love the fact

22:57

that I can connect with the therapist through

22:59

my laptop in the comfort of my own

23:01

home. No driving, no waiting rooms.

23:03

BetterHelp is entirely online. It's

23:05

designed to be convenient, flexible, and

23:08

suited to your schedule. All you have to do

23:10

is fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched

23:12

with a licensed therapist and you can switch

23:15

therapists at any time for no additional charge.

23:17

Make your brain your friend with BetterHelp.

23:20

Visit betterhelp.com all

23:22

the time today. To get 10% off

23:25

your first month, that's betterhelp.com

23:27

all the time. Angie's

23:30

list is now Angie, the home to skilled

23:33

neighborhood professionals. Angie is your

23:35

home for everything home and they've made it

23:37

easier than ever to connect with skilled professionals

23:40

to get all your home projects done well. If

23:42

you own a home, you know how much work it can

23:44

take, whether it's everyday maintenance and

23:46

repairs or making dream projects

23:49

a reality. It can be hard just to know where

23:51

to start, but now all you need to do

23:53

is Angie that and find a skilled local

23:55

pro who will deliver the quality and

23:57

expertise you need. Angie has over 20... 20 years

24:00

of home service experience and they've combined

24:02

it with new tools to simplify the whole

24:05

process. Bring them your project online

24:07

or with the Angie app. Answer a few questions

24:09

and Angie can handle the rest from start

24:11

to finish. Or help you compare quotes

24:14

from multiple pros and connect instantly.

24:16

And all of that means you can take care

24:18

of just about any home project in

24:21

just a few taps because when it comes

24:23

to getting the most out of your home, you can do this

24:25

when you Angie that. Download the free

24:28

Angie mobile app today or visit

24:30

Angie.com. That's A-N-G-I.com.

24:34

About three hours later, the police found David

24:37

floating near two wave runners eight

24:39

miles from shore. That's a pretty

24:41

healthy distance to be away

24:44

from the shoreline. Eight miles on a wave runner.

24:47

Yeah, I was thinking that as well. Now

24:49

I'm kind of a safety first guy. I

24:54

would want to be able to see the land, I would

24:56

think. I don't know if you could or couldn't

24:58

from that distance or not. From eight miles?

25:01

Yeah, I don't know. I'd like to stay pretty

25:03

close because water is water. You'd

25:07

be that guy that's doing little circles, right?

25:09

Like 20 feet away from the

25:12

waterline. Can I get this in the pool? Because

25:14

I'd really just like to stay in the pool. Like, woo,

25:17

this is fun. Woo, it's okay, my time's up. If

25:19

possible. But this is a strange

25:21

scenario, right? Two wave runners,

25:24

David's not on either one of them, he's just

25:27

floating in the water, and Max

25:29

is nowhere to be found. Now

25:31

obviously, the police started

25:34

looking for David's son.

25:37

They knocked on his door, but he didn't answer.

25:40

Yvonne noticed that he didn't show up

25:42

until about 10 minutes before his dad

25:44

was brought to shore. Yvonne asked him

25:46

where he had been. He said he was drunk and

25:49

didn't hear the police knocking because

25:51

he was sleeping. Well, it's

25:53

possible, I guess. Yeah,

25:56

people get drunk, or hard

25:58

sleepers. When Yvonne saw the

26:00

search team bringing David to shore without

26:02

Max, she said she had an instant

26:04

feeling. She would never see her

26:07

son again. Mom's intuition. Yeah.

26:10

Scary though. Yeah. Right?

26:13

She asked David what happened and he would give a couple

26:15

of different versions of the story

26:18

as the days passed. At first, he

26:20

told Yvonne and the investigators that

26:22

he and Max rode their wave runners to

26:25

a sandbar about six miles away.

26:27

They turned off the wave runners

26:29

and got off. When they were ready to

26:31

head back, their wave runners

26:34

wouldn't start. Max tied up

26:36

the wave runners to keep them together. They

26:38

were holding on to them and floating because

26:41

they had life jackets on. They

26:43

did this for about an hour. David

26:46

heard a thump and then saw

26:48

Max floating away and that

26:50

was the last time he saw Max. Okay.

26:54

So one version of

26:56

events. Right. As told

26:59

by David, let's break it down

27:01

a little bit because they

27:03

ride out to the sandbar and

27:06

they turn the wave runners off. They get

27:08

it. You get out on the sandbar, you're doing

27:10

whatever, walking around, looking

27:12

at stuff, whatever. Is it plausible

27:15

that you go back to a wave

27:17

runner and it doesn't start? Possible

27:20

that one might not start. So you

27:22

would say plausible. Plausible.

27:24

But then what are the chances

27:27

that neither of them start? Pretty

27:30

unlikely unless you didn't know how to start

27:32

a wave runner. Well, obviously they had to

27:34

have, they left and they had ridden

27:37

the wave runners the day before. They

27:39

had before. So, I mean, naturally that's the first

27:41

thing that jumped out at me. Mechanical

27:44

failure happens on whatever,

27:47

motorcycles, cars, you name it, anything

27:49

with an engine and an electrical

27:53

system. But to have two

27:56

different wave runners not start

27:59

at the exact same time.

27:59

time.

28:00

Right away makes me think

28:02

that just seems fishy.

28:05

So the police have to be thinking this guy is

28:07

not being completely honest. Well

28:09

it's got to be at least going through

28:12

their their their minds right? Something

28:14

doesn't sound right. David would say

28:17

as quoted by the Lansing State Journal,

28:19

we basically went on a fun trip

28:21

that went wrong. The last time I saw

28:24

him was when he was about 35

28:27

yards from me. That's a pretty good

28:29

distance. Yeah you

28:31

know I I'm not great with yards

28:34

so I have to equate them in

28:36

the terms of a football field. Right. So

28:39

I know what 35 yards is on a on

28:42

a football field. It's a good

28:44

little distance especially

28:46

you know

28:47

if you're in the water and someone

28:50

is floating away from you. Now

28:53

could you swim and catch

28:55

up to someone who's not swimming

28:58

away from you? Depends on the current.

29:00

It does depend on the current but wouldn't

29:03

you be going with

29:05

the same current that the

29:07

person floating away from you is

29:09

and you're swimming

29:11

so now I'm starting

29:13

to think that doesn't make a lot of sense. Or

29:17

at least I'm asking the question did

29:19

this guy try to go after him

29:21

and it sounds like at least from his story

29:23

no he didn't he just looked

29:26

over this you know he said that

29:28

Max was floating away and that

29:30

was it. He made it sound like it was more like

29:33

a Tom Hanks and Wilson. Right. Now

29:35

the only reason why Tom Hanks couldn't

29:38

catch up to Wilson is because

29:40

he didn't think he could get

29:42

back to his little dinghy.

29:46

So could this guy make

29:48

the same argument? Right. If I go after

29:51

him or am I just putting

29:54

myself in the same position

29:57

for both of us now to get swept

29:59

out because because we're not going to get to

30:01

be able to get back to the wave runners. But

30:04

here's my thought. You're a 56 year

30:06

old guy, right? You took on

30:08

the responsibility of

30:11

taking this kid out and you're just going to watch

30:14

him float away. Yeah. I

30:16

can never do that. No, no. And

30:19

again, as we look at our plausibility

30:22

meter, you know, are

30:24

these eggs fresh or not? And,

30:27

and I'm saying right now, they don't smell that great.

30:30

No. These eggs are floating to the top.

30:32

And no doubt, right? Yvonne found

30:34

David's story hard to believe. She

30:37

has said that she saw scratches

30:39

on David's neck and arms. He

30:41

looked like he'd been in a fight. This

30:44

made her suspicious that he

30:46

had hurt Max in some way. Both

30:49

Yvonne and David were questioned by

30:51

the Dutch police in Aruba. David

30:54

was never considered a suspect per

30:56

transcribed reports. David

30:58

again explained that they stopped at a sandbar

31:01

to swim. They couldn't get

31:03

their wave runners to start. They tried

31:05

to tow them. That didn't work. During

31:08

the May 12th interview, David said

31:10

they agreed to float while holding

31:12

onto the wave runners with the rope. But

31:15

Max let go and floated away. I

31:17

think that's kind of weird too. You

31:20

could float with the wave

31:22

runner, right? And just do that. Or you

31:24

can just get on top of your wave runner and sit on

31:26

top of it. And sit on it and float that way.

31:29

Unless it was one of those stand ones, the

31:31

old timey ones. Yeah. The jet skis

31:34

more of a jet ski, but still

31:36

can kneel down on it. Yeah. Yeah. It does.

31:38

Again, things just

31:41

don't seem to be adding

31:43

up. I mean, and why

31:45

are these jet skis floating in a different direction

31:47

than Max ends up floating,

31:54

right? If you're talking about tides

31:56

and currents and all that, doesn't

31:59

everything come up? kind of float the same direction?

32:02

You would think. Now, are they kicking

32:06

to propel the wave

32:08

runners? But that

32:10

would be hard to do when you're hanging on by a

32:12

rope.

32:13

Yeah, I think they figured that out, right? I

32:15

think at one point, he made it sound like they were

32:17

trying to tow him back in. Right, by swimming.

32:20

Yeah, like maybe pulling. Yeah, yeah. That'd

32:23

be tough to do. But again, I would wanna

32:25

be on top of the wave runner

32:27

to make

32:28

myself look even more visible to somebody

32:30

driving by looking. I get that, but

32:32

if you're on top, how are you propelling it

32:34

in any way? Yeah, but can you really

32:37

propel it at all? Yeah, I don't know.

32:39

You're fighting the current, I don't know. Eight miles out, probably

32:41

not. The authorities launched the most

32:43

extensive water search operation

32:46

in the country's history. The search involved

32:48

divers, hundreds of volunteers, rescue

32:51

boats, and helicopters. The

32:53

DeVries family hoped Max would be found.

32:56

But hours passed with no

32:58

updates. Dominique told Stillamistory

33:01

that by the next day, she

33:03

knew they would not find Max. So

33:06

this is something that we talk about in

33:08

a lot of unsolved

33:10

cases. At what point

33:12

does hope diminish for

33:15

the loved ones of someone who

33:17

goes missing? And it differs

33:20

in every

33:21

story.

33:22

Some people never lose hope, but

33:24

I think you have to look at the circumstances.

33:26

You have a 14-year-old who floats

33:29

away in the ocean. Yeah,

33:31

eight miles from shore. Eight miles from shore,

33:34

and they don't find him in

33:36

what was called an extensive search.

33:39

That's a little different than, you know,

33:42

you're back on land, somebody

33:44

was walking somewhere,

33:47

and now you don't know where they are. Neither

33:49

one of them's great. But you would

33:51

have to say being in the ocean

33:55

over eight miles away from the shore is

33:57

a much more perilous situation.

34:00

And what was David

34:02

and did David scream out to the kid and

34:04

say hey max The max

34:06

reply back or because that thud

34:09

David said he heard was that max hitting his

34:11

head Hi max was on car, you know, I

34:13

mean if I saw a kid floating away

34:15

from me I would be screaming ain't

34:18

going after the kid, but also would think

34:20

the kid would be talking back to me,

34:22

right? He's the you know, let's

34:24

say max would be swimming back

34:27

towards the jet skis Yeah, David

34:29

swimming towards max and they're both trying

34:31

to make it back to the jet skis We

34:34

don't know because the story was a

34:36

little Spotty. Yes, you

34:38

know those those some of those details Just

34:41

weren't there Yvonne said

34:43

in her interview It was definitely not

34:46

what we closed our eyes and

34:48

dreamt it to be a healing Celebration

34:51

it ended up being just a bigger part

34:54

of the nightmare And I think back

34:56

to your point Yvonne actually

34:59

said she was disturbed when

35:01

David Came out and said he

35:03

didn't try to talk to max as

35:05

he floated out of his line of sight

35:08

And why does

35:09

it make any sense? So I

35:11

mean I think to me disturbed is

35:13

a little bit of an understatement I'm

35:17

upset. I'm more than upset, you

35:19

know, I'm livid. Yeah, I mean he's

35:21

gonna come up with a reason why but yeah

35:23

I mean we're gonna go through a bunch of different

35:25

things that that David said

35:28

But when you find that out that he actually

35:31

came out and said that he

35:33

didn't even try to talk to max He

35:35

didn't give him instruction. He

35:37

didn't try to help him by telling him

35:39

what to do We

35:41

already said he didn't try to go after him.

35:43

All right, you're not coming out of

35:45

this looking very good. Even

35:48

if let's say You didn't

35:50

have anything to do

35:52

with

35:53

max's disappearance

35:55

or Death if that's

35:58

what happened

35:59

you still look terrible.

36:01

It doesn't look good for you. David

36:04

said he did not try to talk to Max

36:06

when he was floating away because they

36:09

made an agreement not to speak.

36:11

He specifically said as quoted by the

36:13

Oakland Press, when I saw Max

36:15

for the last time he was floating

36:17

very calmly, moved now and

36:20

then, but did not try to swim.

36:22

We did not have any eye contact and

36:25

we had not said anything to each

36:27

other. I don't understand any

36:29

of that. I don't either. I don't

36:32

know what kind of agreement you make with a 14 year

36:34

old about, hey, if we're gonna separate,

36:37

we get separated. Let's not talk to

36:39

each other because it's better for us not to know

36:41

where each other is currently located.

36:44

Makes no sense. You would say,

36:46

call out to me. Yeah. We get separated.

36:48

You call out to me and you swim

36:51

like crazy to get to me. Well, he

36:53

doesn't say when they made this agreement.

36:56

Was it after he started floating away?

36:58

Was it

37:01

when they got to the sandbar? I mean,

37:03

the agreement itself is

37:05

just ridiculous. Right. Now,

37:07

maybe Max

37:08

didn't want to say or call out because maybe

37:11

he wanted to get away from David.

37:13

Maybe.

37:14

You know, maybe he was going the opposite direction

37:16

because he didn't want to be near this individual.

37:19

Yeah, but if that's the case, David's not going to admit

37:21

that. No, he's gonna say, oh, we made this agreement not

37:23

to talk to each other. But he could have said

37:25

whatever he wanted. He could have. He could have said, yeah, I

37:28

was screaming out and I was telling him. I was screaming.

37:30

Yeah, I was giving him direction

37:32

and he just didn't follow it. Yeah. He could

37:34

have said anything he wanted to say because

37:37

there was nobody else out there. Exactly.

37:39

But the stuff that he's actually coming up

37:42

with or saying, true or not,

37:44

makes no sense. No. Yvonne

37:47

also remembered that the two

37:49

men gave different stories about why

37:52

they were in Aruba. At first, they

37:54

said they were there because David's wife,

37:57

the younger man's mother, died a year

37:59

earlier.

38:00

However, during a pool game,

38:02

the son said his mom died when he was

38:05

a baby. She said they later

38:07

told the adoption story that we talked

38:09

about previously. Yvonne

38:11

told the Oakland Press, it was like

38:13

they were trying to mirror our tragedy

38:16

so that I would believe and feel sorry for

38:18

them and catch me off guard.

38:21

People do that, right? People that prey on

38:23

other individuals are like, oh,

38:25

let me tell you what happened to me. It's

38:28

similar to what happened to you and now we

38:30

can relate and now we can... Right.

38:32

Now we're bonding

38:35

and let's talk about con men.

38:38

Exactly. They try to gain your trust,

38:41

right? They need you to trust them for

38:44

them to carry out whatever it is

38:46

that they want to carry out, whether

38:48

it's trying to fleece you out of money or something

38:52

a little more nefarious, like

38:55

maybe happened here. The search for

38:57

Max ended on May 14th. Max

39:00

was declared missing and lost

39:02

at sea. The search was ended

39:04

after just a couple of days and

39:07

maybe this is a little different than

39:10

most of the stories we do. If

39:13

someone goes missing in any

39:15

town, the search is

39:17

probably not going to be called off after

39:20

two days unless there's something

39:22

that causes them to

39:24

believe that that person

39:27

has left the area or something

39:30

like that, but we're talking about the ocean here.

39:32

I don't know how much searching you can

39:34

do. How far can you go

39:37

out? Right. The ocean is a very,

39:39

very big

39:41

place. Yeah.

39:42

Best area to try to cover. David

39:44

would slightly change his story again

39:47

the next day. According to a May 15th

39:49

report, David said Max

39:51

was sitting on his wave runner, but when

39:53

he looked up, Max jumped off

39:56

and was swimming to shore. Okay.

39:59

This 14...

39:59

year old kid is going

40:02

to try to swim eight

40:04

miles by himself to

40:06

shore. Is it possible? Yes, it's,

40:08

it's possible. And the shore

40:11

is going to look a lot closer. You

40:13

know, eight miles is going to appear

40:15

closer to you out in

40:18

the open water like that to like a

40:20

rear view mirror, like a rear view, objects

40:22

appear closer than what they really are. Yeah.

40:26

I'm not saying that, that, you know, a 14 year

40:28

old kid couldn't make this decision. But

40:31

again, what is David doing? He's

40:34

just saying, yeah, kid, go

40:36

for it. According to David, they weren't talking

40:38

at all. Right. And he's already floated

40:40

away, but now, no,

40:43

I'm changing my story. He was

40:45

trying to swim back to shore. Again,

40:48

nobody else was out there.

40:50

Pick a story and stay with

40:52

it. When you change things

40:54

that are so big in direction,

40:58

you know, the changes, it

41:00

causes you to look

41:02

untruthful.

41:03

Just find it hard. They had no dialogue.

41:05

Yeah. You know, I mean,

41:08

and again, he could have made up anything

41:11

he wanted to.

41:12

Sure. You know,

41:13

he could have gone as far as, is

41:16

saying that, you know, he couldn't get

41:18

to max, he knew he wouldn't be able to get to max

41:21

and max said, you know, tell my mom,

41:23

I love her, tell my mom and sister, I love

41:25

her. Exactly. He could have said a ton of

41:28

different things. But why would you ever leave

41:30

a floating device? Yeah.

41:32

You were

41:33

eight miles off of shore. As

41:36

someone just floating in the water, that

41:39

is not good, right? But not, I

41:41

mean, you have a life vest on, you

41:43

can float there for a while and maybe

41:45

somebody will find you. But if you're on your

41:47

wave runner, they're going to find the

41:50

wave runners. Well, and you mentioned it

41:52

earlier, right? Number one, much easier

41:54

to see. Sure. You know, when, when

41:56

you're kind of bobbing up and

41:58

down with just a. a life vest

42:01

on, can they see a yeah, but

42:04

there's, there's much less of a profile.

42:07

Right. You don't have much

42:09

more than your head and shoulders probably sticking

42:11

out of the water, a wave runner. Not

42:14

only do you have your whole bodies out of the water,

42:16

you've got this wave runner,

42:18

which is, which are usually pretty

42:21

brightly colored. So I

42:23

would take my chances with the wave runner any

42:26

day over floating

42:28

in the ocean or trying

42:30

to swim eight miles. Cause number one, I

42:32

know I can't swim eight miles. If it was just

42:35

like a mile, mile or two, maybe

42:37

I'd take my chance. Yeah. But that far out, I'd be

42:39

like, no, I'm going to stay on here, especially if it's

42:41

going to get dark here soon. I want to make

42:43

sure I'm above the water line. Yvonne's

42:47

suspicion against David, Stacy,

42:49

and his son was quickly increasing.

42:51

And how could it not after all

42:54

the things that we've talked about,

42:56

she requested that to please

42:58

check for DNA under David's fingernails.

43:01

She also asked them to do a polygraph

43:04

and even offered to pay for the test. But

43:06

the police didn't think it was necessary. They

43:08

reportedly told her, this is not America.

43:11

We do not do things like that. Well,

43:13

maybe you should have. Yeah. I

43:15

mean, I've talked at length about

43:18

my thoughts on polygraphs,

43:21

but it sounds to me

43:23

as though very early

43:26

on, the police didn't look

43:28

at David as having done

43:31

anything wrong, they didn't suspect him

43:33

of doing anything wrong. And it

43:36

seems as though that didn't change, even

43:39

with these stories changing

43:41

and how kind of ludicrous they were. Yeah.

43:44

I just don't understand. I would think

43:47

as an investigator, you hear the

43:49

fact that as an adult man,

43:51

he didn't make any contact with the child

43:54

that they took out to the sandbar. And

43:57

he just allowed him to float away without any

43:59

effort. then he comes back and he

44:01

changes the story and he's got scratches on

44:03

his face and neck and we're gonna be like

44:05

yeah, he's all good let's not

44:08

check on that story checks out yeah

44:10

i mean why wouldn't you just out of precaution

44:13

go ahead and, scrape underneath his tails

44:15

and have that just in case down the road, max's

44:18

family returned home on may

44:21

18th and how top with

44:23

that decision be to go back

44:26

home, knowing that

44:28

your son's not gonna be on that plane with you,

44:31

no

44:31

i

44:31

don't know if i can do that you have

44:33

to do it but i still know how i can do that we

44:36

don't have to.

44:37

No

44:38

i'm not saying she made the wrong

44:40

decision i'm just saying how tough would it be

44:42

very tough i think it would be extremely

44:45

tough, domineek said that during

44:47

the plane ride she looked out at the ocean

44:50

and thought that max could be out there

44:53

and they were leaving him behind but she

44:55

knew there was nothing they could do and

44:57

that is probably true i don't know,

45:00

what the two of them could have done

45:03

i think was out of their control

45:05

and i think the dutch police

45:08

were telling them that nothing

45:10

else they can do so, go

45:12

home

45:13

help break the she have to be which is probably twelve

45:15

at that time yeah i had to be very

45:17

very difficult in late may two

45:20

thousand four, family friend

45:22

linda kruger told the livingston

45:24

county daily press in argus that the

45:26

family had not heard anything else from

45:28

the authorities in aruba about

45:31

max's disappearance. We

45:33

mentioned this up front right max's disappearance

45:36

occurred one year before the disappearance

45:39

of natalie halloway, natalie

45:41

was an eighteen year old student who went missing

45:43

on vacation in aruba the summer before

45:46

she was supposed to start her freshman

45:48

year at the university of alabama.

45:51

Like you said we cover that case we did cover that

45:53

case in there is no doubt

45:55

max's case is lesser known

45:58

in natalie's you've on. noticed

46:00

the massive media coverage for Natalie's

46:03

case. So she looked for a way

46:05

to broadcast Max's story

46:08

and to get help with a potential

46:10

investigation in the US. And

46:13

I get that, right? You have a son

46:15

who disappeared. Now there's

46:18

been a girl who disappears

46:21

and it's like it's all over the news. Right.

46:24

It would be very hard to think,

46:27

why didn't we get that? Why

46:30

isn't my son as important? Right.

46:33

Or what do I need to do

46:35

to make that happen? And that sounds

46:37

like what she started

46:39

to do. She spoke with Lila

46:41

Lazarus, an anchor and health reporter

46:44

for Local 4, a Detroit news

46:46

outlet. Lazarus covered Max's

46:48

disappearance on Local 4. Yvonne

46:51

wanted US investigators to get involved

46:53

in the case. She wanted someone

46:56

to view her suspicions as more

46:58

than just mother's intuition.

47:01

And we talk about mother's intuition a lot.

47:03

I do believe in it, but I

47:06

don't think that's what we're talking about here.

47:09

Because we have all of these stories

47:12

by David not making

47:14

any sense. Right. To me, that's

47:16

more than mother's intuition. Sure. It's,

47:19

you know, something doesn't add up here. Yeah,

47:22

all your spice sense that should go off. Yeah. Lawyers

47:25

told her that investigations were

47:27

complicated by maritime law and

47:30

the fact that Max disappeared

47:32

abroad. But in August, 2005, a

47:35

neighbor told Yvonne about a local detective

47:38

who could potentially help her. Yvonne

47:41

reached out to Lieutenant Corey Williams

47:43

from the Livonia Police Department. Williams

47:46

worked on the Oakland County child

47:48

killing case, which occurred in 1976 and 1977. And

47:54

covered that case as well. We did. Over

47:56

a 13 month period, seven

47:58

children were abducted. in the Detroit

48:01

area held captive for several

48:03

days and their bodies were found

48:05

on the streets. It was one of the worst

48:07

cases in the city's history. So

48:10

Yvonne set up a meeting with Williams and

48:13

brought him the police reports. He

48:15

read the reports and came to believe

48:17

that there was more to Max's

48:19

case than him being lost

48:22

at sea. And I really don't

48:24

know, Gibbs, what good investigator

48:27

wouldn't sit down and

48:29

look at what was known at that

48:31

time and say, again, there's

48:34

more to this, things are not adding

48:36

up. According to the Oakland Press,

48:39

he said, the first time I saw

48:41

it, some of the things jumped out to me that

48:43

didn't make sense. Based on what I found,

48:46

they weren't being truthful or giving

48:48

the full story. And this

48:50

guy's absolutely right. Williams

48:52

said he believed the police in Aruba

48:55

did not conduct a proper investigation.

48:58

I think we feel the same way up to this point

49:00

with what we heard, with what we know

49:03

and what we learned through the investigation.

49:06

I would have to agree. And

49:08

we saw some of that in the Natalie

49:11

Holloway case, right? That was in charge

49:13

that was levied against the police

49:16

in Aruba in her case as well.

49:19

Lieutenant Williams told the show, still

49:22

a mystery right away, having worked

49:24

cases involving pedophiles and

49:26

kids that have gone missing or abducted

49:29

the hair on my neck stood up. And

49:31

I thought to myself, I know

49:33

where this is going. He reviewed David

49:36

Stacy statements to the police and

49:38

noticed discrepancies in his

49:40

story, which he called a red flag

49:42

saying the truth is easy

49:45

to tell over and over, but lies

49:47

are not. And that's something you've said many

49:49

times. Sure. You know, if

49:51

you're telling the truth, it's not that

49:54

hard to tell it pretty much

49:56

the same way, because you're just

49:58

telling it exactly how it happened.

50:00

Right. It is what it is. It is what it is. If

50:03

you're constantly lying about

50:06

something and you're asked about it,

50:08

you know, time and time again,

50:11

the chances are much

50:13

greater that you're going to mess

50:15

something up because it

50:18

didn't happen the way that

50:20

you told it. So now you

50:23

say something a little differently in

50:25

one version. The next version,

50:28

you get something else wrong because you

50:30

don't remember what you said exactly. Yeah,

50:32

it's tough. It is. According to

50:35

Lieutenant Williams in one statement,

50:37

David said, Max let go of the wave

50:39

runner and started floating out to

50:41

sea. David claimed he called

50:44

Altamax. He didn't respond, but

50:46

his eyes were open. In another statement,

50:48

David said, Max let go of the wave

50:51

runner and started swimming ashore.

50:54

Now this differs a little bit

50:56

from what we said earlier, right?

50:59

The Oakland press talked

51:01

about this agreement. The

51:03

David said, you know, he hadn't, he

51:06

and Max had an agreement where

51:08

they weren't going to speak for

51:10

whatever reason. Williams made

51:12

a call to run a background check

51:14

and the results were disturbing. Williams

51:17

told Yvonne, everything that you're feeling

51:20

is right. They're bad men. So

51:22

what this background check showed was

51:25

that David was arrested in California

51:27

in 1981 for crimes against children. Lieutenant

51:32

Williams requested a copy of the police report

51:35

and learned that the victim

51:38

in this case was David's

51:40

adopted son. Wow. That's

51:43

pretty shocking to hear that this 30

51:46

one year old adult son

51:48

that he was going to adopt or just

51:51

adopt it was actually one of his victims.

51:54

Yeah, I think it's shocking on a number of levels.

51:57

Number one, you're finding out that David

52:00

was a pedophile.

52:01

That's horrible

52:02

because he was the last person

52:05

known to have been with your son.

52:08

And then you're finding out that this

52:11

man that I guess he claimed

52:14

was his adopted son,

52:17

he had victimized him. So

52:19

what does that mean? That they're together

52:22

in Aruba so many years

52:24

later. And so, you know, for me, I have

52:26

to ask the question. This guy is

52:29

now in his mid thirties. What is he

52:31

doing in Aruba with

52:33

this guy who sexually

52:35

abused him when

52:37

he was a kid? Allegedly.

52:40

Allegedly. Maybe just over time

52:42

he's been able to brainwash him.

52:45

Well, I think you can go down a number

52:47

of scenarios. Maybe

52:50

at a certain point, the

52:52

two were of like mind,

52:55

if that makes sense. And decided

52:58

to work together. Strong possibility.

53:00

To victimize children. I mean, all

53:03

we can do at this point is throw out theories.

53:06

We don't even know if these people are guilty. But

53:09

you would have to say there's a lot of really

53:12

strange things going on. There's a lot of smoke. Yeah.

53:15

If you're not thinking something's up at this point, you

53:17

know, I mean, you have to. Something's

53:19

not adding up. Yeah. But what

53:21

it means, we don't definitively

53:24

know. William said he was not

53:26

able to find a record of how the case

53:28

was adjudicated. He theorized

53:32

that the two men were working together

53:34

to target young boys. He said

53:36

in his interview, I believe

53:38

that's exactly what happened with Max.

53:41

So he's kind of throwing out the same theory

53:43

that, you know, that I said was

53:45

a possibility and

53:48

I guess I said it because I

53:50

don't know what other

53:52

reason there could be. Is it possible

53:55

that this man forgave

53:58

David for what he did?

54:00

They reconciled. Yeah,

54:03

it is possible. But

54:06

in the context of Max going missing,

54:08

does it seem maybe a little more

54:11

likely that not only

54:13

was David still doing some of the things

54:15

that he had done in the past, but

54:18

now maybe his son was, his

54:21

adopted son or

54:23

was in

54:24

to it as well.

54:26

Right. Williams also noted some problems

54:28

with the son statement. He first said that his

54:30

dad had never been arrested before,

54:32

which

54:33

obviously we know is not true. He

54:36

also volunteered that he was a

54:38

heterosexual man and had

54:40

never had sexual relations with a

54:43

man

54:44

or a boy.

54:45

Now why would he say that? Because it said he

54:47

volunteered that information.

54:50

Is it because he thought

54:52

the police were automatically

54:54

going to look at David as maybe

54:57

a predator and he wanted to

54:59

kind of set that record

55:01

straight, distance himself from that,

55:04

or is

55:05

it because he knew David was

55:07

a predator? Right. And he's trying

55:10

to kind of put the police

55:12

off that scent. Yeah,

55:15

potentially.

55:16

Williams proposed the theory that the

55:18

older man took Max out to the sandbar

55:21

and the younger man met him out

55:23

there. Some kind of crime occurred

55:25

that resulted in Max's disappearance.

55:28

And there was something that

55:30

I wanted to wait until now to talk

55:32

about. And it was this question

55:35

that I had early on that

55:37

I wanted to wait until all of this came

55:40

out. Why would a 56 year

55:42

old man want to go wave

55:44

riding with a 14 year old? It's

55:47

kind of a red flag, I think. It could

55:49

be viewed. It doesn't necessarily

55:52

mean it is because it

55:54

could have just been that these were great guys.

55:58

They met this family. He wanted to be nice

56:01

and take this 14 year old out and pay

56:03

for him. But, but you also have

56:05

to ask, you know, you just met him a

56:08

day ago. Just seems really

56:10

quick. I mean, if it was like your uncle

56:12

or a long time family

56:15

friend, it makes sense. Right. But

56:17

somebody you just met, you know, are they really that

56:19

generous that they're like, Oh, I know you've been

56:21

through a hard time from, so have

56:23

we, and let me just take

56:26

you out and let you do some wave running, you

56:28

know, with me. Or is there a much

56:30

more sinister motive for it? Yeah. And

56:33

I think the other thing that we haven't

56:35

talked about yet is Yvonne's

56:38

decision to let Max

56:41

go out with, you know, this 56

56:43

year old man. Pretty trusting. Pretty

56:46

trusting. She didn't want to, and then

56:48

she ultimately gave in. The

56:50

one thing that I noticed when

56:53

researching this case is

56:55

that in, you know,

56:57

the comments of any article,

56:59

any, anything you look at,

57:02

she is just crushed by

57:04

people saying, you know,

57:06

how could you let your son go

57:08

out with essentially this

57:10

stranger? Yeah. And I

57:13

see what they're saying. It's also

57:15

really tough to, to really

57:18

fully blame her. Sure.

57:20

Think about where her mindset was at that time.

57:22

Yeah. I mean, and it's not like, you know,

57:24

this guy just came up off

57:27

the beach and said, Hey, can I take your 14 year old

57:29

son? They did spend the whole day with him the day before.

57:31

Yeah. They, they had kind of developed this, this

57:34

little bond. But

57:36

if

57:36

this guy really was a bad

57:39

guy and he

57:41

probably was a pretty good con man.

57:43

Yeah.

57:44

And was grooming just in that

57:46

short period of time to earn

57:49

the trust needed to allow him

57:52

to take max out on

57:54

the wave front. Well, I think he was because he made

57:56

a comment to Yvonne about

57:59

how he lost his wife, right?

58:02

How similar their stories

58:04

were.

58:05

But I did want to throw that out

58:07

there. If you go out and look at this case,

58:10

she just gets pummeled

58:13

by people saying, how could you do

58:15

this? I would never do this. And let's

58:18

be fair, I don't think I would do it. No,

58:20

I don't think I would either. But I can

58:23

probably bet you that she beats

58:25

herself up more over this than anybody

58:28

else could. Yeah, and I don't want to

58:30

be the person who does that. I

58:32

was just pointing out that you'll see a lot

58:34

of it if you look out there for sure.

58:37

Yvonne expressed her frustration

58:39

with the investigators in Aruba saying it

58:42

just took Cory a matter of minutes

58:44

for him to make that phone call. And

58:46

he found out that the father had charges

58:49

against him for child molestation.

58:51

Why didn't the Aruban government, you

58:53

know, do what he just did and just

58:56

found that out? Could have been that simple. It

58:58

could have been. Yeah. It could have been.

59:01

But see, the Aruban government

59:03

didn't think he did anything wrong.

59:06

So there would be no just calls for them to make those

59:08

phone calls. That's the thing. Yeah, but

59:10

you know, this is a problem I have with investigations

59:13

in a lot of these cases. When you

59:16

make that assumption early on, everything

59:19

you do from there on out is

59:22

based on that assumption. Sure. So

59:25

you're not going to look into it. You're not

59:27

going to make a phone call. You're not going to run a background

59:29

check because you've already made the decision

59:32

that this was a terrible accident,

59:36

even though he changed his story a number of times,

59:39

he didn't do anything wrong. And that can

59:41

become a very big problem in any investigation.

59:44

Yeah. William suggested

59:46

that perhaps the police wanted the families

59:48

off the island, so it wouldn't

59:50

affect the tourism industry.

59:53

Maybe because that's their industry

59:55

down there. Yeah. And I don't

59:58

know that he's wrong. That could probably

1:00:00

do some real damage to that economy.

1:00:03

And I'm sure it probably did based on

1:00:05

this followed up by the Natalie

1:00:08

Holloway's situation. Yeah, I'm sure it had an impact

1:00:10

on that island. Like Yvonne

1:00:12

Williams wanted the case to be investigated

1:00:15

in the US. He reached out to a friend

1:00:17

in the FBI. His friend told him that

1:00:19

he agreed the two men were involved

1:00:22

in Max's disappearance. The

1:00:24

FBI opened an investigation because

1:00:27

they have jurisdiction anywhere

1:00:29

in the world if the victim and

1:00:31

suspect are Americans. I

1:00:33

did not know that, that's interesting. The

1:00:36

FBI interviewed the son again. And

1:00:39

again, we don't have his name, we never

1:00:41

saw it. But he denied any involvement

1:00:44

and stuck with his story that Max

1:00:46

was with his dad and disappeared.

1:00:49

They offered the son a polygraph, but

1:00:51

he didn't show up to take it. And

1:00:53

that's not surprising. It also in

1:00:56

my eyes doesn't mean

1:00:58

he's guilty, but it's not

1:01:00

surprising. The FBI was

1:01:02

eventually removed from Max's case. According

1:01:05

to Williams, every available

1:01:07

agent was needed to work in terrorism.

1:01:10

So Max's case went cold. In

1:01:12

February 2008, Yvonne did an interview with

1:01:15

the Oakland Press about Max's case.

1:01:18

She said, in the beginning, you

1:01:20

want to believe it's an accident, but

1:01:23

then you think the worst. And

1:01:25

I understand that statement. No

1:01:28

one wants to think that the

1:01:30

worst of the worst has happened.

1:01:33

No. Because an accident, although

1:01:35

it would be terrible,

1:01:38

would be, I

1:01:39

want to say easier to live

1:01:41

with than thinking that

1:01:43

this man that you let

1:01:45

your son go with did something

1:01:48

horrible to him. She said

1:01:50

she was still not sure what happened

1:01:52

to Max, but she believes her family

1:01:54

was targeted by the two men. She

1:01:56

noted that earlier in the week, they told her

1:01:59

we were looking for a better family. out of the bar bedroom

1:02:01

window and we saw you playing with your kid

1:02:03

and thought we had to meet you

1:02:06

at the water slide. Yvonne added

1:02:08

that's where it started they stalked us

1:02:10

out there. It sure sounds like it. Okay,

1:02:13

but she

1:02:14

knew this.

1:02:16

They told her this. So I

1:02:18

am having a small issue with

1:02:20

that. You know, you talk about Spidey

1:02:23

senses. I think mine would

1:02:26

be raised very quickly if two

1:02:29

men came and said, you know what, we saw

1:02:31

you and your family out of our bedroom window

1:02:33

and we just knew we had to meet you.

1:02:36

No, you don't go back to your room.

1:02:38

Why did you feel like you need to meet me?

1:02:40

Yeah, there's something so off-putting

1:02:44

about that. And again, I do

1:02:46

not want to blame Yvonne. I'm trying

1:02:49

really hard not to, but it's impossible

1:02:51

not to point out some of

1:02:53

these things that to

1:02:56

me, kind of jump out

1:02:58

as as red flags. Yvonne told

1:03:00

the Oakland press that travelers

1:03:02

should always try to be safe, especially when

1:03:05

they are out of the country. She said you

1:03:07

just have to always be aware of

1:03:09

your surroundings and who you're with. It's

1:03:12

okay to be afraid. It's okay

1:03:14

not to be friendly, not to be outgoing.

1:03:17

And you you get lost, you want to

1:03:19

have fun. And that's where we were.

1:03:22

You want to not always have your guard up

1:03:25

and I should have, I should have. And

1:03:27

so like you said, she's beating

1:03:30

herself up more than anybody

1:03:33

ever could, but she's also 100%

1:03:36

correct. You know, a

1:03:39

lot of people I feel

1:03:41

think that they need

1:03:43

to be super polite and

1:03:45

accommodating in every

1:03:47

situation.

1:03:48

And in theory,

1:03:50

that's a good thought. Yeah. But

1:03:53

it's okay to say no. Of

1:03:55

course it is. It's okay to tell people,

1:03:57

no, whatever

1:03:58

it is you're with. you're

1:04:01

selling, we're not buying. You're

1:04:03

never gonna see these people again anyway, so

1:04:06

it's okay. Yeah, it really is,

1:04:08

but I do think there are some people who

1:04:10

are so nice that they have trouble

1:04:12

with that. Right, they bite people into

1:04:14

their lives. I am not one of those people

1:04:16

who has trouble with that. No, you

1:04:19

have no problem saying, no, I'm good. No,

1:04:22

I'm very blunt, I'm very to

1:04:24

the point. I try not to be mean,

1:04:27

but if I'm with my family,

1:04:29

and two adult men came up and

1:04:32

said, you know, hey, we saw you

1:04:34

out of our bedroom window, we just wanted

1:04:36

to come and meet you.

1:04:37

Right.

1:04:38

I would say that makes no sense whatsoever.

1:04:40

What you're saying does not compute. No, and

1:04:43

we are all now dumber, having

1:04:45

heard what you just said. So

1:04:48

please

1:04:49

walk away,

1:04:50

extricate yourself from my proximity.

1:04:53

And I got my head on a swivel, buddy. Yeah,

1:04:55

and you know I always do, but in

1:04:57

October 2008, the FBI

1:04:59

called Yvonne and informed her that they

1:05:02

had closed the investigation. She

1:05:04

wrote on the Max to the Millions

1:05:06

website. I can truly say our

1:05:08

government, as well as the Aruban

1:05:11

government, did not do enough to

1:05:13

find out what happened to my son. It

1:05:15

is so sad when a child is lost,

1:05:18

killed, missing, or taken, but

1:05:20

when it happens in another country, you

1:05:22

have no help or paperwork to

1:05:24

fill out. Lose a piece of luggage

1:05:27

though, and the paperwork and calls never

1:05:30

end. Yeah, I get it, she's frustrated. She's

1:05:32

frustrated, and I feel so

1:05:34

sorry for her. And I really

1:05:36

hope I'm not coming off in this episode

1:05:40

as piling on, as

1:05:42

though she should have done this, she

1:05:44

should have done that. We all do

1:05:46

things that we later look

1:05:49

back on and say, oh, what

1:05:51

was I thinking? I shouldn't have done that. But

1:05:53

in the moment, you don't always

1:05:55

think about it. No, I mean, you have

1:05:58

to remember, this family went...

1:05:59

They're a

1:06:00

year after their her

1:06:03

husband, their father passed away

1:06:05

tragically, right? By a heart attack and

1:06:07

they were just going there to

1:06:10

try to

1:06:11

let loose, relax finally, and

1:06:14

unfortunately it seems like

1:06:17

either someone took advantage of that situation

1:06:20

or something tragically absolutely

1:06:23

happened by accident. Yeah. My thought is

1:06:25

they offered that information

1:06:28

up probably pretty quickly. The family

1:06:30

did why they were there,

1:06:32

you know, the husband passing. And

1:06:36

if these two people are involved

1:06:38

and

1:06:39

if right,

1:06:40

then they seized on that and

1:06:43

they used it to gain their

1:06:45

trust and, you know, they

1:06:47

probably maybe even accidentally

1:06:50

bumped into them. Hey,

1:06:52

Hey, there you are again. Let's

1:06:54

go get lunch or, you know, you know what I'm saying? This

1:06:56

is what people do to

1:06:59

try to get close to you. You think it's, you

1:07:01

just ran into them again when they had it staged

1:07:04

from the get-go. Yeah. Right. Yeah. This is

1:07:06

what con men do predators

1:07:08

do in 2023. Max's

1:07:11

case was featured on the show. Still

1:07:13

a mystery. The show that we've referenced

1:07:16

throughout this episode, his family hopes

1:07:18

that investigators will continue looking

1:07:20

into the case and they hope that more media

1:07:22

outlets will report on his disappearance.

1:07:25

Yvonne said, I would liken into

1:07:27

the story. Those two men know what

1:07:30

happened to my son. It was more

1:07:32

than just a jet ski accident.

1:07:34

No arrests have been made in

1:07:36

regards to Max's disappearance.

1:07:39

There are still a lot of unknowns in

1:07:41

Max's case. There are a lot

1:07:43

of questions. Gibbs was max

1:07:46

targeted by these two men. They

1:07:48

met on vacation. Did a crime

1:07:50

occur at sea on may 12th, 2004,

1:07:54

or did max die in a tragic accident?

1:07:56

It seems like these questions will remain

1:07:59

unaided.

1:07:59

answer,

1:08:00

unless the investigation is renewed

1:08:03

or, you know, someone comes forward

1:08:05

with information, maybe their

1:08:08

conscience gets the better of them, which I

1:08:10

don't know that if it happens all

1:08:12

that much. I mean, the other

1:08:14

thing I keep thinking is if Max

1:08:16

had a life jacket on, I don't know,

1:08:18

would he eventually be found at some

1:08:20

point, maybe, maybe not. Do

1:08:23

we really know if he had a life jacket on at the time of the

1:08:25

discipline? We know nothing. Right. We act,

1:08:27

we know absolutely nothing. You

1:08:29

know, as we're wrapping up this case,

1:08:32

I'm kind of with detective Williams

1:08:35

as far as, you know, if we're theorizing

1:08:38

what happens and like you said,

1:08:40

this is all allegedly,

1:08:42

right? You know, my thought

1:08:45

is most likely either,

1:08:47

you know, David got Max out to this

1:08:49

sandbar and the son

1:08:52

joined him or the son didn't join him. I

1:08:54

don't know, but he did something,

1:08:56

you know, unspeakable to

1:08:59

Max. Sure. Knew that

1:09:01

he could never let Max return.

1:09:04

Right. Cause he's going to tell,

1:09:06

tell on him, tell on him. And,

1:09:09

and, and so he made sure that he

1:09:11

would never return. And if you're out,

1:09:13

let's, you know, eight miles, how deep

1:09:16

is it out there? You take somebody's

1:09:19

life jacket off. I don't

1:09:21

want to get too gruesome, but there

1:09:23

are ways to kind of help

1:09:26

ensure that someone sings

1:09:29

for sure. You know, we we've covered

1:09:31

that in many cases, it

1:09:33

can get quite gruesome. How

1:09:35

deep is it? You know, how would

1:09:37

somebody even search for that? Like

1:09:40

we said, it's a big area. How

1:09:42

far away from the sandbar could

1:09:45

this guy have potentially taken

1:09:47

Max to dispose of his

1:09:49

body because you're not going to do it right there.

1:09:52

No, because you're giving up the information of

1:09:55

where you were. So if

1:09:57

you did do that, you're going.

1:10:00

to take him somewhere

1:10:02

away from there. And then my

1:10:05

thought is mother nature

1:10:08

current is going to probably

1:10:11

move that body. Sure. And

1:10:13

it's going to end up somewhere. Somewhere.

1:10:16

Then you get into the fact that

1:10:18

there's aquatic. Predator.

1:10:20

Yeah. I mean, there are sharks and

1:10:23

all that, but I mean, it's a tragic

1:10:26

story no matter which

1:10:28

way it happened. Right. You know, if

1:10:31

it was an accident, it would

1:10:33

still be a tragedy. It's just hard

1:10:35

for me to think it was an accident. And

1:10:38

let's say he hit his head. Max hit his head

1:10:40

on the

1:10:41

wave runner. Yeah. He

1:10:43

started to float away. The guy

1:10:45

hears the thud. How far has

1:10:47

he been, has he floated when he hears

1:10:49

the thud and he's not

1:10:52

able to go get him? Decided not to act. Yeah.

1:10:55

But his story changed, right? From

1:10:58

we weren't going to talk to them. We were talking

1:11:00

and he was saying he was going

1:11:02

to swim the shore. And again, so

1:11:04

at the end of the day, you know, if I have to put

1:11:07

money on it, there is something

1:11:10

with

1:11:11

at least one, if not both of these

1:11:13

guys, it doesn't add up.

1:11:16

Yeah. But I don't know how

1:11:19

anybody's ever going to get to the bottom

1:11:21

of it because I don't think right now anybody's

1:11:23

trying to. Yeah. And I tried

1:11:25

to look and I couldn't find any

1:11:28

good reports on if

1:11:30

the wave runners fired up. Oh

1:11:33

yeah. That was a question I had because

1:11:35

at a certain point, those wave runners had

1:11:38

to get back. Right. And

1:11:41

that's the kind of the strange thing about

1:11:44

especially doing cases in other countries,

1:11:46

reporting is so very spotty. Yeah.

1:11:49

Things that you think are very important to

1:11:51

the case are not written

1:11:53

about at all. Like you would want

1:11:55

to know. Yeah. I would like, so

1:11:58

when you got there, did you take the key file? and

1:12:00

put it on the wave runner and it just started

1:12:02

right up. Was it flooded?

1:12:04

Was it just what was

1:12:07

the reason? But again, there are things

1:12:09

that somebody could have done, like

1:12:11

you said, flooding them maybe, maybe

1:12:13

you loosen a spark plug

1:12:16

or something like that, but

1:12:18

to have both of them go out

1:12:20

at the same time. Very suspicious. That

1:12:23

just is more than coincidence to me.

1:12:25

But that's it for the disappearance

1:12:27

of Max DeVries. We have some

1:12:29

voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Yes, here.

1:12:32

Hi, this is Andrea from

1:12:34

the Chicago area again. I was calling

1:12:36

regarding the Beverly J.

1:12:38

Potter-Budin case. And

1:12:41

you guys were talking about caller ID. I

1:12:44

am pretty sure that it did not come out

1:12:46

until 1992, only

1:12:49

because I used to call boys I liked

1:12:52

and just to hear the voice answer. And

1:12:54

I believe it was 1992. It

1:12:57

will keep saying, have a great week. Bye-bye.

1:12:59

Yeah, that sounds about right to me. Like I said,

1:13:01

when we were going through the episode, I didn't

1:13:04

think it existed, but I didn't have it

1:13:06

right in front of me. So I'm assuming

1:13:08

after 1992, she had to change up her tactics.

1:13:12

Switch it around, can't just be calling because

1:13:14

they would know it was you. Exactly.

1:13:16

Hey guys, just to be a little at a washable state.

1:13:19

We were going to call and let you know after 21 years

1:13:21

of my last career, retired, started driving

1:13:23

a semi, somebody suggested podcasts,

1:13:26

someone cost yours and haven't turned back to

1:13:28

it. Being in my episode 118 so far, I'm

1:13:32

going to be a little depressed so I get to the end and have to

1:13:34

wait a week to get to the next episode. Anyway, the

1:13:36

reason I was calling is because

1:13:38

I thought it'd be cool if you guys brought a sketch artist in

1:13:40

because we've covered them a couple of times in the episode and

1:13:43

described each other and the portraits

1:13:45

you incorporate somehow in your merch.

1:13:47

I think it'd be awesome. I'd be one of the first to get that.

1:13:49

All right guys, great job. She's got

1:13:51

some good work. Keep that on the pie,

1:13:54

pick up six. It's actually really a brilliant idea.

1:13:56

Yeah, it really is. I don't know where you find a sketch

1:13:58

artist. I can tell you where to find a few.

1:14:03

We can just get ones that have already been done

1:14:05

of you. That's

1:14:08

the easy part. That's the easy part. And

1:14:10

then we'll just have somebody come in. I mean, you can get an artist.

1:14:13

I want like a real police sketch

1:14:15

artist though. I want a hardcore one

1:14:17

that comes in. And

1:14:20

I want you to sit over there and then

1:14:22

I have to try to describe you. Yeah.

1:14:25

And I want them to have that really, that

1:14:27

one mustache. Like the Van Dyke.

1:14:30

Yeah. The kind of one

1:14:32

that goes down the side, almost

1:14:35

like a little, little goatee or super

1:14:37

dark. That

1:14:39

seems very oddly specific, but okay.

1:14:42

I mean, I guess I'll ask if he

1:14:44

has that. What

1:14:47

if it's a woman? Do you still want her to have the Van

1:14:50

Dyke? Yes, I have it too.

1:14:52

Yeah. But it's a cool idea. Yeah.

1:14:55

It's cool. He's loving the trucking. Hey,

1:14:58

I've seen some big rigs out there. Okay.

1:15:01

That's all it was like. Super rig, man. It

1:15:04

was like twice the size of a normal,

1:15:07

I would call it like a normal king size

1:15:09

rig, you know? I don't think these

1:15:11

are terms used by semi-drivers.

1:15:15

But it wasn't too connected. Piggybacked.

1:15:18

No, no. Because I've seen that. Yeah.

1:15:21

Just the trailer. I mean, not the trailer. Just

1:15:23

the rig itself was like

1:15:26

huge. You could probably sleep like. Like

1:15:29

it had a bigger sleeper maybe. Yeah,

1:15:31

the cab was like really huge. Than some

1:15:34

of the other ones. Yeah, it might have a full kitchen.

1:15:36

Maybe a little. Oh, that'd be cool. Suck

1:15:39

in the living room. All I can

1:15:41

live, a rumpus room? Maybe it had a rumpus

1:15:43

room. The rumpus room. The only thing I know is that

1:15:45

semi-drivers make really, really

1:15:48

great podcast listeners. They do, man. I

1:15:50

love them. Because they can binge the you know what

1:15:52

out of them. Heck yeah. All right. We

1:15:54

appreciate you calling in for sure. all

1:16:00

for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your

1:16:02

own time ticking.

1:16:31

Dive into true crime on Pluto

1:16:33

TV. Unravel the mysteries

1:16:35

with forensic files and 48 hours.

1:16:46

Investigate crimes with Dateline 24-7 and

1:16:49

unsolved mysteries.

1:16:50

With thousands of free crime

1:16:52

movies and TV shows, Pluto TV

1:16:55

is the true home of crime. Download

1:16:57

the Pluto TV app on all your favorite

1:16:59

devices and start streaming true

1:17:01

crime on live channels and

1:17:04

on demand. Pluto TV. Stream

1:17:06

now. Pay never.

1:17:09

Tired of ads interrupting another true

1:17:11

crime podcast mystery? If you're an Amazon

1:17:13

Prime member, you can listen to top true

1:17:15

crime podcasts ad-free on Amazon

1:17:18

Music. All Amazon Prime members also

1:17:20

get access to the largest catalog of ad-free

1:17:22

top podcasts included with your Prime

1:17:24

membership. Enjoy shows like Morbid,

1:17:27

Mr. Ballin, and many more. To start

1:17:29

listening, download the Amazon Music app

1:17:32

or visit Amazon.com slash

1:17:34

ad-free. That's Amazon.com slash

1:17:37

ad-free. Time for

1:17:39

a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Mornings

1:17:41

are for mixing and matching at McDonald's. For

1:17:43

just $3, mix and match two

1:17:45

of your favorite breakfast items, including a sausage

1:17:48

McMuffin, sausage biscuit, sausage

1:17:50

burrito, and hash browns. Make it even better

1:17:52

with a delicious medium iced coffee. With

1:17:54

McDonald's Mix and Match, you can't go wrong.

1:17:57

Price and participation may vary, cannot be

1:17:59

combined with any other offer or combo meal. Single

1:18:01

item at regular price.