Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
E072: Dannette and Jeannette Millbrook
1.5k Plays5 years ago
The 15-year-old twins should have made it home from their walk to visit friends and family, should have celebrated their 16th birthday in a few short weeks… should have been safe. Instead, a family was left mourning their loss and was left reeling after a bungled investigation.
If you would like to start your OWN podcast on Buzzsprout, please consider using our promo code so you can earn a $20 gift card after your second month on a paid plan:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/?referrer_id=709643
Recommended
Transcript
Podcasting Journey & Buzzsprout Recommendation
00:00:00
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds, have you ever considered creating your own podcast? Have you been inspired by listening to some of your favorites and thought? I'd love to try this out on my own. Whether it's a true crime podcast like ours, a motivational podcast, or maybe one filled with tips and strategies for those interested in the same activities you are.
00:00:21
Speaker
When Maggie and I first decided to start our podcast, we knew absolutely nothing about what podcasting would entail. But when we found that the platform Buzzsprout was one for which we didn't need any special equipment, just a computer microphone, some quiet space, and each other, we knew that this was the way to go.
00:00:40
Speaker
It is intuitive to use, fun to play around with, and so helpful in getting analytical data about our number of downloads to track trends and from where our listeners hail. Best yet, Buzzsprout is affordable, even by our teacher salary standards.
00:00:57
Speaker
Buzzsprout will get your podcasts listed on every major podcasting platform.
The Millbrook Twins' Disappearance in 1990
00:01:02
Speaker
So, what are you waiting for? Fulfill that dream of yours and start today. If you use our coffee and cases referral code, 709-643, linked on Facebook and in our show notes, not only will you help support our show, but you will receive a $20 Amazon gift card after your second month on a paid plan. It's that easy.
00:01:26
Speaker
Podcasting isn't hard when you have the right partners. Join over a hundred thousand podcasters already using Buzzsprout to get their message out to the world. Now it's time for the world to hear what you have to say.
00:01:40
Speaker
In just a few short days, the city of Augusta, Georgia will be flooded with people flying and driving in from across the country and from across the globe to watch a yearly event that draws approximately 40 to 50,000 spectators. That is in addition to the ones watching on television. That event is the Masters Golf Tournament.
00:02:05
Speaker
Granted, because of the pandemic, this year's attendance will be limited, but in 1990, when our story this week took place, thousands of people would be in attendance to watch Nick Faldo don a Green Champions jacket for the second time. It was all over the news. Noticeably absent from news coverage was the disappearance Maggie and I will cover this week.
00:02:31
Speaker
As the only case of missing twins that remains unsolved in America, you would think that you would be familiar with their story. You would think that you would recognize their names. But I'd wager a bet that you've never heard of them.
00:02:50
Speaker
And even in 1990, in the weeks following their disappearance, those thousands who would flood into Augusta would be ignorant of any knowledge of the two girls who had seemingly just disappeared on March 18th, 1990. Imagine the outrage of a family wanting answers, only to realize that it seemed as though coverage of a tournament outweighed the importance of finding their daughters, their sisters.
00:03:20
Speaker
And not only that, but no one seemed to care about finding them, even the police.
00:03:27
Speaker
Imagine the further outrage and confusion when three years later, they reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, only to hear that the twins' case had been closed because the girls had been found, placed into foster care, but you, as their mother, had received no phone call, had no happy reunion, had been suffering all along.
00:03:54
Speaker
And all of this only to find out that the case had been closed based
Authority Negligence & Case Closure Issues
00:04:00
Speaker
upon a lie. The girls had not been found and how many days had now passed since anyone outside of the family had even been searching. Imagine the feeling of being inside of a dark room. You can't see anything, especially a means of escape through the grief of your loneliness.
00:04:21
Speaker
You can't hear anything either, as if you're stuck in a void. But there you stand screaming, continually into the deepening shadows of darkness. Imagine that hopelessness, and you might have some understanding of what this family has felt all these years. This is the story of Danette and Jeanette Millbrook.
00:05:19
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron.
00:05:28
Speaker
We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the case will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
Importance of Solving Cold Cases
00:05:40
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page.
00:05:44
Speaker
Coffee and cases podcast and to follow us on instagram at coffee cases podcast and on tiktok at coffee and cases podcast Because as these families know conversation helps to keep their missing family member in the public consciousness Helping to keep their memories alive. So sit back sip your coffee and listen to what's brewing this week
00:06:07
Speaker
Before I begin our case this week, I wanted to let you know that the Millbrook Twins case is on the Crime Door app. So I urge you, Sleuth Hounds, after you listen to our episode, go there and check out the other resources. There are pictures, there are news articles, YouTube videos, other podcast episodes, all at your fingertips,
00:06:34
Speaker
all free content provided by the Crime Door app creators. So make sure you check it out.
Life & Bond of the Millbrook Twins
00:06:42
Speaker
And Maggie, this is one of those cases that podcast coverage has actually helped in many ways. So again, that gives me hope that maybe our podcast can help one of the cases that we've covered. Yeah, for sure.
00:06:59
Speaker
While there's still no closure in this case, at least the coverage has led to other potential theories and has drawn more attention, but that's still not enough. There can't be enough.
00:07:15
Speaker
until there's closure. So even though this case that I'm covering this week has been covered on a couple of larger podcasts, it's still a case that I was wholly unfamiliar with. And so I knew I needed to cover it. Have you ever heard those names, Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook? No, I actually hadn't, but I'm really intrigued just based off
00:07:40
Speaker
Um, your intro to kind of hear what's going on with this case, but I've never heard of them before. So, yeah. So, and you know, I, obviously it's on the crime door app and I saw that some other podcasts had covered it, but you would think that we would have heard of them.
00:07:58
Speaker
Well, Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook, as I mentioned in the introduction, are twins, more specifically fraternal twins, which means they came from different eggs and in all other respects, other than sharing a womb and a birthday, are like any other siblings because they only share part of their genetic code.
00:08:19
Speaker
But fraternal or not, twins are known to have a special bond. And even though the girls had a close relationship with their other siblings, and they came from a large family, Maggie, with eight other siblings. Wow. So there's 10 of them total. Yeah, 10 of them total. And the twins fell somewhere in the middle chronologically. So they're not the oldest, they're not the youngest.
00:08:47
Speaker
But even though they were close to all their brothers and sisters, they had that twin bond with each other. And I don't know if you've ever taught, I've taught a lot of twins over the years, actually, and a few sets of triplets. I've only taught, well, triplets, you have them now. I had them as freshmen. Yes. You have them now.
00:09:12
Speaker
I think right now we have a set of twins, but they're both virtual and I'm not 100% sure. I mean, if they are, but little cool fact about me, my very best friends.
00:09:26
Speaker
growing up from kindergarten on were twins. And then when our middle or our elementary school joined with another elementary school to make our junior high school, my other set of friends were twins. So they were five of us and I was the only one that wasn't a twin. Wow. So you were my father-in-law's a twin. That's pretty cool.
00:09:52
Speaker
So you know what I'm saying when I talk about like this unspoken understanding that they have for each other. And it's almost like their protective instincts are heightened. For sure.
Incident at the Bus Stop
00:10:07
Speaker
Yeah, and this thing was true of Dannette and Jeanette. They were always together, usually just hanging out, watching television, or sitting on the front porch. Their younger sister, Chaunte, referred to them as home bodies, which is me. I feel that, yeah. So, yeah, I totally get it.
00:10:27
Speaker
Most thought of the twins as these quiet girls who always had a smile for everyone who passed by, and they would see them as they were walking by on the sidewalk in front of their porch. And their cousin, Yolanda Curry, had reported to one source that they were there so often that she could just see them there, smiles beaming, and because she saw them there so often that she could just close her eyes and picture them sitting there.
00:10:57
Speaker
And while both of them were friendly and cheerful with everyone, Dannette was still very protective over Jeanette, who had a more passive nature. I think that's pretty common too, that like with twins, one will have like a more dominant personality.
00:11:17
Speaker
I don't know if that was true of your friends too. Yeah, it was. And like, I can just like, I can picture all their conversations together. And that is how it was. They're so protective over each other. And then like you said, one was always a little more slightly like dominating one a little more passive. Yeah. Dannette and Jeanette were both good girls and they had only really ever gotten into trouble one time.
00:11:47
Speaker
and for good reason. So I'm going to tell you about that. Just a few months before their disappearance in 1989, the 15 year old twins had been involved in a scuffle at a school bus stop.
00:12:03
Speaker
So Dannette had been struggling at school more than her twin sister. And as a result, she was held back a grade and she actually attended a different local school than her sister so that she could get that added academic support. So Dannette's bus stop was one block away from where her twin sister, Jeanette, would wait for the bus. And remember, Jeanette is the more passive one.
00:12:30
Speaker
But Jeanette was being bullied by some of the other students at her bus stop.
00:12:36
Speaker
And because she was more passive and wanted to avoid conflict, she hadn't confronted the bully. So like the bullying was continuing. Okay. But when Dannette heard about what was going on, she went straight to Jeanette's bus stop one morning and confronted the girl for her sister. Again, like that's why I said for good reason. Yeah, that's awesome. I'm not condoning fights. I'm condoning protecting your
00:13:07
Speaker
your sister or your brother. Exactly, exactly. But the kids from the surrounding bus stops actually heard the ruckus and they went to see what was happening. And then an Augusta police officer happened to drive by, see this crowd and stop to break up the fight. There wasn't any
00:13:27
Speaker
you would think like, oh no, what's going to happen? You know, a cop stopping. There wasn't any other punishment for Dannette or for the bully. They were, you know, just kind of got like a warning from the cop, but the bully was a girl related to the principal of the school that Jeanette still attended Lucy Laney high school. And I want you to remember that detail. Well, obviously then she's definitely not going to get in trouble. Right.
00:13:56
Speaker
related to the... I mean, you'd like to think that there wouldn't be favoritism, but I'm sure there is. Other than that one incident, life went fairly smoothly for the twins. Their mom struggled a bit financially, but then again, how could you not with 10 children?
00:14:16
Speaker
unless you're Bill Gates. Yeah, I can't imagine. We've talked about this before, Maggie, but like the cost of one child is outrageous. So I can't imagine that times 10. I'd be like, everybody's wearing hand-me-downs. Everybody. And like food. Holy cow. My little sleuth hound wanted McDonald's for her McDonald's for her birthday, right? So we bought McDonald's for
00:14:46
Speaker
seven people. It was $50. McDonald's. And I was like
00:14:54
Speaker
How do people do it? Like, how do these big, I don't know. I don't know. At least she wasn't like, I want balloons. Yeah, that would have been a lot. But despite the money troubles, that family had so much love in it. Maggie, mom, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, community, they just all rallied around one another. And there's really only one person the girls had a bit of a strained relationship with.
00:15:24
Speaker
their father, but I'll get into that in a minute. The twins' mother, her name was Mary Sturgis, but everyone called her Miss Louise, so I'm going to call her Louise. They had just moved their family from their old neighborhood of Bethlehem, which is around 12th Street in Augusta, to an area called Jennings Homes.
00:15:49
Speaker
And this move meant being about three miles away from their old community, which was made up of their family and friends and neighbors. And it also meant starting a new school the next school year. So they actually were able until then to like spend their final remaining months of the 1989, 1990 school year to finish it out in their old school. So that was good. Yeah.
00:16:19
Speaker
But unfortunately, because they had already moved, that now meant having to take public transportation to school rather than the school bus, because they're not living in the district anymore. Right, and that can be a little more dangerous, a lot more dangerous than taking the school bus. Oh yeah, because you've got adults riding the bus. And it was also more expensive.
00:16:45
Speaker
because now they're having a- Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Yeah. Yeah, for transportation.
Last Known Movements of the Twins
00:16:50
Speaker
But the girls went back to their old neighborhood quite often to visit. Usually they walked there, but for school, they're thinking, well, if we could ride the public bus, that would be a lot easier. The day of the incident, March 18th, 1990, so 31 years ago this past week was a Sunday.
00:17:13
Speaker
Louise Sturgis had taken her children to church like normal. And after the sermon, the pastor had given Louise money for her family to have a nice lunch that day. I know, super sweet. The twins had actually walked to church's chicken to pick up the meal and they brought it home. And I've never been to church's chicken, but I am a huge fan of fried chicken. So I'm sure it's delicious.
00:17:38
Speaker
Louise remembers it distinctly because Dannette and Jeanette mentioned when they got back being worried because they said they noticed a white van looked like it had been following them. I know which you know that would freak me out if my little sleuthound was like um I think there was a car following me. But Louise you're never leaving again.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, you're staying right here. Like, that's it. Maybe on a leash. But Louise had looked outside and she didn't see any van. So, you know, combine that with the fact that they'd made it home without any incident. So then she started thinking, well, maybe they were just being paranoid. Yeah, exactly. You told a story about when two guys were running in your neighborhood. They were running to you.
00:18:33
Speaker
You were like, oh no. And I was like quickly walking to the door so it didn't look like I was running away. And like in this case, and we say it all the time, it's really hard because we do kind of justify and rationalize. And I don't want to say that she thought it was just paranoia because as we were just saying, we feel it too. It's very real.
00:19:02
Speaker
I bet when I'm driving to work in the mornings, I look in my back seat while I'm driving at least five times. Yeah, I have the middle, because we have an SUV, so I have the middle seats laid down so I can see into the trunk when I'm by myself, just to make sure no one's hiding back there.
00:19:27
Speaker
Just the other morning, I was leaving for school and I walked outside and the air conditioner unit kicked on. I almost jumped so high. I don't want to say just paranoia because it's real.
00:19:45
Speaker
Louise and the girls had been talking recently about the added cost of having to take that public transportation to school the coming week. Because remember, she's struggling financially because she's got the 10 kids to take care of. And so Louise had suggested that the girls see if maybe their godfather might be willing to help them out because he had done so before.
00:20:12
Speaker
So Dannette changed out of her clothes from church into a white Mickey Mouse t-shirt, love Disney, white jeans and black sneakers. Oh, that's a very late 80s, early 90s outfit right here.
00:20:27
Speaker
Totally, totally. And Jeanette, she kept on the white turtleneck, blue pullover and beige skirt and tights that she had on at church, but she just slipped into some more comfortable shoes. So she just put some sneakers on with her outfit. And around 3 p.m., the twins set off walking together to their old neighborhood to visit their godfather, Ted, who lived on Forest Street.
00:20:55
Speaker
And their younger sister, Shante Sturgis, she remembers begging them to let her tag along, but they said no. And I think that's just one of those like, you know, you always want to go with like an older sibling and they're like, no, no. Their godfather was at home and he gave the girls $20, which was enough money for their transportation for the whole next week to school.
00:21:22
Speaker
for both of them. Well, that was good. Yeah, super nice of him. And he gave them a little bit of extra money so that they could buy some treats and snacks.
00:21:32
Speaker
And I loved that little detail because I used to love, my granny would give me like some pocket change and my friend Amy when she would come over on Sundays and she would take us to the grocery store and we could just buy like whatever candy we wanted with the money. And I used to get so excited. Heck, today I would get excited if I found a dollar and I could buy a chocolate bar when my students are having the world's best chocolate fundraiser.
00:22:02
Speaker
When the dance team did that, I would be like, I just kept a tally. Like I owe $5 to the dance team because I would just eat a chocolate bar. I owe $3 to the dance team. I paid it. I've always paid it. Right. So I know that Tenet and Jeanette had to have been happy about that change because heck, I understand.
00:22:25
Speaker
Well, they visited with Ted, their godfather for a little bit, and then they decided while they were in the area of their old neighborhood that they would also visit their cousin Juanita, who only lived a block away on 10 Cup Lane.
00:22:40
Speaker
Oh, that's a cute little name. I know 10 Kaplan. Um, so yeah, so this was like, you know, a good little visit back in their old neighborhood, saw their godfather, they went to go visit their cousin. And after spending, though, only a few short minutes with her, they decided to leave. And they didn't have a whole lot of time because their mom told them to be back before dark, which would have been around seven.
00:23:05
Speaker
And they still had that long walk back. Because remember, they're like three miles away. Oh, yeah. Which would take me a long time. Because I'd probably have to take breaks. So there's that. You've got to factor that in.
Delayed Investigation & Family's Search
00:23:21
Speaker
But when they were at their cousin's house, they asked their aunt if Juanita could walk back with them. But since that would then mean Juanita walking back home by herself in the dark, her mom had said no. Understandably. Completely understandable.
00:23:37
Speaker
From there, so now they visited Ted. They visited Juanita, their cousin. They wanted Juanita to walk with them back home, but Juanita's mom said no. From there, Jeanette and Jeanette went to visit their older sister on Paquette Avenue, and their sister had just had a baby. So again, good family visit.
00:24:00
Speaker
But yet again, the twins only stayed a short time, around 15 minutes, before also asking their sister if she would accompany them back home. But with a newborn, that would have been a huge hassle, so she also declined. So do we know why they moved away from all their family and friends?
00:24:27
Speaker
I did not read anywhere the reason why they moved the three miles away. So I don't know if it was like more affordable, if it was like if their mom had begun a new relationship or something, I'm not sure.
00:24:52
Speaker
But it's that second request of their older sister in hindsight that worries the family. Yeah, it seems like they're scared to walk back home alone. Exactly, Maggie. And that's what's in their family's head. So they're thinking, well,
00:25:08
Speaker
It probably wouldn't have been out of the ordinary to see if their cousin wanted to come back with them because they stayed the night at each other's houses all the time. But then to ask two separate people and one of whom their older sister with the newborn who they knew couldn't stay.
00:25:27
Speaker
So why had they asked two different people to walk with them? Was there something that they were afraid of? It could have been the van. Yeah. That's what I was going to say. Could there have really been a white van that was following them? And I mean, remember, they made this walk plenty of times before to visit old friends. And on none of those occasions had they asked multiple people to walk back with them. So there's something that's worrying them.
00:25:58
Speaker
Knowing now, obviously, they've gotten to knows that they were walking back by themselves. They made one last stop around 4.30 PM at a local corner gas station, the pump and shop near the corner of 12th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Well, I would stop and get me a water because I would be dead walking three miles back to the house. Yeah, like got to hydrate.
00:26:28
Speaker
Gloria the cashier at the pump and shop was actually familiar with the twins, because obviously they had grown up in that neighborhood. Right. And so they had come into this corner shop before. So she sold them some chips and soda.
00:26:45
Speaker
And they obviously they were like, let's go ahead and use this snack money from Ted. Yeah. Let's not waste this. Yeah. But just as quickly as she had seen them at the register, she had turned her head for a minute and then they were gone. And Gloria was the last person that we know of to have seen Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook. They were gone as in like, they just like walked on down the street or gone like
00:27:14
Speaker
She didn't see which direction they had gone. And we haven't seen them since. Wow. So when the girls hadn't returned home by dark, their mom obviously knew something was wrong. So she immediately called the police. Good for her. Yes, immediately. But
00:27:38
Speaker
She was told by the Richmond County Sheriff's Office that she would have to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report for the twins. And why is that like a common thing? I don't think it was any more, but I think it used to be. And I have no idea other than like this automatic assumption that we've talked about before. If they ran away or something. Yep. It's so stupid. The first 24 hours is like crucial.
00:28:07
Speaker
crucial golden hours, but now they've passed. And I can only imagine, Maggie, I bet each minute of each one of those hours that that mom waited was nothing short of pure agony. Yeah, I cannot imagine. In the meantime, though, Maggie, their mom Louise and their 12 year old sister, Chaunte, went out walking themselves, which is exactly what I would have done looking for Dannette and Jeanette.
00:28:35
Speaker
And some of the areas that the girls walked through were known for high crime rates, but Louise hadn't really worried about it as much with the twins because number one, it wasn't that far. I know I joke about three miles and I'd have to take breaks, but three miles is a doable walk. It's not like they were 20 miles away. Number two, they knew the area
00:29:04
Speaker
and most of the people in it. And number three, they had each other. So they would never be traveling alone. Yeah, I think like as a parent, like if I were a parent in this situation, like, and my kids, are they 15 or almost 15? Yeah, 15.
00:29:23
Speaker
So I think I would been would have been okay with my 15 year old walking three miles Like you said, I mean it's not that far like it doesn't take that long to walk three miles
Investigation Errors & Case Closure
00:29:33
Speaker
Plus, you know people along the way So it's almost like you are watching them as they walk even when you're really not because you could probably call people all along the Like route they would be taking right and like you said, they're not alone. They're together right but I do feel like
00:29:53
Speaker
for the girls and for so many girls out there, there is a false sense of security in numbers. I mean, sure, obviously walking with someone is far better than walking alone, and it is harder to harm or abduct multiple people than it is a single person, but it doesn't mean that you're safe. It doesn't mean it could never happen. Right, because there could be plenty of scenarios in which two or more people could get overpowered.
00:30:23
Speaker
And those were the thoughts in Louise's head, obviously, as she's walking the path her girls would have taken. Chaunte, the younger sister, remembers looking in the brush along the roadside, looking for any sign of her sisters, but they returned home brokenhearted and empty-handed.
00:30:44
Speaker
The next day, so remember Louise is told wait 24 hours. The next day, Monday, March 19th, Louise called again and filed the report. So like awesome mom, she's like calling first thing, let's get this filed. But just like the day before, again, law enforcement didn't seem to take the cases seriously as they should have. And it wasn't until later that week
00:31:12
Speaker
that an officer finally knocked on their door and spoke face-to-face with Louise about her daughters. But he looked right at Louise Maggie and said off-handedly, I probably just ran away. I thought it was her. I would have been at the police station every day until somebody talked to me about my kids. And I probably would have slapped the police officer.
00:31:40
Speaker
A week and a half later, on April 2, it was the twins 16th birthday. And you know, that's a huge birthday for kids, but it passed without a word of their whereabouts.
00:31:56
Speaker
Three days later, the Masters Golf Tournament began, and it seemed as though the case of the missing Millburg twins had been all but forgotten as police turned their attention to the influx of visitors to Augusta.
00:32:11
Speaker
And I'm not saying that, you know, police presence isn't needed for such a high profile event. I mean, 50,000 extra people is a huge amount. And we know, obviously, that with a number of people increasing, so too does something else increase the potential for crime, right? We know this. Like, I understand why police attention went elsewhere.
00:32:38
Speaker
But for that family, your babies are the most important thing. And I think it would be impossible to fathom like why the search for your daughters would take a back burner. Yeah, like I said, I would be at the police station every day. And so while I'm not willing to blame the police for their presence at the golf tournament, like I get that, what I will blame the department for
00:33:06
Speaker
is that once the tournament was over, they still didn't give full attention to the case. So this family Maggie was continuously denied coverage for the case. They were denied respect and denied justice. And I know those are harsh words coming from me because I always try to play the devil's advocate and to give benefit of the doubt. But let me tell you why I feel so strongly.
00:33:37
Speaker
the officer, Detective Jim ship, who had come to their home, you know, and had gained their trust, even though he's the one who said, Well, they probably just ran away, right? They're trusting this officer to find the twins, you know, that they're going to do everything in their power to find Annette and Jeanette and bring them home. And I feel like any
00:34:03
Speaker
I feel like we're just that should be natural for us. You want to trust the police and so you want to say like if you have a problem and it requires police attention that they are going to give it their full attention and you know put everything into helping you but sometimes that doesn't necessarily happen.
00:34:21
Speaker
I know, and for this family that trust was betrayed. The detective who spoke with Louise handed the case off to a juvenile investigator who proceeded to bungle the whole investigation.
00:34:37
Speaker
That investigator, who's now deceased, heard about the two 15-year-old girls and despite any evidence to suggest his belief to be true, decided that they had just run away from home after getting $20 from Ted, as if $20 could get you anywhere.
00:34:56
Speaker
Yeah, where are you going to go on 20 bucks? That was just enough for them to go back and forth to school for a week. I know. That's not a substantial amount of money. Right, you're not going to go start a new life with $20. Yeah. This investigator didn't go talk to people in the neighborhood, didn't interview their cousin Juanita, didn't ask to speak to Jeanette and Jeanette's dad, who actually lived close to where the girls were when they disappeared.
00:35:26
Speaker
didn't speak with their older sister, whom the girls visited, and didn't canvas the area. What did he do? He only spoke with Ted to find out that he had given the girls a little bit of money and Gloria at the gas station. Oh, and one other person. He also spoke with the principal from the twin school, Lucy Laney High School. Why?
00:35:53
Speaker
Well, I don't know why I guess to find out about their character where they might have gone. Do you remember that tidbit of info I asked you to remember at the beginning? Yeah, he's gonna say that they're like horrible girls because they got into a fight with his niece or whoever that girl was. Yep, this is the same principle whose relative Dannette had fought with at the bus stop.
00:36:18
Speaker
So after this shoddy investigation, this investigator ruled Dannette and Jeanette as runaways. And he even speculated that one of the twins had gotten pregnant and that they both decided to run away. A statement with absolutely no merit. They didn't even have boyfriends at the time. Is that not ridiculous? Yes.
00:36:49
Speaker
I mean, nothing that you have told me in this whole story that I ever for a second think, I bet they ran away. Right. I know nothing. And this juvenile investigator
Family's Struggle for Justice
00:37:00
Speaker
who was now in charge was so careless, Maggie, that even some of the details in his report are incorrect. He has the twins last name as Mill Brooks instead of Mill Brook.
00:37:14
Speaker
He had Jeanette's middle name written down as Latressa instead of Latrice. He thought that they were born on April 7th, 1974 instead of April 2nd, 1974. And he reported that the twins had visited Ted on Florence Street instead of Forest Street where they really had been. So I mean, all kinds of mistakes. This is why, oh, go ahead.
00:37:42
Speaker
This is your job, investigator. Like your job is to investigate this case. Like our job is to teach. So there are certain standards you have to meet to perform your job well. And I don't think that he did that. No, he did not. And that is why I say law enforcement failed the family.
00:38:10
Speaker
The twins family though, then reached out to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who did help create flyers for the family. So that was good.
00:38:22
Speaker
But the story of the disappearance of two 15 year old black teenagers who were already deemed runaways by the police was not a quote unquote newsworthy story in the eyes of all of the other agencies to whom Louise had reached out. So the media also failed the family in my opinion.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yet another failure from law enforcement happened a year later, when on April 8th, 1991, an officer came to visit the family and told them that the investigation for Dannette and Jeanette would have to end. Like we're just, it just needs to stop. We can't look. You're being cut off.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah, his logic, Maggie, was that the girls had just turned 17. And under Georgia law, if they're 17, even if they are found, if they don't want to return home, they can't be forced to. So he was like, so there's no use continuing the investigation for them. So it was called off. But that doesn't make sense to me.
00:39:32
Speaker
Like, I mean, that's fine that that's their law that they don't like, they can't make them return home, but like, you don't even know if they're alive to return home. Right. And we have no proof that they actually ran away versus being abducted. Right.
00:39:51
Speaker
But the biggest failure, as if those aren't big failures, the biggest failure came two years after that, when in 1993, and this is what I mentioned in the introduction, Louise had reached out again to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, only to be told that her daughter's cases had been closed because they had been found and were in foster care. So this in the intro was what like,
00:40:20
Speaker
like kind of stopped me in my tracks because first of all, if they had been found and we're now in foster care, would you not have had to have contacted the parent to place a child in foster care? Yes, you would. And so, yeah, that's what she's thinking. She's like, how can that be true? Because I've never been told about it. And why haven't I seen them? Right, exactly.
00:40:46
Speaker
Like how could this case be closed and I not know about it as their mom? Exactly. Well, it turns out Maggie, all of those details were wrong. And what's worse, listen to this. The case could have only been closed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by the Law Enforcement Agency in charge, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office.
00:41:14
Speaker
Yep. So she's told that they're found and that their case is closed. Yes. And the case was closed at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children by her local police department who has refused to help her bond her children. Yeah. So this means this investigator though who came to her house said we're closing it because
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah, it can be forced to come home, but they're closing it with NCME by saying that the girls have been found, which is a completely different story about why the investigation is ending.
00:41:56
Speaker
And the juvenile investigator in charge of the case actually told that detective who went to speak originally with the family that he had seen the twins, Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook, with his own eyes, a claim that we now know was wrong. But again, we can no longer ask that investigator because he's now deceased.
DNA Evidence & Father's Non-cooperation
00:42:22
Speaker
So I just feel so bad for this family. Yeah, nothing is going good for them. And more lies followed Maggie. For example, the family was even told that the girls had been removed from their mother's home, put into foster care and then adopted. But again, something their mom obviously knows is a lie because she's like, the girls weren't taken from my home. Yeah, they literally disappeared.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yep. Now there was a close relative who had children who were put into foster care, but it wasn't Louise and those children were not Dannette and Jeanette. Oh my God. Yeah. So it's like lies all over the place. Confusion all over the place.
00:43:08
Speaker
In 2013, so fairly recently, it looked like the family's luck was finally turning around and something that was 23 years past due might actually happen.
00:43:24
Speaker
an honest and thorough investigation into what happened to Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook. Okay. Hopefully. Better late than never. That's right. A new sheriff was in office, Richard Roundtree, and he decided to reopen the case.
00:43:42
Speaker
He even said in a media release, quote, we think a terrible injustice has been done for the last 20 years. For some unknown reason, they were removed from the system, but there's no report indicating why they were removed. So for the last 20 years, they've not been in the system, end quote.
00:44:06
Speaker
And their sister, Chaunte, stated to CBS News 12, quote, so from 1991 to 2013, nobody was looking for my sisters, nobody, not the sheriff, nobody, period, nobody but my family, end quote. Wow.
00:44:31
Speaker
That's so sad to think, you know, you think everybody out there is looking and then to find out that nobody was because the case has been closed for who knows how long. Yeah. I think how many like maybe potential leads they've missed out on potential clues that were overlooked. Like it's sad. You can't get that back.
00:44:56
Speaker
No, you can't. And in 2013, at least the family allowed themselves to get their hopes up. Only to be again let down and nothing developed in the years after the case was reopened. One problem they faced was that the original case file had disappeared. Of course it did. Of course.
00:45:21
Speaker
In 1996, the Richmond County Sheriff's Office and the Augusta Police Department merged. And somewhere in the merger, the case file had disappeared. So some people speculate that it could have been shredded after the case was closed. Did they do that?
00:45:40
Speaker
I don't know. That's one speculation. So I don't, I mean, I guess you would get rid of paperwork if a case is closed, right? I don't know. Well, you would at least need to make it like a digital thing. I would think, but we're still talking in 1996. True. Save it to a floppy disk. There you go. There you go. Floppy disks. Other than
00:46:04
Speaker
that there is some speculation that maybe it was destroyed. Their offices were flooded in the 90s. So there's also some speculation that maybe the file was destroyed in that. So this is reopened in 2013. It wasn't until 2017 that law enforcement finally collected samples of familial DNA to aid in their new investigation. So that's a long time.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah. And it was then, Maggie, when they're collecting this familial DNA, that some interesting information came to light. The twins' father, remember I mentioned he had never been interviewed in the first investigation? Yeah, and they didn't really have a very good relationship, right? They did not. And he did something that's pretty suspicious.
00:47:00
Speaker
He refused to give a DNA sample and he even forbid his other biological daughter, so Dannette and Jeanette's sister, to give a sample. It was like, no. Yeah, I don't want you to do this, but she did anyway. That's exactly what I would have done. I'd have been like, um, no, screw you.
00:47:17
Speaker
Right. Well plus we're the rule followers. So yeah, I'll be like the police asked me. Sorry gotta go They trump you. Yeah But he even urged that daughter to change her phone number and said if the police came looking for him to say that he had died. Oh my god Yeah, so that does not look that doesn't look good. Do we find out why he said this? well There's a theory, but I'll get to it in a second
00:47:48
Speaker
According to shante their father also indicated to their mother Louise that she shouldn't look for the girls. that's weird. yeah that's super sketchy to me now here's my theory. It could all these weird comments sketchy things.
00:48:08
Speaker
have nothing to do with the disappearance of his twin daughters and have everything to do with his involvement in other crimes. Okay. That was what I
Father's Criminal Links
00:48:20
Speaker
was wondering. Like maybe he just didn't want to get so involved because he has like, you know, like a record or he's involved in criminal activity. Yes. And that is correct. He did have a record.
00:48:34
Speaker
Could he have just been more interested in self-preservation than in finding his daughters, which would make him an awful parent, but not a kidnapper or a murderer? Just still not a good person. Right. Or did he have something to do with their disappearance? Now, before I get your input, Maggie, I want to tell you about two individuals with whom the girl's father had a relationship who could be linked to this case. OK.
00:49:03
Speaker
The first individual is Joseph Patrick Washington. And per my theory, before I say anything else, can you guess anything about him, Maggie, just based on his name? He's a serial killer. Yep. Serial killer. He's got three names. Three names? You're a serial killer. Not always, but there's a high likelihood.
00:49:27
Speaker
While we cannot now question Washington either, because he died in prison in 1999. See, and that's another thing that agitates me about the fact this case took so long. Half the people that you probably could have interviewed or you should have been interviewing are probably dead by now. Yeah, and now we can. So it's all speculation.
00:49:48
Speaker
But this Joseph Patrick Washington in the early 90s was actively kidnapping, sexually assaulting and murdering black women in and around Augusta. Wow. And here we have two young black women in the 90s.
00:50:08
Speaker
In 1995, he was found guilty in several cases and sentenced to 17 consecutive life sentences. And all of that before he was set to face trial for two murders for which he was going to face the death penalty and all of that before he died in prison.
00:50:28
Speaker
So Washington is linked in a way to Dannette and Jeanette's father through their father's life of drugs and crime. And we don't know if Washington owned a white van.
00:50:45
Speaker
But we do know, according to an article by WRDW News, that he did own not only multiple weapons and tools for this crime spree, but that he did own several different vehicles that he used to enact his crimes. So could Dannette and Jeanette have been two more of his victims? Potentially.
00:51:11
Speaker
Well, I'm going to save my comments until the end because is there another theory coming? There is. Okay. I'll wait till the end then. Another associate of the twins father has offered a different potential lead to solving the case. A few years after Dannette and Jeanette disappeared, their father was arrested for covering up a crime for covering up a murder.
00:51:37
Speaker
committed by an acquaintance by the name of Ernest Vaughn's. Listen, I've already told Anthony, like there are some things that if like we're married and I love him more than anything, there are some things that if he did like, I'm gonna turn you in. Oh, yeah. I'm not hoping you hide anybody if you murder somebody. Now, and he's the love of my life. Now, I definitely would not do that for an acquaintance.
00:52:03
Speaker
Oh, yeah, I wouldn't either. Nope. Sorry. Don't commit a murder around me. Yeah, because I'm calling 911. Yeah. Well, it was this Ernest Vaughn's claim that the twins' father knows something more about what happened to his twins than he's telling. Vaughn says that at the time of the girl's disappearance, their father was actually allowing drug deals to go down in his home.
00:52:33
Speaker
And he alleges that Dannette and Jeanette were actually at their father's home leading up to their disappearance. Vons himself was there. And even though he was only 12 at the time, he actually admitted to selling drugs at that age, which I cannot imagine. My sleuth hound will be 12 next Friday. Yeah, I teach 12-year-olds, and I can't imagine that.
00:53:03
Speaker
I don't, I wouldn't even want to hear like a curse word come out of my mouth. But he admitted that he was selling drugs at that age. And he was using the twins father's home as his home base for dealing. Now, before we go on into this theory anymore, did the girls visit their father on their walks to their old neighborhood? Like would this have been a normal thing for them to do? Or was this just like completely out of the norm?
00:53:31
Speaker
I don't think that they normally did because one of the reasons why police aren't as positive about Vons's testimony is because his description of the twins was a little bit off, which tells me if he was over at their father's house quite often and his descriptions of the twins is slightly off, then he wasn't familiar with them.
00:54:02
Speaker
So Vons is there, he's only 12 at the time, but he swears that he saw something happen there that has something to do with the twins' disappearance.
00:54:15
Speaker
He told Laura Coates of the Oxygen documentary. So the Oxygen channel has done a documentary about the Millbrook twins. He told Laura Coates that both of the 15-year-old twins were drinking and smoking marijuana and that some of the men in the home and there were roughly nine men present had taken advantage of one of the twin girls.
Questioning Vons' Testimony
00:54:41
Speaker
Now that just does not sound anything like the girls that you described in the beginning of this. Yeah, it does not. The drinking and the smoking does not to me either. But this is what he says happened.
00:54:55
Speaker
And he says that when one of those men took advantage of one of the twins, the other twin, whom Vaughn's called the more outspoken twin, which we know there was, took up for her sister, which resulted in one of the men hitting that outspoken twin. And when they hit her, she fell back and she busted her head open on a table.
00:55:21
Speaker
And at that moment, Vons was sent outside with some of the other men who were present, and they were told not to come back inside until, quote, things got quiet, end quote. And Vons thinks that it was because of that incident that the twins were killed. Wow.
00:55:42
Speaker
And he believes because of the people who were involved, like the people he remembers seeing at the house, and I don't know why he thought this, but he thinks that because of the people who were there that the bodies were dumped in the brickyard pond.
00:55:58
Speaker
So Vons actually tells all of this information to Laura Norton and Brooke Hargrove, who were producers of the podcast, The Fall Line. And they were like, let's take this information to the police because they need to use it as part of their investigation. Yeah, exactly. Ultimately, though, the police did not follow up on the information that Vons provided. Why?
00:56:26
Speaker
Well, according to WRDW News, Detective Roundtree and the Richmond County Sheriff's Office did not follow up on the search of the Brickyard Pond area, number one, because they said that the area was too large to not have a specific pinpointed location to search.
00:56:48
Speaker
And number two, they deemed Vaughn's not credible, even though some of the elements of his testimony could be corroborated. Well, I mean, in the case last week that we covered last week, the person, like the suspect, sent police on several wild goose chases and the police followed through with every single one of those looking for the body.
00:57:18
Speaker
So I do not understand how you can say he's naming a specific location, how you can say it's too large to serve. Yep. Oh my God. And that he can't be trusted.
00:57:33
Speaker
even though parts could be corroborated. So he gave recognized street names of those who he remembers being present. And according to Sheriff Richard Roundtree, he said the following to Coates and Reynolds for the oxygen documentary, quote, These are names when I started my career early on, and I worked street level in the narcotics unit. And these were common names of individuals we arrested on several occasions.
00:58:03
Speaker
What blows me away is these are names you can't make up." He knows that that's true. Then why are we saying, oh no, we can't do anything with his theory because he could possibly maybe be a liar. There's two reasons. One of them I told you already. Law enforcement said that he gave a few inconsistent details about the twins. First of all, this happened in 1990.
00:58:31
Speaker
And he's not recalling it until 2013. So 20 some years later. But here's the second reason. They said, well, one of the men that Vaughn said was there, Vaughn's recalled seeing him in a wheelchair, but that individual wasn't in a wheelchair, which he was in a wheelchair due to paralysis from a police shooting.
00:58:59
Speaker
But that shooting didn't happen until 1992 and he's recalling a memory from 1990.
Ongoing Advocacy & Public Support
00:59:05
Speaker
So obviously he's describing a different crime instead. I mean, he possibly could be. Or like we said, it's been a long, long time. So maybe he's just getting a few minute details confused.
00:59:20
Speaker
That's what I'm thinking because I feel like that's a simple mistake to make because if the man in question had been in a wheelchair for a long time, like I feel like bonds could have remembered him being there, but he just kind of projected the wheelchair into the memory because if it's a common part of like every other memory that he has of that individual, you know what I mean? It would be like if Billy Bob had an eye patch
00:59:49
Speaker
from 1991 on, you know, and you've known him for 30 years and you always picture Billy Bob with an eye patch. And then somebody mentioned something in 1990 and in your mind, you picture him with an eye patch. Right, exactly. And I feel like this is the same thing. And I mean, I think what you just said too, he's recalling an event that happened over 20 years earlier. So some details could be wrong.
01:00:18
Speaker
Absolutely. But I don't think that that should equate to, we can't believe anything that he says, let's just not investigate. And what about the girl's father? Dannette and Jeanette's mother Louise told WRDW News, quote, I don't think he harmed them. But I don't think he helped either. End quote.
01:00:44
Speaker
She also reported that her ex, when she had told him that the girls were missing, had said something about how she shouldn't be looking for them, quote, because they're with some man, end quote. But who that man is and why their father made such a comment is again, not something for which police can follow up on because we've waited so long
01:01:13
Speaker
We can't follow up on that, nor can we follow up on whether or not Vaughn's story, if any part of it is correct, because the girl's father is in a nursing home and suffers from dementia. Which is really sad for him, but super sad for this investigation that we have waited so long that now crucial people in this case are dead or cannot give accurate testimonies. Yep.
01:01:44
Speaker
And what I can tell you is this before I get your thoughts. According to statistics provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, it is extremely rare for multiple siblings to be abducted together by a stranger. But it's not impossible.
01:02:08
Speaker
and it has happened before. Between 1975 and 2014, there were actually three incidences of siblings who were kidnapped by non-family members. So, I mean, I know that's not many, three in, you know, 40 years, basically.
01:02:30
Speaker
But could the Millbrook sisters be another to add to that list? Because we know how protective they were of one another. So normally it would be hard to abduct two people at once, but one twin would have never left the other one. So we have the father, who acts sketchy. We know that statistically speaking, it's extremely rare for multiple siblings to disappear with a stranger together.
01:02:58
Speaker
But we also have the serial killer and we have Vons's story. So what are your thoughts? I am more inclined to believe the serial killer theory just because they fit the description of like the women he was abducting and killing at that time. But then I do think about what you said like statistically
01:03:26
Speaker
not as many pairs are, you know, kidnapped as that as individuals. I don't know that I really believe parts of on story about, you know, them being high and things like that. Like that just doesn't sound like who they are to me. But I do think that the girls were aware someone was like following them. Yeah.
01:03:53
Speaker
I just don't know if I know who that would have been. I feel like if it had been their dad, I think they would have said something though. Right. Yeah. They would have been like, dad is over here. Yeah. Dad's actually really weird. Like, but the fact that their dad said they're with some man and he knows our three named serial killer, it makes me feel like you're right that that could be the man who they were with.
01:04:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm That's what I don't know why the dad would want to cover that up and would be like willing to let that happen well unless it's kind of like a self-preservation thing like maybe that guy had something on him and he just doesn't want to Like come out and say that's the dude because he doesn't want to get in trouble for whatever that guy may have on him It could be
01:04:48
Speaker
In 2019, the Oxygen Channel ran a special documentary about the case, the one that I mentioned earlier. During that investigation, former federal prosecutor Laura Coates spoke off camera with Detective Shipp. And in that interview, and I have to say she alleges because we don't have it on camera.
01:05:09
Speaker
She alleges that he admitted to calling the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to close the case and that he falsely reported that the girls had been found because he was sure the girls were runaways. Okay. Is that not illegal though? Like he could, could he not lose his job? I feel like it should be. Yeah.
01:05:34
Speaker
But whether he actually called or someone else did to close the case remains a mystery. What isn't a mystery, but is instead a clear and present reality, is that it would be very hard to have abducted two individuals in daylight in a busy area without someone seeing something.
Call to Action for Listener Engagement
01:06:02
Speaker
Another reality is that this investigation needs you, Sleuthhounds, share their story. Don't let their names be forgotten. And whatever you do, don't lose sight of the knowledge that we can make a difference by telling these stories and that we must, under all circumstances, keep faith that someday we will get answers.
01:06:29
Speaker
Every time the glimmering offer of hope has been held out to the Millbrook-Sturgis family, or they've cautiously allowed themselves to believe in miracles, that hope has been moved one step backward, just out of reach again.
01:06:45
Speaker
For Dennett and Jeanette's younger sister, Chaunte, this has been a lifelong journey of advocacy, of exposure, and of the belief that perhaps one additional phone call or that one additional podcast willing to share their story could be the very one that leads to answers. Consider joining Chaunte's Facebook group called Missing Dennett and Jeanette Millbrook.
01:07:13
Speaker
or contacting the Richmond County Sheriff's Office to demand answers. Let's not let Louise, Shante, and other family members continue to feel so isolated in the dark, nor to think that their cries for justice are falling on deaf ears. Let's instead help to turn on a light.
01:07:37
Speaker
Anyone with information about Dannette and Jeanette Millbrook is asked to call the Richmond County Sheriff's Office at 706-821-1096 or to remain anonymous, call 866-939-5050.
01:07:58
Speaker
or you may call the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children who have also reopened the case at 800-843-5678.
01:08:11
Speaker
Again, please like and join us on our Facebook page, Coffee and Cases podcast to continue the conversation and to see images related to this episode. As always, follow us on Instagram at Coffee Cases podcast and on TikTok at Coffee and Cases podcast, or you can always email us suggestions to coffeeandcasespodcastatgmail.com.
01:08:33
Speaker
Please tell your friends about our podcast so that more people can be reached to possibly help bring some closure to these families. Don't forget to write our show and leave us a comment as well. We hope to hear from you soon. Stay together. Stay safe. We'll see you next week.