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Season Seven: They Have to Know
525 Plays4 days ago
In this episode, we talk about an old case with a really big update.
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Sources:
Various News Sources Mentioned by Name
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
Mackenzie Strilla Case Overview
00:00:25
Speaker
This is True Crime
00:00:57
Speaker
Everybody's talking about Mackenzie Strilla because of this. The crash. Yeah, the crash. I was about to say crash, but the crash, the documentary that's on Netflix.
Case Coverage Reflections
00:01:07
Speaker
And you and i have talked about that and we've considered covering a couple of angles on it, but it would involve talking to some of the people closest. So that one may come up.
00:01:20
Speaker
It did get a little bit, well, actually, I don't know how everybody else sees it, but like that case blew up, right? Yeah. I mean, I remember when it happened and I remember when it happened too. i I will say i have some questions, but like, i don't feel like the documentary or any of the coverage of that case going on right now has further informed me beyond my initial questions or answered my questions.
Engagement with Sources and Challenges
00:01:50
Speaker
I don't know if I create, if it really has blown up or if I am just in my own echo chamber. oh do you feel like you're like hyper-focused on it for some reason? Well, I don't feel like I am. I just feel like all of a sudden, like there's a whole lot of movement and it there's really not though. It's just like the attention was brought to it.
00:02:13
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I have some opinions on like the proceedings in that case. I don't have a lot of, Opinions on the case overall, but I am you know, I have some questions and I'm trying to see if I can engage some of the people involved in order for us to do like a proper episode But I thought it was interesting that that case and that name I don't think McKinsey's that uncommon a name anymore, but it used to be it popped up and we had this case this North Carolina case
00:02:46
Speaker
Do you remember me like dropping all this in your lap years ago? And we talked about it for a little bit. And I tried, like I wouldn't talk to different family members and stuff. And i had a pretty good angle on the case. And then like one of the family members just turned out not to be all that reliable.
00:03:04
Speaker
Right. I
Recent Developments and Investigation Renewal
00:03:05
Speaker
i remember. yes I remember all that. And I never really got a ton of information about it because you were kind of. i't know I don't know bring through it. and But i did I do remember the case. Yeah. And and at some point, I i think I handed you like the toxicology and the autopsy to look at. And it's got like a real basic narrative. I'm going to bring it back up today because like there's something that's happened in that case that's interesting.
00:03:37
Speaker
i went back through... I guess this is probably the the the best way for me to do it is probably to pull some of these old news articles. I went back through and kind of looked at my notes on it.
Details of Mackenzie Sessoms’ Death
00:03:48
Speaker
And I'll talk about that as we go But the first article that I pulled up is a Josh Schaefer article that I think we used before. This is from the News and Observer, which is like a Raleigh, North Carolina newspaper.
00:04:07
Speaker
and it had... The headline, she was 11 when she was raped and killed in 2013. Her family still wants justice. For those of you who aren't aware of the McKenzie Sussman case, we're going to intro it a little bit. but i'm going to go ahead and tell you, this is a child and there's an autopsy report.
00:04:25
Speaker
And like they're sprinkled throughout because of what's happening in this case. but If you don't like child cases, and I try not to cover them in this type of detail a lot of times, ah but this might not be the episode for you. And I apologize for that. I just really wanted to talk about this case today. The article says in a country cemetery, two dozen mourners trudged the grave of an 11 year old girl.
00:04:50
Speaker
Her stone is marked with pink letters and lined with stuffed rabbits. They hold hands, sing hymns, and they release bunches of white balloons in tribute to a murdered fifth grader who dreamed of becoming a nurse.
Crime Scene and Autopsy Specifics
00:05:05
Speaker
Then they file slowly back to their cars wearing t-shirts that read, Justice for McKenzie, praying the little girl's killer will face justice. Maybe McKenzie's angel will send us a hint, said Dudley Stark, her grandfather.
00:05:19
Speaker
and keep in mind this article's from 2017. In September 2013, McKenzie Sessoms was found unresponsive on a couch in her father's double-wide trailer, which sits at the end of a long dirt road in Sampson County,
00:05:34
Speaker
According to a coroner's report, she had been sexually assaulted and asphyxiated. She had fallen asleep on a school night while an older brother held a party outside, and then her father found her the next morning.
00:05:45
Speaker
Since then, the family's search for justice has been marred by frustration, doubt, and few answers. After four years, they see the investigation dragging on without a conviction in sight, and they doubt the lone suspect, a teenage boy being detained at home by an electronic monitor, actually committed the crime.
00:06:04
Speaker
They believe far more people attended the party than the few described in official accounts. and they suspect many of them hold clues to what really happened. They fear Mackenzie Sessoms murder will go unpunished, forgotten in a remote town, population 427.
00:06:21
Speaker
i know God's got this, said Kathy Sessoms, her grandmother. I really do. i need to let that young'un know I'm doing all I can. Maybe that I can let God take over. For eight months, investigators scrambled for leads without an arrest, and the small town of Salemburg, North Carolina, railed against the slow pace.
00:06:39
Speaker
A child killer is walking free, said a December 2013 post on the Justice for McKenzie Sussum's Facebook page. This is not acceptable. Then in May 2014, sheriff's deputies charged a 14-year-old neighbor and high school freshman, Antonio Trey Jones, with the girl's murder and rape.
00:06:59
Speaker
Though a juvenile and not initially identified publicly, he was charged as an adult. Sessom's family described Jones as a special education student who suffers from epilepsy, but their relief at Jones' arrest would be short-lived.
Initial Investigation Challenges
00:07:12
Speaker
The case has not come to trial. Three years later, Jones was released from juvenile detention into his mother's custody in Franklin County, 100 miles to the north, where he is kept on an electronic monitor with a bail reduction from $2 million to $100,000,
00:07:29
Speaker
At 2017 hearing, his attorney, Kevin Kiernan, told a Superior Court judge that no physical evidence existed against his client and only his statement to investigators that is widely contradicted. so so that's the only thing they have is what they're saying in this article is basically the statement that this kid gives.
00:07:52
Speaker
And Kevin Kiernan would not discuss where the case will go next. He said, the best I can give you information-wise is that it's still pending. Sessom's family now believes that Jones, who at the time of his arrest was 5'3", weighing 110 pounds, which would only be 18 pounds more than the 11-year-old victim, did not commit the crime. ah Kathy Stark, McKenzie's grandmother, says he didn't weigh 80 pounds soaking wet.
00:08:20
Speaker
And McKenzie was bigger than him. At the girl's grave four years after her death, her family finds no solace. So, according to this article, McKenzie Sessoms lived what the coroner described as a tumultuous life. She had been molested at age seven. Sent to live with her father after a custody battle, her mother, Patricia Faircloth, said social workers sent her daughter to live with Donny Rae Sessoms because she would have her own bedroom there in the mobile home, although some renovations they were doing kept her temporarily on a couch.
00:08:54
Speaker
ah If the girl's on Facebook page as a guide, she stayed happy enough posting pictures of horses and country singers and herself. It's time for school again, and I'm glad, she wrote before starting the fourth grade.
00:09:08
Speaker
On the night she died, she studied, she swam in a family pool, and went to sleep on the couch at 9 p.m. Her father and an older brother both went to bed afterward. A middle brother went back out to, quote, party with two friends.
00:09:22
Speaker
After his granddaughter's death, Dudley Stark investigated the case on his own. he interviewed people going places that I shouldn't have been is the quote they put in here. Later estimated at least a dozen people had attended the party, many more than the official account.
00:09:37
Speaker
The father could not be reached for comment for this story. and they point out that like it's difficult to even go down the ah driveway and knock on the door because of the gate. The Sampson County District Attorney and Sheriff won't discuss details on this case.
00:09:52
Speaker
But the Starks said that they were they were told by both offices that they would have to pay for DNA samples to be tested down in Texas, which sounds crazy to me. That testing is $13 for each sample.
00:10:06
Speaker
So the family had made plans to raise some $20,000 on a GoFundMe page. But then those instructions changed according to the Starks, and they did not pay for the DNA analysis.
Autopsy Findings and Crime Understanding
00:10:18
Speaker
They described conversations with investigators, to which at one point, They were once told that 19 samples still needed to be tested, but then another conversation recently in 2017, they said they learned that no further testing could be done.
00:10:35
Speaker
At any rate, the Starks were maintaining their account of this, and they want to see the possibility of DNA testing. Kathy Stark of the cemetery specifically says they should have gone to Texas.
00:10:47
Speaker
Now, according to District Attorney Ernie Lee and Samson County Sheriff Jimmy Thornton, they insisted that the Starks were never instructed to pay for DNA testing costs. Neither would discuss the case in detail, but said the murder charge against Trey Jones is still pending.
00:11:01
Speaker
Thornton said, oh yeah, we would have preferred the bond not being lowered, but you have to consider his age. Lee's... That's the DA. His district covers Onslow, Jones, Duplin, and Sampson counties, a large and mostly rural slice of North Carolina.
00:11:17
Speaker
He'd been a prosecutor since 1987. So this is 2017, 10 years ago. He counted 39 pending murder cases among the four counties.
00:11:27
Speaker
That doesn't feel like a lot, but it also feels like maybe he's been doing this too long. um He said, as far as he knows, no other suspects are being pursued. All DNA samples have been examined. He said...
00:11:39
Speaker
Jones' trial is not in place on the calendar. It's only because they've been tied up with so many other cases. Meanwhile, Trey Jones no longer lives with his mother in Lewisburg. A new tenant said the family moved out more than a month ago.
00:11:51
Speaker
She did not know where they had moved, and Jones' attorney would not discuss his client's location. So this is where it was in 2017, and they are still asking for information on this case in the newspaper.
00:12:04
Speaker
Not sure that the sheriff was taking it all that seriously. So that's 2017. We then move forward ah to ah I don't know, should we come all the way today? mean, you can.
00:12:22
Speaker
It's not like a whole lot has happened. Right. What do you remember about this case? I remember that an 11-year-old girl was found dead.
00:12:33
Speaker
I do remember about the whole payment for the DNA thing. ah That made, like, no sense. ah It made me think that, I think you mentioned the town was, like, just over 400 people. Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
yeah And it made me ah back when we first learned about it, I guess. I have no idea if I knew about it when it happened. But when we first learned about it and looked into it, I remember thinking that it's not a great sign that they were being told they had to pay for the DNA samples to be tested.
00:13:12
Speaker
and it Because it didn't really make sense. I mean...
Theories on Mackenzie's Death
00:13:15
Speaker
families don't have to pay for DNA samples to be tested. And if somebody is telling them that they're lying or they're misinformed, right?
00:13:27
Speaker
i think i think it i think it was a miscommunication based on my conversations with everybody involved in this case. But you're right. Normally they would just be lying or misinformed. And so when i i remember thinking that
00:13:44
Speaker
that there was very little hope in the case coming to a conclusion. and now, okay, so if you think about it, I can't remember this. So I remember that about the DNA, but I can't remember the status of anything else having to do with DNA, but suddenly it seems relevant again. Yeah.
00:14:09
Speaker
And it wasn't because... In my opinion, i thought the case was pretty straightforward with a few oddities. Yeah.
00:14:26
Speaker
Well, it's so i guess I'll throw this out there um because and I'm going to talk about the autopsy for a second in general terms.
00:14:37
Speaker
But the... The juvenile they're talking about here, Antonio Trey Jones, he's no longer charged in this case. In fact, it's just dropped.
00:14:48
Speaker
I've seen articles saying that this case is still active, and we'll talk about that in just a second. I guess the best way is to discuss like kind of the narrative of the autopsy.
00:15:01
Speaker
So the way North Carolina works is they send out for an autopsy, and you don't You don't just get an autopsy report. You also have some level of death investigation most of the time. So that's a more modern thing. ah The version that we have of the autopsy report here kind of indicates somebody had been doing some investigation.
00:15:28
Speaker
And I want to read this because it it gives us a good setting of the scene. So this autopsy is done October 2nd, 2013, and it's signed off on October 4th, 2013. But it indicates that the examination itself is from...
00:15:48
Speaker
a couple weeks earlier. They give a nice external description that there's two pages that are that are important in here. The first one is they give us on page two an external description of what's happening.
00:16:00
Speaker
It says the body condition is intact. Length is 58 inches. Weight is 92 pounds. The body heat is cold after overnight refrigeration. that means she's been at the morgue.
00:16:14
Speaker
um They noted that she is still ah a rigor of three plus and upper and lower extremities and her jaw. um They note laxity of their neck muscle.
00:16:28
Speaker
ah Her liver is purplish discoloration overlying her posterior. ah Her hair is 15 inch long, blondish brown hair, normal distribution.
00:16:40
Speaker
hair, Teeth are in good repair. She has two crowns. Her eyes are blue. it says the body is that of a normal-appearing, well-developed, well-nourished 11-year-old preteen who appears approximately her recorded age, measures 58 inches and 92 pounds.
00:16:58
Speaker
um The decedent is received in a sealed black body bag clad in slightly askew clothing, which includes a blue T-shirt, Beneath that is a gray and purple and pink striped trainer bra.
00:17:13
Speaker
Her lower body is covered by purple with black spotted polyester pajama pants exhibiting inwardly rolled waistband, beneath which are bright chartreuse colored slightly stained bikini panties.
00:17:30
Speaker
She has several jewelry clink trinkets, including an ornate teardrop shaped silver colored earring with a bent wire hoop attachment. She has a partial cloth and metal necklace that has a broken post.
00:17:44
Speaker
ah Both of these items, the earring and the necklace are caught in her hair. And the way that reads here is that it's entrapped in the lengthy hair.
00:17:55
Speaker
She has two silver colored rings noted on her fingers. One is on the ring finger of her right hand. The second is on the middle finger of her left. She has a toe ring and a a very,
00:18:07
Speaker
um they call it delicate, so I'm thinking very thin chain anklet. They have multiple traumatic features that are going to be described along the way, and they warn you that here.
00:18:21
Speaker
It says the lengthy blondish brown scalp hair is normally distributed, and the face is rounded with slightly broad noal nasal base and upturned lower nose.
00:18:33
Speaker
There's a distinct faint bluish pallor of the cheeks and lower face and intermingled fine petechia with a solid striking paraorbital reddish discoloration around both eyes.
00:18:44
Speaker
Her mouth and naries exhibit white, brothy fluid. Her audio auditory canals are widely patented. And then there's some mucoid substance around her nares.
00:18:59
Speaker
Her irids are blue, ah pupils are round and equal. And then it says there is extreme abscural ecchymosis.
00:19:10
Speaker
So that's a big deal. What they're describing with the extreme abscural ecchymosis is blood pooling in the eyes. They also found petechia on her inner eyelids, and then they addressed her mouth being okay.
00:19:27
Speaker
No trauma to her her mouth overall, but there was something going on with her neck that they note the musculature ah exhibits extreme laxity.
00:19:41
Speaker
And what that means for people at home is that the neck itself normally should roll a little bit but it's exhibiting a looseness ah that there's probably been some kind of injury to it now that doesn't automatically make something a homicide because there are times that ah a neck can be damaged positionally they don't really get to that here
00:20:15
Speaker
They describe her chest and abdomen as as normal. They describe her reproductive and and genital systems. And they point out that there is some trauma that's going to be subsequently described, but that there are no traumatic marks to her extremities.
00:20:37
Speaker
No congenital anomalies present. Her backside of her body is relatively unremarkable and her hands and feet have no traumatic injuries. It does say her nails are irregularly short.
00:20:50
Speaker
There's no matter present. A lot of times this is because her fingernails have been collected. um Her toenails are painted with reddish colored glitter polish.
00:21:00
Speaker
ah She has polish on her left hand. Her skin is pale and she has some rash about her face, but that's probably from prepubescent acne.
00:21:13
Speaker
And then there's no needle marks present. They do point out that she has a suture present and the umbilical subcutaneum, that's just like
Autopsy Report Deep Dive
00:21:24
Speaker
the area of her belly button,
00:21:27
Speaker
ah She also has a mid-right abdomen, short, well-heeled horizontal scar, which I think that's her appendix, maybe. I don't know that for sure.
00:21:38
Speaker
ah She has four EKG pads appropriately placed on the extremities, but that's the only evidence they show of therapy or resuscitation. So going back to the injury comments, this is the other page that's pretty interesting.
00:21:52
Speaker
The evidence of injury is the head and neck. She has prominent bilateral paraorbital reddish discoloration and tissue puffiness. ah It's in intermingled with very fine petechia. So petechia is tiny red dots.
00:22:08
Speaker
it's It almost looks rash-like, but it is specifically from blood vessel rupture during ah lack of oxygen in a manner of strangulation.
00:22:20
Speaker
um They basically roll her eyelids to look at them and they exhibit similar features. And they point out the blood is pooling in them. She has a frothy white liquid and slightly intermingled blood.
00:22:35
Speaker
She has a small rounded abrasion and that's on her left chin. um They point out that her face has an unusual modeling.
00:22:48
Speaker
like M-O-T-T-L-I-N-G. And basically they describe alternating between pale power and reddish discoloration. And then they say that she has raccoon-like reddish paraorbital change that they're saying is like the most striking.
00:23:06
Speaker
ah Her scalp has two hemorrhages. And then the seventh thing they observe is that the right upper posterior introsync musculature has hemorrhaging and then that she has a hemorrhage around her hyaline mode.
00:23:24
Speaker
So I think that's how they get a strangulation with her. They then describe that on her medial right chest are three irregular abrasions and they're intermingled with scratches.
00:23:35
Speaker
And then they describe trauma to her labia, her right hymeneal ring, and an abrasion in her genital area. When we first looked at all of this, I think you and I had kind of decided that there is a possibility that of some kind of positional asphyxia.
00:24:04
Speaker
I had even pictured whether she could have been caught in the couch Right. ah they So I just want to clear up a couple of things. um And I was trying to look, but I can't seem to find it. Are you sure that um her nails trimmed?
00:24:22
Speaker
I don't know that for sure. They mention it further down here. Do you think they're broken? I don't know. I remember reading, but I remember that she didn't have, they were unnaturally short. Is that what it says? On one hand. Yeah. On one hand. and to me, i didn't get the idea that they had trimmed her fingernails, which would be an important aspect of like saying she was assaulted. Right.
00:24:55
Speaker
ah so if, when you I thought you said um where they had trimmed her nails and I was just curious and so then I was trying to find it. Oh, I said it there because it's what I thought but like that question does come up here in a second. Okay.
00:25:11
Speaker
They talk about the internal parts of her body and and they come to relatively the same sets of like basically the internal injuries that go with what we just described here.
00:25:22
Speaker
The additional procedures they take are they do an x-ray of the head for evaluation of the cervical spine. They don't note any fractures of her neck, by the way.
00:25:33
Speaker
um They take a lot of photographs and they preserve those. The evidence that they collect, according to this, is hair from her shirt and face. They do fingernail scrapings.
00:25:44
Speaker
They do fingernail scrapings here, which...
00:25:50
Speaker
There seems to be some damage to her nails, potentially. They are collected, preserved, and subsequently receded to investigative authority authorities. They take swabs of for a stain kit, basically.
00:26:03
Speaker
Those are going to be pap stains, vaginal, oral, and rectal swabs for revaluation. They're going to retain those. um They do note that they don't find evidence of SEMA.
00:26:16
Speaker
um All of her clothing items are collected and receded to the investigative authorities. They don't run body chemistry, but they do ah set up a toxic toxicology screen, which means in this instance they're using blood because they note that minimal urine is obtained and they don't run a screen.
00:26:34
Speaker
They do a couple of microscopic examinations, and the lungs have some issues going on. Those are typically leading us towards the either smothering or asphyxiation.
00:26:52
Speaker
I thought that they, um I thought that my understanding, and it could be wrong, it probably is wrong, ah was that the lungs had less to do with her death and more to do with like her being sick.
00:27:07
Speaker
Well, we thought she had allergies based on, and that's, that's how we landed in some of the space that we've landed Cause like, I think where you and I had looked at this probably better suits their summary and content at the bottom at summary and comment content at the bottom.
00:27:28
Speaker
But like, that's where I land is with you. I don't think, the lungs had as much going on. We literally thought maybe she had an overdose of Benadryl. Do you remember that?
00:27:39
Speaker
Yeah. Well, think the premise was ah there. I don't know that it was in the autopsy, but ah she was in a very strange position, right? Correct. Yes. And in the event that, you know, she had been in that position of her own accord and somehow got stuck A lot of the, it could have accounted for some of her injuries, right? Yeah.
00:28:05
Speaker
Just what they were talking about. And so it was really sort of a head scratcher. Of course, now I'm realizing like other things that I didn't think about before or i didn't realize before. They definitely, they took some kind of scrapings at least. I don't know.
00:28:25
Speaker
just based on this, I don't know if I'm seeing that some of her nails were gone or if her nails were like, but either way, they definitely took scrapings and they receded them to the authorities.
00:28:41
Speaker
Um, did you have anything else you want to comment in on this part or you want me get into the summary? go ahead with the summary. I will say like, like one thing that is mentioned in here is that she has,
00:28:56
Speaker
ah a foreshad ulcer, like an ulcer ad on her vagina. And they do mention that it has a superimposed bacterial colonization. I had to look all of these words up to try and understand what that meant because I'd never seen them, but it's essentially a sore and the bacteria that they see there, they see microscopically, they're present and living on the tissue.
Interpreting Autopsy Findings
00:29:24
Speaker
They're not actually inside causing a full-blown infection.
00:29:27
Speaker
I don't know how that affects what they get to, um but I do have like the the summary and comment content here at the bottom. It says the subject of the autopsy, Mackenzie May Sessoms, was an 11-year-old pre-teenager with a tumultuous family history, which included sexual assault by her uncle at age seven, as well as a broken home with subsequent custody awarded her father about a year ago. So that's a big deal for one parent or the other to get custody. It's not all that unusual, but for it to be a father usually takes like
00:30:07
Speaker
something happening. The young girl was being raised by her father in a small, close-knit trailer home community populated by many relatives and close friends. She lived with her father, two older brothers, in their double-wide trailer with a large part of her care undertaken by several family relatives. According to school officials, the girl was thought relatively well-adjusted with no behavioral problems. She seemed to have several friends, particularly multiple cousins, and she had recently associated with a quote-unquote boyfriend.
00:30:39
Speaker
Which I'm wondering if that's not Trey Jones. I'm just throwing that out there. He's a little old, but it's said that on the day prior to her demise, she attended school and as per her usual routine, returned home, spent the majority of the afternoon at her aunt's home.
00:30:55
Speaker
awaiting her father's return from work that day. She studied. She spent some time on the computer. she went for a swim. She ate supper. She is said to have returned home around dark, which would have been between 8.15 and 8.30 p.m. She took a bath before going to bed on a couch in the living room by 9.30 p.m. to watch some TV. ah They note here, parenthetically, that she moved here temporarily while her room was being renovated.
00:31:22
Speaker
This living room is located at the opposite end of the trailer from the trailer's sleeping quarters. It's adjacent to the kitchen. Her father and older brother slept in their bedrooms at the far end of the trailer, but a middle brother apparently slept on a second couch in the living room. but Both of the older men are said to have been in bed at the time. However...
00:31:43
Speaker
Apparently, the older brother subsequently arose and went outside to quiet a rowdy gathering of his younger brother's friends, ah returned to bed around midnight.
00:31:54
Speaker
On the following morning, the decedent's father states he arose at a usual time around 6 a.m., walked into the living room at 6.50 a.m. to awaken the daughter for school.
00:32:06
Speaker
When unable to arouse her, he quickly realized that she was cyanotic, so she's blue, He called out for help. Rescue was summoned. Police were called to the scene.
00:32:18
Speaker
On their arrival, rescue personnel were unable to confirm a pulse or heartbeat. They pronounced the girl dead. At the time, they observed that her limbs were limber, and although her extremities were cool, her core was warm.
00:32:34
Speaker
so she hadn't been dead long is what they're getting at. Findings at the scene were suspicious in that the decedent's body appeared to be tightly wedged against a pillow at one end of the couch lying on her left side with her neck oddly angulated to her left side.
00:32:56
Speaker
Responders state that the young girl was covered by a c quilt when they arrived, which they pulled back to attach EKG leads, but left her clothing undisturbed. The girl's clothing included her outer T-shirt and underlying bra.
00:33:11
Speaker
They were seen to be slightly askew during scene examination. Her exposed right upper chest exhibited three irregular drying abrasions with two parallel linear scratches.
00:33:27
Speaker
They are describing fingernail marks. The waistband of her pajama bottoms was rolled inward several times.
00:33:38
Speaker
but it covered her whole lower body. a Striking preorbital reddish discoloration of both eyes was noted. ah it was immediately recognized, and upon closer inspection, they saw there were very delicate intermingled petechia, white froth emanated from her mouth and nasal canals.
00:33:59
Speaker
When the body was turned prior to removal, an ornate earring with bent hoop wire attachment and necklace with missing clasp were found entwined in her hair.
00:34:12
Speaker
Following the scene investigation, the body was removed to a local hospital for a subsequent autopsy. autoxy Autopsy examination reconfirmed all scene observations, and in addition, when she was undressed, genital trauma was immediately apparent upon close inspection. This included circumferential lower labial bruising, torn and darkly hemorrhagic appearing right hominial ring and a relatively lengthy midline posterior force head abrasion.
00:34:47
Speaker
Examination of the reflected scalp exhibited two small hematomas on the right lateral head and one atop the posterior head. guess is that's from like, you know how couch arms have like usually ah pretty hard foundation.
00:35:06
Speaker
Yeah. My guess is like slammed into the top and then her head lifted up and slammed down on the side. Since she was laying on her left side. i don't know how we get.
00:35:18
Speaker
i don't know how we get here exactly, but that's where I'm guessing the hemorrhages come from. i had also pictured her being trapped in a like pullout couch at one point. We had talked about that.
00:35:30
Speaker
Yeah, my impression from what you're just reading was that she was literally just laying on the couch. Right. Like, not necessarily a sleeper couch. Right.
00:35:41
Speaker
Okay. And then the way that it's described, it's kind of confusing, but it would be like she's facing inward, and then, like, all the way over, her head is facing back outward. Kind of, yeah. Yeah.
00:35:57
Speaker
Okay. oh um They note that there's a extensive hemorrhage located in the upper right posterior and intrinsic neck musculature. um So at the scene, as well as in the autopsy room, there is notable laxity of neck musculature, but it significantly contrasts the rigor of her extremities and her jaw.
00:36:22
Speaker
All the rigor except that of the neck increased from the time of the initial exam of the scene to autopsy. So they think the posterior neck hemorrhage would offer a possible explanation to this odd observation.
00:36:42
Speaker
So that's some kind of damage to the back of her neck.
00:36:48
Speaker
um They go on to talk about the scene observations that we just kind of skipped through. And they said that at autopsy, there prominent bilateral episcaral echemosis, which we've already talked about. And they talk about the petechia again. This is basically her eyes being, this is basically her eyes being bloody. Okay.
00:37:12
Speaker
um They then describe increased apparent lung, liver, and spleen rates and dark congestion of kidneys as passive congestion.
00:37:24
Speaker
um Remainder of the autopsy revealed essentially normal organs. So my point in saying all this is this is how they're getting to this must be a st strangulation rape homicide.
00:37:37
Speaker
They mention here that they take pap smears. There is no sperm identified. That's very important. They repeat it several times. ah They take histological sections of the general trauma.
00:37:49
Speaker
um That's so they can do further testing. They revealed recent non-acute trauma features. In addition, they collect trace evidence. They collect hairs from her t-shirt. They collect known head hair from her. They collect and preserve that for comparison later.
00:38:06
Speaker
um They take swabs, including the pap stain smears that they're making into a swab. They have a blood card for DNA preservation. All of these are transferred.
00:38:18
Speaker
All of these end up being transferred over to investigative authorities, which at this time is probably the FBI and the sheriff's office. um The clothing is transferred. the All the photos are transferred. All of the ah head and neck x-rays where they were trying to figure out why our neck was messed up.
00:38:37
Speaker
They transfer that over to show that there's no fractures. So in summary, they say multiple scene observations were recognized as suspicious of homicidal activity.
00:38:47
Speaker
ah They were later confirmed under closure scrutiny in the autopsy suite. In addition, an element of sexual assault was added to features summarized as asphyxial in nature. Histiologically, the sexual error element appears to have occurred within hours of the death, but was not concurrent with the lethal activity.
00:39:05
Speaker
That was a big deal. In our conversation about this, we'll come back to him just a second. The findings of asphyxia were not those of classic manual or ligature strangulation, but trauma sustained to posterior neck, suggesting some element of neck twisting.
00:39:23
Speaker
ah There was a passive organ congestion and particularly bilateral hydrothoracis, which were more difficult to explain but could relate to gradually slowing brachycardia with compromised cardiac output or increased negative intrapural pressure due to airway obstruction. That's where I came back to positional asphyxia.
00:39:44
Speaker
It is my opinion, this is according to Falvey Barr, the pathologist, it is my opinion that the decedent McKenzie Sessoms, while in otherwise good health, died as a result of homicidal asphyxia.
Legal Proceedings and Wrongful Conviction
00:39:58
Speaker
Right. And so that would mean somebody else, or by the hands of another, she was strangled. Or smothered because they indicate that like in terms of a classical manual meaning with your hands or ligature meaning with some type of device, cord, exterior non-human means.
00:40:24
Speaker
um She has experienced... the the The type of injuries you would have from being strangled, but they're thinking it's some kind of asphyxiation that doesn't involve the hands or like a rope, for instance.
00:40:41
Speaker
And you and I had pictured like positional asphyxia because of being crammed against the bed or sat on or something. um Right. yeah and ah And I realized that it was the fact that they ah that the pathologists indicated that the a sexual element of the situation had occurred ah not at the time of death. Right.
00:41:13
Speaker
Yeah, it was a separate time. You know, over the years, we've had an opportunity to look at this story from the perspective of how they end up charging this juvenile, Antonio Trey Jones, who's no longer a juvenile because when they charged him, it was 10 years ago.
00:41:28
Speaker
Stories like this are kind of infuriating a little bit.
00:41:32
Speaker
there's no there There's absolutely no reason why this should be a mystery. it should not be. I looked at this... a couple times over the last year because like some weird information popped out about this case. And I was pulling it from, essentially there's a, I was pulling it from essentially there a federal lawsuit going on. One of the things I wanted to mention to you was this article in the insurance journal.
00:42:02
Speaker
the insurance journal is like when interesting things happen to coverage carriers and insurance companies, they put it in here and they like circulate like a newsletter. It says insurers settle in wrongful conviction case can't escape sex trafficking coverage.
00:42:19
Speaker
This is came out in May, May 27th. A guy named William Rabb wrote this up. It says insurance carriers are not off the hook into high-profile lawsuits involving alleged sexual abuse and millions of dollars in defense costs and indemnity, one in Georgia and one in North Carolina.
00:42:39
Speaker
In the North Carolina case, Ohio Casualty Insurance Company, a Liberty Mutual insurance subsidiary, and other insurers have reached settlement agreement with a mentally challenged young man who is wrongly coerced into confessing to the rape and murder of an 11-year-old neighbor.
00:42:56
Speaker
This is according to federal court records. So this is where I get my information from to start with, but I am able to confirm this. The insurers will pay $10 million dollars settlement with Antonio Trey Jones, who was 14 at the time. He's now 27 years old.
00:43:14
Speaker
The state of North Carolina and Sampson County Sheriff's Office will pay about a million dollars. This is in the proposed settlement order. Jones's lawsuit filed in 2023, It argued that Samson County Sheriff's Detectives failed to recognize Jones' intellectual disabilities and obtained a confession with no physical evidence in the case.
00:43:35
Speaker
Jones spent almost seven years in jail, which is not entirely true, but like he was in custody, he was in detention. ah DNA evidence later cleared him of the charges, but the crime remains unsolved.
00:43:48
Speaker
So they say this here, and they mention this other Georgia case that's going on. um This woman bill was involved in a sex trafficking case had sued the motel. But they say this here about Trey Jones.
00:44:05
Speaker
I don't know what DNA they're talking about. The News and Observer has an article from 2024. It says, Sarah Stepney and an agent with the State Bureau of Investigation forced a rape and murder confession from a 14-year-old boy From a 14-year-old boy with an IQ of 55, questioning him without his parents present.
00:44:27
Speaker
This is according to a federal lawsuit. Trey Jones spent five years in confinement while charged with killing McKenzie Sessoms. This is also Josh Schaefer, by the way, the same guy that wrote the article I was talking about earlier.
00:44:41
Speaker
um He was charged with killing his 11-year-old neighbor, found asphyxiated and sexually assaulted on the couch of her Sampson County mobile home in 2013. The confession was not recorded, but served as a central piece of evidence in the case against the teen with a lifelong intellectual disability, who told one detective, I can't hardly read, no that good.
00:45:04
Speaker
Don't even know what that sentence means, but that's what they threw out there. Since then, a Superior Court judge had suppressed Jones's confession. He called it factually inaccurate and unreliable.
00:45:15
Speaker
All the charges were subsequently dismissed. In return, Jones filed lawsuits in U.S. District Court against Sampson County Sheriff James Thornton, his detective's Andrew Worley and Christopher Godwin, and SBI Special Agent William Brady, calling their actions shocking, malicious, and objectively unreasonable police misconduct.
00:45:40
Speaker
Neither the Sheriff's Office nor an SBI spokeswoman responded to request a comment from the News and Observer, but the Sampson County Attorney, Joel Sterling, said his office does not comment on pending litigation. They go on to talk about developmental delays with this kid, and they basically said since age five, he's got a well-documented history of severe speech impediment and developmental delays with Sampson County schools. A psychologist had noted he had trouble with communication and communication skills. it was difficult for him to understand basic instructions or to have conversations in which he made himself understood.
00:46:20
Speaker
IQ test, his verbal comprehension and reasoning scores ranked in the first presentile. Past age 10, he showed serious problems with oral instructions, relating experiences, telling stories, and using the right vocabulary to express his thoughts.
00:46:34
Speaker
ah This is according to the lawsuit. He repeated several grades and was identified That's important.
00:46:42
Speaker
in september twenty thirteen makinziey sesls was found unresponsive on a couch in her father's civilide trailer the coroner's report suggested her neck had been twisted rather than choked by some kind of ligature her wounds were violent enough that her carotid artery had been crushed that's important um Investigators pursued Leeds without an arrest for eight months after killing.
00:47:06
Speaker
They had interviewed the girl's 16-year-old cousin who told them Trey Jones had been asked to leave their family swimming pool a year earlier. in this in his anger, the lawsuit said, Jones made vulgar comments about Sessoms and another cousin.
00:47:24
Speaker
Based on that tip, brad Brady and Worley drove to Franklin County outside Lewisburg, where Jones now lived with his mother. They interviewed Jones on the porch for two hours without reading in Miranda rights or telling his mother he was a suspect.
00:47:37
Speaker
Rather, the lawsuit says they explained they wanted Jones' help because he had been friends with Sessoms, and that they said that he insisted on speaking to them alone. The investigators blocked both family members and Jones' mentor from intervening in the interview,
00:47:53
Speaker
During which Brady leaned into Jones's face and called him a liar. According to the paperwork file, Jones began to cry. Brady and Worley promised Trey that if he told the truth, he would not get in any trouble and Brady and Worley would leave the residence.
00:48:08
Speaker
Upon information and belief, Trey only confessed to the rape and murder of McKenzie Sessoms to terminate the coercive interrogation. Several members tried to tell the investigators afterwards that Jones wanted them recant, but they did not wish to hear it.
00:48:22
Speaker
After questioning, Jones took him to the emergency room for emotional distress. Later, while he was in custody at the Sampson County Sheriff's Office, Godwin asked him to acknowledge having been read his Miranda rights.
00:48:35
Speaker
Jones misspelled his name on the form and did not know how to write the date. Once Jones was charged, the Sessoms family immediately expressed doubt. Investigators called the right suspect.
00:48:47
Speaker
ah Further, the lawsuit said that investigators held a press conference after he was arrested, and they announced they had linked him to Sessoms through DNA evidence. The evidence did not exist at the time, and when DNA results were received, received they not only cleared Jones, but they pointed to unspecified members of McKenzie Sessom's father's family.
00:49:10
Speaker
All of this is to say that they have paid out $10 million dollars to this kid. Well... Right? Right. So, why why you do all of this if they have DNA data?
00:49:25
Speaker
pointing to the family, no DNA pointing to this kid.
Potential Suspects and Family Implications
00:49:30
Speaker
Like, what is the point? I don't think that they did initially. Right. No, but I'm saying like, they lie in the press conference and say they have DNA.
00:49:41
Speaker
And eventually when they do get DNA test results back, it points to like her dad's family, which like, did you like, so, all right, I guess there's two parts to this. The first is, do we think she was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated in some fashion?
00:49:57
Speaker
Yeah, i mean, i guess so, but I didn't previously, or maybe I, i can't remember what I thought back then. Do you remember?
00:50:09
Speaker
Well, we could never figure out the difference between the timing. Because we, i think I think the timeline we had developed, we kind of looked at it and went, okay, so she's, we believe she's sexually assaulted in the afternoon, maybe not even at the house.
00:50:28
Speaker
Okay, that's possible. But they seem to think that it was relevant, right? When they brought Trey Janssen. Right. And so now we're looking at it, we're able to see pretty clearly in the autopsy, they stated the two things are happening at different times as far as how they represented the evidence.
00:50:54
Speaker
Correct. And it seems like that might not be the case. I don't know. I mean, i can't tell, but what i'm pick what I am now picturing is her death being caused by someone like forcibly holding her down on the couch, maybe not necessarily to quote unquote murder her.
00:51:18
Speaker
It just happened. Right. That just happened. In my mind, what I jumped to is she sexually assaulted or has some type of sexual activity. I'm going to go with assault because that's where they're saying it leans. They're saying that the trauma leans that direction.
00:51:35
Speaker
Well, she was 11. She's 11. So I don't, yeah, I don't picture, I don't understand why they're insinuating the boyfriend thing though. So I'm picturing that she is assaulted maybe right when she gets home.
00:51:51
Speaker
Well, she didn't go home at, well, so that would have been later when her dad was home. Well, that's what I'm saying. Like, how do we get, like they don't point to the dad. They say members of the dad's family.
00:52:03
Speaker
Right. Right. Okay, so I don't think I should probably say... yeah like that's difficult to do. but But obviously somebody knows who who did this.
00:52:19
Speaker
ah They know who did this. Because you literally, if you're saying that it's a member of... If DNA shows that it's a member of her father's family, now that could have been derived from her DNA...
00:52:36
Speaker
compared against the culprit, because they would be able to see her paternal line, and then you would see ah the match there. Does that make sense? Right. Okay, or they could have gotten her dad's DNA.
00:52:53
Speaker
And if they collected DNA from other people that were known to be in the house at the time of the incident, they would know for certain...
00:53:05
Speaker
if any of them matched. Correct. Okay. And it doesn't sound like they're saying that ah the DNA matched somebody conclusively,
00:53:20
Speaker
but you can draw your own inference from whatever. Yeah. Okay. And i There's absolutely no reason why this wouldn't be solved, though.
00:53:36
Speaker
Because I realize that the autopsy report says that they may not have happened at the exact same time. Right. But to me, they're probably related.
00:53:52
Speaker
And maybe that's maybe that's the holdup. They don't feel like they can make the case for murder. Right. I think that's what it is. Now that I've seen like all of this laid out in the charge for the sexual assault there.
00:54:06
Speaker
that Yeah. That's what I was just thinking. Cause I think, and there's not a ah victim, right? I mean, there is a victim, but she's passed away. the seas Yeah. Yeah.
00:54:17
Speaker
yeah I guess, I mean, this is, this is hard because it's a kid too. I mean, The sexual assault of a minor, unless the other person is also a minor, is much more serious. does You know what I mean? Like in terms of where you fall on the classification.
00:54:36
Speaker
Like, so if someone were to be charged with just rape, that's terrible. It's its own felony. But rape of a child is different in terms of the punishment.
00:54:49
Speaker
Right, but he also killed her, so... Right. Well, I was just saying if there were if they were separated. I mean, I guess it could be a different family member kills her over the accusation that one family member assaulted her. That sounds little wacky. That wouldn't happen, I don't think.
00:55:08
Speaker
I think that it would be like virtually impossible for to be sexually assaulted by one person and killed by another like within a span of hours. Right. No, no, I mean like directly related to each other.
00:55:20
Speaker
Like she comes and tells somebody and may have a negative response. Seems like it might be misdirected if that's what occurred. Correct. um I did have this. i I pulled an article from June 7th.
00:55:37
Speaker
ah This is from the Clinton, North Carolina Independent Library. And it says, Sheriff says Sessom's case still active. Even as a civil rights case was settled in favor of a young man falsely accused of raping and killing 11-year-old Mackenzie Sessoms, the trail to who actually...
00:56:00
Speaker
took this young girl's life grows longer This is by Sherry Matthews. it says it's been thirteen years in fact since sessum was found strangled to death and raped in her salemburg area home where she lived with her family she was found unresponsive on the couch in her living room where she had been sleeping while renovations were being made her bedroom Her father found her that September morning and her killer remains at large.
00:56:26
Speaker
But Sampson County Sheriff's investigators say they have not backburnered the case. In fact, Thursday morning, so this is in June 26th, Chief Deputy Marcus Smith and Jimmy Thornton, the sheriff, were adamant that they would never describe this case as cold.
00:56:43
Speaker
We have never considered this a cold case. In fact, we've been diligently working the case since it happened. Thornton concurred, we have never dropped this case, and we won't drop this case until we get an arrest.
00:56:55
Speaker
Investigators, however, thought they had a case solved back in 2014 when they arrested and charged Antonio Trey Jones, a 14-year-old Lakewood High School freshman, with Sessoms Rape and Murder.
00:57:06
Speaker
An allegedly falsely coerced confession by state and local law enforcement officers and eventual DNA evidence exonerated Jones, who had been incarcerated for some five years awaiting trial.
00:57:19
Speaker
um Then it points us over to see the civil case reporting for details. Jones' release returned officers to a trail gone dusty with time. This remains an open investigation of the Sampson Sheriff's Office. And this is Ernie Lee talking again.
00:57:34
Speaker
ah He is, I guess, still the district attorney for the Fifth Prosecutorial District. This is an email Thursday before this article aired. He was interviewed just over a year ago, and Lee said that Sessom's case has never been forgotten.
00:57:50
Speaker
It still bothers me a lot, Lee said during that 2025 interview. This was an 11-year-old girl. Nothing should have happened to her, yet it did. And the fact that it's still outstanding bothers me a great deal.
00:58:01
Speaker
I won't close her, but more importantly, I want justice for her family and justice for Mackenzie. Which... Knowing what we just said feels the justice for her family part feels like little bit contradictory.
00:58:15
Speaker
Thornton said his office obviously wasn't investing in a case during the time Jones was in custody. But once the evidence showed he had no involvement, officers returned to the investigation, determined is ever to find the killer. Today, this is far from a cold case as one can be. We are working it. We'll continue to do so.
00:58:31
Speaker
lee said in the 2025 Independent article that the fact that a murderer is still wronged to be bothersome beyond belief, and he stressed that the case was far from closed. There's no statute of limitations on a murder case. If new evidence surfaces, if someone comes forward, it can still help. It's never too late.
00:58:48
Speaker
Anyone with information about the case is always to call Sampson County Sheriff's Office at 910-592-4141.
00:58:57
Speaker
and This is all from the Samson Independent in Clinton, North Carolina. Okay, so they have enough DNA profile to clear Trey Jones. I don't know if it was off-kilter or, i mean, seems like you wouldn't say it if you weren't sure that a reporter said the DNA pointed to relatives of McKenzie's father. That's what it said, yeah.
00:59:26
Speaker
Which would also be relatives of Mackenzie, I'm just saying. it's weird how they said it. I think they're saying it from the perspective of Not the mother.
00:59:39
Speaker
Well, right. Like, they're not her brothers, but could be... i mean, according to all of this, she was she was sexually assaulted by an uncle early in life. and I assume that that and somehow...
00:59:57
Speaker
Indirectly at least a sex to custody. Yeah, exactly. um And so now we're on the other side of the family and they're basically stating some relative of the Sessom side is responsible for this.
01:00:17
Speaker
Right, and so when you have officials saying the case isn't cold, give us more information, what more do they need? They need to run the profile and figure out who it is.
01:00:31
Speaker
so you think that they've they've run it and they have a partial match and they can narrow it down and make a more specific match out of the people who are there? If they have enough of a profile to exclude Trey Jones...
01:00:47
Speaker
To the extent that he's getting $10 million dollars settlement. Right. They have enough to identify the killer. Yeah. and the fact that they haven't is sick.
01:01:03
Speaker
Like, it's really, really terrible. I realize that we're talking about two different things. However, the other thing is, this makes me wonder if Like, perhaps the family isn't participating.
01:01:20
Speaker
I mean, but if this is at this point, you can get you could get their DNA. No, I realize that, but if nobody's pushing... oh you mean they've... Okay, so are you picturing something like...
01:01:34
Speaker
We'll just say ABC. Dad has ABC. So dad and then A, B and C. A and B are his sons. C is his daughter. C is murdered by a or B. And he realizes that like while he wants justice for C, it feels like it would take away A or B from his life. That
Current Investigation Status and Resolution Hopes
01:01:55
Speaker
kind of thing. that what you're thinking?
01:01:56
Speaker
um Well, I don't know. It could be any variety of relatives of his. ah i got him It seems like it's because they went with a neighbor, right? Yeah. and so so the narrative goes, the middle brother, so not the oldest brother, but the middle brother had people over outside, right? Yeah.
01:02:27
Speaker
the oldest brother and the dad were sleeping. Yeah. Now, I've never heard it said, but my presumption was that Trey wasn't at the party. um That's my presumption as well, largely because of the age differences, but yeah.
01:02:50
Speaker
Okay. And so...
01:02:55
Speaker
i I don't know if it happened or not, but obviously all of those people would need to be eliminated. Correct. Okay. Well, if nobody's talking, then i don't know that the police could have... Well, I mean, it is a dead 11-year-old girl, so It seems like advocates in North Carolina would find probable cause to order you know DNA warrants for that.
01:03:27
Speaker
Or they would get creative and pick up the trash and follow the path to get DNA that's, you know The fact that it's this much later, so it happened in 2013, is that right? Yeah, 2013, yeah.
01:03:41
Speaker
Okay, and we're, you know, 13 years out at this point, ah to the extent that a kit a neighbor child or neighbor was in jail wrongly for five years.
01:04:01
Speaker
yeah And that's come and gone. they put a That was a lot. So the other part is, you know, that has cost, I mean, insurance is paying it, but that has cost them financially a lot, right?
01:04:20
Speaker
Right. And so it's odd to me that they, you know, because... In addition to DNA, you have other factors that would come into play as far as, like, somebody having the means and the opportunity to commit the crime, right? Right.
01:04:41
Speaker
There's a very short window of time there that happened. And so, you know, if you figure out what everybody else was doing, clearly he would...
01:04:54
Speaker
narrow down the pool right there's obviously a logical succession here right yeah and somebody is failing to to solve the case for whatever reason i could take a shot right now and have a fairly good chance of succeeding.
01:05:22
Speaker
i don't know. i i don't feel like the dad alone could stop this, but
01:05:32
Speaker
I think it has to do with the investigators not wanting to push forward or whatever it takes. or not Is it possible that they just don't realize that If they like the DNA profile should include whomever it is?
01:05:52
Speaker
Maybe. i would think they wouldn't be going this way. i will say at this point that she has two she has three brothers. One doesn't seem possible for him to have been involved in this.
01:06:04
Speaker
i don't want to I don't want to throw the names out there because that would just be... Jumping. People can find the names of the brothers. One of the brothers has nothing to do with this. One of the brothers, I can't find that he's ever committed a crime. And then one of them has had a lot of minor scrapes of law enforcement, but now has a major scrape.
01:06:22
Speaker
And it's not a sex crime, per se, but it is a crime that will require him to submit his DNA to North Carolina's Department of Justice. And I thought that was interesting. That was one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this. today is because that brother essentially had a a felony conviction for trafficking.
01:06:46
Speaker
You don't typically hear the sort of summation. It was put forth by a reporter.
01:06:57
Speaker
but You don't normally hear somebody narrowing it down like that. had never heard that before. Had The... the the Family part?
01:07:08
Speaker
Yeah. No, it's just coming up. It's just coming up, and everybody was talking about McKenzie Strilla, and I was actually Googling McKenzie Strilla when I realized what was going on in this case. Well, I just never heard anything to that effect. It seems like that would have been, like, the obvious thing, and it doesn't make any sense that we're 13 years out here.
01:07:31
Speaker
No, it does not. And, you know, all this information that we're talking about is from the settlement, I never thought to go and look at the complaint, but the complaint exists. It's on Pacer if you want to go look at it. um I do believe that this case is potentially resolvable and...
01:07:47
Speaker
I think that what you said is perfect. I think that like they have to know like who did this at this point or have a really good idea um amongst the half-brothers and what was going on there.
01:08:00
Speaker
And if something else comes up about this case, I can promise we will swing back around to it because I have an interest in this case. I always have.
01:08:13
Speaker
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Speaker
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Speaker
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01:09:37
Speaker
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