Celina Mays

All witnesses, purchas of interest, and suspects are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Hey guys, welcome back to Prime Time Crime. It's Kylie. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. On Monday. I actually tricked myself into thinking I wasn't going to be releasing episodes this week, and look at me releasing episodes. I was kind of under the weather. I had like this stomach bug thing that kind of lingered, So I really wasn't like in the recording mood or a mindset, and also like trying to get ready for Christmas, the hustle and bustle of it all. But miraculously, your girl is semi better better And at the time that I'm recording this, this is my first day in a while that I feel like a human. So we are going to jump right in to right now in True Crime, and then we're going to go ahead and go into the episode. And I've so realized, like podcasting is not easy. It is a lot of work. Like behind the scenes, it's a lot of work to put these episodes out and edit and get all of the information out. However, I really miss when the podcast that I listen to weekly don't release episodes. It almost becomes like have it, Like I don't have anything to listen to when they don't release their episodes. So as a podcaster, I get it, But as a listener, I just want to listen to all of the things. So I am here for you so you can listen to all of the things. And I might start doing like one episode a week instead of two episodes a week, because it is a lot of work and I'm trying to make sure that I'm really devoting my time to each episode and researching each episode. So if I do need to bump it down to one episode per week in the new year, I'm going to. But I still might row two episodes a week your way every so often because I enjoy it so much and it's fun. So let's go ahead and dive right in to right now. In true crime, there has been a evidentially evidentiary hearing that is a really hard word scheduled for Elec Murdau for a bid for a new trial, and that hearing is on Monday, January twenty ninth, So that is happening, and I swear it is the song that never ends with the Murdaws. It's just never going to end. So they moved it to a different county and they've set aside three days to have the hearing. So it's never ending. It's gonna get real, and I will be sure to keep you guys updated, because just when you think murd All's going away, he re emerges and all of this stuff is happening because of the alleged jury tampering that happened with the Callington County Court clerk Becky Hill. Of course it is all alleged at this point, but that is the reason that all of this stuff is being brought to motion is because of that. So I will keep you guys updated, and we are going to go through all of the stuff from the three days that they have set aside in January, and we'll talk about all of the evidence that they bring forward to see if he gets a new trial. So today, December twenty eighth, was a huge day in the true crime world, like huge momentous things happen today. Momentous thing number one, which is a good thing. We're going to celebrate it and we're glad that it happened. Gypsy Rose, who had been serving a prison sentence for the murder of her mother in conspiracy with her at the time boyfriend. She was released from prison today. For those of you that don't know, Gypsy was abused by her mother from a very very young age and was forced to be sick, made to be an ill child, even though she technically wasn't ill, had all of these tests done, was getting treatment for cancer. She was in a wheelchair, she had a feeding tube. All of the horrible things that anyone could do to a child is what Gypsy's mother did to her, and Gypsy went along with it because she was a child and had no other choice, and she was brainwashed to think that she really was sick. They even had a house donated to them from Habitat for Humanity because they were very much in the public eye in that way, because it was oh, the sweet single mom and this sweet little girl and they of getting this house donated to them. There was like a big news story about it. It was a big thing. So Gypsy as she got older, she started being able to get online access and she started talking to people online and realized that her mom was making her sick and making her use a wheelchair and not feeding her and all of these things just horrific, horrific, horrific abuse by this mother. Her name is Dedi, and she met this boy online and they conspire together to kill Dedi so Gypsy could be free. So there is a lot of controversy I think surrounding this case. However, I do see way more support for Gypsy than anything else. But ultimately Gypsy was sentenced to prison. She was sentenced to ten years in prison with the possibility of parole, and she was granted par today. And this poor girl, she is only thirty two years old, and she has endured so much trauma in her life, a lot of trauma that she probably still is going to need to work through now that she is out. She did get married while she is in prison. So she was released today at three thirty am out of the one of the prisons in Missouri. And they had posted some public pictures of her, like leaving prison with her husband, and also there's also pictures of her shoe shopping, which we love to see her just out being normal. I also should say her husband is not the boyfriend. He is still in prison and they, you know, have been not a thing for a long, long time. But it is a good thing that Gypsy is finally free. I don't think she ever should have been convicted due to all of the circumstances surrounding the murder of de d was not a good person. I feel like Gypsy was young, she was an abused girl. She saw no other way out, and she felt that she did what she had to do, and she takes responsibility for it. She holds herself accountable. She says that she feels bad about what she did. But at the end of the day, she is out and we are going to celebrate her. And I wish her nothing but health, happiness, and success in her life. And her life finally can start now at the age of thirty two, and that is a blessing. Moving on. In other December twenty eighth news, there had been the reports that they were going to be destroying demolishing the Idaho House today and there was a petition out there and the families were against the demolishing of the house, but they went ahead and officially demolished it. It was really the University of Idaho because they owned the home. They wanted to demolish it. And Derek Lavassar and Stephanie Harlowe from Crime Weekly did an episode on this earlier this week. I do encourage you all to listen to it because they all made some really, really good points. And Derek is a former police officer detective, so he definitely thinks like a detective. And Stephanie is just a real girl who thinks like a normal person. Her and I have very similar ways of thinking, and it really drove it home for me that they, in my opinion, should have kept the house up through the trial. And I don't understand why they were in a rush to tear it down because it does not erase the memories. I think University of Idaho is grasping its draws because this was a huge impact to their school and it's a big deal, but tearing the home down doesn't change what happened there. The trial hasn't even happened yet. Petition to do the trial in the summer of twenty twenty four, so summer of next year because a lot of the students will not be in school and it will be better from a transportation perspective. There won't be a lot of like crowds as far as like students go, and there's not gonna be a lot of sporting events because it's summer and the area I guess gets very congested during like football games and stuff like that, and there's not a lot of parking, So they are suggesting that. So we're going to see what happens with that. But the home was destroyed, and I sure as hell hope that the prosecution has this one in the bag and this doesn't come back to bite them in the ass, because if Brian Coburger gets off, because a juror could just couldn't figure it out and couldn't put themselves in that house in that position and figure out what happened that night, and if he gets off, they're gonna have freaking Brian Coburger wandering around the streets of Moscow and are gonna wish that they had that house still standing. I hope and pray that that does not happen. I really really do. I hope that the DNA evidence is enough and that they have fully, fully, fully gotten everything out of that house that they potentially could need for this case and this trial we are going to see. We are going to hope and pray and cross our fingers because I just can't even imagine. I cannot even imagine, all right, switching gears. There was a missing pregnant girl. Her name is Savannah Soda. She is eighteen years old, nine months pregnant, literally do to go into the hospital to have her baby, and she disappears. This was a few days before Christmas that she disappeared and she was missing. I was think about four days. Her and her boyfriend both missing. The internet has gone mad over this case, and there was rumors allegedly that the boyfriend was abusive, and of course there's you know, talk about like what his quote unquote job was, and there's a lot of talk. Not all of it is good. There is a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of family members, so many cooks in the kitchen, everybody trying to get an opinion in on everything, and it's just messy. They unfortunately found Savannah, her child, and the boyfriend all deceased in a car in a apartment complex parking lot in San Antonio, not super far from where they went missing from. And there's been a lot of talk on it being a murder suicide, but they have said that it's going to be capital murder, which tells us that we're looking at a serious type of offence and charges that are going to be brought up. Obviously that would not be brought up in a murder suicide type of situation. So today the San Antonio Police Department released a video, and the video is of a vehicle with two persons of interest inside of it. It is a dark colored pickup truck. It has a bed cover, and you can see the video a little bit. You can kind of see like the figures, but of course it's not zoomed in enough to really get a clear picture of who these people are. But I'm hopeful that with this video footage they are going to be able to figure out what happened, who is responsible for these murders, and what happened, why it happened. There is talk, like I said, the boyfriend allegedly was into some drug dealing, and that's never a good side hustle to be involved in. Bad people do bad things in that type of situation, and it's unfortunate if that were the case and that's what ultimately led to their death, that that's what happened. But ultimately we have to get these horrible people off of the streets and It's sad for her family that they have to grieve this horrible loss. But at the end of the day, it's important that we share this. I posted it to my Facebook page. Share it and get this horrible people person whoever it is, off of the streets. All right. With all of that being said, we're going to go ahead and go into today's episode. I know that was a lot for right now in true crime. It really today was just one of those days where I felt like it was never ending and I wanted to save and record today because I knew that there was going to be a lot going on today. Gypsy being released, the King Road Home being demolished. So thank you for bearing with me, and we are going to go ahead and start with today's episode. Okay, guys, jumping into our case. Today it is a missing person. She is still a missing person. She was only twelve years old when she disappeared, So let's dive right in. Selena Mays was born on May twenty eighth of nineteen eighty four to her parents c J. Mays and Lynn Marie Vital. CJ was a musician and he allegedly had a drinking problem, and he also struggled with drug addiction and Lynn was an exotic dancer and also had issues with drug addiction, and allegedly their relationship was very toxic and tumultuous, and there was alleged domestic violence in the relationship, so they did not stay together and Selena ended up primarily being raised by her mother and Lynn was able to beat her drug addiction, and she had begun working in a school as a custodian and she worked there until her death in nineteen ninety four. She passed away from a brain aneurysm. So after Lynn passed, Selena temporarily stayed with some of Lynn's friends, but ultimately she ended up going back to her dad's CIJ and would live with CJ and his wife and some other family members on that side of the family. But Lynn's family very much did fight for custody to try to get custody of Selena, but that did not happen. So c J also appears to have turned his life around, and he was working as a bookkeeper and an accountant for the Gospel of Christ Ministries, Inc. And his sister worked there as a pastor. So this made Selena a member of the church. That's kind of where she was raised, and this church had very strict beliefs and it was pretty structured. And Selena was only twelve years old when she disappeared. So in the two years between her mother passing away and Selena disappearing, she had been involved living with her father and his family and very involved in this church, and they had also homeschooled her, so she didn't have a lot of outside social interaction besides the church. Now, despite all of this, Selena was pregnant at the time of her disappearance, and she was nine months pregnant at the time of her disappearance, and she was twelve years old. The baby's father has not been identified, and Selena said that he was not a member of the church. So that really begs the question where did she meet this guy? Where did he come from? Because she wasn't in school. She seems to me like she was pretty sheltered in that way, So I don't know who this baby's father could be. Selena had allegedly revealed to her obstetrician that the baby's father was her boyfriend, and this boyfriend was sixteen years old, he was not a member of the church. She didn't ever give his identity to anyone though, and somewhere along the line, someone had told Selena, like, we can figure out who your baby's father is, buy a blood test, and Selena did not like that. She did not want that to happen. I don't know, I mean, it's a lot. It's also rumored that her family's religious beliefs and close connection to the church that they belonged to in the ministry that they belonged to, made it to where they weren't in support of Selena having an abortion even though she was only twelve years old, because twelve is pretty young to have a baby, and Selena was twelve, and she was nine months pregnant, like she was literally two weeks away from having this baby, like she was ready to pop pretty much. So there's a lot of speculation in this story in regards to the church and what kind of say they had in things, and there's just a lot. So we're going to talk about the day that Selena disappeared, because that is ultimately what we're leading up to. So the day is December fifteenth of nineteen ninety six. Selena had attended church that day before returning home for dinner, and at some point in the evening, she told one of her cousins thanks for everything, and she really didn't explain much more about what she meant by that, basically just thank you so much for everything, thank you for helping me out during my pregnancy. And that was that. Selena went to bed and that was the last time that she was ever seen. So the next day her family discovered that she was missing. CJ had gone to her room to check on her, and it was discovered that pillows had been arranged under Selena's blanket to make it look like she was still sleeping, but she was gone and she had left everything behind. She left her prenatal vitamins, her purse, her clothes, everything was pretty much left behind, and to this day, Selena remains missing and a missing person's She was supposed to be giving birth on December twenty ninth of nineteen ninety six, and at the time of her disappearance, Selena had a life insurance policy that her mother had left her since her mother had passed away, and Selena has been eligible to collect this life insurance policy since she turned eighteen, and still to this day, nothing has happened with that life insurance policy has not been collected. So there are people that speculate that Selena is no longer living because even if she was out there living under a different identity, she would have tried to maybe collect this life insurance policy because she would have a baby. There really isn't anything in Selena's past or life that would have brought anyone to think that Selena voluntarily left and ran away from home. That part really just doesn't make sense. Because she was twelve, she was pregnant about to have a baby, and I think Selena probably knew better than anyone else that she was going to need family around her to help her, and they were all very willing to help her, and they were all supportive of her. So to think that she left on her own just really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So despite this, there have been a lot of tips that have come in over the years they have the police have received more than two hundred and fifty leads, and some of them have come up cold, but others are a little bit more promising. So unfortunately, the investigation has very much much been bogged down by questions surrounding the Pentecostal church that her family belonged to. And there was a lot of resentment between the two sides of the family. Between CJ's family and Lynn's family. There was a lot, a lot, a lot of rumors after Selena disappeared about who potentially could be the father of this child. It was rumored that it potentially could have been CJ that was the father of this child. However, that was ruled out. His doctor confirmed that he had had of a sectomy and there was no way that he could have fathered this child. And CJ also brought up the fact that Selena had shared with him that it was a sixteen year old that was her boyfriend, the same thing that she told her ob Now, initially, CJ was not cooperative with authorities during the investigation into Selena's disappearance, and throughout the course of everything he lost touch with authorities and nothing really ever came of it. CJ passed away in twenty nineteen, so despite that, at the end of the day, we don't really know the involvement or non involvement that CJ had because he wasn't cooperative. So police did investigate another possibility of the father of Selena's baby being one of Selina's cousins there was a lot of rumors going around at the time that this cousin potentially could have fathered Selena's baby, and they interviewed the cousin numerous times. This person denied it and claimed that he didn't know anything about her disappearance. Now, this particular family member cousin has fathered seven children with four women. He is an adult now, he is married, and from what the authorities could come up with, there is no marriage to him being the father of this child. There's no evidence of that, and there is no evidence that he had anything to do with the disappearance of Selena. But again, we really don't know a whole lot about anything because we have two different sides of a family who are claiming the others are potentially responsible for something happening to Selena. So we're going to go into that now. Then we're going to go into sidings, potential sightings, and we're going to go from there. So Lynn's family has very much said that they believe that the May's family is involved in Selena's disappearance, or at least was hiding her in a way, and the May's family, on the other hand, says that they think that Selena was taken back to Florida or Michigan by Lynn's family. So, like I said, you have two sides of the family who at one point were arguing over custody of this twelve year old girl, who are now placing the blame on each other for some thing happening to Selena. And something I think is important for me to mention, Selena was biracial. Her father CJ. Was African American, her mother was white, and that caused a lot of bias for this case. There was a lot of friction and back and forth early on in the investigation. Initially, authorities tried to have a search warrant for the church and for the Mayze home, but this ended up being denied, And the reason it was denied is because the May's family ended up being looked at as potential victims of bias questioning by police. And it really just goes to show you like the importance of doing things fairly in investigation. Obviously, getting a search warrant for the home and the church are important and is relative to the case given that that's where Selena disappeared from. However, if police went in guns blazing attacking the family, right off the bat. That really sets up everything to kind of go south from there because they're not doing things properly and therefore they got denied access to the church, access to the home, which is a bulk probably of what the evidence was going to be. They couldn't even search the home because of the way that authorities had originally approached the Maze family in regards to questioning them about Selena. It's a lot. It's not good it really, I feel like makes this case kind of one of the cases where if they had properly done things that not just gone in guns of blazing, it potentially could have been solved. So the family no longer lives at the home that was in Willingboro, New Jersey, where Selena originally went missing from. So there had it's been a few sightings over the years. We're going to talk about a few of them. Weeks after Selena vanish, there was a few sightings in areas near her home. Those turned out to be non credible. There was a man in Midlands, Texas who thought that he saw Selena in two thousand and The reason that he thought this person was Selena is he had a girl there that he had hired at his business and realized that she looked really familiar and thought that one of his employees potentially was Selena, but the woman was determined to be someone else. And then there was also a friend of CJ's that had claimed to see Selena near Lyons Mountain, New York, which was later in two thousand and that sighting has been unconfirmed. There was a woman that was matching Selena's description in two thousand and two that was on a security camera in a Harbor Township, New Jersey, and that is also unconfirmed. A lot of these sightings are unconfirmed. There isn't any information regarding them. In my opinion, if it was something, we would probably know about it. So at the time of her disappearance, Selena was five feet tall, one hundred and twenty pounds. Her hair was black, long and wavy. She has brown eyes. She was nine months pregnant. Again, this was nineteen ninety six that she disappeared, so current day twenty twenty three, Selena would be thirty nine years old and if she had given birth, her baby would be twenty seven years old, which really goes to show you how long ago this happened. Her family at least the May side of the family fully believed that Selena ran away because she feared that the paternity of her baby would be revealed and she didn't want that. But I just really don't see that as being a motive for her to want to run away, And no one else seems to think that either she wanted to keep it a secret. However, she was having a baby, so eventually things were probably gonna come to light. And I don't know if it necessarily was her that wanted to keep it a secret or whoever this person was wanted to keep it a secret, But I feel like knowing the identity of this person is so so important because they could hold a lot of clues to what potentially could have happened. In my opinion, I really don't know what I think about this one. It's very odd to me that there's been nothing ever found, no remains ever found, nothing has ever been found in relation to Selena. There has never been anything proven that stated that she even had her baby. I really don't know. I am going to be posting some photos of Selen, some age progress photos as well. They have done age progression photos of Selena from nineteen to twenty six to thirty three years old, So I'm going to be sharing all of that. Also, I do want to add that the Gospel Church of Ministries Incorporated is no longer functioning, although from what I read, the family still very much believes in that religion and that way of thinking. There had been numerous complaints against the church in the late nineties by former members about brainwashing techniques on its congregation, and of course, like we don't know what role all of that played in Selena's disappearance, if anything, if nothing else, that's the church that she went to and that her father worked at and her aunt worked at, and that's really all that we know at this point. But that church no longer exists. It is no longer a thing. But I definitely think that it's part of the story in some way, shape or form. So I definitely wanted to mention it because, like I said, Selena was homeschooled through the church. She attended the church, she was a member of the church. She didn't have a lot of outside interaction. So who this potential father of the baby is is still up in the air. There's a lot of questions surrounding it. There's a lot of mysterious things surrounding it. There was another family member who said that she thought it could have been a boy that they met while Selena was roller skating one Friday night. We really don't know. Authorities still consider Selena to be a missing person. They do not consider her to be legally deceased or a potential victim of homicide. So Selena still could be out there. Her daughter still could be out there. Her daughter is an adult now, so we really don't know. She could be living under a completely different eye identity. So that is the story of Selena Mays and her unborn child, who potentially could very well still be out there. She disappeared from New Jersey, so she could be literally anywhere in the United States if she had somebody that was helping her, who helped kind of stage her disappearance. I mean, obviously someone set the bed up to make it look like Selena was in the bed. So was this Selena that did this? Was this the person that was helping her. I don't believe that she left one hundred percent on her own. I think that she had to have had somebody help her because she was only twelve and she was pregnant, like very pregnant. So I just don't think that a twelve year old could pull this off on her own and make it on her own. There had to be somebody that was helping her, somebody who had this idea to get her out of that situation. Who knows. Maybe she wanted to escape the family and really had no other way because the custody battle ended up being in the May's family favor. Now, another thing that I think is super important to remember, Selena was living in this home with her family, and there was anywhere from twelve to fifteen people living there. So if Selena were to have snuck out in the middle of the night, somebody probably would have heard something or seen something. She's alleged to have been wearing a red coat when she disappeared. Somebody, you think, in a house where people are literally on top of each other, would have seen something or heard something. And there's only a few ways for Selena to have gotten out of the home. I mean, she was nine months pregnant, so she wasn't climbing through a window. At least you wouldn't think she was climbing through a window. But there was a lot of people in that home. So that really bigs the question like what isn't being divulged, what isn't being said? Somebody knows something. There was also a article that I found and it was a account from one of Selena's half brothers who was named Bob. He had said that he had been on the phone with Selena and he was talking to her and he had heard CJ in the background telling Selena get off the phone, and Bob had asked her, if you're unhappy living with your father, press a button on the phone so I know and I can help you. And Selena pressed a button. Again. This was landline day, so you could hear when somebody pressed a button on the phone. So we really don't know. Selena potentially could have been unhappy in her living situation and being that she was so sheltered in the church and really not allowed a lot of outside contact. We really don't know the mindset that Selena was done with all of this. Now, one other thing that I found in my research. We talked about the cousin already who was alleged to have maybe been the father of the child. After about a year of Selena being gone, this cousin who was twenty three years old, ended up being charged with aggravated sexual assault of two young people at the church. What the way my mind blew and I had like the mind blown emoji when I saw this was just wild. Now, this guy who was named Sean Smith was the son of Serrita Smith, who was Selena's aunt, and Sirita was CJ's sister. So this is a very tangled web of people. Obviously, Sean, despite being a guy who later went on to marry and have a family, was not a good person. He was accused of aggravated sexual assault of two kids at the church. Like, this is not somebody who had good intentions. So all of those people mentioned, CJ, Serta, and Sean have all passed away, and I truly think that they are probably the ones that hold the most information in regards to Selena's disappearance, not saying that they're directly involved, but that they know more than they had put forward. Sean ended up passing away in twenty twenty at the age of forty six, so he was fairly young when he passed away. It's just a lot. This whole case is a lot. I feel like there's a lot of secrets within this family and within this church, and I don't think that Selena had anything to do with any of it. I think that she was probably a secret keeper more than anything, and she knew too much. And whoever made her disappear or helped her disappear knows more than they're letting on. I don't know if that person is still living. I don't know if Selena is still living this story. Although there's a lot of information about it, there's also not a lot of information, and there's a lot that's just unknown, and we may never know what happened that day, or why Selena disappeared, if Selena gave birth, if Selena is even still living. So this one's an important one to share, as they all are. I'm going to post all of the things on my Instagram and Facebook pages, age progress photos, photos of the house that Selena went missing from, photos of the church, some family photos I was able to come across. And this one leaves me with a giant question mark. I really don't know what to think, but I appreciate you guys listening as always, be sure to subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. It really helps push it out to more people in the true crime community and I very much appreciate it. So I will see you guys next time for a new episode. Bye.