Crime With Holly Presents: Emilie Morris

Welcome to Primetime Crime. I'm your host, Kylie. Let's talk right now and true crime, and then together we are going to work on warming up some cold cases. Let's go. Hey, guys, welcome to this week's episode of Primetime Crime. We have a guest episode this week. I am highlighting one of my podcasting friends. She is going to give us an episode today. But I do want to talk a little bit of right Now in True Crime, and then I'm going to introduce you to the episode because the episode that my friend Holly is sharing today is so so important to listen to and so important to hear, and we're going to talk more about that in a little bit, but I wanted to go ahead and start with right Now in True Crime. We have a little bit to talk about today. So the Menanda's brothers update is that the upcoming court hearing that was supposed to happen later this month in March, it was supposed to be held on March twentieth and twenty first, that has been postponed. Governor Gavin Newsom has ordered. The State Parole Board to go ahead and do a thorough investigation into whether the brothers would pose a potential risk to the public if they were released from prison. So that is going to be happening. They are going to be thoroughly doing their investigation and basically performing this risk assessment to see what the outcome of that is. I personally think if you look at the Menandos brothers' history, all of their time behind bars, they have been upstanding prisoners. They have both obtained different degrees behind bars. They are model prisoners, and they honestly, in my opinion, do not pose a threat to society. So I do hope that they do their due diligence and we have an update on that really soon, but I will be sure to you guys updated on any and all things Menanda's brothers. So next thing we're going to talk about is a Donna Adelson trial update. She had a hearing last week where she expressed some frustrations because she allegedly had been assaulted in prison, her medical needs weren't being met in prison, and it turned into this whole hearing. There was also a motion to dismiss a phone call that was recorded between Donna and Charlie. The judge rule that the phone call is staying in for sure. Sigfredo Garcia, who is behind bars for his role in the Dan Markel murder, is set to give a position in the Donald Adelson case on March tenth, which is going to be really interesting because Sigfredo never has spoken on any of this, He's never testified or done anything ever, so it's going to be really interesting to see what ends up coming out of this. But her trial is coming up, and it's coming up pretty soon, so I'm gonna be sure. To keep you guys updated on that one. All right, now, I want to talk about two of my good podcasting friends, Jules and Jen. They have a joint podcast called True Crime at Headlines, and they did an episode that was released just a couple of days ago called Combating Child Sex Trafficking and Online Sexual Predators Keeping Our Children Innocent with the Innocent dot orgs Nate Lewis, and it's season three, episode three. Please take a minute to go listen to this episode. It's about an hour long, but Jules spearheads the episode and she is interviewing Nate Lewis, who has created this organization called the Innocent and it is exactly what it sounds like, protecting the innocence and maintain the innocence of our children. It's so so important, especially with the ever growing online space as it is. I've talked about child predators on this podcast a lot, and how it's always the people that seemingly look normal, or they are in positions of power. They're teachers, they work at churches, they work at hospitals, they're doctors, whatever the case may be. There is a lot of people that are in positions of power, and also people that aren't in positions of power who are taking advantage of our children in a physical sense. And then there's also those that are online predators who are preying on children online. And I am not talking about the dark Web. I am talking about Instagram. I am talking about TikTok, which is a big one, Snapchat which is a big one. There are so many child predators online who are literally just scoping out children. I always used to watch to Catch a Predator with Chris Hansen when I was younger, and I would think that after so many years and years of child predator investigations, Chris Hansen wouldn't have people show up to the stinghouse. Now he has a series called Takedown, which is on his True crime streaming network called True Blue. It's five dollars a month. Highly recommend it if you are a Chris Hanson fan. But he still has child predators come into the houses. A lot of child predators. They are still out there. They have not learned their lesson. They are giving in to their temptations. They are seeking out children online for sexual liaisons of some sort. Some of them are willing to pay money for it. There is a lot going on and it is so important to as a parent educate yourself on the dangers of what could happen to your child online. Who could be dming. Your child if their profile is open and public and they can see their friends and where they hang out and where they go to school and where they live. We are giving so much information to literal predators. And there are so many predators who haven't been caught. They've been flying under the radar and they haven't walked into a sting operation. So yeah, they're going to be out there and they're going to be looking for children to sexually exploit in some way or another. And then we also have the sex stortion aspect of things, which I have talked about in the past. Again, it's something else that for children, it's so easy to fall into. Children are unfortunately the perfect victim for some of these people because they are easily manipulated. They want to hear that the person on the other side of the screen thinks they're pretty, or that they're cute, or so on and so forth. There is so much out there, and this episode does a really good job at highlighting all of that. Jules and Nate have a great conversation for an hour about all of the different things that as parents you should be looking out for. So please take a minute to go listen to that episode. It's more than a minute, it's fifty seven of them, but it is fifty seven minutes of great talk and education, and at the end of the day, a change in hopefully protecting our kids and keeping them innocent for as long as we can. Okay, moving off of my soapbox and getting ready to stand. On to another one. I watched the Ruby Frankie documentary on Hulu, and we obviously all know Ruby Frankie is not good. She's bad news. But watching this documentary you get to see some behind the scenes some of the eight Passengers videos that their YouTube channel is now defunct, so it's no longer around, but some of the videos from this eight Passengers YouTube channel that they have, it's just wild to me. And you get to hear from Ruby's two oldest children, which is very interesting, very insightful. You hear from Ruby's husband. I don't have words for him at the moment, but it was a very interesting documentary. If you haven't watched it, I do suggest you go watch it. And Pretty Lies and Alibis Gigi is doing a recap of the series, So if you don't want to watch it you don't. Have Hulu, go check her recaps out. And she's gonna give you all of the information, very very interesting stuff. I think as I was watching it, I didn't realize how similar Ruby, Frankie, and Lauri Vala were in their beliefs and their thinkings and just kind of how they navigated whatever they were navigating. And then you know, with Laura, you had Chad Daybil come in, and in Ruby's case, you have Jody Hildebrant come in, and it was almost like the perfect storm of insanity to set this crazy plan into motion. And in Ruby's case, thankfully none of her children were killed, but they were the younger ones were severely abused, and it is so sad and so horrific, and her husband was sent to live somewhere else and then Jody moved in. It is so freaking bizarre. None of it makes any sense. But I highly encourage you guys to go watch that. Now Switching gears a little bit to another documentary I watched because I haven't watched Hulu in forever. I watched the Scamanda series that was put out. Now. I am very familiar with Scamanda. I listened to the podcast. I went to a session on it at Crime Con last year. I know Scamanda like the back of my hand. But this documentary or series, whatever we're calling it was wildly insane. And I just can't even imagine being that kind of person who goes through with something like that and keeps it up for so long. Insanity. So again, if you haven't watched it, go check it out. Also listen to the podcast because the podcast was super well done. And props to the initial whistleblower for coming forward and saying her suspicions where she didn't think Amanda had cancer and that she was scamming a bunch of people out of a bunch of money, because that takes bravery and guts to make a claim like that. And she was right. She was a thousand percent right. And good for her. Good for her for standing her ground and realizing that she knew something was a mess and decided that she was going to speak up and not let her get away with it. Good for her. Okay, wildly enough, I'm sitting here recording this right now in true crime. It is Wednesday afternoon, it's. Little after four o'clock, and my best friend Katie sends me and Natasha. We have a three person group chat. Shout out Katie and Natasha a link and the article is titled two men charge in connection two deaths of three Chiefs fans in Northland backyard. Now, if you guys remember this happened back in twenty twenty four January of twenty twenty four. There was a gathering at this guy's house and three of the people who gathered there died and were dead in the backyard. It was a wild story. There really hasn't been a whole lot that has come out about it, but there was a lot of people that obviously suspected that foul play was involved. So this article goes on to say that, according to court records, Jordan Willis, who is the guy who lived at the house, and Ivory Carson had been charged with three counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of delivery of a controlled substance except thirty five grams or less of marijuana or synthetic cannabinoid. I don't know if I said that right. I am not a drug person. So it goes on to say while Willis has long been connected to the investigation because the incident took place at his home, Carson was newly introduced to the case during Wednesday's news conference. Court records indicate that Carson supplied and sold cocaine to Willis and to the victims, and that his DNA was found. On a bag of fentanyl. Documents say that on Tuesday, January ninth of twenty twenty four, a woman called law enforcement and said she had found a dead body at a home near Northwest eighty third Terrace and North Overland Drive while she was searching for her fiance. He was one of the victims. Investigations revealed that on Sunday, January seventh, the three men had gathered at Jordan's home to watch the Chief's final regular season game of twenty twenty four, and then over the next forty eight hours, nobody had heard from them and they pretty much went silent. So once law enforcement arrived, they not only found one body, but they found three in the backyard of the home. And like I said, there really hasn't been much released about their deaths or any pending charges. A lot of people did think that fentanyl was potentially maybe involved, and sure enough, Jordan bought drugs from this Ivory guy, Ivory Carson sounds like a drug dealer, honestly, and then allegedly and then the others part bo in libations and they unfortunately. Lost their lives. It is really sad, really tragic. Never should have happened, and I'm glad that they are holding people responsible for stuff like this because these things are happening. Fentanyl is horrible and there are a lot of people who are losing their lives because of drugs that are laced with fentanyl. So I'm going to keep you updated on that. That is literally just breaking here super live as. I'm recording this. So yeah, that's a lot. So I have rambled on entirely too long about right now in True Crime. We are gonna save any other things that I wanted to talk about for next time, but I do want to do a little segue into the episode. So this episode is done by my friend Holly. She has a podcast that is called Crime with Holly. I do suggest you guys go follow her on all the social media platforms and follow her podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts. And she is such a great storyteller. I met Holly just through my little true crime community, true crime podcasting community, and she is amazing. She is a solo podcaster as am I, and her storytelling is unmatched. She does such good work. She is such a good advocate. And the episode that I'm sharing with you guys today from Holly, that Holly is sharing with you guys today is kind of related back to when I was talking about protecting our children and sexual predators and people in positions of power. Who have access to kids. This story is going to highlight that perfectly. So I think that kind of talking about Jule's episode with True Crime at Headlines and then having Holly's episode as a continuation is so important because the story that Holly is going to tell you is captivating, it's gripping, and it's also very dist what happened in this story, so please listen with care. And the story is an important one to hear. It's an important one to tell, and we need to realize that unfortunately, things like this are happening a lot, and they're happening around us, and they are happening at the hands of people who look like just anybody. Your next door neighbor, your friend, your high school coach. It is literally happening all around us. So enjoy Holly's episode. Please go follow her on socials and I will see you guys next week officially for a brand new unsolved case. I'm finally feeling back to myself. It took three weeks, but I'm finally feeling back to myself and I am going to be back to regularly scheduled programming. I am working on summer series. I got all the things happening right now. But enjoy Holly's episode and I will see you guys next week. Have a good one. Welcome back everyone to another episode of Crime with Holly. I'm your host Crime A Holly. This episode was previously aired on my old podcast. However, I feel it's important to give this victim in this story a permanent place on my new platform. When I originally learned about this victim story, it really resonated with me and became extremely personal for the nature of the crimes that were committed against her as a young girl. For me, this case hits very close to home in more ways than one. I also believe that this case is going to be potentially very moving, possibly eye opening, and I think for some very hard to listen to. This case involves the grooming and sexual abuse of a teenage girl at the hands of a trusted adult. I want to tread very lightly with this case because I know this is something that has happened and continues to happen to many teens, both boys and girls. I believe it could potentially be triggering for individuals who may have not completely come to terms with their own abuse, or people who may have not completely worked through their own trauma. However, I feel very strongly about these kinds of stories because I am a victim myself, and I fully believe that this is a learning opportunity so we can identify signs and abuse in others and potentially identify things that we ourselves went through that we didn't necessarily characterize as abuse, but it was. This case is still fighting somewhat for a resolution and justice, which we will get into all of those details. But it is important to continue sharing this story because it is believed that there are many, many more victims out there. Perhaps sharing the story and bringing more awareness to her case will encourage others that they no longer have to stay quiet on their abuse, or maybe this story will move you to come forward or encourage someone else that you know to come forward about their own abuse. I also want to say that if you yourself are a victim of abuse and you're wanting to speak with someone or you think you might have been a victim, you are always welcome to reach out to me personally and I will help you connect with any kind of resources that I can. You're not alone, and there is no shame in being a survivor of sexual abuse because that is what we are. So once more, this is a trigger warning that this episode could potentially contain information that is disturbing for some. Most of today's information came from an incredible documentary and a write up about that documentary that was featured on Oxygen and it is called The Case Died With Her. I was unable to find an online link to this documentary, but you can purchase it on Apple TV four two ninety nine, which I highly recommend and highly encourage everyone to do so because it was incredibly well done. But I will have the link to the article in the description of this episode. So without further ado, let's get into the suspicious death of Emily Morris. Emily Alice Morris was born on September twenty second, nineteen seventy nine, to her parents, Richard and Joan Morris, in Saint Louis, Missouri. Emily was Richard and Jones's oldest daughter, and they would later welcome another baby girl named Andrea. Right off the bat. Emily was a driven and motivated child. Her mother recalls that Emily walked at just ten months old and that she had zero interest in wanting to crawl. She just skipped that completely and went straight to walking. As a kid, Emily was described to be crazy, funny, smart, and extremely sharp. Joan is quoted saying that Emily could have been a stand up comedian and that when she was on her game, her timing was perfect. Academically, Emily excelled. She was noticed for being an honorable student, and no matter what she put her mind to, she always accomplished. She also was never to get discouraged if she didn't win or do the best that she thought that she could at a sport or whatever she was trying, she would keep her chin held high and just say, you know what, next time, I will win it. Her parents also said that Emily was very much a daredevil. Whether she was riding her bike, rollerblading, or doing wild tricks on the trampoline, she always had everyone on their toes. She also was very much a tomboy and enjoyed various different sports. One of the sports that she got involved with was swimming and specifically springboard diving, and she was really good at the diving board. Once more, whatever Emily put her mind to, she succeeded. But one thing about Emily was she never felt like she quite fit in and she felt that she was kind of nerdy in comparison to other girls. Growing up, Andrea recalls her sister as being just the big sister who, in her eyes, could do everything, and she just really looked up to her sister. While in middle school, Emily's math teacher named James Wilder, who also went by Jim, noticed her athletic abilities and he really encouraged her to go out for the high school cross country running team. So the summer before her freshman year, she made the decision that she was going to jump both feet into this brand new sport. And when she told her parents that she wanted to try cross country, they were very supportive and encouraging. Right off the bat, Emily became the star of the cross country team. Emily's freshman and sophomore year. Her coach was a woman by the name of Nancy, and Nancy said that Emily was so dedicated and hard working, and quickly she became her number one runner on the women's team. But after Emily's first two years of high school, Nancy ended up leaving Lindberg High School for another job. In the position as cross country coach was taken over by Emily's old teacher, Jim Wilder. When Jim took over, he actually took over both the boys and the girls team. Emily seemed to be really enjoying Coach Wilder as the new coach, and she would often come home and kind of talk to her mom about how much she really liked him, how encouraging he was, and to her mom it seemed almost as if Emily had like a schoolgirl crush on Coach Wilder. I'm sure we can all remember at one point in time when we were either in middle school or high school and we had that younger, attractive teacher. I know myself specifically, there was a health teacher that most of the girls in high school would gush over. And if any of my old high school classmates from McNary are listening to this, I'm pretty sure y'all will probably remember who I'm talking about. I can't even remember his name anymore, but Coach Wilder was that for Emily. He was twenty nine years old and he was married with a young child at home. So though he's obviously significant older than Emily, he was still young enough and attractive enough in her eyes that she was crushing on him. When Joan caught on that Emily seemed like she had a crush on him, she did tell her daughter to make sure that she acted appropriately around this married older man, and she warned Emily to just don't seem overly flirty with him and just kind of watch how she acted because they didn't need or want rumors to begin or be spread about Emily. By the fall of nineteen ninety five, Emily and Coach Wilder had really created a bond and she really looked up to him and saw him as a mentor for her. She really felt comfortable and like she could confide in Coach Wilder, and at one point she expressed to him kind of how out of place she fell, how she felt nerdy, and she also opened up to him about kind of like her social life and some of the boys that she was interested in, and then he would kind of give her some male mentor advice. In the documentary The Case Died with Her, Jone recalls Jim being as this mister wonderful and that she could tell that he was very dedicated to his team and personally invested in his athletes. She said that he just seemed sincere when you talk to him, and under his coaching and guidance, Emily became an even better runner. Overall, Jim was extremely charming. One afternoon, the cross country team went over to a park that was about two miles away from the high school, and on that day, this team was doing like a fun activity instead of just running, and they were playing Capture the Flag. But because Emily forgot her workout clothes that day, she was forced to watch from the sidelines. It was while her teammates were playing that Emily approached coach Wilder, who was standing behind it, and she went to him to tell him that a boy at school wanted to play the game chicken with her. And if you're not familiar with what kind of chicken game I'm talking about, because I know that there's a few other kind of chicken games out there. This particular game of chicken involves someone running their hand up another person's leg and stopping when either they themselves got uncomfortable and nervous or the other person they were touching got uncomfortable or nervous. When Emily told coach Wilder about this, he asked her if the two of them should play the game, and she agreed. He started running his hand up Emily's leg and he stopped at her thigh, but then Emily called him a chicken for stopping, so he went higher on her leg, placing his palm on her crotch over her jeans. When one of Emily's teammates ran by, he quickly pulled his hand away. Now, that same day, it had been arranged that Coach Wilder would be the one to drive Emily home after practice. This was something that wasn't unusual for Emily and her family. Her parents were at this super comfortable point with Jim Wilder and felt like he always had the children's best interest at heart, and he was a safe person that they could trust with the safety of their child. So, for whatever reason, that specific day, Emily's parents were unable to pick her up, and Coach Wilder had agreed that he could give her a ride. When they pulled into the driveway of her home, either Emily invited him in or Coach Wilder invited himself in. I'm not really sure on that exact detail, but either way, he came inside the empty home with Emily. Emily later told police that in the living room, while she sat on the ottoman, Jim Wilder removed her pants and her underwear and performed oral sex on her. After a few minutes of doing this, he asked her if she wanted him to stop, and she said that she did, and so he did. After she got dressed again, the two of them went into her backyard and began jumping on the trampoline as if not a thing had happened. But it was after this point that the abuse continued for years to come. Now, in the state of Missouri, the legal age of consent is seventeen years old. And I know there are some supporters of Jim Wilder, which is disgusting enough, but there is who say that Emily was obviously a willing participant in what was going on between them, But that is absolutely false. At the age of sixteen, she could not legally consent to what he was doing. He was a twenty nine year old man, for starters, But secondly, he was also a person of authority given that he was a teacher and a high school coach. This crosses more than just one line. And if you ask me, consent at seventeen is still young. Granted, I know it's a year off from being considered legally an adult, but you're still so impressionable, and to have this authority figure essentially groom you and do this, it is just wrong and very unfortunate that it happens so frequently, and more frequently than I think many people realize, and Emily later admitted that at the time, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but Jim Wilder made her feel as if she was special and that this was a valid relationship that they were having and building between the two of them. To build their relationship further and make Emily once more feel more like this was a relationship that they had, Jim began confiding, I guess you can say in this sixteen year old girl about how sexually frustrated he was and how things in his marriage were just not going well. And what is more disturbing about him telling this child that he sexually frustrated was that he was quote unquote sexually frustrated because his wife was pregnant again. Which this absolutely just makes me want to scream, and it makes my skin crawl, and if I'm being quite honest, makes me literally hot with rage, like what the hell. So over the span of him abusing her, he would have her come up to the wrestling room where they would perform oral sex on each other, and Emily later recalled that these sexual encounters were happening at least once a week, but they never actually had sex. So when she would go to the wrestling room, if they ever heard someone coming, Emily would jump into a box of uniforms and hide there until he told her that the coast was clear. Other times, Emily and coach Wilder would sneak off during cross country practice or meets to do these things. On one of these meetings, the two of them were inside a men's bathroom at a park, and again this was in the middle of a track meet, and someone walked in on them while she was performing oral sex on him. On another occasion, she was driving around in the car with him and he had spotted a fellow teacher, so he pushed her head into his lap so that they wouldn't be spotted together. So obviously, he knows fully how wrong this relationship is, if you want to call it a relationship at all, And for Emily this was like a top secret affair, a forbidden love, if you will. Another time, the cross country team was at a state competition in Jefferson City during Emily's junior year, and the team all went together to go see the movie Seven. While in the movie theater, Emily masturbated Jim over his track pants, with another one of the coaches sitting on the other side of him. And I do not understand how they didn't get caught, and I almost feel like this maybe was a look the other way situation for that other coach. I am just completely blown away by that one. But the longer this went on, and I don't again want to call it a relationship, because this was obviously abuse. But the longer it went on, the more people started to notice. And there were other students who saw things and would go home and then tell their parents. So there were adults within the community who were also aware of what was going on. Emily's friends were aware, and allegedly even some of the faculty and coaches at Lindbergh High School were aware, and it was a good while before anyone stepped in and did anything. Now, these rumors that were circulating eventually landed on the desk of the principle of the high school. His first step was to call Emily into his office to talk with her, and she obviously denied anything happening. He then called coach Wylder, and of course he as well denied anything happening. So he called Emily's parents. And this pisses me off because he calls her parents and he says, quote Emily has been accused of having an affair with a teacher. End quote. Emily was accused, not a teacher, was accused of this inappropriate relationship with your underage child. No. No, The principal worded it as Emily was accused of such unthinkable things. Emily was accused of having an affair with a teacher. Just let that sit for a moment. Emily's parents would come down to the school and they met with the principal, and they also sat down in the same office with Emily and Jim Wilder, and they all came to this conclusion that someone made up the false allegations because they were jealous of Emily's success on the cross country team. And to everyone this theory made sense. Emily was super successful with her running team and had recently been the only girl to qualify for a really big race, so it was just brushed off as nothing. However, schools are required to report any incidents like this to the Child Productive Services and it is then CPS's job to then investigate and determine whether these are false allegations. As we know, there's such things as mandatory reporters and teachers and those who work within a school are all mandated by law to report anything of this nature, yet nobody from the school did so. The older Emily got, the more her family and friends began to see this shift in her mood and personality. She became more distant, She was moody. She was no longer that carefree, outgoing girl that everyone knew and loved. Emily's sister recalls in the documentary that she remembered seeing her sister crying all the time before school, and she remembers thinking to herself that if this is what high school is like, I don't want to go. Emily was becoming more and more angry, sensitive, and self conscious. And Emily had absolutely nothing to be self conscious about. She was this beautiful, blonde haired, blue eyed, athletically built girl. And it would later come out that the reason she became so self conscious and this kills my soul, was because in one of her track pictures, she was sitting on the ground in her running shorts and her leg is kind of pressed into the ground. Apparently, when Jim saw this picture, he told Emily that she needed liposuction. This bothered her so much that on the back of that picture, she wrote, Coach Wilder told me to get liposuction after seeing this, and then she put it into a scrap book where it would later be found. So because of these comments he was giving her, she developed an eating disorder, and at one point in high school, Emily was only eating the whites of an orange and at first I was like, wait, what the whites oranges are orange? But then I thought about it. Emily was only eating the pulp stuff that is on the outside of the orange when you peel it. Emily became so self conscious that she also refused to wear a bathing suit, which, if you don't recall, Emily was a very good springboard diver. Now, obviously, her mother, Joan is trying to figure out what in the world is going on or if this is just kind of normal teenage behavior. She eventually sends to Emily to therapy, hoping that if Emily won't open up with her, then maybe she will to a professional, but even there she just wouldn't talk. Earlier, I mentioned that Emily had been the only girl to qualify for that big race, and when that event came, Emily woke up that morning and said she didn't want to go. She just didn't feel good and This really shocked Joan because this was something that Emily had been really looking forward to, really prepping for, and so Joan just kind of encouraged her to just steal, get up, get going for the day, and maybe by the time that they got there to this race she would be feeling better. The whole ride there, Emily was adamant that she did not want to do it, but once they get there, she did end up running the race, but she didn't qualify for the next round of races that was going to be held out of town. Emily would later admit to Joan that she purposely lost so that she didn't have to go out of town with coach Wilder. Obviously, at this point it seemed like Emily was pulling away from Jim and the abuse, and it's not really clear exactly when the abuse ended, but Emily did end up going off to college at Lyndenwood University on a scholarship. Emily's college years, though, were some of her darkest years of her life. And what I don't think people always fully understand is that when sexual abuse happens, it really shapes the rest of your life, whether you realize it or not. It's trauma that is created, and it might not affect you immediately. It might be something that gets triggered way down the road in life, but it always ends up resurfacing. And this is actually something that I just learned from my own therapist. So during college for Emily, it was a dark time and she was very depressed. She was having suicidal thoughts, her eating disorder was becoming more and more severe, and her mother, Joan even said that getting Emily through college was an absolute mess. But she did graduate with a bachelor's degree in English in two thousand and one. Even though Emily was no longer being coached or really around Jim Wilder, he made sure to stay in contact with her and check in on her, which experts on sexual you say that this was Jim's way of kind of keeping tabs on Emily and to make her steal feel like they were sort of friends, and so pretty much it was his way of controlling the situation. Still, as Emily became old enough to drink, she turned to alcohol as a way to cope with what had happened to her. In two thousand and seven, Emily got married, and she actually married an older man, which Joan would later talk about the fact that this seemed to be a pattern for Emily. Most of her relationships within her adult life were with men who were significantly older than her. Emily and her husband would have two children, and the first time in many years, it seemed like Emily was really happy. But eventually she began to spiral again and once more. Trauma has a way of coming back and causing major riffs in our lives. Emily got divorced and she lost customs of her kids. This black cloud that was Jim Wilder really followed Emily around. She was still being contacted by him, didn't feel like she could escape him. People she was around knew who he was. He was still an active part of the community that she lived in. It was literally like a dark cloud of her past that followed her around everywhere. And there's a lot of shame that goes into being a victim of sexual abuse. There's so much guilt, so much what ifs, so much shame, and so many emotions that I can't even begin to describe, and it literally haunts you. And for Emily, it was just a wound that continued to fester. There was a girl that she went to high school with by the name of Christine Lieber, and though Emily and her knew each other in high school, the two of them didn't become closer until college. It was Christine who had many upfront and frank conversations with Emily about the fact that the relationship that she thought she had with Jim was actually abuse. So it was many years and many conversations later that Emily really realized that what had taken place was wrong, but she never wanted to come forward to turn Jim in. She was worried about how it would affect his life and she didn't want to ruin it, which once more, is common for abuse victims. Oftentimes we are more worried about what our speaking out will do to that person who abused us, which is a really weird thing to think about, because this person didn't care what they were doing and how it would affect us as victims, but as a victim, we worry about them. It's just an odd and often overwhelming thought and something that Emily never imagined that she would ever speak out about. But in twenty thirteen, while with Christine at another woman's house, things switched for Emily and she decided it was time to speak out against Jim Wilder. The other woman's daughter came home from school that day and she wanted to speak with her mother about something that was clearly bothering her. This young girl told her mother that she felt uncomfortable with the way coach Wilder had been massaging her leg at soccer practice. And Emily is sitting right there hearing this, and I can imagine her stomach completely dropping to hear that coach Wilder was doing to another child what he had done to her. And it was then and there that she was like, forget this, forget him, forget his future. It's time to speak out because for her, this story kind of mirrors her own. It's one thing to go through it yourself, but to hear of another victim going through it, it just kind of lights a fire under your ass to say enough is enough. Nobody stuck up for Emily, Nobody stopped it from escalading, Nobody seemed to care what she was going through. But Emily was like, Nope, not happening to someone else, which I am so freaking proud of her for. So she went straight to the police station to tell them her story. She told them everything that had happened to her and explained that she believes it was still happening to children today. She told them that she still had contact from time to time with Jim Wilder, and they asked her to call him up to see if she could get him to talk about the abuse over the phone, so that they could kind of get a confession over the phone recorded. Emily was totally down to do this now. The story that she concocted was that her therapist told her that she should really revisit her past, so when she called him up and told him this, he didn't want to discuss it over the phone and he wanted to meet up and talk in person. And when they met in person, he even made this joke that the phones were bugged by the government. So they arranged to meet up at parking lot of a mall, and before going, she gets wired up and hides the recorder in her bra. When they see each other, not only does he talk about the phones being bugged by the government, but he straight up asks her if she's wired. And I don't know how she did it, but she held her composure and just laughed it off, being like, haha, you know me, I'm always wired. So they proceed to have this conversation, and by the end of it there was eighty seven minutes worth of recorded information. I have heard a ton of clips from this conversation and it literally makes my skin crawl the way he is so nonchalant about the situation. In the BuzzFeed news article, I'm going to link at the top of the episode description, there is clips in that that you can listen to for yourself. I will also have a YouTube link that has a few more clips, but pretty much. Jim can be heard talking about the incident at the park where they played chicken. He talks about how he knew he shouldn't be doing it, but he turned into a quote, flustery kid when she was around. He called what they had done and the feelings between them as electric. He denies that he ever groomed to Emily and said that she was persuasive and he did things with her because he didn't want her to be mad at him. Another quote that he says is that quote, we did something that wasn't right according to our laws these days, but you know, I'm not a creeper. End quote. He also tells Emily that he wants her to know that he always was there to protect her and not to harm her. Jim also said to Emily that maybe none of this ever would have happened if her mom hadn't asked him to drive her home that day, and once more, saying all of this just absolutely makes me so mad. I literally hate this man. Again. There is there is other clips out there, but I'll let you guys look into those yourself. But Emily hands over this eighty seven minute recording and Jim Wilder was arrested on six counts of statutory sodomy. Under Missouri law, sodomy is categorized as oral sex, amongst other things. But each of these charges carries a seven year prison sentence if convicted. Jim was released on bond while awaiting trial. Now, when Emily's story came out, there was a lot of people who were accusing her of lying, and disgustingly enough, there was even Facebook support groups that were created in support of Jim and people declaring their support of him and calling Emily all these awful things. But the more they dug into Jim Wilder and his past, they learned of another victim who came out before Emily. Ever did Jim Wilder was arrested in two thousand and eight after a fifteen year old role came forward and said he had been abusing her since she was in the eighth grade. And her story matches Emily's almost perfectly, And honestly, I'm not going to get into the full details because once more, it's practically the same story as Emily's. But the abuse began when he started massaging her leg. She recalled these same areas where things took place that also took place for Emily, such as things happening in the wrestling room. The documentary I've mentioned a few times called The Case Died with Her, goes further into detail, and I just don't necessarily feel we need to go back over how much of a pos this dude is, because it's clear as day he is a repeat offender with a pattern. But one thing this victim was able to do for investigators was give them specific details about his marriage and his relationship with his wife. But she was also able to give them a description of what his growing area looked like. Athorities obtained a search warrant to view his growing area, and sure enough, there were markings just as she had described. She also told authorities that she and Jim exchanged phone numbers and had often called each other in the past to talk on the phone at night, which Jim completely denied this allegation. He clearly doesn't watch true crime or he just wasn't thinking, because they pulled his phone records and sure enough, there was plenty of exchanges of him calling this teen girl and her calling him. At one point in time, this victim had also approached a teacher at school with a friend of hers, asking what someone should do if they were being inappropriately touched by an adult. This teacher then heard the victim telling her friend when they walked away after this conversation quote I told him to get off of me, and he told me this is the way it's done. End quote. And this teacher at Lyndenburg High School didn't report any of this. Once more, teachers are mandatory reporters. If a child is approaching you asking you what they should do if they're being inappropriately touched by an adult, that means they're likely asking this for a reason and you should freaking do something about it. Days later, the girl's grandparents, with whom she lived with, had emailed every single one of her teachers asking if they had noticed any kind of different behaviors with her. Apparently this girl was displaying a lot of the same behaviors that Emily did when she began her downward spiral, which is normal for sex abuse victims, and the grandparents they just wanted to reach out to the teachers to see if any of them had witnessed this and whether something was going on at school that they knew about and that she didn't want to talk about. And this is when that teacher decided like, oh, hey, maybe something is actually going on here, So she emailed another teacher and pretty much was like, Uh, what should I do? And that teacher emailed another teacher or a counselor or something, and that is when it was reported. Then obviously he was arrested. But what is disgusting about all of this is that Jim himself, as well as other students and staff at the school, had all pretty much said that this girl was a liar, she was dramatic, and that she often made up stories. Sexual abuse experts pointed out that he likely went after this girl because he knew she wouldn't be believed if she ever spoke out, and that he completely victim profiled her, and because all of these people were shaming this girl, the case was dropped due to quote lack of any incredible evidence that any sexual contact had taken place in quote. After the case was dropped, Jim was allowed to go back to teaching at the exact school school where the allegations were said to have taken place. I feel like this school completely failed to protect their students and overall this was just a broken system. Backing up a little bit, we all know that the very first allegations that were brought to the principal's attention about Emily and Jim were never reported to social services, and obviously we are sitting here probably wondering why. And it's believed that the reasoning behind this was that Lindbergh High School was known as a public schooling gym in Saint Louis County. This school had been ranked in the top ten for best public high schools in the state of Missouri. They were known to dominate athletically in not only the district, but the state as well, and so having this tidbit of information out there that this prominent and highly thought of cross country coach was doing these things would completely soil the schools reputation. After learning about the lack of justice for that victim, Emily was hopeful that this time it was going to be different. She had this dude's confession on tape. It seemed like a slam dunk win. While awaiting all of the court proceedings, which we know can take an unfortunate amount of time and in this case it took over a year, Emily's friends and family all noticed this positive shift in Emily's life. She finally had a spark back and almost like she felt once more that she had a purpose in life. She became motivated and got herself a job as a server at Buffalo Wild Wings. She was spending more time with her children, her family, and friends, and she began working out again. Mentioned in that BuzzFeed article was that Joan had kept this monthly calendar to mark good days and bad days for Emily. The bad days were marked with red for when Emily was drinking, and the good days were marked with green, and Joan was so proud that most of twenty fourteen was marked with green days. In the final weeks of Emily's life, she believed that the case against Jim wylder was finally coming to an end. She told her loved ones that she believed that Jim and prosecutors were negotiating a plea deal. November two, twenty fourteen, was the last day that anyone had spoken to Emily. When she wasn't returning call after call, her father went over to her apartment on the morning of November fourth to check on her, and when he went into her apartment and walked into her bedroom, he found to Emily in her pajamas, face down on her bedroom floor with a large kitchen trash can pulled down over her head and shoulders, and her lower half of her body was wrapped in a white comforter from her bed. He didn't realize immediately that Emily was dead, so he asked Emily, like, hey, em what are you doing on the floor. He bent down and removed the trash can from Emily's head, and he realized that she was cold to the touch and that there was vomit in the plastic lining of the trash can as well as around her head and face. On the floor next to her was her cell phone and some snacks, which Emily's family knew that when she was detoxing from alcohol. She would typically lie on the floor because it helped her from not feeling as dizzy, and she would also keep her phone nearby, and she kept snacks close to help settle her stomach. Emily's father immediately called Joan, and she rushed there, and he also immediately called authorities. Now this is what is really sad and completely heartbreaking for me. In his grief and heartache, Robert was worried about the way Emily's apartment looked. So not only did he remove the trash can from her head and shoulders, but he began cleaning up the apartment because he was worried that when authorities arrived on scene that they would think that Emily was a slob and think poorly of her, so he tidied up. But as a true crime buff that we all are, we know that this is completely destroying any shred of potential evidence that there may have been. When authorities arrived at the apartment, Joan was sitting on the floor next to Emily's lifeless body, crying and screaming her name while she played with Emily's hair, because apparently Emily's absolute favorite thing was when people played with her hair, so right off the bat. Because Emily's family had witnessed what appeared to be Emily's normal routine for detoxing with being on the floor and the snacks, and they also spotted an empty bottle of vodka in the room, they first initially thought that she accidentally had died from drinking herself to death. However, what they learned after the autopsy was done and the toxicology results came back was that Emily's blood alcohol content was less than point zero five percent, and to put that in to some perspective, the legal limit to drive is point zero eight percent. It also was determined that her cause of death was from asphyxiation from the plastic bag lining the trash can, but her manner of death was left as undetermined. But in the police report they had noted that her death was suspicious because her back door to her apartment was left unlocked and it was slightly open. So how did Emily become wedged inside of this trash can is the question that so many people have Now. There's theories that she was sick from drinking and that she had leaned over in bed to vomit into the trash can and she somehow passed out and then fell into the trash can. There is also the theory that she may have had had a seizure and once more fell into the trash can, vomited in there and asphyxiated. And this wasn't completely unlikely because Joan did say that she had seen Emily have a seizure before, but I don't think it was a super common thing, and maybe it was a time or two that this had happened, but that is a theory that is out there. But all in all, those closest to Emily feel that this is very odd because literally just a year prior she finally spoke out about this abuse, closure was in sight for her because she was supposed to be giving a deposition the next week. And another thing that really really set Emily's sister on edge was the fact that when they picked up her cell phone and when to input her passcode that Emily used, and this was the passcode Emily had always used, the passcode was changed and they couldn't access her phone. They couldn't think of any kind of plausible reason why all of a sudden Emily would change her passcode. Lastly, one more thing that her family couldn't get over was the fact that Emily was really clostrophobic, and there was no way, they said that she would have put herself willingly into that position with the trash wedged over her upper body. The death investigation was closed after two months and it was just ruled that her manner of death was undetermined at Emily's funeral, which took place on Friday, November seventh, twenty fourteen. So just days after she was found dead, a detective approached the Morris family and informed them that the sodomy charges for Emily against Jim Wilder had been dropped, and the BuzzFeed article quotes the Saint Louis County prosecutor, Sheila Whirley as saying, quote, based on the evidence we had, we would need her testimony to prove her case in quote, because apparently the eighty seven minute audio recording Emily was able to get of Jim talking about the abuse, and her videotaped interviews she gave detectives after the recording was done wasn't enough to prosecute. The prosecutor goes on to say that a defendant has a right to confrontation, and I'm going to directly read what the author Jessica Testa, who wrote that BuzzFeed article wrote about this right quote that right. The confrontation clause is laid out in the sixth Amendment of the US Constitution, granting those accused of crimes the right to confront and cross examine witnesses. In two thousand and four, the Supreme Court made it harder under the confrontation clause for out of court statements such as Emily's interview with police, to be admissible in court. End quote. Not only were Jim's charges dropped, but his court records were also sealed. Even though a lot of us are thinking that Jim Wilder did something to Emily and killed her, Emily's friends and family are not dismissing that as a possibility, but they also raised flags of possible other people being involved with her death if it wasn't a complete accident. Emily had confided in her friends and family that Jim was surrounded by a lot of people that she didn't trust and people that she had feared. And of course I mentioned those wild supporters that openly supported Jim all over social media, but in the public too. There was also a police officer that Emily had gotten involved with in July before her death, and from what I've gathered a little bit about this relationship was that it was super short lived and it seemed like maybe this guy was much more interested in Emily than Emily wasn't him, and she just didn't want to be with him, so when she called it off, he was not happy about it. There was an incident one evening when this man walked into Emily's apartment uninvited, mind you, and found it Emily with another man. Now allegedly, this man that she was with that night was a coach at a nearby high school who was also married, and the two of them had been having an affair for a while, and as I stated earlier, Joan said that this was kind of a pattern for Emily. But apparently this man's wife had found out about this affair and had been making threats towards Emily. So it seems like the list of potential people with something against Emily was not necessarily very short, and there was people who may have wanted her dead, But the investigation closed so quickly, and her family and friends felt as if these things weren't thoroughly investigated. Her friend. Christine even says in that documentary that she fully believes that someone else was involved in Emily's death and that it was no accident. To this day, Jim Wilder's court records are sealed, which is extremely upsetting for the Morris family. Her sister said, quote, He's been arrested twice for statutory sodomy by two different women, and if you look up his criminal record today, it is completely clear this is someone who still has their teaching license and that seems wrong. End quote. So let's think about this for a second. Jim was arrested in two thousand and eight, was allowed to go back to teaching at the exact same school because there wasn't enough evidence. He's then arrested again in twenty thirteen, once more same charges of statutory sodomy. He was then put on paid leave for nearly two years before the district finally terminated his contract. But not only did he get this paid leave, but he also was given a severance package. And because he was never convicted of any crimes, he didn't have to register as a sex offender and he was still allowed to hold a teaching license in the state of Mai. He was forbidden from applying for any job within the Linburg district, but he's allowed and able to apply and hold a position at any other school district in the state of Missouri, which is absolutely infuriating. We obviously don't know what exactly happened on the day Emily died, for her family is certain that she did not die by suicide and she did not die from drinking. There is so many questions left unanswered, and I think the saddest part for me is that Emily finally decided to stand up for herself, which takes incredible strength and bravery, and even in death, Emily still cannot get justice for the trauma and the things she endured because of Jim Wilder. Without someone coming forward that either witnessed the abuse between Jim and Emily or someone Jim confessed to more in depth, it is believed that this case against Emily won't be reopened. People closest to Emily have been working to bring awareness to this case because it's firmly believed that there are even more victims out there, and if they could come forward, at least maybe some form of justice could be served. I think in general, victims of abuse often brush off their abuse as an isolated incident and that it couldn't possibly happen to someone else. I also believe that in the case of a coach touching young girls and boys inappropriately, that potentially these people didn't realize what was happening when it was happening. And no matter if you didn't realize it at the time, it doesn't excuse it. I know that from what I have seen, the statute of limitations on these crimes is typically thirty years, So if something happened to you and you're brave enough to come forward, please do so. For Emily, working on this case fulfilled something within her in a way that she hadn't felt before. I want to end this episode by saying a quote that she had sent to someone just before she died. Quote. It has been awful, but at the same time, I feel as though I have been finding me again. I truly feel as though I am gaining my dignity, my self and the love for who I am back. At first, I doubted myself and was scared to death, but I now realize I'm not only freeing myself, but saving other girls. It's a blessing, and I know I've done the right thing. End quote crimesters. If you're not already a part of my private Facebook group, you can find it by searching Crime with Holly podcast discussion group. In there, I share all information and pictures pertaining to the cases that we cover, and I also encourage all of our members to share all things true crime. Also make sure that you're following me on TikTok at Crime Withthholly Dot podcast, and if you wish to follow me personally, you can find me over on Instagram at crima Holly. I just want to say once more that I know that this case today was extremely hard to listen to, but I fully believe that there is power in sharing these stories and bringing awareness to them. I also want to provide the National Sexual Assault Hotline for anyone who may need to or want to reach out to get support. That number is one eight hundred six five six four six seven three. That is all for this week's episode. Until next time, be aware and take care. Bye bye