Little Girl Gone

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back. Hi, hello.

Hailey, I have a cavity. Do you or do you get a field? Well, two cavities. Oh, yeah.

Well, when I got filled, which, since I know for everybody, I've never had a cavity before ever. Every time I go to the dentist, genetically soft teeth. They see you coming through the door. They do.

They're like, oh, well, I also, I didn't go to the dentist for like seven years because I didn't have insurance. Um, and I didn't terrify the dentist and I was living in different states and it was a lot. Um, so then I went to the dentist and went to the dentist and went to my got insurance and I had like seven or eight cavities because it had like one per year, it's usually my average. Um, so that felt right.

Um, and then I got like the top ones, I'm on the top on both sides and I got those fixed and then the bottom, um, and then I lost my insurance. So I got the bottom ones for like probably two plus years. So I need to get those filled. Um, so now I'm playing phone tag with my dentist to try and set up an appointment because now I have insurance again.

So thank you, American healthcare system. Appreciate it. I have dental. Um, yeah.

So I, I kind of went in coffee. Like I do. Like the bad ass, I am, does it floss ever? You need a house also pro.

They said, oh, your gums bleed. You need to floss. I was like, yeah, I'll get to it. Anyway, um, then they said, we believe you have a cavity.

They double checked and shut off. I had two, one in the woods and two and one on, you know, I do crazy person. Are you? I know.

Isn't that weird? I was supposed to have them out at 20. Yeah. But back in the day I was taking a diet pill and I told them that and they were like, we cannot do the surgery then.

So they canceled it and then I just never ended up having it. Anyway, so, um, had it this time, or I had the one cavity pill and they wouldn't extract the other tooth, but they wouldn't charge me a fortune to do it. So it's gonna, it's gonna wait a while. Um, but the one that was filled, I was actually really nervous and I, I'm very pain tolerant and all those things, but I was nervous and I was like, I've never had this done.

And they were like, it should be pretty easy for you. And really, I mean, I was done in like 35 minutes. I didn't feel a thing. It was great.

Half of my face was numb. Yeah, it was a really, the numbing is the worst part. Actually, no, I didn't even feel it. That's good.

Yeah, they used a numbing gel. Yeah, if I do that first and let it sit long enough, then you're usually okay. Yeah, I was great. It was so easy peasy and I was like, oh, like, you want to do this?

Listen, I think we could, I mean, there was some tooth like in, like, they just need to pull it out. Correct. We could do that. What do you mean we?

And who are we talking? No, I mean, like if it's just a tooth, we can get that sucker out of there. Again, the word we. Who is we?

I mean, you got a pair of pliers? Yes. No. We could do really, really drunk.

Okay. Well, just, you know, it's maybe a two person operation because we're gonna need somebody to like hold you down. Who is going to be holding me? I don't know.

A lot of phone friend. Oh, and then we just yank it out with pliers. Just like right. I don't like the noise.

Yeah, that's my tooth. Pull it right out. I don't know. Let's start wiggling it.

Get a little loose. Mr. Two. Yeah.

I don't know what year those came in from, but they've been in a really long time. Yeah, we get them out. Oh, God. What do you mean them out?

It was just one. We'll put it in there. We might as well take them all out. So we're going to pack it with like sterile gods.

No, we put paper towels. Oh, dear Lord. Help me, please. That's a little sin.

I had a crazy injury in my foot when I was like 10 years old and I stepped on a stick. I was running barefoot in the yard and I stepped on a stick and it punctured up into my foot and I had to get it yanked out and we sat in my grandmother's garage and my dad's out there and he just yanked that sucker out of there, packed it with paper towels and I kept my foot. Packed your foot with paper towels, huh? Yeah.

So nothing like sterile gods or any kind of like alcohol or anything. We did put props out on I think I remember just poured some props out in there. It was fine. It was fine.

Do you want to do this in my garage? I don't need to do it in your kitchen if that makes you feel better. I've got some more of a sterile environment. My kitchen.

So you're going to remove my tooth in the place where I cook. Yeah. Because the surfaces are clean. I watch you clean the table today.

It's more than I've done in weeks. Thank you. Um, yeah. You're just going to lay me on my table.

I can set up if you want. Just tilt your head back. Knock the hook around. I don't, again, the noise.

I don't let the noise. All right. Well, no. I can say people a lot of money.

This is true. This is true. Think about it. This is true.

Why don't you take mine out? I mean, I did already have my like professionally removed. Oh, look at that. You got the professional.

But you got the professional. Well, mine had to like cut down in the like, get them out. You're coming with your janky ass pliers and trying to take my tooth out. I think not now.

Here's what we'll do. We'll wait until it starts hurting and then I'll pay to get it out. Okay. Yeah.

Or where I feel like, oh, maybe it's an absence. Oh, yes. They don't like to that don't wait that long. Yeah.

That that's, you know, I mean, I'll sanify the players. At least I don't want them to be rusty. We can buy new ones. That's gonna be cheaper than nice.

I'm shocked you don't have this in your arsenal and your vehicle just randomly. I don't know. I probably do. I have 12 bucks in there.

Just a night. No, no, I'm not in the mood. Okay. I had a headache.

Think about it. Um, or revisit. Okay. Catch me in a couple episodes.

We'll talk about it. Great. Great. So, what are we learning about tonight?

Is it somebody who does something with players? No, it's not. It's actually really awful. Um, oh, I'm sorry.

What you're putting into me is not awful. No, I'm saving money. Maybe this killer in this episode thinks that too. Um, no.

I'm saving you money. No. Okay. No, this is we're going to talk about Brittany Locklear.

Is this a relation to Heather? Mm-hmm. Who is this? This is a child.

Okay. Sorry. You know, I don't like the child crimes. No, I know.

But this one just kind of popped up and I was like, Oh, this one popped up and I thought, Oh, she's doing this one. I put my pliers aside and started typing. Yeah. Okay.

No, it's really terrible. Um, if this is not your jam, um, feel free to skip to the next episode. We won't be offended. Um, but you have to stay.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go back to 1998.

Oh, yeah. Um, a little bit outside of Fayetteville, North Carolina. Okay. So, January 7th, 1998.

Five year old Brittany Locklear's mother, Connie, she was at that time, Connie Locklear, but she's now Connie Chavez. Chavez? Chavez. Sure.

Uh, woke up around 630 to get Brittany ready for school. They picked out a green and white softball shirt, green denim coveralls, green and pink tennis shoes, white socks and a green hair tie. Oh, she was matching. We were coordinated.

That's so cute. It's adorable. As Brittany went outside, her mother helped her into her little red riding hood, winter coat. So just adorable.

And they then walked to the bus stop in front of their house. So the way that, I guess like, it's, this is a rural, at this time, a really rural community. So I'm thinking, they lived on kind of a, I'm thinking of it like the street I grew up on, rural community, but like we did have house, like you could see your neighbors. Um, and the bus would, like we didn't have a central bus stop because we were still too spread out to do that.

Um, so everybody would just wave the other driveway and the bus would come to your house and pick you up. Um, some places I know aren't like that, but in the rural south, we can't walk to a bus stop a lot of times. We just don't have them. Um, nowadays there are like in the, um, district that I work in, there are a couple of like express stops.

Oh, so there's like two or three in the county where they will stop and like pick people up, like multiple people, but it's not super common. So they walked down the driveway and stood at the where the bus was to pick her up. Um, Brittany lived with her mother, um, in her 18 month old sister, Brianna, and they lived in Bowmore, North Carolina, which is near Fayetteville. It's like like less than 20 miles outside of Fayetteville.

It's really close. And Brittany was also member of the Lumbee tribe. Oh, so which was a really, um, if you look at the kind of history of that tribe, there's several like that county and several surrounding counties that are a part of that, um, group. At 7 a.m.

Brittany's mother ran back inside to use the bathroom real quick while Brittany waited on the bus when Connie stepped back out to Brittany was not there. Connie figured, you know, the buses did just come and she hadn't heard it. Um, and I remember like when I was, I don't think that young, but like I remember standing outside, like my parents didn't stand outside with me for the bus a lot of times. Um, when it was really cold, I would remember standing by the door.

We had like a screen door and I would stand there and like look to see if I could see the headlights of the bus because it was dark when I got picked up in the morning. You see the headlights and I would run out really fast as the bus wouldn't drive back because the bus drivers wait for no one. They're not out there. They're gone.

We got places to be and you better be there. So I never wrote the bus. Never wrote the bus from probably first, can I run a first grade until I started driving? Well, yeah.

So so it's like 16. Never wrote the bus. I know. I had to stay home.

So she just ran a bus and until I could start driving, we actually got full on time. I started driving. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Holers. Good times.

Yeah. So mom comes out of the bathroom and she could, she probably in the bathroom three minutes. Right. Like ran inside was probably like, it probably didn't even have time to do like go to the bathroom when she got out.

It was probably rushing getting, you know, you know, bringing ready was like, okay, I've got her. She's like, I have to go out and run back in and be real quick and I'll be out to stay here on the bus. And suppose I'm gonna be done a million times. Sure.

And she's probably like, hey, here, mom, I'll be right back. Yeah. Stand the thing in this driveway. Not a big deal.

Yeah. No, like it's and it's 1998. Like this is not a thing. Like this is fine.

I beg to differ in 1998, but still, I mean, you're in a rural community. You can get safe. I mean, even like the county that like I work in this whole system, like in our county, like it would be crazy to think about something like this happening in our county. I mean, yeah, but like it's not something that when I was working in like bigger cities or things like that, I would just I would not have been a surprise.

Right. That's true. So she comes out, she's gone. She's like, she's gone with us.

I did, but she's like, here are the bus and the school buses are loud. Like a diesel. Yeah. You hear the gate open like the door open, the bar is pointed out.

Like it's the air brake, but yeah, and all that stuff. Yeah, gold stops on. Yeah. So you'd hear it, usually.

But Connie kind of had this weird feeling about it. So she gets her car and she's like, I'm just going to drive to the school, make sure she got there. Where's the 18 with old? I guess with her.

I assume. I assume we don't talk a whole lot about her. Okay. I'm assuming she's with her.

Okay. So she goes to school and she just to check. So this is West Hope Elementary School and where Brittany was a kindergartener. And she was told by the school that Brittany never got there.

She'd never arrived at school. So Connie immediately calls the police to report Brittany is missing. She quickly learned, you know, that a neighbor had seen a pickup truck slam on its brakes the end of the driveway and grabbed Brittany. Oh my God.

A neighbor say that it was a white man and a brown pickup truck. And authorities would later say that they weren't 100% sure of the color, like the side witnesses are. Why didn't the neighbor call 911? I don't know.

And I'm like, the more that I think about it, the more like I'm thinking about like the community I grew up in of like, you know, everybody for the most part, you do and like, yeah, it would be weird if a truck stopped. But at the same time, it might just be like, if I didn't think the way that I think, like if I was just like not in this crime brain that we're always in, I would just think like, Oh, this is a somebody who knows her and just stops and was like, or maybe this was a plan. Like she like her mom went back inside and then this truck pulls up like, Oh, maybe this was maybe this is the plan. And we'll later we'll talk about, you know, that they said she didn't like struggle.

Like she just went with the person. So it was like, so I mean, I get it in a way. Yeah. And I'm sure like the neighbors are probably beating themselves about it.

Yeah, too. Sorry, neighbors. Sorry. I didn't mean to add to it.

But I was like, I mean, yeah, same thing. I thought, yeah, weird. And the neighbor, yeah, they said that she didn't resist. So she just kind of got in vehicle, which he could have offered her something or, you know, things like a candy or he knew him.

She may have read and like, Oh, Mr. Bobby. Yeah, so whoever you are, just like hopped in with him. So news spread really quickly.

And a large group gathered to search by 9 a.m. Britain's clothes and backpack were found about two miles away from her home. So they were able to find those. Search just continued.

And the next day, which is January 8th and 1998 around 2 p.m. Britain's nude body was discovered in a roadside drainage ditch, only three miles from her home. Why? I don't know.

What was her cause of death? So they did do an autopsy. It showed that sexual assault was possible. And the cause of death was from drowning in the drainage ditch.

So what I'm thinking, like, it's probably was deep. So it's possible that she was like forcibly drowned or just like thrown out and couldn't get out of the ditch, which is awful. Or maybe was unconscious. Maybe.

And, you know, inhaled water. But I'm assuming they found water in her lungs. So if she died of drowning, then she would have been alive when she went into the ditch. Yeah.

Police began to question every registered sex offender in a 50 mile radius. Early in the investigation, there were several tips reported, but none of them would lead to a break in the case. Any of those matching the same description of the vehicle? Yeah, and there's nothing.

Okay. I mean, it just was strange. So maybe someone who didn't have at least wasn't a registered sex offender. Right.

Right. Yeah. This could just be a random, you know, person that wasn't on the registry. So early on, news accounts reported that investigators with the North Carolina State Bureau investigation, they received hundreds of calls on a daily basis, but they lacked the manpower, the equipment, you know, everything they needed to really be able to handle all those leads.

This is a small area. Investigators followed leads. They tracked tips full time for about a year before they, you know, unfortunately had to start returning to their routine assignments. I mean, other crimes kept happening that required manpower.

Right. So like with most cases that are, you know, unsolved or that go on for a really long time, you start, you have that initial wave of like everybody's on it and then you start pulling people off and maybe, you know, one or two people work that one. And this is a thing for a family that is devastated with the loss of your child. And so horrifically, and you, you want it solved, you want answers, you want to know why you want to know who this is.

And I think that that would be one of the most frustrating pieces is you're dealing with a grief of loss and also dealing with a police force that has other crimes to take care of. And that would be maddening. Yeah. You know.

Yeah. So I got a lot of this information from a uncovered.com article. And there was another really good article written by the Fayetteville Observer by Michael Fuch Futch, F-E-T-C-H. I don't know.

So he wrote this article, I believe this one was. Maybe. Maybe. Back in like 2019, 2020, somewhere in there.

So when this was written, there was a Jay Tilly who was an agent for the SBI. And he told, you know, this Raleigh news station or whatever that some of the tips that they had gotten slipped through because these investigators so overwhelmed early on the case. So like you're thinking maybe one of those could have led to, right, that they just slipped through the cracks there. So the sheriff at the time that this article was written was Sheriff Peterkin.

And he said that, you know, one thing he's always believed as an investigator was that anytime there's a murder, it's very critical what's done in those first 48 hours. And when it comes to a homicide, there are things you must do and must not do. So he's, you know, he's trying to take over and do this right now. It's pretty challenging.

Which is kind of crazy. Years after that. Years later. But yeah, those first 48 hours are super important.

I mean, they make a whole television show based on that. Essentially, if all these tips were at least noted, right, then you're able to, hopefully not there were. Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. I mean, you hope you hope so. But I mean, they're saying like there's something that slipped through. Right.

But I think that's when you've just got to start with what you have. We can't change what we don't have. So let's start with what we have and let's look over it with a fine chukon. Where are these leads going to take us?

Because new eyes is actually really helpful. So there's not the bias, there's not all these things. So let's look at it. Yeah.

And again, they continue to look at it, you know, pull it out, look at it every once in a while, try to make some moves on it. But we're still not getting very far. In 2002, there was a firefighter in Fort Bragg who was arrested for a bank robbery. When he was arrested, investigators found a photograph of Brittany inside his locker at the fire station, which I thought, huh, this is weird.

Definitely. They were able to run his DNA against some DNA they had found at the scene, but it was not a match. Did they pull DNA from her body? I'm assuming.

Okay. But that's where they found it. The photograph though was not, I think originally they had thought that maybe he had taken the photograph himself, but they were able to prove that it wasn't that. It was just one clip from a newspaper, but still weird.

That's like the way that was stated in this article was like, Oh, well, it's obviously not him because he clipped it from a newspaper. I'm like, no, it's still weird. Well, I mean, killers have to have part of that. Oh, I've got this notoriety.

I'm in the paper and they clip it out and they say that it's like a trophy. Yeah. So I don't know. Like what else?

He was cleared and that was it. Didn't he know something about it though? You know, like maybe he wasn't the killer, but he knew someone I don't know. Yeah, I think I'd be going back to this dude.

Yeah, I'm super, super, super, super weird. In 2015, it was announced that the Hope County Sheriff's Office had enough DNA to create a genetic profile of the person who killed Brittany. However, nothing has really come of this or if it has, they haven't released anything. So I'm hoping they're still working.

My guess would be they're running this against all the genetic profiles, you know, family profiles, that kind of thing. And they're trying to narrow it down. So chances are they don't have this person's exact DNA, but they're trying to link with the grandparent who, you know, all those things that you do in genetic genealogy that fascinates the buyer out of me. Yeah, I hope that that's what's happening.

I hope so for this family. They need this. Yeah. And Brittany's mother's been pretty vocal about her frustration, the way her daughter's case was handled and also has been used by local officials and politicians to talk about public safety.

So her case, like anytime there's like a major political, something like a new sheriff or something like that, like her daughter's case gets brought up as like, I'm going to be the one to solve this case. And like kind of, that's one of their running points, which is gross. Why? Murder of a child, that's my running boy.

Yeah, it's gross. And Brittany would be 31 years old this year doing the math here. That is, you know, 25 years of not having your child home and not seeing them grow up in the life that they would have led. That is horrendous for any parent to have to live through.

Nobody, no parents should outlive their kid. Yeah. And Sheriff Peterkin, who was like, he's the third sheriff to have this case. He was actually a fave of police detective at the time of her death, but he lived in Hope County.

He said, you know, when this happened that it was turmoil really, really bad in the community. And he said, the sad thing is that Brittany died during the political season. It was an election year. Everybody was making big promises.

We're going to be the one to solve it. And the case itself got really overshadowed with a lot of that, nonsense. And this sheriff stated, you know, you should never use any type of public safety case or crime for any kind of political reason whatsoever. It was just a really big mess all the way around.

Brittany was called a little Brittany by her classmates and teachers at school because she was the youngest and smallest to convert student in school. And there were probably 35 Britneys. Probably her sister, Principal said, stated that Brittany was about the height of a three-year-old. Oh my goodness.

She was teeny-tiny. And she would just hug everyone at school. Like when she came in. Brittany's mother said that she really loved school and loved going to church.

Her mom said she was different from other kids. I'm at two. She would go in the store and buy like her own body spray and stuff like that. Brittany was walking and talking at her first birthday party.

She was just a really unique child. Yeah. So that was really sweet. On the Friday after her body was found, West Oak Elementary lowered its flags to have staff to more Brittany's death.

Her mom said that students wanted to know why Brittany had died. And you know, she didn't have an answer then and she doesn't have one now. So that's kind of the question. Do you think they'll ever find your killer?

I hope so. I mean, we have the DNA, it sounds like. And from everything that I read from the sheriff, I mean, he seems like he's not using this as a political stunt, I hope, but you just never know. Well, here's the one that I will give them.

They were able to store that DNA well and preserve it. So that's a huge plus and that gives us enough DNA to be able to run and do all these things that could lead to her killer. So that's a good thing. So as much as they missed tips and that kind of thing, they did do something right.

So hopefully, hopefully, we will find out who did this. And they're hoping, you know, by kind of just redoing everything, you know, starting at the beginning, going back through and seeing, you know, maybe something was missed or they can do something. There is, I don't know if you've seen it and I can't remember if it's on who, I think it's Hulu. Hulu is now my jam, but Hulu has a documentary about a young girl in Arkansas, I think it's Arkansas, who maybe it's Oklahoma, who went missing after I, she was around the same age about five or six.

She went to a, you know, like a little league baseball game and was playing with friends where her mom like opened the corner in the periphery and she was taken. And yeah, no one ever knew what happened to her and all these other things. And I think they found her body, I can't remember, but they did, they found her body, but they've never found her killer. And they're retracing steps and they're, you know, they have some suspects that they're looking for, they're into and it is fascinating.

That's crazy. Yeah. So hopefully someone will comment on that one too. I hope so.

Britney's mom, in this article said, you know, she should have been a pilot like she wanted to. She said one day, I'm going to drive, be driving one of them and she would point, you know, the airplanes. So she wanted to be a pilot. There's currently a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person who murdered Britney.

And she should have just some pretty sobering statistics. According to the Centers for Disease Control, Indigenous Women and Girls are murdered at rates 10 times higher than all other ethnicities, with murder being the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women and girls. I did not know that. Wow.

There's a really excellent podcast. I cannot remember who does it, but it's, it's called Missing and Murdered, but it's about them about Indigenous women. And like just the, I mean, the overwhelming amount of Indigenous women, women of color, like that, go missing and are murdered and like have nothing said is wild and unfortunately not at all surprising to me. That is awful.

The National Institute of Justice reports stated that more than four out of five Indigenous women have experienced violence, more than half of Indigenous women experience sexual assault or sexual violence in their lifetime. And you know, that includes, you know, children to adults, like that's a lot. If for some reason anyone has any information about Britney, luckily, or you know, hear anything or you know, we're in the south and people talk and, you know, even if, you know, there's a crazy story that you've heard about somebody who, you know, confessed in a bar or whatever. Bed confessions.

Bed confessions. You can say something. Yeah, you can contact North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. They're still actively taking tips on this case.

And it's a 100 number. So it's 1-800-334-3000. Yeah, please call if you know anything for the Britney Lockler case. Justice for Britney?

Yeah. And for Indigenous women. Everywhere. Everywhere.

Yes. There's a really, um, there's another, like, there's all kinds of documentarism stuff about the highway and highway of tears. It runs along, um, like the Canadian border and just the amount of Indigenous women that go missing along that highway. I mean, that there's like a crazy number, but there's at least like 13 pretty well documented cases of women disappearing on that highway.

And it's pretty wild to look at. So we're gonna have to expand our Appalachia to get some Canada. I know, because that's just, I mean, there's a lot of podcasts I've covered that one. But like, if you can hear or like find one, um, you know, by Indigenous women, like, telling their stories, it's powerful.

Absolutely. So impactful. Third leading cause of death. Murder.

That's insane. Ten times more likely. Wow. It's crazy.

Yeah. Crazy to me. Well, I was, I was in a training a week ago and, um, you know, just some of the stats on, um, suicide rates among children and the second highest, uh, you know, reason for death in children, 10 to 13 is suicide. The, yeah.

Second. Yeah. Yeah. The first one is, is like accident, like car accident or something like that.

Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's wild. Yes. It's terrifying.

Well, yeah. It's like the gun violence one and like we talk about, you know, mass shootings and things like that. But we sometimes when that is like the main talking point for gun control, we forget about just the amount of children that have access. Like, I'm not, I'm neither like, you know, I'm not super political.

Right. It's not, but you know, it's one of those like, if, like, if we have guns and you have spine, just lock them up. Like in responsible gun owners do, you know, like if you are a responsible gun owner, you're keeping them out of the hands of children. I think for me as a parent, the scariest thing is thinking, my child is so vulnerable.

Yeah. You know, sending him to school thinking he's safe is so naive. And, and why, why is that naive? Why is it naive to think that?

Well, you know, our whole world has changed. Yeah. So now it's like, okay, well, I'll send him with a sandwich and a bulletproof vest. Yeah.

You know, like, and how do I teach my son, you know, oh, be kind to others. But also if you see someone with a gun run, like, I mean, it's like, why should I have these conversations, you know, starting in kindergarten? Where are we talking, you know, I don't know. Yeah.

It just seems wrong. It's, it's wrong. And I like, I don't know what the answer is. Like, you know, you hear people throw out these big things, like, you know, ban all the, but like, I don't, I don't know what the answer is.

Like, I don't have an answer. You know, I think one thing I will throw out, we're in a mental health crisis in our country. Absolutely. And a lot of these individuals are having bouts of psychosis or having these issues that they are not getting support for.

And we are in turn seeing, you know, this mass amount of violence, because we are not supporting the individuals who really need it, who have been showing signs, who, you know, all these things and being proactive about it. I think that's a huge piece. And we have an over like, over access issue to like, it's very, very easy to access, you know, these weapons legally and illegally. I mean, it's, you know, super easy to get your hands on something like that.

So I don't know what the answer is. I do know that as a public school employee, it is something that is in my mind every day when I walk into work, like, you know, a loud noise. I, you know, it's, and I thought, yeah, I asked a coworker, I was like, you know, is it just me, like, a newer into the school system, like in this day and age of where this is, you know, pretty prevalent. And I'm like, no, it's something we all are constantly thinking about.

And like, we are getting trained on like a new response system to where we can more quickly account for our students and like ourselves and staff members, if we're ever in an emergency, which has been really helpful in this, it's a neat system. We used it in a fire drill we had the other day and it took, like, I think now that I know how to use it, I feel better, but like, it's just like three of us to figure out how to count for ourselves in their health. Like, what did I get? It's not saying like, this is why we do the drills.

So we can like practice doing the like, the checks and figuring out like, because before, like, when you, I'm sure when you went out for fire drills and school, like that you had like your paper copy of your role and then you'd hold up your clipboard with either a green card or a red card said like, you're good. You have all your students, but like, in an emergency where, you know, a time is of the essence. Yeah, you don't think about any of those. You don't think about it.

So like, it's nice to have like the technology that we have that where like, if I am in an emergency and I'm like, I don't have the student that I was supposed to have, I can easily communicate that. I was fortunate that I attended school prior to a lot of the, now Columbine did happen when I was in high school. And that was for us like, what? It was just mind boggling that that happened.

And so we're like, not safe at school. That's weird. You know, that's weird. We never have him.

But we were kind of in this weird little bubble that I think just doesn't exist for kids anymore. And you know, I have an only child. My son is an only child. And I think, oh my gosh, I'm sending my child to school.

I don't know, just the thoughts that I have. Yeah, it's just, I don't, I don't even think it's crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Why did you bring it to the school? I know. Well, I'm just gonna cry. Yeah, it's just, it's, yeah, I don't, I feel, and some people don't like to think about it, but like, I feel much better having the tools that I have available to me.

But like, I know in the moment, like, it's something like, even a fire, like, I mean, let's not forget about shootings, but like, just any kind of emergency with that many children. And like, I work with teenagers. So like, they can move their physical bodies by themselves. And like, I can tell them like, I go out that window, get out of the building.

But also like, I'm in charge of a section of the school when we're clearing. So like, I go check. She's just cursing. Like different places.

I'm like yelling like, is everybody else already out? Kind of thing. Like, even in drills, I mean, we fired roll once a month. So we practice that every once a month.

We don't do like lockdown drills as often. Because I think those are dramatic in general. I think these are conversations that we need to be having. I think that as scary as it is and all these things that we were having these practice drills that we were talking about, it's important because if we're not talking about it, when it does happen, number one, we don't know what to do.

And number two, I think that it just helps prepare us so much and that we are talking about this and not pretending like it's not happening. You know, that sounds bad. I don't want to hear it. I think we need to talk about what happened in an honest way and okay, now what are we going to do about it?

And I don't think us screaming at each other, you know, and making it political and making it everything after that way is I don't we're not getting it. Clearly it's not getting anything done. It's not. So support your teachers when they have ideas, support your tang mental health people that are on the ground, social workers or counselors or therapists like please, we need at least like seven of us in the school at any given point to be able to handle the insane mental health need that we have post COVID, the rate of individuals seeking mental health treatment or needing mental health treatment has tripled.

Yeah, it's insane. It's overwhelming. It's insane. The amount of like crisis.

There are not enough clinicians out there to be able to support our kids who really need it. And the sad part is a lot of times it's the quiet kids, the ones who aren't jumping up and down and saying, hey, I'm having a mental health crisis. But there are signs that you may see and it's important to train our teachers and individuals who aren't trained in therapeutic modalities about signs and things that you may see. And parents too.

It's really important. That was our middle corner. That was really heavy. And our tangent away from abducted children.

But still, I've all kind of come back together. Just watched a negative full review. Just wait. It's fine.

Whatever. I don't care. I'm sorry. Anyway, it's all really, really nice ones.

Thanks. I just I don't. It's you know, too many things to do with my life and read negative things about me. I'd less than one of you now.

Yeah, they should then I do read them. I will read the negative ones. Listen, I told myself and I'm negative things about myself. I don't need other people to do it as well.

I've got it covered. Don't you even worry about it. You've got a lot of you got a lot of wonderful things. And I can tell you all the wonderful things except for pulling my two hands.

Listen, we'll talk about it. Let's get out of here. Let me tell you how you can contact Haley. If you want her to remove one of your body parts, yeah, please email us at mountain mysteries dot Appalachian at gmail.com.

You can find us on Facebook at mountain mysteries tales from Appalachia. Find us on Instagram at mountain mysteries dot Appalachia and patreon dot dot done patreon dot com slash mountain mysteries. Haley, do you have a shout out for us? I will momentarily.

It kicked me out of our thing. Oh dear. Log back and she's probably going to get some kind of plier tool. Please hold, please hold.

If I don't return for next episode, she's had some type of horrific infection. Sorry. We are really hard to leave on. Let's go.

Hang on. It's kind of a good one. I thought they're not all great, but what about Jane'sville, Wisconsin? Oh, I love me some cheese.

Another fun thing that happened. We have 120,000 downloads, which is crazy. Thank you guys. That's incredible.

So big numbers. Yeah, pretty soon. We're going to come out with a heart and a box of song. Obviously some merch.

Yeah, the longer we talk about it, the more likely we will to get it done. We're at least going to have some more time this summer. I will. So she can get a little bit more time.

We're going to make it happen. 10 month employee does have its perks. It sure does. Not necessarily, but we are going to force her to figure this out.

Anyway, all right. Well, we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye.