“Knowing that if Nicole survived, she would be exposed, Rachel Wagner created a chemical smoke bomb around my apartment, and as my neighbors and I fled early Sunday morning, Rachel stabbed me and took me hostage. She drove me to Payson, a small former mining town in the mountains, and planned to leave me at the bottom of a mine—with the skeletons of Adele Overton and Joseph Abernathy. If it wasn’t for the quick thinking of former US Marshal Regan Merritt, no one would know what had happened to me.

“Rachel was shot and killed, and the truth is finally out. She killed Candace Swain. She then killed Joseph Abernathy—we don’t know how, the coroner is still conducting the autopsy—and dropped his body where she left Adele. For no other reason than to make him disappear so it appeared he had killed Candace and fled.

“So where was Candace Swain the rest of the week she was missing? She was in Payson looking for the mine that had become Adele’s grave. We don’t believe she found it. But her extensive notes and maps helped Regan Merritt find me, and I owe both Regan and Candace my life.

“If anyone saw Candace in Payson the week of April 12, three years ago, call in or email me. But chances are she was keeping a low profile. We don’t know if she knew that she’d been reported missing and people were looking for her. According to her journal, she ran into Taylor James on Monday, and yet Taylor never reported the encounter to the police. Today, Taylor is dead of a drug overdose. It’s a suspected homicide—Taylor was the only person who could have known that Rachel killed Candace. According to Regan Merritt, it was Rachel who first floated the idea that Taylor had killed her onetime best friend.”

Regan said in her recording, “I spoke with Rachel Wagner twice. Each time, she tried to convince me to encourage Lucas to drop his podcast. The second time, after Taylor was found dead of a drug overdose—after being clean and sober for over a year—she implied that Taylor might have killed herself out of guilt, that her drug habit had begun after Candace was murdered. Rachel wanted to push that narrative because it helped keep her name out of the investigation. I don’t know if we’ll be able to prove Rachel killed Taylor—the police are conducting a full investigation—but I learned from a friend of mine in the police department that Taylor’s laptop was found in Rachel’s suitcase.”

Lucas said, “Tonight, I have Senior Detective Brian Hernandez on the phone. He has agreed to grant a rare interview. Thank you for joining me tonight, Detective. Can you please tell my audience how you came to be in charge of this case?”