Ray Reeves
Appearances
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And then what you see is the back passenger seat on her side that she got into, and I describe it as violently opening three times. It like is open and then slam shut, opens and then slam shut. So our assumption is she's trying to get out of that car and whoever that is, and we know it's Lee's car, I can't make him out, is preventing her or closing that door.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And then it stops. There's no more shaking of the car. There's no more violent opening and closing. And then the person that's in Lee's car, that male, then gets out, goes over to her car, leans down, and does something to the tire.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Then he gets back into his car and is driving out of the parking lot and it passes the red light camera there, goes underneath that, and then you do not see Savannah get out of that car.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
At that point, my thoughts were either she's unconscious or dead. And when we watched that video, that's what pushed everything into fast motion for us.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Part of the reason they were keeping it under wraps, although everyone knew, was that he's a management, so he's not supposed to be dating an employee.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We went initially to Bonefish Grill, very much played it off that we were just there to kind of get a feel for Savannah and talk to any co-workers. Of course, we wanted to talk to everyone else, but my sights were set on Lee because he was in that parking lot. I certainly didn't want to tip my hand to him that we knew that.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I grew up watching 1 Adam 12, so I thought police work was that, quite honestly. And I quickly realized that was not the case.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I have an advantage that other people sometimes don't have. And that is I wear a bow tie and it does, it throws people off. They do not look at me as the police. And so I cover up my gun, my badge. I'm just a guy in a bow tie. And I specifically talked to Lee last. I wanted two things. I wanted him to be uncomfortable and even in his own house. And I wanted him to think this is no big deal.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
He said he was not in that parking lot that day, had not been there to work in several days, hadn't spoken to her via text or cell phone in at least two or three weeks.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I saw a scratch about a quarter of an inch to an inch long with some redness on it on the side of his neck. So I noticed that. I did not ask him about that. I just observed that. Obviously, when you're interviewing, you're looking at everything. I'm looking at his hands. Does he have any defensive wounds? Is there anything, you know, tears, broken, you know, all of those things.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We began doing everything we could to see where else that car went, what showed up. Once I talked to him initially and got denials, then we began tracking his phone as well, search warrant for those things and see, looking, keeping an eye out, putting a bolo out and trying to identify any place that that car could have hit.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We discover that he had an outstanding capias, for driving with a suspended license. So really nothing, a slap on the wrist. You come in and you either get ROR'd or bond out. It wasn't going to be anything at all. But that was all that we had.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We immediately head to Bonefish Grill. We brought a team of people just in case. But my partner and I went in, Michelle and I went into the Bonefish Grill, put cuffs on Lee Redarte in the back room, asked him to put his knife down that he was pairing with.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I think with a background working in the church, I just saw so many people just at their worst point. Obviously, they don't call the police when it was time to have a birthday party. They called us when it was the worst moment or one of the worst moments in their lives. And so I just found a way to connect to people on a real level.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Once he put the knife down, put cuffs on him and told him he was being arrested for local capious for the driving with a suspended license charge.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
He went straight into the back of the police car. I told him, you'll probably be out on this charge probably tonight or tomorrow, no biggie. But I just wanted to finalize a few questions with you, if you don't mind. He said, yeah.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
My wife always kids that when you get in the interview room, you guys are a married couple. We don't plan it. It's just organic. We feed off of each other. We kind of know what each other is going to think and say. It wasn't always that way when I first started because she trained me when I first came into homicide. I had bruised shins because she would kick me under the table.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We knew a few things. We knew he was our guy, but we were 50-50 whether she was still alive, like he had her someplace. And there was some deviant thing going on. Hopefully that was our thoughts. You know, I think that was maybe more out of desperation or hope that he just rendered her unconscious, drove her someplace and he's keeping her or something.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I'll tell you one thing. Here's what I do on my interviews. I sometimes take a gigantic folder of stuff in that's messy. I'll ask another detective when I'm going in. I would just grab a huge folder and like, hey, can I borrow this? And they're like, what are you doing? I'm like, just watch. And I would just pull out stuff that didn't have anything to do with the case.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And I would just pull out papers and, man, I can't find what I'm looking for. Man, my boss is going to kill me. I don't even know. It works. Being stupid in the interview really works well for me. It's disarming. It lets you think you're in control and you're the boss.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I was probably less patrol or policeman than most of the guys around me on my squad. I just found a way to connect to the humanity of people.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
How long do you think it was between the time that she got out and started using her phone until that green truck pulled up? Maybe five minutes. Okay. So, wow. So if she called somebody, they got there in five minutes to pick her up?
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And so I love denials. I just, I love them. And so all the things I let Lee, I think we, Michelle and I, let Lee build this phenomenal house together. of denials and put himself into a corner. And then even when we chipped away at those, we didn't do it in an aggressive way. Because the last thing I wanted him to do was lawyer up.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
It was very challenging, but I'd said to myself early on, I'm not going to get jaded. I'm not going to get cynical. I'm going to still believe that people, even if they've done something wrong, a lot of those are choices for sure. And a lot of it's circumstances as well. And so let's still treat people with compassion and kindness until they give you a reason not to.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
You just said you weren't the last one to see her. You just said somebody in a truck. Let him talk and let him build this story, this house of cards. When he told me that I wasn't there, that was the initial one. And then proved to him, well, actually, we have some videos that shows you were there. I mean, I'm not saying you did anything, but you're there.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And then he came off of that and built another story that she got in the car with some other people and drove away and let him build that all out, talk as long as he wanted to, and then chipped away at that and told him, well, no, she got in your car and you drove away.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
When I catch him in the first lie, yeah, I began seeing there was a difference in how he spoke, how he moved, tiny little bit of sweat on his brow, his pupils, pupils dilating, hands were starting to move more. So all of those things that you know, okay, that's an indicator. I don't know what I did, but I hit something here that he doesn't like, that his body just involuntarily doesn't like.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So let's let him come up for air a little bit and get back to a normal. And let's poke and prod at some of those again to see if we can get that same reaction again.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I never said I wasn't going to charge him with murder. I just said my goal is to find her. My goal was always to him is let's find Savannah. Help me. You said you care for her. Help me find Savannah. I can't push him off that cliff. I need to get him there and I need him to think he wants to go there.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And I need to do that while watching for all of those signs and chopping away at the lies in a non-confrontational way. Again, I'm toast if the guy lawyers up. Then I really have nothing and I have to let a killer go.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I wanted him to tell me my hopes where she was still alive. Even in the part where we're pleading with him, where Michelle is pleading, it hit a nerve with her. And those tears that she had, those are real because she thought of her daughter. There was a connection. And so she tapped into that part so that there's a section in there where she's pleading and she has tears. Those are real.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So I've got a mom replacing Savannah's mom pleading for her daughter back.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
If she's alive, I need him to tell me where she is. If she's not, I need him to tell me where she is. So the goal is you got to tell me. Because honestly, in the back of my mind, the whole time is if I can keep a conversation going with a guy who doesn't feel threatened by me, then maybe we can get to – maybe. Now, not everyone we talk, we interview in the box has a conscience.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
But maybe if he had a relationship with her – Maybe he had something inside of him that we could tap into.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Because, let's be honest, this little misdemeanor capious, I mean, he's leaving, he's walking, either tonight or in the morning. I'm not holding, I have nothing else to hold him out. I don't have... I have reasonable suspicion, but I don't have probable cause and I certainly don't have proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is what I need to charge him with murder.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And he vacillated. I mean, you can see it in there. He's warring with himself to tell us. And then finally, he did.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Jacksonville is just under a million people. We've got our beaches. We've got, I say, several different communities here. We have the east side at the beach and we've got inner city and a lot of the inner city is growing. The area where Savannah lives, Gold is on the south side. This area was a very affluent area of town.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And I ended up coming down and I just heard a pop. Okay, you heard a pop sound? You heard the pop. What happened at that point?
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Was there already a fire pit? Okay, so is it, is it like bricks or is it just an area? Just a little makeshift one with like garden bricks and stuff. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you put her in that? Okay, so it had already been dug out. Okay, you put
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
It's everything at the same time. It's relief. It's joy. It's anger. I don't know if he's telling me the truth. I got to get a team out there and a dive team out there to go find her.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So the dive team went out and they found her, or they found what they believed to be her. We got missing persons, some of our team, and also the dive team out. And they conducted a search exactly where he told us. And they located a person, or it appeared to be, because she was wrapped up in not only the comforter, the plastic, the blanket, and duct tape.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
It appeared to be later on identified as Savannah at the medical examiner's office.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Then we also began the search on the vehicle. Canine alerts to decomp in the trunk of his car where he admitted to putting her. We found soil matching and soot that matched his residence. One of Savannah's shoes, blood in the backseat on paperwork that DNA tested, which was Savannah's as well.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
A lot of people think, okay, well, you got your confession. That's the end of it. Well, that's certainly not the end of it. The majority of the investigation is really post-arrest if you're going to be good at the job. In homicide, we say about that part of your job is to solve it, but the bigger part is to resolve it. So I needed to set into motion things that were sustainable for trial.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
There's still a reservation that this isn't my fault or I'm not completely culpable. And so I think he tries to give a... a quote, self-defense claim. And, you know, and the courts looked at that and the judge said, that's not accurate.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Savannah is a very pretty young lady. She's very athletic, does sports. She did lacrosse in school, water skiing, very outgoing personality. Everyone at work loved her. High school friends loved her.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
After he kills Savannah, he takes her home and throws her in the fire pit in his backyard. And Kelsey, this new girl, comes over that night and they have pizza and they watch movies while Savannah's body is just sitting in the backyard.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I believe that he was jealous. He wanted to be with Savannah. They had an off again, on again relationship. Eventually, she was done with him and knew what kind of person he was. And he got angry and he has an angry streak. And so in that car, he went to go confront her. He had no business being there. He wasn't at work that day.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I mean, he certainly can go in the parking lot if he wants to, but he confronted her. She was not afraid of him.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
She tried to get out of that car. She's a little girl. He outweighed her and physically much stronger than she was, strangled her. And then he panicked and he didn't know what to do. Instead of calling the police and saying, hey, this is what happened, he panicked and he took her home. And then he tried to get rid of her body by burning it, which doesn't work.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Then after that, he panicked again when we came to talk to him the first time. And so he wrapped her up. And when the burning didn't work and he took her to a place that he used to live. And so he dumped her, hoping that no one would ever find her body. Because it's a dead end down there, for sure, in a swampy, nasty pond.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Mrs. Gold was battling with her own health issues at that time, and bless her heart, she was at everything. She was there at the end for years. for the plea. And this was all something that we get family buy-in, the prosecutors get buy-in from the family.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
The family agreed that, you know, we'd like closure. It's been long enough. He admits it. He's willing to admit that, you know, in court, this isn't just a plea deal. This is him admitting and there's an appropriate sentence to what the second degree murder can hold in the state of Florida. And so they didn't bring Savannah back. It didn't fix all of the things.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
These are hard. We work here in Duval County. We work, I think we had close to 200 murders that year. I mean, we run a lot. We're busy. We run. And it's not a complaint. I mean, we signed up for this and we had the privilege of doing this job and With all of the death that you see, and this is a kid and it doesn't matter how old someone is, but this is a child and it just weighs on you.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
All of these cases and all of the bodies that you see and all of the autopsies that you go to and all of the victims' families, those that love you and those that hate you, it's tiring and it takes a physical and mental toll on you.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
My wife and I have been married for 35 years now, this summer. And she's been through two wars in the military with me. She's been through deployments. She's been through me leaving on mission trips. But this job, she'll tell you, is just, I'm just, some days when I come home, I just, I don't, I can't talk. I don't have anything to say.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
There's times that you just, you have tears in your eyes and you don't know why. So unless you'd done it, you wouldn't understand. I'm glad to do it. Even today, I'm glad to be here and I'm glad for our next on call. And I hope for the privilege of working in another case where we can help families. And eventually I'll get to pass it on to the news guys coming up.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
But for right now, I'm not leaving until they force me out. I'm staying. I'm not leaving.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
But the text said, I wanted to tell you and mom I met a really great guy and we're running away together. I love him and we're leaving right now. I'll call you later when we get to where we're going.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Same basic, a lot of misspelled words, typos. Met a guy leaving with my boyfriend. I can't deal with this anymore. I've got to get away. And it was choppy English and it didn't make sense. And again, the fact that her family was very close, they knew what was going on. They knew the people that she was hanging out with, her friends, who she dated and all those things.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
There wasn't a time when they didn't stay in contact with each other. And so I knew there's no way that Savannah would have sent those texts. But the other thing is Savannah would not have put her mother through something like this. They just would not have happened because she loved her mom and her dad.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
And there's no way that she would have put her mom through some kind of torturous thing like I'm running away and I'll call you when I can.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So the mom went up to the Bonefish Grill, talked to the manager, Savannah, who was always at work when she's supposed to be. She never showed up.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Savannah's car is there. It has a flat tire. Her purse is inside the car.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
It doesn't make sense. She gets entered into the National Crime Information Center as a missing person. And the detective at the missing persons unit begins researching, going out and talking to the family, friends, looking for video in that area to see what they can find.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So still missing persons is trying to pull camera from the shopping center. There's some footage. You can see the car pulling in, but it's at the very back of the shopping center. There's no good visual from that. There's not quite enough to say, hey, we have a criminal element to this.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
The missing person Sergeant did on the evening of the 3rd knew, hey, this may move outside of our purview, so let's go ahead and seal and tow her car in case that needs to be processed, in case something did occur. They contacted us immediately. the next morning and said, hey, look, this is not adding up there. This is out of character. These text messages don't add up.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
It's what you do. Let's go back out to the scene. Let's go talk to the family and let's get a picture. Let's pretend like we don't know anything. And let's just start like we just got this case.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I knew that they had been in a dating relationship. They had broken up and then were back together. So they had an on-again, off-again relationship.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
He actually showed up to help with the missing persons, pass out flyers.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
One of the things that Sharon, Ms. Gold, told us was that her son, Christopher, worked at the Bonefish Grill as well. Chris told her that when he drove into the parking lot, he saw one of Savannah's co-workers who was a manager there, Lee Rodarte. And he saw him sitting in the front driver's seat of his own vehicle. We know that Lee did not go to work that day. He was scheduled off that day.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
which again was odd that he was in the parking lot. So that became a key piece of information to tip us to, wait a minute, somebody else who works with Savannah was in that parking lot as well that we need to talk to.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
So the first thing that came about, maybe around 8 o'clock, 7 or 8 o'clock that Friday, we were able to get into and download the city's red light cameras, and we were able to confirm some things.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
We could see that there was a person in it. It's a distance away, so I couldn't swear who was who, but I can make out the tags in the cars. So that video was crucial because it gave – well, again, I could not definitively tell you who was in those cars.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
I could see that Lee Rodarte's car was sitting in the parking lot back then right in front of that bank at that intersection in Savannah's Gold car just as – Chris had told us was in that parking lot as well. We see when Lee's car drives in. We see when Savannah's car drives in. Savannah's car parks right next to Lee's car.
Anatomy of Murder
Last Shift (Savannah Gold)
Then she gets out of her car and walks over to his car. And then he gets out of the front driver's seat of his car, walks over to the rear side of his vehicle. Savannah then comes over in front of that vehicle and gets into the rear passenger seat. So they both get into the rear passenger seat.