Aria Armstead
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A troubled teen who worked hard to rebuild his life.
He was a good person. Maybe, you know, he had his own issues going on and just got involved with the wrong people.
Vanishes without a word.
Hi, how many hours do I have before I can fill out a missing person? Who? That's my boyfriend. I haven't heard from him in 24 hours.
If she tried calling, it would ring a couple and then it would go straight to voicemail.
When authorities discover an abandoned car in a beachside community, everything changes.
What happened in the car, it's a mystery.
It had dirt all over it. The electronics had been ripped out of the center console.
My reaction when we actually opened the door was, we have a problem.
You could see blood all over inside the vehicle. Somebody had been killed inside that vehicle. Who does all this blood belong to?
Anytime you have a homicide, you're never 100% sure of really what happened.
When a surprise suspect emerges, the case takes a frightening turn.
They are just friends. It was a lot of minimization.
I don't see her as being a mastermind of planning a vacation, let alone a heinous crime.
The strangest aspects of this case was what they did afterward. It was all just really bizarre. I'm a pageant girl. I don't do things like this.
On the evening of October 13th, 2017, 911 dispatchers in Lee County, Florida, receive a concerning call from 32-year-old resident Francesca Sakulich.
County Sheriff's Office. Hi, how many hours do I have before I could fill out a missing person? Well, if you believe that they're missing, we can send an officer out. I haven't heard from him in 24 hours. The last time I spoke to him was last night between 8 and 9, and he told me he was on his way home. I never came home. Sue? That's my boyfriend. I'm worried.
She called and stated that her boyfriend had not returned home. I was dispatched to the house to take the initial missing person report.
When Deputy McMenamin arrives at the residence, he learns Francesca's boyfriend, 31-year-old Matthew Collins, had borrowed her car around 3 o'clock the previous afternoon.
She said that Matthew was going to be going to a haircut in Fort Myers, South Palm Beach Boulevard. From her house to where he went for the haircut, it's probably a 30, 40-minute max drive. He had texted that he got stuck in Fort Myers, which really didn't make sense. How did you get stuck? Did your car get stuck? Did you run out of gas? And come 8 o'clock, he didn't return home.
According to Francesca, by the following morning, Matt still hadn't returned.
She tried calling him, and it would ring a couple, and then it would go straight to voicemail. It was definitely alarming to her.
Authorities immediately release a bolo on the vehicle Matthew Collins was driving at the time, a maroon Chrysler 200.
The first step of a missing persons investigation is, of course, to verify the person's actually missing. See where they were, see where they were last seen. Kind of just do a lot of background information on them.
Authorities spend the next few days speaking with Matthew's friends and family, who confirm that no one has heard from Matthew since he was reported missing. Then, on October 18th, Lee County Dispatch receives a seemingly routine phone call.
The car was found abandoned. in an area of Lehigh Acres that's not very populous. It's a dead end with not really any houses around it.
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Chapters
4 chaptersSpeakers
15 identified
Narrator 10 min
Investigator 8 min
Detective 6 min
Francesca Sakulich (Phone Call) 2 min
Pageant Girl 2 min
Matthew's Friend 2 min
Matthew's Acquaintance 2 min
Deputy McMenamin 2 min
Homicide Expert 1 min
Monica Lewinsky 1 min
Lindsey Graham 1 min
This Is Actually Happening Narrator 1 min
Mike Collins 1 min
Matthew Scher
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