The Murder Police Podcast
The Murder Police Podcast
The Vanishing of Michael Keith Gorley: What Are They Hiding? Part 1 of 3
The unsolved disappearance of Michael Keith Gorley haunts the backroads of rural Kentucky like a ghost story without an ending. Ten birthdays, ten Christmas mornings, ten Mother's Days have passed while his family waits for answers that never come.
Sandra Hasty remembers the last morning she saw her son - May 17, 2015. Michael had slept in her bed that night (she took his), a simple moment of connection that would become a treasured final memory. Just five days earlier, he'd been released from jail after the grand jury refused to indict him on charges stemming from being in a car where others possessed drugs.
The mystery began that afternoon when two women arrived at Sandra's door with a bizarre story: Michael had driven his truck into a pond on Wilderness Trail Road. The family found this immediately suspicious. Michael had been seen earlier that day at his grandmother's house, seeking help to remove the vehicle, but showing no signs of erratic behavior. Why would he deliberately drive his only vehicle into water?
After retrieving the truck (which mysteriously smelled of gasoline in the back), the story took a darker turn. When Sandra called someone at a house on Highway 300 asking about Michael at 11 PM, she was told he was there. By morning, the story changed - Michael had supposedly left walking between 8-9 PM. Two weeks later, bloodhounds would track his scent along this route before losing it near Hatcher Road.
Michael's sister Jennifer shares poignant memories of her brother - his love of football (number 55), his work installing flooring at the famous Versailles Castle, his passion for mudding and four-wheeling, and the devastating losses he'd endured in the years before his disappearance. Their father had died in 2004, followed by two more family deaths in quick succession.
What happened on that May evening? What are people hiding? And why, after a decade, is there still no justice for a man who once wrote poetry, loved comedy movies, and would give the clothes off his back to someone in need?
Have you seen Michael? Do you know something that might help bring his family peace? Listen to part one of this three-part investigation into a case that demands answers.
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I told her never come back to my house ever again.
David Lyons:I got you.
Sandra Hasty:So when they knocked on the door, I said what do you want? It's Michael. I said what's wrong? She said well, I need to tell you something. So I let her in. And then this other one comes down. I said who's that? Oh, that's my friend. But I had heard, you know, michael didn't know this friend.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, okay. And so I said, well, I have to ride out there with y'all I guess, which I hated to, because I couldn't stand neither one of them.
Wendy Lyons:Warning the podcast you're about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast the Vanishing of Michael Keith Gourley what Are they Hiding? Part 1 of 3, with Michael's mother, sandra Hastie, and his sister, jennifer and Sandra.
David Lyons:Wendy couldn't be here today. She's on a little bit of a road trip. She says hello and thanks for coming back and sitting down with us again. We sat down a couple years ago to talk about Michael's case and where it's at and what was going on with it, and I wanted to do that again because, unfortunately, we're at an anniversary point and it's an anniversary that nobody should have to deal with. This is not an anniversary to celebrate, but I think it's important to recognize that and maybe encourage people who listen and watch to realize how much time has gone by without any answers or a sense of justice for you all. So thanks for sitting down. So, sandra, how are you doing today?
Sandra Hasty:I'm doing good. How are you, David?
David Lyons:Doing good. I love the shirt. That's going to be the shirt at the memorial this year.
Sandra Hasty:Yes, you're right Good deal. The 10th annual celebration of life came like vigil for a missing and murdered in Kentucky.
David Lyons:Amen, and what we'll do, too is, toward the end, we'll talk about how people can follow you on there, because a lot of people may not know how successful that missing and murder page is. How many, how many tens of thousands of people do you have on there now, excuse me, how many thousands of people are following?
Sandra Hasty:there's about 16,500 right now. Wow, yeah wow, that's a lot of a lot of people would just get on and join and you can't look at the profile. That's why I made the group private, because you know if they get on there, it's like they got a little circle by their name and you try to click on their profile and you can't see it. And my main goal is to protect the families of the missing and murdered and the missing and murdered.
David Lyons:I love it. It really is a good place to go for information on that. Yes, it is, and it probably helps people feel like they get a little bit of control of an out-of-control situation. And Michael's sister, jennifer, how are you today?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Doing all right Good deal.
David Lyons:Thanks for coming and sitting down again Well thank you for meeting with us.
David Lyons:Yeah, I think it's important, and even though we talked about some of this before, we all know that there have been a few changes and a few things that I think that are important to the case, and so we'll go into those. Well, let's start out with this and you all, like we've done before, who's Michael? From the day he's born to the day that we're talking about today, where he went missing, but tell us as much as you can about who Michael is.
Sandra Hasty:Michael was born on December 22, 1976, at Casey County Memorial Hospital. On December 22, 1976, at Casey County Memorial Hospital Back then you had the nursery was right there in front of your mother I watched my son be circumcised and all. He didn't even cry and he was just a bundle of joy. I mean up until his 38th birthday or up until he was 38, I mean it's been 10 Christmases, 10 birthdays, 10 Mother's Days, 10 all holidays without Michael.
David Lyons:There we go, because that's the anniversary he loved holidays.
Sandra Hasty:Yeah, he really did. He loved eating at holidays.
David Lyons:What was his favorite thing to eat? Chicken and dumplings. Okay, yeah, I'm down for that. I don't eat it anymore. We were just talking, before we got started, about diets and stuff.
Sandra Hasty:Oh, I have to make it every holiday. I love it, I love it.
David Lyons:My mom made pretty good chicken and dumplings too. Jennifer, you're a sister, older or younger?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Younger. Okay, yeah, I'm the youngest.
David Lyons:Okay.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Tell us what that's like when you get a brother. Well, michael, we grew up together, you know, and, like I said, he was older than me but we went to school together all through our school years. He was always looking out for me. I was always kind of looking out for him because we were close. You know, growing up we were always close. I was always kind of looking out for him because we were close. Growing up we were always close, but just like brothers and sisters, we also. If there was an argument to be had, it was me and Michael. You know what I mean. But he liked to always crack jokes, he liked to cut up all the time. He was a funny guy, he was a good brother. I have no complaints in the brother area, just a good guy. I have no complaints in the brother area, just a good guy, I mean. I miss him dearly.
David Lyons:I can understand that. You know, right before I retired I lost my baby brother. I had four brothers. We all fought right, I was in the middle. I always tell people I just learned how to fight. Is that I got it and I gave it. And I know that loss is incredible because for us to have the first one go away. Incidentally, he died of a drug overdose in.
David Lyons:Louisville in 2020. And to have that first, to feel that connection, just go. And we did. We fought tooth and nail, drove Mom and Dad crazy Dad had to repair the house over it sometimes but we loved each other Right, and you still look back at that. I wouldn't change it. I wouldn't change it, maybe a few things. One thing about my little brother is if you had a fight and it stopped, you'd wake up at 2 in the morning and he'd be beating you in the head with a Tonka truck. So he really had a hard time letting go. So maybe I'd change that part because that hurt pretty bad.
David Lyons:So, unfortunately, I think I know what loss was. But here's the difference is, you've lost him without any answers, right, and that's where we're at too. So more about Michael, too, is what were his hobbies and his interests, and what did he do for a living as he got older? Where did he?
Sandra Hasty:focus. He got a little bit of everything.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:He done tree service.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:He helped. What was it he did at the castle?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:The flooring yeah.
Sandra Hasty:Yeah, the flooring.
David Lyons:Oh, he worked at the castle.
Sandra Hasty:He worked at the castle.
David Lyons:yes, On Versailles Road.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Wow Well he did the flo flooring okay at the castle you know, so he did tower um at the castle on vercelles road yeah, he's really proud of that.
Sandra Hasty:He's done um, worked with forest and stuff like that, and he's worked on smokestacks okay he's worked in old rigs. He's done a little bit of everything.
David Lyons:Yeah, for the listeners and viewers.
Sandra Hasty:They need to google. Okay, he's worked in old rigs. I remember that, yeah, he's done a little bit of everything.
David Lyons:Yeah, for the listeners and viewers, they need to Google the Versailles Castle. It's a real, full-size castle. I tell people about it all the time. Yeah, I think the story is that a man was madly in love with his wife.
Sandra Hasty:Mm-hmm, then they divorced.
David Lyons:That's the punchline when I tell people is he built her an entire castle and then she left him.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Right.
David Lyons:So I'm like stick to those cards from dollar store. That's probably a better move to make, maybe, but I never see. I didn't know that before. That's kind of neat because me and Wendy have visited the castle more than one time. So neat stuff, neat stuff.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Yeah, but he did, like Mom said, several jobs. He did flooring. And he did, like Mom said, several jobs. He did flooring. That was his I'd say, probably his last profession that he got into. He worked on smokestacks. He'd done welding. Okay, he was a MIG welder. He worked on welding tractor and trailer trucks, I believe out in. Oklahoma, yeah a taxidermy truck and body. At one point he owned a tree service business.
Wendy Lyons:Okay.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:It was kind of like a joint venture between him and my uncle. They did a lot of tree work a whole lot of tree work.
Sandra Hasty:That's when we had the big ice storm.
David Lyons:I was going to say there's no shortage of tree work in Kentucky when the wind blows or the ice comes, and this was at, we had a big ice storm that year.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:And there was just tree work to be done everywhere you went so yeah.
Sandra Hasty:That might have been the year I also got his ID from when he worked out on the oil rigs in North Dakota.
David Lyons:I was going to ask you what states did he hit?
Sandra Hasty:North Dakota.
David Lyons:Gotcha. You know, because when I travel like I was in Carlsbad, new Mexico, and I'm in Texas a lot in Oklahoma I'm still fascinated by the oil business and the big base in Carlsbad where I was at a couple of weeks ago they said that when they finally turned back into getting oil back in several years ago that town started to breathe again. So neat work, hard work, right, hard work. What other hobbies and stuff did he have? If he excuse me, what other hobbies and passions did he have?
Sandra Hasty:oh, I could find a poem that he had wrote me. Okay, what about six months ago? And you know, uh, he loved watching movies okay you know, he was more like, I don't know we. He said, mom, let's watch a movie, and we, you know, he'd lay on one couch, I'd lay on the other and we'd watch movies. You know, when he'd be home, that's what he wouldn't do was watch movies. And he loved a lot of comedies.
David Lyons:That's what I'm going to ask. Is what he liked? Yeah, so, yeah, so yeah. He loved to laugh. He liked to laugh.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:His younger years, so growing up with Michael, and all through school, because we lived with mom until we were up in like the fifth grade and then we lived with our dad.
Wendy Lyons:Mom lived in Florida.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Dad lived in Kentucky Going through school. He loved playing football. That was everything eat, sleep, breathe football.
Sandra Hasty:Number 55.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:All through school, elementary school, middle school, high school loved football and then after high school, I would say, his hobbies kind of turned to four-wheeling mudding the races.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, him and his cousin Casey got kicked out of the car wash because they were back then the Ponderosa. It was all dirt, yeah, and they would go out there and race because they didn't have dates up then and then they'd go to the car wash and wash their Jeeps off. Well, they got kicked out of the car wash For putting too much mud.
David Lyons:I'll bet it was Chunks of mud. Yeah.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Yeah, like blocking up the drain, kind of mud.
David Lyons:Yeah, too funny, too good. So what I'm gathering, though, is the people that knew him in town and stuff. Not a big town, right, right, but how many people live Junction City, correct? Is that where you are still from? Is that where you call home?
Sandra Hasty:Yes, well, me and Michael lived on McKinney Ridge Road in Sanford when he came up missing.
David Lyons:Gotcha.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, yeah, gotcha, but he's from Junction, I mean.
David Lyons:Hoag Holler Road. Yeah, exactly.
Sandra Hasty:And Copperhead Road right now, that's a song.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Yeah, persimmon Knob. Okay, we lived on White Oak. Road growing up for years, and then after that we lived on Persimmon Knob for years, and then, after we graduated high school, we all kind of ventured out on our own. But, Michael stayed pretty local to Junction Boyle County area.
David Lyons:Yeah, it's pretty, it's real pretty. You know, we live in Jessamine County and it's funny I think I got Wendy used to it a few years ago where she'd say let's go to dinner and she'd say something in Lexington, I'm like nope, if we come out and get on 27, we're taking a left. And I told her I said if I'm going to be in a car for 20 minutes, I want it moving with a view. And so we seriously Lancaster, stanford, all the places, boyle County, that's where we go to eat, just because it's more laid back Right.
David Lyons:And you don't have to deal with the knucklehead traffic back there. I think I work too long in Lexington to deal with that too much. How did growing up with Michael did we now let me go back, and I think I know the answer in this Dad's dead. When did y'all lose your father?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So Dad passed away in 2004 from cancer.
David Lyons:Yeah, I think I remember it from the last time. Did that shape anything with you and Michael or anything losing Dad? How old were y'all when it happened?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:I was 26. So Michael would have been 28. 28, yeah.
David Lyons:Yeah, gotcha.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Michael and Dad were always together. Yeah, so Dad was his you know biggest supporter. So when Dad passed away it took a big toll on Michael, mentally Sure which I mean it did all of us. But Michael was more dependent on Dad and they kind of stuck together through life. And then when Dad passed away then it was kind of like Michael and Mom. So he went from kind of like being with Dad all the time to being with Mom all the time.
David Lyons:Okay, yeah, yeah. Did it change the way he behaved or anything like that? How so Could you feel comfortable talking about that?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Well, he went through like a bad spell.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, yeah, which we all do, and that's why I want to relax you about that. He went through a bad spell.
David Lyons:Yeah, exactly, but he lost his aunt in February 2005,.
Sandra Hasty:And then my mother. Michael was too kind-hearted. Okay, I don't care who the person was, what background they had. I've seen Michael take clothes out of his own clothes and put on people. Michael was born on his great-grandmother's birthday.
David Lyons:Okay, that's a neat coincidence, yeah.
Sandra Hasty:I heard them high heels coming down the hallway. I heard them. I said that's Grandma coming. And she brought him all kinds of pretty outfits and receiving blankets. Where is that baby born on my birthday?
David Lyons:Yeah, there we go, there we go.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Whenever dad passed away that's. I guess that was a turning point. Oh, I gotcha.
David Lyons:And that's not uncommon for people. I'm going to share this. My youngest brother he just to get because I've experienced it is when we lost dad, there was a shift in who he was. And 10 years later, when we lost my mother, there was another shift in who he was. And all of that, I think, accumulated in him having to deal with things he had a tough time dealing with. So and I think that's why I asked that is that we all handle those losses in different ways. I don't lose them. My parents was very difficult, but I think it hit some people in my family harder than others, if that makes any sense.
Sandra Hasty:on that too, it was hard on all of us Michael Whitney when my mother died. Jennifer was there with us, but Michael stayed in the waiting room because he didn't want to see. They called her Maupat. He could not see her dying.
David Lyons:Gotcha Sure sure.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Well, when our dad passed away, it was December of 2004. And then my Aunt Cheryl passed away in February of 2005. So it was just two months after dad passed away.
David Lyons:Wow.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Well then, Maupat passed away in March of 2005. So we had three major deaths in our family within four months.
David Lyons:Yeah, that's a lot yeah.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So by the time my Pat passed away I was emotionally numb and I think I've stayed emotionally numb for about 10 years and I didn't realize it at the time. People say, well, how do you do it? And I'm like I don't know. I guess I was kind of like on autopilot.
David Lyons:I've said the same thing, like when you lose people.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Yeah.
David Lyons:For me and I know this is we'll get and I'm not trying to be distracted, but I think it's an important thing is that for me, like three days of a fog? Do you know what I'm saying? And it's like that's when you do all that stuff with the funeral home and you do all those things and it's like really mechanical, and then later it catches up yeah, yeah, sometimes it was kind of crazy like I didn't even realize that I was kind of like numb for so long yeah not today.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:And then it's kind of crazy, like me and my first husband divorced and then it was like maybe a year after that it was kind of like click, and all of a sudden I was just like, wow, I have emotions, I can cry, I can do this, I can do that, but it took a long time.
David Lyons:Yeah, I think that's how we protect ourselves.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Yeah.
David Lyons:I think that's how we get through the worst stuff in life. I do think it comes back and we pay the piper and we finally I don't know about paying the piper I think we just go ahead and accept that and then we start dealing with it in a more healthy way, in my opinion.
David Lyons:I think that's the way it is for me too, a lot of times. Well, take us back to like May 12th in 2015, maybe a day or two before. Try to get everybody up to when he goes missing and what it was like just before contact you had with him, where he last was, maybe a description of who he was with things like that.
Sandra Hasty:If you can take us back to maybe—. He left my house May 17th in the morning and that's the last time we saw him.
David Lyons:Was it the 17th? I said 12th 17th.
Sandra Hasty:Yeah, when did I get that wrong? May 17th 2015. Okay, and that's the last time I saw him. And that's the last time I saw him.
David Lyons:Gotcha. What was he doing right before then?
Sandra Hasty:Michael Sleeping in my bed.
David Lyons:Okay, there we go yeah.
Sandra Hasty:He was sleeping in my bed. He said, Mama, I'm going to sleep in your bed. I said, okay, so I'd sleep in his bed. He'd sleep in my bed.
David Lyons:Gotcha, gotcha. Well, take us up to when he goes missing.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So Michael had gotten into some trouble, okay, and he went to jail for a couple of months and he got out of jail on May the 12th, and so he was out of jail for five days before he went missing. Okay, how long was he in jail? Like maybe two months, I'm pretty sure it was about a two-month stretch.
Sandra Hasty:Yeah, it was 60 days and grand jury didn't indict, so they had to release him.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Okay gotcha so he got out May the 12th and he went missing on May the 17th.
David Lyons:Was that in Boyle County or Garrard County?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:He was in Boyle County jail. Okay, gotcha.
David Lyons:Yeah, and I like getting that out because you know, sometimes those answers might be with people that he was with.
Sandra Hasty:And so where that was? Well, he should never have went to jail. He had just gotten a car with these people from Sanford to Boyle County. They found drugs on the driver and his girlfriend.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:They didn't find nothing on Michael or the girl, but I'm not going to mention the policeman's name. He's no longer a policeman. He took them all to jail and charged them with the same thing.
David Lyons:Oh, okay, gotcha.
Sandra Hasty:But the grand jury didn't indict two of them. They didn't indict Michael and their other girl in the back seat. They didn't indict but they did indict the driver and his girlfriend in the front. And then she gets to jail and thought she was going to hide stuff in her underwear and it all came out.
David Lyons:Oh, okay.
Sandra Hasty:Yeah, so yeah.
David Lyons:I'd say that's getting caught dirty right. One way to put it yeah. So he doesn't get indicted and they release him, which is how that works, Right. Once you hit that time limit, you come out, take it from there. No-transcript.
Sandra Hasty:Well, we were told he was on Highway 300. Okay, okay, but we were told this from the people that were involved.
David Lyons:I see.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, now the man at Highway 300, I did call at 11 o'clock at night. He said Michael was there. The next day he changed his story. I'm like Michael didn't come home. Where's Michael Don't know. I said what does it mean? You don't know. He left walking between 8 and 9 last night. I said hold up. I talked to you at 11 last night and you said Michael was there. So we don't know if Michael was there or not.
David Lyons:Yeah, what's another name for Highway 300? Does it got a Knobloch?
Sandra Hasty:Roadlick road. Yeah, is, it used to be a log cabin at the end.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:We used to call it log cabin road yeah, there used to be a log cabin at the end and people would would they call it old log cabin or log cabin oh log cabin road gotcha.
Sandra Hasty:We lived on that road when I was when I was shy. That's what I thought my grand, my grandfather, had a farm out there and then he had a free cabin home out there gotcha so I mean, I just didn't know where Highway 300 was, because I always knew Knobloch Road.
David Lyons:Well, that's why I asked is that, yeah, when you live in a country, it's got a number and then it's got a name, and so whoever's closest usually goes by the name? Too, so he ends up at a house on Knobloch Road, right, yeah, they said he was, he was, if he was there?
Sandra Hasty:I'm not sure that he was there.
David Lyons:Yeah.
Sandra Hasty:Because now I know he is there at some point, because the bloodhounds picked up his scent, okay Okay. But then they went down Hatcher Road, right past the bridge, and they stopped him.
Wendy Lyons:Mm-hmm.
Sandra Hasty:But the one tracker, which was one of the best bloodhounds ever, got arrested, so he wanted to go up under this fence. But that's private property.
David Lyons:Right.
Sandra Hasty:Well, wasn't nobody home. So one of the searchers raised the fence up and you know we actually got video of it all you know, because the— it was a watershed.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:It was a watershed.
Sandra Hasty:Gotcha.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So there's different rules for watershed and things like that.
Sandra Hasty:Anyway, he was standing at this tree Tracker was, and you know I'm like why. And then I found out that when the breeze blows, you know they pick up a scent from the breeze. Yeah, a wind, scent and then he took off down Hatcher Road, which Hatcher Road leads out to another area that I'm not going to mention, but it's there. Every time I go down that road, I feel something yeah, and that's Hatcher Road, but it's there.
David Lyons:every time I go down that road, I feel something, yeah, and that's.
Sandra Hasty:Hatcher Road. No, the road that I think they took Michael down.
David Lyons:Okay, gotcha.
Sandra Hasty:And where they might have disposed of him at Okay gotcha.
David Lyons:Yeah, how long ago was that track done after he went missing? What is it? How long ago was that track done after he went missing?
Sandra Hasty:Two weeks after he came up missing.
David Lyons:Okay, let's back up again a little bit Just to make sure that the people watching and listening put this together. Is you make a phone call and you get told a story by a person that puts a time stamp on it of some kind?
Sandra Hasty:if I'm hearing that right, he lied.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:He lied. So, that morning Michael was home. He left.
Sandra Hasty:Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:And they shared a vehicle. He left in that vehicle about 9 o'clock that morning.
Sandra Hasty:Right.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:They claimed Michael drove that vehicle in a pond and later that afternoon two females came to Mom's house without Michael and told her that he had drove his truck we called it a truck into a pond at this particular house. Okay, and the owner of the house wanted the truck pulled out of the pond, so I didn't know, there was ponded out there mom rode out there with those two females to see. You know, do we need them? What do we need to pull this truck out of the pond?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:I mean it could. Is it fully submerged, you know? Is it barely in there? You know, we didn't know. So she went out there, she took pictures of it, sent it to me and I'm like well, I mean, maybe the front tires were in the pond, maybe my husband's jeep could pull it out when he gets off work.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:We'll see. And so when he got off work that day we went out there and um once we actually got to see it in in person, he's like my jeep's not gonna be able to pull that out. So he called one of his buddies that had a big dodge truck and he came out him came out.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:He had a friend with him and they were able to pull the truck out. It took a little while to get it pulled out. I drove it right up out of there when we got it out. But we did get it pulled out and then from there we took the truck to my house and parked it One because we didn't know if there was anything wrong with the truck or not, right, you know, and it smelled like gas. I remember it smelled like gas, yeah.
David Lyons:Yeah, so keeping the time straight, is that that would be the 18th. Are we talking? Was it a full night passing?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So that was on Sunday that was on the 17th that we got the truck out, Okay. Gotcha Passing the-. So that was on Sunday that was on the 17th that we got the truck out, Okay gotcha, and where was the pond at?
David Lyons:And again I want to keep Wilderness Trail Road.
Sandra Hasty:What is it At the very end Wilderness Trail Road in Sanford?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:In Lincoln County.
David Lyons:So he's at a house. Do we know if any other people were at the house, or do we think other people were at the house at the time that he was there? If he was there, Is that?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:a—? Well, the two females that came to Mom to tell her that Michael had drove the truck in the pond and he needed it pulled out. I mean we assume that they were there because they were coming to Mom to say, hey, you need to get the truck out of the pond.
David Lyons:Did they offer any more about what led up to the truck? They said that he drove it in there, but did they tell a story about that? He left the house.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:They claimed that Michael was acting out and just kind of doing wild stuff.
Sandra Hasty:There's no way. From the time he left the house. I don't think Michael drove that truck in the pond, but considering the source, we didn't feed a lot into it.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:We were just mostly concerned with getting their only vehicle out of the pond because they needed it. You know they needed to go to the store, they needed to get around.
David Lyons:Gotcha, you know Gotcha, and your mind was when the truck was in a pond in your mind. Was Michael missing then, or was it kind of like?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:Don't think I didn't all the way through that pond. There was no concern at that point about Michael Missing. I mean based on what they were telling us. And I knew that Michael had been out to my grandma's house that day Okay, because I had picked my uncle up and gave him a ride and he was telling me that michael and these two females that came to grandma's looking for somebody to pull the truck out and that, uh, he ended up borrowing a log chain from my other uncle.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:That was there. My log chain right there um and didn't show up but this is all of my dad's people yeah, uh
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:anyway. Anyway, so my other uncle, he had like a small truck. No way it would have pulled, you know, that truck out of the pond and he gave him a phone number of somebody to call that Mike could pull the truck out. So we knew from my uncle that I had talked to, that Michael had been at Grandma's, told him that the truck was in the pond and he was trying to get it pulled out. And based on what that uncle was telling me, that Michael wasn't acting out of character, he wasn't acting like he was on something or he was high or he was drunk or under the influence, and so it was just kind of like well, why would he drive his truck, his only vehicle in a pond?
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So, that was kind of a big question mark.
David Lyons:I was going to say that's the biggest question at the point right now.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:But he had enough sense about him that he was trying to get pulled out.
Jennifer Gorley Coffey:So I knew that, you know. And then when I had made my way up to mom's house that day, because my oldest daughter had stayed the night with her that weekend I say stay the night. Well, she stayed the weekend with mom and I picked her up on that Sunday and when I went up there to pick her up those two females were there and they were in the living room telling mom that Michael had drove his truck in the pond. The owner of the house wanted it pulled out, and trying to figure out how they were going to make that happen. And then I'd already knew from my uncle that Michael had been at grandma's and that had told them he had drove the truck in the pond and he was looking for a way to get it pulled out. So I kind of already knew that as well.
David Lyons:Sure, sure, and it smelled like gas, mm-hmm. Could you pinpoint where the smell of the gas was in the truck, or was it just a general In the back of the truck? In the back of the truck, mm-hmm?
Sandra Hasty:Okay, gotcha, it's a 2004 Explorer 2. It's only got two doors.
David Lyons:Mm-hmm.
Sandra Hasty:But it's got a hatchback.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:But see when the two females come. The one female I would not let near the house, okay.
David Lyons:How come?
Sandra Hasty:I told her never come back to my house ever again.
David Lyons:I got you.
Sandra Hasty:So when they knocked on the door, I said what do you want? It's Michael. I said what's wrong? She said well, I need to tell you something. So I let her in. And then this other one comes in. I said who's that? Oh, that's my friend. But I've heard, I had heard you know, michael didn't know this friend.
David Lyons:Okay.
Sandra Hasty:Okay, and so I said, well, I have to ride out there with y'all I guess, which I hated to, because I couldn't stand neither one of them hey, you know there's more to this story, so go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are the murder police podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten.
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Wendy Lyons:Lock it down, Judy.
