The Search For Charlotte Heimann: Part 2

Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Case Uncovered, where we uncover the most compelling and lesser known cases while lifting up the voices of the missing, the murdered, and the family still fighting for answers. I'm Jen Rivera, and today we're continuing our coverage of the disappearance of Charlotte Hyman. Through DNA, professional forensic searches, and independent methods. Charlotte's granddaughter, Shilah, followed evidence that kept pointing back to the same area of land. By the end of that episode, the picture was starting to come together, but direction isn't resolution, because knowing where to look doesn't mean the truth will automatically be acknowledged or acted on. In this episode, we're picking up right where we left off. The land has been cleared, the search has continued, and the findings raised serious questions not just about what may be there, but about how this case has been handled once that information existed. You'll continue to hear directly from Shilah, Charlotte's grandad, as she walks through what happened next, the return to the property, what was found, and what followed after. Because sometimes the most important part of an investigation isn't just what's uncovered, it's what happens after. Once Dutch gave a full set, there was no ambiguity about what that meant for search teams. A full alert signals the possible presence of human remains, and at that point the responsibility shifts because when that kind of a happens, the next steps are no longer optional. There procedural that notification mattered because from that moment on, this wasn't just a family led search. It was a potential crime scene. So after the partial sit and the divining rods reacting, we had to leave. At this point, we didn't have anything else to go off of because the land wasn't clear, so we couldn't get a full hit. Before we left the land, Michael did use the gizmo again, which is the physioelectrical device. Again he used it with Richard akers DNA. He was able to get a hit, a positive reaction right there exactly where K nine Dutch was hitting. Then after that we went back and I gave all of that information to the police. Which Chilotte is describing here is careful, responsible action. Nothing was rushed, nothing was hidden, and nothing was done outside of proper channels. The expectation was simple that law enforcement would take over. Beth and I were in Rochester for the second search. Beth and I were followed by Jimmy Jimmy Shannon. We have video footage of him following us. So we were coming off the I three p ninety onto Ladda Road. There were two left turn lanes. We were in the far right left turn lane and Jimmy was in the left turn lane. There was one car to the left of us, and Jimmy was behind that car. So in the video I started recording as Jimmy purposely was trying to stay behind us. When the light turned green instead of goal of the speed limit and the car that was in front of us went as normal speed. The car in front of him went as normal speed, so he should have been hundreds of feet before us because we slowed down to make sure he would pass us because we didn't want him following us anymore. So then he started driving slow, so it was us driving next to him awkwardly for a moment, and then he sped up and got right in front of Beth and I to make it look like we were following him, and then he had to speed back over to the left lane because it's a double lane on the on Ladder Road, so we were in that right lane. He was in the left lane. He sped towards us, got over, saw a mailman, had to swerve back over to the left lane, speed more and get back over. I don't know if he was trying to intimidate us, but it wasn't really intimidating. We did get it on video. After July fourteenth, there was also a situation that I want to make note of because whether or not people want to agree with this, there are lawsuits going on against Greece police for putting trackers on people's car and following people. So on July fourteenth, at eight fifteen pm, an officer from Greece Police started following Beth and I before the left turn to get on I three ninety. The officer pretended to get on three ninety, and then he proceeded to let one car get between us, and then the officer failed to stop for a beige mini van that was literally broken down in the middle of the road, and he continued to follow us. Instead of stopping to help the civilian, he continued to follow us. So we knew we knew. We were being followed at that point instead of turning right into our hotel because we didn't want anybody to know where we were staying. We also stay in a different hotel every single time for that reason. He followed us all the way to home Depot, where he then turned left and we kept going straight because we figured if we continue to drive straight into Rochester, the actual city, he wouldn't be able to follow us out of his jurisdiction. So that was pretty scary and to make note of that because we saw him follow us, and he followed us for a good two miles, and again it was weird that he didn't even stop for that broken down car. Instead he continued to follow us. We went back to Ohio. On July fourteenth in the middle of the night. The reason we went back in the middle of the night is because after Jimmy had followed us, and after the Greece police had followed us, Beth and I felt very uneasy. We felt that it wasn't honestly safe for us to be in that area because of what we were finding and because of the actions of people around us, so we decided to leave. So we left and drove all the way home nine hours in the middle of the night and got home at four am. I woke up the next. Morning at eight am to a phone call from Captain Bellow and he asked me, you know what had happened. He asked me about the search. I explained to him what we had found, and he asked me to you give him a report. So I gave him the report from Michael after Michael had updated it, because at this point it was only two days after the search and after the partial hit, so we had to wait a couple of days for Michael to type up the report. Michael did it as fast as possible. He was able to get me the report on I think it was July sixteenth, and when he got the report, I sent it to Rochester Police Department and I got a call from Joe Graham as well as an email, a stamped email, time stamped email stating that they had a scheduled meeting with Rochester DA on July seventeenth at ten am. So there was a scheduled meeting to present the case to the DA from what I found. Because the start of what I found in the early July with the DNA and the physioelectrical device and then the partial hit with the dog. On top of that the divining rods. They decided they were going to pursued and move forward and show the DA. But that's not what happened. Instead of securing the scene, law enforcement chose not to excavate, No forensic team was brought in, no ground was disturbed, and no immediate follow up search was conducted. Well, I got a call on July seventeenth from Frank Umbrino yelling at me. He was not very nice, and I have him on recording, yelling at me, and he told me that a partial hit is not worthy enough in the police's eyes to get a search warrant, and that they couldn't in good faith draft a search warrant on the property based on the partial hit. For families who have been through this process, this moment is devastating because an alert like that doesn't happen often, and when it does, it's usually followed by action. After they told me, you know, get the dog on the property and see what the dog does, it still wasn't enough for them, So I was very very frustrated on July seventeenth. To be honest, I'm. Going to be really, really honest, I mentally broke on July seventeenth. I thought that this case was over with. I received the call from Frank Mbrino during a work day. I had just gotten back from a visit back to my agency, and that's when the call came through. So I was sitting in the parking lot at work in an agency car taking the call. And after that call, after him yelling at me, and after him telling me there was nothing else that Rochester Police Department would do or could do for this case, that's when I sat in my parking lot at my agency and I broke down and I cried because at that point I thought it was over. What's important to understand here is that this wasn't a single data point. It wasn't one dog on one day. It was months of work, layered evidence, independent confirmation, and yet the decision was made not to proceed. That decision would have consequences because when evidence isn't acted on in the moment, time doesn't stop. Land changes, conditions change, and opportunities are lost. Now, just because law enforcement chose not to move forward, the search didn't end. It stalled, and for families, that distinction matters, because stall doesn't mean resolved, it means unanswered. With no movement from law enforcement, the only option left was to keep documenting, keep advocating, and prepare for the possibility that if answers were ever going to come, they might not come quickly. So I called my sister and I told her, you know, she needed to get to my house because I wasn't okay and that I was upset and angry and that everything was over. And I let her know that I was going to reveal everything on social media right then and there on July seventeenth, because I was done. I didn't know where we were going to go from here. So my sister told me to calm down. Thankfully for her, I did calm down, and from there she was like, look, what we need to do is like rethink what we're going to do, replan and you know, like if we can get Jake Fabric to give us permission to get on the land again, we can get the land cleared and hopefully the dog can go back out. But pushing forward came with consequences because time doesn't pause while decisions are delayed, and eventually, the opportunity to search the land again would change. So we had been in communication with Jake Fabrie, you know, since July, early July, after July seventh. So on July seventeenth, Jake Fabrie was texting me back and forth. We had some phone communication as well. So we were planning on when he was going to clear the land, how he was going to clear the land, so that the Shannon family didn't know that. He was helping us. I swore to Jake that I would not tell anybody, I would not post about it about going to the land. And I did make a promise to Jake Fabric and I told him that if we did not find anything, that I would publicly apologize to the Shannon family. Okay, this was July seventeenth. So Jake Fabrie sent me a photo on July seventeenth and asked if I knew the person in the photo. I let him know that I did not. The person in the photo had binoculars and a disposable camera in her hands. I asked him who the person was and that I promised that I would not send a person with binoculars or a disposable camera to his house. So he was like, no, I know that you wouldn't I'll call you after work and let you know. So I guess he didn't want to put it in text, which I understand, and he wanted to explain it over the film, so he let me know that her name is Melissa Whitney. He reported to me that Melissa Whitney showed up on the side of the road two years ago to his property and the picture that he had taken of her was right where she had pulled off the side of the road, and he reported to me that he approached her to ask her what she was taking pictures of and why why she was looking at his land back in the woods, and she reported, quote, there's bodies buried on this land and I'm going to prove it. Quote. So police were called, and because Jake was like, what the hell is going on? So Jake called the police, and the police told Jake Fabriy that Melissa Whitney is mentally unstable, which I personally believe is a running motive and a running theme for Rochester Police Department in Greece Police Department to report that anybody that is anywhere near the Shannon family or that property on Long Pond and Jane's Road involved at all anybody thinking that there's something wrong with that property or the people on the property is automatically labeled mentally unstable or unhitched. I want to make this important because I think that the case itself was dismissed and neglected because. Of this. Stigma and this report of mental illness in Charlotte, which also led to the police just now stating everybody is mentally unstable. That goes after the Shannon family, so they reported that Charlotte was mentally unstable, Melissa Whitney's mentally unstable. And now there is a recording of Frank Ambrino telling me personally that I needed to get help. And when I told him, because I was laughing, I said, it's funny that you tell me that I need to get help because I'm looking into something, But you also said that about Melissa Whitney and my grandmother. And then Frank backtracked and he said that he was telling me I needed to get help, coming to the terms with we're never going to solve the case, which also is pretty shitty of Frankumbrino to state, because cases can be solved any point, anytime, and it's proven that cases have been solved over forty years in other cases. So to tell me that the case is never going to be solved and to tell me that I mentally need help is pretty wrong of Frank Gumbrino. I feel. I feel the stigma around mental health in that department is very wrong, uneducated, and it's been that way for decades since my grandmother went missing. That is a important thing that I want noted is all of this, all of the people are mentally unstable when they're alleging this. By October there was still no movement by law enforcement, but of course time didn't stop moving in investigations like this. Timing matters not emotionally practically because land doesn't preserve evidence, it absorbs it. From July seventeenth until October tenth, there was radio silence between me and Rochester Police Department and me and Greece Police Department. The only communication that I had from July seventeenth until October tenth was between Michael Hatzel at Peace River Canine Search and Rescue and Jake Fabriy, the owner of the property. The reason being is we were planning, I don't want to call it planning an attack for the property, but we were planning strategically how to get the canine Dutch back onto the property after the property was cleared and the land was cleared by Jake Fabric so that we could get the full hit on the property. July to October sounds like a really long time, And the explanation from July to October is simply because Michael hadzel had a surgery and he had to recover from the surgery, and he was unable to travel. And I refuse to hire or search for a different K nine search and rescue team for many reasons. One, I trusted Michael. Two, I was not going to sit and let the police state if I brought in another team that I brought in another team because I wasn't supportive of Michael, or didn't think that Michael was correct, or Michael said something that I didn't agree with because that wasn't true. I absolutely wanted to get back on that land right then and there, back in July. I couldn't. I had to respect the fact that Michael had surgery. He also had other searches that were already pre scheduled, and he takes time out of his life to help my grandmother's case. Of course, I'm going to respect the searches that he already had scheduled. So we did not get back onto the property until October ninth. But this was all pre planned. The silence from July to October wasn't because we were lacking evidence, which the police thought. The police thought that I was done. The police thought that I had given up in July, but I didn't. So from July to. October we continued our search of just figuring out all of the pieces and putting all the pieces together and getting our photo evidence and all of the articles and whatnot that we could for the case. And on August twenty fifth, Jake had the land cleared and he had sent me pictures of the land being cleared, so all of the foliage was gone and the land was completely flat. In October we went back to Rochester and we had spoken to Jake and he was not there, unfortunately, but his dad was, so Jake's dad was there for the whole entire search and the dig. So on October ninth we went back to the property and met Jake's dad and he led us back on the property and led the dog, you know, right back to that spot. So then Michael got the dog out of the car and did his thing, and the dog hit. Instantly, we knew the dog was going to hit, and I, well, I thought the dog was going to hit based on the partial hit back in July, and here we are in October and the dog fully hit one. So that was exciting. It was scary. It was a moment of all of the emotions at once because I didn't know that we were going to get this far and I didn't know that we were going to find anything, you know, this far down in the decades. What makes Charlotte Hyman's case especially difficult is that the opportunity was there. Access was granted, evidence alon professional alerts were confirmed. This wasn't a lack of information, it was a lack of action. The dog hit, and then after the hit doctor Vass. So doctor Vass was here for the octoberjig. He has been behind the scenes since May when I got Michael Hatzel involved in the case. He is the forensic anthropologist that works with Michael. He is the one that also created the physioelectrical device. His name is Arepod Vass and there are negative reviews on him on the internet, and there are positive reviews on the Internet, and some people discredit him because there was a really bad article that was written about him. But so doctor Voss came with an October to the dig I met him in person. It was really exciting to have him there to be able to help us with the dig. So after Canine hit, doctor Boss pulled out his physioelectrical device. He again had a new sample from my uncle Richard, just a fresh sample of fingernails and hair. He used it and it hit right where Canine Dutch was sitting. He then used that device and so he could use that device for different elements and chemicals and things like that. So he was putting different elements and chemicals in the device and hitting it towards the area. So it tested positive for titanium, which Charlotte had titanium and her knee from her knee surgery. It continued to test positive for titanium throughout the entire day on October tenth, which means we never got it out of the ground. So he tested for all the chemicals that break down that break you down as a person when you decompose, so identified during the scam of the site. It was positive for Caucasian bone. It was negative for African bone, Hispanic bone, and fresh bone. It was positive for dry bone in minimal amounts, and it was positive for bone ash slash dust which is what the dry bone breaks down to is bone ash, so that is a very very decomposed has been there a long time body. It was also positive for palmic palmitic acid, steric acid, foliac acid, myristic acid, acid, tone, chloroform, styrene, carbon disulfide, dimethyl disulfide, and then it was positive for sulfur dioxide, hexane, carbon techloride, which is specifically a human specific marker, carbon tetra chloride, it's a specific human marker, and the hexane is specific to bone ash, and then tolline. I believe I'm saying that right. That also confirms bone ash which was present. It was also positive for dichlora flora, methane and ethyl benzene, d canal, no null, billy rubin, titanium, and it was negative for lime. So all of those chemicals were positive in the site, which led doctor Voss to believe that a human decomposed there. However, we also pulled out at a paceir. At a pacere is a grave like substance, so when you break down into the soil. So I personally witnessed it. I personally held it in my own hands. It looks like marshmallows, many marshmallows in this in the soil, so there were spots of it. So you break down to atipacere and doctor Voss was pulling it out and pulling out, and we kept pulling it out. But after five hours we couldn't dig any deeper or wider because the ground would have fell through and the excavator would have fell through. So we had to stop after five hours. So we got as much at a pacere and as many of the samples of bonash that we could get, and it was unfortunately not enough to pull human DNA out of it. But that does not negate the fact that all of the chemicals were positive for the human decomp It also doesn't negate the fact that the canine did a full hit and there was positive titanium that we didn't pull out of the soil. On top of that, we needed to go wider to towards the woods area because that is where more the activity was. However, we started farther to the right because of the ground penetrating radar, So the ground penetrating radar picked up a disturbance four to seven feet below the surface. So it was able to show that there was a disturbance four to seven feet. Now you think like, oh, somebody's not going to handbury somebody more than three feet right, Well, you have to think about the land, you have to think about the area, and you have to think about equipment. So this land was right next to a creek. The creek bed was dug out multiple times, okay, so adding feet of dirt on top of it, all of the drying out of the land and flooding of the land over and over again for forty four years, brought feet of They call it sandy loom and silt type type dirt is what they decided on the soil sample, Doctor Boss and Michael so loom. And it's not really a great soil type. So when we started digging the roots that we were digging up, Michael and doctor Voss both looked at them and they said, these roots aren't forty years old. These roots that were standing at two feet down, these are like ten years old, ten years So you have to think about that we two feet down, we were only ten years into tree roots. Okay, we needed to go way deeper, and Michael and doctor Voss both agreed they believe she's about ten feet down because of all of this, so we only got five foot down, and we were finding more of the atipacer and the bonash to the side that we needed to keep digging further, and the titanium kept hitting right there on the side. And on top of all of that, CA nine Dutch was used throughout the whole dig, and he kept alerting to the soil we were pulling out the atipacer, that we were pulling out the bone ash, and kept sitting on the pile of dirt that we kept pulling out with the excavator. So all of those things lead us to believe that we need to go back and we need to dig more. I do want to back up before the dig. After we got all those positive chemicals and hits, Michael and us, we met as a team and asked Jake Fabric's dad, you know, like, can we move forward with the dig? While Jake said that if the dog sat that we were given permission to dig. So I paid out of my own pocket five hundred dollars for an excavator, so we went to home depot. We picked up the excavator. We had some technical difficulties with the excavator because the technician there couldn't get one of the lights to work, so they had to give me a different excavator. That excavator ended up having a claw, which was not useful in digs. If anybody knows anything about digs, you're supposed to have a flat blade. We had to work with what we had. We had to work with that day. That's all we had. I wasn't gonna say no dig because we had a claw versus a smooth blade. So we went with the claw and we brought it back to the property and Jake's dad ran that excavator for five hours. So I have five hours ago pro footage. I have five hours of bodycam footage, all the recordings of the voices and all of the things that we found for five hours. But after five hours they called it quits. There was nothing more we could do at that point. We had to not give up, but we had we had to end the search. So after that, before the dig, I actually called Greece Police Department and Rochester Police Department. I did not let them know I was coming until I was physically on the property and the excavator was in the background. I then called them with the excavator beeping in the background and said, I am currently at the property of ten forty James Robe. I was given permission to search the property and we are now digging because a full hit from the K nine was positive. If you guys would like to join us, you can come join us. We will be here all day. Greece Police Department did not show up. Rochester Police Department did not show up. They didn't send a patrol car, they didn't send a detective, they didn't send anybody to represent either of their departments to make sure we were doing everything all right, to make sure we weren't doing anything wrong. Nothing. It was all on us, and they had that opportunity to show up at any point. So after the dig, we brought all of the evidence back to the police, of course, and I demanded a search warrant, and I demanded that they go out there and dig further because at that point, I how much more evidence did they need to get back on there? Like really was? That's my question. So at this point, after we got the dig and after we got the positive hit with the K nine, it was back to being Greece Police's case. So now let's push back to Rochester Police Department or push from Rochester Police Department back to Greece. So then my point of contact was Sergeant Dill and Detective de Marco as of October, so they were working the case with me, and they took the report from the dig and all of the findings that we had, and they took it to the medical examiner in Monroe County and they told me that because of the science that I used and the technology that I used is so fresh, that they needed to correspond with other doctors and forensic anthropologists to back the science on the physioelectrical device. So I was like, fine, whatever, I'll give you time for that. So then a couple of days go by and they said that they were still waiting on the medical examiner. So I then was like, what are you waiting on for the medical examiner? And they're like, he needs to look over this and talk with his colleagues about the science that you used, and I said, okay, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure it out. So then I personally called the Monroe County Medical Examiner myself and spoke with him. He told me on October twenty eighth, he told me that we were not waiting on him, and in fact that he had already told he had already told Monroe County back up, the Monroe County Medical Examiner had already told Greece Police Department that there was nothing he could do based on that report because there's no body. There's there's not a body to like examine, right, Okay, we have Bonash, we have atapics here. That's not a body. So he was like, I don't know what Greece Police expects out of me, but I'm done with my report. So then I called. This was October twenty eighth. I call Sergeant Dill and Detective to Marco and left them a voicemail letting them know that I was pretty frustrated that we waited an extra week and a half for this so called review of the report, and here we are, the medical examiner saying that the hold up wasn't him. So October twenty ninth, I get a call from Detective to Marco because Sergeant Joe was out of the office. Of course, just so happened to be out of the office the rest of the week. So DeMarco calls me and says, hey, I just wanted to let you know that we got approval from New York State to bring two k nines from New York's and run on the property. And I was like, weird, that's weird that that happened. The day after, I called the medical examiner and asked him what the hold up was, and then all of a sudden, you have permission to run to state dogs, okay. And then he backtracked and he was like, this has been in the works for a while. It just takes a while to get things approved. I do understand that with the government, but it doesn't add up. So it seemed like I made that call, I called their bluff and then they took action without a plan. Really, So October twenty ninth, he said, well, we're going out there with New York State in an hour. And I said, well, that's great for you to tell me that this was in the works, knowing I'm nine hours away and I can't physically be there. I said, are you guys wearing body cameras? Detective DeMarco told me that they don't wear body cameras, but he thinks that the state boys should have body cameras on. He thinks, but he doesn't wear body camera And I said, DeMarco, you know why I'm asking you this. You know I don't trust you guys, and I have distrust with the system right now because of how they handled her case. I told DeMarco that it's not personal against him, but I said, look, you know that why I have distrust and you have to understand it. And he said, no, I get it. And I said, you're the one, DeMarco that told me that this should be a Netflix series. And he said, I still think it should be a Netflix series. So DeMarco was like, Okay, well we'll be out there in an hour. And I said, fine, I'll have somebody on the sidewalk. Bet is what I said. And then he was like he was like, Shilah, don't have anybody out on the sidewalk. You don't want to piss off the New York State Police. And I said, well, I mean, like I would like to be there to make sure you guys don't lie to me. So then I was like, fine, I won't have the media there, but I'm going to have somebody there on the sidewalk. So I called my cousin Phil that lives in Rochester, and I said, Phil, within the hour, New York State Police is going to the property. I need you to get there, and I need you to record the whole situation. So Phil said on it. He gets to the sidewalk and he confirms. Phil confirmed that the police were out there. I was told by Detective DeMarco quote that it was going to be a covert, a covert plan of action to get to the property so that the Shannon family did not know that the state dogs were out there. That is what I was told by Detective de Marco, and that is what Jake Fabri was told by the police too, And that is why Jake Fabri gave the State police permission to go on his property again, to run the state dogs as long as they stayed quiet and as long as it didn't look like he was helping the investigation, because in the end, he has to live next to these people whether so. Back in July, Jake told me, he said, reason I'm giving you permission to get on my property is because if he is a murderer, I don't want myself or my kids living next to him for the rest of our lives. And if he's not a murderer, I have to live next to him for the rest of my life, knowing that I helped he knowing that I helped you solve or look into him as an alleged murderer, then I have to live next to him. So I understood Jake's position. Well. I get a call from Jake, and I get a text from Jake, and I get a call from my cousin Phil. The police didn't go in quiet. They came in with lights on stape, like marked marked vehicles, not unmarked vehicles. There was only one unmarked vehicle. The rest had Greece Police on them, had lights flashing. It was not a secret in the neighborhood that the police were searching the land. So they were out there for about forty five minutes, and all I can come firm is that they did in fact go to the property. So I get a call not from detective to Marco. I get a call from the Captain of Greece an hour after they went out there, and he calls me and tells me there's nothing more that we can do for you. Neither one of the state dogs hit. And I said, what you're telling me? Neither of the state dogs hit And he said, nope, neither of them. There's not a scent of human human bodies. And I said, okay, sir, are you gonna let me see that bodycam footage? The answer was no, They're not going to let me see the bodycam footage to show me and to shut me up and to end my investigation that they did that the state dogs didn't hit, because I truly believe that they had the dogs to go out there, and I truly believe the dogs did hit, and I truly believe that they are covering it up. Again, this is my perspective on how are things, how things are unfolding. But they won't give me or let me even come view the footage of the dogs not hitting. You would think that with them knowing the publicity that I'm getting on the case, and with them knowing that I'm very vocal about this case, that they would let me see the footage to stop my investigation, to stop me from moving forward or progressing or whatnot. Nothing. So October twenty ninth, they called and said, there's nothing more they can do for me. It's what grease police. So that was the end of that. The forty four year anniversary of Charlotte going missing was the next day, the very next day. The audacity of them to and I swear they could have There's no way that that was the end all date that had to happen. The dog had to go out the day before Charlotte's anniversary, no way. I think they did it to prove a point, and they sure did prove a point. So on October thirtieth, on her forty four year anniversary, the day that I was hoping to talk about all the progress that we made on the case and how far we had come and all the good things about Charlotte and reminiscing. Instead I was in a depressed state where I barely even wanted to talk about her anniversary. I wanted to post so much about her anniversary and a long post about her story, and I didn't even get to that point. I posted like maybe a thirty second video of recording of myself, just so people knew that, Yeah, I'm aware that it's her forty four year anniversary, but I was pretty depressed because of the negligence and how far we've come and to top the cherry. Not a single investigator, detective, pr guy, anybody involved from Rochester Police or Greece Police. None of them called on the day of her anniversary. Did I expect them. To call every year for forty four years, No, and they haven't. But I did expect them to call this year, knowing that this case blew up, knowing that the day before they sent New York State dogs to the property, I thought they would at least call and say, hey, we're thinking of you today. Hey, we're sorry that we can't move forward. We're thinking of you. Nothing. Not a single call from any of them since October twenty ninth. I received one single phone call. On November fourth, I received a phone call from Joe Graham, the homicide detective from Rochester Police Department, because after Greece decided to back out again, they pushed the case back to Rochester Police Department. They state, this case is going to continue to be an active cold case over at Rochester Police Department, but Greece Police is closing out their case involving this property. So on eleven four, November fourth, I get a call from Joe Graham, and I also have this on recording. He's telling me that Rochester Police Department interviewed my grandfather, Raymond Shannon. So they went out and interviewed the man, and the first thing Joe Graham had to tell me was he didn't want a lawyer. He wanted to talk a lot. He was super nice and inviting and he was a very genuine guy. So he started out the conversation with all of the good things about Raymond Shannon, which automatically, you know, okay, slap the not a suspect on his forehead already. So Joe Graham told me that went out and talked to Raymond, and Raymond admitted that he worked in a bunch of bars, in a bunch of nightclubs in the seventies and eighties, and that he was very prominent, and he also was very known to take women home. He told the investigators that he would take women home, sometimes women that he didn't even know their name. He stated to the investigators that he saw a picture of my grandmother via Facebook on one of my posts. He recalls that, or he does not recall the picture looking familiar to him. Charlotte does not look familiar. But he did confirm and tell investigators that he could be my grandfather because he slept with a lot of women in the eighties and he brought a lot of women that he knew and did not know home. So after that, Joseph Graham said, since he admitted that he could would be your grandfather and that he did work in clubs and does not have a criminal record, he's not a suspect. We have nothing to go on to prove that your grandfather murdered your grandmother. Again, I allegedly believed that he murdered my grandmother. Back in July. When I met with Joseph Graham, Rochester Police Department ended up telling me the man that came looking for her the day on or about the time she disappeared at Rochester Psychiatric Hospital was found. Supposedly, he was identified and Rochester Police Department claimed that they interviewed him, and they claim that he's also not a suspect because they claim that the man admitted that he came to the psychiatric hospital looking for my grandmother so that he could bum some money off of her to go buy drugs because he was a drug addict. So Rochester Police deemed him. Now in twenty twenty five not a suspect because although he was involved in drugs and my grandmother in nineteen eighty one, he has no criminal records since, so they're basing this all on nobody with criminal records since the eighties could be deemed a suspect. So on November fourth, Joseph Graham told me there was nothing more that they could do for me, and that it's done. We're done with everything. So that's where I'm at. Charlotte Hyman's case is not closed, and it shouldn't be. What remains as evidence that pointed somewhere specific, a search that confirmed it mattered, and a family that did everything right. What remains now is the truth waiting to be acknowledged and the reminder that time should never be allowed to outrun responsibility. Charlotte's story deserves more than silence, and her family deserves more than unanswered questions. We have to continue the fight and sharing the story, or else the people that know something will continue to forget or to be honest, they're dying off. I mean, we're talking about people in their seventies now, So that's an issue that we're dealing with and why it's so important to keep chugging along because people are dying. So my next step I do want to add. So what frustrates me is my Grandma's case. Yeah, has a lot of blanks and a lot of unknowns, but my Grandma's case still matters, just like all the other cold cases that they've chose to solve. I am a very big advocate and I am so so very happy that these families were able to get justice. Speaking of Wendy Jerome and the other ones in Rochester, my issue and my frustration is that investigator Seth Carr has chosen which cold case is to work on and which he has enough evidence to win something or to complete his victory, but does not work on the cases that he believes is ever going to be solved or has a lack of evidence. And he had stated that there's nothing to go on. But then when you look at his pot or listen to his podcast, when you listen to all of the episodes that Seth Carr is on, you can hear how he talks about what's the first step in an investigation. His answer is you start at the beginning. Why didn't he start at the beginning on my Grandma's case? When he overlooked the case back in April when we had communication. Why was he so hesitant? Why was he so defensive with me when he's been working on all these other cold cases and solving them and getting on podcasts and getting on But why not my grandma's case, like she's important as well. So I think that that's frustrating to me, is that he picks and chooses what cases to solve based on the evidence that is available. But jumping back to your question, what's next, So this may sound super odd because this is bizarre to me as well. So when we went back in October to do the dig, the day after the dig, my great grandmother, Sylvia Hyman passed away. Sylvia Hymen is Ralph Hyman's wife, which Ralph Hyman is Charlotte's dad. He's ninety four years old. So we were in Rochester and we did the dig, and unfortunately she had COVID and she died the day after the dig. Well, I came back to Rochester on the October twenty second and twenty third for her funeral, And while I was there, I met so many family members that I didn't know existed on the Hymen's side of the family, like my great grandfather's ninety four, so like he is so sad about Charlotte's case, he doesn't talk about it that often. So I get to this funeral and I was amazed. So I knew nobody there except for my great grandfather, and all these people were coming up to me and they're like, are you really looking in Charlotte's case? And I was like, yeah, who are you? And like, obviously these are all Charlotte's family, her cousins like that grew up side by side with Charlotte until she went missing. I finally met them. I didn't know where they were, who they were, you know, if they were still around. So one of them, her name's Beth Dunn, she came up to me and she is a cousin and she said, I had no idea you were looking into this case. And you want to know how I found out. And I said how, She said, because I searched the word Sylvia Hymen's obituary for Sylvia, my great grandma that died. I searched just her obituary and all of the stuff for Charlotte popped up. That is the only reason I know that you're looking into the case. Obviously that was big to me because not that oh my gosh, like Sylvia, you died and now the family knows about the case. It's you know, but that is kind of powerful to me that, like I didn't know this family, and Sylvia's funeral brought us together. Also, this is a huge, huge success. I feel that's gonna be helpful in the case I met Ferris Hyman. So little did Rochester, New York know the Hymend family. The it's spelled h ei M A n N. Okay, there's two ends. Well, little did anybody know that my great my great grandfather Ralph, his brother Elmer, decided to drop one of the ends because he thought it sounded too German, so he only had one end instead of two. Okay, So nobody associated this family with Charlotte because Charlotte has two ends and this Hymen, the other Hymen, only has one. So nobody thought that we were the same family line. Turns out my grandma Charlotte's cousin, Ferris Hyman was the Monroe County Sheriff Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, Rochester, Greece, Monroe County Sheriff. He retired recently, but he was the sheriff. But I did all of that without my family that's involved in law enforcement. So like, I'm proud of myself for getting there, and now I'm sending him all of my evidence. He's going over all of my investigation. He's remaking the foil requests that I'm not a professional foil requester, and these they know what words they need, and they will deny your foil requests based on the silliest things. You have to be specific and know what you're asking for or else you're not going to get it. So my foiler request was denied. Ferris is making new foil requests, So part of moving forward is we're hopeful that one of these foiler requests will go through and we can get more evidence. As we close out this update on Charlotte Hyman's case, it's important to take a moment to acknowledge what it has taken to get here. What you've heard over these two episodes is not just an investigation. It's the reality of what families are often forced to carry when answers don't come easily. For Shilah, this has meant months of research, professional searches, difficult conversations, resistance, and the emotional weight of realizing that even when evidence points somewhere clearly, action isn't always guaranteed. She did what families are told to do. She followed the evidence, She involved professionals, she contacted law enforcement, and she kept going even when the process became exhausting, frustrating, and uncertain. What stands out most is that this isn't just about closure for Shilah. It's about truth. It's about accountability. It's about making sure her grandmother's disappearance is not dismissed simply because time has passed, and it's about continuing to fight, not just for Charlotte, but for every family who has been left navigating a system that too often moves too slowly or not at all. This is not the end of Charlotte Hymen's story, and it's not the end of Shila's fight. If you have any information related to Charlotte Hymen's disappearance, no matter how small it may seem, you are encouraged to contact the Rochester Police Apartment at five eight five four two eight six, five nine to five. You can also find additional information about Charlotte's case through the Charlie Project, which provides a detailed overview of her disappearance and remains an important source for missing persons cases. I'll make sure to leave all of the links in the show notes below Before we close today's episode, I also want to take a moment to share a bit about the Reignited Project. That's the nonprofit I've founded to help families like Charlotte's. Starting in January, the Reignited Project will be expanding its work in advocacy, education, and support for families navigating the aftermath of trauma, loss, and unanswered questions. We'll be announcing new partnerships, rolling out updated resources, and launching volunteer and family support forms for those who need assistance or want to get involved. If you'd like to learn more, support our work or stay updated, you can visit the Reignited Project dot com. Our site is currently being updated, with more resources becoming available in the coming weeks. You can also learn more about my work, this podcast, and my other projects by visiting Jenrivera investigates dot com, and make sure to connect with me on social media. You can find me at gen Rivera Investigates on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Thank you so much for being here today and for caring about cases like Charlotte's. Until next time, stay curious, stay vigilant, and stay safe out there. Fire Eyes media