No.
MHS, where real education meets real life. I'm your host, Randy Hubbard, an instructor of Cold Case
MHS with my co-host Ashlyn, and we thank you for listening.
So, welcome back to Cold Case MHS. One of the things that I wanted to do coming into this next
year is bring back some of our alumni who have taken the class and to see what their perspective
was on the class. Our guest, Matthew Poe T. Hello, I am Matthew Poe T. I graduated in 2020, took the
class in the years of 2019 and 2020, and I am excited to be back. So, when you first heard about
the Cold Case class, and I'm going to be honest, Matthew's one of the ones that when I came up
with the idea, kind of went to him right away and said, hey, if I do this, you're going to be in the
class, right? And kind of twisted his arm just a bit. I wanted to know, what did you think about
it when you heard that we were going to have class like this? Well, my first thought was, absolutely,
yeah, let's do it. That was a really great idea, obviously, with my background, my dad being in
the police force. That first year in forensics was a blast for me. You and I bonded really well,
and you know that I have a passion for this kind of stuff. So, when you brought it up, what a way
to go out and sing your dear to start something new for this school. When the idea came up and was
brought up to me, I was all for it. I was excited to start something that I thought was going to
last a while here at MHS, and it looks like it has. I have a hard time calling it a class, because
I don't really think it's a class. I don't stand up and lecture and do all that kind of stuff.
I think it's more of an experience. Coming into it, you and I had talked about how it's not really
going to be a class. Yes, by school rules, you have to get a grade at the end of the year, but that's
never what matters. I mean, if you show up and you do the work, it's truly about the experience,
like you said. Not a lot of high schools have been able to do something that we're doing here at
MHS, especially with this class. You're going to learn life lessons. My experience coming into the
class that first semester when we were just investigating really, really old, popular cold
cases. That was just kind of our first experience with cold cases. Getting our feet under us,
getting a good foundation as to what we're going to be doing. That first semester was really eye
opening. Even from that first semester, you started building those skills of talking to people in
real life. That idea that there's life outside of school. There's life outside of high school,
outside of the city that you live in. For most of your life, usually. It was a really cool experience.
I mean, we made that connection to Angelina Hartman from Inside Crime. She's on national television
doing national news on this stuff. She connected with us. We were working on a case together.
You don't get that kind of experience anywhere else besides somewhere like this. Being able to
be in a high school classroom, but be doing stuff out in the real world at the same time, talking to
real people who know nothing about you, nothing about what you're doing until you tell them about
it. It's a weird high school experience that is going to mature you quickly and build life skills
that are going to last you a lifetime. I know one of the things that Matthew's group did is they were
able to talk to a lot of experts, but even talk to an FBI agent. His experience was one where he
got to speak to a lot of people in the field. That, to me, was a very big learning experience.
One of the big things that I think I want people to get out of this class though is that you're
talking about real life, real families, real trauma. How did that affect you? When we started
getting into our case, the case of Karen Spencer, that's when things started to get personal and
emotional. That one hit close to home for me because my dad actually went to high school
with Karen Spencer. Speaking to, I mean, we got in contact with the FBI agent, which was super,
super cool. Got to speak with Detective Bischoff from the Newtown Police Department. That was
personal attention from me, but we also got to talk to Karen Spencer's parents, Karen Spencer's
friends, Karen Spencer's siblings. Everyone that was blood or as close to blood as you can get to
her, that knew her inside and out, you got to talk to them and understand the raw emotion and the
effects that it had on them personally. And you can't help but sit there and feel for them and
feel some of what they're feeling. You're never going to feel exactly what they feel, even if the
same thing happens to you, you're going to feel different than they do about their situation.
But being able to talk to them, the things they said, how they say things, the emotion you can
hear all over the phone, the emotion you can see on their face if you're on the Zoom call or FaceTime
call. Like I said, you can't help but sit there, not feel for them and want to do as much as you
possibly can to help them in any way, shape or form. Even though you go into these things,
there's a 99.9% chance you are going to come no closer than the police did originally to finding
whoever did this horrible act. But just the fact that you were there trying to help them, and if
you can find any small amount of new information that can lead anybody else down the right path,
they're thankful. One of the things that I also want to do is have our alumni answer questions from
someone that's going to come into class. And those of you that'll listen to our podcast,
Ashley, my co-host, is coming into the class this year. I was going to have you ask him some
questions about what you think you need for this class, what you should expect from it.
Thanks. Okay, putting me on the spot. But I guess just kind of like thinking it through,
I just wanted to ask personally what was like a day in the life of the class, because I know
it's different now, obviously. We were talking about it before. I mean, you've changed the
fabric of the class over the years anyways. But what was your experience? A day in the life, gosh,
we, I was early in the morning. So you came in and kind of started to wake up, had your coffee,
and you were like, all right, gotta get my brain moving. But those first couple days, you know,
you're getting your feet under you. But once you get going, you come in, you and your group usually
just hit the ground running. You guys know each other by now. You're in your group. You
know how each other work, you know what each other's doing. So you walk in and there's normally not
a whole lot of talking that happens. It is usually just you hear keyboards, or you hear
paper shuffling. You really just get down to work. And you know, he might have something to say,
here and there, he might have announcements, he might do something else going on. He might talk
to another group about what they're doing, say, you can help. But really, it is you come in and
you get to work. And if something comes up, you get to talk about it with your group. If nothing
comes up that day at all, and you sit there silently searching the internet for an hour and a half the
entire day, that's still a productive day because you were doing something that you were trying your
best. There are other days where you come in and you are excited because you get to call someone
very important to this case that is probably going to give you some cool information that you
haven't learned yet. You get to have that phone call. And afterwards you come back in, you get to
share all the information that you learned with him, you get it, and then you start and you are
typing as fast as you possibly can on your computer new ideas and new information. By the time you're
a fourth of the way through everything that you're thinking, that bell is ringing and you got to go
to your next class. It's a rush some days and it is slow some days, but ultimately the entire
experience on a day-to-day basis is a really, really nice break from your regular high school day.
That's also one of the most exciting parts of your day because you know that you get to go do
something you love and even if it is slow, even if it you haven't found the information in a week,
that feeling of this could be the day keeps you going the whole time.
Wow, well I wasn't expecting that much of an answer and I don't even know what to say back to that.
I know we were talking about life experiences before and how you were saying you had a lot out
of the class things that you can use outside, outside world kind of stuff. What are skills that
you took away from the class that you weren't expecting to? I'm sure you've run into this before.
I'm sure you've dealt with them. You don't have this fear. If you have a dentist appointment and you
get a cancel, your parents will get you and say, call and cancel. You sit there and put it off for
days before you actually have to call and cancel because it's a day before you're put and then
everyone's going to be mad at you. Having to call someone that has a badge, that has security
clearance, that has someone in their life that has tried to get passed away before, that's terrifying
when that phone rings. Being able to just pick up a phone nowadays and call someone and talk to them
or get the information that you need out of them or give them information that they didn't know
they needed is an amazing skill. Calling people, being able to hear their voice and let them hear
your voice is a skill that is lost in my opinion. This class is going to force you to do that.
You have to call them. That is honestly the biggest life skill that I learned throughout this
class. That's kind of the idea behind this is that you get out of it what you put into it. One thing
that I agree with is that we have lost that ability to communicate. The whole premise of this case
was based on the fact that Evan Fletcher and I had to do that and we had never done this before
either. Now I have called people to do that but not in this situation so it is it is scary.
All they can do is tell you now. Well I appreciate this and we do have a story that we're going to get into.
What my sister was to me, she was the oldest. I'm the youngest of five. She was the oldest so she
was and my mother was a single mother at the time so she was a more of a parent figure in my life.
She was great as far as I'm concerned. I only knew her for a fraction of my life. I really would
like to know what she would be like to me. My sister was she was a big influence on me. She was
really open-minded. She was way ahead of her time, very progressive. It kind of molded a lot of my
views in my life. Like I said, very open-minded. She was responsible for you know she was you know
typical young adult. She screwed up things here and there but she was very responsible,
looked out for her family, was compensating for you know lack of our father figure.
She took she paid for karate lessons for Paul. She was always trying to pay for like
art lessons for me. She was trying to be nurturing and she's very into art and music. Very kind-hearted,
loving, was friends with everybody. I could say she was protective of us and all that stuff you
hear about her is not my property. It's all 100% true. Those are the voices of three brothers who
lost their role model way too early. They've been robbed of memories they never were able to create
with their beloved sister Liz. Her free spirit was released from its earthly bonds as she rode
her bike into the shadows of that dark foggy night. It's the early 90s and life was about
having a good time and hanging out with family. As it was the height of cultural dance, clubs were
very popular and it's considered the decade of pop culture, peace, and prosperity. For Elizabeth
Falco, these made up her life. She was an advocate for women's rights and supporting her brother's
educations. Elizabeth Falco had plans to go out with her brother and some mutual friends to the
bank nightclub on September 14th 1990. Later that night, Liz was last seen leaving the bank on her
bike. Two months later on November 14th 1990, a man walking his dog came across Liz's body in the
Tuna Cummarsh next to the Philadelphia airport. Liz was born June 12th 1965 in Syracuse, New York.
Her family later made their home in Cherry Hill, New Jersey where she graduated high school.
Everyone who knew Liz described her as an extremely compassionate and caring woman. Throughout her life,
she showed people that she would do anything for those she cared about. After graduating high school,
she spent time in New York City. She moved to Philadelphia to receive her education at the
Political College. While attending the university, she worked as a secretary at Dicton-born Law Firm.
In her personal life, she had many friends. She was known for being trusting and seeing the best in
people. At the time, she was dating Chris Bender. They had moved them together along with two other
friends. She spent weekends going to whatever club was popular at the time.
Our help was sought out by one of her childhood friends. After more than 30 years of her case
being open without movement, she was searching for alternative routes of investigation.
She sent us snooze papers and the autopsy report. I think that things like this are what makes
this class so important and so valuable because obviously her friend was looking for ways to get
the story out. And I think that this class and this podcast being a new experience that gets out to
a wider variety of people through crime podcast listeners was just obviously a huge group of
people. I think it's just really important that we're there to get the information out in a different
way. Also, it's really important to think about how her as a friend, that information that she's
trying to get out, it's invaluable to bring up these cases again to get them to the forefront of
people's minds again because like it was talked about later, these departments get busy. People,
things get overlooked, medical examiners, they have so much to do. So I think that it's really
important to bring up these old cases and bring them back to people's minds.
Newspapers noted how she took care of her brothers. We did our own initial research over who she was
and we found that she was a confident young woman whose life was taken far too early.
Liz would save up money to pay for her brother's education as she worked as a secretary at the
law firm. She was kindhearted and determined. One of the main reasons cases like these go cold is
because they go overlooked. Police departments become overwhelmed with crime in the area and the
unsolved homicide of Elizabeth is the result of this. The autopsy report stated that the cause of
death was inconclusive. She was found by a man simply walking his dog in the marsh. Her body
was covered by a green plastic bag. The only things she was wearing were her t-shirt which was
pulled over her head and socks and shoes. The report noted that she had strangulation marks.
Unfortunately at the time she was found her body had decayed to a point where it was difficult to
determine the cause of death. So from the location of her body being in the marsh, being somewhere
just outside the city, the clothing that was on her body and the fact that she was covered up by a
plastic bag, what does that tell you about our killer? I think just right off the bat information
wise we can say like the intent of the killer was to not have her be found because me and Mr.
Harp were unfamiliar with what a marsh was. I mean my idea of it was not what it is at all. So we
kind of researched more into that and basically in simple terms it's just a grassy area with a
bunch of water. This place in specific had a boardwalk going through it I'd say. It's like a pathway
it was just wood but from there you could see how vast the area actually was. We didn't really have
information on where exactly her body was found we just knew it was found there just based on like
what the location looked like. You could say that obviously she wasn't intended to be found or her
killer was experienced enough to know that this area would be hard to find her because they did
say that she was extremely decomposed when they did find her which means that she was out there for
a while. We could also say that it was personal just based on the way she was found also she was
sexually assaulted basically her clothes were found. Yeah I agree I definitely think it was
personal based on you know her shirt being pulled over her face like that. When a personal
murder is committed like this the aftermath the killer looking at the victim usually doesn't like
the the initial thought of what they just did so in order to cope with that you know turning the
body over or putting something over their face it makes it less personal to them. Her not having
many clothes on as well does suggest sexual assault at the very least it suggests a struggle or that
the killer knew what they were doing enough to remove enough clothes to remove evidence. Like
you said where she was found definitely didn't want to have the body found whoever did this. I
don't know if we have gotten to the part where it says that it was suggested that she was strangled
but the the mode of killing someone by strangulation was almost always there. I would say one thing
that's strange to me is the garbage bag. Yes the crime itself does seem personal but the garbage
bag almost makes me want to think that they did that on purpose to kind of embarrass her as if she
was a piece of garbage which I think is a shame. As medical examiners are overworked and overwhelmed
it results in situations like Lisbets. The reports note that they had lost a bullet in processing.
How does that even happen? As I said it must have been because Philadelphia at the time had a record
high of 500 homicides meaning that the ME must have had loads of other cases. They were trying
to process many other cases at the same time and things ended up missing though it shouldn't have
happened. So one of the big things that we talk about in forensic science is this particular
situation. The ME even though they might be busy and they have a lot of cases they really have to
focus on all the evidence that they collect from the body and in this particular case they said
they lost it. Why is that such a problem and what are they supposed to do to make sure that doesn't
happen? So basically what they're supposed to do is they keep a document and it's called a chain of
custody which basically tells who took what, when they took it, why they took it, what they learned
from it. It's supposed to just kind of keep track of the important information and evidence and
obviously that was overlooked in this situation because losing something obviously means that it
wasn't documented. Why is that so important? Obviously so that you don't lose stuff. Knowing who
lost whenever it had gone missing that means that either they misplaced it and it is on them
or someone didn't fill out a form and took it without telling anyone. Kind of big thing is if
they do find a suspect that's one of the first things the defense team's going to look at is
what happened to the chain of custody and where did this piece of evidence go because if that one's
lost what do we really know about the other piece of evidence?
We talked to the friend who shared the case with us, hopeful that someone would be able to further
the case along since she had contacted cold case services. She told us about Elizabeth's life at
the time for passing. Her boyfriend Chris Bender who has since passed seemed to place her in the
wrong crowd. Bender was much older than Elizabeth. While she was working to support her siblings in
any way she could, Bender was a supposed professional skateboarder. Elizabeth was responsible but at the
time of her passing she had been influenced into doing drugs such as cocaine. She was hanging out
with the friends of her boyfriend. Okay so this is as a parent when you talk to your kids about
you gotta be careful that you hang with even when you get older and Chris seems to be somebody that
was probably not in the best interest of this. I mean the fact that his career is being a skateboarder,
I mean as much as like now in modern times that could be wonderful but like you have to think
about the time period here and like that wasn't really considered a career and also we were thinking
about since it's not considered a career how is he making the money to support this drug habit
that he has. So I mean we theorized that Liz is obviously a successful woman working at a law firm
so we just kind of theorized that maybe Liz there's a support system for him to support his drug
habit aka using her money to kind of feed into bonding and stuff like that. There was one man
that was also much older than Elizabeth. He went by an alias and was noted as suspicious by her friend.
She also mentioned that the last time Elizabeth was seen was riding her bike down the street early
in the morning. We needed to know more about this story so we searched for her family. Surprisingly
there is a plethora of Falcos in the New Jersey area. We eventually found them through social media
and reached out to the artist brother Mike Falco. He told us a large part of the story we had been
missing that he was supposed to go out with Elizabeth that night. That this was a weekly thing.
They went to whatever club was popular at the time however that particular night he had fallen asleep
he didn't go to the bank nightclub the night he went missing. Quote on this day 30 years ago I last
saw my sister Liz. It was a normal Thursday afternoon she lived in Philly but was at the family home
for a bit that day. We made plans to meet at the bank nightclub later that night. I ended up falling
asleep and did not meet her like we planned which had happened on other occasions so it was no biggie.
Well that time it was a biggie. I am not blaming myself for anything but I often wonder if things
might be different if I did meet her that night as planned. No one had seen heard or been in any
contact with her for a couple of days which was extremely rare. It became excruciating as the
days turned into weeks then in the months. After that amount of time it appeared she was not coming
back. Her body was discovered confirming what no one wanted to believe. She was not coming back.
Everyone just hoped that she'd just show up or be on the other line when you picked up a phone
call but unfortunately she was gone. Anyone who knew Liz would tell you how sweet, smart,
pretty, kind and caring of a person she was. I miss her dearly and wish she was here now.
Mom would be so happy to have her here and I know my brothers have the same feeling I do for Liz.
She would have been the best aunt to her nieces and nephews. I'm sure the cool aunt.
Making sure she was a big part of their lives. Loving them, spoiling them but more importantly
teaching them caring and goodness towards others. They would love having her with them
but probably not as much as she would have wanted to be there for them. I honestly think many people's
lives would be different in a good way if Liz was still here. Many other people would still be here
if she was. The pain of days is as fresh as the day she was taken from us 30 years ago.
I love and miss you dearly, Liz." Talking to him we found out that in the original investigation
it was suspected that Elizabeth was on her way to visit her cocaine dealer the night she went missing.
The idea was that her dealer had wanted something other than money in return. She refused and in
the heat of the moment her dealer had killed her. Her boyfriend may have been involved in disposing
her body in the marsh. The police had originally investigated the boyfriend and so did we.
We asked the eldest brother if we could set up a meeting with the rest of Elizabeth's siblings.
We think it's important to understand how everybody feels about the case and what they know from it.
Elizabeth's youngest brother was 13 and the others were not much older than that. They
unfortunately didn't get to experience growing up with her and having her involved in their
lives as much as they should have. But what they do remember is how caring she was, how she loved
to dance and listen to music, how she always did what she wanted and how she would stand up for what
she believed in. Her brothers had known about Chris Bender. He was much older than Elizabeth.
The eldest saw him as a want-to-be-cool guy. He had Elizabeth involved in drugs but she was
responsible and never became an addict. She knew that she had to save her money for more important
things like taking care of her younger brothers. Bender was the type of guy that was just always
there. The relationship wasn't the strongest but it also was on the brink of ending. They were
living together but it just so happens that they were. The situation was more of Elizabeth living
with a couple of other friends. After Elizabeth's death, Bender went on to become an addict and
abused narcotics. He was known for doing drugs and wandering the streets at night.
So the unusual thing that I heard in there was that she did drugs but was responsible enough
not to be an addict. Usually when people do drugs it is just common knowledge that they are a drug
addict. Just never really heard of that you do drugs but you're not an addict. Why was she doing
the drugs in the first place? Was it trying to fit in? Was it something else personal, health related?
Was there money behind it? You know, what was her reason?
So that just kind of goes back to Liz's relationship with Chris. Obviously like her friend group
included him so we just kind of theorized that the whole friend group was just like they hung out
and they did drugs like they partied. We thought that maybe while Liz was alive she kind of watched
over Chris and watched over his drug use and kind of like kept him from going overboard on his drugs
and so once she passed he just kind of fell off the deep end fell into the drugs and just
didn't turn back. This unfortunately got him killed a few years ago walking through an expressway
Bender hadn't been hit by an off-duty police officer. After speaking with the rest of her
run-ins we agreed that Chris was not solely responsible for her death.
In hopes of gaining information from the original investigation we attempted to file a FOIA.
Most cases we work on in the course attempt to do so but for us it was a bit more complicated.
The state of Pennsylvania is different from those states. One cannot directly file a FOIA with a
specific police department. Instead there are many other laws to help the public gain access to
such information. Through research we found the right to know law. They also have many forms to
gain access to a police incident report so we submitted as many as we could so that we could
have a chance to look at the work the original detectives did on the case. Unfortunately we
were denied anything by the state of Pennsylvania. Since we are not next to kin, a lawyer speaking
on the behalf or anything of the sorts they have the right to deny a request. This is why we spoke
to Elizabeth's siblings. We explained the process of what we did and what they can do. Since they
are directly related to her they should be able to see the work the detectives have done on the
case and the work they have done in the past 30 years. So in the section you hear them talk about
a FOIA request we've talked about that in almost all of our podcasts because that's one of the
ways that we get our information and that's the Freedom of Information Act. What's the unfortunate
part about this is that FOIAs are different in every state and that can cause some serious problems
when you're trying to find information. Yeah I think especially on this one we were just talking
to Mr. Hubbard about it. He says like you have to get a lawyer and there's a bunch of these steps
and it just feels like the way that it was set up it was just inconvenience the person that's asking
to kind of like try to avoid it. So I mean it feels like they're doing it on purpose. They're
obviously not because the information that you are requesting is private but just the way that
it's set up especially in the state that we're requesting from it just feels like such an
inconvenience that it's not even worth. It's not worth the process. I think the biggest thing is
that there are not enough people like us trying to do their best to help. A lot of people I would
imagine that submit FOIAs to police departments and agencies like this are just trying to get
information out of them and ultimately you can see why that would be a security concern.
We attempted to contact the original detectives from the case. Her friend that introduced the
case to us sent us his card that she received years ago. We found that one of them works for the
security at a university and the other works for the Philadelphia police department. We are still
working on getting in contact with them. Before they got her body, family and friends had put
up posters with the $2,000 cash reward with any verified information that leads to them finding
Elizabeth. They were hopeful that she just happened to disappear but after she missed her
youngest brother's birthday the family knew something was wrong. Without Elizabeth, her mother
had to hold her family together. She lost her job at Sears because she was in distress after
losing her daughter. A support group for murder victims families helped their situation a little
but it was still difficult for her to believe that her daughter was gone. So this is the
unfortunate part about all these cases. Many people when they listen to these crime scene stories
and things you hear on podcasts they think that the victim of the crime is the only one that's
affected by it. When in reality there are many victims that go along with this especially family
members who were depending on somebody like Liz to help them get through their financial problems.
Take care of a family that really needed that figure in their family. Yeah I think this is a
great example of what I had touched on early on in our conversation of you get that real world
experience of seeing and hearing and feeling that raw emotion that comes from these families.
The interview we had with Paul, John and Mike Falco really made this case hit home for us.
We try hard to understand how families feel in these situations but unless you lived it
there's just no way you understand. You just feel their emotions but sometimes you just don't know
what to say because you know it's not going to make them feel any better. During our conversation
with Liz's brothers a reporter for the New Jersey pen and a friend of the family Matt
Scofallis asked the brothers how they felt about talking with us and how it's affected their lives
since her passing. Falco guys do you have thoughts on just what this means to you to be going through
this again? I mean I you lose a sibling you never that never leaves your heart and never lose your
mind and certainly growing up is different and adulthood is different but what are what kinds
of feelings are you processing being involved in this again? Well my feelings have changed over
time it actually gotten worse I've gotten more angry I think especially now that I have two girls
but the thing that I always felt the only thing I could ever do was try to take the positive
away from it and that was to basically just love life love everything. I hold that but it gets tougher
and tougher I feel that I grow more of course over the years as a resentment of it and I'm not
certain whether this is right or wrong just ask the question of being honest. I think you're great
yeah if you said this would help you it like is it that important to you like if it got do you feel
like it would change some of those feelings you might have? If there was closure yes but I would
it would almost be a faith restored and humanity type feeling I guess. No pressure girls. Well no
I mean you know what you being women actually put his into it for that's one reason why I asked that
question is it so lopsided you know here you are you know Liz would be she would be I know this
sounds silly but she would be happier that two women would solve the case than two men you know
I mean she probably wouldn't matter either way but the point is is that you know that's something
she fought for she was very passionate about it and even today you see why she was passionate about
she wasn't had her time and she did damn well where this was going where it has been
right and it just seems like we're in the same place today so yeah I think Matt if there was
some movement or some type of closure it would be great to have my mother witness that before she
passes it doesn't you know fix everything in our lives but it does kind of put us to where we can
grasp and it's attainable our minds don't have to wander in a certain direction of what could have
been or what would have been we would know how to we'd have something tangible to deal with
in process sometimes. Sorry. I'm sorry. That was a great thing. For me I just have always had
right from what happened like guilt like I wasn't out fucking pounding this excuse my language I
wasn't out like pounding the pavement getting leads and you know like I feel like there's more
that I could have done and there is I mean there always is but I just have lived with guilt my
whole life from it so it would help alleviate some of that. Kind of to John's point about guilt
you know I was I was supposed to be out with her that night and she disappeared and we were supposed
to be dancing and we were supposed to meet up at the bank and I fell asleep that night.
You know so I don't I'm not blaming myself it's something bad was going to happen I'm sure it
still happened but I just always wonder if I'd gone out with her that night it's something
would have been different something would have wouldn't happen. You know that's I don't blame
myself but it's just been very hard with that part of my mind and it's gone on for so long it's not
that we just all accepted it you know let it go you know we can look at her every day but without
the support to get things going it's just more destructive trying to fight to get truth and
not get anywhere than to just kind of accept it for what it is and and hope at some point something's
going to happen and hopefully we're at this point where something might happen or even like Paul said
even if we don't if it's not something we don't get full closure we know that we're doing what we can
you know to help help everyone involved and not only the executive but everyone who feels for her
always been affected by her life. I mean it's it's a positive there's a positive aspect to it no
matter what that just the fact that you guys care is like is is uh makes me feel good. And like we
keep saying she would just be so happy knowing that she's helping you girls out with your education
and your lives through her death you know that's you know she could care less if it gets solved but
you guys are gaining from her loss. As you hear the brothers talk about how we're going to bring
some closure to the family if we or someone could solve Liz's case it sometimes really hurts to know
that maybe we're not going to be able to do that. Our goal is that maybe our participation in the
search for truth will hit the ears of someone who could give that information that will turn the tide
in the falcos favor. Elizabeth was a kind person with a soft heart she would speak about wanting
to become a therapist or a lawyer she knew her purpose in life was to help people. From a report
from an interview with her mother she remembered that though Elizabeth wasn't financially stable
she took her youngest brother's school supply shopping two weeks later she was gone. Family and
friends have done as much as they can to figure out what happened to Elizabeth. For them Elizabeth
was everything she was the older sister mom's favorite and best friend they were desperately
hoping that anyone will help them solve her case. As her mother approaches 80 they would like to give
her some closure. Her brothers are hopeful that her work will aid the Philadelphia police department
in furthering their investigation into Elizabeth's case. Cases like this are extremely difficult
because she randomly disappeared and she was found in a public area but a secluded one.
Unfortunately we have a vague outline of what actually happened that night and who exactly
she came in contact with. After 32 years in a large city with a large crime rate her cases
fall into the darkness of a file cabinet somewhere. We hope that sharing this information on our
platform can bring information to the forefront and possibly get her case back on the radar of
the police department. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Cold Case MHS Monsters and
Demons Freed Spirit. I would like to thank Mike, Paul and John Falco for allowing us to get to
know you and Liz. Your willingness to speak with us is greatly appreciated. Thank you to
Massika Fouls for being a part of the interview. Your insights as a reporter greatly enhanced
our experience with you and the Falco family. I will include Matt's links to the show notes for
the listeners to see the articles Matt has written. I would like to thank Riley and Nancy for all the
hard work that they did on Liz's case. She would greatly appreciate your efforts. Thank you to Matthew
Poteet for returning and sharing his thoughts and always thank you to my co-host Ashton. You have
made this show so much better since you joined me. The artwork for this podcast was created by
former student Emma Holbert. The theme song Cold Case is by former student Jenna Brandt who has
several songs out on most music streaming media. At the end of this podcast we will debut the new
theme song for season three to come out this spring. The song is Believe Me by current student
Alexa Doll. Tune in next time when Caitlyn Markham just disappears.
But instead you attack you got me out of my bed. Won't go and solve this time won't catch you and
Your crimes will be shining light on you.
You, you, you, you, you, you, you.
I saw you acting face and face,
but you didn't expect what they meant.
You lost your, am I fair?
We will make them aware it was you, said.
You said you had my back, but instead you attacked.
You got me out of my head.
You won't go and swallow this time.
You won't catch you and your crimes will be shining light on you.
And don't even try to win it back,
because you lost it way before then.
You said you had my back, but instead you attacked.
You got me out of my head.
You won't go and swallow this time.
You won't catch you and your crimes will be shining light on you.
On you.