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Previously on Ice Cold Case.

I am not saying Darryl didn't do this, but I'm pointing the finger back at Omar.

The police didn't investigate very good.

And if they didn't take any more action to try to solve this is suspicious to me. Rico probably had more to do with this than Omar. It's like the cartel. They'll kill their own child. If they've snatched on.

Omar scared of something, either of implicating himself or these guys.

There's a lot of stuff that's going on that nobody else knows, but just me.

When he went to grand jury on Barry, Dan Fry come out and he told me, he said, I got to kill this. Omar's telling a different story.

I said, Man, you don't know I didn't do this, man. What the.?

Because it's like, why aren't you doing anything? I spent the last couple years adding context to the police reports, trying to figure out motive and connection. There are suspects listed in the police files, but nothing gives the backstory. And when a case isn't solved, the backstory holds more answers than anything else. But now, I feel like I know these characters. I know their names, who they spent their time with, what they were doing, and how they knew my dad. So the context is more clear. Now I need to fill in the logistical gaps. Who did this? And how did they get away with it? It feels like every time a theory becomes more concrete, someone close to this case comes out of nowhere with more information. It's turned into a pattern of coincidences. Coincidentally, I hear from Darryl when I am narrowing in on him. Coincidentally, I hear from Omar when I start to think Darryl might be convincing me to look elsewhere. I have been weathering this storm of changed stories and withheld information for a while now. And when I finally hear from Riko, there's another snag in my investigation waiting for me.

I am sick of ducking and dodging twist after twist. This episode is a plea to anyone with information. Stop hiding in the shadows. Someone knows something about what happened to J. C. Mcgee on July 11th, 2002. And as I near the 22nd anniversary of this unjustified, unsolved murder, I am ready to knock down the doors to find out who killed my dad. Putting all my personal opinions aside, on paper, this case really could have been solved a long time ago if Omar simply told the police from the beginning who he saw that morning. No one really knows how they would react in that situation unless they were in it, so it's really hard to say. But in an attempt to keep the heat off of himself, from the police, and whoever these guys are, he really has attracted a lot of unnecessary attention by continuing to lie. And the lies are the most confusing part. It's not out of the question that some of the lies Omar told are rooted in truth. So when he gives his first statement, it's worth looking at what he initially said to try to extract the truth from it.

But as he gives more information, the lies The eyes become harder to sift through, and the truth becomes impossible to find. My biggest issue with Omar right now is that last year I laid out a theory that was incredibly well-researched and took into account the multiple perspectives of this case. From the home invasion gone wrong theory, to the possibility that Riko was involved, to the obvious motive that my dad could have pissed someone off, nothing was left off the table. And in my theory, all of them could have fit into that narrative. I had pinpointed who I believed was there, and ultimately, their motive could have been any of those options. The police believed it was Daryl Smith, Duncan Waits, Tone, and Danny Banks. My sister had her suspicions it was them. Their disdain for my dad was obvious, and their knowledge of Omar and his drug dealing were clear because of their direct association with him. So whether this was a home invasion or planned attack really isn't the point. They could have absolutely been there to rob or to kill. But Omar became incredibly vocal that I was wrong. Why? Because he didn't like that I called him a drug dealer, which again, wasn't really the point.

His pushback was completely unwarranted and honestly hindered progress. And his account and description would be very helpful to lock in on suspects. So I attempted to pivot. And then Omar comes back with, Well, your original theory was pretty spot on. And that is when my hope and faith in Omar completely died. He will say anything to protect himself, just like he did last summer, threatening me me and calling me out for being wrong just to protect a known fact that he was dealing drugs? He would actively hold back information about his uncle's murder to protect his already discredited reputation. It just doesn't make sense. The police have said it from the beginning. Omar just needs to tell the truth.

If I got information today on something, I'll move with it. And if it takes me an hour or if it takes me a day, me and Detective Oliver will run with it.

So what are we looking for?

The truth from Omar would be the biggest thing.

But I'm not sure he ever will. And even if he is telling the truth, how would anyone even know?

Omar posted something about the episode, and now he's messaging me.

I mean, at this point, I don't know. It doesn't matter. Put it all out there. We're just running out of time, I feel like.

I know. But I don't know. Do we need him? I guess not really at this point because he's not trustworthy.

No, he's not. I mean, we've known this from the beginning. It's just confusing now. It's hard to tell what's real and what's not. But he's the key to this whole thing.

I'm just worried about I don't know what he's really capable of, I guess.

We're past that point. I don't know. At this point, it is what it is. We have to keep pushing. We're just running out of time. We're past the point of caring about his feelings because It's very clear he doesn't care about what we're doing here or your dad. So if that's just what it is.

Yeah, fuck it. So now Omar is mad again. He says that he trusted me, and I really wanted to trust him. But after sitting with what he said for a while and really trying to navigate this, I just simply don't trust him. I wanted to believe that if we talked, maybe I would get the truth, and it would help me piece everything together. But even when I heard what I wanted to hear, that I'm on the right track, I can't help but feel skeptical. All summer, he was adamant that I was wrong. Publicly calling me a liar and worse. But now, all of a sudden, he thinks I was right. So now I've come to the really harsh conclusion that if I'm going to solve this case and even possibly take this to court, My case really can't include Omar's testimony. It has to be strong on its own, because no matter what happens, Omar's word means nothing.

Never. He will never tell me the truth unless I got something on him that we got to have something that would be credible to what Omar says. Just based on what Omar says, is not enough because his credibility is shot to shit. But if somebody comes in and says this, it's going to size with what he says, and that gives a little bit of credibility.

But I will make one thing clear that wasn't in the last episode. This bite was going to be used.

I think what it is is Darryl Duncan was his two cronies. When it all happened, it was said that they did it because of Rico. I think Rico gave them the go ahead because they're two knuckleheads. I think that they were sticking all the way. Maybe if we could do this for Rico, maybe he'll get out. Because like I said, there was stuff being said that the lawyers that were involved in Rico's case and the judges had died. And OJC was the last one. You understand what I'm saying?

And it was going to be accompanied with a long monolog about Rico, and you'll still hear one soon. But the point of that bite was going to be that Riko was in federal prison on a life sentence when my dad was killed. So it's possible that he either directly told these guys to go over there or they were doing it on his behalf because they felt a blind sense of loyalty to him. He was very powerful. Either way, Omar was implying that he believes they did it for Riko, not because they directly told him to do it, but just doing it for him. Allegedly, so he says.

So I'm not sure. I mean, Rico could have got that, had it hit ordered on JC, and he may have been involved slightly on the outskirts, but he's too smart to have anything of himself connected to this situation, to the murder. No way. He's way too smart.

So thanks a lot, Omar, for saying that I was right and that my theory was getting pretty close to the truth. But Now, here I am, still in the same boat. I have to prove that I was right, and now I have to prove it without Omar. As more information comes my way, I grow increasingly frustrated with this process. There is so much that was overlooked and ignored. I am now getting tips on a daily basis, and it's wild to think that all of this information has just been floating around for the last 22 years. And as the anniversary of my dad's murder approaches, I'm hoping that more people come out with what they know, because at this point, that is the only thing moving this investigation forward. I can only look into what is sent to me. I have exhausted everything else. I've looked for everyone. Rico had been nearly impossible to find, and I even found him. Darryl came to me, but hasn't been communicating with me much lately. I know that some people are floating around Belmont County, Wheeling, and other parts of Ohio and West Virginia. I have a list of just a couple other people I'd really like to get in touch with.

I've tried to find them with no success yet, but there's others that I'm waiting to talk to. I know where they are, but I'm holding out. And I wonder if they're waiting for me. They have to know I'm getting close, right? I guess it's easy to ignore how far I've come since I started investigating, because now I'm really in the weeds. But when I look at where I started, just calling for case files, to think of where I am now, tracking people down whose names I would have never known before. That's significant progress. But for me, it's just not enough. Now I'm at this point where there's multiple things happening at once. I'm looking at what law enforcement missed in their investigation and also hunting down and talking to key suspects and players. Both are equally important, but sometimes one takes priority over the other, and it's really difficult for me to know which one to dedicate my day to. I stop every once in a while and think to myself, What would my dad do? The tips are coming in, and even though new information can feel overwhelming, it's always helpful to move both sides of this investigation along.

A few weeks ago, I received a message with a screenshot of a Facebook profile. The next line of the message said, Got a tip. This is Tone. My jaw hit the floor, and then more messages came in.

So I just received a tip, and I'll probably end up fudging out the names for now because this is the very beginning of this process. But someone just sent me a Facebook profile for Ava, and there's so much more in here. It says, So apparently, Nathanya has had a truck. She had as a rental from enterprise & Wheeling. That's the California plate. They might have said a Dodge truck, but anyways. They said they saw her riding around in that car for a couple of weeks before the murder, and she was allowing Daryl Smith to drive it, I guess. She was in jail, but you really need to find her. She might have been driving, or at the very least, she knew something. And you know what? You are almost right on the money with your theory. And apparently, And then the system is also in jail. So that's the message that I just got. But it seems like everyone is in freaking jail. So I guess in some ways, maybe that makes it easier to track them down unless it's some Riko situation where they're just hiding. But I don't know if anyone else has the same level of protection as Riko does.

So these people should be easy to find. I'm going to try, but I wonder how long enterprise keeps rental records.

If I can find tone, I might find out more specifics of what really happened that morning. So now, since this is all happening in real-time, I'm currently making a lot of phone calls to find these people, find out what they know, and get closer to the truth. My goal at this point is to definitively identify who was in the house that morning and hope that they can finally corroborate this theory. It's not as simple as it sounds, but now I have names. So if you're one of those people, and like Darryl Smith, you've stumbled upon this podcast, consider this your warning that you'll be hearing from me. Now I'm left to find out, is it harder or easier to get a hold of someone when they are behind bars? I already knew this, but it was confirmed when I saw Omar's strong reaction to the last episode. Everyone is scared to talk about Riko. There's just this weird energy shift when I bring him up. It's been happening for years. I've been warned by many family members and locals, even the police. Just don't talk about Rico. My mom, who has never even met Riko before, is afraid of him.

I really don't feel that comfortable talking about Riko. I'm not sure that he has anything to do with Jacy's murder. But I know that Riko would kill anybody who comes in his path right now.

That alone leaves me with this feeling that Riko is so much more powerful than even I understand. I mean, even writing this now, I have an uneasy feeling like he has eyes and ears everywhere, but he's been a very difficult person to track down. I think back to last year when I was reading about his pending trial, there was no record of where he was being held. And every time I asked, I was met with a long uncomfortable pauses and hesitations. Rico McGee is hard to find, and I think that's intentional. But a few months ago, I heard from someone who told me that Rico was aware I had spoken to Darryl Smith, and he was interested in talking with me as well. I have been very eager to speak with him, so I jumped at the opportunity. But at this point, Even no one in my family knew where he was.

Where is he now?

I'm not sure. That's what I'm trying to dig out. You know what I mean?

I was given instructions on how to talk to him. It turns out he's not really hiding. He just doesn't want to talk to anyone, specifically family. To be honest, I don't blame him. But as someone who has instilled so much fear into the family, you'd think he wouldn't mind talking to them because he has all the power. But nothing is that simple when it comes to Riko. So I followed the instructions, and I reached out to him.

You do have this way of dumping information on people.

What am I supposed to do with this shit? Okay, I figured out how to get a hold of Riko. I need to download this app to send him messages, but he has to approve me to be on his list. But apparently, he's well aware that I'm going to be doing this and wants to add me to his list.

All right, let's do it. I mean, hopefully, he does actually put us on his list.

I mean, it seems like he wants to talk, but what about is where I'm a little nervous. It's just so hit or miss. People reach out with Darryl, and it's like, he ends up being really nice. Is Rico going to chew me out, or is he going to be on my side? You just never know.

Yeah, I think he's just... Hopefully, he can just get us closer to what happened.

But is he trying to get ahead of something?

Tom was on. We just got to talk to him and figure it out. We just got to talk to him.

Riko is currently waiting to go to trial for pretty significant drug-related indictments, so I have to follow very specific protocols to talk to him. We exchanged several messages, and I got set up to have a phone call with him. As soon as everything was ready to go, I had the right app, deposited enough money for the amount of time I assumed our conversation would take up, he stopped responding. His last message did not seem like it was meant to be the end of our exchange. He said, Just hit me when you are ready. I've sent four messages over the last 17 days since then, and I haven't heard anything. So now I need to figure out where he went, why he's not talking to me, and how to get a hold of him. Did he change his mind? Did something else happen? Do you ever feel like you're so close to a breakthrough, and then you watch it slip through your fingers? That's what this feels like. So many dots could be connected with the information that Riko has. And for now, they will just all remain question marks.

Okay. My sister just sent me a press release from the US Attorney's office in the Northern district of West Virginia. It's about a federal jury indicting 26 people for trafficking. They were trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, and meth. Hold on. Darryl Smith is on this indictment. William Eelenfeld, he's an attorney, US general. He made the announcement. I've been trying to get a hold of him about the week of federal case that my dad testified on. I don't think he was the US attorney in the Northern district at the time, but it says one of the investigating offices is the Ohio Valley Drug Task Force. And that's who allegedly called me last year, telling me to stop asking questions about Riko. There's something weird going on here.

A federal grand jury in Wheeling, West Virginia, has indicted 26 individuals in seven separate cases for trafficking fentanyl, cocaine, cocaine base, and methamoephtamine. The charges include operation of a drug trafficking enterprise spanning from Las Vegas to the Ohio Valley. Five federal search warrants were executed in West Virginia and Ohio on March 29th and resulted in the seizures of drugs, firearms, and cash. And Darryl Smith, of Wheeling, West Virginia, is listed as a defendant. Makes more sense why I haven't heard from him. Darryl's new arrest leaves me questioning everything he and I discussed earlier this year. And worse, it leaves me questioning my own judgment. I trusted my gut that maybe we all had the wrong guy, but maybe I was just desperate to believe in anything that felt like tangible evidence. He was sitting right in front of me telling me he didn't do it, and that was the closest I had ever gotten to any answer from a key player. So now this federal case really changes things. It tells me that maybe Darryl Smith Smith is willing to play the game just as much as Rico. It makes me wonder why he was so eager to talk to me and why he was so calm and seemingly empathetic when we spoke.

Could Darryl Smith really be that calculated? I guess it's possible, but there's something that I can't figure out about this whole Darryl thing. There could be so many reasons for him to reach out, but I wonder if he knew this was all coming down the pipeline Line because he was very adamant about working together, specifically to get Belmont County. Maybe he was never that interested in my fight for justice for my dad, after all. I found a news report from WTRF, where the police and Eelenfeld talk about how this case was a great example of law enforcement and the prosecutor's office working well together.

Demonstrates a unified front of law enforcement professionals in the United State's Attorney's office and other prosecutors that we work very well and very closely together in the interest of making our communities a safer place.

We're trying to keep people safe. We're trying to prevent overdoses and overdose deaths.

The best thing we can do from a law enforcement perspective is to take as much of the drugs off the streets as we can and to arrest the individuals who are responsible for distributing it.

They aren't keeping their county safe if there is still a killer out there, and they aren't working well together If they can't figure out where to start looking for answers. The roller coaster of it all means that while sometimes tips are coming in fast and I am able to get people on the phone immediately to answer questions, sometimes I can't. I have to make several phone calls to find a new email to reach out to get another phone number, to leave a voicemail, and hope that eventually I get to the person I am actually trying to get a hold of. Right now, It feels like I'm in a period of just sit around and wait. But I am not giving up. I will never give up. I've been at this for over four years now, combing through files, asking tough questions, putting myself out there in an incredibly vulnerable way, opening myself up to criticism that I wouldn't wish upon my own worst enemy. And I can't help but feel frustrated. I I'm only doing this because the officials in Belmont County that are sworn in to serve and protect have seemingly given up on my dad.

At every turn, it does seem like more and more work is getting added to my plate. As more information surfaces, you'd think that the closer I get, the easier the pieces would fall together. So far, that has not been the reality. The stories are getting more complex, and as I am putting it all out there, the pushback from the people who I believe have the most information is getting stronger. They are starting to get scared. And you know what? They should be. I am just angry enough that I am spending most of my days working on this. I don't care who is upset with me at this point. I have come way too far to worry if I am inconveniencing you. Regardless of my connection to this case and the motivation I have to find answers, no civilian should have to do this much investigative work on a cold case ever, but especially without the help of the police Department. I have been hearing from the beginning of this process that Belmont County is corrupt. I didn't realize to what extent until I started releasing episodes and case after case after case was sent to me by family members who empathize with my struggle because they, too, have felt a lack of consideration or total neglect from the Belmont County Sheriff's Department.

I have never believed that my dad's case was an isolated incident of lack of resources or neglect. And if I'm going to petition that a new organization should take over my dad's murder investigation at a state or federal level, I need to prove that Belmont County has a history of this. So while I am tracking down these key witnesses and waiting to hear back from certain sources, I need to direct my attention very briefly towards answering this question. What is going on in Belmont County, Ohio? Next time on Ice Cold Case.

Where I realized, oh, my God, there is so much here. I grew up cops in both counties.

And that valley down there, there's a fucking crooket.

It's out of sight. Why do you think they didn't have an 11 at the phone?

Because the police didn't gather it properly at the time of the shooting.

Ice Cold Case is brought to you by Yes. It is written, hosted, and produced by Madison McGee, also produced by Jeremy Bumbo, mixed by Cody Campbell, original music by Matt Bettensen, creative direction by A. J. Christensen, creative consulting by Hof. A video version of this episode is available on our YouTube channel, and a transcript is available at icecoldcase. Com. To submit any tips or information, please email us at icecoldcasepodcast@gmail. Com..