Cold case in Meaningful

Thanksgiving 2024 I took on a 3 yr old cold case. The daughter of a mother who killed herself contacted me. The suicide was suspicious to her. She wanted answers, closure, that’s all. It involved a suspicious step father, possibly mafia involved, murder, missing money and life insurance, her cousins overdose questions, hidden and deleted emails and notes… a lot. Originally the police just closed the case as a suicide in a small country town. There was so many blanks in the story and investigations. I first started with the original investigation. Seemed rushed and sloppy. Talked with original coroner and detective. Looked into the suspected step father and husband which he turned out to be clean. Dug into the county records and found court dates related to the deceased mother. Also to her brother and his wife. Very odd, looked into those hearings and found out the family had taken out loans from two loan companies which upon investigation were shady thugs. Long records of harrasment. This eventually proved the mob theory of people showing up to the house and phone calls, emails with threats. There was also a western union bank transaction and one security camera clip. Looked into that and it was difficult which I anticipated and in person I had to use my badge and charm to squirm my way into security. Got a few leads and confirmations. Lots of time with twists and turns and 600 plus pages of legal records. What I figured out was the mother and family had taken out loans to help out a brother who recently got out of prison, lost his job, couldn’t work and the house was in jeopardy. They couldn’t pay back the loans so 6 months later they all defaulted and they lost in court. The loan company started illegally harassing them in many ways to get payments. The mother thought they were mafia which she was kind of right, they were connected to a drug ring running up and down I-5 to Mexico and this loan company was part of it. There was also a cousin who supposedly overdosed on heroin or meth? It was on the news, I found out that the loan company thugs, the father who owned half the loan company and his son or nephew actually kidnapped and injected the drugs into the teenager girl and dumped the body on the side of the road a few town up to make it look like an overdose. The western union transaction I found were payments to Mexico with the loan company. The mothers burning notes, recites and deleted emails were from the loan company and their death threats to family members which she shot herself because she probably felt guilty over the death of her niece and constants threats to her own daughters. In essence sort of protecting her family by taking what she knew and her debts to the grave. Towards the end of my investigation the FBI sent me a warning letter to back off. I had dug too far. I had found the father and son who killed the niece had been arrested for other things and the wife and were being held for information to get the bigger fish. They were essentially using them as bait to get the larger drug connection. In September Oregon laws went back to normal where drugs were illegal again so all the drug dealers were panicking and they either were turning themselves in for lesser sentences or running away. The drug dealers who stuck around were feeling the pinch so they were becoming more desperate and violent. That’s what happened here. In the end I backed off and the daughter got closure to what was actually happening but it also left with new un answered questions. At least we figured out she was safe and that her mother wasn’t insane and actually everything she was saying that nobody believed was true. She actually was a criminal investigator herself and I wish I could have met her. The daughter I helped turned out to have a knack for investigating herself as she helped me out pieces of this confusing puzzle together with me better than most people I help. I also have full confidence in our law enforcement and it was a good reminder that just because we don’t get answers doesn’t mean nothing is being done about it. With me even generalizing this investigation sort of puts me at risk. What a wild case but it felt really good to help this young woman and her remaining family!