Missing: Michael Keith Gorley

Missing: Michael Keith Gorley | Part 1 of 2 | December 14, 2021

Missing: Michael Keith Gorley | Part 2 of 2 | December 21, 2021

OR

Private Investigator Mike Ward at 859-324-0400 | KOJACGUYKY@GMAIL.COM

Missing and Murdered Loved Ones in Kentucky https://www.facebook.com/groups/562107197478015

Missing Men, Boys, Children Nationwide & Crimes In Honor of Michael Gorleyhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/2102979526447564

of MISSING INVESTIGATIONS AND SEARCH SERVICES, LLC 

Show Transcripts

Part 1 of 2

Sandra Hasty:

Yeah. He walked away from his life. No shirt, just swimming drunks. It’s not going to be vital. Give it up, you know my child was murdered. Don’t play with me. I’m a mother that’s trying to tell you something’s happened to my child.

Wendy Lyons:

Warning. The podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder, and adult language. Listener discretion is advised.

Wendy Lyons:

Welcome to The Murder Police Podcast. Missing: Michael Keith Gorley.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, David, you had gone and conducted an interview regarding the missing case of, then 38 year old, Michael Keith Gorley. And unfortunately, I was unable to attend with that. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about that interview?

David Lyons:

Yeah. Well, and I wish you’d been there, but at some point you’ll get to meet his mother and the rest of the family. There’s some events coming up where you’ll get to meet them, and they’re excited about meeting you. I went and met with Michael’s mother. Her name is Sandra Hasty, and I had met her just about two years ago at a vigil that she hosts in Junction City, Kentucky. Ever since Michael went missing in 2015, she has really applied a lot of her efforts into, first of all, of course, trying to solve Michael’s case, but she’s a huge victim advocate. And she actually has several Facebook pages of different things that carry information about people that are missing, to try to keep their names alive. But at that interview, we conducted that at the Boyle County Library, here in Kentucky, they were nice enough to give us a room to work with. And I met with his mother, Sandra, his sister, Jennifer Gorley Coffey, really wonderful woman, and also a Private Investigator named Mike Ward, who’s a very interesting man and a former police officer from Connecticut.

Wendy Lyons:

Interesting. So you met them at the Boyle County, which is the Danville library. So why don’t you start with telling us where was Michael from originally?

David Lyons:

Michael, where he was missing from and where he is, in the area where his mother lived, he was living with her at the time, was from Stanford, Kentucky. And it-

Wendy Lyons:

So just outside Danville?

David Lyons:

Exactly right. Just a drive down the road from where we live, actually, here at the farm. He went missing from a highway 300, also known as Knob Lick Road in Stanford, Kentucky. And the thing that the listeners are going to hear is a lot of information about what looks like it’s solvable, but there’s a lot of difficulty with it.

Wendy Lyons:

Such as what? Difficulty, if it has solvability, what makes that a difficult solvable case?

David Lyons:

Well, as we’ll hear, silence. Is that, uniquely enough, if you’re an investigator that gets one of these cases like this, you have a solid known last location, that’s a big deal with it. And the reason we know it’s known is we had witnesses that were with him. So you have a location, you have people that he is with when he disappears. But all of a sudden, the people that he’s with don’t seem to be able to keep their stories straight. And that’s what makes it suspicious.

Wendy Lyons:

Absolutely. Anytime you have varying stories and circumstances that vary from what happened, where it happened, coupled with silence, I’m sure that does make for a very tough case to solve and locate even Michael. Well, why don’t you tell me and tell the listeners, did you and the family talk about Michael, when he was little, when he was growing up, a little about him?

David Lyons:

We did. A lot of information. Everything from when he was born, all the way through going through school.

Sandra Hasty:

Michael was born at Casey County Memorial in Casey County, Kentucky, on December 22nd, 1976, on my grandmother’s birthday. Six pounds, seven ounces, and 18 and half inches long. He was a good baby, a beautiful baby. He slept the night I brought him home from the hospital. He slept the whole night and I was at my mom’s and she ran in the room as I was getting out of bed, because we sure thought something was wrong with him. And he just woke up and smiled at us. I went in the labor, my mom and dad were Christmas shopping and me and my sister, Diane, and my niece, Angel, were at home. Well, I was washing dishes and I was scraping out a pan outside to wash it. And all of a sudden, I felt a pain. I said, “Ooh, Diane, I feel a pain.” She said, “Oh, sit down, honey.”

Sandra Hasty:

So they kept coming and she’s like, “Mom and daddy don’t have that much money to go to Christmas shopping, they better get home.” And it was wintertime and they were in my grandfather’s truck. So I’ll never forget. When I knew I was going, Diane, run out with one arm in her jacket, “Don’t shut off that truck. Don’t shut off that truck.” Anyway, my dad come in with Diane and mama took me to Casey County. We lived in Lincoln County, and those roads were rough and she was slinging me all around. I’m like, “Mama, I’m going to have that baby in the truck.” “Don’t you have that baby in this truck.” And I’m in the labor room, and my sister-in-law come in out of the cold and touch my hand, then said, “Does it hurt, honey?” And I went right into labor. I went right to delivery. It was 11:22 PM.

David Lyons:

Well, tell me more about Michael, as he grew up after that.

Sandra Hasty:

Well, he went to Winfield Elementary in West Palm Beach, Florida. Then they went to… What was that? Eagle Lake Elementary.

Jennifer Gorley:

[crosstalk 00:06:11] remember. I only remember from Kentucky.

David Lyons:

You said west Palm beach, Florida. How do we get from Casey County to West Palm Beach?

Sandra Hasty:

Oh, my mom. My mom moved there and when me and Michael and Jennifer’s husband… Daddy divorced. I went there to be with my mom, with Michael and Jennifer.

David Lyons:

Okay. Gotcha. And how long were y’all in West Palm Beach?

Sandra Hasty:

I was there for 22 years. Michael and Jenny came back and they stayed with their dad for 12 years.

David Lyons:

And the name of the school was Winfield?

Sandra Hasty:

Winfield Elementary, West Palm Beach, Florida.

David Lyons:

Okay. And after that, where [crosstalk 00:06:48]?

Sandra Hasty:

They went to school in our winter home in Florida. It was called Eagle Lake Elementary. And then they went to middle school in… Part of elementary school, middle school and high school with their dad.

Wendy Lyons:

And where was that at?

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, we went to Junction City Elementary. That was in 1988, I believe. I think it was 88 that we started at Junction. I was in the fifth grade. Well, okay. Michael, he’s 18 months older than me, but he got held back in kindergarten. So when I started kindergarten, we were in the same grade. So we went to school together every year until we graduated. We graduated together, but it was fifth grade that we went to Junction City Elementary. And then, the middle school we went to was Boyle County Middle School. And then, we went to Boyle County High school. We both graduated from bull county high school in 1996.

David Lyons:

Gotcha. Now as he got older, did he work any jobs or anything?

Jennifer Gorley:

Oh, yeah.

David Lyons:

Through middle and somewhere? What kind of places did he work at?

Sandra Hasty:

Michael, he did welding out in Texoma, which is Oklahoma, Texas line. He did [inaudible 00:08:00] welding. He welded the trailers for semis, he would weld them together. He’d done tree service. He did flooring. He was excellent at anything he did.

David Lyons:

Yeah. Where’d he learn how to weld?

Jennifer Gorley:

In high school.

David Lyons:

In high school?

Jennifer Gorley:

At Boyle county, they went somewhere, I think in Lincoln county, one of the area schools, it was either Lincoln or Garrett. I don’t remember which one because I didn’t do it. They had a program where you could go over there and work on cars and learn how to weld and just different things like that. So he learned a lot of that stuff there. And then also, our dad knew how to do pretty much anything with the car. He had a auto body shop. He built motors, fixed cars, repaired cars. And then he went on to have a construction business, so we kind of worked around bulldozers and pans and scrapers and low boys and hard stuff.

David Lyons:

What was it like growing up with Michael? What were the things that he really liked doing?

Sandra Hasty:

Oh, lord Michael Keith was a [Momo 00:09:08], which was a motorcycle. But when he was a kid, it was a Momo. So he had his first battery operated motorcycle, then it was four-wheeler, and then he just always had an infatuation with… I would, at night, I could hear him going, “Broom, broom. Broom, broom, broom,” like he was a motorcycle. And yeah, he just had an infatuation with motorcycle. Then he got into cars. But now, him and his friend, Jason, Jason had a crotch truck and all Michael loved driving that thing. And then I think he got a motorcycle at Jeeps, right? At his dad? His dad’s Jeffrey Keith Gorley and he passed away in 2014.

Jennifer Gorley:

2004.

Sandra Hasty:

2004. I’m sorry. Yeah.

David Lyons:

And his name again was?

Sandra Hasty:

Jeffrey Keith Gorley. He’s also known as Jeep. Everybody knew him as Jeep.

Wendy Lyons:

Did he have any sort of hobbies or typical young country boy? Or what kind of young man was he?

Jennifer Gorley:

Michael played football. Football was the sport that he loved. So he played that in middle school and high school. All through his years that he could play, he did play.

David Lyons:

What kind of personality do you have, especially as a brother? Let’s start with that because that’s always [crosstalk 00:10:27]-

Sandra Hasty:

A jokester.

David Lyons:

Okay.

Sandra Hasty:

That’s…

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, Michael was always a cut up. He just liked to make jokes, mostly about me. He liked to get me going. And then, once he got me going, then he’d just sit back and laugh.

David Lyons:

There we [crosstalk 00:10:47].

Jennifer Gorley:

I’d be ticked off and he’d be laughing about it. But he was just funny. He liked to joke. He liked to cut up. He liked to, more or less, be like a prankster. He liked hanging out with his friends. He loved football, four wheelers, motorcycles. He liked tearing stuff down, like motors and engines, and building them back up. He loved stuff like that. He loved music. Rap music was his favorite. Country music, he liked country.

Sandra Hasty:

He liked country and he liked people. He liked Leonard Skinner and The Eagles and all that. That was our traveling music. Me and Michael traveled a lot. We went to Oklahoma, Texas, Montana, Louisiana.

Jennifer Gorley:

Florida.

Sandra Hasty:

Florida, South Dakota. He worked in South Dakota on the oil rigs, so he’s worked smokestack.

David Lyons:

So were y’all just vacationing together or did you move around when he got different jobs and stuff like that?

Sandra Hasty:

No, we just decided, “Well, let’s go somewhere.” We went out to my sister’s in Montana. She was disabled. She’s passed away now. I took care of her the last two years of her life. We went out there because he wanted to go see Aunt Diane. We went to Oklahoma because he wanted to go see Aunt Donna. So we stayed out in Montana for about four months till we couldn’t take that weather anymore. It was rough out there. Oklahoma, we stayed a little bit longer there because he enjoyed his job at Texoma Truck and Body. But then, his cousin Steven died and Jennifer called me up work. I was working for Direct TV, and he was working at Texoma Truck and Body. And told us that Steven passed away, which Michael and Steven were like brothers growing up. And I brought him back to Kentucky to go to Steven. We went to Steven’s funeral. Michael stayed and I went back to Oklahoma.

Jennifer Gorley:

But Michael is a homebody. Kentucky’s his home. So no matter where he went, Kentucky is where he always wanted to be. He never was one that he wanted to be by himself. He always wanted to be around family. So my dad and his girlfriend at the time, took him to Texas, got him set up, took a car down there for him, got him set up in his dorm with all these other guys and everything. Well, when they come back from Texas, they wanted to do sightseeing. So they made a few detours, stopped here, there, and whatnot, before they made it back to Kentucky. It was a couple days later. I was working at BP in Junction at the time. It was like a day, day and a half later, here come Michael walking through the door. And I’m like, “I thought you supposed to be in Texas at college?” He said, “I didn’t like it.” I’m like, “But dad’s not even back from Texas yet.” So like he beat dad back to Kentucky from… He said he did not like it.

Sandra Hasty:

His car, what did they call it? 14K.

Jennifer Gorley:

We called it 14K. It was this big long car. I mean, I say dad gave him a car. It was a big, long car and it drank a lot of oil. So he had to put a lot of oil in that car to get it from Texas to Kentucky. But he beat dad back to Kentucky. He didn’t want to be there. And I’m like, “That’s an awful long way to go, just to turn around and come right back,” but he did. He just didn’t like it.

Wendy Lyons:

What did you learn about how he went missing?

David Lyons:

That’s probably the most interesting. And when you hear his sister, Jennifer, talk about this in a minute, it may send chills down your spine. Where was Michael living when he went missing?

Sandra Hasty:

With me in Lincoln County.

David Lyons:

Okay. So at the time when Michael goes missing, you’re living in Lincoln County. As far as you can remember that, what date was the first time that y’all suspected that he was missing?

Sandra Hasty:

The 18th.

David Lyons:

18th?

Sandra Hasty:

Of May.

David Lyons:

Of May.

Sandra Hasty:

2015. I called the people he said he… He said, “I’ll see you later.”

David Lyons:

And what time of the day was that? Was he leaving?

Sandra Hasty:

9 o’clock? Well, anyway, when he didn’t come home, I started calling around. “No, we haven’t seen him. No, we haven’t seen him.” And then, one of them told me, “Yes, he’s at.” They knocked on my door, this one and another one knocked on my door, and I don’t allow them in my house. And I said, “What do you want?” “It’s Michael, we need to talk you about Michael.” All I could think is something happened to him. So they said that Michael drove his truck in the pond and that he wanted it out. That was the only vehicle we had. I got a hook. I had a ride out there with them and I got ahold of Jenny, sent her pictures of the truck in the pond.

Jennifer Gorley:

That was on the 17th.

Sandra Hasty:

Its only… That was on what?

Jennifer Gorley:

The 17th.

Sandra Hasty:

The 17th.

Jennifer Gorley:

Not the 18th.

Sandra Hasty:

Right, the 17th. All right. So we go out there, to… It’s only the front end in the pond, front tires in the pond. It’s not sunk in the pond, but it was hard getting out. But we got it out, and I drove it up out there. Well, I called the guy’s house, they said that they dropped Michael off at 11 o’clock that night. He said Michael was there. So okay, well he didn’t come home the next day. I had an uneasy feeling and Jennifer was at work, and you can tell him what happened at work.

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, okay. So let me back up here.

David Lyons:

Yeah. I was going to say take it to-

Jennifer Gorley:

Let me back up here.

David Lyons:

Yeah. How you came about it.

Jennifer Gorley:

So Michael was actually in jail for a couple of months, and he got out on may the 12th, and he was out for about five days when he went missing. So anyway, on the 17th, that’s when a couple females come to moms and told her that Michael had drove his truck in a pond at this house, which most people are familiar with, but I won’t mention the address or nothing. So I said, “Well, when my husband gets off work, we’ll come out and see if his Jeep could pull the truck out of the pond,” so we didn’t have to pay like a tow truck or anything like that to do it. So we went out there and his Jeep couldn’t pull it out, it was too stuck. So he called one of his buddies. His buddy came out with his big Dodge truck and he was able to pull it out.

Jennifer Gorley:

Then, after we left there, we took the truck, I think to my house, because we didn’t really know, at that point, if it was safe to drive or not. We didn’t know what to kind of damage was done to the truck or whatnot. So we took it to my house and we took mom home, came back next morning. I got up, went to work, like a normal day, mom was at home. Michael never came home that night, though. While I was at work that day, and I know this sounds farfetched, but I had like a voice that just come to me and said, “Find Michael.” And I’m typing at my computer and I’m like, “Find Michael? Okay. Hmm.” I just, all right, go back to typing on my computer. It says, “Find Michael.” I was like, “Okay. Oh, now I need to find Michael.” So I was sitting here thinking, “I’m at work. I can’t just go find Michael,” So I went back to work it again.

Jennifer Gorley:

Then it said again, “Find Michael.” So I’m just like, “Okay, I’ll find Michael, but I can’t do that till I get off work.” So I just called mom and I was like, “Did Michael come home?” She said, “No.” I was like, “Well, where’s he at?” She said, “Well, I guess he’s at this person’s house that they said they left him at.” I said, “Well, we need to find him. Where’s this person live?” And she didn’t know where he lived. She knew who this person was, but she didn’t know where that house was. So she started calling around trying to find out where the house was, trying to get ahold of Michael, whatnot. Couldn’t get ahold of him. And I said, “Well, when I get off work, I’ll call my grandma and see if she’s talked to him. I’ll call my uncle.” But just people that I knew that Michael may have talked to or been in contact with to see if they had talked to him.

Jennifer Gorley:

So when I got off work, none of them had talked to him. I got back ahold of mom, and mom said, “Well, they’re giving us conflicting information. They’re saying different times of when he was there, when he left, whatnot.” She’s like, “Something’s not right.” I was like, “Okay, well, I’ll come pick you up and we’ll just go looking for him, see if we can find him.” Went and picked mom up, which granted she lived out McKinney, it’s a pretty good little ways out through there. And I also had to pick the kids up because they had got off the bus at my husband’s aunt’s house. So I had to go pick them up, then go pick mom up. When I went to go pick her up, the strangest thing was, there was a state trooper car sitting right beside her road, that I had to turn on to get to her house. And I’d never seen a state trooper in that area before. So I was like, “This is kind odd.”

Jennifer Gorley:

So I went up, I got mom, we come back down, the state trooper was still there. And I told mom, I was like, “I feel like we need to just stop and talk to this trooper and just kind of tell him like, ‘Hey, this is situation going on. Michael didn’t come home. Trying to get ahold of the people he’s supposed to be with. They’re giving conflicting information about everything, and we think something might be wrong.'” So we give all that information to that trooper. And then, mom got ahold of the two people that said they had dropped Michael off of this particular house and they wanted to meet up with us. They wanted to know what we were going to be doing. We’re like, “Well, we’re going to try to go find Michael, but we need to know where you took him to. Take us to the house where you took him so we can see if he’s still there.” So we met up with them at a gas station and they showed us where this house was. And then once we got there, it really got weird from that point.

Sandra Hasty:

When we get there, first, they said… I called him on the 17th, he said that Michael was there at 11:00 PM. Well, when I tried to call him the next day to say, “Well, Michael didn’t come home. Where’s he at?” He wouldn’t answer. He wouldn’t answer. So finally, I messaged, “Where’s Michael?” He messaged back, “Don’t know.” I’m like, “What do you mean you don’t know? When did he leave?” “Between 8:30 and 9:00 last night.” And I said, “Where’d he go?” “He left walking, I think.” So when we [inaudible 00:21:51], I said, “Walking where?” He said, “Towards Junction City.” So of course, when we get there, I get out Jennifer’s… They’re trying to block her from going towards the shed or the backyard of the place where Michael last was. And I’m walking up down the road because Michael’s hat and shoes were on the porch of [inaudible 00:22:06].

Sandra Hasty:

And I’m walking him down the road because, if he left walking between 8:30 and 9:00, you should have seen any kind of toe prints or anything in the grass. Nothing, nothing at all. So anyway, they kept blocking Jennifer from going towards the shed or the backyard. So then, it just felt stupid from there. And I called them and told them, called the state police and told them that I had Michael’s hat and shoes. They said, “Well, who are you talking about?” I said, “My son, Michael Gorley I put a missing person report out on him.” “Well, we don’t have anything in the computer.” I said, “Well, that was about 5 o’clock.” I said, “My son’s missing.” So they sent another trooper out about 2 o’clock in the morning on the 19th. Told him I had Michael’s hat and shoes. Did he want to take him in for evidence? Did he want to take the truck in for evidence? Because by that time, it was in my yard. No, nothing makes any sense to me.

Jennifer Gorley:

I’m not really sure what happened with that. And he probably thought we were crazy, to be honest. He probably thought, “Okay, this grown man didn’t come home after one night and you want me to file a missing persons?” We didn’t have any valuable information, other than we just suspected that something was wrong. You just got that feeling something’s not right, something’s wrong, you just don’t know what, and you’re searching. I don’t know if you’ve ever had somebody pass away in your family and you just have this overwhelming feeling of there’s just something wrong. Something’s not right.

David Lyons:

Like your intuition speaks to you.

Jennifer Gorley:

Exactly. And-

Sandra Hasty:

That didn’t seem-

Jennifer Gorley:

You don’t know what until somebody calls you and says, “Oh, by the way, such and such passed away,” or this… You just don’t know, you just know that you have this feeling that something’s just horribly wrong. It was that feeling is what I had. And I’m sure mom probably did too. But all we really knew is that he didn’t come home and that, where he was at, the people were not giving us any indication of where he was, why he would’ve left there, where we could find him, how to get in contact with him, nothing like that.

David Lyons:

And from what you’re telling me, not only that, but would you use words like evasive? Were they just not… were they hinky when you were… Is that what I’m getting when you’re talking to them?

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, the big thing was, when he pulled the truck out of the pond and mom called to tell this person where Michael was supposedly at, to let him know that the truck had been pulled out of the pond, it was like 11 o’clock that night. And he said that Michael was there and that he was kind of acting out, acting up and he was getting on his nerves, and he was going to… What he say? He’s going to beat his ass or something like that.

Wendy Lyons:

Hey, you know there’s more to this story. So go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded, and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite Apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about the presenters and much, much more. We are also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, which is closed captioned for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for The Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review on Apple podcast or wherever you download your podcast from. Make sure to subscribe to The Murder Police Podcast and set your player to automatically download new episodes so you get the new ones as soon as they drop. And please, tell your friends. Lock it down, Judy.

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Part 2 of 2

Jennifer Gorley:

We went to the funeral home and did a pre-arrangement and started paying on so many time.

Sandra Hasty:

Oh yeah. Have his headstone up already. We know my son was murdered at that house that day.

Wendy Lyons:

Warning, the podcast you’re about to listen to may contain graphic descriptions of violent assaults, murder, and adult language. Listener discretion is advised. Welcome to the Murder Police Podcast, Missing: Michael Keith Gorley.

Jennifer Gorley:

When we pulled the truck out of the pond and mom called to tell this person where Michael was supposedly at, to let him know that the truck had been pulled out of the pond, it was like 11:00 that night. And he said that Michael was there and that he was kind of acting out, acting up and he was getting on his nerves and he was going to, what did he say, he was going to beat his ass or something like that. So it was like 11:00 at night. So the next day, once I have this voice telling me to find Michael, and we’re trying to find him by calling and whatnot, can’t do a whole lot when you’re working and everything. So it’s like, okay, something’s wrong, I just don’t know what. Nobody knows where he is. Nobody’s talked to him and nobody’s seen him. Then when mom does get a reply back through text, like they wouldn’t answer her phone calls, but they would text, the text said that he had left there around 9:00 walking, but she knew that at 11:00 at night, he was there.

David Lyons:

There we go. That’s why I picked up on too. There’s a big time difference.

Jennifer Gorley:

There’s a huge time difference there. And the other thing is, is that Michael wasn’t a walker. He didn’t walk anywhere.

David Lyons:

Well, the shoes and the hat on the porch.

Jennifer Gorley:

Yeah.

David Lyons:

That’s just weird.

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, and not only that-

Sandra Hasty:

You’re not going to walk anywhere from-

Jennifer Gorley:

From where this house is, you’re talking about a good two mile walk to get to Junction from this house. Michael wasn’t a walker. He wouldn’t have walked that far.

Sandra Hasty:

Even at that time they said Michael left walking, there’s churches on that road and church people going back and forth. Somebody would’ve seen him.

Jennifer Gorley:

That day that we went to look for Michael and we all met up at the house where he was supposed to be, my main goal is I wanted to look and see if there were any kind of tracks or if I could see any kind of grass laid over, any indication of a direction that he could have went in because all the people that were there were just giving weird, weird answers to everything, conflicting information. It was just kind of like, I don’t know if these people are high, I don’t know what they’re talking about, but they’re not making any kind of sense.

Jennifer Gorley:

So anyway, I had pulled in to the driveway. Mom got out and she’s looking up and down the ditch line, because she could see tire tracks in the ditch line there. And I’m just trying to scout the fields behind the house to see if there’s any grass laid down or, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m looking for, I’m just looking for Michael and trying to get bits of information from them too, to get an indication of where to go look next, because clearly he wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the house, nobody was home.

Jennifer Gorley:

I actually seen someone there that I knew and I knew that that person knew Michael as well. So I wanted to have a conversation with that person, particularly because I’m like, I know this person and they know me and they know my brother. So I asked him, Have you seen Michael?” Yada, yada. He’s like, “Yeah. I gave him a ride to the store last night.” So I was getting more information about that. And I was like, “Well, where did you go after you took him to the store?” “Well, I brought him back here.” Okay. “Well then where did he go?” “Well then he left here walking.” Made no sense to me. Why would he leave here walking when he just had a ride? That didn’t add up. So then as I’m standing there talking to this person, the voice that had came to me earlier that day to tell me to find Michael told me to shake this person’s hand, which I’m just like, I don’t know why I need to shake this person’s hand.

Jennifer Gorley:

But I was like, okay, well I appreciate it. I put my hand in the window because this person was sitting in their car at that time, shake their hand. And when they went to shake my hand, they just looked like they had seen a ghost. I mean, the color just went completely out of their face. Their eyes was wide open. There was a passenger in the car that had the same look going on and they just kind of look at each other and then look back at me. And that really freaked me out because I’m like, I do not know what’s going on here. I just want to find my brother. I don’t know what all this is. I got this weird voice talking to me and I’m not crazy. I’m not schizophrenic. I don’t hear stuff. This is the only time in my life that’s ever happened.

Jennifer Gorley:

So I’m like, okay, well, I need to get out of here. I need to go find Michael. So I’m like, okay, we need to go. It’s going to get dark. Let’s start driving down the road towards Junction since they say he left walking towards Junction. So we can look out in the fields and see is he laid out in the field somewhere? Is there grass laid down or are there buzzards flying around? Is there anything to indicate a direction? So we leave there, we start driving down the road and as we start driving towards Junction, this voice comes back to me and tells me to turn around. So I told mom, I was like, “I don’t know why, but we need to turn around.”

Jennifer Gorley:

So we turned around right in the middle of the road, went back to the house where Michael was supposed to have been at last. And there’s different people in the driveway at that point that wasn’t there before, which I thought was kind of odd because I’m thinking, okay, if these are Michael’s friends and he’s missing, they haven’t left this driveway. To me, I thought, okay, they’re going to help us. Look for him out of concern. Never happened. Never happened. So I was like, okay, once again, “Mom, it’s getting dark. Let’s go back towards Junction.” Start going back towards junction. The voice comes back and tells me to turn around again. Turn around again.

Jennifer Gorley:

So around again, one of the people that was there, that’s told was going to beat Michael up the night before in the text that he sent to mom, comes riding from the opposite direction on a bicycle, pulls up in the driveway and mom says, “Where’s Michael?” He’s like, “Well, he left here walking.” And she was like, “Okay, but when I talked to you last night at 11:00, you said he was acting up and you were going to basically beat him up or whatever.” Beat his ass was his words. She was like, “So what happened?” He was like, “Well, you know that never happened. He just left here walking towards Junction.” He was like, “But he left his hat and shoes here. Do you want them?” And mom, we both look at each other like, there’s no way. There’s no way possible Michael left here walking with no shoes on or his hat. He’s not going to leave his hat or his shoes behind.

Jennifer Gorley:

Mom was like, “Well, if my son’s shoes and hat is here, I want them.” So he goes over to the porch, picks up the hat and the shoes and comes back to the car. And when he gave the hat and shoes to mom, he just like, he delivered them to her. Like, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a military funeral where they deliver the folded flag to the spouse, it was like that, like he was delivering this to mom. Completely weird. I didn’t even know what to do at that point. So I was like, “All right, Mom, we got to go because if Michael is laid out here in a field somewhere, we’re not getting any information from these people to tell us where he is. This is completely weird and off.” So I took mom home to McKinney and I drove home to my house in Parksville. Of course, when I got there, it’s pitch black in the way I’m driving, we’re both looking on both sides of the road and trying to see if we see anything. We never did. Never seen nothing. And then when I got home that evening, it just kept eating at me.

Jennifer Gorley:

I need to do something. I just don’t know what I need to do. It’s dark. And I just didn’t know where to look. Nobody in the family had talked to him. You couldn’t get ahold of him because he didn’t have a cell phone. The people who were supposedly with him are giving us this completely weird story about what happened. So that’s when I made a post on Facebook that he was missing and that if anybody seen him to please get in contact with us or to contact the trooper that we talked to that was in McKinney that day. And then after that, it just got kind of crazy, and here we are six years later.

David Lyons:

So if we move past that and so your intuition’s on overload and you’ve had something spoken in your ear, [inaudible 00:09:50] to tell you, which I would never deny the possibility of that too.

Sandra Hasty:

We know my son was murdered at that house that day.

David Lyons:

So if we looked at this too, we’re talking about a missing person case, but as a family, y’all feel like he’s been murdered then?

Sandra Hasty:

Oh yeah.

David Lyons:

I think reason brings up too. And it’s a painful thing to have to deal with, but it changes how things are handled.

Sandra Hasty:

There’s been no activity on his social security card. No activity on social media. What’s that called, they put everything in to check to see if anything’s been, what’s that called, some kind of intel?

David Lyons:

Yeah. They’ve got different ways to track through finances and things like that.

Sandra Hasty:

Right, exactly. Someone did try to open a credit card Michael’s name, but it wasn’t Michael. They sent the sheriff out there to ask them if Michael Gorley was there. They said, we don’t even know Michael Gorley. So I don’t know how they did that.

David Lyons:

You can have an identity theft attempt or something, but that’s interesting too.

Sandra Hasty:

They said it was somebody trying to, I don’t know. That’s why I don’t like putting birth dates on missing posters because people can steal your identity. You just don’t put a birthdate on a missing poster and Michael’s birthday was on missing posters at that time. But we redid them, we deleted those and we redid them to where his birthday wasn’t added.

David Lyons:

Well, you mentioned that it got worked for a few months by that same trooper. Is that the way they handled that? Was that trooper the one that was working it or did they assign it to an investigator or were we aware if they did that?

Sandra Hasty:

We didn’t get a detective on the case for six, seven months. This sighting, oh, nope, that wasn’t Michael. That’s sighting, nope. Nope. That wasn’t Michael. Oh, he’s in Florida. Nope, that’s not Michael. Oh, he’s in Tennessee. Nope, that’s not Michael. You know, because they’re going to pull security tapes or they had the local law enforcement pull them and send them to them. Nope, that’s not Michael. Well, he was seen in Richmond, Walmart.

David Lyons:

So y’all were getting tips?

Sandra Hasty:

No, the police were getting these tips.

David Lyons:

I gotcha.

Sandra Hasty:

People seeing posters and calling in and saying, I think I saw this guy. Because I passed them, I took almost a week and passed them all over Kentucky.

David Lyons:

Do you still do posters?

Sandra Hasty:

We share them on the Facebook.

David Lyons:

On Facebook.

Sandra Hasty:

Yeah.

David Lyons:

What’s the name of the organization that, because I want people to take a look at it, did you create the organization that I found you through?

Sandra Hasty:

Missing and Murdered Loved Ones in Kentucky? Yes, that one and Missing Men Nationwide in Honor of Michael Gorley. Missing Men, Teens, and Boys Nationwide in Honor Michael Gorley. And then I manage Missing Women in Kentucky and Surrounding States.

David Lyons:

Do you have pretty strong followers on it? Do you have a lot of people that-

Sandra Hasty:

Well, the Missing Men, I can’t believe it. The Missing Men get less views, but now Missing and Murdered Loved Ones in Kentucky, it was created three years ago it’s right at 16,000 members now. When I started it, there was like 50 and then he would message me and tell or call me, well, I think there’s a sighting of Michael. I’m like, it’s not going to be Michael, give it up. My child was murdered.

David Lyons:

Six years and to kind of summarize it, what we’re looking at from everything you said, you’ve got somebody that’s missing, but we’ve got, what I say is a lot of workability because he just didn’t vanish. We’ve got a place and we’ve got people. How has that affected the family since the time he’s gone missing?

Sandra Hasty:

Nothing’s the same.

Jennifer Gorley:

Well, mom, she consumes her whole life with missing and murdered people. That’s what she does day in and day out. She doesn’t take a break, which is good, because I can’t do it. I don’t know how mom does it, honestly. I couldn’t spend every single day, I have to have a break from it, but I thank God that she can do that.

David Lyons:

I think you have to have ways to work through this.

Jennifer Gorley:

Yeah.

David Lyons:

And that’s probably the one that’s touched. And again, that’s how I found your mom a couple years ago was just passing through Facebook and saw the group. And then I was paying attention to it. And that was long before we started the podcast. And one of the things I thought about in podcast is, eventually, is to try to help some of these families and at least get a chance for y’all to talk about who these people are so we don’t forget.

Wendy Lyons:

So who was the private investigator and how did he get involved in the disappearance of Michael Keith Gorley and involved with his family?

David Lyons:

That’s Mike Ward. And in his own words, here’s what he had to say about how he got into investigative work and specifically how he came to Kentucky. Well, Mike, I know that you’re cut from law enforcement cloth, because we’d met before. Tell me about your law enforcement history.

PI Mike Ward:

I was a police officer and investigator in Connecticut for 20 years, retired on a disability. My heart started acting up and I was thankful enough to be included in what they call a Heart and Hypertension Act, so I was retired out. Shortly after I moved to Kentucky to retire, got here, had some medical issues, had some health issues and worked through them, thanks to some good doctors. I realized that there was a major problem here in Kentucky with missing persons. Kind of opened my eyes because I wasn’t aware of such a problem nationwide. We didn’t have as big of a problem in Connecticut. As I was working, we’d always have missing person calls, of course, like every other department, but we never had anything like this where people were missing for years and years and there was no investigation done and there was no closure.

PI Mike Ward:

There was no searches. There was no investigation. There was just a form filed in a file. And that’s what I found here, that they don’t have the manpower here to put the time into these cases and it takes, so it kind of got me off the couch. I got my license here as a private investigator. Before I moved here, I started my own firm in Connecticut. I did that for four years and then decided it to retire and came here. It was something I had done in the past. So I decided, well, obviously there’s an issue here, maybe this is where I need to be. Got my license, started an agency, been working ever since. We work missing person cases, surveillances, background investigations. We do just about everything that a private investigative firm will do.

PI Mike Ward:

The name of the company is Missing Investigations and Search Services. So it’s missinginvestigations.com, or we’re on Facebook as well at Missing Investigations and Search Services. Before I even was licensed, what got me off the couch was, Hey yeah, a case that started out in Washington County, it was a young couple had disappeared and they were from Florence. Like Jen was saying, you hear a voice, somebody talks to you. Just looking at their case on television, on a news report, I just felt like these people were talking to me. It was like, get off your butt. You know how to do this. You can go find them. I said, well, I don’t know what I can do, but I’m not going to sit here. I went and contacted a family in the area. They were starting searches. So I went and contacted some family members and joined their searches and started asking questions.

PI Mike Ward:

It was only a couple days later that state police located their vehicle and did not locate them, so the search was on to try and determine what had happened to these people. They shortly were able to learn from a witness that the couple was killed in Washington, transported out in their own vehicle and discarded along Highway 64. We didn’t know that at the time, we just knew that they weren’t where they were supposed to be. And conducting those searches and doing the investigation that I did on my own and in the search crews, and we got lucky with a couple of passersby happened to locate the first person that was discarded, the male. And from there it kind of gave us a timeline of how much time we had left for this person to be where he was, so I just started searching that area.

PI Mike Ward:

And again, we got searches organized. We had searched one certain area and we were 50 yards away from the female’s body. But we were told by the homeowner, couldn’t search that area because of severe ground hornets nest that were there. He said, we’d get torn up. This was in August. And he said, “Just don’t go up on that hill because you’ll get eaten up.” He said, “When the weather gets colder, you can come back and feel free to search wherever you want to search.” But the dog kept wanting to go to that hill. We said, “All right, we’re going to come back.” And before we could get back, we got a good frost. And he started clearing that land out and he located female. That kind of was the fire that got under me. I said, “Well, if I can do it, maybe I can help.” There was something about that case that ate at me, still does. Every case I have, I’ve grown to pick and choose cases that I work, for some reason. I took the cases that nobody else wants.

David Lyons:

So you’re helping everybody out with Michael’s case. Correct?

PI Mike Ward:

Yeah.

David Lyons:

And how did you meet again and get involved in that one?

PI Mike Ward:

Oh, I forget now. It’s been so long. I believe on this case, it was probably my ex-partner had brought it to my attention because she had been working this case prior to me getting licensed. She was a search team coordinator and she told me, she said, “Hey, you got to pick up this case. It’s right around the corner from you. You should work it.” So she introduced me to Sandra and I started working it immediately.

David Lyons:

Now on search team real quick, and we maybe jumping ahead, did anybody ever do area searches out there at some point?

PI Mike Ward:

We’ve done numerous searches. We have numerous more do. A lot of leads that have taken us a lot of different places. But yeah, we have searches that need to get done, that we’ve been waiting for weather and availability. And that’s kind of what we’re trying to coordinate right now is to get people in places that we need them to be.

David Lyons:

Are you getting cooperation on places you need to search?

PI Mike Ward:

Sometimes we do. Sometimes we don’t. It all depends on what the lead is that’s brought me there. I can generally get consent. Most of the time homeowners, if they don’t have anything to hide, they have no problem with the search. It’s basically a cursory search with a dog. We’re not tearing up any property, we’re not damaging anything. So just to run a dog over some property, usually people don’t have too much of a problem with that. If they do, it sets off a red flag for me.

David Lyons:

I think it would for all of us.

PI Mike Ward:

They don’t want us here.

David Lyons:

Especially in rural areas. That’s a little bit different when you’re out and what we might call, the sticks, for people that aren’t from Kentucky, but rural areas, there’s different expectations of privacy and life is just a little bit different.

PI Mike Ward:

Yep.

David Lyons:

That’s what makes us unique. Actually, this isn’t something that happened in downtown Lexington or anything, or even the big metropolis of Nicholasville, where we’re at now. So when you’re looking at this case, and again, I was throwing that out there that clearly we probably have a group of people that, without naming them, that we probably feel pretty strongly about at least have information that might solve this. What can people in the community do to kind of help move this case forward?

PI Mike Ward:

Basically anybody that knows any of these people involved, step forward, say something. Call my number, my phone’s on 24/7. I’ll take any leads anybody’s got on any case I’m working. All the information’s confidential. I keep everything as anonymous as I can. And really, that’s what we need is somebody to come forward and deliver us information, give us some leads. Whether somebody said something, whether they saw something, whether they heard something, it doesn’t matter, I’ll follow it up, run it down. If it’s a dead end, it’s a dead end. It goes in a dead end file. If it turns out to be something, if it takes me something else, then I’ll go there.

PI Mike Ward:

There’s between five and eight people involved in this case that I know of, that’s there’s not even any doubt about, that have to have knowledge about it. Some of them have passed on. But out of those eight people, how many people do they know, people have they spoken to over the last six years about this case, said something, made a comment about something, made somebody uncomfortable about something. Come on, there’s people out there that know these people. And the scary thing is that they will not hesitate to do this again. This was their friend and that’s the sad part.

David Lyons:

What it comes down to is, the people that live in these areas, the people that know people need to quit carrying this on their heart.

PI Mike Ward:

Right.

David Lyons:

I don’t know how people carry this on their heart, but I’m going to tell you, I met a lot of people that did. I’ve met people that watched people get stabbed to death with screwdrivers and rolled up in carpets and could look at it and say, that’s none of my business. But at some point, the thing is that I think people don’t understand is that they carry this stuff in their heart. That it inevitably it could be them or a family member that is the next person.

PI Mike Ward:

Yeah, exactly.

David Lyons:

That is missing or hurt or dead, or is sitting at home wondering what happened to a loved one. They don’t live in a vacuum. And in a case like this, I’m with you, Mike, people need to talk. If you’re going to live in a community and be a part of a community, you have to come forward on this. It gets to a point where it’s actually shameful.

PI Mike Ward:

Oh, it is.

David Lyons:

Yeah. How groups of people will hold onto this information. So I think that, if we’ve got listeners in Lincoln and Boyle County, let’s go, lean on people. If you think you know somebody that knows, you need to get in their ear and you need to talk to them and tell them to do the right thing, either anonymously or not, but come forward because if you don’t do that, you’re going to lose your community. And trust me, I came from a community that loses daily and that can move to any community, and it’s usually because people stop acting and stop caring. So I think the big thing is that we need people to cough it up. Would you agree, Jennifer?

Jennifer Gorley:

Absolutely.

David Lyons:

Yeah. It’s time.

Jennifer Gorley:

It’s because there are people that I hear, I wouldn’t say daily because it’s been six years, but it’s like they know, but they don’t want to get involved.

David Lyons:

Yeah. Well they got to get involved, and I’m a soapbox preacher on that. You live in a community, you don’t get to not get involved. I think people are done with people not get involved because we’re sitting in a room together and you all have dealt with this for six years and it’s not fair. And again, I think, think what people need to understand is that if you want to live that kind of life, and if you want that to go around around you, the wheel gets tighter on who might get hit next.

PI Mike Ward:

Exactly.

David Lyons:

It’s just the way it is. That’s how communities fall apart. And Lincoln and Boyle are two damn small to turn into some of the big city problems that we have in this state.

PI Mike Ward:

That’s the problem. The community that these people are involved in is the entire community. We have a major drug problem here that, even though it’s getting addressed, it’s not getting addressed hard enough. And until these people get out of that life and start talking up and talking about what’s going on out here, they have got to come forward. People have got to get this off their chest because it’s going to eat them up. They may be the next one in line. They may be the next one that somebody gets pissed off about and they’re going to be the next one missing.

David Lyons:

Clearly, this is a case where there’s five to eight people that know something about what happened with this. And by now, six years later, you’re going to have an issue where those five to eight people have spoke to other people, friends or family members, maybe a lot, maybe a little. And this is definitely something where people in this small community need to start talking and maybe talk to each other about how important it is to talk to resolve this.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, but keep in mind also, sometimes people don’t want it resolved because that means pointing the finger at the guilty parties, which likely could have been a friend or at least someone that they all knew.

David Lyons:

That’s it. And the problem with that is that there’s so many different possibilities that what could have happened to Michael that evening. And it could have been anything from a medical emergency. It could have been maybe a drug overdose. It could have been maybe that a fight occurred and it got out of hand, which happens. But what makes it worse now is when people dig their heels in the sand and don’t move and don’t talk.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, it’s very unfortunate also because this family wants and deserves answers. Presumably, Michael is deceased at this point, but for his grieving mother and family members, for them to just be able to put their son in his final resting place would probably mean the world to her. And also just to answer questions that she has, but most importantly, to make the guilty parties pay for what they’ve done.

David Lyons:

True. In a sad element of this is the family already has a tombstone erected in a cemetery for Michael and they’re prepay the funeral arrangements as we speak. They, I think they like anybody else, want to have hope. I think that they have come to the conclusion. And if you ask them directly, they’ll tell you they believe that he’s deceased and that’s a sad thing for a family to have to plan.

Wendy Lyons:

Absolutely, it is. But I think what’s most disgusting to me is the code of silence that people would have knowing that they know where he is, or knowing maybe they don’t know where he is, but knowing what happened to him and they’re all in cahoots, if you will, to keep that code of silence as to let’s don’t tell. And I would have to think that at some point, someone’s conscious is bound to be getting the best of them imagining if that were their family wanting and seeking answers, how could you just leave them hanging?

David Lyons:

And that makes a good point is how people can walk with that, because here’s the reality, you can know about this and by not saying anything, you own some of it.

Wendy Lyons:

You do.

David Lyons:

And the thing is, is that you will carry that guilt, not necessarily always legally if it’s third party information or the fact that just been told, and you’re not [inaudible 00:29:07] it. But I guess for me, I’d have to look at people and ask and say, if you go to church every Sunday, do you walk into that church with that on your heart? And for people that have family members that are involved in this is to look over and say, are these the people that are holding your children and going to the baptisms or their christenings, or are they going to the holiday events? And you’re still looking at them and you’re carrying on a relationship with them knowing that something really evil went on and it’s being kept quiet.

Wendy Lyons:

Well, and for a town as small as Stanford, and for our listeners who maybe want to do research, like I always love to do, for an area as small as Boyle and Lincoln County, if you look, you can see those are very tiny towns. And in these little towns where we come from and live nearby, most everyone knows everyone so for people to be walking around knowing what happened to this young man, chances are they know his mother, his sister, his extended family members. And in little towns such as that just has one Walmart and one grocery, you’re probably running into these people. So to walk through these aisles or look over at a stoplight and see them and know that you have that little piece of information, or maybe a big piece of information as to what happened that night and possibly where their son is laying currently or buried currently, whatever the circumstances are, how can you wake up each day and live with yourself knowing that?

David Lyons:

Yeah. And that’s true. We wonder that because you and I would probably never do that. I just know we wouldn’t. But I can tell you, in my career, I saw it enough that’s what makes it frightening, is that people will hold on to information. For example, I think that, from what I understand from talking to Mike Ward is that I believe at least one of the people who might be central to this has passed away since then. And you have to wonder if they were involved in this or carried enough on their heart. Is the family maybe just blind in themselves if they believe that he or she has gone to a better place, because I don’t know how that works if you’re a religious person and you carry something like that into the gates. I don’t know if you make it in or not. And that’s something to think about, the repose of somebody’s soul like that. And that family probably needs to make that right, if that happened.

Wendy Lyons:

So let me ask you, if people do know something, regardless how small or how large a piece of information is that they feel compelled to share, how would a person go about doing that?

David Lyons:

What I would recommend is for sure is they can call their local police department. But what I would recommend is call to Kentucky State Police. And the number would be 502-782-1800, because they’re the ones that are handling it. But I will say this too, that the private investigator that we talked to, Mike Ward, is working on this case diligently. So if for some reason, somebody felt like they’d rather bring it to him than the State Police, on our show notes page, I have links on how to contact Mike Ward and get that information to him. He’ll process that and get that into the right hands as well. And in closing, we’re going to talk to one more person or persons. If by chance, the people that were there when Michael went missing are listening as podcast, and I’m hoping people spread it enough to where that can happen.

David Lyons:

Just a word to them. In no way would I say we’re not investigating the case or anything and no way would I even hint that there’s some kind of a deal or anything, but I can tell people from experience that the first ones that make it out with the information and talk about what happens and everything usually get treated a lot better and their heart feels a lot better. So if you’re listening and you’re one of those people that was central to this, it’s time, and it time for you to go ahead and take care of yourself and not worry about the other people and come forward, let’s find Michael.

David Lyons:

The Murder Police Podcast is hosted by Wendy and David Lyons and was created to honor the lives of crime victims so their names are never forgotten. It is produced, recorded, and edited by David Lyons. The Murder Police Podcast can be found on your favorite apple or Android podcast platform, as well as at murderpolicepodcast.com where you’ll find show notes, transcripts, information about the presenters and much, much more. We are also on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, which is closed captioned for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us.

David Lyons:

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