Tuesday May 6, 2025
The unsolved disappearance of Michael Keith Gorley haunts the backroads of rural Kentucky like a ghost story without an ending. Ten birthdays, ten Christmas mornings, ten Mother’s Days have passed while his family waits for answers that never come.
Sandra Hasty remembers the last morning she saw her son – May 17, 2015. Michael had slept in her bed that night (she took his), a simple moment of connection that would become a treasured final memory. Just five days earlier, he’d been released from jail after the grand jury refused to indict him on charges stemming from being in a car where others possessed drugs.
The mystery began that afternoon when two women arrived at Sandra’s door with a bizarre story: Michael had driven his truck into a pond on Wilderness Trail Road. The family found this immediately suspicious. Michael had been seen earlier that day at his grandmother’s house, seeking help to remove the vehicle, but showing no signs of erratic behavior. Why would he deliberately drive his only vehicle into water?
After retrieving the truck (which mysteriously smelled of gasoline in the back), the story took a darker turn. When Sandra called someone at a house on Highway 300 asking about Michael at 11 PM, she was told he was there. By morning, the story changed – Michael had supposedly left walking between 8-9 PM. Two weeks later, bloodhounds would track his scent along this route before losing it near Hatcher Road.
Michael’s sister Jennifer shares poignant memories of her brother – his love of football (number 55), his work installing flooring at the famous Versailles Castle, his passion for mudding and four-wheeling, and the devastating losses he’d endured in the years before his disappearance. Their father had died in 2004, followed by two more family deaths in quick succession.
What happened on that May evening? What are people hiding? And why, after a decade, is there still no justice for a man who once wrote poetry, loved comedy movies, and would give the clothes off his back to someone in need?
Have you seen Michael? Do you know something that might help bring his family peace? Listen to part one of this three-part investigation into a case that demands answers.
Transcript
Sandra HastyGuest00:00
I told her never come back to my house ever again.
David LyonsHost00:02
I got you.
Sandra HastyGuest00:03
So when they knocked on the door, I said what do you want? It’s Michael. I said what’s wrong? She said well, I need to tell you something. So I let her in. And then this other one comes down. I said who’s that? Oh, that’s my friend. But I had heard, you know, michael didn’t know this friend.
David LyonsHost00:24
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest00:24
Okay, okay. And so I said, well, I have to ride out there with y’all I guess, which I hated to, because I couldn’t stand neither one of them.
Wendy LyonsHost00:35
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 the Vanishing of Michael Keith Gourley what Are they Hiding? Part 1 of 3, with Michael’s mother, sandra Hastie, and his sister, jennifer and Sandra.
David LyonsHost01:23
Wendy couldn’t be here today. She’s on a little bit of a road trip. She says hello and thanks for coming back and sitting down with us again. We sat down a couple years ago to talk about Michael’s case and where it’s at and what was going on with it, and I wanted to do that again because, unfortunately, we’re at an anniversary point and it’s an anniversary that nobody should have to deal with. This is not an anniversary to celebrate, but I think it’s important to recognize that and maybe encourage people who listen and watch to realize how much time has gone by without any answers or a sense of justice for you all. So thanks for sitting down. So, sandra, how are you doing today?
Sandra HastyGuest02:00
I’m doing good. How are you, David?
David LyonsHost02:02
Doing good. I love the shirt. That’s going to be the shirt at the memorial this year.
Sandra HastyGuest02:08
Yes, you’re right Good deal. The 10th annual celebration of life came like vigil for a missing and murdered in Kentucky.
David LyonsHost02:16
Amen, and what we’ll do, too is, toward the end, we’ll talk about how people can follow you on there, because a lot of people may not know how successful that missing and murder page is. How many, how many tens of thousands of people do you have on there now, excuse me, how many thousands of people are following?
Sandra HastyGuest02:30
there’s about 16,500 right now. Wow, yeah wow, that’s a lot of a lot of people would just get on and join and you can’t look at the profile. That’s why I made the group private, because you know if they get on there, it’s like they got a little circle by their name and you try to click on their profile and you can’t see it. And my main goal is to protect the families of the missing and murdered and the missing and murdered.
David LyonsHost02:56
I love it. It really is a good place to go for information on that. Yes, it is, and it probably helps people feel like they get a little bit of control of an out-of-control situation. And Michael’s sister, jennifer, how are you today?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest03:08
Doing all right Good deal.
David LyonsHost03:09
Thanks for coming and sitting down again Well thank you for meeting with us.
03:13
Yeah, I think it’s important, and even though we talked about some of this before, we all know that there have been a few changes and a few things that I think that are important to the case, and so we’ll go into those. Well, let’s start out with this and you all, like we’ve done before, who’s Michael? From the day he’s born to the day that we’re talking about today, where he went missing, but tell us as much as you can about who Michael is.
Sandra HastyGuest03:39
Michael was born on December 22, 1976, at Casey County Memorial Hospital. On December 22, 1976, at Casey County Memorial Hospital Back then you had the nursery was right there in front of your mother I watched my son be circumcised and all. He didn’t even cry and he was just a bundle of joy. I mean up until his 38th birthday or up until he was 38, I mean it’s been 10 Christmases, 10 birthdays, 10 Mother’s Days, 10 all holidays without Michael.
David LyonsHost04:12
There we go, because that’s the anniversary he loved holidays.
Sandra HastyGuest04:16
Yeah, he really did. He loved eating at holidays.
David LyonsHost04:20
What was his favorite thing to eat? Chicken and dumplings. Okay, yeah, I’m down for that. I don’t eat it anymore. We were just talking, before we got started, about diets and stuff.
Sandra HastyGuest04:28
Oh, I have to make it every holiday. I love it, I love it.
David LyonsHost04:31
My mom made pretty good chicken and dumplings too. Jennifer, you’re a sister, older or younger?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest04:39
Younger. Okay, yeah, I’m the youngest.
David LyonsHost04:40
Okay.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest04:45
Tell us what that’s like when you get a brother. Well, michael, we grew up together, you know, and, like I said, he was older than me but we went to school together all through our school years. He was always looking out for me. I was always kind of looking out for him because we were close. You know, growing up we were always close. I was always kind of looking out for him because we were close. Growing up we were always close, but just like brothers and sisters, we also. If there was an argument to be had, it was me and Michael. You know what I mean. But he liked to always crack jokes, he liked to cut up all the time. He was a funny guy, he was a good brother. I have no complaints in the brother area, just a good guy. I have no complaints in the brother area, just a good guy, I mean. I miss him dearly.
David LyonsHost05:29
I can understand that. You know, right before I retired I lost my baby brother. I had four brothers. We all fought right, I was in the middle. I always tell people I just learned how to fight. Is that I got it and I gave it. And I know that loss is incredible because for us to have the first one go away. Incidentally, he died of a drug overdose in.
05:54
Louisville in 2020. And to have that first, to feel that connection, just go. And we did. We fought tooth and nail, drove Mom and Dad crazy Dad had to repair the house over it sometimes but we loved each other Right, and you still look back at that. I wouldn’t change it. I wouldn’t change it, maybe a few things. One thing about my little brother is if you had a fight and it stopped, you’d wake up at 2 in the morning and he’d be beating you in the head with a Tonka truck. So he really had a hard time letting go. So maybe I’d change that part because that hurt pretty bad.
06:25
So, unfortunately, I think I know what loss was. But here’s the difference is, you’ve lost him without any answers, right, and that’s where we’re at too. So more about Michael, too, is what were his hobbies and his interests, and what did he do for a living as he got older? Where did he?
Sandra HastyGuest06:43
focus. He got a little bit of everything.
David LyonsHost06:45
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest06:45
He done tree service.
David LyonsHost06:46
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest06:47
He helped. What was it he did at the castle?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest06:54
The flooring yeah.
Sandra HastyGuest06:56
Yeah, the flooring.
David LyonsHost06:58
Oh, he worked at the castle.
Sandra HastyGuest06:59
He worked at the castle.
David LyonsHost07:00
yes, On Versailles Road.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest07:02
Wow Well he did the flo flooring okay at the castle you know, so he did tower um at the castle on vercelles road yeah, he’s really proud of that.
Sandra HastyGuest07:12
He’s done um, worked with forest and stuff like that, and he’s worked on smokestacks okay he’s worked in old rigs. He’s done a little bit of everything.
David LyonsHost07:23
Yeah, for the listeners and viewers.
Sandra HastyGuest07:24
They need to google. Okay, he’s worked in old rigs. I remember that, yeah, he’s done a little bit of everything.
David LyonsHost07:26
Yeah, for the listeners and viewers, they need to Google the Versailles Castle. It’s a real, full-size castle. I tell people about it all the time. Yeah, I think the story is that a man was madly in love with his wife.
Sandra HastyGuest07:38
Mm-hmm, then they divorced.
David LyonsHost07:40
That’s the punchline when I tell people is he built her an entire castle and then she left him.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest07:45
Right.
David LyonsHost07:45
So I’m like stick to those cards from dollar store. That’s probably a better move to make, maybe, but I never see. I didn’t know that before. That’s kind of neat because me and Wendy have visited the castle more than one time. So neat stuff, neat stuff.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest07:58
Yeah, but he did, like Mom said, several jobs. He did flooring. And he did, like Mom said, several jobs. He did flooring. That was his I’d say, probably his last profession that he got into. He worked on smokestacks. He’d done welding. Okay, he was a MIG welder. He worked on welding tractor and trailer trucks, I believe out in. Oklahoma, yeah a taxidermy truck and body. At one point he owned a tree service business.
Wendy LyonsHost08:25
Okay.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest08:27
It was kind of like a joint venture between him and my uncle. They did a lot of tree work a whole lot of tree work.
Sandra HastyGuest08:32
That’s when we had the big ice storm.
David LyonsHost08:34
I was going to say there’s no shortage of tree work in Kentucky when the wind blows or the ice comes, and this was at, we had a big ice storm that year.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest08:43
And there was just tree work to be done everywhere you went so yeah.
Sandra HastyGuest08:48
That might have been the year I also got his ID from when he worked out on the oil rigs in North Dakota.
David LyonsHost08:54
I was going to ask you what states did he hit?
Sandra HastyGuest08:56
North Dakota.
David LyonsHost08:57
Gotcha. You know, because when I travel like I was in Carlsbad, new Mexico, and I’m in Texas a lot in Oklahoma I’m still fascinated by the oil business and the big base in Carlsbad where I was at a couple of weeks ago they said that when they finally turned back into getting oil back in several years ago that town started to breathe again. So neat work, hard work, right, hard work. What other hobbies and stuff did he have? If he excuse me, what other hobbies and passions did he have?
Sandra HastyGuest09:27
oh, I could find a poem that he had wrote me. Okay, what about six months ago? And you know, uh, he loved watching movies okay you know, he was more like, I don’t know we. He said, mom, let’s watch a movie, and we, you know, he’d lay on one couch, I’d lay on the other and we’d watch movies. You know, when he’d be home, that’s what he wouldn’t do was watch movies. And he loved a lot of comedies.
David LyonsHost09:54
That’s what I’m going to ask. Is what he liked? Yeah, so, yeah, so yeah. He loved to laugh. He liked to laugh.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest10:00
His younger years, so growing up with Michael, and all through school, because we lived with mom until we were up in like the fifth grade and then we lived with our dad.
Wendy LyonsHost10:10
Mom lived in Florida.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest10:12
Dad lived in Kentucky Going through school. He loved playing football. That was everything eat, sleep, breathe football.
Sandra HastyGuest10:22
Number 55.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest10:24
All through school, elementary school, middle school, high school loved football and then after high school, I would say, his hobbies kind of turned to four-wheeling mudding the races.
Sandra HastyGuest10:38
Okay, him and his cousin Casey got kicked out of the car wash because they were back then the Ponderosa. It was all dirt, yeah, and they would go out there and race because they didn’t have dates up then and then they’d go to the car wash and wash their Jeeps off. Well, they got kicked out of the car wash For putting too much mud.
David LyonsHost11:02
I’ll bet it was Chunks of mud. Yeah.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest11:04
Yeah, like blocking up the drain, kind of mud.
David LyonsHost11:05
Yeah, too funny, too good. So what I’m gathering, though, is the people that knew him in town and stuff. Not a big town, right, right, but how many people live Junction City, correct? Is that where you are still from? Is that where you call home?
Sandra HastyGuest11:19
Yes, well, me and Michael lived on McKinney Ridge Road in Sanford when he came up missing.
David LyonsHost11:24
Gotcha.
Sandra HastyGuest11:25
Okay, yeah, gotcha, but he’s from Junction, I mean.
David LyonsHost11:28
Hoag Holler Road. Yeah, exactly.
Sandra HastyGuest11:32
And Copperhead Road right now, that’s a song.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest11:34
Yeah, persimmon Knob. Okay, we lived on White Oak. Road growing up for years, and then after that we lived on Persimmon Knob for years, and then, after we graduated high school, we all kind of ventured out on our own. But, Michael stayed pretty local to Junction Boyle County area.
David LyonsHost11:53
Yeah, it’s pretty, it’s real pretty. You know, we live in Jessamine County and it’s funny I think I got Wendy used to it a few years ago where she’d say let’s go to dinner and she’d say something in Lexington, I’m like nope, if we come out and get on 27, we’re taking a left. And I told her I said if I’m going to be in a car for 20 minutes, I want it moving with a view. And so we seriously Lancaster, stanford, all the places, boyle County, that’s where we go to eat, just because it’s more laid back Right.
12:23
And you don’t have to deal with the knucklehead traffic back there. I think I work too long in Lexington to deal with that too much. How did growing up with Michael did we now let me go back, and I think I know the answer in this Dad’s dead. When did y’all lose your father?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest12:44
So Dad passed away in 2004 from cancer.
David LyonsHost12:49
Yeah, I think I remember it from the last time. Did that shape anything with you and Michael or anything losing Dad? How old were y’all when it happened?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest12:57
I was 26. So Michael would have been 28. 28, yeah.
David LyonsHost13:04
Yeah, gotcha.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest13:07
Michael and Dad were always together. Yeah, so Dad was his you know biggest supporter. So when Dad passed away it took a big toll on Michael, mentally Sure which I mean it did all of us. But Michael was more dependent on Dad and they kind of stuck together through life. And then when Dad passed away then it was kind of like Michael and Mom. So he went from kind of like being with Dad all the time to being with Mom all the time.
David LyonsHost13:36
Okay, yeah, yeah. Did it change the way he behaved or anything like that? How so Could you feel comfortable talking about that?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest13:44
Well, he went through like a bad spell.
Sandra HastyGuest13:52
Okay, yeah, which we all do, and that’s why I want to relax you about that. He went through a bad spell.
David LyonsHost13:57
Yeah, exactly, but he lost his aunt in February 2005,.
Sandra HastyGuest14:02
And then my mother. Michael was too kind-hearted. Okay, I don’t care who the person was, what background they had. I’ve seen Michael take clothes out of his own clothes and put on people. Michael was born on his great-grandmother’s birthday.
David LyonsHost14:21
Okay, that’s a neat coincidence, yeah.
Sandra HastyGuest14:24
I heard them high heels coming down the hallway. I heard them. I said that’s Grandma coming. And she brought him all kinds of pretty outfits and receiving blankets. Where is that baby born on my birthday?
David LyonsHost14:41
Yeah, there we go, there we go.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest14:43
Whenever dad passed away that’s. I guess that was a turning point. Oh, I gotcha.
David LyonsHost14:49
And that’s not uncommon for people. I’m going to share this. My youngest brother he just to get because I’ve experienced it is when we lost dad, there was a shift in who he was. And 10 years later, when we lost my mother, there was another shift in who he was. And all of that, I think, accumulated in him having to deal with things he had a tough time dealing with. So and I think that’s why I asked that is that we all handle those losses in different ways. I don’t lose them. My parents was very difficult, but I think it hit some people in my family harder than others, if that makes any sense.
Sandra HastyGuest15:25
on that too, it was hard on all of us Michael Whitney when my mother died. Jennifer was there with us, but Michael stayed in the waiting room because he didn’t want to see. They called her Maupat. He could not see her dying.
David LyonsHost15:40
Gotcha Sure sure.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest15:42
Well, when our dad passed away, it was December of 2004. And then my Aunt Cheryl passed away in February of 2005. So it was just two months after dad passed away.
David LyonsHost15:55
Wow.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest15:55
Well then, Maupat passed away in March of 2005. So we had three major deaths in our family within four months.
David LyonsHost16:03
Yeah, that’s a lot yeah.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest16:05
So by the time my Pat passed away I was emotionally numb and I think I’ve stayed emotionally numb for about 10 years and I didn’t realize it at the time. People say, well, how do you do it? And I’m like I don’t know. I guess I was kind of like on autopilot.
David LyonsHost16:20
I’ve said the same thing, like when you lose people.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest16:22
Yeah.
David LyonsHost16:26
For me and I know this is we’ll get and I’m not trying to be distracted, but I think it’s an important thing is that for me, like three days of a fog? Do you know what I’m saying? And it’s like that’s when you do all that stuff with the funeral home and you do all those things and it’s like really mechanical, and then later it catches up yeah, yeah, sometimes it was kind of crazy like I didn’t even realize that I was kind of like numb for so long yeah not today.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest16:49
And then it’s kind of crazy, like me and my first husband divorced and then it was like maybe a year after that it was kind of like click, and all of a sudden I was just like, wow, I have emotions, I can cry, I can do this, I can do that, but it took a long time.
David LyonsHost17:07
Yeah, I think that’s how we protect ourselves.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest17:09
Yeah.
David LyonsHost17:10
I think that’s how we get through the worst stuff in life. I do think it comes back and we pay the piper and we finally I don’t know about paying the piper I think we just go ahead and accept that and then we start dealing with it in a more healthy way, in my opinion.
17:23
I think that’s the way it is for me too, a lot of times. Well, take us back to like May 12th in 2015, maybe a day or two before. Try to get everybody up to when he goes missing and what it was like just before contact you had with him, where he last was, maybe a description of who he was with things like that.
Sandra HastyGuest17:47
If you can take us back to maybe—. He left my house May 17th in the morning and that’s the last time we saw him.
David LyonsHost17:51
Was it the 17th? I said 12th 17th.
Sandra HastyGuest17:53
Yeah, when did I get that wrong? May 17th 2015. Okay, and that’s the last time I saw him. And that’s the last time I saw him.
David LyonsHost18:00
Gotcha. What was he doing right before then?
Sandra HastyGuest18:03
Michael Sleeping in my bed.
David LyonsHost18:05
Okay, there we go yeah.
Sandra HastyGuest18:07
He was sleeping in my bed. He said, Mama, I’m going to sleep in your bed. I said, okay, so I’d sleep in his bed. He’d sleep in my bed.
David LyonsHost18:14
Gotcha, gotcha. Well, take us up to when he goes missing.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest18:19
So Michael had gotten into some trouble, okay, and he went to jail for a couple of months and he got out of jail on May the 12th, and so he was out of jail for five days before he went missing. Okay, how long was he in jail? Like maybe two months, I’m pretty sure it was about a two-month stretch.
Sandra HastyGuest18:43
Yeah, it was 60 days and grand jury didn’t indict, so they had to release him.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest18:48
Okay gotcha so he got out May the 12th and he went missing on May the 17th.
David LyonsHost18:53
Was that in Boyle County or Garrard County?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest18:56
He was in Boyle County jail. Okay, gotcha.
David LyonsHost18:57
Yeah, and I like getting that out because you know, sometimes those answers might be with people that he was with.
Sandra HastyGuest19:06
And so where that was? Well, he should never have went to jail. He had just gotten a car with these people from Sanford to Boyle County. They found drugs on the driver and his girlfriend.
David LyonsHost19:19
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest19:20
They didn’t find nothing on Michael or the girl, but I’m not going to mention the policeman’s name. He’s no longer a policeman. He took them all to jail and charged them with the same thing.
David LyonsHost19:32
Oh, okay, gotcha.
Sandra HastyGuest19:33
But the grand jury didn’t indict two of them. They didn’t indict Michael and their other girl in the back seat. They didn’t indict but they did indict the driver and his girlfriend in the front. And then she gets to jail and thought she was going to hide stuff in her underwear and it all came out.
David LyonsHost19:50
Oh, okay.
Sandra HastyGuest19:51
Yeah, so yeah.
David LyonsHost19:54
I’d say that’s getting caught dirty right. One way to put it yeah. So he doesn’t get indicted and they release him, which is how that works, Right. Once you hit that time limit, you come out, take it from there. No-transcript.
Sandra HastyGuest20:14
Well, we were told he was on Highway 300. Okay, okay, but we were told this from the people that were involved.
David LyonsHost20:26
I see.
Sandra HastyGuest20:26
Okay, now the man at Highway 300, I did call at 11 o’clock at night. He said Michael was there. The next day he changed his story. I’m like Michael didn’t come home. Where’s Michael Don’t know. I said what does it mean? You don’t know. He left walking between 8 and 9 last night. I said hold up. I talked to you at 11 last night and you said Michael was there. So we don’t know if Michael was there or not.
David LyonsHost20:51
Yeah, what’s another name for Highway 300? Does it got a Knobloch?
Sandra HastyGuest20:56
Roadlick road. Yeah, is, it used to be a log cabin at the end.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest20:59
We used to call it log cabin road yeah, there used to be a log cabin at the end and people would would they call it old log cabin or log cabin oh log cabin road gotcha.
Sandra HastyGuest21:07
We lived on that road when I was when I was shy. That’s what I thought my grand, my grandfather, had a farm out there and then he had a free cabin home out there gotcha so I mean, I just didn’t know where Highway 300 was, because I always knew Knobloch Road.
David LyonsHost21:23
Well, that’s why I asked is that, yeah, when you live in a country, it’s got a number and then it’s got a name, and so whoever’s closest usually goes by the name? Too, so he ends up at a house on Knobloch Road, right, yeah, they said he was, he was, if he was there?
Sandra HastyGuest21:39
I’m not sure that he was there.
David LyonsHost21:40
Yeah.
Sandra HastyGuest21:41
Because now I know he is there at some point, because the bloodhounds picked up his scent, okay Okay. But then they went down Hatcher Road, right past the bridge, and they stopped him.
Wendy LyonsHost21:54
Mm-hmm.
Sandra HastyGuest21:55
But the one tracker, which was one of the best bloodhounds ever, got arrested, so he wanted to go up under this fence. But that’s private property.
David LyonsHost22:06
Right.
Sandra HastyGuest22:07
Well, wasn’t nobody home. So one of the searchers raised the fence up and you know we actually got video of it all you know, because the— it was a watershed.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest22:20
It was a watershed.
Sandra HastyGuest22:21
Gotcha.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest22:21
So there’s different rules for watershed and things like that.
Sandra HastyGuest22:25
Anyway, he was standing at this tree Tracker was, and you know I’m like why. And then I found out that when the breeze blows, you know they pick up a scent from the breeze. Yeah, a wind, scent and then he took off down Hatcher Road, which Hatcher Road leads out to another area that I’m not going to mention, but it’s there. Every time I go down that road, I feel something yeah, and that’s Hatcher Road, but it’s there.
David LyonsHost22:58
every time I go down that road, I feel something, yeah, and that’s.
Sandra HastyGuest23:01
Hatcher Road. No, the road that I think they took Michael down.
David LyonsHost23:05
Okay, gotcha.
Sandra HastyGuest23:06
And where they might have disposed of him at Okay gotcha.
David LyonsHost23:09
Yeah, how long ago was that track done after he went missing? What is it? How long ago was that track done after he went missing?
Sandra HastyGuest23:17
Two weeks after he came up missing.
David LyonsHost23:18
Okay, let’s back up again a little bit Just to make sure that the people watching and listening put this together. Is you make a phone call and you get told a story by a person that puts a time stamp on it of some kind?
Sandra HastyGuest23:33
if I’m hearing that right, he lied.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest23:35
He lied. So, that morning Michael was home. He left.
Sandra HastyGuest23:42
Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest23:45
And they shared a vehicle. He left in that vehicle about 9 o’clock that morning.
Sandra HastyGuest23:50
Right.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest23:50
They claimed Michael drove that vehicle in a pond and later that afternoon two females came to Mom’s house without Michael and told her that he had drove his truck we called it a truck into a pond at this particular house. Okay, and the owner of the house wanted the truck pulled out of the pond, so I didn’t know, there was ponded out there mom rode out there with those two females to see. You know, do we need them? What do we need to pull this truck out of the pond?
24:26
I mean it could. Is it fully submerged, you know? Is it barely in there? You know, we didn’t know. So she went out there, she took pictures of it, sent it to me and I’m like well, I mean, maybe the front tires were in the pond, maybe my husband’s jeep could pull it out when he gets off work.
24:41
We’ll see. And so when he got off work that day we went out there and um once we actually got to see it in in person, he’s like my jeep’s not gonna be able to pull that out. So he called one of his buddies that had a big dodge truck and he came out him came out.
24:58
He had a friend with him and they were able to pull the truck out. It took a little while to get it pulled out. I drove it right up out of there when we got it out. But we did get it pulled out and then from there we took the truck to my house and parked it One because we didn’t know if there was anything wrong with the truck or not, right, you know, and it smelled like gas. I remember it smelled like gas, yeah.
David LyonsHost25:27
Yeah, so keeping the time straight, is that that would be the 18th. Are we talking? Was it a full night passing?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest25:34
So that was on Sunday that was on the 17th that we got the truck out, Okay. Gotcha Passing the-. So that was on Sunday that was on the 17th that we got the truck out, Okay gotcha, and where was the pond at?
David LyonsHost25:42
And again I want to keep Wilderness Trail Road.
Sandra HastyGuest25:44
What is it At the very end Wilderness Trail Road in Sanford?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest25:48
In Lincoln County.
David LyonsHost25:51
So he’s at a house. Do we know if any other people were at the house, or do we think other people were at the house at the time that he was there? If he was there, Is that?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest26:00
a—? Well, the two females that came to Mom to tell her that Michael had drove the truck in the pond and he needed it pulled out. I mean we assume that they were there because they were coming to Mom to say, hey, you need to get the truck out of the pond.
David LyonsHost26:14
Did they offer any more about what led up to the truck? They said that he drove it in there, but did they tell a story about that? He left the house.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest26:22
They claimed that Michael was acting out and just kind of doing wild stuff.
Sandra HastyGuest26:29
There’s no way. From the time he left the house. I don’t think Michael drove that truck in the pond, but considering the source, we didn’t feed a lot into it.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest26:39
We were just mostly concerned with getting their only vehicle out of the pond because they needed it. You know they needed to go to the store, they needed to get around.
David LyonsHost26:47
Gotcha, you know Gotcha, and your mind was when the truck was in a pond in your mind. Was Michael missing then, or was it kind of like?
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest26:56
Don’t think I didn’t all the way through that pond. There was no concern at that point about Michael Missing. I mean based on what they were telling us. And I knew that Michael had been out to my grandma’s house that day Okay, because I had picked my uncle up and gave him a ride and he was telling me that michael and these two females that came to grandma’s looking for somebody to pull the truck out and that, uh, he ended up borrowing a log chain from my other uncle.
27:27
That was there. My log chain right there um and didn’t show up but this is all of my dad’s people yeah, uh
27:34
anyway. Anyway, so my other uncle, he had like a small truck. No way it would have pulled, you know, that truck out of the pond and he gave him a phone number of somebody to call that Mike could pull the truck out. So we knew from my uncle that I had talked to, that Michael had been at Grandma’s, told him that the truck was in the pond and he was trying to get it pulled out. And based on what that uncle was telling me, that Michael wasn’t acting out of character, he wasn’t acting like he was on something or he was high or he was drunk or under the influence, and so it was just kind of like well, why would he drive his truck, his only vehicle in a pond?
28:15
So, that was kind of a big question mark.
David LyonsHost28:18
I was going to say that’s the biggest question at the point right now.
Jennifer Gorley CoffeyGuest28:21
But he had enough sense about him that he was trying to get pulled out.
28:24
So I knew that, you know. And then when I had made my way up to mom’s house that day, because my oldest daughter had stayed the night with her that weekend I say stay the night. Well, she stayed the weekend with mom and I picked her up on that Sunday and when I went up there to pick her up those two females were there and they were in the living room telling mom that Michael had drove his truck in the pond. The owner of the house wanted it pulled out, and trying to figure out how they were going to make that happen. And then I’d already knew from my uncle that Michael had been at grandma’s and that had told them he had drove the truck in the pond and he was looking for a way to get it pulled out. So I kind of already knew that as well.
David LyonsHost29:01
Sure, sure, and it smelled like gas, mm-hmm. Could you pinpoint where the smell of the gas was in the truck, or was it just a general In the back of the truck? In the back of the truck, mm-hmm?
Sandra HastyGuest29:12
Okay, gotcha, it’s a 2004 Explorer 2. It’s only got two doors.
David LyonsHost29:17
Mm-hmm.
Sandra HastyGuest29:17
But it’s got a hatchback.
David LyonsHost29:19
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest29:20
But see when the two females come. The one female I would not let near the house, okay.
David LyonsHost29:31
How come?
Sandra HastyGuest29:31
I told her never come back to my house ever again.
David LyonsHost29:34
I got you.
Sandra HastyGuest29:37
So when they knocked on the door, I said what do you want? It’s Michael. I said what’s wrong? She said well, I need to tell you something. So I let her in. And then this other one comes in. I said who’s that? Oh, that’s my friend. But I’ve heard, I had heard you know, michael didn’t know this friend.
David LyonsHost29:55
Okay.
Sandra HastyGuest29:56
Okay, and so I said, well, I have to ride out there with y’all I guess, which I hated to, because I couldn’t stand neither one of them hey, you know there’s more to this story, so go download the next episode, like the true crime fan that you are 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.
David LyonsHost30:31
It is produced, recorded and edited by David Lyons, where you will find show notes, transcripts, information about our presenters and a link to the official Murder Police Podcast merch store, where you can purchase a huge variety of Murder Police Podcast swag. We are also on Facebook, instagram and YouTube, which is closed caption for those that are hearing impaired. Just search for the Murder Police Podcast and you will find us. If you have enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe for more and give us five stars and a written review. On Apple Podcasts or wherever you download your podcasts, make sure you 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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