Found Deceased TX - Crystal Seratte McDowell, 38, Baytown, 25 Aug 2017 #2 *Arrest*

[BaytownJack]

Interesting they are searching near the plant the ex works at. Though, how far is that location from the Motel 6?

About 10 miles or so.

 

[BethAnn777]

Doubtful. If you had that kind of money, would you be staying in a seedy Motel 6 in a crappy area?


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How do we know how much money she has?

 

[monkeypants]

How do we know how much money she has?

Good question, not sure where that started. If it's her car it's over 5 years old...


J.M.O.

 

[tara83]

I guess my surprise about the EX silence is i would have thought he would be teamed up with the Uncle and her sisters etc...but...nada only shade


J.M.O.

Considering the uncle's comments I can see why they aren't teamed up.Seems like they aren't close.

 

[SuperTmo]

He says both videos are from August 25th.
But because of a glitch in the camera the timestamp says August 19th, 2017

Regardless of what he says, I find this iffy. His whole purpose for having those cameras is for insurance in case his house is robbed. With the value of what could be stolen from his house why would he be relying on cameras that are so glitchy that it changes the date, and makes clothing change colors? Give that he only provided timestamped footage at first and tried to get away with just the still photos, I'm finding all of this very hard to believe.

 

[whitelilac]

I agree that his silence is odd. But, I try not to judge it. I'm almost 100% sure that if my mom went missing, my dad would say nothing publicly. It's just not his personality. I think behind the scenes he would be harassing LE, hiring other services, etc., but I know he would not speak to media or anything.

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I'm not at all concerned about the ex's silence. He may be a private person and he's also shielding the children who must be terrified and anxious. No doubt LE has looked thoroughly at him especially because he could have motive, his whereabouts, alibis, he is cooperating, working with LE, took a polygraph and I bet a psychologist has talked to the kids. We don't know if LE might have something on him, or if he has exhibited inconsistencies, but at this point in time I don't believe he's involved....so far.

The only thing that gives me some pause is what the uncle said about him, which still troubles me, and what Crystal told her friend in Atlanta.

Man, it's such a mess. Hoping LE is far more along towards resolution than appears.

 

[monkeypants]

I'm guessing what is leading to this search is phone pings from either hers or the ex or both phones.


J.M.O.

 

[SuperTmo]

That makes me suspicious. As I said in my edit, in my experience if one camera has the wrong date, they all should.

LE needs to get a warrant and obtain that footage directly from the provider.

 

[iluvmua]

Regardless of what he says, I find this iffy. His whole purpose for having those cameras is for insurance in case his house is robbed. With the value of what could be stolen from his house why would he be relying on cameras that are so glitchy that it changes the date, and makes clothing change colors? Give that he only provided timestamped footage at first and tried to get away with just the still photos, I'm finding all of this very hard to believe.

Me too! Nothing he says makes sense.

I am pretty sure he said last night that he took the stills of the security footage with his phone.

 

[anonypotomous]

How do we know how much money she has?

Sorry if I phrased that wrong. I didn't mean to imply I knew how much she had. She has done well in RE, and also her express jet job. It has been said often she was very successful, so I can only guess she has enough to stay somewhere better than a seedy Motel 6.

Better?

 

[DatelineFan]

Respectfully, as a single mom I completely disagree that bringing a boyfriend of 1-2 months on a family trip is a great way to introduce the guy to the kids. That's too much, way too soon. Especially when she is still living as a family with their dad!!!!

Most things I've read say waiting 3-6 months until you you know the relationship is heading in a good direction and then introduce the kids gradually. Meet the kids on neutral ground like a park a few times, progress to lunch or dinner or a movie, then longer things like a day trip to the zoo or whatever. Not a family vacation that their dad was supposed to go on. I'm sure they knew their dad was going to be going! That would have been something exciting they were looking forward to so of course they would know.

I understand your point. And I am not a parent. But I also think we just don't know enough about the situation. A friend of mine is getting divorced, but they all live together. The kids know that mommy and daddy are not together, but still love them very much. I have a lot of respect for single parents, and while some of them make terrible decisions with things like this, many do not. She may have known him for a while now. We just don't know.

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[anonypotomous]

A friend of mine is getting divorced, but they all live together. The kids know that mommy and daddy are not together, but still love them very much.

The difference being, your friend's family and friends (and kids!) all know about the divorce..

 

[EyesofTheSouth]

Reading the transcript right now. Bf says they got footage from Monday-Friday. I wonder if the date on all those videos are off by 6 days as well.

I also see that he mentioned getting the footage off his DVR. I thought so. I figured he had it saved to the Dvr in his home, not at a server located elsewhere. In that case, what was the delay in turning the footage over? As I said, if the police wanted my camera footage they would need only to take the dvr to the station and plug it into a TV. Easy as pie.

So, why did he only give screenshots at first, then turn over the dvr four or five days later? Deleting footage? Alarm bells ringing for me.

He also mentions an IT guy. For what? Those security cameras look crappy, so they're likely cheap. Anyone here could set them up right out of the box. Mount the cameras and plug them into the back of the dvr. Connect the dvr to a tv, and viola you're done.

It seems too that he is saying that the inside cameras upload to the cloud, as a way to explain why the outside camera has a way-off time stamp. It's dubious at best that some footage would save to the cloud and some would save locally, unless he had two different systems hooked up. If so, why? And why would he want footage of his home to upload to the cloud, when there's the potential of either of them caught on camera walking around in various states of undress?

Maybe the 8/19 isn't a mistake -- I don't see how it could be honestly-- but that was the only clear footage he had of her leaving the house lately. Maybe there's no actual footage of her leaving on the 25th because she didn't leave under her own power.

It seems to me that footage doesn't prove she drove off on Friday morning. It makes me think the opposite. If she's there Thursday night and no one got any communication from her Friday, except by text -- text that recipients say didn't sound like her, maybe it wasn't from her. If she was at his apartment, her phone was too.

Something else that I found weird: the sheriff said she'd been living with her boyfriend and her ex sometimes. Did he make a mistake or was she pretty much living with the bf, rather than the ex as was said in the beginning? I was under the impression that she lived with the ex and occasionally stayed with the bf, but it seems like it might be the other way around? Thought the ex might be jealous that she stayed with the bf sometimes. But maybe the bf pretty much considered them to be living together and he was jealous that she wasn't as committed if she sometimes stayed with her ex.

I also think someone here said the boyfriend said she spent two nights with him. Sorry I don't have time to look right now. Maybe I'm mistaken, but if I'm not, then she was with the bf Wednesday night as well.

Did she go to work on Thursday? Did anyone else see or talk to her Thursday?

Motive? Jealousy? Maybe she was going to cancel the trips? Sure the Wednesday messages sound lovey-dovey, but if she was with the bf, he had access to send them. That's especially so since he claimed her phone was malfunctioning and he was going to give her a replacement. Maybe he convinced her to give him her phone with the promise that he would get it fixed and did give her his spare. If she wasn't working Thursday or Friday, a day or so without her regular number probably wouldn't be a huge deal

Frankly, I find it odd that in the short time she'd been with him, both her phone and her computer started malfunctioning. Conveniently he claimed to have replacements for both. Could he have sabotaged both? Did he went her to use his laptop so he could track her communications with a keylogger? And an old phone of his, he would surely have the password to, to see who she might be communicating with.

Someone else said this smells like a setup to point the police towards the ex. I wonder.

I just don't believe the camera footage explanation at all. If the footage is a lie, why? Unless it's to cover up something bad that happened.

ETA: if the boyfriend said Crystal was going to ride out the storm at home, why would she want to ride it out with him and not her kids? It seems like she'd want to be with the kids at a scary time for them.

 

[SuperTmo]

And that brings up something else. If she was originally going to spend the weekend in Dallas with her kids then that tells me she was planning on having them for the weekend. So WHY is the BF saying they were gonna be watching Game of Thrones, just the two of them??

Yes, this doesn't make sense to me. Unless that's how she planned to introduce him to the kids before the cruise?

I think that Crystal was probably telling everyone different things and she finally ran into a corner and all of these things were supposed to happen at once. This whole thing of who she was spending the storm with, along with the cruise. Did she tell the ex she would be with the kids and the boyfriend that she would be with him?

The cruise sounds like it could have caused her a lot of issues... I guess it all depends on whether her ex knew he wasn't going; did she really change the reservation to her boyfriend's name; did the boyfriend think he was going but it was really the ex because she misled him on the cruise?

Any chance she just got tired of keeping up with both lives? I wonder if she has a history of depression or mental illness of any sort.

 

[SuperTmo]

If she wasn't home much due to being a FA and had crazy agent schedule he was probably the primary caretaker. Will make it even more devastating if there was a crime of passion from her sleepover/cruise thing.


J.M.O.

My understanding is that she used to be a flight attendant but isn't anymore. What airline does she work for?

 

[Oakland CA]

I have a lot to say and I hope I can get it all out here without confusing everyone. Just listened to Nancy Grace podcast. And something is sticking out to me that I missed before. They seem to be really questioning the text about Dallas. But we've all seen it right? It was sent from her phone to the Ex husband. Uncle was claiming from beginning he didn't think she sent that text. Ok.... but it exists AND it was sent Thursday night when she was with her boyfriend. Am I right? In the podcast, BF says they had a conversation about whether to leave town or stay home. So to me that says.... they DID consider leaving town!! He says they decided to stay. She also sends text to husband Friday, saying she was gonna stay. So what I'm hung up on....is WHY they are acting like this going to Dallas text is such a big deal!! She knew her uncle was going to Dallas, so isn't it possible in the conversation with the BF..Dallas is a place they may have discussed?? The other dude on the podcast says basically it was the ex who sent them in the direction of Dallas, away from the ping... but the ex provided the text that ALSO said she had decided to stay!! Putting all this together, I really feel like they are trying to pin something on the husband and what they are going off of (this text about Dallas) makes no sense to me!! It's so easy to explain!! Why is this being discussed as some kind of mystery?? Because the uncle didn't know about the conversation between the BF and CM about possibly leaving town before he storm? Because the BF is denying he knew about it? To me, it sounds like and feels like...they are using that ONE thing to place blame on the ex and it doesn't even make sense. Why? Because it actually makes sense that if she and BF were discussing possibly leaving and maybe during that conversation the ex texts her about the daughter wanting her mom to come home so in the middle of the discussion with BF, she texts she may go to Dallas! Makes perfect sense. They change their mind that night and her text changes the next morning to indicate she's gonna stay. And let me say this...if she didn't send that text about Dallas....who did?? Well who was she with that night when the text was sent???? Her BOYFRIEND. So if anyone other than her sent it, he had the opportunity. But the whole Dallas thing to me is a big nothing burger that is being turned into something major. I. Don't. Get. It. Help a girl out if anyone can make this make sense. Please!!

Just a suggestion. Please don't be offended.

You may have some really valuable input/questions that beg discussion/answers in this post and some readers may just skip right over it as it looks like one continuous sentence.

If you could line-space between the sentences occasionally it would make it much more readable

TIA

 

[gregjrichards]

My understanding is that she used to be a flight attendant but isn't anymore. What airline does she work for?

ExpressJet

 

[whitelilac]

Seems to be there's a lot of "malfunctions" in a very short time span, Crystal's lap top, phone AND the bf's surveillance cameras. Coincidence ?

I'm getting the set up/cover up vibe as well.

 

[monkeypants]

Reading the transcript right now. Bf says they got footage from Monday-Friday. I wonder if the date on all those videos are off by 6 days as well.

I also see that he mentioned getting the footage off his DVR. I thought so. I figured he had it saved to the Dvr in his home, not at a server located elsewhere. In that case, what was the delay in turning the footage over? As I said, if the police wanted my camera footage they would need only to take the dvr to the station and plug it into a TV. Easy as pie.

So, why did he only give screenshots at first, then turn over the dvr four or five days later? Deleting footage? Alarm bells ringing for me.

He also mentions an IT guy. For what? Those security cameras look crappy, so they're likely cheap. Anyone here could set them up right out of the box. Mount the cameras and plug them into the back of the dvr. Connect the dvr to a tv, and viola you're done.

It seems too that he is saying that the inside cameras upload to the cloud, as a way to explain why the outside camera has a way-off time stamp. It's dubious at best that some footage would save to the cloud and some would save locally, unless he had two different systems hooked up. If so, why? And why would he want footage of his home to upload to the cloud, when there's the potential of either of them caught on camera walking around in various states of undress?

Maybe the 8/19 isn't a mistake -- I don't see how it could be honestly-- but that was the only clear footage he had of her leaving the house lately. Maybe there's no actual footage of her leaving on the 25th because she didn't leave under her own power.

It seems to me that footage doesn't prove she drove off on Friday morning. It makes me think the opposite. If she's there Thursday night and no one got any communication from her Friday, except by text -- text that recipients say didn't sound like her, maybe it wasn't from her. If she was at his apartment, her phone was too.

Something else that I found weird: the sheriff said she'd been living with her boyfriend and her ex sometimes. Did he make a mistake or was she pretty much living with the bf, rather than the ex as was said in the beginning? I was under the impression that she lived with the ex and occasionally stayed with the bf, but it seems like it might be the other way around? Thought the ex might be jealous that she stayed with the bf sometimes. But maybe the bf pretty much considered them to be living together and he was jealous that she wasn't as committed if she sometimes stayed with her ex.

I also think someone here said the boyfriend said she spent two nights with him. Sorry I don't have time to look right now. Maybe I'm mistaken, but if I'm not, then she was with the bf Wednesday night as well.

Did she go to work on Thursday? Did anyone else see or talk to her Thursday?

Motive? Jealousy? Maybe she was going to cancel the trips? Sure the Wednesday messages sound lovey-dovey, but if she was with the bf, he had access to send them. That's especially so since he claimed her phone was malfunctioning and he was going to give her a replacement. Maybe he convinced her to give him her phone with the promise that he would get it fixed and did give her his spare. If she wasn't working Thursday or Friday, a day or so without her regular number probably wouldn't be a huge deal

Frankly, I find it odd that in the short time she'd been with him, both her phone and her computer started malfunctioning. Conveniently he claimed to have replacements for both. Could he have sabotaged both? Did he went her to use his laptop so he could track her communications with a keylogger? And an old phone of his, he would surely have the password to, to see who she might be communicating with.

Someone else said this smells like a setup to point the police towards the ex. I wonder.

I just don't believe the camera footage explanation at all. If the footage is a lie, why? Unless it's to cover up something bad that happened.

ETA: if the boyfriend said Crystal was going to ride out the storm at home, why would she want to ride it out with him and not her kids? It seems like she'd want to be with the kids at a scary time for them.

As busy professionals and parents I really don't think these two spent much time together.

I do agree with you it's odd her electronics both began to fail simultaneously, but my suspicion is on the ex with that. I think her dating was most likely driving him insane and he was trying to find things out and could have compromised her electronics either by trying to get into them repeatedly (password locked him out? ) or he installed tracking apps that he wanted deleted before he did away with her maybe? Just my thoughts of why those two items might be malfunctioning together.

I don't believe in coincidences in life or luck.


J.M.O.

 

[luckystar01]

Man, seriously starting to think that even if this poor woman's body was found 10 feet from PBP some of ya'll would be demanding proof that the boyfriend didn't know the ex worked there. :facepalm: