Transcript of S3 Episode 2: A Private Matter
[TONES UP AND OUT]
Jason Moon, narrating: Like a lot of towns, Epsom, New Hampshire has one of those unofficial community-wide Facebook groups.
Theirs is called, “Epsom NH Community Group 2, More Epsomy Than Ever!!” Two exclamation points.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: The Facebook group is a totally charming portrait of life in Epsom. Posts about the upcoming softball game. A local author festival. Someone giving away a free pile of wooden pallets left over from a maple syrup evaporator project.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: And when Jay Hickey went missing, the group was a place where people shared their concerns about his wellbeing.
[MUSIC OUT]
Moon, narrating: And also their questions and budding suspicions about what happened to him.
One question a lot of people seemed to have — where was the rest of Jay’s family? He and Patty had five children between the two of them. Why did it take so long for them to realize he was gone?
Emily Hickey, on the phone: Yeah, I know that kinda made me mad because people don't understand and they're just thinking, "Oh, the family doesn't care." Well, that's not true. Like, they don't know the whole story.
Moon, narrating: This is Emily Hickey, Jay and Patty's daughter. She lives in Florida now. She’s in her early 40s.
Emily told me, the thing people in the “More Epsomy Than Ever!!” group don’t understand… is that there was a whole other side to Patty.
Emily, on the phone: It was weird because then when it would be, um, like, anybody else around, she was, like, the nicest person. Like, "Oh, your mom is so nice!" And I'm just thinking, like, "You have no idea, like, what it's really like at home."
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: I tried to talk with all of the Hickey kids. The three sons in the family all declined to talk on the record. But I spoke with Emily's sister, Kay, and the longtime family babysitter. And they both backed up the broad strokes of what you're about to hear from Emily.
Emily says growing up, she lived in fear of her mother’s unpredictable temper.
Emily, on the phone: And it was almost like she was possessed and she would go on these screaming fits. And then, either a couple hours later or the next day later, she'd be happy as could be and it was like nothing ever happened.
Moon, narrating: Emily says even small things could set her mother off like missing a turn while driving or not being able to find something in the house, which Emily and others described as a hoarding house.
Sometimes the anger turned physical. Patty would use wooden spoons to “discipline” the children. Emily’s sister called it physical abuse. Patty called it spanking.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: One particular story about a Patty outburst really stuck with me and with Emily and her sister Kay who both witnessed it.
Emily says it happened one day when she was 17. Patty picked her up from school and on the way home, something sent her mother into a rage. And for some reason, she took it out on the family dog.
Emily, on the phone: So, I don't know why she was mad at the dog or if the dog even did anything, but she took the dog outta the house, like in, um… like, in the front yard where I could see it. It was, like, all happening right there. And it was just a BB gun, but sh– it was like one of the ones you pump, the more you pump it, the, like, the harder it shoots.
Moon, narrating: Emily says her mom picked up the BB gun, pumped it a bunch of times, and then shot the dog in the chest.
Emily says she can't really remember what happened next, mainly the dog crying. The dog survived. But the whole thing left Emily and her sister shaken.
Emily says she now understands that behind her mother’s mood swings was mental illness. Emily and Kay both mentioned bipolar disorder.
Every time I think about that story with the dog and the BB gun, I wonder what was Jay thinking during moments like these?
Emily, on the phone: I did ask him when I got older why he stuck with my mom all those years when she, you know, was going through her mental illness and really not being the nicest person and everything. And he said he just looked at her sickness like a cancer. You know, they were married, so he just stuck by her and did the best he could.
Moon, narrating: Emily says Jay was a wonderful father. The “nicest, most spiritual person I’ve ever met,” she told me.
Emily, on the phone: He's just so kind and patient and almost too nice for his own good.
Moon, narrating: “Too nice for his own good.” It was a delicate way of putting the single criticism that Emily and her sister had about Jay. They both wished he had stood up for the kids with Patty more often.
Emily, on the phone: I used to actually dream that I would get kidnapped by a nice family, like, when I was really little. [SNIFFS] Ya know, I'd always dream and hope that I could just have a different life, a different family, you know, because I wasn't happy. And I, um… When I left, I actually ended up, you know, drinking a lot and getting into drugs, and I cleaned myself up, but I just think I didn't know how to handle it and I just was so secluded, I didn't know how to really do anything or deal with life. Ya know, I didn't have that support.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: Emily says she ended up at a rehab at 21 years old. And one day, she says a guest speaker came in, a “big, burly biker dude." And somehow, Emily wound up asking him, “How do you forgive somebody when you hate them so much?” He told her to pray for them every day.
Emily: Like, at first it was hard to pray for her, but I would just pray for her, like, [SNIFFS] um, that she would be well and for God to bless her and to take care of her, like, those kinda prayers. And I would just pray it every day until I meant it. And then, eventually, after doing that, like, I started to realize, like… how sick she was.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: Emily moved away to Florida. And eventually, over the years, she says she and her mom got to a better place. Not close, but cordial. When Emily got engaged or when she gave birth, she would send her mom an email.
[MUSIC OUT]
Emily, on the phone: 'Cause she's a, ya know, she's a mom. I don't– Ya know, I'm her daughter. I know somewhere deep down she loves me and I don't wanna intentionally hurt her, even though she's hurt us.
Moon, narrating: In the years leading up to Jay’s disappearance, Patty tells the police that out of all the kids, only Emily and her younger brother were still on speaking terms with her and Jay. In fact, Emily says she spoke on the phone with her dad a lot. They never fell out the way she and Patty did.
But then, the dementia arrived and talking on the phone became a lot harder.
Emily, on the phone: So, like, for example, I'd be tryin'a talk to him and it would sound really far away and I'm like, "Dad, you need to, like, hold the phone to your ear." And then my mom would come back in the room and she was like, "Oh, he was using the water bottle as a phone." So, his mind really was just going.
Moon, narrating: His mind was going.
I didn’t know much about dementia before I started looking into this. And I expected to find that, after centuries of modern medicine, we’d have the basics down. Instead, I was a little frightened to learn that we don't.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: Even the word itself turns out to be alarmingly vague. “Dementia” comes from the Latin “demens,” which means “out of one’s mind.” Or even more simply, “mad.”
Dementia is not a normal part of aging, although it’s much more likely to happen in old-age. It’s also not one specific disease. It’s a catch-all term for a collection of symptoms — memory loss, confusion, agitation, sometimes paranoia, changes in mood and personality, loss of dexterity. It’s generally progressive and irreversible.
I’ve seen dementia described as a “philosophical death” as opposed to a biological one. If you forget everything you’ve ever done and all the people you’ve ever loved, your body is there, but are you?
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: In the early 1900s, there was a German woman who suffered memory loss so severe, she forgot how to write her own name. She was in her 50s. She kept telling her doctor, “I have lost myself.”
Her doctor was Alois Alzheimer. When she died, Dr. Alzheimer autopsied her brain and discovered mysterious deposits in the brain tissue.
Today, Alzheimer’s disease is recognized as by far the most common cause of dementia. More than 7 million Americans are estimated to have it right now. By 2040, it could be more than 11 million. But even after decades of research, billions of dollars, and hundreds of clinical trials, we still don’t really understand how it works.
We now know those mysterious deposits are plaques and tangles of proteins. But we don’t know if they’re the cause of the disease or just a byproduct of it.
[MUSIC OUT]
Moon, narrating: What we do know is that, on average, a person with Alzheimer’s will live four to eight years after diagnosis. During that time, so many nerve cells will die that their brains literally shrink. In the advanced stages, people can lose their ability to communicate at all.
Emily says she tried to convince her mother to put Jay into a nursing home or at least get a nurse to come out to the farm. But Patty says Jay didn’t want either of those things.
Meanwhile, Emily had her own hands full as a new mom. Without really realizing it, she stopped calling home as often. And when she did call, she says Patty would always pick up and tell her dad was napping.
Emily, on the phone: And then I'm like, "Well, this is weird. Like, every time I'm calling, he's taking a nap?" [SNIFFS] So, I called one day and she didn't answer. And then, I sent a text message and I said, "Mom, like, I know that, you know, he might not understand, but maybe some part of him… Like, I really wanna talk to him at least one last time. Maybe some part of his brain will hear me. I just want to tell him that I love him and, you know, what a good dad he is and all that kinda stuff." And her response to that was, like, a picture of a plant and a picture of the car in the snow.
Moon, narrating: Emily had a bad feeling.
She called her younger brother, Jon, who lives in New York City, the only other child who was still talking with Jay and Patty. Emily says Jon drove all the way up to New Hampshire, to the Christmas tree farm, to check on Jay. When he got there, Patty was home, but Jay was gone.
Emily, on the phone: As soon as I knew that he wasn't at the house, I called the police.
Moon, in the studio: Tell me about that moment for you. Like, what was goin' through your mind?
Emily: Um… It reminded me of one of those shows on TV where everything seems good, but something really bad happened.
[MUSIC IN]
Emily: Like, that she would be involved, but no– nobody would ever suspect it, because they all think she's so nice.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: "Nobody would ever suspect it." The “it” in that sentence contains a whole spectrum of disturbing possibilities. It starts at one end with her mom turning a willful blind-eye to her dad’s disappearance and gets darker from there. And as Emily called the Epsom police to report her father missing, she worried where on that spectrum things would land.
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
[MIDROLL]
[TONES UP AND OUT]
Moon, narrating: Lt. James Kear of the Epsom police was aware of Jay’s condition. He had responded to a few 911 calls about Jay’s welfare — times when people found him wandering.
Lt. James Kear: I recall Jay bein' very skinny. He was never, um… He never really had a lotta fat on him from the times I'd seen him previously, but you could certainly tell that he had lost some body fat. Um… You could certainly tell that his, um, his cognitive functions had deteriorated, too. Um, it almost seemed like he didn't know who he was or where he was anymore, which was not the Jay that I had seen on, on several previous occasions.
Moon, narrating: Then, on February 26th, 2024, Emily Hickey calls to report her father missing. Lt. Kear takes up the case.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: The first thing he does is call Patty.
According to Kear’s report, Patty picks up and she tells him Jay is visiting a brother. But she’s not sure which one. Jay has three living brothers, one in Massachusetts, one in North Carolina, and one in Florida.
Kear asks if Patty could call the brothers and confirm that Jay is with one of them? Patty agrees to this. It’s just after 4 p.m.
Early the next morning, Patty calls back. She tells Lt. Kear she’s left messages with all of Jay’s brothers and she’s waiting to hear from them. Kear asks Patty if she can hurry this up. If Jay isn’t with one of them, he needs to file a missing person’s report.
About an hour later, Patty calls back with good news. She has confirmed that Jay is with his brother Donnie in Florida. Only, of course, he wasn’t.
June Hickey, on the phone: We probably have not physically seen Jay for several years.
Moon, narrating: This is Donnie’s wife, June Hickey. June says Jay and Donnie weren’t even talking all that much, let alone visiting each other.
June: They weren't close enough, let's say, that someone like Jay would just call him up to talk to him. It's just, ya know, it's not something he would normally do.
Moon, narrating: Lt. Kear calls and confirms Jay is not in Florida. And then, he and another officer drive up the mountain to the Christmas tree farm. They talk with Patty. She’s adamant that Jay is in Florida. And then it gets even weirder.
Patty claims she spoke to Jay about five weeks earlier, in January of 2024. But remember, Jay left his phone. Lt. Kear asks what number Patty called to talk to Jay. Patty shows him a contact in her phone for Jay’s brother, Donnie. But it’s not Donnie’s number. Lt. Kear can see a bunch of text messages from this contact telling Patty she has the wrong number.
Bizarrely, the Epsom police will later find out that the number Patty had in her phone for Donnie Hickey, actually did belong to someone named Donald Hickey. Just not the Donald Hickey that was Jay’s brother.
[MUSIC OUT]
Moon, narrating: Lt. Kear suggests to Patty that they call Donnie’s correct number together. Patty calls and Donnie’s wife, June, picks up.
June, on the phone: I was drivin' my car, picks up the phone. I say, "Hello." "Hey, June, this is Pat!" "Yeah, Pat, how are you?" "Is Jay with you?" [SCOFFS] That's her comment to me. I said, "No, Pat, Jay is not with me. Where is Jay?" "Oh, I don't know!" And she hung up the phone. And that was the only conversation I've had with that lady.
Moon, narrating: Let’s pause here for a second.
Patty told the police she confirmed her missing husband was in Florida when clearly, that was not true. On the face of it, it seems pretty suspicious.
But on the other hand, all those texts from the wrong Donald Hickey? How did she even end up with that phone number? Maybe Patty is deeply confused. Maybe she's not okay.
Before they leave, Patty gives the police permission to look around the house. Lt. Kear had been inside before during those welfare checks.
Kear: It was, it was, it was boxes on– upon boxes. Um… Rooms were full of boxes with really just enough room to walk through the room — ya know, just enough elbow room to get through the room, pretty much — ya know, one person, maybe two if you walk sideways.
Moon, narrating: The Epsom PD’s search of the house comes up empty. And the report notes that there were no odors in the house consistent with a decomposing body.
Later, police will search the property and surrounding land with cadaver dogs for days. And still, there was no sign of Jay.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: After the visit to the house, Lt. Kear and the Epsom police spend the next four weeks trying to piece together whatever it is that’s happening here.
They interview dozens of people in Jay’s life. Family, friends, medical providers. And from these interviews, they start to make a timeline of Jay’s last known whereabouts. And it’s here that they discover something startling.
Emily Hickey called to report her father Jay missing on February 26th, 2024. Patty says in the interrogation she last saw Jay in October 2023.
But the last confirmed sighting of Jay by someone other than Patty is April of 2023 — 10 months before Emily called the police. Ten months between when police believe Jay might’ve actually gone missing and when someone finally called for help.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: And what’s more, police learn that it was just after Jay’s last confirmed sighting that Patty started canceling his medical appointments. The reason? Patty told the doctors Jay was visiting a brother.
In fact, Patty told a lot of people this story over the course of those 10 months — Christmas tree customers, neighbors, colleagues at the town offices.
For the most part, at the time, people seemed to take that story at face value. But now, as word was getting around that Jay had never in fact gone to visit his brother, those conversations took on a new, eerie significance.
Meadow Wysocki, the former town selectperson, said she remembers talking to Patty about Jay being at his brother’s during this 10-month stretch.
[MUSIC OUT]
Meadow Wysocki, on the phone: I had said, "Oh, have you talked to him?" And she would say things like, "Yeah, but I'm really concerned that my talking to him is upsetting him 'cause he seems to be forgetting me more. And he's not really sure who he's talking to when I talk to him on the phone." But she hadn't been talking to him on the phone, obviously.
Moon, narrating: For some in Epsom, suspicion around Patty was growing. The smiling image of dedicated public servant and Christmas tree proprietor was starting to fade.
But… not everyone was shocked by the turn of events.
Moon: So, when you found out that Jay was missing…
Andrea Novotny, on the phone: Mmhm.
Moon: …did you have, like, an initial reaction or… gut a sense of what had happened?
Andrea Novotny: I was not surprised.
Moon: Why is that?
Andrea: Uh... I was worried under Patty's care that he, something like this… When I found out that he was missing, I was not surprised.
Moon, narrating: Andrea Novotney worked for the town of Epsom as the administrative assistant to the selectboard in the same offices that Patty worked from.
Moon: So, you would see her in the office, like, a few days a week, that kinda thing?
Andrea: Oh, yes. Quite frequently.
Moon: Okay. And what was Patty like?
Andrea: [LONG PAUSE] …Uh, she's… she's different. [PAUSES] That is the best way I can describe Patty.
Moon: Different, uh, like, like, just, like, sort of an odd…?
Andrea: Yes. I would call her an odd duck.
Moon: An odd duck, okay.
Andrea: Yeah.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: Talking to Andrea, I got the distinct sense there was some intra-office tension between her and Patty.
Andrea, on the phone: Uh? We… worked… okay together. Um, I just… like people to be functioning adults… especially when they're at work.
Moon, in the studio: Is there, like, a s– an anecdote or example of what, what you mean there?
Andrea: Uh, one day I came into work. I hadn't even gotten into the office enough to put down my coat and she was after me because she didn't like the toilet paper I had ordered for the office.
Moon: [PAUSE] …What?
Andrea: Yeah, she didn't like the toilet paper I ordered for the office.
Moon: [PAUSE] Well, what kind of toilet paper did you order?
Andrea: Um, she didn't think it was squishy enough, I guess.
[MUSIC OUT]
Moon, narrating: So, maybe Andrea didn’t have the best view of Patty to begin with. But when Jay started to decline, Andrea found Patty’s approach to caring for him… alarming.
Andrea, on the phone: She had, on more than one occasion, told me things like she had gotten him off of all of his medications and was treating his various ailments by diet alone.
Moon, narrating: Andrea was also worried about Jay's wandering.
Once the wandering starts, leaving a person with dementia alone even for short periods can be dangerous. And the things experts recommend for caretakers in this situation can feel daunting and drastic. Put a GPS tracker on your loved one. Build fences around the house. Put up signs on the doors to the outside that read, “Do Not Enter.”
Andrea wasn’t the only one concerned about whether Patty was up for all that.
Someone else, it turns out, contacted the state’s Adult Protective Services unit about Jay. A caseworker met with Patty and Jay just weeks before Jay’s last confirmed sighting.
The caseworker's report is confidential. All I know for sure is that they met with Jay and Patty in March of 2023 and then closed the case that same month.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: In retrospect, it might’ve been a missed opportunity to intervene before Jay disappeared.
I asked Adult Protective Services about this. They couldn’t comment on Jay’s case, but in a statement, they told me it’s not always so simple. They can offer help, but often, they can’t force an adult to take it. It’s different from child neglect, where the state would just do whatever it thinks is best for the kid.
I came across this phrase — "the dignity of risk.” It’s a way of saying that the law allows adults the dignity of making their own bad choices.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: In some situations, when all else fails, Adult Protective Services can step in and seek guardianship of a person, but the bar for that is high. And apparently, whatever the caseworker saw in Jay’s case, it didn’t clear that bar.
After all, wandering is a common behavior with dementia. And even when caretakers try their absolute best, it’s not unheard of for someone with dementia to be found wandering somewhere they shouldn’t be.
[MUSIC OUT]
Moon, narrating: And so, many times, all a caseworker can do in a situation like this is offer information, advice, and services. Depending on his income, Jay might have qualified for programs through Medicaid and, as a veteran, through the VA, that pay for home health aides.
The programs are not perfect and it’s no guarantee Jay wouldn’t have gone missing anyway, but Patty never tried to take advantage of these programs. She says Jay didn’t want people coming to the house and he didn’t want to go to a nursing home.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: The irony is that Patty was Epsom’s welfare administrator. For 30-odd years, she’d been the one connecting people in tough situations to services that could help them. And now, here she was, refusing what was offered.
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
Moon, narrating: After four weeks of investigating, the story the Epsom police were piecing together didn’t look so good for Patty.
Her vulnerable husband went missing, and for as many as 10 months, Patty never reported that to anyone. Not the police, not her own children. In fact, the opposite. Patty told many people Jay was safe at his brother’s.
In the meantime, she’d been continuing to collect Jay’s Social Security checks. Not a huge amount of money, but still it doesn’t look good.
The Epsom police were ready to talk with Patty again. So, they invited her back to the police station. And this time, the mood was a little different.
Chief Brian Michael, on interrogation tape: We've looked into a lot of things here. Um, I'm gonna give you some idea.
Patty: Wow.
Chief Michael: This is how much we know about Jay. [THUD OF STACK OF PAPERS]
Patty: Wow.
Moon, narrating: That’s Epsom Chief of Police Brian Michael setting the tone with Patty by demonstrating the literal weight of their investigation when printed.
Chief Michael: Okay?
Patty: Yeah.
Michael: We've talked to probably 200 people. We've interviewed probably 200 people. We've interviewed everybody on your road twice. We've interviewed all your children.
Patty: Yeah.
Michael: We're– We have, we have interviewed other relatives, friends, family, um…
Patty: Yeah. They've all called me, too. [LAUGHS]
Michael: So, what happened to Jay?
Patty: I… don't… know.
Moon, narrating: Patty starts to tell the same story from before — that Jay had talked about wanting to go visit his brother, but Chief Michael cuts her off. He tries to impress upon Patty the seriousness of the situation.
Patty: Remember–
Michael: You haven't been in any legal trouble, right, Pat? Ever?
Patty: Me?
Michael: You've never had to deal with the legal system, right?
Patty: No, I was on a jury one time. [CHUCKLES]
Michael: Good for you! I think we all were.
Patty, laughing: That was like, wow! [LAUGHS, SIGHS] But, uh…
Michael: But so, how this is going to work is that after this interview today, if I can't find out where Jay is, we are gonna have– we are gonna have to pursue this legally where you were his caretaker and where that goes at that point, I don't know, but it could cause you a lot more issues. Channel 9 called me today.
Moon, narrating: If you don’t live in New Hampshire, you might not realize what it means to invoke Channel 9. Channel 9 is New Hampshire’s only TV news station. So, for a lot of people, it is the local news.
So, Chief Michael is trying to warn Patty — in the most New Hampshire way possible — that she does not wanna end up on the 6 o’clock broadcast between a house fire and a high school basketball game.
Patty: Why is Channel 9 calling?
Michael: Would you like to see the email? Jamie Staton from Channel 9. Because this is much bigger than, than, than you think it is. People don't go missing and don't get found.
Patty, quietly whispering: Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh…
Michael: Very, very rarely. So, people want answers and… I think you have the answer and I think you're afraid to tell us… And I can't stress enough that if you're honest… this goes a lot better than if you tell me, "I don't know." [PAUSES] …And I don't mean that in a bad way. I understand you were under a lot of stress. I completely understand, but I think you know when Jay left and I think you were too embarrassed or too private to tell anybody.
Patty, quietly: I…
Chief Michael: And then, as time went on…
Patty, quietly: Mmm…
Chief Michael: …as time went on, you came up with a story… that you tried to make believable… and I can understand that… but, but the time's over. I need to know.
Moon, narrating: But Patty? She holds firm to her story. Jay had talked about wanting to visit his brother, so she just figured… that’s where he was this whole time. Chief Michael is not having it.
[FADES UP]
Patty: …He would forget where the bathroom was…
Michael: But how would Jay– How would Jay have gotten to his brother’s?
Patty: But, but, um…
Michael: How would Jay have gotten to his brother’s?
Patty: He– That was his call…
Michael: I understand–
Patty: …his decision, and–
Michael: Uh, yes, but you're his caretaker. How would Jay have gotten to–
Patty: I’m his wife.
Michael: Okay. Were you taking care of him?
Patty: Well, I did the best I could with what, what we had to work with…
Michael: Absolutely!
Patty: Yeah!
Michael: There, there's no doubt! But how would he know and how would he get to his brothers in the condition that he was in without your help? [MICHAEL COUGHS]
Patty: Because parts of every single day he remembered everything and he said when he, like–
Michael: He didn't drive!
Patty: No. No, but he could–
Michael: How could he get to the airport? How could he get to a bus station? How could he get anywhere?! [PEN CLICKING]
Patty: He said he would take care of it. And I'm. I'm not, I'm not…
Michael: You knew the condition he was in, Pat.
Patty: I know, but I'm not– I'm not a bitch to him!
Michael: I'm not saying you are! I'm not saying that at all–
Patty: And I'm not bossy to him!
Michael: I understand that!
Patty: Or, or like, like "You have– You can't do that." You know, he made his own decisions when he was… [FADES OUT]
Moon, narrating: For close to an hour, they go around in circles like this. Chief Michael trying to break down in granular detail the way Patty’s story doesn’t hold up and Patty returning to more or less the same answers.
Eventually, Patty does offer a little more detail on the last time she saw Jay. She says she left him at home to go check her mail at the town offices just two miles away and that when she returned, Jay was gone.
And, as far as the idea of Jay visiting a brother, Patty offers up a theory. Maybe Jay had been talking about his brother… who was dead. Like, maybe Jay was saying he wanted to go be with his dead brother.
Still, it doesn’t seem to register for Patty that once Jay was gone, most people would've expected her to call for help.
Michael: Is Jay dead?
Patty: I don't know!
Michael: Well, I'm gonna tell you that, that I'm pretty sure he is.
Patty: Oh…
Michael: Okay? And I'm pretty sure–
Patty: Yeah, 'cause you guys have looked everywhere.
Michael: And I'm pretty sure you know that.
Patty: I don't know! I don't know for 100%. I don't want to give up hope! [WHISPERING] I still have hope…
Michael: Well, I mean, Pat, we're 99.9% sure he walked away from your house one day, he didn't come back, and he died in the woods. So, that being said, the image now is that you lied to everybody. I'm telling you what we hear, Pat. You, you've been lying. You've been telling different stories. Wha–w-we get, "Why isn't she in jail?" "Why haven't you charged her?" "She knows where he is." We're hearing all of this, Pat, and how that affects your employment here… as time goes on, I have no idea!
Patty: But… how… The people that are saying… whatever they're telling you, um…. Well, for instance, Jay's and my daughter, Emily, lives in Florida, and she, she would get real mad at me for not letting her talk to her dad. But I w– he'd be sittin' in the chair, which he spent most of his time there, um, um… He would take naps in the bed! But sometimes he would wake up. That was a little bit harder for me 'cause he would wake up and he'd forget where the bathroom was–
Michael: So, how would Jay, how would Jay… [FADES OUT]
Moon, narrating: Chief Michael’s frustration is obvious and I can’t blame him.
Here Patty is, describing the diminished state Jay was in — waking up and not knowing how to find the bathroom in his own house of 50 years — while at the same time insisting he made his own choices and that there was no reason to be alarmed that he was gone for months without so much as a goodbye.
Chief Michael tries again to warn Patty how this all looks and that there could be consequences.
Michael: This is goin' to probably adversely affect you in a lot of ways. You understand that, right?
Patty: I don't understand. Why?
Michael: A wel–a welfare officer that can't take care of her own husband? That didn't, that didn't report her husband missing?
Patty: Because I didn't think he was. And! If, if you knew Jay as well as I do… he's… he's private. He doesn't want everybody to know his business!
Michael: Pat, I don't believe you. And, and, and the people don't believe you. And we have 200 pages [FLIPS THROUGH PAPERS] of different. So, how this works is that after today, if I can't, if I can't come up with a reason as to why you didn't report him — embarrassment or something else — we are going to have to pursue this criminally.
Moon, narrating: I’ve listened to this interrogation several times now. And each time, I’m struck by how it almost feels like Chief Michael is pleading with Patty, like he's desperate for Patty to give him some kind of excuse for all this that makes sense. Just like Patty’s daughters and the people in town were desperate to know.
[MUSIC IN]
Moon, narrating: But Patty never gives a satisfying response. If she had the answer to what happened to Jay, she was keeping it to herself. And as Chief Michael said, that left him no other option than to pursue the matter criminally.
[MUSIC UP]
Moon, narrating: But meanwhile, the police weren’t the only ones looking into this. Jay also belonged to another kind of community. One that, depending on who you ask, can see things the police can’t.
[ROAD SOUND FADES UP]
Moon: What's the right word to describe Isabel? Is– was she a mystic? Is that too…?
Joe Murphy: I would describe her as, uh… a cosmic master.
[ROAD SOUND FADES OUT]
Moon, narrating: That’s on the next episode of A Private Matter.
[MUSIC UP AND OUT]
[CREDITS MUSIC FADES UP]
A Private Matter is written and reported by me, Jason Moon.
It's edited by Katie Colaneri. Additional editing and production by Lauren Chooljian.
More editing support came from Dan Barrick, Rebecca Lavoie, Taylor Quimby, Annmarie Timmins, and Marina Henke.
Photos and video by Elena Eberwein and Raquel Zaldivar with the New England News Collaborative.
Fact-checking by Dania Suleman. Legal review by Jeremy Eggleton.
I learned a lot about dementia from the Alzheimer's Association. You can find links and some resources for caregivers at our website, bearbrookpodcast.com. That website was created by Sara Plourde and Matt Tobin.
Original artwork by Judith Poitras-Raynault. And original music and scoring by me, Jason Moon.
If you have more information or story tips, get in touch with us at bearbrook@nhpr.org.
A Private Matter and Bear Brook are productions of the Document team at New Hampshire Public Radio.
[CREDITS MUSIC UP AND OUT]