Episode 4: The Interviews

This week we have two new interviews for you, gumshoes. The first is with Richard Warren, the man who supposedly stumbled across Mariah's body while fishing weeks after Hurricane Katrina. The second was conducted with Mariah's grieving parents, Todd and Cindy Collins.

Interview with Richard Warren

Done on October 4,2005

By: Detective John Savage

Det. Savage: Can you state and spell your name for the record?

Warren: Richard Warren R-I-C-H-A-R-D W-A-R-R-E-N

Det Savage: What’s your date of birth?

Warren:1-31-1961

Det Savage: Are you married? Got any kids?

Warren: No sir, divorced. Worked too much.

Det Savage: What do you do for a living Mr. Warren?

Warren: I work for Coyote Joes a coast to coast shipping company. I drive a refrigerated truck that does perishable goods and medical supplies that need to stay cold.

Det Savage: When you say medical supplies what do you mean?

Warren: Like insulin and other medications that need to be cold. Sometimes we haul blood for hospitals and blood banks when supply gets low in places. I don’t actually always know what’s back there. I just remember seeing those things a few times when I have unloaded the truck.

Det. Savage: Oh ok, have you been out of work since Katrina?

Warren: Yessir. The company is based here in Kenner and got flooded real bad. Even my house got real bad messed up. So I been up in North Mississippi since we evacuated. I was just coming back yesterday to see what I had left.

Det Savage: Tell me how you found the body yesterday.

Warren: Well, like I said, I was on my way back to see what all I had left but I got to thinking when I got to around Hammond that hell I didn’t have much anyway and I wasn’t in a hurry to see the mess so I decided I kinda wanted to go fishing. I always have a pole in the back of the truck anyway and I had a bologna sandwich I hadn’t eaten from lunch that I could use for a little bait so I said I’d pull off at Manchac (LOCALS DO NOT CALL IT AKERS SO ITS OK IF HE SAYS IT.) to stick my line in out on those docks under the bridge. Usually there are houseboats and all there but I figured they’d all still be gone and I wouldn’t be bothering anyone. When I got down there and got parked I walked towards the dock area which was really still almost underwater cause of the flooding. I was looking real hard at that cause I was thinking this wasn’t a good place. When I seen the body. It was up against the gravel towards the bridge. I could tell it had been there a while.

Det. Savage: The body was that of a young woman named Mariah Collins. Do you have any connection to her?

Warren: No sir, never heard of her.

Det. Savage: Did you touch the body at all?

Warren: No sir, it freaked me out, when I seen’t it I stumbled backwards, cussed an ran back to the truck to call the law.

Det. Savage: so if we test it we won’t find your dna on her body anywhere?

Warren: no sir.

Det. Savage: That’s good. Now tell me a little bit about what you were up to right before Katrina hit. Where you were and when you evacuated.

Warren: Well. I had just brought a load of medications and had a drop at Oschners a couple days before the storm. I heard it was about to get pretty rough. My boss man said we was still gone be workin especially if we had a load going ways away from here we wouldn’t be in no danger from the storm. So I figured they’d load me up and send me on. But it happened that this was right around the days I was already scheduled off so’s I didn’t have no load. I got to the house that evenin and seen they was sayin everyone needed to get out and I didn’t have no reason to stay so I grabbed my bag and hit the road. I didn’t really know where I was goin but I just headed north.

Det. Savage: Where exactly did you go?

Warren: Well a buddy of mine that works for one of the casino’s I don’t even know which one, he said that he could get some rooms for cheap up north Mississippi something to do with it being the same folks running it or something. So I went to meet him up in Tupelo. He got me a room for like 20 bucks a night. Wasn’t much to it. I didn’t even see him but once while I was up there. His folks lost a whole bunch, his daddy even died in the hospital down here. But that’s where I was. I think the place was like an Indian casino. I can’t remember the name off the top of my head but I gots the receipt in my truck.

Det. Savage: Yeah, we’ll get a copy of that later. So did you stay there up until yesterday or the day before?

Warren: Yessir I left out about 6AM yesterday morning heading back. I stopped a lot and had coffee when I wanted and used the bathroom when I needed. I can’t always do that on the truck when I’m working so I tried to enjoy it since I didn’t know what I was coming back to you know.

Det. Savage: oh ok, well did you get a chance to go home and see what things looked like last night?

Warren: Yessir, I did. Its pretty messed up. I didn’t have insurance on it anyways. I live off Daniel street in Kenner and so it wasn’t much of a neighborhood anyways. It’s paid for so ain’t much I could do. Cost me more to fix it than to just leave it. I stayed in it last night cause I didn’t have no choice. But Its pretty much done for. Smell is awful.

Det. Savage: Alright man, we’ll be in touch. Keep your phone on ya, if you end up moving away let us know since this is still an active investigation. I’m sure we’ll be talking to you again soon.

You are free to go.

Notes to add about Richard:

Background check only turned up some speeding tickets. Nothing major.

He’s been with the same company for 20 years. Good reports from employer.

Neighbors had no idea who he was but did recognize his truck from being there occasionally. He was never seen due to being on the road with work so much.

Nice savings account.

Not just a ton in his checking account.

Looks like he mainly used his credit card but records show it only had food from truck stops and gas on it for months going back.

Truck was a 1999 Ford F-150. Red and white.

Todd and Cindy Collins Interview

October 4, 2005

Interviewed by Det. Savage

Det. Savage: Thank you both for coming in to speak to me today. I want you to know we are doing everything we can to find out who is responsible for this.

Todd Collins: Do we have any leads yet? What can you tell us?

Det. Savage: At this time, we’ve talked to Mariah’s roommate and to the gentleman who found her at length and we’ll probably speak to both of them a number of times still. Right now, we’re still gathering info. Trying to piece together exactly who was in Mariah’s circle to see if we get any leads off that.

Todd Collins: So are Lilly and the guy who found her not suspects?

Det. Savage: I think its safe to say that everyone is a person of interest at this time but its important to remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. We’re doing all we can.

Det. Savage: Can you tell me who all Mariah spent time with here?

Cindy Collins: Well, she worked so much that outside of work I really don’t know who she spent time with. She was always talking about work, on her way to work or home from work or at work on a break when she would call.

Det. Savage: Well Lilly told us that Mariah really thought highly of her boss George Bruem so we plan to talk to him for sure. Was there anyone else there that we might find of interest that you know of?

Cindy: She talks a lot about the other servers there. Theresa and Cynthia I believe. She seemed to think a lot of them too.

Det. Savage: That’s good to know. I’ll put them on my list of folks to talk to.

Det. Savage: Is there anyone else? Was Mariah seeing anyone?

Cindy: Well she had dated a guy named Spencer for several months but they broke up a couple months ago.

Det. Savage: Yes, Lilly mentioned him. Do you guys know him? Ever get to meet him?

Todd: No, we didn’t. We kept trying to get her to bring him up but she just kept saying that they both worked so much that they didn’t often get days off together and it is kinda a haul from here to Hattiesburg so we just never pushed it and before we could she had ended it with him.

Det. Savage: Do we know why she ended it?

Cindy: no she never said. Only that they were better as friends.

Det. Savage: Do you know if Spencer was ok with that?

Cindy: I mean I never talked to him to really know but they still spent time together so I guess he was.

Det. Savage: Yes, Lilly did mention that they still spent a good amount of time together. He’s on my list to talk to. What about places that Mariah frequented? Was she a drinker? Did she go to bars?

Todd: no, not that we’re aware of. That was a huge source of tension with her and her roommate because that’s all Lilly wanted to do. Mariah just wasn’t into that lifestyle.

Det. Savage: Lilly did mention that. Lilly also said the girls were really not even friends anymore.

Cindy: Yeah, we had no idea how bad it had gotten but we had started to encourage her to start saving enough to move out when her lease was up in a couple months. She had told me a few days before that she had it saved when the time came.

Det Savage: Was Mariah keeping that money in a savings account?

Todd: I assume so, I mean she had a checking account and used a debit card often but I really don’t know.

Det. Savage: Do either of you have access to her bank account?

Cindy: No, we used to but when she moved down here she had to change banks because the little hometown bank we used in Hattiesburg doesn’t have a branch here so she went in and got switched over to Capitol One.

Det. Savage: Well I can subpoena those records if we need them. Sometimes its just a little quicker if a loved one is on the account to help us out.

Todd: Do you have a lot of physical evidence yet?

Det. Savage: Well, not just a ton. We have her bag that she had packed and her luggage but thus far we haven’t drawn many conclusions from them. We’ll release those back to you soon but we’re still hanging onto them for now.

Cindy: What about her car? Have you found it?

Det. Savage: I got the call right before I came in here with you guys that yes, it was found. It had been abandoned at a gas station off Clearview Parkway.

Todd: The car is registered to us, if it wasn’t totaled by the flooding, we’d like it back if that’s possible. Can you make a note of that for us, we’d just like that memory of her. She loved that Camry. Damn near wrecked it once a week. She called it her tank.

Det. Savage: Yeah I’ll make a note, I can’t make any promises at this point but I don’t think it is ruled out. Can you think of anything else we might need to look into? Anyone that we might could talk to help us out?

Todd: no, we’ve told you all we know.

Det. Savage: ok, we’ll be in touch. I’m sure I’ll have more information for you soon.

So what do you think, gumshoes? What details are you interested in hearing more about in our next episode? Is Richard Warren a suspect? What questions do you have?