UPDATE: Melissa Casias

0:00Ashley Flowers:Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Brit, and I have big news. One of my favorite seasonal shows, CounterClock, is back with a brand new season, and it is wild. Host Delia D 'Ambra is digging into the 2008 Lane Bryant murders. I mean, this isn't just a recap. It is a reinvestigation. She's talking to law enforcement, people from the community, even sources who have never spoken publicly until now. And you know I love a show that asks all the questions. Listen to CounterClock Season 8 now wherever you get your podcasts.

0:30Brit Prawat:What did I tell you, crime junkies? More answers in the Melissa Casillas case inevitably leads to more questions. But things are getting interesting, so I wanted to bring you some stuff hot off the press. I got a couple of things to hit on, and I'm going to save the strangest for last, so stick with me.

1:24So update number one, public pressure and the P.I.

1:29Brit Prawat:There has been a ton of intensity heating up around this case. A lot has to do with the press attention resulting from Melissa being connected to these missing or dead scientists. Which, by the way, not sure if you clocked this, but at the time we recorded our episode, there was a list of 11, if you included Melissa. Well, Fox News published an article April 21st about a family who died in a plane crash just recently. On board was a, quote, decorated veteran pilot, aerospace engineer, and defense researcher, James Tony Moffat. And also his son, who was up and coming in the field, Andrew Moffat.

2:15Brit Prawat:Their plane crashed in South Carolina, but they were from Huntsville, Alabama. The same city that chemist and entrepreneur Amy Eskridge called home. Now, Amy's 2022 death was ruled a suicide, but she has been grouped in with that list of scientists. And before her death, she said in an interview that Huntsville was the biggest deal you've never heard of. It's home to NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, where Amy's father, Richard Eskridge, spent his career as an engineer. He and Amy co-founded a research institute together before she died. Now, it's worth saying, though, that he told News Nation he does not believe that her death was suspicious.

3:00Brit Prawat:Though an interview Amy gave a couple of years before her death and texts that she supposedly sent in the weeks before she died make it clear that she felt targeted and that her life was in danger. So that is all blowing up, bringing more attention to Melissa's case. So much so that Agent Mata told us that the FBI had reached out to him, given the media attention, and he's working something out with them for assistance. But at the same time, there are other driving forces stirring things up. Namely, the Mondragon family has a PI working on their behalf who they met through a missing person support event.

3:40Brit Prawat:This man, Thomas McNally, is licensed to practice in Arizona. but according to New Mexico's regulation and licensing department, he's not licensed in the state of New Mexico, where Melissa went missing. And McNally's tactics have been aggressive. He has been making a series of strongly worded public Facebook posts calling for Mark to be investigated as a person of interest and naming other members of the Casillas family. And that's kind of putting it lightly. Now, because of the backlash, the Casillas family says that they have become worried for their own safety. And not just Mark, but his daughters as well.

4:18Brit Prawat:Now, we talked to Agent Mata about this, and he was aware of the P.I., but he had not heard anything about McNally's tactics being aggressive. Now, on to update number two, Rick Valerio. Now, remember, this is the guy who was sitting on his horse crying in front of a church, the one who told the tourist that he had just found his cousin decapitated in the mountains. Now, Mata confirmed more about that second interview he did with him after the body cam one that you saw in our episode. But there wasn't much more. He said that in that follow-up, Valerio admitted that he is intoxicated every time he's on a horse.

4:56Brit Prawat:But not much else came from the interview. Other than Mata says he has not been able to establish any connection between Rick Valerio and Melissa. And as for the blue truck that he had, in our episode, we were interested to know if anyone had searched it, knowing that there was a sighting of a blue truck near Melissa when she was last seen walking down Highway 518. And the answer is, kind of. So Mata told us he did look at it, but only visually, like he walked around it. And he noted old-looking, rusty damage on it. Valerio said that the truck had been out of commission for several months and had not been driven, but I don't know if Mata managed to confirm that.

5:39Brit Prawat:He did confirm for us, though, that there were no license plate readers on the relevant stretch of Highway 518 to help him out in identifying whose blue truck that was that was seen near Melissa. Now, update number three, and here's where you need to buckle up. So, toward the end of Melissa's episode, I told you about a strange encounter that Sierra had with a woman who came to her work not long after her mom went missing to give her$50 in graduation money. Supposedly, this woman was a longtime friend of Melissa's, so she drove 300 miles from where she lived in Colorado with her fiancé or her husband to give her this 50 bucks, no card, that, yes, she could have mailed.

6:26Brit Prawat:There is something to this encounter that I believe is really important. I just need to get to the bottom of it. but that is somehow getting harder to do, even though I now have more details. So let me just kind of like retell you the story, filling in more information. So originally, when we talked to Sierra, she thought that that interaction happened in September, about three months after Melissa went missing. Mark, though, he remembered it happening in July. Well, they were both slightly off, and Sierra confirmed for us that she checked the notes on her phone and now she is confident that that interaction happened on exactly August 8th.

7:09Brit Prawat:Now, Sierra had a note in her phone because this woman, Wendy is her name, gave Sierra her phone number. Now, is it even weirder that this woman gave her her number than would go on to deny knowing her? Thank you for asking. Yes, it is, but let me keep going. Sierra told us that it wasn't actually just Wendy and one man that showed up. Sierra recalls there being three people with Wendy when she came to her job. There was that man who was Wendy's husband or fiance, and then another man and woman. Now, when we originally talked to Mark and Sierra, they didn't give us the phone number that they had for Wendy.

7:51Brit Prawat:They just gave us her first name. And then when we pressed them for the last name, Sierra passed along from Mark the name that he thought it was. So we were using public records to call a woman who matched that name in Colorado. Well, it turns out we were calling the wrong Wendy. Mark had the last name wrong by one letter, which would explain why that woman never called us back. Now, remember, Mata is the one who said that he spoke with Wendy and she denied knowing Melissa or Sierra or Mark, said that she hadn't driven to Taos, hadn't been there in years. So at first, when I learned that we were contacting the wrong Wendy, I was like, oh, crap, maybe he called the wrong person, too.

8:32Brit Prawat:But no, we confirmed Mata called the number Sierra got from the woman. He didn't find her by using the wrong last name. So he is confident he spoke to the right Wendy. So for some reason, she gave her phone number to Sierra, but then is denying knowing the family. It's not lost on anyone how weird this is, right? Like, I mean, actually think about it. There is no way Sierra or Mark just pulled a name and matching phone number out of their hat. And I know you're probably like, oh, OK, well, you know, they could have found somebody who had their number published online and it was like some long con.

9:09Brit Prawat:But you mean to tell me that they just randomly found someone who actually did have ties to Taos, New Mexico? I mean, she admitted to Mata she had been to Taos, just not for years. And you can't even say like, oh, you know, hey, they just found some old name and number of a friend of Melissa's and then made up this encounter. Because then why is this woman claiming not to know Melissa? Mark says that he has known this woman for years. And Mata is clear that he absolutely believes Sierra is telling the truth. And he is just as shocked and can't explain why Wendy is denying knowing them. But still, it gets weirder.

9:50Brit Prawat:So when we finally got the real number for Wendy from Sierra, we did a reverse number search in some of the databases that we use. The number does come back to Wendy, but it's also connected to another couple, which is very interesting knowing that Sierra said that there was another couple with Wendy when she showed up, right? Well, this is where you need to lock in or you might lose me. Are you ready? So working on these updates with me were my reporter Nina and our booking producer Marilyn. Marilyn is the one who finds out about the other couple tied to the phone number. Now this is all happening fast and in real time.

10:31Brit Prawat:So as this pops up, she tells Nina, like, oh weird, there's two more people. And I'm going to call these people John and Jane Smith. So Nina just types John Smith Colorado into Google and starts seeing if she can find this guy. And one pops up and he's pictured with a woman. So we shot that picture over to Sierra. Did this look like the couple you saw? And she said she is 99 % sure that the other man and woman who came with Wendy that day are these people that we sent her. So we thought we were one step closer. But we obviously have to check and recheck things right before we're going to publish an update.

11:12Brit Prawat:and we quickly realized something. The phone number was connected to a John S. Smith. The picture that Nina found was for John A. Smith. Nina was able to find pictures of John S. Smith and they are not the same people. But she had Marilyn send those photos over to Sierra too of John S. Smith. And Sierra said that she didn't recognize him. And I don't know if your brain is breaking the way that mine was, but like this doesn't make sense. Wendy is real. Wendy is connected to John S. Smith. But Wendy showed up to visit Sierra in tandem with a completely different John A. Smith. What is happening in this case?

11:59Brit Prawat:And you want to know the strangest part of all? John S. Smith, the one who is actually tied to the number connected to Wendy. He is connected to a company called Caterpillar Inc. According to their website, Caterpillar Inc. is shaping the future as the world's leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, off-highway diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines, and diesel electric locomotives. Backed by one of the largest independent global dealer networks and financing services through Cat Financial, the company's primary business segments, power and energy, construction industries, and resource industries are solving customers' toughest challenges through a commitment to commercial excellence and advanced technology.

12:49Brit Prawat:So are you ready for it? Caterpillar Inc. has mad contracts with the Department of On April 29th, 2025, Caterpillar got a one-year contract that totaled$83.4 million for earth-moving and excavating equipment. On May 21st, 2025, they were awarded a contract that runs slightly over one year that as of today has paid out$97.1 million for earth-moving and excavating equipment. Now, these are just two of the most recent contracts I found on a government website. There are more that go back even further. But again, John S. Smith is not who Sierra saw. But he is the one connected to the phone number that is also connected to Wendy, who showed up to give Sierra 50 bucks but now claims she doesn't know her.

13:42Brit Prawat:When we spoke to Mata, he did not remember hearing about the Smiths before we brought it up. He said that it might have popped up when he searched Wendy's number, but he wasn't at his desk when he called and he couldn't check his notes. So he wrote it down during the call and he sounded intrigued. We're intrigued, too. I found an old presentation from 2011 that was made by Los Alamos National Laboratory for its work with the National Nuclear Security Administration. And Caterpillar Inc. was a contributor on the study. So I know the 2011 connection between Los Alamos and Caterpillar was years before Melissa went missing.

14:19Brit Prawat:But maybe Mark's idea that Melissa got help from some subcontractor of the lab isn't that far-fetched after all. Or maybe there is still information to be found. So if you have anything you want to share with us, you can email us at tips at audiochuck.com. Thank you.

15:22Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

15:31Ashley Flowers:Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not. That's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon. Every Thursday, host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre, it will leave you wondering, how did they get away with that? It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now, and I've been listening for years. I think you'll love it too. Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.