MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Kyle Antonacci

[00:00] Hi, Crime Junkies. It's Britt, 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. [00:30] Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And as you probably know, today is Veterans Day. We've talked about issues in the U.S. military justice system before. Back in October of 2018, we actually did an episode on the suspicious death of women in the armed forces that were basically all ruled suicides despite some pretty questionable and even downright horrifying evidence that points to rape, murder, and systematic cover-ups. [01:00] out. It's called Conspiracy, Women in the U.S. Military. And when I originally did that episode, I was shocked that it wasn't a bigger deal in the media. Like, no one was talking about it. And so this year, I decided to look into some more cases like this, this time about male soldiers instead. And I'm still just as stunned. I really cannot believe more people aren't clamoring for justice for those who serve our country. And so I'm turning to our listeners again to help

[01:30] the word. Share this episode on your social media channels. Tell your friends, tell your family, and be sure to check out militaryfamiliesforjustice.org to learn more about how you can help. [01:42] Music [02:14] Regardless of race, age, gender, religion, or service branch, every military family shares one common visceral fear. That unexpected knock on the front door from officials that are there to notify them that their loved one has died. And for Al and Lisa Antonacci, their worst fear came to life in early February 2010. They're at home in Long Island when someone knocks on their door. [02:43] that their son Kyle, an explosive ordinance disposal trainee stationed in Illinois, is dead. Al and Lisa are absolutely heartbroken, but their misery is immediately compounded by confusion because in just a short time after being initially notified, inconsistencies start popping up in the Navy's story about what happened to their son on the day that he died. Al told ABC News that the officials who came to their home to deliver the terrible news,

[03:13] This kept changing their story. Like first they told Al and his family that Kyle had died in a car accident. Then they were told that he died of a massive aneurysm in his bunk. Those are... [03:24] Two completely different things. Right. And it's like not even like you could accidentally mix up something like that. So Kyle's sister, Carissa, gets the idea that she thinks will get her closer to the truth. She goes on Facebook and reaches out to some of the guys that were on Kyle's base. Like they were right there with Kyle. So surely they know something. Like was he in a car? Was he in his bunk? Like which one of these stories is real? What she finds is baffling. [03:54] story is true. They tell her that Kyle was found hanging in the closet in his barracks with a belt around his neck. Wait, what? Right, I know. So according to the LA Times, eventually the Navy changes their story yet again and this time tells the family that yes, that is how Kyle was found and he had taken his own life and died by suicide. Now Kyle's family is reasonably shocked. Like they [04:25] He was a bright young man with his whole future ahead of him. Like he joined the Navy back in 2007 because he wanted to make a difference and serve his country. His ultimate goal was to become a Navy SEAL. So he went to Naval Station Great Lakes near Chicago for training. And now all of a sudden, three years later, he's dead. [04:42] Now, of course, we know suicide is an incredibly difficult thing for loved ones to wrap their heads around under any circumstances. Okay, but this would be even harder. If that was the real story, like, why not just come out with it from the very start? Right. And it's not even like they misinterpreted something. Like, their first story was straight up a lie about a car accident. That is very, very different. Right.

[05:12] something is wrong here. Now, the coroner's case report says that they talked to the sailor who found Kyle's body and that that sailor was said to have observed that Kyle was, you know, very down. He didn't seem like himself. And that's like something was off the day that he died. Okay. So was something going on with him? Well, so yeah, it turns out there was something like really big going on. The Naval Station Great Lakes where Kyle was stationed is huge. And it's actually [05:42] largest training facility. There's over something like 20,000 people who work there and train there. Yeah. So you've got sailors like Kyle, soldiers, civilians working for the Department of Defense, Marines, and like they all kind of like mix across groups. It's basically like any other workplace where you get to know the people in your department, other departments, whatever. So [06:02] Kyle and his sailor buddies know some Marines and they share barracks. And like a lot of young adults, they like to party on the weekends. So on May 8th, 2009, which is a Friday night, Kyle is hanging out with this female Marine Lance Corporal that he's known for a while. So according to the LA Times, they're not romantically involved, but they've had sex a few times. Like it's just kind of like a casual thing. [06:32] and having sex with him again. [06:35] In court later, Kyle testifies that basically she had made some sexual advances toward him, but he tells her no. And then, according to him in these court documents, Kyle calls his friend Michael over, who lives upstairs, and says,

[06:50] At some point, Kyle says that he leaves them alone together after like Michael comes down to his room. Now, when he gets back, Michael is gone, but the woman is still there. And now she's in his bed under the blankets naked. And later that same night, she tells her superiors that this Michael guy who Kyle had invited down sexually assaulted her. [07:14] So the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, which is the NCIS, gets involved and starts looking into this case. So according to the L.A. Times, Michael is charged with aggravated sexual assault by substantial incapacitation because the woman claimed to have been too drunk to consent properly. So if he's convicted of this, Michael could face prison time. He risks losing like his entire career, all of his benefits. [07:44] was kind of there with both of them. Like he invited him down, even though he didn't like see it happen. They consider him a witness and they basically have him testify against his good friend. [07:54] Now, from the outside, like... [07:57] This kind of looks like, I mean, it could give Michael some kind of motive to be upset with Kyle if we're going to operate under the assumption that anything other than suicide happened to him. But even though like good friends are kind of pitted against each other in court and Kyle's going to have to testify against Michael, two articles that I found in L.A. Times and Pash reported that Michael wasn't mad at Kyle for long and wouldn't have had a reason to want something bad to happen to him.

[08:27] revolves around him. Who else would have been mad enough to do something to Kyle? [08:34] For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. [08:53] Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to the deck now. [09:00] wherever you get your podcasts. [09:04] Because Kyle is caught up in these sexual assault allegations, he's afraid for both his career and his life. Now, even though Kyle says he wasn't there when the alleged assault took place. Now, according to Patch, Kyle tells his friend that he started to have some doubts about the woman's version of the events. Like, so early on, he thought like, you know, all I know is that he came in and then when I came back, like she's laying there naked, like that could have happened. [09:34] starts to kind of wonder, like starts to question. And now I want to be very clear here that we're just telling the story of what happened as it was reported. We're not accusing anyone of making false claims or even pretending to know what really happened on that night. But this woman gets wind of this, the fact that he's like maybe kind of questioning this, maybe might change his story. And she goes to his room in the middle of the night with a warning that he better not change his story.

[10:04] Not too long after this woman makes this warning to Kyle, one of her male friends, who's also a Marine, takes it one step further and threatens Kyle with a knife. He gives the same message. Don't change your story. Then a few days later, Kyle comes back to his barracks and finds a giant X carved in his door. Now, yeah, I mean, it's like escalating threats over and over, over this like kind of long period of time. [10:34] and coming and getting worse and worse. [10:37] At this point, Kyle is understandably freaking out. So he goes to NCIS to report what's going on and request some protection. So all they do, though, is they move him to another room, but he's kept on base at that same naval station, Great Lakes. Now, Kyle's family back home knows that all of this is happening because all along he's been calling them a lot, especially his sister, Carissa. [11:07] scared during this time. Like, he didn't know what to do. Yeah, I mean, does he go through with it? Like, I cannot imagine testifying against a friend like this. That has to be... [11:15] so difficult to like bring yourself to. [11:18] Well, yeah, and I mean, to have that compounded with like all the threats being made against you as well, it's not even just like testifying against a friend. But yeah, despite how scared he is and how confused he might be, Kyle testifies for the prosecution in the fall of 2009. So that November, Michael's found guilty of aggravated sexual assault and he's sentenced to three months in jail and given a bad conduct discharge from the Navy.

[11:48] sensation and a lot of the things that service people are normally entitled to after they leave the military. [11:54] Again, like at this point, like you would think Michael would be pissed. And like, don't get me wrong. He is for a while. But he told Patch that he got over it pretty quickly because he knew that Kyle didn't really want to do it. And he was like basically being threatened into doing it. [12:12] Almost as soon as the trial concludes, military officials start raising doubts about Kyle's testimony. So here's the thing. It turns out both Kyle and the woman neglected to mention to anyone one important fact during the investigation. The two of them had had sex on the same day before the alleged rape took place. Now, if you remember, Kyle initially testified that he turned her down that night. [12:42] Michael's appeal shed a little bit of light on what might have really happened that night. Basically, eventually Kyle admits not only did he and the female Marine have sexual intercourse that day, but according to the records, she also performed oral sex on him while Michael was in the room. So it seems a little confusing and a little bit messy. And according to a witness for the defense at Michael's trial, the female Marine told this witness that she felt forced to say that [13:12] happened. Now, this is all, again, in the court records, not me trying to, like, say she didn't do it. Now, here's the thing. Previous sexual activity on the day of the alleged assault does not mean that the assault didn't happen, but this is information that NCIS felt was relevant to the investigation, and basically the investigators are upset that it was omitted by everyone and nobody, like, even thought to mention it to them, and they felt like it really could have, like,

[13:42] Keep in mind that at the time this is all happening, it's a time when the NCIS, the Navy, the U.S. Armed Forces as a whole were starting to face mounting criticism and deeply uncomfortable questions about how they were handling sexual assault and reporting. [14:12] from the year before in 2008. Now, they also reported that only 8% of perpetrators are prosecuted, and that's five times less than the civilian 40%. Now, without making any kind of judgment call about what happened between that female Marine and Michael, like amidst a lot of controversy, the military had a conviction that basically they could point to and say, look, we care, we're taking sexual assault seriously, [14:42] the stuff that was left out that conviction might fall apart and make them look even worse. Yeah. So once the NCIS confronts Kyle about what he left out and they threatened him with legal action for omitting his sexual encounter with the woman Kyle confesses to the truth. He says yes we had sex but it was fully consensual and he alleges that he kept it quiet because he says that she had threatened to accuse him of rape too. [15:09] Now, according to an NCIS report that the patch saw, Kyle states, quote, I did not speak about all the events because of her threat of rape. I knew when she was discussing these things that she was stretching the truth. I went along with this because she threatened me, end quote.

[15:26] So Kyle cuts a deal with NCIS to become an informant. And in exchange for cooperating, he'll basically get to clear his name, avoid any perjury charge for making a false statement to investigators, and get a transfer down to Florida. Now, him being an informant isn't just like him changing his story or giving a new statement or whatever. Instead, he actually records two phone conversations with that female Marine. [15:56] on February 1st. Did they get anything incriminating on the call? So not really. This woman sticks to her story about Michael assaulting her, but she says she doesn't remember anything about having sex with Kyle that day. She denies threatening him with rape charges. And she also says that she has no idea that her fellow Marines were even threatening Kyle. [16:17] And... [16:18] Here's the thing. Just hours after that conversation, that second one that he recorded, that is when Kyle is found hanging in the closet. Oh. [16:27] No. Now, like I said before, right from the moment that they learn about Kyle's death, his family and friends, even Michael, don't think it's suicide. They knew about everything he was tangled up in, and they are sure that he wouldn't do this. [16:41] Al and Lisa's suspicions only get stronger when Kyle's body is released to them. Because what they see at his funeral is horrifying. [16:51] The Patch did a five-part series about this case where his father, Al, was quoted as saying, when we saw my son's body in the casket, he looked like he was, excuse my language, beaten the hell out of, end quote. Oh, my God. And in that same article, Lisa basically added, she said, when we saw his face, he had black eyes, his nose was swollen, he had abrasions all over his face, his hands, like someone could actually see gouge marks on his hands.

[17:21] going on. Okay. Is this something that could have happened maybe at like the funeral home or during the embalming process? Like a body goes through a lot of things in [17:32] in that process. And we've seen in other cases too, like, [17:36] Is that a possibility? So it could have been, yeah. But the coroner's report makes me think that it wasn't just like, [17:43] a funeral director's heir or something that happened during the embalming process. Because according to ABC News, the Lake County Coroner's report noted that Kyle had hemorrhaging around his face, a broken nose, and other injuries that the medical examiner said were not consistent with a typical hanging. Kyle also had a bloody nose when he was found, which from what I can find, like you don't normally see in cases like this where someone had hung themselves. Right. [18:10] Now, the official coroner's report doesn't specify if Kyle died from a homicide or a suicide. It just says hanging. And also, and this is the part that really gets me, the late county coroner himself wrote, quote, I stated to NCIS agents that I was not 100 percent convinced this was a self-inflicted hanging, end quote. OK, but like they can't 100 percent rule it out either, though, right? [18:40] on in Kyle's life. [18:42] There could be... [18:42] be a reason to suspect that he was suicidal. [18:46] Is there any reports anywhere that say that, you know, he was acting different or was feeling depressed or down or anything?

[18:55] Yeah, I mean, clearly he was going to be a little bit off. Like, he had all of this pressure because of the stuff that was going on that was starting to get to him. I mean, some of his... Right, but like enough for like people to think he would harm himself? Well, yeah. So I guess some of his friends told investigators that he had actually talked about suicide. And just a few days before he died, a case agent from NCIS told Kyle's superior officer that he was having suicidal ideations. But... [19:25] He wasn't put on any type of like mental health watch, and the commanding officer said later that he didn't even remember this conversation happening at all. [19:33] again, makes this case more confusing, right? Like, there's a case to be made here for suicide being the cause of death. But I keep coming back to why lie then? Like, why say car accident? Why say brain aneurysm? Like, it feels like something bigger is being covered up. [19:52] In spite of the coroner's doubts and his friend's concern, the Navy and NCIS refused to give Kyle's family any more details, and they stand by their final ruling that Kyle died by suicide. [20:04] At this point, Kyle's family is so heartbroken and furious that they decide to take matters into their own hands to find justice. Al and Lisa hire a civilian military lawyer and their own private medical examiner. No, this isn't just any medical examiner either. They get Dr. Michael Bodden, a forensic pathologist who some people might know from HBO's documentary series Autopsy. Like this is. Oh, yeah. He's like a big deal. Yeah.

[20:34] He was in a testing place at Long Island National Cemetery on July 21st, 2010 for a second autopsy. This is almost six months after his death. And no one is prepared for what the results turn up. [20:50] I recently learned that after working out, performance and recovery come down to what's happening in your blood. Now, I pay a lot more attention to what's happening inside my body. And here's what most people overlook. Training gives your body the stimulus, but your internal environment determines what happens next. Thankfully, function can help you see exactly what's going on under the hood. Things like your glucose, whether your body is burning clean or running on fumes. Your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, which one is winning the inflammation battle. Your DHEAS, one of the building blocks your body uses to make testosterone. [21:20] one of the first things to quietly decline. When these markers are off, you can do everything right and still feel like you're fighting against yourself. Check in on your health. Function provides over 160 labs for $1 per day and member pricing on MRI and CT scans. Join at functionhealth.com slash crimejunkie or use gift code crimejunkie25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. [21:40] In the summer of 2010, after six agonizing months of grief and uncertainty, Kyle's family hopes against hope that this second autopsy they've commissioned will finally get them some answers about how their son died. Right away, their medical examiner picks up something strange about Kyle's body. [22:00] Embalming is like [22:01] kind of an art. And it might be weird to think of it as an art, but it kind of is because you need to have like good technique and training. It takes a lot of practice. And each person might have their own technique the way an artist would. But it's a science too. And there's certain things that you would look for, you know, like certain things that would kind of be the same embalming to embalming. Totally. It's...

[22:22] a specialized thing from person to person, but there's always going to be some similarities. Right. So you'd think, except here, there are [22:31] aren't. Some things are so different that even Dr. Bodden is shocked. So usually after someone is autopsied, and again, sorry for like the mental images here, but usually after an autopsy, the pathologist puts the internal organs into a bag and then puts that bag back into the body. Kind of like, this is, you know. Gruesome. Right. But like if you were to get a turkey, and then sometimes they'll put all like the giblets and stuff like in a bag, [23:01] Okay. [23:16] It seems like they got taken out of this bag if there was a bag ever at all, because Kyle's organs are completely covered in what the doctor calls a very large amount of gelatinous material. So that patch article doesn't clarify what exactly that substance is, but because his organs weren't protected by that bag, this material, this goo altered and decomposed Kyle's organs so much that it's impossible to analyze them or to learn anything new. [23:46] Oh my God. Weirdest of all though, is that Kyle's hyoid bone was missing. Now, most of what is in your neck is cartilage, but the hyoid is this like horse shoe shaped bone in the front upper part of the neck. And hardcore crime junkies will know that medical examiners often look at the hyoid bone when determining causes of death in multiple types of cases. And specifically looking at cases of suspected suicide, if the hyoid is broken or fractured,

[24:16] play. [24:17] So here's [24:18] the strange part about the fact that it's been missing. The doctor who originally performed that first autopsy said that he examined Kyle's hyoid bone and that there was, "There was [24:29] nothing wrong with it. Like, it was there perfectly intact when he released the body. But... [24:37] Now it's nowhere to be found? [24:40] Right. I guess I don't get it. Like, how is it just gone? [24:45] I don't know. That is the thing. Were there any, like... [24:49] pictures and photographs of the first autopsy, like anything out there that... [24:54] the second doctor can compare and contrast with? Well, here's where this case gets even more fishy to me. Oh my God. The doctor in Lake County said, yeah, like I took pictures of everything. That's totally protocol. Right. But he says the computer system just happened to glitch. So a big chunk of [25:18] all of the pictures of his missing hyoid bone. Which, like, listen, I just lost an entire podcast script to a computer glitch this week. So I get it. Glitches are real. But what happened? [25:29] are the ones. [25:31] odds. Of those pictures specifically too. I know it's so strange and to me I think it's even more strange that that's not something that they could recover. Like I lost a script. I couldn't find it so I just had to start over and rewrite it. But like in an autopsy where there's like questions around someone's death like I feel like that's something you I don't know it's just

[26:01] back inconclusive. There's only so much he can do without the missing bone and those deleted photos. And that's basically a dead end. [26:08] At the same time that the medical examiner was looking for secrets about Kyle's death, his parents' lawyer is looking for secrets about his life. Their lawyer, James, starts with Kyle's next-door neighbor. And just like with the autopsy, it doesn't take long before he starts finding even more inconsistencies. Navy investigators reported that Kyle's neighbor at the barracks, the woman, hadn't heard anything the night that he died. [26:38] wait a minute, that's not true. That's not what I said. I told NCIS that I heard several really loud thumps that night. So the report's totally wrong. [26:48] Now, James is also curious about some strange marks on Kyle's back and ribs that were in among all of the bruises. And he has a hunch about what they might be. He thinks that they might be marks from a stun gun. So in 2013, he goes down to Texas with Kyle's old friend Michael to do an experiment. Wait, the same Michael that he testified against? Yes, so same guy. But by this time, actually, Michael had gotten his conviction overturned. [27:18] appeals court ruled that there was evidence that his accuser might not have been truthful. So the Navy opted not to retry the case. He got his back pay. He got an honorable discharge, which restored all of his benefits. So according to the LA Times, James and Michael gather a crew of law enforcement at a vet's office with a dead pig and different types of stun guns that they think may have been used on Kyle. And basically what happens is that they jolt this pig over and over with these

[27:48] to see what happens, to see what marks are made, what burn patterns are made. And they get one stun gun that produces burn patterns that are very similar to the marks they found on Kyle's body. [28:01] They take their findings back to Illinois to the late county coroner Richard Keller, who originally was the one who pronounced Kyle's cause of death as undetermined between homicide and suicide. Now, not only does Richard agree with their findings, but he goes a step further. And when he talks to the L.A. Times, he lets everyone know that originally he was denied access to some key evidence and he was pressured to call the February 2000 death a suicide. Oh, my God. Like, wow. [28:30] NCIS like reopens this entire investigation, right? This is a huge development. [28:35] Brett, like how many times we've done this? No. That is not exactly what happened. The inspector general of the Department of Defense spends four years investigating not just how the NCIS handled Kyle's death, but also how they handled the female Marines rape case and their treatment of Kyle after Michael's conviction. So they didn't completely ignore it. But again, they're spending four years looking into kind of how all of this was handled. Yeah. [29:05] are shocking. [29:10] I recently learned that after working out, performance and recovery come down to what's happening in your blood. Now, I pay a lot more attention to what's happening inside my body. And here's what most people overlook. Training gives your body the stimulus, but your internal environment determines what happens next. Thankfully, function can help you see exactly what's going on under the hood. Things like your glucose, whether your body is burning clean or running on fumes. Your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, which one is winning the inflammation battle. Your DHEAS, one of the building blocks your body uses to make testosterone.

[29:40] one of the first things to quietly decline. When these markers are off, you can do everything right and still feel like you're fighting against yourself. Check in on your health. Function provides over 160 labs for $1 per day and member pricing on MRI and CT scans. Join at functionhealth.com slash crimejunkie or use gift code crimejunkie25 for a $25 credit toward your membership. [30:00] After four years and thousands of dollars spent searching for answers, Kyle's parents are no closer to finding out the truth. They hope a report from the Department of Defense, which oversees the U.S. Armed Forces, will shed some light on what happened to their son. The report is released on October 28, 2014. It contains a litany of findings that range from negligent to suspicious to outright troubling. [30:31] NCIS waited a full 20 days after the female Marine reported that she was raped before they formally interviewed Kyle, despite the fact that the alleged assault took place in his bed. Oh, my God. Even though she gave them a list of people that she was drinking with that night, NCIS only interviewed one other witness besides Kyle. You're kidding. [31:00] reported. That's over two months. Oh, it gets better. NCIS also didn't review the case file like they were supposed to. It's in their regulations that they're supposed to go over the case file once every 30 days at least. But they only went over the rape investigation three times during the six months before Michael was court-martialed. And there's no telling how thoroughly they even were when they did because surprise, surprise, NCIS couldn't find the case

[31:30] Oh my God. But Brett, there is even more though. Wow. [31:35] A sexual assault forensic exam was performed on the female Marine. And the Army Criminal Investigation Lab located what the report calls third-party DNA that didn't match either Kyle or Michael. And this seems like a pretty significant piece of evidence to me. But we find out through the investigator general that NCIS didn't even re-interview the victim about this. [32:05] Oh, my God. [32:21] Now, Britt, like, again, knowing what you know about how they investigated this rape case, how long do you think it took for NCIS to fully look into the threats against Kyle? Like, just guess. I mean, honestly, did they ever? It took them two days. [32:38] years before they looked into the threats that were made against him. Like, you think a witness being intimidated on a regular basis like this would get immediate attention. But no. According to the report, Kyle made his statement about the Marine with the knife on September 28, 2009. The Marine who he said made the threats wasn't interviewed about the incident until a week before Kyle's death.

[33:08] 2011. That's almost two years after he died. Yeah. And the Department of Defense report says that they didn't even present their findings to the Navy or to the Marine Corps until November 2012. I mean, and by that time, he's been dead for, what, three years? Like, that's super useful. Thanks. Well, and that's part of the reason why the Department of Defense is saying that this wasn't properly or thoroughly investigated because it wasn't done in like any kind of diligent or competent manner. Like at all. At all. [33:35] And I think this goes hand in hand with the perjury investigation because they both relate so heavily to Kyle's safety. And here's the thing, too. So according to the report, Kyle should have been escorted to and from every interview that he had with NCIS. But he wasn't. OK, but why not? So I guess there was some confusion about what he was during this time period. [34:05] Like someone who'd confessed to the crimes that they're being accused of or if he was a cooperating defendant. According to Navy Times in their article on the report, a confessed military suspect is supposed to be released into their command and escorted back to the barracks. While a cooperating defendant can go to and from the interrogations on their own. So this particular NCIS agent thought that Kyle was a cooperating defendant, I guess. [34:32] Now, the report states that NCIS told the Department of Defense that they'd gotten escorts for Kyle every other time that he'd been called in during the investigation. However, they only ever documented it once. And the report says, quote, we found no documentation or witness testimony reflecting NCIS released SN Antonacci to command officials on the day of his death.

[34:55] seems pretty shady to me. Yeah. And their findings about Kyle's death are shady too. They note the discrepancies between the first autopsy and the second one, like that missing hyoid bone. And once again, NCIS failing to interview witnesses. [35:11] Here's the other thing. The two agents who were with Kyle when he made that second phone call to the female Marine, the ones that were being taped, on the day that he died, those agents were never interviewed, despite possibly having valuable insight to the state of his mind that day. Yeah, for sure. [35:41] original finding that there's quote nothing to suggest a conspiracy between NCIS and Department of the Navy officials to rule SN and Tenacci's death a suicide end quote [35:56] While NCIS, the Navy, and the Department of Defense may consider Kyle Antonacci's case closed, the truth of what really happened on that February night almost 10 years ago may never be known. Time passes. [36:12] but I'm sure his loved one's grief will never go away. [36:17] Thank you to all of the men and women in the military serving today. If you want to learn more about initiatives to bring justice to fallen American soldiers, be sure to visit militaryfamiliesforjustice.org for more information.

[36:47] case or to look at our sources, you can find all of that on our website. [36:51] crimejunkiepodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. [37:11] *music* [37:13] you [37:16] *music* [37:18] Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? [37:26] 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? [37:44] It is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years. [37:48] I think you'll love it too. [37:50] Listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.