A Girl Named Egypt

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Speaker 8 Nobody knows how it works.

Speaker 9 Tonight on Dateline.

Speaker 8 Nobody knows how it unfolds.

Speaker 6 What did you think when she said, I'm going to go try out for the voice?

Speaker 10 Thought you're going to win.

Speaker 12 Dramatic new details in the story of a young woman who auditioned for the voice before her voice was silenced forever.

Speaker 14 I took it like a step or two in and I seen her. She was tied up, hands behind her back.

Speaker 15 Egypt was bound with Christmas lights.

Speaker 16 Who does that?

Speaker 17 There could have been women that were jealous of Egypt.

Speaker 7 Could have been somebody that was infatuated with her at the bar.

Speaker 18 You said, you look guilty, and I was like, I'm not guilty.

Speaker 6 Was it tunnel vision with the police? Absolutely.

Speaker 19 That's what brought my involvement into our own investigation.

Speaker 20 That phone was actually in her house at the time that we believe that she was killed.

Speaker 12 For the first time, investigators revealed the clue that helped solve the murder.

Speaker 20 That piece of evidence really broke the case case wide open.

Speaker 6 You're on the edge of your seat as to who the killer is.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 23 To know that she knew she was going to die, it just makes me feel like,

Speaker 8 why?

Speaker 25 I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline.

Speaker 12 Here's Andrea Canning with A Girl Named Egypt.

Speaker 6 In life, Egypt Covington had a way of bringing people together.

Speaker 17 She had a light that shone. She would always lift people up, lift their situation up.

Speaker 8 Everybody loved Egypt.

Speaker 6 But the mystery of what happened to her and the long investigation that followed tore those who loved her apart.

Speaker 17 Don't get me going. You're getting me like, this is not the way Egypt would want me to talk.

Speaker 19 I'm done. I'm not here to break your family apart even more.

Speaker 25 There was a lot of people who loved Egypt Covington. There's a lot of people who wanted to get answers.

Speaker 6 This really divided people.

Speaker 23 It divided our family. It divided the entire community.

Speaker 6 The community where Egypt Covington lived is a town called Belleville. just outside of Detroit in eastern Michigan.

Speaker 6 A friendly little place where, between her singing and her job as a popular bartender, just about everyone knew Egypt.

Speaker 14 She had this amazing canny talent of seeing you right into your heart. When you met Egypt, you walked away better, feeling better about your day, yourself.

Speaker 6 Curtis Meadows was her boyfriend.

Speaker 14 We're going to move in together. We're going to stay for a house and, you know, share life's moments with each other.
you know, for the rest of our lives together.

Speaker 6 On Friday, June 23rd, 2017, Curtis started his day, as usual, by checking in with Egypt.

Speaker 14 Every morning text, she doesn't say, I always send her a good morning text, like good morning, my love. Good morning, babe.

Speaker 6 Did she respond? Nothing.

Speaker 14 Usually she always responds within like 15, 20 minutes and nothing. Then I started, you know, texting her again.
Is everything okay?

Speaker 14 Then I'm in my mind, you know, just I'm thinking, well, she probably went to work and forgot her phone at home.

Speaker 6 But the hours ticked by and no texts from Egypt. Egypt, no calls, no social media posts.
This is in the afternoon now?

Speaker 27 Correct. You're getting worried?

Speaker 14 Yes, I mean, I text her and called her numerous times up until noonish and then

Speaker 14 I just

Speaker 14 was ridden with like worry.

Speaker 6 So after work, Curtis drove over to Egypt's house. He says as he pulled up, he got that pit in the stomach feeling.

Speaker 14 Seeing her car there and it just, it just hit me. It just, you know, now like all your your worry just hits full full-fledged 100% and you just know something ain't right

Speaker 6 Egypt lived in a duplex apartment inside a house when Curtis got out of his truck the front door was ajar once inside the door on the right led to her neighbors and the door on the left was Egypt's I took it like a step or two in and I yelled her name and her

Speaker 14 dog Ruby barked, let out a bark. And by then I took two more steps in And

Speaker 14 Ruby met me, kind of like, Hey, come with me, like, turn around, follow me.

Speaker 14 And I by I walked about two, three more steps into the kitchen. Then you can kind of see in the living room.

Speaker 6 He says what he saw unraveled him to the core.

Speaker 14 She was tied up, hands behind her back, in like a fetal position on the ground.

Speaker 14 Blood clearly covering the side of her head.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 14 it's just

Speaker 14 so I ran out.

Speaker 14 I was in shock. My phone was in the center council of my truck, and I called 911.

Speaker 14 911.

Speaker 10 I just showed up at my girlfriend's house, and I walked inside.

Speaker 26 She's there, tied up.

Speaker 18 She's dead. There's blood on her head.
She's dead.

Speaker 22 And what's her name?

Speaker 25 Egypt Covington. Jacqueline Egypt Covington.

Speaker 26 Okay, hold on. Don't hang out.

Speaker 30 No, no, okay.

Speaker 31 Market. Marketing.

Speaker 6 The Van Buren Township Police rushed to the crime scene.

Speaker 26 The officers are making their way. They'll be there in just a couple of minutes.
Just hanging there.

Speaker 6 When the officers arrived, they found Egypt on the floor with a gunshot wound to her head. Right away, two things stood out.
The house wasn't broken into.

Speaker 6 And this was strange. On this June night, Egypt's wrists were tightly bound with Christmas lights.

Speaker 14 As humans, we're not wired to

Speaker 14 see that and deal with it. Beyond having those images in your head of someone that you love, you love deeply, then, you know, then

Speaker 14 you're trying to fathom

Speaker 22 your...

Speaker 28 Future's gone and everything you planned out in life is gone.

Speaker 6 The news raced through Egypt's large family. This is her father, Chuck.
How do you find out that something has happened to her?

Speaker 17 And I got a call from my daughter, Beth,

Speaker 17 hysterical,

Speaker 17 saying that Egypt was,

Speaker 17 I don't know if she said killed or dead, but

Speaker 17 that I should go to her house. And I

Speaker 17 got in my vehicle and was driving down the road.

Speaker 17 Hoping something that can't be sold.

Speaker 6 The family patriarch then had to make a series of gut-wrenching phone calls. He dialed D-Wayne, Egypt's half-brother, who was out with friends.

Speaker 7 We're all sitting there taking pictures, having drinks, and then I got a phone call. I just looked at it, and it was Chuck calling me.
And that's not very typical. And so I answered it.

Speaker 7 He's crying on the phone. He said, she's gone.

Speaker 6 Did he say Egypt or did you just know?

Speaker 7 He said Egypt after that.

Speaker 7 He was having a hard hard time saying it.

Speaker 7 And

Speaker 7 just fall to the floor, and my friends came and got me

Speaker 24 and took me out the back.

Speaker 6 Chuck also called his ex-wife, Tina Covington, D-Wayne and Egypt's mom.

Speaker 23 He said, Can you hear me? And I said, Yeah.

Speaker 23 And he said, Egypt's been murdered.

Speaker 23 And I just dropped.

Speaker 23 And

Speaker 23 all I can remember is screaming and

Speaker 23 crying and not my baby and how could that happen.

Speaker 23 It was like

Speaker 23 mommy wasn't there for you

Speaker 23 you know

Speaker 23 how could I have protected you? What could I have done better?

Speaker 23 But to know

Speaker 23 that she was scared to death and she knew she was going to die

Speaker 33 just

Speaker 23 It just makes me feel like.

Speaker 23 Why?

Speaker 6 Why? And of course, who?

Speaker 6 The search to answer that question would put a town on edge and a police department under fire. Let the state in! Let the state in!

Speaker 6 As someone who never even knew Egypt launched her own investigation, it was on.

Speaker 35 I'll tell you what, King, bring me something I can use instead of telling me I'm not doing my job properly, and I'll be a much better person with it this

Speaker 34 year.

Speaker 6 Would a new team of detectives finally uncover the truth? Did you have that feeling like this has been going on for years now and they don't have an answer?

Speaker 25 Absolutely. I didn't want to let down the community.

Speaker 6 News of Egypt's murder was spreading fast in this peaceful lake town.

Speaker 12 A murder mystery unfolding tonight in a quiet neighborhood in Van Buren Township. A woman found dead in her home and police not saying much about who may have done it.

Speaker 6 It was a story closely tracked and reported on local TV.

Speaker 6 Coco, are there any leads in her case?

Speaker 15 Karen and Steve, right now, there are no leads in this investigation.

Speaker 6 Coco McAboy, who now works for Fox LA, covered the story for for NBC affiliate WDIV.

Speaker 15 So when I first heard about the story and heard about the fact that Egypt was shot and killed inside of her home, that instantly captivated me because that could be anyone shot and killed inside of their own home.

Speaker 6 Police had said there were no signs of forced entry.

Speaker 15 So for me, I kept thinking, that means that someone who knows her and possibly loves her just killed her.

Speaker 6 And as investigators would learn, the circle of people who knew and loved Egypt was enormous. She was part of a big blended family of step and half siblings.

Speaker 6 Her parents, Chuck and Tina, divorced when she was young, and she was also close with her stepmom, Chris. You were almost like a teacher to her in some ways, like a teacher of life.

Speaker 37 That's what parents do, I think. You know, you want to teach your kids to be able to go out there and be successful and to be content.

Speaker 7 She was lucky to have three different parents and, you know, that could help her grow up and thrive.

Speaker 29 She just was bigger than life.

Speaker 11 So many people loved her. She had a ton of best friends.
She had a ton of acquaintances.

Speaker 6 Leslie Dixon met Egypt at work, Egypt's very first bartending job.

Speaker 11 I remember teaching her to pour her first beer and her opening it you know just a little bit and just like why is it foam and I'm like no girl pull it down you know and oh yeah this is like the very ground floor

Speaker 11 we were off and running after that.

Speaker 6 It was her brother D. Wayne who got Egypt into bartending.
The siblings worked alongside each other. So you two were side by side? We were side by side.

Speaker 7 I love that. Yeah, it was pretty cool.

Speaker 7 It was fun. We'd have our little routines that we would do.
We'd have some like

Speaker 2 shows,

Speaker 7 turn down the lights, have flaming bottles of liquor. Wow.

Speaker 7 We'd just have our jokes in between each other and have a lot of fun.

Speaker 7 So we had a lot of regulars that would come in, mostly to to see her, because she was like a shining light, but that was somewhat funny too.

Speaker 6 She was great behind the bar, but Egypt had bigger plans. Craft beer is a booming industry in Michigan, and Egypt landed a job with a distributor as a beer sales rep.

Speaker 6 It was all coming together.

Speaker 7 She was taking off with the distribution. This was going to be her career alongside with trying to get into the music business.
Nobody knows how life goes.

Speaker 7 Nobody knows how it unfolds.

Speaker 6 Singing was a big deal to Egypt. It was her passion.

Speaker 6 And when she took the stage, she owned it.

Speaker 23 There was no inhibition.

Speaker 23 That was her. And she didn't care.
It was like, I either sound good or I sing bad, but I'm singing it.

Speaker 6 And that's exactly what she did in 2014 at Country Idol, a popular competition in eastern Michigan.

Speaker 6 The DJ didn't have the music for the song Egypt had rehearsed, so like a true performer, she winged it. Her friend Nori Drock helped her rehearse a new song on the fly.

Speaker 10 She grabbed her sister and me and like almost like, come out here in the hallway and help me practice. I have 10 minutes.

Speaker 10 And that was just her energy. Like nothing was going to bring her down.

Speaker 10 Just

Speaker 10 reacted and blew everyone away in the audience.

Speaker 34 The winner of W4 Country Idol 2014, Egypt!

Speaker 6 How much fun was that?

Speaker 33 It was amazing.

Speaker 10 And like, I remember her like yelling up there and just like, almost like she was shocked, but none of us were.

Speaker 10 We knew like, oh yeah, you're gonna,

Speaker 10 you're gonna do this and you're gonna win.

Speaker 6 That win sparked something in Egypt. She set out to audition for the voice on NBC and started recording with local producer Kevin Zawala.

Speaker 24 She's the

Speaker 14 light for the party.

Speaker 38 She brings the energy for sure. She brings the charisma.
She was a people person through and through. And that was something that, I mean, attracted everybody to her, right?

Speaker 6 What did you think the first time you heard Egypt sing?

Speaker 22 Wow. Wow.

Speaker 38 It was just like a presence that she controlled it. She controlled the stage and she made you want to listen to her.

Speaker 6 Egypt's talent and her gusto for life drew a lot of people to her. And that can sometimes make a murder investigation quite complicated.

Speaker 7 Who is it? Could have been somebody that was infatuated with her at the bar and followed her. Is it a friend? Is it a family member? Who knows?

Speaker 6 Time to start asking questions about the people close to Egypt. Sounds like a bad fight.

Speaker 10 It wasn't good.

Speaker 39 No.

Speaker 6 Police were starting with the closest.

Speaker 15 Because he was the current boyfriend at the time, police wanted to question him. They wanted to know, was he at all responsible for Egypt's murder?

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Speaker 6 It was Egypt's boyfriend, Curtis Meadows, who had made the grim discovery. His girlfriend killed by a single bullet to the head.

Speaker 6 And no surprise, he was of instant interest to Van Buren police detectives. The police had to talk to you.

Speaker 14 Correct.

Speaker 6 You're the boyfriend. Yes.
You're going to be moving in.

Speaker 6 And they always look at the significant other.

Speaker 2 The closest two.

Speaker 26 Yeah.

Speaker 14 I was questioned there on site. I was there for a few hours, wrote down my statement, and then,

Speaker 14 you know, my phone from there on out with questions.

Speaker 6 Detectives quickly learned that Egypt and Curtis had a complicated history. They had a series of breakups and makeups dating back to 2008 when they first met.

Speaker 6 Egypt had just turned 20 and Curtis was 28.

Speaker 14 She worked at a a local establishment in our hometown and I never seen her before. I just happened to stop in.
I lived right on the corner.

Speaker 14 It's kind of the cliche love at first sight, but I knew that was someone I was very interested in at the beginning.

Speaker 6 And how long did you two date for?

Speaker 22 Wow.

Speaker 14 I mean, we dated on and off a few times.

Speaker 14 The first time was almost two years, year and a half, roughly. And

Speaker 2 what happened?

Speaker 14 Life got in the way of schedules. I was obviously, I had a nine-to-five job.
I had a daughter, and she was a bartender. I was getting up for work when she was getting home for work.

Speaker 2 He broke her heart. Oh, he did.

Speaker 17 And I remember that, so that's why I was like,

Speaker 37 We sat on the steps, and she cried, and we sat on the steps, and it was like, and you know, you have to tell them,

Speaker 37 relationships come and go.

Speaker 6 Egypt's dad said that she was pretty upset with the breakup.

Speaker 28 Yeah.

Speaker 6 Because she was in love with you.

Speaker 14 Yeah.

Speaker 14 Yeah. It was.

Speaker 14 It was tough. It was tough.

Speaker 14 Egypt was a very passionate, and she was a lover. She loved hard.
And

Speaker 14 it was just, it was the right thing for us both.

Speaker 6 Egypt's friend, Brooke Brandstadter, says the relationship was at times quite a roller coaster. She remembers a big fight the two had in the middle of the night.
What was the fight over?

Speaker 39 I don't remember the details on that.

Speaker 39 She came knocking at my door at like two in the morning.

Speaker 39 I was sleeping, and I let her in, and she was just so distraught and crying to where it was kind of one of those where I couldn't really understand what she was saying.

Speaker 39 And I just wanted to comfort her and just let her know that she

Speaker 39 stay here tonight. You're okay.
Don't walk home.

Speaker 6 Sounds like a bad fight.

Speaker 10 It wasn't good.

Speaker 39 No, it wasn't a good fight.

Speaker 6 A Van Buren detective was now asking people in Egypt's close circle some uncomfortable questions.

Speaker 39 He also had asked me if I had ever known of Curtis hitting her. And I did not know.

Speaker 39 No. I never heard of an incident of them.
But I do know they've had some pretty bad fights.

Speaker 6 Did you think it could be Curtis?

Speaker 2 I did.

Speaker 15 I mean, I wasn't ruling anybody out.

Speaker 39 I didn't know if maybe they got in a fight.

Speaker 39 There was a couple times where I did go back to the police station, Van Buren police. I Wanted to make sure that everybody was being looked at.
I didn't want anybody to be eliminated.

Speaker 6 Egypt's dad, Chuck, was thinking along the same lines.

Speaker 6 Were you ever concerned that it could be Curtis, given that he's the significant other right now, which is often the first person that the police look at?

Speaker 24 Yes.

Speaker 17 I thought of every person.

Speaker 6 Did you have anything to do with Egypt Covington's murder? No.

Speaker 14 No, no, no. Not whatsoever.

Speaker 6 Did you tell them that over and over again? Yes.

Speaker 14 Most definitely. Yes.

Speaker 6 Curtis also told police and us that at the time Egypt was killed, their relationship was as solid as ever. After about five years of the on-again, off-again drama, he was about to move in.

Speaker 29 They were planning their future. It was for real this time? For real.

Speaker 6 Egypt's friend Leslie says Egypt thought so too.

Speaker 6 So why was the timing right this time?

Speaker 11 I think that everybody was just in the right space and they wanted to revisit what they had before. And this time it was better.
You know, it was the right time.

Speaker 6 But police weren't quite done with Curtis. Within days, he was hooked up to a polygraph machine.

Speaker 14 The lie detector thing was,

Speaker 14 all right, here's my chance. Let me go prove, like, like, let's get their attention off me so they can worry about finding the right person.

Speaker 14 Let me do what I got to do the quickest, you know. Hey, you're focusing your attention in the wrong area.
Okay, let's get this out of the way. Now go find who did this, please.

Speaker 6 And some close to Egypt were starting to wonder if the right person might be found right next door.

Speaker 7 It's just the traffic going in and out constantly.

Speaker 2 It's revolving.

Speaker 29 This is what she said. This is what she said.

Speaker 6 Egypt Covington was a Michigan native. She'd grown up here in Belleville, a beautiful lake town.
When she was finally out on her own, she found that apartment in the duplex on the outskirts of town.

Speaker 37 She really loved her duplex. She was very proud of her duplex.

Speaker 6 Her next-door neighbors in the duplex were also Egypt's friends. But not long before she was murdered, Egypt's mom says that Egypt shared something with her.

Speaker 23 She said, Mom, I gotta move. And I'm like, why? She said, it's really getting scary over there.

Speaker 23 She said, there's people in and out of there I've never seen before, but not the type of people you want to see.

Speaker 31 Oh, no.

Speaker 23 She had a gut feeling there were some bad things happening.

Speaker 6 And did she express what those bad things were?

Speaker 44 Drucks.

Speaker 6 Egypt's neighbors had a license to grow and sell legal medical marijuana.

Speaker 6 Egypt had talked to you about her living situation.

Speaker 39 Yeah, she didn't like living at that duplex towards

Speaker 39 after living there for a few years.

Speaker 39 She did have a roommate and then he moved out and that she had that place to herself for a while.

Speaker 39 And she had

Speaker 39 said to me, you know, about moving in with me. A lot of the times she would come over to my place.

Speaker 39 Very rarely would we meet at her house. And if we did, we weren't there for very long.

Speaker 6 Did you tell her you should get out?

Speaker 23 I told her to come and stay with me, and she was like, oh no.

Speaker 6 Egypt's neighbors said they never sold anything illegal. Still, her family wondered if the marijuana business next door had anything to do with Egypt's murder.

Speaker 6 Egypt was concerned about her safety because they did have the marijuana plants and people were coming and going. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was just the traffic going in and out constantly.

Speaker 6 Detectives questioned the neighbors and asked them where they were the night of the murder. Turns out they were at a music festival 200 miles away and nowhere near the scene of the crime.

Speaker 15 At this point, there's no one in custody for the murder of Egypt Covington, but they're still investigating.

Speaker 6 The Van Buren police sent the Christmas lights that bound Egypt's wrists off for DNA testing, but that led nowhere. And with no one in custody, the lake town was on edge.

Speaker 15 That was something that scared a lot of people because though police kept saying that Egypt knew her killer, they weren't releasing a lot of details.

Speaker 11 If you knew Egypt, it was just unfathomable. You know, how do you lose somebody like that in this way?

Speaker 6 Egypt's not the kind of girl to have enemies that would ever want to do something like that.

Speaker 11 I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out.
At that point, every single person was a suspect to me.

Speaker 6 By now, detectives were learning that Egypt had no shortage of men vying for her attention. One man friends heard stories about was a former boss.

Speaker 6 Had they had a relationship?

Speaker 39 I don't know. Physical relationship?

Speaker 11 If they did do it, any kind of relationship, it would have been,

Speaker 11 I don't think, an ongoing thing. It might have been a mistake.

Speaker 2 And he's married. Yes.

Speaker 6 The man had taken an interest in her singing career.

Speaker 6 And after that big win at Country Idol, Egypt told Leslie he had offered to take her to Nashville for the next big tryout.

Speaker 6 He was paying for stuff. Yeah.
For her singing, for her to to go to the voice.

Speaker 6 Was he in love with her?

Speaker 29 I think that he was obsessed with her.

Speaker 6 Leslie thought the trip to Nashville was a bad idea, but says Egypt went anyway. And when she got there, Egypt told Leslie there was an argument.
What was the fight over?

Speaker 11 Who knows? Probably something to do with not having a relationship.

Speaker 6 You think he might have been angry that she didn't want more?

Speaker 11 Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 6 Egypt's brother, D. Wayne, knew him too and says he saw other red flags.

Speaker 7 I know how fast he could react to things, so so he was very hot-headed, very hot-headed, and you set him off.

Speaker 2 He goes off his rocker.

Speaker 6 Sounds like that would give you concern.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it gave us concerns.

Speaker 6 Investigators looked at the former boss, who told us he cooperated fully. He says he was never romantically interested in Egypt and that his wife at the time knew all about their trip to Nashville.

Speaker 6 As for the description of his temper, he says he's a firm boss but denies being hot-headed.

Speaker 6 Still, family and friends passed anything they could think of on to police, hoping they could solve the mystery fast.

Speaker 11 Like you don't have a murderer behind bars, and this has happened to somebody who's so beautiful and loved by everybody.

Speaker 6 It kind of puts life in perspective.

Speaker 11 You know, you realize this can happen and it's scary. And how do you protect yourself against something like this when there's no protection?

Speaker 6 And as investigators questioned Egypt's boyfriend, they also asked him if he had any theories.

Speaker 14 I had two clear-cut answers.

Speaker 6 Two clear-cut answers.

Speaker 14 To that question.

Speaker 9 Who did it? Yes. And

Speaker 9 what were the...

Speaker 14 One was Kenny, and the other was something to do with Next Door.

Speaker 2 Number one was definitely Kenny.

Speaker 6 Kenny was Kenny Mahalak, a guy Egypt had dated during one of her breakups with Curtis. And word was that he wasn't too happy about Curtis and Egypt's future plans.

Speaker 23 It's the only time I remember Kenny being jealous.

Speaker 6 That Curtis was moving in. Yeah.

Speaker 6 How did he express that jealousy?

Speaker 8 Not well.

Speaker 6 Investigators were about to learn that the ex-boyfriend was still close to Egypt. Maybe too close.

Speaker 37 She didn't feel like she could go anywhere where he wasn't there.

Speaker 6 Curtis Meadows told detectives over and over again that he had nothing to do with his girlfriend Egypt's murder. Did you feel like a suspect?

Speaker 6 The fact that they're asking you to take a lie detector test?

Speaker 14 I know my heart and where it belongs. And, you know, of course, you're in there and you try to think like this is their job, this is protocol.
And, you know, it hurts.

Speaker 14 You know, you're trying to grieve the most unimaginable thing.

Speaker 14 And you're there, you know, asked the most horrific questions.

Speaker 14 And

Speaker 2 it was horrible.

Speaker 22 It was absolutely horrible.

Speaker 6 When the test was over, he says the detectives told him he passed. And soon after, he was cleared.
But what about Curtis's suggestion to look into Egypt's ex, Kenny Mahalek?

Speaker 6 Investigators were learning that Egypt's family and friends knew him well.

Speaker 23 I knew his family for many, many years.

Speaker 6 Kenny was 10 years older than Egypt, a mechanic who was quiet, handsome, and a bit of a player.

Speaker 23 He attracted a lot of women because he was so good looking.

Speaker 6 Egypt's mom remembers a family gathering where Kenny caught Egypt's attention.

Speaker 23 She pointed him out and she said, I'm going to date him someday. And I say, well, you know, his reputation is he's never going to get married.

Speaker 6 What'd she say to that?

Speaker 23 She said, I'll fix that.

Speaker 6 While Curtis and Egypt were in the off phase, Egypt made her move on Kenny and the two started dating.

Speaker 6 Norrie and Egypt worked together at a local pub where Kenny was a regular. Did she seem really into him?

Speaker 6 Not really.

Speaker 10 Obviously always cared for him, but there was just no, at least from what I saw, I did not really see like a spark ever.

Speaker 6 Maybe just someone like

Speaker 6 Mr. Right Now?

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah. The perfect way to say it.
Yeah.

Speaker 33 A placeholder, I guess.

Speaker 6 Did she tell you anything about him, why she liked him,

Speaker 6 what his deal was?

Speaker 14 You know, she didn't care about money,

Speaker 14 intellectual

Speaker 14 conversations as much.

Speaker 14 She needed companionship at that time.

Speaker 39 She wanted to settle down.

Speaker 39 She wanted to, you know, get married, and not that she was rushing into it, but just like every other woman or young female, you want to find the one and you want to

Speaker 39 talk about the future. She wanted it, but she couldn't see the future because there was just no

Speaker 39 progress in the relationship.

Speaker 6 After about three years, friends and family say Egypt was ready to break up with Kenny. But by then, she'd gotten close with his whole family.

Speaker 6 All right, so that ends, but they don't completely cut ties. Correct.
They remain friendly.

Speaker 2 Friends.

Speaker 6 She even would go to some family outings. She did.

Speaker 23 I think that they left it so

Speaker 23 if I want to call you, I can call you. Or if I want to text you, I can text you.
There was never any complete breakoff.

Speaker 6 It wasn't until Egypt and Curtis got back together again in a serious way that it became too difficult for Egypt to be friends with Kenny, especially in a small town like Belleville.

Speaker 37 She didn't feel like she could go anywhere where he wasn't there.

Speaker 37 And that just made her uncomfortable.

Speaker 6 Was he purposely showing up then? Because he knew she'd be there?

Speaker 37 She made it seem that way. She, and Curtis would be somewhere and he would be there.

Speaker 29 Sounds like Kenny was maybe still in love with Egypt.

Speaker 6 Oh, for sure.

Speaker 11 I'm sure he was. It's hard to fall out of love with Egypt.
So I think that he...

Speaker 11 Yeah, you get defensive, right? Over your heart. And I think that's really what it was.
It was just the end for real. And he probably didn't take it that well.

Speaker 6 Her stepmom, Chris, said Egypt, wanted to tell Kenny to give her some space, but it was hard.

Speaker 37 When she said, Mom, he's like a lost puppy. And I said, you can't save every lost puppy.
Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do and move on.

Speaker 37 She knew that if she still hung around with the family and not sever these ties, that it wasn't going to be fair. And she could not fully have the relationship with Curtis that she wanted.

Speaker 6 According to Chris, Egypt was going to break the news to Kenny at the Strawberry Festival, an annual Belleville event that Kenny was guaranteed to be at with his friends.

Speaker 6 Curtis was going to be there too. That night, Curtis got there before Egypt and immediately spotted Kenny.

Speaker 14 I kept my distance. You know, I wasn't trying to be imposing or anything.
So I went to the opposite side as far as I can get away and sat with my friend's family. She showed up.

Speaker 6 Egypt eventually made her way to Kenny while Curtis watched from a distance.

Speaker 14 I couldn't tell you what they were talking about, but you could tell it was some sort of intense conversation going on. I wasn't worried too much at that time.

Speaker 6 You didn't want to stop it?

Speaker 14 I mean, you know, it was a social circle of, you know, five or six people. And I was just going to, you know, let Egypt dissolve it and she'll take care of it.
And I wasn't worried at that time.

Speaker 6 Then, out of the corner of his eye, he could see Egypt walking toward him with Kenny in tow.

Speaker 14 And I could see he was high on, right on her heels, following her to the table we were sitting at.

Speaker 6 Curtis says Kenny and Egypt got in each other's faces and then Egypt stormed off.

Speaker 2 She was very upset.

Speaker 14 You know, that's obviously not how she intended her night to go.

Speaker 6 That was a Saturday night, and five days after that very public fight, Egypt Covington was dead.

Speaker 6 Detectives were zeroing in on Kenny Mohalek. What would he have to say?

Speaker 15 The pressure was already on Kenny and the community, but that really turned up the heat even more for people.

Speaker 36 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate.

Speaker 49 And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 27 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 21 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years, and we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 50 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 21 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 49 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 27 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

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Speaker 45 I need you girls.

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Speaker 6 Egypt had been a bartender and a beer sales rep.

Speaker 6 After she was gone, her colleagues at the brewery started thinking about a cool way to remember her.

Speaker 6 They crafted a new beer called A Girl Named Egypt.

Speaker 6 Rick Lack, a friend and mentor to Egypt, helped develop it.

Speaker 20 We have her photo.

Speaker 34 Yeah, the likeness.

Speaker 6 Her tattoo.

Speaker 43 Her tattoo.

Speaker 43 Her Instagram handle is the name and then there's a song bar notes in there someplace i believe yeah that was her tattoo yeah uh and we wanted to make it big and bold is this a strong beer it's a relatively strong beer by crap beer standards 9% alcohol by volume so you're certainly gonna not operate heavy machinery after consuming a couple strong like Egypt strong like exactly and that was the intent

Speaker 6 Meanwhile, investigators and reporters were trying to figure out who would want to hurt such a force of life.

Speaker 15 When I first started reporting on the story, I instantly heard about Kenny. That was the name that everyone would bring up.
Family members brought up Kenny. Police officers brought up Kenny.

Speaker 6 So of course, Coco had questions.

Speaker 15 We tried to contact Kenny multiple times, but he was just not willing to do an interview.

Speaker 6 Coco never got the chance to interview Kenny, and some friends hadn't talked to him either. You would have liked a phone call from Kenny?

Speaker 11 Yeah, just, I mean, we lost our friend together, you know? We like, she's gone. It was shocking the person that you guys are both close to doesn't ever reach out.
Yeah, it feels weird, right?

Speaker 6 And I think a lot of people felt that way but detectives did talk to Kenny early on They picked him up at a local bar in the hours after Egypt's body was found drove him to the station and grilled him They wanted to know where he was the night of the murder Kenny said he'd gone bar hopping and later during the critical window when they thought Egypt was killed he was home alone Detectives hooked him up to a polygraph machine.

Speaker 6 And when the police told him he failed, word quickly spread around town.

Speaker 15 And so when that happened as well, the pressure was already on Kenny and the community.

Speaker 40 But that really turned up the heat even more for people.

Speaker 6 Right after that polygraph test, Kenny lawyered up and stopped talking to the police.

Speaker 14 I've tried to process every scenario and look at every different thing and him doing it is the only thing that makes sense to me.

Speaker 6 It wasn't just the heated arguments like the one at the Strawberry Festival that bothered Curtis. He says it was Kenny's behavior leading up to Egypt's murder.

Speaker 6 One time, while Egypt was asleep in his bed, Curtis says he looked out the window and saw Kenny casing Egypt's car.

Speaker 14 She was waking up and I told her about the incident and,

Speaker 14 you know,

Speaker 14 I was like, hey, Kenny was just outside looking in your appearing in your vehicle. And the look she gave me wasn't like of a surprise or in a way.

Speaker 14 It's almost like, you know, this has happened before or something. It was very strange.

Speaker 6 Kenny says he was working in the area and just happened to notice Egypt's car. But according to her friend Nori, weird things with Kenny had happened before.

Speaker 6 What kind of things did she say that raised red flags for you?

Speaker 10 His anger, and I would see it. And also, I don't know, I don't know how I want to say something because it wasn't even just things she would tell me.
I would see it.

Speaker 6 You would see yourself. Yeah.
Like, what did you see?

Speaker 10 Really, just his controlling, manipulative personality to her. When she wasn't home on time, he would message me.

Speaker 6 He had to know where she was at all times.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 Norrie says Egypt told her about one argument that she and Kenny had at a hotel. They were shouting at each other so loudly that hotel staff called the police.

Speaker 6 Nori says things with Kenny could escalate quickly. He would just,

Speaker 6 shall we say, have like

Speaker 10 an explosion sometimes.

Speaker 6 So whether that was verbally, whether that was like a time I was at the house, I was there when he punched a hole in the wall, type of thing, just very like short-fused temper.

Speaker 6 Were you concerned that he might do more? Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 10 And also in my head, the protective part of me of like, okay, what happens when I'm not here or someone's not here and it's just them?

Speaker 6 Nori shared the information with detectives. She also gave them text messages from Egypt and even some from Kenny that she believed showed his controlling nature.

Speaker 15 People said that Kenny was a possessive person. They would always describe him in interviews as someone who was not happy about the breakup.
So he was almost portrayed as the jealous ex.

Speaker 6 Kenny says he was never manipulative or controlling with Egypt. Still, the stories made their way to the police and to Egypt's dad.

Speaker 17 I never would have thought of anyone

Speaker 17 having the reason to murder my daughter. But then when you breathe and you start to sort, certain things lead in certain directions.

Speaker 6 Pretty soon, Chuck's mind was made up. He became convinced that Kenny was responsible for Egypt's murder.

Speaker 17 The community, the people around Egypt, the people that know Egypt, know Kenny, the people in the community knew that he was already the primary suspect.

Speaker 9 Knew that he...

Speaker 17 is the only one that was pouting and moaning and having arguments with her.

Speaker 6 But not everyone saw it that way. And pretty soon there was a new person getting close to the family, asking uncomfortable questions.

Speaker 6 You actually considered that your own boyfriend might be the killer?

Speaker 16 I considered everything.

Speaker 6 With investigators struggling to solve Egypt's murder, this woman was about to turn up the heat on the police themselves.

Speaker 19 Why are the state police not

Speaker 52 because this is our

Speaker 52 case?

Speaker 52 Let the state in! Let us stay it in!

Speaker 6 Days turned into weeks, and here in this tight-knit community in eastern Michigan, Egypt Covington's killer was still out there.

Speaker 6 And while her family and friends waited for updates from police, they gathered to celebrate her life.

Speaker 20 Thanks again for coming out to an evening with Egypt.

Speaker 6 On the mic was Kevin the music producer, who recorded about a dozen tracks with Egypt, including this remix of Fort Minors, Where'd You Go?

Speaker 34 Where'd you go?

Speaker 34 I miss you so.

Speaker 34 Seems like it's been forever since you've been gone.

Speaker 34 Wow.

Speaker 40 Yeah. That's really powerful.
Thank you.

Speaker 6 It's hard though when you see her. Yeah.

Speaker 31 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. It's so.

Speaker 6 And you hear the lyrics because it's like, it's like she's singing about herself almost, or you're singing about her. At her memorial concert, Kevin performed the song in her honor.

Speaker 6 That same evening, Egypt's dad addressed the crowd.

Speaker 2 This isn't TV.

Speaker 18 This is real.

Speaker 31 They are still walking around.

Speaker 6 By now, it was no secret that he believed Egypt's ex-boyfriend Kenny was responsible for the murder.

Speaker 26 Please, speak out.

Speaker 34 I don't mean to be negative,

Speaker 34 but she deserves justice.

Speaker 32 Yes, she does.

Speaker 6 Almost everyone there seemed to stand behind Egypt's dad. But there was one person in attendance who did not.
Egypt's mom, Tina.

Speaker 23 I saw Kenny with his nephews in the parking lot. And his mom was sitting next to me and she said he's afraid to come in here.

Speaker 23 So I was like, get your butt over here and sit out.

Speaker 6 Coco McAboy was there covering the memorial.

Speaker 15 And he sat next to Tina. And it was almost like the room got silent.
She was the person who kept saying Van Buren police needs to look at other suspects. And she just did not believe it was Kenny.

Speaker 29 And she had various reasons for that.

Speaker 6 Who did you think did it?

Speaker 23 I didn't know, but I knew Kenny didn't do it.

Speaker 6 Did you ask him?

Speaker 23 Yes. Did you do this? Flat out.
I just looked at him. I said, did you murder Egypt? And he cried like a baby.

Speaker 23 He said, absolutely not. I loved your daughter.

Speaker 19 Did you believe him?

Speaker 33 Yes.

Speaker 6 Tina trusted her gut. Call it mother's intuition.
And even though she knew Egypt and Kenny fought, she never believed Kenny was a violent guy.

Speaker 23 He's a big guy, but he's a gentle giant. If anything ever fueled any argument, it had to do with liquor.

Speaker 6 Remember that fight at the hotel when the police got involved? Their reports said both Kenny and Egypt were intoxicated and uncooperative.

Speaker 6 And some of Egypt's close friends say Egypt could give as good as she could get, especially when it came to Kenny. I mean, it takes a lot to punch a hole in a wall.

Speaker 39 Yeah, but also I think Egypt would say things that would push his buttons. She knew what buttons to press.

Speaker 11 If you were around her,

Speaker 11 you understood that there is no little with her. There's no little energy.
She was a big energy person.

Speaker 11 So with her and Kenny, you know, there were times they fought hard. Of course, it was a lot of nonsense sometimes,

Speaker 11 but it was because it was about passion.

Speaker 39 Kenny's not a confrontational person. He does not raise his voice.
He doesn't raise his voice often at all. He's a nice guy.

Speaker 6 Tina's very public support for Kenny caused a rift in the family.

Speaker 23 You were either on Chuck's side or you were on my side.

Speaker 6 And your side was that you believed Kenny? Yes. And Chuck's side was that Kenny murdered Egypt.
This really divided people.

Speaker 23 Divided the entire, it divided our family, it divided the entire community.

Speaker 6 Some friends, like Leslie and Brooke, found themselves thinking more and more like Tina, while Egypt's brother was torn and could see the divide between Egypt's mom and dad getting worse.

Speaker 7 They weren't really in good terms throughout the years, anyway, but we always had somebody that was a buffer and Egypt was one of those as well that kept somewhat peace between the family.

Speaker 6 As for whose side he was on, for a long time, D. Wayne didn't know what to think.

Speaker 7 I wouldn't express that Kenny did it because I didn't know any better. I didn't know.
I just wanted the police to figure it out.

Speaker 6 Then, in the middle of all the tension and family drama, D. Wayne met someone.
A woman named Lindsay Brink. And you chose not to tell her about Egypt.

Speaker 7 That's right. I didn't want to, and I don't want to take this the wrong way, I didn't want to bring on like baggage at the moment.

Speaker 6 But just a few weeks into dating, Lindsay found out anyway. Hard not to, really.

Speaker 19 I said, who is this beautiful person on your phone? Because it was his screensaver.

Speaker 19 And he said, that's my sister. And I thought, wow, that's kind of odd that you have your sister as your

Speaker 45 screensaver. I said, well, why is she? Why?

Speaker 19 Yeah, why is she on your screensaver? And he said, well, she was murdered and it's unsolved.

Speaker 6 Lindsay, who lived about 30 miles away from Belleville, remembered hearing about Egypt's murder, but didn't know anything beyond the headlines. D-Wayne filled her in.

Speaker 6 He told her all about the family divide and that just about everyone, except for his mom, suspected Egypt's ex-boyfriend.

Speaker 19 And it made me nervous because

Speaker 19 I was starting to fall in love with this man, with D-Wayne, and I thought, who knows? If he killed your sister, how could he not kill you or possibly come after my children or me?

Speaker 6 Then another thought crossed her mind. You actually considered that your own boyfriend?

Speaker 16 Everything.

Speaker 16 I considered everything.

Speaker 19 I considered everything. I didn't know him very long.
I didn't know. And so then I drilled him.
I said, where were you that night? Give proof of where you were that night. What happened?

Speaker 6 De Wayne's story was airtight. But what about everybody else's? Lindsay, who was a kindergarten teacher by day, thought maybe they could help the police solve the mystery.

Speaker 6 So your new lady went from girlfriend to detective in like no time flat.

Speaker 24 Yes.

Speaker 7 She quickly

Speaker 7 took this and

Speaker 7 it drove her to

Speaker 7 start looking into some things. Let's get interviews.
Let's go talk with so-and-so. And she was making phone calls and she was all over the place at 100 miles per hour.

Speaker 7 She's gone into it like an investigator.

Speaker 6 She was just getting started when all of a sudden in March 2018, nine months after Egypt's murder, the Van Buren Township Police had an announcement. They had a person of interest.

Speaker 15 The moment that news came out, I called the lieutenant and I asked him what's changed.

Speaker 36 Hi, I'm Jenny Slate.

Speaker 49 And believe it or not, someone is allowing us to have a podcast.

Speaker 8 I'm Gabe Leidman.

Speaker 21 I'm Max Silvestri. And we've been friends for 20 years.
And we like to reach out to kind of get advice on how to live our lives.

Speaker 50 It's called I Need You Guys.

Speaker 21 Should I give my baby fresh vegetables?

Speaker 49 Can I drink the water at the hospital?

Speaker 27 My landlord plays the trombone and I can't ask him to stop.

Speaker 36 You should make sure that you subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

Speaker 2 I need you, girl.

Speaker 51 Just got a new puppy or kitten?

Speaker 32 Congrats!

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Speaker 19 Your pet won't.

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Speaker 6 nine months after egypt covington was murdered the van buren police made a public announcement they released a name a person of interest

Speaker 6 kenny mahalek

Speaker 6 Reporter Coco McAboy worked her sources, wanting to know why the police were only now naming Kenny.

Speaker 15 I remember the moment that news came out, I called the lieutenant and I asked him what's changed. And he said, Coco, you know, we know that Kenny did it.
We really want him to come in and talk to us.

Speaker 15 And he said, be honest with us about what happened to Egypt.

Speaker 6 Egypt's mom was still standing by Kenny. She hired her own private detective to investigate the case.
Lindsay and D. Wayne wanted answers from Kenny himself.
They picked up the phone and called him.

Speaker 19 We just said,

Speaker 19 Kenny, did you do it? Did you kill her? And what did he say? He said, no. No, I did not kill your sister.

Speaker 6 Now, most killers,

Speaker 6 if we're being real, are probably going to say, no, I didn't.

Speaker 19 Yeah,

Speaker 19 that definitely was part of it. What I did then was say, do you have proof of that? Do you have proof that you did not kill her?

Speaker 6 Kenny told them he did, and he agreed to sit down and tell his side of the story.

Speaker 41 Today is June 14th, 2018.

Speaker 53 This is an interview with Kenny Maholik.

Speaker 6 The investigator wanted to know about Kenny's relationship with Egypt. It was complicated.

Speaker 18 From the time we broke up, I think we

Speaker 18 were sleeping together on and off for

Speaker 18 at least that next

Speaker 18 eight months.

Speaker 6 Kenny told the PI they were definitely off by the time he heard Egypt and Curtis were moving in together. The PI wanted to know more about that public fight at the Strawberry Festival.

Speaker 53 Tell me about the Strawberry Festival.

Speaker 54 What was that about?

Speaker 18 I was there.

Speaker 41 Who did you go there with?

Speaker 18 Just kind of by myself.

Speaker 54 Okay.

Speaker 18 I figured I'd know people there.

Speaker 6 One of the people he knew there was Curtis.

Speaker 18 And I overheard Curtis talking about

Speaker 18 Egypt moving in with him.

Speaker 18 Who was he talking to? I don't remember. I just kind of overheard it and like peripheral.

Speaker 18 And then like I think maybe half hour, 20 minutes later, Egypt came up and I was like, hey, what's this? I'm hearing about you and Curtis.

Speaker 18 And she didn't want to talk. She walked away, walked over to where Curtis was at.

Speaker 54 I walked over there and I was like, what the f ⁇ ?

Speaker 18 Like, are we going to talk about this? And then she left.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 54 Were you upset that he was moving in?

Speaker 18 Not upset. I was just surprised she didn't tell me, kind of thing.

Speaker 53 Did you guys maintain a fairly good relationship after you broke up?

Speaker 18 Yeah.

Speaker 53 Okay, so it was called

Speaker 53 Yeah, she's like family.

Speaker 18 I mean

Speaker 18 my sisters go to the movies with her like

Speaker 6 She was part of my family, you know Kenny says they just exchanged some hot words and it was hardly a fight that led to murder.

Speaker 41 It was just why didn't you tell me like what the f?

Speaker 54 Okay.

Speaker 18 She didn't want to hear about it. She was kind of like, you, and she was gone.
And I think she left the Strawberry Fest.

Speaker 6 And what about the story that he punched a wall during a fight with Egypt? Kenny didn't deny that he and Egypt had some pretty bad fights.

Speaker 2 I had punched two holes in a wall and repaired them.

Speaker 6 The PI also wanted to know where Kenny was the night Egypt was killed.

Speaker 29 And so Kenny offered up his timeline.

Speaker 6 That Thursday, he says he and his buddy spent the afternoon on the lake, and after that, they went bar hopping.

Speaker 18 I went to Bayou, Egan's, and Lakeview Allen

Speaker 18 right after another.

Speaker 53 About what time? And how late did you stay?

Speaker 18 I say I got there at 9 o'clock and stayed till 10.

Speaker 53 Let's see. And then from there,

Speaker 54 home.

Speaker 18 Alright, I got home,

Speaker 18 had some leftover burritos, and watched Netflix or Hulu

Speaker 54 and

Speaker 54 my phone.

Speaker 6 Kenny said he told the very same story to police, even urged them to verify it.

Speaker 18 So I did everything off my phone, internet, TV, the whole deal.

Speaker 53 There's a way they can

Speaker 53 check that.

Speaker 41 Yeah, didn't you tell them that?

Speaker 25 Didn't you tell them to check it?

Speaker 55 I told them to.

Speaker 18 Yeah, they said, yeah, they said, hey, we're going to take your phone. What's your password? So I showed him my password and gave him my phone.

Speaker 6 Kenny said he looked for other ways to help detectives verify his alibi.

Speaker 18 I have Vonstar in my truck, and I told him, check that.

Speaker 6 Kenny believed the police made their minds up about him from the get-go.

Speaker 15 Long lives of you did this.

Speaker 54 Just

Speaker 18 berating me, basically, at that point. And then once they started saying, we're going to put you away for life, that's when...
You asked for an attorney? Yeah, I asked for an attorney.

Speaker 6 After the interview was over, the private investigator shared it with Lindsay and D. Wayne.

Speaker 6 They started to believe that Kenny did have a good alibi, and maybe the police hadn't done enough to check it out. They decided to go to Chris and Chuck's to share what they were thinking.

Speaker 7 Lindsay and I wanted to bring to the table, literally the dinner table, and have a meeting with the family and a couple of her close friends and say, Hey, you know, what if this isn't Kenny?

Speaker 19 How did that go over? It didn't go well. It didn't go well at all.
And

Speaker 19 I ended up storming out of the house, and it was not a proud moment, but it was necessary because it turned into me needing to mind my own business and stay out of it.

Speaker 6 The family was telling you that.

Speaker 37 She never even knew Egypt, never met Egypt, anything like that. It was very

Speaker 37 rude in our home, disrespectful.

Speaker 17 To come into my house, to talk about things, to get angry, to get up and leave while we're just kind of talking, I have no need to interface with that particular person anymore.

Speaker 6 I mean this in the nicest way, but you could almost see someone saying, hey, new girl, you know, you just started dating

Speaker 6 Dwayne and who are you to say that we've got the wrong guy.

Speaker 19 I can see where they're coming from. I can 100%.

Speaker 19 And

Speaker 19 that night, I said that exact same thing to Dwayne. I said, I'm done.
I'm done. I'm done looking into this.
The police can do their job.

Speaker 19 I, who am I? What did he say? He said, Lindsay, please don't. Please don't stop.
Please don't allow this to stop our fight for my sister. And I still said, I'm done.

Speaker 19 I'm not here to break your family apart even more.

Speaker 6 After some long talks, D-Wayne managed to convince her to stay the course. And their next move was to get a meeting with the detectives.

Speaker 29 Let's just say that didn't go so well either.

Speaker 34 I'll tell you what, Ken, bring me something I can use instead of telling me I'm not doing my job properly, and I'll be a much better person with you.

Speaker 6 De-Wayne and his girlfriend Lindsay refused to be mere spectators as the police investigated the murder of D-Wayne's sister. Their drive more than compensated for their lack of experience.

Speaker 7 We had a war room in our library where we actually took the wall and we started placing pens and writing names and web diagrams.

Speaker 6 Even though Egypt's ex, Kenny, had been named a person of interest in her murder, they weren't convinced. Did you get into that mindset where everyone kind of became a suspect in your mind?

Speaker 8 Could it be him?

Speaker 32 Him, her.

Speaker 7 We came with the impression that we wanted to be open-minded and say who is it? Start listening to tips, looking into things, who could it be? And so it was anybody.

Speaker 7 Anybody was on the radar until you were crossed off.

Speaker 6 Even though the police had already crossed off Curtis, Lindsay wasn't so sure and asked for a meeting with him. Did you think it could be Curtis who killed Egypt? Yeah.
Yep.

Speaker 19 I absolutely thought that there was a possibility that Curtis killed Egypt. So we questioned him big time on it.

Speaker 6 They also heard all those disputed stories about that married man Egypt used to work for, the guy who friends thought liked Egypt a little too much.

Speaker 19 He just came across as somebody who would possibly be somebody who could kill Egypt. And that was enough for me and for Dwayne to say, look into this.

Speaker 6 The Van Buren police had been saying they had their person of interest, Kenny, but hadn't arrested him.

Speaker 6 DeWayne and Lindsay wanted to know why and asked if the detectives would meet with them to discuss Egypt's case. To their surprise, the police agreed.

Speaker 6 When she and D. Wayne got to the station for the meeting, Lindsay pressed record on her cell phone and put it on the table.
What questions do we have?

Speaker 6 So you're recording this meeting?

Speaker 45 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 8 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 They didn't know.

Speaker 56 Was there anything new happening?

Speaker 56 It's been a long time. Okay.

Speaker 35 Where we stand right now is we followed up every lead that we physically have.

Speaker 6 Lindsay and D. Wayne quickly heard what they already knew.

Speaker 35 Our person of interest

Speaker 35 after the initial investigation turned out to be Mr.

Speaker 56 Hawk, Kenny.

Speaker 6 Lindsay says they seem to place a lot of faith in that polygraph Kenny took, even though it wouldn't be admissible in court.

Speaker 35 Kenny was very upfront with people in the community talking about how he failed his polygraph.

Speaker 34 Miserably.

Speaker 35 I sat in on it.

Speaker 34 I was there.

Speaker 35 I watched the interview. I interviewed him here.
I know when someone's lying to me. I know when someone did something.

Speaker 56 He failed.

Speaker 34 He didn't get his name right.

Speaker 6 Well, he did get his name right and the date.

Speaker 35 Besides that, he failed.

Speaker 56 You know, it's like he said, he failed everything.

Speaker 6 Lindsay and D. Wayne wanted to know if the police had found anything useful on Egypt's cell phone or iPad that would implicate Kenny or anyone else.

Speaker 56 Did you ever were you able to ever get into the phone?

Speaker 31 The pad?

Speaker 56 That's the first time I ever heard.

Speaker 56 We're not going to talk about the film if you're able to get into it.

Speaker 31 We're going to talk about that.

Speaker 19 Okay. They kept telling us, we aren't talking about that.
We aren't talking about that.

Speaker 45 We just were curious if we weren't able to get into it.

Speaker 56 We're not going to talk about any details.

Speaker 6 A lot of times detectives do keep things very close to the best.

Speaker 47 Yeah.

Speaker 6 They don't provide people with information about cases, even family members.

Speaker 19 Yes, we understood that. We understand that that's how an investigation works.
However, we wanted them to get more resources involved.

Speaker 6 The conversation got more and more contentious on both sides, especially when Lindsay and D. Wayne asked police if they'd fully investigated Egypt's neighbors in the duplex.

Speaker 19 We tried and they wouldn't talk to us.

Speaker 56 I mean they were at that electric festival a couple hundred miles away and we can pretty much prove they were there.

Speaker 49 Wait, what do you mean pretty much?

Speaker 34 Okay, listen. I'm not going to get.

Speaker 49 No, no, no. What do you mean pretty much prove?

Speaker 45 We want to know that you can prove you had their phone. They weren't home.

Speaker 25 Okay. They weren't home.

Speaker 35 I didn't go through their phones. They were interviewed.

Speaker 56 You talked to me.

Speaker 19 That's all I wanted to get that. You didn't go through their phone.

Speaker 6 So you haven't fully.

Speaker 49 I know. I'm tough.

Speaker 34 I'm tough. I'll tell you what, okay.

Speaker 35 Bring me something I can use instead of telling me I'm not doing my job properly and I'll be a much better person with you.

Speaker 34 Well, you know what?

Speaker 35 Some of the things you do have the right to know, and we're telling you what you need to know, and things you just don't need to know because it compromises our case. That's the bottom line.

Speaker 6 The police did say they'd fully investigated that man Egypt worked for. He passed his polygraph test and had an airtight alibi.

Speaker 35 His whereabouts and some information was established where we don't believe he had any involvement in it.

Speaker 6 He was innocent. As they talked about the case, the conversation kept circling back to Kenny.

Speaker 52 We keep going in a certain direction towards a certain person. Everything points to this certain person, everything that we have.

Speaker 52 Anytime we deviate, the path pulls us back. Every time we deviate in this direction, it pulls us back here.
Everything is pulling us in one direction. All of our investigation, all of our findings.

Speaker 52 Eight FBI profilers from around the nation have looked at our case. Eight.

Speaker 19 They kept telling us we need one more piece of evidence, one more piece of evidence, and then we'll put them away.

Speaker 20 All we need is one more little thing.

Speaker 6 But Lindsay and D. Wayne weren't confident the police were going to find that piece of evidence.
They had a suggestion. How about getting the Michigan State Police involved?

Speaker 6 The local detectives didn't like that idea.

Speaker 52 This is what we do.

Speaker 52 This is important to us.

Speaker 52 just like it's important to your family

Speaker 30 okay

Speaker 52 we don't take this lightly

Speaker 52 if i could hand this over right now to somebody say okay hey great here you go if you could put this guy in prison do it

Speaker 49 then do that can you do that can you give it over to the state

Speaker 34 then if you just said we could we can't the state police doesn't have any more

Speaker 43 expertise on interviewing than our guys do how did you feel when you left enraged I was mad.

Speaker 34 After that meeting, Lindsay and D.

Speaker 6 Wayne made it their mission to get the case out of Van Buren and into the hands of the state police.

Speaker 19 Did you notice anything on here?

Speaker 6 The couple was more united than ever in their fight for answers. So united, they also decided to take their relationship to the next level.
In the midst of all of this,

Speaker 6 you had a bright spot. You proposed to Lindsay.

Speaker 7 I did.

Speaker 7 I mean, how could I not?

Speaker 19 The ring that he proposed,

Speaker 19 gave me,

Speaker 19 was to be Egypt's. It's a family ring that Egypt said she wanted when she got engaged.

Speaker 32 And

Speaker 19 his mom, without me knowing, said, you need to give this to Lindsay.

Speaker 23 And

Speaker 19 yeah, so it's a really special. ring that now I have with me all the time that was supposed to be for Egypt.

Speaker 29 It's a little piece of her that you take with you.

Speaker 19 Such an honor.

Speaker 6 Egypt's family would not let her be forgotten. The investigation seemed stalled, but something was about to reignite the case.

Speaker 16 So that was a good moment in all the heartache and the pain.

Speaker 34 Yeah.

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Speaker 6 There was still no arrest for Egypt Covington's murder and Lindsay and Dwayne were convinced the local police were focused on the wrong guy.

Speaker 29 And so you and Lindsay started getting louder and louder.

Speaker 45 That's right.

Speaker 6 How would you describe Lindsay?

Speaker 7 She's a warrior.

Speaker 7 She doesn't take no for an answer.

Speaker 23 She just took off, and Dwayne was doing whatever he needed to do to help her do it.

Speaker 6 Were you grateful?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 23 You know, she had such courage. She wasn't afraid to ask the hard questions.

Speaker 6 Questions like, why not get the Michigan State Police involved? Why did you feel like the Michigan State Police would be a better fit for this case?

Speaker 19 Well, we felt for sure Michigan State needed to be involved because of the resources that they have available. We knew that they had so many more detectives.

Speaker 6 So Lindsay started copying the state police on emails they were sending to local officials trying to draw attention to the investigation.

Speaker 19 I sent it to the head lieutenant of Michigan State Police. I just started putting him on our emails.

Speaker 6 Van Buren police must have been like, just get out of our business.

Speaker 19 Oh yeah. That's what I wanted them.

Speaker 19 I wanted to be the most annoying fly in their face that they just wanted to shoo away and say, holy cow, get this girl out of our jurisdiction Michigan State Police she's all yours that became a goal

Speaker 6 Lindsay and D.

Speaker 6 Wayne created an online petition calling for the state police to take over the case more than 14,000 people signed it that didn't sit well with Egypt's dad and stepmom though who thought the local police were on the right track with Kenny

Speaker 15 You could even see on that Facebook page, the other members of Egypt's family, they would comment on the posts for the petition and they would say, do not sign this petition no matter what.

Speaker 15 This is all a sham and such. And you just saw in real time a battle between two sides of people who loved Egypt.

Speaker 6 Did it ever get where you're like, oh, this is too much? Like we're pushing too many buttons, we're angering too many people.

Speaker 7 Yeah, you know, I

Speaker 7 I'm not one to mess around with the law.

Speaker 7 You know, I felt weird about it, and I know that she did as well, but it needed to be done.

Speaker 6 You're gutsy.

Speaker 32 I am.

Speaker 29 Has anyone also called you nosy?

Speaker 8 Uh, yeah.

Speaker 8 You've probably been called everything at this point.

Speaker 19 Yes, I've been called a lot of names.

Speaker 2 Yes.

Speaker 6 Some saw Lindsay as a troublemaker who just wanted attention for herself. She says her motivation was simple.

Speaker 6 You never met Egypt. Why did you become so passionate about finding her killer?

Speaker 19 Because of the man that I love so dearly, Dwayne.

Speaker 19 And that's why I wanted him and his family to find justice.

Speaker 36 I'm going to allow Lindsay to talk.

Speaker 6 Her hand is still raised. D-Wayne and Lindsay also started popping up at town council meetings held over Zoom.

Speaker 19 I would raise my hand.

Speaker 49 Like you raise it in.

Speaker 46 Virtually.

Speaker 19 Yep, yep. And I would have a comment.
And I said, so can you tell me what you guys are doing for Egypt's case?

Speaker 6 They kept at it. Months went by.

Speaker 6 Then another year.

Speaker 6 Every chance they got, the couple pestered local officials, writing emails that criticized the local police and asking for help getting the investigation moved.

Speaker 19 We never got responses.

Speaker 6 But one day they did get a response.

Speaker 19 Dwayne calls me on his way to work and says, Lindsay, did you see the response from the township clerk? She forwarded it to me. And I said, babe, you were accidentally left on this.

Speaker 6 Lindsay and Dwayne think the township clerk had meant to remove family members from the email chain before hitting send on this reply. Is there any way these emails to everyone can be blocked?

Speaker 6 I'm personally not interested in the stupidness. We're talking about a woman in your town who has been murdered.

Speaker 29 Yes.

Speaker 6 Yes.

Speaker 19 And so then, of course, I blasted that all over.

Speaker 8 I put it all over our page.

Speaker 19 I put it on the township pages. I gave it to the state police.
I put it everywhere. This is what your county clerk thinks of an unsolved murder,

Speaker 19 calling us this stupidness because we're trying to get her case in the right hands.

Speaker 6 The stupidness comment created an uproar. The clerk later apologized, saying he meant no disrespect to Egypt or her family.
He was just trying to get off the email chain.

Speaker 6 But the controversy helped fuel a public protest.

Speaker 6 Let the state in. Let the state in.

Speaker 6 Lindsay and D. Wayne held a march.
and just one day later.

Speaker 20 In July of 2020, my supervisor reached out to me and asked me to review the case.

Speaker 6 It worked. Detectives James Plummer and Sean Street of the Michigan State Police were taking over the investigation.
How'd you find out?

Speaker 19 Well, the head detective on the case said we'd like to meet with you and Dwayne.

Speaker 19 And I said,

Speaker 19 does this mean that you guys,

Speaker 19 it's like, yes, we have Egypt's case fully.

Speaker 19 And we both just started bawling on the phone with him. And it was like, it was so,

Speaker 19 it was so powerful.

Speaker 16 So that was a good moment in all the heartache and the pain.

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was very bittersweet. And I say that because at the same time,

Speaker 7 it was bringing on a lot of emotions about this could have happened a lot sooner.

Speaker 6 The new investigators got to work. And right there in the file, a bit of evidence that had been there all along jumped out.

Speaker 25 Van Buren Police Department did preserve a video from a gas station around the corner from Egypt Covington's house.

Speaker 6 Could this truck be the key to unlocking the mystery?

Speaker 6 By November 2020, more than three years had passed since Egypt's murder, and new detectives from the Michigan State Police were sifting through the evidence.

Speaker 6 What were your first impressions of the case?

Speaker 25 Yeah, I believe it was a complex case.

Speaker 20 This sort of crime never doesn't really happen in Van Buren Township.

Speaker 20 The local law enforcement wasn't readily equipped to investigate such an in-depth case that required a lot of expertise with electronics and other forms of evidence.

Speaker 6 Detective Plummer started at the beginning with suspect number one, Kenny Maholo.

Speaker 20 It was brief to us that they believed Kenny did it. He was actually named publicly as a person of interest.

Speaker 25 And when there is a homicide or a violent crime,

Speaker 25 you do have to look at the people that were emotionally close to that individual, friends and family.

Speaker 6 From that perspective, it absolutely made sense to look at Kenny. It's just, do you stay with Kenny or do you

Speaker 23 start to move on?

Speaker 25 Yeah, it would be negligent to stay onto one person and not not explore other options, not to put all of your eggs, investigative eggs, in one basket.

Speaker 6 Do you think that's what they did? They put all their eggs in the Kenny basket?

Speaker 25 I believe so. Yes, they did.

Speaker 6 Very quickly, the state investigators came to the same conclusion that amateur sleuths Lindsay and D. Wayne had.

Speaker 20 Reading the reports, even to this day, there was no evidence of his involvement. There was actually evidence that he was not involved.

Speaker 20 It was very interesting that they had named him publicly, but yet they had nothing to name him publicly as a person of interest.

Speaker 6 But the file was full of other interesting evidence, cell phone data and security video.

Speaker 20 They had it and they just never looked into it because they were so focused on Kenny.

Speaker 6 The state police dug in and right away found a report that led them in a whole new direction.

Speaker 20 So they did a geofence on her house and it basically identifies phones in that area and it hit on a phone.

Speaker 6 That were in the area at the time of the murder.

Speaker 20 Correct.

Speaker 20 And there there was one phone that it hid on and it came back to a guy from toledo ohio and they didn't look further into it but whenever i began to plot the device i found that that that phone that phone was actually in her house oh wow at the time that we believe that she was killed

Speaker 6 the investigation moved at lightning speed after that the owner of that cell phone was named shandon groom He lived in Ohio and had no apparent connection to Egypt.

Speaker 6 But also in the file was this video taken from a gas station near Egypt's duplex.

Speaker 25 And we noticed that there was a blue truck that had a Ohio license plate, and Ohio license plates are easily identifiable.

Speaker 6 When they ran the plates on that blue truck, it linked them back to Shandon Groom. It was all very suspicious, but not proof of murder.

Speaker 6 For that, the Michigan State Police focused on the Christmas lights that tied Egypt's wrists. Back in 2017, that DNA testing yielded three profiles.
One was Egypt's and two were unknown.

Speaker 6 The amount of data was not enough to automatically run through the National Data Bank CODIS.

Speaker 25 In 2017, DNA analysis wasn't as what it is today. So in 2020, advancements have come a long way.
So those were reanalyzed and a profile was able to be obtained from there.

Speaker 6 And you get a hit on the DNA.

Speaker 8 Yeah. It was a man named Tim Moore, also from Ohio.

Speaker 6 Detective Plummer had access to Tim's phone records from previous arrests. Did he know Shandon Groom? Well, turns out, Tim had Shandon's number saved in his contact list.

Speaker 6 Police still didn't know what connected these two men to Egypt, but they felt they had enough.

Speaker 20 We actually arrested Shannon Groom and Tim Moore in Ohio and believed that maybe during after we arrested him that they would give us an interview and we'd be able to get some more insight.

Speaker 6 Detective Plummer called Egypt's mother right away.

Speaker 23 The state detective guy. I was the very first call that he made.
He said, I know you've been waiting for this for long time.

Speaker 23 And he said, we made an arrest.

Speaker 6 But that was all the detectives shared. They were not releasing the names of the men in custody until they could be extradited to Michigan.

Speaker 19 What kind of emotions were you having?

Speaker 6 I couldn't get so excited

Speaker 23 until it was done because I had already been to that height and then down and that height and then down. And there were so many different stories out there that, you know, sounded really real.

Speaker 6 Egypt's dad and his wife were also in the dark.

Speaker 37 I remember going online trying to look for people that had been arrested in that time frame to see if we could find a connection, to see if it was anybody I knew. So I do remember that.

Speaker 6 Did you think it could be Kenny?

Speaker 37 Honestly, when they said there was arrest made,

Speaker 37 yeah. I mean, it didn't pass that it wouldn't be.

Speaker 6 The not knowing was torture for DeWayne and Lindsay.

Speaker 6 You have like this big question mark left after all this time.

Speaker 7 Right. And one of them was, could it be Kenny? Who knows? All this information that said Kenny was somewhere else, could it still be?

Speaker 6 So Lindsay picked up her phone and dialed Kenny's number. He answered.
That's when she knew for sure it was not him. What was Kenny's reaction when you told him?

Speaker 19 Kenny's a pretty somber person.

Speaker 19 He said, wow, that's great. You know, he's pretty somber and just kind of quiet.

Speaker 19 He's real calm, cool, calm collected guy which i think was used against him in the early stages he wasn't sad enough or yep and he said too

Speaker 19 but it's not over yet lindsay

Speaker 6 not over at all because investigators weren't done making arrests there was a gut punch coming it wasn't just who but rather why my daughter's life was reduced to an oops

Speaker 41 There's always more to the story. To go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, listen to our Talking Datelines series with Andrea and Keith available Wednesday.

Speaker 6 Two men were under arrest for Egypt Covington's murder, but they had no obvious connection to the victim or even Michigan. And they weren't saying much.

Speaker 20 Unfortunately, after we arrested them, they didn't want to talk. So

Speaker 20 we were able to have them charged, extradited back to Michigan, but we still didn't have a reasoning as to what happened.

Speaker 6 But they did know this from the cell phone data. On the night of the murder, they'd made a stop at a house just down the road from Egypt's duplex.

Speaker 6 The guy who lived there was named Shane Evans.

Speaker 29 He had a close connection to one of the Ohio men in custody.

Speaker 25 After looking into Timothy Moore, we realized that Shane Evans and Tim Moore are half-brothers.

Speaker 29 And the half-brother, Shane Evans, was the connection to Egypt.

Speaker 6 They'd gone to the same high school years earlier. The detectives woke Shane Evans up with a search warrant at 5 a.m.
and took him back to the station to answer some questions.

Speaker 20 We learned that Shane Evans was...

Speaker 20 He actually worked for a company that cut the grass for the duplex and that during the day prior to Egypt's murder, he had actually been there cutting her grass.

Speaker 6 Shane denied any involvement in the murder. Then the detectives did something investigators often do, exaggerate the evidence.

Speaker 6 They told Shane they saw him on video driving near Egypt's house and that his half-brother was cooperating with the police. The gamble paid off.

Speaker 25 And at that moment, he broke and he was the first suspect to spill exactly what happened.

Speaker 6 And it was a stunning story. Remember Egypt's neighbors grew medical marijuana? Shane Evans told investigators he knew all about that.
He also knew they were leaving town for the music festival.

Speaker 25 He said that he knew that nobody was going to be home at this location.

Speaker 6 Shane said the plan was to break into their house, expecting to find lots of drugs they could sell for cash.

Speaker 25 Shane Evans' job was to take them to the location, drive past it, and point it out.

Speaker 26 I rolled past it, he was following behind me in the truck.

Speaker 26 We rolling like this. You see me in front,

Speaker 26 pointing my hand out the window,

Speaker 26 and I pointed at the right house.

Speaker 26 The right house.

Speaker 26 And I kept going.

Speaker 20 He told him, hey, go into the door and go to the right and break into that house.

Speaker 20 They parked in this driveway right here. When they walked into the residence and there's two doors, they were supposed to go into the right and they actually go into the left.

Speaker 20 And when they go into the left, that's Egypt's residence and they're confronted by her in the kitchen.

Speaker 6 The burglars were in the wrong apartment. Oh no, so he was supposed to go in the right door, but he went in the left door.

Speaker 22 Correct, they just went into the wrong door.

Speaker 6 And there's Egypt just enjoying her evening alone.

Speaker 20 Yeah, much like any of us, Egypt was, you know, sitting there at the end of a long day watching TV, preparing for the next day. And lo and behold, these guys come into her house.

Speaker 20 As they walk into the house, Tim has a gun out, and when they enter, Egypt is in the kitchen and confronts them.

Speaker 20 They tell Egypt to sit down as they look through the house.

Speaker 6 They searched for marijuana but didn't find any.

Speaker 20 At some point, Egypt starts messing around on her phone, so they order her onto the ground and they tie her up with Christmas lights.

Speaker 20 And before leaving, Tim takes her phone and he puts a pillow over the back of her head and shoots her.

Speaker 6 Later that night, the shooter sent his half-brother Shane a text.

Speaker 26 Wrong door.

Speaker 31 I want to say I texted back,

Speaker 31 go to the right door.

Speaker 31 And he said, oops.

Speaker 6 The fact that it boils down to the wrong door,

Speaker 6 it's chilling. You know, that this woman probably could have been spared her life

Speaker 6 if these guys, these, you know, awful guys, could have followed directions.

Speaker 20 Right. And even if they, even though they went into the wrong door, they didn't have to brutally murder Egypt.
You know, they could have very well just left and went on

Speaker 20 about their day. And we probably wouldn't be talking about this.

Speaker 6 Shane Evans was arrested right after his confession and Egypt's family learned the horrible truth.

Speaker 7 They could have easily gone to the right door, took the stuff out of there and nobody would have been harmed.

Speaker 7 It didn't have to happen.

Speaker 6 But why did Timothy Moore decide to kill Egypt at all? Why not just leave? The investigators believe they know why.

Speaker 20 At the time of this crime, he was actually on parole.

Speaker 25 And it was a female witness who had identified him and sent him to prison. So he knew that if he was ever going to commit another crime,

Speaker 25 make sure there's no witnesses.

Speaker 6 The arrests happened three months after the state detectives took over for the local police. The Van Buren police told Dateline that they worked this difficult case very hard.

Speaker 6 They disputed the criticism that their department lacked expertise in electronic evidence.

Speaker 6 and said their detectives looked at subjects other than just Kenny Mahaloch over the course of the investigation.

Speaker 6 Prosecutors were convinced they had enough evidence to convict all three men, but not one of them stood trial.

Speaker 20 In April 2023, Shane agreed to testify against Tim and Shandon, and I think at that point they realized that they had no hope.

Speaker 6 The three men made deals with the prosecutor, pleading guilty to second-degree murder.

Speaker 6 Egypt's brother D.

Speaker 29 Wayne spoke at the sentencing.

Speaker 7 I just wanted to make the courthouse aware of what we're missing.

Speaker 30 Egypt, our Jacqueline Elizabeth Egypt Covington. We're going to miss her so much.
She touched so many people. She's a beautiful person.

Speaker 30 We'll always remember.

Speaker 6 Her dad also addressed the court.

Speaker 5 My daughter's life was reduced to an oops.

Speaker 44 They hog tied,

Speaker 44 hog tied

Speaker 44 my daughter with Christmas lights.

Speaker 5 They shot my daughter in the back of the head.

Speaker 5 There's no one,

Speaker 5 no way anyone in their right mind would ever want these people out on the streets in society again. They're corrupt.

Speaker 5 They are murderers. They deserve the death penalty.

Speaker 6 But this was not a death penalty case. Shane Evans was sentenced to 15 to 25 years in prison.
Shandon Groom received 17 to 26 years. And Timothy Moore, the shooter, was sentenced to 20 to 55 years.

Speaker 6 The case is now finally closed. Even still, the divide within Egypt's family has not healed.
Do you think Egypt would want the family to mend

Speaker 24 the problem? Of course she would.

Speaker 7 Of course she would. Yeah.

Speaker 7 I don't know if that can happen, but she would have wanted that.

Speaker 13 We'll see.

Speaker 7 We'll see what time, what can happen.

Speaker 19 There's hope.

Speaker 2 There's hope.

Speaker 6 But everyone in the family wants to keep Egypt's memory alive. Chuck has set up a fund in Egypt's name to help kids learn to play musical instruments.

Speaker 6 And he's proud of this monument the town of Belleville created for her.

Speaker 6 The inscription comes from Egypt's journal.

Speaker 24 A memorial in a playground.

Speaker 34 Because Egypt,

Speaker 17 very much like kids, she would have been a great mom. She would have been a great mom.

Speaker 6 What did the world lose when it lost Egypt?

Speaker 23 It lost

Speaker 24 the brightest

Speaker 6 light

Speaker 23 and ability to grow.

Speaker 8 that it ever

Speaker 23 could have had because she would have been one of those people that would have made a difference no matter what.

Speaker 8 Nobody knows how life goes.

Speaker 6 So many of Egypt's family and friends say they'll remember her for all the love she put out in the world.

Speaker 11 She was great at receiving love and she was great at giving love.

Speaker 6 Much of it through that soaring voice. Nobody knows how it unfolds.
So as you lay for them.

Speaker 7 When she was singing to them, it gave you a sense of joy. She had that ability.

Speaker 6 Silence too soon, but never forgotten.

Speaker 24 That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt.
Thanks for joining us.

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