Under Oath, Over Coffee with Raquel and Hannah Devareaux
Ep. 2 - The Woman in the Culvert
Recorded 10 Autumn · Transcript generated by listener auto-caption software, Air date 11 Autumn
[00:00:02 — intro music: soft acoustic guitar]
RAQUEL: Good morning, welcome, welcome in. You’re listening to Under Oath, Over Coffee. I’m Raquel—
HANNAH: —and I’m Hannah. We're the Devareauxs - wives, not sisters, bringing you our True Crime podcast where we focus on the imperfect victims.
RAQUEL: Because everyone deserves a voice! Okay, so to get into this week’s case, we’ve got a listener email that gave us both a little cause for pause.
HANNAH: This week's email comes to us from Lydia Cowan of Barge Harbor - Lydia writes: “Heyyy ladies! I love your show — you two are simply too cute. Have you been keeping up on the Vandersen murder? I don’t know if it’s even worth talking about — the murderer is so obviously that Carl guy… I heard he’d been brought in for questioning, so I assume they’re about to nail him. Anyway, if you two do end up covering the case, I’ll be listening! Love from a big fan, Lydia Cowan.”
RAQUEL: Aw, Lydia! Lydia, thank you for writing in- you're too sweet! (laughter) But wow, you jumped straight to handcuffs!
HANNAH: Yeah, I think we can pump the breaks just a little. And to answer your question, yes - yes we have been keeping up with the Vandersen case. The investigation is still early, it's active - so active that we actually have to be really careful with how we talk about it. As of this broadcast, nobody’s been charged, and a lot of the evidence we're seeing so far surrounding individual people would be circumstantial at best.
RAQUEL: But you're not saying anything that a lot of other people aren't thinking. So we're going to talk about this case together today, unpack the facts we have so far, and see where we land.
HANNAH: So make sure you have your coffee ready, and as always, we'll start with the most important person to the story.
RAQUEL: At the center of it all - 36-year-old Gretchen Ruby Vandersen.
HANNAH: She’d lived in New Traddery most of her life. Her family moved here when she was a little girl, but she grew up here in the subdivision of Wholesome Heights. The Vandersens were Global Aspirationalists — they attended Our Lady of Aspiration, not the First Aspirational Church, but she still attended New Traddery School. Her parents, Carolyn and Peter, wanted her to feel comfortable with the other local children as they assimilated into the community as a family.
RAQUEL: Unlike most of her classmates who went on to Traddery University, Gretchen went straight to work. She found a job with Roth Media, writing ad copy for inserts -you know, those free grocery and retail flyers you find stuffed in your mailbox?
HANNAH: She’d been especially close to her dad, Peter Vandersen, who passed away while she was still a teenager. Her mother, Carolyn, has said she always worried that Gretchen went looking for father figures after that. The men who fathered her two children were both married, and Carolyn believed Gretchen was drawn to people she could never really have.
RAQUEL: But she wasn’t defined by tragedy. Her friends describe her as cheerful, optimistic, and as cliche as it sounds, the type who lit up a room just by walking in. She wanted everyone to feel welcome. She was the first person to talk to you at a party, but she’d actually remember your name a week later.
HANNAH: She never worried too much about social hierarchies or local politics. Gretchen gave everyone a chance, but friends speculate that sometimes she seemed to misunderstand boundaries. That openness was part of what made her so loved, but it also left her vulnerable.
RAQUEL: She enjoyed the party life, drawn to the energy, the late nights, and the people. And like plenty of others, she got caught up in it a little too much. There were struggles with substance use and addiction, but even through all of that, she stayed committed to her job, never missed a day until those early days of summer, right before she disappeared.
HANNAH: As her mother explained to us, "she could see the neon lights, but missed the warning signs." She loved getting out and about, meeting new people, soaking up vibes, but she didn’t always see the danger in certain situations. She trusted easily, sometimes too easily.
RAQUEL: I hate that phrase, Hannah. I know what you mean when you say it but - we should be able to trust other people. Trust should be normal. But yeah, it’s easy now to get caught between those two images of Gretchen Vandersen - the bright, welcoming young woman that everyone adored, and the woman who’d started to seem a little sadder and a little more desperate to be seen.
HANNAH: Gretchen was also a single mom, leaving behind two children.
[00:07:11 — bumper music: soft acoustic guitar]
RAQUEL: So let's talk through what’s been confirmed through released reports and official statements. She was last seen on 6 Summer, leaving her neighborhood, Sunny Wood Heights, on foot.
On 6 Autumn, around five in the morning, a neighbor heading to work noticed something near the drainage culvert by Sunny Wood Park. Patrol officers responded and found Gretchen Vandersen.
HANNAH: Identification was made by her mother, Carolyn Vandersen. The medical examiner confirmed homicide — multiple stab wounds causing blood loss and internal injury. Estimated time of death: 6 Summer, roughly a week before discovery.
RAQUEL: Gretchen had been reported missing on 3 Autumn after failing to pick up her son from daycare. Carl Green contacted Carolyn, and she filed the Missing Person Report that same day.
HANNAH: That report became case number 05 MPR 0207. The classification changed to homicide on 6 Autumn after the body was found.
RAQUEL: Now, about the assumption that Carl is the prime suspect.... So currently, the evidence doesn't really point to that. We know he was interviewed during the missing-person phase and again after the reclassification, and that's actually normal procedure.
HANNAH: And look, according to a source close to the investigation, one that we can't reveal just now but stay tuned... Carl has already been cleared. And it makes sense to me, at least - he gave investigators a lot of information that can be corroborated, backed up by security footage, cash register logs, phone records, so if there was anything out of place, investigators would have everything they need to make their move.
RAQUEL: But for anyone confused by seeing his name written different ways, the variation comes from how names appear on estate documents in New Traddery. Some families here have what are known of as "Legacy Estates," so it's not uncommon to see partners' last names align with whoever is set to inherit that estate, so their children will have the last name, as well.
HANNAH: Exactly - it's a New Traddery thing. One name for work, the other for home. But yes, right now, the case has no suspect named publicly and no weapon recovered, but we know that there are several Persons of Interest still to be interviewed, and more evidence to gather.
[00:14:43 — bumper music: soft acoustic guitar]
RAQUEL: So, we've talked about what we do know - let’s talk about what we don't know. What are the bigger questions still out there in the investigation?
HANNAH: The first thing that I'm asking: how did she end up in that culvert? The site’s only a short walk from her front door, but the condition of the scene suggests she didn’t make it there on her own.
RAQUEL: Right. Investigators found indentations in the ground that looked like something with wheels, maybe a dolly or carry-cart, was used to move her body. There were also signs that whoever did it tried, at least briefly, to bring her back toward her house first.
HANNAH: Which raises a question - why abandon that and switch direction? Was it physical weakness? Where they short on time? Neither? Both?
RAQUEL: The idea that someone started to move her toward her home and then gave up says a lot. It takes panic to start that kind of job and then quit halfway through. And plus, there’s the missing weapon.
HANNAH: The ME's report said a knife, right? No knife has been recovered so far, but retail checks have been going out.
RAQUEL: We also can’t ignore the family connections. Gretchen’s brother, Kyler Vandersen, works for NTPD. He’s already recused himself from the case, which you have to respect, but that’s a brutal position for anyone to be in.
HANNAH: It’s unthinkable, really. To go to work every day knowing your sister’s case file is sitting in the same building. And while all that was happening, her little boy Hugh turned another year older — celebrated his birthday without his mom, while she was still officially missing.
RAQUEL: That one hurts. And it’s easy to see how the family’s been protective since then.
HANNAH: Which brings us back to speculation. People keep circling Carl because he’s the name they know, but Gretchen was a mother of two.
If we’re going to theorize, we can’t ignore the second father — Dr. Alon Wood.
RAQUEL: That's right. He’s a respected physician, he's part of the Wood family, direct descendant of William Key Traddery, but that doesn’t make him untouchable. It's interesting that he doesn't raise eyebrows like Carl Green does. Not saying I suspect him or anything like that - it's just... Hannah, you know where I'm going with this?
HANNAH: I know exactly where you're going with this. I think it's natural- we focus on the familiar name and miss the opportunity to ask important questions. We don't know what we don't know, right?
RAQUEL: Well, I was thinking more along the line of class perception and socio-economics, but sure. I think at this stage, every possibility’s still on the table.
[00:23:33 — bumper music: soft acoustic guitar]
RAQUEL: As for now, we’ll keep watching for updates from NTPD and the Boolprop County Sheriff’s Office. If you live near Sunny Wood Park or were in that area around 6 Summer to 3 Autumn, please share what you know with the authorities.
HANNAH: And please remember Gretchen as more than a headline. She was a daughter, a mother, a neighbor, and from what we can tell, a joyful friend.
RAQUEL: But that wraps us up for the week. Thank you again to Lydia Cowan - if you're in Barge Harbor, go pay her a visit at The Speckled Lobster! And thank you to all of you for listening and watching week after week. And as always, keep your hearts open—
HANNAH: —and your coffee strong!
[00:25:00 — outro music fade-out · recording ends]
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