Proof: A True Crime Podcast · Red Marble Media

Murder at the Warehouse | Ep. 17 – The Butterfly

·1 hr 19 min·4 clips

Dr. Eric Peters says Renee was not pregnant, undermining the prosecution's party-to-celebrate-her-pregnancy theory.

1. Proof: A True Crime Podcast ends Season 2 with Murder at the Warehouse, Episode 17, The Butterfly, centered on Renee's death in Manteca. 2. Susan Simpson says she is an attorney and investigator, and Jacinda Davis says she is a true crime TV producer, which explains the episode's evidence-heavy approach. 3. The episode asks what really happened to Renee after Memorial Day 2000 and why Jake Silva and Ty Lopes were convicted. 4. Renee's family visit her gravesite, where her headstone lists April 17, 1982 as her birthday and June 5, 2000 as her date of death. 5. Friends say they sometimes see a blue bird or a butterfly when they come to think about Renee at the gravesite in Manteca. 6. Donna Ramis says she once believed Jake and Ty were guilty, but now thinks they are both innocent and that someone else did it. 7. The investigation keeps returning to the gap between what police concluded and what the family now believes about Renee's death. 8. Donna asks anyone with information to come forward so the case can finally be solved. 9. Susan and Jacinda say they have tried to help Jake Silva find an attorney, but he still does not have representation. 10. An experienced California attorney tells them no innocence project or lawyer seems to have the bandwidth to take the case pro bono. 11. Dr. Eric Peters, a forensic pathologist and retired deputy chief medical examiner, reviews Renee's autopsy and the trial testimony of Dr. Cooper. 12. Peters says Dr. Cooper's claim that Renee was 8 to 10 weeks pregnant was wrong. 13. Peters says the evidence supports ligature strangulation as the cause of death, with possible manual strangulation as well. 14. The episode notes that Renee's necklaces may have been the ligature used in the killing. 15. Peters and Susan discuss the difficulty of pinning down an exact time of death from decomposition alone. 16. Peters says it is improbable that Renee died on June 5, 2000, even though he cannot rule out every scenario with scientific certainty. 17. Dr. Crystal Hans, one of 23 board-certified forensic entomologists in North America, explains how insects can estimate minimum time since death. 18. Hans says the larval evidence could place Renee's death anywhere from May 29 to June 4, depending on the insects' development stage. 19. The episode has a measured, investigative tone, with long interview passages and repeated checks of testimony, records, and forensic details. 20. Listeners who follow case reconstruction, forensic evidence, and wrongful-conviction questions will get the most from this episode.

As heard by us

A mournful true-crime episode that finds its weight in memory, loyalty, and unresolved loss.

Proof: A True Crime Podcast keeps its focus on Renee's disappearance, but it also makes room for the people who are still carrying what her absence left behind.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For a careful, grief-soaked look at Renee's disappearance, where loyalty, doubt, and old friendships stay in the room.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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