Episode 366

Sword and Scale

This episode of Sword and Scale investigates the tragic disappearance and murder of 25-year-old Megan Botterford, a mother of three from Bam

Key takeaways

• Megan had repeatedly reported abuse and expressed fear for her life, including contacting Jarrett's probation officer.
• Despite multiple warning signs and prior criminal history involving domestic violence, law enforcement failed to intervene effectively.

Main topics

• Domestic violence
• Systemic failures in law enforcement

Notable quotes

"I promise you that everybody involved is going down. So I'm letting you know, everybody who's involved and knows something and didn't tell us is going to pay."

Conclusion

The murder of Megan Botterford was not an isolated tragedy but a result of long-standing abuse,

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Look Speaker 1 (0:14) at what he did. I had to look at it with my own eyes after putting everything I had into finding her. And I promise you that everybody involved is going down. So I'm letting you know, everybody who's involved and knows something and didn't tell us is going to pay. Speaker 2 (0:35) Hello and welcome to Season 13, Episode 366 of Sword and Scale. A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. In late April of 2024, something wasn't right in Denmark. The Denmark in South Carolina, that is. That's when residents of this small town turned on their nightly news and learned about a troubling situation. A young mother of three had gone missing. Speaker 8 (1:39) Tonight, rising emotions in Bamberg County as investigators search for this missing mother of three. Speaker 5 (1:45) Something's not right because she wasn't the mother that just drops her kids off with anybody. Speaker 8 (1:50) This is 25-year-old Megan Botterford. Investigators say she sent some concerning text messages to a friend last Thursday, and she has not been seen since. Speaker 2 (1:59) 25-year-old Megan Botterford was reported missing on April 26, 2024, by one of her closest friends, Grace Reindl. According to Grace, the last time she heard from Megan was through text messages. Megan had asked if she and her youngest baby could spend the night at Grace's house, which was something that wasn't out of the ordinary. Grace told her yes and that she would leave the front door unlocked before going to bed so Megan could let herself in, just like she had done many times before. Speaker 6 (2:49) Figured that she let herself in as she's done so many times before. Okay, Speaker 8 (2:52) but she never did. The Speaker 2 (2:55) next morning, when Grace woke up, she realized that Megan and her baby hadn't shown up. At first, she assumed Megan had simply changed her mind, but after repeated attempts to reach her went unanswered, that assumption started to feel a lot less certain. So, Grace drove to Megan's house to check on her. Speaker 6 (3:19) When Speaker 8 (3:20) Grace Speaker 2 (3:30) arrived at Megan's home, there was no sign of Megan or her baby. At that point, she knew something was very wrong. So, she went to the police and reported her missing. It didn't take long for this story of a missing mom to reach the local media. Speaker 5 (3:46) This home used to be full of life, but now it stands empty. April the 11th, I heard from her and I told her I loved her. And she told me she loved me too, forever and always. And then those were the last words Megan Botaford said to her cousin. She's very strong and resilient and beautiful. She's a wonderful mother. And we need her home. The pain is hard to put into words for her family, but all they want is for Megan to come home. It's my baby cousin. She's got to come home to these babies. I need her home. I don't need her lost. Speaker 2 (4:22) As Megan's family held on to hope that she would return, local authorities brought in the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, better known as SLED, to assist with the investigation. Part of that assistance involved arresting someone close to Megan, her 28-year-old boyfriend, Jarrett Davis. Speaker 5 (4:43) A missing persons report says due to prior call history, concern for the safety of a baby in the home, and her boyfriend having an active arrest warrant, deputies wanted to request SLED to assist in executing a search warrant and then arresting him on an outstanding warrant. Speaker 2 (5:00) Jarrett was the father of Megan's youngest child and When officers arrived at his home to arrest him on an unrelated warrant, they found the baby unharmed. But there was still no sign of Megan. As her boyfriend, Jarrett was an obvious person of interest. It's always the boyfriend. But it wasn't just their relationship that drew attention. According to Megan's friend Grace, several of Jarrett's own friends said he wasn't acting like himself on the day Megan disappeared. Something about him seemed off. Speaker 6 (5:35) When Earl and Danielle did show up at my house, they kept telling me that they were being very suspicious. They hung out with Jarrett all day, and he was being very suspicious about not letting them go to Megan's house to look for her. Speaker 2 (5:48) Naturally, after Jarrett was taken into custody, Investigators sat down with him to talk about Megan and find out what he knew about her disappearance. Speaker 4 (5:58) Your first name is Jarrett, right? Jarrett. Jarrett, J-A-R-R-E-T-T. All right. So the other day, I spoke to you briefly. You were already in the back of the police car, and we talked just a little bit and really just kind of followed up. I know I told you that we would keep you. updated on what was going on. And that's what I'm here to do. Since you are in custody, I have to read you your Miranda rights, just because we're going to talk to you. Speaker 2 (6:34) Not long after this interview began, Jarrett became emotional. He broke down, frustrated that he was sitting in jail while his girlfriend was still missing. He wanted to know why he had been denied bail. Speaker 4 (6:48) Really, you know, now we're going to figure out how it happened, what happened. So I'm going to try to pick your brain a little bit more. I'm going to ask you, what was my view to that? I'm sorry, what was my mind to that? Well, I have no idea on that. This was... Speaker 3 (7:04) So Speaker 8 (7:05) your previous charges are not sled charges? Yeah, I don't know. I Speaker 3 (7:10) don't even know what you're at. Can you tell us? What are Speaker 8 (7:21) you in jail for? Speaker 4 (7:24) CDV. When did that occur? Over a month ago. Is that the Speaker 8 (7:29) sheriff's office or Speaker 4 (7:30) the city? Sheriff's office. And that's what the charges... That's what it was. Okay. Speaker 2 (7:36) Jarrett had been arrested because of a prior incident of criminal domestic violence involving Megan, which was something that didn't exactly work in his favor now that she was missing. Speaker 4 (7:48) So, I want to go back into detail the last time you saw Megan. So, what day was the last day you saw her? Thursday, I don't... That Thursday? Thursday night. Thursday night? I think it was Thursday. Okay. Thursday night. Probably about what time Thursday night? Do you remember last seeing her? I don't remember the time. She walked out and was changing the baby. All right. Was it daylight? Was it dark? It was like 12 o'clock at night. Past 12. I don't know. So after midnight. Yeah. So are we talking after midnight Thursday night going into Friday morning? Okay. Tell me about the conversation. Tell me about what was going on between y'all two that day, Thursday. Speaker 2 (8:36) Jarrett claimed that the last time he saw Megan was the day she went missing. He said the two of them had spent the day together, taking their baby to a baseball game. Not sure what kind of baby enjoys a baseball game, but whatever. Let's continue. He explained that everything seemed normal, enjoyable even. But after they returned home, things changed. The two had sex, and then an argument started. Speaker 2 (9:23) According to Jarrett, Megan became upset after they had sex. He claimed that he tried to calm her down. Speaker 4 (9:29) So she's mad. We should pull out because she wants to get pregnant. She wants another baby. She want a boy or a girl? Want a boy. Want a boy? Any kind of, at that point, she's mad. She... Throw anything in the house. Is she like... No, usually if I get around a baby or like get to hold a baby, when I'm doing something with a baby, she Speaker 3 (9:52) won't escalate it out. Speaker 4 (9:54) If you're holding the baby? Yeah. Or she... If Speaker 3 (9:56) I'm messing with the baby, around the baby, she won't escalate it. Is that what happened? Yeah. That's why I told her whenever she left, I was changing the baby. Okay. You know what I'm saying? I'm trying to de-escalate everything, get her near the baby. So Speaker 4 (10:07) if you got the baby close by, she ain't gonna do nothing. Everything's usually fine. Now, if the baby ain't close by... She might have thrown something at you. She ever hit you? Anything like that? Speaker 2 (10:18) Jared admitted that past arguments between him and Megan had become physical, but he insisted that it didn't happen the night she went missing. Instead, he claimed that after the argument, Megan simply left the house, and he never saw her again. Speaker 4 (10:33) You ever hit her? Last night before. Okay. Did any of that happen Thursday night? So there was nothing physical Thursday night? No, it was just Speaker 3 (10:43) one side of the heat, really. She was the only one really upset that time. All Speaker 4 (10:49) right. How long after all this do you think it was before she left? How long do you think she stuck around the house? Speaker 3 (10:59) Because as the bickering was going back and forth, it was when she left. Okay. And what did she tell you when she was leaving? She said that she was going to leave the baby with me since she always has a baby. Uh-huh. Which, the way she left, I'm pretty sure I told her nothing was this. I thought she was coming right back. Speaker 4 (11:18) Mm-hmm. Speaker 3 (11:20) Where do you, had she been leaving, where would you have thought she would have went? I thought she would have just went to Grace's for a little bit or came back or just left and came back. I got you. But she didn't come back that night. That's why the next morning when she ain't calling to check on the baby, I think it was about 9 o'clock that morning, I contacted her mama. I asked if she talked to her at all. Speaker 2 (11:40) Much of what Jarrett told the investigators appeared to check out. They confirmed that he and Megan had gone to a baseball game earlier that day and that he had called Megan's mother the following morning asking about her. But something about his story just didn't sit right. By this point, investigators already learned that Megan was a devoted mother. If she had stormed out in anger, it seemed very unlikely that she would leave her baby behind. Still, while keeping Jarrett firmly on their radar, investigators started to consider another possibility. There was someone else who had been among the last to hear from Megan. Her friend, Grace. When did you report Speaker 8 (12:29) her missing? Speaker 6 (12:31) I believe it was somewhere between 6 and 7 p.m. Friday. Speaker 8 (12:36) I know people probably ask you a lot, but why did you wait so long? That was a tough question. Like I said, I'm not judging you. No one's judging you. Speaker 6 (12:45) When I heard her on the phone, you know, we had a thing that if she was ever in danger, send me the address so I could send help. That's why I immediately called her when I saw that, and she told me, no, don't call, I'm just going to leave. Speaker 2 (13:00) Grace claimed that when she woke up and realized Megan had never arrived, she went looking for her, eventually forcing her way into Megan's home to check on her. Yet despite this urgency, it took nearly 24 hours for Grace to go to the police and report her missing. If she was that concerned, then why wait? There was also another detail investigators couldn't ignore. Grace and Megan's boyfriend, Jarrett, had a romantic history. Speaker 8 (13:31) Did you have a relationship with Jarrett Davis? Speaker 6 (13:35) We, that's actually how I met Megan, was me and Jarrett had a brief, you know, kind of like a one night stand. And when I saw him posting Megan. She had messaged me and we talked about it and we decided to be best friends instead of fighting over somebody I didn't want. That's how our friendship started and we have been super close ever since. I have not ever touched Jarrett since. Speaker 2 (14:05) Grace claimed that there was no animosity between her and Megan over Jarrett. And based on how investigators handled that response, it seemed like they believed her. By this point, detectives had spoken with the last two people known to have contact with Megan before she disappeared, and they were no closer to understanding where she had gone or what had happened to her. Meanwhile, Megan's family, which included her three daughters, waited anxiously for answers and hoped for Megan's safe return. Speaker 2 (14:54) On April 30th, five days after Megan was reported missing, investigators finally got a break in the case. Speaker 5 (15:02) afternoon the Bamberg County Sheriff's Office has been in the woods right here right off of Barnwell excuse me highway now we aren't sure what they were looking for exactly but we did just get confirmed that they found a burned vehicle with human remains inside we aren't sure who's those remains belong to but just a couple of miles down the road you can find Megan Bodefords family holding on to hope that it was not her Speaker 2 (15:27) Just a few miles from Jarrett's home, investigators made a horrific discovery. On a desolate back road, they found a burned out vehicle with charred human remains inside. Speaker 4 (15:39) Still not 100 % positive that it was hurt. It's just a possibility, like I said. Vehicle found. Not even sure what kind of vehicle it was because it was burned. Burned pretty bad. And then there was... Speaker 4 (15:57) Given Speaker 2 (15:58) the condition of both the car and the body, investigators couldn't immediately confirm whether it belonged to Megan. An autopsy and DNA results were needed. But all signs pointed in the same direction. This was likely Megan Botaford. After all, who else could it be? There was, however, one thing investigators were able to determine early on, with some degree of certainty. The victim in the burned out car hadn't been killed inside the vehicle. They had been shot first and then placed there. Speaker 4 (16:34) That was placed in a driver's seat. Let's not put it, it wasn't from driving, it was placed there. His body was placed there and then burned. Placed there and burned. She was dead before it was burned. She had already been killed. She was shot by a shotgun in the soul. Somebody drove her out there, left her in the vehicle, set it on fire, and it burned. It burned her body up and it burned the vehicle up. Speaker 2 (17:08) Following the discovery of the burned car and the human remains, the investigation into Megan Botaford only became more complicated. As investigators dug deeper, the list of suspects continued to grow. And for a time, a chilling question loomed over the case. What if Megan hadn't been killed by one person, but instead by a