In the absence of information about Sarah Zuber’s death and in reaction to issues around law enforcement in Columbia County, Jennifer Massey – a citizen sleuth and wife of a St. Helens Police officer – rises up as the loudest voice of the community to demand answers about what happened to Sarah.

Alongside several other community members, Massey starts the Justice for Sarah Zuber Facebook page, using it to push for greater transparency in this case. But some soon ask if Massey’s motives are as pure as she portrays them.

Listen to all episodes of the “Hush” podcast here.

Leah Sottile: In the first months and years after Sarah Zuber died, her family put all their trust into the local police to get answers. But the answers Rebecca and Randy wanted never seemed to arrive.

In emails to the district attorney and Columbia County sheriff in late 2020 and 2021, Rebecca Zuber said she and Randy were reliving Sarah’s death over and over again because police still didn’t know what exactly happened. They were in the dark. If the police were still looking into Sarah’s death, they had no idea.

At True Crime 101, we learned that the police narrative is a key component of any true crime story. We went over the police version of events last episode, and how incomplete it is. A year or two after Sarah died, people had no idea what story the police were actually telling.

Another fundamental part of true crime is the story a community tells: the Greek chorus. People who aren’t directly involved in a story, but feel like they are close enough to comment on it. And after so much time without answers, the community of Columbia County started to get involved in the Sarah Zuber case. They had a story of their own to tell.

Marty Rowe: And now from the studio, not a Chinese weather balloon, it’s Brady and Tammy with “Odd Friday.”

Sottile: “Odd Friday” is a weekly AM radio show on KOHI, or KO-HI, in Columbia County. And the hosts are some of the most vocal members of the Greek chorus here. “Odd Friday” is the type of show where nothing is too controversial to talk about.

Tammy Maygra: She’s like a flag. Whichever way the wind blows. She’s not pro-union, she’s not pro-labor.

Brady Preheim: That’s Betsy.

Rowe: The opinions expressed on this show are not necessarily those of KOHI radio staff, management, advertisers…

Maygra: Whatever.

Rowe: … or most of Columbia County.

Sottile: Basically, anything you wouldn’t talk about at your dinner table – that’s what “Odd Friday” talks about. It could be sex.

Caller 1: I was actually calling to talk about the other development this week.

Preheim: Oh yeah. Penis Gate Four.

Caller 1: Were you going to talk about that Brady?

Preheim: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Maygra: We were going to talk about it.

Preheim: Yep. We have it right on our list.

Sottile: Or politics.

Preheim: And this is the one we were going to fight about.

Maygra: There’s no fight with me. I’m voting Tina.

Preheim: You’re voting for Tina.

Maygra: I did.

Preheim: And I was going to vote for Betsy Johnson.

Maygra: Oh God.

Sottile: The hosts of “Odd Friday” – Brady Preheim and Tammy Maygra – will take up whatever topic the community can’t stop talking about and broadcast it across Columbia County.

And yes, eventually they were talking about Sarah Zuber. But that only came because of another conversation on “Odd Friday” about the local sheriff’s race.

Rowe: It’s all good.

Preheim: With us this morning is Mr. Terry Massey, who is running for sheriff of Columbia County.

Terry Massey: Good morning.

Preheim: Thank you for being here.

Sottile: 2022 was an election year in Columbia County. The incumbent sheriff, Brian Pixley, was up for reelection. He was the sheriff in charge of the detectives who worked on Sarah’s death investigation, the ones who couldn’t seem to give the Zubers any answers.

The Zubers don’t think of themselves as very political people, but four years after Sarah died and they still didn’t have answers, they started to wonder if maybe they should be. Randy Zuber, Sarah’s father, saw campaign signs for the sheriff’s race.

Randy Zuber: I kept looking at these billboards saying, man, I wonder if I could talk to them and talk to them about my situation.

Sottile: The man running against the longtime sheriff was a local police officer named Terry Massey. After hearing about his platform and seeing his billboards, Rebecca Zuber decided to write a letter to the local paper supporting this new guy. And the consequences of this letter would ripple through the whole community.

From Oregon Public Broadcasting, this is Hush. I’m Leah Sottile. This is Episode 3: We All Fam.

The incumbent Columbia County sheriff, Brian Pixley, had been a cop in the county for nearly 20 years.

Parent: [Siren sounds] Happy birthday!

Sottile: During COVID, he would do drive-by greetings for kids’ birthdays, where a few deputies would drive by with their sirens on, waving.

Parent: There’s Sheriff Pixley!

Child: Thank you!

Parent: Wow. Thank you, Brian.

Sottile: He branded himself as a real community guy. But by 2022, there were rumblings that some law enforcement officers weren’t happy with the job he was doing, and a relatively new local cop named Terry Massey was soon throwing his hat in the ring to take Pixley’s job. He was a grassroots kind of candidate, the kind some locals wrote folksy songs about.

Band: [guitar music and singing] ... If you’re looking for honest change, Terry Massey is the name. Terry Massey is the name. Terry Massey is the name.

Terry Massey for Columbia County sheriff!

Sottile: Terry had spent most of his career owning and running a few local car care centers. Being a police officer was a second career. The way Terry Massey explained it to us, he decided to run for sheriff because other officers had issues with Pixley.

T. Massey: A lot of guys came to me. It wasn’t a “me” thing at first. A lot of guys came to me and they’re like, look, nobody’s running against Pixley. We see from the inside where all these problems are and they’re like, “Somebody has to at least run against him and hold him accountable.”

Sottile: The sheriff’s race got nasty fast, with a lot of mudslinging on social media.

Sheriff Pixley: So that was my second election.

Sottile: This is Sheriff Brian Pixley.

Sheriff Pixley: That race got very dirty, very quick. And some of my guys would come to me and they would literally say, “Sheriff, I don’t know how you’re dealing with this. They’re talking about your family. They’re talking about your kids. How are you dealing with this?” I’m like, you have to rise above.

Sottile: Massey was talking about your family and your kids?

Sheriff Pixley: Massey and/or his campaign.

Ryan Haas: Where is that taking place? Is that online? Is that on KOHI?

Sheriff Pixley: Social media mainly. Yeah, social media.

Sottile: Terry agreed that the mudslinging was mostly online, but he disagreed that he was any part of it.

T. Massey: I feel like their side was a lot more dirty than our side was. And when we started the whole thing, I said, “You know what? I grew up here. I work here, I live here. I raised my kids here. I’m not going to go out and run this dirty, nasty campaign.”

Sottile: This sheriff’s race might sound irrelevant to Sarah Zuber, but stick with me. I promise it’s important. OK, so Terry centered his campaign on two issues. The first was countywide, 24-hour police service. In many rural Oregon counties like this one, there aren’t cops on duty all the time. He said that should change.

And the second issue Terry was talking about was the Major Crimes Team — that’s a coalition of local police who come together to investigate serious incidents, like Sarah Zuber’s death. He said there was a huge problem with Major Crimes. He hinted that the police agencies in the county didn’t always get along. He didn’t have a lot of specifics, but said it came down to Sheriff Pixley’s leadership. And Sheriff Pixley — who was the sheriff when Sarah died — said:

Sheriff Pixley: This was not my investigation. It happened in my jurisdiction. It was the investigation of the Major Crimes Team, which involved, like I said, multiple agencies in this jurisdiction and the Oregon State Police.

Sottile: Terry Massey and the sheriff were basically arguing over semantics. Pixley said Major Crimes worked just like it should. He said the district attorney’s office is in charge of the Major Crimes Team – not him. And when Sarah Zuber died, that team did assemble. But Terry Massey was saying the sheriff should be the leader when major crimes happen in Columbia County.

At any rate, Terry’s critique of the Major Crimes Team got Randy and Rebecca Zuber’s attention. They felt like the sheriff’s office, the district attorney and the medical examiner had all failed and let the investigation fizzle out. They started to think figuring out what happened to her didn’t matter to anyone but them.

Randy Zuber: If you’re gonna be in this position and get paid for it, there’s certain responsibilities that come with it and you just can’t blow people off the way they have.

Sottile: So with the sheriff’s race in full swing, Rebecca wrote a letter to the editor of the local papers. She wrote, “Make no mistake, Columbia County is growing. There will be more daughters killed. There will be more families in mourning. Your families should not suffer because of incompetent leadership in Columbia County.”

And she said people should vote for Terry Massey for sheriff.

Afterward, Randy got Terry’s number and asked if they could have lunch. Terry agreed, and brought his wife, Jennifer.

Jennifer Massey: And then Randy Zuber reached out to Terry and said, “Hey, my wife and I would like to meet with you and your wife.” So we met at Mister Goose.

Haas / Sottile: What is Mister Goose? [Laughter] Sorry.

J. Massey: Mister Goose is a little sandwich shop in St. Helens, everybody knows Mister Goose. If you say Mister Goose, it’s a landmark. So I don’t know, they’re like these, I don’t know, moist sandwiches or some … steam sandwiches, I don’t even know. But they got great tater tots is all I’m going to say.

Sottile: The Masseys and the Zubers had never met before. And over steamed sandwiches, the Zubers shared everything they’d gone through in the four years since Sarah died.

J. Massey: Randy was pretty emotional. Rebecca was very stoic. And they started telling us about all of, I’m going to say the shenanigans. The fact that they didn’t understand how they had different death certificates and these puzzle pieces weren’t making sense. The fact that they just want to go to bed at night and understand what happened to their daughter.

Sottile: The Masseys have two daughters of their own. As a mother, Jennifer put herself in Rebecca’s shoes, and couldn’t imagine how she would react if she was in her position.

J. Massey: My husband made a promise to the Zubers at that table, that if he was elected, that he would do whatever he could to reopen that case at the Major Crime Teams level. And I looked Rebecca straight in the eye, mother to mother, and I said, “If he’s not, I will do whatever I can to help you.”

Sottile: This moment was an emotional turning point for the Zubers. They didn’t feel like the police had done everything they could to investigate Sarah’s death. At first, they heard about it being a homicide or that someone had assaulted Sarah. Then maybe a hit-and-run. Then the police seemed to be more focused on the alcohol

Jennifer wondered if she could figure out an answer.

J. Massey: I’ve never witnessed the emotional pain that I did in Rebecca Zuber that day. I mean, it literally, it has created a profound effect on me, let me just say that. I will not forget that moment because it was just so sad to me. And so, it kind of just makes me actually tear up. It was horrible.

Sottile: The Zubers’ hope that Terry Massey would be the answer to their problems came crashing down on election night 2022. Sheriff Pixley won the race in a landslide and Terry was out. But Jennifer was undeterred.

J. Massey: So after Terry wasn’t elected, I’m like, alright, let’s go.

Sottile: She told Randy and Rebecca she was ready to start digging into the case.

J. Massey: Rebecca had this thing called “Sarah in a box” and it was a file cabinet, a little handheld thing that you would carry. And I remember Randy brought it over and put it on the counter. I remember putting my hand on top of it, just like, alright, here we go.

I didn’t even open that box for three or four days. I took it, I put it in the safe and I thought, holy shit, what did I get myself into?

Sottile: I don’t think I’m taking a leap here by telling you that Jennifer is kind of a hard charger. She only sleeps four hours every night. She runs marathons. She’s a union steamfitter. She has a private investigator’s license.

J. Massey: I’m not a wallflower, I’m a construction worker by trade, so usually I got grit and tenacity, right? And I’m 3% of an entire population of 390,000 workers being a woman in the trades. We tend to have thicker skin.

Sottile: I think it’s pretty safe to say that when Jennifer stepped into the Zuber case, it stopped being stagnant. Rebecca had asked the police for answers. Jennifer demanded them. But when Jennifer got involved, the case also left the hands of the Zuber family and the police. Instead, it entered the hearts and minds of the keyboard warriors of Columbia County — who you might call this true crime story’s Greek chorus. Back in Truman Capote’s day, people gossiped over coffee at the town diner. In our day, there’s Facebook.

Just a few days after the sheriff’s election, Jennifer assembled a team. She called up her daughter and a couple of friends, including one woman who, like Jennifer, is married to a St. Helens police officer. The team started digging into the case files.

J. Massey: We did a quick glance of all this stuff and we were looking at it. I went to the Zubers. I’m like, look, we’re going to have to create a Facebook page. And I hate social media; literally loathe it. I’m like, but this is how we’re going to get traction here.

Sottile: The box of records gave these citizen sleuths an inside look at the police investigation. And Jennifer saw an opportunity to put information out there for anyone to see.

J. Massey: We have all of these now. So let’s start putting out factual information so that people can start seeing this. And we’ll do these breadcrumbs so people can be engaged and be on this journey. And then we’re going to encourage the DA and the sheriff to do the right thing by reopening the case.

Sottile: She realized pretty quickly that to get real answers for the Zubers, she needed to put pressure on the sheriff and district attorney. There’s a long history of true crime sleuths drawing new attention to old cases. Sometimes that actually gets results, but a lot of times, true-crime sleuths dig up the worst day of someone’s life for nothing more than their own curiosity.

Jennifer believed she could be the rare person who gets results. So she started the “Justice for Sarah Zuber” Facebook page. In the first post, Jennifer wrote, “The purpose of this page is to act as the voice of Sarah Zuber, who cannot advocate for herself.”

J. Massey: We just started from ground zero and started pulling out all the documents. Realized very quickly that the statements of record or the reports were missing pages, that the closing memorandum had errors in it from the very beginning on where Sarah was found. A ton of errors – which you can expect some, people are human.

Sottile: Each time the “Justice for Sarah Zuber” group found something of interest, they’d ask the Zubers for permission to post it. Randy and Rebecca don’t have social media, but even still, it was important to Jennifer that they knew what her team was doing.

If the Zubers were OK with it, she’d take a screenshot of the document, post it to Facebook and ask people what they thought. They analyzed the autopsy, how the police canvassed the neighborhood, the closing memo issued by the district attorney.

It was a live true crime investigation.

J. Massey: The social media page was a really big deal and this is how this process went. This is apparently how we do stuff in today’s world and I hate it too. But we need to get the information out there because the only way we’re going to get this done is to pressure these people to do the right thing and embarrass them into it, basically shame ‘em.

Sottile: Suddenly, hundreds of people were joining the group and getting involved. By the third post on the page, commenters were tagging true crime shows, asking them to take up Sarah Zuber’s case: “Dateline,” “48 Hours,” “Cold Justice,” the “Crime Junkie” podcast.

With each comment, the pressure was building.

J. Massey: It created a little bit of a culture. She has become basically like the pseudo-daughter of Columbia County. That’s what’s happened here, is that people … well, I guess my hope is that they realize they don’t have to kowtow to people with badges, quite honestly. I come from a law enforcement background and I really strongly believe that if this was my children or another law enforcement officer’s, this would not have happened. And that’s appalling to me.

Sottile: The “Justice for Sarah Zuber” group fanned out across the county to hang up signs with Sarah’s picture, asking for any information about what happened to her. The group and the Zuber family pooled their money and put together a $10,000 reward.

The group organized a rally on the side of Highway 30 in St Helens, too. People waved signs and held banners that asked, “What if this was your child?” And they hired a lawyer to get all the records on the Zuber case. That box that the Zubers gave to Jennifer had some of the case files, but not all of them.

J. Massey: They were violating public record law. Sheriff Pixley and DA Auxier had said, “hey, we will give you these records and at no cost,” and never provided them to the Zubers. So that’s what we are fighting for. And it was a big circus.

Sottile: Arguments over the records went back and forth for months. Jennifer’s group ended up suing the county.

J. Massey: I said, it’s not my problem that you don’t do your job right. I’m not responsible for it. No!

Sottile: Jennifer and her group were looking for anything the police might have overlooked. Anything that could get them closer to an answer for the Zubers.

Over time, the group developed a theory that they presented to the police. They believed Sarah was hit by a car while she was walking, that the driver left the scene and that Sarah died on the side of the road from her injuries.

J. Massey: We know she walked on that side of the road that was closest to her house – it’s on the hairpin corner and that’s where she was hit – because of the fact that we found social media posts of her walking there. And there’s people that had seen her walk on that side of the road.

Sottile: Jennifer said that one night she was up late watching body camera footage from when the police were canvassing the neighborhood. In one video, a sheriff’s deputy asked a pair of guys if he could watch the footage from cameras they had mounted on their property, which pointed toward the road.

Deputy: You guys have a camera down toward the road?

Man 1: We have one that sits there.

Sottile: The deputy went inside the house and watched as the people who lived there pulled up the footage from the night Sarah died on their TV.

The camera had captured some headlights going past the house at 11:30 p.m. That was just a few minutes after Sarah’s phone died. The recording is super far from the road, though, and it’s nighttime — so really, all you see are headlights.

J. Massey: So you could see the bodycam footage. And what happened was, they’re watching as the motion goes by, and there’s flies and shit like that that set it off, and moths. Then nine minutes in, there is a car haulin’ ass by it.

Deputy: There’s a car.

Man 1: Driving fairly fast!

Man 2: Yeah that’s pretty fast for this road.

Man 1: Yeah, that’s super fast for this road.

J. Massey: I’m not religious. I’m very spiritual. I’m not a religious person, but it was very strange. That moment that I saw that car on that video, I went back and we were rewinding it, and I know it sounds insane, but I had hair standing up from the top of my head ... I didn’t even know I had toe hair. Through my whole body was vibrating. And it was to the point where I’m like, “Sarah, I saw it. Sarah, I got it.” And I said it out loud in my office.

Sottile: If you’ve ever listened to a podcast Producer Ryan Haas and I have made, you know we like an investigative deep dive. So, of course, to really do our jobs correctly, we had a mandatory stop on our first reporting trip to Columbia County.

Sottile: OK, so Ryan. Tell us where we are and what we’re looking at here.

Haas: We’re at Mister Goose and we’re going to get some steamed sandwiches here, which is their delicacy.

Sottile: Mister Goose has a motto on the marquee outside. It says, “In the goose, we all fam.’” Cracks me up every time. We ordered a couple of those steamed sandwiches, which the server told us are a signature dish of the Midwest.

Sottile: Ryan, you’re from the Midwest.

Haas: This is not a Midwest thing. I have literally never heard of this concept. [Laughs]

Sottile: Steamed sandwiches – actually pretty tasty, even if Ryan had never heard of them in rural Illinois.

Haas: [Tearing noises] I’m unwrapping my steamed hams here.

Sottile: This is your Midwestern sandwich.

Haas: Alright. It’s soft.

Sottile: What’s it look like? Is it wet?

Haas: It’s hydrated, I would say.

Sottile: OK.

Haas: [Eating sandwich] Pretty good. Can’t complain.

Sottile: [Eating sandwich] Oh, it’s quite warm.

Sottile: It was October 2024. And there was another reason to stop here that wasn’t about the menu. Right outside the Goose, we could see a massive billboard. Jennifer Massey’s face smiled down at us. She had announced she was running for mayor of St. Helens and she was putting Sarah Zuber’s case at the center of her campaign.

We asked her about this back at her office.

Sottile: At what point did you decide you were going to run for mayor? Was it because of this case?

J. Massey: I know! Golly. So Sarah is definitely the catalyst to this. There is no doubt about it, because what I’ve learned in this case and just the lack of transparency and accountability, which is also our other group, that’s how … It’s the same group of people, but we started this Facebook page because when people started seeing what we were doing with Sarah’s case and bringing it to light, they’re like, “oh my gosh, these people are unafraid and they’ll actually bring some more stuff to light.”

Sottile: Jennifer is a big believer in the power of the community coming together and uncovering hidden truths.

But if Sarah’s death is as easy to explain as a hit-and-run, it was hard to understand why the sheriff’s office didn’t just say that.

J. Massey: My, just Jen Massey personal opinion, I think that there’s not a lot of staff out there. I think that the lead detective, they had been at this for quite a while. And I think that anytime you are re-looking at somebody’s work, that’s never a good thing. So I don’t think that they wanted to have their work looked at. If there were missteps in this case, then how many other people could have missteps in their case, right? Its vulnerability.

Sottile: She saw any effort by the county to not release records about this case as hiding something.

And she didn’t mince words why that was.

J. Massey: We’re a podunk county where it’s a good old boys’ system that I highly disagree with.

Sottile: A few months later, she and her friends started yet another Facebook group devoted to transparency and accountability. And they founded a nonprofit.

J. Massey: So we started that page and we started a nonprofit organization, FAFODDS, which means Friends Against Fraudulent Organizations Doing Detective Stuff, or Fuck Around and Find Out Doing Detective Shit, whatever you want to say, to be blunt. [Laughter]

Sottile: Fuck Around, Find Out Doing Detective Shit — or FAFODDS — was citizens coming together to demand answers from people in power about a wide variety of problems in the county.

J. Massey: Everything that we did was based on citizens coming to us with these concerns that they had vocalized and either would be personally attacked, or bullied or whatever the case is, which is not something we prescribed to. We don’t appreciate that behavior.

Sottile: They requested records on the inner workings of the county sheriff’s office. The same sheriff’s office that Jennifer’s husband Terry wanted to lead.

And they went after the city government in St. Helens, where Jennifer – by the time we met her – was running for mayor.

J. Massey: Because I want facts. I don’t want hearsay. I want evidence. And whatever they redact, that just tells me that they’re redacting something for a reason, and then we need to dig harder, and it usually generates another four FOIA requests.

But people should be empowered to ask questions of our government and our elected officials. They’re elected for a reason. They need to answer questions. I’m all for that.

Sottile: It was like all of this anxiety that had grown in the community in the wake of Sarah’s death was leading to something bigger. Jennifer wanted to change what she called the “good old boys system.” And a part of that system – at least in St. Helens, according to Jennifer – was the longtime mayor: a landscaper named Rick Scholl.

How to describe Rick Scholl?

Rick Scholl: No. No. No, no, no, no. I’m not gonna listen to Tina. OK? I’m not. I’m listening to our council and our decisions here.

Sottile: Rick Scholl is an interesting character. He’s got a full beard, long hair and an Oregon Ducks hat permanently fixed on his head.

And he can be abrasive.

Scholl: I am the mayor of St. Helens. Not Tina. Not Adam. I am. And the only power I have is I get to wipe stuff off this agenda and say, “No, we’re not gonna talk about this” or “we’re gonna talk about that.”

Sottile: This is from a city council meeting. Jennifer and the FAFODDS team were showing up to testify and seemed to be getting under Scholl’s skin.

Scholl: But until then, it’s a 3-5 vote which runs this city. Just so you understand that and make it very clear that Mr. St. Pierre and all his conspiracy group. So now, I’m going to run my meeting because this is what I get to do. Ordinance, first reading.

Speaker 1: Why do you get so mad at people who come down for public testimony?

Scholl: You know what? I’m not. I have a stern voice, Jim! Jim, I have a stern voice! Jim, I have a stern voice! Jim, I’ve been attacked personally by you.

Speaker 2: I was waiting for Treadway contacts because that’s what they agreed to ...

Scholl: Excuse me! I gave you your three minutes! I gave you your three minutes.

Sottile: Jennifer Massey and her friends were fixtures at city council, making allegations that Scholl had mismanaged police staffing in St. Helens, among other things. He, of course, denied all of that.

But by September 2024, it seemed like it was the norm for council meetings to go off the rails.

Scholl: I just don’t want this thing to get political. And it has. There have been a lot of mistruths out there.

Sottile: One evening, as Scholl gave his mayor’s address, Jennifer started talking over him from the audience.

Scholl: Excuse me! Excuse me! Please conduct yourself professionally. I’m talking. I’m doing my mayor’s address. Excuse me. Ms. Massey, will you please give me my moment?

Audience member: Didn’t even do a ridealong with our police.

Scholl: Is this what you guys are going to do? Show up at my meetings and interrupt my time? That’s very unprofessional. Your daughter is now going to be your pitbull? Adam back there too? We all see it on Fakebook!

Sottile: Scholl was rattled.

When I called Scholl to ask about Jennifer bringing the Zuber case into the mayor’s race, he told me Sarah Zuber died in Rainier, not St. Helens. And then he hung up.

In the election, the voters of St. Helens were choosing between two leading candidates. They could re-elect Rick Scholl, the longtime mayor – a guy with a temper who didn’t much care for the online chorus criticizing him. Or they could elect Jennifer Massey. A crusader calling for transparency and accountability. A critic of the so-called good old boys club and the queen of Columbia County Facebook. Pardon me, “Fakebook.”

J. Massey: If I win, there’ll be a picture of Sarah Zuber there to remind me that there can be good that comes out of the travesty, is what I think this is. And she’s the catalyst to literally the iceberg breaking in Columbia County for transparency and accountability.

Sottile: It’s undeniable that there were problems in the Zuber investigation. And it’s also worth saying that Rick Scholl had maybe not the best bedside manner to be a mayor. And yet, Scholl did have a point when I called him: The St. Helens mayor had nothing to do with Sarah Zuber. She died 20 minutes away in Rainier. And St. Helens’ police were barely involved.

We also started to have our own questions about what was really going on here. The Greek chorus was certainly talking all about Sarah Zuber. But that had been going on for two years and it hadn’t led to any arrests or clear answers.

We finally got the police files and started looking into all the things Jennifer said the police overlooked in the case, like her belief that Sarah was hit by a car. She said the smoking gun was security camera footage showing a car hauling ass down the Zuber’s road right around the time she thinks Sarah died.

But when we got in there and took a look at the tape, we didn’t see the same thing Jennifer had. There’s more to that tape than she told us about.

Deputy: There’s a car.

Man 1: Driving fairly fast.

Man 2: Yeah that’s pretty fast for this road.

Man 1: Yeah that’s super fast for this road. Oh, but I’m playing it fast, I think.

Man 2: Oh, that’s true.

Sottile: The men playing the tape for the deputy initially said the car looked like it was going super fast, but then right afterward, they quickly realized they were playing the footage in fast forward — they were trying to skim through hours of footage quickly for the deputy.

So there wasn’t a car speeding down the road after all.

This could just be an honest oversight by Jennifer. We had to watch the video a few times before we noticed it ourselves, and she wanted to help the Zubers so badly. She had embraced them like family. That’s kind of how people roll in Columbia County.

But this oversight also made us wonder what else the community was getting wrong about this case. It wasn’t clear to us yet if all this citizen-sleuthing was actually getting any answers for the Zubers, or just leading to more speculation.

Around Columbia County, we heard rumblings.

People started to talk about Jennifer using Sarah’s death to advance her political career.

Vishal Christian: From what I understand, a woman named Jennifer Macy or Massey – I’ll just say Macy – Jennifer Macy, her husband was running for sheriff, and part of their campaign essentially was they wanted to find a case, hone in on it and kind of make the case right, so they could … Obviously for the community, they’re trying to help the community, but it was also somewhat political. I’m not trying to diss anybody, but the nature of it, I believe was somewhat political.

Sottile: One of the people who wanted to know more about Jennifer’s intent was Vishal Christian.

Haas: So your understanding was, they were looking for cases?

Christian: Yeah, that’s what they told me is that they – because I did an interview with Jennifer.

Sottile: Oh, you did?

Christian: I did, yes.

Sottile: Vishal was Sarah Zuber’s boyfriend when she died. And one of the first people police went to talk to in the immediate aftermath of her death. And Vishal knows exactly what it’s like when, facts be damned, the community story turns on you.

Christian: I kind of just took the punches as they were coming at that point, cause I was just like … I didn’t really know what to expect. And at that point, it was just like, I mean, what else am I supposed to do?

Sottile: That’s next time.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/22/hush-podcast-episode-3-we-all-fam-sarah-zuber/