- I'm Kate Snow,
and this is "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
* Nobody knows how it unfolds *
- What did you think when she said,
"I'm gonna go try out for 'The Voice'."
- Thought you're gonna win.
- The dramatic details in the story of a young woman
who auditioned for "The Voice"
before her voice was silenced forever.
- I took, like, a step or two in and seen her.
She was tied up. Hands behind her back.
- Egypt was bound with Christmas lights.
Who does that?
- There could have been women that were jealous of Egypt.
- Could it have been somebody that was infatuated with her
at the bar?
- Was it tunnel vision with the police?
- Absolutely.
That's what brought my involvement
into our own investigation.
- That phone was actually in her house
at the time that we believe that she was killed.
- Investigators revealed a clue
that helped solve the murder.
- That piece of evidence really broke the case wide open.
- You're on the edge of your seat
as to who the killer is.
- Yes.
- To know that she knew she was gonna die,
it just makes me feel like, why?
*
- Hello, and welcome to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
Egypt Covington was a talented singer,
with her star on the rise.
But just as her career was taking off,
she was brutally murdered.
Investigators suspected they knew who killed Egypt,
but lacked the evidence to prove it.
The mystery fractured her family.
Until a secret, buried deep in the case file,
finally revealed the truth.
Here's Andrea Canning with "A Girl Named Egypt".
- In life,
Egypt Covington had a way of bringing people together.
- She had a light that shown.
She would always lift people up.
Lift their situation up.
- Everybody loved Egypt.
- But the mystery of what happened to her
and the long investigation that followed
tore those who loved her apart.
- Don't get me going. You get me like--
This is not the way Egypt would want me to talk.
- I'm done.
I'm not here to break your family apart even more.
- There's a lot of people who loved Egypt Covington.
There's a lot of people who wanted to get answers.
- This really divided people.
- It divided her family.
It divided the entire community.
- The community where Egypt Covington lived
is a town called Belleville.
Just outside of Detroit in eastern Michigan.
A friendly little place where,
between her singing and her job as a popular bartender,
just about everyone knew Egypt.
- She had this amazing, canny talent of seeing you
right into to your heart.
When you met Egypt, you walked away better.
Feeling better about your day, yourself.
- Curtis Meadows was her boyfriend.
- We're gonna move in together,
We're gonna save for a house,
and, you know, share life's moments with each other,
you know, for the rest of our lives together.
On Friday, June 23rd, 2017,
Curtis started his day as usual
by checking in with Egypt.
Every morning that she doesn't stay,
I always sent her a good morning text.
Like, "Good morning, my love."
"Good morning, babe."
- Did she respond? - Nothing.
Usually, she always responds within, like,
fifteen, 20 minutes, and nothing.
Then I started, you know, texting her again.
"Is everything okay?"
Then I'm, in my mind, you know, just--
I'm thinking, well,
she probably went to work and forgot her phone at home.
- But the hours ticked by and no texts from Egypt.
No calls. No social media posts.
This is in the afternoon now you're getting worried?
- Correct, yes.
I mean, I had text her and called her numerous times
up until noon-ish, and then-and then I just--
I was ridden with, like, worry.
- So, after work, Curtis drove over to Egypt's house.
He says as he pulled up,
he got that pit in the stomach feeling.
- Seeing her car there and it just-it just hit me.
Just, you know, now, like,
all your-your worry just hits full-- full-fledged, 100%,
and you just know something ain't right.
- 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, like, a step or two in
and I-I yelled her name.
And her-her dog, Ruby, barked. Let out a bark.
And by then, I took two more steps in,
and Ruby met me kind of like, hey, come with me.
Like, turn around, follow me.
And I walked about two or three more steps into the kitchen.
Then you can kind of see in the living room.
- He says what he saw unraveled him to the core.
- She was tied up, hands behind her back,
in, like, a fetal position on the ground.
Blood clearly covering the side of her head.
And, um, it's just--
So, I ran out.
I was in shock.
My phone was in the center console of my truck,
and I called 911.
The Van Buren Township Police rushed to the crime scene.
[Curtis crying]
- 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.
And, this was strange.
On this June night,
Egypt's wrists were tightly bound with Christmas lights,
- As humans,
we're-we're not wired to, like, see that and deal with it.
Beyond having those images in your head
of someone that you-you love, you love deeply,
then, you know-then, you know,
you're trying to fathom your-your-your future is gone
and everything you planned out in life is gone.
- The news raced through Egypt's large family.
This is her father, Chuck.
w do you find out that something has happened to her?
- I got a call from my daughter, Beth.
Hysterical.
Saying that Egypt was-was--
I don't know if she said killed or dead--
but that I should go to her house.
And I, uh, got in my vehicle,
and was driving down the road.
Hoping something's-- that can't be-can't be so.
- How do you even process that?
- You don't.
You're-- I guess they call you're in shock.
You don't process it.
- 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.
- We're all sitting there, taking pictures,
uh, having drinks.
And then I got a phone call.
I just looked at it and it was Chuck calling me,
and that-that's not very typical.
And so I answered it.
He-he's crying on the phone,
Said, "She's gone."
- Did he say Egypt, or did you just know?
- Um, he said Egypt after that.
He-he was having a hard time saying it.
And, um, just fell to the floor
and my friends, uh, came and got me
and took me out the back.
- Chuck also called his ex-wife, Tina Covington.
D'Wayne and Egypt's mom.
- He said, "Can you hear me?"
And I said, "Yeah."
And he said, "Egypt's been murdered."
And I just dropped.
And all I can remember is screaming and crying,
and "Not my baby",
and, "How could that happen?"
It was like...
mommy wasn't there for you, you know?
How could I have protected you?
What could I have done better?
But to know that she was scared to death
and she knew she was gonna die, just--
it just makes me feel like... why?
- Why? And, of course, who?
The search to answer that question
would put a town on edge
and a police department under fire.
[protestors chanting]
As someone who never even knew Egypt
launched her own investigation.
- It was on.
- 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?
- Absolutely.
*
- News of Egypt's murder was spreading fast
in this peaceful lake town.
- 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.
- It was a story closely tracked and reported on local TV.
- Koco, are there any leads in her case?
- Karen and Steve, right now,
there are no leads in this investigation.
Koco McAboy, who went on to work for Fox L.A.,
covered the story for NBC affiliate, WDIV.
- 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.
- Police had said there were no signs of forced entry.
- So, for me, I kept thinking
that means that someone who knows her
and possibly loves her just kd her.
- 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.
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.
- That's what parents do, I think.
You know, you wanna teach your kids
to be able to go out there and be successful
and to be content.
- She was lucky to have, uh, three different parents
and, you know,
that could help her grow up and thrive.
- She just was bigger than life.
So many people loved her.
She had a ton of best friends.
She had a ton of acquaintances.
- Leslie Dixon met Egypt at work.
Egypt's very first bartending job.
- I remember, uh,
teaching her to pour her first beer,
and her opening it, you know, just-just a little bit.
And just, like, why is it foam?
And I'm like, no, girl. Pull it down, you know?
And, uh-- - Oh, yeah.
This is like the ve--
the ground floor of pouring a beer.
- This is it. This is it.
So, we were off and running after that.
- It was her brother, D'Wayne, who got Egypt into bartending.
The siblings worked alongside each other.
So you two were side by side behind the bar?
- We were side by side. - I love that.
- Yeah, it was pretty cool.
It was, uh, it was fun.
We'd have our little routines that we would do.
We'd have some, like, light shows.
- Oh, like what?
- Um, turn down the lights.
Have, uh, flaming bottles of liquor.
- Wow. - Um, we'd, you know,
just have our jokes in between each other
and have a lot of fun.
So we had a lot of regulars that would come in.
Mostly to see her 'cause, uh, she's like a shining light.
But I was somewhat funny, too.
- 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.
- It was all coming together.
She was taking off with the distribution.
This was gonna be her career, um,
alongside with, uh,
trying to get into the music buss.
* Nobody knows how life goes *
* Nobody knows how it unfolds *
- Singing was a big deal to Egypt.
It was her passion.
- Get our of your seats, y'all.
- And when she took the stage, she owned it.
- There was no inhibition.
That was her, and she didn't care.
It was like, I either sound good or I sing bad,
but I'm singing it.
- And that's exactly what she did in 2014
at "Country Idol".
A popular competition in Eastern Michigan.
The DJ didn't have the music
for the song Egypt had rehearsed.
So like a true performer, she winged it.
Her friend, [indistinct],
helped her rehearse a new song on the fly.
- She grabbed her sister and me and, like, almost, like,
come out here in the hallway and help me practice.
I have ten minutes.
And that was just her energy.
Like, nothing was gonna bring her down.
[vocalizing]
[audience cheering]
- Just reacted and blew everyone away in the audience.
- The winner of W4 Country Idol 2014, Egypt!
[audience cheering]
- How much fun was that when she won?
- It was amazing.
And, like, I remember her, like, yelling up there
and just, like-- almost like she was shocked.
But none of us were.
We knew, like, oh, yeah.
You're gonna-you're gonna do this
and you're gonna win.
- That win sparked something in Egypt.
She set out to audition for "The Voice", on NBC,
and started recording with local producer, Kevin Szawala.
- She's the life of the party.
Uh, she brings the energy, for sure.
Uh, she brings the charisma.
Uh, she was a people person through and through.
And that was something that,
I mean, attracted everybody to her, right?
- What did you think the first time you heard Egypt sing?
- Wow. Uh, wow.
It was just, like, a presence.
That she controlled it.
You know, she controlled the stage,
and she made you wanna listen to her.
- 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.
- Who is it?
Could it 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?
- Time to start asking questions
about the people close to Egypt.
Sounds like a bad fight.
- It wasn't good. No.
- Police were starting with the closest.
- Because he was the current boyfriend at the time,
police wanted to question him.
They wanted to know,
*
- It was Egypt's boyfriend, Curtis Meadows,
who had made the grim discovery.
His girlfriend killed by a single bullet to the head.
And no surprise,
he was of instant interest to Van Buren police detectives.
The police had to talk to you.
- Correct. - You're the boyfriend.
- Yes. - You're going to be moving in.
- Understandably...
- And they always look at the significant other.
- The closest to, yeah.
I was questioned there on site.
I was there for a few hours.
Wrote down my statement.
And then, you know,
by phone from there on out with questions.
- Detectives quickly learned that Egypt and Curtis
had a complicated history.
They had a series of breakups and make-ups,
dating back to 2008, when they first met.
Egypt had just turned 20 and Curtis was 28.
- She worked at a local establishment, uh,
in our hometown.
I'd never seen her before.
I just happened to stop in.
I lived right around the corner.
It's kind of the cliche, love at first sight,
but I knew that was someone I was very interested in
at the beginning.
- And how long did you two date for?
- Wow.
I mean, we dated on and off a few times.
Um, the first time was almost two years.
A year and a half, roughly and--
- What happened? Why--
- Just life got in the way. Schedules.
I was-- obviously. I had a 9 to 5 job.
I had a daughter.
And she was a bartender.
I was getting up for work when she was getting home for work.
So, our schedules, and being young.
And, mainly, on my part, being young and dumb.
- The timing was off, and--
but, you know, if you don't have timing,
you have nothing. - He broke her heart.
- He did. - And I remember that.
So that's why I was like...
- 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,
"Relationships come and go."
- Egypt's dad said that she was pretty upset
with the breakup. - Yeah.
- 'Cause she was in love with you.
- Yeah. Yeah.
It was-it was tough.
It was tough.
Egypt was a very passionate-- and she was a lover.
She loved hard.
And it was-it was just-it was the right thing for us both.
- Egypt's friend, Brooke Brandstatter,
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?
- Um, I-I don't remember the-the details on that.
Um, she came knocking at my door at, like,
two in the morning.
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.
And I just wanted to comfort her,
and just let her know that she--
Stay here tonight. You're okay.
Don't walk home. - Sounds like a bad fight.
- It wasn't good. No.
It wasn't a good fight.
- A Van Buren detective was now asking people
in Egypt's close circle some uncomfortable questions.
- He also had asked me
if I had ever known of Curtis hitting her.
And I did not know. I-- no.
I never heard of an incident of them--
But I do know they've had some pretty bad fights.
- Did you think it could be Curtis?
- I did.
I-I mean, I wasn't ruling anybody out.
I didn't know if maybe they got in a fight.
Um, there was a couple times
where I did go back to the police station.
Van Buren police.
Wanted to make sure that everybody was being looked at.
I didn't want anybody to be eliminated.
- Egypt's dad, Chuck,
was thinking along the same lines.
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.
- Yes.
I thought of every person.
- Did you have anything to do with Egypt Covington's murder?
- No.
No, no, no. Not whatsoever.
- Did you tell them that over and over again?
- Yes, yes, most definitely. Yes.
- 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.
They were planning their future.
It was for real this time?
- For real.
- Egypt's friend, Leslie, says Egypt thought so, too.
So why was the timing right this time?
- I think that everybody was just in the right space,
and they wanted to revisit what they had before.
And this time, it was-it was better.
You know, it was the right time.
- But police weren't quite done with Curtis.
Within days, he was hooked up to a polygraph machine.
- The lie detector thing was, all right, here's my chance.
Let me go prove--
like-like, let's-let's get their attention off me,
so they can worry about finding the right person.
Let me do what I gotta 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.
- And some close to Egypt were starting to wonder
if the right person might be found right next door.
- It was just the traffic going in and out,
uh, constantly. It's a revolving door.
*
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Investigators were beginning to wonder
if boyfriend, Curtis Meadows,
knew more about Egypt Covington's murder
than he led on.
The couple's rocky past was no secret,
but police weren't ruling out other potential suspects.
Now, a curious detail about Egypt's residence
was about to capture their attention,
and raise suspicions about a few people close to home.
Back to Andrea Canning with "A Girl Named Egypt".
- 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.
- She really loved her duplex.
She was very proud of her duplex.
- 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.
- She said, "Mom, I gotta move."
And I'm like, "Why?"
She said, "It's really getting scary over there."
She said, "There's people in and out of there
"I've never seen before,
"but not the type of people you wanna see."
- Oh, no.
- She had a gut feeling there was some bad things happening.
- And did she express what those bad things were?
- Drugs.
- Egypt's neighbors had a license
to grow and sell legal medical marijuana.
Egypt had talked to you about her living situation.
- Yeah, she didn't like living at that duplex towards--
after living there for a few years.
Um, she did have a roommate, and then he moved out,
and that she had that place to herself for a while.
And, um, she had said to me, you know,
about moving in with me.
A lot of the time,
she would come over to my place.
Uh, very rarely would we meet at her house.
And if we did, we weren't there for very long.
- Did you tell her, you should get out?
- I told her to come and stay with me.
And she was like, "Oh, no."
- 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.
Egypt was concerned about her safety
because they did have the marijuana plants
and people were coming and going.
- Yeah, yeah.
as just the traffic going in and out, uh, constantly.
- 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.
- At this point, there's no one in custody
for the murder of Egypt Covington.
But they're still investigating.
- 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.
- 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.
- The first mission was to find out what happened to her.
You know, how did this happen?
And then-- - And who.
Who would do this? - And who.
How could you do that? You know, who would do that?
Because if you knew Egypt, it was just unfathomable.
You know, how do you-how do you lose somebody like that
in this way?
- Egypt's not the kind of girl to have enemies
that-that would ever wanna do something like that.
- I couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure it out.
At that point, every single person was a suspect to me.
- 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.
Had they had a relationship?
- I don't know. - A physical relationship.
- If they did do it, any kind of relationship,
it would have been, I don't think,
an ongoing thing.
It might have been a mistake.
- He's married. - Yes.
- The man had taken an interest in her singing career.
And after that big win at "Country Idol",
Egypt told Lesley
he had offered to take her to Nashville
for the next big tryout.
He was paying for stuff.
- Yeah, oh, yeah. - For her singing.
Her-- for her to go to "The Voice".
- Yeah. - Was he in love with her?
- I think that he was obsessed with her.
- Lesley 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?
- knows.
Probably something to do with not having a relationship.
- You think he might have been angry
that she didn't want more?
- Yeah, I think so.
I think that that man is an angry person.
And things that she had told me,
he scared me.
He scared me with her.
After the very first time I met him,
I never wanted to see him again.
So, I think a lot of people just kind of, you know,
put two and two together.
This kind of makes sense.
This seems like somebody that could do this.
- Egypt's brother, D'Wayne, knew him, too,
and says he saw red flags.
- I know how fast he could react to things.
So, he-he was very hotheaded. Very hotheaded.
And, uh, you set him off, he-he goes off his rocker.
- Sounds like that would give you concern.
- Yeah, it gave us concerns.
I mean, anybody that was capable,
that was close to Egypt, we wanted to look into.
It-it was as simple as that.
We, you know-- he--
we didn't know if he did it or not,
but we wanted to look into it.
- Investigators looked at the former boss,
who told us he cooperated fully.
He says he never romantically interested
in Egypt, and that his wife at the time
knew all about their trip to Nashville.
As for the description of his temper,
he says he's a firm boss, but denies being hotheaded.
Still, family and friends passed anything they could think of
onto police,
hoping they could solve the mystery fast.
- Like, you don't have a murderer behind bars,
and this has happened to somebody who is so beautiful
and loved by everybody.
Kind of puts life in perspective.
You know, you realize this can happen, and it's scary.
And how do you protect yourself
against something like this,
when-when there's no protection?
- And as investigators questioned Egypt's boyfriend,
they also asked him if he had any theories.
- I had two clear-cut answers.
- Two clear-cut answers? - To that question.
- Who-who did it? - Yes, correct.
- And what were the-what were the--
- One was Kenny,
and the other was something to do with next door.
Number one was definitely Kenny.
- Kenny was Kenny Michalak.
A guy Egypt had dated
during one of her break ups with Curtis,
and word was that he wasn't too happy about
Curtis and Egypt's future plans.
- It's the only time I remember Kenny being jealous.
- That Curtis was moving in.
- Yeah.
- How did he express that jealousy?
- Not well.
- Investigators were about to learn
that the ex-boyfriend was still close to Egypt.
Maybe too close.
- She didn't feel like she could go anywhere
- 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?
The fact that they're asking you
to take a lie detector test.
- 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.
You know, you're-you're trying to grieve
the most unimaginable thing, and you're there, you know,
asked the most horrific questions.
And it-it was horrible.
It was absolutely horrible.
- 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 Michalak.
Investigators were learning that Egypt's family and friends
knew him well.
- I knew his family for many, many years.
- Kenny was ten years older than Egypt.
A mechanic who was quiet, handsome,
and a bit of a player.
- He attracted a lot of women because he was so good looking.
- Egypt's mom remembers a family gathering
where Kenny caught Egypt's attention.
- She pointed him out and she said,
"I'm gonna date him someday."
And I say, "Well, you know his reputation is
"he's never gonna get married."
- What'd she say to that? - She said, "I'll fix that."
- While Curtis and Egypt were in the off phase,
Egypt made her move on Kenny and the two started dating.
[indistinct] and Egypt worked together at a local pub
where Kenny was a regular.
- Did she seem really into him?
- Not really.
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.
- Maybe just someone, like, Mr. Right Now.
- Yeah, yeah.
The perfect way to say it, yeah.
A placeholder, I guess.
- Did she tell you anything about him?
Why she liked him. What-what his deal was.
- You know, she didn't care about money,
intellectual conversations as much.
She-she-she needed companionship at that time.
And I felt he filled that void of needing that companionship.
You know, everyone knows her.
Thousands of people know her through work
and through social media.
But there comes a time when you're-you come home
and she wanted someone to be home, you know,
and share life's moments with.
- She wanted to settle down.
She-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 wanna find the one and you wanna, you know,
talk about the future.
She wanted it, but she couldn't see the future
because there were just no progress in the relationship.
- 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.
All right, so that ends.
But they don't completely cut ties.
- Correct. - They remain friendly.
- Friends. Mm-hmm.
- She even would go to some family outings.
- She did.
- I think that they left it,
so if I wanna call you, I can call you.
Or if I wanna text you, I can text you.
There was never anmplete break off.
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.
- She didn't feel like she could go anywhere
where he wasn't there.
Um, and that just made her uncomfortable.
- Was he purposely showing up then
'cause he knew she'd be there?
- She made it seem that way.
She and Curtis would be somewhere
and he would be there.
- It sounds like Kenny was maybe still in love with Egypt.
- Oh, for sure. I'm sure he was.
It's hard to fall out of love with Egypt.
So, I think that he--
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.
- Her stepmom, Chris, said Egypt wanted to tell Kenny
to give her some space, but it was hard.
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."
She knew that if she still hung around with the family
and not sever these ties,
that it wasn't gonna be fair.
And she could not fully have the relationship with Curtis
that she wanted.
- 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.
Curtis was going to be there, too.
That night, Curtis got there before Egypt
and immediately spotted Kenny.
- I kept my distance.
You know, I wasn't trying to be imposing or anything.
So, I went to the opposite side,
far as I can get away,
and sat with my friends and family.
She showed up.
- Egypt eventually made her way to Kenny,
while Curtis watched from a distance.
- 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.
- You didn't wanna stop it?
- I mean, it, you know,
it was a social circle of, you know, five or six people.
And I was just gonna, you know,
let Egypt dissolve it, and she'll take care of it.
And I wasn't worried at that time.
- Then, out of the corner of his eye,
he could see Egypt walking toward him,
with Kenny in tow.
- And I could see he was high on-right on her heels,
following her to the-- to the table we were sitting at.
- Curtis says Kenny and Egypt
got in each other's faces, and then Egypt stormed off.
- She was very upset.
You know, that's obviously not how she intended
her night to go.
- That was a Saturday night.
And five days after that very public fight,
Egypt Covington was dead.
Detectives were zeroing in on Kenny Michalak.
What would he have to say?
- The pressure was already on Kenny in the community,
- Welcome back.
Detectives wond if Egypt Covington
may have fallen victim to an act of jealous rage.
One sparked by a tumultuous love triangle.
They were now focused on a man named Kenny Michalak,
and investigators were about to learn
that Kenny had a temper,
especially when it came to Egypt.
Back to Andrea Canning with "A Girl Named Egypt".
- Egypt had been a bartender and a beer sales rep.
After she was gone,
her colleagues at the brewery
started thinking about a cool way to remember her.
They crafted a new beer called A Girl Named Egypt.
Rick Lack, a friend and mentor to Egypt, helped develop it.
We have her photo.
- Yeah, the likeness.
- Her tattoo. - Her tattoo.
- Her Instagram handle is the name.
- A microphone. Yes.
And then there's a song by her.
Notes in there someplace, I believe.
- Yeah, that was her tattoo. Yeah.
- And we wanted to make it big and bold.
- This is a strong beer.
- It's a relatively strong beer by craft beer standards.
Nine percent alcohol by volume.
- Yeah.
- So, you're certainly gonna not operate heavy machinery
after consuming a couple.
- Strong like Egypt. - Strong like-- exactly.
And that was the intent.
- Meanwhile, investigators and reporters
were trying to figure out
who would wanna hurt such a force of life.
- 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.
- So, of course, Koco had questions.
- We tried to contact Kenny multiple times,
but he was just not willing to do an interview.
- Koco 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?
Just to talk. - Yeah, just--
I mean, we lost our friend together.
You know, 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?
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,
and when the police told him he failed,
word quickly spread around town.
- And so, when that happened as well,
the pressure was already on Kenny in the community.
But that really turned up the heat
even more for people.
- Right after that polygraph test,
Kenny lawyered up and stopped talking to the police.
- I've tried to process every scenario
and look at every different thing,
and-and him doing it
is the only thing that makes sense to me.
- 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.
One time, while Egypt was asleep in his d,
Curtis says he looked out the window
and saw Kenny casing Egypt's car.
- She was waking up
and I told her about the incident.
And, you know, she-- I was like,
"Hey, Kenny was just outside
"looking in your-- peering in your vehicle."
And the look she gave me wasn't, like, of a surprise
or no way.
It's almost like, you know,
this has happened before or something.
It was very strange.
- Kenny says he was working in the area
and just happened to notice Egypt's car.
But according to her friend, [indistinct],
weird things with Kenny had happened before.
What kind of things did she say
that raised red flags for you?
- His anger, and I would see it.
And also-- I don't know.
I don't how I wanna say something.
Because it wasn't even just things she would tell me.
I would see it.
- You would see yourself. - Yeah.
- Like, what did you see?
- Really, just his controlling,
manipulative personality to her.
When she wasn't home on time, he would message me.
- He had to know where she was at all times.
- Yes.
- [indistinct] 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.
[indistinct] says things with Kenny could escalate quickly.
- He would just, shall we say,
have, like, an explosion sometimes.
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 fuse temper.
- Were you concerned that he might do more?
- Yeah, yeah.
And also, in my head,
the protective part of me was like,
okay, what happens when I'm not here,
or someone's not here and it's just them?
- [indistinct] 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.
- 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.
- Kenny says he was never manipulative or controlling
with Egypt.
Still, the stories made their way to the police
and to Egypt's dad.
- I never would have thought anyone
having the reason to murder my daughter.
But then when you breathe and you start to sort,
certain things lead certain directions.
- Pretty soon, Chuck's mind was made up.
He became convinced that Kenny was responsible
for Egypt's murder.
- The community,
the people around Egypt, the people that know Egypt,
uh, know Kenny.
The people in the community knew that
he was already the primary suspect.
Knew that he is the only one that was pouting and moaning
and having arguments with her.
- Days turned into weeks,
and here in this tight knit community in eastern Michigan,
Egypt Covington's killer was still out there.
And while her family and friends
waited for updates from police,
they gathered to celebrate her life.
- Thanks again for coming out to a-to an evening with Egypt.
- On the mic was Kevin, the music producer,
who recorded about a dozen tracks with Egypt.
Including this remix of Fort Myers' "Where'd You Go".
* Where'd you go *
* I miss you so *
* Seems like it's been forever since you've been gone *
- Wow. - Yeah.
- That's really powerful. - Thank you.
- It's hard, though, when you see her.
- Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's, uh-- - 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 a song in her honor.
That same evening,
Egypt's dad addressed the crowd.
- This isn't TV. This is real.
They are still walking around.
- By now, it was no secret that he believed
Egypt's ex-boyfriend, Kenny, was responsible for the murder.
- Please speak out.
I don't mean to be negative, but she deserves justice.
- Yes, she does.
- Almost everyone there seemed to stand behind Egypt's dad.
But there was one person in attendance who did not.
Egypt's mom, Tina.
Who did you think did it?
- I didn't know, but I knew Kenny didn't do it.
- This really divided people. - Divided the entire--
It divided the family.
- Welcome back to "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered".
I'm Kate Snow.
Weeks after Egypt Covington's murder,
her friends and family gathered to celebrate her life
at a benefit concert in Belleville, Michigan.
The event was a comfort to those who loved her,
but not knowing who killed Egypt hung over the crowd
like an ominous cloud.
The unsolved mystery would soon drive a wedge
through the community and rip her family apart.
Here again is Andrea Canning with "A Girl Named Egypt".
- When Tina Covington arrived at her daughter's memorial,
she was not convinced that Kenny Michalak
was responsible for Egypt's murder.
- 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."
So I was like, get your butt over here and sit down.
- Koco McAboy was there covering the memorial.
- 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.
And she had various reasons for that.
Who did you think did it?
- I didn't know, but I knew Kenny didn't do it.
- Did you ask him, did you do this?
- Yes, flat out.
I just looked at him.
I said, did you murder Egypt?
And he cried like a baby.
He said, absolutely not. I loved your daughter.
- Did you believe him? - Yes.
- 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.
- He's a big guy, but he's a gentle giant.
If anything ever fueled any argument,
it had to do with liquor.
- Remember that fight at the hotel
when the police got involved?
The report said both Kenny and Egypt
were intoxicated and uncooperative,
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.
- Yeah.
But also, I think Egypt would say things
that would push his buttons.
She knew what buttons to press.
- If you were around her, you-you understood that
there is no little with her.
There's no little energy. She was a big energy person.
So with her and Kenny, you know,
uh, there were times they fought hard.
Of course it was a lot of nonsense sometimes.
Um, but it was because it was about passion.
- 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.
- Tina's very public support for Kenny
caused a rift in the family.
- You were either on Chuck's side,
or you were on my side.
- And your side was that you believed Kenny?
- Yes. - And Chuck's side was
that Kenny murdered Egypt. - Yes.
- This really divided people.
- Divided the entire-- It divided our family.
It divided the entire community.
- Some friends, like Lesley 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 wo
- They weren't, uh, 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, uh, kept, you know, somewhat peace
between the family.
- As for whose side he was on?
For a long time, D'Wayne didn't know what to think.
- I wouldn't express that Kenny did it
because I didn't know any better.
I-I didn't know.
I just wanted the police to figure it out.
- 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?
- 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.
- But just a few weeks into dating,
Lindsay found out anyway.
Hard not to, really.
- I said, who is this beautiful person on your phone?
Because it was his screensaver.
And he said, that's my sister.
And I thought, well, that's kind of odd
that you have your sister as your screensaver.
- Right, so you-you want to know why?
- I said, why is she-- Yeah!
Why is she in your screensaver?
And he said, well, she was murdered,
and it's unsolved.
- 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.
He told her all about the family divide
and that just about everyone except for his mom
suspected Egypt's ex-boyfriend.
- And it made me nervous
because 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? - Right.
- Or possibly come after my children or me?
- Then another thought crossed her mind.
You actually considered
that your own boyfriend might be the killer?
- Everything-- I considered everything.
I didn't know him very long.
I didn't know. And so then I-I drilled him.
I said, where were you that night?
Do you have proof of where you were that night?
What happened?
- D'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.
So your-your new lady went from
girlfriend to detective in, like, no time flat.
- Yes, she quickly, um, took this
and-and it drove her
to-to 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.
She's gone into it like an investigator.
- 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.
- The moment that news came out, I called the lieutenant,
- Nine months after Egypt Covington was murdered,
the Van Buren police made a public announcement.
They released a name, a person of interest,
Kenny Michalak.
Reporter Koco McAboy worked her sources,
wanting to know why the police
were only now naming Kenny.
- I remember the moment that news came out,
I called the lieutenant,
and I asked him, what's changed?
And he said, Koco, you know, we know that Kenny did it.
We really want him to come in and talk to us,
and he said, be honest with us
about what happened to Egypt.
- 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.
We just said, Kenny, did you do it?
Did you kill her? And...
- What did he say? - He said, no.
No, I did not kill your sister.
- Now, most killers,
if we're being real, are-are probably going to say
no, I didn't.
- Yeah, that definitely-- 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?
- Kenny told them he did,
and he agreed to sit down and tell his side of the story.
- The investigator wanted to know about
Kenny's relationship with Egypt.
It was complicated.
- Kenny told the P.I. they were definitely off
by the time he heard Egypt and Curtis
were moving in togher.
The P.I. wanted to know more about
that public fight at the Strawberry Festival.
- One of the people he knew there was Curtis.
- Okay, okay.
- Okay.
- Kenny says they just exchanged some hot words,
and it was hardly a fight that led to murder.
- 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.
- The P.I. also wanted to know
where Kenny was the night Egypt was killed,
and so Kenny offered up his timeline.
That Thursday, he says he and his buddies
spent the afternoon on the lake,
and after that they went bar hopping.
- Kenny said he told the very same story to police,
even urged them to verify it.
- Kenny said he looked for other ways
to help detectives verify his alibi.
- Kenny believed the police made their minds up about him
from the get go.
- He said they stepped up the pressure
right after he failed the polygraph.
- After the interview was over, the private investigator
shared it with Lindsay and D'Wayne.
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.
- 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?
- How did that go over? - It didn't go well.
It didn't go well at all.
And, uh, I ended up storming out of the house.
And it was not a proud moment.
- She never even knew Egypt, never met Egypt.
Anything like that was very, um, rude in our home.
Uh, disrespectful.
- To come into my house to talk about things,
to get ang-- and to get up and leave
while we're just kind of talking.
I have no need to interface
with that particular person anymore.
- I mean this in the nicest way,
but you could almost see someone saying,
hey, new girl, you know,
you just started dating D'Wayne,
and who are you to say that we've got the wrong guy?
- I can see where they're coming from.
I can, 100%.
And that night,
I said that exact same thing to D'Wayne.
I said, I'm done. I'm done.
I'm done looking into this.
The police can do their job.
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.
- 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.
- D'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.
- We had a-a war room in our library
where we actually took the wall,
and we started placing pens
and writing names and web diagrams.
- 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?
- Immediately. - Could be him, him, her.
Like-- - We came with the impression
that we wanted to be open minded
and say, who is it?
Start listening to tips, looking in-into things.
Who could it be?
And so it was anybody.
Anybody was on the radar until you're crossed off.
- 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. I absolutely thought that
there was a possibility that Curtis killed Egypt.
So we questioned him big time on it.
- 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.
- He just came across as somebody
who would possibly be somebody who could kill Egypt.
And that was enough for me and for D'Wayne
to say, Look into this.
- The Van Buren police had been saying
they had their person of interest, Kenny,
but hadn't arrested him.
D'Wayne 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.
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.
- So you're recording this meeting?
- Oh, yeah, oh, yeah.
They didn't know.
- Lindsay and D'Wayne quickly heard
what they already knew.
- Lindsay says they seemed to place a lot of faith
in that polygraph Kenny took,
even though it wouldn't be admissible in court.
- 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.
- They kept telling us,
We aren't talking about that. We aren't talking about that.
- A lot of times, detectives do keep things
very close to the vest.
- Yeah, yes. - They don't provide people
with information about cases, even family members.
- Yes, we understood that.
We understand that that's how an investigation works.
However, we wanted them to get more resources involved.
- 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.
- The police did say they'd fully investigated
that man Egypt worked for.
He passed his polygraph test and had an airtight alibi.
- He was innocent.
As they talked about the case,
the conversation kept circling back to Kenny.
- They kept telling us, we need one more piece of evidence,
and then we'll put him away.
- 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?
The local detectives didn't like that idea.
- How did you feel when you left?
- Enraged. I was mad.
- After that meeting, Lindsay and D'Wayne
made it their mission to get the case
out of Van Buren
and into the hands of the State police.
- Do you notice anything on here?
- 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, you had a bright spot.
You proposed to Lindsay.
- I did. How-- I mean, how could I not?
[laughter]
- The ring that he proposed,
what-- gave me
was to be Egypt's.
It's a family ring
that Egypt said she wanted
when she got engaged.
said you need-you need to give this to Lindsay.
And, um, yeah.
So it's a really special ring
that now I have with me all the time
that was supposed to be for Egypt.
- It's a little piece of her that you take with you.
- Yeah, such an honor. Yeah.
- Egypt's family would not let her be forgotten.
The investigation seemed stalled,
but something was about to reignite the case.
- Justice for Egypt!
- So that was a good moment
in all the heartache and the pain.
- There was still no arrest for Egypt Covington's murder.
And Lindsay and D'Wayne were convinced
the local police were focused on the wrong guy.
And so you and Lindsay started getting louder and louder.
- That's right.
- Um, how would you describe Lindsay?
- She's a warrior. She--
She doesn't take no for an answer.
- She just took off.
And D'Wayne was doing whatever he needed to do
to help her do it.
- Were you grateful? - Absolutely.
You know, she had such courage.
She wasn't afraid to ask the hard questions.
- 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?
- 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.
- So Lindsay started copying the State police
on emails they were sending to local officials,
trying to draw attention to the investigation.
- I sent it to the head Lieutenant
of Michigan State police.
I just started putting him on our emails.
- Van Buren Police must have been like,
just get out of our business.
- Oh, yeah. That's what I wanted them.
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.
- Lindsay and D'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 step mom, though, who thought
the local police were on the right track with Kenny.
- You could even see on that Facebook page
the-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.
This is all a sham and such.
And you just saw, in real time, a battle between
two sides of people who loved Egypt.
- Did it ever get where you're like,
Oh, this is too much, like I'm--
we're pushing too many buttons.
We're angering too many people.
- Yeah, you know, I--
I'm not one to mess around with the law.
And, you know, I felt weird about it,
and I know that-that she did as well.
But it needed to be done.
- You're gutsy. - Yeah. Yeah.
- Has anyone also called you nosy?
- Uh, yeah! [laughing]
- You've probably been called everything at this point.
- Yes, I've been called a lot of names.
Yes.
- Some saw Lindsay as a troublemaker
who just wanted attention for herself.
She says her motivation was simple.
You never met Egypt.
Why did you become so passionate about finding her killer?
- Because of the man that I love so dearly, D'Wayne.
And that's why I wanted him and his family
to find justice.
- I'm going to allow Lindsay to talk.
Her hand is still raised.
- D'Wayne and Lindsay also started popping up
at town council meetings held over Zoom.
- I would raise my hand, you know,
like you raise it in the-- - Virtually.
- 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?"
- They kept at it. Months went by.
Then another year.
Every chance they got, the couple pestered
local officials writing emails that criticized the local police
and asking for help getting the investigation moved.
- We never got responses.
- But one day they did get a response.
- D'Wayne calls me on his way to work
and says, "Lindsay, did you see the response
"from the township clerk?"
He forwarded it to me,
and I said, "Babe, you were accidentally left on this."
- Lindsay and D'Wayne 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?
"I'm personally not interested in the stupidness."
We're talking about a woman in your town
who has been murdered. - Yes. Yes.
Yes, and so then, of course, I blasted that all over.
I put it all over our page.
I put it on the township pages. - Oh, no!
- I gave it to the state police.
I put it everywhere.
This is what your county clerk thinks of an unsolved murder.
- Murder.
- Calling us "this stupidness" because we're trying
to get her case in the right hands.
- 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.
But the controversy helped fuel a public protest.
[all chanting] - Justice for Egypt!
- Let the state in. - Let the state in!
- Lindsay and D'Wayne held a march,
and just one day later... - In July of 2020,
my supervisor reached out to me and asked me to--
to review the case.
- It worked.
Detectives James Plummer and Sean Street
of the Michigan State Police
were taking over the investigation.
How'd you find out?
- Well, the head detective on the case said
"We'd like to meet with you and D'Wayne,"
and I said, "Uh, does this mean that you g.."
He's like, "Yes, we have Egypt's case fully."
And we both just started bawling on the phone with him,
and it was like-- it was so, so--
it was so powerful.
- So that was a good moment in all the heartache and pain.
- Yeah, yeah, it was-- it was very, um, bittersweet.
And I say that because at the same time,
it was-- it was bringing on a lot of, um, emotions
about this could have happened a lot sooner.
- The new investigators got to work.
And right there in the file,
a bit of evidence that had been there all along jumped out.
- Van Buren Police Department did preserve a video
from a gas station around the corner
from Egypt Covington's house.
- 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.
What were your first impressions of the case?
- I believe it was a complex case.
- This sort of crime never--
doesn't really happen in Van Buren Township.
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.
- Detective Plummer started at the beginning
with suspect number one, Kenny Michalak.
- So it was briefed to us that they believed Kenny did it.
He was actually named publicly as a person of interest.
- And when there is a homicide or a violent crime,
you do have to look at the people
that were emotionally close to that individual,
friends and family. - From that perspective,
it absolutely made sense to look at Kenny.
It's just, do you stay with Kenny,
- Yeah, it would be negligent oto stay on to one personn
and not explore other options,
not to put all of your eggs, investigative eggs,
in one basket.
- Do you think that's what they did?
They put all their eggs in the Kenny basket?
- I believe so. Yes, they did.
- Very quickly,
the state investigators came to the same conclusion
that amateur sleuths Lindsay and D'Wayne had.
- Reading the reports, even to this day,
there was no evidence of his involvement.
There was actually evidence that he was not involved.
It was very interesting that they had named him publicly,
but yet they had nothing to name him publicly
as a person of interest.
- But the file was full of other interesting evidence.
Cell phone data and security video.
- They had it, and they just never looked into it
because they were so focused on Kenny.
- The state police dug in, and right away found
a report that led them in a whole new direction.
- So they did a geofence on her house,
and it basically identifies phones in that area.
An hit on a phone-- - That were in the area
at the time of-of the murder. - Correct.
And there was one phone that it hit 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.
- 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.
But also in the file was this video
taken from a gas station near Egypt's duplex.
- And we noticed that there was a blue truck
that had a Ohio license plate.
And Ohio license plates are easily identifiable.
- 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.
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.
The amount of data was not enough
to automatically run through the national databank CODIS.
- In 2017, DNA analysis wasn't is 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.
- And you get a hit on the DNA.
- Yeah.
- It was a man named Tim Moore, also from Ohio.
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.
Police still didn't know what connected
these two men to Egypt, but they felt they had enough.
- We actually arrested Shandon Groom and Tim Moore
in Ohio, and believed that maybe during--
after we arrested them,
that they would give us an interview
and we would be able to get some more insight.
- Detective Plummer called Egypt's mother right away.
- The state detective guy.
I was the very first call that he made.
He said, "I know you've been waiting for this
"for a long time."
And he said, "We made an arrest."
- 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.
What kind of emotions were you having?
- I couldn't get so excited 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.
- Egypt's dad and his wife were also in the dark.
- 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.
- The not knowing was torture for D'Wayne and Lindsay.
You have, like, this big question mark left
after all this time. - Right.
And one of them was, "Could it be Kenny?"
- So Lindsay picked up her phoneand dial
He answered.
That's when she knew for sure it was not him.
What was Kenny's reaction when you told him?
- Kenny's a pretty somber person.
He's-- he-he, uh-- He said,
"Wow. That's great."
You know, he-- he's pretty somber
and-and just kind of quiet.
He's real calm-- cool, calm, collected guy,
which I think was used against him in the early stages
of the investigation. - Like he wasn't upset enough.
Or... - Yep. Then he said, too,
"But it's not over yet, Lindsay."
- 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.
- Welcome back.
It was the news Egypt Covington's mily
had been waiting for,
three years after Egypt was shot to death.
Police brought charges against two men from Ohio,
Shandon Graham and Tim Moore.
DNA evidence even linked one of the men to the crime scene.
But something didn't add up.
Why would they want her dead?
Back to Andrea Canning with the conclusion of
"A Girl Named Egypt."
- 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.
- Unfortunately, after we arrested them,
they didn't want to talk.
So we-we were able to have them charged,
extradited back to Michigan,
but we still didn't have a reasoning as to what happened.
- But they did know this from the cell phone data.
On the night of the murder, they made a stop at a house
just down the road from Egypt's duplex.
The guy who lived there was named Shane Evans.
He had a close connection to one of the Ohio me custody.
- After looking into Timothy Moore,
we realized that Shane Evans and Tim Moore are half brothers.
- And the half brother, Shane Evans,
was the connection to Egypt.
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.
- We learned that Shane Evans was--
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.
- Shane denied any involvement in the murder.
Then the detectives did something
investigators often do, exaggerate the evidence.
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.
- And at that moment, he broke,
and he was the first suspect to spill exactly what happened.
- 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.
- He said that he knew that nobody was going to be home
at this location.
- Shane said the plan was to break into their house,
expecting to find lots of drugs they could sell for cash.
- Shane Evans' job was to take them to the location,
drive past it, and point it out.
- He told him, "Hey, go in the door,
"and go to the right and-- and break into that house."
They parked in this driveway right here.
When they walked into the residence,
and there's two doors,
they were supposed to go in to the right,
and they actually go in to the left.
- 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.
- Correct. They just went into the wrong door.
- And there's Egypt,
just enjoying her evening alone.
- 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.
As they're walking into the house,
Tim has a gun out.
And when they enter, Egypt is in the kitchen
and confronts them.
They tell Egypt to sit down as they look through the house.
- They searched for marijuana but didn't find any.
- 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,
and before leaving, Tim takes her phone,
and he puts a pillow over the back of her head
and shoots her.
- Later that night,
the shooter sent his half brother Shane a text.
The fact that it boils down to the wrong door...
It's chilling, you know, that this-this woman
probably could have been spared her life
if these guys, these, you know, awful guys
could have followed directions.
- 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 about their-- about their day,
and we probably wouldn't be talking about this.
- Shane Evans was arrested right after his confession,
and Egypt's family learned the horrible truth.
- They could have easily gone to the right door,
took the stuff out of there,
and nobody would have been harmed.
- Wow. - It didn't have to happen.
- But why did Timothy Moore decide to kill Egypt at all?
Why not just leave?
The investigators believe they know why.
- At time of this crime, he was actually on parole,
- And it was a female witness who had identified him
and sent him to prison, so he knew that, uh,
if he was ever going to commit another crime, uh,
make sure there's no witnesses.
- 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.
They disputed the criticism that their department
lacked expertise and electronic evidence,
and said their detectives looked at subjects
other than just Kenny Michalak
over the course of the investigation.
Prosecutors were convinced they had enough evidence
to convict all three men,
but not one of them stood trial.
- In April 2023,
Shane agreed to testify against Tim and Shandon,
and I think at that point they realized that
that they had no hope.
- The three men made deals with the prosecutor,
pleading guilty to second degree murder.
Egypt's brother D'Wayne spoke at the sentencing.
- I just wanted to make the, uh, courthouse aware
of what we're missing.
Egypt, our--
Jacquelyn Elizabeth "Egypt" Covington,
we're going to miss her so much.
She touched so many people.
She's a beautiful person, um, we'll always remember.
- Her dad also addressed the court.
- My daughter's life was reduced to an "oops."
They hogtied,
hogtied my daughter with Christmas lights.
They shot my daughter in the back of the head.
There's no one-- no way anyone
in their right mind would ever want these people
out on the streets in society again.
They're corrupt.
They're murder-- they are murderers.
They deserve the death penalty.
- But this was not a death penalty case.
Shane Evans 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.
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
all the problems? - Of course.
Of course she would. Of course she would. Yeah.
I don't know if that can happen,
but, um, she would have wanted that.
We'll see.
We'll see with time what can happen.
- There's hope?
- There's hope.
- 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.
And he's proud of this monument
the town of Belleville created for her.
The inscription comes from Egypt's journal.
- A memorial in a playground.
Because Egypt very much like kids.
She would have been a great mom,
she would have been a great mom.
- What did the world lose when it lost Egypt?
- It lost the brightest...
light and ability to grow...
that it ever could have had.
Because she would have been one of those people
that would have made a difference no matter what.
* Nobody knows how life goes *
- So many of Egypt's family and friends say
they'll remember her for all the love
she put out in the world.
- She was great at receiving love,
and she was great at giving love.
- Much of it through that soaring voice.
* Nobody knows how it unfolds *
* So as you wait for tomorrow *
- When she's singing to them, it gave you a sense of joy.
She-she had that ability.
- Silenced too soon, but never forgotten.
* Before today let yourself grow *
- That's all for this edition
of "Dateline: Secrets Uncovered."
I'm Kate Snow. Thank you for watching.