Link to the interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdgiJlKkwIc
NOTES:
If I couldn't hear something, I left a [blank] or a [word?] with my guess inside the brackets. Occasionally the audio skips, so I have left blanks that say [skip] where I couldn't hear some of the missed words.
The names of Gail's and Arlene's kids were used in this interview. I have replaced their names with [redacted].
I put in a few time stamps like this -- (3:00) -- to help readers find a specific place in the audio. They're approximate but should be accurate to within 2-3 seconds.
Arlene has some verbal tics such as "I mean, you know, it's like." I have left a lot of those out for clarity of reading but included them where I felt it was necessary to retain meaning.
Corrections are welcome!
---
ARLENE DURHAM INTERVIEW WITH
JAY “JAMMER” SCOTT ON WGOW RADIO
JUNE 30, 2011
JAMMER: Joining us from the thriving metropolis of Titus, Alabama, Arlene Durham is on the Batline with us. Hi Arlene.
ARLENE DURHAM: Hi.
J: Glad to have you along. Thanks for taking some time with us today. Arlene, and I'm trying to figure out how to really get in to all of this, this Gail Palmgren story. This lady's been missing from Signal Mountain for right at 2 months. Arlene...
A: 64 days
J: 64?
A: Yeah.
J: Alright, 64 days. We want to be right. First of all, thanks for joining us. I want to talk to you a little bit about, you have been described in the local media here, the TV , the Times Free Press, chattanoogan.com, as "one of her best, if not her best, friend," and for those who have not had a chance to see a whole lot or read a whole lot about this whole story, tell us a little bit about how you met Gail Palmgren and a little background to how you got to be -- first of all, would you consider yourself her best friend?
A: Oh yes. Best and closest friend.
J: Best and closest?
A: Lots of people thought we were sisters because we were so close.
J: Alright. You live in Titus, Alabama. Gail was on Signal Mountain, married to Matt Palmgren, and disappeared 64 days ago with a lot of twists, turns, and stories, and conspiracy theories out here. Tell us a little bit about how you met Gail Palmgren.
A: She was living in Louisville, Kentucky at the time. She worked for Novaris Pharmaceuticals, and she bought the A-frame house next door to me. Well, I just never really paid any attention. What came down in this situation, I needed a storage shed to put feed and tack and stuff in that I had for my horses. And they had a storage shed over there, and I'm like "Hmm, I wonder if they want to sell it? It's just sitting there." So I went down to the courthouse, looked up the property owner, and I called her in Louisville, and I said, "Do you want to sell the storage shed?" She said, "I don't know, let me talk to my husband." And she called me back a couple of days later and she says, "Yeah." She says it's $300, so I said, "Well, do you want me to send you the money, or do you want to trade it out and we keep the grass cut for you, and keep the place kept up?" And she says, "That's fine with me." And she came down like two weeks afterwards.
J: When was this? Back up one second.
A: Oh, it would be four years ago in July.
J: Four years ago, okay.
A: And it was just really funny, because she came down, she said "I'll be down in a couple of weeks for business," and I said okay, and we met and, I mean, we just hit it off and just stayed friends, and, I mean, I've been on the other side of the lake, you know, eating with her, I mean I'd pick her up from the airport when she'd come in. I've been to at her house up there in Signal Mountain. Me and my son were up there last spring for spring break when he was out of school. I mean, that's how close we were. I mean, we talked every day, it was just... she bought me a, she called them "the jaws of life," it's a Black and Decker thing that cut down tree limbs. [Someone in background says "Alligator."] It was called an Alligator and she just thought I needed one, so she bought me one for Christmas. She just said, "I knew when I saw it that you had to have one." I mean, that's how close we were. She just, she was a ball of fun.
(3:08)
J: So you started communicating with her every day. How long ago did you get that close?
A: Oh... we've been that close for about two years now.
J: Okay, so not a day would go by without at least a cell phone conversation?
A: Right.
J: Okay. Tell me a little bit about, did you know Matt Palmgren?
A: I knew him. I didn't know him that well. I mean, I met him a few times, but not like Gail and the kids.
J: Okay, so every time you'd see Gail you'd see the kids, or most of the time?
A: When she wasn't working, if it was like the holidays or the summer, then I would see the kids the most, but otherwise, yeah, it was mainly Gail until about a year ago when she lost her job at Novartis. But she wasn't the only one who lost her job.
J: Right.
A: She was in the second wave of layoffs.
J: She's been depicted as one who had gone through a very very rough time in her life just the last couple of years, starting with the loss of that job in '10, and...
A: She wasn't disappointed. She was happy.
J: Okay.
A: "I finally get to stay at home and be a mom for a change." Because she's traveled. I mean, she was always gone. This was her territory down here. She would drive from Louisville, KY down here every other week.
J: Okay. And Louisville is where they lived before they came to Signal Mountain, to Chattanooga, because Matt got the job at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, right?
A: Correct.
J: Okay. So they're on Signal Mountain at this point. You're seeing her how often at this point a couple of years ago? You say you talked all the time. How often did you actually see her?
A: Whenever she came down.
J: How often was that?
A: It all depended on working. If it was for work, I'd see her every time she was in, and sometimes she would be down here for a week.
J: So once a month? Once a week?
A: Oh, she... at least 8, 9, 10 times a month...
J: 8, 9, 10 times...
A: If not more.
J: And so you would hang out with her, with or without the kids?
A: Right.
J: How many times did you hang out with Matt?
A: I would only see him occasionally, you know, so when he would come down, which wasn't that often. I think the longest we ever spent the time with him, the longest was when... the 4th of July of the following year. We all went over there and shot fireworks off the island. Off the deck... on the boathouse island there is a little walkway, and we all shot fireworks off there. I think that's the longest I spent with him was the first time. Otherwise, it was only a few minutes.
(5:25)
J: Talk to me a little bit about her personality in general.
A: If you needed something, you needed advice, you'd call her. She was a good mom. She taught my son how to blow out eggs, and I'm 46 years old, I ain't never, never in my life see anybody blow an egg out until that day, and that was two weeks before Easter.
J: Very open minded? Very personality oriented?
A: Oh yeah. Yeah. Very crafty. Crafty. I have pictures of her doing things for the kids for Halloween, making all kinds of things. You know, holidays were her thing. I wish I was half as crafty as she was. We were on our way to Costco one day, and we went the back way just for a change of scenery you know, because it gets boring going one way all the time when there are other ways to go someplace, so we decided we were going to go the other way around and we were going to take a toll bridge. So we pass on [blank] Road and there is a sign that said "Used Ponies For Sale." And I didn't see it at first, and she has flipped the car around and took a picture of it and put it on Facebook. And I'm like, "You're kidding me here. What is a used pony? 'New And Used Ponies For Sale, Call For Information.'" And we laughed about that. That was her type of personality. My ex-husband bought a house up here in Elmore County last year, and we spent a weekend this year digging up, I'm not talking a few flowers, I'm talking about thousands of bulbs.
J: When did you start hearing about problems in the marriage, or did you?
(7:00)
A: I knew about the problems in her marriage about a year ago, and she told me that they hoped that when they moved down here to Chattanooga that things would get better, and it did for a few months, but it was right back to the same routine.
J: Which was what?
A: Matt's drinking got heavy again. Him putting her down, putting the kids down. He was always harder on the boy than he was the little girl. And Gail would get onto Matt about, "You need to spend father-son time with [redacted]." Oops, sorry, with the older son.
J: So, did you see that yourself or did she talk about it?
A: I saw it myself. He would spend more... but, that's common, though. The boys are always normally the mama and the girls are normally the daddy. I mean, that's normally really common.
J: Right.
A: But you still have to have that median there.
J: When did you see a hint of trouble with what was going on with them between their marriage?
A: Probably right before Halloween. I noticed a difference in him and her, and then I noticed it a little bit when they came back from Italy.
J: So she volunteered information?
A: Right.
J: When was this?
A: Probably in September she started telling me. I mean, she told me some of the stuff that happened in Italy, and I would just shake my head and I said, "Well, you know, you can't help a drunk when they're a drunk, because they don't think they're a drunk. They never think it's a problem." And I said, "That's just something you are going to have to realize, if you still want to live this way or not."
J: So how much did she start sharing with you? Did she talk about leaving, did she talk about "I need to get away, I need to grab the kids"?
A: She didn't start talking about leaving until November.
J: Okay, last November.
A: When Matt was so drunk when Dottie [the dog] took off, he started saying, "You killed the dog because you couldn't watch her. You didn't have the electric collar on her." Blah blah blah, and he got so drunk that he broke the door off, the bedroom door, off the wall. Do you know how hard it takes to break the door frame, a door completely off?
J: And this is what she told you?
A: Yeah.
J: Okay.
A: It was to the point that she had hired a contractor to come in and fix it and repair.
J: So you were hearing all these stories. Did you ever see any of this with him around?
A: Not really. I mean, I saw the looks that he would give, and I'm like, "Hmm." I heard him talk to her [skip]. I've heard him tell her, "You're diseased. You're poison. You're destroying my career like you destroyed yours." And I'm like, "Nobody destroyed your career. You were the number one person that taught me everybody went to you." "You're a bad mom. We'll be better off when you're gone." It's like, he walked into the house one day and the kitchen wasn't A-1 straight, and he said, "You're no good for nothing. You can't keep my house clean." I mean, just ridiculous. He would even tell the kids that, "Your mom's diseased and poison, we'll be better off when she's gone." You don't tell that to your kid.
(10:05)
J: No. So this started developing last September through November and you were seeing her and talking to her all the time.
A: Yeah.
J: Did she ever talk to you about anything else? Any ... because I know how people are. They may say something to you that they wouldn't say to anybody else. They may say something to me they wouldn't tell you. A lot of people compartmentalize their lives.
A: She told me, she said, "Arlene, I don't know what to do anymore." And I said, "Gail, it's hard to change somebody that don't recognize that there's something wrong."
J: Were you encouraging her to leave?
A: I wasn't. I told her, "You need to do what's best for you and the kids."
J: Did she talk about maybe it was time to maybe think about a divorce, time to get out of here time to make a change?
A: She told Matt that she's getting ready to be done, that she was fixing to leave, because...
J: When was that?
A: Earlier this year.
J: Earlier this year.
A: She couldn't handle it no more.
J: Okay. So why didn't she just file for divorce, ask for joint custody or work out a case of custody? Why didn't she just leave?
A: You got to understand, this is a woman who honored her Catholic ways of her marriage, but she did not want her kids to grow up without both parents in the family if possible. But when it starts getting to the point that you jeopardize the safety of your kids, like he does every day, then you re-think the situation, and that's why she was making plans for when the kids were out of school to go ahead and file for the divorce. Because we're only talking 3 weeks the kids would have been in school when everything went down. She started getting everything ready when they came back from a cruise, from a trip at a wedding.
J: Getting everything ready meaning?
A: For the divorce.
J: Okay. And the trip to Italy, when was this trip?
A: In March.
J: So we're now into March of '11?
A: Right.
J: Okay.
A: She suspected him of having an affair.
J: I read in some of the local papers and online and so forth that there was a case mounting that he was out with another woman, there were hotel bills. Is any of that true?
A: I have them. I got copies of them, that she printed off the internet and handed them to me.
J: Why hand them to you?
A: Because what better person? I'm 4 1/2 hours away. You don't understand: Matt was very controlling. He followed everything she did. He would send her text messages and then erase them off her phone. He would track her emails. Whatever she did, he knew what she was doing. Every move she made. That's why I sent my computer up there with her so he couldn't find out everything she was doing.
(13:00)
J: So your computer ... did she ever talk about other friends? I mean, were you her only friend in the whole world?
A: She had other friends, but I'm the one that knew the most.
J: How do you know that? How do you know that you're the one that knew the most?
A: She just started talking to other people up there like a month or two before things got that bad with Matt, before... I think when the affair came out, when she realized it, I think that's when she started talking to the neighbors up there, but before then, I knew what was going on in the household, and because...
J: Well, let...
A: You can't sit there and brag about an $1,800.00 bar bill and be okay with it. You can't be embarrassed going down to the wedding, and the people with you at the wedding say, "You're stronger [skip]
J: Well, you're [not?] seeing her every day at this point. You may have been on the phone with her every day, I could buy that one...
A: Right.
J: ...but you didn't see her every day.
A: No I didn't.
J: There were people where she lived, which is an exclusive subdivision on Signal Mountain, that were also friends.
A: Right. She started talking to them up there. I don't think they knew, they didn't know the whole details of everything. They've only known the last couple of months prior to her disappearing.
J: Alright.
A: I mean, they knew about the door getting broken in because she had to ask the neighbor for a contractor to get it fixed.
J: Yeah. Alright, well, hang loose a second, I've got to take a break, don't go away. I want to talk to you more about what you perceive as her mental condition and leading up to that actual couple of weeks prior to her taking off 64 days ago, and also Signal Mountain police were involved up in that last couple of weeks prior to her disappearance. We'll get into that when we get back.
[Break]
J: On the phone is self-described best friend Arlene Durham, Titus, Alabama, of Gail Palmgren the missing woman from Signal Mountain, now day 64, and Arlene, I was reading a little bit of the excerpt of the chattanoogan.com article, that went back into, this was early June, when you are in this article saying, and you were going through the timeline here, you said that you knew many of the details of the last few days of Gail Palmgren's known existence, that she was working relentlessly, but also that there was talk of legal separation not that long before she left. She knew this divorce was coming, she talked about leaving. Why didn't she just file divorce papers and move out?
A: She was trying to get the kids ready. She had counseling set up for the kids on the 26th, to get them ready for everything to go on. She set this up like a week prior, for them to go to a counselor, because when you're dealing with a 9 and 12-year-old, it's harder on them than it is like a 2, 3, 4-year-old.
(16:00)
J: Right.
A: On the parent's separating.
J: I understand.
A: So she was trying to prepare the kids for that. She was getting all the financial records ready, she was getting the PI records ready, she was getting the tracking device that she put on the car ready. You know, you want to get all of your ducks in a row.
J: Okay.
A: You know, they made a big to-do about the $17,000 she sent to her sister. She sent that because Matt locked her out of all the accounts. I know because I was sitting in the living room...
J: And this is...
A: ... or in the bedroom rather, when she tried to get into the accounts and she called, had Matt on the phone.
J: So they were password protected, changed or whatever.
A: Right. He had changed the password on there on top of it.
J: Right. So where did she get the $17,500 to send to her sister in New York?
A: She had another account that Matt kind of knew about but didn't know about. She got bonuses when she worked.
J: This is 5, 6 days before she left, right?
A: Right. But she made...
J: Let me ask you...
A: ...plans for this prior to that, because you know, when you get locked out of an account and you have two kids, and like I told her, I said, "I don't know how the court system is up there, but down here it could be months before you can get in front of a judge, and I don't know if Matt would take care of you or the kids, so you need to take some money out, set it aside, set it somewhere where he can't get his hands on it, and this way you've got some money to live on, so she did.
J: Well, if it was filed, it wouldn't be in Alabama, it would be filed in Hamilton County, Tennessee, and no judge is going to stop something to make sure kids are taken care of. A judge is not going to do that. A judge is going to make sure that those people ...
A: But what I'm saying is this, is once you file a divorce thing, I don't know how long it is in Tennessee to get into the court system. Down here, it's 2 to 3 months before you can get into a court system.
J: Well, I think we're a little better off in Hamilton County than Alabama then, and not to mention, no judge when you have children involved, no judge is not going to get, make sure those kids are not taken care of. No judge is going to do that, I don't care where you are.
A: Well, but what I'm saying is, rather be safe than sorry.
J: Right.
A: You know, because you have a home here to come to, because this is where she was going to move, she was going to move down here to the lake.
(18:00)
J: There are a lot of reports that Gail was depressed. There were a lot of mental instability, that there was a lot of unstableness. Did you see that in her?
A: No.
J: Nothing? Ever?
A: Him, yes. Her, no.
J: Him yes, her no?
A: Yeah. How's this one for you? The day of the 23rd, when he jumped out of the car and was walking back to the house, and the police were called because it started scaring the stew out of the kids? He was hiding behind the kid's playhouse from the cops. He was down here the other day, a week ago, and unbeknownst to him but to another person who lives on Easy Street, called the sheriff, and Matt was hiding from them.
J: And this was?
A: Now is that not paranoid or what?
J: This was in Alabama?
A: In Alabama.
J: A week ago?
A: A week ago yesterday.
J: Alright, I've got to run do the top of the hour news. Hang in there with me, I want to talk to you about this because I've talked with Matt Palmgren's counsel this morning, and I've got a little bit different take on some things from his side of the argument, I'd like to get your take on that as well, so you hang loose with us
(break for outro and intro, resume at 19:37)
J: Arlene, I appreciate your patience. The story of Matt Palmgren and Gail Palmgren, Matt of course fired from Blue Cross/Blue Shield along with the lady that his alleged affair is with, who has now relocated to Mississippi. The two children are in counseling, and the biggest latest thing was the restraining order yesterday was dismissed so that they can travel. They're not bound to any order at this point in time. It's an ongoing investigation. Arlene, you say that, in your opinion, Gail Palmgren was fine, stable, there was nothing wrong with this lady, is that correct?
A: I mean, she was a little depressed because she questioned how much of her marriage was a true marriage, but how many people in America are not depressed with today's society?
J: But there would be a little more cause for her depression considering that, it is my understanding, that her brother committed suicide in July of '09, she lost her job as a very successful pharmaceutical rep in 2010...
A: But she wasn't depressed about that.
J: She wasn't depressed about the job, but I got to believe a suicide by your brother will get your attention.
A: It bothered her. Any loss of a family member is devastating. It doesn't matter if it's at 40 years, 80 years...
J: Well, of course.
A: ...it's still the loss of a family member.
J: Granted, and that can cause a lot of other issues. It's also my understanding that through the period of '10 into '11 that she was seeing some private psychologists in Birmingham as well, is that true?
A: Not to my knowledge.
J: Okay. There may be some things that you don't know about this lady.
A: I mean, she might have been, but if you've ever lived with an alcoholic and you have kids and you fear for the kids' life, and you fear for your safety of your kids because you have a husband who doesn't recognize his problem...
J: But you talked to her on a, you claim you've talked to her on a daily basis up until her disappearance, in fact you were with her the night before she disappeared.
A: Yeah.
J: And so none of this ever came up about this seeing a private psychologist or psychiatrist in Birmingham for about a year?
A: No.
J: Okay.
A: No, but I mean, you don't...
J: So maybe there are some things that were in Gail Palmgren's life that you were not aware of.
A: Maybe there was, but you know, there's some things in my life that she wasn't aware of either. But the fact is, she was not crazy, she was not depressed, she was not nuts. She was about as nuts as I am, which I am not. I mean, everyone says I'm fun to be around...
J: Why...?
A: ...but when you're in that stressful situation, and you go to AA, Alcoholic's Anonymous, AlAnon rather, to try and help deal with the fact that your husband is an alcoholic, and when you worry that anybody in the area has been up to St. Ives and he comes down that mountain, that is a dangerous situation, it doesn't matter if you're on the W or if you're coming the other way.
J: That's granted, but if I get hit by a bus, I can't help it either.
A: Right.
J: But let's stay on target here. Matt Palmgren's counsel, Lee Davis, I spoke with this morning, all of this is public documentation, public record information, he has painted his client Matt as nerdy, not nearly as bright or intelligent as Gail, a little bit on the messy side. If we were to suggest that somebody committed a crime or a heinous thing such as murder and tries to cover it up, this is not the guy.
A: Wrong. Matt is very intelligent. Matt is very, very intelligent.
J: How do you know?
A: Oh, just talking to him.
J: But you didn't, you acted, uh... in our last segment last hour, that you didn't really see him that much or talk to him very much.
A: No, no I didn't but when you do talk to this man [skip] intelligent. He's right on top of things. I'll give you an example: When he didn't get his promotion earlier this year, he was upset about it, and he said "I'm going to start my own consulting firm, because that man came in here and got paid $65,000 to tell me something I already knew." He was very sharp. When it came to certain things, he was very sharp. Now, when it came to electronics, he was very on top of it. I even asked his advice, "Matt, what kind of computer do I need to get?" And he was right on top of it. Matt's not stupid when it comes to certain things. He might not have a lot of common sense, but book sense, yes he's there. But when it came to building something, no. I mean, there was no fault in that. He didn't know how to build anything, that I agree, but when it comes to figuring stuff out, knowing how to get it done other than building something, when it came to computers or life, yes, he was right on top of it. He was sharp when it came to that situation, especially when it came to the health care and government policies, he was sharp on that stuff. He knows the laws, because he made a comment to me, "You can't get none of Gail's records because of HIPAA privacy." I know the HIPAA, I know the privacy act. You're not telling me something I already don't know. But you don't tell a friend that comes up there to look for your wife, "You're making things more complicated for me."
(24:55)
J: Well, I don't know about all the conversation, I don't know about context, but I'm trying to piece together a story here to try to at least understand this whole thing. It's very very unique, to say the least.
A: It is.
J: You have not, and let me just throw a couple of quick questions at you, and I want to talk about the actual weekend that, Easter weekend that Gail disappeared.
A: It was the weekend after.
J: Well, okay, the weekend after. Sorry. Alright. Yeah, that's right. Okay. To this day, as we sit here on the last day of June of 2011, you have not spoken to her since when?
A: The 29th.
J: Which was the Friday night that she was at your house?
A: At my ex-husband's house.
J: At your ex-husband's house in Alabama.
A: Yes.
J: No phone calls? No missed calls? No attempt by her under any other phone number anywhere?
A: If she tried to call me that Saturday, I didn't know it because where I was, my signal would be sketchy.
J: Okay.
A: But yes, as far as my knowledge, it was on that Friday night when she left the driveway [or "to drive away"?]
J: There was a story here in the Chattanoogan online newspaper about a witness that says she saw Gail Palmgren on Remote Signal Trail. This was posted earlier this month, but they saw the red Jeep and two women three times on the afternoon and evening of Saturday, April 30th, after she had dropped off her two children at the home on Signal. Was that you in the car with her?
A: No. I was in Alabama. I was at my ex-husband's 50th birthday party, that she was invited to. Her and the kids and Matt.
J: So that was not you and you can document that.
A: Yes.
J: Okay.
A: And about 15 people who saw me at the party all day long.
J: I understand, but I feel I have to ask these questions. Now let me ask you this: She was obviously in a bad marriage, she obviously knew about the affair. She was confiding in you apparently a lot of things, maybe not everything but a lot of things. She has been described here locally as a great mother, very caring loving mother of two children, and yet she was talking about a potential plan from the marriage, apparently right about the same time her husband was talking about it, so how does a loving, caring, protecting mother of two children, 12 and 9 years old, just leave the children? Why didn't she take the children with her?
A: Because I think Matt threatened her.
J: You think?
A: Yeah. I would bet my life on that one, because Gail was not supposed to go back.
J: What do you mean not supposed to go back? Tell me what that means.
A: That night when we went to see my newborn foal that was 9 days old, me, her, and the two kids, went and seen, my mare had a foal 9 days earlier. The kids and Gail said, "Dad's coming down tomorrow and take us fishing and boating and [tubing?]." So she was not supposed to go back. He was supposed to come down here. So whatever brought her back up there is a phone conversation between Matt and her, and Matt won't talk to me. I asked him and he blew it off.
J: Sure. Yeah, well at this point...
A: And he won't let the kids talk to anybody for me to talk to the kids.
(28:30)
J: Do you know the couple named Mike and Kim Gedgoudas?
A: I don't know them. I've heard of them, and I've talked to Kim on the phone, and I think her turning the jewelry back over to Matt was wrong, because she promised Gail that she would keep it and give it back to her.
J: It's been reported, this is a couple live in Hoover, Alabama in a similar upscale subdivision of Hoover, Alabama similar to the Signal Mountain setting, Gail showed up unannounced on a Friday of Easter weekend and left, and then came back the very next night with the kids in Hoover, Alabama at this couple's home, and made the comment she thought she was being followed. Did you ever hear of any of that?
A: I knew that she spent the night at [skip] the weekend prior [skip], and I knew she spent the night, you know. I didn't know about Easter weekend. I mean, I knew...
J: But you talked to her every day.
A: I did. She called me Easter weekend, that Saturday, I was in South Carolina. Or Georgia, I'm sorry, Georgia. She called me and said, "Arlene, please come get me and the kids." I said, "I can't, I'm too far away." I said, "I will be in Elmore County [skip], can you wait?" [skip] "I don't know." I said, "Are you that scared of Matt right now," and she [unintelligible]. I said [skip] "have him come meet you at his house?" and she said yes. And then I called Mike, and Mike said, "I will head that way now." And he left our son at his grandparent's, and he went to his house. I called Gail and I said, "Gail, Mike's at the house, take the kids there." She said okay. Well, Mike called and said, "Arlene, Gail ain't shown up yet," so I called her back and she said, "Well, we went ahead to Birmingham because I was afraid [redacted]'s allergies would kick up with the cat." And I said, "Gail, we could have put [redacted] in [redacted]'s car room because no cats are allowed," and she said, "I forgot." I said "Okay, call me in the morning and let me know what's going on, I'll meet you up there in Birmingham." She said, "Okay." Well, she texted me later on, she said "We're here, we're safe. I'll call you in the morning." She called me a little bit after 11:00 and says, "We're heading back up to Chattanooga." I said, "Why are you leaving already?" I said, "I want to come up," and she said "No, I wanted to give the kids some type of Easter before Matt gets up there. At least the kids will have a peaceful Easter before their dad comes up." I said, "Okay, I understand that, not a problem. Call me when you get to the house." And she did. And I said, "Is everything okay?" "Matt's not here yet, it's Easter now. I'll talk to you in the morning." I said "Okay, you go have Easter and I'll talk to you in the morning." And I talked to her, and she said Matt didn't even show up until a quarter after 9:00 that night. Am I'm like, "Okay." But he left the lake house Saturday evening. So where was he for that 24 hour period?
J: Okay. Let me ask this: 5, 6 days before Gail Palmgren goes missing, the $17,500 is sent to her sister. Was that all the money that was in the account that you know of?
(31:30)
A: No. No.
J: Why $17,500? If there was more money, why not clean the account out?
A: It was just $17,000.
J: Oh, $17,000, that was all that was in the account then.
A: No, there was more in that account. That was just enough for a 6-month period of time. Because we sat down and tried to figure out what it would cost for the attorneys, what it would cost for this, what it would cost for that, because you're looking at, if Matt locks her out of all, like he was locking her out of all the accounts, what it would take to live and sustain for a 6-month period of time and still have a cushion for emergencies.
J: I would think if there was more money and she was afraid she was going to lose it or it gets changed on an account, why wouldn't she just clean the account out?
A: Because some of the accounts that he claims that she locked him out of after he retracted them in the next thing was her own personal retirement account that he couldn't touch. She did change the PINs on those, but not for the joint accounts, she didn't, and not on his accounts she didn't.
J: Okay, and there was another...
A: But on her accounts she did change the PINs, in case she needed to get back into them.
J: The $40,000 in jewelry that went somewhere in Alabama, do you have the possession of that?
A: Matt's got it.
J: So it's not in Alabama.
A: Nope, Matt has it. Matt was given it almost a month ago. Kim gave it back to Matt almost a month ago.
J: Who did?
A: Kim Gedgoudas.
J: Okay. Kim Gedgoudas, alright.
A: And Matt has also gone through $40,000 since Gail has been missing.
J: Let me ask you...
(33:00)
A: That is a lot of money.
J: Let me ask you about the surveillance tape, this is information just surfacing this week that there was a surveillance tape that showed that there was some arguing [skip] Signal Mountain?
A: No this was [skip]
J: Lake on Easy Street, okay. Surveillance system was put in by who?
A: Me.
J: Why?
A: Their maid's son got his mom's key and took a bunch of stuff out of the house, and so, in order to be able to protect the house a little better, the surveillance system went up and locks got changed.
J: Did you do this at their request, Gail's request?
A: Gail called me and said, "Matt's coming down, can you go over there and help him put it up?" and I said it was not a problem, so me and my son went over there, and my son, I think he was raking the leaves outside while I was putting up the system.
J: Okay. So there is this video tape made, that reports are surfacing saying here that it shows Gail and Matt in some argument type scenario. Do you have that tape?
A: I have the hard drive.
J: Let me ask you, where did it go to be produced, this tape?
A: Gail took it to Best Buy because Matt snuck down here in March and erased a lot of it off there, but what Matt don't realize is my son and [redacted] watched a lot of that video, because my son was upset for the fact the way Matt was talking to Gail and the kids that day. I said, "[redacted], just ignore it because he was drunk, and you can't pay attention to someone who was drinking because they really don't know what they are doing sometimes."
J: When was this?
A: In March.
J: So this was before the disappearance?
A: Before the disappearance.
J: When did you obtain the tape yourself?
A: In April.
J: Before or after Gail was gone?
A: Before. Well, really, after because I didn't know she was gone until afterward.
J: Can you pinpoint the day that you went to Best Buy?
A: I was in Best Buy on the 29th. She called me on the 26th and said, "Arlene, I don’t know if Matt's gonna be down there before I do, but I don't want him to go to Best Buy and pick up the DVR, I don't want it in his possession." I said okay. She said, "I will email you the invoice number, and I will let Best Buy know that only you can pick it up." I said okay. So me and my son drove over there Friday morning, er Friday afternoon, and went to go pick it up, and they said it was still in the Montgomery hub at UPS. I said "Okay, when can we get it?" She said Monday, and I said "Alright, I'll come back Monday morning." But when I saw Gail Friday night, I told Gail, "I can't get it." She said, "What's the matter?" and I said, "It's in the UPS hub, and I can't get it, it's still in the truck."
J: And this was?
A: If it was off the truck, I could have gotten it already.
J: And this was Friday night the 29th?
A: The 29th.
J: The day before she went missing.
A: Before she went missing.
J: When did you go get the tape?
A: Monday morning, as soon as they opened up I went and got it.
J: Did you use your card or Gail Palmgren's card?
A: Well, everything was already put on her credit card anyway.
J: So it was already... you didn't sign for it?
(35:55)
A: I signed for it. Yeah, I did. I signed the charge to be reversed back on the card, because the agreement was that if they couldn't pull the footage off of it, that the $200 would be returned back to the credit card. Well, since they said that they couldn't retrieve anything off of there, that they would only charge the $49.95 for the shipping. I said "Okay, reverse this charge back over," and I signed to reverse the charges back over.
J: And at this...?
A: So I have a DVR.
J: Okay. So you did this with Gail Palmgren's permission earlier?
A: Right. She told me to make sure no one gets it, especially Matt, until I see her again. I said, "Not a problem, I promise no one will get it but you."
J: Are you willing to release that tape to the police?
A: I'm reluctant because they've botched so much stuff up. You know, they did a search warrant on a house that has already been gone through by Matt's PI on the week of the 17th of May, and took boxes and stuff out of there, so... who's also a retired Hamilton County sheriff. Why would I trust to them to them to be returned back to me if they didn't find what they wanted on there?
J: I could understand why they would want to search the Signal Mountain house, but one of her best friends across the street from this house on Signal Mountain has documented that she saw Gail Palmgren leaving in her Rubicon Jeep at approximately 12:15 that Saturday on April 30th, so while they would obviously want to look and search the lake house in Alabama and so forth so on, it's been documented that she left the house...
A: I understand.
J: On her own free will.
A: understand that, but you already had Matt's private investigator go in and sweep all the houses before the police got in there, so everything that was in there that needed to be seen by the police is already removed by Matt's PI. Do you understand what I'm saying?
J: Yeah, but there's DNA and there's...
A: The police were not involved in the search, and the going-through was Matt's PI. Matt did his own sweep of the house to make sure everything was clear before the police were allowed to come in.
J: Very well may have happened, I'm not going to argue that point whatsoever. It seemed to me that it did take an awful long time to get that search warrant.
A: I begged them to get the tracking device off of Matt's car and they refused to do it. I said, "That will tell you where he was."
J: And at this point, I guess I come back to this: This was known to be a loving, caring mom who deposits two kids and takes off into the sunset. Do you believe Gail Palmgren's alive or dead?
A: She's not alive anymore.
J: What makes you think that?
A: Because she wouldn't leave her kids this long. She just wouldn't.
J: And I can understand that.
A: If you had ever met her...
J: I don't understand if she was in a situation...
A: You would know she wouldn't leave the kids this long.
J: I'm sorry, go ahead.
A: If you knew her, you would know she wouldn't leave her kids this long.
J: And I've heard that about her. I guess what I've come back to, I'm confused that if this was such a dangerous situation and she was scared to the point of "I just need to fall into somewhere off out into the sunset never to be seen again," why would she not take her two children with her?
A: She would have. That's why I think Matt threatened her. I think that's why Matt, she brought the kids back. I think Matt told her if she didn't bring the kids back, something would happen, and I think she brought the kids back for their safety, even though she didn't like it, because she begged her sister to call the police, for the police to come and meet her at the house by the time she got there and they didn't do it.
(39:30)
J: Why would Ms. Gail Palmgren open up a P.O. box on April 28th if all of this was a plan to leave on the 30th?
A: That's just it, though, she wasn't planning on leaving.
J: You really believe that, don't you?
A: Yeah, I do. I will stake my life on it. I will stake everything I own on it. She was not leaving until the kids were out of school.
J: Did you ever talk to [your friend?] that she might be driving on Signal Mountain in an isolated area in the very day she was missing that the car, the Jeep, Gail Palmgren was identified as the driver. There was a female party in the other side that was not identified the very day that this lady went missing on Saturday April 30th, she was spotted three times on an area called Big Fork on Signal Mountain. Do you have any [skip] who this other [skip]?
A: No. I don't. If I had a guess, I would say it would be Tammy Helton.
J: And who is that?
A: Matt's girlfriend that didn't want to be seen, because according to the papers, she kept turning her head like she didn't want to be seen, and they said Gail looked scared.
J: I asked that very question, Arlene, of Lee Davis, counsel for Matt Palmgren, and the lady you speak of is the lady who was the coworker at Blue Cross who was fired and had relocated to Mississippi and her name Tammy, has been documented at a softball weekend tournament in Mississippi and was not possibly on Signal Mountain.
A: The way I understood it, her softball tournament wasn't until a couple of weeks after that.
J: Well, I don't know about that, but that is the word I have from the other side. Softball tournaments are almost every weekend, too.
A: Right.
J: So it could be a tournament every weekend, there's no telling about that. My girls play ball, they had weekend tournaments every weekend. Again [skip] that was sighted on Signal Mountain in this remote area three times, Matt Palmgren's girlfriend was documentable in Mississippi, so I don't believe she's in the picture unless something changes on that.
A: I don't know.
J: I know there is a great deal of concern to find her, this Rubicon Jeep that is an extraordinarily different kind of Jeep and it's not been found at all, either.
A: Nope.
J: And...
A: I combed a 200-mile radius in Alabama and there was one that color. That was not... I called Jeep themselves, and that is not a popular color, it's not a popular color, and that's why they didn't make that many of them.
J: When you call Gail's cell phone number, is it disconnected?
A: No. It goes straight to voice mail.
J: Okay. Did she ever talk about any other people in her life beyond family, beyond, maybe another friend maybe in passing, you know, girl talk type stuff?
A: She mentioned Kim a couple of times, and Debbie, which I talked to Debbie.
J: Who's Debbie?
A: Debbie [Montevello?] that lives in Florida, that's got a lake house up here too. She talked about Jan which is another pharmaceutical lady up here on the lake on my side. Roxanne, she's another one that's right here at the lake. She's mentioned a couple people up there like the neighbor's names. A couple people that she's mentioned at AlAnon that she's gotten to be friends with.
J: And at this point, you have had absolutely no contact. You saw her that last Friday night the 29th, and all of this occurred on the next afternoon, leaving Signal Mountain sometime around 12:15 on Saturday the 30th and then the sightings in this remote mountain trail area of Signal Mountain also that very same day, Saturday April 30th, and since then she has never been heard from.
A: Nope.
(43:25)
J: Alright. Any last words you'd like to throw out there, Arlene?
A: I just want closure, and it's been dragging on too long, and I wish the police would have done their job in the beginning instead of ignored everything.
J: Will you at this point cooperate with Signal Mountain police, Hamilton County Sheriff's Department, will you cooperate with authorities, maybe to end and to get some closure?
A: If it's on my terms.
J: And what kind of terms are those?
A: If they want this DVR, it's going to have to stay in Alabama and be viewed down here where it's still in my possession.
J: What about making a copy?
A: If they want to send me the materials, if they want to send me a hard drive to take it to a local police department to let them copy it on there, then I will do that, where they can have a copy of it.
J: Alright. Well, Arlene...
A: As long as law enforcement down here does it, then it's not tampering with evidence. If they copy it, and send them a copy of the hard drive, then they have what's on there.
J: Well, I got to believe that the local authorities can contact the Titus police, sheriff's department, whatever and work that out. I gotta believe that can happen.
A: Because they've already botched up a lot of information I've given. This one I don't want botched.
J: Alright, Arlene Durham, I appreciate your time, thank you for telling us your version and we'll wish you the best, and we hope this ends with a better outcome than what you suggested it might be.
A: Okay.
J: Thank you very much, Arlene Durham from Titus, Alabama.