(intense music) (intense music continues) - It's one of the most infamous crimes in Central Illinois history.

In 2016, 13-year-old Robert Bee disappeared from Pekin.

His remains were found eight months later.

The case seemingly went cold for nearly 10 years.

That is, until a few weeks ago when police arrested a murder suspect.

Filmmaker Ash Patino immersed herself in this case.

She spent a lot of time investigating the crime and interviewing those closest to Robert Bee and she joins us now to talk about the case and these recent developments.

Ash, thanks for joining us.

We appreciate it.

- Yeah, thanks so much, Mark, for caring about this story and inviting me on.

- So I need to ask you, what was your response to this seemingly out-of-nowhere arrest and what is your response to the person arrested being Keith Brackett?

- Yeah, I guess it was all shock on all ends.

All of a sudden I found out because people started messaging me on Facebook even before it hit the news that something had broke.

So I was very excited and I think the community of Pekin had lost maybe a little bit of hope.

Some of the child murders from in the past had not been solved.

So it's really impressive that this case looks like there's been an arrest.

It was one of the suspects we had early on in our docuseries that we were kinda questioning his involvement and we obviously questioned a lot of people's involvement throughout it.

But yeah, he was one of the top suspects, especially at the beginning.

- Well, let's go back to the beginning of your involvement in this anyway.

I know you travel the country.

You're in Arizona right now.

How did you find out about this case and why did you feel the need to get involved and essentially spend all that time in Pekin?

- Yeah, so it was kind of crazy.

It was like a year of going in and out of Pekin almost a week out of every month.

And when I initially took on the case, I had posted on Instagram and Facebook if anybody had a case that had been unsolved that they wanted a independent investigator to come in and take a look at to let me know.

And I must have gotten like a dozen messages from people in Pekin regarding the Robert Bee case.

So it was the passion of the community.

Just seeing the picture of Robert Bee really made me wanna kind of just start getting out there and taking a look.

And then what was so incredible is when I got out there, the people of Pekin embraced me in such a beautiful way.

You could tell they really wanted answers on this case.

So not only did they help call in tips, but they also met with me, some not publicly, you know, just to give me any information they had.

Others were willing to be on the show and share the information they had publicly.

And I felt like that kind of helped us along with the investigation.

- Well, I remember those days well.

In a lot of ways you scooped the local media in terms of getting interviews.

You talked to Robert's mom, you talked to Keith Brackett, you talked to a lot of folks.

As you started interviewing people, learning more information, how did it come to you that, boy, there's something really strange going on here.

- Yeah, it was really, it's kind of a complicated case and I could start to understand or empathize with some of the struggles maybe even the police had at the time because a lot of the people within the community that Robert Bee was part of seemed to have drug addiction issues as well.

And we did even interview some of them.

So it made it really complex because the memories of things seemed to kind of shift or it was kind of weird stuff that would happen in regards to it.

So I think that was like one of the hardest parts about this case is you were coming into a community, and this is not everybody, but the people who had the drug issues, you know, and rightfully so, that can be complex, were kind of, it was hard to get information.

It was hard to have them even show up.

We had two people die during the series, one of suicide and one of a drug overdose.

And both of the people had brought us a pretty decent amount of information.

So it was kind of like an uphill battle.

So I'm like really impressed that the Pekin police and Detective Ranney, I think he's now the sheriff there, really did a beautiful job with the DNA and trying to figure some of the stuff out, if Keith Brackett ends up for sure being the person who did this.

- So as you're going along, I'm guessing at certain points you're thinking to yourself, "Oh, it appears this person did it."

Or maybe a month later you're like, "No, this person might have done it.

I mean it was a real who-done-it and as a filmmaker and you're trying to stay unbiased, how does your thinking progress as you're interviewing all these people and learning more information?

- Yeah, no, this is a really hard one because actually another suspect had come up, poor Josh McCreary during this.

We kind of pointed a finger at him and a lot of people also during the getting tips in were pointing a finger at him.

So that's one thing I think is really impressive and I think it showcases, especially in this type of community, that you have to be so careful and really stick to like what the actual physical evidence is saying rather than just what people's memories are saying or what they believe happened.

So I think it was kind of interesting 'cause Keith Brackett was kind of a suspect throughout the entire thing, especially at the beginning.

But then we kinda started looking in other directions also.

So I'm not really surprised it's Keith Brackett, though.

I mean, Robert Bee was found on the back of one of his relative's property, but he was also named as a suspect really early on.

So it also could have been a crafty person thinking about where do I dump Robert Bee and doing it on the back of that particular property.

And in the community of Pekin, everyone really seems to know everyone and knows like of the different properties and spaces and stuff like that or they had been out to these properties before.

So I think that's one thing that made the case super confusing is some of those things that were happening along the way.

- Well, and it seemed like in this case, too, that everybody and their brother had an opinion on who was guilty, who was responsible, people looking at Robert Bee's mother.

You mentioned Keith Brackett who's been arrested and a lot of other people, you know, it seemed like this was being tried on social media before there was even a court case or any arrests made.

I do wanna ask you about your interaction with the Pekin police department and any other law enforcement agencies during this process.

Were they happy to have you there or no?

- Oh, you know, I don't know from a personal standpoint, but everyone was real respectful.

Detective Ranney met with me twice, even.

Now they weren't giving me information, right?

But they were accepting of my information.

We had some kind of informants come forward throughout and Ranney definitely took the time to not only talk to me but talk to them.

So it's kind of strange that it didn't get solved for 10 years especially 'cause my understanding currently, obviously I know more will come out is there was DNA but also Keith Brackett was in jail for a large part of that.

So I don't know, you know, they have to be strategic about what they do.

So if you have a guy in jail and you feel like you have your suspect, you know, maybe take your time to get your case 100% correctly done there.

And I kind of felt like that's maybe what had happened a little bit, 'cause at first I was a little disappointed, but I started to think why this might be the problem.

And it was I think the massive amount of drug use, even Lisa Bee, his mother, who I really genuinely do not believe had anything to do with this, even though obviously her actions might have led to it.

I'm not forgiving her for it, but I don't think she brought him over to Keith Brackett and said, "Kill my son."

You know, I think she just was kind of an aloof parent.

So I think that it all those factors made the case really complex.

So as far as how they treated me, I wanna say with the utmost respect throughout this and I thought they really did care and took the information in and I think seeing this arrest now really showcases that they never stopped looking and I think they just had to protect information that they knew.

- Well, again, 42-year-old Keith Brackett has been arrested and is facing two counts of first-degree murder and one count of concealment of a homicidal death.

Keith apparently identifies as a woman now.

So we will be calling Keith she.

Tell us about your interaction with Keith during this process, your interviews with her and how all that came about and kind of give people a little background into how Keith knew Bonzai, Robert Bee, and his mother and this whole thing.

- Yeah, so I apologize if any information came off incorrectly here, but we never actually interviewed Keith Brackett.

We tried to multiple times.

I sent letters to the jail.

I even went to the courthouse and tried to schedule a meeting with him, but unfortunately, or her, as you're wanting to call her.

And so I had even tried to do that throughout that process, but we were never able to actually get an interview.

But Keith Brackett kind of lived really just a street between where Lisa Bee lived and he had a tent kind of encampment within the backyard and you know, it seemed like a lot of troubled teens were coming there to hang out.

We even found video of Robert Bee in the tent smoking and you know, he's, you know, pre-teen at the time, so he's kind of hanging out with older teenagers.

Lisa's also hanging out over there.

So it just doesn't seem like the type of environment a parent should be bringing their child to.

Although the teenagers, I did interview some of the teenagers who had hung out in the encampment and they also were not certain that they thought Keith Brackett did it, but he was kind of an odd character.

And at first I thought maybe because he was transitioning, it is Pekin, Illinois, you know, it's a town of 30,000 people.

So I'm not sure how much transgender they saw there.

So I was also not sure if Keith Brackett wasn't being kind of targeted because of his choice of lifestyle.

He would walk around town with painted fingernails and Hello Kitty pajamas on.

So I think the community, being that small, kind of was a little leery of him initially, but the teenagers seemed to kind of flock because they could go to that backyard encampment and kinda get away with anything and no one was telling them that they couldn't do the things they wanted to do, drugs or you know, not go to school or whatever it was for them.

- [Mark] I apologize, I thought you did talk to Keith, but in talking with all the other, it seems like you talked to everybody else in Pekin, did they kind of push you towards Keith?

Like this is a guy you need to talk to?

- So the community members did.

The people who were hanging out in the tent encampment didn't seem to really be like, "Wow, this is a guy who's really dangerous or anything like that."

Now we had gotten tips in from a woman, which I was never able to corroborate who said she was raped by Keith Brackett, but we were never able to corroborate the claims.

But you know, we were getting stuff in like that.

So it was raising suspicions, but the people who went on camera and interviewed with us who had been in that tent encampment kind of were shying away from the fact that it might be Keith Brackett.

They weren't saying, "No way."

They just were saying that they hadn't seen that type of behavior, meaning like someone trying to murder someone, they hadn't seen that type of behavior from him.

- And the police also, we should say, interviewed Keith Brackett and he was on their radar.

So it's not like this is a huge shock and we are told, you know, through the different information that's been released from the courts that police did find some rope, duct tape, electrical tape, human hair at the scene that they could, they say they could put to Keith Brackett.

I'm curious from what you know and let's just talk gut feelings, do you think anyone else was involved in this?

Maybe not an accomplice, but maybe someone who knows something that just didn't say anything?

- You know, I'm kinda curious about that because some of the tips we got from, about one of the other suspects here, it does still feel really strange to me that somehow there was not additional involvement from additional people, especially with the moving of the body and stuff like that.

There was a lot of people who were able to come forward and give, I thought, pretty credible tips.

So I am curious if there will be any other arrests made, but I could also, in all honesty, see how Keith Brackett could have pulled this off single-handedly and maybe not involved anyone else because Robert would've trusted him.

He was being chased by truancy officers.

It would not have been an unreasonable thing to think that he went and got into that tent encampment and that he was just this perfect target for Keith Brackett.

And you know, Lisa, his mom, is not even home.

She's out partying.

So I think that's like another thing.

Keith knew that he would have full access to him.

So I think it's also very likely that he fully acted alone.

But I am actually really curious if there are any other arrests throughout this.

- Yeah, police and you know, the state's attorney have been pretty tightlipped on this, which makes sense.

They don't want a lot to get out before they do go to trial.

I'm being told there's 4,000 pages of discovery that Keith's public defender needs to go over.

So that kind of tells me that, you know, in the last 10 years, I know some people have been negative towards the Pekin police, saying, "You're not doing enough."

But it seems like they've been doing a lot over the last 10 years.

And with Keith being in jail or prison a lot of that time, maybe they didn't need to be in a hurry because they knew he wasn't going anywhere.

- Right, and that's through my work with police officers and FBI and stuff like that, you know, I've kind of been walking hand in hand on a lot of the stuff I've been shooting for the last half-decade with that.

I have started to realize how thoughtful they are about what information they release.

Obviously I was part of the media, so you know, you always have to be careful with what you're handing to the media at any given point.

So I mean now I do feel like, and I always, you know, Ranney always seemed like a pretty upstanding guy to me.

So I never thought poorly of the Pekin police.

I was just kind of surprised that this wasn't being solved in a little bit of a faster manner.

But yeah, I do get why, I get why it was a hard case.

And I also get why they might've waited to make sure they had all their ducks in a row, which I have a lot of respect for if that's what they did because a lot of these cases don't get solved or they can't be prosecuted because someone didn't wait to make sure they had everything they needed before they went down the road.

So I have to give them some props if that's what, that they needed some time to kind of figure this out.

So, but it was confusing during, I have to say.

There was times I was wondering, did they care about Robert Bee?

- So you were in Pekin for a long time.

Like we said, you interviewed a lot of people and people can actually watch your filmmaking on YouTube.

We'll give them that address in just a little bit.

But at what point did you say, "Okay, I've kind of talked to everybody I can talk to.

I'm gonna, you know, wrap it up and move on for now."

And how do you make that decision after being so invested in the case?

- Yeah, I mean I felt like we had gone down every road and showcased every tip that had come in and you know, I can't arrest somebody, I can't make decisions.

So it was just kind of like after I handed everything over to the Pekin police that we had learned, I kind of thought, you know, I had done as much as I could as far as that goes, but it's something that sticks in my brain quite, had, you know, stuck in my brain quite often wondering if it would be solved, what had actually happened.

And, you know, we're also gonna do a final episode here.

I think it's important so that we can, the other people that we pointed out as suspects, people know if they watch the series who actually ends up getting arrested in the end.

And I think it will really show how massively confusing and what a beast this case was in general.

- So we'll see you back in Pekin at some point?

- Yeah, that's my goal.

I wanna reach out to Ranney to see if they can do an interview.

I know now they've got the, they're gonna have a trial probably coming up or trying to get someone to plead guilty.

So I kind of feel like they still might not be able to talk.

But I think it's important at the very least to kind of say who's been arrested, even if I can't get interviews with them.

But my hope is they can open up a little about what they can talk about, even if it's just saying that they arrested someone and kind of what evidence that they were able to already say publicly and then kind of follow it all the way through if Keith is convicted of this and you know, put in jail, like I think people should know what the outcome of this is.

So my hope is to follow it all the way through however this goes here.

- When you came to Pekin, and I'm guessing you'd never probably even heard of Pekin before this case, but when you came to Pekin, how would you describe the atmosphere?

Because for those of us who live here, it was pretty tense and there was always an underlying feeling of we don't know what happened, we just know something really bad happened.

So what was your impression of the atmosphere in Pekin?

- Yeah, I thought there was like frustration from some of the child murders that had happened.

Now some of these had happened quite a time before, so it wasn't the police that are there now who were the detectives on those cases.

So I just wanna be clear about that.

But I think people were, you know, when you look back at Pekin's history, there's quite a few, especially boys, who have gone missing or their murders have never been solved.

So I think people were like, "Oh, this is one more."

And plus now if you look at, you know, Pekin seems to have a community that it has issues with drugs and it seems to be a chunk of the community.

So I think people saw him and wanted to go out and, you know, he's a child in this kind of chaotic environment where his mom is not being, you know, the best, I don't think, that she could be.

And so I think you just had community members, especially women who really came out and kinda took Robert on as if they were part of their own family and really wanted this solved.

So I think what was nice is the people there were so ready to come forward.

They so wanted somebody else to talk to besides the police.

And so I feel like it was, we were very much embraced every time we went out there by the community, which was really beautiful.

And it seemed like a lot of people cared.

Like a lot of people watched the show because they really wanted to know what had happened.

- And I think what was interesting about your reporting is you had a lot of interviews, a lot of footage that the local media never had for whatever reason.

And I think for outsiders and by outsiders I'm just talking about people who live in this area, but not in Pekin.

There were some very troubling scenes and information that you dug up that, you know, you talk about the seedy side of some areas and of course it's not just limited to Pekin but I think you gave people here in the area kind of a look at, it's something that they may not have wanted to accept or even know about.

- Yeah, I think that's the hard part 'cause I mean there are, Pekin there are very nice parts, too.

It's got this beautiful park in the middle, like and the people are awesome there.

So it's kinda this weird dichotomy and even, you know, even a lot of the people we interviewed or who were having issues with drugs were still trying to be forthcoming and kinda coming outta the woodworks.

So I thought that was kinda neat as you saw people kinda cared about their community even if maybe they were struggling.

But then there's also this, you know, healthy side of Pekin, you know, and unfortunately through this case you kind of only see the darker side of it, but there also is this very healthy side where you can tell people have pride in their community.

You know, they would like to see some of the issues in their community get on a healthier side.

And so that's what was really amazing is to see a community who is struggling with drug abuse happening within its, you know, walls there, but also to have so many people who still care about their community and wanna see the children within their community in a healthy, happy lifestyle.

- If you could only interview one person when you come back, someone you either talked to or didn't talk to, who would that person be?

- Yeah, I think probably I'd wanna head back to talk to Lisa.

She was kind of always a fascinating person throughout this and that's Bonzai's mother, Robert Bee's mother.

And I think just, you know, because she was never sure, I don't think, what had happened and I think Keith had been a suspect on her mind also.

But you had talked about earlier in this interview, you know, this case was being tried on social media.

So for her, I can't even fathom, you know, I remember interviewing her and her thinking it was someone we never even really had as suspects, you know, but that's because people were telling her, "This is what happened, this is what happened."

And so, yeah, I'd be curious to see her reaction to finding out it was Keith and if she feels she was culpable, you know, without handing him over to him specifically.

But like some of her actions might have kind of led to this.

So I would kind of be interested to know how she feels and if she feels culpable.

- Even though you didn't meet Robert obviously, do you felt by, you know, the end of your time in Pekin that you knew him and knew who he was?

- Yeah, I felt like people who knew him were really able to fill me in.

I mean he just seemed like this kind of spunky 13-year-old, maybe a little chip on his shoulder.

I'm sure he had seen a lot more of the world than most of us see at that age.

So he just sounded like a kid who was like on his own path and I think it's sad that he never got to like grow up and really see where he could have gone or what that could have been because you know, to be that tough at that age probably brings you into an adulthood in a really interesting way.

So he really, think if he kinda could see what was going on in his community and feel that out, maybe he had a shot of really having a nice life.

So I think it's really sad that he didn't ever get to do that.

- Yeah, definitely a tragedy.

Since you left Pekin, gosh, almost 10 years ago or so, what have you been up to since then?

- Yeah, so I do a TV show now called "Sword and Scale."

It's also true crime but it's not investigative in the way that I was doing it.

I did the investigative series for three years.

We covered three separate cases, but it's a lot.

You have to kind of give yourself over to investigative true crime because we were basically, we'd go in and investigate and then put up those tips and then from those tips we'd get more calls and then we'd go investigate those tips.

So that's kind of, we were kind of working with the community the whole way and then producing episodes that were kind of entertaining so people would watch and wanna give tips if they knew something.

And so through doing that, it was really valuable on all three of the cases we worked, I think we've gotten a lot of really great information.

But for me, you know, I was sometimes answering calls at one in the morning or if I had somebody we had been trying to talk to for three months who would not talk to me, if all of a sudden their phone number came across my phone, I would like walk out of a family barbecue to talk to them or, you know, and then plus we were showcasing all the tips we got in.

So I constantly had to have a camera with me and microphone.

So if at any moment, that was the time they called because if you only have one shot to talk to someone, you gotta take the call right when they call.

So it just got to be like a 24/7 thing for me and it was just a little bit overwhelming.

So now the show I do is about adjudicated cases and we put out one case at a time.

- Yeah, real quick before we go, I mean, you were so immersed in this and it's such a heavy, dark, negative story.

How do you stay in a good head space?

- Oh yeah, that's tough.

I don't usually watch true crime.

I watch comedies.

I'm outside a lot.

I think you have to be able to set the side.

You have to compartmentalize it, I think, a lot like police do.

So yeah, I think it's just that, you know, I was able to kinda look at, that that part is my job and then I need to have my personal life be not what that is.

So it's a process but you know, the cases stick with me, especially when they're not solved, you know.

I always wonder if they'll get justice.

So in this particular one, there was such a happy feeling when I knew that there had been arrest and it had been one of the suspects we had also been considering.

- Ash, how can people watch your documentary and find out more about what you do?

- Yeah, so YouTube is the best way to watch this investigative series and it's @AshesToAshTV is where it can be found.

- All right, well we appreciate all that you've done and appreciate you talking with us today.

I know people still 10 years later, very fascinated by this case and we will see where it goes from here.

Ash Patino, thanks very much, we appreciate it.

- [Ash] Thanks a lot, Mark.

- All right, and thank you for joining us.

If you'd like to share this interview with a friend or family member, just go to wtvp.org, click on At Issue with Mark Welp, and it will be there.

Thanks for joining us.

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