Casefile Extra: Greg Fleniken

**SPEAKER_1** (0:13)
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The evening of Wednesday, September 16, 2010 was an ordinary one for Susie Fleniken. Her husband, 55-year-old Greg Fleniken, was in Texas for work, leaving Susie alone at the couple's home in Louisiana. Greg worked as a landman in the oil and gas industry, a job that involved negotiating leases, meeting with clients and spending long stretches on the road. As the vice president of the OGM Land Company, which he co-owned with his brother, Greg spent his weekdays travelling and returned home the weekends. Although Susie missed Greg when he was gone, after 15 years of marriage, she was used to them spending time apart. The two kept in regular contact, speaking on the phone several times each day, even if it was just to briefly check in with one another. That evening, Susie sat down at her computer to work on her taxes. Shortly after 7pm, she sent Greg an email to update him on how it was going. He wrote back, You're doing good, babe. As the night wore on, Susie expected to get her nightly phone call from Greg. He didn't go out much when he travelled, preferring to keep to himself. His evenings were mostly spent in his hotel room, watching television and unwinding from the day. But Susie's phone didn't ring. At first, she assumed Greg must be tired or distracted. She waited a while, then eventually went to bed. The next morning, when there was still no word from Greg, Susie tried calling. There was no answer. She tried again. Still nothing. This worried Susie. Even if Greg was in the middle of a meeting, he always answered her calls, even if it was just to say that he'd call back later.
When she still hadn't heard from Greg by around 10am, Susie called his office to see if anyone there had heard from him. Her anxiety spiked when she discovered that his co-workers were wondering the same thing. Greg hadn't shown up for work and no one had been able to reach him. With no word from him and no explanation for his absence, two of his co-workers decided to drive to his hotel to check on him. Greg was staying at the MCM Elegante, a large conference style hotel just off Interstate 10 in the Texan city of Beaumont. It was a hotel he stayed at often and he'd been there all week. When his co-workers arrived, they noticed Greg's pickup truck was still sitting in the parking lot. They made their way to his room, number 348, which was located on the third floor of the Barna Wing, a distinct section of the building that provided views of the outdoor swimming pool. They walked down the hallway and knocked on Greg's door. There was no response. After several minutes, Greg's co-workers tracked down the hotel manager and told him about the situation. The manager agreed to let them in and came upstairs with a key. The three men gathered outside the room, not knowing what to expect as the door swung open.
Inside, they were met with darkness. Heavy curtains were drawn across the windows, blocking out the morning light. Then, they saw Greg.
Room 348 of the MCM Elegante Hotel was just like any other standard hotel room. But in the space between the bed and the front door, Greg Fleniken was lying face down on the floor, cold to the touch. He was dressed in pyjama shorts and a t-shirt, and in his left hand was a cigarette burned down close to the filter. The colour of his skin indicated he'd been dead for some time, but nothing else about the scene was out of the ordinary. On his bed, the pillows had been propped up in a way that suggested he'd been lying back shortly before he died. A hand towel had also been laid out on the bed, with Greg's mobile phone, an ashtray, and a half-eaten chocolate bar sitting neatly on top of it. There was no blood or obvious wounds, and no visible signs of a struggle. The door to the balcony stood slightly ajar, but nothing in the room was overturned or scattered. Detectives were summoned to the scene, and almost immediately they were struck by the temperature of the room. Outside, Beaumont's September air was heavy with humidity, and the air in Greg's room felt warm and stale. This suggested that the air conditioning wasn't running properly, or hadn't been used at all. But other than that, nothing about the room was particularly noteworthy. While the cause of Greg's death wasn't immediately clear, they found nothing in room 348 to suggest there was a crime scene. There was no sign of forced entry or damage to the door. To get inside the room, hotel staff had to lift the swing bar latch from the outside, indicating the room had been secured from within. Although the balcony door was open, the windows were sealed shut and intact. Greg's wallet with a stack of $100 bills inside was still in the room, as was his laptop, ruling out a robbery gone wrong. Detectives spoke to guests in the surrounding rooms, but no one reported hearing shouting, fighting or anything else unusual coming from room 348 A search of Greg's luggage didn't reveal any prescription medication or anything else that could explain his death, and his colleague said he wasn't a particularly healthy man. When the other guests asked what happened, detectives described it as what it appeared to be. A natural causes thing.