E133 - Arson, Theft, and Murder: Maggie Long

**Jessica** (0:00)
This is Jessica and you're listening to The Asian Madness Podcast.
Welcome back to episode 133 of The Asian Madness Podcast. I hope everyone's doing well, taking care of themselves, and enjoying whatever activities and hobbies you're into. As a quick boring update on myself, I'm currently in my book era. This hobby kind of came back to me suddenly. It's not a cheap hobby because book collection is a lot, but it brings me so much joy. However, my books consist of 70% horror, 20% thriller, and 10% sci-fi. I have so far read over 100 books in 2025, so you can say I'm kind of obsessed. If you're trying to get back into reading and you like horror, feel free to send me an email or a message, and I would love to give you recommendations and spread the love. Anyway, let's get back to the podcast. Today we will be looking into an unsolved murder that took place in the beautiful state of Colorado. I came across this one on social media, and it's definitely a recent case, so I will say I do have high hopes that the killers in this case will be identified and caught in due time. Imagine being a teenager, almost graduating, looking into the future, then suddenly, violence comes at you. In this episode, you will find that a teenager not only lost her life, her killers also created absolute chaos in many other ways. Some believe this was a hate crime, others believe it was a crime of opportunity, though both can be true at the same time. This is the unsolved murder of 17-year-old Maggie Long. Let's begin. Maggie Long was born right before the year 2000, which would make her part of the Gen Z crowd. She grew up in a very tight-knit family with her parents and her two older sisters, Connie and Linna, and her brother Derek. The Long family is of Chinese-Vietnamese descent, and like many families living in Vietnam back in the day, both her parents' families had opted to immigrate to the US to escape the Vietnam War that was causing so much unrest. The United States accepted many Vietnamese immigrants starting in the 1970s due to the war. The Long family eventually settled down in the town of Bailey, in Colorado State. I've never heard of Bailey, but it is an unincorporated community and what we'd call a small town, mostly made up of small businesses. It was the kind of town where everyone kind of knows everyone else. Seeing Asian people in cities like New York, LA, San Francisco is extremely normal, but not so much in the town of Bailey. The total population sits between 8,000 and 9,000, so the Long family definitely would be one of the few Asian families residing there. As for Maggie's parents, they managed to build their wealth and business via opening various Chinese restaurants and also investing in real estate, which definitely worked out quite well for them. In other words, the Long family was doing pretty well financially speaking. While the parents operated and ran four restaurants, their daughter, Lina, had moved to Minnesota for work. And the other three kids remained going to school and working at the restaurants.
But what about Maggie? Who was she? And what kind of person was she? She was a teenager simply enjoying her last year in high school. She did regular teenager things like hang out with her friends, attend concerts, perform community service, and go to school. One thing Maggie was very passionate about was theater. Going through various articles and some Facebook posts, it is very clear that her passion was there. She participated in various performances, attended performances as an audience, and would work on production sets whenever she could. Maggie was well liked. She was said to be kind. She had many friends. She was curious. And she took advantage of her time and did as much as she could. As her theater teacher once said, quote, Maggie would come into the room and everyone would feel better. And I know that seems very cliche, but she brought with her this energy of taking life by the hands and running with it. Unquote. So clearly she seemed like a good kid with a good heart. But what exactly happened to Maggie? Was it in some way targeted? Was she just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
The day was Friday, December 1st, 2017 Maggie was a high school senior at her high school, Platte Canyon High School. We know that Bailey is a small town, and as such, the student body was pretty small as well, sitting at about 300 students. Smaller schools has its charms for sure, and such tragedies would definitely affect the community in a different way. On this day, there was a concert being held at her high school, and as a theater kid, she was looking forward to it. Once school let out, Maggie and her friends decided to head over together, as they had planned to attend. But wait, there was still time for Maggie to run home real quick and grab some snacks. The idea of watching a show while munching on some snacks was a great idea, so Maggie went on home to change and to grab some food to share with her friends. According to Google Maps, her house was approximately 17 minutes away from her school by car, and it doesn't seem as if there are neighbors directly on either side of her home. It sits in a pretty large plot of land and quite secluded. However, she never returned to the school to see the concert, and her friends wondered if something had happened. This was not like Maggie to disappear on her friends. Her presence was kind of like a given, and her absence was loud. A few hours later, Maggie had still not shown up at her school, or anywhere really. No one knew where she was. Her friends noticed, her acquaintances noticed, even her family started to get worried. I assume her parents and sister were at work, but perhaps word made its way around the community, and they realized they were also having trouble getting in touch with Maggie. In the end, no one heard from her again. It was later revealed that the tenant who lived above the Long residence had messaged Maggie's sister, Connie, stating that they were hearing loud noises coming from their residence, as if someone was destroying the place. But as far as they knew, no one should have been at home. This was when Connie tried to get in touch with Maggie but failed, and none of her friends or other family members knew where she was at either. As this was happening, the concert at school started, and it was just unlike Maggie to not show up or tell her friends that something had come up. Then news hit the community. At around 7pm local time, the police and fire trucks had received a call about a home being on fire. They arrived and immediately began trying to contain the fire. Once the blaze died down, the investigation started. What had caused the fire? Who lived here? But to their shock, the house was not vacant. Charred remains were found, and it was eventually identified as the remains of Maggie Long. Maggie's sister, Connie, also arrived a little past 7, and once she saw the commotion, she knew something terrible had happened.