Ep. 1 Rocky Mountain Murder (or Accident?)

Commercials

Speaker 1: He would lie his way into their dreams.

Speaker 2: He was looking for James Bond girls.

Speaker 3: How fun would that be to be a Bond girl?

Speaker 1: Then twist them into a nightmare.

Speaker 4: This guy has done this before. He’ll do it again.

Speaker 1: Until a group of women banded together to put him behind bars and keep him there.

Speaker 5: You have to participate fiercely, fiercely in what happens next.

Keith: I’m Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills– an all new podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 1: Listen to Murder in the Hollywood Hills for free each week, or subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com to unlock new episodes one week early.

 

Adam: All right, pack your body bags. We’re going on a slaycation. Jerry, you had a good tag line also.

Jerry: Vacations can be murder or were thinking of getting away can be murder?

Adam: Getting away can be murder.  Yeah. That’s pretty good.

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: Okay,

Jerry: I appreciate that. Thank you for including me.

Adam: Of course.

Music: [00:1:01-13]

Anyway, here we are. I am Adam Tex Davis, your co-host, and I’m joined by

Kim: Kim Davis and

Jerry: Jerry Colbert. Hello.

Adam: It’s so nice. I get to do a show with my two wives. I’ve got my work wife and my home wife. Kim and I, we’ve been married for how long, honey?

Kim: It’ll be 23-years in August.

Adam: Excellent. And Jerry, how long have we been married?

Kim: Even longer.

Jerry: Well, we’ve known each other longer, but we’ve had our business together for, I think, 13-years.

Adam: Yeah. We’d go way back to college.

Jerry: We go way back. Yeah.

Adam: I’m a writer, producer, director, obviously long-time friend and creative collaborator with Jerry here. Jerry’s had a very unique and awesome connection to the true crime genre. Maybe you want to talk about a really cool show you worked for?

Jerry: Oh, well, it’s true. I did work for Homicide Hunter. A bunch of years ago, I helped reinvent the show for Discovery ID.  It was great. Joe Ken was a really, really cool guy to work with. And Kim, are you familiar with the Show?

Kim: I am very familiar with the Show, but I got to tell you, the guy that they got to play, the Young Kenda, Chef’s Kiss

Jerry: You love him?

Kim: He’s beautiful.

Jerry: Yeah.

Kim: That is a beautifully well put together guy.

Jerry: Yeah. I think Joe Kenda was very happy that’s who they hired to play with as a young man.

Kim:  I would be too if I were him.

Adam:  He got the true crime upgrade for sure.

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: So obviously Kim, my wife, is a crime show, what? Fanatic, dependent? What do we select?

Kim: Let’s say enthusiast.

Jerry: She’s just watching for the hot guys in the regrease.

Adam: Right.  I didn’t even know that.

Jerry: Now, you know,

Adam: Discovery ID is playing constantly at our house. I’ve probably gone to sleep to murder more times than not to murder. I’ve always been fascinated by serial killers and my favorite movies, I love Man Bites Dog, which was like a 1992 fake documentary, Belgian movie that’s super sick.

Jerry:  That’s a really intense movie.

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry: Gosh.

Adam: And then, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer was a very…

Jerry: Another light movie for the kids.

Kim: I saw that.

Adam: You did see that, right?

Kim:  I did.

Adam: See, that’s the thing. In college, I took like three or four girls to go see Henry Portrait of a serial killer to find the one that wouldn’t like run out of the theatre. And it was Kim all along

Kim: It was me

Jerry: If only you’d known.

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry:  Some people meet like a nice date and you meet at serial killer movies.

Adam: Yeah. I mean, but it is funny because the first time I went to Kim’s house, she had a bookshelf like just filled with paperback books on all kinds of serial killers. It was like the crime section of the library. And there were people cases I’d never heard of, like entire collection of Ann Rule books.

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: And I was just like, wait, they made Hunting Humans– volume two and three. I knew there was of one.

Jerry: Did you ask her why she has a shelf of all these serial killer books?

Adam: No, I was waiting for this show. Hey Kim why did you have shelf after shelf of serial killer books?

Kim: I’m curious that you didn’t run. I’ve always been interested in true crime, trying to see if I could garner any understanding of the psyche that goes into a person that’s like, I’m just going to kill a lot of people in the most egregious way possible. I can’t say that I’ve come to any understanding, but the quest continues.

Jerry: Are you seeking to understand that because you’re just fascinated or because you think it’ll somehow protect you from being a victim?

Kim: Well, I think it’s a little bit of both. I have to say that very fortunately, knock wood, I’ve never had any scary incidences. I mean, I’ve had cars come beside me and try to talk to me to get in.

Jerry: That was Adam

Kim: That’s right.

Adam: That was me. Alright so we got Jerry, who’s worked on murder shows. We’ve got Kim, who’s the true crime nut. I’m good at coming up with titles for crime shows. So, I’m pretty sure the case that we’re going to talk about today is sort of the impetus for this podcast- someone killing their spouse on a vacation and trying to make it look like an accident. I just thought, oh! It looks like they booked the slaycation. From there, it just sort of percolated and we started researching. We found hundreds of cases. And so now we have a show idea. Before we get into the case today, let’s lay out some basic rules for a slaycation. Just sort of set the baseline of what you can expect to hear on this show.

So, the classifications, types of slaycations. Two people go on a vacation together. One of them murders the other. In fact, it was premeditated and the whole point of the vacation was to murder the other person. So that’s the quintessential meat and potatoes. That’s your grandfather’s slaycation. The whole thing is just a ruse to kill one another.

Jerry: Totally premeditated. The vacation has literally been planned with the point of killing the other person.

Adam: And I was thinking like that goes back to the Old Testament when Cain took Abel for a little hike in the field and then smashed his head in with a rock.

Jerry: Oh. And if they’d been on vacation, that would be a slaycation.

Adam: It was a hiking trip.

Jerry: Oh! So, vacation

Adam: So, it really was the first slaycation and he would’ve got away with it if God didn’t see it. Okay. So that’s one. And then 1A, is two people go on vacation and one murders the other. Maybe by accident or in a rage, you know shit happens on vacation.

Kim: Or opportunity. Maybe it’s something they’ve been rolling around in the season.

Adam: They didn’t go to vacation to do it.

Kim: Right. But they’re like, you know, this might be a good place.

Jerry: Like a Carpe Diem murder.

Adam: Oh Yeah. Seize the slay. Of course.

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: That’s pretty good. And then we were like, you know what, let’s expand it a little bit from there. Number two is like, you go on a vacation and you just get murdered.

Kim: It just happens.

Adam: Yeah. And that’s the old… if you fly to the vacation in the plane and then you come home in the bottom of the plane, maybe it’s the slaycation.

Kim: Maybe that’s a slaycation.

Jerry: Maybe you book this location; maybe you would join this location.

Adam: And then number three is you go on a vacation and you murder someone else.

Jerry: Unintentionally, like an accident or you get upset. You do the murder. Like what?

Adam: I was thinking more like, there’s some annoying local who’s hitting on your wife and you just take care of, or maybe it’s like some couple’s been flashing money around and then you’re just like did anyone notice us walk out with them and can I get them to come down this alley or something?

Jerry: So slaycation of circumstance.

Adam: Yeah. Kind of.

Jerry: You know, taking advantage of a situation.

Adam: Right. We were in the Poconos one time. There was a really annoying guy, and I think if we would’ve killed him. I think everyone there would’ve been a suspect, like when they found him dead drowned in his–

Jerry: He was that annoying?

Adam: –Champagne tub? Yeah. Oh, he was super annoying. Or like that episode of The Sopranos, where he’s like doing the college tour with Meadow and then he sees a guy he is got to kill, where it’s like you’re out to do something else and then you decide to kill somebody. Okay. So those are our categories.  One other quick format thing about the show. So, Kim and Jerry know all the details about the cases they’ve done the research. I only know the headline and sometimes not even that. So, I’ll be hearing most of this for the first time. Just like the people listening. This way I can be like a proxy and ask the same general questions you would if you were here alright. So where does this episode’s slaycation take place?

Kim: This slaycation episode takes us to the Colorado Rocky Mountains. This case I’ve actually heard of before. I’ve seen it on Discovery ID, my favorite channel. It’s a married couple. Tony and Harold Henthorn

Adam: Tony is the girl?

Kim: Yes.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: Yes. And she’s a doctor. She’s an eye surgeon. She had met her future husband Harold, on a Christian dating website. This would be her second marriage. From what I understand, she was really looking to meet and connect and start a family. It was something that was very important to her. Her first marriage hadn’t worked out, and as typical with women, they start to become very concerned about their biological clock. And time was of the essence. So, she was wanting to meet a Christian man, and she meets Harold, who is also on the site seeking a Christian woman. They meet-I think it was New Year’s, 1999, which was incidentally when you and I became engaged.

Adam: Oh, could have been you.

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: It could have been you.

Kim: So, they end up really connecting and become engaged at the end of that weekend.

Jerry: Oh! So, they meet and get engaged in one weekend?

Kim: Pretty much because clearly, they both want to be married to be together. They end up; I think it was September 30th, 2000. They got married. Her family was very impressed with him. He had explained that he was a businessman and they were very impressed with the work that he did, which at the end didn’t seem to pan out. I think he had said that he did work raising money for churches and hospitals.

Jerry: Okay and was that a real thing?

Kim: No. Turns out it really wasn’t.

Jerry: Okay.

Kim: So yes, they got married and had a beautiful church wedding. Her father gave her away. Her brothers were there. She’s the only girl in a family of three. So, this was obviously a very exciting time for her and her family and an opportunity to get it right this time.

Adam: How old was she at the time, do you know?

Kim:  Kissing 40, 38.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: That’s about the time when women who are looking to have a family and babies start freaking out. So, they got married. And at first as always, it was nice and they enjoyed each other. But then slowly but surely, family and friends started noticing a change in her.

Adam: In her?

Kim: Yes.

Adam: Okay.

Kim:  I mean, she suddenly went from wearing her beautiful red lipstick, wearing her pants-suits, her suits, having a very polished professional look to no more red lipstick, to no more suits, but now scrubs.

Adam: Oh, so she got like dowdier?

Kim: Yes. So, she was changing and family was starting to notice that she was being isolated. They noticed also that when they would call that they were unable to have private conversations with her. He would always be around. And then he did something that I thought was really weird. He had it so that when she would get a phone call, it would ring his phone too.

Adam: Oh, you can do that?

Kim: Yeah. You would die of absolute boredom if you did that with my phone. Like if the phone rang and it was for me, you would be like, how do I make this stop?

Adam: Yeah. Well, I want to make it stop even when it’s not ringing my phone when it’s just your phone. So, he would listen in on all her calls?

Kim: Yeah. I mean, he would be a part of her calls. She could not have a private conversation with any of her friends, with any of her family.

Jerry: Super weird. And nobody pulled her aside and said, “What’s going with you?”

Kim: Well, the thing was that it seemed that he was so on top of her that it was difficult for anybody to have a private conversation. The other thing that happened shortly after they got married was they were living in Mississippi, which was where she’s from, where all her family was from. And he was like, let’s move to Colorado.

Jerry: That’s strange. For a job or just…?

Kim: No, it was like, sell your practice because she had a practice and let’s move to Colorado’s

Jerry: I mean Colorado’s kind of an upgrade on Mississippi.

Kim: Well, yes.

Jerry:  unless your family’s not there.

Kim:  Right, exactly. That’s the thing too.

Adam: Sorry. I’m going to try to imagine having people I love and care about. Okay. Go ahead

Kim: Do you need a minute?

Adam: Yeah, yeah. I just booked tickets to Colorado. Imagine how that would feel. Okay All right got it.

Jerry: I’m already really nervous for already like isolation, domination, just all the bad, bad controlling behavior that.

Kim:  Right. I mean, textbook.

Jerry: Yeah.

Kim: Having worked in a DV shelter, I could tell you that these are the things that you tickle off when discussing signs. He was incredibly controlling. And within no time, he had complete control over the way she presented herself physically. He had control over her finances. She had no control over her finances. And the interesting thing too was, she was the breadwinner.

Adam:  But he didn’t have a job? Well, he was pretend raising money for Hospitals.

Kim: That’s exactly right.

Adam: My head was like, they both had jobs and were both making money.

Kim: She was making all the money.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: And also, I suspect that when they moved to Colorado and she had sold her practice, there was money.

Adam: Hmm. Right.

Kim: She had come from a wealthy family and she would get money through the family business.

Jerry: Mm-hmm.

Kim: And the interesting thing about that is he would collect those cheques and he would deposit it in the bank

Adam: In his account?

Kim: Probably.

Adam: Huh?

Kim: At this time too, she did not have her own bank account.

Jerry: Her family must have been freaking out about all this.

Kim: They were really freaking out.

Jerry: Because she’s not only, they’re seeing these signs of control, but now she’s leaving the place where she grew up, leaving everyone she’s close to; they must have been super worried.

Kim: Right? No, absolutely.

Adam: All right. So, let’s get to the part where she kills him.

Kim: She doesn’t.

Adam:  Oh, no. Oh no,

Jerry: I’m kidding…

Kim: But there is some indication that at a certain point, she started to make moves which was get her own bank account. And it was suspected that may have made him

Jerry: Triggered?

Kim: Right.

Jerry: Okay.

Kim: Because then he is realizing like, oh, she may try to leave.

Jerry: So, he’s really writing this whole situation for the money?

Kim: Absolutely.

Adam: I mean, look, you’re a grift there. You meet an eye surgeon, eye doctor.

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: Who’s also from a wealthy family.

Jerry: Wealthy family.

Adam: Right?

Jerry: Yep. So that’s your meal ticket, basically?

Kim: Right. And the thing is one would say, well, you’re better off with her being here. But I think what sort of had this thing spring into action was the fact that she started with little steps to regain some of her independence. And he probably read that as a, oh maybe she’s going to try to leave. But before that, she tries to stick it out. One of the fundamental teachings of Christianity is that your husband is “The man and you are subservient.” And it was pretty clear that she wanted to have a marriage in her belief system that she is subservient to her husband.

Adam: I’m fighting my tongue’s heart. Can we just talk about this for a second? Is that still a tenant of a Christian marriage? Is that the wife is subservient?

Kim: Honestly, I will say the one thing that I’ve come to understand about Christianity, it’s whatever you want it to be.

Adam: Come sign me up.

Kim: You know. Everybody has a different idea of what Christianity is. And if you’re going to take the literal word of the Bible, yes. There is the tenant that “the woman is subservient to her husband, that he is the head of the household and makes all the final decisions.”

Jerry: That seems like such a dangerous position for a woman who is truly committed to Christian faith to then end up with somebody who’s kind of pretending.

Kim: Right. And that’s exactly what happened.

Adam: I mean, in the wedding vows, right? They, they took out the word obey, but it used to be in there, right?

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: Oh yeah. It used to say love, honor, and obey.

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: That’s right.

Adam: So, okay, so he’s getting nervous. His meal ticket might be getting ready to fly the coop.

Kim: Here’s the thing. By the time that he had allegedly murdered her, they had already been married for 12-years, and during that time they had moved from Mississippi to Colorado. They had a child together.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: She was doing her best to make it work. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t going to work.

Jerry: So, being that this is slaycation, what was the vacation and what happened?

Kim: Well, it was their 12th anniversary. And Harold had arranged with one of the administrators of her office to clear her schedule for the weekend of their wedding anniversary, and he was going to take her away. So, on September 29th, 2012, Tony and Harold were enjoying a getaway in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park to celebrate their 12th wedding anniversary. And it was a surprise. It wasn’t something that they sat together and planned. He just showed up at her job and said, guess what? I’m taking you away on this vacation. This is another red flag. He packed her stuff for her and they just left.

Adam: Right from her job?

Kim: Just right from her job. And they went to, I think it was the Stanley hotel where they were going to spend

Adam:  I was going to say, isn’t that the Shining Hotel?

Kim: It is.

Jerry: Yes. That’s the Shining hotel.

Adam: It is.

Jerry: Which is there in Colorado.

Kim: Right.

Jerry: Well that’s also a red flag.

Kim: Exactly.

Adam:  Can I have the Red Rum room? Is that available or the one with the old lady in the bathtub.

Jerry: Can we use the elevator that’s filled with blood, please?

Kim: Exactly, exactly.

Adam: Wow!

Jerry: Holy Molly Stanley.  Wow! It’s a nice hotel, but it’s definitely, The Shining.

Kim: Right. So that’s where they were going to be spending their time together and they were going to just walk the trails and just enjoy one another. At least that was the way he presented it.

Adam:  So, did he abandon her in the hedge maids during a blizzard? Is that what happened?

Kim: That might’ve been the kinder option.

Adam:  Ooh. Okay.

 

Commercials

What up world? This is Gold Mines with me, Kevin Hart, guys. And on Gold Mines, we get inside the minds of amazing artists, journalists, entrepreneurs, and multihyphenate. Every week, guys, we get the stories, the authentic conversations, the gyms that guided our guests through their path to success. Listen to Gold Minds every week on Sirius XM, Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast.

Commercials:

Speaker 1: He would lie his way into their dreams.

Speaker 2: He was looking for James Bond girls.

Speaker 3: How fun would that be to be a Bond girl?

Speaker 1: Then twist them into a nightmare.

Speaker 4: This guy has done this before. He’ll do it again.

Speaker 1: Until a group of women banded together to put him behind bars and keep him there.

Speaker 5: You have to participate fiercely, fiercely in what happens next.

Keith: I’m Keith Morrison, and this is Murder in the Hollywood Hills– an all new podcast from Dateline.

Speaker 1: Listen to Murder in the Hollywood Hills for free each week, or subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com to unlock new episodes one week early.

Adam: So, what happens? Where are we going?

Kim: So, in a nutshell, on this particular day, they were doing a hike and she falls about 140 feet.

Jerry: Oh, not like a trip, like she fall-fall.

Kim:  She falls.

Jerry: Okay.

Kim:  She falls…

Adam: off a cliff.

Kim: Right.

Jerry: Okay.

Kim: And it’s bad that when her father gets the news from her brother, the first words out of his mouth are “He shoved her.”

Jerry: Oh! Okay. Because it’s been years and years they’ve seen this controlling behavior.

Kim: Right.

Jerry: Just to go back to what happened. So, she falls, but is actually, turns out he pushed her over this cliff.

Kim:  See, here’s the thing, nobody was there, but the two of them. He claims his innocence till this day.

Adam: So, he comes running back and says, oh my God, she fell.

Kim: So, what he ends up doing is he ends up hiking down to where she is and calls 911. And I had actually listened to the recording of that conversation. It was strange on so many…

Adam:  Perhaps we could even play it.

Jerry: Why don’t we listen to that recording?

Kim: Yes.

Adam:  Actually, we have it right here.

 

Recording of the conversation between Harold Henthorn and the 911 Agent

Harold: Hello, my name is Harold Henthorn. I’m in the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Agent: Okay.

Harold: I’m need an Alpine Mountain rescue team immediately.

Agent: Okay. What is your exact location?

Harold: My exact location is Deer Mountain North from it.

Agent: Okay.

Harold: About one mile, about one mile south of the Visitor Centre.

Agent: Okay. I’m going to transfer you to the park. So, hang on the line. You’re going to hear some clicking. And right now, I’m calling up your line, your long.

Harold: Okay.

Agent: On my phone here, let me try it one more time before I transfer you because I don’t have this technology.

Harold: Can I get sure, you know where I am [inaudible 00:22:32]?

Agent: Yes. I have one moment.

Harold: Okay.

Agent: Hang on.

Harold: Let tell you right where I am.

Agent: And I’ll introduce who we are when they pick up the phone.

Kelly: [Inaudible 00:22:46]. I’m sorry. What’s your emergency? This is Esther and we have a gentleman on Deer Mountain. Go ahead sir.

Harold: Thank you. My wife has fallen from a rock on the North Summit of Deer Mountain–

Adam: I was behind her pushing her.

— on a Deer Mountain Trail, and she’s in really critical condition. She’s at a bad fall.

Kelly: How far did she fall, sir?

Harold: 30, 40 feet. 30 feet.

Kelly: You think 30, 40 feet?

Harold: I think 30 feet.

Kelly:  Thirty feet. Are you within county?

Harold:  I am. Let me be sure that you know my location first when the cell…have really bad cell coverage.

Kelly: Okay.

Harold:  I’m in Deer Mountain, near the summit. Not the normal, regular northern summit on the Southern outcrops.

Kelly: And tell me some things about the patient.

Harold: She is a white female, 50-years-old, great health. She has respiration approximately five to eight beats a minute. Her pulse is about between 16 and 80 beat a minute.

Kelly: Okay. What’s her main injury?

Harold: Head injury.

Kelly: Head injury.

Harold: Concussion.

Kelly: Okay. Any other injuries?

Harold: It’d be internal. I don’…

Kelly: Is she conscious of breathing?

Harold: No, she’s not. She has not been conscious. She is breathing between five and eight beats a minute now.

Kelly: Okay. Hold on just a second.

Harold: Okay. Here’s the thing. I’ll pay any and all expenses for a helicopter. I don’t care it’s private. I don’t care it’s commercial. It wouldn’t matter if it’s [inaudible 00:24:14]. I’ll pay any and all expenses right now.

Kelly: Okay.

Harold: Have you drop a paramedic down here.

Kelly: I understand that, sir. It’s really on the safety of everybody involved. So that would really be up to the ranger in charge.

Harold: Weather is good. There’s no wind whatsoever right now. Weather is excellent. [Inaudible 00:24:31] is at least five to 8-miles.  I’m not a paramedic, but I’m [inaudible 00:24:38]. You could safely drop a paramedic from a 10-foot rope. You can easily do that.

Kelly: I understand that, sir. But they definitely need to probably get someone on scene. They do have hasty teams and those are the teams that are going to run up there.

Harold: Okay.

Kelly:  If that’s possible and get to your location. They’re asking you to put as many bright items out as possible to see. If they can’t see you, they can blast you.

Harold: Okay. Let me see if I hear something. Okay.

Kelly: Are you back with your wife now?

Harold: I’m right here. Yeah, I’m back with her.

Kelly: Okay. How is she doing?

Harold: Her respiration’s weaker.

Kelly: Her respiration is weaker?

Harold: Yeah, 5-beat a minute.

Kelly: Five beat a minute?

Harold: Yeah.

Kelly: Okay. Do you know how to perform CPR?

Harold: I do.

Kelly: Okay. And more about this fall, sir. Was it like a sliding fall or did she fall, you know, directly?

Harold:  I didn’t see the how exactly.  I was messing with one camera; she was messing with the other one.

Kelly: But you didn’t see her fall?

Harold: I didn’t actually see her. I saw the motion, but I…

Kelly: Okay. So am going to hang up with you. If you want to leave your phone off that makes you feel better.

Harold: Yeah.

Kelly: Definitely do that. You can call us if anything changes with her.

Harold: I’ll call you exactly at exactly 6:30.

Kelly: At exactly 6:30?

Harold: Yeah. I’ll call you exactly 6:30.

Kelly: Okay. And like I said, you can always call 911 and I’ll transfer it over.

Harold: Okay. Thanks so much. Thanks Kelly.

Kelly: Thank you.

Harold: Bye.

Kelly: Bye

 

Jerry: He says something really interesting in that call early on when he says we’re not on the normal summit, we’re on the Southern Summit.

Adam: Mm-Hmm.

Jerry: That is actually a really important point. They had the Rangers testify. The Ranger actually said where he was so obscure and strange.

Kim: And remote.

Jerry: And remote. Even for the Rangers, it was a strange spot. Ranger Paul Larson testified that there was no trail whatsoever leading to the spot. It’s an obscure area. And when they asked him to describe what the spot is, he said it’s a cliff.

Adam: Maybe they just wanted to have some kinky cliff sex or something and found a really remote spot.

Kim: Well he did say that he was looking to make a romance.

Adam: What is that? I’ve never heard my wife say those words.

Jerry: You know air quote romance.

Adam: Did you just join the Christian Dating Centre?

Jerry: I’ve listened to this call earlier when we were doing our research. What’d you think of that call?

Adam: So first of all, it sounds like he’s trying to make it seem like a less of a fall because you said like it was like 140 feet or…

Jerry: It’s actually exactly 128 feet when they measured it.

Adam:  Right. So, he said 30 or 40 feet. And then he was trying to say she has a concussion. He suddenly is an expert on all things- landing helicopters and wind speed and beats per minute and you can drop a rope.

Jerry: It seems like everything he’s saying is designed to make it so that he can say there was every opportunity to save her.

Adam: Right. I tried.

Jerry: And they tried, we tried. They didn’t do what they should have done.

Kim: He was doing a lot of talking. The coroner had noted that she had suffered a serious laceration, like almost scalped and she bled out.

Jerry: Uh-huh.

Kim: Like all that talking he was doing. She was bleeding out.

Jerry: The police also made the point that this is almost a 4-minute call and he says he knows how to do CPR and his wife is there with her respiration lowering. He’s not doing CPR this whole time. He’s on a call.

Adam: He’s talking about it.

Jerry: Right. So, if you know CPR and you see someone needs CPR, you say, I have to go do CPR. You don’t tell them about wind conditions and visibility.

Adam: Right.

Jerry: It’s very suspicious.

Adam:  No, That’s true. I mean, look, I assume they are mobilizing while he’s still on the call, but

Jerry: He’s asking for a paramedic [crosstalk 00:28:08].

Adam: Yeah. But also, if she says, do you know CPR? The next thing I would say is like, okay, should I be doing CPR right now?

Jerry: But if you know CPR and you have someone there who is not breathing, I mean, I’ve not taken CPR class, but I’m assuming there’s some instruction as to like how to assess whether or not you should be giving him CPR, not wait for someone on the phone to say, oh, by the way.

Adam: I did know somebody that took a CPR class and then they wanted to do CPR for everything, at all times.

Jerry: I’m sure they’re like what kind of sandwich should I order? I don’t know. Let me do CPR

Adam: It’s like, I need the [inaudible 00:28:40]; not CPR. What are you doing?

Jerry: The floor is dirty. Let me do CPR.

Adam: Yeah, exactly.

Kim: Exactly.

Jerry: So, one of the interesting details that the investigators pointed out at the trial was he said that, Tony had gone off the cliff while she was taking a photograph and that they both were there that he’d scouted this location because it was a great location to take photos. And they both had brought cameras. And so, when they asked him later, “Oh, you told the 911 operator that you didn’t see her fall?” Because he remembers he says, I didn’t see the actual fall. They said, “Well, what were you doing?” And he said, “Oh, well she was taking pictures and I was messing around with my camera, so I wasn’t looking.” Then when they get down to her body, the first thing the Ranger notices is that her camera is like literally next to her hand just sitting there. And they’re like; wouldn’t the camera be like totally broken and like 20 feet away from this fall? It looked like someone had put the camera next to her

Adam: He sticks a selfie stick in her head [crosstalk 00:29:38].

Jerry: Yeah. So, it was like super suspicious camera replacement for someone who had just fallen off a cliff.

Adam: Right. Did they check to see if there were pictures on it? I guess the phone was smashed or whatever, but actually was it in the cloud or was that pre-cloud?

Kim: It was pre-cloud. Yes.

Adam: Pre-cloud.

Kim: I think….

Adam: Was it 2012?

Kim:  I don’t know. I mean things change like —

Jerry: Early cloud.

Kim: — lightning speed.

Jerry: And well then Kim, just talking about this case is interesting because like there’s a lot of a parallel for you, right? Because–

Kim: Yes.

Jerry: — they got married right around when you and Adam did. Their kid is around the age of [inaudible 00:30:11]. Do you see yourself, like sort of thinking of yourself in this woman’s life?

Kim: Yeah, absolutely. When they first met was when Adam and I became engaged.

Adam: Yeah.

Kim: And we got married about a month before they did. We had our daughter; I think she’s a year older. So, a lot of the things now dropping off at college, going for parent’s weekend, it really struck me how Tony is missing out on all that. And it kind of made me really sad in a sense that she’s been deprived of that. And interestingly enough, I don’t think Harold really gives a shit. I don’t think he was thinking about any of that.

Jerry:  I wonder if that’s like, one of the reasons people get really obsessed with true crime is not because you’re so obsessed with the terrible things that happen to people, but in a way it’s like you see yourself, if you’re listening to a show like this or another true crime show and you hear these stories and you identify in some way, you see parts of your own life and the victim and it’s actually about gratitude.

Adam: You appreciate what you have.

Jerry: Your appreciation. Yeah.

Kim: Because I think in every situation you can find at least one parallel where you’re like, oh my God.

Jerry: I went to an eye doctor once, so I totally related to this story.

Kim: Right.

Jerry: But I think…

Kim: I was a Christian once, I can.

Jerry: Funny because it’s true.

Kim: It’s interesting too because I don’t want to say very much into my religion because as much as I was in my religion, Adam was not.

Jerry: Right. Well, you didn’t have that. Adam wasn’t playing the, my subservient wife card. My observation of it, at least I could be wrong. But it seemed like you were very dedicated to being part of the church and–

Kim: Oh! Absolutely

Jerry: –teaching there

Kim: Absolutely. I really enjoyed that. It was a real sense of purpose for me. For me, it really was just the core message of Christ’s teachings. Be kind and treat everyone with love and kindness and…

Adam: Turns out you don’t need religion to believe those things.

Kim: It is true.

Jerry: That is just saying that…

Kim: That is unfortunately the truth, especially when you see everybody doing the opposite.

Adam: And I need to take my dating profile off the atheist dating app.

Kim: It’s interesting because now if somebody is openly identifying…like I think being on a Christian website is a red flag. That’s a red flag for me now. I’m like, oh, you met him on a Christian website.

Adam: Yeah, but they’re both…

Kim: No, I know. Antonio was my girl, right?

Adam: Uh-huh.

Kim: And she told me, I’d be like, oh, that’s so nice. Girl, where’d you meet him? She’ll be like I met him on this website, Christian Match. I’d be like, Christian match. Yeah. I’d be like…

Adam: That’s one thing when she calls you three days later and says we’re getting married.

Jerry: That’s red flag.

Adam: I think that where you save her. She needed to be saved.

Jerry: I mean, look, I think there’s good people on Christian dating sites and…

Adam: She could say on both sides.

Jerry: Could be, oh boy.

Kim: Yes.

Jerry: And the show has been cancelled. I think that there’s good people, Christian sites, non-Christian sites, whatever like you can find bad actors in and out of the church. But there is something about when people use religion to justify their bad actions. That just feels really bad.

Adam:  It also feels like if he’s trolling for basically a victim, he goes on that site, he knows he’s going to find someone pure, feels like more of a place where you would find someone that you could con.

Jerry: Yeah.

Kim: That’s malleable and can be manipulated.

Jerry: And especially like the fact that she’s a good person.

Adam:  A good person who cares.

Jerry: She’s older and clearly like looking, have a second chance to do things right.

Adam: And because he was on there, she’s going to think, well at the end of the day he’s still a good person because he’s part of that, I don’t know, it gives him a little sheen, you know, hat halo effect.

Kim: I’m here to tell you.

Jerry: So, sounds like you’re agreeing with Kim saying that the Christian dating site is a red flag?

Adam: No, I don’t even think it’s a red flag as much as like, it’s a great place to find a victim.

Jerry: Ah. That’s so sad.

Adam: It is.

Jerry: That’s really sad.

Adam: But that’s what people do. They use people’s religion against them.

Jerry: There is a few other pieces of information here that are interesting. I think Kim, you and I talked about some of these; I’ll mention one of them. So, this occurred in 2012.

Kim: 2012. Yes.

Jerry: So, in 2011.

Kim: Yes. I know exactly where you’re going with this.

Jerry: So, in 2011, there was a suspicious and odd incident where Harold was at the mountain cabin with his wife.

Adam: When you say the mountain cabin?

Jerry: They had a mountain cabin.

Adam: Okay.

Jerry: In Colorado, they had like a little getaway.

Adam:  Oh.

Jerry: Hey, when you’re an eye doctor, it comes from money.

Kim: Right.

Adam: Right.

Kim: And it was remote,

Jerry: Very remote location. And she was out on the deck and he was doing some repair work and accidentally dropped a giant beam on his wife’s head.

Adam: Oh, okay

Jerry: I will also mention that he has a…

Kim: Don’t get any ideas

Jerry: No mountain cabins for you guys and I don’t Know CPR. So, I’ll mention that he has a giant life insurance policy on her. Kim, do you remember how much it was? Like, wasn’t it like…?

Kim: Yeah, 4.5, I believe.

Jerry: I think there’s a rule I apply with life insurance is “Never take out a life insurance policy where you’re worth more dead than alive.”

Adam: Yes.

Jerry: I think that’s a general rule of thumb.

Adam: When did he get the policy?

Jerry: Do you know Kim when he got the policy?

Kim: He was always about having…

Adam: Her insured?

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: Well he also, to be fair, he did have a life insurance policy on his other wife Lynn.

Kim: Yes.

Jerry: Who died also in an accident?

Kim: Under mysterious circumstances.

Adam:  Okay. So, wait, let’s just close the chapter on the immediate aftermath of the fall. So, she falls off the cliff?

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: He goes down, he’s with her, he does the call. What happens? A ranger comes, a helicopter comes. I heard there was no wind. What Happens?

Kim: Well, essentially what happened was she was pretty much pronounced dead on the scene, very unfortunately. And the Ranger was immediately suspicious.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: He pretty much immediately had her cremated and…

Adam: The Ranger?  That’s weird.

Jerry: That’s what they do now in National Parks. Save gas money.

Kim: Not the Ranger.

Adam: Okay.

Kim: Okay.

Adam: Her husband.

Kim: Her husband and they had a memorial that he put together and very peculiarly presented it to somebody. And I think it was in a drive where all the pictures and the music, he had already had it all together and just said here, “This is what we’re using.”

Adam: Oh.

Kim: Yeah. That was an interesting little titbit.

Jerry: And he emailed his sister-in-Law from the earlier marriage. When his first wife passed away, he emailed her and said, “My bride is gone.” And that woman kept in touch with him. And when this second wife dies in mysterious circumstances, she receives an email from him that says my bride is gone. Basically, he has a template for what to do when his wives mysteriously died.

Adam: Okay. So, he kind of gets away with it in the sense that no one is accusing him of a crime. So, they have the funeral, alarm bells are ringing, especially with her family. The Ranger’s a little suspicious, but he collects the insurance.

 

Jerry: Yes. I believe some portion of the insurance. And like obviously he’s suspect number one, especially once they find out that his first wife also died.

Adam: Okay. He was married before?

Jerry: He was married before. His first wife died when they had a car breakdown by the side of the road and he was helping this first wife fix it. Her name was Lynn.

Adam: Okay.

Jerry: And he’s told conflicting stories as to whether it was him or Lynn who dropped a lug nut from the tyre they were changing under the Jeep Cherokee, I believe it was. He asked her to retrieve the lug nut from underneath the car, at which point the jack failed and the car crushed her and killed her.

Kim:  And this was in…

Adam:   Man, this guy has bad luck.

 

Commercials

Lale: Hi, I’m Lale Arikoglu, host of Women Who Travel. Women Who Travel is a transported podcast that anyone curious about the world. We talk to adventurers and athletes.

Speaker 6: I’ve raced the Gods Zone adventure race, which is on the South Island and goes through the mountains down in the Southern Alps on New Zealand. That was 8-days spent out in the wilderness.

Lale: And chefs.

Speaker 7:  Iranian food is home, its family, its love.

Lale: And we share dispatches from our listeners.

Speaker 8: Ireland is full of these, I will call them ghosts of the past.

Lale: From stampeding elephants to training sled dogs. We hear it all.

Speaker 9: The dogs will curl right up with you and it can be kind of cozzie waiting things out.

Lale: New episodes of Women Who Travel, publish every Thursday. Join us wherever you listen.

 

Commercials

Hey, this is Kim. You know me. I love a good True Crime podcast. Well, I’m not the only one who’s excited for the burden. A new true crime series from Orbit Media, the folks who brought you the number one hit, Empire on Blood. Anyway, the burden tells the story of Detective Louis Scarcella once celebrated for solving the toughest cases in New York City in the 1990s. But things took a turn when a group of convicted murderers all claiming to be innocent, became jailhouse lawyers and began investigating the investigator.

Turns out they uncovered all kinds of issues with Detective Scarcella involvement in dozens of cases, which led to the release of over 20 people he helped convict, not only that, but the government had to pay out a record breaking 150 million in wrongful conviction settlements with more to come. The question is, can these potentially wrongly convicted murderers get themselves released too? You’ll have to listen to find out The Burden, which includes first time interviews with Detective Scarcella himself, is out now with new episodes every Tuesday on Apple Podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kim: It’s in 1995; her name was Sandra Lynn Anthon

Adam: But it was “accident.”

Jerry:  It was an accident. He collected the life insurance.

Adam: Oh my God.

Jerry: He kept in touch with the woman that her brother had married, this lady, Grace Rochelle, and…

Kim: Who he was close to.

Jerry: He was very close to. It was so close to her.

Adam: Oh-oh.

Jerry: That he would vacation and visit with her. And at one point said to her you should have life insurance for your daughters if something happens to you.

Kim: Didn’t he encourage her to leave her husband?

 

Jerry: There’s some talk of that as well. There’s thought that he was romantically interested in her. So, he gets this woman, Grace to take out a life insurance policy of a quarter of a million dollars. So around 2010, she told the insurers that she didn’t want the policy anymore. She didn’t see a need for it. She thought it was a waste of money,

Adam: A policy on herself?

Jerry:  A life insurance on herself to benefit her daughters is what this guy had said.

Adam: Oh, but it turns out he is…

Jerry:  It turns out the FBI discovered that he was the beneficiary and it was actually a half a million-dollar policy. And he had gone to visit with her and took her on a boat. And he’d taken her on this boat. He’s like, I want to go look at all these cool, like secluded coves. So, she considers herself incredibly lucky. She now realizes she was going to be the third victim. He was grooming her. He had been forging her signatures on these policies that she didn’t want anymore. And he was planning to then after this one, go and kill Grace. The guy is like…

Adam: The king of slaycation.

Jerry:  He’s the king of slaycation

Adam: He really is the slaycation master. Wow!

Jerry: And he sends her from the boating trip, right. This trip where he took Grace Rochelle on the tour of all the weird coasts on the boat, very early, at a weird hour of the morning on September 29th, 2012, he sends her photographs from the boating trip. The next day is when he kills his wife.

Adam: He could have say that. [crosstalk 00:43:30]. Yeah.

Jerry: It’s the next day. He’s trying to basically set up this romance with this woman that he’s going to be consoled by her and in the consolation process, he’s going to become her romantic partner and then he’s going to kill her.

Adam: And she’s still married?

Kim: No.

Adam: She’s divorced?

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: Okay.

Adam: Now how long after the death of Lynn was this Grace stuff going on? Or was this all concurrent?

Jerry: He started laying the groundwork immediately after. He kept in touch with her…

Adam: Immediately after the accident.

Jerry: The accident with the Jeep from the first wife. So, she’s definitely was divorced and he was just laying the groundwork for her to be the third.

Adam: Okay. So, to recap, the King of slaycation married to one woman, accident car crushes first wife. Then he gets remarried, allegedly pushes wife off cliff; collects that money and already has his eye on the sister-in-law…

Jerry: Number three.

Adam: That he’s probably tried already–

Jerry: Yeah.

Kim: –in some fashion.

Jerry: Tried or at least scouted. So, he’s going to use the opportunity of the second wife dying to probably start hanging out with Grace more. And he’s already got the insurance policy on her. She thought she cancelled it. It turns out he’s been forging her signature. So, he is got the third one lined up already.

Adam:  How do they catch this evil genius?

Jerry: They first look at his cell phone records. And they find out that he has been to this weird remote spot where…

Kim:  several Times

Jerry: …where the wife “fell”- where he pushed her.

Kim: One Of the things that was found shortly after…

Jerry: Wait, let’s get to that.

Kim: Okay.

Jerry: I know where you’re going.

Kim: You read my mind.

Jerry:  No, I was going to throw to you for that. I’ll build this and then you can throw that.

Adam: Wow. Look at you guys.

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: All right. Does anybody have an insurance policy on me? I’m just making sure

Jerry: I do.

Adam: Yeah, that’s true.

Kim:  That is correct.

Adam: Actually, he actually does,

Jerry: In fact, I think that’s how this whole conversation started. I was like–

Kim: God, that weird guys.

Jerry:  — keep. Not so much insurance that I’m worth more to you alive.

Adam: Just to clarify, Jerry and I have partner insurance on each other as business partners. So, if something happens to me, Jerry collects; if something happens to him, I collect,

Jerry: And this did lead to a lunch conversation. We were like, well how much should it be so that it’s meaningful but not so much that the business is worth more for us killing each other? Which then led to the conversation like, well how would you kill me?

Adam: Well, I was going to say, we don’t like cliffs, we don’t like boats, and neither of us could change the tyres. So, we’re Fine. We’re all right,

Jerry: Okay. How does this guy get find out?

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry:  So, investigators, first thing they do, obviously, he’s suspect everyone, not just because the fact that he was the only guy there, but they’re aware of the incident, the mysterious death with the first wife. They see in the records that there was an issue with this beam that he dropped on Tony’s head. So, they’re really looking at him closely. So, they look at his GPS phone records, they discover that he’s scouted this weird remote location or where Tony fell at that point, they think she fell.  They don’t know who shoved her. So, the location where she fell off this cliff, he’s gone to it like a half a dozen times, very hard to get to, very dangerous location. But he’s gone there a bunch of times. That’s already a little odd because you don’t look at it and go, oh; you found this beautiful spot that’s lovely to get to, to have a picnic. It’s like, oh, you went and scouted this super remote weird location that no one goes to.

Adam: Right.

Jerry: And then Kim, do you want to talk about the other fun piece of evidence they find that’s pretty damning.

Kim: So, when searching his car, they find a map, a map of that location with a prominent X on the spot where Tony was subsequently pushed,

Adam: Wait, he hit the X? He’s that good?

Jerry: He’s that good.

Kim: He’s that good.

Jerry: He literally has a map with X marks the spot.

Adam: In his car?

Jerry: In his car

Kim: In his car.

Adam: And where it can be found?

Kim: Oh, it was found.

Adam:  And it was found. How could you be that smart and that stupid? How could the same guy? Alright, so map, scouting trips, you never bring your phone when you’re scouting a murder site. You know, just pro tip.

Jerry: Okay. Point taken.

Adam: But also, first wife, crazy accidental of death; second wife, crazy accidental of death, map with an X on it and scouting the location. Okay. So, at this point what happens?

Kim: Well, they’re gathering all this evidence, you know, not to mention that they’re talking to people. They’re talking to her family and they’re talking to friends.

Adam: So now they’ve accumulated all this, then what happens? They make an arrest?

Kim: Finally

Adam: What happens? Knock on the door?

Kim: Knock on the door. I believe it was 2014. I’m trying to think.  I think it was November, 2014.

Jerry: Which by the way, that’s a long time.

Kim: It is long time.

Jerry: That’s like 2-years.  It was like really, with all this evidence? I know they were trying to make a clear case.

Kim: Yes.

Jerry: But like this woman, Grace is lucky.

Adam: I was going to say did he try to enact that plan or…?

Jerry: I don’t know. I think it sounds like from reading what she said, that after the death of Tony, that she was quite suspicious.  Like that it just all seemed a little strange. And as Kim said, even Tony’s father, as soon as he heard about it was like, “Oh, he shoved her.”  Everybody at that point was aware that something was off.

Kim: I mean, interestingly enough, after that accident, “accident.”

Jerry: You mean the beam?

Kim: Yes.

Adam: or the beam?

Kim: Yeah. Right.

Jerry: The year before the fall when he dropped the beam on her head.

Kim: Right.

Adam: Right.

Kim: I mean she had a vertebra was broken.

Jerry: Uh-huh. It’s bad.

Kim: It was very serious. It wasn’t like, oh my God, what happened? Oh, okay. It was, no, we need to get help. And they needed to airlift her to a hospital. She had said to her mother that had she not went to pick up something, that would’ve killed her.

Jerry: Right.

Adam: And he was holding this beam?

Jerry: He was holding the beam like basically dropped it on her. And then people after that happened were asking him like, what happened? He was joking to everybody. “Oh, I was just trying to kill my wife.” Which is a funny joke to make for a guy who’s…

Adam: First wife

Jerry: Died under a car that he was supposed to be fixing.

Adam: When you make that joke, does he have to clarify? I was trying to kill my wife. Not my first wife; my second wife because the first wife I did kill. Wow! What an asshole.

Jerry: This guy’ is super creepy monstrous.

Adam: What a piece of garbage. So, was he back on the Christian dating site? What was he doing in those 2-years?

Kim: Well, he was trying to essentially keep his daughter away from her grandparents.

Adam: Well he’s also loaded at this point, right? He is got all that money from the insurance. They paid it out.

Jerry: Yeah. $4.7 million.

Adam: Jesus.

Kim: Yeah. I mean it was ruled in accident initially.

Jerry: Yeah. However, you know, statistically there are a fair number of cliff deaths in the United States particularly with people taking photos.

Kim: Right.

Jerry:  In fact, I have a start for you that’s kind of interesting. Seventy-six people in the United States roughly die from falling off of cliffs. Two or three of those are just in the Grand Canyon. And about a quarter to a third of those are selfie accidents or photo related accidents where people are too close to the edge.

Adam: I was going to say, it almost works better if it was the guy was to be killed because it’s like guys are idiots. So, they’ll go way past where they should, they’ll stand way too close to the edge. My parents were like hanging out like the cliff at the Palisades or whatever in Fort Lee, New Jersey. And my dad is like walking perilously close to the cliff. And my mom’s like, what are you telling Michael? Get away from there. And then all of a sudden, like the ground started to give away.  He fell on his ass and was like sliding towards the edge and like literally was able to grab onto something.

Jerry: That’s how all these accidents happen. Because people think it’s fun, cute to joke around on the edge of the cliff but what you don’t realize, all it takes is one loose rock or a little bit of wetness or something you didn’t see.

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: And that’s how all of these happen. The moral of this slaycation is don’t play near the edge of cliffs. Take them seriously.

Kim: Right.

Adam: Well, don’t go on vacation with a guy that has a lot of insurance on you, that probably killed his first life.

Kim: Speaking of which, her mother after that incident in 2011 had said to her daughter, “I don’t think that you should be alone with him. I don’t think you should be isolated and away from everyone. Listen to your mother.”

Jerry: So, Kim, how do you feel about this case?

Kim: This case, it made me sad because she just wanted to love somebody. She just wanted to be loved. She just wanted to raise her daughter and just live her life. She goes into it with the best of intentions and her family was happy for her initially. And suddenly, she’s kind of a prisoner in her own home. I can’t wear makeup, I have to wear scrubs. It’s just really sad and a lot of red flags. People are always like; well why didn’t you just leave? Why didn’t she just…? It’s not always that easy because on one hand they had a child together and you wanted to work, you want to make it work. I don’t envy the position that her family was in because short of showing up and kidnapping her and her daughter, what else can you do? You can’t really tell grown people what to do.

Jerry: That’s what’s so sad to me about this one is, she finally was finding what she wanted with someone who she thought was what she wanted. And there’s all these warning signs and even when you see the signs, sometimes it’s hard to remove yourself from the situation. You worked with domestic violence.

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: Victims. And is there something that people can do when someone is sort of trapped in that situation and the signs are there but they can’t pull themselves out? Was there anything that you ever saw that was effective?

Kim: It’s interesting because one of the things that I’ve come to understand is that domestic violence, partner violence really crosses all socioeconomic, it really doesn’t matter, I think it’s being able to A, acknowledge that there is an issue and B, ask for help. It didn’t seem like there was a point where she had this, I need to get the fuck out. I think her getting her own bank account was maybe a step in that direction but who knows. A lot of women do stay in these really shitty situations and a lot of times they will say, well, I’m doing this for the Lord. Or especially when you’re coming at it from that perspective.  I wondered if she had formulated any plan of leaving that relationship. I didn’t get that she had a definitive plan or had mentioned it because at this point too, he had completely, which is also a sign isolated her from her friends and family.

Jerry: Yeah. And it is one of those things where like if you’re religious and your faith says you’re supposed to be in a certain role with your husband, it’s really hard to get someone out of that mentality no matter how many signs are there.

Kim: Right.

Adam: Don’t get engaged after 3-days.

Jerry: That’s also good point.

Adam: I mean the joker, I was like for an eye doctor, she didn’t see it coming.

Kim: Oh.

Adam: But the point…

Kim: Oh God,

Adam: What? You guys are so sad, sadcation. The point is…

 

Commercials

Speaker 10: So, when the scammer uses the hypnotic method of building rapport, then they create dysfunctional delusional reality.

Speaker 11: That’s how a scam begins, convincing the mark that it makes perfect sense to hand over their money to a con artist. The Scams and Cons podcast tells you how scams are run. You’ll hear how people are convinced to buy fake art, buy machines that print money or steal your house.

Speaker 12: I get a phone call from my wife and she let me know that they had decided to move all our stuff out and I can no longer do anything about it except go through an eviction

Speaker 11: And you’ll hear it from the experts, people who run the cons.

Speaker 13: So, we go to your bank, you go in and get 6,000 cash, give us each 3000. We give you this. You go home and what you find out is cut up newspaper.

Speaker 11: It’s fun to know how the trick is done. And that’s what Scams and Cons is all about. Listen, its scamsandcons.com or wherever find podcasts are found.

 

Commercials

Beth: You might be surprised to know that not all serial killers are straight cisgender white men and the victims of true crime are not a monolith either. She’s Wendy. And I’m Beth. And together we host Fruit Loops- Serial Killers of Color, a True Crime podcast.

Wendy: Together, we take deep dives into the true crime stories about marginalized and minoritized preps and victims that often go untold.

Beth: We also provide the context and nuance that these stories deserve. At Fruit Loops, we’re serving up true crime with a side of history, society, culture, and some fun. Listen to Fruit Loop- Serial Killers of Color on Spotify, Google Play, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Adam: There were so many warning signs.

Jerry: Yeah.  But that actually is a good point, though, the fact that they got engaged after two or 3-days, like that’s just a terrible idea. I don’t know anyone who got engaged that quickly or anything close that quickly where it worked out. You’re just having a good date. Don’t turn it into like a bad marriage.

Adam: I mean, I get pressures to have kids and stuff, but still this is your life. This is your partner. I mean this guy clearly was a monster.

Jerry: Yeah. He was a monster. I mean, there’s a lot of men who are controlling and terrible, but who aren’t killing multiple wives. This guy’s just a monster.

Kim: I think a lot of times you’ll decide I’m going to ignore that red flag. I’m going to pretend that he’s not really a freak, even though my phone rings and so does his.

Jerry: That’s so weird. If anyone was ever like, I have to listen to your calls when your phone rings and just be like you don’t actually…

Kim: I know. That would’ve been it for me.

Jerry: Yeah.

Adam: What is the point of that even?

Kim: Well again, it’s control. It’s monitoring what’s being spoken about. And if you’ve got shit that you don’t want talked about and you don’t want input from friends and family because look, when my kid calls me up with something, I’m going to be like, yeah girl, that’s crazy, you need to get the fuck away from that. You need to this, you need to that. That’s what he was trying to…

Adam: Right.

Jerry: Also, maybe she was ordering a lot of from shit QVC and He was just like, you got to put a stop to that.

Kim: Right.

Adam: Well he had her bank account, so I don’t… maybe she wasn’t even allowed to.

Kim: Well, that’s how he found out. No, it’s not. But I guess like that’s the thing too. I mean the takeaway really is that you really have to pay attention to these red flags. They’re real.

Adam: Yeah.

Kim: And anybody that’s looking to control you like that, that’s never a good thing; that’s never a good sign.

Adam:  So, wait, where is he now?

Jerry: Oh, he’s happily married again.

Kim: No, he is not.

Jerry:  No, I’m kidding. No, he’s…

Adam: He’s staying at the Shining Hotel. He’s haunting room 1420.

Jerry: He’s right outside. Do you want to meet him?

Adam: So, where is he now?

Kim: He’s in jail and he’s doing a life sentence. Do you remember where they have him?

Jerry: I don’t remember where. I know he’s away for life.

Adam: What did they get him on, this murder or…?

Jerry: They’ve only gotten him on this murder so far, but they have reopened the first wife case. Lynn, they’re looking into that. That was ruled an accident but obviously now there’s questions about that. It’s going to be very hard to figure anything out other than what he says because he was the only person who was there. But the sheriff from that town is like, this was not an accident. Like, this guy definitely killed this woman. And he’s trying to figure out any kind of evidence.

Adam: I hate to say it, but like, you should be able to get away with that murder. I mean, if you take someone to a remote cliff and push them off and say it was an accident, like there’s nobody there to be a witness, you should be able to get away with that.

Kim: Well, here’s the thing. I’m sure that we do know.

Jerry: You should? No.

Kim: That a lot of…

Jerry: You shouldn’t.

Adam: I don’t think it should be morally and ethically and like in life. But the point is, I’m saying like evidence wise, that’s a case you get away with. Like, this guy got caught because of years of other crap and first wife dying and strange behavior that tipped off her whole family and an attempt earlier and insurance policy. And even that crazy call he made; looking at it from a killer’s point of view,

Jerry: He made a lot of mistakes.

Adam: He did. He had the perfect murder and then he fucked it up.

Jerry: Well, he screwed it up initially really by scouting too many times with his phone. By the way, that’s like even what’s his name? [Inaudible 01:00:16] Just now, the phone records are being used in a lot of these cases to show that people are lying or premeditated. So that was a mistake. A map with an X on the spot, mistake.

Adam: Why would you keep that?

Jerry: And honestly even…

Adam:  Why would you make that?

Jerry: Why would you make that? You already know where you’re going.

Adam: Right.

Jerry: And then, you might also say like, doing it in a super remote spot was a mistake. Not that obviously you’re not going to shove off a cliff in well in front of people, but that was also very suspicious.

Adam: It is but people like to squirrel away to weird spots and stuff. Kim and I will be walking through the park or something and it’s like, oh, really, we’re the only ones who’ve ever been here except there’s condoms on the ground. But, like hands and whatever, it’s just like, oh, okay. Yeah, sure.  It’s a little suspicious that you bring her somewhere so remote. But again, people like climbing all over the place. Even when we were in Nevada, there’s all kinds of cliffs and there’s all kinds of areas where it’s like, wow, this is really unsafe and you can just climb all over these things and there’s nobody around. If somebody were to fall…

Jerry: Yeah. You could have an accident. So, he did collect $1.5 million in life insurance that was paid out immediately on the second wife’s death. But of course, the insurance company was trying to take that back. So, there was a court case after he was charged with the murder. And I don’t know how that worked out, but he received some money and they tried to get it back.

Adam: Right. What about the kid?

Jerry: So, they’d asked if he could be put in a prison in Colorado to be near his daughter, Halle. And he spoke about her lovingly at the sentencing when he was given life without parole. But the family afterwards was like, put him wherever you want. The daughter wants nothing to do with him.

Kim: And she changed her name as well.

Jerry: Yeah. She wants nothing to do with this guy.

Kim: And she was under guardianship of her maternal uncle and aunt.

Jerry: So that’s the very sad tale of Tony and Lynn.

Adam: And Lynn.

Jerry: And Tony.

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: All right.

Jerry: Well…

Adam: Pack your body.

Jerry: Pack your body bag, is getting away can be murder. Thanks for listening to this slaycation.

Adam: Get your tissues.  These true crime and murder has become entertainment, but at the end of the day. Yeah.

Jerry: There’s a victim.

Adam: There’s victim and there’s real people.

Jerry: They’re victims, and they didn’t do anything at all wrong. They certainly didn’t do anything deserving of being murdered. And that gets left out in a lot of these like, who these people are and its sad.

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry: It’s sad.

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: All right.

Jerry: Sadcation.

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: And this is why I never wanted to do true crime shows because 15-years, I’ve been telling you I don’t want to do true crime.

Adam: I know.

Jerry: And he dragged me into the studio to do true crime.

Adam: Kim loves it so much.

Kim: I find it–

Adam: She loves it.

Kim: — fascinating.

Adam: She loves it.

Kim: No, I do. I mean, it’s an interesting thing that we as people do horrible things to each other. That people that are supposed to love you can also do horrible things to you. And why is that? Like what is going on? And that they can use religion as a great way to manipulate. It’s just…

Adam: You could tell from that call that this guy is a fast and smooth operator.

Jerry: Yeah. Everything on that call was way too slick. There was no emotion. It was all facts and figures.

Adam: Details. And just his whole delivery and the way he was very systematic about it. Of course, he has a map with an X.

Jerry: Yeah. How did he do this? Because he’s a fricking psychopath, he’s a monster.

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry:  I mean, that’s…

Kim: He’s been planning it.

Jerry: He didn’t love her. He didn’t ever love her.

Kim: I don’t know that somebody like that loves.

Adam: capable of.

Kim: Right.

Jerry: Cool.

Adam: All right.

Jerry: Things have taken a turn for the sombre here on episode of slaycation.

Adam: All right.

Jerry: This is the stuff that’s underneath the service of all these stories is like real people and real stuff.

Kim: Right.  And a lot of death does go unresolved.

Jerry: Nuh-huh.

Kim: And I think a lot of it in this case was because she had family that loved her and cared about her.

Jerry: Right.

Kim: And I think that played a role. And also, the Ranger and the detective that took on the case.

Jerry: Yeah. Well, when they realized you dropped the beam on your wife a year earlier, a car fell on your first wife and you’ve got a fake half a million-dollar insurance policy on a third woman.

Kim: I didn’t know if you know this, but there was also an anonymous tip.

Jerry: Oh, I did not know that.

Kim: Yeah.

Jerry: From who?

Kim: That’s a good question.

Jerry: [crosstalk 01:04:55].

Kim: But somebody anonymously kind of said you need to look at this guy

Adam: Had to be her family, right? No?

Kim: I think it was her family because why would they need to be anonymous? They could just say, you need to look at this guy.

Adam: You mean after the murder or after the…?

Kim: Yeah.

Adam: I guess we could stop saying alleged murder. I mean…

Jerry: He’s a murderer. Yeah, he’s a killer.

Adam: Yeah. Feels like a murder. Right.  Anyway, well, thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Slaycation. We got lots more slaycating to do.

Kim: Yeah. And also pay attention to red flags. Pay attention.

Adam: All right mom. Okay. All right. We’ll figure something out, I guess.

Jerry: Yeah. We can just say; this is how we end the show.

Adam: Yeah. All right.

Kim: All right.

Jerry: Thanks.

Adam: Thank you.

Jerry: We really have our stuff together over here.

Adam: Yeah.

Jerry: Thank you everybody.

Adam: We lost it in overtime.  Okay.

 

Commercials

Hey, it’s Adam with a new True Crime podcast. I think you’re going to like a lot. It’s one I’m actually looking forward to. It’s called The Burden and it’s from Orbit Media who brought you the number one hit, Empire on Blood. Anyway, The Burden tells the story of Detective Louis Scarcella, once celebrated for solving the toughest cases in New York City in the 90s. But things took a turn when a group of convicted murderers all claiming to be innocent, became jailhouse lawyers and began investigating the investigator. Turns out they uncovered all kinds of issues with Detective Scarcella involvement in dozens of cases, which led to the release of over 20 people he helped convict, not only that, the government had to pay out a record breaking $150 million in wrongful conviction settlements with more to come.

The question is, can these potentially wrongfully convicted murderers get themselves released too? You have to listen to find out.  The Burden, which also includes first time interviews with Detective Scarcella himself is out now with new episodes every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

[End of Audio 01:07:12]