48 Hours - The Flim-Flam Man: The Disappearance of Jamie Laiaddee | My Life of Crime

Episode Date: February 1, 2023

In March of 2010, 34-year-old Jamie Laiaddee goes missing from a Phoenix, Arizona suburb. Ten weeks pass before anyone begins to worry. Investigators zero in on her boyfriend, Bryan Stewart, who actually doesn’t exist. Who is Bryan Stewart? And can the police believe that he helped Jamie disappear? Bryan claims that Jamie is alive and doesn’t want to be found, but detectives have their own theories. 48 Hours correspondent Erin Moriarty takes you inside the investigation into the death of Kari Baker on her podcast, My Life of Crime. Based on the 48 Hours episode, "The Stranger Beside Me”.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military and when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. It's Erin Moriarty, and we have a special episode for you today from my original podcast, My Life of Crime. I'm taking you inside true crime investigations like no one else, taking on killers and those accused of crimes. Here's an all-new episode of My Life of Crime that takes you deeper into the stranger beside me.

into the stranger beside me. Follow along as I go beyond the scene of each crime, beyond prison walls, and into the killer's inner thoughts. It's all on this season of my life of crime. This is a wonderful, bubbly, confident, independent woman. And she's missing. How can one of my best friends have been missing for 10 weeks? How did it come to this that she could be gone so long and nobody reported it? I couldn't believe that it had been that long,

that nobody had noticed. It was absolute craziness. When Jamie Laidie disappeared in March of 2010, it took weeks for the people who knew her best to realize she was missing. Because the fact is, Jamie had been slipping away from their lives for nearly two years. After your friend stops making an effort, you kind of stop too. But I never thought Jamie would have been the one to stop making an effort. But I just let it go. But when you hear what happened to Jamie, you may want to take a closer look at your own friends.

I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 hours, and this is my life of crime. For those of us who listen to true crime podcasts, we often think bad things happen to other people, not us. So no one really worried about Jamie. Not at first, anyway. She was a good friend. We were a support network for each other. Gwyneth Newman met Jamie when they were both attending the University of Michigan. It was a tough, rigorous education, and it created a deep bond between classmates. I remember leaving Michigan. It was just so reassuring that you're just a phone call away from feeling like you belong somewhere again.

Sheila Dukes felt particularly close. We were both from immigrant families. I think our fathers were kind of the same. They put a lot of pressure on us to do really well in school, but I think she just wanted to make it on her own. They put a lot of pressure on us to do really well in school, but I think she just wanted to make it on her own. Jamie's parents, Bunny and Jimmy Laody, came to the U.S. from Thailand. They dreamed that their daughter would go to medical school to become a doctor. You think that because you were pushing her to go back to school,

she might have pulled away a bit? She said, she's a big girl. So it could have been to escape the pressure, but Jamie decided to move to Phoenix, Arizona and find her own way. It wasn't easy to meet people in her new city, so she joined the local University of Michigan alum club. She'd be able to spend fall Saturday afternoons watching football with fellow Wolverines, and maybe even find romance. She was hot. I mean, how else do you put it? And that's how Jamie met Brian Stewart. He was an enthusiastic Michigan supporter.

And while they might have been polar opposites, the attraction was immediate. Brian was athletic and worked as a personal trainer. Jamie, much quieter, worked as a personal trainer. Jamie, much quieter, worked as a sales rep. Brian soon moved into the home she owned in Chandler, a trendy Phoenix suburb. Did she pay most of the bills? Most of the big ones, yeah. But it's not like I was dependent upon her. But in August 2009, like so many other Americans, Jamie became a victim of the downturn in the economy, and she lost her job. Her career had been going so well for so long,

and I think this was a pretty major blow to her. And things didn't get better. Jamie searched for months in Arizona, Florida, New Jersey. She couldn't find a job. The value of her home plunged, and according to Brian, so did her spirits. You know, it was like, when it rains, it pours. For Jamie, it was pouring. Jamie had stopped confiding in friends, and again, according to Brian, became so despondent that he moved out, rented another apartment, and he says planned to break off the relationship entirely on March 17, 2010, St. Patrick's Day.

But instead, according to Brian, She came in, asked me to take a week off from work, and she's like, we're going to go to Denver. We're going to get a house. I've got a job offer up there. It's time to go. I want to go. I want to get out of this state. Basically, I told her no. I'm not leaving Arizona.

I'm not going to marry you. Jamie didn't take the news well, he says, and they argued, but he insists that when the couple finally went to bed, things were fine. And they were still fine, he says, when he left for work at the crack of dawn. She was laying in bed, and I gave her a kiss, told her I loved her, and got in the truck and drove to work. When is the last time you saw Jamie?

Physically saw her, 3.15 a.m., March 18, 2010. But later that morning, Brian emailed a friend of Jamie's, a woman by the name of Marlena Buffa, with a surprising story. And said, Jamie dumped me. She moved to Colorado. Did that surprise you at all? No. I thought, good for her. Did he seem upset at all? No. I thought good for her. Did he seem upset? A little bit. He was more angry that she left him alone.

At any point, did it even cross your mind that something could have happened to Jamie? No. I knew she had means. If she wants to pick up and leave, good for her. None of Jamie's friends ever saw or heard from her again, although it would be weeks before anyone really became concerned. Marlena was one of the first. She says that in May 2012, about 10 weeks after Brian first told her that Jamie had left town, she heard from him again.

He said, you know, I'm starting to get worried about Jamie. Marlena asked a private detective by the name of Burke Files to see what he could uncover. Files did a background check on Brian and discovered that about a decade earlier, he had lived at two different addresses in Michigan with a man by the name of Rick Wayne Valentini. It could be a roommate. It could be Wayne Valentini. It could be a roommate. It could be a close friend. It could be a relative. Files also traced Jamie's credit cards, but nothing, absolutely nothing, turned up.

And nothing. There was no activity at all. Nothing. That was a red flag. Marlena told Brian to call Jamie's parents, and they called police. I immediately thought something was wrong. People of her background and stature don't just come up missing for 10 weeks and nobody hears from them. That's Troy Spielman, a detective with the Chandler Police Department.

Spielman and his partner, Nate Moffitt, got a warrant to search Jamie's house and started calling Brian and calling and calling. He didn't respond. To me, that was alarming. It just showed a lack of concern. But later that night, they found Jamie's missing vehicle, a Ford Escape, in Scottsdale. And guess who was behind the wheel? The detective said, well, I'm here in regards to your girlfriend. And the first thing he did was say, my ex-girlfriend. Brian wasn't forthcoming, and detectives thought he seemed edgy. They found out why when they checked to see if he had any kind of criminal record.

As luck would have it, he had a warrant for his arrest, for driving on a suspended license for a traffic offense. They took him into custody and questioned him. This is a portion of that interrogation. Brian? Yes. Hey, I'm Nate Moffitt. How are you, man? It's B-R-Y-A-N, right?

Yes. Last name is? Stuart. Walk me through what happened around March. It was simple, really. She hated everything about the state. She wanted out. Now, she'd been up there for interviews. I suspected that she would get the Denver offer. But Brian's story didn't really make sense. You know, he's saying she went to Colorado, yet all of her suitcases are there and her passport's there. All these things that she would need to travel are there at the house. The only thing's missing, Jamie's wallet and driver's license. Brian said that she had taken

those with her. Did you hurt Jamie? No. Okay. Did you have anything to do with her disappearance? You have nothing to hide? No. Okay. But Moffitt got suspicious when Brian gave a birth date, which didn't match his Arizona ID. I have no freaking clue who's sitting in front of me. And it's extremely uneasy for me as I'm investigating a case of this magnitude. Who is this guy? After Brian was escorted to a jail cell, they searched his apartment. Well, we were searching his new residence. We located a manila envelope with a Michigan driver's license in the name of Rick Wayne Valentini. And that picture was Brian Stewart.

You're not really Brian Stewart at all, are you? To me, I am. But not legally, are you? Well, legally, I'm not anything. Hot shot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld,

and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created. She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. And listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch.

It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder? I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, wherever you get your podcasts.

I met Brian Stewart while he was in the Maricopa County Jail, or at least I met the man passing himself off as Stewart. His real name is Rick Wayne Valentini, the name that the private eye thought was the Michigan roommate. In our modern world with the databases, you just can't turn on a new name, a new taxpayer ID number, a social security number. You have to age it. You have to season it. And that's how Valentini became Brian Stewart. Once he had built enough of a credit history under his new name, he left Michigan and started a new life in Phoenix. He agreed to talk to me, but only if I would address him as Brian. Why not change your name legally?

Why go to the trouble of forging a birth certificate? Well, it was my understanding that to change your name legally would take years. So why work so hard to change your identity? Brian, or Rick, told us he wasn't running from the law. Just what he called a tragic childhood. He just wasn't loved, just didn't have love. That's why he loved us, because we loved him. That's his Aunt Donna,

who told us that his mother was just 18 when she had him. His father reportedly left when he was a child. Do you think that he created this different name, different persona, because he just didn't want to be who he was? Exactly. Exactly. Maybe. But it seems that Rick was running for more than just the past. Detectives also found three ex-wives and two children. Hello? Hi, is this Cynthia? This is. Hi, Cynthia. Detective Dave Selvidge from Chandler Police Department.

One of the exes told Chandler Police that she thinks Rick is just a deadbeat dad running from responsibilities. He owed, from what I understand, quite a bit of that child support from Wendy, his first wife. As it turns out, everything he told Jamie about his life was a lie. Everything. He told her that

his parents had been killed by a drunk driver. It wasn't true. He shaved eight years off his real age and claimed a hero's military record. All lies. You tell a lot of stories, though, don't you? I have a lot of stories to tell. But you tell a lot of lies. Um, lies mixed in with the truth. He became the man he thought Jamie would fall in love with. And the biggest lie? You never actually went to the University

of Michigan, did you? No. But you let people think you did. Sure. He even created a fake diploma. Marlena Buffa was shocked with how easily he pulled it all off. He's fooled all of us. We're talking hundreds of people here and 20 or so board members, many of them attorneys and judges. So why did he go to so much trouble to fool Jamie? And here's a more relevant question. In the days before her disappearance, did she figure it out and confront him?

Did you kill Jamie? No. I've never killed anybody in my life. Not ever. Did you two fight that night. I've never killed anybody in my life. Not ever. Did you two fight that night? No. Were you angry with her? No. She told me that she was going to be leaving the next day. And where was she going?

It was, my impression, Denver. But why then didn't Jamie take any suitcases? And why were detectives unable to find Jamie in Denver or any other city? I taught Jamie how to create a whole new life for herself. That included a new identification, a whole new persona, a whole new way of looking at things. Are you saying that you helped Jamie change her identity? Yeah, I showed her how to do it. The only thing that she ever lived for

was to be free of her family. She wanted to be on her own. Rick, or Brian, whatever you wanna call him, had suddenly come up with a new explanation for Jamie's disappearance. She didn't wanna to be found. As you can imagine, Nate Moffitt and his partner didn't believe him.

I wholeheartedly believe Brian Stewart, Rick Valentini, whoever you want to call him, murdered Jamie Liety on the night of March 17th. But charging Rick Valentini with murder wasn't as simple as you might think. A year and a half after Jamie disappeared, there was still no body, no physical evidence of a murder.

Not yet. In the meantime, Brian Stewart, a.k.a. In the meantime, Brian Stewart, aka Rick Valentini, was sitting in prison, charged with fraud for forging a new birth certificate and changing his name illegally. If you think using the name Brian Stewart is fraudulent, hey, we're going to fight it out in court. Detectives kept looking for more evidence of what happened to Jamie on March 17, 2010. What did the two of you think happened that night? I think they had a fight. But wouldn't there be some sign of that in her home?

Not necessarily. I mean, strangulation or suffocation or anything like that, there's going to be virtually no blood. Detectives also discovered that after that night, Rick Valentini took over Jamie's home and car and began using her credit cards. The only transactions on one of Jamie's accounts were internet purchases and dating websites. And here's the kicker, Maricopa County Prosecutor Juan Martinez. He used her cards to meet other women?

That's right. Basically, he said the same thing. He was a graduate of the University of Michigan, never been married, didn't know if he wanted kids or not. Valentini didn't deny it. That's nervy, isn't it? Yeah, it's pretty nervy. And pretty insensitive nervy, isn't it? Yeah, it's pretty nervy. And pretty insensitive, too, isn't it?

Um. Yeah. You know, a little, because, well, let me explain. You used her credit cards to go on dating sites to meet other women. Well, you know what? Look, Jamie was leaving. What guy does that? Use the credit cards of a missing woman to meet other women.

And then detectives found something else belonging to Jamie in Valentini's apartment. Her wallet was lying on his desk. There was a number of her credit cards there on the desk. And then on the back filing cabinet was her personal telephone that he said she had with her. There was also a small white envelope, and when police got a warrant to open it, they found pieces of cut-up IDs and credit cards belonging to Jamie.

There was her missing driver's license and her University of Michigan alum card. Why did you cut up her driver's license? I University of Michigan alum card. Why did you cut up her driver's license? I didn't cut them up. Valentini told me that Jamie cut them up when she decided to disappear, but his DNA was found where the envelope was sealed. With that, Valentini's initial story to detectives was completely out the window. Like detectives, prosecutor Juan Martinez believed that Valentini killed Jamie. And yet, he waited to file murder charges.

Even when you had that envelope, it still took a year before you brought murder charges against him. We were tying up all the loose ends. When you don't have a body, you have to be very careful because you only get one chance. He decided to take that chance when an inmate held in jail with Valentini told officials that Valentini had confessed. He went to this particular individual and said, do you think that they can charge me if they can't find the body. So in October 2011, more than a year and a half after Jamie Laidie disappeared, Rick Wayne Valentini went on trial for her murder and for fraud. It was a completely circumstantial case since Jamie's body had still not been found. The first witness was a client of the defendant. He had been her personal trainer at Gold's gym.

What does your husband do for a living? He is a professional baseball player. Andrea Ardsmuth and her husband David, then an ace pitcher for the Seattle Mariners, knew the defendant only as Brian. And did he tell you whether or not he had a girlfriend? Yes, he had a girlfriend. And did he tell you whether or not he had a girlfriend? Yes, he had a girlfriend. And did he tell you her name? Jamie. Andrea gave the jury insight into Brian and Jamie's relationship. Andrea testified that for months before Jamie disappeared, Brian had told her what he really

thought of his girlfriend. Whiny, naggy, sugar mama, nothing positive at all. I don't know if he just thought I was a good listener or if he really did think that I was stupid and that he could tell me all these things and nothing would come of it. As the trial progressed, there's testimony that Jamie had actually found a job, but not in Denver. In Phoenix, according to Kevin Tierney, who had hired her. She's very excited about her new job, and we're looking forward to working together on March 18th. But Jamie never showed up for that job.

As you've probably guessed by now, Valentini likes to talk, and so when it was time for the defense to present its case, the star witness was Valentini himself. He appeared comfortable on the stand when he was being questioned by his own lawyer. What was your relationship like? It was, I would say, 95% great.

Did you argue? No, not really. Did you kill Jamie to use her credit cards? Absolutely not. Did you have general permission to use her credit cards? Yes. Did you murder Jamie Laity? No. Jamie Laity is alive.

Would you be at all surprised if I told you that she was about to walk through that door? No. But the cross-examination by the prosecutor, Juan Martinez, wasn't so gentle. You have not seen her at any time, and she hasn't walked in now, right? Right. And she won't walk in because you killed her, right? Wrong. I don't have anything else. Thank you.

One day before Thanksgiving 2011, the case went to the jury. There's a risk in cases like this, without a body, without a lot of physical evidence that connects the defendant to a murder, that jurors will be divided, that they just won't be able to decide. Maybe jurors were thinking of the upcoming holiday, but just four hours later, they were back with a verdict. We, the jury, duly impaneled and sworn in the above entitled action upon our oaths, as to count one, second degree murder, do find the defendant guilty. Guilty of second degree murder.

Rick Wayne Valentini was going to prison. But that was no real consolation for Jamie's parents who still didn't know how he killed their daughter and where he put her. Is it hard because you don't really know where she is? You've never been able to bury her? That's right. That's right.

I still have what they call the silk receiving blankets of Jamie from the hospital. And I carried it with me all the time. And I intend to use that blanket to carry her home. Maybe find her. As for Valentini, even after his conviction, he was still insisting that Jamie was alive somewhere, hiding out.

She would just let you go on trial for murder, go to prison for the rest of your life? I don't know. I don't think that, I don't think either one of us ever expected it to get this far. Valentini probably thought that as long as Jamie's body was never found, he still had a chance to win on appeal. And if he buried her somewhere in the Arizona desert, she might never be found. But in the summer of 2018, Detective Nate Moffitt got a phone call. I think one of the detectives in my unit was traveling to a jurisdiction south of us and came across a bunch of Maricopa County Sheriff's deputies and learned that they found a body buried.

They were able to use dental records to identify the body. It was Jamie. And how did you feel? What went through your mind? Excuse me real quick. Detective Moffat paused then, clearly fighting emotions, before he answered.

Overwhelmed. I felt overwhelmed when I found out that that was, in fact, Jamie. Why? Tell me what you were thinking. You know, actually, when you guys aired Jamie's story on 48 Hours, one of the things that hit me the hardest was when Bunny, her mother, said that she carries around a receiving blanket to hopefully take Jamie home one day. And I always wanted to bring them that closure. As a parent, I just wanted the closure for her. And it was very nice to just have that closure for them.

How did Jamie's parents take it? I actually, because like I said, I worked with them for so long, I actually had their home phone number memorized. So I was out on vacation and dialed their home phone number and got their answering service or their answering machine and started leaving a message and they picked up. And I think they were obviously way more overwhelmed than I was. Jamie was found around 10 miles from her home. Detective Moffitt says he believes Rick Valentini

put her there after killing her on that March night in 2010. How did he kill her? We didn't send a lot of stuff out for DNA because this was a case that had already been solved. There was evidence, clear evidence that it was a homicide. You know, her hands and feet were bound with tape. So there was clear evidence that it was a homicide. They just weren't able to determine the cause and manner or the cause of death. But that breaks my heart. So her hands and feet were bound? Yes. Yeah, with tape, with duct tape.

But what makes me saddest is how Rick Valentini almost got away with murder by isolating his victim. She was originally from California and ends up moving to Arizona. So she didn't have any real close local friends. She didn't have people that she communicated with on a regular basis. She didn't have an office that she was going to daily. It was a perfect storm where nobody was really in daily or weekly communication where she kind of became a perfect victim. There's now some peace for Jamie's family and friends. She's been found and the man who killed her put away. Valentini will never hurt another woman.

But do you have a friend you haven't heard from for a while? A friend in a questionable relationship? Maybe it's time to give that friend a call. I'm Erin Moriarty, 48 Hours, and that's my life of crime. This podcast series is developed by 48 Hours in partnership with CBS News Radio. Judy Tigard is 48 Hours' executive producer. Jonathan Clark is CBS News Radio. Judy Teigart is 48 Hours executive producer. Jonathan Clark is CBS News Radio executive producer.

Production and editing for this season of My Life of Crime by Alan Pang. This episode was also produced by Judy Ryback of 48 Hours. Craig Swagler is vice president and general manager of CBS News Radio. And finally,

a thank you to all of you, our listeners. We owe it all to you, the millions of 48 Hours fans. Don't forget to join me online. I'm at EF Moriarty on Twitter, and we're at 48 Hours on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. See you soon. If you like this podcast, you can listen ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a quick survey at wondery.com slash survey.

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