48 Hours - The Man with Two Names

Episode Date: May 18, 2026

After a conviction for killing a billionaire in Monaco, Ted Maher changes his name and puts out a hit on New Mexico woman. He denies it all.  Erin Moriarty reports.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Green does what John Green does, right? He's a charmer. He's a smooth talker. I think he could talk his way in anyone's life. Beneath the surface, there's something really dark. Is this a man who just happens to have really bad luck? Or is he a bad guy? He's a bad guy.

We had good times together. I never felt like I'm with a bad person. I think he's unlucky. I think he's unlucky. We were so happy when he met Kim Lark, his wife. They went skiing together. They loved dogs together. I had not seen him so happy in all these years that we've known him.

I think John Green saw Dr. Kim and saw dollar signs. You think he targeted her? Yeah, I do. It all turned sour really quick. They were not only separating, but he took the dogs. She loves her dogs. She loves her dogs. Those are her babies. It's like if he had taken her children.

He's stealing your dogs. He's kidnapping your dogs. Oh, I was scared to death that he would get rid of them. Now it became just one thing after another. He's on the road, on the road and on the run. With the dogs. He's actually arrested in San Antonio. He's a thief. He's a liar. A con artist. At Eddie County Detention Center,

I met John and he kept asking me if I knew somebody that could kill his wife. So here's my husband in jail talking with somebody about the various different ways to kill me and take care of the body. Do you believe that this was a real plan? Yes. This isn't the first time he's been in question of a heinous crime. If he did it once, he can do it again. Who was this man really? He wasn't John Green. His real name was Ted Maher.

And he had been convicted of an arson resulting in the death of a billionaire. So much of it still remains a mystery. I mean, this guy's story is just crazy. Aaron Moriarty reports, the man with two names. Carlsbad, New Mexico, a small city dwarfed by a vast dirt-red desert. was home to John Green in 2017. That was the year a routine medical exam would become a turning point for him,

and his new doctor, Kim Lark. The very first day when he walks in, how would you have described him? Smiling, happy, wanted to talk, just kind of made you feel comfortable. Months later, they began texting, then dating. He liked everything that I liked. that I liked. We started skiing together. We started riding bikes together.

Early in their relationship, Kim says, Green told her about his troubled past. That he had been falsely accused of arson more than 20 years ago, causing the deaths of two people, including a billionaire banker in Monte Carlo. I had believed him at first. I kind of believed his side of the story. She says she wanted to believe the best about the new man in her life. He said all the right things. He did all the things that I needed my best friend to be. By the time they married on Valentine's Day, 2020,

they'd already settled into a comfortable life. Kim had a lucrative medical practice, an $800,000 retirement account tucked away, and a home on four acres outside of town. At that time, did you realize what he was capable of? No, I had no idea. I think he's motivated by money, motivated by power. Molly Forster, a documentary filmmaker and CBS News consultant,

has spent years reporting Green Story for a new series streaming on the Eppas online platform. He likes skiing. It's just like he was a chameleon. She says the man who calls himself John. Green has led a life of deception. He's been able to fool a lot of people and caused a lot of trauma. Trauma that would eventually crumble their marriage in just a few years, says Kim. Just because he's so willing to lie, cheat, steal.

In April 2022, Kim noticed her checkbook was missing. That's when the bank called me and said, hey, did you write this check? She learned that her husband, seen here on bank security footage, was trying to cash thousands of dollars in checks by forging her name at banks all over town. Kim filed for divorce and changed the locks on her house. About a month later, he stole something else from her that mattered a lot more than money. Is kidnapping your dogs? My dogs and my vehicle, yeah. Storm Zero and felony are not only precious pets. They're extremely valuable, highly trained search and rescue dogs, says Kim.

And she is their trainer. We have a really special bond. My dogs are with me 24-7. For years, Kim and her canine companions have assisted FEMA during National Discipline. disasters and law enforcement at crime scenes. He could have taken anything except my dogs. And Zira was pregnant at the time. I really was scared to death.

Kim believed her estranged husband might have taken the dogs to Texas, and she found someone there who could help. Abel Pena had 26 years with the FBI before he retired and founded a nonprofit called Project Absentis to help find missing people. What is the difference between looking for missing people and missing dogs? Dogs don't maintain a paw print online. It's more challenging to try and find dogs. It was more than a month before he got a good tip,

and it wasn't about the dogs, but about Green himself. On June 13, 2022, Peña called law enforcement for help staking out a parking lot in San Antonio. Shortly after Green arrived in a BMW, authorities arrested and charged him with forgery and larceny. He had changed his appearance, shaving his head. I ran over to the vehicle, looked in the back windows to see if the dogs were there. The dogs were not there. But Peña had another lead and headed to a nearby house

belonging to the aunt of one of Green's friends. I knock on the door and I'm greeted by an older woman. She was like, I know why you're here. Come on in. He found Kim's dogs in a back bedroom and by then, zero had multiplied. There were now eight puppies in a box. And how did you feel? I was ecstatic.

Abel Peña took all 11 dogs to his house and waited for Kim to arrive. Ah! Look what we have here. Oh, my good. My girls were so happy to see me. I was so relieved. It was a fantastic ending. Come on, come on.

Kim was so thankful she named one of the puppies, Abel, after the man who had found them. Bye. Bye. Thank you. See you later. Yeah. Did you think at that point you had it all behind you?

Yes. The forgery and larceny charges landed John Green here, locked up in the Eddy County Detention Center in Carlsbad, where he met this man, Greg Markham, detained on drug charges. Was he angry with Kim? Oh, he was furious with her. Markham says they bonded. over a chess board. I played chess with him every day. Got to know the guy.

He kept asking me if I knew somebody that could kill his wife. Greg Markham says he saw an opportunity to make John Green his pawn. And I was like, you know what, man? I can't find anybody. I'll do it. How do you want it done?

So you promised to kill his wife? I said, oh yeah, man, I'll do it. I'll do it for you. Were you going to? No. No. The Warkham says he's a con man, not a hit man, and was never serious about killing Kim Lark. Living on my own, it's me and my dog.

He desperately needed bail money, he says, to save his dog Atlas from being euthanized. I got to convince this guy to bomb me out so I can go take care of my dog, make sure he's okay. He says, Green paid for the bail. Once he was convinced that I was going to do it, he wouldn't stop talking about. Let's talk about it again. What are you going to do? Markham says Green had a specific way he wanted his wife to die. He concocted a lethal plot to poison Kim, forcing her to drink water laced with fentanyl to look like an overdose.

Yeah, I was supposed to mix up fentanyl pills and make sure she drank the whole water bottle. If she refused, says Markham, Green's grisly plan was to aim a gun, not at Kim, but at her beloved dogs. And she'll do whatever you want done. John Green fiercely denies all of it and was determined to fight the charges against him, as he had before, in another courtroom on another continent. 26 years earlier, a roaring inferno engulfed a Monte Carlo penthouse, killing the billionaire and his private nurse. At the fiery center of that mystery was the very same man with a very different name.

Sun-drenched laid-back Carlsbad, New Mexico isn't the only place where this man made headlines. One of the world's richest bankers died today in a... It isn't the first time he was accused of a major crime. An American male nurse... And Kim Lark is not the only woman who loved him. I've saved every rose he gave me. Every rose he's given you since you've known him. Yeah.

It was 2002 when I first met Heidi Westrow. She was married to the man who would one day become John Green. His name then, Ted Maher. That name would become known around the world. The couple lived in New York and had two children together, meeting in nursing school. What kind of nurse? is he? He's a neonatal intensive care nurse. Some pictures with kids, just some of the infants that he

took care of. Ted told her about his time serving as a special forces Green Paray. He seemed defined by intensity and compassion. You always put others first. He was just so loving, so caring, you know, and I wanted someone like that. His compassion was on display in the summer of 1999, in the neonatal unit where Ted worked when two grateful new parents connected him to the job of a lifetime. To take care of a rich banker who we never heard of to be his private nurse, he had Parkinson's disease. Edmund Safra was that rich banker, and he wasn't just regular rich. He was one of the richest men on earth. The bank, Safra owned it, living with his elegant wife Lily in this penthouse above this bank branch, here in the Monte Carlo district

of glittering diamond-sized Monaco, tucked along the exclusive French Riviera. Obviously, we've never seen the world, you know, like that. So when Safra made the offer, Ted couldn't refuse, says Heidi, despite having to leave his family. We thought, this is just temporary and we have the rest of our life. lives to get together afterwards. It was that October when Maher's fascinating new job brought him to Monaco. It was just a different world, he kept saying. He liked it.

He liked Mr. Safra very much. They got along well. Maher's sometimes worked the night shift at times with Nurse Vivian Torente. Along with his private duty nurses, Safra also kept a personal security force. for protection. We didn't know who this man was. It was all new to us. December 3, 1999.

I was getting the kids off to school in the morning as usual, and I got a phone call, and it was Ted's sister who sounded upset and crying. She asked me to turn on the news. Two masked men armed with knives invaded the Riviera penthouse of Edmund Safra. It was a startling report about intruders and a fire in the Safra Penthouse. Just five weeks after her husband left for Monaco, the billionaire who brought him there and Nurse Vivian Tarente were dead.

Autopsies would determine they had both died from smoke poisoning, and Ted was wounded and bloody. Ted would tell authorities a story that would be discussed and debated for years. He said that intruders broke into the penhouse, attacked and stabbed him, that he scrambled to get help while his boss took shelter in a bathroom. Ted says he lit a small fire with a candle and paper towels in a trash basket, thinking the fire department would respond quickly. He knew the smoke detectors were direct access to the fire department, so he wanted to set that off.

Back in New York, Heidi was worried and she could, contacted Safra's office. She wasn't surprised of what she heard. They said that Ted was indeed a hero that night. I said, that's Ted. And within hours, Heidi headed to Monaco. I was to go straight to the hospital to see Ted. Did you? No. Instead, soon after arriving, Heidi says she was intercepted by police. She had been told that Ted acted like a hero. That was about to change. As police questioned her, Heidi says it became clear they thought her husband might be a killer. She alleges they took her passport and used it as a weapon against Ted. When my passport was taken, they brought it to Ted to get him to confess for this.

And he was told then that I was strip searched and tortured. And I would not be allowed to leave the state of Monaco back to our family. She said that threat caused Ted to falsely confess. He would now say there were no intruders, that he had taken a knife and that he had stabbed himself to make it look like he had tried to save his powerful boss from attackers. They're saying he gave himself a lydicane injection prior to stabbing himself.

And lydicane, what, deadens? Would numb it. And Heidi says the confession he's, signed was written in French, which Ted did not understand. I feel they wanted a nice clean ending to this quick. It would be good for the state of Monaco to have their citizens feel safe. Ted was locked up, charged with arson and intentional act, leading to the deaths of Saffirin-Tore and Torenti.

He faced life in prison if convicted at trial. is someone I know. I know he didn't do this. Let's talk groceries, specifically your groceries. With Instacart, you want your groceries just the way you like them, right? Well, the Instacart app lets you do just that. They have a new preference picker that lets you pick how ripe or unripe you want your bananas. Shoppers can see your preferences up front, helping guide their choices. Instacart, get groceries just how you like. What if everything you learn in history class was only how to the story. I'm Dr. Khrini Bot, host of Hidden History. Every Monday, I go where history gets mysterious,

banished civilizations, doomsday prophecies, paranormal phenomena, and events that science still can't fully explain. On Hidden History, I treat these moments like open case files, not miss, not superstition, just incomplete explanations waiting for a closer look. Listen to and follow Hidden History, available now wherever you get your podcasts. With the strike of a match, Ted Mahers Dream job went up in smoke. Two people were dead, and Ted was now being blamed. I've known him now 13 years. He would never hurt anyone. Monaco's chief prosecutor says an American male nurse confessed to starting the fire that killed Safra and another nurse. The death of Edmund Safra exploded into a sensational story

that would fascinate authors Jennifer Thomas and her husband Bill Hayes. If you saw this on the screen, you'd be going, none of this makes sense. This doesn't happen. There were allegations, none of them substantiated, that might have supported Ted's original claim about intruders, talked that Safra had enemies, that he had been the victim of a Russian mob hit. Safra had an awful lot of connections to Russia. And rumors were inflamed by a suspicious discovery. He told us that the night of the fire, Safra's private force of security guards were oddly not on sight. Was that usual? Unheard of.

There were also whispers about Safra's stylish wife, Lily. The rumors about her and her previous husbands. Lily had been married four times, with one other husband also deceased, prompting more conjecture. She is rumored to be a black widow who, who has inherited a lot of money from her husbands. But police believed Ted was responsible for two deaths. It would take three long years to bring Ted to trial. Hello.

Hello, Heidi. Hi. How you doing? Okay. And in that time, Heidi was only occasionally able to speak to Ted from his prison on the Mediterranean Sea. I'm not an arsonist or a murder. It goes against everything that I've done in my entire life. I try to be strong because I know he needs my strength, too.

Never forget this, Heidi. Never. I love you. I love you. The happiness of, like Heidi, does my absence, but in what I retain and hold in my heart. I just wish this wasn't my life. We're going to the prison that Mazondereft. New York lawyer Michael Griffith joined Ted's defense team. Griffith had made a name for himself defending Americans abroad. Ted Maurer became a client and a tough one.

Can we go through some of the odd things about this case? Is there any evidence other than what Ted said initially? Any evidence of two intruders? There is no evidence that I know of any intruders. Instead, Griffith would argue that Ted did what authorities said. He stabbed himself and set the fire. but that he never intended for anyone to die. He was just trying to make himself look like a hero.

Ted is the fireman who started the fire. Firemen who started fires do it. Not to hurt people, but to save people. Are you saying that you believe Ted actually did start the fire, cut himself to make himself look like a hero? I believe that's what Ted did. Did he actually tell you he did this himself? Well, yeah, he told me that.

that he did this to himself and that's the basis of our defense. Griffith contends that no one would have died that night if police and firefighters had gotten to the victims faster. It took them about two and a half hours to reach Safra and Torenti. But authorities say they got to the scene in minutes but had to be careful and slow their response because Ted told them there were violent intruders inside. He's totally liable of the circumstances that he created. In 2002, Attorney Mark Benon spoke to 48 hours. He represented Safra's widow Lily.

He says the rumors about her are false. Not only it's not true, obviously, it is scandalous. Lily is devastated by what happened. November 2002, Heidi traveled to Monaco as the trial began. Ted was facing possible life in prison. Do you think your husband will get a fair trial in Monaco? Not at all. Why not?

They have the reputation of Monaco on the line, and they would never risk that. She wasn't happy when Ted testified that there had been no intruders, and that he had in fact stabbed himself. And she was furious that Griffith allowed Ted to take the blame for something she believes he didn't do. Heidi believes with all her heart, Ted didn't do this, that he's being forced to say he did it. I mean, what's the truth here.

Well, all I know is is Ted is my client. I know what Ted has told me. He was told this is the best way to go. Heidi, I don't know what to tell you. All I know is I'm doing my job based upon what my clients told me. And I guess you're going to have to. And this is our life. This is your life.

This is Ted Maher was convicted of arson, leading to to the death of two people. Can we have a reaction to the verdict? Yeah, we were disappointed in the... He was sentenced to 10 years. Heidi? To Heidi, it was the end of life as she had known it. I don't know.

She's upset. And then in January, just seven weeks after the trial, Ted called Heidi from outside the prison. Ted said it's me. out. He had cut the metal bars, scaled down the prison walls, and escaped. I said, you're joking. And he says, no, I'm out. He asked for money and I said, no, and he got angry at me. Ted's freedom was short-lived. The next day, he was back in custody. Heidi was furious that he would risk so much, including having his sentence extended. She says her faith in Ted had run out. I don't need him and I don't want him.

I did the best I could to bring him home, but now it seems like he's doing his own job of screwing up. Heidi filed for divorce. As for Ted, he was released in 2007. When he landed at JFK, the woman who had believed in him was nowhere to be found. But Ted would eventually find others in his corner, those authors Jennifer Thomas and Bill Hayes. Together with Ted, they would write framed in Monte Carlo. Ted was back to insisting that while caring for Edmund Safra, he was attacked by violent intruders. What they had accused him of doing didn't make any sense why anybody would do that in the first place. And so everything he said made perfect sense when he told us the story. What Thomas and Hayes found intriguing was a report in a French newspaper.

According to Le Figaro at an unrelated hearing, a judge who served on Ted Meyer's case had claimed Ted's sentence had been predetermined before the trial even began. And in your mind, the real story is this guy was set up. That 100%. Back in the States, Ted was alone. Steady work, tough to find. Especially if your name was Ted Maher. And that new name?

John Green. In his first 10 years back in the United States, John Green tried to shed his alter ego, Ted Maher of Monaco. He found a new job driving trucks and began a new romance with Dr. Kim Lark, who he went on to marry in 2020. But the marriage crumbled and in 2023, Green found himself facing a new charge, solicitation to commit first-degree murder.

Dr. Lark is a big name in this town. She's well known by a lot of people. Green was still behind bars for forging those checks and steep. stealing the dogs when Detective Garrett Silva of the Eddy County Sheriff's Office began investigating the alleged plot that Green made with his jailmate Greg Markham to murder Kim. Greg Markham was hired by John Green to kill his wife. It was a charge that Green vigorously denied when investigators interviewed him in September of 2023.

On harming Dr. Lark. Is there anything that we need to be aware about for her safety and or yours? No, absolutely not. None. I think you know where we're going with this. You think that I'm going to have somebody harm Kim? Absolutely not. But authorities weren't persuaded.

John Green's trial began on March 3rd, 2025. Prosecutor Martin Wolfson called his star witness Greg Markham to the stand. Mr. Markham, did John Green instruct you on how you should carry the murder out? Yes, in great detail. Kim Lark took us through the house where it was supposed to happen. What's he supposed to do? Turn off the power to the house. I've been an electrician for 19 years. I knew how to do that.

And where was he going to be? He was supposed to be hiding in the carport. Now this used to be a carport here. He said she's kind of pretty frail. you're a big guy. Markham says the plan was for him to overpower Kim and grab the gun she kept in the center console of her car. Apparently he was going to bring me into the house.

He told him how to control my dogs. Show it to me. Yeah, so you're raising your hands up as high as you can get and you yelled down as loud as you can and slam your hands down. And then dogs stop and they won't move until given another command. According to Markham, Green also told him where he could find Kim Lark safe. You would only know that if somebody told you that, right? There's no way you would.

But defense attorney Blake Dugger told the jury, Greg Markham is no angel and that they shouldn't believe a word he says. One of the greatest powers you have today is the power to judge someone's credibility. Greg Markham is an individual with a checkered past who really, really tried to take advantage and did take advantage of John Green. But the state presented evidence they say proves Greg Markham was telling the truth. A diagram Markham made with similarities to the interior of Kim's house. He testified John Green had detailed it to him as part of the murder plot. He described the long hallway beside the back door.

And prosecutors had evidence that Green was in a hurry to get money to pay Markham for the hit. Jail calls between Green and author Jennifer Thomas, who was managing his finances while he was behind bars. Green called her multiple times asking her to wire $2,500 to an intermediary. First, he said he wanted the money to buy a trailer, but his story kept changing.

Would that be a pain for you to do, money? There's many ways I could send it. Thomas eventually did what Green asked, but she was stunned when she learned the prosecutors believe the money was really partial payment in a murder for hire. You had gotten the money for him. I was freaked out. She said she and Hayes were relieved when the DA decided they had not knowingly done anything

wrong. Blake Dugger insisted his client didn't either, arguing even Greg Mark. The Jerkham's diagram wasn't damning because it could have been cooked up after a casual conversation with Green. It is not a crime for a man to proudly describe how his house looks in front of you. John Green didn't testify, and Dugger didn't call any witnesses, believing that prosecutors had failed to prove their case. After just two days, it was in the jury's hands. I was feeling good. I was feeling good. The jury deliberated for only about an hour.

We find the defendant, John Green, guilty. They convicted him of solicitation to commit first-degree murder. His lying has finally caught up with him. Judge David Finger sentenced John Green, aka Ted Maher, to nine years in prison, with time. time served, he'll be out in less than three. For nearly 25 years, we've had questions for Ted Maher. New Mexico authorities barred our cameras from the prison.

But in March of 2026, Ted's attorney, Blake Dugger, arranged a video visit with him. And Ted allowed us to interview him. Did you try to hire someone to kill your wife? No, I did not. Absolutely not. I shouldn't be here. But unfortunately, I am here. Once again, Ted says he was framed.

He would never instruct someone to hold a gun to a dog's head, he says. And he claimed that he only gave Greg Markham the $2,500 to help rescue Markham's dog, not to murder Kim. You don't pay somebody $2,500 to kill anybody. That is absolutely ridiculous. But how then did Markham seem to know? so much about the layout of Kim Lark's house. But this was the basic layout. Markham made us a diagram too.

I knew where the keys were. And we compared it to the house itself. It wasn't exactly a match, but there were disturbing similarities. It shows where the power source is. Right. And where the safe was, is that right? Yes. He did a drawing of her house.

How would he have those things? details if you didn't give it to him. That drawing was not all at all. They're 100% factual. Didn't you have like a dining room? Ted echoed what his lawyer argued in the trial. Whatever Markham knew about the home's layout came from innocent conversations. I explained how I had read, done electrical panels, and I talked about how I took out a

bookcase to put a safe at a high level so she would have to bend down. In fact, he told us he was a doting husband, devoted to making life easier for Kim. You said you loved Kim Lark. I still work her. He admitted he forged her signature on a check, but said as the marriage crumbled, he had no income and needed money. And he said he had a right to the dogs since his divorce settlement with Kim hadn't been finalized yet. dogs, we're still community property now. Just like he once claimed in Monaco, he told us he's an innocent and fundamentally good man,

taken advantage of by others. As you sit here today, do you feel responsible for Edmund Safra's death? No, I don't. But the couple who once believed Edmah's proclamations of innocence... I'm not responsible. Now wonder what really happened on the December night in Monte Carlo that ended with the deaths of a billionaire and his nurse. There is a chance in my mind now that he did orchestrate that. Bill Hayes still believes Ted told the truth about intruders attacking him that night.

But Hayes and Thomas agree that when it comes to Ted's plot to kill Kim Lark, The plot they say he sucked them into, he is guilty as charged. I feel betrayed. I would want to know why you lied. And while we may never know the whole truth for sure, we found evidence that Ted had hedged one of his most basic claims, which he repeatedly made over the years. Were you, in fact, special forces and a green beret?

through all three phases. You're saying you went through the training. I finished the three programs. Come on, Ted. Don't double talk here. I never was assigned to a unit at the Green Beret. So you never served as a Green Beret? I went down into special forces.

Yes, I did. If Ted Maher didn't give us a straight answer, the Army certainly did, telling us, quote, there is no evidence that Theodore Maher served in the special forces. He's a thief, he's a liar, a con-largist. And Kim Lark says she's worried she hasn't seen the last of him.

When he gets out, I'll be in trouble. Does Kim Lark have a reason to be scared of you? Yeah, absolutely not. There's no tell him what he may do. Detective Garrett Silva, who helped piece the murder solicitation case together, was promoted to Sergeant with the K-9 unit. He told us that if he were in Kim's position, he would keep a dog by his side for protection. And that's exactly what Kim Lark is doing.

I don't trust anybody. I'm always on alert. She told us Ted has demanded money as part of their divorce, and she's infuriated. Kim admits that anger can be lonely. Come on, pal-bell. But anyone who knows Kim knows... Yeah, we're just going for a right. She's never really alone. Kim, do they follow you everywhere?

Yes. Oh my God, that makes me laugh. Dogs just want to be with you all the time. And you can trust them. Yes, yes. Okay. John Green, aka Ted Maher, appealed his conviction and was denied. He is scheduled for release in 2029.

Every family has its secret. has its secrets. But what happens when you discover that your dad has been living a double life? That is not the look of an innocent man. Is everyone lying to me about who they are? I felt such desperation. I felt it was what I had to do. Listen to Deep Cover the Family Man, wherever you get your podcasts.