Casefile True Crime - Case 86: Amy Allwine

Episode Date: June 9, 2018

When FBI agents received word that online hackers had cracked their way into the dark web and uncovered an Albanian murder-for-hire organisation known as the Besa Mafia, they never expected their investigations would lead them to the quiet suburbs of Cottage Grove, Minnesota. --- Episode narrated by the Anonymous Host Episode researched and written by Eileen Ormsby, author of ‘The Darkest Web – Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives: The inside story of the internet’s evil twin.’ For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-86-amy-allwine

Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. In the spring of 2016, Detective Sergeant Randy McAllister was sitting in his office at the Cottage Grove Police Department, where he had worked for nearly 20 years. If you're going to be a police officer, you could do worse than being stationed at Cottage Grove, Minnesota.

Cottage Grove, population 36,000, lies on the north bank of the Mississippi River, a half hour drive from the Minneapolis City Centre. It has a share of problems, just like any other suburb of a major metropolitan area, but nothing like the problems of the inner city. Randy McAllister liked the quiet and predictability of working for a low crime, small city community. Serious violent crime was rare, and over his entire career, McAllister had known of just two murders, both of which had been in the previous four years. The 31st of May 2016 was much like any other day, until the monotony was broken up by a

visit from the FBI. Although not an everyday occurrence, it was not completely out of the ordinary for the FBI to contact local police as a courtesy to let them know that they were investigating a crime in their area. Special Agent Asha Silke informed Detective Sergeant McAllister that the FBI had intercepted a threat made on the internet involving a possible victim in Cottage Grove. Silke asked if a local police officer could accompany him to notify the potential victim. Threat reports are a common issue.

They usually come via the internet or text messaging, but this one was a little different. It had come via something called the dark web. It was a term that Randy McAllister had heard, but like most people, didn't really have much understanding of. He assigned one of his detectives to accompany the FBI agent to visit a Mrs. Amy Allwine at her home on 7624 110th Street South, Cottage Grove. 110th Street is a long, semi-rural road of very large blocks. The Allwines lived in the last house on the right before a tiny car park led to the Grey

Cloud Junes San Grapple Prairie. The prairie was popular with walkers, and often sunset watchers would sit in parked cars enjoying the view. The letterboxes along the street were peppered with neighborhood watch stickers, but there were rarely any incidents that required reporting. The house owned by Stephen and Amy Allwine was no shack, but the simple dwelling could not compete with the significantly larger and more elaborate homes of their neighbors. It was the epitome of the worst house on the best street.

A prefab home that had been shipped in pieces and assembled on the property, it comprised four small bedrooms, an open-plan kitchen living area, and three bathrooms. An attached double garage provided an alternative entry to the house via a mudroom that doubled as a laundry. The 28 acres also held a large barn that had been refurbished to house Amy Allwine's dog training business, Active Dog Sports. The rest of the land was rented out for truck gardening. When Special Agent Silky and the local detective knocked on the door of No. 7624, it was answered

by a thin blonde man in his early 40s. He was Stephen Allwine, he explained, and his wife Amy wasn't home. The two law enforcement officers told him they needed to speak to Amy urgently, though they didn't think she was in immediate danger. They made arrangements for Amy to attend the Cottage Grove Police Department as soon as she could. Stephen and Amy attended the station the next day, June 1st, 2016, when the FBI agent told them why they had been called in.

The story that unfolded was unbelievable. The dark web is a sort of parallel internet that can only be accessed by downloading special software. Once it's installed on a computer, a user can visit websites that can't be found on the regular internet. Sites on the dark web include black markets selling weapons, drugs, forgeries, banking details, stolen goods, credit cards, and in new identities, illegal porn forums and file sharing sites, political dissent and hate sites, and hacking communities.

The dark web is covered in greater detail in Case 76 of Casephile, Silk Road. Many people refer to the dark web as the wild west of the internet, where anything goes. It's the internet's evil twin, where people have total freedom to buy, sell, share, or create anything they want, confident that they cannot be found. Some people want to buy murderous substances and implements. Some want to sell people. Others want to share live streams of torture or create pictures and films of such depravity that seasoned cops who view them need counselling.

And some people want to hire a hitman. In 2016, the most popular and profitable murder for hire outfit on the dark web was called Bessar Mafia. Bessar Mafia opened shop on the dark web in December 2015 with a slick and professional site. Borrowing from the success of dark net markets like Silk Road, Bessar Mafia promised to match buyers and sellers of services. Someone could either sign up as a potential customer, or to offer their services as a

potential killer, hacker, thug, or loan shark. When a customer posted a job, Bessar Mafia would assign a nearby operative, holding the money in escrow until the job was done to the customer's satisfaction. While some dark web hitman sites had tried to convey the impression they were the suave shadowy figures of popular culture, Bessar Mafia admitted outright that their hitmen were gang members and drug addicts, mostly stupid, but willing to murder a stranger provided they were paid. On April 25, 2016, the Bessar Mafia website was hacked, revealing an extensive database

of names, addresses, and photographs of people who had been targeted for murder. At least a dozen of these names had bitcoin addresses attached to them, meaning that the people placing the hits were serious enough that they had paid large sums of money. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency and is the favourite method of paying for illegal goods and services on the dark web. Among the files was Order No. 30312, Target, Amy Allwine, Description, about 5 foot 6, looks about 200 pounds. The order asked that their hit be taken out when Amy would be at La Quinta Inn at Moline

Airport in Illinois. She would be driving a dark green Toyota Sienna minivan. There was a link to a photograph that showed a happy Amy on a family holiday in Hawaii. The associated bitcoin address showed that bitcoin worth around $12,000 to $13,000 had been paid to Bessar Mafia for her murder. The person ordering the hit called themselves Dog Day God. Dog Day God first contacted Bessar Mafia on February 15, 2016, sending an email that said,

I'm looking to hire you for a hit, but what is the recommended way to convert cash to bitcoin anonymously? Dog Day God was concerned that pulling out a large sum of money to buy bitcoin would raise suspicion of the authorities, so they wanted advice on how to hide the transaction. The response from Bessar Mafia was swift and helpful. The customer service administrator provided Dog Day God with the names of a couple of bitcoin traders that didn't require identification and suggested there were several ways to explain away the missing money, investment, purchasing goods and services, or gambling online.

Dog Day God wrote back, The target will be travelling out of town to Moline, Illinois, in March. What is the price in bitcoin for a hit, ideally making it look like an accident? The emails went back and forth between Dog Day God and the administrator of the Bessar Mafia site. The starting point was $5,000, which would be a hit by a low level gang member wearing a turtleneck and using a handgun. Staging an accident would usually cost an extra $4,000.

They eventually settled on $6,000 for a gang member to wait at a predetermined location and ram Amy with a stolen car. Dog Day God provided details of a trip Amy would be taking to a dog training event in Moline on March 19, 2016. The Bessar Mafia admin agreed to take the job and told Dog Day God, On March 19, make sure you are surrounded by people most of the day or in public places where they have video surveillance. If you have a good alibi, they can't do anything else than say it was an accident and close

the case. Dog Day God responded, Thank you for the reminder, I will make sure I have a good alibi. The transaction was completed, the bitcoin paid and everything set for Amy or Wine to be killed in Moline, Illinois. On March 20, Dog Day God wrote to Bessar Mafia asking whether the job had been carried out. Bessar Mafia replied, No, not yet. The hitman has followed her, but he didn't have the chance to do the hit yet. He needs to be in a position where he can hit her car to the driver's door to make sure

she dies. Bessar Mafia suggested a sniper might be a better option, provided nobody would suspect Dog Day God if Amy was obviously murdered. Dog Day God responded, No, I would not be a suspect, I'm fine with whatever you think is best. Bessar Mafia assured Dog Day God that a sniper had a 100% success rate, but would cost another $6000. Dog Day God didn't have the amount handy, and the hitman was apparently unable to find

an opportune time to ram Amy's car, so the hit was not carried out. The next day, Bessar Mafia wrote, We don't usually ask this because we are not interested in the reason why the people are killed, but if she is your wife or some family member, we can do it in your city as well, making it look like an accident or robbery. Dog Day God wrote back, Not my wife, but I was thinking the same thing. How much would it be to kill her at home and then burn their house so that they cannot tell if anything was stolen? I'm not sure if they have anything worth stealing.

This Thursday, I know she will be home between about 9 and noon central time. Her home address is 7624 110th Street South, Cottage Grove, Minnesota, near Minneapolis. Bessar Mafia agreed to kill Amy at home and burn down the house, but it would cost an extra $10 bitcoin. Dog Day God deposited the extra funds the next day and emailed Bessar Mafia confirmation that the deposit had gone to a specific bitcoin address. Bitcoin addresses are a string of 34 characters and numbers. Each address is unique and is proof that a transaction took place.

Anyone can go online to the site blockchain.info and see exactly when and how much bitcoin has moved into or out of an address, although there is no way of telling who is on either side of the transaction. Dog Day God wrote, Okay, I've got some more details on her schedule. I'm trying to get as much as I can without being obvious. It looks like she will be home tomorrow from 12-1pm and Thursday from 12-1pm. Those are the only times that I know about at the moment. Let me know the plan so I can be somewhere else public.

I know her husband has a big tractor, so I suspect that he has gas cans in the garage, but I do not know that for sure. She usually drives the Sienna, so if that's there, she should be home. Thursday, March 24 came and went, and Amy was not killed. Bessar Mafia said the hitman had problems trying to get to the location and asked if the hit could be carried out another time. Dog Day God replied, Yes, I do want it done, but I have to pretend to be her friend to get this information and it's driving me crazy to be nice to her.

I'm also afraid that if I dig for information too many more times, that it will look strange. They rescheduled for the following Monday morning, but again, the hit wasn't carried out. According to Bessar Mafia, this time, the assigned hitman was stopped by police for a registration check, and as he was in a stolen car, he was taken in for questioning. Dog Day God was getting frustrated and wrote, I realize that things happen, but this bitch has torn my family apart by sleeping with my husband, who then left me, and is stealing clients from my business.

I have had to continue to act like a friend to get information, and I cannot do it anymore. I have gone out of my way to try and get you good information. I feel that I am at risk of being suspected if I ask too many more questions. You have had three good attempts at her, and none of them have worked. I liked the idea of shooting and fire because I think it would look like a robbery and cover-up, but I'm at the point that I do not care how it's done. I believe that if I go about my regular routine, that I will not be a suspect. If it's not done in some way by May 1st, then I would like my money back.

Does that sound like enough time for you? I cannot get my hopes built up again like I did this weekend. I don't care about date or method, you have her picture and address, so you can tail her or do whatever you need to do to get the job done. I do know that she is going to take a trip to Atlanta the weekend of April 7-10, but I do not know the details. I also was passing by recently when they had the garage door open, and I was able to see that they have three 5-gallon gas cans just outside the door from the house to the garage,

and what looked like a propane tank as well. I'm not sure if any of them are full, but they are there. Thanks for your help with this. I need her out of my life, so I can move on. As the story unfolded in the Cottage Grove police station, Steven and Amy Oldwine expressed great shock. As far as Amy was aware, she had no enemies. She never even had disagreements with anyone, personal or business.

She was a normal suburban housewife who had just three things in life she cared about, her family, her church and her dogs. She was adamant that she had never been and would never be unfaithful to her husband. Their marriage was rock solid, and that would go against everything she believed in. Amy Oldwine grew up dedicating herself to her faith and to helping others. According to a couple who were adherents to a fundamentalist religion, which later became known as the United Church of God, Amy was the middle child, with an older sister and younger brother.

The children were not allowed to take part in extracurricular activities at school, nor did they have any friends from outside the church. Amy attended Woodbury High School, where her participation in school life was limited to lessons. Nevertheless, Amy had a happy childhood and had a social life that revolved around the family's faith. She was an enthusiastic cheerleader for the church basketball team and put a lot of time into developing dance routines for the girls on the squad.

Adhering to the conservative values of the church, there were no skimpy outfits or suggestive moves in Amy's choreography. Steven Oldwine met Amy when they were both students at Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas. Steven was also from a family that worshipped at the United Church of God. Not so much an educational institution as a training ground to prepare youth for life and service in church. The college had a motto, recapturing true values.

Steven and Amy got to know each other through church socials, where they would always choose each other as dance partners. After college, Steven moved to Amy's hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota, and they married on August 11, 1996, in Cottage Grove. Amy's father, Charles, placed Amy's hand into Steven's and said, Take good care of my little girl. Both Steven and Amy were deeply committed to the church. God and religion played a central part in their life together.

The United Church of God adheres strictly and literally to the teachings of the Bible, including those of the Old Testament. In some circles, the small religion is defined as a cult. Members are expected to marry only within of the faith, which meant according to one former member, the pool was very small. Steven and Amy did not observe Christmas or Easter as the United Church of God teaches that these are pagan celebrations. We all once attended services every Saturday at a modest building in St. Paul.

They would arrive around 12.30, a good hour before the service began, and would stay for all the activities afterwards, not leaving until the evening. Steven and Amy spent most of their spare time together, and to the bulk of that time was devoted to church business. They traveled extensively, serving congregations around the world and taking part in humanitarian efforts. The two were ordained as deacon and deaconess of the United Church of God in the spring of 2006.

After that, Steven rose to the position of elder, with responsibility for cancelling married couples, giving sermons at church, and anointing those who fell ill. A year later, they adopted their only child, a son, Amy bringing him home when he was just two days old. There was an open adoption, and the all-wines stayed in touch with his birth mother. She had chosen them because Amy was unable to have children. They were dog people, and they were a very loving and affectionate couple. The desperately wanted child became part of the family and joined the tradition of Friday

night dinners with Amy's parents and brother. On those nights, Amy's mother would put out the good china and silverware, while her father prepared the food. Amy always brought dessert, usually strawberry pie, which was her mother's favourite. When he was old enough, their son Joe would join Amy in picking the biggest, juiciest, fresh strawberries they could find to make the pie. Well known and loved for her generosity, Amy travelled extensively doing charitable deeds and spreading the word of God to developing countries.

The entire family, Amy's parents, siblings, husband, and later their son, would travel overseas every other year for the full religious festival of their church, the Harvest Feast. Amy's primary passion outside the church was dogs. She had been a dog lover since childhood, and as an adult, she became an active and popular member of the dog training and competition scene. Before long, her Australian shepherds were frequent competition winners, thanks to Amy's talent for training. That knack with dogs saw Amy turn her hobby into a career, training other people's dogs

to compete in agility trials and competitions. She opened her training school, Active Dog Sports, and threw herself into the business of dog training in a way that was consistent with her values. Although her core business was to train dogs to be competitive, she didn't put pressure on owners who wanted to keep the training just for fun. Her clients, both dog and human, adored her. The dog training shed on the All Wines property was three times the size of their house, and Amy made sure it was kept immaculate.

Active Dog Sports grew to be a respected and successful business, offering an array of dog-related services and leading the way in dog nose work. Amy's sunny personality and her training by positive reinforcement saw her friendship group among fellow dog lovers grow to become second only to her church group. Despite her growing success, Amy's first priority continued to be her family and her church. She would never work or attend shows on Saturday, which was her Sabbath. She was known for being relentlessly positive.

Friends claimed she was never without a huge smile, and they described her as a sweet, friendly, and loving person. She was never negative, never judgmental, and never gossipy. Lost being utterly devoted to her faith, Amy was an evangelical to those who didn't share her beliefs. According to those who knew her in the competitive dog circles, one of her most outstanding attributes was her empathy. Part of that empathy was her ability to imagine how she would feel if someone were to impose

their beliefs onto her. Amy Allwine appeared to have it all. She seemed to be the last person in the world that should have been the subject of a dark web hit. But there was no question that the details provided to Bessa Mafia were her. The reason the FBI had advised Amy that she was not in any immediate danger when they first visited her house was because the hack of the Bessa Mafia website had revealed something else.

Bessa Mafia was a con, and Dog Day God had been one of the worst scammed. A total of 147 messages went back and forth between Dog Day God and Bessa Mafia, with plans made to kill Amy Allwine on over a dozen different days. Finally, on May 20, 2016, Dog Day God gave up and demanded a refund, writing, That's it. Your local guys suck. They cannot do simple things even when given plenty of time. I will try again later with one of your pros, but I would need to save up for that.

Can you give me a quote of what I would need to work with a pro, and then I will try to get a new order worked up in a couple months? Until then, please refund my money. Bessa Mafia responded by telling Dog Day God that the site had been hacked, and if Dog Day God didn't cough up another 10 bitcoins, their emails would be forwarded to the police. That was a little over a week before the FBI visited Cottage Grove. However, the fact that Dog Day God had been scammed and Amy had never been in any danger from Bessa Mafia, didn't change the fact that somebody who knew intimate details of

Amy's life had paid a large sum of money to have her killed, and that somebody presumably still wanted her dead. FBI Special Agent Silky asked the Allwines if any of the details in the messages made them think of anyone in their lives. Amy was adamant that she had not carried on an affair, and that she could not imagine who Dog Day God might be. The best lead they had was the assertion that if Amy died, Dog Day God would inherit her business.

Amy's husband, Stephen, had no interest in dogs and knew nothing about the business of dog training. Amy reluctantly provided the names of her colleagues, including her best friend, Sharon, and fellow dog trainers Gail and Kristen. Of all of them, Stephen and Amy said the clues pointed most closely to Kristen, who had helped Amy set up her computer network and online presence. Kristen also watched the Allwines' dogs for them while they were away, and her child sometimes played with the Allwines' son.

But interviews with Sharon, Gail, and Kristen went nowhere. With no other leads, the police asked Amy to provide a list of everybody who knew her well, especially in the dog training world. Amy provided a list of hundreds of names, and the FBI made some discreet inquiries of those who might have access to the level of detail about Amy's life that Dog Day God had. The overwhelming response was that Amy had not an enemy in the world, and nobody could think of anyone who would want to harm her.

Every single person the police spoke to was adamant that there was no way Amy was having or had ever had an extramarital affair. With their inquiries going nowhere, Special Agent Asher Silke provided Amy with his business card and told her to contact him any time she wanted. He advised the Allwines to install extra security measures at the residence and report any suspicious activity to the police immediately. Steven set about installing an alarm on the secluded house and put new codes on the garage door.

He set up motion detection cameras on each entry point to the house, other than the patio door that led to the backyard, where the dogs usually roamed all day and would keep setting the cameras off unnecessarily. The Allwines became more vigilant about their surroundings, and in June 2016, Amy called the police to report a suspicious blue van parked at the end of the street. Police attended, but it turned out to be somebody who worked nearby taking a nap. Steven decided on a further, more drastic measure. Although the Allwines already had a shotgun and two rifles, on June 22, 2016, he applied

for a permit to purchase a handgun for personal protection. He and Amy went shopping and settled on a Springfield 9mm. They kept the gun in a handgun case under Amy's side of the bed, and the key inside a cupboard next to the bathtub in the en suite bathroom. The two had date nights where they went to the range to learn how to shoot properly. Steven slept with the shotgun on his side of the bed. Steven also obtained a concealed carry permit for the 9mm, but rarely had cause to use it. The one time he did carry the handgun was when he visited Kristen when she asked him

over to help set up a Wi-Fi security system. The Allwines still weren't sure whether they could trust Kristen, but the visit was without incident. After the FBI's visit, Amy took special agent Silky at his word and started contacting him regularly. She would let him know what was going on in her life and how she was feeling about it. The two struck up what Asher Silky described as a friendship. They had a number of telephone conversations and several meetings in person.

Amy's husband Steven attended at least two of these meetings, but other times Amy would meet with a special agent alone. Several weeks went by without incident. As often happens with these things, Steven and Amy soon became lax in setting the alarm codes on the doors. They resumed their day-to-day lives, Steven working from home at his two jobs from the basement, Amy conducting dog training classes, and both of them participating in church activities. Although she confided in her best friend Sharon and the two of them puzzled over who could

possibly be behind the plot, Amy kept the threats to herself, not even telling her parents who would just worry. She downplayed the seriousness to those who knew because they had been questioned by police. From the outside, nobody could tell anything was wrong. Amy continued to be the same bubbly, happy person when she attended her regular meetings with the dog community. However, she would sometimes sit and talk with her sister and admit that inside she was devastated that there was someone that thought the world would be better off without

her and she had no idea who. It had broken Amy's heart to provide names of her friends to police. They were people she knew and loved, and she did not think for a moment they had anything to do with threatening her life. On July 31, 2016, Amy Allwine called Agent Asher Silky on his cell phone, clearly upset. She had just received a disturbing email. When she told him what it said, Special Agent Silky jumped into his car and went straight to the Allwine's house.

Amy had received an email from an anonymous email address from someone called Jane. It said, Amy, your family is in danger. Last Sunday you received an email with a solution to this problem and you have not done anything about it yet. Are you so selfish that you will put your family's lives at risk? If you did not see the email, then check your junk mail, soon. Amy did not recall any such emails, so she checked her spam folder. Sure enough, there was an email from the same person, calling themselves Jane.

They did a few days earlier. It said, Amy, I still blame you for my life falling apart. I don't know how a fat bitch like you got to my husband, but because of you, he left and my life has become shit. I'm sending you this email because it looks like you already know about me. I see that you have put up a security system now and I've been informed by people on the internet that police were snooping around my earlier emails. I have been assured that the emails are untraceable and they will not find me, but I cannot attack

you directly with them watching. Here's what's going to happen. Since I cannot get to you, I will come after everything else that you love. I know about your son, your husband, and your business, and thanks to the internet, I see you have a mother and father in Woodbury, a brother in St. Paul, and a sister in Yardley, Pennsylvania. I've been busy researching topics on the internet and have found that if you inject water into the brake line, then you will cause them to fail.

What would happen if the brakes on the truck failed when your husband was hauling a heavy load? I found how to blow up a gas meter and make it look like an accident. I know that the meter on your house and your business are on the east side, and the meter on your parents' house is on the south side. I'm still watching you and your family. While I did not see your son this week, I saw last Friday he was wearing a bright pink shirt.

I see that you moved with the RV. Here is how you can save your family. Commit suicide. If you do not, then you will slowly see things taken away from you, and each time you will know that you could have stopped it, which will eat you apart from the inside. By the time I am done, you will want to end it anyway, so why not do it now and save them? I think it's an easy choice, one life to save six lives. Your family does not need you, but you can save them.

Do not tell anyone about this email or this deal is off, and I will come after your family. Unless you are a heartless, selfish bitch, then I expect to see your obituary in the paper in the next couple weeks. Amy was understandably upset by this new turn of events. Asha Silky asked Amy about the information specified in the email, and she confirmed that details such as the location of the meters and the fact that Joseph had been wearing a pink shirt the week before were correct. However, the author had been wrong about the address of her sister.

The threatening email was sent via a disposable email service, where users can send emails anonymously, making them untraceable. Nevertheless, the FBI took the threat seriously and asked Stephen Allwine for consent to review the family's electronics, which he gave immediately. The feds took away their computers, imaged them, and returned them a day or two later. Nothing relevant was found. The FBI also revisited some of the people involved in the dog training world and imaged their electronics as well.

Again, the FBI found nothing. Through several email exchanges with the FBI, Amy was eventually put at ease by the opinion that a move from trying to arrange for Amy's murder to telling her to kill herself was an overall de-escalation of the situation. Amy assured Special Agent Silky that she would not be taking Jane's advice to end her own life. Her family needed her, and it was at complete odds with the teachings of her church. A few weeks later, Amy enrolled in the eight-week Cottage Grove Citizens Police Academy.

After the question on her application asking why she was interested in attending the Academy, Amy wrote, I would like to learn more about the police department, what it does, and how it works. I would also like to see what I can do to support them better as a citizen. When it came to the four-hour ride-along with an officer that was part of the Academy experience, Amy naturally requested she be assigned to accompany a canine officer. In October 2016, the All Wine family went on their annual pilgrimage to the United Church of God's Four Festival Feast in Germany.

The whole family noted that Amy was happier and more relaxed than she had been in a long time, far away from Cottage Grove and to the person who wanted her dead. On the afternoon of November 13, 2016, after a morning spent trap shooting, Troy Larson was cleaning his koi pond when he glanced across the road. He had lived on 110th Street for 11 years, and he had met his neighbors, Stephen and Amy All Wine, that didn't really know them. He noticed with passing interest that heavy white-gray smoke was coming from the All Wine's wood burner.

He only noticed because it was unseasonably warm. In fact, Troy was wearing just a t-shirt, and none of the other neighbors had their wood burners running that day. The All Wine's dogs were barking, but the dogs were always barking. So Troy Larson went back to tending to his pond. That afternoon, several people were in the All Wine's shed that housed active dog sports training. The large shed was located just meters away from the All Wine's house.

Some of the trainers had independent access to the facility, which they could book online for private dog training sessions. That day, there was a canine nosework class that went from 4.45 to 5.45pm. The class was run by a dog trainer named Barbara, and five students were in attendance. The students were startled sometime toward the end of the class to hear screeching and skidding tires right outside the building, as if somebody was leaving in a hurry. It was odd enough that two of the students exchanged looks that said, what the hell was that?

But it was not odd enough that anybody went outside to check. The class finished at 5.45, and everyone was gone by 6pm. A little before 7pm that evening, Stephen All Wine arrived home with his son. Joe went in ahead of Stephen while he unpacked the car. As Stephen removed his shoes in the mudroom, Joe came back and asked, why is Mummy lying on the floor? Amy was beside the bed, staring up at the ceiling. She was warm, but there was no pulse, which was unsurprising given the blood and brain

matter on the floor beneath her head. The gun was near her left elbow, and one shell casing was near her right foot. Stephen called 9-1-1 and said, I think, I think my wife shot herself, there's blood all over. The operator tried to get information out of him as he spoke to his anxious son in the background. Stephen provided the address, as well as details on the number of guns in the house. He told the operator he had last seen Amy when he left the house sometime before 5-5.30pm.

The operator asked him to check on his wife to determine if she was still breathing. She's not breathing, I can't tell where she shot, I don't know. Police Department patrol officers arrived while Stephen was still on the phone. The smell of roasting pumpkin emanated from the kitchen. Stephen and his 9-year-old son were standing in the garage. Amy was on the floor of her bedroom, a gunshot wound to her head, a 9mm Springfield handgun on the floor beside her. She lay flat on her back, her arms splayed out to the sides, in a pool of blood beside

her neatly made bed. Her pants were undone and her red sweater slightly pulled up, displaying her stomach and underwear. Sergeant Gwen Martin, one of the first responders, was stunned to recognise Amy from the Citizens Academy. On her class evaluation, Amy had just written, I would like to do this again in a few years. Amy was passionate about her business, eager to learn during the Citizens Academy and future oriented, nothing in her demeanour suggested she was suicidal.

Sergeant Gwen Martin broke down when notifying Detective Sergeant Randy McAllister, who was the on-call detective that evening. There was an apparent suicide, she told him, and he needed to attend. McAllister was perplexed, suicides, while tragic, were a common enough occurrence for the Cottage Grove Police Department and not something that required a detective to attend. Gwen Martin's manner also concerned him, the Sergeant, who was also a trained paramedic, was abnormally distraught. As her voice choked, Martin handed the phone to her partner, Sergeant Pat Nickel.

Nickel told McAllister that the victim had been a recent graduate from Sergeant Martin's class in the Citizens Police Academy. Her name was Amy Allwine. Randy McAllister felt the stirring of recognition at the name. She was the one that was threatened on the internet that time, Nickel filled in. Upon hearing that, Detective Sergeant McAllister lost no time in getting dressed and making his way to the Allwine property. He was on the alert for anything that looked out of the ordinary.

That occurred to him that a woman planning on ending her life was unlikely to be cooking dinner shortly before, as Amy had been doing. There was also something not quite right with the blood beneath her body, and there was a film over the floorboards outside the bedroom as if they had been recently cleaned. There was a large pool of blood on the carpet around Amy's head, which was to be expected, but McAllister was more interested in the drops to the left. He had seen many suicide scenes over the years as both a paramedic and detective, and these looked out of place, as though they had dripped from something

being suspended from above the area. Blood from both her nose and mouth had dripped down the left side of her face, despite her being flat on her back facing straight to the ceiling. This suggested that at some time her head had been on its side and was later placed facing upwards. The clean patch on the wooden floor just outside the bedroom door was at odds with the rest of the house, including the bedroom, which was messy with dog hair. The police quizzed Stephen Allwine in an attempt to determine Amy's last movements.

Stephen told police he had been working from home that day, as he usually did, from his basement. Amy had said she wasn't feeling well, and he had checked on her throughout the morning. They had lunch together around midday, after which Amy went to lie down. Amy's father, Charles, came to the house that afternoon to finish off installing a new dog door. Charles was a frequent visitor to the home and enjoyed helping them with handyman projects. He put the dogs in their kennels in the mudroom so that they wouldn't disturb him doing the job.

As Amy was feeling poorly and having a lie down, her father chose not to bother her. He finished the job and left the house without speaking to his daughter. Charles had only driven five minutes down the road when he got a call from Stephen asking him to return and take their son Joe, as Amy had decided to go to the hospital. Charles returned to pick up his grandson, who was waiting outside for him. Afterwards, Stephen said that when he went back to Amy, she was sitting up and looked a little off. She said she was light-headed and

felt dizzy with a dry mouth. Stephen googled the symptoms, which he found were consistent with the stroke or heart issues. Nevertheless, Amy changed her mind, deciding not to go to hospital but to remain in bed. Stephen returned to his office in the basement and continued to work. Amy got severe migraines sometimes, especially when she had her period, and they had been more frequent since the incidents with the FBI. Stephen said he looked in on her one more time before he went to collect

their son Joe at around 5pm. When Stephen left, Amy was kneeling beside the bed, and he assumed she was praying. Usually, either Stephen or Amy would take Joe to Ninja Warrior class that evening, but they were running late because Stephen had stopped to get gas and then spoke to Charles about Amy's health for a while. So instead, Stephen and Joe went straight to dinner at Culver's, a fast-food restaurant about a five-minute drive from their house. They texted Amy to see if she wanted anything, but they got no reply.

Stephen had the receipts for both gas and dinner. When they got home, Stephen removed his shoes in the mudroom. The dogs were still in their kennels as Stephen had not released them after Charles had finished installing the new dog door. When Joe found his mother in a pool of blood on the bedroom floor, Stephen called 911. Police allowed Stephen to call whoever he needed to. His first call was to Amy's parents, Charles and Diane,

to whom he blurted out, Amy is dead. She shot herself. Charles and Diane rushed over, along with Amy's brother. Stephen also called their pastor, Brian Shaw, who dropped everything to come to their house. Stephen told officers that Amy had not acted or claimed to be depressed that day. In fact, she had been getting better lately, something that was corroborated by her father, Charles, who stated that her family were the world to Amy. Stephen provided his two phones and their passcodes to police, a Black Samsung Galaxy S7 and a Silver iPhone 6.

He readily submitted to a test for gunshot residue on his hands, as well as DNA samples from both him and his son. When Amy's parents advised that Amy was right-handed and McAllister saw the gun placement was by her left elbow, that was enough for him to want another set of eyes. He called the State Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and asked for one of its agents to attend the scene. The rest of that night, the house was swarming with law enforcement officers.

Some officers went door-knocking among the neighbors to determine if they saw or heard anything. One of the neighbors mentioned the screeching car that had left the street in a hurry earlier. Law enforcement officers and the medical examiner stayed at the All Wine House until early the next morning. They sprayed lumenol on the floor, which showed that a significant amount of blood had been spilled in the hallway, then tracked through the house at some stage. They bagged Amy's hands to preserve them to test for gunshot residue

and prepared her for autopsy. After all the formalities had been taken care of and Amy's body taken away by the medical examiner, the Cottage Grove police set to work. One of the first things they did was to go back and look through the files the FBI had created about the threats made to Amy through the dark web. One detective decided to do his own dark web exploring. He discovered that Bessa Mafia wasn't the only website that Dog Day God had used. Somebody with the same username had created an account on the Dream

Marketplace after the final message to Bessa Mafia. Dream was one of the large eBay-like one-stop markets where buyers could buy any drug imaginable, as well as an array of other illegal goods. Dog Day God had made just two posts on Dream. The first post was in the Marketplace Discussion Forum, where Dog Day God wrote, looking for drug dealer physically located in Minneapolis area, looking for a partner for a job, need to be willing to stay anonymous and be paid by Bitcoin.

The second post Dog Day God made said, does anyone have scopolamine for sale? Scopolamine is a drug used to treat motion sickness but is dangerous in large doses. It is sometimes referred to as the zombie drug, as it's said to induce amnesia when too much is ingested. It can make the user so drowsy that they are incapacitated and it can make unsuspecting victims highly susceptible to suggestion. Although Dog Day God didn't get a public response to the first request, there were two replies about the scopolamine.

The first anticipated that it was to be used for no good and said, avoid that shit, mate. It's dangerous as fuck and you will kill someone. However, the second response provided Dog Day God with the name of a seller. And the following morning, be careful, that shit will make you gladly hand over your kidneys and have no idea where, why, or who to when you come back to reality. When Detective Sergeant McCullister heard about this, he made a phone call to the medical examiner and made a request that the examiner had never had before.

He asked her to test Amy Allwine for the presence of scopolamine. When detectives invited Steven Allwine to attend the police station for a further chat two days after Amy's death, he agreed immediately, but brought two people with him, his attorney, Kevin DeVore, and the regional pastor for the United Church of God, Brian Shaw. Pastor Brian Shaw oversaw the educational, social, and recreational programs of the regional congregations and provided counsel and guidance to local membership. Steven was a preacher at the Twin Falls Congregation and also provided counseling to married couples. The church held strong views on subjects such as infidelity

and divorce. Anyone guilty of breaching the marital vows by either means would not be allowed to hold a formal position in the church and may even be asked to leave the congregation altogether. On this day, Pastor Shaw was asked to wait outside as Steven and his attorney attended the interview with Special Agent Michelle Frascone of the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Steven said he did not want Pastor Shaw or anyone from the church knowing that Amy had committed suicide. During the two hour interview, Steven was subdued and softly spoken. He only perked up when he spoke about his church. His voice would become stronger and he would sit up to attention. He answered all of the questions about Amy and their life together hunched over the desk,

not referring to his attorney at all. He told police he couldn't explain the cleaned up blood on the hallway floor outside the bedroom and said nobody in the family had had any injuries as far as he knew. He said he had not heard of the dark web until the FBI visited. Steven was asked if he had a gut feeling about who might be behind for threats and emails and he said that some but not all details pointed to fellow dog trainer Kristen. He offered up that he had no idea where Amy's dog trials took her but Kristen did and she had made the arrangements for the Moline trip. Steven then talked about the email from Jane telling Amy to kill herself. He said he didn't believe she would actually do it as anyone who took their own life would not be

allowed to enter heaven. When the police asked again about the allegations in the emails and messages about Amy being a home wrecker, Steven dropped a bombshell. It was he who had been unfaithful. Steven had a lover. Her name was Michelle and she knew all about Amy. Steven and Michelle had met on a website called Ashley Madison. Ashley Madison was a dating website with a difference. Rather than matchmaking singles looking for love, it catered exclusively to those who were seeking an extra marital hookup. Not surprisingly, the site came under considerable criticism for its unabashed advertising. Life's short, have an affair. Steven claimed he had learned about Ashley Madison from younger church members during his

counseling sessions. He turned to Ashley Madison out of curiosity. His first attempt, dinner at the Legends Golf Club, ended abruptly when after the meal his date said she had to go to the bathroom and never returned. His next match, Michelle, proved to be more successful. Michelle was a small, slim blonde in her 40s who had suffered with anxiety and depression. Michelle was married, but she claimed it was an open relationship. They started seeing each other in October 2015 when Steven offered to attend a doctor's appointment with Michelle. After that, they would meet for coffee, lunch, dinner and sex. Most often when Amy was on one of her many trips attending dog training events and competitions.

Their trists would usually take place at Michelle's house, but Steven also took her away on two work trips. As an anxious, nervous person, Michelle appreciated Steven's kindness and polite demeanor. He sometimes spoke of Amy, saying he didn't know what the future hold for their marriage. He told her Amy didn't spend enough time with the family, preferring to be working with the dogs and that community. He never spoke of his faith, so Michelle was surprised when she googled him to discover that he held a position in the United Church of God as a preacher. His photograph and links to sermons were on their website, alongside articles that laid out the teachings of the church, including those that said a member of the Church of God could never divorce.

Around February 2016, Steven and Michelle's relationship started to cool off. Nevertheless, they still met up from time to time. They met for lunch on Steven's birthday in March, where he was running late because he had locked his keys in the trunk. In April, Steven finally gave in to Michelle's curiosity about where he lived. Amy was out of town at a dog show, and Steven walked Michelle through the house. April was the last time they were intimate together. A few months later, in September, Steven and Michelle met up again for lunch. Steven told Michelle about the FBI visit and the threats against Amy. He told her that the threats were coming from someone who hoped to take over the

business. Michelle responded, who would want to kill somebody over a $50,000 business? Steven told police all about Michelle in his interview that day, but he referred to it as having had a short fling a couple of years ago. He said it initially started off as a friendship, as Michelle was going through a rough time in her life, and due to the fact that he was a minister, it was more of a counselling role. He said he had told her about the FBI investigation, as it was a stressful point in his life, and he needed to share it with someone. Steven decided there was no need to tell his pastor about Michelle. He also decided Amy's parents didn't need to know, especially as Steven and Joe were in the process of moving in with them.

Amy's parents had insisted that Steven and Joe could not possibly stay where the tragedy had occurred. Police again interviewed Amy's colleague, Kristen, whom Steven had mentioned several times during interrogations. She had a solid alibi. She had been in Oklahoma at a dog show on the day of Amy's death, something easily verified by police. The test for scopolamine in Amy Allwine's system came back positive for an amount 40 times the therapeutic dose for motion sickness. Such a level would cause blurred vision, confusion, and hallucinations, with the victim being receptive to doing anything someone commanded of them. Detective Randy McAllister and the rest of the Cottage Grove Police Department

were now definitely treating Amy's death as murder. Murders were rare enough in Cottage Grove. Murder for hire was unheard of. Terms like the dark web and bitcoin were unfamiliar to the Cottage Grove Police Department before the Amy Allwine case. However, there had been one police report lodged and then forgotten about way back in March that popped up when the police did a search on any potentially related cases. Someone had walked into the Cottage Grove Police Department in March 2016 to make a very unusual report. They had been defrauded in a bitcoin transaction. The person said they had entered into a transaction with an individual known only as Mark

to purchase training and test preparation materials for $6,000. Mark wanted to be paid in bitcoin, which was acquired and transferred, but the goods were never delivered. The complainant suspicion that they had been defrauded was aroused when they noticed that Mark had used an untraceable guerrilla mail address confirming the transaction. The Cottage Grove Police were not familiar with bitcoin and didn't really know what was being reported to them. In any event, the person making the report didn't seem too concerned about the police following up on the crime, so the report was taken but then filed away without any further investigation. But now, a report involving bitcoin in early March 2016, the same

time Dog Day Guard was paying Bessa Mafia to murder Amy Allwine, seemed very significant. Detective McAllister pulled out the paperwork to see if it held any clues. The person who made the report was Stephen Allwine. Now that the police had a reason to look at Amy's husband more closely, they became even more thorough in their searches. Five officers were assigned to almost full-time hours uncovering and sifting through the unusual evidence. The police took a total of 66 devices belonging to Stephen and Amy Allwine, including computers, laptops, phones and hard drives. There were thousands of emails and pages of data for law enforcement and an independent

computer forensics investigator to sift through, with little hope that anything could be recovered. Stephen Allwine was an IT specialist, and if he was guilty, he would have covered his tracks. However, the specialists were able to recover some evidence from Stephen's MacBook Pro that had not been completely obliterated. Stephen had told police that he had not heard of the dark web prior to being contacted by the FBI. However, before the hit was placed on Amy, his MacBook Pro, under the username S Allwine, was used to search for the Tor network, the software required to get onto the dark web. The search was also conducted for a system called Tails, which eradicates all evidence of Tor-based activity from the computer it's on.

The user S Allwine conducted Google searches for installing the Tails operating system on an Acer computer. Notably, an Acer branded computer or device was not provided to the police by Stephen Allwine. Shortly after the first message was sent by Dog Day Guard to Bessa Mafia, Stephen's MacBook Pro was used to conduct searches for Bitcoin. The user profile S Allwine made several more searches for Bitcoin and made visits to a Bitcoin exchange over the next couple of days. Just minutes before Dog Day Guard sent a message to Bessa Mafia describing exactly where Amy would be in Moline, Illinois, the user S Allwine on Stephen's MacBook Pro googled K9 Nosework and reviewed an online event calendar for the trials, then used Google Maps to calculate

Moline's distance from Chicago. This was the precise information that was then provided to Bessa Mafia. The photograph of Amy in Hawaii was uploaded to the family website moments before Dog Day Guard provided it to Bessa Mafia. On February 17, Stephen's MacBook Pro was used to look up a $700,000 life insurance policy on Amy Allwine, the beneficiary of which was Stephen. The user S Allwine also conducted several searches for members of Amy's family on Stephen's MacBook Pro, just days before Amy received the threatening email from Jane that threatened her family. Not only did computer forensics discover what was on Stephen Allwine's MacBook Pro, they made a note of what was not found, namely any evidence of the mysterious Mark who had

supposedly transacted with Stephen over email to sell training equipment for Bitcoin. Other than the single email supplied by Stephen to the police when making the report, there were no other back and forth emails you might expect when making a $6,000 business transaction. The email from Mark was sent using a disposable email address, and forensics proved that Stephen's MacBook Pro had been used to access disposable email at the exact time it was sent. All of this, along with other minor artifacts left on his computer and his phone, such as access to Bitcoin exchanges, was mounting circumstantial evidence against Stephen Allwine, but nothing that couldn't be explained away by a clever lawyer.

Investigators started going painstakingly through backups until they came to a backup of Stephen's iPhone created on August 3rd, 2016. Within that backup was a note which contained a single line of 34 apparently random letters and numbers. The note had been made and then deleted a minute later, but not before it had been backed up to the cloud. The 34 characters and letters equated to the exact address that Dog Day God had told Bessar Mafia that they had paid Bitcoin into to carry out the hit. The record showed the note was created around 20 seconds before the message was sent to Bessar Mafia. Stephen had copied the address and pasted it into the email to the murder for hire site. This was a smoking gun.

Bitcoin addresses are unique, and it created the direct nexus between Dog Day God and Stephen Allwine. Other evidence started coming in as well. Stephen worked for two companies, and he said he had been working from his basement all day. However, both companies confirmed that he had not logged on to their systems after lunch, and he performed no work functions that afternoon. A review of the Allwine's video doorbell system determined that no person had rung the doorbell that day until the police did, nor had it been turned off. The home security system data confirmed that nobody had come to the house from the time Stephen left until he returned. If a disgruntled dog owner had entered the house, they somehow managed to avoid all monitored entry points. Police contacted Michelle,

who confirmed that she had had an affair with Stephen after meeting him through the Ashley Madison website. She also told them about the day Stephen had been running late for that date because he had locked his keys in his car when buying Bitcoin from someone in a fast-food outlet car park. Upon reviewing the 911 call Stephen had made after finding Amy, something really stood out. As Stephen spoke to the operator and simultaneously spoke to his son while Amy lay in a pool of blood, the little boy asked his father quite clearly, are you going to remarry? Stephen laughed and replied, I don't know bud. The evidence was mounting and it all pointed to just one person,

Amy Allwine's husband Stephen, who was currently living in the home of her parents. On January 20, 2017, Stephen Allwine was arrested at a traffic stop on his way home from dropping his son to school. Stephen was charged with the second degree murder of his wife Amy, which suggested a non-premeditated killing. This seemed surprising given that Stephen had apparently been planning his wife's murder for nearly a year. Stephen soon posted the $500,000 bail which had several conditions attached, including GPS monitoring and only supervised visits with his son Joe. Joe was to stay with his maternal grandparents and Stephen returned to the home he had shared with Amy. It was a matter of just two weeks before Stephen was arrested again,

after Amy's parents reported to authorities that he had tried to contact his son, with whom he was supposed to have no one supervised contact. Stephen had asked Amy's parents to charge up his son's smartwatch so that he could track his whereabouts. The judge raised the amount required for conditional bail to $600,000 and ordered Stephen to have no contact with his son or Amy's parents. He once again managed to post bail and was free to return home. On March 24, 2017, a grand jury elevated the charge against Stephen to first-degree murder. The judge said his unconditional bail at $2 million and conditional bail at $1 million. This time, Stephen was unable to post it and he was remanded in custody to a

wait trial. On January 23, 2018, after six days of questioning 50 potential jurors, the opposing attorneys finally settled on a pool of eight women and seven men to decide whether Stephen Allwine killed his wife. Three of them were spares. Those who were chosen professed a working knowledge of computers, but no in-depth technical expertise. In his final case before retirement, District Judge B. William Ekstrom presided over the most bizarre trial Washington County, Minnesota, had ever seen. Over the next week, prosecutors drew together the threads of evidence that pointed to Stephen Allwine being Bessa Mafia customer Dog Day God and the man who ultimately pulled the trigger that took Amy Allwine's life. The prosecution claimed Stephen Allwine gave Amy

the scapullamine in her lunch, then got his son Joe out of the house before shooting Amy while she was disorientated from the drug. He then cleaned up the blood and burned the cleaning cloth and any clothes that had been spattered. Later, he went to collect his son, carefully keeping receipts from the places he visited as an alibi. When he returned home, he let his son go in ahead of him to find his mother on the floor of the bedroom. Stephen Allwine's motive for killing his wife was simply that he wanted out of their marriage. However, nothing was more important to him than his status in the United Church of God. He would lose his role if he were to initiate divorce proceedings. In fact, the church would probably ask him to leave the congregation altogether.

Throughout the trial, the courtroom was filled to capacity with family from both sides, church congregation members, and to the professional dog training community. They took their own notes, which they would compare during breaks and probe for inconsistencies in testimony. Stephen and Amy's pastor would spend breaks cancelling family and friends who were trying to make sense of what had happened. Stephen showed almost no emotion throughout the trial. He did not turn to look at his family and rarely acknowledged his own lawyer. Instead, he would read through every report and piece of evidence that was tended and occasionally pour himself a paper cup of water. Sometimes, when it seemed appropriate,

such as when the 911 call was played and photographs of Amy's body were displayed, he would appear to be sobbing. However, the box of tissues in front of him remained untouched. The trial called for a wide array of witnesses, including an escort, a bitcoin trader, a pawn broker, neighbors, dog trainers, an array of forensic and medical specialists, as well as the law enforcement officers who had attended the incident and worked the case. The prosecution elicited responses from witnesses that cumulatively built an airtight case against the defendant. The bitcoin trader confirmed that he had met Stephen at a fast food restaurant to sell him bitcoin, and Stephen's presence there was confirmed by a call out to roadside assistance

when he locked his keys in his car. The escort confirmed she had met the man of God through Backpage.com, and they had sex together for $400 for an overnight stay, long before his Ashley Madison flings. The bloody footprints at the scene of the crime matched Stephen Allwine's socked feet. The gunshot residue test was positive on his right hand. The furnace had been going that afternoon, despite it being unseasonably warm, which suggested Stephen had burned evidence. The security system showed there were no trips of the front door, garage service door, or egress window after Stephen Allwine left the house to go pick up Joe, meaning nobody entered the residence through those three entry points.

The prosecution's case ended with a detailed timeline of the improbable coincidences between the actions of dog day guard and the actions of Stephen Allwine. It was impossible not to draw the conclusion that both were one and the same. Allwine's defense lawyer did his best with what he had. There was a neighbor who may or may not have seen Amy around 5pm when the prosecution said she was dead. There were the reports from neighbors and the dog trainers using Amy's facility that two cars had wrought away from the property at around 5.45 that evening. There was the unlocked, unmonitored patio door that was never tested for prints, and the dogs that were usually in the backyard to deter anyone from entering the house that way

were locked in their kennels. The prosecution said Amy had been killed in the hallway and then moved to the bedroom. However, there was no blood on the carpet between the hallway and Amy, nor had the carpet been cleaned, and it's unlikely Stephen could have carried her. With medical evidence ruling out suicide, the only alternative theory the defense could offer was that somebody else killed Amy that evening. The intruders would have entered via the patio door with the dogs safely locked in their kennels, killed the scopolamine dosed Amy while Stephen was establishing his alibi, and then wrought off in their separate vehicles. However, with overwhelming computer forensic evidence that fingered Stephen as dog day guard, all this theory did was suggest

Stephen had finally been successful in finding his hitman. Either way, it took the jury just 8 hours to declare Stephen guilty of premeditated murder. Given that Stephen had gunshot residue on his right hand, they determined that having failed to hire a hitman, he pulled the trigger himself. At the sentencing hearing, Amy's family spoke of the whole left in their lives. Her parents had come to the trial with open hearts, hoping that Stephen would be proven innocent. They had provided Stephen with a home from the time of Amy's death until he was arrested, so they felt doubly betrayed when the evidence convinced them they had been housing not only an adulterer, but their daughter's murderer. For the first time, Stephen spoke. In a rambling

speech that went too long, he maintained his innocence and the love for Amy. He said he had been locked up with drug addicts, child molesters and kidnappers, but that he was bringing God to them. Three atheists so far had been termed and were now attending Bible studies regularly. Judge Ekstrom was having none of it. Addressing Stephen directly, he told him he believed he was a hypocrite and a great actor who could turn tears on and off. Stephen was sentenced to mandatory life in prison without parole. The United Church of God put out a lengthy public release that expressed concern about the potential negative media coverage the case could bring the church, given the fact that Mr Allwine was technically a lay minister at the time.

They barely mentioned Amy. This episode of Casefire was researched and written by Eileen Ormsby, author of The Darkest Web, Drugs, Death and Destroyed Lives, the inside story of the Internet's evil twin. You can read more about Amy Allwine's murder as well as other Dark Web enabled crimes in The Darkest Web.