Cold Case Files - REOPENED: The Girls

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

Jack Irwin is a 71-year-old war veteran who lives by himself in San Bernardino, CA. That is until two young women - Marcia Ann Johnson and Judy Gellert - embed themselves into Jack's affairs, and his finances. Jack's neighbors become concerned, and when Jack disappears, they are left asking: Are Marcia and Judy friends, con artists, or worse? Sponsors: Angi: Get your next project done with the help of a pro from Angi. Download the free Angi mobile app today or visit Angi.com  Progressive: Multitask right now. Quote your car insurance at Progressive.com to join the over 29 million drivers who trust Progressive.  

Hey, Cold Case fans, we have something special for you. We're bringing you double the episodes every week. We know you dedicated fans need your fix in between new episodes. So every Thursday, we are back bringing some of our best episodes from previous seasons. Let us know which classic episodes you'd like to hear again in the comments. And don't worry, we'll see you back here every Tuesday for all new episodes of Cold Case Files 2. Now, on to the episode. Had they struck up a real connection with him? Were they just after his money?

And when Jack Irwin mysteriously went missing, what exactly did Marsha and Judy know about it? From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. I'm Brooke, and this story, adapted from a classic episode of Cold Case Files, is told by Bill Curtis. My house is this one right here, and Jack's house is this one right here. And like I said, he only lived here six months. Susie Hegemeyer has lived in Upland for 10 years and knows everyone on her block,

including her newest neighbor, a senior with cash to burn named Jack Irwin. One thing about Jack, if you ask him, do you have any money, he'd pull out a wad of money and go, yeah, I got money, I got a lot of money. Here's money, and I got money in the bank. I got lots of money in the bank. And sometimes he'd actually give you figures,

like, I have $250,000 in one bank. Susan likes Jack, but becomes concerned when two young women named Marsha Johnson and Judy Gellert move in with the old man. And eventually they started calling him dad. And it didn't take very long for them to infiltrate his lifestyle. My conversations with him after a few months of him being down there were that he felt things were out of control. Sandy Bailey is one of Jack's best friends. He would go to the market, he'd come back,

things of his would be moved or no longer there in the home. They'd move things around, and he didn't feel like he had any control over his home anymore. One morning he called me over. I was leaving for work, and he said, I want to tell you something. And I said, what? He goes, do you know the girls and I are going to be a family,

and we all went to an attorney, and I put them on my trust. Irwin has already sold the girls a cabin he owned in Mount Baldy, some 10 miles away. Now it appears the two women are in line to inherit everything. If I die, they get everything. If they die, I get everything. I said, Jack, what are you talking about? Everything's yours. I said, you should think about what you just did.

Jack Irwin never takes the time to think about it. One week later, he disappears from Upland. Susan Hegemeyer confronts the girls. Jack took a trip. I said, what do you mean he took a trip? He took a trip. He wanted to go to Seattle. And I said, why Seattle?

Oh, because he wanted to see the Space Needle. And I said, well, how long is he going to be? Oh, I don't know. Where is he going to stay? I don't know. And I told her, I said, Jack would never do that. It's just not his personality. Like Hegemeyer, Sandy doesn't believe Jack would take off for Seattle without telling anyone. I thought it was a lie. And I got one of Jack's pictures and I put a missing

thing on it and I stuck it up in front of the post office. I put on telephone poles and I knew the girls would have to walk by it every day to get their mail and it would aggravate them. And it did. And they said they were going to sue me for slander. Two weeks later, Jack Irwin is still nowhere to be found. Johnson and Gellert now split their time between Jack's home in Upland and his former cabin in Mount Baldy. The girls are the talk of the town up the mountain. Their sudden change in lifestyle does not escape notice.

All of a sudden they appear with all these marvelous vehicles. And the blonde one would drive the white Corvette. The brown-haired one had a Jeep. They had the biggest Ford-made SUV, Excursion, yeah, and then they had this bigger motorhome. Within a few weeks, Irwin's friends are ready to go to the police. And the girls came down from Mount Baldy. We were doing some yard work, and I approached both of them, and I said, so have we heard from Jack yet? Oh no, we're getting really concerned. I said, so are we. So I think today we're going to report him missing. Well, that's exactly why

we came down the hill because that's what we're going to do today. Initially, it was kind of a routine missing person case. Marty Thuvenel is the former police chief in Upland. In 1999, he supervises the investigation into Jack Irwin's disappearance. Through the initial investigation, they never did no sightings of Mr. Irwin, no contact, no indication of where he went or if he had ever gone actually to L.A. or Seattle.

By the end of 1999, it becomes apparent that Jack isn't coming back, and his friends grow frustrated. Almost everybody in the cul-de-sac came out to find out what the police department was here about and why and where was he. Matter of fact, one time we were going to put a banner across the garage and put, where's Jack? Because that was the thing, where's Jack?

It eventually just quietly disappeared. We didn't hear from anybody. So I just figured, Jack's gone and nobody cares. Jack Irwin's case grows cold and stays cold for two years until Chief Thuvanel attends a power lunch. I happened to be at a luncheon with the district attorney at that time, Dennis Stout, and I had gotten information that he had just started up an elder abuse unit

and had assigned several DA investigators to that unit. From the minute we picked up the report, myself as well as the others that wrote it thought that he'd been killed. DA investigator Maury Weiss is assigned the case. He believes Irwin has met with foul play, but has no body to prove up his theory. With no other leads to follow, Weiss takes a look at Irwin's bank account, which he discovers is emptying rapidly. They had access to his bank account. They went to the bank. They were put on the signature card

so they could withdraw money. Shortly after that time, Jack was never seen again. As a trustee on Jack's account, Marsha Johnson has the authority to write and cash checks, almost all of them made out to herself. The money was gone before the end of the year. About $77,000. Weiss believes Johnson to be a con artist and perhaps a killer.

It's a feeling that blossoms into outright suspicion when the investigator learns about a fire on Mount Baldy. I was standing with my friend, and she yelled, Jack's cabin is on fire. Yeah, we still got fire coming out the roof here. Yeah, we need to get some water on that. As the home goes up in smoke,

a former neighbor of Irwin approaches firefighters. And I said, I would suggest that someone look for bones underneath that cabin. And he said, what do you mean? I said, well, the man has gone missing that sold this cabin to these women. Investigators pick through the ashes but find no bones, no clothing, no trace of Jack Irwin. The first time we came up here, this is the area that the driveway that Jack had built that went up to the cabin. Maury Weiss is an investigator with the San Bernardino County District Attorney.

When he picks up the case in 2001, the fire is out, and the investigation into Irwin's disappearance just as cold. We came up here looking for things that may look for evidence to the arson that would lead us toward that. Weiss suspects that the fire was set deliberately, not, however, to dispose of Jack Irwin's remains. I thought it was mainly for the insurance money. Marcia had filed a claim for a burglary about a month prior to the fire and got some money that way,

and it was just another way to get some more money, I believe. In talking with the insurance investigator, Weiss gleans a juicy bit of gossip, not about the fire, but about Marsha Johnson's personal life. She is suing her former therapist for alleged sexual abuse. She'd indicated that she had a sexual relationship with the therapist. And due to the statements Marsha made in regards to that, it's why she ended up filing the suit. If there are skeletons in Marsha Johnson's closets, Weiss figures they might surface in a contentious lawsuit.

On August 28, 2002, he obtains depositions from the suit and begins to read. As I started reading through the deposition, I realized that Ms. Martin had indicated under oath that Marsha Johnson admitted to her that she had killed Jack and dismembered his body and spread it around Mount Wally. According to the therapist's deposition, Marsha told her, I shot him in the back of the neck. Shot him in the back of the head.

The therapist then said under oath, I don't know if it was a saw or an axe, but she said she cut him up. She cut him into pieces. She sawed him into pieces. That was the first information we had, the word Marcia had made any comments to anyone that we were aware of regarding the murder of Jack Irwin.

The lawyers involved in the civil suit never contacted police, and so a possible confession to murder was buried. Now Maury Wise hopes to find Jack Irwin's body and put Marsha Johnson behind bars. Bobby Dean and Chris Elvert are homicide detectives with the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department. In the fall of 2002, Weiss tells them about the statements from Marsha Johnson's therapist and asks for help. Two facts in In this case, we had to establish, A, was this privileged communication between Marcia and the therapist,

doctor-patient relationship, or was it between friends or lovers? On September 30th, Elbert sits down with the therapist, who is more than willing to talk in detail about Johnson's alleged confession. So I was sitting on the sofa, and she came over to the sofa, and she said something to the effect of, Debbie, I did kill Jack. And I giggled, because I thought she was teasing. I thought she was kidding.

And she established clearly that they were no longer doctor-patient relationship, and that she had stopped by, and it was during that evening that Marsha admitted to Deborah Martin that she in fact killed Jack Irwin. She said that he was helping her either chop wood or move wood, and he turned around and called her dirty girl and that made her very angry so she went into the bathroom and she said she sat there and said something like I'm going to kill him. I'm going to kill him. And she went and got the gun and she walked outside and his back was toward her. And she said, she like aimed, like put the gun up and I shot him. She sawed him into pieces, took his body parts and salt him into pieces and wrapped him in, and I forget if she said saran wrap or tinfoil, but I believe she said saran wrap, like saying plastic wrap.

The therapist's statement is good, but by itself not enough to make a case for murder. Without a statement coming from one or both of them, there was no way it was going to... We all knew what happened, we thought, but there was no way it was going to get to court without something coming from one of the two of them. That's when Bobby made the comment that he felt a wiretap would be a good way to go with it.

We made a lot of cases on wire intercepts. It's a good tool and it's very useful for homicide cases particularly. If you know how to manipulate it, plan out your case, strategize your movements after your wire intercepts are in place, you can solve just about anything. Excuse me, it's me. Listen, you need to call me. A lot more s*** has happened and I need to say goodbye. Just please call me because the game's all over. The results of the police wiretap and more, right after the break. This episode of Cold Case Files is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Most of you listening right now are probably multitasking.

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Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. National average 12-month savings of $698 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2021 and May 2022. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. Angie is the go-to place for everything home, and they've made it easier than ever to connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done. If you own a home, you know how much work it can take. Whether it's everyday

maintenance and repairs or making dream projects a reality, it can be just hard to know where to Thank you. the whole process. Bring them your project online or with the Angie app, answer a few questions, and Angie can handle the rest from start to finish or help you compare quotes from multiple pros and connect instantly, which means you can take care of just about any home project in just a few taps. Because when it comes to getting the most out of your home, you can do this when you Angie that. Download the free Angie mobile app today or visit Angie.com. That's A-N-G-I dot com. When 71-year-old Jack Irwin disappeared from his Southern California home in 1999, friends and neighbors strongly suspected foul play. Their eyes were on Marsha Ann Johnson and Judy Gellert, two young women who had weaseled their way into Jack's life, his home, and his bank accounts.

Investigators had their suspicions too, but without a body or any evidence, they couldn't build a case against Marsha and Judy. That is, until 2002, when Dr. Deborah Martin, who was Marsha's former therapist and lover, opened up to police. She told them that Marsha had confided in her and admitted to murdering Jack. The therapist's statement was a good start, but police needed more. So they decided to tap Marsha Johnson's phone. Hello, dear. They're confiscating. They just confiscated the expedition. What? Homicide department from San Bernardino County. What? What?

What you are listening to is the police wiretap of a phone call between Marsha Johnson and Judy Gellert. Police believe the two killed 71-year-old Jack Irwin two years ago, dismembered him, and disposed of the pieces by driving into the wilderness of nearby Mount Boldy. If our facts were correct, which we believed they were, it was very important to let them know what the facts were. And by taking that expedition, not knowing how much blood evidence could be confiscated out of that, was when they really felt like we knew exactly what had happened. They had a search warrant. It's like really pretty intense. I know. I know.

But we need to talk big time. Big time. Judy wasn't a happy camper. We wanted to put as much pressure or motivating factors on both Judy and Marsha at the same time so that they would converse about why all these things were taking place at this time and what information did they think

that the police were aware of. The main thing is, is you cannot be charged with anything by association, Judy. Just because you knew me and I did things does not mean that you are going to get in any kind of trouble. The tone of voice escalated. You could tell the panic was coming in on them. They knew at that point that basically the case was made. Hi, everyone. This is Jillian with Court Junkie.

Court Junkie is a true crime podcast that covers court cases and criminal trials using audio clips and interviews with people close to the cases. Court Junkie is available on Apple Podcasts and PodcastOne.com. Marsha and Judy are scared and beginning to make mistakes. Just a few hours after the expedition is confiscated, Marsha puts a call in to her aunt.

Hello? Aunt Janie? Yeah, hi Marsha. Hi, listen. What? Are you okay? No. It's all over. Everything's over. I just want you to do me one favor. Everything's over? What do you mean?

I'm turning myself in for killing Jack. Oh, no. They took the expedition. They confiscated that. They already know. They already know. They're building their case. It's over

judy's been getting dragged through the mud so i'm going to turn myself in but you need to be there for judy because she's going to need all the support she can get marcia we we let her stay out for a few days after those initial statements regarding her involvement in murder until she went to a motel in El Cajon and decided to hide out there. And at that point we felt that she might flee and so we went down and effected and arrested at that point. She was very receptive. It was apparent she wanted to talk.

We walked up and she said, I'll tell you everything. I want to get this off my chest. I want to tell you what happened to Jack. He came up there, and he called me a nasty girl. In an 8-foot-by-10-foot room, Marsha Johnson sits down with Detective Bobby Dean to tell him how and why Jack Irwin died. She's pretty open. She's pretty open.

She's not closed up. She's conversational. Matter of fact. I was pissed. And he was trying to separate me and Judy. He wanted me to be with him. He kept on saying all these bad things about Judy. He wanted me to be with him, and it's like, no. You know, this is my wife.

We've been together for a long time. Eventually she says that Jack was the object of all her problems in her life. Everybody who had mistreated her in the past, all the anger and rage that she had, ended up on Jack. I don't know. I don't know what happened to me. But I shot him. Shot him in the back of the head. I think it hit him back here somewhere.

I know it did. And I'm not a gunsmith or anything like that, but apparently I'm a pretty good shot. I was like, oh my god, what did I do? All of a sudden I see his hand go up and there was blood just squirting out. I mean squirting out. And I was like, oh my god, what did I do? So there was a chainsaw underneath the house and this is really really hard. I cut his head off and then I cut both of his hands off with chainsaw and then I cut both of his feet off. But when I cut his head off, I didn't realize how heavy a head is. It's really heavy.

That's pretty telling. If you experience that, you'll remember that. And she did. I started disposing of his body. You know, I put his torso in one area and his head, I just, you know, I took it out of the bag and I just watched it roll down this mountain. It was like, oh my God, I can't even believe this. I can't even believe this. It still does not seem real. And at this point she starts to minimize and try to justify her actions. I think she's also trying to build a defense.

This is later what the defense keyed on is that she was mentally unstable and none of these things ever happened. The interview wraps up at 4 a.m. with a promise from Marsha to take the detectives to the place on Mount Baldy where she disposed of Jack's body. When morning comes, however, Marsha has had a change of heart. She indicated she wasn't going to do that anymore. It felt good that she may show us where she put the body so we would have a place to at least start looking,

but there was a little letdown when we found out, no, she's not going to take us up to the mountain. Even without a body, Marsha's confession is enough to bring a charge of first-degree murder. And a trial date is set. At trial, Marsha Johnson's lawyer claims she is mentally unstable and was delusional when she confessed. I don't know if you've ever had a, like, where you kind of dream, and it seems so real, but it's not the truth. Marsha Johnson's actions, however, paint a cold-blooded picture of murder for money.

Since Jack Irwin first disappeared, Johnson siphoned more than $100,000 from the senior's bank account, buying a Corvette, a Jeep, and an RV. In his closing arguments, the prosecutor employs a prop, a cookie jar filled with cookies. And he was using the analogy that if you're a child and your parents leave, you take a cookie out of the cookie jar and you eat it, but you're not going to take them all because mom and dad will know when they come back. In this case, the cookie jar being Jack's bank account and didn't leave any cookies, just emptied the cookie jar because she knew Jack was not coming back.

And as he made the argument he set the cookie jar and the cookies down on the council table, in fact he did it right in front of Marsha. And as they concluded Marsha got up to be taken back into the custody facility, and she just reached over and picked up all the cookies and said, they're mine anyway, and walked away with the cookies. So she'll take anything she can get. As for Judy Gellert, cold case detectives cannot prove that she took part in the planning or execution of the murder.

She was a lot more culpable than I think the case proved against her. I think it could have been very easily planned beforehand. It's almost what you could tell on the wiretaps, that they'd been together off the phone and had made this plan of shielding Judy from it. Gellert pleads guilty to receiving stolen property and is sentenced to five years of

probation. I think they're the worst of all the culture we have out there of people preying on the innocent, so to speak. Here you have this elderly man that took them in off the street and they repaid him by killing him and stealing everything he owned. 5,000 feet above sea level is the rugged spot where Jack lived much of his life and where he lost it. It's a place where Jack's friends sometimes return to think about his life. It was one of those things where you feel that you have to do something. We had to do something to stop them. If they think they've gotten away with this and they,

when they run out of Jack's money, who's going to be next? I mean, when she said that she shot him in the back of the head and then took a chainsaw to him, who gives you the right to do something like that to another human being? That's what I couldn't understand. And I just couldn't let her get away with it. Marcia Johnson's defense attorney argued at trial that she had bipolar disorder and that her taped confession was a fevered, imagined episode. Even in her confession, she did at one point say

that she took Jack to the train station to go on that trip to Seattle. Clearly, she was a bit confused. And while she did, in fact, have bipolar disorder, the jury didn't buy the false confession argument. They convicted her of several charges, including elder abuse, insurance fraud, burglary, grand theft, and murder.

The judge sentenced her to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Since her conviction, Marcia has refused to talk to the press, saying that she is saving her stories for a book. Cold Case Files, the podcast, is hosted by Brooke Giddings. Thank you. This story was adapted from A&E's Cold Case Files, which was produced by Curtis Productions and hosted by the one and only Bill Curtis. Check out more Cold Case Files at aetv.com and by downloading the A&E app. It's a streaming hot summer on Pluto TV, featuring hip blockbusters during popcorn summer movies. Watch Mark Wahlberg try and solve a murder in Four Brothers.

Or go on an adventure with an Indiana Jones movie marathon. Plus, Pluto TV has hundreds of channels with thousands more movies available live and on demand. Download Pluto TV on all your favorite devices for free. Pluto TV. Stream now. Pay never.