Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Black widows seek hit men

Episode Date: January 3, 2018

Most women who want their man dead are do-it-your-selfers, but there is a certain type of lady who outsources the dirty work to a hired hit man. Nancy Grace explores some of the more noteworthy cases with Dr. Brian Russell, the lawyer-psychologist who hosts Investigation Discovery's "Fatal Vows" series. They are joined by national criminal defense lawyer Brian Claypool, who defended one of the most infamous defendents Dalia Dippolito, and Crime Stories contributing reporter Bobbi Maxwell. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. ordering a hit on her husband. You're going to jail for solicitation of first-degree murder of your husband. I am not. Did you hear what I just told you? I'm very lucky with what I did. David and Lovejoy inspired for about a month to kill her estranged husband. When the verdict was read, it was just too much for one of the defendants. At one point, Diana Lovejoy completely passed out. We were the puppet master that was pulling all the strings.

It was pure evil. You know what? That whole till death do us part thing, you know, I've been thinking about that, but apparently so have a lot of other people. And they're focusing more on the death part. I'm talking about women who kill. But oh, no, no, no,

they don't want to mess up their French manicure and do it themselves. Uh-uh. No way. They want to outsource, hire somebody to do it, and that's where everything goes sideways. And here in the studio with me, Jackie Howard. Jackie, we know as moms and wives, and you, of course, an ex-wife. Let me just point that out. I'm still a wife at this moment. You know, you know. Just do it yourself.

Don't ask somebody else to do it, or it will not happen. And if it does, you'll have to redo it. Okay? She's saying yes, everybody. But these ladies, these women locked in matrimonial bliss, again, we're focusing more on the death part of those vows. I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Whatever happened to D-I-V-O-R-C-E? You know, you can get one practically free. Sorry, Brian Claypool. Joining me, national criminal defense attorney and trial lawyer for

wife turned would-be killer, Dahlia DiPolito. Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psycho. Uh-oh, Brian, he just had to go out and do us with his degrees. He's not only a lawyer, but a psychologist. I guess he told you, okay? Oh, yeah, me too. Host of Investigation Discoveries, Fatal Vows, Dr. Brian Russell with us. Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter. And Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute, joining me in L.A. Alan Duke here in the studio. Jackie Howard still shaking her head no.

Everybody, thank you for being with us. Why do these women kill? Why do they hire hit men? Well, the gold standard, of course. I'm sorry, Brian, but you have the dubious honor of representing Dahlia DiPolito. Now, her husband said she tried to kill him before with poisonous chai tea from Starbucks. Can't prove that. We've heard reports Brian Claypool has the cup in his dishwasher right now and is refusing to turn it over.

But listen to this. Now listen to this. This is police sound and video. Police confronting Dolly DiPolito over her dead husband. Listen, we had a report of a disturbance at your house and there were shots fired. Is your husband Michael? Okay, I'm sorry to tell you, ma'am, he's been killed. No, no, no, no. He's been killed, ma'am. No, no, no, no. Try to calm down. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Okay. Who would want to hurt him? Witnesses said they saw a black male running from him. I can't let you see him, ma'am. Ma'am, I cannot do this right now. Detective Yopi, I need you to take her

to the station. I can't. Ma'am, go with these detectives. If you want to help your husband, okay? If you want to help your husband, you need to go to the station with the... If that's not enough, you see Dahlia DiPolito bending over in pain with the anguish at the prospect of being a widow. Her husband dead in their home and cops come to tell her. But wait a minute.

What about this? Between now and when it's done, you know, you're not going to have an option to change your mind. There's no change. No, there's no gold standard. To Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter, I've got so many women to get to, so many female killers who want their husbands dead. I don't have time and my spot on Sirius XM to stuff them all in, but I've got to start with Dahlia DiPolito. I mean, this is the woman on house arrest. She was only supposed to go to her lawyer's office and church. She got pregnant. You know, I'll get back to you on that brian claypool but fill me in on the murder

plot bobby well dahlia met her uh her husband michael um and within six months after marrying wait bobby bobby you know how i love you bobby maxwell now when you say that Dahlia DiPolito met, and I'm saying that with air quotas, met her husband, where did they meet? On Match.com? At church? In Sunday school? Where did they meet, Bobbi? Well, they actually met, she was an escort. You mean a hooker? A ho! Actually, not a ho, because she's getting paid for it. Okay, Brian Claypool, I respect you as a man for jumping in. All right, so. Yeah, Nancy, they met, believe it or not, I know this is going to knock your socks off,

but they met at a Starbucks coffee shop. Is that where they agreed to meet? No joke. Okay, because that's not what he says, and that's not what the state says and not that's not what her texts say to various men where she's agreeing to have sex with them brian you there i'm here response i mean do you really believe brian that women just want to go have sex with

different men for fun did did your wife tell you that? Well, I think what's important for all these stories is to get the facts straight and what leads up to these women allegedly doing this. Because obviously there's something, in my opinion, the common thread is there's something wrong in the marriage. And in Dahlia's case, you want to focus maybe a lot on, oh, she's allegedly an escort. She tried to kill him.

I'm not worried about who she sleeps with, to tell you the truth. I'm more worried about the murder aspect. Well, but what nobody wants to talk about is the domestic abuse and the police failure to investigate that. So those are the elements that we tried to highlight in the two trials that I did. Okay. Can we get back to the, correct me, Bobby, did Dahlia DiPolito ever tell anyone, such as police, battered women, mom, neighbor, I mean, she lived with her mother on house arrest did she tell anybody she had been abused before she hired a hitman not that i'm aware of i've never seen

back to the hooker the escort and again i'm not the church lady she can sleep with whoever she wants to i am certainly not pointing the moral finger because I don't want it pointed back at me. But I'm more concerned about the murder for hire. She can sleep wherever she wants to with whatever man is nut enough to pay her money to sleep with. But it's very clear throughout all of the documentation in court that he did hire her as an escort. I mean, that's in the court record. But you know what? We'll pretend that's not true. Let's talk just about the murder for

hire, Bobby Maxwell. We just heard the sound of her saying, what did she say? I'm 5,000% sure I want him dead. Not 100%, but 5,000%. Tell me from the beginning, and don't bring up the hooker part because her lawyer's going to get mad. Go ahead. Well, Michael, after meeting Dahlia, within a matter of months was ready to have him removed from her life, allegedly. And so she hired a hitman who turned to be an undercover detective and someone that knew Michael DiPolito. And that's when they did a second conversation. And she was caught on tape saying 5000% sure she wanted him dead, and actually went through one trial, and then another one after an appeal, a hung jury, and then a third trial,

and finally were able to hand a conviction down on Dahlia. Well, now the first one, the jury was out for about less than an hour or less than two hours and came back with a guilty. That was reversed on appeal because the defense lawyers asked and were denied the right to ask the jurors individually if they had heard about the case or seen any pretrial publicity. That's what we call voidaille, which coincidentally is French to speak the truth. That's what that means. When you question the jurors to find out who you're putting in the jury box. Brian Claypool, let me tell you a funny story. As my daughter says, mom, you're off topic. I was getting ready to strike a jury, Brian, and the defense attorney, all bravado, as some people say, full of piss and vinegar. I would never say that because we don't say piss in our house.

But he stands up in front of the whole jury pool, in front of my judge, who was 84 years old at the time, and says, I'll take anybody, any juror will find my guy not guilty. I'll take the first 12. You afraid to do that, Miss Grace? And everything in me screamed, don't give in, don't do this. But I went, bring it on, like the fool that I was, and put the 12 in the box. Okay, that's a bad idea. Now, luckily, I did manage to get a conviction through no fault of my own, okay, because that should have blown, I blew it right there, taking his bait.

But my point is, for a dyer, I think once you strike the jury, Brian, that's your verdict right there. I've always thought it's all in jury selection, Brian. Well, that's a great point, Nancy. Jury selection is oftentimes the most important part of the trial. And a lot of trial lawyers, especially in the criminal forum, they don't spend the required time and research and hire consultants and look at the psychological aspect of selecting jurors. I mean, to our credit, Nancy, I know you have a lot of disdain toward Dahlia, but the second trial that you just mentioned, I mean, we did a fantastic job in that case.

I have to say, you really did. But getting back to your point, it was primarily jury selection. I mean, we were so vigilant, you know, in looking at body. It's not only just what jurors say, but their body language. It's a vibe, Brian. Yeah, exactly. It's a vibe.

I agree with you. You got to really get in there. And I never used a jury consultant because I wanted to get that vibe myself because your jury consultant's not trying your case you are and if you get the idea the person doesn't like the state or the person doesn't like you Nancy or whatever you don't want them on the jury Nancy and another thing women women are the best uh people to select jurors I never ever pick a jury without a female attorney in my office or a female legal assistant. And I'm not doing this to stroke you because I've always had a crush on you for years.

No, I think it's something intuitive, and scientists would probably argue with me. But I think women are more just attuned to feelings and emotions and nonverbal cues. I really do believe that. No offense, I'm not saying we're smarter, which we are. But I do think, stop saying that, Jackie. I do think that they pick up those cues, you know? Yeah. But long story short, the first trial, she was found guilty in a heartbeat.

The second trial, it was found guilty in a heartbeat. Second trial, it was reversed. Yeah, yeah. It was reversed because the judge did not ask each individual juror. He asked a blanket question. Who's heard of this case before? You know, and a few people raised their hands. The appellate court said he should have asked each one individually that question. Okay, so it got reversed.

Goes back. Missed trial. Six-member jury. jury splits it three to three all right goes back to trial the third time they take less than three hours to convict her so the third time was the charm but in this case uh dr brian russell lawyer psychologist and host of Investigation Discoveries, hit show Fatal Vows. Dr. Bryan, they hadn't been married very long. I still stand by the assertion they met when she was an escort, but fine, they met in Sunday school.

Say whatever you want, Claypool. So they're married about six months, and she starts trying to move his condo into her name and digging into all of his checking accounts and banking accounts. And almost immediately, let's just say the bloom was not off the rose. According to the state, she starts planning his murder with a cup of chai tea. What about it, Brian? So today's topic is right up my alley because Fatal Vows is about spouses who try to murder their spouses and succeed if they made it onto Fatal Vows. And one of the things that a lot of people find interesting is that we have so many female

perpetrators on the show because I think people sort of intuitively understand that in general, when we're talking about murder, men seem to have the greater propensity among the two genders for violence in general, including murder. But when you look at our fatal vows cases, they break down about equally with female and male perpetrators. And then if you look at the reasons, what are the top two or three reasons why people end up

on fatal vows? Number one is infidelity by far. Number two is financial issues, money. The third one probably is kids, issues over custody of children. And notice that abuse, being a victim of abuse and trying to lash back out at the abuser is not among those three. And so those are hopefully some interesting facts now when you talk about this first attempt of allegedly uh to murder uh the dahlia's husband with the poisoning i didn't realize you were on a first name basis dr brian russell please don't get too close to this woman well a she tried to murder her she she hired a hitman to kill her husband she also according to him tried to poison him with chai tea she's a hooker to boot brian claypool denies that and somehow on house arrest living alone with her mother she got pregnant i guess

the guy was hiding in a can of chicken soup i don't know how that happened but brian please don't get too close to her now what were what were you saying? The poisoning. Well, one of the things that we do notice is men and women seem to take different approaches to this. And the more up close and personal, more violent methodologies seem to be more associated with the male perpetrators. And the hiring somebody else, getting somebody else to do it, using poison, things like that, that are sort of more arm's length seem to be more the methods of choice for the women. You would not believe we've had episodes of Fatal Vows where women have even hired or persuaded or pimped out their own children in order to solicit somebody else to

murder their spouses. It's just morbidly, disgustingly fascinating. And I'll wrap up with this because, as you know, I'm always trying to extract lessons for our listeners. A few months is not in any universe enough time to get to know somebody, even if they don't have anything like a propensity to murder you. Just in terms of you having a decent shot at a marriage that doesn't end in a disastrous divorce, a few months is nowhere close to enough time to spend getting to know somebody. Well, I got to tell you something, Dr. Brian Russell. I look back on other men that I dated. No offense, guys. You're all wonderful. But you know what they taught me? How great my husband is. A lot of times I threaten to throw all his clothes in the front yard and burn them or slit his tires or just something along that alley.

But the truth is, it takes, you've got to think it through. You're so right, Dr. Bryan. It takes time. And, you know, there's not a lot of guys out there, Bobby, Jackie, I think you'll agree with me, that will be there for you. I don't mean when you're young and cute and you're 21 and you can slide into a size 6 and, oh, everything's so awful, awesome and sparkly and new. I mean, when you have children and when people get sick and when there's a death in your family or the old gray mirror, she ain't what she used to be. That's when you find out what real love is. That's what real love is. And that's hard to take in when you're 20 or 25 or even 30. But you learn that and you can't learn anything like that in just six months.

Alan Duke. Okay, Alan, I hope you're listening. I want to pause and thank our partner who is making today's Sirius XM 132 program possible. But before we do, I just want to hear Brian Claypool's client, Dahlia DiPolito, just one more time, just for old time's sake. Roll it, Alan. What do you want to do here? Listen to me. I didn't do anything. You're going to jail. I didn't do anything. Please, I didn't do anything. Tell me you didn't do anything. I didn't do anything. You're going to jail today. As soon as I'm done, they're going to come in here and handcuff you and take you to the palm beach county jail book you for solicitation of first degree murder

on your husband your husband is well in life thank god oh yeah thank god he doesn't want to see you he doesn't want to see you and now to thank our partner, it's LegalZoom. What will your story be in 2018? Now the holiday rush is over, LegalZoom can help you make this a memorable year before all the distractions take hold. Make this the year you finally get serious about launching and running your business. Rest easier knowing your family's future is squared away with the right estate plan. LegalZoom has been helping people like you take care of their dreams and responsibilities over 16 years. They're not a law firm. They have all the resources to keep you on the right path, including advice from their network of independent lawyers all at your fingertips. Take a little pressure off yourself.

Go to LegalZoom.com now. Whether you want to take your business to the next level or take control of your family's future with an estate plan, LegalZoom plugs right into your life so you can take care of things that matter most. Get off to a strong start in 2018 at LegalZoom.com today. Special savings when you enter Nancy, N-A-N-C-Y, in the promo code at checkout. LegalZoom, where life meets legal. You know, it doesn't end with Dahlia DiPolito. There's a rash of women who, instead of just seeking divorce for Pete's sake, as miserable as that is, decide to hire hitmen to kill their husbands. And, of course, Cheryl McCollum, you're the expert.

You're the director of the Cold Case Institute. I don't know why they just don't do it themselves. Or just get a divorce. You know, Cheryl, you can practically get a divorce for free. There's even do-it-yourself, D-I-Y-D, do-it-yourself divorces, Cheryl. Nancy, it would save a whole lot of time And pain for everybody If they would just get divorced

Or walk out or even stage their own death They don't have to kill anybody To get rid of a man Can we just leave death as an option In any form out of this scenario Cheryl I think I better call your husband When we finish this But listen to this I want you to hear about somebody other than Dahlia DiPolito, the hooker.

Okay, Brian, whatever. She's not a hooker. That is 5,000% sure she wants her husband dead. I want to talk about Diana Lovejoy, who, when confronted in court with her nasty deed, passes out of innocence. Listen. We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Diana Jean Lovejoy,

guilty of the crime of conspiracy to commit murder in violation of Penal Code Section 182.8. We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Walden K. McDavid, guilty of the crime of conspiracy to commit murder. There she goes. I don't know if you could hear that thump, but that was Diana Lovejoy's head hitting the chair at the announcement.

You're guilty. Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Tell me what happened. How did she hook up with her co-conspirator to murder her ex-husband. Well, you know, they were going through a, her and her husband were going through a very, very contentious divorce and especially a custody battle. And it took over two years of this battle. And when it was coming to the very end of the case, she was being faced with having to give up 50% of custody of her young son and to pay her husband $120,000. I guess that was a little bit too much. That's when she reached out to her firearms instructor. She took classes with Weldon McDavid, and he's been a Marine. He, of course, knows about

firearms and plotted to take out her husband. So Cheryl McCollum, there you go. This guy trying to get 50% custody of the children and sticking it to his wife for 120 grand, had no idea his wife was like, okay, you know what? I'm not giving you the kids or the money. All right? You're right. Nancy, here's the thing that amazes me, though.

When they go to find these, quote, hit men, and they go to people that have a legitimate job. So she's not a criminal. Her instructor's not a criminal, but she thinks, hey, this guy knows how to shoot, so I'll hire him to murder someone. That's a great plan right there. If they tell him to murder someone that actually knows my husband, that's going to work. You know, Cheryl, people think that murder is like it is on tv or in movies it's not i mean you and i know from going to actual homicide scenes that it first of all it

stinks really unless you're used to it the first time you smell a dead human body that's been there a day or two throw up i've seen veteran cops just start vomiting uncontrollably just at the smell. You go in, blood is sticky. There's hair stuck in it. It's everywhere. There's just something dank and unnatural and wrong when you go on to a murder scene. I mean, and once you've been in one, you know it immediately. When you smell that smell, when you get that feeling that somebody has been killed.

I can remember you and I were, I would say a football field away from the crime scene. And we knew before we even got there what we had. Wait a minute. Which one was that? I can't ever name the names. You always want me to recall names. But we were in the cut, and we were literally a football field away near Mechanicville,

and you and I both knew exactly this person had been there a while. Okay, wait, wait. What did we say? I'm trying to remember it. I can't remember which. You turned to me, and you said, oh, yeah, this could be one that's been here a minute. In other words, this person had already decomposed to the point where you could smell them that far away. We were at least a football field away from the blue light. So, again, to your point okay he knew what was happening

before we and and i was complete novice cheryl i mean you know when i got into criminal law i had to look up the definition of plaintiff and defendant i didn't know anything about a dead body i only knew how to quote shakespeare for pete's sake and i, if I know the presence of a dead body, then anybody would. What I'm saying is when people plan these things, Dr. Brian Russell, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of Investigation Discoveries, hit show Fatal Vows, you think it's going to be in sanitized lab conditions, airbrushed murder, so to say. It's not like that, Dr. Bryan. It's not like that. And one of the big questions that we get is, how can somebody go from standing there at the altar or standing there in front of whoever's officiating and professing their love for somebody and supposedly most of the time feeling love at that moment, to

seeing their spouse as such an inhuman object that they could do something like that or have something like that done to them and not feel just overwhelming guilt and shame and remorse about it. And I think I think what it speaks to is the critical importance of what you said earlier about really, really getting to know somebody, because when somebody has that in them, they've got that cold calculating capacity, it will show itself in other ways. The murder that they commit is never the first time that trait came out. But you have to give yourself enough time and enough situations with the person to be

able to see it. Another thing, just as I said earlier, there are many people who would not have ended up on Fatal Vows had they given themselves enough time to get to know somebody. Another thing is, there are many people who wouldn't have ended up on Fatal Vows had they waited to be a little bit older, so they had a little bit more life experience under their belt before they pick somebody. The other big question that people ask me is what you asked a few minutes ago, why don't they just get divorced? And the reason why they don't is because when they think about the two options, well, I could commit murder or I could get divorced. If they get divorced,

they might have to share custody. They might have to give up some money. It's always about the sociopathic. Uh-oh, right there. Okay, Dr. Brian Russell, you're totally up under my skin right now because the thought of giving away John David and Lucy 50% of the time, I'll just stay married. You know what? Fine. Yes. Yes. I'll just stay married rather than give up 50% of the time with the children. I mean, Brian Claypool, now true, Brian Russell has outdone you anyway with degrees because, you know, I have my LLM, not to rub it in, Brian,

but we both have one degree more than you. Don't feel inferior, Brian. Okay, please. I just stroked you a few minutes ago telling you how great women are taking a jury. Then I just turned around and bit the hand that stroked me. But Brian, guys, Brian Claypool is with us. He's a national criminal defense attorney and really shot to fame, struggling with the case of Dahlia DiPolito and managed to get a mistrial in

the second case. So Brian Claypool, you're hearing what Brian Russell, Dr. Russell of Fatal Vows and Cheryl McCullum are saying. Do you think that child custody is the main issue? Because you know what? I'm not going to fight over the bank account or the pots and the pans. You can have the picture frames, the rooms to go sofa. Take it. I'd be mad if you didn't.

But when it comes down to those children, oh yeah, uh-huh, you got a tiger by the tail. You can't hold on and you can't let go. Hey Nancy, I think what Brian Russell's saying, I partially agree with what he's saying about the child custody issue. But here's what I want to say about this issue of women trying to have their husbands killed. I lived and breathed one of the most famous cases for, what, four or five years. I think the point we're missing is that most of it— I actually choked on it, but go ahead. Most of these women who try to have their husbands killed when they get married are not pre-wired to have their husbands killed.

They're not saying, till death do us part, and gee whiz, I've already got a plan I'm contriving in my head to have my husband killed. It's kind of like, till death do us part, the sooner the better. No, but here's my point. I think in a lot of these cases, there's an element of desperation that permeates the woman's body. So something is happening in that marriage. I'm not condoning what they're doing, but something's happening that's triggering them to even have a thought of having their husband knocked off. In Dahlia's case, and Brian Russell might say that, on his show, domestic abuse is not a big factor. Well, that makes sense because in my case,

in dealing with Dahlia, who was domestically abused, that's kind of a silent thing. Women don't want to often come forward and talk about that. Let me understand something. Did she ever file a police report on the abuse? She reported it to her former lover, Muhammad, and then when she did call... Wait, didn't she ask him to take part in the abuse? She reported it to her former lover, Muhammad. And then when she did call... Didn't she ask him to take part in the murder? No, no, no. But Nancy, here's an important fact that people are missing. Is that a yes or a no? The first phone call made by the confidential

informant to the police station was to report domestic abuse. So Dahlia had reached out to him and then he did report that to the police department. So the only point I'm trying to make is that these... Wait, wait, wait, wait. Brian, please, please. I know you're slippery as an eel, but let me ask again. You say that Dahlia DiPolito, who has been convicted of hiring a hitman to murder her husband by two juries, you're telling me she never called police, battered women's center, told her mother, relatives, nothing. She told a person named Mohammed that coincidentally she solicited in the murder scheme. That's a yes-no. That's true, right.

But that's not uncommon with women who are being abused by their husbands. That's not uncommon. Brian, I worked as a volunteer at the Battered Women's Center. Oh, my husband's abusing me. That's not how it works. battered women's center oh my husband's abusing me i found out work brian brian i represented battered women and worked as a volunteer for nine years at the battered women's center very familiar with battered women and the battered women syndrome the battered women syndrome cheryl you and i have dealt with many many times in court when a woman kills after an extended period of time being abused.

It is not a well-thought-out plan such as poisoning or hiring a hitman. It is an instinct that comes akin to self-defense. So that is by far not the defense in Dahlia DiPolito and was not the defense at trial at all listen Dahlia was a criminal before she tried to hire a hitman she's a criminal now and Nancy you were talking about Shakespeare a minute ago one of my favorite quotes is hell is empty and all the devils are here. And the bottom line is when it comes to this type of crime and you're going to go out and seek somebody else to do the devil's work that you don't have the backbone to do yourself, which is kill him when he is beating you,

which is not the case here. Again, you go out and hire somebody to do it for you. And like I tell people all the time the devil is at the dinner table well back to nancy nancy i think i can i just make one more point about this are you going to tell me again she was not a hooker no no but i but i promise y'all promise y'all take a shower after we do this show. Okay. All right. I find it interesting that when we're talking about women who are allegedly hiring somebody else to commit the murder of their husband, I think that tells me one important fact, which is maybe they aren't 100% sure that that really is the recourse they want to take.

Because if they were so sure, why wouldn't they do it themselves? And that's really kind of what the subplot was in both of the trials that I did with Dahlia. And maybe Brian could speak to this issue, too. I don't know if he agrees with this or not, but women are are thinking about options that they have to extricate from the marriage you mentioned one nancy being divorced but i think it's a process they're going through and and they're they're in my opinion they're not 100 certain that that killing is really the option i'll tell you what the, she sure sounded certain on that recorded conversation, those many, many recorded conversations where she was hiring a hitman. Those were played at trial.

She's trying to convince herself, Nancy. Why wouldn't she say I'm 100% sure? She said 5,000. Yeah, okay, she's 100% times 50. Okay, you know what? I want to go to Diana Lovejoy. Nancy Gray. Yes. They hire

a hitman so that they have an alibi so they're nowhere near it so they didn't commit the murder themselves so they don't go to prison. Thank you, Cheryl. They don't hire a hitman. You're welcome. And that's not all. When I'm talking about Diana Lovejoy, the one that passed out in court, when they called

out that she was guilty, the jury had found her guilty, she looked around like, what, did they, what, me? And then immediately passed out. But what happened before that, Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories investigative reporter, correct me if I'm wrong, is that the husband, Mulvihill, gets a call around 11 o'clock at night by someone claiming they're a private investigator that had incriminating evidence on the husband, Mulvihill, to use against him in a custody battle and that if he wanted that information, that he could go to this dirt road to the end of it and the evidence there that he could use in his custody battle would be taped to a power pole so Mulvihill gets a friend they go out there they hear something turn around and look in the bushes they notice movement is a person lying prone with a rifle pointed at them and shots begin

to ring out. All right. So that's what happened in that case. Before I go to Julia Merfeld, a young mom of just about 25 years old, her husband calls her godly, saintly, a wonderful woman. Yeah, she planned to have him killed. I want to pause and thank our partner making today's careful look at women killers possible. Everybody's talking about superfoods. I didn't even know what that was, but it's nutritionally dense food that is especially beneficial to your health. Beets are one of the most powerful superfoods you can put in your body. I've learned that. They're loaded with important nutrients that increase your blood flow, and that increases your energy, getting oxygen to all parts of your body.

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of Super Beets. Repeat, free, plus indicator strips to see how Super Beets works for you, plus free shipping. You're not going to get all that at the vitamin store. Call 800-516-0683 or go to nancysbeats.com today. Super Beats, thank you for being our partner today. And now to Michigan, you know, Julia Merfield is called wonderful and godly, says her husband, the same husband she tried to have murdered. For the very first time, the intended murder victim, Jake Murfel, just 27 years old, spoke out. And he says, I know my wife is a wonderful person. She is a godly woman. The two had two little children children ages just four and two.

And he says, quote, she's been nothing but a great mother to them. Okay. Okay. I don't quite understand where he's coming from. Tell me, Bobby Maxwell, Crime Stories contributing investigative reporter, what happened? Well, they were having a tough time at their marriage. And they'd been fighting. And Murfield actually said that she was thinking about having him killed for a while because if he was dead, she wouldn't have to worry about the family's judgment or breaking his heart. That's how good of a person she is. Okay, wait, wait, listen to this.

She's shaking his hand, the hitman. She's laughing. Bobby Maxwell, I just wanted you to hear her. She's caught on tape, of course. And she's in a detective's vehicle parked outside a store at Freeport Township. And she lays out why she wants her husband dead. And she said very clearly it was to get her husband's $400,000 life insurance policy. Do I have that right, Bobby Maxwell? Yes, you do.

And $50,000 of that would go to the hit man who was going to do it. Whoa, that's an easy paycheck, $50,000 for one bullet. On the video released by the county prosecutor's office, she says she wants her husband killed because, quote, as Bobby Maxwell just told us, it was easier than divorcing him. I didn't have to worry about the judgment of my family. I didn't have to worry about breaking his heart, all that stuff. Like, this is like how I got a clean getaway.

Dr. Brian Russell, host of Investigation Discoveries, Fatal Vows. This woman is so young and fresh and just cute. She looks like any woman I see walking along the aisles at Target or Walmart or Costco with her children in the buggy. How does it go so sideways? Well, this is an excellent illustration of what I was saying earlier about how there's always this sociopathic undercurrent of entitlement to have my cake and eat it, too. If I get divorced, then I'll have to make some sacrifices. I'll have to share custody. I'll have to split the money. But if I go this route, then I can have everything. I can be relieved of my spouse that I'm no longer happy with, and I can have everything that I want. In response, quickly also to what Brian Claypool said, while we have not had a lot of episodes

of Fatal Vows where the murder has boiled down to abuse, we've had a number of episodes where women have told other guys they were being abused to get the guys to participate in the murders of the husbands. And this phenomenon that Brian Claypool mentioned about, well, I think sometimes they hire men because they're trying to convince themselves they want to do it. That's something I have never seen. I have seen many times women hire men so that they will be at arm's length from the transaction. And if the thing goes bad, they'll be able to say, well, I didn't really think they were really going to do it. I didn't mean for a murder to happen. I just talked about it with the person. They decided on their own to go off and do it because

they wanted me or something like that. I've seen that in a number of Fatal Vaz episodes. I'm looking at this woman and I know you can't judge a book by their cover, but Brian Claypool, this woman, and I know you're defending Dahlia and I'm not going to go back into that. I'm not kidding around right now. I'm serious. This woman here, this Julia Charlene Merfeld is a young girl in my mind she's just 21 years old she's got these two children she's been the perfect mom she's you know always kept it in the middle of the road and then out of the blue she promises somebody 50 grand to kill her husband. But, you know, Brian, as much as part of me feels bad for her, Lady Justice is blind. It doesn't matter that she's this young soccer mom with a four-year-old and a two-year-old. We're talking about murder, Brian, murder. Yeah, Nancy, real quick.

I think with Julia's case and with other women who are very attractive, and I don't mean to bring the looks up again, but I think it's important. I think some of these younger women who are very beautiful, who have their whole lives ahead of them, and who have a perception in society, especially with men, men looking at them. Like, and I'll be honest with you. When I look at a beautiful woman like Julia, right, and I see her, I have trouble, even though you might have a mountain of evidence that supports that she tried to have her husband killed. I, as a man, have some degree of difficulty believing that a beautiful young woman like that is capable of doing that.

And I think some of these women... Okay, hold it right there, Brian, because Cheryl McCollum, it's true. What Claypool is saying is true, and it works to the benefit of female defendants. Of course. Especially when they're a mother. Because when you tell a jury this young mom, when they hear the word mom, I think of my mother. You know, my mother literally put her own life in danger to save my life when I was a toddler.

And I can still remember it. It was at age three. put her own life in danger to save my life when I was a toddler. And I can still remember it. It was at age three. I mean, when you say mother, I think of my mother. And it would be a cold day in you know where before I would want to convict a mother. Cheryl, he's absolutely right. Brian Claypool is right. He's dead accurate.

And the thing, it goes even beyond that because everybody has a preconceived notion of what somebody's about when they meet them. But when you see somebody young and extremely pretty and you think, gosh, she's got the world by the tail, right? And she's married and it looks like everything is just going beautifully. You do not see this person coming when they all of a sudden say, hey, she tried to hire a hitman, mob style. That goes against everything you're looking at. The two things don't fit for a lot of people. But again, that's some of the most dangerous type of criminals,

the ones you never see coming. Well, this is what I always say. It's as if the mind is tricking the eye. Okay, because you see the young mom, you see pictures of the children, blah, blah, blah. And then you hear the evidence. And I always use the Scott Peterson case as an example. Because you see this young, some people say attractive,

he was never attractive to me. Okay. In fact, you know, you can help me with this, Dr. Russell. You're the shrink. The only man that's attractive to me is my husband because he's the one that helps me take care of the children and goes to the grocery store and helps with my mom. Okay. That is attractive to me. I don't give a fig how young or buff somebody is. And I do not want to see anybody else without their shirt on. Just save it. Okay. So Cheryl, it's like you see this young mom or this beautiful young lady, as Brian Claypool said, and you think, wow, like in Scott Peterson, he was young. Some people thought attractive, college degree, golf scholarship, allegedly um loving family job beautiful home why

would he do such a thing it just doesn't even make sense awesome straight teeth nice smile blah blah he had it all right and nobody wants to believe it same thing but more so with a young woman as claypool is saying right well women, they don't think of women as being violent. They don't think of women as being, you know, killers. 99% of the time, they're going to be right. It's going to be a man that harms the woman. So when they get this thing twisted, and it's a 360, you're like, what the heck has happened? And again, Cheryl, I used to hate having to try women. Well, of course, it helped me a lot when one woman, her AKA was Nudie Pride. That helped me a lot.

She burned down a whole apartment complex because she was mad at her girlfriend. All right. So that helped with the name. Right at the beginning when I yelled out Nudie Pride in court. All right. That was a strike against her. All right. Then let's see.

Oh, then, oh, then I tried, I believe the oldest woman ever in Fulton County, I believe she was almost 80, uh, for grand larceny and I didn't want to try her. I tried to make her take probation and pay the people back, but she wouldn't do it. So I had to try the old lady. By that time in her life, she's about 4'9". She was wearing a wig. And she pretended to have a heart attack at the end of the trial. They had to drag her out by her little armpits. But even after that, the judge was set to give her jail time. I was such a softie.

I asked for probation. I think he did give her a couple of days in jail just to scare her, the mean old thing. But it's always tough when you try a woman. That's just a given, Cheryl. It is a given. But, Nancy, these women are so diabolical. And, again, I've heard you say in court, you meet with this hitman on a Wednesday, and it's set to take place on a Friday. During that entire time, at no point

did you attempt to call it off. At no point did your heart or your compassion or your do the right thing mechanism kick in and call off the murder of your children's father. So you can hate him as your husband, but your children deserve that man in their life, and that's what you took from them forever. You're going to let them live with the stigma that their father was murdered. That's horrifying. So you're not talking about, hey, I met with a hitman at 3.30

and he shot my husband at 4. This was in the making for weeks and weeks and days and days and hour by hour. You don't call it off. And you know the countdown. And you get up and you get dressed and you leave the house knowing that man's going to be dead today. And you did nothing to stop it. You know, just hearing you lay it out like that, like I've laid it out in court before.

Absolutely. It's just, who's jumping in? Is that Brian or Brian Russell? Hey, Nancy, can I, yeah, can I, I wanted to share a quick story with you. Please do. You made a great point a few minutes ago about the mind tricking the eye

with these beautiful young women who are allegedly trying to have their husbands killed. You are so spot on because in the third trial that I did for Dahlia DiPolito, in the middle of that trial, I had to hear those videotapes again, the audios, and then there were audiotapes, you know, the undercover the undercover audio tapes where you're hearing Dahlia talk with foul language and saying terrible things. You're so right because at that point, I've never shared this before. At that point in time, I brought earplugs into the courtroom. I had my assistant buy them for me the night before because I simply could

not hear those tapes again because I was fighting myself. Like I, in other words, I was in denial. I was saying to myself, this is not what I'm hearing is not what I believe about this woman. Beautiful young lady, attractive, comes from a loving, beautiful family. I felt like my mind was playing tricks on myself. And I just didn't want to hear those tapes again, so I literally put earplugs in while the prosecution was playing them.

Isn't that something? You know, Brian, you're really touching my heart right now, because when you get to know somebody, you see the good in them. Like if somebody were to try to tell me something about my mom, you know, Brian, my mom has never touched alcohol or hold life. Now I can't say that about my dear dad. He was not afraid of cocktail, but she never cursed. I heard a curse one time and guess when it it was, Brian? When we were going over

to practice and the front door to the church was locked. She said, I think she said, damn, or hell. One time in her whole life, she just turned 86 yesterday. She is, in my mind like a saint nothing but love and hard work her whole life and when you love somebody you you don't want to hear anything bad about them i mean i will go to the mat with my husband if he says one thing about my mother or the twins i mean it's a war between the gods you know he just like goes outside sits with the twins. I mean, it's a war between the gods. You know, he just like goes outside, sits with the dog. Seriously. I mean, and you're saying you couldn't stand it so much because you've gotten to know her and that's not the person you think you know. So when it boils down to it, Brian Russell, I wonder, you're the shrink and host of Discovery's Fatal Vows. I wonder if there's that part in all of us. I wonder how far any of us are away from doing something evil, something bad.

Well, the good news is I think most of us are pretty far away from doing something evil. I think that many of us are close to doing something violent if it is in the furtherance of protection of those that we love and care about. So I think people who would never be capable of going up and punching somebody in the face normally would have no problem doing it if the person were striking out at their child or their spouse or something like that. Cheryl, let me hear your thought on women that kill. Nancy, for the murder for hire, they're con artists. And I think when you hear the defense attorney, when he was talking about

having to get earplugs, that's just how good she was at the con. And you keep the con going. You got the one woman that, Lovejoy, that, you know, faint at the end of it when she's finished. She's keeping the con going. They are devils. And this isn't the first time they've put on a ruse. This isn't the first time they've lied. This is the first time they've misled people.

It's just the first time they've done it at this level. But they are straight-up con artists that use whatever, whether it's their body, whether it's a lie, whether it's a hitman, to get their way. I think it's only fitting that we go out with another tiny, tiny soundbite from our favorite hit girl, Dahlia DiPolito. Brian Claypool, put in your earplugs. Take a listen. Come here, please.

Come here. Mike, come here. Come here, please. Come here. Why not? I just can't even hear you. Mike, come here, please. Come here.

Brian Claypool, nationally known criminal defense attorney. Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, and host of the hit show on investigation discovery, Fatal Vows. Bobby Maxwell, investigative reporter. And my friend and colleague, Cheryl McCollum, crime scene expert and director of the Cold Case Institute. You guys are awesome. All of you. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for being with us. Nancy Grace, Crime Story, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.