Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Would you LITERALLY kill for NBA tickets? PLUS: Bigamist marries mom, then her teen daughter, then racy photos!

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

A Georgia jail inmate allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend in exchange for $800 and Atlanta Hawks tickets. Nancy Grace digs into the case against Michael McEarchern with criminal profiler Pat Brown, Dr. Brian Russell -- a lawyer and psychologist who hosts Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows series -- and syndicated radio host Dave Mack. A Pennsylvania man is in big trouble with his mother-in-law, because she's also his wife. Christopher Hauptmann allegedly married his wife's teen-aged daughter without divorcing her mom, who he married a year earlier. Nancy and her guests dig into the dirt on this bigamy case. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're listening to an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace, now online at CrimeOnline.com and on SiriusXM 132. To have and to hold till death do us part. Or maybe not death, maybe bigamy with his wife's daughter. Yes, you heard me right. A man marries his wife's daughter and then sends the wife photos of them, he and her daughter, in bed together. Let's just start with that scenario. You know, isn't it a shame they got rid of the death penalty for everything but murder? Because this guy, okay, I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories.

Thank you for being with us. I'm talking about one Christopher I. Hopman, age 44. That's old enough to know better. He was married to Shannon Dietrich. But then, when the love light dimmed, married her daughter, Kelly. Whoopsie. Not only did he marry his wife's daughter, he forgot the formality of a thing called divorce. Now, Dave Mack, syndicated radio host, you and I

don't always see eye to eye, but I think we can agree on the facts in this scenario. Kick it off. Start at the get-go. I don't want you to leave one detail out. Not one sordid detail. Start at the beginning, Dave Mack. All right. This guy is a bail bondsman, okay? And he marries a woman and she has a daughter. The daughter is in her teens. This guy, as you mentioned, is in his forties and old enough to know better. Marries a woman. She thinks everything's just fine. And then without divorcing her, only a year later, marries her 18-year-old daughter. And it wasn't by mistake. He didn't get divorced from his wife when he married her daughter. He just changed his name and lied on legal documents so that he could then marry the daughter to whom

he is still married, by the way. Now, hold on, Dave Mack. The very first fact that you thought was important to bring up is that Hauptman is a bail bondsman. Let me tell you something. The bail bonding offices were about two blocks from the courthouse when I was a felony prosecutor for 10 years in inner-city Atlanta. And, of course, on my government pay, I couldn't afford the parking deck across the street from the courthouse. I would have to go to the one with the chipped up asphalt about eight or nine blocks away, dragging all of my stuff with me from trial.

And I would have to pass bail bondsman after bondsman after bondsman. And I actually would spend many an afternoon after work sitting in the bail bondsman's office waiting to hook up with my best friend who was a defense attorney or my then boyfriend who is now my husband. You know, it's kind of like a little pit stop. So please don't trash the bail bond industry. Okay. That's your very first thing you said. Here's what I'm pointing out, is that he's a bail bondsman, but he could not even get his own bail posted.

That's the kind of sick man he is. He spent 332 days in jail. He's a bail bondsman that could not get himself bailed out. Well, that's not enough as far as I'm concerned. So by the time my investigator could come in from investigating one case to meet me at my car, as again, I state was about 10 blocks away, I would just sit there in the bail bondsman's office that of course, let me come in and sit there and wait for Ernest to show up for us to go out looking for some witness or serve subpoenas at night. Good times.

So don't trash the Bill Bond industry. I don't understand. Also joining me, in addition to Dave Mack, syndicated show host, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer and psychologist and host of Investigation Discovery's hit show, Fatal Vows. With me, high profile criminal profiler, you know her well, Pat Brown. Dr. Brian Russell, please help me with this. Why does a man get married? His wife is beautiful. Okay. Why out of all the people to pick in the entire world, does he have to marry her daughter, her teen daughter, and then send photos of them in bed to her?

Well, Nancy, you sound so incredulous. I am. We didn't see much of that in Macon, Georgia. It's the classic American love story. You get married. Within a year, you fall for your spouse's kid. And you go ahead. You don't want to hurt your spouse's feelings, so you go ahead and marry the kid also.

I mean, it's. I'm serious. You act as though you haven't heard of this before. Wait, wait, wait. You know what, Brian? I know you don't get this much at Investigation Discovery, but just hush for a moment because I can't even take it. You're making my teeth hurt. Pat Brown, have you seen this guy?

Have you seen Hoffman? I mean, he's not all that and a bag of chips. I would not, totally not leave my husband for this guy based on looks alone. Well, you know. Have you seen him? I have seen him. But let's step back and say, you know, yes, we can't base everything on looks because sometimes there's personality. But you have to really wonder.

This guy, we're talking about bail bondsmen. Yes, we don't want to say the bail bondsman industry is bad. Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat, Pat. Speaking of picking a mate, can we go back to my decision to marry David Lynch, my current husband and the father of my children? You know what? I like somebody with smarts and with a good sense of humor. I got to tell you.

And that's what David has. God bless him. He puts up with me. But this guy, Christopher Haltman, I don't think he has my sense of humor because I don't think the photos of him with his wife's daughter in bed is very funny. Wait a minute. Let's go back, though. What I'm trying to say is this, is that, first of all, we don't know about the woman who was involved with him and what her standards were for what she was marrying. What I was trying to say was he has a heck of a criminal history along with his bail bondsman.

Can we talk about it for a moment? I'm not saying anything bad about it. He's got a criminal record. Let's talk about his criminal history. Can we talk about his criminal history? I mean, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of Fatal Vows on Investigation

Discovery. I mean, doesn't everybody run their spouse's rap sheet, or is it just me? You know, this is actually interesting, Nancy, because there's research out there to suggest that when people get married in the United States of America, they typically know less about each other than when they go into business with somebody. So if I'm starting a business with you and I'm an American, I tend to want to know more about you than if I am contemplating spending the rest of my life with you, having children with you. It's crazy, but true. Another thing I think about this case is obviously there is some strain, to say the very least, in the relationship between this woman and her

daughter. Certainly not your typical classic American mother-daughter relationship. So I think this woman's judgment, you know, I feel sorry for her in a way for being, you know, the victim of the bigamy and all that. But I have a feeling there's some pretty significant judgment issues with her. Well, wait a minute. So she's got a judgment problem. I think we all have had judgment problems. Brian Russell, are you trying to turn this around on the woman, on the victim, the wife? Am I hearing that?

She had a judgment problem? What about him? What about him? What about him? He's the one that committed bigamy with the woman's daughter. And look, I'm not dragging the little girl into this. She's a teen. She knows nothing. Thank God nobody's holding me accountable for the things I did when I was a teenager.

So I don't even want to bring the girl into this. She's a teenager. You know, she's probably right now chewing gum and singing a Taylor Swift song. She's like totally mindless. It's him. He's the one Brian Russell. Brian, I'm a tiny bit ashamed of you. Just a tiny bit. This guy commits bigamy. He's having sex with a woman's daughter. And you say she's the one with a judgment problem. Well, but we're making an assumption here that this is all very as shocking and upsetting to this woman as it is to us. And all I'm suggesting here is that what we see on Fatal Vows is dysfunctionality tends to gravitate to its own level and almost seek out other dysfunctionality oftentimes. So because he is a bigamist, a drug felon, and now has four counts of weapons charges, she is the one that has a judgment issue. Why don't you just go ahead and call her hysterical?

Throw that in there, too. Pat Brown, are you hearing this? At least I've got you by my side on this. Absolutely. Get my back, Brown. Get my back. I'm in total agreement with Brianrian because here we here's what we got we he's psychopathic there's no question he's a psychopathic criminal scuzzbag i mean he has so many ever there's so much evidence that he's a scuzzbag in so many ways there is no way that you can hook up with

this guy and not know his scuzzbagginess, you know, and you're going to bring that scuzzbag into your house with your teenage daughter. I'm not saying, and he's the evil dude, but she is kind of a, she made a really, really bunch of bad choices when she brought him into her home. Well, bad choices ain't a crime. And she had to know a reasonable amount about how horrible he was. She just had, yeah, she had to know that, and she made a judgment. And this is what I tell women. You've got to stop thinking.

You always say to the men, stop thinking with your male parts. Well, women, stop thinking with your female parts. Oh, he's paying me attention. Oh, my God, I just have to have some love in my life. I just need to have a man. You've got to stop thinking that way when you've got a teenage girl in your house. You can't bring a guy in who's got that much of a crappy history and obviously crappy behavior she had to have known it's an unfortunate thing that when she got into it it got worse than she probably ever thought it would be but you don't

put that kind of man in your house with your teenage daughter because that psycho basically what he's saying is i'm bored with you now hey i got some better stuff here you know i was thinking okay you know what i'm totally totally outnumbered on this, but I don't care. I'm going to go down fighting. Alan Duke, you're out there somewhere lurking in L.A. You're on the other end of this wire. And if you do not take my side right now, fur is going to fly, buddy. Fur is going to fly.

Hold on. I got to get some more facts. But while I give Alan Duke a moment to compose himself and come up with the right answer, Alan, Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host. So he doesn't even bother to deny it in court. He pleads no contest, which means no low contender, which means I don't admit it and I don't deny it. Nancy, here's the other kick to all this. And believe it or not, I'm on your side on this, okay? This guy played the mom and the daughter against one another.

Then when he got the daughter where he wanted her, now you got to remember, teenage girls and their moms oftentimes become competitive. I've got that. My wife, I've got teen daughter. I mean, I understand how crazy you can get. This guy pride himself in the middle. Dave, Dave, Dave. My daughter, Lucy, 10 years old, she runs the whole house. We're not competing.

She wins. Everybody may want to go for Indian. If she goes, I don't want Indian, Mom. It's all, what do you want, Lucy? Because she'll go somewhere and just not eat. Right. Or whatever you do, she'll get, just forget it. It's just easier to go along with Miss Thing.

I'm going to pray for you when she gets 15 and 16. That's what I'm telling you. She has to do something really bad, like hit her brother or not do her homework. Well, let me give you one extra little bit of info about this scumbag. He gets the girl, 18, and the pictures that we saw, he actually forced her to dye her hair the same color as her mom's and had her make her hair and makeup look like her mom's. So it was like he had the mom at 43 and the mom at 18.

And that's the pictures he sent of him having sex with her in bed to the mom. So this guy is jacked up on every level. It's freaky. Yes. That he made the girl dye her hair to look more like the mother. Yes. Okay, Dr. Brian Russell, you're the psychologist. I think we need to shrink pronto.

Well, so, you know, I'm not 100 percent sure what is meant by he forced her to do it. I'm hearing a lot of allegations in the media lately that this person forced me to do this and that person forced me to do that. And I think, you know, my understanding of forced is put a gun to your head or a knife to your throat. I think a lot of people, though, are using forced synonymously with demanded or asked me repeatedly or whatever. So I'm not 100% sure that maybe the daughter wasn't trying to, you know, attract this guy away from the mom. Pause. Brian Russell, why do you keep trying to blame the women in this scenario? First you blame the wife who has done nothing wrong. Now you're trying to blame the teen girl who, as I said, is probably chewing a mouthful of gum right now bopping around to Katy Perry or something

she doesn't have it she has no clue about what is happening around her okay she has no idea she's out of this it's him Russell he is the one that has committed big amoeba I agree with you but do we know what the felon he's got drug

charges he's got a drug conviction. He has got weapons charges. He's used aliases. How are the women to blame in this scenario? Nobody's to blame for a hair dye job. I mean, anybody could dye their hair, whatever color they want. I'm just saying I don't know what color my hair is anymore. I did this when I was 14.

I have no recollection of my life before blonde. Okay. So please don't even start with that. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the bigamy and sending your wife photos of you having teen sex with her daughter. That's what I'm talking about, Brian Russell. I mean, how can you even point the finger at the women? That's completely twisted and sadistic, of course.

I just don't know how he forced the girl to dye her hair. Are you back on the hair? What is it with you and the dyeing the hair blonde? We're not talking about that, Brian. We're talking about bigamy. Get off the hair. I'm going to go to Pat Brown. That's your punishment.

Pat Brown, you are not siding with me, and I don't take to it very kindly. How can everybody be pointing the finger at the wife and the daughter when this guy has a criminal record, uses aliases, has gun charges hanging against him, and is sending photos of him in bed with a girl? What is going on here? I think it's going back to that old story.

He knew I was a snake. What'd you expect? I was a snake. That's what I'm trying to say. This man is a psychopath. There's no question, a psychopath of the nth degree. He enjoys getting what he wants. Everything is about him and his pleasures.

I'm sure when he, I don't know what happened between him and the mother. You know, maybe she did leave him, so I don't know what happened there. This may be his way of getting back at her. This may be, he may just think, ha-ha, this was hot. I could have sex with the mother and the daughter. Hey, let me send pictures. That'll piss her off. Look, you know, I can show her up.

You know, who knows what he's doing, but he's doing it all for his own pleasure. He is being sadistic. And that, you know, that's a part of power and control that psychopaths like. Here's another thing. Why he has to marry her is kind of curious. Why he even bothered with that? Because he could have just lived with her. Why he went through the process of marrying her, making her an honorable woman, that's really hard to say.

And I'm not sure what the reasons he had for doing that, what purpose it served for him, but everything comes down when it comes to a psychopath, he's doing whatever he wants. And he's, he's like, you know, he's, he is what he is. That's why I think Brian is saying what he's saying, because when you get dealing with a psychopath, you can go, you can go in and out. Why would he do that? Why would he do that? Well, he does, cause he's a psychopath. He does what he wants, you know, and, but that why you've got to keep away from them. That's why I want women to keep away from them because they do have traits. And most of the time when women get involved with these kind of people,

there is a history that's already there. That's the only thing I'm doing. I'm warning women. I'm not blaming them. I'm warning them. Look, you've got a guy who's got all these traits of psychopathic. Stay away and keep your daughter away. another thing and this is a cautionary tale because you know alan um on a serious note it you have to pick the right man regarding your children i mean you can date or run around with anybody you know i can meet anybody i can have lunch or dance with anybody as i always say

but that does not mean i'm going to expose my children to them. That is the kicker. I mean, and that's where I got lucky. I got so blessed that David deigned to marry me because he is the best father that I can even imagine. I'm thinking this guy is actually a predator who hooked up with the mom in order to get to the teenager. And that's what happened. And now he's got her and didn't need the mom anymore. So possibly, well, you know what, you just gave me an idea, Alan Duke, and I want to throw this to Pat Brown, the criminal profiler and Dr. Brian Russell, you've probably seen what I'm about to describe. Take another look at this guy, Christopher I. Hauptman. As far as conning people, his plea deal covered charges of forgery and tampering with public records. What tampering?

He was accused of having used false documents, so documents that he's forged and falsified, to apply for a new social security number under a different name. Now, the kicker is that fingerprints for Hauptman matched those of a name Buckley. So if he could fake out the government, you don't think he could fake out a woman that thought she was in love with him? This guy's a con. He's a con, Pat Brown. Well, he is. But I'll tell you what happened.

I agree with Alan that he might have had his little sights on the daughter all along. What happens is, what I tell women is, the problem is bringing them home too quickly. Because these guys, if they're looking at the children, sometimes they're looking at a 5-year-old or an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old. If they're looking at your children, they don't have the patience to wait around to go through the dating process of a year, for example. So if you're going to date them for a year before you bring them home, they're going to be gone to another woman who's got children. So one of the reasons what they do is they look for the woman who will bring them home by the end of the week because they don't have any patience. So that's one of the most important things I tell women. To protect your children, make sure you date the guy for a while because a psychopath who wants your kids will not wait the time out.

He'll find somebody else. That's a good point. Dr. Brian Russell, what about my theory that this guy is just a big con? Well, yeah. And I think, you know, clearly across the board, this is a self-serving person who is going to do whatever he wants to do to get whatever he wants at the time in the most expedient possible way, including probably sex. And so whatever other women were around, if this woman's sister had lived with them, if this woman's best friend had lived with them, you know, her daughter happened to be there. And that's why I totally agree. And I've said this many times on your show. I personally, as a psychologist, when people

are divorced and they've got minor children, and I understand this girl is now 18, but it sounds like she was probably a minor when this woman initially hooked up with this guy. They really ought not to be dating at all, except unless it's exclusively out of the presence of the children. If they want to go on some dates when the kids are with the other parent, fine. But when the kids are with you, and certainly not bringing the dates into the home, the risk is just too great. And there's already been enough damage done when a relationship has split up and the kids are now, you know, have their parents in two separate locations. There's been enough damage done.

You know, Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, what happens to this guy now? They've sentenced him to jail. He's going to go to prison. And you know how those sentence things are. They got him like for one year minus a day on the bigamy charge. And they got him on the, oh, I'm trying to think what the other one was, but they got him for two years minus a day, which I'm not sure how that works out in sentencing.

That's your guy's expert stuff. But he gets credit for the 330 days that he had to spend in jail. And by the way, investigators say they're actually. Well, he's about to get cut loose. They're actually still investigating to see that he might have another wife out there that they're looking into. You know, Dave Mack, you're always full of surprises. You know, switching gears. I know the three of you are going to agree with me.

And I know you're tired, Alan Duke. OK, I know you're tired trying to keep up with that new wife of yours. I'm telling you. No, not like 15 or 20 years younger than you. Twelve, new wife of yours. I'm telling you. No, not really. What is she, like 15 or 20 years younger than you? 12, 12 years younger. But I'm an old man. Yeah, okay.

Whatever, Alan. Here's the thing. As we get, like every five years, your body reacts differently. And as you go through life, your body changes. You have less energy. You feel more fatigued than you used to. I mean, I have to get up at 530 to keep up with the children and get them to school and work and this and that and get it all done. I'm exhausted.

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I need all the energy I can get. You add water. These Super Beats are grown to exacting standards and then turned into crystals you mix with water. Go to 800-516-0683 or nancysbeats.com if you want the energy that I do. Thanks, Super Beats. We now head across the country, and once again, I just can't say it enough. If you want it done right, just do it yourself, okay? What imbecile would try to hire a hitman by offering as payment Atlanta Hawks basketball tickets? Now, that's not to denigrate the Atlanta

Hawks. They're awesome. But when you try to pay a hitman to kill your wife and her boyfriend, your ex-wife and her boyfriend, with a little bit of cash and Atlanta Hawks tickets, I mean, first of all, that narrows your employee pool greatly. Who's going to do the deed for some Hawks tickets? Number one, who are you going to get? Not a professional killer, I can tell you that much. But let's just start at the beginning. I'm talking about a man who tries to pay somebody cash in Atlanta Hawks basketball tickets to murder his

ex-wife and her new boyfriend. I mean, how many times do I have to say it, ladies? There's a reason you broke up. There's a reason he's an ex. Okay, let's start at the beginning. Dave Max, syndicated talk show host with me. Dave, what can you tell me about Michael McCurchin? Well, he's still in jail. He was in county jail on drug charges, Nancy, when he tried to arrange a hitman to take out his ex-wife and her current boyfriend. And that led the the CIA, the confidential informant inside the jail to turn it over to the FBI, where they then picked up the scent. They set the guy, they didn't set him up. That's the wrong term, but they followed up on everything. The guy was in jail trying to arrange this and to make it even more plausible for him to be believed as an inmate that had money to offer to kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He actually arranged an $800 payment just to show that he was serious about this.

And he did, in fact, offer Atlanta Hawks tickets, even though the Hawks are probably the worst team in the NBA this year. I mean, Pat Brown, criminal profiler, $800 cash and some Hawks tickets, that's a bargain, right? And it's not just one killing. He wants his ex-wife dead and her new boyfriend. Well, I think the appropriate term for a guy like this, and the only term I can come up with is dumb s***.

You know, I mean, that's what some of these low-life criminals are, and they don't know how to do things. They do things any way they think it could be done, and a lot of people really haven't a clue how they're going to hire a hitman or how they're going to stage a crime scene, even if they've watched a lot of people really, they haven't a clue how they're going to hire a hit man or how they're going to stage a crime scene, even if they've watched a bunch of TV. So they just talk to the person standing next to them. Hey, what do you think? Can I get a guy to kill my wife? I mean, that's how brilliant they are. And that's the smart technique that they use. So it is no wonder

that he got caught in this particular instance, but he's just not very bright. That's all you can say. He's not very bright. And I guess as far as the tickets go, he didn't have a use for the ticket he was in jail. You do know what we're doing here. We're way, way off the mark. But I'm going to get us back in the middle of the road right now. We are all critiquing how inept he was at hiring a hitman and how he could have done it so much better

if he would just listen to us on Sirius XM 132. Can we talk about the fact that he's hiring a hitman, Dr. Brian Russell? Can I just tell you what I want to know? I want to know why these stupid sociopathic guys are so sexy to you ladies. I mean, look at this guy. Look at this guy. Look at this. I don't find him sexy.

He's not sexy to me. He's in prison find him sexy. He's not sexy to me. He's in prison. You know why he's not sexy to me? Because he doesn't have a job. You know what? If you can't help me, just don't hurt me. All right. Who wants a man without a job?

Number one. Let's just start with that, ladies. If he doesn't have a job, get rid of him. And he's got a girlfriend running around on the outside trying to help him set up hits on his previous, uh, uh, wife that he had. I mean,

how did these guys find all these women? I remember when, you know, before I, I had the wonderful, amazing girlfriend I have now, you know, there would be long dry spells where,

you know, with, with a couple of doctors and a decent job at a TV show. I, I, wait, wait a second, Brian Russell. Dr. Brian Russell. Dr. Brian Russell. Pause. Hold, please.

Dr. Brian Russell. You do know you're talking to Nancy Grace, right? I know. You do know that. Okay, now, did I hear you say you have a wonderful longtime girlfriend? It isn't that long yet, but yes. What do you mean by that? What's the holdup?

What's the holdup? No, it's only been a couple of months. I'm just saying there have been times in my life where even as a lawyer and a psychologist with a national television show, I had long dry spells where I wasn't meeting anybody. And these sociopaths, even if they're in prison, seem to have no trouble. They got an endless parade of women wanting to even go out and help them arrange hits on people. You're right. You're right, Brian.

A, where does he find a girlfriend? B, how do you convince a girlfriend to go hire a hitman to commit murder? I know. I want to pause and thank our partner making today's SiriusXM 132 program possible. And here's my question. What's your story in 2018? The holiday rush is over. You have no excuse.

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code Nancy, N-A-N-C-Y, in the promo box at checkout. LegalZoom, where life meets legal. You know, I can't say it enough. If you want something done right, you got to do it yourself. I'm talking about a man who offers a hitman Atlanta Hawks basketball tickets in exchange for double murder. Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host, joining me. Why did he want to kill his ex-wife? They're divorced. Why does he care what she's doing? And why drag her boyfriend into it? Well, because he's a scumbag i'm not exactly sure and all the stuff i've seen i can't find any reason any rational reason for taking her out however this wasn't the first time that he tried to take her boyfriend out because the boyfriend

of his ex-wife had been shot and survived and they traced that back to this moron. But, you know, we did figure out where the Atlanta Falcons ticket or the Atlanta Falcons or Hawks tickets came from. See, he's got a girlfriend who's a bartender and she's the one that is selling these Hawks tickets. I look back on her Facebook page and they date back all season. So he's actually she's the one offering up the tickets to get her boyfriend's ex-wife out of the picture while he's in jail. Now, Alan Duke, in the past, you have said you've made comments such as, oh, he was just talking. It didn't amount to a crime. That's not true in this case because he made several pointed comments about it.

He managed to get $800 earnest money to show he was serious. He agreed upon a post office box to drop off the $800 deposit. He gave the would-be hitman his ex-wife's address, description. He described her and the boyfriend and gave the killer, the would-be killer, the boyfriend's place of work. So this is more than just talking about how you wish your ex-wife was dead. This is for real, Alan Duke. It was very real. And when the FBI started investigating the tip from their confidential informant, according to the affidavit from the FBI agent, they went to the Smyrna, Georgia Police Department to investigate. Hey, what do you know about this guy that they've got the target on?

And the Smyrna police knew the boyfriend. And you know why they knew him? No. He had just been shot. Oh, my stars. You know what, Dave? Matt kind of mentioned something about that earlier. So you don't think this would have been the first attempt on the ex-boyfriend's life? I mean, on the boyfriend's life?

No, it was obviously multiple attempts. You know, this guy, he's orchestrating murder for hire from his county jail cell, you know, on the drug charges and getting a lot of help from the girlfriend. And I'm telling you, Nancy, this girlfriend, I don't understand why she hasn't been charged yet. I was just about to say, why hasn't she been charged? Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows. How can somebody follow along with a murderous plan so blindly? She wasn't just following along. She was offering up the payment for murder. Yeah, it's completely implausible to me that she didn't know she was involved in a murder for hire plot. And so what it really points out is something that I've been talking about ever since I've been, you know, going back years, you know, back when you

and I were talking about cases on TV, we would come up with these cases once in a while where this kind of a thing would happen. And it really points up something fascinating. If you look at almost all of the high profile serial killers in American history, almost all of them have formed committed relationships with women or if not married while in prison, even on death row. And you think, why in the world would somebody want to become involved romantically with somebody who can't even take them on a date, can't even have a phone call except once a week at a particular time with them? And it really speaks to a profile, I think, of those women,

that the people that get involved with them are very typically, you know, they've got a lot of emotional issues of their own, a lot of neediness, a lot of, you know, some of them like the shock value of telling their friends they're dating somebody who's a prisoner, a serial killer, whatever. Some of them like the fact that the person is unavailable so that they can sort of control the level of contact and everything. And they think that's going to have them be in charge of the relationship. But look what happens. They end up having their puppet strings pulled by the sociopath, even from behind bars, just every bit as much as if he were out. You know, it's not just talking to the girlfriend. There are recorded phone calls at the jail.

Pat Brown, criminal profiler, thank God the people behind bars seem to forget or pretend it's not real. All his phone calls are recorded. All of them. Yeah, you know, I think when we're talking about the type of women, you know, I think that one of the problems is when you talk about what level of, where you set your bar, in other words. You can't be too picky because if you're too picky, you don't get anybody.

So you drop your level down and you can get a lot more people. But sometimes when you drop your level down enough, I actually talked to one woman who was dating, uh, who was dating and wanted to marry a serial killer. Uh, and I asked her, I said, what's wrong with the box boy at Safeway? You know, the guy stocking the shelves and he goes, he's boring. Yeah, he is boring because now you realize you couldn't get, Oh, uh, a famous actor being who you were. You could get box boys at safeway because you know you also

work at safeway but that's not enough for her it doesn't make her feel good enough or special enough or excited enough but if she can get that guy behind bars which is a lot easier and these guys will go for that she's going to get somebody really interesting somebody you know the bad boy somebody cool and she gets to help him too. She gets to do some real things for somebody, you know, bring him whatever he wants in jail, send them the letters, all that silly stuff. So there's a really weird dynamic that goes on in some of these women's brains that makes them feel important. And sometimes these women suffer from sort of a narcissistic personality disorder. That is how they get, they have to get that constant feed and psychopaths are really

good at saying all the right things. If you go to a date, a date of prisoner.com, one of those, those things, man, those guys are great. I mean, they look good. And they say things like, I want to take walks on the beach and I like to talk and, and they're actually better than the regular dating sites because they know what to say. I want to take walks on the beach. You mean walks on the outside. I want to take walks on the outside. Instead of being, if you go to one of the regular dating sites, the guy's standing next to his car, you know, and he's going, yeah, I like a girl who's open-minded.

Yeah, that's what you get. But if you go to that site, the prison site, you get the guy who likes poetry and wants to talk to you. He doesn't want to just have sex with you. It's ridiculous. But he says all the right things for a girl if you're on the outside. Pat, I'm a little concerned about you. What are you doing on these sites?

How do you know this? I use this for one of my training programs. Believe me, I'm not there for myself. You know, and there are actually dozens of sites devoted to creating a relationship with someone behind bars. Isn't that true, Pat Brown? Yes, absolutely. There's a huge amount of them. And what I did with one of my college classes I was teaching is I had the students, I had the males pick out some females, the females pick out some males. And it was amazing.

They were all shocked at how really great they sounded compared to the regular dating sites. But that is, the psychopath knows how to lure people. He just knows what they want to hear. And he's practiced this on so many people. So a woman who is really desperate or lonely or narcissistic or whatever her issue is, and she decides, I could help a prisoner. I could, you know, this guy will get out one day, and I could be the woman he's been waiting for to change his life

or whatever she's got going through her head. Man, they just line up for this stuff. It's unbelievable. You know, Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, host of Investigation Discovery's Fatal Vows series, it's a big hit. Dr. Brian Russell, when Pat Brown is using terms like psychopath or narcissistic, first of all, she said that this guy, Michael McCurchin, is a psychopath. What does she mean by that? So a lot of people use the terms sociopath and psychopath synonymously.

I don't. I make a distinction. And here's the distinction. A sociopath is somebody who will do destructive things for secondary gain. That means there's nothing about the destructive act necessarily that's all that exciting. It's just that it gets them something else that they want. It gets them money. It gets them sex. It gets them some other goal. And the psychopath is somebody for whom the destructive behavior is the goal. We call it primary gain. In other words, the excitement of the destructive act in and of itself is the

motivation. There doesn't have to be any secondary goal. There doesn't have to be any money, any pleasure other than just committing the act. I thought a psychopath, and again, you guys are the shrinks. I'm just a trial lawyer. I thought a psychopath was someone that could not identify with anyone else's pain. So for them to kill someone, I mean, they start, many serial killers start as children, killing animals or insects, tearing the heads off toys, and they move up to cats and dogs or other children. I thought that a psychopath is someone that cannot identify with other people's pain or sorrow. They lack conscience. It's a spectrum. It's an antisocial personality disorder spectrum, kind of like the autism spectrum where, you know, you have people sort of on the low-grade end of it who are willing to lie and cheat and con other people to

get some money or to get some laughs out of fooling somebody. And then you have people on the extreme end who are willing to torture and murder people for the enjoyment of watching them suffer. And so all along that spectrum, you see a diminishing of conscience where the person is less and less inclined to care about the impact of their actions upon others. I hesitate always to say they can't do it. They have no ability to have conscience. I think there's an element of choice in it always where they choose to prioritize their own gratification, whatever that is. Okay. You know what? You're using way too many big words on me, Dr. Brian Russell. Okay. Now, do I throw out legal terms all the time? Well, first of all, I don't want to, but there's nothing that can alienate a jury more than if you start talking Latin to them.

Okay. That's not good. You got to dumb me down for me, Brian Russell. Okay. Now, Pat Brown, give me a crack at it. When you say he's a psychopath, can you talk to me in regular people talk? Well, first of all, I do like Brian's description, although I'm a little... Well, you like it because you understand what he's saying. You two are speaking your own language. Dave Mack and Alan Duke and I are sitting here going, what? Tell me now for me, Pat, why do you say he's a psychopath? Okay, a psychopath basically is a person who cares only about himself and nobody else.

It's about him. It's not about you. And he will either use you. Let me put it this way. You're either useful to him or you're in the way. That's it. And that's starting to make sense to me. You're either useful or you're in the way. sense to me. When you said someone is narcissistic, I know the old myth of narcissists who fell in

love with his own reflection in a pond. But when you say someone is narcissistic, what do you mean by that? Okay, a narcissist, that's sort of that continuum that Brian was talking about. Narcissism means that you have an excessive self-interest. We all have self-interest. Otherwise, we wouldn't survive. And so we do care about ourselves. But we also care about other people, and we take that into account. The higher we are in the narcissistic continuum, the less we care about how other people are affected by what we do or what we need, the more we just try to get things for ourselves.

Okay. You know, Pat Brown, Pat Brown, Pat, you know how I feel about you. I love you. But, here's a but. Dr. Brian Russell, I respect you greatly. But the two of you, the two of you are making my teeth and my head hurt. Dave Mack, can we get back to reality? Okay.

Let's get out of the Ivy Tower that these two are living in. They're probably writing some, you know, doctoral thesis on this. Dave Mack, what does it mean to me? And what does it mean to Michael McEachern and his ex-wife and boyfriend that almost bit the bullet, literally? The thing that bothers me the most about all this, Nancy, is that this guy is sitting in jail on drug charges, and he's able to arrange this.

Now, granted, it got interrupted by the FBI because of at least one confidential informant inside the jail. But this guy was orchestrating stuff from behind the jail, and he had help. And I'm really bothered that he's able to have this Lisa Marie Northcutt, his girlfriend, who obviously is the connection on the Atlanta Hawks tickets. And she was the one passing the money through and getting it to where it needed to go for when they thought they were hiring a hitman. She's an accomplice here. And I have to

really worry about those that would run into her because what would she do now? Her best friend here is in jail arranging murders. So, Alan Duke, she has not been charged. She's not a person of interest. However, if she's doing his bidding and knows it's about a contract killing, I also, if that's true, Alan Duke, I'm very surprised she has not been charged. Well, the main case against him is a federal case and they're not going after her. There's no mention of that. Uh-oh. You know the feds, they don't play. No. I'm very surprised they haven't gone after her. Well, I'm sure she's working as a witness. Right. Would they be

working a deal with her to get more info? A witness seems to testify a lot better if they have potential jail sentence hanging over their heads. You know what? I'm on it. We're watching this. What's to say he's not going to get out of jail and make good on his intentions? Pat Brown, you're awesome. Dr. Brian Russell, lawyer, psychologist, and host of Investigation Discoveries hit show Fatal Vows. Dave Mack, syndicated talk show host. Alan Duke, Jackie Howard, my partners in crime. Guys, thank you for being with us.

Nancy Grace, signing off. Goodbye, friend. you're listening to an iHeart podcast