Crime Stories with Nancy Grace - Yoga star eyed in horrific death of identical twin sister

Episode Date: January 31, 2018

Alexandria Duval is on trial in Hawaii for a manslaughter charge in the 2016 death of her twin sister Anastasia. Prosecutors say the yoga instructor intentional drove her car off a cliff. Nancy Grace goes over the evidence with Cold Case Research Institute director Sheryll McCollum, psycho analyst Dr. Bethany Marshall, and reporter Scott Kimbler. Nancy and friends also look at the case against Martin Christian Ehrke, a 49-year-old California man arrested on suspicion of homicide after the bodies of two women were found on his property. One of the bodies was found in a freezer, police said. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. Crime Stories with Nancy Grace on Sirius XM Triumph, Channel 132. Did a yoga star intentionally murder her gorgeous identical twin sister. We are going live in a trial that has just kicked off. Did a woman murder her twin sister by driving her off a cliff, intentionally killing her by plowing their SUV over a 200-foot cliff in Hawaii. Well, that is what a judge will determine. Alexandria Duvall, the case has just started on trial for the murder of her sister.

The two big hits in the yoga scene with their own private studio. They had so many customers. They had to add on classes. How did everything go so wrong? I'm Nancy Grace. This is Crime Stories. Thank you for being with us. Joining me right now, Dr. Bethany Marshall, Los Angeles psychoanalyst Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute.

Boy, do we need her today. Also with me, Crime Stories investigative reporter Scott Kimbler. Scott, first of all, before I get to one sister plunging the other sister off a 200-foot cliff in the middle of a hair fight going down, and let's just say she wasn't afraid of a cocktail. Let's just start with that. But before we get to one sister dying at the foot of the cliff, can we talk about their success together, their success story?

Yes, Nancy. These two have been running a yoga studio for quite some time. They only moved to Hawaii in 2015. Before that, they ran a successful yoga studios, plural, in Florida. Though the sisters were known to be somewhat volatile, they were also very, very popular yoga instructors in Florida and in Hawaii. You know, I've been taking a look at their yoga studio. Cheryl McCollum joining me, director of the Cold Case Institute. And when you are trying to determine a murderer, you don't look just at forensics.

Although I like forensics the best, Cheryl, because they really, it's more difficult to dispute forensics. Although I guess you can get an expert, pay an expert to do anything or say anything. But Cheryl, their history together, these twins had a huge, huge following at their Florida yoga studio. I agree with you, Nancy. You got to go back in time on this one. These twins went from New York to Utah to Florida to Hawaii. When you are successful and everything is good, why are you moving like that? So in my world, if I've got two people that have moved from Florida to Hawaii

and changed their name because they're running from something, they're hiding. That's an interesting point because to me, they seem to have it all when they were in Florida because the yoga studio was so incredibly popular. They're very striking, number one, very attractive, long blonde hair, both of them parted in the middle, big blue eyes, making an incredible first impression on people. And so many people credit these two sisters, the Duval twins, for improving their lives through yoga. Twin Power was the name of their studio in Florida.

And it was in a very posh area. They were in Palm Beach. But then they left for another retreat for the rich and famous Park City. And they were even trying to launch a reality show about yoga. Now, that's interesting because that show, when the reality show fell through Cheryl McCollum, they started falling into debt. And, you know, money, the love of money is the root of all evil. So let me ask you, how do you think that they descended from being at the top of their game at Twin Power Yoga, where they would charge sometimes $2,000 to $3,500 for a yoga certification class.

How did they get so far in debt? Nancy, when you're in a posh area like that, everything has got to be top drawer or people are not coming. So you've got to be in the right area, in the right building, with the best equipment. So probably they went into debt to try to get the students in the first place. And then at that point, they're playing catch up. So we know there's been some failed businesses and bankruptcy. Well, I know they were throwing around a lot of money.

They would travel to India, India, three to four times for yoga instruction on weekends they would hire percussionists who would come in and perform during the yoga classes I mean they're throwing around money left and right to make twin power yoga work but also they changed names Cheryl McCollum I mean when you change names that's a big tip-off to me. Oh, it's a huge flag in our world, Nancy. There's no doubt. Again, not only did they change their name, they went to a remote island to start over.

Nobody's going to know them in Hawaii. Just joining me right now, L.Aalyst, Dr. Bethany Marshall. Dr. Bethany Marshall, when you just pick up and move to the furthest island off the mainland, to the furthest island possible in Hawaii, or pick up and move to Alaska or Costa Rica, for no apparent reason, leaving what little family you have behind. I mean, their dad is a doctor, for Pete's sake. And they've got family and relatives. Change your name.

Now one of them is dead, Dr. Bethany? Nancy, I have an office right in the heart of Beverly Hills. And there are a number of businesses around me. Yoga studios, clothing stores, little boutique shops, and you walk in and the owners are not just, you know, owners of a business, but they're gurus. Like there's this clothing shop up the street from me where there's two women that own it. And all of the rich Beverly Hills women that come in, look to these two women to make their lives better. They talk about their marital stress. They get them to dress them for red carpet events. And these girls that started a clothing show. Wait, what problems? Okay. You're married to some rich guy and you're

dressing for the red carpet. What's the problem? I don't know. Marital infidelity, your $5,000 or $10,000 a month allowance is not stretching as far as you want it. Your dog has the flu. I mean, whatever. But these women that own these retail stores become therapists, mentors, guides, coaches, gurus. Dr. Bethany, you're making me have a flashback right now. It was during Dancing with the Stars. Yes. And that was the first time I had been away from the twins in my life for that period of time at a stretch because I had them enrolled in this little Methodist school out there, Westwood.

And they would go to school in the morning and then I would be away from them the whole day and wouldn't get back to them till late in the evening. And I remember one weekend I was just trying to be with them nonstop because I was miserable away from them. And we were walking along the sidewalk there where you're talking about in Beverly Hills. And John David went over and looked at a pair of gold tennis shoes. And I look, we went in and look, they were $900. I said, don't look at those. Just turn away. Don't even look at them. These people are crazy. That shop would be on my street, I think. Rub it in, rub it in. You know what? I don't want to live on that street. You have it. It's all for you. I will stick right here, you know, and drive my beat up minivan and couldn't

be happier. But back to, it's a warped reality. Right. Which brings me back to these twins. They were living in a warped reality. That's right. It's a warped reality, not only because of the wealth of the clientele, but I think that in the yoga world, there's a very thin line between exercise and kind of like a cult-like religiosity where the person who's instructing the classes becomes, I keep using the word guru, Svengali, mentor, coach, teacher. They become so prominent in the lives of their followers that they become heady or giddy or they think that they're really more important than they really are. And I think that can lead to all kinds of problems, you know, like Cheryl.

I want to follow up on this, this religiosity component to their yoga practice. Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, following up on what Dr. Bethany Marshall said, you know, they launched Twin Power Yoga in a really ritzy area in West Palm Beach on 11-11-11, a date that the twins claimed was a spiritual number that meant double creativity. Mm-hmm. Mm. Well, here's what it seems like to me, Nancy. They wanted to be famous. They wanted to be famous. They wanted to be well-known, whether it was going to be yoga or a reality show or whatever it was going to be.

They had these visions of grandeur, so to speak. And by any means necessary, if they had to go to India, if they had to go to Hawaii, if they had to go back to Utah. It didn't matter what they had to do, the way they were trying to, you know, get their own fame notice, so to speak. Well, they also made it, they made a yoga DVD called Twin Power Hour. And I am not ridiculing them at all for ambition and drive, but I am very suspicious about the way they did business because they just up and left one day. A lot of people that paid $3,000, almost $4,000 for a membership were left high and dry. Nobody was ever paid back. It just, they were living the high life trying to make a reality show and make DVDs. It was a con.

In this posh, airy. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. Go ahead. It was a con. In this posh, airy. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was. Go ahead. It was a straight up con. And we see it, whether it's yoga or anything else. So they get you to buy into this membership. And then they simply move to Hawaii.

So it's not like you can really, you know, try to get your money back or track them down. And a lot of people just say, you know what? Screw it. They're gone. I'm done. I'm done. Good riddance.ance and that's it so you've got the two sisters and you know what i always say cheryl mccollum when you don't know a horse look at the track record look at his track record but in this case this is like a deja vu the twin is killed when she and her sister have a as i call

it a hair fight you know a girl fight swatting and hitting at each other and pulling hair and screaming and biting, that whole thing, as they're driving the SUV. But flashback, away from Hawaii to the Sawgrass Expressway, back in Florida. And suddenly, from the passenger seat, the one sister, Ann, starts kicking the steering wheel and windshield with her feet as she and the other sister, Allison, from the back seat, scream at the driver because the boyfriend, yes, the boyfriend was ignoring their demands to stop and get another glass of wine. They had a fit. The guy, the boyfriend, quote, I almost went off the road. He blocked the kicks with his right arm and he drove the twins, continued going forward. He's like, are you guys crazy? You're going to kill all of us. He finally got them to their home. That was 15 years ago, Cheryl McCollum, over another glass of wine. As a car, an SUV is speeding at about 85 mph. Nancy, there's clearly some anger issues.

There's clearly an issue where they don't even care about their own safety. They get so enraged. And this case, to me, it looks like almost a murder suicide that failed, meaning the suicide failed. The murder was successful. Well, in this case, not so sure it was a murder suicide attempt. I don't know about that, but I do know that you've got one dead sister and then Ann dead when the SUV driven by twin sister Allison goes 200 feet off a cliff in Hawaii. And witnesses state they heard the two sisters screaming at each other and saw the passenger pulling the driver's hair before their Ford Explorer smashed through a rock wall and launched over the cliff. So back to Scott Kimbler, Crime Stories investigative reporter.

The trial is going down. These two have been described as alpha females that only thought about their image and their success, but they were like Jekyll and Hyde. Once they had a couple of drinks, both of them, they turned into Mr. Hyde. Scott? Yes, these two have a history of being very volatile, and yes, that quick switching route that they would do, and yes, these two were very well known about doing that to the ex-boyfriend and two associates of just being two very violent and volatile women. I don't understand why they changed their name, Cheryl McComb. What was that about? Hiding.

Again, Nancy, if you look up, who owns this studio? Oh, it's Anastasia. Well, that's not the con artist from Utah or Florida, so they move on. So they changed their name to hide. Well, it's funny the names that they picked. Dr. Bethany Marshall, L.Aall la psychoanalyst joining us today and that where they head they go from new york to one rich enclave to palm beach another enclave for the wealthy to park city where everybody has a second or third house to go skiing then to hawaii and

change their names to kind of exotic names to start over. Now one is dead. You know, what's interesting is that these charges were actually once dropped, Dr. Bethany. Wow. That's so amazing to me because it sounds like they had a criminal past before they went over the cliff. And when I, isn't one of the names Anastasia? I mean, it's like Russian royalty. I think instead of thinking- Anastasia and Alexandria. Alexandria. Okay. Well, I think instead of thinking of them as yoga instructors, we should just think of them as con artists first and foremost. And then what do the con artists decide to do in order to take advantage of people? They pick a profession where they will be admired and looked up to

and have power over people. And who's going to have more power over people than some kind of leader, whether it's maybe a religious leader, a leader in the exercise world. I mean, I'm always shocked when I open the newspaper and I read about yoga instructors who are having sex with their followers, who are grifters, who are, you know, ripping people off. I think that there's certain professions that grifters are drawn to because that's where they can actually get to know people in an intimate way where they can take advantage of them. Well one is dead at the bottom of a cliff and the trial has kicked off and we are bringing you the very latest out of that Hawaii courtroom. As a matter of fact take a listen what's happening in court. Just before that SUV went off the cliff, that there was no braking,

two, that there was hard acceleration, and three, that there was a hard left turn. Three categories of evidence will be presented to establish each of these three facts, and one is the physical evidence on the road that shows no braking, shows a hard acceleration, a hard left turn. Two is the eyewitness who saw it accelerating and taking a jerk to the left off the cliff. And three is the data retrieved from the SUV crash data recorder that indicated that the brakes were not used and quantifies the acceleration and the turn. Therefore, when the evidence is presented, the state will ask the court to find that the defendant intentionally or knowingly drove off that cliff, thereby causing the death of her sister and being guilty of murder in the second.

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Today's Super Beats. Thanks for the energy. Back to a Hawaii courtroom where one gorgeous twin sister on trial in the death, the horrible death, as a matter of fact, of her twin. Now, their time in Florida is an indicator. From 2008 to 2014, then named Allison and Ann ran Twin Power Yoga Studios in Palm Beach. Known for being highly visible with charismatic personalities, As a matter of fact, Cheryl McCollum, they even drove matching Porsches. Okay. Did you hear me? Matching Porsches? Okay. You can't really miss that in a small town. Then they latched onto a guru, as Bethany was

describing, a spiritual advisor that they met at a Kabbalah center. And that's when everything seemed to go wrong. They were pushed, according to them, into renting a much more expensive space for a new studio to support a reality show. And when the reality show didn't happen, they were plunged into debt. Okay, they were even known around the area as the terrible twins of yoga. Then, close to 2015, they suddenly, the yoga devotees show up. It's shuttered. Everybody's gone.

The employees didn't get their pay. Customers who had already paid for memberships felt ripped off and angry. They head to Park City, Utah, change their names to write a book. Now they're Alexandria and Anastasia, and they go back and open another yoga studio under different names. Both of them heavily in debt while in Utah, disorderly and drunken conduct. Kicked out of a restaurant for drinking too much. Involved in yet another car crash where they fought with each other. And when the cops get there, they slide their car into a ditch. Quote, hair pulling was also involved. To Dr. Bethany Marshall and Cheryl McCollum joining me,

this is now the second of three times that I know of that they get into a fight while driving. This time they slide their car into a ditch right in front of the cops. Cheryl, jump in. Nancy, past behavior will be a firm indicator on future behavior. These two almost have a love-hate relationship, and I believe the black box in that car is going to be all they really have to look at to prove my theory of the murder-suicide.

She was so angry, she deliberately drove that car off a cliff, even though she was not wearing a seatbelt either. There is no way, if you throw yourself off a cliff 200 feet down a ravine, not wearing a seatbelt, that you know for sure only your passenger is going to die. She didn't care about her own safety. That's how mad she was. Unbridled and uncontrolled anger. Dr. Bethany Marshall, I'm very familiar with the Ten Commandments, but there's also the seven deadly sins, which I used to love to quote to juries. One of them is anger. Well, and what I keep thinking about as I listen to Cheryl McCollum, I listen to you, is what happens when you have two twins with personality disorders

who are dysregulated, they cannot control themselves, they're grandiose as so many sociopaths are. I don't know for a fact if they were sociopaths, but they seem to have that profile. Things are going badly for them. They're substance abusers and they can't regulate their feelings towards each other. And then you have a buildup, you know, as you and I often talk about homicides, rarely stranger homicides are less frequent than acquaintance homicides. And the reason for that is that it's in our most intimate relationships that we have feelings that could lead to homicide, like rage, envy, jealousy, betrayal, resentment. So I think this was just sort of a toxic buildup between two people who could not regulate their emotions. In terms of murder-suicide, maybe, or maybe two women who were fighting and pulling out each other's hair all the time, but they just happened to be in a car at this moment.

They could have been blacked out drunk. You know, you never know. this is the third time it's like third strike you're out they did it 15 years ago on sawgrass expressway all right and the the then boyfriend now married he got away from them here you know yeah was driving and they nearly ran him off the road then it happened, and the police show up to the scene. I guess this was in Park City. And just in time to see them slide, they ran the car into a ditch. And they're still fighting and pulling hair and drunk.

And these two have the ability to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, make DVDs, write books, have their own yoga studios, a potential reality show. And instead, they're wasting their lives getting drunk and having fights. But you know, that's a dynamic in a lot of relationships. The first time I knew anything about it was on Andy of Mayberry. And they would always be called Andy and Barney to this home on domestics where the husband and wife would just be horrible and fight to each other, fight at each other. Well, they got them in counseling. Then they started taking it out on everybody in the community. So in the end, they just told them to go back to their regular selves and let them

go back to fighting with each other because they enjoyed it because nobody else could stand to be around them so maybe this is their dynamic the the the pattern over and over and over of getting drunk fighting physically with each other these two gorgeous twins having a blow out making up and then doing it again this time again in a car and once it ends up dead, Bethany. Well, you know, Nancy, that is so insightful what you're talking about, because I have many patients in my practice who actually enjoy fighting because it's very stimulating. I mean, it's never boring and you always have something to think about. You have somebody to hate. You have something to ruminate on and your life is just

stirred up and in chaos all the time. And what I see with people who are, we call it like ritualistic fighting, is that usually they have a lot of underlying feelings that are not metabolized. They really don't know. They don't know themselves. They can't regulate their emotions. So the blowouts, as you call it, is a way to kind of blow off steam. So what we would say is that there's a buildup of feelings outside of awareness that, and because the feelings are outside of awareness, they cannot regulate those emotions. So they pick a fight and have a blowout so that they can take sort of the steam off or get the air out. And then they go back to their baseline functioning. And sometimes that can be only for a few minutes or a few hours, and then they have a buildup of anxiety, emotion, and then they

have to pick a fight again. Or it could be as simple as these two are just addicts and they hate each other. And I think, you know, you have these, I want to say something because I'm actually a twin myself and there's no one on this planet I feel more loyal to than my own twin sister. And I sort of know she lives, I'm in Southern California, she's in Northern California. I'm sort of connected to her. If she has a bad day, I feel it it sometimes we have the same dreams we're very emotionally tethered to each other I cannot imagine fighting with her in that way it is just so inexplicable to me and so I think what's happening with these twins is that you have these two gorgeous women who are like Svengali guru con artists. Everybody looks up to them. They're

grifters because they're beautiful and they have power over people. They believe their own BS. So they run up credit cards. They overextend themselves. And then they become substance abusers because they can't regulate their emotions. You're starting to lose me, Dr. Bethany. Sadly, having been on TV for so long, I have to talk in soundbites. And if it goes over about 20 words, it's just, you know, I don't know what happens after that. But I think that you were saying about their, talking about their pattern. And she couldn't be more right, Cheryl McCollum, because this is the third time that we know they've gotten into a horrible fight. And this time one of them died. But one thing about this instance, Cheryl, is the sister drove through a rock wall to stop, you know,

accidents on the cliff there on the furthest island in Hawaii. And not only that, there's been, these charges were first dropped. A judge threw them out and told the prosecutor, hey, if you want charges, go to a grand jury. And that's just what they did. Because witnesses say that the fight, the argument started before the acceleration. It wasn't during driving that the fight started. And then she plowed through a rock wall with her seatbelt on and the passenger not on. That's how this is. I guess the theory of this is not like I go buy a gun

and then I sneak up on you as you're walking to your car in the parking net and shoot you, which is premeditated intentional murder with malice forethought. This is more of a black heart as it is called in the law, an abandoned and malignant heart. For instance, if I'm at a street fair and I suddenly get in my car and punch it, put the pedal to the metal at 90 mph and drive through all the stalls, that is abandoned malignant heart. I have reckless abandon toward life. So if you take somebody off a cliff, that's you're driving the car, but still it's abandoned malignant heart toward the other person, reckless disregard for their life. That's got to be the theory. No doubt. And Nancy, they stopped more than once. They would pull over and they would continue to physically fight. Witnesses

saw it. So at that point, Anastasia said it got out of the car. But she didn't. She continued to go. She would stop again and physically fight, continue to go. And then she accelerated and turned a hard left, never braking, through the rock wall, down the ravine. Back to Scott Kimbler. That is when it's observed the vehicle begins to accelerate again, nearly crashing into a Boy Scout van. And you could hear one of them swearing at somebody else. There was anger, a rage going on in that car. And then they accelerated again. Do I have the sequence of events correct, Scott? Yes, there seemed to be a argument that would, as you say, accelerate not only in the car,

but in the intensity of the argument. Yes, it was ongoing, caught a lot of people's attention. When it was stationary, people have recollection of them, one saying the other one needs a psychiatrist and then speeds off again. And this is just ongoing and escalating for some period of time at this point. Well, right now, everybody, a courtroom is transfixed as one sister who survives the crash that killed her twin sister is on trial for murder. You've heard some of the prosecution opening statement. Listen to what the defense has to say. This case is a tragic accident, not murder. Car first impacted.

And evidence from the vehicle will show that, and from the airbag control module, will show when the car initially went through the dirt berm, it went through on the driver's side. But that did not activate the airbags. That was what's going on from the defense side of the courtroom. Scott Kimballer, is it true that the one sister on trial, Alexandria Duvall, who is pled not guilty to second-degree murder and the death of her twin, Anastasia Duvall. Is it true she waived a jury trial and she's being tried directly in front of a judge?

Yes, it is, Nancy. She actually did waive off a jury trial, which seems a bit odd when you're facing such a very serious charge. But, yes, she doesn't want a jury to decide on this. She's more than willing to just do it with just the judge. Interesting. Interesting. To Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Research Institute, you know, I never, I think there was only one time I agreed to go for a bench trial, as it is called.

I always wanted a jury trial because you never know what kind of wild hair some judge is going to get. You don't want to leave it up to one. I did calmly agree to a bench trial with the oldest woman in Fulton County ever charged with grand larceny. I went in front of Judge Alverson, God rest his soul. This old lady had a boarding house, a big old house near Georgia Baptist hospital. And she would take in female nurses and they'd work, they work for a couple of days. You know, nurses have long shifts and they come home, all their furniture be gone. And she'd be sitting on the front porch rocking. Well, she did this over and over and over. Nobody could ever prove she was the one that took the furniture and sold it.

Okay. Finally, you know, I brought her to trial. She got convicted at a bench trial. Well, let me tell you, she threw herself, this almost 80 year old lady, grand larceny, threw herself on the ground screaming, oh, sweet Jesus. Her wig flew off. She was just, I mean mean you should have seen the spectacle and I said Miss Viola get up off the ground you are not having a heart attack I'm recommending

probation she just jumped right up and they took her out under her little armpits and dragged her out of the courtroom and she even after a trial, making all the witnesses come in, all I wanted her to do was to pay the people back. I didn't want the old thing to go to jail for Pete's sake. Well, there's a reason, Cheryl, people opt for a bench trial. And both the state and the defense have a right to a trial by jury. The defense can't call all the shots. But they agreed, I guess,

to a bench trial. What's the benefit? You don't think she's going to pull it over on this Judge Cahill, do you? That's what she believes she can do. She's a con artist. She sees that judge like her dad, and she's played him like a bass fiddle for years. gets her way she's gonna look beautiful and pitiful at the same time and oh you can't get mad at me because i threw my own self down the ravine too and it's a real shame there was a problem with the car or whatever lie she comes up with and you know my sister grabbed the steering wheel it'll be some lie but nancy she firmly believes that she can con that man because she's done it for years and she sure lord didn't want a female juror well this is what we know the motive here would have

been anger and anger in addition to being one of the seven deadly sins is not a defense at trial. Our eye on the courtroom and now we head across the country to an almond farm and a frozen body. What could be more bucolic, more beautiful than a gorgeous almond farm in California? Peaceful, green, rolling hills, trees and trees and trees. You know, Cheryl McCollum, director of the Cold Case Institute, I remember investigating the Lacey Peterson murder. And before her body had surfaced, along with that of her unborn child, Connor, I remember going to her neighborhood and just walking around. I walked all the way to the end of her street and somehow I came to I

came to a dead end and there was a big wooden fence and it was crossed over with wooden boards you were not supposed to go on the other side but of course I went up to it and looked to see what was so crossed over thinking could Lacey have gone back here? It was a beautiful orchard. It was right there, starting in the middle of a neighborhood. Now, in this case, they weren't just growing almonds on the Arbuckle farm. Because right now, loved ones are in shock. Two young moms found dead in the Arbuckle almond farm. Not only dead, 39-year-old Kimberly Taylor and 25-year-old Jessica Mazak, found on the almond farm, frozen, frozen, stuffed inside a stand-alone freezer.

What? I mean, Cheryl, that's not where you expect a dead body to pop up. No, it's not where you expect one. But Nancy, in this situation, you either have two women that came upon something they shouldn't have seen, or you've got the work of a serial killer. So what law enforcement needs to do here, in my opinion, is keep searching, keep looking in that field, keep looking in the orchard, keep looking in the lake. There may be other missing people that are on that farm and also it does appear that

maybe some marijuana was being grown there and did they come upon that and were they silent yeah i know cheryl that the big craze is legalization of marijuana but i still say nothing good is going to come of it um this one mom, Kim, had a little baby, Tyler Taylor. And then there's Jessica Mazak, also a young mom. One body, Taylor, stuffed inside a standalone freezer. The other, Mazak, had been disposed of, just tossed into a pond on the very same property. Joining me on the story, Scott Kimbler, Crime Stories investigative reporter. Let's take it to the beginning. Okay, Nancy, what we have here is last Thursday, we have a man who walks into a hospital in this part of California with

blood all over his clothing. And when the sheriff's officers speak to him about this, they're then led to this almond farm where they find a residence there. And the inside of the residence is just all covered with blood. And they're looking around. And that is when they find the one woman, the 39-year-old, in a freezer there. And as they're investigating that death, they begin to look around for another person that was associated with the residence, and they're searching the property. That is when they find the marijuana grow farm, as you had mentioned earlier. And also, they find Ms. Mazak in a pond at that location. So they go there for one reason, looking around, but then when they get there, they find a hoard of other things, this very gruesome scene, but also the two bodies.

And that is exactly why so often people don't go to the hospital when they're injured in illegal activity. New details emerging now. Two women, close friends, found dead in a freezer and a pond at a Colusa County almond farm. Now, as Cheryl alluded, we discover illegal pot also grown there in Arbuckle, California. Investigators now releasing these new details about the two women whose bodies were found at an Arbuckle home. One man believed to have killed both, but are there more bodies?

Why were they there? Alan Duke, they are saying that they discover illegal pot being grown on the almond farm, but hasn't it been legalized in California? Yes, as of the last few weeks, you can buy recreational marijuana. But there's the problem with the growing of it. They're still doing illegal pot grows around the state that bypass all the taxes and everything else. So there's still that market for illegal marijuana. It actually is growing because there's fewer penalties for it and they're not enforcing it as much. But yeah, there's still illegal pot farms out there. Well, deputies respond.

Jump in, Cheryl. You're going to always have illegal pot farms, and here's the reason. Just like wine is regulated by the government, so your wine is only going to be 9% alcohol. Marijuana is going to have the same problem. They regulate how much THC is involved. So you're always going to have people that buy moonshine, for example. You're always going to have people that want marijuana that's not regulated. Yeah, you're right about that.

Deputies respond to the home around 4 a.m. after one of the victim's roommates reports suspicious circumstances and that the women had disappeared. Deputies arrive at the home. They find Taylor stuffed in a freezer, the freezer in a bedroom of an attached residence on the property, like I guess a pool house or a guest house. That led them to search the entire property. And that afternoon, they find, a dive team finds Mazak, another young mom, submerged in a pond on the property. They, of course, find the illegal marijuana grow. They also find narcotics. Later the next day, they find out the owner had left the night before and checked into

the Colusa Medical Center. He wouldn't say why he needed treatment. He was discharged. Then they found him and arrested him. The motive, as of right now, is unknown. But to Dr. Bethany Marshall, renowned psychoanalyst joining me out of L.A., Dr. Bethany, I don't understand what kind of mind or constitution would freeze a young mom, would put a young mom's dead body in a freezer.

Not only that, that the way he killed these women seemed to be such a violent attack. You know, the fact that there was blood all over the inside of the residence, it really implies to me it wasn't an act of sadism like we see with so many serial killers where they want to, you know, strangle the woman and look in her eyes and see her pain and suffering. But this was actually a rage attack of some sort. And, you know, when I think of rage attacks, I think of methamphetamine. I think of somebody who may have some psychiatric disorder or has a vendetta against women in general. A horror discovery at a secret almond orchard where marijuana was also being grown. Bodies of women stuffed in a freezer and tossed into a pond.

These two young women, Kimberly Lynn Taylor and Jessica Lynn Mazak, dead, one in a chest freezer, the other submerged in the pond, out in the middle of a rural almond orchard in Northern California, now the scene of a double murder at the very least. Who is this guy? Martin Christian Urke, just 49 years old, living there in that farming community of only about 3,500 people, not too far from Sacramento. Both of these women were living on the property just to work, to raise money to support their children. So why do you say a rage killing, Dr. Bethany? Because of the blood all over the inside of the residence. That's why I say rage killing. There's sort of an overkill effect. I mean, you don't have to, I'm trying to think of what led to blood all over the inside of the residence. I mean, did he bludgeon them? Did he stab them repeatedly?

What did he do? And whatever he did, it would seem to be around the same time, right? Because, you know, presumably if one woman went missing and the other woman was still on the farm, she would know about it. So one went soon after the other. So I'm thinking it's just because of the fact that there's blood all over the inside. And, you know, I'm wondering with these two women being so vulnerable, being single moms, raising their children, I know that a lot of serial killers do target women who are vulnerable, and they would really fit that description.

I noticed that one of the final posts by this guy, by the way, he is completely fascinated with UFO conspiracy theories. Just to throw in that fact, he says, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. Did anyone see how close the moon is? So I guess he thought, Scott Kimber, that when the moon appears to be big, it's actually closer to the Earth.

Yes, that would appear to be his understanding. And he also had a fascination with Native American culture, and as you said, a UFO conspiracy theory. So we have a person here who is a bit out of what you would consider the traditional norm. I love the way you put that, Scott Kimber. Or he was psychotic. Yes, take a listen to what the local sheriff says. It's a box-style freezer that would be in a garage. They were currently known to be here

at this residence, staying on and off. It's going to be hard on this community for a while. It's a small community. Everybody knows everybody. But now, take a listen to what a close high school friend, John Garcia, tells Fox 40 about his friend, Marty Urke. I knew him when he was a kid. We all went to school together, rode the bus every day. You think you know somebody, and you don't. And when the name came up, it didn't really ring a bell, but then I started thinking, that can't be Marty Urke. And yeah, it was him. So they're blown away.

Nobody, nobody, it's hard to believe, you know, it's just, they're blown away. We are on the case as justice unfolds. Nancy Grace, Crime Stories, signing off. Goodbye, friend. This is an iHeart Podcast.