Crime Weekly - S2 Ep93: Connie Dabate: "The Masked Intruder" (Part 1)

Episode Date: September 2, 2022

It was December 23rd, 2015, the morning before Christmas Eve, and most residents of Ellington Connecticut were getting their last minute holiday tasks completed before the season went into full swing. Richard and Connie Dabate got their two young sons on the school bus and then got ready to do their own thing for the day.  By 8:30 AM Richard was headed to his job as a computer network administrator in Bloomfield, and Connie was getting dressed for her spin class at the local YMCA. It was a normal weekday morning, like any other, but within just a few hours, tragedy would descend on the quiet, upscale neighborhood that the Dabate family called home. By 10AM, 39 year old Connie Dabate had been shot twice and was lying dead in her basement, and her husband Rick was found by first responders tied to a metal folding chair. He claimed a masked intruder had attacked him and then murdered his wife, and for months the community mourned the loss of Connie. Everyone wanted to know who could have done such a terrible thing to a young mother, a woman who didn’t have an enemy in the world. There was very little information coming from law enforcement; all they said was that the community had nothing to fear, but people still had a lot of questions. It would be over a year before anyone would have answers, however, and during that time a case was built on following the money, the secrets and the electronic paper trail which would lead to the shocking conclusion and the answer to who could have done something so terrible to Connie Dabate and her family.  Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod

It was December 23rd, 2015, the morning before Christmas Eve, and most residents of Ellington, Connecticut were getting their last-minute holiday tasks completed before the season went into full swing. Richard and Connie DeBate got their two young sons on the school bus and then got ready to do their own thing for the day. By 8.30 a.m., Richard was headed to his job as a computer network administrator in Bloomfield, and Connie was getting dressed for her spin class at the local YMCA. It was a normal weekday morning like any other, but within just a few hours, tragedy would descend on the quiet, upscale neighborhood that the DeBate family called home.

By 10 a.m., 39-year-old Connie DeBate had been shot twice and was lying dead in her basement, and her husband Rick was found by first responders tied to a metal folding chair. He claimed a masked intruder had attacked him and then murdered his wife, and for months the community mourned the loss of Connie. Everyone wanted to know who could have done such a terrible thing to a young mother, a woman who didn't have an enemy in the world. There was very little information coming from law enforcement.

All they said was that the community had nothing to fear, but people still had a lot of questions. It would be over a year before anyone would have answers, however, and during that time, a case was built on following the money, the secrets, and the electronic paper trail, which would lead to the shocking conclusion and the answer to who could have done something so terrible to Connie DeBate and her family. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow. And I'm Derek Levasseur.

So we're jumping into a new case today. And I actually chose this case to start this week because it just went to trial and we have an outcome in it. And I mean, this was this this murder happened in 2015. It's 2022. So, I mean, it's been many, many years that this family has been waiting for closure and waiting for justice and they finally have it. I'm happy about it. And I actually think there's a lot that we can learn from this case. And there's a lot of really interesting forensic work. The police did a very, very good job here with the investigation. And I'm glad to kind of bring it to Derek to talk about it because, you know, he likes that kind of stuff anyways. He likes the forensic stuff and the blood spatter stuff and the fingerprint stuff and all of that juicy details, I guess, that go into the investigation and make, you know, a trial actually come to life and stack up all this stuff against the person, the perpetrator, so that you can put them behind bars without a whole lot of complications. So it's important stuff. And I actually have a lot of questions about some of this forensic stuff, especially blood spatter

that I was reading in the police report and in the arrest affidavit. And I was a little confused. So I'm going to be really interested in having Derek clear that up for me as we go through this. I think we're all going to learn some things. And I believe Connie DeBate deserves to have her story told here. But before we dive in, is there anything you want to talk about? Well, first off about the case, I do love these cases and I love them because they're not clear cut. And there's something that requires some level of skill as an investigator to close them to actually find out what happened. Not all detectives are created equal. And, you know, there are certain cases that anybody can solve. Hey, it's pretty clear cut. There's a video of

him shooting him. Slam dunk, it's over. But cases like this, where you have something that's more intricate, and you have to use the skills that you learned at detective school, or the things that you've learned from other senior detectives, requires you to actually do some work in order to catch the bad guy. So when you have a case that involves multiple elements, like blood spatter, fingerprint, DNA, whatever this case ends up including, it's impressive. And we have to reward good work because those are the detectives we want to put on a pedestal, we want to promote, because we don't want the lazy guys who just sit in their office and wait for the case to come to them. I don't want them working my loved one's case, and I don't think you want them working yours. I will say for you guys, we were considering doing a different case. Stephanie called an audible

last minute, changed it up to this one and didn't really give me a lot of background on it. So just like we always say, I genuinely don't know this case. Didn't really know this is the case we were even doing until a few hours ago when she sent the script. And so I'm listening to the teaser as she's recording it with you guys. And I will say without going too far down the road, cause I could be wrong just in her teaser with her saying that law enforcement came out almost immediately and said, there's nothing to worry about. It's pretty obvious that they felt they already knew who was involved in that. This wasn't some serial killer or some robber that was in the

area going around to different homes. So I already have some initial thoughts as to who this is going to end up being, but I'll save them now to talk about something different really quickly. This is really Stephanie's baby, but for everyone who's following us on criminal coffee, we have these characters on the bags and each month we update the stories of these characters. And our own Stephanie Harlow is writing these stories. I've already got a little sneak peek at what's coming out. It's amazing. And by the time you're watching this audio or this video, depending on when you're watching it, whether it's Friday or Sunday, the newest development for each character should be on the site. So this should be

the second development since we launched, but the third clip that you can go and read because we also have their bios up there and they're more detailed than on the coffee bags themselves. So if you want to, if you like Stephanie's, she writes every script that we do. If you like her writing, you're really going to like this. I think it's kind of outside her element. I'm speaking for her here, but it's outside her element. I really enjoy it because it's different than what we're doing here, which is mostly fact-based. And so if you enjoy that, whether you like coffee or not, head over to criminalcoffeeco.com. Just click on universe and you can dive into the criminal coffee universe and read about our characters, Sebastian, Agent X, and Chase. Yeah, it's actually totally in my element. I'm a big, I love the building of the universe and building of the world. I'm a big like Game of Thrones person. I read all the books that were available to read before the show even came out. I read them so long ago. I love everything about building the whole universe and

kind of having these characters start on separate journeys, but then they're going to meet and they're going to start working together. And there's a lot of cool stuff they're going to get into a lot of drama, a lot of intrigue and suspense. So go and check it out. See what they're up to. Yeah, absolutely. And buy some coffee while you're there. Yeah. Link below link is also in the description as well. And as we've already said multiple times, portion of the proceeds from every bag goes to fighting crime. We're going to be doing a live very soon about that because we're getting to that point. We're going to make our first donation. We're almost at a $3,000 mark right now. So we'll announce when

that live's going or just make sure you have your notifications on if you're following us on YouTube so that you're notified when we go live so you can weigh in on your opinion on where we should donate. Perfect. All right. Let's dive in. If you're good to go, are you ready for this? Ready for this. This sounds like it's going to be, there's so many thoughts. The fact that he's in a computer network administrator and all these things, I want to see where this one goes. And the fact that you picked it last minute, there's got to be some meat on the bone for us to sink our teeth into so yeah let's do it yeah i definitely got caught up in it um when i when i saw i i remember when it happened not when it happened but i remember that they were kind of going back and forth and they had to stall the trial because of covet and i remember seeing that and i kind

of looked into it and i said to myself oh everything's sealed on this you know like all the the documents are sealed They don't want to really release anything until the trial happens. But there was so much here. I knew there was so much there that we didn't know even the tiniest bit, like tip of the iceberg with this case. And I just really couldn't wait until it went to trial and it was adjudicated so I could get my hands on all the documents and the details. So as soon as I found out that it had kind of wrapped up, I wanted to do it immediately and get into it. And I was right. There's a lot going on with this. I mean, I was stunned. I was angry. I was like, I can't believe this as I'm going through it all.

So I can't wait to share it all with you. And I can't wait to get your opinion on it. So law enforcement actually did something a little unprecedented in this case. And you'll sometimes see this case sort of advertised as the Fitbit murder, but they basically used Connie's Fitbit in order to track where she was and not only that, but how many steps she was walking. And it's just very, very interesting how they pieced everything together using texts and emails and um you know the Fitbit and like surveillance cameras and they just created something so thorough that it was really and I I hate to say it this way because I don't mean to sound like it was a pleasant experience for me but reading through the arrest affidavit was a pleasure for me because some and I'll talk about this later some arrest affidavits are like choppy and they don't make a lot of sense and they're all over the place.

But the detective who wrote this affidavit was, I mean, just chef's kiss. It was so thorough and so organized. He's throwing shade in there sometimes, you know, and I'm like, I kind of was like giggling a little bit because I was like, I know what he's trying to say here without saying it. So it was a pleasure to read this arrest affidavit and sort of see how they took all of these separate pieces and put like this puzzle together and made it something that you could bring to court and no one could say shit about it. Like there was nothing that any lawyer could do once they put everything together and they brought this like Frankenstein monster of evidence into the courtroom. It was just a beautiful thing to see. So I can't wait to dive in. But I want to talk about Connie first. So Connie DeBate, she's one of those people who you look at them and you wonder, like, how do they do everything? You know, how does she do it all? I am not one of those people because I'm constantly dropping the ball. And sometimes I see women or men that seem like they have it all together. They're completely in control of their lives and everything that's happening in it. And Connie had a lot going on. So she was actually the mother of two young boys University of Connecticut graduate, and she worked as a pharmaceutical sales representative for Reckitt Benkiser, a career which she'd been very successful in.

But she was also known to donate a ton of her time to volunteer work. For years, Connie had served as the vice president of the Ellington Volunteer Ambulance Corporation. She was also extremely active in the Indian Valley YMCA branch where she worked out and where her two young sons took swimming lessons. She organized events for the YMCA. She collected bottle caps for fundraisers. Connie was also known as the mayor of Birchview Drive, and Birchview Drive is the street that she and her family lived on in Ellington. One of Connie's neighbors, Peggy, said, quote, if you had a baby, got sick, or had any other life event, Connie was the first one at your door with a meal and a kind word. If you happened to be new onto the street, Connie would be the first person to greet you, end quote. Connie was also known to organize different parties or events to bring the

residents of her neighborhood together. She was basically just a bundle of energy and joy. Friends laughed remembering that Connie was the only person who seemed happy to be at 5 a.m. spinning class at the YMCA. But although she had a strong and lucrative career and was a genius at organizing and getting people together for good causes, the most important thing to Connie was her family, specifically her two sons, RJ and Connor. Connie was truly a caregiver. And her son, Connor, he actually had some health issues. And Connie's father, he was diagnosed with leukemia. But Connie would spend hours driving her son, Connor, to Boston so he could have the best medical care. She also donated her time volunteering at Boston's

Children's Hospital, trying to give back all they had given to her son. And when she wasn't driving back and forth to Boston, she was caring for her father in Connecticut. So Connie definitely had her hands full, but she was a great mother, a devoted wife, and a loyal friend to all who knew her. Now, I mean, we've done a lot of these these cases i think it's safe to say most of the times in these situations people don't really have anything bad to say about victims of violent crimes you know nobody's coming out and being like actually you know so and so wasn't that creative a person you know so not a great loss nobody's really saying that publicly but i could really tell in this case when people people said that Connie was an angel, she was an angel. Everyone loved her.

Everyone was crushed by the loss of her. This went above and beyond the typical rosy rememberings of someone who's no longer here. You can truly tell just everybody who talked about her, they loved her. And Connie's friends and families are left with a serious hole where she used to be. You can really tell she touched everyone she knew in a very positive way. She seemed to be truly an incredibly caring individual who gave far more than she ever took. And you could tell that her two boys were her life. Everything she did was to make the world a better place for them. One of her friends, Wayne Rue, spoke about Connie in a very glowing way, saying, quote,

She spent her whole life focused on helping her family and friends. She displayed a keen sense of humor and brought joy to all who knew her. She was humble. She performed acts of kindness without recognition, and her generosity and compassion for those in need were her trademark. End quote. So before you continue, obviously, Connie sounds like an amazing woman. And it always sucks because we always start these cases when we can by talking about the victim because they're not just victims.

They're people. And I used to do this on Breaking Homicide all the time. We'd spend 15, 20 minutes in the show remembering them as people, right? Because obviously the story has changed, but there was a legacy there before this happened. And that's ultimately what we want to remember them by, you know, is not, not what happened to him at the end, but what they stood for when they were alive. So I love that we do that. Something was interesting that you said at the beginning of this episode, you were given some compliments to the detective who wrote the affidavit. And

that's always the goal, right? The goal is to, as a detective, come up with an affidavit that's based on fact, but basically paints a picture for someone who has no idea about what happened. So someone like yourself, who's researching it, obviously you have a little bit of insight, but as you're reading it, you're saying you're giggling because you're looking at it as a reasonable person and saying, oh yeah, this is a slam dunk. And that's not always the case. But when you have a good detective who's able to articulate what he did during the investigation or she did during the investigation and then support that with evidence, it makes it really clear cut for not only the judge that may have to sign an arrest warrant or a search warrant, but also that's what

the prosecutors are going to use as well to build their case when they start to bring in witnesses and obviously they'll translate that information to a jury and hopefully they'll see it the same way so this is the goal right here is to have a case like this where at the end of the investigation they're able to tell a story that's completely based on what they actually did support support it with facts, make it a clear cut case. If it wasn't for COVID, it seems like this would have been closed a lot sooner, maybe. But that's the goal. And we don't have that often. This is probably the first time I've ever heard you say like, as I was reading it, I'm like, man, it's all here. And I wish it was more often, but this is always the goal as a detective when you start the affidavit is to have it come together at the end so that no matter who reads it, they get it.

Well, I don't know this detective, right? I've never seen him. I don't have a picture of him. I've never heard him speak. But as I'm reading it, I kind of got an idea of who he was. And there were certain times where, you know, it's not necessarily a sense of humor, but he's saying things in this very dry way. And it's kind of like I can imagine him saying them in a very deadpan way, but it kind of cracked me up because it's like, oh, well, this is what happened, but nobody can explain why this happened.

And it was very easy to sort of piece it together. And I liked that they kept like a consistent timeline. What do they call it when you're doing an affidavit? The affiant? You're the affiant. Yep. Whenever you sign a search warrant, the person who's actually be the one held accountable and they call it giglio. It was a case before where if you lie in that affidavit and you're found to have lied based on information they're able to prove, you essentially get giglioed and you can no longer testify in court or get a search warrant without first divulging that you've been found to have falsified a document or said something under under oath that wasn't true and 99 of the time the lawyers will never have you uh testify again because of it because you were giggly oh so when you when you are the affiant you're giggly oh that's it it's it's like a really bad thing and it should be blacklisted man you're blacklisted and in a lot of cases even if you're involved in the investigation, you will not be the

affiant on the search warrant or the arrest warrant for obvious reasons. Well, I'm going to shout this detective out by name later when we get into it. Cool. Love that. I think he did a great job. And he also did a specific demonstration in this case where, you know, I like the demonstrations. I like when they actually do it to show, is this possible? Is this not possible? We can say theoretically it's not possible to do this, but when they actually record

on videotape, you know, a detective or somebody who's kind of the same, like height, size, things like that, and they're kind of trying to see, like, is this realistic in real life? Can we do this? Can we replicate it? I really like that because, once again, I feel like it leaves very little room for doubt in a judge or a jury's mind. And that's pretty much what happened here. But, yeah, Connie was great. Obviously, nobody's perfect, right?

And like I said, no one's out there talking badly about victims for the most part. But you could tell she had a very big family, a close, tight-knit family, sisters, brothers, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, cousins, all of these people. They were tight. They were friends. They were more than just family. They were incredibly, incredibly close. And you could tell when they talk about her that she was truly a light in their lives. And it's just, you know, it's sad to think, especially when you find out what happens here. It's just senseless and stupid. But Connie married her husband, Richard DeBate, on July 4th, 2003. Rick, which his name's Richard, but we're going to call him Rick from now on. He was a 1995 graduate of Manchester High School, after which he attended a technical college and began working as a computer network programmer. Now, as far as I can tell, Rick was a typical guy. You know, he was kind of into working out, doing CrossFit. He regularly ran marathons and half marathons, but he also seemed to be obsessed with Superman, the fictional character from DC comic books. In fact, I guess they do this annual

race in Manchester, Connecticut called the Manchester Road Race. It's roughly a five-mile marathon. It happens every Thanksgiving morning. And when Rick attended in 2015, he ran the race dressed as Superman, which it's not as weird as I just made it seem, I guess, because I looked at pictures and things, and I guess people dress up as all sorts of people and characters to run this race. I saw one guy dressed up like the Hulk. But the point is, Rick was really into Superman, really into Superman, probably more than an adult man should be. So I'm going to recuse myself from any comments here because you guys don't see this at all watching on YouTube. But I have basically like a Superman sign with a D in the middle of it on my leg as for a tattoo.

So I'm just not going to say anything based on everything that Stephanie just said, because now I feel a little insecure. You know, you're going to send them after me again. You're going to literally send them. Leave Derek alone. Do you want to see something a little unprecedented? I'm going to step away from the camera for a second. Hold on, because I think it's worth it. You ready for this?

All right. So this is my office. This wasn't staged. This might happen to be in my office with me. So I think we should put him in front of the mic and he does the rest of the episode. I mean, he is Superman. He can do anything.

That does not look like Superman, by the way. This doesn't look like Superman? Let me see him. Are you kidding me? This is as bad as your Brian Enten tape. I had to. I had to. This doesn't look like Superman?

No, not in the face. What's on his, does he have like zits over here? Is he like breaking out over there? Okay. So this, we're getting off the track here. What happened? Is that a vampire bite? I've had this for like almost 15 years.

I had this in narcotics in my narcotics office. So he's been through it. He's been through it. So what happened? Did like a tweaker just start gnawing at him or something when he was in your narcotics? I honestly don't know. I don't know. It could be a tweaker.

I don't know what the connection is. He was in my narcotics office. He's been through it. Oh, well, listen, it could be a tweaker and it could be as simple as my daughter, Peyton, who's a saint, by the way, might have took a pair of scissors to him. I mean, both options are viable. Honestly, both options are completely believable at this point. Well, I think Richard debate would find that to be sacrilegious. Listen, I don't care. Like if you want to like your superhero, that's fine. But Derek, let me ask you this. I have a question for you. Would you ever text somebody like a woman and sign off in the text as Superman? Would you say like, hey, sweetie, can't wait to see you tomorrow. Love your Superman.

Nope. No, I would not. That's all I needed to know. Simple. Simple. I apologize for people on audio that are watching that, but I was holding up a Superman doll that's literally like three feet tall. Don't judge me, Stephanie. I can feel it. I can see it. It's funny. I just don't, you know, you have a doll. It's fine. It's a doll.

That's cool. I respect that. I'm trying to think like, do I have anything comparable? Like, do I want to judge too harshly? Do I have dolls? I don't. I don't have any dolls, man. I don't. But that's okay because we all have our own stuff. We all have our own stuff. So as far as anyone could tell, Rick and Connie, who had been married for 12 years at the time of her death, they had a good relationship. But of course, as it is in every marriage, they had their moments where things were not

perfect. A woman who knew both Rick and Connie, and who described Connie as her workout buddy, she remembered that the couple used to go to the YMCA together, but for the past six to nine months, Connie had been coming alone, and she'd actually confided in her friend that she was, quote, unhappily married, end quote, and things were not going too well. Connie mentioned being tired of the financial burdens placed on her by Rick. It looked as if Connie was the main breadwinner in the family, and Rick had a tendency to spend money and not really save it. Connie had also mentioned that she was getting worn out from handling her son's medical issues basically alone, and the responsibilities

of taking care of her family and the household were a lot for one person. Now, you know how in an iPhone you have like a notes app, you have a notes application. So in Connie's notes application on her iPhone, she had created a document on December 4th, 2014. So this is roughly a year before she dies. December 4th, 2014. And this note was titled Why I Want to Divorce. The note said, quote, he takes money from a lot of accounts that don't belong to him, says he's sorry, but takes no responsibility for it, lets the kids watch TV for hours, does not keep any of his promises to me in regards to getting a list together for Connor's medical, having questions prepared for appointments at the doctors or at school meetings. He forgets everything. He was not sympathetic when my dad was diagnosed. He just let me cry without helping.

He lies to people and makes them think we have a great sex life and that we are the super couple. He does not take any responsibility for why I am angry. He has to be the center of attention all the time. Example, Disney. He was more worried about his costume looking good than running after his son. He does not worry about anything. He has no money in his bank account. His credit is horrible. He acts like a kid constantly. I don't know anything about his day, who he speaks to, or what goes on in his life other than work. He does not share cell phone or computer passwords. There is no trust. He is never happy. Nothing I do is ever good enough. He does

not appreciate anything he has and takes it for granted. I'm tired of covering for him. I'm tired of lying and acting like things are great when they aren't. I'm tired of covering for him. I'm tired of lying and acting like things are great when they aren't. I'm tired of his getting all the credit and glory for everything I do and he doesn't correct them. I hate that he procrastinates on everything. He doesn't romance me unless forced. He does not discipline the kids at all. He just screams all the time. He swears at me. I can't count on him to keep his promises ever. I always have to plan everything. I do not feel connected to him. I don't feel like I can ever trust him. He never makes me feel like we are his top priority. When we are in bed, he only cares about getting off.

He drinks and drives. He promises to be home on time and is not. He promised to help with Disney. He did nothing until the last week and that was only parking. He waits till the very last minute to get help with watching the kids and adds on a lot more stress to my day. He blames everyone and everything else for his problems. He cannot focus. He does not call me throughout the day. When he does, it's a two-second conversation that he does not remember anything that was discussed. The conversations we have are never romantic. They are about him. He gets mad that I don't trust him to do things and when I give him responsibility, he forgets. He teaches the kids nothing. He never works on their homework with them or goes over why school is important. I have to do it all, end quote. And there was

another entry to this notes section on that same day titled The Good, but it was much shorter. The good was, quote, he fixes things at the rental. He babysits. He gets me tea. He does feet and neck rubs. He helps my parents and family when they need it. People like him. When he is in a great mood, he is fun to be around. I still find him attractive. I myself around him, end quote. So I'm going to let Derek process all of that because that was a lot in the notes app, a lot of stuff in the notes app. I'm going to let him process that. We're going to take a quick break and we'll come back and get his take on that. All right. So we're back from break. There's a lot there. Personally, we all go through things, God knows knows and it's one of those situations where

some of this sounds like things like a lot of couples go through some of it's a little a little odd but for me just looking at it for what we're talking about it's very compelling when you're starting to look at persons of interest suspects when you're starting to dive into the marriage at home to see was their relationship good was it bad bad? If you're going off these notes, was it very good? She was very unhappy with the marriage. As you said before the break, very long note regarding the things that she doesn't like about her husband. And then only a few things about what she does. I'm more interested in your take on it because I have trouble. I'm always looking at it black and white. How does it affect the case? But, you know, as a wife, as a mother, you know, how, how do you take it? Is this something that you find a lot of people do make a journal in their phone, things like that

to kind of process what they're feeling? Yeah, I guess, um, when it's this bad, you know, cause this is bad. This is pretty bad. You can tell where they're at is bad. There's a lot of things that just signify they're not vibing. They're not on the same page. I mean, not even just emotionally, but it looks like she's kind of bringing in most of the money. She's kind of keeping track of the books. She's kind of making sure checkbooks are balanced, et cetera, et cetera. And he's kind of just being very irresponsible. She said his credit's bad. He never has money in his account. He acts like a child. He doesn't seem to be a super engaged husband or father. But then it also seems like out in public, he kind of puts on this face like he is all of those things. He's the best dad and he's the best husband and they're the best couple and everything's great and everything's

happy. And she's saying, I'm getting sick of this. I'm getting sick of pretending along with him. It's not the truth. I'm lying every day. He's lying every day. There's probably a part of her that's saying like, how is this dude lying like this every day? Because personally, for me, it's killing me. You know, it's like hard to keep this facade up, this charade, but he's doing it every day like it's second nature, like it's breathing to him. What the hell is going on? What kind of person is this? And it just seems like, yeah, if you're not being listened to by your partner, you may pull out a piece of paper or a journal or your notes app and start writing these things down. And there may be a little bit of weighing the pros and cons here too, right? Like, oh,

let's see what the pros are. Let's see what the cons are. Well, the cons are a lot longer. He makes me tea and he, what did she say? He watches the kids sometimes. Those are his kids. That's not a pro. That's not a pro, man. That's a requirement. He babysits? No, he does not babysit. Those are his children. I hate when fathers are like, oh, you're babysitting? You're their father. You don't babysit. Those are your kids, man. So yeah, it seemed like maybe it wasn't great.

It wasn't firing on all cylinders. And she was kind of fed up with it. And this was an entire year before that she's murdered. I'm so glad you just said that because i was just going to reiterate that the incident that we're talking about the reason we're here happened on december 23rd 2015 this is december 4th 2014 right so right around a year and the reason i bring that up is because in this message she was very transparent she seemed like she was being honest there's really no mention of any type of physical abuse, which you would expect to see if

somehow the husband's going to end up being connected to this. Obviously, he's someone you're going to look at as a potential suspect. However, this is a year before. So if this is the relationship now, and this is the last note that's entered, there's a year where things could have progressively gotten worse. We don't know. So yes, it's a little bit of insight into what the relationship was a year ago. It could have gotten better. It could have gotten worse.

We don't know. But still, very valuable piece of information that I'm sure detectives, when they got access to her phone, were really interested to see and kind of break down and dissect and maybe even ask Rick about his feelings on it and if he had a similar experience or this was all new information to him. Yeah. And I mean, she does say like he only yells, he yells at me all the time. So there does seem to be maybe a little verbal abuse going on. I've said it a million times. Sometimes people are like, oh yeah, we yell at each other. But that's just our

like our vibe. That's just our dynamic. No, you know, like there should be a minimum of a minimal amount of yelling in a relationship. Like you really shouldn't be screaming at each other on a regular basis. And your partner shouldn't be like screaming at you and demeaning you ever really, because that's just that's not a good sign for the relationship or for the way your partner views you. And there's a lack of respect there, but yeah, it could, it could escalate to physical or does it even need to escalate to physical for something to happen to her that he may be responsible for? No, yeah, it doesn't have to. That's for sure. It could be just a crime of passion. It could be something that happens out of nowhere. You don't even need to have something

like this. Things could actually be going really well. There are situations where you have a husband and a wife and relationship is great according to both parties, but then one kind of goes a different way and the spouse finds them in bed with another man or woman and then instantly they become a different person. And so it doesn't take this longstanding history of bad times for it to evolve into something like this. I'm interested to see if because you're laying this out and I know how you kind of lay out stories. I feel like obviously it's going to be significant in some way. I wonder if it's going to involve the husband directly or it's going to be more indirect. But that's kind of why I'm making notes at this point to see, hey, we'll make note of it.

Not going to automatically assume that he's the guy because of this. But just based on your way of writing things, I know it's going to come back at a later point. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if you look at the text messages between Rick and Connie in the months leading up to December, it does show that there was money issues. But there also did seem to be genuine love and affection between the pair. Just two days before Connie died, she texted her husband saying, quote, you are amazing. And he responded with, quote, ditto. Connie then texted her husband, Rick, saying, quote, hopefully by the start of the year without Verizon, cable, and your raise, maybe you can now have $500 extra a month to save. And if you can get your interest rate lower on your car loan, you can pay off your loan by the very latest December of next year, freeing up almost another $300, end quote. Now,

Rick responded by asking Connie, quote, this is getting you wet, isn't it? End quote. And Connie responded with, quote, yep, it would make me wet if I saw you saving it, end quote. So we kind of see when she's writing in her notes app a year before this he's a child you know he doesn't take anything seriously he acts like a kid she's trying to be very serious she's trying to help him get his credit better save some money not be in the hole and he's directing it back to this very juvenile kind of like oh you turned on by this money talk you know yeah Connie and it's and she's like yeah if you you fucking save it and stop being a dirtbag, I would be super turned on right now. She's trying to be patient with him, a hell of a lot more

patient than I think I would be. And he just can't take anything serious. And that would be frustrating, I think, in a relationship. I wonder, you said they were married, they got married in 2003. Yeah, they've been married 12 years at this point. 12 years. So I will say the dynamic as far as finances are concerned is a really fascinating one to me. I wonder if this was something that evolved and became the parameters where money was divided and he was given the budget and all these things, or was it always this way? Was money always something that they had decided, hey, we're going to keep it separate regardless of marriage. You have your bank accounts. I have mine. I know there are other people that do that.

Although I will say, I think that's maybe not usually what people do. There's like a ton of people that do that. I can tell you two couples that are very close to me off the top of my head who keep their money separate. And to me, it's a little strange because you do have some unequal dynamics there. Like one couple, we'll call them like Sarah and John. Sarah makes more money. Sarah gets to spend on extras. John doesn't get to do that.

And so it's almost like this very weird thing where Sarah's like, oh, I can go out and do this because I want to because I make more money. But you haven't saved more money, but you haven't saved your money properly and you already spent all your extra money for the month. And it's just a weird dynamic to have in a relationship. It's almost like a parent-child thing. I'd be willing to guess that it probably wasn't always like this. There probably was something where the money was, what's yours was mine as yours type situation and after numerous conversations and him admitting that he can't he can't save and he can't balance a budget there was new parameters set up and this is the new situation where hey listen you're just spending

any dollar that comes in you're spitting it back out so we're going to split it up this is what you're going to be allotted per month let's try to get to a point where we can balance the books. So again, it could have been from the beginning, but I have a feeling just based on how open they are about it, that this is something where they had had numerous discussions about in the past and they were trying to correct it. And even he's acknowledging in a juvenile way, like, oh, I should get some positive reinforcement, right? Like, this is a good thing. I'm being good boy I'm doing what you what I'm supposed to be doing weird but yeah very odd because I was gonna say like I got the same impression that their money was separate cuz she's saying oh you'll be able to

save this you'll be able to do this instead of like we can save this so I got I did get the impression that their money was separate and and we're gonna get into more finance stuff later. And she was saying in her notes, he takes money out of accounts that aren't his. That was one of the first things that she did say in that notes. Yeah. So there's definitely some separate accounts there. So it also turns out that Rick and Connie had gone away to Vermont the weekend before she died in an attempt to reconnect. And Rick would later tell the police that it had gone great and the two of

them had come back home closer than ever. However, a family member of Connie's who had a house in Vermont, they had invited Rick and Connie over on December 19th to have dessert and to see, you know, their, I guess this is a new house for this family member and Rick and Connie had never been there before, so, you know, come over after dinner, have dessert, see the house, etc., etc. But that night at around 9.23 p.m., Rick had texted this person saying, quote, so I'm sorry about not swinging by. I'd love to see you guys in the house another time. Connie is in a little bit of a mood this evening, doing my best to have a solid date night and cheer her up. She's a bit moody, smiley face emoji, end quote. And it seemed like

Rick was texting a lot of people that month, mentioning that Connie was in a mood or being a bitch, making it seem like he had to really be flexible and put a lot of effort into making or keeping her calm and happy. There's one text in particular, I remember it was like a friend of his, he texted and he said, oh, go easy on Connie because she's, you know, she's really like not happy right now. And the friend responded back and he was like, I've never been rude to Connie. And Rick said, yeah, you know, she's on she's on a rager right now. She's being a bitch. I just got to I got to do whatever it takes just to keep her happy and calm.

You know, like I can't explain why I have to tell you to go easy on her. But that's just the way it is right now. And it kind of rubs me the wrong way. I can see why. Because more than likely, it's her trying to keep him in check, but he's trying to get in front of the story, make it seem like she's the problem in the relationship. Maybe he sees the light at the end of the tunnel, knows they might be heading for a divorce. So he's trying to stack the deck to make it look like it was her fault, not his. With the people closest to them, right?

Like, oh, just so you know, you're not mad at me when we get a divorce because, you know, I tried. But how much can you try it with somebody who's just unreasonable? Yeah, she's the problem. But then on December 22nd, just the day before Connie DeBate would be shot to death in her own home, she texted her husband saying, quote, I have been on the phone with Comcast for the last two hours. They are saying our bill was $302 a month instead of $149 a month because you added the sports channels. They are not paying me back. So I am out over fucking $1,200 for cable and you again lied to me and i am again cleaning up your fucking mess end quote so after a quick back and forth between connie and rick where he claimed he did not add any sports channels connie said quote great day off and merry fucking christmas end quote okay so all right so my first initial take on and it kind of goes back to the bank accounts and we don't have to get too crazy about it,

but it does seem like Connie might've been very on them to say it nicely, like very specific about the bills and the money. And, you know, I'd like to think that if Rick, and if they're in a, they're a couple, they're married,

they got kids together. He wants to add the sports channel one. He shouldn't be lying to her about it. First off, but also I think she should be like hey listen we're together i make more money than you if you're being responsible in other areas i feel differently if she said hey i just checked the bank you spent twelve hundred dollars at the strip club what are you doing so funny you know That's so funny that you say that, Derek, because he basically did, but we're not there yet. So maybe- We're not there yet. And I will feel different about that. Check me on this, but I know it's

$1,200 over the months that he didn't tell her about it. So yeah, there's a trust issue there, but it seems like this is the tip of the iceberg. What's really like the rooted issues going on here, because it doesn't seem like she would be this upset over just sport channels. It's the deceit. It's the lies. It's the inability to trust your partner and know that they're going to be fiscally responsible as you are because they know how much money is coming in and how much is going out. And yet it doesn't seem like they care. So on the surface, it's like sports channels. Like I get it. It's an extra 150 bucks a month.

That's not cheap, but it just seems like there's, this is like, this is just something that set her off, but there's a lot more going on there. Yeah. I guarantee you it was kind of like over months and she'd get the bill and she'd be like, why is our bill extra this month? And it says they're sports channels. And he was like, oh, that was supposed to be like a 30 day trial, I'll call and take care of it.

You know, it wasn't supposed to be charged for that. I'll get it taken care of. And she was like, okay, you know, trusted him with that responsibility. And he just kind of avoided, avoided, avoided and refused to take accountability month after month after month. And in this text message, he tries calling

her and she texts him and she says, I can't answer you right now. I'm on the phone with the freaking cable people for three hours. And then she says, you know, Merry fucking Christmas. And he says, it will be a Merry Christmas. Just call me when you're ready. You know, he's trying to like play this game still like, I don't know what's going on. I didn't have any sports channels. How could this be? And she's over here like, yo, not only is the bill staring me in the face, but I'm on the phone with these people that told me what happened. And you're still not just owning up to it and saying, my bad.

Yeah, I screwed up. I'm sorry. And that's this, like, very straw that broke the camel's back moment, like you said. I'll tell you what. Liking Superman, having sports channel, I'm feeling attacked this episode. I'm feeling vulnerable. But you pay for your own sports channels, man, right? That is true. Yeah, that is true. I don't lie about it. I'm like, hey, I'm buying the UFC fight, period. For real. It's happening. It's very childlike. Ask for

forgiveness, not permission. It's stupid. And you don't feel like you have a reliable partner when you can't trust them to do the right thing for your family and your household. Yeah. And it's almost like if you're lying about something so minimal, what else are you lying about? Because if you can't even tell me the truth about adding, you know, baseball channel to our cable, then what else are you going to try to get away with? And I can definitely see

that angle. And listen, like I said, I know a couple just like this and it's like, it's kind of scary. It's kind of scary because it's like the mirror and the guy in this relationship that I'm talking about, he'll be like, well, I lie because I'm afraid of getting yelled at. That's ridiculous. Okay. As an adult man, you should not be lying to your wife because you're afraid she's going to get mad at you. You should just be not doing things that you know are going to make her mad because the more you hide it, it's like when you hide your report card when you're a kid, you know, and your mom's like, where's the report card? And you're like, huh, it's probably going to come any day

now. There's going to come a time. There's going to come a day of reckoning, man, where your mom's going to either be like, bitch, where's the report card? Or she's going to call the school and then you're going to get found out. And it's going to be way worse, way worse than it was going to be to begin with. But this is a very childlike mentality that's happening here. There had also been some incidents at their home in the months leading up to Connie's death that had made Rick feel it was necessary to take some measures and safety precautions. On October 2, 2015, Connie called the police to report that during the night, someone had stuffed yellow rags into the tailpipe of her car. Connie told the police that she did not own any rags like the ones found in her tailpipe, and although she had not seen anyone tamper with her vehicle, she thought she might know who had

done it. A week later, on October 9th, Connie's husband, Rick, he called the police and reported that his car windshield had been damaged overnight. When trooper Kyle Cormier arrived to investigate, Rick and Connie told him that they suspected the windshield had been damaged by the same person who had shoved yellow rags into the tailpipe of Connie's car. But trooper Cormier also noticed some details about the windshield damage in question, and in his report, he wrote that he observed damage to the front passenger side of the windshield, but on the outside of the windshield, it was smooth to the touch. However, inside the car, Cormier could feel the crack, and he noticed a few shards

of glass on the passenger side dashboard. There was also no damage to any other vehicles in the driveway and there were no footprints anywhere in the driveway or yard. Now, what do you think that means? That he feels it smooth on the outside, but he can feel the crack on the inside of the windshield? Obviously, whatever happened, happened on the interior. For people who aren't familiar with it, the front windshield, other than the other glass on the car, is double pane. And there's a piece of like plastic, for lack of a better way to describe it. And that's so it doesn't shatter if you're in a motor vehicle accident.

So, yeah, I mean, you would have something where if the interior portion of that window pane is hit by something, it may only fracture the inside glass. But it would have to be hit from the inside of the car, right? I would think. I mean, I'm not a physics person, but I mean, I would think that if there was enough pressure applied to the exterior pane of glass, there would be some indication that that glass was struck by something, even if it didn't fracture it, just something to show that there was pressure applied to the outside windshield that cracked the inside windshield. Yeah, I agree. And Rick DeBate actually claimed to the police that he'd purchased a security camera to set

up at his home in an attempt to identify whoever was responsible for this repeated vandalism, but he hadn't set up the camera system yet. However, he was insistent that he wanted the incident documented. Now, the police sent another officer to the home of the person that Connie and Rick suspected of being responsible for the tailpipe incident, as well as the windshield damage. But according to the police report, no one answered the door. Now, the same day on October 9th, Rick DeBate sent a friend of his a text message that included a picture of a gun he had just purchased, and he cited the reason for the gun purchase to be protection due to the recent vandalism on their

property. And I guess the friend was like, yeah, if you got all this stuff happening and you're afraid, yeah, I don't see any issue with purchasing a gun. And then we have Halloween. So Halloween was Connie's favorite holiday. And that year, 2015, she and Rick had thrown a Halloween party at their house. But later, Connie was telling a relative of hers that Rick had gotten drunk, he was acting inappropriately, and apparently he had removed his clothing in front of their guests. And Connie was still very upset when she recounted what had happened at the party. Apparently she had tears in her eyes, and she also said that Rick had called her a bitch that night. So to go back to what you, because you kind of skated over it

and you probably did it for a reason, but Connie and Rick both stated to the state police that they believe they knew who could have possibly, you know, at least the rags. Are you going to go over that person, who it is, why they thought it could be that person? So they don't say who they think the person is. So the police reports, the initial police report from October, as well as the arrest affidavit that sort of mentions it, they don't bring it up who they actually think the person is. In my opinion,

it's a fall guy kind of person, you know, most likely, I don't want to get too far ahead, but most likely Rick saying like, oh, I think this person has a problem with us. Oh, I saw this person hanging around, sort of continuing to drive that into her head. So she was like, yeah, I can see why that might be happening. But they never specifically say who the person is or was. All we know at this point is it's pretty much guaranteed that whoever they said they thought did it didn't do it. with the trooper to go along with this? Was there an altercation? Was there an argument? Was there something said? Was there anything that could have incited a disagreement between them and this individual? But from what you're saying, it doesn't seem like anything from that conversation with the trooper was something worth noting, even though it looks like the trooper did follow up on it, at least to try to speak with the individual. Most likely this stuff happened and Connie was like, why is this happening?

Who could be doing this? And Rick was like, oh, you know, it was probably so-and-so because I had words with them last week. And she was probably like, OK, if you say so, you know, and just kind of went along with it. And when the trooper asked, you know, she was probably just going along with whatever he said, because as far as I can tell, she didn't have an enemy in the world. She didn't have any problems with anybody. So I'm not sure exactly she doesn't correct him in public, maybe out of respect, but she might be thinking as he's saying it to this trooper, well, this makes no sense to me. Why is he even saying this? Another point to note is we talked about last year with the notes that she had written about there not being any clear indication that there was an escalation in violence occurring within the household. Well, now we're talking October. We're talking two months before Connie's murder,

and it does seem to be escalating, right? Ragging the tailpipe doesn't sound too dangerous, but it could kill her. Carbon monoxide poisoning, there could be something going on there where if she doesn't recognize it, it's an odorless gas that could absolutely kill her just by her sitting in her vehicle maybe she's on her phone or something she might not notice it so it does appear to subtly be escalating between the two and the glass the windshield my initial thought is that this could have been something that was carried out by Rick so that it didn't look like just Connie's vehicle was being targeted. That, hey, look, my vehicle was being targeted as well.

So I'm just as much a victim here as she is. But that's just initial thoughts. And I guess we'll have to see how it kind of plays out. And listen, that's that's perfect. Initial thoughts, because, yeah, 100 percent% Rick did both of these things, right? He did the windshield. He did the rags. Now, the rags came first and then the windshield thing comes after.

Now, was this just a sort of were both of these incidents sort of like this way to set it up so he could be like, well, we have had some issues and there are, you know, sketchy people hanging around or was the rag in the tailpipe an initial attempt to take her life? She found out about it and he was like, oh, snap. I kind of make it look like someone's coming after me, too. And he like bangs his windshield while he's inside the car. Yeah, shit. Yeah. Grabs the hammer, smacks the inside. How dumb are you to smack the inside of your car, not the outside?

I don't know. I don't get the rationale behind that. He's not smart, man. You'll see. He's not smart. I don't know what he thinks, because clearly he does have the mind of a child. Because you'll see, there's so many things that happen here where you're like, what were you thinking? Like, how does this? So he's not smart. But there is something because I didn't really make the connection before with the tailpipe possibly being an early attempt to take her life. But from what else I found out about this case that hadn't been revealed before like this past week, and you just bringing that up, it made a whole new connection in my head. And we will get to that soon. Let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. So Rick DeBate would later tell police the series of events that happened on the morning of December 23rd, 2015. The series of events that led to his wife being shot twice, once in the back of the head and once in the back of the head, and once in the stomach. So I'm going to try to piece it together as best I can, because Rick's recollection of these events would change, kind of shift.

They'd become more detailed as time went on and depending who he was talking to. So initially, Rick claimed that he and his family had woken up that morning. He had dropped his two sons off at the bus stop around 8, 10 a.m., and then he'd gone back inside the house to put his work shirt on. Rick had to be at work at 9 a.m., and he said it would take him about 40 minutes to drive to work from his house depending on traffic. Connie had a spinning class she was planning on attending that morning at 9 a.m. at the YMCA, and Rick claimed that when he went back in to put on his shirt, he saw Connie getting dressed for her class. And he also claimed that he told her that she should call the YMCA before she left

to make sure her class had not been canceled due to the holiday season. Because remember, this is the day before Christmas Eve. He then claimed that he told Connie goodbye, he got in his car and pulled out, at which point he saw Connie backing out of the garage as he was leaving. Now, Rick claims he was only driving for about five minutes when he realized he had left his laptop at home, and at the same time, he got a message to his cell phone that the alarm, his home security system alarm, had been triggered. Now, Rick said that he and Connie used this alarm

on the security system inconsistently, but he knew that the kids were at school and Connie had left for her spinning class and he already had to go back and get his laptop. So he figured he would just, you know, check and make sure everything was good with the alarm system while he was home. Rick claimed that he pulled over on the side of the road. He specifically said it was Reeves Road, and he sat there for a few minutes checking the status of the alarm on his phone, and then he sent his boss an email from his car on the side of the road explaining the situation. Rick's boss received an email from Rick on December 23rd at 9.05 a.m., which said, quote, our home alarm went off this morning, I think, and I think for procedural purposes, they send out a police officer. I got to go back to the house and see what's going on, end quote.

Now, Rick would later tell the police he wasn't too worried about the alarm, and he kind of almost used it as an excuse for his boss because he was more concerned that his boss would find out he'd forgotten his laptop at home and he was going to be late because he had to turn around and get it so he was kind of like using the alarm as the secondary reason to go back but it was his main reason he told his boss let me let me take a guess real quick that camera system that we were talking about in october still not installed is that fair to say no it's not he hasn't gotten around to it yet man so he really isn't a go-getter, huh? He really isn't. No initiative there.

That camera system that's been sitting in. I'll tell you what. Superman would have that alarm system up. He would. He would. You got that right. Superman. No Superman slander here.

But yeah, that camera system is going to have a hard time doing its job while it's still in the box. It doesn't really work that well. And just a couple things going off in my head right now, just red flag, red flag, or not even red flag, but things worth noting. The alarm system, whether it's ADT or whatever it is, there's going to be a very specific detailed record of if the system was activated, if it wasn't activated, if he did go on the app and check. But more importantly, there's going to be a historical

record of how many times this system had been activated and what times it had been activated in the past. The reason I bring that up, is this a normal thing? I know it was intermittently. You had said that didn't always use it, but it'll be really interesting to see. Have they ever used it at this time or was this an isolated incident? And if it is now it becomes something worth looking into and then the obvious things his cell phone gps possibly vehicle

gps if he has on star or something like that so a lot of technological things that can be checked and evaluated and looked into and discredited or confirmed just off the top just off the rip and And it's only nine o'clock in the morning, so we can keep going, but that's just the initial things that are popping in my head. Yeah, man. There's a lot, a lot of ways his story can be completely smashed to smithereens. And it's like, he, he just didn't realize that or something. I'm not sure, but yeah, they got every, I mean, they can tell you what that alarm system they had when the doors are opened, how often the doors are open, because that's exactly the motion detectors. They've got door sensors. They can tell you when the garage doors opened. OK, they've got a record of all of this.

They have a record of when the alarm goes off and spoiler alert. The alarm did not go off that morning. He did not get an alarm alert because he told the police, they were like, well, where's your alarm alert? He's like, oh, I deleted the text message that showed me I had an alarm alert. Text message, you have an app, an app that tells you when the alarms are coming through. And even if you did get a text message and you deleted it off your phone, the alarm company still has a record of when the alarm was triggered and it wasn't that's triggered that morning same thing here with my system whether it's ring or like i said adt or we even have like the digital locks it not only will tell you when the door is unlocked or when it's locked but who it's unlocked or locked by and then also even like you were saying even if

the door is not shut properly there's sensors that will tell you like, hey, the door was ajar for this amount of time. So as a computer network guy to we've talked about this on previous episodes to use something in some cases, like the last episode, it was Don Wells talking about his boss. But that's another human being. That's subjective, right? Memory can come into play there. But when you start using technological services like an alarm system that has a monitoring service attached to it by a company that keeps a very detailed record, that's not smart. That's not smart if you're lying because that is not subjective. It's very objective.

And there's going to be a specific time, probably down to the seconds, that's to really rip you apart with within a matter of minutes of the police looking into it yeah i don't i don't know i don't know what he was thinking but let's just keep going because you know we're gonna let's keep going it's only nine o'clock to the list okay so according to you know the doors opening and closing and things like that, we know that Connie, debate, she'd left the house at 8.46 a.m. and she arrived at the Indian Valley YMCA at 8.53 a.m. Surveillance cameras in the parking lot there captured her pulling in. Before going into the YMCA, Connie sent a Facebook message to a friend of hers who was also a psychotherapist, and this message said, quote, Hi, I hope you're doing well and that you're all set for the holidays. I was just thinking of you and wondering

if you are still doing therapy sessions. I would love to do another hypnosis session if possible. There's been a lot going on that I would like help with. If you're not doing them any longer and know someone that could see me, I would be open to that too. Thanks so much. End quote. Connie then went into the YMCA for her 9 a.m. spinning class. A friend of hers who also happened to be a Connecticut state police trooper, because remember, Connie was the vice president of this volunteer ambulance corporation. So she knows everybody, okay? She knows the first responders. She knows the police. She goes to the YMCA. It's a very community-based. The YMCA is very community-based. You see people that you know, like your kids' teachers, stuff like that.

So she sees this guy, TFC, Corey Sutherland. He's there with his wife, and he saw Connie talking to the front desk attendant. So Corey Sutherland actually happened to be at the YMCA for that same class. But when Connie was done talking to the woman at the front desk, she walked over and told Sutherland and his wife that the spinning class had been canceled because of the holiday. So they all walked back out to the parking lot together, and Corey Sutherland said that Connie was her normal, happy self. She was in a good mood, talkative, laughing. She was wearing black gym clothes. She had her hair in a ponytail, and he watched her get into her car alone and drive away. On her way home, Connie spoke to the psychotherapist she had messaged on Facebook, and she indicated that she wanted the first available appointment because there was a lot going on in her life. Connie went back home,

and she arrived around 9.23 a.m. Now, by this time, according to Rick DeBate, he'd already arrived back home to get his laptop, and he was upstairs when Connie pulled into the garage. So Rick had told the police that when he got back home to grab his laptop, the garage door was closed, so he parked his car in the driveway, he opened the garage, he went through the garage, and used the door in the garage to enter into the kitchen of his house. He put his cell phone down by the stove, and then he turned the coffee maker on to make some coffee

before putting his car keys on a hutch near the table in the living room. Rick claimed he then heard a sound coming from upstairs, and he thought it was the cats, but he decided to check it out anyways. So Rick climbed the stairs to the second floor of the house, once again hearing a noise coming from the master bedroom. He said the door to the bedroom was half closed, and when he pushed it open, he noticed that the door to the closet in the master bedroom was open just a crack, but it was open enough for him to notice that there was a light on in the closet. Rick said he walked over to the closet and pushed it open. And at that point, he saw inside the closet a six foot two obese intruder dressed in green camo wearing a mask. And this intruder was rifling through the drawers and the shelves in the closet. Now, I don't

want to keep saying the intruder because that's all this guy's ever called. And when I was doing my research and making notes for this case, it got annoying to keep writing the intruder over and over. So I gave him a name in my notes. I named him Jack, and that's what I'm going to call him from now on. So whenever I say Jack, I'm referring to this giant intruder man dressed head-to-toe green camo in the master bedroom closet. So Rick claims that Jack noticed him in the doorway of the closet, and then Jack pulled out a five-inch silver-bladed knife with a black handle that he had stored in

his waist area. Initially, Rick couldn't remember exactly what Jack said to him in the closet. He just remembered some vague threat about hurting his family. But by the second or third retelling of the story, Rick remembered that Jack actually said, quote, give me your money, your wallet, and your PIN numbers. And if you don't, I'm going to wait here for your wife and kids, end quote. It's not PIN numbers. It's just PIN. The N in PIN stands for number. So Jack is like so ignorant. The tall masked intruder spoke in a deep voice like Vin Diesel. And he was standing about five feet away from Rick in the closet, Rick claimed. And Rick barely had time to register what was happening because just 30 seconds later, he heard the garage door of the house open.

And he heard the door to the house open and then close. And he realized that his wife, Connie, was home early from her spinning class. So he screamed to her that someone was in the house and she should run. Now, I have to stop here for a moment. And this is where I'm going to give recognition to the detective who wrote this arrest affidavit. Like I said, these arrest affidavits can usually be boring. They can be a bit disjointed. They can bounce around the timeline. They can be confusing. But shout out to Connecticut State Police Detective Jeffrey Payette, who was able to write a coherent and organized affidavit. And not only that, he made it interesting. Like I said, he throws a little sarcastic shade. And in this

one section of the story where Detective Payette spells everything out very clearly. He mentions that it's weird how Jack the intruder was in the closet rifling around when Rick arrived home, but Jack failed to hear Rick come home or open the garage door or open and close the door to the house or put some coffee on, etc. But Rick, who's claiming to also be in the master bedroom closet, he can hear very clearly all of these things happening in the house when he claims Connie came home, right? Yeah, very good job by the detective. It was interesting because as you were laying it out,

it was something where I said, okay, the intruder, Jack, he's in the closet. And I'm thinking that when Rick opens the closet door, Jack's going to be like hiding in there like, oh shit, I heard someone come in. Let me stay in the closet. Hopefully they grab what they're here to grab and they leave again. But from the, from the narrative that's being relayed to us, Jack had no clue that anybody else was in the house at that point. He kind of, and Rick kind of walked in on him going through

their stuff. So that, that didn't make sense to me. So yeah, good that the detective laid that out because again, for anybody else, who's putting those puzzle pieces together, the detective is doing it for you, which is what they're supposed to do in the affidavit. And I mean, to be fair, I'm fairly certain that you could hear the garage door opening, right? And the door to the house opening and closing from the master bedroom. How big was this house by the way? I mean, it's a pretty nice house. It's a nice neighborhood. It's a larger it's a, it's a larger house, you know? Um, but are we talking like Jennifer Dulos, a Fotis, Fotis Dulos size house? No, no, no, no. It probably like 5,000, 6,000 square feet, you know, like a large house, but I have a pretty, you know, expansive house. And if

I'm upstairs, I can hear the garage door open more than that, more than that. I can sort of feel it, you know, the vibration of the garage door opening, if that makes sense. Yeah. But you could tell if you're a, if you're a freaking robber in the closet, rifling through the drawers, you're probably going to also want to be very in tune to that, right? Like you're going to be listening for that specifically. Yeah, of course. And back to the security system, although it might not be activated, the garage door opening, closing, I don't know what type of system they had installed, but usually their sensors put on the garage doors, on the entry doors, and you would be able to tell even if the system wasn't activated when those doors were open, when they closed, et cetera. So these are all things that as we're going can be confirmed, including how Jack got into the home. For example, the system, let's say, you know, Rick said it was activated, but you know, it wasn't. Even if the Jack just used a window that

happened to be left unlocked, there would be record of a window opening in the home and then closing after Jack entered. So those are all things you would be record of a window opening in the home and then closing after jack entered so those are all things you would be looking for yeah and i know for me like if a door opens in my house it makes like a dinging sound ding ding ding you know it's it's happened i don't know if they have that same kind of thing going but you would hear it so rick claims you know he yelled out to warn connie and jack proceeded to manhandlehandle Rick because Rick was blocking the closet door trying to prevent Jack from leaving the closet and going after Connie. So Jack not only manhandled Rick, but he proceeded to use some pressure point knowledge on Rick's wrist to force Rick to the ground, which then allowed Jack to get past Rick, run out of the master bedroom, and down the stairs in pursuit of Connie. Once Rick regained his composure, he also ran down

the stairs, but he said he tripped at the bottom landing and he fell. And at this point, he could not see Jack or Connie, but he claims he heard Connie run down the stairs into their basement, and seconds later, Rick could hear Jack also running down the basement stairs so Rick got himself up he got up off the ground and he too ran down the basement stairs Rick also claimed that he assumed Connie had run into the basement because she knew that that was where he kept one of his guns that he'd recently purchased for protection so Jack Jack decided to get around Rick by using some pressure points as opposed to the knife that he had been brandishing two seconds earlier in his hands uh in front of rick okay

okay i know we try to stay impartial until the end this is a hard when you say it like that that's how the detective would write it in his report as well you know like the guy had this five inch knife in his hand and yet he decided to not use that and go to this Chuck Norris pressure point instead. Yes, exactly. The pressure points. He must be ex-military or something. You know what I'm picturing, too? I'm picturing Rick, like a basketball reference.

You're boxing out Jack, boxing him out from the rebound like, whoa, you can't go by me, Jack, not happening on my watch. And by the way, that knife that you're holding, not worried about it. You won't stab me with it. I'm just going to keep my back to you. You're not going anywhere. And then he pulls the pressure point out and Rick's like, ah, didn't anticipate that. The pressure point trick. Didn't see that one coming every time. Yep. Yep. I can't take it. All right. So the basement of this house, according to Rick, it's essentially divided into two parts. One side. So when you go down the wooden stairs into the basement, you see like one side's pretty much finished. There's furniture in there, like a couch, a loveseat, an entertainment center with television, some toys for the kids,

decorations, you know, stuff like that. The other half of the basement is unfinished and that's where, you know, all the utilities would be. And I think they had like a wood burning furnace. I saw that they mentioned a wood burning furnace in there a few times. And I guess that's where they would also store the wood for the furnace. So Rick kept referring to it as the wood storage room. Now, Rick said when he got downstairs to the basement, there was no lights on and it was dark, but he could hear Connie and Jack on the unfinished side of the basement. So he began to run the 13 feet from the stairs of the basement through a narrow corridor to where Connie and Jack were standing. As he ran, Rick claims he couldn't see

much because it was dark, but he did see that Connie had her back to Jack. She was facing the furnace and she was frozen, most likely in fear. Jack was standing about three feet away from Connie, his arms extended, pointing a gun at her head. Rick was running. He was trying to close the distance between himself and his wife, who was in danger. But he was about four feet away from them when he saw a flash from the gun going off, and he fell to the ground, disoriented, his ears ringing. And he believed, when he was on the ground with his ears ringing, that he heard the gun go off again.

And he was like, oh, was that shot meant for me? Have I been hit? What's going on? He's all disoriented. He doesn't know what's going on. So Rick pulls himself off the ground and he saw Connie. He couldn't remember exactly how she fell, but he was pretty sure he could see her face. But remember, it's dark. There's no lights on. So he said she looked like a shadow. Now Jack was still holding the gun. He then turns to Rick and Rick

claimed it was at this moment that he recognized the gun in Jack's hand as his own gun. The own gun that he had purchased just a few months ago. Rick told the police that he did have a pistol permit and he owned two handguns, both of which were kept inside his home. He stated that he kept his loaded Ruger.357 Magnum revolver in a briefcase-style sentry gun safe in the basement on top of a blue storage bin, and the key to the safe was kept nearby on a wooden windsurfing board above this blue storage bin. The other handgun was a Ruger GP100-357 Magnum that he kept in another briefcase-style sentry gun safe in the master bedroom closet. But Rick claimed that this one was not loaded. Yeah. So a lot of problems here. A lot of problems here. I am someone who owns multiple firearms.

I've been, I've had years of firearms training. I've been unfortunately in a shooting. I can first tell you that the gunshot from a.357 Magnum would not create a flash that would disorient you and knock you to the ground. It's not a flashbang grenade. It's a very small muzzle flash that would be more so in the direction of the person that's in front of the gun, not someone who is coming up on the side of it or from behind it. So that is a complete fallacy. That's not true. It would not happen.

Secondly, based on the way you describe this whole incident going down, which are only relaying what Rick said, this is seconds. This is a matter of seconds between Jack running down the stairs, running after Connie, et cetera. And as you mentioned, the key for the safe was in a different location than the safe itself. So we have to believe that Connie was able to get to the key, then get to the gun safe so that Jack would know where the gun was and be able to open it and get

the gun out. All this was done before Rick got down the stairs. That's a lot. And doesn't seem to make sense with the timeframe that we're talking about here. So a lot of inconsistencies. And also, why would Rick... Also, we'd have to see a struggle between Jack getting the gun from Connie or getting the gun out himself. All this apparently happened before Rick got down the stairs because according to him, Jack's already standing three feet away from Connie

and he's about to shoot her. That's a lot to swallow. Doesn't make sense. Doesn't make sense doesn't make sense with the time frame and the disorientation from the flash itself that is something i can definitively say would not would not occur unless rick you're going to tell me has some type of sensitivity to strobe lights or flashes or anything like that that wouldn't normally happen you wouldn't fall to the ground.

Yeah. So I think his sort of what he was trying to get across was that she had gotten the gun and then Jack had taken it from her. But like you said, there's still this time that has to happen where he's going to take it from her. And why, if Rick said there's someone in the house run, is Connie running into the basement and not out of the house to the neighbors to call for help? Like, I'm sorry.

And regardless of how brave Connie was, the natural reaction would be to do what they said, run out of the house and go get help. You're not going to go get the gun. Yeah, because exactly brave. But there's something you need to know about Connie. She hates guns. She's never shot a gun. She's never even touched that gun. That's good to know. It's not going to be like, oh, this is my first time handling a gun. I'm

going to get it unlocked. I'm going to know where it is. I'm going to know how to take the safety off. I'm going to know how to do anything with this gun. This is not going to be I know how to handle guns. And this still isn't going to be what I'm going to do. Like, I'm sorry to my husband, but I'm not going to be a hero. I'm not going to get the gun to save your ass. I'm going to call the police and then they will come and save you. But both of us being in a house with a madman who's like, you know, chasing after us six foot two in camo with a knife, that's not a good end for anybody. So somebody's got to get out of the house. It makes no sense why she would run in the basement to get a gun she had never handled before to try to be a hero. No. I would even make an argument if she hates guns that much,

she probably doesn't even know where the key to the gun safe in the basement is because she has no intention on using it. So it could have been something where we later learned that Connie never even knew how to access the safe if she had to because she didn't care for guns yeah and i mean what you'll find out is this sentry style briefcase which first of all like if you have a gun in your home use a better safe than this this is for like papers this is like a fireproof thing that if you have like a will or financial documents and if your house catches on fire you want to make sure these documents survive because they're that important this isn't a place where you put a gun and if you have two small children in the house you do not put the safe there and then the key to the freaking

safe like a foot away and above it on a windsurfing board okay so this is this is bad news bears right off the bat. But you'll find that this little briefcase style safe thing, the key to the gun and the key to the safe were found in that bag. And it was found unlocked but closed, not opened. Yeah. It doesn't make sense you know just the way you laid it out just to reiterate the way rick's describing he was right on the toes right on the feet of of jack because they were all both running down the stairs together he unless he was completely debilitated from this pressure point for a couple minutes he he said it i was right down the stairs i tripped i fell so to think all these things transpired in the basement before he got down there it doesn't make sense you just sometimes

you have to use common sense so either he's misrepresenting what happened he's incorrect in what he's recalling or he's just telling a flat-out lie that's basically your options and I mean listen in normal circumstances this is this is a lot going on like I've heard people say you know time speeds up or time slows down when there's something traumatic happening. And I don't know what's going on. And, you know, I get disoriented because this isn't something I'm used to. People handle pressure differently. And maybe he was just, you know, not really remembering the way things happened. Or maybe his brain was adding

creative flourishes to it. But, you know, I just don't want to say that anybody who can't remember exactly what happened is lying. But here it seems like, you know, it does seem like an episode of like Walker, Texas Ranger or, you know, Chuck Norris or something like that. You know, I got a question for you and a question for all of our listeners and our viewers. Pause the video right now after ask this question. But if you've been watching Crime Weekly or listening to Crime Weekly since the beginning, we've talked about it numerous times. Throw your investigator hat on. We just talked about a firearm.

We just talked about the fact that that firearm is owned by Rick, but allegedly shot by someone else. What could you do to confirm or disprove that that firearm was shot by Rick? What can you use to check that out? Pause it right now. Comment down below. Let us know what the tool or I guess the test would be to do it. I just kind of gave you a hint there.

Want me to answer? I know you know it. You definitely know it. But, I mean, hit us with it. Now that they're back, what is it? Gunshot residue test. GSR, baby. It would be on his hands.

Would be on his hands. So the gunshot especially from a 357 Magnum like that You would have a lot of gunshot powder on the hand area in which he used whatever hand he used to fire that gun And even if he tried to clean it off, it would be it would be difficult to do in that short period of time So, I don't know if you're gonna tell us that was done or not But I would hope that would have been one of the first things they did when they got there, but we'll see. We'll see where it goes. So at this point, right, it's Rick and Jack face-off style, face-to-face. And Rick claims that Jack the intruder, he advanced on him. And then he used the pressure point technique again on Rick's wrist and neck. And he proceeded to walk him tell us what jack did with a gun that he was just

holding considering that he would need you know both hands to to do a pressure point technique on the throat and the wrist and walk him like a dog he doesn't say he throws the gun down he doesn't see what happens to the gun the gun's in his hand one second and rick's like ah that's my gun oh i have this flash of recognition And then the gun just evaporates. We don't know where it went after that. So he walks him like a dog to this like metal folding chair that's set up in this very narrow corridor. So when I say it's a narrow corridor, like you can walk through it with your body. But, you know, Rick said he couldn't remember if the folding chair had been there when he'd initially ran down into

the basement. And if it was there, he couldn't explain who had put it there or how any of the three of them had managed to run through the corridor with this chair blocking the way. But either way, Jack, he pressure pointed the crap out of Rick. He walked him like a dog to this chair. He guided him into this chair. And at this point, Rick claimed his ears were still ringing. He was in shock. So he allowed himself to be seated in the chair. And Jack began to zip tie one of his legs to the chair. Jack then used another zip tie to secure Rick's wrist to the back of the chair like a chicken wing. It was his, I believe Rick said it was his left wrist. And this is going to be important, right? Because first responders are going to come and Rick's going to be in a certain position.

And if that certain position that he was in when the first responders come isn't like the position he described being put in by this intruder, Jack, then we've got a problem. And Jack then used another zip tie to secure around Rick's neck for some reason. He didn't secure him to the chair with the zip tie. He just put it around his neck. And Rick said it was very tight and it made it hard to swallow. Next, Jack took a box cutter tool of some kind that he had retrieved from a small tool bag that Rick kept in the basement. The same tool bag the zip ties had come out of. And he used the blade of this box cutter tool to, you know, make fast slicing, jabbing movements towards Rick's legs, his left

shoulder, and the top of his head. Now, Rick also remembered that at this point, Jack was wearing yellow gloves, very similar to the gloves that Rick himself owned and kept in that small tool bag. Now, Rick said that Jack was doing all this very quickly because at the same time, he was looking around for papers and things that he could put into a cardboard box that was located on the basement floor next to the couch and set that on fire. So then Jack, the intruder, he took Rick's small portable propane torch with a built-in igniter, and he set the papers and the box on fire. Now, according to Rick, this torch had a small silver button on the top,

which, if pressed down, will cause the flame to burn continuously, which is what Jack had done. And when Jack was done setting the box on fire, he turned the torch onto Rick's leg. Now, at this point, Rick claims he saw an opening, and he pushed the torch, which was locked into flame-on mode, up towards Jack's face, causing Jack to drop the torch, put his hands to his face and run out of the basement through the bulkhead. Which, for those of you who don't know, it's on the unfinished side of the basement and it's just basically a set of stairs that doesn't go up into the house. It goes out into the rear of the house, so out into the backyard. It's a little exit from the basement out into the yard, not an exit from the basement into the house. So Jack runs out.

He's gone. Rick reported to the police that all of this happened in five minutes. From the moment all three of them entered the basement to the moment Jack ran out holding his masked burn face, it was only five minutes. And Rick never does mention how the blowtorch was put out since it was in that continuous flame mode when Jack dropped it. Rick then managed to crawl up the stairs from the basement into the house while he was still half tied to the metal chair. He crawled to the place where he had left his keys and he pressed the panic button on his key fob. You know, that alerted the alarm company. It was like a silent alarm. He then said he had to rest for a few minutes because he had done a lot of physical activity, you know, like crawling up the stairs with a chair attached to him. He then crawled into the kitchen. He somehow managed to hurl himself

into an upright position so he could grab his phone off the stove and call 911. But then at some point between then and the first responders arriving, he must have fallen down again because he was not in an upright position. When the first responders came, he was laying on the floor. So from the moment first responders arrived at 7 Birchview Drive, nothing about the scene made sense. And, you know, like I said, sometimes we cover these cases, we see some pretty subpar police work, some pretty bad forensic work. But in this case, they pulled out all the stops to try and figure out what happened in this house and to sort of compare it to the wild story that Rick DeBate had told. And during the investigation, so much more is uncovered that revealed the true series of events in almost a minute detail.

And that's what we're going to pick up next time. But there's something that really amuses me is they really did a great job, this police department. Within just an hour or so, they already had scent dogs on the scene because they were trying to track Jack, right? They got to find out where this intruder went. So they bring the dogs, they bring the first dog down and the first dog, he can't find any intruder. He can't find the intruder sent. The second dog, they try a couple of times. The second dog keeps like running over to Rick, running over to Rick, who's like in the kitchen. Right. And then they bring like another dog in and that dog just try to basically jump into the ambulance as Rick was being loaded in because, you know, where's the intruder? They can't find Jack. But these dogs seem to have a very big interest in Rick debate. And they want to like jump in the ambulance with him and go with him. It's so odd. Like you're supposed to be finding Jack. Why are you so interested in Rick? But they brought three different scent dogs in three different scent dogs so that it was literally like you couldn't say, oh, one scent dog in their

handler is just not doing a good job or whatever. They brought three, three dogs in their handlers and to track Jack the intruder. And, you know, they didn't they didn't they didn't do that. They didn't find Jack. What you telling me? That that's a shame this is almost comical at this point there's a lot here that just doesn't make sense but to kind of recap a couple things they have the gun downstairs he jack shoots connie but decides not to shoot rick even though now he's basically witnessed him commit a murder. He's going to decide not to shoot him. As the detective laid out, he then uses both hands to conduct two different pressure points to escort Rick over to the chair. The gun just kind of spontaneously disappears into thin air. Maybe, I mean, if you want to be devil's advocate, you could say he

holstered it into his jeans or something, but why would you do that? Why not just use the gun to gain compliance and direct it at him and tell him to go over to the chair? The other issue is now that the gun's gone, he brings him over to the chair, but as you stated, Jack's using zip ties from a tool bag that's on the other side of the room. So that would mean the offender, Jack, has to now leave Rick at the chair, go back to the tool bag, get the gloves, get all the tools, get the zip ties, and then go back and restrain him with these zip ties. So a lot not making sense. And then the icing on the cake for me is the decision by Jack, who just murdered Rick's wife, to stab Rick multiple times times but ensuring that those stab

locations are nowhere that would be fatal um it wasn't even like a stab it was a slice like a very light like oh slice like i i was thinking not to make light of it but i was thinking about this movie ride along where kevin hart did this to uh he did this to ice cube and he's like just barely touching him with the knife because they're trying to like relay that he's a bad guy whatever not to get off the track here but yeah no it's like conveniently in locations where this guy who just broke into this home murdered a woman in cold blood is now deciding to commit some type of Chinese torture. Cause that's going to send a message to, to, to Rick that he better not say anything. So yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

This story wasn't well thought out. Um, there's obviously some premeditation here, but clearly not enough. Cause this is not a very well thought out story. And I feel like in part two, we're going to go over a lot of evidence that's going to completely rip this whole narrative apart yeah and it's gonna feel so good when we do too because it's like like you stack them up and they get all knocked down and uh you know what else i thought was weird was so rick said he didn't know that connie was dead he heardshots, okay, but he didn't know that she was dead. And later, one of the detectives says, well, in your story of your retelling, you never say that you called on her. I mean, you're in the basement, the offender, you never, you know, you never call her,

Connie, are you okay? You never go and check on her. You go upstairs to call the police, you never go check on her, but you said you didn't know she was dead until you heard the first responders say she was, you know, DOA. So what's up with that? And Rick's like, well, you know, I was scared. I was scared that he was going to come back. I was scared he was going to come back. But, you know, if you're with your husband or your wife in the basement, you've both been attacked, you're going to try to comfort them and yell out and be like, honey, are you OK? Like, I'm here.

I'm going to get help. Don't worry. And that just was not in his story at all. Yeah, no, I mean, I know we gave the detective a lot of credit and I haven't read the affidavit, but I'm sure it's phenomenal. And this isn't to discredit him or the police agency at all. But now after hearing a lot of the facts, initially I was like, oh, they had to really work to solve this case. Again, not taking anything away from them, but it sounds like this case was probably pretty easy to put together. And they just had to go find the supporting evidence to show that Rick's a pathological liar, but it doesn't seem like it was a very well done crime. And, and detective pay, I believe you said just did a really good job of painting that

picture to everyone involved and people like yourself who are reading it later but still great job well yeah obviously like yeah they knew from moment one like this especially when he starts telling as i'm saying they walked in there but but even though you know like a lot of times cops know right what do you say it's not about what you know it's about what you can prove now they've got to get. You can prove, yeah. And they have to treat it. They have to treat it the right way out of respect for Rick, because this could be a

situation where he just witnessed his wife being murdered. So yeah, you go into it. And that's why they brought the scent dogs. And I guarantee you, they didn't bring the scent dogs in to make him look like a fool. They probably brought them in because they believed him. Yeah, I think they did initially. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Let's get him out there. If this guy just left on foot, we might be able to catch him, especially if he's injured. So I guarantee you there was some truth to that where they were like, hey, let's get the dogs out here. See if we can track this animal down. Yeah, they got the dogs out. They checked, they checked like local hospitals to see if anybody had come in with like burn injuries.

I think initially, definitely definitely they especially like the beat cops you know not the detectives but the ones who were like on the scene roping it off doing all the initial stuff i think they they legitimately believed him but as soon as the detectives get to him in the hospital and start talking to him they're like what yeah something don't add up and then as soon as you check the uh the security system records and the system was that it starts to fall apart really fast but you still even with that all being said i always say up and then as soon as you check the uh the security system records and the system is that it starts to fall apart really fast but you still even with that all being said i always say like you like you just said it's not what you know it's what you can prove there's also another saying if

it's not in the report it didn't happen and just because it's in the report if it's not laid out properly in the in chronological order in a way that can be understood, there are still cases like this where on a technicality, a defense lawyer can get in there, change it up, and actually end up, you lose the case and this person goes free. So even though it might seem like, oh, this is a slam dunk, there's a lot of work that needs to be done to basically close all those holes to make sure there's no opportunity for someone to get in there and create a level of reasonable doubt. So still a lot of work to be done and it takes a good detective to do that. So they're anticipating what the defense lawyers could go after and they're making sure they have answers for those areas. They wanted an airtight case and they got one. And I just have a feeling that Rick Debate's not the kind of guy who's going to be faced with like all these inconsistencies in his own story and then be like, yeah, you guys got me. You know, I did this.

You're right. He's going to really force you to sort of like paint it in vivid color for a judge, for a jury, because he's not going to go out quiet. He's going to keep denying that he that he did this, that he had anything to do with this. He's going to keep acting like the victim. And as you'll see, he does that. But as we get into his cell phone activity, his messages, who he was talking to, what he was doing behind the scenes, you'll see. He's just a grade A scumbag. And he's doing a lot of stuff. He's got a lot of balls in the air that he's juggling. And yeah, a lot of financial stuff, a lot of romantic stuff, a lot of strip club stuff. He's doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

And I remember Connie said in her notes app, I don't know who he talks to or what he does besides work. He doesn't let me have any computer passwords, any phone passwords, any phone passwords. I have no idea what's going on in his life. And it's pretty clear that he was, which we'll come to see, he was kind of living a double life, you know, very much like a Scott Peterson or a Chris Watts. And I think that he will, that this man will go down in history along with the likes of those two people because he's devious.

He's bad. He's bad news. History is one of the most dumbest criminals on the planet? Or what history are we talking about here? The scumbag men who try to kill their wives for some sort of benefit to them and try to get away with it and try to act like the victim and try to act like they didn't do anything wrong. But at the end of the day it's like such a pointless thing you know everybody always says why don't you just get a divorce why don't you just get a divorce well you know for somebody like rick maybe he didn't get a divorce because he was worried what people would think maybe he didn't get a divorce because of some you know life insurance money or

something like that maybe or he didn't have it yeah and money i'm sure and that's the other aspect of this case right like there's a lot there about the crime itself but as a detective you got to go a little deeper and now you have to try to put together a motive for for not only prosecution to present but to a jury that they can understand why would this person do this right this doesn't come out of nowhere there's a reason reason behind it. Yeah. Yeah. And with Rick, it's like, pick your motive, you know, with Rick, pick your motive. There's like three, four that he's got up his sleeve. So yeah, we're going to talk about it. Lot there. Definitely be back next week. We appreciate you guys tuning in. As we said at the beginning, if you want to see some of the new updates for the criminal coffee characters,

just head on over to criminalcoffeeco.com. If you want to follow us on social media, it's drinkcriminalcoffee on Instagram, drinkcriminal on Twitter, and then obviously Crime Weekly Pod on both Instagram and Twitter. We appreciate you guys being here tonight. Stay safe out there. We will see you next week. Bye.