Crimeatorium - The Secret She Couldn’t Keep: The Tomaselli Recordings | Part 6

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

A NOTE BEFORE LISTENING: In Part 6, investigators speak with the doctor for whom Linda Sue Roberts worked for approximately 30 years. Although this interview does not introduce a major new development, it provides an outside perspective on Linda, her family, and the circumstances surrounding Anthony Tomaselli’s health and death. It also gives listeners additional context for evaluating statements made during the earlier recordings. Please listen to Parts 1 through 5 before continuing.This seven-part series features the secretly recorded conversations that helped expose the truth behind Anthony Tomaselli’s death. Crimeatorium obtained the recordings from the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office.Four years after 85 year old Anthony Tomaselli’s death was attributed to natural causes, his daughter Linda Roberts invited a man she had been dating to her home and entrusted him with a disturbing secret about her father’s final night.Realizing the enormity of what Linda was telling him, the man discreetly began recording their conversation. What started as a private confession would lead investigators back to a death no one had questioned.The final installment of the series will be released tomorrow.Music:CO.AG Music https://www.youtube.com/@co.agmusic1823If you have a case suggestion for Crimeatorium, please send it to [e-mail].

Welcome to True Crime Stories with Crime-a-Trorian. 110, but you didn't sweat there because it was so dry. Yeah, it was hot, but it wasn't like sweltering like it is here. Absolutely, I fully agree there. You have tremendous humidity. All right. Dr. May, is it Stephen? Sure, Stephen.

I am Nelson DeLeon, and this is my partner, Mike May. We are working this investigation here, and I appreciate you coming in. Uh, today the time is 1830. And you are currently a, um, practicing doctor? Yes. Okay. How long have you been, uh, what kind of doctor are you? Uh, family practice.

Family practice. And where do you practice at? Uh, I'm in Tarpon Springs, if you're going to ask me for the address. So, uh, it's in Tarpon Springs. I also practice in Tampa. Okay. At PR Medical on 56th Street and Fowler. Okay. I'd have to get you the address. No worries. No worries. Names and numbers.

As a family, do you do rounds in hospitals? Not anymore. I used to go to Morton Plant, Dunedin, and then Countryside, but I ain't clear what a community when they had a hospital in there. Now, when did you used to go to Morton Plant? When did I go to Morton? Yes, what year did you start going there to this hospital? Okay, I came out of the Navy in, let me just think for one second. That's okay. I think it was 1981.

81? Yeah, 1981. And you had your practice here? Yes, it was in Clearwater. It was right on U.S. 19. It was the Spanos building. It used to be the Spanos. I don't know what it is now. It was right on U.S. 19 and not far from Countryside Boulevard. Okay. So at that time, so you know why you're here, correct? Because of the two girls, Mary, Beth, and Linda. Yeah, Linda. Okay.

When did Linda work with you? Do you remember? The years? She worked with me for about 30 years. She did? For a while. Yeah, but I don't know the exact starting point. When do you think she stopped working?

Maybe that would be easier to remember. Like when she stopped, what was it called, backwards? She stopped working about two years ago. All right, so backwards from there, okay. And when she worked for you, what did she do? She was a nurse assistant and a secretary. So as a nurse assistant, what does she do? What's her job? She would set up a little surgical procedures, do EKGs, take histories, what else?

She would do some of the bookkeeping, just sort of an all-around type of thing. Does she, would she, as being a nurse's assistant, does she provide injections and things like that? Yes, yes. She does? Yes. What kind of injections? Oh, B12, maybe triamcinolone, which is a cortisone, flu shots. In those days when I did babies also and pediatric type things, we had the shots for the babies.

Any IV type of stuff going on or just general? That was rare. If it was IV, I put in, and we did sometimes. We had tremendously dehydrated patients. Of course, of course. Well, they were vomiting all the time, so I kept them in the office because if I thought I could do them. Stabilize it?

Yeah. Okay. Without sending them to the hospital because a lot of them didn't have insurance. I understand. If you go to the hospital one time, it changes your life time. It's gotten crazy. What about any type of pain medication? Do you give pain medication?

Does she, what about like morphine or anything like that? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay. I mean, we had access then. I did dispense some medications, and some of them were of a class category, like sleeping pills, perhaps, or tranquilizers, and not too many antidepressants were class drugs, But things of that nature, maybe some furanol, furacep, the headaches, but these were tablets, you know.

All right. Let me ask you this, just though we're talking about this, it's certainly wrong, but did you ever prescribe anything to her? Was she, did she see you as a doctor, or did she just work there, or was she a patient also? I mean, sometimes that does happen. She was a patient. She was a patient also. Did you ever give her any prescriptions? Yes, I've given her a prescription, but...

If you can ask me what kind they were, I'm... Let me ask you, I'll just be point blank with this. Have you ever prescribed any Halcyon for her? Halcyon? I don't think so. Halcyon got pretty well restricted as a medication probably 10 years ago. The reason I know that, my father used to be on it. Okay.

And he used to take two, three at a time. And these are sleeping pills, are they or not? They're sleeping pills. Okay. But I did notice that it affected his memory and... So there's a downside to this, obviously. Oh, okay. Okay, okay.

So most likely you would not have prescribed her that. No. Now let me ask you this. Could it have been other types of sleeping things that are maybe a little bit more tolerable than Halcyon? There's a lot of things that are more tolerable. Okay. The tranquilizers like Valium. And sometimes I just start with Benadryl for the elderly people, you know,

and then raise it up to 25 to 50 milligrams. Other times we used Ambien 5 milligrams, comes in 5 and 10, Trazodone. All these are, Medic Dalmaine was popular at one time. It came in 15 and 30 milligrams. that was a lot milder than the Halcyon Halcyon they sort of put, not a black box

but a lot of warnings on so more likely but it was a great tablet if you used it right it was pretty good but then of course we have some things going on so you may not prescribe Halcyon but some of these other things

Trazodone or Ambien is there a possibility you prescribed any of those things Sure. That would be rare. I get it. In those days, we used to get samples of that, too. Okay. So they would take my samples. Okay.

Now, would she, as a nurse assistant, would she also go with you to do rounds down in? No. I worked at one place where we did smoke cessation with it by injection, and she helped me with that but that was short lived that was about 3-4 years ago and it was on Tampa Road near that hair place

that big popular hair place there I don't know the name of it but it wasn't far down Tampa Road off of US 19 on the right side there's a hair place

and there was a clinic they had for cosmetic surgery and they asked me to do smoke cessation there and I did it and she helped me there, but that's the only thing and what is that? smoke cessation? it's done by injections

one injection on each side of the ear and one in the arm and it reduces the cravings of the nicotine oh, ok I thought there was something else ok, I understand what you're saying

So she would never, when you go to the hospital, was she employed with you while you would do these hospital rounds? Yeah, but she wasn't with me on rounds. No? No. Okay. No, never that I can remember. Okay. Unless it was a relative of hers, but I don't even remember that.

Okay. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember this incident when her father passed away? very vaguely i remember when a mother passed away which was before the father then the father went on for a while living his life and a very nice pleasant man he always he came into my place a couple times gave me a haircut you know just he used to be a barber okay no no okay i think Just a great guy and I always knew him as being very stable and normal. I didn't see him in the stages when he was forgetful or at that time, but what was your question again? Do you remember when he passed?

Yeah, I, very vaguely do I remember when he passed. I remember when the mother passed, I remember when, but I didn't go to the funeral, I... Did you receive a phone call from Linda that, that day when he passed? Do you recall? I knew that he passed, but I don't know how I knew. Linda probably was the only one that told me, that had to tell me, and I probably would think she did that when she came to work. When was the last time you spoke to Linda? I spoke to Linda maybe a year ago, maybe a little more than a year ago. I had to marry Beth.

Let me explain a little story here. Yes, please. Lauren, the younger niece, Lynn brought her in to work for me because she wanted to pull out and retire. So I let Lauren stay there and work it. She did okay at first. She did okay. She did office work there? What was her?

Yeah, just office work. But I told her I had to give some shots. Okay. I had to give shots on B-12 and the other things. Nothing class drug. But, and she worked there for about, I guess it was a year, maybe a little more than a year. And it wasn't full time. We only, we were only open a few days a week.

But she was there mainly in the mornings. And at the end, I had to move out. So that's when I moved into Tarpon, right above Klosterman. Yep. because my friend let me use an office in that building for quite some time and he owned

part of that building or rented part of the floor so I used it but more and more I noticed money was missing things weren't being done right and here we go and I noticed that even with Lynn

things were starting to disappear Especially when I went to Tampa, and uh... When you say things you're missing, are we talking narcotics? Are we talking about cash? Cash. Cash, okay. And it got worse with Lauren. Anyway, I fired Lauren, or didn't hire her back to work in Tarpon. She was really mad about that and called a lot of my patients

And to borrow money from them. And I said, don't lend her any money. This is Lauren or Linda? This is Lauren. Okay. Linda had gone. And now the niece took over. Yeah, got it.

That married Beth's daughter. Correct. Gotcha. So Lauren was pretty aggravated by it and evidently got a new boyfriend. And the boyfriend had a brother and the house was robbed. Okay. Okay. The sheriff's department knows about it.

Cars were stolen. There was a lot of damage. What was stolen? My car. They piled... I had a gun collection. They piled some of the guns in the car. They took the car, too?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. They took the car. They totaled it. It was a Range Rover. It was my favorite car. I could never afford to buy a car like that again the way I got that. Right.

Beautiful colors. The guy said... He was 12 years old. He said, I've never seen a car kept so perfect. so perfect in my life, but I think I got $11,000 for it from the insurance company, it completely got totaled. The St. Pete police chased them, I guess, and they ran into a tree.

Of course, right, so that's the end of that. Yeah, so then, but then there was a whole bunch of stuff. There was, I had big bottles of coins, I had rings. They took the drawers and dumped them into bags, big bags, threw them in the car and took off. Off they went. It's all my keys, all my keys for the cars and stuff. That was all.

Nobody knew where it was. That's just weird, but okay. Sheriff's Department did a complete investigation. I got two guns back. I'm still waiting, I guess, for a trial from the two guys that they caught. And they couldn't get enough evidence on Laura. My next question is, was there any blowback into that where they thought she sold the information or brokered it in some way?

Because they probably don't know you, and how would they just, they're just lucky? Right. The detective told me it was through Lauren, but they didn't have enough to... That could happen. And that was more aggravating than anything. Of course it would be, yeah. Because they broke every door in the house, every room, you know. They did more damage than they needed to do to steal, so that tells you what's going on,

because mainly nobody's going to do the bigger steal and go. So that's awful. That was bad. I still haven't put in a claim yet for it. I've been so... Because my wife's leg had to be amputated the day after that. right so yeah so i just it sort of put me in a funny mood of course it would i just uh i just haven't put in a claim yet right how long ago was this do you think that was about a year

about a year ago a little more than a year ago okay all right a little more than a year ago i don't remember i can get exact dates if you need it no no we'll look it up i'm just want to know if you just off the top of your head yeah but so that was my experience for lauren lauren was a terrible experience she kept even after that calling my patients for money but i i spoke to my patients and they stopped so uh they thought she was just the greatest thing that ever lived but she was most horrible now right now was linda a nurse or just an assistant she was a dental assistant and a uh she went through i guess it's cna school or something whether she wasn't a nurse practitioner no oh no no no no okay my sister was but and she worked

for me for a while until she passed away my sister was a nurse practitioner but and Mary Beth she I'm amazed at Mary Beth because she was even though Lauren was the daughter Mary Beth was a very strict honest

good woman I saw Mary Beth as a very honest individual and she came and did some of my insurance claims once in a while. You used medical billing and stuff.

Yeah, that's correct. She knew that really well. That's what she does. That's her job. So she helped me with that intermittently once in a while and I gave her some cash when she came. Of course, I understand that.

Well, sometimes you know both the sisters so you can see the dynamics of that. One can be a leader, one can be a follower as you know how these things sometimes routinely go. so there was something said to me after he died and what was that that I said Mary did you dad have insurance because Mary Beth was always struggling yes nobody told us that and it was like week to week type of thing she told us that

I asked her about, did you get any money from your dad's insurance? Did he have insurance and so forth? She said that Lynn didn't give her any money from the insurance, which to me meant there was some insurance claim and something was paid, but she didn't share it with her sister. And I guess she has a brother, too. And just for your information, that was split evenly, so that's an odd statement to make.

When it was divided by three, that's correct, it was. So that's an odd statement. I wonder why she was. This was, Mary Beth said this, she didn't. No, they, it was divided equally. And so that's interesting. That's why I'm asking you about that. Okay.

She said she didn't get anything. That's not true. That Lynn wouldn't give it to her. Maybe Lynn came through with it later. Right. But, I mean, we just spoke to them recently. So it could have been initially they didn't, and then she did. I don't know the answer to that.

But in the end of it, that did go there. I think it was dispersed that way. Because I can't think of any other reason that they would ever do something like that. Now what did you find out? I found out from my daughter last night who called me on the phone. I was with some people trying to do some paperwork and my daughter texted me and said, Dad, can you give me a call as soon as possible? I have some news. Not urgent, but call me as soon as you can. So I called her about a half hour later, and she said, oh, my God.

She said, I said, what's the matter? She told me, I said, I can't believe that. I just couldn't believe it. It's bothering me. I didn't even sleep well last night because it's hard to believe. Anyway, she's the one that told me about it. Then I turned on the TV, and then I saw it on the TV, and I read some of the text news.

There were some differences, but... I mean, when, just before he had passed, did you happen to see him, or...? No, I wish I had, but I hadn't. Was it...? He was not a patient of yours, huh? He came to visit you, but not for that. Right. He's cut your hair.

Yeah. When was the last time you saw him prior to his...? Just roughly. I know he's going to know the day, but... Yes. Maybe weeks, months. No, it would be probably a year before that happened. A year?

At least a year before that happened. And that might have been to come up and just drop off some money to Lynn. He paid for everything for Lynn. Lynn wanted a facelift. He paid for it. She needed a teeth done. He paid for it. So he took care of them.

Oh, he took very good care of them. More of Lynn, I think, than anybody. I don't know why Lynn was maybe a favorite. but maybe because of the children that Mary Beth had, you know, and created the problems that they might have created. But anyway, I think Lynn was the favorite, and I think she was the oldest, too. Yes.

But he would cover everything. I mean, the poor guy was just a barber, but he must have saved and invested every penny he had because some of those things were pretty expensive. Hospitalization, she had a stomach with the trouble. He'd put her in, get specialists to look at her. She needed surgery, he'd pay the bill. It just was a super dad.

I know, I got that problem with two of mine right now. So, but they're legitimately having problems. Right, understood. We're doing the best we can do. That's what parents do. Yeah, exactly. That's a big face. Is there anything that you think is important that you didn't tell me?

You know, I try to think of things. And to me, Mary Beth was an honest person. I never had her take anything from me that I know of. Nothing. the other two girls Lynn they would take in a fair amount of money

every week and Lauren was even worse Lauren was terrible she was blatant right understood and I kept saying we're not making any money in the practice

you should be there's people coming in what's going on here it's going out the door so that's what's going on but you know then the problem became even with lynn and with lauren trying because i knew i'd be getting out of there and i was hoping that maybe i'd be able to quit medicine and or almost quit medicine and just retire or partially retire and to break in somebody new for the year or a year and a half that i'd be it just isn't worth it because it's so hard to bring somebody in new

to get them to know all the rules and regulations. And today the rules and regulations are worse than ever. How much longer are you going to go? Maybe, I'm probably going to close this place down within a year, up in Tarpon. I'm going to work in Tampa. I work in pain management. We run a very tight ship there. and we've got excellent ratings

from the health department and stuff with his PR medical it's owned by two Egyptian people one is an ex-pilot and I don't know what the other fella did, I think he raised chickens which was

good living in chickens, believe it or not as long as you don't get Newcastle's disease they've got to destroy the whole crop and they treat me very well. They treat me very well. So I pretty well, if I say I don't like this guy, I don't want him, I check their records. If they're involved with any kind of class drugs, I don't want them in our clinic. So we scrutinize everything that we can. We get all the information

we can, then we decide whether we're going to take him as a patient or not. And I don't want to get families coming in there I really restrict that because I feel funny about too many people from the same family right anyway so we run and I work there three days a week and I really probably finish working maybe it takes an hour to get there I work for about Five hours, and then usually I'm finished between five and six hours But sometimes early is sometimes the day But they let me go whenever I'm done And I say they're very good and they they understand completely we get a hold a tough line

Yes, sir, and they're good about that. They're good about that. Well. I just wanted to appreciate you coming in I do, too, also. I don't know if I help you at all. No, we just... We're trying to get background, get the lay of the land, and see what's going on and that type of thing. Now, you know, Mary Beth was married before to, I can't remember his name, but this guy was really a retarded individual.

Just like a hillbilly from I don't know where, but no common sense whatsoever. Right. Yeah, I think he worked in heavy equipment, driving heavy equipment. And they've been divorced for probably 20, 25 years. Okay, so quite a while. Yeah. Then Jaeger was Lynn's first husband. Correct.

And they were married for a long time. They got divorced, I don't know, maybe 15 years ago. Okay. And he lives around here too. Right. But he was always a pretty straight guy too. I never had any problems with him. What about this Ted guy?

Do you have any contact with him? I may have met him once. I can't remember. But I know that she divorced him once, had him arrested once. Yes, all that's true. He became violent. And he met her through the internet, I think. Something like that.

And, but I never knew him, never really met him. Okay. Maybe I met him once, I'm not sure. Right, right. But she brought him up to me. But routinely you didn't see him, like you knew the father also. No. So maybe once, maybe never, but you didn't really have a impression about him.

Okay, that's fine. No, but the first husband I knew pretty well. we had parties and Christmas parties together certainly and he was a pretty nice guy I don't know what happened to Lynn

to something she was always the first maybe 15 years or 10, 12, 15 years I never had to take anything or steal anything from her then after the divorce whether yeah

it became a little worse and a little worse. Well, I appreciate you. Thank you very much. I'm trying to think where I met you before. You may have met him. Yeah. By the way, I'm the doctor for the SWAT team

in Clearwater. Okay. So I appreciate that. I'm sure they appreciate that. Oh, yeah. Well, I get pre-med. We can't go wrong with that. There you go.

Exactly. Let's walk you down. I appreciate you coming in. I can't think of anything that would, I am so shocked by it, I can't think of anything.