Dateline NBC - Heartless

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

When Talina Galloway goes missing during the early days of the pandemic in 2020, investigators and online sleuths calling themselves “Talina’s Army" search for answers. Josh Mankiewicz reports. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Tonight on Dateline. It was too odd. Why can't we just find this woman? We formed this little army. We called ourselves Talena's army. Somebody had to know something, right? I saw her Facebook post saying that she was going to the woods. Don't contact me.

Somebody who had just lost their spouse. She was very grief-stricken. We got to find her. She was your best friend. The closest person to me. Tolima left a lot of her stuff behind. Correct. Car, purse, wallet.

People were suspicious right off the bat. Talina had this secret life that you never knew about. No, I don't think any of us really did. You see some of this stuff that they're into. It's 50 shades of grade. It's about dominance, about control. Control, yeah. This is crazy.

These people know something. I said to look for poisoning. We have evidence that somebody's making rice. And it's an incredibly powerful poison. I wanted her to be okay. I really, really wanted her to be okay. A widow vanishes in a web of secrets. What had happened to Talina?

It's horrific. Who would do something like that? I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Josh Mankowitz with Heartless. Most of us keep secrets. And many of us tell lies. So when you think you know a person, through and through. It's possible you don't. Maybe you never can. Because of secrets and lies.

They're at the heart of this story. There was no stopping. You had to keep going. It was one of those, but wait, there's more. Like it's just, it's a never-ending. What the heck? It was March 2020. COVID was beginning to spread across America. For the citizens of Wagner, in rural Oklahoma, the threat seemed far away. That month, Rachel Parker Hall, a nurse back then, bumped into her friend, Talena Galloway. The two women talked about COVID. That turned out to be their last conversation.

Tell me about the last time you saw her, spoke with her. I told her, I said, you know, I personally don't think it's that much to worry about. If you get, you know, cold symptoms or whatnot, you just follow the normal. things that you're going to do for that. The next thing Rachel knew, Tallina was sick. She posted about her symptoms on Facebook, using her online name, Talina Tsar. My weekend migraine developed into a fever last night. All I want to do is sleep.

Send your well wishes and energy, but please don't expect a response. Corey Balmaly was Talina's roommate. The two women had lived together at Talena's home for the last 18. months. We just kind of looked at each other and we said, you know, you were shopping in Tulsa last week. Did you go catch the bug? Corrie says she took Tallina to the local hospital, but she was sent home to recover without ever being admitted. Instead, Talina got worse. She and Corey were convinced it was COVID. Corey posted status reports about her friend on Facebook. If she isn't posting right now, it's because she's using all of her energy to fight this element.

Three days later, Corey says she went out for a few hours and came home to an empty house. The dogs were lounging around in the living room. The TV was on. I just assumed she was, you know, in her room sleeping. And I made myself a little something to eat in the kitchen and then went back to see if she was ready to go back to the hospital. And she's not there. She wasn't there. Corey says she looked around the house and saw some cash was missing.

along with a bottle of brandy and Talina's guns. Corey called friends, and one told her to check out a new Facebook post from Talina. I'm not going to let anyone intubate me, so I've made arrangements to spend some quality alone time at one of my favorite hideaways, at one of my favorite lakes, and I've booked it for the remainder of this week. Didn't feel up to driving, so I hired a ride.

Then this, I'm going to either beat this virus or be with Tom. I see it as a win-win situation. Tom was Talena's late beloved husband. A stroke had killed him two years earlier. And that sent Talina spinning into a dark place. Near the end of the post, Talena said,

I love each of you. So you saw those Facebook posts. I did, actually, pretty much the moment they went up. And so me being me, I immediately started texting her and messaging her. And I'm like, hey, what's up? Stop. You know, don't freak out. And you didn't really know where she had gone.

No. So it's not like anybody could check that place. Yeah, exactly. Kim Littlefield also saw Talina's last post. Kim was Talina's hairdresser, or as she calls herself, hair a pist. Kim had her own taste. about Talena's whereabouts.

Before she came up missing, she came in for a hairdo, and she was going to go see her mom, and then she was going to stop at her favorite place in Arkansas on the way back. Something Talina told her that day stayed with Kim. She had gone into Tulsa to a store, and she said that the clerk had slipped her phone number, and she didn't know what to do. And I said, well, if you want to go out with her, you know, go out with her. And I said, maybe she could meet you at that place in Arkansas is exactly what I told her. You never heard a name or anything else.

Didn't hear a name. I believe she said she was a redhead, a beautiful redheaded young lady. And so I'm thinking there's some period of time which you're thinking, did she meet her? And maybe everything's fine. Yes. And just because we're not hearing from her. doesn't really mean bad news.

Never. No. Either Talina was fine, or she was very sick. Either way. Going to the local sheriff did not seem like an option. At least not at first. Anybody report Talena sounding, I don't know, fatalistic, desperate, like the world was coming to an end?

I don't think so. Because, you know, I'm not a family member, and if I go to the police, they're going to say, you know, she's a grown woman. She's going to either come back or she won't. That is what they say. I know. I know. Wadder County Sheriff's Office of his skin.

Ten days after Talina vanished, Corey says she thought enough time had passed. She called the Wagner County Sheriff's Office to file a missing person's report. She was still in her pajamas when I left home back Tuesday. When I got home, she was gone. Corey told investigators Talina had taken off with some things but left behind key belongings.

Sheriff's investigator Joel Weber and Lieutenant Danny Elliott. Tolena left, but left a lot of her stuff behind. Yeah, basically everything in her cars. Well, yeah, everything other than her phone. Car, purse, wallet. Exactly. A lot of questions and not too many clues.

Where was Talina Galloway? I said to look for poisoning. He broke into Talina's house one night when he was on the phone with me, and I kept asking him like, what are you doing? That was interesting because you're clearly lying to me about something that seemed unimportant. Why lie about that? Why lie about it? I've got to figure out what's going on.

With Tolina, we got to find her. Telina went missing in the spring of 2020. She posted those bleak Facebook messages and then went silent. Greg Thompson, a friend of Talinas. Where did you think Tolena was? I'm not sure where I thought she was, to be really honest, because she didn't have her keys, didn't have her car, didn't have anything. And she wasn't calling us, you know, like she normally would.

Investigators from the Wagner County Sheriff's Office dug into the case, starting with the missing woman herself. Who was Talina Galloway? Investigator Joel Weber. I didn't find anybody that had anything negative. say about it at all. They learned she was 53 years old, an IT specialist, well regarded by her employer. I think she was happy and that was going good. She enjoyed her job. Kim, the herapist, enjoyed having a client who was always up for a new due. Never once did she ever get mad at a hairdo

that didn't turn out quite the way we wanted. Sounds like the perfect client. She was the perfect client and yes. Typically, you know, at Christmas, she would help families in the area that maybe the kids needed gifts and stuff. She looked out for people. Very much, yeah. Her husband Tom was an Army veteran. Their friends thought of Tom and Talina as soulmates together for 15 years.

She adored him. Worship the ground he walked on. They were the cutest couple together. you could see their love for each other, giddy, funny, kind of nerdy, but they were proud of it. In late 2017, Tom had a stroke while Tolena was out of town on a work trip. She came home in time to be with him before he died. How was Talina after Tom passed? To me, she was hurt.

She was upset. I mean, it got to her big time. You could tell. I could tell. Yes. As time went on, Talena's friends say she was increasingly lonely. In late 2018, she asked Corey to move in with her. Corey was on her own too, going through a divorce, making money as an internet reseller.

Talena didn't need the extra rent. She needed the company. It didn't hurt that Corey was super handy around the house. Every time she would come in and get a haircut, that was the first thing that I would ask her. is, how's your roommate? And her answer every time the best I've ever had. For her part, Corey called Talena, her heart sister. In terms of loving to garden, loving animals, loving to go out on the lake, enjoy nature, sit on the deck, enjoy a glass of wine, these are all things we enjoyed doing together. She enjoyed traveling. We were in the process, actually right before COVID hit,

of planning a big three-week vacation to rush it. Both women loved animals. Tallina and Corey lived surrounded by their rescues. Eight dogs, at least 16 cats. One of my recent rescues was a little snorkey, and Talina ended up adopting her. What kind of dog is that? That is a schnauzer and a Yorkie mixture.

Just a little bundle of happy energy. A week after Corey reported Talina missing, Sheriff's investigator Joel Weber asked her to come in. He wanted to know more about Talina's final hours. Corey arrived, masked, gloved, and happy to help. She told him her roommate was in rough shape the day she left. Sometimes she'd start coughing and couldn't stop coughing. I said, let's take you back to the emergency room.

I think you're bad enough now that they will admit you. And she said, no, she just wanted to spend the night in her bed with one of the pumps. And I said, if we do not go tonight, you have to promise that we can go tomorrow. The next day, though, Corey told investigators, Tallina asked her to go out to give Talina alone time with her dogs. Did she ask you to do something specific or just leave for a while? Yes, she just wanted me to leave her alone for a while. Corey says when she returned, Tallina was gone. Among the things she left behind were her credit cards. Corey says she immediately knew why.

I knew it was deliberate. You think she left that behind so that you could use them and pay the bills? I know she did because every time in the past year and a half that she left for a business trip, that was her M.O. In her final post, Talina mentioned hiring a driver to take her to the hideaway. That explained why her vehicles were still in the driveway. So then, who did she hire? Corey suggested investigators check with kids in a local trailer park whom Tolena had befriended. I was wondering if maybe she would have hired one of those kids to drive or say, hey, I'll give you a few hundred dollars if you'll take me here.

Investigators wanted to know exactly where that was. To my knowledge, she didn't have a single secret place. I knew there were a couple of lakes that she enjoyed visiting. But there wasn't one specific place that jumped out in my mind when she said she was going to her favorite place. Corey says Talena's final post was troubling but also touching. The last thing she said in that post was, I'm sorry, Corey. What I read in that message to me was that we had a lot of plans. And I think she was apologizing to me to leave me with such a mess.

About that final post, Corey said she wasn't the least bit surprised by her. its tone, Talena had dreamed of joining Tom ever since he died. For the entire year and a half we lived together, we had weekly conversations, sometimes daily conversations about her very matter-of-factly telling me that she intended one day to take her own life. That was just the way it was going to be. Other friends also say Talina spoke of suicide after Tom died. So when she vanished, their concern grew, and the outside world woke up to a mysterious disappearance. We called ourselves Talena's Army.

In those early days of the pandemic, Jess Trevino, like most of us, was stuck at home. And that meant she had plenty of extra time on her hands for her favorite hobby. You're a true crime junkie. Absolutely. Oh, yeah. I love true crime. Give me some sense of how much of that you consume during a week. Most of the books on my shelf are true crime related.

I watched Dateline on Peacock like reruns until you guys put new ones out on Friday. I listened to True Crime Podcast almost daily. You're hooked. One day, while scouring a true crime discussion group from her home in Minnesota, just saw a post from Oklahoma. A woman named Tallina was missing. The woman who posted it thought something was wrong. Absolutely.

The concerned friend had reposted some of the other. Talena's Facebook posts, and Jess was intrigued. You'd never heard her name before. No. This was not some friend of yours or a friend of a friend. Absolutely not. Although she had no connection to this Talena some 600 miles away, something about the posts made Jess want to know more.

So patterns, right? There was a pattern of these messages from like March 27th to April 7th, And every day it was progressively getting worse with COVID worse. It was almost like she was chronicling what was wrong with her. And I was like, that's kind of weird too. It was like day one of, or it's day nine of this pounding headache, day 12 of a sore throat. And it was online on Facebook. Maybe to somebody who doesn't think everything's suspicious, it sounded good.

You're a suspicious person. Absolutely. Jess was so suspicious. She reached out to Talena's friend. She sent me to a couple other people who were also friends of Talinas, who kind of walked me through what had happened. Like, yeah, she's been missing. This is what we've been doing.

We just reported. And I'd asked the question, well, why doesn't she have a missing person's poster yet? Why haven't you done something? You know, whereas you've just reported it, there's nothing else. So Jess, a catering manager, decided to get involved. She helped start a Facebook page called Help Find Talina Tsar. I mean, you were not working because, like, the whole country was kind of locked down because of COVID. Right.

So a lot of people were at home then. Most people were, you know, making sourdough starter. They weren't investigating the cases of people that they'd never heard of before. I felt like I had to say something. I had to speak up. It was too odd. It just nothing felt right. Nothing.

That Facebook page attracted hundreds of people, a few who loved Talena, and a much larger number who loved true crime stories. So you're marshaling the power of the internet to help you? A little bit. A little. You're crowdsourcing this. Yeah. We needed it. Somebody had to know something, right? Jess and four other women, all from different parts of the country,

formed their own posse of amateur detectives. Like Jess, none of them had heard of Talina before. We called ourselves Talena's army. Talena's army with, what, five full-time. soldiers and a couple of hundred part-time. We had certain people checking certain tips that we'd receive. It was just amazing to watch this group of women. They didn't know each other coming together during the most lonely time.

I think any of us have ever experienced being quarantined. It was not long before a lot of people who didn't know you, didn't know Tolina, at all. Had never been to Oklahoma. Got very involved in this case. The crime junkies and everybody, everybody else. Yes, it amazed me. It really opened my eyes to the power of the internet and the power of social media. As internet sleuths far and wide hunted for clues,

Corey gave local law enforcement permission to search Talina's house. When anyone goes missing, you want to go look in the house, take pictures, things like that. Among the items they found, Talena's passport, newly renewed, sitting in a bedroom safe. Perhaps that trip to Russia, Corey had mentioned, was more than an idle dream. Investigators also reached out to rideshare companies, campgrounds, and Airbnbs, anywhere Tallina may have been. As for where her favorite lake might be, one friend suggested Arkansas. And so obviously we put a blast out to the law enforcement in Arkansas. They saw from Tallina's cell phone records that her phone pinged near a town by a town.

the Oklahoma, Arkansas border. Obviously, we searched that area, too, but didn't find the phone. Which, there is a very large lake there. That's true. So that wasn't, and I know we searched some of the businesses around there, looking for any kind of video of her car or a car or her or anything. They came up empty, but the tips kept coming in to both the Wagoner Sheriff's Office and to the leader of Talina's army.

So maybe she'd been missing a lot longer. That's exactly what I thought. Once the story of the missing Tolena got traction on the internet, the Wagner County Sheriff's Office received a flood of tips. Each one had to be checked out. Sheriff's investigator, Joel Weber. We did get a random tip from a psychic who told us that she's buried in the yard someplace. And so doing my due diligence, we went to the yard all over the yard

and just looked for freshly overturned dirt. We didn't find anything, but we definitely followed up. I originally heard about this case from a friend of mine, and I called you and said, can you look into this? Veronica Mazeka is a supervising producer on Dateline's digital team. She works on our Missing in America online series. So when Josh Mancoitz calls, you pay attention. This will not get on Dayline.

Yeah. Also, demonstrably not true. Oh, well, in my world it is. A friend of Talinas had told me she was missing. The team looked into it, and in May 2020, posted the first Missing in America story about Talina. We were really happy that a bigger news division was going to put out there that Talina was missing and get some attention,

so maybe could help us solve it. It was a very big day for the group. The comments were immediate and wide-ranging. Some posters fixated on Tolena's illness. We had people who said, you know, that's odd. If I were sick, I wouldn't go off and be on my own, not in my own home. You know, when I'm sick, all I want is my own bed. So people were theorizing that maybe she wasn't sick at all.

People were theorizing that maybe she was so sick that she had lost her mind and she was just wandering the streets and that we would find her that way. People were saying that she could have been in the hospital as a Jane Doe, and no one realized it. It was her. And then there were the sightings. A tipster told missing in America, Tolena had been spotted at a grocery store in the Los Angeles suburbs. And you checked. That wasn't Tolena.

That wasn't Tolena. Closer to home, the week slipped by with no word from Tolina. Tolina's friends organized a search. Yes. Yeah, they had put a flyer. out and things around to all the stores. And one Saturday afternoon, they had a vigil at our local fire department. I didn't get to go to that event, but my wife did.

And, you know, everybody there was pretty distraught, you know, just wondering what happened to her. You were worried about her. Yes, I was. Very much so. Jess and her army spoke with more of Talina's friends and learned from them. that it was not like the woman at the center of their quest to be so public on social media.

The I love you, the I'm sorry, she wasn't that kind of person. So that felt like oversharing or overdoing it? It felt forced. It felt manufactured. You read that Facebook post, and you thought that was from Tallina because it sounded like her and it was in character. It sounded like it to me on first read, on second read, on third read. People who were saying it wasn't her,

I didn't understand what they were reading that didn't sound like her. And Jess had learned something else. Talina's last digital appearance was on April 7th. In real life, she went dark at the end of March. So when I had talked to more people in Talena's life, neighbors, coworkers, her massage therapist, nobody had actually spoken on the phone and heard Talena's voice.

It had just been texted her email communication since March. So maybe she'd been missing a lot. longer. That's exactly what I thought, is that if nobody'd physically talk to her, that's really weird. Just called the sheriff's office to tell them. Investigators say it was nothing they didn't already know. She was trying to solve it from behind the scenes. Generally, what's your attitude towards internet sleuths? Well, I'm all for anyone that wants to help solve a case. There's no no issue there. The only downside I would say to me is that I got probably hundreds of phone calls from people that had theories and theories don't help solve a case. Evidence does. They were never

out and out rude, but dismissive. At one point I was told I was like a dog with a bone. I thought, wow, okay. I thought I was helping. Any voice inside your head saying, I should stop? No. I needed to know what happened. Just Trevino kept right on digging, and she soon made a significant discovery. It's more than just people getting together and having sex. There's a whole other world there.

Yes. Yes. At first, it was one of those, oh, they had, you know, oh, this group killed her. They had to have done something with her. Let's just say just say just Trevino was not prepared for what she would find when she searched online. For the name Talena Tsar.

Okay, so tell me about the door that that sort of opened when you Google Talena's name. It was trying to think of the right words. Interesting. That's one word. I don't want to be the one that icks somebody else's yum, right? It's not up to me what other people are into. When she wasn't working as an IT consultant or taking care of her rescue analyst, What Talina was into was a subculture known as Gorian.

It's based on a series of science fiction books from the 1960s that inspired a 1987 movie. The novels depict a little-known and rarely discussed lifestyle that's about 35 to 40 shades of gray. In the books, men are dominant. They're the masters. Women are subservient. They wear collars and self-identify as slaves. So it's about dominance, about bondage, about control.

Control, yeah, dominance, definitely. Your husband or partner is the one in control. You wear a collar, you eat when you say, when he says you can. You wear what he wants. He has complete control of everything that you do. And a lot of people find that freeing, right? From my readings, they love that. Because they don't have to make any choices.

Right. Or because all the choices are made for them. Right. Right. These people are consenting to this. Yes. By all accounts, Talina and her husband love the lifestyle. In fact, she legally changed her birth name, Jana, to Talina.

Talena is a character in the Gore series. At the same time, many of her friends knew nothing about it. Talena ever talked to you about the Gorians? No. No. Never? No. No. Honestly, we had absolutely no idea. It wasn't something she was marching down the street screaming at the top of her lungs, but she was proud of who she was and what she was doing.

She felt that that showed how much she loved her husband. But at the same time, like, maybe her coworkers didn't know about it. They didn't. When you apply for a new job, it's not a thing you put on the resume. Special skills? Tolina's roommate Corey knew about her lifestyle, but says, while it wasn't her cup of tea, she respected Talina's choices in her marriage to Tom. It was their life. That's what they lived.

And they both approved of it. It's what they wanted. And they were deeply, deeply in love. So who's to knock what two people enjoy doing together, right? Right. But that was her life. Telina and Tom had a close relationship with another Gorian couple, the Anguses, Marty, who also went by Wolfie and Lorraine. When Tom died, Marty wanted to assume Tom's role as Talina's master. Talena was not necessarily interested. According to Corey,

Talena helped Marty financially, and Marty had been named as executor of her will. That was until shortly before Talina disappeared, when she put Corey in charge. Marty, Wolfie, had been in the will, and then he wasn't in the will, right? That's the kind of thing that makes people angry. Yes, it certainly made Marty angry. Marty knew that we were in the process of transferring all of these documents and life insurance policies and financial stuff. From him to you? From him to me.

Telina had listed Marty as the beneficiary of a $300,000 life insurance policy. Marty was very afraid and concerned of losing his cash cow and his financial control. As a master, he wasn't able to say to Talina, this is what I'm telling you to do. Put it back in my name. Telina was a very strong person. Marty was not in charge. Marty very much wanted to be in charge. Corey said after Tom died, Marty wanted more than just friendship with Talina.

Tulina absolutely said that's not happening. Tulina called the shots as far as that was concerned. Could all that be a reason to make someone disappear? Maybe. Jess had also been talking with Marty by phone. Marty openly told me that he thought I was attractive, so he assumed that I would not be smart. So correct to say it's a not just male-dominated society,

but male-dominating society. Absolutely. They are the supreme beings, and us women are down here. As Jess learned more about the Gorian way of life, one question was unavoidable. At first, it was one of those, oh, they had, you know,

oh, this group killed her. They had to have done something with her. Still, Marty proved helpful to Jess, breaking the ice with other Goreans. And it was funny because some of the people he connected me to said, if you think he's not involved up to his eyeballs in this, you're dumber than I thought you were.

It wasn't long before Jess's concerns about Marty grew. He started to do some things where I was like, okay, it's a little more shady than I think you need to be, like what's actually going on. What made you suspicious of him? He broke into Talina's house one night when he was on the phone with me. And I kept asking him like, what are you doing?

You know, what's happening? He said, well, I need to get in and check and see what, you know, I want to see what our will says. And he ended up telling me he had taken a chainsaw from the house. It seemed really weird. He said why? He said that he needed money and he was going to pawn it. And it was just like alarm bells, red flag everywhere. And I called the sheriff's department like, hey, he's pawning chainsaws he stole from the house.

That's, anybody think that's weird? And they said we'll be right over. No, they blew me off. It turns out investigators were well aware of Marty. And they were already talking to him about Talina. Marty Angus, also known as Wolfie, is a name that came up early on in the investigation into the disappearance of Talina Galloway.

We just have a lot of questions and no answers. When Talina went missing, he spoke with a local reporter. about her. If you take all the goodness in the world and put it in one person, that's Talena. I believe the first time we talked to Marty, he called us. Through Marty, investigators learned more about the Gorian lifestyle he and Talena shared. That world was entirely new to law enforcement in Wagoner, Oklahoma. I'm guessing that when you heard that she's a member of this sort of secret might not be the right word, but certainly private. society that involves bondage and women being collared and given his property, that might rise to the

top of the list of reasons why Tolena might have disappeared or been killed. Well, unfortunately, we did have to look into it and what that even meant, because that's not something I've ever heard of. You'd never heard of the Gorians before. Right, and I had to explain my internet history to the IT department, but, you know, it may have been relevant to the case or may not have we had to know, so we had to look into that. to figure out what it is. That's a rabbit hole.

You've got to go pretty far down. Well, it's part of her victimology. You have to look into it. And, you know, what we call strange was Tuesday to them. Marty told investigators he was very close to Talina's late husband, Tom, and had a special ring made for his friend. When Tom had a stroke, both he and Talina were with him at the hospital. She was laying in the bed with him, and this is when she took the black ring.

off of his hand and asked me if I wanted to wear it or if she could have it. And I told her that I wanted her to keep it. I specifically told her that she was to never take it off. Marty described himself as Talina's new master. But they knew she had recently cut him out of her will. That feels like somebody who, whether they're a suspect or not, is somebody you're going to look at pretty closely. Well, nobody was off the table at that time.

Marty was still being looked at, but in his many conversations with law enforcement, Marty came across to investigators as a caring and concerned friend. Like others they'd spoken with, Marty said it just wasn't like Talena to up and leave without saying where she was going. This is why I'm saying there's no place she left on her on a court. When she went somewhere,

she immediately told me where she was going, when she was going to be there, almost to the time. And this whole vague thing about, I'm going to one of my favorite lakes, at one of my favorite place, or one of my favorite highways, or one of my favorite lakes, no, no, no. She was pinpoint. She would have told me I'm going to such and such B&B at Lake Winona, or I'm going back to that B&B that I was at, at Bornell. You know, whatever. Everything Marty told them seemed to check out.

I mean, nothing he told me was a lie. And there was no vagueness. He wasn't trying to evade anything. That story about him breaking into Talina's house to steal a chainsaw, he admitted it to the sheriff's investigators. Well, I called Marty and asked him me that, yeah, I did it. And I'll take it back. I mean, he didn't lie to me even about that.

To him, it wasn't a crime because he had permission from, Tolena in his mind that he could go take stuff as he needed it from the house. But he admitted to that, he ponded, he got it, he purchased it back and returned it. So, like, there was no reason to... He didn't have to volunteer that, but he did. But he did, right. Marty slash Wolfie had a relationship with Talina that was definitely unorthodox. And maybe he did want too much from Talina.

So, did that mean he was involved in her disappearance? It was hard to say. It seemed like they had a genuine, you know, relationship, not just something that was being set up or, you know, because that guy was my friend, I'll help out with his wife. It was, you know, they had a brother and sister relationship. Wolfie seemed genuinely concerned that she was missing. Yes.

Yeah. And he was not the only person in Tolena's world whose relationship with Tolena might have been out of balance. You will not be looking for a body. You will be looking for body parts. You know, money, jealousy, control. Yes. That'll get you to the finish line of a lot of murders.

You bet you. Investigators were coming up empty as they looked for leads in the Gorean community. Marty, for one, seemed to be playing it straight. They weren't as sure about Talene. his roommate, Corey. It started with a little fib she told about a white trailer. Deputies that took the initial report, they drive by the house and see there's a trailer there. I drove by the house and didn't see a trailer there. And so I just asked her about it. I just was curious. Like, so where did that trailer go that you had at your house? And she said, oh, the last

trailer I had, I sold months ago. And we know that it was there just the other day. So that was interesting because you're clearly lying to me about something that seemed unimportant. Why lie about that? Why lie about it? As time went on, Corey's behavior raised suspicions among many people. Tallina was still only missing. But friends and strangers online were talking about Corey as if she had done something to Talina.

We had a couple comments of people who said that maybe her roommate had something to do with it. These were people who presumably knew Talina and knew that she had a roommate. Yes. I had this little team of people within the neighborhood that would text. I see her down by the lake. She was at the gas station this morning. I seen her leave the house.

They're tracking Corey's movements. Nonstop. Did that make it feel as if sort of the, you know, the noose was closing on you? I had a couple of Tolena's friends call me during that first month that she was missing and asked me if I was okay.

I said, is there a specific reason you're asking? And they said it's all the conspiracy theories. It's all the haters online. and everything that's being said, and I told them I don't have any time to be reading all this garbage that everybody's conjecturing and talking about. It came up in Corey's second interview

with the sheriff's office. You probably already know people on the internet are talking and saying lots of things. It makes people bark up the wrong tree and it's just unfortunate. During that same interview, they brought up something that was more than gossip. Somebody brought up that at some point you were charged with something, and I don't remember what state now, Wisconsin.

Corey admitted she had run into some trouble in Wisconsin a few years earlier. Which brings us to a deeply strange story told by Sherry and Mike Ziegler of Verona, Wisconsin. It was the spring of 2014, and they had just finished a long drive home from Florida. What happens when you get back? It was late at night. We had drove quite a ways, and she was cleaning up some stuff, and I'm going to go to bed. Sherry did too. That's when she noticed a gritty substance that looked like kitty litter in her sheets.

Yeah, this is where this stuff was. It was in our bed, and then I pulled mine back, and it's like, what the heck? And I just went, choo, choo, I'm just. tired or cleaned up in the morning. And it's like kitty litter? It's that consistency? So this is what? Like some kind of prank?

Well, that's what we kind of thought? Next morning got up and vacuumed it all up and cleaned it up. And then she found more of it in her dresser drawers. They did not call police. Not then anyway. A couple of days later, you discover your safe is missing. What'd you have in the safe? Well, we had our passports in there.

We had titles. So important legal papers. Exactly. Money? Yeah. Yes. How much money? Well, there was $1,700 in there.

So you call the sheriffs and say we've been robbed? Yes. Yes. And they say what? He says, who do you think did it? Your grandkids, you know, they're five and seven years old. So I don't think it was them. How about your son?

No, it wouldn't have been him. A couple weeks later, the mail comes. There was a visa bill in there. We had no idea what this was, because at that time, I really didn't use credit cards too much. We used cash. What kind of charges are on the bill? It was gas charges from QuickTrip and PDQ.

Those are local stores. Gas stations, yeah. And then there was FedEx and the post office. And it was a total of, I believe, $299. Something made you want to go be a detective. Mm-hmm. We knew the manager at QuickTrip quite well. I went there and his name was Nick and I said, Nick, I got a problem.

And he says, okay, and I showed him the credit card bill. And I said, can you check and see if somebody was using it? He took me in his back room with the camera. He scrolled back. He showed me the exact picture. And there she was with her muddy boots. Corey. Corey, yes.

Your next door neighbor. Yes. That's right. Corey Bommeli, her then-husband, and a whole lot of animals were living next door to the Zieglers. Now they knew that Corey, at the very least, had stolen their credit card. They figured she saw them hide an extra door key in the backyard and just let herself in. So she's arrested. Mm-hmm.

Corey ends up pleading guilty to fraud. Yeah. She's convicted of stealing and using your credit card. Yep. Right. Right. They ever find the contents of the safe or the safe itself? No.

Corey pleaded guilty to felony fraud and was sentenced to probation. Six years later, when Oklahoma investigators asked her about all this, she spun it a little differently. It started off with me being booked for a misdemeanor seat. That's what they called it. Is that what they called it? So I don't think she's ever run into a situation where somebody didn't believe her and start a question. Where her story's going to get checked.

Corey told us it was all a misunderstanding. She thought Mike had loaned her the card. I spent $299 and $99 on groceries and gas, postage, other things that we needed to do are on the house. You didn't break into their house. I never broke into their house. Either way, Oklahoma. Oklahoma investigators realized Tallina's animal-loving, handy-around-the-house roommate actually had a record. Another woman with a secret or two, or maybe more than that.

She had a felony record for fraud in Wisconsin. But that's not why Oklahoma investigators were drilling down on Corey Bommelie. It was what Corey did after Talina vanished that got their attention. She was selling Talina's belonging. online. Nice things too, you know, things that meant something, Talina. Talina's friends were buzzing about it on social media. Corey was still living at her house, was still driving her vehicles, and then one of her friends popped up and said,

Corey is selling Talina's stuff on eBay. She had sold Tom's Gory and Family Ring. She had sold his war medals. She had sold a bunch of things that there's no way Talena would have had her sell those things or allow. her too. That's not something you do if you're wondering whether that person is coming back. Yeah, I think I would be fearful that my roommate would be mad at me if they came back and found all their stuff was sold. Investigators also got a call from Corey's ex-husband, Alec Adams. He'd

heard Tolena was missing. During his 13-year marriage to Corey, she helped manage his career. You're a musician. Yes, I am. What do you play? Ah, well, I play guitar and fiddle and mandolin and drum. You play at Renaissance fairs? Yes, when I can. I lost one world to a red-haired girl, and now to you, my boy. He also performs in coffee shops, bars, and at conventions. A few years ago, Alec played at a Gorean gathering.

That's where he and Corey met Tallina. They gave Tolena the title of Head Slave at the event. Head Slave would mean she'd be the person that would interact with you. The event coordinator, yeah. She was very nice and extremely business-oriented. As for Corey, he says their life together was okay early on, until it became all about Corey and her needs. Alex says she had a lot of needs.

I started out with maybe less than seven animals of my own, and over the time that I spent with Corey, we ended up with 50 plus. animals to be taking care of. He says she became controlling, angry, verbally abusive. I would come off the stage and be like, yes, I'm Alexander James Adams. And she would say, yeah, well, you're off the stage, don't forget, you're just a stable boy. And tomorrow you've got five horses and, you know, eight goats and donkeys to take care of.

She wasn't a Gorean and you weren't a Gorean. No. But she liked being in control. She liked being the one in charge. By the time he spoke with an investigator in Oklahoma, Alec was divorced from Corey. I called him up. I said, I'm Corey Baumley's ex-husband.

He mentioned how Corey once worked at the coroner's office in Las Vegas and bragged about how quickly she could dismember a human body. I said, I don't think this is a missing person's case, but you will not be looking for a body. You will be looking for body parts. And then he told investigators to look for a rare and incredibly deadly homemade poison. I said look for poisoning, and I told them the ricin story. Risen is a deadly biological agent with no antidote, used in targeted assassinations and acts of terrorism.

It's made from caster beans, which are easy to obtain. You saw Corey making ricin? Yes, I did. Why would she do that? I asked her. And she said, well, I'm just making sure we've got something that we might need in case we need to poison our enemies. You guys know what ricin is? No.

Well, not before this. I mean, but no now. They weren't sure Alec was 100% credible. He was, after all, Corey's ex. You also have to consider that they are going through a divorce, and so this may. have, you know, this person may have an agenda behind why, you know, why he's giving information. That said, Corey was very much on their radar. Investigators had started tracking her movements. We trailed her using Gmail, GPS, anything that we could use in association with her devices.

At one point, we even put trackers on our vehicles. So we didn't leave any stone and turn to find out if she was going to lead us to Tolena. She did not lead them to Tolina. Corey did answer the front door when about two months after Tolena disappeared, investigators conducted another search of Tolina's home, where they found a safe. He opens the safe,

and sure enough, finds castor beans inside this safe. By then, they knew what that could mean. And it was just a safe. surreal moment because now that gives a confirmation that Alec is telling the truth and there may be some validity in what he was saying. Castor beans are not illegal to buy or own. Well, on another search, investigators found something that in Corey's case absolutely was illegal, a gun. Remember, she was a convicted felon. In her purse, we find a 9mm. And so she's not allowed to have a gun. Right.

Corey was arrested. And when Tallina's friends Rachel and Greg heard about that, they worried about the animals Corey left behind. So we went into the house and I'm checking on the animals and everybody was doing okay. And they noticed something was missing. And I remember looking at Greg and I'm like, where's the freezer? And Greg's like, you're right. Where is the freezer? And he goes back out into the garage and he's like, it's not out there. Corey made Bond, then moved to her mother's home in Wisconsin.

Most of the animals were adopted out. And the mystery of the missing freezer might have gone unsolved. Had this woman not been walking in the woods in Arkansas and spotted some, something out of place. When I look down through there, with all the foliage gone, I could see the white tip of something sticking up. That discovery would help answer the question. Where was Talena Galloway?

Just a day before Corey got locked up on that gun charge, something happened 150 miles away that would change this investigation. It was a hot June day here in Meek, Ena, Arkansas, population somewhere south of 6,000. Janeline Philpott Aldz was watching something. She's a retired private investigator. So when Janeline watches, she pays attention. There was a truck hauling a U-Haul coming very, very slowly up my road.

And it kept going and going and going so slowly that I left my post at the foot of the driveway. and I walked out into the yard to see if I could see how far it had gone. And I could see them, although I don't think they could see me. She says there were two people in the truck, one of them dressed in an old-fashioned leisure jacket. The pair started backing the truck down a rough trail in the woods, about 50 feet from where she was standing. My thought at the time was they've never backed this truck up with a U-Haul on it before

because they were terrible at it. At that point, I kind of moved closer where I would be hidden a little bit more to try to see them through the woods. And all I heard was a thunk. So I thought, I'm going to go down and confront them and find out what they're up to. The two people were out of sight, deeper in the woods, when Janeline approached the truck and trailer. This strange odor just hit me. And there was like a putrid. sweet, kind of leave a nasty taste in your mouth kind of smell. And so at that point, I decided

that confrontation wouldn't be a good idea. She wrote down the truck's license plate and called her local sheriff. Janeline says she didn't hear back from law enforcement, so she let it go. Life got in the way for a few months. But then just after the new year, Janeline was taking her Bubba for a walk. I looked down through there with all the foliage gone, I could see the white tip of something sticking up.

It looked like a freezer or a washer machine, a clothes dryer, some large white appliance. She called the sheriff again, and this time a deputy showed up. They found the appliance. It was a freezer. The deputy pried it open.

And I thought I saw a gray quilt spill out of it. And he explained to me that it was maggots. They were coming out of it and there was a body in it. And it was a decapitated and it appeared to be a female. Sheriff's investigator Joel Weber was at home having dinner that night when the phone rang. Tallina had been missing for nine months. We get a call from investigators in Arkansas saying they have a body in a freezer. I mean, it wouldn't five minutes they were in the truck.

on their way to Arkansas. And the whole way you're thinking, this is not a fool's errand, this is it. Right. It was dark by the time they arrived. It was a steep decline from the roadway, pretty wooded, pitch black,

it's hard to really see what we're doing. My understanding is the freezer was kind of face down and sealed, but when we get there, they have it unsealed and open, so I can clearly see a hand sticking out of the freezer. It's not necessarily gory

because there really isn't any blood. but we're looking at body parts in hefty bags, in trash bags, inside of a freezer. It's something I've never witnessed before. Tattoos and fingerprints confirmed it was Talena. The medical examiner ruled it a homicide. Blunt forced trauma. Her skull was crushed. Her body cut into pieces.

Rachel worries about Talena's final moments. I just pray she was asleep, but she didn't feel this coming. and it just bothers me the fear. If she knew, that bothers me. It bothers me a lot. Just pray she didn't. More than ever now, investigators were looking at Corey because the evidence seemed to be lining up,

starting with that freezer. It had a blue sticker with a telltale rip in the corner, just like the one investigators could see in a photo taken at Talina's house. And I'm like, that's definitely the freezer we've been looking for. Janeline Philpott-Alds told investigators she believed the people in the truck were both women. The woman in the leisure jacket was relatively short. I would say it the most, probably 5'4.

Corey is about 5'3. Police could not confirm there was a second person. But that plate number Janeline wrote down that day? it came back to Tolena's truck, and Corey had those keys. And one other thing. Did Corey actually try to buy property in Arkansas? Yes. She did.

The piece of property she was trying to purchase was the property that the body was found on. The red flags were all waving in the direction of Corey Bommeli. On January 21st, 2021, Corey was arrested in Wisconsin and charged with Tomlin. Alina's murder. I think all of us were virtually high-fiving and very happy. We thought, okay, we got it. They had it, or did they? As one side prepared for trial, the other insisted all of this pointed to someone else.

I can Corey to a lobster in a pot. Corey did not realize that she was their chief suspect until it was too late. District attorney Jack Thorpe knew he faced a few challenges. as he prepared for trial. No murder weapon, no DNA, no video of anybody committing any crime. It's a circumstantial case, but it's a pretty good circumstantial case. Do you know what they say about circumstantial evidence? It's the only evidence that cannot lie.

And circumstantial evidence, at least the circumstantial evidence we developed in this case, all pointed toward Corey Balmally. The prosecutor believes Corey attacked Tolena suddenly and forcefully. wielding something like a bat or crowbar while Tolena was asleep in her bed. Tolena had her night guard in, and that night guard was still there with her body when it was discovered. And what became of Talina's bed? Her friend Greg explained that soon after Tolina went missing, Corey asked him to run an errand. She told me to come by and pick up the scrap metal, and, um,

I'd come by the next day. Greg recognized the scrap. It was Talina's mattress and bed frame, and it had been scorched black by fire. I asked her, you know, isn't that the mattress I just put in the bedroom, you know, not too long ago? And she replied, yeah, the CDC told me to burn it because of the COVID.

D.A. Thorpe teased out the law. lies he believed Corey told from the beginning. Like what she said about Talina's trip to the hospital. It turns out there's no record of Talena going to the hospital and getting checked out in the parking lot. Yeah, there's no record of that. There's no record of her ever being there. And Talena's Facebook posts?

Remember, those were the first things that bothered Jess Trevino. I had to speak up. It was too odd of the writings of her Facebook post about why she was leaving. It just nothing felt right. Nothing. Thorpe agrees. He believes Corey wrote those after she killed Tolena to throw off the investigation and buy some time. Is there any evidence that Corey actually tried to report Talena missing? Not until after people started noticing that Talina was missing. And we put that

at around 13 days from when we suspect the homicide occurred. What happened during those 13 days, do you think? I think that she destroyed evidence, cleaned up the crime, scenes, disarticulated the body of Tolena, put the body in a freezer, turn the freezer on, froze the body. And at least for a while, kept that freezer in the white trailer she lied to investigators about. And made sure she'd covered all the bases that she knew to cover. Corey did make one odd misstep early on. When investigators asked her if they could spray a chemical called Blue Star around the house,

to check for blood. And her response was, even the garage, well, now we are. Things not to say during a search warrant. Yeah. The Blue Star showed some kind of biological residue on the floor, but nothing definitive. Still, investigators believe

Corey dismembered Tolena there, in part because it had been so thoroughly cleaned. Scoured, bleach, lime. And then, It's made it over. Freshly painted with a type of paint that has a tendency to cover up blood. And Corey may have forgotten to cover up, her cover up. Corey did Google searches on how to get rid of DNA, the type of paint that would cover

cellular evidence of blood, how to get blood out of concrete and wood. All of that comes in. All of that we anticipate, we are going to admit into evidence. One question a jury might have, why would Corey kill the woman? when she called her heart sister, and who'd put a roof over her head. I think that something happened that night, and I think Tolena was kicking Corey out of the house, and I think that Corey had it very, very good. It is true that Corey had something to gain from Talena's death.

She was the executor of her estate and the beneficiary of an insurance policy. But you don't think that by itself's the motive. We think that at some point Corey was going to have. have to leave the house. And honestly, she didn't have anywhere else to go. So not greed, anger. No. By the injuries that we observed on the body, it was some type of anger or some type of force, for sure. We're confident that a Wagner jury is going to find her guilty of murder. The defense was equally confident. Corey's attorneys, Rachel Dallas, and Ryan Canoni. I've never caught Corey in a lie. I don't believe Corey did this. I really don't.

I akin Corey to a lobster in a pot. Corey did not realize that she was their chief suspect until it was too late. And at that point, there was no fixing that tunnel vision that I believe the sheriff's office had. By their lack of investigation, they never considered anyone but Corey Bommeli to be a part of this. Not once. Not when they had Marty Angus setting across from them, admitting to breaking into Toleno, Corey's home, not when he set across from them and said that he was Talina's master and that he owned her. Everyone seems to paint Corey with this motive. She has this motive for money. She's

going to get all this money from Tolina. She wasn't. She was on one life insurance policy of $150,000. Marty was on a $300,000 policy. That had not been transferred to Corey yet. They argue Corey was better off with Talina alive. She was living rent-free. and had the use of Talina's vehicles and credit cards. Friends say Talina was cutting Marty out of her life and replacing him with Corey. The value that Talina had a lie financially to Marty was undisputedly dwindling.

And they said even though Marty might not have actually killed Talena, he could still be behind her murder. Do I feel like he physically did it himself? Probably not. Do I feel like he orchestrated? What happened to Talena? Absolutely. I don't know who helped him.

I do believe it was not Corey. The defense hoped to bring up another motive, Talena's private lifestyle, and Marty's attempt to become Talena's Gorian master. The judge would not allow it. You have a belief system that puts women as slaves and men as masters, and you have a woman who is pretty financially independent

who goes missing, who's part of that. It seems like that's something we would want to talk about. The defense's argument would be supported by a star witness who was ready to spill. Do you think Marty Wolfey had something to do with Talian's murder? I do. This guy was setting me up from a much earlier time to take the fall for something that I think he was involved in. Corey Bommeli's defense team believed they had a convincing case against Marty. and an ace in the hole with Corey herself.

The only way for us to be able to defend Corey in this case was to let Corey take the stand. Corey had gone from Talina's devoted roommate to her accused killer. Now she wanted to explain, and I had some questions. You look harmless. Well, thank you. That's the most wonderful comment. Anyone's given me for a while. Should people fear you?

Well, I'm sure that people like my ex-spouse have told you to fear me. I'm only dangerous to people's heads because if you're into your ego, if you're into fear, if you're into anger, if you're into vindictiveness, I oppose those kinds of things. Corey seemed ready to take the stand. She had an answer for everything, starting with whether Tolina even had COVID. We drove down to Wagner County Hospital to the emergency. room, and we were going to get her tested. So I dropped her off and went to park the vehicle, and even before I had turned off the car, she was stomping across the parking lot back at me,

not a happy camper. And I asked her what was wrong, and she said, they wouldn't even take my temperature. They won't test me. There is apparently no record of that. No. And that was typical back then. I'm quoting law enforcement here, but they say there would be a record of even that. One of the things that looked suspicious to law enforcement, and to me, is that very soon after Talina is gone, you don't know where she is, you don't know what her condition is, did she recovered, did she die, did she take her own life? You don't know. Nobody knew.

But you're selling off her things. I had been selling her things for a year and a half the entire time that I was with her. All, she says, with Talina's permission. even some items that had belonged to Tom, like his Gorean ring. There were so many things of Tom's that she had me selling. She was downsizing. They were sitting on the counter in the right place that told me, Corey, sell lease. Corey denied knowing how to cut up a human body,

but admitted knowing her way around a large animal. When an animal that's sizable, a cow, a horse, a llama, dies, you're obviously not going to let that creature lie there and rot in place. It's a messy, bloody, day-long process that is not a job I'd wish on anybody. When Talina's found, she's in pieces. And that sounds to me like something you would have known how to do. Well, and you are damning every medical professional, every hunter, every hunter, every Farmers, just name a few groups out there.

You're saying many people would have that kind of knowledge. I believe so. But would they use it? No, of course not. It's horrific. Who would do something like that? Who would do something like that to their best friend? We were as close as two people could be.

I would die for her if I could, still to this day. If it would bring her back, I would happily change places with her. She means that much to me. So then how did Talina's body find? its way to Arkansas on property Corey had been to and tried to buy. Her answer? Marty. I remember calling Marty, and I told him I put a bit on it. I think he actually thought I purchased that property.

Okay, so instead of this being one more coincidence of Tolena's body turning up at a place you had visited and knew where it was, this is Marty framing you. This is Marty thinking that you owned that property. and then if I dump the body there, it'll point the finger at Corey. You look at all these things and you start adding them together and it sure as hell looks that way. Corey says it's possible Marty didn't kill Talena

that she might have killed herself and says Marty had reason to make it look like murder. I think it's very possible that if she did commit suicide, I think that he freaked out. and possibly did damage to her post-mortem because he was afraid his $300,000 policy wouldn't pay if she committed suicide.

Remember, the medical examiner said the blows to Talina's head killed her, not suicide. And keep this in mind, it's always easy to blame a dead man. Marty, known in the Gorian world as Master Shakara, died of a drug overdose while Tolina was still missing. There's a couple of theories. One of the theories is you and Tolena had some kind of fight, and you killed her as a result of that, maybe not attempting to kill her, and she died. The second is that you sort of planned this, that you saw her as a mark, and you wrote

that Facebook post after you had killed her to cover your tracks, and then began selling every single thing you could get your hands on to make as much money off the this as possible and that you delayed reporting her missing for as long as possible to give yourself some lead time? The evidence doesn't support any of that. It's speculation. It's all sensational. None of it's supported. I will maintain till the day I die that I had nothing to do with the disappearance and death of Tolena. Corey was ready to tell her story to a jury. At the same time,

A skeleton in her closet was just rattling back to life. Something about kitty litter? So I took a shot in the dark and I talked to Mrs. Eagler, sweet lady. And I said, is there any chance that you kept any of that white powdery stuff? Was there any chance? The prosecution was ready. So was the defense. And so was the defendant.

When the American public gets their hands on the actual, that my defense counsel is going to make available now to the American public, they're going to be astounded at the amount of evidence against Marty Angus. As her trial approached, Sheriff's deputies continued to investigate Corey. They took particular interest in that felony fraud case in Wisconsin. We get a copy of the report. And in the report, it talks about somebody spread this white powdery substance all over the bed, the pillow, the underwear drawers, all over the house.

They thought it was kitty litter. Well, they said it had a consistency of, like, kitty litter. By now they knew that A, Corey's ex-husband Alec told them Corey had been making ricin. And B, ricin can have the consistency of kitty litter. So I took a shot in the dark and I talked to Mrs. Eagler, sweet lady. And I said, is there any chance that you kept any of that material the white powdery stuff, was there any chance? And I said, no, I threw it out.

After we hung up, I thought, hmm, I wonder in my sock drawer. So I went in my bedroom, and I took each pair of socks out, and I shook it in the drawer. There's some very, very tiny white particles in there. So I took my finger like this and literally put it in a little Ziploc bag, In about an hour, she calls me back, and she says, I found something. And, you know, I'm excited. It wasn't much.

He said, oh, good. Mail it to me. The FBI confirmed it was ricin and also, basically harmless. Whoever prepared it didn't know what they were doing. As she awaited her murder trial in Oklahoma, Corey was charged with two counts of attempted murder in Wisconsin. Corey denies trying to poison her neighbors. You didn't put ricin in the Ziegler's house.

It was never in the Ziegler's house without an invitation. No, I did not. Wasn't there a recipe for how to make ricin found on your laptop in one of the search warrants? There was. Yeah. Why'd you have that on your laptop? I had been researching Risen for a book I was writing.

So just a total coincidence that you have on your laptop, instructions on how to make ricin and turn it into a poison, and then the Zieglers later have poorly made rice and poison in their home. The coincidence, I believe, in my having some experience with castor beans, and that substance finding itself into the Ziegler's home, most likely is Alexander himself. That's right. She says her ex-husband Alex spread the ricin,

because he was angry at Sherry Ziegler. Corey said it was you who put the ricin in the Ziegler's house. She tried to say that, yes. Yes, she did. Alex says, not true. It was Corey, by her own admission. Corey told you she had put ricin in the Ziegler's home. She did.

Alex says she didn't tell him until years later. I did not know the day she did it. Corey went on trial in Wisconsin in June of 2025. It took a jury less than two hours to convict her of attempting to kill the Zieglers. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison. This could have been the bed you died in. I know. So we are very, very lucky.

And we did not realize until after the trial how lucky we really were. So this was her house. So why would Corey want to kill the Zieglers? Mike has a theory. Remember, Corey and Alec kept a lot of animals, horses, llamas, goats, dogs. The neighbor in the house down there did report them to the county for having all those animals, and she maybe thought we did it. That's the only thing I can come up with.

On the plains of Oklahoma, prosecutor Jack Thorpe thought the ricin attack said everything about Corey. That she's a killer. and over the top. I'm willing to do anything, and on pretty short notice, which helps us when we look at the death of Tolena. Just in case, they tested Tolina's remains for ricin. Negative.

And then in early September, 2006, with her murder trial looming, Corey made a surprising decision. Why did you take a plea? Here in Oklahoma? Right. This plea was of no contest. It allows me to carry my innocence forward while still working to get the information out.

Well, sort of. She pleaded no contest, but the judge found her guilty of first-degree manslaughter, desecration of a corpse, and felony possession of a firearm. Jack Thorpe had the sentences in Oklahoma added to Corey's time in Wisconsin, making this effectively a life sentence. Hi, everybody. Hi, Rachel. Rachel, hi.

Rachel, hi. After more than five years, Tallina's friends finally met Jess. This is my wife, Kyle. Oh, my goodness. I'm so good to meet you. Nice to meet you. And we're able to reminisce about Tallina. This is Kim.

Hi. How are you? I'm good. But she absolutely worshipped him. It had been a long road for everyone. This has changed you. It has. Yeah.

Makes me see the world in a different way, for sure. Yeah, and not a better way. No. Yeah, welcome to my world. Yeah. When you think about Delino, what do you think about? Just kind heart. Just the smile.

You know, I have a picture on my phone that, you know, I look at from time to time. And, you know, just to remind me of that face that I haven't seen. in a long time. And there are still some lingering questions. What do you still want to know? I want to know why. Why? How?

You know, how do you live with that? I want to know is Tolena and Tom together in, you know? You think they are? I know they are. I know they are. That's what, that brings me peace. This happened because Tolena wanted to help other people. Exactly.

If her heart had been a little harder, if she hadn't taken in Corey, she'd be alive today. She would. She would. Yeah. She trusted the wrong people. Felina had a big heart. If only, we could always trust our hearts. That's all for this edition of Dateline.

Don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast. which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the dateline feed wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9-8 Central. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.