Dateline NBC - Secrets of the Snake Farm

Episode Date: March 28, 2023

The lead investigator takes Andrea Canning inside the investigation of the murder of world-renowned snake breeder Ben Renick, who was found shot to death in his snake facility.

Tonight on Dateline. I don't want to say there's a typical crime scene, but that's the only crime scene I've worked where you're surrounded by snakes. Inside the investigation. First-time details in our most venomous mystery. Oh, God. I went to go check on him and he saw him on the ground. He had a little snake. He raised a large 500-pound snake. To me, it did not seem like a snake injury at all. This was not an accident.

It was shot eight times. Why would someone want to kill Ben? You had a real whodunit on your hands. We did. Everyone thought it was his brother. Did Lindley say what the brothers were fighting about? The farm. Money.

They were having marital problems. Finding out that she was in another relationship so soon after the murder was a big red flag. He was toxic. She was afraid of him. His texts to her were awful, evil. We had to ask ourselves, why is this happening? I just broke down. It can't be real.

I believe that the truth will come out and trust me this is not the truth. Some people might say this beautiful piece of property is cursed. There's a lot of history out there. It's not all pretty. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Secrets of the Snake Farm. It was a warm June evening in 2017, just before dusk down a long road in rural Missouri. Out here it was desolate, isolated, about an hour outside of bustling St. Louis, but a world away. This family farm was once a place of happy memories, with plenty of room to raise kids and let them roam. And on this evening, like so many others, all was quiet, still.

Then came the call. 911, this is the emergency emergency. Why is this going on everywhere? Then came the call. All that came through were desperate cries, confusion. The woman managed to tell the dispatcher she'd come home to find her husband in a pool of blood. Dee Wassman was an EMT on duty in Montgomery County that night. Where are you when this call comes in? We were at the ambulance base. They were teaching EMT classes. Dee and her partner jumped in the ambulance and asked questions as they raced to the scene.

The 911 dispatcher still couldn't get much from the woman on the line. A minute later, the woman's brother-in-law got on the line. Hello? Yes. Okay, we've got everybody on the way. Do you know what happened? No. There had been a snake. Literally, I don't know where the snake is. Oh my God. Hear that? A snake. Apparently on the loose. While we were en route, it came across that they believed a 600-pound anaconda had caused this damage. Very unique call. I mean, have you ever heard anything like that before?

No, I had never heard anything like that. Dee and her partner flew down the dusty driveway toward the property, a 72-acre farm with several homes and buildings. You arrive on the scene. Lights are flashing. You guys are in a huge hurry. What do you see as you're pulling up? Multiple deputies out, guns drawn, ready to go into this building. But they're still afraid to go in because they think there's a 600-pound snake on the loose.

Deputies from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department had arrived there first. Their body cameras rolled. Yeah, I'm not good with that. I'm not scared of snakes, but I'm scared of this one. Montgomery County Sheriff's Department had arrived there first. Their body cameras rolled. The deputies located the victim's wife, Lindley Renick, who had called 911. I understand you have an anaconda. Where is it at? I know it's difficult right now, but we need to make sure nobody else gets hurt. Anaconda? Where is it at? I know it's difficult right now, but we need to make sure nobody else gets hurt. And I was not aware it was a snake facility, but my partner was, because he was local to the area.

Some of the deputies also knew this farm was home to more than 2,000 snakes housed in a facility on the property. And they knew who it belonged to, Ben Rennick, a world-renowned snake breeder. So I learn it's a snake farm. And here's all of these country guys that are terrified of snakes. I had been raised with a snake. I wasn't afraid of a snake. So they've all got out shotguns and they're ready to just start blasting at a snake if it comes at him. Like, come on, guys. The police? Yes, the police. It's a 600-pound snake. You're ready to just start blasting at a snake if it comes at him. Like, come on, guys. The police? Yes, the police. It's a 600-pound snake. You're going to see it coming. So Dee went inside, only to find she was too late.

It was obvious he was gone. There was no helping Ben Rennick. Dee thought he'd been dead at least a few hours. It fell to Dee to give his wife, Lindley, the news. Once there was no life, and I went to her and told her that he was dead. What was her reaction to getting that news? It was guttural. She was devastated. She acted like her life was completely over. She was completely devastated, worried about her children, how they were going to survive without their father. She looked so weak.

Were you trying to console her? Of course. Deputies still had a dangerous suspect to track down, the massive missing anaconda. Row after row, the building was filled to the brim with reptiles of every size. Deputies cautiously made their way through the facility, all too aware that this snake could be a killer. And now, a dangerous hunt was on. They were looking for a dangerous snake.

But as the twists and turns of this case began to unfold, investigators would uncover a far more venomous plot than they could have ever imagined. This family farm in New Florence, Missouri had gone from calm to chaos. I'm going to kill her. We'll see her. Ben Rennick had just been found dead. His big brother Sam had come running when Ben's wife Lindley called him to help. It was Sam who first alerted authorities about the snake on the 911 call. Could you see what the nature of the injury was? His skull was crushed, so I didn't

know what to think. My first thought was, of course, the snakes. Sheriff's deputies combed the area with guns at the ready. They were hunting for a possible slithering perp. Family friend Bobette Tucker also heard about the snake as she raced to the property that night. They had said that Ben had died and they think that it was a snake. Oh my gosh, what are you thinking when you hear snake? How could this happen? Ben had loved animals even as a child, which wasn't a surprise to his parents since they owned a thriving pet food company. He particularly liked exotic reptiles, lizards, turtles, and snakes.

Your parents actually encouraged exotic animals? They did. We were encouraged to have exotic pets as kids, and Ben had a variety of unique pets at a young age. The Renick's sprawling farm was the perfect place for Ben, Sam, and Bobette's son to run wild, secluded in a world all their own. Was it the kind of place the boys would run around and discover nature? Oh, yes. Maybe their ATVs, I don't know. Yes. That kind of thing?

There was a little pond out there. The boys were in the woods all the time. I mean, Sam will tell you that they've got buried treasures out there. Did you become really close because of the location of your farm? We did, yeah. We did everything together for the longest time. Ben was also a talented drummer. In his early 20s, he played in a local metal band that would change his life.

Through the band, he met a special woman. What did he tell you about her? He told me that he'd met someone and that they had a lot in common, and he was head over heels for Lindley. Lindley was from a small town just down the road from the Rennicks, a single mom raising her young son. Lindley was very sweet. She was perfect for Ben. She was very outgoing, bubbly. She was everything that Ben ever wanted. Her father, Lindell, says the couple was a perfect fit. They seemed like a great couple together, and I liked Ben a lot.

He was really easy to get along with. Yeah, I was very happy. The whirlwind romance turned into an instant family. The two got married and had a daughter. With a growing family, Ben left his music career behind and turned his passion for reptiles into a budding business.

Hopefully this girl will be good to go in another year or two. Did you think that love of reptiles, he would parlay it into an actual career? No, I didn't expect that whatsoever. He did a good job at it. He was very focused. We are at the beginning of our hatching season. Lindahl says breeding and selling snakes was a lot of work, but Lindley didn't mind. Why do you think Lindley was okay with that? Not every woman would be. She loved animals. She loved taking care of things. She was just a compassionate person. We do breed smaller females than this. Ben operated out of this large facility on the family farm and made videos for his YouTube channel under the name Renick Reptiles.

In this video, we are going to show you how we ship all of our reptiles. Now, Ben was dead in the very place his business came to life. Back at the scene, the chaos had only escalated as deputies tried to figure out how a snake might have killed him. Well, even a small snake, if it's really toxic, it supposedly didn't have any poisonous voice, from my understanding. Perhaps, like Sam first thought, one of the large snakes had crushed Ben's skull, like the reticulated python or the anaconda. Not your everyday house pets.

How big were Ben's snakes? At the time, I think his biggest one was 12 feet. Now that I have her, it's been a couple years and she's a little bit bigger. This here is a male green anaconda. Wow. His name is Blue. Megyn Kelly, or as her followers know her,

Megaconda, is an anaconda breeder and friend of Ben's. What is the most likely scenario if a snake were to kill someone? It would be by strangulation. It would be purely like an accident. You could see how someone would think that Ben might have been killed by one of his snakes. When you get up close, it's very powerful. Megan found it hard to believe that someone with Ben's experience would end up the victim of an attack.

It comes with experience and knowing what you're doing with them. And Ben was very experienced. On the scene that night, EMT Dee Wassman was thinking the same thing. Remember, she'd grown up with snakes. Could you tell if this indeed was a snake injury? To me, it did not seem like a snake injury at all. Lindley told the police that, too. The snake wouldn't do that.

Dee and Lindley were right. The coroner finished his examination and shared some very big news. A snake wasn't to blame. Ben had been shot, murdered. Amidst the frenzy of the snake hunt and the chaos at the scene, somehow the bullet holes had been missed.

How many times was Ben shot? Ben was shot eight times. Ben was a beloved father, husband, and animal lover. Who was cold-hearted enough to kill him? Missouri Highway Patrol investigator Devin Faust would now join the case, looking for a killer whose intention seemed clear. This person definitely wanted to kill Ben. They were going to make sure that he was dead. Faust would now join the case, looking for a killer whose intention seemed clear. This person definitely wanted to kill Ben. They were going to make sure that he was dead.

And for the first time, he'll reveal what went on inside the investigation into this brutal homicide. 29-year-old Ben Rennick's death had been ruled a homicide, and the crime was brutal. The snake breeder had been shot eight times. Investigators from the Missouri State Highway Patrol arrived on the scene to take over the investigation. You're on call on this particular day, and you get a very strange call. That's correct. This is the first time Missouri Highway Patrol investigator Devin Faust has talked about the case on national television. He told me he got the call around 8.30 that night. They spoke of how they believed a murder had occurred,

and there was a victim with gunshot wounds, and there was no gun present, and that this occurred in a snake farm or a snake facility. You already know that this is a murder. This was done by a human, not a snake. It was apparent by the time we had started that evening that this was going to be a homicide, an unsolved homicide. When he arrived at the sprawling property, he was struck by the size of the facility and the number of animals inside. a homicide, an unsolved homicide. When he arrived at the sprawling property, he was struck by the size of the facility and the number of animals inside.

I don't want to say there's a typical crime scene, but that's the only crime scene I've worked where you're surrounded by snakes. One of the first things we did was try to get a handle on what the snake facility really was and if there was a danger present. Ben's wife, Lindley, called in a friend of Ben's to help out with handling the snakes. He also had some helpful information.

He let me know that he was aware of a sale of a large portion of those snakes to a hockey player. That's when I first learned that apparently he was going to be selling a lot of snakes. And he let me know that a couple of these snakes, he had just sold two snakes for a total of $85,000. That's a lot of money. Right. That could be the kind of thing you might kill someone over, that kind of money. Sure, you know, financial part of it, you know, could play a motive. Do you want to get interviews done immediately with people who might be able to shed some light on what happened to Ben? Absolutely. To start learning about his life and his family and his business, to start really working his life and his family and his business,

to start really working his case. Who was your first person that you want to talk to? The first person we talked to was his wife. We talked to Lindley Rennick. I know you've talked to a handful of other people today about how your day went. But if you want to go ahead and walk us through it. Did they start from the beginning or from? I'd say from this afternoon. Lindley told investigators she'd been at work that day at the spa she owned in Columbia, Missouri,

about a 45-minute drive from the farm. You mentioned that you did speak with Benjamin before you left him home. What time was the last time you spoke? It was 3.45. He said, are you still good for kids tonight or do I need to? And I said, I need you too. I'm not going to be able to leave right now. On her way home, the phone rang. It was the school. The kids had not been picked up that afternoon. I was like, okay, well, I'm on my way.

I'm so sorry, Ben. And then I tried to call Ben in the facility a couple times and send him some messages. Ben wasn't responding. Obviously, I got a little more worried, but like, okay, well, a thousand things could be why he's not answering. And then I got home, and I told the kid I was going to stay in the car since he wasn't answering. He's never forgotten them, so it just kind of gave me a bad feeling. Then, Lindley repeated the story she told first responders. I saw him laying on the ground, and there was a lot of blood. Then, Lindley repeated the story she told first responders.

She still seemed to be in shock. Do you have any questions for us? What happened? We don't know yet. What do I mean, what do I do? I mean, all your friends are family. With Lindley, it was almost like checking a box. Our first interview with her was just a common lead to start sorting out a family function and who this person is and their job and any grievances they may have with anybody else. And no one doubted Lindley's love or her commitment to Ben and his snakes. She spent long days working with him at the snake facility

and helping him build an online presence for renic reptiles. So here Ben is going to show you essentially what we do from the moment that they hatch out of the eggs. Everyone in the snake industry seemed to admire the couple's obvious synergy. Former NFL linebacker Chad Brown is a successful reptile breeder and owner of a reptile shipping company in Denver. Ben was a good dude. And then the fact

that it was Ben and Lynn Lee, and I've always got a heart for folks who are entrepreneurial, who are trying to build something. After the couple's success with Rennick Reptiles, Lynn Lee wanted to try a business venture all her own. She took her former training as a massage therapist and with Ben's help opened that spa in Columbia. That's a big step. Oh, wow. They put a lot of money into this spa. And it was top of the line.

It was beautiful. Back in the interview room, Lindley told investigators how much she admired Ben as a hardworking businessman and father. Ben's just so, I mean, he just makes everything he's just, he's everything okay. Ben and Lindley seemed to have the perfect little family, but she had a lot to tell Corporal Faust about someone else who was very close to them. Was there any family issues? Like between Sam and, yeah. Did Lindley have any idea who might have wanted to hurt Ben? That evening, Lindley started to perhaps paint a picture of Ben's dealings with his brother

and how they didn't get along as well as they used to. Does your antenna go up when you hear that? You've got a murder on your hands, and now you're being told that there's a family feud. Sure, it was something to take into account. But the feud was much more involved than it first sounded. Investigators would soon learn the brothers had a history that read like a tragic novel. There was big tension between the brothers. That's correct. From the moment Corporal Devin Faust stepped onto the Rennick family farm in June 2017, he had many questions.

But he was laser-focused on the obvious one. Who would want to kill Ben Rennick? A lot of things to figure out. Quite a mystery. Correct, yeah. There's a lot to get lined out very early so you don't miss anything that you can't go back and do later on. The investigator had spent the early morning hours after the homicide questioning Ben's wife, Lindley. Do you have any thoughts or ideas, or do you know what happened tonight?

I don't. The more Lindley talked, the more a story emerged. It was about Ben's brother Sam and the farm. Ben and I actually own all of the property. Sam kind of basically just went to Ben and he was like, you need to give me half of the property. Ben was like, no, I'm not going to give you half of the property. Investigators learned the brothers were feuding over the Rennick land, a property with a long and tragic history.

Welcome to the Rennick household. Their parents, Frank and Kim Rennick, bought the farm in the 80s and raised their young family miles from the nearest town or grocery store. Was it kind of a sanctuary? It was their sanctuary. It really was. From the beginning, the Rennicks had their own way of doing things, and the family farm was at the center of it all. They did everything big. They didn't buy a bottle, they bought a case. But a shadow of hardship seemed to follow them. In 1992, the family's newly built house was destroyed in a

suspected gas explosion. They're leaving Sam's room, going into Ben's room. They rebounded, though, and replaced it with a 10,000 square foot home, complete with a pool and diving board. Was it nice? Oh, yeah. It was beautiful. Yeah, Kim did a fabulous job, you know, interior decorating and stuff. It was beautiful. But their piece of paradise couldn't escape another tragedy. Ben and Sam's mom, Kim, was diagnosed with cancer. It just became a part of their life,

you know, because she managed with it a long time. In 2008, after 15 years of living with cancer, Kim died in her bedroom in that beautiful house. After fighting so hard for so long, it must have been just so devastating. She was the strongest woman I'll ever know for what she went through. The boy's dad, Frank, seemed to crumble without their mom. She was Frank's rock. And when she passed away, he lost a big part of his life and, you know, changes a person. Ben and Sam wouldn't understand those changes until years later. Frank sadly took his own life? Yes. Father's Day.

Oh, on Father's Day? Mm-hmm. Wow, just like one tragedy after the next. Yeah. Yeah, Ben found him. The series of tragedies left the Rennick sons sudden landowners of the family's massive property. They were only in their 20s. What happened to the land and the boys? Did they take it over?

Yeah. Frank had things set up for them not to lose the farm. You know, the farm was also, you know, that was their legacy as well. And it meant everything to them. Would you say that everything that happened really strengthened the bond between Ben and Sam? Oh, yeah.

But now Lindley was telling Corporal Faust that the land that once bonded the family had been tearing the brothers apart. In this case, Ben received the land, and Sam lived on it. Sam had an issue with how they were paid and being able to still live on the land. So Sam and his wife were married at that time but no kids, and so they moved into that house and they were talking to us about buying half of the property from us

and then they would have that house. But that never ended up happening. That's when Lindley said Sam asked Ben to give him half of the property, and Ben refused. Then they were like, well, we can't afford to live out here. We're going to have to move. Lindley said she tried to intervene. And so I sent Sam a message like,

I don't think you understand how much that really hurt Ben. But she said it was too late. His wife sent Ben and I a message that was basically just kind of like, f*** you. And there for a while, Sam and I were like, I wanted absolutely nothing to do with him. Sam was on the property when Lindley found Ben. So police dug deeper. Had the brothers' feud fueled and enraged Sam to kill Ben? What is Sam's demeanor like in general?

I mean, he has kind of a depressed personality. He's overly dramatic. I don't know. He's just so different than Ben. He's a lot more in your face. First responder Dee Wassman remembered Sam complained about his brother at the crime scene. He's cheap. He has problems. Wouldn't hire any help.

They were just very off-color remarks to be being made on a scene. What else was he saying? He was saying, that's right, I'm the brother murderer. Brother murderer? What did that mean? Rumors about Ben Rennick's death started to ripple through the reptile community. His friend, Megan Kelly, heard a story about who might have wanted Ben dead. At first, everyone kind of thought it was his brother over just like jealousy of something. But that was like the first rumor that was kind of like going around.

That Sam killed Ben? Yeah. Lindley's dad even heard the chatter about Sam. What did you make of the rumors that were going around that Sam killed Ben? I didn't know exactly what to make of them. Ben and Sam were not as close as what a lot of people are led to believe. Corporal Faust had heard those rumors too from almost the moment he walked onto the farm, just hours after Sam and Lindley discovered Ben's body. Were you told about some of the strange things that Sam had been saying at the scene? We were, and I don't remember really even how those

came across to us, whether it was almost like people in the crowd or whether it was another sheriff's deputy, but it did make us kind of excited for that first interview with Sam. But it was how he was excited or how he was sweating so much. I think he changed a shirt. And so all those were something that we took into account, you know, that evening. And it wasn't just Sam's behavior at the scene that night that investigators had to consider. Sam had a motive, potential motive. Sam did have a potential motive. He wanted to stay on that farm, and he was afraid that that land wouldn't always

be there and it wouldn't stay in the family. So Corporal Faust had a lot of questions when Sam walked into the police station just hours after his brother was found murdered. Sam. I'm Sam. I'm dead. When do you usually get up for work? At five. I'm not. I have work. Picked up babies, took the kids back to the farm. Sam lived in his parents' big house on the farm with his wife and two small children. That evening, Sam let us know that he was meeting with some potential babysitter and that girl's mother as well, somebody that may watch his kids.

And they were present up at the big house, what I refer to as the big house at that time. While he was talking with them, Lindley called him. She was frantic, and he basically left his kids with this potential babysitter and her mother and went down the hill to meet with Lindley. Lindley calls, scream. Screaming because she just found her husband dead. Sam said he was devastated by the loss,

but he admitted he didn't always get along with his brother. He talked about how Ben didn't have any fun and he was the one that had fun and he talked about, you know, how he would go out and, you know, Ben would always work. He's really serious. He doesn't have any funds at all. He doesn't leave the farm much. I'm the opposite of his bed in almost every way. I have a lot of funds. And, uh... We just didn't hang out at the top, really. He was only living next door to each other.

Sam also said his brother could be arrogant. I didn't want to change my business. I was talking money. I'm not his money. He made this day. How much is he making on that transaction? Money seemed to be a source of contention for the brothers. Sam admitted the terms of their inheritance made things complicated. Ben got ownership of the land. I got most of the money. Ben couldn't afford the land, not the money, so we had to work together to make it happen. It was complicated.

How'd y'all do that? That's a good question. I don't know if we really did. The farm was also a money pit, Sam said, which is why he was planning to leave. We were moving from the farm, but I can't afford the farm. That's an expensive place to live. The house I'm staying at,

the big main house on the left out there, is falling apart. It needs $50,000 to put in there. I'm spending more than I'm making. I'm taking money from the treasurer every month. I can't afford to live there. Sam, Ben, and Lindley appeared to be in a bad place before the murder. So investigators put Sam on the spot. Sam, did you have anything to do with the death of him?

No. Anything at all? No. I can't imagine it. No. The answer is no. I'm wrapping my mind around all this now, but I know you're going to ask me certain questions.

I have no idea what happened to my brother. Police challenged him to prove it. Sam appeared to be cooperative. He promised to take a polygraph and make himself available. So police let him leave the station. But for Corporal Faust and his team, the work was only just beginning. and make himself available. So police let him leave the station. But for Corporal Faust and his team, the work was only just beginning. I would imagine the sun's probably coming up at this point.

It was. We worked all night, and it was evident this was going to be a full-scale homicide with a lot of leads to sit down and ride out and start handing them out to people to start getting a handle on this because there was a lot of leads to sit down and ride out and start handing them out to people to start getting a handle on this because there was a lot of things involved early on. And as investigators dug deeper, the pool of suspects grew. Ben's colleague said he was a lovable guy with a knack for breeding snakes. But had he been involved in a business deal gone bad? I tried to think, you know, there have been some beefs in the reptile world.

Maybe somebody feels they got the wrong end of a deal or something like that. Could Ben have had spent hours with police at the crime scene and down at the station. Investigators found him cooperative and agreeable, but Sam's interactions with police were undercut by how he was behaving in public. There was his bizarre and seemingly self-incriminating behavior at the murder scene that night. Then shortly after the murder, he put up a threatening sign near the farm warning would-be visitors to stay away. Contradictory behavior for a man who claimed to be trying to help the investigation.

When Sam sat down with us, he said there was an explanation for all of it, beginning with that sign. I did something stupid. I blocked the road and I put a sign up that said, I'm drunk and I'm armed. Whoa. Why? Well, I didn't want any company at that point in time. I didn't know, you know, who could have been done something like that or who could be out there.

Did you worry that people might take that as that you were guilty, that this was, you know, you're acting irrational, that maybe you were capable of murder? I don't know if that was all that irrational for me at that point in time or not. No, I wasn't concerned about that. Sam told us he was simply a man struggling to make sense of his brother's death and says that explains his crime scene rantings. There was some talk that you were acting strange. Anything you want to say about that? How does one act after they lose their last family member?

You know, I had a hard time. After everything that we've been through, losing Ben was devastating. In fact, he says he doesn't even remember calling himself a brother murderer. He passed his polygraph and remained cooperative with police. But he understood why they would need to look at him. Was there thought that there could be a motive there for you with the financial interests of the farm?

Well, I'm sure the finances came into it along with the investigation. And if they were looking for motive, we had, you know, Ben and my finances were intertwined, you know, quite a bit, especially with the property. Sam told us he never demanded half of the property from Ben. They had already come up with an informal agreement to split up the farm. We'd always planned to have the property divided. That's the way my father and mother had asked us to do it. That's definitely something Ben had planned to do. This was a temporary situation.

Exactly. And whatever ups and downs the brothers might have had, Sam says he never harmed Ben. Did you have anything to do with the murder of your brother? Absolutely not. What is going on with Sam at this point? Is he still a suspect? Sam is still, I would say he's kind of off to the side. You know, maybe a soft suspect at that time. You haven't ruled him out? No. Why not? It's just a good practice not to get ahead of ourselves and start focusing too hard on one thing. It doesn't hurt to just set something off to the side for a while and focus on a new path. But if Sam didn't kill Ben, then who did?

We had problems with people out there looting the place. Sam had given police his own theories on the case. For starters, he thought maybe this could be a burglary gone bad. That was something Corporal Faust was hearing too. Was one of the theories you were looking at a possible burglary? And that came because Lindley let us know that at some point they'd had money stolen out of the facility, several thousand dollars. Sam confirmed that Ben's house on the farm was robbed of $6,000 a couple of years earlier. But that kind of money would have been nothing to Ben compared to the scaly valuables he had on the property, his prized collection of snakes. How big of a player was Ben in the business at this point? Ben was at the cutting edge of producing new and interesting morph animals.

His ability to combine different genes to create, you know, new, brand new, fascinating animals. He was at the cutting edge of that towards the top. Ben owned some incredibly rare snakes like this T-positive albino anaconda, apparently the only one in the world. A snake like that could fetch as much as $100,000. I tried to think, you know, there have been some beefs in the reptile world. Maybe somebody feels they got the wrong end of a deal or something like that. Could Ben have had some beef with somebody? What could have possibly been the cause or origin of this,

you know, his death? And Ben seemed to get along with everybody. He didn't have those kind of reptile beefs that I've heard about with other breeders. But maybe there could have been a rival that you didn't know about or a disgruntled customer. Yeah, was it a disgruntled customer? Was it a disgruntled employee? You know, was it a rival where a deal went wrong or somebody was jealous of Ben's collection? Investigators were carefully studying the snake industry and Ben's place in it. I bet you had no idea that the snakes were worth that much money. No, we were all pretty shocked to learn how much the snakes, just one

of them would be worth. Hair rare, some of the ones were, to begin to learn how he bred these snakes and why they were worth so much money. Lindley told investigators Ben was actually looking to get out of the business altogether and suggested that might have upset some of his colleagues in the snake world. Lindley was inferring that possibly someone might have killed Ben over the snake business?

Correct, over the snake business? Correct, over the snake business or over him getting out of the snake business. Apparently, Ben had entered into an agreement to sell the business to NHL goalie Robin Leonard. Ben valued everything at 1.9 and then they settled on 1.2. Corporal Faust learned that Ben and Leonard subsequently had some disputes over payments. Ben died before the sale could go through. It doesn't sound like a perfect relationship. I would agree it was not a perfect relationship. Was Robin Leonard ever a suspect? He was always something that we'd kind of set aside. Anytime, you know, if you have a sale that large, I never directly talked to him, but he was always a potential path. Investigators couldn't rule Robin out,

but set him aside for the time being to explore other theories. And there was one other theory surrounding Ben's death that also involved money and another difficult chapter in the Rennick family's story. Right before he died by suicide, Sam and Ben's death that also involved money and another difficult chapter in the Renick family's story. Right before he died by suicide, Sam and Ben's dad Frank was indicted on three federal counts of mail fraud. Remember, Frank ran what seemed like a successful pet food company. But the government alleged that behind the scenes, Frank was taking millions from investors with no intention of paying them back. He faced 20 years in prison and died before the case could go to trial,

leaving his investors upset. Had one of them come back to exact revenge on the Rennick family? We have to keep our minds open that, you know, this could still be something from the Rennicks' past coming back to their land. So that was something that we maintained an idea of, you know, throughout the earlier parts of the investigation. Did you think this could be related to your dad's business, even though that was so long ago, that just unfinished business? That definitely crossed our mind. We definitely thought that that was a possibility. Did that lead you anywhere?

It did not. We rolled that out. Because it's amazing when you look back and you see that, you know, their house exploded and Frank was embezzling money. And it all seems like it could potentially add up to revenge or murder. Yeah, I would agree. If the killer wasn't Ben's brother Sam or a rival from the reptile world, then who could it be? As police kept working to find the answer, whispers around town began growing louder. Lindley Renick wasn't exactly acting like a grieving widow. It was a big red flag that she had moved on to another relationship so fast.

While investigators were busy evaluating several possible suspects in the Ben Rennick murder, they weren't sharing any information with the public. We would question, what's going on with that? You know, is there any suspects? You know, well, yeah, there is, but, you know, we can't talk about it. As for Lindley, the young widow was now busy raising her two children as a single mom. It left little time to focus on Ben's enormous snake collection. So Lindley called a professional. This man.

Do you go by David or Dave? Dealer's choice. David Levinson was good friends with Ben. They'd become close on the reptile show circuit. He admired Ben and the magic he worked breeding his snakes. He was putting animals together and creating colors that nobody had seen before. A lot of first-time things in the industry. His name was really getting around that he was the guy.

Worldwide, yes. So when Lindley reached out to David about Ben's one-of-a-kind creations, he didn't hesitate. You're on a flight to Missouri to help with the collection? Essentially anything I could help with. Just, yes, just headed right out there when I had the first chance. David put his own life on hold and took charge. For weeks, he fed the snakes and cleaned their cages, all in the same facility where his friend was shot eight times. David says it was the least

he could do. Lindley was in no condition to go back into that building. Was Lindley really struggling? She was extremely emotional when I got there. You know, a lot of crying, a little bit of isolating herself, sitting on the porch. David says things got so painful for Lindley that she left the farm and moved in with her dad. Corporal Faust visited Lindley at her dad's house

several times. He, too, had noticed she was struggling. She'd been to the ER. I learned from her friend she was struggling. She'd been to the ER? I learned from her friend that was there that she'd been to the ER for a panic attack or something close to that. He also talked often with David, who continued to live and work on the property. Are you using him at all as someone to talk to, to someone to sort of keep an eye on, you know, what's going on over there? I am. Dave and I would talk quite a bit, and he would kind of keep me up to date with things,

and I would kind of keep him up to date. He helped quite a bit. One day, David found what seemed like an important clue. I found a shell casing at one point while cleaning some of the caging. Did that just creep you out, finding that? Yes. I mean, anything to do with it gave me an uneasy feeling most of the time. It was surprising. And there was a part of me that was kind of excited, like, you know, what if this is something? The case had got quiet. You know,

nobody was really talking too much about it anymore. Finding that, again, was kind of exciting to me because I was like, what if? And he had been taking the racks apart, the trays out and the racks apart to clean them and move them. And while he was doing that, a shell casing fell out. He gave me a call, and we had another investigator run down there and pick it up. And it was just one that we had missed from that evening. But true to form, investigators kept their findings to themselves, and David was left to wonder if it was even safe to stay on the property. You're on this property, and the killer is still out there.

The property was terrifying. Family friend Bobette Tucker didn't spend much time at the property, but she did keep in touch with Lindley. We would meet up and talk, and she'd come by, and, you know, we kept in real close contact, and then it was kind of like she started fading away and harder to get a hold of is lindley kind of withdrawing yeah from you like just seeing her less and less hearing from her she wasn't answering our calls and stuff

and you know it was frustrating sam was also frustrated we try tried to communicate with Lindley for quite some time. However, to no avail. And it was disconcerting that she would isolate herself and the children. Corporal Faust thought he knew why Lindley was keeping to herself. He suspected she was hiding something. From the start, he'd been carefully studying her social media conversations. And they revealed her marriage wasn't quite as she portrayed it, and her spa was in trouble financially.

You believe, then, that she was hiding things from Ben? I know she was, I mean, because they would have arguments about it, and he would say, I keep finding this out. I want to help you with your business. Her reply would be, well, you know, I want to take care of this on my own. This is definitely not the picture that was painted of Ben and Lindley as being the Ken and Barbie of the snake world that, you know, they had this great life. Everything was really good between them. Right. That all started to change. In fact,

Faust had even brought her in for another interview, just 11 days after the murders, and asked her a blunt question. So if you were seeing anyone, or if you are, and it was an embarrassment thing to her, you didn't think about seeing her before, if there is another relationship, we need to talk about that. So have you been talking to anyone, or did you have a relationship? Wow. What's that moment like when just on a hunch you're asking her this question and she admits it?

I was pretty sure the validation, you know, was there. I wasn't happy about that. It was good to have another piece of what was going on. So now it's, you know, where's this going to take us next? Eric was a local radio personality who sometimes helped Lindley with marketing at the spa six months or so. How often do you see each other? I mean, we met once a month to go over my numbers for the spa. When he was my new pop-in, once a week, just to check on me and how everything was going. Lindley surprised the investigator by saying Ben had even met her new lover on a few occasions without knowing it. So what are you thinking when you now have this piece of information? Are your sights really on Lindley? You know, that shift had already started, but it definitely kept us going down that path

with what else is she not telling us? Sure enough, everyone was about to discover Lindley was hiding a much bigger secret. Corporal Devin Faust had discovered Lindley Rennick was keeping secrets and in the late summer of 2017 he was collecting them one by one including a particularly juicy one Eric, the man she'd been having an affair with

behind Ben's back, was not the only other man in her life. How does Brandon Blackwell get on your radar? This is yet another man who's in Lindley's world. I'd matched up some different records and kind of another little bit of a hunch there. She'd met Brandon just before Ben's murder and was often seen with him afterward, too. David Levinson took notice. He was introduced to me as a close friend. I think it was a couple months later, it became very apparent, or maybe soon after that, that there was a relationship there. Did he seem like a nice guy?

He did seem like a very nice guy. Very cordial, very polite. David tried not to get involved in Lindley's dating life. But then, over a year after Ben's death, she stopped by to visit. And this happened. She has some news. Yeah. Some big news. She had come by.

I don't remember the exact month, but she was pregnant. Is this feeling a little premature to you? It was a surprise. I think I found out through her friend. It was on her Facebook page. What's the timing on that? Well, it was awful soon, and that surprised me. What are you thinking then?

She's moving forward. She's a young woman, beautiful, attractive. But Sam saw it differently. Finding out that she was in another relationship publicly so soon after the murder was a big red flag. Do you reach out to the police or talk to the police about Lindley having this relationship? We made sure that they knew, but at that point in time, they knew a lot more than we knew. Sam wasn't wrong.

Police had talked to Brandon, who was head over heels. What did he say about Lindley when you asked him about her? He was basically in love with Lindley. When I interviewed him, it'd been a little while after the murder, and he didn't feel bad about telling me

how much he liked her and what he thought of her. Yeah, he was, I think he even told me he was in love with her already. Linley and I have definitely formed like a very special connection. And she's the most amazing woman I've ever met. Meanwhile, Linley was also selling the beloved family farm, Sam says, without even telling him.

We were given notice that we had 30 days to leave. That's how you found out you had to leave? That's right. Moving was the toughest. She left all of my brother's belongings behind. She never returned to the property. She actually left all of his things there and abandoned them. David discovered Lindley was trying to sell Ben's prized anacondas, also without saying a word.

She essentially had asked a friend of mine in the hobby to sell them or help relocate them. Without talking to you? Without talking to me. And you've been spending months for free taking care of the animals? That definitely put me off. Lindley wanted to sell the snakes to Ben's friend Megan. I got really nervous with it. I was like, what do I do?

I called Dave immediately, and he's like, just kind of go along with it and see where she takes it. Megan had no intention of going through with the deal. And when she walked away, Lindley blamed David for interfering. He said she sent him a threatening text. I just keyed in on like four words and one was lawyer, there was a phone number, and you should be ashamed of yourself. It was just so mean. Not the Lindley he thought he knew at all. For the first time, he wondered, had she been telling the truth about Ben's death? Are you starting to think that Lindley might be involved?

There was some suspicions, just based on conversations and some other things. But Lindley's dad said there was nothing sinister about the way his daughter acted after Ben's murder. He believed she was just a widow trying to put her painful past behind her. She had no control over the sale of the farm, says Lindle. It was up to the trustee in charge of Ben's father's estate. And he says Lindley might have seemed distant to Ben's circle, but she was just trying to rebuild her life and raise her children. Did you think she was trying to help the kids cope with the loss of their dad?

She was, but I was also. Them children had an emotional state of their own that had to have been taken care of. Plus, Lindley was dealing with her own personal drama that summer. After she had her baby with Brandon, their relationship turned toxic. I know she did come to our house a couple of times because she was afraid of Brandon. Were you scared for Lindley? Yeah. I was scared for Lindley? Yeah. I was scared for myself also.

He's a pretty good-sized guy. He'd already threatened to kick my ass, so. Had he been threatening Lindley? Not when I was there personally, but to the best of my understanding, yes. According to Lindley, Brandon didn't just threaten her. On one occasion, she told police he wouldn't let her and the children leave the house, and he put his hands on her. He was arrested for assault, and Lindley was granted

an order of protection. But Brandon's attorney told us the assault never happened. He said Brandon never laid his hands on Lindley, nor did he threaten her dad. Brandon was released, and Lindley says he still wouldn't leave her alone. Connie Sullivan is an attorney Lindley hired after Brandon was accused of violating the terms of the court order. He began truly stalking her, texting her 150 times a day. His own mother called the police, called Lindley and said, get out, get out, get out. He's on his way to your house. He says he's in your backyard. He says he's going to sleep in your driveway. Lindley told Connie that Brandon terrorized her for weeks. He ended up going to jail for felony stalking, an allegation he denied.

There wasn't a snake in that facility more venomous than Brandon Blackwell, and he was controlling and determined to run her life. The whole Brandon situation, dreadful as it sounded, didn't seem to have any connection to Ben Rennick's murder. But when investigators heard about it, it gave them an idea. Brandon had been so taken with Lindley the first time they interviewed him, he hadn't offered much. But now that things had soured, they thought maybe he'd say more.

Boy, were they right. What Brandon had to say would turn the investigation upside down. My information is out of the horse's mouth. Okay. And by the horse, you mean Lindley? We'll get to that. Okay. In January 2020, Lindley Rennick was emerging from a fresh trauma. Her boyfriend Brandon was in jail on charges of felony stalking.

Was there some relief with Lindley that he was behind bars? Yeah, Lindley was in a very vulnerable spot, and he knew that. More than two years had passed since Ben's murder, but investigators worked diligently on his case. Then, that winter, they got a call from a jailbird. It was Brandon Blackwell on the line. So, you know, a fight occurred between Brandon and Lindley. Brandon ultimately gets arrested.

And during that arrest, he decides it's time to call our investigators back because he feels it's the right time to tell the story that he knows that Lindley's told him in the past. If Lindley thought getting Brandon sent to jail meant her troubles with him were over, she was wrong. He was about to detonate a major bomb in her life. Brandon started by claiming to investigators that Lindley had blown their disputes out of proportion and she was making up lies about him. She's got him convinced that I'm this evil, savage human, and I'm the farthest thing from that.

The investigators promised to work with him if he helped them solve the case they'd been working for years. Ben's murder. My information is out of the horse's mouth. Okay. The whole situation. Brandon says as their relationship progressed, he wondered if Lindley knew more about Ben's death than she was saying. And, you know, I was like, just laid out like, you know, if it's going to go anywhere, you know, I need to know what really happened. He said Lindley eventually agreed to talk. They were in a cabin on vacation.

She put their cell phones in another room. Why did she pick? I mean, she was just paranoid. You know, just thought you guys were listening in on it. You know, it was real and what's not, so. Brandon already knew that Lindley and Ben's marriage had been far from perfect.

Now, she told Brandon that Ben was getting ready to call it off when he died. Ben was getting to the point where he was going to leave her. She was sucking money

out of him for her business and their relationship wasn't going well. But what Brandon said next was an explosive allegation. He said Lindley was so worried Ben would take the kids from her, she decided to do something drastic.

She hatched a plot to kill him. Yes, according to Brandon, Lindley was Ben's killer. And now, sitting in jail, accused of stalking, he said he was done keeping her secrets. Whatever she ended up, I could get two shits at this point. Yeah. What she's put me through. He said Lindley didn't do it alone.

She roped in an old boyfriend, someone she dated before marrying Ben. He worked odd jobs and had a history with drugs. His name was Michael Humphrey. How did she get Michael to get on board with this? She said that she just knew based on his past and other things that it's probably not too far from stuff he's been involved in before and the way the relationship ended and whatnot that he kind of owed her that. Owed Lindley, Brandon said, because Michael had gotten her hooked on painkillers. She didn't mention paying him to do it or anything like that?

As far as I know, there was no money involved. On the day of the murder, he told investigators Michael picked Lindley up at her spa, and together they drove out to the farm. And then it was Lindley who grabbed the gun and marched into the facility. Ben's in there, you know, cleaning, whatever, up against that back wall, and she walks in with the gun and Ben's like, what the f*** are you doing? And she just shoots him a bunch of times and leaves. Did she ever break down when she was telling the story or just non-emotional?

Pretty non-emotional, yeah. It wasn't like a remorseful, like... Almost like he deserved it and he made her do it type deal? Yeah, I mean, she just snaps in her head and makes up her mind. Lindley may not have been remorseful, but Brandon said he was. That living with a secret like that

for more than two years hadn't been easy. You know, ever since I found this stuff out, it's been in my head every f***ing day. Why do you think she told you? Like, I know you said because you were asking, but why do you think she trusted you to tell you? I guess, I don't know. I guess she came off as trustworthy.

You know, she just thought she could get away with her, you know. And I think just the way I presented it to her, like that I wasn't going to and didn't for a long time, you know, let it bother me like it should. Turns out what Brandon was saying made a lot of sense to the investigators. And if Lindley had anything to do with this, I want her sitting in that seat. That's where she deserves to be. Investigators got a warrant, and three days later, Lindley and her old boyfriend Michael were arrested and charged with Ben's murder.

For Ben's brother Sam, the news was a long time coming. How do you get word that Lindley has been arrested? They let me know the morning of that it was going to happen. And it was a huge relief knowing that there was going to finally be some justice. And I was like, oh my God, I just broke down. I just like, it can't be real. This is real. It just shook our world.

Lindley's family and friends were shaken too. They said her arrest was all wrong because Brandon's story wasn't true. And one of Lindley's lawyers would soon fight back. Pointing to jailhouse phone calls as evidence, Brandon was simply out for revenge. I'll find a burn that bitch. I mean, that's about all I know to do.

Do you believe Brandon Blackwell is a liar? Without a doubt. He's definitely a liar. Lindley Rennick was under arrest, charged with the murder of her husband, Ben. Her father couldn't believe it. Well, I thought, this is crazy. This can't be happening. Just, you know, I knew it wasn't true.

Lindell Gallatin says the daughter he raised could never have killed anyone, never mind the man her two eldest children called Dad. happened. Just, you know, I knew it wasn't true. Lyndall Gallatin says the daughter he raised could never have killed anyone, never mind the man her two eldest children called dad. The children are her life. She would do anything to protect them kids and to take care of them. That was what she lived for. And it wasn't just Lindley's loved ones who felt the police had it wrong. EMT Dee Wassman, who'd been at the scene the day Ben was killed, didn't buy it either. When I found out that Lindley had been arrested, I called her defense attorney and told them I did not think Lindley was guilty

and that if I could help in any way to please contact me. Remember, Dee is the person who told Lindley that Ben was dead. What was it about her that day that you felt compelled all that time later to make that phone call? She was genuine. There was something about her that I just could never get out of my head. It still hangs with me. Dusty Brashler was also in Lindley's camp. She's an investigator for the Missouri State Public Defender's Office. She met Lindley for the first time in the county jail. What's your first impression of Lindley? I've met with a lot of people accused of a lot of different crimes, and it just felt off. It felt wrong. To Dusty, Lindley was an unusually

straightforward client. I would ask questions. She would answer them. She never held back. She was an open book. It was easy to get information out of her. As Dusty dug into this case, she came to believe that Brandon was an angry ex-boyfriend who hoped to get out of jail, whatever it took. We requested his phone calls, his jail phone calls. The whole time he's saying, I'm going to make some journalist career. I'm going to f*** up Lindley's life, excuse my language, but he said he's going to ruin her. Lindley's defense provided dozens of those calls to Dateline. While many are mundane, some make no bones about how Brandon felt about Lindley. Maybe he's going to be mine. What's going to f***ing happen? I'll try to burn that bitch.

I mean, that's about all I know to do. He's just mad at the world, saying he's going to screw her life up. I don't want to watch Lindley's ass f***ing melt up there on the sand. Dusty said the call suggests that Brandon would have said anything to get out. Get the f*** out of this mess. Good, bad, ugly. Connie Sullivan, the attorney who Lindley hired to guide her through her stalking case with Brandon, agrees. You believe Brandon going to the police with this accusation about Lindley was all an act of revenge?

Revenge and in order to get a deal and get out of jail. He'd just been told he was going to be held there without bond until his trial date, which could easily have been six months away. Connie says Brandon had been threatening to point the finger at Lindley for some time. Lindley even documented it when she applied for her orders of protection against Brandon. When their relationship ended two years to the day after Ben's death, he threatened that if she took his child to go to the police and tell them that she'd murdered Ben. She was very open about that from the beginning. She made numerous police reports, all stating that that was one of his threats. And she testified to it under oath in front of two different judges. Brandon's attorney said his client never stalked Lindley and was talking

to police because he was upset about sitting in jail for something he didn't do. But if Lindley had really committed murder, Connie says, wouldn't she have scrapped the stalking case against Brandon to keep him quiet? Connie thinks the investigators bought Brandon's story way too quickly. I must say that they just swallowed it all hook, line, and sinker. They didn't investigate his motive to lie. They didn't listen to his jail phone calls. I was an assistant prosecutor for 10 years. I like to think I have a certain amount of being able to tell Lindley is not a murderer. What is it about Lindley? Why do you have a soft spot for her? You know, there's sometimes you meet somebody and you just click. Lindley was that kind of warm, open person. We hit it off. And she never lied to me. So what do you say to anyone who says she's playing you? That's what they think. And I understand why they think that. But it's

not true. But Corporal Faust said he and his team had been gathering the puzzle pieces for years. They just needed Brandon to put them together. After Brandon Blackwell spilled the beans, if you will, why did you believe him? Because he had an ax to grind with Lindley. We didn't really have to believe him. There's no way he could have known that. He couldn't make up a story with all our pieces that we'd gathered that he didn't know we had,

if that makes sense. All of our records, all the stuff that we hadn't released to anyone during another interview or to the public. He had all those pieces together. So it wasn't whether we believed him or not. It was just, that was it. It made sense. Right. But now, the case against Lindley would have to hold up in court.

And the man who was at the farm with Lindley that day would soon take the stand. She was at the end of the corridor, whatever you want to call it, posed up like this with a gun. On December 6, 2021, Lindley Rennick went on trial for Ben's murder. His brother Sam had been waiting for this day for years. We were definitely ready for this. We needed to seek justice for Ben.

We needed to see it through. But what Sam was not prepared to hear was how diabolical the crime actually was. The prosecutor said Lindley didn't just pull her old boyfriend into the plot to murder Ben. She roped in the manager of her spa, too, seen here in this promotional video for The Business. Ashley Shaw was the state's star witness. Investigators had spoken to Ashley early in the investigation, but did not realize the scope of her involvement until they spoke to Brandon Blackwell. Was Ashley given a deal?

She was. She was offered full immunity. If she would testify against Lindley and Michael? That's correct. And you did ultimately participate in attempting to kill Ben Reddick yourself, did you not? I did. Ashley said that leading up to the murder, Lindley had been confiding in her about troubles with Ben.

Fighting. Em emotional abuse. She says Lindley even said one day he sexually assaulted her while she slept. When she told you this, what was your reaction? I was shocked and felt sorry for her. Kind of hurt for her, I guess. She said Lindley told her she had to get away from Ben. But if she divorced him, he had the money and resources to take away her kids. She didn't really think of any other option,

and she asked if I could help her with murdering him. Why would you help your boss try to kill her husband? I think I felt sorry for her. It was a surreal situation, so it's kind of hard to explain what I was feeling at the time. According to Ashley, shooting Ben wasn't Lindley's original plan for murdering him. About a week before Ben's murder, Ashley said she got a handful of prescription painkillers and gave them to Lindley, who then mixed them into Ben's protein shake.

She called me and said that he was very sick all night, threw up, but he was still alive. Ashley said that after that plan failed, she and Lindley tracked down Lindley's old boyfriend, Michael. Then Michael and Lindley headed out to the farm to confront Ben. Do you recall about what time of day it was that she left the spa? It was afternoon two to three, somewhere around that time frame. Ashley also said Lindley asked her to provide an alibi. She said Lindley had intentionally left her phone at the spa. So while Michael and Lindley were on their way to the farm, Ashley used Lindley's Facebook account to send Ben a message.

Ashley didn't know exactly how the shooting happened at the farm. Feeling well, I'm going to lay down, I think is what it said. Can you pick the kids up from school? Ashley didn't know exactly how the shooting happened at the farm. When Lindley and Michael returned to the spa, she said Lindley made a beeline for the shower. She asked me to scrub her body and her hands really well, and she washed her whole body. She said Lindley initially told her that Michael had been the shooter, but later admitted she was the one who'd shot Ben. She said that Michael got too nervous or didn't want to do it, and so he handed her the gun and she actually killed him. And Ashley wasn't the only spa employee from that video

who said she knew about the murder before it happened. I'm Rachel. I'm with the Estheticians here. Employee Rachel Hunt told the jury Lindley had confided details to her as well. What did she tell you? Her and Michael Humphreys, Lindley and Michael Humphreys, were going to take a gun and go see Ben, and they said they were going to murder him. Could these ladies have stopped this murder from the spa? They could have. Anyone could have stopped this murder by calling 911, but they did not. To tell the jury what actually happened at the farm, the prosecution called their surprise witness. Call your next witness.

Michael Humphrey. Michael Humphrey. Michael and Lindley had been arrested for the murder at the same time, but now Michael was going to point the finger directly at Lindley. In his orange uniform, he told the jury he hadn't seen her in six or seven years when she showed up at his house and asked him to help kill Ben. Initially, I thought she was just exaggerating some, you know. Did you respond?

I told him that that was crazy. But then he said he ended up going with Lindley to the farm anyway. He said she told him she changed her mind about the murder and just needed support while she collected her things. Why would you help her in this manner? I thought that was going to be a peaceful resolution. According to Michael, he picked Lindley up after 2 p.m. on June 8th. A charge on her card showed they got gas on the way to the farm. When they arrived, he said Lindley told Ben a cover story about Michael being a high school friend who wanted to see his snakes.

What is his reaction? Can you see what his reaction is? He was just, I guess, momentarily hesitant as to, you know, just randomly showing up there, but was like, fine, that's fine, come on in. Michael said he had just walked inside when he heard the first shot. through there and she was at the end of the corridor posed up like this with the gun he said he ducked out the door as lindley continued to fire shots into ben she comes out the door i'm still standing there she runs around to the passenger side of the car and starts screaming at me to drive basically on their way back to the spa, he said Lindley was an anxious mess. She's, I'm gonna call it freaking out. The prosecutor said remarkably,

Lindley hadn't promised Michael a dime for his help with the murder. She hadn't offered Ashley or Rachel anything either. With all this testimony about Lindley's deceptions and so many firsthand accounts of her role in the murder, the case against her looked formidable. But defense attorneys Tim Hessman and Katherine Berger said all was not what it seemed. Right off the bat, I sort of said to myself, this is all witnesses. There's no DNA. There's no fingerprints.

No gunshot residue either. Lindley's hands had been tested after the murder and they were clean. They said the state's theory of motive just wasn't true. It's been said that Lindley was afraid because Ben had all the money that he would be able to put up a big fight for the kids and that she could lose out. That I don't think ever entered Lindley's mind. She said, no, my mom was a social worker. I know how this works. It takes a lot for courts to be willing to take kids away from their parents when those parents love them and are competent caretakers. The defense said the whole case against Lindley was based on the words of three people who had very good reasons to lie. Given what Lindley's employees, Ashley and Rachel, knew about the plot,

they were trying to avoid jail time themselves. The defense said the police leaned on Ashley in particular. Here is a woman that is inside of an interrogation room with no attorney, who's 29 years old, and is told expressly, if you continue to help Lenley Rennick and you do not help us, you're not going to leave this room. Now, who in that situation would not tell the police anything they wanted to hear? Really almost like a threat.

It was a threat. And Michael, who'd already been tried and convicted for Ben's murder months earlier, was getting a reduced sentence for his testimony. Instead of life without parole, he now has a chance to get out. But you're eligible for parole, right? Hopefully we'll not die in there. They also said Ashley's story just didn't ring true. Ashley Shaw claims she's approached and asked to murder a man, and she agrees for no reason and for no compensation to do that not once but twice. We don't think that that's believable. But how would they explain Lindley's gas station stop shortly before the murder?

Or Ashley's phony Facebook message to Ben? The defense said that the truth was that Lindley did know more about the murder than she told police. Lindley was about to tell a lot to answer for. The prosecutor said she'd had affairs, lied to the police, and shot her husband eight times. So the courtroom was buzzing when Linley took the stand. Can you please introduce yourself to the jury? Hey was buzzing when Lindley took the stand. Can you please introduce yourself to the jury? Hey, I'm Lindley Rinnick.

In her soft voice, Lindley admitted that, yes, she'd gone to the farm with Michael the afternoon Ben was killed, but her intention wasn't to end his life. It was to end their marriage. Why were you really there? To ask Ben for a divorce. You weren't going to kill Ben? No.

She said there was never any murder plot. Her marriage to Ben was in shambles and she'd been involved with other men. She wasn't proud of that. Do you regret it? Yes. And she said she did not want Ben dead. She claimed the poisoning story wasn't true, that she and Ben both drank a bad protein shake a week before the murder. Lindley also said she'd only asked Michael to come with

her to the farm because she was afraid of how Ben might react. And she said she was absolutely floored when Michael pulled out a gun. Lindley's testimony was that he was the one responsible for Ben's death. Michael turned around and I saw a gun in his hands. And then I heard shots ring out and I screamed and I ran outside. And then I heard more shots go off. And everything just went numb. She said she was in total shock and denial as they drove back to the spa. I mean, I didn't know what had happened.

That wasn't even a thought that was in my mind at that point, that Ben was dead or could be dead. I truly was just not there in my body or present for any of those moments. Lindley said it was only later when she got a call from her kids' school that she realized Ben might really be hurt. Is this when that, for lack of a better word, fantasy, that nothing had happened, started to crack for you? Yes. I just started to panic because Ben wouldn't not pick the kids up. But to the prosecutor, Lindley's story sounded preposterous. If you're willing to lie to the police about such a vital matter, why should these jurors

now believe you? I was lying to protect myself, and I told a lot of really awful lies just to do that. All I can do now is just sit up here and tell the truth. Plus, Lindley testified Michael threatened her so she'd keep her mouth shut. Her dad said she had good reason to be afraid. This was not a threat. This was a promise. You feel like he could kill her? Oh, I feel like he would.

Definitely. Most definitely. The jury deliberated for almost 12 hours, then sent the judge a message. They had reached a verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant, Lindley Rennick, guilty of murder in the second degree. What was her reaction in court? She just shocked. She crumbled. Lindley got 13 years for the murder, plus three on a related charge for a total of 16 years behind bars.

She could have been convicted of first-degree murder with a much longer sentence. Still, her father was despondent. With the health problems I got, I don't know whether I'll be alive when she gets out. Ben's loved ones thought the sentence wasn't nearly enough. We were hoping for first degree murder. Why do you think she didn't get first degree murder? I think that she put on a heck of a show. Lindley says she wasn't putting on a show, not on the stand, or to us, when we visited her at this maximum security women's prison north of St. Louis. She told us she had no motive

whatsoever to want Ben dead. Out of everybody here, I had the most to lose. Why did you have the most to lose? I mean, I lost everything with Ben dying. Lindley said she went to the farm to ask Ben for a divorce, but messages she sent him earlier that day didn't seem like they came from an unhappy wife. Why did you send Ben nude photos that day if you were planning on going there to talk to

him about separating? I don't have a very healthy relationship with sex or my body, and it is very much a way, and in that moment was a way, to put Ben in a good mood and make him happy. How would that continue to make him happy? It wouldn't continue to make him happy, but you've never tried to soften the blow? Not like that, no. Okay. We also wondered why she felt she needed to bring someone with her to the farm.

Why did you bring Michael with you? Since Ben and I's marriage was kind of falling apart and everything had kind of started escalating with him being a little bit more controlling and physical, Ashley had told me that she wanted me to have somebody that would be there with me so that nothing would get out of hand. But then why would Michael shoot Ben? I don't know.

Somebody told me they thought that maybe Michael was high and maybe Ben said something across to him. I don't know. You're the common denominator here between Michael and Ben. You brought Michael to the snake facility that day. Not to kill him, though. Did you ask him why did you kill him? No.

It just seems to me like you would want to know why or that there was a reason. Have you ever experienced any sort of trauma that just absolutely unearthed every part of the life that you have to where you don't know the ground that you stand on or the air that you breathe? Did you tell... Have you ever experienced that? Because if you haven't, I don't know. If you haven't, I don't know that anybody would understand. We also wanted to know why Lindley didn't call 911 as soon as she realized Ben had been shot. My hope would be that if I heard my husband getting murdered, that I would call 911. I would really hope that too. Why didn't you call 911? Why didn't you run in to help him? I ran away. I mean, I heard gunshots and I ran away. Did you kill Ben? I did not kill Ben. Did

you have Michael kill Ben for you? I did not have Michael kill Ben. I never wanted Ben dead. We also pointed out that four people implicated her in the plot. Are you saying that all four people in this case were lying? Then Michael, Brandon, Ashley, Rachel, all telling lies? Yes. And what do you say to anyone who says, you know, it's kind of hard to believe that all four people would be lying? Some don't even know each other. I can see how that would be hard. And, you know, but having walked through it

and lived it and seeing the motives and threats and intentions behind everyone, I don't think it's that hard. Lindley's eldest son and the daughter she had with Ben are being raised by her family. Brandon is raising the son he had with Lindley. All charges against him, including felony stalking, were dropped after Lindley's conviction. And Sam? He has no parents to lean on and no family farm to go home to. It's in the hands of new owners. Still, Sam is resilient. He's made a home of his own. You have had a life of tragedy.

There's been a lot of tragedy, yes. It is what it is. We've been through a lot. But I'm here. We made it. And we have to move forward. That's all for this edition of Dateline. And a reminder, we'll see you again Sunday at 7, 6 Central. And of course, I'll see you each weeknight for NBC Nightly News. I'm Lester Holt for all of us at NBC News. Good night.