Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Breakup

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

Keith Morrison talks to Josh Mankiewicz about Josh’s latest episode, “The Breakup.” In 2010, a California nurse was found dead in her home. Police thought they had a clear suspect, but soon discovered evidence that pointed them in a direction no one saw coming, one that kept our viewers and our correspondents guessing until the end. Keith plays Josh an extra clip from his interview with the detectives as they describe coming face to face with their initial suspect, and Josh answers viewer and listeners questions with Dateline assistant producer Jess Koernig.Listen to the full episode of "The Breakup" here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_thebreakup

Hello, I'm Keith Morrison, and we are Talking Dateline. Today, I'm here with Josh Mankiewicz. Josh Mankiewicz? Hello, Josh. I think this reversal in roles is kind of cool. Do you really? I do, yeah. You have to say hello, Josh, at that point.

That's your cue. Hello, Dateline audience. This episode of Josh's is called The Breakup. If you haven't seen it, it is the episode that appears right below this one on your list of podcasts. Or go there and listen to it or stream it on Peacock and then come back here after that. And today, Josh has an extra clip he's going to play for us that didn't make the show. And then even after that, Josh will be on with this episode's associate producer, Jess Koenig, to answer your questions about the show from social media. So just to recap, on the 16th of June 2010, a young nurse named Linnell Barsok was found shot to death in her home in Palmdale,

California. The police originally figured it was her boyfriend, Louis, but then in the middle of the investigation, a security tape turned up that changed the course of the investigation and changed the focus to a surprising new suspect, Linnell's best friend, Lorraine. It was a fascinating tale, actually. I mean, it bounced all over the place. You thought it was just going to be this person and then that person and the other person and the true whodunit.

Well, you know, women do not commit a lot of murders, particularly not a lot of violent murders. They more often find somebody else to do the job for them. Usually some hapless guy who ends up getting the blame, or at least that's the plan. This is a little bit different because Lorraine, in this case, committed the murder, but figured out a way to blame Linnell's boyfriend, Louis Bonheur. And here's the thing.

Louis was a great suspect. I mean, he's almost admitting to stalking her. You know, he follows her to the beauty supply store. Lorraine says she saw him at the house. And, you know, he's the kind of guy that ends up being the guilty party in these things. And you've got Ike in the middle of everything just to kind of be icing on the cake and jealous. Right. You don't know how he plays into this whole thing. I think Lorraine probably thought she'd done a good job. And she certainly threw a lot of suspicion at Lewis. Sure. I

wondered what it would be like to have been in her brain, not that I would want to be, when this murder occurred. And then she's going through the process of taking the body to the garage. There's blood all over the place. Cleaning up the blood on the floor enough so that they had to use luminol to expose it. Doing all the things she did and still managing to keep her head about her as she went into the police department to say her you know best friend was dead and she didn't have any idea she did definitely do a good job of acting and i think the plan or at least detectives believe that the plan was to get linnell's body into the trunk of the car and move it some other place but that lorraine discovered something that

a lot of people do, which is that lifting what is literally dead weight, another person's body, is very, very difficult unless you have someone to help you, and she did not. So she's kind of making up parts of this plan on her own. That's what made it all the way. I don't want to use the word impressive, but it's kind of, you know, that was thinking on your feet in a way.

It's diabolical. I mean, yeah. Why didn't police, when they discovered bullets in her purse, was that early on or was that later on in the case? It was very early on that they found bullets. And the same caliber as the bullets that, you know, caused her death. I'm not sure that at the moment they found the bullets that they knew what caliber of bullet caused her death so i'm not sure that at the moment they found the bullets that they knew what caliber a bullet caused her death because um that takes a while the the the slugs themselves were pretty mashed up but i mean look that made them wonder um she was able to explain her way out of it

and said i don't own a gun and they did check right away to see if she did own a gun and the state database came back that she did not own a gun so they thought all right away to see if she did own a gun and the state database came back that she did not own a gun so they thought all right well you know we're gonna let that go then later they after lorraine's under suspicion they checked the database again um and i guess it must have just been updated because this time it showed that she did own a gun and it was the same caliber as the one that had killed one out the uh the twist of the romantic involvement with lorraine that was a came out of the blue complete surprise yeah no one saw that coming no one knew um no no and uh yeah no i mean i mean what about a whole other thing for lewis to be angry and

jealous about and he wasn't he didn't know anything about that he just thought lorraine was a was it was her friend i mean they were they were hanging out together even after their relationship had ended. And I think Linnell, who clearly was a really nice, sweet person with a good heart from everything I can tell, you know, wanted to remain friends with Lorraine even after they were no longer involved. But that wasn't good enough with Lorraine even after they were no longer involved. But that wasn't good enough for Lorraine. And in fact, in a very strange piece of this story, Lorraine started impersonating Lanelle or Crystal, as she called her, when Lorraine was then out with other women. And we know this because other people, other women called to the sheriff's office and said, wait a minute, you said Linnell Barsock was killed. And I saw Linnell

Barsock's picture in the paper. That's not Linnell Barsock. I know Linnell Barsock. I went out with her and it's another woman. And then they show her Lorraine's picture. She's like, yeah, that's Linnell. I know her. I dated her and why lorraine did that i don't know it does not appear to be any part of the let's frame lewis or let's cast suspicion on ike storyline but there's almost some psychiatric quirk about uh people who do that because there are some who are so into somebody else so so fascinated by them that they just have this kind of desperate need to be them. And their need to be themselves is much less profound. Lorraine invented this entire backstory. She said that she was Linnell's best friend and they'd known

each other for 10 years. In fact, they'd only met a little while earlier and they'd had this affair uh and then when they're at the sheriff's station lanelle's mom passes lorraine in the hallway and says who's that and they said well that's you know that's lanelle's best friend and the mom is like i don't know that's not what i was but i've never met that woman before or heard of her i don't't know who that is. And that was one of the things that started the sheriff's thinking like, wait a minute, there is a great deal to this narrative that we've been told that is not true. And I will say this, like, like for a really long time, Lorraine was very good at telling that story and making it sound believable. Good enough at it that they didn't spend the time to kind of try to break it down, which, as you know, people tell you stories all the time and sometimes they're true and quite often they're not. You know, one of the things that we see on Dateline all the time is that, you know,

the murderers that we generally cover, these are not the pros. These are not hit men. These are people who have never killed before. And what they discover regularly is that killing somebody and covering it up and selling a phony story about your own involvement to police or to investigating officers is much more difficult than you think it is. And in this case, I think we found somebody who was actually quite good at it. Most people are not. Almost good enough.

Let's take a little break. And when we come back, we will listen to that extra little bit of sound from Josh's interviews in this case. So, Josh, a couple of things the um the first interview with lewis the interview the police did how did he present himself he certainly seemed on uh in in your show to be beside himself when he heard what happened to lanelle you know detectives watch potential suspects or persons of interest very closely in the moment where they're telling them that the person's dead because they want to see. Sure. They already know it. Are they faking it? When I heard the reaction in that police interview, I wondered whether the police would think that was an overreaction, whether it was, you know, extreme faking.

Right. I mean, he reacted the way you would normally react so they were thinking to themselves well he's good if he if he's the killer he's good at this but like nothing else about him sort of said i'm a smart clever killer like he just didn't seem like that and so that i think probably was a little bit in his favor but look i mean he was you know doing all this stuff like stealing the phone. And there'd been a previous law enforcement call at that address. That didn't help him.

He had a scratch on his face. That didn't help him. All of that is the kind of stuff that those are the building blocks of a murder case. And in fact, let's just assume that the video security system at Craig and Auto Parts wasn't working that day. Yeah, that would be that. Or if Lewis had thrown out the receipt and couldn't remember the name of the store because it's from the receipt that they knew which store to go to. So let's say there wasn't any tracing with the store and the system wasn't working. You know, Lewis is the kind of the store because it's from the receipt that they knew which store to go to. So let's say there wasn't any tracing with the store and the system wasn't working. You know, Lewis is the kind of guy who, before technology changed, used to get locked up.

Oh, no question about it. That's the question is, how much farther would that investigation have gone if Lewis could not prove his alibi? Did he supply the receipt right away when he was questioned by the police no he didn't supply it at all they found it in a search of his truck it's not like a credit card receipt i don't think i think it was like like the kind of receipt that comes out of the cash register so uh who actually was there doing the buying that you've got to go there and consult the security tape but they did and that's's Lewis. And the LA to the Antelope

Valley is not a drive you ever want to take when you need to be one of those two places in a short period of time. And they concluded pretty quickly that he couldn't have done it. How long did he remain in jail after they made that discovery? I don't know. I want to say a couple of weeks. It was not overnight. I mean, it was a period of time. So this is a clip from Josh's interview with the investigators, Joe Espino and Bob Kenney. They're talking about Lewis's reaction when he was released from jail. And this tells you something about the man's character. We were not expecting a very warm welcome from Lewis. Because you locked him up for something he didn't do.

We had put him in county jail for murdering a woman he loved. Lewis came over to us, and he had tears coming down his face. And he hugged both myself and my partner, Joe Espino. To be honest with you, I was expecting a lawsuit to come our way. Instead, I got a hug. He shook my hand, he hugged me, and he said, thank you, thank you, thank you. He told us that in his countries from Haiti, if the police arrest you, they throw away the key. There's no way that you get out of it.

So he said that he thought that would happen to him here in America. Pretty astonishing, really. The other question is, and I think about this too, because some people released from prison in this country who have been there unjustly wind up with reparations. They sue, they get some money from the municipality, from the police, from somebody. Did that ever happen in this case? I don't think so. I don't think so. I think Lewis was just happy to be out and be able to live the rest of his life. What did you learn about or tell me your impressions of Ike, the other guy? Hang on one second. Why can I not find the thing that I had that I'd written about all the stuff in this case? Just a second.

You know, this is usually me, actually. I know. We've totally changed roles here. Well, I can't find it. What I remember about Ike was that he was a, Ike was a flight nurse. Ike worked in like medevac things. He was from sacramento and uh i believe that lineal and ike met online which was the same way that lineal and lorraine met was online and they had been

recently seeing each other and ike was very interested in in lineal but ike to his uh his great lucky credit he was somewhere where it it was obvious that he had a really proverbial ironclad alibi. That they found out pretty quickly. Yeah. One of the things I'm proudest of in this story was that I was able to get the phrase, I like Ike, into the story. I heard that, yes. But I liked Ike too. Yeah.

How could you not? My last question. Tell me about Lynelle. She was a sweetheart. She had a good heart. She reached out to other people. And her relationship with Lewis began because she saw him waiting at a bus stop and gave him a ride. She had a big heart.

I mean, it's not surprising that everybody loved Linnell. They did. Marcel told you a story about some shoes Linnell gave him. Didn't come into the episode. Do you remember that detail? He admired some shoes in a store, but he didn't have the money for them. And she bought them for him. His oldest child, his first child's a daughter, and he named her after Linnell.

Which is quite something. He clearly cared for her a great deal. What did she want to do with her life? Well, she was a nurse. And she wanted to sort of move up in that profession, maybe become an NP, a nurse practitioner. And I don't have any doubt that she would have achieved whatever she set her mind to.

She was a hard worker, well-liked. Everybody we spoke with who knew her was kind of brokenhearted by this. All right, now we're going to take a quick break, and then Josh will be back with Dateline Associate Producer Jess Koenig to answer your questions about the show from social media. okay welcome back um keith had to leave because a guy is coming over to detail six or seven of his maseratis um so i'm uh joined by dateline producer Jess Kernick, who worked on this story to answer some of the questions that you have from social media. Hi, Jess. Hey, Josh. Thank you for having me.

Have you been on Talking Dateline before? I have not. I'm a first timer. Okay. Well, so just a little primer here. If you want to be like me, try to answer all the questions and talk to the audience. And if you want to be more like Keith and just remain silent for most of the broadcast. A little bit of both.

Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. So up to you. All right. Uh, let's see. Let's take the first one. Uh, Tiffany Mills from Facebook says, wow, Lynette had a crazy woman on Craigslist.

I always felt like Craigslist was for sketchy characters. Well, I'm going to say almost everybody that saw this story said to me, yeah, you don't want to meet people on Craigslist. I mean, on Craigslist, even the couch you're going to get is sketchy. Yeah, I don't think I would be looking for any dates on Craigslist myself. Rukia, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, says from Instagram, why was this one only an hour? It was so interesting. It should have been the regular two hours.

Was there anything you wish that you could have included but had to cut for time? Yeah, maybe. I mean, there was more of the interview with Lewis we could have used. But, you know, I actually thought that it boiled down pretty well to an hour. Yeah, I think so, too. If anything, it would have been kind of interesting to get more details about lorraine or from the trial but aside from that i think everything was pretty balanced out um one of the great um social media names now mary queen of scotch

uh excuse me just a second m, you've got great taste. Um, yes. Uh, thank you. Uh, Mary queen of scotch says Lorraine reminds me of Pam hop. Uh, well, murderous, dishonest, uh, lies about a relationship, uh, frame somebody else. That's all from the pam hup playbook a lot of similarities josh yeah i can't say that lorraine attempted to impersonate a dateline producer the way pam hup did but that's true that's that's pretty unique that's almost the only thing uh but otherwise yeah i mean lorraine definitely checks a lot of those pamhut boxes

absolutely okay so on to the next one uh joanna at joanna 531894705 that's a very catchy name that's not quite as good as queen of scotch but go ahead it's very good i wonder what those numbers stand for there's got to be meaning here but why does this detective look familiar has he been on before different case well uh i'm not sure whether uh joanna's referring to joe espino or bob kenny um both of them are veteran detectives uh kenny's retired uh uh joe is still a detective with la county sheriffs um but he has not been on dateline before i'm i have not interviewed either one of those guys before maybe he just has a famous doppelganger out there entirely possible yeah all right time is short do something at five one so what i wonder if they checked to

see if the letter was in lanelle's handwriting they did check to see where the letter was in lanelle's handwriting uh the prosecution brought in a handwriting expert, and the results were that Lorraine had written the letter, not Linnell. A couple of little things we did not mention in the episode. Linnell spelled her name L-A-N-E-L-L, but she capitalized the N. But in that letter, it is a lowercase N. And that was evidence that was used at trial against Lorraine. Yeah. And Deanna Howard on Facebook also noticed something else about the letter. She says, I noticed there was a PS that had been scribbled out too. That was strange. The PS said, I'm taking the TV. You know, you got to remember that Lorraine's plan was to kill her now, get her out of the

house, put her in the trunk of the car, take her out of the desert or somewhere, dump her, hide her body. Lorraine, I think underestimated what window of time she had before Lewis was going to come back. So, um, so I think, you know, as a result of all of that, Lorraine was making this up on the fly and maybe she originally planned to take the TV and dump it with the body and thus give that letter sort of, you know, added authenticity and then realized, I do not have enough time to do any of those things. And I'm not going to take the TV and I'm just going to tell this other story. So that may have been why it was crossed out. And onto our last one, stop the squeal at luck box winner. It often amazes me how these defense attorneys can try to get an obvious murder off scot-free and pin the crime on an innocent person. How do they live with themselves? They live with themselves because they're a vital part of the criminal justice system. And if you're ever charged with a crime, you're going to really want a good defense attorney. And I know a lot of

defense attorneys, and they are all honorable people. This system depends on having two advocates, one on the side of the people and one on the side of the accused. And the people are not always right. We've done enough stories about people who are wrongfully accused, locked up, sent away for a long time to know that they don't always get the right person. I say this all the time. Money spent on competent criminal defense is almost never money wasted. And because if you're not guilty,

you really want to make sure you have good representation because the deck is stacked very heavily in favor of police and prosecutors. Jess, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. That's Talking Dateline for this week. And remember, if you have any questions for us about Dateline or about our stories or anything else, you can reach out to us on social media at Dateline NBC.

Now, here's the bad news. Dateline's going to be off Fridays for the next few weeks during NBC's coverage of the Olympic trials, which you should absolutely watch as assiduously as you do Dateline. But you can still tune in on Wednesdays for a new episode of Talking Dateline on all the podcast streaming platforms. See you next time on Talking Dateline and eventually see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.