Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: The Family Plot

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Keith Morrison joins Josh Mankiewicz to discuss his episode, “The Family Plot,” about the murder of Matt Restelli, who was lured from California to Utah and shot to death inside his mother-in-law’s home. Josh and Keith dig into the twisted details of the case, the mistakes that quickly unraveled the family’s story, and the powerful hold prosecutors said mastermind Tracey Grist had over her children. They also highlight the striking similarities to another Dateline case, one Tracey herself had been searching online before Matt’s murder. Plus, Josh plays a podcast-exclusive clip from Tracey’s police interview the night Matt was killed. And Josh and Keith answer your questions from social media and reflect on 35 seasons of Dateline.Have a question for Talking Dateline? Send us a DM @DatelineNBC or leave a voicemail at [phone]. Your question could be featured in an upcoming episode.Listen to the full episode of “The Family Plot”: https://swap.fm/l/dl_thefamilyplotWatch Josh Mankiewicz meet Josh Mankiewicz: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline/video/being-josh-mankiewicz-270551621647  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi there, I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Talking Date Line, and we are joined today by the illustrious Josh Mankowitz. Actually, the real Josh Mankiewicz as opposed to some fakery Josh Mankiewicz, which I've been seeing on social media lately. I'm Josh Mankiewicz. I'm Josh Mankiewicz. Will the real Josh Mankiewicz, please, stand up. I think an argument can be made that that's the real Josh Mankiewicz. Wait a minute. You're the faking guy. That's right. The other one was the real one. He looked like a nice fella. So I'm here in Boston to meet in person somebody that I really only know from the online world. And here's the thing. His name is Joshua Manquitz. Alert viewers in Dateline may have noticed that's also my name. So I thought it was time that we meet.

Josh Manquins. Josh Manclitz. Josh Manclitz. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. You're taller than I expected. You're taller than almost any other Mankewitz that I know. Now, anybody who has not seen this reunion of the two Josh Mankowitz is on social media, might be able to find it. Anyway, we have Josh McEwis to talk about the episode, our season premiere of our 35th season.

It was called the family plot. The story begins with a man shot to death in the foyer, I guess, or the hall of his in-law's house, mother-in-law's house. and then there's a long and twisted investigation to see what happened. And I will say that from very early on in this episode, nobody else may have noticed it, but I sure did, that that young detective, A, was very impressive, and B looked so much like a guy you could see on Scandinavian murder mystery stories in television named Olofer Oliveson.

Have you ever seen him? Oh, he's the star of a trap. Which is... Exactly that. Iceland, said in Iceland, so good. But the doggedness and the sincerity were also shared traits. And I was, you know, I was an admirer of that. You did a great job.

Yeah. Well, anyway, before we get to the story, why don't you listen to the episode if you haven't yet? You can find it right below this one or stream it on Peacock and then come right back here. And when you come back, we'll have more from Tracy Grist's police interview. The night Matt was killed and later we'll answer some of your questions. some social media. All right, let's talk Dateline. This was a good one. This was just, I love the investigative part of it. It really followed this investigative trail. What was your impression of the thing when you began to hear the details? Well, I mean, it is, it is mind-boggling when you sort of

look at this. I mean, they lured this guy from California to Utah. You know, mom sort of involved as many members of her family as she could in doing that. And they all kind of, I guess, did what she said. I guess they were kind of used to that over the years. And then they tell this phony story that Matt, the victim in this, you know, came in aggressively and pushed Kevin up against a wall and he had a knife. And like instantly, you know, there's things wrong with that scenario. I mean, it fell apart from the beginning. I mean, Kevin, the brother who fired the show, shot. The shots, he was, Matt was shot seven times. He was taken into custody that night, despite his argument that it was a self-defense shooting. The cops didn't believe that for a

second. And Kevin, I think, was never out of custody again. Like, he went in instantly, and that was the end of that. And then the only question was, who else was involved? The hapless, Kevin, I think you could say. And by the way, if they thought they were going to get away with it, that plot started crumbling from the beginning. You know, he's shot through the wrist, but he's still holding the knife. He's holding the knife in his wrong hand. He took off his shoes before he came into the living room, right? Something that home invaders generally don't do.

Well, they clearly were a bunch of amateur murderers. No question about that. I think the plan was to just make it sound like Matt was an angry, you know, vengeful guy. And he, you know, came over, barged in. You know, they'd taken the screen door off to make it easier for him to come in the house. And she says to him in the calls, like, you're coming in, right? You're going to come in. I need your help with the kids, you know, getting all their stuff. And the kid's stuff was not packed, which would, which it would have been if Matt's going to collect them and they're going to go home. Of course. Everything about this fell apart. You know, there are blankets on the furniture to keep blood spatter off it. That's not something you generally do. Kevin, who fires the shot, has a lot. holster in his pocket. I don't think you walk around your house at night with your gun in a

holster on your hip unless you're planning to or expecting to use it. That definitely stood out for police. No question. That's the old checkoff notion that if a gun makes an appearance, it's going to be used in the next act. And it was indeed in this story. Yeah. But the, I'm interested in the architecture of this family. My impression was, and I'd like to know your impression, Is it all went back, as you said, to the mother. What was your sense of her character, her personality, or maybe her psychiatric quirks? She had gotten away with a lot of crimes, smaller than this, as far as we know.

But she'd gotten away with a lot of crimes, like all her life. Some of them she justified by saying she needed to feed her family, so that's why she shoplifted. But she also stole money from her friends, from people she knew regularly. And so I said we can no longer be friends. Tracy denied stealing from Terry but seemed fine with that long friendship being over, as long as she didn't get into trouble. She has a way of talking her way out of things that blows my mind.

So what I think she thought is that I am smarter than law enforcement kind of in the aggregate. and if we tell a plausible story, we'll get away with this too. Now, the issue of why Matt Ristelli needed to be executed is it can't be explained. The only issue is to save her daughter Kate some headache and heartache and financial responsibility in a divorce. But like, this was not a terrible guy. I mean, mom didn't like it. But, like, there was nothing about Matt Ristelli that should have made anybody think, let's kill him.

So the mother was a, not only a thief and a lawbreaker, but she was, it seems to me, or at least from what I could discern, remarkably manipulative. She had a Svengali-like power over her kids. She reminds me of Sante Kimes about who we did a number of stories. Yeah. And in the similarity also includes the fact that the children are still besotted with their mother. The sons in Kimes' case still talk about how much they love her, even though she did all these dreadful things and made them do dreadful things. And I was fascinated by Terrellin and how she, you know, wanted to believe that there was nothing terribly nefarious going on. Terlin is a wonderful character.

And also, I think basically a very good person. I think nobody wants to believe the worst about their family. And I think Terrilyn has a lot in common with a lot of other families. I think it's very hard to believe that this mom that you've seen sort of get away with little things over the years has now graduated to the big time and is doing a murder. And, you know, when Kevin was arrested and then, and then Kate, I think Terrellon still expected very quickly. The police were going to realize they'd made two giant mistakes and set them free. You know, you can see her in this episode sort of starting to change the way she thinks about her mom and sort of what hell she sort of wrought on her brother and her sister. and other people in the family too.

And, I mean, that was the huge value of Terlin is that she's sort of changing her opinion. Maybe at the same time, the audience is kind of realizing, wow, this is a lot bigger than I thought. And then, you know, at the end, I think Terrellon came to and does realize the way things really are. Now, you know, I mean, there was, there are people in this story in the Restelli. family who believe that Terrellon has some culpability here for which she's never been charged. But there really is no evidence that Terrellon had anything to do with this, except it was her idea, apparently, to put the air tag in Matt's truck. But that was at the time when she believed that Kate was escaping an abusive relationship. So that kind of made sense in that context.

Her older sister and her mother kept telling her again and again with an awful, awful person. The husband was and that he, you know, was dangerous and that if you're going to leave this man, you better do it without announcing it because if you announce it, he might kill you. I mean, it was that kind of serious allegation. And why wouldn't she believe it? You know, she wasn't. Right. I mean, nobody wants to believe the worst about their family.

All right. Well, speaking of Tracy, when we come back, after this little break, we'll hear more from Tracy's police interview, the night Matt was killed. How does the Adelson case intersect with this one? And how did you find out about it? You know, we were already interested in this story. But then we found out that Tracy, the mom, had searched online. The cops found this on her devices.

It searched online, new Dateline episode on the Adelson case. you know, various searches about Donna Adelson. And, you know, the two cases are so similar, right? I mean, there's a divorce. There's a contentious custody battle. Now, in this case, the divorce hadn't even filed yet, right? And it was just sort of thinking down the road to like, what's going to happen if there is a divorce and where are we going to live

and who's going to get custody and where the kid's going to be. but there was, in this case, an impending divorce and an impending custody battle, and there was an actual one with the Adelson's. But in the same vein, it is the mom, the matriarch of the family, Donna in Florida and Tracy in Utah, who sort of puts this conspiracy in emotion and involves other people, some members of the family. In this case, it was all members of the family. But these two cases are remarkably stunningly familiar. And, you know, look, I mean, sort of my, you know, the question I keep coming back to is when I say to the prosecutor, did they miss the part of our story where those people get caught and convicted? And he just kind of shakes his head and says, I think that Tracy thought that she could do it better than Donna Adelson. But there's also something where I've seen it before, and I don't really wish to cast aspersions on mothers-in-law, but there are certain.

people who do not like, whether it's father-in-law, mother-in-law, do not like the person who's marrying into the family. Sure. And that dislike will get to the point where something has to be done about that person. And, I mean, you just see how it all developed. Yeah, in that, this family, right? Hmm. And Matt's family, they have a lot in common, right?

There are plenty of situations in which one or both families, believe that this marriage between their children shouldn't have happened and should end. And that is going on all over the United States. And that is also where, you know, sometimes, you know, manipulation of children by their parents for their own ends happens, right? Sure. You know, your mother and I have thought a lot about this. And we think that you and so-and-so should not be together anymore.

and I think that you are, this is a lost cause for you, son or daughter, and, you know, you should get out. I think that goes on all the time. You know, parents sort of trying to run their lives by remote control, run the lives of their kids. But for it to go to murder, well, that's a little different. Yeah. That's something you don't see every day. It's a reach.

Yeah. All right. I was fascinated also with Kate's behavior. I wouldn't have imagined it, but her infidelities were kind of stunning. How long did it take after he was killed before she was out there looking for? I mean, Matt wasn't even in the ground when she was going on her first day. It's, I mean, first of all, there's no evidence that we know of that Matt Restelli was unfaithful to his wife during their marriage. That certainly didn't come out.

there is plenty of evidence that Kate was stepping out all the time on him as the years went by. And then, you know, right, after men, he's shot to death in her mom's living room, right? And she has to see his body as she leaves the house, right? This is assuming that she has nothing to do with it, right? She's still going out on a date, like within a week. I have to say that is a coldness that I'm

maybe I should be familiar with it but I'm not No, that's a new one on me that kind of speed with which the behavior begins Yeah And you would think that she would be aware

that maybe people might be keeping track of her activities That's one thing that you sense that they sort of didn't think about was you know, a murder investigation doesn't end the night the person is killed and the body taken away. What Kate was thinking is sort of hard to fathom.

I think she was recording Matt's, her phone calls with Matt because she thought it was going to turn up in court someday as evidence in a divorce case. Why she kept those recordings, I don't understand. I mean, this was not an impossible plot to unravel. I mean, the evidence was pretty much sitting there on their devices. And I would like to point out, police did not get all those devices the first day. There was several days went by when those devices and all that damaging information was still in the, it was. still the property of Tracy and Kate. Now, again, if you delete that stuff, a season digital forensic examiner might be able to recover or at least reveal that it had something like that had been deleted.

So, I mean, there is that. But there clearly was a sort of disconnect from the evidence that existed to sort of Kate and Tracy believing, well, we're home free. And even if we're not home free, Kevin's going to take the fall, not us. That was fascinating how not only would Kevin take the fall, but maybe he'd kill himself afterwards, and that was okay with the mother? They were sort of ready to sacrifice him. I mean, the sense you get from listening to them

is that they saw Kevin as damaged an asset to be sort of used the way they wanted to without any concern for his. welfare or future, and essentially expendable. And, you know, he's Tracy's son, just like Kate and Terlin, are her children. It's, it's horrifying, frankly, to think about a mom thinking about her kids like that. But that is apparently where we are. Yeah, I guess so. Then that phone call from jail that Kevin, you know, revealed that he was in.

part of the plot. Let me remind all viewers and listeners of something that is very widely known in criminal justice work, which is when you make a phone call when you're incarcerated, you Keith, I think, might particularly want to pay attention to this, just because I, you know, there is a placard on the wall in nearly every correctional facility that I have ever seen that says, Essentially, your phone call is not private. It's being recorded and it's going to be listened to by other people, something to that effect. Like, this is not, do not think of this as just private line to the outside.

The only time you really have any privacy is when you're speaking with your attorney. But you're talking to anybody else in your family or anyone of your friends, they're listening. And I think Kevin thought that because he had already been acquitted, of conspiracy, right, that he could then essentially confess to it, which is what he did. And, you know, if he makes that call before the verdict, well, then that's evidence. It comes in. He gets convicted. Right. The character I liked in addition to your young detective was the brother. Mark.

We had two brothers, but yeah, Mark was the one that, yeah, was primarily on the piece. Both seemed like fine people, but there was something about Mark that really got under your skin. He's also, he's a very good guy. And I think, you know, as is frequently the case when this kind of thing happens, people are left with sadness and anger and regret. Because, you know, he hadn't spoken to his brother in a while because the Kate thing was. was so unpleasant and he was like, you know, I just can't deal with this. When you, you know, I don't know that he said these words to Matt, but I think his, I think what he, I think his feeling was when you finally deal with this cancer in your life, which is your wife, then we're going to have a relationship again. And again, that is an understandable

thing. You cannot fault anyone for wanting to protect themselves and their family and their kids from sort of the psychological damage of being exposed to somebody in your life that is sort of damaging to others, right? Exposing them to this other terrible relationship that's playing out in front of them. So I think he thought like, look, you know, when you get right with your life, we'll be back. And then, you know, Matt's gone. And I think he's thinking it was, oh, you know, I should have called him. Well, I mean, I understand that.

I don't think it would have changed anything. But it's a, it's a very understandable reaction. Sure it is. And now he raises the children, which, now he's got Matt's kids. And, you know, I mean, that's telling you what kind of person Yeah. Right. He is.

Right? Because that, I mean, that more than whatever he did with that relationship with his brother and Kay, stepping up now and raising man's kids, like, that tells you who he is. You know, that great old expression that Murphy came up with, it's not about the murder, it's about the marriage. It applies so well, but it is, it's shorthand. The murder is about so much more than just the marriage. It's about all kinds of, you know, psychiatric difficulties that too many people face in life. You know, a guy I know as a homicide detective says that he can classify all murders into the motive.

Is money, love, or pride, right? I'm doing this for the insurance money or I'm doing this because I don't love you anymore but I do love this person and I want to be with them now or it's pride and this is pride there's no financial windfall here for anybody with Matt Ristelli being killed this is not about love Kate was not in love with somebody else

I kept waiting for the insurance payout that there was going to be some several million dollar policy or something but this appears to be about pride, power, and control, which was sort of who Tracy was and who she'd been for a long time, I think. We've talked about Tracy, but we also have more from her interview with police. The night Matt was killed. At this point, investigators are still trying to figure out what happened, but the officer already seems to think Tracy knows more than she is telling him.

So he's on to her. Let's listen. I am so in shock. Did his parents know? Did someone call me? I assume someone has at this point. I've only been here with you, to be honest, so all that information I don't even know myself.

So just to be like, candid, I kind of feel like you do know a little bit more than your Latin on? Nope. Nope. It was, he appeared. I was in the kitchen and I guess I'm more talking about with kind of stuff with with Kevin with Kevin nope not at all no idea where he was no okay okay well again honesty it's it's the best policy I'm tell I almost know nothing well I just wanted to come in here

and see if you did remember because again like I said I know you were seeing like a lot of I don't knows and so I just wanted to see if you remember remembered anything else and talking with a little bit, but nothing comes to mind at all. I interacted with with Matt for all, like, maybe three seconds. Mm-hmm. And I didn't see Kevin, and Matt went around the corner, and by the time I got, I don't even know, I didn't see anything, all I heard was noise. What were the noises that you were hearing? The shots?

That was the... There was no conversation, no confrontation at all. Not that I heard. Okay. Gotcha. Honesty is the best policy. Yeah. Not apparently in that family.

No. Apparently not. I mean... Yeah. Fascinating to listen to her answering questions from the officers. The soft, spoken, calm, composed sort of demeanor. That may it sound like she was almost... She doesn't sound like a murderer.

No, she's got a whole act. I mean, it's not hard to see why she sort of got away with things and was able to kind of talk her way out of trouble repeatedly. And it's a couple of things. One is it's sort of that persuasive, gentle manner that she has, right? And she is smart. She is not a dumb person. I mean, they made some dumb mistakes, but she's not dumb. No. Well, I can see why this tale of family dysfunction would be the season premiere as quite a story.

Where does it, you know, among family stories you have covered, how does this one rate? I would say right near the top. I mean, it is mind-boggling. Well, when we come back, let's have a look at some of the social media questions that we got from this episode. Okay, now we're going to answer some of your questions and comments from social media. First, we have an audio message from a dateline viewer who did not leave their name. Hmm. I wonder why. Let's listen to that. Hi, I just watched the recent episode called the Family Plot, and I'm curious to know what

flight or freeze spectrum is. I've heard of the flight or flight response, but I'm not familiar with flight or freeze. free spectrum. And then also, there's so many questions that I had about this episode and comments, but one thing that I want to comment on that brought me the tears was Josh McAwick talking to Katie and Kevin's father and encouraging him that there's so much more to life to live despite the tragedies that have unfolded. And I did cry. I cried. I cried a little bit. Thank you. It was a nice little moment that you had with him, actually. Stan, yeah.

I mean, first of all, like, you and I, like, we're accustomed to asking the questions in these interviews. Generally, we are not asked questions by the people we interview. And certainly, we're not asked questions the way Stan asked me that question, which is like, you're kind of an expert on this. What's going to happen to me? That, I've never heard that before. You being the investigative reporter, and you've seen some. stuff like this all the time. How am I supposed to move on from this? Does that make sense when I'm

asking you? There's a myth out there that some legal proceeding can somehow turn the clock back to when your kids were not convicted murderers and Matt was still alive. You will, because you have other children, figure out a way to go forward from this. So I was definitely unprepared. I'm glad that I actually did answer that so that that made me very happy and that's sort of why I included it because it was so unusual like that just I've never had anything like that happened in all the years of Daytonland somebody asked me you know how am I going to deal with this over the years and I know you know this because you've seen all these people who've gone through this um so I'm I was glad that I was able to help him at all because he's having a very tough time I mean

those are his kids too. And he will. He will for some time. I mean, lots of us have been through this kind of thing. And it doesn't go away. It never goes away. You just have to figure out to deal with it. The other part of her question is what Tracy describes as the, what does she say, the fighter freeze?

The fight or freeze. Yeah. In the psychological terms, it's frequently talked about the flight, fight, fight, freeze or fawn syndrome and it's all sort of you know responses that different people have from their sympathetic nervous systems to how they react to a particular trauma

and so you know Tracy's saying you know when when when this trauma happened and by the way I don't anybody believes this when Tracy's saying when the shots rang out I froze that's why I took so long to call 911 Again, this is one more thing that they clearly did not plan for.

Other people are going to hear the shots. Other people are going to call 911. The amount of time that you think you have, I think they were waiting to make sure that Matt was dead. That's what I think. I think they were waiting to make sure that he couldn't testify, that he couldn't give his side of the story. And then they put the knife in his hand, the wrong hand, unbelievably dumb. The wrong way and the wrong hand, yeah. Right, facing the wrong way and the wrong hand.

And I think only then did they call 9-1-1. And they were pretty surprised. I think Tracy was pretty surprised to hear from the 911 operator. Yeah, we already know about it. We're on our way. And then they were there like that because they'd already had a big lead time. Here's a question from 209 K-KLA on Instagram. Interesting name.

Does the grandfather, Kate's dad, have any contact with the kids? he seemed to love Matt and knew his daughter and ex were trouble. The short answer is, I don't know if he's having any contact with Matt's kids. I know that the, I mean, I don't think there's a lot of contact between those two families at all. The caveat to that might be that, like, Stan's not really a part of that family anymore and hasn't been for a long time. So maybe he will. but I'm actually unaware of any contact that he has with his grandchildren. At Bobby G62 said,

I was wondering about the knife in his hand. Was it tested for DNA to see who all touched it? It was put there, in my opinion. Yeah, it had a mix of DNA on it. They did test it, but it didn't prove that it was Tracies and it didn't prove that it was Kate. Marsha Barrett said, this one was a tough watch. This poor man was set up so coldly by his own in-laws.

I do have a question. Did the police do gunshot residue tests on the mother, daughter, and son? Just to verify it was Kevin who actually pulled the trigger. Well, no, because, you know, Kevin, like, admitted to it. I mean, there wasn't any question about whether or not anybody else pulled the trigger. And also, we don't know what happened in the moments after, even if you believe Tracy Kate and Kevin's story. We don't, it's not clear what happened in the moments after he was shot. Like, if you fire a gun in self-defense and then hug your mom because this terrible thing just happened, you can transfer some of that gunshot residue to them, right? So, I mean, that wouldn't necessarily prove anything either way. It goes all over the place, yeah. But no one, no one denied that Kevin actually pulled the trigger. This wasn't about who shot Matt Ristelli. It was about the plot that got Matt Ristelli into that living room.

Well, now we have some comments. At Spoonie Lupin, which a name I absolutely love, said, I don't think they're very good true crime fans. They wouldn't have made all those rookie mistakes. Have to agree. No argument. No. At Shebuster 85 said, poor Matt, he didn't deserve this.

Well, I have to agree with that also. No one deserves this. No. And then It's My Gray Life said, this was such a great season premiere, Josh, take a bow and lester oh my gosh this is going to be a great season i just know it and then keith i can't wait to hear from you well that may happen at some point but i i agree this is going to be a great season our 35 i mean 35 years josh it's been a while right i mean look look when you and i joined this program in 1995 i did not think to myself oh yeah now you're set this is the this is the this is

this is it. You'll do this the rest of your career until you retire. I, you know, nothing lasts 35 seasons in in television. Yeah. It's very, very, very rare. And that is, that's partly because of the people that you don't see on Dateline, the people behind the cameras and the editing equipment and our, and our producers. More than partly, Josh. Yeah. Yeah. And, and all our researchers and the APs and all the people who, fly the drones, all the stuff that you sort of don't see. And also, you know, hugely, I hope I'm pointing at you because I never know how this comes out on camera, but I'm pointing at Keith here. Point the other way. No, no, no. No, no, no. All right, pointing it here. I'll do that.

But somebody else. Well, there are other people too. I mean, there's all the other people who have, not only the other people, you know, Blaine and Andrea and Lester, but also all the people who have been Dateline correspondence over the years and who sort of helped us get where we are. But who we really need to think is you, like listeners and viewers, who that's why we're here, about 35 years later.

And so thank you, all of you. Yes, it was an unexpected gift and one we're very happy to have. Even if it involves spending more time than any reasonable person would want to, do with Josh Mankowitz. I knew that was coming. I had to deliver some insult.

It was kind of a lame one, though, don't you think? No, it was good. It was right sort of in character. Well, that brings us to the end of our delightful program with Mr. Mankowitz, and it's been nice to see you again, as always. Well, it's very nice to see you. I saw you very briefly when we were on the Today Show together, and I don't see you enough in all truthfulness,

despite how incredibly mean to me you are all the time. I'm trying to overlook that. Yeah. It's nice to see you, Josh. Nice to see you. Remember if you have any questions about this episode or any other episode or any question that you would like to ask us, you can reach out to us on social media at at Dateline NBC. You can also leave us a voicemail, which is 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured right here.

And let me just say, like the woman who did not leave her name, but recorded that message earlier about how great I am. Let me just say, talking about how great a job I did, that's going to get you on Talking Dateline. That's just a little inside tip. And you can also watch the video version of Talking Dateline on YouTube or on the NBC News app. Keith and I and Andrea and Lester and Blaine will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC. Indeed. We will.