Dateline NBC - Talking Dateline: Wrong Turns

Episode Date: October 9, 2024

Josh Mankiewicz talks with Keith Morrison about his episode “Wrong Turns.” When Justin Hilbert’s body was found on the side of the road, investigators never imagined it would take another murder to help them figure out who killed Justin. Josh plays an extra clip for Keith from his interview with the detective who pieced together the complicated murder plot. And Keith has a crime story of his own for Josh. Later, Dateline producers join the show to discuss your social media questions.Listen to the full episode of “Wrong Turns” here: https://link.chtbl.com/dl_wrongturns

Hello, everybody. I'm Keith Morrison, and we are Talking Dateline. Today, I'm here with – well, we couldn't get anybody else. So it's Josh Mankiewicz. Hello, Josh. Hi. So we're going to talk about this episode, right? Which is called Long Turns. Named after my career, yes. Yeah, that's accurate. If you haven't seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So go there and listen to it and stream it on Peacock and then come back here.

And there are spoilers here, of course, so be careful about that. For this Talking Dateline, Josh has a never before heard clip from his interview with Detective Stoyer. Did I get that right, Josh? Stoyer? That's his name. But to recap, when Justin Hilbert's body was found on the side of the road, investigators never imagined another murder would help them piece together the question of who killed Justin. Investigators uncovered a murder plot fueled by greed and jealousy, but one which

went horribly wrong. The intended victim survived, but her boyfriend Justin and one of her boyfriend's killers was killed as well. Josh, let's talk Dateline. This was quite a remarkable story. I mean, it was one of those stories, Josh, it seems to me that you say if it was fiction, you wouldn't believe it. It just seemed too fanciful, too strange. Pete It's, I mean, it's nuts. And it's astonishing for its sort of audacity and its just absolute evilness and greed and jealousy and hatred and stunning incompetence by the criminals, who, you know, blurted out their plan right in front of somebody else who ended up talking with law enforcement. And look, we've done, you and I blurted out their plan right in front of somebody else who ended up talking

with law enforcement. And look, we've done, you and I have done plenty of stories before in which somebody kills their spouse for the insurance money. But this is a little bit different because first of all, that insurance policy was in its last hours of life, which meant that the killing had to happen within a very finite period of time. So Tanya had to die then, and they couldn't make it happen, and then everything fell apart after that. What was it like to sit with Tanya and talk to a woman who you knew and she knew was to be the target of a murder plot, and somehow she managed to survive, but her husband died.

Pete Without her, I don't know that we could have done this story because this is kind of her story. She's the intended victim, although she didn't leave her house that night and so therefore didn't get killed. And she's also the victim because the father of her child and the man that she, I think, really had loved since they were about 14 years old was taken from her. Matthew 16 And as murder will often, it seems to have broken the relationship between Tonya and Justin's parents. Pete Slauson Which I feel very bad about. You know, originally, they were going to the court hearings and motion hearings and status conferences together

to sort of show this united front for Justin. But, you know, Justin's parents are sort of unable to get past the idea that without his involvement with Tanya, he's still alive. They certainly don't believe that she had anything to do with it. And they, I don't think anybody thinks that this could have been foreseen. But that said, you know, the mom said to me, you know, Justin's mom, like, look, if they're not together, if they don't get re-involved, my son's still alive. That may not be a rational thing, but it's what the parents are dealing with. It's just hard, too hard. Because those parents, every minute, every minute of the day, they're thinking about their son. Every time they wake up in the morning and go to bed at night,

it's the only thing they can think about. And if she reminds them of that even more, I can see where they couldn't do it. How soon in the process did Dateline begin to cover this story? Pete I think we began to cover it fairly quickly. It took a very long time to get from murder to courtroom. And partly that's because this plot took a while to unravel, and in part because, you know, COVID, I think, is still a, you know, still a sort of bomb that was dropped into the criminal justice world and the ripples, you know, are still being felt because stuff got delayed and therefore other things got delayed and just everything takes longer now. Pete Is there a scenario that if Bailey wasn't killed, do you think investigators would ever

have figured this out? Pete Slauson You know, there's no way to know, obviously. I mean, you know, there's a couple of different schools of thought about Bailey. One is that, you know, she was killed because Jared thought she was the weak link and she was going to talk. You know, but look, you've got a very sort of, you've got this triumvirate of evil. I mean, you get Jared Bischoff, this controlling Navy guy who, you know, married Tanya, treated her horribly and then wanted to exact some vengeance when she left him and they got divorced. You have Bailey Sharp, who was Jared's new girlfriend and co-conspirator. And she went along with this and the prosecutor made it

very clear to us if she were alive, she would be facing a murder charge, no question. And Danny Serrano, you know, probably the muscle here and also a career criminal with the proverbial wrap sheet as long as your arm and a very sophisticated guy because when they find his DNA and fingerprints on Justin's car, he cops to auto theft to give himself an alibi for murder. Rick Bates Which brings us to the different jurisdictions problem. In that one police department was investigating one murder, a different police department the other murder, and, you know, it took a long time for one to figure out

what the other murder. And, you know, it took a long time for one to figure out what the other was doing. Pete Slauson And they're right in the same place. Riverside police investigated Bailey's murder. Riverside County Sheriff's Office investigated Justin's murder and that plot. And it wasn't clear until Ricky, who'd spoken to Riverside police, ended up speaking to the Riverside Sheriff's Office that the sort of dimensions of that plot became clear. Adam Lichman Tell me about a little bit more about, what was his name, Alcoholic Ricky?

Pete Slauson Alcoholic Ricky. Well, Alcoholic Ricky was in Bailey's phone. That was his name in the phone. He worked at the Hookah Lounge. He'd gotten to know Jared and Bailey and Danny Serrano, who were occasional customers there, and overheard this conversation about how if Jared's wife died, Jared would get an insurance payout. And he's the person, Ricky's the person, who sort of made that connection to investigators. Pete Slauson Without him, I don't think there would have been a case, really, would there? I think they didn't know what the motive was. Was Ricky ever the subject of any suspicion at all on the part of investigators?

No, I don't believe that he was ever under suspicion. At one point, as we talk about in the story, Ricky discloses something that he hadn't talked about earlier, which was that when Danny Serrano comes back from what appears to be Justin's actual killing, Ricky describes him as having bloody clothing. That doesn't change. What did change is that Danny apparently gave Ricky the bloody clothing and said, get rid of this. And Ricky did, because I think he was terrified of these guys. Alan Wilson In Ricky's case, one wonders what would have happened had he known who to call, because it wasn't who he would expect it to be from his point of

view. This has happened to a lot of people, but I'll tell a small story. My car was broken into some time ago. The only important thing that was stolen out of the car was my iPad. And you know, you want your iPad. So I called the police as part of this. Eventually somebody came around. Let me just parenthetically say that I'm sort of astonished that police did not snap to attention when it was your voice on the phone. Eventually they came around, looked at the broken window, and they said they'd do what

they could. But I could see that the iPad was moving out of their jurisdiction. One small town to the next small town to the next small town to the next small town. Now there are four police departments and I don't know where the damn thing darn thing is, right? Pardon my French. And so you have to know which police department to call because you don't know who's investigating what. And in Ricky's case, I mean, how would he know who was investigating this case? Did that make any sense, what I just said to you?

Yes, although I'm anxious to hear the end now of that story and whether or not you actually got your iPad back. I did find it, yeah. I found it on my own. You did get it back. Really? But not from the police. Although they, you know, they were nice guys and they put a little

bit of effort into it, but they got more important things to do than finding some guys, some old dude's iPad. But you got it back because what, you bought it back from the thief? I found it using the Find My iPhone app thing. And what went there and duked it out with the guy? This is where I want this story to go. Pete Slauson Yes, absolutely. I had a fist fight and I took him down, by golly. Pete Slauson That's what we need more of on Talking Dateline. Pete Slauson That's right.

Pete Slauson He's telling us about the fights he got into. Pete Slauson It was buried under a bush. Not buried exactly, but it was hidden underneath a bush beside the road, not far from a, you know, fast food place, where I think the thief actually was at the time that I found the iPad. That's a good story. Thank you. Right?

And then, as I recall, that's not the end of the story, is it? Then you went into the fast food place and said, who just ordered a knuckle sandwich? And the next thing you know, that guy was making out with the floor. You bet, you bet. Yeah. That's my way of doing business. That's the Keith I know. Yeah, you bet.

When we get back, we've got a clip from Josh's interview with Detective Stoyer. He'll tell us what it was like sitting face to face with the parents of his suspected killer. So you sat down with Detective Stoyer, Josh, to talk motives for Danny, Jared and Bailey with regard to Justin murder and what it was like telling Bailey's parents about her involvement in his death. That detective had a job to do, that's for sure. So here is a clip that did not make it into the episode

What's the driving force here is this money is this jealousy is this hatred I Think it's a little bit all three and I think it was different for each person It looked like Danny was motivated strictly by by greed Bailey obviously It looked like Danny was motivated strictly by greed. Bailey, obviously money again. But Jarrett, money, all three. Money, hatred, jealousy. And it just pushed him to that point. Over a very long period of time,

Bailey Sharp went from victim to unindicted co-conspirator and only unindicted because she'd been murdered. Yeah. How you tell her parents that? It's a difficult conversation, but just the family had struggled with daily for some time and unfortunate but inevitable, I think result given the lifestyle that she had fallen into. I think this was very difficult for a Sergeant Stoyer because you know, normally when you

are a police officer and you're making a death notification, like that's hard enough to talk to grieving parents and say your son or daughter is no longer with us. It's something else to say, your son or daughter is no longer with us. And if they were, they'd be on trial for murder. Now Bailey's, that didn't happen in that conversation. Bailey's family didn't learn about that for a while. But like, that's a double whammy, which is you've

lost your kid. And by the way, because they were involved in a murder plot. Pete Slauson And my heart broke for the parents of Bailey, who had struggled clearly with her addiction problems for a long time. Pete Slauson You know, we've seen parents on Dateline who enable their kids, who make excuses for their kids, who lie for their kids, who give alibis, who hide evidence, who like, you know, do everything they can to get their kid off the hook. Bailey's parents aren't like that at all. They completely recognize what happened here. It tears them up that this addiction that they were really hoping that she was going to get past ended up being sort of the thing that

connected her to this murder plot. I mean, her dad's a detective with Seattle PD. And I said to him, like, you know, I'm sure you said to her, don't hang out with the wrong kind of people. I'm sure you said, you know, don't get involved with drugs. And I'm sure you told her, try to get off drugs once you're on drugs. And I said to him, but you probably didn't need to tell her or thought you didn't need to tell her, don't get involved in a murder plot. But she did. I mean, and they don't apologize for that.

They don't explain it. They don't try to lessen it. They are as horrified by it as any parent would be. And they're not pretending. And they see this very clearly, which is sort of another reason why, you know, you can't help but feel terrible for them. Matthew 11 I was, I must say, a little surprised that they agreed to come on television and talk to you. Pete No, I mean, I don't even think it was like taking their castor oil. I mean, it wasn't like they felt like they deserved some sort of, you know, public discussion of this. I

mean, they were absolutely completely upfront. They are ashamed of what she did. You know, they spent a huge amount of time just thinking of her as a murder victim, which she was. And then later they realized, oh, she's also a murderer. And I thought their willingness to sit down and discuss this as forthrightly as they did was really nothing short of admirable. And your heart breaks for them.

I thought it was very sensitively handled. And I, you know, I, I hate giving any credit to you, Michael wits because I know that I know how that sticks in your throat. I know it does. But then I know who you are working with on this story. So I understand why they're much more talented than I am. So that's yeah. Yeah. Um, yes, Michelle Madigan is, uh, is is an amazing producer partly because of the fact that she

is an incredibly astute and sympathetic, understanding woman who knows what people are going through. And she's a mom and she's got kids and she's yeah, and that I think helps her connect with people. And Rebecca Glazer, also producing this episode, also a rising star at Dateline. No question about it. David Yeah, we have some wonderful people we work with. Pete Well, listen, I noticed something about this episode, which I've noticed before, and I think that people who watch Dateline would like to know about a little style issue. You seem to sit at a desk or a table with the people on the other side talking to you.

Is that the method you use for interviews? Pete Slauson Well, this is going to be the, I thought that you getting in a fistfight part was going to be the best part of talking to Dateline, but now I think this is going to be. So I know that you traditionally work without notes because you know every detail of the story absolutely cold, so you can sit across from someone and you don't need any notes. I, on the other hand, am more of a mortal than you are, and I don't have your phenomenal memory or your command of the facts.

Pete Slauson Well, I'm aware of that. That being said, I mean, those are, you know, we accept those things. Pete Slauson Everyone is aware of that at day one, yes. But I like to work off of notes. I have all the questions written out in front of me. And I have them in very big type and bold, because I don't wear contact lenses, and so I don't wanna wear these glasses on television. I don't see why not. They look pretty good on you. Eventually I'm gonna have to, but at the moment I...

They make you look smarter, Josh. That's the point of those glasses. I could hardly look any dumber. So I like to... You look like sort of a detective, you know, no, that's nice of you, but no. Um, so I like to have all my notes in front of me and I spread them out on a tabletop, which is why I, uh, I have a table and there's a table that some of our crews here in Los Angeles carry around with them. So that same table has been in a bunch of different interviews interviews in Southern California and elsewhere in the West. Yes. Pete Slauson Wait a minute, they take it out of town?

Pete Slauson It has been taken out of town and brought back to town. It's just a very traditional folding table with a wooden top. But it's, yeah, it's been in a lot of deadlines, it has. And it helps me because I can take notes on it, I can rest my elbows on it. You know, it's... You probably have kind of an emotional connection to that table now. You use it so often. Well, we're like this. Yeah. I mean, closer than the one I have to you, let me just say. Ha! But that wouldn't take much. Yeah. And then one more thing about the table, which is that if the person across from you gets

angry and tries to lunge at you, which has happened to me at least one time on Dateline, you get the table there, which kind of slows them down and allows me to say, no, no, the person you really want is Keith Morrison. So, yeah. Now, when people lunge at me, they usually, you know, actually, nobody's ever lunged at me, Josh. That's so, that's something you've got over me. Nobody? You never made anybody so angry that they wanted to pick a swing at you?

I mean, I'm not talking about people who work at Dateline. I'm talking about people who work at the interview. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, no. They may have thought those thoughts, but they didn't do anything about them. Oh, sure, it's occurred to them. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Thank you, Josh. I appreciate that. I think we're going to talk to Michelle Madigan in a moment. About social media questions, yes. Until we meet again, Josh. Until we meet again. Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle Madigan, one of the producers of this episode, Wrong Turns. It turns out both Josh and Keith are filming today. So my co-producer, Rebecca Glazer and I are here and we'll go through your questions from social media. Hi Rebecca. Hi Michelle. So Rebecca was on X on Friday answering viewer questions and I'm not sure if all of our listeners

know that but if you do watch the episode live we have a producer online during the broadcast to answer the questions that come up and you know Josh was online Friday too so definitely if you're watching join us on social media it's a lot of interaction and this one was was pretty active. Yeah so there were a lot of comments on Facebook about the twists and turns of the case so Bridget Falcons Taylor on Facebook said that was one of the best episodes I've seen in a while I kept having to rewind to make sure I understood what was happening and then Nick Nero says, one of the best state lines ever and best is in all caps, lots of twists and turns. Michelle, it was kind of a twisty-turny case for us to follow too,

because we didn't even know who all the players were when we first started, right? Oh, exactly. Initially, I understood that there were two murders and two defendants, but I did not know how they were all connected. But one thing I knew was that Tanya, Justin's girlfriend, was going to be key. And I really needed to speak with her to help understand how all of them were connected. The big thing for me as the case was making its way through the system was to really learn

more about Bailey Sharp. She was such a mystery to me me and I think she was a mystery to a lot of our audience too, right Rebecca? Yeah, a lot of people on X thought that Bailey Sharpe was a fake Facebook profile until the part of the episode where we found out that she had been murdered, which is something that we didn't even think about as we were writing. So that's sort of an interesting thing that we saw pop up. Rebecca, you were at the trial every day. What was it like to be in the courtroom? I mentioned this on X too, but it was fascinating to me how there were no other reporters in the courtroom. As the story of what happened started to unfold in trial, I was just more

and more shocked that there was no one else there because it was so fascinating. What happened, I remember you called me and said something interesting happened during a break. So the judge was off the bench and it was quiet. And I remember hearing someone say, Rebecca, and it was Jared. And he was looking right at me. And it turned out he just, he wanted my business card and was interested in talking with me. But it's a little jarring to hear your name called out across the courtroom by the defendant. And he was actually interested in sitting down and doing an interview with us. But eventually his lawyer recommended against it just because the case is going through appeals, which is pretty standard. But he was interested in talking initially.

This next topic is a big one. On Facebook, a lot of people were talking about the broken relationship between Justin's family and Tanya and her baby and Justin's baby Logan. Peg Watson Ebert said, Justin's parents are missing a relationship with their grandson. Why would they do that? And then Jill Todd said, hopefully someday Justin's parents will be able to embrace their grandson and Tanya. You know, we can't judge. We don't know all the dynamics. You know, everybody's going to go through this process very differently. You know, I think we addressed it in the story as much as we could, but that's a heavy part of this case that both Rebecca and I wanted to be very sensitive about. At the end of the day, it's their grieving process to go through.

And they allowed us a window into a small part of that. And we don't know how they'll feel in the future or really the full extent of how they all feel about each other. We can never understand that. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or Dateline, you can reach out to us on social at DatelineNBC. Also get ready for Keith's latest original podcast series, The Man in the Black Mask.

When a man goes missing from a movie set, a real life horror story unfolds. Beginning October 15th, you can listen to the latest episodes completely free. Or to begin listening now, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com. I can't wait. I love his podcasts. And of course, we'll see you on Fridays for Dateline on NBC.