Dateline Originals - The Seduction - Ep. 2: Double Indemnity

Episode Date: December 19, 2023

Besotted with Patty, Jaime agrees to a horrifying request. But can he go through with it?This episode was originally published on June 14, 2022. 

It was almost like a game at first, like one of the love-soaked fantasies that play out during their little getaways, their naughty escapes from the California Conservation Corps. She started to make it seem as a joke. She, of course, was the love of his life, Patty Prespa, the 40-something married mother of grown children. And he, Jaime, was the trusting 21-year-old so smitten with her, so moldable, who listened intently to every word as she told him about her horribly abusive husband, her rapist husband. It became something that was our way of coping with the fact that he raped her, raped us, I should say. Yes, raped us. Like putty was her, Jaime. And hadn't she told him that they were a we now, an us?

It was in that little cone of intimacy where she began to fill his head with ideas about all the dreadful things they could do to that abusive husband of hers. She starts coming up with these ideas of break lines. You know, him going off a cliff. Started talking about how he likes to work around the house, and if he just so happened to fall off a ladder and land on a rebar that was sticking out from some foundation, things like that. Mind you, Jaime said he didn't take any of this chatter too seriously.

It was just a kind of dark humor, really. Way to cope with what he believed Patty's husband had done to them.

And we were laughing a lot about these little accidents. But that's not at all how Patty saw it. And that became

most clear to Jaime when Patty brought to one of their secret trysts some official-looking papers. She presented me an envelope with this life insurance policy. And that's when I realized that everything we were talking about was really for real. It wasn't a joke. What did she tell you about the insurance policy? She said that this way we can have a fresh start. We can have our place together. Have some money.

Have some money. I'll work. You can go back to college. And we'll be happy together. The life insurance policy would pay the beneficiary twice as much if the insured person died an accidental death. That kind of policy is known in the business as double indemnity. Listen, baby, there's a clause in every accident policy,

a little thing called double indemnity. That means they pay double on certain accidents. Double indemnity is also the name of a 40s film classic about a woman who seduces a man and sets him up to kill her husband. This is not the right street. Why did you turn here? What are you honking the horn for? It all goes awry, of course, especially when the seductress shoots her naive and pliable lover. Mind if I close the window? But that was long before Jaime's time. And for all the movies he watched, this was the one he knew nothing about. But Patty?

Maybe she did know that plot. Maybe she knew it well. Or maybe life does imitate art after all. I'm Keith Morrison, and this is Dateline's newest podcast, The Seduction. If there was a moment, a last chance to take the off-ramp before a dark tunnel could swallow him whole. This surely was it. Jaime's eyes were opened. Now he understood their jokes about killing Paddy's abusive husband weren't jokes at all. She really did want Ron Prespa to be dead, not just to end the abuse, but to cash in on his death. You say then you knew it was real. Then I knew it was real that... What feeling was that? What feeling did it give you to know that?

I felt that I was in a hole that I couldn't get myself out of. I felt dread. I was in a bigger hole than I imagined. And I told her that I don't know if this is something that I can go through, that this is more than I can handle. She brought upon the guilt trip of not loving her, not understanding her, not believing. So you don't believe I was raped, so you don't believe that he does this to me, so you don't believe that we want a life together. And all these words were hitting me like they exhausted me,

they wounded me, and I gave in to anything she asked. Did you need her that much? I felt that I did. I went back to feeling alone. And not a man. And not a man. And I didn't want to lose that. Without her, you would be lost. Yes. It always brings me back to the void of losing my mother. And it's unbearable. You lose sleep over it. Your bones want to come out of your skin from anxiety.

And you yourself start thinking these suicidal thoughts. You start thinking, you know, well, why am I here then? You know, my mom's gone. I'm no longer a man. The thing that I love the most is hating me right now. Oh, Jaime knew he would do what Patty asked. For him, the desperate little boy, there was no other option. So Jaime said, yes, he would kill for her.

He loved her that much. But then, as if to conjure up a tentative escape hatch, Jaime told Patty he would do it on one condition. I told her, if you want me to kill a man, I need to see what he's like. So this is part of the plan.

You got to be there. It'll be close. You have to see. You have to make sure for yourself this is... You need to eyeball the guy. Okay. But. You got to be there. It'll be close. You have to see. You have to make sure for yourself. You need to eyeball the guy. Okay. But you were going to do it. You told her you were going to do this. Of course, there was really only one way that could happen.

Jaime would have to move into the Prespa house. And that required a whole other level of scheming. It was Patty who dreamed that up, of course it was. And then she tried it out on her husband. Patty told Ron there was a mouthy kid at the Conservation Corps camp who had insulted her, called her names. But one of the other recruits, that would be Jaime, defended Paddy and beat up the troublemaker, which got Jaime kicked out of the program, and now he was homeless. This was all a lie, of course.

But Ron, as was his nature, never questioned a word of it. Naturally he can stay with us, said Ron. And he drove to the camp himself and picked up Jaime, brought him home, and thanked him for defending Patty. And he commended me for it. Protecting his wife. Protecting his wife. So, thank you very much. You're more than welcome at my house.

And he says, don't worry about rent. Just help me around the house. That's all I ask of you. And he says, don't worry about rent. Just help me around the house. That's all I ask of you. And I said, are you sure? I have money to pay your rent. And he's like, what you did was enough for me. Just help me around the house. Thank you.

Jaime told Ron he'd only be there for a month. He just had to wrap up a few things. After that, he said he intended to go to Texas to see an uncle. Ronspread was small, as ranches go, if you could even call it a ranch. Just a few acres, really. Staked out, though, in a uniquely beautiful stretch of the Sierra Nevada mountains, where the solid valley oaks give way to swaying ponderosa pines. The house itself was less majestic, a cramped 60s-era bit of ticky-tack that was always in need of something.

So, as it turned out, there was much for Jaime to do. Mow the lawn, weed whack, put out siding on the house, tear down some walls because they were going to refurnish the kitchen. So you would be doing this with him? Yes, I would be doing this with him and she'd be out working. So you worked with him in the house. What was he like as a guy to be with? He was very enjoyable.

He taught me things about using hand tools. He was funny. He had a lot of jokes. He had an interesting life. He told me about his life and his kids. And he was not at all the man that she portrayed him to be. Was he ever mean to her? Not once did I hear him raise his voice. God knows if Ron had, Jaime would certainly have heard it. The house is so thin and small that you can hear conversations if you really want to eavesdrop.

And so there they all were. Jaime, Patty, Ron, all living together in a tiny little home as one tiny little family. Ron, of course, had no idea there was a plan, not a clue, that Patty and Jaime, the young man he treated like a son,

were plotting to kill him. Ron Prespa's two grown daughters had taken to playing a little game of their own. Not like Patty's game, of course. Theirs was sneaky in a loving way. After Patty banned them from the modest little house where they had grown up with their dad, they took to dropping by when they knew Patty wasn't around, in their continuing effort to spend time with the father they loved. And it was during one of those random, unannounced visits, Misty encountered Jaime.

So you came and you saw this young man living in the house. Yeah. What was that like? And what did you hear about it? Nothing. And dad and I, as well as dad and April, we talked every day, if not every other day. You never said anything about it? No. And that was really odd.

So when I came here and saw this young man and Dad was giving him the weed eater and some goggles and telling him to go weed eat and how to use the weed eater. And I'm like, what's this kid doing here, Dad? Who is this? And he introduced me to him and I asked him a ton of questions because here this person is on my dad's property and I don't know him. And he says, oh, I'm just here for a few weeks before I go to Texas. Well, here, I thought, meaning Georgetown, not here at my dad's house. So then I start asking more questions and we go in the house and he goes straight into one of the bedrooms. And I look at my dad and I'm like, what's he doing? He's making himself pretty comfortable. And he goes, oh no, he's staying in here. And I thought, this kid has been living here for two weeks

and he hasn't said anything to me? Which is odd because we have conversations and he said, yeah, he's trying to save up some money to move to his uncle's down in Texas. Which was true. It's what Jaime actually planned on doing after he murdered Misty's dad. Except, round about then, Jaime was having serious second thoughts.

It was confusing. Patty had described him monster, and yet Ron had been nothing but kind to him. And as far as he could see, Ron was devoted to Patty. This is the ogre who's been raping and beating her? Yes. Didn't make any sense. Didn't make any sense. He did anything to please her. In fact, Henry, doesn't it sound a little bit as if he had a relationship with her, which was in some ways like yours. In other words, he was always trying to please her. Yes. And she was being withdrawn sometimes.

And he'd say, what's the matter? What's the matter? Just like you would. Yeah. Did he ever contact her, like phone her during the day? Yes. That's the thing that also got to me was that there was times where I know he didn't know I was around and I'd be walking in and he'd be talking to her. He just, he's like, oh, I'm just calling

to say hello. You need anything? No. Okay. Well, I love you. You know, have a good night's day. Can't wait to see you back. Click. But no sooner was Patty off the phone with Ron, she'd be back on the phone with Jaime demanding to know when was he going to kill her husband. Time was running out. They told Ron exactly when Jaime was going to leave for his uncle's place in Texas, and that day was getting close. Something happened every day where she would have to text me and tell me how she can't handle it no more. I'm just going to do it myself. And I told her, well, what are you doing? You're going to ruin everything if that's the way you do it. You're going to go straight to prison, you know.

So she would say, well, okay, okay, okay, but it has to be soon. I said, I know, I promise, don't worry. You felt you were responsible for coming up with a plan? Yes. Every few days she would ask me, have you come up with anything? She was trying to tell me, look, these are the things that you need. And you weren't doing anything.

And I'm not doing anything about it. And I'm just like, well, I don't feel that it's right right now. Just wait. So how did she respond to that? She responded to, you're doubting me, aren't you? And that's when she started hitting me with these negative things again.

Oh, you're just like everybody else. You don't believe me, do you? I'm telling you, he's acting right now because you're in front of him. I'm like, I've been here for two and a half weeks, you know? There's just no way. But the planning continued. But the planning was still there. It was still set to date.

It was still going to happen within a week and a half. There's always been an air of tragedy about the Prescott place, well before the arrival of Patty and Jaime. The first couple to settle on the property, many, many years ago, brought with them a dream of raising a happy family in a fine, sturdy house. For months, the husband labored to fashion a strong stone foundation. But the project abruptly ended before the walls ever went up, when his wife took ill and died. The husband abandoned the house, the land,

leaving behind the foundation for a home that never was to be. A century later, Ron Prespa decided the foundation, which sits about four feet high, made an ideal corral for the handful of pigs he kept. It was about a hundred feet from his 60s ranch house, but Patty saw the stone foundation differently. To her, it was a perfect place for murder. Her plan? Jaime was to lure Ron to the pigpen, hit him from behind with an axe, load his body into his old Suburban, and roll it with Ron's body inside, off the side of a mountain road known as Chili Bar. Of course, the cops would think it was an accident, not murder.

Which was perfect, said Patty. Because that special word, accident, would kick in the double indemnity clause in Ron's life insurance policy. She would get twice the money. Of all the miles of windy road around Ron's little farm, Chili Bar was the perfect spot to stage the accident. On one stretch, there's an S-curve with no guardrails. And that runs along the edge of a river gorge. And then on the opposite side of the road, a turnout shielded by a large earthen berm. Jaime could hide a getaway car behind that. From there, Jaime would drive to Texas, lay low with an uncle, until the whole

insurance thing got sorted out. As the day sticked down to the chosen one, Jaime's torment rose like bile in his throat. Surely he wouldn't kill this man. Surely he couldn't. But when he looked at his patty, the words would not form in his mouth, and he kept his doubts to himself.

And then the day arrived. Patty drove Jaime into town, bought shoes for him to wear, and disposable clothes in case the killing got messy. From there she took him to a used car lot where she paid $6,500 for a 2003 blue Hyundai, which would be Jaime's getaway car. Jaime drove the Hyundai up Chili Bar Road and parked it out of sight behind that earthen berm. And then Patty took Jaime back to the house, where she announced she was leaving to spend the evening with one of her daughters.

Her alibi was being with her daughter and granddaughter all day, not knowing anything of what was happening, which would be the perfect alibi because you have actual witnesses with you. Yes, an excellent alibi. For Patty. Your alibi was to be what? Well, I was on the road somewhere. Now, it was too late to turn back. Jaime called his uncle in Texas, lied to him, told him he was on his way, was already in

Arizona. So he believed me. Like, yeah, okay, well, see you tomorrow. And we hung up. Didn't occur to Jaime that his alibi could easily be disproved, that there was no one to vouch for him, no one to back up his story that he was supposedly miles away from California when the murder occurred. How did you communicate with each other over that day? By phone. We had prepaid phones for them not to be traceable.

You thought about that in advance? Yes. Went and bought them? She did. I'm Ian Ron. We're now alone at the house. The murder was supposed to take place just before nightfall, out by the pig pen. As those hours ticked down

to when you were going to do this, what was that like for you? If there's any definition of doubt, that's what I was feeling. I kept having these two big weights of my experience with a man and her experiences. And it's like, what she tells me, I'm supposed to believe. I'm supposed to say that it's real.

But what I experience, I know is real. And I saw it firsthand. And they do not meet up in any way or form. And you're about to kill them. And I'm about to kill them. And let me add something to that, Jaime. Based just on what you've been telling me here, it sounds as if this man was one of the very few good men you'd ever experienced living with in your life. Would that be fair and accurate?

I would be fair and accurate to say that if none of this came about and I lived there, I can definitely embrace him as a father figure because of the kindness he showed me. A strange man going into his house for what he thought was a noble cause in his life, teaching me trades, giving me advice, and just being kind. Something that I never experienced from a man. I just experienced that horrible predator, and this man comes along with total opposite. And it just was so frustrating for me because I didn't know what to do. So he called Patty, said he couldn't do it.

And of course, Patty knew just what to say to Jaime. She belittled him, said he wasn't a man. So I said, OK, I'm going to do it. Well, then hurry up. She hung up. That went on three, four times of just constantly calling and making sure it was done. Me calling, saying I can't do it. All the while, Ron was getting calls of his own.

April, as she often did, phoned just to check in. He was going to eat dinner, take a shower, and go to bed. Ron's mother, Lois, called a little later. I talked to Ron that evening at 8 o'clock, asked him how his day was, and if Patty was home and if they were going to do something. I was a little bit perturbed because she was with her daughter in Auburn, and he kind of wanted her to be home naturally. So that was pretty much it. He was getting ready, you know, tired and getting ready to go to bed.

Just then, he was sitting in his recliner, watching TV. Jaime was there with him, on the sofa, slipping out every now and again to take Patty's calls. It was the 24th of June, one of the longest days of the year. Around 9 p.m., the summer sun sank below the horizon. Ron began to grumble a little. Where was Patty? It was time for bed. Had he sent something off? It has to be now, thought Jaime. Now or never. Coming up next on The Seduction.

I thought of the rape. I've thought of my rape. I've thought of losing her and not wanting that feeling. And I used all that in a rage. To get yourself angry. To get myself angry, to justify myself, to blind what I felt was the truth. The Seduction is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Rachel Ligon is associate producer. Matt Sullivan is assistant audio editor. Susan Nall is senior producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Liz Cole is executive producer. And David Corvo is senior executive producer.

From NBC News Audio, Bryson Barnes is technical director, sound mixing by Bob Mallory. Nina Bisbano is associate producer.