Deadly Mirage - Tickling the Wire

Episode Date: December 10, 2024

Secrets about Rob and Sabrina’s lifestyle emerge and police get a warrant for wiretaps.

Their eyes met in a busy grocery aisle at Costco. She was handing out tasty samples, maybe some crackers with a new savory spread. She did not know when he approached that this stranger wearing a firefighter's t-shirt was also walking into her private life. And he? Well, he never suspected the oversized role she would soon be playing in his. It was a routine encounter like thousands of others, unremarkable in every way, except for this. That fleeting moment in the grocery aisle and the events that followed had lifelong ramifications for both of them and for everyone who knew them. It was devastating. Absolutely devastating. I don't know. I couldn't

couldn't believe it. So was this fixed or fated, ordered and ordained. If she'd been off that day, if he'd turned down a different aisle, would any of this have happened? That is unknowable. What is known is that the lives they led leading up to that moment gave no hint of what would come after it. I'm fascinated in relationships

that end in the ultimate worst possible way. And I'm also fascinated by the secrets that lurk underneath. In this episode, you'll hear about the lives of that misaligned pair in the Costco aisle, from those who knew them best and loved them most. go while from those who knew them best and loved them most. Brina is such a positive, amazing person. Jonathan was always so thoughtful. We were best friends.

You'll hear the bedroom secrets of a bedroom community on the high desert. You know, if that's what a couple agrees with in their marriage, then that's their business. He'd show them pictures, naked pictures of the women out in Silver Lakes on his phone. And you will hear that couple's earnest prayers for God's guidance as investigators listened in on their private phone calls. I hope that we ran out of all the right words. Please give her calmness and clarity of thought. in on their private phone calls. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 3, Tickling the Wire. Tickling the Wire For weeks after the murder of Rob Lamone, Detective Randall Meyer had chased shadows.

Then, thanks to a tip from the murdered man's friend, Jason Bernatine, Detective Meyer now knew several things he had not known before. He knew that Rob Lamon's wife, Sabrina, had been having an affair with a young firefighter named Jonathan Hearn. He knew the murder victim had had words with Hearn. And he knew that Sabrina Limon had lied to him about all of that. They'd obviously caused some suspicion for me. She had an affair. Her husband found out about it. It caused some, sounds like some significant stress in that marriage.

Yes. The detective did not know how those lives collided or why Rob Lamone wound up dead on a shop floor in Tehachapi. In the months to come, the friends and family of all three filled in the blanks. The backstory on Rob and Sabrina began in the late 90s, when Sabrina met Rob at a backyard barbecue in Prescott, Arizona. Rob would have been 21 back then. Sabrina? Just 18. Old photographs show them the way they were.

Rob, a thick-shouldered construction worker with a shaved head. Sabrina, willowy and blonde, with an incandescent smile. Rob liked dirt bikes. And Sabrina? Well, she liked whatever Rob liked dirt bikes. And Sabrina? Well, she liked whatever Rob liked. There's a photo of them from those days. Rob is sitting astride a motorbike, his bald head gleaming in the sun.

Sabrina sitting right behind him, grinning from ear to ear. It was after one of those days spent careening across the sage-dotted desert outside Prescott that Rob's family met Sabrina. He brought Sabrina home and introduced us to all of us. Lydia Marrero, one of Rob's four older sisters. They just got back from riding dirt bikes, and so she was kind of embarrassed.

It wasn't a real formal meeting. He was very friendly. He brought her to our home because, you know, he was living with us and introduced us. And that's the voice of Chris Wilson, another sister. Nice girl. And he said, I think I'm going to marry her. He said, I think I'm going to marry her. And you thought, I think I'm going to marry her. He said, I think I'm going to marry her. And you thought, great or mistake? I thought great.

She was nice. She loved my brother. And I could tell she did. A cursory review of the biographical details would have told the detective that Sabrina and Rob were married in August of 2000. Soon after, they moved to California, where Rob had gotten a job at the sprawling Burlington Northern and Santa Fe rail yard in Barstow. The happy couple settled in the Silver Lake section of Hellendale to be near her parents. Robert, he doted on her. He did mostly everything that needed to be done, and he loved her.

I could just see by the way he treated her. In 2003, the Lamones added a baby boy to their family. They named him Robbie. Three years later, they welcomed a daughter. They named her Leanna. She was just such an amazing mom. And Robbie and Leanna always came first to her. Always.

That's all she cares about. Those were the years when the Lamone home on Strawberry Lane was filled with the sounds of kids and cartoons. The clack and clatter of plastic toys. Situation normal. Then in 2008, something unseen and undetectable to others occurred in the Lamone home. How it happened is a mystery. Only Rob and Sabrina know why it happened. It was then that Rob and Sabrina decided to open their marriage and to enter into a sexual relationship with another couple. I didn't know Sabrina and Robert's life in depth in Hellendale.

That's Rob's sister, Chris, again. Nobody called me. And when I had heard that, I thought, you know, if that's what a couple agrees with in their marriage, then that's their business. It's just something that she told me about, I guess. Kelly Bernatine says she heard about the Lamones' open marriage from Sabrina. It was a couple that they had done that with.

It wasn't like they had this big group. Kelly says Sabrina told her their relationship with the other couple only lasted a few months and ended when the other couple split up. However, Sabrina's sister, Julie Cordova, says she suspected that little foursome was not a one-off. Rob would even tell my husband things. Like? He'd show him pictures, naked pictures of the women out in Silver Lakes on his phone. That certainly could suggest that he wasn't ashamed of it.

Here's what we're doing. Almost like they're showing you vacation pictures. Yes. Yes, yes. You know, I just thought about this. There was a close friend of theirs that came out to visit. She knew what was going on or saw what was going on. She went to Robert and she said, this needs to stop now.

And he said, oh, we're just having fun. The detective did not know much about Jonathan Hearn, the third player in this particular love triangle. But a little back-of-the-envelope math revealed Hearn had been young, just 18 years old in 2008. That was the year Sabrina and Rob Limone opened their marriage. According to Rob Limone's friend, Jason Bernatine, Kern had been a smooth-cheeked kid who liked to hang out at firehouses. He'd been one of several junior volunteers in the San Bernardino Youth Fire Explorer program back then.

Despite that, Bernadine told the detective that seasoned firefighters could tell Jonathan was a cut above. He was thoughtful, well-spoken, and already taking college classes. He said he wanted to be a paramedic when he got older, maybe even an arson investigator. And as anyone in the firehouse who'd spent 10 minutes talking with the kid could tell, Jonathan Hearn had the brains to be whatever he wanted. So I used to always tell Jonathan, like, you're kind of wasting your life becoming a fireman. You could become much more. You could be a doctor, lawyer.

That's Kelly Bernatine's husband, Jason, a San Bernardino County fireman and a close friend of Rob Lamone's. Everyone else saw that in him. And he would just say, oh, you know, no, this is what I've always wanted to do. Jason is a little fuzzy on when he first met Jonathan Hearn. But he does remember working a couple of dozen shifts with him at different firehouses over the years. Jason says he was proud of the way the kid's career had taken shape. He was an explorer, and then he became a paramedic, and then the apprentice, and then he eventually got hired with Redlands Fire Department.

Jonathan Hearn had clearly been a young man in a hurry. And the more the detective learned about him, the clearer that picture became. Born the second of six children, Hearn had been raised in a devoutly religious home where church attendance and Bible study were mandatory. Like his siblings, he had been homeschooled. My brother, Jonathan, was homeschooled until the time when he was about 12, and then he was concurrently enrolled in college, and he graduated with a double associates in high school around the same time.

That's Nicole Hearn, Jonathan's older sister. When I spoke with her years later, she told me her brother had been so busy with school and work in those days that he never seemed to have time for girls. He flirted around with girls and he went on dates with them, but I was never privy to anything serious with him. I had never heard of him having a girlfriend, a steady girlfriend. No. As far as anyone could tell, Jonathan Hearn's first steady girlfriend had been Sabrina Limon, a married woman more than 10 years his senior.

He'd been 22 that summer day in 2012 when he went to the Costco in Victorville to pick up some supplies for his firehouse. At some point while he was wandering through the cavernous store, he rounded a corner and saw a pretty blonde woman handing out samples. Their eyes met as he pushed the shopping cart in her direction, and an invitingly brilliant smile flashed across her face. Jonathan Hearn stopped to chat. Almost two years to the day after that fateful meeting in Costco, the Silver Lakes Wolfpack gathered to celebrate the 38th birthday of one of its most beloved members, Rob Lamone.

There was a big cake with candles and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday. Happy birthday to you and many more. As usual, Kelly Bernatine was there to videotape the occasion for posterity. You look at that video, what do you see? I just hear us saying, after singing Happy Birthday and many more. You know, you always add that on to the song.

It seems ironic now, of course. How could any of them have known that Rob Lamone was celebrating his final birthday? Thank you, everybody. I love you guys. We love you, Rob. There ain't no other Rob Lamone. We just look at him now, and he says, I love you guys We love you Rob There ain't no other Rob Lamone We just look at him now and he says I love you guys He always says I love you guys Three days later

Rob Lamone was dead And the detective found himself Relying on those friends To catch his killer. It was on a September morning in 2014, a month after Rob Limone's murder, when Kelly Bernatine noticed a strange motorcycle parked in the driveway at the Limone house. The bike had the word forgiven stenciled on the gas tank alongside a cross. Kelly did not know who the bike belonged to, but she had her suspicions. the bike belonged to, but she had her suspicions. She wrote down the license number and gave it to Detective Meyer. Turns out it was registered to Jonathan Hearn, the man the detective suspected

of killing Rob Lamone. Detective Meyer. After checking Jonathan's registration for that motorcycle, we went to the Yamaha website, checked out some other motorcycles similar in the same year, and was able to look at those motorcycles compared to the video that we captured from Goodrick Road, and they were very similar. Encouraging? Yes. The detective had now identified a man who'd been sleeping with the murder victim's wife, who owned a motorcycle similar to the one caught on camera near the scene of the crime. And that wasn't all he knew. Jonathan Hearn also owned guns.

The firearms that were registered to Jonathan matched the same or similar caliber bullet that killed Rob Limon. Big bullet, big gun. Yes. He had a couple.45 caliber firearms that were Rob Limon. Big bullet, big gun. Yes. He had a couple 45 caliber firearms that were registered to him. The detective was now certain Jonathan Hearn was the killer he had been looking for. If the man on the motorcycle was Jonathan Hearn, then he was a long way from home. And at some point, the detective figured he'd have had to stop for gas. Highway 58 and Highway 395, there's a couple of gas stations located on that corner there. How far from the scene of the murder?

About an hour's drive. Since that would have been the quickest and most direct route to Jonathan Hearn's home, Detective Meyer asked a fellow investigator to visit those gas stations and look for security camera footage of a man on a motorcycle. Since the motorcyclist in Tehachapi was last seen leaving the industrial park at 5.48, the detective guessed the rider would have likely stopped for gas in Kramer Junction around 6.48 or so. It didn't take long for the other investigator to report back. Bingo.

Security footage from a Kramer Junction gas station called the Pilot Travel Center showed a motorcyclist wearing a black helmet and backpack, pulling up to a pump at 6.51. Same stature, knees very high on the gas tank, wearing a backpack, which the subject was wearing a backpack on Goodrick Road. So at that point in time, we believe same motorcycle, same subject, but with a clothing change. So this person stopped somewhere to change clothes. Yes. Once again, the security camera was unable to provide a clear picture of the motorcycle's license plate. It did record the rider walking into the gas station's mini-mart.

Entered inside the business to purchase some water and Gatorade with helmet on, sunglasses. That sounds like somebody who knows that that whole transaction is being recorded on video and wants to make sure that you can't identify it. Yes, that was very suspicious. After prepaying with cash at the register, the rider goes outside and without ever taking off his helmet, refills his tank and rides away. I'm sort of hearing the word search warrant here. Yes, definitely. From the information we

gathered, we started looking into phone records. Up until then, the detective had found a lot of probable, but not much cause. The phone records of Sabrina Limon and Jonathan Hearn changed all that. Limon and Jonathan Hearn changed all that. Using an Excel spreadsheet, investigators were able to chart all of the calls and texts between the two since the day they first met in that aisle at Costco two years earlier. There were thousands of contacts. They had multiple conversations via telephone calls and text messages. Clear evidence of an affair, to be sure. But now the detective wondered if those phone records might also be evidence of a murder plot. As the detective studied two years' worth of calls and contacts, he noticed a sudden

break in the pattern that looked suspicious. he noticed a sudden break in the pattern that looked suspicious. In the spring of 2014, just three months before Rob Lamone's murder, those communications between Jonathan and Sabrina abruptly stopped. Sometime in April, about the 25th of April of 2014, those phone calls stopped and a new phone showed up on Jonathan Hearn's phone records. When you run that number, who's it come back to? It came back to no subscriber information found. Meaning it's a pay-as-you-go phone, a burner. Possibly, yes. The kind of phone that somebody would use if they were either committing a crime or

having an extramarital affair. Yes, yes. The number of calls and texts from Jonathan Hearn's phone to and from that new number was overwhelming. 7,000 of them from April through October of 2014. There's conversations daily via either phone or text messages. Every once in a while, you'd have a day that there was nothing, but most of the days there was some sort of conversation going on. In the weeks leading up to Rob Limone's murder, those phone logs showed nearly 2,000 text messages between the two numbers. The detectives suspected Sabrina Limone was the person using the burner phone to communicate with Jonathan Hearn.

But there seemed to be only one way to know for sure. Jonathan Hearn, but there seemed to be only one way to know for sure. The investigators asked a judge for permission to wiretap those phones. Difficult to get that warrant? Very difficult. Courts take that very seriously, and so it does take an substantial amount of effort to get that warrant. In addition to showing a judge there was reason to believe Jonathan Hearn had conspired with Sabrina Limon to kill her husband, they also argued that a conspiracy to cover up that crime was, at that very moment, ongoing. Early November 2014, I was able to get a wiretap authorized, and so we were able to go up on the phones and listen to their conversations. Monitoring those phones 24-7 would be a huge job, too big for the eight officers who made up the Kern County Robbery Homicide Unit.

So they enlisted the aid of other departments and agencies and borrowed the DEA's wire room in downtown Bakersfield. I'm guessing your bosses at some point said to you, you're killing us here. It is very expensive to conduct an operation like that. There's lots of manpower. You start actual surveillance on Jonathan. Yes. Just prior to the wire tap, we had surveillance out there and they were typically on them while they're moving during the day. Once the wire tap was initiated, the surveillance is 24 hours a day. The guys in the wire room did not have to wait long for their monitoring screens to light up. Just as expected, that call was Sabrina Limon's burner phone to Jonathan Hearn's cell.

Hey, baby. Hey, are you busy? Two things were immediately clear from that very first wiretapped call. Sabrina Limon and Jonathan Hearn were as in love as moonstruck teenagers. I love you. I love you. I love you. To the end of the world, I love you. I love you back. And in the weeks after Rob Limon met his maker,

his wife and her lover were spending a lot of time praying for guidance and forgiveness. Hi, God. We weren't on our knees for a reason, God. We have been dirtbags. We've been sinners. We've been selfish. We've sinned. We continue been selfish. We've sinned. We continue and continue and continue to sin, God.

But you are a savior. God, you've given us a gift not only of salvation, but you've given Sabrina and I a purpose. In practical terms, their purpose seemed to include spending as much time as possible together. Just weeks after her husband's death, Sabrina was including Jonathan in outings with the kids. When 8-year-old Leanna and 11-year-old Robbie were in school and work schedules allowed, they'd get together at Jonathan's place for sex. they'd get together at Jonathan's place for sex. When the kids were in bed asleep,

Jonathan dropped by for sleepovers. And when they could not physically be together, they were on the phone. At times, Jonathan and Sabrina seemed to suspect their calls were being monitored. There's a clicking on the phone. Do you hear it? However, they did not do anything about it. They didn't get new numbers, nor did they stop using that burner phone. No, they talked and talked about mundane things, kids, work, family.

Mostly, they talked about God and the importance of keeping their affair a secret. We have a purpose. We have a purpose. And I know that God knows our hearts. And I just pray, and that's my continual prayer to him, is that our purpose is not ruined by, you know, people hearing of our wrongdoing, of our affair. The one thing they didn't talk about was Rob Lamone's killing, at least not on the phone. It's so crazy. And, you know, I mean, we... We'll talk in person. Yeah.

We'll talk in person. Yeah. In an effort to get them talking about the case, Detective Meyer began providing Sabrina with little updates on how the investigation was going. Sometimes the things he told her were true. More often, they were not. Inside law enforcement, provoking conversations between people you're surveilling

is known as tickling the wire. Over the next week, the detective would become very adept at tickling. The first attempt came on a Sunday morning, November 9th. The detective sent Sabrina a text asking her to give him a call. The detective sent Sabrina a text asking her to give him a call. It worked like a charm. Almost immediately after he sent that text, one of the monitoring screens in the wire room lit up. Hello?

Hey, I just got a text message from Detective Meyer and he asked me to call him. So I'm going to. Okay. I'll pray. Okay. Okay, I just wanted you to be praying. I'm going to pray and call him. God, please help us.

God, please help us to be wise. Help Sabrina to have the right words. Their prayer was briefly interrupted when Sabrina's daughter, Leanna, walked into the room where her mother was on the phone. You're going to have to give me a couple minutes. Okay, then? Okay, good girl. Once the little girl had been sent away to watch TV, Jonathan resumed praying. God, please help her.

Please give us wisdom. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. I love you. Okay, I love you too, baby. Bye, baby. Then Sabrina picked up her home phone and called the detective. Hello?

Hi, good morning, Detective Meyer. Hey, Sabrina, how are you? the detective told Sabrina that although his investigation had hit a dead end he was going to re-release the security camera video of the man on the motorcycle to the local media in hopes of generating new calls to the tip line. I know you guys probably don't get our news channels there, but I just wanted to give you a warning just in case you see it on the news. Was it true?

It wasn't. No matter. The ploy had the desired effect. After hanging up with the detective, Sabrina immediately called Jonathan as investigators listened in. You know, they don't have anything and that they're re-releasing the same video. He asked you any questions? No questions at all. He just said they're at a dead end. The next day, Monday, November 10th, the detective decided to give the old wire another coochie-coo nudge.

He sent Sabrina another text that said, Call me. Detective Meyer. Hi, Detective Meyer. It's Sabrina Lamont. Sabrina, how's it going? Oh, what's up? I have some exciting news. Okay, tell me. Crime Lab just sent me an email and said they got a good DNA sample from what they believe was a sweat drop.

So the best news we've gotten so far. Really? Oh, my gosh. That's great. Good news, if that were true. Except it was not. Then the detective asked Sabrina if she would be available to come to Bakersfield for another in-person interview. Sabrina clearly found the whole thing a little unsettling.

After months of hearing very little from the detective, she was suddenly hearing from him every day. What did it all mean? Jonathan Hearn had his hands full when Sabrina called that Monday night to ask him about it. It was dinnertime at the firehouse, and Jonathan was on kitchen duty. Hi, baby. Hi, my beautiful. I'm so sorry. We're just still getting dinner for the other guys. Oh, I know you've been so crazy. I'm sorry. No, don't feel bad. I miss you so much.

Oh, don't feel bad. I miss you so much. Sabrina told Jonathan she'd talked with Detective Meyer, and he wanted her to come to Bakersfield on Wednesday for another face-to-face. Jonathan didn't like the sound of that any more than Sabrina did. I guess I want to probably talk in person. It almost seems like suspecting you you or something or like us, you know, so I started to think like they might even be, you know, tapping into phone calls. This development definitely called for a meeting in person. The problem was Jonathan was on the clock and couldn't break away for an in-person chat with Sabrina before her Wednesday

meeting with the detective. Gosh, I'm so bummed that I'm on overtime today and then I'm so bummed that I'm working tomorrow. Bummed? Oh yes. Jonathan knew enough about police work from his arson investigation classes that he was certain the detective intended to bamboozle Sabrina into saying something incriminating. You know, officers are allowed to use ruse, meaning they're allowed to, if you want to get information, you're allowed to lie to get information. So it seemed like the whole thing of like,

hey, I need you to call me. I'm putting in the paper again. I have nothing. Was like probably a ruse to get you to like relax and like open up, you know? No, no. I mean, I, yeah. Like honestly, I feel like

that's kind of what he's doing. It's like he's bringing you out of your comfort zone and into his comfort zone. And so you're like in, in his domain, like... Oh, yeah, he was really nice right now. Obviously, it's like, okay, you're driving to Bakersfield to give final statements.

Why didn't you guys get all the final statements before, you know? Jonathan assumed the detective had been looking at their phone records and knew about the affair. It was those records, he told Sabrina, that had captured the detective's attention. You and I have an affair, you know? And it's like, well, of course they're going to look into that. This next meeting with the detective was going to be high stakes. And Sabrina needed to be prepped. The only solution, Jonathan thought, was delay.

Tomorrow, just call him and say, hey, you know what? Stuff has come up, family and nature issues and stuff. I'm not going to be able to make Wednesday. Can we reschedule for, like, Friday? You know, and just kind of, like, feel him out. Like, is he jerking you around? Because he hasn't been straightforward, it doesn't seem like. The next day, Sabrina called the detective and postponed the interview. Later, when Jonathan and Sabrina finally met face-to-face to prepare, Jonathan quite possibly reminded her of something he'd said earlier on the phone.

They need a lot of information is what this is telling me. They have big holes that they need to fill. Yes, Jonathan suspected the detective would be fishing for something he did not have. So, with Sabrina still on the line, he appealed to heaven for help in keeping it that way. Help to be manned out with all the right words. Please give her calmness and clarity of thought. Do not give too much information. Coming up next on Deadly Mirage.

I've been reading Psalms 51. The Psalms are so good. The Psalms are so good. Because David is a lot like you and I, Sabrina. Do you ever hear anybody use a story out of the Bible to justify having an affair and killing the other person's spouse? That was the first.

So did you guys have an open relationship? No? I just heard some rumors out there. Yeah, I mean, I know how rumors go. Sure. And I know that that's probably how we were viewed by maybe some. Deadly Mirage is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer.

Brian Drew, Kelly Laudine, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins is associate producer. Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.