Let's Go To Court! - 137: A Poisoner & A True Douche Canoe

Episode Date: August 26, 2020

Audrey Marie Frazier defies true crime labels. Was she a black widow? Was she a master of disguise? An escape artist? We like to think she was all three! See, ladies? We really can have it all. Audrey was a chronic spender. She never had enough money to support her expensive tastes. So she got creative. She bought life insurance policies, and umm…. All of a sudden, the people around her got sick. Super sick. Then Kristin tells us about John Darwin. This man is a douche canoe if we’ve ever heard of one. On March 21, 2002, John hopped in his handmade canoe and set out into the North Sea. The waters were calm and he was an experienced canoeist, but John didn’t show up for work that evening. His wife, Anne, panicked. She called the authorities. Rescue crews worked tirelessly to find John, but all they found was his paddle and the wreckage of his canoe. Don’t worry about John, though. He was just fine. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. Oh good, you're still reading! Would you like to get your hands on a Bed Bath & Beyond bag filled with our first round of merch? And would you like to get that merch by donating to a worthy cause? You're in luck! We've donated two t-shirts, a package of stickers, a shout-out on an upcoming episode and a personalized video to Harmony Project KC's silent auction. If you're able, please bid on it! DO IT FOR THE KIDS!  https://casbid.com/NECC In this episode, Kristin pulled from: An episode of the podcast Redhanded, “How Not To Fake Your Death: John Darwin - Canoe Man” “‘Canoe man’ John Darwin who faked his own death has extraordinary new life,” by Emily Retter for The Mirror “Canoe pair lose jail term appeals,” BBC News “Canoe man’s ‘lover’: Darwin the Druid is psychotic - and I was terrified of him,” the London Evening Standard “Canoeist sons ‘put through hell,” BBC News “Sea search for missing canoeist,” BBC News “Missing canoeist admits deception,” BBC News “Anne Darwin’s week in court: ‘A woman able to lie and deceive at length,” by David Randall for the Independent “John Darwin disappearance case” entry on Wikipedia “Canoe man and wife jailed for six years,” by Tom Wilkinson for The Independent In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Marie Hilley: Inscrutable Black Widow” by Marlee MacLeod, The Crime Library “The Great Escape Artist” by Mark Gribben, The Malefactors Register “Alabama Woman Who Poisoned Her Husband And Daughter Dies After Escaping Prison” by Benjamin H. Smith, oxygen.com

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A proud member of Wayne's Auto Group. One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll talk about a real-life douche canoe.

And I'll be talking about a black widow, a master of disguise, or maybe an escape artist. Why don't you make up your mind? I couldn't possibly. Brandi, how you doing? I'm doing pretty good. You kind of hit puberty in the middle of that. I totally did. That was weird. Better take a sip of water and wet my whistle.

Yeah. Okay. Boy. You went from 12 to 85 in just a second there. Wet your whistle there, Ethel. I've been singing a lot of Hamilton, so. Oh my God. You and I. We're late to the party, so... Oh, my God. You and I.

We're late to the party, but we're here, folks! That's right! Bass fans! Yeah, so, guys, we just recorded the bonus episode two days ago. Yeah. Where we discovered that we'd both just watched Hamilton, and we were both obsessed with it. Yeah. So, I, of

course, every day since I've watched of course I've been every day since I've watched it I've been listening to the soundtrack while I get ready in the morning and I think they really missed out on casting me have you thought about what role you would want to play uh no oh oh me neither because that would be so embarrassing you want to know you want to be Peggy oh you be so embarrassing. You want to be Peggy? Oh, you want to be Peggy and the lady in the red dress? No. I would want to be Thomas Jefferson.

He has all the best lines. Thomas Jefferson is good. No, I love... No, Thomas Jefferson raped his slave, so he was not good. But, you know, well, for real. No. What? Controversial opinion.

What? I love Aaron Burr. Wait, well, you real. No. What? Controversial opinion. What? I love Aaron Burr. Wait. Well, you love the actor. I love Leslie Odom Jr. Yes. Yeah. Well, no, that's not controversial to say you love Leslie Odom Jr.

I also think he has an amazing voice. I'd like him just to sing songs to me. Oh, I'm sure he's available. I told David. What? That I thought that he'd probably make a really good, like, slow jam album. Yeah, hell yeah. Like, what do you think?

Absolutely. Just, like, imagine people banging to his music. I think that they would, I think it would go well. I think you need to reach out to him via email. With a business opportunity for him. I bet he doesn't have a lot of opportunities. No, I'm sure. You guys, sadly, Norman is not into Hamilton

because he's not into musicals, and so, you know. And he hates history. You know, we could do an Aaron Burr case for the pod. I know. He was tried for the pod. I know. He was tried for treason. Is it boring, though? Might be boring. Can you turn it into a rap?

My name is Kristen, and I'm here to say... Aaron Burr was not okay. He shot Mr. Hamilton. Do I like it? Nah. See? See? See? I think I'm ready for Broadway, guys.

Enough of this nonsense. What you thinking over there, Brandy? I was thinking that I go first this week, right? You sure do. And I'm glad because, you know, we just did the bonus episode. thinking over there brandy i was thinking that i go first this week right you sure do and i was and i'm glad because you know we just did the bonus episode i'm a little overwhelmed and i'm i'm frankly glad to just sit back and relax sit back and relax well huh jokes on you because i'm gonna get my case out of the way and get to sit back and relax the rest of the day is that how

this works bonus episode you say what's a bonus episode, Kristen? Brandi, you were just here. We just did it. No, okay. Our bonus episode. You guys, I don't know. We haven't gotten the edit back yet, so I don't know how long the edited version is going to be. The unedited version is fucking long as shit. The raw audio was three hours because, okay, I covered Jennifer Pan.

And, guys, if you don't know who Jennifer Pan is, that is a wild, wild story. Yeah. From our neighbors to the north. Yeah. I won't reveal anymore. Should I reveal a little tease? Sure. Give us a tickle.

Well, I realize the only thing I could say is a total spoiler. Is that too much? Yeah, that's way too much. Okay, okay. Holy shit, you just gave away the ending. Okay, Patty, bleep that, please. Brandy, tell us about yours. I did a story of survival, which Kristen didn't catch until, even though I called it that from the very beginning, about halfway through, she said, holy shit, does this lady survive?

Brandy, I pay attention to you about 50% of the time. Story checks out. Anyway, to get access to that bonus episode plus 14 other other? Other bonus episodes. Just sign up

at the $5 level. At that level, you get the bonus episodes and you get into the Discord to chitty chat chat with us. And at the $7 level. At that level, you get the bonus episodes and you get into the Discord to chitty chat chat with us. And at the $7 level, you get also a bonus video. So I know I'm doing weird hand gestures. It's like a proctology exam. At the $7 level, we feel around in your insides.

We're not qualified to do it. So, you know, anyway, this month's bonus video is me reading from my middle school diary. Yeah, it's very uncomfortable. Had a lot of feelings. And at that level, you also get a sticker and you get a shout out on the podcast. And then at the $10 level. That's the Bob Moss level. Tell them what they get.

You get all that stuff we already talked about. Plus, you get ad-free versions already talked about plus you get ad free versions of the episodes and you get them a day early patreon.com slash lgtc podcast all right let's talk about a uh black widow or a master of disguise or an escape artist why does it have to be just one maybe she's all of them okay most of the information from this came from an amazing article by marley mcleod for the crime library does marley put a question mark at the end of her name well not actually positive that that's how i would assume that's how her last name is pronounced, but it's spelled a little bit odd. Might be McClude.

Ooh, okay, okay. Okay, I hear you. And, obviously, we know I'm very familiar with the crime library. Yeah. I've never read an article by her before. You think she's a made-up person? No, I think she's a real person. I'm just saying I've never come across her before.

Okay, okay, okay. Audrey Marie Hilly was special. That's what her parents had ingrained in her from a very young age at least marie as everyone called her was what well would you write down? Marie, as everyone called her, was for two working class parents. Was born to two working class parents, I believe is what I'm trying to say, in Blue Mountain, Alabama in 1933. It was the Great Depression, and like many people in their small Alabama town, Marie's parents worked at the factory in town, but they had greater aspirations for their daughter. It was common for the young women of Blue Mountain to only get a grade school education before leaving school to go to work at a factory in the area. But this was not going to be the

case for Marie. Her parents were adamant that she would get an education and become a secretary. I mean, that was highfalutin. Absolutely. And I think that's really important, like, or really interesting, because they had these huge aspirations for her, but, like, that's what it was. That kind of just shows you the time period, the lifestyle that they had. They weren't, like, wanting her to become a doctor or anything. They wanted her to become a secretary.

Sure. And that would be so much above their station in life. To ensure that Marie would stay on this path, they moved when she was 12 to a town near Blue Mountain called Anniston. Anniston was where the upper class owners of the factories lived. The move would hopefully make sure that Marie fell in with the right crowd, went to the right school, etc. So, in 1945, they moved to Anniston. Brandi, did you have to throw this episode together at the last minute? What's happening here?

No, not at all. Anyway, Marie began seventh grade at Quinterd Junior High School. At Quinterd. Was this after the move? That was after. So, yeah, this was after they moved to Aniston from Blue Mountain. Okay, I don't think people got it. I know. I wish I would have explained it better.

don't think people got it. I know. I wish I would have explained it better. And just as Marie's parents had hoped, she found herself becoming friends with a lot of children of privilege. And she joined the right activities in school. She got on student council. She was very serious about her studies. And she had a reputation of being kind of mature and smart. And she was very pretty and she was well dressed. In seventh grade, she was named prettiest girl at Quintered in the yearbook. Gross. I know, I hate it. As she got older and went on to high school, she continued to do well. She joined the Future Teachers of America Club and the Commercial Club, which was specifically an organization for girls who intended to pursue careers as secretaries. She was seen by her peers as being kind of dependable and she was looked up to quite a bit and she was also as i mentioned the prettiest girl in school and so she got a lot of male attention but

everybody knew that she was already spoken for oh she was frank hilly's girl. So Frank... Oh, what, Brandy? Frank met Marie when she was 12. Oh, no. And he was a junior in high school. Oh, no. And by the time that he had graduated, they were in a serious relationship, which meant she was 13.

Well, high time, right?uck yeah so frank wasn't from a wealthy family but he was from a more well-to-do family than marie was okay um his family worked in the other big industry that was kind of in the area, which was pipe making. And because he wasn't wealthy, and also probably because he was an adult and Marie was a child, her parents didn't love the matchup at first. How dare you not laugh at my disgusting joke? I was trying to move past it. Too bad, I won't let you.

But even though maybe he didn't have the most money, Frank treated Marie like royalty. Well, hmm. What? He was an adult going after a child, so I don't know that that's treating a child like royalty, but okay, anyway. Yep. So they had, their relationship was very intense. They often had very dramatic arguments because one of them was a child. That'll happen. Yeah. But at the end of the day, they always made up. And when Frank went into the Navy immediately after high school, he and Marie continued to, like, write each other letters. And they stayed together. And they counted down the days until they could be together again.

He was stationed initially in Guam. But he was terrified that he would lose Marie as she got older. And so when he was home on leave in 1951, which would have made her like 17 years old. Super old. Gross. Yeah. They got married. Ew.

Okay. So initially, Marie stayed behind. She finished high school. Frank was then stationed in Long Beach, California. He finished out his stint in the Navy. She went and lived with him for a little while after she graduated. She lived in California with him. He got reassigned to Boston. They moved there. And then when his when his tour of duty was done, they moved back home to Alabama. To Alabama. Sometime around then, Marie learned that she was pregnant. And Frank got himself a job in the shipping department of the Standard Foundry in town, which was like the company that makes the pipes.

And Marie got herself a job as a secretary, just as her parents had one. Things were going really good for the little Hilly family. They welcomed their first child, Michael, in November of 1952. There was one problem is that Marie had always been told that she was special. Her parents had always, she was an only child. She'd always been showered with gifts and what little money they had had always gone to Marie. And so she expected the same from Frank. And she was much better at spending money than he was at making money. And by this time, he had a pretty good job. He'd gotten some promotions at the foundry and he was doing pretty well. But it was never quite enough. She always wanted really nice things.

She wanted her son to be dressed in the finest clothes. And it made things difficult for them. She wanted a nicer house, nicer furnishings, nicer clothes. At first, Frank tried to like push back on that and let her know like, this is what we can afford, you know, we need to live within our means. And then he found it easier just to go along with what she wanted and try and figure out where to get the money later. And so he just kind of gave in to her wishes. And because he, this is a direct quote from the article. Because he loved his wife.

He just gave her whatever? Yeah. Okay. Okay. By 1960, Marie was pregnant with their second child and a daughter this time was born. And Marie struggled with their daughter Carol's birth. And she and Carol butted heads a lot through all of Carol's life. Marie wanted a little girl to dress up and groom and like have this little doll. And Carol was every bit of tomboy and a daddy's girl. And Marie became

jealous almost of Carol's relationship with Frank. she started almost like not giving her attention out of like oh come on and so it just increased her relationship with frank because frank would see that behavior and so he'd take carol and take her out for ice cream to make up for her mom being awful and immature yeah okay yeah to be, that little kid shouldn't be taking so much of her dad's attention. Well, that's how Marie saw it. Yeah. So things were okay in the family, you know. Oh, yeah.

Sounds great. Frank and Marie had good jobs. The kids had pretty much everything they ever wanted. Marie really favored her son, Michael, Mike. Marie really favored her son, Michael, Mike. And by all accounts, he was a bit of a hellion because she wouldn't discipline him. She wrote off his poor behavior as like a boys will be boys kind of thing. Oh, cool. I love that.

Yeah. And this just continued to kind of draw a separation in the family. You had Frank and Carol and you had Marie and Mike, which is not really what you want in case you were wondering. One thing that hadn't changed was Marie's taste for the finer things that continued. And Frank had this great reputation in town. He was now like manager of some department at the foundry he was making a really good living at this time you kind of like took out credit at stores rather than having like necessarily a credit card like a store would give you a line of credit or whatever and so he had a line of credit

at a couple different stores in town and he would always pay when it was when it was time to make a payment and marie started using frank's good name to get her own line of credit taken out at additional stores or at some of the same stores but she wasn't paying the bills that came in her name i didn't know women were even allowed to do that back in the day yeah so she took out her own line of credits at several stores using frank's like reputation around town. And then she got herself a post office box and got all the bills and stuff forwarded to that so that Frank wouldn't know anything about it. He didn't have to sign off on it? Apparently not. Wow.

Yeah. And so merchants around town were like, this is odd. Frank always pays his bills like i wonder you know people start talking to each other and finally word gets back to frank yeah that he's got all these unpaid uh-huh bills to all these different merchants and he's like what are you talking about yeah and that it all in like 1974 it all comes out that marie's been taking out all these loans and whatever he ends up paying everything off right but it just just creates more tension in the home and whatever. Around this same time, Mike had gone off to college. He wants to become a pastor. So he's going to some Christian

college, some seminary school, whatever. He's moved away to do that. And now it's just frank and marie and carol at home and frank has started to have some health issues at first it starts out as like nausea and vomiting and he thinks he's maybe gotten his developed some kind of like sensitivity to certain foods um or perhaps he's been you know exposed to some chemicals at the foundry and so he kind of writes that off at first and starts taking a lot of alka-seltzer um just to kind of manage his symptoms but it just keeps getting worse and worse and so in may of 1975 he finally goes and sees a doctor about it um he goes to just their regular family physician and he kind of listens to what frank has to say about his symptoms and he's like well i think you need to up your water intake you know take more try and get more all the poison

try and get more fluids into your diet also kaopectate would be really good for your stomach malox would be good and then he also gives him some prescription for something as well but none As well. But none of it helped. Frank's sister, Frida, came to visit the family on May 22nd of 1975. And she looked at Frank and was like, you look terrible. And he's like, yeah, I've been having these stomach issues for so long now. I just feel terrible all the time. You know, I don't think I've ever been this sick in my life. Yeah. And so she's like, well, what, what have you done? Like, who have you been to the doctor? And he's like, yeah, I went to the doctor and I got these, this prescription. And then also they gave Marie these injections that she has to give me, you know, every so often. And Frida listened to him and was like, oh my gosh,

that sounds terrible. Are the injections helping? And he's like, honestly, I don't know if anything's helping at this point. And he told Frida at that time that he felt like if he continued to be this sick, he thought he was going to die. Oh, no. The very next morning after Frank has this conversation with his sister, Frida, Marie gets up. It's like 3.30 in the morning. And Frank is wandering around the front yard in his underwear. So she's like, oh, my God, what is going on?

She gets him in the car. She takes him to the hospital. They run all these tests, and they find out that he is in liver failure. They run all these tests and they find out that he is in liver failure. The family doctor looks over the test results and he's like, my diagnosis that you have like some stomach issue was wrong. I think you have infectious hepatitis. You have some kind of massive liver infection. And so he prescribed him a bunch of new medications.

But Frank's condition was so bad by this point. He was jaundiced. He was hallucinating regularly. And he was just very like irritable. Nothing seemed to help, even though they had given him this new diagnosis and had gotten him on all of this new medication. A couple days later, the kids came home to visit Frank to, you know, check in on her carol still lived at home yeah but mike came home from school to visit and he checked on his dad when he got there his dad was sleeping and a short time later he came back and his father had passed away they did an autopsy and the official cause of death was listed as infectious hepatitis. When they opened him up, they had all the signs of hepatitis. His liver was severely swollen and all of the stuff that you would expect to find in a case of hepatitis. He was laid to rest on May 27th, 1975, and his son

delivered the sermon at his funeral. Marie had a couple of life insurance policies on did she so a couple of them had been through through his job at the standard foundry she had some extra and then there'd been a couple of additional ones all in total though it wasn't that much money about thirty one thousand dollars just that for inflation. Adjust it for inflation, about $150,000. Oh, God, that's, yeah. Not that much. No. It's not enough to change your life, but it's enough to make you feel temporarily wealthy.

And as we know, Marie likes to spend money. And so when she got that life insurance money, she began a spending. She bought herself a car. She bought some clothes. She bought some clothes she bought some jewelry she bought her mother a diamond ring she bought mike and his wife new appliances she bought her daughter carol a new car a stereo some furniture what yeah yeah she blew yeah blew through it marie struggled with the loss of frank she took it as an opportunity to kind of get closer to her family she invited her mother lucille um who had been

recently diagnosed with cancer she invited her to come live with her and she took her up on the offer so she brought her into her home um and then she also invited her son, Mike, and his wife, Terry, to move into her home. And Mike had just taken a job as an assistant pastor. So he wasn't making much money. It would save them a lot. I think they were expecting their first child by this point. And so he also took her up on the offer and moved into what was his parents' house, what is now his mother's house. Mike and Terry almost immediately regretted their decision to move in with Marie because Marie and Carol fought constantly. And when they weren't fighting, Marie was just like begging Mike for attention. She wanted him to spend all of her time with him, not spend his time with his wife, not spend his time at work.

It was just a terribly volatile living arrangement. In the meantime, Terry, Mike's wife, started feeling very sick. Lots of nausea. She was hospitalized multiple times. No, leave the woman alone she suffered a miscarriage oh it was just it just added to the problems that were going on inside this house finally mike and terry are like we got to move out of this house we can't this was a terrible idea let's get an apartment we've got to get away from here i think just the stress of the environment is having a big impact on your health terry like yeah we've

got to get away from here so they found an apartment but the night before they were supposed to move out marie's house caught on fire so marie her mother lucille, and Carol all moved into the apartment with Mike and Terry until repairs could be done on their home. Weird how that fire started. Yeah, super weird, right? Yeah. So they're all living in this little apartment. Finally, the repairs are done on Marie's house, and it's time for Lucille and Carol and Marie to move back home. house and it's time for lucille and carol and marie to move back home well about that same time the apartment next door to mike and terry's no caught fire oh my what and mike and terry's

apartment was damaged in the fire so they had to move back in with marie no no this is hell until until their apartment could be repaired or they could find new housing. Yeah. Oh, my God. At some point, the family was just like, holy shit, we've been through a lot. There were some other, like, weird little stuff going on, too. Yeah, I bet there was. There were some prank calls were happening to the house.

There was, like, weird little things kept going missing from the house like they kept getting the having the police out for like these petty theft things like it looked like someone had broken into the garage and took in a tool you know whatever things just took in it took it taken taken a tool i love that movie Tookin' with Liam Neeson. That's a Key and Peele sketch. Yeah. Tookin'? Tookin'? Anyway, they're like, fuck this.

We have got to do something. So they all hope that a change of scenery will do them some good. Okay, but no one suspected Maureen. Kristen, how dare you? Well, I mean, I know it's terrible to say, but right? It's just a string of bad luck. Oh, well, I've got, okay. Okay.

So Mike and Terry find a house in Pompano Beach, Florida. So this is a bit of a move. Like they're living in Alabama. They're going to move to Florida. He gets, I don't know, some job at some church there, find a little house. And Marie's like, you know what? Carol and I are going to come with you. Oh, great news. Great news. So they all moved to Pompano Beach, Florida. By this time, Carol had graduated high school and Marie got an office job there in Pompano beach and things were going pretty well. She continued to have some spending issues when she first moved in with Mike. She was like, Hey,

can I borrow your credit card? No. Um, I need to, you know, get some stuff to get a setup here, a couple of furnishings for our rooms you know whatever um and i you know i had a little gap in my paychecks because of the move but you know give me your credit card now i'll reimburse you later no problem and mike let his mom do it she racked up six hundred dollars in charges on his visa card and then never reimbursed him for it of course and of course she and carol are still fighting every day by now mike and terry have had their first baby and the whole thought of like marie coming to live with them was like oh i'll help you with the baby i'll help with the housework and marie rarely did that right and so finally

the arrangement was not working for anyone and car Carol and Marie did end up moving back to Alabama. They only stayed in Florida with Mike and Terry for a couple of months. And weirdly. I'm sure it felt much longer. I'm sure it did. And weirdly, things for Mike and Terry went really great once Marie was no longer living there. Did Terry's health issues suddenly clear up? They sure did.

Weird. Meanwhile, while all these weird things have been going on, they've been moving, you know, hopping from house to apartment to Florida to back, Marie had been buying some life insurance policies. Oh, no, Carol, watch your back, girl. She'd bought several policies, in fact. She'd bought some fire coverage for her house. Well, sure, she's had so many bad experiences. That's right. She'd bought some fire coverage for her house. Well, sure. She's had so many bad experiences.

That's right. She bought specifically some cancer coverage for herself. And then she'd bought life insurance for both of her children. Okay. I did not know that you could buy, like, cancer coverage specifically. Yeah. So you can buy cancer coverage specifically, which basically, if you're diagnosed with cancer, it helps cover your living costs and your hospital oh yeah costs while you're seeking treatment so she insures her son's mike's her son her son mike's life for like twenty five thousand dollars and then she gets another policy on her daughter carol which

initially had like a twenty five thousand dollar policy but then once that policy was in effect for a year it had a secondary twenty five thousand dollar like accidental death rider on it so should she oopsies have her mom push her down the stairs then then the policy essentially doubled right yeah um when they moved from florida back to alabama they had a little trouble finding housing at first for a little while they were living with frank's sister frida and frida only put up with them for a very short time was like you guys got to get out of here I can't handle this and so then they moved in with Frank's mother Carrie which this is very confusing we got a Carol we got a Carrie yeah yeah so they move in with Carrie Carrie you're not gonna believe this died well she starts feeling real bad when Marie and Carol move in there she's got

nausea pretty mild at first and then just gets worse and worse and worse. And Frida intervenes at some point and is like, you know, I don't think that you guys should be staying with Mom anymore. I think you guys have got to find somewhere to live so she can focus on her health. So I think they do. They move out. They find somewhere else to live.

And it was April of 1979, they find somewhere else to live and it was april of 1979 and suddenly carol marie's daughter isn't feeling very well she's now 19 she's enrolled at a nearby college for her freshman year she is returning for the prom at her high school that she graduated from that night like she's having a great time with her friends but she can't help think like how bad she feels she's super nauseous she kind of tries to just like brush it off and like i must have eaten something weird today you know whatever the next day though it's worse she's more nauseous she she tries to go to church and she throws up in the parking lot at church. And so she returns home, kind of tells her mother what's going on, and her mom's like, weird, I wonder if there's some kind of bug going around, because I just got a call that your grandma, Carrie, is in the hospital.

She fainted at church today. Oh, weird. in the hospital she fainted at church today oh weird and so carol and marie go to the hospital to check on carrie and carol is horribly sick she's just getting more and more sick like by the hour it's not long until she's hospitalized herself she progressively got worse over the months she tried to at one point i don't know if she maybe had suspicions about why she wasn't feeling well, but she actually tried to get an apartment. And her mom helped her with it. Like, she got an apartment. She kind of got set up with stuff.

But she never was able to fully move into the apartment because she was so sick. Right. Finally, she's admitted to the hospital. so sick. Right. Finally, she's admitted to the hospital. And she'd been seen by this same doctor who's seeing her in the hospital a couple times. And he's, at this point, he pulls Maria aside.

And he's like, you know, she's a young woman. I'm not finding any signs that there's anything seriously wrong with her. I'm beginning to wonder if this might be psychosomatic. wrong with her i'm beginning to wonder if this might be psychosomatic like is she something else going on that's manifesting itself into these physical symptoms or is she exaggerating these symptoms ladies always be exaggerated so he suggests that marie takes takes Carol from the hospital to go see some kind of psychiatrist, get some kind of psychiatric evaluation, whatever. In the meantime, Marie is in trouble. She has been bouncing checks all over town. Yes. Is she in need of some extra money?

She is. Is she in need of some extra money? She is. In fact, when Carol is admitted to this secondary hospital for more observation, Marie is actually arrested for writing bad checks. Yeah. Somewhere along the way, Mike kind of gets to thinking about how weird it is that everybody in his family has been sick. And he actually calls the police and talks to them about his father's death. Oh, wow. So he really was suspicious.

He really was suspicious. Specifically, I think he called, like, the coroner's office or whatever and asked what kind of tests were done during the autopsy. And then what it would take to exhume the body. Whoa. And they're like. They're like, whoa, man, calm down. Yeah. Something like that.

You'd have to have some really serious evidence in place to prove that that needed to happen. So Mike kind of walks that back. He doesn't push that any further. But then this woman, Eve, comes forward. Eve was a friend of Carol's from church. And she remembered one day she was at Carol's apartment when they were, like, getting it all set up. She had helped her kind of move in there. And remember at this time, Carol's really sick and she's not really sure what's wrong. And so Marie, while she was at Carol's apartment with her friend, Eve getting her set

up, Marie gives Carol an injection. And Eve asked Carol about it. And she's like, Oh yeah, you know, some medicine that's supposed to help with my nausea. It was given to her, you know, by the doctors the last time I was in the hospital. And Eve thought that she thought it was weird. And so somehow Eve gets in contact with Carol's aunt when Carol's super sick in the hospital now and Marie has been arrested and she's like hey I think there's something weird going on here I saw Marie give Carol an injection at her apartment right and so Frida the aunt calls Mike and it's like hey this is what I'm

hearing from Carol's friend Frida's our hero of the story here. She might be. Frida sniffs out some bullshit. She does. She does. So she calls Mike and she's like, this is what her friend's saying. I don't know if it's true. And so Mike's like, hold on. Can you imagine? My good friend, I don't know.

I kind of suspect that she's trying to kill her kid. Can you imagine? No. I mean, that's obviously what I suspect of you. Oh, my God. killer kid can you imagine no i mean that's obviously what i suspect of you but like so mike's like holy shit are you serious mom's been giving carol injections and now she's like hospitalized sicker than she's ever been before and oh my dad died of some super weird illness and so he calls carol in the hospital and it's like hey has mom mom giving you any injections and she's like oh yeah yeah mom gave me injections she said i'm not

really supposed to talk about it though because her friend's daughter got him for her and she's a nurse and she could lose her license if she finds out that I'm trying to murder somebody and so Mike is like freaking out he's like oh my god mom's trying to kill my sister mom probably killed dad yeah I'm gonna get to the bottom of this and so he goes up and he goes to the doctor and he's like this is what's going on he explains the whole thing yeah yeah and the doctor is like okay let's take some time to see if there's anything to this. He talks to Marie and he's like, okay. Remember, this is where she's been referred to for like the psychiatric help as well. And so he's like, you know, I'm concerned about Carol's well-being right now. What I think is best this time is we're just going to try some different stuff.

I think that you shouldn't visit for a few days. How'd she react to that idea? She fucking lost her goddamn mind. Yeah, weird. She pulled her out of the hospital against medical advice. Said she was taking her to the Mayo Clinic and that they couldn't help her, obviously. Sure, yeah. They spend the night

in a motel that night. Carol is super fucking sick at this point. And so. Okay, does she know what Mike suspects? I don't know if Carol knows what Mike suspects

at this point. Because she's still like going along with her mom. Well, she might be too sick to fight back, frankly. It's possible. Yeah. Absolutely.

So that next day, Marie's like, oh shit, I just pulled my daughter out of the hospital. And she is actually super fucking sick. And so she takes her to a different hospital that next day. She wanted her to die. Right.

So why take her to it? Did she want her to die? Yeah. I assume she wanted her to die. Had a year left. Yes. A year. I believe a year had passed.

And then, yeah. But she also needs to make it look like it was an accident or that she died of natural causes to get that life insurance. Well, it sounds like it's all in Carol's head, according to that one doctor. So they get her in this new hospital the next day and this doctor is assigned to her case. Marie happens to be arrested again for bad checks. And this gives the family a little bit more time to look into what Mike and Frida think is going on. And so this doctor, Brian Thompson, who's been assigned to Carol, looks at her.

And he's like, okay, I'm hearing what you guys are saying. There are some outward things that we can look for that would be signs that she's being poisoned. And he explains this to the family. And he's like, let's check her fingernails and toenails. If she has been being poisoned by arsenic, there will be these lines. These white lines should be visible. They're called Aldridge-Mies lines. So he checks her fingers.

Horizontal or vertical? I believe they are horizontal lines. Horizontal or vertical? I believe they are horizontal lines. And the lines appeared on every finger and every toe. Whoa. They ran an arsenic test on a hair strand. And she had, everybody has a small amount of arsenic in their body. Towards the end of the strand was the normal amount.

Towards the end of the strand was the normal amount. And towards the root of the strand was up to 100 times the amount of arsenic someone should have in their body. Wow. Yeah. And there was a clear, like, they could check at different points in the hair shaft. That's wild. Like, when it was getting heavier and heavier and heavier. She had been being poisoned for a long time. Like, years?

Possibly. Okay. Yeah. So. How fast does hair grow? Like an inch a month? Half an inch a month. Oh, okay.

Is the average. So it's September by this point. September of 1979, I think. Okay. Mike hears all of this. He finds out that, yes, Marie has definitely, his mother has been poisoning his sister. He writes all this out in a big old letter and sends it to the coroner who processed his father's body. Yeah, and he's like, is this enough evidence for you? Yeah, and they're like, holy fucking shit.

They exhume his body the next day. Yes. And they run a test on him. Sure enough, there's huge amounts of arsenic in parts of his body. So even all these years later, yes. Like his toenails have a large amount of arsenic settled in them. His tissue doesn't come back with that much in it, but that could be because of the embalming process or whatever so they need to get like the exact level um determined by lab tests to decide is this the cause of death right

um like the day after that, they exhume the grandma's body who has since died. Check her for arsenic poisoning. She tests positive. It's determined that there wasn't enough to cause her death. She had actually died of cancer, but she was being poisoned all that time as well. Oh, God. They also exhume. Can you imagine having cancer and being poisoned at that time as well. Oh, God. They also exhumed. Can you imagine having cancer and being poisoned at the same time?

No shit. They also exhumed Marie's mother's body, the other grandma. Uh-huh. Sure enough, she'd been being poisoned too. Good God. So, Marie had been arrested for these bad checks. Meanwhile, this whole investigation's going on. You know, I wish you'd focus more on the bad checks.

That's what interests me. Meanwhile, this whole investigation is going on. You know, I wish you'd focus more on the bad checks. That's what interests me. Meanwhile, this whole investigation is going on. They charge her with poisoning of her daughter, but they still don't know if they can link Frank's death to this. Her bail is set super fucking low. How low? Like $10,000. Okay.

And she has such a reputation in the community as being this great person that people take up a collection. No post the bail for her. Was she charming? Yes. She was beautiful. She was she was charming. She carried herself very well. They described her as getting along with people who basically were above her station very well. And a total dick to everyone below her. Yes. What a turd. Yes. What a turd. So she gets out on bail. She was released on November 11th, 1979 on bail. And her attorney, this guy Wilford Lane, took her to a motel she stays in

this motel for a couple days but she keeps coming up with this story that she feels like one of frank's sisters is gonna come for her and she's scared and so he moves her to a different motel whatever um a few days go by like a week it's now november 18th wilford lane her attorney comes to visit her so they can talk about the case and she's not there her clothes are thrown about the hotel room someone got her and there's a note okay on the motel stationery here we go is it a fake ransom note it says lane which is the attorney's last name you led me straight to her okay you will hear from me uh-huh um handwriting experts or i think really just the police compared it to marie's handwriting and it was an exact match no it, it was a match to Frida.

Duh. Come on. Marie had been kidnapped. Oh, gosh. Terrible. First, her husband dies. Her mom. Her mother-in-law.

Her daughter's terribly sick. The house fires and now she gets kidnapped. I know. How much can one woman take? That's the question. But, you know, these are the moments where Jesus carries you. There's only one set of footprints in the sand. That's right.

It's the kidnappers' footprints. There were no signs of Marie anywhere. The kidnappers had gotten clean away. Gosh. There was. Another win for the bad guys. One small incident the day after she went missing where Marie's aunt found that her house had been broken into.

Oh. Her car was missing. Some clothes were missing. And there was a note. A note. A note was left in the scene that she could find the car in a nearby town. And that, don't worry. We got what we wanted.

We won't bother you again. Gosh, these kidnappers are just the sweetest things. A month and a half later or so, still no sign of Marie. Sure. But the toxicology reports finally come back on Frank's body. And they were able to determine that the cause of death was arsenic poisoning. And so Marie was indicted for the murder of her husband on January 11th, 1980, in absentia. Well, talk about blaming the victim.

Yeah, she's been kidnapped. And no one's even looking for her. So this did launch like a major FBI manhunt. Sure. But there was no sign of Marie. Did they have the top ten most wanted at this point? You know, I don't know. She would have been a bit of a pioneer, wouldn't she?

Yeah, yeah. You know, a lady on the list. Ladies don't always break that glass ceiling. Yeah. So Marie managed to stay on the run for about three years. Oh, wow. Yeah. First, she went to Florida.

And she was using an assumed identity. She was now going by Robbie Hannon. Oh. And in Florida, she met this man, John Homan. They lived together for about a year. And then in 1981, they married. And she became Robbie Homan. They lived together for about a year. And then in 1981, they married and she became Robbie Homan. They moved to New Hampshire. And during their marriage, she often talked to her husband, John. Wait, how did she get married? You know, that's a great question. I don't know.

Okay. Okay. I don't know. But during their marriage, she often talked about her twin sister, Terry. Terry Hannon, who lived in Texas. You know, she really loved her sister, didn't get to see her enough. Sure, sad tale. Super sad. Finally, in 1982, she's missed her sister way too much. She needs to go visit her. So she left New Hampshire.

She told her husband that there was some family business that she needed to go visit her so she left new hampshire she told her husband that there was some family business that she needed to attend to and she was suffering from some illness and she needed to see some doctors for it she was or the made-up twin sister she was okay and so he was like okay cool i mean we have doctors here but but whatever. No, no, there's no doctors. And so she traveled to Texas where she visited her twin sister, Terry. And then she went to Florida. Man, that's kind of a wild trip. It's a wild trip. Okay. So while Robbie went to Texas, she's gone, you know, John's still back there in New Hampshire. He gets a phone call from Terry Martin, who is Robbie's twin sister. That's her married name.

Oh, no. Uh-huh. Oh, no. You're not going to believe this. She sounded exactly like, no. Robbie died. Robbie died. Oh, no.

Robbie died in Texas. She'd been horribly ill. The doctors had been unable to save her. Should have tried the New Hampshire doctors. She did get to see, you know, she felt like she went out on a high note. She got to see her twin sister one last time. Yeah. And no need

to come to texas don't worry i mean we already took care of her body she had wanted it donated to science so we did that yep science has got it and so um terry's like you know what i'd like to come meet you ronnie talked a lot about you oh my god no God. No. Would it be okay? No, Brandy. No, she's not coming back as her own twin. And John's like, I would love that. Oh, my God. This is so ridiculous. It's so...

This woman is a nut. What the frick? In November of 1982. Did she, like, get a haircut and get some new clothes? So, John meets Terry Martin, his dead wife's twin sister. Oh, my God. She had, she was considerably thinner than Ronnie was, and she had blonde hair as opposed to Ronnie's brunette hair.

So she went on a diet and dyed her hair? Yeah. Yes. John Homan swears that he had no idea that he was really John looking at his wife and not his deceased wife's twin sister. How long did it take for the two of them to fall in love? We'll see. Here you go.

Terry needed to move in with John. Why? Terry needed to move in with John. Why? They needed to spend some time together so they could both get over Ronnie's death. That's weird. Or Robbie's death. Have I been calling her Ronnie? Her name's Robbie.

Who cares? Her name's not really either one of those. So, so, John and Terry are getting to know each other, and they have a couple of things they need to do. They go and they visit Robbie's old job and say, you know, Terry wants to meet her coworkers. Oh my God. This woman is sick. And then they go, um, to, I bet you she was just getting off like, oh, you know, your sister was such a great woman. I'm sure she was.

Oh, yes, she really, tell me more compliments about her. And then she wants to place an obituary for her sister in the local paper. You know, that's where she had lived. Yes. Oh, did she write like the best, most loving? Oh, she did. She did. She wrote a very elaborate obituary.

Are you going to read it? I don't have it. I wish I did. Damn it, Brandy. I wish I did. So then she settles in living with John. She gets a job at a book printing company in Vermont. Things are going pretty well.

And weirdly, Terry, just like her sister robbie was a pretty skilled secretary okay did they have the same likes and dislikes personality so as i mentioned john was sure that this was this was his deceased wife's twin sister even do this but you know who wasn't convinced? Anybody else? Robbie's co-workers that they went and visited. They were like, okay, this whole thing is super fucking weird. Didn't that seem a lot like Robbie? Didn't Terry seem a lot like Robbie? And so they're like, let's see if we can confirm Robbie's death.

And so they start with the obituary. So Terry had put a lot of detail into this obituary. And this would be her downfall. Oh, my God. First, they discovered that the hospital that was listed as the place that Robbie died didn't exist. Oh, my God. Yes. Then the church that was listed as this church that Robbie had belonged to was a member of. It was made up, too.

It didn't exist. And then they called the coroner's office. called the coroner's office they actually called like several coroner's offices all around the dallas area which is where she was yeah supposed to have died there was no record of anybody named robbie homan or robbie whatever her maiden name was even dying and so this group of co-workers are like okay what the fuck yeah like is this is this robbie pretending to be someone else this is amazing why would she do that yes why and so they take it to their boss and their boss is like he looks into it and he's like yeah that's pretty weird um this seems like something i should tell the police right right and they're like yeah probably and so they can't be being done for like good reasons exactly and so all collectively this

group of co-workers takes this information to the police. And they talk to this guy, Detective Bob Hardy for the Keene Police Department. And he's like, okay, let me follow up on this. Let me make some phone calls. He's like, this is the weirdest thing I've ever heard. Yeah, he's like, this is super fucking weird. And so he starts calling and trying to verify some of the information in the obituary himself. And nothing is adding up up so he's calling like

other law enforcement agencies um he talks to the new hampshire state police and they let him in on some information they're like okay there's this woman carol manning who's wanted for bank robbery. And you know, this Terry Martin fits her description. Maybe it's, maybe it's Carol Manning. And so they, they start looking for Terry to see if they can positively ID her as this Carol Manning. But then they're like, okay, no, that doesn't work out. Okay, hold on. There's this other fugitive, Terry Lynn Clifton. Maybe Terry Martin is actually Terry Lynn Clifton. And so they finally track Terry Martin down to the book printing company that she works at in January of 1983. They arrest her. Not really arrest her.

Take her in for questioning. And they're like, what's the story? We know you're not Terry Martin. Yeah. Who are you? Yeah. Fully expecting her to say, I'm Terry Lynn Clifton. Right.

And they're like, and she's like, my name's Audrey Marie Hilley. And they're like, who the fuck is Audrey Marie Hilly? That's Terry Lynn What's-His-Butt's twin sister. And so she's like, I'm wanted for bad checks in Alabama. So I have assumed a different identity to get out of. Yeah, you caught me. Yeah. Of some bad checks.

Some bad checks. I'm for sure not a serial killer. And so they're like, okay. So they put her like, they put it out like on the wire that they've got Audrey Marie Hilly in custody. And it comes back that, oh no, she's not just wanted for bad checks. She's also wanted for fucking murder. Yep.

So they get her back to Alabama and she is taken into custody she's formally formerly she's formally charged with the murder of frank hilley and she her bond is set at 320 000 wow a little more than the 10 grand yeah this time nobody's taken up any collections or anything to try and get her out. Okay, for real, for real. John had no idea. He swears he had no idea. He said that Terry carried herself completely differently than Robbie did. And yet somehow all her coworkers were like, this bitch.

She's at it again. So, by this time, Carol, Marie's daughter, is like fully recovered from her whole medical.

Oh, miraculous. Yeah, ordeal. She knows that it was her mother who had poisoned her. But they have some big reunion in jail and her mother they embrace and her mother apologizes and says she loves her and she missed her and whatever but she didn't give any explanation for why she poisoned her right oh so they start like rekindling this relationship, this mother-daughter relationship.

And this makes the prosecution super nervous. Because they're like, we need Carol to testify. Yeah, and we need to remember that her mom tried to murder her. Yeah. But she was going to be their star witness. Sure. She was the, I mean, she was another victim. Yeah. She was the one surviving victim.

Yes. Yeah. So the trial begins and the defense's case or defense's, what the defense was going to do was pretty clear from the beginning they were going to try and make like sully carol's reputation make her look unstable enough that she would have poisoned herself so in their opening yeah it's ridiculous in their opening statements they told the jury we expect the evidence to show that carol hilly has used drugs extensively and that carol hilly is in fact either a homosexual or has engaged in homosexuality in addition we expect the evidence to show that carol hilly has on at least three occasions attempted suicide was this back when uh being gay was considered a mental illness yeah oh jesus christ yes but carol did great

on the stand like she testified for the prosecution she did great she had no problem telling you know what her mother had done to her all of this stuff and then on cross examination she had great answers for the defense as well yes she had smoked pot but no she wasn't a drug addict yes she had engaged in homosexual acts but no she wasn't mentally ill or unbalanced because of it and yes she had on a couple of occasions attempted to kill herself but the most recent attempt the one right before her mother was arrested she had taken five tylenol it wasn't well yeah come on another one was in the midst of all of her horrible illness due to poisoning like anything was better than the yeah than the horrible illness that she was going through. The horrible, unexplained illness.

Yes. Her testimony was very powerful. And she testified specifically that her mother, yes, had given her those weird injections and that they related directly to her illness. But here's the problem I have with this. Okay. She hooked up with a lady. Stop it! How can we buy any of this?

Now that we know that. That's right. Frida, Frank's sister, testified, and she talked about how she had searched Marie's possessions that she'd left at her house. She'd left like a small amount of possessions at her house. I knew Frida did. Frida's up to it. She found a pill bottle that was like half full of liquid. That liquid had been tested and was proven to be arsenic.

She also found a bottle at her mother's house that had been left there by Marie. And it was also proven to be arsenic. God, Marie was sloppy. She was super fucking sloppy. She also talked about how she had found jars of baby food and rat poison. Oh. And it was like a bag with like jars of baby food, rat poison, and a spoon all together. Well, you tend to keep those together. Yeah. That's how I store mine. So the defense

tried to keep all of these items out, um, out of court. They said that on the grounds that it was very bad for their case. Exactly. Saying that, um, they had been seized illegally and should not be allowed into evidence.

No, it was left at free. It was left at his house. It was left at his mom's house. Yes. Yeah. And so the judge, um,

allowed them in. Frida also testified that her brother, Frank had told her that Marie had given him injections. And then the friend Eve got on the stand and testified about how Carol, she had seen Marie give Carol injections. So the defense did their best to kind of like tear down these witnesses. And they did okay with it, but there was only so much they could do. But they were in for a real big shock. So Marie had told her attorneys

that once when she was arrested, when she was first suspected of poisoning Carol, that she had been interviewed by a detective. Uh-huh. But she hadn't told them that the interview was recorded. Aren't all interviews recorded? I don't think at this time they were. Oh, okay.

And so the prosecution was able to play the recording of this interview in court. Wait, and the defense didn't know about it? No. That'd be part of discovery i would assume so huh for whatever reason the defense was not aware of it that it existed they weren't aware it was going to be played in court in it marie admits to giving carol injections um but she said that they were well but she said that they were she said they were anti-nausea medications oh sure and she claimed to have gotten them from some woman she'd met at the hospital

she also admitted in this interview that it was possible that she was mentally ill and that she might need some help yeah okay so marie wasn't able to claim that she hadn't done any of those things they were right there on tape and they were played for the jury. It took the jury about three hours of deliberation to come to their verdict. And Marie Hilley was found guilty of the murder of Frank and of the attempted murder of Carol. The next day, she received a life sentence for the murder and 20 years for the poisoning. She maintained her innocence at her sentencing hearing. So she was sent in June of 1983 to the Tutwiler State Women's Prison in Wetumpka, Alabama. Okay. She was assigned a job as a data

processor and was classified as a medium security prisoner. Oh, my God, Brandi. Where are we going with this? She, as we've learned, is very charming. Oh, my God. She got in the good graces of the guards and somehow managed to get a lot of day passes out of prison. What the fuck is a day pass out of prison? We've heard of this stuff before.

Yeah. This is so crazy. So this prison had this weird system. So by 1985, she's talked herself basically down to a minimum security prisoner. Okay. And then in 1986, she gets her first eight-hour pass approved. So she gets to leave the prison for eight hours just has to come back.

A woman who has run away before and the only reason she got caught was because she pulled some dumb shit about being her own twin. Yes. Yes. Um

in 1987 she had been doing so well on those eight-hour passes that finally she qualified for a three-day furlough. What? And on February 19th of 1987, she left Tutwiler Prison on a three-day pass. By this time, her husband John... No, wait, what? Was still her husband john no wait what was still her husband john and he had relocated to live near the prison so that he could be close to marie oh my god who was back going by marie again by this time not not robbie or whatever Robbie's fake twin sister was named. Terry, right? Terry, that's right.

So John's a weirdo too. This is not right. So she gets out on this three-day pass to spend the weekend with John, and on Sunday morning she told John that she wanted to visit her parents' graves and that she would meet him at a local restaurant at 10 o'clock. So she left to go visit the graves and he, you know,

a couple hours later went down to Denny's comes to meet her at the restaurant. She never shows. When he got back to the hotel room, John found a note that says, I hope you will be able to forgive me. I'm getting ready to leave.

It will be best for everybody. We'll be together again. Please give me an hour to get out of town. She went on to say that there was a man named Walter who was taking her out of town and that she would fly to Canada and then contact John once she was safe. Bullshit. John was in was safe. Bullshit.

John was in on this. She never contacted John. Like a week went by. It's February. It's rainy. It's cold. This woman named Sue Craft lives in Blue Mountain, Alabama. One morning, she hears this noise on her porch.

And she goes out to find this woman who's delirious and like soaked to the bone and clearly has been like living in the forest for days, saying she needs help. She said her name was something Sellers and that her car had broken down and that she was suffering from hypothermia. This woman, Sue Craft, didn't recognize the woman on her porch, though she had known Marie Hilly for years

when they were younger. This is where Marie grew up. Oh, my God. So this woman just sees this strange woman on her porch. And doesn't make the connection that they used to be like childhood acquaintances. Yeah. She calls the police. They send an ambulance.

They load this woman into an ambulance. At some point, they determine that it's Marie Hilly, but she goes into convulsions when she's in the ambulance. They load this woman into an ambulance. At some point, they determine that it's Marie Hilly, but she goes into convulsions when she's in the ambulance. Her body temperature had dropped to 81 degrees. She had likely been in the elements for days, and she died upon arrival at the hospital of hypothermia. You're kidding me. Nope. If she'd she just stuck it out she probably would have been paroled out i mean they were giving her the three-day pass yeah yep i guess i don't need to tell a murderer how to live her life so yeah so marie hilly died of hypothermia after all of those crazy things that she had done all of this planning for.

To this day, no one really knows if she really did have an escape planned that day, if somebody was supposed to come get her and didn't, or if she had... Surely she had a plan. I would, you would sure think so. She had planned everything else out, like... But then again,

that thing about the twin, that was so stupid. Yeah. So stupid. Yeah. So maybe she was just a dumbass. Maybe she was. That was wild. Yeah.

I had never heard of that. No, I hadn't either. Oh. You really think John truly had enough? He swears he had no idea. No idea about the escape. No idea about. About any of it.

That she was the fake secret twin. Okay. Are you familiar with this case? I am mildly familiar with it. I actually was looking in this. The weirdest thing. Someone recommended it in our discord and I had literally been reading about it the night before. Someone recommended it in our Discord, and I had literally been reading about it the night before.

But I actually found that case the same way that I found the case that I did today. How was that? Well, I can't tell you that because it would give your case away. Oh. They appear on the same Wikipedia list. Oh. Hmm. Lying liars who lie No

I'm You know As I am wont to do with these scripts Sometimes I I just tell you up front That the guy's a douche canoe And this guy is a douche canoe And he's literally in a canoe

That's right So special thank you to Silicon in the Discord For recommending this case And a big thank you to the podcast Red Handed. I know I'm late to the game. Everyone's heard of Red Handed. But they had an episode about this.

So I listened to that, which was helpful because this is an international case. Yeah. And these ladies are international themselves. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, well, I assumed. They had British accents. I've never listened to Red Handed is all I meant. Oh, okay.

I was like, you really made me insecure there. Also, reporting from the BBC, The Independent, all those guys, and plus Wikipedia. Yeah. Love you. Okay, here we go. Today, I'd like to tell you about a true douche canoe named John Darwin. It was March 21st, 2002, in Seton Carew, which is a small town right on the water. Does it have a question mark out of it?

Yes. The British are so strange. In County Durham, which is in northeast England. And this guy, John, decided to hit the water. So he got in his red, handmade canoe, which he'd named Orca, and plopped into the North Sea. John was 51, and he'd spent most of his life as a teacher. He'd taught science and math for 18 years

before he became a prison officer. And he had what seemed like a good life. He had a loving wife and two adult sons, two dogs, a decent job, and as he described it, a portfolio of properties. So yeah, he was pretty cool. Yeah. The dude had 12 properties

and a house overlooking the sea. He was living at number three How do I put that in? You literally have to write number three the cliff What? Drives You literally have to write number three. The Cliff.

What? Drives. The Cliff Drive Seton Carew Hartlepool. I hate to spell Carew. C-A-R-E-W. This is a real actress. Hartlepool. No. Hartlepool. this is a real actress I don't know if I'm gonna be able to pull it up hang on okay I I got it I got it did you get it three the cliff seton carew hardlepool you know i have to address our supreme court cards and i swear sometimes with these british addresses i'm like are they just fucking with me right now

confusing sometimes yeah so i do a lot of the shipping for Norman, and it's like, what's, there's a random letter, a couple numbers. Yeah. I don't know. This looks like a hotel. He's living in a hotel? So that's why I wanted you to look it up, because at first, you know, in my American mind, I'm like, 12 properties. These are 12 separate houses. But yeah, it looks like multiple properties and

they're all kind of in the same building oh okay this one that's my assumption this one's literally called the stancliff hotel right okay so he's not living there is what you're telling me well it's been like 20 years since this event took place is what I'm telling you. Okay, continue. Okay. He was looking forward to what the coming years would bring. He'd retire soon, no doubt, and live the good life with his wife in their nice seaside town, collecting fat wads of cash off their investment properties. wads of cash off their investment properties. But that day, out on the water, tragedy struck. What happened? Something happened. Hours went by, and he was supposed to work the night shift at the prison, and that night his wife Anne called the prison and asked to speak with him, but she couldn't speak with him because he hadn't shown up for work and became very concerned. She was certain that something was very wrong.

She called the police in a panic and by midnight, a full rescue effort was underway. There were five lifeboats, two Coast Guard rescue teams scoured the sea. A police fixed wing aircraft, I'm quoting, is that a helicopter? What the hell is a police fixed wing aircraft? Sounds like a plane to me, like a little, because a fixed wing, I don't think a helicopter with a fixed wing. That's not going anywhere. Oh, that's not going anywhere. I don't know. You know, it seemed good online.

The price was so low, but now this thing just sits in the driveway. It had this heat-seeking technology that flew over the area where they hoped to find John, but they didn't find him. Rescue teams searched a 62-square-mile area of water. They searched about 10 miles out to sea. They searched all night long. All night. All night long. But they couldn't find him, but they still had hope.

You're welcome, everyone. We've really taken to singing everything since we've watched Hamilton. I know. The sea had been pretty calm, and John was an experienced canoeist, which is a word. They say canoeist? I say canoeist, you say canoeist. I would have said canoer. Well, that's not what they say in London Anglin. Jolly old England.

That's right. Surely nothing bad had happened in such calm waters. Any sign of old Orca? You know, you're being a little flip about what is clearly a tragic tale, okay? Don't say Ol' Orca The next morning, a new crew of rescue workers tagged in Hopefully they would have better luck But they didn't

And they actually found something that kind of made them lose hope They found a double-ended paddle. It was the kind that John would have used in his canoe. Rescue workers were pretty honest with the media. One of the leaders of the search said, if a canoeist loses his oar and cannot retrieve it... He's literally up a creek without a paddle. Wow, yes!

Yes! Which is a way of saying that things are bad, bad, real bad. No, he just said he's at the mercy of the sea and currents and has to sit until he's rescued. Wow. Well, yeah, because what else are you going to do? Yeah, I mean, you've got nothing to stick in there. He said, normally these people wear the right sort of protective clothing, and we certainly hope that that's the case. All right. They kept looking for John, and later that day, they found something. They found the orca? Yep. It was the wreckage

of John's canoe. It had washed up on the beach in Seton Carew. Poor, poor John Darwin. He was nowhere to be found. He was, I'm sorry to say, obviously dead. Wow. You don't sound real upset about it. Oh, I cried earlier. Oh, okay.

Feel free to cry now if you want to. It was a pretty dark thought, but people speculated that perhaps he'd accidentally gotten sucked into a shipping lane and gotten sucked into a propeller. Okay. Rough way to go. Oh. The search for John Darwin cost more than 100,000 pounds, which is tacky to bring up because a man died, and you can't put a price tag on that.

Hmm. This was devastating news for John's family. His wife Anne could not stop crying, just so upset. Their son Mark was living in London, and he rushed to his mom's side as soon as he got the news. The grief hit him hard, but he tried to be strong for his mom. The couple's son Anthony was vacationing in Canada at the time and he'd planned to propose to his girlfriend on that trip. Oh my gosh.

But he obviously had to come back home. Anthony and Mark grieved the loss of their father and did their best to comfort their mom, but she was inconsolable. This is obviously a terribly sad story, but the sliver of good news here is that the Darwins had life insurance. Wow. What, you're anti-life insurance no life insurance is great ask marie hilly john also had a pension and he had mortgage insurance so although john's death was devastating emotionally it was not devastating financially as As soon as she got John's death certificate, Anne would receive about 250,000 pounds. Which is not a ton of money, but yeah. Here's the thing, though. That money really couldn't have come at a better time because

Anne and John had been a little over their heads, financially speaking. Anne was a receptionist for a doctor, and she also had a side hustle renting bedsits, which sounds like British Airbnb to me. Like, you know, they had all these properties, so it sounds like they were just renting out rooms. John worked at the prison, as I said, but they'd gotten themselves into some pretty big debt buying up so much property so quickly. Were they in a bit of a pickle? They were in a bit of a pickle. No way out that I can see.

Try to canoe your way out of that one. Interestingly, the money they brought in from the renters wasn't enough to cover their mortgage. So he couldn't have been that good at teaching math, right? Because, I mean, isn't that a pretty simple formula? Right? They were kind of screwed. It looked like they might have to file for bankruptcy. But John didn't want to do that, and yada, yada, yada, then he died.

Weird. What's weird? That he died weird what's weird yeah he died no no sometimes the sea gets you so yeah the money was nice hey what my life my love and my lady is the sea okay no one's gonna know that song no one's gonna know know that song. No one's going to know that song? Okay, how many of you know the 70s hit Brandy, You're a Fine Girl, which Brandy was named after? Plenty of people know that song. Okay. We're going to get 12 people to reach out to us on Twitter, and you're going to feel vindicated? That's right.

Please, people, come to my aid. Chris, it's so mean to me. So, you know, Ann was out of this bad financial situation, but, you know, it was so sad because she'd lost her darling husband. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, gee, it sure would have been great if John had survived and they'd somehow figured out a way to get out of debt. That sure would have been great. Well, I've got good news for you, Brandy. John's alive? John did survive his canoeing trip. Because he had faked his own death and his wife had helped him do it.

Oh, my goodness. Turns out, on the day he went missing, he'd gotten in his canoe reached a certain pier and ann had come and picked him up in her car and she drove him to some public transportation and then from there john went camping oh okay about a month later and went and picked him up and he had this big bushy beard and he a dead man moved into the house next to their house because, of course, they own that one, too. These are all, you know, adjoined. You might be worried about the effect that separate houses has on a marriage. But don't worry, because since their homes were, this is so creepy.

So, you know, as I said, their homes were attached. What? I'm just wondering where this is so creepy so they're you know as i said their homes were attached what i'm just wondering where this is going in her bedroom and had this thing that kind of looked like a closet it was like three and a half feet tall yeah um and you know you open it up and it looks like a little cupboard or closet thing but it had a false back and so you could walk through a little passage to the adjoining place next door, and John had concreted over the walkway so the floorboards wouldn't squeak when he walked on them. Oh, my gosh. And they had a gravel driveway so they could hear when somebody pulled in, and he could skedaddle away.

Oh, my gosh. It was pretty much the perfect plan. John was dead, and he and Ann just had to wait on that death certificate. But it took a while. Ann got really pushy about getting that death certificate, because technically without a death certificate, insurance companies can make you wait up to seven years before they pay you. And Ann and John didn't want to wait that long.

Because if they didn't get that sweet-ass insurance money, then what had this all been about? That's right. Finally, about a year after John tragically went missing, Ann got the death certificate. And they got their insurance payout. But turns out being dead is super tough. And boring, I bet. Yes. Yes.

So you can't have a bank account. You can't leave the house much. It's kind of like living in COVID times all the time. And that just wasn't. Did they make you forfeit your bank account? I didn't realize when I said that. You know what? Other people understood.

They weren't confused. You know how we all had to give up our bank accounts? Yeah, I think that was just you. So this just wasn't John's style. He was not good at laying low at all. He needed some freedom. What he and Anne needed to do was move. They needed to move far away, definitely out of the UK, but moving internationally is also super tough to do when you're dead. Yeah, because you need papers and all of that.

You gotta have a passport. You gotta be alive. You gotta be alive. Yeah. You gotta be alive. So John, a.k.a. Lucy Ricardo, came up with another crazy plan. Oh, good. What's his plan? He went to the local archives and microfiched until the cows came home, and he found the birth certificate of a guy who'd been born around the same time he had, but who had died in infancy. Oh, my gosh.

They assumed a new identity? Of a dead baby named John Jones. Oh, God. Well, it's good that he was named John, because then he wouldn't get confused. Yeah, it's a really great story, isn't it? Lots of forward thinking. He got a copy of the birth certificate, opened a bank account, then he cozied up to some unsuspecting librarian, because apparently in the UK you have to have someone, I imagine kind of like our library a lot lately, signed off on his passport application, and John Darwin got his passport as John Jones. Hmm. In an exceptionally bold move, John listed his actual home address that he had shared with Anne.

Okay, you're What a fucking idiot. This guy is dumb, dumb, dumb. As the home address of John Jones, the dead adult baby. Baby. Sorry. By this point, John and Anne were ready to make some moves. They had already had money stashed and a bunch of offshore accounts,

so they were ready. And they really needed to make this move soon because they were living in a very small town. I can't remember exactly. I think the population of this town is like 6,000 people. And John is too big an idiot to just stay in the house. So he's just looking like himself with a beard, walking around pretending he... It's so annoying to me.

Oh my gosh. Okay. So he still went to the beach a lot, still went to the library a ton, and people were starting to notice. One of the tenants who rented a room from the Darwin saw John and was like, aren't you supposed to be dead? And John said, don't tell anyone. I am dead! No, he said, don't tell anyone about this.

Well, that's stupid. The tenant must have been kind of freaked out because they really didn't say anything. Real missed opportunity there to pretend like a ghost. How hilarious would that have been? That person would have shat their pants. It's hilarious with that event. That person would have shat their pants. At another point, a person who used to work with John at the prison spotted him.

And the person called the police and said, hey, I think John Darwin is alive. I saw him. And so the police went to Anne and Anne was like, oh, um. No, he's super dead, I swear. I, I, sounds like that guy's confused. You know, John does have a cousin who looks a lot like him. Maybe that explains this mix up. Does he really?

Who knows? Maybe. But John is very much alive. And what, I mean, why is he just wandering around? Exactly. It's such a small place. This was getting very risky, obviously. And John and Ann had to do something.

And they also needed to make some money. Mm-hmm. Ideally through real estate, since they had such a great track record in that area. Yeah. Are you ready for a weird story? Yes, I'm so ready. It really doesn't have a whole lot to do with anything. It's just so weird.

Okay. Okay. One thing that John really loved to do was to play online RPGs. Loved the video games, which was great because that meant he did spend a lot of time inside, which I'm sorry, as a dead person, you have to do. You have to do, yeah. And at one point while he was playing this game, he met a lady from Kansas City, Kansas. No.

Named Kelly Steele. What? Yes. The two struck up a conversation and a bit of a friendship. But things took a bad turn. According to John, here's what happened. Kelly lured him to Kansas with talk of cheap investment properties, which is fair.

It's fair, yeah. And once he got there, she swindled him out of many thousand pounds. But Kelly says that he had told her that he was a businessman whose wife had died from cancer, and he wanted to front her some money to buy some property in Kansas, and, you know, she'd fix it up, and he'd get a cut of it. Uh-huh.

So he sent her some money, and she bought a 10-acre farm in Kincade, Kansas. Are you familiar with Kincade? I've heard of it. Yeah, so apparently it's south of Kansas City. I just pointed down. Yeah, it's near your vagina. It's right by my vagina. 10 acres worth.

Property's real cheap. It's a real fixer-upper. And he came out to visit, but she thought he was super creepy and told him he needed to stay in a hotel. Yeah. And then about a month after they'd gotten the farm, he told her that he wanted all of his money back. And, of course, she didn't have the money, so he began threatening her and implying that he would hire someone in New York to use mafia tactics on her. Oh. And by that, I mean he threatened to godfather her horse.

Oh. I've seen movies, so I know what that means. Do you? Yeah, chop off the horse's head, put it in her bed. Yeah, put it in her bed. Yeah. I think this whole story sounds super fucking weird. But Kelly, if you're listening, call us.

So weird stories all around. But the bottom line is John's money-making scheme in Kansas did not work out at all. He was out a lot of money. But don't worry. He had no shortage of terrible ideas. His next idea was that he and Ann needed to buy a catamaran. His next idea was that he and Anne needed to buy a catamaran, specifically a 42-foot catamaran that had been real nice when it had been built in the 70s. The plan was they'd buy this thing and then they'd sail around the world.

Good idea for a dead guy, right? guy right yeah so he flew to gibraltar to take a look at this thing and he negotiated with the owners and got them down quite a bit but then he became kind of a pain in the ass because he wanted a bunch of changes to the interior what you know that i always think of your grandparents when i think of gibraltar what why is the first time I met your grandparents, they had just come back from a trip. Really? Yes. Wow. The first time?

Yeah. My grand... The Shepherds? Yeah. Huh. Did they say anything? I just remember them talking about the Rock of Gibraltar. I love that you remember this.

I have no memory of this. What's memory of this they visited us while we were camping uh-huh yeah i yeah you don't have any recollection no recollection okay anyway did they bring souvenirs i know how you love it okay see you love a souvenir yes what'd they bring i don't know they gave me a lollipop. Oh, that was nice. Very nice of them. Okay. So anyway, um, these, John met up with my grandparents in Gibraltar and basically, you know, he wanted a bunch of changes and the owners were like, no, dude, we're not making changes. This is the catamaran. Take it or leave it.

Leave it. And so John, genius that he is, decided to leave it. Oh, right. Okay. Don't worry. He created a new plan. Okay. What's the new plan? This time they decided to go to Panama. Yep. They should probably live in Panama. So they flew out to Panama. They rented an apartment temporarily and they looked at investment properties. And at one point, the property agent asked to take a photo of them for the company's website. Hey, how'd John react? Smiled and posed for the camera.

Holy fucking shit, what an idiot. Uh-huh. They are total idiots. Oh my god. When you're dead, you can't be having your picture posted on websites. Right? Holy shit. By this point, it was 2006, and their dreams were coming true, Brandy. They bought a place in Panama, and they got four acres of land, and oh, they had such big plans for it. They were going to build a hotel, a hotel that did canoe tours, which is not a joke, but it sounds like a joke.

It does sound like a joke. Anne said goodbye to her sons. She's like, bye, I'm moving to Panama. And she sold off some of her many properties in the UK. So Anne and John were all set to officially move to Panama. But oh shit, did you know that at this time, Panama had a rule that if you wanted to move there under an investor visa, you had to provide a reference letter from your local law enforcement agency attesting to the fact that you were an upstanding citizen with no criminal record oh my god that would sure be tough for john the dead guy uh-huh

who was more of an in the ground citizen but a bump so john and ann we're like oh no what, what do we do? They went to Costa Rica to think it over. And they hatched a plan? Question mark? Or got into a fight and John hatched this plan himself? Either way, the next part of this story is in a word, brilliant.

And went back to Panama. And this is truly my favorite part John went back to the UK and on December 1st 2007 he wandered into the West End Central Police Station in London and was like Hello? Hello? I'm alive! Oh, oh my, I'm so confused! I need help! Why, I have no memory of where I've been for the past five years! Oh my god! Oh, I have terrible amnesia! Oh, I don't know anything! Oh, but, oh, oh wait, I guess I do know one thing.

I think I'm a missing person. Okay. Help me, please. Okay. Brandy, have you no sympathy? I don't know who I am, but I'm pretty sure I'm missing. Here's the thing. This is so stupid.

Can you imagine being like, I've got an idea. So people had been kind of suspicious of Anne and her not-dead husband, John. In fact, three months before he wandered into that police station like Mr. Magoo, one of Anne's co-workers overheard Ann talking on the phone with John. Oh, Lord. And the co-worker was like, I thought he was dead. And so that co-worker called the police. And so when John wandered into the police station that day, what he didn't know was that he and Ann had been under investigation for three months. Oh, my gosh. But, of course, no one mentioned that part,

and instead there was a press conference where they announced that John Darwin was alive and well. Great news, everyone. Anne put on quite a show back in Panama. She was like, oh, oh, praise be. Yay, oh, happy day. True love springs eternal. My husband is alive after all these years. Their sons were equally excited, but for real, because they had been lied to this entire time.

They really thought their dad had died. Yeah. This is sick. it's disgusting so i read like i said i read a tiny bit about this case the other day and that's the thing i read that their mother had let them believe that their dad was dead their mom let them grieve the death of their father yeah for years yeah father yeah for years yeah holy and then when their dad turns up she's oh isn't that great oh wow how wonderful oh my gosh honestly okay when i did just the overview look at this i was like there's no way the sons didn't know there's no way and the deeper i got in i was like well maybe i'm just hoping they knew because it would be so sick if they didn't.

And then once I got even further in, I really believe that the sons had no idea. Yeah. They really believed their dad had died. Yeah. That's so terrible. Oh, no, it's fine. I'm sure it didn't do any lasting. Long-term damage. But the sure it didn't do any lasting long-term damage but the good times

didn't last long the investigation was still ongoing and people were a little suspicious and someone must have googled john ann and panama and oopsies found the photo of John and Ann standing together posing for the website Movetopanama.com. Shit. And someone tipped off the Daily Mirror and the Daily Mirror was like, wow, this is a great story. So they posted the story about Ann and John and ran the photo from Panama right next to it.

Very good. And a journalist flew to Panama to interview Anne, and she tried to play it off at first, but then he was like, you know, this photo's out there, right? And she goes, yes, that's him. My sons will never forgive me. Wow. Police arrested John at his son Anthony's house,

where I can only assume Anthony was, like, joyously reuniting with his long-lost father. It's horrible. Anthony and Mark were livid. In an interview, they said they'd been put through hell. Anne wrote her sons a letter apologizing for what she'd done, but Anthony said, I can't ever forgive them for putting us through the torture of mourning. John was charged with insurance fraud and making a false statement on a passport application. And Anne was arrested the next day as soon as her plane landed in the UK and was charged with fraud.

When questioned, she told investigators that, yes, she'd participated, you know, to a degree. What, like in the whole thing? No, no, no, just, Brandy, listen, would you listen, please? Okay. It had all been John's idea because, you know, he'd really bullied her into it, so she really wasn't guilty of anything. Here's how it played out with John. He started with a dash of bullshit.

He told police that he had planned all along to pay back the insurance money. I mean, that's why he'd shown up at the police station five years later. It was so that he could pay back the insurance money. Oh, because he had it to pay back? Oh, yeah, just stuffed in his pockets. But then he finally did plead guilty to some of the charges, like obtaining money through deception and bullshitting on a passport, which is a real charge, bullshitting on a passport. But he pled not guilty on some of the other charges, like using criminal property. I was like, okay, since you pled guilty to so much stuff, we won't put you on trial.

But we're putting all that other shit you're saying you didn't do on file. It's going in your permanent record, basically. This will go down on your permanent record. And basically, don't test us, buddy. Yeah. But, you know, Ann wasn't guilty of anything, so her case went to trial. Hmm. Can you imagine? Why would you not just plead guilty?

No shit. At Ann's trial, the prosecutor said she'd put on a great act after her husband died. He said that she'd been a partner in this, a willing participant. The couple was drowning in debt and this was their solution. Yeah. But Ann's defense attorney, her solicitor, I'm sorry. Yeah. You know what? I used American words. I love what they call. I love that lawyers are called solicitors. Well, and honestly, some of the language they used sounded so fancy that I was like, that can't even be the right word. Lord Justice?

That can't be right. Yeah, that's right. They're so fancy over there. Where are the wigs still, Kristen? I know. You know, if I saw that, I might laugh because I'm like, this can't be real. It's real. But it is real.

It's very sophisticated. I think it's cool. Do you think they have like a Judge Judy who's in a wig? Or are they too classy? I think they're way too classy for that. Yeah. All right. Yeah.

All right. I know what we are here. That's right. Anne's defense attorney argued that she'd been the victim of marital coercion, which is a very old-timey defense in British law, and it applies to wives. And the basic rule is that it's kind of like duress, but a little more complicated. So for marital coercion to have happened, the woman has to have been married to the guy.

It can't just be like we've been together forever, or we act like we're married. Marital coercion doesn't mean that he threatened her life and it doesn't mean that he threatened to hurt her necessarily, but there has to be an argument that goes beyond just, oh, he's my husband and so I'm loyal to him. I do whatever he says. Also, in order to make a case for marital coercion, the husband would have to be physically present in every instance of coercion. So in this case, the prosecution was like, good luck, guys, because he wasn't present every time she lied about this, obviously. P.S., thanks for handing me this very easy case. No shit.

Which is a very casual way to talk when you've got a big white wig on, but these things happen. By the way, the marital coercion defense was officially abolished in the uk in 2014 because they were like this is fucking nuts yeah out or as they more likely put it this is not spit spot this isn't fitting for modern times. That was a terrible accent. Oh, Jesus. We have two British listeners and they both turned off the podcast. Anyway, her son Mark was the first person to testify against her and her son Anthony was the second. They both said that they'd been betrayed by her. They talked in detail about how on the day of their dad's death, she'd cried nonstop and they'd grieved and tried to comfort her.

What an asshole. And later when he reappeared, she didn't even tell them the truth. She just tried to act like she was so thrilled that he was alive. Wow. This was all pretty awesome for the prosecution. They were like, she wasn't some shy, submissive little thing who was under her husband's thumb. She was selling it. It was showbiz time up in the Darwin house. The prosecution also produced emails which showed Ann and John working together on this thing. When it came time for her defense, Anne said that John had been domineering. He'd cheated on her, and all he did was get online and play a bunch of RPGs and, you know, flew out to Kansas, of all places, to meet some lady. She talked about how the scheme had all been his idea. He'd controlled the finances. She had no idea the level of debt they were in,

He'd controlled the finances. She had no idea the level of debt they were in. But they were in the type of mortgage where, as she understood it, they couldn't just sell one or two of the rental properties. John had told her that the terms of their mortgage dictated that they had to sell all or nothing. And it was around this time. Is that a real thing? I don't know if maybe for when you're buying up at this time before the bubble burst, I don't know if maybe you could take out a massive loan and buy up as many properties as you want.

Or it could have been John just bullshitting her. Or she could be bullshitting us. There's plenty of bullshit to go around. Lots of options here. So it was around this time that John decided it'd be a good idea to fake his own death because he couldn't tolerate the idea of bankruptcy. And she was just so freaking innocent in this whole thing. She explained that she didn't know that faking someone's death so that you could collect insurance money

was considered fraud. What's that now? She literally said, and this is a quote. I didn't know I couldn't do that. She said, I didn't understand it to be fraud at the time. What did you think it was? Oh my gosh. Wow.

Shockingly, the jury didn't buy it, and they found her guilty. So in July of 2008, Ann and John received their sentences. John got six years and three months in prison, and Ann got six years and six months as a little extra punishment for not just pleading guilty. Yeah. This was actually quite a bit of jail time when you look at the amount of money that they took. But at their sentencing, the judge said, Although the sums involved are not as high as some reported cases, the duration of the offending, its multifaceted nature,

Yeah. He added, all, the children had to be fooled. They had to believe that they and she were bereaved. This was the grossest form of betrayal. And yes, it was. The judge also said that he believed that John was the driving force behind the lies, but he was like, you know, Ann played an instrumental role. He said, you two operated as a team. Yeah. Which I agree. After sentencing, Anthony said that he thought his parents deserved the sentences they got. He said, dad told one nasty lie and disappeared and said he was dead. But she lied for six years. She was the face of the lies and kept lying even when

the evidence was so overwhelmingly against her. She dragged us through hell by forcing a court Oh, my gosh. Those poor boys. I know. Both Ann and John appealed their sentences on the grounds that the punishments were excessive, and their appeals were denied. A bunch of their property was sold, and the Crown took the proceeds. They both got out of prison in 2011, and the Crown took the proceeds. They both got out of prison in 2011, about three years into their sentences. John claimed that he wanted to get back together,

but the next year he filed for divorce on grounds of unreasonable behavior, which I love that. Yeah. Why don't we have that in America? I don't know. We certainly have unreasonable behavior. We do. That's not a reason you can get divorced. No.

What are the reasons here? Irreconcilable. Wow. Good job. Irreconcilable differences. That's the one. Yeah, that's the one everybody chooses. Then in 2013, even though John wasn't allowed to leave Britain.

He peaced out of there? Yeah. Where'd he go? You know why? Why? Because he fell in love with someone online? Yes! Someone he met in his RPG? He met a woman who was living in the Ukraine and he just had to see her.

And he was arrested as soon as he got back from his trip. Yeah. But don't worry. Everything turned out fine for him. John is now remarried to a woman in the Philippines, and she's 23 years younger than him, and they met online. Cool. Ann says she deeply regrets lying to her sons, but luckily they've reconciled. Oh.

Which, I mean, that's what she says. I didn't see anything from the boys saying that, so I don't know. I think she's full of shit. I watched an interview with her. I don't know. I just, it seems to me that, you know, she went on an apology tour, it looked like, and I... Doesn't seem that genuine.

Yeah, paying close attention to the language. It was still all John's fault. She's written a book about it. It's called Out of My Depth. You know, she was out of her depth. No, because, you know, she had no control.

Somebody else's fault. Okay. Yeah. Take your bullshit elsewhere. Yeah, that's stupid. And that's the story of two douche canoes. I submit two douche canoes. Yes. Okay.

Yeah. So I found my case today by Googling faked deaths. And I found a Wikipedia list. Oh, okay. That had your case and my case on it man i just think okay i understand faking deaths if you've killed people yeah um faking a death for like a quarter of a million dollars in insurance money it's not worth it my lady didn't even fake her own death she faked her new assumed identities i guess that's true and that was her downfall that's the craziest part to be like i think she got bored easily i do

too yeah that's what yeah so some um somebody involved in the case and i didn't include this but said something about like she was living in a fantasy world. And whenever she got bored, she became someone else. Absolutely. Yeah. She was so bored with John. Yeah. So she went away. And came back as her twin.

Oh, my God. Two ridiculous stories today. We really went silly with it. Well, no, I guess yours was filled with murder. There was murder involved. I'm sorry. That was rude of me to say. Should we move on to some questions from our Discord?

What's a Discord? A Discord is a 90s-style chat room that we have, and it's where we... Why are you saying it like that? I don't know. It sounded really creepy, didn't it? It did. We're going to get a bunch of creepos coming in here, asking you your age, sex, and location. Anyway, how do you get into it?

Oh, sorry. You gotta join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher to get into the Discord. It's really a good time and not at all creepy. Says you. I make Kristen Kieper creepiness under control happy face melissa asks playing a variation of sexy times mary kill who of the lgtc crew would you want to be the judge prosecutor and defense attorney?

Oh, okay. I would rather be the judge. Same. For the reason that you don't have to talk as much, so it wouldn't be quite as obvious. But no, I'm thinking that if I were the judge, inevitably, I would screw up several places because I don't know the law. Right. And so the person could appeal easily and probably get a new trial easily on the grounds that the judge was so dumb and made so many errors. Yeah. I'm trying to think of, like, how I could cause the least amount of damage. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What do you think? Yeah, I'd want to be the judge. think of like how i could cause the least amount of damage yeah yeah what do you think yeah i'd want to be the judge initially my thought is that i'd rather be the jury even than all of that yeah should we should we assume for this question that we actually have the some knowledge yeah yeah you have some qualifications so initially my thought was i'd rather be the jury but actually i'd rather be the judge assuming that i that that role comes with all the qualifications need, because you get to see everything then the jury doesn't always get to see or hear everything. So I want it all. I want to know what happens. I want to be in the room where it happens. In the chamber where it happens. I want to see all the stuff that's kept out.

I want to know it all. I think I'd want to be the defense attorney. Really? Oh yeah. For sure. Yeah. I feel like that's the most difficult job. Yeah. Well, excuse me. Well, no, I mean, yeah, I like a challenge. Um, yeah, I like going in as the underdog. Yeah. Yeah. And in the defense, you're the underdog. Yeah. And I think a lot of prosecutors are corrupt and full of shit. Well, that's probably accurate. Yeah, it probably is. Oh, America. Was the peanut butter whiskey screwball? Is that the brand of the whiskey? Oh, I think it is. So David and I bought some after. Oh, really? And we bought screwball, yeah. Yeah. I mean.

It's delicious. We are not sponsored by them, but we did enjoy it immensely. Yeah, if anybody would like to write them a letter that you heard about it on our podcast. And make sure it's a letter. Don't do email. Don't tweet them. Make sure it's an old-timey letter. We're going to support the USPS. Yeah.

Oh, God, yeah. We have to. Yeah. Oh, I wonder if you have a good answer to this. Jessica with a K asks, what is the most embarrassing laughter outburst you've had? I do. And it's terrible. What is it? You were there. What was it? My grandfather's funeral. Yeah. Do you remember the weird ass music that they played at my grandfather's funeral? Oh my gosh.

So apparently, because I asked my mom about this later because I was like, they played, you know, your standard funeral music. Yeah. But the weirdest versions of these songs you had ever heard. It was like royalty free. Yeah. Yeah. So I asked my mom about it. Like, what the fuck was up with the music?

Yeah. And she said that my grandma had asked that it be kept upbeat. Oh my God. And that was their take on that. Okay. Okay. I have something to tell you. Okay.

My grandfather's funeral. Yeah. Was also weird. uh-huh and it was because my grandma didn't want people to be sad so this is a psa funerals are gonna be sad there's gonna be some emotion if you try to make it so there's not some sadness it just feels weird yeah people yeah Rafiki 737 says hey Brandy has your stance on changing your last name when you get married to David changed now that you have a kid um it hasn't changed I've always planned to change my name when I get married to David yeah yeah and London's last name is David's last name I'm the only one who yes has not changed her last name. I'm the wild one on this podcast.

She's the rebel. Anna Faye says, when the heck is Brandi going to cover Scott and Lacey Peterson? Yeah. I'm going to do it. Oh, we've heard that before. We've been burned many times. But here's the deal.

I think I'm going to have to do a two-parter on it, and you guys are just going to have to be okay with it. You know that they will be okay with it. You're the one who just... Fine, I'll do it. Let's all hold our breath, people. You also said you were going to do O.J. Simpson. I have adamantly said I will never do O.J. Simpson.

You guys, she promised. Oh, Kadriel wants to know, in the early days of the podcast, how did you get the word out and get people to listen beyond friends and family? And or do you have any advice for aspiring podcasters? Boy, oh boy. Okay, how did we spread the word in the beginning? So we boosted posts on social media.

Why can't I not say social media? Social media. Social media. And I don't know, Did that do us any good? I don't know. It's hard to say. It's hard to say. But we paid to have like our episode posts show up as like suggested things on both Instagram and Facebook.

Who knows if that got more people to see it or if that resulted in anybody actually listening. And we didn't spend much on that. We did not. That's very cheap to do. And so we did that um and then what else do we do to get the word out i mean this is i hate to even say this because this is like not replicable at all yeah but i did send a little notification to all of my facebook friends and one of my Facebook friends happens to be Gerard the completionist who has a huge YouTube show yeah and he is such a sweetheart he actually

started listening and he liked the show and he talked about it so guys here's what you do first of all you marry a YouTube guy and then you go on a trip with him and you meet his other YouTube friends and then you befriend them and then you start a podcast and then they like your podcast. It's a simple formula, guys. Easy as that. But no, I think our advice, like, you know, one thing I've noticed people with a lot of money do is they put a lot of money into the advertising and stuff before they've figured out how to get their show really good yes and i think the advantage to us not having much of a budget to speak of is that like it forced us to kind of figure things out we've never spent like any dollars on advertising when we when we say we boosted posts we're talking like three dollars yes five dollars so

um there's nothing like word of mouth yeah word of mouth is the best advertising you can get and um the other biggest thing is the consistency making sure you're consistently putting out an episode um releasing it the same day every week and we've literally never not released an episode and we've only re-aired episodes twice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's been tough, folks.

Yeah. But it's also been really fun. It's been so fun. But it's hard in the beginning because it's funny. Like, the work level doesn't change. Yeah. Like, you're always working really hard. It's just that later you get to reap the benefits of it.

Yeah. So in the beginning, it feels like you're doing all of this work for nothing. Like we legitimately had 12 people listening. Yeah. In the beginning. Yeah. And Norman had to be our little coach and just be like, it's just going to take time. Yeah. Oh, and he was right. He was, he was right on everything. Yes. Everything he told us has been correct but we didn't want to hear it because we're both impatient you know you want to just become a big instant success that's exactly right kristen uh fierce mama llama asks was there a specific teacher author or book that made you want to write yeah, a combination of the three. Number one is that unlike my dear friend Brandy,

who is smart in all areas, I'm really I've got more of that teeter totter brain with math and science on the bottom. And so like, reading was always like the one thing that I could do. And I felt like I could do well. So from a very early age, I knew I wanted to be a writer. The first book that I was like, this is magical, was Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Clary, which I mean, it's a book for kids, but it's written like from the kind of boring older sister's perspective. And to me, that was just outrageous, because I had a much, you know, spunkier younger sister. And to hear about the boring sister was really exciting. And then writing teachers, I had Susan Massey, aka Ko at Shawnee Mission Northwest, and she's

the best teacher. I mean, I, I felt like I got a really good education in college, but she blew all the professors out of the water. She's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah. Ooh. Elaine wants to know, what is the skill or talent you have that you're most proud of? Why?

Hmm. Brandy, you seem like a lady with secret talents. I can touch my tongue to my nose. I can also blow spit bubbles into the air. Ew. Ew. Gross. Really? can touch my tongue to my nose i could also blow spit bubbles into the air ew gross like i can take a bubble and like okay i can get it like i regret everything on my tongue and i can blow it into the air i won't do it okay thank god oh my god so disgusted those are my hidden talents um my skill i think that i am oh gosh oh gosh, I don't, what? Well, I hate that because it sounds like you're braggy.

We'll just say it and we'll cut it if it's obnoxious. Um, my skill that I am most proud of is I think that I can, I can look for positives in almost any situation. Even in like the stickiest situation? The stickiest of situations. Hmm. What's your hidden talent? Um, I don't know

because my talents are so open and obvious and, you know, great. Like, can you wiggle your ears or do like a bunny nose or, I mean,

you can write with your feet, which is weird. I can. Do you remember that? No, what are you talking about? We used to play that game. I feel like we've talked about this on the podcast before No, we used to play that game. I feel like we've talked about this on the podcast before even.

We used to play that game called Hidden Talents and you had to do all those weird things. And I was pretty good, wasn't I? You were really good at writing with your feet.

Well, take that everyone. I'm the best foot writer in town. Gross. What if as a special treat I write my next novel with my feet? No.

I don't think anybody cares about that. I'm sorry. I was inspired by John Darwin and his bad ideas. You got a favorite Girl Scout cookie? Sarah Kaya Compson wants to know yeah what are they called samoas which ones are those the coconut ones yeah oh yeah those are those are called caramel delights in this part of the world ma'am oh where are they called samoas or are they called what i feel like i'm not using the right word so there's's two bakeries that make Girl Scout cookies.

If you get them from one bakery, they're called. Oh, samosas is what they're supposed to be. Wait, no, samoas. Okay. What? Okay. I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Go ahead. So if you get the ones that come from one bakery, they're called samosas. If you get them from the other bakery, they're called Caramel Delights. And those are the ones that are sold in this part of the world. Caramel Delights. How do you know this? I was a Girl Scout.

And in my Girl Scout troop, one of my Girl Scout leaders worked for the Girl Scouts. And one of the Girl Scouts in my group was on the cookie box. I know. And I tried to get her to sign the box when we were in high school but she was embarrassed she's no longer on the box they've replaced her she was on that box for a long time and i remember she kept being like yeah they're gonna change it

next year and they never changed well they did eventually they did eventually peanut butter patties or tagalongs are my favorite kate, you looked good on that box. Yeah. You were cute on the box. Yeah. Yeah. She was cute on that box. Don't sing that to the dick in a box. Oh, goodness. I feel like Kate might find that funny.

Maybe not. I don't know. I don't know. What's your favorite? I just said. Oh oh peanut butter patties ew really or tagalongs not thin mints i do like thin mints i i mean i thought everybody's favorite was thin mint and i was like being wild with my samoas no i don't think so i like peanut butter patties i do like thin mints too Keep those suckers in the freezer. Oh, little hot tip. That's a hot tip for you. Oh, now I want Girl Scout girls.

I know. Oh. What? You got time for one more question? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kim Teresa, worst movie you've ever seen. Worst movie I've ever seen. Worst movie I've ever seen. I know mine right off the top of my head.

What is it? Date movie. So it was like in the time of all those stupid parody movies coming out. And it was supposed to be like a stupid parody of a bunch of different rom-coms. Okay. It was terrible. I wanted to get up and leave the theater. It was so bad. I've never wanted to do that before.

And the theater was packed and I was in a middle seat and so I had to stay and stick it out. You poor, poor woman. It was terrible. Yeah, I have no idea what my least favorite... You have nothing?

Yeah, I really don't know what my least favorite would be. There's so many, I couldn't choose. I hate films. You know what I can't stop thinking about? What? I just read this book that I really hated. Oh. And I know that's not the question.

What's the worst book you've ever read? I mean, it's not the worst book I've ever read, because the worst one would be one I didn't finish. Oh. But, shit, I don't know if I can talk about this without giving away spoilers. Okay, The Last Mrs. Parrish. Reese Witherspoon book club pick, so I thought it would be quite good. What? What?

Fuck you, Nacoco. What? Reese Witherspoon book club pick so I thought it would be quite good what what fuck you Nikoko what is it I just clicked over to the meme section in our discord and this person has posted a meme that has a spider crawling across it it is animated oh I legit thought there was a spider on my fucking computer just now you looked like you were about to crawl out of your skin. Are you okay? Yes! You know what I thought? I thought, oh my gosh, Brandy's read this book too, and she didn't like it either.

I was so excited. I'm sorry for my harsh language, Nakoko. That scared the shit out of me. No, so I read this book, and gosh, I can't talk about it without giving away spoilers. About the book? Yeah. Like, I literally can't tell you why I hated it without telling you the big twist. Okay.

So, I'm really glad I brought it up Thank you for that enlightening information I'm a professional entertainer Shall we move on to Supreme Court Inductions? Absolutely, I'm totally ready Me too Not ready at all You guys, this week we are sticking with your

names and favorite books. Barbara M. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Erin. Good Omens. Allie. The Sisterhood Series by Anne Brashairs. Holly Winter. Cannabis Pharmacy, The Practical

Guide to Medical Marijuana. Stephanie Dunan. Anything by Sherilyn Kenyon. Charlie Arlett. Cannabis Pharmacy, The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana Stephanie Doonan Anything by Sherilyn Kenyon Charlie Arlett The Tiger's Daughter by K. Arsenault Rivera Jennifer Leap from New Jersey One for the Money by Janet Ivanovich Hillary Stipik

To Kill a Mockingbird Jennica The Giver Jennifer Armentrout The Secret Circle Ashley Nelson Thank you guys for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. Please, if you're looking for other ways to support us, head on over to social media. Find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Reddit, Patreon. And then remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen and head on over to Apple Podcasts. Leave us a rating, leave us a review, and then be sure to join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics.

Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts.

For this episode, I got my info from the BBC, The Independent, The Standard, The Mirror, Wikipedia, and the podcast Red Handed. I got my info from an article for the Crime Library by Marlee McLeod, an article by Mark Gribben, and Oxygen.com. For a full list of our sources, visit LGTCpodcast.com. Any errors are, of course, ours. So please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.