Let's Go To Court! - 69: A Terrible Commute & The Dark Web

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

It was a hot day in the summer of 2014. Justin Ross Harris was driving down the road with his toddler, Cooper, when the pair stopped at Chick-fil-A for breakfast. Justin was supposed to drop Cooper off at daycare afterward, but instead, he drove straight to his office. Justin got out of his vehicle and walked into work, leaving his little boy in the SUV. Cooper died that day. But did Justin leave Cooper there on purpose? Or was it a terrible accident? Then Kristin tells us about Stephen Allwine. Stephen presented himself as a deeply religious man who loved his wife, Amy. But on his 43rd birthday, Stephen traded $6,000 cash for some bitcoin, ate a late lunch with his mistress, and then got on the dark web. He reached out to a freelance hitman. He wanted his wife dead. 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. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “If you want to kill someone, we are the right guys,” by Mara Hvistendahl for Wired.com “Stephen Allwine sentenced to life in prison for wife’s murder,” by Tom Lyden for Fox9 The Stephen and Amy Allwine episode of Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Leanna Taylor Speaks Out” episode 20/20 “Ross Harris trial: More sexting part of 3 key things to know” by Christian Boone and Bill Rankin, The Atlanta Journal Constitution “Why did the jury convict Justin Ross Harris on all counts?” by Christian Boone and Bill Rankin, The Atlanta Journal Constitution “A timeline of the Justin Ross Harris case” by Christian Boone, The Atlanta Journal Constitution “Day by day: Key moments from the Justin Ross Harris trial” by Mayra Cuevas and Natisha Lance, CNN  

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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 the dark web.

And I'll be talking about a horrible accident, an honest mistake, or was it something more sinister? Ooh. I am very interested in your case this week. Okay, so last week I played the prank of all pranks on you. Yeah, you sure did. That was so good. But I had a real case planned to do

before I formulated that prank. And when you did the thing where you text me to make sure we're not doing the same case, I had already planned

to do the prank, but I text you that I was doing this case. It would have been crazy you that i was doing this case it would have been crazy if i would have done this case last week because when you text me you said yeah i said something like does your case involve a daycare yeah and i said yes it kind of does and then i said it took place in georgia you said, oh, shit. I got this panicky feeling because, like, yeah, mine sort of involved a daycare.

It was a shooting outside of a daycare. And it was in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Yep. So mine sort of involves a daycare. And it takes place in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia. Oh, my God. That's so weird. Yes. Okay.

It's not the same case. However. Well Yes. Okay. It's not the same case. However. Well, I would hope it's not the same case. Randy Snyderman. What? Can you imagine like, well, I. Well, I told your case word for word exactly like you did last week. You're like, well, I put a lot of time into this and I'm not just going to let that go to waste.

However, a bunch of the information from this comes from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Uh-huh. Christian Boone. What? Yes! Well, that makes sense. If he's like their crime reporter, oh my gosh.

The same guy that covered the case you did. Christian Boone. Christian Boone, man. We love you, buddy. So, comes from that source, and it also comes from an episode of 2020. That is exactly. I know. Mine was an episode of 2020 and Christian Boone articles.

This is so weird. Yes. It was just after 4 p.m. on June 18th, 2014, in Vinings, Georgia, which is, as I mentioned, a suburb of Atlanta. When Leanna Taylor walked into her son Cooper's, she now goes by Leanna Taylor. At the time, she went by Leanna Harris. Who cares? Sorry. It doesn't really matter. So Leanna Harris, Leanna Taylor, whatever. She walks into her son Cooper's daycare.

She goes back to the area where she usually picks him up every day. And the woman at the desk looks at her and says, what are you doing here? She said, Leanna kind of gave a laugh and said, I'm here to pick up Cooper. And the woman said, Cooper's not here. Oh, no. And Leanna said, what do you mean Cooper's not here? She started to panic.

She's like, Cooper's not here. Cooper wasn't dropped off today. And so Leanna immediately pulls out her cell phone and tries to reach her husband, Ross. But he's not answering. And so she is in a full-on panic right now. And immediately the thought runs through their head that someone has abducted her child from daycare. Oh, my. And they're like, no, he was never dropped off today.

Okay. And then the next thought that popped into her head, she actually said out loud, Oh, my God. I wonder if Ross left him in the car. Oh, no. I wonder if Ross left him in the car. Oh, no. So one of the attendants from the daycare runs out of the daycare with Leanna.

They get in her car, his car, I'm not really sure. And they drive to the Home Depot corporate headquarters in Atlanta, which is where her husband, Ross Harris. His name's actually Justin Ross Harris, but he goes by his middle name, Ross, where he works. So they go to his work because he's not answering his phone. They can't get a hold of him. They pull into the parking lot. Oh, my God. His car is not in the parking lot. Oh.

They go into the building. They ask for him to be paged. They're sitting in the waiting room. She's continually calling Ross. No answer. No answer. At some point, Leanna is sitting, trying to figure out what the hell is going on when the attendant from the daycare that accompanied her

to Ross's office gets up, as well as a lobby attendant from the Home Depot corporate building also gets up up and they go and they stand in front of a TV that has the evening news on. And she notices that they are very into whatever is on the TV and that they seem to be kind of blocking it from her. But she's distracted because all of a sudden her phone rings. But it's still not Ross. It's a number she doesn't recognize, but she answers it.

And it's a detective. He asked her where she was, and she told them that she was at her husband's office trying to figure out where he was, where her son was. And they said, stay there. We'll come to you. And she said, that means this is bad, right? And the detective said, yes. So in the meantime, while she's waiting for the detective to come to the office she she talks to

the two men that are in the lobby with her the man from the daycare and the man from the office building and she's like what's going on tell me tell me what's on the tv tell me what's going on and they tell her that there's a news story about a 22 month old child who died in the back of his father's SUV. And the car on the TV looks an awful lot like Ross's. So the detective gets there and they take Leanna to the police station because they have Ross in custody and they let her go in and talk to him and she's like what is going on what has happened and she's consoling her husband and they are having you know a moment while they're trying to just kind of figure out what's going on and then they separate them they pull him her away from him

and they leave him in the interrogation room and they take her into another room and they tell her that cooper has died and immediately they're struck because she asks about her husband and her response seems very unemotional. And so they're like, that's putting off some red flags. Really? Yeah. Because they just told her that her baby died. Yeah. And they felt that her response was very unemotional.

Okay. But I mean, I feel like we talk about this all the time in these cases, and I don't have a fucking clue how I would react. No. Yeah. Well, and by that point, you've figured out that something... The shock of it... I mean, I don't know.

You can't say the shock of it is over, but, you know... Yeah. Okay. So... What the fuck happened? Yeah. Okay. So.

What the fuck happened? And why, if her husband accidentally, what? I've got a theory. Okay. Well. If her husband accidentally left their child in the back of their car, why is he in police custody? My theory, when I, okay, this just popped into my head, was he goes to work, he realizes what he's done, it's too late, and he's planning to go kill himself. Oh, okay.

Interesting. That is an interesting theory, and not at all correct. Okay. So let's back up in time. All right. It's 8.30 in the morning on June 18, 2014. Leanna has left for work. She works, I think, as a dietician or some kind of nurse's aide.

I know at one point she was working as a dietician. On this particular day, she had scrubs on, so I don't know if dieticians wear scrubs. I know at one point she was working as a dietitian. On this particular day, she had scrubs on. So I don't know if dietitians wear scrubs. I think they do sometimes. Yeah. So maybe she was working as a dietitian at the same at this time. So she's left for work. Ross works as a website developer or a web developer for Home Depot corporate offices. That was lovely. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to slurp my coffee. Depot corporate offices. That was lovely. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to slurp my coffee. So it's his job every morning to take Cooper, their almost two-year-old son, to daycare. So at 8.30, they go to Chick-fil-A to get breakfast. And then from there, they would, there's like, leaving Chick-fil-A, it's like a half a mile

drive to Ross's office, or you turn the opposite direction and it's like a one mile drive to the daycare and then back to the office. Okay. mile drive to the daycare and then back to the office. Okay. So on this particular day, somehow, once they left Chick-fil-A, Ross drove directly to work, never stopped at the daycare, got out of his car, went into work, worked until 4.15 before coming out to his car. He told investigators that he left work, got in his car, drove two miles down the road,

and then realized that Cooper was still in his car seat. He pulled over and he got out of his car and immediately started yelling for someone to help him. Yeah. Passer-bys. Passer-bys. I hate passers-by. Passers-by. I don't know what's right. I think it's passers-by.

Okay, okay. Passers-by stopped. Somebody called 911. Somebody grabbed Cooper out of his car seat and attempted to perform CPR, but it was way too late. It was a very hot day. It was June in Atlanta, and Cooper was already gone. I hate these cases. I know.

It's terrible. The police arrive on the scene. Emergency crews arrive on the scene, and it's very clear that there's no hope for Cooper. But police are immediately struck by Ross Harris's behavior. He is yelling at the top of his lungs, my son, my son! He's pounding on the car, he's covering his face, yet it just seemed his reaction was extremely theatrical, is how it was described by the responding officers.

So they don't like his reaction for one reason, they don't like her reaction for the opposite. For the opposite reason. Okay. So because he is inconsolable and causing a scene, they actually handcuff him and put him in the back of a police cruiser. Yeah. Okay.

That seems like an odd move. I agree that it's an odd move. And so he's in the back of this police cruiser, and he's in there for five minutes, and he complains that the handcuffs are uncomfortable. And then he complains that he's not getting enough air. It's very hot in the back of the cruiser. Could they cool it down a little bit for him? Pretty bad.

Yeah. When your son has just died in the hot car that you left him in. On accident, though, right? Was it an accident, Kristen? I mean, what... Why would you want to kill a child? Why would you want to kill a child? I cannot imagine why. i can't either so they take him in for questioning and the theatrical behavior does not stop they put him in an interrogation room they let him sit there for a

while and he's like like forcing himself to go into like hyperventilation at one point another point he's got his head on the desk and he's sobbing like into his arms what's wrong you're making i do not like your tone missy what's wrong with that he's responsible for his child's death. The video of it, it's so over the top. Okay. Okay. It's very over the top. I saw a video of him in the squad car. I saw a video of him in the interrogation room.

It is so blatantly over the top. Okay. You think if I saw this video, I would not be... You would not believe for a second that this was an authentic reaction. Okay. So they ask him what happened he walks them through the events of that day and he says i don't know how i i even just watched a video about this this man that did this how could i have done this this man that accidentally did this same thing to his son. And he's become an advocate for checking the back seat before you get out of your car.

And I don't know how I could have done this. How could I do this to him? And the police just like, they all just have this gut feeling that something about this is not right and so that night that very same night they place him under arrest for the murder wow of cooper harris yeah 15 days would go by before anybody would really know what led them to making that distinguishment.

Distinguishment? No, that's not a word. Definitely not a word. For distinguishing. For distinguishing the difference between how did they think that this was not a horrible accident and actual murder. So no information was released about it for 15 days. Oh, my gosh.

And then they had the probable cause hearing to move forward with being able to charge him with murder. And at that probable cause hearing, the detectives in charge took the stand. And they pointed out the things that made them believe that this was not an accident. Are you ready to hear them? Yes, because right now I'm, I know you say it was over the top theatrical, but I'm still kind of like, I don't know. I want you to think about car seat placement. We don't have kids, you and I. No. But your sister does. My sisters do. Cooper was in a back-facing car seat still. Right.

That was placed in the middle seat of the SUV. That's not where you're supposed to put it, right? Not where you're supposed to put it. Okay. Which would also mean that the placement of Cooper's head would be six inches from the driver's head. Hard to not. Hard to not notice. Yeah. Something that.

At what age do you turn them facing forward? I think it's like after two. Oh, okay. I think it's more of a weight thing than an age thing. Okay, gotcha. But yeah, I think it's somewhere. I don't know. Why would you ask me that?

I just told you I don't have kids, Kristen. Well, I'm learning that fast for the first time. So that was their biggest thing, was that his head would have literally been six inches from Ross's head. How could he not have noticed that he left him in the car? See, I don't think that's that great of evidence because you can forget about stuff that's in your peripheral vision. No, I mean, I guess it's possible. If it's there the whole time, if it's not moving, if the child is asleep, I don't know. You're going to have to throw something better at me.

Next was something that he left out in his initial statement to police. It was at about 1230. He went to lunch. He actually walked to lunch. He did not get in his car but after meeting friends at for lunch he he walked to the home depot store that was right by their corporate headquarters bought light bulbs and went and put those light bulbs in his car what yes there's video surveillance of him walking across the parking lot he opened the driver's side door of the car

put the light bulbs in closed the door went back to work man at that point cooper had been in the car for four hours would he have been dead by then most likely yes yeah huh you still don't think that that is suspect enough. I guess it all depends on what you can see when you go through the driver's side. I don't know. I don't know. It's more compelling than the other stuff, but it's, it still might not be enough for, if you said that he put the light bulbs in the backseat of the car,

then for sure he would have seen. But he didn't, he put them in the front seat. Lastly, the biggest part of this. Okay. Would be Ross Harris's cell phone activity that day. He, during the time that his son was dying in his car, he was sexting underage girls, escorts, messaging on messaging apps, multiple women and men and there was a history of it that had gone on for a very long

time and among those messages were messages about how much he needed a break from being a dad and how his life would be much easier if Cooper was out of the picture oh my god yeah

what do you think about that Kristen if Cooper was out of the picture. Oh my God. Yeah. What do you think about that, Kristen? Okay, I've got thoughts. First of all, I was like, well, sexting, you know, that's not enough. But then I think, are you the world's dumbest criminal? you're assuming he meant to kill his child in in that time he sent texts to people app about how his life would be much easier.

Okay. If he didn't have a son. Okay. If he was childless. All right. So he thought he was smart. He thought, well, he's a web developer, Kristen. Well, good for him.

Yeah. Well, he's a web developer, Kristen. Well, good for him. Yeah. He thought that he was sending the incriminating messages through a way that would be untraceable to him. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes it even sketchier for me.

Okay, I'm with you now. I'm with you now. I thought you might be. um so on on the day of cooper's death he's exchanged messages with at least six women um some of whom were under the age of consent good grief what are people doing at work right are other people not busy yeah it's nuts to me so they had this probable cause hearing and they were it was ruled that they could move forward with charging with murder and boy did they they charged him with malice murder oh yeah and like i think seven additional counts. So all of this stuff came out at that probable cause hearing that his wife did not know about. Oh, my God.

Yeah. You imagine? No. Yeah. No. Yes. So she filed for divorce. She actually, to this day, believes that Cooper's death was an accident. Um,

and says that she, there were no signs ever in their relationship that he could have ever done anything to harm their son. There were signs that he could be unfaithful. And so she was not, that's, that was my next question. She said there were always signs that he could be unfaithful. Oh, okay. That was my next question. Yes, she said there were always signs that he could be unfaithful to her, but no signs that he could ever harm their son.

And she said that she had known they had had some issues in the past. She had caught him messaging women online, and he had a porn addiction. But he was going to therapy for it. had a porn addiction, but he was going to therapy for it. And so she was shocked by it, but it wasn't like, it wasn't something so out of the realm that she could have never believed it. But she completely believes that his, that Cooper's death was an accident. Okay.

The trial would last three weeks, like 21 days of actual trial. That's pretty long. It is pretty long. And this is actually interesting. So it spread out over a little bit longer period because the court had to be in recess for a week because of a hurricane. Oh, God. Yes. So trial began October 3rd of 2016. And during the state's opening arguments, they painted Ross Harris as a man who was living a double life.

They said, you will see the deception and the double life, how he behaved and how he lied in this case. The defendant intended to kill Cooper and he intended to do all of the things that killed Cooper. And their opening statement, the defense tried to rebut that and say that Cooper's death was not premeditated, but a terrible accident. What you're going to see here in this trial is that the responsible is that responsible is not the same thing as criminal okay i feel like it's a fair point the evidence will show that ross loved that little boy more than anything cooper's death was an accident it was always an accident and that is what he told the police over and over again this was an accident not intentional and the defense even claimed in their opening statements that the uh police department made up evidence

to make this look worse than it was wow yeah that's a pretty bold accusation it's happened no absolutely it's happened so in kind of the the one of the first witnesses to come to the stand was um james hawkins who was the guy who attempted to perform cpr on cooper when so when ross if you believe his, looked back and saw that Cooper was in his car seat and that he'd forgot him there and that he was not breathing. He immediately pulled into a shopping center. He got out of his car. He yelled for help. This is the first man that came over. Okay.

And he said he tried to perform CPR on him. And he cried on the stand. Yeah. And said that it was like blowing through a busted bag he was gone there was no hope several first responders also took the stand and the jurors were shown lots of pictures of cooper's body and when those pictures were brought up, Ross kind of put his head in his hands and appeared to cry. Several jurors cried. Well, yeah.

Yeah. One of the crime scene investigators testified that there were scratches on his face, but that his clothes were all intact and he still had his tennis shoes on and everything, which would have trapped in his body heat more. Yeah. It's really just a devastating. This is terrible. It's terrible. It's really terrible. So then the court goes into recess for a week because Hurricane Matthew comes.

And so you have to halt everything. And then they reconvene. And this is when the prosecutor, this is the first time the jury got to see Cooper alive. Prosecutors showed the jury surveillance video from Chick-fil-A came and testified and he said that he thought everything seemed fine. He thought that Ross seemed like a very attentive father. He seemed to really love his kid. This really shocks me. What shocks you? When you said they went to Chick-fil-A, I was picturing it drive through no so the child is asleep the whole time and that's how he forgets that the child is no car they went inside wow

yes that really does yes i i find it does that Yes. Yes. How did you one second ago put your kid back in the car and then you drive directly to work? You don't drive to the daycare. You just put him back in his seat. And I'm not saying it's impossible. But way less likely than if he had been in there since he left the house. Went to the drive through. He was asleep the whole time. He didn't hear anything.

You kind of get caught up in your own head. Yeah. Much less likely. Yeah. Yeah. Next to testify were some of the workers from the daycare that Cooper attended. And they testified that Harris seemed like a loving picture. Loving picture.

A loving parent. They said he took pictures of Cooper, picture, loving picture, a loving parent. They said he took pictures of Cooper like every day when he dropped him off at daycare. Yeah. But one of the workers, Kiata, Kiata, K-E-Y-A-T-T-A, Kiata, Patrick testified that about two weeks before Cooper's death, she noticed that Ross had stopped taking pictures of Cooper. And she asked about it. She said, you haven't been taking pictures of him anymore. And she testified that Ross said, no, I stopped because he's getting older.

That's weird. Weird answer, right? Yeah. getting older that's weird weird answer right yeah so the next witness was kind of like the one everybody was waiting for or one of the ones everybody was waiting for it was one of the women that he had been sexting that day and she wasn't just any woman. She was an escort. She told jurors that Ross had paid her $125 for what she described as 30 minutes of vanilla sex. Is that all she got? On May 31st, so two weeks before Cooper's death. She said she remembered him.

They had stayed in contact a little bit afterwards. She described him as dumpy, short, and he had no presence about himself. Well, ouch. Yeah. And she said that they had had three sexual encounters that month. Mm-hmm. That he had paid her for all of them.

You know, $125 for 30 minutes, Kristen. You don't think that's a, you think that's too low? Yeah, it's sex. It's not, you know, crocheting. It's not crocheting. You don't think they got together and just crocheted?

I'm just saying, like, that's a high-risk activity with some rando. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. So that was kind of a bombshell one, that he had not only been sexting with women that he'd met online, he was actually paying for sex as well. See, I don't think that's that big of a deal. You don't?

I mean, I think it's clear. I think it makes it very clear that this was not just like an unsatisfied guy. This is somebody who's definitely battling a sex addiction. Sure, sure. It shows that there is another side to him that he's hiding. But to me, it's not a smoking gun it's not you don't think it's like damning it's not good yeah it's bad yeah um but it doesn't say oh he for sure wanted to murder his son no yeah no i would agree with that he for sure wanted to cheat

on his wife he for sure was a shitty husband He for sure was a shitty husband. He for sure was a shitty husband. So the next to testify was a forensic computer analyst who had examined Ross's computer. And he found five links to Reddit that contained the word child free. Hmm. So he said that these were in his forensic analysis, that these were things that were flagged for that, um, came up as,

you know, alarming. Okay. I've been searching something that says child free and then your child dies. Yeah. Okay. child dies. Yeah. Okay. It's not great. No.

However, the defense actually was kind of able to swing this around. They were during cross-examination. They actually produced a chat log involving this between Ross and his friend Alex, who used to work with at Home Depot. And the chat log showed that it was Hall, this guy, Alex, Alex Hall, who had sent these links to Ross, not Ross searching them himself. And that the links had actually been to a page advocating for not having children in the first place. Yeah, child free doesn't mean exactly. And the chat log showed that Harris had responded unfavorably to him sharing these links.

He'd said it was gross and whatever. And so it wasn't like he was like, yeah, man, that's the life. Yeah. He had like it was like the prosecution didn't look deep enough into that. Or hoped that the defense wouldn't. Or hoped that the defense wouldn't. You're right. Yeah.

Yeah. Why would you even bring that up? Yeah, I think it's totally if they hoped that the defense would not look deep enough to find that. That's awful. I think it's awful, too. Because when you said child-free on Reddit, I'm... Yeah, I didn't think that sounded that damning to begin with. Yeah, it's not that damning to begin with, and it's even less damning when you hear the rest of it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not that damning to begin with. It's even less damning when you hear the rest of it. Yeah. Yeah. So the medical examiner, of course, testified and talked about like hour by hour what would have happened to Cooper as he died. And the jurors obviously all were crying during that time. It was just horrible to think about what a two-year-old

little boy went through yeah and it was because it was 80 degrees outside that day and this sat in a unshaded parking lot so temperatures inside the car and no one saw him no one heard him no that is so sad yeah experts testified that they believed that the peak temperature inside the car don't even tell would have reached 125 degrees this is the worst case it's terrible the defense tried to discredit the expert and say how could you know exactly what temperature would have reached in there it doesn't fucking matter the kid is dead yeah i agree that's it what point are you trying to make yeah they said the defense said that they're um though the heat tests that the expert had conducted require a lot of controls and there were too many variables and that they couldn't duplicate the circumstance exactly.

So how could they know exactly? Who cares? It doesn't matter. Yeah. We already know the outcome. Yeah. testified about vulgar text messages and exchanges from Ross that were sent on the day, including dick pics. Ew.

Dude sent dick pics that day to multiple women. Yeah. One woman testified that she started a one-year relationship with Ross when she was 18 years old. She said that they met. How old was he? 30-something. Ew. Yeah.

Oh, my God. I thought he was, like, oh, I thought he was much younger. I think he's in his 30s. He looks like he's in his 30s. Yikes. Oh, yeah. He was born in 1980 oh come on 34 at that time yeah yeah so she testified that they had been in a one-year relationship they'd only met in person one time but she said that they were in love and that they told each other every day that they loved each other. And that Ross on multiple occasions had said if it wasn't for Cooper, he would leave his wife.

That is seen as maybe the most damning testimony that was revealed at trial. Yeah. Yeah. The defense tried to, on cross-examination, tried to kind of soften the blow of that a little bit. shortly after he was arrested that said that she wrote in it that she knew how much he loved Cooper and how she knew he was innocent because he would never do anything to hurt him. But that blow from saying, if it wasn't for Cooper, I would leave my wife, that's a big blow. Yeah. Well, and she was a victim.

Yeah. So her analysis of it, you know, she thinks she's in love. She thinks she's in love with him. Yeah. No, you just have to listen to the words he told. Yeah. I hate this case. I hate this more than the Taco Bell case.

It's bad. So Ross did not take the stand on his own, but the jurors got to hear him talk several times because his interrogation videos were played and all of that. And they got to see the weird interaction between him and his wife in the interrogation room. And she asked him a really weird question. What'd she ask? She asked him, what have you said? Have you said too much what yes that was one of the first questions she asked him when she was able to see him in the interrogation room so she has never been charged with anything police believe that she had no no part in this whatsoever

and in an interview with 2020 she clarified that statement as saying that she knew her husband very well. She knew his personality. And what she meant by that was it was shocking to her that he was in custody after a tragic accident. So she figured he must have said something, not realizing how it sounded, to make them believe that this was not an accident. That's her clarification of that statement. What do you think about that? I don't know. It's really weird.

I'm trying to put myself in that position. So there's a couple of things that she did during this whole thing that really cast a shadow on her. Okay. One of them is a statement that she made at Cooper's funeral. She said that she knew he was in a better place and if she could bring him back, she wouldn't bring him back into a broken world. And she said that that was unfair, that that was brought to the media because she should have been able to say anything she wanted to at her baby's funeral and not have it dissected for some ulterior meaning. I think it's a weird statement. I think it's a weird statement, but... I completely get her argument, too, though.

I get her argument, and a though. I get her argument. And a lot of times with death, people say weird shit. Yeah. Yeah. Weird ass shit. And also they're in a better place. Everything happens for a reason. And they say that sometimes in situations where I'm like, really? You think there's a reason this happened?

But it's of some comfort. Yeah. So maybe that's exactly. Yeah. And then the other thing she did was she testified in Ross's defense. She had already filed for divorce. I don't know that their divorce was finalized at that point yet. It probably would have been because the trial didn't happen until 2016,

and she filed for divorce pretty much right away. But she said that he was nothing but a loving father yes they had marital problems but that didn't have anything to do with what kind of father he was and that she could not would not could never believe that this was something he planned intended to do and so on this episode of 2020 they asked her about that too they're like why would you testify in his defense and she said i never saw it as testifying in his defense when you get on the stand and you take an oath to tell the truth and nothing but the truth i couldn't say anything other than that he was an excellent father because he was wow Wow. That was the truth.

What do you think? I don't know. I think... I think this happens and a lot of times it's a terrible accident. Yeah. I think there's enough extenuating circumstances in this that i don't

believe it could truly be an accident yeah he just put him in the car seat like he had he drove half a mile from when he put him in the car seat to when he got out of the car yeah and went to work they were in the car for less than two minutes How do you forget in less than two minutes that your two-year-old kid is in the car seat? Six inches from your face. Six inches from your face. It happens, though. It happens. Six inches.

I'm holding my hands up six inches. This is where my head is. But behind you. Yes, I get that. I can still tell this hand is here. And it's a two-year-old. It's not silent. It's not my silent hand.

It's a two-year-old human being. Yeah. But how do you prove? That's what I'm saying. Intent. How do you prove that's what I'm saying? How do you prove it? So, like I said, this trial lasted for three weeks,

something like 51 witnesses testified. Yeah. All of the women that he had sent those text messages to that day, the defense basically tried to break this down into two separate things. Yes, he had some sexual problems. Yes, he was unfaithful to his wife. Yes, he was. Well, he was a pedophile, right?

Yeah, I mean, under the age of consent, yes. Yes, that's one crime. Leaving his son in the car, an accident. You have to separate the two. That was the defense's position. That's a good defense. That's the only thing you can say. I think that's the only thing you can do.

Yeah. This is not a question of were these things that he was doing over here terrible? Yes, they were. We'll admit that. Absolutely. He had a porn addiction. He's a sex addict. He was cheating on his wife.

He was sexting minors. Yes, 100%. Terrible dude. Yeah. Accidentally left his son in the car. He was a great father. What do you think the jury found? Gosh.

Guilty. Guilty? I mean, I... Of malice murder? You think they proved malice murder? Probably not. What about, like... Manslaughter?

Negligent homicide? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. To me, there's not an abundance of evidence here, but I think he does seem guilty to me. He does? Yeah. He seems guilty to me, too. Yeah.

And he seemed guilty to the jury. Okay. They found him guilty on all eight counts, including malice murder. Yeah. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 32 years. Wow. Yeah. Okay, I didn't think the case was that good.

I didn't either. Holy shit. Yeah. yeah the jury really put some weight into his activities that day and did not believe this was any kind of accident wow um so yeah he is he has appealed his conviction obviously but convicted sentenced to life in prison, plus 32 years. Holy crap. Yeah. And to this day, his ex-wife believes it was an accident.

And they asked her on this 2020 episode, like, do you think you tell yourself that because it would make it easier? Of course she does. And she says no, but I think 100% that's it, right? That would course she does and she says no but i think 100 that's it right that would be horrible yeah yeah oh i hated that so he has filed an appeal arguing that the that the testimony about his affairs and the sexting prejudiced the jury so hmm and was not pertinent to the case except that that was what he was doing at the time i think it is pertinent to the case i think it's pertinent only because he said stuff about about wanting yeah to not be a dad. Yeah. Yeah.

Ugh. So that appeal is still working its way through the legal system, so. Good grief. Yep. That's the worst case. It's a bad one. Sucked. All right, are you ready?

Take us away. Talk about the dark web. God, that. I'm ready? Take us away. Talk about the dark web. I'm sorry. That case sucked. I was too far in. And I, that's one of my cases that was like on my original list when we first started this,

because I think there's so many questions. I think like, yeah, I think he's guilty. You think he's guilty. How did they prove malice murder i don't know i don't know either i think he seems like a total shithead oh 100 but a shithead shitty husband shitty human being probably killed probably killed this kid but how

did they prove that i don't think they proved it oh i don't know if i was on that jury if i could have convicted him of malice murder yeah i i don't know okay let's never talk about this again yeah please never again the fuck there's something about the baby in the car yeah it's terrible it just it's too much for me yeah oh okay okay wait i have to tell you something okay please tell me it's light-hearted it is light-hearted okay so i told my mom when last week's episode came out that she needed to listen to it right away yeah and i told her that i got my revenge on you for the dog murder case. Right. And she said, oh, did you do a child murder? Kristen hates child murder. I do. Well, I'm very sorry. I mean, you hate dog murder. I also hate child murder. What do you hate more, Brandy? What do you hate more, Brandy? I agree that it is fucked up, but somehow the dog murder affects me more.

I'm very sorry. What is wrong with you? I am also affected by the child murder. I think it's terrible. But there's something about the dog murder that just gets me on a different level. Good God. I'm sorry. Let's talk about something else please okay first of all a shout out to liz who reached out to us on twitter with this case um she sent me a link to this amazing article in wired and it's the

headline is if you want to kill someone we are the right guys okay it's by mara hevistendahl oh excellent you practiced that did you h-v-i-s-t-e-n-d-a-h-l okay but this and all just like you said just like i said with all the confidence it is an amazing article. This whole thing, essentially, comes from, I am just retelling you this amazing article. It was March of. I'm going to sit here in silence like this the entire time you talk. Is that what I did the whole time? I just. Well, you have to explain what you mean by like this.

It's like, she's like her like shoulders were up next to her giant ear lobes and and then she had just this like uncomfortable scowl on her face i hated it i absolutely terrible case yeah i'm sorry maybe I hate you for doing that. Oh, no! It was March of 2016. Stephen Allwine walked into a Wendy's in Minneapolis. Why do all of your cases involve fast food restaurants? That was one of the reasons that Liz sent it to us.

She was like, it has everything. And then she mentioned a few things, and one of them was Wendy's. Wonderful. He walked in with $6,000 cash in his pocket. I ought to get him about six things on the Wendy's menu. Pretty quickly, he found the guy he was looking for. They'd met up on local bitcoins, which I have to just start this with. I know nothing about Bitcoin.

Yeah, I don't either. But anyway, it's a website where people can buy cryptocurrency locally. The article described it as like Craigslist for cryptocurrency. So Stephen pulled up his Bitcoin wallet app on his phone, handed the guy six grand, and the guy transferred him the appropriate amount of Bitcoin. Great stuff. Stephen walked out of the Wendy's only to realize that, oopsies, he'd locked his keys in his car. How annoying. He was supposed to meet his friend with benefits, Michelle Woodard, for lunch.

But no worries. A locksmith came, let Steven into the car, and pretty soon he and Michelle were enjoying a meal at Blue Door Pub. Overall, it was a pretty good 43rd birthday. That night, he went home and logged into his email account. That night, he went home and logged into his email account. His email address was dogdaygod at hamamail, h-m-a-mail dot com. I don't know. Yeah.

He sent an email to someone who he knew as Yura. He wrote, I have the bitcoins now. But who exactly was Eura? Well, Eura ran a site called Besa Mafia. It was part of the dark web. You could only get to it through an anonymous browser. The Besa Mafia claimed to be connected to the Albanian mob. And their website was very straightforward. It was a dude with a gun and the text read, If you want to kill someone or to beat the shit out of him,

we are the right guys. Oh my gosh. In other words, the Besa Mafia were freelance hitmen. And don't you worry. They were very honorable, Brandy. Once you paid them, they held that money in an escrow service. And then they only got paid after your hit went through.

Hmm. It reminds me of those, like, terrible attorney commercials. Yeah. We don't get paid until you collect money. That's right. Still. If you don't win, you don't pay. Stephen was concerned.

What if he sent them all that money and they just kept it? He wrote, they say BESA means trust. So please do not break that. For reasons that are too personal and would give away my identity. My identity. That was a weird pronunciation. Yeah, I know. I'm sorry.

It's okay. I liked it. I think I'm going to start saying it like that. Identity? Yeah. For reasons that are too personal and would give away my identity. I need this bitch dead. Who's this bitch?

It was his wife. Okay. Oh, he has a wife and friends with benefits? Yeah, afraid so. Oh, a couple of winners on this episode. Yep. This is the cheating episode. Yeah, we've had a few cheating episodes now. Stephen met his wife Amy when they were in college at Ambassador University in Big Sandy, Texas. They were both members. Never heard of any of those places. Neither have I. They were both members of the Worldwide Church of God, which is a very conservative church. They don't do holidays with any sort of pagan influence.

So Christmas, giant no. They observe a very strict Saturday Sabbath, and they don't do the hanky-panky before marriage. But apparently friends with benefits while you're married is just perfectly fine. Okay, great. The rule is one of you has to be married. The rule is one of you has to be married. Around 1995, when Stephen and Amy were still in college, the United Church of God split off from the Worldwide Church of God. So Stephen and Amy gravitated toward this new splinter branch.

And the United Church of God believed in the Internet as a way of spreading their religion. So Stephen was super into computers, so he was all about it. After college, life moved pretty quickly. They got married and moved to Minnesota, where Amy was from, and Amy started a dog training business called Active Dog Sports Training. They adopted a son. Stephen became an elder in the United Church of God and Amy became a deaconess. Life was great. Amy traveled all over the place for dog competitions and Stephen... What kind of dogs? I don't know. All kinds of dogs. No, they're like specialized in one dog. You don't know what kind of dog? I have no idea. Couldn't care less.

All right. Fair enough. I mean, she did like dog training. She did, you know. Okay. They were all beagles. Thank you. They were all beagles.

She's specialized in beagles. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you making that up for me. No beagles will be harmed in this episode. Bulldogs, though. You stop right now. Stephen pursued his love of IT.

In fact, they had their own website called allwine.net. It was filled with instructional dance videos and song suggestions. I thought it was about wine. No, Allwine is their last name. Sorry, I should have clarified. Can you imagine? I was really confused. Can you imagine all the disappointed were like, Allwine?

I agree. And then they pull up these terrible dance videos. Instructional dance videos. And then they pull up these terrible dance videos. Terrible dance videos. So, you know, the whole idea was like, so they could show people how they could have a good time without too much touching. Oh. So like, I didn't write this down, but like, in one of the videos, it seems like they were both dressed like shit.

And they were doing a dance to We Go Together. The angel Olivia Newton-John was singing to them to outsiders their relationship seemed great but it for sure wasn't brandy quit dancing you're getting too sexual over there Chained and changed, but we'll always be as one. One, one, one, one. Oh, God, it's so hard to stop myself, but I know we should. When we go out at night. Okay. The stars are shining bright up in the sky above.

Okay, we really have to stop. Okay. And at the high school dance. Oh my God. You know what? I keep thinking it's okay because she doesn't know the rest of the words, but then you do know the rest of the words. God. Maybe we should create our own website.

No. People need tips from us. I don't think they do. Okay, so their relationship seemed great, but it wasn't. Because the day after Stephen got his Bitcoin at Wendy's, he uploaded a picture of Amy to their website. It was one he'd taken on a family vacation to Hawaii.

After he did that, he emailed Yura with a link to the website. He wrote, She's about 5'6". She looks about 200 pounds. Then he gave Yura tips on how to kill her. Of course he did. He said the hitman could do it during Amy's upcoming business trip to Illinois. He even offered to pay more money if they could make it look like an accident. You know, maybe they could, I don't know, ram into her Toyota

Sienna minivan. Yura was like, sure. Great idea. Thank you. Thanks for the tips. The guy will be waiting for her at the airport. He'll tail her in a stolen car. And he'll kill her in a car accident. But if for some reason that doesn't work, he'll just shoot her. Okay. Also, buddy, buddy, let me help you out now. Make sure you establish a good alibi. Surround yourself with people this weekend.

Buy things. Get yourself caught on some video surveillance just to be safe cover all your bases okay that was pretty good advice because steven worked from home doing it work in their basement and he spent a lot of time alone yeah uh visiting sites like naughtydates.com and LonelyMilfs.com. Those poor milfs. They're just lonely, Brittany. They're so lonely.

Occasionally, he sought the company of an escort. And he'd met his... What? If we put our two guys in a Vindayen room here... I know. They're very similar. It's a crossover. and have been dying around here.

I know. They're very similar. They're a lot of crossover. He'd met his friend with benefits on Ashley Madison, which, by the way, the only reason he knew about Ashley Madison was because, you know, he was so involved at church, he would do couples counseling for other couples. And so that's how he found out about it.

Excellent. Yeah, yeah. So he's like, I don't know, taking notes. What did you say that website was again? I'm going to try and get it taken down. I'm going to report this to Google. It was a weekend in late March when Stephen expected Amy to die.

He'd done everything perfectly. He knew just about everything there was to know about computers. He'd done everything perfectly. He knew just about everything there was to know about computers. He'd covered his tracks. He even covered his tracks with the hitmen. So he didn't tell these guys, oh, hey, I want you to kill my wife. No, he created this elaborate backstory. He told them that he was a woman. And like Amy, he was also a dog trainer so he's setting up this thing where like he is a woman with a competing business yeah he's a rival dog trainer but also that amy had slept with his husband oh okay rival dog trainer whose husband is banging her. Right. Got it. Very, very upsetting for this imaginary woman. Yes.

So Stephen's at home waiting for his wife to die, but it's not happening. The weekend just keeps rolling along, so he reached out to Yura, and he's like, uh, hello, uh... What's the good word, buddy? Yeah, and Yura was like, terribly sorry. Here's the deal.

It's really hard to make it look like an accident and make sure she dies. We're just trying to do the best job possible. Thank you for your patience. Thank you. Your business is very important to us. You'll get 20% off your next hit. I know you have many choices when shopping for a hitman. Thank you for choosing us. You'll get 20% off your next hit. We know you have many choices when shopping for a hitman.

Thank you for choosing us. But hey, by the way, we sensed that you wanted this done while she was traveling, but if she's a family member or your wife, we can do it in your city. You could just leave town on the day we're we can do it in your city. You could just leave

town on the day we're going to do it. If you want, you could throw in a few extra Bitcoin and we could kill her plus burn your house down. What? Destroy the evidence. Okay. Steven was like, whoa. I like my house.

Thank you very much. I just don't like my wife. No no he was like she's not my wife oh that's right yeah that's right she's a fake rival dog trainer remember I'm a woman

and I train dogs oh my gosh and she had sex with my husband she had sex with my husband she had banging her husband but he was like hey

good ideas I like this at home hit idea so Stephen got even more bitcoin and sent it off to Yura. Days passed. Then weeks passed. Peanut made me yawn, sorry. Stephen was antsy.

This was not as easy as he thought it would be. He emailed Yura to express his disappointment. Sometimes he'd give Yura tips. Uh, um, I think Amy's husband has a tractor, so there's probably extra gasoline in the garage. Also,

remember to just kill her, not the dad or the kid. Me? Yeah. And my kid? Yeah.huh oh my gosh ura responded every time and like a waiter at a tgi fridays he upsold the shit out of this hit he was like always he was like i can't remember what exactly he said but it was something like hey you know we're a bunch of ex-military guys if you want someone really experienced maybe you could throw in a little more money blah blah blah by this point steven had spent a little more than 12 grand trying to kill his wife that's not very much well and there was a $700,000 insurance policy on her.

So, you know, he didn't care. At some point in all this, Stephen logged on to Dream Market, which is an area of the dark web known for selling drugs. While he was there, he continued to use the username Dog Day God. So now it's April of 2016. It's about two months since Stephen ordered that first hit on Amy, and BESA Mafia got hacked. Oh. All of Eura's messages with all these shitty people trying to pay to have

people killed got dumped. Soon, the FBI got involved. Local field offices all over the United States suddenly had the job of looking into all these contracted hits. Asher Silkey worked in the Minneapolis office. So this weird case of someone going by Dog Day god wanting amy allwine murder fell into his lap so asher and a local police officer asked amy to come to the station they led her into a private room and told her everything someone wanted her dead someone said that amy had slept with her husband oh my gosh and amy was just like what yeah like no absolutely not she had no idea who would want her dead she had no enemies that's just not who she was yeah i know i know amy was freaked out she got home and told Steven all about it

pretty soon they set up motion activated cameras around the house she went home and told Steven about it yeah fuck yeah wouldn't you well yeah yeah so she's freaking out

so he's like don't worry honey I'll help so they get these cameras around the outside of their home. Oh, no. They bought a gun. They went to the shooting range. Yeah. Yeah, he was really supportive and helpful. Oh, no.

For a while, things were okay-ish. But by late July, that changed. Amy got two anonymous threats via email. Via email? How do you get an anonymous threat via email? It has an email address attached to it, but you can't really... This guy knew his stuff. Okay, that's true.

He's coming from the dark web. Yeah. I couldn't even tell you how to get to the dark web, Kristen. I would have to Google dark web. I think that's kind of not what you're supposed to do. I would have to Google dark web. I think that's kind of like not what you're supposed to do. Can you ask Jeeves?

Can you take me to the dark web? I go to Bing and look for dark web. Do you think Ask Jeeves is still an active website? Pull it up. Let's see. For the kids out there, ask me. Oh, no. They've got ask.com. Oh, poor ass oh ask jeeves is gone okay explain ask jeeves ask the kids was like our

original search engine like when we were coming up ask jeeves it was like a butler. Yeah, it was your internet butler. He wasn't great, but he was all we had. That's right. Oh, sad. I guess it became ask.com. Hmm. Yep. They shouldn't have fired Jeeves.

Jeeves was the best. Hang on. You've got to do this to your hair. Why, is it bothering you? It looks looks like a comb over that's come kind of out of place is that better that's that's perfect yeah you had like a gap oh do we want to talk about how amazing your highlights look um yeah i went to a new place i just needed to change brand no but for real let's talk about norm Norman for a second. Oh, my God. You told Norman that you were going to go get your hair done and you guys had a scheduling

conflict. And he was like, well, where's your appointment? Like, uh, hello? Where do you think? Where do you think she goes, Norman? To me. Always. It's true.

Looks amazing. Thank you. It really does. I really love it. I'm a little blonder looks great i felt awkward in the salon when like they give a compliment because it's like i feel like it's a compliment to you you grew that hair i didn't grow it um i didn't grow it this color you've seen what pops out naturally. Okay. Ask Jeeves does not exist.

Your highlights look great. Back to the Hitman. Okay. So she gets these two anonymous threats via email and she called Asher, the FBI guy, and he immediately came out to the house and Asher, Amy and Steven all sat around looking at these emails. Here's part of one of them. Okay, Amy, and Stephen all sat around looking at these emails. Here's part of one of them.

Okay. Amy, I still blame you for my life falling apart. I see that you've put up a security system now, and I've been informed by people on the internet that the police were snooping around my earlier emails. I've been assured that the emails are untraceable, and they will not find me, but I cannot attack you directly with them watching. Here's what's going to happen. Since I cannot get to you, I will come after everything else that you love.

Holy shit. Then the email mentioned the color of shirt her son wore two days earlier. It mentioned that they'd moved their RV to a new parking spot. It listed addresses where Amy's family lived. Then it said, here's how you can save your family. Commit suicide. Oh, yep. Holy shit.

Yeah. A week later, she got another email this one said are you so selfish that you'll put your family's lives at risk oh my gosh so i'm i'm not getting into all of this but like it listed it listed ways for her to kill herself was like, I can't believe you managed to sleep with my husband, you fat bitch. Like all this terrible, terrible stuff. So Amy wanted to do whatever she could to help authorities. So she gave the FBI her computer. Stephen handed over his phone and laptop. Amy also gave them a list of all the people

she'd worked with. Asher interviewed some people. He pulled credit reports on some people. He poured over the stuff. The FBI poured over the stuff that Amy and Stephen had handed over. But for whatever reason, they didn't

appear to look that closely into Stephen. Wow. Which boggles my mind that's the first person you would go to yes always did it the husband did it and like i'm sorry this person seems to know a hell of a lot they're getting inside information from the fucking husband it's It's coming from inside the house. Duh. Anyway, life continued on. Okay. Oh, that's frustrating. Amy did what she could to ease her anxiety, but she was so afraid. Her migraines became more frequent.

November came. Amy's dad showed up to do some work on their house. Stephen told him that Amy was in bed resting. So Amy's dad finished up the job, headed home. But about five minutes into his drive home, Stephen called. He said he was going to take Amy to the local clinic because she really wasn't feeling great. So the dad picked up the grandson and Stephen,

you know, there's some, well, there's no debate. Anyway, what you need to know is later that evening, Stephen went to pick up his son from his in-law's house. He took the boy to Culver's, which I think they have terrible food there. But anyway. I honestly think I've eaten there once ever. Exactly. Everyone has eaten there once ever. No. Everyone has eaten there once ever. No, somebody's got to like it.

There's lots of them. They're still open. They've got custard. I know they've got custard. Is it good? See, I don't know because I went one time and it just wasn't. You went once and you're making this judgment about it? You know, I don't have to eat a whole tray of something to know whether I like it or not.

Did you have the cheese curds? I hear their cheese curds are delicious. I don't think I had the cheese curds. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe the ordering was the problem. Oh, it was user error. I don't know why I'm defending Culver's. I've also eaten there one time ever and haven't felt the need to go back.

Do you have stock in the company? What's going on? I don't. So. Blah, blah, blah. Okay. So they went to Culver's. Huh?

Sorry. So they went to Culver's, which was their usual routine on Sunday nights. Because Amy was always teaching dog training classes on Sunday nights to exclusively beagles. Yeah. Who were not harmed at all in this episode. No, they weren't. Don't worry. Only a child died in this episode. You creep. When they got home that night,

Stephen let his son go into the house ahead of him. And that's when they found Amy dead. What? The gun that Stephen and Amy had bought for protection was at her side. Stephen immediately called 911. And he said, I think my wife shot herself. Okay, on a very strange note. The article does not mention this, but I watched like a

Dateline episode about this last night, just to see if there was anything I missed. The son, so the son is there in the background, and I think the son is like nine, or maybe ten. And, you know, the son is obviously crying and upset, and at one point on the

phone call, the son says to the dad, are you going to remarry? What? I know, right? That's very odd. So I read about that in an article first, and then I watched the Dateline episode, which played some of the audio. It's, I mean, it's weird both ways in the in the audio it felt more like oh kids can say weird things sometimes and that's kind of how it came across but when i just read it i thought holy shit did this guy say some things to his kid over the months to get him to wrap his head around. Yeah. That is odd. It was super weird. It was super weird.

Okay. At any rate, local police rushed to the scene. One of the first people there pulled up the file about how Amy had been the victim of really scary online threats. She was stunned

and immediately called Detective Sergeant Randy McAllister. Randy arrived on the scene as quickly as he could, and he entered the home. Is she dead? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Oh.

He entered the home and was immediately struck by the scent of roasting pumpkin. That's weird. Why? Well, I don't know. It just seems odd. Uh-huh. That's what he thought, too, because when people kill themselves, they usually don't, like... Roast a pumpkin first?

Right. They don't have something going in the crock pot for later. No. So that was strange. But there were other things that seemed weird, too. Blood was smeared on both sides of their bedroom door. What? And the house was covered in dog hair, obviously,

but the hallway floor near Amy's body was very clean. Somebody had cleaned up. Someone had dragged her body and cleaned up. Also, he would later learn that Amy was right-handed, but the gun was on her left side. Meanwhile, Stephen and his son were taken into the police station.

Officers said... I don't think these are the guys you want to hire for a hit. It seems like they didn't get any of the details right. It doesn't seem like that, does it? If you're in the market, keep on shopping, folks. Officer said that Steven seemed...

Euron Greyjoy's not your guy. Ooh. Timely Game of Thrones reference. I don't know this guy's last name, but I remember you saying his first name was Euron. That's all I could think of. No, I haven't said his last name. Oh, okay. Is it Greyjoy? Yeah, it is. Let's make some stuff up.

So, officers said that Stephen seemed a little cold, considering his wife had just died, but, you know, there's no right way to grieve. Right. For the next few days, investigators studied the house. They used luminol to determine that blood had been cleaned up in that hallway. Uh-huh. They went downstairs to Stephen's office. And they quickly realized that the one computer he'd handed over to the FBI hadn't been enough. Uh-huh. In total, they found 66 devices.

Holy shit! Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as an IT guy, that's still a lot. That's a lot! That's a lot! The police had a lot of work ahead of them. Stephen was definitely a suspect, but they didn't have any...

Finally! Yeah. It really seems like the local police were way more sophisticated than the FBI. Wow. I mean, but I just don't think there's any excuse for that. Stephen was definitely a suspect, but they didn't have anything on him. They knew that someone had tried to take out a hit on Amy a few months earlier.

Maybe that person, whoever they were, had been successful. I've been debating when to say this. Say it now. I'm ready. I can handle it. All the beagles died. He was surrounded by dead beagles.

So when they looked into this Eura person and all these hits, they determined pretty much that this was just a scam. Yeah. Nobody got killed. So it was just... A dark web scam. a dark web scam. A dark web scam. Oh, Stephen. Yeah.

One officer found some somewhat suspicious stuff on Stephen's phone. He found the apps Orfox and Orbot. Orbot? Orbot? O-R-B-O-T. Orbot? Orbot. Which are used to access an anonymous web browser.

Again, these are things I don't know. I don't know. This is dark web bullshit. I don't know how to do it. No, thank you. He also found confirmation codes from the app LocalBitcoins. Apparently, the FBI had either, like, missed that or not understood how that could be important. Yeah.

Anyway. either like missed that or not understood how that could be important yeah anyway the officer looked through amy's phone and realized that on the day she died she seemed to get more and more confused at 148 she read the wikipedia page for vertigo a few minutes later she typed like nonsense into bing so he was poisoning her too okay that's the theory so she typed d-u-y and then later e-y-e and then d-i-y-v-w-h-h you know like she just you know she was kind of losing control meanwhile police were leaning on steven pretty hard He admitted that he'd had an affair with his friend with benefits, Michelle Woodard. So police talked to Michelle. And she told them everything she knew.

She mentioned that the day the two of them went for lunch on Stephen's birthday, he'd been delayed. And he told her that it was because he'd locked his keys in his car while he was buying Bitcoin. So she's telling them this. I'm sure not realizing that she's, like, giving them their case. Yeah. And police were like, uh, what? What's that now? Pretty soon, things got a whole lot more clear.

They learned about the six grand that he'd exchanged for Bitcoin. They also learned that although Stephen had done a good job covering up like his really bad Internet activity, he didn't do a good job covering up his mildly shitty Internet activity. For example, just a few minutes before he suggested that the hitmen go murder Amy during her trip to Moline, Illinois. He googled Moline, Illinois. Mm-hmm. Didn't bother to figure out how to say it. It's probably Moline. Moline.

Later, just a little while before Amy got that terrifying email that included all the addresses for her family, he visited

Radaris.com to get all of their addresses. Mm. So, yeah, like, he didn't cover that shit up. No. It was all pretty damning. Yeah. But it was also circumstantial.

Very circumstantial. They needed something more. Then, one night, one of the officers was laying in bed. He'd just been reading through the FBI's file on Amy. And on a whim, he googled dog day god and sure enough something came up up popped some old posts on dream market oh my gosh in one post dog day god asked if anyone sold i don't know drug names. Scopolamine? Scopolamine?

Sure. Okay, I've never heard of it. What's it for? So what it's for and what it can be used for are two different things. It's used sometimes as like a date rape drug because it knocks you out. Transdermal patch. It's a patch? It's not a drug? It's not like a pill pill scopolamine transdermal patch is the first thing that came up hmm treat motion sickness yeah oh when you it's also available in injectable form

one person replied to the post and said there is is a cellar, but avoid that shit, mate. It's dangerous as fuck and you will kill someone. Common side effects include sleepiness, blurred vision, dilated pupils. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think it all depends on how much you take. Yeah, of course. So the medical examiner tested Amy's body for the drug

and it came back positive. The stuff I saw at one place said she had like 20 times the amount, which I don't know, is there like a safe amount to have? One place said 200 times the amount, you know, like, but either way, it was in there. But the best piece of evidence is a little more boring. And it was on Stephen's MacBook Pro. Investigators found a note containing a Bitcoin wallet address on Stephen's phone from March of 2016. And they found that Dog Day God wrote Eura with that same 34 digit code when he was trying to confirm that the money had gone to the right place. Oh, dang. His name is Yura, not Euron. Yeah. I didn't want to ruin it for you. So I just went with it. I mean, it's a made up name anyway.

So after he sent that message to Yura, Stephen deleted the note on his phone. But here's the thing. Deleted files don't truly disappear until they've been overwritten. Yeah. And Stephen ended up accidentally preserving that note when he backed up his phone to iTunes. Oh, Lord. So he, like, saved the evidence for them. This was exactly what they needed. They had all this evidence plus a clear link between Stephen and Dog Day God.

Stephen's trial lasted just over a week. The prosecution brought out a ton of witnesses to establish that Stephen wasn't like the goody-goody church guy that he claimed to be. They called his escort to the stand. They called Michelle to the stand. They called a pawn shop owner to the stand who confirmed that Stephen had sold him some silver.

Detectives were also called to the stand they called a pawn shop owner to the stand who confirmed that steven had sold him some silver detectives were also called to the stand at one point when the prosecution wanted to talk about steven going on naughtydates.com and lonelymilfs.com one of the officers lonely milfs just gets me man this is okay so this is like my favorite part. One of these officers had to define MILF for the jury. Sir, can you please define MILF? I don't want to. No, no, no. Do you remember that, was it a Peyton Manning sketch on SNL where he's in the courtroom and he has to like. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that's all I remember.

Anyway. But yeah, so. Can you define define milk for our listeners kristin mom i'd like to fuck i'm not in front of a i'm not in front of a judge i'm not embarrassed but apparently everyone at the police station still makes fun of this guy because he had to do that the prosecution put forth a theory to the jury. They said that Stephen had tried to poison Amy with scopolamine. That sounds... scopolamine. I don't think that's it. When I say scopolamine, it sounds delicious, doesn't it?

It sounds like a seafood pasta dish. Yeah. Scopolia is the root, soopolamine scopolamine okay right so they said that he'd used that to try to poison her and that the drug had clearly had an effect on her but it didn't kill her so steven got their gun and he shot her in the hallway of their home then he moved her body to stage it like a suicide and And he left home to get gas, pick up his son, and go to Culver's. And naturally, he kept all the receipts, you know, just so conveniently. The jury went into deliberation, and they found him...

Guilty. Yeah, for sure. Super guilty. At his sentencing steven defended himself he said that the expert testimony at his trial about the bitcoin wallets and all that stuff had been all wrong and that really he was a good man he was a man of god in fact in the time he'd been in prison he'd converted at least Okay. Well, I guess it evens out then, bud, huh? Yeah, really. He was like, yeah, I'm going to be taking my Bible with me.

Like, good, good, great. Thank you. Great. You're going to continue playing God. Great. The judge was like, nice try. He said, was like nice try he said my perceptions aren't going to alter the sentence in this case but my perception is that you're an incredible actor that you can turn tears on and off that you are a

hypocrite and that you are cold the judge sentenced him to life without parole wow and that's the story that was the dark web that was nuts. Of the dark web. That was nuts. Who sent us that? That was Liz, I believe. Thank you, Liz. Yeah. Amy just seemed like a nice. I know.

I mean, normal person who happened to be married to a total, I don't even know the word for it. Yeah. I mean, just a horrible, horrible man. Well, there weren't any dead children in yours, so that was way better. Yeah. I don't know about way better, but, you know. It is interesting how much crossover there was between our two. I know.

Ugh. Yeah. Cul I know. Ugh. Culprits. What do you got for show notes this week, ma'am? You know, I really don't have much of anything for show notes, but I do want to say one thing. So our episode from last week by now has been out for a few hours, and we've got a

lot of nice comments about Brandi's laugh. Yeah, we've gotten a lot of love. I assure you that was not my intention when I... It totally was. It was not. She was like, how am I going to get compliments? No, not my intention at all, but thank you. I really appreciate all the love that everybody sent

my way about my laugh. That's, uh, yeah, it's just, that is what it is. Don't they have those collars for dogs when dogs bark? Oh, you want me to get a laugh collar? They're just like shock me every time I go to laugh. No, I love your laugh too. Thank you.

I appreciate it. I mean, you have to hear it a fucking lot. Well, clearly I volunteered for it. I mean, we've been friends for how long now? How long have we been friends? Okay, since we were 11? Yeah, how old are you in fifth grade? 11.

11, 10 or 11? I'd say 10. 10? You start out the year 10. And I mean, we hit it off. 22 years. Holy shit. 22 years, Kristen.

That is weird. Isn't that weird? It is weird. Two thirds of our life. That's crazy. Aw. Aw. Aw. Thanks for being my friend. Thank you. Aww. Aww.

Thanks for being my friend. Thank you. Oh my gosh. Like really legit guys like we hang out in real life like this is not just for the podcast. Somebody said something like would you guys somebody said something on our Facebook

about like all of these episodes in would you guys consider yourself real friends? Like we're real friends. we were real friends before the podcast someone really yeah yeah oh that's someone who hasn't been listening long yeah yeah so we've been friends since fifth grade yeah so um this wasn't like it's not like some boy band that was like put together we were not put together by simon cowell um do you remember when we met i mean we technically met in fourth grade right but but we didn't become we didn't become good friends until fifth grade right well we're in the same

class uh-huh mrs jarvis's class no mrs franc. She was Mrs. Jarvis before she was Mrs. Francis. Oh, okay. Okay. Well, that's like some old school knowledge. Yeah. Mrs. Francis was her married name. Norman today asked us, what was the first fight we ever had? I know.

And I do not know. I don't remember either. He asked me last night and I couldn't, like, I know we've had them. Oh, yeah. For sure. Well, especially, like, you think of, like, all the slumber parties we had. Oh, yeah. asked me last night and i couldn't like i know we've had oh yeah for sure well especially like you think of like all the slumber parties we had oh yeah the slumber parties they always start out great they're great they're great and they're and then like by the morning time everyone's kind of

like all right time to go come and we want to go i wonder how many how many slumber parties we had. Oh, so many. So many. But yeah, we are real friends. We are. We are real friends. And we have really been friends since we were 10 years old. Yeah. Holy crap.

We're getting old. I know. Man. Do you ever have moments when you realize that you're old? Yes. I work with 20-year-olds. Oh, my God. And do you ever have moments when you realize that you're old? Uh, yes. I work with 20 year olds. Oh my God. Um, okay.

Well, yeah. Yeah. All of the girls who like work for like at the salon, like work on the tanning side, they're all 20 years old. So yes, I feel old all the time. See, I, yeah, I don't feel old until i'm around someone who's young and then i'm like oh right yeah they say shit all the time then i'm like what the fuck does that mean yeah they have dewy skin that you're like oh damn it i remember when my skin looked like i used to be cute too you're still cute thanks appreciate it Appreciate it. For an old woman. Thank you. An old woman.

What? What? Nope. Not going to say it. Say it. No. Say it and then we'll cut it. I was going to say, I definitely feel like a little bit older now that I'm dating someone

younger than me. You want to talk about it? Yeah, I do want to talk about it. Talk about it yeah i do want to talk about it talk about it ladies and gentlemen brandy for how long now has made fun of me and called me a cougar oh i knew i mean i should have known that would come back to bite me you had no way of knowing there was no way that i would know that my life would take this path yeah yeah so this just shows watch your back no but um as you all know well you may not know as a lot of people know i am like a year older than norman a year and a half oh wow okay i said

like a year i'm a year and a half older than Norman. Brandy called me Cougar for years. And now, how much older are you than David? Three years. Wow. Wow. That's, if I'm not mistaken, double my age gap. It's still in the acceptable age gap, though, isn't it? Or should I apply for age gap love?

I just like to really think for a while about the fact that you're in your 30s and he is in his 20s. He turns 30 this year. So will that be better? I just like... For the record, doesn't bother him at all. And I don't think it bothers me. Well, and it won't bother him until he has to put you in the nursing home. He shut up.

You asshole. And like, you'll just have to do a few things like you know get the rascal scooter so that he doesn't have to push you places you know so you're not a burden on him so um he didn't grow up like he grew up in the kansas city area but he grew up on the missouri side and i grew up on the kansas side and so like i took him on a little tour of my like bubble. Yeah. Bubble the other night. And we went past our old high school. And so in addition to the high school, since we went there, there's a giant orange like lit up sign on the outside of it that says Cougar. Yeah.

That's right. Our high school mascot was a Cougar. And so we drove by it and I was like, that's where I went to high school. And he goes, oh, so you've always been a Cougar and so we drove by it and i was like that's where i went to high school and he goes oh so you've always been a cougar so thanks for that david do they really have a huge sign yeah there's a giant sign on the building that says cougars now well big orange sign i don't actually know that it was lit up but you could sure see it it's hard to miss a giant sign that says cougars yes i'm glad you could finally get that off your

chest kristin do you feel better it has brought me so much joy because it was one of those things that you kind of admitted slowly you trickle truth it you were like well um so the interesting thing He is younger. Would you like an update on our goal? Yes, I would. We are currently at this moment. Hold on. Let me get a last update in here. We're at 241.

That's great. We are getting close. Yes. Yeah. Remember that goal that I set, Kristen had nothing to do with, is 250. So please, if you like the podcast, head on over to iTunes, leave us a rating, leave us a review. While you're at it, find us on social media. We're on Facebook.

We're on Instagram. We're on Twitter. We're on YouTube. We're on Reddit. Find us all those places. Join us. We have a good time on them. And then also 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 article,

If You Want to Kill Someone, We Are the Right Guys, by Mara Harv... by Mara... Hivitstendahl... by Mara... Vitstend... By Mara Vitsden by Mara H by Mara H for Wired

an episode of Dateline and an article from Fox9.com and I got my info oh shit I can't even say info and I got my info from an episode of 2020 as well as articles for CNN and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff.