Morbid - February Bonus Episode: Smizing Through the Trauma

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

In today’s March Bonus Episode, Ash & Alaina sit down to unpack Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model, the new documentary that takes a long, hard look at ANTM, the world of reality TV, and the price paid by young contestants chasing swift fame. This isn’t a criminal case  but it is Morbid: power dynamics, exploitation, public scrutiny, looking back with adult hindsight… so, yeah, we had to discuss it!  Join in the conversation on socials by clicking the episode post on MORBID Instagram! What parts of this documentary left your jaw on the floor? Get ready for next month's Book Club Bonus Episode by reading Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell wherever books are sold! We are THRILLED to have Chef Reilly joining us on the day his book A Little Bit Extra comes out (3/31/26) to discuss all things Scarpetta! Preorder his book! Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is morbid. It is. Guys, we've officially wrapped up spooky season. And now our regular theme song is back. Happy November. We thought that would be fun to do for spooky season. Some people liked it. Some people didn't. Kind of a toss up. We tried something out. Glad we did it. It was a great experience. It was just our regular music backwards. like satanic. It was just like metal. Metal. You know. And scary. We're back to regularly scheduled programming. It's weird right now to tell you guys that I hope you have a fantastic Halloween because

like I hope that you had a fantastic Halloween because right now Halloween hasn't even happened yet. That's true. But by the time you listen to this I think it will be over. Right? I don't know how our schedule works ever to be honest. Here's my transparent moment. I never know when an episode is coming out. No. We just have to do them, like really far in advance.

Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So if you're on Wondery Plus right now, then it has not been Halloween yet. But if you're not on Wondery Plus, Happy Halloween? Happy Halloween. Nope.

Not happy Halloween. Hope you had a happy Halloween. Yep. There you go. And I hope you enjoyed our Exorcist episode. Yeah. Rachel was great. She's wicked cool.

She was fascinating. And we don't have any entities that she saw attached to us. So that's a win. I love hearing that. And we've had some really cool. I love hearing that. I really liked that. Because when she described the entities, I was like,

I don't want that. Tell me I don't have one of those attached to me right now. I know when you asked, I was nervous. I, like, wanted you to ask, but then I was like, what if she, like, fucks our world up right now? And she's like, actually, I see one of the worst ones attached to your back right now. She's like, you have everything attached to you. You have all the entities.

I was scared. Sometimes it feels that way. But, yeah, sometimes I do. We've had a good few weeks. We got to see our, our, girlies Corinne and Sabrina. Two girls, one ghost. We got to go to their show and see their lovely, beautiful.

Faces. Human forms. Oh. We could go for it, girl. You know? And then we got to hang out with Tyler, aka Ghost Honey. And you're jealous. And he's the best.

He is. We got to go to his book signing and we got to get brunch with him. It was wonderful. Also, really good brunch recommendation. Elaine is always giving the recommendation. So I'm going to give a recommendation. Go to Source in Cambridge. Oh, my mouth is watering right now.

It was amazing. It was so good. They have like, what did you? Suflei, funfetti chocolate pancakes, Elena got. Indeed. I don't know the name of what I got, but it was a pasta dish. It was like a Bucatini Carbonara. Sounds great.

Pasta with an egg on it. It looked delicious. And the crispy potatoes are really good to share. They'll ruin you. In like a good way. They'll ruin you for other potatoes. Yeah, I have the ids and they didn't ruin me. You know what I mean.

But yeah. So that's all our happy news. A cool couple weeks. You know, Halloweeny things. John and I went to a murder mystery party the other night. Yeah. I didn't even get to tell Mikey about this. I got to tell Mikey the whole shenanigans.

Well, he's here right now, so go. It was of, oh, I'm not going to go into all the details. Tell them everything. Tell them everything. But I met some listeners there. Cool. And it was a fucking blast. I highly recommend anybody.

go to a murder mystery themed party or dinner. It is so much fun. That sounds like fun. Everything was over the top. John got so into it. He was literally walking up to people and being like, so I heard that everyone thinks you're a shady bitch. What's going on?

Like, it was amazing. I love that. So good. But yeah, that was fun. Got me into the spooky spirit. And yeah, I hope you guys are all spookified and feeling in the season. Yeah. And I hope you're eating a pumpkin.

Oh, I hope you're not. Oh, I love pumpkin pie. I do not like pumpkin pie. I'll fight you. I'll fight you. Behind the gym. Which one? Which gym? The school gym. Oh, gosh. All right. Well, what a great segue into something that has nothing to do with that. Fighting behind gyms. Yeah, I don't have any way to correlate that to my story. We're not good at segways. And you know what, that's okay. I accept that about myself. We never have been good. Segways. So why would I do it now? So why would we even start now? I'm not changing for anyone. I will never change. No, I hope I change a little bit. I hope I continuously change. Forever. It's called metamorphosis. That's a podcast for another day. If the light is on, then it isn't off. So, Hillary Duff. That's just what I'm going to say about things when I need to transition. Yeah. The light isn't on, then, or if the light is on, then it isn't off. If the light is off, then it isn't on. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to talk about an heiress today, an eris murder, unfortunately.

We are bringing it back to some true crime. I know we were doing some paranormalies for a minute. And don't think those are going anywhere, baby, because they are here to stay. We'll never get rid of them. We'll never get rid of them. But we leaned in, obviously, for a spooky season. But now I bring to you the murder of Elizabeth Congdon. Okay.

Okay. So Elizabeth Manoring Condon, she was born April 22nd, 1894. Now, before you leave, pump the breaks because she was born then, but her whole life goes down, so we get to a place of modern. There you go, which is so different. Yeah. You know, but she was born April 22nd, 1894, I know, in Duluth, Minnesota to parents Chester Congdon and Clara Bannister. Clara and Chester. C-Chi.

What a cute little couple. Yes, Chester was a lawyer, and Clara was a school teacher. So they had moved to the area a few years earlier. And when they did, Chester ended up buying a stake in this like small mining operation in Masami Iron Range, I think is how you saw it. I feel like Chester. Chester loves to buy small stakes and things. He does.

And you know what, Chester loves to not really think that he's going to get a big R-O-I, listening to me over here, finance boy. He didn't think he was going to get much return on that. but the operation quickly started pulling huge amounts of iron ore from the earth, and that made Chester Congdon a very wealthy man. Look at him going in there being like, it's nothing. It's nothing. Just this little thing.

And then it's like, boom. That's like the best way to go into something. It's like, ah. No expectations. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. Yeah. And he was just like, I don't know what's going to happen. And then boom, he was rich.

It happened. So between his reputation as a lawyer and his income from the mining operation, Chester became a very well-known and even actually more well-respected figure in Minnesota politics. First, through his philanthropic work, and then he became a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. Wow. So he's very well-respected. He sat on that seat from 1909. 1913.

He was there. Every time they came in, they were like, why are you sitting on the seat? He was just there on that chair. See what I did there. So his financial success did allow him to buy up large plots of land. in and around Duluth, which included a large plot, surrounded by... It's different from a plot.

Plot. Plot. Surrounded by birch and pine trees. It was beautiful. And Chester named the land and the house that sat upon it, or would eventually sat upon it, seat on it. He named it. Glen Sheen.

Glen Sheen. Glenn Sheen. He named it after the village in Surrey, England, but his family came from. Oh, I love it. like that. Glenshine. Now, Glenshinne Mansion ended up becoming a massive 39-room mansion that was built from Vermont Granite. The best kind of granite. And they decorated it with furnishings from Italy, Ireland, Germany, the Middle East. And by the time it was completed in 1908, it cost then about

$8504,000 to complete. So you're like, wow, a mansion? Like, that's a lot of money, but like mansions. Like 34 room, like wild and out mansion, but then. Are you ready? I'm ready. Today, 28.5 million. Whoa. A lot of money, baby. Holy shit.

Money bags. Wow. But thanks to Chester's foresight, Glenn Sheen was built with, like, future technologies and cultural tastes in mind. The house was originally lit by gas light, but it was built with wiring so that everything could be modernized as soon as electric lighting was made of it. That's the foresight. That's called Planning Ahead with Chester. Wow. That's a forethought. A forethought. That's the forethought. And there was also plenty of space on the 22-acre estate to allow for the incorporation of tennis courts and more forms of entertainment as they came along. Wow, they really were on it. They really were. And while Glenshine quickly became a popular gathering place for family, friends, and neighbors, actually Elizabeth and her siblings found the estate, quote, stuffy and, informal.

They weren't like big fans of it. They weren't into it. When they were younger. Even without guests, the Congdon girls were expected to wear formal dresses to most meals, and the boys were to wear tuxedos. So I could kind of see why they were like, all right, this is a lot. Now, when they were away from the formality of parties and meals with their parents, Elizabeth and her siblings entertained each other on the massive estate.

They would play hide and seek. There was like so many hidden passageways and compartments so they could easily hide. Oh, that's cool. Very ready or not. Yes. They would go ice skating or play hockey on the creek in the winter. And sometimes they'd just go out and, like, explore the ground. So slowly but surely they started getting used to their new space.

Yeah. And even though their dad was among Duluth's most prominent citizens, both he and Clara, their mother, were strict disciplinarians with very high expectations. So the Congdon children, they were all really close with their parents. Okay. According to local historian, Gail Fetchinger, I believe is how you say it. Chester and Clara, quote, tried hard to spend time with each child individually. And Chester had a special way of getting to know his children better.

Each year, Chester took one child on a trip. Aw. Wasn't that cool? I think that's a cool idea. It is. Yeah. And just the fact that, like, I mean, back then for them to be thinking about, like, spending time alone with each child. Yeah.

Like how important that was. Because you can fall into that, like, routine when you have moms. multiple children of just like they all come together. Yeah. Everything. Like everything says a family. Right. But it is nice to have little moments of one on one.

Yeah. Yeah, because kids need that. Yeah. But still, because of the time period, neither parent was like overly affectionate or super doting. Yeah. And all the Kongden children were raised to be self-reliant. And one of the biggest things that was like very important to the family was to give back

to the community whenever they could. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. It was like a staple. It was a particular lesson. that Elizabeth would carry with her throughout her entire life. So like many of the nation's wealthiest families, once they were of an appropriate age, the Congdon children were sent to some of the country's finest boarding schools.

Elizabeth and her sister spent their primary school years at Dana Hall, which is actually in Wellesley, Massachusetts. And it's very popular with American high society children. It sounds it. Dana Hall. Yeah, I was going to say. You got to be somebody to go to Dana Hall. You gotta be someone. So after graduating from Dana Hall in 1915, Elizabeth enrolled at Vassar College.

She followed in the footsteps of her older sister, Helen. But unfortunately, after just one semester at Vassar, Elizabeth was called home in the fall of 1916 because Chester actually died unexpectedly from a sudden attack of pleuracy, I believe is how you say it. Oh, man. It's a condition where the lining of the lungs become like very severely. Oh, that's terrifying. So sad and just like very sudden. Yeah. So Chester's obituary was published in actually a special edition of the Duluth Herald.

And he was celebrated not only for his political achievements and support of social causes, but also because he, quote, was a good man with sound instincts and large capacities for services. Aw. So like he gave back to his community. Like, good dude. Now, Chester's death obviously hit the family very, very hard. Yeah. Particularly Elizabeth. because she and her dad had been very close.

Oh, that's sad. So instead of going back to Vassar, I read it phonetically. Vassar. Elizabeth decided that she was going to stay in Duluth, quote, feeling like it was her duty to remain at Glenshine and look after her mother. Oh. So she kind of like took on a role. That was so selfless.

Yeah, you know. Yeah. Now years earlier, Chester had established two trusts, one to provide for Clara and the children, and the other, quote, to provide and maintain for my wife and children a home. so long as any of them shall live, making it easy for any of my children who so may wish to occupy Glen Sheen. So he made sure that no matter what his family would be taking care of.

If they want to live there, they get to live there. In simple terms, the second trust covered all of the operating costs of the massive estate as long as Clara and or one of the children was in the mansion, which would be the case until Elizabeth's tragic death. So the money that was left for Elizabeth by her father would allow her to live a life of luxury and really not have to worry about anything. She could have spent and spent and spent and spent. And never spent it all.

And never spent at all, exactly. But her parents had stressed the importance of helping others the whole time that she'd been growing up. So Elizabeth actually ended up leading a life of service much like her parents did. Oh, I love that. Yeah. When she returned to Duluth, she and her mother became super close. And she was said to be Clara's closest friend and companion until Clara passed away in

1950 at 96 years old. Oh, so they were just best friends forever. Oh my God, and she lived a long time, Clara. She did, yeah. Now, outside of her familial obligations, Elizabeth became a dedicated volunteer with multiple organizations in Duluth. She offered up her time whenever she could. She would donate, like, very sizable donations to a ton of organizations regularly.

And after her mom passed, she filled her calendar with fundraisers and board meetings from for causes from the local library and her family's church to the St. Louis County Heritage and Art Center. And she also donated a lot to Lighthouse for the Blind, which is an advocacy group for the visually impaired. Wow. So she was just doing the damn thing. Doing the damn thing helping anybody whenever she could. Wow. She might have been one of Duluth's wealthiest and most respected residents, but she actually shunned public attention and appreciation for her generosity. And she really just preferred to live a modest life that was more, you know, in keeping with her religious upbringing and life of service. She didn't want a lot of recognition. Yeah, she just wanted to do it

and then do it quietly. Yeah, just go back to her life and do it. I love that. Yeah. Now, when she went out in public, she dressed very simply and conservatively. And on occasions when she did wear jewelry, it was always very simple and elegant. According to one of her close friends, Elizabeth liked, quote, like to do things for people, but she was very natural. So basically saying like she got satisfaction from giving and not necessarily for being for being recognized for the gift for it exactly which i think like that that whole like idea confuses some people oh it does people cannot understand that yeah and like they and it's like if you're not looking for a big pat on the back about it then it it doesn't occur and then people almost like think that you are even if you're not necessarily

exactly so it's so weird it's still that way but a lot of people get uncomfortable being praised for doing it. And that was Elizabeth. Yeah. She didn't want the attention, not because, not really for any other reason other than it just made her uncomfortable. Yeah. Like some people just want to do the nice thing. Yeah. Just have it done. And they're not looking for the pat on the back about it. They just wanted to do it. Yeah, exactly. And she was one of those people. But you're right.

Yeah. She's fucking, she's killing it. Killing it. I love Elizabeth. But all the time and attention Elizabeth gave to others wasn't exactly without its cost. It often came at the expense of a romantic life. And the thing was it wasn't that there weren't, you know, suitable men interested in her. It was more that she felt like her time was better spent on other non-romantic pursuits. Yeah. But there was one man that Elizabeth had maintained a close relationship to. According to her friends and family, this man, Fred Wolvin, had been a close friend of Elizabeth's for many years.

And she actually at one point accepted a marriage proposal from him. but eventually she returned the ring and told him, quote, she didn't love him enough to spend the rest of her life with him. Wow. Now, he was obviously heartbroken over the rejection and he never married. Wow. And when he died, he left all of his money to Elizabeth with instructions for her to buy a ring to commemorate their friendship. Oh my God.

He just loved her, like purely. Wow. That's like the purest love I've ever heard of. Like accepted the fact that she didn't want to be with him, still wanted to. be her friend and left all his money to her. Wow. I was just like, buy a ring to remember me by. That's a man right there. Yeah. Now, even though she got never, or excuse me, even though she never got married. She got never married. She got never married. And she didn't really make much time for romantic relationship. She still loved children and she refused to let her single status prevent

her from having a family. Hell yeah. Which was a really progressive and defiant position for the era. Yeah. In 1932, when she was 38 years old. she worked with an adoption agency in Greensboro, North Carolina, to adopt a three-month-old baby girl that she ended up naming Marjorie Manoring Congdon. Oh! She told friends and family, I want to help her. I can give her a good home and schooling. And she is precious, that little girl.

I know. She was a cute little baby. So those friends and family members suspected there was more to the adoption than Elizabeth Neuer was letting on. Her niece, Mary Van Evera, said, there was a kind of feeling that Marjorie was to be the answer to Aunt Elizabeth's loneliness and her feelings of being unfulfilled as a single person. But that also made Marjorie sort of a toy.

Okay. I think that's just an opinion. I mean, yeah. In my opinion, that's simply opinion. That is an opinion. Now, three years later, Elizabeth would adopt another child, this time from an unmarried couple in Chicago who just didn't have the resources to raise a baby. And she named her new daughter, Jennifer Susan Congdon.

Okay. And she really hoped that the two. girls would get along as, you know, she and her siblings had growing up at Glen Sheen, exploring the manner, playing hide and go seek, all that. Doing all that fun stuff. But unfortunately, she would eventually learn that these two girls had very different personalities and there was little chance of them ever becoming close. Oh, that's sad. Yeah, the differences between Marjorie and Jennifer became clear just actually a few years into their adoption. Jennifer was really social, friendly. She liked to be around people. She was what people were.

would refer to as an easy child. Okay. According to Gail, Fetchinger, I believe it is, Jennifer had an outgoing bubbly personality that allowed her to make friends easily. She liked being around the other members of the family who would visit Glen Sheen and generally enjoyed spending time with her mother. Marjorie, on the other hand, was introverted and preferred being alone with a book to being with other people.

And she referred to her as a complex child to raise. Okay. Which, again, opinion. Yeah. Now, at an early age, though, Marjorie demonstrated a pretty strong will, and she would become pretty difficult or volatile if she didn't get her way. She had a lot of tantrums. Okay. Elizabeth's niece, Mary, recalled that quote, Marjorie liked attention and she was bossy. As far back as Mary could remember, Marjorie had this need to be in charge when she was playing with other children, and she always wanted to have more toys or games than the other kids. You know? Yeah. When she didn't get her way, she would have a tantrum. She would hit.

She would kick. She would scream. And the tantrums and arguments really didn't happen in public. But it was clear to everybody that the problem wasn't entirely Marjorie. Mary said of her aunt, Aunt Elizabeth did have a difficult time being a single mother. And then elaborated that she also had a hard time imposing any boundaries or discipline with Marjorie. That's tough. She was kind of just this wild child that never really was able to.

to be tamed and it doesn't sound like Elizabeth. I'm sure she probably wanted to tame her in some way, but she was, it was hard. Yeah, it's hard. I mean, even like, because you know kids do respond to boundaries. They do like boundaries. Absolutely. Whether they know it or not consciously, they respond to boundaries and it helps them to be better and more contained and more in control of their own emotions

and feelings and actions. But it's, not easy. No. It's not easy to give, like, people, some people find it easy and they find it easy to discipline and to, you know, put these boundaries out there. Yeah. It's difficult. Like, my kids are seven and four now. Right. And I still find it difficult to throw a boundary line there when it, when you have to be, like, tough about it, you know, like. And that's in a two-parent household. I was going to say, and I have the backup of John. And it's like, but it's not easy. Just, because all you want to do is just make a kid's happy. just like, you just want to see them happy. So when you have to, you know, put in a boundary or put in a big no, it's not easy.

Well, and then you add the fact that Marjorie is an adopted child and Elizabeth wanted to give her the best life possible. She doesn't want to have to discipline her all the time, you know? She wants to be like, okay. It's not easy. Some people find it easy and I'm sure some people listening can find it easy and can't understand this side. And there's people who don't find it easy and can't.

understand the other side. So I think it's just one of those things that's like... Exactly. You know, she obviously did not find it easy. She didn't. And the thing was some, certainly not all, but some of Marjorie's behavioral problems did stem from her insecurities about being adopted. She complained actually pretty often that her cousins, quote,

teased her about being illegitimate. Oh. And when she... Yeah. We don't know if that really did happen. That's just... That's something she said happened. And I don't know.

And I don't know. If that was true. Mm-hmm. And when she was old... she would tell people that the rest of the the Congden family never accepted her because she wasn't related by blood. She said, I never felt part of a family. The animosity goes back to day one. Which those are her feelings. That's her

outlook on it. And that's the thing. That sounds very sad. It does. But Marjorie even took things like having to sit at the kids table during family events as a slight directly related to her being adopted. It's like, no, I think it's just because you're a kid. And it's like, no, that's just how. I had to send at the kids table forever and I fucking hated it. But it wasn't because like my mom was a single mom.

Was like sliding me for something. Now unlike her own upbringing where we know service to others was really emphasized, Elizabeth actually lavished both of her girls with gifts, trips, and other extravagances because remember she adopted these kids. She wants to, she's, I think

she's doing more than the average person necessarily would. She's just excited because she's in the position to do so. Exactly. And she wants And again, it's very, it's hard. You want to see that smile on your kid's face. I would give my kids the whole damn world if I could. Like, it's, you just want to make them happy.

Well, and a lot of people... And it's a hard balance to it. Absolutely. And a lot of people say, like, I've heard even like you say this and you had a great childhood, but you always want to give your kid more than what you had. Yeah, even if you did have a ton. Even if you had a great childhood, which it sounds like Elizabeth did. Yep.

She wants to not, you know, ratchet it up a notch and do it even better. And I get it. So both girls took piano lessons. They practiced on the Steinway Grand Piano at Glenshine. And when it came time to shop for new clothes, this sounds amazing. I want this. Representatives from the high-end stores would come out to the mansions with all the latest fashions and, like, trunks for the girls to try on. To not have to go anywhere?

Oh, my God. And just to have, like, the latest and greatest of everything just brought to you. Oh. And try it on in the comfort of your own home. That would be great. And when they went out to friends' houses or into town, they were always driven by a chauffeur. So they were living the life. They would live large.

And actually for Jennifer, the money and attention made her uncomfortable. And she would kind of go out of her way to avoid being seen like in the chauffeur or in the latest fashion. Yeah. She felt like it was a little too like showy. Ostentatious. Beautiful word. Thank you. Tendualas.

But Marjorie embraced the lavish spending. and that began a lifelong struggle with money, characterized by overspending and an obsession with her mother's jewelry. Uh-oh. Jennifer said of her sister, she always had a spending problem. Even when she was little, she'd steal money from my mother's purse. Which like when you're little and showing signs of that, that's not great. Not good. When she was older, Marjorie actually got into the habit of stealing her mother's credit cards and charging up huge bills at local stores.

but Elizabeth always paid those bills without imposing any consequences. Oh, no. Yeah. The older Marjorie got the more apparent her behavioral problems became. By the time she was enrolled at Dana Hall like her mother had been as a teenager, Elizabeth was regularly receiving calls and letters about Marjorie's bad behavior. Oh. It ranged from minor rule breaking to straight up physical violence.

Oh, wow. In one instance, when a teacher insisted that, which... this is an interesting instance you might feel the same as me a teacher insisted that elizabeth needed help raising the children because she was a single parent marjorie got pissed and slapped the woman across the face okay here's the thing yeah don't insult my mom violence isn't the answer never don't go around slapping people don't go around hitting people it's never going to up to anything it trust me there's many people in my life as an adult that i've wanted to whack across the face oh a hundred There's a few that I would love to right this second.

Yep, same. But don't do it. Nothing comes good from it. But do I understand the feeling behind it? Yeah. Yeah, just don't act on it. Yeah, don't talk about my mom. You feel the same with me.

And don't act like my mom just because she's a single mother. Yeah, like can't handle us. No, she's got, she's an adult. She knows what, like, I understand why she was pissed. Absolutely. But again, don't act on it. Don't go slapping people. No.

But she told her mother in a letter sent on Valentine's Day in 1949. I had never. hated anyone so damn much in all my life. Wow. Like, I mean, don't talk disrespectfully to her mom, I guess. Yeah, I guess she was riding for her mom for a minute. At that moment, at least, because I have a feeling this isn't going to turn out well. Nope, which is really breaking my heart. I know. Because Elizabeth really seems like a cool chick. She is. This is a very, very tragic story. I mean, it's morbid. Yeah. So over time, Marjorie's behavior got worse and worse and worse. She was lying compulsively, stealing more, she was overspending, and it was really just all too much for Elizabeth

to deal with. And when she did recognize that she was in over her head, she took Marjorie to be evaluated at the Menninger Clinic, which was a psychiatric treatment center in Topeka, Kansas. It's Topeka, right? Topeka, yeah. Yeah. The doctors considered her behavioral problems and her general disposition to actually be more serious than just teenage problems, and they diagnosed Marjorie as a sociopolit. a person who ignores social and moral norms. Wow.

Right then and there. And the summer between her junior and senior year, she spent long stretches at the clinic where she did get inpatient care. And it's cool that I'm glad that Elizabeth like took the right steps. Took the steps, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And that fall, Marjorie did not return to Dana Hall. Instead, she was sent to a group home in St. Louis.

And she finished out her senior year at a school, which they then referred to as a school for disturbed children. Wow. So things got real very quickly. After graduation, she planned Marjorie to enroll in courses at St. Louis University. But her plans changed suddenly after she met her soon to be husband, Dick Leroy. Now, let's talk about Dick Leroy a little bit. Let's talk about Dick. You know, when Dick Leroy graduated from the University of Massachusetts in 1950, he had planned to go on to pursue a law degree. A UMass guy. A UMass kid. But unfortunately, he didn't have a ton of money and his lack of funds forced him to change his plans. And instead, he just accepted an offer from his brother to come to St. Louis and work with him in the insurance business. All right.

So he hadn't lived there more than a couple months when he met Marjorie. He had stopped in for dinner at Mom and Pop Lippert's boarding house, which is where Marjorie was living at the time. Oh, okay. So they began dating not long after, and they bonded over their shared interests and values. Dick recalled of their early days, she was so exuberant, so full of fun. They were both members of the Centenary Methodist Church, so most of their dating life revolved around the church and its associated activity groups. But interestingly, no matter how much time they spent together, it's kind of unclear how much Dick really did learn about Marjorie. There were definitely skeleton she was keeping in the closet for lack of a better term.

She told him that she was from an upper middle class family, which is an interesting way to describe that. That is very interesting. And had been studying nursing at Washington University when they met. And when she had to visit the clinic in early 1951, she explained to Dick that she had some trouble in her teens and her overprotective mother had insisted that she visit the clinic. So he didn't know anything about her diagnoses. Yeah. Which is her personal business to share with whomever she pleases. But it's just a fact that he did not know.

He did not know. Exactly. And then in the winter of 1951, he and Marjorie became engaged much to Elizabeth's displeasure. She was not happy about this. And it wasn't that she disapproved of Dick as a person. It was just that she was concerned that Marjorie was rushing into marriage. Yeah. She was like, you just met this guy like barely a year ago.

Yeah. And I was really hoping that you would focus on your education instead of just getting married. Very, you know, classic parent worry. Yeah, absolutely. And she was like, I think she was like right out of high school when this happened. So while Elizabeth wasn't thrilled at the idea of Marjorie getting married so soon, she actually couldn't have picked a better man for Marjorie to marry. Dick's family had been financially well off during the really early years of his life,

but a series of unfortunate events actually led to a loss of their income. And so the Leroy family had to get used to living without all the finer things. And given Marjorie's tendency to overspend and her general irresponsibility with money, Elizabeth was like, okay, well, maybe Dick's thriftiness will help balance out that impulsive part of Marjorie. Yeah. This could be good for her. Like maybe it will be a nice balance. Right.

So Marjorie and Dick were married on June 30th, 1951 in a traditional Methodist ceremony, which was actually held in the large living room at Glen Sheen. And there was an audience of about 150 there. Okay. And then they went on a two-week honeymoon and returned back to St. Louis, St. Louis, St. Louis, and eventually got a small apartment in Brentwood, Missouri. Brentwood, excuse me. At first, things between Marjorie and Dick were wonderful.

They were very much in the honeymoon state of things. All right. But it didn't take long for Marjorie to slip back into her old habits. Uh-oh. A few months into the marriage, Dick was very surprised and confused when he started getting threatening phone calls from creditors demanding that payments needed to be made for items and services that he didn't actually even know he had purchased. That would be confusing.

Yeah, and upsetting. Yeah. In one instance, he got a call from the local grocery store demanding a pay. demanding a payment of $400 that Marjorie had recently charged to their account, according to Dick, whose monthly salary at the time was $260. Oh, no. Quote, that $400 was like the national debt to me. Yeah. Because remember, this is in the 1950s. Yeah. So I didn't do the conversions, but it's a lot of money today. And it's like his entire paycheck for two full months. Exactly. Like more than even. So a few months later, while Elizabeth was visiting from Minnesota, Marjorie charged several thousand dollars to Dick's

accounts at department stores around town. And when Dick confronted Marjorie about it, she blamed the charges on Elizabeth saying that Elizabeth thought it would be easier to charge the things to Dick's credit cards than her own, so she wasn't from there, which was not true. Like Elizabeth would not have done that. And when they're going for that kind of very detailed and ridiculous lie, it's like, oh, no, it's gotten real bad. Yeah, you're grasping for straws. And the explanation was obviously a lie meant to avoid consequences. But Elizabeth did end up sending the money to cover the charges anyway. Because she just didn't want Marjorie to be in trouble.

Yeah, I think she's just trying to put Band-Aids everywhere she can. Exactly. And you get it. I mean, she's a mom. Yeah, she's just, and she's probably just trying to make it all go away. She is. I think it's stressing her out. And it's something that she wasn't necessarily expecting or used to. Yeah, which it's like, it's, it's, Is it the right choice? No.

Not in our opinion. But, you know. But that's my opinion. That's my opinion. It's from Housewives. So, Marjorie, the thing was, Marjorie's spending wasn't always on minor things like clothes or jewelry. In the fall of 1951, she started visiting a local stable to see a horse that she'd been riding. And she told Dick that she had been renting, like renting the horse for her session.

But in truth, she had actually purchased this entire fucking horse from a breeder in Illinois. and had been putting off payments by telling the breeder that she lost his address and thus didn't know where to send them. Wow. So she bought a whole ass horse without buying a whole ass horse and then lied to her husband and the breeder about paying for it or buying it in the first place. Damn. Girl! Damn. That's a lot.

It's getting wily. How are you going to explain a whole ass horse? I have no idea. I myself have never bought a whole ass horse, so I wouldn't know the first thing about explaining. that. Me either. But as time went by, it was becoming clearer and clearer to Dick that his wife hadn't exactly been honest with him about her life before

they married. In addition to the reckless spending, he had never once seen her leave for any classes or study for nursing courses that she said she'd been taking when they met. Confusing. That wasn't a thing. And then there was the matter of her trips to the menager

clinic. Marjorie had told Dick that she'd only received treatment at the clinic to appease her overprotective mother. But after talking about it with Elizabeth, Dick began to understand the full extent of Marjorie's mental illness and how it had manifested throughout her teen years. Yeah. So unfortunately, the picture of his wife that was emerging in the months and years after their marriage only got bleaker and more challenging as time went on. Because really, she had started this with multiple lies. Yeah. She said, I come from an upper middle class family. That's not true. Nope. She lied about her why she had

been to this clinic, which I can understand in the beginning of meeting someone, you don't want them to have preconceived notions about who you are. Yeah, of course. But before you marry someone, they need to know about your health. Yeah, you should at least let them in on some things here. You know? Yeah. And she was like, I'm a nurse. They're like, I'm taking nursing courses. And that's a lie. That was not true at all. So in May of 1952, Marjorie gave birth to the first of what would be the couple's seven children. Whoa. It's seven bibis. And the first was a boy that they named Peter. Peter's birth was quickly followed by another baby next year and yet another the year after that and so on and so forth. Unfortunately, the addition of the children to the

Leroy family did nothing to curb Marjorie's compulsive behaviors. But it did give her seven new ways to manipulate Elizabeth into sending money and spending on her grandkids. Jennifer said of her sister, Marjorie had no conception of money whatsoever. She always had to have the best and most expensive of everything. Mother would talk about Marge and the spending and she really didn't know how to stop it. Oh. That's so sad. It was just getting out of control. Yeah, it seems like just in over everyone's head. Big time. It turned out Elizabeth wasn't the only one who didn't know what to do about Marjorie's spending and compulsive lying. In no time at all, Dick was falling into the role of the buffer between Marjorie and all these creditors. But when he insisted that he take

charge of the finances, Marjorie would become abusive or manipulative. So he, he would, you know, he would eventually just back down. Because he's like, please, like, you're spending money that we don't have. Like, let me. We're in massive amounts of debt. Like, can I just have a go? Yeah, like, just let me give a shot. Like, you tried.

It didn't work out. Let me try it. Like, I'll consult you, I guess, if it makes you feel better. But clearly, you can't manage this on your own. So we're a union, but she would not allow that to happen. Now, despite their best efforts and intentions when it came to Marjorie, in reality, neither Dick nor Elizabeth would ever be able to manage her behavior. And that became apparent in the late 1950s.

When Marjorie bought a $32,000 home near Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, without ever consulting her husband. Oh, that's not good. She bought a $32,000 home then, which would be like spending $350,000 today and not consulting your partner. Wow. If I spent $350,000 without talking to Drew, I don't even know. Like, I can't even fathom that.

No, that's not even a... Purchased a whole ass property. Just bought a whole ass home. Like, what? Oops. What? And when she produced the contract for his signature, Dick was like, I'm not signing that. Like, no fucking way.

So she scratched his name off the contract and bribed the realtor with a $1,000 from an account that didn't exist. Wow. Like she was honestly, she was like a con artist. Yeah, it sounds like it. And by the time anyone had realized what happened or that Marjorie had committed multiple acts of fraud, it was too late. The home sale had gone through without, or the home sale had gone through and getting out of the contract at that point would have cost more than the house itself. Wow. So she manipulated everybody, literally everyone. At, every step of the way. And just like she had done so many times before, Elizabeth came to the rescue and sent enough money to cover the costs to avoid any upset. Oh my God. Wild. We got to stop

this lady. I know. I know. So just a few weeks, because nobody was stopping her, just a few weeks after purchasing the house, Marjorie insisted to Dick that they needed to redecorate the entire place. Oh, okay. So not only was she going to buy a $350,000 property now, And, you know, without consulting him at all. But then she was like, we also need a ton of money to redecorate the entire thing. Like, it's like renovations are expensive. Oh, my God. Anytime you're decorating any room in your house, it's like, oh, my God.

Like the, wow. Wow. Yep. Wow. So as he had done before, Dick refused to spend the money on the interior decor and reminded his wife how much they already owed her mother simply for buying this fucking house. And a few weeks later, the family returned home from church to find their dog and the neighbor dog running loose throughout the house and all the living room furniture had been torn to shreds, which of course required them to redecorate. Wow. Now Marjorie insisted it was the dogs who had destroyed the house, but Dick didn't have any proof, but always suspected it was Marjorie who had destroyed the furniture with a knife and blamed it on the dogs.

Really? Yep. He thought that somehow she went in there and tore everything open. Because the dogs were just like running through the house like crazy. Yeah, probably making a mess. How did they like slit open multiple sofas and chairs and this, that, and the other thing? Yeah, it's like dogs are wily, but they're not, I mean, not that I've seen that they're that wily. They probably could, but I think he also knew that she wanted to redecorate the house and was going to do whatever she could to make it happen.

Damn. Years later, he said Marjorie was the last one out of the house. I confronted her. I knew she'd done it, but she swore up and. down that she didn't do it. Oh, man. Yeah. Imagine if she didn't, and it's just like the dogs just ripped open everything. I know, because like obviously there's no way of proving it, but yeah, damn. I would put my money on March. I would also put my money on March here. But throughout the 1960s, Marjorie and Dick's marriage just continued and continued to deteriorate. No matter how much

money was coming in from Dick's salary and eventually from a trust that Elizabeth set up, Marjorie seemed to always find ways to spend far more than they actually had. Damn. So eventually they did decide to go to couples counseling, which was kind of a last-ditch effort to save the marriage. And it was during this period that a psychiatrist elaborated on Marjorie's earlier diagnosis, saying that her biggest problem was promiscuity with money caused by a personality defect. Ah. And then another psychiatrist diagnosed her as borderline manic depressive, which now is known today as borderline personality disorder.

Ah, okay. So unfortunately, it doesn't seem like she was willing to accept any kind of help for the mental illness that she was experiencing. So it only got worse. Yeah. And actually, once after they had finished a couple's therapy session, the therapist pulled Dick aside and told him, protect yourself. Make sure you have a special fund. Marjorie could wipe you out. Wow.

Just because she had no intention to ever stop spending this money. Like she wasn't going to therapy and saying like, this is what I'm doing. doing and I need help stopping it. Yeah, and like I want to. It was, this is what I'm doing and this is what I want to do. You deal with it. Exactly. Deal with it. So by 1970, the expense, the excessive spending on lavish antiques, horses, properties and other unnecessary expenses had all become way too much for Dick. The last straw came in the fall of 1970 when Marjorie took out a $20,000 loan to start a horse breeding program, which she was unable to get by telling the loan officer, that she would put up funds from her trust as collateral.

Excuse me, I meant to say she was able to get by saying that she would put these funds up as collateral. But unbeknownst to the bank, those funds would not become available for several more years. My God. So she was not going to be able to put them up as collateral. Now, on October 31, 1970, Halloween. Halloween.

Marjorie came home and found Dick waiting on the front steps with a bagpacked for himself. Oh, wow. He was done. She begged him not to leave. She promised that she'd be better about spending. But Dick was like, listen, we've done this before. We've had this conversation a myriad of times.

I can't do this anymore. Yeah. And that night he moved into a motel until he was able to find permanent accommodations for himself. And it probably took a while because she had fucked up his credit in a way beyond measure. Exactly. So in the weeks and months that followed, Marjorie's attitude turned from regretful to confrontational and then eventually just completely vindictive. When it became clear that Dick was not going to come back to her, she just started badmouthing

him around town in front of the children, trying to win their allegiance and turn them against their dad. And as the divorce proceedings unfolded, she did everything she could to keep the kids from Dick. She wouldn't allow him in the house. She would pretend that she forgot about scheduled visits. She would say that he had been out physically abusive. to the point that she sought a restraining order, but no such restraining order existed. Oh, wow.

Like, it was bad. Oh, man. It became a very nasty divorce. And in the years immediately following the divorce, Dick actually ended up seeing very little of his kids because of all the nastiness. And all the while, Marjorie was continuing to excessively spend. She was charging countless items to service and services still to Dick's accounts around town without ever saying anything to him about it. So the divorce was finalized in 1971, but that was hardly the end of Dick's relationship with Marjorie. Because for years afterwards, she spent a lot of time spreading rumors and lies about him to anyone who would listen.

And she would constantly use the custody of the children as like a weapon. She would weaponize it. And then there were other events like the vandalization of his car in 1973 that unfortunately he couldn't prove, but he was very convinced that Marjorie was. responsible. Quite simply, Marjorie's position was, if Dick didn't want to be with her, she would do everything in her power to make his life miserable. Damn. That's scary.

It is. It's very scary. In the years after her divorce from Dick, her behavior continued to just spiral out of control. She was getting wilder and just more predictable with every outrageous act. In May of 1974, she actually was able to coerce Elizabeth into co-signing alone for $345,000 back then. Today, that would be like co-signing a loan for $2.1 million.

Wow. $2.1 million. Listen, I don't think I love anybody that much to co-sign a loan for that. Holy shit. She said that the money was for renovations for her property. And at the time, Elizabeth was 80 years old and in declining health, which Marjorie was using to her advantage. And Marjorie eventually defaulted on the payments. So the bank sued Elizabeth, which forced a civil suit where Marjorie, quote, admitted to obtaining her mother's signature by duress and under false pretenses.

Oh, damn. This is so messy. Mm-hmm. She said she asked for her mother's signature in a moment where she was not of entirely sound mind. And Jennifer said of the situation, Jennifer's the sister. Yeah. She said with mom when it came to Marjorie, I don't think she could say no. She was vulnerable and Marjorie was a con artist.

Damn. Now later that same year, Elizabeth became quote unquote mysteriously ill after a visit where Marjorie had been seen feeding her some homemade marmalade. What the fuck? Tests later showed that her system had an elevated level of meprobamate, which is a tranquilizer known for its high toxicity. This is terrifying. So basically people suspected that Marjorie had. something to do with this poisoning because she was trying to get more money out of her mother. Like she wanted her inheritance.

Wow. But they chose not to investigate the case, I think, because they would probably have a hard time proving it. Yeah. And it would just be really messy in Elizabeth's final years of life. Oh. But from that point on, nurses and domestic staff were instructed to pay very close attention to Marjorie's interaction with Elizabeth when she visited. Now things only got worse the following year. In May of 1975, Marjorie was suspected of arson

when her home on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border caught fire and literally burned to the ground. What the fuck? A few months later, she got angry with Tom Welch, the bank officer who managed her trust, and several people overheard her saying she was, quote, gonna take care of that bastard. What the fuck?

Like, chill out. That's it. I'm like, take God. A breather. Eat a moonpa. Eat a moon pie. Quick span of people's money. Drink a seven up. Stop. Eat a morn pa.

Like, you gotta calm down. Like, reel it in, sister. Jeez. And she also allegedly made several calls to contacts in Chicago to arrange for a hit on Welch, her loan officer. What the fuck? Who managed her trust. Yep. Now, later that summer, she ended up moving to Colorado and was arrested not long after that

on charges that she stole two cars from a Minnesota dealership after purchasing the cars with bad checks. She's so much. She's wilding out. I also don't understand how people maintain anger for that long. I don't know. Like getting so angry at someone to take a hit out on them is like wild on every level. That's good that you don't understand how that feels.

But maintaining that level of rage for that long. to go through so many steps of a process is always very fascinating to me because I just don't have time for it. No, I'm here for a good time. I don't have time for that kind of rage. Like I get mad. Yeah, but it goes away pretty quick. Well, it has to. I don't, it just, I can't maintain it. It's like how some people are really good at building a fire and maintaining it into like a bonfire. I'm not good at that. I'm not either. My fire dies out immediately. Me too. I can barely start one. Yeah. So, but yeah, I think she was just a very, very mentally ill woman who never. That's what it sounds like.

Because treatment was very much available to her. Yeah. People tried to make it available to her, but it doesn't look like she was. She wasn't accepted. She didn't want to. So in the early months of 1976, shortly after moving to Colorado, Marjorie ended up meeting another man named Roger Caldwell at a parents without partners meeting, which that's like the saddest thing ever, parents without partners.

The name of that just broke my heart. Like, I'm like, I love all of you. Now, where Marjorie was described as brash and assertive, Roger was described by those who knew him as a soft-spoken, friendly, and easy-to-approach kind of guy. By some. Others described him as a passive dreamer with delusions of grandeur. Okay. So those are two mixed reviews.

Two different things. Yeah, he definitely is mixed reviews. Yeah, three out of five, I recommend. So he was a man who wanted or maybe even believed that he deserved everything he wanted. but was never really willing to put hard work in to get whatever that was. So we know those people. Yeah, we know those people. Following his marriage in 1954,

Roger had enrolled in a Lutheran college with plans of becoming a minister. But just one year later, he abandoned his studies and started working a series of menial jobs. He jumped from one job to the other and just dragged his wife along from one location to the next. But his original plan was to become a minister. And yeah, and then he just kind of like walked away from that. Yeah. So in the years that followed, he and his wife would end up having three children, but even that didn't cause Roger to get himself together or settle on a career.

And to add to the dysfunction, since he got married, he had developed a drinking problem, which, of course, exacerbated the tensions and arguments with his wife. Roger would promise to quit drinking and he would even actually go to some AA meetings, but inevitably he'd start drinking again a few weeks later, and the cycle would continue over and over. So eventually his wife Martha got tired of the financial insecurity and Rogers' alcoholism and, you know, the things that came from that, like his temper. And in July of 1974, they ended up divorcing. So to Marjorie, Rogers' difficult marriage and personal problems made him seem like a kindred spirit.

Of course. She said I've gone through all of that. Of course. So rather than see his failures as the result of his own actions or inactions, Marjorie considered them just to both be the black sheep, the black sheep, the black sheep, of their families. It was them against the world. And that made him so much more attractive. Oh, man. That literally never turns out well when people are like, I'm just the black sheep and it's me against the world and it's this and like, whenever to you against the world, it's like, that's not a great feeling. No. So after just two months of dating, the two became engaged on

St. Patty's Day in 1976 and they got married at a small ceremony at a hotel in Denver. And none of Marjorie's family were in attendance. They were not invited. It didn't take long for Roger to notice certain undesirable qualities in his new wife. She seemed to spend far more money than she had. Wait, what? This is new. Crazy, I know. And she was always at odds with the bank and the manager of her trust.

You know, the one that she had tried to call a hit out on. That's at odds with someone, I would say. That is the definition of that odds. But before long, he started noticing other little things, like his credit cards going missing. But whenever he would confront Marjorie about the issue, she would become aggressive or combative. In one instance, she did threaten to end her life over it. Wow, that's not cool. Never having been very assertive, Roger would just back down to Marjorie, who was more than comfortable dominating her husband. So her control over Roger became apparent, or more apparent, as their relationship

progressed. Eventually, things got to the point where she literally chose his clothing for him. Whoa. Yeah. She decided what they did, where they went, and she manipulated him in other more consequential ways. For example, she knew that he was struggling to stay sober. And at a party in the summer of 1976, she repeatedly, excuse me, offered him a drink because she told friends, I want to test his willpower. Oh, I don't like, that was ominous. Like, that's the most, you know that your husband is sober and you're trying to get him to drink because you're testing him. That's very, very nefarious. That is mean.

Yeah. That is very cruel. Evil, that is dark sadded. That is dork sadden. Can you, like, not can you imagine, but like, what the fuck? No. I could never do that to somebody. That's literally cruel.

That's evil. That's what that is. That's on another level. Yeah. That particular part of this story, like, really disturbed me. And there are others that are coming up that also particularly disturbed me. But while the man may have been different, Marjorie's marriage to Roger unfolded, almost exactly like her marriage had with Dick Leroy.

Almost from the start, they were behind on all their bills, their home mortgage, their car payments, the horse breeding fees, and other expenses. But that never stopped Marjorie from spending money on clothing, jewelry, anything else that she wanted to have. Of course. And Roger, meanwhile, was continuing to struggle with his alcoholism, and he was becoming increasingly aggressive when he drank. Now, by the end of 1976, they were actually both under investigation by the Colorado FBI for multiple instances of fraud related to bad checks that they were riding,

and the stables where they boarded their horses was threatening to sell those horses in order to recoup what they owed in months and months of unpaid fees. Casual. So the FBI was after them and the stable was like, We're getting rid of your horses. Yeah. Your horses are going by-bye. Like, holy shit.

Like, where is the, it's these kind of people that you're like, where is it? Where's the point that you say, I got to fix some things? Like, I got to get this together. What is the moment? Yeah. And at the same time, their payment on their newly purchased home, their brand new home, was almost due. And neither of them had the money to cover the amount.

So foreclosure was a near certainty. Oh, man. Like, it was bad. So despite their obvious financial and increasingly legal problems, Marjorie and Roger just kept on spending, kept on dreaming. That seems like it'll help. Yeah. They talked about buying a new, bigger house and starting a horse breeding and training program, you know. Absolutely.

With the horses that they no longer had. Yeah. What would stop them, you know? You know, just the fact that. Besides everything. Yeah. Just the world. Yeah.

And the problem, one of them, was that while she was still receiving much, from her trust, most of the funds were going to Marjorie's creditors because she owed so much money, which left them almost nothing to spend freely. But still, Marjorie insisted they could make their dream of a horse farm come true. If only she could access the money that she was due to inherit upon her mother's death. Oh no. Yep. So Roger Caldwell finally met his mother-in-law in late May of 1977 when he flew to Duluth to meet the managers of Marjorie's trust on her behalf. Oh, okay. Hey, I have a meeting with the people who are in charge of the money that you're giving your daughter. Nice to meet you. That I've never met you. Wow. Wonderful. Now, Roger had gone to the

trustees with the request of an advance of $750,000. Come on, my friends. So that he and Marjorie could build their horse ranch in Colorado. According to a letter he presented to the board, which was supposedly written by Marjorie's son's doctor at the National Asthma Center. Rick Leroy, her son, had quote, severe asthma and cystic fibrosis and his condition required him to live in a ranch-type environment with lots of open space and clean air. Okay. Now, in truth, Rick did not have cystic fibrosis. Wow. And the board would later learn that the letter was written by Marjorie and was a fraud. That's so fucked up. Yeah. Like you lie. That's so fucked up. A lot of this is fucked up. but that's really fucked up.

Number one, you're pretending to be a doctor, which that alone is like, ma'am, what? Secondly, you're making up that your child has a horrible thing that they don't have. Wow. Like, are you, you kind of manifest that that happens? That's the thing. Like, don't put that shit into the universe. So you can get your fucking horse farm that you can't pay for? Damn.

But whether they suspected at the time or not that that letter was a fraud, they still refused the request. Yeah. And later it was confirmed that that was not real. And just a few weeks later, things got even worse for Marjorie and Roger. The bank repossessed their cars. Their checking accounts both had zero dollars in them because they had spent everything. And this is with Elizabeth along the way, like patching up her.

At every step of the way. Like, that's wild. Yeah, it was getting to the point where, like, her trust wasn't going to be off money. That's why the people were like, the managers were like, you can't continue to take all of this because it's running low. Yeah, there'll be nothing off. And creditors were all but beating down their door looking for payments that they

weren't going to be able to make. But Marjorie just kept writing bad checks. Wow. Spending nearly $100,000 between the middle of May and the middle of June. Holy shit. Spent $100,000 in one month. That's impressive. On everything from gas

and food to jewelry. And guess what's the other thing she bought? Jewelry. Let's see. Jewelry, food, gas, she loves. Oh, nay. I was just going to say. A horse.

She bought a new horse. Nay. I was like, come on. I was like clothing? But I was like, no, she loves horses. You're right. Well, clothing, I'm sure it was on there too. Probably.

But also bought a new horse. Nay. With a bad check. Nay. Yeah. So eventually things were just like they, they, they couldn't do anything anymore. They're checking accounts weren't zero.

Like this is a bad situation. So they decided, why don't we make our way back to Duluth and figure things out? Oh. So by the time Marjorie and Roger arrived in Duluth, Elizabeth's health, remember, she's in her 80s at this point, had declined considerably. She had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, so she had become partially paralyzed and was mostly confined to her bed. And she was also having difficulty speaking. So as a result, she required round-the-clock medical care, which was provided by an in-home nurse. Okay.

A team of them who would, you know, switch off shifts and everything. Yeah. Now, on the evening of June 26, 1977, Mildred Garvue, I believe is how you say it, was thinking about the night that she had ahead of her. And she regretted her choice to work a double shift at Glenshine. It was just going to be a long shift. Yeah, so it's a long time. Like all the nurses, she loved, Mildred loved Elizabeth and could have used the additional money. But working overnight and then straight through the next afternoon was a, that's a really tiring shift.

So, and then to make matters worse, Elizabeth was expecting a visit from Marjorie that evening, which all the nurses knew, always made for a very tense or unpleasant experience. So Mildred called her co-worker, 66-year-old Velma Pietitila, and asked if she would be willing to cover her overnight shift. Like, she was like, let me just do my overnight and then I'll relieve you in the afternoon. Yeah. Now, as one of the older nurses with the agency, Velma's husband really didn't like the idea of her working overnight alone in the huge mansion. Yeah, because it's huge. Oh, my God, it's massive. You gool this thing, man. It's, wow. It's beautiful too. It's like some Bridgeton shit. Literally. Yeah. It's like bigger than some Bridgeton shit. But so he was like, you know, I really don't want you spending the night there. Like, that's just a lot. And, you know, he probably knew Marjorie was coming and he knew that was never good. She acts a fool. Yeah, so he's like, I really don't want you to. But despite his objections, Velma did agree to cover Mildred shift. Now the next morning, June 27th, Mildred arrived at Glen Sheen for her shift around 7 a.m.

So she was relieving Vellma in the morning. Yeah. And Mildred, who had had her shift covered, that morning she ran into the cook, Prudence, who had also recently arrived and was getting ready to get breakfast together. Now, Mildred had expected to be met by Velma, and she was surprised. when Pruden said that she hadn't seen Velma or Elizabeth yet. Oh, no. She was like, oh, you haven't seen them yet?

Like, that's weird. So she started climbing the stairs that led to Elizabeth's room. And Mildred was stopped abruptly on the stairs when she saw what appeared to be a pair of legs, laying motionless on the landing between the first and second floor. So she approached slowly and ended up discovering Velma Pietla sitting half on the window seat before the picture window. She'd been like propped up on the window. window seat. At first, Mildred was like, did she stop to rest or did she fall? Like, she couldn't tell. She later told reporters, I thought to myself, Velma's resting. But then I realized that was strange,

not on the stairway. And Velma isn't the resting kind. Now, as she got closer, the way in which Velma's body was twisted, suggested that something was wrong. Oh, no. And then Mildred noticed a large pool of blood that had crusted onto the carpet in front of Velma. Oh. So her, her eyes darted from the floor back to her co-worker. And that was when she finally realized that Velma's face was, quote, a rust-colored mask of dry blood. Oh, my God. And it was that blood was appearing to come from a large gash in Velma's head. And she was not supposed to work. And she was the oldest nurse. The oldest nurse and her husband didn't want her to go. Mm-hmm. Oh, like, tragic. Tragic anyways. And then you add all of that onto it. It just adds layers. Now, on the floor

in front of Velma's body was a bloody brass candlestick. At that moment, presumably the weapon used to end Velma's life. Oh. And would later be confirmed. Holy shit. She was beaten with a brass candlestick. My God. So now fully panicked, Mildred. Now, she's only gotten halfway up the stairs. There's still a second flight before she finds Elizabeth. And no, she's sitting there going, what the hell is going on? Oh, yeah. So she's fully panicked, runs up the second flight of stairs and bursts into Elizabeth's room. obviously hoping to find the woman unharmed. Inside, the room was in shambles. Dresser drawers had been pulled out and upended. Jewelry boxes had been emptied and thrown to the floor. And Elizabeth was lying face up on her bed with the sheets pulled back and two satin pillows were covering her face. She'd been smothered. Oh my God. There was a large bruise on her left arm

like somebody had grabbed her tightly. And Mildred noticed that a gold watch and a diamond and sapphire ring that Elizabeth wore every day were missing. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. So she raced down the stairs and shouted for Prudence the cook to call the police, who ended up arriving a short time later. Now, based on the way that the scene was

discovered, Duluth police detective Ernest Grams theorized that there was some kind of robbery, and the murders had occurred sometime, he believed, at that point. Between 11 p.m. the previous night and 7 a.m. that morning when Mildred arrived for her shift.

Okay. Now, Graham suspected that the burglar had gotten into the house through a broken window that investigators discovered in the basement. And then they figured that whoever it was made their way up the stairs where they encountered and ultimately killed Velma by bludgeoning her with a candlestick. That is brutal. So brutal. Grams told reporters, she fell about seven steps to a landing, crawled or was placed atop a window seat and died there. And then they said, or they theorized from there, the killer made their way to Elizabeth's room. where they easily killed the 83-year-old. 83 years old. She lived to 83, just giving, giving, giving, giving, and this is how she went. And then was smothered in her bed and had her rings taken off her, like.

And her bedroom was looted. And once this culprit had taken whatever jewelry was to be found in the bedroom, they said the killer stole Velma's two-door, 1976 Ford Granada, and fled the scene. That is fucked up. So they stole a car too. Now, Dr. Volker Goldschmidt, the St. Louis-Louis County Medical Examiner, he arrived a few hours later and started his preliminary examination of the bodies. Now, he immediately noticed unusual elements of the scene as soon as he knelt beside Velma's body. First, there was a nylon stocking wrapped so tightly around her left wrist that it had to be cut off.

What? Mm-hmm. there were also, quote, tattoo-like puncture wounds on her face, forearm, and finger. But why they were there and what had caused them were a mystery at that point. And this is Velma? This is Velma. Wow. In her bedroom, Dr. Goldschmidt discovered the nurse's log where almost all significant activity was routinely recorded.

And the log indicated that Velma had started her shift around 11 p.m., just like expected, and noted several times that she'd moved Elizabeth in the hours that followed. the final note was entered around 2.30 a.m. Oh. So based on the log, Dr. Goldschmidt narrowed the time of death somewhere between 2.30 a.m. and 7 a. That's good to have that. Yeah, great. So that's not a sarcastic, but it wasn't.

Yeah, great. I don't know why it sounded like that. We fucking evidence. That's really nice. Hell yeah. Really great for you. I don't know where that came from. I really meant, yeah.

Yeah. I really meant, yeah. I really meant great. Later that afternoon, excuse me, when the bodies were transferred to St. Luke's Hospital, Dr. Goldschmidt was able to conduct the autopsies at that point, and that confirmed what everybody already assumed. Velma's autopsy was conducted by assistant medical examiner Dr. Stanley Irving, and he concluded that her cause of death was blunt force injury to the head and could have been the result of

any of the 23 wounds caused by blows from the candlestick. 23? Mm-hmm. She had been hit so many times that her skull had fractured, quote, into four quadrants and broke her jaw on both sides. Oh, my God. Yep. Now, in addition to that, I mentioned small tattoo-like puncture wounds that she had. Those were determined to have come from exposed nails on the bottom of one of her shoes.

What the fuck? Meaning somebody had used her own shoe to beat her. What? Mm-hmm. Now, it was never really discovered like what the nails in the bottom of her shoe were about. Oh my God. That's really the only info that we could find on that. But years later, while preparing for the trial, this is interesting.

Someone in the district attorney's office noted that the photos taken at the scene and those taken during the autopsy showed that Velma's watch stopped at 250 a.m. So they were able to realize that later. Oh, that never actually happens. Like, that's wild. I don't know why. And maybe like in the fight. Yeah, in the fray. But however, that wasn't noted in 1977.

So the time of death at the time remained somewhat between the hours of 2.30 and 7 a.m. Huh. But once they got ready for the trial, they were able to narrow it. So Dr. Goldschmidt conducted Elizabeth's autopsy. And he was accompanied by Duluth crime scene photographer Waller de Santo. Among the first things he noticed were the number of bruises on Elizabeth's body. Despite having been partially paralyzed by her stroke, Dr. Goldschmidt concluded that Elizabeth had very much attempted to fight off her killer.

Oh, that's awful. The best she could. And there were patiquial hemorrhaging or hemorrhages in her eyes. And that and the coloring of her head, neck and upper torso indicated that, obviously, the cause of death was suffocation. Yeah. There were also constriction marks on her finger and left wrist, which indicated. that the jewelry had been removed from her body after she had died, which is just to think that somebody smothered her and then took her jewelry off of her dead body

is just beyond. But they're obviously, like, they're obviously piece of shit cowards to begin with, but they kept the pillows over her face. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? Because you know that it's, you should be fucking ashamed of yourself. Like, you can't even bear to look at this woman. It's also just so, so fucked up.

Yeah, it adds a layer of just, ugh. So back at Glen Sheen, a large number of officers, obviously, had been assigned to guard the crime scene, while technicians were making their way through the massive estate. I can't imagine having that be your job. And obviously, you want to find out who murdered these two women. But this is a huge job. Yeah. So the obvious assumption was that both women had been killed during the commission of a robbery. And actually, it wouldn't be the first time that a home like Glen Sheen was robbed.

in the area. Seven years earlier, Elizabeth's sister-in-law, actually, Dorothy, had shot and killed a 17-year-old intruder who had tried to break into her home not far from Glenshine. Oh, damn. Grams told the press of the current situation, an empty jewelry box was on the floor and the room was ransacked. So he was indicating that investigator strongly suspected a robbery gone on. Yeah.

But unfortunately, aside from the missing jewelry and broken basement window, the crime scene wasn't giving any further clues. Damn. Now, during a canvas of nearby houses, multiple local children told police that they had seen a man they described as white thin with long hair and wearing a blue jean jacket in the area hours before the murder. So they had all seen him. And later that afternoon, police were able to locate that man. After briefly detaining and questioning him, though, it was determined that he had a valid reason for being on the property and it was unrelated. Oh. Now, Velma's stolen car, which investigators hoped would lead them to the killer, also turned out to be of little use. Later that afternoon, airport police found the keys to the Ford Granada in one of the airport trash bins. What? Isn't that crazy? The fuck? And the car itself was later discovered in one of the airport parking lots, free of evidence or leads, aside from one single fingerprint discovered on the driver's window.

That's it. Holy shit. And in the days that followed, Duluth police received calls from citizens reporting sightings of the stolen car, quote, between 1 and 3 a.m. on the morning of the murder. But unfortunately, the callers, quote, weren't exactly sure where they remembered spotting the car. Oh. So it was just like, why are you even calling? Or not super helpful.

Isn't it wild that even back then, but especially now, you always get caught? Oh, yeah. Like, no matter what, like, you think like in this, on this job. Bryant, you know, in this whole country, you could hide a car or hide something. How would anyone ever find it? And it's like, no, you're going to get caught. You always get caught. They found the keys in an airport trash bin.

You know how many fucking trash bins they probably had to look through? Wild. It's just always mind-boggling to me. And especially back then what they were able to do. Like, we're talking in the 70s. Yeah. Now, as detectives on the case got more and more frustrated about the limited amount of forensic evidence at the scene and the lack of any suspect who would want to kill these two women.

Yeah. An interesting picture of Elizabeth's daughter, Marjorie, was beginning to emerge. You don't say. Yeah, isn't that crazy? When the Caldwell's attorney, because I remember she's a Caldwell now, when their attorney David Arnold called Marjorie to let her know that her mother had been murdered, Marjorie reacted, as one would expect in such a situation, sobbing and asking a series of relevant questions. But as the conversation went on, the lawyer there noticed a change in her tone from hysterical to very businesslike as she went through the checklist of things that needed to be done for the funeral.

And then she insisted she would need him to wire her money for the expenses. Ah, there it is. Right back to money. Right on it. Now, just days after learning of her mother's murder, Marjorie put in an offer on a $300,000 ranch in Colorado. Which struck investigators as strange. You don't see. You know what?

I'm glad that these idiots do these things. Yeah. Like right off the back because it's like, thank you for just like showing us exactly who you are. But it's like, my God. Like, what? Like, are you kidding? Because remember, they had been in dire streets before her mother had been killed. And now suddenly she has $300,000 to offer.

What's that about? Yeah. So investigators are like, hmm, that's weird. That's suspicious. That's suspicious. And later that afternoon, during a conversation with Roger on the phone, Marjorie's cousin and executor of Elizabeth's estate, Tom Congdon, could hear Marjorie screaming at Roger in the background saying that her cousin's bill and Vera Dunbar had, quote, arranged to kill her mother for the money. Wow. So now she's like screaming at her husband that her cousin did it to get money.

Wow. And he was like, I'm just the executor of the only thing. Yeah, you know what? I'm just out here. So in the morning of June 29th, detective sat down to interview Marjorie and Roger at the Duluth police station because they were like,

we'd like to ask you so many questions. So many questions. Now, Marjorie gave rambling and very contradictory answers to the investigator's questions, but detectives, as she was pulling that bullshit, noticed that the top of Roger's right hand was swollen.

Huh. And he had a cut on the right side of his lip. Shut up. Remember, Elizabeth fought back. Oh, shut the fuck up. So when they asked how it happened, Roger couldn't give them an answer. He didn't even try to. He just couldn't. He didn't even come up with a story. He was just like, I don't know. That's weird. I don't know. He's like, I just woke up one day and my hand was full and my lip was split. It happens. Now, at the end of the interview, the detectives asked if they would be willing to take a polygraph test like the rest of the family had volunteered to do.

Yeah. And both of them declined. Oh, boy. Now, while police were interviewing the couple, a separate set of investigators were searching their hotel. tell room at the Duluth Radisson, I believe, where they found a receipt dated June 27th from Host of Minneapolis, a gift shop located in the airport. Imagine that. Wow. It's like, guys, I mean, I'm glad. I'm glad they're this dumb, but damn. Well, excuse me, I was going to say one. When detectives spoke to the clerk at host of Minneapolis, they verified that a man matching Roger's description purchased a garment bag on the day of the murder. Ah. Now, days later, that same clerk would pick Roger out of a photo array and identify him as the

man who purchased the bag. Now, the receipt and verification from the clerk at the shop prompted investigators to shift their focus from, you know, the burglary gone wrong theory to, huh? To the possibility that Roger and Marjorie there might be involved in the robbery and murder. It's like, huh, maybe inheritance is a thing here. Maybe. I'm like, you guys didn't fucking think that immediately? Come on.

Like, hello? That wasn't on your radar. Now, their suspicions were strengthened a couple days later when a hotel clerk in Colorado alerted them to an envelope addressed to Roger and postmarked June 27th from Duluth. So once they obtained a warrant, investigators opened the envelope and found that it contained a 17-100-year-old Byzantine coin determined to be one of the antique coins stolen from a memorabilia case in Elizabeth's bedroom. Holy shit.

At Glen Sheen. So based on the mounting evidence against them, police executed a search warrant at the Caldwell Home on July 5th. Oh, you don't say. And during the execution of that warrant, they found the garment bag that had been bought at host of Minneapolis in the airport. My God, they're just like, here it is. Here it literally is, along with several items known to have been stolen from Glenstein. Damn.

including a plastic panty hose container that had been filled with jewelry stolen from Elizabeth's bedroom. Wow. Uh-huh. And they're just going to sleep. Just with that. You know, like, just know, I can't. I can't at all. The evidence collected at the house proved to be sufficient for a warrant for Rogers' arrest.

And later that night, just after midnight, Roger Caldwell was arrested for the murders of Elizabeth Congdon and Velma Pietilla. Good. Pietla, excuse me. Now, on July 8, 1977, Roger Caldwell appeared in a St. Louis, St. Louis County Court, where he was arraigned on two counts of first-degree murder. Now, meanwhile, Marjorie, who hadn't been charged with anything just yet, hired Minneapolis criminal attorney Ronald Mesh Becher to present her during the proceedings. In a statement to the press, Mesh Becher said that Marjorie was considering possible

lawsuits against investigating authorities and the press. He explained the press coverage in many cases has concerned her. They paint a grim picture of her alleged involvement in this matter. Oh, boy. And it's like her mother's stolen jewelry was in her home along with like a 1700-year-old coin. That's not a great look for her. Not a great look for her. Now, while her husband was being arranged for the murders of her mother in Velma,

Marjorie was in Minneapolis scheming for a way to get herself out of trouble. According to Mesbesher, Marjorie needed to stay in Minneapolis to care her care for her son who was, quote, suffering from a very serious asthmatic condition. Oh, we're still playing that card. He, I think he did have asthma. He just didn't have cystic fibrosis. No, he also explained that she may need to ultimately return to Colorado for the sake of his health. Okay. Okay. A.k.a. outrun the police. Yeah, like she might need to run

away from you. They're going to come get you. Yeah. Now, whatever her reasons were for avoiding the press and authorities, Marjorie wasn't entirely wrong about how she was being portrayed in news reports. As soon as reporters learned of the investigation into Roger and Marjorie, it didn't take long for them to dig up all of the information related to their criminal investigations and remember those fraud charges in Colorado. And there were also several family members, family members. Family members.

Family members who confirmed reports of Marjorie's estrangement from the rest of the family. And they were all quick to add that Marjorie, quote, felt alienated. from the family for reasons that she created. Wow. Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay. No, on July 14th, detectives in Colorado located a safety deposit deposit.

Deposit. I'm really losing it here, you guys. Deposit. Deposit. They located a safety deposit box at Golden State Bank, opened by Roger, on June 28th. The day after everything happened. Now, among the documents in the box, detectives discovered a handwritten, notary Will dated June 24th written by Marjorie, giving Roger her share of her grandfather's estate

upon her mother's death. Whoa. Assuming it was all legal, the document meant that in the event of Elizabeth Congdon's death, Roger Caldwell could receive roughly $2.5 million. Holy shit. How strange. That's really wacky. Just a couple days before she died, you had the wherewithal to write that.

Coincidence is coincidence, you know. That's the thing. Now, given that it was dated just a few days before the murders were committed, Marjorie's handwritten will looked to detectives like a very good motive for murder. Sure did. Now, a month later, on August 5th, Roger was indicted by a grand jury for the murders of Elizabeth and Velma. And among the strongest evidence in the indictment was the newly written will, which may have implicated Marjorie into the plot to murder her mother. And probably by no coincidence, just a few days after Roger's appearance in court, Marjorie went to the Minnesota Police Department to report that a man, quote, dressed like a cop, had attacked her with a razor at her son's apartment, telling her to stay away from Duluth and to not help her husband. Okay. Marjorie said that she had seen the man before and she believed that he was a Duluth police detective. Wow. And she also claimed that the phone in her son's apartment, where she was staying, had been tapped and she had been followed by a man driving a lime green car with a point.

different. Okay. So now she's basically trying to say like you guys are intimidating me. Yeah. Which I don't know if that's true or not. Personally, I doubt it. Marjorie did have slashes on the left side of her face, her left breast and her left shoulder. Jeez. But the doctor who treated her wounds at Mercy Hospital told investigators that he believed they were self-inflicted. Eek. So yeah. Now on August 11th, investigators released a statement about Marjorie's supposed attack telling the press, We have no reason at this time to believe that an assault was perpetrated on Ms. Caldwell, as reported. Now, the police were very vague in their responses, but a spokesperson for the department did explain that the cause had been unfounded, meaning that it had been investigated and was proven that the crime either did not happen or was not attempted. Oh, no.

They said, why you always die in. Exactly. That's the thing. Marjorie's claims about being attacked were very clearly an attempt to undermine the investigation. into the murders and the public's faith in the Duluth police department. But as soon as she realized they didn't believe her story and that she could have been held accountable for making false reports, she told her lawyer to request that the investigation into her report be discontinued. She said, you know what, never mind.

That happened, but don't investigate it. Yeah, I don't have, no, don't do that. Girlie Pop. Don't do that. So Roger appeared in court again on February 27th, where he pleaded not. guilty to both charges of first-degree murder. And a trial date was set for early April. Now, due to the prominence of the case and the heavy coverage that it was getting in the press,

the judge, Jack Lipman, he ended up moving the trial from Duluth to Brainerd, Minnesota. And he explained the decision saying, the Kongan name here has been known for, excuse me, the Kongden name has been known here for a century. And then he noted the numerous street schools and other landmarks that were bearing the families name and added that the familiarity, I can never say that. That's a hard one. It is. Could potentially prejudice jurors.

Okay. So he was like, you'll get an unfair trial. Yeah, like that won't be, that won't be sick for you. Yes. So in Brainerd, the trial finally began on May 9th, 1978, with prosecutor John DeSanto summing up the case in his opening statements. He told the jury, these murders were motivated crimes. And he said, Roger was experiencing and, quote, almost unimaginable.

build-up of financial pressures and believed that the money from the inheritance would solve all of his problems. Makes sense. Yep. And over the course of four weeks and testimony from 103 witnesses, the prosecution laid out their case against Roger, mainly focusing on the extent of his and Marjorie's financial problems, fraud, and incredible debt. The jury was also shown a large amount of forensic evidence, including fingerprints and hair found

in the house that matched Roger Caldwell. the jewelry found in Roger's possession, which was Elizabeth's, and had been stolen from her bedroom. It's pretty open and shut. And the will that had been written up by Marjorie just days before the murders. Yeah, it's not looking good. Taken together, DeSanto told the jury, that will was a carrot not too hard to swallow. And she's like, what? Okay.

I don't know. You're like, so you're saying. I was like, what exactly does that mean? I'm not really sure. I don't know. It's a carrot. We'll take it, though. Sure.

So Rogers' defense attorney put carrots aside. Douglas Thompson just tried to undermine the state's case by calling the key testimony given on behalf of the prosecution into question. For example, they said the cuts on Rogers' hands and face that investigators believed to have been caused during the attack on Elizabeth could have come from anywhere. Yeah, of course. He didn't remember where. But they could have come from anywhere. Again, who doesn't wake up with abrasions? Yeah, all the time.

Like, do I wake up with random bruises? Yes. Do I wake up with a split lip Unexplicably? No. No. Never happened to me. So Thompson argued that the small injury above Rogers lip was actually a cold sore, not a wound.

Don't be rude, okay? He's got a cold sore. Investigators were like, there's a difference between like a split lip and a cold sore, but okay. Absolutely. Now, while much of his time was spent undermining the prosecution's argument, Thompson's primary tactic was to shift blame away from his client and toward Marjorie. In his cross-examination of the Caldwell's former attorney, David Arnold, Thompson kept a tight focus on the fact that the vast majority of the financial problems were the result of Marjorie's impulsive reckless spending. But the problem was that Marjorie had an alibi, which placed her in Colorado on the morning of the murders. Oh, slippery Marjorie.

Slippery Marjorie. And the forensic evidence suggested that whoever had killed Velma and lifted her body onto the window seat would have required consideration. considerable strength. There you go. So while you may want to point the finger there at Marjorie, I think it might have been Roger who was there that morning. I think you might be right. So compared to the robust case presented by the prosecution, Thompson's case was brief and pretty weak. Yeah. He just relied more on Marjorie's poor reputation and public speculation than on evidence of his actual client's innocence. Yeah, he was like, don't pay attention to any of that. Because it's like, that's great. Like, you're not wrong.

Marjorie does have a pretty bad reputation, but she's not on trial right now. Your client is. And her, like, everything isn't found at the crime scene right now. Exactly. Now, closing arguments were presented on July 5th, during which prosecutor John DeSanto addressed Thompson's attempt to deflect blame onto Marjorie. He told the jury that if Marjorie was involved at all, it was in creating the will, which he called a desperate attempt to persuade Roger Caldwell to go to Duluth and commit murder.

Ah. He reminded the jury. jury, though, that this case was about the act of murder. And in that regard, the evidence pointed directly at Roger Caldwell. So the jury deliberated for three days before finally returning guilty verdicts on both counts of first-degree murder. You guilty. Guilty. Guilty. When the verdict was read in the courtroom, Roger turned to the jury and said softly, you're wrong. Just turn to them and said, you're wrong. And then I wish one of them just said, No, I'm not.

Maybe they did. I didn't find that, but they may have. Incorrect. Wrong. You're wrong. You are. They just kept going back and then the judge had to be like, okay. He's like, this was a murder trial. So outside of the courtroom, John DeSantoes indicated to the press that while Roger's trial had come to an end, the case was far from concluded.

He told them, this was just the end of step one. And when asked if he intended to go after Marjorie next, he replied, probably. That's all I can say right now. Wow, that's casual. I love the dudes. He was like, yeah, problems. Yeah, probably. I'll see how it all shakes out, you know.

Now, two days later on July 10th, Roger was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences for the murders of Elizabeth Congdon and Velma Pietla and sent to Stillwater State Prison to begin serving his sentence. Bye, Roger. The next day, Marjorie was arrested on two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder. I love that he just said probably, and then immediately it was like,

and here you go. Now, on August 18th, 1978, a good. grand jury was convened and Marjorie was indicted on two counts of aiding and abetting murder in the first degree and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder. Bye. Bye. You would think. No. I don't know. In the indictment, the prosecutor alleged that Marjorie, quote, coaxed her husband into killing her mother by signing over to him three days before the murder. Her interest in one of the trusts worth $2.6 million. With regard to Velma's murder, the prosecution argued that, quote, her death should have been foreseeable as a probable consequence of trying to kill Kongden.

Oh, God. It's so awful. Like, the, I mean, obviously Elizabeth's murder is brutal and awful and tragic in its own way. Of course. And then, but like, Velma was just like... Wrong place, wrong time. She was just collateral damage.

And it's like, that is so tragic. Horrible. But they said, because, like, her death was foreseeable and a probable consequence, absolutely. Marjorie should be held equally responsible. Yeah. And just like the previous case, the considerable media coverage presented a challenge in trying it.

So Marjorie's case, too, was moved from St. Louis St. Louis, St. Louis, to Dakota County in January. Okay. With the jury selection scheduled to begin in early of April 1979. Now, opening statements began on April 27th with John DeSanto telling the jury that Marjorie had convinced her husband to murder Elizabeth, her mother, in order to access her inheritance. And in a case closely resembling the one that he made against Roger Caldwell, DeSanto gave a detailed description of Marjorie's troubled and troubling financial history, her fraud attempts, and he pointed specifically to a recent conversation she'd had with an acquaintance where she said, quote, the only way to get out of my financial troubles is my mother's death. Wow. Like, girl, wow.

First of all, who the fuck says that? And second, of all, who the fuck says that and then acts out on it? And who hears that? And it's just like, well, I guess I'll go about my life now. Like, I'd be like, what the fuck? Luckily, that person was like, hey, she said to me. Thank goodness. But given the amount of detailed information, the prosecutor had dug up related to Marjorie's fraud and financial problems, and the fact that a total of 167 witnesses were called, the trial dragged on for two and a half months. DeSanto's argument was exactly or essentially the same that he had presented against Roger Caldwell. She convinced her husband to murder her mom in exchange for a significant portion of her

inheritance, then conspired to cover up her involvement with a series of lies and deceitful attempts to place the blame on Roger. Now for his part, Marjorie's defense attorney, Ronald Mesh Becher, took a similar approach as to that of Roger's attorney, which like, I don't know why he would do that when he just lost. Yeah, it didn't seem to work out. But he suggested that the crime could have been committed by any. one of the other family members who stood to inherit money from Elizabeth's estate. It's like,

were all of them in the same kind of dire straits that Marjorie was? Let's, like, I mean, I know you got to do your job, but like that was weak. Really? Now, one of Mesh Becher's primary targets was Elizabeth's nephew, Thomas Congdon, also the executor of her will, who hired a private detective in the weeks following Elizabeth's death. Oh, that was probably to find out who murdered her, in my opinion. Yeah, I would say so. Right. But Meshbisher repeatedly reminded the jury, Furman, who was the private detective, or one of his associates was conveniently nearby each time a piece of evidence appearing to incriminate the Caldwells was discovered by police.

So basically he was trying to say that, like, Thomas or the private investigator was, like, planting? Yeah, planting evidence and giving it to the investigators. But it's like, did they plant the evidence inside of Marjorie and Rogers' home? Yeah, exactly. at the airport. That's the thing that kills it. I'm like, yeah, okay.

And then they went and told the guy, like, point this specific man out in a line up. What a conspiracy theory. Yeah, I don't think so. So essentially, his approach to Marjorie's defense was just to create enough doubt in the minds of the jury that they simply couldn't find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. And it worked. Oh, no. It worked. What?

Yep. On July 21st, 1979, after just one day of deliberation, the day of deliberation, the day. The jury returned verdicts of not guilty on all counts. I'm shocked. Isn't that crazy? When reporters asked one of the jurors why they voted to acquit, she responded, oh, I'm not saying, but it was all Marge and Mr. Mesh Becher. Marge.

Wow, just Marge. Your girl? You know Marge. Later, that same jury member called Marjorie and asked her for an autograph for her mother. I'm sorry, what? the jury member called Marjorie and was like, hey, my mom's a big fan. Can I get an autograph? I'm not sure what to say about that. What is there to be a fan of? I'm not sure. So when asked whether the outcome in Marjorie's case called for a new trial for Roger,

John DeSanto strongly disagreed and said, I think the jury said we didn't prove Marjorie Caldwell did it. I have no doubt whatsoever that Marjorie Caldwell is guilty. Wow. We couldn't prove it, but she's guilty. Oh, that's awful. Yeah. But don't worry. The rest of her life was not great. Okay. But before we get there, on September 20th,

a post-conviction relief hearing was held in Duluth, where Roger Caldwell sought a new trial based on a handwriting analysis that uncovered during Marjorie's trial that could have influenced the outcome in his case. Huh. Mm-hmm. On April 21st, 1980, after seriously considering the arguments, Judge Littman determined that the evidence presented in Marjorie's trial wouldn't have swayed the jury in Rogers case, so his request for a new trial was declined. Bye.

However, on appeal, the state Supreme Court disagreed with that judge and did overturn Roger's guilty verdict. What? Siting the significance of questionable fingerprint evidence used to convict him. Come on. Now, on September 1, 1982, after serving more than five years in prison, Roger was released from Stillwater. a new date for a retrial of the case. Now, rather than go through the entire case again, DeSanto offered Roger a plea deal, where he would plead guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and make a full confession

in exchange for a sentence of time served. What? So Roger agreed to the deal, but unfortunately, his confession didn't offer any new insight into the murders or information that they could have used to go after Marjorie. So they both kind of got away with this. Now, six years later, on May 18, 1988, Roger actually ended up ending his own life at his childhood home in Pennsylvania. Oh.

He had been suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and alcoholism for many years, which contributed significantly to his depression. And I don't know, maybe he was living with some guilt. Wow. But in the years following his release, he lived in constant fear of being reincarnation. reincarcerated for the crime, and he struggled to maintain employment in any kind of independence because of that.

Damn. And something that was particularly difficult for him, he said, was that Marjorie completely abandoned him once he went to prison. Oh, my God. And provided no financial support of any kind. Shit. He told a friend shortly before his death, it really offends me that she totally abandoned me.

It just isn't right. You don't treat people that way. As thick-headed and naive I was, it's clear she was always lying to me. Yeah. So she just, like he potentially murdered her fucking mother. Like, personally, I believe he did. Holy shit. And then she just was like, thanks, bye.

I am just. After he went to prison for like five years for it. Yeah, I was just like, oh, well, that's that. And didn't get anything that she had promised him. Holy shit. Allegedly. Now, after her acquittal, Marjorie resumed and ramped up her suspicious behavior, compulsive lying, and fraud in ways that no one could have expected. Just after the trial, five of her seven children filed a civil lawsuit against her

in an attempt to disinherent her from her inheritance on the grounds that they had evidence of her involvement in the murders. Whoa. Now, the lawsuit was settled out of court in July 1983. Interesting. So I don't know what happened with that. In March of 1981, Marjorie visited her friend Helen Hagan at the Twin Birch Nursing Home, where she was seen feeding Helen just prior to leaving the facility. The next day, Helen slipped into a coma and died days later on March 30th. After Marjorie, or excuse me, after Helen's death, Marjorie started dating Helen's husband.

Oh my God. Stop. Wally. And they eventually married in August, despite the fact that Marjorie was still legally married to Roger Caldwell. What the fuck? The next year, Marjorie and Wally's home in Mound Minnesota, uh, burn down under mysterious circumstances. is now the second home to have burned down. After a lengthy investigation, Marjorie was arrested for the arson. And in January of 1984, a jury found her guilty of arson and insurance fraud,

for which she was sentenced to 21 months at the state women's prison in Minnesota. She appealed the verdict, arguing that the prosecutor had insufficient evidence for a conviction. But the Minnesota state, excuse me, Minnesota Court of Appeals disagreed, and they did uphold her conviction. Holy shit. So she was released in October of 1886 and she and her husband Wally that she had taken after Helen's death. They moved to Arizona where she continued her pattern of excessive and impulsive spending and fraud. Police there in Arizona suspected Marjorie of being involved in several arson cases and in October of 1992 she went to trial. On October 29, 1992, another jury convicted her of arson and sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

What the fuck? But before beginning her sentence, she convinced the judge to allow her one day to return home and help her husband deal with their affairs. The next day her husband was found dead in the couple's home. Shut up. And Marjorie was arrested for his murder. Oh my God. Unfortunately, the medical examiner determined the college. of death to be a drug overdose and admitted that it could have been the result of suicide.

So the murder charges were dropped. I'm sorry. How does this woman have all this shit happen around her? No one's connecting any dots. They're trying, but she just keeps like skipping out on it. So she served her sentence for the arsons, that 15-year sentence at the Arizona State Woman's prison in Goodyear, Arizona. But she was granted earned release on January 5, 2005.

So she did not serve her full sentence. And after her release, she decided to remain in Tucson, where she continued the pattern of behavior that plagued her for nearly her entire life, including arrests for theft and fraud as recent as 2007. What? And that is the story of the murders of Elizabeth Congdon and Velma Pietla and Marjorie. Wow. Who just did a whole bunch of shit and kind of got caught, but. never got held accountable. Wow.

Yeah. That's unbelievable. Isn't that a harrowing tale? That is a harrowing tale. She may have murdered one, two, three, four people and never spent time in prison for murder. Wow. Isn't that never went to prison for murder? I am just like shook.

And may have killed four people allegedly. Wow. Fucking wild. harrowing. Damn. So there's that for our return from the paranormal. Okay. And poor Elizabeth and poor Belma. And poor Velma's husband. Yeah, just like this. And poor Helen.

Yeah. And like Roger Caldwell. I don't know about him. They're just out there trying to do their best. Yeah, not Roger. Not Roger. I mean. Felma and Elizabeth. Yeah. And Helen probably. Yeah. Just really, really tragic case. She is a dangerous one. Yeah. Yeah. But we hope you keep listening. Yeah. And we hope you keep it weird. But that's

weird that you pull any kind of Marjorie because Marjorie is scary. Yeah. Bye. Bye.