MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Criss Cross (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: July 25, 2022

In 2010, a very successful Nashville, Tennessee music producer turned her car into her driveway, and pulled into her garage. After turning her car off, she was about to click her garage door remote again, to shut the garage door, when she turned and looked out her car’s back window and she saw something very strange sitting there on her driveway. Seconds later, Veronica would be scrambling to get out of her car, and inside of her house, as fast as she possibly could... Initially, this story will seem fairly cookie cutter for a true crime story, however, it is not. There is a very unique plot twist at the end…so stick around to make sure you hear it.For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2010, a very successful Nashville, Tennessee music producer turned her car into her driveway and pulled into her garage. After turning her car off, she was about to click her garage door remote again to shut the garage door when she turned and looked out her car's back window and she saw something very strange sitting there on her driveway. Seconds later, Veronica would be scrambling to get out of her car and inside of her house as fast as she possibly could. Initially, this story will seem fairly cookie-cutter for a true crime story. However, it is not. There is a very unique plot twist at the very end, so stick around to make sure you hear it. But before we get into today's story,

if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and mysterious Delivered in Story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do, and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please replace the five-star review button's refrigerator light bulb with a heating lamp. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get into today's story. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy,

covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across

is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. on Legacy for Nina Simone. Hello, I'm Emily, and I'm one of the hosts of Terribly Famous, the show that takes you inside the lives of our biggest celebrities. And they don't get much bigger than the man who made badminton sexy. OK, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttlecocks, you know who I'm talking about.

No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? OK, last one. It's not Andrew Ridgely. Yep, that's right. It's Stone Cold icon George Michael.

From teen pop sensation to one of the biggest solo artists on the planet, join us for our new series, George Michael's Fight for Freedom. From the outside, it looks like he has it all. But behind the trademark dark sunglasses is a man in turmoil. George is trapped in a lie of his own making, with a secret he feels would ruin him if the truth ever came out. Follow Terribly Famous wherever you listen to your podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Veronica Boza looked out the window of the music studio and then down at her iPhone. As she tapped

the icon that would show her the weather forecast, the 39-year-old Nashville, Tennessee music producer hoped that tomorrow would be as clear and warm as today had been. Nashville's weather was usually predictable, but it was August of 2010, and just three months before, the city had been slammed by the worst flood in its history. Ever since then, Veronica had stopped taking for granted that every summer day would be hot and humid, and like so many other Nashville residents, she checked the weather report regularly now in case there were any other extreme weather events in the forecast. At the reassuring sight of a tiny yellow sun displayed on her smartphone screen, along with a predicted high for the following day of 92 degrees Fahrenheit, Veronica smiled.

She and her nine-year-old son, Jordan, had already decided that if Saturday's weather was sunny and hot, they were going to spend all day at the community pool in their new neighborhood. After putting her phone away, Veronica gathered her things and began getting ready to leave the studio and head for home where Jordan was waiting for her. But on Veronica's way out the door, one of her co-workers reached out and put a hand on Veronica's arm. As Veronica stopped and looked questioningly at her friend, the woman asked quietly, Hey Veronica, is everything okay? Veronica smiled, her warm brown eyes almost as dark as her hair. She loved her job here in the city known as the music capital of the world, and she also loved

the fact that she worked with such a tight-knit community of people who genuinely cared about each other's lives. It had not exactly been a secret that Veronica was going through a tough divorce, and that Jordan, who sometimes accompanied his mother to work, had become a bit withdrawn and clingy as his parents worked out their personal and legal differences. But when it came to her divorce, at least at work, Veronica tried not to dwell on the pain and personal difficulties she'd been experiencing. But even though she wasn't necessarily sharing these feelings at work, the fact was that Veronica was feeling some anxiety. She and her husband Tim had been married for 15 years. They had met and fallen in love shortly after Veronica had immigrated to the U.S. from

Italy in 1994. They had both been in their mid-20s when they met, and they both had big dreams. Tim was a construction worker who had plans to build a home remodeling business. As for Veronica, she wanted to work in the entertainment industry. And for the first dozen years of their marriage, their life together in north-central Tennessee had been good. Tim did build up his business, and while Veronica worked some part-time jobs, she also went back to school and earned a degree in communications. And seven years after getting married, Tim and Veronica had their only child, their son Jordan, who was the apple of his mother's eye. It had taken Veronica's career a little longer than Tim's to take off, but when it did, and she got a job as a music producer in

Nashville, Tennessee, where the Bozes lived, it seemed like the sky was the limit for her. Veronica, who was not only beautiful with her dark hair and features and olive skin, also had that it factor that just made people like her and want to be around her. She was also a devout Catholic who hardly ever missed a Sunday service at her local church. But despite having this celebrity-like style and charisma, Veronica was very modest and never tried to put herself in the spotlight. And in her career, this was literally the case. Her job was to work behind the scenes with recording artists to help them make new music. And in 2009, Veronica was so in demand as a producer

that she was asked to produce that year's Country Music Television Awards, which was a very big challenge. But Veronica did a great job, which really elevated her amongst her peers. But as Veronica's star was on the rise, Tim's career was starting to falter. And then, starting in 2007, the construction industry was rocked by the Great Recession. That's when the US housing market went from boom to bust, and large amounts of mortgage-backed investments suddenly lost value. And so around that time, Tim's construction

and home remodeling business took a serious hit, putting a strain on the family. In addition to stress over their new financial problems, Veronica's job was becoming so demanding that she was working 10 to 14 hours every day. This while Tim suddenly found himself scrambling for any customers. By 2009, the pressure on the Bozas was just too much, and their marriage collapsed, and the couple filed for divorce. When they split, Veronica moved to an upscale neighborhood 30 minutes outside of Nashville, while Tim had to move back in with his mother. And even though both Tim and Veronica were in agreement on some things, they both loved Jordan and they both were ready to move on with new romantic

relationships, the couple had reached an impasse while trying to negotiate a final settlement on child support and a custody arrangement. But finally, it seemed like those last two issues would be resolved and that by September or early October of that year, the divorce would be final. So when Veronica looked into her worried co-worker's face that Friday afternoon as she was leaving work, Veronica just smiled at her friend and told her how much she appreciated her support and she assured her that the whole divorce was going to be over soon and that everything would be okay. Her friend smiled back, relieved, and asked Veronica if she had any interesting weekend plans, and Veronica's

face lit up as she told her friend that tomorrow she and her son were going to head to the pool for the day. A few minutes later, Veronica was settled into the driver's seat of her dark blue SUV. She reached into her purse, slipped on her sunglasses, and headed west, away from the noise and honky-tonk glamour of the city, to Hermitage, a Nashville suburb named for its main landmark, the plantation where Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, had lived for more than 40 years. Her destination was a quiet, affluent neighborhood just seven miles south of the famous plantation, a development called Bridgewater, where Veronica and Jordan lived in a three-story pale brick

colonial-style home with black shutters and a covered front porch supported by six white columns. Her two-car garage was located in the back of the house, and she reached the garage by turning down a narrow dead-end street that ran parallel to the street in front of her house, and she reached the garage by turning down a narrow dead-end street that ran parallel to the street in front of her house. As Veronica turned down that little dead-end road, she felt the same thrill she'd felt four months earlier when she'd bought the house. It was perfect for her and Jordan. Her neighbors were friendly but not intrusive, the wooden fence around her backyard gave her and Jordan plenty of privacy, and the whole place just felt

very safe and secure. Veronica turned right into her driveway, and after parking her car in the garage, she headed inside to see her son Jordan. The next day, Saturday, went exactly to plan. Veronica and Jordan drove to the nearby community recreation center, where the pool sparkled in the sunshine. As Veronica read and sunbathed, Jordan and the other kids splashed and played in the cool water. By the time they got home that afternoon, Jordan was tired and happy, and Veronica was tanned and rested. The next morning, Sunday, August 29th, Veronica bustled around the kitchen making breakfast for both of them. When they were finished eating, Veronica reminded her son to pack

his overnight bag with anything special that he wanted to take to his dad's house. The plan that morning was that Veronica and Jordan would go to church, and then afterward, they would meet Jordan's father, Tim, in the parking lot, and he would take Jordan for the next couple of days. By 10 a.m., Veronica and Jordan were climbing into Veronica's car, and a minute later, they were on the road for the 20-minute drive to St. Edward's Church. On the drive, Veronica did her best to hide the stress she was already feeling about seeing Tim. She tried to think instead about her own plans for the afternoon. She and her new boyfriend, Brian, were going to visit Fall Creek Falls, a beautiful state park two hours southeast of Bridgewater. Veronica pictured the mountains and waterfalls, and by the time the church came

into view, Veronica could feel herself relax, just a little. After parking the car, she and Jordan headed inside to their usual pew, where Veronica started glancing through the church bulletin and greeting other parishioners. After the service was over, Veronica and Jordan said their goodbyes to Father Breen. The elderly priest nodded encouragingly at Veronica. He knew that Tim and Veronica used the church parking lot as a place to exchange custody of Jordan, and he could feel Veronica tense as she stepped outside the church and spotted Tim's car in the lot. Although Tim and Veronica had initially agreed to a 50-50 custody arrangement, Jordan was actually spending substantially more time with his mother than with his father.

While Veronica was more than okay with this, she did want her child support payments to Tim to be reduced, so they reflected the actual amount of time that Jordan was spending with his dad. But hopefully, their lawyers could work something out, and soon, because Veronica really, really wanted this marriage to be over. Taking a deep breath, Veronica slipped her hand into Jordan's, and the two of them walked away from the church down the sidewalk to the parking lot. A few minutes later, she and Jordan had reached Tim, and after exchanging only a few curt words with her estranged husband, Veronica gave Jordan a big hug and told

him to have a great time with his dad and with his grandmother. Then Veronica turned around and headed back toward her car. As she walked, she looked up and saw Father Brain still standing in the doorway of the church. She waved and smiled at him, and he did the same back. When Veronica reached her car, she climbed inside, turned it on, and then began the 20-minute drive back home. She already missed her son, but she'd be seeing him in a few days. And in the meantime, she did get to have some alone time with Brian. Veronica and Brian were both music and TV producers, and when they'd met about six months earlier, the chemistry between them had been instant. And over the last several months, their feelings for each other had

only deepened and grown stronger. As Veronica pulled into the Bridgewater neighborhood, she glanced at her watch. It was just afternoon. She and Brian had already spoke on the phone earlier that day, and the plan was for him to meet her at her house around this time so they could head out to Falls Creek Falls. Veronica turned down the narrow dead end street behind her house and then into her driveway. She opened her garage door, she drove inside, and was about to push the garage door remote again to close the garage door behind her when she paused. She had noticed something in her rearview mirror as soon as she pulled into the garage, and so to get a better look, she turned around in her seat and looked out her car's back window, and sure enough, there, outside, on her driveway, was something totally

unusual that should not have been there. About 20 minutes later, at 12.30pm, the 911 dispatcher at the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department received a frantic call from a man who identified himself as Brian Robinson. He was standing inside the house belonging to his girlfriend, Veronica Boza, and Veronica was dead. No, he had not checked for a pulse. No, he had not tried to render any medical assistance. Please, he said, giving dispatch the address, just get here. By 12.50 p.m., police cars and medical personnel

lined the quiet street in front of the stately pale brick colonial house with more vehicles and flashing lights parked out back in the driveway. The white pillared porch and perimeter of the house were soon cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Inside the house, veteran homicide detectives Johnny Crumby and Andrew Injichok stood in the spacious living room looking down at the ruined and mangled body of one of Nashville's rising stars. Veronica lay on her side on the living room floor. Spread out around her on the polished wooden floorboards was a pool of blood that had already started to darken and thicken at the edges. Veronica had been shot at close range at least four times.

Even without an autopsy report, it was clear from the abrasions on Veronica's forearms, the open door of her car, and the spilled contents of her purse in the garage, that Veronica had at first tried to outrun her attacker. But when that didn't work, she had most likely turned and stood her ground, attempting to fight her attacker off. The motive for this crime did not appear to be a robbery, since investigators quickly found money and checks in plain sight in the house, along with $300 in cash inside the kitchen pantry. But a quick check of Veronica's SUV, the garage, her purse pockets and tabletops, as well as drawers, did show that at least one important thing was missing, and that was Veronica's white iPhone.

Meanwhile, the crime scene technicians had also found one important piece of physical evidence. At first glance, it had appeared to police that the killer had picked up all the shell casings from the bullets they fired into Veronica's body. But after moving aside the furniture in the living room, crime scene techs had found their first critical clue. Snugged up against the baseboard behind the white sofa was a single shell casing that the killer must have left behind in their rush to leave the house.

Now, looking down at the grisly scene in front of them, even the seasoned detectives were shocked at the brutality of this crime. Although the murder rate in Nashville was almost twice the national average, very few of those homicides were ever committed in affluent neighborhoods like Bridgewater. On the other hand, as these detectives knew, Tennessee was a state that ranked in the top five in terms of domestic violence and domestic violence-related homicides. As crime scene technicians began moving through the house, dusting for fingerprints, taking pictures, and marking and bagging evidence, detectives Crumby and Injichok headed for the back door.

The first person they wanted to talk to was Veronica's boyfriend. Not only had Brian found Veronica's body, but his reaction to that discovery had raised some red flags for the detectives. While he had immediately called 911, it was only after the 911 dispatcher had told him to that he had even checked to see if Veronica was still alive. And after telling 911 dispatcher had told him to that he had even checked to see if Veronica was still alive. And after telling the dispatcher, no, Veronica had no pulse, Brian had ended the call and then immediately gone into the downstairs bathroom to wash his hands before stepping outside to wait for the police. As detectives stepped outside, they noticed that already Veronica's neighbors had begun to gather in stunned groups at the front and back of Veronica's house. Police knew it would not take

long for a sense of fear and anxiety to overwhelm these families, who up until now, had felt so safe in this tranquil suburban haven with its sparkling pool and well-tended nature trails. Standing in the driveway, the detectives spotted Brian, whose apparent shock had now given way to grief. But despite his obvious distress, when the detectives asked Brian to accompany them to the police station for a formal interview, he immediately agreed to the request. Before leaving, the detectives went back inside the house to give instructions for investigators to start interviewing neighbors and putting together a timeline of when the crime had been committed. Investigators also needed to track down Veronica's co-workers and friends in case they had any information that would help

police understand what was going on in Veronica's life that might have been a motive for her murder. And they also wanted police to search everywhere for Veronica's phone along with any other electronic equipment like computers or tablets. Without access to the physical phone, the detectives wanted access as soon as possible to her cell phone records, which would show who she had spoken to that morning, and the records would show when her iPhone had been used last. Fifteen minutes later, the detectives and Brian walked into the nearby Hermitage police station. Once inside the interrogation room, the detectives did not waste any time. Detective Crumby pressed Brian about his whereabouts that morning and what he

saw and did when he arrived at Veronica's house at 1230 that afternoon. When Brian told them about a phone conversation he'd had with Veronica at about 11.50 a.m. as she was driving back from church, detectives exchanged a meaningful glance. If Brian's phone records confirmed that statement, they had just narrowed down the window of time during which Veronica had been killed to some time between noon and 12.30 when Brian arrived at the house. That window would be narrowed even further when Veronica's cell records showed that Veronica had made a second call after she talked to Brian. She had called a friend, and this second conversation had ended at 1208. So if Brian himself was not the

killer, then Brian must have arrived on the scene literally just minutes after the killer had left. literally just minutes after the killer had left. Hoping to clear his name, Brian tried to offer up any information he thought could be useful to their investigation. He said when he had arrived at Veronica's house, he immediately noticed that her garage door was open, and she never left it open. Brian also told detectives that after making that call to Veronica at 11 50 a.m he had stopped by a convenience store

to buy some snacks for him and Veronica to enjoy on their outing they had planned for that afternoon and he had left that store at 12 15 and he thought maybe the store had a surveillance camera that would back up his story and give him an alibi. As to why he did not try to offer any medical assistance to Veronica, Brian said that when he saw all the blood and bullet wounds, he just assumed that she was dead. And after talking with the dispatcher and checking for a pulse, Brian could not stand to have Veronica's blood all over his hands, so that was why he stepped into the bathroom to wash them. Brian then told police that the person they should be interviewing was Veronica's estranged

husband, Tim. Brian told detectives that the couple was in the middle of a bitter dispute over money and custody arrangements, and so Tim would have a lot more reason to kill Veronica than he, Brian, would. Before letting Brian leave the station, police requested a DNA swab, fingerprints, and access to Brian's phone records, and Brian complied right away. While detectives did not have any evidence that would allow them to detain Brian, they also did not have any evidence that completely eliminated him as a suspect. After ending their interview with Brian, the detectives again moved quickly. They wanted to talk to the next person of interest on their possible suspect list.

Hopping into their car, they headed north to tell Tim Boza that his wife had just been murdered. Hello, I am Alice Levine and I am one of the hosts of Wondery's podcast British Scandal. On our latest series, The Race to Ruin, we tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round-the-world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy.

Oh, and also, tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts. Or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Hey, Mr. Ballin fans. Did you know you can listen to episodes of this very show ad-free and one month early on Amazon Music with your Prime membership? That's right.

All your favorite Mr. Ballin episodes can be heard on Amazon Music ad-free, and you'll always be the first one to catch our new episodes. But that's not all. You get access to other amazing shows like Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, Morbid, 48 Hours, and 2020, all ad-free too. And you know what that means, uninterrupted listening, so no more cliffhangers. Amazon Music is your home for all things true crime and offers the most ad-free top podcasts, so we definitely have something for you. And it's already included in your Prime membership. To listen now, all you need to do is go to amazon.com slash ballin. That's amazon.com slash ballin, or download the free Amazon Music app. It's just that easy.

Tim answered their knock on the front door of his mother's house in Robertson County, a 35-minute drive from the church parking lot where Tim had picked up Jordan earlier that day. After hearing the news of Veronica's death, Tim seemed most upset not by the murder, but at the prospect of having to tell his nine-year-old son that his mother was now dead. After making plans to leave Jordan at his sister's house, Tim willingly accompanied the detectives to the police station for a formal interview. By 7pm that night, he was sitting in a police interrogation room, answering pointed questions about his financial problems, how much money he stood to lose in the divorce, and the statements they'd heard about the couple's

volatile relationship. Tim admitted that he and Veronica were not getting along and that he was worried that Veronica was going to try to limit the time Tim could have custody of his son. Tim also told police that he had not wanted the divorce, suggesting that Veronica's long work days and high-powered job had put as much strain on the marriage as Tim's money troubles had. Tim also suggested that his wife had been unfaithful. Detectives were surprised that Tim was speaking so openly about marital problems that could be seen as motives for murder, but when pressed by Detective Crumby, who told Tim quote, something about you doesn't seem right, Tim pushed right back. He understood that police were only doing their job. He was the soon

to be ex-husband and they had to investigate his possible involvement, but he insisted that he had had nothing to do with the murder. He also told police that he could account for all of his movements that day, starting with the time he left the church parking lot at 11 45 a.m. with Jordan. Tim told detectives that after he had arrived home, he had left his son with his mother, so Jordan's grandmother, at the house, and then Tim had gone out to a home supply store to get the materials he needed to make a plumbing repair, and then he also made a stop at a local grocery store to buy some soda for Jordan. Tim produced time-stamped receipts and suggested that the police see if either store

had surveillance cameras that could confirm where he was that day. Like Veronica's boyfriend, Brian, Tim also agreed to give police a DNA swab. He allowed them to take photographs of him and said it was perfectly fine if police wanted to examine his phone and confirm the list of calls Tim had made that day. That night, while waiting for the autopsy report and the crime lab's report on evidence collected at the crime scene, Detectives Crumby and Injichok started poring over the cell phone records they had obtained from the phones belonging to Tim, Brian, and Veronica. And that's when they noticed that there was one number that appeared dozens of times in Tim's phone records.

It belonged to Tim's business partner, Coy Cotham, who went by the name Corey Cotham. Since Tim had already told the police that he had made several calls that day to Corey, it wasn't the identity of this caller that surprised the detectives. It was the number of calls back and forth between Corey and Tim, including 13 separate calls on the day of Veronica's murder and dozens of calls and text messages over the previous days and weeks. Intrigued, detectives ran a background check on Corey, and they were stunned to find out that he had two prior convictions for aggravated assault. The detectives finished work late that evening, feeling good about the progress they'd made so far. But by mid-morning the next day, so a day after Veronica was killed, August 30th, that sense of optimism had disappeared. The alibis for their two main suspects, Tim and Brian, had

both come back rock solid. Surveillance footage would confirm that Tim was not anywhere near the crime scene when Veronica was murdered. And similarly, police were able to confirm that Brian had in fact left a convenience store at 12.15 p.m. and given that he called 911 at 12.30 p.m. just 15 minutes later to report finding Veronica, that would not have left him enough time to commit the murder interviews with friends and neighbors had also failed to shine any light on what might have happened especially with Tim and Brian in the clear one neighbor had reported seeing a light colored van or SUV on the road behind Veronica's house but this neighbor could not identify the make or model and he didn't get a license number and he didn't get a license number, and he didn't

get a good look at the driver. The shell casing that was found inside of Veronica's house, which turned out to be a match for the bullets recovered from the crime scene, it should be noted that all the bullets that had been fired at Veronica went through her, so they were able to find the bullets on the ground. That match was still an important clue, but only if they had a way to find out where the gun was now and who had used it. Suddenly, in the face of these disappointments, those phone records that the police were collecting and the name Corey Cotham had become the detective's best and possibly only remaining leads. Convinced that a deeper analysis of data from the cell phones, along with the records of the calls, might generate new leads, the Metropolitan Nashville Police asked for help

from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The Bureau agreed and assigned one of its experts in computer and mobile device forensics to the Veronica Bosa murder investigation. So, after turning over Tim's phone and all the phone records they had to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, local investigators reached out to their new person of interest, Corey Cotham, and asked him for an interview, to which he agreed. But, like both Tim and Brian, Corey also had an alibi for the day of Veronica's murder. He told police he had spent the day at the home of a girlfriend in the Nashville area and that she could confirm this.

As for any involvement in Veronica's murder, Corey said he had nothing to do with it. Unlike Tim and Brian, Corey refused to let police access his cell phone, which he said was locked inside of his vehicle. He also refused to give police a DNA swab. The detectives, who now wondered if maybe Corey had also been involved in some kind of a relationship with Veronica, responded by getting a search warrant that would allow them to impound Corey's car and examine everything inside of it, including his phone. They also got a warrant for a DNA swab and photographs of Corey.

Detectives now had their suspicions about Corey, but no hard evidence that connected him to Veronica's murder. So Corey, like Tim and Brian, was allowed to leave. After searching Corey's car and retrieving his phone, detectives immediately turned it over to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and then the detectives turned their own attention to investigating Corey's alibi. Using the phone number Corey had given them, they contacted Corey's girlfriend in Nashville, Jenny Addington, who agreed to meet them in the parking lot of a shopping mall near her home. And then, once again, detectives hit a dead end. According to Jenny, she had worked an overnight shift on the night of August 28th, and then when she came home the next day at 7 a.m. on August 29th, so the day Veronica was killed,

Corey was sleeping in her bedroom. And at the time of the murder, sometime between 12.08 and 12.40 p.m., Jenny was making lunch for Corey, who spent the day with her inside of her apartment. Jenny was making lunch for Corey, who spent the day with her inside of her apartment. On September 5th, six days after Veronica's murder, Nashville's music community turned out in force to attend Veronica's funeral service. Also in attendance were Tim and Jordan, as well as Veronica's boyfriend, Brian, and police. But the only intel officers picked up was a rising murmur of concern and fear. What had really happened to Veronica? And could her murderer be right here in this church right now? It wouldn't be until six days after that funeral service that investigators would get a phone call that would

finally give them the answers to those questions and would break the homicide case wide open. to those questions and would break the homicide case wide open. On Saturday, September 11th, exactly two weeks after Veronica's murder, Corey's Nashville girlfriend, Jenny, called the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department and asked to speak with Detectives Crumby and Injichuk. She told the officer who had picked up her call that she had not been entirely truthful with the detectives when she had spoken to them last, and now she was terrified and she wanted to come into the police station and tell the detectives what she actually knew. Based on the new statement Jenny would make to detectives on September 11th, along with an analysis of cell phone data that would map out the actual physical

location of Veronica's iPhone both before and after her murder, this is a reconstruction of what actually happened to her on the day she was killed. Sunday, August 29th was hot and humid, but inside of St. Edward's Catholic Church in Nashville, the air was cool, and as the 10.30 a.m. mass came to an end, Veronica felt a sense of peace settle over her. She sat quietly for a moment with her son Jordan, exchanging goodbyes with other parishioners and waiting for the pews to clear before she and her son also slipped out into the center aisle and began making their way to the big doors at the back of the church. As Veronica and Jordan passed by Father Breen on their way to the big doors at the back of the church. As Veronica and Jordan passed by Father

Breen on their way outside, Veronica stopped for a second to shake hands with the priest. She had been so grateful over the past year for his support and encouragement. Now, as she glanced toward the parking lot where she knew Tim would be waiting, Father Breen smiled and gave her hand an encouraging squeeze. Veronica smiled back and thanked him again for his prayers and blessings before stepping from the dim interior of the church into the sun and heat. Outside, Veronica's killer watched from a distance as Veronica and her son walked hand in hand across the church parking lot to where Veronica's estranged husband, Tim, waited for them, his arms crossed, leaning against the side of his car. The killer

had already spent hours following Veronica on other occasions, still waiting for the right opportunity. But this morning's setup looked promising. The child would be out of the picture, and as Veronica turned away from Jordan and Tim to walk over to her own car, she looked relaxed and didn't even seem to notice her surroundings or her killer. And that was unusual because Veronica's killer was such a big guy, he was 6'5'' tall and nearly 300 pounds, that people did tend to notice him wherever he went, and usually he welcomed the attention. Just not now.

The killer smiled, satisfied with how things were going so far, and watched as Veronica pulled her phone out of her purse and started tapping her screen as she walked the final distance across the lot to her car. A few moments later, Veronica disappeared into her SUV and started up the engine. As she maneuvered her car out of the parking lot and out onto the expressway that was the fastest route from the church to her home, where she and her boyfriend Brian would soon meet, Veronica did not notice the light-colored large SUV that had slid into the lane several cars behind her. The killer knew where Veronica was headed next, and so he quickly passed her vehicle and rushed all the way to the turnoff into her neighborhood, the

Bridgewater Development, before Veronica got there. By now, the killer had spent enough time spying on Veronica that he knew she liked to park inside of her garage and then she would enter her house through the door in the garage that connected to the kitchen of the house. The killer also knew that Veronica always immediately closed the garage door behind her after she pulled her car inside. So he pulled into a nearby alley and waited, knowing that he would have to move very quickly once she arrived and pulled her car down the driveway into the garage so that he did not get blocked out by the closing garage door.

And sure enough, as soon as Veronica arrived at the development and pulled into her driveway, her killer was on the move. As the garage door slowly opened, he pulled his van right into the driveway behind her. He caught a quick glimpse of Veronica's face in her rearview mirror and he saw her eyes widen in sudden alarm. Then he was out of his car, gloves on, hat pulled down low, and a tactical sleeve covering most of his face. As the man calmly walked with great long strides into her garage, Veronica scrambled out of her car, dropping her purse and all of its contents onto the floor. Then she stood up and ran to the door that connected the garage to her house and she opened it up. But before she could get through

that door and lock it behind her, her attacker had lunged and caught her by the wrist. Adrenaline now flooding through Veronica's body, she twisted violently out of his grasp and then flung herself forward, falling first into the kitchen, and then after getting back onto her feet, she lunged even farther into the house, into the living room. As she did this, she and her attacker, who was still right behind her, smashed into tables and chairs and paintings and knocked things off counters and tabletops and the wall, until finally, in the living room, Veronica's killer grabbed hold of her arm again and he spun Veronica around to face him while he simultaneously raised his pistol and

began firing. At least four shots were fired from the killer's high-point semi-automatic weapon. One of the bullets hit Veronica's right shoulder and arm, breaking bones before exiting her body. A second bullet entered above and behind her left ear, and then exited on the other side of her head between her right ear and forehead. Another bullet that had entered her left ear ricocheted inside of her skull and then exited just above her right eye. The killer, seeing Veronica now bleeding out on the polished wood floor of her living room, knew without a doubt that the two shots he had fired into her head were lethal. Pausing only to catch his breath,

Veronica's killer quickly scooped up the spent shell casings from the floor before taking off back to the garage and grabbing Veronica's white iPhone off the garage floor before jumping into his large SUV. Later that day, the killer would call a friend and ask for instructions on how to unlock an iPhone and also how to remove the battery from an iPhone. But for now, as he was making his escape, the killer simply powered off Veronica's iPhone, put it in his pocket, and then drove as casually as he could out of the Bridgewater development and headed back to the expressway and began driving towards Nashville. Earlier that same morning, Jenny arrived home from her overnight shift, not at 7 a.m. as she had first told detectives, but at about 9.30am. Her boyfriend,

Corey, was not there at the time. Tired, Jenny immediately showered and then went right to bed. Because she lived with roommates that she did not entirely trust, Jenny actually kept her handbag with her in the bed as she slept. It contained her wallet and her car keys. At some point that morning, shortly after Jenny had climbed into bed, Jenny woke up to find Corey bending over her. When he kissed her and told her he was going out for a little while, she wondered sleepily if he was also slipping his hand under her covers to grab the keys to her minivan. But since her only concern at the moment was just to go back to sleep, Jenny turned over again and closed her eyes. She didn't wake up again until mid-afternoon.

That was when Corey woke her and told her he wanted to take her out to an early dinner at a restaurant near Nashville called TGI Fridays. They got into Corey's car, a champagne-colored Cadillac Escalade with a vanity license plate that read, Big Man, and headed off for their evening out. At some point along the way, a thin white phone slipped off the console of Corey's Escalade and landed on the floor. Jenny leaned down, picked up the iPhone, and put it back on the console next to the black Android phone that she recognized as Corey's. She didn't ask him where the white phone had come from. Jenny knew that Corey had all kinds of business dealings with all kinds of people, and she

suspected that some of that business and some of those people were pretty shady. It had been Corey, after all, who had convinced Jenny to steal her soon-to-be ex-husband's high-point 9mm handgun, along with plenty of ammunition, back in July. At the time, Corey said that Jenny might need it for protection, and she had been carrying it around ever since in the back of her minivan in a red maroon lunch bag. Except that Jenny's ex had filed a stolen weapon report with police, and when Jenny had gone to look for the gun a few weeks ago thinking she should just return it in case police decided to come question her about the missing weapon, the gun and the maroon bag had disappeared from her car. She'd asked Corey at the time if he'd taken it, since he sometimes borrowed

her van and also helped her now and then take groceries out of the rear compartment, but he denied ever touching it. By the afternoon of the following day, Monday, August 30th, Corey was in a terrible mood. He told Jenny that police were after him for information about the recent murder of his business partner's wife and that they had impounded both his Cadillac Escalade and his cell phone. Corey told her that she really needed to help him out. Just to get the cops off of his back, he told them that he had been with her all day yesterday and if police got in touch with her, that's what she should tell them. That he'd been at the apartment with her from 7am till they left the apartment together

to go eat dinner at TGI Fridays. Jenny agreed because she knew this wasn't really a request, it was an order and she knew better than to cross Corey when he was in one of his moods. But it wasn't until after police did talk to Jenny that evening outside of the strip mall, and she confirmed Corey's alibi, that Jenny started to feel uneasy, and a little afraid about having done what Corey had told her to do. As details of Veronica's murder started being reported all over the news, Jenny thought again about that missing gun that she had taken from her ex and about that white iPhone she had seen in Corey's Escalade. And then things got even worse. It turned out that one of Corey's acquaintances had told police that Corey had asked him to clean a high-point pistol for Corey and that Corey had

brought the weapon to him inside of a maroon lunch bag. And shortly after that development, Jenny had overheard Corey making plans to leave the United States for Barbados, an island country in the West Indies. Worried that she was about to get caught in the middle of a legal mess and increasingly afraid that Corey was the person who had taken that gun out of her minivan, Jenny decided she had to come clean to police about Corey's alibi. So, on September 11th, Jenny called the Metropolitan Nashville Police and told Detectives Njuchak and Crumby the truth about Corey's alibi, that on the morning of Sunday, August 29th, Jenny had no idea where Corey was between 7am and mid-afternoon when he woke her up to

bring her to TGI Fridays. After this admission, Jenny agreed to fully cooperate with police. She also agreed to a DNA swab and allowed police to examine her phone, and police quickly ruled Jenny herself out as a suspect since her phone was nowhere near the crime scene when Veronica was murdered. But what Jenny didn't know when she called the detectives to tell the truth was that the police had actually already come to the conclusion that Corey had to be the killer. According to the phone forensics expert from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, on the day of Veronica's murder, even though her phone had been powered off, they were able to track its position. And on that day after her death, Veronica's white iPhone followed the exact same track as another phone.

And that phone was Corey's black Android. It would turn out Jenny's suspicions were correct. Corey had indeed taken the gun from the back of her minivan, and he had used that gun to kill Veronica Boza. He would be arrested on September 21st, 23 days after the murder. But that was not the end of this murder investigation, because police were about to uncover one final unbelievable twist to the Veronica Boza homicide, which was literally the kind of thing you would expect to see in a movie. It would turn out, Corey was not Veronica's only killer. Although this other killer was far away from the Bridgewater development at the time of the crime, and he never so much as touched the weapon that was used to kill his wife, it was Tim Boza, Veronica's estranged husband, who had first planted the idea that led to Veronica's death. Back in late June, early July, bitter and broke over a divorce that looked like it would end with

him getting less time than he wanted with his son and less money than he wanted from Victoria, Tim and his business partner and best friend, Corey Cotham, who was also broke and also facing relationship issues, started talking about a crisscross murder scheme, just like the one that Hollywood actors Danny DeVito and Billy Crystal played out in the 1987 comedy thriller Throw Mama from the Train, where Billy Crystal's character agrees to murder the mother of Danny DeVito's character, and Danny DeVito's character agrees to murder the wife of Billy Crystal's character agrees to murder the mother of Danny DeVito's character, and Danny DeVito's character agrees to murder the wife of Billy Crystal's character. But unlike in the movie, where neither the overbearing mother or the deceitful wife is actually killed,

Corey and Tim decided they should do this and actually follow through. The plan was that Corey would kill Veronica for Tim, which he did, through. The plan was that Corey would kill Veronica for Tim, which he did, and in exchange, Tim would kill the ex-husband of one of Corey's girlfriends for Corey. However, Tim did not get a chance to commit that murder before they were caught. And although Tim later denied that the two men had any kind of formal agreement to carry out either murder, investigators would go on to find plenty of evidence to the contrary, at least when it came to the murder of Tim's wife, Veronica. That evidence included the 13 phone calls that Tim and Corey exchanged on the day Veronica was killed, along with several text messages in which the men planned the murder. And just after the murder, Tim got an update from

Corey saying, quote, it's done. It would turn out that in addition to just wanting their respective kill targets erased because of the trouble they were apparently causing them, both men, Corey and Tim, had a big financial motive to carry out the murders, specifically the murder of Veronica. typically the murder of Veronica. Corey expected to be paid $35,000 for killing Veronica, and Tim, who knew if Veronica was killed before their divorce finalized, would be the beneficiary of his wife's $550,000 life insurance policy. The Bozo's financial planner later testified that on the day of Veronica's funeral, Tim had approached him immediately after, day of Veronica's funeral, Tim had approached him immediately after, asking when Tim could expect that life insurance payout. In February of 2012, Corey Cotham was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and, quote, especially aggravated robbery and was sentenced to life

without parole plus 25 years. Six months later in October, Tim, who had testified against Corey at Corey's earlier trial, was sentenced to life in prison as well, but with the possibility of parole after 51 years. As of 2021, Veronica and Tim's son, Jordan, was living with an aunt in Tennessee, and was going to college. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please replace the 5-star review button's refrigerator light bulb with a heating lamp. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Ballin podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, Google, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. This podcast airs every Monday and Thursday morning, but in the meantime, you can always watch one of the hundreds of stories we have posted on our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. We also now have a registered 501c3

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