MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Fan Favorite - "Holiday Fear"

Episode Date: October 23, 2026

Today's story is a fan favorite that was previously published as Episode 374.One day in mid-December 2003, Detective Mark Kelly walked into a small kitchen at a home in Fort Worth, Texas. The house belonged to a potential suspect in a homicide case, and while his partner was interviewing that suspect in the other room, Kelly was poking around. He wanted to hurry, because the kitchen he was in was disgusting. There was a layer of dirt on the floor, the dishwasher was open, with dirty plates and silverware still inside, dishes were stacked up in the sink, and used pots and rotting food covered the counters. Kelly could hear his partner talking in the other room as he grabbed the nearest drawer and pulled. Instantly, he regretted it. Because when he opened that drawer, about a dozen cockroaches crawled out of it. Kelly gasped and took an instinctive step back, watching the bugs skitter away. He was searching for a weapon, and it wasn’t here. But something about the filth felt like a clue. Kelly just didn’t know what it meant yet. You can WATCH all new & exclusive MrBallen podcast episodes on 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 @mrballen Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Today's episode is a fan favorite. The audio and the story has been remastered for today's episode. One day in mid-December 2003, Detective Mark Kelly walked into a small kitchen inside of a home in Fort Worth, Texas. The house belonged to a potential suspect in a homicide case. And while his partner was interviewing that suspect in the other room, Kelly was poking around. And honestly, he wanted to hurry because the kitchen he was in was disgusting.

There was crime all over everything, there was trash everywhere, and rotting. food, there were dishes stacked up practically to the ceiling. I mean, the place was a complete festering mess. Kelly could hear his partner talking in the other room as he grabbed the nearest drawer and pulled, and instantly he regretted it. Because when he opened that drawer, about a dozen cockroaches spilled out, crawling all over his hand, and so Kelly gasped and jumped back and watched as the bugs skittered away. Kelly was ultimately searching for clues here, and so far he hadn't found any. However, as he was standing there in the kitchen, revolting.

by what he had just seen and felt, he started to wonder if maybe the actual filth of this house, the actual griminess of this place. What if that's a clue? And as it would turn out, Kelly would be right. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious, delivered in story format, then you 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 take pictures of the follow button's brand new car

and then list their car for sale online. Okay, let's get into today's story. Around 6 p.m. on December 10, 2003, 45-year-old Susie Wamsley unpacked Christmas decorations at her home in the city of Mansfield, Texas, alternating between removing items from boxes and explaining what they were

to her three-year-old granddaughter. Christmas had always been a big deal to Susie, and so every year she went all out. Her 46-year-old husband, Rick, had hung the lights outside last night, and now it was time for her to tackle the interior. And it was extra important to get it done early this year because their neighbors were coming over for a holiday party in just a few days.

The thought gave Susie a little twinge of anxiety, and so she twirled her red hair around her finger as she watched her granddaughter inspect an ornament. Just then, Susie heard a camera shutter, and she looked up to see Rick taking a picture of the moment. He winked and told her it was a good one before plopping down on the couch and showing their granddaughter another ornament from the box.

Susie smiled. She was so happy that Rick got to have these moments with their granddaughter. When their own kids had been young, Rick had worked a lot at his accounting job. This had allowed the family to live in a big house in an exclusive neighborhood, but it had also meant that Rick missed out on a lot. He'd spent long hours at the office while Susie stayed home with their kids, Sarah and Andrew. And so it was Susie who had gotten to go to all of Sarah's cheerleading pep rallies and take Andrew on fishing trips.

But now that Rick worked from home and so had more time, it was his turn now with their granddaughter. Just then, Susie heard the door open and a voice call out. Seconds later, Sarah walked into the room. Sarah first gave her little girl a big hug, then she stood and greeted Susie and Rick. But right away, Susie noticed that Sarah looked worried. Susie asked her what was up,

and Sarah sort of looked down and said sort of sheepishly that she'd gotten another bill. Susie knew that the bill Sarah must be referring to was a legal bill, and it wouldn't be the last. Sarah was right in the middle of a custody battle with her ex-husband, Todd, and Susie and Rick were funding it, which Susie was more than willing to do, because she knew Sarah was a great mom, and they wanted to continue seeing their granddaughter as much as they could. But this whole mess was not the first time Sarah's problems had put a lot of stress on the family.

Sarah used to be sort of a typical kid, you know, she was an outgoing, bubbly cheerleader with lots of friends and just did typical teenage girl things, but then by the end of her teen years, she really began leaning into partying and also dating older men. At one point towards the end of high school, Susie and Rick had even kicked her out of the house. But unfortunately, that had backfired because Sarah had moved in with her ex-husband, Todd, and gotten pregnant. And their relationship resulted in lots of mental health struggles for Sarah and also some substance abuse. But the whole family had still gotten through it, and now Sarah was 25 years old and doing much better. And they had their beautiful granddaughter.

So, Susie just swallowed down her own complicated feelings about Sarah's newest legal bill and just smiled at her daughter. She told her not to worry about it. She and her father would pay for it. Sarah was visibly relieved and thanked her mother and father. And then not long after that, family decided to head out for dinner. And at that point, Susie dashed upstairs to let her other child, her 19-year-old son Andrew, know that they were leaving.

Andrew still lived at home because he had been going to a community college nearby. However, when Susie got up to his room, she found it was empty. And Susie just shook her head, trying her best to suppress her bitter disappointment. But ultimately, she really wasn't surprised by his absence, because Andrew lately had been spending more and more time out of the house. Andrew had always been a pretty quiet kid, but lately, he'd been getting so frustrated and mad so easily and basically fought with everybody in the family constantly.

And then just this past fall, Susie had found out that her son had secretly dropped out of community college, even though she and her husband had just bought him a car for having kept up his grades. And ever since, the mood in the house had been tense, to say the least. So Andrew, probably to get away from that tense feeling, have been spending more and more time out of the house with his girlfriend Chelsea. And so Susie figured that must be where he was now, out with Chelsea. Which was sort of a bummer to Susie, because he'd slipped out without saying anything to anyone, even though they had all talked about how after dinner that night the family was going to decorate the Christmas tree, which was a family tradition, and it looked like he wouldn't be there.

But there was nothing she could do, so Susie sighed, left the room and headed downstairs. Hours later, the family was back at home after having dinner and after decorating the Christmas tree, and Rick and Susie were playing a board game with Sarah and their granddaughter. And they were having a nice time until Sarah finally stood up and announced that she was tired and needed to get her daughter off to bed. And just a few minutes after that, they had left the house, and suddenly the house felt really quiet. Susie looked around the room, which was now a Christmas wonderland after all the decorating they had done. They'd covered the stair banister and the fireplace mantle with wreaths and the tree

was all lit up and bright. There were even presents already under the tree, wrapped and ready for their kids and granddaughter. Susie took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of brownies that she had taken out of the oven just a little bit ago. They were Andrew's favorite, but Andrew was not here. Susie asked Rick if he wanted a brownie, but he didn't answer. And when she looked up, She saw that Rick was starting to doze off on the couch. So she suggested that they both just go upstairs and go to bed. But hours later, Susie lay in bed completely awake. She still had a million things on her mind,

like other presents she still had to buy, and the errand she had to run for the party with the neighbors that was coming up later that week. She tossed and turned a bit longer, but when she just could not sleep, she finally just got up and went downstairs, turned on the TV, and laid down on the couch. And sure enough, not long after laying down

and suddenly being surrounded by the sparkle of Christmas lights, Susie felt tired and finally drifted off to sleep. Around 24 hours later, at 11.m. on December 11th, a 911 operator sat at their post in the Mansfield Police Station. They were nearing the end of their shift, so they were tired and bleary-eyed. But they snapped back into focus when a call came in. They picked it up and clearly announced themselves, but there was no answer from the caller.

However, this wasn't really unusual to the operator. calls like this are referred to as silent calls and are often an accident or a prank. But a caller who doesn't say anything could also be in danger and may be unable to speak. So the operator followed protocol and looked up the phone number the call was being made from and was able to get an address, 820 Turnberry Drive, Mansfield, Texas. And as soon as the operator had that location, they sent a message to the officers on duty, requesting that somebody go to the scene and just make sure everything was okay. Just four minutes later, three officers pulled up to 8.20 Turnberry Drive, and they didn't need to do much

investigating to see that they were clearly in a wealthy part of town. This was an exclusive neighborhood called Walnut Estates, and the street was lined with all these big, beautiful houses, and number 820 was no exception. It was a sprawling two-story brick home that was clearly getting a jump on Christmas because it was already covered in holiday lights. However, those lights were currently off and the house was dark. It was close to midnight, so the officers guessed the homeowners must have accidentally dialed the emergency line and not known it and then gone to sleep, not realizing what they had done. Regardless, the officers got out of their cruiser and went to the front door to knock and ring the doorbell. And when nobody answered, they went around the side

of the house and began to look in the windows, but they couldn't see much, and they also couldn't hear any movement coming from inside. And this did put them a bit on edge because somebody had to have been home in order to call 911 a few minutes ago, and, you know, whoever it was, even if it was by mistake, now wasn't answering. So the officers decided they did need to get inside this house, because now they were thinking, you know, it was possible that somebody could be injured and maybe unable to respond. When they tried the front door, they found it was locked, so they walked around to look for a way in, and they saw the attached garage door was open. So they opened it up, stepped inside, and called out. Nobody answered, so they kept walking into the house.

And as they kept walking into the house, they began to hear this low-pitched electronic droning sound. The officers shine their flashlights through the dark and followed the sound into the kitchen. And there, on the counter, was the source of that droning sound. It was the receiver of a landline phone that had been left off its hook. At this point, the officers drew their weapons. They didn't know what was going on, but it felt suspicious enough that they should be on guard. As they made their way out of the kitchen, they moved quickly and quietly, because they really weren't sure what was waiting for them in the rest of the house.

But even with their guards up, they were not ready for the scene they stumbled onto in the living room. At first glance, even in the dark, it was clear this room was destroyed. And then as their eyes began to adjust, they saw the room was also covered with blood. There were huge pools of it soaked through the carpet in front of the fireplace, and lamps and furniture had been overturned and spattered with more blood. And then one of the police officer's flashlight beams landed, on the couch. There, under a blanket that was also soaked with blood, was the body of a woman. For a second, none of the officers said anything. Then another officer shined his flashlight

around the room in a slow circle until the light fell on the body of a man, lying face down only a few feet away. Two victims, both almost certainly dead. The officers called for backup. Not long after that backup call went out, the detective on call for the Mansfield Police Department, Ralph Standifer stood in the front yard of 820 Turnberry Drive, staring up at the home. All the lights were on inside, and uniformed officers had pulled crime scene tape around the perimeter. Outside, flashing police and ambulance lights lit up the street as crime scene techs geared up to begin their job. Standerfer rubbed his eyes. He'd been with the department for almost 20 years, but it was still hard to get used to being woken up from a deep sleep by his pager.

He was there with another detective, Mark Kelly. They'd already been briefed on the situation. The home was owned by a couple in their 40s named Rick and Susie Wamsley, and they both appeared to have been shot to death. Now, Stannifer hadn't even stepped foot in the house yet, but he already knew there was a lot about this case that didn't make sense. Officers had gone to the scene because of a 911 call that came in less than an hour ago, but it didn't seem like Rick or Susie had made that call.

Judging by the state of their bodies, they'd been dead for a lot longer than that. Stannifer assumed, you know, this meant that the killer must have made the 911 call, either because they lingered in the home after killing them and then made the call, or they left the scene and then returned at some point to make that 911 call. Stannifer knew that it was possible that somebody else who was not the killer could have anonymously made the call after discovering the bodies, but that felt far-fetched, like why would that person not stay and at least give more information to police?

And so Stannifer was hoping that once he got inside and looked around, things would make more sense. Standerfer and Kelly walked up to the home and pulled plastic booties over their shoes before entering. Once inside, they split up. Kelly went through each room taking video, while Standerfer just did a walkthrough of the entire crime scene. Standerfer first stopped to examine the front door, and he didn't see anything that indicated it had been forced open. And as he walked through the home, he didn't notice any other doors or windows that showed evidence of forced entry either. However, that was where the killer's smoothness ended.

The whole scene was an incredible mess. There was a ton of bloody shoeprints all over the place. There was some bloody fingerprints on the wallpaper in the dining room. There was a knife blade that was missing its handle on the carpet. And then, of course, there was the living room, where it looked like an intense, bloody, horrible fight had taken place. In addition to the overturned furniture, there was also a lot of blood splatter and splotches

that indicated whoever was bleeding had fallen multiple times. But despite the mess, there wasn't anything obviously missing. The TV was still there, there were still wrapped presents under the tree, and there weren't any open drawers or closets, which he would have expected if somebody was here looking for something to steal. So Standerford did not think this was a robbery gone wrong. He turned to look at the couch where the woman still lay under the blanket. This was Susie Wamsley. She'd been shot in the head, but her blanket had been pulled up and her expression was almost peaceful, which suggested she might have died while she was still asleep. But this didn't

track with the rest of her wounds, because whoever had shot her had apparently also stabbed her repeatedly in the neck and torso. It was clear she hadn't struggled, though, which suggested she likely was the first one shot, but that meant the killer stabbed her after she was already dead. It was unusual for a killer to use multiple weapons like that, but it also lined up with the rest of the very chaotic crime scene. Whoever did this was clearly frenzied and highly emotional. standifer frowned and moved away from Susie towards his other victim, her husband, Rick Wamsley. Rick's body was shirtless, so right away, Stanifer saw that he too had been attacked with multiple weapons. He was covered in slashing wounds, and he'd been shot at least once in the head.

But unlike Susie, it was clear to Standifer that Rick had fought with his killer. Rick's fist was clenched tightly, and Stanipa saw there were actually a few pieces of hair wrapped around Rick's fingers. And so Standerfer put on some gloves, and then he knelt down and he opened up Rick's hand to find strands of dark long hair inside of his palm. And next to Rick's hand on the carpet was a broken blue hair clip. Stannifer knew this could be something major, because at least at first glance, it appeared like in Rick's final moments of life he had managed to grab the hair of his killer and rip some of it out.

And this was incredibly lucky, because it meant they would now have an actual piece of forensic evidence, this hair, to test against any suspects that they had. But the evidence was also kind of confusing, because the long hair and the feminine-looking clip suggested that Rick had been fighting with a woman. But physically, that just didn't make much sense. Rick was a big guy.

He was at least six feet tall and at least 200 pounds, and so Standerfer had a hard time imagining a typical woman alone being able to overpower him. Even a strong man might have had trouble dealing with Rick, given Rick's size. So now, as Stanifer stood there looking at the hair and the blue clip, he started to wonder if, you know, maybe there wasn't just one killer here. Maybe there were multiple killers, and that's how Rick had been overpowered.

Stanifer went to go find Detective Kelly. Whether it was one killer or multiple, it was clear the level of brutality at this crime scene suggested there had to have been a personal motive. And so the detectives needed to start making a list of everyone the Wamsleys were close to. It was almost 8 a.m. the following morning by the time Standerer was done at the scene. When he left the house, he saw that beyond the yellow crime scene tape, there was a crowd of neighbors and news trucks gathered to see what was going on at the Wamsleys. As Standerer walked to his patrol car, a deputy approached him and told him they'd been talking to some of these neighbors,

and they had some information. One person said they heard multiple gunshots around 3 a.m. yesterday morning, which was 21 hours before the 911 call came in. And another said that last night around 9 p.m., they noticed the Wamsleys had not turned on their Christmas lights, which was unusual for them. Standerfer ran through this timeline in his head. If it was true that there were gunshots at 3 a.m. on December 11th, and then by 9 p.m. later that same day, the house was uncharacteristically dark and the Christmas lights were not on,

well, the reason for that could be because by that time, the Wamsleys were already dead. The 911 call had come about two and a half hours after that neighbor had noticed the Christmas lights were not on in the house. But somebody was in that house who made the 911 call, and based on this timeline, it seemed it could not have been Rick or Susie because they were dead by the time the 911 call. So who was in the house making that call? Standifer asked the deputies if there was anything else, and they said, yeah, there was. The neighbors had also told them that the Wamsleys had two adult children, Sarah and Andrew. Sarah lived in her own apartment, and the deputies had already contacted her. She was on her way to the station.

But Andrews still lived with his parents, and the deputies, so far, had not been able to reach him. At this, Standifer felt himself immediately tense up. Both the Wamsley's children needed to be looked at as suspects. It was highly likely that with the parents both dead, the kids would inherit money, and probably a lot of it, judging from the very upscale neighbor. where their parents lived. And the fact that Andrew lived with his parents, but wasn't at home and was currently unreachable, made him the much more suspicious of the two siblings. But just then, Stanifer heard somebody yelling. He looked up to see a dark-haired young man getting out of the driver's

side of a Ford Mustang. He was gesturing wildly to a police officer who had stopped the car, pointing to the home, the crime scene, and saying that that was his house. A young woman got out of the passenger side of the vehicle, and Stanifer could see she and this young man, both looked totally panicked. The detective hustled over to the car and asked the young man what his name was, although he was already pretty sure he knew. It was in fact Andrew Wamsley. Andrew told them that he and his girlfriend, the woman he was with, had seen a news report about two bodies in this neighborhood being found, and he had driven here to make sure it was not his mother and father. As he said this, Stantifer's eyes immediately went to the girlfriend's hair, hoping it was dark brown, like the hair he had

found inside of Rick's fist. But it was blonde. Standerfer was momentarily disappointed, but he knew that the girlfriend's hair color didn't actually prove or disprove anything about Andrew himself. And so Standerford looked around at the news cameras and the crowd and decided he would wait to give Andrew any details about what had happened. And so he just told the young couple to come with him back to the station where he would explain everything. A short time later, Standerer sat across the table from Andrew inside of an interview room, watching the young man fall apart. As he learned, his parents were both dead. Andrew looked down at the ground as Standifer broke the news,

unable to speak as tears streamed down his cheeks. Standifer waited for Andrew to calm down a little bit, but he didn't really calm down at all, and so Stanifer just began asking basic questions because it seemed like Andrew was not going to be capable of giving anything more than short, simple answers. He said that he lived with his parents, but stated his girlfriend Chelsea's most of the time,

and during the period of time that police believed the cause, was murdered, Andrew said that he and Chelsea played some miniature golf, they went to the movies, and then they went to a friend's house for most of the night before heading back to Chelsea's to sleep. After that, Andrew went quiet again, staring hard at the floor as his eyes welled up with more tears. To Standifer, Andrew's emotional reaction to this news seemed pretty sincere. And when Standifer looked over Andrew's hands and forearms, looking for any of the telltale cuts or bruises, the killer almost certainly would have picked up while fighting with Rick, he only saw. saw one small, shallow scratch on his hand, which realistically, Andrew could have gotten anywhere.

But his emotional reaction and the lack of cuts and bruises on his body was not enough to rule Andrew out, especially if he was potentially working with somebody else. And so Standerfer decided to push him a little bit, just to see how he reacted. He told Andrew that he was going to send some officers to check his car for blood, and he was also going to get Andrew's fingerprints. Then he also said he was going to have to confirm his alibi with his girlfriend and friends, and he was going to check his bank records, looking specifically for large payments that could suggest a paid hit. After that, Stanifer just stood there, waiting for Andrew to get defensive or angry. But Andrew just nodded and said that all sounded fine.

And so when Stanifer stepped out of the interview room, he was not feeling too optimistic about Andrew as a suspect. And so when his partner, Detective Kelly, came around the corner and said Andrew's sister, Sarah, was in an interview room ready to be spoken to, Standerfer was glad to hear it. The first thing Standerfer noticed when he went into Sarah's interrogation room was that Sarah had long, dark hair, which was roughly the same color as the strands he had seen in Rick's hand. Now, he didn't let his excitement show. Instead, he just sat down at the table and simply asked Sarah what she had been doing on December 10th. Like her brother, Sarah was visibly devastated.

But unlike Andrew, who had been barely able to talk, Sarah seemed almost like she was impatient with Standerfer's questions. She rattled off her actions on the night of her parents' murders so quickly that Stannifer could barely keep up with her. She said that she had gone to her parents' house around 6 p.m. And they had all gone out to dinner. They had all briefly come back to the parents' house after, and then Sarah took her daughter and went home for the night.

And Sarah seemed like she might just keep on rambling, but Standofer's stuff. stopped her and just said, look, do you know of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your parents? And at this, Sarah's eyes widened, and she nodded furiously, like she had been waiting for this question. She leaned forward and blurted out that this was exactly what she wanted to tell him, because one month ago, according to Sarah, somebody had tried to kill her and her parents. She said it happened in November. They had been driving on the highway when out of nowhere they heard this loud banging sound. Worried it could be something to do with the car, they pulled over into a parking lot to see what had happened. That's when they found a distinct bullet hole in the

rear of their car, near their gas tank. Sarah said they had reported this to police, but despite looking into it, the police never found a suspect. However, Sarah told Standerfer that she always suspected her ex-husband Todd Cleveland was the shooter. She told the detective that she and Todd were in a custody battle over their daughter, which her parents were paying for. Todd was furious about it. Stanifer sat back in his seat, trying to keep his face neutral, but he felt like a bomb had just been dropped in the middle of his case. The Wamsleys had been shot at twice over a 30-day period. Whoever had killed them was brazen and determined. The detective leaned back and folded his arms as he tried to work out what all this meant to him. On one hand, Sarah had been in the car during that

first shooting, which made it very unlikely, but not impossible, that she was involved in that attempt. But she also had no real alibi for the night of her parents' murder, and had admitted she was in desperate need of money. She was also eager to talk, maybe too eager, and she had pointed the finger right at her ex, which could mean she was trying to distract Standifer from looking at her. Or it could mean she was scared, and that Todd Cleveland was the shooter, and he was guilty. luckily, though, Standerford didn't have to make any decisions about her guilt or innocence on her demeanor alone. He had those strands of hair from the crime scene, so he told Sarah they would need a DNA sample from her. And Standerfer had half expected her to protest, but instead,

she agreed immediately. As Standerfer left to get one of the evidence texts, he felt more confused than ever. Sarah had seemed like a promising suspect, but her willingness to provide DNA told Standerfer she likely did not have much to hide. Standerfer suddenly felt the weight of how tired he was. He'd been awake all night, and his exhaustion was making it hard to unravel this case that seemed to get murkier with every clue. The next day was December 13th.

It had been two days since Rick and Susie Wamsley's bodies had been found, and detectives Ralph Standerer and Mark Kelly were standing around a desk at the Mansfield, Texas Police Precinct. They were going over photos, financial documents, witness statements, and the newly released autopsy results, which just confirmed a lot of what they already knew, that both Rick and Susie had been shot and stabbed, and that Rick had fought back very hard. Standifer was more sure than ever that this was a personal crime, so he and Kelly were going over all of the evidence they had on their two key suspects, the children, Sarah and Andrew Wamsley.

In the last couple of days, they had learned a lot more about the Wamsleys and their children. Standerfer had been right. The parents had a big estate that their kids were set to inherit. It was worth over $1.5 million. And Rick also had a large life insurance policy as well. And so this gave the siblings a very strong financial motivation for killing their parents. But all Standerford could come up with to this point was evidence that actually ruled both the kids out. They had taken Sarah Wamsley's DNA when they interviewed her,

and it was not a match for the hair found at the scene, which didn't mean she wasn't somehow involved, but it meant the only real evidence stand for had against her was her financial motive and a lack of an alibi. As for Andrew, his alibi checked out. His girlfriend, Chelsea Richardson, confirmed a story. The detectives had also contacted one of his friends, a guy named Jeremy Lavender, and he confirmed that Andrew and Chelsea were with him the night Andrew's parents were killed. Plus, Andrew's fingerprints didn't match the bloody ones that were found at the crime scene.

There had also been a preliminary search of Andrews' car and they hadn't seen any obvious blood yet, although the evidence texts were not quite finished. So, Standifer and Kelly were at the point in this case where they needed to seriously consider other suspects. And luckily, they already had somebody at the top of their list. Sarah had been sure that her ex-husband Todd was responsible for the attack on the Wamsleys that happened a month ago. Standerford had already reached out to the police of the town where the Wamsleys were shot at, and luckily, the officers there had extracted the bullet from their car door. And after testing that bullet, it showed that bullet came from the same gun that was later

used to kill the Wamsleys. So if Todd was a suspect for that attack, well, then by almost default, he had to be a suspect for the murders. So Stanifer grabbed his keys off his desk and flagged Kelly to come with him. It was time to go see Todd Cleveland. When the detective sat down with Todd at his home, he seemed extremely agitated and sort of rattled. He said he had just heard about the murders, and he was totally stunned. He also said he knew this looked bad for him, but he was adamant he was not involved. He may have been at war with Sarah and Susie, but he liked Rick, and besides, he wasn't around the night of the tent because he was working. He was a plumber, and he said he had a few emergency jobs that night and in the early morning,

too. Stannifer and Kelly stayed for a bit longer, but they didn't get much more out of Todd. So eventually they left and headed back to the station, and right away they called Todd's plumbing clients to confirm his alibi. And sure enough, it all checked out. Once again, the detectives were back to square one. The following day, Standifer and Kelly drove out to the home of Andrew's girlfriend, Chelsea. They weren't there because they thought Chelsea was a suspect. Her blonde hair had pretty much ruled her out. But the detectives had decided that since they were already starting over, they may as well begin by re-evaluating their first two suspects, the Wamsley's children, Andrew and Sarah. Neither sibling appeared to have been at the crime scene,

but Standerfer and Kelly wanted to learn more about who they were close to, specifically who in their lives they might have trusted enough to help them plan or even carry out a murder. When the detectives arrived at Chelsea's mother's house where Chelsea lived, they knocked on the door and Chelsea opened it up, and quickly she invited the detectives inside. And as soon as they stepped in, Stannifer just froze because the house was truly a mess,

not just in disarray, but like disgusting. There was trash everywhere and grime on everything. I mean, it really looked deeply dirty and uncared for. The two detectives just looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. Over on the couch was another young woman who looked to be about Chelsea's age. When she saw the detectives, she stood up, walked over and introduced herself as Chelsea's friend, Susanna. And over the course of their brief conversation, she told them that she had actually been staying in this house with Chelsea for quite a while. After that, Standifer asked Susanna to please give them some privacy, and she nodded and disappeared into a bedroom.

At this point, Standifer sat down with Chelsea and began asking her a couple questions about the days around the murders, while his partner, Kelly, began to pace around the house. Chelsea had already confirmed Andrew's alibi once, but she seemed perfectly willing to go through it again, and nothing about her story changed. And Standerfer was just wrapping things up when he heard Kelly gasp in the next room. When Kelly reappeared in the living room, he looked visibly shaken, but he said he was fine. The detectives left shortly after that, and when they got back in the car, Kelly explained why he had reacted like that in the other room.

He said he had been looking through all the kitchen drawers because there had been a knife blade at the murder scene, and he wanted to see if it's matching handle that was missing was in Chelsea's kitchen. But at some point when he opened up a drawer, a whole bunch of roaches crawled out. That's why he gasped. Standerfer grimaced, but also the thought of those roaches made something else click into place that had been bothering him the whole time they were at Chelsea's. He was thinking, it seemed very likely somebody living in a place like that, living truly in squalor,

might be eager for some money. And so as they drove back to the station, Standifer decided he needed to widen the range of people he was asking for DNA from. It clearly was not enough to get DNA just from Andrew and Sarah that really had gone. nowhere. What they needed to do was also get DNA samples from all of their friends as well. It would take almost a month to collect all the DNA samples they requested, and then the detectives had to wait another two months just to get the results back, which arrived on March 30th. And when the results did arrive, Standifer just sat at his desk, staring at the results in shock, because now he

realized that a major piece of the puzzle had been right in front of him the entire time. Based on these these DNA results, the investigation, and also a confession, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Rick and Susie Wamsley in the early morning hours of December 11th, 2003. Just before 3 a.m. on December 11th, the killer stood outside of 8.20 Turnberry Drive, watching Rick and Susie's garage door slowly rise. As they waited for it to open all the way, they felt both dread and also a sense of nervous anticipation. They had been talking about killing Susie and Rick for months, and actually, they had already tried to do it once before. But now, if everything went according to plan, it was actually going to happen.

Once the door was fully open, the killer slipped inside, and as they entered, they could hear the sound of footsteps right behind them, their two accomplices. All three very quietly began to creep through the home, and as they passed through the kitchen, two of them grabbed knives. They already had a gun with them, but they figured it didn't hurt to be as prepared as possible. The house was completely silent. It was obvious both Rick and Susie were asleep. The killer was eager to get started, because in their mind, Rick and Susie had more money and a better life than they deserved, and it just was not fair. The killer had nothing. And so killing Rick and Susie would not only feel good, but it would be the answer to all of their problems. On the other side of what they did this night was going to be a much better life. And so with the gun in hand, the killer walked down the hallway to the living room where they found Susie, asleep on the couch under a blanket. And the killer, as soon as they were standing over her, raised their gun, aimed it at Susie's head, and fired a shot. And immediately,

the killer then hurried upstairs to the bedroom where Rick was, and they shot at him too. Except this time, their aim was off. Their bullets hit the doorway outside the bedroom, and as Rick jolted up, the killer fired again. This shot hit Rick in the temple, but Rick didn't fall. Instead, to the killer, horror, he ran at the killer and began to fight them. The killer struggled with Rick, and before they knew it, they both were in the living room where Rick managed to force the killer to drop the gun. At this point, one of the two accomplices tried to get Rick off the killer, but while Rick was being pulled away, he managed to grab the killer's hair and ripped some of their hair out of their head, along with their hair clip. When Rick then tried to turn and run for the front

door, the other accomplice grabbed the gun from the ground and shot Rick in the back, which caused him to finally collapse. But he still wasn't dead, and he looked up at the killer and the accomplices to ask why they were doing this, but the three of them just stared at Rick in shock. They hadn't realized how hard it was going to be to kill someone. And so now they were actually wondering if just shooting Susie once was actually enough to kill her. And so instead of talking to Rick, the killer and one of the accomplices began simultaneously stabbing Rick and Susie over and over again until they both were for sure dead. The trio then fled the home,

and the primary killer spent the rest of the night totally excited about the good fortune that would almost certainly befall them once the bodies were discovered. But after that whole day passed, the next 20 or so hours passed, there still had been no indication that anybody knew Rick and Susie were dead. and this was a problem for the killer and their accomplices, because the sooner the bodies were found, the sooner they would get access to the money that they had killed for. So, just before midnight, they returned to the crime scene,

picked up the landline phone, and dialed 911. Then, without saying anything, they placed the phone receiver on the counter and fled the house for a second time. When Detective Standifer got the DNA test results back from the hair that had been found at the crime scene, it told him exactly who had attacked Rick. But the hair didn't actually match any of his suspects.

It belonged to someone that they actually hadn't even interviewed. The hair was a match for Susanna Toldano, the same Susanna, who was a friend of Andrew's girlfriend, Chelsea, who was present at her house the day they went to go re-interview her. It would turn out, Susanna was the one who had fired at Rick and Susie's car back in November. And on the night of the actual murders, it was Susanna who shot Susie and.

and fought Rick. She was the primary killer. Susanna did this because she needed money, and she had actually been promised a large chunk of it by her accomplices, Andrew and Chelsea. It was Andrew and Chelsea's idea to murder Susie and Rick. Andrew was furious with his parents because they'd cut him off financially after they found out he'd secretly dropped out of college. He was also in love with Chelsea, who didn't have a lot of money, and she lived with a single mother who had to work multiple jobs to barely keep their family afloat. And so the plan was made to murder the parents for money. But it was ultimately Susanna who pulled the trigger. Susanna, Chelsea, and Andrew were all convicted of murder, and they were all sentenced to life in prison. As for Sarah, she had nothing to do

with the murders, and she has never healed from the loss of her parents. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people in and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Bollin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive produced by me, Mr. Bollin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone and Cole Lacassio. This episode was written by Kate Murdoch. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Schumway,

Camille Callahan, Alex Paul, Ben Fasiano. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whitelikaze. and Jordan Stidham. Production support by Antonio Manada and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Cogston Kiner, theme song, Something Wicked, by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast.

And just a reminder, every new and exclusive episode we put out on the Mr. Ballin podcast, you can also now watch on the Mr. Ballin YouTube channel that very same day. And trust me, some of these stories you truly have to see to believe. Again, my YouTube channel is just called Mr. Ballin. If you want to listen to episodes one week early and ad-free, you can subscribe to SiriusXM Podcast Plus on Apple Podcasts or visit SiriusXM.com slash podcast plus to listen with Spotify or another app of your choice. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see you.