MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Late Night Caller (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

In the middle of the night on January 25, 2014, 80-year-old Peggy Nadell was sound asleep in her second-story bedroom. But then suddenly her phone began to ring. Peggy woke up startled and looked at the clock – it was after 1 a.m. – and to be getting a call at this house could only mean one thing… bad news. Nervously, Peggy answered the phone and quietly said "hello?" But that phone call would prove to be far worse than anything Peggy could have imagined, and moments after getting that phone call, Peggy would be fighting for her life. For 100s more stories like these, check out our main 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.

Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. In the middle of the night on January 25th, 2014, 80-year-old Peggy Nadelle was sound asleep in her second story bedroom, and then suddenly her phone began to ring. Peggy woke up startled and looked over at the clock and saw it was past 1am, and so to be getting a call this late could only mean one thing. This was bad news. And so nervously Peggy answered the

phone and quietly said hello. Peggy would be correct. This phone call was bad news. But it was far worse than anything Peggy could have imagined. And moments after getting that call, Peggy would be fighting for her life. But before we get into that 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 Amazon Music Follow Button's cookies with dog treats. Okay, let's get into today's story. 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. Okay, maybe that's a stretch, but if I say pop star and shuttle cocks, you know who I'm talking about. No? Short shorts? Free cocktails? Careless whispers? Okay, 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 Wandery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wandery app. I'm Peter Frankopern. And I'm Afro-Hersh. 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 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 a December afternoon in 2013, 80-year-old Peggy Nadelle gazed out of her second-story bedroom window, watching the snow fall onto the ground

below. Peggy's large gray wooden house sat tucked away in Valley Cottage, New York, a small upscale enclave located in Clarkstown, less than an hour northwest of New York City. Peggy had lived in this house for 50 years. She loved her small town, and she thought there was something really special about it in the winter. The snow made everything quiet, beautiful, and almost otherworldly. In her bedroom, Peggy glanced down at her watch. She felt like she could stand there for hours just staring at the snowfall, but

she had some place to be, and Peggy hated being late. So she walked out of her room and down a hallway across an old hardwood floor to the stairs. Peggy held onto the banister and slowly made her way to the first floor. At 80 years old, Peggy was still in great shape. She exercised almost every day at the nearby Jewish Community Center, and even when there was snow on the ground and it was freezing outside, she still enjoyed walking around town or in the public park that was close to her house. But Peggy admitted that the stairs in her house had begun to get a bit tricky for her, and her daughter, Suzanne, had become paranoid that Peggy was going to take a bad fall and hurt herself on the stairs. So Peggy, not wanting to worry her family, now made it a point to take her

time when she was going up and down the stairs and to always hold onto the banister. Peggy finally reached the first floor and she walked across the living room towards the front of the house. Peggy's house was almost like a museum, and also a time capsule. There were paintings hung on the walls and small sculptures and other pieces of art that could be found on tables and shelves in the living room, but there was also 50 years worth of family keepsakes, photos of her grown children at almost every age, and some recent drawings her grandkids had made for her. Peggy pulled a long coat off a coat rack by the front door and she put it on over her black sweater. Peggy had short brown hair that she styled every day and she wore red lipstick.

Peggy had been obsessed with fashion from a young age and that obsession had never really gone away. So she always tried to look and dress her best whenever she left the house. had never really gone away, so she always tried to look and dress her best whenever she left the house. Peggy grabbed a leather bag that contained books, notebooks, and pens. Then she set the house alarm by pushing on a keypad by the door, and then she walked outside across the porch to her car parked in the driveway. Peggy got in, started the car, turned on the radio, and began heading towards New York City. After driving into the city and parking her car, Peggy made her way through a big throng of people walking down Fifth Ave in Manhattan. She looked at the holiday decorations and Christmas lights hanging around the street,

and she had a huge smile on her face. As much as Peggy loved living in her sleepy little town, there was nothing quite like being in the big city. Over the course of her life, Peggy had traveled all over the world. She'd seen Roman ruins, the pyramids in Egypt, and she'd laid on beautiful beaches all around the globe. But New York City had always been a very special place for her. Peggy walked for a few minutes and then stepped into a white stone building that housed one of the City University of New York's campuses in the area. Inside, Peggy made her way to a small classroom where she was sitting in on a Ph.D. level

art history class. Peggy said hello to some of the other students who had already arrived. Many of them were at least 50 years younger than she was. Peggy made it to her seat. She pulled off her coat and put it on the back of her chair. Then she sat down and grabbed her notebook out of her bag. A young woman sitting nearby smiled and Peggy smiled back. Peggy knew she must be a bit of a mystery to most of her fellow students.

They must have wondered why this well-dressed old lady was in class with them. But anybody who knew Peggy even reasonably well, knew that she had always prized learning and education above almost anything else. Back in the mid-1950s, Peggy had fallen in love with a man named Robert Nadel and she had gotten married to him. And not long after they got married, Peggy gave birth to their daughter, Suzanne. Then a couple of years later, Peggy had their son, Jim.

And Peggy loved being a mother, but she didn't want to just stay at home. So she had decided to go back to school to get her MBA, a graduate business degree. Her husband Robert had been totally thrilled about her decision. He thought Peggy was one of the smartest people he'd ever met, and he knew how important education was to her. But at the time, most other people around Peggy had thought she was crazy for wanting to go back to school for anything, especially a master's degree in business, because at this time in the 1960s, women represented less than 1% of students at the top MBA programs

in the United States. But Peggy believed it was her duty to continue learning as much as she could, and she had refused to accept that being a woman had anything to do with her ability to succeed in business school or the corporate world. And so after getting her MBA, Peggy had proven everybody who doubted her wrong. She had gone on to work for Xerox, a huge corporation that was a pioneer in photocopiers and other technology products, and after years of working at that company, Peggy had become one of Xerox's first female executives. Peggy had a long and very successful career, and when she had finally stepped away from her

work, she enjoyed retirement right alongside her husband Robert. They had loved to travel, and they had spent a lot of their time helping their community by volunteering for local groups and charities. And as much as Peggy had loved her high-powered executive job, she actually enjoyed the volunteer work that she and Robert were able to do even more. But then, in 2003, Robert had died unexpectedly, and suddenly Peggy had found herself all alone in her big old house. Peggy's daughter, Suzanne, lived about 20 minutes away, and so the mother and daughter

spent a lot of time together. But Peggy knew Suzanne had a life and a job that kept her busy, and Peggy didn't want to give up on all the things that made her happy just because she was on her own now. She wanted to keep learning about new things and experiencing new things. So Peggy had begun to study art history, a subject she'd always been interested in. And eventually she decided she wanted to learn as much as she possibly could about art history, so at 80 years old Peggy began sitting in on these PhD level art history classes, not to get another degree, but just because she really loved it and wanted to learn more.

Peggy listened closely and took extensive notes during the professor's lecture. And as Peggy wrote in her notebook she almost felt like a kid again. She knew how absurd that would sound to the others in the class, after all, she was a mother and a grandmother and she had lived a full life by this point. But Peggy felt like learning new things was really the best way to stay active and engaged in the world around her. Later that night, Peggy was in her bedroom, still thinking about what she learned that day in class, as she changed out of her clothes into her nightgown.

Then once she was changed, she sat down on her bed and she grabbed the home phone off the bedside table. Now there were two people Peggy usually talked to multiple times a day, her daughter, Suzanne, and her daughter-in-law, Diana. Peggy knew both women liked to check on her a lot to make sure she was okay, Suzanne was paranoid about Peggy falling down the stairs, and Diana, who was married to Peggy knew both women liked to check on her a lot to make sure she was okay, Suzanne was paranoid about Peggy falling down the stairs, and Diana, who was married to Peggy's son and lived in Florida, worried about Peggy going out and driving when it was cold and snowing.

Peggy regularly reminded her daughter and daughter-in-law that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but she did love talking to them both and staying in touch. So Peggy called her daughter, Suzanne, and told her all about the day's art history class. Then, after she was done speaking to Suzanne, Peggy called Diana in Florida. Now, Peggy's son was not much for phone calls, so his wife, Diana, was really Peggy's only real connection to her grandkids who lived so far away. Peggy told Diana that she really missed everybody and that she was hoping she could pay for Diana and her son's two kids to come visit her in New York that summer.

When Diana heard that she got really excited and said the kids would love that. Eventually the two women wrapped up the call and said goodnight and then Peggy hung up the phone and walked over to the bedroom window. It was still snowing outside and the snowflakes seemed to glow under the streetlights. Peggy was still struck by how beautiful the winter scene always looked, but now that she knew her grandkids were very likely coming to visit her, she could not wait for summer to arrive. Over a month later, on January 24, 2014, Peggy was in her room getting ready for bed again.

Peggy had kept busy over the recent holiday season. She'd spent the first night of Hanukkah with her daughter Suzanne, and she'd also talked to her daughter-in-law Diana and her grandkids in Florida almost every day. She'd gone to various holiday parties in town with close friends, and she continued to exercise at the Jewish Community Center. But despite how fun the holiday season had been, it still totally wore Peggy out, and she was still feeling tired weeks later. So she was hoping to sleep in late the following morning and get caught up on some much needed rest.

It hadn't snowed in weeks, but temperatures had dropped to a freezing 15 degrees Fahrenheit and it was cold and drafty inside of Peggy's old house. So she climbed into bed and pulled a whole pile of warm blankets over her. Then she turned off the lamp on her bedside table and eventually drifted off to sleep. But just a few hours later, at 1.17am, so this is now on January 25th, Peggy woke up startled. Her home phone was ringing on the bedside table right next to her and the sound had pulled her out of her dream. She took a breath and got her bearings and then leaned over and flipped the switch on

the lamp. Peggy looked at the clock next to the phone and saw how late it was and she started to panic because she was worried that a phone call at this hour could only mean something bad had happened. Peggy sat up in bed and cautiously answered the phone and then after talking to the caller for about a minute, Peggy sat up in bed and cautiously answered the phone, and then after talking to the caller for about a minute, Peggy relaxed. Now, Peggy was still a bit shocked from getting a call in the middle of the night that woke her up, but there was no emergency or any bad news.

Peggy just had a couple of unexpected late night visitors standing outside of her house. So Peggy got out of her bed, she walked to her closet and put on her robe and slippers, then she headed downstairs and walked to the front door. She opened the door and smiled at the two people standing outside. But before she could let her visitors in, a loud, very high-pitched beeping sound began echoing through Peggy's house. Peggy had forgotten to turn off the house alarm before she opened the door. Peggy quickly punched in the code on the keypad right near the door and it turned the alarm

off but the phone in the kitchen started ringing so Peggy rushed to go grab it. The alarm company was calling to see if everything was okay and Peggy would give them a password to let them know it really was her and then she told them everything was fine. Then she hung up the phone and called out to her visitors to come inside. And they did. They joined Peggy in the kitchen and she poured each of them a glass of water. Then the three of them sat at the kitchen table and talked for a few minutes. And then Peggy stood up and excused herself. Peggy walked through the living room and went up the stairs to the second floor bathroom,

which was a lot warmer than the one on the first floor. But when Peggy was done and about to leave the bathroom, she heard shouting outside and footsteps on the stairs. And so Peggy stepped out of the bathroom and she was surprised to see her two visitors were standing right there outside. They were quiet and kind of awkward and Peggy thought maybe the two of them were in the middle of some kind of argument that she had now just kind of butted herself into. But Peggy smiled at them and said, let's go down to the kitchen and keep on talking. Then Peggy walked past them, put her hand on the banister, and began walking down the steps.

And the two visitors followed her. But before reaching the bottom of the stairs, Peggy heard one of her visitors begin to scream right behind her. Several hours later, at 9am on January 25th, so almost 8 hours after the visitors had arrived at Peggy's house, Peggy's daughter, Suzanne, stepped out of her car in front of Peggy's house. Suzanne was 55 years old with frizzy dyed blonde hair. She wore jeans, tennis shoes, a t-shirt, and a big winter coat. Suzanne had not inherited her mother's love of fashion. Instead, Suzanne preferred comfort over style. Suzanne walked quickly to the front door. It was bitterly cold out, but Suzanne barely noticed. She had woken up that morning and called her mother like she did almost every day, but

Peggy hadn't answered. There was a chance Peggy could have just slept in or gone out to exercise, but Suzanne had tried calling back a little bit later and Peggy still didn't answer. So Suzanne had called her sister-in-law Diana because she knew Diana usually called Peggy several times a day too, and Diana said she had called Peggy too at around 7.30 that morning but Peggy didn't pick up, and so Diana said she left a message but still had not heard back yet. After talking to Diana, Suzanne was worried enough that she decided to just drive over

to her mother's house to make sure everything was okay. Once Suzanne reached her mother's porch, she reached into her pocket and pulled out the key she had to her mother's house. She used it to open up the door and then once she was inside, she called out for her mother, but there was no answer. So Suzanne began walking around the first floor of the house, and when Suzanne walked into the living room, she let out a blood-curdling scream. Suzanne saw Peggy's crumpled body on the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

Suzanne instinctively ran to her mother, and when she got a good look at her, she saw there was a knife sticking out of Peggy's chest. And so Suzanne dropped down and just yanked the knife out and threw it on the floor, and then she leaned in and touched her mother's face, and she could feel that Peggy's skin had gone totally ice cold. Totally distraught, Suzanne took out her cell phone and dialed 911. When the emergency dispatcher answered, Suzanne began yelling that she needed help and that her mother must have fallen down the stairs while holding a knife, and she accidentally stabbed herself. Not long after the 911 call, Detective Stephen Cole Hatchard and Earl Lawrence of the Clarkstown Police Department pulled up in a sedan outside of Peggy's house and stepped out of the

car. The snow had started again, and they could feel the cold biting into their hands and faces. Local police had already run crime scene tape all across the front of Peggy's house and some of Peggy's neighbors had already begun to gather nearby. Hatchard and Lawrence also saw Peggy's daughter, Suzanne, pacing back and forth in the driveway, a few feet in front of a uniformed police officer. Suzanne was mumbling to herself and she looked totally dazed.

The detectives approached Suzanne and introduced themselves, and Suzanne immediately repeated what she had said to the 911 operator. Her mother must have fallen down the stairs while she was holding a knife and accidentally stabbed herself. Suzanne said she had been worried about her mother on those stairs for a long time. But before the detectives could even really process what Suzanne was talking about, she would say something that sent up multiple red flags. Suzanne told Hatchard and Lawrence that police would likely find her fingerprints on the knife because she had pulled the knife out of her mother's chest before trying to administer

CPR on her mother. And Suzanne said her fingerprints were all over the house because she went to visit her mom there all the time. But Suzanne didn't stop there, she just kept on talking. And she would tell the detectives that her mom was really rich, but she said this was not how she wanted to inherit her cut of her mom's estate. Detective Hatchard told Suzanne to wait with the officer outside and that they would talk to her once they had searched the house.

Then Hatchard and Lawrence walked towards the front door while Suzanne began pacing in the driveway again. The detectives couldn't believe what they had just learned. They hadn't even stepped inside the house yet, but already Peggy's daughter had admitted to tampering with evidence by pulling the knife out of her mother's chest. Suzanne had also tried to cover for the fact that her fingerprints would be found on a potential weapon and throughout the house, and she had given a clear motive for possibly having killed her mother by talking about Peggy's money.

That said, Hatchard and Lawrence knew that people under stress could act in strange ways, especially when dealing with the death of a loved one. But neither of them had ever encountered anything like what had just happened with Suzanne. It sort of seemed like she had worked up a big cover story and then blurted all of it out as soon as cops showed up. Inside the house, Detectives Hatchard and Lawrence found a small group of forensics officers searching for fingerprints, blood samples, and other physical evidence. When the local police had first arrived on the scene, they really weren't sure what

they were dealing with, or if Suzanne's story about her mom falling with the knife was true, so a forensics team and the detectives had been called in. But when Hatchard and Lawrence reached the bottom of Peggy's stairs, they didn't need forensics officers to tell them that Suzanne's version of what happened was totally off. On the ground in front of the detectives was Peggy Nadel. She was dead and lying face up on the floor. The detectives crouched down and right away saw multiple knife wounds in Peggy's chest and they saw the knife that Suzanne said she had removed lying on the floor nearby.

Then when detectives looked more closely at Peggy's body, they began to notice wounds on the side of her head as though she had been struck with a blunt object several times. And right near Peggy's face was this small sculpture which was the bust of someone's head and then near Peggy's hand was a gold metal ball, another piece of art. And so maybe those two things were the blunt object that had been smashed into Peggy. Also the detective saw bruising around Peggy's neck and throat, which most likely indicated that Peggy had been strangled at some point. In short, there was no way Peggy had just tumbled down the stairs while holding a knife

and that was how she accidentally killed herself. Clearly this was a murder. Hatchard and Lawrence were appalled by what they saw. Any violent crime was bad enough, but neither of them could understand what type of person would attack a defenseless 80-year-old woman. The detectives assumed Peggy must have been struck in the head with either the small sculpture or that golden ball that were laying close by her body, but forensics officers said no fingerprints or physical evidence had been found on either of those objects.

It was like they had both been wiped clean. So the detective stepped away from Peggy's body and walked upstairs and went to search Peggy's bedroom. In the bedroom, they saw a few dresser drawers were laid out on the floor and there was an open jewelry box on top of the dresser. Someone had clearly rifled through the jewelry box, but it was still filled with several expensive pieces. Hatchard and Lawrence looked around the rest of the room, and when they were done with their cursory check, they both had the same thought. This was not a robbery. If anything,

this was a weak attempt by Peggy's killer to make it look like a robbery. By 1pm, so about 4 hours after Suzanne made that 911 call, Hatchard and Lawrence had finished their initial search of the crime scene and had briefed their boss on what they had found. They weren't sure exactly what had happened in the house, but they knew there was only one place to start their investigation, and that was with Peggy's daughter, Suzanne. From Wondery, this is The Spy Who. This month, we open the file on Oleg Levin, the spy who saved MI5. Levin's actions changed the course of the Cold War in the 1970s.

A Russian who defected to Britain after being caught in a love affair that shook the world. His actions triggered the biggest removal of spies by any government in history. It's a story of an overstretched security service in need of a win and a covert plan to bring catastrophe to Britain's streets. Follow the Spy Who on the Wondery app or wherever you listen to podcasts or you can binge the full season of The Spy Who Saved MI5 early and ad-free with Wondery+. If you're listening to this podcast then chances are good If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious.

And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Later that afternoon, Hatchard and Lawrence sat in a comfortable police station conference room across a long table from Suzanne. They wanted Suzanne to be able to talk freely and feel comfortable, which is why they had not brought her into a cramped interrogation room. The detectives had not found any direct evidence to pin Peggy's murder on Suzanne, but they had heard Suzanne's bizarre statements she made at the house, and they felt like that

was definitely enough to go on. Detective Hatchard started by asking Suzanne to explain why she had been at Peggy's house in the first place. Suzanne talked about not being able to get ahold of her mom and how her sister-in-law Diana had had the same issue, so Suzanne had gone by her mother's house to check on Peggy. After all, Peggy was 80 years old, she lived alone, so Suzanne checked on her a lot. That made total sense to Hatchard and Lawrence, but then Hatchard asked Suzanne why she had been so preoccupied with her fingerprints potentially being found on the knife.

And Suzanne's answer to this seemed even weirder than some of the stuff she'd said at the house. Suzanne leaned across the table and told them she watched a lot of TV shows and news programs about murder so she knew the cops would very likely be looking at Peggy's family members as suspects. And so she wanted to clear herself. Hatchard and Lawrence could tell Suzanne really believed saying this was actually going to help her, but they thought this made her look even more guilty. Here was a person who watched TV shows that demonstrated how law enforcement

tracked down killers. And then she had taken steps like tampering with a murder weapon that could throw investigators off her trail. The detectives ended up questioning Suzanne for several hours that afternoon and at the end of it, as far as the detectives were concerned, Suzanne had done nothing to clear herself of her mother's murder. During the interview, Suzanne seemed kind of erratic and she kept bringing up her inheritance. She said her mom was worth about $4 million and now that she was dead, Suzanne would get

half of it. By the end of the interview, several police officers who were watching the interview thought Hatchard and Lawrence had gotten enough damning statements from Suzanne to actually put her in custody. But the detectives knew that if they did that, word would very quickly spread all across the area that Suzanne had been arrested for murdering her mother. And once that rumor was out there, people would have a really hard time ever changing their minds about what they thought Suzanne had done, even if it was proven later on that

Suzanne was actually innocent. So Hatchard and Lawrence talked over their various options and ultimately they just didn't feel like they had enough evidence yet to justify holding Suzanne and potentially destroying her reputation. So they let her go. But as soon as Suzanne was out of the police station, Hatchard and Lawrence called a judge and they got a warrant to conduct full-time surveillance on Suzanne. Police would get stationed outside of Suzanne's home and her work, and they would watch her at those two locations and follow her anytime she left them.

In the following days, along with conducting their around-the-clock surveillance, investigators began digging into Suzanne's recent credit card history, and they found another huge red flag. On the night of January 24th, so just hours before Suzanne's mother would be killed, Suzanne had gone shopping at a grocery store that was close to Peggy's house. But based on her credit card records, this was not where Suzanne typically did her shopping. She went to a store that was much closer to her own home. But it was not just this grocery store's location that seemed kind of suspicious.

On the night in question, investigators learned that Suzanne purchased rubber gloves and cleaning supplies. Hattred and Lawrence felt like this was just one more thing that pointed towards Suzanne's guilt. After all, rubber gloves and cleaning supplies could explain why there were no fingerprints found at the crime scene. And so the detectives were confident they were on the right track, and they thought if Suzanne had killed her mother, she would slip up soon and they would be there to arrest

her. At 11am on January 29th, 2014, four days after Peggy's murder, Suzanne sat in a wooden pew in a funeral home next to her husband. Her eyes were bloodshot and her whole body felt like it was trembling. The pews around her were filled with Peggy's friends, family, and members of the Valley Cottage community who Peggy had gone out of her way to help. Even though police had not arrested Suzanne, word had already spread that she was a primary

suspect. And a couple of days earlier, when Suzanne had gone to her mother's house to pick out clothes for her mother to be buried in, a neighbor had stepped outside. And this woman, who had known Suzanne since she was just a little girl, began screaming, when are you going to arrest her? And so the rumors and the pressure were really starting to get to Suzanne, and it was making it hard to sleep at night. Towards the end of the service, Suzanne and others recited a prayer in Hebrew and then

Suzanne quickly made her way out of the funeral home. Once outside, Suzanne welcomed the fresh cold air. It was like she could breathe again. Inside she'd felt stifled because she felt like everybody was staring at her and talking about her. A minute later, Suzanne's younger brother Jim and his wife Diana came outside and walked over to her. They had flown in from Florida shortly after they learned about Peggy's death, and Suzanne

could not have been happier they were here. Suzanne said hello to her brother, who she always thought was kind of strange, and then she hugged Diana, who she was very close with, and they talked for a while about how much Peggy had meant to them. But as they stood there chatting, they had no idea the police were watching. Not long after Peggy's funeral, Detectives Hatchard and Lawrence met with Suzanne's brother, Jim, and his wife Diana at the police station. The detectives asked them basic questions, like where they had been on the night before the murder. Jim had been at his house in Florida, and Diana had been at a wedding most of the day.

Diana would say that she had called Peggy on the morning of the murder but didn't get an answer. And then she also said she'd spoken to Suzanne right before Suzanne had gone to Peggy's house and discovered Peggy's body. Hatchard and Lawrence would of course follow up on Jim and Diana's statements, but the detectives really wanted information on Suzanne. They wanted to know if Suzanne had spoken to Jim and Diana about the inheritance money that Suzanne seemed so eager to tell police about. But Diana said the idea that Suzanne had anything to do with this murder was ridiculous.

She said Suzanne loved her mom and she was closer to Peggy than basically anybody else in the world. And so Diana said the police really needed to stop wasting their time looking at Suzanne and bring the person who actually killed Peggy to justice. But when Jim and Diana left the police station after their interview, the detectives still totally believed Suzanne was their most likely suspect. Family members sticking up for each other was not anything new. But over the next few weeks, surveillance on Suzanne did not get Hatchard and Lawrence

any closer to having concrete evidence that she was in fact the killer. Still, Hatchard and Lawrence hoped that even if Suzanne's actions didn't lead them anywhere, that maybe her phone records soon would. Investigator Robin Arias sat at her desk staring at hundreds of numbers printed on a piece of paper. Most people's eyes would probably have glazed over staring at all those numbers for as long as Arias had, but she could feel her pulse racing as she scanned the sheet of paper over and over.

Arias was an investigator with the Westchester County District Attorney's Office and she was an expert at analyzing phone data. Arias had begun working with Detectives Hatchard and Lawrence on Peggy's murder case and currently she was studying calls that Suzanne made and she was also looking at Peggy's phone records. Arias confirmed that Suzanne called Peggy multiple times before calling 911 on the morning of the murder. Arius also confirmed that Diana had also called Peggy and had spoken to Suzanne on that same morning.

But now there was something on one of the sheets of paper, something from Peggy's phone records that really leapt out at Arius. She could see that someone had called Peggy at exactly 1 17 a.m. on the morning of the murder. And this was a big deal because that time was basically right before Peggy was killed. But there was something else that struck Arius as odd about this call. The call had come from a number that didn't show up anywhere else in Peggy's phone records. Arius was checking the records to make sure she was right, but she was convinced that

that late night call was made by someone that Peggy did not normally speak to. And so finally, after scanning the pages several more times, Arius was sure she was right about that phone number, that it was really unique. So she grabbed her own phone and she made a few calls. Detective Hatchard was at his desk going over notes from Peggy's murder case when Arius called him. And as soon as Hatchard answered, he could tell Arius had big news. She was known to be very calm, cool, and collected basically all the time, but immediately Hatchard could hear the excitement in Arius' voice.

Arius told Hatchard about the strange number that had popped up in Peggy's phone records just before her murder. But Arius said this was just the tip of the iceberg. She looked into that number and learned that it came from a phone that was not actually registered to anyone. It was something called a burner phone. A burner phone is typically a cheap cell phone that's purchased just for temporary use or to keep the user's identity anonymous.

Hatchard listened to Arias and he felt like she had just helped the investigation take a huge step forward. But then Arias gave him the most important piece of information of all. Arias had worked for hours and hours and pulled some strings and she had figured out where this burner phone had been purchased from and who had bought it. Hatchard thanked Arius profusely for all her help, then he hung up the phone and rushed over to Lawrence's desk to tell him what he'd just learned. It would take the detectives a while to follow up on all the information Arias had provided them, but once they had gone through all of it, they would figure out who killed Peggy.

Based on Robin Arias' phone data analysis, evidence found at the crime scene, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, here is a reconstruction of what police believe occurred in the early morning hours of January 25, 2014, when someone murdered Peggy Nadelle in the home she had lived in for 50 years. On that day, just after 1am, the killers, plural, drove through the town center of Valley Cottage. And there was something about the place that almost didn't seem real, like it was a movie set version of a perfect small town. The killers looked at each other but didn't speak.

They knew what they were about to do would leave this entire community in complete shock. A few minutes later, the driver pulled onto Peggy's street and then parked in front of Peggy's large gray house. A few porch lights were on at some of the nearby houses, but overall the neighborhood was totally quiet. In the car, the passenger reached into their pocket, took out a phone, and called Peggy's home phone number. This was the call that came through at 1.17am.

The passenger's voice was bright and cheery when Peggy picked up on the other line. The passenger said they were so sorry to call late, but they had been in the neighborhood and they really needed to come in and talk to Peggy face to face about something. Peggy seemed frazzled, but she said to give her a few minutes to pull herself together and she'd come downstairs and let them in. The passenger hung up and then handed the phone to the driver, who slipped it into their pocket. Then the passenger reached down into a bag that was on the floorboard and pulled out two pairs of gloves and handed one of the pairs to the driver. Both killers put the gloves into their coat pockets. Then the driver reached into the back seat and grabbed a small leather bag that had a strap on it and the driver slung

that bag over their shoulder. The killers then looked at each other and then stepped out of the car into the frigid winter air and began walking across the yard towards Peggy's front door. As soon as they reached the front door, Peggy opened it up with a big smile on her face. But before the killers could step inside, Peggy's alarm system went off and the phone in the kitchen began to ring. The killers waited while Peggy dealt with the alarm company and then they walked into the house and joined Peggy in the kitchen. The killers sat down at the table and Peggy brought them some water. They all sat and talked for a few minutes before Peggy said she had to go use the bathroom

and headed upstairs. While Peggy was upstairs, one of the killers, the passenger in the car, said it was time to act, and that the driver needed to be the one to actually do the job on their own. But the driver said no, they both needed to do it to make sure Peggy didn't fight back. But the passenger just barked back that come on Peggy's an old woman, it won't take two people and pretty soon the two killers were basically shouting at each other. But quickly they stopped because they did know they did need to act soon and ultimately they agreed they would do it together So the killer slipped on their gloves and the driver took the leather strap off of their bag And then the killers ran out of the kitchen through the living room and up the stairs

But when Peggy walked out of the bathroom and saw them, the killers just kind of froze there staring up at her awkwardly. Peggy smiled at them and didn't really know what to make of this, so she walked past them and just began walking down the stairs, and the killers followed her. But as they were going down the stairs, the killers knew that if they were going to do it, they needed to do it right now. So the driver just suddenly screamed and rushed Peggy from behind and wrapped that leather strap from the bag around Peggy's throat. Peggy and the driver stumbled down the stairs and hit the floor on the first floor, and the driver just kept pulling that leather strap tighter and tighter, strangling Peggy,

but Peggy was somehow managing to put up a pretty good fight. The driver began to yell in frustration that this woman won't die, so the passenger ran into the living room and grabbed two pieces of art, a small bust of a person and a gold metal ball. And the passenger ran back to the stairs with these objects in their hands. When the driver saw the passenger carrying these weapons, the driver let go of their stranglehold on Peggy and kind of backed away. And then the passenger kind of looked at the two objects in their hands and dropped the

lighter gold ball onto the floor, opting to use the bust instead. Then the passenger got down on their knees, held up the small statue, and began slamming it over and over again into the side of Peggy's head. Blood spilled from the wound and Peggy flopped over onto her back. Eventually the passenger dropped the statue on the floor and backed away. And as the killers stood there staring at their victim, they began to hear breathing still rattling from Peggy's chest. So without hesitation, the passenger ran to the kitchen, threw open a

drawer and grabbed a large kitchen knife. Seconds later, the passenger ran back to the base of the stairs, they got down on top of Peggy and just began stabbing her over and over and over again in the chest until Peggy stopped breathing, went limp, and died. The passenger just left the knife plunged into Peggy's chest, and then the passenger stood up and the two killers ran back to the kitchen where they grabbed their cleaning supplies and they wiped down their water glasses, and then they ran back over to the foot of the stairs and they cleaned off the statue that had been used to bludgeon Peggy. They also wiped down the knife handle and the gold metal ball.

Then the killers went upstairs to Peggy's room, and there they put a couple of dresser drawers out on the floor and took a few pieces of jewelry from a jewelry box in an attempt to make it look like Peggy's murder had just been the result of a robbery. Satisfied with their work, the killers walked downstairs, stepped over Peggy's body, went outside and got back into their car. The passenger then told the driver to dispose of that burner phone and also dispose of the leather strap they had used to strangle Peggy. The driver said they would, and then the pair drove off.

Several hours later, the passenger killer was heading to an airport in Washington D.C. when their phone rang. It was their sister-in-law calling. The passenger answered the phone and then told their sister-in-law calling. The passenger answered the phone and then told their sister-in-law that they too had called Peggy earlier that morning, but Peggy hadn't answered and they had no idea why. It would turn out Suzanne had nothing to do with her mother's murder. But Suzanne's sister-in-law, so Peggy's own daughter-in-law, Diana, did murder Peggy.

Suzanne's strange behavior following her mother's murder had most likely been a combination of grief and shock, and the fact that Suzanne had bought rubber gloves and cleaning supplies just hours before the murder was nothing more than a truly unfortunate coincidence. But it turned out that Suzanne was not the only person in the family who had spent time thinking about the millions of dollars in inheritance money that would come their way if Peggy died. Diana had thought about that money a lot, and she knew that her family would get 2 million dollars, so half of Peggy's wealth, when Peggy was dead.

But there was a catch. Diana had discovered that Peggy stipulated in her will that Diana would get nothing if she and Jim, so Peggy's son, got divorced. And Diana had badly wanted to divorce Jim. But when Diana had learned about Peggy's will and that stipulation, she realized she had to make sure Jim got a share of Peggy's money before she left Jim. Then once Jim had his millions, Diana could get her cut through a divorce settlement. So Diana had spent weeks putting together her plan to have Peggy murdered.

And then she had paid someone to come on as a partner to help her set everything up. The plan Diana conceived was purposefully convoluted because she thought that would throw police off of her scent. But the phone records and specifically her use of the burner phone had allowed investigators to totally unravel Diana's plan. Phone data analyst Robin Arias had discovered the use of the burner phone and had tracked its purchase to a shop in Florida just minutes away from where Diana lived. It turned out Diana had not been the one who actually physically bought the phone,

but using surveillance footage, investigators were able to track down the woman who had bought the phone. And when police questioned that woman, she said Diana had paid her money to buy the burner and hand it over. And so with the burner in her possession, Diana had told her family, and later had told police that she flew to Washington DC for a wedding. But in reality, Diana had flown to DC to meet a woman who had been recruited by Diana's partner to actually carry out the murder for $10,000. That woman met Diana at the airport in DC, and they both drove several hours to New York

to kill Peggy. Police believe Diana really wanted this woman to kill Peggy on her own while Diana just supervised, that way she wouldn't have to actually murder her mother-in-law, who she had been close with for years. But in the heat of the moment when the hired killer or the driver failed to strangle Peggy to death, Diana, who had been the passenger in the car, had acted on instinct and bludgeoned Peggy and then stabbed her to death. Diana believed that involving other people to set up and carry out this murder would

help distance herself from the crime and maybe keep her out of trouble. But as investigators put together all the puzzle pieces, everybody else involved in this crime pointed the finger directly at Diana. The woman who was hired to kill Peggy for money and who tried unsuccessfully to strangle Peggy to death, cut a plea deal and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. And while she was awaiting her murder trial in prison, Diana was recorded making phone calls trying to arrange the murders of two witnesses who could testify against her. Diana was found guilty of plotting to murder those witnesses and as a result was sentenced

to 15 years to life in prison. Then she was also found guilty of second-degree murder in Peggy's case and received an additional sentence of 23 years to life in prison. Peggy is buried outside of the small quaint town where she spent 50 years of her life. With all of the things that Peggy accomplished in her career and her education, there was still just one thing that mattered to her above everything else, her own family. And so Peggy's headstone is very simple. It just says, wife, mother, grandmother. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bolland Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be

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