MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Rumor Mill (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: February 23, 2026

On the morning of December 10, 1995, a detective walked into a house on a quiet street in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona. An officer led him down the hallway to the bedroom – and when he looked inside, he froze. He'd seen a lot of crime scenes before, but this was one of the worst. There was blood all over the walls, the floors, and the mattress. It looked like this should be the scene of a murder. But there was one problem: there was no body. 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.

On the morning of December 10, 1995, a seasoned homicide detective walked into a house on a quiet street in the suburbs of Tucson, Arizona. Another officer led him down the hallway to a bedroom. And when the detective looked inside, he froze. Now, he'd seen a lot of crime scenes before, but this one had to be one of the worst. I mean, there was blood everywhere. All over the walls, all over the floors, the mattress. I mean, it was just a complete nightmare. But as much as it appeared, like, clearly he's looking at the scene of a murder. There was a problem. There was no body. 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 place because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please hide mouse traps in all of the follow-button shoes. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the morning of December 8, 1995, a 41-year-old mother named Bonnie Sandborn set a box of cereal down on the dining room table inside of her home in Tucson, Arizona. She then called for her three kids to come eat breakfast,

and just a few seconds later, her youngest son, 10-year-old Brandon, came bombing into the room and sat down at the table. Bonnie then poured herself a cup of coffee and carried it down the hallway to her 13-year-old daughter Candice's room. Candice was busy putting on makeup, and when Bonnie reminded her that it was almost time to leave for school,

she just rolled her eyes and said, you know, she'd be out in a minute. Then Bonnie continued going down the hallway and knocked on the door of her 15-year-old son Bradley's room. And when he didn't open the door, she shouted through the door that if he didn't get out of bed soon, she would come in there and literally drag him out. But there was still no response after she did this, so Bonnie put her ear to the door and listened for movement. She was hoping to hear sheets rustling or dresser drawers opening, but she didn't hear those sounds.

Instead, she heard a different sound. It was like this weird clanking sound, like metal pounding against metal. And so because this noise was so unusual, she just opened up the door. she found her son, Bradley, along with his friend, 18-year-old Jason Horpechevsky, squatting in the middle of the room, trying to pry open this big metal box with a crowbar and a hammer. Bonnie stepped fully inside the room to get a better look, and she saw there was a phone receiver dangling off the side of this metal box. It was clearly a payphone that Bradley and Jason had clearly stolen from somewhere out on the street, and now they were trying to, you know, steal the quarters out from inside of it.

Bonnie was so shocked that all she could think to do was just say, what are you doing? And Bradley, he looked at his mom and just seemed totally unfazed that she was in there. And he just said, what? We're just trying to get the change out of this payphone. And then before she could react to that, Jason, so her son's friend, he looked over his shoulder at her also very nonchalantly and just began laughing in a way that made Bonnie wonder if he was high on something. At this point, Bonnie just stepped back into the hallway and just tried to think through. what she should even do here. I mean, this is so obvious that they're committing a crime in her house right now. Like, what in the world? But at the same time, you know, she'd been having problems with her son

Bradley for a long time now. You know, this was definitely not the first time she had caught her son, you know, doing something bad. Her son had been known to throw parties in their house that he definitely was not supposed to. He would pick fights with basically everybody in the house, all the family members. And on top of that, she also knew that periodically he would hang out with known gang members. Now, for a while, Bonnie had tried to be understanding and supportive because she remembered how hard it was to be a teenager herself. But her son's trouble really just kept escalating. And this, this payphone thing, was like a breaking point. She knew she could not let something like this slide.

I mean, it was literally criminal and so obviously so. You know, and if she didn't step in now, it was clear her son would just continue. continued to push the limits further and further until he got hurt or got somebody else hurt or, you know, wound up in jail or something. Like this was the moment she had to put her foot down. And so, without saying another word to her son or Jason, who were now back to banging on this metal box, she just turned and walked back into the kitchen where her other kids, Brandon and Candace, were now eating their breakfast and looking annoyed by all the chaos being

caused by their older brother. And she walked right past them, picked up the phone, and she called 911. And when the dispatcher picked up her call, Bonnie said she wanted to report a theft. And she gave the dispatcher her own address. And then after she hung up, she told Candace and Brandon to go get their backpacks and go outside so they didn't miss the bus. A few minutes later, Bonnie heard a knock on the front door. And she opened it up to find two sheriff's deputies standing on the doorstep. She actually recognized the deputies.

And she knew they also recognized her because this was not the first time they'd been called to the Sanborn House. They'd been there several times actually recently to deal with domestic issues largely caused by her son. But Bonnie knew, you know, Bradley, even though he was the obvious main problem, at least in terms of her current issues, she was already seeing that her 13-year-old child, Candice, had begun acting out a lot lately. And she was also worried what would happen when her 10-year-old, Brandon, became a teenager himself. Like would he begin, you know, following the footsteps of his brother and maybe his older sister as well? she didn't know, but she just couldn't understand why her kids just were misbehaving so much. Like, what did she do wrong? And so Bonnie showed the deputies to Bradley's room, where he and Jason

were still actively trying to pry open this payphone. And when Bradley looked up and saw the police, he looked furious. He screamed at his mother that he couldn't believe she'd call the cops on him. But Bonnie, you know, she did her best to push down the natural bit of guilt she was feeling, you know, because she didn't want to have to call the cops on her son. The deputies ultimately handcuffed both Bradley and Jason, and they walked them outside, and Bonnie trailed right behind them. And then as the police were putting the kids in the back of the squad car, Bonnie pulled one of the deputies aside and asked if he could make sure Bradley spent at least one night in the juvenile detention center.

She knew this was a very tough love sort of approach. I mean, basically demanding your kid stays effectively in jail overnight. But she was also hoping that in addition to being maybe scared straight here, he would also get counseling in the juvenile detention center and maybe begin to see the value of staying out of trouble. The deputy nodded and said he'd see what he could do. As the squad car drove away, Bonnie saw movement in a window of the house across the street.

She squinted and saw that one of her neighbors was peering out the curtains to get a look at all the commotion. And then further down the street, a couple out for a morning jog had slowed down and was just staring at the squad car as they passed by. And now for Bonnie, I mean, she wasn't that. surprised. I mean, she'd be looking out the window, too, if police showed up on her street. But at the same time, it still made her very embarrassed. I mean, she knew people in this neighborhood were already

very aware of her family's problems. And it just, it was a lot to bear. And frankly, making it even worse was the fact that, generally speaking, Bonnie's neighbors were nice to her in person when they were face to face with her. People even, like, went out of their way to help her, you know? But she knew, behind her back, people in this neighborhood gossiped, constantly about her family. Now, for Bonnie, this was obviously humiliating and also very frustrating because how could she possibly stop gossip? I mean, she couldn't. But more than just disliking the fact that there were all these people talking about her, she also just felt very isolated right now. She was married, but her husband, Robert, had gotten a job in Maryland, and he only came home

every other weekend. Bonnie had actually tried to sell the house in Tucson and moved the whole family to Maryland, but she'd eventually decided it just wasn't really worth. the trouble. Plus, Robert had already talked to a supervisor about potentially transferring back to Tucson, and he was supposed to be coming back for good just next week. And so at this point, Bonnie was just trying to survive here. You know, she still felt very isolated, but she knew, you know, Robert, he'd be back soon, and she wouldn't be alone anymore, and she would get to deal with the kids, with the nosy neighbors, with the police, with her partner. It just felt like that would be a whole lot better. About 16 hours later, around 11.45 p.m. that night, Bonnie brushed her teeth and put on her PJs.

The house was quiet for once, except for the TV humming in the living room. She'd gotten a call from the juvenile detention center that afternoon, and Bradley was being held there on theft charges, which Bonnie thought was for the best. But his friend Jason was 18 years old, so he was not held. Instead, he was just given a ticket and released the same day. And Bonnie knew that as soon as Bradley was out again, he and Jason would reconnect right away and just fall right back into their same old antics. Before she went to bed, Bonnie went to the living room where her other two kids, Candace and Brandon, were on the couch watching TV. And she told them it was time for bed, time to turn out the TV and go to your rooms, but they just ignored her and just continued to watch

TV. It was a Friday night and the two kids didn't have anywhere to be in the morning. And Bonnie had just done enough fighting for the day. So she just decided, you know what, let them stay up. They can go to bed when they want to. And so she told them. the kids to, you know, don't stay up too late and go to bed soon. Then she left, you know, leaving them on the couch. She went to her own bedroom and she turned out her lights. A few hours later, Bonnie woke up and looked over at the clock and saw it was near 3 a.m. And she also could still hear the TV on out in the living room. And so Bonnie cracked open her door and yelled down the hallway to the kids to turn off the TV and go to bed. And then as Bonnie got back in her

bed, she heard the sound of the TV turning off, and she heard footsteps walking down the hallway, and then the house was quiet, and she drifted back to sleep. But sometime before dawn, when it was still dark out, she woke up again. And when she rolled over in her bed, she opened her eyes, and she saw there was a large figure standing over her bed. Later that same morning, around 10.45 a.m., 10-year-old Brandon woke up to a.m. Normally, his mother would have already been awake, making breakfast or getting started on chores. But when he went out in the hallway, he didn't hear her. He went into the kitchen and he checked to see if she was there, but she wasn't. And there were no dirty pans or plates in the sink and no coffee in the pot. It

looked like his mom hadn't even woke up yet, which was weird for a Saturday morning. So he went to ask his older sister, Candice, if she knew where their mom was. But Candice said she hadn't seen her. So Brandon and Candice both went down the hallway to their mother's bedroom. They knocked on the door and when she didn't answer, Brandon pushed the door open and looked inside. And what he saw made him gasp in horror. The bedroom was covered in blood. But the bedroom was also empty. His mom wasn't in there.

Later that same morning, Detective Brad Faust pulled up outside of a house in the suburbs of Tucson. He was there to investigate a mother's apparent kidnapping from her own home. Faust was actually feeling a bit frustrated to be called out to yet another. case like this when he was already juggling so many others. 1995 had proven to be the deadliest year in Tucson's history. There had already been nearly a hundred murders just that year, and the Pima County Sheriff's Office was swamped. But as far as anyone knew at this point, this was not a murder, it was a kidnapping.

All Faust had been told was that Bonnie Sandborn was missing, and her kids had called 911 after seeing that and also seeing all the blood in her bedroom. So Faust was holding out hope here that this was. was actually nothing that serious, and that they would find Bonnie relatively quickly, and she'd be okay. He got out of his car, and he saw that officers had already taped off the house. There was a young boy and girls sitting out on the front curb, looking terrified and visibly distraught, and Faust also noticed that there was blood on both of their shirts. And so he figured that they must be Bonnie's kids, the ones who had made the 911 call, and he made a mental note that

he would need to talk to them later. Then he walked through the front yard and went into the house. and right away a crime scene photographer greeted him and then led him down the hallway. As he walked, Faust caught a glimpse of a family photo on the wall, which showed Bonnie and her husband and their three kids, all smiling and looking like the perfect all-American family. Before opening the door to Bonnie's bedroom, the photographer paused and warned the detective that there really was a lot of blood in here. Faust nodded, and then the photographer opened the door,

and Faust immediately saw what he was talking about. I mean, there was blood spattered all over the walls, the floor, the windows and the mattress. He felt his heart sink as he realized that with this much blood loss, they probably would not be finding their victim alive here. But he knew it was going to be very hard to figure out what had happened here or who was responsible until they found her, dead or alive. And so Faust stepped into the room closer to the bed where a forensic technician was swabbing

for fingerprints. The mattress was completely soaked in blood. And on one of the pillows, he could clearly see a bloody handprint. He figured it either belonged to Bonnie or her kidnapper, but they'd have to wait for test results to be sure. Faust stepped back and he noticed that the sheets had been partially pulled off the bed and were sort of balled up on the middle of the mattress. And to him, it seemed like, you know, given how much blood is in here and the fact that obviously Bonnie is not here, that clearly some sort of long and violent struggle took place in this room. And it seemed to him like the struggle must have originated on the bed and maybe even the bulk of the struggle was happening.

happening on the bed. I mean, it's soaked in blood and the sheets are all messed up. And he's thinking, you know, very likely then Bonnie was in bed when the attack began. Faust also noticed there was a folding knife with a red handle on the mattress. And there was also a purse that had been poured out. There were multiple credit cards and a checkbook that were just sitting on the bed. And the fact that these items were not stolen made Faust think that robbery probably was not part of the motive for whatever happened to Bonnie. But then, something on the floor by the bed caught Faust's eye. After double checking that the room had already been photographed, Faust put on a pair of gloves and then crouched down and he picked it up. And what it was was a small brown

button. He carried it over to the closet and dug through Bonnie's clothes that were in there and the button didn't seem to match anything that she owned. And so based on where it was found in the room, Faust thought, you know, this button must have come off of somebody's clothes in the middle of this attack. It obviously could belong to Bonnie. It could have come off of what she was wearing and maybe is still wearing. Or this button could have come off of the attacker's clothes. And so Faust gave the button to a forensics officer and told him to bag it up. Then he kept looking around. And in the midst of all the blood that had been sprayed all over the room, he noticed there was a clear trail of red droplets that snaked across the carpet. The trail led to a sliding glass door

that led into the backyard, and when he tried to open it, he realized it was already unlocked. The forensics officer told him that nobody had touched that door all morning, so it must have been unlocked before anybody arrived. Fowse slid the door open and stepped out into the backyard, and he followed the trail of blood across the grass all the way to a door that led into the garage. He noticed there were no drag marks in the grass, so Bonnie's attacker must have been carrying her, which sort of naturally suggested that whoever did this, like, was bigger and stronger than Bonnie. But also, judging from the photos he'd seen on the walls, Bonnie was very petite, so really that didn't narrow it down very much. A lot of people could

potentially lift Bonnie and carry her. Faust reached the door that led into the garage, and he turned the knob, and it was unlocked, he opened it up, and when he looked inside, there wasn't a car in there. But the trail of blood clearly went into the garage at least a few feet before it disappeared, so it seemed like the suspect had literally carried Bonnie in here, loaded her into the car that likely was in here and now was not, and they drove it away, carrying Bonnie with them. And so Faust knew his best shot at finding Bonnie was to, one, identify the car that would normally be in this garage, and then once you have the identity of the car, to go find it. Once Faust had done his initial sweep of the house, he went outside

and he crouched down next to Bonnie's two younger kids, Candace and Brandon. And both kids were still very shaken up and totally confused. And so Faust, very gently, asked them about the last time they had seen their mother. And Candace said it was around maybe 1145 the night before when their mom had gone to bed. But she also added that maybe around 3 a.m., she and her brother Brandon were still up watching TV in the living room, and their mom had shouted from her bedroom for them to turn off the TV and go to bed. She said that when their mom did that, they did get up, they turned off the TV, and they went to their own bedrooms and went to sleep. And both kids said they didn't hear or see anything until they woke up later that morning and found what they found in their mother's bedroom.

And so this gave Fowse something to work with because it meant if what the kids were saying was true that Bonnie must have disappeared sometime after 3 a.m. Because that's when she yelled to her kids at 3. Plus, if the suspect came in through that backsliding door that went right into Bonnie. Bonnie's room, and they were able to do so without waking up the kids. And then after the attack, being able to find very likely Bonnie's car keys, because that's the assumption, they found her keys, and then loaded Bonnie into the car and drove off, again, without waking anybody in the house, it suggested that whoever did this, they likely were relatively familiar with the layout of the house and had probably been there before. So maybe this is somebody that they all knew.

Fouse pointed to the blood that was on Candace and Brandon shirts, and he asked them where it came from. And Candice would admit that before she called 911, she and her brother had desperately gone looking for their mom in the room, in this horrible bloody bedroom. But they couldn't find her, and in their efforts to find her, they had gotten blood on themselves. Now, of course, Faust understood that these kids had been through this horribly traumatic thing and they were just looking for their mom. but he also now knew that very likely their crime scene was contaminated now because the kids went in there and touched a bunch of stuff. But of course he did not tell the kids that he was in any way annoyed with them or that they had done anything wrong.

Instead, he just told the kids to go inside and change their clothes and then give the clothes that had blood on them to the forensics text because they needed to collect them as evidence. And he also told the kids to not go anywhere near their mother's bedroom. Candice nodded and stood up and grabbed her little brother by the hand and as they walked back towards the house, his sheriff's deputy came up to Faust and told the detective that he should also make sure to talk to Bonnie's oldest child.

She had a 15-year-old son whose name was Bradley. That evening, Detective Fouse paced down the hallway of the Pima County Juvenile Court Center, holding a file folder in his hand. When he opened the door to a small office, a teenage boy was already there waiting, and Faust recognized him from the mugshot in the folder he had as Bradley Sandborn.

on his oldest child. Faust walked in, and as gently as he could, he told Bradley that his mother was missing. And based on the blood and the knife they'd found in her bedroom, she'd likely been viciously attacked, kidnapped, and she could even be dead. So Faust knew that Bradley could not have attacked his mother, because he'd been here in the juvenile detention center the whole time the attack took place. But Faust had done some digging on Bradley's friends. He slapped the file folder he was carrying down onto the desk in front of Bradley and began flipping through it, showing Bradley the information he'd found about in particular his friend Jason Horbachevsky. Jason was a known gang member, and according to several informants, he was known for carrying a knife

around, and sometimes apparently he would pull that knife out and stab himself in the side of the head. And so Faust wondered out loud if the knife they'd found in Bonnie's bedroom was Bradley's friend Jason's, and maybe the attack on her, was retribution for his mother calling the cops on Jason and Bradley that morning. But when Faust looked at Bradley for his reaction, he saw there were all these tears rolling down his cheeks, and Bradley choked out that he really didn't know anything. And as much as he argued with his mom, he would never hurt her. To Faust, Bradley's reaction actually seemed really genuine. And so he immediately figured that if the gang Jason was a part of, you know, was responsible for whatever happened to Bonnie,

Bradley appeared out of the loop. And so to get a better read on this situation, Faust felt like trying to ask Bradley questions was not going to go very far. Instead, he would just go to Jason and talk to him. Later that same night, Faust sat in the station with a cup of coffee, combing through records on Bradley and also on Jason and Jason's gang.

After speaking to Bradley earlier, Faust had immediately tried to locate and interview Jason, which proved to be much more difficult than he'd anticipated. He knew Jason was not in police custody since he'd been released pretty much immediately after the payphone debacle. But Jason also was not at any addresses that he'd been associated with in the past. So it was hard to tell where he even was. So a few hours ago, Faust had sent out officers to speak to as many members of Jason's gang as possible to see if they knew where he was. And also to see if they knew anything about Bonnie.

Now, so far, they had not located Jason and nobody had brought anything up about Bonnie. But just then, Fowse office door opened, and a deputy told him there was someone he really ought to speak to that was out in the lobby. And so Fowse got up, he went in the lobby, and who was waiting for him, but none other than Jason. When Foust walked out there, Jason stood up from his chair, acting cocky and confident, and told Fous that he'd heard the sheriff's department was looking for him. And he was there to prove he had nothing to hide. And Faust, he didn't even bother asking where Jason had been. Instead, he just led him into an interrogation room, and when he sat down across from his newest suspect, he noticed the buttons on Jason's shirt.

They were small and brown, just like the button that was found on Bonnie's bedroom floor. And also, a few of the buttons on his shirt appeared to be missing. Now, Faust controlled his excitement and didn't show it and decided pretty much right away that he was not going to ask about the button, at least not at first. He didn't want to overplay his hand. Instead, he started the interview by asking Jason some standard questions about his relationship with Bradley and also by extension his relationship with Bonnie, Bradley's mom, and also where Jason was at the time of the attack. And Jason would admit that he was mad about Bonnie calling the police on him and Bradley.

But he didn't have some big plan to get revenge. He insisted that he didn't know where Bonnie was or what had happened to her and he'd been at home asleep on the night she was attacked. And at the end of the interview, he agreed to give Faust a DNA sample, and he even turned over his shirt with the missing brown buttons for forensic analysis. And so after that, Faust released Jason and decided it was time to call it a day. The next morning, Sunday, December 10th, so a day after Bonnie went missing, Faust sat in his office and sorted through all the information his team had collected the day before. While Faust had interviewed Bradley and Jason, other members of his team had spoken to Bonnie's friends, family, and neighbors. But so far, it looked like nobody knew anything that was helpful. A few neighbors had mentioned that the Sanborns had family problems,

but apart from that, they all said Bonnie seemed nice, and they had no idea who would want to hurt her. Faust continued reading, looking for some kind of clue in all the interviews, when his office phone rang. He picked it up, and the man on the line sounded terrified. And he said he had a tip in the Bonnie Sanborn case. The man explained that earlier that morning, he'd seen a news report about Bonnie's disappearance

and how the detectives were looking for her car, which the police had learned was a light blue Chrysler. And he said that just the day before, he and his wife had actually passed a car just like that on their morning run. It was abandoned on the side of the road in the desert, just outside of town. He said, at the time, he and his wife had not gotten too close to the car, and they really hadn't thought much of it until they had seen this news report. And so after seeing the report just a few minutes ago,

he and his wife had gone back to the desert to see if the car was still. there. And he said not only was the car still there, but when they walked up close, they could see in the back seat what appeared to be a woman's body. Faust immediately wrote down the car's location, and when he looked at a map, he realized it was only about a half mile away from Bonnie's house. He thanked the man, hung up the phone, and then he got in his car, and he raced out toward the desert. And when he got past the edge of town into the open desert, he saw right up ahead a light blue Chrysler parked in the sand. He stopped his car on the shore. He stopped his car on the shoulder near the car, he got out, and he approached the Chrysler, and he peered through the window,

and almost immediately, he did see a woman's body. It was Bonnie's body, and she was slumped over in the backseat, just as the man had said. Bonnie's arms were bound behind her back, and there was a sock stuffed in her mouth, and the lower half of her body was naked. And for Faust, you know, in seeing this, he wasn't surprised, but at the same time, he had held out hope that maybe Bonnie was alive. You know, just seeing her dead in such a horrible way in the back of this car was just, it was heartbreaking. And so Faust went back to his car, he radioed the station, and he waited until a forensics team arrived. And then at that point, he went back over to the Chrysler, and he began to examine the body. Fowles put on gloves, and he leaned into the car, and he lifted up Bonnie's

head. And he found there were wounds all over her skull, as if she'd been repeatedly struck in the head with something very sharp. And her partial nudity made it seem like that. that she was also sexually assaulted. There were also clear defensive wounds on her hands and forearms, which suggested she had fought back hard against her killer. One of the forensics officers pulled out a black light and began running it across the back seat of the car to check for potential DNA evidence.

And Faust watched as the forensics officer ran the light over Bonnie's leg and it lit up a spot. And the officer told Faust that almost definitely that spot was the killer's seaman. And so he swabbed the area and put the swab into an evidence bag and told Faust that in a matter of maybe a few weeks, they should get the DNA profile back from the lab, and maybe they'd know who their killer was. In the meantime, the fingerprints found in Bonnie's bedroom were analyzed,

and they'd come back with a match that really surprised Detective Faust. All the fingerprints and that bloody handprint on the pillow belonged to Bonnie's 13-year-old daughter, Candice. And even though Faust really did not want to consider that a 13-year-old girl had in some way helped with a plot to kill her own mother, He now had to consider it, not only because of the handprint and fingerprints, but also because there was a long record of family problems inside of the Sanborn House.

Now, obviously, Candace could not have committed this crime on her own, but she certainly could have helped whoever did. So Faust confronted Candace, and when he did, she just broke down sobbing. She said she had just been really scared and confused and was just looking in the bedroom for her mom and just didn't realize what she was doing by getting her prince everywhere. And looking at this scared teenager, Faust knew that Candace really didn't make sense as a potential suspect here. But he still felt like Bonnie's killer had to be somebody who knew Bonnie personally than had been in her house before. And there was one person who still had not been ruled out, Bonnie's husband,

Robert. Later that day, Faust was sitting at his desk with the phone pressed to his ear. He was on hold and had been for some time, and as he tried to tune out the awful music that was playing on the line, he looked down at the handwritten list of airline names and flight numbers that were on his desk. Bonnie's husband, Robert, had been working in Maryland for the past couple of months, and he had not been scheduled to come back home to Tucson on the weekend his wife was killed. But just because he claimed that, that he had been in Maryland that whole weekend, didn't mean he actually was. There were multiple flights from Maryland back to Tucson that, in theory,

he could have secretly taken to come home, kill his wife, and then go back to work in time for his next shift. So Faust had compiled a list of every single flight Robert could have theoretically taken, and one by one he was calling the airlines to check the passenger manifests. And so far there hadn't been a Robert Sanborn on any of the flights he had checked. And now he'd made it to the very last flight on that list. And just then, the on hold music suddenly cut out, and the woman on the line told Faust that she had triple checked, and there was no Robert Sanborn on that flight either, the one from Maryland to Tucson.

Anything actor, hung up, and sighed. Now, keep in mind, this took place before the events that happened on 9-11. Since 9-11, air travel has been much more rigidly controlled, especially in the United States. I mean, security is so, so much higher. But pre-9-11, that really wasn't the case. I mean, people didn't even necessarily have to show their ID to get on a domestic flight. And so Faust knew right now, even though he's being told that Robert's name didn't show up on the manifest of any of these flights, it didn't really rule him out because he could have theoretically been traveling under a fake name.

But there was a next step that would show if Robert had something to do with this, and that would be to ask Robert for a DNA sample and hope that when the evidence came back from the lab, it would be conclusive enough to give a clear answer. One morning in early January of 1996, so about a month after Bonnie was murdered, Faust answered his office phone and he heard a tech from the crime lab on the other end. In the past few weeks, there had been five more murders in the Tucson area that Faust and his team were now dealing with. So when the lab tech said he had results in the Bonnie Sanborn case, it actually took Faust a few seconds to remember which murder that was for. But once he remembered, he quickly sat down at his desk and he grabbed a pen to take notes. and he held his breath as the lab tech told him that they had tested the sample found on Bonnie's leg,

and it was not a match for her husband Robert, nor was it a match for her son's friend, Jason Horbachevsky. Those brown buttons on Jason's shirt also didn't come back as matching the button that was found in Bonnie's bedroom. So it really was just a coincidence that they looked alike to the naked eye. Faust was disappointed, but he knew this was going to be a possibility, and he had a backup plan. He asked the lab tech to run the DNA sample against the DNA of every sex offender on the state registry to see if there was a match there.

But as the crime lab slowly began doing that, they kept calling Faust to update him that they had not found a match yet. And eventually, the search for a DNA match ultimately just stalled, and Faust was pulled on to other cases. And so by that summer, it was looking like Bonnie's murder case might go cold. Then, after nine months without any progress, an anonymous tip came in. That summer, in September of 1996, Detective Faust sat inside of an interrogation room at the Sheriff's Department across from a 40-year-old drug dealer named Lyle Winstead. The anonymous tipster had said that Lyle had sold drugs to several people in Bonnie's neighborhood, and he'd said some things about the case that the tipster thought were very

concerning. And when Faust had dug through Lyle's records, he'd found that Lyle had a history of violent crimes involving knives. Sitting inside the interrogation room, Lyle seemed obviously nervous and very jumpy. And when Faust started asking him questions about Bonnie's murder, Lyle made excuses for the killer, saying that maybe the killer wasn't such a bad guy. Maybe he was just, quote, on a bad trip. Now, Faust thought this was incredibly suspicious to be talking that way. So he asked Lyle for a DNA sample. And he got one and he sent it off to the crime lab. And Faust had to wait several weeks for the results. And when they finally came in, Lyle Winstead was not a match. And at that point, Faust was feeling really frustrated. I mean, they'd already put in so much work with really

nothing to show for it. And he didn't want the momentum on the case to die again. So before he put Bonnie's file back on the shelf, he decided to go back to square one and make sure there wasn't anything he just plain missed. The next month, between all the other cases he was working on, Faust found time to go literally door to door through Bonnie's neighborhood and re-interview everybody his team had already spoken to almost a year ago. Faust knew how gossip spread in quiet communities like this one, and even though nobody had been able to offer any leads the first time around, he wondered if maybe anything unusual might have surfaced since then.

So he knocked on one door after another, and eventually, At a house down the street, a woman told him that she didn't know anything personally, but there was a rumor circulating around the neighborhood that he might want to look into. So Faust did. And after so many frustrating dead ends to this point, it was ultimately this rumor that did allow him to solve the case. Based on that rumor and also DNA and other evidence that was later uncovered, this is what police believe happened to Bonnie Sandborn on December 9, 1995. Around 2.30 in the morning, Bonnie's killer watched her house from a hiding spot where nobody could see them.

The killer knew the sandborns had been trying to move to Maryland, but the killer felt like before they did go to Maryland if they did that, there was something the killer had to do. Around 3 a.m. as the killer was watching the house, they saw the light in Bonnie's living room finally go dark. And then the killer saw some movement behind the curtains in one of the bedroom windows. and then that lamp went out, leaving the entire house completely dark. The killer had intentionally waited for this moment. They wanted to make sure that not just Bonnie but her children were asleep by the time they went inside. And so now that the lights were off and that it seemed like the coast was clear, the killer grabbed their flex ties and also their chipping hammer,

and then began making their way towards the home. A chipping hammer is a very particular type of hammer that has a sort of typical one side that you would use to strike something, but the back of that hammer is sharp, almost like a pickax. And so with this barbaric tool they were about to use in hand, they slowly crept their way across Bonnie's backyard,

right up to the sliding glass door at the back of the house. And they found it was unlocked, just like they thought it would be. After all, they'd been to this house before, they sort of understood this one typically stayed unlocked, and they also knew what was on the other side of this door. It was Bonnie's bedroom.

After sliding open the door, the killer stepped in, and they found Bonnie, asleep under the covers in her bed. And so thinking here was their chance, the killer began moving towards the bed. But as they stepped closer, a floorboard creaked, and Bonnie stirred awake. And she rolled over and looked in the direction of the creaking sound and made eye contact with the killer. And the killer knew they had to strike. So they grabbed a sock on the ground, jumped on top of Bonnie, and before she could see, scream, they jammed the sock into her mouth, they held her head, and then with that chipping hammer, they began striking her head over and over again, spraying blood all over the walls.

Once Bonnie stopped struggling, but before she stopped breathing, the killer used those flex ties to bind her hands behind her back. Then, as she was laying there, unable to defend herself, they searched around for her purse, and when they found it, they dumped it out on the bed, and after they had emptied it, they found her car keys. And so they grabbed her. the keys and then the killer picked up Bonnie still very much alive and they carried her out that sliding door into the backyard and then out into the garage. There they used her car keys to unlock Bonnie's car, the blue Chrysler, and they put Bonnie in the back seat. Then they hopped in the driver's seat and they drove the car out into the desert where they parked on the side of the road,

then they climbed into the back seat where Bonnie was still very much alive but mortally wounded and bound and couldn't go anywhere, and they sexually assaulted her literally as she died. When the killer was done with Bonnie, they simply got out of the car and left it where it was and walked back into town. And as the sun began to rise, the killer wandered right back down Bonnie Street in the direction of the Sanborn House. It would turn out, Detective Faust had been so focused on finding the killer amongst Bonnie's immediate family and friends that he really hadn't even considered somebody else who was literally physically closest to the Sanborns, her across-the-street neighbor, 22-year-old Freddie Royval. Now, Freddie was not actually, you know, emotionally close with

the Sanborns, but he and his dad had in the past gone out of their way to help Bonnie, you know, by doing some repair work at her house. But what Faust had learned when he had gone back and re-interviewed all the people on the street to see if he had missed something, one of the other, you know, neighbors who was not remotely involved in what happened to Bonnie, told Faust that there was actually a rumor that Freddie had found Bonnie attractive. And there was also another rumor floating around that Faust learned that previously a woman had been assaulted by a younger man in this neighborhood and that maybe it was Freddie. Now, it's unknown if Freddie actually was the subject of that second rumor, but it was enough for Faust and the police to go collect DNA samples from every

young man on the block, and wouldn't you know it, Freddy's DNA came back as a match. Freddie Royvall was arrested in January of 1997, a little over a year after Bonnie's murder. He was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballin podcast, Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories, is hosted

and executive produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen, produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Kate Gallagher. Research and fact-checking by Shelley Shoe, Samantha Van Hoose, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen Ear. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacassio and Cole Lacassio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham. Production coordination by Samantha Collins.

Production support by Antonio Manata. and Delana Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner. Theme song called 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.