MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - The Scheme
Episode Date: August 14, 2025Some people will lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead, but today’s podcast features two wild stories where those so-called “master plans” fall apart in the most unexpected ways. The audio... from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel, which is just called "MrBallen," and has been remastered for today's podcast.Story names, previews & links to original YouTube videos:#2 -- "Sign Here" -- A routine trip to the bank has a sinister backstory (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNbRksDBLHw)#1 -- "A Carefully Laid Plan" -- An undercover cop witnesses something in a fast food restaurant that cracks his case wide open (Original YouTube link -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbGz9Ayf9Hs)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.
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Some people will lie, cheat, and steal to get ahead.
But today's podcast features two wild stories where those so-called master plans fall apart in the most unexpected ways.
The audio from both of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.
The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.
The first story you'll hear is called Sign Here,
and it's about a seemingly routine trip to the bank
that quickly becomes very disturbing.
And the second and final story you'll hear
is called a carefully laid plan,
and it's about an undercover cop
who witnesses something in a fast food restaurant
that cracks his case wide open.
But before we get into those stories,
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, on the next very hot day,
take the Amazon Music Follow button out to a public park and as soon as they need to use the
bathroom, point them in the direction of a port-a-john. And then when they go inside of it,
immediately wrap it up in Saran Wrap and push it over. Okay, let's get into our first story
called Sign Here.
On April 16th,
On April 16th,
a woman named Erica Nunes, and her 68-year-old uncle named Paulo Braga
arrived at a bank in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro in a cab.
Erica got out of the backseat first and then asked the driver to wait
so she could go inside the bank to get a wheelchair for her uncle
because recently he had been sick with pneumonia in the hospital.
She found one in the lobby and then wheeled it back outside.
When she got back to the cab,
the driver helped her lift her uncle Paulo into the wheelchair
and then afterward Erica thanked the driver
and then she wheeled her uncle up to the bank
and as she got near the door, a bank attendant came out and opened up
the door for them to go inside. Erica smiled at the attendant. Her uncle had been living with her
for the past eight months, and so Erica was pretty accustomed to some level of caretaking,
but it had gotten a lot harder recently with her uncle being in the hospital with pneumonia,
and so Erica was just exhausted. And so little gestures like this were very appreciated.
But despite her exhaustion, today was a really good day for Erica. Because her uncle was so
appreciative for all the help that he had actually offered to go to this bank with her today,
and take out a loan for her in his name so she could do some much-needed repairs around her house.
So Erica and her uncle made their way through the bank towards the front desk
and then told the attendant that they needed to see a loan officer.
She explained that they had already called ahead and her uncle had been approved for a loan,
he was just here now to sign the paperwork.
The attendant nodded and then typed a few things on their computer
and then came out from behind the desk and led Erica and her uncle to a desk in back
to wait for the loan officer.
A minute later, when Erica saw the loan officer approaching the desk, she stood up and smiled
and was about to say hello, but the loan officer did not smile back.
Instead, she just glared at Erica and her uncle in a way that made Erica feel very uncomfortable.
And then, instead of shaking their hands, the lone officer just turned around and walked
away.
Erica looked around in confusion and then sort of sat down awkwardly, feeling worried and also
a little annoyed. She turned and watched as this loan officer continued walking away and then stopped
next to some employee, she bent down and whispered something in the employee's ear, and Erica watched as
this employee's eyes went wide as she heard whatever the loan officer said, and then this loan officer
and that employee, they got up and they vanished into a back room of the bank. So now, Erica was
feeling really weird about all of this. She turned to her uncle and she saw he couldn't even meet her
eyes. So she reached out and just began massaging his neck and shoulders. A little while later,
the loan officer would come back to the desk, and this time she was carrying this huge stack of
papers, and she placed it on the desk in front of Erica's uncle. But instead of sitting down and
going over this huge amount of paperwork with them, the loan officer just stood there staring at
Erica, and Erica stared right back. And for about 30 seconds, there was just tense silence,
and then eventually the loan officer pulled out her phone and very obviously started filming.
And so now, Erica went from feeling just uncomfortable to feeling sort of afraid.
I mean, this was definitely not normal bank behavior, even for a seemingly very rude employee.
But Erica decided to kind of ignore the weirdness and just get her uncle started on the paperwork.
But after a few minutes, Erica began to hear the sound of emergency sirens outside the bank.
And when she looked up, she saw all these police and first responders running towards her.
The video that that loan officer shot that day of Erica and her uncle went viral in Brazil.
In this video, Erica is seen smiling and attempting to help her uncle sign this paperwork,
and she's obviously holding up her uncle's head.
But her uncle is not weak from illness.
Her uncle is dead.
In fact, he had died hours before Erica had brought him to the bank.
Now, Erica later claimed that she had no idea her uncle was dead.
However, it was very obvious to everyone around her,
which is why all the bank employees were acting so strange.
Erica was arrested and held for 16 days before being released on bail.
She faces charges of abusing a corpse and attempted theft through fraud.
Her case has not yet been adjudicated.
The next and final story of today's episode is called A Carefully Laid Plan.
On the evening of June 17, 2004, a 21-year-old woman named Molly Daniels pulled into the driveway of her little home that she shared with her husband and two kids in suburban Texas.
It had been a long day for Molly at the home remodeling business where she was.
worked as a receptionist and so now that she was home the last thing she wanted to do was go inside
and make dinner for her family and so after turning off her car mollie just sat there in the driveway
for a couple of minutes just zoned out looking out the window but eventually she kind of snapped out of it
she gathered up her things she got out of the car and she made her way up to the front door and as soon as
she stepped into her home that bad mood she was feeling from work was wiped away and replaced with happiness
because the first thing she heard the second she was in her home
was the sound of her four-year-old son, Caleb, hysterically laughing.
And so Molly walked into the back room and she found her son,
along with her husband, Clay, rolling around on the ground, tickling each other.
And next to them was their one-year-old daughter sitting on the rug,
laughing as well and clapping and watching along.
And so as soon as Molly walked into the room,
Clay, who was underneath Caleb, stopped for a second and grinned up at Molly.
Molly smiled back,
Clay and Caleb went back to wrestling, and the one-year-old continued to laugh and play along.
And so Molly suddenly felt so content with her life.
It was so incredible to have a family of her own.
And so, with a big smile on her face now, she headed off into the kitchen to make dinner.
Life had been tough financially for the Daniels family recently.
The city where they lived, called Leander, was located just north of Austin, Texas, and it was getting more and more expensive every single year.
Clay, who was two years older than Molly, he was 23, he was a mechanic, but he had been out of work for months, and so he had just been staying home with the kids.
As for Molly, she had her job as a receptionist, but it paid very little, and so ultimately the family was just barely scraping by.
But despite the financial hardship they were under, Molly was so thankful that she had a husband in Clay that was so good with their kids, especially Caleb, the four-year-old son.
because Caleb was actually Molly's son from a previous relationship,
and she was worried that maybe Clay wouldn't necessarily treat him like his own,
but Clay had totally stepped up to the plate and become Caleb's father,
and Caleb definitely viewed Clay as his dad.
And so that relationship was as close as if they were biologically related.
And so Molly just felt so grateful for that.
That evening, the family sat down and had dinner together,
and then afterwards, Molly and Clay got the kids off to bed,
And then Molly and Clay stayed up and watched TV together.
But after a while, Molly said she was tired and she was going to go to bed.
Clay said he'd be staying up for a bit longer.
And so the couple kissed said good night.
And Molly made her way upstairs.
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At around 10.45 p.m. that night, so about 15 minutes after Molly went upstairs,
she was laying in bed drifting off to sleep, when she heard the sound of their front door open
and then shut, and then she heard the sound of their car being turned on and leaving the driveway.
Now, this was not a big deal for Molly, because earlier that night, Clay had been a good deal.
mentioned kind of offhandedly that he wanted to go see his mom that night, that he might swing over
there and say hello, he had a couple of paperback books that he wanted to give her, and so Molly knew
there was a chance he could be doing that, and so she assumed that had to be what she was hearing,
and so she forgot about it and fell asleep.
The next morning, when Molly woke up at 6 a.m., she rolled over, and she saw Clay was not in bed
with her. Now, she wasn't immediately alarmed by this because it wasn't unusual for Clay to get up really
early. And so Molly climbed out of bed. She made her way over to the window. And she looked down at the
driveway, expecting to see their car back, meaning Clay would be downstairs somewhere. But she looked
in the driveway, there was no car. And so suddenly feeling kind of panicked, Molly went downstairs and
looked around the house. Clay wasn't there. And so she picked up the phone and she called Clay's
mother. And when Clay's mother picked up, Molly said, hey, is Clay with you? He said he was stopping by
last night. I heard him leave. Is he with you? And Clay's mother would say, no, he's not here. And in fact,
I didn't even know he was going to be stopping by last night. I haven't heard from him.
The drive from Molly and Clay's house to Clay's mother's house was 40 miles of twisting,
fairly dangerous highway. Now, Clay regularly made this trip to and from his mother's house,
And so Molly was never that worried about him going on this 40-mile stretch.
But suddenly, without saying it, both Molly and Clay's mother were thinking the same thing.
Did Clay get into a car accident last night on the drive to his mother's house?
And so at some point, Clay's mom on the phone tells Molly to stay calm, stay at the house with your kids,
I'm going to get in the car, I'm going to drive the route that Clay would have taken back to you,
and we'll see if we can find him.
And then as soon as the two women hung up, Clay's mother ran to her car, she jumped inside,
she turned it on, she peeled out of the driveway, and began speeding those 40 miles back
towards Clay and Molly's house. And she had only gotten about halfway along this trip,
when up ahead she saw all these flashing blue and white lights, she saw crime scene tape across
the whole road, this was a section of the highway that was heavily forested on either side,
and she could see traffic was backed up very far on the other end and as well on her side and so of course
Clay's mother is thinking this is my son he's been in an accident right here and so she pulls over to the
side of the road she throws it in park she gets out and runs to the nearest police officer
and begins frantically asking them what's happened here what's happened and as she's talking to the
officer she notices behind him there's all this smoke coming up from the forest there's a fire down in the
forest and so she's craning her neck to look down and see what it is and the officer tried to
stop her but finally she pushed past him and she looked and she saw there was a car on fire that
clearly had flown off the road and so in a total panic she begins asking the officer do you know
who it is is it my son is it clay the officer told her to please calm down we have no idea whose car
this is we're trying to figure it out the fire department hasn't even put the fire out yet we don't
know enough to tell you anything but at this point
Clay's mother could not wait any longer for answers. And so she turned around, she ran back to her car,
she hopped in it, and she made her way around this big police barricade and sped the rest of the way
to Clay and Molly's house. And there she picked up Molly, she drove her back,
and when they got there, both women are totally hysterical, but they run right up to the police
tape, and they looked down in the direction of where this fire had been, which now had been put
out. There was just smoke coming off of this car frame that had been totally burned out. And
immediately, when Molly looked down there, she recognized the car. Or I should say, she recognized
the shape of the car because the fire had totally eviscerated the car. But Molly, she was seeing
the frame was about the right size and she was seeing that strewn around this burned out car
were all these paperback books that had been burned up partially in this fire. And she knew that
Clay had likely been on his way to his mother's house with all these paperback books inside of the
vehicle. And so she knew this had to be clay. And at the same time that Molly is having this
horrible realization, the fire department down below was able to actually get into the burned out
vehicle. They opened up the door and they found right away there was a body in the driver's seat.
And so between the size of the body, all the paperback books that Molly said, you know, that would be
something Clay would have, along with several other personal effects that were found inside of
the car, like Clay's prized Harley Davidson pin that he always wore in his hat. It was obvious that
this was Clay. When word spread about Clay's death, Molly's neighbors and friends in Leander
jumped into action. People loved Molly in Leander. She was this very sweet, very kind woman,
who was a little bit socially awkward, but they had found, ever since she had married Clay,
she had really found some more confidence and just seemed happier.
And so it was totally devastating to see Clay be pulled from her life like that.
And so very quickly, the community in Leander raised $1,000 and they gave it to Molly and her kids,
and then also neighbors began dropping off food and stalking their fridge with groceries.
And even though Molly couldn't even eat, she was so grief-stricken from the loss of clay,
she still very much appreciated the effort that people were making to comfort her.
But as the community rallied around Molly and her kids to get them through this difficult time,
the police were starting to ask some questions about how exactly this crash that had killed Clay actually happened.
Because there were some oddities about the scene of the accident.
The biggest being, there were no skid marks on the road,
which meant Clay had not hit the brakes before swerving off the road and crash.
crashing down in the trees below.
And secondly, they didn't really understand how the fire that had started after this crash
had gotten so incredibly hot that it basically had completely melted away every part of the vehicle
save for the frame, and also Clay's body had been totally destroyed.
I mean, the authorities had seen fires after car accidents, but nothing like this.
This looked very unique.
And so investigators started to wonder if they were really dealing with a car accident.
or if this was a murder.
And on June 22nd, just four days after Clay was found,
investigators would learn from the crime lab
that their suspicions had been correct.
It would turn out there was lighter fluid found
all over the front seat of the car,
so that was the reason the fire had gotten so big,
and then during the autopsy,
Clay's lungs showed that he had not ever inhaled any soot,
meaning he was dead when the fire started.
And so very likely Clay was murdered and the car accident was staged.
Hey, it's Mr. Ballin.
For the first time, my show Medical Mysteries has joined forces with Redacted for a special episode.
A Redacted Medical Mystery uncovers how routine surgery leads to classified government operations.
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mystery wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Mr. Ballin. I'm excited to tell you about something
special. For the first time, my show, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, has joined forces with
redacted, declassified mysteries with Luke Lamana, to tell a story so complex it required our
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When words started to get out in town that Clay's death seemed suspicious and that maybe he was
murdered, it turned out nobody was surprised. Because even though Molly adored Clay and thought
he was a great father, most other people in Leander hated him. He was known around town
to be this totally short-tempered guy who would just pick fights with people out of the blue.
In fact, at Clay's own funeral, his literal best friend stood up to eulogize him,
and during this, he said, I think honestly the world is a better place without Clay.
And so investigators began looking into Clay's background to see if they could find connections
with people that might have a grudge or some reason to be mad at Clay who might want to do him harm.
and very quickly, investigators found something.
Just 10 days before Clay was found,
he had pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a seven-year-old girl.
But the sentence he received was incredibly light.
He was given 30 days in jail, which he had not served yet, and probation.
Now, the father of the victim, the seven-year-old girl,
was absolutely furious about Clay's light sentence,
And in fact, just a couple of days before Clay died, the father threatened to kill Clay.
So investigators quickly tracked down this father, and they brought him in for questioning.
But very quickly, this father made it clear to police that, yes, he hated Clay.
Yes, he had threatened to kill Clay, but no, he had nothing to do with what happened to Clay.
And the father had an alibi to back that up.
And so, after confirming his alibi, the police somewhat reluctantly allowed,
the father to leave even though to a lot of them he just really seemed like the slam-dunk primary
suspect but he couldn't have been and so with him out of the picture the police were kind of back
to the drawing board and so they decided they would actually go talk to molly and see if maybe she
could shed some light on who else might have wanted to hurt clay now in their previous
conversations with molly police found her to be incredibly polite and also at the same time very very
upset about the death of her husband but this time when investigators showed up at mollie's house
and she brought them into her kitchen where they sat down to talk it was like the police got a
totally different molly and it happened as soon as they asked her you know hey who do you think
could have hurt your husband it was like molly suddenly became impatient she didn't have time for these
questions and finally she just said you know what i think clay was depressed because he had that prison
sentence that was coming up that he didn't want to serve and so probably he just killed himself i think
that's what happened and so now i need you guys to leave and so the officers didn't make a fuss they didn't
fight molly on this they just got up they left but once they were back out in their car they looked at
each other and they both agreed that molly's behavior was very suspicious and it made them think
you know maybe she actually knows more about what happened to clay and she's kind of trying to cover
it up and make the police go away. And over the next couple of weeks, as police began investigating
Molly, they discovered quite a bit of evidence that made them even more suspicious of her. For one thing,
there was Clay's $110,000 life insurance policy that Molly was entitled to, and Molly had apparently
been calling the insurance company nearly non-stop every day trying to get them to wire that payment
as soon as possible, and Molly apparently was telling people in town how excited she was
about getting that money. Also, police learned, after talking to Molly's neighbors, that Molly was
starting to date again already, just three weeks after her husband has died, she's out there on
the dating scene, even bringing home one of her boyfriends and having him live with her two kids.
And according to Molly's babysitter, this new boyfriend that was coming into the house was really
upsetting Caleb, the four-year-old, who had been so close with Clay. The babysitter would say that
Caleb, who normally was a very mellow child, back when Clay was still alive, was now very
violent and emotional, and periodically he would just stop, look up into the sky, and scream,
I love you, Daddy! But when the babysitter brought this up to Molly and said, really, you should
get your son some help here, Molly got angry and said Caleb was fine, it was none of her business,
and then she slammed the door on the babysitter.
But despite how suspicious Molly now seemed,
there wasn't any real evidence that actually linked her to Clay's death.
And so finally, in the fall of 2004,
so several months after Clay's death,
and still the police have not figured out who killed him
or how he died and how he wound up in this inferno by the side of the road,
they decided to kind of reinvigorate this investigation into Molly.
They really wanted to find evidence that she was involved in Clay's death.
And so they decided to put a surveillance team on Molly 24-7.
And at first, the undercover police would report that Molly's behavior was incredibly routine.
She basically did the same things every single day.
She got up, she got the kids out the door, she went to work,
afterwards she picked her kids up from the babysitter, she went home, she fed her kids,
and then they all went to bed and they did it all again the next day.
The only deviation from her schedule was periodically she would go out after work to run some errands,
like go to the grocery store. But then, on December 3rd, so six months after Clay was found,
Molly would finally break her routine. On that day, Molly, on her way home from work,
made a pit stop in this parking lot near several local stores. So she parked her car, she got out,
But then instead of walking into one of these stores to run an errand or something,
she walked to a dark-colored Mustang that was parked in the parking lot as well,
and a guy was driving it. This guy the cop didn't recognize with dark hair.
Molly walked up to him and began talking to this guy through the window.
And then at some point Molly began very suspiciously looking over her shoulder like she was
trying to see if anyone was watching her.
And then she walked around and climbed into the Mustang with the sky.
she shut the door and then the two of them drove off together and so the undercover police officer
followed after them and eventually the Mustang containing molly and this guy pulled into the parking
lot of a taco bell a fast food restaurant and so they stopped they got out and the undercover officer
watched as the two of them casually walked inside of the taco bell they ordered some food and they
sat down by the window to eat and so by this point the undercover officer he's not seen anything incriminating
happening here but what he's seeing is such a break from her routine that it just seemed really
suspicious and he wanted to go inside and have a look and so he called for backup from another
undercover officer who was part of the surveillance team he came into the parking lot and then the two of
them these two officers who are wearing plain civilian clothes they both got out of their unmarked
vehicles and they casually walked into the taco bell and they got in line to order food and as they
were standing in line, one of the undercover officers casually turned around in line and very nonchalantly
scanned the room, like he was looking at nothing in particular. But in reality, what he was doing was
taking a quick glimpse at Molly and this guy she was with. And when the officer took this quick
glimpse, he noticed something very strange about the guy that Molly was sitting with, something that
the officer hadn't seen before, but now that he was up close, he could see it. And as soon as he saw,
this strange thing. The officer tapped on his partner's shoulder like, all right, we're doing
something here. The officer reached down, put his hand on his concealed gun underneath his shirt,
and then he walked across the restaurant, not even pretending to be undercover at this point. He's
basically giving away that he's a cop. He strode right over to their table, and when he stopped
in front of them, Molly and the guy she was with both looked up at him in surprise, and the officer
just stared down at the guy. Not at Molly, just at the guy. The strange thing the officer had caught
when he looked over at the guy was that he recognized him. This was someone he knew personally
from being in law enforcement in the area. This guy was Clay Daniels, Molly's supposedly
dead husband. He had just clearly died his blonde hair black.
It would turn out Molly and Clay had staged his death in order to keep him from having to serve that prison sentence for the sexual assault charge, and so they could collect on the $110,000 life insurance policy.
The body that was found inside of the burned out car was obviously not Clay's.
It was the body of an 81-year-old woman who Clay had dug up from some isolated cemetery, thrown inside of his vehicle, and then pushed his vehicle off the road.
and lit on fire with lighter fluid.
And so that was why there was no skid marks up on the road,
because, again, this was not a car accident, it was staged.
And so after Clay and Molly staged Clay's death,
it actually worked.
People really believed that Clay had died.
They were questioning how he died,
but nobody really thought it wasn't Clay.
And so their plan was working,
but after three weeks of being apart
with Clay kind of hanging out by himself away from the town,
Clay and Molly just couldn't stand to be apart any longer.
And so, Clay died his blonde hair black.
That was the only thing he did to disguise his identity.
And then he just moved back into the home with Molly and the kids.
And so that was the new boyfriend that neighbors were seeing Molly with.
She was not actually going out on new dates.
She was just back with Clay.
And Clay's stepson, Caleb, the four-year-old,
he immediately recognized that his father was back, even though he had black hair.
But Molly and Clay had convinced the little boy that Clay was not really Clay. Instead, this was the new
boyfriend, Jake. This is very likely why Caleb had begun acting out. He was old enough to
understand that something wasn't right, but not old enough to understand that his parents were lying
to him. It's unclear why Molly and Clay, who lived together, shamelessly, decided to have this weird
rendezvous in the parking lot, inside of Clay's Mustang, and then go to Taco Bell and eat
together. But regardless, it was this secret meetup that ultimately led to them getting caught.
Molly and Clay were both charged with insurance fraud, and they both pled guilty.
Molly was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Clay was sentenced to 30 years in prison,
plus 20 more years for probation violations. Molly has since been paroled while Clay is still in jail.
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. Ballen.
Our head of writing is Evan Allen.
Our head of production is Zach Levitt.
Produced by Jeremy Bone.
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 Lacasio and Cole Lacasio.
Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham.
Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain.
Production Coordination by Samantha Collins.
production support by Antonio Manada 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.
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