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

Episode Date: May 9, 2022

On March 22nd, 2003, a highly intelligent, very successful couple decided to play a strange new game. The game was very involved, and required handcuffs and blindfolds and heavy chairs, but once they were in position, they got the hang of it quickly and thought it was actually pretty fun. But after playing for a little while, something very unexpected happened, and before either of them could comprehend it, a scream filled their apartment, then there was silence. (This story is a wild ride with one of the strangest conclusions we've covered on this show, so make sure you stick around to the end.)For 100s more stories like this one, check out my YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @MrBallenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On March 22nd, 2003, a highly intelligent, very successful couple decided to play a game. The game was very involved and required handcuffs and blindfolds and heavy chairs, but once they were in position, the couple got the hang of it quickly and thought it was kind of fun. But after playing for a little while, something very unexpected happened, and before either of them could comprehend it, a scream filled the apartment. Then there was silence. This story is a wild ride with one of the strangest conclusions we've ever covered on this show. So make sure you stick around to the end. But before we get into today's story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious Deliberative 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 tell the five-star review button that you'd love to go to their dance recital, but show up to it in disguise so they don't recognize you and have to spend their whole performance searching the crowd in vain

for you. Also, please subscribe to the Mr. Pollan podcast wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. 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 shuttlecocks, 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 Wanderie Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. We tell the story of a British man who took part in the first ever round the world sailing race. Good on him, I hear you say. But there is a problem, as there always is in this show. The man in question hadn't actually sailed before. Oh, and his boat wasn't seaworthy.

Oh, and also tiny little detail, almost didn't mention it. He bet his family home on making it to the finish line. What ensued was one of the most complex cheating plots in British sporting history. To find out the full story, follow British Scandal wherever you listen to podcasts, or listen early and ad-free on Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. Okay, let's get into today's story. It was May 2000, and at the age of 32, Sheila Davalou was on her way up in the world. Tall and elegant with thick black curly hair and a wide smile, Sheila had just landed a new and highly paid job with Purdue Pharmaceutical Company in Stanford, Connecticut.

At that time, Purdue Pharma was one of the most successful drug companies in the United States. And so they were only hiring the best and brightest applicants. And Sheila was certainly that. She was absolutely brilliant and held an undergraduate degree in biochemistry as well as a master's degree in public health. But it wasn't just work that was going well in Sheila's life. On May 28th, shortly after she started her new job at Purdue Pharma managing the company's medical coding department, Sheila got married to her longtime boyfriend, 32-year-old Paul Christos. Paul was just as brilliant as Sheila, having earned several college degrees, including two advanced science degrees from New York Medical College, which is located about 40 minutes outside of New York City. And it was while Paul was studying at New York Medical College in 1994

that he met Sheila. She was also studying at the prestigious school. Sheila had joined a small private study group that Paul was leading to help pay his college tuition bills, and quickly the pair realized they had a lot in common. Both of them were extremely smart and well-educated, they both loved science and research, and they both were living with their parents at the time. Paul's mom and dad lived about 20 minutes away in White Plains, New York. Sheila's family lived a little farther north in the wealthy enclave of Yorktown Heights, where the median income was a whopping $100,000. Paul would later say that when he first saw Sheila in his study group, he was instantly attracted to her. There was something exotic about her dark

eyes and olive complexion, and he loved the tiny gap between her two front teeth. Paul was also impressed that Sheila spoke French and Italian, as well as English. Within a few weeks of meeting each other at the study group, Paul and Sheila started spending more time with each other outside of the group. At first, they were just friends who enjoyed talking with each other and going on walks, but by the time Sheila graduated with her master's degree in 1998, the couple had fallen in love and gotten engaged. The pair wed on May 28th of 2000, right around the time Sheila landed her new job with Purdue Pharma.

The wedding had gone off exactly as Sheila had planned, a small celebration with just 70 members of their family and friends, and afterward, the couple returned to the beautiful condo Sheila's parents had recently purchased for them in the upscale little town of Pleasantville, New York, just 40 minutes away from Purdue Pharma in Stanford. The only person who had been missing from the wedding was Sheila's younger and very mentally unstable brother, who suffered from severe schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a mental illness that can cause episodes of psychosis, delusions, and paranoia. In fact, at Sheila's discretion, her family had not even told

her brother that she was getting married. Sheila spent a lot of time with her brother, and she was concerned that if her brother found out that she was married, he might worry that she was going to abandon him. And so, in order to protect her brother, Sheila had said it was important that he didn't meet or see Paul until she and her family were certain he could handle it. And Sheila said that might actually never happen. But as strange as this was, Paul wasn't that concerned. He figured in time he would surely get a chance to meet his brother-in-law and that everything would be fine. So, the newly married couple settled to their new life together in their new condo, excited to spend more time together, but pretty much right away they both got sucked into their

respective careers and other interests, and so they actually didn't see each other very much. By September 2000, just four months after he and Sheila got married, Paul had started work on another advanced degree, this time a doctorate in epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City. Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why. In addition to his own studies, Paul was also teaching undergraduate classes two evenings a week at Columbia. Meanwhile, Sheila, who was just as ambitious as her husband, threw herself into her new job at Purdue Pharma. She also joined a local volleyball league in order to stay in shape.

Neither Paul nor Sheila were ever big socializers or drinkers, but Sheila, in an effort to make some friends at work, had begun joining some of her co-workers at a local bar in the evenings after work. bar in the evenings after work. But most nights after work, Sheila preferred to just come home and curl up with a romance novel or watch her favorite TV show, a romance comedy called Friends. Paul would often find his wife fast asleep with a book next to her in bed or on the couch when he came home late from teaching his classes. By spring of 2001, almost a year after she had started at Purdue Pharma and after she and Paul had gotten married, Sheila told Paul that she wanted to start having her brother come by their condo more often so she could spend some time with him. Since her brother still had not been told about Paul,

these visits were a major inconvenience because in preparation for them, Paul and Sheila had to make it seem like Paul didn't exist. Sheila would take down all of their wedding pictures and other pictures that had Paul in them, and Paul would have to pack up all of his personal effects and anything else that might be connected to him that was in the condo. And then he would head to the local Marriott hotel where he would stay until the brother's visit was over. But even though this arrangement seemed kind of outrageous to Paul, he wasn't about to try to convince Sheila to change her mind. Sheila was very protective of her brother and got very emotional anytime Paul brought him up, and so the way Paul saw it was the occasional weekend away was a chance

for him to get some marathon sessions of work in, and he'd be making his wife happy. On the rare occasions when Paul and Sheila were actually home together with nothing else to do, Sheila's favorite activity was telling Paul all about the office politics at Purdue Pharma. And Paul welcomed the chance to learn a little bit more about his wife's day-to-day life. Most of Sheila's office stories revolved around small issues she was having with staff in her department, or who was applying for what job, or who was on their way up at Purdue, or who was on their way down. But by the summer of 2001, there was a drama unfolding at Purdue Pharma that Sheila found totally fascinating. And before long, Sheila was talking about this big spectacle, not just to Paul, but to her mom and her dad and her in-laws. And if she and Paul went out to dinner or met up with

their own friends outside of their work, she talked about it to them, too. It turned out there was a new love triangle at Purdue Pharma that involved one of Sheila's friends, a woman named Melissa, along with another woman named Annalisa and a man named Jack. Sheila was only close with Melissa. Her only interactions with Annalisa and Jack were when she would just pass by them at the office or when she would see them at those after-work happy hours at the local bar. But through Melissa, Sheila would learn a lot about Jack and Annalisa. Jack was 35 years old and had a doctorate of pharmacy, and he worked on researching and developing pain medications.

He had started at Purdue Pharma back in September of 2000, so about five months after Sheila had started working there, and within a few months of his arrival, he had started dating another co-worker, Annalisa, who was 32 years old, and he had met her at one of those meetups at that local bar after work. But not too long after Jack started seeing Annalisa, did he meet Sheila's friend, Melissa, also at one of those after-work happy hours. Annalisa didn't know it, but Jack started dating Melissa too. And even though Melissa was pretty sure Jack was also dating Annalisa, Melissa was so into Jack and so sure that eventually Jack would stop dating Annalisa that she just kept going out with Jack.

But despite her confidence confidence the whole love triangle situation was very hard on Melissa and the one person at the office that she had started talking to about it was Sheila and as Melissa shared every intimate detail about her relationship with Jack the secret meetups the weekend ski trips and camping trips and wild sex Sheila and Melissa went from just being good office friends to being best friends. At first, Paul was pretty interested in this love triangle that Sheila kept talking about. He also felt flattered when Sheila began seeking his insights about Jack. Why would Jack see two women at the same time? Why does Jack like one more than the other? Did Paul agree with Melissa

that eventually Jack would choose Melissa over Annalisa? Paul's advice for Melissa was just to talk with Jack, or talk with Annalisa and let her know that Jack had been cheating on her. But Sheila told Paul that Melissa still held out hope that Jack would come back to her, and if she told Annalisa that Jack had been cheating on her, then Jack would just be angry at Melissa. Paul started to feel like his wife was just pretty much ignoring all of his advice, and Paul was starting to worry that Sheila was maybe getting a little bit too involved in her friend's drama, because pretty soon it seemed to Paul and to Sheila's other friends that this love triangle was literally all Sheila ever wanted to talk about.

It had become like a real-life soap opera, a reality TV show that his wife found much more interesting than her weekly episodes of Friends or her romance novels. Now, when Sheila's brother would come to visit them, Paul couldn't wait to pack up his stuff and head for the Marriott Hotel because he was sick and tired of hearing about Jack and his two girlfriends. But this love triangle drama was only just getting started. In the first half of 2002, two things happened that kicked the gossip mill at Purdue Pharma into high gear. In February, Annalisa, who had worked at Purdue Pharma for several years and was a very popular and promising employee, got a job with another pharmaceutical company in New Jersey called Pharmacia. When this

happened, Melissa was very hopeful that Jack would finally just break it off with Annalisa because Annalisa would likely have to move two hours away to where her new office was located. But shortly after getting this new job at Pharmacia, Annalisa had arranged with her new employer to do most of her work from her condo in Stamford and only drive to New Jersey for important meetings, meaning Annalisa would still be in town and so could still see Jack. And worse than that was that Jack seemed to be getting tired of Melissa. Around the time Annalisa started this new job, Jack told Melissa that he wanted to spend more time with Annalisa, although he did still continue

to see Melissa, just not as often. To Melissa, this could mean only one thing. Anna-Lisa must be pressuring Jack to get married and settle down with her. And apparently, that pressure worked because in the summer of 2002, Jack delivered a crushing blow to Sheila's friend Melissa. He told her that he wanted to break off their relationship completely. And Melissa would find out that not long after this breakup, Jack was spending most nights not with his roommates in Stamford, but with Annalisa at her condo that overlooked the Long Island Sound. And now that Annalisa wasn't an employee of Purdue

Pharma, she and Jack felt like they could be more open about their deepening relationship. So now Melissa's own co-workers knew that Jack and Annalisa were a couple. And even though Melissa put on a good public show of taking this news in stride, even telling Jack that, oh yeah, what we have was just a fling, Sheila would tell Paul that her friend was actually devastated and humiliated, and that Melissa was having a lot of trouble letting go of her feelings for Jack. Not long after this, Sheila asked Paul if she could have his old pair of night vision binoculars and his eavesdropping equipment. These items were leftovers from Paul's college days when he and his buddies were big fans of The X-Files, the popular

90s science fiction TV show about extraterrestrial life and mysteries that have no rational explanation. When Paul asked Sheila why she needed these things, she told him that Melissa was going to start staking out Annalise's property to see what she and Jack were up to, and that she, Sheila, was going to go with her, and so Paul's equipment would help them spy on them. Paul was a little alarmed, but considering how intense this love triangle drama seemed to be, he wasn't all that surprised. And so, against his better judgment, he told his wife she was welcome to use his things. In addition to spying on Annalisa's property, Melissa also began listening to Jack's voicemails.

She had somehow got his password, and she had even begun using the information she got in his voicemails to show up at places she knew Jack was going to be. Melissa had even arranged one time to run into Jack at an airport and flew back home in the seat right next to him. Periodically, Melissa would forward some of these voicemails to Sheila, and she would ask her to listen closely to see if the messages offered any clues about how serious Jack and Annalisa were as a couple. And whenever Sheila got these messages forwarded to her, she would always ask Paul to come listen to them as well. And even though Paul would humor his wife and listen and give his insights, privately he started thinking that this whole love triangle

situation was getting really out of control. But this drama was still just getting started. One day, Sheila came home with a set of lockpicks that she had picked up for Melissa. Apparently, Melissa had told Sheila that she wanted to get inside of Annalisa's condo to look at any pictures Annalisa had of her and Jack and see if that gave her a better sense of what their relationship was actually like. Also, Melissa wanted to see how much of Jack's stuff was actually inside of Annalise's apartment. Sheila asked Paul if he would help her learn how to use these lockpicks so she could then teach Melissa when she handed the picks over. Paul did not think breaking into Annalise's apartment was a good idea, but he didn't think Melissa would

actually use them. Still, Paul was relieved when neither he nor Sheila could use the lockpicks to open even the bathroom door, let alone the much more sophisticated lock on their front door. Especially since Sheila also revealed to him that she had also bought her friend two stun guns in case Melissa was caught in Annalise's apartment and needed to defend herself. With the failure of the lockpicks, Sheila and Melissa turned their attention away from how Melissa could get into Annalisa's apartment to how they could possibly bug Jack's office. That way, Melissa wouldn't just be able to hear Jack's voice messages, she could also hear all of his in-person conversations as well as his end of

any phone calls he was taking in his office. But when Melissa tried to set up Paul's eavesdropping equipment near Jack's office, it didn't work. By the fall of 2002, Jack was showing no signs of wanting to leave Annalisa to go back with Melissa. And while this inspired Melissa to up the ante with her surveillance efforts, Sheila, on the other hand, was becoming less interested in the whole thing. It seemed like it might have dawned on her that what they were doing was just not okay and could definitely get them in a lot of trouble. And so in early November of 2002, Sheila started to distance herself from Melissa and basically stopped talking about the

love triangle altogether. Paul was happy to be hearing so much less about Melissa and Jack, but he also realized that without that constant source of conversation, Paul felt like he and Sheila were just kind of drifting apart. He knew his own work also had a lot to do with that. That fall, he was in the middle of running a clinical trial for a new cancer drug. On November 13th, he'd had a meeting in Manhattan with one of the drug manufacturers he was working with, a company called Pharmacia. He remembered the meeting for two reasons. The first was during the endless saga about this love triangle at Purdue Pharma, his wife had told him that Annalisa had gotten a job at Pharmacia.

The second reason was because during this meeting, the researchers from Pharmacia all seemed very subdued, even though the clinical trial they were talking about actually showed a lot of promise. When Paul asked one of the Pharmacia employees if there was something wrong, the guy said they were all just really shocked at the recent murder of one of their researchers. When Paul got home that evening, he asked Sheila if she'd heard anything about a murder at Pharmacia, because wasn't that the place that Annalisa had gone for her new job? Sheila sat up and said no, she hadn't heard anything about a murder, and as far as she knew, Annalisa was okay. A couple days later, when Paul and Sheila were sitting in silence in their condo, Paul decided to try to strike up a conversation with his wife. And so he asked her,

how's Melissa doing? Sheila would tell Paul that Jack and Annalisa had actually broken up for good and that Annalisa had moved to New Jersey and that now Jack and Melissa were back together and dating each other exclusively. Paul was surprised. He didn't expect Jack and Melissa were back together and dating each other exclusively. Paul was surprised. He didn't expect Jack and Melissa to ever get back together again, considering how insane Melissa had been. But he figured that if Annalisa had moved to New Jersey, that Jack likely would not have put up with a long-distance relationship,

and so maybe that was why things had worked out the way they had. But Paul decided not to ask any more questions, and so he and Sheila just went back to sitting in silence, which was quickly becoming the norm between them. These days, not only was Sheila not talking to Paul, but she was also having her brother come over more often, which of course meant that Paul would have to leave his home more often and stay at the Marriott Hotel. This was becoming totally infuriating for

Paul, but he wasn't entirely shocked that as their marriage was clearly beginning to erode, Sheila was turning to her family for comfort and not him. And so Paul told himself that what he really needed to do was just pay more attention to Sheila and try to be a better husband any chance he could. So a few months later, on the late afternoon of Saturday, March 22nd, 2003, when Sheila walked into Paul's home office and told him that she'd heard about this game at work and she really wanted to play it with him, Paul, despite having no clue what this game was, stopped what he was doing and immediately said,

Yes, I'll play. Sheila told him the game was a trust game, where each of them would take turns lying on the ground and guessing what objects the other person was pressing against their bodies. To make sure they couldn't cheat, when it was their turn to lie on the floor and guess, they'd have to wear a blindfold, and their hands would also be secured above their head to the rungs of a heavy chair, so they couldn't touch the objects they were supposed to identify. As she described this game, they both quickly came to the realization that this game seemed pretty involved and time-consuming. So it wasn't just something they could do right then and there, because they actually had plans that night to go see Sheila's parents. So they

decided they would wait until the next day, Sunday, to play this game. But Sunday morning rolled around and it was still too busy to play. Paul had plans to go into Columbia University that morning and then when he got back, Sheila said they should really go visit Paul's mom out in White Plains. So they both hopped into the car and 40 minutes later, they were eating a light lunch, drinking tea and chatting with Paul's mom about the upcoming Academy Awards that would be broadcast that evening. Then they jumped back into the car, and when they arrived back at their condo, Paul took their two dogs out for a walk, and after he got back, Sheila looked at him with a smile and said, are you ready to play the game now? All in all, it had actually been one of their best weekends together in a long time. Conversations were flowing naturally, and they both just seemed happy and

upbeat. Also, Sheila had mentioned to Paul that maybe it was time that she and her parents talk to her brother and bring him in on the big family secret that Sheila was married. So even though Paul would have preferred to just relax that afternoon, in fact, he had forgotten all about the game, he knew it was important to Sheila, so he said, sure, let's play. Sheila said, okay, I'll get the stuff we need. And when she came back to the kitchen a few minutes later, Sheila was holding a pair of black pantyhose and a pair of handcuffs. For just a second, Paul thought maybe Sheila had in mind

taking a page out of her friend Melissa's book and staging a steamy sex scene of her own. But when Sheila saw the look on Paul's face, she laughed and told him, no, it wasn't anything like that. It was really just a trust game. No one was taking any clothes off. So at about 4 p.m. that Sunday afternoon, Paul followed Sheila into the spare bedroom where the floor was padded with carpet and where there was a chair with sturdy wooden rungs attached to the legs of the chair. Sheila went first. She put the pillow down on the floor, then dressed in her jeans and t-shirt, she lay down on her back with her head on the pillow, and she stretched

her arms out above her head so Paul could handcuff her wrists to the rungs of the heavy chair. Then he wrapped the blindfold around her head and asked her if she could see anything. When she said no, Paul started to gather the random objects he was going to test her with. First, he put one of their little dogs against Sheila's side, but she couldn't figure out what it was. Then he put a camera on her chest. She couldn't figure out that one either. The next one was easy. It was just a box, and Sheila guessed it right away. And then after successfully guessing a few more items, Sheila told Paul it was his turn. Glad the game wasn't actually taking very much time, Paul uncuffed Sheila's wrists and just a few minutes later, Sheila had secured his hands to

the chair rung, wrapped the blindfold around his eyes, and asked if he was ready to play. Paul said he was, and then a few moments later, like Paul, Sheila started with the dog, but Paul guessed immediately that it was the dog. Sheila then pressed an ink printer cartridge against his arm and a shampoo bottle against his chest, but Paul was good at this and he got both of them right. After that, Sheila started walking all over the condo, going into every door and cabinet, trying to find the most obscure things she possibly could to try to trip him up,

but he just kept getting them right. At one point, Paul heard Sheila getting something from the kitchen, and while Paul was actually starting to kind of enjoy the game because he was so good at it, he started to become aware that Sheila was annoyed that he was so good at it. So when he heard Sheila walk back into the room from being in the kitchen, he wasn't surprised when he heard her say, okay, this is the last one. Then he heard a little rustling noise, and suddenly he felt Sheila's weight on top of him, kneeling, it felt like, so that one of her legs were on either side of his thighs. Then he felt a smooth cylindrical object pressed against his cheek, and then he smelled wax.

Just as Paul opened his mouth to say, it's a candle, he suddenly felt a huge blow to his chest. It felt like someone had dropped a giant barbell on top of him. And then he heard Sheila scream. On the early afternoon of November 8th, 2002, four months before Sheila and Paul played the trust game, the Stamford Police Department received a 911 call from a payphone located near 123 Harbor Drive, a complex of luxury condos overlooking the nearby Long Island Sound. The unidentified caller told police that they had witnessed an assault at one of the condos. They told police to check Unit 105 before ending the call abruptly and hanging up on the dispatcher. A few minutes later, two responding police officers, who had been patrolling in an area near this complex of condos,

parked their patrol cars in the residence parking lot, walked up the outside steps to Unit 105, and knocked on the door. When no one answered, police checked the doorknob and found that the door was unlocked. After opening the door just an inch and yelling through the open door, Stanford Police! Is anyone home? And hearing no response, one of the officers pushed the door open all the way and took a few cautious steps inside. The sight that met his eyes was so shocking and violent that he immediately pulled out his weapon and before his partner had even

stepped across the threshold behind him, the first officer was already on his radio calling for an ambulance and backup. I'm Peter Frankopan. And I'm Afua Hirsch. And we're here to tell you about our new season of Legacy, covering the iconic, troubled musical genius that was Nina Simone. Full disclosure, this is a big one for me. Nina Simone, one of my favourite artists of all time, somebody who's had a huge impact on me, who I think objectively stands apart

for the level of her talent, the audacity of her message. If I was a first year at university, the first time I sat down and really listened to her and engaged with her message, it totally floored me. And the truth and pain and messiness of her struggle, that's all captured in unforgettable music that has stood the test of time. Think that's fair, Peter? I mean, the way in which her music comes across is so powerful, no matter what song it is. So join us on Legacy for Nina Simone. In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and he seemed really unwell. So she wound up taking him to the hospital right away

so he could get treatment. While Dorothy's friend waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit. But she would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott. From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and so many more. Every week, hosts Erin and Justin sit down to discuss a new case covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence,

and interviewing those close to the case to try and discover what really happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. In the hallway that stretched out right in front of these two officers lay the body of a young woman. She was still bleeding from blunt force trauma and stab wounds to her face, neck, chest, and head. Barefoot but dressed in jeans and a white sweater that was soaked with blood. She was sprawled on her back, her one leg stretched out on the floor, the other with the knee bent and propped up against a box. The walls of the condo were splattered with blood

and pools and drops of blood lined the hallway. The two police officers knew, even before the EMTs arrived and confirmed it, that this woman was dead. But she hadn't died quickly, and she hadn't died without putting up an epic fight against whoever had attacked her. Along with scarlet smears of blood everywhere, the floors were also littered with broken glass and dirt and leaves from overturned plants. There was a laundry basket that had been tipped over, spilling clothes everywhere, and most of the furniture was toppled. There were dishes and silverware all over the kitchen floor, and there were books and other papers scattered about. The apartment was a total wreck. From all the family pictures on the walls, and the young woman's computer, and the wallet inside of her handbag, it didn't take police long to identify the victim. With no sign of forced entry, investigators assumed that the victim must have opened the

door for her murderer. Based on the autopsy report that showed nine separate stab wounds, one of them so deep the tip of the knife penetrated through the woman's chest to the very back of her lung, investigators concluded that one of the motives for this attack must have been pure rage. There was no sign of sexual assault. Police didn't have to look very hard to find their first person of interest. By that evening, the victim's boyfriend, whose clothes and other personal effects were found inside the apartment, had pulled up outside his girlfriend's condo.

Once there, he rolled down his car window and asked one of the dozens of law enforcement personnel who'd set up a perimeter outside of the crime scene what was going on. The police asked him to identify himself. He said his name was Nelson Sessler and that he was a research scientist at Purdue Pharmaceuticals in downtown Stanford. He said he had met the victim back in 2000 when they both worked for Purdue Pharma. They had started dating in December of 2000, and then starting in the early fall of 2002, just a few months earlier, he had basically moved

into her condo, despite still renting a place of his own. Tall, thin but strong, and handsome, Nelson immediately became investigators' number one suspect. But cameras at Purdue Pharma, along with a digital log that registers every time employees enter or exit the building, backed up Nelson's claim that he'd been at work the entire day and so could not have been the murderer. Despite the rock-solid alibi, police did not think Nelson was being completely forthcoming with them. In particular, when they asked him if he was having any issues with his girlfriend or if there was anyone he knew of that might want to harm his girlfriend, he just kind of dismissed the questions instead of trying to help them understand what might have happened.

The other two promising leads police initially had also led to dead ends. They had tracked that 911 call that had led to the crime scene to a payphone outside of a restaurant about a half mile away from the victim's condo, but they had not had any luck finding the person who had made that call. And despite calling in the Connecticut State Major Crimes Unit to help process the crime scene, investigators had failed to come up with any fingerprints or trace DNA that might lead them to the killer. It wasn't until four months later, when Sheila played the trust game with her husband Paul, that police would finally get the break they were looking for in this murder case.

On the evening of March 23rd, the same day that Paul and Sheila had been playing the trust game, Paul woke up in the post-surgery unit of Westchester Medical Center in Pleasantville, New York. He had arrived at the hospital late in the afternoon in critical condition, and the doctors who had operated on him felt like it was a miracle he had survived. After the effects of general anesthesia had worn off and Paul's vital signs were stable, he was moved to a private room to recover. As Paul became fully aware of his surroundings and began to remember the events of the day,

he understood even better than his doctors just how lucky he was to be alive. So when an officer from the Westchester police arrived in Paul's recovery room at 6.23pm that night and asked Paul what happened, Paul was ready to talk. The story he would tell would be so outrageous and so unbelievable that the law enforcement, hospital staff, and the public would be talking about it for years to come. The following reconstruction is based on the information revealed to police in Paul's statement about what really happened to him during the game he was playing with Sheila. After Paul felt that heavy blow to his chest, Sheila began to scream, but her scream stopped abruptly.

At the same time, the pressure Paul was feeling on his chest had left him so winded that he no longer even noticed what Sheila was or wasn't doing. He was just trying to figure out what happened to him. And as he lay there still handcuffed and blindfolded, he felt another blow to his chest, this one even more powerful than the last one. Then he heard Sheila say, oh my gosh, I think I hurt you, you're bleeding. Paul could feel himself starting to sweat, and he asked his wife, Sheila, what happened? What just happened to me? Sheila sounded very panicked when she said, it was an accident, it was an accident, I think the candle must have hurt you.

Paul could tell that his wife was not handling this well, and that he needed to try to take charge of whatever was going on. And so he told Sheila not to panic. And then he told her to take the blindfold off of him. When she didn't respond right away, he said very clearly and loudly, Sheila, take the blindfold off. This time she did as he asked. And when Paul could see again, he could see Sheila was standing over him, looking around the room wildly, like she was totally nervous, and before he could even ask, she said she couldn't find the keys to the handcuffs. Paul looked from his wife down across his chest, which he did not have a very good view of, because he's still on his back, to see if maybe there was some sign as

to what caused the pressure and subsequent pain he was feeling there. But there was nothing visible on his chest and there was no blood or anything. Still, he knew something big must have just happened to him because his whole body was starting to react like he'd experienced major trauma. The pain he felt was starting to localize around a particular spot in the center of his chest and he could feel his heart starting to race. Without the handcuff keys, Paul needed to break the rung of the chair that he was handcuffed to. So he looked back up at his wife who was still just standing there looking all around the room and he said to her as calmly as he could, Sheila,

come over here and break the chair. Sheila looked at Paul and her eyes were super wide and she very slowly walked over to where he was and then she knelt down beside him and then it seemed like it took forever but she did finally break the chair rung and so with his hands still handcuffed but now able to be moved around Paul attempted to stand up but the pain in his chest was now so severe he couldn't so he just kind of rolled over onto his side. Paul told Sheila she'd done a great job breaking the chair, but now she needed to call 911. Sheila looked like she understood the assignment, but when she left the room, instead of calling 911, she just went into the kitchen and poured a cup of juice, and then she walked back into the room where Paul was,

and she bent down over Paul and handed him the drink and told him, just drink this and you'll feel better. Even though Paul didn't know what happened to him, he knew a cup of juice was not going to help. So trying not to get angry with his wife, he said, Sheila, I'm really hurt here. Put the juice down and call 911. I need an ambulance. Sheila, who had a look of total shock on her face,

slowly stood back up and put the juice on the desk. Then she seemed to struggle to find her cell phone before pulling it out of the back pocket of her jeans. Once she got her phone out, she put it to her ear and then she began to run back and forth from the spare bedroom they were in, into the hallway, into the kitchen, and then back to look at Paul. And while she's doing this, Paul could only hear little bits of the conversation she was having on the phone, but he heard Sheila give the dispatcher their address and say that it was her husband and that he was bleeding and they needed an ambulance. When she got off the phone, she came back into the room and Paul asked her to help him stand up. He needed to get to a mirror so he could look at his chest

and see what happened. Sheila helped pull Paul to his feet and he stumbled into the bathroom, happened. Sheila helped pull Paul to his feet and he stumbled into the bathroom, but what he saw just didn't explain the amount of pain he was now feeling. It looked like there were just two small marks on his chest, almost like scratch marks. He thought to himself, you know, maybe Sheila had had some kind of seizure and had fallen on him and that maybe the candle she was holding had some sort of metal component on it. And so when she fell onto him, maybe that metal piece on the candle had punctured his chest. Now, he knew this was a ridiculous theory, but he just couldn't understand what was going on. As he was standing there, Paul could feel himself start to fade, and he told Sheila to help him lie back down on the floor. And then, all he could think about was the ambulance. Where was it? How much time had passed? After he was back on the ground, Paul told Sheila to call 911 again.

And when he heard her start to talk, he told her to bring the phone over and hold it down next to his ear because he wanted to speak to the operator himself. But Sheila turned away from him and said, no, the operator did not want to talk to him, that he just needed to lie still and wait for help. Starting to panic, Paul asked his wife, you know, when was the ambulance going to get here? What did they tell you? Sheila made a shushing motion at him, then told him that they were apparently short-staffed

and they wouldn't be able to get there for at least another 25 or 30 minutes. Paul could not believe what he was hearing. He told Sheila that was absolutely absurd that he would have to wait that long for an emergency. But Sheila would tell him that the operator she was speaking to thought Paul's sense of time was probably just off because he was hurt, and that that was actually a totally reasonable amount of time to wait. And then Sheila just left the room. Paul figured she must be leaving to make another call to 911, or maybe she was going to get help from a neighbor.

to make another call to 911, or maybe she was going to get help from a neighbor. Meanwhile, desperate to have the use of his hands again, Paul managed to break one of the flimsy handcuff locks. The handcuffs were still dangling from one wrist, but at least he could now use his hands. With a huge effort, Paul was able to pull himself up to his knees, clutching onto the futon for support while gasping at the pain he was now feeling in his chest. Suddenly, he heard Sheila's voice again. She was standing in front of him, holding a little medicine cup that was full of liquid cold medicine. Here, Paul, she told him. This is NyQuil. This will make you feel better. Paul didn't even answer her. Instead, he just pushed the NyQuil aside, then stood all the way up and staggered out to the living room couch. Sheila followed and sat beside him, waiting patiently,

while Paul could literally feel the life draining out of him. Suddenly, Paul made a decision. He had to act now. So he turns to Sheila and he says, let's go. She could just drive him to Westchester Medical Center. On a Sunday afternoon, it would only take them about 10 minutes to get there. Okay, Sheila said, but let's get your jacket on first. Once Paul had struggled to get into his jacket, Sheila left to go bring the car around to the front of the condo. Everything Sheila did seemed to take forever, and when Sheila did finally get Paul settled into the back seat of the car, instead of taking the direct route to the hospital, she took the scenic route driving slowly along winding secondary roads. And they hadn't even gone that far when Sheila stopped the car on the side of the road, hopped out and then opened the

door to the back seat and told Paul she thought he should lie down rather than sit up. He looked at her incredulously and just said, no, get back in the car, just drive Sheila. And when finally they did pull into the hospital complex, instead of following the clearly marked signs to the emergency room entrance, Sheila drove slowly behind the hospital to a mostly empty parking lot alongside the behavioral health building. Once there, she drove to the farthest end of the lot up on a hill before finally bringing the car to a stop. When Sheila turned off the engine, Paul heard the sound of her car keys getting dropped onto the floor in front of the driver's seat. As Paul started to struggle to sit up so he could get out, he heard the sound of Sheila fumbling around on the floor of the car

looking for her keys. When she had finally found them, she opened her door and stepped out into the lot and made her way around to his side. But when she opened his door, instead of helping him get out, she lunged at him. Clutched in her hand was a knife, the same knife that she had used earlier that afternoon when she had stabbed him twice in the chest while he was lying on the ground, blindfolded and handcuffed to a chair. Before Paul could even register what was happening, Sheila was on top of him, raising the knife over her head, and then just a second later, she had plunged it, now for a third time, into his chest. As Sheila started to raise her hand again for another blow, Paul's adrenaline kicked into hyperdrive.

As she brought the knife down again, Paul managed to block her blow, and then he pushed her off of him, and he stumbled out into the parking lot. blow and then he pushed her off of him and he stumbled out into the parking lot. Then he turned and as Sheila charged at him, he reached out and grabbed the blade of her knife with his bare hands and yanked it away from her. Even though his attacker was now disarmed, Paul was critically injured. Sheila's third stab wound had nicked an artery and blood was now starting to fill his lungs and chest cavity. But as he grappled with Sheila, two people stepped out of the behavioral health building, which was about 500 feet away.

Paul, using every ounce of strength that he had, turned and started staggering toward these people, calling out for help. All the while, Sheila was hanging on to him, pulling on his clothes, telling him they really needed to talk and that he had to tell people this was all an accident. Otherwise otherwise she'd get in trouble. The two people who came out of the behavioral health building could clearly see that there was some kind of a fight going on between

this man and this woman, and so they started to run toward them. One of the bystanders was a medical resident, and as soon as he saw Paul's blood-soaked clothes, he told the other bystander to call an ambulance. Even though they were already within the hospital complex, the resident realized that Paul likely would never make it to the ER if he went on foot. No one was listening to Sheila's screams, that it was her that was being attacked. And when she changed her story and told the resident to please just leave Paul to her and that she'd get him to the ER, Paul used his last ounce of energy to whisper, no, get away from me, before he crumpled on the ground. As the residents started to work on Paul

right there in the parking lot, Sheila, hearing the wail of the approaching ambulance and police cars, turned and started to run. But just a few minutes later, the police had caught up to her and put her in the back of a police cruiser. A little later that night, at the same time the police officer walked into Paul's recovery room and asked him what happened, a detective was already questioning Sheila and more law enforcement personnel were out in the parking lot examining the area where Sheila and Paul had been seen fighting. It was out there in the parking lot that the police would find Sheila's cell phone. During her struggle with Paul, she had dropped it before trying to take off and evade capture. Back on the morning of November 8, 2002, four months before Sheila would try to kill her husband, Sheila got up at her usual time, she dressed for work, and arrived at Purdue Pharma at 8.09 a.m. At 10.53 a.m.,

she left Purdue Pharma, swiping her security badge at the building's front entrance. Then she walked to her car, hopped into the driver's seat, and made the 10-minute drive out to 123 Harbor Drive. It was a beautiful day, about 50 degrees Fahrenheit, clear and cool. The light breeze made little waves in the water where many residents of the luxury condo complex moored their boats. After parking her car and checking her pockets, Sheila also glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure no loose strands of her hair had come out of the tight bun at the nape of her neck. Then she made her way up the flight of outside steps that would lead her to the front door of apartment 105. Once she was standing outside of it, she knocked on the door.

As soon as she heard footsteps inside of the apartment walking toward the door, Sheila slipped on the pair of gloves she had in her pockets and wrapped her fingers around the handle of the knife with the 5-inch long blade she also had in her pocket. Then Sheila leaned closer to the door and called out in her friendliest voice, Hi, Annalisa, is that you? Hey, it's me, Sheila Davalu from Purdue Pharma. Any chance you have a minute? I really need to talk to you. From behind the closed door, Annalisa recognized the voice of her former co-worker. Sheila, wow, haven't seen you in a while. Yeah, just a minute, let me open the door. About an hour later, Sheila was back in her car.

She was still flooded with adrenaline and excitement. In the course of killing Annalisa, the two women had raged back and forth through every room in the downstairs of the condo, until finally Sheila had stabbed Annalisa so hard that she could feel the thin knife blades sink right up to the hilt buried in Annalise's chest. Afterwards, Sheila made no attempt to clean anything up. Instead, she carefully walked into Annalise's bathroom, and then once she was in there, Sheila spent a minute or two trying to catch her breath, leaning against the scalloped edges of the sink, and looking into the mirror

to make sure she'd gotten all of the blood spatter off of her face before going back to the kitchen and picking her coat up off the table. Then she wrapped the coat around herself to keep people from seeing all of Annalise's blood all over her clothes, and then she walked out the door, got back into her car, and headed for a payphone outside of a nearby restaurant. Once she arrived at the payphone, Sheila called 911. It was only as she was pressing the payphone buttons that she noticed a cut on her right hand that she must have gotten when she was struggling with Annalisa. But right then, the dispatcher picked up the call, and Sheila immediately focused her attention on delivering the script she had so carefully planned.

She took a quick breath, and then, without giving her name, and while sounding totally upset and panic-stricken, Sheila told the operator in a breathless voice that she had just seen her neighbor being assaulted. As soon as Sheila had given the dispatcher Annalisa's address, she quickly ended the call, got back into her car, and headed for her own condo in Pleasantville, New York. At 1.53 p.m. that afternoon, Sheila returned to work at Purdue Pharma. When she went home that night, she spent a quiet evening with Paul. When a co-worker called her late that night to say that their former colleague,

Annalisa, had been murdered, Sheila acted completely shocked, but she didn't say anything about it to Paul. Because all Sheila was really thinking about now was Nelson Sessler, the man whose girlfriend she had just killed. It would turn out all the crazy stories Sheila had told Paul and her friends and her family about what Melissa was up to, from the crazy sex with the man she was obsessed with, Jack, to the insane surveillance operation this woman carried out on Jack and Annalisa. Well, those stories all really happened. They were true. But Melissa was not the woman at the center of them.

It was Sheila. Sheila was Melissa and always had been. And Jack, the man she was obsessed with, that man was actually Nelson Sessler. The only real name in the Purdue Pharma love triangle was Nelson Sessler's girlfriend, Annalisa Raimundo, who Sheila killed just so she could have Nelson all to herself. Sheila did have a mentally ill brother, but it wasn't because of him that Sheila made Paul leave with all of his belongings every time he came to town. It was so Sheila could entertain her lover, Nelson, right inside of Paul and Sheila's home.

Nelson would later say he truly had no idea Sheila was married. And all those after-work trips to the local bar with co-workers and Sheila's supposed volleyball league she was in, those were just excuses to see Nelson as well. After killing Annalisa, Sheila rushed to be by Nelson's side, and she supported him while he grieved the loss of his girlfriend. And while she did that, Sheila was able to convince Nelson to restart their own relationship. And once that happened, Sheila felt

like her mission was complete. She had her man back. And so that was around the time that she stopped talking about Melissa and the love triangle to Paul, which Paul misinterpreted as Sheila distancing herself from Melissa. That was also around the time that Sheila decided she would just have to kill Paul as well because he was also getting in the way of her romance with Nelson. So she came up with this trust game because it would give her a way to immobilize Paul so she could easily stab him. Even though police had a solid case against Sheila for the attempted murder of her husband, it wasn't until they looked at her cell phone that she had dropped in the parking lot that the last piece of the puzzle

fell into place. It would turn out, after stabbing her husband, Paul, during the trust game, Sheila never actually made any calls to 911. Instead, as she raced around the apartment pretending to be on the phone, and also offering Paul first a glass of juice and then also NyQuil as he lay on the ground dying, the only person Sheila was actually trying to get a hold of was Nelson Sessler. Now that Paul was going to die any minute, she wanted to talk with Nelson and invite him over for dinner at her condo that night. When Sheila couldn't get a hold of Nelson on the phone, she left him several voice messages asking him to come over and join her because she had some fun things planned for

both of them. When police examined Sheila's phone, they immediately recognized Nelson Sessler's phone number and discovered what it was that Nelson Sessler had not been forthright about when they interviewed him following his girlfriend Annalisa's death. What Nelson neglected to mention was that he had been seeing another woman, Sheila, at the same time he was dating Annalisa, and he just didn't want anyone to know. It would take police almost four years to build a concrete case against Sheila for the first-degree murder of Annalisa Raimundo, and another four years before the case actually went to trial. But they got the break they needed when they re-examined all the forensic evidence from Annalisa's apartment. On one of the faucet handles of that bathroom sink with the scalloped edges

where Sheila had stood and cleaned herself up after stabbing Annalisa to death, forensic experts found a single tiny drop of blood that must have fallen from that cut on Sheila's right hand. That drop contained the combined DNA of Annalisa and her killer, Sheila Davalou. On February 19, 2004, Sheila was sentenced to 25 years in prison in New York for the attempted murder of her husband, Paul Christos, and on April 26, 2012, Sheila was sentenced to 50 years in prison in Connecticut for the murder of Annalisa Raimundo. The two sentences are going to be served one after the other. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you got something out of this episode and you haven't done this already, please tell the five-star review button that you'd love to go to their dance recital,

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