MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Three's a Crowd (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

Late on a June evening in 2000, a detective with the Easton PA Police Department sat in his car on a darkened neighborhood street, surveilling a house nearby and waiting patiently. After what seemed like an eternity, someone emerged from the house, carrying a couple of bulky trash bags in their hands. The detective tensed up– but he didn’t move. It wasn’t the person that he was waiting for. The detective kept watching as the person placed their trash bags on the curb for pickup in the morning, and then walked back inside the house. And that was when the detective flung open his car door. As quickly as he could, he darted across the street and grabbed the bags. He then ran back to his car and stuffed the bags in his trunk. As he drove away – he knew he was about to solve his murder case. For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Late on a June evening in 2000, a detective with the Easton Pennsylvania Police Department sat in his car on a darkened neighborhood street, watching a house right nearby and waiting patiently. After what seemed like in eternity, finally somebody emerged from this house and in their hands were a couple of bulky trash bags. The detective tensed up, but they didn't move. The detective kept watching as this person placed the trash bags on the curb for pickup in the morning,

and then this person went back inside the house. And right then is when the detective flung open his car door, and as quickly as he could, he darted across the street towards the house, but instead of going in to confront this person, he just grabbed their trash bags at the curb. Then, with these bags, he ran back to his car, stuffed the bags in his trunk, and he drove away. And as he drove away, he knew he was about to solve his murder case. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week,

once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please sneak in to the follow buttons home and superglue all their doors shut. Okay, let's get into today's story. On May 8th, On May 28, 2000, an 18-year-old woman named Devin Guzman, stood on a beach on the island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. She squinted her eyes from the sunlight as a tropical breeze blew lightly

through her shoulder-length hair. Standing facing her was her girlfriend, Michelle Hetzel, who was also 18, and who was holding a pair of gold and diamond rings in her hand. Devin almost began to tear up as Michelle slipped one of the rings onto a ring finger. And then Devin reached out and did the same, placing the other ring on Michelle's ring finger.

Then the young woman held hands and recited vows to each other. Now, there was no one. priest or marriage-efficient present, but for Devin, it didn't matter. She was spiritually and emotionally pledging to spend the rest of her life with Michelle. And in this moment, she couldn't imagine she could ever be happier. Their private little makeshift wedding ceremony during their Memorial Day weekend vacation almost felt like a fantasy. St. Croix was hundreds of miles away from Northampton County in Pennsylvania, where Michelle and Devin both lived. Michelle lived in a city called Easton, and Devin lived nearby in Fork's township. But life had been full of exciting changes recently for Devin.

In the last four months, she'd moved out of her mom's house, got in her own car, and started a full-time job as a cleaning technician for a company that repaired and restored property damage. And now, getting married to the woman she loved on a beach in the Caribbean felt like a romantic and fitting way to end a whirlwind couple of months. Now, Devin took Michelle's hand and the two walked through the warm sand to a tourist trap bar to celebrate with some cold drinks. However, after they got a table and the afterglow of exchanging vows began to fade along with the late afternoon sun, reality began to set in for Devin. Getting married to Michelle in a tropical paradise was one thing, but dealing with the repercussions back home from this marriage was going to be

something else entirely. It wasn't homophobia that she was worried about. In 2000, there was still some social stigma associated with being a member of the LGBTQ community, but Devin was confident and outspoken, and so this didn't bother her. What Devin was worried about, though, was the very complicated romantic situation that was waiting for her back home. Because despite the fact that Devin had just gotten, you know, spiritually married to Michelle here on this beach, she was actually already living with her other girlfriend, whose name was Carrie Renner. And that wasn't all. Her other girlfriend Carrie was actually also married to someone else, a man, although Carrie and her husband had actually been separated since he had left for the army to go to basic training. But Devin's

relationship with Carrie was a lot different than her relationship with her new spiritual wife, Michelle. Devin and Carrie fought a lot, and their fights often became physical. Sometimes the police would have to come to break them up. Devin looked down at the pager clipped to her waist, and she was actually a little surprised that Carrie had not been paging her nonstop. Devin was planning to break up with Carrie as soon as she got home, and she really was not looking forward to the fight that that would almost certainly cause. But she decided that for right now, she wasn't going to think about any of that. Instead, she looked up and clinked her glass against Michelle's, then took a sip of our cocktail. Later that night, Devin and Michelle were relaxing back in their hotel

room. They were preparing to head back home the next day, and they were both sad and kind of stressed that their trip was almost over, because going back home wasn't only going to be complicated for Devin. Michelle also had a difficult set of relationships waiting for her back in Pennsylvania. Just like Devin, Michelle was also married to someone else, a man named Brandon Bloss. Michelle had actually used Brandon's credit card to pay for this St. Croix trip, But, also just like Devin, Michelle was planning on breaking up with Brandon right when they got back home. However, Devin and Michelle had come up with a plan to make their transition into their new life of spiritual marriage together easier. And now, sitting on the hotel bed together, Devin put this plan into action.

She picked up the hotel phone and called her father, Rick Guzman, who lived near her in Pennsylvania. When her dad answered, Devin told him about how she and Michelle had just gotten, you know, spiritually married and that she was planning. to break up with Carrie. And then she asked if she and Michelle could come move in with him for a bit. Rick immediately said yes. And Devin knew, just from the sound of his voice, that he was actually thrilled with her news, because he knew all too well that her relationship with Carrie was sort of a nightmare. So Devin thanked her dad and said she loved him very much and hung up. Then she and Michelle went to sleep, feeling happy. A few weeks later, at around 6.30 p.m. on Thursday, June 14th,

Devin and Michelle were hanging out and drinking at Devin's father's house in Pennsylvania, like they often did these days. However, Devin and Michelle were not actually living there yet, like they had planned to do way back in St. Croix. And this was because neither of them had actually broken up with their other partners yet, or had even told them about their spiritual wedding with each other, I mean, basically, they had kept everybody in the dark. And as this night wore on, and Devin and Michelle drank more and more,

this fact started to become a point of contention between them, and they started to bicker. Both of them were mad at the other for not fully committing. And so a little after 9 p.m., Devin and Michelle each left the house feeling really mad, and they got into their own cars, and they drove off to their own homes. A few minutes later, Devin stumbled drunkenly up the stairs and towards the door of the apartment that she still shared with Carrie that was right above a bar in Fork's township. She paused before she walked in. She was dreading the confrontation she knew was waiting for her inside. Devin looked down at the palm of her hand, at a cut that had not quite

finished healing yet. Only weeks earlier, after she had come home from St. Croix, she had tried to tell Carrie she did want to break up, but before she could say very much, Carrie had threatened to kill herself with a knife. And then when Devin had tried to wrestle that knife out of her hands, Devin had gotten this big cut on her hand, which required a trip to the emergency room. And so eventually, Devin took a deep breath, then reached down and turned the doorknob and walked inside. As expected, Carrie was waiting, and she was very upset. Devin couldn't hide the fact that clearly she had been out drinking, and also she couldn't hide who she had been out drinking with. And so naturally they began to argue, and for the first time,

Devin told Carrie that she and Michelle had exchanged wedding ring. during their trip to St. Croix. And this made Carrie fly into a rage. And so she hit Devin, and Devin hit her right back. And then before it could turn into a full-blown physical altercation, Devin's pager suddenly went off. She picked it up and saw that Michelle had actually been paging her nonstop. She just hadn't noticed.

And so quickly, she just walked away from Carrie and went into another room to call Michelle. And then, a few minutes later, she just came back into the living room where Carrie was still standing there. They're fuming, and Devin told Carrie that, hey, you know, Michelle's not feeling well, and so I'm going to go over to her house and check on her. And Carrie was sort of caught off guard and just said, well, I'm going with you.

And Devin, not wanting to argue anymore or have this escalate any further, told Carrie that fine, she could come, as long as she stayed in the car the whole time. So at around 10.30 p.m., Devin pulled her car up to Michelle's house in Easton, with Carrie sitting in the passenger seat. Devin reminded Carrie to remain where she was. And then Devin got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Devin knocked, and Michelle's husband, Brandon, answered. And unsurprisingly, he said he would not let Devin inside. However, the reason he gave was because his wife, Michelle, was upset that Devin had come here with Carrie.

And so he told Devin that if you want to come inside, you first have to bring Carrie home. And so Devin just turned around, walked back to her car, got inside, and informed Carrie that she was going to have to drive her back home and that she really didn't want to fight about it. And surprisingly, Carrie just sort of agreed because she didn't want to fight either. And at around 11.30 p.m., Devin dropped her off back at the Forks Township apartment.

Devin did go into the apartment with Carrie for a little while, but then at about 12.15 a.m., she went back outside and left to return to Michelle's place. About 30 minutes later, around 12.45, 5 a.m. on that Friday morning, the phone at Devin and Carrie's apartment began to ring. Carrie answered and heard Michelle's voice on the other line. And Michelle sounded really upset. She was demanding to know where Devin was. Carrie told Michelle to slow down here. She said Devin wasn't home because she had gone to your place. And when Michelle heard that, her voice turned frantic.

She told Carrie that Devin had not returned to her house that evening and that she'd been paging Devin over and over again, but Devin's still had not called her back. Now, to Carrie, this seemed like classic Devin behavior. Devin had a habit of storming off dramatically and disappearing for a while and not talking to anybody, but she always came back. And so Carrie tried to reassure Michelle that, you know, Devin would turn up soon. However, trying to reassure Michelle only made Michelle mad. Michelle began accusing Carrie of lying and started insisting that Devin must be with Carrie right now and that Carrie was selfishly keeping Devin from seeing her. Then, very abruptly, Carrie heard Michelle slam the receiver down to hang up the phone. Carrie thought that was going to be the end of it, but about an hour and a half

later, at about 2.30 in the morning, there was a loud knock on her door. And when Carrie answered, she found herself face to face with Michelle. And just as Michelle had done over the phone, she once again began to aggressively accuse Carrie of literally hiding Devin in the apartment. But Carrie told Michelle she had nothing to hide. And to prove it, she let Michelle come in and look around for Devin. Carrie figured, you know, once Michelle searched her apartment, she would chill out and realize Carrie was honestly telling the truth here, but Michelle did not chill out. Instead, after searching the apartment and not finding Devin, Michelle took out her phone and called 911. Hours later, still on that Friday morning, Carrie woke up in bed where she'd finally collapse,

after being awake most of the night. The cops had come to her place after Michelle called 911, but they seemed totally uninterested in the fact that Devin could be missing. And since it hadn't been 24 hours since she'd been seen or heard from, they really couldn't even file a missing person's report. Instead, the cops issued what's called an attempt to locate report, which as far as Carrie could tell was basically the same thing, but just way less urgent.

And before Carrie could even begin to sort out all her thoughts, there was another knock on her door. And so Carrie got up and she opened it up and once again there was Michelle. And she looked like she literally hadn't slept. And then she would say that, yep, she'd been up all night and all morning, just calling Devin's pager over and over again and just not getting an answer. Carrie rubbed her eyes and told Michelle to please calm down, that she was just making herself crazy here.

But Michelle ignored her and suggested they should both drive around together and see if they could literally just go find Devin, since it was obvious the cops were not going to be much help here. Carrie did not really want to go drive around with Michelle, but she figured, you know, at the very least, it would get Michelle out of her apartment. So Carrie got dressed and got into Michelle's car, and the two of them drove around town, scouting all the usual places they would go to with Devin. But realistically, Carrie was barely paying attention, she thought the whole thing was a big waste of time, and that Devin was sure to turn up soon on her own. That is, until around

1 p.m., when they arrived at a place called Canal Park, which was this gravel parking lot, lot in Easton right next to a river. Because as they pulled into the lot, Carrie saw Devon's car, a silver Pontiac Sunfire with a rainbow sticker on the bumper. And so as soon as Michelle came to a stop, Carrie jumped out of the car and ran over to Devin's car and tried to open the door, but it was locked. She banged on the window in frustration and tried to look inside, but the windows were too tinted so she couldn't see anything. But then she remembered she actually had a spare key in her pocket. So she pulled it out, unlocked the door, opened it up, and when she did, she screamed. true crime podcasts completely ad-free. No more waiting through cliffhangers or dealing with ads

because let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve-wracking part of true crime. To start your ad-free listening journey, download the Amazon music app for free or head to Amazon.com slash balin. That's Amazon.com slash b-a-l-l-l-en. Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. A half an hour later, Detective Barry Golazeski of the Eastern Police Department stepped out of his cruiser at Canal Park. As he slipped under the yellow police tape that cordoned off the area, Golazeski mentally ran through what dispatch had told him. Two women had discovered the body of their friend, another young woman named Devin Guzman. He looked over and saw two

crying women in the park and figured those must be the two women who found the body. Golazki just shook his head. Easton was not the kind of place where you would expect to find a dead teenager in a parking lot. Nonetheless, he walked over to the car to get a look for himself, peering in through the open rear door. Devon's body was curled up on the back seat, facing the rear of the car and covered by a green jacket.

He slipped on a pair of disposable gloves and went in for a closer look. He peeled back the jacket, and right away he saw a gaping wound on the front of Devin's neck. But he noticed right away that there was very little blood for such a major injury. And her clothes weren't covered in blood either, which is what he would have expected. Instead, he just saw dirt and grass stains. He scanned the interior of the car and saw that it too was pretty clean, although one of the floor mats was missing.

But the strangest detail was what Devin had clenched in her hand. She was holding a kitchen knife. Something about this didn't sit right to Goleseski. The knife in Devin's hand seemed to suggest she might have cut her own throat, but slitting your throat was a horrible way to die. Besides, there was almost no blood, barely any in the car and none on the knife. So to Golazeski, he felt like this was not a suicide. This was a murder staged to look like a suicide. Just then, the coroner's car pulled into the gravel lot, signaling to the detective that it was time for him to get a move on.

Golazeschi grabbed a cop standing nearby and told him to have both Devin's car, car and the car her friends had been driving when they found her, impounded immediately. Devon's car, for obvious reasons, but the friend's car as well, because the women had driven it so close to the crime scene. Then Golazeski walked over to the two hysterical friends of his victim and told them he would give them a ride to the police station to get their statements. Around 3 p.m. that afternoon, Golazeski walked into an interview room at Eastern Police headquarters and sat down across from Kerry, who had been crying so much that her eyes were red and bloodshot, and her voice was hoarse.

Golazeski started with the basics, asking Carrie how long she'd been friends with Devin. Now, in a homicide investigation, Golazeschi knew that everyone connected to the victim starts off as a suspect, but neither Carrie nor the other friend, Michelle, seemed particularly suspicious, at least to him so far. That was, until Carrie started talking. Because right away, she explained to Golazeski that she and Devin were not just friends. They were actually in a relationship together, although she admitted she was also technically married to somebody else, too. And Carrie didn't stop there. She told Golazeski that Michelle, the other friend who had been there when they found the body, was also in a relationship with Devin. But

like Carrie, Michelle was also married to someone else, another man, and she was living with him. Golaeski could barely keep this straight, but he also just couldn't believe what he was hearing. In the first five minutes of his interview, he already had a list of four people, Carrie, her husband, Michelle, and Michelle's husband, who were all romantically linked to the victim. The potential for jealous rivalries here was through the roof, and so they were definitely all suspects. And so they were all going to need an alibi. So Golazeski told Carrie to slow down and asked her about the last time she had seen Devin. Carrie took a deep calming breath, then she said that she and Devin had been fighting recently. because Carrie was really upset about Devin's ongoing relationship with Michelle.

She said that Michelle and Devin had recently gone to St. Croix together, and it just really upset Carrie. Golzeski nodded, but inside he was thinking this is sort of like textbook jealous rivalry here. However, Carrie went on to say that their most recent fight had not been as bad as some of their other fights. She admitted that on other occasions when they got into fights, that she and Devin would get physical. But most recently, she said their fight had just been them yelling at each other. And then, after this heated argument, Carrie said she had actually gone with Devin to Michelle's house, where Michelle's husband had told Devin to take Carrie back home again. And so Carrie said Devin came back to the car and did drive her back to the apartment,

and she got dropped off at about 11.30 p.m. And then Devin left again, a little while later, to presumably go back to Michelle's. But apparently, she hadn't made it there, because Michelle had called, asking Carrie, you know, where is Devin? And she said, I thought she was with you. When Carrie finished, Golazeski just sat there, trying to make sense of this very complicated story she had just told him. Of all the romantic partners in Devin's life, it seemed to Golazeski that Carrie was, physically at least, the closest to her, given that they lived together. And so that put her pretty high up on the suspect list. But on the other hand, she was being

extremely candid about the ugly side of their relationship, which made him think, you know, she might not be trying to hide anything. After Golazeski wrapped up the interview, he told Carrie she could go. Then Golazeski walked out of the room, wondering what more his victim's other girlfriend could possibly have to say. But when Golazeski sat down to speak with Michelle, Devin's other girlfriend, the other friend who found the body, he immediately sensed that this was going to be a very different kind of interview. Carrie had been almost shockingly honest, but Michelle seemed far less interested in talking

much at all about her personal life. She downplayed her relationship with Devin, saying that while they had been romantically involved in high school, they were just friends now. So typically, a person lying about their romantic affiliation with a murder victim was a huge red flag for Golazeski. But this case was a bit different. In the year 2000, being gay or bisexual was not as widely accepted as it is today. And so it was actually more surprising to Golazeski that Carrie had been so open about it than it was that Michelle was sort of trying to downplay it. And so he didn't press Michelle too hard on her romantic relationship with Devin. And besides, Michelle seemed to have a lot to say about Carrie. Michelle told Goleseski that when Devin did not return to her house after dropping off Carrie

on the night she disappeared, Michelle called Carrie to find out where Devin was. But Carrie had sounded totally unconcerned. And then, when Michelle had literally gone to Carrie's house to look for Devin, she said the only reaction Carrie had about the whole situation was just irritation. Michelle said she had been the one to insist on calling 911, like we don't know where Devin is. We have to do something. But then when the police showed up, they didn't really take it seriously, which was upsetting. But what was even more upsetting was apparently Carrie's reaction to all this. Michelle told Golazeski that Carrie basically didn't care and had even tried to talk Michelle out of calling the police in the first place

like she just didn't seem to care about Devin. After that, Michelle asked Golazeski if Carrie had told him about the fight where Carrie had stabbed Devin in the hand. And Golazeschi just shook his head and said no. And so she told Golazeski everything Devin had told her about that particular incident. And then at the end of telling the story, she told the detective that really that,

ordeal kind of summed up Devin and Carrie's relationship. And all of this did make Golazeski more suspicious of Carrie, but then again, this whole four-way romantic relationship just generally seemed highly suspicious to Golazeski. It was hard to try to sort out which of Devin's married girlfriends was lying about what and why. After wrapping up with Michelle, Golaeski had just one more interview to conduct that afternoon, and that was actually speaking to Michelle's husband, Brandon Bloss. Some uniformed officers had gone to Michelle's house while Golozeski was talking to Carrie and Michelle and brought Brandon in. And so after leaving Michelle, Goluzeschi went to find Brandon. At this point, he didn't know what to expect. And for a second, when he entered

the final interview room, he got excited, because Brandon was sitting there sweating profusely and looking incredibly uncomfortable. And Goluzeski's first thought was that, boy, he must be nervous. But then, Golazeski took in what Brandon was actually wearing, which was a long-sleeve shirt and jeans in the middle of summer inside of a tiny interview room with no windows and weak air conditioning. And so quickly, his excitement disappeared. Brandon was not nervous. He was just hot. The whole interview with Brandon turned out to be pretty unhelpful. He seemed to have no idea that his wife was romantically involved with Devin. And he also didn't know about their trip to St. Croix. In fact, he said that Michelle had told him that she'd gone on a business trip to San Francisco,

not to a tropical island on vacation with Devon. Now, it was possible that Brandon could be pretending not to know anything about his wife's relationship with Devin, but given how tight-lipped Michelle herself had been with the detective, Golazeski was inclined to think that Brandon might really be in the dark here. Eventually, Golazeski told Brandon he could go home. And once he was gone, the detective just sat by himself in the interview room, thinking over his entire suspect list. He had already ruled out Carrie's estranged husband

pretty much as soon as he had run his name through the system because what he found is he was in the military and living 250 miles away on a base in New York. And Michelle's husband, Brandon, didn't seem very promising either since he appeared to be basically clueless about his wife's romantic dynamic. However, Carrie and Michelle, on the other hand, seemed like real possibilities.

So, Golazeski wrote out two applications for search warrant. One for the apartment, Carrie shared with Devin, and one for the home where Michelle lived with Brandon. Golazeski was pretty sure Devin had not been killed where her body was found, and he figured, with one of these searches, he'd find the real murder scene. So far, the investigation had been moving extremely fast, and, to Golozeski's delight, he was able to get both warrants granted right away, so the momentum continued. Late on the same night that Devin's body had been found, two teams of crime scene technicians descended on the two properties and began searching for evidence.

Golazeski went first to the home where Devin had lived with Kerry. And the first thing he noticed was the place was in shambles. Furniture was overturned and strewn about like a very intense fight had taken place there. In the bathroom, a few members of the forensics team had found what appeared to be a car's floor mat in the shower, just like the floor mat that was missing. missing from Devon's car. And so the running theory became amongst the people on the scene that the mat was there because clearly it was being washed and probably recently. And so Golozeski watched as someone from forensics sprayed the shower floor beneath the

mat with luminal, a chemical compound used by law enforcement to detect blood. And immediately, the area that was sprayed began to glow blue, suggesting that there was indeed the presence of blood either on that floor mat or in the shower. Now, the luminal test, was not 100% accurate, but at this point, for Golazeski, it was good enough. And so as he stood there looking at the glowing bathroom floor, he realized he might very well be standing in the home of his killer. By the time Golazeski made it over to Michelle and Brandon's house to check on how the search was going over there, it was past midnight so he was tired, but he was also feeling

pretty good about the state of his case. And initially, when a crime scene tech began walking him through Michelle and Brandon's home, he felt even better. Because there was no blood at all inside of Michelle and Brandon's house. There was no sign of a fight either. But then, the crime scene tech told Goleseschi that they had found some blood with the luminal test out in the backyard, on a pool cover and on the nozzle of a hose. Goleseschi frowned. Until this moment, he had felt lucky to have found blood in one suspect's home. Now he had blood in both the homes where all his suspects lived, making this thing even more confusing. Now, he was fairly certain that Carrie, Michelle, and Brandon had not all worked together to kill Devin, and even if they had, they wouldn't

result in two separate murder scenes miles apart. Colozeschi checked his watch, and he saw that at this point, he'd been awake for almost 24 hours, and so he decided to let the crime scene unit finish processing both homes and go get some sleep. He'd come back fresh in the morning, and hopefully then things would look clearer. When Golazeski walked into his office the next day on June 16th, so one full day after Devin Goosman's body had been found, he found her autopsy report waiting for him on his desk, and it was gruesome. The wound to Devin's throat was a four-inch-long cut that went almost all the way to her spine. The cut had severed her tongue and also sliced in half,

both her right carotid artery and also her right jugular vein. When the coroner originally pulled her body from the car, they thought for a moment that her head had actually been completely cut off. Devin had lost almost all the blood in her body before she was placed in the car. So Golazaki had been right, that she had been killed somewhere else like Carrie's shower or maybe Michelle's backyard. But as he continued reading, he realized he'd been wrong about something else. The coroner had put Devin's time of death somewhere between,

midnight and 3 a.m. Until this moment, Golazeski still thought that Carrie was his best suspect. But now he thought of something. Carrie didn't have a car. To kill Devin and leave her at Canal Park, Carrie would have had to walk eight miles back to her apartment, which would have taken at least three hours. And so obviously she had not done that because she had been at home when Michelle showed up looking for Devin at 2.30 a.m. And so suddenly, Michelle was looking at a lot better as Golazeski's killer. And that's when Golaeski's desk phone rang. An officer on the other line told the detective that he had the strange caller on hold

and that the guy was saying really weird stuff about the Devin Gousman case. The officer said he would patch him through. Golazeski dropped the stack of papers on his desk and picked up a pen just in time to hear the voice of a man who introduced himself as George Vine Jr. The man said he was a friend of Devin and Michelle, and a few months ago, Michelle had offered him, sex or money, to, quote, get rid of Devin. Now, at the time, he said he just laughed it off because he knew how volatile Devin and Michelle's relationship could be, and he figured this was just more of that.

But now that Devin was dead, he wasn't so sure. And now, neither was Golazeski. And so Golazeschi now had a whole new theory for this case, with Michelle, not Kerry, at the center. But almost immediately, he started running in. into new problems. George Vine Jr.'s story sounded like a slam dunk, but when another detective went to take his statement, he found that it was actually months old and pretty vague, and that Vine had no corroborating evidence. And as Golazeski and his team began the painstaking process of conducting interviews with every family member, friend, and neighbor of Devin's they could find,

more cracks formed in the Michelle theory. Two separate sets of interviews threw Golazeski off. The first set was with Michelle and Brandon's neighbors. They told police that Michelle and Brandon fought with each other constantly, and that contrary to what Brandon had told Goleseschi, he did know about Michelle and Devin's relationship, and he wasn't happy about it. And one of these two neighbors had actually heard Brandon arguing with Devin on the same night Devin was killed.

And so this made Golazeski think that he should be looking more closely at Brandon. However, the second set of interviews muddied the waters even further and pointed him right back at Carrie. Because her neighbors said that on the night of the murder, they heard fighting too. Now, Golazeski already knew that Carrie and Devin had fought because Carrie herself had told him this, but Carrie had claimed that the last time she saw Devin was at about 12.15 a.m. when Devin left to head to Michelle's. Her neighbors, though, said differently.

One woman said, after hearing this fight, she had walked past their apartment at about 1.30 a.m. And she saw that the front door was open. And inside, she said that she could see this woman laying on a couch wearing a green jacket. This was obviously significant because when Devin's body was found, she was being covered by a green jacket. If what this woman said was true, it meant Carrie lied about when Devin left her apartment. The final, complicating piece of evidence arrived late that afternoon. The crime scene text had tested the blood found at both Carrie and Devin's apartment and Michelle and Bram. Brandon's apartment. The blood that was found in Michelle and Brandon's yard couldn't be matched to anyone

because it was too diluted. But the blood in Carrie's shower was a match for Devin. Less than one week into his murder case, Golazeski now had three suspects. They all had motive and opportunity. And they had all lied to him. And Golazeski had witness statements and physical evidence that made all of them look guilty. But Golaeseski knew they didn't all murder Devin, and he was stumped as to how to figure out which one did. Devin's funeral was held on June 21st, six days after her murder. 400 people attended her funeral. And right around that day, Golazeski and his team sat down with all their files and went

back to square one. They went through every interview, every piece of physical evidence, every observation that any of them had made during their investigation so far, and as they did this, they ended up stumbling upon this sort of unusual plan that they believed would point them to their killer. On June 28th, about a week and a half after Devin Guzman was killed, Detective Goleseski sat in an unmarked police car parked on the side of a street. It was a Wednesday, which was important, because Wednesday was trash day.

And Golaeski was waiting for one of his suspects to leave their home and bring their trash to the curb, because their trash was not just trash. In Golozsky's eyes, it was evidence. And in the state of Pennsylvania, once someone puts their trash out on the curb for collection, the trash is no longer considered private, and so the cops don't need a search warrant to go sifting through it. This kind of curbside search is called a trash pole. So now, Golazeski was betting on bags of trash to close this case. Eventually, his suspect emerged carrying their trash, they put it on the side of the road, and Golazeski waited until they were back inside their home.

Then he climbed out of his car, grabbed the trash, put it in his trunk, and drove to the police station. Once inside headquarters, Golazeski brought the trash bags into an evidence room, ripped them open, and dumped their contents out on a table. And then he began the very dirty work of sorting through all the smelly junk, the rotting food, the discarded receipts, the coffee grinds, the wet paper towels, and balled-up clumps of newspaper. But then, right as he reached the end of the bag, he found something. This discovery would trigger the police to exhume Devin's body and look inside of her mouth. And once they did this, they had their killer.

Based on evidence collected by the Eastern Police Department over the course of a nearly two-month investigation, this is a reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to Devin Guzman in the early hours of June 15, 2000. Devin Guzman had actually left her killer's home, but she eventually came back. And when the killer saw her, all the rage they'd been feeling for weeks exploded. And the killer lunged at Devin. But Devin fought back.

And for a brief moment, Devin escaped their killer and began to walk away. But the killer took the moment that Devin's back was turned to come up behind her with a knife, and they reached around, and they viciously slid her throat. Then, after Devin had bled to death, the killer dragged Devin's body to Devin's own car, she put her body in the back seat along with a decoy knife in her hand, and then the killer drove the car all the way to Canal Park and left it there. Now, the killer might have gotten away with it, except for the bite mark, they didn't even realize Devin had left during the fight.

And the reason they didn't realize it is because Devin did not bite the killer. She bit the killer's accomplice. And the accomplice, not really realizing how significant that bite mark was, had just dressed the wound as if it was just any other wound. They'd put gauze and bandages over the bite mark. And unfortunately for them, but fortunately for law enforcement, those bandages, when they were discarded in their trash, well, police were able to actually see the bite mark on the bandage.

It retained the bite mark and gave away that's what had been dressed over. Now, Golazeski might have noticed the bite mark on the accomplice's arm, when he interviewed them, except the accomplice was wearing long sleeves in the middle of the summer. The killer was Michelle, and her accomplice was her husband, Brandon. The blood identified in Carrie's bathroom was indeed Devons, but it had not come from her murder. She had simply bled in the shower, naturally, just close to the time that she was killed. The car mat turned out to not have any blood on it at all. Instead, it was stained with pickled beet juice, which Devin or Kerry had coincidentally tried to wash off in the shower.

Devin's body was covered in dirt and grass stains because she was likely killed outside in the backyard of Michelle and Brandon's home. As for the eyewitness who saw Devin on the couch at Carrie's house on the night of the murder, they were simply mistaken about the time. Both Michelle and Brandon were arrested in August of 2000. They each blamed the other for the actual killing, although prosecutors presented evidence that suggests Michelle had been wielding the knife. On October 5th, 2001, both Michelle and Brandon were convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They later divorced. As for Carrie, she was completely exonerated and actually wound up reuniting with her estranged husband.

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. Our head of production is Zach Levitt, produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Zeth Lundy.

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 Witt Lacassio and Cole Lacassio. 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 Klogsten Kiner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studios podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Ballin podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, bedtime stories, wartime stories, run-full, redacted, late nights with Nexpo, and a twist of history.

All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So, that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see you. Hey, You can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes

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