Park Predators - The Cliff

Episode Date: July 30, 2024

When a beloved wife and mother of three falls to her death inside a Michigan national park in 2006, authorities immediately begin looking at her husband. His changing stories and scandalous secrets seal his fate, but the couple’s children remain convinced their father is an innocent man.  View source material and photos for this episode at: parkpredators.com/the-cliff Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and the story I'm going to tell you about today took place in a unique geographical location in the United States, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. This recreation area sits in Michigan's Upper Peninsula region, which many people just refer to as the UP. Forty-two miles of Lake Superior's southern shore butts up to pictured rocks and offers amazing views of beaches, forests, and local wildlife. There are almost 100 miles of trails you can hike or walk, many of which take you right up to the edge of sandstone cliffs that plummet straight down to the water below. The National Lakeshore offers a lot of different spots for visitors to camp, kayak, bird watch, or fish. Because it's a place where water and land collide, there's even a historic lighthouse from the late 1800s that's still standing. The beacon was meant to warn sailors that the treacherous cliffs lay ahead. But in June 2006, it wasn't a boater who fell victim to the lakeshore's dangerous vertical boundary.

It was a woman, a beloved mother and wife. To this day, her killer remains behind bars, but some people wonder if there's more to the story. This is Park Predators. At 1130 in the morning on Thursday, June 22, 2006, Carrie Farkas was working inside the Miner's Castle Information Center at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore when a man came up to her acting very frazzled and reported some alarming news. The guy said his name was Tom Richardson and his 43-year-old wife, Juanita, was missing.

Now, some sources claim that Tom actually told park officials that his wife had fallen, but either way, he asked Carrie to call 911 immediately. According to reporting by Josh Mankiewicz for NBC's Dateline, 44-year-old Tom told Carrie that he and his wife had been resting and having a picnic near the top of a cliff about a half mile away from the visitor center. Carrie knew the area he was referring to was a popular spot for hikers to visit and rest if they'd been on their feet for a while. Right away, Carrie radioed her supervisor, and shortly after that,

the superintendent of Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, a guy named Jim Northup, who was working just up the road at the park's headquarters, got involved. Carrie told him what was going on, and not long after getting that call, Jim rushed home to grab some climbing and rescue gear, and then headed straight to the Miner's Castle cliff area, where he linked up with the park staff who told him a woman either

disappeared or had fallen. Jim scoped out the cliff where this reported incident was alleged to have happened. He looked for signs in the landscape and brush that someone had stumbled or perhaps fallen, but didn't notice anything unusual. He then peered over the edge and saw what looked like a woman's body down at the bottom on a rocky ledge lying in a pool of blood. That's when alarm bells started going off for him. He quickly left the cliff and hurried over to the visitor center to meet up with other park staff members and the man who reported the incident. That guy was Tom, and he explained to park officials that he and his wife had arrived at the Miners Cliff Overlook area around 10 30 in the morning, but about 25 minutes later, he needed to excuse himself to use the restroom. Right before

getting up to walk to the visitor center, he said his wife snapped a photo of him sitting on some grass, and then he left. A few minutes later, when he got back, he didn't see Juanita waiting for him. Jim Northup told Dateline, quote, his initial report was that she was essentially missing and unaccounted for. He didn't know if she'd fallen off the cliff, if she'd gone for a walk, if she'd been abducted, or maybe attacked by a bear, end quote. Park rangers then spent the next 30 to 45 minutes trying to calm down Tom and get to Juanita. Accessing the spot where she'd landed, though, was going to be tricky. It wasn't a place most people could traverse too easily, and even if you were in a boat on Lake Superior, it was dangerous to attempt the

feed. Eventually, though, around noon, a captain for a Pictured Rocks boat cruise navigated to the spot in his vessel, but couldn't get close enough to the rocks. Then a smaller Alger County Sheriff's Office boat came to the location and recovered her body. From what the team could see, it appeared she'd suffered a serious head injury and was bleeding a lot. She was face down and barefoot. Where her body ended up was on a rocky ledge about 140 to 200 feet below the cliff where she'd been sitting with Tom. Dateline described this distance as being roughly the distance of falling from a 14-story structure. The source material doesn't explicitly state how long it took for the retrieval crew to get to Juanita's body

or if she was still breathing when rescue workers got to her. But the National Park Service reported that she was transported via ambulance to Munising Memorial Hospital and was pronounced dead upon arrival. ambulance to Munising Memorial Hospital and was pronounced dead upon arrival. In very short order, deputies with the Alger County Sheriff's Department and troopers from the Michigan State Police arrived on scene at the cliff to assess the situation. According to the National Park Service, she was the first person in the park's history to ever fall from that cliff. It had never happened prior to that. What authorities learned from speaking with Tom is that he and his wife were on their fourth day of vacation celebrating their 23rd wedding

anniversary. They were both outdoor enthusiasts and enjoyed hiking in Michigan's Upper Peninsula region. In fact, Pictured Rock's National Lakeshore was a place they'd been before. Years earlier, shortly after they'd gotten married, they'd visited the cliffside where she'd reportedly fell. Their trip in 2006, though, was also their way of celebrating getting all their kids moved out of their house. They were officially empty nesters because the youngest of their three children, Levi, had just finished high school. So this trip was supposed to be Tom and Juanita's time to reconnect, just the two of them. Now, the location where she died was roughly four hours north from where she and Tom lived

and had raised their kids in the small town of McBain, Michigan. According to an episode of Dateline about this case, a few hours after recovering the body from the lakeshore, a deputy with the Alger County Sheriff's Office interviewed Tom at the same hospital his wife had been taken to. After Tom officially identified the body, he began to tell this investigator what happened. But some of the details in this version of his story were different than the version he initially told park rangers earlier that morning. For example, Tom said that after he'd left his wife near the cliffside to go to the visitor center and use the restroom, he stopped at their car to change his shoes and sunglasses.

Then after that is when he hiked back to the spot where he'd last seen Juanita but didn't find her. He said when he didn't get a reply after calling out her name, he decided to look over the edge, but because he was extremely fearful of heights, he got on his hands and knees to do so. And that's when he saw something white way down at the bottom. He figured it was probably his wife, since she'd been wearing a white jacket when they'd last been together. He told authorities that after spotting the white object, he realized he needed to report what happened to the park rangers, which is why he ran toward the visitor center in such a panic. He adamantly stated in this version of the story he was telling the investigator that he had not seen his wife actually fall. This deputy who was taking in Tom's story told Dateline that the whole time Tom was talking, he wasn't acting super sad

or upset. In the deputy's opinion, Tom wasn't exhibiting the type of grief and shock that a guy whose wife had just died would normally show. Essentially, this deputy felt like Tom was way too calm about the whole situation. And this investigator's suspicions only increased when he spoke with Tom again a few hours later around 10 30 p.m. Thursday night. During their second conversation, Tom changed the details of his story again. And we're not talking like a minor detail either. Essentially, the entire narrative of Tom's story about what happened to his wife was different.

According to this new version of the story, Juanita had died by suicide. According to reporting by Dateline, Tom's new version of what happened in Pictured Rock's National Lakeshore on June 22nd was that his wife had leapt to her death right in front of him as he got back from using the restroom. Tom said as he remembered it, he was walking toward her, their eyes locked, and then she just turned and hurled herself off the cliff. As she fell, he said he heard her scream, oh my God. When the detective interviewing Tom asked him why he hadn't shared this information sooner,

Tom responded that he didn't want his wife's reputation to be damaged if everyone found out she died by suicide. But as you can imagine, the detective was not buying Tom's story. He decided to take Tom out to the cliff on the morning of Friday, June 23rd and have Tom walk him through what exactly he saw. But once they got there, Tom's story changed again. According to what the investigators told Dateline, when Tom guided the sheriff's office through what happened, he stated that his wife hadn't jumped of her own free will. Instead, she just sort of leaned over as if she wanted to show him something and then somehow in her motion fell. Basically, he was now claiming Juanita's death was an accident.

an accident. So if you're keeping count, which I totally am, Tom gave the authorities three different versions of what happened in just the first day of the investigation. First, he said he couldn't find her. Second, he said he saw her leap to her death. Third, he said he saw her, but it wasn't suicide. It was an accident. Obviously, his changing stories got investigators hackles up, and they weren't alone. In her interview with Dateline, Juanita's sister, Jeanette Ellens, said that from the moment she learned her sister had fallen to her death from a cliff inside Pictured Rock's National Lakeshore, she believed Tom had done it. For years, her family members had watched the couple's marriage play out,

and they'd grown increasingly frustrated by how Tom treated Juanita. They told Dateline that he'd been emotionally and verbally abusive to her, and even though he'd never physically hit her, he had called her names like stupid, and would often imply that she couldn't do anything correctly. Because of this, her parents and sister had never had a good relationship with Tom. They flat out just didn't like him. On the flip side, though, the couple's three grown kids all told police that their parents' marriage was good, and their dad wasn't abusive in the slightest.

The Associated Press reported that they were made aware of their mother's death the day after she died, since Tom had been detained by park rangers and spoke with investigators at length at the hospital the afternoon and night of the incident. The kids maintained that everything between their parents was healthy, and they never witnessed their father emotionally or verbally attack their mother. Their family wasn't super well off, but they said their dad had always worked hard to provide. Tom worked for FedEx as a delivery truck driver, and Juanita was a secretary at a school in McBain. The Richardson family faithfully attended church, and Tom even taught in the youth group, while his wife sang in the choir. Based on what I read in the source material, it appears the Michigan State Police and Alger County Sheriff's Office worked closely together during the first

few days of the investigation, but by July 6th, 14 days after Juanita's death, the FBI had joined them since where she died was technically within the bounds of federal property. By that point, Tom had lawyered up. Even though no one in law enforcement had officially said they were looking at him as a suspect, it was pretty well assumed he was in their crosshairs. And just in case you're wondering, the official autopsy results came in at some point around this time, and they confirmed Juanita had died from a combination of impact injuries sustained from the fall. The source material doesn't go into a ton of detail, but all you need to know is that there weren't any obvious signs of trauma

that indicated a violent fight or something had happened prior to the fall. Investigators still hadn't formally ruled the death as an accident, which meant they were still considering the possibility that it was suspicious. The local sheriff's office, park police, state police, and the feds created a task force to jointly work the case and gather leads from folks living and working in the Upper Peninsula, as well as the Richardsons' hometown. A detective from the state police visited McBain to learn as much as possible about the couple. According to Dateline, this investigator was from there, so he knew exactly who to talk to and how to get behind-the-scenes type information. And the more he

talked with folks, the more he kept hearing the same thing over and over again. Tom might be responsible for what happened to his wife. No one had any hard proof Tom killed her though, but through conversations with residents, the detective from the state police learned that Tom had been unfaithful in his marriage at least once, about seven years earlier, so like 1999 time frame. It's not exactly clear how long that affair had lasted, but within a year of finding out about it, Juanita had decided to work things out with her husband, and apparently their marriage was fine after that. But in the back of the lead detective's mind, he wasn't so sure. Tom having a track record of infidelity was not a good look, plus the authorities already had their doubts about whether he was trying to hide something.

Plus, the authorities already had their doubts about whether he was trying to hide something. So investigators began probing into the couple's finances to see if there was anything there that might be worth exploring. And boy, was there ever. Authorities learned that the Richardsons owed about $235,000 on their house just outside of McBain. And Tom was the sole recipient of four life insurance policies that combined were worth roughly $240,000. So almost the exact same amount that they owed on their house. The life insurance proceeds weren't exactly a smoking gun, but it was another piece of information the authorities tucked away as possible circumstantial evidence that could point to why Tom would maybe have wanted to kill his wife.

The source material isn't specific on when this next part happened, but at some point in the weeks and months after Juanita died, detectives executed a search warrant at the Richardsons' home and seized some computers. They also received a tip that led them to speak with a woman named Kelly Brophy. According to reporting by Dateline, Tom had spent an awful lot of time chatting with Kelly on the phone at night in the months leading up to his wife's death. Kelly worked at a convenience store that was on Tom's

FedEx route, and their cell phone records showed that in the time span of about 10 months prior to the crime, the two had called one another 383 times. Investigators interviewed Kelly on several different occasions after the summer of 2006, but she remained adamant that she and Tom did not have an affair or romantic relationship. She said they were just friends. When authorities asked her why she spoke on the phone with a married man almost 400 times, she claimed that most of her and Tom's conversations were about the Bible or Bible studies. Eventually, though, Kelly did reveal to investigators that before Juanita's death, Tom had purchased a pair of earrings for her around Christmas of 2005,

and he'd also told her that his wife had cancer and would likely pass away soon. Now again, this is all reportedly happening months before Juanita died. And he'd also told her that his wife had cancer and would likely pass away soon. Now again, this is all reportedly happening months before Juanita died. So to investigators, it was extremely suspicious Tom was doing that. And just a side note, Juanita had learned about a lump in her breast, but that was in April 2006, and that mass had been tested and it came back as benign. So she definitely did not have cancer like Tom was telling Kelly, which is why detectives thought it was so sus that Tom had lied to Kelly about this. Kelly also revealed to police that throughout her many conversations with Tom prior to the incident, Tom had asked her if she'd, quote, wait for him, and she agreed that she would.

She told Tom that she would consider marrying him if his wife died from cancer, and he did not take up drinking, smoking, or stop believing in God. Something else authorities thought was highly suspicious was a phone call Tom made to Kelly the night before the fatal incident in the park. According to reporting by Dateline, on June 21st, 2006, literally hours before his wife supposedly fell to her death, Tom called Kelly while he was staying with Juanita near Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. He and Kelly's call lasted for 13 minutes, and Kelly told police that she mostly just listened to Tom talk. But authorities weren't so sure.

They suspected the phone call might have been Tom plotting what he was going to do the following morning, but Kelly told detectives that wasn't the case. Whatever friendship or possible relationship existed between Kelly and Tom, though, seemingly vanished about a month after Juanita's death. Because according to reporting by Dateline, by the end of July 2006, Tom had started asking his friends if they would set him up with women. He reportedly didn't see Kelly ever again and showed a lot of interest in going on dates with other women. And when detectives got wind that Tom was back in the

dating game, they devised a plan to lure him into a fake relationship with an undercover female trooper, just to see if he would reveal anything about his late wife's untimely death. On one of these arranged dates, Tom was recorded talking about how he needed physical touch to be fulfilled and how displays of affection were his main love language. It also didn't take him long to open up about his wife's tragic fall. He told the undercover trooper who was posing as his date how Juanita had fallen in a tragic accident and how he'd heard her screaming as she plunged to her death. These covert recordings weren't proof that Tom pushed his wife, but combined with the fact that he had changed his story multiple times, he'd had an inappropriate friendship with Kelly Brophy, and he was the recipient of a large life insurance payout, made the detectives feel like they had a strong enough case to arrest him.

So on February 6th, 2007, that's exactly what they did. Detectives charged Tom with murder and took him into custody. Detectives charged Tom with murder and took him into custody. The Associated Press reported that he was arraigned in Alger County District Court for an open murder charge and a manslaughter charge, which initially I thought was kind of weird since earlier the FBI had gotten involved. But turns out, at some point before the arrest, all the departments had gotten together and decided that the local authorities had jurisdiction. So that's why Tom was arraigned in a county district courtroom and not a federal courthouse. But the case against him was mostly circumstantial. There was no murder weapon, no forensic evidence, nothing but possible motives and means. Prosecutors knew it was going to be an uphill battle to secure a conviction.

And the defense knew this too. Right out the gate, Tom's attorney stated that his client was completely innocent of the crime and was pleading not guilty. He told the Associated Press, quote, Tom did not kill his wife. We believe that after a trial, he will be vindicated. There is no physical evidence of any wrongdoing. The case, we expect,

will largely be based on rumor and speculation, end quote. The affidavit authorities filed in court, which is what Tom's attorney claimed was supposition, was extremely detailed and pointed. The Times-Herald reported that the document explained how Tom's story had changed several times and that at one point Tom had told officers he thought his wife might have been upset or in low spirits because all their children had moved out. He added that she was also still reconciling with the results from her non-cancerous lump. But investigators straight up stated

that they believed Tom was having an affair with Kelly Brophy and his marriage was headed toward divorce. Even more concerning was the fact that nine days before Tom and his wife had left for their vacation to the UP, they had met with an estate attorney. This guy told the Associated Press and Dateline that during the estate planning meeting, Tom had been insistent that he and Juanita's will

be ironed out before they left for their trip. The lawyer said he was kind of surprised how adamant Tom was about the Will stuff, to the point where Tom said, quote, if one of us dies tomorrow, what happens to our property? End quote. In hindsight, that statement seemed kind of ominous, since his wife did die just a few days later. After Tom's arrest, around the end of February 2007, a judge held a three-day preliminary hearing and listened to both sides argue over these kinds of details. The judge's job was to determine if there was enough evidence to even go to trial.

Throughout the hearing, several people took the stand to testify, including some of the couple's close friends, members of law enforcement, Kelly Brophy, Tom's boss at FedEx, and the couple's neighbor, a guy named Timothy Baker. According to reporting by the Associated Press, Timothy told the court that he'd personally witnessed Tom verbally abuse his wife, and he also believed Tom had mentally abused her too.

And remember when Michigan State Police set up that whole undercover trooper going on a date with Tom thing? Well, turns out Timothy had played an important role in setting that whole operation up. You see, Tom had come to Timothy shortly after his wife's death and asked him to set him up with a woman. Eventually, Timothy hooked up with the police and together, they all devised that plan for Timothy to recommend Tom to see the undercover trooper. Basically, Timothy was integral to this ruse. At the conclusion of the three-day hearing in Timothy's testimony, the judge decided there was enough evidence for Tom to stand trial for his wife's murder. But despite the mounting case against their father, the couple's three adult

children remained loyal to him and supported him 100%. About two weeks later, Tom's defense hit a bit of a snag when the prosecutor in the case accused his defense attorney of tampering with a witness. According to reporting by the Associated Press, the lead prosecutor for the state got word that Tom's attorney had spoken with Kelly Brophy at some point and allegedly threatened her to not speak with Tom or the police before the trial. The prosecution asked the judge in the case to remove Tom's attorney and require him to get a new one. Around the same time, the state also requested

that all the records in the case be sealed from public view. Now, that request really got under the defense's skin because Tom's attorney wanted everything in the case to be publicly accessible so that people could see what a weak case the prosecution had against his client. In fact, Tom's lawyer told the Associated Press that law enforcement investigators had intentionally leaked information to journalists while the homicide investigation was going on. He said they'd done this to persuade members of the public into thinking Tom was guilty.

Within days of the prosecution submitting its request to boot Tom's attorney, the judge ruled in the state's favor. Tom's defense attorney was dismissed and the prosecution forged ahead toward trial. A few months later, in July 2007, there was another preliminary hearing in the case. and this time, Tom took the stand. According to reporting by the Associated Press, in July 2007, so just barely more than a year

after Juanita's death, the defense and the prosecution attended a preliminary hearing to figure out if the initial statements Tom had made to police investigators would be admissible at trial. Essentially, Tom's new defense attorney wanted to get all the conflicting stories he'd said about what happened to his wife suppressed so they couldn't be used against him. In order to parse through it all, Tom decided to take the stand and once and for all go on record about what he remembered from that fateful hike with his wife. He told the court that on the morning Juanita died, she'd been standing about two feet away from the edge of the cliff, facing

toward him when she fell. As he was returning from the restrooms, he was about 15 feet away from her when he saw her plunge over the side. He described her as having a smile on her face as she turned and raised one of her arms to motion toward the water. He said it was in that instant she went hurling over the edge. He claimed he briefly fainted when he saw his wife fall, but after coming to, attempted to crawl to the side of the cliff and look for her. He said he peered down to the rocky ledge below and saw her white sweater, then fainted again. A few minutes later, when he regained consciousness, he said he hurried toward the visitor center to report what happened. Describing how chaotic this moment was for him, he said, quote, I was dealing with grief and anxiety. My heart was

pounding hysterical, end quote. He went on to explain that he was brought into a room at the hospital to officially identify his wife's body, but then escorted out to be interviewed by investigators. Because this case had gotten so much media attention in Alger County, the judge decided Tom's trial should be conducted in the neighboring judicial seat of Schoolcraft County. In mid-July 2007, the judge ordered a change of venue, hoping to ensure that a jury pull further away from the Richardsons' hometown could be more impartial. The Associated Press reported that the trial was originally set for August 6, 2007, but it ended up being delayed because Tom's original defense attorney

had filed an appeal with the Michigan Court of Appeals to be reinstated on the case. In October 2007, that guy won his appeal and once again was eligible to represent Tom. In March 2008, Tom's six-week trial officially got underway, and according to an article by the Lansing State Journal, the lead prosecutor came out swinging. She outright accused Tom of being an unfaithful husband, a liar, a narcissist, and a man who wanted life insurance money so badly he chose to push his wife off a cliff. And remember how I said earlier that investigators initially didn't think the autopsy results showed signs of a struggle or a fight? Well, during trial, a doctor testified for the prosecution that he'd found two odd-looking linear bruises on Juanita's right thigh. He told the court that to him, those bruises

looked like something had struck her before she fell. He didn't clarify if he thought that had happened moments before her death or, well, before the couple's visit to the park, but he definitely said the bruises were noticeable and indicative of a rod or a stick making contact with her leg at some point. Immediately following that doctor's testimony, Tom's karate instructor, who'd taught him years earlier, took the stand and testified for the prosecution. He said that Tom knew more than a dozen different types of kicks used in martial arts. This witness didn't testify very long, but I think the point the state was trying to make with this karate instructor was that Tom was capable of delivering a significant kick,

which could have been used to make his wife become unbalanced and fall. Tom's side argued, though, that the entire incident in Pictured Rocks was an accident. Tom didn't testify in his own defense, but one of his friends, a guy who at one point lived with the Richardsons, told the court that Tom was a good father and husband who was very involved in church and dedicated to his family. Throughout the trial, the couple's adult children also remained supportive of their dad's claim of innocence, and each of them took the stand in his defense. Eventually, the decision of whether Tom was guilty or innocent went to jurors, and on Tuesday, April 15, 2008, they began deliberating. The next day, Wednesday, April 16, they convicted Tom of first-degree murder.

In Michigan, the verdict came with an automatic sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. Tom was formally sentenced in May 2008, a month after his trial concluded. He maintained his innocence and later read a statement that said in part, quote, I loved my wife and I took care of my wife, end quote. In response to the conviction, Jim Northup, who also happened to be a spokesman for the National Park Service, released an official statement that said in part, quote, we were very pleased with the verdict and sentence in this case and feel that justice has been served. There are always things to be learned in any incident, from the minor to the most complex.

We once again offer our sincere condolences to all who knew and loved Juanita Richardson. National parks are places where people come for beauty, recreation, and spiritual renewal. Thomas Richardson not only disrespected the sanctity of Juanita's life and his own family, but the integrity of this special place set aside by all of the American people. special place set aside by all of the American people. End quote. In the wake of Tom's trial, Juanita's family members were still reeling with pain. The Associated Press reported that even though they were happy with the outcome, the loss of losing her was still a tremendous weight for them to bear. At Tom's sentencing, Jeanette Ellens, her sister, said, quote, two years ago you chose to take her from us. Not only did you take our daughter, our sister, said, quote, Two years ago, you chose to take her from us.

Not only did you take our daughter, our sister, and our aunt, but you also took the mother from your very own children, end quote. After he was sentenced, Tom asked relatives to attempt to mend things as best as they could. In June 2008, Tom's attorney filed an appeal to get him a new trial, but by November 2010, a state judge decided to deny it. In October 2019, the United States Court of Appeals over the Sixth Circuit affirmed that decision. As of this recording, Tom is still serving his time in a Michigan prison. He is 62 years old.

Jeanette Ellens has visited Pictured Rock's National Lakeshore since her sister's murder. She told Dateline that going to the spot and taking in the sights and sounds of nature has brought her comfort. She told the program in part, quote, I feel like Juanita's there, and I don't want to leave. I don't want to go home. She's saying, I'm okay. I'm good. I'm in better hands now. End quote. Park Predators is an AudioChuck original show. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?