RedHanded - Tiffany Cole: Buried Alive | #404

Episode Date: June 19, 2025

Party girl Tiffany Cole had always relied on the kindness of strangers – including her former neighbours, Reggie and Carol Sumner. This frail older couple helped Tiffany out as if she were their own daughter…And she repaid their kindness by digging their grave. Literally.Tiffany claimed it was all her boyfriend’s idea, and she never meant for the Sumners to get hurt. But how did a boneheaded robbery plot by a bunch of party rats go so terribly wrong? And crucially: how much did Tiffany really know? We unearth the dark truth in this week’s episode.Exclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wondry's American History Tellers. In our latest series, a seemingly ordinary cook in New York City becomes the center of a public health crisis. Officials race to find the woman, dubbed Typhoid Mary by the press, before she can unwittingly spread the deadly illness she carries to even more people. Listen to American history tellers on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Lamont Jones is shattered when his cousin dies just weeks after entering prison.

The official report says natural causes, but bruises and missing teeth tell a different story. Wondry presents Death County PA, a chilling true story of corruption and coverups. Follow Death County PA on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. Inspired by the hit podcast Against the Odds comes the gripping guidebook, How to Survive Against the Odds. Learn how to handle whatever nature throws at you through gut-wrenching true stories of life or death situations.

This might just be the most important book you'll ever read. Go to SurvivalGuidebook.com to get your copy of How to Survive Against the Odds Today or visit your favorite bookstore. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red-Handed. Where I think we're gonna start with what's gonna be quite unpleasant for you, Hannah. Hmm, I don't think we've ever done one of these. No, we haven't, which is why, when I heard about this case, I was like,

let's ruin Hannah's day. Hehehehehehe. So I want you all, if it's safe to do so, close your eyes and imagine you're lying in a freshly dug hole, four feet deep. Your eyes are taped shut. You've just about managed to wriggle free from the duct tape that's binding your hands and you realize you're not alone. The person you love most in the whole world is lying next to you. You can hear them crying and pleading for help. You reach out desperately

to comfort them, both of you clinging to one another and praying for a miracle. But then the soil starts falling on your heads, on your faces. It gets heavier and heavier on your chest until you can't breathe. And you know without a doubt that you are going to die. And to top it all off, imagine the person behind all of this. The reason that you're in that hole and facing a slow agonising death. Someone you once trusted. Someone you never thought would hurt you.

This is why I don't understand why people are taping their mouth shut when they go to sleep now. Have you seen this? It's total bullshit. It is absolute bullshit. Like mouth taping, people say it's like something to do with anti-aging, anti-wrinkling, like stop you snoring, like all of these multitude of health benefits and like beauty benefits. Total bullshit In fact, I think it's incredibly dangerous Please stop taping your mouth shots when you go to sleep. It just I asked my friend about it the other day and she said that it's to do with Regulating your breathing because you're only breathing through your nose and you should never really be breathing through your mouth ever

But I just don't do it. I well, I mean literally zero danger of me doing it yeah sleep improvement it seems no not interested thanks very much no and that makes me feel quite unwell as did that intro yeah it's it's not the best way to go out I would say probably one of the worst. Hmm, yeah, I think so. And I know in the office when we like started looking at this case, there was a lot of discussion amongst the team about if you were going to be buried alive, like that is happening. Full stop, you're going to be buried alive.

Would you rather be buried alive in like some sort of crate or coffin or box? Or would you rather just be like our poor victims here just be buried alive in the dirt? Well I mean pros and cons to both options isn't there if you're in a box you've got a guarded oxygen supply so you're probably gonna last longer. I'm not sure so apparently because and again I don't know that there's like a hard and fast thing on this but I've also read- They must have done it on Mythbusters or something like that. They must have. Being buried in a coffin because you're quickly depleting that oxygen and turning into carbon dioxide you might

actually die faster. Okay. But I don't know. I mean I would have gone no coffin anyway because it's a it's another barrier to get through isn't it? Yeah. Yeah and you're in this confined space. But basically, I think the reason nobody can say for sure is that too many other variables affect it, like what soil you're buried in, like how... Yeah, if you're buried alive in concrete, it's not going to make a difference, is it? Exactly. And I guess like the health state that you're in when you go into the hole, all of these things, like lots of things. But from my looking into this, from my research

into this, my understanding is if you're buried in a coffin, the size of the coffin will really determine how long you survive. Because obviously the bigger the coffin, the more oxygen that's in there, the longer it's going to take you to deplete it. But ultimately you are going to die of carbon, like just being too much carbon dioxide in there because you've depleted all the oxygen. If you are not buried with a coffin, it's going to probably take longer for you to die if you can't crawl out of that mud-filled hole. Because in most cases where people are buried without a coffin or some sort of box, they actually end up dying of asphyxia, which might be better because it's like all the soil falling on your face and like suffocating you. But a lot of people actually die from the starvation or hypothermia.

Oh god, okay. Yeah, so I think coffin death would be quicker. Mm-hmm. So that's rough. Anyway that situation that we have just described, the utter nightmare we have just painted a picture for you of is exactly the situation that 61 year old Reggie and Carol Sumner found themselves in in the middle of the night on the 8th of July 2005. 20 years ago. And when what had happened to them was finally revealed to the world this brutal case would send shockwaves through Florida. Who on earth would want to so callously murder a

seemingly normal, kindly couple? We're going to try and understand. Tiffany Cole was born on the 3rd of December 1981 in Charleston, South Carolina. At the time her mum Shirley was just 16 and her dad David was already in prison. So Tiffany's early years were a bit unstable, though nothing too out of the ordinary. After her father David's release, the family is said to have moved around quite a lot. Her younger brother David Jr. or DJ came along when Tiffany was five and she was heavily involved in raising him even from a young age. Tiffany's parents ended up divorcing, so she split her time between them as a teen. Her mum Shirley remarried a guy called Rick, and he brought with him a son,

adding to 12-year-old Tiffany's big cis duties. Despite all the upheaval though, Tiffany's early years were fairly unremarkable. She got decent enough grades and took part in activities like cheerleading and the Girl Scouts. And she was described as the kind of girl who didn't really stand out, who just blended into the crowd. But then in her later teens, Tiffany Cole started to change. She dropped out of school in the 10th grade and started abusing drugs and alcohol. She took whatever she could get her hands on, from Xanax to cocaine. At 16, she ran away from home to live with a rogue boyfriend.

In short, Tiffany went completely off the rails and became a total party girl. But in 2005, when she was 23 23 that party was rudely interrupted. Her dad David was diagnosed with terminal cancer and Tiffany moved in with him to care for him. And that's when she met his neighbors, the Sumners. Reggie and Carol Sumner were a devoted married couple in their 60s, living together in Charleston in the early noughties. Their path to finding true love hadn't exactly run smooth. They were actually high school sweethearts, but their lives post-graduation took very

different paths. Reggie married someone else and joined the Navy for a time, after which he worked on the railroads along the southeast coast of the USA. As for Carol, she married twice and had two children. Her second marriage was incredibly abusive, leading to a traumatic incident in 1987 when her husband shot her six times before turning the gun on himself. And miraculously, Carol had made it out of that situation alive. Her daughter Rhonda was just 10 years old at the time, and at that really young age, had to help nurse her mum back to health over the next year.

And Carol was a survivor in every sense of the word. Once she was well enough to work again she took on as many jobs as she could to support her family, working in a department store as a civil servant and for the Charleston Air Base. And after so many struggles, happiness found Carol when she least expected it. Working for a local cable TV station in 2000, a chance phone call put her back in touch with her high school crush Reggie. It was as if the last 40 years had never happened. The pair instantly reconnected and fell in love, tying the knot just a few months later in February 2001. Which like, you do love to see it. You do love to see it, I think. Yes.

I think it is stories like that that stop people getting over their exes. I truly do. No, I hear what you're saying. I think few and far between these kind of meet cute situations where you run back into your high school sweetheart and the two of you get married and have a glorious love affair again. But in most cases, probably just leave them where they belong. In the past, blocked and deleted. Ex for a reason. Exactly.

Now both Reggie and Carol had some pretty serious health issues that made them frailer than your average 61-year-old. Carol suffered from diabetes, fibromyalgia, osteoporosis and hepatitis, which she'd contracted from a blood transfusion after her ex-husband had shot her. Fuck. Honestly, this woman cannot get a fucking break. Reggie also had severe diabetes and was dependent on insulin. He had osteoporosis too, following a gnarly leg break. And it got so bad that by 2005 he was almost entirely confined to a wheelchair or walker for mobility. By that time though

the Sumners had struck up a friendship with their neighbor Tiffany Cole. They even helped her despite how frail they were care for her ill father and generally just looked out for her well-being acting as her friendly neighborhood guardian angels and they really do go above and beyond because they knew that Tiffany needed a car, for example, but that she was struggling to be able to afford one. So Carol and Reggie actually gave her their old Chevrolet and just let her pay it off in like flexible installments whenever she could. After a few years of this, Reggie decided that he was actually quite keen to leave Charleston and move down to Jacksonville, Florida, where he owned another house from his time working

on the railroad. Reggie figured that the sea air might be better for his and Carol's health, and Carol agreed. So the couple decided to make the move in February 2005. And the pair even told Tiffany that there would always be space for her at their place in Florida if she ever needed anything. And that was an offer that Tiffany Cole would not forget. Alright, very quick break because I know you are gagging to get back to this particular episode but we have to tell you a little bit about what's going on on Patreon this week. Certainly.

Well, this week we have Under the Duvet where I explain how hypnosis works badly but it works. It does work and I will tell you how I came off the pill and now the back knee's back. We also have a little chat about Russell Brand and contemplate the composition of the soul and whether it even fucking matters. And then I do a little review on a throwback dating TV show that I watched on Channel 4 called Perfect Match where I literally couldn't believe, A, that people were smoking in clubs because it's that old and then all

the horrific things that were coming out of people's mouths. And you can listen to all of that over on Patreon and you can watch it too under the duvet is every week we release it, every Wednesday morning and also on Patreon you can get Red Handed totally ad free and we also do monthly bonus episodes and you can find all of that at patreon.com forward slash red handed. Last year, long crime brought you the trial that captivated the nation. She's accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer, John O'Keefe with her car. Karen Reed is arrested and charged with second degree murder.

The six week trial resulted in anything but resolution. We continue to find ourselves at an impasse. I'm declaring a mistrial in this case. but resolution. But now the case is back in the spotlight. And one question still lingers. Did Karen Reed kill John O'Keefe? I'm Kristin Thorn, investigative reporter with Law & Crime and host of the podcast, Karen, The Retrial.

This isn't just a retrial. It's a second chance at the truth. I have nothing to hide. My life is in the balance and it shouldn't be. I just want people to go back to who the victim is in this. It's not her. Listen to episodes of Karen, The Retrial, exclusively and ad free on Wondery Plus. The Sumners had gone through their fair share of difficulties in life.

So they were more than ready to retire to the Sunshine State and enjoy the simple life. But once again, hard times came a knock in. Soon after the move to Jacksonville, Carol was diagnosed with liver cancer, a complication from her chronic hepatitis that she got from a blood transfusion. Carol started undergoing aggressive chemotherapy treatment that, along with all of her other pain medication, left her wiped out and only partially mobile like her husband. I can't even imagine. Just illness on top of illness on top of illness and then chemotherapy.

I mean I'm amazed that it's the 2000s and they're both in chronic pain and they're not both fucking ragging the Oxycontin. Honestly. Still, even though the Sumners were having literally everything thrown at them and they were very vulnerable, they had each other and they kept fighting to survive like they always had. But they had no idea that still more bad news was heading their way. This time in the bedazzled, kitten-heeled form of Noughties Party Princess Tiffany Cole. Kitten heels. The kitten heels. Should be illegal. Ugh. Is there an uglier thing that we ever did to ourselves than the kitten heel? Only when coupled with the pedal pusher. Yeah, but that was the look. That was the look. Because honestly, I was going

to say the only thing worse would probably be a white pedal pusher. Do you remember when we had the pedal pushers that also had the little strips hanging off the side? Of a pedal pusher? Yeah. No. Don't you? I don't even know what to Google. I was going to Google images it. What do I Google? Okay. I can't find what I'm trying to say, but I'm just outing myself in that I did own a pair of those. Did you really? What a parachute pants. They're like, they're the Buster trousers. Okay. I see. I don't know. I definitely owned a pair of, nah, I'm not talking... oh yeah so these, these, these, these, these, these, octopus trousers. Shut up. Don't tell me you didn't own a pair of these. Yeah they're not pedal pushers. What are they? Cargo pants. Yeah. Cargo trousers.

Yeah. Okay that's what I meant. Cargo trousers. Apparently here they're called hell bunny octopus trousers. Oh my god. Prison. We should all be sent retrospectively to prison. Anyway, that's what she's wearing. But not really. She's probably wearing some quite revealing dresses because Tiffany Gold is a party girl. In like anything you read about this case, they describe her as a party girl from like her late teens. And like, she she's definitely the let's say without any spoilers the antagonist of this story but I was like can you call a 16 year old 17 year old girl a party girl it seems weird it seems weird yeah like Paris Hilton is a party girl you know

Tiffany party girl Tiffany would regularly drive down to Jacksonville in order to make her car payments and also to visit the summoners who had by this point become like a surrogate aunt and uncle to her. And on one such visit in June 2005 Tiffany wasn't alone. In the notorious party town of Mettle Beach she had met a man, a man named Michael Jackson. Which look, when you actually just say it, Michael Jackson, that is such a fucking common name. You're like, of course. But Michael Jackson. In Jacksonville. What were you thinking?

Like there is no way his parents didn't know who Michael Jackson was. Honestly, baffled, baffled by this decision to name your child. Michael Jackson died in like, what, 2007? 8? Like, there's no way that his parents were unaware of the Jackson 5 when he was born. No. It's bamboozling decision. So yes, as you may have guessed, this Michael Jackson, this MJ was not the king of pop, but we bet Tiffany wishes that she had told him to beat it when she had the chance. Alana Huejozay, I'm going to see how. Lyrics I can fit in. Yep, because Michael Jackson was your

classic bad boy, a smooth criminal, you might say. He liked to flash his cash, party hard and get high. He was obsessed with making money to fund his hedonistic lifestyle and didn't care what unscrupulous methods he had to use to get it. Are you googling Michael Jackson's socks? No. Just wanted to double check something that's nothing to do with that. The loved-up couple decided to hit up the Florida Club scene that June, meeting up with one of Michael's mates who'd lived in Jacksonville, 18 year old Alan Wade.

And when they ran out of cash to pay for a motel, Tiffany didn't sweat it. She knew the Summers would let her and Michael stay with them for a few nights. She was right. Lovely Carol and Reggie welcomed them in with open arms. During that stay, Carol casually mentioned to Tiffany that they'd made nearly a hundred thousand dollars in profit from their house sale in Charleston. And needless to say, strapped for cash Tiffany was all ears. And while this is a very much he-said-she-said situation, when it comes to who initially came up with this idea, a hazy plot started to form between Tiffany, Michael and Alan to rob the poor summoners and bleed them dry.

Why the summoners? Well, because it would be easy. Tiffany knew that the summoners had significant assets – their car, the profits from their house sale, and even a valuable coin collection, which was Reggie's pride and joy. She knew their schedules, like when they had hospital appointments or family visiting, and Tiffany also knew that they were both in poor physical health, so the gang wouldn't have to worry about Reggie and Carol putting up too much of a fight. And crucially, she also knew the sort of people that they were.

Hospitable, generous, and trusting to a fault. The kind you might say were trying to heal the world. So despite the kindness that the pair had shown Tiffany, it ended up being their undoing. They were the perfect marks. So they roped in Alan Wade's 18-year-old friend, Bruce Nixon, for extra muscle. The gang of four plotted to carry out their plan in early July. And the wheels were in motion for an epic betrayal. One that would cost the Summers more than just their savings. July and the wheels were in motion for an epic betrayal. One that would cost the summoners more than just their savings.

It really feels like kind of in that ilk of like, don't breathe the movie. Where it's like, okay, young gang want money. Here's this vulnerable Mark. If you haven't seen, don't breathe. Don't breathe one is actually really good. I think it's well worth worth your time horror film thriller film It's like about this group of kids that like we're not kids young people that break into this guy's house And he's like a retired army vet, but he's blind and they're like, okay

He's got loads of money in his house because they knew that his I don't know if you know this or not But there's like a compensation claim. So they're like he's got the money in the house We'll just break it and we'll take it. And then he is like this, you know, dark ops Marine guy. So even though he's blind, he's like turns all the lights off in his house and locks them all in and then hunts them down. It's well worth your time. We watched Don't Breathe 2 and it was the worst film I've ever seen in my life. Don't remember. We did. We did. In the cinema. It was awful. It was absolute. I think you must have like blocked it from your mind. I'll show you maybe a still. Oh, it was so fucking bad. Oh, I remember. Yeah. And it was like about

organ theft. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my god. That is the most dog shit film I've ever seen. But yeah, that's kind of what this has the feeling of, right? That, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna just take advantage of these very poor sickly folk and take all their money. Problem here is that it doesn't quite go like don't breathe one. On the 6th of July 2005, Tiffany Cole drove the ragtag group in a rented Mazda RX-8 to a remote wooded area just across the Florida, Georgia border. And in the dead of

night, they started digging. Tiffany held the torch while the boys created a hole approximately four feet deep and six feet square. Tiffany would later plead ignorance, claiming that she thought this would just be a place for them to bury stolen valuables. Bit deep in it. Also what is this? Like the fucking great escape? Like why are you digging holes in the countryside and like burying your ill-gotten gains? Like why would you bury cash? Like why wouldn't you just, I don't know, run off and spend it? Mm-hmm. Tiffany's full of shit.

Exactly. And that is what Bruce Nixon says too. According to him, Tiffany knew exactly what that hole was. A makeshift grave. Yeah, cause she's not fucking DB Cooper. Hehehehe. Or Dirty Diana. Oh my god. I don't deserve that one. It's really hard when you've got to think of loads of them.

Yeah. But you ain't seen the last of me. According to Bruce Nixon, the crew had spent days driving around in the rented Mazda discussing what they'd do with Reggie and Carol on the night that they planned to rob them. Yeah, further evidence or further conjecture that Tiffany knew damn well what they were gonna do. The rough idea was that they'd rob the Sumner's home and take them to this site, intimidate them into revealing their PIN numbers and bank account details. And then what? What would happen next to Reggie and Carol? That bit wasn't quite set in stone just yet.

But whatever it was, it was not going to be good. Once again, according to Bruce Nixon, Michael Jackson had darkly alluded to possibly administrating a lethal injection from the couple's own medication stores. And so the plan was becoming clear. This location was destined to be Carol and Reggie Sumner's burial site. On the night of the 8th of July 2005 the group visited a Jacksonville store and bought duct tape and plastic wrap and paid for it using Tiffany's personal checking account. Still in the rented Mazda, Tiffany then drove them to the Sumner house. Now this

bit I find a bit confusing because basically they make the decision that because the couple already knew Tiffany and Michael, because obviously they know Tiffany very well, they've met her boy friend Michael Jackson, the decision was made that Alan and Bruce would be the ones to go to the door instead while Tiffany and Michael wait in the car. And they say this is because they already knew them but I'm like wouldn't that have been easier to gain access that way? I don't know. Especially if you're going to kill them. I didn't really understand this decision making but it doesn't matter anyway because Bruce and Alan go up to the summoner door, knock on the door and then do their best boy

scout impressions, say that their car's broken down and ask the couple if they can use their phone. And unsurprisingly Carol being the kind of woman that she was said of course they could and invited them in and that's when the ambush began. Once inside Alan ripped the phone from the wall whilst Bruce held the summoners at gunpoint with a realistic looking toy gun. They got to work ransacking the house, seizing the couple's bank cards and any valuables that they could get their grubby little mitts on. They used radio phones to signal for Michael, who joined them in the house while Tiffany continued to wait outside in her car.

Together the men covered Carol and Reggie's eyes and mouths with duct tape, tying their upper limbs and forcing them into the boot of their own car in the garage. Then the motorcade to the remote gravesite began, with Bruce and Alan transporting the Summers in the stolen Lincoln Town car. Leading the way in their rented Mazda was Tiffany and Michael, and their plan was that if they saw any police getting too close to the other vehicle with its human cargo, they would go so fast that the cops in said cop car would have absolutely no choice but to pull them over.

Genius. Arriving at the remote location and popping open the boot, the gang found that the Sumners had somehow managed to wriggle free from some of their ties. They were clinging to each other terrified and praying. The duct tape over their eyes had also slipped, something that Bruce later said made Michael Jackson absolutely loser. He said it was a quote unquote mind thing for him, that he didn't wanna see their eyes as he killed them. Michael Jackson then ordered his goons, Bruce and Alan,

to rebind the summoners and cover their eyes. And while Tiffany and Bruce hung back by the roadside, Michael and Alan dragged the frail, terrified couple to the hole that they'd already dug. It wouldn't have been difficult. Carol by this point weighed just over six stone and Reggie seven. And then without hesitation or ceremony, the gang just shoved them into this pit. Michael Jackson and Alan Wade then demanded the couple's pin numbers and bank codes. Reggie, thinking that he was bargaining with his life, told them everything.

He said they could have it all. The only thing they wanted was to survive. But in the end it didn't matter. Coldly and cruelly, the two men started shoveling dirt on top of the summoners. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and bit by bit the hole started to fill up until you couldn't see the summoners anymore. It was all over. Moments later Michael Jackson casually returned to the roadside with a small yellow pad that had the summoners pin numbers scrolled on it. And the gang wasted no time in putting those babies to use.

After driving about 20 miles to the town of Sanderson in Florida, they hastily wiped down the summoner's car and ditched it. Tiffany then chauffeured the lot of them back to Jacksonville in the rented Mazda. Their first stop was an ATM where they withdrew as much cash as they could. Then they took a little trip to the shops to pick up Clorox bleach and gloves before Tiffany and Alan Wade returned to the Sumner House, presumably to give it a once over. This is the thing that confuses me about this gang. Some of the things they do are quite smart, like picking up the Clorox beach, going back,

making a plan to clean it. They wipe down the card, they abandon it, they leave it somewhere. But then they do incredibly stupid things like renting the car, as we'll see in fucking Tiffany's name. Hmm. Going in immediately, withdrawing cash using those cards. Knowing that the two people who have access to those cards, it's not like you've stolen a card. If you stole a card, I would be like, yeah, you should go get the cash out immediately because that person's going to realise their card's missing and if they call the bank and freeze it, it was a useless crime. Those people are in a fucking hole, buried. Why you were drawing cash so quickly off it and the whole thing of buying all of the equipment using a checking account under Tiffany's name.

It really is quite a mix of sheer stupidity mixed in with some quite well thought out things. Or am I giving them too much credit at all? I think that entirely depends on how many drugs they were taking. Because I have a feeling that you can't really be expecting them to make that many rational decisions. Yeah, I think you're probably right. Once they got to the house with their bleach, they were less interested in cleaning, much more interested in stealing it would turn out.

They nabbed some of Carol's jewellery and the desktop computer tower, which Tiffany would pawn over the next few days. The gang stayed at various Jacksonville motels and went shopping using the Sumner's stolen cards, racking up ATM withdrawals in the thousands. After a couple of days, Bruce Nixon split off from the group, and the remaining three headed for Charleston and stayed in a hotel there. Meanwhile, a chain reaction was starting back in Jacksonville. By the 10th of July, two days after the Summoners were killed, Carol's daughter, Rhonda, had grown seriously worried

about her mum and stepdad. They weren't responding to any of her calls, which wasn't like them. And of course, their health problems added another deep layer to her fears. So Rhonda reported the missing to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office, which sent officers to the house to check on the Sumners. And of course, they could immediately tell that something wasn't right. to check on the summoners. And of course they could immediately tell that something wasn't right. The couple's dog Mikey was alive but clearly hadn't been looked after for a few days. Carol's phone was also still plugged into the wall and her day planner, something she never went anywhere without, was still at

the house. Also an uneaten fully prepared meal was just sat there in the kitchen. The only thing visibly missing from the house was the computer tower. But what seriously set off alarm bells for the police was the fact that all of the couple's medical supplies were still there in the house, including their extensive daily medicine regime and Reggie's cane, walker and wheelchair. Neither Reggie nor Carol would have been able to get very far without them. And so a dark realization dawned on investigators. The Sumners had most likely not left of their own free will.

At the house, detectives found one of the couple's bank statements, but showed the surprisingly large balance of their account. Could this be a potential motive for foul play? It is a lot of money for two unwell people living in Jacksonville to have, isn't it? Yeah. So investigators called up the bank and then their suspicions were confirmed. Unusual ATM withdrawals totaling several thousands of dollars had been made in the past few days. The bank froze the cards naturally,

but then came an unexpected twist. Reggie Sumner called the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. Of course we know he's buried because it wasn't him, it was someone claiming to be him. I just wanted to say it. And this man, claiming to be Reggie Sumner, said that he'd heard the rumours that he and his wife had gone missing and just wanted to assure them that they were A-OK. Oh and also could you please unblock the cards? Oh, what a relief, Reggie.

Why would the first person you call be the Sheriff's Office and not your family? Yeah, how would you even know that they were looking for you? Mm-hmm. So the police obviously immediately smelled a rat. For starters, the voice sounded nothing like a frail man in his 60s. But realising that this person was most likely responsible for whatever had actually happened to Reggie and his wife, the cops decided to let him keep talking. They listened to the so-called Reggie's explanation of why he and Carol had suddenly disappeared.

Carol's sister had died suddenly and they had apparently quickly flown to Delaware for a funeral, you know, abandoning their dog and all of their medical supplies and, you know, their life-saving insulin and his wheelchair, without which Reggie can't move. Reggie, quote unquote, Reggie, also gave details of the town they were supposedly staying in, as well as the airport that they'd flown into. Needless to say, there were quite a few weird things about the story. Number one on that list of weird things if you leave aside all of the you know very obvious reasons for why it doesn't make sense that Reggie and Carol would have left all of their very important things at

their house was that the town that Reggie told them they were in didn't exist. And number two, and this one is just gets better and better, the airport that he claimed they had flown into had stopped operating years ago. Oh and three, just for good measure, Carole's sister, when the police contacted her, turns out she wasn't dead. So while the caller confidently reeled off personal information like social security numbers to prove he was Reggie Sumner, he got a whole host of other stuff incredibly wrong, like the names of family pets. So when the police asked if

they could speak to Carol, this man, this Reggie, passed the phone over to a woman who acted like she was tired and frail. And it will come as no surprise whatsoever that this Reggie was in fact Michael Jackson. And Tiffany Cole was of course posing as Carol. Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms. They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families ship their pregnant teenage daughters

to maternity homes and force them to secretly place their babies for adoption. In hidden corners across America, it's still happening. My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me. The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University, where powerful men emboldened by their faith determine who gets to be a parent and who

must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Madison McGee. From LA Times Studios comes its latest series, LA Crimes. From deep podcasts. cultures fascination with them and what that says about us. Tune in every Wednesday wherever you stream your podcast. So the police got to work laying a trap, letting Michael and Tiffany think that they pulled the wall over their eyes. They agreed to contact the bank and told them to unfreeze those cards. I have to say the police did very very good work here. This was good thinking.

Good thinking that would ideally leave a trail leading straight to the culprits themselves. And it worked. Because this wannabe gang of criminal masterminds, as should be clear by now, were not quite as smart as they thought they were. I would love to have been in the room when the police were like, yeah, we've spoken to the bank, they've unfrozen the carts. Like just how fucking smug Michael Jackson must have been, thinking, I've done it. I have successfully pulled off this ridiculous fucking heist.

And I want to be starting something. pulled off this Ridiculous fucking heist and I want to be starting something And I can look at the man in the mirror And live with myself Within hours Michael Jackson was withdrawing yet more funds from various ATMs with the Summoners cards He was even captured on CCTV with Tiffany in the Mazda, visible in the background, and it wasn't long before the police had more than just their faces and voices.

They traced the call back to the Jackson's phone, and using the number plate, they tracked the rented Mazda to a South Carolina hire car company, which had Tiffany Cole on file as a customer. Triangulating cell tower data and the car's GPS system revealed that they had been close to the Sumner house on the night that they were thought to have been abducted. And as the pieces started to come together it became clear that whatever had happened to the Sumners

was anything but random. Tiffany Cole, the former neighbour that they looked out for, that they'd essentially given a car, had betrayed them. But what exactly had Tiffany Cole and Michael Jackson done with the Sumners? The police didn't know. Not yet. And they were determined to find out. So first they needed to round up the gang of four. When the police rocked up at Tiffany's home address in Charleston, her younger brother DJ led them to a nearby Best Western hotel. There they found Tiffany and Michael holed up in one room, and Alan Wade in another.

In these hotel rooms, police uncovered an absolute goldmine of evidence. Including the summoner's driver's licenses, credit cards, checkbooks, mail, banking documents, passwords, social security numbers, even handwritten notes with other key personal details. You name it, they had it. There was also a brand new laptop and shopping bags filled with new swag from their recent shopping sprees with Reggie and Carol's cards. But even with all this stacked against them, the trio kept quiet. Zero confession, zero remorse and zero answers for where the summoners were now.

But they weren't counting on a weak link in the chain. Bruce Nixon. And this is another one of the stupid mistakes that this gang makes is just like continuously getting other people involved in this. It seems strange from the off that there's more than just the two of them. Yeah. Because Bruce Nixon wasn't like a long, cause remember Alan Wade is the one who brings Bruce in, but they're not like long term lifelong buddies. Like Bruce Nixon had only known Alan Wade for like a short

amount of time before he gets pulled into this like fucking nightmare caper. So we're guessing that Bruce didn't really have quite the same sense of loyalty to the squad that they may have had to each other. And perhaps his conscience had also started to catch up with him because remember he left the gang. They had that money and he left them. He's not in the best Western with them. Either way, Bruce cracked and he blew the whole thing wide open. Cooperating with the police, Bruce Nixon led detectives right to the summoner's burial site. The bodies were exhumed and came with their own set of grisly revelations.

The autopsies proved beyond doubt that Reggie and Carol Sumner hadn't just been murdered, they had been buried alive. The medical examiner determined their cause of death to be both from suffocation and manual asphyxiation. They had inhaled soil into their mouths and noses, and the weight of the dirt on their bodies compressed their lungs and chests, making it impossible for them to breathe. It would have been an agonizing death, taking several minutes, and they would have known exactly what was happening to them the whole time. And heartbreakingly, Reggie and Carol's bodies were found huddled together in a final desperate embrace.

It's just so unfair. These two people who have gone through so much. Carol got shot fucking six times and then gets fucking hepatitis from the blood transfusion to save her life from that. Then she gets cancer. We meet each other after having horrible like previous experiences and they've got all of these health problems and they finally sell that house. They've got a new life to start with all this money in the bank and then these fucking

pieces of shit. Murder them, what's they can spend that money on fucking drugs and laptops? It's just such a despicable kitten heel of a crime. Tiffany was interviewed by homicide detectives on the 14th of July and her initial strategy was to basically just play dumb. Tiffany insisted she had no idea about the plot to murder the summoners. She thought it was just going to be a simple theft where nobody would get hurt. Now she said while she knew that the boys were planning to rob Reggie and Carol's credit cards and valuables, she said she didn't even know her old neighbours were in the boot of

that car until they were halfway to the gravesite already. And that was only when she heard her boyfriend, Michael Jackson, talking about it over the radio. Sure, Tiffany. Which, like, even if that's true, which it's not, you still knew? Yep. And her explanation for the next bit, you know the whole burying them alive bit, well Tiffany says she just thought they were going to take them to this gravesite, put them in

this pit and use it as a tactic to intimidate the summoners in order to giving up their pin numbers and all of that kind of stuff, passwords etc. But she says she had absolutely no idea that they were going to be killed or that they were going to be buried alive. Tiffany maintained that she stayed on the side of the road the entire time and that she couldn't see or hear anything that was going on in that enormous hole that she'd helped dig just a few days previously. From her point of view, she was totally innocent. Whether a judge and jury would agree, that was another matter.

and jury would agree. Well that was another matter. Tiffany's trial took place in October 2007. Most people accused of first degree murder, kidnapping and a whole bunch of other charges would want to appear in court looking professional and serious, but not Tiffany Cole. Alongside the regulation grey jumpsuit she decided to go with a series of painfully early noughties hairstyles. suit, she decided to go with a series of painfully early noughties hairstyles. Little pigtails, cornrows, zigzag partings. My god, this is making me feel unwell. It's really, really disgusting. And look, we know we've been here before. We talk all the time when you go to court, you know, you've got to play the game. You've got to look a different part. But I'm kind of like, I don't think that this actually makes her... I think she's trying to look younger. Oh 100 zigzag parting. Are you joking? I just don't think it... I don't think it's giving the look she thinks it's

gonna give. No no no exactly. I think it actually makes her look like more of a hedonistic like party girl. It makes her look manipulative which is what she is. Also that. And yeah it just was not the best look considering the angle that the prosecution were pushing which was that Tiffany was a vapid party girl obsessed with showing off and flashing stolen cash. And to prove their point the prosecution showed photos in court of the squad partying up in Myrtle Beach before the murders. And they could do that because they documented every single moment of a big night out on a digital camera because they are millennials.

Oh my God. This, this episode, it's just highly, highly, highly upsetting for the things that we were all doing back in the day. Because do you remember when we used to take fucking cameras yep digital cameras to nightclub I certainly do and take pictures of ourselves yep and you remember when phones first had cameras on we'd call them camera phones I had forgotten until of this moment that yes we would call them camera phones my god when I started uni I had a little red digital camera

that I used to charge and then take on nights out in my purse. I never had my own camera. So tragic. Not you, this me. Oh no, what I'm going to say next is even worse. Bring it. So I took my mom's, which wasn't, I know exactly what kind of camera you're talking about, they're like little, at least they were small.

Mine was a big chunky like pencil case size and I would never even upload the photos because I didn't know how to do it. I just took it with me for the sake of it. Remember the time. It's a Michael Jackson song apparently. I don't remember. I've got a list of Michael Jackson songs. I know you have! Anyway, she's out of my life. By that I mean the digital camera and taking pictures of myself in nightclubs. Just read the list why don't you? In these haunting mausoleums of the millennium, Tiffany and her new squeeze Michael Jackson

can be seen in a rented limousine, no less, drinking bottles of champagne and flashing wads of money. And prosecutors argued that these photos, despite being taken before the summoner's deaths, were important in establishing the group's motive of murder for financial gain. So as jurors leafed through the photos of Tiffany grinning at the camera, rocking a diamante encrusted boob tube top with the slogan, DEEFA, on it, it's safe to say that things were off to a bad start when it came to her defence. I truly think that what we were wearing in the noughties is what people dress their dogs in now. Oh my god that is such a horrifying realization. Where's the lie? There is one. There is no

lie. I can't see a lie. Oh my god. That is what we dress like. Complete with fucking beaded collar. So if you're listening to this and you're feeling quite triggered by all of this because you are an aging millennial, you are not alone. Just the way you make me feel. Her defense team have got very little to work with, but they've got to say something. They've got to say something to prove that none of this was really Tiffany Cole's fault. So enter psychiatrist Dr. Ernest Miller. He testified about Tiffany's fragile mental state and her addiction issues that made her vulnerable, saying she had incredibly low self-esteem and a pathological need to be in abusive relationships.

He characterised her as suffering from alcohol and substance abuse, chronic depression and some form of undiagnosed personality disorder. According to Dr Miller, Tiffany had a tendency towards masochism in her relationships, i.e. choosing bad guys who would get her into trouble, and this came back to bite her. Tiffany also claimed now that her late father had sexually abused her when she was 16, which had left her emotionally scarred. While it was clear that Tiffany Cole was indeed a very troubled young woman, the prosecution weren't buying it as a valid excuse for her involvement in the summoner's deaths.

All of the cumulative evidence seemed to suggest that she knew exactly what she was doing, and she didn't just choose to go along with it. She engineered the whole scheme. And this, it turned out, would prove to be her undoing. The crux of Tiffany's defence was that she hadn't physically participated in the murders. But did that make her any less guilty? No, not according to the law. Prosecutor J. Plotkin put it like this. While she may not have turned a shovel of dirt from the hole where the summoners were

left to die, she was certainly an instrument and I would submit the catalyst of why Reggie and Carol Sumner died. Simply stated, these murders would not have happened but for her. And that is a really interesting like twist in the law that you don't hear spoken about that much. That happens a lot more than you would think. And Judge Michael Weatherby called Tiffany the key ingredient in the murder plot and was therefore just as guilty as the men who actually filled the hole. And after a week-long trial, Tiffany Cole was officially cooked. The jury deliberated for less than 90 minutes before finding Tiffany guilty of two counts

of first-degree murder, kidnapping and robbery. And the verdicts and sentences for the other guys were also rolling in. Bruce Nixon got 45 years after cooperating with the police. Mastermind Michael Jackson and his accomplice Alan Wade were both sentenced to death. But what would be Tiffany's fate? As it turns out the death penalty is actually very rare for women. Only two female inmates have ever been executed in Florida since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976. That includes family slayer Judy Buonoano in 1998, and of course notorious serial killer Aileen Werner in 2002.

Saying nothing? Thank you. Typically jurors are very reluctant to sentence women to death. But Tiffany's jury voted 9-3, recommending the death penalty for her. However, it was non-unanimous, and that would prove to be significant later on. Following the recommendation, in March 2008, Judge Wetherby ultimately sentenced Tiffany Cole to death for her role in the murders, plus life imprisonment for the kidnappings in 15 years for each count of robbery. He cited several aggravating factors, that the murders were done

in conjunction with kidnappings, the killings were especially heinous, atrocious or cruel, the defendant acted in a cold, calculated and premeditated manner, the motive was for financial gain, the defendant tried to avoid or prevent lawful arrest, and that the victims were considered especially vulnerable due to advanced age or disability. And those aggravating factors were not outweighed by mitigating factors, which could be these. Tiffany's lack of a criminal record, her relatively young age at the time of the crime, the fact that she could be said to be a minor participant in the crimes because she didn't inflict any physical force, and also her claims of being under the substantial domination of

her controlling boyfriend Michael Jackson. Tiffany Cole bowed her head and mouthed, I love you to her weeping mum in the gallery. Cole bowed her head and mouthed, I love you to her weeping mum in the gallery. At the time, Tiffany became the youngest female inmate on death row, a dubious title that she would hold onto for several years. In 2015, Diane Sawyer interviewed Tiffany and her new prison bestie, Amelia Carr,

as part of the 2020 series, Hidden America. Amelia Carr had by this point actually taken Tiffany's place as the youngest inmate waiting to be executed after murdering her lover's wife in 2009. Still not taking full responsibility for her actions however, Tiffany explained during this interview how she'd been looking for love in all the wrong places when she got tangled up in Michael Jackson's web. I know, like you fed him all of the fucking information he needed to do this. Like she's just, ugh, I can't. But the way Tiffany put it was this was something that could happen to any naive young girl,

but she and Amelia were doing their best to stay positive. They said they called it Life Row instead of Death Row because we're not dying, we're living. Okay. Yes, it could happen to a naive girl. That's not what happened to you though, is it? No. Still, regardless of how Tiffany chose to spin it, the lethal injection was looming large until a twist of fate intervened. In 2016, the Supreme Court made a landmark ruling called Hearst v Florida. It decreed that the practice of judges being able to sentence defendants to death based on their interpretation of the aggravating factors at play was unconstitutional according to the Sixth Amendment. Instead,

juries would need to vote with a unanimous verdict to recommend the death penalty taking into account all the necessary aggravating and mitigating factors before the judge could make that call. This caused chaos within the Florida legal and penitentiary system as over 150 death sentence cases had to be reviewed. And the ramifications were massive. According to research by the Death Penalty Information Center, a whopping 82% of these convictions were overturned and prisoners re-sentenced to life instead of death.

And that number included Michael Jackson's accomplice Alan Wade, who was re-sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2022. By 2023, it was finally Tiffany Cole's turn. Now aged 41 and no longer sporting her signature pigtails, Tiffany wept in relief at her resentencing hearing, as the jury voted 10-2 to spare her from the lethal injection. Look, I don't agree with the death penalty so I'm glad that she wasn't executed, but like she is very lucky that this twist happened. That that's not where she ended up. Now ironically, it was during Tiffany's new legal proceedings that the law changed again.

In a flip-flop ruling, Florida juries could once again recommend the death penalty with just an eight-juror majority rather than it having to be unanimous. So Tiffany, like I said, had got very, very lucky. The timing was less serendipitous, however, for Michael Jackson. His resentencing hearing got pushed back multiple times and ended up taking place after Tiffany's and after the new law was already in place. The jury voted 8 to 2 recommending that the death penalty be upheld. Sir Michael Jackson returned to death row with his tail between his legs.

Tiffany Cole may have just about escaped with her life, but she will remain behind bars for the rest of her days and because she's so young when she went in that's pretty much the only life she knows really. Tiffany's lawyer Julie Schlax has said that she feels genuine remorse and that Tiffany's changed. Apparently Tiffany has written a letter to the Sumner's loved ones asking for their forgiveness and some of them have managed to give it to her. Reggie's sister, the Reverend Jean Clark said, I pray for Tiffany, I pray for all of them. I'm grieved that these four young people have wasted their lives but you know, a reverend's got to say that.

Can you imagine if your parish leader was like, no, I do not forgive you, I do not turn the other cheek. Lethal injection please. Yeah, it just, not very on brand. And that's what I will say about this case, right? Like I said, I don't agree with the death penalty. I wanna believe that people can be rehabilitated. If that's actually happening in prisons or not is a separate matter. And if Tiffany Cole were to be released,

especially after the victim's own family members have accepted her apology and forgiven her, then okay. I think, keep an eye on her. Don't just lay her out into the, you know, let's keep a leash on the situation. But yeah, after that situation is horrible and is diabolical and is evil, because that's what it is, as evil as it was, I wouldn't necessarily be at the front of the picket line demanding that Tiffany Cole never be released. And Rhonda, Carol's daughter, still keeps the memories of her mum and stepdad close to her heart. She actually says that part of her still hopes it's her mum when the phone rings. That's the other thing. I say all that, but I'm like, somebody do that to my mum. I've never fucking forgiven him and I never want him

out of prison. So I don't know, I'm talking out both sides of my mouth really. It's horrific. It's hard. It's hard. It's horrific. It's really easy to be diplomatic until it happens to you. Absolutely. And Rhonda also, like us, laments that Carol's love story with Reggie had to end so abruptly,

especially because it took them so long to find each other and also their lives are so fucking hard. But if there's one thing that Rhonda takes comfort in, it's that her mum and Reggie are together now. Rhonda keeps Carol and Reggie's ashes in a single urn in her home in South Carolina. So just as they died holding each other, their remains are forever intertwined. For Reggie and Carol, even death couldn't part them. Awful. Just awful. But I suppose that is, I mean, it's not.

I was gonna say silver lining. It's not, it's not that it's really fucking miserable. And for like, for what? Some cash. Yeah, it's all just so, so, so grubby. And I've been scrolling up and down this list of songs and I can't really think of one to end with. Well, at the end of the day. Yeah, it's not always black or white, but sometimes it's- We are the world.

We are the children. Can't remember the next line. What about us? What about us? What about us? Oh my god. I need to go lie down. That's it guys. That is yeah, just an absolutely horrific case.

Like Hannah said at the start, we've not done a buried alive one before. And so we can add that to our fucking misery bingo card. So yeah. So yeah. If you are going to be buried alive, I don't know, it's kind of like a choose your poison really. Neither is going to, I think, give you a huge amount of benefit depending on how deep the hole is and how big the coffin is in terms of whether you want to be in a coffin or bare back in it.

Or you know, whether you can split your coffin open with your kitten heel from the early 2000s. you know, whether you can split your coffin open with your kitten heel from the early 2000s. Finally, a purpose for that despicable heel. It ruins flaws as well. I just, just why, why do they need to be a thing? And that is the question we will leave you to ponder today. Why did we ever wear a kitten heel? And we will see you next week for another episode of Right-Handed.

Goodbye. Goodbye. Twenty years ago on July 7th 2005, the 7-7 bombings rocked London. My first memory was of flying through the air. The use of suicide as a means of attack, that was something which we never saw. I'm Thomas Small, the co-host of Conflicted, a podcast about radical Islam. In this special documentary series, we'll tell you the story of 7-7, as you've never heard it before, from the inside. And to tell that story, I've got some help from my old friend and the co-host of conflicted ex-Al Qaeda terrorist turned

MI6 spy, Amon Dean. I actually encountered three of the perpetrators of 7-7 in late 2002. Binge all episodes of 7-7 The Inside Story exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondry+. Start your free trial of Wondry+, on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or in the Wondry app. We acting bad, bad, bad, bad. We ain't trying to hurt nobody. For decades, he was untouchable. But now it's all coming undone Sean combs the mogul as we know it is over he will never be that person again even if he's

found not guilty of these charges. I'm Jesse Weber host of law and crimes the rise and fall of Diddy the federal trial a front row seat to the biggest trial in entertainment history, sex trafficking racketeering prostitution allegations by federal prosecutors that span decades and witnesses were finally speaking out. The spotlight is harsher, the stakes are higher, and for Diddy, there may be no second chances. You can listen to the rise and fall of Diddy the

federal trial exclusively with Wondery+. Join Wondery plus in the Wondery app, Spotify, or Apple podcast right now.