Rotten Mango - #207: The Suicide Pact - Bizarre Suicide Or Perfectly Staged Murders?

Episode Date: October 19, 2022

They were meeting up again. They knew they should stop, it wasn’t doing any good for them, but how could they? They were the only ones that really understood each other. So the two of them would leave their spouses, their children, all at home to go be with one another.  And I know what you’re thinking. Cheaters.  Well, don’t judge a book by its cover.  These two were not cheating on their spouses. In fact, they had been cheated on. His wife was sleeping with her husband. They were meeting up to try and heal from their shared trauma.  4 people's lives were shattered by the affair and when 2 of them ended up dead in a car in the most bizarre “suicide.” You have to wonder… was it a suicide pact? Or a perfectly staged murder? Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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in all states or situations. Price is very based on how you buy. Betta Bing Betta Bing Welcome to this week's main episode of Rod and Mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue. They both knew that they probably shouldn't be doing this right now. I mean, it just didn't feel right. To be fair, nothing had felt right for the two of them for a really long time. But here they were, leaving their spouses at home, leaving

their children at home to go meet up with one another. They just wanted to talk. That's all. They just wanted to get away from the daily stress of their family lives, from their somewhat judgmental community that's a little bit too religious. They just wanted to be with each other for a moment, like a second, because they understood each other more than anybody else in the world. They felt like they were the only ones that truly just got each other. So it's inevitable that they're gonna meet up without their spouses to talk. Now, I know what you're thinking. Oh my god, they're cheating.

Oh my god, these nasty little spouses. Well, I know what you're thinking. Oh my God, they're cheating. Oh my God, these nasty little spouses. Well, I guess that's why they say, do not judge a book by its cover, because they were not cheating on their spouses. In fact, they were the ones being cheated on. His wife was sleeping with her husband. Okay, and then they are meeting up to cheat, too? No, no, no.

To talk about how the cheating had ripped their respective marriages, their lives, their family units apart. So we have two couples. The husband of one sleeping with the wife of another. Four people's lives were completely shattered by this. And in the end, two people would end up dead in a bizarre suicide. Or so they say, let's talk about the almost perfect murders of the Howell and Buchanan couples.

That was left unsolved because everybody thought it was a suicide for close to 20 years. And the way that they solved the case is insane because nobody was trying to solve the case. As always, full show notes are available at rottingmangelpodcast.com, but there is a really meticulously researched book on this case called Let This Be Our Secret. It's written by a journalist by the name of Derek Henderson. I mean, the book is so overwritten. It really gives you a strong perspective on who these people are, what their struggles were like.

It does not try to sugarcoat the victim's lives at all, in any way. It doesn't try to make them look like these perfect angels, and I know that sounds weird to say, but I think we need to normalize victims that are not perfect angels with perfect lives. Because then there are no victims, like nobody is perfect. Victims are complex, they're intricate, they've got a lot going on, and they do not deserve to be victims, and it doesn't matter what they chose to do in their personal life.

And the book just really showcases that, so grab a copy, and with that being said, let's jump into it. You know how they tell you the number one thing not to do in a marriage is to hold resentment. It's to hold something over your partner's head. Maybe they don't tell you that. Maybe they should start telling you that.

I mean, but she had something that she held over his head and she used it all the time to get out of arguments. Anytime they got into a fight, anytime her husband did something that she did not like, she would just blurt it out. Remember when you, remember when you did this? Remember that? And her reaction was a bit strange. He kind of regretted telling her his biggest secret because why is she holding it over

his head? Because now every time you forgot to take out the trash or you forgot to help with the dishes, it was always remember when you killed your first wife? Okay, wow. Yeah. And it was getting to be too much. I mean, he just couldn't take it anymore. So he called over the church leaders to his home. He set them down in the living room in his beautiful house in Ireland.

I mean, there was an upscale neighborhood. It was like for the elite. It's the type of place that you would drive past and you'd think to yourself, what on earth do these people do for a living? Should I be one of those TikTokers and ask them, hi, a beautiful home. What do you do for a living? Because I mean, what are they doing? I bet they got no worries. I bet they have perfect lives. It's that type of place. So he calls the little church leaders over. They sit down in the living room and he says, can I start confessing to you guys? Now, one of them was like, wow, you look awful. I don't know how to describe it, but your eyes look like they're standing out of your head. Are you okay?

He starts talking. He starts talking about how he's cheating on his wife. They're like, yeah, I mean, that's kind of what we suspected. That's most of the confessions that we get. And he said, you know, the reason is, I never thought that I would be one to cheat on my wife. After everything that's happened,

all the trauma from my earlier days, but here I am, cheating on my wife. And to add to that, I have blown our entire life savings of $500,000. On a strange investment scam that was based on finding a treasure trove of gold in the Philippines, they told me if I invest half a million dollars, I would get $20 million in gold from the Philippines. Anyway, do you think I'm going to hell? No, you're not going to hell. Your wife is going to forgive you.

We're going to pray on it, okay? Okay, okay, because that's good, because I have more. Okay, can you continue? Wow, I don't know how to really talk about it, but I have a job that gives me a position of authority and power and I abuse that power to assault countless women. So many of them. They're like, wow, okay, this was the confession that nobody was expecting. I mean, you could literally hear the audible intakes of air from the church elders, like they were breathing in like what you just did. They didn't know how to breathe out. They were holding their breaths, waiting for him to say

I'm just kidding. I'm just having an affair that's all, but he didn't. He had taken advantage of vulnerable women, countless vulnerable women, and the decades that he had been working. Even his wife who was in the living room, she looked shocked. She looked betrayed at this new confession. The church leaders were probably dying to get out of there. They're uncomfortable, they don't know how to respond. They're like, maybe we should regroup and talk about this another day with a police or something. And then there was more.

He said, am I going to hell? We don't really know yet. We gotta call God, you know? And he's like, okay, well in that that case, um, I killed someone. You what? I killed two people. I killed my first wife and the man who was keeping her away from him. He had murdered not once, but twice. And for what felt like years, he sat there detailing every single thing about the double homicides. There was no remorse, there was no regret in his voice. He almost sounded clinical. He talked about how he staged it to look like a crazy bizarre double suicide

and how he had gotten away with it for the past 20 years and how he could have kept getting away with it for longer if he wasn't a god-fearing man who felt the need to confess. One of the church leaders said it was bizarre. I was shivering at the fact that he was bragging about how clever the murders were. He was bragging about how he had fooled the police and how they were gobsmacked and shocked beyond belief. I mean, it was weird. To hear that sort of confession, I mean, I came over, expecting to hear about another adulterous affair, I did not anticipate in a million years this type of confession.

And finally, it was over. The whole living room, the church elders, the wife, the he, they all sat in stunned silence. He had done it. He had finally opened Pandora's Box, and now the secrets for the past 20 years that he had kept so tightly controlled, were exploding out, and there was nothing

he was gonna do to stop it. Everyone was shocked. But there were a lot of rumors back then. Twenty years ago, this town had been filled with rumors. Rumors that two of the most Christian, most devout religious couples in the church were having an adulterous affair. Rumors that one of them had gotten pregnant with the other spouse, rumors that a wife was trying to turn herself into the mistress. She was changing how she looked

how she dressed and she was looking eerily similar to the mistress as time went on. Maybe she thought that's how she was going to win her husband back. Or maybe it was something else entirely. But one thing was for certain, the two couples marriages had been completely destroyed, and now it was just filled with betrayal and secrets and dirty, dirty deeds. But it wasn't always like that. If you just looked at these people's childhoods, you would never imagine in a million years that they would be front page for any sort of crime. Let's talk about Colin. Colin Howell, God was his best friend. I don't know how to put it, but like that was his BFF,

that was his obsession at a young age. And if I sounds sarcastic, it's not, it's not because anything is wrong with religion, you guys know that, but it's mind-boggling to me that these people are religious, particularly Colin. Like it just, it's weird. Colin Howell was born in Northern Ireland to this big Howell family.

He was number four of five kids, and they had a lot of children because well, the family was super religious and they did not believe in contraception. So they did not use condoms and none of that. So you got this big family, and it wasn't necessarily like a big happy family. Colin was close with his dad,

but he didn't get along with his siblings. To be fair, there was no family drama. They just didn't really like spending time together. And they were just profoundly Baptist. Like, that's the only time that they hung out. The whole family went to church three times every Sunday, three times on Sunday. Three times? Yeah, three times. That's just on Sunday. More times throughout the week. There's three services at this big church because if you miss the morning one, then you get the mid afternoon one and then there's an evening one, you know, so everyone can plan to their schedule, but they would go all three times for the three services on Sunday.

Dare I say they went to church religiously? Okay, sorry. Interestingly, Colin was not annoyed by this. He was not one of those kids. I was like, oh, I don't want to go to charge are you freaking kidding? Like I want to go ride my bike. He loved church. Like the kid was obsessed with church. He had genuine desire to be religious. He had these little stars in his eyes. Any time a missionary would come to church and talk to everybody about their Travels and the work that they do. Do you know what a missionary is? Like when you go to some other countries and spread words?

Yeah, so basically a mission could be for different reasons. Some religious groups will have a mission in like an impoverished area where they provide health care for free. Some will provide some other charitable work and a lot of the times it's just to spread the word I guess of the religion. He was obsessed. By the time that he was 13, he was like foaming at the mouth at the thought of becoming a missionary. Like, that was his dream. He wanted to go to med school, become a doctor,

start traveling the world to help others and spread the word of Jesus Christ himself. So far, this guy sounds fantastic. Okay, like, I'm not religious, but he sounds so respectable, got good ambitions, great dreams, right? Nobody thought that he would be the type of dude that cheated on his pregnant wife later on. Because faith was at the forefront of every decision that he made in life, and anytime that he did not factor religion into his ideas or into his decisions, he felt intense guilt.

He would feel physically heavy from the guilt. Every time he thought about slacking on homework, he thought about God. And he was like, no, I got to study. So he works really hard. He had excellent grades and chemistry, math, physics. I mean, he was the school prefect. He joined a ton of clubs, but he wasn't a straight-a student. No matter how much he prayed, he still had a few seas, and it just wouldn't go away. And it prevented him from going to med school. I mean, think about how devastating this is for him. He genuinely connected being a missionary doctor with being a good Christian.

So now that he's not going to be a doctor, I mean, he's devastated. So he thought, okay, what's the next best thing? I'm going to be a dentist. So he went to Queens University to study dentistry. And like a lot of college students he just blended into the sea of kids. There was nothing about him that stood out. There was nothing about him that felt extraordinary or spectacular. He just kept himself. He was a pretty shy guy, didn't like drinking or partying. He also had a really dry

love life. I think the only serious relationship that he had till this point was freshman year of college and his girlfriend cheated on him. And he was so, I mean, he was so traumatized. He was like, what the heck just happened? And this is something that's been happening frequently. Another slightly traumatic incident was in high school. Colin was obsessed with this girl. So he writes her a little love note. You know the ones that are like, were you going to date with me?

Circle, yes or no? And he gave it to his best friend. He's like, hey, Chris, go give this to that girl that I love and that I've been talking about to you for like three months now. Chris walks over with the letter and walks back. And he's like, I got good news and I got bad news. Good news? She's going on a date.

Bad news? With me. What? Yeah. She is dating the messenger instead, okay, so this is a bit of a betrayal So Chris just went over there and pretend that the note was from him. No, he gave her the note But she was like but I like you you're kind of cute. Okay, okay Just incredibly dry love life and Colin felt super sexually repressed. In college he really explored ways to feel a bit more satisfied without having sex and now is spending countless

hours in the dark watching porn. The guy had a porn addiction. He was fascinated and he also hated it at the same time. He hated that he was committing a sin, but he couldn't stop. So he developed this obsession that was just ripping him apart. On one hand, you had the sexually frustrated side of him. On the other hand, you had the religious side of him, and he was just so upset with the fact that he was watching porn all the time. He even talked to church elders about it. That's how seriously he took this addiction.

He even downloaded a computer software for his laptop that would block and restrict all porn websites, but somehow he would find a way to get it on. None of it made a difference. Anyway, for his 21st birthday, he managed to, and by the way, porn addiction is very real, but Colin's situation is a little bit different.

We'll see, okay, we're getting there. Anyway, for his 21st birthday, he managed to find his way out of the dark room where he was spending, you know, countless hours masturbating. And he went to his own 21st birthday party that his friends had thrown for him. And it was mainly an excuse for everyone to get drunk. Like there were people that he had never met before that were there at this party. And that is where he runs into Leslie Clark, his future wife. Leslie was similar to Colin in the fact that she was super religious and her family seemed a lot more tight-knit than

Colin's. Her dad was part of the Royal Marines, they had these cute cock or spaniel dogs that they adored. Leslie had a thing for animals. Okay, there was this one time where she would spend hours trying to save a pregnant sheep from going into the river. She rescued injured pigeons, she refused to use any cosmetic products that were tested on animals. I mean, she was against it for a very good reason. So both of them, they grew up in this super religious, crazy household, and they loved it.

They both loved that religion, and they both handled it differently. Colin dived head first into just porn obsession. And Leslie, I mean, she had a bit more of a rebellious side. It wasn't bad. I wouldn't even call it rebellious. Most people wouldn't, but her church elders would probably flop over like a dead fish and have a stroke if they heard what she did. Sometimes she would underage drink like a sip of beer or three sips. She would never ever get drunk. It was always a modest amount where she would just try it. It was just to get tipsy, but in their really just world,

I mean, you might as well have flicked Jesus off. So this is like a whole big thing. Leslie ends up at Queen's University to attend nursing school. And let me just tell you, nursing school is no joke. Like it is not for the faint of heart. One of the most traumatic experiences that completely changed Leslie's life at the beginning of her career was Treating young British soldiers who were badly injured

Okay, so during this time there were intense political conflicts and protests between Ireland and Britain So there were British soldiers that were in Ireland and a bunch of locals had come up to them like hey British soldiers I know you know We're in Ireland and a bunch of locals had come up to them. Like, hey, British soldiers. I know, you know, it's like a, the Pepsi commercial, they're like, I know that we got beef, but here, take a sandwich from us. We love you.

So they're like, wow, they're so nice. They ate the sandwiches, turns out the locals had pulverized glass and laced the sandwiches with it. So the soldiers' stomachs were perforated and they just had this intense pain and Regardless of where anybody stood politically Leslie said it was the first time that she was exposed to the dark side of humanity And you would think that it would turn her into like a less caring less trusting more jaded nurse, right? But on the contrary the opposite happened Leslie would study

laden to the night for their weekly exams. I mean, she was always on top of her class. She loved taking care of the elderly patients. She would take the time to clean them extra well, help them polish their nails. She would help the elderly patients put on perfume before visiting hours, just so they could feel a little bit special when they had, you know, nice guests come over when their families would come. Not a single patient had a bad thing to say about Leslie. She was caring, attentive. She made sure that every patient was comfortable.

I mean, she really was a blessing to the nursing field. So the fact that she's beautiful, she's stunning, really. Everyone describes her as someone who took care of herself. She made sure that her nails were always freshly manicured. She was well groomed. She loved taking long baths. She smothered herself in moisturizing, thick scented creams. She was crazy about making sure her long dark hair was pin straight, looked shiny. You could see the fluorescent classroom lights just reflecting off of her hair, like ding. She was just meticulous in her appearance and she was really, really pretty.

She was also very intelligent, caring, ambitious. I mean, the guys were lining up outside to take her on a date. And I think even though she had a ton of guys chasing her, she tried to date and none of it really worked. Like, none of them really worked out because Leslie was a hopeless romantic. She had this idea of what love was and anything that fell below it,

she's like, this is not love. She wanted someone to sweep her off her feet and nobody was good enough. And then she met Colin. And I know what you're expecting me to say. He swept her off her feet like a knight in shining armor. He didn't. He was whatever.

He was all right. Yeah. No, I'm serious. She dated him and she kept our options open. She was like, ah, it's not that serious. She was dating other guys, you know, because they weren't exclusive. When Colin found out that she had gone on a date

with a med school student who was on his way to become a doctor, he was so pissed. He waited outside Leslie's house. When they returned, he pushed, physically pushed his competition out the door. Some of their former friends said, Colin was especially but heard about that date because Colin wanted to be a doctor. And the guy was going to be a doctor. Now Leslie was not alarmed at the incident because she just kind of knew how to take care

of herself. Even when Colin asked her to come to the dentist formal at Queen's University, like the dentist prom, she said, he's like, no, can I take you to the dentist prom? She said, you don't take me to anything, I come. Okay, wow. Yeah, so she was very confident. She knew how to handle her guys. That's how she said it. She bought this beautiful, elegant, expensive dress

that she looks spectacular in. And at the dance, when she told Colin how much it cost, he physically cringed and sh spectacular in, and at the dance when she told Colin how much it cost, he physically cringed and shriveled up at the thought that someone would spend that much money on a dress. Was there a lot? I don't even know. I mean, I guess it depends, and that was it. Just a...

I guess a premonition for their later monetary fights, but we're getting ahead of ourselves. Their relationship starts off kind of rocky. And just to be blunt, Leslie was just not that into him. She wasn't impressed. She wasn't wooed. He was just whatever. She even told a friend essentially something along the lines of, I wish I could tell you what my relationship with Colin is like, but I feel like I don't really care to put in

the effort to even explain. I have no intention of being with him in the long run. Like I have no intention of walking up the aisle together. He's not even considered. It looks like he was gonna be a brief, collared romance, if you could even call it a romance. Nobody took the couple seriously. Even though Colin seemed really into Leslie,

Leslie just was not into him. And everything changed on a trip to Greece. They went on a little couple's vacation and I have my theories but we're gonna get into it in a little bit but after this vacation Leslie started telling all of our friends that at this Greek beach so many guys around Greek men, sun kissed, Greek men. I think Greek men are known to be very attractive, I believe, or something, okay. Greek gods? Yeah. Yes, so she's at this Greek beach with a bunch of Greek sun kissed gods.

And she told her friends, she could not take her eyes off of Colin. They had such a great time. She said Colin was looking so beautifully Irish, wearing a sun hat with nylon ankle socks, most attractive at the beach. Okay, it had to be love, because think about it, they're sitting on the beach. Like, I just, I imagine he's very pale.

It's that he has kind of like a pasty skin color, and he's wearing a sun hat. I feel like he's got that sunscreen down his nose and he's wearing socks at the beach And she's like most attractive man at the beach. Yeah, what's what's what's up with that? I think she genuinely just fell in love on this vacation Oh, and she was looking at him with so and which side note I can make fun of Colin because he does very questionable things So after that the Greek vacation Leslie's feelings for Colin completely changed. And since their relationship grew, it also, the dynamic was just different.

Initially, it seemed like Colin was the one pursuing Leslie, and she was one foot in, one foot out. But after their Greece trip, it seemed like she was the one that was attached to him. Like one of those... What? Octopus? Yeah, like an octopus. And here is my theory.

Again, this is a theory, but I think the couple started having sex during their Greek vacation. And I think since it was likely that both of them lost their virginities to each other, the act of sex, the act of breaking that chastity together, I think it made Leslie like calling a lot more. She probably felt like, oh, this is the one. You know, I had sex with him, so I have to marry him. And you know what?

This made me feel more bonded to him emotionally. This made me feel more attracted to him. So we need to get married. And I think Colin would have been so sexually repressed had spent most of his young adult life watching copious amounts of porn. He probably had some bizarre, huge expectation to what sex was gonna be like, and this probably fell short.

Because yeah, whose first time is good. But maybe that made him feel like he was confused on whether or not he needed to continue with Leslie. He just seemed really torn. That's how everyone described him later in the relationship. It's like he wanted to be with her and some of it felt like out of obligation. But at the same time, he wasn't sure if she was the one. And you're like, how dare you accuse them of breaking their trust to thee?

Listen, you guys know that I don't love the whole purity culture that some religions have? There's nothing wrong with waiting for your first time till marriage. Literally nothing wrong with that. In fact, it's admirable. But it's the more of the purity culture of shaming or the shock or outrage of like losing your virginity calm down. So we do know for a fact that Leslie and Colin had premarital sex because after their Greek vacation, Leslie had three abortions. Two of them were only weeks apart. They were back to back. So Leslie was getting pregnant because either they weren't familiar with protection or they were against it

I'm not too certain either way Leslie's pregnant and she genuinely thought okay Well this guy is gonna marry me because that's the right thing to do but nope He pressured her to get more abortions each time. He took her to the London clinic the same one for all of them and at the end He stood there and made Leslie pay. He didn't even help pay, which sounds like such a small thing in the whole scheme of things, but like, it irked my gear so much.

I don't know why. Anyway, the abortions created this really strange relationship. Leslie loved Colin, but also part of the reason for wanting to marry him was because they lost their virginities together, and she might have felt because of the religious shame around their community, she might have felt that no one would take her after three abortions and after losing her virginity. So it's almost like she's attaching herself to him.

Colin didn't seem to love Leslie as much anymore. He was potentially fueled by his disappointment in their sex. A lot of people say that Colin was expecting sex to be wild, like porn videos all the time. And he was also a little bit, uh, he also felt obligated to stay with her after all the abortions. Honestly, I think that he could have just broken up with her, even though they broke their promises together, but now, now he's really going into it. Because the guilt was eating him alive and he said enough is enough.

Leslie, will you marry me?" And just like that, that year, Colin would be graduating, getting his dentist license and he would be walking down the aisle with Leslie and potentially starting a family together. A NERSHA. A property of matter by which it continues in its existing state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless that state is changed by an external force. That is literally what this relationship was,

an inertia relationship for Colin. Colin couldn't make up his mind. He didn't have the courage to talk to Leslie about it. He didn't have the courage to break up with her, so he did nothing, and now he's 24 out of school getting married. It's at that even on the wedding day, Colin couldn't make up his mind. Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist

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Download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier or pay to description starting at 12.99 per month. Why would you break into these apartments? For money, for drugs, whatever was in them? Why aren't you afraid of getting caught at doing this? No. Who's gonna catch us? What a police.

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Did you consider yourself a rat? 100%! I saved my soul, just like everybody else does. Listen to and follow the set, an Odyssey Originals documentary podcast series, available now in the Odyssey app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your shows. I'm not a big guy, man, but I love being a dirty mother f***er. But it was too late, you know, everybody was waiting. Which side note, there was some drama at the

wedding, other than the groom having cold feet. This just shows you the differences in how strict to each family was with their religion, which later becomes puzzling. Collins family did not want any alcohol at the service. None, zilch. Leslie's dad is like, I mean, I don't get it. We're religious, yeah, we're the same type of Christians, but why can't we just have a little bit of fun?

It's a celebration. No one's getting wasted. So the result was this divided wedding straight down the middle. You had the wet tables on one side and the dry tables on one side. Like it's a bit awkward. And the couple pushed through. They tried their best to have fun. So after getting married, they moved to the north coast of Ireland, calling it's a job at a local dentist office. They rented this beautiful house overlooking the harbor. I mean, they were living the life. It was scenic. It's the harbor. I mean, they were living the life. It was scenic.

It's the type of place that you wouldn't even believe existed. And for nine months, they were in love. They were like a newlywed bliss. They went to church together. Colin was the leader of the youth fellowship, Leslie ran a Bible study class. She made friends with everybody so quick. People thought that her relationship was just perfect and Leslie was just perfect. She even told her church friends that Colin was modeled after Christ. I mean listen, that's a lot of

love and admiration you have for your partner to say that they could have been modeled after Christ. And I think that Leslie at the time that she genuinely believed it, but a few years later, like most marriages, she would completely change her mind and opinion about her partner. And a lot of the couple's tensions started when Leslie gave birth to their first child. Okay, Leslie was working as a nurse. Collins and Dentist, they're making good money, both of them are in healthcare, but immediately Leslie was one of those moms that just knew, she knew she needed to be with her child.

She felt it in every bone of her body. She did not want to miss all those special moments. She felt so sad and devastated when she left him for work Like it was a lot and Colin was doing well the both of them decide okay Maybe Leslie should quit her job. Maybe she should be a stay-at-home mom and It just um it just ain't go well Listen Leslie was a great mother, she was a great person, she was not a good housewife and her friends would even admit to that. She admitted to everybody, I just don't like cleaning. I just don't like tidying up.

I struggle to keep the house clean, I struggle to take care of the baby, I really don't like making home cooked meals, I really like going grocery shopping. And it's expected of me and And honestly, it sounds so exhausting. But more than that, Leslie talked to them about how she just had no sense of self anymore as a housewife. She said, I feel like I'm calling Howell's wife and not Leslie Howell. So the only thing, which like why do I relate to this? The only thing that seemed to take the edge off the pain was retail therapy.

Okay, I'm serious. Leslie started coping by spending money on clothes, hair, throwing parties for her friends. Now, I'm gonna be honest, Leslie was not even that bad. She wasn't going and getting credit card dead and like buying crazy, like designer goods and just the most ridiculous stuff. She wasn't doing that, but they had a pretty strict budget because they were on one income and she was going a bit over budget here and there. So, it's not like she was wasting away all of their earnings. It was just, you know, she just wanted some nice things here and there. There were a couple of the other dentists in the area and all their wives, they drove

kind of decent cars, like luxury cars, and she wanted that. But the problem was, Colin was not making that type of money quite yet. Like he was doing well, but he was just getting started. He gave Leslie a budget, she would go over that budget, and to be fair. It's not like Colin was doing a great job at budgeting it either. This guy was blowing cash. To be fair, he was doing it to set up his own practice, but it was a lot. He paid $90,000 for a new office. He had to spend a time of cash on renovating the place, decking the place out with the highest quality state of the art equipment, devices, gear, and furniture. He had to get a receptionist, a secretary, people for admin, for HR.

He had to, I mean, it was a lot. Colin later admitted, I was driven by what I was doing. I was driven by the quality of what I wanted, rather than the mathematics of Kenai afforded. I mean, I just believed it would work. It was kind of an inspirational way of doing business, rather than a calculated way of doing it. Yeah. Did it work? Not really. Yeah. So Colin said he was obviously being too impulsive and turned a blind eye to all the potential risks He said he'd always been like that though. It wasn't just business risk one time when he was young He went to Niagara Falls with his friends climbed over the safety

Barrier to crawl along one part of the edge of the waterfall I mean he's not going through the waterfall. He's not like doing anything crazy But he is trying to climb near the waterfall. Why? He just wanted to see it up close. He slips a few inches and he's dead. I mean, if that's the type of risk that he thinks is okay, like this business risk is nothing to him.

It doesn't even get his heart skipping a beat. Yeah, he was a bit too risk tolerant. And he soon realized he forked up like he was way and over his head. He just assumed that once they opened the doors, patients would start rushing in and he would make money. Now here's the crazy part. Patience did start rushing in, but it was to the point where he was turning down business so he had to bring in another dentist and pay them a fat salary.

So he really was not making any profits at this point. He was working hard and it was just never bringing in a ton of cash flow. Yeah, they were just spending way too much money on the new state of the art gear. That's so weird. Yeah. And to make matters worse, he decided, well, the thing is, if I have a new practice, can you see where this is going?

I need a new wife. No, you weirdo. I need a new wife. No, you weirdo. I need a new house. Okay. Close, I guess. And he went out and he bought a bigger, nicer house for his family and he tripled his dead in the process. The worst part is the house wasn't even done. It was unfinished. It needed carpeting fixtures. They had no furniture to fill it with, so they were living in this unfinished, unfernished big house with light do bills being shoved into their already full mailbox of overdraft bills. Listen, I'm just saying,

Colin is not one to talk when it comes to budgeting. Anyway, you can imagine, their relationship is super tense right now. Things only get worse when Leslie gets pregnant again, and yes, it's another mouth to feed, but also Leslie is really stressed. She's exhausted from her pregnancy, and her mom passes away during her third trimester. It was super traumatic. Thankfully, Leslie and the baby were fine.

But it just really messed with Leslie's mental health. I mean, she was never formally diagnosed with it, but it's safe to say that she might have developed postpartum depression after her second child. Her marriage is starting to go even more downhill. They just keep popping out more babies and Leslie struggling with the kids. At one point, she had three kids, and she's the only one taking care of them while Collins at work. I mean, it was rough.

A neighbor remembers seeing one of the children standing on the concrete floor of their hallway, because there's no carpeting yet. In a pool of urine left by the family's pet dog, and Leslie was around chasing after another one of their kids. Okay, fine. Colin did help around the house and the kids, but three kids, financial pressures, postpartum depression, and unhappy, unfaithilling marriage, a loss of sense of identity for both the parents, I mean, let's be real, the honeymoon phase was long gone.

Neither of them had time for themselves, let alone each other, it's like they were just both surviving, taking it one day at a time. The pressure got so bad that Colin tried to discreetly sell their new house, which I think is interesting, because it just felt like Colin was trying to keep up with the Joneses. He didn't want to put up a four-sale sign because they just bought the house. So that would be too embarrassing. So he tried to sell it to somebody that he knew, but it didn't work. At one point, Colin tried to sell his entire business.

Yeah, the one that he had just opened up, but that didn't work either. And the two just kept getting pregnant, and the two kept fighting about finances, and there was more. Leslie found out that Colin was cheating on her while she was pregnant with their third child. I mean, she had been suspicious for a while. How many business trips does a dentist need to make anyway? Who are you doing?

Who's teeth are you touching? But it's still heard a lot because think about it. She found out that he cheated. But people that cheat on pregnant partners are the worst kind of cheaters. Who does that? Leslie felt vulnerable, emotional, insecure. that he cheated, but people that cheat on pregnant partners are the worst kind of cheaters. Who does that? Leslie felt vulnerable, emotional, insecure.

She was in need of support. She had just spent nearly a year creating an entire human being, and the father of that human being is out cheating on her? I just don't even know how to justify that. Yeah, he cheated on her with an old college friend. And by the time that Leslie found out about the affair, he said it was already over. She called the old college friend a verify, and yeah, it was over. But still, it completely rocked their entire foundation of marriage.

I mean, they weren't snuggling up at night, wildly in love with each other, but there was still a bond there. There was a family unit there, and he betrayed it. Leslie thought about divorce, but she decided against it. There's a lot of religious beliefs and they just wanted to make it work for their kids. But those religious beliefs did not stop Colin from cheating on his wife again. A second time. I have my suspicions that Colin cheated on Leslie with many more women. He just never was caught, so he never confessed to it. That's just my theory. So anyway, we're going to be mainly

focusing on one of his affairs. And that was with a woman named Hazel Buchanan. Now, I get it. School drop-off times that the daycare are stressful. It pick up times are a lot too. Maybe you're thinking about the one million things you got to do when you get back home. Maybe you're stressed about if your child had a good day or a bad day or if they're gonna be grumpy in the car If you've listened to our pt.a mom episode Maybe you're worried about the drama that all the parents are having maybe someone's out to get you and on Collins mind that day care drop-off and pickups It was just filled with Hazel Buchanan. He's like who's that pretty mom over there

She's married to a police officer Trevor Buchanan. Wow. I know probably the worst. Yeah. I don't even think that's like he really is risked first. No, he really is risk tolerant. He knew Trevor and he knew Hazel because not only did their kids go to the same school, but their kids went to the same swim practice, their kids went to the same church. they went to the same church. Listen, there's not much to say about Hazel Buchanan. She was a shire person in the community. She grew up super sheltered, this religious environment, she had two kids, which she was a pretty good mom too, and she took a lot of care of her appearance.

A lot of people use the word unremarkable when they described her, which is kind of mean, yeah. But they always wondered out loud, what would Colin a successful dentist want to be with such a plain, unexciting woman? I guess everyone just imagines the mistress as being the seductuous sex fiend that was just so kinky and crazy, like I guess they just were not expecting Hazel Buchanan. So they were shocked. Listen, I have a theory. Hazel started seeing Colin as her dentist, and he liked her mouth as a dentist, of course.

I don't know. There was just weird stuff going on. They would make flirty smiles with each other during drop-off and pick up. Sometimes they would brush shoulders at church. They would make flirty jokes when she came to see him at the dentist office. But nothing really happened till summer. Swim practice. Leslie's like, my kids got to learn how to swim.

She's heavily pregnant with her fourth child. So, yeah, and it's pertinent because this is not the type of swim lessons where you just drop your kid off and you watch from the bleachers. Most of the parents go into the pool to either help their child or have fun with their child or I don't know, they just get into the pool, okay? So clearly Leslie can't get into the pool,

she's heavily pregnant. So calling jumps up and is like, I got a baby, you can count on me. I will take them to swim practice. Red flag. Leslie happily accepts the idea. She had no idea that Colin was more excited about the other moms there than spending

quality time with his kids. Colin starts taking the kids to the pool. A lot of the parents noticed him, and maybe even looked at him in awe, because he was the only dad there. So everyone was like, wow, he's super dad. Let's give him a lot more credit than we give ourselves credit for,

because society praises the somewhat involved dad, and riffs apart any mom who doesn't give her life and soul and identity to her kids. So they're like, wow, can you believe it, a dad. So the other mom say noticed that he was there. And this is important later because it was just so brazen the way that he flirted with Hazel in front of all of them. Not only did other moms notice him at the pool, this is a small community. They all knew each other. So they all knew damn well that Hazel was not his wife. So when they jumped into the pool and he was holding Hazel's waist so he's standing in the water

Holding her waist so that she's not actually swimming like she's not moving but she's practicing her breaststroke Wow Yeah, what how the guys just don't care? guys just don't care Everyone noticed and I'm sure a few would have even noticed, because his hands slipped from her silky smooth skin down from her waist to her private area. And in that moment, he immediately took both his hands off of her and excused himself, being the good faithful husband that he is not.

He said, Hazel, if I am having wrong thoughts about you, you'll have to forgive me. And she responded with, I'm not so innocent myself. Oh my gosh. And shortly after that encounter, the two started having a full blown affair. They would take their children to Castle Rock Beach? Yeah, Castle Rock.

I feel like I'm one game of threats. I'm so stressed. This case is so stressful, okay? Which makes sense? Because I hated a ton of the characters on Game of Thrones, and I literally hate these two. They would take their kids to the beach, and in the bathroom they would help wash the sand off their kids. They would let their arms linger on each other, as they wash their kids.

And when the kids weren't looking, they would sneak a kiss, and a grope. I mean, it was a lot. They didn't even try to hide it from anyone, literally not even their own spouses. Get this. Colin plays the guitar. Out of nowhere. Hazel's like, hey, husband, I'm gonna learn

how to play the guitar for you, and I'm gonna have Colin from church come over and teach me how to play the guitar. So the two of them would sit in the living room while Hazel is half-heartedly strumming some chords on the freaking guitar and you're like, well shit, Trevor, the husband must have noticed. Okay, let's talk about Trevor Buchanan.

The police officer has been a Hazel. This is a smart guy. He's a police officer. He knew how to read people, read situations very well. Like, he had strong social cues. So he knew what was going on. He didn't have to catch his wife in the act to know that they're doing shady things behind his back.

Her body language is so obvious, the way that they have this knowing look in their eyes when they glance at each other, Trevor even confronted Hazel about it. She denied it, and he decided to turn a blind eye. What? Those close to the couple said that their relationship was heavily unbalanced. Trevor was kind of obsessed with Hazel. He considered himself lucky to have her and would do anything to keep her, including ignoring his better judgement. Trevor was really one of those good guys.

He cherished his wife. He felt like his relationship with Hazel was one of the best things that had ever happened to him. When he met Hazel, he was drinking, smoking. He was kind of lost in life. And when they started dating, she weaned him off the alcohol, took away the cigarettes, she monitored her, him, encouraged him to join the police force. Like she really did help behind the scenes.

She gave him the confidence to be the best police officer that he could be. Locally, he was known by the community as being a very dependable and nice, sweet, kind police officer. So maybe he felt like he owed it to Hazel to pay her back for all the happiness and courage that she brought him. So he wanted to spoil her, travel literally got Hazel whatever she wanted whenever she wanted, and she had crazy expensive taste. So this is very different from Leslie Howell, who just indulged in a bit too much retail therapy. Hazel was crazy. She bought a $3,000 keyboard. Keyboard for computer or for piano? Like a little piano keyboard? $3,000 keyboard? I mean, that's on expensive, no? Yeah, for us, yes.

Yeah. But probably not for musicians. Yeah, but they were not one. Oh, they're not. They're definitely not. I don't even think she wanted to learn. She had no priorities when it came to spending. She would rather sacrifice how much food

or the quality of the food that her kids were getting so that she could buy herself an extra luxury that week. So she definitely wasn't like a creative artist that was just, you know, trying to get her passion as a mom, no. And Trevor never argued. He just worked harder so that Hazel could get more of the things that she wanted. He genuinely wanted to make his wife happy. He felt like marriage was a promise to do his best and he was going to do his goddamn

best. He even went to church for Hazel. He wasn't even religious. He went multiple times a week. He loved the sense of community. He loved his wife. So this affair, it probably ripped him to shreds. I mean, I assume he really didn't know what to do. He was probably devastated, betrayed, confused, but he also didn't want to lose Hazel. A lot of those close to him suspect that he didn't want to lose Hazel. A lot of those close to him suspect that. He didn't want to ask Hazel to choose. Because the fear that she wouldn't choose him. Hazel said she did feel guilty.

So she claimed. But that didn't stop her from having sex with Colin, at least once a week, sometimes in her house, sometimes when Trevor was at work, or one time she had sex with Colin in the utility room while Trevor was asleep in the bedroom down the hallway. Talk about feeling guilty, I don't believe that they feel guilty at all. I mean, just the audacity, the disrespect, neither of them were even trying to hide their

affair. They even had a way to call each other at random hours of the night. So if I'm hazel, and I'm Colin, Colin, I will call him, let it ring one time hang up that let's call in note that I can talk So whenever he gets away from his wife, he can call me I'm not gonna lie the whole system is oddly suspicious because as a wife I'd be like who's calling and just hanging up Let me press the redial number the call back little thing button because I need to know, are we getting prank-called right now? I wouldn't even think that you're cheating, I'd be like, who is this?

Like what? So to make it worse, they would do this in the middle of the night, and somehow the phone would wake up Hazel or Colin, but never their spouses, so they would just talk to their lovers, feed away from their sleeping partners. And it gets worse. They flirted with each other in public, in this small town, and every time there was a church activity, Colin would tell Leslie to get rest, and he would take the kids to

church, the same church that she goes to, so that he could flirt with his mistress, who goes to the same church. The church members say, I'll notice. Even Hazel's neighbors noticed. They said, Colin would jog by the Buchanan residents all the time. And sometimes we would see him crawling through the bedroom window. Whoa. Yeah, sometimes Hazel would give him the signal and he'd run to the back door.

Hazel would go to the dentist office to get her teeth worked on, and she almost always made sure to be the last appointment of the day. So they could have sex in his office after hours. Literally, what? And apparently, the church they went to isn't just pro-life, but they're super against condoms, so... Hazel got pregnant. They thought, yeah, no. Colin and Trevor do not look alike.

We can't pull this off. It's way too complicated. You've got to get an abortion. So what do they do? They tell their spouses they're going out of town for business, which Hazel is a stay at home mom so I don't know what kind of business. And Colin is a dentist who doesn't have a practice outside of town so I don't know what kind of business it was confusing. Their spouses didn't really fall for it, but either way, the two of them went to London. And Colin took his mistress to the same exact abortion clinic that he had brought his wife to before they were married.

The level of betrayal and disgust, Leslie was probably so traumatized by the abortions and the fact that he just brought his mistress to the same clinic, as if none of it really mattered to him, like he was just doing what needed to be done to not get c- Gonna literally have a headache. And the crazy thing is these two ran in the same circles so everyone knew that suspiciously the two that had been flirting together so weirdly they were both out of town for business conveniently. I mean everyone knew what was going on This is where the church elders drew the line. Not long after the London trip, they confront Colin. Just imagine a group of religious middle-aged men coming to you confronting you.

But kind of in like a therapist mentor, type away, right? They just straight up told Colin, listen, we believe that you're having an affair. And we believe it's with Hazel Buchanan. Her neighbors told us that they saw you jogging on her street and going into her house when her husband was at home. So what is it? Call in line through his perfectly flossed dentist-approved teeth. I'm not having an affair.

I'm just helping her learn to play the guitar. Da. Yeah, Leslie wasn't buying it. She heard the rumors. She heard the whispers. She even heard him. Her husband whispering to someone on the phone in another room at night. She heard it, who would he be whispering to? She went through his pants. He had stashed a bunch of quarters in his jogging pants. Why? Probably because he's using a phone booth

to call someone. It had to be an affair, Leslie was sure of it. And it was devastating. I mean, what did people expect her to do? This is just like the first cheating news, it could not have come at a worst time. Leslie had four kids, a house to take care of, a lot of financial stress on both of their backs. She barely had time to wash her own hair. She hadn't had a proper shower in ages. Meanwhile, her husband is finding time to entertain another woman.

I mean, it wasn't fair. It wasn't right. Leslie went to the church pastor and tried to ask him beg him. Pastor, I need you to talk some sense into my stupid husband. I can't keep doing this. But when the pastor went to Colin, he denied it again. And instead of letting it go, the pastor felt obligated. He felt a duty. So he went to Hazel Buchanan to confirm the affair was happening. And at first she tried to lie. Then they kept pushing and she broke down and she admitted that she was cheating on Trevor with Colin. She said she was unhappy in her marriage and Trevor just

wasn't ambitious enough for her. He was happy all the time. I know. She's saying this like it's a bad thing. He was happy all the time. There was notes the real she wanted more in life and he was just too comfortable. So what did she do? Work on her ambitions and her goals? No, she had sex with her dentist. Which side note, Hazel said they never had sex because in their church everything was maybe acceptable or reasonably redeemable in the eyes of Christ, but not, and I quote, penis and vagina. That's what they said. That's not what I'm saying.

That's literally what they said. Once penis and vagina, it's straight to hell. Like there's no coming back. I don't get it. I guess I respect it. Well, clearly Hazel and Colin didn't respect it, though, because they totally penis and vaginaed it. Anyway, the pastor sat down, Trevor, and Leslie and told them,

here's the truth, there isn't a fair. And divorce is okay in the case of cheating. You will be fine. Your soul will be fine. You will still go to heaven. This will not go against your faith. So if you guys want to divorce your cheating spouses, that's fine. Do they ever tell people, um, actually you're going to help.

Yeah. They do tell people that? Yeah. What? Yeah. Really? They don't tell you, hey, this is what you got to do. No, so I think it's gotten so much better these days, but I know back in the day, people would try to convince you not to divorce even an abusive partner,

like a physically abusive partner, because your soul would be damned. Like I know that Christians get a really bad rep these days and I think that's part of it is because predators will always find the easiest places to find vulnerable people. And I think religion sets up kind of the set rules where it's an extra barrier for them to leave. You almost get shunned by your whole community too.

Yeah, so, it's so annoying. And these are the bad Christians, by the way. Like they're not even Christian. You guys get the whole shield, the whole disclaimer. Like these people are just predators pretending to be Christians and they're not Christians. Now Trevor and Leslie, they decide to forgive their spouses for different reasons.

It seemed like Trevor wanted to stay with Hazel because he loved her. He believed that their relationship would overcome this, it would heal from this, they would get stronger together, they would be there for their kids. Meanwhile, Leslie was thinking of it more practically. She had four kids, no job, she was struggling, she did not see a way out. Yeah, she wanted to make it work for her relationship, but also her mental health was declining. She was taking an antideressants, which is great,

but she mixed them with glasses of wine every night, which is the opposite of great. It's a very terrible idea. It's really bad to mix alcohol and sedatives, and the same goes for anti-depressants mixed with alcohol. It makes you incredibly drowsy, uncoordinated. It can be life-threatening depending on how you abuse it. So Leslie is self-medicating, sedating herself on a daily basis. She was either in great emotional distress or she was numbed from the pain. She was completely like a num zombie. She was sedating herself non-stop. It was not a way to live, but she had to for her kids.

She felt like she had no other choice. So both couples, they agree. You're right We're not gonna see each other anymore. We're gonna stop cheating. We're gonna just focus on our family And they both move on even the church got heavily involved Which I thought was a bit strange if I'm being honest the church elders were like here's how we do it Trevor and Hazel you come to the daytime service call and then Leslie the evening service Which I get it's nice that the church elders try to help them to the best of their abilities, but that it just gets kind of weird.

Listen, again, I have religion trauma, so maybe I'm looking at it with poop tinted glasses, but this is where I thought I'd get strange. Colin later confessed to the pastor, that was penis in vagina. And the pastor decided to pass this information to their spouses. Which I don't know. That just kind of felt weird to me. I get the whole we need transparency, but it was just bizarre. The pastor went to the Howell House, sat down Leslie, and told her that her husband had

penis and vagina tazel. And she just snapped. She was screaming, hitting Colin. I mean, nobody had ever seen her snap like that before. This was years of tension, trauma, sacrifice, ever seen her snap like that before. This was years of tension trauma sacrifice Everything just boiling over in that moment and what is the pastor do? Gotta go. Yeah, they literally gets up and leaves. I mean, that's the part that I don't understand Why is this man like the part the potster and the reality shows?

You know I'm talking about where they drop some news and then they walk off on let everybody fight and pull it out Together like pull each other's hair. He pretty much was like well my work here is done duty calls I gotta go pick up God bye and left he dropped a bombshell and left so Leslie, I mean she hits rock bottom her pastor's not even there to comfort her She felt so hopeless. She locked herself in the bathroom in that moment, the same night, okay? Locked herself in the bathroom

and swallowed a whole bottle of painkillers. Thankfully, the specific one that she took would just make her vomit and maybe damage her liver's her kidneys, but it was not lethal, or at least the amount that she took was not lethal. But Leslie was dead set on taking her own lives. She took the pills, the whole bottle left the bathroom, grabbed Collins keys and drove off. He had no idea where she was going. Collins was distressed, okay,

but I hate him, so I don't know. He was also kind of relieved, he said. He felt like the marriage was over. I mean, he wanted to be with Hazel. He just didn't know how to end it with Leslie. This guy has no courage, no morals, nothing. I think it's weird. Sure, he cheated, and in his mind he could justify that, but being the one to divorce someone absolutely not. That goes against his faith. What? Anyway, Leslie changed her mind while driving off, and I think that she thought of her kids about how she needed to be there for them. So she drove back home, called the pastor, was rushed to the hospital, her stomach was pumped, and she was told that she had to stay at the hospital for three days to be monitored. She had a lot of time to contemplate her marriage, she had a lot, and she decided in that moment, I'm gonna

turn my life around. I mean this made me realize how much I don't wanna die. How much I should appreciate life and my children and even my husband. So when she was discharged, Leslie did everything in her power to try and make her family work. She tried to win back Collins' affection. This literally makes me want to scream and throw up because I hate him. Leslie starts dieting, signing up for workout classes. She got a fake tan, she bought a whole new wardrobe, friends said that Leslie was oddly starting to resemble Hazel.

And I mean yeah, it makes sense. If that's what she thought Colin wanted, she might try to emulate that. But Colin was not paying Leslie any attention. Oddly, the more Leslie tried to get close to him, the more he withdrew, the more he distanced himself. It made her so sad and depressed, she would even go to Colin's friends and think about how embarrassing this is to ask. She would just say, did he talk about Hazel recently? What does he say about her? Now to clarify, Colin and Hazel were not seeing each other anymore, but that just made things worse.

Let me tell you why. He literally envisioned their relationship as Star Cross lovers. Now because they weren't a lot quote allowed to see each other anymore, he idealized their relationship. It made it a whole movie in his mind. They were the main characters. Their love, their relationship was the most important thing. It was the one that he couldn't have, and he felt like Leslie was standing in the way of his happiness and his soulmate. And he was just getting so dramatic with it.

He would sit there with listening to music, staring at the window, probably freaking fantasizing about how hard his life is. When he's the one that cheated. Colin said that he actually regretted that his wife didn't commit suicide. He was sad that she didn't die. He wished that she had. He wished that she would try to commit suicide again. He said, for his sake, because if she didn't, he was going to have to kill her. A few months after Leslie was released from the hospital. She told her friend a chilling story. I mean, she tried to play it off as if it was a half-serious story, half a joke. Maybe she was just being paranoid.

Ruth, her friend, would later tell the police. It was weird. She told me that she was laying in the bathtub just relaxing after all of this. And she had taken this tape recorder into the bathroom on an extension court. So the tape recorder was behind her on the floor of the bathroom. Calling came in and was like, hey, I need the tape recorder. Okay, that's fine. Like I'm done with it. And he got up, lifted up the tape recorder, and somehow it landed in the bath. And Leslie was so shocked. And it kind of caught on her arm, the cord landed on her arm and her arm shot up and thankfully the the tape recorder flew out of the bathtub, but there was just

a burn on her arm. And there was no there was no reason for it to have accidentally landed in the bathtub. Like he purposefully dropped it. Yes. just none of it made sense at all And he said that he was so embarrassed he made her promise not to tell anyone because he had done something so silly and his patients would never trust him again because how do you make a mistake like that and So it's like a near death experience. Yeah, and it was just so weird and she even told her friend Ruth I'm telling you this in case anything happens to me and she even told her friend Ruth. I'm telling you this in case anything happens to me. Colin would later claim, I didn't do it on purpose, I had no intention of shocking Leslie.

In fact, Leslie had never been shocked, it was just a false alarm. So essentially he's calling her a liar, right? And I'm inclined to believe that the incident did happen and if it did, it wasn't the only weird secret that the couple had. Cause Colin was seeing Hazel again. Yeah, he reached out to Hazel to talk about how miserable he was without her and how he had missed her so much and how he wanted to be with her and Hazel felt the same way. So they started cheating on their spouses all over again.

Like at this point, they could have just divorced their spouses. I don't get it. Instead, they were being secretive, coming home late, sneaking each other into each other's houses. Leslie was quick to catch on, but before she could find proof of the affair, more tragedy struck. Leslie's dad, Harry, was sick. So I mean, she had just recently lost her mom like a while ago. I mean, she's very sad. He was staying with her for a while so that he could recover. And that night, Harry was found dead on the kitchen floor without a pulse. Harry was this older guy with a ton of health problems, so no autopsy was done for him after his death,

but they just assumed that he had died of a heart attack. Now, some people speculate that Colin had killed Harry. And you're like, why would Colin kill Harry? Well, the two potential reasons were, Harry was leaving Leslie close to half a million dollars in life insurance. And people speculate that Colin believed the death of her father would have pushed Leslie over the edge and she might have attempted to take her own life again. Because he saw how depressed she was when her mom passed, she was so close with her family, he hoped that she would take her own life at this point.

Yeah, that makes sense. but did he confess that later? No, he did not. And there's a reason he probably didn't, and we'll get into it. Now, we'll never really know the truth. It's possible that he did just die of a heart attack, but it's also possible that he was killed. And just think about what kind of person would kill somebody's father to push them to the brink of suicide. Allegedly. Anyway, Leslie was falling apart at the seams after her father's death. Obviously, er, reasonably, and she had already lost her mother. He was the only one that she felt was holding her together through all of this.

And now, now he was gone. And to cope, Leslie started drinking a lot more. How much she drank every day is a point of contention. People who knew Leslie said, it's probably a few glasses of wine every night. Which is quite a bit of alcohol still, but just a couple glasses. But not nearly, as much as what Colin said. Colin, the ever dramatic monster, said, oh, yeah, no. She was digging heavy, heavy sedatives. She was popping then like candy, like skittles. She was only hydrating herself on alcohol, so she would wash all the pills down

with alcohol. Colin then went on to complain that Leslie was inconsolable after Harry died. He felt frustrated because there was nothing he could do to help her feel better, and there was so much tension in the house, it was just uncomfortable. I get the feeling that Colin was really annoyed that Leslie was crying and moping around because her father died, and he just wanted her to snap out of it. So let's talk about March 13th. Colin said, Leslie had spent yet another day crying all day. They went to bed, they barely spoke a word, and they both lie there, in bed, with their eyes wide open in the dark, so much tension you could cut it with a knife. Colin claimed, Leslie broke the silence and said,

This is going to be over soon. I'm going to heaven, and maybe you and Hazel are meant to be together. I will never get over this. And Trevor will never get over this. And you're like Trevor, what would his Trevor have to do with this? So the last few months, Trevor and Leslie had been meeting up to talk and support each other. They had both been cheated on so they thought maybe they could help each other heal.

The pastor's kind of encouraged it. Their spouse is new about it, so it was all out in the open, you know? But they quickly decided, maybe not. I mean, it's just doing way more harm than it is good. How are we going to move on if we just keep talking about the affair and how sad it's making us? So they stopped seeing each other.

So I mean, I don't know. I don't know if Colin lied that night about what Leslie said because it's kind of a bizarre statement to make. But if Leslie did say that, I mean, I think every woman knows probably the way that she said it. It was more like, maybe you guys deserve each other to have a vibe. I don't think she meant it as, wow, you guys are so mates, let me just die so you guys can be together. Like nobody's saying that. If she did say those words, I think it was more of an emotional outburst and she didn't mean it. But Colin would later use this as a reasoning on why he murdered his wife. Get this. Colin claimed after hearing this, he felt so bad for Leslie.

She sounded so miserable that he took her life as an act of mercy. And he believed every word. That's the thing. There are people, there are killers out there when they confess they'll be saying some stuff to try to get a lighter sentence and you know it's all bullshit. You know every word that they're saying they don't even believe it. It's so half-fast, it's so generic, like I feel remorse for what I did. I wish I didn't do that. But then this, he genuinely, and I don't know what's scarier, he genuinely felt like he was doing her a favor. By killing Leslie, he said he would not only be making everybody's life better, but Leslie's life as well.

He also thought that Trevor had to die because he was probably in a similar amount of pain, which is too much pain for someone to be in. And Colin and Hazel would later go on to raise their kids together with love, that's what they thought, because Colin was such a great guy. So he started planning a double homicide, but he was going to make sure that their deaths were painless again, because he was going to make sure that their deaths were painless. Again, because he's such a great guy. Colin said, after Leslie said that she was going to heaven, he laid there in bed, and

he had this moment of clarity, and he knew that he had to murder both of them. And for the first time in a long time, he said he felt affection for his wife, because she was going to die for him, for his happiness. He said, The kills weren't evil or wrong, I believe that this would be a solution that would be good for everyone. That's what I was thinking at the time. Yeah, well, you're insane. So. But Hazel Buchanan is equally insane.

Colin woke up the next day, immediately, excitedly called his mistress in secret and told her about his great big plan. Let's kill both of our spouses. It'll be painless, we will be happy, we will get away with it, it's the perfect murder, we can be together. As good Christians, of course. And she was like, yes, I love it, in God we trust. Okay, when?

When should we do it? How about in six days? That's how the two of them ended up killing their spouses in less than a week. The plan was simple. All he really needed were some very long garden hoses and a baby bottle that he could cut in half. So imagine the baby bottle. He's gonna cut it in half.

And he's left with a plastic tube on one hand and the nipple suction part on the other end. After cutting the baby bottle in half, he shoved a garden hose into the open end of the bottle. I mean, the imagery is disgusting. A baby bottle attached to a garden hose, and the garden hose was not gonna fill with water. It's gonna be attached to his car's tailpipe. So that the baby bottle would emit toxic, lethal carbon monoxide.

I mean, it's sick. I'm assuming that he used one of the old baby bottles of one of his babies to kill their own mother. I don't know. There's so many levels to this crime that is so disturbing. And just... So after McGyvering a baby bottle of death, Collins spent all day playing with his four kids. He needed to make sure that they were all tired so that none of them woke up in the middle

of the night. He even made sure that they all used the restroom before they went to sleep. And as an extra precaution, he barricaded their doors with a hockey stick after tucking them in. It was perfect and the only thing now was to wait and see if Leslie was going to sleep on the couch. Their entire plan betted on the fact that she would fall asleep on the couch. That was her new routine these days. She would turn on the fireplace in the living room, turn on the TV, drink a glass of wine,

and fall asleep on the couch. Colin was nervous. She had to sleep on the couch. Colin was nervous. She had to sleep on the couch because the distance was exact. There was no wiggle room. Colin had measured the distance from his car in the garage to the bedroom, and it didn't work. The garden hose did not reach, but to the living room sofa, it was almost perfect. So when Leslie plopped on the couch to call it a night, he jumped up and down in victory.

He waited for her to doze off before sneaking into the garage, grabbing the free end of the hose, and the baby bottle end. Attaching one end to the car tailpipe, turning the car on, grabbing the other end, and rushing it into the living room, and it just barely made it to the couch. He stuck the other end straight into Leslie's face and put a blanket over her head to saturate the carbon monoxide fumes. At one point Collins said he heard her talk, he heard her mumble trying to get up and he freaked out and he held her down while the hose was being shoved into her face. He tried his best not to breathe while doing all of this because

if he passed out too or or God forbid he died, his whole plan for happiness was moot. Because why should he die? He said by the time that Leslie stopped breathing, he was dizzy. He had to run out to the garage to turn off his car immediately and get some fresh air to clear his mind. It took a while, but once he felt better, with some fresh air, when he felt like he could finally breathe again, and breathe better, he went back inside, dressed his wife's dead body in a pair of jeans in a shirt,

and carried her body into the trunk of his car with a few other essentials. He took the garden hose, popped it into the back, took a bike, popped it into the back, and then Colin called Hazel. Is Travira asleep? Did you feed in the pills? Did you move his car from the garage? Yes. Okay, good. I'm coming over. So in the past six days that they were plotting the murders, Colin had gotten two sedative pills in the Benzodiazepine family, gave it to Hazel to crush up into Trevor's dinner, and Colin was terrified because Trevor is a train police officer, so he needs to make sure that he's

knocked out. Colin rushed over to Hazel's house house and Hazel was already waiting for him when he pulled up. She was watching from the kitchen window to see his car pull up and open the garage in perfect timing. Colin parked right in her garage, they closed the door, he attached the hose to the tail pipe, stretched it into the house, and the bedroom was close enough to the garage so there was no issue. Colin placed the hose down on the bed before running out to start the car in

the garage. But there was a problem. When he walked into the bedroom a second time, with the toxic fumes coming out of the hose, he saw Trevor waking up. At this point, Leslie was already dead in the trunk. There was no turning back. Colin made the decision to jump on Trevor and fight him, wrestle him, and it resulted in Colin hitting the back of his head on the bed frame. He managed to stick the hose into Trevor's mouth and wrap a blanket around his head like a mummy so he was trapped. What? And he waited.

He saw Trevor squirm and fight until finally his body gave out. All the while Hazel said nothing. She did nothing to intervene, nothing at all. Instead, she picked out a pair of jeans and a sweater for Trevor to be dressed in, and left it for Colin to handle. Colin dressed Trevor, loaded him into the trunk of his car, gave the garden hose to Hazel to dispose of. So she cut the garden hose into small little pieces and threw them into her fireplace, which I imagine must have admitted a horrible burnt plastic smell, but none of the neighbors noticed.

Hazel changed the sheets, Colin told her to vacuum the bedroom floor, wipe any fingerprints, she did all of this. Again, without Colin in the room with her. And this is important later because she would later claim that she was a victim of this too and Colin was scaring her. So Colin was driving the two dead spouses to his dead father-in-law's house. Yeah, Leslie's dad's house. He opened the garage, parked the car inside, and he staged the scene.

He moved Trevor to the driver's seat, and he moved Leslie's body, he left Leslie's body in the trunk, arranged family photos around her, like a little shrine, and placed headphones into her ears that were connected to her device. Then he took an old vacuum hose, a different one from the garden hose that he used, attached one end to the tailpipe and put the other end into the trunk near Lesley's head. He turned the car on and left.

He took the bike from his car, left the garage, closed it behind him and biked all the way home. It was past 5am when he got home. He checked on the kids, they were fast asleep, he lit a fireplace. Just six hours ago, the fire was there and Leslie had been using it to keep her warm and cozy. Now, Colin was using it to burn the evidence of the murders. He burned his clothes as well as the surgical gloves that he had been wearing this whole

time. Colin would later refer to these murders as procedures, he would tell investigators that he burned everything after the procedures. When he was done, he plopped on the couch, called Hazel, and confirmed that she did everything she needed to. And he reminded her, don't forget, if the authorities ask you have to tell them that you heard Leslie and Trevor talking, whispering in your house. It sounded like they were talking about something serious.

So Collins' big idea, his big plan, was to make it seem like Leslie stole his car, drove to Trevor's convinced him, tonight was the night that they had to go through with it. They both needed to commit suicide together, since they were depressed. They drove to Leslie's dad's house, where she was mourning the loss of her father, and together they killed themselves with the toxic fumes of their car. Colin really thought the whole plan through. In the matter of six days, which makes me feel like he's been stewing on this idea for a little bit longer, he had only told Hazel about it six days ago, and get this. This guy had a note that he found. It was trashed by Leslie, and it was from a while back, and she was

in the height of her depression. She wrote him a note, and she had crumbled it up. So she never really gave it to him. Colin stumbled upon it by chance while rummaging through documents and it read, dear Colin, I'm just trying to sleep now for how long I don't know. Thank you for your help over the past few days and for the good times in our marriage. I don't know what to say to you because I don't know how I feel. But I have seen that life goes on after a few weeks of pain and let's face it, Colin, I am nothing in comparison to what you lost in that one that you loved a while back. If I wake up in the morning, let this be our secret.

Leslie. I mean, it's clear that when Leslie wrote this, she was going through a rough time contemplating suicide, but that note was crumbled up. Colin had never gotten it, so clearly whatever that was going through Leslie's mind was flading, but the fact that this guy found it and used it as a tool in his crime, it's just sick and twisted. He didn't even realize what he had done to Leslie when he read this letter. He just crumbled the piece of paper up and put it on the kitchen floor. Went to sleep.

Woke up the next morning, looking for Leslie. He called a church elder, Jim. Jim Leslie's missing. He's hysterical, confused, panic, distressed. He begged Jim to go see if Leslie was at her deceased father's house. Maybe she wanted to go there and think about him or grieve her. I don't know, please, you gotta go Jim because I have my kids and I can't leave him. So Jim went. And meanwhile, he kept his act of calling all the hospitals and the police. And again, he was playing the worried husband

and pretending to search for Leslie. And Jim called him back. He said, Hey, I went over there like you said and no one's answering the door. I'm going to come over right now and help you look for Leslie. So Jim rushes over, call and opens the door, eyes blood, shot holding up a crumpled piece of paper. What is that? I think it's their suicide note. Okay, okay, it's okay.

Let's call Derek, another church elder over to help. So Derek comes over and the three are brainstorming what to do I mean Trevor came over last night and we had this brief argument before Trevor and Leslie left together and that was the last time I saw them Derek is trying to comfort him and he says okay It's gonna be okay. Everything's gonna be all right Why don't I pop over to Leslie's dad's house and see if I can break in or something? You know, I'm gonna bring my gun just in case it seems like Trevor is a bit unhinged from what you're telling me. That Trevor seems to be losing his mind, so I'm just gonna bring it in case he decides to get violent or

a fledgles in trouble. So Derek rushes to Harry's house, gun in hand, and he pushes open the front door and was unlocked. Derek was scared that if Trevor thought it was Colin, he would get violent, so he just started screaming the minute that he walked in through the house. Trevor, Trevor, it's Derek, it's me Derek, not Colin, it's me Derek, Trevor, it's me Derek. So he's shouting while he's clearing the house like he's a detective, and when he gets to the garage, he opens the door. Smells the gas. Rashes out. All the way back to Colin's house. What do you mean nobody's there? Yeah nobody's there. I checked everywhere. I cleared every single room. I checked nobody's there. Jim and Derek try to comfort Collins but his reaction is

bizarre. He starts standing and shouting they were there. They were there. You have to go back because they were there. What? Jim and Derek exchange confused looks but you know people really react to missing suicidal spouses differently, so he probably just was really concerned. So Jim volunteers to go back, and this time, he finds their bodies. They mislooked? Yeah. Colin got the call, and he was oddly calm.

He was very quick to tell his children that their mom was not coming back. He just pretty much got to the eye level and said, okay, well, mommy's in heaven now. And somehow nobody suspected that he was a killer. I guess they really just believed that their spouses were in so much pain, which they were, and coupled with Leslie's previous suicide attempt, everyone believed he was a tragic accident. And sure, maybe some of them indirectly blamed Colin and Hazel for having the affair in the first place, but nobody thought they were murderers. But of course, there were people who squinted their eyes suspiciously. Mainly the people who knew Leslie.

They were just frustrated because, yeah, Leslie had tried to end her life before, but that doesn't mean that she followed through with it. In fact, Leslie had been trying to turn her life around. Her attempted suicide was a life-changing moment when she realized that she wanted to live. It just didn't make sense. Trevor's friends and family were equally confused. I mean sure, he loved Hazel with all his heart, but this guy, he had no history of depression, no history of mental illness, he had children that he adored.

To add to that, Hazel. She wore the strangest thing to her husband's funeral. A short black skirt and a red jacket. People said her demeanor was bizarre, like she almost looked ribbed at the funeral, rather than in mourning. But that's not all. At Leslie's funeral, Colin put his armor on his eldest child, pointed at the coffin and whispered,

your mommy's in there. Like it all just sounds so creepy and so inappropriate. And after both funerals were over, Colin wrote a letter to Hazel and this is where it gets interesting. He couldn't just walk up and give the letter to Hazel, it was just too much, and he couldn't stick it in her mailbox because he can't be seen near her house. So remember Derrick, the gun wielding Derrick church elder?

Uh huh. He was also Hazel's neighbor, so Colin was like, can you give this to Hazel? And Derrick was kind of suspicious about the whole, they were their reaction, right? So he used a steam to open the envelope. When I googled it, because who knows when this will come in handy. Thank you later. Here's what you do. To open an envelope without anyone knowing, you start by boiling water inside a tea kettle. Then once the steam comes shooting out of the spout, you grab the envelope with a pair of tongs and hold the seal under the steam.

For 20 seconds, then the glue will loosen, and you can carefully lift the envelope flap open with the letter opener, and then you just glue it back shut. So no one will know that you've ripped the glue apart. Anyway, sneaky little Derek did this and he read the letter. Now upon reading it, the guy did not think murderer immediately, or anything, or even afterwards, he just thought, huh, strange letter. Now upon reading it, the guy did not think murderer immediately or anything, or even afterwards, he just thought, huh, strange letter. And something told him to take a copy of the letter and keep it in this possession for the next 18 years. So he did 18 years. So that's why we have the original letter 18 years later. So the original letter is super long, but I'm going to

give you the gist. It's essentially just Colin convincing Hayes all that they need to be together. The pastor told them that the church is going to do everything in their power to make sure that they don't end up together, but he's just trying to convince her. He's like, hey, remember how your daughter said that she hated me? She doesn't actually hate me. I'm going to be a really good stepfather. She's going to love me. She just said that she hated me because I was taking time away from you, but now she's going to need

the father figure in her life. Wow. Secondly, I know that you're sad about Trevor, and like, we should really grieve. I'm sad about Leslie too. I miss her. So we shouldn't get together until we're done grieving, until we're ready to move on. So even if we're sad and we want to talk to each other, no, we should look at pictures of Leslie and Trevor and concentrate on our grief. And lastly, the church, like if we're going to be together, we've got to leave the town. And he ended the letter with, we will be open and honest and not secretive. We will lose many friends who won't accept us, but we can walk down the street together proud of each other, because from now on, we are forgiven and will be disciplined and will honor God, and we won't lose our friends if we take our time.

And cryptically he wrote, I have taken a mother from my children, but God will provide for them, and I only hope and pray that it can be you, but only if you accept it in your mind as well as in your heart. Love, call in. So the last part is really cryptic. It sounds like a murder confession, but Derek said that he interpreted as the affair led to someone to commit suicide. Now the letter worked because not even two months after the funeral, the couple were seeing each other again. They were shamed out of the church for their relationship, but they found another church in the area to go to because they were quote profoundly religious, and they genuinely felt like they were in God's good graces again, after cheating, lying, betraying, and murdering two people. They thought God still loves us because even though we did all of that, we are not doing penis in vagina right now.

I'm freaking dead serious, okay? This was their thought. So when Colin finally pressured Hazel, we got to do penis in vagina now. She felt overwhelming guilt. She said, I can't do it. I'm just so tense, I can't have sex. Which Collin is like, why did I just kill two people if you can't even have sex with me? So what does he do? Does he just accept that Hazel doesn't feel comfortable and that they're vile killers and turn themselves in? No. He sedates Hazel with laughing gas from his office so that she can relax and he can essentially, perh? I mean, aside from it being incredibly toxic, it's illegal.

I don't know. Okay, I guess she can say that it's a great area, but like what are you doing? You need to lose your license. Hazel would later argue that Colin was assaulting her and controlling her, but nobody in court would take these claims seriously because, I mean, she did choose to kill her husband. She did give Trevor the sedatives, and then she chose to be with Colin, so it just felt a little bit convenient for her to come up with these excuses. On one hand, what Colin is doing is horrible and probably traumatizing. On the other hand, nobody's really jumping up to

defend Hazel because she just killed people. There is also no evidence that Colin assaulted or abused her and just overall her actions doesn't seem like someone who was forced into assisting a murder. The two continued on forever. No, I'm kidding. That's the thing about affairs. There are times where you get with a mistress or the other party and you make it work. You learn from your mistakes, you feel remorse

and you try and move on. Everyone's situation is different, but more often than not, people cheat not because they're so made as someone else or their spouse is lacking. and move on. Everyone's situation is different, but more often than not, people cheat not because they're so made as someone else or their spouse is lacking. They feel like their partner is not 100% perfect. So they're upset that they're only 95% perfect. Then they go out there and they find someone else that has that 5% of what their spouse is missing and they just assume because this person has that 5% they must be 100% perfect. Turns out, they're missing a different type of 5%.

So after two murders, and just four years of dating, the two call it quits and marry other people. Colin would meet his next wife at a church singles party, Kyle Jorgensen. Now, she is an American that moved from Ireland with her kids after a really bad nasty divorce, and immediately they hit it off. They get married exactly six years after Colin killed his first wife.

Just when you think things are over, it gets weird. Colin told his new wife that he was a killer from the get-go and he was also convinced that super religious Kyle would not go to the police. Why? I mean, what kind of amazing reason would you have to convince me to not go to the police if you killed your first wife, especially when I'm your second wife, I feel like I'm the next one, no? Who's to say that this is not a habit that you're forming? Well, he told her, you can't go to the police

because God has forgiven me already. So everything's good. I got the good old thumbs up from Jesus, so no need to worry. Like don't even stress. That's bizarre, but Kyle's reaction was a bit strange too. Instead of freaking out, she kind of convinced herself that Colin was maybe being dramatic,

that he probably did play a role in their murders or their deaths because of course he cheated, but maybe he's not a killer. I don't know, but then she would also use this knowledge to win arguments. She would straight up be like, oh yeah, well I'll go to the place and tell them what you did to Leslie.

So I don't understand. Maybe she felt trapped because she did have five kids with Colin. Yeah, a lot of children Kyle had two from a previous marriage from America and four from Colin and Leslie's marriage and now five between Colin. They had 11 children. And if you're wondering how they afforded to feed such a big family, Colin was more responsible with money now. In fact, he was doing really well. He used the inheritance from Leslie's dad, remember that, and Leslie's life insurance policy.

He invested in to real estate. His dental practice was profiting. He even opened up a second practice. So this guy's doing really, really well, doing really well for himself. And they're living in this huge mansion in the picturesque town of Castle Rock. They even had a vacation home in Florida, because remember, Kyle is American. And yeah, it was just also impressive for a guy that was broke a decade ago. And since Colin was doing so well for himself, he convinced himself, or at least he claimed he convinced himself that God had forgiven him. Because why else would he be successful?

Which is such a bizarre, capitalist view on God. Like, God forgave me so I'm rich. So, in 2007, everything changed. Collins' oldest son died in a freak accident in Russia. He was studying abroad as a college exchange student and he fell down a flight of stairs and died on the spot. So Collins is not only grieving the death of his first child but he started feeling paranoid. He felt like God was telling him, actually never mind, you will be punished for your crimes.

And he just felt like this was the start. He was going to get worse. And that year, Colin met this American missionary, which like I said, a missionary is not just there to like preach about God. Sometimes they're there to provide services, right? Well, this guy was more of a treasure hunter than a missionary, so I don't know why Colin even believed he was a missionary to begin with, but he said, hey Colin, I'm gonna go on a mission in the Philippines because they've got some lost gold. Allegedly, Japanese soldiers had buried gold in the Philippines during World War II and it's still there

But we need to like excavate the sites So you need to give me like 500k if you want some return on investment and I'm thinking you'll probably make like 10 20 million Now all of Collins friends and family were like that sounds like a scam But remember Collins obsession with missionaries. He just believed that they could do no wrong. So he trusted him and invested their whole life savings, which was half a million dollars in cash. Colin was genuinely believing he was going to be rich. 20 million dollars, he could pay off his debt, he could be rich, he could travel the world with his family,

he could use the money to donate to charities, he felt like God was speaking through the missionary. Because if Colin had money, he could donate, and that's what God would want. Again, I don't know if God's like into money like that. No. It's like he's like God wants me to be rich. In the end, Colin did not get the $20 million back. He didn't even get his own money back. In fact, all he got were boxes containing silver dollars, a few bank notes. All of it was worth $30. Yeah, $30.

I don't know much about investing with that sounds like a really bad return to me. So he had just lost his entire family savings for a lost and found box, and he was shocked he genuinely thought that he was going to be rich. So now he has no money to even pay for his taxes that year, he has no money to really keep his business running, he basically was forks. To top it all off, Kyle kicked Colin out of the family home. Why? Just for blowing their life savings? No, because Colin was like, hey, since I'm already confessing to you, can I tell you something, Kyle? Not only did I blow

our life savings away, but I also have been cheating on you for the past 10 years. She's like, why would you even, I don't even know why he would tell her that at this moment. So she kicked him out. He got like a caravan, like a van to live in, why he would tell her that at this moment. So she kicked him out. He got like a caravan, like a van to live in, and he would park near the house because they still wanted to co-parent. So oh, side note, he did try to convince Kyle that the affair was nothing to worry about because no penis in vagina. So he would come home at night to read the kids a bedtime story, and it was just really

the whole thing was tearing Colin apart. He was no longer the wealthy, successful family man. His true colors were showing. I mean, I guess he knew it was time. He felt like his life would only get worse unless he did something. So Colin went on his computer and typed the words double murder into Google. He figured he would get 20 to 30 years and he would be out by the time he was 70 and the Howell family was known for longevity.

So he would probably make a live another decade or two after he got out. So he asked Kyle to bring in the church elders, and he spilled his guts. He confessed to cheating on Kyle multiple times. He confessed to the abortions that he forced Leslie and Hazel to get. He confessed to killing Leslie and Trevor. He confessed to sexually assaulting Trevor. He confessed to sexually assaulting patients and his dentist practice. He said he would give them a ton of laughing gas or sedatives and a lot of patients would come out talking about

how they don't remember a single thing or sometimes Colin would say very bizarre things to them about how much he loved their belly button piercing or how they have a fantastic tan or another patient was sedated at the same time as her friend. So they were both getting dental work. And afterwards they don't remember a thing that just happened, walking out of the office, and Colin just says it was lovely doing two friends together. It was a very creepy suggestive comment. No.

Now because most of the women had no recollection of what happened while they were sedated, only six women were able to confirm that Colin had assaulted them. That's a lot of women, but I'm assuming it's a lot more. So November of 2010, Colin pled guilty to two counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole in 21 years. He also implicated Hazel and the murders, gave evidence, and testified against her, and Hazel seemed really shocked that this was all happening 20 years after the fact. She was married, living a very comfortable upper middle class life with her new husband.

She clearly was not struggling with her conscious at all, but her lawyers were like, no, she's also a victim. But nobody forced her to sedate her husband. She crushed up the pills, put it in his food, she could have called the police, she could have told him, who is a part of the police, she could have saved him if she wanted to. But she didn't. Even under cross-examination, Hazel would admit that Colin could not have killed Trevor without her help. So Hazel got life in prison with a possibility of parole in 18 years.

She will be eligible for parole in 2029 and Colin in 2031. And I hope neither of them get out. And also just to showcase the pure audacity, apparently Colin is writing a children's book in prison. And that is the story of the Howells and the Buchanan's. And the fact that they got away with it for 20 years, I mean what's crazy to me is that Trevor was also part of the police force. I think it may be if it was the other way around, maybe it's like, okay, he's definitely planning some seeds and some ideas and the other officers' minds that they were so depressed and they needed to end their lives, but Trevor was a police officer and they got away with it.

That is crazy. It's terrifying. Well, no police work at all. Nope. Wow. I guess they just really assumed that no Christian couple could do this. Wonder what percentage of the death or murder gets away. There shouldn't be data out there because- There's not data because- They got away, right? Yes, because the murders that are unsolved technically they got away and there's data on that, like the unclosed cases, the unsolved technically they got away and there's data on that like the Unclosed cases the unsolved cases, but then what about the missing people who are murdered? What about the suicide cases that were not suicides? The accidental death cases the natural causes of death that were not? Mm-hmm. I think I'm sure it's very staggering number and I'm sure that if we knew the exact figure, nobody would sleep at night.

Please, stay safe and I will see you guys on Sunday for the mini-sode. Bye!