Sword and Scale Nightmares - Room Service

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

17-year-old Linda Bury’s home life was a mess, so she turned to social media to reinvent herself. There she met Joshua Mebane and this unassuming, wealthy monster would change her life forever.Get commercial free access to over a decade of Sword and Scale's true crime podcasts at http://swordandscale.com

It's October 26th, 2012 in the affluent Washington suburb of Waldorf, D.C. have stepped out into the cool autumn night for a post-dinner stroll with their dog. The couple are still in that blissful honeymoon stage. After all, they are still in the first year of their marriage. This is actually the second marriage for both Teresa and Jerry, who blended their big families with the ceremony. Now they've got eight kids together, and life could not be happier. Teresa is a nurse and Jerry is a firefighter, who also works as an EMT.

As Teresa and Jerry walk down the footpath near Westlake High School, they hold hands swinging their palms as a breeze drifts through the air. Teresa's 41st birthday is in two days and Jerry has big plans. He loves her so much. He just wants to spill out all the surprises he has in store. but he holds it in, knowing it'll make much more of an impact if he does. He can't believe how love-struck he is by this woman. Teresa has changed his life in ways he could have never imagined were possible.

Luckily, I know the feeling. Hope you out there listening do also. Suddenly, a sharp and mighty popping noise riddles the air. Jerry turns towards the sound and realizes it's bullets and they're close as he whips back around he watches Teresa's body fly forward and thump onto the pavement her silky black hair falls over her face like a mask Jerry lunges down towards his wife but as he does he feels an unbelievable pain in his stomach. It's hot and sharp, like fire.

He grabs at his side and pulls his hand back. It's covered with blood. Jerry falls to one knee from the pain and calls out to Teresa. She's gasping for air as blood pools around her body. He looks towards the sound of the bullets and sees a man. Stop! Jerry hollers. But the man raises his nine-millimeter again and takes another few shots,

then turns and runs into the thicket. Teresa is struggling to breathe. Jerry frantically works his EMT protocol on his beloved wife, but he's been shot so many times he can barely move his own body. He presses his ear to her chest and kisses her face. As he starts to get dizzy, he hears footsteps running towards them and keys jangling. As the footsteps grow closer, Jerry sees through his blurry vision that it's some security officers from the neighboring high school.

They heard the gunshots, and as they lean down, Jerry begs them to save his wife. he lays back and prays. True Crime for Bedtime. When Nightmare begins now. Most people don't actually need more caffeine. They need their energy to last. That's why I want to tell you about Strong Coffee Company. Strong Coffee is premium instant coffee built for focus and endurance, not spikes and crashes.

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usually did. The family lived and parked in Maryland, a quiet rural area outside of Baltimore, filled with pretty forests and streams. But now their house had been foreclosed on and the entire family had to move in with Linda's aunt and uncle, who were much better off. It was embarrassing to have to lean on family like this, but Linda was grateful to have a place to live. She was grateful her dad could focus on his chemo and healing instead of worrying about the electricity being shut off. In a way, losing the house was a blessing. Linda's parents were too proud to accept help, but now they were forced to surrender. Linda was an outgoing happy person who didn't care about her socioeconomic status as a kid. But her father's cancer had changed her.

The thought of losing her dad loomed in the back of her head as she trudged through the halls of high school, suddenly aware of the undeniable fact that she was poor. Other girls had beautiful clothes and shoes, pretty trinkets on their backpacks and new cell phones in their lockers. Linda was wearing Walmart jeans and hand-me-downs. She felt ugly, scared, and ashamed all of the time. However, she was the only one who saw it that way because she truly was a beautiful girl. Nobody really paid attention to the other stuff. One of the good parts about living with her aunt and uncle was that they had a laptop computer

and they just let Linda use it whenever she wanted. It was 2012 and social media had just hit its stride. Nobody knew what was in store at that point. Linda signed up for MySpace, Facebook, and another site called Meet Me. She spent hours and hours hold up in her temporary bedroom, hunched over the glow of a laptop, lost in the online fantasy world she'd created for herself. Social media was literally the perfect escape. On the site, unfortunately, called Meet Me, not sure if that's a pun, she was Linda Burry,

a pretty pale-skinned, raven-haired, 17-year-old looking to make friends. She posted sultry, moody photos and relished every time her screen lit up with a friend request. That serotonin rush is just a resistance. No one knew about her dad's cancer or the fact that their family had no money. Linda's life was reinvented online. And of course, you know, many guys sent Linda friend requests and messages on Meet Me. They were mostly harmless flirtations until a guy named Joshua came along. There's always a Joshua.

Now this Joshua's last name was Me-Bain, and he was the same age as Linda. Joshua Meabain was tall, athletic, dark-skinned, and slightly mysterious, with an eyebrow ring and a big diamond on his earlobe. Sexy. He had a scream name that Linda thought was silly, something with a bunch of dollar signs in it. Apropos of the time, I suppose. But beyond the bad boy image, she saw something that she liked. Joshua threw compliments at Linda, like he was tossing darts at a board, and she gleefully took in every shot as a bullseye. Never had anyone been so complimentary to her before.

She was giddy. What is this amazing place called the Internet? Where I'm such a rock star, you know? Linda rushed home from school every afternoon and logged onto her aunt's computer to start messaging Joshua. She was addicted. Over a week of constant messaging, he started to reveal himself beyond the persona

that he had created. You see, Joshua wasn't actually a bad boy. He came from a good, middle-class family who lived in a wealthy suburb. That's the magic of the internet. Nothing is actually real. You don't really know who you're talking to. at least not yet not until it turns into a full-on black mirror episode it will it will just give a time so this bad boy named joshua had actually grown up with literally everything he could have possibly wanted his dad was a sound director and his mother was also a working professional but as their only son the mebanes were strict and expected academic excellence from joshua

If he came home with anything less than a B, his father would unleash a fury of guilt and disappointment on him. His dad had high standards for himself and had even higher expectations for his son. But Joshua was sick of failing to impress his father. So he started to rebel. Instead of attending prep school like his dad wanted him to, Joshua had started hanging out with the bad kids in the neighbor. drinking and doing drugs. Joshua had made his choice.

One afternoon, Joshua confides in Linda that his parents have recently filed for divorce. He blames his father. He is a tyrant. No one can stand that dictatorship, he says. I don't blame my mom. Linda softens as Joshua tells her about his home life. And she admits to her own. own problems as well. For the first time, she talks to someone outside of her family about her

dad's cancer. Joshua listens attentively and offers her the love and support that she's been craving for all of these years. They are star-crossed lovers now, living in an online bubble of lust and teenage hormones. What could go wrong? We should meet in person. We should meet in person, Joshua types. I'll come to you. You can? Linda writes. Really?

I'll take a cab out there. It's only two hours away. Linda smiles at the screen. She thought this day would never come. She nervously hovers her hands over the keyboard. I know just the place we can meet. She waits for the chat bubbles to appear. Joshua is typing.

It's a date, he writes. Linda falls back into the pillows on her bed and yelps with happiness. If you're tired of sports bras that only. work for one thing, this is worth checking out. Handful makes sports bras and active wear designed by women for women, built to actually handle real movement. Their bras are supportive without being restrictive, comfortable enough for everyday wear, and versatile enough for everything from workouts to running errands.

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Earth from this podcast. Now, back to the story. Linda is in the bathroom, getting ready to go meet Joshua in town. She examines herself in the mirror, and she carefully paints on more mascara onto her top lashes. She turns to the side and throws back her shoulders, sticking at her chest. She hopes he'll like her. Linda's stomach is a mangled web of knots and anxiety. Just then, her sister wedges herself into the bathroom and asks where Linda's going. Linda shrugs off the question.

Just out, she says. She's doing everything in her power to contain her smile. Her sister gives Linda a curious look. When Linda arrives in town to meet Joshua, she sits nervously in the sun tapping her foot on the pavement. Every car that drives by sends her stomach spinning like a laundry machine. She plays with her hair and waits. Just then she sees a yellow taxi pull up.

Her heart races. The door opens and Joshua steps out. It's really him. He looks right at Linda and smiles. Linda stands up, but she's too nervous to move a muscle. She watches as Joshua pays the driver and saunteres over to her and wraps her up in a hug. Linda feels so tiny and safe in his big, strong arms.

She buries her face in his shoulder and smiles. Hi, she says. Oh, hi, he smiles back. Linda wants to kiss them all that energy all that lust it's been bubbling up inside of her but she's too scared to do anything about it

so she just stands there suddenly Joshua leans in and does exactly what she is thinking the two embrace and it's so exuberant that Linda feels like she's melting she's never been kissed

this way before she's literally swept away. Joshua suggests that they get a hotel room. He's got money from his savings to pay for it all. Linda nods and says yes. Her prince charming is here, with cash in his hand ready to take her away from all of the pain and sadness. Joshua hails another taxi and the two head over to a motel six in Washington, D.C. Over the next six days, over the next six days, In days, Linda and Joshua stay hold up in a Motel 6 having sex, talking, eating, and fantasizing about their future together.

Linda is in a cloud of bliss. She doesn't even care that her family has no idea where she is, nor does she even bother to call. She's with Joshua, and this is exactly where she wants to be. years of upheaval and depression. She's finally enjoying herself. She feels like an adult, not a teenager. Joshua has money, so they order takeout food and watch TV, then have sex over and over again, falling deeper in lust with every day. Joshua tells Linda that they should run away together. He has this big plan to go to Iceland. Iceland is exotic. It's far, far away from the hell of their family's problems and worries.

They can start all over in Iceland. All they need is some money for plane tickets and a way to get out of town. They start planning. One afternoon, while they're snuggling in the dirty sheets that they've not left for days, Linda looks at Joshua and tells him how safe she feels. He has his arm around her holding her tiny body tightly against his. She can hear his heart beating in her ear as it cups his chest. I feel like I can tell you anything, he whispers. You can, she says. Joshua sits up and looks her dead in the eyes. His face hardens and he gets up and grabs his backpack. Then he sits back down on the bed. He tells Linda that last week he got a gun. He bought it online. He just wanted to own something powerful, something that could cause harm. Linda listens and

nods along. He tells her that he was walking in the park by his house and the gun was in his pocket. He passed a couple on a walk with their dog and he just had the this overwhelming urge to shoot them. He didn't know why, but he followed the feeling, and bam, he did it, just like that. He told Linda, the woman died. The man survived and gave the police enough information for a composite sketch. The police were on the lookout for him. Linda noticed the excitement in Joshua's eyes and was dumped for him.

found it. A part of her thought he was lying and a part of her knew it was true. She didn't know what to say. She just kept listening and Joshua told her all the details. When he was done, she leaned over and kissed him as they fell into one another. On day six of their motel getaway complete with cellophane wrapped plastic cups, Joshua realizes he's run out of cash. Oh boy, that's a problem. He can't ask his parents, and Linda certainly doesn't have anything.

Neither of them wants to go home and leave the other, so Joshua comes up with a plan. We can rob someone, a cab driver, he offers. Joshua isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. Let's put it that way. Linda sits up in the bed and pulls the sheets around her legs. I don't know. Cap drivers always carry cash.

It won't be hard. Josh gets up and grabs his black duffel bag. He pulls his 9mm and shows it to Linda. I'll handle it. Linda is taken aback by the gun. Maybe in the back of her mind, she doesn't actually believe his story, but now that the weapon is an arm, arm's length of her. She knows he wasn't lying. She's with a murderer. Joshua has killed someone indiscriminately for no reason. But there's something utterly powerful and intoxicating

about Joshua. She's under his spell. It's like she's watching herself in a movie and nothing is real. But of course, she's the protagonist. The next night, Joshua and Linda checked out of their hotel room and walked to the bus station to hail a cab. Linda held Joshua's hand as they slipped into the back seat, and the driver pulled out into traffic. He asked them where they're going.

Joshua told them the name of a high school that was a few minutes away. Then he sat up and cleared his throat. Can you break a 50? He asks. The cab driver looks in his rearview mirror and nods. Joshua sits back, turns to Linda, and smiles. He grabs her hand and squeezes it. She returns the gesture and sits quietly beside him in the cab

as it veers off onto a side road and heads to the high school. She looks at Joshua, trying to find some clue as to what his next move is. And then she watches as he pulls up his duffel bag and unzips it. Inside he takes out his black latex gloves and covertly slips them on his hands. The 9mm follows. Linda swallows and pushes herself down in the seat. She grabs the hood of her sweatshirt and pulls it. it over her head, blocking out her peripheral vision.

You can pull around the back of the school, man, she hears Josh say. As the car turns, Linda feels it, the gunshot. It's so loud, it shatters her ears and makes her throw her hands over her face. The driver's head falls forward onto the steering wheel, and his foot presses the gas. the car's horn goes off like an alarm as the car excels to an unbreakable speed pummeling forward like a bolt what the fuck then just screams the car is going so fast straight forward neither of them know what to do these two idiots have just shot a person in a moving car that they're in the back seat of They couldn't have foreseen something going wrong.

Think about that for a second. Think about how dumb you have to be. Now realize that these people are all around you. Every day. Panic sets in and Linda frantically tries to open the door, but just as she's about to push it, the taxi smashes into a tree. Joshua and Linda are whipped forward,

their heads smashing into the back. of the seats. What the fuck, Josh? But before she can say anything else, she notices something terrifying. Past the driver's bloody head on the steering wheel is a billow of gray smoke and little flames flickering under the hood. The two killers burst out of the car and run as fast as they can across the school parking lot towards the bushes.

just as the taxi cab explodes into a mass of hot, white fire, and smoke. Just as they escape the scene, Joshua takes off the black gloves and throws them on the ground, not realizing that his fingerprints are on the inside of them. But then again, Joshua hasn't won any noble prizes, so what do you expect? The cab driver was just a guy. Yeah, just a guy living his life. His name was Muhammad Qadir. He was an immigrant from Pakistan who worked seven days a week, driving his cab in Washington

to provide for his wife and two sons, a family man, a good man. He was kind-hearted, hardworking, and beloved by his friends and family. Dead because a couple of horny teenagers wanted to rob him. When police arrived at the scene of the burning cab, the car was so scorched that they could barely see Muhammad's body inside. A man walking his dog noticed the flames and called the cops. Everything in the car was burned to a crisp except Muhammad's wallet. Somewhat insulated from the flames, it had his ID, cash, and cards.

They were all intact despite the wreckage. When the cops showed up at Muhammad's front door to tell his wife what had happened, as you can imagine, she was unconsolable. This woman's husband left for work that day to provide for their family and never came home. He didn't do anything particularly dangerous or risky. He drove a cap, a fucking cap. This woman's life had been just utterly destroyed. for a $50 bill, that two teenagers didn't even actually steal.

They ran away without accomplishing their goal to begin with. It was for literally nothing. But the cops didn't know that yet. In fact, they had no ties to Linda and Joshua until the story of Muhammad's mysterious murder started making the rounds through the local news. After the murder and crash, Joshua and Linda fled back to Joshua's mother's house. Mrs. Mebain was startled to see her son scramble of the driveway with a strange girl after six days of him being gone. Mrs. Mebain insisted that she drive Linda home immediately, so they all piled in the car and drove the two hours to Parkton.

Linda was devastated to leave Joshua. She was so in love with the guy that she'd laid next to her. for the last week. This sweet guy who dreamed of running away to Iceland to start a new life with her and also, you know, murdered people. Yeah, she missed him.

She somehow pushed the gruesome murder out of her mind and focused on the good. An optimist. When she got out of Mrs. Mebane's car and walked to her own front door, she looked back at Joshua as tears. welled in her eyes. Much to Linda's surprise, her family had reported her missing.

When she walked in the front door, her mother and sister threw Linda into their arms and didn't let go. Linda sighed. Then she pictured the cab driver's bloody head smashed into the steering wheel and shuddered. Not everyone wants to unwind with alcohol, especially after hearing stories like this. That's where RSRV Collective comes in. RSRV Collective makes Ken Show cocktails,

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One customer summed it up perfectly. I woke up feeling like I hadn't drank the night before. I've arranged the highest discount they offer, 20% off. Go to lecure.com. That's L-I-Q-U-R-E dot com. And use promo code S-W-O-R-D at checkout. For the next few days, the reality of what happened ate away at Linda. She couldn't shake the murder from her head, no matter how hard she tried.

She didn't sleep. She couldn't eat. She felt like a zombie, frozen with guilt. but Linda's guilt gave her a big mouth so she confided in two friends as to what had happened and of course as you would those two friends called the Baltimore police who tipped off the cops in DC when Linda was taken in for questioning she denied everything she was stone-faced and solid the cops actually let her go but they knew she was lying so they obtained came to search warrant for Linda's aunt's house and showed up the next day. The cops tore apart Linda's messy teenage bedroom, looking for anything to tie her to Muhammad's murder,

but they couldn't find anything. Just as they were about to give up, one of the detectives grabbed Linda's skinny jeans, which were flung over a chair, and rifled through the pockets. That's when he found a small scrap of white paper. It was a note that read we should have taken the dude's money.

The police brought Linda in to custody that day. But this time, they had ammunition. Linda sits down across from the two officers in the cold white interrogation room. She purses her lips and looks down at the table. The detective has the note in his pocket. He asks Linda some of the same questions to verify her answers. He waited for a break in the conversation and slips the note out from his pocket, sliding it across the table towards the teenager.

Linda stops talking. Her eyes become glassy and dark as they fill with salty tears. She swallows and shuffles in her seat. The detective has her. He knows he has her. She knows he has her. she's caught her jaw relaxes and she lets out a sputtering sob that's when she confesses everything the plan the gun the shooting the crash she cries and buries her head in her hands then she tells the police one more thing joshua told her he killed another woman he shot a couple at the end of october near his house and waldo When the police obtain a search warrant for Joshua's mother's pristine yellow house,

they find the hotel receipts, the clothes Joshua was wearing during the shooting, and the 9mm. In police custody, Joshua admits nothing, but the gun and Linda's confession were all they needed. It took three years for the trial to begin. Joshua's defense team tried to argue that the privileged teenager suffered from severe mental illness which is why he had no emotion about shooting three innocent people that he didn't know

poor baby but after being evaluated at a mental hospital Joshua was deemed competent to stand trial it's not like psychology is a black and white scientist there's no test that you can apply to see if someone has a mental illness or not. They could be really, really good at faking it. And even if they do have a mental illness, who is to say that they are not actually in control? Why do we accept the fact that people have no control over their behavior when

they have a mental illness? Especially when we all suffer from some sort of mental illness at some point in our lives, yet most of us don't go around killing people. Some just want to evade personal responsibility at any cost. Joshua Meebain was charged and sentenced to 45 years in prison for the murder of Muhammad Qadir. Linda pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and testified against Joshua in the week-long trial. She waived her right to a grand jury trial, and her charges were,

were listed as information, whatever the fuck that means. But that's not all. Joshua then had to face the court for the murder of Teresa Bass. Teresa's husband, Jerry, who had survived Joshua's attack, faced his wife's killer in court. I've waited four and a half years for this opportunity to confront the man who murdered my wife, he said. The last time the defendant was in court, he said his only regret was that I didn't die too.

Well, I'm still here. Jerry told the courtroom how he watched his wife take her last breath, how his guts were hanging out of his stomach, and he had to undergo ten blood transfusions just to stay alive. Joshua just sat there because here's the other thing while Joshua was incarcerated awaiting trial for the murder of Teresa Bass he also

killed his cellmate he claimed it was a satanic sacrifice Joshua tried to fire his public defender and attempted to represent himself it was a shit show then again Joshua himself is a bit of a shit show He told the court he had zero remorse for any of the murders he committed. He proudly claimed that he got physical and emotional gratification every time he took someone's life.

My only regret from that night is that I allowed her husband to live, he reiterated for the jury. Any sentence this court can give me will be completely meaningless. Joshua Miebain is a complete sociopath hiding behind his wealthy upbringing, good looks and charm. Sometimes good times produce bad people. But sometimes those bad people are just born on their own. Once Joshua got a taste for death, he couldn't stop. He was a connoisseur. The last murder he committed was killing his cellmate in prison. I can only assume that now he's locked up in solitary confinement

where he won't be able to get his hands on anyone else or at the very least they partner him up with a cellmate that's three times his size and let's just, I don't know, see what happens. Linda Burry was just a teenager trying to escape a life filled with poverty and suffering But she was stupid, like most teenagers. When she ran into the arms of Joshua Mebain, he pumped her up with dreams he had no intention of fulfilling. Imagine the horror you'd feel knowing you've lost your virginity

to a thrill-seeking murderer. Social media has turned out to be a horrible place full of harm, but for Linda Burry, signing up for Meet Me was not just a mistake, but the biggest mistake of her life. This place was a portal into a life far worse than the one she wanted to run away from in the first place. If you enjoyed the show, please consider joining plus at sword and scale.com slash plus. But if you can't, consider leaving us a positive review on your preferred listening platform. Sweet dreams, and good night.