Sword and Scale - Episode 354

Episode Date: June 7, 2026

In 2022, when 57-year-old Harold Allen was found dead in his Indiana home, the case was ruled natural. Nearly a year later, a brazen burglary and a string of buried messages bring detectives back to the same address and to Marsha Allen, the woman who said she loved him. What starts as a property crime becomes a chilling reexamination of Harold’s final days, as small-town routines, late-night deliveries, and a quiet house of secrets point to something far darker. No one is ready for where the evidence leads or what it costs.Get instant access to all episodes, including premium unreleased episodes, commercial-free at swordandscale.com

Sword and scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Do you have to check on her welfare and I'm at her home and she's passed away. What? She's, she passed away. It's mid-September, 2023. 52-year-old widow Marcia Allen is away from her home in Freetown, Indiana. She's on a trip to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, with her parents.

She leaves on Saturday, planning to return a week later on the following Saturday. Before the trip, she does something she's been wanting to do for a while. She installs cameras. She buys the system herself from Walmart and keeps it quiet. She wants to watch the house while she's away, mostly to keep a little. an eye on her cats, and because she feels unsafe since her husband died about a year ago. She gets them because she's never left her cats alone that long, and she has a bad feeling in the gut of her stomach. So she wants to be able to check in on her pets wherever she is.

I've never left my cats alone for that long before, and I had a bad feeling. I thought maybe one of my daughter said, and I felt bad if I didn't know about it. And I got him to keep an eye on my cats. I'm still scared. So I got the security surveillance cameras because every time I hear noise, I jump. I look at all outside cameras, right? We go outside of the work because I don't want anybody come out and jump at me. Right. Okay.

And you can watch it on your phone. Yeah. Because you were actually out of town. In Tennessee, we went to Tennessee, Pitchin Forge. It was his long day's anniversary. And they wanted to go. and I knew I was going to work and they didn't take them the fuck long again because dad's getting adventure, so I took on.

Marcia has already lost her husband, and she was in that phase of life where you're not sure how much longer your parents are going to be around. Starting to get there myself. It's not a good feeling. She notes that her dad has dementia, and it was their anniversary. She's a good daughter. On her parents' couch, she's scrubs. scrolls through the camera app.

Suddenly there's a ping. Then another. The AI in the app is able to determine that there is a person in view. But no one should be inside her house. She nervously taps the first click, and the view of the camera pops up on her phone. A shape slides across the frame. She pinches to zoom.

Then another alert lands. Another clip cues. Her thumb keeps moving. Save, save, save. She starts counting and she'll end up with 22 videos by the time this is over. One of them is nearly five minutes long. Obviously, she's in a state of panic. As she stares at her phone, there are two adult males wearing hoodies and moving towards her safe.

and in that longer clip of face suddenly turns towards the camera. She watches more. The timestamps move towards 6 o'clock. A door that should be shut swings open and a view shifts down a hall she knows by heart. She studies the intruder's hands and clothing. The face flashes again, making her stomach drop. She recognizes it this step. time and says the name out loud. Her eyes fixed on what she's seeing. She calls the sheriff's

office and says where she is and what the app is sending, along with how many clips she has of the break-in. She texts and emails what she can and then keeps the live view open to keep watching. Inside the house, drawers open and shut. In one camera angle, she sees. sees the safe and catches her breath. She knows the sound that the safe makes when it opens. The live feed hiccups, then streams again. A second figure passes through a doorway. She listens for anything, footsteps, a scrape, anything she can tell deputies later.

Then, around 6 p.m., everything suddenly stops. The stream freezes up and drops. No more alerts, no more clips. She refreshes, nothing. She switches to another camera, nothing. She knows this means someone must have unplugged the router. She stares at the blank screen. The safe is massive, and she thinks about what's inside.

Family rings, collectibles, and dozens of firearms kept for years. She starts a list in her head. She writes it down. She tells herself she can pull serial numbers when she gets home. And then she calls the sheriff's office again to make sure they got the videos. She tells her parents she needs to go back early. Okay, so. Did you get all the videos?

I see you 22. I'm not sure if I got 22, but I got a lot of them. And I'm not sure that I've been all the way through all of them. Well, the five-bed-one shows Stephen's face, full face. And what cracks me up is, he looked in the bedroom and he saw the camera, but the other guy distracted him and he forgot all about it. And you called into the sheriff's department yesterday evening.

Okay. And so do you think the other guy's Nathaniel? I do. Because I know his voice and it sounds like his voice. She only recognizes the voice of one of the suspects. But the other? She saw his face and put a name to it. Stephen White.

Deputies find him outside in the driveway at his parents' place in Scott County. The officer took Stephen away from the house to a garage where his maroon four-door sedan sat. Wearing a gray t-shirt and dark sweatpants, Stephen presented as nonchalant, smoking a cigarette and waving his arms as he spoke with an open. posture. After having his rights read to him, he gestured for his dog, Hank, to move along. And then he took off running, not running with his legs so much as his mouth. So do you understand your rights? Yes, sir. Okay. Hank, go on. So you have any idea why we're here today? Well, they said that y'all got me on camera last night, burglarize in the place. Okay. So you

And my husband, if that's the case, you know anything about it? No. Okay. My husband and I sat up last night until about 4 o'clock in the morning I'm watching No. He's off work today. He works at gym practice. Started the movie a couple weeks ago. I haven't had time to fail.

I personally think I have strep or something. You've been running a fever. My tongue is all swollen and sore and my mouth is red and white, so let y'all know that. I've been having diarrhea shits all night like our kids. with school this morning. That was about it. I stood up on the balcony and said by the other kids so they don't get sick. They're at school right now.

Stephen may have been sick and his kids may have been at school right now. But that didn't account for earlier that morning. The officer went on to tell him that he and possibly his husband had been positively IDed in the video. You know, I've been a police officer for a minute, all right? And one lie always leads to a second line. And then a third lie and a fourth line, and it's going to make it look a hell of a lot worse, all right? And it'll save embarrassment whenever I show the video or show the pictures and you're like,

well, you know, what can I say to that? Because there it is. Okay, I do too. Because I got a three. I got a picture here. So the officer showed him the picture. And I really do not have a half. I didn't even have a fucking happen.

What about the car? Or the car that you're in there? This is my car. Somebody fucking sold it for me on Sunday night. And how'd you get it back then? Because I found a police report, and we found it over here. But I had three keys for this. And I had my one set of keys in there.

The other keys, I'm pretty sure is in my shit somewhere. Okay, so listen. And I have my second. So listen. I just want you to know, okay? But there's more than just that picture. All right? He went on to explain that the most important thing was to return the stolen items to the owner.

And if the owner was happy, Stephen might avoid charges. We either get the stuff back, or I think you know probably what's coming. He just got to something jail and set and rot. You get the stuff back and go to jail and set and rot. Stephen was ready to talk. Some more, that is. I'll smoke another cigarette. I'll spend the whole thing, but it's lovely. Because that lady is the lady who told me to go get the shit.

Her name's Marshall Bruckston. And she asked me to get that shit because her husband, Harold Allen, passed away in December. Okay. And according to her, she needed that life insurance money. But she did not get that life insurance money because the policy was six. to go to his brother. How old is the lady that you're talking about? Marsha Buckson.

50, 50, 15. Was she live there? Yeah. And now how? She got it because whenever she married the man, she signed a free town, I reckon. She gave me an address. She said, hey, I need to go up in here.

I need to grab someone and go up in here, and she's trying to meet this dude up there. And I did. And I went over there. She wanted us to get rid of it. This woman has hated me for years. I'm best friends with her daughter. She needed the life insurance money,

but Harold's death certificate said he died of natural causes. He'd had a heart condition that was getting worse in the weeks before he died. It happened at about two in the afternoon on December 20th the previous year. 9-1-1-1- Yeah, I'm-ud. This is 32, 87, North State Road, 135. My husband is in our bedroom floor. He's non-responsive, and I need to him and saw your lease. Okay, what's your address again?

It's 32, 87, North State Road, 135. He is 52. He's 52. Did you find him like that? I work from home, and I went back there to check on him because he's been sick. And then I went back there, he was just laying the floor like he was trying to get. and go to the bathroom or something, I'm not breathing. Do you want to start CPR if I help you?

I could do that. Marsha called for a medical emergency. Her husband was dying or likely already dead. But this was anything but a natural death. Sure, the medical report read, cardiovascular disease, calcifying constructive pericarditis, severe coronary atherosclerosis of the left anterior descending artery. But his death was way more complicated than all of those big complicated fancy words.

It was murder. Someone had murdered Harold Allen. 52-year-old Marcia Allen was out of town in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with her parents, while cameras monitoring her home in Freetown, Indiana, started sending alerts about motion inside her house that shouldn't have existed. She saved 22 clips, and around 6 o'clock, the feed suddenly went dead.

She called police, turned the videos over, and gave a name. It was someone she recognized, a friend of her daughter, Ashley. When officers tracked the burglar dead, he gave them far more information than they were ready for, accusing Marcia herself of staging the burglary while she was out of town. He claimed that she directed him to pick up a guy named Richard on that very date and carry out the heist. According to Stephen, she was upset that she didn't receive the life insurance money she

was entitled to after her husband died. She was upset that it went to her brother-in-law instead. Now she was a little bit of her. afraid her brother-in-law was going to take the only inheritance she had left, a safe full of jewelry and expensive guns, so instead she would have her daughter's friend, Stephen, who already had a criminal history, steal them, sell them, and give her the proceeds while taking a cut for himself. But the story was growing a bit out of control, as you'll soon learn. She told me, and I already deleted all the messages, like she asked me to say,

I'll give you $3,000. You can go to my house, gave me the safe code. Marsha did or asked me? Yes, Marsha did. She said, you can go down there, you can get this, and I need to all take him somewhere, please, because his brothers is trying to get into my house, and they want to take me to court and take all of his Harold's guns and everything. I said, Marsha, I'm a phone.

I cannot have guns. Right now, I'm sick of shit. I'm really sick of shit. I was on my way to the doctor. Because I told her, listen, bitch, I'm part of my French. No, you're fine. But I said, listen, bitch, I'm not fucking,

I got two kids. My husband is schizophrenic. My dad is running away. We got a lot of shit going on. I am not about to drive guns across this town. If you have shit with antiques, so be it. I don't want no bullets and no loaded fucking weapons in my car.

And she took everything apart, and she said everything exactly where it was supposed to fucking go. And I got what I could get. She told me to go on Monday night and Tuesday night. And it sounds to me like she's setting me up real quick. Stephen, being the sassy-assy-ass bitch that he is, was a felon and couldn't be caught with weapons. Also, he had a lot going on, clearly. A lot of problems, issues. Kind of a fucked up life already, it sounds like.

But in the same breath, he said he did it anyway. Her exact words, I want this to be removed from the house before I get back from Tennessee and set up my cameras. Because I need to be able to tell his brothers that all these things they're gone because they're mine. And I don't want them to try to fight me in court over it. Over an inherent, you know what? Probate. Probate. This was all done.

This was all done. Text? Yeah, from a text now number that's see that. Stephen already admitted that Marcia hated him. Apparently, she was a racist who didn't like him and blamed him in some way for coming between her and her daughter. Allegedly, that is. So, was she setting him up? Or did she just want the inheritance she felt she deserved and knew he could get it for? Or was it even Marcia that texted him in the first place?

Are you sure that Ashley's not the one that message you to go do that? I'm not. Because the information that we have or that we're getting could be a little bit conflicting on that part. Like Ashley, and if it is Ashley, just tell me what that. I'm not. I'm really not sure if it's Ashley or Marsha, that's the thing. They've been like this in a whole fucking line. But do you have your phone, is it labeled as Ashley if she was to text you? No. Not at all. But the person that text said this is Marcia? Well, she called me on my text now number.

Stought in your favor, I said, who is this? And I got a call from a text now number. This has been, looking, a couple of months ago. And then it was supposed to go down on this day. Yes. Pretty sure. Because it was text now. The call was on text now. But to be honest with you, Marsha and I should look just alike, sound just like, just alike, dress just like they're the same kind of psychopath. Now, in case you don't know, text now is an app that allows you to text people from an anonymous number. It wasn't sure if it was Marcia or Ashley, but whoever was on the other end of the phone wasn't finished, giving orders. And tonight, I was supposed to go back and completely get into swimming. I burned the house down because apparently when she was young, she burnt her house down deputy. She burnt her house down deputy? Yeah, she took her five-year-old daughter to her grandparents.

burned house down, indebted. But you were supposed to go back tonight and burn the house test. Yeah, and I wasn't going to burn that down. I'm not doing that. I was like, look, I'm not going to do that. So if you don't burn it down, you need to make it look like you've broken in there and make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money. Stephen's accusations were getting wild, and he wasn't stopping.

This woman has hated me for years that I'm best friends with her daughter. Okay. What's the daughter's name? Awesome Jones. Okay. I'm just saying you're being awful truthful with us, so I don't want to be, you know, contradicted by this woman. He's a fucking murderer, okay? I know that.

I've not gone to nobody in saying anything because I don't have no fucking proof on it. This woman's a psychopath, and I'm telling you guys that right now. Harold Allen was her husband. She said a life insurance policy for him, went and married him. I don't know when she married him because since I've left, I've been away from him. And this woman straight came to my house one day and sat me across the face and told me at 26 years old and told me if I ever talked to her daughter again that she was going to kill me. I better watch her. You better watch her fucking. I was right up there at the house.

I was like, what the fuck? She got in her little car and she dipped off and left. Well, that was a fun little story. The kind of Lifetime movie, someone of Harold's demographic, would just eat right up. It's important to state that as far as we know, and as far as the police, know, Harold Allen died of natural causes, and all this verbosity about murder was just nonsense. What they did know was that this very vocal character was caught in the act of burglarizing Marsh's home on camera, and now he's got a whole lot of stories about what other people did

instead. What aboutism, they call it. Marsha's not stupid? Here's what I do, you know. Because she doesn't kill her husband and her mother-in-law and got away with that shit. So here's what I do know. And I do know how that happened too. And if you need me to ask these guys to go move to like inside or go somewhere else.

But what I do know is that we need that stuff back. Now it was Marcia who not only killed her husband, but also her mother-in-law as well. Right. If it were only that easy. They recovered the property and interviewed. interviewed Marsha the next day, so detectives could pin down the how and who behind the heist. I'll tell you that we recovered big rings.

We made to the rest in this case. That would be Stephen White, the other guy. Marsha only recognized Stephen because, according to Marsha, he was too stupid to cover his face, and he ran his mouth the whole time. She recognized the other man's voice and would later learn that he was a lot. a longtime friend of Stevens. If you could get his phone, I guarantee it's going to be

my daughter and you text him that combination of that safe. So, and I was going to ask you a little bit more about that. Three people in the world knew that safe. It was me, my husband, and my daughter. Only one name was linked to both

the family and the suspect. And that was Marcia's daughter, Ashley Jones, a friend of Stephen White. She knew the players, she knew the layout, and she knew the safe's code. Plus, she was smart.

Well, relatively. Logic solved the mystery. It was actually no mystery at all. The real mystery was connected to Harold's death. This is the detective who led that case. My name's Adam Nicholson, and I have two decades of experience. experience in law enforcement, at least.

And all that's been right here in Indiana at the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. I've worked patrol for most of my career. And then in 2019 was promoted to lieutenant. And if the detective division would receive a big case, such as this one that we're talking about, then I would step over to kind of help them, guide them with it. And this one just kind of worked out to where I ended up being the lead investigator. on it because we had had another murder within the price six months of this one. So this kind of was up my alley, you know, of what the things I like to do, the putting pieces

together, facts, patterns, the human behavior. Adam remembered that Harold Allen was someone that everyone seemed to like. Through the, you know, the investigation of talking to family and friends and coworkers, I mean, everybody basically said the exact same thing. Like he was a very caring, loving man. He was a good, good husband, loved his wife. Everybody at his work, you know, enjoyed being around him. And nobody had any complaints about him at all.

And everybody was really just sad for him, you know, because they could only imagine what he had been through. But yeah, no ill words or anything about the guy. He was just everybody thought he was. super. And here's what a friend said about Harold on his memory page. I'm heartbroken by Harold's passing. He was a wise mentor and very skilled teacher to me, although he was too humble to admit it. Harold was always giving me advice both professionally and about life in general. I continue to follow his guidance to this day. He could be rough around the edges, but you'd quickly realize

that he was the most kind and most caring person you would ever meet. I find comfort, knowing that he found love and met his wife, Marsha, who he spoke often and fondly of. My deepest condolences to you and your family. Everyone who knew Harold praised him and believed he died of a heart condition. But back in the interview room, the detective was about to rip that apart with Stephen's accusations, starting with Marcia's alleged involvement in the burglary. And this is where it gets interesting, okay?

I'm going to go ahead and make sure you understand this. Some of this is going to be accusatory towards you because this is what he said. Okay? So you're not under arrest. You are free to leave anytime you want. But I just want to make sure you understand that he's accusing you of some stuff too. So here's what he says. And I may have, it was a lot.

So if I get some of it wrong, if I get some of it wrong, I apologize. All right. he says that he received a call from a text now number. And he says that it was back in, I think he said like in May or June. So it had been a couple months ago. And that basically it was a female on the other side. He thought it was the line. He said he thought it was you, but I think he may have said something to the fact that you and Ashley sounded like, so it could have been Ashley.

and he said that basically something to the effect, and I could get some of the facts wrong in this, but something to the effect that all these guns, something about when your husband passed away, that all these guns, maybe some family members were wanting them or something, well, what he's saying is basically that you said that you would give him $3,000, to go in the house and take the guns and have him take the guns and take him back to his place. He's a liar. I did not do that. Okay.

And he also said something about burning down the house. What? Burning down your house. He better not. I don't know if he was saying he was going to. I don't, I would have to go back on because I recorded the whole interview. Oh, wow. I have to go back to see exactly what he said.

Wow. There was a lot that he said. He wasn't exaggerating, and she was not prepared for what came next. I'll tell you what else he said. He accused you of murdering your husband. I did not murder my husband. Okay. Something to the effect of some kind of, I don't know,

some kind of seeds or something, and basically poisoning, poisoning his drink. That would show me a toxicology report if that happened. Was there an autopsy? done? Yes. There was an autopsic. Autopsy and toxicology. He died because he had perigarditis that was undetected. Pericarditis. It's the infamate it. The pericarditis has pericardum around it. The line of the heart that protects the heart when it beats. It went undetected, so it went on so long that the pericardium around the heart hardened and it stopped his heart

and he had a little bit of blocked arteries. That's an autopsy report. Okay. Well, if that's what the autopsy said, that's what it said. But she was still being accused of setting up the burglary. Do you, because I don't know, and I haven't been able to talk to her yet, do you think Ashley would have, I mean, because you said that only three people. Because the guns are worth a lot of money. Do you think Ashley would have had something to do with this?

She had to have. She's only, other than me would do the combination. I would never give it out to me, ever. Ashley and her fiancé had lived with Marsha and Harold for a while, but now Ashley was living in Missouri. The only way to get to the bottom of this was to call her. At the same time, detectives scoured Stephen White's phone and found some shocking evidence. Messages between Ashley and him that confirmed the burglary conspiracy.

This is a montage of some of the things Ashley said. I do have access next week to her home with a lot to steal and sell. It would be as simple as I load the truck, you go sell it, we look for more, rinse repeat, I mean 100K worth of guns, L.O.L. I already stole my guns to keep. She owes me. I'm about to grab the coins too. I just get her out of the house.

He only has AD&D and it will not pay out for natural causes. Only thing they can do is say, yeah, you don't get it. or where do I send the 200K, LOL. This was enough to bring Ashley in from Missouri for questioning. Meanwhile, detectives had access to Stevens and Marsh's phones. The case went quiet for a few weeks. What surfaced wasn't another clip or a rumor. It was an online order by Ashley with a shipping label in the family name,

Lynn Allen, all pointing to the free town address. with dates, size, and price attached. And the item in the center of those records hinted at a much larger crime. Was Stephen telling the truth? The burglary thread had become a lead. The paper trail pointed back to Harold and to his murder.

When Marcia returned on October 16th, the first question was the order. Who bought it? Where was it shipped and what phone number was on it? The detective shows her the paperwork. So it was ordered through a place that was called Kim Boys, LLC. What's that? It's some company that's definitely like what was ordered from.

It says the order source was Peach Pay, so it was paid through Peach Pay. Do you have a Peach Pay account or anything? I'm not what Peach Pay is. Okay. Even though the order was sent to Lynn Allen, the address is Marcia's. See what I'm talking about where it says it's billing the Lynn Allen. That's your address, right? 32-8113.

It says shipping Lynn Allen and your address again. The phone number is associated with that 812, 521, 2671. Is that Ashley's number? I don't know. The next day they sat face-to-face with Marcia's daughter, Ashley. While Marcia was fairly animated, facial expressions, a tone of voice that suggested disbelief or curiosity, Ashley was extremely subdued and poised, almost quietly defiant. We're not going to talk to you about the word, okay? That's not what we're here to talk about.

We actually, we talked to your mom yesterday for four or five hours. We had to talk to her about some things. She answered some questions for us. So we were going to talk to you about some of that, okay? Before we do that, I am going to read you your rights because you're in custody. Make sure you understand that. A lot of what we talked about was about the death of Harold. We have some text messages from your mom's phone.

She can send it to a download. And there was some text messages on there that we had some concern about the meaning of those text messages. We have an order where some ethylene glycol was ordered on December 13th, I think it was, December 13th, December 14th. The ethylene glycol arrived at the address of your moms out in Freetown 3287 North State Road 135. On December 19th, on December 20th, your Harold ended up passing away.

Do you know anything about the ethylene glycol? Any other second? Ah, ethylene glycol, otherwise known as antifreeze. It's a sweet tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubby's drink. And the best part is he won't even notice until he's dead.

I guess he won't notice when he's dead either. In any case, it's the murder weapon of choice for those who don't like guns. You know, women, for the most part. The detective had screenshots of the ethylene glycol order being sent to that address under the name Lynn Allen. This was Marcia's middle and last name. They also had messages from Ashley to her mother

asking for money for this particular order. According to Marcia, she knew nothing about it. It was Christmas time, Ashley, her fiancé, who was also named Ashley, and the kids were all living there, and packages were just flooding it. Who can keep track? At least 10 packages a day you came in that family.

I understand, but there was only one thing of wrestling black all the day. Right. There are a lot of packages that probably come. It's Christmas time. I get that. I mean, we do the same thing I did. I'd rather shop online than go to a busy store.

But I would remember a thing of Ethylene Glycol coming to my house if I got it. The day that it does come, which is the 19th, and we know what day it was delivered, we have the tracking number. There's a message from Ashley saying we have a delivery. The focus closed in on mother and daughter. One bought the poison and used it on Harold.

Did the other know? Did the other help? So, you know, and part of this stems from also from, you know, talking to somebody who gave us some information and saying that Harold, the information we got was Harold did not die in natural causes, basically, that he was poisoned. Really? Yes. So when we follow up on that and we get these, your mom consents to the phone download,

and we get all these text messages, and we start going through these text messages and it's between you and your mom, right? And like I said, one of the things, just one, there's a lot of them. One of them is on December 13th, December 14th, around that time frame. Ethlyn Glycol was ordered. I think you text it to your mom, if I remember correctly.

And that tracking number matches the same tracking number that our other detective was able to get of the ethylene black hole that arrived at the house on December 19. The information we received was that there was rubber floats that were made, is put into the ruby of the rope rope and that Harold drinks it, and obviously the end result was that he died. Marcia denied having any involvement in the poisoning. She denied everything while her own daughter continued to point the finger at her.

in her calm, unbothered tone of voice. If you know that your mom did something that she probably really shouldn't have done, I mean, your mom told us quite a bit yesterday. So, if you know that they're, actually, I mean, do you think your mom's capable of doing something like that? I mean, I don't know that she did, but, I mean, she's capable of whatever. She's very intelligent. If Marsha was intelligent, Ashley was a genius. Being somewhat facetious here.

Detectives had already confirmed that Marcia had nothing to do with the burglary. Ashley felt cheated out of her share of Harold's life insurance, and she was going to recoup in whatever way she could. Still, detectives pressed on with Marcia. This is ordered in the same day that this is the day. deliver versus root bear floats. And then the very next day, Harold's dead. I did not kill him.

Who didn't? As far as I know, he has heart condition did. Okay. Let's, we get the results back. Yeah. And it says there's Ethylene Blackol in his system. How did that get there? If you didn't know, you didn't know anything about it, how did that happen?

We both made the root bear floats. So I did not put anything in any, was a drink. I didn't even know he had anything like that there. Is there ever a chance when Ashley could have put something in there? I have no idea. She, she lived with me. Did you watch her? So did you watch her the whole time? That's what I'm asking. I did not watch her the whole time. No, I did not. Marsha was aware that Ashley was growing marijuana in the house.

Okay, no big deal in 2026, I guess. But that wasn't the only botany. Ashley was experimenting. with. She was also in all sorts of new-age domestic white woman horseshit like saging and cleansing, amulets and crystals, demons and things that would attach themselves to people, even convincing Marsha that something evil had attached itself to Harold, not because he was unkind, abusive, or controlling, but because he was sick a lot. Surely that meant he had some sort of demon attached to him. And it was no wonder, Harold was sick a lot. He did have a heart condition after all.

But was it natural? Or was it because he was slowly being poisoned from the time Ashley temporarily moved in months before his death? Marshall remembered Ashley asking strange questions about poison plants under the umbrella of good parenting. According to Ashley, she wanted to know which poison plants surrounded the house, you know, so she could tell her little girl what to avoid. So looking back on the...

She asked me, stuff like, what a plant should I'll watch out for because if all of a plant's outside plane, I don't want to get her hurt. She tries to eat something because about six everything in her mouth still. So... Say that again, she would say, like... I want to know what the poisonous plants were around the region. should make sure Violet didn't get into it and stuff. Violin has an all-on-neau problem since she's a preemines. Her kidneys didn't develop properly.

And if Violet gets around certain things, she gets sick or she breaks up and houses and she can't pass to have emergency doses of steroids because her body doesn't produce the response to five things. Right. gotten into anything like that before? She has, and she had a tent of the end up on steroids. Hmm.

Fox Club seeds? Is she a witch? Does she float? I'm starting to think the Salem Witch trials weren't such a bad idea. The Foxglove plant is native to North America and grows in shady, damp areas. If ingested,

it causes dangerous heart arrhythmias. It can lead to death. Foxgloaf seeds. just talked about. Yeah, she asked me about that crap all the time. Of course, I never thought about it. But maybe she did think about it.

When he went to the hospital, does he went to the hospital twice on it? You are maybe once or twice. Face was numb. Yeah. Bleeding, anal bleeding, actually, I think. That's it? Diarrhea, all that kind of stuff.

She told me you just had the treatment of face and thrown out. Well, same thing. You know, they did a blood draw. Is there any... Is there going to be a good chance that that blood is going to have fossil love in it? Probably so, yeah. Okay. Why do you think, for sure?

And just be honest again, just be honest. Because she was ordering plants. Okay. Phostal plants? I think so. I know that she tried to get a hold of some mudwort, which I didn't know what that was. Okay. Tell me about the fox flow

And where it was ordered from I think that she found someone Etsy This was Marcia's response You said I need fox club seeds And she says I think Or you said I think I can get them on Walmart

They're pretty flowers And then she said thank you We are watching a new movie on Netflix With the kids and those are traceable The entire Foxglove plant is poisonous, so it could have been easy enough to believe that Marcia wanted seeds to plant because of the pretty flowers. Still, when Ashley followed up in a message saying, those are traceable, detectives knew this was bigger than they originally thought. The rest of the messages gave plenty of clues. But that was just it.

They were clues. What became clear was that Harold had been sick for weeks, and the reason was becoming apparent. Neither Marcia nor Ashley seemed to care about his misery either. All they cared about was their own. Marsha messages Ashley saying she's irritated and she can't sleep. She needs for this to be over. She says it's hanging on by threats. It's so long, because he's big.

meaning something is taking too long because of his size and weight. Marsha and Ashley often referred to Harold as it, by the way. So that gives you a clue another character. Ashley answers Marcia, it moves slow and has to build. Marsha then says she wished it would, quote, reach its climax and be done, L-O-L. He's snoring on and off. and if he moved around, it would go faster.

End quote. Then Ashley responds, Yes, if he got moving, it would be faster, but we know he won't. Marsha went on to explain that Harold's stomach was hurting, but his face was better. Yet he wasn't presenting like the stories, just vomiting and diarrhea. Ashley answers,

We also have God knows how many that aren't reported or know how it grows, only the stories of the self-inflicted. And we will see. If not, we will do something else, but I think it's slowly doing it. The detectives were shocked by what they found, and when they questioned Marcia, she had an explanation for everything, even if it didn't make sense. Ashley, on the other hand, just kept pointing the finger at her own mother,

even though they were clearly both involved. Probably the most shocking thing of all was the possibility that this wasn't the first time one of them had poisoned someone. Ashley was currently engaged to a woman, and her previous partner was also a woman. But the father of her only child was a man. Well, obviously, because, you know, biology. Anyway, guess what? He died in his early 30s from a supposed stroke. His name was T.Y.

Now, ain't that a co-winky dink? And then you wonder why people can't find a date in 2026. So there's something, and then something along the lines, like talking about how much he weighs and it's taken longer because he weighs a certain amount and ties brought up and how much tie weighed. You said, love you two. I just want it done. Oh, well. She said, me too. like Beyond Dover, laugh out loud, but we've got it.

You said, like, what's taking so long? He's off balance, said he had trouble getting out of the car. She said the weight. It takes 12 hours for a woman at 180 to fill anything. You do the math. Laugh out loud. It's slow. And previously, Ty was only 120, L.O.L.

So it's the weight. You said, so it's going to take a while. She said, 48 max. We will know. also he's high still I gave him a lot of weed butter yeah she made brownies

you don't know what he has because of that hell well could be nausea happening and everything is it left out he's making me mad he gets stupid when he's huh in case you didn't hear

Marcia says he gets stupid when he's high so it looked like Marcia and Ashley were slowly poisoning Harold, and they couldn't really track his so-called symptoms because they were giving him weed-infused food to help with the pain and nausea. How kind. But then, she mocks him for being stupidly high. While Marcia deflected, played dumb, and spun the texts in her favor with detectives for hours, Ashley very simply maintained that this was all her mother's doing.

We get to the punch, okay? I mean, we, I mean, we know what happened to Harold. We've got, we've got evidence of that. Your mom come in yesterday, she told us a lot. We've got months and months and months and months of text messages from your mom's phone. And, I mean, it's obvious that, you know, something happened to him. And, you know, I mean, basically, now is your chance. to tell us what you know about what happened there.

Because, I mean, like I said, these text messages, the order where the stuff came from, the confirmation numbers, I think at some point she probably dragged you into something that you didn't want to be in, or there was something to do with those demons or something, you know, with that. but we just want to know the truth.

I mean, what's your relationship? Is your relationship with your mom good? Yes and now. I kind of just put up with what she does. She's always trying to drag me into whatever she gets into. She's always trying to get out here and stuff, you see? Anytime I get any type of financial gain on my own, you know, like how I sold my house, she wants it. This was a complete lie told by someone who had taken a large amount of money from her mother,

not once, but twice. I can't imagine what you feel being betrayed by your daughter. And I can't imagine what it would feel like if I knew my kid had done something. You know, but at this point, I mean, there is so much content there. and I would almost call it evidence. And like he said, we didn't go into detail in there what we make of those messages. But, I mean, we have more than just the messages.

We have some of the results in the hospital when he went to the hospital back in November and the symptoms that he was experiencing, which remind you is the same day that you, within the same time frame, when I say the exact day, but the fox gloves are mentioned. And the symptoms of fox gloves,

see, what happens is the, you know, the bleeding and the stomach and the face that you guys are talking about. And then one thing that he didn't get to all the way down was on the 19th, whenever the Ethylene Gleckleckle gets there,

is the conversations then, you know, like it's there. and there were some pictures, you know, like I said, the rubier and things like that. Detectives gave Marcia every opportunity to point the finger back at Ashley. Or just come clean. But she refused. I'm not going to be shocked at this point.

To be shocked, you would have to not believe any of the messages between you and Ashley. To be shocked that it wouldn't be in a system. Or you wouldn't believe any of the stuff on the Ruegel. search was never Google. I mean, and what Stephen tells us. I mean, he says root bear float and that's what we find, right? You know, not long after Ethylene glycol's ordered, sent to your house. And the name that's addressed to is Lynn, Allen, what's your middle name is Lynn,

and it's your address. And so, I mean, I know. We've already told you all this and you already know all this. But that's why we're where we're at. I mean. I mean, and I know. you're smart. I mean, you say you already, you know how this looks.

I mean, this stuff doesn't look good. And then to have this on top of it. And, I mean, there was enough that, you know, the courts and the judges and prosecutor had issued more for the phones. During the interviews, detectives went back to the phone copy. They saw gaps. Marcia had deleted a lot of texts. This is Detective Adam Nicholson again.

And after she submitted to the phone download or consented, she actually deleted the messages in the interview room between her and Ashley. Because Clint had to step out of the interview room for a second and grab the consent form for her to sign. And he couldn't take her phone with him because she hadn't signed it yet, but she had consented. And while he's gone, she's going through her phone. She's deleting things.

She told him that she was just deleting, like, pictures from her security camera, like, of her in the house, you know, where she was, like, in her underwear and stuff. And she didn't necessarily want us to see that, which was understandable, you know. But when she gave us the phone, I thought there's no way that there's anything on that phone. There's no way she would have gave it to us. So I think that she thought by deleting those messages that she was probably free and clear, and then she didn't hear back from us until October. That was September 20th. We showed up early in the morning on the 16th of October.

This would have been 20, 23. And we had search warrants for her house for all electronic devices like laptops, computers, old cell phones, memory sticks or flash drives, hard drives, things like that. She didn't know we were coming until we knocked on the door. Yeah, we knocked on the door early in the morning. She had just got out of bed. She was like in her still like PJs. And you can tell then she was shocked.

And I read the warrants to her. And the warrant actually mentions like to seize the property for evidence of murder, for the crime of murder. And I remember like her face is like, you know, if you watch that video, you can tell like she knows then. And she agreed. So she, me and Clint, took her back to the sheriff's department while the other officers and detectives completed the search warrant. And so I think that was probably her first moment of like knowing, like, yeah, they know something.

They knew Ashley and her mother had discussed how long it would stay in someone's body, how no one would notice. and how to make it ready for use by saying, I need something that crushes this into powder. They also had testimony of Ashley's partner, recalling that Ashley was grinding up something she put in Harold's brownies, throwing the grinder away afterwards, and telling her, lover, not to say anything about it. On October 17th, Ashley interviewed with detectives from jail

after being arrested for the burglary. They were surprised she said anything at all because when they picked her up in Missouri for the burglary, she immediately asked for an attorney. I'm proud of Detective Bircham and the job he did and myself. And, you know, it was just one of those, though, that it couldn't be at our best because our hands were tied. You know, like we knew with Marsha,

because we were told, the prosecutor told us, if we didn't get a confession, we couldn't arrest her. I mean, we kind of went, you know, like I wanted to know, that if she told me to, you know, go screw off that, you know, I could arrest her, but I didn't have that in my back pocket, you know. So I had to sit there and play dumb, play nice, you know, try to go along with what she was saying, try to act like I was believing. I mean, because if I was the moment I started pushing on her, she got very upset.

And I could tell that she was close to probably saying, you know, like I want an attorney. and if she would have said, you know, I want an attorney, then game over. That's the law. And we respect that. You can't keep questioning somebody once they say that. So we had to be very, very careful on how we approach that interview. You know, knowing how hard it is and having it happened to me before, like how easy it is for somebody to say, I want an attorney. Like, you're done.

And we had already been told, like, you can't arrest her if she doesn't confess. So we didn't get her arrest her. And it was the same thing with Ashley, except we already had that experience with Ashley once because when she got arrested in Missouri, me and Clint, Bertram, the detective had also went out there and they brought her back to their sheriff's department. We went in to talk to her just about the burglary,

not about the murder at all. Like we were just there to talk about the burglary and didn't want her to even know that we knew about the murder. and she requested the attorney like almost immediately. They said, you know, she wanted the attorney. So when she got brought back to Jackson County, you know, we had hopes, but they weren't very high. Like we thought, you know, as soon as we go in there and tell her, you know, hey, we don't want to talk to you about the burglary. We don't, we can't talk to you about that.

You request an attorney, but we want to talk to you about the death of Harold. Like I thought 100% she was going to say, I don't want to talk to you, but she did. During that interview, Ashley talked. But her words mainly implicated her mother, which was no surprise. But the detectives had an unfortunate surprise for her. So I'm here to talk you about something completely different. Okay. Something will be an easy conversation.

Okay. After your mom was here yesterday and spoke with us, we got a call to check on her welfare at her home and she's passed away what she passed away

what happened without going into a lot of detail she appeared that there was something ingested possibly and passed away you're serious I'm 100% serious

yes She killed her, though. That is what we... That's what we believe happened, yes. I'm in shock, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Please, there's nothing to apologize for. I felt it was necessary to let you know that.

I appreciate it. I'm very, very sorry for the loss. In hours of tape, Ashley stayed flat, measured, careful, clinical almost. The only crack comes when detectives tell her, Marcia, her mother, is dead. That's when the mask suddenly slips. Her voice wobbles. Her breath catches and for one minute the room feels human again.

It's a strange tragedy. mother and daughter so tightly bound together that they eliminate the person they feel is getting in the way. Harold. They talked of plans to sell the place and move in together. But then, the pressure begins mounting. Marcia knows that Ashley will likely be in prison for a very long time. And they're coming for her next.

So, she takes an easy example. exit. If her daughter could betray her so easily, she would do the same. What Marcia couldn't have known was what Ashley would do next. Fifty-seven-year-old Harold Allen died at home in Freetown, Indiana on December 20th, 2022, five days before Christmas. His death was first certified as natural. Months later, a September 19th, 2023 burglary at the same house, drew detectives back. Marcia Allen, Harold's wife, had been out of town when home cameras captured Stephen White, who was happy to spill all the tea in the world, with plenty of dramatic flair, I might add,

and phone messages tied the break-in to Marcia's daughter and friend of Stephen, Ashley Jones. detectives then shifted from burglary to death. Records showed an online order shipped under the family name to the Freetown address. And interviews on October 16th and 17th, 2023, focused on whether that chemical ended up in Harold's drink, a root beer float. Marsha had denied the order. Ashley had pointed to Marsha. But soon, evidence tied them both to the murder. Just before detectives would have arrested Marcia, they found her at home, dead in her bed of suicide.

As for Harold, toxicology later reported ethylene glycol, and the death certificate was amended. Review of Marcia and Ashley's text messages alluded to an even bigger mystery. Was this Ashley's first attempt at poisoning? detectives found it beyond strange that, get this, Ashley's ex-husband also died of supposed heart conditions, or a stroke. Hmm, suspicious, wouldn't you say? He died at a very young age, just days after he received an inheritance. Could that be a coincidence?

Ashley Jones was arrested and charged in October of 2020. with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and burglary tied to Harold Allen's death and the September 23 break-in. She later pleaded guilty in 2025 to Level 1 felony conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to 50 years in Jackson Circuit Court. But Ashley, being the wonderful, well-adjusted human that she was, wasn't finished getting rid of people. After only a few months of incarceration, she hatched a plan. It involved a jailmate named Anita.

Detective Nicholson just happened to know Anita. You know, I worked in the jail for like five years prior to becoming a deputy in 2005. So from 2000 to 2005, I was a jail officer. So I'm familiar with a lot of the inmates, you know, that are in and out. And, you know, this case had been in the news a few times, so I'm sure that Anita probably knew that I was the officer that was working it. And she reached out to a jail officer to let her know that she wanted to talk to me. Ashley knew that Anita was going to be getting released pretty soon. She wasn't on, like, any real serious charges.

And Anita and Ashley were in that cell together. Well, word traveled pretty quick when Anita came in, because Ashley had already been in jail, and when Anita came in, word traveled pretty quick about who she was and who her connections were. And there's a, I hate to even call it a gang, because it's really not a gang. And if they were a gang, they're not into, like, killing people. It's not that kind of gang. But I think Ashley started, you know, seeing, like, she, She's never been in jail.

She didn't, she didn't know, you know, Anita. She didn't know what this gang was about. And she just heard the word gang and thought, well, I could, you know, sweet talk her and, you know, befriend her in jail here and then get her to have these people that she's friends with in this gang go and kill the people that are mentioned in my case and going to testify against me. Yep. she was going to have someone in this so-called gang go and kill them all. She basically wrote a letter that was going to go out in Anita's mail. And she gave, you know, Anita the letter to put in with her mail.

And instead of sealing it, Anita took that part of the letter out and hit it. And then waited until she could see me. And she provided me with the letter that Ashley wrote. And it was the letter that she wrote to the so-called hitman, you know, that she thought was a hitman. And the tribe was wanting him to go all the way to Massachusetts and kill her fiancee and kill Stephen and Nathan that were in jail. And then there was some other people. And I can't remember exactly who else. but, yeah, she was just trying to get people taken out before they'd have a chance to testify on her.

If you thought the text between Marcia and Ashley were cryptic, wait until you hear about this hit letter. She pretended it was a list of people she wanted prayers for, a prayer list. How spiritual of her. A lot of things have been on my heart and mind, but I feel the best way to overcome and be set free from it is some prayer. I would like the following people to be at. added to the prayer list as soon as possible. Have the church lift these people as high as can be to the Lord so everyone may find rest in peace.

She then lists out all the people with their first, middle, and last names, as well as exact locations, and what they had done to her, saying that prayer knows no bounds. I mean, you got to give God GPS coordinates for each person you're praying for, right? Here's just a snippet of the inmate's interview. I wanted you know that we heard or that we thought we heard. I just want to make sure that there was a high-powered rifle mentioned and maybe two shots to the neck. Right here, she said, can you get guns and scut up high-powered rifle? Right here, severs every nerve and kills you instantly.

Right here. Okay, right here. So that's how she was wanting these people take them out. Ashley specifically. Okay, right here and right here. Okay. She points to the base of her skull and to her forehead, saying those are the two places Ashley said would cause instant death when struck with a bullet.

Who was she wanting her to shoot? Ashley, no, that's and she just to take up the little girl other than she gets her death. And I don't know if you guys heard that. heard that. Ashley told Anita to take out Ashley her fiancé and her fiance's little girl. That would be the same little girl who lived with both Ashley's. You see, Ashley Jones hated, hated her fiance's little girl. So why not take her out too while you're at it? In some of the text messages with Marcia, Ashley said, Let her starve. I hate the kid.

She just sits and just does nothing, looking fat, ugly, and stupid. Remember when they used to make fun of family values and the bigots that promoted them? Those were the days. That's all just hope Ashley sits in prison for the next 50 years doing nothing but looking fat, ugly, and stupid. In the meantime, Detective Adam Nicholson is writing a book on this murder, and who knows, if he digs harder, he might find even more bodies full of poison left in Ashley's wake.

There's already speculation that she may have killed her ex-husband as well. Yeah, he's dead. Detective Nicholson told Sword Scale that this was one of the most bizarre cases he'd ever been involved with. or that there wouldn't have even been, there wouldn't have even been a murder case at all. We would have never found out, like if it wouldn't have been for Ashley's greed, and if Ashley wouldn't have, you know,

had to have set up this burglary at her mom's house and Stephen getting caught, so what led me to Stephen was the burglary. It was Ashley's greed. Ashley wanted this burglary to take place, and she trusted, that Stephen would do it. She had no idea her mom had installed a security system.

And, you know, Marcia would have never reported the burglary had she known that Stephen knew about the murder. If she knew that Stephen had been told by Ashley about the murder, there's no way that Marcia would have called in on Stephen and turned him in. Ashley's genius knew no bounds, the strong independent woman that she was. her master plan from inside the prison hire total strangers to cross state lines and kill people for her for free smart

real smart you know what else is smart ordering your murder weapons off Amazon you know what else is smart telling your flamboyant and loudmouthed gay friend that you and your mom murdered someone you know what else is smart

staging a fake robbery with that same friend who can't stop talking to steal from your own mother and murder accomplice because you're a greedy, narcissistic, and self-centered piece of shit? How's that saying, go again? There is no honor amongst cold-hearted cunts. I forget. Oh, and before some Karen out there sends me an angry email lecturing me and calling me a sexist for using that forbidden word, word, realize that words are meant to describe the universe we perceive around us so we can effectively communicate, even the four-letter ones.

And I can't think of a better word to describe Ashley. She's what that word was made for. Hope you liked that. And by the way, last week we put up a video explaining how I fucked up all the pricing for Sword and Scale television. well, YouTube demonetized us. So there's only one place on earth you can find Swordenscale television now, and that's swordenscale.com or our app.

And we lowered pricing to $10 to get access to it, which means that you can now get the audio-only version of Swordenscale, the podcast, on Apple Podcasts for just $8. How do you like them apples?