True Crime Campfire - Episode 24: They Brought Work Home: 3 Killer Morticians, Pt 2

Episode Date: December 27, 2019

Join us for part 2 of this macabre grab-bag of three cases. Book: Love Her to Death by M. William PhelpsOxygen's "Snapped," Episode "Rose Vincent and Mark Bowling"Investigation Discovery's "The Perfect Murder," Episode "Silent Killer"http://jimfishertruecrime.blogspot.com/2012/08/robert-girts-four-marriages-pair-of.htmlhttps://fox8.com/2015/12/18/former-parma-funeral-director-admits-to-poisoning-wife-will-be-released/Follow us, campers!Patreon: https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfireFacebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://gramha.net/profile/truecrimecampfire/19093397079Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfireEmail: [e-mail] a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-campfire--4251960/support.

Hello, campers. Grab your marshmallows and gather around the true crime campfire. We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. So, campers, in part one, we told you the disturbing story of poisoner and likely serial wife killer Robert Gertz. Then we began the story of Michael Roseborough, a funeral director with a taste for infidelity, and apparently for embalming fluid dipped joints as well. Michael's lovely wife, Jan, had been found dead in their swimming pool, and everyone in their well-to-do community was stunned. Who would want to kill the sweet, generous lady? Join us now for Part 2 if they brought work home with them, three killer morticians.

Now, Michael didn't bother to tell Angie that she was merely the latest in a long line of mistresses, including one teenage one. His texts and emails were full of syrupy, oh, I've never felt this way before and whatnot. And he seemed to mean it. He was really into Angie. Author M. William Phelps describes the drunken sexual smog he had obsessively mistaken for love. And I think that says it pretty well. Oh, my God. Drunken sexual smog.

I love that. That is a damn good turn of phrase, I'm William. We love you, I'm William. So Michael and Angie had their first sexual rendezvous about two weeks in, get this, in a vacant apartment owned by Angela's family. Ooh, boy. Yeah, sex on the floor in an unfurned. apartment with no electricity.

Ooh, baby. Oh, I know. Everyone's just swooning. It reminds me of, you know, the famous fingering behind the porta pots at the Renaissance Fair in the Clara Schwartz case. Oh, it totally does. Oh, my God. And like with that case, they got real, obsessive, real fast.

He quit smoking for her. He agreed to drink less. He grew a goatee for her. Ew, why? I don't know. So, in between syrupy, hormone-soaked purple pros about how deeply in love they were, they burned holes in cyberspace with their scorching hot sex talk. Like, I can't wait to oil you up.

Oh, my God. Why did you have to inflict that on us? I don't. I'm sorry, except I'm not at all. because I have some more relationship advice campers. I'm so sorry that this is my job now is giving a relationship advice. Next time you're cybering, please think of us. Not in that way, but think of us giggling like middle schoolers about it.

And maybe make it a phone call instead because the internet is forever. Yeah, it is indeed. You post something on that internet and Lord knows who might see it and when. I can't wait to oil you up. Nothing's ever really deleted, okay? That's how come we know that he said to her that he couldn't wait to oil her up. I imagine when he was typing that out, he probably didn't imagine that someday two assholes would be making a podcast about it laughing at him because it's so gross. It's so good, though.

I want to turn Angie into a slip and slap. Sorry. Here we go again. Okay. Well, it gets better because from an email from Michael to Angie, and this one's really, really gross to get your barf bags ready. You are my eternal flame. That fire will never, never go out. And then this is from a poem, he wrote her.

It's so bad. I feel your need against my thigh. Oh, my God. I would love to think that that was just a typo and that he meant to say, I feel your knee against my thigh, but no. I feel your need against my thigh, which is just vomit. And I think I said this on an earlier episode, if you've ever ingest poison, and you need to quickly throw it up so that you don't die,

just cast your mind back to this episode of True Crime Camp Fire. and Michael Roseborough telling Angie Funk that he felt her need against his thigh. You guys are so welcome for that. Yeah. We could save lives with this podcast. We are saving lives, Whitney. So, okay, whatever. You have your own preferences, right?

I personally think this is weird and gross. They had sex at the funeral home. least once, which so sexy. Sexy. Sex among the deadies. And before long, Michael was emailing her links to wedding dress shops in Hawaii, and they were discussing the merits of dresses with trains versus dresses without. Interestingly, though, in all this talk of marriage, Michael never gave Angie a specific plan to divorce Jan. And yet, I would die for you, he said.

in one email. Hmm. And the pressure was mounting. Nice choice of words. Sorry. Sorry. Can't help myself sometimes. So Jan was getting suspicious, making comments about how he wasn't home much.

He was always staying late at the funeral home doing, quote-unquote, paperwork. So to Placator, he planned a trip to Niagara Falls, which Angie got super butt-heard about. He was also planning a trip to the Outer Banks as a surprise to Jan, culminating in a vow renewal ceremony on the beach. He didn't tell Angie about this. Above all, Michael Roseboro strikes me as immature. No impulse control, no ability to forego immediate gratification for long-term gain. Yeah, he seems to be addicted to that rush of new love. What do they call it, new relationship energy?

Yeah. And he didn't seem to understand that, you know, eventually Angie would be just as ordinary to you as your wife of 19 years, you know, like she's going to get old at some point to it. And then, of course, he'd be on to the next one. So, yeah. This guy is just a lust-obsessed, swoony adolescent in a man's body. Gross. Yes. On July 8th, according to Angie, the condom broke during one of their sessions at the vacant apartment.

interestingly though some of Angie's friends called bullshit on this one friend told M William Phelps Angie was a master of conception oh wow she knew exactly when she was fertile and she'd never had trouble getting pregnant and also in emails the couple wrote back and forth later that day in which they spoke about the sex they'd had there was no mention of the condom breaking Hmm Angie Funk claims she didn't know she'd gotten pregnant that day

until after Jan's murder but something must have lit a fire under Michael Roseboro in late July 2008 because the tone of their emails and texts intensified if possible

in one Angie wrote I've always wondered what it would be like to be your wife I guess I won't have to wonder much longer in another Michael wrote

I would go to any length to be with you. Michael was facing increasing pressure from Angie, increasing suspicion from Jan, and the phone bill was going to be arriving soon. That's how he got caught last time, remember? Yep. He also had the vow renewal coming up in early August, which Angie knew nothing about. If he divorced Jan, he'd lose everything. Money, status, the kids.

It was coming down to the wire. His obsession with Angie was flaming out of control. They talked on the phone 37 times the day before Jan's murder. Damn. Yeah. And the day of the murder, he and Angie spent their longest day yet together at the vacant apartment. What did they talk about? We'll never know.

Did she tell him she was pregnant? I have my suspicions. Yeah, me too. We don't have time to go into a lot of detail about the investigation, but suffice it to say, they dug up a lot about the affairs. The neighbor's testimony about the night Jan died contradicted Roseborough's 911 call, and the 911 call itself was shady as hell. Yeah, it was a lot like Matt Baker's 911 call, if you've listened to that episode. What he was saying didn't fit with the timeline, his demeanor was off, he mentioned vomiting, but there was no vomit at the scene. You remember all that from earlier.

Right. And then they found his skin under her fingernails. That was enough. Michael Roseboro was tried and convicted of the murder of his wife. But he's never admitted to it. He's serving life without parole. His oldest son supports him, but his younger kids are living with Jan's sister and her husband. It's sad. It's so sad. His family has been vocal in his defense. And bless their heart. they're really putting their heads in the sand, in my opinion. Yeah, there's either 48 hours or a dateline. I'm not sure which about this case.

And as always, we'll try and find it if we can and put it up on social media. But they're on that show. And the mental gymnastics that these folks are engaging in to try to convince us all that Michael's not responsible for this are just sad, in my opinion. I mean, I get that it's hard to admit that someone you love and you think you know, did something like this, but I would submit to you that you also probably didn't know until all this came out that he had proposition to 15-year-old girl. Right. So sometimes we don't know people as well as we think. Yeah, we talk about masks on this show all the time, and I think

that's 100% true. Now, M. William Phelps' book, Love Her to Death, about this case, is really good if you're interested in know more. Yeah, and there's more of those vomit-inducing emails in there, too. So if you're interested, because, you know, reasons. I don't know why, but there's more of those in there. So yay. So moving on to mortician murderer number three, the sex addict. December 8, 2006, Rocky Mount North Carolina. A woman called 911 in a panic. She just found her friend, Julie Bowling, dead on the floor of her garage. And she said, there's blood everywhere. Please hurry. So police arrived to find 45-year-old Julie Bowling, dead of three close-range gunshot wounds to her.

her head and chest. A shocking development in this sleepy little small town, especially in the affluent neighborhood where Julie lived with her husband Mark. So cops noticed some interesting things about the crime scene right away. First, there were no signs of forced entry into the house, no signs of entry into the house at all. In fact, the killer seemed to have just simply shot Julie in the garage and fled. Nothing was stolen, including the three-carat diamond ring on Julie's finger, which must have been worth a mint. And there was plenty of stuff to steal. Julie and Mark Bowling were Rocky Mount's

power couple. They owned a chain of successful funeral homes, and based on appearances, they were the picture of a happy-loving marriage. So true crime bingo again. They had a gorgeous house in the nicest neighborhood in town. They hosted parties. They were active in charity events,

et cetera, et cetera. And like our other victims, Julie was much beloved by her friends and her family. Everybody knew her as a person who really genuinely cared about other people who loved life, loved her family, loved her husband, and loved her work. And police were initially worried about her husband Mark because they couldn't find him. So they're thinking, was he a victim too? And he'd been abducted by his wife's killer. And of course, they also had to wonder about the possibility that he might have killed his wife and fled.

So as they processed Julie Bowling's crime scene, they also set out to try to find Mark. And eventually, they located him on a scuba diving trip with friends in Florida. And when they told him Julie had been found dead in their garage, he burst into tears on the phone, sounded completely devastated, but cops did note that he never asked how she was killed, which is always a red flag for investigators. But, of course, that could just be grief and shock. People react in all kinds of different ways to terrible news like this. Mark Boling grew up in a wealthy North Carolina family.

His parents were successful morticians and funeral home owners. Mark never wanted for anything materially, but he was a bit of a social outcast as a kid. He was kind of nerdy-looking and socially awkward, and he seemed to prefer helping his parents with their mortuary business to hanging out with kids his own age, which is, you know, a little odd, you've got to admit. This led to a bit of bullying, which only made him retreat further into his daily life of dead bodies and funeral arrangements. And when Mark graduated high school, he went off to college to study mortuary sciences. By the time he turned 27, Mark had opened Bowling Funeral Home in Rocky Mount and made it a huge success.

And he made sure to project a clear image of that success to everybody. So he wanted to get as far away from that nerdy image that he had in high school as he possibly could. So grown-up Mark wore expensive designer clothes and shoes. He liked watches, expensive ones. He went on lavish scuba diving trips. He seems like the kind of guy who would show up at his like, you know, 10 or 15-year high school reunion. and, like, the nicest car he could possibly afford with, like, the nicest outfit and, like, lord it around. Like, hey, look, the nerd made good, which to me is just like, I mean, bless your heart.

If you want to do that, go for it. I'm not going to stop you. I'm sure it'll feel good. But I've never had the slightest desire to, like, you know, have a part in any of that. Just don't go. Just don't go to your reunion. It's fine. I don't care what you think about.

I mean, the people that I really love from high school, I'm still friends with. Exactly. And as for the rest, like, you know, I enjoy. seeing you on Facebook, but if you, you know, if you were mean to me, I could give less of a shit what you think about me now. Right. You know, this girl that I was friends with in the eighth grade and, like, we were like best friends, okay? Best friends. We had those heart necklaces that you broke in half and each of you take one. Like, I thought we were like bosom buds. And then one day out of absolutely nowhere, she just started being mean to me and was

like giving me the cold shoulder. And I couldn't figure out why. And finally I dragged it out of her that This was because I was being nice to this new girl that everybody else was, like, treating like a freak. And she was, like, you know, kind of, I don't know. I don't know if I'd call her goth. It wasn't goth. It was kind of boho. Okay. Like, she wore a lot of broomstick skirts and dark lipstick.

And she read Anne Rice books and stuff. And she gave off this aura, apparently, in small town, wherever I grew up, of being a witch. Okay. Wow. And so people thought she was a witch. And my supposed friend was troubled by the fact that I was seen talking to this girl who was probably a devil worshiper. Wow. And so she just completely cut me off.

And it hurt like absolute hell. And I mean, I just cried and cried and cried because I thought we were truly friends. And she could not have been meaner about it. Like it was just the worst way she just, you know, if I hadn't begged her to tell me what happened, she would have just completely ghosted me. Wow. So from hanging out every day and saying, oh, I love you. You're my best friend to nothing. So recently, this woman had the nerve to send me a friend request on Facebook.

Oh. And I was just like, you know what? No. No. I seriously considered sending her a note and saying, are you serious? Like, you remember how mean you were to me? But then I thought, nope, I don't care. I haven't thought about this person in 30 years.

Who cares? Right. Well, not 30 years. Almost 30 years. God, I'm old. Anyway, okay. So moving on. Moving on. This was Mark. And he dated a lot of women. With his money and wealthy business dude image, Mark had a rep as one of the most eligible bachelors in the area. So women just flocked to him. And for some reason, they weren't bothered by the fact that he dealt with dead bodies all day. Which, again, a little bit weird, but as long as you don't tell us the gory details. So in October 1998, a 27-year-old Mark met a 19-year-old woman named Rose Parker.

She and her dad came into a bowling funeral home to arrange Rose's stepmom's funeral. Now, despite the situation, there was an immediate spark between Mark and Rose, and he asked her out after the funeral. And she said yes. Oh, God. So, a lot to unpack here. What do we think are the optics on asking a girl out at her stepmom's funeral, Katie? I think if you do it away from the coffin, you're probably fine, right?

Like, has anybody ever written to Dear Prudy about... Right? Because, like, women don't have object permanence, as you know. Right, as long as the dead relative... If you turn her away from the casket, she won't remember that she's at her stepmom's funeral. It's so gross. What the hell? Yeah, that was probably not the most professional behavior on Mark's part, and it could have been a red flag.

But anyway. But anyway, she said yes, she was excited to go on a date with this wealthy funeral home owner. So in contrast to Mark's affluent upbringing, Rose Parker grew up poor in a small North Carolina town. Her clothes were cheap hand-me-downs growing up. She didn't always have enough to eat. She was embarrassed by her family's poverty, and she daydreamed a lot about escaping, as I imagine a lot of poor kids do. When Rose was 19, her stepmom who had raised her like a mother died, and she was just devastating. So she was in a really vulnerable state of mind when she met Mark Bowling, like literally at her stepmom's funeral, which is another element of this. Like, not only is it unprofessional, but to me it almost seems, I don't know if I would say predatory, but like predatory light, you know, to take advantage of somebody when they're grieving. I mean, yeah.

And I wonder if that coupled with the huge differences in their family and financial situations, not to mention the fact that there was a nine-year age difference between them. played a part in what was to come. It may have started them off with a power imbalance that would inform the rest of their relationship. So for their first date, Mark took Rose to one of the fanciest restaurants in town, much nicer than any Rose had ever been to before, and she was just dazzled by him, and by the beautiful surroundings and the expensive food and everything,

and the sexy sparks just started flying. And by the time the waiter brought the check, the sparks had grown into a full-blown bonfire, and they beeline back to Mark's place for some sexy sex. And that was the beginning of a very steamy relationship. Rose joked with her friends that Mark was the most insatiable guy she'd ever met sexually. He just could not seem to get enough of her. When they were together, it was just non-stop sexy times.

And for Rose, this was a whole new world, not just the sex, but the affluent new circles that Mark had introduced her to. She'd never been in that world before. So she was just dazzled and she fell for him hard and fast And she thought that he felt the same way about her So when he told her he needed to tell her something important About six months into their relationship She was excited because she thought he was going to propose Which is understandable in that situation

But nope Mark told her he'd been seeing someone else Rose had thought they were exclusive And that someone's name was Julie And he was going to marry her So won't want Not what she was expecting to hear Not good

And Mark told her that Julie was his age Actually she was a couple years older And she was from a well-to-do family Just like him She was connected Her family was prominent in the community And she could help him achieve his dream To grow bowling funeral home into a chain

So Bless her heart Rose was devastated But she moved on And soon she met and married An electrician named Scott Vincent They had three kids Rose got a job at a grocery store, and life went on despite the fact that she had lost this beautiful future that she had dreamed of. And it really sounds to me like he just pretty much

up and told her, like, I mean, I'm just marrying this woman because she can advance my career and because she's like on paper a better candidate than you, which again, red flag. Yeah, what years are better than that, Rose? Seriously. So, Mark married Julie, and over the years he and Julie did what Mark hoped they would do, turning bowling funeral home into a franchise. And, as you said, they became Rocky Mount's power couple, admired by all. They bought the gorgeous house in the nicest neighborhood in town. They hosted the parties and charity events.

They cultivated their image as the couple with everything. But then, almost eight years later, Rose. his car broke down. Where? Right behind Bowling funeral home, of course. Rose knocked on the door, Mark helped her with the car, and while he was working on the car, he told her he had a confession to make. He was still carrying a torch for her. And that was all it took. Rose had never gotten over Mark, and now the spark reignited, and they began an affair. They spent many an afternoon in a room upstairs in the funeral home. It had a bed in it, Mark said, because he slept there some nights when he needed to work late. Yeah, sure, bud. Mark and Julie's marriage had begun to flounder a few years

before her murder. One major reason was money. Mark had tried to grow the business too fast, and by the time of Julie's death, he managed to run up $1 million in debt. Oh my God, how do you even do that? That's bananas. It's insane. That is so much money. money. So could the murder have anything to do with the $1 million life insurance policy? Mark took out on Julie a couple months before her murder? I'm sure it doesn't. No, no, no. But, you know, it's their job, so the cops wondered. And Mark swore that the policy was something that Julie had wanted and known all about. But she wasn't there to confirm this, so police weren't so sure. They knew he couldn't have killed Julie himself.

He was in Florida, scuba diving, but could he have hired someone to do it for him? So they asked Mark to take a polygraph, and to their surprise, he agreed. He passed every question until they asked him, Do you know who killed Julie? That one, he flunked miserably. So they confronted him, and Mark dropped his head into his hands, and he said, okay, our marriage wasn't perfect. There was some infidelity.

He told the cops that he and Julie were more best friends and business partners than lovers, although they did have a normal sex life because, you know, he needed sex, but he needed a lot more than what Julie was willing to provide him. So he'd been seeing escorts for years. he wondered if one of them might have done this. Now, this made no sense to the cops, and it doesn't make any sense to me, for the record, because why the hell would a sex worker kill the wife of one of her clients? Yeah, it doesn't make sense at all.

No, it's a business transaction. Although, I do love the idea that Mark was, like, painting this picture, that his dick game was so good that somebody murk. murdered him for it, or murdered his wife for it, because I have my doubts. I have some major doubts about that. So when the cops expressed their doubts about this theory, Mark said that there was one woman who might have had motive to do this, and she wasn't an escort. Her name was Rose Vincent, and he dated her eight years ago before he married Julie.

They'd reconnected earlier that year, he told them, and started a steamy affair. For him, it was just about sex, but Rose had confessed that it was much more than that for her. She wanted him to leave Julie and marry her. He didn't want to do that. If he left Julie, he'd have to give up half the business, half his money. He'd broken off the affair, he told police, and Rose didn't take it well at all. She was obsessed with him, he said. He'd caught her following him in Julie around town several times.

It was fatal attraction. Rose was a crazy stalker. Oh, boy, not this again. We got another bunny boiler on her hands. Yeah. So this sounded promising to the police. So they went to track down Rose Vincent. They also went to go talk to the escort service that Mark liked to use.

And the escorts gave them an earful. Mark was a very good customer, and he didn't always just book one woman at a time. Mark booked orgies. And, in fact, he had a room. He dedicated to it. Above the room where people gathered to say goodbye to their loved ones at the funeral home. Jeez, Louise. Oh yes, the room was equipped with a bed, a wet bar, mood lighting, and if the reenactment, we saw on a true crime show is to be believed a stripper pole. Oh, my God. And there were caskets there in storage. Oh, my God, you think they ever did in one of the caskets?

You know they did. You know they did. They had to have. So some poor soul was buried, most likely, in a casket in which Mark Bowling had gotten it on. That's really disturbing. It's the worst. This man had an orgy room, Whitney. in a funeral home

a dedicated orgy room can you imagine what this must have been like when this came out in this town like people who had actually used that funeral home like I just oh my God it's so so not a good look for a funeral home no no not at all so I mean

throwing it out there it seemed to believe that a big part of Mark and Julie's financial troubles must have been these sex parties. A roomful of sex workers booked all night does not come cheap. And one sex worker told a shocking story. One night, in between romps, Mark said, I'll pay you five figures if you kill my wife for me.

She was shocked and said she wanted nothing to do with that. And Mark played it off as a joke. But she wasn't so sure. Right, right, hilarious. So, so funny, guy. And obviously she didn't believe him because she wasn't so sure. And after that, she tried to get out of going to any more of his parties. Yeah, I wish she'd gone to the damn police or at least sent an anonymous note to Julie bowling or something.

But whatever, people never seem to in these situations. Like, I can understand why a sex worker wouldn't want to go to the police station and say, hey, I was doing this illegal thing and this guy said this to me. But you can at least send an anonymous letter, like an anonymous call. do something, warn Julie, you know, like, please, for the love of God, if somebody says something like this, do you take it seriously? You could save somebody's life. Yeah. So cops wondered, did he give them Rose's name to throw them off his trail? When police found Rose and sat her down for the interview, she denied having anything to do with the murder. She said she'd been watching

her sister's kids that morning. But cops noticed that her friendly open demeanor changed drastically any time Mark or Julie came up in the interview. She'd drop her head and clam up. So the cops try to ruse. They lied, which cops are allowed to do, campers, and told her they tracked her through the on-star system in her car, straight to Julie's house. They also told her that Mark had already pointed to her as a possible suspect in Julie's murder. Rose was quiet a moment. She looked gutted. Then, the damn burst. She'd done it for Mark, she said. She loved him. He loved her. They just wanted to have a life together. Their affair had never ended, she told them. And recently, Mark had started bringing her to his home for their trists instead of the funeral home.

This was where he wanted her to be, he said. He wanted her to live with him in this beautiful home, not Julie. But to achieve that, they had to get Julie out of the way. A divorce would ruin him. He'd be left with nothing. If he and Rose wanted to be together, they had to get rid of his wife. The only reason I married her in the first place was for her money and status, he told Rose, I never fell out of love with you. And then, Mark proposed a plan. He'd leave town for an alibi, and Rose could shoot Julie. They could be together. No one knew he and Rose were involved. The police would never look in her direction.

And then they could be together. Why she'd want to be with him at this point, I can't imagine, because he just told you I married a woman because she could increase my status. Right. That's gross. Like, that's a deal breaker, man. But anyway, she loved the asshole for some reason. It took some convincing, but eventually Rose agreed.

They went out to the woods and practiced shooting targets. And on the morning of December 6th, Rose waited for Julie outside the garage at the time Mark had told her to be there. She knew what time the garage door would come up, and when it did, she slipped inside. Julie didn't see her at first. She was distracted by a stack of mail in her hand. And Rose started shooting. Julie tried to run, but Rose shot her three times in quick succession. Then, Rose fled and buried the gun beside her stepmom's grave at the cemetery. Remember, she'd first met Mark when he arranged her stepmom's funeral. So...

I think Mark groomed Rose for this from the start. She never knew he was having all these orgies. She thought they were going to get married. She was going to be Mrs. Bowling. yeah and I think of all three of these guys bowling might actually be the one that I hate the most I mean obviously they're all massive assholes but bowling took a vulnerable woman who had grown up poor love bombed the crap out of her dangled this fairy tale life in front of her face which she could never achieve on her own all with the goal of getting her to kill his wife for him so that he could like bump butts all over town

he never had any intention of marrying her in my opinion so he absolutely sucks and by the way how terrifying mess this had been for Julie to just see this random woman who she by all accounts I don't think even knew no and you know had no idea that he had a mistress in the first place and just to see this woman walk in with a gun she just been so confused and scared just a horrible thought it's and here's what blows my mind is it's sometimes when we have spouse killers that hire their lovers or convince their lovers to do it they convince the the person that oh they're a horrible person, they're abusive. Right, yeah. That's often the case when it's a woman trying to get her husband killed. But yeah, it goes the other way too. Yeah, it's just, wow, it's scary. So,

both lovers faced possible death sentences, but they ended up giving Rose a deal, 29 years in exchange for testifying against him. Rose continued to profess her love for Mark even as she cooperated with prosecutors to help convict him. Good God, girl. Man, oh man. Get your shit together. She was devastated. She was betrayed, but she just couldn't turn off those feelings. Even so, she agreed to testify. When Mark's defense got wind of that, they caved.

I bet. Right? Mark pled guilty to killing Julie and took a sentence of 15 to 20 years in prison. Part of his deal was that he had to admit guilt. He's eligible for parole in 2023, and Rose is eligible in 2033. Yeah, so she got 10 extra years, even though it was his idea. He, like, basically manipulated her into doing it.

Yeah. And I'm not trying to absolve her in any way, shape, or form. Like, she's an idiot, and she should never have given this man the time of day in the first place because he's clearly a shitty human being, and she committed a murder, which is evil. Also, what you were saying a second ago about how a lot of times the guilty party will convince the, you know, lover, oh, you know, I'm being abused. I don't think Mark even did that. Like, I think as far as Rose knew, Julie was just in the way.

Right. That's what I was saying, though, is like how... Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. I just wanted to revisit that. Like, that's horrifying, right? It took the most gentle shove to turn this woman into a murder. It just blows my mind.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. That's exactly what I'm saying. Like, she's obviously not a great person. Which, Rose has now said, that she regrets killing Julie so well that's big of her yeah I should hope so you dumbass yeah she is a massive dumbass and I mean I just think it's gross that she as gross a person as she is that she got 10 years more than he got like they should have gotten the same sentence they're equally responsible

but whatever she got more time I guess because she was the shooter which is weird because in a lot of cases it's the mastermind that gets more time yeah so I've even seen cases where the mastermind gets a, you know, life without parole and the hitman will actually testify in exchange for complete immunity. I've seen that happen a couple of times where the person who's actually pulled the trigger gets off in exchange for testifying

against the mastermind. So it's just weird how it plays out sometimes. So campers, like we said, every profession has a few bad apples. Did you know serial killer John Wayne Gasey worked as a mortician for a while? It's true. But most morticians are skilled,

kind-hearted professionals and we're lucky to have them. So please don't hold these three dipshits against them. So, you know we'll have another one for you next week, another stranger than fiction story. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. You can follow us on Twitter at T.C. Campfire, Instagram at True Crime Campfire,

and be sure to like our Facebook page. If you want to support the show and get access to extras, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.