True Crime Campfire - Falling Star: The Murder of Greg de Villers

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

Life, obviously, is easier with money. Without having to scrabble and hustle just to survive, you can be free to pursue whatever interests and fascinations you like. But wealth doesn’t make you immu...ne to the realities of human life. Families still have drama, hearts still get broken, dreams still get crushed into dust. This week’s story is about someone who started life with every possible advantage, but despite all her privilege, still descended into darkness. Sources: Deadly American Beauty by John Glatt https://www.smh.com.au/world/jury-awards-a147-million-in-american-beauty-murder-20060322-gdn7du.html https://www.sandiegoreader.com/news/2013/sep/18/feature-arrest-warrant-issued/ Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit badmagicproductions.com for more info and to buy tickets. Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Bahamas. Follow us, campers! Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfire https://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/ Facebook: True Crime Campfire Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=en Twitter: @TCCampfire https://twitter.com/TCCampfire Email: truecrimecampfirepod@gmail.com MERCH! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Life, obviously, is easier with money. Without having to scrabble and hustle just to survive, you can be free to pursue whatever interests and fascinations you like. But wealth doesn't make you immune to the realities of human life. families still have drama, hearts still get broken, dreams still get ruined.
Starting point is 00:00:38 This week's story is about someone who started life with every possible advantage, but still descended into darkness. This is Falling Star, the murder of Gregory DeVillers. So, campers, for this one, we're in Southern California. On a beautiful day in June 2001, Kristen Rossum made what was by now a familiar journey, walking across the U.S. Mexico border at San Isidro to go and buy some meth. She'd called ahead so that her dealer, a taxi driver named Armando, would be waiting, and they took a 10-minute drive to his connection. Back home, she smoked all through the night, barely sleeping, and in the morning, this beautiful, accomplished young woman got the call she'd been dreading.
Starting point is 00:01:31 The San Diego PD had just issued a warrant for her arrest for the murder of her husband Greg in the previous November. It seemed unthinkable that this child of privilege could end up here, and yet there she was. By the end of the day, Kristen was in handcuffs, and she would never be free again. Kristen Rossum was born in 1976 to high-flying parents in Memphis, Tennessee. Her dad, Ralph, was granted tenure in the university's Department of Political Science when he was just 32, and was starting to build national renown in his field. And her mom, Constance, was working on her third degree. in journalism and communications.
Starting point is 00:02:10 These were smart, ambitious people who were delighted when it became clear that little Kristen was super intelligent. Ralph's academic career had the family moving around a lot. When Kristen was four, they moved up to Chicago, where within a year, Ralph was made an associate dean at Loyola.
Starting point is 00:02:29 He published books and monographs on the criminal justice system with a particular emphasis on juvenile crime, which would turn out to be real ironic about 10 years later. at Christmas her mom took Kristen downtown to see the nutcracker at the Marshall Fields department store which immediately inspired her to want to be a professional ballerina and I'm sure lots of us when we were four years old had kind of weird or outlandish ideas of what we wanted to be when we grew up I wanted to be a cheetah as I recall it was just strange but Kristen would do her best to make that dream come true Before then, though, there was a brief step into another glamorous career. When Kristen was six, Constance decided her cute little daughter should have a modeling career,
Starting point is 00:03:18 and she beat out hundreds of kids to win a spot in a national ad campaign for McDonald's, promoting their exciting new chicken McNuggets. Oh, the glamour. Constance worked in advertising and had been part of that campaign, which is why even when they had ritsy houses in the future, there would be pictures of the hamburger on the walls. The hamburger is an interesting choice, actually. I feel like I would have picked Grimmis
Starting point is 00:03:43 because at least he's never committed a crime that we know of. Well, there are all those suspicious deaths and injuries related to the Grimmis Shake. Oh, yeah. Is that too dated of a reference? It might be. It's a very stale meme. It's a very stale meme. I'm sorry.
Starting point is 00:04:02 Google it. The year after that, the Rossoms were on the move again. this time to Bethesda, Maryland, when the Reagan administration made Ralph deputy director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That sounds kind of like a pen pusher position, but its rank was equivalent to something like Deputy Assistant Attorney General, so this was the big time in civil service. Constance got a gig as a marketing manager for the Marriott Hotel chain, and the Rossums became part of the D.C. elite. Ralph became friends with future Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, teaching and, and writing articles with him.
Starting point is 00:04:40 Kristen thrived at her new elementary school, discovering a gift for the sciences, and her school was affiliated with the American Ballet Company, so she started formal lessons which she loved. This was an idyllic time for her, but it didn't last long. Ralph's career had him calling up the moving trucks yet again, and in 1985, they all headed to Claremont, California,
Starting point is 00:05:03 a posh little city west of L.A., home to the Claremont colleges, which had just made Ralph Rossum a highly paid professor. It's not so white bread now, but in the 80s and early 90s, Claremont was very much a preppy, conservative, stick-up-your-ass kind of place. That's probably not something you notice while you're in elementary school, but in Kristen's case, it would start to grade on her a little farther down the line. For now, though, she excelled in school, straight A's, doing great at her dance classes.
Starting point is 00:05:33 Although it didn't affect her grades, the one thing she was less than stellar at, was writing, and she knew this, because after she'd worked really hard on a class project one time, her mom just looked at her and flat out said, you can't write. Thanks, Mom. Oh, my God. Yeah, let's get the mugs for mom and dad at the year ready, folks. It's not even close. Constance was now director of marketing for Marriott, and Ralph was a widely published academic. They were both good writers. But telling a 10-year-old they suck at something is not all that likely to inspire them to knuckle down and improve. A more likely result is just what happened to Kristen. Discurraged, she gave up on trying to be a good writer and concentrated on math and science. She was fantastic
Starting point is 00:06:19 at those. Her favorite thing about those subjects was that her parents were hopeless at both of them. All very healthy, I'm sure, a 10-year-old developing a poisonous competitiveness with her own parents. God. Feels like a very yuppie, like 80s, 90s story. Oh, yeah. Oh, very much so. By the time she started junior high, Kristen was practicing ballet every day and became good friends with the daughters of some other professors at Claremont.
Starting point is 00:06:48 One of these friends later described them all as goody two shoes, always sitting at the front of the class and trying to be the first to answer any question. Nerds. When she was 14, the Orange County Ballet Company Company. cast Kristen as the sugar plum fairy in the Nutcracker. At first, she was cast as the understudy to a professional, but by the time of the Christmas performance, she'd been bumped up to the lead. This might have been the best moment of her life. Just a few months later, her dad's academic career moved them all back east for a year to Virginia. Kristen was happy. There were better opportunities to study dance, and she would be affiliated with the Richmond Ballet. So far,
Starting point is 00:07:26 this has been the story of a privileged high achiever jet-setting across the country and granted the opportunity to pursue any interest she wanted, but it was all about to come crashing down. Kristen, at least, would see what happened next as the start of all her troubles. But she is very much an unreliable narrator, eager to blame random chance rather than her own bad decisions. During a rehearsal, a dance partner accidentally dropped her, and Kristen tore ligaments in her ankle. She had to wear a cast for two months and obviously couldn't dance. Although Kristen was a star performer wherever she danced, she didn't see things that way. In any athletic activity, there are some people who just happened to have bodies that are extremely well suited for it. Think Michael Phelps and his
Starting point is 00:08:11 freakish fin arms. And, you know, everyone else has to work harder to keep up. Kristen had always seen herself in the everyone else category, competing with more naturally gifted dancers. And everything in her background instilled that bullshit play-through-the-pain way of thinking. Feeling the pressure, she started dancing again before she was ready and hurt herself again, suffering a stress fracture in her foot that would never heal all the way. Her dreams of becoming a professional ballerina were over. Kristen, now 15 years old, fell into depression. And like a lot of teenagers, she self-medicated. She started drinking and smoking both cigarettes and weed. The next year, the family moved back to California, but she couldn't fit into her old
Starting point is 00:08:56 life there. Her best friend had moved to England, and with her current darker outlook on life, she couldn't connect with her old Goody Two Shoes friends. As if she was starring in her very own after-school special, Kristen started hanging out with The Wrong Crowd, TM. And in the parking lot before a football game one night, one of her new girlfriends offered her a couple lines of speed. Kristen loved it. Later, she'd rely on more and more speed to keep her focused on academic achievements, but initially it was all about feeling good. There's a story Stephen King tells about how on a school trip he and some buddies snuck out and bought a quart of whiskey and then drank themselves sick, and the next morning they felt the worst they'd ever felt in their lives and swore
Starting point is 00:09:40 they'd never do anything like that again. And then that evening, King went out and bought more whiskey and drank it all himself, and that's how he discovered he had a predisposition for addiction. Whether through genetics or psychology or a combination of the two, some people are in more danger of becoming addicts. Kristen got in touch with her friend's dealer, and she was soon buying meth on the regular. Word got around at school, and the preppy set she'd previously belonged to ostracized her. She started neglecting her personal hygiene and got sores on her face. She developed an eating disorder and would take laxidivis. after meals. Her grades slipped. There's no mystery about what meth does. At first you feel like
Starting point is 00:10:23 you're flying, but pretty soon you need to take more and more just to feel normal. Her parents weren't quite oblivious. They saw the changes in their daughter, but they pretty much just put it down to her being 16 years old, which to be fair is definitely a time when your bright little child can turn into a gloomy sullen monster who talks like a caveman. How is cool, honey? Fine. You want a little snack? No. But Kristen's parents wouldn't be in the dark for long. For their 21st wedding anniversary, Ralph and Constance went on a week-long Caribbean cruise, leaving Kristen at home in charge of her two younger brothers. They left cash in an envelope so she could buy food and a list of numbers she could call in an emergency. Right after they left, Kristen started inviting her
Starting point is 00:11:09 friends over, including her drug dealer, and the money for food was very quickly spent on meth. Her brother Pierce's seventh birthday came up, which also happened to be St. Patrick's Day, and Kristen threw him a party. It started sedately enough, with a few of her friends coming over to share cake and ice cream, but word had gotten around school that she was throwing a St. Patty's Day rager while her parents were out of town, and after dark, an endless stream of teenagers showed up with beer and drugs, music blaring while they all got wasted, got high, and made out. that's one hell of a seventh birthday party which also that's kind of amazing to me like her parents went on this trip
Starting point is 00:11:51 when their little boy's birthday was coming up like you couldn't wait till after his birthday that's kind of wild I think that's a microcosm of how they viewed their children it's very chilly isn't it a few of the dumber kids took Kristen's parents' car for a spin around town
Starting point is 00:12:10 while some of Kristen's sketchy or friends went through the house and stole a video camera, credit cards, and a checkbook. Now, obviously, you cannot pull a stunt like that in a shishi neighborhood without ruffling some feathers, so when Kristen's parents got back from their crews, they got an earful from their neighbors, and it didn't take them long to discover the missing credit cards and checks. Kristen flat out denied everything, like, party? What's a party? Girl, please, you're busted. Her parents took away her car keys for a week. and called the police to report a burglary.
Starting point is 00:12:45 Kristen's other brother, Brent, was 13 years old, and he was worried about his sister. He and Pierce searched her room and found a crack pipe, a mirror, a razor blade, and some ex-lax. They told their parents, who tried to stop Kristen as she was walking out with a backpack.
Starting point is 00:13:01 Her dad snatched the backpack from her and found all her drug shit inside. He grabbed her wrist and started smacking her on her arm, and then, according to Kristen, started spanking her with a sandal while her mom slapped her face and called her a worthless slut. Jesus, Murphy, great parenting, guys. This guy was like the foremost expert on juvenile offenders.
Starting point is 00:13:27 This guy. Yeah. I just, I'm baffled. They really held it together, really kept their composure, got to the root of what was going on with. No, they just beat the fuck out of her and called her a slut. Okay. Yeah, that is some heavy irony right there. Kristen grabbed a kitchen knife and screamed that she was going to kill herself.
Starting point is 00:13:47 Her dad wrestled the knife away from her and Kristen ran up to her room. When Brent reminded him she had razor blades in there, Ralph hurried up and found her cutting at her wrist in a half-hearted kind of way. And he was probably right that it wasn't a real suicide attempt. Eventually Kristen got herself together enough to come downstairs and tearfully admit she had a drug problem, that she felt humiliated and she promised to get help. The next day at school, Kristen was hammering her fists against the walls and lockers and saying she was going to kill herself. She told friends that her dad had beaten her up and showed them the bruises on her arm. They told the school principal, and although Kristen refused to talk to her, California law mandated that she called the police.
Starting point is 00:14:30 So a few days later, an officer came to interview the family. Kristen admitted to her drug use and gave a much downplayed version of the physical altercation than the one she'd told her friends. The officer told them someone from child services would be in touch, but apparently that never happened. And I won't call you cynical if you think that's related to the Rossum's multi-million dollar house and obvious wealth. Yeah, rich people never abuse their kids. It's just impossible. Yeah. They're the bestest people in the world. God.
Starting point is 00:15:01 So that was a whole big mess, right? Kristen enrolled in Narcotics Anonymous 20 minutes away in Chino so no one she knew would see her. For the next two months, her dad drove her down there twice a week for meetings, and after that, she managed to stay clean for most of a year. But in the fall of her senior year, Kristen ran into a kid at school that she do sold meth, and that was it. Soon, she was using again. Apparently, an additional side effect of meth is that you can't do calculus, or at least
Starting point is 00:15:29 not as competently as a prodigy like Kristen normally did. When her grades dropped to bees, and she started to act agitated, her mom accused her of using drugs again. Kristen, who would be a terrible poker player, grabbed at her own chest, denied everything, and tried to run away. Her mom wrestled with her, then stuck her hand down Kristen's bra and pulled out a glass pipe in a plastic bag of meth. She called the cops, and soon the Rossums got another visit from a uniformed officer. Kristen's pupils were huge, and she had trouble finishing her sentences. Her pulse was racing at 118 beats per minute. She admitted she'd smoked crystal meth in her bathroom that morning and managed to get her head together enough to give the officer a weird robotic statement.
Starting point is 00:16:12 I have not used any speed since this morning. I use the drugs to help me with school studies and other activities. It's like a line out of a school scare film. Like it is. But also like that is the dorkiest reason to do this I've ever heard in my life. I can study harder. But of course that's BS. I mean, she was, you know, failing her classes. So it wasn't helping, obviously. there is a there's a woman on Instagram or TikTok or something who talks about how that's actually how it started for her is she was using her Adderall and then when she ran out of Adderall she had to use meth and she was she would stay up for five days at a time to quote unquote study but it was all about it was all about the high for her she admits it now she's like yeah I was not studying that was just the justification you know that's the thing about addiction it lies to you and you know it'll tell you you like lots and lots of BS that helps you justify continuing to use and it's just part of the disease. It sucks. Kristen was arrested, fingerprinted, and had a mugshot taken, but she was released into her parents' care that same night and never charged. Money, right? She didn't entirely get off
Starting point is 00:17:26 easy, though. She was bullied about it at school, but her dad had just taken a year-long teaching position at Redlands University 30 miles away. Kristen already had enough credits to graduate from high school a semester early, so she enrolled at Redlands on a presidential scholarship, taking just two courses for now. The arrest was something of a wake-up call for Kristen. She stayed clean, and in the summer, she reconnected with one of her Goody Two- Shoes friends, Melissa. Melissa was dating the guitarist in a local garage band called Fat Finger, and when she bought... And when she brought Kristen along to one of her practice sessions, she hit it off with the bass player, Teddy Maya. Teddy was from Claremont, and had just finished his first year as a political science major at UCLA. They were soon dating. Fat fingers.
Starting point is 00:18:13 That's going to live in my head. Just, I don't know. It's disturbing. Teddy was a steady guy. Steady Teddy Teddy, and Kristen's parents approved of him. The reverse was mostly true, too, although Kristen's family was much more conservative than Teddy's. And for all her other rebellions, it startled him how much Kristen just parroted their views, like that welfare is basically communism and people living on the streets are just lazy and dumb. In the fall semester, Kristen moved into the dorms at Redlands. She and Teddy spoke every night, and each weekend, he'd drive up from UCLA to pick her up and go back to Claremont. And then one day, she just stopped answering the phone. Just a few weeks into the semester, Kristen had gone to a party, and one of her fellow advanced calculus classmates was
Starting point is 00:18:58 like, hey, did you know that meth can really help you study? I have some if you'd like to try. And all this stuff about Kristen's addiction is sad. You know, there are plenty of things in the story to get mad at her about, but that's not one of them, in my opinion. She had a sickness, one that took hold of her when she was just a kid. You can't just decide to not be an addict. It's just not as easy as that. Soon, she was using every day again, and her grades spiraled. Just before the Christmas vacation, drugs were found in her room, and she was expecting. She didn't mention this to Teddy Maya, who drove up on December 16th to spend the night with her. The next morning, he headed back to UCLA.
Starting point is 00:19:38 Constance, who had no idea her daughter had been expelled, was headed to Redlands to pick Kristen up for Christmas. But Kristen couldn't face telling her parents she'd been kicked out, so she grabbed her favorite leather jacket and just ran away. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at voila.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home.
Starting point is 00:20:28 You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. Neither Teddy nor her family knew where she was for the next nine days. Then she called Teddy and asked him to meet her on the Redlands campus. When he got there, she fell into his arms and asked him to get a hotel room. She did not look good. She was pale and feverish and hadn't slept for days. Nevertheless, they had sex, and afterwards Kristen opened up about her drug problem.
Starting point is 00:21:11 She said she'd split the last nine days staying with two different guys she knew from college, but swore she hadn't cheated on him. We have no way of knowing whether that's true or not, but based on her behavior later on, I'm guessing probably not. Anyway, she told Teddy she was going to get sober so the two of them could be together. Teddy later described himself as young and naive. He was in love with her. He told her she could come with him back to L.A. and they'd get an apartment together and work things out.
Starting point is 00:21:40 By God, Captain was going to save his hoe. In the morning, Kristen told Teddy he could use the shower first. When he got out, both Kristen and the $200 in his wallet were gone. She bought some meth, then got a one-way Amtrak ticket to San Diego and a trolley down to Chula Vista right on the Mexican border. She booked into a shitty hotel, and that night she walked to the border, planning to score some cheap meth in Tijuana. She was carrying her leather jacket, and as she went through the turnstile, she dropped it. She bent down to pick it up, and so did the guy in the line behind her. They bumped into each other, just like a scene in a rom-com, and that was how Kristen met Greg DeVille.
Starting point is 00:22:23 Greg was born in Chicago in 1973, the son of recent French immigrants. His dad, Eve, was a doctor, and his mom, Marie, was a physical therapist. Eve was a talented and ambitious surgeon. In 1975, the family moved to Palm Springs, where Eve started a successful plastic surgery practice and taught at UCLA School of Medicine. Eve and Marie had two more sons, but in 1981 had an ugly divorce with Marie accusing her husband of beating her until she was bruised black and blue. She got custody of the boys, while Eve ran off back to France to start a glamorous new career
Starting point is 00:23:02 as a plastic surgeon for the jet set in Monaco. He sent back some paltry child support for a little while, then just stopped bothering. Marie raised the three boys herself in a small apartment, just about making ends meet as a physical therapist. The boys were very close growing up, with Greg taking on a semi-eportarrow. parental role to his younger siblings. He was a popular kid, good-natured and easygoing, but protective of his family, especially his mom. I'm probably wrong about this, but I assume everybody who was a teenager in France in the 60s just smoked like a chimney. Marie certainly had, and she never kicked
Starting point is 00:23:42 the habit. She went to the ER several times with collapsed lungs, with Greg having to take care of everything. He wanted nothing to do with his dad, who he blamed both for the divorce and his mother's bad health. When he was 18, Greg started community college with the goal of getting enough credits and transferring to a better school. He paid his own way by working at a local drugstore where, as usual, he made a ton of friends. After two years, he was able to switch to University of California, San Diego, where Eves made another fantastic parenting decision by refusing to pay for any tuition, despite the fact that he was swimming in French plastic surgery money. Ugh. And even better, that Montagasc, plastic surgery money. That's where all the actually rich people go to avoid taxes.
Starting point is 00:24:30 Greg paid for school himself with a mixture of student loans and part-time work. So Greg was now 20 years old, a good-looking kid with a bright smile. Dr. Who fans, he had a little bit of a David Tenant thing going on. But he didn't have a lot of experience dating, which would not turn out to be great when Kristen Rossum entered his life a little later on. But that was still in the future. A year after Greg started at UCSD, his younger brother Jerome won a scholarship and started studying there too. The brothers got an apartment together with a friend. They both made friends easily and enjoyed college life. One weekend right after Christmas, their 15-year-old brother, Bertram, came down to stay with them. So they did what any responsible older siblings would do. They decided to
Starting point is 00:25:15 take him south of the border and get drunk off his ass in Tijuana. I have to say, if my brother's listening, me as an older sister. Like, absolutely. Like, I was such a terrible influence on my younger brother when we were teens, you know. Just, ooh, bad, sister, bad, bad. And as they were going through the border, the blonde girl ahead of them dropped her leather jacket and Greg bent to pick it up. Greg playfully introduced himself in his brothers in French, which Kristen knew just about
Starting point is 00:25:47 enough of to respond in kind. She said she'd just gotten to San Diego and didn't know anyone in town. so Greg asked if she wanted to hang out with them for the night. Kristen was a pretty girl, and even at the tail end of a meth binge, she could turn heads. She gave her full flirtatious attention to Greg, and he fell for her right away, hardly talking to his brothers for the rest of the night. Jerome would say later, my brother was pretty naive when it came to girls. Kristen is an attractive girl, and he was attracted to her.
Starting point is 00:26:16 That's not love it for sight. No. This was the first time Bertram had ever tried alcohol, and I didn't think. take too many beers and tequila shots to get him absolutely hammered. Poor kid. His brothers decided to take him home. When Greg asked Kristen where she was staying, she gave him the name of a crappy hotel. And Greg said that wasn't a safe neighborhood.
Starting point is 00:26:38 He said Kristen could spend the night at the apartment and the two of them slept together for the first time that night. I don't think Greg's side of this is complicated. A pretty girl was interested at him. As for Kristen, earlier that morning, she had emptied her boyfriend's wallet and run off. More intimate connection would come later, but initially I think she just saw Greg as an easy mark. Kristen, without paying any rent, just moved into Greg's room in the apartment. Within a week, Greg was telling her he loved her. She said she felt the same. A week after that,
Starting point is 00:27:09 he found one of her meth pipes, and Kristen tearfully came clean about her drug problem, promising that she was trying to get sober. A sweetheart to his core, Greg assured her he would give her whatever help she needed. Kristen called her parents and told them she was staying with some nice people and was trying to get herself together and that she would see them soon. Which sounds kind of upbeat and wholesome, but then she called her old boyfriend Teddy Maya and told him she'd been abducted and driven her on Mexico in the trunk of a car and had only just gotten free. Good God almighty, this bitch is a piece of work. So for a few months, everything went smoothly. Kristen got two waitressing jobs, one of them at California Pizza Kitchen and taught ballet in public school. But big city restaurants are not always drug-free environments.
Starting point is 00:27:55 This is true. When I worked at a pizzeria Uno in Baltimore way back in the 90s, I once walked in on our manager snorting cocaine off her desk. I was like, okay, I'm just going to turn around and pretend I didn't see that. Good Lord. And Kristen soon found a new drug connection. For extra money, she started overcharging customers at California. Pizza Kitchen. It didn't take her bosses long to catch her, and she got fired. Then jewelry and
Starting point is 00:28:27 checks started going missing at Greg's apartment, but he always stood up for Kristen, saying he loved her, and nothing was more important to him than helping her. Kristen was much more lukewarm about him. She said later, I realized how much I really did like Greg and that he wanted to help me. Oh, the passion. It's just like that famous line from Romeo and Juliet. I like him. He does stuff for me. Greg's devotion to his new girlfriend quickly drove a wedge between Greg and his brother Jerome, as well as his roommate Chris. One day Chris came home early and found Kristen alone with a guy he didn't recognize.
Starting point is 00:29:04 She said he was just a friend, but Chris thought dealer or boyfriend. At a party, Kristen, high as balls, sat on Chris's lap and tearfully told him she thought she was meant to be with him, not Greg. Not long after that, in June, Greg proposed, to Kristen, and she happily accepted an engagement with about as firm a foundation as a sandcastle with the tide coming in. And the thing about Greg, you have to remember, is that he grew up a caretaker. He was forced into that role when his shitty dad fled the coop and didn't send much child support home. And he had to be the man of the house, I guess, you know, like he was there for
Starting point is 00:29:44 his mother. He was there for his younger siblings. So that's normal to him to kind of take somebody who's having a rough time in hand. It had been a busy couple of years, so it's probably worth remembering that Kristen was still just 18 years old as she reached the end of her life's first hot mess period, and one of the advantages of wealthy parents is that they can pick up the pieces
Starting point is 00:30:06 when you blow your life all to shit. If Kristen would enroll in San Diego State, the Rossums promised to pay her rent and tuition. They also bought her a car. Greg and Kristen shared the apartment, and for the next four years managed to have a normal, contented life, both working hard and spending whatever free time they had together, an arrangement that also helped Kristen avoid relapsing back into drugs.
Starting point is 00:30:31 When she was 19, Kristen's parents took her on vacation to the south of France. Every day, at a pre-arranged time, Kristen would wait by the phone and Greg would call. Her mom, Constance, rolling her eyes, called this kind of giddy and childish, like lovebirds. You know what? Just I can't with Constance. I'm sorry. A few months later, although they were already engaged, Greg proposed again with a ring this time.
Starting point is 00:31:01 Constance, always happy to be a fly in her daughter's Chardonnay, told her she hoped it would be a long engagement. Again, thanks, Mom. Kristen was once again an academic star at San Diego State. Her chemistry professor said she was one of the best undergrad students he'd ever had and encouraged her to go to graduate school. Everyone in her life thought her drug problems were long gone. In the summer of 1997, probably inspired by a recent binging of Patricia Cornwall novels, Kristen applied for a student intern position at the San Diego Medical
Starting point is 00:31:35 Examiner's Office and was hired on the spot. So in addition to her studies, she worked at the M.E.'s office a couple days a week, initially just doing basic stuff like cleaning glassware and logging in specimens, but soon she was helping with drug screening and preparing samples. Everyone was impressed with her, a dependable, quick learner. But the Emmy's office didn't do background checks, and so didn't think twice about letting Kristen log in stuff like meth and heroin from death scenes. Kristen later likened this job to giving an alcoholic the keys to a brewery, but, again, that's just her trying to avoid responsibility.
Starting point is 00:32:12 She deliberately sought out and applied for this position, and there's no way. someone as smart as her didn't know it would mean being around drugs. For now, though, she stayed sober. But for someone with her kind of addiction, it was a question of when, not if. After Greg graduated from UCSD, he got a job with a biotech company called Pharmagen, where the vice president, Dr. Gruenwald, saw a lot of potential in him and became his mentor. Greg and Kristen were both busy between work and studying and seemed content, mostly. Kristen told her friends how lucky she felt to have Greg save her and look after her,
Starting point is 00:32:50 but a guy who saves you and looks after you is not necessarily a guy you see as a lover, especially not if you're like Kristen and have always had an attraction to the darkness. And if you have her streak of self-loathing, then what you feel for your caregiver can start to include a sliver of contempt. Mm-hmm. And in the winter of 1998, six months before Greg and Kristen planned to get married, she began an affair with a co-worker. We got this from John Glott's book, Deadly American Beauty,
Starting point is 00:33:19 where he gives the guy the alias Dick Henderson, which will use since the real name isn't apparent from other sources. Hey, John, buddy, when a dude's only role in the story is railing the main character, maybe don't give him the name Dick. I think he did it on purpose.
Starting point is 00:33:37 We see you, John. Anyway, Kristen and Dick quickly progressed from long lunches to bang in like bunnies whenever and wherever they could. And although they could continue to exchange affectionate messages, they were pretty much just fuck buddies from day one, which lasted until April, when Dick got a job in New York. Some of Kristen's friends found Greg to be controlling,
Starting point is 00:34:00 unwilling to let her have a real social life of her own. This is not at all uncommon in people who have helped their partners recover from addiction, and in that context, it's at least somewhat understandable. I mean, there were times when Kristen genuinely could not be trusted to take care of herself. But that didn't make the experience any less grading for her. A couple weeks before the wedding, Kristen told her parents that she didn't think she loved Greg and wasn't sure if she could go through with it. They said if she wanted, she could call it off
Starting point is 00:34:26 and move back in with them, but Kristen decided to get married. The day before the wedding, Greg also almost called it off because he found out that his father, who he despised, was going to be there. To me, that sounds like a pretext covering up deeper doubts, but his dad agreed to skip the ceremony, and on June 5, 1999, Greg and Kristen got married on the grounds of Claremont College. Tons of Greg's high school and college friends came, and Kristen, well, she had barely any friends. Most of her guests were family and colleagues of her dad. She didn't even have any bridesmaids. Yeah, they should have made the theme of this wedding, the Titanic.
Starting point is 00:35:02 It's been appropriate. They had a snowboarding honeymoon in Whistler and came back to a brief stint of married bliss. Very brief. Within a couple of weeks, Kristen was sending us. horny emails to Dick Henderson. Greg told her he was looking forward to them having their first kid together and Kristen told him she had no interest in being a mother. Wow. Guys, this is maybe something to talk about before you get married. How had they not? That is unbelievable. I mean, they were like 12. They were like 18 years old. I mean, at least maybe
Starting point is 00:35:35 bring it up once. You know, hey, do you want to have kids? It's kind of a big deal. I think it happened so fast they forgot about it. I genuinely think that's what happened. Seriously. In September, Kristen saw the movie American Beauty and it became her new favorite. She went to see it in the theater again and again. Kristen cheated on Greg at least one more time with Dick Henderson, but that relationship was cooling off. Aw, because Kristen realized she was a married woman now and she was in love with her husband and she wanted to stay faithful to him. Right? No, no.
Starting point is 00:36:06 Because she was already messing around with a new guy. Ah, shit. In January, Kristen had a serious conversation with her. Greg, but they're already strained marriage. But she blamed their problems on him not giving her enough space. I wouldn't be surprised if her own infidelity didn't even occur to her as an issue. Just a few days after this chat about not having enough space, she managed to squeeze in a new boyfriend, an old classmate from San Diego State. Graduating in a few months, Kristen applied for a full-time position as a toxicologist with the
Starting point is 00:36:39 M.E.'s office, and there was no real doubt she'd be accepted. One of her new responsibilities was to record and manage samples of all the illegal narcotics that came into the office. No one there knew about her history with drugs, which can we talk about the fact that this medical examiner's office did not do background checks on employees. Are you freaking kidding me? Kristen got a key to the office and could come and go whenever she wanted. She's going to be like a kid in a candy store. And that was part one of the circumstances that would blow everything up. Part two was the arrival of Kristen's new boss, a good-looking Australian named Michael Robertson,
Starting point is 00:37:19 who'd just been hired as chief toxicologist. Michael Robertson was a rock star in the world of forensic science, a charming and highly skilled toxicologist who rose quickly at the coroner's office in Melbourne. Lots of people liked him, but others found him arrogant. He also screwed around a lot, having multiple affairs at the coroner's office both before and after he married his wife, Nicole. He and Nicole immigrated to the U.S. in 1996. First to Pennsylvania, where he was a toxicologist,
Starting point is 00:37:49 Nicole worked for a pharmaceutical company, and Michael chased every skirt that crossed his eyeline. One of his girlfriends was a friend of Nicole's. Classy. An Australian friend who'd known him for years described him as predatory. He looks for women that are needy and then is very supportive and friendly.
Starting point is 00:38:09 They all fall for him. Ew, dude. Ew. His work, though, was outstanding, and in 2000, the San Diego Medical Examiner's Office made him their chief toxicologist. He started in March. By April, he and Kristen were having an intense affair and talking about a possible future together. She felt more than ever that Greg was stifling her, but let's look at that. She complained that Greg didn't want her to go with Michael to a toxicology conference in Anaheim,
Starting point is 00:38:39 which she thought would be important for her career, but that conference was the first. time she and Michael slept together. You want to know why he didn't want you to go? Because his radar was talking to him, giving him the correct signals. After humping like horny teenagers, Kristen and Michael were all in, endless syrupy declarations of eternal love and lunchtime quickies. This did not go unnoticed in the office, where people thought correctly that Kristen was getting preferential treatment for knocking boots with the boss. Michael's own boss, Lloyd Amborne, called him in, but Michael was all shocked Pikachu face and denied any affair. I'm sure he's used to that. He's very good at it by now. As soon as he left the meeting, he told Kristen to delete
Starting point is 00:39:24 all their emails. Amborne was pretty sure they were having an affair, but there wasn't any proof, so all he could do was warn Kristen that her always being so close to Michael made the other workers uncomfortable. Yeah, I'm sure she gave a shit. In May, Kristen graduated Summa Cum Laude and was declared the outstanding graduate in the chemistry department, which meant she'd wear a gold honors court over her gown and would lead the commencement procession. This really was an outstanding achievement, and I think it clearly speaks to Kristen's self-destructive nature that it was right about this time that she started using meth again. She didn't even have to buy it. She just swiped it from the medical examiner's lab. It wasn't complicated.
Starting point is 00:40:07 Drugs taken from crime and death scenes were kept in a locked cabinet, but the key was kept in an unlocked desk that all the toxicologists had easy access to. In June, Greg and Kristen celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary, and on the same day, Greg started a new job. His mentor, Dr. Grunwald, had started a new biotech company, Orbigen, and brought Greg along as a business development manager, giving him shares in the company. Orbijin would really take off, so one half of the marriage was doing all right. And the other? Well, Kristen was on her fourth affair. and back on meth, so, you know, not great. She had one and a half feet out the door already.
Starting point is 00:41:02 When West Jet first took flight in 1996, the vibes were a bit different. People thought denim on denim was peak fashion. Inline skates were everywhere, and two out of three women rocked, the Rachel. While those things stayed in the 90s, one thing that hasn't is that fuzzy feeling you get when WestJet welcomes you on board. Here's to Westjetting since 96. Travel back in time with us and actually travel with us at westjet.com slash 30 years. Right after her anniversary, Michael left roses on her desk, and Kristen gushed an email at him. I love you, Michael. Everything I ever imagined wanting in a lifelong companion, husband, best friend, is present in you.
Starting point is 00:41:54 When I see you, I see my future. So you see getting cheated on a lot, just FYI. Did Michael see his own future with her? He certainly told a friend he was considering leaving Nicole for Kristen. But if she'd just thought about it, Kristen would have realized that just meant she occupied the Nicole position. You know, the woman that Michael cheated on constantly. He'd started slamming ass all over San Diego almost as soon as he'd stepped off the plane. He wasn't going to stop just because Kristen declared her undying love. At work, a homicide detective came to see Michael about an old case that had been ruled a drug overdose. The detective had new evidence that the victim had been deliberately poisoned with fentanyl.
Starting point is 00:42:36 Michael sent the blood work to another lab, having just learned that the San Diego medical examiner's office did not routinely test for fentanyl. Hmm. In July, Greg found one of Michael's love letters and was furious, threatening to tell the medical examiner about the affair. Kristen told him she deliberately left the letter out to try and get Greg to realize why she was seeking what she called an emotional attachment outside their marriage. The last message between Kristen and Michael in their emotional.
Starting point is 00:43:06 attachment had been her threatening to spank him after he said he had a hard on. Greg never called them Emmy. In August, Michael told his intern to bring him an envelope from a particular case, which contained fentanyl patches. Three months later, when the Emmy did an audit, the fentanyl patches were found to be missing. In September, Kristen started writing a journal. Prosecutors would later come to believe that this was intended purely a as a prop. It was full of flowery cliches as she wrote about her regrets and how unhappy she was with Greg, but didn't include anything at all about her affairs. She wasn't writing this for herself. She was writing it for someone else to read later.
Starting point is 00:43:50 That's freaking creepy. Later in the month, she planned to go to a conference in Milwaukee with Michael. Greg didn't want her to go, concerned with good reason, that she'd spend most of the trip in bed with her boss. Kristen told him he had nothing to worry about. Again, insisting her relationship with Michael was just an emotional attachment. Then she went right out and bought a book for Michael called 52 invitations to great sex, and wrote a message on the inside cover promising they'd soon be together forever. They went to the conference and made no attempt to disguise being a couple. In October, more fentanyl patches went missing from the lab from a case Kristen was working on.
Starting point is 00:44:30 She was high on meth almost constantly now. She'd lost weight and started developing acting. and was always going across the border to Tijuana to score. She never mentioned her escalating drug use in her diary, just listed the pros and cons of staying married to Greg, despite having firmly decided she wanted a new life with Michael. Michael was never mentioned at all. On November 2nd, according to Kristen, Greg came home early and caught her reading a love letter from Michael,
Starting point is 00:44:56 which he grabbed and read. He stormed around the apartment until Kristen grabbed the letter and shoved it in the shredder. Greg got the shredded paper out of the machine and spent hours trying to tape the pieces back together. Again, according to Kristen. Prosecutors would later contend that this whole business with the shredder never happened at all. It was just Kristen doing it herself to make another prop. She and Greg did fight, though, with Greg again threatening to tell the ME both about her affair and her drug use.
Starting point is 00:45:24 That shook Kristen up. She was worried he actually meant it this time. She stopped taking meth in case she was tested, and as soon as she got into work, she went into Michael's office to talk to him. On Sunday, November 5th, Greg got a call from his brother Bertrand, asking for help setting up their mom's AOL account on her laptop. It was Bertrand's birthday next week, and Greg said he and Kristen should come up to Thousand Oaks so they could all go out for dinner together.
Starting point is 00:45:51 Other than Kristen, Bertron was the last person Greg would ever speak to. Six days earlier, Kristen had bought a new cell phone, a burner. She hadn't used it at all until that night, when she had used it at all until that night, when he she had a two-minute call with Michael Robertson. She'd say later that she and Greg watched TV until about 11, then went to bed. Prosecutors believe that she started the process of murdering her husband that night. Their theory was that she spiked Greg's drink with a mixture of crushed oxycodone and clanasopam.
Starting point is 00:46:23 When Kristen woke at 7 a.m., Greg was unconscious beside her, and she started repeatedly dosing him with fentanyl, most likely via patches. She arrived at work at 8 a.m. looking disheveled and close to tears and went straight to Michael Robertson's office. Another toxicologist could see them through the glass door and thought they were having a very serious discussion. Half an hour later, she left the office and went straight home. She was soon back at the lab, but every hour or so, she'd hurry home. Kristen would later claim that Greg was sick and she was checking on him, but what she was actually checking on
Starting point is 00:47:01 was whether or not the fentanyl had killed him yet. She had plans, and shortly afternoon she went to Vaughn's grocery store and bought soup, cold medicine, and a single red rose. To try and cover her tracks, she paid cash, but by reflex, she handed the clerk her Vaughn's discount card, which obviously tied the transaction directly to her.
Starting point is 00:47:25 Whopsy-doodle. Greg was in a coma. He'd never regained consciousness after going to sleep the night before, but he wasn't dying fast enough for Kristen. Just after 3 o'clock, Michael Robertson left work in a hurry and met Kristen near her apartment. Then Kristen, maybe just Kristen, although it's not certain, went back to the apartment and injected Greg with a massive dose of fentanyl, an amount that was unquestionably lethal. An otherwise unexplained Mark would later be found on his left arm. The phone rang while she was in there, and God knows why, Kristen answered it.
Starting point is 00:48:05 It was one of his colleagues from work, where they were worried about him. Greg never just didn't turn up to work. Kristen told him Greg was sick and was sleeping now. Then she went back to work until about eight when she came home, and we're just going to read you the investigator's ultimate summary of what happened next. Inspired by American Beauty, she took the red rose she had bought in Vons and scattered the fresh petals around Greg's body,
Starting point is 00:48:30 dressed only in his pajama bottoms and lying on the bed. Then she took their favorite framed wedding photo, placed it by his head, and carefully left her journal open on a nearby table. She also wrote a note to Greg which he placed near the bed. Hi, sleepy, it read, I'm going to go shopping and get a wedding gift for Barb. Leftovers in the fridge for you.
Starting point is 00:48:51 I hope you feel better and I'll see you later. At about 9 p.m., satisfied that everything was in place, she took a quick shower and put on her pajamas. She then smoked some meth before taking one final look at her carefully orchestrated suicide scene. Then she called 911 from the cordless phone in the kitchen. So the idea was that Greg had discovered and read her journal about how unhappy she was in their marriage and had been so distraught that he'd killed himself in a sappy and dramatic manner that might fit in a movie, but was an incredibly unlikely way for someone to end their life in the real world.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Greg, Kristen, claimed, must have found some of her old oxycodone and clinazepam and deliberately overdosed. She knew those drugs would be found in his system. She also knew that the M.E.'s office did not routinely test for fentanyl. Her 911 call was hysterical. My husband is not breathing. He's cold. Through sobs, she said Greg hadn't been feeling well all day. I came home a little while to check on him, she said, and then I took my bath. There's no indication that Kristen ever joined Mensa, although she absolutely would have qualified.
Starting point is 00:50:05 But I think we have to give her an honorable mention in our Mensa Hall of Fame, our long list of brilliant people who turn into complete turnips as soon as they start doing crime. Greg set up this whole American beauty suicide scene while you were in the bathtub. Really? That's what you're going with? Was he secretly the flash? Yeah, Greg could shift into another time dimension. The dispatcher told Kristen the paramedics were on the way
Starting point is 00:50:31 and directed her to pull Greg onto the floor so that she could walk her through CPR. You're not supposed to do CPR on a soft surface. This case is so shockingly like the Corey Richens case, like especially this 9-1-1-all. It's chilling. Like, chilling. Well, these people do seem to use the same playbook.
Starting point is 00:50:48 It's interesting. Mm-hmm. Kristen's brain was clearly short-circuiting with panic, because after she'd pulled Greg's body onto the floor, she grabbed the rose petals off the bed and scattered them around him again and even got the wedding picture down and set it next to his head. Man, she really wanted that dramatic suicide scene. Good God, that was dumb.
Starting point is 00:51:08 Honey, you already told the dispatcher you found him on the bed. Why would you... Oh, whatever. Go ahead. You all see it. The dispatcher told her to blow two deep breaths into Greg's mouth. Kristen said she did, but really she just blew directly into the phone. She kept up the fake CPR noises as she walked over to unlock the front door for the paramedics. When they got there, they hurried through to the bedroom and found Greg's body surrounded by rose petals on the floor.
Starting point is 00:51:41 The paramedics noticed right away that there were no red marks on Greg's bare chest, which there would have been if Kristen had actually done any chest compressions. Greg was pale, blew around the lips. He looked dead, but he wasn't cold yet and had no rigor mortis. They intubated him and started an IV for cardiac meds, but no one there thought Greg was going to make it. And sadly, they were right. Just 12 minutes after an ambulance got him to Scripps Memorial Hospital,
Starting point is 00:52:07 he was pronounced dead. A nurse went to find Kristen to tell her. She found her in the ER waiting room, holding hands with Michael Robertson, who she explained was a co-worker who'd come to help her. Before Kristen left to go see Greg's body, Michael hugged her, then kissed her right on the mouth. Given the circumstances, that obviously stuck in the nurse's mind. These are brilliant people.
Starting point is 00:52:30 I want to remind you. These are geniuses that are responsible for solving words. On almighty. Like, I just embatt, like, this is my friend from work, smooch right on the lips. What do you mean? Yeah. When Kristen got back to her apartment after mid-finding, night, college police detectives were there. Michael was with her, which made the detective's
Starting point is 00:52:53 spidey senses switch. The whole situation already stunk like a dead mouse on the floorboards, and here was the newly made widow with a handsome companion. Soon, the medical examiner's death investigator arrived. She knew both Michael and Kristen, of course, but she didn't work in their office and had no idea about the affair. When she asked Kristen where the rose petals had come from, she said she had no idea. That Vons card was a really, really going to bite her in the ass. But you got to get your fuel points. I get it. I get it. Yeah, at least she saved that 25 cents. I mean, you know. The next morning, Michael Robertson addressed the toxicologists who worked for him and announced
Starting point is 00:53:32 the sad news that Kristen's husband had died. They all knew about the affair, so you can imagine the looks they were giving each other across the conference room. Several of them were immediately suspicious. And they weren't the only ones. When Michael's boss, Lloyd Amborne, got into work, he was immediately determined to avoid any conflict of interest. All of Greg's toxicology work would be done by an outside agency. He later testified that when he told Michael about outsourcing the investigation, quote, he expressed real surprise, shocked, I would say. Oh, is something not working out the way you hoped it would? Are we starting to get nervous? None of Greg's family believed he had killed himself. His brother Bertrand had been the last person to speak with him, and Greg had made
Starting point is 00:54:18 plans to come up for his birthday, and they all knew Greg had never taken drugs. A weepy Kristen had come up with her brother Brent to talk about funeral arrangements. Brent and Bertrand knew each other pretty well from playing soccer, and when Kristen said she was going back to stay in the apartment, Bertron told Brent that it might not be good for her to stay in the same place that Greg had died. Yeah, you're probably right, Brent said. Maybe we can stay with Mike. Kristen immediately looked alarmed. No, no, she said, that wouldn't be appropriate. he's my supervisor. Oh, I thought he was there to help you.
Starting point is 00:54:52 Co-worker there to help you. You know, Greg's brothers, they were not born yesterday. They chased down the medical examiner and insisted Greg would never kill himself, especially not with drugs. When they mentioned Mike, the Emmy told them he'd heard rumors about Kristen and Michael Robertson, but when he questioned Michael, he denied everything. He promised to look carefully at Greg's death and call to delay the cremation of the body. Meanwhile, one of Kristen's fellow toxicologists was calling the police and letting them know about Kristen and Michael's affair, which, you know, always makes a good motive for murder.
Starting point is 00:55:28 The college police handed the case over to the San Diego homicide, and all of a sudden, Kristen and Michael were in deep shit. The independent blood work found the oxycodone and clanasopam that Kristen had suggested Greg had used to kill himself, but it also found the massive amounts of fentanyl that the ME's office would have missed. missed. That blew up the already dubious suicide theory. There was no used needle or patches to indicate Greg had given himself the fentanyl, and the amount in his body would have almost immediately left him incapable of sprinkling petals on himself. A search warrant at the ME lab uncovered that some fentanyl was missing. The only drugs missing were fentanyl, meth, oxycodone, and clanasopam. They also found a crack pipe, which tested positive both for meth and for Kristen Rossum's DNA, so all the missing drugs were found either in Greg or in Kristen.
Starting point is 00:56:25 Detective Lori Agnew brought Michael in for an interview, during which he was very careful and precise and also sounded like he was about to poopie in his pants. He denied any kind of inappropriate relationship with Kristen. While the investigation continued, it probably won't surprise you to hear that both Kristen and Michael were fired, Kristen for lying about her past and current drug use, and Michael for not reporting that drug use even though he knew about it. A forensic computer examination turned up emails between them that they thought had been deleted. Nothing directly incriminating, just reams of gross slush about how they were soulmates and destined to be together forever. It sounded like a couple who wouldn't let anything get in the way of that.
Starting point is 00:57:09 Kristen was arrested on June 25, 2001, and charged with Greg's murder. And to the shock of many, Michael Robertson, was not. In fact, a month earlier, he jetted back to Australia, ostensibly to visit his sick mother, and if you believe that, I don't know how to help you. Nicole divorced him, and he apparently has a new wife and family now, and has somehow managed to claw back some kind of professional career. For a long time, people thought he escaped all charges. He was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in Kristen's trial. In fact, prosecutors secretly charged him with obstruction in 2006, probably hoping to nab him by surprise if he ever returned to the U.S., but he never has,
Starting point is 00:57:54 and it seems unlikely Australia will extradite him on a charge like that. He's always proclaimed his innocence in Greg's death, but it looks like everyone who investigated and prosecuted the case thinks he was in on it, because, in my opinion, that is the logical conclusion. I'm interested to know what you all think. Actually, I'm pretty sure I know what you all think, and I agree with you. And I have seen this guy on a true crime show, by the way, like talking about evidence in another murder case. It's just unreal. The case against Kristen was mainly circumstantial, but it was a strong one.
Starting point is 00:58:30 She was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. A few years later, Greg's family sued both her and San Diego County, and the jury ordered Kristen to pay over $100 million in punitive. damages, which the family will never see, but the jury wanted to make sure Kristen could never profit from selling her story. Hell of an ending for a woman who had so much potential. Kristen could have made herself a great life, but like so many of the people we've covered on this show, her selfishness and narcissism made that impossible. I suspect she feels very out of place in prison, but I've got news for you, honey. You're right where you belong. Now, before we go,
Starting point is 00:59:14 Don't forget about our two amazing live shows coming up. First, we've got Summer Camp, September 10th through 13th, an amazing four-day festival in Equinunk, Pennsylvania, hosted by Dan and Lindsay Cummins of Time Suck and Scared to Death. We'll be performing live alongside them and the podcast's Astonishing Legends, in addition to a roster of awesome stand-up comedians and local bands. Go to Bad Magic Productions.com for more info and to buy tickets. Then we've got our True Crime Cruise, Crime Wave 2.0, February,
Starting point is 00:59:44 8 through the 12th, 2027. If you want to come on vacation to the Bahamas with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like case file, true crime garage, last podcast on the left and scared to death, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now and they're going fast. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crime wave at c.com slash campfire and book your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us. The great thing is you can pay all at once or set up a payment plan and pay it off over time. So get on it, y'all. That's CrimeWave atC.com slash campfire.
Starting point is 01:00:20 So that was a wild one, right, campers? You know, we'll have another one for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the true crime campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to John, Diane, Dutch listener. There are some wicked true crime stories.
Starting point is 01:00:41 I love that username. and Rebecca with 1C. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out. Patrons of our show get every episode ad-free, at least a day early, sometimes more, plus tons of extra content, like patrons-only episodes and hilarious post-show discussions.
Starting point is 01:01:00 And when you join the $5 and up categories, you get even more cool stuff. A free sticker, a rad enamel pin, or fridge magnet while supplies last, virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire.
Starting point is 01:01:16 For eight years, we've been asking the same question over and over again. How did this happen? My name's Mandy. And I'm Melissa, and we're the host of Moms and Mysteries, the True Crime podcast with over 55 million downloads. We're two Florida moms who are obsessed with mysteries. Each week, we do deep dives into fascinating true crime stories. We cover everything from infamous cases like Casey Anthony to the bizarre and complex crimes
Starting point is 01:01:47 right here in our home state, like the shocking murder of FSU professor Dan Markell. We bring you the facts, but with warmth and width, you'd only get from two friends who have been hooked on mysteries since childhood. Join us for new episodes of Moms and Mysteries every Tuesday and Thursday. Listen to Moms and Mysteries on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcast. Do you love hair-raising allegedly true stories about the paranormal? Then you should summon the podcast scared to death. It's the popular horror series with more than 60 million downloads to its name. and is co-hosted by me, Dan Cummins.
Starting point is 01:02:19 And me, Lindsay, co-host, and also Dan's wife. Each week on Scared to Death, we share bone-chilling tales from old books and creepy corners of the web, and even some submitted by our listeners, all designed to make you want to sleep with the lights on. Think you can handle the horror? Tune in to Scared to Death every Tuesday at the stroke of midnight to find out.

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