True Crime with Kendall Rae - Yoga Twins Drive Off a Cliff in Maui: Was It an Accident or Murder?

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Check out Kendall's other podcasts: The Sesh & Mile Higher Follow Kendall! YouTube Twitter Instagram Facebook Mile Higher Zoo REQUESTS: General case suggestion form: https://bit.ly/32kwPly Form for people directly related/ close to the victim: https://bit.ly/3KqMZLj Discord: https://discord.com/invite/an4stY9BCN CONTACT: For Business Inquiries - [e-mail]

You will fail. So what? Everybody does. But your gym, your watch, your yoga pants, they pretend you won't. So when you miss a day, eat the pancakes. Give up on a workout. You failed? Seriously, what the hell?

We're body. We've been a part of that too, but not anymore. A body where rejecting, an embracing reality. Not in a pizza Monday kind of way, in a loving your whole life kind of way. In a, this workout is fun, and it's okay if I take a week off kind of way. And then, I'm eating healthy, and it's okay if I indulge kind of way. In a, I like myself no matter what kind of way. Yeah, you will fail. We all

will. But we're not going to let that be the end. You see that? We're already making progress. So let's keep going. We are Body. Start your free trial at Body.com. That's B-O-D-I-D-C-O-D-I-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D-C-O-D- Hello guys, welcome back to my channel. So the case that we're going to be talking about today is very, very interesting and pretty controversial. I think you guys will be pretty split when it comes to this case. So let's not waste any more time. Let's just dive right in. So today we're going to be talking about two women who were known as the yoga twins. Their names are Allison and Ann Dato. Their identical twins that were born in Utica, New

York in 1978. And they also have a sister named Amy who is three years older than them. When the twins were only five, their mother died and this was very hard on them as you can imagine, growing up without a mother. So like I said, the twins were identical and they had a lot of common personality traits as well, but they were a little bit different. Allison was known as the one with a big dominant personality and Anne was a bit more reserved

and known as very sweet kind and level headed and they were the type of twins that did everything together and I mean everything. Their relationship was borderline unhealthy. I'd say it was unhealthy. These two work constantly together. They even showered together. They definitely had the twin telepathy thing going on. They could figure out what each other needed at any moment or what the other was going to say before they said it. They're just very on the same page and they loved each other a lot, but they also hated each other in a way. These two had such a toxic and twisted relationship.

People who knew them said it seemed like they were one soul in two bodies. And like a magnet, they had to be together at all times. They were inseparable and finished each other's sentences, but they also fought like crazy. All throughout their life, it was like that. You know, ups and downs, horrible fights, and then moments of love, and it was just a cycle.

They attended Notre Dame High School, and they were both cheerleaders there, and while they were there, they were known as the cheerleading twins. They were definitely popular growing up in high school. They were also on the track team and involved in cross-country, but all throughout high school they didn't have their mother and that definitely took a toll on them.

But as they grew older and grew out of cheerleading, they eventually got into yoga and you would think that that would really bring the zen to someone's life, right? It would really kind of calm them down, maybe stop the fighting, not the case. They definitely put on the act that they were these very zen yoga twins as they were eventually called, but in reality they were fighting all the time. So eventually the twins decided that they wanted to get into the yoga business for their career and they wanted to open a yoga studio together. So they decided to open one in Palm Beach County, Florida. They found an open space, put down the money on it, together, and they called it Twin Power Yoga Studio. They first opened it in 2008,

and they would own it until 2014, so a pretty long stretch. And their yoga studio actually did very well, almost immediately when they opened it, only took a couple of months before they were really doing well. They became kind of famous in the town, actually. They had really big personalities. They were really doing well. They became kind of famous in the town, actually. They had really big personalities. They were just well-known.

They did a lot of socializing and they drove around the town and matching porches. They had really made it big by this point in their lives and they ended up living in a nice high-rise building in Palm Beach. They were very fancy, dressed very well. And they were all about yoga and spreading the message of how much yoga

can help you in your life. But we love the energy. West Palm Beach is the heartbeat in this entire district. In Twin Power Yoga, our tagline is power the body, power the soul that's exactly what you get in our hot power yoga discipline. But like I said, behind the scenes, they were still fighting as much as they used to.

They were fighting like teenage girls. Eventually because they had such big personalities, they were approached to do this reality TV show. And it was going to be about these two twins that Ranioga studio and kind of all the drama in their life. I can totally see that being a show. But it ended up not moving forward for whatever reason. And they were really bummed out about this. But when they thought that it was still going to happen, the producers had convinced them to rent a bigger nicer yoga space. And they took their advice and went ahead and did it.

Even though the show didn't end up working out, they still ended up moving to this nicer yoga studio and could not afford the bills for it. So now they don't have this reality show that they thought they were going to get a nice paycheck from and They also are paying for a way bigger fancier studio than they needed and because they couldn't afford it It wasn't long till they started spiraling into debt which only causes more stress on a relationship So in 2014 they ended up just closing their yo studio without warning and they literally just dipped out of there

They just abandoned the studio, didn't pay employees, didn't refund people for their memberships and it really pissed a lot of people off in the community. They felt totally ripped off by the twins. I had gotten a phone call from several employees saying that they had went to the West Palm Beach

location in the morning to open it up and everything was gone. Marian Oliver worked at the studio. She says the twins often seemed unstable. They just got more sporadic. They were just kind of all over the place. Woman, they were calm and nice. The next minute they were just kind of all over calling

and wanting to know different questions and one didn't know what the other one was doing. So it just ended up being chaotic most of the time. A lot of different websites report this. However, I would like to note that one of the twins did say that this wasn't true and that they did pay out the membership fees and the refunds and stuff so I'm not sure what actually ended up happening. It's not really that important to this case but people were pretty mad at them and the whole thing was super stressful so they ended up leaving town over it and they moved to Utah Park City, Utah actually and not only that

They ended up changing their names as well and they changed their names because they were planning to write a book and their names They become pretty tarnished on the internet from the whole yoga studio fiasco So they wanted a fresh start. So Allison ended up changing her name to Alexandria and Anne ended up changing her name to Inastasia. Eventually after they got settled in Park City, Utah, they ended up opening another yoga studio. But this did not work out so well. It was not a success like the other one and quickly crashed and burned and they ended up in over a hundred fifty thousand dollars worth of debt. At this point they were forced to file for bankruptcy.

And during this time, the twins were so stressed out, they were fighting a lot, and they started developing a drinking problem together. There was actually a time while they were living there that the police were called to their residents, because they were fighting, and they were drinking a lot. So that was on their record. So obviously during this time, the twins were going through a really rough patch and were very depressed. They did not like living in Utah. So eventually they decided to pack everything up

and they headed to the most beautiful place on earth in my opinion, Hawaii. This was in 2015 and what's interesting is the twins said that they were going to Hawaii because they were going on a Religious quest whatever that means but once they were there It didn't take long for them to find trouble. It was their first Christmas there It was actually Christmas Eve and they were out drinking. They weren't at a club or anything

They were at a restaurant and drink a lot So much so that they ended up getting in a car accident on their way home, and yes, one of them drove home. And it was bad. They ended up sliding into a ditch. It was very scary. And this didn't happen far away from where the restaurant actually was. And when the police got there,

they were outside fighting with the owner of the restaurant and also fighting with each other very violently. When I say that they fought a lot, it's not just verbal screaming. It's not just like bitching at each other. It was fighting physically. They would hit each other, scratch each other, bite each other, pull each other's hair. They would go at it like little girls and they had drank so much that night that they were saying things to the owner that didn't even make sense such as we will send the mafia

after you to come take care of you. So the two of them ended up getting arrested for disorderly conduct and terroristic threatening. So after this in 2016, the girls ended up finding some guys. Their names were Lonnie Dickerson and Federico Bailey and they started dating them. So Federico was dating Anastasia. And at one point, the two of them were gonna go camping. Alexandria was gonna stay home and it was just gonna be Federico and Anastasia.

So the two of them went to Costco to get some supplies for their camping trip. And when they got there, they realized that she accidentally had Alexandria's credit card. So she didn't use it. She went home to get her own credit card. But when she went home, somehow Alexandria decided that she was going to go with them and the three of them left

together for the camping trip. Now during this time, Federica was really trying to help them with their drinking problem. He wasn't allowing them to drink it all on this camping trip, and so Alexandria decided that she was going to sneak a bottle of wine onto the trip. But Federico ended up finding it and got really upset at her about having the alcohol in the car. So there was already a lot of tension over that.

And Anastasia was kind of mad at her sister for doing that. So eventually they get to Camping site, which was probably gorgeous. Camping in Maui, I'm sure, is fantastic. But Federico goes out into nature to use the bathroom. And when he gets back, the girls had actually gotten back into the car and left on the road to Hana. I have driven

on the road to Hana several times. It is one of the most beautiful roads in the world, but it is incredibly scary and dangerous. Every time I've driven on it, even though I've never personally driven, I've always been the passenger. I always get a little low-key scared because I'm very afraid of heights. And you are just driving on cliffs, like with huge drop-offs and it's extremely twisty. Like the whole way, there's turns and twists. There's a lot of times where you're coming around curves and you can't see who's coming around the other side.

It's not very well maintained, so it's really bumpy. And it's just known as a super dangerous drive. So the twins are in their car and they're driving on the road to Hana and they're fighting. At one point while they were driving they came across this woman on the side of the road and she ended up getting in the car with them. She actually happened to also be an identical twin from New York so they kind of chatted with her for a while and eventually they dropped her off further down the road. But this is when things started to really go bad inside the car. So they continued driving down the road and as they're driving there was this guy behind them and he said that he could see through the windows

that these two were going at it. He could see their arms flailing around, they were punching each other, pulling hair. He could kind of see the car moving around a little bit, very scary on the road to Hana. You're literally driving on a giant cliff. You have to be so focused on what you're doing. It's so incredibly dangerous. I can't imagine fighting with someone and trying to drive. Those guys watching them and he's kind of freaking out,

but before he can do anything, suddenly Alexandria slams on the gas and turns the wheel to the left and goes flying off the side of the cliff. The car ended up dropping 200 feet onto a bunch of rocks. This was the only area around this cliff that didn't have water. The car flew off kind of like this

and then ended up dropping down onto the backside. So front license plates facing the sky. And luckily this was a Ford Explorer. So it was a decent sized car. If it was a smaller car, there's a good chance that both of them would have died. So every day, tons of people drive on the road to Hana. There's always people going through.

And so it didn't take long before a crowd formed around this cliff looking down at their car. Someone called 911, of course, and a lot of witnesses started to see that one person in the car looked like they were still moving around. So they thought maybe there was a chance that one of them, or both of them, had survived. When police got there, there were a bunch of cars

parked around the cliff, and they started interviewing people about what they saw. They also saw severe skid marks on the street right away, which told them that the driver had not tried to hit the brakes before going off the cliff. They figured out that Alexandria actually had done a really sharp turn to go off the cliff. It was very out of the way, in a sense.

So they dropped first responders down to the crash site by helicopter to see if either of them were alive. And when they got down to the wreckage, it didn't take them long to realize that Anastasia had not made it. She had broken so many bones in her body that one of the paramedics that it was like lifting up a bag of bones. However, Alexandria was very lucky. She ended up surviving the crash.

She sustained a few rib fractures. Her arm was at a sling. She's able to walk. It's really a miracle that she is here today. When they pulled Anastasia out of the car, they discovered that she had clumps of blonde hair in her hands. They assumed that this was Alexandria, and it made sense because that witness behind them

said that he saw them pulling each other's hair out So Alexandria made it out of the crash really un-injured. She was super super lucky And what was really strange to investigators right off the bat is when they got to the scene She was not frantic or upset at all. She didn't act like she had just drove off a cliff and that her sister had just died She didn't act like she had just drove off a cliff and that her sister had just died. Immediately, people thought it was really strange that she wasn't asking if her sister was okay or frantic or crying about her sister in any way when it was clear something that had happened to her. So she was brought to the hospital and was interviewed by police there. And they said that when they talked to her, she just seemed so disconnected from what had just happened to her. She did not seem like she had just happened to her. She did not

seem like she had just driven off a cliff. And she didn't seem interested in talking to them at all and didn't want to answer their questions, which is kind of odd. Apparently she was actually kind of irritated that the police were at the hospital and the first thing that she said to them was, why are you here? And even at the hospital, she still didn't ask anything about her twin sister's condition. The police actually had to be the ones to bring it up to her and tell her that she had passed away. And when she found out, they said she had a complete blank stare on her face and shoved no emotion at all. And the weirdest part of all of this is when their father found out he was really upset that Alexandria didn't die.

He actually said it should have been that bitch Alexandria. So he essentially was saying that the wrong twin had died that day, crazy. So pretty much immediately investigators were suspicious, especially because so many witnesses said that they saw them fighting. They started to think, is it possible

that Alexandria drove off that cliff on purpose? So they started an investigation. They quickly discovered that Alexandria's blood alcohol content was three times the legal limit. This means she was extremely intoxicated while driving and should not have been driving on the road to Hana. And at the time of the crash, the girls didn't even have their IDs on them. So they weren't even able to fully determine which twin had died. So they had to go

to their house and find some type of ID to prove that Alexandria was the one who was still alive. So they went to her house and Lonnie Dickerson, her boyfriend, answered the door and they asked him to help confirm her identity at the hospital. And strangely enough, when they told him about the accident, what had happened to his girlfriend, and that her sister, Anastasia, had died, he had no reaction. He looked at them with a blank stare. Very weird.

So during all this, Federico, who is Anastasia's boyfriend, is still at the campsite, wondering where the twins went. And Word didn't make it back to him about what happened, so he ended up sleeping at the campsite wondering where the twins went. And Word didn't make it back to him about what happened, so he ended up sleeping at the campsite that night. And the next morning, he hitched a ride back to his friend's house in Hana. And this is where he was informed about the crash and that Anastasia had died in the car accident.

Now, of course, he was shocked. I mean, he was really upset, but to him, the whole thing immediately made sense. According to Federico, seven days before the crash, Alexandria had told him that she was going to kill Anastasia. He also claimed that at one point, she said, I killed my sister as if it had already happened. And this is before the crash.

Federico didn't fully explain why she wanted to kill her sister, but it seemed like there was a lot of jealousy in the relationship. Looking pretty much the same was very hard for them and it caused them to become very competitive and compare themselves to one another. They were constantly trying to want up each other and be better than the other. It seemed like they just totally resented being twins, but at the same time could not be away from each other. It was the most crazy love-hate toxic relationship ever. And this is very, very strange,

but apparently at one point, according to Federico, Alexandria had told Anastasia that they were going to be leaving the planet on the 30th. And Federico said when he first heard this, he thought the two of them might be planning to take their own lives together. But I guess he didn't think too much of it because he didn't do anything about it.

So hearing all of this information from Federico, definitely concerned investigators. Was it possible that Alexandria drove off of the cliff because she wanted to take her sister's life when she tried to take both of their lives or was it just an accident? I mean, there are three totally different possibilities here. So obviously, they have to look at the car.

And luckily, this was a new enough car that it had a black box similar to like an airplane. They can see what was happening in the car at the time of the crash as far as acceleration rates and everything like that. And when they looked at this, they were able to determine that there was no breaking when Alexandria drove off the cliff.

There was a 100% acceleration, so she flew off that cliff full speed. So this made please start to believe that this accident wasn't an accident, that this was intentional. And like I mentioned earlier, the area that they landed on was the only rocky area in that range.

It seemed like someone had purposely chosen to drive off that specific area because they would land on the rocks and not the water. And this was one of the only parts of the highway that at the time didn't have a guardrail. So it seemed to investigators that maybe Alexandria had planned to drive off at that specific spot. They figured out that Alexandria didn't die

because she had protection from the steering wheel and from the airbags versus anesthesia had been kind of bouncing around in the car more. They thought that maybe it was possible that anesthesia was pulling on Alexandria's hair and that's what made her drive off the cliff. And investigators re-enacted this and they determined that it's likely

that Alexandria did this on purpose. So of course, if they are going to try and press charges on her, they need to have a motive. And after they did a little digging, they found out that Federico and Anastasia were going to be opening their own business on another Hawaiian island. They were going to move away from Alexandria together and she did not like that. They said that Alexander didn't want anyone else to be with her sister and they thought, you know, maybe she did this to kill both of them. So eventually with all of this circumstantial evidence building up, they did charge Alexander with second degree murder of her sister. However, when police went to a restaurant or house, she had already left. She had heard that they

were going to be arresting her and fled. But obviously Maui is an island and the only way to leave is by plane or by boat. Luckily cops were able to quickly figure out that she was booked on a flight back to the mainland. So they quickly went to the Maui airport and when they got there they found out that her plane had actually been grounded. There was some type of mechanical issue so she was not able to leave and actually went to a nearby hotel And that's where they found her and arrested her. So during her preliminary hearing, Alexandria pled not guilty. In the footage, you can see that she's wearing a sling on her arm from the accident. There's been a lot of criticism that maybe she was playing up her injury for sympathy. And what's crazy is during the hearing, the judge stated that they didn't have enough probable cause to hold Alexandria

for the charge of second-degree murder. So he ended up releasing her and dismissing the murder charge. And now that she was free, she ended up booking a flight to New York. However, when she was in New York, she was actually rested for swarving in and out of her lane and almost hitting a New York state police

investigators vehicle. She took a breathalyzer test and it showed her blood alcohol content was 0.26, which is more than three times the legal limit once again. So, Debrae hasn't learned anything from all of this. Not only that, but she wasn't even wearing a seatbelt at the time. When she went to the police station, she refused to be fingerprinted. She didn't want to be photograph, and she also refused to say where she lived or tell them anything about her. So she was taken into custody for ADWI

and was held on a $5,000 cash bail in Delaware County. And pretty quickly, a judge ended up tripling her bail up to $15,000 or a $30,000 cash bond. And this was because authorities actually found out that she had ADWI back in Utah. And at one point in that case, she had paid the bail and fled the state. So they had to make the bail higher.

So during all of this, a grand jury was being put together back in Maui. And surprisingly, at this point, they ended up enditing her for her sister's death after all. So this is when Alexandria was taken back to Maui to face her charges. So the trial started on January 29, 2018. And going into this, she was super, super freaked out

because she was facing life in prison. So during the trial, the guy who was behind them when they were driving ended up taking the stand and told the court about how he saw Alexandria's hair being pulled by Anastasia. That she was pulling on her hair and kind of pulling her body over to the passenger side, yanking on her.

And what did you see? I saw a woman that had, it was kind of a career here. And I saw what appeared to be fighting between the woman and the hair was being yanked on the yanking, the head of the driver, and the driver said it was being pulled to the side. And this support of the theory that Alexandra just simply lost control because her sister was attacking her. And then Federico ended up taking the stand who was Anastasia's boyfriend.

And he said that after Anastasia had died, Alexandria ended up taking a shower with him. Not only that, he said that Alexandria started wearing all of Anastasia's clothes, which really just rubs me the wrong way. And I saw Alexander. I gave him a shower, a marker here, and he sat down after that. I called Alexander, and I was asked to call him. He was put on the dress by the staff. He started to make dress in the tree.

Did you question her about wearing her clothes? No, no, I saw her and the staff was dressed in the tree. But during the trial, the defense argued that Anastasia actually had caused the accident herself by attacking her sister by pulling on her hair. They also pointed out that there was a tire on the vehicle that had just been replaced with a spare. They had just gotten a flat the day before and they said this tire was kind of flimsy. Alexandra claimed that the road felt kind of wet that day and that the tire just didn't have the best traction. The defense also brought in an accident reconstructionist named Wayne Slagel. And Wayne actually testified that the black box

showed that Alexandria did not drive off the cliff on purpose. He said that it was likely because there's so much jerking in the car going on because the fighting, that that is what actually caused the accident. The opinion is this consistent with a person who is intent unintentionally driving on the cliff. Based on the steering chart that I put up there, And Alexandra had claimed that she didn't remember a lot of the accent because, you know, probably because she was drunk, but also because it was so traumatic. And it just left her shocked, and she kind of blocked out a lot of the details.

So this trial was actually just a bench trial, meaning that there's no jury, the judge makes the final decision. And after hearing all of the evidence available, the judge hinted the conclusion that Alexandria was not responsible for the accident or for her sister and a stage as death. So she was immediately acquitted.

The defendant lost control of the vehicle, and maybe she did input. The last turn, she may have acquitted. Now of course I really want to know what you guys think. I know you guys will be split as always. So many opinions on the internet. A lot of people think that Alexandria got away with murder. That she purposely clandered the whole thing. You know, a lot of people think that she wanted to take her own life as well and it just didn't work.

And then of course, there's people who think that it was just an accident and it was caused by them fighting. To this day, Alexandra maintains her innocence. She talks about how horrific that whole day was and how hard this whole thing has been on her. She recently did a Dr. Phil interview, which as you guys know, I cannot put those clips in because Dr. Phil will claim me in about two seconds. But other than that, she's kept pretty quiet. I think this whole thing's been pretty traumatic for her and, you you know there's a lot of negativity surrounding the case on the internet and she kind of just wants to know part of it. She's explained that she actually did feel very

sorry for her sister and misses her a lot and was devastated by everything that happened. But some people just don't believe her. So I'm really curious about what you guys think. I think the stuff that Federico said definitely makes me think it possibly could have been an attempt to kill both of them, but I don't know, at the end of the day, I just don't think there's enough evidence. And the fact that the guy behind them saw the fighting,

you know, it's not like she just made all that up, that definitely helps her case as well. That is gonna be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe

out there. At Croger, you can find the highest quality products at a great price in every aisle every day with Croger brand. So you can stock up on your household favorites that are tried, tested, and loved by you. Because when you get the products you love at great prices, it feels like winning. Shop now, in-store or online. Kruger, fresh for everyone! Dr. Reg here. If you find yourself getting particular about where you get the weather, you may be turning

into your parents. Looks like it might rain. Let's see what Cory from Channel 2 has to say. He's something else. I like him better than Harris from Channel 5. You could just look up the weather on your phone. I like Cory from Channel 2. But we can help you compare rates on home insurance with home code Explorer. Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates in third party insurance. Comparison rates are not available in all states or situations. Price is very based on how you buy.