True Crime with Kimbyr - Snake Breeder Murder: Ben Renick Part 1

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

In this episode, Kimbyrleigha dives into the mysterious and chilling case of Ben Renick, a successful 29-year-old snake breeder found dead in his reptile facility. Initially suspected to be an animal-related accident, the truth was far more sinister. Ben’s wife, Linley Renck, becomes a key suspect as investigators unravel a web of deception, financial struggles, and secret affairs. With shocking confessions and detailed testimonies, the episode uncovers the dark motives behind Ben’s murder. Tune in to hear how love, betrayal, and greed led to a coldblooded killing. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, everyone. Welcome back. My name is Kimberlya. If you've never been here before, nice to finally meet you. Today's case is a very interesting one. And so far, it's probably one of the most famous people that I've had a chance to talk about. And there's a lot of very heartbreaking and twisted things to talk about in this case. I am sure that most of you, if not all of you, remember the height of the pandemic when Tiger King came out on Netflix. That documentary, took me on a wild ride. Ethically, I'm not sure they did the best job, but it was entertaining, especially while locked up inside our homes.

Well, when I first started researching this case, it reminded me of the Tiger King, and not just because we're going to be talking about animals, snakes, but how many versions of the story of what really happened to exist. So buckle up as I tell you about Benjamin Blue Bridge Rennick, a world-famous snake breeder who sadly passed away in 2007. But first, I need to take you all the way back to 1950 when Ben's father was born. Frank James Renick was raised in Rala, Missouri, a southern city with a population of about 12,000

people. Frank's grandparents and parents were all in the pet food manufacturing industry. And Frank grew up wanting to follow in his family's footsteps and become a successful businessman. When he was in his 20s, he moved out of the house and got married to a woman named Nancy, and he was determined to establish himself on his own. But in your 20s, it can be quite a roller coaster. And Frank's career was going great, but his marriage wasn't. And soon they separated.

Frank was running Bow Wow Dog Food Company. This was a pet food manufacturing company. And that's when he met Charlene Marie Kamesh. Charlene actually went by Kim, good name, with friends. And she was two years younger than Frank. She loved animals, kids traveling, getting to. drinks with friends and doing some interior decorating. Kim and Frank ended up getting married on August 18th, 1980 in Las Vegas, and I bet that was a blast. They returned to Missouri and started planning a family

together. Frank eventually sold his company Bow Wow Dog Food to Conagra, and with the money, he was able to move out to the country and start a new business and provide for his growing family. The Renix moved to a small town, two hours north, with a population of only seven, hundred people, New Florence in Montgomery County, Missouri. It's about an hour and 15 minute drive from the center of St. Louis, and it's so small that it doesn't even have a hospital. This area is known for its farming, wine and spirit tasting, and families live on huge plots of farmland and stay there for generations. Frank and Kim lived in a large farmhouse on a 72-acre property that bordered the Danville Conservation Area. Kim gave birth to their first son, Samuel Bryant-Kemish Renick, in the mid-80s.

He was outgoing, fun-loving, a little bit brash, and the most adorable mix of Kim and Frank. Not too long after, Kim was pregnant again, and this time with Baby Ben, Benjamin Blue Bridge Renick was welcomed into the world on August 4, 1987, in a St. Louis hospital. He was a quiet kid. He grew up on the farm surrounded by nature. the first few years of Ben's life were magical. He and Sam had daily adventures around the property, playing hide-and-seek, finding buried treasure, fishing in the pond, and collecting insects.

Even then, as just a four-year-old, Ben loved animals. He liked lizards and turtles, and he loved snakes. Ben was begging his family for a pet snake. And Kim told him, when he was old enough and a little more responsible, they would take him to the pet store and he could pick out any animal he wanted. I mean, they lived on a farm, but it wasn't paradise forever because in September of 1992, tragedy struck the family, the first of a long series of misfortune events. While the renecks were visiting friends in St. Louis, a huge, and I mean huge gas explosion occurred in their farmhouse. The gas plugs had been removed

from a gas line, causing it to malfunction, and I don't know anything about gas plugs and why they would have been removed, but all I know is that their house was gone from the map. Random junk and insulation were raining down on New Florence for over an hour after this explosion. That is pretty crazy. But luckily, none of them were hurt. Poor Ben, who had just turned five, lost all of his favorite toys and the house that he'd grown up in. But the Renix were resilient people. Frank had plenty of money from Bow Wow, and he and Kim were able to rebuild the farmhouse,

and it was bigger and better than ever. And that's the way to persevere in the midst of complete calamity. And I commend anyone who can pick themselves up and try again. The new house was 10,000 square feet. It was decked out. It had a pool and a diving board at the pool. And Frank and Kim worked so hard for everything they had. But they were very happy to be able to spoil their kids

with whatever new toys and games they wanted. But they were human and they had vices. And they both suffered from alcoholism. Their drinking got worse after the stress of rebuilding this new home. It's tough managing addiction. And Ben decided from a very early age that he didn't want to be anything like his parents, partying and drinking no way. He preferred to keep to himself.

He didn't drink. He didn't go on party or do drugs. And he was fine with that. It suited him. He'd seen that side of what can happen and he wanted nothing to do with it. In 1993, Kim started having health issues. And sadly and shockingly, She was diagnosed with cancer at only 41 years old, and that is how old I am right now,

and I cannot imagine because I feel so young, dealing with something that tragic at such a young age. This was a huge blow for the family. Kim was determined to fight this disease, and even in moments where Frank was overwhelmed, Kim, was his rock. She was devoted to their children, and she wanted to be there for every single milestone. One of those new milestones came when Ben proved that he was received, he was responsible enough to take care of a pet. Kim and Frank took him to the local pet store, and can you guess what he picked out? A yellow rat snake. I did not used to be a snake person, but I've learned that rat snakes, ball pythons, corn snakes, and even king snakes are all harmless. They're

non-venomous and they're actually pretty low maintenance pets. They're definitely not for everyone, but some people get truly obsessed. I did recently see a cute video of a guy in the woods giving a snake a drink of water from a cup. But like I said, I've never been that into snakes. But Ben was one of those people who was, and if you got him talking about snakes, he would not shut up about them. He collected snakes all through elementary and middle school, putting them in small stacking drawers that he cleaned on a weekly basis. And by the time he reached high school, Ben was purchasing ball pythons, reticulated pythons, Burmese pythons, and even anacondas. Ball pythons were his absolute favorite. They were small, docile, and they were beautiful to him.

Snake collecting is actually a very intense hobby. And Ben's parents weren't sure if it was going to go anywhere, but he sure was spending a lot of money on snakes. Sam definitely did not understand his brother's obsession. He was not interested and didn't want to touch them, but he had to admit, his brother was pretty cool. While Ben's hobby was taking off, Frank opened a new pet food company in 1996. It was called Spectrum Pet Care and other associations. including SPS brands and consolidated food group. They were all onto the umbrella of Spectrum.

Frank was the CEO. Spectrum made organic pet food and treats, and it was very successful even in its early years. It had a lot of investors. That was a good thing, because Frank had to pay for Kim's medical bills, as well as help out with their elderly parents at the time. In 2002, Ben's grandma sadly passed away,

and this was another difficult time for the Renix. That same year, Ben was a freshman in Montgomery County R2 High School, and Ben was artistic and nerdy. He got into a heavy metal band, and he learned to play the drums, and he played drums in this high school band for a while. And on the weekends, Ben took care of all of his snakes. Sometimes he would do yard work for a guy named Michael Scarlett, a handyman who lived about a half a mile away, and Ben was the only kid in the neighborhood who ever offered to help Michael. and Michael called Ben very hardworking and friendly. By the time Ben graduated high school in 2006,

he decided to turn his collection of snakes into a snake breeding business called Renex reptiles. He bred his first clutch of ball pythons in 2007. Now, this process is called pairing, and it's where Ben would put one female snake with one male snake to produce what they call a clutch. And a clutch had between six and 15 eggs, which would sit in an incubator,

and that's how you get baby python and I have to admit they're pretty cute. Then Ben would sell these snakes online. At 21 years old, he had 20 clutches per season, so you was selling hundreds of snakes. And in the reptile world, pairing pythons is really tricky. You have to understand genetics and how different snakes will produce different patterns.

Ben focused on getting the coolest colors and mutations possible. In 2010, he created an entirely white and purple ball python, and it was the first in the world. This snake, was named the Renek Ghost. He was a pioneer. And that part, I can get on board with because I love science, especially how genetics work. After this, Ben left New Florence for a little while. They came back and started building his snake facility on that 72-acre property. As for the rest of

his family, Kim's health was taking a turn for the worst. She had been battling cancer for nearly 15 years. Frank had been doing everything that he could to get investors to invest in his company. He promised that Spectrum food was the next big thing. It was going to be sold at 7-Elevens and K-Marts and Walmart. In 2006, 2007, and 2008, he sold hundreds of bonds. But that's when the financial crisis hit. Frank struggled to meet manufacturing demands and pay all of his employees. His son, Sam, Ben's older brother, who had been working at Spectrum,

he was the plant manager, the marketing director, and the sales manager. So he was feeling a lot of pressure. He was clearly wearing a lot of hats. But he could tell his dad, was really stressed. But he also could tell that his dad wasn't managing the books correctly. Then in December of 2008, 56-year-old Kim tragically passed away in their home, surrounded by her boys. But before she passed, she looked her son Sam in the eye and told him that she wanted this house and this land that they lived on to stay in their family for generations to come.

This was her dying wish that Ben and Sam's kids one day would grow up on this land and continue the Wrennick legacy. Kim's death left a hole in the family and nothing would be the same again. Ben threw himself into his hobbies. He had a steady girlfriend at the time, played in a heavy metal band and liked to go to the movie theater. I told you he was a big collector of snakes, but he was also a big collector of other things. He collected famous props from his favorite horror movies, but his snake collection was getting bigger and bigger. He was becoming very well-known in the reptile community. And the reptile community is a very tight, tight-knit community. If you are immersed in this community, you know everyone and everyone

knew Ben. He'd go to all the conventions. He even had his own YouTube channel called Renek Reptiles, the same name of his company. I'm going to show it to you on the screen, and he did a bunch of videos about his snakes. He was breeding 2,000 ball pythons a season. And Ben's clients would buy dozens of snakes from him because they trusted him to keep the snakes healthy and clean. He was a rising star. And funny enough, as I was watching his videos and I was gaining more of an understanding about pairing these different snakes and getting these different patterns and colors, I started to realize that the only way I could really relate to this in my own life was maybe when you're pregnant and you're waiting to find out what your baby is going to look like. It's a combination of you and your partner. And it's an exciting time where anything can happen. And when it does, you're just in awe of what was created. And I think that is how it's how it's a combination of you. And I think that is how it's, feels when you're creating these different pairings of different colors and patterns. You never know what you're going to get and over time you create a new masterpiece. One of Ben's friend in the industry, his name is Dave Kaufman. He called it a living art.

Instead of a painter having a canvas, the snakes were all these colors on a palette that would come together to create something new. And Ben was truly gifted. He was an artist in his field. On his YouTube channel, he gave a couple tours of his facility. It was organized. and clean and perfect. You can tell just how much time he put into it, how professional he was, and how serious he was about his business, but also his community. He even did interviews on other channels

like Dave Kaufman's channel, where he talked about how he got into pairing his love for snakes, and he didn't do this for the money. He was passionate about this craft. In May of 2011, Ben's successful career was overshadowed by a huge scandal. His father was sued, and he faced 20 years in prison for fraud.

Remember, Spectrum, the very promising pet food brand? Well, it turned out it became a Ponzi scheme. Frank was in over his head. Essentially, what this meant was Frank would promise these investors that their funds would be returned to them and their investment would produce a profit. But what he was doing was he was using this money for his personal gain.

And when it ran out, he had to pay back investors so he'd recruit even more investors to pay back the original investors. And as each level of this scheme increased, it became more and more complicated and harder to maintain. And Frank was in way over his head. In 2010, he had taken $7 million of investors' money and used it to pay 250 existing investors he had at the time. He would tell investors that their money was going to equipment

and food production and manufacturing, But he was using it to pay back his debt, and that is not okay. Between 2006 and 2008, Frank had used the investors' funds for his own purchases. He'd paid for a lot of medical care at St. John's Hospital for Kim and a dermatology office. This is most likely also to help Kim battle her cancer. He also paid for satellite TV, cars from Ford Motors, Carnival Cruise Line, and he even paid $70,000 to his son, Ben, for running. reptiles. And last but not least, all of those bonds I told you about that he sold to investors

weren't even registered in the state of Missouri. So Frank had been in survival mode for years, and Spectrum imploded. And a lot of people lost their jobs. I don't know why he did this. I know he must have been very desperate, but he was responsible. He made a very bad decision, and he couldn't turn it around. And tragically on Father's Day in 2011, Ben found his 62 year old dad, lifeless in their home. Frank had a gun near his hand and a gunshot wound to his torso. When Ben found him, it was too late. Frank was already dead. And Ben was in shock. It was Father's Day. This was his dad. And Ben ran and got Sam and together, they called the police. When everything came out in the news, it was devastating for Sam and Ben. Sam lost his job too.

Their dad had been suffering in silence for so long, trying to keep the company afloat. And now all of these other people were suffering as well. It was really sad. So now Sam and Ben as adults, they didn't spend as much time together like they did when they were kids, but they had to come together and figure all of this out. But they did have some things in common. They both loved customer service. I don't know how.

And they both loved working very hard. But that's pretty much where their similarities ended. Sam had a big personality. He liked to go out and drink and party, and I told you that Ben preferred to stay inside with his snakes. And Sam thought his brother was no fun. The only thing they did together was go fishing. And according to Frank's will, all of his money and his life insurance actually went to Sam. And Ben got all of the farmland.

Frank and Kim had verbally expressed to Sam that he also had rightful ownership over the land. So they agreed that Sam and his wife, Alexandria, could move into the farmhouse. Ben was already building up his reptile facility. It was a one-story ranch house on the property, and he started building his own small house next to it. Sam got a new job, and Ben went through a very tough breakup. He toured around with his metal band for a while, and at one of those shows, he reconnected with an old friend, Lindley Joe Gallatin, and they hit it off. They had already met back in high school when they were teenagers, but now they're both single and older, and they felt an instant connection, and soon they became more than friends.

Linley was born on March 14th in 1998. She also grew up in a tiny Missouri town called Wellsville with her sister April. Her dad, Lindell, who I think she was named after, was an electrician, and her mom, Brenda, was a nurse. Linley inherited her love for animals, kids, and helping people from her parents. When she graduated in 2006, she got her massage therapy license through Metro Business College in Jefferson City, which is a town close to New Florence.

When Linley and Ben first met, she was actually dating a guy named Josh Haake. They had a child together named Matthew. But before she gave birth, Josh went on vacation to the Ozarks and he was driving under the influence and he crashed into another car. He got 10 years in prison.

And a very pregnant Linley with her new massage therapy degree was a newly single mom. Linley got a job at Riversong Spa. Massage therapy was definitely her calling. She was very passionate, loving, soft-spoken, and bubbly. Making friends came very naturally to her. And Linley's four-year-old Matthew was the light of her life. And she wanted to marry a guy who loved her son as much as she did.

Well, that's where Ben Renick comes in. When they met, they immediately felt that connection, fell head over heels for one another, where Linley was extroverted, Ben was introverted. Linley was a dreamer and Ben was a doer. And they say that sometimes opposites attract. But when it came to their interests, everything matched up. Linley loved animals, and she was fascinated by Ben Snakes.

Both of them were dedicated to great customer service. Lindley loved taking care of her clients, and Ben loved making friends at his reptile shows. They both loved music and movies. They go to the movie theater for a date night at least once a month, and they both loved kids. Ben adored Maddie. He treated him like he was his own son. And within a year, Linley moved in with Ben. and announced on Facebook, she was pregnant with a baby girl.

Sam was thrilled for his brother. He had never seen Ben have so much fun and be so happy as he was with Linley. Ben's entire world seemed to grow bigger when Linley was around. She pushed him to get out and enjoy life. And in turn, Ben was a great partner. He took care of himself. He lifted weights regularly. He had a tattoo sleeve featuring Godzilla and the Ghostbusters,

which I thought was really cool. And he was organized and meticulous, maybe a little type A. And he was very generous with his time. If Lynn Lee or any other friends needed anything, he was happy to lend a hand. And it was no question that Ben's number one love were his kids. Not his snakes, not his drums.

His kids came first. Their daughter, Amelia, nicknamed Emma, was born in 2012. And that first year with a new baby is always a big adjustment. So Ben outgrew his band. He moved on from that. And now he had kids of his own just like his brother. And now Sam and Ben would take their kids fishing on the weekends together.

Ben and Linley ended up getting married in St. Charles, Missouri on April 13, 2014. It was a small outdoor ceremony. It was very beautiful. And Linley changed her last name to Renick. She quit her job at Riversong Spa. And by 2015, Linley and Ben were running Renick reptiles together full time. When you walked in to Renic Reptiles, the facility, you entered a long hallway with stacks and stacks of plastic shelving along the wall. walls. To the left was the office and down the hallway to the right was a half wall turning into another alcove with tons of shelves. All of these shelves held snakes. The staircase downstairs led to incubators and larger snakes, including Ben's prized 600-pound albino anaconda. Ben kept up to 3,000 snakes at any time. And when he wasn't spending his time, overnight express shipping snakes all over the world or pairing snakes and

doing inventory, he was cleaning. Monday through Friday, he would clean. Wait for it. 200 snakes pens a day. That's a lot. That's quite a job. Wednesdays was feeding day and they'd put a rat in every drawer. I don't know how he did that. I would have been burned out by cleaning and I also, I like rats. So I don't think I could feed a rat to a snake, but that's just me. Ben and Linley were the most ethical, motivated, and humble snake breeders in the Reptile conventions were like fraternity meetings. Everyone knew one another. And Ben was respected for his professionalism, his artistries, cleanliness, and most of all his fair business practices. At reptile conventions, he mentored up-and-coming businessmen. He hung out with his friends like David Levinson and Dave Kaufman. And Linley also had her own friends of these conventions.

Everyone got along so well and truly respected both Ben and Linley. She started working as a massage theory instructor at Columbia Career College. And she started talking to Ben about her ideal career. Linley dreamed for years of opening up her own massage practice. And with Ben's financial help, she opened up Ascentia Spa in 2016, which focused on stress relief, wellness services, and beauty treatments. Asccia was part of a red brick commercial building in Columbia in the Cherry Hill Shopping Plaza. The spa was about a 45-minute drive from their home in New Florence. of Missouri was a lot more built up than New Florence, where Ben and Linley's home was. This area was very different.

Where they lived was very rural. It was secluded, especially being on 72 acres of land. But now Linley had something of her own, and she was able to be more social. Unlike Ben, she definitely thrived being around other people. So she ended up hiring 15 new employees ranging from massage therapist to estheticians. And while Ascentia was her new project, she knew that she wasn't great with numbers. So she ended up hiring her best friend from River Song Spa.

Her name was Ashley Shaw, and she would be the manager. Ashley had an assertive personality, and she was experienced doing business in California. She spent her time at the bank and at the front desk, where Linley usually left her phone when she was with clients. So Ashley was just managing everything. Lindley spent her days at the spa, dropping off and picking up kids from school, and Ben was slowly downsizing Renick Reptiles. It was February 2,000.

Ben's friend David connected him with a man named Robin Lennar. He was a goalie in the National Hockey League. And he wanted to purchase all of Ben's Python collection, all the ball pythons. Ben evaluated his pythons at $1.9 million. Million. That's a lot of money, especially for someone in small town, Missouri. Ben's kids, Maddie and Emma, they would be set. And of course, so were the Renix.

They were really living the American dream. Robin and Ben discussed the deal, and Robin's final offer was $1.2 million for the collection, and Ben agreed, even though they did have a dispute during this deal. They couldn't figure out how much would be paid over what time frame and when Robin would be able to physically pick up the snakes. They settled on six installment payments every three months until Robin possessed all of the pythons. At least that was the plan.

Ben got his first installment payment of $200,000 in February, of 2017. He was finally cashing out on all of his assets and how much work he put into this company. Now he had money to buy new snakes for an even bigger project hand in mind. And of course, Lindley still had her spa. They still had the kids. But Ben was going to be a millionaire by the next year. And he felt invincible. If only he were invincible, then I wouldn't be telling you this story. So let's fast forward to Thursday, June 8th, 2017. It was a hot, clear summer day. There were barely any clouds in the sky. Linley was driving home from the spa when the school called her, and they told her that Ben had not picked up the kids. And that was concerning because he would never

forget about their kids. So Linley, she quickly swung over there, picked up Maddie and Emma, and then texted the babysitter that she was going to be about 15 minutes late. She and Ben had plans on night to go see Wonder Woman for their monthly date night. But when Linley turned onto the 72 acre property around 6 p.m., she had a very bad feeling. She told her kids to wait in the car, and she went into the reptile building alone, calling out for Ben. He wasn't in his office, so she walked on the hall, she turned to the right, and that's when she saw a body laying face down in a large pool of blood. Lindley screamed. She thought it had to be Ben. Who else would be in his reptile facility in the middle of the afternoon, apart from maybe Sam? But Sam didn't like snakes,

and the nearest neighbor was half a mile away. So hysterical, Linley picked up the phone and she called Sam. And Sam had no idea what she was saying. It was gibberish. When he got over there, the kids were outside of the vehicle and they were watching their mother in a state of panic. Matthew, who was nine, looked at Sam and he said, is my daddy dead?

And that breaks my heart. These kids were completely confused and Linley couldn't even form a sentence. Sam didn't know what to think and what happened. And he went inside Renic reptiles, but he couldn't find Ben. He had to go back outside and ask Linley, what's going on? And at this point, she had called 911. She was crying.

She was hyperventilating. And she told the dispatcher that she found her husband on the ground, and there was blood everywhere. Then Linley took Sam inside. Ben was laying on his stomach. His head was facing the very southern wall of the facility. And on the call, on this 911 call, you can hear Sam. And he says, oh, my God.

my brother's dead. And now he was the one panicking, surrounded on all sides by thousands of snakes. Sam bent down to the ground and he rolled his brother onto his back because maybe, maybe there was a chance that it wasn't Ben. Maybe it was an intruder and maybe Ben got away, maybe, but no, it was his brother, Ben. His face was horribly bruised, his skull looked like it was crushed and Sam thought it had to be a snake. He even told the 911 operator, it's It's almost like it was to be expected with Ben handling these creatures that one day, a tragedy like this would happen. Linley told the dispatcher that there was a snake on the loose, and Sam had a bad feeling.

It was Ben's 600-pound Anaconda. The two of them went back outside, and oh my god, that is terrifying. It was just complete chaos. I've never researched a case like this before. There was so much going on. Did a snake do this? Was that even possible? Well, that was the question. Anacondas do and can bite, even though they're not venomous.

It would definitely hurt to be bitten. And anacondas killed their prey by constricting it. So squeezing it until it stops moving, and then they swallow them whole, no matter the size, because their jaw actually stretches. But clearly, Ben was not swallowed by a snake. But from the looks of his head, Sam assumed the snake had at least made its way around and done this damage. I looked online. I found an 800-pound Anaconda. Benz was only 600 pounds and the one I found was 33 feet long.

You can just imagine, look how massive this is. Although I don't know exactly how big Benz was. You can imagine it not being too far off in size. I heard that the longest one he had was 12 feet. That's still pretty big. When Sam came out of the facility, he was covered in his brother's blood. And Maddie and Emma looked at him in horror.

Sam took him by the hands and he walked them to the the big farmhouse where his own kids were. Sam had actually been in the middle of interviewing a new babysitter and he left the babysitter and the mom with his kids while he went to check on Lindley. And now he was coming back with the other kids. This was one of the hardest conversations that Sam ever had to have, trying to explain to his kids and his niece and nephew that they were never going to see or talk to their dad again. Sam left the kids in the main house and went back to Ben's corner of the property where the EMTs had just arrived. Dee Wassman and EMT asked Sam to please show her where the body was.

And inside, he was laying face up. Sam said, I rolled Ben over. Dee had owned snakes before, and she knew that snakes were usually harmless. But the officers en route were already terrified, knowing where they were headed. They knew who Ben was. They knew what he did for a living.

And the thought of being surrounded by snakes freak them out, especially getting a call that there could be one of the loose that just killed someone. When Dee went inside to do her initial, assessment, she found that Ben Renick had been dead for at least a few hours. Rigormortus had already been setting in. She wasn't sure if the damage done his school was done by a snake or not. It actually didn't seem likely, but she did notice what appeared to be bite mark on his arm. Disturbed by just how much blood was everywhere, de-covered Ben with a white sheet and went back outside to tell Linley,

who was still hysterical that her husband had passed away. Linley let out another screen and she asked, how are her and her children going to survive without Ben? She also cried out that a snake could not have done this. Was she in denial? Because of her own love for the creatures, they didn't know. Well, then the Missouri Highway Patrol and Sheriff's Department showed up, along with the coroner, Dave Colbert, and Deputy Harley Alt. They were terrified.

I want you to imagine a bunch of grown men holding shotguns and yelling about if they see a snake, they're going to shoot it without a second thought. Lindley told them that a snake did not do this. She was repeating this. Ben was a professional. He knew I had to handle these snakes. What were the odds that an accident like this could have happened?

But we also have to keep in mind that not everyone has been in the presence of a snake, let alone big snakes. So it is a justifiable fear. I heard one officer on the body cam footage I watched literally tell the other officers when they were going in, there could be a snake on the loose, so watch your asses. And I don't want to make light of this. But even the EMT explained that you would see a snake coming. It's not like a snake is going to slither super fast and wrap themselves around you. You're going to be able to get enough time to run away. But these people did not

have experience with this, so you can't blame them. First, the officers made sure Ben's body was clear of snakes. They asked Sam what he had seen when he arrived. And that's when he said, well, Linley had gotten there before he did. He didn't know what Ben's initial condition was like. When he arrived, he found his brother lying face down in the southern area of the building, and he had to turn him over to see what happened. Coroner Colbert crouched down to inspect the body. Ben's head was very close to a snake rack on the south wall. Within 15 seconds of getting eye level with the bottom rack,

Colbert noticed a glint of gold on that shelf. It was a shell casing from a bullet, and that's when he knew this was not a snake attack. There was probably not even a snake on the loose. This was a homicide. And the sheer amount of blood on the floor meant that Ben had not been shot just once, but multiple times. Coroner Colbert told W.A.L. And they started scouring the scene for more shell casings trying to find out how many bullets had been shot and where they were. From what the officials could tell, Ben had been shot several times in his back.

And it appeared from the casings. It was a 40 caliber because these were Winchester S.A.W. bullets. And Ben was probably caught off guard and fell to the floor. But that's where things got weird. When they were able to move his body, they found two divvets in the ground that looked like they had been struck by small projectiles, as well as one divot near one of his hands.

But the bullets weren't on the floor, not even fragments of bullets. They looked at the floor in other parts of the building, but these were the only three divvets that they found. Also, Ben had a large head wound that had to have been caused by a gunshot at close range. Sam had wrongly thought that his head had been so powerfully that it cracked like this and that the death was caused by strangulation.

So had the perpetrator shot Ben from a distance at first into his back, and then as he fell, went over, walked over to him and shot him in the head just to make sure that he wasn't alive, that's what it appeared had happened from the divids. But it was hard to tell. It seemed as though whoever shot Ben knew what they were doing because they had only missed once. And the bullet had gone through one of the snake pens, about four feet up off the ground. breaking through a few plastic containers and landing in a container with a snake. Officers tested blood drops on the scene as well

and Ben kept this place so clean as clean as possible. But there were some other areas that could have either been dirt or dried blood. One droplet was dried blood, but it didn't look like it belonged to the actual crime scene. Maybe a puncture wound happened and not another time with a snake. But of course, more information would be found

after the autopsy. There were 20 professionals at the crime with several of them wearing body cameras. When Sam learned that his brother's death was a homicide, he actually started making some really weird comments under his breath. Things like, Ben was cheap. He didn't lock the doors of his snake facility. He should have hired someone.

So we had more help. I saw the door to this place, and I do have to say, it looked like one of those ordinary doors, ordinary locks so you could actually lock from the inside and use a key to open on the outside. Nothing fancy. No cameras, no security system. Sam thought,

Sam thought if only Ben had help, maybe someone would have been there to save him. Sam also started talking about Ben's financial situation. Things like if he had so much money, why was he so frugal? Sam was clearly upset. This was his last surviving family member. And it seemed as though he was in shock and just throwing ideas around. But then he said, that's right, I'm the brother murderer. Brother murderer.

The next step in this investigation was into Ben's closest family. Lindley and Sam, Lindley had found Ben before anyone else, which automatically made her a suspect. And Sam touched his brother's body, and he may have had a motive since he was going around the crime scene, criticizing his now deceased brother. So he was also a suspect. Corporal Devin Faust was assigned to the case and arrived around 8.30 p.m. with a few goals in mind. Tour the facility, interview the family, and figure out as much as he could about Ben's life. He was shocked when he saw Ben's snake facility and realized how big it was. He had heard of Rennick reptiles, but he didn't know there were thousands of snakes being housed there.

He took Linley and Sam back to the station, and he learned that one of Ben's friends, David Levinson, I remember him, I did talk to you about him before. He used to go to conventions. The one introduced Ben to the hockey player. Well, he lived just a few hours away, and he could help out by searching the crime scene because he could handle the snakes. so they called him in. Meanwhile, Sam told Faust that Ben was in the middle of a business deal with this professional hockey player.

And when he spoke to David Levinson, Levinson explained to the detective that Ben had just sold two of his snakes not too long ago for $85,000. And that was shocking. Not many people are aware how valuable these animals are. That made Detective Faust think this could have been a robbery. So back at the Montgomery County Sheriff Station, Corporal Faust was interviewing Linley. She sat down in her essential spa uniform and had processed a situation enough to be coherent and have a conversation. They asked her what she had been up to that day.

Linley said she was working at the spa and the last time she had been in communication with Ben, she texted him around 3.45 p.m. Linley told him that she had a headache and wasn't feeling well and needed to go lie down. Ben asked if she needed him to go pick up the kids and she said yes. So he agreed. But when she finally took off from work headed home, the school called her. And they said that no one picked up Maddie and Emma.

So Linley told Detective she was really worried. She said she called Ben several times, but the phone just rang. This wasn't like him not to answer his phone. She then explained when she got to the facility, she just had a bad feeling. He had never forgotten about the kids or not answered like this.

So before she went in, she made the kids stay in the car. And that's when she found Ben's body. Then Faust asked her if she had any questions for them, and she just muttered, what happened.