Beyond All Repair - Beyond All Repair Ch. 9: Someone Is Lying

Episode Date: April 25, 2024

After Sean’s conversation with Amory, he and his younger brother, Shane, talk to each other for the first time in two decades. Shane is open to hearing his brother out, until Sean denies a painful memory from their childhood. Their father, who has always defended Sean, starts sending aggressive voice messages to Sophia and Shane. Meanwhile, Amory has even more questions for Sophia just as Shane is coming to his own conclusion that she did not commit the murder. But shortly thereafter, Amory receives a report of an interview Sophia did with detectives in 2010 that tells yet another story of the day of Marlyne’s murder. Amory is left shaken and wondering if she actually has been talking to a murderer all this time. *** Consider becoming a "BEYOND" member today: This show is made at WBUR, a public radio station, which means we cannot make shows like this without public support. Join our "BEYOND" membership program and receive early access to some of the final episodes in the series, extra episodes, and a private feed of the show for ad-free listening: wbur.org/beyond

Alright, I'm saying this now, I'll say it again later, and if I'm wrong, you can throw a tomato at your phone or your computer or however you're listening to this right now. But when you get to the end of this episode, I think you're going to want to hear the next one, the finale, as soon as possible. Anecdotal evidence from within WBUR, Beyond All Repairs Home Station, has confirmed that, in fact. So, if I'm right about that, or if you believe

me now and are already willing to take the plunge, go to wbur.org slash beyond, pitch in 25 bucks to support the show, and you will get the finale as soon as humanly possible because it is already waiting in that private feed. There's a link in your show notes if that's easier. Thank you for your support. And off we go. WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Heads up. This episode has descriptions of violence, sexual assault, and strong language.

Last time on Beyond All Repair. Good morning. Is this Anthony Snow? I've been expecting a call, actually. wrong language. Last time on Beyond All Repair. Good morning. Is this Anthony Snow? I've been expecting a call actually. Papa Snow here coming to you live out of Guyana. The businessman who has had questionable business venture and was incarcerated maintains that he was never involved in fraud.

Why would you go up there and say you saw me do it? Well, I didn't kill her. Nobody wants to address the damn shadow in the background. And the only person who could really address that could be the one person who knew everything. And that was Sophia. Around the time I called Sean Coraya, aka Anthony Snow, there was someone else preparing to call him. The interaction started with text messages back and forth, then audio messages.

Sean sent the first one. Good morning, Shane. All right. Shane, the youngest of the Coraya siblings, was trying to keep an open mind about what happened the day of Marlene Johnson's murder. Which of his siblings was trying to keep an open mind about what happened the day of Marlene Johnson's murder. Which of his siblings was telling the truth? His sister, Sophia, or his brother, Sean? Happy to see that you're healthy. Happy to see that you're living a decent life for the most part. And I'm proud of you to some regards. Shane hasn't spoken to Sean in more than a decade,

and they've never talked about the murder until now. — In terms of Sophia's case being reopened, I'll put her back in prison. My best advice is, Shane, stay away from that. Please be mindful. Don't become my enemy. Please be mindful. Don't become my enemy. Sean sounds like he's recording this in his car during a rainstorm, likely in Georgetown, Guyana, where he lives.

Shane, from his New York City apartment 2,500 miles away, sends a message back. Sean, I have no interest in becoming anyone's enemy. I wanted to understand the process that happened to you and Sofia. And I'm looking over the investigation files and honestly there's a reason why she was acquitted. And frankly I also am hearing a somewhat implicit threat about being made enemies. Shane, nobody's trying to make any threats towards you, right? But if people attack me, I will defend myself.

Keep me out of whatever it is y'all people are doing. Keep me completely out of it or everyone will regret trying to drag me back into their bullshit and then hey morning Sean I just Sean calls and the two brothers talk in real time very carefully, Shane. Shane, I love you, my little brother. Whatever fuck you said it done, said it done, but let me tell you something, bro. Sofia got her own agenda, my brother. You'll always be able to tell your side of the story.

No one's taking that away from you, but Sofia is gonna tell her story. I'm gonna tell my story, Sean, like, you know, for that little compartmentalized nugget. And I'm not going after anything, but it's a part of the story. This nugget, as Shane calls it, is the reason he hasn't wanted to talk to Sean for all these years. Look, it hurts. I don't enjoy exactly sharing private details

with the public, but. I doubt that it has anything to do with anything, but I'm sitting here and I'm listening all the time. What the brothers are talking around is something from their childhood that's unresolved, something that informs the way Shane views Sean, that he hasn't been able to ignore as he considers which of his siblings to believe.

Shane has tried to compartmentalize this, set it aside, but if there's any chance of him believing Sean's story about the murder, Shane has to confront him about this first. This guy fucking... He hurt me growing up, and even I was still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt around murder. I'm Amarie Siebertson. From WBUR and ZSP Media, this is Beyond All Repair. Chapter 9 Someone is Lying.

The day before Shane referenced this unresolved issue from their childhood to Sean on the phone, I spoke to Sean about it. With Shane's permission. There is one other thing that I'd love for you to just respond to, because it's more serious and you deserve a chance to respond. Shane told me that Sean sexually assaulted him throughout his childhood. I'm sorry? A reminder here that Sean is six years older than Shane. I'm told that this went on for quite a while.

So you're saying that my little brother... Yes. My gay little brother... Sean has an opinion on Shane's sexuality, clearly. But yes, I tell him. His brother has told me painful accounts of being sexually assaulted by him. Wow. It just gets more interesting. Most of my adolescent and childhood life, I was not around my little brother because I was living with my father.

So how and when could something like that have even happened? Shane says the first time it happened was during this period, actually, after he and Sophia and their mother had already moved out. Sophia and Shane went to their dad's house in the Bronx together for a visit. Shane doesn't remember exactly how old he was at the time. They were Jehovah's Witnesses then, so he didn't celebrate birthdays. But he was in elementary school, and he ended up alone with Sean in his room. When you heard Shane say earlier that Sean hurt him,

that's the least explicit I've heard him when talking about the abuse. He alleges it involved unwelcome self-exposure by Sean, unwanted touching, and penetration. Shane says that even from the first instance, he told Sean he didn't think what he was doing was right. Sean would tell him it was just a dream, that what was happening wasn't really happening. The last time it happened, Shane says, was in the months before Marlene Johnson was murdered. Shane was 13. Sean was 19.

What I would tell you is just look at how their lives are turning out. And that alone should say something. What do you mean by that with regards to Shane? Because I know Sophia has a, you know, she has a very particular circumstance, but how do you think Shane's life has turned out? Hey, you know what? For out? Hey, you know what? For the most part, you know what? I'm proud of him. I told him I said, dude, you know, you're gay, you're gay. Whatever. But you see, this is what happens, you know. I'm too nice. I think I'm too nice. I gotta stay away from you. I gotta stay complete. First, the girl tried to make me look like a murderer.

Now her, her little, oh my god, I couldn't even believe I would be naked. Horrible, horrible. Just to be clear, you deny this completely. You deny ever having. Of course not. Of course not. What the hell? What the hell?

What the hell? Now, Shane has made it clear to me that he doesn't equate Sean's alleged actions toward him as a child with murder. My brother sexually assaulted me and I can state that because I experienced it. And even I can draw the distinction of he might not be a murderer. Is he a child molester? Yes. Is he a person who can cause physical harm? Yes, he can.

But Shane also thought this first conversation with Sean in many years might be an opportunity for them to clear the air. Shane was willing to forgive Sean and maybe even believe what he had to say about Marlene Johnson's murder if Sean admitted to the abuse. As it started to sink in that that would not be happening and as Shane listened to voice messages from Sean and heard things like,

And as it deals with anything that you said against me, I forgive you and I understand. Sean forgiving him. Shane had heard and had enough. He sent one more audio message back to Sean. Sean, the only interactions that we've had with one another, you're telling me that I'm lying. You're referring to it as a lie because you won't even acknowledge it. But it really doesn't make me trust you, Sean. And in fact, it makes me kind of angry. Because I know that you're telling me that something that I experienced is a lie. And you're very good at holding that truth to you and communicating that. And that really fucked with me, Sean.

Because when I told Dad all those years ago, do you know that he went around telling people that he took me to a doctor who said that they couldn't show anything so I'm a liar? There are many themes in this larger story. Memory is one, for sure. Especially given that the events in question, from allegations of abuse to murder, they all happened more than 20 years ago. But maybe just as important is everyone's relationship to the truth. I'd read the Coraya family psychological evaluation we heard earlier in the series. I'd heard from Shane and Sophia that Sean believes his own

lies. And that he learned that from the master, their dad, George. Hello? Hi, is this George? Speaking. I felt like I needed to talk to him myself. How are you? Well, I'm taking it easy, wondering where the world is going right now while we are in it.

Wondering where the world is going? Where do you worry it's going? You know, I don't want to say I see or predict, but for some reason I got a feeling of things I want to talk about it. I see it happen. Many people who know me will tell you that. Even for the World Trade Center right back. George is saying here that he had a premonition about 9-11 before it happened, and that he

called his ex-wife, Grace Grace in 2001 to warn her that their kids were going to be involved in something bad. Leave Vancouver, Washington within two months with your children. I swear to God if I lie I drop that. I said they're going to jail for a crime that will belong to them and it will be murder. You're saying that a couple months before the murder happened, you had a premonition that there was going to be a murder and that your son and daughter were going to be either involved or blamed for it? Yes. Yes.

George still doesn't believe Sophia or Sean committed the actual murder. But he does believe Sean's story that there was a third person at the scene. Someone only Sophia would be able to identify. George pins the murder on this elusive third person. But he also doesn't seem to know the details about Sean's potential involvement. He had, he, there was, Marlene's blood was found on him. No. Yes, there was. Yes, there was. There was a drop of Marlene's blood on his boot and so he was, you know, he was there at least. You have Sean saying one thing about Sophia,

you have Sophia saying something about Sean and both of them, both of them, George, feel like the other one has betrayed them. I would like to give him a light detector test because let me be honest, I have never seen something like this in my life traveling all over the world in the past. You want to give Sean a lie detector test, you're saying? All of them, all of them. All of your kids.

I want their sign. Can I ask, were you kind of a tough dad? Were you a strict dad with your children? No, the most important thing I will do. No smoke, no drinking, no sleep out. Don't bring your friend to party here. Sophia and Shane have said that it was a pretty, there was a lot of name calling and yelling in the house growing up. And that you would call your son's things like thieves and you would call Shane slurs because of his sexuality?

No, no, no, no, no, no. No, no. I did. Would you ever throw things in the house? Did you have kind of a temper? No, man. What would I throw? No.

All this is delegation. Why would I throw something in my house? I don't know. I'm just, I'm putting it to you because these are things that have been said to me. I've heard that it was a pretty turbulent household to grow up in and that there was a lot of yelling and name calling. No, no, no, no. No, no.

Nothing like that. Nothing like that. Okay. So is there anything that could have been interpreted like that? Because I don't know why they would make something like that up. My heart, between you and I, I am wondering myself. I will leave a message for Miss Sophie. I said you have disappointed us.

Change the way of wrong. Stop it. Stop lying. And Sophia, or Miss Sophie, as George calls her here, forwarded that and dozens of other messages from her father to me. Your days are numbered if you don't change. Please stop your bullshit. Get off of that if you want to live to see your son." If you want to live to see your son, George says. Having a shot at meeting her son, Ethan, is Sophia's main reason for wanting to revisit

the murder of her mother-in-law, her son's grandmother, to try to right the narrative ship, she might say. But after my conversations with George and Sean, Sophia started getting a lot more of these voicemails from her father. You're wicked, corrupt, curvaceous, vindictive. Which I imagine has only made the hurdle between her and her own child feel higher. If the family she knows is against her, what chance does she have with the son who doesn't?

If you was not my daughter, I'd keep a million miles away from you. And Sophia wasn't the only one being barraged, as you may remember from the very beginning of this series. Mr. Shane, good morning, how are you doing? Listen to me carefully. If you do not want to get yourself a lawsuit, stop joining with Sophie to accuse people. You don't know nothing. You're not ready for what will come down if you don't stop your nonsense and keep away. It's hard to know whether George is foreseeing bad outcomes for Shane and Sophia in these messages or if he's threatening to create them. But it doesn't feel good knowing that I might've stirred

the pot just in trying to hear him and Sean out. George did say something that resonated with me though, that he wants a sign as to which one of his children is being honest about Marlene's murder. I did too. I wasn't sure I believed any of the versions Sophia and Sean had given at this point. But I was, and am, sure that the truth lies with one of them. Okay, so I have officially talked to Sean and George.

Ugh. Ugh. In a minute. Hey, it's Amory. You've heard me mention that this series, Beyond All Repair, was born out of another podcast I make called Endless Thread. And I co-host that show with Ben Brock Johnson. Hi. Ben, tell the good people what the heck Endless Thread is.

It's me and you solving internet mysteries. Yeah, telling untold histories and other wild stories that originate online. Yeah. And you can listen to any of the 200 plus episodes of Endless Thread that Amory and I have made wherever you're listening to this podcast. That's Endless Thread from WBUR. Real quick before we get back to the show, I know you listen to Beyond All Repair, but do you follow the show?

Are you following the show in your podcast app? Or subscribe to it or whatever the terminology is in your app of choice? I don't want you missing any new episodes as they come out or having them served up to you out of order. And I don't want you losing your place in an episode if you need to pause it part of the way through. So do me another favor, will ya? Look for the little follow button or a plus sign button in your app, follow the show officially wherever you listen, and thank you. Gosh, I want you to know I'm so nervous about this.

I've been sick with anxiety over it and probably just because it's going to hurt my feelings. I'm talking to Sophia a few days after speaking to Sean and her father George for the first time. She's been receiving a tsunami of voice messages from her dad in the intervening days that make it pretty clear where he stands. It's a shame to see how you're destroying your life. You're looking for trouble, you're going to get trouble. Try to lie, to set up your own product. Stop this bullshit, stop living in a dream. I don't think my dad will ever believe that my brother did it.

You can show him video tape evidence and he'll say that's the Johnson's in costume or the tape was edited. It's not gonna matter. Meanwhile, that brother, Sean, is making it clear to, that brother, Sean, is making it clear to the youngest brother, Shane, that he's not going down for Sophia's mother-in-law's murder 22 years later.

If she puts me in a situation where it's me or her, she's, it's her. Sophia feels the same, but about her family. Her dad, her mom, Shane, they can't be on the fence about who did what anymore. Even if that means cutting off contact with them forever. It's him or me. And if it's him, that's fine.

Because it can't be both. There is not a world that can exist where you think we're both good people. There just isn't. I'm at an impasse too, with different versions of events swirling around in my head. The latest of which, from Sean, I share with Sophia. The shadow in the background, he told me about. He said there was a third person there. He didn't see who it was. Wait, he said there was a third person in the same room at the time that Marlene was being killed or after she died? He said that as he was coming down the stairs, he saw a shadow of another person saw another person flee, but he didn't see

who it was. And what he says to me is that you, Sofia, are the only person on Earth who knows who that third person was. Hahaha. Yeah. Okay. I love the new twist. I do. I love the new twist.

The new twist that Sean, remember, would say is neither a twist nor is it new, but the proof of it being a part of his original story for the Detectives is indiscernible. But as Sophia and I talk, the new twist loses its humor. Because the more detail Sean offers up, the more certain Sophia becomes that he is the only person on Earth who knows what happened to Marlene. The more hurt she is by the story he told about her, that he continues to tell about her. It's not just that you killed her. It's that you traded my life for your fuck-up. And then you exploded a bomb in the middle of our family, and you made it seem as though I did it. Someone is lying.

But who? What if that liar is so convincing, they've convinced themselves of their own lies? And what if that convincing liar isn't Sean or George, as Shane and Sophia had warned me they'd be? What if it's Sophia? If there was a theme for what both Sean and George told me, there's something you are not fessing up to, that you know more than you've said, and you're lying to yourself and you're lying to me. And I don't know where the truth is right now, but I do believe with my whole heart

that if this is not the truth coming forward, the effort to rebuild, to re-explain, to kind of reconfigure your life, it's not a lost cause. It's a harmful one. As I listen back to me saying this to Sophia, I realize that what started as a statement about what Sean and George assert turned into me settling into the uncomfortable possibility that maybe Sophia is lying to me. Maybe she has been all along.

Hello? Hello? Is something here? Uh, no. Thank you. And so, it's time to listen back to something else. Something you heard near the beginning of this series. But the last time Sophia heard it was 20 years ago, in a courtroom.

I played it for her in fall. Hello? Hey Sophia. Hi. How you doing? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing great. Hey, uh, like I How you doing? Doing good. How are you? I'm doing great.

Hey, I need to talk to you. This is the call Sean made to Sophia on the day of Marlene's funeral, when he was already in police custody and she was at home with a house full of Marlene's family members. Sean was following a script written by Clark County detectives. The excerpts you've heard are the parts that stayed with me initially. The unraveling brother, the unsettled sister, who to, seemed genuinely shocked at what she was hearing. Sean, if these people find out that we had anything to do with this... Excuse me?

Okay. What? If these people find out that we had anything to do with this, we're gonna go to jail. Sean, what are you saying? Okay. Maybe I had selectively zeroed in on these parts of the call, as someone who had heard Sophia's side of the story first and wanted to think I wasn't being lied to. What stood out to the detectives, the people who got useful information from Sean first

and were trying to build a case around his story, was this. Okay, listen, our phones the cops are listening. You know the cops are listening. You know him. Lead detective Rick Buckner. She said that a couple of times during the conversation. I told you our conversation is being recorded. Our phone conversations are being recorded. Did you know that? Yes, I said that three times. How do you know? How in the hell would she even know that we were listening in?

Relax. What Sophia told me was that Brad recorded all their calls, a product of his FBI and communications backgrounds. Brad denied this to the detectives, by the way. But it almost doesn't matter. Because the part that was more concerning to me in this much later listen-through came even before that. When Sean mentioned his girlfriend, Susie, who, remember, he says drove them over to

Marlene's house. Hey, Sophia, pay back Susie, okay? I don't think she's gonna go away. Sophia, I don't want Sophia. I'm not trying to go to jail for something I ain't doing, Sophie. God, that was a terrible call. Yeah. Man, I sound so fake. Sophia and I went through it, revisiting the moments

that I felt needed some explaining. Oh, okay, go ahead. Okay, so he says, I think they know, Sophia. You say, mm-hmm. And he starts to say, I think they know and you say, don't say anything over the phone. And it really sounds like you know what he's talking about and like you're trying to shut him up in that moment. Yeah, I can, I could definitely see that. Listen, being, and I'm really trying to put myself in that moment and remember it. And it is not an easy thing to do because so much of it seems like a blur.

Um... I don't know. I honestly didn't think he was calling about Marlene Johnson's murder. There would have been no reason for that. But I knew he did something wrong and I could hear it in my own voice. I knew he did something wrong. The fact that he says, you know, I don't think Suzy's going to lie for us.

And your reaction is a big sigh instead of, what are you talking about? She's not gonna lie for us. Lie for us about what? It's like the moments that you're not saying something that feel more telling than if you did say something. You know, you told me you were gonna help me by giving me the money, Sophia. And now, and now look what happened. Okay, somebody's dead, Sophia.

Okay? It's... it's tough. It is, and I completely agree with you. I agree with everything you said. It looks bad and again of course I wish I did it different and I had no idea it was being recorded the way it was being recorded. That it was a wiretap and anything like that. I just, I don't know. Honestly, Amri, even conversations that I have with you and I sometimes, if my anxiety is so high and I'm in a different place, it's difficult for me to retain what you have said.

And at times, even though I can answer you, it is white noise to me. And that's really what this sounds like to me, an auto response to a problem person at a very high stress time. And I wasn't then trying to hide or cover anything up as I'm not now. And of course, I wish that call had gone differently. I wish I had the right words, but I didn't realize that I was being at that time, to me, framed for someone's murder. Now that Sophia does know exactly what Shawn was doing to her then with an audience of

detectives, what she says Shawn and her father are doing to her then with an audience of detectives. What she says Sean and her father are doing to her now with an audience of me and you. She made sure she had the right words when I suggested that they might be telling the truth. That she is lying to me. Flat out. Or by omission. I told you everything I possibly could that I know to be true. And if there's something

out there that's missing that you have not heard from me, it's because I don't know it. So definitely I agree with everything you said. This would be more harmful than anything if I'm telling a lie about it. But I'm not. And, and I just hope that you can find your way to really finding the truth and staying on course because they're going to do everything they can to distract you. They just will. So stay the course. I did. I kept reading and re-reading the case file and looking for people whose names I'd come

across, including another detective, Kevin Harper. Sophia had told me that in 2010, eight years after Marlene's murder, Detective Harper had come to see her at a federal facility in California where she was being held for trying to come into the U.S. despite having been deported after her second trial. Sofia told him she had new information to offer about the murder. But when I finally tracked down the now former Detective Kevin Harper

and asked him about this visit. Well, let's see. He didn't remember anything of value coming out of this conversation with Sofia. No admissions of any kind, a waste of time, Harper said. But he also told me, If you ever run across my notes, I would love to review because that can trigger all sorts of memories for me.

Or the written up report because that I'm sure will help trigger my memory. I put in a request for that report. But with Detective Harper not remembering anything happening during that 2010 interview with Sofia, I couldn't imagine it really changing anything for me. But I got it, I read it, and I was wrong. I just, I didn't, ugh. Fucking God.

The report in a minute. Okay. I don't even know where to put this so that will pick us both up the best, but— Just to pick you up more, I think so. This is me, talking to my husband, moments after reading Detective Kevin Harper's report. The one he wrote in 2010, right after hearing the new information Sophia had to offer about Marlene Johnson's murder. This is a full confession. Sophia offered Detective Harper, not a full confession as you might be imagining it, as in Sophia saying she physically bludgeoned

Marlene to death. To me, it was worse than that. You know when you see someone you know and then you meet their parents for the first time and you're like, oh my God, I see your mom and your dad coming together. This feels like that. This feels like Sophia's version today and Sean's version on the stand coming together in a new version that feels truthful. Sophia grew up in New York, the report reads. Her family is a member of the Jehovah's Witness Church. She moved to Vancouver after she—okay, yeah, I'm not going to read the whole thing. It's 26 pages long, so I'll summarize.

And as I walk you through it, you'll hear echoes of the various versions of the day of the murder that we've heard over the course of this series. Sophia's narrative for Detective Harper mentions the embezzlement and the debt she and Brad were in leading up to her mother-in-law's murder. Sophia says Marlene offered to loan her money, that she had hidden emergency money for when she left her marriage. Sophia turned it down, but the morning of the murder, when Sean and his girlfriend Susie were over at her house, and Sean was going on about how he really needed the money for

his divorce, Sophia says her mind went to Marlene's hidden stash. So she made up a story about having money in the pocket of a coat that she'd left at her in-law's house, and she convinced Sean and Susie to drive her over there to get it, just like Sean had told the jury. She asked if Susie and I can take her over there so that she can pick up her coat. Sophia's new story matches the one Sean told on the stand for a stretch. She went into the Johnsons' house alone, came out several minutes later without having found the quote-unquote coat, and the three of them drove

off. But she convinced Sean to go back to the Johnsons' house with her. Suzie took them there, and then drove off, quote, with an attitude, like it was hinted in the wiretapped phone call between the siblings. — Sophia, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Okay, I don't think she's going to call me. — When they got back to the Johnsons' house, Sophia tells Detective Harper, she told Sean about Marlene's stash of money. They both started looking for it, but they couldn't find it. Sophia says they sat down on the steps leading up to Marlene's bedroom, feeling defeated. And then, quote, as casually as I'm talking to you, Sofia tells Harper, she says to Sean,

maybe we should just kill her. Sean's response? Okay. Sofia told Sean that Marlene's life insurance money would, quote, go a long way with Brad. If anything were to happen to Richard or to Marlene, who inherits her? Brad Johnson. Who's married to Brad? Sophia Johnson.

Sophia says she told Sean that she didn't want Marlene to hurt when she died. Okay, Sean replied again. Then the siblings went down to the basement together, where Marlene would be coming in. Sophia says she told Sean to make Marlene think he was collecting gambling debts that her husband Richard owed. A detail we heard Sophia mention on the stand in her second trial. That Sean was supposed to scare Marlene, tell her that Richard had outstanding gambling deaths. — As they waited for Marlene to come home, Sophia tells Detective Harper that she saw Sean pick up

a fireplace poker and start swinging it around. He had nervous energy, he told her. Sophia says she knew Sean was going to kill Marlene because, quote, I knew what I had asked him to do. Shawn waited in the room where Marlene would be entering, Sofia says. She waited in the next room, where the sliding glass door was, nervously walking in a circle.

I just got really nervous, and I got up and started pacing. When the siblings heard the garage door open, Sophia says she went out the sliding glass door and waited outside so she wouldn't be able to see or hear anything. Soon she saw Sean through the glass, she says, and he told her they had to go.

Was Marlene still alive, she asked? I don't think so, Sean answers. She drove out from the area and she told me a couple more times just to keep my head down. Unlike Sean's story, Sophia tells Detective Harper that Sean drove Marlene's van back to her house, not her. He changed into some of Brad's clothes. And I mentioned to Sean, hey, you know, these are going out for donations. He took a few things and left. Meanwhile, Sophia tells Harper, quote, I started covering myself.

She says she started leaving messages on Marlene's phone to try to make it seem like she wasn't involved. Harper writes, Sophia said even though she knew Marlene had to be dead, she was irritated that she wasn't answering the phone. Even more so, Sophia says, when Marlene did not, could not, show up for their mother-daughter-in-law lunch date. Why isn't she answering? I know she didn't forget. I felt a complete irritation.

Sophia tells Harper that she lied under oath in her second trial, that her lawyer, Therese, didn't know it, but that she also didn't want her to testify. But Sophia tells Harper, quote, I was really ready to put on a show for the jury. I didn't know anything myself. What was I supposed to tell them?

And then Sophia tells Harper that she didn't like his colleague, Detective Rick Buckner, that Buckner accused her of committing the actual murder. You know, I know this happened. We know you killed Marlene. Just tell me what happened. Tell us how. Harper writes, quote,

Sophia said that she could tell him truthfully, I wasn't in the room. I didn't touch her. Because she wasn't in the room. I didn't touch her. Because she wasn't in the room. She didn't touch Marlene. Did you kill Marlene Johnson? I did not. Sofia says that she didn't know how badly Marlene was beaten until trial, when she first

saw pictures of the scene. That it made her sick. And that what bothers her most, Sofia says, is that Marlene would have loaned her the money. [♪Music playing.♪ Even if she had been offered a deal to testify against Sean, Sophia told Harper, she wouldn't have done it back then. She, quote, wasn't ready to accept responsibility for her involvement, she says. And then, in the last few pages of this 2010 report, Sofia put this confession in her own

handwriting. As I read through it, I heard the voices of all the people who'd warned me about Sofia. No wicked, corrupt, courageous, vindictive. She's such a wicked person, you have no clue. She played the whole damn family. She is the person who committed, who murdered my wife. She has a short temper and she's a lot stronger than you.

Apparently inappropriate at a funeral to be talking about somebody's will. Because it just means that Sophia's still lying. I just, I didn't, oh my fucking god. And we're back, to the moments after I finished reading Sophia's confession for the first time. Thinking out loud to my husband, who silently watched my brain explode as I tried to process what I'd just seen. All I've wanted is to know what fucking happened.

And this makes me feel like I know what happened. I had a report that seemed forgotten about. Why is this just, this is just sitting in their files. That told a new version of events for the day of the murder. And this feels like the truth. The pieces really did seem to be coming together. Like Sofia really had been trying to come clean to Detective Harper in 2010.

I don't think that she can make this make sense beyond what she says here, but she's got to make this make sense if I go to her and say, guess what I read last night? Fucking confession in your handwriting. And once I wrapped my head around all that, where my mind went immediately next, this is gonna fuck him up,

was to Shane. More so than it fucks me up because it's his fucking sister. Whew. Yeah. I was mad. Because just days before I got that copy of Detective Harper's report from the Clark County, Washington Public Records Office, Shane had sent me a recording of a phone call he'd made. Hey, Sophia. How's it going? To his sister. Good. How are you? I'm doing. You're doing? Uh-oh. Hey, Sophia. How's it going? To his sister. Good.

How are you? I'm doing. You're doing? Uh-oh. I'm sorry. He had just finished going through the nearly 2,000 pages of the investigative file that I had at that point, and he was calling to tell Sophia that he'd reached a verdict of his own.

I want to start off with, I love you so much and no matter what happens, I'm going to be there with you. I don't think that you committed the murder. I'm conclusively stating that, like based on all of the evidence that I've gone over, I don't think that you murdered Marlene Johnson at all. And I know that you don't even have to worry about that legally, but it is something that Sophia can tell how anxious Shane is as he rambles on and she jumps in. Alright, so just take a breath for a minute and I want to say thank you. And yes, while it does not serve as evidence, whether you believe me or not, just for our

relationship and everything else, it's important that the people that I'm around, me personally, does not think that I can commit something so heinous and so horrible that destroyed every life around it that it touched. For me, that is seriously important because that's not who I am. No, Sophia. I believe you. I know. And look, I'll tell you this. That's not who I am, Sofia says. I believe you, Shane says. My heart sank lower and lower as my eyes traced one sentence of Sofia's narrow cursive over and over. We should just kill her.

What the hell would Shane believe now? Next time, I show him the report. This was hard for me to read and... Oh, God. And questions for the detective who didn't remember what Sofia had told him. Is it long and boring? No. Are you sure? And for Sofia, this is the version of events that you tell him.

That I tell him? That's coming up in the final chapter of Beyond All Repair is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR, and ZSP Media. It's written and reported by me, Amarie Sievertson. It's produced by Sophie Coddner. And special thanks to Troy Brannelson from Oregon Public Broadcasting, Youda Man. Mix and sound design by Paul Vicus, production manager of WBUR podcasts. And original scoring by Paul Vicus and Matt Reed. Theme and credits music by me. Our managing producers are Sama Tajoshi for WBUR and Liz Stiles of ZSP Media. Our

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