Let's Go To Court! - 227: Insurance Fraud!

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Linda Leedom and Lula Young had been best friends for years. They were like sisters. So when Lula developed cancer, and later died in a fire, Linda was overwhelmed with grief. Then she read Lula’s obituary. She was appalled! The obituary hadn’t referred to Linda as Lula’s sister!! Naturally, Linda confronted Lula’s mother at the funeral. Things got weirder from there. A few days later, someone spotted Lula shopping at the local Wal-Mart. Then Kristin tells us about Steven Ver Woert, whose murder shocked his family and friends. People weren’t sure who would want the fun-loving, generous man dead. But after a while, Steven’s brother spoke up. Could Steven’s ex-wife, Marty Malone be responsible for his death? Steven’s family had never liked Marty, but they were hesitant to think she was capable of murder. But when detectives knocked on Marty’s door, she acted like a total sketchball.  And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from: “Too Many Hit Men,” by Gary Boynton for Crime Magazine I Went Undercover episode, “Flirting with Murder” Jeff Zeleny’s seven-part investigative series, which ran in 1998 in The Des Moines Register In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “Dead Woman Walking” episode Mastermind of Murder “Woman Manipulated Arsonist Into Killing Her ‘Best Friend’ For Life Insurance Payout” by Joe Dziemianowicz, Oxygen “From the Ashes of a Friendship, Charges of Fraud and Murder” by Donald P. Baker, Washington Post “Jury chosen for murder trial” by William C. Bayne, The Commercial Appeal “State rests in Leedom case; Dunn credibility questioned” by William C. Bayne, The Commercial Appeal “Linda Leedom v. State of Mississippi” findlaw.com YOU’RE STILL READING? My, my, my, you skeezy scunch! You must be hungry for more! We’d offer you some sausage brunch, but that gets messy. So how about you head over to our Patreon instead? (patreon.com/lgtcpodcast). At the $5 level, you’ll get 35+ full length bonus episodes, plus access to our 90’s style chat room!  

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts. I'm Kristen Caruso. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court. On this episode, I'll be talking about a sexy cop. And I'll be talking about best friends. Oh, will you? Or will you be telling one of your tales where the nice one is just like, this is my best friend. And then the mean one kills him. Yep. Yep. I don't know what you're talking about.

Which one am I and which one are you? I'm obviously the nice one. I would never murder you. I wouldn't murder you either Okay good Alright that's why we're such great friends Okay now just go ahead and ruin everything for us

Is it from one of your weird ID shows that's like weirdly specific It's actually from an Oxygen program that I've never seen before It's a new one to me I don't think to the world I think you're going to like it minus the friends murdering friends one to me. I don't think to the world. Okay. I think you're going to like it. Minus the Friends Murdering Friends.

Which is really basically the story. I think you might like this show. It's really like that. Those were supposed to be words. Okay. I didn't catch a single one of them. You know what I'm going to say. Talk about our Patreon. That's what I was going to ask.

Yeah, we should go ahead and plug a room. We've got one. Incredible. Thank you. Everyone, if you're listening to this and you're loving it, which how could you not? And you're thinking, oh boy, would I like more of that? Gotta have more. If you like it, love it,

gotta have it. That's enough. Head on over to our Patreon. Cold Stone like it, love it, gotta have it. That's enough. Head on over to our Patreon. Cold Stone Creamer. Stop it! They do not need our help, Brandi. Head over to our Patreon. We've got bonus episodes. We've got Zoom calls you can get on with us. We've got

stickers that we're just handing out all willy-nilly. Well, you have to sign up at the $7 level to get the sticker. It's not willy-nilly at all. All right. Well, there we go. So anyway, sign up there. We got all that stuff and more.

And more. And much, much more. Just like a little bit more. All right. All right. Let's talk about friends. Best friends. Best friends. Nothing to see here but a's talk about friends. Best friends. Best friends.

Nothing to see here but a couple of best friends. New program I watched for this on Oxygen called Mastermind of Murder. So if somebody does get murdered. Let me tell you something. If you're about to tell me about teenagers murdering teenagers. I'm not. Are we talking full grown adults? We are.

All right. All right. I can handle it. All right. Continue. There's no, no teenagers were harmed in the making of this episode. Very good. That's probably not true.

What? Well, go ahead and tell the story. Also, shout out to that program and also to Donald P. Baker. Oh, thank you, Donald. For his article for the Washington Post. It was just after 6 a.m. on December 19th, 1994, when a ringing phone woke Gary Ledum from his sleep. There had been a fire at Lula Young's house. Lula had been his wife Linda's best friend

for more than 20 years. Gary woke a sleeping Linda beside him and delivered the horrible news. And Linda jumped out of bed and rushed to her best friend's house. Linda and Lula had met years earlier when they were neighbors in the Lake Horn, Mississippi Cove, which is apparently what they call a cul-de-sac in that part of the country where Lula still lived. But Linda and her husband had since moved like to the other side of town. OK. and Lula had bonded over their children and their similar careers and also how their names both started with an L and ended with an A, I'm guessing. What were their similar careers? So Linda was a nurse and Lula worked as a medical transcriber.

OK. That's all I know. Don't ask any more questions about their careers. That's fine. I mean, that says it all. OK, great. Yeah. What's a. I mean, that says it all. OK, great. Yeah. What's a medical transcriber?

Well, isn't that the person who takes the notes? Probably. Yeah. All right. I mean, God, I hope so. Otherwise, I don't have a clue. Yeah. So they often helped watch each other's kids and they had a bond that went beyond just friendship.

They described their relationship as being more like sisters than friends. In the years that had passed, Linda and Lula's children had grown up and moved out, and now Lula lived alone. But her friend came around regularly to check in on her, especially after Lula was diagnosed with breast cancer. Lula was first diagnosed around 1990 and underwent chemo and radiation and eventually had a mastectomy. Her health seemed to be improving following those procedures, but then Lula suffered a work accident. So she was also a volunteer firefighter. And at some point she took a fall off the back of an ambulance and hurt her back pretty severely. It was while she was in the hospital being treated for that back injury,

or as I have it in my notes here, that ACK injury, that doctors actually learned that Lula's cancer had spread to her bones. Oh, God. They told her that it was terminal. They couldn't tell her exactly how much time she had left, but they told her there wasn't much they could do for her other than to make sure she was comfortable in the final stages of her life, however long that might be. Back to the morning of the fire now. Linda rushed to her friend's house and stood outside with a group of onlookers. They were all kind of just shivering and Linda was crying in the

cold morning air as she watched a group of firefighters attempt to rescue Lula from the burning home. According to the neighbors that were also at the scene, this hadn't been an ordinary fire. They had heard two small explosions that morning before seeing the flames. But Lula had oxygen tanks in her house for her medical care. So that made sense. But as like all of this was going on, a neighbor overheard Linda tell somebody else or maybe a firefighter who was on the scene. She told someone that she had actually been storing a grill and propane tank inside Lula's house. Why would you store it inside someone's house? She said that she bought it for her daughter for Christmas and that she stowed it at Lula's so that it wouldn't ruin the surprise for her daughter.

Oh, like in the garage. No, she said she had it in the house. Huh. Okay. I don't know. Okay. As Linda stood outside her best friend's house, she watched as firefighters pulled Lula from the burning building. They'd found her on the floor of her bedroom.

It was obvious that she'd gotten on the ground to try and get below the smoke and crawl her way out of the house. But she hadn't made it far. And the rescuers were too late. Lula had died of smoke inhalation. Lula Young's death had an interesting impact on her family and friends. Of course, they were devastated to lose her. She was only 47 years old. But they also wondered if maybe the fire had kept Lula from suffering a long, drawn-out, painful death from her terminal cancer. I mean that is an interesting take on it.

I don't know they'd been prepared for her death for some time so they seemed to find some kind of consolation in that like at least she'd gone quickly sort of thinking I don't know dying in a fire sounds terrible to me

yeah I agree I pulled that directly from the Washington Post article so you could take it up with Donald P. Baker well it sounds like Donald didn't make it up I agree. I pulled that directly from the Washington Post article, so you could take it up with Donald P. Baker if you— Well, it sounds like Donald didn't make it up. I agree. I mean, I guess I understand. Yeah. I get where they're going with it, but OK. All right.

Obviously, they celebrated Lula's life with a memorial service, which, of course, Linda Leadham attended. In fact, she attended it and felt it necessary to tell Lula's mother, Flora Welch, that her feelings were hurt because she wasn't listed as one of Lula's sisters in the obituary. OK, well, this is not about you. Right. And also you are not her sister. Right. And also, you are not her sister. Right. But they were like sisters. This is not about you. They were like sisters.

Good for you. It's not about you. I would like to be listed as your long-term friend. Absolutely. In your obituary. And I want people to wonder what that means. Here's the thing. They read that, they're not going to wonder.

They're going to go, I know what that means. No, but for real, you go up to someone's grieving mother and you're like, hey, I've got a bone to pick with you. Yeah, my feelings are really hurt because you didn't list me as one of her sisters. Oh, really? My feelings are hurt because my child is dead. My daughter fucking died. Yeah. Yeah.

So I guess we've both got problems. Yeah. God, asshole. Right. What if I got a job punching people at funerals for saying the wrong thing? Do you think that's a lucrative job? I feel like people would pitch in. Like, once they heard that story, you know, they'd be like, you know what, I'll throw a dollar her way.

In the days following Lula's death, Linda wrote to the local paper and hailed the valiant efforts of the firefighters. She wrote, I lost a sister, companion, best friend, and confidant. All was lost due to an accident that could have been preventable but wasn't. What? It wasn't. Could have been preventable but wasn't prevented. I don't – OK.

Well, what happened exactly? There was a fire, Krista. She died in a fire. Yeah, but like how did the fire start? Well, we will get there. OK. Well, it seems like she knows something we don't. So by this time, fire investigators had sifted through the debris at Lula's house in order to determine the cause of the fire.

And they found a space heater with a frayed cord and a propane tank was located in the house. And the valve on that propane tank might have been just like slightly open. Just like a little bit. Well, that's all it takes. Yeah. You know, if you're Just like a little bit. Well, that's all it takes. Just... Yeah. You know, if you're doing like a... Okay.

We get the picture. Do you? Yes. So this led the authorities to believe that this fire might not have been an accident. Maybe it was set deliberately. Because here's the thing. Like, it could have been prevented if Linda hadn't done it. But it was set deliberately. Because here's the thing, like it could have been prevented if Linda hadn't done it. But it wasn't. That's what she said. Yeah, Linda could have prevented it by not doing it, but she did it. No, we're not even there yet, Kristen, because initially

authorities are like, oh, we have a terminally ill woman who just died in a fire and it looks like the fire was intentionally set. She probably set it herself. No. No, that's not how, like, oh, I get to choose how I go. I'm going to light my house on fire. I'm just saying what they say. They didn't ever believe that. I know they said that to you in this TV show, Brandy, but that's only because they're just

throwing red herrings at you. We thought it could be this. We thought it could be this. We thought it could be that. Okay. Literally, they interview her sister on this show and she says they considered it. And then they were like, fuck, no, we won't go. Absolutely not. Lula would have never taken her own life.

Yeah. So what the producer said was, hey, did you all ever think about this? Please answer my question in a complete sentence. And she's like, no, we never, you know, we considered this, but we decided it wasn't that. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Come on. No one thinks someone died by suicide by lighting their house on fire.

I mean, I'm sure it happens. Yeah, I bet it happens. Not this time. It did not happen this time. Because it was Linda. You think Linda did it? I'm afraid so. So when they were like, oh, okay.

So her family basically was like, no, this woman has persevered through all of these things. She went through a divorce and being a single mother and fought cancer for years. She didn't fucking off herself by setting her house on fire. And the police were like, oh, OK, thanks. Great. Like, let's look at something else. So then the investigators learned that Lula had a lot of life insurance. Oh, no.

life insurance. Oh no. Like one policy for like $500,000 and then a couple of other policies, including one that was like $200,000, but it was paid double if Lula died in an accident. Oh God. It all totaled almost a million dollars in payouts if Lula were to die in an accident. And so investigators went to Lula's family and they asked them about the policies and they were like, we didn't know anything about them, but. Who was the beneficiary? Oh, interesting that you should say that because when the family learned that Linda Leadham was listed as the beneficiary of these policies, again, they didn't think that was that weird. Linda was Lula's closest friend. She had taken care of her a lot throughout her illness. And she thought that Lula would have

trusted Linda to be her beneficiary to pass on those funds to her children. Because that was the question. Lula had adult children and they were not listed as the beneficiaries on her policies. Yeah, that's nuts. I agree. But Lula's family didn't think it was that weird. Lula and Linda, they were like this. Then why wasn't she mentioned in the obituary? She, I don't know.

What a slap in the face. So while the family didn't think it was weird, the investigators thought it was super fucking weird. And they started to float the idea that perhaps Linda had set the fire at her best friend's house for financial gain. Financial gain. But when they talked to Linda about this, like when they hinted around this, turns out Linda was out of town the night of the fire. I thought she was in bed. She'd been at a family reunion and then come home. By the time they got word of the fire, the fire had been started earlier. And so her alibi checked out.

She couldn't have been there when the fire was started. Fire for hire? Oh. What do you think? One does like a puppet master. Everyone. Kristen. Maybe.

Maybe. You can't make those weird gestures. I was doing like a marionette hands. I was taking back to my instinct days. That's right. That is actually the cover art for this show. Okay. The title screen.

Great. If that gives you any hints. Just Lance Bass. Yes. Okay. The title screen. Great. If that gives you any hints. Just Lance Bass. Yes. Dancing. So now the investigators are like, well, it couldn't have been fucking Linda who did it. So they're back to square one, the investigation.

And then they got a break on December 26th. So like a week after the fire. This insurance agent is shopping at Walmart in whatever town in Mississippi we're in. I've already forgotten. This is your case. Lake Horn, obviously.

They lived in Lake Horn Cove. No, Lake Horn, Mississippi. They lived in a cove in Lake Horn, Mississippi. They lived in Lake Horn Cove. No, Lake Horn, Mississippi. They lived in a cove in Lake Horn, Mississippi. I got you. Which is another word for a cul-de-sac. But it sounds cooler. It does sound cool. I like it.

All right. So anyway, he's in the Walmart. It's a woman. Oh, she's in the Walmart. Shopping around the Walmart. And I went up to find where we were at and I've lost my place completely. I suppose you want to blame your sexy best friend for that. Obviously.

So this female insurance agent is shopping around Walmart the day after Christmas, mining her, did I say Christmas? Mm-hmm. Christmas. Mining her own damn business, probably scoring some 50% off deals. That's what I like to do on the day after Christmas. You ever get the Christmas stuff the day after Christmas? No, I've never heard of that.

Hilarious. She's such a dick. Ma'am, you know how cheap I am. You think I don't know about the after Christmas sales? What's this? No, you said this was a TJ mask? Anyway. She's wandering around Walmart.

I imagine she's pushing her shopping cart. She probably got like, you know, a bunch of gift sets in there. Just if it were me, that's what I'd be buying. Because you can get like. You load up on the gift sets too? Yeah, you can get like the body wash and all that. Oh, OK. All right.

You get just Christmas stuff. Yeah, I like to get my Christmas decor after Christmas. Yeah, you can get that too. Maybe she's got a Christmas tree in there too. I don't fucking know, Kristen. I didn't ask. You're the one who's trying to imagine what's in her cart. She spies a woman across the store that she recognized.

It was a woman that she just recently sold a life insurance policy to. A woman named Lula Young. What? And she was like, oh, my gosh. And she starts like having like a panic attack in Walmart. She's with her husband. She like grabs her husband and she's like, oh my God. What the fuck?

I, that woman died. I just was told that that woman died in a fire. What the fuck, Brandy? Uh-huh. So she's holy shit holy shit i was just made aware that we were like paying out an insurance claim on a woman who died in a fire and that's her right here in walmart right now fuck she and her best friend staged her. What? No. OK. Keep on listening. All right. So she freaks the fuck out. She gets out of the Walmart and she calls like her boss and they call the police.

And it turns out that the woman that she saw in Walmart was not Lula Young. Lula Young did die in a fire. The woman she saw in Walmart was Linda Leadham. did die in a fire. The woman she saw in Walmart was Linda Leadham. Linda Leadham had posed

as Lula Young to get the life insurance policy. Oh, shit. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, they're like

trying to put this all together. Detectives are like, okay, so it's not Lula Young. It's Linda Leadham. Linda Leadham has been the whole time posing.

The whole time? The whole time as Lula Young to get these policies because Lula Young wouldn't have passed the health exams in order to secure these large life insurance policies. In order to secure these large life insurance policies. So Linda Leadham had gotten herself like a little ID made up saying she was Lula Young. She'd given her address as Lula Young's address. And this insurance agent had come out to Linda Leadham's house and done a cursory health exam on her in order to authorize these policies, a $500,000 life insurance policy. Wow. And then Linda Leadham had been listed as Lula Young's sister on the policies and then been listed as the beneficiary. So they put all of this together, that there were multiple policies that she had done this with,

and that it appeared that Lula Young didn't know they even existed. These nearly million dollars in life insurance policies in her name with Linda Leadham listed as her sister and the beneficiary. And the beneficiary. So they're like, okay, so are these two things not related? Like was she just doing an insurance scam hoping that her friend would die of cancer and then she'd make off with a bunch of money? No. And like this fire thing is totally separate? No.

You're right. They're not. Yeah. It's all – it're not. They're, yeah, it's all, it goes all the way to the top, Kristen. Oh, the tangled web we weave.

So they look into what they can charge Linda with at this time. So, they talk to the U.S. Attorney's Office and they think

they can charge her with mail fraud and insurance fraud because all of the insurance documents were sent through the mail. Man, that's Office, and they think they can charge her with mail fraud and insurance fraud because all of the insurance documents were sent through the mail. Man, that's how they get you. All right. And then when they were paid out after Lula's death, they were wired into Linda Ledham's bank account. So she's also committed wire fraud. Oh, shit. Linda, you fudged it. Yes.

They also have a handwriting expert come in and look and they say for sure these are forged. Like this was not Lula Young's signature ever. This was always Linda Leadham. And so they arrest. It took like two years for them to put all of this together. And they arrest – it took like two years for them to put all of this together. But two years after Lula Young's death, Linda Leadham was arrested and she was charged with wire fraud, mail fraud and insurance fraud. They also suspected at this time that she was somehow also connected to the fire. Right, but they didn't have enough yet. And so they arrested her on these charges and she was held without bond.

And they worked on putting a case together to try and connect her to the fire during that time. And they got a break from a jailhouse informant. So after Linda's been arrested, she's facing these charges. She's awaiting trial. This jailhouse informant comes forward and he said that this guy that he'd spent some time with, like locked up with, Charles Wayne Dunn, had admitted to setting a fire that killed a woman in King's – what is it? It's not King anything. King's Landing. Lake Horn.

We were close. Because I want it to be King's Cove. That's an apartment complex in Shawnee. Okay. Anyway. It's not that. It's Lake Horn, obviously. Great. Okay. Anyway, it's not that. It's Lake Horn, obviously. Great. Okay.

So they look into Charles Wayne Dunn. He had served some time for cocaine possession. And at the time that this investigation was going on, he was on probation for those charges. And so he had regular meetings with a probation officer. And so they set up like a meeting with his probation officer. They got they got Charles done to come into a meeting with his probation officer where he was like just supposed to come in and give a drug sample or a urine sample to do a drug test, basically. And then that guy, that informantant was also just gonna like by happenstance be there wearing a wire and they were just gonna let them like oh you have to be alone in the room together

for just a minute i have to go grab the yeah for you to give your urine sample no big deal and so they set this all up and once they were alone in the room the jailhouse informant looked over at charles dunn and he was like man I can't stop thinking about that thing you told me about that fire. He's like, what do you think is ever going to come of that? And Charles Dunn didn't admit to anything, but he also didn't deny it. He said something to the effect of like, you can't outrun your past. Like, it's going to catch up to me eventually. You can't shake your past.

Something like that. But that was it. Like they're like, OK, well, this isn't really enough. But well, I mean, did they really expect him to just like completely open up? Well, they thought I guess the thinking was that maybe since he'd already talked to him before. Wouldn't that feel so fishy, though? Absolutely. Like, hey, weren't we locked up

together? Tell me about that fire you told me about that one time. Speak like, right to my chest. Right in my pocket here. Yeah. He said enough that the police felt comfortable taking him into custody and doing a formal interrogation with him. Okay. And so they did. They brought him in and they sat him down and they did a, you know, asked him some questions.

And initially he didn't really say much. he didn't really say much. So they fed him some information, like a little bit, like we know you've had some issues with substance use disorder in the past. You know, lots of people do things they're not proud of when they're on drugs and stuff like that to try and give him to offer something up. But then nothing really happened. And so then they brought up the fire directly and they're like, you know, we've been looking into this fire and it looks

like it was arson. There was, you know, a propane tank and a heater that looked like it had been tampered with. And we think we think that this was an arson and a murder. Yeah. And we think you had something to do with it. Yeah. And then he admitted that he had started the fire. Yeah. And then he told the investigators that he was paid $5,000 by Linda Leadham to set the fire. Wow. Mm-hmm. Charles Dunn knew Linda because he did, like, handyman work for her around her house. And he had at one point dated her daughter.

And so he was very familiar with Linda and her family. And he actually knew Lula Young pretty well, too. Oh, God. Mm-hmm. He also let them in on that this was not the first arson job he'd done for Linda. Shut up. She'd previously paid him $500 to start a fire at her daughter's house. So a couple years before this, her daughter's house had caught fire and they'd been able to collect a big homeowner's insurance payout from that.

And he told authorities that he had been paid $500 to start that fire. $500? $500. $500. He told the police that Linda had told him that he was doing Lula a favor. That he was doing Lula a favor. She had even alluded to the fact that Lula was in on it. Mm-hmm.

Linda mentioned that Lula was terminally ill. This was something that Charles Dunn knew. But that Lula had asked Linda to end her life for her. And Lula just wasn't capable of doing it. And so she needed Charles' help to give Lula what she wanted. Yeah, that seems like the kind of thing you wouldn't run by the person. Yeah. Yeah. So Charles told the investigators that he had gone to Lula's house the night of the

fire. He'd helped her get in bed. He'd given her her medicine for the night. Like this was something that I think was fairly normal. Like she was very comfortable with him being in her house. And then once she was in bed, he put out the propane tank, opened the valve. He put out the space heater right next to it. He'd cut the cord so that it would look like it had shorted. Uh-huh. And then he'd crumpled up a bunch of papers in front of the space heater

and the propane tank so that when the fire started, it would spread very quickly. Wow. And then he'd left. He turned on the heater, made sure the valve on the propane tank was open just a little bit, and then he left. Linda had told him that nobody would suspect anything. Certainly it wouldn't come back on any of them because she and Lula were like sisters. Yeah, sounds like it. How lucky. Yep. So with all of this information, they had Charles do like a recorded phone call with Linda, who was in jail at this time awaiting trial on those wire fraud and mail fraud charges.

And she did enough to confirm his story. She said the money she had paid him was enough to make sure he could get out of town and that he should take it and leave. How cagey was she in this phone call? Because that's really stupid. She's having this phone call from jail? Yeah. Huh? Yeah. Huh. Yeah, I mean, it's not smart.

No. No. So following that, Linda Leadham was charged with capital murder and arson. And then they did a search of Linda Leadham's house following this when they, you know, they get all this information. And they found that Linda was planning to do this again to someone else. Oh, my God. Who? So in Linda's house, they found a driver's license that had Charles Dunn's picture on it, but it had the name of Robert Stovall.

So Robert Stovall was a man with cognitive impairments that Linda's mother was the caretaker of. Oh, my God. Mm hmm. So they found this ID that was Charles' face on it but then Robert Stovall's name and then they found $200,000 in life insurance policies in Robert Stovall's name listing Linda Leadham as the beneficiary. Yeah. So they're like – they thought maybe she had already pulled this off again. They're like, where the fuck's Robert Stovall? So they go to track him down. He lives like six hours away in a different part of the state and they – he's alive and well and had no idea that these policies existed in his name. Yeah.

Yeah. in his name. Yeah. So they then charge Linda with one count of capital murder for Lula Young's death and then a charge of conspiracy to commit

capital murder for the Robert Stovall plan. Yeah. Along the way, Linda Leadham pled guilty to the wire fraud and insurance fraud charges, and she was sentenced to 27 months. Plus, she had to pay $275,000 in restitution to the insurance companies. So that's all. That's like in federal court.

Okay. And then the murder charges are in state court. That's like in federal court. Okay. And then the murder charges are in state court. So two years after she pleads guilty to those charges, her murder trial is finally underway in August of 1999. Charles Dunn took a plea deal to avoid the death penalty. He was facing the death penalty in this.

And so he took a deal, agreed to testify against Linda Leadham, and he became the prosecution's star witness. So he testified that he met Linda Leadham after he moved in with her daughter and son-in-law. So he had some connection to her daughter initially, and then, like, I think they dated, like, a while back, but then now she was married to somebody else, but he needed a place to stay, I think is how he ended up meeting, meeting Linda. And then that was like in December of 1993. And so he testified that sometime after that, Linda approached him with this idea of killing Lula Young. And she said that Lula was her best friend. They'd been best friends for more than 20 years, but that she was super sick and she was in a lot of pain and that this is what Lula wanted, that they would be helping Lula out. She didn't have the heart to do it herself, which is what Lula had asked. So she needed Charles Dunn's help and she would pay him $5,000 to do it. And so he agreed. He suggested that they set up the heater thing to set the fire so that it

wouldn't look as suspicious. And so he bought the heater with money that Linda gave him. And then he couldn't remember who had bought the propane tank. But the witness from the scene testified at the trial that Linda had said she was storing a propane tank in the house that was a Christmas gift for her daughter. And that person who heard it at the scene relayed that information to the fire investigators at some point. And they were like, no one in their right mind would store a propane tank inside a house. Right. But what if it was a special thing for a gift? Yeah, it was a gift that, you know, whatever.

So he testified about the whole plot and how they'd put it in action. Insurance agents testified. I've been getting scam likely fucking calls all day long. You know what I've been getting scam likely fucking calls all day long. You know what I've been getting a lot of? What? Spam texts. Oh, yeah. And a lot of them are Oprah related.

What? Like half of them mention Oprah. How many of them mention Valerie Bertinelli? I think that's from the bonus episode, isn't it? I don't know. I don't know.

But, like, half of them mention Oprah and how, like, Oprah recommends you do this. Oh. Do you think they're coming directly from Oprah? That's why I opened the first seven of them. You assumed Oprah was trying really hard to get a hold of you. I think they know that I'm a basic white lady. They're like, you know what we're going to say? We're going to say Oprah loves this shit.

It's one of Oprah's favorite things. And it's all CBD oil. Anyway, it's very annoying. I received two this morning. Great. Do you want to hear more? No. Great. You want to hear more? No. Okay.

Okay. So at the trial, multiple insurance agents testified that Linda Leadham had made inquiries as early as 1992 into getting policies for her sister, Lula Young. So each of these insurance agents came to Linda Leadham's house at one point to issue these policies. I guess that's super common. That's how you did insurance. My uncle sold insurance at this time, and I do remember him, like, having to go to people's houses all the time. I thought you were going to say, I do remember him coming to our house. No, going to lots of people's houses.

It was only professional reasons. He came to your house. We didn't get together just for like family reasons. God, no. No. And at one time, one of these insurance agents, his name was Greg Paylor. He testified that in Linda's home, she had a family tree displayed that listed Lula as her sister. This woman went to great lengths to make sure these insurance agents believed that Lula was her sister.

OK. But what? Say what you're going to say. Well, how often do people come to buy insurance for another person and that person isn't there at all? Well, so I think that was initially what she tried to do. Right. And then she couldn't get think that was initially what she tried to do. Right. And then she couldn't get policies big enough for what she wanted. So then she had to take on the identity of Lula to do really what she wanted to do,

was to amass this big payouts. Yeah. So initially, yeah, she inquires about the policies as taking them out in her sister's name. But then when that's not super successful for her, she can only get small policies. She then – Ups the ante. Yes. And becomes Lula Young when securing these policies.

OK. But I think that this goes back to the thing about not being listed as her sister. Yeah, of course. In the obituary. It listed as her sister. Yeah, of course. In the obituary. It messed up her plan. It becomes very clear. Mm-hmm. And she was just afraid somebody might see that.

Exactly. Yeah. Which I think is also why she wrote the thing to the paper about how she lost a sister and a best friend and a confidant. Yeah. It was really about, look, it's right here in the paper. We're sisters. Yeah. Yeah. It was really about, look, it's right here in the paper. We're sisters. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Another agent, the woman who saw Yeah, the Walmart woman. Lula Young in Walmart. So she testified. So she was an agent with Nationwide Insurance and she said that

she was contacted by Linda Leadham to write a policy for Lula Young. But then when she met with Lula Young, she was actually meeting with Linda Leadham, which she didn't know until much later. And she had come to Linda Leadham's house, who she believed to be Lula Young. She had brought, I believe, this is a little bit confusing.

I believe a paramedic came to the house and did a cursory health, what do you call that? Inspection, for lack of a better word. Assessment. Health assessment. Honestly, that to me is less weird than just your insurance agent looking you over. Yes, yeah. One article specifically mentions that a paramedic delivered the health assessment and was like, yep, she seems to be in tip-top shape.

Go ahead and issue a half a million dollar life insurance policy. And so then she testified that after she'd been alerted that the fire had happened and that Lula Young had died in the fire and they were prepared to pay out this large insurance policy, that she had then seen the woman who she knew to be Lula Young just walking through Walmart one day. Yeah. And she about fucking died. Did she say that on the stand?

She did not. Your Honor, I about fucking died. What she did do was when she saw the woman that she believed to be Lula Young in the store, she tried to call Linda Leadham and be like, what the hell is going on here? But Linda Leadham never called her back. And instead, Lula looked at her phone and then ignored the call. It wasn't a cell phone because it's 1995. It was a huge cell phone, the size of her head.

Okay. Then the prosecution at trial, Did I say at trial? I do not know. I pay so little attention to you. Great. Thank you. At trial, they presented all the information they uncovered about what they called the Stovall plan. So in the search of Linda's house, they found all of this information in Robert Stovall's name. They had an insurance policy from the Kansas City Life Insurance Company that was dated November 13th.

Yes. That was dated November 13th, 1995. And it was issued on the life of Robert Stovall in the amount of $250,000. And Linda Leadham was listed as the beneficiary. What? I'm sorry. I just am excited when there's something I know.

There was also an application for another policy in Robert Stovall's name for $200,000 that had an accidental death rider. So if he died in an accident, it would double. But that one had never been issued because they would not issue it without having a face to face with Robert Stovall, which they had not managed to do yet because they were still

planning to, you know, they'd just been working up that ID with Charles Dunn's face on it and Robert Stovall's name. Yeah, so they had to be like, hang on, we're committing fraud here. It takes a while. It takes a minute. Yes, exactly. They also found a couple of wills that were in Lula Young's name that left everything to Linda, basically. Yeah, because who cares about your kids, right?

That's right. Because who cares about your kids, right? That's right. They also found that there was a bill of sale for a 1995 Nissan truck. Like there was a loan that an installment sale contract, which is a loan that had been taken out in Robert Stovall's name. Robert Stovall had no knowledge of a truck being purchased, and he didn't purchase it. They also had found that they had purchased a 1979 Celica. Charles Dunn had purchased it, which, fun fact, Tim Pound's fun fact. Everybody get out your journals. My dad drove a 1979 Toyota Celica when I was a kid.

I text him when I was researching this case. And I was like, what year was your Celica? Because I looked it up and I was like, I'm pretty sure it looked exactly like that. And it was a 1979 Celica. Wow. Anyway, the plan was that they were going to like get him in this Celica and involve him in a car accident. And they were going to kill him in a car accident with the Nissan truck. They just hadn't had a chance to put it in action yet.

Well, that's a pretty big... Okay. Yeah. They had even taken an opportunity... So he lived like six hours away. Linda Lidom had even taken Charles Dunn at one point all the way out to wherever Robert Stovel lived.

And then it just hadn't worked out. And so they'd come back and they were going to do it another time once they'd secured the other insurance policy. Oh, my Lord. Yeah. So the prosecution puts forward all of that information. So not only had she been successful in one plot. Yeah. She had a whole second one lined up.

Second one lined up. The defense's case was basically that Linda Leadham and Lula Young had worked together on this insurance fraud scheme. Yep. And it was all Lula's idea. Uh-huh. Lula wanted to be sure that her children would be left with something. Then why not leave it to your children? Well, you know, they might misuse the funds or, you know, it would be better if Linda could just, you know, allocate the funds as needed. Yeah.

She didn't trust her children to be able to handle such a large sum of money. Can't you set up a trust? You sure fucking can. Yeah. So why wouldn't you do that? Because she trusted Linda. Okay. Okay. Okay, so this was the whole plan. Sorry.

That was funny. So they make this plan because Lula knows she can't get any life insurance because of her cancer diagnosis. So she's like, here, here's the plan. You pretend to be me. You get any life insurance because of her cancer diagnosis. So she's like, here, here's the plan. You pretend to be me. You get the life insurance. And that way my children have something. Did they mention that Linda had done this before with this guy for 500 bucks on her daughter's house? We've just got Charles Dunn's word on that.

And didn't you hear? He uses drugs, Kristen. Oh, fuck him. And that was it. They were just pulling off an insurance fraud, and it was just to benefit Lula's children, that whole arson thing, the murder. Charles Dunn did that all on his own. Weren't involved in that at all. Well, that doesn't make sense. It sure does,

Kristen. It makes total sense if you squint wrong. Well, because even if this is assisted suicide, which is what they're trying, that's not legal in Mississippi. Fuck no. Mississippi's the last place that's legal.

That was never the plan. The killing wasn't the plan. It's not assisted suicide. It's just insurance fraud. She was going to die of natural causes because of the cancer. Charles Dunn was a handyman, and he heard tale of a half or million dollars in life insurance, and he just needed to get his grubby little drug-doing hands on it. he wasn't the beneficiary so that doesn't make sense well he was gonna get some i'm not saying it's a good defense christian it's so stupid there are so many threads to pull. There sure are.

You're not going to believe this, but a jury found Linda Leadham guilty of capital murder and conspiracy to commit capital murder. You're kidding. I guess they didn't hear about Charles and his drugs. Yeah. She was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Yeah, that sounds about right. possibility of parole. Yeah, that sounds about right. Linda appealed her conviction, stating that the court erred in allowing the information about the secondary murder plot. I loved the way you said erred. Erred. You really let them know there's some extra R's in here.

There are. There's a lot of R's. So she said in her appeal that they shouldn't have been able to bring in any of that information about the Stovall plot into her trial because that all happened after Lula Young died. Mm-hmm. So you can't even – you're not even supposed to talk about it. Mm-hmm. But because she was charged in relation to that plot. Yeah. It was allowed and her to that plot. Yeah. It was allowed and her appeal was denied.

Yeah. Because she's basically trying to make an argument there that that's like a – that's a totally separate thing. Correct. But they've already – from the jump it was tied together. Correct. Which is exactly what the appeals court said. From the jump. From the jump these was tied together. Correct. Which is exactly what the appeals court said. From the jump. From the jump, these were tied together.

And what was fun about it was that the judges were doing like a hacky sack. Oh, yeah. Not a hacky sack. What am I trying to say? A skip it? No. No. When you've got a leg tied to another person and then you like, you know.

A three-legged race? Yes. Boy. That's not hacky sack at all. But they were tied together. The judges were also tied together is what you were saying. I'm so glad I went so hard for that joke. Why is your podcast so long? I don't know.

I don't know. We keep it really, really tight. Linda's appeal was denied and she remains in prison today. Charles Dunn was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for his role. Okay. Also, it appears that Linda's husband was in the know about the insurance fraud. He was listed as a second beneficiary on a couple of the policies. He was arrested initially shit

i can't find what happened to him something surely happened i i wonder if they knew they didn't have enough on him but you know arresting him certainly puts the pressure on yeah and that's the story about some some best friends. Whew. Um, I got to tell you, we've got a little theme-y action. We got a theme. Kind of a loose theme. Oh, like your butthole. What?

It's loose. Or should I say like your curls? Is that better? How dare you? You go from you got a loose butthole to you got, you know, nice waves. Yeah. I'm not going to allow you to talk to me like that, especially when you got that wind tunnel for a butthole over there. There's small creatures getting trapped in there.

Followed by bigger creatures. Chased by foxes. That is enough. Anyway, I brought up your hair as a transition into our ad, ma'am, and you just brushed it right off. Hold on. Don't act like you were trying to be professional in that moment. All right. Are you ready?

What do you got, a murder for hire? I don't know. Is that the theme? I don't know. Maybe it's some other theme. Fires? No. Why did you immediately say no?

I can tell by your face. Oh, damn it. Yeah. It's not a fire. Okay. Thank you to Gary Boynton for Crime Magazine. Oh. I'm not going to tell you the title of the article.

Also reporting by Jeff Zeleny for the Des Moines Register. He did an amazing seven-part series on this case in like 1998. Read the whole thing. Loved it. Which part was your favorite? I couldn't possibly choose. Also, an episode of a show, it's called I Went Undercover. What?

So I've watched a couple episodes of this program for, like, you know, ideas for this very podcast. And I've enjoyed it. I thought this episode was really stupid and it's the one that ended up giving me this case. Okay, great. So you liked your other sources better is what you're saying. Yes, I did. You got the idea from this source, but you like the other ones better. Yeah.

Okay, got it. Anyway, why do I play favorites like this? Just any opportunity to judge. You're always going to like the articles better than the show. Why? Well, you're a journalist, so. I don't always like them better than the show. Let the record reflect.

I don't always. You know what? It's too soon for me to tell you why specifically I was annoyed by this show. All right. Picture it. You never start by saying I read this really shitty article. You know what? Okay.

That is interesting. When I do read a shitty article, I just don't use it at all. Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm. Okay, anyway. Picture it. Bothell, Washington. I thought we were in Des Moines.

Okay, I understand why you would think that. You're going to have to wait for it. Okay. I'll Aaron Burr it. Okay. Bothell is a beautiful small town brimming with nature. They've got trees.

They've got lakes. They've got mountains over yonder. What kind of trees they got? Fucking evergreens, and they're beautiful, not that you care. I'm not even playing this game with you. It's the type of place that, by law, any TV show covering this case must start with someone saying,

Murders don't happen here. Why, I can't even remember the last time someone was murdered in these parts. I think I would be a great talking head for just that moment. A little campy. What if I just showed up and like they could use me kind of like a stock image and I would just come in and say, they were the perfect couple. It's a small town where people don't lock their doors. So the investigators had to wonder. Okay, I'll stop.

When this story took place in the late 90s, Bothell was home to a good mix of blue-collar workers and people who worked for the nearby tech industries. And Steve Verwert was one of those tech guys. What's that last name? Verwert. V-E-R space W-O-E-R-T. What's that? Is that Dutch?

I assume. Some of these questions you throw at me like no I didn't go down this man's family tree I didn't look him up on Ellis Island like why did I ask you that I don't know

oh god and what was his favorite type of pickle Oh, God. And what was his favorite type of pickle? Dill or spicy? It's weird that you don't know this. I bet he's a bread and butter man. You know what is annoying? I think you're probably right.

Steve worked for U.S. Cellular, and his job title was cellular phone engineer. He made cell phones? I, okay, I'm going to, and keep in mind, these are like 1990s descriptions. Good Lord, I don't have a clue what this means. Okay, great. So we don't know if he's Dutch, We don't know what kind of pickles he liked. And we don't really know what his job was. I've got some more information.

Okay, great. Turns out he was Dutch. On his grandmother's side. Steve had been hired to, and I'm quoting from this TV show, Are you okay? I I've seen that in a review he had been hired to quote establish a new cellular telephone technology system and if you want me to be more clear than that, then fuck you. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? I don't know. All right. So people at U.S. Cellular

really liked Steve. He was super smart. He was generous with his time. If anyone needed a mentor, he was there for them. And perhaps above all, he was dependable. And so on February 5, 1997, when he didn't show up for work, his administrative assistant was a little worried. It was his 44th birthday, and Steve wasn't a stranger to having a good time. But again, it just wasn't like him to not show up to work. Yeah. So at around noon, when he still hadn't shown up to work, his assistant went to the Lake Pleasant RV Park,

where he was living out of a very nice fifth wheel. Oh. The B-roll in this TV show showed a travel trailer. And as an avid camper in my youth, I was like, that's not a fifth wheel. So she got out there and immediately saw blood on the outside of the fifth wheel. And she was like, and she immediately called the police.

So police arrived and discovered that the door to Steve's fifth wheel was unlocked. They let themselves in and found him dead face down in the living room area. He had been stabbed to death. It looked like there had been a struggle. An exercise bike was knocked over, which I didn't know you could have an exercise bike in a fifth wheel, but all right. I can't say that I've ever seen an exercise bike inside a fifth wheel or a camper or recreational vehicle. I don't want to say the wrong thing. If you do, I will call you out.

And now we have the queen of fucking campers here. Has there ever been a more pathetic queen? Yes. I am the queen of the campers. If it's affixed to the ground, I have no authority. So there were a couple of boxes strewn around, but nothing seemed to be missing. His wallet with all his credit cards was right there. They examined the crime scene and couldn't find any unexplained fingerprints. They bagged anything with blood on it, hoping that some of it would contain the blood of the killer.

But who was the killer? Investigators talked to Steve's coworkers and friends friends and no one had anything bad to say about him he was a religious guy he was very generous he was kind he wasn't too serious he loved karaoke like loved karaoke and he enjoyed hitting up the local watering hole did he have a favorite karaoke song here's the thing that bothers me. You know he did. Yeah. But I don't know what it was. Fuck. Alright, we don't know if he's Dutch. We don't know what politicals he likes. We don't know

what he does for a job, but we don't know his favorite karaoke song. It's gotta be Friends in Low Places, right? It's probably it. Alright. The worst thing anyone could say about Steve was that he was like too generous with his money. They thought he gave too much of it away to religious groups.

I thought it was odd that they didn't say to his church but to religious groups. So I'm thinking – That sounds like cults. Yeah. How many religious groups were coming around this RV park hitting Steve up for cash? Anyway. Jehovah's Witnesses, probably. But do they ask you for money or do they just want to...

I don't think they're going to turn you down if you try to give them money. Oh, okay. I don't know. All right. Who else is coming to the RV parks? I don't know. This is... Apparently, I've done very little research this week.

Apparently, I've done very little research this week. I apologize for being an asshole. That was it. That was the big bad thing about Steve. He gave too much money to religious groups. Yeah, like that. I mean, literally, that was the only. Yeah, that's the worst thing people can say about me, too.

Oh, really? I've heard much worse. Steve had been dating someone, so investigators went and talked to her, and of course she was devastated by the news of Steve's murder. And she did have a somewhat weird story to share. She said that the night before, she and Steve

had been trying to get in contact with each other and it was the 90s, so they'd been paging each other back and forth. Because they needed Steve to invent a new cell phone technology for the area. Which is what he was working on at that moment. On his exercise bike.

He finally left her a voicemail and in that voicemail she could hear the voice of another man in the background. It wasn't scary, but it was kind of weird. Like, weird enough that she played the voicemail for a friend before she deleted it. Can we get it? Can we recover that voicemail? This is the key to the murder.

I mean, maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Also, Nita, I remind you, it's the fucking 90s. So probably not. Yeah. Investigators are still trying to figure out if Steve was Dutch. She tried calling Steve back later that evening, but he didn't answer.

So that was something. Yeah, it is something. Or does he have a TV? Was it the TV? Well, see, here's the other thing. Was it the voice of Maury Povich? Yeah. What was the man saying?

Was he saying you are the father? We've solved the mystery. Maury killed Steve. That's probably in poor taste to say. I apologize. My name is Brandy. Anyway, the thing investigators hoped for was that since this murder happened in an RV park, there would be a witness. Maybe a lot of witnesses.

Someone had to have seen something. Someone had to have seen something. Someone had to have heard something. But no one had noticed anything suspicious. So they had nothing, Brandy. Excellent. They learned that before Steve moved to Washington, he'd lived in Mesa, Arizona. That's where his parents lived. That's where his brother lived. That's where his brother lived. That's where his child lived. So Detective Ed Hopkins went down to Arizona to interview some

of Steve's friends and family. And once he got there, he teamed up with a local Mesa, Arizona detective named Tom Denning. Detectives Ed and Tom talked to Steve's family. And of course, the family had like the nicest things to say about Steve. I mean, they were devastated. They couldn't imagine anyone wanting him dead. But finally, Steve's brother, Wes, was like, Okay, are we overlooking the obvious here? Could it be Marty?

Who the fuck's Marty Could it be Marty? Who the fuck's Marty? Who's Marty? The detectives didn't ask that very important question. They just got up and left. And they're like, and this has been unsolved to this day.

The second Wes said that, it was like he gave permission for everyone else to say what they'd been thinking. They're like, oh, thank God somebody said it. It's out there. Everybody fucking hates Marty.

Who's Marty? Steve's ex-wife. Marty Malone. So the family told detectives everything they could about Marty. And that story really started with how Steve's first marriage ended. You think her name's Martha? You know, I honestly don't know. All the articles just call her Marty.

Oh, my God, Brandi. Great! Jeez. You know, I don't know how this case ends. Actually, I'm looking at a blank page here. All right, Marty, no idea if that's short for anything. It's short for peg. Okay, that'd be hilarious.

So that story really started with how Steve's first marriage ended. His first wife, the one he shared a son with, had cheated on him. Steve had actually caught her in bed with another guy. Yeah, that sucks. Yeah. So they initiated divorce proceedings and Steve was just devastated. But then one night he went to a local karaoke bar and he met Marty Malone. And he was like, Marty, is that short for something?

And she's like, shut up. alone. And he was like, Marty, is that short for something? And she's like, shut up. The two got to talking and they were blown away by all that they had in common. Get a load of this. They were both originally from Iowa and they both loved karaoke and now they both lived in Arizona. They both lived in Arizona. End of list. Steve was smitten. He couldn't believe his luck. He'd met a wonderful woman.

He didn't know that Marty's common-law husband had died like a week earlier. But, you know, I mean, whatever, right? What? Yeesh. How'd he die heart attack okay are we sure about that you know what I am sure about

what karaoke cures the blues okay and she probably had the blues right yeah did she sing the Kraft Macaroni

and it was timely because I'm pretty sure that song came out in the 90s. I got the blues. Cheesosaurus Rex just came through the wall like the Kool-Aid man. I've got a sad true story. This week I made myself mac and cheese, but I didn't have like regular milk.

I just had almond milk. Why don't you just throw a little Greek yogurt in there while you're at it, Kristen? Yeah, I mean, that probably would have improved it, honestly. I was thinking I wouldn't be able to taste the difference because it's only a fourth cup, but you can taste the difference. Yeah, because almond milk's pretty sweet. No, it's not. Sweeter than milk. I mean, it did taste funny. All right. I mean, it did taste funny. All right.

So Steve introduced Marty to his friends and family. And he's like so happy about her. And they were all like, wow, she sucks. Except they didn't. They're more classy than that. But they did not like her. They did not care for Marty. They didn't like that she swore like a sailor.

Oh, no, they wouldn't like me. They thought she was kind of tacky, loud, abrasive, uncouth. Oh, no. I pride myself on being very couth. I'm extra couth. Steve was into Marty, and she was into him, and that was all that mattered, really, right? As a matter of fact, six months after they met, Marty rented a limo and she proposed to Steve in the back of that limo. Marty proposed to Steve? Yeah. Steve was taken aback because, you know, gender roles. But also because that was pretty fast.

What's wrong, Brandy? You don't like the roles reversed? No, I don't care about that at all. You like the pizza roles. I do like pizza roles, yes. No, I'm concerned that Marty had an agenda with Steve. What kind of agenda? Like marrying the love of her life?

No, like marrying somebody for their money. Steve got some money. I don't know. I mean, he was living out of a fifth wheel. Yeah, but he's a cellular phone technology engineer. Mm-hmm. I don't know. At any rate, he said yes to Marty's proposal.

But he told his friends that this would be a long engagement. And then they got married two weeks later. Yeah, like a year later, they got married. Steve and Marty had a very classy wedding. It was at the Seattle Yacht Club. Sounds like the food was wonderful. Steve kind of sprung it on his friends and family, you know. It was a little hard to tell from the articles if Steve's family was even in attendance at this wedding. But I think this anecdote really sums things up beautifully. Tell us, share it. What do you got? When Steve asked his best friend Carl

to be his best man in this wedding, Carl was like, oh, wow. Well, yeah, I mean, sure I could. Or hear me out. Why don't you just don't do this, man? Oh, no. What if you had said that when I asked you to be my my maid of honor to marry David? Oh, my gosh, that would be terrible. Yeah. What would you have done? I don't know.

That would have never happened because David's amazing. So it's true. But what if I didn't like the idea of other people getting attention? So Steve and Marty did get married. Sort of. They had the wedding, but Steve didn't sign the wedding certificate because technically his divorce wasn't final with his first wife. What? Then you can't get married. Well, I mean, so technically he didn't because he didn't sign the thing. So rules have all been followed.

What? I'm making this face, folks. People don't know. I don't even know how to describe that face. I don't even know how to describe that face. You had reservations about this wedding and now you're mad that it didn't really, I mean. Well, I mean, why the fuck are they going through with a wedding when he can't get married anyway? That's super fucking weird.

Seems like Marty's trying to push stuff along and Steve's brakes aren't working. Fucking scam likely again. Pick up, I dare you. Right here on the podcast. Tell them it's Oprah. So Steve and Marty were kind of married, but not legally. But they did take out life insurance policies on each other. Oh, for fuck's sake.

Oh, no. Marty murdered him for the insurance money. It is a theme. After the wedding, their relationship went downhill. Marty was weirdly jealous of Steve's son because Steve's son got a lot of attention, as children often do. Great. I hate that these fucking kids are getting all this attention. Meanwhile, I, a grown woman, have to scream for people to listen to me.

Can you fucking imagine? No, I cannot fucking imagine. And so Marty and Steve broke up. Sort of. Really, they had like an on-again, off-again thing that lasted for years. It was messy. And Marty was constantly hitting up Steve for money. Yep.

Just as I suspected. You suspected a fire. No! I said she had a motive for marrying him. And it's money. And then insurance and murder. I hear she just wanted some of those wooden clogs. We don't even know if he's Dutch, Kristen.

Finally, Marty came to him one day and was like, look, I have to have surgery and my job as a secretary isn't going to pay for it. I don't know if maybe she didn't have enough hours to get insurance or whatever. But basically what she said was, will you actually marry me so that i can get on your insurance and i hope steve was like listen that sounds really rough but no thank you she needed that surgery brandy that nose wasn't going to job itself. Don't say job itself. I don't know what the surgery was for.

No, he said okay. Yeah, I figured. So Steve and Marty. Seems like a good guy. You know, it was interesting, like, reading about him, like, you felt bad for him because some friends were kind of saying, like, maybe he didn't always have the backbone to stand up to her. You know, maybe that first marriage, it was so devastating. Like, he was vulnerable. And yeah, it sounds like he was a really nice person.

So Steve and Marty got married, for real this time, by a justice of the peace in Marty's living room. And a year later, Steve filed for divorce. So that was the story of Marty and Steve. And now Steve was dead. Steve's family talked to the two detectives, and they felt kind of uncomfortable because none of them had ever liked Marty. But, I mean, it's one thing to not like someone. It's another to be like, oh, you know what? That seems like a murderer right there.

Yeah, that bitch murdered him. How much life insurance were you talking about here? How about you calm down and listen to this story? But detectives Ed and Tom were like, no worries. We'll just look into it. But Detectives Ed and Tom were like, no worries, we'll just look into it. So they headed over to Scottsdale to Marty's house, which had a pool and an indoor hot tub. But I'm not jealous.

I am. Fucking Marty. I want both of those things. I know! Now, Brandy, before we go any further, Now, Brandy, before we go any further, you need to know that Detective Ed from Washington was a bit of a stud. Oh. He was 33 and he looked like Eric Estrada. Oh, okay.

Yeah, your picture. Did he part his hair in the middle like that? You know, the picture they had from him from back in the day was very blurry. Oh, okay. You can't tell where he parts his hair. And that's what I always look for in a man. Great. We have no idea where he parts his hair. The list of things we don't know.

Is really adding up. It's adding up. By the way, Detective Tom is not a bad looking guy himself, but he couldn't compete with the knockoff Eric Estrada. So, you know, he's just playing second fiddle. Tim Pound's fun fact. Detective Tom is not a bad-looking guy himself, but he couldn't compete with the knockoff Eric Estrada. So, you know, he's just playing second fiddle. Tim Pound's fun fact. When my dad was younger, people used to say he looked like Eric Estrada's partner on Chips. What's that guy's name? I don't know.

I was about to say, your dad does not look like Eric Estrada. He does not look like Eric Estrada. I was about to say your dad does not look like Eric Estrada. He does not look like Eric Estrada. Eric Estrada's partner. Oh, now I'm getting like everyone he's ever been married to, which is like a lot of people. Hold on, hold on. Is it Larry Wilcox? Yes.

He played John Baker. Oh, yeah! Wait, have we had this conversation before? How often does Eric Estrada come up on this podcast? I can't imagine it comes up very often. I feel like I've had this moment before where I'm looking at a picture of a guy and I'm like, oh, yeah, I can see your dad.

Yeah, this picture right here, that's my fucking dad. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Your dad was in Chips. My dad likes Chips, too. Wow. Does he also like karaoke?

No. Has he been to Iowa? Yeah, well, at least he's from Iowa. So, yes, many times. Brandy. Yeah, I am. Brandy. Yeah, I know your dad's been to Iowa. Yeah, you slap a mustache on this guy, and that is my dad. Yeah, yeah.

Everyone, you heard it here first. Tim Pound's fun fact looks like Larry Wilcox in Chips. And now he eats chips. That's right. End of story. Those are the facts. So, you know, the detectives go. They knock on Marty's door.

And Marty answered the door with nothing but a T-shirt on. Oh, no. The detectives introduce themselves. Beautiful. Oh, no. The detectives introduced themselves. Beautiful. Babies, I do now. Now that I'm with you.

What? Something's wrong with your podcasting app. We didn't just break out into Jessica Simpson. Yeah. That's a you problem. Right. Don't talk to out into Jessica Simpson. Yeah. That's a you problem. Right. Don't talk to anyone else. It didn't happen to anyone else. So Ed said that he was from Bothell, Washington, and Marty said that she only knew one person in Bothell, and that was her, quote, good friend and ex-husband, Steve Verwert.

And they were like, oh, sorry to tell you this. They were like, oh, Verwert, is that Dutch? Dutch. And she was like, I don't know. She's like, I'm not even wearing pants. You think I can answer that question? No, they were like, I'm sorry to tell you this, but he was killed. Marty was, you know, not super emotional at all about Steve's death so maybe she was in shock

but she did manage to be friendly like super friendly like so friendly to the detectives friendly like really friendly you know you ever been friendly to somebody I'm friendly to lots of people hmm slut shortly after they told her that Steve was dead, Marty was like, well, I was in Las Vegas on the 4th of February. And they were like, oh, that's weird. We didn't ask. Yeah. Also, we didn't tell you the day he died either. So that's cool.

All right. Super suspicious. She told the detectives all about her trip to Vegas. And even though the trip had taken place like a week earlier, her memory was a little fuzzy. She couldn't remember where she'd stayed in Vegas. What? You know. You know how it is.

No. That's like the one thing you for sure remember is what hotel you were at. No, no, no, not in this case. Here's like the one thing you for sure remember is what hotel you were at. No, no, no, not in this case. Here's what she did remember. She remembered she'd been there and that she'd passed out business cards at all kinds of places. Casinos, hotels, banks, just business cards. What kind of business is she in?

Okay, here's the weird thing about Marty. Marty seems like one of these people who would call herself a serial entrepreneur. Oh, yeah. Because back in Iowa, she bought a newspaper. It was like a weekly newspaper. And she wrote a column that she ran on the front page. Kills me to say this, but the writing wasn't that bad. And, you know, now she was working as an administrative assistant, so I think she kind of did all these odd jobs.

And, like, she kept talking about, like, having these business ventures with people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. She's a scam artist. No. An entrepreneur. Pulling off insurance fraud and murdering her ex-husband. And her downfall was that she put that on her business card.

So the detectives were like, okay, okay. Which casinos? Which hotels? Which banks? Yeah, where were you? And Marty couldn't really remember. She did. I went to the big one.

Yeah. And then the one that's like a little bit smaller. Remember? She did. I went to the big one. Yeah. And then the one that's like a little bit smaller. She did talk to people, though. I mean, she definitely talked to people. In fact, one night she met these two dudes at the casino. Okay. And she went back to their place to spend the night.

So that's why she couldn't really remember where she'd stayed and that's why it couldn't be looked up because the hotel room wasn't under her name in the first place. That's stupid. Oh, I'm sorry. It's stupid to have a good time. But enough about her trip to Vegas. Back to Steve. She told the detectives that she actually had his will. And not a copy of his will. Like, she had his original will.

Why? Well, you know. She went into her home office. He lived in a fifth wheel and they don't come fitted with safes, so. Sure. Okay. She went and grabbed it and they were like, wow, she really just had that right on hand. Yeah. And she showed them how, according to the will, she would be the beneficiary of his estate and Steve's son would receive $1.

$1? Yeah. What is this, the price is right? his estate and Steve's son would receive one dollar. One dollar. Yeah. Was this the price is right. That was a stupid joke. And yet I laughed. And the thing is, that's how the son got all the money. And this was all made right.

Yeah. She overbid. Yeah. She also had about one hundred and fifty,000 coming to her in life insurance. This is a theme. Hey, everyone. I don't know if you're really stupid, but just so you know, this is a theme. If you haven't caught on.

You said it was a loose theme. It's not that loose. if you haven't caught on. You said it was a loose theme. It's not that loose. Maybe you could wait for it and perhaps see what I might mean by that. Okay, that's right. I'm supposed to be Aaron Burr. And by that you mean shoot me?

You do look an awful lot like Alexander Hamilton. First of all, how dare you? And I die a hero, okay? And you're just a vice president who nobody remembers. So, you know, she kind of tells him this stuff and she's, you know, just needed one thing. She just needed Steve's death certificate, like, ASAP. Do you fellas got that on ya? She asked them about the death certificate several times.

The detectives were like, ooh, boy. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Marty was a sketchy little weirdo in a very large T-shirt. How big was the T-shirt? It went mid-thigh. Also, by the way, wow, do not be a douchey woman in the 90s because when they write about you in the paper, I mean, like, paragraph one is dedicated to how ugly you are. Was Marty ugly? According to these newspaper people. Okay.

In my article, the one for the Washington Post, they talked about how fat Lula got because of her cancer treatment. Yeah. And that was a more recent article. No, no, that was in the 90s too. Yeah, 97 is when that article was written. Oh, I hate it. I know. The biggest crime is that Marty was ugly.

And the biggest shame of your murder victim, she got fat. She got fat. Yeah. Yeah, too bad, huh? Yeah, real. God fucking gross. Jesus. It was funny because, like, I read one article.

I was like, wow, geez, okay. And then I was like, oh, he mentions it too? Oh my gosh. Anyway. So, you know, they know she's a little weird. But she's also a flirty little weirdo.

Specifically, she was into Detective Ed. Yeah, he looked like Ericica strata ed was like if i'm not mistaken i think she wants the d and it seemed like maybe she did want the d brandy did she like cross did she did like the sharon stone like basic instinct cross her legs thing right in front of him see i didn't know that that was such a thing. Well, I mean, I think it's only a thing in basic instinct, but. But maybe when you're wearing just a big baggy T-shirt with nothing underneath it and you show your cooter and, you know, that's certainly a signal.

I don't know how you can be more clear. She started calling Ed pretty frequently, often asking if she could get a certified copy of Steve's death certificate. She invited Ed out for drinks, invited him out for dinner. She told Ed all about her sex life, which I'm sure was not gross at all. Worth noting, she did have a boyfriend, and she had proposed to him. He'd said no, but that guy didn't bear any resemblance to Eric Estrada, I'm guessing. So the detectives kept looking into Marty, and they discovered that on February 3rd, 1997, the day before the murder, 97? Wait, wasn't it 95 a minute ago?

Fuck a duck. What's happening? I have to check something. Please hold. Oh, no, no. It was 97. 97. Okay.

Woo! I mean, what if I didn't know anything about his family tree and I got the year wrong? No, I did a perfect job with the year. 1997. So they discovered that on February 3rd, 1997, the day before the murder, she'd had her Nissan Pathfinder serviced. And on that day, her car had about 10,000 miles on it. How many does it have on it now? When she got it

serviced again 10 days later, the car had about 13,000 miles on it. Okay, so she fucking flew to Vegas and then drove? No, because she has to have her car. So she pretended to be in Vegas. She like had... Okay, why don't you tell us the story?

She drove to fucking Washington. I'm sorry, I was giving you that look because I was thinking, you actually believe she went to Vegas? No, she never went to Vegas. Instead, she pretended to go to Vegas, but what she really did was drive to fucking Washington, fucking murder Steve,

and then zoom it on back. Perhaps. Put 13,000 miles on her car. Well, it's only 3,000. Start the test. Just kidding. That doesn't seem like enough. I just snorted.

Is that enough miles to get to and from Seattle? I mean, that's what they said. Or Bothell. Is it Bothell, Washington? It was Bothell, but it's outside of Seattle, so, you know. Great. Was it Bothell? Was it Bothell, Washington? It was Bothell, but it's outside of Seattle, so, you know. Right. So that was big because that kind of jump in mileage was too big for a trip to Vegas, as you have just surmised. But it made perfect sense.

It took me a long time to get there. I'm so glad you didn't just let me say one sentence. Instead, you had to show your work I feel like I just I just saw inside a serial killer's mind with like the cork board yeah and I got red streaks

fucking everywhere I ripped down the one from Arizona to Vegas real quick. Not super quick. Flew to Vegas. So, yeah, too big for a trip to Vegas. Perfect sense for a trip to Washington.

All right. So now we're there. All right. Got it. So that was something, but they needed more. And so Detective Ed put his beautiful little noggin to work and he came up with a plan. He went to his supervisors and was like, hey, I think this lady's into me. I need permission to seduce her.

And they were like permission granted he says maybe we could use that to our advantage and the bosses said okay go ahead and make love to her you have our blessing. No, as... Okay, so the truth is, as soon as Ed left the room, his bosses mumbled under their breath about how it must be nice

to coast through life on your looks. But they weren't jealous because they were beautiful on the inside and that shit doesn't fade, Brandy. Yeah, I'm sure that's exactly the conversation that took place. So Ed went back to Arizona, teamed back up with Detective Tom, and Ed rented a Mustang convertible.

And they recorded all of his phone calls with Marty. And they all went to these three-hour lunches like they're part of the Let's Go to Court podcast. And, you know, during these lunches, Marty would shit and chat and shit and chat. And not tell them anything that was relevant to the investigation. True story. One time she and Ed and Tom went out to the Grapevine in Scottsdale, which is still around to this day. It offers karaoke and Mediterranean food. And Marty spent that whole lunch just smoking like a chimney because it was the 90s.

And when she went to the bathroom, they bagged her cigarette butts for DNA testing. Very smart. And at the end of that lunch, Marty asked for 12 certified copies of Steve's death certificate. Casually, I'm sure. Very casually. Did they eat gyros? OK. So here's the thing.

I don't know what they ate. But in – they did like the little reenactment on the show. And they had footage of like the woman playing Marty like taking a chip and putting it in some dip and then feeding it to Ed, which I regret to say I don't think actually happened. Yeah. Okay. Well. What? Hummus? But you don't eat hummus with chips.

No. But here's the thing. I mean maybe this restaurant has changed over time. Also, I don't think they were, like, sticking exactly to, you know, I mean, these folks were the ones who were like, he was in a fifth wheel and then they show you a travel trailer. That's right. We can't trust them for shit. By the way, the detectives had been pumped about getting those cigarette butts, but as

it turned out, Marty's DNA wasn't found in the fifth wheel. Like, it was just a bust. So once again, they had basically nothing. And they were running low on ideas. And that's why I think we shouldn't judge this next one too harshly. Oh, no. Was it a real bad one? I think it's so –

Eric Estrada had to bang Marty. He had to bang the info right out of her. They were thinking people sometimes shout things spontaneously. Yeah. So he fucked her real good. And boy, it was not fruitful for the investigation. But he had an all right time. No, they told Marty that they had a surprise for her.

And they took her through the drive-thru at Carl's Jr. And then they took her to the cemetery where Steve was buried. And they left her alone at his grave. But what she didn't know was that they'd stuck a recording device in the vase of flowers. Inside her burger. No, they only got coffees at the drive-thru. And they were hoping that she'd do like a graveside confession, which – and then like, you know, it'd be – Yeah, we get it. like a graveside confession, which, and then like, you know, it'd be, and Marty did say

some stuff, but it was windy that day. So the recording didn't pick anything up, but like, how stupid is that? Yeah, that's pretty dumb. I feel like, first of all, there, if there is a case where someone was actually put away from murder based on that, I would love to hear it. This is not the first time we've talked about this in a case where, like, the detectives, like, put a recording

device by the tombstone and, like, take the person there and then, like, oh, we'll give you your privacy and say whatever's on your mind. You know? See, I feel like maybe they catch somebody saying, like, oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah. And then they're like. That's the most you're going to get. Yeah. But maybe then they're like, listen to this. This is what we recorded. I'm sorry, Steve, that I murdered you in your fifth will to claim insurance. And I really need those copies of your death certificate now.

The horrible thing is she said all that. It just wasn't picked up. It just blew away in the wind. So she got back in the car, clearly very emotional, and said, did you ever get those death certificates? Oh, my gosh. So Marty was still a sketchball, but she still seemed interested in Ed. Yeah, but she's working them just as much as they think they're working her.

It certainly seems that way. She's just hanging out with them to get the death certificate. And I bet you they paid for some of these meals. I bet they did. I bet she had pita chips, you know. All she wanted. All the hummus she could eat. So, you know, Ed decided to start playing games with her heart. Playing games

with my heart. It's my heart. So he told Marty that he was unhappy living in Bothell. He didn't like working for the Bothell Police Department. But you know what he did like? It Bothell-ed him. That was... Very well done, Brandy. Thank you.

You know what he did like? Marty. Too far, too far. Hold on, let me hit it again. Arizona. That's right. It's hot, but it's a dry heat. You know, she's kind of, people always talk about how hot it is, but it really doesn't feel that bad once you're here.

There's karaoke on every corner. Yeah. He wondered if he could get a job at the Mesa Police Department. And Marty was like, yes, do it. And the details on this are a little sketchy, but it seems that he asked her for five grand to cover his moving expenses. And she was like, yeah, no problem. What? I know.

I would like more information on that. So they were talking and talking and building trust on a foundation of lies and it was all being recorded. And at one point, Ed started bad-mouthing the Arizona detective he had been paired up with, saying that Tom was uptight, stuffy. Was it all part of the plan? Did he get this cleared through Tom first? I mean, yeah. Tom was in on the whole thing, but he had to listen to that insult when asked about it he said sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me

but a single tear ran down his cheek as he said it so you tell me eventually marty began asking ed specific questions about the investigation here's how one conversation went which took place in a parking lot. Marty, I gotta ask you one other thing, and this is... Ed, I won't marry you. Marty. Seriously, Eddie, are you having me followed? Because I'm being followed.

Ed, You are? Marty. I are. Ew. I hate that so much. Brandy doesn't like it when people flirt. It is so funny to me you can research some of the nastiest grossest cases yeah but man you hear a transcript of people flirting and you about lose your shit this is i'm embarrassed for

later he says i've got to find out what's going on with that crime scene. I know some of what's going on with it. I know enough that I can get in there and mess some shit up, but I got to tell you. Marty, do you think I did it? Ed, I've already linked you to the crime. Everything can be cool. If I'm satisfied, then I make things go away. I haven't touched it. As far as anybody else knows, it's unsolved.

Marty. But why am I linked to it? Ed. The miles on your car. Marty. Yeah? Ed. I know your car got serviced and I know what the miles were when it got serviced. Marty. Yeah? Ed indicated that he'd gotten Steve's murder pretty well figured out. He knew she was involved, but he hadn't shared any of that information with Detective Tom. Too uptight. Too stuffy. He told her that he'd be willing to lie to protect her.

But he needed more information first. This is an intelligence test. Yeah. I don't know what that is. Here's how that conversation went. Ed, if there's a fucking knife or something out there, whatever it was that was used,

I don't want this shit to hurt us. I need to know it's gone, because if that shit comes up, somebody finds it, I'm fucked. Marty. Okay. Ed. Is it gone? Marty. I mean, I never saw it.

Ed. The fuck does that mean? Okay, was there anybody else there? Because if there's fingerprints or if there's anything, I gotta make it go away. Marty. There's nothing. Ed. Are you sure?

Are you positive? So, she still wasn't telling him a whole lot. Yeah. But he kept pressing. He told her that he wanted money in exchange for his help covering this up. He said, bottom line is, I see a couple things that could happen. I think we can make a business arrangement. Marty, yeah?

Ed, I'm leaving. I could give a shit. I got money coming from up there. That's cool. You and I can work something shit. I got money coming from up there. That's cool. You and I can work something out. We both got a lot to lose. Marty. Okay. Ed. Bottom line it comes down to is you got a lot to lose. You got a shit ton of a lot to lose. If it makes it worth my while, then we can work something out. I want to be taken care of.

I'm taken care of, and I can make shit happen. That's the name of the game. I've given this a lot of thought. I've fucked around down here for the past two or three days to tell you what I was going to do, deciding if I could trust you. And Marty said, So let's talk. What do you want?

He told her that he wanted some of her insurance money. How much? They're working on it. Hang on. I'm sorry. This is part of a negotiation, Brandy. All right. Also, he wanted a new Harley as a present to show that she cared about him.

Okay. Marty agreed, and they shook on it. And then she told him everything. She said that she'd met this guy named John Curtis at one of her favorite bars, J.D.'s in Scottsdale.

Is that still around? It's such a common name. There is a J.D.'s. It exists. As she and John were drinking You know, it's such a common name. I mean, there is a J.D.'s. Okay. It exists. Okay. As she and John were drinking one day, they spotted a sign in the bar. It read, Some people are alive simply because it's against the law to kill them.

And that got them talking about Marty's ex-husband, Steve. She said she wanted him dead. And John told Marty that he'd been a cop for 10 years, that he'd killed someone before. So together, they plotted Steve's murder. John would be the hitman. Marty would pay him $25,000 of Steve's life insurance money. Their first plan was to kill Steve on Christmas Eve when he was in town visiting his family. Their first plan was to kill Steve on Christmas Eve when he was in town visiting his family. The plan had been for John to run Steve off the road.

But John got super drunk that night and he was too drunk to run someone off the road. Okay, great. So what happened in Bothell was actually their second attempt at killing Steve. Marty said that she and John drove up together to Washington and when they got there, they killed some time at a place called the Bigfoot Tavern. Oh, amazing. Did you look that place up? Yeah, but I couldn't find, like— Fuck! Also, turns out that's kind of a common name, too, for—

Well, yeah, that's Bigfoot Central up there, all those trees. That's where they hang out. Yeah, that's Bigfoot Central up there, all those trees. That's where they hang out. Yeah, Pacific Northwest, Sasquatch Central. Yeah, but I mean, I'm saying like throughout the country, you can find some Bigfoot taverns. Oh, okay. These are the things I know now, thanks to this case. Apparently not enough for your taste. So they gambled for a while and drank, waiting for Steve to get off work.

And once that time arrived, Marty said that she stayed in the car while John hiked over to Steve's fifth wheel and killed him. Ed asked her how he'd done it, and she said, I don't know. She said, he didn't tell me shit. He didn't tell me nothing how he did it. I didn't tell me shit. He didn't tell me nothing how he did it. I didn't ask. Ed, if it comes up, Marty, I'm telling you, I don't know how he did it. Ed, we have to cover our ass, okay? Marty, Ed, listen to me. He never told me how he did it. I didn't know until you told me.

She said that John came back from the murder all sweaty and smelly, and she was like, what's that smell? And he said, haven't you ever been in a barn? That's blood. Oh, my God. What? Yeah. Fuck, okay. But she told Ed that they didn't have anything to worry about.

But she told Ed that they didn't have anything to worry about. They'd gotten rid of John's bloody clothes about 250 miles away in a dumpster outside a fast food restaurant. So everything would be fine. The only thing was John wanted his money. He didn't seem to understand why it was taking so long to get the life insurance. Why are you smiling, Brandy? Because you also enjoy money? No.

Is John the one following her? That's why she needs to get the life insurance. That's why she needs the death certificate because she's got this man that she knows is capable of murder, really wanting his 25K. I mean, maybe she also wants the money that she's going to get. Well, she probably does. I mean, maybe she also wants the money that she's going to get. Well, she probably does. Also, she probably knows.

I mean, that might also partly be the reason she's hanging around the cops so often is because he's probably not likely to kill her or do anything to her. I had not even thought about that. She said, so what am I going to do about Curtis? By the way, John's last name, Curtis. Yeah. He thinks we're clean. Let's not involve him. Let's put him off until the end. Ed.

Yeah, but see that? It's because now I subscribe to the kill or be killed. You know what I'm saying? Are you like in love with this guy or something? Marty. Never. Nope. Never. Nope. Ed.

It's not going to break your fucking heart if he was to, like, go away. Marty. Would not. Ed. I'd feel better about it. I'd rather have his money and know that I had no headache there. It wouldn't be a problem for me. You know what I'm saying?

He later said, spell it for me, baby. Ask me nice. What? And she said, we're going to have to kill John. That's all there is to it. Okay. I think you and I feel the same way about this. Go on.

This feels a little entrapment-y here. It feels absolutely entrapment-y. That is such bullshit. Yeah! Dude, you brought it up. Yes! You pushed for it. This is not...

The cops treated this as some big victory. I don't think it was at all! I mean, it's... Yeah, you're not allowed to bring that shit up. Yeah. Come on. But, you know, in the car with law enforcement listening, Ed and Marty came up with a new deal. John would not be paid his $25,000 because he would be dead.

And he would be dead because in exchange for $70,000, Detective Ed would kill him. So to recap. How much life insurance is there? It's only $150,000. She's giving up half of it? She is so bad with money. Let me tell you. Holy shit.

Okay. To recap, Ed was moving to Arizona, getting some DK, murdering some dude, and also getting a new Harley. But that was a gift, so that doesn't really count. She got paid for that out of her money. Mm-hmm. She got paid for that out of her money. So Ed had gotten Marty to agree to a second murder, kind of, sort of. I don't like it at all.

She didn't get charged with it. They made up something about like, well, no, it's because you knew it wouldn't stick. Yeah, there's no way. That's why she's not charged. Yeah. Once that was all done, Ed told Marty that he had something for her. He'd brought her flowers. And she said, I love flowers. And he said, yeah, they're in the trunk of the car.

Go back there and get them. So she got out of the car, went to— Put your hands in the air, sucker! Is that what happened? Yeah, this is so weird. Got out of the car, went to... Put your hands in the air, sucker! What? Is that what happened? Yeah, this is so weird. All these officers came out of nowhere and arrested her. Oh, my God.

I would have shit my pants. And the whole time she yelled, Ed! Ed! Ed! Ed! I've got flowers for you in the trunk of my car. Get out and get them. Go get them.

They're right back there. Jesus. And so a broken hearted Marty was arrested. I would be kind of interested to know at what point she realized that Ed had played her. I feel like it took her a while. Yeah, probably. So at that point, investigators went after Jonathan Craig Curtis. It turns out he'd never been a police officer.

He was a construction worker. And when police talked to his boss, they found out that John had taken time off around the time of Steve's murder. And he actually even told them he was going to Washington. Well, that's stupid. He should have said he was going to Vegas, but then have no idea where he stayed. Let's be consistent with this story. Yeah, it's the luckiest thing. I met these two dudes, no idea what the hotel was, no idea what their names were. But I know I stayed there for free that night. So detectives Ed and Tom started talking to John.

And, you know, John denied everything, of course. But to Ed's surprise, he got a little flirty. And Ed was like, what is the deal? Is everyone horny for me? No. It was weird. And by this point, Tom was devastated. He'd never felt less attractive.

Stop it! And so Ed was like, well, here we go again. And so he started talking to John about how he had a thing for construction workers. Next thing he knew, he and John were making love in the back of the mustang convertible which i think is wrong because it was a rental you know you're not even supposed to smoke in those things i may have made that part up it appears john did not flirt with Ed at all. He just lawyered up. Weird. Yeah. So John and Marty were both extradited back to Washington where they were charged with aggravated first degree murder. I really loved the idea of Detective Ed like seducing both of them. Can you imagine how hot you'd have to be?

They're like, that was basically. I heard the strata hot. Yeah, that's like all you need in your detective arsenal. Like you don't need any other skills. That's right. They both pled not guilty. Did I say they were charged with aggravated first-degree murder? I'm pretty sure you said that. I was too busy thinking about my fantasy of Ed seducing everyone.

What if then there became some big Supreme Court case where they're like, you know what? This guy is so hot. People are confessing to things they didn't even do. So you can't use your hotness. Illegal use of hotness. How did I get diagnosed with ADHD? It's a mystery. It's a mystery.

No one could have predicted. So for a while, John was pretty tight-lipped. It looked like the only thing tying him to this crime was Marty's word. But it turned out John had actually made a very big, very dumb mistake. What had he done? This is amazing. Okay. I already mentioned that Marty and John spent the afternoon drinking and gambling at the Bigfoot Tavern while they waited for Steve to get off work.

Okay. While they were there, John played a pull tab lottery game. I don't know what that means. He won and he had to give his actual name when he collected the winnings, right? Fucking A. Oh, my gosh. He won $60. You've never seen the pull tabs?

I had to Google it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm not a gambling man. to google it yeah yeah i mean i'm not a gambling man so yeah yeah just show his driver's license and give his social security number which seems excessive for 60 bucks um so that 60 dollar windfall tied john to his this small town in washington on the day of the murder yeah um the other day i saw something online that made me laugh harder than it should have. It was, if you can't handle me at my worst, then you don't deserve me when I've got 60 bucks.

So when John finally did start talking about the murder, he claimed that he was the one who'd stayed behind at the Bigfoot Tavern while Marty went and killed Steve. But you know what they say, Brandy. The first to squeal gets the deal. So prosecutors offered Marty a plea deal. If she agreed to testify against John and, you know, then they wouldn't pursue the death penalty. So she took the deal and got a lesser charge of first-degree murder. When John found out that Marty had taken a deal, he was pissed. So he decided to get even. He went to another inmate and was like, hey, I need to kill someone.

I need Marty Malone to die. Make it look like a drug overdose. And the guy was like, sure, no problem. And then he turned around and snitched on him. drug overdose. And the guy was like, sure, no problem. And then he turned around and snitched on him. So John's trial began on December 16th, 1997. Definitely 1997. It wasn't the strongest case. There was no physical evidence tying him or Marty to the crime scene. Investigators had never found the bloody clothes that John had allegedly thrown away in a dumpster. They never found the murder weapon. They didn't find his prints or his blood at the crime scene.

In his opening statement, the prosecutor outlined the story and said, This case is about greed, stupidity, and senseless violence. But when the defense delivered their opening statement, they were like, no, John is innocent. He's been framed by Marty. She's manipulated everyone. She manipulated the police and the prosecutors. Marty killed Steve. The defense, of course, pointed out that there was no physical evidence linking John to Steve,

which I think is such a big deal. Yeah, it is. When the prosecution presented their case, Detective Ed, professional hottie, was their star witness. Prosecution played his recorded conversations with Marty. By the way, in the show, they interviewed him in current day, and it was kind of fun because he's like like yeah, you know, it was kind of a fun thing. Marty, of course, testified because she had to and she talked about the murder for hire plan and how she and John

went to the Bigfoot Tavern. Also Tavern. Either way, VB, you know, who cares? And then John left and killed Steve and she stayed outside the bar in her car. Then they called in the jailhouse snitch who said that John had tried to put out a hit on Marty. When it was the defense's turn, John took the stand, and he told the jury that Marty had hired him to be her driver on the trip to Washington.

He admitted that he had previously told Marty that he would kill Steve for money, but it was only as a joke. Hilarious. And it wasn't until they got to Bothell that he realized she was serious. And you know what he told her? He said, you're out of your ever-loving tree.

What? Did that phrase people say? That's what he said. I am quoting from his testimony, ma'am. You're out of your ever-loving tree. I've never heard that, ever. Yeah. He said that on the night of the murder, he fell asleep in Marty's car while she went

off and did, you know, whatever it was that she did. You know, apparently murder. Thoughts? I don't know. I really think he should not have taken the stand. Yeah. Because there's not anything tying him to this. I mean, it does seem pretty obvious what happened.

But there might be room for reasonable doubt. I mean, with nothing really tying him to that crime scene. Yeah. In their closing statement, the defense said that Marty and the other inmate who testified against John couldn't be trusted. They'd both gotten deals from the prosecutor in exchange for their testimony. The defense also said that the way Steve died didn't make sense. Steve had been stabbed, but John took a gun with him on that trip. Why not use that?

Well, because other people at the campground would hear the gun. Yeah, that's what the prosecution said. Also, if John went to Washington to commit murder, would he really have been so stupid as to show a bartender his driver's license and social security number? Yes. That's also what the prosecution said. Wow, I can really just blow through some of this prosecution stuff.

So the prosecution said what Brandy said, but they also pointed out that the woman that Steve had been dating said she overheard a man's voice in the fifth wheel that night when Steve left her that voicemail. So the prosecution I know, I had forgotten about that too. So the prosecution theorized You done oohing? We never did recover that voicemail, huh? No, we didn't. I've been working on it this whole

time. That's what these guys say. Who is we? Who is we? I've been working my ass off on it, OK? Yeah, so they theorized that the man in the voicemail was John. The jury deliberated for about two days and found him guilty. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

What? Yeah, I mean he probably did it. Yeah, I mean I think so too probably but – I don't like when people are convicted on that little evidence. I know. I know. It makes me very nervous. And I think there is a lot to be said for like – Marty got a deal.

Put that lottery ticket. I mean, come on. Yeah. At Marty's sentencing, she told the judge that she did what she did because Steve had hurt her feelings by ending things and she was drinking heavily and that had led to really bad judgment. She said, that's how it started and that's how it ended, in a fog of alcohol. Wow. The prosecutor argued against Marty's contention that this had all been about hurt feelings and alcohol. They said that Marty had done this because of greed. But Marty told the judge, the motivation was not greed a bold thing to say in front of Steve's family.

Yeah, no shit. Give me a break. I mean, great for you that you feel that. But that feels like something else that you feel the need to say that in front of everybody. The judge sentenced her to 23 years in prison. But was that justice? I mean, it doesn't feel like – that seems like way too light of a sentence. 23 years?

Yeah. You popped Marty out of that and John, is that his name? What? Pop Marty out of it? Pop Marty out of this whole situation and John, is this his name? Yeah, John. John Curtis? Mm-hmm.

Never drives to Washington and murders Steve. Yeah. But the case against both of them was so weak that she got this sweet deal. That is a fucking sweet deal. I agree. I agree. Especially because she very easily could have killed him. Yeah.

Honestly. Yes. Oh, boy. I don't like that. Because that's the other thing is like, I don't know. So, there was this other thing, though. Oh, okay. What do we got now? Well, it was the fact that Steve was not the first man in Marty's life to die under suspicious circumstances.

That's right. Oh, shit. Her husband died of a heart attack and then she started dating Steve like a week later. Brandy, he... Did they exhume his body? And he really died of, I don't know,

fucking... What's that stuff? What? Hold on. It's gonna come to me. It's gonna come to me. Avocado. Antifreeze poisoning.

He was actually the third man in Marty's life to have died under suspicious circumstances. Who else died? So her common-law husband, who died like a week before she met Steve, died of a heart attack when he was 43. Heart attack. We're putting it in air quotes. And Marty had him cremated like right away. Oh, he for sure died of antifreeze poisoning. And got a nice insurance payout. Okay, great.

By the way, that man had children. But two weeks before he died, his life insurance policy changed and Marty became the sole beneficiary. And the kids said that the signature on the new policy didn't look like their dad's handwriting. Marty's first husband died about 10 years after their divorce when he drove his car off a cliff. What? But here's the thing. I couldn't find anything more about that.

Like, because, I mean, I know. I've got my, I know. Well, death becomes her action. Little, yes. I'm very suspicious, but I kind of am wondering, like, was there an insurance policy, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, investigators looked into both of those deaths but didn't find enough to pursue charges. Sounds like we've got a black widow. Black widow, baby. And that's like we got a black widow. Black widow baby.

And that's the story of a sexy cop. Oh my gosh. Right. I can't believe she only got 23 years. Yeah it was really interesting to see. I think it was the prosecutor in this TV show was the one talking about what her sentence was. And he looked so fucking uncomfortable.

So she should be like out. Yeah, absolutely. She should be out. She might be listening to this very podcast. God, I hope not. Stay the fuck away from me. OK, so the reason I did not like this, I went undercover show. So, you know, like I said, I've watched other episodes.

I've kind of enjoyed it. This one, I have a theory that they made this episode, you know, like shot it, wrote it, whatever, edited it before they knew the name of this show. whatever, edited it before they knew the name of this show because they set it up as like this big mystery that like, wait a second, Detective Ed was flirting with Marty. Had he become a bad cop? Oh, my God. And that was like half the fucking show. Yeah, that's. And the whole time you're thinking the the name of this is I Went Undercover.

Anyway, I was. I want you to forget the name. I want you to get so caught up in the story that you forget what you're watching, Kristen. But at the end, they bring it back in. And you for sure know that you just watched I Went Undercover, Saturdays at 6 on i-D. I went undercover Saturdays at 6 on I.D. I was like, how stupid do they think we are? Pretty stupid.

Pretty stupid. You know, I claimed my lotto ticket when I went to go murder a guy. That's how stupid I am. Anyway, Brandi, we should take some questions from our Discord. Yes, please. To get in the Discord, all you have to do is join our Patreon at the $5 level or higher. Okay, this is not a question, but we have got to talk about this. What?

Mondo Duke says, listening to the latest episode now, I got some liposuction done last October as part of a breast reduction surgery. It was definitely the most painful part. I had my nips surgically removed and sewn back on and the lipo was still the worst. Oh my God. I wonder why the lipo is the worst.

I'm telling you, it's that scraping motion. Oh, my God. Woo. Yeah, I mean, I bet you're just sore forever, right? Yes. Ooh. Hmm. Haunted Loaf wants to know, if you could bring back a retired snack, what would it be?

Mine was French Toast Crunch. I was very excited when they brought it back. I had forgotten all about French Toast Crunch. I was very excited when they brought it back. I had forgotten all about French Toast Crunch. Waffle Crisp. Waffle Crisp. Remember Waffle Crisp? That sounds familiar. Had the old lady in the commercials.

Okay. Okay. It was little waffles. Okay. Maple flavored cereal. It was amazing. They were shaped like little waffles. What happened to them? Discontinued it. Trag cereal. It was amazing. They were shaped like little waffles. What happened to them?

They discontinued it. Tragic. What? I love cereal. So I have a million of these. Yeah. Okay. Rice crispy treat cereal.

Oh, I loved that. Fuck, that was so good. Yeah. That's like the only thing I'm adventurous in eating is cereal. I love all cereal. You got raisins in there. I fucking all cereal. You got raisins in there. I fucking love it. You got bran flakes mixed in.

I love it. I fucking love cereal. Okay. But I remember one time I got you – what's that cereal that Norman likes? Cracklin' Oat Bran. Yeah, I got you that and you fucking hated it. It got soggy too fast if I remember properly. What?

No, you do not remember properly at all. Cracklin' Oat Bran does not get soggy fast at all. That's life. Life does? And life is one of my favorite cereals. We gotta make tiny bowls of it and eat multiple. And you can't be in conversation with somebody. No, you gotta just shovel that

shit in. Cinnamon Life is one of my favorite cereals. Although the list of favorite cereals is quite long because I love cereal. Is there a cereal you don't like? Okay, one I would not choose? Just the original shredded wheat with the one big

biscuit. Oh, well, no one would choose that. Yeah. Unless you're in Jolly Old England. But I used to eat that when I was a kid with my grandma. Like if it was no cereal or that, I'd probably eat it. But would you make a face at it? Probably. Like you did with the bruschetta that arrived at our table today? Everyone, Norm ordered bruschetta as an appetizer.

The look on Brandy's face when that plate arrived at the table. My God. What's your cereal? The look on Brandy's face when that plate arrived at the table. My God. What's your cereal? I mean, I don't know. I feel like I'm not – you know, my problem is I'm so judgy. When she said retired snack, or I guess when – I don't know that haunted loaf is a woman. When they said retired snack, the thing that came to my mind immediately was something that I hate that has been retired. What?

Gushers. I hated Gushers. Those are still around. Oh, well, they should die. And they're delicious. They should end. Terrible. It's awful.

I remember people loving Gushers. Yeah, I love Gushers. Yeah, I know you did, you weirdo. Ugh. I remember people loving Gushers. Yeah, I love Gushers. Yeah, I know you did, you weirdo. I am creeped out by this question. Oh, no. Two-time jury alternate says, would you be creeped out if your current mailman bought the house next door to you? And I'm like, two-time jury alternate, are you my mailman?

But no, I mean, assuming you're not a weirdo, like why would that be weird? Yeah. Right? Yeah, I don't even know my mailman. So I wouldn't even – my mailman – well, my mailman might currently be my next-door neighbor. How do you not know your mailman? Oh, because you have like a – We have a cluster mailbox. And also you're at the salon during the day.

OK. You're not like an old person like me who creeps out the window every time someone passes by. I'm not. All right. That's fine. Oh, I see fat legs asks, when did you first feel like you were getting the hang of adulting? I'm still waiting for that day to come. Yeah, I mean...

Some days I feel like I'm doing it pretty good. Other days, not so much. Yeah, I mean, I feel like there are phases to it. Yeah. Like getting your basic life in order, getting your finances, and then like for me in my 30s, it's like getting mental health stuff in order. So yeah, it's all a process. And then like for me in my 30s, it's like getting mental health stuff

in order. So yes, it's all a process. And I've finished it. So. Oh, Olive Garden Smoliesa asks, do you think Bigfoot has two nipples like a human or a row of nipples like a dog? And if pecs, does a female Bigfoot have breasts? I think that Bigfoot has two nipples like a human. I agree. I completely agree. I don't know if Lady Bigfoot has titties. Sure she does. Sure.

Yeah. Check out the knockers on that Bigfoot is what they say. That is what they say. Check out the knockers on that Bigfoot is what they say. That is what they say. Ooh, Boom Influenced asks, if you had the opportunity to find out either how you die or when you die, which would you choose?

Oh, shit. Shit. I might do neither. I think I would pick when because then I want to make sure I use my time wisely. Yeah. I mean if I have to choose, it's when. Yeah. I don't want to know how. Yeah.

I mean – So I would choose when and that would be the reason is because I want to make sure that I use – I know how much time I have left and I use it wisely. Yeah, because knowing how is assuming that you can't change it. Right. So there would be nothing you could do with the information. Well, then you'd probably – I don't know. If you find out that you die in a car accident, you'd – Be terrified.

Yeah. Every time you're in a car. Yeah. Yeah, pass on that. Ooh, three demerits and you're out. Ask Brandy. Last episode you mentioned a dry oil for your ends for the days you use dry shampoo. What kind do you use?

My ends get real crunchy and dry on the non-wash days. I use Verb dry oil. It's actually Verb ghost dry oil. Verb's the brand. Ghost is the line. Dry oil is the product. And it smells amazing. What's it smell like?

Clean. It just smells super clean. I see. You just put that all over your mids and ends and just refreshes that hair right on up. What if you put it on your Rudy Tooties, fresh and fruities? over your mids and ends and just refreshes that hair right on up. What if you put it on your rooty tooties, fresh and fruities? It will make your rooty tootie, fresh and fruities look greasy. Yeah.

Okay. Very good. Very good. Gsizzle89 says, do you eat at Arby's? My fiance suggested this question, LOL. I do not eat at Arby's. Do you eat at Arby's? I would eat at Arby's.

I haven't eaten at Arby's in years. I know. See, I feel like that's everyone's answer to that question. Who's supporting Arby's? How are they staying? They've done nothing to us and yet none of us go there. I don't often have the urge to just eat a giant pile of meat on bread though. Wow, that seems really judgy.

I'm just – Don't they do curly fries? Yeah, I think that's like – The one thing they do? The one thing they do. Like I think that other people don't do. I don't know. I don't particularly like a roast beef sandwich. So somebody else has to really want Arby's for me to be like, all right, fine.

I'll take a beef and cheddar on a King's Hawaiian bun. Wow, you certainly know the order, don't you? Well, because I don't like the onion buns. And so – but see, that's the problem is they don't even always have the King's Hawaiian bun. So I run the risk of having to have an onion bun. And then I have to spend time picking off all the little onion pieces on top. That just sounds terrible.

Shall we move on from that sad story to Supreme Court inductions? And, you know, to get inducted on this podcast, all you have to do is sign up for our Patreon at the $7 level or higher. And right now, we are continuing to read your names and your favorite cookies. This is me being a cookie. Wow. Do I look like a cookie? I almost bit you. Eat my TARDIS.

PK and Sandy's. Jamie. Great Value Tagalongs. Those are really, they are a good, it's just a good dupe for a Girl Scout cookie and they're like two bucks. Alright, very good. April Walker. White Macadamia Nut Cookies. Wait, that's

aren't you supposed to say white? The white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. All right, April, get it together. Erin Ream. Sugar cookies with an absurd amount of cream cheese icing and M&Ms on top. Sounds like too much. That's, yeah, I don't, that's great for you, Erin. We're being so.

We're such bitches. Anastasia Bergmeier. Chocolate chocolate with more chocolate. Oh. Katia Knoll. Vanilla pudding cookies with extra chocolate chips and mini M&Ms. Mmm. Lindsey Sutherland.

Chewy Chocolate Supreme from Great American Cookie Company. Valerie Likens. All the cookies. Ooh. Ashley Bettis. Chunky chocolate's a British thing. I read. All right. Michael, I don't think that your middle name is really Pikachu.

But you know what? I do choose you. Oh, God. Oh, my God. We've got to wrap this up. Tatum Charmaine Kovacs. Raspberry cheesecake cookie from Subway. Everybody loves that cookie.

I know. We're sleeping on the Subway cookies, I guess. I know. I know. Taylor Lucas. My husband's brown the Subway cookies, I guess. I know. I know. Taylor Lucas. My husband's brown butter chocolate chip cookies. Alicia Peterson. White chocolate macadamia nut cookie from Subway. See, that's the way you say it.

That's the way you say it. Erin Loop. Warm chocolate chunk. Welcome to the Supreme Court. Thank you, everyone, for all of your support. We appreciate it so much. If you're looking for other ways to support us, please find us on social media. We're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Patreon.

Please remember to subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen. And then head on over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a five-star rating and review. And then be sure to join us next week. When we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process. I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web and sometimes Wikipedia.

So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. I got my info from the article Too Many Hitmen by Gary Boynton for Crime Magazine, reporting by Jeff Zeleny for the Des Moines Register, and the I Went Undercover episode, Flirting with Murder. I got my info from an episode of Mastermind of Murder, an article by Donald P. Baker for the Washington Post, articles for the Commercial Appeal and the Court Record. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors are of course ours, but please don't take our word for it.

Go. Read their stuff.