MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories - Murder on Steroids (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

On a summer night In 2013, newlyweds Joe and Olga Connell walked into their condominium in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe flipped on the light and sat down on the couch, while Olga headed to the bedroom to get changed. Suddenly, Joe heard a loud scream. He got up, and ran down the hall to the bedroom. There, he found Olga sitting on the floor yelling and crying. And he saw her jewelry boxes had been completely emptied and thrown off her dresser – thousands of dollars worth of rings and necklaces were just gone. But through her tears, Olga said she didn’t care about how much money they cost. Some of those pieces were precious family heirlooms that had been passed down to Olga from hers and Joe’s mothers. Joe comforted his wife, but he didn’t tell her what he was thinking. Because Joe thought he knew who had robbed them, and he feared this might be just the first attack in an escalating family war.For 100s more stories like these, check out our main YouTube channel just called "MrBallen" -- https://www.youtube.com/c/MrBallenIf you want to reach out to me, contact me on Instagram, Twitter or any other major social media platform, my username on all of them is @mrballenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. On a summer night in 2013, newlyweds Olga and Joe Connell walked into their condominium in Wilmington, Delaware. Joe flipped on the light and sat down on the couch, while Olga headed to the bedroom to get changed. Suddenly, Joe heard a loud scream. He got up and ran down the hall to the bedroom to get changed. Suddenly Joe heard a loud scream.

He got up and ran down the hall to the bedroom. There he found his wife sitting on the floor yelling and crying. And then he noticed her jewelry boxes had been completely emptied and thrown off her dresser. Thousands of dollars worth of rings and necklaces were just gone. But through her tears, Olga said she didn't care about how much money these things cost. Some of these pieces that had been stolen were precious family heirlooms that had been passed down to Olga from hers and Joe's mother's.

Joe sat down next to his wife and tried to comfort her, but he didn't tell her what he was actually thinking. Because Joe thought he actually might know who just robbed them. And he feared this actually might only be the first in a series of attacks in an escalating family war. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday.

So if that's of interest to you, please get a job as a projectionist at the Follow Button's favorite movie theater, just so the next time they go there to see a movie, you can instead play a reel of all their most embarrassing moments. Okay, let's get into today's story. If letting go sounds like, or evenings taste like, and getting away feels like, you've got a sense of New Brunswick. I'm John Robbins and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, how do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure, every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy but it's always

real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on how do you cope. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts, or listen to episodes early and ad free on Wondery Plus. How Do You Cope is brought to you by Audible, who make it easy to embark on a wellness journey that fits your life, with thousands of audiobooks, 2013, 39-year-old Joe Connell clinked his fork against a champagne glass to get the attention of his friends and family, who were sitting together on a restaurant patio in Wilmington, Delaware.

Everyone at the large table quieted down as Joe stood up and raised his glass. He looked over at his wife Olga sitting right by him and he smiled at her. Then he cleared his throat and made a toast. He said that he still couldn't believe that he'd been lucky enough to meet and marry a beautiful, brilliant woman like Olga. And he was so excited to be there with the people they loved to wish her a happy 39th birthday. Everyone at the table shouted happy birthday, toasted Olga, and then drank their champagne. Olga blushed, then Joe laughed a bit. He knew how shy his wife could be when the attention

was on her. But he sat down and put his arm around her and told her that she deserved all the attention. After all, this was her special day. A few minutes later, as the group was talking and eating, Joe felt his phone buzz in his pocket. He pulled it out and saw there was a text message. He read it, then quickly replied, and then jumped back into the conversation at the table. But pretty much right away, loud music began playing from inside the restaurant, and Olga immediately got excited. The music meant that the dance floor in this large restaurant and bar was now open, and

the dance floor was one of the big reasons they had chosen this place to celebrate here in the first place. Because as shy as Olga was in a lot of social situations, she actually loved to let loose and dance. And so Joe instinctively stood up, looked over at his wife and took her hand, and then together they walked inside the restaurant. Once inside, they immediately hid the dance floor, and for a minute, Joe just stood there, watching his wife dance.

She had beautiful blonde hair, she was wearing a nice dress, and she had on sparkling pieces of expensive jewelry. Joe had meant every word in his short birthday toast. He really couldn't believe how lucky he was to be married to this woman. The couple had met online about three years earlier, when Joe was just coming out of the craziest and most difficult period of his life. Joe had gotten into this drunken brawl and ended up pulling out a gun and the police got involved. Joe had

said the gun was not loaded, but that event still had landed Joe in prison for almost six years. And when he'd gotten out, he'd vowed to clean up his life. And pretty quickly after getting out, two things made that possible. One, he'd become co-owner of an auto repair shop with his best friend Chris, and two, he'd met Olga. Joe and Olga had gotten along right away, and so they quickly set up a date. And as soon as they hung out in person, Joe thought Olga was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and one of the smartest people he'd ever met. Olga had grown up in Russia, and while she was there, she'd received college degrees

in physics and chemistry. Now, Joe never thought of himself as being a particularly smart guy. and while she was there, she'd received college degrees in physics and chemistry. Now Joe never thought of himself as being a particularly smart guy. He thought he was just a really good car mechanic. But Olga, she fell for him the same way he fell for her. She thought he was funny and outgoing, and it didn't hurt that she thought he was handsome and in great shape. And so not long after their initial meeting, they moved in together, and then eventually,

in June of 2013, they got married, just a few months before Olga's 39th birthday. Back on the dance floor, Joe shouted over the loud music and told his wife how amazing she looked tonight. Olga wrapped her arms around his neck and they started dancing together. And before they knew it, hours had flown by. The dance floor had all but cleared and the restaurant staff was now starting to shut things down for the night. Joe and Olga said goodbye to the few friends who'd stayed to dance with them, and then

they too left the restaurant. On the drive home, Joe and Olga talked and laughed, still wired from their night out. But at one point, Joe got this sad look on his face, and Olga asked if something was wrong. Joe shook his head and said he was just sorry that his little sister Kelly hadn't been at the party. Olga didn't say it, but she knew that Kelly hadn't just missed the party. Kelly had not been invited.

Because Joe and his younger sister were in the middle of a full-on feud and they had completely stopped talking to each other. And as much as it upset Joe not to have Kelly in his life anymore, he could not bring himself to reconcile with her. But Olga didn't want anything to spoil her perfect birthday so she quickly changed the subject. And within a few minutes, Joe was laughing again. Around 1.30am, Joe pulled his car into a parking spot in front of his and Olga's condo. Olga got out of the car and headed down the walkway towards the front door. Joe moved kind of slowly and trailed behind her. Olga pulled her keys out of her purse,

and right as she was about to unlock the door, she heard a strange noise coming from behind her. —— Not long after that, Officer Kelly Richards of the New Castle County Police Department got out of her cruiser and headed up the walkway towards Joe and Olga's condo. Just a few minutes earlier, emergency dispatch had been flooded with calls from people in the surrounding condos saying they had just heard gunshots, and one caller had been sure he could see a body. Richards was the first cop on the scene, but she saw paramedics crouch down by the front door of the condo, furiously trying to help someone who was on the ground.

Richards approached and she saw there was an unconscious blonde woman in a dress laying there. Blood was pouring from the woman's cheek and head onto the concrete, and Richards thought it looked like she'd been shot. The woman was still breathing though, but just barely. Richards saw there was a ring with several diamonds in it on the woman's finger, so Richards' first thought was that the attacker must not have been here to rob this woman. Officer Richards saw more paramedics rushing down the walkway with a gurney, so she moved

out of the way. But as Richards watched the paramedics wheel this woman to a nearby ambulance, she realized something strange. Richards knew this woman. Suddenly Officer Richards looked around and really took in the condo and the surrounding area and then it hit her. This woman who was being rushed to the hospital was Olga Connell. Less than two months earlier, Officer Richards had worked a burglary case at

this condo because someone had broken in and stolen a bunch of Olga's expensive jewelry. Just then, Richards heard cars screech to a stop in the parking lot and it sort of snapped her out of her daze. She saw several police officers coming her way, looking at her expectantly, and she told them they needed to do a sweep of the area. And it didn't take long before Richards heard one of the officers calling her name. She saw the officer crouching down near some bushes a few yards away from the front door, and so Richards walked over and joined the officer. And there, half hidden by the bushes, she saw the body of a man, who had been shot multiple

times, and it was clear he was already dead. Officer Richards knelt down and shined her flashlight to get a clear look at the man's face, and right away she recognized him too. This was Olga's husband, Joe. Officer Richards had met with him several times during that burglary investigation. Around this time, Officer Richards looked over and saw the lead investigator, Detective Jamie Leonard, getting out of his car. Richards got up and walked over to him, but before she could say anything, Detective Leonard told her that he'd just gotten news that the woman who'd been found at the scene here had died on the way to the hospital.

So they were now dealing with what looks like a double homicide. Officer Richards said she knew both victims. Their names were Olga and Joe Connell, and their condo had actually been robbed back in July. But Richards said that wasn't all. While the police had never arrested anyone in connection with that robbery, Joe Connell had suspected he knew who robbed them. And police had even interviewed this person.

It was Joe's own little sister, Kelly. Until April 2nd, sky-high elegance at dream prices during the Air France Rendez-Vous. It's time to book your Rendez-Vous with Paris, starting at $765, or Madrid, starting at $885 return. From Toronto, tax included. You can enjoy a glass of champagne however you fly, economy included. Elegance is a journey, Air France. Travel from March 17th to June 28th and from August 24th to November 30th, 2025. See conditions at airfrance.ca. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan

of the Strange, Dark and Mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new Strange, Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries. And as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years. And we finally decided to take the plunge and the show is awesome.

In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Bolland's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music. That afternoon, Detective Leonard sat at his desk looking over crime scene photos, waiting for Joe's sister, Kelly, to get to the station. And as he looked at photos of Olga laying by the front door and Joe laying several yards away in the bushes, he had a theory that he just couldn't shake.

Leonard had spent the entire morning with Officer Richards and a few others combing the area around the condo, and a couple of things had stood out to him. The first was that the bushes where Joe's body had been found were littered with 9mm bullet casings. However, they also found.22 caliber casings on site, and the report Leonard had received from the hospital where Olga had been taken stated that her bullet wounds had come from A-22. Now Leonard knew it was possible that the killer could have just had two different guns on them, but based on how far apart the bodies had been found, he thought it was more likely that there had been two shooters at the scene, one to kill Olga and one to kill Joe.

And if that was the case, Leonard thought there was a good chance that these murders had been planned, and that they were not the result of some kind of spur-the-moment argument or anything like that. Detective Leonard's door opened, and an officer stepped inside. He told Leonard that Joe's sister Kelly had just arrived and was waiting in one of the interview rooms. Leonard put the crime scene photos back in a folder, put on a suit jacket, and then walked out of his office. Detective Leonard reached the interview room, went inside, and sat down at a table across from Kelly. And right away, his first impression was, she looked like she hadn't slept all night.

Joe and Olga's immediate families had all been informed about the murders. But since Olga's family was in Russia, Joe's parents and his two siblings were the ones dealing directly with the police. And Leonard knew that could take a toll on someone. So he started the interview with what he thought was a simple question. What was Kelly's relationship with her brother Joe like? But just hearing this question sent Kelly into a total breakdown. She began sobbing and she struggled to catch her breath.

She said that she and Joe had actually been fighting and had stopped talking to each other, but now he was dead and so she'd never get a chance to talk to him again. Detective Leonard just sat there quietly and let Kelly cry for a few minutes. As far as he could tell, Kelly was truly upset about the death of her brother, but Leonard also knew that didn't necessarily mean she was totally innocent. When Kelly finally composed herself and said she was okay to continue, Detective Leonard laid everything out. He told her he knew about the burglary at Joe and Ogo's condo, and he knew she, Kelly, had been interviewed by police in connection to that crime. He also assumed that that's why she and her brother had

stopped talking to each other. But Kelly said no, that her and Joe had actually started fighting before all that. And then Kelly leaned forward and began telling her story. And as she did, Detective Leonard just sat there thinking, this sounds totally insane. Kelly told the detective that years ago, her mother had given her the most beautiful ring with a bunch of diamonds in it. The ring was a family heirloom, and her mom had wanted to pass it on to her only daughter. Kelly had treasured this ring, and dreamed of it being her engagement ring someday. Then, a few months ago, Kelly's mother had asked if she could borrow the ring so she

could wear it on a trip she was taking. Kelly said of course. After all, it had been her mother's ring for a long time before Kelly got it. However, when her mom had returned the ring, Kelly knew right away that something was wrong. The ring looked different. So, on a hunch, Kelly had brought the ring to a jeweler, and the jeweler said there were no diamonds in this ring.

There were only cubic zirconias. Cubic zirconias are cheaper stones that are often used to imitate diamonds. Kelly told Detective Leonard that she'd been really confused at first, but pretty soon everything clicked when she heard that Joe had given Olga this beautiful engagement ring with several diamonds in it. And so Kelly got in touch with Olga, wanting to know if those diamonds had come from her family heirloom ring. Olga had said she had no idea what Kelly was talking about, but it hadn't taken long for Kelly

to get her mom and Joe to admit what they had done. They had taken the diamonds out of Kelly's ring when she lent it to her mother, put those diamonds in a new ring for Olga, and put cubic zirconias in the original, gave it back to Kelly, and just hoped Kelly wouldn't notice. At this point Kelly stopped talking. And at first, Detective Leonard really didn't know what to say. This was like the plot twist of a heist movie or something. But he quickly got back on track. He asked point blank if Kelly had broken into Joe and Olga's condo to try to steal the diamonds back or to steal other jewelry to get back at Joe for what he'd done.

At this point Kelly broke down again. She said she had nothing to do with the burglary. And as angry as she was, Joe was still her brother and she loved him. Leonard wrapped up the interview by asking Kelly where she had been when Joe and Olga had been killed. And Kelly said she'd been home alone. She knew that was not a great alibi, but it was the truth. After the interview ended, Leonard considered Kelly to be a major suspect, but he didn't have any concrete evidence to hold her, so he had to let her go.

The detective had not slept in a while, but he had no intention of stopping anytime soon. And after Kelly's crazy story, he wanted to talk to someone outside of the family about Joe, someone who would not have been mixed up in the family feud and who hadn't swiped any diamonds. So Leonard headed across town to Joe's auto repair shop. So, Leonard headed across town to Joe's auto repair shop. Later that afternoon, still not even 24 hours after Joe and Ogo's bodies had been found,

Detective Leonard walked across the parking lot of the auto repair shop that Joe had co-owned. He saw several mechanics hard at work on different cars, and he also saw a few guys who looked like they'd just come by the shop to hang out. It seemed a little strange to Leonard, but he didn't think too much about it. He walked into a small lobby, and he saw a man who looked like he was around 30 sitting behind the counter. Detective Leonard introduced himself and showed his badge, and the man behind the counter stood up.

He said his name was Chris Rivers, and he asked if there was a problem. Leonard asked him if he knew who Joe Connell was. Immediately, Chris let out a big sigh, and a very annoyed look came across his face. He looked right at Leonard and said, what did he do now? This was not what the detective had expected. In fact, it really threw him off. Leonard had planned to come by the shop, learn a bit about Joe, and then leave. But now, he wondered if Chris might have information about something

illegal Joe had been mixed up in. So, right there on the spot, Leonard changed his plan, and he asked Chris if he wouldn't mind coming to the station to answer some questions. The sun had begun to set by the time Detective Leonard and Chris sat down together inside of an interview room. Based on what Chris had said at the auto repair shop, it seemed like he had no idea Joe had been killed, and Leonard didn't tell him. Instead, the detective asked Chris what he did at the auto repair shop. Chris said he co-owned the place with Joe, but sometimes he felt like he was doing everything

by himself. Leonard asked him to elaborate, and so Chris said Joe seemed to like the idea of owning the business way more than actually running the business. Leonard smiled like he could relate, and he asked Chris if Joe's behavior upset him. Chris said of course it did. It was hard enough keeping the shop open, let alone profitable, but suddenly Chris stopped talking and just stared at Detective Leonard. Chris realized he'd just started ranting and still had no idea why he was there.

So he asked again, you know, what had Joe done? At this point, Detective Leonard knew he had to tell Chris what was going on. So he said Joe hadn't done anything. Instead, someone had murdered Joe and his wife. Everything about Chris's demeanor immediately changed. His face went blank and he looked kind of pale. He started shaking his head. He said there was no way.

Joe couldn't be gone. But Leonard said it was true. And right away Chris got mad at himself. He couldn't believe he'd just trashed his best friend like that because of some stupid work stuff. Just like Leonard had done with Kelly, he let Chris sit there for a while and collect himself. Then at some point when there was a lull, the detective asked Chris when the last time he had seen Joe was. Chris said he had seen Joe the day before at work. But after he said that, Chris suddenly paused like something had just hit him.

He told Leonard somewhat emotionally that he was actually supposed to go to Olga's birthday party the night before and he had gone to the restaurant, but when he was outside he realized he had left his wallet back at the shop. He was already feeling annoyed that he had had to work late, so instead of going to the party and seeing his friends one last time, he had just bailed, gotten his wallet, and headed home. And now he felt really bad about it. And so Detective Leonard asked a few follow-up questions about Chris's relationship with

Joe and with Olga and how they met each other and things like that, and then eventually, Detective Leonard said he had just one more question for the time being. He asked Chris when they had first met why had he assumed Joe had done something that would have gotten him in trouble with the police. Chris took a breath and then said he had never told anyone this, but he knew that Joe was a big-time illegal steroid user. That's how he stayed in such great physical shape. However, Chris said over the past several months, Joe had gone from just using steroids to dealing them. You can now enjoy this podcast ad-free on Amazon Music with your Prime membership.

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In the days following the interview with Chris, Detective Leonard really started to dig into Joe's past, particularly his time in prison. Leonard and his team met with prison staff and people who'd been on the inside with Joe, and a lot of them said the same thing. When Joe was in prison, he had become very good friends with his cellmate, who was a member of a motorcycle gang called the Pagans. And Detective Leonard knew all about the Pagans. They were directly connected to the drug trade in Wilmington

and in cities across the East Coast. So he wondered if maybe Joe had gotten mixed up with the gang after he had gotten out. Maybe he had made them angry or took too much money on a drug deal and they retaliated. So Leonard methodically tracked down members of this gang and asked them if Joe Connell had been dealing drugs for them. Now, most of the members admitted to knowing Joe,

but getting any information beyond that proved to be very difficult. This didn't surprise Leonard because drug-dealing members of motorcycle gangs were not really known for talking to the police. But at the end of September, so about a week after the murders, Detective Leonard was sitting at his desk when an officer walked in with a strange look on his face. The door opened wider, and this huge, intimidating guy in a black leather jacket walked inside.

And Detective Leonard couldn't believe it, because this man was one of the leaders of the Pagans. The leader sat down and told the detective that he was not there to try to protect himself or anybody in the biker gang, he was just there to set the record straight. He said that Joe had been a very good friend and he was still shocked that somebody had killed him, but he told the detective that Joe had absolutely nothing to do with any drug deals the pagans might be involved in. Joe was just a great mechanic who loved riding and working on motorcycles. Now Detective Leonard knew how utterly bizarre it was that this man had 1.

Chosen to set foot in the police station, 2. Actually speak to a detective, and 3. Not even tried to hide the fact that he had connections to the drug world. And so by the time this leader left, Leonard couldn't help but feeling like he must be telling the truth. Still though, the detective was not ready to just drop the drug lead altogether. Leonard did think Joe's sister Kelly was still a major suspect, but Olga had been wearing her diamond ring when she was found, so this being some kind of a drug-related hit as opposed to a robbery attempt made more sense to him. And soon, as his team kept looking into Joe's past, they found a new drug-related lead.

That lead was a man named Josh Bay. Josh was a known drug dealer in town, and he had even worked as an FBI informant. But for Detective Leonard, the most important thing about Josh was that he seemed to spend a lot of his free time just sort of hanging out at Joe's auto repair shop. On October 4th, two weeks after the murders, Detective Leonard brought Josh Bae in for an interview, but it quickly became clear that this young man was not going to be all that helpful. In fact, Josh at first tried to play off that he didn't even know Joe or his business

partner Chris. When Leonard pointed out that police had plenty of evidence that said he did know both men, Josh simply changed his story. He admitted he knew Joe and Chris, but only as the guys who worked on his car. Leonard pressed Josh, but it got him nowhere. Josh said he knew nothing about drug deals involving anyone at the auto shop, and he said he had no connection to Joe and Olga's murders. The detective didn't really believe anything Josh said, but he'd have to find proof that

Josh was lying. So Leonard let him go, frustrated that he had good leads but no clear evidence pointing to any of them. The following day, October 5th, Detective Leonard and members of his team stood at the back of a church for Joe's funeral, listening to a man sing Danny Boy over Joe's casket. As Leonard listened to the song, he scanned the church pews, looking at everyone who had come. And one thing stood out. Most of Joe's friends and family clearly believed Joe's sister Kelly was involved in the murders. Because nobody was speaking to Kelly. It was like the entire family was shunning her.

Even though Leonard had leaned into Joe's potential drug connections over the past weeks, he had not crossed Kelly off his suspect list by any means. If she wasn't the one who had pulled the trigger, she could have helped plan the hit. And maybe she didn't want to rob Olga's diamond ring or her other jewelry because she knew that would lead police right back to her. So standing there in the church watching Kelly stand there uncomfortably, Detective Leonard wondered if maybe the murders were just a classic case of revenge. Four days later, on the evening of October 9th, Detective Leonard and his team gathered around a TV at the station to watch a local news show. This was not something they did often, but tonight,

the news was running a story on Joe and Olga that would include interviews with people who had been close to the couple. Just like going to the funeral, Detective Leonard saw this as an opportunity to see if anyone would say or do something strange. The news show started and at first it was pretty standard. A retrospective on Joe and Olga's lives and how much people loved them. But during one interview segment, Leonard heard something that took him completely by surprise. He looked around at his team to make sure he hadn't misheard something, but they had

all caught it too. And they knew it could be something huge. After the news show ended, Leonard didn't waste any time. He laid out a new strategy to pursue what he thought might be the most important lead they'd gotten since the night of the murders. Leonard's team worked tirelessly, but it would still take a lot longer than Leonard had hoped for for them to secure enough concrete evidence to put together a case that would hold up in court. But in September of 2014, one year after the murders, police finally made an arrest.

Now they had a clear picture of who killed Joe and Olga and how they pulled it off. Based on details from that news show, evidence found at the crime scene and interviews conducted over the course of a year, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened outside of Joe and Olga's condo in the early morning of September 22, 2013. Around 1am, the killers pulled their car into the condominium parking lot. They wore all black clothes and black gloves. The driver lifted their shirt, pulled a 9mm handgun from their waistband, and checked to make sure it was loaded. The passenger did the same with their 22. The killer scanned the parking lot and the surrounding area. It was well lit, but it was clear. Nobody was there.

The driver nodded to the passenger, at which point the passenger stepped out of the car and quickly ran over to some bushes just a few yards away. The passenger crouched down, hidden the bushes, and kept their eyes fixed on Joe and Olga's front door. At the same time, the driver shut off the engine and sat in the car, waiting. About a half hour later, around 1.30am, a car pulled into the parking lot. The driver could immediately feel themselves tense up. They looked out and saw a woman wearing a dress getting out of the car and heading up

the walkway towards the front door, while a man followed shortly behind her. After a steadying breath, the driver gripped their 9mm and then stepped out of their car. And at that exact moment, right as Olga and Joe had reached the front door, the passenger leapt out of the bushes where they'd been hiding, sprinted towards Olga and fired off three quick shots at her. The bullet struck Olga in the head, cheek and upper back, and she immediately crumpled to the ground covered in blood. Joe, who was right behind her, screamed in horror, but as he ran towards his wife, the driver unloaded their 9mm from right behind Joe. He got hit multiple times, but he actually stayed on his feet.

Joe stumbled forward and tried to run to the bushes, looking for any way out of here, but the driver pursued him and kept firing their gun. Joe took rounds in the chest, arms, legs, and the back of his head. Finally he hit the ground and died in the bushes. The driver ran back to the car and climbed inside. The passenger was already there, panting and trying to catch their breath. The driver started up the car, threw it in reverse and peeled out of the lot. A few minutes later, when the killers were clear of the condo, the driver eased off the gas and told the passenger to let the person who had hired them know that the job was done.

The two people who shot and killed Joe and Olga had no personal connection to them at all. They had simply been hired to do a job by Josh Bay, the drug dealer who had hung out at the auto repair shop. But Josh had also been hired by somebody else to carry out these murders. And the person who had hired Josh and who was behind setting all of this up was Joe's own best friend and business partner, Chris Rivers. For all of Chris's talk about Joe using and selling steroids, police discovered that it

was actually Chris who appeared to have a major drug issue, with opioids and cocaine. And Chris's drug habit had begun to take a huge financial toll on him. He was basically burning through all his money. But Chris believed he had found a solution for all his problems. Chris and Joe had taken out a joint insurance policy for the auto repair business. Essentially, this policy would pay out a large lump sum to one owner and give that owner full control of the company if the other owner and any other beneficiaries died. This meant that to get the payout and to take sole control of the company, Chris would not

only have to get rid of Joe, he would also have to get rid of Joe's possible beneficiary, Olga. So, Chris reached out to his drug of Joe's possible beneficiary, Olga. So, Chris reached out to his drug dealer, Josh Bae, for help. He offered Josh a cut of the insurance payout to murder Joe and Olga. But Josh had no intention of actually pulling the trigger himself, so he subcontracted the job out to two hired killers he knew from his work in the drug trade. On the night of Olga's birthday party, Chris texted Joe. He said he was finishing up something at work, but he wanted to know how late they'd be at the restaurant, because he still wanted to come to the party. Joe texted back that they would be there late, most likely until around closing time.

Chris would pass that information on to Josh, and Josh would let the hired killers know so that they could be waiting at the condo when Joe and Olga got home. As Joe's business partner, Chris had been a suspect, but the bulk of the early investigation focused on Joe's sister Kelly and also on the possible drug angle with the Pagans motorcycle gang. But when Detective Leonard and his team watched the news show about Joe and Olga, they heard Chris say in an interview that on the night his two friends got killed, he had worked late and then gone straight home. This is not what Chris had originally told Detective Leonard.

Chris had told Leonard that he had first driven to the restaurant for the birthday party, realized he'd forgotten his wallet, and then left and went home. This little change in Chris's story was like a massive alarm going off inside of Detective Leonard's head. So, he and his team shifted their focus and dug deep into Chris's personal life and financial records, and they eventually discovered Chris's money problems, his drug habit, and his direct connection to the drug dealer, Josh Bay. Chris was charged with double homicide and found guilty, and he received two life sentences. Josh Bay got a plea deal

and was sentenced to five years in prison. As for Joe's sister Kelly, despite her feud with her brother, she had nothing to do with the murders, and no evidence ever surfaced that she was at all involved in that burglary of Joe and Olga's condo. A quick note about our stories, they are all based on true events. But we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Bolland Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more bone-chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. This podcast, the Mr. Bolland podcast, and also Mr. Bollin's Medical Mysteries, Bedtime

Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool, and Redacted. Just search for Bollin Studios wherever you get your podcasts to find all of these shows. To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel which is just called Mr. Bollin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya. Hey Prime members, you can binge 8 new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. And before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondery.com

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