Murder With My Husband - 154. Cipriano Garcia - The Family Man

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the tragic murder of father and husband, Cipriano Garcia. New Merch and other links here: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: nwitimes.com, "Cipriano Garcia remembered as family man, military hero," by Gina Czark, November 11, 2033 nwitimes.com, "Daughter accused of moving Hobart man's body blames others," by Ruthann Robinson, November 23, 2003 nwitimes.com, "Barbara Garcia wanted to give husband 'Viking funeral'," by Ruthann Robinson, October 1. 2005 Deadly Wives, episode: "The Liar's Club," aired April 3, 2014 on Lifetime law.justia.com/cases/indiana/court-of-appeals/2006/45a04-0512-cr-723-0.html Newspapers.com sources: Lauri Harvey, The Times of Northwest Indiana, "Homicide victim wrapped in tarp," 5 November 2003, archived (http://www.newspapers.com/image/304752932), citing print edition, pp. B1, B4 Lauri Harvey, The Times of Northwest Indiana, "Family IDs body of Hobart resident," 7 November 2003, archived (www.newspapers.com/image/304696668), citing print edition, pp. A1, A7 Gina Czark, The Times of Northwest Indiana, "Wife Charged in Bizarre Killing of Hobart Man," 11 November 2003, archived (www.newspapers.com/image/304734133), citing print edition, pp. A1, A4, A12 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Yes, you energy, energy for everything. Cast the banner now to learn more. Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder with My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. You might have already seen this, but...

our relaunch of our original, I love it and I hate it. Merch is out and available now if you weren't around or missed it. The first time we launched it. It's actually probably some of my favorite merch. And I hate to be these people, but we probably won't ever relaunch this again. It's true. We're probably going to retire this design after this time. So if you've ever wanted the, I love it or the I hate it.

This is the time to get it. It's actually really nice because we made these ones like a little bigger, like a little more oversized, which is super comfy. So go get it while you can and we hope to see some photos of you guys wearing it. Okay, I think that leads us right into your 10 seconds. I bought Peyton and I suitcases, luggage, whatever you want to call it for the first time. Like we've never... Well, we had luggage. We just, it was just like, hand me down from our family.

I don't either. We've always just been like, oh, this family member is not using their luggage anymore. Let's use it. This luggage became too old for our family and now they're giving it to us. It was just like falling apart every time it came down. It was broken wheels. It would just come down the, whatever you call it, would do.

It would convey your belt. It would come down the belt and they would just be like, oh, well that's ours. We just look for the most ratty tattoo on in my time. The upside is, no one's still in that one. No. No. Now that we kind of have some nice, sure stuff,

so when actually you might steal it. I know. That's so funny. I told, well, because it's so pointless because they just get so damaged. I do. That it's like, oh, buying new ones just sucks. I know, I'm just gonna use a trash bag.

I'll put all my stuff in a trash bag then I don't have to worry about it. Can you imagine it actually be pretty on brand for Garrett because if we ever go somewhere driving, he just packs everything in trash bags. I am always have something extra. Always. If there is a zombie apocalypse or something crazy

happen while we're driving, I wouldn't even be stressed about it because I'd have clothes. Because he just has trash bags full of stuff. I'd have everything I need. Payton on the other hand, oh, she'd be screwed. I just packed my tiny little suitcase with just the amount I need. And on that note, my advice to everybody

is always over pack. Okay, we ready? Let's do it. Daisy, are you ready? Daisy, are you ready? All right. PS, if you're watching on YouTube or video at all, and I'm looking a little stiff,

I'm just a little stiff, just ignore it and let it be. It just tweaked this neck again. I'm fine, everybody. I'm filming my com70. Okay, our K-Sources are nwitimes.com, deadlywives, again. I'm fine everybody. I'm film my come 70. Okay our case sources are NWI times.com deadly wives law.justia.com and newspapers.com. Okay so there are people among us in this world who look upon murder as a totally acceptable solution to certain problems. Problems like debt and unhappy marriage or being

found out for having done something wrong, like stealing money or having an affair. You've really got to have maybe something missing psychologically to be someone who weighs your options in a difficult situation and decides, yeah, I think I'll just kill the person to make it go away. I'm smart enough that I'll pull it off and I'll get away with it and everything will be better. And that's the thing. So many of these people think they are way smarter than everyone else. It's the arrogance and narcissism of a murderer.

And that's the thing that so often trips them up and actually gets them caught. In fact, when you take the whole case in, oftentimes these killers begin to look pretty stupid. And there's no type of criminal I love more than a dumb criminal. Like we're going to talk about in today's story. All right. So it was around one in the afternoon on November 3rd, 2003. It's a Monday. A man named Paul Chippewes set out for his usual

weekly walk, having no idea his name was about to make it into the news that week. Paul was walking through the woods near the Sock Trail Woods Forest Preserve in Bloom Township, Illinois. And walking through the local green belts was something that Paul did regularly because he was a scrap metal collector. So he'd go looking for discarded cans, electronic parts, and a sort of junk because that stuff can be resold. But on this particular Monday afternoon, Paul found something else, something other than scrap metal.

It was a blue tarp rolled up and tied with extension cable, and it looked like it had something inside of it, something that looked maybe like an area rug. This made Paul curious, and also he knew that extension cables contained copper, which had value, and also he knew that extension cables contained copper, which had value, and also Paul's dad collected copper. So Paul decided to go down the hill and investigate this item, which was on the bank of a pond, just at the edge of the water. He descended down the hill, and as he started to unravel the tarp, he all of a sudden saw

a pair of legs sticking out from inside of the area rug. That's when it became clear to Paul that there was a human body wrapped inside of this. Paul could feel the blood drain from his face, his heart was pounding out of his chest, he looked up the hill and saw another guy walking in the area and he yelled out to the man. What's the problem, the man asked him,

I think I found a dead body, he said. That body was that of a white man who appeared to be in his 50s or 60s wearing pajamas and a t-shirt. He was wrapped up in a rug, wrapped up in a blue tarp that was tied together with a hundred foot extension cord, and weighed down with a pair of concrete cinder blocks. It looked as though the body had been rolled down the hill with the expectation that it would continue to roll into the water and sink But instead it just landed shy of the pod. So a little oops on whoever dumped this body Sheriff step utes from Cook County were called this is just outside of Chicago by the way

And they arrived at the scene and brought the body who was at this point a John Doe because people don't usually Take their wallets and IDs to bed with them. This guy was dressed in pajamas and he was taken to the county coroner's office for examination so they could determine the cause of death because this certainly looked like homicide. So after being examined it looked like the man had some blunt force trauma to his head but it was unclear at first if this was the actual cause of death. Meanwhile, Paul, the man who found the body, was so creeped out by what he'd stumbled upon

that he took a long hiatus from scrap metal scavenging. I mean, discovering a dead body while looking for scrap metal is a pretty traumatic experience. For some, at least, I mean, definitely for me. Whenever I'm watching a true crime show where some poor person makes a grisly discovery, I always feel for the. Whenever I'm watching a true crime show where some poor person makes a grisly discovery, I always feel for the person that makes that discovery. So two or three days after

the body in the tarp was found, authorities ran the fingerprints and they made an identification. The dead man was 71-year-old Sipriano Garcia, who lived in Hobart, Indiana just across the state line with his wife and adoptive daughter. Who? And this was really interesting. Never reported him missing. Okay. So he's 71 and his wife and daughter never reported him missing.

This was looking suspicious from the jump, right? The man's been missing for at least three days and the family he lives with doesn't bother to make a police report. And also he's found in his PJs, which suggests that he was in bed or getting ready for bed and almost certainly at his own home, when whatever happened that led him to be dumped near this pond happened. So instead of reaching out to the wife, an adoptive daughter, police decide to contact Sipriano's brother, John, who showed up at the morgue and

positively identified the body. Now, at the same time, the medical examiner did toxicology tests on Sipriano's body, and when the results came back, it showed two different tranquilizer drugs in his system. I also think that it's interesting that they contacted the brother and not the family. Right? They were instantly like, okay, this is suspicious. Something wrong, yeah. We need to call somebody else.

Right. The drugs in his system were a clonipin and artein. But the amounts of these drugs wouldn't have been enough to cause his death. But what did cause his death was the staggering amount of insulin. They found in the 71 year old system. Now the normal insulin range for an adult human being is anywhere from 2 to 20. Sipriano's was 414. And he wasn't a diabetic. So this was highly suspicious and it was looking like Sipriano had been given a lethal dose of insulin. But to really understand what happened to Cypriano, we actually have to go back in time all the way back to the beginning of his marriage.

Cypriano Garcia was a native of the Hobart area, born and raised in nearby Gary Lake. Gary Lake. Gary Lake. When he was 18, he joined the army and served two tours of duty in the Korean War, which he was a radio operator in.

But during the war, he got severely injured in a bombing and was captured by the Korean Army, becoming a prisoner of war. That's insane. When the war ended, however, 21-year-old Sipriano returned home to Indiana, a war hero. He was awarded the bronze star and the purple heart for his service. And then several years later, in 1960, he met a woman 10 years younger than him, a woman named Barbara Joy. He fell in love with her and they began dating. Though Barbara was not exclusive to Sipriano, she continued seeing and having relationships with other men. In fact, she wasn't really

even that into Sipriano, but then Barbara got pregnant. Pregnant by another man who wanted nothing to do with being a father. And so Sipriano, who was in love with her, stepped in and proposed marriage to Barbara, offering to raise the child as his own. Needless to say, Sipriano was simping hard for Barbara. What? So stupid. Well, it's okay. All right, how do you keep going? We keep going off that. Okay, so in June of 1962, they got married and just a few months later, Barbara gave birth

to a baby girl, she named Tammy. And Sipriano adopted Tammy and raised her like his own child and treated her no differently from the three children he and Barbara would then go on to have together over the next decade. And so throughout the many years that Sipriano and Barbara were married, life seemed good for them. Sipriano worked as a machinist at the local Ford plant

and he worked hard to provide for his family. Putting his wife through nursing school, Barbara became a licensed practical nurse and began a long career working as a hospital nurse. And when Tammy grew up, Sipriano put her through school too, as well as the rest of his children. He was a good father, a good provider, and a good husband. Though for her part, Barbara was a lot less conscientious and involved in the family, not nearly as good a wife as Sipriano was a husband. She spent much of her time away from home playing bingo. That's right. She was a bonafide bingo addict. I'm like a pretty good mom

to me. It's playing bingo all day. Me too. And eventually that addiction would actually graduate on too much higher stakes. One day in 1996 they'd been married for 34 years by that point when Sipriano returned home to find the house empty. Barbara had picked up and just left. She hadn't packed everything, but she packed her essential items and no one knew where she had gone. But then a week later, when Barbara returned home, Sipriano had his answers. Barbara had gone on a gambling bench, and she had gambled away the family's entire savings. Oh no. All of it was gone. That was over a hundred thousand dollars. How do

you just do that? And like while she's doing it, she's just thinking, okay, I'm going to win this next one. I'm going to win big this next one. Well, isn't that what a gambling addition is? I mean, that's just crazy, the entire family savings. Oh my gosh. So Barbara had cleaned out the family bank account on slot machines. On slot? Oh, come on slot machines. Like not poker, not blackjack slot machines.

I can just imagine her, just like long eyelashes, red lipstick, just smoking and just like $100,000 every single time. Oh, it's not machine man. So Sipriano already had noticed the loss as wild Barbara was gone when he had attempted to withdraw money from their joint bank account and learned that there was no more money to withdraw. But he had no idea where it had gone till Barbara came back. So yeah, when she returned, she did come clean about where the money had gone and what had happened. But rather than flying to a rage, all Sipriano could feel and

express was relief because he was a gentle soul after all and he loved his wife and because she came back, even though she blew all of their money, she had come home, safe and sound. All that said, he did go to the bank the next day and had Barbara's name removed from their joint bank account. He took complete control of their assets and Barbara hated this. It left her feeling powerless, but she knew she was in no position to protest. She'd asked for it and she recognized that she was in the wrong. And at least in her rational mind, she couldn't fault her husband for his decision.

Now several more years would pass by without incidents. Sipriano and Barbara seemingly rebuilt their relationship. They traveled off and together, everything seemed okay. They looked like your average happy long-married couple. And then in 2002, after several years without any gambling relapses, Sipriano reinstated his wife's name on the family bank account. All right, here we go. But then, not long after that, Barbara's daughter Tammy.

Cyprianna's adoptive daughter, who is now in her 40s, moved back home. By this point in her life, Tammy was diabetic, severely overweight, and she was having trouble holding down a job because of her health issues. And so she could no longer pay her mortgage. It left her no choice but to put her house on the market and move back home with her mother and adopted father. But despite Tammy's closeness with the family, the house she had to sell was only five blocks away.

But the new living situation, Tammy moving home, wasn't completely harmonious. It actually created a lot of strain inside the house and a lot of resentment began to build with Cyprianne because of their conflicting values and lifestyles. It felt like Tammy, to him, was being a parasite, living off of him and contributing nothing. And both Tammy and Barbara were creating a rift between their household and one of their other children, their daughter Crystal and her husband Jim. In fact, in June of 2003,

Tammy and Barbara had filed restraining orders against them, which had been the latest development in an ongoing feud within the family, because Tammy and Barbara were trying to get custody of Crystal's son and had been, according to Crystal's husband, quote, hurting the boy since he was a young child. So I'm just telling you all of this family drama so that you can have an understanding of where we are once we get to. Sipriano being found dead at 71 and his family not reporting and missing.

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husband. And while Cipriano remained on good terms with everyone with his daughter, Crystal and her husband, he also didn't do anything to intervene and seemed to always take his wife, Barbara's side in the contention. It seemed like Sipriano was passive in this household while Barbara and Tammy kind of ran the show. But like I said, Sipriano was growing tired of the fighting and the living situation. And also, unknown to Sipriano at the time, Barbara was falling back into her old ways. She was siphoning money from the joint account to give to Tammy.

Even worse, she had started gambling again. And just like the last time, she fell into the trap of gambling addiction and she wasn't winning. So she once again. She wasn't, we just had to add that she was not really. Well, she was just losing a big old chunk of the family savings again.

Sipriano didn't know this yet though. But in late October 2002, Barbara knew that he was about to find out. He was planning to pay a visit to their bank, that Halloween. Barbara knew that once her husband went to the bank and made any kind of transaction, he would see the balance, he would see it was $4,000 short, and he'd instantly know that Barbara was responsible. And Barbara, she just couldn't deal with this again. I mean, $4,000 short is a lot better than $100,000 short, I'm going to be honest.

Exactly. I'm going to say it's okay, I'm just saying. I mean, it's not super crazy at last time. Right, but when someone struggles with an addiction, any relapse is a relapse, you know. Barbara knew if she was found out, this also could be the end of their marriage, especially with all the fighting going on. Because in recent weeks, Sipriano had grown openly disgusted with living situation between both Barbara's attitude toward him and Tammy's leaching and Barbara's carefree spending.

He had given both Barbara and Tammy several warnings saying if things didn't change, he was going to throw them both out of the house, remove Barbara's name again from their joint accounts and never give her another dime. Barbara knew that him discovering the account balance already being missing thousands of dollars would be the final straw. And she just couldn't have it. So that's when she decided to kill him, her husband after 40 years of marriage. It's interesting because all I know is what you've told me. It doesn't even seem like, I mean, did they have a good marriage? Or does it seem like she was kind of just chilling?

You know what I'm saying? Just gambling, chilling, hanging out. I mean, I guess I did have four kids, right? Yeah, and I also think it's... I guess it just seems, I don't know, it seems weird just the way you've kind of told everything as far as like what their marriage was like. And I think a good marriage is relative.

100%. Did they have a good marriage, probably according to our term of a good marriage? No, probably not. Yeah. But maybe it worked for them. True. On the evening of October 30th, 2003,

Barbara had an extra cup of coffee lying about on the counter and she asked her husband if he wanted some. He said sure. So secretly she pulled out some bottles of tranquilizers and put about 15 pills into his coffee. She then put the coffee into the microwave till it was hot and then gave it to her husband. Of course, rather than waking him up, the cup of coffee made Sipriano very sleepy. He decided to get into his PJs and sat back down on the couch before passing out. Barbara watched and waited until Sipriano started snoring. And then she got a vial of her daughter's insulin and gave him an injection.

And then another. and then another. That's what I mean. Obviously there was something going on in your marriage because you don't just want to kill the other person. You know what I'm saying? Yes. I mean, I know you say that. Well, it's relative. Well, I mean, I don't know. You don't want to kill me. So I guess it's safe to say we have a good marriage. Right. Well, I started out this story the way I did because there's some people out there who, for some reason, when they get into a sticky situation, like their spouse finding out about a lover or finding out about debt or threatening to leave, they some reason think that killing

is going to be the answer and solve all of their issues. When, if you think about it logistically, it just, it doesn't work. It's not true. Because killing him now makes it. 10 to worse. I mean, how is she going to make money now? Right. Yeah. Right. So she gives him all of these vials of insulin and over a 15 minute period, Barbara gave her unconscious husband 10 injections of insulin. Oh my gosh. And then she sat around and waited.

She periodically felt his pulse and she could feel it weakening, slowing down, and then it stopped. Her husband was dead, and that's one reality dawned on Barbara. She had just committed a murder. Like, she was a murderer. She knew that what she was doing was wrong, but only after it was done,

and her husband was actually dead, did it hit her like a ton of bricks, or at least according to her. And Barbara understood that if she took her husband to the hospital, they'd quickly figure out what happened. Like he doesn't accidentally take 10 vials of insulin. So she couldn't do it. She had to hide it.

She had to hide it not only so she'd get away with murder, but also so as retirement and social security checks would keep coming. Those checks were essential. She didn't want anyone to know, he had died. She and her daughter Tammy needed those checks to survive, and also Barbara could continue gambling with this money. So with Cyprianna dead on the couch and Barbara home alone, she needed to get the body hidden out of view.

But when she tried to move her husband's corpse off the couch, it wouldn't budge. The diminutive 61-year-old woman with her aches and pains was no match for the dead weight of her murdered husband's 180 pound corpse. Again, you just think that this thought would have rolled through her head maybe before she gave him the cup of coffee, poisoned it, and then spent the next hours injecting him with insulin. Like, you just think maybe how am I going to move the body? Would have passed through her head. Also like no regret at any time during the insulin injections. Like, okay, I should probably stop this. Right. You had so many chances.

You had 10 vials. So not being able to move the corpse, she decided to take a step back, assess the situation, and she comes up with a plan. She pulled the coffee table back, and then rolled Cipriano's body off the couch and onto the area rug beneath him. And then she rolled him up in a plan. She pulled the coffee table back and then rolled Cipriano's body off the couch and onto the area rug beneath him. And then she rolled him up in the rug. She then tried pulling the rolled up body into the kitchen, but again, she didn't have

enough strength. After half an hour of trying and failing to move the body beyond the foot of the couch, she gave up for a while and took a breather. And it was during this breather that suddenly the front door opened and her daughter Tammy came home and saw her adoptive dad, dead on the floor, rolled up inside of a rug. So Barbara then tries to explain, look, I know this looks bad, but let me try to tell you what happened. Barbara claimed that Sipriano had suffered a heart attack

and died suddenly, but she begged her daughter not to call it in because if it's known that he's dead, then those pension checks and social security that they were both living off of would stop coming. And she said to her daughter, we need that money. I mean, he's dead. There's no turning back now. So why lose out on the continued benefit checks? And with that money, she told her daughter, I can help you pay your bills and we can get you out of debt. Oh my God. It would be best if you know, he just goes missing

and not turns up dead. Barbara had Tammy convince. There's no way to that like, I guess there is a way you believe that, but like she seems so calm. I don't know if she's crying. You know what I'm saying? Like how is like a daughter? You just go, Oh, okay, yeah, I guess my dad just had a heart attack and I guess my mom doesn't really care that much. Based on the sources, I'm going to say these two women were skinny, skinny before. I feel like she probably knew, but I don't know. I just think that they... Ignorance is bliss.

So she says to her daughter, help me hide the body. But Tammy was also, again again in very poor shape. Remember she was sick, she was diabetic. So even with both of these women working together, they could barely get their husband and father's body beyond even the living room. But with enough effort, they managed. And Barbara went and got a blue tarp from the patio and rolled up Cipriano's body inside of it. So it was an extra layer of concealment, the area rug and then the tarp. They dragged his body out through the back door of the house to get it loaded up into his pickup truck so they could take it away and dispose of it. But to no one's surprise at this point, they

just couldn't lift him up into the bed of the truck. They tried and tried, but he may just as well have weighed two tons. It seemed like a lost cause. So they just left him there on the floor of the garage and went back into the house thoroughly exhausted. They watched some shows on TV for a couple of hours and then they went to bed. The next day was Halloween. They had already stocked up the house with candy and once trick-or-treaters began ringing in their doorbell. They spent the night handing out candy to kids while Cipriano's body decomposed on the floor of the garage. The next day, they continued to do nothing with the body. They rested and regrouped and went about their lives.

Barbara went and got her hair done. She did some shopping. She ran errands. But then after a while, the body began to stink and they knew that they had to get rid of it. So what do they do? The two women thought about it and putting their heads together, they come up with this elaborate sort of pulley system where they tied an extension cord around the legs and

then took a piece of plywood from the garage and configured it like a ramp from the floor to the bed of the pickup. They then pulled the extension cord over the pickup roof over the hood and tied the other end to Tammy's car. Tammy then got under a car, started the engine and began to drive forward. And as she did so, it lifted up the tarp covered corpse which rolled up the ramp and into the bed of the pickup truck. It's true what they say.

Necessity is the mother of invention. So at this point, with the body inside of the bed, Barbara told Tammy to stay home. She would take care of the rest. She was going to find a lake or some kind of body of water to dump her dead husband into and give him a quote of Viking funeral. Also, it's interesting because I feel like every time a body is dumped in some sort of water, it always comes up. Like you always get caught. Yeah, I'm sure there

are some bodies out there that don't, but I feel like so many bodies eventually, I mean, they do eventually. You least caught it comes up at it rises. So before driving off, Barbara took a pair of cinder blocks from the front yard so she can make sure his body sank. And then she got into the truck and drove just over the Indiana Illinois state line into Bloom Township where she came across a large pond at the intersection of Sock Trail and Burnham Road. It was around midnight and there were no other cars on the road. She backed the truck up onto the edge of the embankment, then got out, took the extension cables that were tied around the tarp and hooked them to the cinder blocks and then put the cinder blocks on the ground behind the truck. She got back into the truck and drove forward very

slowly until she could hear the body roll out of the truck and onto the ground. Now all she had to do was roll her dead husband down the embankment and into the pond. But again, you know, she ran into the issue of she couldn't shift his dead weight She pushed him pushed with all of her strength using both hands Braced against the tailgate of the truck and it just wasn't happening. So this was bad She's now out here all alone on this deserted intersection in the middle of the night with the dead body of her murdered husband And she stuck she can't get him down and now that she was out of the truck There wouldn't be any way to get him back into it. She couldn't now go dump him somewhere else. So she sat down on the ground and began pushing at the body with her feet. And slowly little by little,

he began to budge. She kept pushing with all of her might until finally the body started to slide down the hill. She pushed herself up and walked to the edge of the hill and watched as the body made its way towards the pond, but then it stopped. Just short of the edge of the water. So what's she gonna do? She knew she would have to try and get down the hill herself to push him the rest of the way into the water so that his body would never be found, but then she'd have to make her way back up the hill. What if she got stuck? Suddenly, rain began falling. There was a downpour and as the ground became wet and the dirt quickly began getting slick and mud-like Barbara knew she was screwed. This is the best it was gonna get. If she tried going down the hill She'd probably hurt herself. Maybe fall into the water and either way she'd almost certainly get stuck down there with no way to get back up. So that was that.

She got into the truck and drove back home. This was the best attempt at dumping her husband's body that she could make. Barbara returned home and early the following afternoon, Paul found the body. The way you're describing it, I mean, it sounds so like non-chalant, but like it's not. It's not non-chalant. But she's literally putting a dead body that she killed inside a pond. But also, I just think it's karma that everything went wrong. Yeah. That like she didn't think about the consequences until it was too late. And then she had to adjust her plan to A, plan B,

plan C, plan B, plan E. You know what I mean? Like, I just think that that's poetic justice for the fact that she took someone's life and it wasn't as easy as she thought it was gonna be. Jumping into an ad and it is native. I use their body wash, I use their shampoo, we use their sunscreen, everything. They're deodorant. We are big native fans over here. And the funny thing is is I caught myself wanting to buy native products at stores and

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By the end of the week, the body was identified, and like I'd said earlier in the story, suspicion fell on Barbara and Tammy almost immediately because they never reported him missing. So Sheriff's investigators stopped by her residence to chat with the mother and daughter duo, but when they got there, no one was home. They decided to take this as an opportunity to look around the property, and don't you know. The first thing that hit their eyes was a pile of concrete cinder blocks, just like the two that were found with Cipriano's body.

They were neatly arranged in a pile beside the backyard fence. There was a very obvious gap in the pile where two cinder blocks appeared to be missing, and then they found a blue tarp. Just like the one the victim had been wrapped in. And the tarp was still brand new inside of its package and the packaging indicated it was a set of two. But there's only one. They're so dumb. It was around this time that Barbara returned home and seemed surprised to find the police

at the property. Clearly, she wasn't expecting them there for her to have left all of this evidence lying around. But she invited them inside and they began their conversation with her by asking when was the last time she had seen her husband. And she claimed she had seen him on Thursday night that they'd gotten into a fight and ended in him getting dressed, putting on his coat and leaving. And look, if you haven't noticed by this point, Barbara was not a very competent criminal. Putting on his coat as she killed him in his pajamas. Literally.

Like, oh, maybe we got in a fight that night and he left in his pajamas. Right. So please tell her, okay, well, your husband's been found dead by a pond and she's like, oh, wow. Uh huh. She barely registered any kind of response at all. All the while just validating the cops suspicions. She stuck to her story though and one police told her okay lady he was found in his pajamas. He wasn't wearing a coat. He was in his bed time

close. And also as the detectives eyes were scanning the living room they noticed a large rectangular area on the carpet in front of the couch that looked cleaner than the rest of the carpet. Like something had originally been covering it, something maybe like an area rug, and now that rug was missing, and the area rug that Sipriano's body was found and just happened to be the exact same dimensions as the one that would be in this missing spot. Barbara had nothing more to say at this time, so they left and they immediately began filling out an arrest affidavit. In the meantime, Barbara and Tammy were making

cremation and funeral arrangements. Barbara told the funeral home director that she was only willing to pay for a cremation and that if the rest of the family wanted of viewing, they could pay for it themselves. Which apparently they did, because there was a private viewing a day later and Barbara and Tammy stormed into it yelling at the other family members, be raiding the funeral home staff, insisting that Sipriano didn't want a funeral, and that they'd better be covering these expenses.

Pretty messed up because he had a family, he had other kids, Tammy and Barbara just couldn't care less. Right. They made such a scene that the funeral home staff had to throw them out. The next day was the actual funeral and Sheriff's deputies showed up to arrest Barbara Garcia, but they quickly realized that she was not in attendance. They then went to her house and that's where they found her. They cuffed her and escorted her from her home in the floral house robe she was in while news media photograph this. The spectacle of a little old lady in her robe being taken into custody for the murder of her husband.

Down at the station detectives confronted her about the missing cinder blocks, the tarp, the missing area rug, and suddenly Barbara changed her story. Remember how she initially claimed that she and her husband had an argument, he put on his coat and left. Now she was claiming that Sipriano had suffered a heart attack and because she was a nurse, so she was qualified to pronounce him dead. She did so and she desperately needed the money from his pension and social security benefit checks and she didn't want to report it and lose that income.

The detectives then let her know that the medical examiner had thoroughly examined the body and he had not died from a heart attack. So she changed her story once again. She was now telling the detectives that during their fight she had picked up a snow globe and hurled it toward her, has been in hit him and the head and killed him. The detectives interviewing her told her, well that's all well and good, but there were also toxicology reports and it turns out the scipiano had been poisoned.

So we know you're lying. There's no way she changes it again. Is there? Well, they tell her, listen, just come clean. Realizing she was boxed in, Barbara saw she had no other choice. She broke down and told them everything. She was charged with murder. And Tammy was also charged with moving a body from the scene of a crime. And while both of them awaited trial, Barbara remained in the county jail without bond. And Tammy lived in the house alone.

But Tammy had no income and was unable to continue paying the bills and in March of 2004, the electricity and gas were cut off. The city tried to have the house deemed unsafe, which would have resulted in Tammy being removed. From jail, Barbara wrote letters to fight for financial assistance for her daughter. The other members of the family, meanwhile, rightly wanted nothing to do with Barbara or Tammy. So Tammy, it seems like it's the only one Barbara cared about. Yes, it really. And that's why I say from the get-go, it just seems like these two had an unhealthy bond, and we're very schemy, schemy together.

Yeah. Barbara promised to help Tammy financially once her trial ended and she would return home. So this is what she tells her daughter. She's not going to. So she expects not to be convicted, but she's wrong. Both she and Tammy in separate trials were found guilty for their roles in the crime. Tammy received 18 months in prison for her role in helping her mother dispose of the body. And Barbara was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison. She'll be eligible for release when she's 116 years old. She will not be alive. And that is the story of Sipriano Garcia.

It sucks for the other kids and his family, you know? Yeah, like there are other victims to the story. But their mom killed their dad. Like their mom literally killed their dad. And I just like, oh, okay. Because she didn't want him to find out $4,000 was missing. Yeah, that's insane.

Selfish, selfish criminals. Yeah, be up, be up. At least their selfish and stupid. All right, you guys, that was our case for this week. And we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.