Rotten Mango - #56: Mommy Needs Money Murders (Case of Ellen Boehm)

Episode Date: April 18, 2021

Ellen could hear her 8-year-old daughter splashing around in the bath with her barbies. Thankfully her son was fast asleep - another long exhausting day as a single mom.  But what if things didn’t have to be this way? Ellen calmly walked over to the bathroom, plugged in her hairdryer… and threw it in the bathtub where Stacy was playing... Plop. Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Better being better, boo. I'm feeling extra spontaneous today. I'm feeling a little bit spicy, so I'm gonna give you no context. We're just gonna drop you straight into the crime. Welcome, welcome. We've got a woman by the name of Ellen. And Ellen, she's got these two beautiful kids. She's got a daughter by the name of Stacy, which side note, the rest of the names in today's entire podcast are their actual names, but we're gonna call Stacy, Stacy. It's a fake name and you'll find out

for what reason, for legal purposes. So her name is Stacy. So Stacy is fake, everything else is real. Everything else is real. The name, just the name change, okay? So we're just gonna call her Stacy because she's underage. She's my nurse She's there's a lot going on You'll see at the end of the story why we had to take her name out and then she has another son by the name of Stephen Who happens to be a little bit younger? I would say like four years old at this time. So she's doing what every single mom does

I mean she got what is Stacy eight years old Okay, so she yeah, yeah maybe I should have dropped all in with no context. You said wait a minute, give me some context. So she comes home with these kids. She tries to put Steven to bed, reads him a little bedtime story, he falls asleep in his room and Ellen, she starts unpacking all the groceries in the kitchen. Stacy, she's in the bath, you know, that's what eight-year-olds do. They take a bath at night with their little Barbie dolls and they scrubbing down. They do their hair. She can hear Stacy talking about her little dolls in the bath, you know, that's what eight-year-olds do. They take a bath at night with their little Barbie dolls and they scrub them down. They do their hair. She can hear Stacy talking about her little dolls in the bathtub. She's like, well, your name's Kelly and I'm Michael and we're gonna kiss.

Was that just me when I was eight years old? That's what my Barbie said. Sorry, that feels illegal to admit now for some reason. And so, I mean, Ellen could hear her little daughter playing, so she's just having a good time. And as she's unpacking the groceries groceries she's just talking about, man, think it herself. It's been a hard day being a single mom. It's been raining today. It's just not a good day. So she slowly walks to her bedroom and she finds a hairdryer and acting completely normal as if she's just doing another house tour. She walks into the hallway, plugs in the hall dryer to an outlet outside the bathroom, and she sees that little eight-year-old Stacey is washing her face. So her eyes are closed, because when you're eight,

the last thing you want is to open your eyes. And Ellen calmly walks over to the bathtub, and drops the hair dryer in. And Stacey hears something drop into the water, but, you know, her eyes are close, and she just immediately feels excruciating pain. I mean felt like something was dragging her body down, pain all over her body, managed to somehow get the hair dryer, turn it off, and throw it out of the tub. By the time that that took place, she's shaky. She's got a little bit of blood dripping down her mouth, and all, you know, Stacey's

little brother, Stephen comes and runs to the bathroom. Ellen is now in front of the bathroom and they're like, what happened? Ellen helps her out of the bathtub, dries her up with a towel, and turns to Steve and says, honey, what did you do? And so she starts dressing them to go to the hospital and both the kids are just hysterically crying at this point. They have no idea what's going on. Stephen's like, what? I'm for I'm confused. Stacey is in so much pain, she's no idea what

happened. And meanwhile, As she's prepping them to take them to the hospital, she keeps telling them. Remember kids, we came home from the grocery store. You went to take a bath and Stephen went to go to bed. And I thought that Stephen was asleep, but Stephen was up, and he decided that he wanted to help you blow dry your Barbie doll's hair, right? Isn't that what you said, Steven? Isn't that what you thought? So for your old Steven, didn't you walk into my bedroom, grab my hair dryer, plug it in! And you just wanted to help her with her Barbies, right, Steven? And you dropped it in the tub? Isn't that what happens, Steven? Now, at this point, the kids are not really listening to her.

She's like trying to come up with this whole game of Thrones plot and they're like, I-I'm crying. They're just hysterically screaming at the top of their lungs. And so in neighbor, he hears this while he's taking the trash out to the little trash room. What's he-he here? Just like children screaming like crazy. Oh, she didn't hear the mom's telling.

No, just like hysterical crying. and it's like 11 p.m. So he calls the cops and he waits in the lobby for the police to arrive because he was really concerned. Now Ellen keeps telling Stacey, remember you have to tell the hospital what really happened that Steven woke up and he wanted to dry your Barbie's hair. Now Stacey felt a little bit weird about this. You know, she remembered that Steven was asleep.

She had actually remembered helping him fall asleep by reading him his favorite bedtime story, and nobody else was in the bathroom when she went to wash her face. She was confused, but she was also in a lot of pain. So they walked down into the lobby, and they meet with the police on front, because the police were like, um, I just I just gotta call about domestic violence, something's happening with some kids. And Ellen tells them, why I need an ambulance?

My dog, my dog, I'm so sorry. She's so sorry. I'm so sorry I have dogs, I don't have kids, so my reaction is my dog. I'm sorry, sorry, collect yourself, Stephanie. Because my daughter, she was just electrocuted, I need an ambulance. And they just casually point in the direction in the hospital. The little girl's crying. I mean, but she's walking, she was just electrocuted, I need an ambulance. And they just casually point in the direction of the hospital.

The little girl's crying, but she's walking, she's talking, she's even got a big ring with her mom, so she must be fine and our job is done. So the police just point in that direction and by the time the family gets to the hospital, Stacy just decides, you know what, I'm going to do what my mom said. I'm going to tell them that my little brother dropped a hair dryer into the bathtub I mean he's only four and thankfully the doctors checked out Stacey she had dilated pupils and hemorrhaging on the tongue But nothing serious but ever since that day, you know, she just felt a little weird and I think I got a little bit Weirder because less than a year ago on Thanksgiving day her other brother two-year-old David had died

on Thanksgiving Day, her other brother, two-year-old David, had died. Oh my god. And Stacy just thought, that's a little weird. So let's start from the beginning, right? Who's Ellen? And in order to understand where she's coming from, I'm gonna give you a little bit of a, not a deep dive, but just a look into her childhood. And it all starts with a man by the name of John Booker who was her dad. And he, I mean just like the complete southern boy. His family owned a cotton farm for crying out loud like I'm talking as southern as it gets. And he decided one day that he was going to move from Mississippi to St. Louis, Missouri. That's where Ellen is born, right? So he's like I'm going to make this big trek back in the day, St. Louis was like the pop in place. That's where you have opportunities, jobs. Everything new is in St. Louis.

So he packs up his little bags and I know what you're picturing right now. You're driving. You're doing the dishes. Whatever you're doing. You're picturing this young boy fresh face, fresh on the scene. 18 years old with his little bag like, oh, I'm looking for a job. No. He was packing his bag in the middle of the night because he wanted to escape without his family members knowing. His wife and his seven children, he wanted to leave the house to Missouri without them knowing. So he's like an old dude, okay? He's gonna go buy some milk. He's gonna, oh my god, yeah, he went to go buy some milk.

He did not tell them. He leaves and the kids were absolutely devastated. I mean, seven kids, they're thinking to themselves, yes, dad was an alcoholic. Yes, he was just kind of absent in most of my childhood, but did he love me? Absolutely. That's what they told themselves every single day. And the day that he just vanished without a note, without an explanation. I mean, it just all came shattering. Now his first wife, she, she was devastated. So much that she never dated again, she said that till the day that she died she loved John Booker Which is kind of insane to me. No one is that good, you know

And so John goes to St. Louis and he is not like his first wife. He doesn't think about her He immediately gets remarried to a woman by the name of Catherine and they have his eighth child together And they named her Ellen Booker side note Ellen's dad was never a good person and it seemed like Catherine was kind of just not the most around parent. Like she wasn't the most comforting, she wasn't the most nurturing, so Ellen just struggled throughout her entire childhood

with finding like this authority figure that she really, really liked. So when she's in high school, her dad, John Booker, sits her down and says, listen, Ellen, I need to go back to Mississippi for a couple of days because, you know, my ex-wife, she's dead now and I need to go be with my other children and I need to say my respects. I need to go to the funeral. I need to make sure that everything's okay in Mississippi. Are you gonna be good? I know that you're just like a sophomore in

high school, but you're good, right? And she's like, yeah, of course, dad. I mean, of course you need to go say your respects. Yeah, go to Mississippi. I'll see you in a couple days. They give each other a kiss and out the door. He goes and guess what? He never comes back. He decides that he's going to live and Mississippi with his other children. He said, you know what? I'm going to go back to my first family. So he deserves his wife back to his original family. Yeah. To live with his sons from his first marriage. So he deserves his first family. So he actually brought back the milk? Yeah, he brought back the milk like 17 years later. Wow, okay.

Yeah, so he goes to live with his sons. His first wife has passed and he just completely abandoned Catherine and Ellen and it was an absolute shitshow on Ellen's life. So by the time that she's a senior at Roosevelt High School, she instantly fell in love with the closest authority male figure in her life. And I'm talking literally, like physically closest and distant. She fell in love with her bus driver.

Yeah, of her high school bus, Paul Bome, and he was old enough to be her dad. Oh my god. Now I tried. I tried to look everywhere at obituraries to find out how old exactly Paul Bome was. And if I found one obituary that seemed that there how old exactly Paul Bome was and if I found one obituary that seemed that there was some connection to Missouri a little bit it was in Ohio and it seems like he's probably like 20 years older than her but I don't even know if that's him.

So I can just only assume that he was much much older and he felt like he hit the jackpot of like catching a case but that's a different story. So he's like I'm a winner. I need to marry her the same day that she graduates from high school straight from the graduation ceremony Yes, toss that graduation cap. We're going to town hall getting married and Ellen's like whoa, whoa, whoa I love you Paul, but I want I want like a year or two right after high school I want to just like experience life. I want to just I want to do my own thing Maybe by my first card maybe get my first job like can I do that Paul? Can I?

Any thought to myself? Well, maybe that's first job. Like, can I do that, Paul? Can I? Any thought to himself, well, maybe that's not a bad idea. Because I'm still married. Paul was married. What? Paul was married and he had two children. They were his adopted daughters, so they weren't his biological daughters, but he adopted them.

So they're pretty much his daughters. So he's like, you're right, you're right. Like, let's wait a year or two, because I need to legally get divorced. So see in a much his daughters. So he's like, you're right, you're right. Like let's wait a year or two because I need to legally get divorced. So see in a year or two and eventually, you know, he gets divorced and he marries the love of his life Ellen three days before her 20th birthday three days. They get married. I mean, it's insane So the initial part of their honeymoon phase was cut short because Susan was his first wife, right? And he had adopted his first wife, right? And he had adopted. Paul's first wife?

Yeah, Paul's first wife. He had adopted her two daughters, but after Paul had moved out after the divorce, the daughters kept telling the mom like, hey, I finally feel safe telling you this, but he had been abusing us for the longest time. So she gets super pissed and she goes into mommy mode, she takes him to court, and they agree that he has to undergo counseling. Can you imagine this? Can you imagine the judges like, oh, yeah, take your ass to jail.

Oh, yeah, you should be a registered sex offender. They're like, maybe I should go to some therapy. So he's like, Okay, I'm going to do some therapy and Susan forgives him and they just try to like move on with their lives. She had moved on and Susan got elective surgery went on the diet. She lost 155 pounds and Paul just kept asking her why didn't you ever do this for me? Why didn't you do this when we were married? To his XY?

Yeah. What a crazy dude. Why didn't you ever do this for me? Why did you not do this when we were married? That's how their first days of this honeymoon marriage was going and then it got even worse because Ellen's mom had no place to live. So Ellen's like, okay, well, I guess I have to take care of you because, you know, your husband left my dad left to Mississippi. I guess this is it. So she actually moves into the couple's basement. And this was a damper for Ellen.

Like, she wanted a new beginning. She wanted to start my own family. And now, her mom's just living here all the time. This is really stressful, but at least Alicia has free child care. So throughout the rest of their marriage, Ellen will have three children. So her first child will be Stacy and then two years later, Steven, two years after that David. So just three kids, right?

Now, during all of this, Ellen develops a strange obsession from like they get go their marriage. She loved the world of professional wrestling. Oh my god, she loved it so much. She loved it more than anything. It was a passion of hers. She would attend every single professional wrestling match anywhere in her local vicinity later she would- Where she practices or she watches. She watches. She loves watching. But she doesn't do it. No, she'll just watch it for hours on end. She loves it. So during the first year of their marriage, Paul would go with her, try to be excited.

But he just wasn't into it. He would just sit there and eventually near the end of the first year. He's like, why am I here? Like, this is a waste of money. This is a waste of my time. I don't want to be here. Now, while they're there, that's when they meet another couple.

And this couple is really pertinent. Well, Diane and her husband, they're another couple sitting there and they just spark up this conversation and they were newly wedged too. And Diane, just like Ellen, was so into pro wrestling and the husband was just like Paul and was just like there for support, but hated professional wrestling. So they started talking at all of these matches. Eventually, both of the husband stopped calming. What? Both of the husband stopped coming. What? Okay, sorry. So both of the husband stopped coming because that's what marriage does to you. Kitting That took you a minute to get that one. So they

And at these matches, they would start talking about like diets, clothes, friends, you know, high spins And eventually they started talking about how Dan said that she's getting a divorce I mean, I just can't do it anymore. He's just not in the same vibe as me I know that we just got married, but oh well and Ellen just was Really relating to this she was like my marriage is troubled I mean, I don't know what it is about it, but we just don't get along. We just there's just a disconnect Maybe it's because he's double your age Ellen, but whatever. We just, there's just a disconnect. Maybe it's because he's W.A.J. Ellen, but whatever. She was like, there's just a bit of a disconnect. So her and D.N. become super close friends.

I'm talking best buds. I mean, they're both working women. They both didn't like their boyfriends. They both love professional wrestling and all of that. So they start talking on the phone every single night. And Ellen, to give you a little side note on Ellen she was working for a company called Marshall and Stevens for the past five years and she constantly complained about how she wasn't getting paid enough at work. That was a good

favorite thing to do so after her third kid you know Paul told her to quit and the bosses were actually ecstatic they They were like, yeah, okay, that's great. The whole life got. So it's so cool. When your employer is excited that you're a critic. Yeah. I don't even know what to say. So they were like, that's really good news. Happy for your third child.

And so she quits. And right before she has her third kid, she's like a stay-at-home mom and she decides We've got to do more stuff. We've got to do more stuff So her and D.M. start going on these crazy road trips I mean this professional wrestling obsession turned into one that was financially emotionally and physically Exhausting they went on road trips that were hundreds of miles outside of St. Louis Just them to just them to to watch these pro wrestlers wrestle, and then they would drive right back.

Sometimes they would be on the road all day. They would watch the match and then drive home all night so that they can make it in time for work. Why do I find it so suspicious? Yeah. No? Yeah. It's like, hey babe, I'm gonna go with my butt,

Johnny, to watch pro frisbee You know they get sensitive when you tell them it's not pro They call it ultimate frisbee put some respect Yeah, that's what we're gonna do this weekend. Yeah, no, no, I'll be hiding in the back seat I'll be tracking you. Thank you So the fantasy of this starting get really intense for Ellen. I mean, she was obsessed with these wrestlers. Dianne, it was a little bit different for her.

This was kind of her escape from reality, like how we would watch TV or listen to murder podcasts. Like that, that was her thing. She just liked to get away. She liked the energy of the crowds, the kind of the performance that all these wrestlers were putting on. And that was it for the end. She was a very normal person on that.

But Ellen, I mean, she started developing these fantasies where she was like, hey, do you think that wrestler likes me? He's looking at me. Now I will say that Ellen, according to a lot of sources, is not the most conventionally attractive woman. She's not the type of woman that, and like, no one, there's nothing wrong with that, you know, everyone is beautiful in their own way, but I think in terms of, that's what everyone just keeps saying, which is like fucked up.

We get it, we get it. Yeah. And so she was like, no, this guy really likes me. And she was obsessed for years with this one guy named Ted, who is also known as the Million Dollar Man in the Pro Wrestling Circuit. Why? I think he made a Million Dollar Man. So, that's what they called him.

And she had been following his career for like six, seven years and she would mail him letters, just like really intense letters. And he, she just thought, okay, like when he comes to the ring, he's going to be thinking about my letter, my juicy letter. And he's going to see me on the stands and be like, that's my juicy letter sender, but that didn't really happen. And she just got so intense. Eventually, her crush moved on to the manager of one of the team members of this pro wrestling circuit.

And it was just a lot. And she started making up these lies. And Dan started noticing, this is where things got weird. She started making up these lies. And she didn't know if she's hyping up our story, you know, because you do that sometimes, you know, or maybe you really believe it, it's weird, she couldn't tell. She talked about how she knew the guys from the wrestling. Like she would go to the bars with her other friends and Dan would be there and she'd be like, yeah, so we went to this pro wrestling show and yeah, we know all the guys there, we went to get drinks at the bar, we hung out all weekend, and Dan sitting there like, we did go to the bars that the pro wrestlers went to,

but we were on the other side of the bar and they maybe talked to us for five minutes at the bar when we try to strike up a conversation, but we weren't necessarily hanging out where we like, but it's like such a weird way of telling it, like it's not completely false, they were at the bar together, so she's like, is this her way of hyping up stories

or is she just, does she believe that that's what happened she didn't know she just thought it was weird yeah it's like someone saying like yeah my buddy actually knows Elon Musk and yeah exactly sure turns out Elon Musk liked one of his tweets and that was it so yeah it was just a weird situation where she just kept telling people that they would go to these bars, they would hang out together. If anyone looked in her general direction, she would tell all their friends, oh my god, he's into me, likewise, he's staring at me, like does he, does he want to talk to me?

It was just, it was really intense. So people could just kept saying that Ellen lived in this fantasy land, specifically when it came to Met. It didn't seem like she did this with anything else. Like she was in the type to be like, guess what? You know, Dianne was hitting on me. But like anytime it came with Met, she would sit there and she'd be eating lunch with her friend. And they would see this like, young 21-year-old over there in the corner, enjoying his lunch. And like, mind you, Ellen, she's like, inner-thirty, she's got kids. And this young dude probably wouldn't be like, oh yeah,

let's date immediately. Like, I am not not gonna leave this lunch place until you date me not necessarily, right? But she just kept saying yeah that guy I know him he used to work at my ex workplace and oh my god Every day who'd come to my little desk and you'd beg me to go on these dates with him and I'm like I'm married You're so crazy. I'm married, I have kids. Don't be, don't be naughty. And they're like, what? I just can't imagine that happening, but it's also kind of sad in a way

because if she is lying, it's sad, but also if she isn't, I mean, it's just weird. They just didn't do anything about it at the time, but later on, they found it so strange that they noted this all to the police later. Like just kept non-stop talking about she's in a fantasy land with these men. Why is that? What do you think it is?

I don't know. I don't know. Do you think it's like insecurity that she has? I don't know. Because I'm kind of insecure, but I don't really think I don't know. Maybe insecurity shows differently. But that does. Yeah.

So they just all thought it was weird. At one point, Ellen was telling Dianne, oh, this guy from work, my former workplace, he wants to take me and my kids to see world. You know, and Paul, he's been out every single weekend, just like doing his thing, I think he's like seeing other people. It was at the point where Paul and Ellen, they weren't really in a marriage.

Like, they were together for the kids, but they weren't hanging out. They had nothing to talk about. They were just doing their own thing. She was going to these, all these wrestling shows. He was just nonstop out drinking, meeting other women. So she was saying, yeah, the sky, he wants to take me and my kids to see world. But because he has kids, and I have kids, we're going to get separate rooms in the hotel. But also because it could possibly be a work scandal that he's like dating an ex co-worker, I'm we're gonna drive separately.

That boy from the cafe? In like a different guy. Oh, okay. And so they're like, okay, that's a little weird. Like that's, you know, thing that's weird. That's weird, no. So again, they just didn't really think anything of it. They just thought, okay, if that's a lie, that's bizarre, but we don't really want to point it out. We don't want to do anything. And at one point, she just went through this phase where she really just wanted to copy everything

that Deand did. So after the divorce, Deand was watching the Oprah show, the talk show. And she's watching the talk show, and Oprah is talking about the optifast diet. I think that's how you pronounce it. And she decided, you know what? I have been, you know, technically, you know,

a little bit over the wait that I wanted to be my entire life. And I finally want to do something for myself, especially because after this divorce, I'm a working woman, and even though those meals are expensive, I'm gonna do it. So, Deanne gets this meal planned on, and Ellen was just kind of jealous. And she was mainly jealous of the fact that Deanne didn't have kids, and Deanne could spend all of her money on these cool diets to lose weight, on clothes and makeup and she couldn't do any of that because they were tied on money and she would have to spend everything on her children and it was just so annoying.

And she did everything to imitate Deanne. She would wear the same outfits, same colors. She would be like what color are you wearing today and she would be like I guess blue. She would show up and like an all blue outfit. She wore the same perfume as Deanne. She got the same highlights in her hair, cut her hair just like Deanne. It was just really intense. So Ellen and Paul's 6 year anniversary comes around.

And this is 2 weeks after she gives birth to her third child. So now she's got 3 full kids that she's taking care of and Paul tells her, Listen, I've got to go to Texas. I don't want to leave, but I have to go. I have to go to the Veterans Hospital in Texas because, you know, I think I'm sick. I've been having these rashes and remember when I told you I was in the Vietnam War, he actually was in the Vietnam War, by the way.

When I was in the Vietnam War, well, we were exposed to something called agent orange and these rashes, they're really killing me. So I gotta go to the Veterans Hospital in Texas. I'll be gone for a couple of weeks, but I love you. And she was like, what? So I looked into it in ancient orange. I mean, why do I not know about this? It's actually really, really bad. So it was used by the US military and the Vietnam War. And it's technically considered an herbicide, which just means that it just obliterates all plants in its vicinity, but it's crazy strong.

So they would fly in these helicopters and just pour herbicide all over Vietnam. I mean, it was incredibly damaging to the environment, but in hindsight, it caused major health problems to humans exposed. I mean, there just tons of it were sprayed all over. The damage left 3 million Vietnamese people suffering from illnesses, the US got sued by both US and Vietnamese veterans Because the damage was that bad US got sued by US by US veterans that fought in the war Because the US you know the government kept telling the veterans or the army people like hey

This isn't dangerous. Just flying the helicopter just to round yourself and it's smell it breathe it in put it into your lungs And just spray it all over Vietnam. It's gonna be fine. Why did they spread it at first place? So it would wipe off all of the agriculture and livestock. So they don't have supply? Yeah, so it would pretty much render Vietnam... So they're spreading poisons? Yeah, essentially. I don't know a lot of trouble by the whole world after it afterwards.

And Vietnam, they were just struggling to this day. There is a lot of Vietnamese children in the villages where the herbicides were poured, the Agent Orange, where they have cleft palettes, they have mental illnesses, they have hernias, they have extra fingers and toes, and there were a lot of birth defects. I mean, they also unleashed this terror onto Laos and Cambodia, that's lesser known,

but they just put this everywhere. The government was like, I'm gonna bury the shit out of everyone in Asia. Cool, cool, cool. Thanks. I'm American, by the way, if anyone's wondering. And not only were the poor civilians living in these rural areas being affected, like trying to grow the crops to make money, like they were affected, just regular civilians, you know, not even veterans. But the American troops, they came home and they, I mean, they had high levels of cancer

of the Vietnam veterans. They have just high levels of birth defects reported. It was really intense for everybody involved. He said that he had all these rashes all over his body, so he's like, all right, I gotta go to Texas and check it out. So of course, I mean, the story technically checks out, doesn't it?

It sounds about right. But he wasn't going to Texas. He's actually to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron.

He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. He's trying to be a moron. Oh man. Yeah, and so he was like, I ain't gonna go to Texas, meanwhile headed to Arizona. So this is their six year anniversary, and only two weeks after baby David is born, and Ellen is completely alone. And she starts telling Deandes,

like it's gonna be fine, he's gonna be back in a couple of weeks. Oh yeah, Agent Orange, that's what's going on. And Dan's thinking to herself, that's weird. And she tells her, you know, my ex, my ex-husband had like a surgery when we were together. And I was there, you know, the doctor was talking to both of us,

telling us what's happening, how to support each other, what to expect, as a couple, as a family unit. And he just, you just left. I mean, I get it. It's a veteran's hospital, but it runs like any other hospital. You're allowed to be there. This doesn't make sense. Maybe, maybe you should make sure that he's there. So the week after Ellen drives all the way to Texas and there is no report that he is anywhere near there has been there. Just nothing. So she gets back home super confused. Like where could he be then if he's not in Texas? Did he die on his way to Texas? What happened? She gets a call and this person, this angry man says, your

husband is having enough fear with my wife and they run off together. I'm just like, well, I don't know you. So the girl that he picked up has a husband on the school bus. Yeah, really complex. So I think that time he wasn't doing a school bus, probably like a transit bus, but it seems like she was still pretty young, which is really confusing. So Paul divorces her from Arizona

and he just completely abandoned her. He was supposed to pay her about $1,000 a month in child support, but he was not sending it to her. And there was no way that she could even locate him. She didn't even know where he was living at the time. It was just really complex. And so she has to go back to work. She starts working at a place called Anderson Consulting, which is like this huge accounting firm in

St. Louis. And her mom had to be the permanent unpaid babysitter. So this was a massive life change. I mean, just huge. She's working all day. She was making about $45,000 a year, a single parent. She would do this little side job delivering pizzas at one point. That was really hard. She's trying to make new friends at work. She was somewhat friends with Paul's first wife. So after Paul abandoned her, it seemed like she rallied together with his first wife. And was like, they were both like, can't believe he abandoned us. You know, and so they kind of became friends.

I also think it has to do with the fact that they someone have like half siblings You know, so maybe they should get along kind of just relatable I guess yeah, and you know her work schedule is hectic Delivering pizzas for night a week 40 hours a week. I mean she was doing about 60 hours a week total But she still had to file for bankruptcy and lose the house so all of this I mean we sympathize with Ellen, but not for long. So she's busy every single day, getting the kids ready for school, feeding them school, mom baby visits, you know, going to work all day, then delivering pizza as a part-time job,

shopping, grocery shopping, taking the kids to the doctors, running regular errands. I'm exhausted already! And her only source of happiness throughout all of this was you guessed pro wrestling she somehow managed to keep it going I mean even if she was dead tired at the end of the week her and Diane would pack up in the car drive a hundred miles to see the next closest show they would stay at a motel get a wink of sleep drive right back hit it go go go I mean that was like the life that she was living now the end didn't have that many kids or that many bills but she always felt like for Ellen, because this was her one happiness. Ellen didn't really spend her money on like

going to the movies or going bowling. So this was like her one outlet. So she didn't think it was strange, you know, because sometimes mommy's can be a little shamy. You know, sometimes moms get chained. Like, oh, if you're so busy as a single mom, how are you still finding some semblance of happiness? So Dan didn't think that way, but this was also back in the day where I'm sure it was much harder like 2021 is a little bit more woke Yeah, I would think like I'm glad at least there's one thing that keeps it going right to keep her going the rest of the 60 hour work weeks Now Ellen was having a having a bit of a crisis so three children later She felt really insecure about her body. She constantly said that she said and I quote, I feel fat and lonely

And it was just really sad so Thanksgiving comes around and Ellen spends all day preparing a nice meal for her kids and her mom And they spend the nice evening together and she drops off her mom and her kids are like, mom, like, let's go do something fun, right? Packs up all the kids. Takes her to see the Christmas lights downtown. So she takes all the kids there. They look around and on the right home, David falls asleep. So she's like, man, if he's sleeping in the car, we're going to get to the house and he's like, two years old, he's going to want to watch TV, he's going to want to do something.

Like this nap is gonna energize him, he's gonna be like a little energizer but when we get home, that's not good. We were supposed to sleep when we get home, but sure enough, once they get inside, he's like bursting with energy. He's like, mom, I gotta do something, I gotta do something.

And so Stacey and Steven, I mean, they're wiped, they go to bed immediately. And David is like, can we do something? Can I just like watch TV? So she's like, okay, I will be doing laundry and you can watch TV. So he's laying on the ground just watching TV. And finally he falls asleep and she decides, hmm, and she calmly puts down the iron, grabs the seat cushion from the couch, the big ones, not even like a back sofa. Do you know what I'm talking about? The actual seat that you sit on, that big like two by three chunk of cushion?

The big one. You almost never take off unless you lose something in the couch, you know? I guess we're cleaning, if you're clean. And she took it off, put it over his head, and held it down. And he fought back for about 45 seconds to a minute. But she's, I mean, this is a two year old. She's much bigger, I mean, this is a two-year-old. She's much bigger than him. And this is a two-by-three cushion. And she just keeps applying pressure on the pillow. And then he stops fighting back.

She calmly places the cushion back. And she calls up a good friend of hers. And they talk for about a good 10 to 15 minutes. How's your Thanksgiving? Yeah, well, I made this. Oh, yeah? Well, how was that one? Oh, well I made this. Oh yeah? Well how was that one?

Oh I heard about that recipe. What did you guys do after? Well I dropped off my mom and then we went to go see some Christmas lights. While David is laying next to her, dead! His lips are turning blue. It's all in like, yeah it took them out to see lights and Stacey and Stephen knocked out, but you know David, he's wide awake. Yeah, watching TV right now.

Wide awake at the sour. Crazy, huh? Some of them are just energizer bunnies. You know, it's weird though, he hasn't been feeling well. He had a cold earlier this week. I bought him some cough medicine from, what's that pharmacy called? Yeah, Walgreens. I bought him some cough medicine from Walgreens.

Maybe, maybe the turkey. Maybe the turkey's not sitting right with him. Wait, I gotta call you back. Something's wrong with David. I have to let you go. I gotta go. And she hangs up the phone. Hmm. She calls 911 and she screams, runs into her kids' room. Kids hurry, we have to go to the hospital. We have to go to the hospital.

Please hurry hurry. And then she tells them, stay in the apartment. I have to go look for help. I have to go look for hospital. Please hurry hurry and then she tells them stand the apartment I have to go look for help. I have to go look for help So the kids are just in the living room with David lying dead on the couch Just scared out of their mind So she leaves and she's just running around the building. I don't know what she's doing the paramedics arrive and they start knocking on the door She had given them the unit name and they're like ambulance, ambulance, nobody's opening and finally a tiny little girl. Stacey, opens up the door, scared. And she just points to the couch where her little brother is. Where does she go? She said I got to go get help. So they're like, where's your mom? She's downstairs. What? So they just immediately

start working on the David, you know They're like I think he's under like you know Cardiac arrest like what's going on? We got to do something. They're trying to give CPR They're trying to do all of these things and finally after 10 minutes Ellen just like calmly wax walks back into the apartment They're like oh ma'am where are you been? Yeah, and she's like oh, yeah, he's been sick What what she wasn't panic And she's like, oh yeah, he's been sick. What? She wasn't panic. She didn't even seem to be upset that her child

is in cardiac arrest and is like being lifted onto a stretcher going into the ambulance right now. And they said, all right, well, we need to talk to you at the hospital, like we need to answer some questions. Honestly, the paramedics were thinking about getting the police involved and they wanted her to be there. But she said, oh no, yeah, I can't get into the ambulance.

I need to find someone to watch my kids. Which is like weird, but not that weird. So I mean, it's weird because usually you just, you never really see a parent not be in the ambulance with their child, especially when they're like two years old. So she's like, yeah, well, I need to find someone to watch the kids. And she just like goes back upstairs. So they go to the hospital. She calls up Sandy. And she says, oh my God, they just took him to the hospital. Can you please come watch my kids? So Sandy comes over and Sandy had actually brought her mom. So Sandy is like being this crazy good friend. She's like, mom, you watch the kids.

I'm going to go help my friend at the hospital cause I'm sure she's like terrified right now. So Sandy and Ellen, they start going to the hospital. Emergency surgery on David and Ellen, I mean, she's sitting there waiting, they're telling her we don't know what's gonna happen. We don't know. He's under a cardiac arrest, he's two years old.

She says, all right, well, maybe I should go home and sleep then. So she goes back home and sleeps. So the next morning she goes to the hospital. Now, Diane, she immediately finds out about David because she's David's godmother. Remember at this point, Diane and Ellen are really good buds. Their best friends. This is when, you know, David came out like two years ago. They've been they've been like that just BFS who is Sandy Sandy is like a old high school friend just randomly called her up. Okay. Wow. Yeah, it seemed like they kind of kept in contact But they weren't that close just so strange

Okay, and maybe it has to do with that it was Thanksgiving. So they were like how's your holiday? Okay, and so Dan rushes to the hospital and she sees Ellen and she's like oh my god my poor friend She's been here all night just anxious miserable waiting waiting for the doctors to tell her some news and they go and they see David and it was just so sad there was so much connected to him I mean he's just like this tiny little two year old looking just so small compared to the rest of the room connected to a ton of equipment to keep him alive and the doctors kept telling her you know we we've done everything we can for him and so Ellen's just staring off and Deans adjusted okay well maybe maybe we should go home you know shower get a good sleep come back you know because this is a lot of

information doctor we'll be right back and in the car Deans like oh man you must be so exhausted Ellen you you must be so tired Mm-hmm. Oh, I went home last night I don't really like to do this often. I don't really like to admit the fact that my mom was right about something Nobody likes to do that But the one thing that I can tell you that my mom is dead pan on the one thing that she instilled in me ever since I was young Is eat your college and take your collagen, collagen is life. These days, I mean, you don't even have to scroll very far down your newsfeed to see a story about

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and enter promo code rotten at checkout. That's ancientnutrition.com, enter promo code rotten for 20% off your first order, ancientnutrition.com, enter promo code rotten at checkout. And Dian was like, what? Diane thought to herself, you know, if my niece or nephew was in the hospital, it would take an act of Congress. It would take an act of God to get me out of that hospital. I would not move a muscle out of that hospital.

And this is her literal child. What? But again, I mean, I feel like that saying is like embedded in us, like people react to grief differently, which is true. So I think that's what she just kept embedded in us like people react to grief differently, which is true. So I think that's what she just kept going to, like people react to grief differently. Maybe she wanted to be fresh, you know, in the head when she came to the hospital today, but still strange. So they get home and Ellen immediately wants to watch wrestling tapes in the living room.

So they both sit on the couch, Dan's exhausted, I mean, emotionally exhausted. So she immediately falls asleep. Meanwhile, it took Ellen a little while because she had taken a six hour nap at the hospital. So she was straight chilling. A six hour nap. Wait, so she slept at home? Came and then slept for six hours.

Oh my God. Yeah. So they finally go ready to go back to the hospital and they go straight to David and Ellen walks straight up to him and lifts up one of his eyelids. And his pupil was fully dilated, which just Deanne was like, that's a really strange thing to do.

She didn't know what that was about. Just felt really weird about it. Just like the motion of lifting up an eyelid. Without, like, she wasn't even that emotional. She was like crying. She wasn't like, I need to see his eyes one more time she just quietly walked over there like she's a freaking doctor yeah like Deanna's she feels like she's in an alternate universe at this point and the doctors they performed multiple brain scans and

it was always the same result there was no change in his condition and he was just surviving off the machines so they they tell Ellen that and Ellen looks at Diane and Diane's like bawling her eyes out. I mean she's like falling apart. She says, well what would you do? To Diane? Yeah, Diane says, oh Ellen this isn't my child. I I I couldn't make that kind of decision. Oh no I know it's my child. I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I- looks at the doctor and says, okay, yeah, turn it off. Like what the fork? And so, Dan, I mean, she follows the doctor out while Ellen's in the room with David and she's like, well, how could this happen, doctor?

Like, this does make sense. What was the cause of death? And they tell her that it was sudden and fit death syndrome. And she's like, that he's, he's two years old. He's 28 months old. Doesn't that only usually happen to kids that are like less than a year old? And I googled it.

It's like nine, nine months to like a year. It's like, okay, like then it starts usually not being sids, but they're like, well, maybe, but it could also be two years old. And then just kind of walked away. Geez. So Dianne goes back to Ellen and, you know, Ellen's calling her mom, telling her, hey, mom, like your grandchild just passed away. And she asked to put Stacy on the phone. So Stacy's on the phone. And you know, Ellen's calling her mom, telling her, hey mom, like your grandchild just passed away.

And she asks to put Stacy on the phone. So Stacy's on the phone, her little daughter, her little like eight-year-old daughter. And she's like, all right Stacy, we'll have something bad to tell you. And Deanna's like, no, no, are you crazy? Are you insane? And she forces Ellen to hang up. And she's like, you cannot tell your daughter that her little brother just passed away over the phone. You have to do this in person. What is wrong with you?

And so she's like, okay And Ellen goes up to the doctors and she asks hey can David's organs be donated to science? I really want his eyes donated to science Why I don't know and they told her well is donated to science. Why? I don't know. And they told her, well, we can't really do anything because we can't donate his organs because of his fever. His fever was too high. Later, she would tell police and other people that, did you know, David's organs wouldn't be donated because they were, and I quote, cooked inside of his body. That's what she would tell people that they couldn't donate little David's

organs because they were cooked inside of his body. Why is she into donating? I don't even know. I mean, this is so confusing. And it's also not like a crazy famous case. So there's not a lot of interviews. There's not there's like barely anything. Yeah, it's really intense. So a lot of what we're getting is from like Dianne and a lot of people that are like court transcripts and a lot of people that were close to Ellen, but not necessarily Ellen herself other than like this one or 40 minute confession tape that she leaves So she held David for one last time and she just kept saying David mommy loves you David mommy loves you and Dian just said that it was kind of like a sickening noise

She didn't know what it was, but it was just strange, and she rushed out of there and went home, and just she just couldn't handle it anymore. So the next day, Dan's at work, and Ellen calls her while she's at work. So she picks up, and she's just like, okay, like how are you doing? And Ellen's like, well, I'm good. I'm on my way to the funeral home right now, and I was thinking that I could pick up some wrestling match tickets. What do you think? I'm on the way and I know exactly what seats we want. Dan's like shocked. She's like, I could do that. I mean, I could pick up the tickets. I mean, what are you talking about?

She says, no, I'm running on the way to the funeral home anyway. Like, how do you think about wrestling while going to the funeral home? Because your two-year-old child just died. Like, this is insane. So, Dan is confused. Now the actual funeral for David, to most people she seemed really sad, she was crying the whole time, but those that were close to her, they just felt odd because her face just seemed almost emotionless, and the first wife of Paul Susan. So her ex-husband's ex-wife came to the funeral, and as they're leaving, she's walking past two guys that were from Ellen's workplace And Ellen looks at Susan and says yeah, I don't know what to do. You know those two guys over there

Both of them want to go out with me, but I feel like I have to just choose one And Susan's like we just buried a baby coffin. I don't She tells Susan well, I guess that's one last who's got a pay child support for. And Susan's just like, alright, maybe I shouldn't be friends with her. And she just kind of steps away from this, but nobody again suspects that this mom could be that evil to kill her own child. And everyone at work started kind of like the old-fashioned GoFundMe, like a a bucket going around like a little envelope going around of cash and they rose they raised over twenty three hundred dollars to help her with bills and they were amazed because without even missing a beat she was back at work she managed to see more k she's not breaking down crying at her desk

every day like how admirable is that she's she's holding on strong pulling it together for those bills and those kids. And you know, they're like, wow, this is so admirable. Now Lisa is another woman and this is Elin's nail technician. So she's been doing Elin's nails for the last three years. Every two weeks without skipping a bead doesn't matter how much of financial strain it is, Elin always had her nails done. And the nail tech was kind of shook that Ellen didn't cancel her appointment and came

literally a couple days after David's death. And she just acted like nothing was happening. And Lisa kept saying, you know, I'm so sorry, I'm, my thoughts and prayers are with you, like, what can I do? And she just told her, yeah, well, all I have to do now is get rid of his toys. And the nail tuck was like, what? just told her, yeah, well, all I have to do now is get rid of his toys. And then he'll take us like, what? But she thought maybe it's grief, maybe seeing those toys just like rips her hard apart. Maybe that's what's going on.

I mean, it's very rare to lose a child and it when it is, it's such a strong response. You don't know how someone's going to react. So that's what everyone was just thinking. That's what everyone was saying. So where David was buried, it's actually a section of the cemetery that the grave diggers called Babyland, which is so messed up and so depressing. And the problem with the funeral home is that she owed them $5,000 for the funeral cost. But she had an insurance policy that paid her out $10,000 for David's death.

So that's more than enough. I mean, she paid almost nothing in medical bills because she had health insurance. So it all seemed like, okay, she would like pay, but she would not pay. And the funeral home policy is that they do not take action against unpaid bills for at least a year. So she's just running around town with $10,000 and she just spent all of it. She took the rest of her kids to Disney World, went to Florida, went to a bunch of wrestling matches. I mean, she blew through the run money. So she instantly starts calling all these other insurance companies looking for more money. So there was another company that she used

to have an insurance policy with. And she kept saying, where's my money? Where's my money? I'm supposed to get, be getting a $20,000 life insurance payout for my son. And they just kept saying, yeah, but you stopped paying the premium like months ago. Mm-hmm.

We're not gonna give you the money. And she was pissed. Meanwhile, her coworkers gave her all this money. She still doesn't pay the funeral home. She just like spends it on her obsessions and at work she starts talking about how she's obsessed with crime. Obsessed with the current crime that, you know, everyone in the nation at the time was obsessed with. So side story, I love a story inside of a story. So there was a couple by the name of Robert and Paula Sins. And this case was not too far away from St. Louis. And it was happening around the time

that Ellen was going through all of this or like being the most evil person ever. So Robert, the husband, Robert Sins, he was working the night shift and he comes home to find his wife Paula unconscious on the floor. They had two children. So immediately he runs to them and his son whose two years old was fine but his six-week-old daughter

infant was missing. So he starts panicking. Paula, his wife wakes up from her unconscious state and she's like oh my god a masked gun man came up to me while I was taking out the trash forced me into the house told me to lie on the floor. He said he was gonna kill me and then he bumped me on the floor, he said he was going to kill me, and then he bonked me on the head, I knocked out. That's all I remember. So there was this massive surge in the area, and it was a really strange case because the infant daughter was missing, but nothing else was taken from the house. There was no fingerprints, no valuables that they could figure out what was going on, and

the press was freaked out. I mean, the press was going wild, especially because this was the second time that this happened to the Sims family. The first time was three years ago in Illinois. In the middle of the night, Paula called the police saying, oh my god someone took my 13 day old baby girl. Start freaking out. Intruder came into the house while I was watching TV.

Told me to lie on the floor and left the house with the baby. They were all over the news. The Sims were like, please give us back our baby. Please, we'll do anything for our baby. And the community had so much sympathy for them because a two week old infant, like, what kind of feeling is that? And a week later, about 200 feet away from the Sims house, they found the infants remains.

But the weather was so hot in Illinois that they could not get the cause of death. So the Sims moved on with their life. They moved out of the city. And then, you know, the second kidnapping happened, and they found the baby's body. She was wrapped in a black trastic... Black plastic trash bag. Exactly. Dumped in the trash within days, Policins was arrested. So the autopsy showed that she had been smothered. She had been smothered to death, and it was just

like a super strange couple because the husband just kept telling the police that ever since their second Kid went missing that they were just having stellar sex like the best sex that they've ever had and the police is like We asked you for your social security number sir But he was like anyways best sex in my life just like all over the house and then when they searched all over the house You know they found pictures of Randy their son but they found no pictures of either of their daughters. So then it came out later on that that Paula Paula had been banned from sleeping in the bedroom when she gave birth to their first daughter.

So she had to sleep downstairs with the baby. Now the husband He claims that this only happened because the work schedule he had to go into work early so he didn't want the baby crying, but she just thought it was weird. Then she had a son and after he was born, I mean, he, she was never kicked out of the bedroom. He loved slipping with the sun. And then she had another daughter and sure enough, she was kicked out of the bedroom again. So she felt like, oh man, he doesn't, he doesn't like, he doesn't like daughters. So I gotta kill all the daughters.

What a bizarre, bizarre relationship. Yeah, so at this point, I mean that case hadn't gotten to the point of trial, but she had been like arrested, she'd been all over the news the second time that this is happening to them. She's kept talking about it non-stop to everyone. It would less than, I mean, just strange. Just a little strange. So what is she saying? She's saying this is fascinating. Okay, so this is where it gets weird. A lot of

the company employees knew that she did things on her free time at work. You know, she would look at the news, read the newspapers, and she would make a lot of phone calls. Now one of the phone calls that she made all the time was to different life insurance companies trying to get life insurances on her kit. Now all the time that she was talking about polysims and the whole crime nobody was alarmed until one day she told her coworker, you know, it's so strange. I don't know how people could do that. They're like, yeah, I mean, how could you do that to your own flesh and blood? You're on kit. And she said, I know Paula did it for the insurance money. I mean, later we find out in trial that she was wrong,

but that's a weird thing to say. Meanwhile, the co-workers were looking at each other, like, did we not just hear her, like, get insurance for her past-a-way son, and then now she's getting more insurance for her children, and she's obsessed with this crime. I mean, it was just really unsettling for her employees, just incredibly unsettling.

So she took out multiple different life insurance policies for both Stacy and Steven. Each one was worth a quarter million dollars. So collectively, she had half a million dollars, and they were all issued August and September. So Ellen just gets stranger to everyone, just doing all this stuff at work. And with Diane, I mean, they would go on these road trips

to wrestling matches, and not once did she call back home to check up on the kids Deand that that was so strange especially if you have a child die early on I mean usually parents become obsessive they become so worried they can't even leave the house without their kid But she's just going on on like weekend trips never calling once I mean this so bizarre. And then the bath tub incident took place with Stacey and the bath tub playing with her toys, dropped the hair dryer and she was electrocuted, taken to the hospital, and they were told that I was Stephen. Now Ellen did not tell her mom, Ellen did not tell Diane, she did not tell anybody that this took place. The only people who knew that this took place was her, her kids, and the hospital. That's it.

Nobody else, which is weird because you would think that this is something that you would share with someone. And nine days, nine days after the bathtub incident, Steven's birthday came around. He just turned four years old and he had his annual checkup at the doctors. So they do his routine vaccines. They give him a checkup and the doctors said that he was in good health. But he gave them all his vaccines and said, you know, he might get a mild fever. Just watch over him for the next couple of days. That's it.

Now the doctor did think in hindsight it was a little strange because one of the vaccines Helen was late for. I mean, they fixed it at the appointment. They got him up on track, but like I said, usually with a parent who lose a child, especially with doctors, they become intense. They do more checkups. They are on top of their kids' medical history than medical everything. So the fact that, you know, Ellen just let one of his vaccines go late was just strange to him, but he didn't think anything of it.

So they get home and Steven starts filling ill. So she puts him to the bed for the rest of the night and the next morning he wakes up and Ellen decides, you know what, maybe I'm not gonna go to work. Maybe I'm gonna spend the day with him. So Stacey goes to school and Ellen calls and her coworker at 8.15 AM from a gas station pay phone and she just screams. The same thing that happened to David

is happening to Steven. The coworker's like, what? We're on our way to Cardinal Hospital. I'm at a pay phone right now. It just happened when I was getting dressed for work. Steven just stopped breathing. So they're like, okay, well Ellen if you if you need anything whatever like just call me I'm so sorry, please please just call us let us know if you need anything

And she hangs up Meanwhile Steven is just patiently waiting feeling much better ready for the day in the back seat of her car Wait, what? Yeah, he's just chilling. It's bizarre. Bizarre's set of events. It's gonna get even more bizarre. So she gets back into the car and the coworker tells her boss like, oh my god, it's happening again.

And everyone was just so shocked because what happened to David happened 10 months ago. So meanwhile, Ellen calmly gets back into the car and Steve ends like, let's go to Taco Bell. So they start running some errands. They go to a pharmacy, pick up some tile mall. They go to Taco Bell. And then that's when he was like, please can we go to David's grave, please, please.

And they both just go there and sob. They just sit at the grave and sob. And Steven just kept saying, mommy, I wish I was with David. So three hours later, Ellen calls the office again. 11.30 in the morning. And she says, we're headed back to the hospital. They couldn't find anything wrong with Steven

so they let him go. But then when I was driving home, he stopped breathing again. He's starting to turn blue at a payphone. What is going on? Why is he reporting it to the coworker? I don't know. And so she drives home, turns on Sesame Street for him

and she starts doing some housework. When he falls asleep, she reaches for a sofa cushion and pushes it over his face and held it down firmly, while Sesame Street is playing in the background. Like who does stuff like this? And she watched him for a few minutes to see if he started breathing again and when he didn't, she rushed to her neighbor's houses. Now she lives on the fifth floor right next to a medical student. But does she go right next door to her medical student? No, she takes the elevator to the eighth floor and starts Just bonk it around on the door. It's like, oh, I need help! And then eventually she goes back to the fifth floor

And a lot of time has passed and she starts banging on the medical student store and he's like, what happened? And she's like, well, I put him on the couch. She was watching TV And now I just checked up on him and I found him like this So they call 911 the med students doing like CPR, the paramedics come and they take him straight to the hospital. And they're like, do you hurt? Get in the ambulance and she's like, no, like I need to go pick up my mom. They're like, that's strange.

Now at this point, I mean, all of the neighbors were like in the lobby because when you see ambulance, you're like, what, what, right? And one of the neighbors was really close to her mom and was like, I'll go pick up Catherine, which is Ellen's mom. Like I'll go pick her up and take her to the hospital. And she's like, no, I can do it. And the paramedics are like, okay, forget this.

Like we gotta go. This is a baby. Like we gotta make sure you're okay. Why doesn't she wanna get into it? I don't know. I mean she just doesn't care, it seems. Now before she goes to pick up her mom, she goes back into her apartment and makes a

couple more strange phone calls. And she calls work and says, oh my god, they're taking him off of life support. It's like, what? She's not even at the hospital yet. This is so bizarre. And then she calls two other friends and she tells them the version of events that the paramedics know. He was feeling sick.

I called off of work. I took him to Taco Bell, we came home watching Sesame Street and now he's like dying on the couch. So now we've got two versions of events, so she's telling people. And then she calls Diana at work. Now Diana was home sick, she didn't know this, but her receptionist was like, yeah, I can take a message like I can tell Diana. And she said, oh my god. So last night, as I was sleeping in the middle of the night, Steven and stopped breathing. And now he's at the hospital. So now she has a third version of events, which is so bizarre. So we've got four total versions of what happened. At work, she tells them that she was getting ready for work. And then he stopped breathing. She took him straight to the hospital. Then she left. Then she went straight back. And

now he's going off like support. To her other friends in the hospital staff, she told them that she was spending the day with him because he was sick of vaccines. Then he was watching TV, and now he was breathing. Oh my god. To de-enterceptionist, she said he was found unconscious in the middle of the night, just stop breathing in the middle of the night. And then the truth is that she's a murderer. So there's like four different versions going on. Why? I can't even tell you. So the medical student gets to the hospital before her

and tells the doctor what happened. This is the state that I found him in. And Ellen just casually walks in, not very panicked. He drove by himself. So he made it faster than Ellen, which is insane. So her coworkers also rushed there. Cause they're like, he's taking off life support. Like this is crazy. So they rushed to the scene and they are retold the same story. So she sticks

with her story with this one. They're like, yeah, I was getting ready for work. And then one thing they noticed is she's dressed so casually. Like, no part of her body looked like she was getting ready for work. Like, she didn't have trousers on. Maybe she had pajama bottoms and like a blouse on, but like, everything was very casual. So in a life-threatening situation, you're not like, oh, let me put on something comfy, you know? So they just thought that was strange, but they didn't question it. So Ellen leaves to go be with Stephen, and everyone else is waiting in the waiting room, including Ellen's mom.

And she starts talking to the co-workers. And so Ellen's mom is like, oh my god, can you believe it? And she starts telling them, I mean, today was so normal they went to Taco Bell, they went to the cemetery, and the co-workers are like, what? That is what? So Steven was declared dead at 3.45 pm while Ellen was in the waiting room. He was declared dead and she just like pulled everyone. Oh well. Now as she's leaving, she bumps into Paul's first wife. Susan, remember after the funeral, she's like trying to like pull some distance between them. And Susan was confused. She's like, oh, what are you doing here? Like, did one of the kids break their arms? Like a bad cut, you know, very casual stuff. Why else

do you bring toddlers to the hospital? Why are you at the hospital? And she just said, yeah, the same thing that happened to David happened to Steven. Yeah, I don't it is ice to science Do you want to see him? He's right in there. She's not crying. She's not freaking out. Just super blunt So she's like, huh? And the end calls back. I mean, she's hysterical and she's like, what were you talking about? And she just gets confused because Ellen starts telling her a new story, the same story about which she told the hospital staff, you know, watching Sesame Street and she's like, but I thought I was in the middle of the night. Now, Ellen's like, nope, nope, but, and she just thought that was so strange. Now, Diane, of course, did not want to accuse her friend of having any part in her child's death

because that's a really big accusation to make, but it was just so strange that she decided to call a friend in the law enforcement industry. And I was like, hey, do you know anyone that could just casually look into it? Like, if it's not, then that's amazing, right? But if it is, then something needs to be done. So they're like, all right, we'll look into it. Now, meanwhile, the medical examiner, I mean, he is boggling his mind over this. You were talking about, there's no cause of death, he can't find anything, there's nothing

wrong with him, there's no illness, there's no disease, I mean they ran a ton of tests, they ran a ton of like blood work, nothing. And the fact that this is the second nearly identical death of a young child in the same house within a year, I mean that's really suspicious. So high on his list, his suspicion was death by Asphyxia, which it's difficult to strangle a child without leaving a mark on their neck, but there's something called, you know, like, smothering, like, especially for a young kid, it's easy to smother someone with small lungs. So, you either lay on top of them, you just smother

them with, like, a pillow, a blanket on their face, and it doesn't necessarily leave any markings. So, he's working with this and he just thinks that this is so suspicious and he's telling the police, like, hey, I have not ruled it like a accidental death or like natural causes yet, so just hold off. And a week later, an anonymous tipster calls the social worker line and they say, hey, something happened with that family.

I don't know who this person is, but they just said that I know about the bathtub incident and they give them the whole ordeal. This took place nine days before Steven's murder. You know, Stacey was electrocuted in the bathtub. I mean, you don't think that's strange? That's super strange. There's someone who knew about the bathtub. Yeah, I think it probably had to do with maybe someone in the building. Is my suspicion or someone from the hospital maybe like a nurse was like, hey. Yeah, because those are the only people who knows about it. Yeah, maybe like a nurse was like hey yeah because those are the only people who knows about it so they called and was like that's weird no

right like that's weird guys so the child services worker gets put on the case goes to stc school to interview her she's eight years old and she remember that night she was like yeah Stephen through the hair dryer and no when they brought up Stephen she was just like well you got a shots and then he was sick. So the social workers are like, okay, well, no, no, that's illegal. She interviews Ellen the next day and she was just really odd. Her retelling of events was strange in the fact that in some parts she would just be like, no, it was so vague.

Like, I, he was watching TV. I came, oh my god, blew in the face. He was dying. And then certain parts of the story, she was like, oh, and then I drove to Walgreens and then I picked up this brand of town, all because this is the one that's better. Like certain parts were so detailed oriented, and then the actual parts that mattered. She was like, yeah, he was watching TV. I came into the room about 15 minutes later. Like, it's just weird.

But again, I mean, it's the same story. It matches up with everybody else, so they wrote up a report and they filed it away. And then the tenants inside of Ellen's building started like a manual go find me for Steven's death so they started collecting money and while they're thinking about okay like what what's our goal how much should we try to raise one day Ellen comes into the lobby skipping she's happy she's laughing and she says guess what what Ellen I found this other funeral home that is so much cheaper. So the one with David was like $5,000, but this one's only $3,000. Isn't that crazy? What?

So she gets her state farm payout. So state farm was the only insurance that would pay her out, about $100,000. Every other insurance said without that cost of death without you know making sure nothing suspicious happened You really like kill them for life insurance. We will not pay you out So she only gets a hundred out of the quarter million and she struts into a car dealership And she sees a blue car and says I'll take it without even test driving it He's dying right now without even test driving it and the sales guy I mean I used to be a sales girl.

I used to work in like a jewelry department, okay? This is like an amazing sale. You don't even want to try on the necklace. Are you kidding me? This is either a credit card fraud or like the best day ever. And so I'm like, oh yeah. And he was like, oh yeah. Like really without even test driving it.

And she was like, yeah, how much is it? $34,000. Yeah, I'll take it. Love it. And it's like amazing. So as he is it? $34,000. Yeah, I'll take it. Love it. And it's like amazing. So as he's like doing his little paperwork, she says, yeah, I'm getting the money from insurance. My son just died.

Just so casually. So he's like, whoa. But he still fills out that form. Okay, because he's got to get that commission, I guess. So he just like keeps going. And she's like, all right, well, pick it up tomorrow. And Dan and all these people are like, what is happening?

So Dan starts ignoring Ellen, because she just can't take it anymore. She's like, I am about to die. Like you are so suspicious. You're so weird. And if you're not suspicious, you're just incredibly heartless to your own children. And so Ellen calls Dan one day and just tells her,

listen, I thought you would want to know that I just learned the boys died from electrical rhythms of the heart. I don't know what that means, but there was no cause of death determined, so she made that up Yeah, I think maybe she thought that Deanne was getting suspicious of her So she just started like making up stuff and Deanne was like okay, weird and the police and the doctors at this point I mean they're ramping their things up. There was no genetic issues that they could find There was no poison in the system. I mean the one thing that they kept going towards was the fact that this was, you know, smothering him. And they find out about the hair dryer incident, they find out about her not paying the funeral bill,

but they also find out about all the insurance that she had. Again, this is not murder evidence, but it definitely is a motive, and it definitely is circumstantial. So they confront Ellen, and they said, hey, why did you take out life insurance for your two very young children that have no health problems? What's going on? And she said, oh, yeah. So I wanted to like get a little bit of life insurance, you know, because David died and I don't know if there was something genetically wrong with us, just like a little bit, but

they kept selling me. And somehow I got a quarter million dollars on each kid. Okay, mommy, that's... So they're like, hmm, so as they're questioning her, she was with Stacey, so they had to take Stacey in and one of the officers was watching the young kid, and she said, I love mommy, like she didn't do it, she didn't do it, she just kept saying that, which is so sad, right?

She didn't do anything, and they're like, well, what about the hair dryer incident? They're trying to get information out of her. And she said, well, it wasn't Steven. It wasn't anybody. Nobody was in the room. That's what she kept saying. So that's in the place where like, that's weird. So they start digging deep into Ellen's life. And you know, that's when all the strange stuff comes out about her being kind of in this weird fantasy land with relationships with men and she genuinely believes that they really like her just really intense. She did some weird things when she was still with Paul. She sent a letter to another bus driver and said, meet me at this place like I'm a hot

anonymous girl that wants to date you. And out of pure curiosity, he showed up at the place and he sees not a hot anonymous girl, but Ellen with Paul, and Paul just starts trying to throw punches at him, and he's like, stop hitting on my wife. He's like, bro, I don't even know your wife, I don't even like your wife, like what's the deal? So she told Paul, her husband, that this guy was just like feigning over her, just like hitting on her non-stop.

Got them in the same place, and like Paul tried to meet him up. Just really weird. She would call up her wrestler crushes and all of her like work crushes under a fake number and she called herself the fuzzy bunny and she would start aggressively talking dirty to them under the disguise of fuzzy bunny and nobody thought it was her until the police asked them all about it and all of them ended up having a fuzzy bunny connection which they just thought okay well now it's to be Ellen because there's no way people from her x-work plays, her new workplace, her pizza delivery plays, and the wrestler, like, circuit, like, they all had calls from a fuzzy bunny.

Oh my god. They, you know, another car dealer person was like, oh yeah, one time I took in her car and I don't know why this part is notable, but like this was one of the witness statements. Oh yeah, one time I took in her car and I don't know why this part is notable, but like this was one of the witness statements He said, yeah, I don't get good vibes from her because when I got her car in the back seat of her car She left out a can of butt loob and it was titled butt grease And I was like wow this really was the 90s because if I saw that in 2021 I'd be like, ooh Where'd you get it? I'm kidding

I'd be like, ooh, where'd you get it? I'm kidding. I'm kidding. But like no one would care in 2021, but he was just like, I knew something was wrong with her. Who has a can of butt grace? Criminals, that too. Like he was just really offended by the butt grace. So offended.

And so, you know, they start going around to all these people and it just, it kind of clicked. I mean, once they started talking to the co-workers and they said that she gave a very different version of events, that's where it's weird. If she called at 8 in the morning to say that he's dying, before he was even dying, technically, that's pre-meditation, isn't it?

Yes, ma'am. So Ellen tells Deanne that she hired an attorney. She's like, well, that kind of seems smart. I mean, it seems like you are going to get arrested soon, but she didn't say that. So she's like, oh, why? And Ellen says, well, I need to collect the rest of the insurance. And they're just like not giving it to me. They get to herself like, what? Like, do you not realize what's going on right now? And so she asked the very big question of, I just don't understand why you have four policies on him Why do you have a quarter million dollars of insurance policies on Stephen?

And no fans Selen you can't even afford groceries like where did you get the money to pay for these premiums? It was a free trial It was a free trial a free 30-day trial and if I didn't like it I could return it Seriously? No, she's... And Diane tells her, do you know how crazy that sounds? So if you doesn't die within 30 days, you would return it and say that it's not a good life insurance.

But if you die, it's a great policy. Like, there's... that doesn't make sense. And so she's like, well yeah it does and she just hung up the phone. So I mean the police speculation is that she felt like she was being held back by her kids. Maybe there is postpartum depression going on. Well in the 90s that no one really recognized postpartum depression that intensely. So they were like, well she's feeling bad about having her kids holding her back. She didn't like them and she was a cruel mom. She wanted to be attractive to men and maybe it wasn't working. Maybe she felt like, well, I'm overweight and that's why men don't like me. But you know what everyone loves? Money. So this was kind of like a three and one deal, right? And finally a board of seven doctors from all over the country. They had to do this because

you know that one doctor couldn't come up with it and the only way for it to actually pass in court is to get a bunch of doctors that are specialized on it and they went over the reports and all unanimously deemed it a homicide. And they sent it to the judge to get a warrant. Now the police, they get real cute with it. They decide, yeah, well, we still need like a massive confession because this is, I mean, when you're talking about a mom, a single mom with trauma, I mean, the jury, unless we have a crazy confession, they're just, they're gonna side with the mom, right? So we need to get her. So after they get this warrant, they decide to do a little movie set. They change one of their regular rooms and they tape up this very official sign that they had made for them called Bones Task Force.

So her last name's Task Force. So imagine like Sue's Task Force. So it kind of indicates that there is an entire task force against Ellen. Like there would be a serial killer. And they put an extra file cabinets, stuffed them so that they wouldn't even close properly, which is files of folders. And at all, they try to make it all look like it was on Ellen. Nothing else but Ellen. They put in extra desks.

They dug out cigarette butts from the trash can and put them in ash trays to make it look like people had just been in here smoking all day all night just trying to figure out who killed her kids. The tactic man. The tactics. The psychological tactics that these cops are coming up with. They bought in trash cans filled with like old crumbled coffee cups. They put up cold coffee, hot coffee. They had random police officers who weren't even working on our case.

Just come sit in there going over paperwork and they were told don't even look at her don't even acknowledge her just look like you're intensely working. Oh my god. So I mean because it had been over a year and a half since Steven's death so they really needed her to feel scared because she must have a lot of confidence. I mean she's getting away with it she got a hundred thousand dollars in insurance money, right? So they have this whole setup. And on Friday, the 13th, they arrest her. And immediately, I mean, she looks around the room

and she just cracks, she just like crumbles. They just straight up tell her, you want it insurance money. And she says yes. Just like that. Yeah, they sit in front of a video camera. She waved her rights. She waved her rights to an attorney. You want it insurance money? And she says yes. Just like that. Yeah, they sit in front of a video camera. She waved her rights. She waved her rights to an attorney.

And she confessed to everything. So when it comes to David, she said that it just happened. He wouldn't sleep, and I was just so stressed, and he wasn't sleeping. I even tried to donate his organs and his eyes to science, but they said that his fever was so high that his organs were cooked. She refused to take responsibility for what happened to Stacey in the bathtub, but when asked about Steven, she said, well, I mean, we went to the grave and he kept saying that

he wanted to be with David. And I think him saying that with the stress of life, like she straight up blaming her child, you know, him constantly saying that with the stress of life, I just, I just felt like it was the only way. It just happened so fast. And when they asked about, you know, did any of the kids struggle? She said with David, he, he struggled a little bit. He was a little fighter. He tried to push the pillow away, but, um, that stopped. He stopped fighting. And I was tired. And they're like, what? Like, she's just saying it like this, like, just so nonchalant. And the one thing that I had so many questions about,

which I'm sure you do too, is, why did you like your workplace? Mm-hmm. You said, I just wanted to spend the time with Stephen. Well then why didn't you call them back at 11.30 and lie again, and then once more, and then lie again? And I just don't understand that.

Mm-hmm. I just didn't want to go to work that day. Well, yeah, but work was already assuming that you weren't coming to work. Yeah. I know. That's it. That's all she said. So, 40 minutes, she confessed to the murders of David and Stephen, refused the attempted murder of Stacey. She did not cry once.

She kept smudging her makeup with a clean-ex, but never one tear. She was just fully dry eyes. She did not cry once. She kept smudging her makeup with a clean ex, but never one tear. She's just fully dry eyes. So now she's facing the death penalty, and they offered her a deal. They said, played guilty to two counts

of first-degree murder and first-degree assault against Stacey, and there will be no trial. You will get life in prison without parole if you played guilty. And so she did. So now she is, um, she was appealing her sentence. She said that the video confession was coerced. She was an offered lawyer. Her lawyers were incompetent when she got one. And I don't, I don't know if it'll work. I think my thing is, does she have postpartum depression? Because I think that my opinions would change a tiny bit if she did.

Because right now I'm like complete psychopath. I want a punter in the face. But if she had postpartum depression, I would maybe not punter. I feel like she asked some mental illness, but it doesn't excuse any of these at all. But I think not an excuse, but maybe I could sleep better thinking, okay, well, not everyone's this evil. Like, if there was something that could give me like a, yeah, okay, I mean, I think so.

I feel like, is that she lies so much? You know, you're saying that she just bluntly tells people, hey, that guy's hitting mommy. This guy's hitting, like, can't imagine any normal person just lies so bluntly. I feel like the fact that guy's hitting mom. This guy's hitting. Like, can't imagine any normal person just lies so bluntly. I feel like the fact that she's calling their workplace is herself just constantly lying without even thinking about the consequence.

Like, can't even control it. Yeah, she's not thinking about how she fix a lie, but she's just have to keep on lying. Because it doesn't seem like this really cold, calculated, pre-meditated, like perfectly crafted diabolical plan. It's just like, what? Like there are so many times when I'm researching like, I'm just like kind of like laughing and like disbelief. Just yeah. What do you think you can get away after buying quarter million insurance and kills two

of your kids within six months and then get away with that go what? There's a lot of people there and Stacy the only survivor She she grew up and in her teenage years. She was hospitalized for depression and I think Yeah, well, she's got like a new identity and she's just trying to live life So that's why we changed her name to Stacy.. How is she now? Still pretty young, no? She weighs 8 in 90, so like close to 40. Wow. Yeah. So what are your thoughts on this mini-sode? The not so mini-sode. That's never

a mini-sode. And then what's everybody's reaction afterwards? All the best friend, the coworkers. Confused and disgusted. Like confused, like they did not suspect her of being able to do that. I mean, I think it's like you would never think that they would do that, and then suddenly it happened, and then they were getting suspicious,

but every single one of them, they constantly kept saying, but there's no way. They always kept saying, you know, there's no way, people react to different things differently, people react to grief differently. I think they just kept putting it off as, Ellen has always been a little bit weird. She hasn't always been like the most normal person, you know, she lies about certain things, so maybe this is her way of dealing with trauma. Like that's kind of what everyone kept saying. Like she, she was a little weird. So that is the story

of Ellen, boom, boom,um. Let me know what are your thoughts on this one and I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you guys on Wednesday. Bye!