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Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Kate Marlin. And I'm Garrett Marlin. And he's the husband. I'm the husband.
Welcome back. Another week, another episode here we are. Thank you for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching.
On Netflix, we love you guys. That's what I got. We're excited because you might not be able to tell. But if you go watch one of our other episodes on Netflix and then you rewatch this one on Netflix, pay in an ice, bent hours and hours and hours, re-liding and redoing our entire set.
Yeah, can you tell? If you can't tell, so damn, that sucks. But if you can't tell, thank you. A lot of it is a bunch of little stuff. We added a lot more lights.
We just wanted to upgrade things a little bit. We hopefully we sound the same because we still got our good mics and our good audio. So we're chilling and we're ready to go. We're excited to be here and we're excited that we were able to switch things around a little bit. Don't want to, we're able to much or have too many announcements.
But we dropped some new merch and I actually wore this.
“I think I'm one of my live streams, maybe that I do on my IG and everyone's like, oh my gosh,”
where's the merch? So it is available now. It is so cute. It's kind of like a, what'd you call that? Barsity collection?
Yeah. I guess you could say yes, so go check it out at mwmhshop.com. We got some new merch. Really cute. I'm not going to lie.
All right, Garrett, do you have your 10 seconds? For my 10 seconds this week, I will make it quick. I see that every week. I got a little sick.
I was sick today's the first day that I'm feeling better.
I'll sick for a long time. I'm sick for like a week. Feeling good. I'm healthy. No worries there.
Paying once in their dog. She've been trying to convince me of getting in their dog. Better late today in the car. We went and got we go to Dutch bros every single day. As you guys know, we're on the way back.
Paying like, hey, look at this. Like, what is it? Check, it's a puppy. What are you looking at this? And there's so many pups, the knee homes.
Yeah, you know, I'll just go to my. Paying once in another puppy. We were holding off on having another puppy. So it's not happening right now. Sorry, everybody.
But that's what I got this week. Puppies and being sick. So on that note, let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episode are oxygen.com at newsjournalonline.com caselaw.findlaw.com. That's life.com.
Tillmanfuneralhome.com. Crime and coffee couple.wordpress. Click Orlando.com dailymail.com/cbs.com and a plan to kill season 1 episode 6.
“You know, I think most people in this world deserve a second chance at happiness.”
An opportunity to leave the past behind and move forward with their lives. Especially when it comes to love because sometimes we really just choose the wrong people. We ignore the red flags. We rush into things. But I believe each relationship good or bad teaches us something about ourselves.
It is a lesson on what we want, what we don't want in the future. So when someone is brave enough to walk away from a situation that doesn't serve them, I have a lot of respect for that.
Unfortunately, it is not always that easy to shut the door and never look back.
Because for some of us, the past refuses to stay in the past and instead, it haunts us. It torments us and will stop it in nothing to get what it wants, even if it destroys us. It's 2018 in the small town of Delta, Florida. A quiet suburban community between Orlando and Daytona Beach. Now for 25-year-old Patrick Delecerta, this is home.
A place where he's ready to start the next chapter of his life being that he's in his mid-20s. Now Patrick's pretty close with his family. So close, in fact, that he shares the same home and construction job with his dad, Max. Patrick and his dad Max living together.
His family described Patrick as a go-getter, someone who lived every day to i...
His mother Patricia also described him as a romantic, someone who always dreamed of meeting the
perfect person, settling down and starting a family of his own. A dream that actually started to come to fruition a year before, back in June of 2017. That was when Patrick had met a 28-year-old bank teller named Jessica Devonani. He met Jessica on a dating app called Plenty of Fish and only took a few dates for Patrick to fall head over heels for Jessica. That's kind of a smart name.
“Plenty of Fish? Yeah. Is that the first time you thought that?”
What do you mean? Like, when you've heard of Plenty Fish, you've never heard of Plenty Fish. I just turned 56. Yeah. Okay, guys, for those, I'm not 56. I'm 30. Okay, 31. Same thing, chill.
But no, I never used dating app because it was like, I meant, I motion. I had motion.
Can I why would I get a little motion? No, but I met you and it was right around the time. I feel like dating apps were becoming more popular, so... I don't know, dating app either. See, because you motion? No, I just again. They weren't that popular yet, I feel like. That's funny. It's only took a few dates for Patrick to fall head over heels for Jessica.
“And honestly, she felt the same. She saw him as the full package.”
And even though the two lived about 30 miles away from one another with Jessica in Orlando, their relationship escalated pretty quickly. They started taking trips together and talked about a future with one another, even Patrick's dad, Max, who he lived with, could see that this was the person for Patrick. He had found the one in Jessica. So, in December of 2017, Patrick actually took the next step. He bought Jessica a ring and got down on one knee. And
Jessica said yes. Patrick told her, okay, this ring I'm proposing with, it's just a placeholder. He wanted her to pick out something custom, something that she really loved, but he still wanted to be able to propose to her and keep it a surprise. This was basically just
“another gesture that showed how romantic and caring Patrick really was. He cared the proposal”
was a surprise and then he also cared that she gets a ring she loves. And as they worked together to design this ring, the two already started coming up with plans for their wedding. They were considering two different places, either West Palm Beach, Florida, where they actually planned to move eventually, or ramps, where Patrick's mother Patricia was from. And by the end of February, Jessica's custom engagement ring was finished and was supposed to be on the way any day now.
She couldn't wait to try it on for the very first time. That point, Patrick and Jessica seemed more in love than ever. On the night of February 26, 2018, Patrick left Jessica a voicemail. He said, quote, "I love you, good night, sweet dreams." In the morning, I'll call you. I'll send you a text when I wake up a little later. I'll write, "Love you, good night, bye." It was a voicemail that would be played over and over by Jessica in the years to come because it was actually the last
one, Patrick would ever leave her. Now, on the morning of February 27, Patrick was home alone, while his father was out on a construction job that was about 70 miles away. That morning,
he texted Jessica as always, older he loved her and wished her a good day at work. And again,
promised to call her a little later, like he always did. But shortly after 7.38 a.m., Max, his father, tries to call Patrick. You just got an call that someone was there to deliver a package for him and it needed to be signed for. Now, Max thought it was probably the engagement ring that Patrick and Jessica were waiting on. See, Max and Patrick's property was behind this big, gated fence. So, Max had a sign on the gate that said to text her call if something needed to be delivered.
So, none of this was unusual. What was strange was the fact that Patrick wasn't answering his calls. Or his texts after Max said, "Hey, there's someone there with a delivery, especially because he knew Patrick had been anxiously waiting for this ring to come." So instead, hours went by with no word from Patrick. So, Max calls Jessica to see if she's heard from him. And she says, "No, actually, I've been a bit worried too. She hasn't spoken to Patrick
Since that morning.
to go check on Patrick's." Now, his dad is saying he's not answering at this point. She's kind of
“feeling like something might be wrong. So, around 11 a.m., she makes the 30 mile drive from Orlando to”
Deltona. And meanwhile, back at Patrick's property, a neighbor, is actually calling 911. She had stopped by the home and noticed that the front door was wide open. And she had also noticed that Patrick, Dela Serta, was bleeding right inside the entrance of his home. And when the operator asks her if she wants to perform CPR, the caller says, "No." And she says, "It's because it's pretty obvious that Patrick is already dead."
9-1-1, Claire's your emergency. Um, that's been shot and killed. When they happen, I don't know.
You don't want to try CPR, correct? No, no, he's dead. He's cold.
“So Jessica actually gets there a few minutes after this 911 call is placed.”
And before the police can even arrive, she also walks up and sees her fiance lying there in a pool of his own blood. His body is already cold to the touch. Now, minutes later, Sheriff's deputies arrive on the scene, and they determine that Patrick had been shot four times through the head, chest, and hit. And it's pretty obvious just by looking at him that the weapon of choice was a
high-powered rifle. Oh, okay. They could also tell because the killer had left behind two unique
shell casings that are used in semi-automatic weapons. But the attacker had seemingly collected the other four casings since we know six shots were fired in total. It appeared as though Patrick had almost been ambushed here, answered the door only to find his killer standing there on the other side. Now luckily, Max and Patrick did have security cameras set up around their house. I'm talking about, I want to see the cameras. But when police went into the home to try and locate
the footage, you find that Patrick's computer and hard drive from the home security system is missing. What's odd is, nothing else that appears to be missing from the home. So if this wasn't a robbery, this was definitely a planned out orchestrated attack, which obviously means now it was time to look at suspects, and they're seemed to be one right from the start. Patrick and Max had another neighbor, who was an army veteran supposedly suffering from dementia. Turns out, Patrick and this neighbor
had exchanged some words in the past. And on one particular evening, things escalated. The neighbor went inside, grabbed his gun, and started firing towards Patrick's house. Now thankfully, no one was injured, but Patrick called the police who then sent an entire swap team to go with this. The man was tackled and taken into custody. So the police look into this report, and they're obviously like, hey, he has the neighbor feud. This is a potential suspect.
Maybe he felt like he hadn't settled the score against Patrick, but there was one big problem.
“The neighbor was currently in jail. It's pretty good out by, honestly. So they quickly scratch”
him off the list. But this is when his father, Max, tells police there might be another person of interest. During his interview with them, he mentions the call he'd got earlier from the delivery driver. And the fact that Patrick was shot seemingly right as he opened up the front door, that doesn't look good through whoever dropped off that package. And Max also remembers that the delivery driver had asked for Patrick by name. So Max said, okay, let me call my son and I'll call
you right back. What's your number? But the delivery driver refused to leave any details with Max, which is why he thought this was a bit strange. He's like, what if this wasn't actually a delivery driver? Now, meanwhile, a distraught Jessica is also brought down to the station and is speaking with police. And when asked if she thought or knew of any enemies that Patrick might have, she says there is one person who might have wanted to hurt him for ex-boyfriend of eight years,
a 50-year-old man named Greg Bender.
Medviso Stoyah.
happy about her whirlwind romance with Patrick. In fact, she hadn't heard from Greg in months,
“but he had actually called her that morning, not once, but twice. Jessica refused to answer”
because she's like, why is my ex-boyfriend called me? But now with everything that's happened, she's like, maybe those calls weren't a coincidence. So let's talk about Greg, the ex-boyfriend. I feel like I'm not going to lie, Greg. In Jessica had met on a dating app back in 2009 when Greg was 42 and Jessica was 21. Greg was a successful hedge fund manager. He lived in this big house and a fancy neighborhood right
outside of Orlando. He was the kind of guy who loved fast cars, guns, and living an expensive,
luxurious lifestyle. Basically, he was the polar opposite of Patrick. But Jessica and Greg went
on to have this pretty long relationship and six years in Greg actually proposed to her.
“And while Jessica said yes, she probably had some doubts about the marriage. They weren't”
exactly a healthy couple. In fact, things had been pretty toxic and on and off for those six years. And Greg apparently showed his true colors early on. When Jessica told him about someone else she'd been seeing, Greg began stalking the other guy, found out where he lived and said if he ever came near Jessica again, he would tie him up and make him regret it. Greg's jealousy
was a constant problem in the relationship. But Jessica admitted she was a bit naive when she said yes
to his proposal. She was in love with him and she wasn't interested at the time in being with anyone else. At least that was how she felt until 2016. That year Greg was hospitalized after undergoing a medical procedure and Jessica showed up to offer her support. But when she got to the room, it was another woman sitting by Greg's bedside came and fused Jessica explains to this random woman that she was his fiance like my ring to which the other woman responded, "I'm his wife."
Oh no. So that's when Jessica realized Greg had been living this double life. Their entire engagement doesn't happen. How did people pull that off? Because I've heard of cases to where people have like full on kids and families in other countries. And they just don't know about that. And they somehow have a full blown relationship with somebody else. Yeah.
“Like how I just don't understand how. And here's the thing. It's like the projection”
of him being like super jealous and overly protective of his 21-year-old girlfriend when he has a whole life. Yeah. So she realizes in this moment, "Oh my gosh, our relationship was a lie." But when Greg recovered and left the hospital a few days later, he called Jessica begging her to fix things. He's like, "Listen, yes, I'm married, but it wasn't serious. It was just a business arrangement. You only married the other woman so her son could go to
the good schools and the district he lived in. I don't know whether Jessica believe this or not, but she gave Greg an old tomato after that." She said, "You haven't till the end of the year to leave and divorce your wife or I'm leaving." But 2016 comes and goes, "And Greg doesn't make any moves to get divorced." So in 2017, she gives the ring back to Greg and says, "And that's it. I'm done." But Greg doesn't let her walk out of his life that easily. As we probably guessed,
says things like, "You can't do this to me. I'm not going to let you go." And no matter how much she tries to ignore him, he keeps pursuing her to the point where she actually has to block his number and his accounts on several apps. And then she creates new profiles just to hide from him. All of which only pushes Jessica further away from this long-term relationship, she'd been in. And by February 2017, she's back on dating websites where she connects with 24-year-old
Patrick DeLicerta that June. And that's when things start to get ready ugly. Obviously, she's happy to have met Patrick. But Greg comes across Patrick's Facebook page when him in Jessica's start dating, he sees that this guy on Facebook is dating his ex-girlfriend. The ego on this guy is mind-blowing, because it turns to his wife and his life. Yeah, so I'm saying my girlfriend to have a full-blown wife and kids and then be dating somebody else but then being mad because
Your ex-girlfriend.
isn't a new relationship. So he sees the two of them together on Facebook and he starts sending
“Patrick threatening messages. Same things like, quote, I know where you live. I'm going to harm”
you and then Greg says things to Jessica. Like, quote, I'm going to hire a hitman or I'm just going to do the job myself in regards to hurting Patrick. In fact, it was threats like this that
actually made Patrick install those security cameras around his and his dad's home in the first
place. There was even a point where Jessica felt compelled to meet up with Greg in person to just try and like sever ties, tried to make him understand, just talk him down off the ledge like you can't keep threatening my new boyfriend. You've got to let this go. She felt that if she gave him what he wanted, maybe goes on, you know, meets up with him, maybe he'd back off, that maybe he wouldn't actually hurt anyone. Wow, this is sad. This is horrible. What Jessica didn't realize was at this
point. Greg had actually hired a PI to follow him and Jessica on like when she would meet up with him, secretly film them and then sent that film to Patrick. Same. Oh, she's going on dates with me.
“She's meeting up with me. She's doing this behind your back. You should break up with her and I'm”
not going to lie. It did work a little because Patrick was like, Jessica, like, why are you even meeting up with him? They did fight about it. She explains how she's like, I'm trying to get him off her back like let him down gently. Like try to sever it slowly so that he can just leave us alone and Patrick forgives her. He understands. Greg doesn't give up, though. The threats continue to some of which were left on voicemails. I'm making the phone call. I'm giving instructions.
And I'm going to have my plan put in the action. Greg said things like, I'm giving instructions. I'm going to put my plan in action, seemingly about hiring a hitman. And that's when Jessica and Patrick actually decide to go to the court or a restraining order. Both of them filed for protection
“against Greg, for much older, ex-boyfriend. But only Jessica was granted that protection.”
Patrick's order was denied, which is terrifying because Jessica actually said in interviews that she
was never afraid of Greg hurting her. She was always terrified of what he might do to the next
people she got involved with. Now it's really sad because there really isn't much you can do about it. Even say let's say that restraining order was granted. It's not like there's a bubble around you that stopped somebody from coming close to you. Most of the time doesn't. Like if that person wants to kill you still, they probably will. Now a part of this restraining order actually required Greg to turn over his large gun collection. Oh, okay. Like you got to get rid of your guns.
This was in December of 2017. He never does just like Eris said. They don't ever really obey it. But after Jessica said things did start to quiet down a little bit. Like after she got the restraining order, the voicemail stopped, the Facebook threats came to an end. It seemed like
maybe Greg had finally come to terms with reality. So two months go by with radio silence from
Greg. That was until February 27, 2018. When she saw Greg Bender's name come up on her phone that day and then her fiance ends up murdered in his doorway and she realizes something is seriously wrong. Now hearing all of this, police are like, okay, forget the neighbor guy who's in jail. We have obviously found our primary suspect. Like this is suspect 101, but they need more evidence. So they ask Jessica, hey, would you be willing to help us out? Call Greg and see if you can get
him to confess. And she agrees. She tries. With officers listening in, Greg tells her he saw the news about Patrick's death. He's so sorry for her loss. But Jessica puts him on the spot. Tell them, hey, I know you did this. You told me so many times you were going to hire a hitman. You told me you were going to kill Patrick. She asks him point blank. Did you shoot him? Now on this phone call Greg denies it says, absolutely not. Like, I'm your friend. I would not do that. But obviously
Jessica's like, okay, you're lying. Realizing that the call is going nowhere, please try another tactic. They can't arrest Greg just based on his history of threats, but they can arrest him for violating his restraining order against Jessica since he did call her twice earlier that day, which he's not allowed to do. So they track Greg down and they get him into custody.
They can't keep him for long.
well, they're going to have to move quickly if they want to file charges for murder, which
“either means extracting a confession or finding more evidence that he is the one who killed Patrick.”
Now unfortunately, for Greg Bender, he's made more than one enemy. And when he gets arrested, all of these enemies are willing to speak out. So that night when Greg was behind bars, detectives received a phone call from none other than Greg Bender's now estranged wife. This is the same wife who he told Jessica he was married to as a business arrangement after they had met in the hospital. Now her name is Demara Sanchez. And she has something she wants to share
with the police about her husband after finding out he'd been arrested. She's pretty nervous and clearly terrified. So the police tell her hey, let's just meet secretly. They pick a spot in a
secluded parking spot and set a time for the following day, February 28th. And here's what she
“tells them during this little meetup. In December of 2017, she and Greg finally did decide to get”
divorced. He was packing her things to move out of the house they shared when she stumbled across something. It was a blue spiral notebook that according to her belonged to Greg. So he opened it and inside she found what sounded or looked like in elaborate plan for a murder. That's insane. So she grabs this spiral notebook that she's found while packing her house up. She marches right up to Greg and confronts him about it. She's like, what is this? This is weird. Like what is this in
this notebook that's yours? And he admits it's his and he wrote it, but it was just a fantasy. It was fiction. It wasn't actually planning to murder anyone. Now she's on her way out the door. So she's like, you know what? Whatever. You're weird. I'm getting out of here and she just lets it go because yeah, she wanted to be done. I don't blame her. What else is she going to do? That was until she saw the news about Patrick. She knew about his connection to Jessica and the plan in the spiral notebook
that she had found red sounded almost identical to the crime that had been committed against Patrick. So that's when she goes to police. In this, actually gives them enough to get a search warrant for Greg's house. So like if he was planning the murder in his house, we can now search his house. They moved fast on that while Greg is still behind bars for violating his parole, police execute the warrant on his home. Which is good because then he can't go and clean anything up.
He can't move things. Right. It's a great time. So the detectives feel like this is probably a shot in the dark. I mean, what are the odds that this guy just left evidence around the house
and criminating him? But the second they get inside and look through his home office. What do they
find? It's the spiral blue notebook. Just like his estranged wife had described and in those pages were specific details, not only about a random murder, but about Patrick's house. Like the fact that he had a dog named Optimus who was "slow and old" written in the notebook. And that there was mulch in Patrick's yard, which he notes he could use for cover. This is obviously things Greg would only know if he had been stalking Patrick and literally planning out this murder. The difference
was Greg wrote about how he planned to tell Patrick that he was just going to rob him. And then his plan was to inject him with a mixture of heroin and fentanyl to make it look like he'd overdosed. That didn't work. He was just going to suffocate Patrick to death. I'm just like listing myself. Who writes this down? Like what? Nobody's going to lose it. Nobody writes it down. It's only insane people that write this down because no normal person would be writing this down.
“He just pulls out his handy-dandy notebook and is like, was it fentanyl? Yeah, what am I doing?”
What am I going to do? Crazy. Gross. Weird. Now obviously, it seems like Greg pivoted. He got to the property and pretended to act like a delivery man to lure Patrick into a vulnerable position. When he opened the door to sign for the package, Greg shot him, hoping the crime would just seem random. Still, it was clear that Greg had thought this crime out because among those pages were notes like, quote, dispose of clothes, late, fracker, gloves, put duct tape on the
Bottom of a second pair of shoes.
Turn off cell phones. As for additional evidence, detectives also discovered a hand-drawn map
“sitting on the top of his garage bin that shows the exact location of Patrick's house. This is crazy.”
This is like a couple of things. This is like really well thought out in a bad way. Why am I like, are you trying to get caught? You're literally leaving a blueprint. Like this is worse than having a home deeper. I mean, if you think about it, if he burned the notebook, maybe he thought he would be able to do this. This all happened so fast. So maybe maybe he thought I'd be able to get rid of him. I mean, it was sitting on the garbage bin. So maybe
he was just planning on throwing it away. But also like it's 2017. And we know that you've been stalking this guy, why do you have a map that has the exact location of Patrick's house? Like you're overboard. You know where he lives. You know what I mean? Like it's almost baking to get caught. And when they run this map for prints later, the only ones on it are grapes.
“I mean, this is open and shut, a hundred percent. Now on top of that, they find a gun safe”
inside his walking closet. And it has the same ammunition that was used to kill Patrick. And while they don't find the murder weapon itself, they do find a bunch of other guns, which are still in violation of his parole. And Jessica can confirm that she remembered him owning in AR15 semi-automatic rifle when they were still together. This is the same gun that would later end her future Beyoncé's life. So sad. A gun that detectives were sure was now in the bottom of
a lake somewhere. Now meanwhile, down at this station, 50-year-old Greg Bender's paying his bail for that previous arrest. He is released. I mean, they're trying to move fast, but he's still is able to get out. He's heading home. When he gets there, he finds police at his house literally searching it, executing a search warrant. And before he can even step inside, they're like,
“turn around. You're back under arrest. They placed him back in handcuffs. They sent him back”
to County jail. And this time, for first, a remurter charges. Here's the problem though. We have no
eyewitnesses. We have no DNA at the crime scene. We have no confession. We have a lot of probable cause and a lot of circumstantial evidence. We just don't have anything directly tying him on the front porch to Patrick's body. If that makes sense. No, no, it makes sense. I'm just trying to think, yeah, I mean, I guess everything gets circumstantial. But it does feel like it's conviction worthy. No, 100%. It just sucks when it's all circumstantial. But prosecutors are like, let's just
keep building. Let's make this an airtight case. And they find a couple more things of note. Like one of Greg's neighbors actually had a security camera. They find some security footage. And the video shows Greg leaving his house in his car around 613 AM on the morning of February 27th. That is roughly an hour before Max got back all that a delivery person was waiting at the gate trying to get Patrick to come to the door and sign for a package, which we now can infer was the killer.
Now, there's also some information on a burner phone that Greg had in his possession, and the data from the phone shows it only ever called two numbers. Greg's own personal phone
and Max, Patrick's dad, confirming basically with evidence that he was the delivery person who
called just moments before Patrick opened the door and was killed. Now, data on the phone also showed it sat at Greg's house for weeks leading up to the murder, remunitation, and only left once to travel to Patrick's property that day he was killed. Meaning it was likely bought with the sole intention of being used for the murder plan. He didn't want to call Max on his own phone. Now, prosecutors also ran some bullet casings that were found in Greg's desk drawer. They discovered
they were in exact match with the two that were left behind at the crime scene. Interesting. Okay. Unfortunately, it would be about three years before any of this could be presented in court. I mean, this used to bother me a lot, and it still does for like the families in the victim that are involved because they have to wait so long to get justice. But the only upside is that usually that person is in prison. And usually the reason is taking long is because
they're building in our tight race. It's not always just, there's trying to, yes, you have the
few who are like just trying to wait on purpose, like trying to just, but a lot of the time the third is reasons behind it. Yeah. So as Patrick's friends and family waited for that time to come, Jessica's 30th birthday happened. And on that day, Patrick's parents actually gave her a birthday
Present that she would never forget.
gone to give her, and one that was so supposed to be delivered, a ring that she's actually wearing
“when it came time for Greg Bender's trial in May of 2021, which is devastating and also just like”
it's so heartbreaking. Heart wrenching. Yeah. So Jessica is the star witness at trial and upon in the defense's arguments. Now while Jessica told the jury about Greg's history of control, jealousy and threats, the defense used those secretly recorded meetups as a way to try and discredit her. They pointed to how she agreed to meet up willingly with Greg after she was already with Patrick, how she was leading Greg on, letting him rub her leg, hold her hand, kiss her head.
It's just something I hate about. Also like the the defense side of cases like this is they make the, they just make people look so bad, and especially when they make like a victim look bad, and they can't defend themselves, messed up. Also like what's a girl to do with an obsessed ex-boyfriend? Like if she's really genuinely trying to get him to stop, she's going to say,
“you know don't kiss me. No, like you're going to piss him off. She's trying to get, she's legit”
scared. Yes. And guess what? She was scared for a vowed reason because he literally killed her feeling. She's using any way she can think of of what can I do to psychologically get into this guy's head and get him to get away from us. She argued that she found all of this unusual because it wasn't his typical behavior when they were together and it wasn't until later that she realized he was actually touching her and doing all of this for the hitting cameras that he was planning
share with Patrick. Jessica told the jury that she met up with Greg to subdue the situation, hoping it would eliminate some of the threats the couple was receiving. Now one point, the defense even tried to point to Max. Patrick's father as a suspect. Again, just like you're at said, the defense is way of just like revictimizing and dragging everyone through the mind of trial. I hate it. They said there were discrepancies about where Max said he was and where he actually
was on the day of the murder to which Max defended himself by saying he was always on different
sites for his job and likely just got confused about where he was scheduled like I'm constantly going back and forth. Still, they said Max had motive because he had feelings for Jessica. Oh, give me a break man. Oh, he was actually in love with her fiance. Now, imagine hearing this. This is something both he and Jessica and says was absolutely not true, but like this is discussing. The evidence brought forth by the prosecution far outweighed any hearsay mentioned by the
defense, between the bullet caseings, the threatening voicemails, the restraining order, and the detail murder plan in his little handy-dandy notebook, there was little room or doubt. After four days of testimony, the jury left to deliberate and when they came back, they announced that Greg Bender was guilty of first degree murder. Yeah, good. Now in Florida, that automatically meant a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
But there's one thing, Patrick's family and Jessica are actually left wondering. If Patrick had been granted a restraining order against Greg, would he still be alive today or
“with the outcome honestly have still been the same? This, my opinion, laying in, I don't know.”
I think that he probably would have that anyways. He seemed really set on killing him. I mean, and it's horrible. It's so sad. Greg's still had his gun collection, even though he was supposed to hand it over. As part of the
order, we know that that was never strictly enforced. No cops showed up to his home saying, hey,
give us the guns. And because of that, one of those exact weapons was used to take Patrick's life and Jessica's future with him, which is why Jessica actually looked at Greg during her sentencing hearing when she gave his impact statement. She said, quote, "We were going to have the fairy-tale dream and live happily ever after, but this dream never became a reality because it was taken away by this man sitting in the courtroom today."
And that is the murder of Patrick DeLaserda. Just senseless. I mean, I hope he wrought him prison. Hope he hates his life. But all I got, horrible.
Absolutely horrible. I always go out to the victim and their families.
It's also horrible because there's so much nuance and complexity to Jessica surviving, but her ex-boyfriend being the one who murdered her fiance. And then you add just on top of that, the fact that they were in their fairy-tale stage of relationship. They hadn't known each other that long. They just got engaged. Like, this is the most devastating heartbreak a woman can fill.
It, it, it, my heart just goes out to Jessica, her family, Patrick's family, ...
who's dragged through the mud at trial. I hope they know that there are tons of people listening
“to this right now that back them and love them and want justice for Patrick. And we got a little”
bit of that with Greg being put away in prison. All right, you guys. That is our episode for today.
And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye. [BLANK_AUDIO]
