326. The Last Message of Sara Raras

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"More Feuer, more intrigued than the Dragoncure zurück." "The absolute art is now to live."

“"Your life is unbezzling with your renéor."”

"Stream, the new Staffel, House of the Dragon, at 22nd June, with wow." "Freudig also deem of Staffel 1 and 2 of their following series, and weitere highlights." "That's what kind of two people are going to give you." "Bringing the girls to the world." "Bringing the girls to the best price."

"Now, on July 8th, 90th June." "Gear of Wartefaulté, streaming was also an easel. Wow." "You're listening to an ono media podcast." "Hey, everybody, welcome back to the podcast." "This is murder with my husband, I'm Pey Morlin."

"And I'm Garrett Morlin." "And he's the husband." "And I'm the husband." "Hey, everybody." "How does it go?"

"Happy Monday." "Happy Tuesday." "Happy Wednesday."

"Hey, you're just looking happy when you do that."

"Oh." "Happy Monday." "You're not very good at that." "Like this happy Monday." "Happy Tuesday."

"Thank you for being here." "I'm not like just a girl." "Just a girl." "Yeah, like that's just not me." "Thank you guys for watching. Thank you for supporting us. Thank you for listening."

"I do need to say something real quick." "I just met some people at the Baguishop." "Yeah, listen to the podcast." "Mm-hmm." "And I got in the car and guess what?"

"What?" "I had something huge in my teeth the entire time." "From lunch." "From lunch." "Oh."

“"Listen, guys, if I have something in my teeth, and you're talking to me, you need to tell me."”

"You big?" "Yeah, and I smiled for a picture." "Oh." "You guys got to tell me." "You got to tell me."

"What truth?" "This top and right here." "Oh." "You need to tell me." "You just need to be like, hey, Garrett, you have something in your teeth." "Then I can clean it before we take pictures or I talk to you."

"I don't like it." "I hate when I have stuff in my teeth, and I'm talking to people." "And I could, I could kind of sense that I did, but I wasn't sure." "I know what you're talking about when you're talking to someone. You're a little self-conscious." "You're like, "They're like something just a little off."

"And guess what? Went to the car. Huge piece of food in my teeth." "Did you immediately check because you had had that feeling?" "Yep." "Yep, immediately got in the car and I went, I bet you I got some big, big my teeth." "Boom, huge."

"Right in my teeth." "It's okay. Today when I showed up at the bagel shop, I had put dry shampoo in my hair, and apparently the bottle had splattered a little bit, and I had brown specks all over my head." "Oh, really? I didn't notice that." "I went and wiped it off."

"Oh." "Cause I went and washed my hands immediately. Luckily, I caught a glimpse in the mirror." "Anyways, tell me if I have something on my teeth." "Thank you. Make sure to say hi."

"That's not really my 10 seconds, but I guess it can be." " Other than that, no announcements." "I'm reminded we have bonus content and add free content on Apple and Spotify and Patreon." "If you are willing to watch a video, our video is on Netflix." "So go to Netflix and check it out there. Just type in murder with my husband."

"Those are all the announcements." "Yeah, you got anything, babe?" "No, I don't think so." "I just love you. I hope you're having a really good positive day." "Well, I guess I like that."

"My 10 seconds, I guess, was kind of that." "If anyone ever says hi to me and I have something on my teeth, please tell me." " Also, thank you for saying hi to me. Thank you for listening."

"Always, always ask us for a photo too."

"We're really big on that." "If you want one, ask us for a photo." "Because, Peyton, I won't ever ask anyone." "Because it would be awkward if you were like, "Hey, do you want a photo?" "No, I don't want a photo with you."

"Yeah, sure, I guess." "Yeah, so the reason we don't ever say anything is because we just want you guys to ask, because we don't want anyone to ever feel uncomfortable." "So, always ask us as well, what else?" "We got anything else?"

"Any other rules?" "I feel like we're laying down rules, but they're not rules." "I promise."

“"Um, no. I love you. I think you're beautiful when you say hi to me."”

"Me?" "Yeah, and everyone." "Okay, guys." "That's all we got." "On that note."

"Oh, also, if we're going to say..." "I was walking in the bagel shop." "And I was walking in." "And there was this family sitting in the left." "And I hear, Garrett!"

"Scared the crap out of me." "Really?" "I turned over, they were just saying, "How do you--?" "Because of the podcast I went, "Oh, shit." "You scared the crap out of me."

"Anyways, it was kind of funny." "You're going to tell you."

"Our sources for this episode are case law.findlaw.com." "Listen to Mahalik." "findagraved.com." "Oxygen.com." "Baltomorsund.com."

"Truecrumbdiscussion.com." "MP-cock.com." "Becoming a parent can be one of the best gifts you can receive in life." "Whether that's a pet parent or human parent." "There's nothing like the love we have for our babies."

"But becoming a parent comes with a whole bunch of new challenges."

“"We worry about facing a lot of judgment. Are we disciplining right?”

Are we working too hard and not spending enough time with our babies?" "For some moms, the question is, will my body ever go back to the way it was?" "And don't give me wrong. It's not just women. I know dads can fill this way too." "The point is, being a new parent is a vulnerable time in life." "Which is why new parents need all of the encouragement they can get."

"But not everyone is willing to offer up that support." "Some people have steadfast ideas on what it means to bring up a good person in this world." "And opinions that are that strong can have the ability to fracture even the closest relationships." "Sometimes to the point of no return." "So our case today starts in Elkridge, Maryland."

"This is an upscale town in between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore." "And it's here that 35-year-old Sarah Rarris is trying to restart her life." Sarah was originally born in Florida on a military base.

“She was actually the daughter of an Air Force sergeant, which meant she moved around quite a bit as a kid.”

When she was about seven years old, her dad's work took the family to Albuquerque, New Mexico, and that is actually where she stayed until high school. And it was a pretty early age that Sarah found the thing she was really good at. I mean, the thing that she was just meant to do. That was mathematics. She was incredibly smart and talented, but everyone who knew her said she had another useful skill too.

She was also incredibly social.

Sarah was an extrovert, selfless, someone who put others first.

And because of that, even though she was moving around a law as a military kid, she made friends every step of the way in life. Including, at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, where she eventually met her first husband. Sarah earned her degree in math with a minor in English,

and was planning to get her master's until she got a job working with the military at White Sand's Missile Base instead. And then, just a few years later, Sarah's husband got a job in Maryland and Sarah went with him, and then that's how we end up there. She landed herself a job that combined both her skills in math and a duty for her country,

just like her father. She was working for the NSA, the National Security Agency. But even while working this very challenging job, Sarah used her free time outside of work to just continue building her skills as she got older.

“Every time I hear NSA, I think of Snowden.”

Remember the movie? Yeah. Yeah.

Now, unfortunately, it seems like her first marriage wasn't going as well as she hoped,

and around the mid to late 80s, Sarah and her first husband actually parted ways. But she didn't let that stand in the way of her ambitions. She continued getting her education at John Hopkins College, and actually went on to earn that master's degree after all.

The 31-year-old Sarah graduated with her master's degree in 1994, with a degree in Operations Research, and also graduated with a new love interest, a 29-year-old named Lorenzo Rarris. Now, that same year, Sarah and Lorenzo tied the knot. They moved to that affluent little community that I started off the story with,

known as Elkridge, and then three years later, they actually had a son. Now, from the outside, it looked like Sarah had a bright future ahead of her. She had a lucrative government job, a new baby, a loving husband, and it's the late 90s.

But cracks were also forming in her second marriage as well.

Shortly after having their child, Sarah and Lorenzo felt like it was just no longer working out. And in the summer of 1998, Sarah filed for divorce, and hoped to get full custody of their almost one-year-old son. And while she might have been nervous about becoming a single mom, Sarah believed she could juggle it all on her own.

I stress job, being a mom, being head of household, it's a lot.

empowered even.

“But in November of that year, all of Sarah's plans for herself,”

and her bright future as a single working mom were taken from her in a single night.

It was a chilly fall day on November 15, 1998 when a woman named Laura Billiter called the Howard County police. She told them, "She had a good friend from work that she spoke to every single day, but that day she hadn't heard from her." And it was worrisome to her because the night before that friend had left a really disturbing message on her answering. She won that just felt more unsettling every time she listened to it,

and considering now that her friend didn't show up to work. She says the message on this answering machine almost sounded like there was some sort of struggle. Obviously, that friend she was worried about was of course, 35-year-old Sarah. Laura told the police, Sarah had a one-year-old son, but she thought maybe he was with his father that weekend. Regardless, she was just hoping the police could stop by Sarah's house to perform a welfare check.

So, authorities went over to Sarah's place in Elkridge, and when they got inside the house to perform this welfare check, they saw a giant broken window, along with some bloody shoe prints on the carpet, so they followed those shoe prints up to the family room, where they saw a woman lying on the ground face-up. Now, this was obviously 35-year-old Sarah.

“She had been stabbed several times in such a brutal fashion that these officers said it was honestly a first for them.”

There was a cut to her throat so deep it was just short of decapitation. Her wrists were so far, her hands were nearly removed. She'd also been stabbed repeatedly in the stomach. It was definitely a scene out of a horror film. A pathologist later determined that Sarah lost over 80% of her blood volume in this attack. As the authorities described it, it was definitely overkill.

Whoever came in here forced their way inside and killed Sarah with unparalleled hatred. Now there were quite a few details that police immediately gathered from the scene. The fact that the blood had mostly dried told them that Sarah had been dead for at least a day or so. They also collected evidence of bloody shoe prints as well as some bloody finger prints that were found on the wall.

“Fingers that seemed to be wearing gloves during the murder.”

Plus, there were a few things missing around Sarah's home. Her VCR player, a phone from the wall. However, Sarah's computer and purse were still out on her kitchen table. They were in clear sight. So if someone came into rob her, you would think they also would have taken that stuff too. But by the nature of the crime and just how violent and appeared, this seemed like a lot more than a robbery. But like someone actually came here to kill Sarah, maybe just the stolen VCR was an afterthought.

Unless someone also wanted to make it seem like a robbery gone wrong. So after Sarah's body was removed from the crime scene for an autopsy detective started knocking on neighbors doors. And what they found immediately strange was that even though this was a quiet, tight-knit neighborhood fairly safe, nobody saw her a thing. You can see a struggle, not a smash, not a scream, but there was one person who did hear something.

Someone who was a few miles away, the person who had first made that phone call to police.

Okay. Obviously, Sarah's friend Laura had said, she left me a strange voicemail that sounded like a struggle, the previous night. Now, unfortunately, officers had to head over there to break the news to Laura and person. Like we went, did this welfare check. Sarah's definitely not okay. Yeah. And while she was having to sit there in shock, processing that information, she also had to re-listen to that voicemail with the police a few more times.

At least they get a more concrete timeline from this recording. It was left at 846 PM the night before. And the police felt pretty certain that Sarah had managed to call and leave this voicemail to Laura, while she was being attacked in her home.

It was just a quick 30 second voicemail, but you can hear sounds of a struggle.

Maybe some like garbled screams. Officers thought Sarah was probably trying to just dial Laura or 911 for help.

But Laura had something else she thought might be good for the police to know.

“There's only one person in this world that Laura thinks would do something like this to her good friend Sarah.”

And that was Sarah's ex-husband Lorenzo. Could you imagine having an ex where you're like, yeah, they might kill me one day. Or like your best friend finds out that you're murdered and they're like, yeah, it was her ex-husband immediately. Which is crazy because like it's scary you don't see, like those signs aren't there. Yeah.

And when you marry someone. But they will show up and do what they should. But they show up. Yeah. I mean, even in I feel like early on in any relationship or marriage, right, like you people's friendships to people's true colors and true personality.

Like comes out the longer with someone because you see them get frustrated. You see them get annoyed. You see them get anxious, whatever it may be. Also just change as a person. And you're like, whoa, this person's different.

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Lorenzo and Sarah did not end things on the best. And things on the best of terms. They were going through a heated custody battle over their one-year-old son. And Lorenzo had gotten the short end of the stick. Sarah had primary custody while he got every other weekend and Wednesdays.

Still Lorenzo was fighting against that ruling. And the two were supposed to return to court on December 3rd. And when the meantime, apparently Lorenzo had made some pretty scary remarks that just terrified Sarah. He threatened to run off with her son and take him to Switzerland.

So she couldn't get custody or back to his family's native country, the Philippines. Lorenzo had even applied for a passport for their son. So it didn't really seem like an idle threat. Which is why the police dug deeper into the couple's history. They heard that the relationship started to deteriorate after the birth of their son.

“And honestly, according to friends and family, a lot of it had to do with the fact that Lorenzo”

became jealous over their baby. Yes, their son was taking away all of the attention Lorenzo used to get from his wife Sarah. And as a result, Lorenzo wanted his own mom who lived nearby to help out more so that him and his wife could get more quality time together. But this only made things worse because Sarah felt like Lorenzo's mother,

She would tell her what to do with their son, how to raise him.

“And meanwhile Lorenzo took even more of a step back as a father.”

Now that his mother could step in and do the work for him. So eventually things escalated from verbal altercations to physical ones. Laura told police there was one day when Sarah called her in the morning to say, She and Lorenzo had gotten into a huge argument in this time. She had been holding their son in her arms and Lorenzo had tried to hit her.

And she had turned her body to protect the baby. No, he ended up kicking her in the back. Okay. But Sarah did not stand for it. She went right to court that day.

The day that he kicked her in the back while she was holding their baby. And she got a restraining order against him.

Looking back at their records, police actually realized this wasn't a first.

They had been called out to Sarah and Lorenzo's home. On at least one occasion regarding a domestic dispute. It happened a few months after their sons birth. So around January of 1998. Sarah told police that Lorenzo was making, quote, murderous threats to her.

And that he was refusing to take his medication for depression. And she'd also mention to police that he owned several guns. Now after the restraining order is granted, Lorenzo was not allowed back in the house. Which made him so angry that Sarah then told Laura her friend from work. She was afraid for her life.

So you can understand why Lorenzo was immediately brought in for questioning. Yes. Sarah turned up dead. Police thought like this was going to be a pretty open and shut case. They figured.

Nope. We have our guy. He's going to confess right away. We are only 25 minutes in. So I doubt this is him.

“Now when police bring him in and they're like, do you know why you're here?”

And he's like, no, and they're like, well, Sarah's dead. Break the news to him. He puts his hands over his face. He falls to his knees. He seems completely gut-wrenched.

However, when he stands up, police are like, there's no evidence of tears. Which again, I hate hate. When this is brought up.

I hate to because again, you just never know how someone's going to react.

I just don't tear. So when people are like, oh, she's crying, but there's no tears. Oh, he was crying. You tear a little bit. I don't ever have tears rolled down my face.

So if I was crying, like, my eyes might look watery, but I wouldn't have tears. Like, people will be like, no tear in sight. And it's like, yeah, well, when I cry, I don't ever have tears rolled down my face. So people would think I literally was the hardest murder. Yeah, yeah.

So... Yeah. No evidence of tears. No evidence of tears. Maybe his tear ducks are broken, you don't know.

Uh-huh. You don't know. Yep. Now, once he got to the interrogation room, his demeanor shifted quite a bit. Now, there was no performant of water works.

Honestly, no real emotion at all. And yet, the 33-year-old Lorenzo insists he had nothing to do with Sarah's murder. He claimed the last time they saw each other was when he picked their son up on Friday, November 13th, for his weekend with custody. And he's like, the night of the murder, I have an alibi.

He was at his family's home. The one he shares with his parents and brother. The night Sarah died. So detectives took a little trip to the family home. It was 30 minutes away in the town of Parkville.

But we just have to go confirm his alibi. And while his mother Amelia said, ah, she was at work at a local nursing home that night. Lorenzo's younger brother, Mike, is like, yep, I can confirm Lorenzo was here at this house on the night of Sarah's murder. Apparently, Mike had worked a shift later that night, but when he left for work, Lorenzo was at home with his son. Now, a family confirming someone as at home isn't exactly what the police would consider a solid alibi because this is a very easy lie for a family to tell.

So they also seized Lorenzo's car. And then they got a warrant for his person, meaning they were able to finger print and photograph him as well as gather Lorenzo's DNA through hair samples. It was going to take some time to get these results back and compare them to the evidence that was found at the crime scene. But Lorenzo did give the police something to do in the meantime. He said, okay, I understand you're looking at me, but there's someone else.

“You should also be looking into someone he says was certain Sarah was having an affair with.”

So now we've brought in the love triangle. He's like, yeah, I didn't kill her, but she was cheating on me with this person and you should look into him.

Almost immediately though, police are a little skeptical about this lead that was brought to them by the ex-husband.

“Not only had Dawn since retired from the NSA, he was now living in an entirely different state up in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.”

Detectors made the trip so they could talk to him about this alleged affair and cross him off the list. And when they get there and knocked on his door to ask him about Sarah, he was completely shocked about the news of her death. What he wasn't shocked about though was that Lorenzo had told them that him and Sarah were having an affair. Apparently Lorenzo had emailed him in the past accusing him of the same exact thing, but Dawn insisted to police. That's just not true. That wasn't the nature of his relationship with Sarah.

There was never anything romantic going on between that and Lorenzo was literally just controlling and paranoid. He was paranoid over Sarah.

Interesting. Dawn even says, I've always been more of a father figure mentor to Sarah like this is definitely never been a work fling. Plus he had a rock solid alibi. He was at a dinner party in Massachusetts the night Sarah was killed. So, police go back to some of Sarah's coworkers just to see their take on this alleged relationship. And Laura, who also worked at the NSA with Sarah and Dawn and was one of her best friends, said, "It's not true. Like it's a ridiculous accusation.

There were no romantic feelings whatsoever. Lorenzo made this entire thing up in his head. He was spiraling. Which makes sense since we heard that Lorenzo was jealous over his own one-year-old son for taking attention away from him. I mean, I understand that having a baby can be complex, but also there's no one a baby needs more than their mother. Other parents are the mom, yeah, true. At one-years-old, that baby has barely lived life. It is attached to the mom.

It's going to be a lot of years before that mother begins to gain some independence. You know, but that happens a lot though. Oh yeah. That happens a lot. I mean, that's why I say it. I don't have a kid yet, but it happens a lot.

“Well, that's why I say it's complicated feelings, because everyone knows introducing a kid into a marriage brings change. No matter what, right?”

But the reality is, when you make the decision to bring a kid into a marriage, you are understanding that that baby is going to need its mother.

It's going to take up the mother's attention for quite a while. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people don't realize that, too. No. But yes, you're correct, yeah. So he's jealous over his little son, he's jealous over this fair partner that was a complete dead end.

That was not an affair partner. It didn't exist, which only then cast more suspicion on Lorenzo because it seems like he really was in a very bad downward spiral regarding his marriage. And he didn't do himself any favors when he failed to show up to Sarah's funeral. In fact, his entire family was absent from those services. At that point, police really needed the results of those DNA tests to move forward.

But in the meantime, they decided to reanalyze the one solid piece of evidence they had, and that was the voicemail message. So detective started playing this tape over and over, looking for any tiny details they might have missed. And the more they heard it, the more they think they picked up on something. Something Sarah appeared to be trying to say during the struggle.

Now it's muffled, which is why they didn't catch it the first time and it does take a while for them to make it out.

But eventually, they came to the conclusion that she was saying the name Mike. Mike, okay.

“And immediately, the pieces start to fall together because police are like, why would she be saying Mike not Lorenzo?”

Well, Lorenzo's brother, the one who supported his alibi, the night that she was killed said, "Yeah, Lorenzo is at home with me." His name's Mike. Hmm, first thing, okay. So now investigators are wondering, are the two brothers in this together? Café in his best form. With Cuba, we will take a coffee at Knopfdruck for a dinner at the moment.

Eléba Premium Café is already at the moment of 20 euros. And that is now the Cuba capsule machine in Dina Chibofiale and of Chibode. Well, the detective is pulled Mike in for an interview next. And while he completely denied having anything to do with Sarah's gruesome murder, police took hair samples and fingerprinted him as well.

But when they drove Mike back to his job later that day after questioning him,

“he immediately got out of the police cruiser and threw up.”

Oh, it gets out and throws up all over the place. Mike, okay. Which said to the police, like, this worked this guy up so much. He denied having anything to do with it. No, that's where it flagged.

But he got worked up so much that he threw up this second. He got out of our car. But no fence, I feel like you would do that. I know. Yeah, that would be nerve-wracking.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so. Police after this, after he's done throwing up everywhere. They give him their card and they say, hey, as soon as you're ready to confess, give us a call. That's really said. Yeah.

But things hit us snag with Mike pretty soon after that. The attorney who was representing Lorenzo stepped in and told the police, yeah, you're also not speaking to Mike without an attorney present as well. So once again, the police had to pivot if they wanted to get one brother. One brother talking, which was when they turned to an unlikely cohort.

Someone who had their own grievances with Lorenzo, but also knew him pretty well. His first wife, before Sarah, a woman named Becky. They're like, let's bring in the ex wife. Now, when the police sat Becky down and told her about Sarah's murder, she's pretty eager to help because she insists I've seen the dark side of Lorenzo.

I wonder how many, I feel like Becky's a very common name in these cases we do. Really? But I was going to say, I wonder if there's one name that's tied to murder. No, that has more divorces than others. Or like tied to murder more than others.

No.

“Like statistically, it's that name you have to hire.”

I'm going to look those up. Yeah. That's kind of smart. Mm-hmm. It's like signs or score or score.

Yeah, I guess so. But honestly, it's probably going to come down to what name was popular in that. Time, so.

You're always thinking of every angle.

Always thinking. So now I will say, I think it's hard when police bring in an enemy of a suspect in her like, Yeah, tell us, but also at the same time, and ex wife does know a lot about him. So I do think her point of view is also important. So it's just difficult.

But she's like, yes, my ex has been Lorenzo has a dark side. And lucky for investigators. She wasn't on such bad terms with Lorenzo that it would fill random for her to call him. She's like, we actually have stayed pretty friendly after our divorce. So police are like, listen, can you call him and we tap into it?

Can we just record a call between you and your ex husband? Ask him about Sarah's murder. You know, just talk to him about it. So Becky called him to extend her condolences about Sarah. In fact, they actually spoke a couple times over the next few days or weeks.

And each time the police listened in. And they claimed Becky was a great informant.

The problem was Lorenzo never set a single thing that

Incriminated him on those calls. If anything, they made the police feel like maybe he was innocent after all. Something that really solidified for detectives when a few weeks after Sarah's death, they got some results back from the crime scene.

“Now, remember those bloody glove prints they took from Sarah's walls?”

Well, the DNA results said the mixture belonged to Sarah, the blood, and an unknown male. So they compared that male sample to the DNA they collected from Lorenzo and Mike, the brothers, and the results said neither of them was a match. They'd been telling the truth. There was unknown DNA at the crime scene mixed in with the blood.

Someone else had to have been there and killed Sarah. Okay. It is a massive setback for the investigation because they've been spending all their time on these brothers basically this discovery put some back to square one. It's hard.

I feel like if I was a detective easier said than done, I know nobody come at me. Logically, obviously, it probably can't work this way. But I feel like it would be hard for me to go after people until I had DNA. Back because you do, you spend all this time thinking, oh, it's them.

Then you get the DNA and you're like, oh, never mind.

Talking to the X Y. But I just wasted 30 hours for no reason. Right. I don't know. Now, it's at this point when they get this back that they're like, yep, we're

bringing in the FBI, especially because Sarah was killed so brutally. They wondered, I wonder if this matches any other FBI cases. That's so sad. They're thinking, maybe this is just one of those rare things where this was a serial killer. So they ask, and the FBI's like, no, this doesn't fit any MOs we've seen.

They wanted them to try and enhance the voicemail.

“To see if there was anything their tech could pick up,”

that maybe the local police didn't have access to. But again, there was nothing. In fact, the FBI's like, we're not even sure we're hearing the name Mike. They believe the detectives were probably imagining it, knowing that Lorenzo's brother was named Mike.

So after this, seven to eight months go by. Police are no closer to making an arrest. If anything, they'd taken a few steps back.

Seems like Sarah's case was never going to be solved.

But then, police got one really lucky break. It was around May of 1999 when the Baltimore County PD got a call from someone at the Baltimore County Detention Center. It wasn't an officer. It was a gel house informant named Edison George.

Edison said he was talking to a fellow inmate there who was currently serving time for an armed robbery at a McDonald's a few months earlier. But this informant. Armed robbery at McDonald's?

Yeah. And all the places to armed robbery. And we're going to try McDonald's. Yeah, like armed robbery. That's a heavy charge.

McDonald's.

“Go to Bruce Chris or like, maybe he thought he could get it.”

I think I'm going to catch there.

But I don't know, it's hilarious.

Now the informant's like, listen, this McDonald's robber. He allegedly confessed to a murder that he had committed prior to the McDonald's robbery. The person who confessed was a 19 year old man named Ardell tickles. Yeah.

Pickles. Is that like good? Like on word, there's an Ardell tickles. That's his name. Okay.

Now the Baltimore police knew better than to take an informant's word for it. So they're like, yep, we're going to need you to wear wire and get Mr. tickles talking again. I can't do not call Mr. tickles.

Okay. Now you can. Which Edison did and Ardell started mentioning very explicitly the way he committed that previous murder he had talked about. He described how he'd busted through his victims window while she was

studying. He surprised her. He stabbed her in the stomach. He talked about nearly decapitating the female victim with nine. Talks about slicing her risks.

And while he doesn't mention Sarah's name, he's just like girl.

Police were thinking he's basically describing Sarah's murder.

Not to mention these details. He's confessing had not been known to the public. Like the graphic nature of the crime. Her hands almost being cut off. Her head almost being cut off that hadn't been released.

And yet it sounded like a step by step play of what the police analyzed at the crime. But that's not even the most shocking detail mentioned in the tape.

“When Ardell is asked, okay, like, why do you do this though?”

Like, why did you commit this random murder? He goes, oh no, like this wasn't for me. I was hired to kill this girl. I'm a hitman. Oh, okay.

And he said the woman who paid him to make the hit was someone who had worked with him. So police are like looking at each other stunned, wondering who what woman in Sarah's life would have paid for a hitman to kill her.

So next, they're obviously like, let's just pull up Ardell's former employment records. Go through them and see if there's anyone that crosses over into Sarah's life. And they discover something of interest.

And honestly, I'm like lowkey shocked. You haven't pieced this together. Thanks, wife. No. Ardell worked in the laundry room of a local nursing home.

Yeah. Who else worked at the nursing home as a nurse? Who? Lorenzo and Mike's mother. Sarah's mother and law.

63 year old. Amelia. The virus. Is there a law? We haven't really talked about it.

The mother and law who's been watching this son through this custody battle, who's stepped in and tried to help. That is not. The mother and law. The mother and law who told police she was at work.

The night of the murder. So now they find a connection. They're like, what are the chances? Mike and Lorenzo's mom works with Ardell. And then Ardell tells this jailhouse

informant that he was hired by someone he worked with to kill Sarah. Okay. So they start gathering witnesses. It's not hard to confirm. Amelia and Ardell definitely knew each other.

They worked a lot of the same hours at the nursing home. One question other employees said they had seen them talking on multiple occasions before Sarah was found dead. One nurse claimed Ardell came around the nurse's station a lot looking for Amelia.

Which adds up when you look at Ardell's background.

I mean, he had a pretty unstable home. He had been in foster care for quite a while. So it's not that odd that Ardell looked up to Amelia as a mother figure in some ways.

“And I guess that's why he agreed when Amelia made him an offer.”

$3,000 to murder her ex daughter in law. Who was trying to gain full full custody of her grandson. $3,000 no way. So that is not worth it. The Baltimore County PD share all of this with the Howard police who are still like,

jurisdictionally in charge of Sarah's life. I can't believe that she just got killed because the mother law wanted to kill her. Yeah. That's horrible. Because of custody battle.

That's absolutely horrible.

Don't get me wrong, custody battle does feel like it's crazy.

Now, this kid doesn't have a mom. Yeah. Because of his grandma. Yes, yeah. Now on August 24th, 1999, they arrest Ardell.

They bring him in for questioning. They play him the confession. But if you decide to help us out, tell us who hired you. Maybe that can change. They show him a picture of Amelia.

They're like, is this the woman who hired you? And he's like, yep, that's her. He told them that Amelia paid him $3,000 in cash to kill her daughter. And ex daughter in law. But here's the thing.

They don't really know how reliable Ardell statement really was. Could they take his word that Amelia hired him? Was he just blamed him? Was he just blaming things on her? Well, the police had a method to confirm his statement.

And that was following the money.

“They get a warrant for Amelia's financial records and sure enough, right?”

Before the murder, Amelia wrote a check out to cash in the amount of $3,000, which obviously is pretty good evidence. Help some secure in arrest warrant for Amelia. Okay. On the same day, the of Ardell's arrest.

Police picked Amelia up and brought her down to the station. They're like, listen, you're going to be charged with conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder. They told her they already had gotten a tape confession out of Ardell tickles. And then they placed crime scene photos of a deceased Sarah in front of her and told her, Hey, this is what you're $3,000 paid for.

And shockingly, Amelia admitted. She did pay Ardell tickles. But not to kill her daughter in law. She's like, I only paid for him to scare her, maybe throw a couple of rocks at her house. Now, police aren't buying it.

Who pays someone $3,000 to throw rocks at someone's home? But it's the reason why she wanted this that actually comes as a real shock. Because they're like, obviously, it's the custody dispute, right?

“But Amelia's like, no, I wanted to scare Sarah because after having the grandson,”

she completely disrespected her. Mother-in-law felt like daughter-in-law Sarah questioned her maternal experience and didn't like her grandparenting style. She made comments about how Sarah was handling breastfeeding and bathing her son. And Amelia said, I tried to help her do it the right way and Sarah just rejected all of my advice.

My gosh. Do not be the crazy mother-in-law, please, don't do it. Everyone's allowed to parent how they belong. Don't be a crazy mother-in-law. Also, we're father-in-law, I guess.

The custody dispute made 10,000 more sense than you being offended by the way your daughter have your daughter killed. Because you don't like the way she breastfeeding. No, that's prison for life. Also, being a mom's already hardened.

Trapper legs off. Yeah. So, sounds like Amelia was just overbearing. And jealous, and hurt, and maybe just had some narcissistic tendencies. But Amelia took the offense to a whole new level.

She said in her culture, back in the Philippines, mothers were supposed to be revered and respected. And Sarah's behavior towards her was a slap on the face, and, quote, showing disrespect to a mother is death. So, what Amelia says in her interview.

Ultimately, Amelia's poor-training herself as the victim in this situation. But Amelia's issues obviously don't stop there. She spoke about how she also wasn't a good wife to her son. She felt like Sarah was cheating on her son, and then she finally mentions the ongoing custody battle.

But police weren't buying her excuse that she hadn't hired our Delta kill Sarah. They're like, we don't believe you hired him to throw rocks. They also weren't sure about one other detail. Do Mike and Lorenzo know about this? Like, do they know their mother?

Oh, okay. Did this.

But Amelia is like, no, I never told either of them.

Oh my gosh.

actually thinks she's telling the truth.

“They also confirmed the unknown male DNA inside Sarah's house”

was a match with R del tickles. And a friend of R del's came forward to say, she helped him rent a car for the crime and helped him burn his bloody boots after the murder. This source even takes place to the exact spot where they burn the boots.

And after recovering one, they found it was a match for the bloody prints found inside Sarah's home. What did Lorenzo and Mike say? That's crazy.

So I'm going to start with Amelia's charges first.

She's found guilty on all charges during her sentencing. I would like to say to the honorable court that I had no intention at all to kill Sarah. I'm very, very sorry that it happened.

“But meanwhile, the judge calls Amelia quote an evil person”

without quote real remorse. Amelia was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for hiring this hitman. I don't care how she gets life, but we have people who are killing people. We got like 15 years.

I know.

Well, I mean, she deserves life.

No, she does. I understand. But inconsistency. Then in March of 2000, Art L tickles pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty. And with so much evidence stacked against him, he didn't stand a chance against her jury. Anyways, Amelia has tried to appeal her sentence, but is currently as of this recording still in custody at the Maryland Correctional Institution for women.

And in a strange heartbreaking twist of fate, Amelia sort of got what she wanted out of all this. Lorenzo ended up getting full custody of the son he shared with Sarah because he didn't do it. That is so, I mean, I do feel kind of out for Lorenzo because it wasn't him. He wasn't involved.

So it's like he lost his ex wife. He also lost the mother of his children, like in all this trauma. And then he also lost his mom. He also no parent wants full custody because their mother murdered their wife. Yes, that was horrible.

At the beginning, we talked about how becoming a parent is one of the greatest gifts in life, but also definitely one of the most vulnerable. But when love turns to control, when opinion turns to judgment, when support is undermined by frustration, resentment, and hatred, those fractures don't just hurt a family.

I mean, it just proved they can literally lead to outcomes that fail everyone involved. And that is the murder of Sarah Rares. That's crazy that the mother-in-law did it. And they're not even involved, like Lorenzo and Mike and all them. Nope.

It's insane. It's heartbreaking. I mean, they're survivors that this is very nuanced and complex. And there are survivors of the story that I can't imagine how they've navigated, living with this.

“So let's just take a minute to remember them and remember Sarah who,”

did not deserve any of this. Thank you guys so much for listening to today's episode or watching. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it.

Goodbye.