335. The Aliso Viejo Spa Bombing - The Murder of Ildiko Krajnyak

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This is Martyr with my husband, I'm Pete Moreley. And I'm Garrett Moreley. I mean, he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Hello.

Welcome back.

Hope everyone is having an amazing day.

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Working, yeah. Working on the weekends, like usual, you know? Yeah. And that song, everybody. Thank you for watching.

Thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting. We love you guys. Daisy's tired. She went swimming today.

The first time in a long time. So if you're watching on video, you will see she is just absolutely a little... "Zonkey." "Druppy." "Draisey."

"Zonkey." Yeah. I think that's all we got. And we have any announcements. Mark, both.

Oh, yeah. Dude, we almost forgot. We have some new. Baby, Mark. You guys were dropping some kind of like mommy and me.

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Or graphic on a more just like MWMH and cute matching stuff. But we have onesies. Don't worry. 100% organic. I know none of us are putting our babies in anything less.

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Okay, for my 10 seconds. For anyone listening, I'm sure you are aware of what's going on. I want to say first. I do not have a lot of knowledge on this subject. So it's going to come at me.

That's okay. Our lot to learn.

Second of all, it's just my opinion for what I have seen and what I know so far.

Which is that case going on right now. Everyone's talking about Lindsay Clancy. Lindsay Clancy. And here's the hard thing. All I've seen.

Okay, Garrett's still novice. He's saying he's he's definitely not as far down in the rabbit hole as the rest of us. But he is aware of the case. Very novice. Very surface level.

It's just stuff that's randomly pop up on my TikTok usually. I don't even watch it. Usually I skip it. But every once in a while I'll watch something. Also, the reason I usually don't.

We get a lot of questions. The reason we usually don't cover cases like this is we try to wait to everything's done. There's so much speculation right now. There's so many rumors. There's so many people saying, I know what happened.

I know what happened. This is what happened.

The bottom line is we don't.

Everyone's saying they think they know we don't know what has happened.

“So that's why Peyton I haven't covered it yet.”

We usually don't like to cover things until we have a verdict to all the evidence is in one bucket. We can pull from. I don't know just something we do. So I know a lot of people looking for updates. We're still waiting for some more information or waiting for other things before we will cover.

Okay, it's like that. Second of all. Social media is good and bad, right? It's just interesting to see all the different speculation and people going, No, no, no, she didn't do it.

No, no, no, no, it was 100% the husband. And it's like, guys, we don't know. Like there's so much happening daily. We just have no idea. And then also, I think I saw something yesterday where the mom just said that.

Though that she's actually been planning it out. And I'm on with the daughter that the daughter's been planning it out. That I make that up was my TikTok lying to me. This is the problem. This is literally the problem with like TikTok and social media right now.

Is there so many things that I see and read on like, Was it true? It's misinformation. Like that actually happened. Like I feel like it's just bits and pieces from the case.

And in my mind, just like, okay, I don't know what happened. And it's exactly why I don't continue watching the stuff because it's too volatile. Like it's too up and down.

“I think kind of going along with what you said.”

I don't like covering current cases that are very well covered, especially on social media because social media coverage tends to get a little wild, a little misinformed, a little out there. And I just, number one, there's a thousand people who are talking about it. Not that we can't enjoy listening to that stuff.

But we just won't cover to you until another social podcast platform.

I think I don't know, I didn't hear anything about planning.

I know that someone has to find yesterday that said, After everything happened, she said, I'm so glad the kids are safe. Meaning safe in heaven. That was like something that was being talked about a little bit. It's just so hard.

“So I'm going to tell you guys my short opinion on what I think happened.”

You just said not to do that. Well, I tell you, I'm saying it's my personal opinion. Okay. No, like, allegedly, I'm just speculating. Don't take this because usually I don't like to do this stuff.

But I think I think everyone's going to probably get mad at me for some reason. I think it probably was her. Don't think it was him.

I think there's more things there and come out to show that it was her.

So we'll see what happens. I don't know. It's all allegedly. I don't know. What I think tends to happen.

I think it happens in our cases. We cover a lot too. Sometimes it just is what it is. What I mean by that is. If you are on the jury, what would you vote?

I don't, I don't have to watch enough information. So you're just saying it. Yeah. Just off of the little bits I've watched.

I'm just saying that there isn't always a conspiracy.

There isn't always a well, well, well, well, well, well. Like sometimes it's just, yeah, probably was just this. It's sad just that sounds. It happens in our cases a lot too.

“I think sometimes we are looking for more explanations and why.”

And sometimes when something is this crazy, I don't think we're all going to have all the answers. I think what it is is and we've had a couple cases that I think people will resonate with when there are nuanced circumstances behind a murder case. Sometimes it is hard to see it as black and white.

I think it's very difficult, which I agree with people, which I think that that's the reason why a lot of people are saying. That's the, I know there's more reasons they're saying it's him. Very well could be him. I don't, I want whoever did it, I want them to get caught.

Don't get me wrong. I'm just saying I think it's really hard to believe that a mom would kill her own children. I think it's very difficult to wrap your mind around that. So I think naturally the other circumstances, it couldn't have been her. Well, yes, it couldn't have been her.

But I also think there's a group of women who, I actually think group of people, not even just women who understand that postpartum is a real thing. That too. And that makes that super nuanced because a lot of women suffer from postpartum. I think it's like one in six,

suffer with diagnosed postpartum depression or anxiety. And when that many women have had complicated feelings, they then look at this case and it's nuanced. Yeah. It's exactly what I'm saying. It's really hard to see the clear bad guy and the clear good guy. All of that to be said.

It's also hard because both attorneys right now, look, their job is to create doubt. Yeah. And that's what's happening. And that's also why the case has gotten so confusing because they're doing a good job.

They're not only creating that for the jury. They're creating that for every single person watching this case live.

“Well, and here's the thing. It's that it's.”

We are the people. Yes. And the jury is us like obviously we're not in the courtroom, but the jury is made up of us. Yes.

And so of course anything that's confusing us is going to confuse them. I think also again, when you have a case that is nuanced where there is a possible severe, severe mental situation going on. And that could be postpartum psychosis.

That could be some other cases where we've seen horrific childhoods. And kids who were set up to literally lose in life and then go on to become monsters and you there's this part of you that's like this is nuanced. This is really hard to to comprehend. It is important that like I think at the end of the day three kids were brutally murdered.

No, absolutely horrible. And gosh, a kid. I don't. I don't think whether the person who did it feels bad or not, whether there's remorse or not,

whether there is responsibility or not. I think it's truly, truly so horrifying and sad that that is like a reality to know that three kids suffered in such a horrible way.

Yeah. You know, whoever.

“And I think that that again, like they're saying is so hard to wrap our minds around”

that our brains in order to make sense of it. We can't. We try so hard and it's it's so hard. So then one doubt is placed. And again, I'm not giving.

I'm not saying in opinion either way. I just think this the reason this case has gone so viral and caused so much is because it's nuanced, which most of our cases are. If we're being honest, humanity is messy. Yeah, it's, I don't know.

It's really interesting because like there's times or like, I take taco come up and I'm like, oh, he did it. And there's times will come up and I'm like, oh, no, she did it.

And I finally stopped myself the other day.

And I was like, we don't know. We don't know. We like there's so much going on. There's so much evidence being brought daily. There's so much doubt being put into us on purpose.

By the lawyers and the attorneys and they're doing their job. And it's just a boo. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it'll be a mistrial.

Like we have no idea. It's just crazy. It's, it's really interesting. Also, it's a hundred percent bread into us to try to figure out what happens. Oh, a hundred percent.

“And I think sometimes, you know, people are like, oh,”

speculation, obviously speculation to a certain degree. Hence why Garrett and I don't cover this on an official podcast platform.

Because I don't necessarily believe in large scale speculation.

But I think they not your own individual. It's very human nature to look at things that happen. And dissect them to try itself preservation. And so there's also that part to it too. I think that's the reason.

Yeah, I think a lot of the reason is like, I would hate to cover something like this. And then while it's going and then start to form an opinion and be like. He did it, he did it, or she did it, she did it. And then come to find out it was the opposite. And they found some evidence and something happened.

And it's like, oh, I just spread crazy amounts of information to millions of people out there. Like it's just not something I'm super comfortable with. And I get it. I mean, I do it to an extent on some of the cases we cover like I have my own opinions. But those are majority of them are solved.

And they have verdicts, they have like what has actually happened. And so again, this is kind of the reason we don't really do it. Like we did it a little bit with Gabby Petito. I think we learned our lesson. And then I think after that, we were like, oh, I'm just not sure it's something we're.

A hundred percent comfortable doing until we. We know we know more. All of this to say platforms that cover it do your thing. Yeah, I mean, information is allowed to be shared. I just think it's not. I mean, it's the news. No different than the news.

We're different than anything else. We get information. Honestly, a lot of it can be helpful at the same time. I think there's pros and cons.

“A hundred percent. That's why we have the news.”

But yeah, again, I just feel like when something is so widely covered. There's a thousand places to go. You know, and then and then when you get into these really nuanced and this happens in cases we cover two. The victims do start to take the back burner. Yes.

Just this is important, right? And you want the correct person. And that is important. It is important. And so it's just so complicated and nuanced. It's complicated. We've received a lot of people wanting us to cover it.

And or other current viral cases going on. Uh-huh. We're not opposed to doing it. We just need more info. And but Intel things are very black and white.

It's just not something we'll probably cover on this specific. And they might be black and white soon. I mean. Yeah. I think that's in the jury's supposed to decide soon.

What's going on? I'm sure it all it'll rest soon. But yeah. So once we get in more information, we'll cover it. It's usually not too long after.

Usually a couple of months. Just kind of depends where the trials are at. What's going on. So like the Idaho case, we waited quite a bit to cover it. And again, and they're still stuff coming out with that.

This complicated stuff. Yeah. Anyways, that was long. We are 15 minutes in way longer than normal. So we're going to shut up and we're going to get right into.

This week's case. I'm literally not going to get ready to do it. I have to say something quick. I think we had a miss hop with ads last week. Okay.

On a certain platform. So I just want to apologize to anyone who experienced that. And was like, why the heck are we completely bombarded? Apparently there was something going on on the platforms end. Yeah.

And everything on our end, so fingers crossed so that's fixed.

But I did just want to give an apology because that was obviously never.

It's never intended to be bombarded like that. All right. Our sources for this episode are justice.gov, peacock, TV, BBC.com, ABC7.com, medium.com, CBS News.com, people.com, NBC News.com, courthouse news, foxla.com, oxygen.com,

Pretty often when we hear news of a bombing, we often think this is a random act of mass violence.

That it wasn't so much about the targets themselves as it was about the message that the bomb or bombers were trying to send. So the thing that makes an act of violence like this so terrifying is anyone can literally be collateral damage. And at least behind a crime scene, it's very difficult to trace. There's usually very few witnesses, hardly any clues.

And the perpetrator doesn't even have to be at the scene when the bomb goes off. They can do damage from miles away without ever leaving behind a hair, a fingerprint or a shred of DNA. In many ways, a bomb is a good weapon for a murder. But no weapon is perfect.

“If the person who built it can't seem to keep it a secret.”

Okay. So today, we are actually headed to sunny California to a town about an hour south of Los Angeles called Alisa Viejo. Because it's not as a grand skill as a bombing. This is like 15 to 20 minutes for regular out by the way, everybody.

So we're headed there to Alisa Viejo and we are meeting a 48-year-old esthetician named Ildilco Croniac. Now quite a name Ildilco was born and raised in Hungary. But once she reached her 20s, she dreamed of moving to America starting a new life for herself. So eventually she does move to California and she finds herself in a relationship with a man named Ronilo Vestil.

“Now Ildilco's cousin admired this new relationship. Her cousin said that they were just so in love.”

They were both wonderful people who made each other happy. Everyone said Ronilo treated Ildilco well and would help her with her family back in Hungary in a chance he got. So it was no surprise when they tied the knot and then welcomed a baby boy into their lives. And it was the years passed and their son got older.

Ildilco decided to follow her career goals and get her cosmatology and estheticians license. And she eventually ended up owning her own spa in a commercial building in Alisa Viejo called Magia Cosmedica. And by 2018, her son was now grown and in college.

“And by this point, Ronilo and Ildilco who had been so in love had had this beautiful love story in America,”

they had also started to grow apart. There was a disconnect growing in their 22 year long marriage by 2018. The two weren't quite ready for a divorce, but apparently was enough that Ildilco started to have a wandering eye. And she began looking for love and places outside of their marriage.

Apparently this is something she and Ronilo were working on, but never got to fully mend.

Because on May 15th, 2018, the unthinkable happened. Ildilco had just come back from visiting some family in Hungary the night before. So she'd been gone for a couple of weeks, but was quickly getting back into the groove of seeing clients at her spa in Alisa Viejo. Now that day, she treated her friend Sarah. Sarah was a longtime client of hers who was getting her lashes done.

Sarah said that everything seemed to be going well for Adilco. She spoke about her trip and her family. They caught up on their lives, just like they often did during their appointments. And then later that day, around noon, Ildilco had two other clients in her spa. It was a mother and daughter who she was treating together.

But just after one PM, the city of Alisa Viejo felt the rattle of what seemed to be at first maybe a little earthquake.

Ildilco's friend Holly, who lived about a mile away from the spa, had heard it. And what she recalled was much bigger than any earthquake she'd experienced. She said she heard a massive explosion. Now within the next hour to the source of this explosion was all over the news.

A two story office building in Alisa Viejo had just exploded.

“Oh, I don't know. Just went what day to be in 2018.”

We were living there. How did I not hear about this? At California's big and I just like a completely oblivious sometimes. There's no way because anyways, I'm not going to get to it. I keep up with a lot.

So apparently bystanders were filming the damage of this building blowing up. News trucks were covering the story and meanwhile, the Orange County Sheriff's department was at the scene along with fire trucks and ambulances. They weren't sure if this had been a gas leak or if something more nefarious. But one thing was clear. There was a loss of life at the scene.

Outside of the building severed body parts. Or found among the debris. And the smell of sulfur, like you would get from fireworks, was definitely in the air. Now when Halee, Ildico's friend who lived close by saw the news of where the bombing had taken place. Her heart sank because she knew this is the same building that the spa's in.

It should have terrible feeling. Unfortunately, she was right. When police arrived, they discovered that Ildico's two clients, so the mother and daughter who had been her last appointments that day, they were both still alive.

They were raced to a nearby hospital. But Ildico had not survived the blast. It was her severed remains that were found scattered throughout the scene. Now thankfully, the radius of the blast didn't injure anyone else in the vicinity. It was just the people in the building,

especially because there was a preschool that was not too far away from the spa. But obviously, police are immediately like, what happened? What caused this explosion? Like, we have a fatality.

Now while teams began combing the scene, detectives spoke to the mother and daughter who were being treated for their injuries at the hospital. They both had second and third degree burns. The mother, unfortunately, had lost her eye in this blast.

Her daughter though happened to remember something critical and useful before the explosion went off.

“You know, when police are like, tell us about your appointment, what was going on?”

What did you hear? She said, they had actually just finished their treatments, and they went out to the lobby to pay. And that was when Ildico picked up a package. She grabbed a tool and began opening the package,

which, according to the daughter, was then followed immediately by a blinding light. They were knocked unconscious as the blast hit, and the walls of the building basically turned to rubble. It was a miracle that these two had survived.

This is crazy. But this immediately tells detectives something important, because obviously this package had caused the explosion.

“And I think, especially nowadays, when detectives hear this,”

their immediate thought is this an act of terrorism. Or was this a personal bomb intended for this spa? So by the end of the day, the FBI was also there at the crime scene. Obviously, they were called in, they were collecting clues. They were trying to figure out exactly what kind of explosive device they were dealing with.

And as they sifted through the debris, they found parts of a CVS branded, nine volt battery, and parts of a wire that were actually embedded into the ceiling of the salon. So they began to believe this was part of a homemade fusing system that someone had put together,

which told them that whoever built this bomb knew what they were doing. They had some sort of specialized skill or sophisticated knowledge

of how to make something this powerful at home.

For the Orange County Sheriff's Department, this sounded terrifyingly familiar because back in March of that year, just two months prior, Austin Texas was actually dealing with their own series of package bombs. There had been about five total bombs in Texas. They killed two people and injured several others.

And all of these bombs, again, were package bombs. You know, honestly, this is something that I think about sometimes.

Like that, I'm glad it doesn't happen more.

But I guess some surprises happen more. But also, I mean, their security systems and systems put in place. So it doesn't happen. But scary. If you can make a bomb and just, I mean, there is a series of bombs

right here in Salt Lake City. Yes. Yeah. Like I just think it's scary. I don't know.

So these Texas bombs that had were around the same time. Police eventually traced those bombs to a man named Mark Anthony Condit who died after detonating one of his own bombs inside his car.

They never actually found the motive for these Texas bombs.

Though Condit did stay in a recorded confession that he was, quote, a psychopath. And since he actually died before the explosion at Ildico spa, police were like, it can't be him. But this is so eerie that we've had a series of package bombs in Texas,

couple months ago. And now we've just had our own package bomb here in Southern California. So they're like, is there a chance this is an accomplice? Is this a copycat bomber? These were all things that needed to be considered. Though they do eventually learn that the package that had been opened,

the bomb package was intended for Ildico. It was addressed to her. So this makes them feel like she was probably the primary target. And that meant speaking to those closest to her to see who might have wanted her dead. It's definitely a pretty wild way to just kill one person.

“But that's what they're starting to think is that this was just targeted event.”

So one of the first threads they follow is obviously Ildico's husband, Ronnie Lo.

He said he was at work during the time of the bomb blast. And he actually rushed down to the scene this second that his brother told him about where the explosion was. But there was something a little strange about his story. He tells police he wasn't even sure if Ildico had come back from her hungry trip yet. So he wasn't even sure if she was inside the spa when it blew up.

Now, Ronnie Lo and Ildico were seemingly like I said on a bit of a break at this point separated, if you will. But they were still living together at the time. So it was odd that he wouldn't have known if she was in America. Yeah. Like at this point, though to be fair, she had just gone back the night before and then went into work at the spa that morning.

Still police question Ronnie Lo which was why that night, they ended up placing a tracker on his car. And they sent about 25 swat agents over to the house to search the house. And again, if you're like, whoa, this is overkill. They're dealing with a bomb. A deadly deadly weapon like this weapon can kill multiple people at once mass mass casualties, right?

“So that's why it is such an intense thing because what if there's more?”

What if he has more at the house that could go off? So during that time that 25 swat agents are searching their home, Ronnie Lo is brought down to the station for questioning and he admitted to the police. They had been living pretty separate lives recently. He told them, listen, she's my wife, but Ildico was definitely dating other men outside of our marriage.

I know about it. According to some of Ildico's friends, she was juggling about five to six different men. She was definitely like gosh. It was definitely common knowledge even to the husband. He's getting it.

We're separated and I'm dating. Okay. Like it's not necessarily that this was happening behind his back. It was just like we're separated and she was dating a lot at the time of the bombing. So this is not an easy suspect list to narrow down when they learn that she is dating this much.

But Ronnie Lo knows at least one of the men's name. He says it's a handyman named Max.

“This Max guy has a key to Ildico's spa because he's a handyman.”

But Ildico had once told Ronnie Lo that she felt a little weird about Max, because he would sometimes park overnight in the spa parking lot and sleep in his car. So when they hear this and that he had a key and that maybe, you know, him and Ildico had some type of relationship. Again, all from the husband, they bring Max the handyman in and it leads nowhere.

Either the guy had a good alibi or the situation didn't match up because he was crossed off the suspect list.

A man named Gabor Pap.

Now, Ildico had actually met Gabor a few years prior, so back in 2015.

And apparently the relationship between them had quickly become intimate, even though they both were technically married at the time. So the two got so serious in 2015 that they spoke about leaving their current partners for one another. That was until a fight happened at Ildico's spa.

Apparently, once Gabor's wife Elizabeth found out about the affair, she showed up at Ildico's spa and things got heated. Some say it turned physical, but apparently this whole situation caused Ildico and Gabor to put things on pause. At least for a little while, two years later, Ildico found Gabor on Facebook. Again, so that was 2015.

It's now 2017.

And she gave him a little poke.

“Remember when you can just poke people on Facebook?”

Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah. So his wife Elizabeth said that's when she noticed Ildico had been driving by their home in Elisa Viejo, almost like she was looking for Gabor. Like she now sees this old mistress of her husband's driving around.

So Elizabeth decides, what am I going to do? Am I going to confront my husband? Am I going to confront her? She says, I'm just going to send Ildico some photos of me and Gabor being intimate. That's okay.

Great idea. She's like, he's my husband. This is what we do back off. Now it's not clear if things had picked back up between Gabor and Ildico during this time. Like, I don't know if they were seeing each other after this Facebook post.

And she was seeing driving around, but Elizabeth made it very clear. We were over this two years ago, and I'm not going down without a fight. Now eventually, Elizabeth texts Ron Nilo to tell him, hey, two years ago, I caught your wife having an affair with my husband. It's happened a few years back. I just want you to know Elizabeth even said in the text, quote,

She almost destroyed my family. Enough is enough.

“I think it's safe to say Elizabeth, the wife is spiraling a little bit at this point to be fair.”

But Ron Nilo, when confronted with this information by Elizabeth, actually texts at her back, telling her to just block it. It'll go on Facebook. But she found that absurd saying, quote, really, you're so blind and accept what your wife is doing instead of stepping up, be a man. And you know what?

You got this text just a month and a half or so before the package bomb was sent. So obviously, when police learn about this whole affair situation from years back, it had also trickled into the weeks before the bomb, basically. They decide to speak to the couple and the couple cooperated, even handed over all of their electronic devices, hoping to clear their names and it helped.

There was no indication that either of them knew how to build a bomb,

and they never researched how to sew detectives, scratch their names off the list as well.

And that's your suspects that actually build a bomb, like, that's not very high. I'm sure. Pretty small. Police are like, holy cow, like, we have so many potential suspects that probably have good motive and they're not working. Like, they're not actually who's doing this, which has got to be a little wild.

Because when they decide to circle back to something, Ildico's friend Sarah had said, this is the one who had been treated at her spot earlier on the day of the explosion before the mother and daughter. Sarah noticed there was a man hanging around the spa that day, the day of her appointment and the day of the bombing. And she also said Ildico kind of seemed a little bit unnerved about something. She said at one point, Ildico came rushing out of a room with keys and a male in her hands.

And this man that was kind of lingering tried to speak with Ildico, but she just should him off.

“And when Sarah was like, what was that? Who is that guy? What just happened?”

Ildico told Sarah, he was just a friend. So she acted like she knew him, like she knew who he was, but she doesn't go into any detail. So when Sarah tells police this, she described the guy as tall and stout with gray hair.

Apparently, it was a man who had lunch plans with Ildico that day, the day of the bombing.

And he had been seeing lingering around the spa and his name was Scott Malali. I feel like I've become like, I'm skeptical people now. I'm saying. Yeah. I'll be somewhere and I'm like, that person have a gun.

Like, does that person have a bomb? Why is that person standing there? Why is that person acting weird over there? Yeah. You know who, like, I'm just, I look at people now and I'm like, nah, you're being weird.

Why are you being weird?

“You know who gets the most unfair judgment of anyone?”

Who? People who go alone to movies.

Oh, do not, yes, I agree.

I'm all for it because I would go alone to movie, but do not come alone to my movie. Don't do it. Do not come alone to my movie. I'm sorry, because instantly it's true. Someone comes in alone to movie and I'm like,

oh, me, you're giving me eyes. Like, me, see that person alone. There's no one there alone. But the thing is, I would go alone to movie. There's nothing wrong with the one alone who I just want to do. But they really do get the worst judgment.

I just don't want you alone to my movie. Anyways, okay, we keep going. So the police pay Scott of visit next. They're like, man, number three.

You were supposed to have lunch with her that day.

“He told them he'd met Ildico at a casino a few weeks before her death.”

There was a spark. He'd even drove her to the airport for her flight out to Hungary. And had picked her up as soon as she landed L.A.X. The night before the bombing. He said they spent the night together. And then he drove her to the spa the next day.

So this actually matches up with Ronnie, though the husband's account that he hadn't seen Ildico because she didn't actually go back home. She went to Scott's house and then went to work the next morning. So it actually does match up that he was like, I don't even know if she's home or not.

But police want to obviously check this out. They pull up video footage from baggage claim at L.A.X. Sure enough, there's Ildico and Scott standing there on tape. He's helping her with her bags. And after doing a little more digging into Scott,

he is also crossed off the suspect list. So man number three is crossed off. He just didn't seem like someone capable of building a bomb. However, police soon learned there's more to Ildico's last days. Apparently, she didn't lie back from Hungary alone.

She came back with a man who she parted ways from during their layover in San Francisco before she then continued on to Los Angeles and Met Scott at L.A.X. So she actually flew home with a man. Okay.

Now that man was named Lazlo Zabo. Okay. So police learned that Lazlo and Ildico had also been dating for a few months, just kind of on and off of that point seeing each other. So this is a man number four.

And I'm not sure how the two of them met, but I know he was Hungarian and had traveled with her to the country on this recent trip. So she had traveled with Lazlo to Hungary when she went back to visit her family.

And again, before you're like too worried about remembering all of these characters, I will remind you if it's important,

“that's why I just keep saying this is man number four.”

So they track Lazlo down in his current home in the San Francisco area. And he says I haven't even been to Southern California in months. They eventually find this to be true. So Lazlo is now ruled out. Okay, come on.

It's 2018. We have cameras. Hey, they've used the cameras to find these people. How can we not find the guy or girl? When someone has five or six guys that they're seeing at the same time,

we'll get it. So they think it's one of them for sure. They just got to go down the list. I mean, move, we've got to move, gone. The list is getting smaller,

but there was one person, police were not able to rule out. Someone who had actually come down to the station on the day of the bombing to voluntarily offer information about build a co. It was her business partner and apparently warmer lover. The guy named Stephen Bill.

Okay. Now 58-year-old Stephen was a grandfather who had been widowed with four adult kids. He had lost his wife back around 2008. He had been dipping a toe back into the dating pool over the last couple years.

he met ill to co on a dating app and things kind of got serious.

They started going on vacations together. Stephen would spend tons of money on ill to co during one trip to Portugal. He apparently spent $10,000 on her, and five of that was for a Louis Vuitton purse that he bought her. He eventually decided to then support her spa business as well.

Stephen helped ill to co find a location for her spa and the two signed the lease together. And then he helped her put together a skincare company she wanted to start, called INS Enterprises, which Stephen was listed as the CFO of.

“But as they say, you should probably never mix business and pleasure.”

Because soon things started to go south with the businesses finances, and Stephen and Ill to co began fighting about it a lot. And after 18 months of this little wing.

Ill to co went to Stephen and said,

hey, let's just like cool things down a bit. And then she changed the passwords on the financial accounts. She once gave Stephen access to. And while Stephen was aware at the time that she was married, he then learned she'd also been seeing other men on the side.

Like she was dating around, it wasn't just him. Ill to co confided in some of her friends about this relationship she had with Stephen about how like we've just gone to deep. Like we traveled a lot. He helped invest in my stuff.

And now I just don't I want to break up. But like how do you do that when this man has spent so much money on you? How even before this breakup he was controlling.

“He was a little possessive and with threatened her.”

Now, of course, Stephen doesn't share that part in his interview with police.

They get that part from friends. He did tell them, however. Again, this is the day of the bombing. The bombing happens. Stephen walks in and says, I know her.

Here's what I know. He says he and Ill co were in business together. And he felt like she was hiding things from him lately. But when it came to means and motives. Stephen voluntarily told police.

There was no motive for him to kill her. But the means. Well, they might find that in his garage. He tells police. He was into making his own fireworks.

And he had been a rocket hobbyist for years. Okay. So the textures are like. Found him. You're just coming in here and telling us this.

They're they ask him, okay. Well, would someone with your type of experience be able to convert. What you do into a bomb like to a bigger scale. And Stephen said he has no idea how someone would put together something large enough to produce the blast that occurred at the spa.

He's like, that's out of my realm of expertise. But regardless, Stephen literally just placed himself directly in their line of fire. I guess his thoughts were, if I go in and I'm open. Like, you're probably going to stumble across my name anyways. When you begin learning about her life.

So I might as well get ahead of it. And while I'm doing that, I might as well let you know that we were kind of on the rocks because we had started business and broke up. And also I like to build my own fireworks. But that wasn't the case.

Because Stephen, he just could not shut up in this interview. And shockingly, the fireworks were not the weirdest part about this interview with detectives. After talking about his little rocket hobby, Stephen told them he also had something else. Very interested in. He was just like singing. You guys just talking up a storm.

You know, something I've realized is I tried, I try not to over share. You're very mysterious. I try not to over share. I try not to over talk. I try to stay a little mysterious, little cool.

But also, I feel like it tends to help me out in the long run.

“Yeah, I think because you do your 10 seconds, people probably think you're very open.”

But when you meet Garrett in person, he's very closed off. He's a real tough cookie crack. I just don't really feel like giving everyone everything. You're the most vulnerable in your 10 seconds. I'm like, yeah, I'm not going to give you that.

Or if I do give you something, is it a lie? Is it the truth? Me on the other hand. If I got out and said, I just talked to detectives for nine hours, Garrett would be like, yeah, sure he did. It surprised me.

True. Well, Steven is the same. He's like, oh, it's not just rockets that I love. Let me tell you. Except Loki when you were pregnant, I was told every listener that came to the shop.

I would get texts from people and be like, Garrett, just told me the news.

I'm like, get sure I was telling everyone you were pregnant. He says he likes writing screen plays. Turns out, Steven was also an actor and writer who said he had been working on a script about a part-time soccer mom who had a secret life as an assassin. The emphasize that she was very good at what she does and knew how to cover her tracks.

“Oh, and then he was like, do you guys want to see a magic trick?”

Okay, when he's just a little crazy. Officers said they were, quote, blown away and not by the quality of the illusion, but by the fact that Steven just, he was talking and he thought he was really smart. Yeah.

He was like, I write this.

I do this. You want to see a magic trick. Yeah. He somehow came across like he was the soccer mom assassin who knew how to cover his tracks. But Steven was doing the complete opposite.

He led them right to his doorstep where they showed up that day with a warrant to then search his property in Long Beach, California. So they interviewed him and then they're like, yep, we're going to go search to see what we find. He already told us he likes rockets. Sure enough, they discovered batteries, two handguns and a shotgun.

Two improvised explosive devices and 100 pounds of explosive material was found as Steven bills home.

So the day after the explosion on May 16th, 2018, Steven bill was arrested, but not for homicide. No, he was arrested for one charge of possessing an unregistered destructive device. And then two days later prosecutors actually dropped those charges. Primarily because a lab tech with the FBI said they couldn't rule out the fact that those devices might have actually been used for his rocket hobby, not bomb making just like Steven hate claims.

“So do you even have enough evidence to prove he's the one who made this bomb and set it off?”

So Steven bill goes, gets out, gets to live his life, but the police are not going to let him off that easily. They continue looking deeper into him to see if there's any more evidence there. Because, I mean, they've now gone through four men. This is the fifth that she has dated. This fifth won invested a lot of money into her.

Also found out she was seeing other men and also was her business partner. And like, making fireworks, police are like, no, there's something going on. They just need more evidence. And one of the things they found was the stalking. Turns out in the weeks and months before the bombing.

Steven had apparently been keeping close tabs on the coast online accounts. He still had access to. Which, by the way, was her personal calendar? No, my God. Her social media account.

You name it.

“He had somehow figured out how to access to it.”

He also went by the spa several times while she was out of the country in Hungary. Which wouldn't be that surprising, you know, because I mean, he still owns some of it. He's still involved in it. But police also suspected that he dropped off the package during one of those visits. Knowing that when she came back and returned to the spa, she would open it.

But there's just not enough proof yet. It's just a theory. They have proof that he was going there while she was gone. They just don't have proof putting the package in his hands. So the police keep digging through thousands of hours of CCTV footage and other records trying to find the smoking gun.

And several months into their investigation, they find something. Hidden in Steven's financial records. He had bought three boxes at a store right around the corner from the spa. Just simple six by six cardboard boxes. Exactly.

Okay, now we're getting somewhere like the bomb was packaged in. And they had camera footage of him making that purchase just a week before the bomb went off in the spa. And then they remembered that nine volt battery they found at the scene and how it was CVS brand. So they rolled the dice. They look back at the security cameras from the CVS right around the corner from Ildico spa.

And they also do it around the same time that they know Steven bought those boxes. And that's when they see Steven on camera in CVS buying a single nine volt battery and paying for in cash. Now shortly after making these discoveries, the lab text with the FBI also come back with some evidence of their own. They concluded there was no quote meaningful differences between some of the wires recovered from the crime scene and the wires that were in the devices found as Steven's home.

So now you have him buying boxes that the bomb was found in.

Yep.

“The exact type of battery used in the bomb, which let's be honest, those are all very generic.”

Like what you're naming is very generic. Box is not saying, I mean, he's probably guilty, but I'm just saying. The wires matched once found in his home. But when you put all of that together, he's buying every single supply to the bomb. He has a hundred pounds of explosive material at his home to make this bomb.

And he has more than enough motive to kill her. Police are like, hmm, we think this is enough to make an arrest. On March 3rd, 2019, this is nearly 10 months after the explosion. Steven Beal kissed his new fiance. Goodbye that morning.

Oh my gosh.

Ten months later, and he has a new fiance.

After allegedly bombing an ex. And he goes out to run some errands. And later, he calls her to say, hey, I've just been arrested for murder. It then takes nearly three years. Oh my gosh.

“First, Steven's case to get its day in court. So it's now 2022.”

And the prosecution reminded the jury, hey, Ildico is not the only victim in Steven's crime. There was also a mother and daughter who would have to live with the memory of that day. And the aftermath, losing an eye, the trauma of it, also had they been standing in a different spot.

Probably could have died. Probably would have died. And as for motive, they told the jury, let's tell you everything we know about Steven and Ildico's relationship. Like, he's obsessed. He found out she was seeing other men.

He was seeping with jealousy. Apparently, Steven had even screenshot a text on his phone. They he discovered of a text message conversation between Ildico and her new boyfriend, Loslo, the one she went to hungry with. So they're like, he has proof on his own phone of her talking other guys.

“Why would he, why would he even have this?”

They also showed the jurors of video Steven had made, showing how to mix explosive chemicals to make fireworks at home. So he was, you know, documenting his hobby. And how many of the parts that he bought that were in this specific bomb, or how did his home?

I mean, all the signs were there. But the defense argued, listen, there was so many people with motive to get rid of Ildico. Think of all of the men that you talked to. You have the couple who had been in this years long battle with this affair, or even Ildico's husband, Ronnie Lowe.

They also pointed to the possibility of Max, the handyman, who would have access to the spa. They also said, Steven bought Ildico that battery for her business. They were like, there's no proof like you're said, it's generic. There's no proof they use that battery for the bomb,

or that those boxes he bought were used for the bomb. Overall, the trial lasted seven weeks, 70 different witnesses were called to the stand. But when the jury returned, some of them had reasonable doubt.

They didn't come to an agreement, a hungry, men-amish trial, no verdict. But the prosecution was not done. In the meantime, Steven went back to jail, because he was unable to make his bail.

But as he waited for his second trial to come in June of 2023,

some new information came to light. Information that suggested, this might not have even been Steven's first time dealing with a situation like this. Turns out, they discovered there was some suspicious circumstances surrounding his own wife's death back in 2008.

On February 16th of that year, 48-year-old Steven and his wife, 48-year-old Christine were carrying a heavy piece of furniture down the stairs of their Long Beach home. Steven was carrying the top part of a 50-pound table and Christine was on the bottom.

Apparently, Steven lost his balance and let go of the table and the table fell on top of Christine while they were going down the stairs. And it fell on top of her. The injury was severe, but she survived. It was extremely painful, though.

Christine went to see multiple doctors in the weeks that followed eventually after several days of vomiting. Christine died on March 8th. From what was said to be a result of her injuries from this fall. The autopsy reports that her cause of death was pancreatitis

or an inflammation of the organ, as well as an electrolyte imbalance.

So this is his X, Y, but this happened crazy.

“But there was something a little odd about the report.”

It said the lead in Christine's blood was four times higher than what it should have been. No way they didn't catch this. And the source of that lead poisoning was unknown. However, prosecutors found that Steven had actually purchased lead

in the months before Christine's death from an company called Virginia Pyrotechnics. How do we miss this? Turns out detectives did investigate this death around the same time as Ildico's thinking the two

can now be related, but according to a department's spokesperson, they found nothing to suggest that her death was criminal. Instead, Steven's kids think the lead came from the renovations that parents were doing on the house and apparently Steven himself had actually gone for treatment for lead poisoning a few months before his wife died.

But there's obviously more to the story when people keep digging. Steven took out a quote accidental death insurance policy on Christine's work. This is getting ridiculous. Just a few weeks before he then accidentally dropped the table on her. I don't need to hear anymore, put him in jail.

But when he went to claim the life insurance, it was denied because they're like, we don't even know how she died. We can't give it to you. Steven eventually filed a lawsuit against both his employer and the insurance company and he won $550,000.

>> Now, as Steven's going to retry on June of 2023, people are like, we're going to bring this up.

In July of 2023, after the trial, his second trial,

he was found guilty of four findings. >> Delicious destruction of a building resulting in death. Use of a destructive device during and in relation to a crime of violence, possession of an unregistered, destructive device, and using a weapon of mass destruction. Steven sentencing hearing came in January of 2024.

They're the prosecution hoped to use the information about his wife to kind of bolster the sentence. But the judge wasn't taking it into consideration. Still, Steven Bill was given life plus 30 years in federal prison, and he will not be eligible for parole.

But in the end, it's hard to wonder. Would Steven Bill have ever even ended up under the microscope if not for his own big mouth? Probably not. >> Probably not.

“>> What the police have eventually caught on after going through all the men?”

I'm sure his name is. >> Actually, no, I think you're right. I think they were slowly going through everybody. >> He's made it fast. >> Yeah, yeah.

>> We'd hope, obviously, that's true, but you also have Christine's death.

>> That's crazy and he'll never probably get charged for that.

That's crazy. >> Allegedly. >> Allegedly. >> He actually took out the life insurance policy and then actually dropped the table on her that actually killed her.

>> That's so sad. That's horrible. >> He hasn't obviously paid the price for that. At least not yet. But he is in prison for ill-deco's murder.

And that is her case. >> That's horrible. I'm glad more people than die. >> Right. >> But surprisingly more people than die.

>> Also, like, again. >> I'd have all the way to kill somebody a bomb. Like, you were trying to kill one person. That seems, I mean, I guess killing someone in generals. >> Also, you're immediately getting the FBI involved.

>> Yeah. >> You're asking for the most intense. >> Yes. >> Investigation. >> Investigation.

>> If you do a bomb, you are not getting away with this. That's so sad, horrible.

“>> Why are you buying the supplies around the corner?”

>> Insane. Crazy. >> Anyways, that was our case for this week. Thank you for watching or listening, and we will see you next time with another one. >> I love it.

>> I hate it. >> Goodbye.