"Fraud Week" Highlights, Scott Peterson Case Lead Detective - Megyn's "True Crime" Mega-Episode

East.

“Hey everyone, I'm Megan Kelly, welcome to the Megan Kelly show and today's true crime”

mega episode. We've got some wild ones for you, including two episodes from our fraud week, special series of shows, one with Benita Alexander. She's fascinating, a personal story from a long time NBC News producer, Benita takes us in depth on how she was fooled by supposedly one of the world's most charming and

successful men. Plus we have the very first time our pal Matt Murphy was on the show to talk about a case that he prosecuted out in California on the mystery of Ed Shin and we take a look back at the case of Scott Peterson with the lead detective on that investigation, enjoy and we'll see you Monday.

We begin with a story of an NBC News producer who fell in love with a super surgeon, a pioneer, a miracle worker. That surgeon was Dr. Paolo Machirini.

“The handsome George Clooney-looker-like doctor was once the darling of the medical world.”

He promised incredible developments in regenerative medicine.

He was the first person to transplant synthetic wind pipes into patients while covering Paolo for an NBC special producer Benita Alexander fell for the doctor. But romantic getaways soon turned into a bed of lies. Benita Alexander is here to tell her story. Benita, it's great to meet you.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Megan. It's great to be here. Okay. I've been watching all of it.

I did, I watched the doctor death thing that originally did this and then the Netflix special of course, you did a special lot of investigative, I mean like I'm obsessed with your story. It's just...

“There's so much about it that I find incredibly telling and complex and it raises so”

many issues not to mention the fact that you are a star news producer and I love star news producers. You remind me in so many ways of my own star news producers who I love on my team. And it's one of those things, we're like, if this could happen to you, it could happen to anybody.

It means you're not only a smart and savvy, but you are literally in the business of detecting bullshit. Yeah, right. So that's, yeah, that make it so compelling. So let's start at the beginning for people who are not aware of the story and even people who are aware are going to be interested to hear you tell it as I have been so many times.

You're an NBC news producer and you get asked by Meredith Perduce, or Meredith Vera who is an NBC, to work on a special, based on a doctor that she had read about, I guess, in a magazine because this guy, Paolo Makirini was getting some press at the time for this very innovative thing he was doing in medicine. So take us there.

Yeah, we were actually looking at doing a documentary about Regenerative Medicine, which is this very promising, exciting field where to boil it down to its most simple terms. We're looking at a future where you make new body parts and organs in the lab. And this has so much potential to eradicate the need for donor organs and all the problems that come with it and just basically go to the, go to lab and order a new body part.

And so there's a lot of excitement attached to this field. And when we started looking into it, Dr. Paolo Makirini's name kept coming up.

He was considered the pioneer in this field at the forefront of this groundbreaking revolutionary

field. His nickname was the Super Surgeon, and he worked at the place in Sweden that awards the Nobel Prize in medicine. And so there were tons of accolades, tons of press. I mean, he kind of had this reputation like he walked on water and people were clamoring

to work with him and there was just a lot of excitement surrounding this man. So you decide to do a profile on him along, he's going to get the long form NBC treatment. And this is an advance of him performing one of these surgeries on a little two-year-old girl, right, and where was she located? So he was about to do one of his transplants on this Korean toddler, beautiful little

girl named Hannah, who had tragically been born with no windpipe at all. So she had spent her entire little life in the hospital.

She had never left the hospital and she was going to be the first toddler that had received

one of these transplants and also the youngest person in the world.

And so that made that case appealing to us, and then I talked to her family who were just the most beautiful people, her parents, and they had been through so much, you know, trying to save this little girl's life and they were besides themselves, and they thought that

Dr. Palo Mekirini was the answer to their prayers, basically, the Savior.

He was going to step in and save the day when nobody else could, and that was the reputation that this man had. And so we decided to focus our story around Hannah and her family and follow her surgery. So you and he have to spend a lot of time together, as much as the anger spends some time with the star guest on a piece like that that producers spend way more time with him.

The producers all do, but especially the lead, which you were. Yeah. What happened? Like, he was, is a good looking man, he does look a little like George Clooney.

“He's, I can't remember where he's Italian, yes.”

Yeah. Yes. He's Italian then. He's going for him too. Yeah.

Exactly. He's very charming. He's one of those people that has that quality that when he walks into a room, you know, he turns head. People pay attention to him.

He's got that commanding presence, you know, he's very arrogant, very confident, very self-assured. He speaks five or six different languages, you know, he's Italian. He dressed very well, he's, you know, he's kind of flirtatious with everybody, men and women, and he's got that confident air and also on top of that, here he is doing something

“that literally nobody else in the world was doing.”

He's rumored to be in contention for a Nobel Prize himself and he seemed to be very devoted to giving hope to patients who had no other hope. So there was something very intriguing about him and something very admirable and so just start with all that, you know, and we, we had a joke in the office that, oh, you know, he's a storage clony look alike.

He definitely had that appeal, but then when I met him, he seemed to be incredibly caring. We were friends first. We just started talking a lot over, you know, a coffee after a shoot, a dinner after a shoot on long plane rides, we flew Hannah all the way from Korea to Illinois. I have the time, was at a very vulnerable place in my life.

I would not realize how vulnerable until much later and how susceptible that made me, but my ex-husband of our then nine-year-old daughter was tragically dying of brain cancer. And I was sort of holding it together at work, but inside, I think I was crumbling. I was facing the enormity of what this meant for the rest of her life, for our lives, how was I going to cope with this, how was she going to cope with this, you know, all of

it. And I started pouring my heart out to him and he just seemed like such an attentive caring

“listener and that's what kind of blew me away.”

It was none of the other stuff. It was the fact that this man seemed to genuinely care about this little girl, my daughter,

that he'd never met and that's what got me.

He, in some of these documentaries, they show clips of him with Hannah, the two-year-old girl, and with other patients, and his bedside manner seems impeccable. It's beautiful. Exactly. Exactly.

And that's how you were fooled. Yeah. Well, that's, I look at those videos now and I think, you know, damn it, that's exactly the way he was with me. I mean, he appears to be exactly the opposite of what he actually is and what he actually

turned out to be. But he, he just seemed so caring, so genuinely caring and attentive and really a really good listener. You know, now, of course, I realize he was gathering information to use against me.

But at the time, I just thought he was an incredible human being.

Well, that's very interesting. I want to return to that. I haven't heard you cover that in your earlier pieces. But there's a lot I want to ask you that I, you know, just watching all of this, I have a lot of questions for you outside of the story that I'm like, "Oh, I got to know this."

And I got to, okay, gathering information, we got to come back to that. So it moves quickly. And we can spend a minute on the ethical piece. You're not really supposed to date your, no, the subject of your piece. You knew that sometimes it happens, it's not great, but, you know, you deal with it when

it happened. In this case, it is interesting that it happened because, you know, in retrospect, do you believe he made it happen so that you would be so distracted by him and you're blossoming love affair that you would not be paying attention to the medical problems surrounding his supposedly, you know, groundbreaking work?

I now believe that I was targeted from day one. You know, he had a plan from day one and it was not what I thought it was.

feet.

“I now believe when I met him in 2013, the world still thought he was the super surgeon.”

He was a superstar.

You know, he was doing this groundbreaking pioneering procedure, you know, getting all

sorts of press, all sorts of accolades behind the scenes, the whistleblowers were starting to figure out that something was wrong, patients were dying, however, as a time he was still sticking by what he said and has continued to say all along, that whenever you do an experimental procedure, patients do die, which is actually true. You know, you look at heart transplants, long transplants, anything new, radical and experimental

patients do die at the beginning, however, you know, what he wasn't telling the world and what nobody knew yet was that he had not done one single one of the preliminary steps that you're supposed to do before doing an experimental procedure on humans.

He had literally skipped everything and he's standing at press conferences and interviews

saying that his patients are doing beautifully well. When in fact they were suffering and they were dying slow horrible deaths, he's lying about the success in papers, so all this is happening, the world does not know this yet unfortunately, I wish we had, but he had to know, right, that it was going to implode.

“It was a matter of time, it was just a ticking time bomb, so I think he met me and he”

thought, okay, here's this successful, smart journalist, and I'm going to make her fall in love with me and when the shit hits the fan, I'm going to have her in my back pocket, so she's going to protect me. I think that's exactly what he was doing, I think he was using me. Yeah, because your a top producer, all sorts of awards Edward, are Murrow and so on, and you're working for one of the top anchors at NBC as well on this piece, Marla Vera, and

you're super smart, so if you can get you to vouch for him in this piece and sign for an ongoing basis, it's huge, that's gold, so I can see, yeah, that was my suspicion in watching it, because that's one of my big questions all along is why, why, why, why, why, why, why did you do this job? And especially because you were so vulnerable and you were going through this personal family tragedy and your poor daughter, so, okay, so that's our suspicion

right now is that it was an intentional latching on. You're supposed to be investigating him, I mean, a producer investigates, but it's not like you're treated like a private detective where you're really expected to unearth any crime attached to the guy, you have to do a reasonable level of research on him. When you were doing that and also falling in love, were there red flags, you know, did you see that patients had been dying on this, you know,

he had this fake trachea that he would put this synthetic trachea that he would coat and the patient's own stem cells and put it in their necks as a new trachea to replace one

stricken by cancer or in the case of the little girl Hannah, that was never there that

“that she'd been born without one. So had you seen any of those red flags or deaths?”

You know, there were there was an investigation in Italy, which had nothing to do with the plastic tracheas and he was put on a house arrest and accused of extortion and that raised some red flags for a minute. We actually considered putting the story on hold and in fact, there was a hold and bringing Hannah to Illinois during that time while the FDA investigated, but then the lawyers in Illinois came back, the FDA came back and everybody said no, it's fine,

he's cleared the charges were dropped, it's, you know, all of a misunderstanding. And so that seemed fine and if the FDA is endorsing him and, you know, a hospital still bringing him all the way to Illinois to do this very radical transplant, that seemed okay. With the patients dying, he was still at the time able to stick by this argument that these patients are pioneers. And whenever you do something experimental, you're learning and people do die and all of that is valid

if you've done everything you're supposed to do. But again, what nobody knew is that he hadn't done everything he was supposed to do and he was literally using people as human guinea pigs. I mean, it's, it's atrocious, it's all beyond awful. But at the time, you, the patients, even the patients that died, their families were still supporting him, the hospital in Illinois still supported him after a Hannah died. And the FDA was backing him, Karolinska, for going to say,

the place of the words in Nobel Prize in medicine, they're still employing him, they're still endorsing him, they're still backing him. So there was no reason, you know, really to doubt him. And anytime you're doing something radically new and you're a pioneer, you're going to have critics of course, right? And he did have critics. But most of the criticism was about the fact that he was running all over the world. And he didn't stick around long after doing the transplants to take care

Yeah. There just wasn't, there wasn't enough there yet, you know, unfortunately. Yeah. In hindsight, God, I wish we had known. But nobody did sure if you had approached and it was like nine out of nine patients have died, NBC would have done a very different and a hard turn away from

“this guy. I believe that. I fully. Yeah. But I understand medicine and these new procedures”

do go through, you know, highs and lows when they're first being unleashed. And he was pretty open

about that. He was talking about that in a way that sounded credible. Like, hey, you know, these are experimental procedures. I'm not trying to hide that. And I only, I'm really kind of doing it on people who have no hope, who are willing to take this huge risk. And yet what he knew what they didn't know is, you know, they hasn't, this hasn't been tested. He didn't do the animal trials. He's done nothing. You are a human guinea pig. You're the first line of experimentation.

And there's been no success but that so far. Here he is. This is from bad surgeon on Netflix. And it's footage from an old interview of Paolo talking about this very issue. The more complex surgery is, the more higher the chances of risk you take.

The first liver transplant, the first kidney transplant, the first heart transplant,

did they go all well? No. We don't have the magic crystal to show in to look in the future.

“I think that this is the future. Okay. We'll get to this specifics unfolding after this. So you're”

working with him in early 2013 on this NBC news piece. And things are starting to unfold. You're spending lots of time together over in Europe. It's romantic. And you know, it's not exactly professional, but it's hard. And if you're feeling sad over your ex has been dying and all the things. And then it was what? June of 2013, you flew to Venice, had an incredibly romantic weekend. By the way, he was very generous. This was not a financial con. He paid for everything.

Everything. I mean, that's one of the things that distinguishes him. And it's also so

perplexing because most con artists, you look at somebody like the Tinder Swinler or all these other ones that we've heard of, their motive is money. They're trying to get money. Money was a non-issue. He was exceedingly generous, you know, over the top generous, not just with me and my daughter, my friends, my family, you know, lavish vacations, everything over the top. He would take 20 people out to dinner and pay for everything, you know, buy the most expensive champagne. I mean,

he was just extraordinarily extravagant and generous. You know, even things like I had a friend that was going through breast cancer. And he insisted that we send her some money for her treatment. Because she was struggling at the time. He, yeah, money was a non-issue. So Christmas 2013, he proposed things moved very quickly. Had the peace aired yet? No, but it was, we were done shooting it. We had been done shooting it for a while. And it's, it's sat for a long time. As, you know,

stories sometimes do before they actually hit the air. And this one sat for a long time. It was,

“I think, June of 2014, when it finally aired, it might have been April May. But it was, it's sat”

for a long time, which was frustrating. I mean, we were in a difficult position. I mean, as you said, I had crossed this invisible, but very important ethical line that you're not supposed to cross in journalism for a very good reason, right? You don't get involved with a source of your story, because then your objectivity could go out the window. And it wasn't like I didn't struggle with that. I did. And I had actually pushed him away for a few months. Instead, we have to wait until the

story ends. We can't, we can't be together. But it's just so difficult, especially in the wake of my ex-husband, actually passing away. And then I had my own health scare on top of it the same year. And even all my friends and family were just like, are you crazy? This man's nuts about you. You know, he's madly in love with you. What are you waiting for? But this proposal was a surprise. And that's another in hindsight, another red flag. It is

things moved very, very quickly. And in the normal trajectory of a relationship, you know, things take time, right? It takes time to fall in love. But as that's one similar similarity, he does have to other con artists. Everything was on the fast track. Everything was moving at rapid fire speed. You know, he said, I love you very quickly. He was talking about marrying me very quickly, moving in very quickly. Because he was in a rush. I didn't realize that, right? I just thought it

was all very romantic. But so yeah. And the beauty of the proposal, because this man was so over the top with everything, you know, I'd walk into a hotel room and it'd be every time. Rose petals all over the floor, you know, bouquets everywhere, champagne everywhere. And the proposal was just simple.

without saying anything. And I had no idea it was coming. But yeah, we actually have a bit of you talking about this in the in the special bed surgeon. Again, that's the Netflix version of Benita's story. Here it is. Pass forward. Christmas 2013. Apollo came to stay in New York with me. It was very casual. He cooked a big elaborate meal. He handed me this little box. And I opened the box. And it's this beautiful

“diamond ring. Oh my god. I just, I, I kind of froze. And then I'd said to him, is this what I think”

it is. And he just smiled and he nodded as wow, you know, I was completely floored. So he was love bombing you. Yeah. I mean, it was a long, slow form of love bonding because we were

together almost two years and it never stopped in the two years. So it wasn't this sort of

only love bonding you at the beginning. But the love, love bombing is very calculated. Also, everything about this I think was calculated. The love bombing is designed, you know, you're, you feel like you're in the clouds. You're floating at sort of on a cloud of bliss. And it's in very intentional because then you don't look at anything else. You don't question anything. You don't, it's designed to sort of put you in a haze and distract you from what's really going on.

I wonder, you know, as I watch that, I think, maybe it's just personal preference. I'm not sure, I feel like if somebody did that to it, I constantly, because I saw every voiceman was like my love, my love. I think I'd be like, and it's a no. But would you have said that to prior to meeting him? Yeah, 100%. That's not my style at all. And actually we did have, you know,

it's interesting because not only was it always these consistent lavish over the top gestures,

but also he was videotaping everything all the time. Like the video camera was never not on. And we had arguments about that. I said, you know, number one, I don't need all this. You don't need to do something every time we go on vacation. It's too much. You know, it's kind of

“embarrassing. You know, everything was a show. And also, why do you have to videotap everything?”

We don't have to, you know, document every moment, which now is bizarre. It was sort of like he was documenting his own demise because he left me so much. No, it's wonderful. Yeah. That's why it's creepy. Can I ask you why, why do you think he was doing that? Because you think somebody who's and we'll get into the details of what exactly, you know, we know now about him while he was doing all this. But you think anybody who's doing something somewhat nefarious

would not want to fall on tape. Which is interesting because now when I talk to women who've

been con by men, a lot of them talk about the fact that the man would never post for a photograph

with her, right? But this was exactly the opposite. I think it just goes hand in hand with the narcissistic arrogance. I think this man thought he would never get caught. And I think he got a sixth thrill out of lined up people and conning people. And I just think it was part of the game.

“Gosh, it's disturbing, but I think you're right. That's how it feels. So he”

comes a day in which he reveals to you that he's got an addition to this amazing ability to create these, you know, regenerative tracheas that he implants and the people who are suffering. He's got this secret client list. And he's got this secret life as VIP surgeon to the most well-known people on earth. And I have to say, I defend you on this piece of the story. I believe coming into it with this amount of press and this amount of medical professionals touting this guy, this would be

believable. This is who Barack Obama might quietly see on the side, right? So give us a feel for the number of, you know, the labs he said he was secretly catering to. So it first came up actually right after he proposed because it was Christmas. And he said he couldn't stick around for new years. And I was not happy about it. And I kept peppering him with questions. Well, you know, where do you have to go? And he kept saying it's an important surgery. It's an important surgery. I'm like, come on.

And finally, that's when he said, look, I have to tell you something. And of course, it was all built up where they've never told this to anyone before. Even my ex-wife doesn't know about this and blah, blah. And he said, I'm part of a clan very clandestine secret network of doctors from around the world with all of all different specialties. And we cater to the world's most important people, famous people, dignitaries, because these people don't want their private medical

of Hillary Clinton. And that he had been taking care of the Clintons for some time and that he

“was friends with Bill Clinton. I thought it was ridiculous. And I said, I've never heard of anything”

like this. This is absurd. However, I did call, I called a friend in LA who's very connected to a lot of celebrities. And I just said, look, you know, is this feasible? You know, and you know, she said, "Bini, I come up." She said, "You don't think these people have private personal doctors, of course they do. They all do. You know, they all have doctors that fly to them privately and, you know, their private jets. They don't want everything made public."

So, on the one hand, it seemed, yeah. So, on the one hand, it seemed absurd. And on the other,

it didn't. And I understand why people who have never sort of been in these circles or don't

understand this type of lifestyle would go, "Come on, that's not true." But I don't think it's so far from the truth, you know? It's not as far from the truth. I don't have such a doctor in my life,

“though I would love one. But I know doctors as friends who get, they get off for $250,000”

to study Arabia and help somebody. If you have enough money, this is how you live and this is how you expect to be taken care of. Right. Right. So, the name sort of dribbled out over time because it was all, you know, so secretive. And he wasn't supposed to be telling me, but it ended up being, I mean, all kinds of people. The Emperor of Japan of all people was in there. People in Russia,

because he had a very, very lucrative multi-million of not billion dollar grant in Russia to

do clinical trials in Russia. So, he said, yeah, he did have that. Yeah, that was real. Yeah, that was real. And then all kinds of celebrities, you know, the Obama's, the Clinton's, the Sarkozy's from France. I'm trying to even remember who they all were. It was a long list. And and people at the Vatican, which will become very instrumental. So, you're going to get married, but he can't spend New Year's with you because he's got to go take

care of some very important clients and these are his secret patients. And then I do not understand this piece of the story. I, I don't understand. Why? Why did he say, let's get married by the pope.

“So, the pope's summer residence, the Apostolic Palace of Castle Gandolfo. Why?”

Yeah. Why? Take it, look at this. Well, yeah, this, this gets unfortunately very simplified. And I understand from an outsider's perspective why people say, oh, give me a break, you know, she really thought the sorry fucking pope was going to marry her like who believes that. I get that. But it did not happen like that. It was a very, very slow, meticulous weaving of this very clever lie. It started with he wanted a big Catholic wedding in Italy.

And I said, well, how's that going to work? You know, we're both divorced or so I thought. And I'm not even Catholic, you know, and I don't know much about the Catholic religion, but I don't think Italy lets divorcees get married in the Catholic church. And he said, don't worry about it. I'll take care of it all. I was very, very busy. As a time, I had a new job at NBC. Meredith had a new talk show. And I was working crazy hours. And he said, look, you're too busy.

Let me take over the planning of the wedding. Let me go and find a surprise to Italy that will marry us. And so he spent months actually, supposedly, going to one church after another in in Italy, trying to find a priest that would marry us. And he would send me pictures of these churches. He would send me long texts, you know, all kinds of stuff. And this went on for months and months and months.

And finally, he just said, I can't find a priest that's willing to marry two divorces. And I said,

what are we going to do? And he said, you know, I said, maybe we should think of something else. Maybe we should go and get married on a beach. And he said, look, I'm going to go to Rome and call in a favor. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, I'm going to go to the Vatican. Now, as ridiculous as that sounds, he had told me that he had done consulting work at the Vatican, which, again, as absurd as it sounds on the one hand, also made sense. This is one of the world's

leading cardiothoracic surgeons. This is a man who's rumored to be in contention for the Nobel Prize, who is doing something that nobody else in the world is doing. He's Italian. Why wouldn't he be called him to consult with the Vatican? And he had told me and many other people that he had helped consult on the previous Pope's health care, who actually had his treatment taken out, had a tricky out of me. He did not say that he took care of him directly. He just said that he was

called to the Vatican to help. And I had heard other doctors talking about this. I had seen paperwork talking about the work that Paulo had done at the Vatican. So this was not so ridiculous.

celebrity clients, and that I'm not allowed to tell anybody. So then he says he's going to the Vatican

“to ask him for help ostensibly finding us a priest to Maryus. And that's when everything went crazy”

tone because he calls me after this meeting. This was now October of 2014. And he says, look, I have great news. They've agreed to help us. They'll find a priest that will that will Maryus. And I said, great. And he said, and there's something else. You know, and it's also dramatic. He said, sit down and all this nonsense. And he said, Pope Francis actually agreed to Maryus himself. And I said, bullshit. You know, I said, the Pope doesn't even marry people. You know,

I thought he was playing some kind of game with me to be honest. And I was so pissed off. And I actually hung the phone up on him. And I went straight to my desk. I was at work. And I literally googled does the Pope marry people. But what popped up was one month earlier, September of 2014. The Pope had married 20 couples in the Vatican. And these were all couples that were quote on quote living in sin. You know, that were not had children out of wedlock or whatever. So the Pope actually

can marry people if he wants to. That's the first thing. People think he can't. He can if he wants to.

So it took some convincing. You know, it took about three, four days, maybe a week, actually. Of Pablo convincing me. And this was also very clever. His argument to me was that because he was a Pope's personal private doctor. And because this is this very forward thinking progressive Pope that the Pope had been looking for a couple of divorces that he could use a sort of poster, a poster couple, to marry publicly, to make a statement that he was willing to open the doors

of the Catholic Church to divorces. And the Pope wanted to do Paulo a favor to thank him for being his private personal doctor. And we now needed to do the Pope a favor and do this. And so it almost became not about us anymore. It wasn't even about our wedding. Paulo made it sound like this was an obligation that by virtue of he wanted to do this for the Pope and by virtue of being his fiancee, I had to go along for the ride. And I needed to do this because this was going to

I might not care because I'm not Catholic, but this would help open the doors of the Catholic Church to divorce it. And in that context, it makes sense because this is not just like Joe Schmo, who you met at the Olive Garden saying that the Pope wants to perform the wedding. Exactly.

“Well, that's what I always say. It's not like I woke up one day and he went, hey, the Pope's”

gonna marry us and I went, oh great, you know, it just it just didn't happen like that, you know? No, he had credentials that could potentially make that an actual thing or at least some of them were real and some of them were fake, but he had been laying the foundation for you to believe all of this, this love of lie for months, right? So it's not as outlandish as it seems. But I don't understand what I so I understood all that like I saw how he got you what I don't

understand is now with retrospect, can you say why would he do that? Like I get why he would woo you and try to real you in. But why take it to that that's why he catastrophic level. It was unnecessary. Why do you think he did complete all of it was unnecessary and it just kept you as growing and growing. I don't know. I can't get him side the man's head. You know, I'm not an expert.

“I can't diagnose him. I believe he's at a minimum a pathological liar. I think he's probably also”

a sociopath and he's an extreme narcissist and I think people like that don't really have a plan. I think they get a sick brush out of the lie, you know, they get a high out of it, out of getting away with it and they keep they usually do get away with it, right? And so and the more they get away with the more they want to up the ante and the bigger the high, it's like a drug. And so they don't have a plan. They're just kind of putting one foot in front of the other and it's like a

game, you know, and I think they just think somehow they're going to wiggle the way out of this because

usually they do. Yes, because he did not need to propose to you in the first place. You know,

you could have rolled along as you said it kind of happened soon. He could have just been rolled rolling along in a relationship if he just wanted you to be close and in his corner and he's certainly didn't need to come up with this. We're going to get none of that. You know, like the Pope's private residence by the Pope himself, like it was so extraordinary. And I completely agree with every word you said about the high they get. And I do think, yes, it's no accident.

He chose you as an NBC News producer and somebody with access to, you know, power and could messaging that could be beneficial to him. But I also think your smarts were part of the calculation. He enjoyed that. He liked that. That was exactly. That's part of the rush. I think they

if I can pull it over on her, you know, it just, and that also going back to an earlier thing

“with all the extravagant elaborate surprises he was doing. I always thought that was for me, right?”

You know, the roses, the lavish trips, everything. And I now realize it wasn't for me at all, none of it. It was all about feeding his ego. You know, when we went to a hotel, and the staff was gushing because, you know, they had to help prepare the room with all the roses in the champagne and women at desks were pulling me aside and saying, you know, to save a brother, how do I meet somebody like him? And it was all for show. It's all for his ego. It's all about

narcissism. None of it had to do with me. Me swooning over him and me being in awe of, you know, the adulation and just adoring him was just feeding his narcissistic ego. Mm-hmm. It's in part. It's a conquest. He said Andrea Bachelet was going to sing during the wedding service. I mean, right in line with all these extraordinary attendees. He said he said that among those who would be attending the wedding would include Mr. Mrs. Obama, Mr. Mrs. Clinton, Sarcosi, Vladimir Putin. I mean,

he really, but again, he's got the actual connections to all he is performing these, you know, swing for the fence of surgeries in Russia. So it sounds crazy now. We know it. It is crazy now. Yeah, you know, she's built it up appropriately, but then here's another big moment. In anticipation of your move to Europe to be his wife, you on May 13 left your job at NBC and notified your daughter's school that she would not be coming back. I know this may be seem small ball in the grants,

but like he let you quit your job, he let you pull your daughter out of school. Exactly. Exactly. And it was a very difficult decision for me to make. I mean, I loved my jobs. You know, I had a very

very successful career. I never, if you had told me before I met Paolo that I would give up everything

to write off into the sunset with Mr. Charming, I would have laughed at you. You know, I mean, I'm not that kind of person. I've never been, you know, the kind of a news producer. Yeah, it's a bunch of

“cynical multiples in this business. And that's the only way you can be a good news producer. Exactly.”

You know, the Cinderella shit is not for me. So I just, and it was a difficult decision, but it seemed like the right thing to do. I was very cognizant of what my daughter was going through after having lost her dad. And I thought Paolo, what he was never going to replace her dad, but he seemed to be a good man and somebody that would be good for both of us. He promised to take care of both of us for the rest of our lives. And I thought this would be a good new start for us.

And so I made this difficult decision to to leave my job. And and even uprooting my daughter, you know, what children need after something traumatic and tragic like that is, you know, consistency and normalcy. And I was pulling her away from everything that she knew. And he allowed me to do that. He sat in front of my daughter. This still burns me to this day, talking about the school he had enrolled her in in Barcelona. And the life she was going to live in

Barcelona. And on and on and on about this in Barcelona. And then in Barcelona, how about how you do that to a child who just lost her dad to brain cancer is beyond me. But yeah, he took it to such extreme lengths. You know, and the whole time, of course, you know, what we what we know is that at the same time he was doing this. He was killing people. So, you know, just when you get to this point of the story, you're like, how could he, how could he let you give up your amazing career

and pull your daughter who was already having a tough time in the loss for dad from a school she knew in a life she knew in a friendship network she had. He was killing people. He was recklessly

killing person after person lying about successes that had never been there. And I'm going to

get to that next. But before we leave this lane, so that was May 13th, 2014 that you left out the chain now, 2015. Sorry, 2015. And the next day, May 14th was the day it all started to come down because gun email from a friend tells us. Yeah. And before I tell that, just to back up very

“quickly, I think we had been arguing for a good four months at that point. And one of the”

things we had been arguing about was I had never been to the house in Barcelona. He had flown me and my daughter all over the world, all these beautiful trips. But every single time we were supposed to go to Barcelona, the trip got canceled at the last minute because he had an emergency surgery.

got canceled. And it was a huge source of contention. I said, you know, I'm not marrying you without seeing the house where I'm supposed to be living after the wedding, without my daughter seeing the house where she's supposed to be living. I mean, who would do that? Who would marry a man without seeing the place where they're going to live? So we had been arguing a lot about that. And there were other little things that were starting to nag at me, but not huge red flags.

You know, it wasn't like somebody was waving a giant flag on a football field saying, "Alert,

“alert on man," but I think there were at that point little things that were nagging at my gut”

that I was pushing down because I think I didn't want to face the fact that I was starting to realize that something was wrong. And then the day after I left NBC, I had a group of girlfriends that took me to a spa because they knew what a difficult decision it was for me to leave NBC. And I come out of the spa, we'd been in there laughing for hours, we'd put our phones away, and I pull out my phone, I met the desk paying, and it's an email from a colleague, and the

subject line just says the Pope. And it's a link to an article that says the Pope is going to be in South America on the date of our wedding, which was July 11, 2015, and that the trip had been

planned for a very long time. The second, I mean, the second, I read that article, you know,

all those little red flags that had been sort of bubbling up that I guess I had been ignoring, all exploded, and I just felt sick. And I, in that second, I knew. I just thought, you know, this fucker is lying to me about everything. This man is lying to me about everything. Everything's a lie. I knew it. I didn't have all the evidence that I didn't know by any stretch yet the extent of it, but yeah, it was just a moment of, I mean, I almost fell over in the spa, I just fell ill.

Wow. Were you, were your girlfriends there? Did they remember the moment? Were they, did you share the media, the airport, were you embarrassed? No, they immediately, they just said, you know, Benito, what happened? What's the matter? You know, and I could barely talk, and a couple of them came back to my apartment with me. It was still early in the morning, and I was just pacing back and forth and trying to figure it out. And there was so sweet, because they kept trying

to say, well, maybe it's not as bad as you think it is, and maybe there's an explanation, and

maybe there'll still be a wedding, and you know, you never really wanted the pope to marry you

in the first place, which is true. But I kind of knew, and I called him, of course, immediately, I called him, texted him, and of course, he denied everything. You know, he immediately said, I don't know, you know, I just found this out myself, and I'm going to get to the bottom of it, and it's a misunderstanding, you know, blah, blah, but I knew from that moment, I knew that he was lying to me.

“You did. That was it before and after. Oh, yeah. It's almost like, again, I think it was those little red”

flags. It's sort of been bubbling under the surface, and I had been uncomfortable for a while, but couldn't quite figure out what it was. I mostly attributed it to leaving NBC and to my daughter, but I think it was much deeper than that. I think at some level, I knew, you know, long before I actually knew. And at this point, you've already sent out the invitations for the wedding. And you've said, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, we're going to the book. No, like, you have, we have a ghost story, too.

Wow. We are eight weeks out from the wedding to the day almost, because it was, yeah, May 14th July 15th. People had bought plain tickets. We had almost 300 people coming from all over the world. My family's from Australia. We had people coming from Australia from Europe, all over the place. They had spent thousands of dollars on fancy red carpet, attire, and booktotels, and everything. You know, this thing was, he had taken it that far. You know, this, this, this, it's ridiculous.

But it's not just one of your, I'm sure you can send her. So just happen that a friend, you know, who's paying attention to news events like the Pope's schedule saw this and realized it was BS. But what do you think he would have done? If they had. And yeah, what would he have done? What he have seen it through and just come up with an excuse with the last minute for why it's not the Pope, and we're not at the Pope's private residence. And he'd done it like a fake marriage.

“You know, the only thing I can think of is, because I've asked myself this question so many times,”

that's one of the big money questions. You know, what, what was his endgame? You know, this had to implode. He was literally lying about everything. He created an entire fake fantasy wedding. It turned out he had told me he was divorced. He wasn't even divorced. So he couldn't have

legally married me in the first place. So this never could have happened.

If he had allowed everybody, you know, I mean 300 people descend in Italy and he'd leave thinking they're going to this, you know, lavish wedding. The only thing I can think of is that he would have said there's some kind of security threat, right? You know, there's been a death threat on the Pope's life for one of the dignitaries of celebrities that were supposed to be coming. We can't, it's too dangerous. It's too controversial. We can't have this wedding. But even if he had

I'm there with my bags packed in my wedding dress and I think I'm moving a Barcelona. I have no idea how the hell he thought he was getting out of this. It's like part of me wishes he'd have played out like that just so we could see. Just who, you know, just say we couldn't

know. Yeah, because you're as true. That's true. You know, there was never wedding schedule.

The Pope had nothing to do with it and he couldn't marry you because he was already married, which, again, in retrospect now, the proposal sending out invitations, the recklessness of it, Bonita, right? The recklessness. Wow. And of course, that would get much worse. I mean, I ultimately, I'd find out he was struggling for families at the same time. Wait, what? I didn't see that. I did not see that in the earlier pieces. I know about the one

wife because eventually you and your girlfriends and I love your girlfriends. They're, that's on the best France. That's a wonderful, marvelous story. But they take you like the best girlfriends would to Barcelona on what would have been your wedding day and you got to fake wig on and the, the girls go up to his front door, ring the doorbell and he comes down and it turns out. Oh, we have this actually. We have this clip. Let's, let's play it so we can watch a little bit

of it. Okay. Nancy, Emily, you just knocked on his door and he saw him come down the steps of it as dog, asshole. He's there. Not in fucking Russia. Oh, wow. Oh, wow, look over there.

“That says me. Oh, do you? Do you? Do you? Do you? Do you know what I'm talking about?”

What are you doing here for passing by on holiday? I'm gonna say look at that person though. I'm not sure what's going on, but two little kids coming down the stairs. You lie in fucking sack of shit. Yeah, I see you. Mother fucking fucker. Fuck you. Yeah, so that was the day you learned not only does he have a wife already, but two young kids, which is what stopped you. I think from going to the door yourself.

When I met him, he told me that he had been separated from his Italian wife for a very long time. So I knew from the beginning, there's a lot of misunderstanding about this that he had a wife. He had two children who at the time were, I think, 19 and 20, who were actually supposed to be coming to the wedding. And he said that they had been living separate lives for many years, which was well documented. He lived in Barcelona. I had been for years. She lived in Italy.

And I mean, I met the man's mother. I spoke to his sister, his sister's his niece was supposed to be

“one of our flower girls. So this was no secret. He just told me that they had never”

gotten divorced because it's Italy and their Catholic and it's complicated, but he told me when he met me that now he finally wanted to get divorced. And that was why he proposed because he said he had filed for divorce and that the divorce was going through. So I knew there was that wife. I knew about her. I'd seen pictures of her everything. The woman in Barcelona, when I went to the house in Barcelona, I went there because once I figured out he was lying, I went into hyper-investigative mode.

It's kind of like, I woke up out of my love haze, you know, and woke up and put my journalists hat back on. And I just went nuts. I mean, I was investigating, I hired two private investigators, one here in the US, one in Italy. And I mean, my bedroom looked like something out of a lawn order episode. There were binders everywhere. I was trying to figure everything out. And for me the last

piece of the puzzle was Barcelona. I mean, clearly there was a good reason he had never let me

“go to that house. And so that's why we decided to go there. And it was part sort of a”

fuck you girl, you know, fun girl's trip. And which is why I got this hideous blonde wig, which I didn't really know if I would need, but I didn't, wasn't sure what I was going to find in that house. So I ordered this cheap blonde wig on Amazon. And we went to the house and one funny thing about that is when I put in the address for the house, he had given me an address for the house in Barcelona, so people could send wedding gifts. It was a bogus address, you know,

I had to find the right address. He didn't even give me the right address for the house. So he had no idea was coming. And I wanted it to be a surprise attack, so to speak, you know, that he claimed he was in Russia, which is why you hear me saying that in the video. And at the time, I'm still talking to him, right? So I, when I first discovered that he was lying, I made an almost immediate decision

that, okay, this man is never going to tell me the truth about everything. I realized now that he's

a pathological liar. And I wanted hard, indisputable, irrefutable evidence before I confronted him, because one of the things that goes along with this, of course, is gaslighting. These con artists including Apollo are very good. If you question them about mudding the waters and making you think that

They have an answer for everything. And so I decided I'm not confronting him until I have all

“my ducks in a row. And I know every single lie. I've uncovered everything. And so I had to play”

kind of a game with him. I, I called off the wedding. And luckily, for me, he was being investigated at the time for scientific misconduct. It was sort of the beginning of the revelations about his medical lies. And it was very convenient timing, because he was having a very difficult time in Sweden. And I just said, "Look, you know, there's too much going on right now. Let's just call off the wedding and postpone it." And he must have briefed such a sigh of relief when I did that.

I got him off the hook. But it was also the perfect excuse to cancel the wedding. And that's all I told all our wedding guests as well. And so I'm still talking to him. You know, he's, I'm still talking to him, still saying I love you, which killed me. And playing along as if we were going to reconvene in the wedding at some point. So he had no idea. It was coming to that house. And

A, he wasn't in Russia. So that was the first thing that pissed me off. He had just text me,

which is to be there. So when you, when we see that video of you and your friends in Barcelona, he was still under the delusion that you were fooled. And the you guys were still together. Correct. Correct. Okay. Yeah. Okay, keep going. I mean, he had some idea. I had been grilling him.

“I had been telling him for a long time that I thought he was lying. But I still, I think he's still thought”

he had me under his thumb. And he was going to bring me back around and that the wedding was just being postponed. He had no idea that I was on to him or that I knew that he was not really divorced any of that or that I knew everything about the wedding was fake. And I kind of expected to find another woman in that house. I wasn't sure if it would be the Italian wife or somebody else. I was prepared for that. And my girlfriends and I had, we had been through several different scenarios. You know,

what if he's there, what if someone else is there, blah, blah. And the reason I sent them to the door without me was I wanted them to sort of do the initial reconnaissance and see what was going on before I came down. And if he was there, I had planned. I fully intended to confront him. But what happened happens is he comes to the door. And so first of all, he's there. And then I see even from, I'm sitting in the car at the top of the hill. He can't see me.

And I see a woman and two young children come out on the veranda of the house. And even from where I am, I can hear them calling him dad. And this is a young woman. This is not his Italian wife. I know exactly what his Italian wife looks like. So this is when I completely lose it and fall apart because this is another family. This is a third family. You know, it's the Italian wife

he never divorced. It's me and my daughter in New York. And now here in Barcelona, the real reason

he never let us come to Barcelona is because he's hiding another family here. And it was the children that sent me over the edge. I mean, another woman, okay, at that point I was prepared for that. But the kids and little kids, they were about five and seven years old. I was wholly unprepared for that.

“And that's when I lost it. I mean, you see in the video, I just, I think I had been investigating”

for a couple of months at that point. And I had not dealt with any of the heartache, the devastation. And I just fall apart. I just, I'm screaming. I'm kicking. I'm wailing. I'm calling him every name, under the sun. It was just devastating. It was just, I, you know, I, he just took it so far. It just was sort of incomprehensible to me that you had been sitting here, that you let me think I'm moving here with my daughter. And you plan this whole fake wedding. You let me quit my job.

So much was at stake. You let me pull my daughter out of her school. You let me give up my entire life. And the whole time you're hiding another family here and the whole time, you know, another this is ever going to happen. Gosh, it's just so devastating. It's crazy. It's crazy. I spoke with a friend once who's husband had trader. And she did what almost everyone does, which is start to obsess over his fellow records and anything she could get her hands on, right? Just to know,

she knew, she knew, it was, yeah, you know, it was, she knew, but she needed the details. She needed the specifics and she needed to know, you know, when and how long, how many times and I set to her, you know, it's, it's almost like in the Catholic faith that when somebody dies, they have the wake and you go to the wake and even though many Catholics and non-Catholics, especially find it kind of very jarring, what a jarring tradition to go and see the dead body.

If it's an open casket, you know, what kind of a tradition is this? What did it? Wow, why would you do this to yourself? And I get that reaction very much. But there is something, I don't know if the word's cathartic, if there's something necessary

what's really happened and how your life has changed from what you thought it was a day earlier, a couple days earlier. And I almost see the behavior you're describing on your part as part of that process for you, like it's got, you've got to make it real for yourself so acceptance can come.

“100% and I think that's why the house in Barcelona was the last piece of the puzzle for me.”

I mean, at that point, I already knew that he wasn't divorced. I already knew that, you know, he had created this whole fake fantasy wedding. I mean, everything about it, you know, every place he said was booked, the caterer, or the list of that, none of them had ever heard of us. I knew that he didn't know a damn one of these dignitaries or celebrities. He claimed it was coming to the wedding or he claimed he was a, you know, the personal doctor too. He sure

is how it was not the Pope's personal private doctor. I mean, the Vatican practically laughed at me. But for me that the last piece of the puzzle was Barcelona and that was the thing that just sort of, and that's when I can finally confront at him. We can, before we get to conversation, who's the fourth fan of family?

“You see her actually in the Netflix specials. So after the older woman after,”

she's, she's younger. She's Anna Paula. She comes in the third episode. So after I went public, which I do shortly after this, she contacted me. And it turns out that she, and her story is just horrific because her son died. He was a patient of Paolo's. He did not have a plastic trachea, but he did operate on him. Her son dies in Italy. There's an investigation into manslaughter. So Paolo's facing manslaughter charges in Italy.

So what does he do? He seduced his her. And basically, so that she will drop the charges, which she does. And then he gets her pregnant. And she has a child that's born with him basically right around the time that he's proposing to me. So that's four families that I know about.

You know, it's, it's the Italian wife he never divorced. It's me and my daughter in New York.

It's the woman in the two kids in the house in Barcelona. And then this other poor woman in Italy that he has a child with. Oh my god, it's like, in a way you've got a way. You know, which is interesting because he really wanted to have a child. He was desperate to have a child. And that would be such a nightmare. I'm just so glad that never happened. I know. So can we talk about the confrontation? Because I know that after, although I pulled the email,

because I know that after you canceled the wedding, you emailed him and it reads his follows, I believed you were exactly who you presented yourself to be to me, to my friends and family, to the world. Congratulations. You charm me and all of us in the La La Land.

I will never ever understand how you could have done this to me or to your daughter who the hell

are you and what the hell is wrong with you? But this is not the confrontation to which you refer. Now it is. So that was the first part of the confrontation. This was by text actually. When we left the house in Barcelona, we went to a place that had Wi-Fi. Keep in mind, he had no idea that I was there. He knew my friends were there. He couldn't get rid of them fast enough. And they told him, hey, look, you know, the wedding got canceled so close to the wedding day. As a lot of people did,

we decided to come to Italy anyway on vacation. And we just dropped by to bring you a wedding gift.

“That was there, excuse for knocking up the doorbell. Which the whole thing was so suspicious, right?”

Because ostensibly he and I are still getting married and we're still talking and he didn't invite them in. He could not get rid of them fast enough. He just wanted them to leave. But anyway, we get to this restaurant and I write him a text that's literally about this long. I mean, what you read is just one part of it and called him every name under the sun, named everything that I knew he was lying about. And, you know, just called him a despicable, disgusting human being,

told him I hated him and it's set or at set or a. And I think it took him about 10, 15 minutes to reply

and he wrote back one word. Wow. That's always that's so un-satisfactory.

Well, I think he was caught, right? What was, what was there to say? Game over. There's nothing to say. How's it going? I want more. Yeah, I want more. See his face and see him. I don't know. Bit for forgiveness or I want to see him ashamed. I know. The man has no shame or empathy or remorse or any of the other things. But yeah, we're never going to see that. Was there ever any more contact? Yes. And so what happens right after this is, I'm devastated, of course. But almost immediately

I had whatever you want to call it and a piphany or whatever you want to call it, but I thought,

pope and with, you know, celebrity is in dignitaries and presidents and creating a whole fake

“fantasy wedding and allowing people to book tickets and spend money and allowing me to quit my job.”

With their jobs and other schools. Yeah, all of it. If he's doing all of that and we'll go that far, there's no way. There's no way in hell. He's not also lying. He has medical and professional life. It can't be. And that thought was so horrifying to me because I, you know, he has people's lives in his

hands. You know, he's doing something revolutionary and groundbreaking and people think the man walks

on water and I thought, shit, you know, I have to tell my story. I have to go public. I have to expose him. I almost felt an obligation to do it. I thought, you know, maybe this happened to me because I know how to do this. You know, if, if I need to go public, if I need to tell my story, it's not going to be pretty. It's not going to be fun, but I know what to do and I need to do that. So, the world needs to know who Dr. Polymeryne is and it wasn't vindictive. It wasn't about revenge.

It was simply about sounding the warning alarm that, you know, this man is a fraud. This man is a con. He's not who you think he is. And so I very, very quickly connected through a friend with a

reporter at Vanity Fair who told me that he could do it quickly, which is what I wanted.

And so this is July of 2014 and the article came out in January of 2016. My story. July of 2015? Yeah. Yeah. January of 2015. January of 2016, the article came out. And then on the heels of me, I did not know this when I went public and when I decided to do the story, but within a week of me, my story coming out in Vanity Fair, a scathing documentary came out in Sweden called the experiments, which exposed all his medical lies. And it was

actually worse than I feared. I mean, watching that documentary was one of the most difficult things I've ever had to do because it was so obvious that he blatantly used people as human

“guinea pigs that he knew, I believe, from the beginning, that the thing he was transplanting”

into them would never work. It was a plastic tube that might as well have been a straw. He knew

damn well. It wasn't going to work and he did it anyway. And it just, it's just so obvious how reckless this man is and how dangerous he is. And it was the combination of the two things that sort of blew everything up because now you have these insane, you know, over the topic, I agree, just lies in his personal life coupled with this evidence that he's been lying in the medical arena. And the two things were what finally blew everything up.

The that lane of the story, well covered in all the pieces I mentioned as disturbing as your piece that is is the most disturbing. Oh, it's horrific. It's way worse than what happened to me. I mean, there's just what happened to the similar pattern. It's a similar pattern. If you look at it, right? In well-meaning earnest kind people, in some turmoil, trusting him. Just trusting him. Yeah, trusting him to do right by them, to take care of them, to see them through,

you know, the most difficult times of their life, food by his bedside manner, which we discussed, and his credentials and all of these institutions around him, vouching for him, only in their cases, it was a deadly mistake. And amazingly, there are still some families still believing in him. Even after their loved ones died in his care, and I can only think they have to do that. Just as their self-protection mechanism, like they just have to say,

we didn't put our loved one in the hands of a mad man. You know, we did something smart, and we took a calculated risk. And I just, when I, as I see the people in like the Netflix documentary wrestling with, no, it's okay. You know, we're still grateful to him. All I can think is that's

“that's something other than acceptance. That's, I believe that too. I think Pala was very good at”

convincing the families when patients died, that the patients were pioneers, you know, and they would sort of live in history as pioneers who helped him, helped pave the way for a better medical future. And that's a much nicer thing to think than you put your loved one in the hands of a mad man, who is reckless and dangerous and a murderer, quite frankly, probably a serial killer. And I think for some of these patients, the families, you know, who had been so desperate and

They thought he was their last hope. They believed in him. They, they put so much into that, and they

saw him out. And I think that's the other thing. A lot of these people found Dr. Macarena

“on the internet, you know, they did a Google search, and that's how they found him. So, you know, the”

to deal with the death of your loved one, especially a child, and then on top of that, you saw it out the person, you know, that probably killed her. I don't, I think that's just too much to wrap your head around. Yep, it would be for me. There's Chris Lyles, who's story is heartbreaking, a 30 year old man, electrical engineer from Maryland, and he was diagnosed with cancer,

but heard of Pala, Macarena. And he did the procedure on Chris and Chris, like all the others,

who kept that fake trachea in died. Here's a bit on him from peace. It's not three. We didn't see Pala that much. He was flying this place, he was flying that place. He had one of his assistants look after Chris. Is it a secret? Yes, don't, you tried to know this. Very soon, after surgery, Chris Lyles gained an infection in the airway, so he started to cough enormously hard. This, you know, really, really deep cough. He got mucus clots in the airways.

What also happened was he got an infection in the world. So, he had a quite dramatic post-operative period, but it was a little bit unusual that you get the infection, so early on after surgery. And he had a young daughter and he struggled. And the family continues to stand by Pala.

No, actually, no, not anymore. They did initially. They did. They finally came around and realized,

you know, initially they still stood by him, but now no, now they know. Yeah, they were in the Netflix piece sounding, you like, well, you know, Chris, he was terminal, and so it was a risk we decided to take, but that's interesting. Was it after they saw the compilation of stories, you know, that they realized how Chris fit into the story or what, what do you think

“did it for them? You know, I think it just takes time, and I think it's the same for”

any of the people that Dr. Mech, or any fold. I mean, we're talking some of the world's most prestigious, esteemed institutions, Dr. Scientists. I mean, he pulled the wool over so many people's eyes. It's not just me and the other women in his life. It's not just the patients and their families. I mean, so many people, and I think it's a very, very difficult thing, aid or admit that you got fooled, but be to wrap your head around the fact that this man, who you thought was

either the answer to your, your, your patient, you know, your loved one dying or was, you know, in the case of Carolin's gets tweeting, bringing you all kinds of accolades and money and esteemed, it's just very difficult to wrap your head around the fact that Dr. Pala Mech, Irini, is not who you thought he was, and that he's exactly the opposite of who you thought he was,

“and I think it just takes time. And that you may have entrusted your loved one to a mad man,”

to somebody with exactly the whom he has been as an associate path. The case out of Russia, also disturbing, we've mentioned his contacts there. Beyond this young Balorina, Balorina, whose name was Julia, he performed her surgery in 2012, and there's a bit of Palo talking about her in the piece, young beautiful. She was not, she was not terminal. No, she did not need the surgery, and she begged him. Actually, they actually had a watery in Russia, because he was looking for

quote unquote healthy patients to try this procedure on. She had been in a car accident, so she had a hole in her throat. She had a tricky out of me, but she could have lived the rest of her life like that. And she begged, she made a video begging Pala to pick her, and he picked her tragically. Here's, uh, here's a bit of Pala talking about her from the Netflix show, Bad Surgeon. This is Julia. When I met Julia, she was not able to play with her child.

It was a very emotional moment for me. And I immediately said, this is the right patient, and I still do not believe that, few days ago, she couldn't breathe and stop normal. So, um, she's a little bit afraid of you. So, please be very sweet.

point out in the piece, it was a lie, and indeed she died. Yeah, I'm not only died, but they died

horrible deaths. I mean, this plastic tube that was coated in the patient's own stem cells was literally rotting inside their throats. So, Julia's mother talks about the fact that she smelled horrifically, because this thing was rotting, she smelled like rotting fish, because this thing was rotting inside her throat, and then they suffocated to death, because this thing disintegrated and rotting in their throats. It's not only did they die, but it's like a torturous death. It's awful.

“And he kept doing it. He kept doing exactly. Can you speak about the answer to what you're doing?”

Mm, God. Is it Karolina? What's it called in Sweden that was? Karolenska. Karolenska, okay, that was principally backing him for a while. He also had the Russian Institute as well, but it seems like those doctors there were, like, there are a couple of them who are featured, who turned out to be good guys who recognized what he was doing was very wrong and started to blow the whistle on him. Yeah, I think, and what they did was very brave, and as a typical with many

whistleblowers, unfortunately, they went through hell. You know, it took them a long time to pull together all the evidence against him, and they put their own careers on the line. They were questioned. I mean, some of them were called into the police station, some of them were threatened with losing their jobs, some of them have left Karolenska now, and they went through hell. But they started realizing, slowly, that the thing was not working, that the patients were suffering and

dying, and that Polo was lying in medical papers. And very, very prestigious ones, a new England Journal of Medicine among them about the results of the transplant. So, he's standing at press conference, press conferences, talking about how the patients are doing so beautifully well. One in fact, behind the scenes, they're suffering, and they're dying, exactly the opposite of what he was saying. And also, he's publishing in these prestigious medical journals saying that, you know, the

thing is working beautifully, and he's leaving data out, he's faking data, he's lying about stuff. So, they start piecing it all together, and they spent some insane number of hours,

piecing all the parts of the puzzle together. And at first, when they first went to Karolenska,

“they were shunned, they were shoot away, Karolenska didn't want to hear it. And I think”

it just speaks to what happens with somebody who's so cunning and so charming and so manipulative, like Dr. Polo Makirini, it was, he was bringing in so much money to Karolenska, and there were so much promise and hope attached to this man. They were talking about building a whole institution around him. He's getting grants. He's getting published in these prestigious journals. He's operating all around the world. He's bringing them notoriety. So, when somebody

first comes to them and says, you know what? The sky's not who you think he is. It was a very, very inconvenient truth. Nobody wanted to hear it. And it's massive crisis. You go from having the golden boy who's going to make you a fortune and bring you nothing but accolades to having a potential criminal serial killer working for you who's only going to bring you shame and condemnation.

“Exactly. Which is why, I think, initially, people try to sweep out under the rug because”

it just nobody wanted to deal with it. But there were a couple of doctors there who just didn't allow that and they were tenacious. Those those those whistleblowers refused to give up. And I've now met them and they're lovely guys. And we, I really admire what they did and what they went through but they just refused to give up. And they still do. You know, like me, they still keep talking about him and none of us will stop until there's full justice which we still don't have.

Well, that's the question because I think most people hearing the story at this point are asking please tell me he's in jail. Is he in jail? There have been some criminal charges, but they haven't gone nothing nearly to the level of what we would want or what we think he deserves. Can you talk

about what's happened to him in the criminal lane? Yes, he finally was in Sweden. They had tried going

after him a few years ago and it is a difficult case to prove because they're experimental procedures. So to prove that he knew that the patients were going to die to prove that he did this intentionally is not so easy. So the first time they tried to do it, they gave up. They sort of dropped the charges. Sweden was furious. This whole thing is a giant scandal in Sweden. It's so embarrassing. I mean,

another prosecutor came back and said no, I'm going to try again. And so he was on trial in 2022.

“And he got convicted of one count of bodily harm. They could only go after him in Sweden”

for the three patients that were operated on in Sweden, including Christopher Lyle's the US patient. And then he appealed that. And so last year there was an appeals trial. And I think he was thinking he was going to get off one step. The appeals court came back hard and convicted him of three counts of aggravated assault on for all of the patients that were operated on Sweden and sentenced him to 30 months behind bars. Of course, he appeals again all the way to the Swedish

Supreme Court. But in October, the Supreme Court came back and said no, we're not taking the case.

The conviction stands. That was October. Here we are six months later, the man still not behind bars.

It's crazy. He managed. This just came out last week to negotiate with Swedish authorities that he wants to spend his time behind bars in Spain, where he lives, not in Sweden, on house arrest.

“So he basically wants to sit at his damn house by the pool, sipping cocktails. And that's how”

he thinks he's going to serve his 30 months, which is just, I don't even know what we're to use. It's so horrific and so unfair to those patients. You know, it's just, that is not justice. So what is the likely, what are the odds that that's going to happen? Pretty high, I think. I think now the Spanish authorities have to Sweden is basically washed our hands of him and said no, serve your time in Spain. Spain has to

agree to it. So that's a more delay without him being behind bars. And if they agree to it, I think he will. I think he'll have an ankle bracelet and be sitting by his pool.

The most important thing is that he's not allowed to do this to anybody else.

Has he lost his medical license? And even if he hasn't, don't you don't you think that the Netflix show that you're documentary? All the work you've been doing along with these doctors from Karolenska have made his reemergence as a physician impossible. Yes, it's a, it's, I get asked this all the time. It's a tricky question because there isn't one medical license to Yank. It's not like the US. In Europe, it's country by country. So

if a country still allows him to operate in Europe, he could in theory. But as you said, his reputation is clearly severely tarnished and, you know, tanked. And his, he's had a drastic, you know, crash from, from fame and notoriety. So I doubt anybody would want him operating on them. But technically, he still can. He's making a documentary with his side. I can't wait. I'm actually really looking forward to that. I hope you'll come back on after that hits. What on earth do you

think that is going to look like? He, because he's not behind bars, he has been doing interviews in Italy in the past months. And he did one, I think it was right before Christmas. And I was on the show

“and his, he was not on, but his attorney was not on. And he's desperate. And the only thing that”

he can do at the moment is try to muddy the waters and try to distract attention from his patience. And so he's going after me and Anna Paula, the woman who also went public in the Netflix documentary. And he's just trying to victim-shame us, slut-shame us, whatever, he can, you know, he's just trying to throw dirt, you know, and make up lies about us and muddy the waters and distract attention from the real issue, which is that he killed people. And none of the things he's saying are true,

but even if they were, it wouldn't matter. You know, it doesn't matter. You know, what matters is you use people as human guinea pigs. You broke all kinds of legal and ethical laws and people's lives and you're killed people and patients lies without caring. So nothing else matters. So he has to run massive civil suits against him. Somebody should own his Barcelona home other than it. Right. Paula. I know that Turkish family, that Turkish girl that you see on the Netflix documentary,

the one that had something like 200 surgeries. I mean, her case is so horrific. They've sued him. I don't know. They'll come with that. We need an American family to sue. But we're very good at suing, as you know, that's our full-time here in America. I know. One of the American families needs to sue for wrongful death. And then they will own the home in Barcelona. And whatever else he has, that's the true way of punishing somebody like him. It's true. I know. He said to La Nazione,

the deaths are glorified, meaning those he caused. But there is no mention of the live saved.

“I was crucified in an inhumane way. The history of transplants must be read. The initial phases”

are always associated with high mortality. But despite this, they continued until they

become almost routine operations. As for you, he said, she's the one who always lied. Okay. So we'll look forward to him filling that out in his quote documentary. I do want to talk to you about a couple of things. The thing you lost your, your train of thought on that we were getting to was contact you've had with him since, wow, since that text. So was it after all these pieces hit that you and he connected? So in 2018, I made a film for

Discovery Call. He lied about everything. And after the Vanity Therapy article, which was just, I was, I was in such a state of post-traumatic stress when that article came out. And I felt like it didn't fully encompass the whole story or my story. And I wanted to tell it in my own words, which is why I did the documentary. And during the course of making that documentary, I tried to find him. I traveled actually to Russia, to Italy, to several places. I met with some of the families,

including Eulia's husband, which was heartbreaking. And I couldn't find him. So finally,

I got him on the phone. And he was such an interesting phone call because I called from a phone that wasn't mine. So he didn't know it was me. And I had to tell him that I was recording him, obviously, for legal reasons. But as soon as I said, I said, "Hi, Paolo, it's Benita." And immediately his voice, you know, that soft boy, "Oh, hi, how are you?" And I thought this asshole. He thinks, either he thinks I'm calling it a reconcile or he thinks he can get me again. He thinks he can

pull me in again. It was just so disgusting. And then I started, I started firing questions at him. Why did you lie to me? Why did you lie about this? And there was silence. And it was maybe a minute.

And you could almost hear the Cogs and his brain turning thinking, "Okay, I'm being recorded.

I think I'm supposed to say, I'm sorry." And so after I shut up, he just says, "I'm sorry." It was the lamest, most insincere apology you've ever heard in your life. He sounded like a robot. You know, he didn't mean it. And then I asked him some other question and then he hung up on me. No. Yeah. That's it. That's the moment. That's it. It's over. You got me. And I know need to sing or dance anymore.

Yeah. But of course now, now that he's, I think even then, I think all of this time, he still thought he was going to get away with it. He still thought somehow he was going to crawl his way out of this and restore his reputation. And so I think this prison sentence and the Supreme

“Court refusing to take his case was a hard awakening. And that's why he's desperate. And that's why”

he's doing all this stuff now and calling me a liar, calling Anna a liar. What else can he do? You know, there's nothing else he can do. So let's talk about what we can figure out in his psychology and really warning signs for other women, because you said at the top, which I wanted to follow up with you on, the thing about I believe he was gathering information to use against me from the start. So interesting. What do you mean?

So one of the things, and I think this is true of most of these guys, most of these con artists, I thought Paula was a very good listener at the beginning, right? Who doesn't love a good listener? Especially when you're in a vulnerable place. But what they're doing, if you go back and look at it very carefully, they give you very little information about themselves. And what they're doing is literally gathering information and stockpiling it to use against you.

They study you. They try to figure out everything they can about you so that they can use it against you. And they target you when you're vulnerable. And so this is one of the things I tell women all the time now. If you're vulnerable for any reason, whatever, there's been a death in your family, you lost a job, you just went through a divorce, a breakup, anything, anything that makes you more

“vulnerable than usual, you have to be hyper-vigilant about protecting yourself. Because this is”

one of these people target you, because it's, and it's so basic. But when you're vulnerable, when you're going through something difficult, what do you want? Do you want somebody to tell you everything's going to be okay? You want somebody to wrap their arms around you and give you a big

ex-husband is going to die. And I don't know how to do this. And I don't know how to tell my daughter.

“And he's listening to me. He's reassuring me. And at the same time, he's figuring out what”

my weaknesses are or what my vulnerabilities are. And they turn it around and they use it against you. This is a weird reference, but it's almost like a dog in heat, how, you know, the humans walking around the dog have no idea, but every male dog in the neighborhood is at your door like sociopaths have that sense when a woman is in trouble. Yes. And when she's vulnerable. I don't know how they develop it. They do. It's a very strong, effective radar.

They can find them in a crowded field. They can, they know in like death in the family. It doesn't have to be like, you're a basket case. It can be like, I just had something really

sad happen to me. And I'm feeling kind of low. They have like a homing beacon.

Exactly. I call it the vulnerability radar. So even if that applies by the way, that applies by the way, that anybody, I would, I noticed, and I thought about this in hindsight at a party, for instance, you know, there were certain people, Paula wouldn't spend a lot of time talking to. And later, and it was subtle, people didn't know, but later I had to find out that those people didn't like him or that there was

something about him that didn't necessarily make them suspicious, but they were turned off by him. And he kind of knows it. You know, he knew who he could play with and who he couldn't. So yeah, they're highly skilled manipulators and highly skilled at knowing who they can target. I mean, it's, yeah, not unlike any other criminal. They don't work out. They pray in it. For mere mortals to respond to appropriately, to see through, to identify, you know, I've

said, it's my audience many times, but my husband and I are very different in this lane, because he would be somebody, Paula would spend no time with because Doug is very good at, like, sociopath, Dar, you know, he just knows immediately when he's met a bad person. And ironically, as the newsperson and you think it'd be the opposite, but I'm like, "No, you're being too hard on

him. He's a nice guy." And Doug's always right. And I was actually just a marriage.

I finally got to the point where I'm like, "If Doug says he's bad, he's bad." He's bad. I should not trust my own instincts on this. But from mere mortals out there dealing with these skilled sociopaths, it's a very uneven playing field. So you, as a mere mortal,

“if you don't have Doug's sociopath, Dar, you have to follow the clues that beneath is giving”

you. Like, you are most vulnerable when something has happened to you, whether you're strong, normally you're not, you're putting out the scent that you know, victim here. You also, I know, you talked about it a little bit. You didn't use the term, but I know you've talked about the fog that these guys can create around you. And I think that'll be familiar to a lot of people. You feel it. You don't know what it is. You feel the fog. So talk about how they create that and what that is.

But it's a form of gaslighting, right? So there are master manipulators, and they come into the relationship or the friendship, whatever it is, could be even be a business arrangement quite frankly, with some sort of nefarious intention. They want something from you, whether it's money, whether it's whatever it is. And so they're plotting the whole time. And so they are very prepared. So if you start becoming suspicious, they're very prepared for that. And they come back at you

rapid fire. You know, they have an answer for everything, and they shoot you down so fast, and they get angry. And they question you, why would you ask me that? And what, you know, and they have evidence. You know, they have all the evidence. And so it's gaslighting. So you start thinking, oh, okay, maybe it's me. You know, maybe I'm wrong. And it feels like a fog. You know, you just feel, you can't quite figure it out, but you know that you, something doesn't feel right,

but they're so convincing and so rapid fire. And so determined to shoot you down, that

“you just start thinking, okay, it must be me. And that's why I call it the fog. And it's very”

intentional. It's very manipulative because again, it's designed to distract you and sort of muddy the waters and, you know, get you off the sense of something's wrong or whatever it is that you've clued into. And they're very, very good at it. It's kind of, it's the way you feel when you have a little blood sugar. Oh, that's so interesting. It's so true. Yeah. That's exactly what it's like. Yeah. Your brain's just a little muddled. You're not 100% yourself. You're slightly confused. You're not

processing things as quickly as you normally do. Just like there's some separation between the real you and the current you. And they're so good at creating it. They can create it just like

very smart. So it's not, it's not illogical their responses and their manipulations. And that brings

“me to another thing you said about how you said, oh, he, he probably would have canceled the”

wedding, claiming, oh, there's some massive security threat. Or you talked about how he said, some trip was canceled because of an emergency that the big excuse for the cancellation or the let down is also a characteristic of these people. Yeah. I call out the walking catastrophe. So if you're, if you're dating somebody or again, it could be a business relationship, it could be a friendship.

And there's one dramatic excuse after the other. It's always dramatic, right? It's somebody's

in the hospital or I'm in the hospital or somebody's dead or something so dramatic that if you, if you question them, let's say you're supposed to go on a date with somebody in there. Oh, you know, my kid got hit by a car. If you then question them and well, I thought we were going away for the weekend. I thought we were going on a date. You looked like the idiot and the asshole because you're, who wouldn't be empathetic and sympathetic in that situation. And it's very calculated.

It's designed again to make, you know, to take the focus of what they're not doing or why they're not showing up and make you feel bad. And, but it's a huge red flag. I mean, if it happens once, it's okay, that's life, you know, things happen. But if it happens over and over again, these dramatic, wild, you know, excuses and catastrophes, that's a giant red flag. So looking back on your relationship with Paulo before poked. Was there a moment, you know,

now in retrospect, was there a moment or two that you can point to or you're like, I want to talk to that girl and say sweetheart, this is a big deal. Here's your red flag like run. It's so hard because it's such a slow weaving of the web of lies, you know, it's so meticulous and again, that fog. So it's happening very gradually. And by the time you realize that you're insured in this web, this spider's web, you know, it's too late. It's been going on,

I mean, keep in mind, we were dating from almost two years. So it's hard for me to pinpoint a moment like that clearly, not having been to the house in Barcelona, it was a huge red flag. But we were arguing about that. It wasn't, it wasn't as if I didn't question them about that. And there were things about the wedding that I questioned them about. So again, there wasn't one big giant thing that said, you know, wake up because he had the credentials, everything as nuts as it sound,

also seemed equally plausible, you know, he, he had a, he's very adept at explaining things into sense and to them making sense. So with you, we speculated maybe this was about getting a friend in the media, getting a getting a beautiful NBC piece and perhaps more, or, you

know, who knows, because he did encourage you ultimately to quit NBC. So at that point,

but you're still a journalist, you still have connections, and at this point, he may just be seeing it through. But in general, do you think it's just the high, have we talked about like, of lying,

“of fooling someone's smart, like, you know, like a guy who gambles and goes for the high of winning?”

Is it, is it like that? Normally, because I think this happens to people who don't have the kind of power and job that you had. Yeah, I think it goes back to the narcissism. I've asked experts about this, and, I mean, one of the things is people like him don't go in the therapy, obviously, so they don't know a lot about these type of people, but one person explained it to me that all the, okay, let's say you were standing on the edge of a cliff,

and somebody's about to push you off. Think of all the things you'd be feeling, you know, the fear, the anxiety, the trepidation, this person said that it's almost like a part of their brain is missing, right? So all those things that we feel, you know, fear, anxiety, remorse, guilt, you know, all the normal things people feel when they're dealing with other human beings, or they make a mistake, it's like that part of their brain is blank. They feel nothing. They have

no empathy, they have no reverse, they have no guilt. And so therefore, they're always seeking

a high, something that sort of jolt's their brain into feeling something because it's almost blank. And so the rush and the high of getting away with lying is just fueling them. It's just fueling their ego. It's almost like they need it, like they can't exist without it.

“So now what is every time I've heard your story, I think, how is she ever going to trust somebody again?”

How is she going to fall in love again? You're still a young woman, you're beautiful,

you up against the major trust issues at this point? So first of all, I don't think you can go

through something like this and not. I have trust issues. I mean, it would be impossible. I mean, something would be wrong with me if I didn't. And it's taken a while. I mean, this has been, you know, I was 2015, we were supposed to get married. So we're nine years as summer.

“And I think I didn't realize it at first, but what when I first started dating people that”

were more than casual, I was choosing people that I knew I wouldn't fall in love with. And I think that was a way of protecting myself because if I, if I wasn't really in love with somebody, then somebody couldn't hurt me, right? Now, so it has taken me a long time, but I am now in a, in a, in fact, I'm sitting in this house right now. I'm in a very serious, very happy lovely relationship. We've been together for a little over a year now. So that's awesome. Yeah,

thank you. Thank you. I imagine he's got his challenges. I mean, I feel like if I were dating you and I was your boyfriend, I'd be like, I'm going to work and you can call me there and you can speak to my boss and you can come by any time. And here's my everything number. Like, I feel like I would feel the need to bend over backward to prove to you everything I'm telling you is true. Yeah. And yeah, I'm lucky because he's very patient and very, very understanding and really,

really gets what I've been through. And I have my moments, believe me, and I put him through the ringer, but he's, he's really good. And he's very good at immediately sort of quelling any anxiety I have. And yeah, he's just a good guy. It's the final thing. You know, Benie, I hadn't thought about this word, but I think it's, it's apt. You've been abused. This was an abusive relationship. Yeah. And there's PTSD that goes along with that is trauma. It's, it's, you know,

“and trauma doesn't go away overnight. So, and it's something you have to be very cognizant of.”

And there are times when that's really frustrating. You know, sometimes I've even said that to him. I'm behave, I behave a certain way. I'm like, it was sucks. You know, I hate that I'm doing this. I hate that I'm acting this way. I'm hate that I feel this way. You know, I don't want to give polo that power. And I try to really, I happen to, you know, women who have been sexually abused, or you take something that's supposed to be absolutely lovely and enjoyable. And if source of

connection and turn it into something that's really fraught and complicated for a woman, it's the ongoing victimization of a woman in this position. And that that's how I see what's happening to you, too, as a result of him. I'm delighted that you have a partner. What, what do you, what do you do with your daughter? Like, she must be 21 now. She, right? She's 21. Yeah, she'll be 21 in the fall. Yeah. So, how do you talk to her about, I mean, she's clearly she's seen it all,

but like, what, what are the takeaways? Like, what kind of lessons do you impart to your daughter over something like this? So, please not repeat mom's mistakes for one thing. Um, and to learn from my mistakes and I'm, I'm very, I've been very, very transparent with her about everything. And we've

always had a very close relationship, maybe closer than we might have just because her dad died

and she's been the two of us. So, and she's a strong cookie. She's a smart cookie. You know,

“that kid is this super wise and no nonsense. I'm not worried about her at all. You know, I think”

thankfully she, I think she's proud of me and she's, you know, she sees what I've done with us and she's proud of me for speaking up against him and fighting back, but she won't make my mistakes. You know, she's, she has, she's right about this in her college application essay. I certainly hope she used it for, this is not way for good. I know, she does, she prefers not to deal with it and I appreciate that. You know, she, she deserves to have her own life and her privacy

and, um, very adamant about shielding her from this now because, you know, she shouldn't be hanging over her for the rest of her life either. Uh, and 50 years old, I have to, I'm a big fan of compartmentalization now. I really believe in it. I don't believe what we're sure we have to talk about everything. The more you can shove it down and ignore it, like a good press material in the better. Um, as my husband, I'm Catholic, but anyway, the last thing, how about

professionally? Because, like, you didn't go back to NBC, right? What are you doing now? Um, I'm, I freelance, but I'm very busy. I'm a showrunner. I'm sure running two different true crime shows at the moment now. Oh, good. And so yeah, no, I'm busy back to work. Um, I also narrate stuff. So, um, and I, yeah, I actually like, I didn't think I would, but I like

the freelance life and not being, you know, tied to one job always all the time. So, that's good.

Everything's good. Yeah. And I'm sure, well, if you're investigating murders over an investigative discovery, you're not, you know, falling in love with your subject matter. So that's good. That's, uh, that door has been closed. Oh, all the best to you. Thank you for telling

it's something I know you'll probably feel the need to respond to his documentary, but I do

“hope you can close this door and, and move on from it. You get so much to do and so much to live.”

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's nice knowing that I'm able to help other women by sharing

my story and that always keeps me going, but it does, you know, it's reaching the point where,

okay, enough. It's time to stop talking about this, you know? Well, I live on with my life. I just want to, I just want to be happy and move on with my life. I know, uh, I and so many others are grateful that you did, that you did tell a story and you found the guts, even though it's parts of it, I'm sure felt humiliating and you didn't want to do it, but good on you. You're the only reason you were the actors. Thank you. He's been held accountable, hopefully more to come. All the best

you. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Yeah. Wow. So happy to have been to telling her story and helping others. It was the vacation of a lifetime. Chris Smith

was leaving his successful yet stressful business career behind for the open sea and a chartered

yacht. He emailed his family to tell them the news. He would keep them updated for a while, but then nothing. The email stopped the calls. No. And no Chris. Our guest Matt Murphy has an in-depth knowledge of this particular case. He spent 17 years as a senior deputy district attorney in the Orange County homicide unit and successfully prosecuted dozens of cases, including this one back in 2018. His forthcoming book is called The Book of Murder, a prosecutor's journey through

love and death, and it's out in September and available for pre-order right now. That's my kind of book. I'm definitely ordering and reading that. I recommend you do the same.

Matt, welcome to the show. Happy to be here. Yeah. Happy to have you and

tip of the hat to you for a lifespan in putting bad guys in jail. I love prosecutors. I mean, that all, not universally, but as a rule, the good ones are the best and we need them desperately.

“So, thank you for all of that you've done. Okay. So, let's go back. Where were you prosecuting a journey?”

What during the relevant time frame? So, I was in Orange County, California. And Orange County's a little bit different the way they handled their home sites than almost every other GAs, I've seen notes states. It's called a vertical prosecution concept. And what that means is when you come into sexual assault where I spent four years before I got to homicide or the homicide unit or certain other specialized units, you get assigned a patch of the county. So, I had Laguna Beach,

Newport Beach, Cusmas, and Irvine. And any murders that happen, you get the call in the middle of the night, you roll out through investigator, you're there, three in the morning, signing warrants. So, you get in at the very, very beginning and then it's called vertical because you follow it all the way up the insistent. So, on certain cases, you're there, you know, as the crime lab is processing the dead body and in others, you're there, like in a missing person capacity, trying to help police

“solve the mystery. So, it's kind of a unique way of doing it. I think every day is off in America,”

should do it that way, you get to know the detectives, get to know all the witnesses, you get a real feel for the case long before you ever stand up in front of a jury and try the thing. So, that's where I was. So, at the time you're doing that, there's a guy named Edshin in the jurisdiction and he's been leading an interesting life, a very bright guy, the, an only child, but he, before he came into your life, had definitely had a couple of

questionable pieces of behavior, including with respect to his own parents. Yeah, so Edshin, as you can see in the photo, he's, you want to use his CDA, he goes a handsome guy and on the surface, he was kind of an all-American dude. He, he had a very beautiful wife, he had three kids at the time. He's going to Disneyland, he was engaging in weekly Bible study, and he had parents who are very much devoted to him, but he, he had some sketchy stuff in his

past. He got in that big bitter lawsuit, he tried to buy magazine, like a collectibles magazine for sports memorabilia, and that went belly up and resulted in a bunch of lawsuits and accusations. He, there was a, a really bizarre incident where he may have fake his own kidnapping, trying to get money out of his dad, but that didn't go anywhere criminally because it was all sort of interfamily-wise, but by the time he met Chris, Ed was working in what's called the advertising

lead business, so those commercials that you see it like three in the morning, like consolidate

probably not rolling home. I mean, old enough, I'm older than you, but you know, those things that

“when you're young, you come home from an either partying and you turn on the TV, and it's like,”

those, those commercial, those are those are advertising leads, and the way that works is, like Mesothelium or whatever, they, these companies will actually put those ads out, and people who call aren't calling the law firm or the hair restoration guys or the debt consolidation guys, they're, they're calling the advertising company who then contracts with people that actually provide the services, and it's this really weird niche where it's, they, they base it on the amount of

time, how many, how many calls or clicks they get, and it was largely unregulated by the FCC at the beginning, so it was kind of the wild west, and it was in the area where you could make a tremendous amount of money if you knew how to do it, and so Chris Smith goes, he's in this business working for a total legitimate company, grows up in Santa Cruz, moves out of Temecula, California, and he meets Ed Shen, he works for another company, they're both like late 20s, handsome guys,

Chris is living in, uh, uh, nice place in Temecula, but they, they hit it off, and there's a lot of junk gets and boom dawgles, and these guys go to Vegas a lot, and Chris was pretty straight, he was like a, he was more of the artistic side, um, you would do the actual ads, ad was all business, and with this degree from UC San Diego, he was in a fraternity, again kind of the all American kid, um, they became friends and they decided that they were going to, um,

“start their own business, so it like, I think they were 31 at the time, they're the same age,”

they started a business in Orange County called 800 Exchange, where they would set up these advertising campaigns and contract the various, you know, providers of this service, these guys made

over $12 million in their first year, um, with almost zero overhead, right, it was, it was an

insane amount of money, and they knew how to do it, they were good at it, and they have this very successful business. So Chris, um, moves to Laguna Beach, and what, when I, I went to Los Cones, San Diego, um, I lived in Laguna for my first four years, uh, as a DA, so you got a picture one of the most beautiful places, I don't know if you've ever been there or not, but um, it's got these little mountains that overlap the ocean, you know, it's really, yeah, it's, it's gorgeous,

right, so it's a bunch of artists there, and, um, anyway, he moves there, he is, uh, he's a fanatical surfer, um, like I've been for most of my life, and he actually lived not far away from where my partner was, and he's got, um, he's living the dream, really, he's got this, uh, this ridiculously successful business, he moves his brother down, who we love to death, he's very close with family, moves his brother and his bride, and, and they're, they're two kids down from Santa Cruz,

and, um, life was going great, um, until it wasn't. So 12 million in the first year on this

business that Chris dreamed up, and then Ed and he formed this partnership, and it seems like a partnership made in heaven, because Ed's more straight-laced and can handle the business aspects, and Chris is the dreamer, excuse me, who can handle the creative aspects, and they're each kind of doing what they want, though it must be said, Chris always had one foot in the ocean,

“I mean, he was succeeding at business, but I think it's fair to say, his communications with”

his family made pretty clear, he was always dreaming of doing something else, maybe bartending out of beach someplace. Right, so pretty much any hardcore surfer that you meet has that dream of, um, you know, sailing off in the sunset, right? I mean, you, I'm sure you've known servers, I don't know where you're from originally, but I'm from Upstate, New York, but I have a brother in law in California, so I do, I do know some. Yeah, so it's like they'll have that, everybody has

that dream of, you know, literally sailing off in the sunset with a surfboard under one arm, with a beautiful woman, and finding a beach someplace where you can, you know, sort of unplug and go surfing, and Chris would go to Indonesia every year into these boat charters, which is something that I've done for the last, by 25 years, I get a group of buddies, and you take these trips into Indonesia, and every one of them, you, you want to stay a little bit longer, because it's, um,

living in the ocean, eating great food, surfing all day, every day, it really is the dream of every surfer, and he, he talked openly about this to friends and family, um, he was going to be

a professional wake order, um, he's, he was always water oriented, uh, group surfing Santa Cruz,

area, um, and so now, you know, it's living in Laguna, living, he's driving a range rover that's paid for by the company, he was about to propose to his fiance, who is, um, you know, this kid, a lot of people think of California, you know, the, the dream of California, um, let's

coastline, um, pretty much from, you know, Santa Cruz down to the Mexican border, there are people

“that really have this idyllic lifestyle, and that was, that was Chris, and he would talk openly”

about, I can't wait to leave the route race and sail off into the sunset, and he told a lot of people about his dream of doing that. Hmm, another thing that you guys had in common, as I understand it was faith, they were both meant of faith. Well, Ed was very, Ed Shen was very into, uh, church, like I said, Bible study, and he presented, he's got this, um, you know, this, this beautiful young wife, he's got these kids, he's going to Disneyland a lot, um, uh, social media-wise, he's

posting a bunch of photos about, um, you know, how devoted he was, and in fact, the job that he got

into macula, um, uh, the, the company was called Lead Point, he met the owner of that company

in a Bible study. So, um, you know, this guy meets Ed, Ed Shen, and was so impressed with him, um, and his devotion, uh, to religion, and um, um, Christianity, he decided to, to give him this very, almost outsized responsibility in his company, and Ed was doing very well there, and that's really where he learned the, the lead business, and where he met Chris. So, um, Chris also had some religious leadings, although I don't think he was as devout as, as Ed was, um, but Chris was just,

Chris was, he's just, this really good, he's a good guy, you know, he loved his family, his parents are still together, um, devoted to his brother, um, just very, uh, love his girlfriend. I'm sorry.

“I think the brother's Paul, is that Paul? Yeah. Yeah, he's also just a great guy, so you,”

this kind of like, um, quintessential California kid who's Chris Smith. So, what happened before Ed Shen formed the partnership? Because as I understand it, he came to the partnership in debt. He, he owed some money. Well, so great question. So, nothing actually, at least they didn't know anything had happened before they formed a partnership. But almost right after the ink is dry and they, and it both leave their companies, um, there was what appeared originally to be an accounting irregularity, which I

think is how I first put an accounting irregularity with lead point. And what that turned into is the

owner got into the books and realized that there was, uh, not only a whole bunch of clients that went with Ed, you know, and that, that's a common thing, and that sparks more than one to speed out there, but there's also a bunch of missing money. And in fact, the money, um, at the more, the closer they looked, the more money they found was missing, and it wound up, um, totally about $700,000. So, right after Chris essentially attaches himself to Ed, there were these financial

problems that started arising in Riverside County. So, they get in there and, um, you know, a hundred thousand turned into 200,000 turned into three pretty soon. This is a substantial amount of money, enough that it attracted the attention of the district attorney's office in Riverside County. There's a criminal investigation, and as you can imagine, a whole slew of lawsuits over this missing money. Meanwhile, Chris is, um, he's almost learning about this in real time because he worked

for a different company when he met Ed, and he signed on for this. He's totally unaware of it. Now, all of a sudden, there's lawsuits where, as, as partner, he's being named as a codependent, and this idealic kind of awesome surfer lifestyle suddenly has this huge injection of stress. And he's not sure, um, he's not sure, uh, you know, how much it, how much of this is kind of

“dragging down, how much his company is liable for it now. And remember all this money and he's his brother”

has moved down, he's invested in the future, bringing his family down. So, Chris decides he wants to protect his interests. And essentially what the arrangement was, Chris was the creative guy. So he would work, he'd surf in the mornings, and then he'd work late into the night doing these creative entities advertising campaigns. Ed was the business guy. So Ed actually on 55% of business and Chris trusted him. So it was like, hey, you handle the books, you handle the

business side. I'll do all the campaigns together. We'll, we'll combine our talents. We'll make money for ourselves and setting these other companies. That was the idea. So now, um, Chris has no access to the books. And he's concerned that, um, that this is going to drag him down. Um, he's worried about his reputation. He's worried about all kinds of, like, that the professional implications of this. But then he, uh, the criminal case progresses to a point that Ed's shin actually pleats guilty

to embezzlement. And he's ordered by a superior court judge in Riverside County to pay back $700,000.

custody time on weekends. But he's essentially, um, allowed to remain free so that he can operate his

“business. Um, but there's, um, there's a sentence hanging over his head of 16 months in state prison.”

So he's going to do what that means in California, depending on our, our crazy legislature, um, you're going to do at least 50% of that time and depending on the way it's charged up to 80 percent. So he's looking at at least eight months actual prison time if he does not make good on this restitution murder. So that's, there's this big gigantic, um, axe hanging over Ed's head and Chris knows about this. And he's, you know, the nightmares are, uh, all the lawsuits are

nightmare form. And then he's, um, he's worried that to come up with this money and Ed should

have plenty of money because Ed is also controlling the accounts. Um, but Chris hurts to worry that

maybe he's going to, you know, he doesn't want, he doesn't want any of his money to go to pay Ed's debt, right? So he hires the lawyer named Ernesto Alvar, really, really good guy who specializes in business disputes and they start negotiating his ability to look at the books and to have more control over the money and he wants to co-sign checks and things like that. And, um, so this goes on and on for a few months as they're negotiating those. And, um, all of a sudden Ernesto

“gets, uh, gets an email from Chris sent June 4th 2010 Friday, June 4th 2010. Right, uh, at, I think it's”

610 in the evening. Um, he gets this, uh, this email saying I've decided to let Ed buy me out of the company and essentially begins, um, this, uh, you know, telling friends and family, everybody starts getting these emails saying, "Hey, have to side it that I'm going to, I'm going to live my dream and talk about it for years. I'm sailing off into this sunset. I met a woman in Las Vegas, named Tiffany Taylor, and I've decided to sail to the Galapagos Islands with Tiffany Taylor. And, yeah, that's when, uh,

I became involved pretty soon after that, which is also kind of interesting. Which is a total head snap moment because everyone thought he was in love and, well, even engaged or close to engaged to another woman, and he wasn't, from what his parents said, the kind of guy who was like, yeah, hot, playboy babe, he wasn't that kind of guy. Right, right, so Ed was, Ed was really, Ed love Las Vegas. They do a lot of business junkets for their company out there. Um, Chris was not into the flash.

And we actually had a woman that worked for the company named Jennifer Matthews, who, when she testified about Chris and she described Chris, she said that he was, when they do these business junkets in Vegas, um, Chris would go back to his room and go sleep and Ed would be up until, you know, two and three in the morning, doing the Vegas thing, um, which I'll get into in a bit, I guess. But, um, yeah, this was a head snap moment because

he loves his, he loves his soon to be fiancee. They've been dating for a while, uh, and, you know, he flew his brother down. He's supposed to pick up his brother at the airport. It's brother's flying back in a town and, um, Chris didn't show up. And also, he gets this, this email that hey man, I've sealed off into the sunset with this beautiful playboy's centerfold. And, uh, you know, I'll catch you on the flip side basically. Wow. And the fiancee too, or about to be fiancee,

got dumped via email. Right. Right. And dumped in the most brutal harsh way. It was, it was, it was done via email. And it was, um, from an email that was apparently associated with Chris. And it was basically, I don't love you anymore. I've met somebody else. Um, and I'm, you know, I, I'm, we're done. And, which was, at the end, looking back, it was diabolically clever to do that, because now she was, um, first she was devastated. And then she was very angry as, as you can sort of

imagined. So, um, plus she, you know, she had a million conversations with him about his dream

of sailing off into the sunset. She just always figured it would be with her. Right. So, it was at

this point. I would think like, in, in my own life, I would think at this point of somebody near and dear to me, sent these emails, even knowing that he had a pension to wander. And, you know, he just

“had to wander last. I think I'd say, I don't know. I'm not sure. You know, hindsight's 2020. But”

did anybody in the family right away say something's off? So, um, I think right away, everybody was shocked. They were, they were shocked that he would, they would do this. But then when it's settled in, they all, you know, they knew about him. They knew about his dream of surfing the world. And they knew about his trips to Indonesia. And, you know, at first it was, everybody was shocked and disappointed

it was consistent, in a way, not, not him leaving everybody in the lurch. They were, they were

completely flower gassing at the way broke up with, with Erica, his girlfriend. But, um, you know, it kind of made sense. Now, what happened was Paul said, hey, you know, after a couple of, and these emails, they're, they're voluminous. You know, they went back and forth, they were emails to his brother, they were emails to his mother, emails to his father separately. Um, so these things were, they were ongoing. And the, the, I'm sailing off into the sunset thing, um, turned into, hey, uh, Globgus,

we're awesome. Now I'm heading down to Tierto Fuego. And I'm going to check out these islands off

“Argentina. And this was an ongoing narrative. And Paul at one point, literally, I think it was,”

I think he started with dude. Like, dude, at least show me a photo of you and, and this, this new woman,

Tiffany Taylor. So he gets a picture of Tiffany Taylor getting out of a swimming pool. And, um, Tiffany Taylor, it is a, um, you know, what, what Paul is looking for is Paul is looking for a photo of the two of them together like on a mobile boat or, you know, and what he gets is he gets what looks like a modeling photo of Tiffany Taylor who's gorgeous getting out of a swimming pool in a bikini. So that, you know, he asked for a photo and he got, he got a photo, but it wasn't really what he was

looking for. And so, you know, one month turns into two, turns into three. Now the, his, his mother is starting to worry. And the emails are getting darker and darker. So it starts out with him, sailing off in the sunset with a super hot chick. And it, that turns into, um, I've been having a lot of thoughts about my childhood, um, you know, I've got a lot to work through. And then the description turns into, as the trip continues, it turns into, hey, I'm going to Africa. And,

um, I met a guy and here in Bombay that he's got a silver, just met him, but I'm going to get on a silver and go up to Algeria. And then he starts talking about going into the Congo to buy a conflict diamond for his brother, which is like, it starts out the most awesome trip ever. I'm sailing off to go pursue my dream of surfing. And that turns into, I'm having a lot of like feelings about

“my childhood and, you know, I've, I've had really dark thoughts. I thought about the worst thing”

and there's these suggestions of suicide. And then it turns into the trip from hell where he's took a mother's worst nightmare where the mother's receiving text messages about getting on a boat with a random dude in Bombay or Mumbai, um, and heading to North Africa on his way to the Congo because he's heard of a place where he can sell gold coins because he had he had collected crew grants, which is a, you know, it's an international gold coin that you can sell, you know,

and he's talking about, he had those, the family knew about that and he's talking about going, you know, to the Congo, buy himself with a pocket full of gold coins looking about a conflict diamond. It's just, right, like, what could he possibly go around? What could possibly go around, right? So his mother reached a point where she's so distraught and this is a really nice family. I mean, there's her, you know, um, it's a really nice family. So this is your all-American mom

who loves her son to death, who's getting emails like that and she's literally on Google Earth, like zooming in on the satellite photos and random villages in the Congo trying to find a glimpse of her son. And, um, so the, uh, the dad, then the dad, then the dad, then the dad sends an email trying to check, you know, I mean, if, if think about it, if you wanted to make sure this person was really your family member, there are definitely questions we could all think of that only that family

member would know, you know, something from deep in the childhood, something specific, and so the dad, the dad, did he have a background in law enforcement? Because he, I guess he thought up this, this idea. He did. So I don't know if you're aware of the, the rivalry between firemen and

police officers, but I don't know if you're aware of that. They're always back. He talks about

each other. Anyway, he started out as a police officer and then he decided he wanted to be a fireman, which is a, a betrayal to all police officers, but, um, but, you know, he, he did he had a background in law enforcement and he, um, he essentially, he started getting more and more suspicious. And there's

“a couple of things going on here. I think that, you know, this went on for almost almost a year,”

where these emails are coming into the family. And, um, a lot of people think, you know, helped somebody believe that, um, but, you know, when you, when you have somebody that you love dearly and you're getting these emails that at least demonstrates that they're still alive, the, the alternative is almost too brutal to think about. So you, you, a, a mother's wish for her son to

So, the dad, however, um, he starts sending, um, he starts asking questions and they're almost

“quizzes and it was, um, what, what lake did you grow up, water skiing on was one of the, was one”

of the questions and what was the name of our boat? And the response was dad, it was Kelly Lake, chill out, I'm fine. That was essentially the response, but he doesn't answer what kind of boat it was, which was actually when it being very significant. So the dad decides he's going to come down to to Orange County and he comes down and he meets with Ed Shen and, um, Ed was one of the last people to see him to see Chris. So he, um, you know, Ed sits down with the dad and Ed is,

he's, he's calm and he's smooth and he explains, look, we have this ongoing business dispute, it's not a problem. Uh, he decided that he wanted to take this trip around the world that everybody in Chris's life had heard about and he's like, so I decided to buy him out. Uh, he insisted that he wanted the money, uh, wired to the camins. Uh, I can get you all the banking

“information. That's not a problem. Um, and, and then he says, you know, but essentially you should be,”

you should be aware that, um, uh, I was also with him when he got a fake passport because he wanted to go off the grid. Okay. So he's, he provides all this information to Steve Smith who's, he's completely hanked up. It doesn't make sense, but then we, it's almost reassuring the talk to Ed because he's so convincing and he's so smooth and he's so non-plossed by the whole thing. And so, um, yeah, so he, but that's the question. Like why would he need a fake passport? He's not

under criminal indictment. He's not being investigated. Why would he just be traveling under his own real passport? Right. So then we, and the answer to that really is, of course you're right, but Rhys was one of those guys that part of his dream was like, I want to unplug from the rat race. I want to completely distance myself from society. I want to go someplace and just completely, you know, check out for a while. So, so, yes, you're right. If you're right, take a trip like this.

I mean, I get into, I do, I do, I do every year. I use my own fat, my own passport. Um, but for him, it almost made sense. You know, it was, you know, he talked about, you know,

“Chris talked about his concern about, um, you know, what, hey, what if the monetary system collapses?”

That was one of the things that he kind of talked about. He was a rational guy, but he, you know, this is part of his, you know, his sort of fantasy of leaving. And so when he heard fake passport, it, it struck him as being very odd, but it wasn't 100% unbelievable, if that makes sense. Eventually, the landlord, right, of the facility in which Chris and Edgen ran their business, gets involved because they're overdue on rent. They've moved out, like Edgen pulled the

business and relocated it, but he's in a rears on his old rent, which is irritating to that landlord,

which is also another pivotal moment here. Right. So, he, they basically skipped out. So,

they, they, they've got a year lease, and he, you know, nine months later, soon after Chris left for this trip, supposedly, he had packed up the business and moved to a different location and stiffed the landlord for many months rent. So, the landlord actually, one of the other tenants is a private investigator named Joe Delu, who's a former officer at Laguna Beach Police, and he makes his living as a, as a PI. So, he, the landlord, is essentially complaining to him one day

about this tenant, and he's got this big empty office space, and doesn't know where the guy is, and would Joe be willing to help track him down. And Joe, of course, you know, was, was happy to do it,

and he starts poking around, and he went, and one of the first things he did is he went,

he talked to the dad, and he got these emails between him and Chris, and he, he looked at the question about the, about the boat and the lake, and that, he saw the answer that it was just, that he just answered with the lake, and that struck him as being very odd. So, he decided to actually go in and ask for permission to enter the business, and it's been abandoned, okay. So, there's, there's no reasonable expectation of privacy if you rent, if you rent a business from

somebody or you rent a home, you, you know, and you abandon it, the landlord has a right to go back inside. So, Joe Delu walks in and very soon after making entry, he sees what appears to be blood

So, he backs out and calls the sheriff's department. Now, meanwhile, what has happened is, I've got

“my jurisdiction covered Laguna Beach. The family had filed a missing person's report with Laguna,”

and they brought Ed in, and this thing's on video, Megan, and I'm telling you, it's a day for 26 years. You see this interview, it is fascinating because Edshin is so convincing, and these two detectives sit down, and they're like, hey, family, it's trying to find their, their son, what's to deal, and he, he's almost perfect. He is calm. He is like, he doesn't break a sweat. He describes how that,

you know, Chris was always talking about this around the world trip, and he's sitting on a beach

someplace, and about halfway through the interview, I'll leave the names of the detectives out. You can just see they relax, and they buy it, they believe him, and, you know, it becomes, sort of a, that was kind of the end, right? I taught a class at the Sheriff's Academy for young detectives, and at right about the same time, I finished a class and walking out to the parking lot, and I almost get tackled by this very young detective from Laguna Beach, named Julia Bowman,

who, he says, you know, I really want to talk to you about this. I'm going to get in trouble if my boss finds out that I've cornered you, but there's, there's something that's all wrong here, and this

makes no sense, and I've looked into it, and they believe him, and I don't, and I went up, I actually

“got sunburned, and like, you know, I'm, I'm Irish, right? I think Irish background for you, so you know,”

that's something I want to do. Oh my gosh, so she corners me next to my car, and I went up talking with about 45 minutes, and I got the worst sunburn because it was so compelling, and this is my, this is my patch, this is my jurisdiction, and this is, that was my job, so try to help police figure this out, but Laguna officially hadn't come to me with an issue. So I've got this junior detective putting this on my radar, and I start, I started looking into it, and I find out right about the

same time, so San Juan Capastrona was where the business was, so Joe De Lou has just gone in, that was my colleague, Burjit Baitai, had that section, so I sit down with Burjit, we have a meeting with Laguna, and the sheriff's department, Laguna has almost no murderers, but the sheriff's, or one of the most, or it's kind of sheriff's, or one of the most professional homicide investigate investigative groups in the country. They deal with enough of them, they're real

pros, so we all sit down, and we decide I'm going to prosecute, or I'm going to help in the investigation if there's anything ever filed, they are going to handle the investigative part,

and we start putting the pieces together, and one of the first things we learn is there was another

junket out to Vegas, and Paul, who is now really worried about his brother, he's still working for the company, and they go out and they're in this casino, they were staying at almost everything

“was at the win or the encore, so two of the nicest hotels in Las Vegas, and that's what they”

would do these business chunkets, and there's a world known as atmosphere modeling, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. There's a great episode in the show, Silicon Valley, and I think either the first of the second episode where they encounter, they go to a toga party that's thrown by this billionaire, like tech billionaire, and they encounter atmospheric models, and basically what it is, is it is, you can hire beautiful women to come to your party, and talk to all the

guys that are socially awkward, but you want to have investors, or whatever, they can, you know, make a company look super busy and awesome, and all that, and they, Paul looks over and they've got atmosphere models, and they're across the room at the business chunket for 1,800 exchange, is Tiffany Taylor, and he makes a B-line for her, and he's like, hey, aren't you supposed to be traveling the world with my brother, and she looks, what I'm in says, I'm really sorry that I've

no idea what you're talking about, and that's when the bottom fell out for Paul Smith, and also for the family, because he knows at that point, being well, Ed is going, no, no, no, it's a different Tiffany Taylor, and he's going, this is the woman in the photo that I got from my brother, and she's real name is not Tiffany Taylor, her real name is Summer Hanson, she was a playboy center full, and she, she wanted to be kind of a hero in this case in a lot of ways, and she is, she's stunning,

and Paul is in this, you know, in this casino, his brother's gone, and at that moment, he knew that something horrible had happened. So we put some soundbites from some of that, I've listened to the 2020 in the outline of what just stories on this day, just over the years,

and at the same time, just about that Paul was finding out there's no Tiffany Taylor,

“they were finding disturbing things inside the office along the lines of what you described here it is in”

Sattu. Sergeant Sponvoid, Ray Wurt, Orange County Sheriff's Department, first thing to do,

sense of text over to take a good close look around the old 800 exchange office, that's when they started finding more suspicious spots, unsealing tiles, behind some molding, they pulled up carpet and found dark colored stains on the concrete underneath. The spots tested positive for human blood. We confirmed that all the blood in the crime scene wasn't fact Christmas, all of it, all of it. Nobody else was being in there at all. In the end, it was all from one person and it was one person's DNA.

And my understanding is they used Luminal, the carpet, and it lit up like a Christmas tree, which detects the presence of blood. Right, so now we've gone from a missing person and kind of a mystery to we've clearly got evidence of a homicide, and that little clip that you just showed

“that tiny little droplet on the on the strip, that's called cast off. So in the world of”

forensic science, when you have blood drops on a ceiling, it means that somebody has out of been stabbed multiple times or beaten with a blunt object, and when they fling it back, whether it's a knife or a bat, it tends to fling viscous blood, and there was blood on the strips on the ceiling. So this was this was health or scalter, and at that point we knew. And right about the same time, we're also learning that Ed's, you know, Mr. Bible study guy,

he was spending hours at the tables in Vegas, and we started interviewing employees that are telling us that Ed would gamble all night long with purple chips, which are $500 chips. And then we find out that he's spending so much money that he's getting calmed. The presidential suite at the on-core hotel, which is a just giving an idea, it's a two-story hotel suite with an elevator on the inside and 24-hour Butler service. It's maybe one of the

nicest physical spaces in the entire world, and it is, they're flying him out from Orange County on the on-core jet to go to Vegas. Oh, this is not a good sense. No, so so when we get back with Ernesto Alvaro, the attorney, it became pretty clear that the pressure that Chris was putting on Ed, created a huge financial motive here, because, you know, they're not, they're, you know, Ed's married, Chris about to get engaged and not dating in each other's girlfriends or wives.

There's no, the not neighbors with a dispute over a fence, they have literally no beef with each other other than money. And if Ed does not come up with $700,000 with him five months, he literally

goes to stay prison and he doesn't get engaged. Why can't he do that if they've made $12 million

in their first year, and they, and Ed owns a 55% because this, when you're a degenerate, the amlaner, he literally blew probably $10 million on the tables of the on-core and original

“hotels in Las Vegas. That's how you get a president's week comp to you. That's how you get”

the casino jet because you are at high roller. I'm sure you've seen casino, it's one of my favorite movies, you know, they talk about a whale and they're, you know, they have that, that scene where they want to get them back into the casino to, you know, to go lose his money at the tables. That basically was Ed's shun, and it was, he was gambling Chris's money. And as soon as he opens up the books, he knows that Chris is going to, Chris is going to bring some sort of

court order so that Ed, you know, he's a counselor for us, and he's going to go to state president. So I'm excited. There was a, I don't do a lot of gambling, but I know some people who do and one of them was telling me, you know, you know what they call people with a gambling problem, losers. They know, the ones who would go out there and just win because they go out there so and frequently, they don't have a problem. It's the people who go there all the time, and they

lose invariably because that odds are against them. Those are the people who have a gambling, gambling problem. Right. Yeah, Vegas and all the glitz. I mean, every, I'm sure most of you viewers have been there. I mean, that was not built on winning nights by amateur gambling. So that's, that's from people losing money. And I can't imagine that. Like a mine has been ever said to me, the, the encore hotel is going to fly us out there on their private jet, and we're staying in the presidential

suite because of what happened the last time I was there. I demand a forensic accounting of every account we have. Who'd be horrifying. Oh, well, and it gets worse than that too. Because then we

get into, we interview Ed basically hired a go for like a personal assistant who he moved into

watching that clip, I got to tell you, I love the office five years ago. I love those guys, Don and, and Ray, it just, I miss them almost every day. You know, they're such good, such good to take us. And you just see that steely-eyed, you know, if all the crap that the police get today, the vast majority of police officers in my experience are really hard-working, honest guys,

and Ray and Don, you know, putting this together with them, it's, it's like, it was amazing,

watching those guys work. So they, they go to the Chris's apartment and they find this dude, can he craft living there who is an Ed's personal assistant, and they get, he's driving around

“Chris's Range Rover. And for me, the moment, as this is all coming together, I think this is”

even before we got the blood. I can't remember the exact sequence, but for me, the absolute alarm going off when they got into Chris's apartment and his, he had two surfboards that were there, two custom made surfboards. And any surfers knows that if you're taking a surf trip anywhere, you're not leaving your boards behind. So then they did a offensive work up of the Range Rover and they found blood in the back of the Range Rover, so that was clearly as a transport. So

we then get into, we get into Ed's phones and we find out that a couple of nights after Chris went missing. Ed's phone is pinning at this place called Desert Hot Springs, which is a tiny little like dot on a map just north of the Mexican border on the way to a Clexico. And Mexico, this is like no point. No point. No any San Diego middle and nowhere, right? And it's a general rule when you wear a commissar and so on California. If you get a human body out into the Pacific Ocean

or you get a human body out into the desert, that body will not be found. If you throw a body in a lake, it's popping up. But if you throw a body in the ocean or you get somebody out into the

“desert, it's gone. And so we have one cell phone tower and it's got like, I think it's 120 mile”

radius of Desert Land and Ed pinged off that at three in the morning after running a truck at you haul or something and he drives off into the desert in the middle of the night in a pickup truck. And so we, we know where Chris's body is. But. So now, so at this point you decide, let's arrest him. But he wasn't going to make it that easy. Like it was a bit of a challenge. Well, right. So what happens is, I don't know if you used to watch get smart,

the old show gets smart. There's a gag that he'd be over and again, right when he gets caught, Maxwell Smart said, "Would you believe?" Like, "Okay, I said this, but would you believe?" And that's what Ed does. Ed was getting on a plane to go to Canada, which was a violation of his probation

“and reverse side. And also, we're getting pretty close here. And so I made the decision that,”

you know, we needed to, we needed to step up the investigation and basically take them off the

plane before he flew out of the country. So we communicated with his probation officer to determine whether or not he had a probation folder, whether he could leave the country without permission and he could not. So Ray and Don arrested him at LAX and they drive him down. And they have an interview with Ed and they kind of let him talk for a while and he tells the same story that he told the detectives that were going to be each and then he told Steve Smith the dad. And

he basically tells the same tale and then they can front him with all the information they have, they can front him with, you know, the forensics and everything else that had just been

put together. And they essentially changed his story to, okay, okay, here's what really happened.

Would you believe, we got a big argument over money and he attacked me and we got this fight and I pushed him down and he hit his head on the corner of the desk. And I didn't know what to do and I panicked. So I got this guy who's a fixer for me in Vegas who's like a Vegas host that I use and he hooked me up with this Russian guy who came and took the body. I had no idea where the body is. So that became his new story. And what's interesting is that in addition to at gambling all that money

when we interviewed Kenny Kraft, Ed was also, we had information that he was sleeping with hookers two at a time in Vegas and like high like really high dollar sex workers to the tune of about $5,000 a pop. So he's having sex spending $10,000 with two of these sex workers at a time, which kind of gives you an idea in the presidential suite, like the lifestyle of the living.

pitch has been take our sheets with you when you travel. Don't like, yes, yes, that's all.

Take 'em. Ed should as if for you walking commercial for that, I mean like two at a time in Vegas. And the nicest suite probably in Vegas and yeah, there's probably some kind of like Ed in there or two prostitutes. Not good. So let me show you. So he does eventually and I want to go back to where you are in the story, but just to show the audience, eventually you prosecuted Ed Shinn and you got him on the stand and it was on cam, which is great. And there's a little bit about

with of him. This is from 2020. Trying to tell this nonsense story here. It is not three.

“Why does that indeed? Why does that mean again? And I think at that point, I thought I had to fight back.”

I don't know if I thrown or if I shoved him, but somehow I pushed him into this area. And that's when you fell and he hit the desk to be hard. Okay, and just because the audience is going to enjoy this. Here's a little bit of our guest Matt Murphy, the prosecutor in the case, grilling Ed Shinn on this story and some inconsistencies in it. Watch how for. So how is it, Mr Shinn? You didn't have a bruise or you didn't

lead somewhere. He explained that for us. I cannot. Okay, there you are. He's on the floor of the office. He's just to stay a significant physical injury and you can dial 9111 and they can come say it. So, if you don't want to die, why don't you become 9111, Mr Shinn? So, I was in shock. If you didn't dial 9111 because you knew that if you died, you got his money, who isn't that sure? No. Wow, okay, so keep going. Okay, so first of all, that's suit that he's wearing.

It's like your show, our body. It's worth more than my entire closet put together here and in my place in New York. So, his luggage that he had off the plane was like,

“it was, I think it was Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton luggage and I remember they were,”

they were trying to get it out. I mean, everything, his, his watches his jewelry, it just, the guy ooze money. So that, I, I look at that. I'm, I'm looking at his suit as I'm watching that clip.

But, um, so we, uh, yeah, we, nobody cases are really interesting. Okay, so we never recovered

Chris's romance. And, which is brutal for the family. But, um, there's two ways you can do, a murder case we have in this embody. One, since I've got Ed describing how he fell down and hit his head, um, I can prove that Chris Smith is dead. If I play Ed's ridiculous BS, I swear on on this, no. Yeah, okay, go for it. Um, okay, all right, so I can say this is the first on public I've ever been able to say this, but it's just, it's such bullshit. He's, he describes this

scene where this guy falls down and hits his head, right? Like, and then he, and then he let's him die, and this is, this is the same night, according to him, that we've got this, you know, we've got an attorney saying that everything was coming to a head, and if he can pay the money, he stays out of prison and gets to keep going to Vegas. But if he can't, he's going to, he's going to freaking prison and, like, the most fortunate, you know, accidental head wound in history,

and he's not calling the police because he's in shock, and then he actually says he drove him around for a while, and then Megan, what he does is he describes, we, we get into it. Like, who is the guy that, that came and got the body, and he's, oh, well, he's a Russian guy, and he had a flat top, and he had blonde hair, and he's wearing a leather jacket, and he, he, describes Dolph London from Rocky III. Oh, my God. So he describes Draco, it is like,

literally, I'm sitting there listening to it, going, I know this guy, this is freaking, this is of going in a Rocky movie, literally down to the detail, he's channeling that it is editing, justifying, and I'm taking notes of this, who's going, this is insane. So I've done five nobody murders, okay, did the house case at a new port, the, the couple we got tied to the anchor and thrown overboard, did his house deal, a lot, and nobody's ever heard of, and, you know,

when you first start out as a prosecutor and you think that you don't know how Jerry's going to

react to that, and when you do a few of them, you realize that there, there can be certain advantages

“if you don't find the body, and one of them is if you have to prove the death, normally you just have”

the death of a human being is the element. So if you have a dead body, that element is satisfying, but if you have the, the, the ethical and burn of proof, obligation to prove that somebody is dead, the way you do that is you put their mom on the stand, or, or their best friend, or somebody that

you know, and what you're able to do as a prosecutor is that Jerry will be able to get a sense of who the person was as a human being. And my old, my head of mentor and homicide, it's name is Lou Rosenblum, he basically brought me into the, you know, he's one of the, you know, you've had mentors out of the course of your career, I love this man, and he took

“manners when he told me how to do murders, and he had a quote, I will never forget about no bodies,”

he said, the jury can always see the soul of your victim reflected in the eyes of those who love them.

So, and now and that's one that always stuck with me. So, I don't want to put Ed's BS self-serving story on to prove the Christmas is dead, I want to be able to prove it other ways, and with all of the emails with the glop does, the easiest way for me to do that would be to call Tiffany Taylor, right? And she's, and she's had her come in with her passport and say, I've never been to the glop does islands, and, but we couldn't find her. And we, I had Vegas Metro going out there,

we could not track her down, and I don't know if that's because she's, um, if she's moved, and she's, she's an atmosphere model, right, which is weird by itself, right, but it's a legitimate business, it's basically her, your live model. And I don't know if she's, I don't know what her involvement is in Vegas, I don't know any of this stuff, like, all I know is I need her in order to do the no body prosecution. And, um, I'd give it up, and, uh, the case was actually going to be

really difficult way we had it, and, uh, especially given that he told all his friends and family about this around the world trip, and, um, and I got a phone call on my office, and it was summer hands and crying, saying, I, you know, um, I, I, I just found out you guys been looking for me, I've, I've been in Virginia with my parents, and I'm so sorry, what can I do to help? And she, she flew in, and I was able to put her on the stand with her passport, so it she,

“that's what forced Ed to testify. If Ed, if I hadn't been able to do that, Ed Shen could have”

relied on his bullshit self-serving interview with, uh, with Don and Ray, where he came up with this cock maybe absurd story. Um, and why, how did she disprove the cock and maybe story just that it showed you, you could establish that Ed Shen was the one sending those emails, and why would he tell such a lie? Like, how, how did how was she the clincher? She was the clincher

because I could prove that Chris Smith never left the United States, because she supposedly

went to the Galapagos Islands, which means she would have had an entry into her passport, because there was all of the stuff about to be taken. That was not bad. That photo of her. Was that? Yes, stop one. That was stop one. Yeah, I see it. Right. So by her saying, I never went, it means Chris number one, which means the emails were all fake. And we were able to, the IP address, my expert on that wasn't my favorite, I'll leave his name out of it, but he basically said that the,

the text messages came, that the IP address was from North America. So that still leaves a lot of wiggle room for defense. So basically, I wanted to do this as a no-body, and I needed her to do it, and she stepped up. And I've actually kept in touch with her over the years. I was so grateful for the way she, she, she handled that, because she wasn't under subpoena. She came in voluntarily. Yeah, I was going to get the playboy in the model, the heart of gold. I like that, I like that

story. And it's, and I'm telling you, I've never, I've never asked her, you know, how much the

“CD Vegas underbelly she, she saw, but yeah, she stepped up in a huge way. That's what forced”

ed to testify. And there's a point in there where he, he starts talking about the email that he sent, and he's, he, on direct examination, he starts tearing up and so she has her shedding some effect. I have it. So you're teared up. He teared up, and you were not having it. Here's a bit of Matt Murphy's cross examination on that. So if I, I'm here enough a little bit right now, I'm okay. Is there, are you tearing up when you wrote that email to Debbie Smith saying there's Sonos

coming into suicide or suggesting that he's going to do that. Are you tearing up when you did that? Yes. Okay, you were actually at the computer tearing up as you were going to break a mother's heart. I essentially believe in her from the death of her son. That was making you feel sad. He was one of the many emotions I felt, yes. Oh my gosh, so well done, Matt.

Thank you. That's, as a prosecutor, that's, that's what you want. You want the bad guy to stand. And if every trial kind of has a moment, you know, where you can point to it, and it's like a turning point. That was the turning point of that trial. And his, his direct by the way, I mean, this is the thing about the fraudsters, Megan, and I know you've probably encountered this before. When you got a guy who makes his living by, by fooling people, right, they tend to be really good at that.

in the front row in the gallery. And the jury, we had to have her testify because he got to do it as a

“nobody because of somewhere handsome. And so there, you know, he's on a stand and he gave you that gem.”

And you almost never know exactly what's going to happen when they hit the stand, but that was,

that was one of the like, wait a minute, dude, you're, you're crying. You're trying to show emotion. And you sent a year's worth of emails. You broke up with his, it's soon to be fiancee, by saying, I don't love you anymore. Like, one of the most ruthless, heartless, we can psycho things I saw in 26 years and there, there it was on the stand. And that's interesting. You, I mean, there are a lot of prosecutors who have a script for their

cross. And that's the script that's going to be delivered. And they're not going to deviate. But to your credit, you were nimble. You saw him try to, in gender sympathy for him. It was so hard for me. And you stuck it down his crawl. It's like you were leading this poor mom to believe her son was about to kill himself because of the kind of parent she was, where were your tears then? That is just perfectly done. You, that had to be a good night for you when you went home at that.

Thank you. Now, that's, that's, it's, the fundamentals of every good cross in the ammunition that you hear from any real trial or is you can prepare, I mean, I prepared that cross for years. And you have to be prepared to, I think the journalism term is, Hilary Puppies, like you have to be prepared to abandon the story that you're in love with. If the truth leads you someplace else, you have to do the same thing with cross determination.

You have to be able to, to put aside every note you've made, all your careful preparation

“when you get a moment like that. You have to, because that's, that's how you went trials, I think.”

So it's, it's, I think it's, it's just from Hemingway, kill your little darling's. And no one's killing anybody. It's not what it's interesting. No, it's a Kristy Nome thing. You confused us. She's, she likes to kill the puppies. We don't kill them. Yeah, the last, the last moment in that, you know, I gave him one last chance. I, I got a, I got a, like, a topographical, topographical map. And I put it up and he had a marker form.

And we had a, a searching rescue team out, staged during his cross examination in the desert. Wow. And I don't know if you have that photo that was, actually, I don't think I put it on. I should have sent this to you. There's one where they were out there for two days. And they were sitting in the cold. Um, and they were, um, they're, they're waiting. And what I love about is the cadaver dog that we had was named Karma.

And they're, they're all waiting. And, and it's like, okay, add, here you go. Here's his family. Here's a Sharpie. Here's the map. Do the right thing. So they're fans to this family, the family of your former partner. Do the right things. They can bear their son, tell us

where the body is. And he, he almost almost looked like he thought about it for a second. And he said,

I, I have no idea where the, where the body is, or I have no idea. But we had him out there. And this is kind of, this is sort of funny behind the scenes. But I'm like, I, you know, I asked to take a photo of the, of the, of the state of the crew. And it was like about a dozen people. And the two Orange County detectives kind of to the short strata sit out in the desert in the one and a hundred chance that Ed Chin would actually do the right thing. And they just like,

I asked him to take a photo. And they looked, it was like one of those high school football team photos, they're all grand, you know, and they're all lined up. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, you know, can you, I'm like, they just look so, to, to don or, or Ray, I'm like guys, they just like, it look to mean, can, can they take another one? And these guys snap the photo. I'm not going to wish I had it where they're literally jumping up in the air with big smiles on the face. Oh, he thinks the accent's in shovels.

Like, you want to still a copy? Here we are freezing our butts off out here in the middle of nowhere. Gallows humor there. Oh my gosh. But yeah. So the jury goes back. And that judge that you saw there is his name is Greg Prikett. He's, he's retired now. It's one of the finest bench officers I've ever tried a case in front of him. And again, with all the heat that the judicial system,

“especially the way it's, it's under stress lately, but I think a lot of people are losing”

confidence in it a lot of ways. So for reasons that I'm sure you're aware of that I won't go into. That's a really good fair judge, right? And his staff was really professional in the bailiff.

This guy's saying who I loved, done a million murder trials in front of him. He goes back and I'm

kind of arguing with one of their fence lawyers in a, not a bad way, too very, his defense team were excellent attorneys. But this guy, Alstaki, who's been around a long time in Orange County, and we're arguing about, you know, some way that the evidence is going to go back. So the way what happens is the jury gets instructed, they go into the deliberation room, bailiff goes in, and like get some all settled, and comes out, and the, you've got, then the evidence goes in,

right? And Al is arguing about what, you know, something that he thought should go in in an envelope, or something stupid, not stupid by him, something unimportant. And so Al and I are kind of mixing

just getting settled, and he kind of comes out, and he's got this really funny book on his face,

and he goes out, and he goes, I don't think it matters, buddy. It's like, they don't even want to see the exhibits. They're asking for verdict forms already. So, yeah. You knew that was a good sign. That's, yeah, that's a great sign. And, and look, as a DA, my plan was I was going to do this for like three years, learn how to try cases, and then go make money and some civil firms, some class, and the longer you remain at DA, the more interesting it gets, and then pretty senior doing

the serious stuff, and then you're doing felonates, and then you get your own investigator, and then, you know, for me, I was 34 years old, and I'm doing murder cases, and I'm walking through

murder scenes, and what becomes really addictive for you as a prosecutor. If you're, if you're

career and you're dedicated to it, is you get families like the Smiths, and Paul came to me after

“the verdict, and I will never forget the sensation of this. His wife was lovely. He had such a nice”

family. This is a really good guy and loved his brother, and imagine that how wrong a person is, I mean, death of somebody we love is the worst thing that we can ever experience, right? Death because of murder is the worst of the worst, but truly I think the darkest thing we can experience as human beings is if you have somebody you loved early, and they're killed, so somebody else can get money, and that person gets away with it. It's about as bad as it gets, as a DA, especially

from moms like Debbie Smith or brothers like Paul, it becomes kind of an addiction, and when, you know,

when you go through those dark moments of trial, and you're not sure the issues endowed, Paul came up to me crying right after the verdict, and he gave me a hug, and I can still feel like the stubble on his face, and he cried and cried and cried, and it's an incredibly gratifying thing, and it, like it was for good cops, like Ray, and and Don, and you know, we got a really good judge. That's, that case was wonderful, because it's a dark, dark profession, as you alluded to,

I mean, it's, you're on the, the toughest of cases, you see awful things, it's your job to make sure this person who's dangerous doesn't get returned to society, so the stakes could not be higher, this is why most do get in and get out. They can't make a whole career out of it. It's just an enormously stressful way to make a living. It is, but it is more so than the structure, absolutely, right, 100% right, but what is, it's more gratifying than it is, than it is stressful, believe

it or not, for moments like that, you, you kind of, I tried 52 murders, or 52 cases, as well as in the Homicide Unit, and every one of those, there's a mom, you know, or if somebody loved every one of those victims, and you, you know, especially on the hard ones, on the cold cases, where you reach back in time, where they effectively got away with it until you come in with a new

“team and dust off the boxes, and most people can't understand how important that is to a family”

member, unless God forbid, you know, you experience it yourself. It is holding the person accountable is, becomes, for a lot of them, it becomes the center of their entire life, and it's, you be sure, as a prosecutor. It's the one last thing you can do for your level, the one last thing, and ideally provide them with some sort of a proper burial, which is why you were pressing him, and he did not give up the location of the body, and then, chemo, my old colleague over at NBC News,

went to the jail and interviewed Ed Shen, and gave it his best shot. I mean, it's very rare to see Keith Morrison fired up. This is about as close as you're going to get. He was clearly frustrated with this guy who even, once he's in jail for the rest of his life, won't give it up. Here's a bit of it in Salt 7. You wouldn't reveal, you know, where you put the body personally when you drove that little truck down to wherever you drove it to. You won't reveal that. I can't, I don't know

that. That's, and it's not something that I can do. Unfortunately, there are just some secrets

“that the man is wanting to go up his life or, all right. So, I think we're kind of at it,”

and understanding, which is that you know, this is somewhere that I can't go. It's, you know, sorry, you know, I know as a journalist, that's, you know, everybody wants, and that would be a coup de Groff now, and I don't care. I don't care. I kind of care. We shouldn't do care.

They don't have closure. They don't have where their child is.

“And he didn't give it up to him either, and he's never given it up. Why?”

Well, I think that one of the reasons why, and this is something that I hit him up with on the stand, it's like dude, you're, if he hit his head against the desk, there will be a forensic record

of that. There will be one, one school fracture, and if the body is found, I've always believed

he pledged him to death. There was a, a member, there was a bat, a baseball bat. We can actually put this in evidence, but there was, you know, he's a sports memorabilia collector, and there was one that he used to have in his office that I don't think was ever located. I mean, it was like a year later by the tongue, it was searched. But if he hit him in the head 10 times to kill him, then there will be, if the body is found, it will reflect that. There will be multiple skull fractures

inconsistent with him just falling at him. But why would he care? Why would he care if he's serving life in prison? What was the ultimate sentence? It was life out of hospitality parole.

But so if you get that, what is it matter if it turns out, it's, when we can prove that your

story is BS, already the jury has said it was. Right, because in the state of California, our legislature does something crazy just about every week on behalf, essentially, of homicide defense or people serving life sentences. They've been after the death penalty for years, but if they've openly said that Elwap is next, that's life out of hospitality parole,

“they're trying to undo that sentence. And I think that he sees it as being into his legal advantage,”

not to cough it up, because maybe someone down the line will go, "Hey, look, it's possible," but he just said, "You see some crazy stuff in the appellate process in California. Most of the appellate justices are fine judges, but with the legislature, they're such an ideological bent to a lot of things that they're doing, that a lot of really bad guys, like Ed Shen, the California legislature is kind of their best hope, that they're going to do something

that benefits them, and even California, unfortunately, we see that all the time these days, we have very activist group of people that have been elected, and they have some ideas about crime and punishment, that a my view, it's just, it's madness. Yeah, that's their danger. Yeah, it's dangerous. It's absolutely dangerous. With our condolences to the entire family, it's just terrible, and I mean, they were lovely, and all the specials I heard them into,

they sounded so reasonable, so kind, it's a thoughtful, but you eventually did leave the DA's office, and then what, are you, what are you doing now for a living, writing, right? We're coming out with a new book that's exciting. You're welcome to come back on when it hits to promote a happy day. Oh, I was lucky to see some of these other girls. So I've got a lot of practice here in California where I'm largely defending police officers. I've got a case right now against

where George Gaskin is prosecuting one of my clients who is innocent. And I've got a contract to ABC News. I'm doing a bunch of those 2020s. And by the way, I know Keith, of course, Keith Morrison works for NBC. So my overlords at ABC, I'll probably be mad about it if you're saying this,

but for those of you who have never met the man, he really is one of the nicest people on the

flat. And I'd love to get fired up in that interview with Ed Shinn because you've Morrison is a force for good. And those guys sat me down. I was so exhausted when the verdict came in. And they wanted to intervene me that night. I did my date line interview that night with him and Josh Mechwoods,

“but Keith Morrison won. And honestly, the best thing about NBC easily. Yeah, well, well, yes,”

right, those guys, they're a good guy. So I'm like, all the politics that I've used. I know you know a little bit about. But yeah, yeah, so I'm defending police officers. I've got a, that's a large part of my practice. I'm splitting time between LA and New York City. I got a place in New York where I wrote the book. And I'm doing a bunch of stuff with a bunch of live TV with people that have moved over into his nation, learning how to do that a little bit. Oh, is that my friend,

Danny, you're doing that cat? That's show that he does? I've, Dan is not happy on him to show yet, but Elizabeth Faurigas, Ashley Banfield and Chris Cuomo have all been kind of rotating again and like various topics of the day. Oh, that's awesome. I think Dan has revived live PD in another forum where he gets, you know, mostly cops aren't to talk about the arrest, but that's something I'm sure you'd love to have you on. I love that you've found another way to use your many skills,

cozier of sheets because one never knows, but I, I know it's odd to say to a prosecutor,

but I feel the need to say thank you for your service. I really admire what you do and what you've done. Thank you. Thank you very much. All the best. And we'll see you in September when the book hits. Well, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. And I told you producer, I, I, I fanboyed out a little bit. I follow you. I'd love your interview. You're, you're, you're

“thing with, uh, film, film air, film art. Oh, yeah. I think everybody in America should watch that.”

I really do. Thank you. Thank you very much. I enjoyed it too. It was, it was interesting. I gave him credit for coming on because it not, not a lot of these, you know, liberals, even if they're centrist will come on with somebody like me, but he did, came into the lines,

Dan, who's spicy. Yeah. And yeah, and you guys had broad hairs of agreement that I think

reflect 80% of America. You know, you can disagree on some stuff. But like when it comes to the fundamental values, like it was such a rational, it restored a little bit of my faith that's being tested daily, especially I'm dealing with source back to the A key on it. It's, you know, you know, but, um, yeah, I love that. And it reads where you describe yourself as a political sex. I don't know if it was that. That, that is me to a T. I'm a political sex. Yes. Welcome,

it's fine. Come on in. The water's fine right here on the rational middle. I love it. A rational middle. What a concept. So all the best of you, sir. My guest today is John Bueller, a retired detective for the Medesto California Police Department.

Almost 20 years ago on Christmas Day, he got a call to help on the case of a mother to be

who went missing on Christmas Eve 2002. Her name was Lacey Peterson. John worked with others in the Medesto PD to find Lacey and the person responsible. Her husband Scott Peterson. John, so great to have you here. Thanks for coming on. Yeah, thanks for the invite. Appreciate it. Okay. So let's just start for our, our, our, our, our, our listeners who are familiar with the case with the story of Scott and Lacey Peterson. They were living in Medesto, California.

“How long had they been married at the time she disappeared?”

Well, right about five years, I've been married about that long and they come up from down Southern California and moved up to Medesto to be closer to Lacey's mother and her sister and brother. Okay. And were there any reports of marital problems or bad behavior by Scott or any of the stuff you look for when somebody's been convicted of double murder? You say like, oh, he tortured the neighbor's cat. He did, you know, when he was growing up things like that. Anything like that with him?

Yeah, I should make enough in a doll. I mean, this, this guy was, he was the guy you want to marry your sister or your daughter. I mean, there was he just couldn't find any flaws in this guy at all from outward appearances of you, you know, immediately when we met him. You know, it took a while before things started to fall into place and we saw that there were some other side to him. But from all appearances, you know, he didn't have a criminal record. He, I mean, everybody liked them. You know, we

had a barbecue. You want to make sure you invite Scott there because he's going to be part of the fun. So he wasn't that guy who people were like, there's some creepy about him. Now, I mean, you know, that's kind of the thing that's a little bit unusual about that. There's nobody really could come up with that. Although a lot of Lacy's friends then, once Amber came forward and, you know, you want to cover that. But once she came forward, then people when they went away

from talking to him as much as they were earlier, they started bringing up facts that were a little bit inconsistent with the all-American boy. But nothing really alarming. It's nothing that you would think of on an individual basis. They're all anecdotal. But when you tell me them up, then they showed a little bit different side to him, a side of a guy who really didn't want to be

“at that. And you, I mean, how long have you been a detective for? How long were you doing that?”

Um, well, I did it for 17 years. I was probably 12th year at that time, earlier in my 12th year. And so I assume you've seen your fair share of homicide cases? Yeah, when I left, I've been involved in about 140 of them, 26 of which were mine. So, you know, you have those, you have missing people, you have suicides, you know, you deal with family members that are under stress that are dealing with the death of a loss of a loved one. And so you

kind of get used to what to expect from people within a certain range of emotion and reactions. Right. Right. And you, I'm, I assume in that time, you met our dealt with some defendants who you thought, this is a sociopath right here. Like, this guy has no emotion, no feeling or empathy for others. Was there ever a defendant like that? I can remember a couple of them at one in particular. He did it. Actually, the worst crime scene I ever went into was done with a knife and a claw.

TV quality evil. He was the guy that, you know, a scriptwriter would, you know, detail out of, even when you looked in his eyes, they were cold. Like, it was like there was nothing behind them. And, you know, Scott doesn't have that look. But obviously, with this situation, our belief is and the jury's belief was that he had that capability. Yeah, I was talking to Mark Garagos on the program not long ago. And, you know, he said this about virtually everybody we talked about who he had

represented. You know, he's like, I knew him. And I can, I get a sense for whether somebody's capable of this. And I just don't think he was. He wasn't that guy. Now, he also said the same thing about Jesse Smolette, which I don't believe either one. You know, it's, you know, it's, you mean, sometimes we see what we want to see. But, um, sounds like you're not disputing that if you just met Scott Peterson on the street, you wouldn't have a creepy vibe. You wouldn't think, oh,

something wrong with him. Well, no, I don't think you wouldn't. That's the reason that, you know, he would be successful when it comes to, you know, committing a crime like this because his suspicion level really wouldn't be there. Um, it's, it's a situation where, you know, he just doesn't look like a killer, which is a thing that may, in this case, so dangerous because Lacy had the idea that this was coming. But he, over the years, you know, you meet a lot of these guys and, uh, there

was, I got to tell you, Megan, there were a lot of guys I met that, that committed murder and murder aside. I kind of liked them. And it's really the same thing with Scott. He, he was difficult not to like because he's so charming, he's so engaging, he's so polite. And I don't know what he was saying behind our back all the time. I know some of it wasn't too polite. But to our face,

he was always easy to deal with. But at the same time, that was a picture for us that painted

something different than maybe he expected. When we deal with people that are accused of this, or we're focusing on him, usually we'll see a little bit of frustration on their part of things go by. He didn't have that. In the entire time we dealt with him. And he was always cooperative to a point. And then, of course, he would always draw the line in his cooperation because he'd only go so far. He pulled out that attorney card. And he'd say I'm going to

talk to my attorney about that. So we saw that in some of his public interviews. He gave one to a local reporter. And whenever she got him on something where he tripped up a bit, you know, like,

“what do you mean you totally see that you were cheating on her? And then you continued the affair?”

Why would you do that? And he'd be like, well, the lawyers don't, you know, this is the point at which I can't get into anything that was tough. He was like, oh, I'm not allowed to get into that, you know, and, and was really like, let's keep the focus on Lacy. But to me, watching that interview with the local reporter, watching the interview with Diane Sawyer, you walk away thinking,

he never comes close to losing his composure. This is a man who's used to wearing this mask.

Yeah, I think so. And again, when it's dealing with him, he had an enormous amount of emotional control. And that kind of fit in with our departmental psychologist, Phil Trumpeter, he told us, you know, this is the fit of a person with a narcissistic personality disorder. He wouldn't go so far as to call him a sociopath or a psychopath. I mean, you could, you know, but he'd laid when you wanted anybody, but in this case, he just, he was just a little bit different than us.

But if you, I don't remember, there was one segment in one of the local reporters from Sacramento, where she was asking him questions. And this phone was ringing, you know, background. It was

“back in the kitchen. And I think that really strikes a lot of people, you know, we hadn't found Lacy”

at that time. And he tried to continue with the interview, and then he goes, "You want me to turn that off?" And he goes back, he fights a phony turns it off. Well, that could have been broken, or me, or broken, columnum, and say, "And we got Lacy down here at Bakersfield." But, you know, nothing like that. You want to take the call. You just want to continue with the interview. So, you know, where's the concern? Where's the urgency on his part? It just was absent at least at that moment.

Yeah, and we'll get to what his half-sister said about him, because she's been a fair amount of time with him, I guess, during those weeks that we were looking for Lacy. And she did not walk away with a favorable view of her half-brother, who she ordered a whole book about. Okay, so there they are. They're living sort of the columnum, all American couple. You know, she's got the thousand-watt smile. He's obviously a very good-looking guy. They get pregnant with their first

baby after five years of marriage. They've got the golden retriever, Mackenzie. She's nearby her mom, who's adoring, and everything's, you know, coming up roses are so it would seem. And then, December 24th, we think, well, at least December 24th is when she was called in as missing. He says he went to fish in the local Marina with a 14-foot fishing boat. He only recently bought

that Lacy had never stepped foot in, because that's just what he does for entertainment. He says,

some guys, we'll go golfing. I like to fish, so I went fishing. And Lacy was going to get together a couple of, you know, food items to share with her family later. He says he left the house at 930

“that morning for his fishing trip. And what time does he say he returned home to find No Lacy?”

Yes, late afternoon. I've tried to remember exactly like 330 or four or something like that.

And he told us, of course, he changed, yeah, he changed his plan to go golfing, because it was too cold to golf. But it wasn't too cold to go out in San Francisco Bay, which is certainly not the tropics I can tell you that. So, you know, that, you know, a lot of little things, and this isn't the point for us, you know, a pre-meditated murder is not going to have a witness and it's not going to have a videotape. You know, the luxuries, the things that we all

“want, and, of course, was Scott, you know, we're going to get a confession. So, you have to build that”

case by eliminating suspects from suspicion, by proving out their alibi and showing that they had no reason to do the killing. But in Scott's case, although everybody else we built within this

case was pretty easy to clear, we couldn't clear him. We would always be conditional about that.

So, when he decides he's going to change his plans at the last minute to go fishing instead of golfing because it's too cold to go off, that's a red flag for us, you know, we need to unbreak that. But it's certainly a red flag. And then he couldn't remember what kind of bait he used. That's weird. Yeah, there was, I think he was more of a freshwater fisherman than a salt water fisherman. And so, he wasn't sure what lures he had. And I think Albrotini mentioned that the

tackle that he did have in his boat was all freshwater. Tackle that he would use up in one of the lakes in the sea areas of the foothills, not something that he would use in San Francisco Bay if he were going for like sturgeon or striper or something like that. So, you know, the fishing trip really wasn't much of a fishing trip. It was more of a trip so that yeah, you mentioned earlier that

lacy had never set foot in that boat. Well, she had never set foot in that boat alive. He certainly

was in the boat after killing. Right. So, he on the way home from the Marina leaves what you guys, you and your partner, Billy, because you and the, I'm sorry, forget the, the man you just mentioned was your partner. You were the main two detectives on the case. Well, actually there were three of us that were Craig Grogan and then Albrotini and I now, Al started the case on Christmas Eve when he was notified about the missing. And he knew that I always liked over time, but he also knew I had my

kids with me on Christmas Eve. So, we called me on Christmas Day as I was taking them over to the Monum's house and, of course, I was all too happy to jump on some Christmas Day over time because I didn't ever think going that day anyway. But yeah, Albrotini, when he, you know, first started talking to me, you know, he started gathering a lot of evidence from the beginning. And there goes, you know, your next three years completely devoted to this case. So, when Scott Peterson was on the

way home from the Marina, he left what appears to be to, you know, I've said to my audience,

“I believe Scott did this. So, I am on your side. Though, open-minded and like bring it on if you've”

got evidence to prove that he didn't do it, let's see it. What appears to be sort of a cover your rear end voicemail to his wife, Lacey, and here is how that sounded, the sound by one. Not unusual for a killer to do something like that. Yeah, it's, and you know, I mean for me,

that was one of the first things that Brookini did when I met with him on Christmas Day,

as I met him at the office and he played that tape for me and I, and of course, the first of the first thing, I said, "I want these guys been married." And he said, "five years," I thought, "I don't know, that seems kind of flowery for, you know, some of the very group five years." It just seems sort of, you know, I mean, just like you said, you know, to me, it was a stage called to take the focus off of him. And it didn't mean he did it, but I mean, you know, this

stuff and your viewers know this stuff, how do we start a murder investigation? We start at the victim and we work out work. And who's the first one you check when you've got a, you know, deceased girl? Well, you're going to look at her boyfriend or husband. And especially when you've got

“a pregnant girl that goes dead or goes missing. And I think they had that 2001 study where”

murder was the vast majority by an overwhelming margin of the cause of death for pregnant girls. And so, oh, yeah, it's just, yeah, I thought you saw that. You probably could use that. You got too much going around in your case. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I was just saying, "Alright, because it's disturbing." It's very disturbing. And so, you know, but like again, you go back to Scott. And it's easier to work in case when you don't despise the guy that you think did, you know, when he's polite to you

and he's not saying anything bad about your mother or anything like that. And so you just kind of follow the evidence and like, "This is another strike against him." So when, when Elp played that tape for me, I just thought I was just doesn't sound quite right. But I'm head of their guys like this before that I've dealt with where it didn't seem right. I remember one in particular, he had no reaction whatsoever to his wife and daughter being missing. And I thought,

"Cash, this is kind of freaking." And but we were able to clear him right away, not only through a polygraph, but we also verified his alibi. And he was just a cold fish guy. He just said, "That's a good promotion." That's something that we should keep in mind as we go through this

whose affect is different from what we're used to. And maybe he's not a cold blooded killer, maybe he's just got a weird affect. So I have space in my head for that possibility, but there's a lot of evidence against Scott Peterson beyond his affect. Can I ask you this? One of the things that seems so weird about the case was, who kills their wife on Christmas Eve? You know, it's like,

“if you want to kill your wife, you're pregnant wife, like wouldn't you choose a quieter date,”

like how cool, how sadistic, like extra sadistic, beyond killing a pregnant mother of your child? Well, you know, that's kind of an interesting, you know, question to ask. But the thing is, whether you're killing your wife on the Fourth of July or you're killing her on Christmas Eve, I mean, that's still pretty nasty stuff, you know, to do that. So I think in a situation like this, you can't really apply the common sense things that we operate on our day-to-day basis

and try to put those on somebody who does something like this because you're going to be disappointed every time because we don't do those things. And so to try and make sense of things that don't make sense. Gosh, it's just, you know, you're going to be battling frustration the whole time you're

yeah, batting that around in your head. So you guys get involved in the case and one of the first

things you ask Scott Peterson is, would you take a polygraph for us? Right. Is that standard

“procedure and do you usually receive a yes in response to that? Well, yeah, a polygraph, I love the”

polygraph because it does a variety of different things. Okay, now of course it's not in much missible in court. Well, I don't care about that because I'm not using it to go into court with it. But the first thing you do is what's the person's cooperation level when you save the word polygraph? You know, do they run like a scalded cat away from you or do they say, oh, absolutely, I'll take it. You know, somebody who wants the focus to be on Lacey and wants us to be trying

to turn over every rock and log and look under every car and blanket that might be in a park or something like that to try and find her. Take the poly, take the focus off of you and let us move on. So we're not spending time trying to clear yet. But when he originally he said yes to the poly on Christmas Eve when Brock asked him and then on Christmas day when we were getting ready to do it because when when Al called me, Albrokini called me and we went down there, we started to the

office and started talking and then we went over to Scott's house and that's when I first met him

pleasant, nonchalant, you know, he greeted us, you know, and it's like he just didn't have any concern. I mean, you walked away at something else that he had to attend to and I just kind of thought, well, gosh, how come you're not asking me 90 questions? Why aren't you, you know, ask me, what are we going to do next? Are you going to get helicopters up? You know, you're going to get a boat patrol. I mean, whatever he wants to come up with, he didn't have any or near the same

emotional urgency that Sharon had or any of Lacey's friends or family. And so when we got done meeting with him and chat with him then, the first thing that I did after that is my neighbor, two doors over, was the senior polygraph examiner for California Department of Justice and Doug Mansfield. And so I call him and he usually gets calls from me because I like doing the polygraph. It was a pretty good tool.

And I, you know, go say to call him a Christmas day, but he's always good for things like this.

And so he's the outcome down. So he came down and with the intention of, you know, putting Scott on the box and then between the time that Al had asked him the night before, if he'd take the polygraph and then that afternoon when Doug came down to get him hooked up, he apparently had talked to his father and Lee had told him, no, don't take it. I'm not sure what Lee's reasons for that is, but, you know, Lee's a successful businessman from San Diego. Great. But, you know, that's maybe

not the best advice to give your son, not to take the poly, even the detectors are trying to clear him so we can start going towards, you know, better suspects than your son. But this one is he did and I, I get it. I get it, too. What, this is December, but this point 25th 2002, it was too cold for him to golf. So he went out on the cold water. Was the swimming pool at the, at the Peterson House still open? Well, gosh, no, you would be swimming this time of year.

So do you remember what he closed up? Well, I mean, I mean, there was water in the pool, but you, you know, it's way too cold in northern California to go swimming that time of year. So yeah, he wouldn't have been swimming in there. And obviously, we checked up, we'll know, they see in there, you know, we checked all over the house. Well, the reason I asked is because his, his half sister, I guess he had a half sister was given up for adoption and then she came back to his family and she

“got to know Scott and their mother, Jackie, well, and another sibling, I think. And she would”

write in the book that she would ultimately publish something like 33 reasons why he's guilty. So there are conclusions right there. She had a feeling that he was obsessed with his swimming pool

Her own theory was he drowned her in that swimming pool. Gosh, I never heard that. I didn't read

her book. That's an interesting take. I, I kind of don't agree with that because he would have had the, I mean, they both would have been soaked in the wet and it would have been up. Gosh, that would have been a violent fight to try and, you know, drown her in the pool. There would have been splash in the ways. And the houses were close together there, the house to the south where his neighbor care and lived. I mean, that's right there. And I think that would have potentially attracted too much

attention, much easier to carry out a suffocation or strangulation inside the residents itself, underneath a pillow or a blanket or whatever you choose to use. And hopefully that along with the wall, so the house would blanket the noise if there wasn't. Well, what about Margargos this and I said, you know, why couldn't because he's like, there were no forensics at all tying him to the murder,

“which I think is pretty true. And I said, well, why couldn't he have just suffocated her strangled her?”

And he said there would have been secretions, which would have provided, you know, some evidence that

a murder had taken place there or something bad had happened to Lacey, wherever he did that. Well, I don't totally agree with that. I mean, Margargos is taken. I know, you know, what side he's on. And I respect him. He's, you know, he's walked the court room many, many times. And so I get that. But I see it a little bit differently. There was a whole ton of evidence there. Now, if you take a look at this case and you think in terms of, what if Scott didn't know Lacey?

And we went and processed the house as a crime seat. We would have found a multitude of evidence that would have linked him to the victim. We would have found hair. We would have found fibers from clothes. We would have found maybe lipstick on a glass. All sorts of things, finger prints all over the house. And one of the things that we did just so that everybody wouldn't think that we were

one-sided on this is when we did process the house for evidence of a stranger in abduction or intrusion.

And there was no force entry. Of course, we had the FBI come down from Sacramento with their evidence response team. They had them independent of the best of people. They processed the house. And when they did that, of course, you know, I think there was a saying that you would turn these use evidence of absence, as absence of evidence. And there was no evidence that anybody else had come in that house. So, when you look at this situation, of course, there's evidence there.

But it's not the type of evidence that you would think of on a, you know, movie or something like that because they live together. They were married. So, of course, you're going to have her stuff there. There was one spot of blood that was on the confeder that probably wouldn't have been there. If Lacy was alive because Lacy was known as a fastidious housekeeper, that blood spot was was linked to Scott, of course. Scott had a cut on his finger. I remember which one it was, but one of them.

And which could be consistent with her scratching him or something like that, is he's trying to suffocate her or strangled her in bed. Now, whether or not she would defecate, whether or not she would urinate. I mean, I don't know. It just said all the pins on the, I don't think he could rule that out. I don't think he could rule it in. And I certainly would say that the absence of that, those two things would suggest that he couldn't have done it in there.

Do you remember John, whether the bed, for example, had, you know, fresh linens on it, you know, did it look like he had cleaned up at all?

“But the only thing I remember from the bed is there was an indentation on the comforter at the foot”

of the bed that would be consistent with a human body, Lacy's size, being on the foot of the bed, and then moved from there. And, you know, I mean, it could have been a variety difference. Maybe Scott sat there or laid back or something like that. I mean, it doesn't mean that she was there. But it is consistent. And once again, you know, making these cases are built on, you know, circumstantial evidence. And you find a couple of things and, well, that's kind of interesting.

And, and then it kind of becomes suspicious when you find a few more. And then when you've got, you know, two dozen, that's kind of compelling. And that's really how we work these cases. You just follow what you have, get document it, and you look at it, you know, with a, I have experienced an essay, kind of sister stuff, looking too good for this guy. And I guess that there's plenty of plenty of stuff that pointed the finger at him.

But I'm just, I'm kind of stuck in the forensics, like, as an amateur. Have you ever show, have you ever been to a scene where somebody was, was strangled or suffocated? And would there necessarily be, you know, your nation or something by the person being killed? Like, do you have any idea what that's true? Not at all. You can't say that there's an absolute omit that there would be anything like that.

And that's the thing with this case. It's not, if you, all the murders have happened to be able to say that everybody who is strangled, everybody who is smother just going to either defecate or urinate,

“or something like that, it doesn't really mean it. If you all, of course, you'll remember that there was”

some laundry that was done by Scott after he got back from the special trip. And close if there was anything, yeah. And anything that you discovered that might have been there,

that with him and disposed of that with her body up there and San Francisco Bay. So, you know,

“there's, there's a lot of things. I remember that he would, he'd been mopping.”

Somebody said he'd been mopping in the floor area. And he had said something earlier that Lacy was mopping when he left. Well, the cleaning lady had mopped the house the day before. She had noticed that Lacy was very tired at the time, so she even down in the Lacy went for a walk. But for Scott to be doing any mopping or cleaning up seemed kind of suspicious. And even one of Lacy's friends, Stacey Boyer, the next night, I think was the 26th.

She had said something about Scott was doing some vacuuming around the house to take his mind off of what was going on. That was his, of course. I mean, I, if I'm stressed about something, the first thing, I'm not going to grab his microwave or, you know, I'm going to have no else. But, you know, that seems kind of funky. And then you probably also remember there was a bunch of rock and the straight path from the bedroom to the side door that goes out to the cardboard.

Risk truck was backed in on usual neighbors have never seen him back a truck in before.

Bunched up run, Scott gave the explanation, the dog did it or something like that. And okay, maybe the dog did do it. But also, maybe he did it when he was drag and Lacy from the bedroom out to the cardboard to put her in the truck and then put the, uh, patio umbrellas on top of her that we're in a blue tarp, so nobody would see her underneath there. And there's--and people saw him, you know, I got the patio umbrellas.

“Yeah, and even one of the neighbors, he was walking a, um, I think there was a chocolate lab.”

Y'all named Kristen. And she was eight months pregnant. She was walking by at the time. She greeted Scott that morning, said, "Good morning, all right, here's something like that." And, um, you know, just he reacted just like Scott normally does. And, you know, nothing suspicious there. But there really would be no reason for anybody to be suspicious of him. Because again, we weren't looking at somebody that looked like Charles Manson. We're looking at somebody that's

more resembling, you know, maybe Ted Bundy or something like that. Yes, I've thought about him many times. He has a lot of the same qualities. I mean, he was a charmer. There's a reason he was very good looking. And there's a reason so many women fell for his fake charm. And he truly was a sociopath. Um, okay, there's so much more to go over in terms of the investigation. The huge, huge bombshell of Amber Fry, uh, who John interviewed and worked with to get all those tapes, uh, some of which we've

heard. So we're going to get into that next, um, she changed the entire course, the investigation. Stay tuned. We'll be right back.

Charles, we'll get back to the forensics in one second, including Scott Peterson on tape showing

his injured knuckles and hand. Um, but as you guys were investigating this, the biggest bomb

“shell, I think we'd both agree, is the emergence of Amber Fry, 27 year old single mom, um, massage”

therapist who had started dating him only on November 20th. Now, you know, again, she goes missing Lacey does December 24th, November 20th. So it's not a long term affair, but she comes in and can you just walk us through like, what was that like when you first talk to her and you're thinking about Scott Peterson as a suspect, but you don't have him yet. So when you met with her for the first time, what was that like? Well, it was, it was really groundbreaking for us because until, you know,

she called, we didn't have anything that we could find in Scott's background suggested that he was in any less imperfect. Maybe just, you know, there was just no more stain on this guy whatsoever. And we almost kind of lost Amber originally because her original call came in and she had volunteered to give the call, call takers, the Scott Peterson's data birth of the one that she was dating to see if it matched up with the one we were investigating and the call taker I guess just couldn't

connect the dots on that one and said, well, I can't give you his data birth and then Amber was frustrated. She said, well, I'm not looking for his. I got the data birth of the guy I'm dating if it matches up with the guy you're looking at, then I've probably got information for your

detectives. And so anyway, she finally hung up in frustration, but the next day. Wow.

She calls in. Yeah. Good luck at each. She was persistent. She calls in and Elbro Keene, he's standing at the clerk's desk that is right next to my desk as the clerk is taking Amber's call and she's typing it into the data bank thing that she had under desk there. And Elbro's reading this as she's typing and then Elbro says, she in the phone right now and that Beth said, yeah, she is. And so, of course, Elbro's the phone and he starts talking to her and he gets some details

and he goes up. This is pretty cool. So, he says, we'll be right back. So, he hangs up and he grabs me and we go into the sergeant's office and we just said, you know, so what we've got and he's just go, don't tell anybody to go. So, Fresno's, you know, 100 miles south. So, we drive down their record time, no license iron. And we get there and Amber's there with the friend that originally introduced her to Scott. And so, we interviewed both of them separately and we got enormous detail

from the friend about Scott's behavior at these conventions. I guess there was a convention in Anna

this Sean decided that, you know, I got this friend, Amber, she's pretty nice. And so, she, you know, played Cupid and then, of course, they met. Well, when we came time to interview Amber,

“and as I think this is kind of true of most girls, he guys have a memory of this spectacular.”

And she has a certain face. Yeah, yeah. You know, especially with a men do on, which of course has a lot, but different show, different subject. Anyway, so she ends up giving us

incredible detail on their dates and what they did. And she, you know, she luckily she held down

the souvenirs. So, she had wine corks and she had tickets and all sorts of things that, you know, would back up what she was doing. And it was almost like she, I think she, you know, she didn't know us. It was almost like she had a concern that we wouldn't believe what she was saying. So, she backed all these things up with, you know, real physical evidence of this stuff. She showed us a gift that he had bought for her daughter. This little star globe and some other stuff. And

it was, it was just really interesting because now this, this emerged, you know, this different kind of guy that we really didn't know was there is certainly we were suspicious, but we had nothing to hang our head on on that. So, when we left her house, you know, we, we were hungry. It was

been after that. And so we said, well, you know, we're going to go get a bite to eat if you guys

“want to come with. You need to come with us. And so she said, well, hey, would you want to stop by”

the CVS or Walgreens or something like that in the movie, which one it was? Because I've got some pictures. And we're thinking pictures. Yeah, we probably might have seen those. So, we go to the photo counter there at CVS or Walgreens and she gives a claim ticket to the gal and a gal brings out the envelope and their twin pictures, two pics of each. And we're, looking through these and it's a famous picture of Scott and Amber at the holiday swore. I think she's got red dress, he's in the

talks and everything like that. And we're looking at this and it's like, yeah, this guy's going to tell him truth here. And they were just from a couple of weeks earlier. And I mean, it was pretty impressive. And I'm sure that, you know, the gal behind the counter had no idea if she had just handed us. And so, anyway, then we went over to Rachel to buy a little device to hook up to a record,

because we always kept a couple of records in the trunk of our cars. In case, because we used these

many times on cases, we'd give them to a victim or a witness and see if they could get the guy to talk to him. And so, we retriever a reporter out of my trunk along with like 10 tapes and some batteries. And then we went to Radio Shaq, which was nearby in Brock bought the connecting unit that would go to her phone and the recorder and sell, showed her how to use them. Is he shown her how to use it? The phone rings and Brock, he goes to Scott's number right there. So, she's looking at

us like take the call. And so, she took the call and that was like the first recorded conversation. And it was just, it was just very interesting. And this is a one thing that I don't understand why this case was so popular with everybody, because we had many other murders that were actually more to be more interesting than this one. Although this one had, you know, TV quality victim and, you know, responsible in it, you know, then I mean,

definitely the maid for TV, you know, cast on this one of the detective's of course. But when it came to this, it was just, yes, we're here working this thing. Everybody's looking at this and it's just another murder. But that's still murder. You know, I mean, it's important to us, it's important to the family. But it's just, it was kind of, it was just difficult to believe how it was getting so much attention. And well, you know, it's got all the elements. It's got like these

beautiful people, a pregnant mom. Again, like I said, with a thousand-watt smile, the gorgeous, a fair partner who has been dupped. But in the beginning days, you're wondering, what she do, we don't know, where they in on it, did they both get rid of Lacey Scott, you know, this gorgeous guy who Lacey seems to have, you know, won the jackpot with, right? Like it just, he's like, he's got a good job, he's got it in the seemingly nice family, he's a good looking,

he treats her well. It's like, every woman's worst nightmare that this man you meet and fall in love with and marry and get pregnant by turns out to be a sociopath who would murder you in

“your bed with your, it's like the worst thing you can imagine. So it's, it taps into, I think a”

lot of things for a lot of people, but especially women. So can I ask you, because Amber Fry, we've got that famous, and I'll play it, part of it, the Happy New Year call, on, on New Year's Eve, that he calls Amber, while he's at the vigil for Lacey. But did she start taping him before that? Yeah, she started taping him. Gosh, I think that was, well, it was right around that same time, because it was within a week of the 24th. So it was the recorded call for New Year's Eve. Yeah,

that was right after we had met her. Okay, because we've been stretched out. It's unbelievable.

other than his limited cooperation with thinking, well, maybe he didn't do it. And, you know,

but, you know, we're still, even though we were working him, Craig and L, and I, you know, we were dealing with working this case. There were a lot of other detectives that were working on this, you know, detectives that were clearing up sex registrants and parolees that had violent criminal paths that could be for this, and verifying their alibi and stuff like that. And, of course, this is, as you guys, as you paid more attention to this case, and it became bigger.

Anybody that we looked at, you know, they wanted to be away from this thing big time. They did not want to be involved in this. They did not want to be linked to this as being in any way, possibly related to Lacy's murder. So, or the cooperation level that we got from a lot of people that ordinarily probably wouldn't have cooperated with us, probably wouldn't like us, because we were cops, was a little bit different this time. And that was one of the good things

that the media brought to us that made things easier in some ways, but in other ways, that's so much. Well, it's the reason I'm afraid, you know, to call you. She saw all the media coverage of this guy who was missing his wife, and she was like, holy, that's my guy. And he told her that his wife was dead. Yeah, let me do a quick correction for you on that. Actually, she didn't see any of the coverage. So Amber didn't watch TV. Are they? She would have called us much earlier. She was alerted to

“Scott by a friend of hers. He was a Fresno cop. And I think his name was Richard. I can't remember”

his last name. But he and he caught the coverage. And he thought, gosh, that sounds kind of like that girl that, or that guy that Amber stated. And so he called Amber. He remembered. I mean, he had Scott had any men in Amber's life that long. He remembered the description of him, or that he would fit it. Well, she was, you know, I mean, you're a young girl, you're a, you're a young girl, you're a blonde, and you're dating Scott Peterson. You're going to flash him around like a nickel

plate of 38. And so she's telling all of her friends, you know, hey, look what I've got. And you know, I don't blame her. You know, I can see you're doing that. So this, you know, this friend of hers, you know, platonic, he was just a friend. And he caught them, you know, the, the intense media coverage. And so he called her. He said, he might want to check in those guys up there with that. So see if this is the same guy. Because I can't remember for sure, Megan, if he had told her that he actually lived

into that server Sacramento. I know he told somebody at one time that he lived in Sacramento. But

“anyway, she hadn't seen any of this coverage. And of course, as you remember, there was great”

frustration with people in the media because it couldn't get Scott on camera hardly at all. He was

always in the background at the center where they were coordinating the search outside of law enforcement.

He talked to several of them, you know, people from the media. He just said, hey, I don't want to be a part of this. It's all about place. This is the fine lacy. I don't want to be the distraction. And of course, you know, you can interpret that both ways. Maybe he's sincere about that, or you can look at it that he didn't want to, you know, face out there because he didn't want Amber to see it or anybody else. So, you know, if you think about how to hear it on the, you know, John had their relationship with

you. Yeah, had there been other affairs besides Amber? Yeah, there been at least two than we knew of that we're called in girls that call this and call this about things. And, you know, I hate to say that. But I mean, they are what they are. They're in the record. And, you know, what is what it is. But he lied about that, too. When he gave his interview to, I don't know if it was Diane or if it was Gloria Gomez and the Sacramento affiliate. But he told

one or both of them that Amber is the only one he ever had in a fair with. Yeah, he's, he's, he's stretched the truth and a lot of things. A lot of things that he didn't have to stretch the truth. So, it was really difficult, you know, dealing with him to know where the, you know, the truth ended and the lies started because he, he would lie sometimes for no reason.

“I think it's a brain counts sequential. And that was kind of difficult for us to kind of pick through.”

But, you know, it was, he just, he was just, he was just interesting to work, you know, because he was okay. So, Amber Fry, she does put on the wire and she does start recording her calls with him. And the, the one that I remember just from covering it at the time, I was, you know, a very young reporter was the one. He's at the vigil for Lacey and Connor with the candles. This is before they found the bodies or know that they're dead, you know, Sharon Rocha,

the whole family's there like praying to God that they'll be assigning a return, a ransom demand, something. And what's Scott doing, he's all smiles and he's on the phone with Amber and here's a snippet of that conversation. Yeah, and he goes on to say the crowds are amazing. The crowds he's looking at the crowd for his wife's vigil. I mean, he's like, that's, that's something wrong. There's obviously he is a sociopath. That's like a no normal person can do that, John.

Well, and that kind of, you know, falls into why we don't really have any doubts. City did this. Now, yeah, again, it's a pre-meditated murder. There's no video tape.

There's no eyewitness. He's never going to confess. We said we expected he would.

where, when I want to, he's telling us how worried he is and how he, you know, he wanted to keep his face away

from the media coverage because he was afraid that, you know, it would be a distraction or if he was a afraid that if Amber came forward, then, you know, we would no longer search for her, which, you know, yes, we were going to search for her regardless, and it didn't make any difference if Amber's partly equation or not. And so, you know, what he's doing that, you know, you notice that the vigil has got the baseball hat pulled down low. It's got the collar up, I'm a jack and everything like that.

And, you know, from a distance, you might not even connect them as your boyfriend if you're Amber or, you know, cook it spaghetti and you just glance over your shoulder at the TV, which, of course, she didn't do because she didn't watch a lot of TV. Wow. Well, notwithstanding that, Gloria, all right, got her hooks into Amber. And we've seen that show many times now and that

“this was the moment that stunned the world. I remember watching this thinking, oh, mg, here it is,”

Amber Fry at the press conference, coming forward and telling the truth, stop five.

First of all, I met Scott Peterson, never 20th, 2002. Scott told me he was not married.

We did have a romantic relationship. I am very sorry for Lucy's family. And the pain that this has caused them and I pray for her safe return as well. Now, why did she come out at that point, John, because she, um, she had been working with you guys, and she had gotten something like 27 or 29 hours of tape as, as far as I read. So, what, what led her to go public?

Yeah, there was, yeah, there was a total of 29 hours of recorded phone calls between the two of them, but what happened with that is, you know, we were going to keep her on ice for this long as we could. We didn't want to bring her forward. We, you know, we didn't necessarily expect that he was going to

“tell her that he killed his wife and he wanted to run off to Belgium with her or anything like that,”

but we were hopeful that we might be able to get something else out of that. So, we were going to keep working this for a while, but unfortunately, somehow the employer found out about her. And we got a tip that they were going to be running that photo of Amber in the red dress and Scott in the tucks on the whatever edition that was that came out of, if it came out of Thursday or Friday or whatever that was. Well, of course,

you know, out of consideration for both families, you know, Scott's family down in San Diego or Nicole Sharon in the family in the best though. We knew that we couldn't, you know, let that happen. And, you know, they'd be in the grocery store line and then they see the employer there with his picture and, you know, then they drop their groceries and freak out. So, we knew we were going to have to tell well families about this. So Craig Grogan and Phil Owen went down to San Diego to tell Lee and Jackie

about this and then, of course, Hal and I, we called Sharon into the office to tell her about it. And she, you know, she came down there with Ron Gransky. And, you know, and that was one of the heartbreaking things of the whole case, you know, you can work a lot of murders and, you know, but years, you're touched by these victims, you know, they, they stayed with, you know, I mean, there's some of them that stayed with me even at the state that I so talked to. But, it, she came

down and they knew that there was something up because we didn't generally call them to come down to our office. But they came down, it was late afternoon and I said, they had a, they had a scheduled interview with, uh, Greta, um, there was going to go on after her meeting. And so she sat down and you could see the, you know, they were, you know, anxiety. And so we said, well, you know, we called you down here and we got some of this going on and we want to get you in front of it so they could

not surprise by it and then I had this folder in front of you down the table and I just opened the folder and split it across and, you know, Sharon looks at it and she just, you know, put her

“head in her hands and said, why did you have to kill her? And I remember that like it was yesterday”

that she sent up. And I think, you know, the family wasn't, you know, none of these families are stupid. And I think they all knew this. They knew it was coming, but they were hoping for that

one little chance out of a billion that she would come back alive. And, you know, this kind of,

you know, dash those hopes. And it's really sad to see this, you know, to see a family out there go through this. And then, you know, of course, now pick up the pieces and we, you know, hope for the best and the rest of it. You know, can you guess the guy you did it? Can we ever recover our family number to give them, you know, a proper, you know, burial and things like that. But that was the moment Sharon realized he was behind this and that lazy.

He would not be returning. Yeah, I think she had a, you know, she's pretty bright. I got a feeling she had a feeling about this beforehand, but she probably wouldn't even acknowledge it, except, you know, deep in her mind. But yeah, this pretty much showed her that as a deal. And then of course, because publicly they'd been standing with Scott, they, there wasn't a public rift between the families until Amber. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, you don't need to

thing a little bit different. You know, we're not going to, we don't tell people everything that

“we know when we're working one of these cases. You can't, you know, because maybe you're wrong too.”

And you know, you're not going to disrupt the family and relationships with your suspicions. You know, you work your suspicions and you gather your evidence to prove your case, you know, the presenter to endure. And you don't want them to slip up. I mean, even a well-meaning family of America could slip up and say something to Scott before you're ready for him to know you're working with Amber. And yeah, I understand that makes, makes perfect sense to me.

There's so much more to go. The trial gets started and Scott's defenders to this day point to the lack of forensics. But is that fair? We're going to get it into a bit more, um, what the prosecution actually had. And now what the defense is saying, uh, we should take a new look at. Don't go away. There's much, much more to discuss with retired detective John Bueler. You know, forget folks, you can find the Megan Kelly show live on Series XM Triumph channel 1111

every weekday at noon east. And the full video showing clips when you subscribe to my YouTube channel, youtube.com/magankelly. If you prefer an audio podcast, you can subscribe and download an Apple Spotify Pandora Stitcher or wherever you get your podcast for free. If you leave a comment in the Apple comments, uh, what you can do underneath the by subscribing there, I will read it. I have read all 21,000 of them. I find them actually very helpful. People write the most thoughtful things,

and I'd love to know what you think about this story in this case. And by the way, when you're there, you can find our full archives. With all of our true crime Christmas shows, don't go away.

John, there was an incredible moment where Peterson sat down with Diane Sorrier of GMA

and actually claimed that he told Lacey about Amber, his a fair partner. Here was that moment. Did your wife find out about it? I told my wife when early December. Did it cause a rupture in the marriage? It was not a positive, obviously, it's an appropriate but it was not something that we weren't dealing with. A lot of arguing? No. No. No. Like I, you know, I can't say that that even, you know, she was okay with the idea.

But it wasn't anything that would break us apart. There wasn't a lot of anger.

“No. No. Well, I mean, that's such an obvious pack of lies there. But my question is, why?”

Why did he feel the need to say he disclosed the affair to Lacey? You know, that remains a mystery to me, but it also plays kind of against his claim about fishing. I'm sure you know, okay, two weeks later he's got a Christmas Eve. She's breaking gingerbread cookies and she's going to say it's okay for him to go fishing. Thank you. Good boy. Maybe he's going fishing or maybe he's going down the Fresno again. I mean, I mean, it's, I just don't

see that. And you know, we get a lot of insight into Lacey and what she was about by, you know, her friend Lori and Renee and Stacey and Kim, you know, they tell us a lot of things along with Amy and Brandt and of course Sharon and Ron. But when, you know, when we talked to them about things like this, you know, there's no way in this planet that she would be okay with this. You know, she would have tossed him out of a house like a bag of garbage, you know, she wouldn't have put

“up with that. And she would have told someone that's what all of her friends said. Every and any”

woman knows, you've always got at least the one friend who you tell everything to. You know,

you don't want to go blab your private marital problems around, but something like that, you tell somebody. And it's, I just, I never understood why he felt that lie was necessary. How he felt it was better that she knew. Like did he think we thought the motive of killing her was she was going to say he was a cheater? No, that's not what we thought. I'm going to pause right there. Squeeze in one more quick break out of pay the bills. And then come back and we'll take a

deep dive into forensics. Don't go anywhere. John Bueller stays with us. I hope you will too. John, so what was the final catalyst for the arrest of Scott Peterson? Well, of course you remember

the bodies were discovered on a two-day period in April. And when the first body was discovered,

I was just kind of, that might not have anything to do with our case. I really wasn't hopeful that would be anything to do with what we were dealing with. But then when the second body came up, so you've got a female that doesn't have all the limbs attached and everything that shows, it's been in salt water for three to six months. And then you have a almost full-term baby that

You know, that kind of tells you a story of what you got there, especially when they're found

“so close proximity to each other, and to where Scott was fishing. So when you have that, that's”

pretty much okay. Well, we can figure this one out. And we put together an arrest warrant for Scott based on that information and other information that we had gathered to that point. And it was almost interesting the way this case went for that, you know, four months of period. Because it's seemed like any time we ran out of somewhere where we get to close to finishing up all the different things we were doing besides Scott. Then all of a sudden something would pop up and it would like

fill the tank with gas and we'd have more to go on. And so this was a point before those bodies, you know, showed up. We were just about ready to charge him, but unfortunately the DA in Stale

Saw County, he said, hey, if you don't have a body, I'm not going to give you a filing. Now we've

been working this case as a nobody homicide from the start. And we were using a protocol that was developed by a prosecutor from her said county south of Stale Saw County where we lived. And

“this case fit everything on the all the things that he had on the protocol with you have a victim”

that doesn't have any prior history of leaving that got ties to the community. They don't have any family problems. It didn't clean up the bank account. They don't all these different things that are going on there. And so she's like, you know, the victim that you want when it comes to put one of those cases together. So, of course, when the body showed up, that got everything jumped up into high gear. So, a restaurant was put together. We had a surveillance going on

for Scott down in San Diego by agents from Department of Justice early in his crew down there because we didn't have enough cops to help out on this. So we used, you know, help from a lot of different agencies, you know, throughout the state. So, we drove down to San Diego and we hooked up with those guys and then we were going to make the arrest the next day when the DNA results were going to be released. Bill Locker was the Attorney General in California at the time and he was going

to be in charge of releasing those results, you know, to the media into the public. And the instructions that we got from Judge Bolshein who gave us the arrest warrant was, I know what you have here, but don't execute this arrest warrant until you get those DNA results. If you can, I didn't tell us we couldn't, but he wanted us to wait until we got those results. And so, when we started following Scott that next morning, he was, I don't know if he was NASCAR quality, but he was

a pretty darn good driver. I mean, high speed and he could cut lanes and take an off ramp and, of course, we did drive like that. We roll our cars, something and so we have to miss them, you know, we drive down another off ramp. And it was just a big, you know, it was kind of like a comedian of cars driving around. It was ridiculous. So they had a helicopter up. So luckily, we were able to stay on him, but even the helicopter lost in the 1.0.

What was fleeing because we all remember, my audience, my think, he had died his hair blonde,

“he had grown a go-to, he had $15,000 of cash on him, he had, I think, did he have a fake driver's”

license? Yeah, he had camping gear. It certainly seemed like he was about to flee, perhaps across the southern border. Well, you know, we couldn't rule that out. I mean, he knew San Diego well, he grew up down there and you know, that's not very far from the Mexico. We didn't know if he was, if he thought the cops were after him or if he thought that you guys were after him, you know, trying to, you know, get an interview or, you know, they're there for us, John.

Well, you know, it's 20% of that here that I think he had two versions of that. He told somebody that he, he died his hair because he wanted to be more anonymous. He didn't want to be spotted in public and then he told us that he, it got died because he was swimming in a pool with too much chlorine. Oh, he's the thing. Yeah. Every little, every little brunette girl in America knows that's not true because we all tried to get our hair dyed that way and it doesn't work.

Yeah, which I was moving during the past three is kind of old. But anyway, so he, yeah, he'd come up with these different versions of things, which were, you know, they're mildly amusing when you're working the case. But it's like you don't have to lie about this stuff. You know, just tell it straight. It's in his nature. All right. So, so let's, I want to move it along. So, so you affect the arrest, the trial takes place. And what forensic evidence did you have? What was, I know it was

circumsensable as I'm looking and getting ready for this interview. Okay, sent sniffing dogs picked up Lacy's scent in the Berkeley Marina four days after she disappeared. Scott's team and Garagos was saying this just the other day, say, you cannot rely on that dog's fail to at a three of these tests under similar circumstances. That was a bunch of BS evidence. The dog's scent. Your thoughts on the dogs. Well, I know a few dogs in the neighborhood, you know, I feed them some little

milk-one treats, but I don't know dogs like T9 handlers do. I, my understanding is, the dogs have

an incredible sense of smell that is multiple times better than humans. You know, I can't disagree

But once again, it was just one of those strands of physical evidence. And if you remember

of Vincent Rubioci's book, "Helter Skeletor," he described his circumstantial case as a series of strands or cables or strands of wires on a table that had become increasingly big and strong. And okay, you can attack the dog. Well, give rid of that little strand, but you still have all the rest of these. And so when you add up all the circumstantial evidence, that paints a very compelling picture. It almost would be like if you had a jigsaw puzzle on your table. And you were missing three

“pieces in the middle, but you'd be pretty sure what the picture says. And that's what we had here”

with all the circumstantial evidence. So when it comes to physical evidence, well, we've got Scott's behavior. We could do a whole show on that. But you've got the absence of intrusion from another person coming in there. You've got the condition of the bodies and where they're found. You've got Scott's behavior when it comes to how he's dealing with everything involving this case, whether it's returning to the scene where the body's exposed. I think five or six times.

And this is consistent with what killers generally do if they have little doubts about whether they're not that hit the body enough. So you've got all of those kinds of things. You've got Amber coming in. You've got the absence of anybody else involved in it. We've got the burglary across the street that we were able to clear those burglars from involvement in this. Ah, that's not there. You know, that's that's a big item being pushed by Scott Cistern law right now,

saying there was a burglary in the neighborhood. She thinks that she says that there is proof that

“it happened. On the morning, Lacey went missing, which she says was definitively 1224 and not 1223,”

which was something the police had suggested could have been the case. She said we believe Lacey was killed after she stumbled upon that burglary live. She said a neighbor, Diane Jackson said she saw three men in a van in front of a home there on December 24th. But then I understand that the two robbers apprehended denied any involvement in the case and they were clear by the cops.

Moreover, there was apparently a second person in the neighborhood, maybe I don't know,

maybe it was a woman you mentioned earlier, who was pregnant and walking a dog that day. But you tell me why we shouldn't be putting much stock into the burglary theory that they they napped yet Lacey because she saw them. Well, it's you know, it's pretty rare that a guy doing a property crime is going to turn into an inductor of a pregnant girl with it's walking a dog. I mean, if everybody, if Diane Jackson sees a van in the 1140 in the morning with three

guys in it, but she can't even tell us if it's white, tan, or black, it kind of pulls into question

“her viability as a witness. In addition to that, one of the burglars, a guy named Stephen,”

he drove that route daily as he was sourcing an narcotic habit, but he was, that would be his route when he went to his girlfriend's house. So on the 24th, he noticed that the house across the street looked like maybe people had left for the holidays as he went over there on the 25th. He was pretty sure they did. So we broke into the house on the 25th. He took a bit of property on the 25th, but there was a save and some tools and other things that he couldn't take on his bike. So

he returns home and he's living in a shed behind his friend Don, who's living with his mother. And he tells Don, "Hey, there's a safe over there. We need to go back where we get that." So they returned on the 26th and the reason we know that they were there on the 26th is they said they saw the media down the street when they were in the house and it was a big group line. They couldn't figure out what it was because they didn't know, but it was interesting to them that the media

would be out in the street. Well, they're going in and out through the back of the house. So they're, you know, I mean, whether it's for Raldo or Greta or you or anybody else out there, they're not going to see these guys part in a safe out the back of a house. When they came under suspicion for this burglary, this is one of the things that we've run into is cooperation level from people that are doing property crimes. It's very rare that they're cooperating with them. But these two

guys, not only do we rest one of them on an active warrant, they both rolled down their involvement in the burglary because by that time they knew what was going on down the street. They wanted to be as far away from this case as humanly possible to think of a guy in a flight to Burma they would have gone. But that wasn't their option. So they begged to take a poly because they knew and they wanted to share the results of the polygraph because they knew if they went to jail, which they were

going, that they wanted to be able to share that with the other inmates because the other inmates are going to take too kindly to two guys that they think might have killed this woman and are

on more in-child. So not only did we recover property from that third lady, we recover nothing

of laces. No jewelry, nothing at all. And we even recovered property from another bird that wasn't even related. Everybody that these guys had sold or given property to an exchange for drugs, turned stuff. And we even had one guy came in the police lobby and dumped off a bag of property from the burglary and run out before anybody could grab them. Of course, they didn't know what was at the bag until they opened it up. So as far as these guys being involved in this,

to laces, you know, recovery and you know, locating her and everything like that. Well, in Medesto,

“when you've got guys that are using the math and you know, two guys involved in an abduction”

to try and convince me, I mean, I work in a different world than maybe some of your viewers. But to try and convince me that one one roll on the other for $500,000, I mean my gosh, that's you know, pure Santa Claus. I mean, there's just no way. What about, well, what about the side of the element? Because there's a few things. I kind of, I kind of jumped ahead there. But there, Jenny, Jenny, this sister-in-law Scott Peterson says there was evidence, Lacey was alive on

Christmas Eve morning, past the point at which Scott left, which we've established was around 930. She said there were sightings of Lacey at 945 and 1030 on Christmas Eve. She said that there were a couple of witnesses who saw the pregnant woman walking her golden retriever around the neighborhood. And what's your response to that? Well, there were two pregnant girls that were pregnant about the same stage as Lacey that walked dogs in the neighborhood.

“There was one named Michelle and was walking a golden retriever in another work with one”

named Kristen that was walking a chocolate lab. And then there was a third girl, another attractive girl, all three attractive, that easily could have been mistaken for Lacey by somebody in the neighborhood who did not know Lacey. Now, and this is the interesting part, is none of these people

that came forward and claimed they saw Lacey there, actually knew her. They didn't, they never had

a barbecue with her, they'd never been to her house. So it's easy to misplace or misidentify somebody, especially with the coverage going on, when with the thought of being helpful or maybe the thought that I want to be involved in this. But we couldn't find any evidence that anybody who actually knew Lacey had seen her in the neighborhood at that time. And as far as anybody identifying her is walking around there, it could have been an easy mistaken identity with any of these other three

girls. I interviewed two of them. And if you're looking out the blinds and you don't know who you're looking at, I mean, think about yourself, you know, you get your home, you see somebody walk by in the morning and then two days later, maybe something comes up and she might have been the same

person. But if you, I could never, yeah, I might have that kind of memory. I could never, I would

know, not be able to do that. But let me, let me throw another one at you. There was an allegedly a prisoner confession overheard by an officer named Lieutenant Aponte at Narcoe, prison in California, the Lieutenant phoned in at tip in 2003, claiming he overheard an inmates conversation about Lacey. Later, this Lieutenant Aponte changed his story saying, I don't really know what I heard. He was not called as a witness at trial, but this could become a thing. I suppose that if he heard a prisoner

confession of some sort, do you know about this? Yeah, I know about what you said right there, because if one apparently wasn't a big enough deal on a radar to have him called as a witness. And again, you know, when you look at Gerigo's, I mean, he died. Not only is he a skilled attorney, his staff. I mean, I don't know if you ever talked any of the attorneys on his staff, but he had a bunch of great attorneys that were digging up every single thing they could. I don't think they existed anything.

And if Aponte would have been something of value, I had a highly doubt that Mark would not have called him to the stand. Now, there might have been some tactical legal reasons for that. I don't know or maybe some information came up later. And if that's an appeal issue, what amount of the stand? Let's hear what I got to saying. You know, I mean, if Scott didn't do this, I don't want him in jail, but I have no doubt so we did it. What about back to the timeline? Apparently,

I neighbor testified seeing the golden retriever Mackenzie inside the Peterson's gated yard around 10 15 AM. Jamie Scott's sister in law says the mailman was there. He arrived at 10 30 AM and said that he didn't believe the dog was there early. He heard no barking, which he would have if the dog had been outside because it barked at the mailman every day. She says this proves that Lacy was walking that dog at around 10 30 that it was in the yard at 10 15. It was gone by 10 30.

Lacy would have been walking it at that point and then at some point it returned back to the house just it's leash attached and Scott had left the house an hour earlier. Now I will add the mailman

“says he doesn't have a very clear recollection of the day. He didn't remember anything out of the”

ordinary, but that doesn't necessarily clear up the question of whether at 10 30 he delivered the mail and a dog that would normally have been there barking at him wasn't. Yeah, I look at that from a different aspect. There was Scott and Lacy have gone down to Disneyland in November and for part of the days that they were down there she had to be in a wheelchair because she was having so much difficult to be walking. Not only her yoga instructor but of course also her doctor had told her

the housekeeper had mentioned that she was exhausted, Sharon had told us that she was exhausted,

Sharon did not believe that Lacy had gone walking and to think this girl that that couldn't even move a mop bucket according to Scott would go down a uneven grade down to a park with a dog tugging at her when she saw the stable out of her feet and exhausted from everybody's account. Makes it sound to me like she didn't do that walk. Now of course I wasn't there I can't make that call but all I can do is I can compare the evidence of information that we receive that seems

valid and it doesn't really have a stake in this versus Janice, you know devotion to family and love for Scott and I get that I've been understand family members are like that and I I applaud her for her to nacity but I don't believe that Lacy was ever walking that morning with the dog just

based on the other information that we have. So when did he kill her and what did he do in the

moments after? That's where I'm going to pick it up with John Bueller in one minute don't go away.

“So John what do you think actually happened inside that house and when?”

Well of course none of us are ever really going to know that of them Scott himself but my my take on it is he probably suffocated her with a pillow or strangled her and then rolled her body up and maybe a sheet or something like that moved her out to the truck put her in the truck put the umbrella on top of her so that nobody can really see her in there. Draw him over to his warehouse loader in the boat use the tarp on the boat to cover the boat and then of course hook the boat

up and drove her up to Berkeley Marina launch the boat to grab the brook silent and rolled her into the water with four or five of the concrete anchors that we believe he made is judging from the residue rings of cement powder that was out of a flat bed trailer that was in his warehouse one that would be used to deliver fertilizer or something like that. That's kind of the way I think and it could be off slightly and you know I'd certainly buy Scott some imported ale if he wanted

to tell me what really happened but some of that he's going to be doing that. Why wouldn't there be any forensics in his truck? Well, why would there not be? I mean if he's seen his shower wrapped up in a

“something? Well don't you remember that hair that was found in the pliers that were in the boat?”

One hair of least he's in the pliers on his boat but I mean couldn't you make the argument you know my husband takes our boat out all the time I'm like I'm not I'm rarely in it but if my hair were there I I guess he could say you know I get meggs hair on me all the time. Right yeah the transfer of ad is you know it's easy I can I can see where you know when the hair came from in the boat no problem there and then of course it was concrete residue in the boat that it was consistent with somebody rolling

somebody with anchors attached over the side into the water so you know you have that but as far as any more evidence in his truck well she's in the bed you know I can't say that there wouldn't be but the mere fact that the scent dogs were able to trace her path essentially in the truck as he drove from there down to the south and then turned west and went over towards his warehouse and they followed him over there they followed the scent from the warehouse out to 132 which is the drive that you go

up to San Francisco tracing it all the way up to Berkeley Marina I mean yeah Mark Garodos can say

“that that's in valid and and okay I get that that's what he's paid to do that's a side he's on”

but it's all just additional circumstantial evidence that leads to the fingers pointing it's got but as far as evidence that you would expect if he doesn't harm her to the point where she's leaking blood and he puts her in a position where she's wrapped up or maybe saliva or any kind of purchase it comes out of her mouth after death it's not going to get through what he very he's got her wrapped up in you're not going to find anything in the truck especially since he

was only in there for what I would estimate to be a short period of time from the house to the warehouse loaded in the boat and gone knowing what he's been loading up the boat with her body at the warehouse because you're a theory as he did that inside the warehouse yes okay and so the only way they would have seen her getting loaded into that truck would have been from the house into the truck but as you said earlier he had back the truck all the way up to the house in an unusual

move yeah neighbors notice that that you you know you I was first time they ever seen the truck back

and then they also noticed that there was a first time that they can recall that the blinds were open on the front of the house in the morning they let them out of the sun and that was something at least he did all the time that particular morning those weren't open which is really suspicious when you think that if she was home watching my foot by the steward or something like that that she wouldn't have opened those lines quick note on the boat though that there was a cover that

went over the aluminum boat and when Scott found out that we were doing more digging around he took that cover and he put it in a shed behind his house underneath a leaking gas can that would put

itself now Scott was facetious about taking care of his property whether it was his vehicles or

the surface of his kitchen table or anything like that but the thought that he would take a relatively nice boat cover and put a leaky leaf blower gas can on top of it for any other reason other than the maybe destroy lacy scent seems kind of strange to me so again just one more piece of circumstantial evidence and by themselves anecdotal they don't mean anything before you have those things up they become very very convincing and this is one of the things that I think a lot of people that

don't think he did it are missing is they're not making themselves available to all the individual

“circumstantial evidence because you have to ignore just a giant heap of this stuff to believe he didn't do it”

yeah i applaud a painter's family for their love for Scott and what they're trying to do but you need to have to do something else we understand they're motive okay let's talk about the boat because garagos was lamenting that his experiment trying to show a man Scott's size throwing a body a pregnant an eight and a half month pregnant woman's body overboard with a bunch of cement anchors that he did that experiment and it showed the boat sinking we've actually got that the video tape

that he tried to get into the judge kept out let me ask you about it because as I watch I'm like you know he does raise an interesting question could a man as big a Scott Peterson get a pregnant woman that that pregnant overboard with four anchors attached to her without the boat capsizing or sinking here's garagos is a clip from his would be evidence that was denied if our listening audience it shows an exact replica of Scott's 14 foot fishing boat and a man in scuba gear you know they're

not reporting that it's actually Scott it's a reenactment what they say is and dummy that is a pregnant

woman and he can't the the boat is sinking he's basically can't get overboard without sinking the

boat the back of the boat is going down down down and under the water so I get that the prosecution

“wasn't there when he filmed his experiment and that's why the judge said no because that didn't”

give them the chance to object to the currents weren't the same on the day you did this as they were on December 24th or who knows how heavy was that dummy that mark used who knows right like we don't know because they weren't there but does he raise some good questions about whether it's possible you know given the laws of physics oh yeah of course he raises good questions on that and you know Bible thought on that is Scott should you're going to do that experiment and send us in but let us come

there and let us you know do it with him I I've seen that same tape I it's been a while since I've seen it of course I can't see it on this you know device here the way we're doing this but I saw and I thought guys I could have tried a little harder to not let the boat go over I'm I'm I'm the belief that it couldn't been I don't think that there's anything unusual about that but if it's a situation

“where they only want to show one version of it that's why it was subjected to let's do a scientific”

study I mean it doesn't mean you have to get a physicist there but let's try a couple of times maybe get somebody in there that wants to keep the boat from going over somebody who doesn't really definitely have to think if he believed that he could do it without the boat sinking they tried it five times and every time it's sunk he would have said you know what let's go back and do it we'll do it we'll do a tomorrow let's prosecution can come with me right there's a reason

he didn't yeah he didn't round back and say oh that's your objection and you're sustaining it your honor okay no problem we can we can do it right now the the the anchors you believe he made for cement weights because I also read that they found planter pots at the bottom of the the water and that they matched that they were found by divers in the marina and that they they they many believe that they were used to weigh down lacy's body because they match broken

pots in his storage unit is that not the right anchor it was those concrete blocks that he made

well I never heard about them finding planter pots up there that that's a new one for me you know

of course this case I had gosh I got the note here on it over 43,000 over 43,000 pages of reports so there were a lot of people that could be not said a lot of us yeah but at the same time I remember they're the one anchor and one concrete anchor that was in Scottsburg they didn't even have a rope attached to it now most people I know if they're gonna toss an anchor up to fold their boat they usually have a rope attached there to work better yeah generally but it was one of those things where the the

one was found okay cool but if you remember when lacy was found minus the head minus the four

“extremity limbs and suggest five anchors on her when she goes in and one of the things that was”

noted on her condition when she was recovered again the forensic pathologist said it appeared that she'd been the salt water for three to six months that the limbs had been separated by either surgical precision or they had been weighted and then the weights separated and then she also had three broken ribs well she talked to her mom the night before you know on the 23rd and she didn't say anything about broken ribs and lacy probably would have told somebody if she had broken ribs and so that also

fits with Scott kneeling on top of her you know suffocating her or strangling her and of course the way the limbs were separated supports that there were weighted devices anchors concrete anchors on each one of the four extremities and maybe around the back so it's not counting on her torso coming back up and that torso had their baby in it from most of its time underwater right the forensic pathologist said the umbilical cord was still attached and that and I mean it's so sad but

that lacy died still pregnant with her unborn son and and they were they were put to a water

egrave and they but they came back up they came back up to tell the tale and it was first

Connor's body and then lacy's the remains of it that were found and while it wasn't exactly evidence of Scott's involvement you know it didn't show whatever a gun shot like a bullet that was linked to him it really was the the final piece that you needed to to to bring him to justice but it seemed like it to us I mean again it's all circumstantial but you know there's a lot of murder cases are sort of substantial you know it's that's kind of the way we put them together if you

don't have an eyewitness or a video tape and it's it was compelling to us and apparently it was compelling to the jury the first time around and you know I wouldn't have any doubts that we would get another good verdict on a second trial you wouldn't come with not I'm confident in the prosecutors that we have a beer get in Dave and then of course they bring somebody else in because

“Rick is now a judge but you know you can bring things up all these years later I believe we have”

a good case if you get a good jury I think you get a good verdict and if somebody gets on the jury

that you know maybe the jury's always a crap shoot as you know you've done this for a while

and you just never know what you're going to get with them but well you know it out here's the other here's the other element kind of goes back to what we discussed earlier which is there is a part of me there's probably a part of a lot of people watching this that that wants him not to have done it that would like it to have been the burglars or some random sickle on the street and that it's not possible for what appears to be a loving husband to

strangle the the mother of his unborn son a month before that son is going to be born completely viable baby and then anchor her shove her in the back of a truck under a tarp and tie five concrete blocks to her neck and each limb hoping she will stay in that watery grave but he was so efficient that the torso broke free and that body floated him for a month later it's like I would rather believe some random creepy boogie man did it you know there's something

“about it that that I think might be one of the biggest challenges at the trial that the need to”

believe that well I think you know and we all share in that you know you look at him and he just doesn't look evil but evil does exist and one of the reasons that evil is successful a lot of

times is it comes disguised as you know a beautiful man or a beautiful woman and so you never know

what you're going to get with that but the thing is you know people you want to look at Scott you want to think he couldn't have done this but yeah she he wanted to sell you know the house within two weeks of lacy doing missing it will be sold lacy's car a month or so after she went missing he turned the nursery into a storage area I mean this is the guy that is wanting his wife to come home this is the guy he was looking forward to the birth of his son you know you're going to have to

give me some better evidence of that because I just I I can get past his looks which are so disarming and I can see what actually he did because his actions are speaking evil even though it's coming out of an attractive package hmm all right I'm going to squeeze in a break because up next we're going to talk about what the sister said he was doing in that same time frame John just referenced and another piece of his Diane Sawyer interview that was very very

wrote John that she because she spent a lot of time apparently it was Scott in the weeks after the

“disappearance and before his arrest and she wrote in her book that he appeared smitten with her and birds”

22 year old babysitter this is while they're looking for lazy and Connor before the body's came smitten with her 22 year old babysitter and more than one occasion he told his sister Amberd how attractive the sitter was I mean this is like the man's in his world his version his wife is missing and so's their baby um how attractive the sitter was whithly see still missing he applied the sitter with drinks that he called quote flirtinies based on peach snobs and she

said he looked like a charming young man without a care in the world she went on to write he

seemed totally uninterested in any new leads or new information he never once shed a single tear

for lazy or Connor the situation uh and that two weeks after lazy's disappearance he ordered

“two porn channels on his home TV and she was a witness to that uh I I mean like”

that alone would make me convict him well yeah and that's that's just consistent with his behavior and and then this is one of the reasons that he you know we couldn't discount him because he just didn't show the interest in this case the way he would say on TV these wait for the little guy to come home you won't even infertile this Connor yeah he wants lazy to come home but when the cameras turned off then he's just not interested in any of this and especially when you compare his reaction

in the way he dealt with all of this with Sharon and and all the other side of you know lazy family and friends they were all just urgent going crazy wanting some solutions and suggestions

so they were they were always interested in this and he just wasn't and this is consistent with

what I've seen on other guys that have done similar types of killings they just they don't you know they don't have an interest in it and I remember Scott's dad said one time you know lead you he mentioned that you know grief doesn't have a playbook and you know baby it probably doesn't for people that haven't dealt with a lot of families that have suffered a loss but when you when you deal with families and friends that have suffered a loss over a period of time you kind of

get a you know a data bank of what reactions are from subdued silence to hysterical you know you know punching on the you know back at a one who gives him the death death notification

“hard remember that and everything in between but when Scott doesn't even move the needle on this”

and he isn't asking the questions that you expect that you get from sincere people it just fits with what he did you know and and by itself it doesn't really get it it just is one more strand that to me shows that he did hmm what kind of a man is flirting with a 22 year old baby sitter offing her flirtinies and then downloading porn while his wife and unborn baby are at best for Scott Peterson at that point missing I mean it's just it's so clear that he was involved

then he goes on with Diane Sawyer and when I actually we talk with Garagos about what a mistake it is for these high-profile defendants to give interviews to the press you guys must love it you're you're in the opposite seat then Garagos who's like no you guys are like go for it

Diane Sawyer's amazing he's she's a great choice and here is one of the things listen to this

for the audience and home listen to him refer to Lacey before the body's long before the body's or found in the past tense listen here tell me about the state of your marriage what what kind of marriage was it got out of the first where it comes to mind is glorious anyway to carry each other very well she's amazing that's telling well you know it's interesting because he even referred to Lacey in the past tense twice during brokenies interview with him on the evening of Christmas Eve

so even from the start he was doing that and you know it was you know you can't hide that stuff I mean he's he's pretty slick for the most part but you know those things slip out when you're doing it and no matter how slick you are you you can't be that good and then there was the interview with Gloria Gomez of Sacramento and in that you referenced it earlier in the show he he slips in the fact that he had a cut on his hand remind me of OJ as my many very much of OJ but we know OJ's

murder was with a knife listen I'll just let the audience hear it but I don't think this was

happened here it is it wouldn't surprise you if they found blood sure and your vehicles explain why

well take a look at my hand you can see you know cuts here on my knuckles numerous scars I I work on farms I work with machinery I know I cut my knuckle that day on what day on Christmas Eve do what reaching in the toolbox of my truck and then into the pocket on the door I cut out my knuckle and there's blood stain on the door on driver's head door hmm what did you guys make of that well it's a pretty good way to explain that away and you know I can't rule out the fact that

it's possible he could have cut it that way but it's also possible that Lacey may have scratched him as he was killing him and so you know those again without a witness in a video tape or confession

you're never really going to know on that but that was not accidental that he raised that

well you know and that's all for the jury you know the jury you know listens to that and they draw their own conclusions on that but just the fact that he's volunteering it talking about it it's almost like he said guilty conscious coming out and he wants to make sure he gets in front of that with this story so what are the toolbox John what are the toolbox because one of the things that one of the evidence rulings was that Garagos' boat video couldn't come in

but as I understand it there was a ruling that the prosecution introduced showing that he could have fit a body the size of a pregnant woman in the toolbox of his flat bed truck. Are you this familiar to you? No because it was a pickup the flat bed was the trailer but I know we did an experiment and it was submitted to the court where we had a eight month pregnant clerk in the investigation division at Stanislav County District Attorney's office and we took an overhead photo of

her inside the boat between the seats now the seats go across the width of the boat and she easily fit him between those two seats and she was consistent at size with lacy so that was one of the things that we did to show that that was possible that she could have easily been hidden in the boat

“but I don't remember if we were able to get that in at trial or not because it's been too long ago”

but you know I like that judge the lady I thought he was pretty pretty right down the middle he gave some good favorable decisions to the defense and then maybe some that they did like but that's true in every trial as you know you get them you get one seat you like and you get one seat you don't you just hope in that the judge is doing it right well and I mean there are big bases for appeal is not necessarily you know judicial misconduct it's it's juror misconduct juror number

seven who called herself strawberry shortcake did not disclose and her juror questionnaire that she had apparently been the victim of domestic violence while pregnant which I agreed the defense had a right to know whether it was enough error to you know allow whether that was a prejudicial enough to throw out a verdict in a case like this is a different story for the listeners and the viewers

“who don't remember her we used to call her pinky at the time here she is along with another juror”

celebrating their guilty verdict yeah now you don't always see the juror's talk in California in

this case you did it's a quick snippet of her watch and it's it's illegal to kill your wife from child in California so that's the gal and I wonder what you think about now this push because he's been he's had his sentence reduced because of a different juror misconduct issue not related to this gal and now in February we will have a hearing to see whether Scott Peterson gets a new trial on the guilt or innocence phase of the whole thing because she that juror did not disclose this

fact on her questionnaire yeah well that brings up two points number one I had heard that her lack of coming forward with that information on the juror questionnaire was that she was the victim of a threat from a boyfriends ex-girlfriend and she didn't see that as domestic violence now there

“may be more to it than that but that's what I originally heard that's yeah that's better for the”

prosecution than what I just said for sure yeah and then of course when it comes to the death penalty thing I'm not a huge death penalty guy because I think it's been 17 years since California has carried one out so to even try somebody on a death penalty seems to be kind of placebo they're not going to get the needle they're probably going to die in custody I would rather have more flexibility in jury selection without a death penalty case so maybe you get a good juror that just doesn't

want to you know do a death penalty thing but they can be fair about it to me that's a better way to go because I just my personal feeling is that the death penalty in California is kind of a joke yeah it doesn't you know they're not serious about what kind of life does he have now

it's gotten enormously interesting culture and heritage it's not a very pleasant place it's

it's it's frightening even to us when you go there when you're a cop and you go into one of the

“prisons for an interview or whenever you have to do up there it's it's a scary atmosphere it's”

interesting you talk to the correctional officers and we ask and we don't how can you do this be like that but these guys all day and they go well how to help and you do you do at least we know when the players are and I can see it from both sides but it's a death throw I think is a if I had to be in San Quentin I'd want to be on death wrong because I'm not really exposed to that many of the other inmates and general population in San Quentin can get your her pretty quick especially

if they don't like you for killing your wife and your child so you know if if they do stay with

the verdict of guilt and he does get you know like without parole we call it al-Lop and he stays in

there they're gonna have to assure us safety by keeping them isolated because he would be a target for other inmates there's a national geographic special that was on a couple of years ago that profile San Quentin and even one of the inmates that they interviewed talks specifically about

“Scott that he would be attacked if he was in general population maybe to do it with a pencil”

pretty interesting show to watch if you get a chance to catch that one of course it's absolutely your show but it's natural but the prison code of justice is so weird it's like you don't get to San Quentin for being a boy scout but like there's certain lines they won't cross I guess you're not allowed what I'm killing your wife I don't know if that's a problem but killing your unborn baby is that the thing that's gonna get him the pencil on the next yeah there it's it's

an intro it's a very interesting it's a violent but a very interesting culture up there any of the state prisons in California are you know not everybody gets to go in unless you do something really bad but it's it's a very interesting culture up there I don't think Scott's days are very good now Scott has an enormously impressive emotional control and so he kind of I'm sure he adapts better than I would and but it's it's not you know he's not ordering 14 he's up there you know he sees

stuck and he ain't going anywhere and they don't smell good they're noisy and you're not there with the faculty of Stanford so you know it's not a very pleasant place to be what do you think because you know people debate this all the time in in our society because the death penalty is still recognized as constitutional and implemented in certain states I've heard I've heard people

“who oppose the death penalty say I oppose it because I think it's too it's too kind it's too swift”

that they'd I'd rather see somebody you know especially a young man like Scott Peterson I mean Sharon Rochette that hearing just most recently was just saying Lacy would be I think she said 47 now and Connor would be 18 and it really just give you a flavor for the passage of time and how much they've lost and Scott Peters and two is not getting any younger but what a torturous existence and I wonder what you think about what would be worse a death sentence or a life in prison without parole

well you know that's kind of a flip at a coin I mean that's you know D.A. and you know D.A. have the fish or D.A. have the state I mean they both are you know kind of equal in some ways I I I think the anxiety of knowing that the the grim reapers coming when you got that death set so if they're going to carry it out would be very difficult to deal with but again most people end up in there don't think the way we do so their their thought process is probably slightly different

there was some good things recently there was a guy put to death recently and one of his closing statements before they gave him the needle was he he solved another case for he did the last minute he he said something about another murder that had been committed and that they cleared him on that or cleared clear the case based on what he said I guess he committed it so I mean for me if they're not going to carry it out don't bother with them don't don't cause additional problems don't

make the trial longer by having a penalty face just get by with you know your life without parole and leave it back and then he is sit there and you think about it for the rest of your life the concern also of course you know you put an innocent man in death I wouldn't want to ever see that and in this case you know you don't have a confession you don't have an eyewitness and you don't have

a video tape so you know there's always that but well we out we have the we have the fear that you know

he's good looking that we live in a celebrity obsessed culture and he is for better for worse sort of a celebrity that the jurors of 2021 or this would be 2022 have been completely trained to expect CSI like investigations where the proof is always there and the absence of tight forensics mean you don't have a case right that all these things are challenges if this case has to be retried we didn't even talk about this woman Evelyn Hernandez who she was up in San Francisco

and she went missing in May of 2002 her body washed up in San Francisco Bay in July of 2002

that the defense could make hay with you know was there a serial killer were they wrong about

“the burglars was there something happening on December 24th and I just wonder whether”

we're so obsessed with like armchair detective work in 2021 it would be a more of an uphill battle for the prosecution I'll give you the last work well they probably would be but again I have confidence in the prosecutors from Stance All County District Attorney's office they've got some

incredibly bright trial attorneys there and so I don't know who they would assign to at the second time

“around with with it going to trial again hopefully not the big thing for me is the torture for the”

family for Sharon and the rest of the family for them to have to go through this again and even for this to come up for resettincy here in December what a great time of the year to do that to just open

that wound again now granted every Christmas is going to be different from before lacy went missing

to now and I get that but then they have to add you know salt to the wound by having this thing

“happened now like but they've done this in February and put them off a little bit longer but you know”

that is what it is and this is what we're dealing with as far as I'm concerned I'm close to the case along with Craig and and and Al we were in it from the start and you know it is what it is it was a team effort I appreciate you referring to me as I want to solve it I didn't solve it we worked it together from those of us around the core unit investigating it from the beginning to the other detectives that came and helped with us the other agencies here support of us the technician

other agencies the FBI that helped us out out at our crime analysis did a wonderful job but it things began and the evidence that clerk's the evidence technicians and everybody that joined in on it that was a big team effort I just hope that if we go to trial again and then we get a good jury they can see right through this stuff and they see every strand of this circumstantial evidence makes it a breakable cable and they come back with the right word I hope the same John thank you so

much for your investigatory efforts and for being here to tell us the story thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly show no BS no agenda and no fear