Speaker 1: Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence, and is
not intended for all audiences.
Speaker 2: Listener discretion is advised. We got a home. Do you
have a check on her welfare? I'm at her home
and she's fast away. What she's fast away?
Speaker 1: It's mid September twenty twenty three. Fifty two year old
widow Marcia Allen is away from her home in Freetown, Indiana.
She's on a trip to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with
her parents. She leaves on Saturday, planning to return a
week later. On the following Saturday. Before the trip, she
does something she's been wanting to do for a while.
While she installs cameras. She buys this system herself from
Walmart and keeps it quiet. She wants to watch the
house while she's away, mostly to keep an eye on
her cats and because she feels unsafe since her husband
died about a year ago. She gets them because she's
never left her cats alone that long, and she has
a bad feeling in the gut of her stomach, so
she wants to be able to check in on her
pets wherever she is.
Speaker 2: I've never left.
Speaker 3: My cats alone so that long before, and I had
a got you.
Speaker 2: I thought maybe one of them a daughter or something,
and I.
Speaker 3: Felt bad if I didn't know about it, and I
got on to keep it out on my cats.
Speaker 2: I'm still scared.
Speaker 3: So I got the security survey those cameras because they
ever telling me hear a noise, I jump. I look
at all outside cameras.
Speaker 2: Try and go outside of the workers. I don't want
anybody cannot jump at me?
Speaker 4: Right, Okay, you even watch it on your phone and you
were you were actually out.
Speaker 5: Went to Tennessee is his mom and dad's anniversary, and
they wanted to go, and any must, I start going
to work and they didn't take long end his dad's
getting the bench.
Speaker 2: So I took home.
Speaker 1: Marcia has already lost her husband, and she was in
that phase of life where you're not sure how much
longer your parents are going to be around, starting to
get there myself. It's not a good feeling. She notes
that her dad has dementia and it was their anniversary.
She's a good daughter. On her parents couch, she scrolls
through the camera app. Suddenly there's a ping, then another.
The AI in the app is able to determine that
there is a person in view, but no one should
be inside her house. She nervously taps the first click,
and the view of the camera pops up on her phone.
The shape slides across the frame. She pinches to zoom,
then another alert lands. Another clip cues. Her thumb keeps moving, Save, Save, Save.
She starts counting, and she'll end up with twenty two
videos by the time this is over. One of them
is nearly five minutes long. Obviously, she's in a state
of panic. As she stares at her phone. There are
two adult males wearing hoodies and moving towards her safe
and in that longer clip of face suddenly turns towards
the camera. She watches more. The time stamps move towards
six o'clock. A door that should be shut swings open,
and a view shifts down a hall she knows by heart.
She studies the intruder's hands and clothing. The face flashes again,
making her stomach drop. She recognizes it this time and
says the name out loud, her eyes fixed on what
she's seeing. She calls the sheriff's office and says where
she is and what the app is sending, along with
how many clips she has of the breakin. She texts
and emails what she can, and then keeps the live
view open to keep watching. Inside the house, drawers open
and shut. In one camera angle, she sees the safe
and catches her breath. She knows the sound that the
safe makes when it opens. The live feed hiccups, then
streams again. A second figure passes through a doorway. She
listens for anything, footsteps, a scrape, anything she can tell
deputies later. Then, around six pm, everything suddenly stops. The
stream freezes up and drops. No more alerts, no more clips.
She refreshes nothing. She switches to another camera. Nothing. She
knows this means someone must have unplugged the router. She
stares at the blank screen. The safe is massive, and
she thinks about what's inside. Family rings, collectibles, and dozens
of firearms kept for years. She starts a list in
her head, she writes it down. She tells herself she
can pull serial numbers when she gets home, and then
she calls the sheriff's office again to make sure they
got the videos. She tells her parents she needs to
go back early.
Speaker 6: Okay, so I'm not sure if I got twenty two,
but I got a lot of and I'm not sure
that I've been.
Speaker 7: All the way through all of them, but well, the
five one shows Stephen's face, full.
Speaker 8: Face, And what cracks me up is he looked in
the midroom and he saw the camera, but yeah, distracting
him and fell about.
Speaker 6: Any and you called into the sheriff's apartment, okay, And
so do you think the other guy's in the thing?
Speaker 2: I do his I know his voice, and it sounds
like his voice.
Speaker 1: She only recognizes the voice of one of the suspects,
but the other she saw his face and put a
name to it. Stephen White. Deputies find him outside in
the driveway at his parents place in Scott County. The
officer took Stephen away from the house to a garage
where his maroon four door sedan sat. Wearing a gray
T shirt and dark sweatpants. Stephen I did as nonchalant,
smoking a cigarette and waving his arms as he spoke
with an open posture. After having his rights read to him,
he gestured for his dog, Hank to move along, and
then he took off running, not running with his legs
so much as his mouth.
Speaker 2: So do you understand your rights? Yes, sir? Okay? Hank
go on, So you don't have any idea why we're
here today.
Speaker 9: Well, they said the show I got me on camera
last night burglarized in the place.
Speaker 2: Okay, so my husband, if that's the case, you know
anything about it?
Speaker 9: No, okay, my husband and I set up last night
till about Well, we're talking to them one and watching.
Note he's off work today. He works a gym pack.
He started the movie a couple of weeks ago. I haven't
had time to fancwer I personally. I think I have
strap or something. You've been running a fever. My tongue
is all swollen and sore, and my mouth as red
and white. So let y'all know that I've been having
diarrhea since all night.
Speaker 2: Like our kids with school this morning. That was about it.
I stood up on the balcans and biting the kids
so they don't get sick of there at school right now.
Speaker 1: Steven may have been sick and his kids may have
been at school right now, but that didn't count for
earlier that morning. The officer went on to tell him
that he and possibly his husband had been positively idd
in the video.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been a police officer for a minute,
all right, and one lie always leads to a second,
second line and then a third lie on a fourth thight.
It's going to make it look a hell lot worse,
all right, And it'll save embarrassment whenever I show.
Speaker 2: The video or show the pictures and they're like, well,
you know, what can I say to that? Because I'll
there to see the video. Okay, I do too. About three,
I got a picture.
Speaker 1: Here, so the officer showed them the picture.
Speaker 2: I mean, I really do not have.
Speaker 9: I what're about the car or the car that you're
in there?
Speaker 2: This is my car. Somebody fucking stole it from me
on Sunday night.
Speaker 6: And how'd you get it back then?
Speaker 2: Because I found a police apportment. We found it over here.
Speaker 9: But I had three keys for this, and I had
my one the keys in there.
Speaker 2: The other keydom putting in listen, I have my seconds,
so listen. I just want you to want you to know, okay.
But there's more than just that picture, all right.
Speaker 1: He went on to explain that the most important thing
was to return the stolen items to the owner, and
if the owner was happy, Steven might avoid charges.
Speaker 2: We either get the stuff back or I think, you know,
probably what's coming. He's got to fucking jail and set
and rock. You get the stuff back, you go to
jail and set and rock.
Speaker 1: Stephen was ready to talk some more.
Speaker 2: That is just another sider. I'll expand the whole thing.
It doesn't what does that lady is the lady who
told me to go get the ship. Her name's Marcia.
Speaker 10: Buston, and she asked me to get because her husband,
Harold Allen, passed away in December, and according to her,
she needed that life insurance money.
Speaker 9: But she did not get that life insurance money because
the policy was set to go to his brother.
Speaker 11: How old is the lady that you're talking about, Marcia Buxton?
Fifty fifty fifty?
Speaker 2: Then does she live there? Yeah?
Speaker 9: And now how she got it because whenever she married,
the man signed a free talent.
Speaker 2: I reckon.
Speaker 12: She gave me an address. She said, hey, how Annie's
to go up in here, and he was a grab
someone and go up in here, and she's trying to
meet this He was up there, and I did, and
I went over there.
Speaker 2: She wanted us to get rid of That was fun.
This woman has hated me for years. I'm best friends
with her daughter.
Speaker 1: She needed the life insurance money, but Harold's death certificate
said he died of natural causes. He'd had a heart
condition that was getting worse in the weeks before he died.
It happened at about two in the afternoon on December twentieth,
the previous year.
Speaker 13: Not on one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is thirty two.
Speaker 14: He said, no state road on thirty five.
Speaker 9: My husband in our bedgroom for he's non responsive and
anti relief.
Speaker 10: Okay, what I dressed the air.
Speaker 2: Thirty two eighty seven, No state road on thirty five, Alida.
Speaker 9: He is fifty to.
Speaker 5: Fifty two?
Speaker 2: God, did you find him like that?
Speaker 8: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I work home and I went back.
Speaker 1: There to shake because she's in the vick.
Speaker 2: And I went back there.
Speaker 15: He was just laying the floor like he was trying
to get in the bedroom, stating, do you.
Speaker 4: Want to start CPR if I help you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I could do that.
Speaker 6: You just do your CPR and you keep me on speaker.
Speaker 10: Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Marcia called for a medical emergency. Her husband was dying
or likely already dead, but this was anything but a
natural death.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: The medical report read cardiovascular disease calcifying constructive perry carditis
severe coronary atherosclerosis of the left interior descending artery. But
his death was way more complicated than all of those big,
complicated fancy words. It was murdered. Someone had murdered Harold Allen.
Fifty two year old Marcia Allen was out of town
in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, with her parents. While monitoring her home
in Freetown, Indiana, started sending alerts about motion inside her
house that shouldn't have existed. She saved twenty two clips,
and around six o'clock the feed suddenly went dead. She
called police, turned the videos over and gave a name.
It was someone she recognized, a friend of her daughter, Ashley.
When officers tracked the burglar down, he gave them far
more information than they were ready for. Accusing Marcia herself
of staging the burglary while she was out of town,
he claimed that she directed him to pick up a
guy named Richard on that very date and carry out
the heist. According to Stephen, she was upset that she
didn't receive the life insurance money she was entitled to
after her husband died. She was upset that it went
to her brother in law. Instead. Now she was afraid
her brother in law was going to take the only
inheritance she had left, a safe full of jewelry and
expensive guns, so instead she would have her daughter's friend, Steven,
who already had a criminal history, steal them, sell them,
and give her the proceeds while taking a cut for himself.
But the story was growing a bit out of control,
as you'll soon learn.
Speaker 2: She told me, and I already deleted all the messages
like she yes to say, I'm going to do three
thousand dollars. You can go to my house. Gave me
this safe code. Yes, Martiadon said, you go down there,
you can get this.
Speaker 9: And I need it all taken somewhere, please, because his
brother is trying to get into.
Speaker 14: My house and they want to take me to court
and take all of his Harold's guns and everything.
Speaker 9: I said, Marsa Arma, and I cannot have guns right now.
I'm sick of Sit. I'm really sick.
Speaker 14: SIT was on my way the doctor because I told her, listen, bitch,
I'm part of my friends.
Speaker 9: And I said, listen, bitch, I'm not fucking I got
some kids. My husband is kiss a friend like my
dad is. We got a lot of shit going on.
I am not about to drive runs across this town.
Speaker 2: If you have shit and fancy, so be it. I
don't want no bullets and no wonder fucking weapons in
my car.
Speaker 9: And she took everything apart, and she said everything exactly
where it was supposed to fucking go, and I got
what I could do.
Speaker 14: She told me to go on Monday night and Tuesday night.
And it sounds to me like she's set me up
real quick.
Speaker 1: Stephen, being the sassy ass bitch that he is, was
a felon and couldn't be caught with weapons. Also, he
had a lot going on, clearly, a lot of problems issues,
kind of a fucked up life already, it sounds like.
But in the same breath, he said he did it
anyway her exactly words.
Speaker 14: I want to see hermoved from the house before I
get that from Tennessee and set up my cameras.
Speaker 2: Because I needed to be able.
Speaker 9: To tell his brother that all these things are gone
because their mine, and I don't want them to.
Speaker 2: Try to fight me in court over it.
Speaker 12: Over and inherit.
Speaker 2: You know what this next? Yeah, from a text now
number to see.
Speaker 1: That Steven already admitted that Marcia hated him. Apparently she
was a racist who didn't like him and blamed him
in some way for coming between her and her daughter.
Allegedly that is so, was she setting him up or
did she just want the inheritance she felt she deserved
and knew he could get it for or was it
even Marcia that texted him in the first place.
Speaker 4: Are you sure that Ashley is not the one that
message you to go do that? I'm not because because
the information that we have that we're getting would be
a little bit conflicting on that part, like Ashley.
Speaker 2: And if it is Astley, just tell me. I'm really
not sure's actually Marshall. That's the thing. They've been like
this a whole line. But do you have the ad
your phone? Is it labeled as Ashley if she was
to text you, No, not at all.
Speaker 4: But the person that text said this is Marcia. Lets
you called me on my text now number signing favorite.
Speaker 2: I said, who is this night? Gonna call from a
text now number?
Speaker 14: This has been okay a couple of months ago.
Speaker 6: And then it was supposed to go down on this day.
Speaker 9: Pretty sure because it was text now. The call is
on text now. But to be honest with you, Marsha
and actually looked just to like sound, just to like dress,
just to like their the same kind of psychopath.
Speaker 1: Now, in case you don't know, text now is an
app that allows you to text people from an anonymous number.
It wasn't sure if it was Marcia or Ashley, but
whoever was on the other end of the phone wasn't
finished giving orders, and.
Speaker 9: Tonight all was supposed to go back and completely didn't
burn the house down because apparently when she was young she.
Speaker 2: Burnt her house down. Deputy, she burnt her house down, Deputy.
Speaker 9: Yeah, she took her five year old daughter to her
grandparents burnt house down in Depthy.
Speaker 2: But you were supposed to go back tonight and burn
the house. I wasn't close that I was gonna burn
her down, house out. I'm not doing that. I was like, look,
I'm not going to do that so much. You don't
burn it down.
Speaker 9: You need to make it look like you've broken in
there and make it look bandalized so I can get
the insurance money.
Speaker 1: Steven's accusations were getting wild and he wasn't stopping.
Speaker 9: This woman hated me for years. I'm best friends with
her daughter. Okay, what's the daughters in the Osa Jones.
I'm just saying, you're being awful truthful with this. So
I this to be to be.
Speaker 4: You know, contradicted by by this one.
Speaker 2: He's a cooking murder.
Speaker 9: Okay, I know that I've not gone to nobody, and
so I didn't think I don't have no proof on it.
This woman's a psychopath, and I'm telling you guys that
right now.
Speaker 2: Harold Allen was.
Speaker 9: Her husband, set a life insurance policy for him, went
and married him. I don't know when she married him,
because since I've left, I've been away from him. This
woman straight came to my house one day and sat
me across the face and told me, at twenty six
years old, and told me if I ever talked to
her daughter again this she was gonna kill me.
Speaker 2: I'd better watch you better watch her fuck in foot Now,
I was right up there at the house or how
that was what the fun? So was there an Audienel
the cards who dipped off and.
Speaker 1: Left, Well, that was a fun little story, the kind
of lifetime movie someone of Harold's demographic would just eat
right up. It's important to state that as far as
we know and as far as the police know, Harold
Allen died of natural causes, and all this verbosity about
murder was just nonsense. What they did know was that
this very vocal character was caught in the act of
burglarizing Marsha's home on camera. And now he's got a
whole lot of stories about what other people did instead.
What about is them? They call it?
Speaker 2: Marsa's not stupid. Here's what I do know. Because she's
killing her husband and her mother in law and gone
away with that shit. So here's why I do now,
and I do know how that happens.
Speaker 4: You need me to ask these guys to go move
to like inside or go somewhere else.
Speaker 2: But what I do know is that we need that
stuff by now.
Speaker 1: It was Marcia who not only killed her husband but
also her mother in law as well. Right if it
were only that easy. They recovered the property and interviewed
Marsha the next day so detectives could pin down the
how and who behind the heist.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you that we recovered.
Speaker 2: Niggs rings we make to the rest.
Speaker 1: In this case, that would be Stephen White, the other guy.
Marcia only recognized Stephen because, according to Marcia, he was
too stupid to cover his face and he ran his
mouth the whole time. She recognized the other man's voice
and would later learn that he was a longtime friend
of Steven's.
Speaker 3: If you could get his phone, I can, I guarantee
it's gonna be my daughter. And he texted him that
combination of that safe.
Speaker 6: So and I was gonna ask you a little bit
more about that tape.
Speaker 16: Three people in.
Speaker 2: The world save is me, my husband, and my daughter.
Speaker 1: Only one name was linked to both the family and
the suspect, and that was Marcia's daughter, Ashley Jones, a
friend of Stephen White. She knew the players, she knew
the layout, and she knew the safe's code. Plus she
was smart well relatively logic solved the mystery. It was
actually no mystery at all. The real mystery was connected
to Harold's death. This is the detective who led that case.
Speaker 4: My name is Adam Nicholson, and I have two decades
of experience in law enforcement at least, and all that's
been right here in Indiana at the Jackson Couity Sheriff's Department.
I've worked patrol for most of my career and then
in twenty nineteen was promoted to lieutenant, and if the
detective Division would receive a big case as this one
that we're talking about, then I would step over to
kind of help them guide them with it. And this
one just kind of worked out to where I ended
up being the lead investigator on it because we had
had another murder within the probably six months of this one.
So this kind of was up my alley, you know,
of what the things I like to do, putting pieces together,
patterns the human behavior.
Speaker 1: Adam remembered that Harold Allen was someone that everyone seemed
to like.
Speaker 4: Through the you know, the investigation of talking to family
and friends and coworkers, I mean, everybody basically said the
exact same thing. Like he was a very caring, loving man.
He was a good, good husband, loved his wife. Everybody
at his work, you know, enjoyed being around him, and
nobody had any complaints about him at all, And like
everybody was really just sad for him, you know, because
they could only imagine what he had been through. And
but yeah, no ill words or anything about the guy.
He was just everybody thought he was super.
Speaker 1: And here's what a friend said about Harold on his
memory page.
Speaker 15: I'm heartbroken by Harold's passing. He was a wise mentor
and very skilled teacher to me. Although he was too
humble to admit it, Harold was always giving me advice,
both professionally and about life in general. I continue to
follow his guidance to this day. He could be rough
around the edges, but you'd quickly realized that he was
the most kind and most caring person you would ever meet.
I find comfort knowing that he found love and met
his wife, Marcia, who he spoke often and fondly of
my deepest condolences to you and your family.
Speaker 1: Everyone who knew Harold praised him and believed he died
of a heart condition. But back in the interview room,
the detective was about to rip that apart with Steven's accusations,
starting with Marsha's alleged involvement in the burglary.
Speaker 6: And this is where it gets interesting. Okay, I'm gonna
go ahead and make sure you understand this. Some of
this is going to be accusatory towards you, because this
is what he said. Okay, so you're not under arrest.
You are freely anytime you want, but I just want
to make sure you understand it. He's accusing you of
some stuff too. So here's here's what he says. And
I may have it was a lot.
Speaker 2: So if I get some of it wrong.
Speaker 6: If I get some of it wrong, I apologize. But
so he says that he received a call from a
text now number, and he says that it was back
in I think he said, like in May or June,
so it's been a couple of months ago.
Speaker 2: And that basically it was a female on the other side.
Speaker 6: He thought it was of the line. He said, he
thought it was you, but I think he may have
said something to the fact that you and Ashley sounded like,
so it could have been Ashley.
Speaker 2: And he said that.
Speaker 6: Basically something to the effect and I could get some
of the facts for on this, but something something to
the effect that all these guns, something about when your
when your husband passed away, that all these guns, maybe
some family members were wanting them or something. Well, what
he's saying is basically.
Speaker 15: That you.
Speaker 6: Said that you would give me three thousand dollars to
go in the house and take the guns and have
him take the guns and take them back to his place.
Speaker 2: He's a liar.
Speaker 6: I did not do that, okay. And he also said
something about something about burning down the house, burning down
your house, he burn on. I don't know if he
was saying he was going to I don't. I would
have to go back because I recorded the whole interview.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I have to go back to see exactly
what he said. There was a lot that he said.
Speaker 1: He wasn't exaggerating, and she was not prepared for what
came next.
Speaker 6: I'll tell you what else he said.
Speaker 2: He accused you of murdering your husband. I did not
burn my husband.
Speaker 6: Okay, something to the effect of some kind of I
don't know, some kind of or something that basically poisoning,
poisoning as drink.
Speaker 2: That would suld be a tosscology report if that.
Speaker 7: Happened, And was there an autopsy done, Yes, antop trichology.
He died because he had Perry got as that was unintected.
Speaker 15: Yeah.
Speaker 7: What perry cardid is is the infimat the perry heart
has perry cardon around it, the lining of the heart
that ella protects the heart when it beats. It went unintected,
so it went along so long that the perry cardium
around the heart heartened and it stopped his heart, and
he had a little bit of blocked arders.
Speaker 2: That's an autopsy report.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, if that's what the autopsy said, that's what
it's said. But she was still being accused of setting
up the burglary.
Speaker 2: Do you because I don't.
Speaker 6: Know, I haven't been a goal to talk pero yet,
do you think Ashley would have I mean, because you
said that only.
Speaker 7: Through the pans are worth a lot of money, you.
Speaker 6: Think Ashley would have had something to do with this.
Speaker 2: She has to have.
Speaker 7: She's only the even new combination and I would never
need it out to your dy.
Speaker 1: Ever, Ashley and her fiance had lived with Marcia and
Harold for a while, but now Ashley was living in Missouri.
The only way to get to the bottom of this
was to call her. At the same time, detectives scoured
Stephen White's phone and found some shocking evidence messages between
Ashley and him that confirmed the burglary conspiracy. This is
a montage of some of the things Ashley said.
Speaker 15: I do have access next week to her home with
a lot to steal and sell. It would be as
simple as I load the truck, you go sell it.
We look for more rinse repeat, I mean one hundred
K worth of guns. Lol. I already stole my guns
to keep, she owes me. I'm about to grab the
coins too. I just get to get her.
Speaker 2: Out of the house.
Speaker 15: He only has a D and D and it will
not out for natural causes. Only thing they can do
is say yeah, you don't get it, or where do
I send the two hundred k lol.
Speaker 1: This was enough to bring Ashley in from Missouri for questioning. Meanwhile,
detectives had access to Stevens and Marsh's phones. The case
went quiet for a few weeks. What surfaced wasn't another
clip or a rumor. It was an online order by
Ashley with a shipping label in the family name Lynn Allen.
All pointing to the Freetown address with dates, size and
price attached, and the item in the center of those
records hinted at a much larger crime. Was Stephen telling
the truth? The burglary thread had become a lead. The
paper trail pointed back to Harold and to his murder.
When Marsha returned on October sixth, steenth, the first question
was the order, who bought it, where was it shipped?
And what phone number was on it. The detective shows
her the paperwork.
Speaker 6: So it was ordered through a place that was called
kim Boys LLC. It's some company which is definitely Glycole
was ordered from, says order sources peach Pay, So it
was paid to peach Pay. Do you have peach Pay
or anything?
Speaker 2: Is okay?
Speaker 1: Even though the order was sent to Lynn Allen. The
address is Marsha's.
Speaker 6: See what I'm talking about where it says it's billing
the Lynn Allen.
Speaker 2: Is that's your address right five says shipping Lynn Allen.
Speaker 6: And your address again the phone number is associated with
that A one two five two one two six seven
one is that Ashley's number.
Speaker 1: The next day, they sat face to face with Marsha's daughter,
Ashley Well. Marcia was fairly animated, facial expressions, a tone
of voice that suggested disbelief for curiosity. Ashley was extremely
subdued and poised, almost quietly defiant.
Speaker 2: We're not going to talk to you about okay, That's
not what.
Speaker 6: We're here to talk about. We actually we talked to
your mom yesterday for four or five hours.
Speaker 2: We had to talk to her about some things. She
answered some questions for us, So.
Speaker 6: We were going to talk to you about some of that, okay,
Before we do that, I am going to read to
your rights. You're in custody. Let me make sure you
understand that a lot of what we talked about was
about the death of Harold. We have some text messages
from your mom's phone. She consented to a download and
there was some text messages on there that.
Speaker 2: We have some concern about it. The meaning of those
six messages.
Speaker 17: We have an order works on ethylene glycol was ordered
on December thirteenth.
Speaker 2: I think it was December thirteenth.
Speaker 17: December fourteenth, ethylene glycol arrived at the address.
Speaker 18: Of your mom's out in Freetown, thirty two eighty seven.
Speaker 17: North State Road one thirty five on December nineteenth. On
December twentieth, your herald ended up passing away.
Speaker 2: Do you know anything about ethylene glycol?
Speaker 10: Ah?
Speaker 1: Ethylene glycol otherwise known as anti freeze. It's a sweet
tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubbies drink.
And the best part is you won't even notice until
he's dead. I guess he won't notice when he's dead either.
In any case, it's the murder weapon of choice for
those who don't like guns. You know, women for the
most part. The detective had screenshots of the ethylene glycol
order being sent to that address under the name Lynn Allen.
This was Marcia's middle and last name. They also had
messages from Ashley to her mother asking for money for
this particular order. According to Marsha, she knew nothing about it.
It was Christmas time. Ashley, her fiance who was also
named Ashley, and the kids were all living there and
packages were just flooding in. Who can keep track?
Speaker 4: I understand, but there was only one thing that Ethelyne Galli.
A lot of packages at from Kelmas crystals time I
get that, I mean would do the same thing I did.
I'd rather a shop online and they go to a
busy store.
Speaker 2: But I would remember a thing of Ethlene guy called
coming my house if I got it.
Speaker 4: The day that it does come, which is the nineteenth,
we know what day it was delivered. We have the
tracking number. There's a message from Asery saying we have
a delivery.
Speaker 1: The focus closed in on mother and daughter. One bought
the poison and used it on Harold. Did the other know?
Did the other help?
Speaker 2: So you know?
Speaker 6: And part of this stems from also from you know,
talking to somebody who gave us some information and saying
that Harold. The information we got was Harold did.
Speaker 2: Not die in natural causes, basically that he was foolisen.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 6: Yes, So when we follow up on that and we
get these your long consents to the phone number, and
we get all these text messages, and we start going
to these text messages you and your mom, right, and
like I said, one of the things, just one, there's
a lot of them. One of them is on December thirteenth.
December fourteenth, fround that timeframe, fln glackole was ordered. I
think you texted to your mom if I remember correctly,
and that tracking number matches the same tracking number that
he was at our other defect. He was able to
get of the F one black hole that arrived at
the house on December nineteenth.
Speaker 2: The information we.
Speaker 6: Received was that there was Ruber floats that were made.
Is put into the Ruger float, and that Harold drinks it,
and obviously the end result was that died.
Speaker 1: Marcia denied having any involvement in the poisoning. She denied everything,
while her own daughter continued to point the finger at
her in her calm, unbothered tone of voice.
Speaker 4: You know that your mom did something this is probably
really shouldn't have done. I mean, your mom's always fun
a bit yesterday, so and you know that actually, I mean,
do you think your mom's shapable have done something like that.
Speaker 6: I mean, I don't know that she did, but I mean.
Speaker 2: She's sable. Whatever.
Speaker 1: If Marcia was intelligent, Ashley was a genius and being
somewhat facetious here, detectives had already confirmed that Marcia had
nothing to do with the burglary. Ashley felt cheated out
of her share of Harold's life insurance, and she was
going to recoup in whatever way she could. Still, detectives
pressed on with Marcia, this is the word.
Speaker 2: In the same day that this has.
Speaker 4: Delivered, there's rumor floats, and then the very next day
Harold's dead.
Speaker 16: How did I feel?
Speaker 13: You?
Speaker 2: Who did?
Speaker 7: As far as I know, he has heart condition?
Speaker 2: Did Okay, let's we get the results back. Yeah, and
it says there's Ethelyne Blackel and his system. How did
that get there?
Speaker 13: You?
Speaker 2: You didn't know anything about it? How did that?
Speaker 18: We both made the root floats?
Speaker 3: So I did not put anything in anyone's dream.
Speaker 5: I didn't even know he had anything like that there is.
Speaker 6: There ever a Chancellor Ashley could have put something in there.
Speaker 5: I have no idea she She literally did watch her,
did you.
Speaker 2: I did not watch her, That's what I'm asking. I
did not watch her the whole time.
Speaker 15: No, I did not.
Speaker 1: Marcia was aware that Ashley was growing marijuana in the house. Okay,
no big deal in twenty twenty six, I guess. But
that wasn't the only botany Ashley was experimenting with. She
was also in all sorts of new age domestic white
woman horseshit, like saging and cleansing, amulets and crystals, demons
and things that would attach themselves to people, even convincing
Marcia that something evil had attached itself to Harold, not
because he was unkind, abusive, or controlling, but because he
was sick a lot. Surely that many had some sort
of demon attached to him, and it was no wonder
Harold was sick a lot. He did have a heart condition,
after all, But was it natural or was it because
he was slowly being poisoned? From the time Ashley temporarily
moved in months before his death, Marcia remembered Ashley asking
strange questions about poisoned plants under the umbrella of good parenting.
According to Ashley, she wanted to know which poisonous plants
surrounded the house, you know, so she could tell her
little girl what to avoid.
Speaker 2: So looking back on as me stuff like what plant
should I.
Speaker 3: I'll watch out for because Valance outside plane, I don't
wander at hurt she tries to eat something because boots
sticks everything in her mouth.
Speaker 8: Still, she would say, like, I know what the poisons
plants were around the region, so she would make sure
Vallet didn't get into it.
Speaker 3: The stuff Valin has a on you problem since she
was a cree meat, her kidneys didn't develop properly, and
Valot gets around certain things. She gets sick or she
breaks up pass it and she can't hast had emergency.
Speaker 5: Does as a steroids because her body doesn't produce the
response to fuck things.
Speaker 2: Had she never gotten into anything like that before.
Speaker 3: She has and she had him at the air and
she ended up on steroids.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, fox club seeds? Is she a witch? Does she float?
I'm starting to think the Salem witch trials weren't such
a bad idea. The fox club plant is native to
North America and grows in shady damp areas. If ingested,
it causes dangerous heart Arrythmius, it could lead to death.
Speaker 2: Fox club seeds are stalked about. Yeah, she has no
about the crypt all the time.
Speaker 3: Of course I never done about it.
Speaker 1: But maybe she did think about it.
Speaker 2: When he went to the hospital. Does he went to
the hostle twice something? Yeah? Maybe most face is.
Speaker 4: Bleeding bleeding, Actually, I think that diarrhea, all that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 2: She told me, you just have the truthfum face and
so well, same thing. You know, they take the lead
of blood and drawn. Is there any.
Speaker 4: Is there is there gonna be a good chance that
that blood is gonna have foxflowing?
Speaker 2: Probably, so you Okay, why do you think for sure?
Just be honest again, just be honest.
Speaker 19: Because she was ordering plants flow plants, I think so.
I know that she tried to get a hold of
some nuther wort, which I didn't know who that was.
Speaker 4: Okay, tell me about the fox flow and where it
was ordered from.
Speaker 16: I think that she.
Speaker 2: Found someone, Betsy.
Speaker 1: This was Marsha's response.
Speaker 13: You said I.
Speaker 2: Need fox cloth seeds, and she says.
Speaker 20: I think you said, I think I can give them
a Walt more.
Speaker 2: They're pretty flowers, and then she said, thank you.
Speaker 20: We are watching a new movie on Netflix with the kids,
and those are traceable.
Speaker 1: The entire our foxglove plant is poisonous, so it could
have been easy enough to believe that Marcia wanted seeds
to plant because of the pretty flowers. Still, when Ashley
followed up in a message saying those are traceable, detectives
knew this was bigger than they originally thought. The rest
of the messages gave plenty of clues, but that was
just it. They were clues. What became clear was that
Harold had been sick for weeks and the reason was
becoming apparent. Neither Marcia nor Ashley seemed to care about
his misery either. All they cared about was their own.
Marcia messages Ashley saying she's irritated and she can't sleep.
She needs for this to be over. She says it's
hanging on by threats. It's so long because he's big,
meaning something is taking too long because of his size
and weight. Marcia and Ashley often referred to Harold as
it by the way, so that gives you a clue.
Another character, Ashley answers Marcia, it moves slow and has
to build. Marcia then says she wished it would quote
reach its climax and be done. Lol. He's snoring on
and off and if he moved around it would go
faster end quote. Then Ashley responds, yes, if he got
moving it would be faster, but we know he won't.
Marcia went on to explain that Harold's stomach was hurting,
but his face was better. Yet he wasn't presenting like
the stories, just vomiting in diarrhea. Ashley answers, we also
have god knows how many that aren't reported or know
how it grows, only the stories of the self inflicted,
and we will see. If not, we will do something else.
But I think it's slowly doing it. The detectives were
shocked by what they found, and when they questioned Marcia,
she had an explanation for everything, even if it didn't
make sense. Ashley, on the other hand, just kept pointing
the finger at her own mother, even though they were
clearly both involved. Probably the most shocking thing of all
was the possibility that this wasn't the first time one
of them had poisoned someone. Ashley was currently engaged to
a woman, and her previous partner was also a woman,
but the father of her only child was a man.
Well obviously because you know biology. Anyway, guess what. He
died in his early thirties from a supposed stroke. His
name was t Y. Now ain't that a ku winky dink?
And then you wonder why people can't find a date
in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 20: So there's something. And it's something along the lines like
talking about how much he weighs, and it's taken longer
because he weighs a certain him out and Tie's drawn
it up and how much Tie weighed and.
Speaker 2: You said, love you too.
Speaker 20: I just want it done. She said, me too, like
beyond over a laugh out loud. But we got it.
You said, like, what's taking so long? He's off balance,
said he had trouble getting out of the car. She said,
to weight. It takes twelve hours for a woman at
one eighty to feel anything. You do the math, laugh
out loud. It's slow and previously Tie was only one twenty.
So it's the weight, you said, So it's going to
take a while. She said, forty eight max.
Speaker 2: We will know. Also, he's high still. I gave him
a lot of weed, butter brownie.
Speaker 20: You don't know what he has because of that, no
will could be nausea.
Speaker 6: Happening, and everything.
Speaker 2: Is my found wal He's making me mad. He's stupid
and kind.
Speaker 1: In case you didn't hear, Marcia says, he gets stupid
when he's high. So it looked like Marcia and Ashley
were slowly poisoning Harold and they couldn't really track his
so called symptoms because they were giving him we'd infused
food to help with the pain and nausea. How kind.
But then she mocks him for being stupidly high. Well,
Marcia deflected, played dumb, and spun the texts in her
favor with detectives for hours. Ashley very simply maintained that
this was all her mother's doing.
Speaker 2: And going to kind of get to the mons.
Speaker 4: Okay, I mean, we we know what happened to Harold.
Speaker 2: We've got we've got evidence of that. Your mom come
in yesterday. She told us a lot.
Speaker 4: We've got months and months and months and text messages
from your mom's phone, and I mean it's it's obvious
that you know something happened.
Speaker 2: To him, and.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, basically, now is your chance to
tell us what you know about what happened to Harold, because.
Speaker 2: I mean, like I said, these text messages or where this.
Speaker 4: Stuff came from, the confirmation numbers. I think at some
point she probably dragged you into something that you didn't
want to be in, or there was something to do
with those demons or something you know with that. But
we just we just want to know the truth. I mean,
what's your is your relationship with your mom?
Speaker 15: Good?
Speaker 2: Yes? And now I kind of just put up with
what she does. She's always tried to You're into whatever she.
Speaker 19: Gets into, and she's always trying to do anytime I
get any type of financial game on man, you know,
like how I sold my house, she wants it.
Speaker 1: This was a complete lie told by someone who had
taken a large amount of money from her mother, not once,
but twice.
Speaker 4: I can't imagine what you feel being betrayed via your daughter.
And I can't imagine what it would feel like if
I knew my kid had done something. You know, but this,
you know at this point, I mean, there is so
much content there and I would almost call it evidence.
And like you said, we didn't go into detail in there.
What we make of those messages. I mean we' we
have more than just the messages.
Speaker 2: We have some of the results in the hospital when
he went to the hospital back.
Speaker 4: In November, and the symptoms that he was experiencing, which
remind you is the same day that within the same
time for him when I say the bat day with
the fox gloves are mentioned and the symptoms of fox
gloves seet what happens is the you know, the bleeding
and the stomach and the.
Speaker 2: Face that you guys are talking about.
Speaker 4: And then one one thing that he didn't get to
all the way down was on the nineteenth whenever the
Ethelene Vikhl gets there is the conversations then, but you know,
like it's there. Then there were some pictures, you know,
like I said, the rout beard and things like that.
Speaker 1: Detectives gave Marcia every opportunity to point the finger back
at Ashley or just come clean, but he refused.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be shocked at this point.
Speaker 4: To be shocked, you would have to not believe any
of the messages between you and Assad to be shocked
at it wouldn't be in a system, or you wouldn't
believe any of the stuff on the Google search.
Speaker 2: Was never Google.
Speaker 18: I mean, and what Steven tells us, I mean, he
says root beer float and that's what'll be fine, right,
you know, not long after Ethlene Gleichols or sent to
your house and the name is addressed to his Win Allen.
Speaker 6: What's your middle name is Lynn and it's your address.
Speaker 5: And so.
Speaker 20: I mean, I know what you We've already told you
all this, and you already know all this. But that's
why we are where we're at.
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean, and I know you're smart, and
you you say you already you know how this looks.
Speaker 2: I mean, this stuff doesn't look good.
Speaker 21: And then to have this on top of it, and
I mean, there was enough that you know, the the
courses and grudge and prosecu and you know, have issued
more for the for the phones.
Speaker 1: And during the interviews, detectives went back to the phone
copy they saw gaps. Marcia had deleted a lot of texts.
This is Detective Adam Nicholson again.
Speaker 4: And after she submitted to the phone downloaders or consented,
she actually deleted the messages in the interview room between
her and Ashley. Because Clint had to step out of
the interview room for a second and grabbed the consent
for him for her to sign, so and he couldn't
like take her phone with him because you know, she
hadn't she hadn't signed it yet, but she had consented.
And while he's gone, she's going through her phone, she's
deleting things. She told him that she was just deleting
like pictures from her security camera, like of her, uh
in the house or you know where she was, like
in her underwear and stuff, and she didn't necessarily want
us to see that, which was understandable, you know, But
when she gave us the phone, I thought, there's no
way that that there's anything on that phone. There's no
way she would have gave it to us. So I
think that she thought by deleting those messages that she
was probably free and clear. And then she didn't hear
back from us until October. That was September twentieth. We
showed up early in the morning on the sixteenth of October,
this would have been twenty twenty three, and we had
search worms for her house for all electronic devices like laptops, computers,
old cell phones, memory sticks, or flash drives, hard drives,
things like that. She didn't know we were coming until
we knocked on the door. Yeah, we knocked on the
door early in the morning. She had just got out
of bed of the pier. She was like in her
still like Pj's and you can tell then she was shocked.
And I read the warrants to her, and the warrant
actually mentions like to seize the property for evidence of murder,
for the crime of murder. And I remember, like her
face is like you know if you if you watch
that video, yeah, you can tell, like she knows then,
like and she agreed. So she me and Clint took
her back to the shrif's apartment while the other officers
and detectives completed the search warrant. And so I think
that was probably her first moment of like noe, like yeah,
they there's there's they know something they knew.
Speaker 1: Ashley and her mother had discussed how long it would
stay in someone's body, how no one would notice, and
how to make it ready for use by saying I
need something that crushes this into powder. They also had
testimony of Ashley's partner recalling that Ashley was grinding up
something she put in Harold's brownie, throwing the grinder away
afterwards and telling her lover not to say anything about it.
On October seventeenth, Ashley interviewed with detectives from jail after
being arrested for the burglary. They were surprised she said
anything at all, because when they picked her up in
Missouri for the burglary, she immediately asked for an attorney.
Speaker 4: I'm proud of Detective Bircham and the job he did
and myself, and you know, it was just one of
those though that it couldn't be at our best because
our hands were tied, you know, like we we knew
with Marcia because we were told the prosecutor told us
if we didn't get a confession, we couldn't arrest her.
I mean, we kind of went in, you know, like
I wanted to know that if she told me to,
you know, go screw off, that you know, I could
arrest her. But I didn't have that in my back pocket,
you know, so I had to sit there and play dumb,
play nice, you know, try to go along with what
she was saying, Try to act like I was believing
what I mean, because if the moment I started pushing
on her, she got very upset and I could tell
that she was close to probably saying, you know, like
I want an attorney, And if she would have said,
you know, I want an attorney, then game over.
Speaker 2: That's the law, and we respect that.
Speaker 4: You can't you can't keep questioning somebody once they say that,
So we had to be very very careful on how
we approached that interview, you know, knowing how hard it
is and having it happened to me before, like how
easy it is for somebody to say I want an attorney,
like you're done, and we had already been told like,
you can't arrest her if she doesn't confess, so we
didn't get an arrest her. And it was the same
thing with Ashley, except we already had that experience with
Ashley once because she was when she got arrested in Missouri,
Me and Clint Birtum, the detective, had also went out
there and they brought her back to their sheriff's department.
Speaker 2: We went in to talk to her just.
Speaker 4: About the burglary, not about the murder at all, like
we were just there to talk about the burglary and
didn't want her to even know that we knew about
the murder. And she requested the attorney like almost immediately
they said, you know, she wanted an attorney. So when
she got brought back to Jackson County, you know, we
we had hopes, but they weren't very high like we thought.
You know, as soon as we go in there and
tell her, you know, hey, we don't want to talk
to you about the burglary.
Speaker 2: We don't.
Speaker 4: We can't talk to you about that. You requested an attorney,
but we want to talk to you about the death
of Harold. Like I thought one hundred percent she was
going to say, I don't want to talk to you,
but she did.
Speaker 1: During that interview, Ashley talked, but her words mainly implicated
her mother, which was no surprise, but the detectives had
an unfortunate surprise for her.
Speaker 6: So I'm talking about something completely different.
Speaker 16: It's not gonna be an easy conversation.
Speaker 13: Okay, After your momentary yesterday and spoke with us.
Speaker 2: We got a call to have a check on her welfare.
I'm at her home and she's pass away.
Speaker 13: What's she passed away?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 13: Without going into a lot of detail, she appeared that
there was something ingested possibly and pass away.
Speaker 2: You're serious.
Speaker 16: I'm one hunder serious because.
Speaker 2: She killed herself.
Speaker 16: That is what that's what we believe happened.
Speaker 2: Yes, don't make shock. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please have
nothing to apologize for.
Speaker 16: I felt it was necessary to let you know that
I'm very sorry for the loss.
Speaker 1: In hours of tape, Ashley stayed flat, measured, careful, clinical.
Almost The only crack comes when detectives tell her Marcia
her mother is dead. That's when the mask suddenly slips,
her voice wobbles, her breath catches, and for one minute,
the room feels human again. It's a strange tragedy. Mother
and daughter so tightly bound together that they eliminate the
person they feel is getting in the way, Harold. They
talked of plans to sell the place and move in together,
but then the pressure begins mounting. Marcia knows that Ashley
will likely be in prison for a very long time,
and they're coming for her next, so she takes an
easy exit. If her daughter could betray her so easily,
she would do the same. What Marcia couldn't have known
was what Ashley would do next. Fifty seven year old
Harold Allen died at home in Freetown, Indiana, on December twentieth,
twenty twenty two, five days before Christmas. His death was
first certified as natural. Months later, a September nineteenth, twenty
twenty three burglary at the same house drew detectives back.
Marsha Allen, Harold's wife, had been out of town when
home cameras captured Stephen White, who was happy to spill
all the tea in the world with plenty of dramatic flare,
I might add, and phone messages tied the brake in
to Marsha's daughter and friend of Stephen, Ashley Jones. Detectives
then shifted from burglary to death. Records showed an online
order shipped under the family name to the Freetown address,
and interviews on October sixteenth and seventeen, twenty twenty three
focused on whether that chemical ended up in Harold's drink,
a root beer float. Marcia had denied the order, Ashley
had pointed to Marcia, but soon evidence tied them both
to the murder. Just before detectives would have arrested Marcia,
they found her at home, dead in her bed of suicide.
As for Harold, toxicology later reported ethylene glycol, and the
death certificate was amended. Review of Marcia and Ashley's text
messages alluded to an even bigger mystery. Was this Ashley's
first attempt at poisoning? Detectives found it beyond strange that
get this. Ashley's ex husband also died of supposed heart
conditions or a stroke.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 1: Suspicious when you say he died at a very young
age just days after he received an inheritance. Could that
be a coincidence? Ashley Jones was arrested and charged in
October of twenty twenty three with murder, conspiracy to commit murder,
attempted murder, and burglary tied to Harold Allen's death and
the September twenty twenty three break in. She later pleaded
guilty in twenty twenty five to Level one felony conspiracy
to commit murder and attempted murder and was sentenced to
fifty years in Jackson's Circuit Court. But Ashley, being the wonderful,
well adjusted human that she was, wasn't finished getting rid
of people. After only a few months of incarceration, she
hatched a plan. It involved a jailmate named Anita. Detective
Nicholson just happened to know Anita.
Speaker 4: You know, I worked in the jail for like five
years to becoming a deputy in two thousand and five,
So from two thousand to two thousand and five, I
was a jail officer, so I'm familiar with a lot
of the inmates that you know, they're in and out,
and you know, this case had been in the news
a few times, so I'm sure that Anita probably knew
that I was the officer that was working at and
she reached out to a jail officer to let her
know that she wanted to talk to me. I actually
knew that Anita was going to be getting released pretty soon.
She wasn't on like any real serious charges, and Anita
and Ashley were in that cell together. Well, word traveled
pretty quick when Anita came in, because Ashley had already
been in jail, and when Anita came in, word traveled
pretty quick about who she was and who her connections were.
And there's a I hate to even call it a
gang because it's really not a gang. And if they
were a gag, they're not into like killing people. It's
not that kind of gang. But I think Ashley started,
you know, seeing things like she's never been in jail.
She didn't she didn't know, you know, Anita, she didn't
know what this gang was about. And she just heard
the word gang and thought, well, I could you know,
sweet talk her and you know, befriend her in jail
here and then get her to have these people that
she's friends with in this gang go and kill the
people that are mentioned in my case and I'm going
to testify against me.
Speaker 1: Yep, she was going to have someone in this so
called gang go and killed them all.
Speaker 2: She basically wrote a letter that.
Speaker 4: Was going to go out in Anita's mail, and she
gave you know, Anita the letter to put in with
her mail, and instead of sealing it, Anita took that
part of the letter out and hit it and then
waited till she could see me, and she provided me
with the letter that Astley wrote, and it was the
letter that she wrote to the so called hit man
you know, that she thought was a hit man, and
that try was wanting him to go all the way
to Massachusetts and kill her fiance and kill Steven and
Nathan that were in jail. And then there was some
other people and I can't remember exactly who else, but yes,
she was just trying to get people taken out before
they'd have a chance to testify on her.
Speaker 1: If you thought the text between Marcia and Ashley were cryptic,
wait until you hear about this hit letter. She pretended
it was a list of people she wanted prayers for.
A prayer list. How spiritual of her.
Speaker 15: A lot of things have been on my heart and mind,
but I feel the best way to overcome and be
set free from it is some prayer. I would like
the following people to be added to the prayer list
as soon as possible. How the Church lift these people
as high as can be to the Lord so everyone
may find rest in peace.
Speaker 1: She then lists out all the people with their first, middle,
and last names, as well as exact locations and what
they had done to her, saying that prayer knows no bounds.
I mean, you got to give God GPS coordinates for
each person you're praying for. Right here's just a snippet
of the inmates interview.
Speaker 4: No one, did you know that we that we heard
or that we thought we heard as we want to
make sure as that there was a high power rifle
mentioned and maybe two shots.
Speaker 2: To the neck right here, she said, goods insteads high
hier rifle. Right here, savers every nerve he shows you
instantly right here? Okay, so.
Speaker 16: Specifically right here, right here.
Speaker 1: She points to the base of her skull and to
her forehead, saying those are the two places Ashley said
would cause instant death when struck with a bullet.
Speaker 6: Who was she wanting her to set as she is?
Speaker 2: To take out the girl?
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you guys heard that. Ashley
told Anita to take out Ashley, her fiance and her
fiance's little girl. That would be the same little girl
who lived with both Ashley's You see, Ashley Jones hated,
hated her fiance's little girl, so why not take her
out too?
Speaker 2: Are at it?
Speaker 1: In some of the text messages with Marcia, Ashley said,
let her starve. I hate the kid. She just sits
and just does nothing, looking fat ugly and stupid. Remember
when they used to make fun of family values and
the bigots that promoted them. Those were the days. That's all.
Just hope Ashley sits in prison for the next fifty
years doing nothing but looking fat, ugly and stupid. In
the meantime, Detective Adam Nicholson is writing a book on
this murder, and who knows if he digs harder, he
might find even more bodies full of poison left in
Ashley's wake. There's already speculation that she may have killed
her ex husband as well. Yeah, he's dead. Detective Nicholson
told swords Scale that this was one of the most
bizarre cases he'd ever been involved.
Speaker 4: With, or that there wouldn't have even been There wouldn't
have even been a murder case at all. We would
have never found out, like if it wouldn't have been
for Ashley's greed, and if Ashley wouldn't have you know,
had to have set up this burglary at her mom's
house and Stephen getting caught. And so what led me
to Stephen was the burglary. It was Ashley's greed. Ashley
wanted this burglary to take place, and she trusted that Stephen.
Speaker 2: Would do it.
Speaker 4: She had no idea her mom had installed a security system.
And you know, Marcia would have never reported that the
burglary had she known that Stephen knew about the murder.
If she knew that Stephen had been told by Ashley
about the murder, There's no way that Marshall would have
called in on Stephen and turned him in.
Speaker 1: Ashley's genius knew no bounds, the strong, independent woman that
she was her master plan from inside the prison higher
total strate to cross state lines and kill people for
her for free. Smart real smart. You know what else
is smart? Ordering your murder weapons off Amazon? You know
what else is smart? Telling you're flamboyant and loudmouth gay
friend that you and your mom murdered someone. You know
what else is smart? Staging a fake robbery with that
same friend who can't stop talking to steal from your
own mother and murder accomplice because you're a greedy, narcissistic,
and self centered piece of shit. How's that saying? Go again?
There is no honor amongst cold hearted cunts. I forget. Oh,
and before some Karen out there sends me an angry
email lecturing me and calling me a sexist for using
that forbidden word, realize that words are meant to describe
the universe we perceive around us, so we can effectively
communicate even the four letter ones. And I can't think
of a better word to describe Ashley. She's what that
word was made for. I hope you like that. And
by the way. Last week we put up a video
explaining how I fucked up all the pricing for Sword
and Scale television. Well, YouTube demonetized us. So there's only
one place on Earth you can find Sword and Scale
Television now, and that's Swordinscale dot Com or our app
and we lowered pricing to ten dollars to get access
to it, which means that you can now get the
audio only version of Sword and Scale the podcast on
Apple Podcasts for just eight bucks. How do you like them? Apples?
Speaker 4: Science, science, science Speak, sence sisic, science spe