A Toxic Love Story | Crime Seen episode 210

[00:00:24] Hello everyone, I'm Sarah Carradine, podcasting from unceded Gadigal land. I'm Mari Forth. And this is Crime Seen, the true crime review podcast, where we get to the heart of how true crime stories are told. Breaking news, we're going to be in Milwaukee at RehapCon, August 26th, 27th and 28th. And we will be recording an episode live on Thursday the 27th at 1pm. We'd love to see you there. Woohoo! Woo! Woo!

[00:00:54] A couple of weeks ago, we covered Worst Neighbor Ever with Jason Reid, and that was for our monthly live record for our members. If you are a member, come to the live, it's so much fun. Mildred commented, excellent episode, five stars, thank you, five stars. I can't believe I missed catching this one live. These particular episodes were honestly hard for me to watch, so I was incredibly grateful to hear your breakdown and analysis.

[00:01:22] It's always an absolute pleasure to hear you both team up with Jason. Shout out, Jason. Keep up the amazing work. Thank you, Mildred. Mildred loves our lives. Yes. So I'm sure she cried bitter tears that she couldn't come. Thank you so much, Mildred. Good. Last week, we watched Shipwreck, Nightmare at Sea with Kevin Flynn from Crime Writers On. Sarah, what did we watch this week?

[00:01:47] We watched the number one movie on Netflix today, A Toxic Love Story. It was directed by Alexandra Lacey. And of course, we cannot do this alone. She last joined us for Death in Apartment 603. In fact, she was in Death in Apartment 603. She wasn't the death. She was the investigator. Back for the fourth time, it's our favorite cold case investigator, Sarah Kelley. Hello, Sarah. Hi. Thank you so much. It's very kind of you.

[00:02:16] What a lovely introduction. You aren't our only cold case investigator, right? I rush to say. Well, then that's even better. I'll have to make a quick phone call to someone else. Yes, yes. Just ignore what I said. That's fine. We're a surprisingly insular community. You'd be amazed how many of us know each other. And as far as I know anyway, I don't really have a bad thing to say about any of them.

[00:02:45] The ones who I know are all amazing, and they're probably the same ones that you know. So I think it's such a, it's not a thankless task, because if you get an answer, people are extremely grateful. But I don't think anyone's in it for the glitz glamour and the cash. No, I don't make any money doing it all. My case work is almost entirely pro bono, which is why I do all this media stuff. But I mean, not that you guys are throwing, you know, wads of money around, but you know, the true crimey stuff.

[00:03:17] Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's not. We need wads. Yeah, and we all need wads. We need the wads as well. We need to have, you know, a mortgage and a kid ostensibly in college. Cutting classes? Just in and out and changing majors and a semester off here and then a year off there.

[00:03:46] And it's, you know, it's, it's fine. She's, she's finding her way. She's brilliant. And she'll get there. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's like that. It's like that. Well, we're glad you're here and, you know, not talking about a cold case, something a little bit more relaxed, I would say. Yeah. I mean. Yeah. So I think you are working on something weird in Florida. I mean, that might be tautology.

[00:04:16] Yeah. So for the fourth season of my podcast with ID, I was asked if there was a way to do something kind of personal. You know, they kind of like that, you know, if I can kind of put myself into the story a little bit. And I said, well, I have an idea. Why don't, I'm probably not even supposed to say any of this. Oh, well, they'll get over it. Um, why don't I go back to my hometown where I grew up, where all this fascination with

[00:04:44] cold case homicide began, um, and work a case with, um, another investigator who I've known since we were 10 and rode the bus together in middle school. Um, so that started, um, I mean, talk about a labor of love, but it's been, um, I won't, I won't give the details away because I think we'll probably be able to announce the, the actual season here. Fairly soon.

[00:05:10] Um, but it started as one case, um, a 2011 cold case and it has exploded. And that is really all I can say on the record. Well, we can't wait to find out what that's all about. Uh, when will the season be dropping? Do you know? Um, uh, this fall is, is the, the most I'm allowed to say right now, but I would expect

[00:05:38] that as everybody starts to, you know, get into my favorite weather hoodie and football weather that they can, um, to look for season four of my podcast. Yay. So let's get to the crime. This documentary relies in part or in quite great part on the revelation of information. So if you want to watch it before we spoil it, you should hop off now and come back after you've seen it because we are about to spoil absolutely everything in order to discuss, uh, the documentary.

[00:06:10] Okay. Ian Diaz met Angela Connell in 2016. They fell in love, got married, moved in together and became pregnant with twins all within eight months. Unfortunately, Ian's ex-girlfriend, Michelle Hadley, began sending threatening emails to Angela and responded to rape fantasy postings on Craigslist as if she were Angela.

[00:06:37] The Anaheim police eventually arrested Michelle after Angela was attacked and held Michelle in jail for eight months. Twist. Let's go back to 2013 when Angela was dating Jason. She told him and his friends that she was a lawyer and was going through chemotherapy for stage four cervical cancer. No, she wasn't. And no, she wasn't. Back to 2016. Ian finds out that Angela isn't pregnant.

[00:07:05] She doctored her plastic pregnancy tests and downloaded a twin ultrasound from the internet. She had sent the threatening emails to herself. She was arrested in 2017 and pled guilty to fraud, false imprisonment and falsely reporting a crime. She was sentenced to five years. Double twist. Ian had been a controlling domestic abuser to Michelle and it turned out that he had been in on the deception with Angela.

[00:07:34] He was arrested in May 2021 and pled not guilty to stalking, perjury and obstruction of justice. He was convicted and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. Whew! Sarah, let's start with you. What were your overall thoughts on this documentary? Well, I have to say, I really like Alexandra's work a lot.

[00:08:03] And I think when this started out, I immediately, as soon as the email started, I was like, bullshit, didn't happen. She didn't, you know, these are faked emails. And then, you know, the first twist was like, oh my God, no, they're real. This woman is being interviewed and she's saying, I sent these and there was all this stuff in my head. And I was like, okay, I didn't see that coming. I thought they were all going to be bullshit.

[00:08:29] And so then when it comes back around and it turned out she didn't send them, that this was, you know, that she had been so traumatized that, you know, I mean, when we see this was false confessions all the time. I mean, it's in that same, it's in that same universe where it's just like, no, it kind of made sense to her. I guess maybe I did do this just in sort of a fractured state. Um, and that she hadn't done it. I was like, I know it. I knew that lady was lying.

[00:08:55] Um, and it was, it's funny cause you know, true crime documentary seems to do this thing where it gets like a flavor of the year. So for a while, the flavor of the year was the, like the, um, the catfishing where women are sending money to dudes off of dating apps and stuff. Right. And then there was the like niche cults were kind of a thing where it'd be like eight people and it's like, is that a cult? Or did you all just sort of have bad judgment with one weirdo, you know?

[00:09:21] And now it seems to be this like falsifying pregnancy, falsifying cancer, you know, stuff like that. And I was like, oh, we've got it all in here. Um, so I thought I was prepared for it to be very rote and to kind of be like, all right, I've seen this story. I've seen several documentaries this year. And I didn't feel like that at all. I really, I really enjoyed it.

[00:09:45] Um, I had weird vibes that I'm sorry if I hate to say this, but like a dude Disney adult was like, gave me weird vibes when they went back to his relationship with, um, uh, and I have like a very dear friend, like one of my closest friends in the world was, um, you know, worked at Disney and she is a happily, um, a very like grounded, sane Disney. Like she still goes to Disney a lot, but she doesn't have bumper stickers and, or, you know, she's not getting married there or anything.

[00:10:16] Um, and I texted her and I was like, we have a dude Disney adult here. And she's like, oh no, like 10 out of 10 red flags. Like that's really bad. So, uh, yeah, I thought it was a really, I thought it was a really fun ride and I wasn't sure I was going to feel that way at the outset. Well, as you brought it up, I have extra information, which I'll give at the end after our ratings, but I'll just drop this in here. Michelle also worked for Disney as, uh, in marketing.

[00:10:46] She was working with a marketing and consulting agency, organizing proposals, which apparently is money nowadays. You organize proposals. You can't just get down on one knee. You can't just turn to someone on a sofa and say, should we do it? You have to have this big production. Anyway, so she was doing that. Ian insisted that she take a job at Disney in marketing. She took a $20,000 salary cut in order to do it.

[00:11:14] And she now says she's absolutely sure because he used to work there as well, that he was using his ex colleagues to keep tabs on her. Oh my God. He's dark, man. It keeps getting worse. Yeah. When he gets worse. But Mari, before we get more granular, what were your overall thoughts on the documentary? Sarah. That face. I watched this documentary a total of four times.

[00:11:42] I will say I broke it up. Like it was like... No, no, no. I didn't fall asleep. I didn't fall asleep. I was like, what? It felt like... I will say kudos to Netflix for not... For resisting the urge to make this a two-parter or a three-parter. Because you know they wanted to. You know they wanted to. But I literally... I had to break it up in chunks because I was like, what? I was like... I mean, I was watching.

[00:12:11] I was like, well, I'm in this. And then 45 minutes... 45 minutes in, I see black words. I see words on a black screen. She went to jail. I'm like, there's 45 minutes left in this documentary. Why am I seeing the words on the screen? I had the same reaction. I was like, what? I had the same reaction too. It's like... Dun, dun, dun. And I was like, what? So I watched that. So I watched it. Watched the first half again.

[00:12:42] Stopped. Watched the second half again. Stopped. Watched the middle for the transition. I had to watch it several times because I was like... This is crazy. Because I thought that I was possibly familiar with the case. I immediately knew, just like Sarah. I was like, oh, okay. The pregnant wife is the one who's actually sending the emails. Like, that was very apparent up front.

[00:13:11] So, but then when... Like when Sarah said, when we get the ex-girlfriend and then she's like, semi-confessing, because she did, Sarah, she did write the first two emails apparently. To him. To him. And it was just like, basically like, you suck and you're going to pay for this. But she didn't, you know, there was no like rape threats and stuff. With the heavy religious overtones, which he very cleverly picked up and used in the threatening ones to Angela.

[00:13:41] But sorry, Mary, go on. And so, no. But then I was just saying, like, I had to go back, especially for that transition part because, all right, we get to Michelle. Michelle is like, yeah, I had the worst relationship with him, da-da-da-da-da-da. So on and so forth. I was like, but wait, Michelle goes to prison for four months because we got to talk about that police work.

[00:14:08] And Angela, the reason why he basically puts Angela in jail is like she leaves too? And then it was so interesting. Like, I was just like, what is happening? But it definitely did feel like, I will say this. So, like, major kudos to the production, to the team on how they knew how to lay this out to, like, make it this. Like, I've had, again, this is another one of those documentaries.

[00:14:38] All of my friends who normally never say anything to me who listen, but don't say anything. They're like, Mario, are you guys covering Toxic? I was like, I am. We are. They're like, okay, thank you. I can't wait to listen. I was like, okay, good. It had that same thing. Like Sarah said, that flavor of the month, that maternal instinct, that type of thing is in right now. So everybody was reaching out to me. And kudos to them for seizing on this, keeping it a full length,

[00:15:07] like a feature length movie and all of that. Like, great. You did exactly what you needed to do. You got people interested into the story. Great. However, I did feel like there was a lot of stuff that was kind of missing so that we could get this big type of twist. So I definitely did my side gooks. And I was like, okay, a lot of this is making sense. Just like the nuggets that Sarah dropped on us with the Disney.

[00:15:37] So yes, I was entertained. Yes, I suggested, but I do say with a word of caution that we're slow. It feels like we're slowly, slowly getting to this point where we are, we are stripping some of the truth out of these documentaries in order to get a shocking twist, kind of like with the crash as well. Like we're, we're not, maybe not stripping the truth, but we're just not telling everything. We're, we're omitting some stuff so that we can get a compelling narrative.

[00:16:06] You know what I think that is though? And I say this from the production side or from like being in the room on a lot of these pitches, right? Like I've done a lot of this. And the other thing that there is there, you know, you said Mari, like kudos to them for not making it three episodes, which, you know, that they wanted to. The thing is right now, though in true crime, they're trending away from that because these networks don't want to spend any money. And so I think if they, yeah.

[00:16:36] So what I think what's happening, and I've seen this from another, a number of friends who are directing, you know, a multi-episode series, they're getting fewer and fewer. Like if you remember a few years ago when The Vow came out on HBO and it was like 10 episodes. And I mean, yeah, it was way, it was way too much. It could have been three, but it, it's still like it, you know, there was all this stuff in there and then they kept getting shorter. And then it was like a crime series would be like six and then it was like five. And then four became kind of the de rigueur.

[00:17:06] Like when I did the CNN one, like it was four, that was kind of what everybody was doing. And then when I was lucky enough to work on Mastermind, I was like, how are you fitting Anne Burgess's life into three episodes? And the director who was amazing, Abby Fuller, she's incredible. And she was like, that's all they're giving us, you know? And I was like, okay, you know, and I saw the same thing with 603. I saw the same thing, another Nancy Schwartzman doc that I worked on this year that that's going to be out later.

[00:17:35] And I'm seeing them get shorter and shorter. And even this, this thing that I was telling you about off air, we're, we're now looking to pivot into a three part series on it as well, like for TV. And so right now, everybody on the production side is like screaming to the mountaintops if they get three episodes, everything is getting like one episode. So probably what happened was the director probably would have liked to have gotten more in there.

[00:18:04] I mean, I'm just speculating. But just from like what I've heard from people who have worked with, with Alexandra and stuff before, it seems to me she probably would have liked to have gotten more in there. But since you've only got that space, the best thing you can do with it is make it twisty. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Yeah, it makes complete sense. I mean, Netflix is now, has now pivoted to this 90 minute all the way through, which if it's well constructed is incredibly satisfying.

[00:18:31] And the reason for that is they were finding that people would watch episode one. There'd be a big drop off for episode two and then an even bigger drop off for episode three with the three episode format. So they're doing it based on, as I understand it, they're doing it based on the viewer behavior. I like 90 minutes. I don't require documentaries to have absolutely everything in it. Murray, you and I are very happy to do our side googing.

[00:18:59] And we always say, if the 90 minutes was really satisfying and well made and interested me to look at other things, that's great. If the 90 minutes was unsatisfying and I goog and I find these huge things that have been missed out, then I'm crossed. This sort of fell in the middle. I really liked it while I was watching it. I too thought straight away, well, it's not Michelle doing the emails. And then we got the very interesting thing about her.

[00:19:28] She had some mental health issues and she had sent the threatening emails to Ian over the sale of the condo. He had got a restraining order out against her for that, which is really tough. I did not experience that when I actually worked in the criminal justice system. It was very difficult to get a protection order, even for like overt domestic violence, like where somebody was under arrest. It was hard to get a judge to do a restraining order after.

[00:19:57] Well, we haven't said that Ian's job was a US Marshal. Oh. So I think this gives a lot of explanation for the events that are going to unfold. I was very happy with my side googing. There were some, to me, important things that were not investigated. But Alexandra has 90 minutes. She has to tell this story.

[00:20:25] And so it is going to be a slight overview rather than if you have three episodes, you can go into the police investigation. You can go into Michelle's state of mind. You can go into her 86 days in jail and what they did for her. You can go into Angela's motivations and her backstory. So I don't blame this documentary for not having everything in it. I think it did what it did well, but I think Netflix should have given her more time.

[00:20:54] Whereas you get The Perfect Neighbour, which was 90 minutes and was perfect. It was absolutely everything we needed and nothing we didn't. So I think what I would ask is that the story itself would dictate how long it gets. But that's not the market and that's not the industry. Speaking of the police, Sarah. Sorry. I just sort of feel like a blanket apology. No, well, yeah.

[00:21:23] I always joke that I'm the only person you know who has a badge and will still go, A cab, like out a car window. Yes, exactly. You say, A cab, including me. Angela says, I have had men sent to rape me. Men are coming to the condo thinking that she has responded to their rape fantasy ads on social media. And then it escalates and they're calling the police each time.

[00:21:51] And then it escalates to where she's actually physically attacked. And every time they have called the police, every time they have shown the threatening emails, every time a man has come to the house, they have called the police. So there's a, as she says when she calls, oh, I've got a number of cases with you. So when she is actually attacked, thrown up against the wall, you can see her makeup on the wall where her face was held against it. And she says it was Michelle.

[00:22:19] The police go and arrest Michelle and put her in jail. What is going on? Yeah, I, again, there were some things where I was like, no investigation. Like, I was like, what did we, we didn't get that other side of like, we're hearing all the calls from Angela and Ian, all the calls for months. But they're not telling us, what are they doing?

[00:22:46] Are they going and asking Michelle about the stuff? Yeah, we saw one video where she, where she was being served, but that was, that wasn't even the police. That was just the friend, right? That was Leslie, who is definitely not in love with Ian. Definitely not. Exactly. So I was just like, I was just like, oh, okay. So the fact that she spent four months in jail and. I mean, Sarah, I don't, I don't know.

[00:23:16] Maybe you can help us, but how long does it take to trace an IP address? It doesn't take four months. So the, I mean, what I would say, what I would say is the problem is once you get somebody into the jail system, like into the criminal justice system. Now it becomes very, very difficult to, to make anything go faster.

[00:23:37] But I cannot see a world in which any agency I've ever actually worked for, like as a sworn officer or agencies I've consulted with. Cause I, you know, I try to be fussy about who I consult with, who actually would have arrested her based on that, that scenario in the garage.

[00:23:58] And I don't say that just with like the hindsight of knowing what really happened or anything like that, because I am the first to say that false allegations of rape are vanishingly small. Vanishingly small that it is, it is infinitesimal. It really does not happen.

[00:24:16] You know, I mean, I know whatever people can come in and comments and they'll all probably give the same one example from, you know, 30 years ago or something, but, but it's still, there still is a process that has to happen. You have to find out who actually came to the house. And then that person now has to like, has to be able to demonstrate that they were there under false pretenses. So then you have to go back.

[00:24:44] Like it's, this whole thing needs to be treated as a potential assault and a potential home invasion or like whatever the parameters were, whether the door was shut or not shut or whatever. But all of that investigation has to be done first. And then once you have identified that assailant, now you have to trace it back to her. You can't just take the emails. Are you kidding me? I feel like a third year law student could have gotten that case thrown out if it had actually gone to court.

[00:25:12] But the problem is like once somebody is in the jail system, all that, that whole process changes shape. And that's where everything just slows way down. Yeah, I mean, it was Daddy Mike who said that he had done a lot of investigation. I watched the Dateline episode, so I'm getting a bit mixed up with what I learned from that, what I learned from this. He was actually the one that was tracing IP addresses.

[00:25:37] And Dateline says to him, oh, did you, did you need some very specialist equipment that's not available? And he says, no, a 15 year old showed me how to do this. Yeah, I have an email tracker Chrome extension and I can see IP addresses on it. Like, that's crazy. That pisses me off. Because like, again, how is she arrested? And I'm so confused.

[00:26:04] I mean, other than like Sarah probably pointed out that Ian's a U.S. marshal. So they feel like they're protecting one of their own. It doesn't matter. It's so gross. It's so gross. Because you're not protecting him. You're not protecting. I can't. I can't. I don't understand it. I just don't. I don't understand how she ended up in actual jail. Actually in jail.

[00:26:29] Well, and also, who is this fucking judge who got that information and signed a warrant on it? Are you kidding me? Does the judge review evidence when writing a warrant or does someone have to present? Should? No, you're supposed to. Like, you know, I have a case where we have twice tried to get search warrants on somebody who everybody, including the judge, are like, yeah, this is your guy. But he has looked at the warrant and said, there's still not enough here. There's still not enough here.

[00:26:59] You know what I mean? And that's for a homicide. Like, a judge should look at something and say, you've got to give me more because the judge is supposed to be thinking ahead to, like, what's going to get this case thrown out? And a good officer should be thinking of that, too. A good detective should be thinking of that. When I'm, you know, anytime I'm working on a case for an agency, I'm thinking not just what do I need to do to try and identify who did this,

[00:27:25] but what do I need to do to preserve this as a prosecutable case? And the detectives, whoever, I'm sorry, whoever their bosses are, some heads should roll because that was never going to be a prosecutable case. That was going to get thrown out the minute it actually, you know, got into that stage. It never even got to that stage. It's very upsetting. Did you? Crazy. Did you watch Murder 101, Sarah? I wonder. The school teacher who's doing the caucus. I know of it.

[00:27:55] I haven't watched it. Yeah. I would say you don't need to. But one of the interesting things is that they... That was sort of my fun feeling. Because it's not a true crime documentary. This is what we said. We talked to Ellen Marsh. She loved it. Three episodes. And we said it's a study of a sociology teacher and this group of students. And there happens to be this true crime threat. It's a documentary about crime. Well, no, no, no.

[00:28:24] Barely about crime. But they do... They take one of the cases that they think is part of this serial killers group and they pursue it logically and come to the conclusion that she doesn't belong to him. She belongs to someone else. And they're very downcast. And then they think, oh, well, we'll just... We'll keep working. Because they're not going to solve the case. They're looking at it sociologically. And that was one of my things. Stop pretending these 16-year-olds are going to solve the case and find evidence.

[00:28:54] They're not. But what he's doing is getting them to think critically. Getting them to call for FOIA and not being able to get through to people. Getting them to write emails. Getting them to speak on the phone. So that's all great. But I commented that it was interesting that 16-year-olds figured out that if the evidence didn't fit that suspect that they had to turn to another suspect. Yeah. Just saying. Isn't that wild? Just saying. Isn't that wild? Novel. Novel idea. Novel. We... Look, all good detectives know that.

[00:29:22] And all shitty detectives seem to forget it. And that is that when you... And we hammer this season of the podcast because it is going to be featuring myself teaming up with somebody I've known since I was 10 years old who was also... He's just a hell of a detective. And that's something that he and I both say all the time. Is once you think you have identified your primary suspect, your main objective now is to prove that he didn't do it. And when you can no longer...

[00:29:49] When you have exhausted every avenue of proving he didn't do it, only then can you begin to say, okay, can I build a case on this person? Yeah. Murray, what did you think about the presentation of Michelle's state of mind? Did you feel it was a little glossed over as I did? Or did you feel that you got enough of what she was going through? I thought... I did think it was gloss over.

[00:30:16] And at that moment when she was admitting to some of the emails, when I watched it on my second or third time watching that part, I really thought that they had clipped something that she was reacting to differently and then putting it there, to be quite honest. I was like, this doesn't feel like this exactly fits the question that they just asked her. But all that aside,

[00:30:45] I felt like we got her state of mind more at the end, right? Once it was resolved, once Ian was away, and then she talks about herself and her daughter and everything she went through after she reflects. I thought I got that portion, but really fleshing out her and Ian's relationship before Angela. You know, I got the gist of it. I would have loved more.

[00:31:13] But then again, hour and a half, I'm fine. So I agree with you when you said that like, I would have loved more, but I understood what they were telling me and I don't feel cheated. So I'm fine. I'm fine with that. Yeah. Sarah, I thought that Ian might have been using her documented, you know, mental health issues to push the narrative that it was her. But I'm just making that up in my head.

[00:31:42] I don't think that's in the documentary. It's not in the documentary, but it's a tale as old as time. I mean, it is, it is a very, very common pattern with domestic abusers is to, I mean, they create a situation in, I mean, it's sort of the whole origin of gaslighting, right? It's like they'll create a distorted reality and then capitalize on the fact that other people only see from the outside. This person lives in a distorted reality.

[00:32:12] They, I mean, this is, this is DV 101 is get them to a place where they don't trust their own senses or their, their own thoughts. And then weaponize that. And that's, I mean, that's all he did. He just, he just did it on a scale that ended up, you know, big enough for TV cameras. Um, I thought they did. I mean, for how short it was, I thought they did a pretty good job of demonstrating what, um, Dr.

[00:32:42] Laura Richards talks about a lot, which is domestic violence is obviously a scourge in and of itself, but what Dr. Richards has done such a really good job of, and she actually got it, you know, to where it was illegal. It's actually now, um, codified in the UK and, and trying to do it here as well is coercive control. These, these, these levels of abuse that happen, um, even in the absence of, or alongside physical abuse,

[00:33:11] but that are so damaging, um, that even if they happen in the absence of physical abuse, that it absolutely wrecks lives and it has to be protected against. And it's, um, they, I think they did a really good job. They didn't name it that. Um, I would like to see more people kind of like talking about it in that term. Cause once we have a term, like we can grab onto it and it becomes easier to, um, to get lawmakers to pay attention and stuff like that. Um,

[00:33:38] but I thought they did a really good job with her telling her story of, of showing what happens with coercive control. 4, 5, 8, 9, 8, 9, 0, 1, 0, 1, 4, 1, 1,

[00:34:12] 1, 1, so many times i was like i still walked away from it like okay so ian turned on angela like basically said it was her fault leslie was leslie was right there with ian like yeah it's

[00:34:37] all her fault but she's not in love with ian get it right marie leslie is not in love not in love with ian angela legit goes away in 2017 they don't they don't get ian until uh almost five years later four or five years later and so i i was like that is i i can't imagine she didn't

[00:35:02] turn on him but i guess so because it took the justice department to take him down the only thing i would say is because she did not um participate in the documentary which may have even been like her attorney's advisor or something like that we don't know what she told them about him and it may well have been that she was the one i mean she may not have she may have stood by her man or whatever um because she was also i'm i'm sure to some degree abused although she was

[00:35:30] she was clearly complicit in everything she was doing if they set up the assault in the in the garage and everything but she may well have been the one who first alerted the justice department to the to the i mean we don't you know really know necessarily what was going on behind the scenes because she didn't participate and she's not you know her hands her hands are pretty dirty so it's you know it may be that she just didn't want to talk because like how do you defend that

[00:35:59] and she's they've also got other people saying she lied about this other stuff i mean she's clearly she's a pathological liar we don't know what the the history or like what the origin of that pathology is but it existed before him and it will probably exist after yes and and uh i do remember that my side googings did say that she did participate so like i i don't know if she she was an active

[00:36:25] participant they found uh the emails of origin from their condos from her phone so there was trace amounts that she did participate the the question i think that still remains even after the documentary is how much they participated how much was it set up together because i i will say like a little bit of the documentary kind of was like blame her nope twist it was all him type thing you know what i'm

[00:36:51] saying and i and i don't think they really stressed that they did this together and um what it seemed to really nail him was like when they said they said in the documentary they found traces of the email on his job computer so that is irrefutably him helping as well it's not just coming from a shared domicile type thing but i don't think i don't think the assault in the garage was actually one of those guys

[00:37:19] at all i don't think i think he i think they did that together yeah so i thought so too yeah so i think that's why i say you know fuck her basically because that was the incident that actually sent michelle to to jail you know yeah it it seemed to me that they were hoping michelle would go to jail so here's some threatening emails no she doesn't go to jail here are men coming from the from the posts

[00:37:44] about rape fantasies she still doesn't go to jail okay we escalate our our storytelling by having this so-called attack so i think even if angela had been unaware of everything else she was definitely complicit in the staging of that attack and murray we go back to jason rayburn in 2014 her ex uh where she said she had stage four cervical cancer why is it always lady bits things that

[00:38:13] people have breast cervical pregnant miscarriage do not want details do not ask they don't know anything about it they don't want any details is that where that goes let's just you know like yeah whatever you say yeah yes and i was wondering on first pass second pass as well probably when they

[00:38:37] came to the house from the when when the actual craigslist guy that we talked to rick when they came to the house and the police were like well what was happening and they started showing the the emails i would that i was really confused about i'm like how would y'all have the emails from the people i was looking like the adele like the adele meme like how do y'all know what craigslist

[00:39:01] post was called if you like i that i was confused about so when they got to ian's portion and they're like oh yeah ian claimed to go on craigslist to try and find out who it was and then he found the post immediately but then i was also like but how did they even know it was a craigslist post because it wasn't like normally when we see this this happens actually a lot sadly with uh like revenge

[00:39:30] porn like like black market revenge schemes what will happen is somebody will take their former ex's address and put it on craigslist and be like i want you to da da da da this guy this guy posted himself that he was looking for somebody and then and then quote unquote michelle responded to it that doesn't make sense that they would know that that's what she did they they would if if she had made a post

[00:40:00] with their address saying this this that and that then they could have found that but the fact that they try to say like oh yeah i did all this he said i did all this i found this out that it was a craigslist thing is how do you know that because rick tells us the guy who who who is real he didn't even run into them right like he said he got there got got to the house saw the dude's name and left

[00:40:26] but rick also got vocal confirmation i thought rick you're smart single father posts the fantasy gets the message gets the address gets the date gets the time and says i i want i want verbal confirmation so a woman called him angela i'm looking at you oh yeah absolutely how did that

[00:40:52] immediately not spark some questioning in the anaheim pd yeah yeah i have to call out mary bukovsky's uh she met angela back in 2014 when she was apparently going through chemo for her stage 4 cancer and uh she was wearing the beanie and pushing her hair up under the beanie mary had cut her hair in solidarity and she tells us this bitch has more hair than i do thank you mary thank you for

[00:41:19] your service there are not a lot of light moments this is this is i would say quite heavy body she was great she was she was all across it let's finish with leslie sarah we've mentioned leslie a few times what was your take on her what's what's her role here in the documentary and what's her role in life i mean you know she opens the documentary and she's talking about how

[00:41:45] great he was and i did you know i thought i didn't know anything about the story going into it i did not see a dateline or anything i just was like oh i'm doing this talk with the ladies on friday night so i'm gonna watch this now and so when it opens with her and she's talking about how much he loved um you know being a marshal and how excited he was when he got the job and stuff my very first thought was like oh he's a fake marshal he's not even real but then it was like okay no he really he really

[00:42:13] did and and it was funny because the little flag that went off in my head was when she said i basically supported him and i was like oh he's no good honey that's like one of the first things she says is that at some point he's struggling he's doing all stuff she's like i basically supported him but then they were showing all these sort of slow motion pictures or whatever and i was like oh is he dead like this was my ride and i was like you're such an asshole sarah like you always think the worst

[00:42:41] the people the moral of the story is you should just think the worst of people but um when i when she was telling this story i really thought it was gonna be that this guy was terribly taken advantage of and he was completely broken and this person was sort of like a greek chorus like she had watched him was going to tell the story for us i had forgotten about her till you know halfway through when she pops

[00:43:08] back up again and she's like i'm not in love with him and i was like it's not crazy oh so i'm going to test too much yeah it's it's hard you know i feel bad for anybody who's involved in uh delusional unrequited love yeah and she says there is absolutely nothing that she can be ever shown that would make her think

[00:43:35] that he is guilty and then we end with michelle drifting through her seaside airbnb sorry netflix that's we know that's an airbnb stop doing that i mean i understand if they don't want to be in their own home put them in a studio please the thing though i wondered if what they were trying to do because through the whole first things until we get towards the end when we see that it's this like seaside thing and she's you know facetiming with her kid um she's sitting at a table and she's in kind of a plain t-shirt

[00:44:04] i was like is she still in prison like it seemed to it read a little like she might have been in a lawyer interview room um and i don't i thought maybe they were kind of going for that on purpose because everybody else was in you know it was like outdoors are in a very clear like lived in space or whatever good point especially when they first introduced her i was like prison yeah

[00:44:27] they did intercut audio of her initial police interviews into the contemporary interviews i like that so we see her listening to it and then we see her responding and that's what you were saying marie when sometimes there seemed to be a disconnect as if a question had been asked and and uh i sort of liked it but i wanted him to be just a little more transparent about what that actually was but hey i like when documentaries do something a little bit same

[00:44:56] if there's if there is like something in print or photographs and they find a different way to kind of work them in um i yes i and i enjoy a little creativity in the delivery of some of those materials yeah i i did like i liked it i just wanted it to be a little clearer but hey i didn't make it so let's get to our ratings sarah how many magnifying glasses are you going to rate a toxic love story

[00:45:21] out of a possible five i think i think i'll go with four because i really really enjoyed it it wasn't the best crime doc i've ever seen i saved my fives for a select few but i i really enjoyed the ride um and i was i was prepared to find it very trite and predictable and it was not marie how about you how many magnifying glasses will you give this documentary

[00:45:47] i i completely agree i thought again entertaining nobody died thank god you know four months of somebody's life was wasted that answers still need to be we'd still need answers for that but i mean other than that i found it very gripping you know it was it was okay the like it was okay to do those

[00:46:10] twist that way because again nobody died it's fine and it's like it's kind of over sensationalized but the case itself was sensationalized so i i agree i give it a four as well how about you sarah how many magnifying glasses are you going to give a toxic love story yeah well i give a four as well i think it's very well made it's certainly you watch every minute it is not a two screener which i like uh

[00:46:37] there was stuff that i wanted to be in it that wasn't but i don't ding the documentary for not doing it if you follow what i mean um so far from me and then i watched dateline season 25 episode 21 diabolical with a much younger michelle and she does not come off well at all unfortunately

[00:47:00] interestingly and unfortunately it was shot before the investigation arrest and sentencing of ian so it's very much michelle versus angela which is which is interesting so there's stuff to be gleaned there but just be very prepared to find michelle a little off-putting shall we say less sympathetic so you're saying in that one they they didn't have any of the ian stuff they

[00:47:30] didn't have any of the ian stuff it's very interesting um i learned that the settlement which was mentioned the settlement with anaheim police was mentioned in our documentary today they didn't say how much it was for it was for 1.795 million and michelle has written two books the courage to heal emerge to thrive after trauma and the courage to love dating after trauma both are

[00:47:57] available on amazon she has another book coming out in november so i found the timing of this documentary interesting uh her book coming out in november is called unbound story of survival so you can go to amazon and find that another thing i found out is that angela claimed to have had a miscarriage due to the stress of the emails so that would have added to the sympathy string pulling of uh of law enforcement

[00:48:23] and as we're watching dateline ian but ian knew she wasn't pregnant or did he or anyway fuck ian how did he find out about the fake pregnancy and the the i think she was running a scam on him and he was using her for his biggest scam it was just they were made for each other yeah agreed and you can listen to the podcast seriallessly with annie ellies she has an episode called what netflix is a toxic

[00:48:53] love story left out again we don't expect any documentary to put absolutely anything in and for me because it's a four magnifying glass documentary for me it means i was very satisfied and when i get sent off to do my side googling i do it from great interest rather than annoyance sarah what do you have to recommend to our listeners what have you been watching listening or reading lately oh my goodness

[00:49:18] i've been doing a lot of reading lately but um i i'm a big book person so um i'm currently i think for this audience the thing that i would recommend i'm only about a third of the way in but i already feel confident recommending it because i just love her as um as an historian and as a writer and it is

[00:49:40] hallie rubin holds um story of a murder um which is about the american gynecologist who is suspected in a number of of femicides in the u.s and in the uk um in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and it's just she just does such a great job of taking historical research and somehow turning it

[00:50:06] into like just like page turner incredible storytelling um and fascinating side dives into the theater world in london in 1910 and stuff and yet you're still transfixed by this and you zip right back in to you know what happened to this woman and where is this one and um she's just such a great writer and so that's that's one of the things that i'm reading right now i am also reading

[00:50:30] the hunting party by lucy foley who just does just does fun page turner thrillers and it is about a group of friends in the scottish highlands trapped in a snowstorm and somebody murdered yes murder murder murder it's murder murder yes and so mari what do you have to recommend to our listeners today

[00:50:56] well uh i am in full uh drag mode drag race mode i'm um i'm a little bit saddened uh by what happened on big brother i won't spoil it if anybody isn't caught up but because of what happened i am back in my drag race bubble uh currently watching the newest season of uh well the newest slash first season

[00:51:22] of drag race down under versus the world um i think the first two episodes are out now very fun i just started canada's drag race all stars which is good um i am just in the thick of it i am uh subscribed to purse first studios bob the drag queen's youtube page which he is doing so many good things over

[00:51:48] there i definitely suggest um subscribing uh to to that he has his only child podcast where he does interviews with different celebrities they have uh the quit playing podcast with amber wallen and jasmine w which is such a fun podcast for me like two of my favorite black women comedians um talking about day-to-day life that's so fun he just started a new series called date my friend

[00:52:14] where it's like a surprise pop-up dating show where he gets people who want their their friends to date they lure them to his studio to a pop the balloon style dating show it's so funny bob has been reviewing love island over there he did two reviews of love island which were hilarious so i'm just i'm just watching stuff that makes me laugh at this point because there's just so much going on that you can

[00:52:41] get sucked into so yeah and drag is my happy place so that's what i've been watching uh lately sarah what about you what do you have to recommend to our listeners well certainly both of those uh drag race seasons both of them are giving me enormous joy something a little more serious mario and i we love the i was gonna say we love the plane crashes i don't love the plane crashes but we're interested

[00:53:07] in the plane crashes and soon we're going to be reviewing the boeing documentary with uh listener favorite tony cox also known as mario's father so i started watching on netflix it's in the top 10 this week it's called the bombing of pan am 103 it's a six-part drama it is so good the way there's not a spoiler the plane explodes right we all know that the way they deal with that we don't have people

[00:53:36] screaming in the air we don't have scenes from the cockpit we don't have anything it just starts with a pub and locker b with the glasses shaking and they go out and see see the explosion so that was really well done the scene of parent chaos again we love process and i was a lifesaver on bondi beach so i know about like when we've had mass rescues and things how the team works together and how you are in the

[00:54:06] middle of that sarah you'd know that from your days on the force you know your role and you step into it and that carries you through and so i saw that so beautifully done in this scene i thought somebody knows they've either done some extremely good consulting or someone knows from personal experience what is apparently this chaotic scene and the camera weaves through and you slowly pick out oh yes you can see that everybody's moving into their role really well and the first episode ends with the

[00:54:34] struggle for jurisdiction which is very interesting because it's between america england and scotland and how that is going to unfold is going to be very interesting they use contemporaneous footage which is extremely well done i really loved it they're long episodes they're nearly an hour but again it's not a two-screener sarah you're nodding have you started to watch that i started to watch it as well yeah i got um i i think i'm through the first episode but it's heavy it's really heavy it's not a two-screener

[00:55:04] like you said you could put your phone down and pay attention um but i too found that it just i i am also sort of um fascinated and not in a morbid curiosity but just because it is it's so unusual and so when a crime or when a plane crash happens we we all kind of want to understand what happened and i remember you know being a kid when that one happened and um yeah yeah it's i i i need to get back into it i kind

[00:55:32] of uh i did an episode and was like all right i need to um you know step away and i i not forgot to come back but you know what i mean like other stuff comes in but i think i need to go back to it yes it's definitely one episode at a time at crime scene where you get to hear your feedback and suggestions for future episodes you can subscribe by going to crime scene pod.com or search crime scene that's s-e-e-n wherever you get your podcast you can follow crime scene

[00:56:00] everywhere at crime scene pod or email us at crime scene pod at gmail.com you can support us at buymeacoffee.com slash crime scene pod you can sling us a couple bucks or join our monthly membership members receive episodes early and ad free as well as other exclusive bonus content you can also support us by buying our merch yes we have crime scene tumblers available at mari's shop go to

[00:56:29] maricraftstomuch.bigcartel.com yes she's showing the beautiful mug while you're there look for her other book themed tumblers if you don't find your favorite book let her know and she will make something just for you if you're looking for us in milwaukee we'll be walking around holding them so if you don't know what we look like you can figure it out link to the store is in the show notes you can also support us for free free that's a good one by rating and reviewing crime scenes so that others

[00:56:59] can find us five stars only five stars your support makes a huge difference sarah what do you have going on and where can the people find you the best place to find me is on instagram that's the only um sort of social that i'm on right now um it's just my name backwards so it's just kale and sarah so c-a-i-l-e-a-n s-a-r-a-h because that's the right way to spell it right sarah caradine um on instagram and you can

[00:57:28] you know you can kind of stay up to date with everything there so that'll be the first place where um we get to announce uh with id the the launch date of the fourth season of the podcast i also uh have two count of two books coming out within a month of each other um yes and the first one is available for pre-order now um it is called warrior sleuths how history's hidden heroines brought the

[00:57:55] wicked to justice um and it is um it is eight different women's stories um beginning with kate warren uh pre-civil war and going all the way up through barbara ray venter today um it's it's eight women who really changed the course of investigations or forensics or criminal investigations or prosecutions

[00:58:18] but largely went unacknowledged or or completely unknown because they were women and i'm really excited about it it's um it's with lions press which is an imprint of simon and schuster it comes out february 2nd 2027 and like i said it's available for pre-order now you can get it anywhere you get your books and breaking news for members we are going to have our first crime scene book club in mid

[00:58:47] february and it will be discussing the book just let me check my notes warrior sleuths by sarah kelly so pre-order it buy it get it from your library read it and then come to our members only recording you may be able to ask the author some questions you might you might be able to ask the author some questions oh my god you guys that's so awesome thank you of course but the the second one i don't know

[00:59:14] if i'm even allowed to say what it is yet it is completely different it is about jane austen and about life in regency england um which is the other great love of my life is um you know serial and domestic homicide and jane austen so these are the two things that that make me happy in life but yes oh you guys are the best thank you i'm i'm i'm very excited and i'd be happy i would love to come and um and talk to everybody about this these the women in this book are just incredible and i'm so

[00:59:44] excited to um to share their stories so i honestly can't wait to read it when you were uh explaining i was like i can't wait and he said february i was like oh yeah no not february but yes can't wait well you know what the only thing i will say i have to caveat every woman in this book deserves like three volumes all to herself and mari what have you got going on and where can the people find you

[01:00:11] you can find me over on blue sky at mari talks too much that's too like the number two right now like i said i am heavily invested in big brother 28 how long that'll last i don't know but you can you can find me there last week i was a guest on mess magnets with a former guest kirsten mckinnis uh she said she's still on her murder hiatus sarah but she said if we get anything that's not murder

[01:00:37] to you know get it to to pull her in and so we'll we'll keep looking for something for her but i had such a fun time talking all things pop culture with her over on mess magnets so you can check that out by going to mess magnets.com in order to listen or or search mess magnets wherever you get your podcast i've also again been doing tumblers we've got a few more crime scene orders for our tumblers so

[01:01:05] it's been so fun thank you to everybody who has supported us by getting your crime scene merch through my shop it has been amazing it's just been overwhelming to see as uh all the support that we're getting so thank you thank you so much uh sarah where can the people find you the people can find me on blue sky as well at sarah carradine i'm covering non-english language seasons of the traitors with annabelle fiddler over on babes in the conclave we're in the end game of hungary season

[01:01:35] three this week i was a guest on these are their stories the law and order podcast with rebecca lavoy and kevin flynn it was a great episode so i hope you can check that out and i'm filling in for rebecca on something's off this week discussing the lindsey clancy case very tough you can watch live at youtube.com slash at something's off pod slash streams that will be in the show notes that's at

[01:02:03] 4 p.m on wednesday the 5th eastern 6 a.m thursday the 6th in australia and of course it'll be uh online after that but if you wanted to watch us live and have comments that's where i'll be murray what are we watching next week next time on crime scene we're covering the idaho murders college nightmare with the aforementioned mel barrett from something's off podcast watch it on netflix and send us your

[01:02:28] comments and questions thanks to sarah killeen for joining us will from america for the theme music and we'll see you in milwaukee until next time case closed closed