Latest / Crime and Horror / He gave his lawyer $10K to solve his own murder - MrBallen

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He gave his lawyer $10K to solve his own murder - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: One day in the spring of 2006, a detective stood
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: next to a refrigerator in her police station holding a
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: container of evidence. She knew that what she was about
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: to do with this evidence was a breach of protocol
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and could definitely get her in a lot of trouble.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: But that was not going to stop her. But before
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: we get into today's story, if you're a fan of
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  Speaker 1: the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then
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• 0:35
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• 0:44
  Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of Wednesday,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: April 12, 2006, Dr. John Yelnik finished up his final
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: exam of the day at his dental practice in the
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: rural community of Blairsville, Pennsylvania. He handed his patient a
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: toothbrush and told her to come back in six months.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Then he headed into his back office to pack up.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: Once he'd gathered up all his things, he walked out
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: through the reception area and told the receptionist to have
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a great night.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: She waved and gave John a big smile.
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  Speaker 1: However, as soon as John actually left the building, the
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: smile faded from his face.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: Because in reality, he.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Had a lot of problems right now. And pretending to
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: be happy all day was actually really exhausting. And so
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: John walked across the lot, climbed into his car, and
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  Speaker 1: then began the half-mile drive from his dental practice to
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: his house. So John had actually grown up in Blairsville.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And it had been his lifelong dream to raise a
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: family here. So when he graduated from dental school 13
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: years earlier, he could have set up shop in a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: big city and very likely made a higher salary right
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: off the bat. But instead, he joined the practice of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: his own childhood dentist right in downtown Blairsville. And it
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: would actually turn out that John was able to make
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of money right here in his hometown. This
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: dental practice really took off in part because John himself
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: was really charming and great with kids. And so lots
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of families wanted to come here. And so what John
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: had done is with the extra money he was making,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: basically above and beyond what he expected, he took that
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: extra money and invested it into real estate and became
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a millionaire by the time he was in his 30s. However,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: it was not until John met his wife, Michelle, that
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: he really felt like he had made it in life.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Michelle was a single mother with two children. And to John,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: this was actually perfect because it meant that she came
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: with a ready-made family. Now, John's friends were sort of
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: worried that Michelle only wanted.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: John for his money.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: But when John's mom got sick with cancer, Michelle took
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: on the responsibility of being her full-time caregiver. And for John,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: that was all the proof that he ever needed that
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Michelle truly cared for him. And so the pair got
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: married in 1997, and they actually adopted a little boy
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: named JJ shortly after their marriage.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: And so all together, they had three children.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And together, this new big family moved into this big
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: house with a pool and a hot.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: Tub and It was like everything was perfect.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: However, now, as John arrived back home and pulled into
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: the driveway of his very modest home, and he sat
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: there just staring at this new place he was currently living,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: he just thought to himself, like, how had everything fallen
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: apart so completely? These days, John was very tight on money.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: He'd lent tens of thousands of dollars to a bunch
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: of people because he was quite generous, but now he
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: was having to ask for it back because.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: He literally needed the money.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: And then on the marriage side, he and Michelle had
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: hit this horrible rough patch that just didn't end. And
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: they both admitted they had had affairs. And so now
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: they were living separately, which was why John was here
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  Speaker 1: at this little house instead of coming home to the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: big family house with the pool and the hot tub. However,
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  Speaker 1: the financial stress and the marital stress, as bad as
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: they were, they were not nearly as bad as a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: third stressor in John's life. And that was that John
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: was absolutely convinced that somebody was going to murder him. Now,
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  Speaker 1: this all started two weeks earlier when somebody vandalized John's
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  Speaker 1: car with spray paint. And the police looked into it,
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  Speaker 1: but they couldn't figure out who had done it. And,
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  Speaker 1: you know, objectively, you know, having your car spray painted,
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  Speaker 1: vandalized in some way does not, you know, therefore mean
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  Speaker 1: someone's trying to kill you. But he just had this
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  Speaker 1: feeling that this felt really personal, like somebody was targeting him.
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  Speaker 1: And so eventually, over several days... John went from my
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: car got vandalized to my car got vandalized and it
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  Speaker 1: makes me feel like someone's trying to kill me. And
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  Speaker 1: John believed this so completely that he actually went to
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: his attorney and gave her $ 10, 000 just in case he
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: wound up dead. She could use that to investigate his murder. Now,
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  Speaker 1: John got out of his car and he walked up
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  Speaker 1: his porch steps and into his home and he closed
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  Speaker 1: the door and locked it behind him. And right away,
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  Speaker 1: John just felt like this house, you know, it's already
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: so depressing, but It was so quiet.
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  Speaker 2: Because nobody was here.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, he wished his adopted son, JJ, was here
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  Speaker 1: because he would have made the whole house just feel alive. But,
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  Speaker 1: you know, these days, John didn't see JJ very much.
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  Speaker 1: He would go long stretches between visits. John took off
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  Speaker 1: his shoes and walked into the living room. And there
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  Speaker 1: on the coffee table, he saw a legal document that
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  Speaker 1: he had been avoiding.
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  Speaker 2: That document was a stack of divorce papers.
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  Speaker 1: Michelle had actually filed for divorce three years earlier in 2003.
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  Speaker 1: but she and John had not been able to actually
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: come to an agreement. Now, to be clear, they were
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: not fighting to save the marriage, like the marriage was done.
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  Speaker 1: Michelle was actually already living with a new boyfriend, a
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania state trooper named Kevin Foley. However, what John and
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  Speaker 1: Michelle had been fighting over, which had caused this divorce
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  Speaker 1: to drag on, was JJ, their adopted son. Michelle wanted
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  Speaker 1: full custody, but John didn't want to give up his son. However,
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  Speaker 1: John knew in less than 24 hours, this would all
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  Speaker 1: finally be over. Their lawyers had finally settled on a
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  Speaker 1: shared custody agreement, and Michelle had already signed the paperwork,
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  Speaker 1: and tomorrow it would be John's turn to sign. And
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  Speaker 1: so John took a seat on the couch and turned
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: on the TV. But he couldn't even focus. He was
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: just too restless. So instead, he called his aunt, who
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  Speaker 1: he was very close to, and he talked with her
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  Speaker 1: for a while about the divorce and about the custody agreement.
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  Speaker 1: And then eventually, when they said their goodbyes, John hung up,
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  Speaker 1: he stretched out on the couch, and he fell asleep
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  Speaker 1: right there. The next day, around 3.30 p.m., a nine-year-old
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  Speaker 1: boy named Zach Youse, who lived next door to John,
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  Speaker 1: walked out the front door of his parents' house and
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  Speaker 1: across the lawn towards John's house. Zach wanted to see
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  Speaker 1: if John's son, JJ, could come out and play. He
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: wasn't sure if JJ would actually be around, since JJ
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: did split time between his mother and his father's place.
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  Speaker 2: But, you know, he figured it was worth a shot.
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  Speaker 1: But when Zach reached the front steps to John and
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  Speaker 1: JJ's house, he stopped. because he saw there was this
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  Speaker 1: little glass panel to the left of the front door
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  Speaker 1: that had been broken, shattered.
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  Speaker 2: There was glass on the porch.
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  Speaker 1: And also, Zach could see streaks of what looked like
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  Speaker 1: red liquid that had dried underneath the broken panel. Immediately,
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  Speaker 1: Zach got scared. I mean, he sees this and thinks
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  Speaker 1: it's blood. He wants to turn and run away. But
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  Speaker 1: he thought about his friend JJ, and he was worried
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  Speaker 1: that maybe he was in some kind of trouble, so
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  Speaker 1: he couldn't just abandon him. And so, sort of Mustering
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  Speaker 1: all the courage he could, Zach slowly and very nervously
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  Speaker 1: climbed the rest of the steps to the front door,
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  Speaker 1: and he tried the doorknob, but he found the door
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  Speaker 1: was locked. And so as carefully as he could, Zach
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  Speaker 1: actually reached his hand through that broken panel to the
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  Speaker 1: left of the door, you know, being careful not to
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  Speaker 1: cut himself, and he reached inside the house and unlocked
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  Speaker 1: the door from the inside, and then he opened it up.
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  Speaker 1: And as soon as he stepped into the house, he
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  Speaker 1: saw there were papers strewn everywhere, There was a body
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  Speaker 1: laying motionless on the floor, covered in blood.
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  Speaker 2: At that point, Zach turned around and he ran.
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  Speaker 1: About 15 minutes later, Corporal Janelle Lydick of the Blairsville
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  Speaker 1: Borough Police Department was driving with her husband and four
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  Speaker 1: children when she got a call from dispatch. A 911
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  Speaker 1: call had come in from a normally very quiet residential street,
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  Speaker 1: but the details were still a bit confusing. Dispatch just
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  Speaker 1: said there had been a cardiac arrest and that Corporal
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  Speaker 1: Lydick was needed at the scene.
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  Speaker 2: There was no other information available.
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  Speaker 1: So, thinking the call was sort of a run-of-the-mill heart attack, Lydick,
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  Speaker 1: with her family, just drove straight over there.
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  Speaker 2: However, when she actually pulled up to the.
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  Speaker 1: Home and got out of her vehicle, she could tell
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  Speaker 1: that this was not a heart attack. She saw there
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  Speaker 1: was a patrol officer waiting for her on the porch,
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  Speaker 1: and his face looked grim. Lydick walked over to him
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  Speaker 1: and he immediately pointed out that broken glass and the
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  Speaker 1: blood that, you know, appeared to be stained to the ground.
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  Speaker 1: And so she asked him, like, what's going on here?
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  Speaker 1: I was told this was a cardiac arrest. And all
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  Speaker 1: he said was, you know what, it's probably best if
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  Speaker 1: you just.
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  Speaker 2: Go in and look for yourself.
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  Speaker 1: So Lydick, she turned and waved to her husband and kids,
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  Speaker 1: sort of signaling like everything's fine.
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  Speaker 2: Just give me a minute. And then she stepped inside
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  Speaker 2: the house and.
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  Speaker 1: Right away she was sort of struck by what she saw.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, the whole foyer was splashed with blood all
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: over the floor and the walls. And there, in the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: center of it, amongst all these papers strewn about, was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the most mutilated body she had ever seen. Now, Lydic
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: had never actually worked a homicide before. But she knew,
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  Speaker 1: as she tried and failed to count the number of
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: stab wounds on this man's body, that what she was
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  Speaker 1: looking at here was definitely not cardiac arrest. This was
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  Speaker 1: her very first.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Murder case.
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  Speaker 1: She also knew she needed backup because, you know, this
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  Speaker 1: call had been recorded erroneously as a cardiac arrest. But
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: what that meant is the police had not sent.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: A full emergency response.
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  Speaker 1: And so Lydick and this other patrol officer were the
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: only people on scene. Lydick was afraid the killer or
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: killers could still be in the area or maybe even
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: in this house. They hadn't even secured the house yet.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: And she's thinking she brought her kids and her husband
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: with her. So she immediately instructed the patrol officer to
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: search the rest of the house. And then she went
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: back out into the front yard to basically stand guard
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: between the murder scene and her family with her hand
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: on the gun in her holster. Luckily though, it wasn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: long before Lydick heard a bunch of emergency sirens approaching
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: in the distance. Also at the same time, That patrol
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: officer came out of the house to tell Lydick that
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: it was empty.
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  Speaker 2: So the killer or killers were gone.
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  Speaker 1: The only new discovery this officer had made was he
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: had found a huge puddle of blood in the basement
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: where the victim had bled through from the floor above.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: And so at this point, Lydick said bye to her
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  Speaker 1: husband and her kids and she sent them home.
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  Speaker 2: And then she went.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Back into detective mode and went back inside the house.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: It was around this point that somebody on scene told
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Lydick what the victim's name was.
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  Speaker 2: They said his name was John Yelnick.
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  Speaker 1: And so as the crime scene technicians began their work
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: processing the physical evidence inside the house, Lydick began a
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: slow walk through each of the rooms inside the home,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: trying to get a sense of who John was and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: also how he died. John's body was close to the
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: front door, but it was clear that the attack that
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: preceded his death had been very long and chaotic.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: There was blood all over.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The living room floor, which was also strewn with divorce papers.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: John's body was also found barefoot.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: However, there were.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Bloody shoe prints in the house, and these prints were
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: far too big to belong to that little boy who
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: found the body, Zack. So Lydic figured they must belong
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to the killer or killers. And so the crime scene
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: techs were already measuring the prints to try to determine.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: The killer's shoe size.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: As Lydic continued walking through the house, she didn't see
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: anything that at least overtly looked like it could have
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: been used as a murder weapon. She also didn't see
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: any evidence of a robbery. The TV hadn't been taken,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: no drawers or cabinets appeared to have been opened, and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: so on. And to Lydic, this actually made sense. I mean,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the murder appeared to be extremely violent and so very
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: likely quite personal, which suggested that whoever the killer was
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: or killers, the only thing they'd really wanted when they
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: entered this home was apparently for John to die horribly.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: She finished her sweep of the scene, ending up in
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the living room where it looked to her like the
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: attack had begun. And that's when she noticed a check
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: on the coffee table right next to some of the
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: divorce papers. The check was made out to the victim,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: John Yelnik, for $ 15, 000. And attached to the check was
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: a note asking John to hold off for a few
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: days before he deposited it. The check and note were
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: from somebody named Melissa Use. And when Lydick saw that,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: she did a double take. Use was the last name
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: of the neighborhood boy, Zach, who had discovered John's body.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: And so Lydick wondered if Melissa Youse was related to
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Zach Youse, the boy. And so now Corporal Lydick realized
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: that here on the coffee table, she had her first
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: two legitimate leads. One, her victim was in the middle
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: of a divorce. And someone, maybe his next door neighbor
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: if Melissa was connected to Zach, owed him a lot
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of money that apparently she couldn't quite afford to pay
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: back in one go. That she had to tell John
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: to don't cash this right away. It was evening by
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the time Lydick finally stepped back outside the house, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: when she did, she saw there was a group of
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: neighbors and reporters jostling around each other out on the street.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: So Blairsville almost never had murders, and so Lydick knew
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: this was obviously going to be.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: A huge story.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: But for now, as much as she knew she was
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: going to get hounded by reporters as she passed by them,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: she just needed to keep on walking because she had
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: to get back to the station to get organized for
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: interviews tomorrow, like with suspects. However, before she could even
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: walk down the front steps, one of the other officers
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: on scene came over to her with an update. Over
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the last few hours, the police had fanned out across
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood to speak to people to see if anybody
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: had seen or heard anything unusual. And the police had
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: come back with two very interesting accounts. The first came
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: from a woman who said that the previous night, around 1.30
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: in the morning, so technically early that same morning, she
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: had woken up to the sound of a scream.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: And so she sat up, she heard the.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Scream, but she said the screaming didn't continue, and so
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: she had ultimately just gone back to bed. The second
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: account came from another neighbor who had also heard something
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: around that same time the previous night. This neighbor said
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: they heard a man yelling in what sounded like a
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: very heated argument. Now, the neighbor couldn't make out everything
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the man was saying, but there was one sentence that
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: was yelled very clearly, and that was, I'll never loan
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you money again. And so instantly when Lydick heard that,
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: she thought of the $ 15, 000 check on the coffee table.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Like this seems to add more credibility to the idea
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: that maybe money was behind this. However, the officer said
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: he wasn't done. He said he had one more important
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: piece of information for Lydick. In addition to the witness statements,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: a lot of John's neighbors had told the police that
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: there was one family in particular on the block that
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: detectives really ought to look into.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: And that was the Youse family.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Because word around the neighborhood was that Melissa Youse and
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: John Yelnik had been having an affair. The following day,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: April 14th, Lydick was at the police station, sitting at
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: a table inside of an interrogation room across from Melissa
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Youse and her husband Tom. Now, again, Lydick had never
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: done a murder case before, but she was a very
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: methodical investigator, and she had a plan for interrogating her
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: persons of interest. First, she was going to go very
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: hard at Melissa and Tom Youse, even though they were
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: not her top suspects. At this point, her top suspects
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: were John's soon-to-be ex-wife Michelle and her new boyfriend Kevin,
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: for the simple reason that in a murder case, from
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: what she'd been told, the divorcing spouse and their new
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: partner are always suspects number one and two. The night before,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: Lydick had sent an officer to tell Michelle that her
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: soon-to-be ex-husband was dead.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: But when the.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: Officer got to Michelle's house... She already knew, although she
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: said that she had heard that John.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Had died of a heart attack.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: So this officer had to break the news to Michelle
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: and also her new boyfriend, Kevin, that this was actually
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a murder.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And they both seemed genuinely shocked.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: Corporal Lydick actually knew Michelle's boyfriend, Kevin, personally, because he
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: was a state police trooper.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: They had actually worked together.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: But now, you know, Lydick was going to have to
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: investigate her colleague, Kevin, you know, because he's one of
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: the suspects, which was obviously.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Very touchy, especially amongst cops.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: And so what Lydick wanted to do was gather more information,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: you know, before she spoke to Michelle and Kevin. First,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: what she wanted to do was rule the uses out
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: as suspects. And she wanted to also get the results
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: of the autopsy, which was scheduled to take place later
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that day. So now Lydick looked across the interrogation table
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: at John's neighbors, Melissa and Tom Use. And Lydick began
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: by asking them what the deal was with that $ 15, 000
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: check Melissa had written to John that was found near
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: his body. Melissa answered in a very shaky voice. She
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: explained that she and John had been friends since about
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: ninth grade, and she was planning to open a new
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: bakery in town, and John had just loaned her $ 15, 000
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: to help her out with that. But then sort of
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: out of nowhere, he'd asked for the money back. Melissa
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: said she'd been really disappointed when he did this, but
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: she also knew John was in the middle of a
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: very expensive divorce, so she understood. She said that she
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: had only had $ 14, 000 in her account when she wrote
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: the check, And so that's why she had also left
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that note for John along with the check, asking him
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: not to cash it for a few days until she
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: got that last thousand together.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Lydic watched Melissa closely as she said all this.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: She did seem truly distraught over John's death and that
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the money really didn't seem like a big issue to
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: her at all relative to John's death. But for Lydic,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: the obvious warmth that Melissa clearly felt for John raised
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: another more sensitive question here. and she decided that she
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: really just couldn't dance around it, even though Melissa was
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: literally sitting next to her husband, Tom. Lydick looked right
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: at Melissa and asked her straight out, was she having
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: an affair with John? Melissa immediately flushed and said no,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and she said they'd been close friends, but really nothing more.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: At this point, Lydick turned to Melissa's husband, Tom, and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: just asked him the same thing.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: Was his wife having an affair with John?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: And for a second, Tom just went quiet, But then
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: when he finally spoke, he didn't sound.
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: Angry or upset.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: He just seemed really nervous. And he basically refused to
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: answer the question. And instead, he just kept repeating that
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: he really had to go take care of his kids now. Now,
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Lydick knew this had been a very blunt thing to ask.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: But Tom's reaction to this question was really suspicious. And
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: so by the time Lydick told Melissa and Tom that
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: they could go, Tom had firmly established himself in Lydick's
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: mind as a clear person of interest.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: Before Lydek left the station for the day, she checked.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: In with one of her officers who she had sent
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to go observe John's autopsy. The officer told her that
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: the forensic pathologist had determined that the killer used a
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: one-sided blade to repeatedly slash John during the fight. In
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: addition to the knife wounds, John's jugular had been cut
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: by glass, and John also had defensive wounds. on his hands,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: as well as cuts on his back, which suggested he
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: had at one point tried.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: To run away.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, Lydic already knew this, but to hear the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: details from the autopsy just reinforced how truly brutal this
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: murder was. And so what Lydic thought after hearing these
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: details was, wow, whoever did this must have truly hated John.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: And Lydick's already thinking, you know, I already have one
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: suspect in Tom Use whose wife might have been having
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: an affair with John. Certainly that would be enough to
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: inspire Tom to hate John. Despite Lydick's, you know, obvious
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: inexperience with murder cases, she felt really confident at this
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: point that she'd be able to solve this, as long
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: as she was allowed to work slowly and methodically, like
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: she always had on every case she'd worked in.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: However, the case was.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Already getting a lot of attention in the news, and
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: so Lydick knew there would be pressure to show results fast.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: If she moved too slowly, this case might either get
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: taken away from her, or another police agency might get
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: called in to help to speed it up. Now, Lydick
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: didn't want that to happen, but she also really didn't
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: want to compromise her methodical investigative process either, and so
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: she figured she would have to strike a balance. That
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: officer who had gone to the autopsy had come back
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: with John Yelnik's fingernail clippings, blood samples, and tissue samples,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: which Lydick was supposed to send off to a state
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: police lab for DNA testing. But Lydick decided, now that
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: she had these samples, that she was not going to
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: do that. Lydick really wanted to keep her investigatory options
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: open and to guarantee that she knew every single thing
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: going on with her evidence in this case. And so
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: after Lydick got these samples and after this officer had left,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: she went to the department refrigerator and put them in there,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: and then she went home. The next day was April 15th,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: so two days after John Yelnik was murdered. By this point,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Corporal Lydick had spoken to a number of John's friends
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: and family members, and they'd painted John generally as a
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: great guy and a.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Very dedicated father. Today, Lydick was going.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: To John's dental practice to talk to his colleagues to
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: see if they had anything different to say. And as
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: soon as Lydic arrived at John's office, she was glad
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: she had decided to go there. Because the dental hygienist
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: and the receptionist had a lot to say about John's
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: soon-to-be ex-wife, Michelle Yelnik. And this was because during that long,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: multi-year fight John and Melissa had over their divorce, Michelle
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: had at one point lodged allegations against John that he
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: abused their adopted son, JJ. Even Michelle's own family had
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: not believed her. and officials had declined to press charges.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: But at one point during the back and forth, Michelle
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: had accused John of violating a stay away order, and
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: police had come and arrested him at work. And so
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: John's colleagues thought Michelle was a total nightmare. She also
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: called the office regularly to demand money, and John often
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: caved and gave it to her. But actually, according to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: one of the hygienists, Michelle had called just a few
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: days before the murder, and that time, John had actually
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: refused to speak to her.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: And this detail definitely caught Lydic's ear.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: It was not just the, you know, colleagues at the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: dental practice that said Michelle was money hungry.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: A lot of John's friends said that. They said it
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: was Michelle.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Who wanted the big house with the pool and the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: hot tub. But John really had never felt comfortable with that,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: you know, flashy lifestyle. And to many of John's friends
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and colleagues, it was that contrast between he and Michelle
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: that ultimately sort of drove them apart. And so Lydic
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: began to wonder, you know, maybe John and Michelle had
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a fight about money a few days before his murder,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: you know, where Michelle's calling, trying to demand money. John's
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: not taking her call. Could that have been enough to
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: inspire Michelle to murder John? Maybe. But also what Lydic
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: discovered is that Michelle was actually listed as a beneficiary
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of of John's life insurance plan. And so if John died,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: she stood to inherit literally millions of dollars. And so
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: now there's like a twofold financial reason for Michelle to
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: want to bring harm to John, basically all because of money.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: But it didn't seem possible that Michelle would be capable
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: of overpowering John and delivering all those stab wounds and
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: killing him. It just seemed like John would be able
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: to fight her off if she was the killer. But
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Lydic thought, you know, maybe Michelle hired somebody else to
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: do it, somebody else that was much larger and more physical.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: She certainly had the money to do that.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And so as Lydic left the dental office, she began
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: to think about how.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: She was actually going to approach Michelle.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Given the sensitivity of the fact that Michelle was dating
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a cop, Lydic did not want to make her move
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: too soon without enough ammunition first. I mean, this was
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: not just the first murder case she had worked. I mean,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: this was, you know, the first murder case and the
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: biggest case, period, that.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: She had ever worked.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Reporters were calling her constantly. This was a really big deal,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and she didn't want to screw anything up. John Yelnik's
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: funeral was held on Wednesday, April 19th, so six days
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: after the murder. And Corporal Lydic knew that his friends
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: and family were already beginning to get pretty antsy about
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: why the investigation seemed to be moving so slowly.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: But, I mean, Lydic did understand where they were coming from.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, from day one, there was an enormous amount
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of media pressure, just very public pressure to solve this
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: thing right away. And so that was weighing on friends
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: and family. And also, John himself, before he was killed,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: had this paranoia that he was going to be murdered.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: And now he's turned up dead. It just seemed like
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: a crazy coincidence or that John knew something, that this
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: really was a prediction that came true. But Lydic also
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: felt like John's friends and family just didn't understand why
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: this was taking the time it was taking. She wasn't
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: just being slow. She was being careful.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: That was her way.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Without any real departmental guidance on how to actually work
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: a homicide, Lydic had developed a very, you know, careful
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: method of of her own. And for the next several months,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Lydick continued to follow her protocol. And she did take
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: her time, but again, with intention. The crime scene unit
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: had not turned up any matchable DNA or fingerprints at
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: the crime scene. And the bloody footprints they found didn't
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: belong to any of Lydick's suspects. And so for now,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Lydick was really relying heavily on interviews. And Lydick, I mean,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: she would run down every single tip and rumor that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: she could find and systematically ruling things out one by one.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: And as she did this, she always kept tabs on
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: her three best suspects, Tom Use, Kevin Foley, and Michelle Yelnik.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: But she made no move to arrest any of them.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the complaints from the public and from John Yelnik's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: own family about, you know, her failure to solve this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: case more quickly did get to her, but she was
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: determined to manage the case her way.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: She felt like she was on the right path. That
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: was until Melissa Youse.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: So John's alleged affair partner and next-door neighbor, hired a
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: pair of psychics. It was the summer of 2006, so
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: about three months after the murder, when Lydick got a
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: call from Melissa. Lydick had actually been pretty surprised to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: hear from her, and then even more surprised when Melissa
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: told her she wanted to meet at John's house. And
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: then when Lydic showed up, Melissa was there, but she
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't alone. She was standing on the sidewalk with these
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: two older women who she introduced as psychic sisters. She
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: said that she had met them at a psychic tea
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: party and they had visions about the case. And Lydic
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: was really not happy about this. And she was even
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: less happy to learn that John's own family had given
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: permission for the psychics to enter John's house. But Lydic
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: also knew that John's family was getting really edgy. And
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: if she wanted more time to work on her case,
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: she needed to placate them. If that meant working with
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: these psychics contacted by one of the suspect's wives, then
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: that was what Lydick was going to do. And so
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: Lydick followed Melissa and the psychic sisters as they walked
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: into John's front yard and began saying they felt hot
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: and cold patches. And, you know, Lydick is doing her
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: best not to roll her eyes. And then when they
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: went into the house, which had not been cleaned out
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: after the murder and so was still splattered with blood,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: The psychic sisters had a premonition that told them the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: killing had happened in the dining room area.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: And then the psychic said.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: They saw a knife, and they saw stab wounds, and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: a bloody footprint, and they said the killer drove a
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: black or red car, and that the killer was not
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Melissa Use's husband, Tom. Now, Melissa, as she listened to
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the psychic speak, she seemed really excited by this.
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: But Lydic thought it was all ridiculous.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: The blood that they were literally looking at inside the
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: home made it pretty obvious where the killing had happened.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: And the details of John's death and the huge police
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: investigation that followed had been all over the news. And
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: so the things the psychics were saying were easy to
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: learn before showing up here.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: These are not revelations.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And the fact that these psychics, who Melissa herself had
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: brought here and hired, were now exonerating Melissa's husband was
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: not very convincing. And so as the group finally left
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: the house... The only thing Lydic thought these psychics had
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: been good for was taking some of the pressure off
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: her slow but steady investigation. She knew that at this point,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: John Yelnik's family had lost faith in her. But what
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: they didn't know is she still had one more thing
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: she wanted to try. She just had to wait for
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the right time to use it. Fast forward to February
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: of 2007, so 10 months after the murder, and at
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: this point, Corporal Lydick finally got her chance. John's cousins
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: made an impassioned plea to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to take over the investigation. Lydick's cooperation with those psychics
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: had bought her a little time, But ultimately, both John's
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: family and Melissa Youse had gotten more and more agitated
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: by Lydick's very slow pace. They felt like the psychics
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: had basically given them as much information as the police had.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: And the Attorney General ultimately agreed, which meant Lydick was
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: losing her case.
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: And on the one hand, this.
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Was quite literally the exact thing that Lydick had been
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: most worried about, that some bigger agency would come in
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: and take over her investigation. But on the other hand,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: The Attorney General's office was not the agency that Lydic
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: had expected. And so now, even though this definitely stung,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Lydic realized that she could actually finally make that play
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: she'd been sitting on for almost a year. And so
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Lydic went to that refrigerator in the Blairsville police station
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and took out that little container of fingernail clippings and
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: other tissue samples from John Yelnik that.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Her officer had brought to her after John's autopsy.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: She had been told she needed to send these samples
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: off to the state police crime lab pretty much right away,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: but she hadn't. In a total breach of protocol, Lydick
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: had decided to not do that and instead put these
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: samples in the fridge and wait. But now, with the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: attorney general very publicly stepping in and getting involved in
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: this case, it sort of made the case way more
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: high profile, which in turn allowed Lydick to send these
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: samples not to the state police crime lab, but to
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the FBI crime lab, a.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Higher rung on the hierarchy.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Now, normally the FBI would never take samples from sort
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of a small-town murder case, but now that it was
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: this huge public case, national news, Lydick knew she could
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: take advantage.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: So she repackaged those.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Fingernail clippings and the other samples, and she sent them
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: off to the FBI, and she waited. The day the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: results came back in, Lydick was very nervous. There was
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: a chance that she was about to look very stupid
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: for sitting on this evidence for as long.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: As she had.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: But as she sat at her computer and opened the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: email with the DNA results, her eyes went wide. She
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: almost couldn't believe what she was reading. Because her strategy
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: of intentionally slow playing this investigation and sitting on this
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: evidence until right now had totally paid off. Finally, Lydick,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: on her computer, was looking at the name of John's killer.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Based on evidence collected at the crime scene and tested
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: by the FBI, this is a reconstruction of what authorities
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: believe happened to John Yelnik in the early morning hours
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: of April 13, 2006. Around 12.30 a.m., the killer drove
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: their red car onto a quiet residential street in Blairsville.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: They eventually came to a stop in front of a
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: modest brick home.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: There they cut their lights.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: The killer climbed out and looked around the neighborhood to
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: make sure no one was watching, but it was dark
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: and silent. So the killer left the street and walked
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: around to the back of this home and then slipped
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: inside of it through an unlocked back door. Once inside,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: the killer walked through the dining room and then into
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: the living room where they found John Yelnik sleeping on
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the couch.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: The killer gripped a.
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: Single-edged knife in their fist and they walked right up
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: to John and they raised the blade up and then
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: brought it down directly onto John. Instantly, John woke up
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: and began screaming, and he put his hands up to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: try to protect himself, and he even tried clawing at
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: the killer, getting the killer's skin under his fingernails. And
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: so John eventually rolled off the couch, desperate to get away.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: John eventually got up and sort of began to stumble away,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: but the killer chased him down, and the two began
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to wrestle. And as they're struggling and the killer is
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: stabbing John, John's flailing his arms around, and he eventually
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: hit the divorce papers on the coffee table, throwing them everywhere.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: And then eventually somehow just on pure adrenaline, John broke
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: away from the killer and tried to run for the
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: front door. John eventually did make it to the front
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: foyer and he actually reached for the front door, but
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: the killer actually.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Shoved John as he did that.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: And John went flying towards that pane of glass to
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: the side of the door and.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: His head went through the glass.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: And when his head went through, some of the glass
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: severed his jugular. And then John bled to death right there.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: The killer watched until John was totally still. At that point,
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: they walked back out of the home, tracking John's blood
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: right back out the door. The killer was very confident
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: they would never be caught, primarily because the killer knew
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: people trusted them with their lives. The killer was Michelle's
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: new boyfriend, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Kevin Foley. And the
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: fact that he was a cop was the very reason
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Corporal Lydick had decided not to send all of that
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: evidence to the state police crime lab. Lydick knew Kevin,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: and she liked him, and she basically trusted him. But
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: as soon as her investigation began, she began to hear
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: about how much Kevin seemed to hate John, in part
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: because of the allegations that Michelle had made that John
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: had abused JJ. Even though those allegations were ruled totally unfounded,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: it seemed that Kevin ultimately believed them. And so Lydek
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: had become increasingly paranoid that Kevin was the killer and
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that her case would be taken over not by the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: attorney general's office but by the state police. And she
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: was afraid that if Kevin was guilty here, well, she
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: couldn't really trust the state police crime lab to not
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: potentially cover up evidence. Or maybe Kevin would get involved,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: find out, and he would cover it up. It just
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: was too risky. And so she didn't want to send
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the evidence to the state crime lab. So Lydek had
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: done something really risky. To keep complete control over her investigation,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: she'd kept the fingernails and all the tissue samples that
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: were collected at the autopsy, even though she knew they
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: very likely contained the DNA of John's killer. Then she
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: slow played her investigation, biding her time until she could
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: figure out what to do with those samples. And luckily,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: the answer came about a year later when the attorney
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: general took over the case and Lydick then got access
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: to the FBI crime lab. The FBI scientists did finally
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: test the DNA that was found under the fingernails and
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: found that it was a match for Kevin Foley. And
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: so in the end, state trooper Kevin Foley was found
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: prison without parole. As for Michelle Yelnik, she was never
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: actually charged in connection with the case.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Hey everyone, just a reminder, I'm going on tour this year.
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• 36:59
  Speaker 2: the shows. Thank you so much for watching.
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
• 37:04
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• 37:07
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• 37:10
  Speaker 2: So click here and give them a watch. All right,
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: until next time, see ya.