Latest / True Crime and Wine Time / S6 E2 Maureen McDermott Guilty or Innocent on Death Row- Part 1

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S6 E2 Maureen McDermott Guilty or Innocent on Death Row- Part 1 · True Crime and Wine Time

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to True Crime and Wine Time. I'm Terry and
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Lama. Tonight we are uncorking the truth why one
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: of the darkest crimes and breaking it down together with you.
• 0:13
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• 0:17
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  Speaker 2: But anyway, now, Happy Thursday, Buffay, Zier and Gray. Hi,
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• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So, guys, guess what. We have a special episode of
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  Speaker 1: true crime and Wine Time coming up on Tuesday, you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: heard me? Tuesday, Okay, Tuesday, February twenty fourth, at eight
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: pm Eastern. We will have a special guest who is
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: going to join us and she is going to share
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: her story and her jone journey for justice for Ruby
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: and Guys, I'm gonna warn you ahead of time. This
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: story is going to make your blood boil. You might
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: scream and say some dirty words. Your heart's gonna break.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: You might cry. You will also smile and go all
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: and then so much more.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty it's a pretty wild. It's wild story.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: You were telling me about it last night and I
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: was like, wait, what, what's wild? Well, so yeah, mark
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: your calendars for Tuesday, February twenty fourth, and we'll be
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: here to be exciting. We'll have more Tuesday shows too,
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: I heard.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: I'm like, we're just testing the water for March.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe maybe Happy Birthday.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So guys, Lama, why don't you tell us what we're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: covering tonight?
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Ah? Yes, what has Lama done to us? Again? Our
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: weekly edished Well. Tonight we're covering part one of two
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: of the Stephen Eldrich murder and the case against Marine McDermott,
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: who is still sitting on death row over thirty five
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: years later. It's not a very well known case. I
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: hadn't heard about it until I was researching it last year.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: And I must say, though, this is a case that
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I really think needs to be looked at and talked
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: about more. And I am very curious to hear everyone's
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: thoughts on this as well, because we don't really see
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: a lot of things.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: But we'll have you, guys, thoughts from. You're gonna get
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts from.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: There's goldn't be thoughts. There will be thoughts.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be a lot of rants too, probably.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Probably hello in twitch land over there on our twitchland.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: That's right, we are on YouTube, Facebook and twitch all
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: over the place. Well, Terry, why don't you start off
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: with what you're drinking tonight?
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: So, guys, no surprise to anyone. I'm sure I needed
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: to keep it pink for Love month, since it's you
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: know what I need to do and read. Wine definitely
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: hates me. So tonight I am having Josh Rose, which
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  Speaker 1: they say, and I'm gonna say verbatim. Our rose is
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: chrisp refreshing and bright like Terry True Crime, flavors of
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: white peach and strawberry, incensive next stream, and I will
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: say this wine is perfect for me, except for it
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't have glitter.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: I mean that sounds like you in a bottle quite thankfully.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to just say, welcome to the channel,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: enjoy the woods. I have not been called a milf
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: in a really long time.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: So making our day bringing it back well tonight because
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: the last two days of Couch Cot with Lama my
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: day show has been absolutely insane, like I have lost
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: my mind. For the last three days, it's been preciating.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: So tonight I pick the wine only because they had
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: the highest alcohol percent and at my house, that's really it.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: That's why I chose this one. But it was a
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: great choice because tonight I am drinking XXL Pineapple, which y'all,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: this is really really good. Their slogan, by the way,
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: is more flavor, more intensity, without manners and I was
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: like that very much captures me this week for sure.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: So it's a tropical tart pineapple combined to create a decadent,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: ripe sweet experience. And it's sixteen percent and it's still
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: very sweet, like it's not a strong alcohol aftertaste. So
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I'm busy treating myself tonight because I have earned it.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I'm hard like it because you can wine for somebody
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that you only you know know what they mentioned you're
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, okay, we're gonna surprise them that.
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: I very much enjoy it. It's delicious.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Hello, mister Lackey, you and I need to catch up
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: next week. I can't this week, but we need to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: catch up next week.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: We have not had a.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Chat in a while, so put that on your calendar.
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: Let's chat. Let's chat, all right, okay, guys, And with that,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: let's get into the story of tonight's case, because it's
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: going to be a little bit of a ride.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: It is it is. Now before we get into the
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: into Marie McDermott, let's put her case in a broader
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: frame room quick. Okay, Women on death row and the
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: people who were later found to be innocent. Now, women
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: are a tiny fraction of death row populations worldwide and
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: in the US historically, they've made up roughly one to
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: three percent of inmates on death row. Because their cases
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: are rare, each one draws intense post look scrutiny and
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: unusual social narratives about gender, motive and culpability. In my
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: researching of women on death row, many of them sadly
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: are about killing children. Ones that aren't on death and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: are on death row. There's it's very interesting, Uh, there's
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: not very many. Now. Cases involving women on death row
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: often surface the same fault line seen across wrongful conviction works,
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: such as mistaken or overstated forensic evidence, which you guys
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: will not believe, uh, with some of the evidence is
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: in this one, unreliable eyewitness testimony or co conspirator testimony,
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: coerce confessions, in effective defense counsel, and prosectorial misconduct. And
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: guess what, you guys, we got all of those all.
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We're gonna have them all. We won't talk about all
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: of them tonight, but we will by the time we're
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: done with all of this. Now, if you want to
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: add social bias about acceptable female behavior and you get
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: extra pressure on juries and judges to convict women on time. Mean, right,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: you think that must have been really really bad for her, right?
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Yes? So since the modern death period or death penalty
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: air began, nearly two hundred people sentenced to death have
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: later been exonerated and released. Okay, guys, did you hear
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: that two hundred people sentence to death have later been
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: exonerated and released. Those exonerations show the system is fallible
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and that the stakes are absolute for women specifically. Exonerations
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: sometimes reveal additional dynamics, such as domestic abuse history that
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was minimized at trial, gender assumptions about motive or plea
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: deals shaped by fear of a death sentence.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Well, we're in the death penalty state. We use it
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: all the time for that.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I live in the biggest death penalty
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: state and we actually do the job. So that's scary.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: One innocent person found guilty as too many. So with
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: that backdrop, here's Maureen McDermott, the woman who's fate has
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: forced many questions and conversations about her guilt or innocence
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: into the open.
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about Mariene McDermott
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: and her history, shall we I'm running all things tonight,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: so do my best over here.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: That's not how that way, Hey, Midday missing this week
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: terry true crime. Didn't even pull up the slots there go.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Man, It's like it happened forever well. Maureene Mickey McDermott
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: was born May fifteenth, nineteen forty seven, in Wildwood, New Jersey. Oh,
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: always in New Jersey. Why are we?
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: Why are you?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I am obsessed with New Jersey. Apparently you are the
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: real housewives, the truck can neuro trial and just moves,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: just moved. Question now. She was the third of four
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: children and the only girl in a working class family.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: From the start, she was described by friends and neighbors
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: as kind and quietly study, a hard worker, devoted daughter,
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: animal lover who took in strays, and someone who reached
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: out to help people and need. She had no prior
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: arrest or criminal record, and by every account, showed no
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: signs of violence or greed. So looking good so far.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: Her childhood wasn't easy. Her father struggled with alcoholism and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: was often absent, either drinking or working long hours, and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: he could be verbally abusive at times. Through that marine demain,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: especially close to her mother, a deeply religious teetoder.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: Now marine, left high school before graduating sorry and in
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight moved to California. She supported herself working
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: full time while attending adult night school to finish her diploma,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: then trained as a respiratory therapist. She would also regularly
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: send money home to support her family. She spent seven
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: years at Saint Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, taking college
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: courses and attending nursing school at Los Angeles County Medical Center.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: In nineteen seventy nine, she earned her registered nurse license
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: and went to work at La County USC Medical Center
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: on ward three thousand, the Infected Orthopedics Ward. It is
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: there where she first met Jimmy Luna, who worked as
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: an orderly, which is basically like a kind of janitor
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: of person.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you told me that, because I did not
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: know when I think i'd take you a message. I'm like,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: what is that job? There are just so many jobs
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: out there that I don't right, yeah, yeah, but I
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: have to start off saying working in infected orthopedics, Wow,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: that's that's some. That's some. That's some work to those
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: who walk the halls of the hospital with Maureene. She
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: wasn't just a colleague, and she had what was described
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: as a soft touch. Her coworkers remember a woman defined
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: by an almost dangerous level of compassion, a nurse whose
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: generosity of spirit made her a target for anyone with
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: a sad enough story. It was this very naivete friends
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: later argued that led her to cross paths with.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Jimmy m The relationship between Maureene and Jimmy was never
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: one of equal it's trained time. It was a dynamic
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: of a helper, caregiver and a paphetic character. Maureen was
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: the listener. She took his tales of woe at work
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: and answered his relentless phone calls at home despite her empathy,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: though she maintained a professional boundary. You know, we need
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: those I've learned, but she was never once socialized with
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: him outside of those conversations. I mean, I've had some
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: annoying people I've worked with before.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, you can call me, sit here and talk about me.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I'm right here. And yes, I know not to call
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: you because you don't do phone calls.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: On your phone. That's true. Oh gosh, no corps.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Luna on the other hand, was a man growning
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: and a host of mental health struggles.
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: For clearing that up, I'm sorry, she said. Earlies can
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: transport patients within the hospital, assist medical staff and other aarons.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: I did not know what all they actually did, so
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: that is important. Thank you.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: See, this is why we have an amazing staff, because
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: this team is amazing. Like I said, Jimmy, Luna was
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: drowning in mental health struggles, including disassociative psychosis, and he
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: carried a lengthy criminal record, a history of violence, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: a well earned reputation as a pathological liar. Not a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: great combination.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Nope, not great. That's that's not great at all. So
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: Lunu's fixation was evident in his documented behavior at the hospital.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: He was a compulsive caller, frequently reprimanded by staff for
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: making hundreds of personal phone calls during war hours. You guys,
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: this was like the seventies and eighties. Okay, so it's
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: in like, oh, somebody's on their cell phone. Like no,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: you had to stand at a wall a tadic record
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: all hours of the day. You wouldn't have been working,
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: but it had just been on the phone all the
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: time talking to whoever, who knows now. While others saw
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: a red flag, Maureene saw someone who simply had no
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: one else to turn to. Her colleagues would later testify
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: that her refusal to turn her back on someone like
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Luna is exactly how she became victimized by him. Thank
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: you tech Mojo for blessing my sneeze. I appreciate it.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Oh, Buffy's so alone.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: No.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: At the same time, Maureen had bought a house she
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: had been rinting in Van Nuys, California, and she was
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: looking towards a completely different chapter of life. She and
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: another nurse, Martha Espinoza, were finalizing plans to move to
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: Saudia Arabia, Okay. In the early to mid nineteen eighties.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: This was a common path for ambitious American nurses. A
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: year or two working there promised a significant windfall. Marine
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: wasn't looking for trouble or criminal conspiracy. She was looking
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: at a travel brochure and a better life abroad.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah. When I read around that, I was like, what
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I'm like what.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't know it was the thing either until I
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: was like, Wow, who knows so many things?
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: We don't know so many things we don't know, and
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: what's wrong with learning new things?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Well, around nineteen eighty two, Marine's social circle expanded to
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: include twenty four year old self employed landscaper Steven Eldridge.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: One of I have his picture. I know how to
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: do this.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: There.
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: He is very handsome guy if they chance. The two
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: met at a neighborhood gay bar, and even though there
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: was a ten year age gap between them, they quickly
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: struck up a close platonic friendship. Now, as Maureen began
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: planning and possibly preparing for a nursing gig in Saudi Arabia,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: she faced a logistical hurdle of sorts. What would she
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: do with her home and her beloved pets while she
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: was on the other side of the world, Like, we
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: didn't have pet daycares back then.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Guys, All right, now, that shows you that she loved them,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: because never was the thought, oh, I'll just dump them
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: and leave them right. She was a good person. The
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: original plan was simple. Maureene asked Stephen if he would
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: be interested in running the house while she was away
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: acting as a caregiver for the property and her animals. However,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Steven had a different version. Okay, he repeatedly suggest that
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: instead of renting, he should buy into the property. Now,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: after he raised the idea numerous times, Marine eventually relented.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Her reasoning was practical, if perhaps a bit too trusting.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: She believed that if Stephen were a part owner, he
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: would have a greater stake in ensuring the house was
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: well maintained. Two one and two do not go together.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if that's the greatest idea at
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: different times, different times, who knows. Now, with the co
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: ownership agreement in motion, Stephen brought forward another suggestion. He
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: proposed that the two of them take out one hundred
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: thousand dollars life insurance policy. Now, the state of goal
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: was to cover the mortgage in case something happened to
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: Maureene during her time in Saudi Arabia, Which makes sense,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: you're rod, It's the seventies and eighties.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: You know, that is a good decision, I think so.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's that weird. I mean, does this
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: whole situation sound a little bit weird and peculiar, Sure,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: but also not really. Yeah, oh, that does make sense
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: there now, at the time, it seems like a standard
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: piece of financial planning for an international move. However, in
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the eyes of the law, this policy would later be reframed.
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: Was it a sensible precaution for a traveler or was
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: it the ultimate motive for a betrayal?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Now we're getting into it, yeah, yeah. The relationship between
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: Mariene and Stephen began to deteriorate in early nineteen eighty five.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: The friction was caused by a combination of domestic grievances
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and long term financial disagreements, which can happen. Stephen reportedly
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: became vocal about the unkept condition of the home, leading
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to frequent arguments between them.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: Another significant point of contention was Marine's several pets. Stephen
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: complained about them, and Maureene, in turn became deeply upset
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: by what she perceived as his poor treatment of animals.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, I judge people by the way they treat animals.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: So the buy and arrangement eventually became a source of instability.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Stephen informed Maureene of his plans to sell his interests
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: in the house, a move that would have likely disrupted
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: Maureene's financial security and her long term plans for the property.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: By February nineteen eighty five, the tension had escalated to
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: the point where they were no longer just roommates with
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the shit investment, but adversaries living under the.
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: Same roof Living with people is so hard.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: It is so hard. I mean, that's why I know
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: they say you shouldn't. If I would have lived with
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: my first husband before I married him, I would have
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: never married him.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: Haven't. With people's hard just so hard.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm difficult on a regular day, plus the
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: living together.
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't want to live with me somehow, elb BEFI
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: does it now? In a courtroom, a messy house, or
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: a disagreement over pets can seem trivial, But for the prosecution,
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: these were the cracks in the foundation that led to
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a violent conclusion. They argued that Marie McDermott found herself
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: trapped in a financial and emotional prison of her own making,
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: which is not a great place to be.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: It's not and I'm sorry, that is just rude of
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: the prosecutor.
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you, it's just wait cheesy.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I know I'm aware, but I'm just like, it's just rude, Okay,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: It's just rude. The house once intended to be marine's
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: sanctuary and a sound source of security while she worked abroad,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: had become a liability. When Stephen Eldridge announced his intention
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to sell his interests in the property, it did put
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: Marine in a desperate position, But did it though?
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, why when't you just buy the other fifty
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: You couldn't get I don't understand.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Because they probably couldn't do a new loan, So that
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: meant she had to come up with cash to buy
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: him out, Okay, and that's hard to do because let's say,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: if the house is three hundred thousand, you financed two
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: hundred thousand, they own one hundred and fifty, that you
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: could have to give them one hundred thousand cash.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: Okay. See, I don't know this because I don't own
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a house because I'm a millennial. So we lost that.
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: I'm just kidding. Now. If Steven sold his share, Maureen
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: faced the prospect of a stranger owning half her home,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: which is probably highly unlikely that's even gonna happen, right,
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: I mean.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: I couldn't buy half of the home unless it was
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: an investment property, but not to live in. I'm an
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: old lady. I don't know. I mean, I stn't understand
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: written room.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: So prosecutors pointed to that one hundred thousand dollars mortgage
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: insurance policy. With Stephen dead, the mortgage would be paid
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: off and Maureen would own the home outright, clear of
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: both debt and her troublesome co owner, which, okay, I've
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: seen it before, wouldn't be the first time.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Okay, it pounds minor though, but about it. The conflict
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: over Marine's pets was central, they say, to the narrative
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: of her snapping. So to her co workers, Marine was
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: a woman who couldn't turn her back on a stray
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: or a pathetic character. Her heart was maybe too big.
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: When Stephen allegedly began mistreating her animals, the prosecution argued
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: that her maternal protective instincts curdled into a cold, calculated rage.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: That is some strong verbiage.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Just say it sure is sure is now? The prosecution
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: star witness Jimmy Luna. Yeah, you remember everything we just
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: told you about him? Prosecution star witness everybody now. He
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: would later paint a chilling picture of their negotiations. He
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: claimed that Marine offered him fifty thousand dollars half of
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: the anticipated insurance payout to kill Stephen, which sounds like
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: a lot of funny for that. That's usually not how
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: we hear about these cases, like you have. But no,
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: what okay, all right, okay, we skipped.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: A section, so I'm going to do it this. The
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: state's narrative was simple. Marine wanted her house back, she
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: wanted the insurance money, and she wanted Stephen gone. They
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: alleged that she didn't just have a motive, she had
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: a tool, and that tool was Jimmy Luna, the man
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: she had been kind to at the hospital, a man
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: with the history of violence who is now being recruited
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to solve Marine's roommate problem once and for all that
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the presses stop the presses. Birthday girl is tear.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: High birthday bills.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: It's birthday week, our birthday Sunday, but his birthday will show.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly love week. It's birthday week exactly. Now, I'll go ahead,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: and why don't you go ahead and repeat the birth
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: that I read that I wasn't I, guys, I have
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: already done any guys stream today? Okay.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: For course, he has been broken by the Canaro trial.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: She is broken, and I will tell you yesterday I
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: was broken from joining her and I.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Was like, oh my God, yeah, my brain's bad.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: Now. So the prosecution star witness is that Jimmy Luna
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that we just talked about, that kind you know, that
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: man at the hospital, that's a liar. He would later
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: paint a chilling picture of their negotiations. He claimed Maureene
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: offered him fifty thousand dollars half of the anticipated insurance
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: payout to kill Stephen and guys, this is going to court,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: so I mean, I'm sure they're gonna have the receipts.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Oh sure, right, what they're gonna have. He's their star witness.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: They are gonna have the evidence to back it up.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Now, Her instructions were allegedly specific and gruesome.
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: She reportedly insisted on a knife to avoid the noise
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: of a gunshot. In a cynical attempt to exploit the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: era's prejudices. Maureen allegedly told Jimmy to make it look
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: like a homosexual murder, and that she believed the LAPD
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: would not investigate the death of a gay band with
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: the same vigor as other crimes. Her suggestions for staging
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: the scene included carving slurs into the body and of
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: performing a symbolic castrame. Now there is the nurse and
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: ant love.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: But there's one statement in there that I will say
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: is a true statement. Oh yeah, and that is the
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: LAPD would not investigate the death of a game man
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: with the same vigor as other crimes. True. Oh, Savage,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: if you just popped in, I am so sorry, sweetie.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: He popped in right when we are castrating people, and
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: let me tell you you want just a castration, honey.
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: It was a hornable.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: Anyway, But there was one truth. So there's often truth
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: and lies.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, at eighties was a not a great time.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: Ye, sweet girl? Would you give the cats snuggles from
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: all of us because that makes my heart hurt?
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, my heart hurt.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, no, Buffy, Buffy, you're out of control. So the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: road to the final act was paved with hesitations. Three
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: separate times. In late February, Marine allegedly arranged for Luna
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to be at the house to commit the deed, but
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: each time Luna lost his nerve. Frustrated by his cowardice,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: Marine told him to find an accomplice. That gave him
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a stern warning no one was ever to know she
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: was involved, right, Okay, the meat shield didn't Savage come
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: up with that terminology.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, so I think he's meat child, she was implying. Now,
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Luna ended up reaching out to his friend Marvin Lee,
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: who we do not have a picture of. We don't
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: have a lot of pictures of a lot of these
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: people because it was like forty years ago. Ope, that's
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: not the right one. This one there we go, this person,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: we don't know what he looks like. Now. Luna ended
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: up reaching out to his friend Marvin Lee, but he
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: didn't tell him the whole truth. He claimed an organization
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: wanted someone did and offered Marvin three thousand dollars just
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: to watch us back. Eventually, Luna shared the plan to
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: stage the scene as a homosexual murder, including the plan
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: for castration. I mean, bro, Maureene apparently wasn't being sinned
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: you with you, but you're gonna be sind you with Marvin? Okay?
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: And are we also not chabby? He didn't tell the truth.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's just a lot. So the first actual
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: attack on the evening of March twenty first, nineteen eighty
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: five was nothing short of a hoary horror movie or
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a Lama episode on True Crime and Wine Time. That's true,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Jimmy and Marvin knocked on the door of the house
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: where Maureen and Stephen lived. As Stephen opened the door,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Jimmy and Marvin forced their way inside. At knife point.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Stephen was forced to crawl into his bedroom and lie
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: face down. Luna began staging in, cutting Stephen's buttocks and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: screaming slurs.
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: Now, after being struck in the head with a two
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: foot bedpost, something remarkable happened. Stephen managed to leap up
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: and sprint out of the house into the night. When
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: Officer David Yates arrived, he found Stephen standing in his underwear,
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: drenched in blood. He had survived, but his sanctuary was gone.
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: I mean I wouldn't even.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Go in. I would just tell you I would not
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: sleep in that house again. I have a question, is
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: elbow Feet to have a new screen name?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: No?
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, so tech Mojo, you type and say to me
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: in time like.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: Elbow fe No, Fellothy's just around making noise. It's always
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: that's all. I'm just kidding, just kidding, mee, just kidding.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: We love you, elbow Feet, allegedly, I'm just kidding. You
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: just said that on national YouTube. Now she goes away
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and if he winds up dead tomorrow. They're coming for
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: you girl.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: Well that's fine, I guess.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: The failure of the March twenty first attack didn't scare
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Maureene off. Allegedly, it made her more determined. The very
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: next day, she allegedly told Luna over the phone, We're
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: gonna have to do it again, and this time you
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: can can not fail.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Now. This is where the secret conspiracy began to leak.
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: During subsequent phone calls about the insurance money and the
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: next attempt, Marvin Lee listening in on the other line,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: hearing Marine discuss the murder plan. Oh what I know?
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Are we going to get to hear these recordings and
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: all the receipts tech mojo? I love that.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: You love to crime.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Love it. So when she realized Marvin was involved, she
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: was reportedly furious. She told Luna that if Marvin ever talked,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Luna would have to kill that in word too. Sorry, guys,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying it even for the show. Have to
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: kill that in blank two. Even Marvin's brother Don Dell
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: was handed the phone at one point. In overheard part
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: of the conversation, the circle of people who knew Maurene's secret,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: it was like Victoria's secret wasn't a secret, and the
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: clock was ticking for Steven Elridge. Now.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: After the failure of the first attempt, the plan was
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: refined with gruesome precision. Jimmy Luna didn't just bring Marvin
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: Lee back. He recruited Marvin's brother, Don Dell, promising the
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: Lee brothers a cut of the insurance money. Because the
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: more the merrier group projects.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: I guess sorry about the dog's barking. Someone else's other
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: half doesn't listen to I'm live right now, and you
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be enticing the dogs to.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: Bark and join the club.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: It's love week, we love them, It's love Week. The
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: prosecution alleged that Maureene was the architect of the night's choreography.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Through a series of phone calls with Luna. She reportedly
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: set the stage. She would leave a front bedroom window
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: unlocked for the three men to enter. To divert suspicion,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Maureene insisted on being physically assaulted. She told Luna to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: tie her up and cut or hit her so she
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: would appear to be the victim of the home invasion
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: gone wrong. Right, that's devious.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: Why would you leave a window unlocked for three grown
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: men to crawl through gracefully, to not make any noise,
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: that doesn't make any sounds. But okay, yeah, okay. Now.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: On April twenty eighth, nineteen eighty five, around eight fifteen pm,
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: the trio climbed through the window and a chilling exchange
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: in her bedroom, Maurene informed Luna that Stephen hadn't returned
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: from dinner yet. She then allegedly directed Luna to cut
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: her on the breast and inner thigh to ensure her
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: survivor story looked authentic to the police. I think as
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: a nurse, though, you want to be like, hey, cut
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: my inner thigh where my freaking artery is?
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I know, I'm like going. As a nurse, you would
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: have asked them not to cut your inner thigh or
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: your neck where the car. Yeah, I have problems with it.
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I mean the boobs, I get it. Boobs, I get
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: they're just they're just big sacks of fat.
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: But your inner thim, nurse.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: Savage, better behave. At ten forty pm, Stephen walked through
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: his front door for the last time. He was met
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: with a terrifying, coordinated attack. Don Dell Lee met him
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: at the door, Brandish, a rifle, which belonged to Maureene herself.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Marvin Lee then forced Stephen into ache cold, dragging him
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: down the hallway toward the back of the house. There,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Luna met them with a knife. He stabbed Stephen
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: repeatedly until he was swamped dead on the floor. Yeah.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: After the struggle, Luna returned to Maureen's room. He found
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: her on the floor with a fresh injury to her face.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: According to Luna, she wasn't in shock. She was more
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: so concerned with the performance, asking him how the injury looked,
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: and explaining she had intentionally banged her head against a
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: table to make the robbery look more violent.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I'm also gonna say a woman's going to freak out
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: of her face is cut to say, just say. But
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: the most disturbing detail of the night and of the story,
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: to some degree, comes as the three men were fleeing.
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: Marvin Lee would later testify that he heard Maureene yell
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: from the back bedroom with one final instruction, don't forget
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to cut off his penis. Yes, somebody's obsessed with penises.
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: Right, And do we think it's marine? Because I we
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: don't know. We don't know marine, Okay, but I think
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: we I think we know that's probably not what her
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: interests were monkey butt.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, you do watch Criminal Minds and
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: Chocolate Lover, so I thought it would be okay. Because
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: we're not giving you graphic details, it's okay.
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: So, following the original plan to stage a homosexual murder,
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: Luna reads into Steven's body and performed the mutilation. He
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: pocketed the remains, took them home, and flushed them down
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: with toilet, a final indignity and a crime designed to
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: mislead investigators through shock and prejudice. I'm going to be honest,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: I didn't know you could flush that zwn the toilet.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I just like, who would take that home with them?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: Exactly?
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think who would take it home with.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: You would do that?
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know somebody who's not in their right
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: freaking mind that you probably don't want as your star witness.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Who would take that home. It's not like you could
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: use it again anyway. Scene was being processed, Marene was
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: taken first to the hospital and then to the police station.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Really why would okay it happens? And then at the
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: police station she went, I mean, she underwent a grueling
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: seven hour interrogation from two am to nine am.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: Mm.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: She never returned to the house she shared with Stephen.
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: Wait what she never returns to the house that she
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: had her roommate murdered so she could have all to ourselves. What?
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: No, she didn't know and she stayed with friends. Huh
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: because I yeah, so interesting, But that distance did not
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: stop the taxoes from closing in. I'm going to just
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: go on record and say right now, someone needs to
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: investigate and see if Proctor was involved in this investigation.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: If it was a family, it's so much worse than Procter,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you guys, I know, but it could have been an uncle,
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a grandfather. Maybe that's where he learned it.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: Like I just I don't we cover a lot of
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: true crime, all right, And let me tell you one
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: thing that they don't care about doing is leaving the house.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: All right. They'll stay in that place.
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: That's the pies, that's what they're going for. You don't leave, right,
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: you don't want to return back with your leaving that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: attacked before and still stayed.
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, he may not have had a place
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: to go, but I do. Anyway, we digress because a
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: lot of that comes in part two now, and I'm
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: doing my best not to be too spoilery with the insanity.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: If that isn't investigation now the police no, wait. Detective Arnold,
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: the lead investigator, quickly saw through the staging. He said,
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: you don't say okay. He compared the crime scene to
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: the report from the previous attack on March twenty first,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: and noticed glaring inconsistencies. Okay, okay.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if this was a robbery, it was a failure.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: Stephen was still wearing his gold chain and watch. Expensive
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: electronics such as cameras, the television, and the stereo all
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: sat untouched. The house didn't look like it had been
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: searched for loot. Detective Arnold concluded that this was a
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: target execution, not a robbery gone wrong, nor a homosexual attack.
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: It didn't say that, but I'm like homosexual murder.
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, okay, that lady in gray agrees.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: Now. The police began rounding up the suspects one by
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: one well over a month after the murder in May.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: A month later, Jimmy Luna was brought in and questioned,
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: but was then released after seventy two hours. Yeah, he
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: wasn't completely off the police's radar though, and was arrested
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: in July nineteen eighty five in charged with first degree
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: murder and faced the death penalty. Not long after, in August,
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: Maureen is arrested in Pennsylvania and charged with first degree
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: murder with special circumstances of financial gain and lying in
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: waits like oh oh, that's not great. That is not great.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: That is not great, savage, you and your music love it.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: The prosecution case relied heavily on the testimony of the
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: three men who actually entered the house. To ensure their cooperation,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the state made some significant and controversial deals, and the
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: co conspirators began to trade Maureene's life for their own.
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: Oh my god, you guys, you guys are going to
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: flip out.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: I'd like, guys, you better buckle up.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: So Marvin Lee was easy to find because he was
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: already in jail for another offense. Was no no, no way, shock,
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: and he was granted hold on to your butts, everybody,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: total immunity for Steven's murder in exchange for his confession
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: and truthful testimony.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: So nothing he helped do the murders, he gets zero
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: nothing zep zip.
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: Like not literally helped kill another human being, like with
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: his hand. Nothing, not just how I happened to be there.
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: No, No, wasn't the lookout guy down the street?
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Now. In August of nineteen eighty five, his younger brother,
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Don Delle, while in California Youth Authority jail, was also
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: granted immunity for his testimony.
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: So that's two out of the three.
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: We've physically killed him. Admitted to physically killing him. Yeah,
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: total immunity. What.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: In July nineteen eighty nine, four years after the murder
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: of Stephen Eldridge, Jimmy Luna, the man who physically stabbed
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: him multiple times and cut off his membrane and took
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: it home with him, pleading guilty to first degree murder
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to avoid a death sentence, and turned star witness against
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: Maureen m What the actual hell?
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Like unbelievable, truly unbelievable. I can't even believe that Adale
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: was made like this for this, Like, I just I can't.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: It's crazy. Gosh. Now, By the time the trial began,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: though Mareen McDermott stood alone, the soft touched nurse was
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: now facing the death pound and was described by her
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: own accomplices as a cold blooded mastermind who watched from
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the next room while they did her dirty work. Mind you,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: they're already in jail for breaking the fucking law, and
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: they're like, oh, we would, we would never do this ourselves.
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: What yeah, what, how are you gonna I cannot believe
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: that the state replied these three people.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: It's because they have the receipts and we're going to
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: find that out next week. They got all of the receipts, exactly.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: It's not circumstantial. They've got the receipts, right, Do not
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: strike me down. That was not a lie, okay. The
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: trial of Marie McDermott was a battle of narratives, a
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: calculated murder for hire plot versus a frame job orchestrated
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: by a pathological liar. Beginning on August fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the proceeding would determine if the compassionable nurse was actually
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: a cold blooded mastermind. I guess we're gonna find out.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Not if there's.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: Receipts, well, not so much the case. The state's case
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: was anchored by a clear motive financial gain. They argue
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: that Marine didn't just want Stephen out of the house.
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: She wanted one hundred thousand dollars insurance payout and sole
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: ownership of their shared property. She is a single woman,
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: no kids, a license registered nurse, and you're telling me
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: she didn't have money.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: She bought this house on her own originally exactly, she
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: rented it, lived in it, and bought it. She's getting
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: no credit for what she has accomplished. She even didn't
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: graduate high school, went moved, did it in night school.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: He was still sending money up right.
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: It's almost like there's other biases in this story. Oh man,
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: oh man.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think the attorneys just cringe so much at
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the cutting off of the membrane that they let all
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: their brains slip out. To prove the brutality of the act,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: the prosecution called La County Deputy medical examiner Susan Seltzer.
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: Her autopsy findings were staggering. Stephen had been stabbed forty
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: four times.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm. And remember two of the three people that
• 50:42
  Speaker 2: helped stab them got full immunity you guys, yeah, I
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: mean four times.
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: We're joking about some things because it's dark, but Steven's
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: family they did not get justice with immunity deals.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: What is shame now.
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: Of the wounds twenty eight were independently fatal, meaning the
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: attack was sustained and incredibly violent. She confirmed that Stephen's
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: penis had been severed after he was already dead, supporting
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: the theory that the scene was staged to look like
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: a homosexual murder. Marine's defense team, Joe Ingber and Carol
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: berkhow took a high risk stat strategy. They didn't offer
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: an alternative killer, but rather argued that the prosecution's entire
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: case was built on a foundation of lies because there
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: was no receipts.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: Now, the defense's primary target was none other than Jimmy Luna,
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: because why not they and eight Oh man, you guys,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: you thought those of you from couch court the followed
• 52:04
  Speaker 2: the hair you thought the two days of closing arguments
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: is crazy? They spent eight full days cross examining Jimmy Luna,
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: picking apart his story. Could you imagine eight days.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Just on this a trial? I would have loved for
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: it to be recorded.
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: Yes. Their most significant breakthrough came when Luna admitted on
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: this stand that Maureen never actually asked him to kill Stephen,
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: but rather that he just knew that's what she wanted.
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: Come at me again, Come at me again, tell me
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: that again.
• 52:42
  Speaker 2: The guy with the psychological problems, documented psychological problems, just
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: said he knew that she wanted him to do it.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: And it's the state's star frickin' will uh witness. I
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: can't even I can't even.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: Be I'm sorry she didn't ask me, but yeah, but
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: he said they had a conversation and a negotiation and
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: now okay. To destroy Luna's credibility feather, the defense called
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: five of his former coworkers, and their testimony was unanimous.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Luna was a habitual pathological liar who could not
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: be trusted. And guys, he had a criminal sheet. He
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: was a known criminal and violent.
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: Let's write that like it wasn't just for Lake, you know.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: One riting hot checks no no now a hot now
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: and just irritated again.
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: The defense also introduced forensic doubt through doctor John Ryan,
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: a pathologist. After reviewing the autopsy, doctor Ryan testified that
• 53:53
  Speaker 2: the forty four stab wounds appeared to have been inflicted
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: by two different weapons. This supported the defense's theory that
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: Luna and the Lee brothers were acting on their own
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: chaotic impulses rather than following a precise script for Marine. Again,
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: They're already locked up for other crimes that they themselves
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: decided to do.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: And they got immunity for what else they did?
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: Mm mmmm a shame.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: Finally, the defense leaned on Marine's soft touch reputation. They
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: presented her as a professional woman with zero criminal history,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: a respected career in nursing, in no history of violence.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: They argued, it was far more likely that Luna and
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: the Lee brothers facing the death penalty, had fabricated Marene's
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: involvement to secure their own immunity.
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: Deals Wood, No, who would ever do do you have it?
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Who would do that? The audacity to think that somebody.
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: Would do that, These upstanding members of society would never
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: ever Now. After a seven month trial, yes you heard correctly,
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: seven months, the jury deliberated on the image of the
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: compassionate nurse versus the woman who allegedly asked for a
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: castration from the next room on March second, nineteen ninety.
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: They reached their decision and found Maureen McDermott was found
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: guilty of first degree murder and the attempted murder for
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: the March twenty first attack. The jury also found the
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: special circumstances of murder for financial gain and lying in
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: wait to be true, and these findings made Marine eligible
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: for the death penalty.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to just go on record right now, Lady
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: in Gray and say, if our lovely and beautiful Lama
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: ever suggests covering a seven month trial.
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: Fire me.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: We are not going to send a sweet baby have
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: Alina after her. We are going to send a full
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: Texas hog they meet.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: I would never.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: Ever, the penalty phase was a final, high stakes tug
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: of war between two vastly different versions of Maureen McDermott.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Was she the ruthless job seeker who would maim for
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: promotion or the saintly nurse who is a model of rehabilitation.
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: Now does secure addessince? The prosecution needed to prove that
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: the murder of Stephen Eldridge wasn't an isolated incident but
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: part of a pattern of predatory behavior. So they started
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: They introduced a startling new allegation from nineteen eighty three.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: That's right. They're like, you know what, We're going to
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: bring in something else, which we'll see how reliable you
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: think this narrative is as well.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Come on, guys, we're going on the roller coaster. We're
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: going back up. Get ready, We're going up. According to
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: the prosecution, two years before Steven's murder, Maureen had already
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: used Jimmy Luna as a weapon.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: Rights, I have a caller who doesn't know how to
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: keep his mouth shut.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: I don't like Okay, she would have gotten somebody better,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: Let's just be honest. At the time, she was working
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: as a temporary caretaker for the elderly Lee Laporte. Wanting
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: this job permanently, she allegedly targeted the primary caretaker, du
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: Wayne Bell. Right, Maureene allegedly paid Luna to ambush Bell.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Luna slashed Belle's face, throat, in chest, leaving him severely
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: injured when a rest. When a resilient Belle tried to
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: return to work, the prosecution claimed, Maureene had Luna make
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: a series of threatening phone calls to the Laporte home.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: Terrified for their safety, the Laporte's fired Belle, and Maureene
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: immediately stepped in to take his shifts. Hmm, okay, okay.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: The defense countered this chilling narrative by bringing in voices
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: from Marine's past and present to testify to her humanity.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Colleagues like doctor Philip Merritt, and Carol Kelly returned to
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: the stand. They painted a picture of a woman who
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: was the backbone of her hospital unit. She was said
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: to be pendable, well liked, and genuinely compassionate toward her patience.
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: I mean that says a lot.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry.
• 59:11
  Speaker 2: I put more weight in what a freaking doctor has
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: to say than freaking Jimmy Luna over here.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: What I mean? Will?
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: I mean? Yes, we for some doctors in the Canaro
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: trial testify about their neighbor Baul. Okay, but also we
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: didn't have somebody like Jimmy freakin' women will take this
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: stand here.
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Paul had red flags.
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: It's true.
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: They have not given me one red flag for Maureene,
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: because I will pick out the red flags, because I
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: will tell you not every victim is a good victim.
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: She happens to be one that's a little good.
• 59:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Now. Her brother Wayne McDermott, right, no, oh, yes,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: provided a rare glimpse into her personal life. He testified
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: that Maureene was a devoted daughter who regularly sent money
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: home to support their mother. Remember she had three other siblings,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: all right, she's so destitute for cash. How she's still
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: sending money to her mom as a grown thirty year old,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: so the woman you know.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Thank guys, yeah it it would be different if we
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: read that the phone calls were record you know, I
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: know it was back in the eighties, but still, I mean,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: she moved to la she could have found a different
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: kind of job to make money if she needed to.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: Let's be realistic here, come on.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: Now, right now. Her brother pled to the jury just
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: please spare his sister's life, which, oh that's tough.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the most surprising testimony came from those who guarded
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: her her at the Civil Brand Institute. Deputy Margaret Stokes
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: testified that Maureene was a hero in jail.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 2: Have you got the deputies testing for testifying for you,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: you guys.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: I mean all I can think when I sort of
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: reading when you did all this as I was like,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: people are put in a place for a reason, serendipity,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: because her serendipity was she saved a fellow inmate from
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: choking mm hm. Deputy Victorious semen Ego noted that Marine
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: was so reliable she had been made a jail trustee,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: a position of high responsibility and trust within the facility.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: While waiting for her death row trial, Okay.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Oh wait a minute, Amy's coming in first score.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, fairpoint, fairpoint.
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: Now, I'm sorry, we're not getting any red flags of
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: Maureine and guys, I want to be transparent. We looked
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: so when one of us does research and writing, the
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: other one goes and looks and tries to break it.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: I could not break it. I could not find gossip
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: in you windows. I couldn't nothing I tried.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: There was even Reddick Jimmy Luna.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: Now, the jury.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Thousand bottles of baby ol or anything. I tried to
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: look right now.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: On April third, nineteen ninety, the jury reached their decision. Nope, nope,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: that's not where I was. Thank you. Normally, Amos is
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: here to highlight where I am when I go off
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: on a tangent, because I forget and that's my fault. Now,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 2: Jerry and a Motto, a former director of the Department
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: of Corrections. Yes, another person to testify. Yeah, testified that
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: Maureen was a prime candidate for life in prison, as
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: she had already shown an exceptional ability to adjust to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 2: incarceration without causing trouble a person who was set to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: face death like She's.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: Not terry because I would not adjust well. The jury
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: was left away the compassion nurse against the woman who
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: allegedly ordered a man's face slashed for a paycheck in
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: a roommate's castration for an insurance policy.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: Now, in April third, nineteen ninety, the jury reached their
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 2: decision death. With that verdict, Maureen McDermott made history for
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: all the wrong reasons, all right, and also think about
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: why this verdict would be a big deal, all right.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: She became only the second woman in California to be
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: sentenced to die since the state reinstated the death penalty
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy eight.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, the seconds, I wonder that as well, because it
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: was hard. And then I told myself maybe it was
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: because it was the eighties and we weren't all attached,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: and you know.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: Think so. I think we were probably just in prison
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: for like a long time. Probably, I don't know. I
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: don't know what happened to him. You can't find nothing.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. In June nineteen ninety, the courtroom of Judge Allen
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: b Haber became the stage for the final act of
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: this year's long tragedy. But before the judge handed down
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: the official sentence, both sides were given one last chance
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: to speak jury, but to history, in this case, it
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: should have been hours. Unlike Christopher, if you know, you know,
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: Christopher called me, we got chat, buddy.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: Now, Prosecutor mad He did not mince words when describing
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: the woman she had spent years investigating. She told, that's right,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: the prosecutor is a woman, and she eighti's early nineties.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: Just also putting it in your mind folder, okay, of
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: things that people have to gain from, just put a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: pin in it. Be like, hmm, what do you have
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: to gain lady. She told Judge Haber that through the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: entire trial, Maureen had shown no remorse, because you know,
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: they're not supposed to show emotion the whole time. But okay,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: for the brutal forty four stab wound attack on Stephen,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 2: she labeled Marine Quote one of the coldest human beings
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: you will ever see, arguing that her professional veneer as
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: a nurse was merely a mask for a sociopathic pragmatism.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, yes, obviously she loves animals. Kids in hospitals
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: are really sick ones, but she's a nurse ice.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: They are taught and learn how to compartmentalize and put
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: stuff in a box, because that's one of the things
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: that I struggle with and my other role in my
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: other life, you know, first responder help and things like that,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: putting it in a box.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: So yeah, that's all.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Stephen's family, who had sat through weeks of gruesome forensic testimonily,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: finally found their voice through Stephen's brother Patrick Eldridge, speaking
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: for his parents and sister who watch from the front row,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: he made a direct plea for the ultimate prize. Nothing
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: we do or say here today will ever bring Stephen
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: Eldridge back, but we want to make sure she never
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: does it to another person. And I do not discount
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: them for those feelings at all.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, the Elders just were robbed. I mean
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: to have those other guys get away with it.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: The people who did the actual.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 2: Nothing such a shame. Then, for the first time since
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: her arrest, Maureen McDermott spoke publicly. She didn't use her
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: time to beg for mercy. Instead, she launched a scathing
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: counter attack. In a moment of chilling defiance. She maintained
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 2: her innocence in all of this, which.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: She accused the district attorney of verbally raping her and
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: characterize the lead prosecutor as a power hungry woman with
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: so little integrity. She also claimed that the men who
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: testified against her had perjured themselves to save their own lives.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: She then looked the court in the eye and stated,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: I want you to know I have no fear of
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: die dying, however, I wish not to die in vain.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: Wow, that's pretty wild. Okay, that's pretty good. It's a
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: good speech.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: And she didn't even have chat GPT. No.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 2: Now, Judge Haber had a choice. You could follow the
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 2: jury's recommendation of death, or he could exercise his power
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: to commute the sentence to life in prison without the
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: possibility of parole. Citing the calculated nature of the lying
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 2: in wait and the financial motive, Judge Haber formally sentenced
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 2: to Maureen McDermott to die in San Quentin's gas chamber.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: As of today, Marie McDermott remains a permanent fixture of
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: the California Department of Corrections. While she was sentenced to
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: death over thirty five years ago, California has not carried
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: out an execution since two thousand and six. In twenty nineteen,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: Governor Gavin Newsom Hattie instituted a formal moratorium on the
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: death penalty, and in twenty twenty two, the state began
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: the process of dismantling the death row units at San Quentin,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: moving inmates, including Maureene, into into other high security facilities.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: Sorry, shot, seventy eight years old.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: Seventy eight thirty five years That is more than half
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: of your life.
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: No, she was in jail since eighty five. She was
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 2: She got arrested in August eighty five. I was born
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: in September of eighty five, forty years all right. She
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: is one of the longest serving women on death row
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: in the United States, and she continues to reside in
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 2: the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla, which I thought
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: was a very funny name for a town. I'd never
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: heard that before. I wonder if they do Coachella there, Chuchiat. Right,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: But don't go anywhere, you guys, don't go.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: Anywhere, because yeah, so we have seen the case the
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: State of California built against Maureen McDermott. On paper, it
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: is a story of greed, manipulation, and a soft touch
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: nurse who turned into a cold blooded orchestrator of a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: gruesome murtyr. But as with any case built on the
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: word of the pathological liar, the truth may be more
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: fragile than the verdict suggest.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: That's right. Before we close the file on part one,
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 2: we have to look at the cracks in the foundation
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: of the prosecution's case. If Jimmy Luna admitted Maureen never
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: actually asked him to kill Stephen, was he acting on
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: a directive or his own violent disassociative psychosis? Is it
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: possible that three men facing the gas chamber also all
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: former felons and criminals, so wouldn't look good if they
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 2: did coordinated the perfect lie to save themselves by penning
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: the blame on the only person who wasn't.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: In in the room and the only female. Mm hmm.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: How does a woman with no history of violence and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: a career built on saving lives suddenly master the mechanics
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: of a professional hit like it just doesn't it? Can
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: it happen? Yes, all right, we've heard crazier. Yes it can.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: But but normally there's receipts, there's evidence, Normally there's stuff.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 2: But why don't you tell us what we have to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: look forward to?
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: So, first of all I have to tell G three
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: RB I I'm sorry, I can't. That's the price of
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: guests in California is being a person who lived there
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: for four years. It's insanity. Next Thursday and part two
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: of this story, we look at the case for the
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: defense and the evidence. You did not hear in the courtroom, Well.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 2: Some of you do, some you do, but you won't
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: be impressed. I'll tell you that.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: You got aperture, did a bad job in reconstruction. Georgeous
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: would have been better than this.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 2: We'll just say that if you know, you know.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: We will dive into what happens when the truthful witnesses
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: start changing their stories, because remember Jimmy said, I just knew.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: She never told me I just knew. But earlier he
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: said there was a negotiation.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: So let's.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: We also are going to take a deeper look at
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: Jimmy Luna's mental state and whether he was even capable
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: of being hired, and examine marines decades long fight from
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: a cell in ChIL Chilla and the specific legal errors
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: that her supporters claim led to a wrongful conviction.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: And we'll hear from both of them her own words,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: Jimmy Luna's own words and Marine's as well. So you know,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 2: was Maureen McDermott a mastermind or was she the ultimate
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 2: victim of her own soft touch nature, victimized by the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: very pathetic character who she tried to help. Y'all have
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: to join us next Thursday for part two, The Case
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: for Innocence and in case you can't tell which way
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 2: I'm leaning, Oh, I'm I mean.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: I love to prove people wrong and I love to
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: be proven wrong. I don't think I'm gonna be.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: On the wrong side this story, I can say. You know,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: we watch a lot of trials, you know, on couch
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: cour and even before a couch court, I cannot believe
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: they put him up as a star freaking witness, all right,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: that's when you know, and they don't have a good
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 2: case because there's no way, no way a modern prosecutor
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: would put Jimmy Luna on the freaking stand. Are you
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 2: kidding me?
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: This is one of the cases that I would love
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: to ask the former judge we had on Blevins his
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: thoughts on and I will tell you I would love
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: to know what aj thought of this case, because the
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: amount of stuff that the prosecution does not have is
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: going to leave. You guys, you're gonna be like it
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: would be like opening a box of Valentine Heart chocolates
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: where you just have like thirty five and there's one
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: piece in the middle. Yeah, and there were papers.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: Like you guys, wait till you're here, like you do not.
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 2: Next week's show is going to be longer than this one.
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 2: I'll go ahead and tell you all that now. Yeah,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: if people of France, we're gonna break down certain testimony
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 2: that was done some forensics.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: Doesn't count, sweetheart, So it's gonna be.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 2: A very wild ride. But why don't you go ahead
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 2: and let us know how you're already feeling in the
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: comments about this case, probably even know more, but let
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 2: us Yeah, by the way, this is about all there
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 2: is on this case available online, Like I have sca
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: houred everywhere, there's next to nothing, and so.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, like for closing thoughts, I know, I was like, yeah,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just have to save them for next week
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: because there's gonna be so many rants and so many things.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: That yeah, I think, yeah, because I wrote as mine,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: I won't have much to say, if anything, since most
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 2: of my thoughts are for next week. That's what I
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 2: wrote my closing thoughts, but no, I think one of
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 2: the things we could take away. So listen, we gave
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 2: you guys tonight what you're gonna see in most of
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 2: the news articles. All right, this is what you would read.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 2: This is what you would hear about, minus our you know,
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: opinions about things. That's what's out there for you to find.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: But there are a lot of questions within this that
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 2: you're like, wait, that's is that? Is? That? It is that?
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: All we got to go on is also to give
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 2: three violent criminals who have a history full freaking immunity
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 2: for a horrific murder. What happened is to Stephen? Why
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 2: are criminals? We are not down playing yeah at all.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 2: What happened to him is truly horrific and he did
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 2: not deserve this but not gotten justice. He has not
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 2: gotten justice. How how was that okay to do?
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: Now just remember some places prosecutors run for election. Is
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: there politics involved in this? What do you guys think?
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: What do you guys think? Thanks? So many thoughts for
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: next week's you guys.
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: We have so next week and Lama will not be
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: on trial all day. So let me tell you she's
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: gonna be hot, fired and ready to go.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: I will be. I've been waiting for a year. I
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 2: wrote this a year ago. They've been waiting to talk
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 2: about this with anybody, really, because it's hard to be like, listen,
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: there's this lady on death Row that I think might
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 2: actually be innocent. She's definitely railroaded. Okay, wait till you guys,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, can't there's.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: Not even one tread to get Yeah. Anyway, I'm going
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: to just say before we go, if you like what
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: you heard tonight, be sure to follow all of our
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: socials and subscribe to our YouTube channel. It's totally free, okay,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: Or if you're listening on our pod, please download and
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: give us a rating. That helps us tremendously and getting
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: our channel out there. Also, guys, hit that notification button
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: on YouTube because you're gonna want to be reminded next
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: week that we're gonna be back here. So your mouth
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: can be laying on the floor, and I'm gonna say,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: bring your drinks, bring your snacks, because.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: You're gonna be shocked. It's gonna be what you are.
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 2: You are not gonna believe it, guys, I'm gonna believe,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, now. Next week, as we said on
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 2: True Crime and Wine Time, we'll be covering part two
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 2: of Maureen McDermott Guilty or Innocent on Death Row and
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: you don't want to miss it, as we just said now,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: and next week on cash crow is Lama because I'm
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 2: done with Core. Well, we're on Verdict watch. But whatever
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 2: I forgot about man, oh man, Now I've got shit
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: to do. Oh yeah, we all have time for this.
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 2: You can join me and some of my friends. As
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 2: we began, what I can absolutely say is one of
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 2: the craziest deep dives I have ever done. Even more
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 2: crazier than this. Okay, and the Scissians, We're nuts. This
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: is unbelievable. Every day we read something, you will be like, what,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 2: how can it get crazier? It does? It does. We're
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 2: gonna be headfirst into the Laura Owen Saga. If you
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 2: don't know what that means, please check out our YouTube
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: Laura Owen's playlist. I've done two episodes already, kind of
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: going over some filony cored documents, but it's a nice
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 2: little teaser tests water to get your little toesies wet. Okay,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: because it's gonna be a lot and I promise you
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: will not be disappointed by any of it. You'll be like,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 2: oh my gosh, you're not talking about it enough, Flama,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 2: and I'll be like, oh my god, I live.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Here, and everybody's gonna be challenged to come up with
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: a new terminology because she's beyond bunny boiler. She is
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: so out there can't even come up. And I even
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: asked the chat GTP people. They couldn't give me anything either.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: And yes, that's lovely Buffy on there. Rumor has it
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: she's gonna come back.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Oh is she going to be back?
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 2: I heard? I heard. I'm sorry.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: She is not a cutie.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: She is a cutie. Put Oh, she's a hotty tidy.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: She's a hottie. She's a demmy. She's a hottie.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: She is. I know that I'll be doing what will
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 2: you be doing? Next week?
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: I will be live streaming on Monday, February sixteenth, that
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: noon Central Time. We will be streaming live on YouTube, Facebook, Kick,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: and TikTok. Monday, We'll be covering two cases from Rhode
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: Island with names that I'm going to have to spend
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: all week.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: In learning to say that's fair.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: And I want everybody to stop and remember the just
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: by watching and sharing these stories and the posters that
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: we post on social media helps the families keep their
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: loved one stories alive and guys, just maybe a tip
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: will get called in and help them get the answers
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: that they deserve.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 2: That's true. That is true. Well, is there anything you
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 2: would like to say more before we sign off tonight?
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 2: I'm probably what's going to be our shortest episode of
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: the whole season, which be so a long while.
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: Probably, I mean, it's only an hour and a half.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: That's what we're working good. I want to thank you
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: all for being here with us tonight, and I hope
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: you're looking forward to next week and I hope you
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: enjoy your Google searches, but come out next week for
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: a deep dive. Until then, please stay safe, enjoy Valentine's
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: this week, even if it's just you, perfect time for
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: self care, self love, but most importantly, enjoy your wine time.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: That's true. Now, Also, there's a whole thing saying that
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 2: goes Lama is always right, and I'm telling you you'll
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 2: want to hear part two of the story. Okay, you
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 2: want to hear it, So be back with us next Thursday.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 2: Eight pm Eastern, so you can hear a bar two
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: and then be like, oh Ama, I understand, how did
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: you not talk about this for you?
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: I know what. I just realized what we didn't mention
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: that this weekend for members. I forget at what level
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: we have a documentary showing on Sunday.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah we do.
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: We are watching Kidnap, the Elizabeth Smart Story on Sunday,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: So if you're not a member, you should go check
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: it out and become a member and watch it with us.
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 2: Oh nay, yeah, I think it's like Cozy Crew Hire
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 2: or something like that. Anyway, thank you guys so much
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 2: for being with us tonight. Please stay safe and as
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: always say, until next time, go forth and be amazing.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 2: All right bye? I want to do everything anyway,