Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / Amy Allwine’s Dark Web Murder
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: Amy seemed to have it all, a loving family, a
- 0:10Speaker 1: thriving dog training business, and deep roots in both her
- 0:13Speaker 1: local community and a conservative church. But in twenty sixteen,
- 0:18Speaker 1: her seemingly peaceful life took a terrifying turn when FBI
- 0:22Speaker 1: agents showed up at her door with an unbelievable warning.
- 0:27Speaker 1: Someone had gone on to the dark Web and tried
- 0:30Speaker 1: to hire a hitman to kill her. The Murder for
- 0:34Speaker 1: Higher Sight, known as Bessa mafia, operated in the shadows
- 0:38Speaker 1: of the Internet, where bitcoin fueled contracts and anonymous users
- 0:43Speaker 1: promised violets for a price. This is the story of
- 0:49Speaker 1: Amy Alwines Dark Web murder.
- 0:53Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingrim, a.
- 0:58Speaker 1: True crime podcast.
- 1:00Speaker 2: The following.
- 1:04Speaker 1: Material in more mature audience listener.
- 1:08Speaker 3: Discretion Welcome, Welcome.
- 1:29Speaker 2: We sat down to record this and we're like, oh shit,
- 1:33Speaker 2: you sound more sick than either of us realized. Stuff. Yeah,
- 1:37Speaker 2: so I guess we're just gonna make you.
- 1:41Speaker 1: I'll do it anyways. I'm fine.
- 1:43Speaker 2: I know. I was like, do you are you sure?
- 1:45Speaker 2: It's funny because I've been with you for days and
- 1:49Speaker 2: sitting here, I can tell you you'res more sick than
- 1:52Speaker 2: I have like the past days, just in your.
- 1:54Speaker 1: The headphones though we're on that that helps to right,
- 1:56Speaker 1: I guess, yeah, but yeah, I feel all like nasally
- 1:59Speaker 1: congestion and stuff. But other than that, I feel fine.
- 2:02Speaker 1: A little groggy in the morning, that's it.
- 2:04Speaker 2: So I guess you're gonna just push through.
- 2:05Speaker 1: Hey, I will. I've got coffee. I was gonna have
- 2:08Speaker 1: a breakfast beer this morning, but oh my goodness, I
- 2:11Speaker 1: was thinking of it. But I needed, especially to sound
- 2:14Speaker 1: a little bit better this morning. I needed a warm
- 2:16Speaker 1: beverage to ensure that. You know, it's helping soothe me.
- 2:19Speaker 2: Fair enough, we should have done some nice like soothing
- 2:23Speaker 2: tea for you or something.
- 2:24Speaker 1: What's wrong with soothing coffee? It's called caffeine. That's technically
- 2:28Speaker 1: a drug. I'm not saying it's going to be a
- 2:30Speaker 1: drug to help this, but it is technically a drug.
- 2:33Speaker 2: Okay, it is. I'm like, I don't want to respond
- 2:37Speaker 2: to that without getting backlash.
- 2:39Speaker 1: So fair enough. We also may have some background noise
- 2:44Speaker 1: here in today's episode. In the next few episodes, we
- 2:46Speaker 1: may because we recently purchased the new baby Baby Chicks
- 2:49Speaker 1: Baby Chicken for our chicken flock, and so we have
- 2:53Speaker 1: them in the house right now on a heat lamp
- 2:55Speaker 1: and everything, and they're they're living their best life right now.
- 2:57Speaker 2: So they're literally the cue. I'm obsessed. I feel like
- 3:01Speaker 2: I'm more obsessed with these than the last ones. But
- 3:03Speaker 2: I probably was just as obsessed and I forgot.
- 3:06Speaker 1: Probably it's just the new babies, right. So, but you
- 3:09Speaker 1: guys might hear the odd cheap in the background, sort
- 3:11Speaker 1: of a little cheap cheap cheap going as they're trying to
- 3:13Speaker 1: maybe get their own podcast going. Who knows.
- 3:15Speaker 2: Well, sometimes these ones, especially gonna be pretty loud, so
- 3:18Speaker 2: I'm hoping maybe they'll just snap while we're doing this.
- 3:21Speaker 1: Maybe we should just put like a towel over their
- 3:23Speaker 1: little little enclosure for now or something.
- 3:25Speaker 2: If it gets real bad, yeah.
- 3:27Speaker 1: Force them to sleep, you know. Anyways, we have some
- 3:30Speaker 1: patrons to thank today, we sure do, so shout out
- 3:33Speaker 1: and thank you to Kelly Scriven, Bonnie and Jay Yellowhorn.
- 3:37Speaker 1: Thank you very much. You guys signed up on Patreon
- 3:39Speaker 1: you get all the good behind the scenes stuff like that.
- 3:41Speaker 1: And of course the exclusive episode coming out at the.
- 3:44Speaker 2: End of the month, right dang, which is very soon. Yeah,
- 3:48Speaker 2: who that is How the heck is that a thing?
- 3:51Speaker 1: Time flies? Honestly, it's absurd.
- 3:53Speaker 2: I feel like this year is flying by way faster
- 3:56Speaker 2: than usual.
- 3:57Speaker 1: Well, you want to know something wild, This case takes
- 4:00Speaker 1: place in twenty sixteen that we're covering today. Okay, that's
- 4:03Speaker 1: a decade ago. Yeah, How the is that a decade ago?
- 4:08Speaker 2: It's so funny any case that you do that's like
- 4:11Speaker 2: since I've been alive, I'm like, oh, it's not that old. Yeah,
- 4:16Speaker 2: Like you could even do one in the nineties and
- 4:17Speaker 2: I'd be like, oh, okay, this is fairly new, but it's
- 4:20Speaker 2: not anymore for me.
- 4:22Speaker 1: It started with COVID. At COVID, things started going so fast,
- 4:27Speaker 1: Like twenty sixteen is three years before COVID, and I
- 4:30Speaker 1: feel like COVID was like three years ago. So I'm like, oh,
- 4:33Speaker 1: it's like five six years ago. It's fairly recent. But no,
- 4:37Speaker 1: COVID was twenty nineteen. Here we are in twenty twenty five.
- 4:41Speaker 1: We're like, that's a decade ago almost, well not almost
- 4:45Speaker 1: for COVID, but you know what I mean, it's approaching
- 4:48Speaker 1: right crazy.
- 4:49Speaker 2: Well, I feel like the beginning of May just started
- 4:53Speaker 2: and now here we are at the end.
- 4:55Speaker 1: Yeah, so we need to go golfing and mountain biking more.
- 4:58Speaker 2: Hey, we've I've been well mountain bike. I've been doing
- 5:01Speaker 2: it least weekly, which has been nice.
- 5:03Speaker 1: Well, I'm just saying, because soon.
- 5:06Speaker 2: The freaking summer is going to be over. Directly, just
- 5:09Speaker 2: settle down where summer's just starting here.
- 5:11Speaker 1: I'll get down. Okay, I'll settle down. It's all good.
- 5:15Speaker 1: Want to get into the case.
- 5:16Speaker 2: I do.
- 5:17Speaker 1: Okay, Well, let's get into it here. So Amy Allwine
- 5:20Speaker 1: was the kind of person who brought a light into
- 5:22Speaker 1: the room, you know, just simply by walking in. Friends
- 5:25Speaker 1: described her as warm, endlessly kind, and deeply empathetic. She
- 5:30Speaker 1: also wasn't the type to gossip or past judgment. She
- 5:33Speaker 1: simply just radiated sincerity. Born Amy Zutz in December of
- 5:38Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, she grew up in a devote Christian
- 5:41Speaker 1: household in Minnesota. Her family were fundamentalists and members of
- 5:46Speaker 1: the Worldwide Church of God, denomination that followed the Bible's
- 5:50Speaker 1: teachings to the letter. That meant no extracurriculars, no friends
- 5:55Speaker 1: outside of the church, and definitely no Christmas or Easter,
- 5:58Speaker 1: as both of those were considered pagan holidays. But despite
- 6:02Speaker 1: the restrictions, Amy thrived within her tight knit community. Her
- 6:06Speaker 1: childhood revolved around family, faith and church activities. She cheered
- 6:11Speaker 1: for the church basketball team and loved organizing dances. Amy's
- 6:15Speaker 1: path eventually crossed with Stephen Allwine in the early nineteen
- 6:19Speaker 1: nineties at Ambassador College in Texas, a now defunct liberal
- 6:23Speaker 1: arts school associated with her church. They met while working
- 6:28Speaker 1: in the IT department together, and their shared love of
- 6:30Speaker 1: dancing quickly turned into a deeper connection. Stephen was from Spokane, Washington,
- 6:36Speaker 1: a bit of a tech nerd, and Amy was all
- 6:38Speaker 1: warmth and light. A balance between the two of them worked,
- 6:42Speaker 1: or at least it seemed to. After graduating, Stephen moved
- 6:45Speaker 1: to Saint Paul, Minnesota, to be with Amy and her family,
- 6:48Speaker 1: and together they got married in August of nineteen ninety six.
- 6:52Speaker 1: During that ceremony, Amy's father placed her hand into Stephen's
- 6:56Speaker 1: hand and told him, quote, take good care of my
- 7:00Speaker 1: little girl. And for a while it looked like Stephen dead.
- 7:03Speaker 2: Oh that's so sweet, hey.
- 7:06Speaker 1: Together they built a life centered around their faith, and
- 7:09Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven, they adopted their son, Joe,
- 7:12Speaker 1: just two days after he was born. It was an
- 7:15Speaker 1: open adoption, and Amy maintained a respectful, ongoing relationship with
- 7:19Speaker 1: Joe's birth mother. She adored being a mom and it showed.
- 7:23Speaker 1: Amy and Joe were inseparable, and she never missed a
- 7:26Speaker 1: chance to include him in family traditions, like picking out
- 7:30Speaker 1: the best strawberries for her famous pie. Amy also turned
- 7:34Speaker 1: her lifelong love of animals into a thriving business active
- 7:38Speaker 1: dog sports training from obedience to nosework to agility trials.
- 7:43Speaker 1: She trained dogs out of a large arena they'd built
- 7:46Speaker 1: on their twenty acre property in Cottage Grove. The business
- 7:50Speaker 1: was successful, and her Australian shepherd often placed in national
- 7:54Speaker 1: competitions as well. In that world, she was well respected
- 7:58Speaker 1: not just for her skill, but also for her kindness.
- 8:02Speaker 1: Stephen meanwhile worked from home in the basement, holding down
- 8:05Speaker 1: two remote it jobs. He also had growing responsibilities within
- 8:09Speaker 1: the Church of God, where he'd risen to the level
- 8:12Speaker 1: of elder. He and Amy were also both ordained as
- 8:15Speaker 1: deacons and deaconess, and Stephen often gave sermons, counseled married couples,
- 8:20Speaker 1: and even anointed the sick too outsiders. The all Wines
- 8:25Speaker 1: were a model family, faithful, hard working, family oriented Stephen
- 8:31Speaker 1: and Amy shared a strong spiritual bond. Their lives were
- 8:34Speaker 1: guided by the involvement of the United Church of God,
- 8:37Speaker 1: a conservative denomination with strict moral codes and traditional values.
- 8:41Speaker 1: Every Saturday was the Sabbath, and they honored it without compromise.
- 8:47Speaker 1: They didn't celebrate mainstream holidays like Christmas or Easter, as
- 8:50Speaker 1: I mentioned, they chose instead to focus on church annual festivals.
- 8:54Speaker 1: Their daily routine and belief system were tightly interwoven with
- 8:58Speaker 1: their faith. To people on their congregation, they were the
- 9:02Speaker 1: kind of couple you'd want to emulate. They were respectful, affectionate,
- 9:06Speaker 1: and committed to service with their adopted son, Joe. They
- 9:10Speaker 1: had two happy dogs and shared a love of the service,
- 9:13Speaker 1: and they looked like the kind of family you'd just
- 9:15Speaker 1: trust to house it while you were off on vacation
- 9:18Speaker 1: or lead your church group in pretty much any endeavor.
- 9:21Speaker 2: Well, yeah, honestly, it sounds like literally nothing could go wrong.
- 9:25Speaker 2: So I'm just sitting here just waiting for it to
- 9:28Speaker 2: get Well.
- 9:28Speaker 1: That's the thing. Yeah, behind closed doors, things generally are
- 9:33Speaker 1: a little bit different, and that's exactly the case here.
- 9:35Speaker 1: Because cracks were beginning to form, they were forming slowly
- 9:40Speaker 1: at first, but of course cracks grow over time.
- 9:43Speaker 2: If you don't fix those cracks, they're going to burst eventually.
- 9:46Speaker 1: Exactly. Stephen wasn't quite the devote husband people believed he was,
- 9:52Speaker 1: though he maintained his public image as a preacher and counselor,
- 9:55Speaker 1: he was living a secret double life. While Amy was
- 9:59Speaker 1: traveling for dogcar competitions, something she frequently did as her
- 10:03Speaker 1: business grew, Stephen was using her absence to meet women online.
- 10:07Speaker 2: Oh boy.
- 10:09Speaker 1: At first it started with one, and then there were more.
- 10:13Speaker 1: And the way he went about it spoke volumes because
- 10:17Speaker 1: he didn't stumble into temptation. He sought it out actively
- 10:20Speaker 1: and methodically. Dang in fact online one of the sites
- 10:24Speaker 1: he used was an infamous one known as Ashley Madison,
- 10:28Speaker 1: a platform explicitly marketed towards married people looking to have affairs.
- 10:33Speaker 1: In fact, its slogan at the time was even quote
- 10:36Speaker 1: life's short. Have an affair.
- 10:39Speaker 2: Well, that's quite the slogan, right.
- 10:41Speaker 1: At least they're being honest, I mean points to that,
- 10:44Speaker 1: But at the same time, a lot of negative points
- 10:47Speaker 1: are what they stand for and what they're doing.
- 10:49Speaker 2: You know. But I mean it was very like, I
- 10:52Speaker 2: don't know, if it still exists, probably, but it was
- 10:54Speaker 2: like really well used, so it.
- 10:55Speaker 1: Was well, there was a big thing at the time
- 10:57Speaker 1: where a lot of information got leads. I remember that, yeah,
- 11:00Speaker 1: but I don't I have no idea if they're still
- 11:02Speaker 1: a thing or not. But I do remember when that happened,
- 11:04Speaker 1: and it was.
- 11:04Speaker 2: Like, oh shit, yeah, it was a big deal.
- 11:07Speaker 1: Some spouses about to be pissed. Anyways, we digress. Steven
- 11:12Speaker 1: signed up for the site, but he didn't just flirt.
- 11:14Speaker 1: He actually followed through. One of the women he connected
- 11:17Speaker 1: with was woman by the name of Michelle Woodward. It
- 11:20Speaker 1: was an open marriage that she was in and they
- 11:23Speaker 1: started seeing each other in twenty fifteen. Their first date
- 11:27Speaker 1: was unusually personal, where Stephen took her to a doctor's appointment,
- 11:31Speaker 1: and after that they're affair grew physical and routine.
- 11:34Speaker 2: What the shit like he took her, Oh, took her
- 11:37Speaker 2: to the doctor.
- 11:38Speaker 1: Yeah, she had a doctor's appointment and he drove her.
- 11:40Speaker 2: Oh okay, I thought that it was a date and
- 11:43Speaker 2: he was like taking her to see his doctor. I
- 11:45Speaker 2: was like, what the shit for himself? He an appointment.
- 11:48Speaker 2: I was so confused, but still that's okay.
- 11:51Speaker 1: Honest, it was probably like they're chatting online, like we
- 11:53Speaker 1: need to meet up. Are you free this day? This day?
- 11:56Speaker 1: How about Friday for me? Oh I got a doctor's appointment.
- 11:58Speaker 1: I can drive you.
- 11:59Speaker 2: Yeah, probably how it went, that makes sense.
- 12:02Speaker 1: Yeah, but he even brought Michelle along on two of
- 12:05Speaker 1: his out of town work trips. Really, so yeah, there
- 12:09Speaker 1: were a pretty serious side thing going on.
- 12:12Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 12:12Speaker 1: Now, during their time together, Stephen portrayed himself as a
- 12:15Speaker 1: victim of his marriage. He complained that Amy worked too
- 12:19Speaker 1: much and that she spent too much time away from home.
- 12:22Speaker 1: But he never once mentioned that he was a religious leader,
- 12:25Speaker 1: and she never knew that until actually she googled him
- 12:28Speaker 1: and figured it out for herself.
- 12:30Speaker 2: Huh.
- 12:31Speaker 1: Yeah. So to those close to him, Stephen kept the
- 12:35Speaker 1: charade of being faithful, He kept that up. He was,
- 12:38Speaker 1: you know, this religious guy. He was a supportive husband,
- 12:41Speaker 1: but he was simply lying to everyone, to his church,
- 12:44Speaker 1: to his wife, and honestly even to his kid Joe.
- 12:47Speaker 2: Well, and even to the I don't know, can you
- 12:50Speaker 2: call it a mistress? I guess I don't know. Well,
- 12:52Speaker 2: for the person he's having an affair with, he was even
- 12:54Speaker 2: lying to her.
- 12:55Speaker 1: He was definitely and honestly like having an affair. Might
- 12:59Speaker 1: not be a rhyme technically and legally, but the lank
- 13:03Speaker 1: Stephen would eventually go in order to maintain his reputation
- 13:06Speaker 1: to avoid the shame of divorce. Well, that's a different
- 13:09Speaker 1: story altogether. Which that's exactly what we're going to get into.
- 13:15Speaker 1: You see, for Stephen, his position in the church mattered
- 13:17Speaker 1: more than almost anything. Divorce was, of course, heavily frowned
- 13:21Speaker 1: upon in their religious circle. It could cost him his standings,
- 13:25Speaker 1: his social credibility, his carefully curated image that he had.
- 13:30Speaker 1: He wanted out of the marriage, but he didn't want
- 13:32Speaker 1: the consequences that came with asking for a divorce, So
- 13:36Speaker 1: instead of leaving Amy, he started planning something. In early
- 13:41Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, while Amy was busy building her business and
- 13:44Speaker 1: planning dog training trips, Stephen was lurking on the darkest
- 13:48Speaker 1: corners of the Internet. His outward persona remained spotless, but
- 13:53Speaker 1: in private he was going beyond dating sites and exploring
- 13:56Speaker 1: the world most people will never see, the dark Web.
- 14:00Speaker 1: It was here, through the anonymous browser named tor, that
- 14:04Speaker 1: Stephen found what he believed with the was the perfect
- 14:07Speaker 1: solution to his problem. Divorce would, of course, be a scandal,
- 14:11Speaker 1: but murder, though that could be made to look like
- 14:14Speaker 1: a tragic accident. The website he stumbled upon was called
- 14:19Speaker 1: Bessa Mafia. It was marketing itself as a global network
- 14:23Speaker 1: of professional hit men, a kind of underground Airbnb. But
- 14:27Speaker 1: think instead of hiring for a place to stay, you're
- 14:30Speaker 1: hiring murder for hire instead.
- 14:32Speaker 2: You know this guy, he's just a complete piece of garbage. Hey, oh, definitely,
- 14:38Speaker 2: and we're just getting started here.
- 14:40Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how we are now this website Bess of Mafia.
- 14:43Speaker 1: Their promise was simple, if you pay in bitcoin, they
- 14:46Speaker 1: would get the job done, no questions asked. It was
- 14:50Speaker 1: the answer Stephen was looking for. However, Bessa Mafia wasn't
- 14:55Speaker 1: what it claimed to be. Unknown to Stephen at the time,
- 15:00Speaker 1: the entire operation of this Bessa Mafia murder for higher
- 15:04Speaker 1: sort of hitman online in the dark web thing. Yeah,
- 15:07Speaker 1: it was a scam. No one was getting killed. The
- 15:10Speaker 1: site was run by a man using the alias Eura,
- 15:14Speaker 1: and this guy had figured out a diabolically clever business model,
- 15:19Speaker 1: take money from would be killers, never carry out with
- 15:22Speaker 1: the hit, and bank on the fact that no one
- 15:24Speaker 1: would go to the police and complain about the money
- 15:26Speaker 1: they lost.
- 15:27Speaker 2: WHOA Okay, right, isn't that kind of jay? I guess?
- 15:32Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I'm not saying it's ethical, but
- 15:34Speaker 1: it's hilariously genius kind of.
- 15:37Speaker 2: Yeah. At first I thought you were going to say
- 15:38Speaker 2: it was the police, the police behind this, but okay, no,
- 15:42Speaker 2: definitely not the police.
- 15:43Speaker 1: It was just some guy who was just taking money
- 15:46Speaker 1: and not killing anyone. So Stephen of course didn't know
- 15:50Speaker 1: what this was, what the website was actually doing. He
- 15:52Speaker 1: thought it was a real hit for higher sort of situation.
- 15:56Speaker 1: So Stephen, using the alias dog Day God, he began
- 16:00Speaker 1: messaging Bessa Mafia in February of twenty sixteen. His first
- 16:04Speaker 1: questions were cautious, almost paranoid. He asked how to buy
- 16:08Speaker 1: bitcoin without drawing suspicion, worried that a large cash withdrawal,
- 16:12Speaker 1: you know, might raise some red flags now. They replied
- 16:15Speaker 1: quickly with helpful suggestions. They even offered stories that Stephen
- 16:20Speaker 1: could tell if he had anyone question him about the transactions,
- 16:23Speaker 1: you know, say that he was buying gaming equipment or
- 16:26Speaker 1: investing in some children's online platform or something different. Excuses right, Okay,
- 16:32Speaker 1: So over the following weeks, Stephen provided disturbingly specific information
- 16:37Speaker 1: about his intended target, which of course was his wife Amy.
- 16:42Speaker 1: Online he told Bessa Mafia where she would be, what
- 16:46Speaker 1: car she drove, and when she would be alone. He
- 16:49Speaker 1: even sent them photos. One of his first plans involved
- 16:52Speaker 1: in out of town dog show, Amy was scheduled to
- 16:55Speaker 1: attend in Moline, Illinois in March of twenty sixteen. He
- 17:00Speaker 1: offered extra bitcoin as well the equivalent of one thousand
- 17:03Speaker 1: dollars if the hit could be staged to look like
- 17:05Speaker 1: an accident, like a car crash or maybe a robbery
- 17:07Speaker 1: gone wrong. And here's part of what he told them quote,
- 17:12Speaker 1: she should be staying at the Lakita Inn in Moline Airport.
- 17:16Speaker 1: I want her dead. That's thirteen bitcoins. If it can
- 17:20Speaker 1: look like an accident, then you can have the rest. Now,
- 17:23Speaker 1: for context, a single bitcoin was valued at approximately five
- 17:28Speaker 1: hundred to six hundred dollars at the time, so thirteen
- 17:31Speaker 1: bitcoin was about six five hundred to seventy eight hundred.
- 17:36Speaker 2: So is that all he's paying correct for a hit?
- 17:39Speaker 2: Oh man, this sort of shit just disturbs me to
- 17:43Speaker 2: no end.
- 17:44Speaker 1: Hmm.
- 17:45Speaker 2: That's someone who is your freaking husband is going to
- 17:48Speaker 2: go about doing something like this and at no point
- 17:52Speaker 2: backs out like are you freaking kidding me?
- 17:55Speaker 1: Well, the thing is too like this is a scam,
- 17:57Speaker 1: we know that, right, already told you so their take
- 18:00Speaker 1: making the money and not actually delivering on the hit.
- 18:02Speaker 1: And when that first attempt didn't happen, like the act,
- 18:05Speaker 1: she came back from this trip, she wasn't killed or anything.
- 18:08Speaker 1: Stephen was actually growing impatient. However, he didn't walk away
- 18:11Speaker 1: from the situation. Instead, he doubled down, which makes it
- 18:15Speaker 1: even worse. So you're sitting here saying like, oh, how
- 18:18Speaker 1: could your husband do that? He lost money, the hit
- 18:22Speaker 1: didn't happen, and he's not like backing up and taking
- 18:25Speaker 1: a second look at this because this is his second chance, right, Yeah,
- 18:28Speaker 1: he's doubling down instead and.
- 18:31Speaker 2: Still going about trusting these people.
- 18:33Speaker 1: Then exactly, yeah, Okay, So in subsequent messages, he considered
- 18:36Speaker 1: different methods, including using a sniper or staging a home invasion.
- 18:41Speaker 1: He kept updating them on Amy's Whereabouts Her Dog Show schedule,
- 18:45Speaker 1: and even detailed knowledge of propane tanks and gas cans
- 18:48Speaker 1: around their house.
- 18:51Speaker 2: Okay that he's probably just you know, scattering around.
- 18:54Speaker 1: Yeah right, gosh. Now, At one point, quote unquote dog
- 18:58Speaker 1: Day God wrote this to Best and quote, I feel
- 19:01Speaker 1: that I'm at risk of being suspected if I ask
- 19:04Speaker 1: too many more questions. I'm at the point that I
- 19:06Speaker 1: do not care how this is done. I believe if
- 19:09Speaker 1: I go about my regular routine, I won't be a suspect.
- 19:13Speaker 1: And this is supposed to be a religious god guy.
- 19:16Speaker 2: Hmm like wow, well yeah, just like devoted to his
- 19:20Speaker 2: family and the community and stuff, and this is what
- 19:23Speaker 2: he's doing behind closed.
- 19:24Speaker 1: Doors, right, He's like, oh, I love my wife in public,
- 19:27Speaker 1: and then behind closed doors he obviously just wants or
- 19:29Speaker 1: gone mm hm and honestly like even if it could
- 19:32Speaker 1: be arranged out of town, like he would be fine
- 19:35Speaker 1: with that, But if it couldn't be and their home
- 19:38Speaker 1: was going to work, just fine for him, because he's
- 19:40Speaker 1: clearly like, here's things you can use around our house.
- 19:43Speaker 2: This is literally got or a guy that people look
- 19:47Speaker 2: up to and want to probably be.
- 19:49Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's doing all this shit.
- 19:52Speaker 2: Yeah. Now.
- 19:53Speaker 1: Stephen made multiple bitcoin payments which would end up totaling
- 19:56Speaker 1: over thirteen thousand dollars to Best of Mafia, believing all
- 20:00Speaker 1: the while that a hit man would eventually show up
- 20:02Speaker 1: and take care of it.
- 20:03Speaker 2: What.
- 20:03Speaker 1: In reality, there was no hit man and they're just
- 20:05Speaker 1: draining him for whatever they can give, right mm hm.
- 20:08Speaker 1: By April of twenty sixteen, the elaborate charade with Bess
- 20:11Speaker 1: of Mafia started to come undone. The website operated by
- 20:15Speaker 1: that mysterious era had managed to fool dozens of people
- 20:18Speaker 1: across the world into thinking it was a legitimate murder
- 20:21Speaker 1: for higher service. What none of them knew was that
- 20:24Speaker 1: the site had a critical vulnerability, and someone with skills
- 20:28Speaker 1: to exploit it found the way inside. Oh my goodness,
- 20:34Speaker 1: that person with cybersecurity researcher Chris Monteiro, a UK based
- 20:39Speaker 1: system administrator and hobbyist dark web sleuth. At first, Chris
- 20:43Speaker 1: had stumbled upon Bess of Mafia through the public Reddit
- 20:46Speaker 1: threads and anonymous posts linking the site. What really peaked
- 20:50Speaker 1: his interest was how organized it seemed to be. Unlike
- 20:54Speaker 1: most dark Web scams, Bess of Mafia looked polished, a
- 20:57Speaker 1: little too polished. Even so, he dug deeper. Chris, along
- 21:02Speaker 1: with other anonymous hackers known only as the group quote
- 21:05Speaker 1: Judge Judy Love that name, by the way, quietly gained
- 21:09Speaker 1: access to the site's back end. What they found was
- 21:13Speaker 1: jaw dropping a trove of unencrypted data, thousands of private messages,
- 21:19Speaker 1: order logs, bitcoin transactions, and even photos and personal information
- 21:24Speaker 1: of real hit targets.
- 21:27Speaker 2: Honestly, I love this because these people deserve that.
- 21:31Speaker 1: That they're getting found out like this.
- 21:32Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because these friggin just piece of shit people
- 21:36Speaker 2: deserve that.
- 21:38Speaker 1: Agreed. Now, these hackers decided to do what law enforcement
- 21:43Speaker 1: hadn't done yet, and they decided they were going to
- 21:45Speaker 1: save some lives, or at least attempt to, because on
- 21:47Speaker 1: April twenty fifth, twenty sixteen, a massive data dump of
- 21:51Speaker 1: Bessa mafia US records in international communications was quietly posted
- 21:56Speaker 1: to an online archive site. The documents canained everything usernames,
- 22:02Speaker 1: target photos, payment info, messages between quote unquote clients and
- 22:05Speaker 1: the site operators. All of it was now out in
- 22:08Speaker 1: the open for public viewing. Okay, so they didn't go
- 22:13Speaker 1: right to law enforcement, but they put it into a
- 22:15Speaker 1: public place where law enforcement could view it.
- 22:17Speaker 2: So they didn't realize though, or weren't aware that this
- 22:22Speaker 2: was a scam and that these people weren't technically actually
- 22:25Speaker 2: in danger. I mean they probably were though still, because
- 22:28Speaker 2: the people putting the hit on them could go and
- 22:31Speaker 2: use try to use someone else, right, So.
- 22:33Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, and they could probably go through the messages
- 22:36Speaker 1: and understand that, Okay, these people like it's consistent that
- 22:39Speaker 1: hits are not happening and messages are coming back. Yeah,
- 22:42Speaker 1: regardless of it being a scam or not, these are
- 22:44Speaker 1: real people trying to get real people killed. Yeah, So
- 22:47Speaker 1: that in itself is super important right now, One user
- 22:52Speaker 1: among all of the information actually stood out in particular,
- 22:55Speaker 1: and that was dog Day God. The messages from dog
- 22:58Speaker 1: Day God revealed an obsessive fixation on one woman named
- 23:01Speaker 1: Amy Allwine. The level of detail these messages were shocking.
- 23:06Speaker 1: Whoever this person was. They not only knew Amy's daily
- 23:09Speaker 1: schedule and travel plans, but also had access to her
- 23:12Speaker 1: home and was familiar with family and business because the
- 23:14Speaker 1: intimate information delivered to Besse of Mafia was too detailed.
- 23:19Speaker 1: So by May of twenty sixteen, the FBI had reviewed
- 23:22Speaker 1: the data dump and realized this wasn't just internet drama.
- 23:25Speaker 1: It was a real threat to real people, and in
- 23:29Speaker 1: the particular situation of dog Day God, it was, you know,
- 23:32Speaker 1: a threat to someone who had no idea that there
- 23:34Speaker 1: were someone's digital target, right, and that person was, of
- 23:38Speaker 1: course you know Amy. And on May thirty first, twenty sixteen, thankfully,
- 23:44Speaker 1: FBI special agent Asha Silky and a local Cottage Growth
- 23:49Speaker 1: Police officer, Detective Terry Raymond, came knocking at the all
- 23:53Speaker 1: Wine store.
- 23:54Speaker 2: Oh poor Amy here, she's just like living her life,
- 23:57Speaker 2: like doing all this shit, probably for her family, right thinking.
- 24:01Speaker 2: You know, her family's tight knit, and she's about to
- 24:05Speaker 2: just get the shock of.
- 24:06Speaker 1: A lifetime basically now. Unfortunately, though, Amy wasn't home, but
- 24:11Speaker 1: her husband, Stephen was. They explained to him that Amy
- 24:15Speaker 1: was not in any immediate danger, but emphasized that it
- 24:18Speaker 1: was important and urgent that she come to the Cottage
- 24:20Speaker 1: Grove Police Department to speak with them in person. They
- 24:24Speaker 1: didn't go in full detail at the doorstep and what
- 24:26Speaker 1: was going on, but they made it clear that matters
- 24:29Speaker 1: were serious and sensitive.
- 24:31Speaker 2: Oh oh that doesn't seem good.
- 24:33Speaker 1: Well, Stephen was calm, He was collected and very helpful.
- 24:37Speaker 1: In fact, Stephen told them that she'd be back soon
- 24:40Speaker 1: and agreed to have her meet with them at the
- 24:42Speaker 1: police station later that day. Amy soon arrived at the
- 24:47Speaker 1: police station and was shown something that would shake anyone
- 24:52Speaker 1: to their core. Someone had spent months and thousands of
- 24:55Speaker 1: dollars trying to have her killed. And she was now
- 24:58Speaker 1: looking at the digital read crumbs on these papers that
- 25:02Speaker 1: were put in front of her, on all the proof
- 25:04Speaker 1: of it.
- 25:05Speaker 2: Okay, here, I thought that could have gone differently though,
- 25:07Speaker 2: because I thought Stephen that's his name, right, yes, would
- 25:11Speaker 2: have been like freaking out and then tried to take
- 25:13Speaker 2: this in his own hands or something. No.
- 25:15Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough, No, he played it calm, He
- 25:18Speaker 1: played it cool. Right now, The FBI told her that
- 25:21Speaker 1: a user in the dark web had submitted multiple murder
- 25:24Speaker 1: requests targeting her, providing her providing her full name, her address, schedule, photos,
- 25:30Speaker 1: even her car making model. It was too specific to
- 25:33Speaker 1: be random. Someone close to her was clearly trying to
- 25:36Speaker 1: orchestrate this. Naturally, Amy was terrified. She told investigators that
- 25:41Speaker 1: she didn't have enemies, she had no idea who would
- 25:44Speaker 1: want to harm her, and she was loved in her community,
- 25:47Speaker 1: adored by her friends and family, and had no known
- 25:50Speaker 1: issues with clients or even competitors. But the part that
- 25:53Speaker 1: confused investigators most the person who had ordered the hit
- 25:57Speaker 1: claimed Amy was quote stealing clients and had also quote
- 26:03Speaker 1: slept with their husband, whoa okay. Amy denied this information outright.
- 26:09Speaker 1: She had never had an affair. She was devoted to
- 26:12Speaker 1: her marriage. It made no sense now. At the time,
- 26:15Speaker 1: the FBI had no reason to suspect Stephen himself but
- 26:18Speaker 1: was behind it. He came across as mild mannered, religious
- 26:22Speaker 1: and supportive. He was a family man, a victim too
- 26:25Speaker 1: technically in certain light if you looked at it. But
- 26:27Speaker 1: something was off and they knew it, but they just
- 26:30Speaker 1: didn't know what.
- 26:32Speaker 2: Well, yeah, he would not seem like a person that
- 26:35Speaker 2: would put a hit on their wife exactly now.
- 26:39Speaker 1: The FBI told the all Wines to tighten their home security,
- 26:42Speaker 1: and as a result of what was going on, it
- 26:44Speaker 1: was clearly important that they do so. Motion detectors were installed,
- 26:48Speaker 1: cameras went up, and garage codes were changed, and they
- 26:52Speaker 1: added home security alarms and Amy began carrying a panic
- 26:55Speaker 1: alarm button with her as well. No matter what was happening,
- 26:58Speaker 1: Amy tried to put on a ray face and carry
- 27:01Speaker 1: on with life, you know, going in and doing her
- 27:04Speaker 1: work with dog training and attending church, taking care of
- 27:07Speaker 1: her family. But the cracks in her calm were slowly
- 27:10Speaker 1: beginning to show.
- 27:11Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and meanwhile, she's sleeping next to a complete monster.
- 27:14Speaker 1: This is not all I hey, but she doesn't know
- 27:17Speaker 1: that is the thing.
- 27:18Speaker 2: Ah.
- 27:19Speaker 1: It had been over two months since the FBI had
- 27:21Speaker 1: revealed the Dark Web plot to murder her, and though
- 27:24Speaker 1: there were no attempts that she knew of, the idea
- 27:27Speaker 1: that someone close to her wanted her dead was enough
- 27:30Speaker 1: to consume her every day.
- 27:32Speaker 2: M hmm. I could only imagine I would just be
- 27:36Speaker 2: There would be no like calm within you that all
- 27:41Speaker 2: definitely you would be on edge console all the time.
- 27:45Speaker 1: But then came another blow. On July thirty first, twenty sixteen,
- 27:50Speaker 1: Amy received an anonymous email. The subject line read your
- 27:55Speaker 1: family is in danger. The sender identified themselves as quote Jane,
- 28:00Speaker 1: and what followed was a deeply disturbing email. Ama was
- 28:06Speaker 1: being told explicitly that if she didn't take her own life,
- 28:10Speaker 1: her loved ones would be next. What the email is cruel,
- 28:15Speaker 1: personal and vicious, saying things like quote are you so
- 28:20Speaker 1: selfish that you will put your family's life at risk? Quote?
- 28:24Speaker 1: I blame you for my life falling apart. I don't
- 28:26Speaker 1: know how a fat explsive bleeped word like you got
- 28:32Speaker 1: to my husband. Quote here's how you can save your
- 28:36Speaker 1: family commit suicide?
- 28:38Speaker 2: Is this actually from Stephen? This email? Because I feel
- 28:42Speaker 2: like I will rage If that's the case, I.
- 28:47Speaker 1: Will be very transparent on this. Yes, Stephen is behind
- 28:51Speaker 1: it all. Definitely.
- 28:52Speaker 2: He literally sends this kind of an email to his
- 28:55Speaker 2: wife correct when she's oh my gosh, this guy just
- 28:59Speaker 2: deserves oh suber. Yeah. Like, I'm not even gonna say
- 29:04Speaker 2: what he deserves, because holy shit, I cannot even believe this.
- 29:08Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, The writer went on to describe her son's
- 29:11Speaker 1: clothing from the week before, implying that he had eyes
- 29:14Speaker 1: in the family. They detailed the location of their homes,
- 29:18Speaker 1: gas meter, and their parents' address, her brother's residence. They
- 29:22Speaker 1: even went on enlisted methods Amy could use to end
- 29:26Speaker 1: her own life.
- 29:27Speaker 2: Oh my goodness.
- 29:30Speaker 1: Yeah. They warned that if she failed, she'd be labeled
- 29:32Speaker 1: as mentally unstable, lose custody of her son, and destroy
- 29:36Speaker 1: the family.
- 29:37Speaker 2: You know who's mentally unstable, This fucking Stephen guy.
- 29:40Speaker 1: I know. But like this is like, okay, kill yourself.
- 29:43Speaker 1: If you try and you actually survive, you're gonna lose custody,
- 29:47Speaker 1: you lose your family, So you better be successful when
- 29:49Speaker 1: you try and kill yourself. As what they're trying to say.
- 29:52Speaker 2: You know what better happened is Amy better be okay
- 29:54Speaker 2: at the end of this, or else I'm gonna lose
- 29:58Speaker 2: my mind.
- 29:58Speaker 1: Fair enough, fair enough, Well, we'll get to it, don't worry.
- 30:02Speaker 1: The threat in these emails were unmistakable. Kill yourself, or
- 30:06Speaker 1: we'll do it for you, slowly, painfully, piece by piece,
- 30:09Speaker 1: through the people that you love most, and Amy was
- 30:11Speaker 1: of course horrified by this. She immediately forwarded the messages
- 30:16Speaker 1: to the special Agent Asha Silky, who had remained in
- 30:19Speaker 1: regular contact with her. He confirmed that the email was
- 30:23Speaker 1: sent from a disposable account, which was nearly impossible to trace,
- 30:27Speaker 1: but despite the disturbing content, he noted something important. This
- 30:32Speaker 1: to him seemed likely like a de escalation instead of
- 30:36Speaker 1: an escalation, because whoever was behind the original Dark Web
- 30:41Speaker 1: hit had now shifted to psychological warfare. They weren't trying
- 30:46Speaker 1: to hire someone to kill her anymore. Now they were
- 30:49Speaker 1: trying to push Amy into taking matters into her own hands,
- 30:53Speaker 1: which basically meant that she had the power over her
- 30:55Speaker 1: own life at that point.
- 30:57Speaker 2: Technically, right, okay, do you have to say, I'm I
- 31:01Speaker 2: didn't expect it. I'm glad that she forded this email
- 31:04Speaker 2: right away off to like, you know, authorities here.
- 31:08Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean, what else is she to do?
- 31:10Speaker 2: Well, I don't know. I feel like, well, some people
- 31:13Speaker 2: could have either just done the request, which would have
- 31:17Speaker 2: been horrible, or just kept it themselves and like freaked out.
- 31:20Speaker 2: And you know, so I'm glad that she went that route.
- 31:23Speaker 1: Yeah, I am glad too. Now, as terrifying as this was,
- 31:28Speaker 1: the FBI believed that the threat was less likely to
- 31:30Speaker 1: materialize into actual physical harm. The idea was now mostly
- 31:34Speaker 1: manipulation over murder. But still, like you say, regardless, good
- 31:38Speaker 1: on her for going to the authorities with it. But
- 31:41Speaker 1: no matter what the FBI agent said about it, hey
- 31:44Speaker 1: being like a de escalation, it didn't make Amy feel
- 31:47Speaker 1: any safer.
- 31:48Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I was literally just sitting here thinking that.
- 31:51Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't think that would have helped me, no,
- 31:53Speaker 2: feel better about my life.
- 31:55Speaker 1: Her life, of course, dramatically changed. Simple errands like going
- 31:59Speaker 1: to the grocery or filled her with dread. Cars parked
- 32:02Speaker 1: at the end of the street sent her into spirals
- 32:03Speaker 1: of anxiety. In fact, at one point she reported a
- 32:06Speaker 1: suspicious blue van near her home, which of course turned
- 32:09Speaker 1: out to be harmless. But that wasn't the point. Amy
- 32:12Speaker 1: was now in a state of near constant panic.
- 32:15Speaker 2: Just always on edge.
- 32:17Speaker 1: Migrains that she once suffered from in her younger years
- 32:19Speaker 1: returned with vengeance. Her memory became foggy. Her friends even
- 32:23Speaker 1: later described how she started to lose track of conversations
- 32:26Speaker 1: or forget key details during her dog training sessions. The
- 32:30Speaker 1: always joyful, energetic Amy was slowly retreating into herself.
- 32:35Speaker 2: Well, she was probably never present, no really fully during
- 32:38Speaker 2: those conversations or the dog training, because her mind was
- 32:42Speaker 2: always somewhere else.
- 32:43Speaker 1: Well, and not only is it. At any moment, could
- 32:46Speaker 1: she be possibly attacked or someone try to kill her,
- 32:50Speaker 1: She could be talking to the person who's trying to
- 32:53Speaker 1: have her.
- 32:53Speaker 2: Killed, Yeah, because she has no idea.
- 32:56Speaker 1: She's thinking of that too. Are you the person who
- 32:58Speaker 1: hired this and is behind this? Or am I going
- 33:01Speaker 1: to get killed here in this conversation just or just
- 33:03Speaker 1: going to the grocery store, like you have no idea?
- 33:06Speaker 1: On edge every moment of every waking day of your life.
- 33:10Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure this is gonna come out at
- 33:12Speaker 2: some point, but like she absolutely had no idea that
- 33:15Speaker 2: it was her husband.
- 33:16Speaker 1: She had no idea, what the shit.
- 33:19Speaker 2: I would suspect you instantly, literally instantly, because the details
- 33:24Speaker 2: that the person knew and stuff, it just makes sense
- 33:28Speaker 2: that it would be her like significant other.
- 33:32Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree.
- 33:34Speaker 2: I think both of us would have been like, you bitch,
- 33:36Speaker 2: it's you, like we would just know, I.
- 33:38Speaker 1: Think, well honestly, yeah yeah, I mean, look what we
- 33:42Speaker 1: do for a living, right.
- 33:43Speaker 2: We have no trust or faith in anyone?
- 33:45Speaker 1: Apparently definitely not now. She did her best to keep
- 33:49Speaker 1: up appearances. She told very few people about the threats,
- 33:52Speaker 1: not even her parents. In fact, only her sister and
- 33:55Speaker 1: her best friend Sharon knew the full extent to what
- 33:58Speaker 1: was happening. Even then, she downplayed it as best as
- 34:01Speaker 1: she could. Amy didn't want to worry anyone else, but
- 34:04Speaker 1: she was quietly unraveling. In an attempt to feel more secure,
- 34:08Speaker 1: Amy enrolled in the Cottage Grove Citizens Police Academy, an
- 34:12Speaker 1: eight week community program that allowed citizens to learn about
- 34:15Speaker 1: police work, and she took it quite seriously.
- 34:19Speaker 2: Good for her.
- 34:20Speaker 1: In this she fingerprinted coke cans and practiced firearm handling,
- 34:24Speaker 1: and even did a ride right along with a canine officer.
- 34:27Speaker 1: It helped a little, but it wasn't enough to erase
- 34:30Speaker 1: the feeling that someone, someone she knew, still wanted her dead.
- 34:34Speaker 1: Her relationship with the FBI had also grown stronger. Amy
- 34:37Speaker 1: frequently emailed or called Special Agent Silky to vent and
- 34:41Speaker 1: share concerns or seek advice. She appreciated having someone in
- 34:45Speaker 1: her corner, even if the investigation wasn't really moving forward.
- 34:49Speaker 1: But in the end, Amy was still alone with that
- 34:52Speaker 1: fear the entire time, and unknown to her, the person
- 34:57Speaker 1: responsible for it was still at her side, living under
- 34:59Speaker 1: the same roof, and still planning it. Because for Stephen
- 35:04Speaker 1: this wasn't over.
- 35:06Speaker 2: He still is just not letting this go. Hey no, oh, man,
- 35:12Speaker 2: I am that's shocking.
- 35:14Speaker 1: Well, his original plan to outsource his wife's murder had failed,
- 35:17Speaker 1: and thanks to the fact that Bessemafia was nothing more
- 35:19Speaker 1: than the scam is the only reason why that did fail.
- 35:23Speaker 1: But Stephen wasn't about to give up, not with his
- 35:26Speaker 1: image and his secrets on the line. Right. It was Sunday,
- 35:30Speaker 1: November thirteenth, twenty sixteen, and to anyone looking in from
- 35:34Speaker 1: the outside, the All Wine House in Cottage Grove, Minnesota,
- 35:37Speaker 1: seemed peaceful and even routine. Amy had spent the day
- 35:40Speaker 1: at home with her husband, Stephen and their nine year
- 35:42Speaker 1: old son Joe. They'd gone to church the day before,
- 35:45Speaker 1: same as they always did. Saturday was the Sabbath in
- 35:49Speaker 1: line with their beliefs through the Church of God United
- 35:51Speaker 1: Church of God. Excuse me. Amy had helped prepare lunch
- 35:54Speaker 1: and she was being a devoted cook that she always was.
- 35:59Speaker 1: She set some lefts do her pumpkin to simmer, and
- 36:01Speaker 1: the slow cooker for dinner. But she wasn't feeling that great.
- 36:04Speaker 1: She's a little dizzy and tired, so she decided to
- 36:07Speaker 1: go lay down. Stephen, meanwhile had plans. He called Amy's father,
- 36:12Speaker 1: Charles Zeuits, to come help install a dog door in
- 36:15Speaker 1: their garage. When Charles arrived at around one pm, he
- 36:19Speaker 1: was told by Stephen that Amy wasn't feeling well and
- 36:22Speaker 1: had gone to lie in the bed. He never saw
- 36:25Speaker 1: or spoke to his daughter that day. After installing the door,
- 36:28Speaker 1: Charles left, and shortly after Stephen called him once again.
- 36:31Speaker 1: This time he asked Charles to come back and pick
- 36:33Speaker 1: up their son, Joe. Amy, he said, was feeling worse
- 36:36Speaker 1: and he wanted to take her to the hospital without
- 36:39Speaker 1: worrying their son. When he pulled up Joe was waiting
- 36:42Speaker 1: outside when his grandfather was coming by. Charles took him
- 36:48Speaker 1: and Stephen went back inside the house. From this point on,
- 36:51Speaker 1: Stephen's version of the events is all we have to
- 36:53Speaker 1: go on, but police later found serious discrepancies. Is what
- 36:57Speaker 1: he claimed on what happened.
- 36:59Speaker 2: Oh gosh, no, no, no, I'm terrified here.
- 37:03Speaker 1: According to Stephen, Amy was still groggy when he went
- 37:06Speaker 1: to check on her. He claimed she insisted she didn't
- 37:09Speaker 1: need to go to the hospital and that she just
- 37:11Speaker 1: needed to rest. At around four thirty pm, people began
- 37:15Speaker 1: arriving at the property for one of Amy's scheduled dog
- 37:17Speaker 1: training classes in the arena out back. Amy, of course,
- 37:21Speaker 1: was in no condition to teach, so another instructor stepped
- 37:24Speaker 1: in to lead the session. A little while later, around
- 37:27Speaker 1: five pm, Stephen said he went into the bedroom and
- 37:30Speaker 1: saw Amy on her knees by the side of the bed.
- 37:33Speaker 1: He assumed she was praying, so he didn't want to
- 37:35Speaker 1: bother her. Instead, he left the house. He went to
- 37:40Speaker 1: pick up Joe from his in laws, and on the
- 37:42Speaker 1: way back they stopped at a restaurant called Culvers, was
- 37:45Speaker 1: a tradition for them together. They had grilled cheese, and
- 37:48Speaker 1: chicken tenders. Stephen made sure he had the receipts.
- 37:52Speaker 2: Oh, but also that meal sounds amazing.
- 37:54Speaker 1: Agreed. At approximately seven pm, Stephen and Joe arrived back home.
- 38:00Speaker 1: Joe ran ahead into the house, while Steven stayed behind
- 38:02Speaker 1: to unpack the car. Moments later, Joe returned and asked
- 38:06Speaker 1: a chilling question, why is mommy lying on the floor?
- 38:10Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, Okay, so this literal piece of shit
- 38:14Speaker 2: let his son go find the mom Yeah, oh my gosh,
- 38:21Speaker 2: I can't. I can't even. I just okay, I'm like
- 38:25Speaker 2: about to just stroll on the towel here, because that
- 38:27Speaker 2: is some serious bullshit right there.
- 38:30Speaker 1: I know, trust me, I know, okay. Stephen then went
- 38:35Speaker 1: to check there in the master bedroom, Amy was lying
- 38:39Speaker 1: on her back next to the bed. There was a
- 38:42Speaker 1: pool of blood around her head. A nine millimeter handgun
- 38:46Speaker 1: lay next to her left elbow, and a single shell
- 38:48Speaker 1: casing was nearby. Stephen called nine one one and said,
- 38:53Speaker 1: I think my wife shot herself. There's blood all over.
- 38:58Speaker 1: His voice was flat, calm, unnaturally so, according to later analysis,
- 39:04Speaker 1: he didn't say Amy's name, he didn't ask for help,
- 39:08Speaker 1: he didn't check if she was even breathing until prompted
- 39:10Speaker 1: by the dispatcher. Police and emergency responders arrived within minutes.
- 39:16Speaker 1: Steven and Joe were waiting for them in the garage,
- 39:18Speaker 1: and his officers made their way inside. What they found
- 39:21Speaker 1: wasn't just tragic, it was suspicious.
- 39:24Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. I okay. So I envisioned that the
- 39:29Speaker 2: son would just go in the room and see, like
- 39:31Speaker 2: the mom dead. But I but there was also like
- 39:36Speaker 2: a terrible scene that he was going into correct, gruesome,
- 39:40Speaker 2: Oh my goodness. I am just irate right now. I
- 39:44Speaker 2: cannot believe that that guy is a father.
- 39:46Speaker 1: I know.
- 39:47Speaker 2: Holy heck.
- 39:49Speaker 1: Now for context, I was going to do a two
- 39:52Speaker 1: parter and leave it right here. But do you want
- 39:55Speaker 1: to continue for two parts and just make it one?
- 39:59Speaker 2: Sure? I don't know, but I deserve to just.
- 40:06Speaker 1: Yes, I agree, don't get me wrong, but yeah, I
- 40:10Speaker 1: was thinking of separating into two. We're only doing one,
- 40:12Speaker 1: but that's where I was going to separate.
- 40:14Speaker 2: Oh ye. People would have been pissed at you, for sure.
- 40:18Speaker 1: Larissa would have like scalded me on social media on
- 40:23Speaker 1: so Amy was of course laying on the floor. She
- 40:26Speaker 1: was deceased, her body neatly positioned beside the bed. She
- 40:29Speaker 1: was still wearing her clothes from earlier that day, but
- 40:31Speaker 1: her pants were slightly unbuttoned and her red sweater had
- 40:34Speaker 1: been pushed up just enough to expose her stomach a bit.
- 40:38Speaker 1: For a scene that was supposed to be a suicide,
- 40:40Speaker 1: something felt wrong. Sergeant Gwen Martin, one of the responding officers,
- 40:46Speaker 1: had known Amy. She'd been her instructor at the Citizen's
- 40:49Speaker 1: Police Academy, and seeing her lifeless body on the floor
- 40:53Speaker 1: overwhelmed her, and she burst into tears and had to
- 40:56Speaker 1: step outside to regain her composure. While on the squad car,
- 41:00Speaker 1: she pulled up the household's call history. That's when she
- 41:04Speaker 1: saw the earlier FBI visits and the death threats from
- 41:06Speaker 1: the dark web. She called Detective Sergeant Randy McCallister, a
- 41:11Speaker 1: lead on major investigations. He was confused. They usually don't
- 41:15Speaker 1: get called in for suicides, but when Gwen handed the
- 41:18Speaker 1: phone to her partner and he heard the name Amy Alwine, Yeah,
- 41:22Speaker 1: everything changed. McAllister immediately got dressed and headed to the scene.
- 41:29Speaker 1: He was already familiar with Amy's case. It had been
- 41:31Speaker 1: months since the FBI warned her and Stephen about the
- 41:34Speaker 1: discovery of the dark Web plot. And as McCallister walked
- 41:37Speaker 1: into the home, something caught his attention right away. The
- 41:40Speaker 1: smell of pumpkins still cooking in the crock pot. Not
- 41:45Speaker 1: something you generally expect from someone who's planning to take.
- 41:49Speaker 2: Their life, right, Yes, no, shit, I didn't even think
- 41:55Speaker 2: of that.
- 41:56Speaker 1: And then he saw the scene and he knew in
- 42:00Speaker 1: his gut that Amy hadn't died by her own hand.
- 42:03Speaker 1: Amy was found lying flat on her back in the
- 42:06Speaker 1: bedroom with a pool of blood under her head and
- 42:08Speaker 1: a nine millimeter handgun resting near her left elbow, but
- 42:11Speaker 1: the details didn't add up. Amy was right handed, yet
- 42:15Speaker 1: the gun was on her left side. The bullet had
- 42:18Speaker 1: entered through her right ear, which made it almost impossible
- 42:21Speaker 1: for her to have shot herself in that position. More importantly,
- 42:26Speaker 1: testing showed there was no gunshot residue on Amy's hands.
- 42:31Speaker 2: This Stephen guy is such an idiot.
- 42:35Speaker 1: Yeah, so if she had tried to pull the trigger,
- 42:39Speaker 1: there would have been at least a trace of evidence
- 42:42Speaker 1: left on her hands from gun residue. However, there was none.
- 42:46Speaker 1: Then came some luminol tests with the investigation investigators sprayed
- 42:50Speaker 1: the floor near the bedroom and found unmistakable evidence that
- 42:54Speaker 1: someone had tried to clean up a significant amount of blood.
- 42:58Speaker 1: In fact, there were even blood footprints leading from the
- 43:01Speaker 1: bedroom to the hallway, the bathroom, and the laundry room.
- 43:07Speaker 2: See she had been okay, wow, this is just too much.
- 43:11Speaker 1: Yeah. Now these tracks matched with socked feet.
- 43:16Speaker 2: Oh okay, and the same size that Stephen is because
- 43:20Speaker 2: he's a piece of shit.
- 43:23Speaker 1: Surprise, surprise. We'll get to it though, don't worry. So
- 43:26Speaker 1: these weren't just major stains of blood either. The hallway
- 43:29Speaker 1: floor had a glossy film on it, a clear indication
- 43:33Speaker 1: that had been wiped down vigorously, in stark contrast with
- 43:36Speaker 1: the rest of the house, which was lived in and
- 43:38Speaker 1: messy with dog hair and every day clutter don't get
- 43:41Speaker 1: me wrong, not filthy, just you know, every day living,
- 43:43Speaker 1: rather than freshly polished clean floors.
- 43:46Speaker 2: Right. Yeah.
- 43:47Speaker 1: Amy's body had also clearly been moved. While she was
- 43:51Speaker 1: found lying in her back, blood from her nose and
- 43:53Speaker 1: mouth had run down the side of her face, suggesting
- 43:56Speaker 1: at some point she had been on her side and
- 43:58Speaker 1: then repositioned. Investigators. They also noticed that her pants were
- 44:03Speaker 1: un buttoned and her shirt slightly pulled up details that
- 44:06Speaker 1: didn't appear consistent with a struggle, but almost seemed like
- 44:09Speaker 1: there were an intentional choice, as if someone was trying
- 44:12Speaker 1: to add a little bit of an emotional chaos to
- 44:14Speaker 1: the scene, something that might support the idea of suicide.
- 44:20Speaker 2: Okay, that makes no sense, but okay.
- 44:23Speaker 1: I don't really understand it either, But like maybe it's
- 44:26Speaker 1: like she's sitting here, like hunched over or slowly slugging
- 44:30Speaker 1: herself off the bed in distress, something like that, like
- 44:33Speaker 1: you know, just adding a little bit of like touches
- 44:35Speaker 1: to make it a little more like, I don't know,
- 44:38Speaker 1: emotional turmoil going on in her and she's not really
- 44:41Speaker 1: caring for herself.
- 44:41Speaker 2: I guess maybe I see, I see, Okay.
- 44:44Speaker 1: But then there was the question of surveillance. After the
- 44:47Speaker 1: dark Web threats earlier that year, the all Wines had
- 44:50Speaker 1: installed motion activated cameras around the home, but there were
- 44:53Speaker 1: no cameras covering the back patio, the one place with
- 44:58Speaker 1: constant dog activity that they chose not to monitor. If
- 45:01Speaker 1: someone were to come and go from that door, it
- 45:04Speaker 1: would not have been recorded, and of course there were
- 45:08Speaker 1: no recordings of anyone else, so they assumed that's the door. Right. Yeah,
- 45:12Speaker 1: the scene didn't just look suspicious, it looked stage. The blood,
- 45:16Speaker 1: the weapon placement, the movements, the cleanliness, and one specific
- 45:19Speaker 1: part of the home. It all pointed to someone trying
- 45:21Speaker 1: to cover their tracks. And as forensic investigation continued, a
- 45:25Speaker 1: major breakthrough came from toxicology reports. The results showed something
- 45:30Speaker 1: deeply unsettling. Amy Allwine had an incredibly high amount of
- 45:36Speaker 1: scopolamine in her system. Hopefully I pronounced that right, And
- 45:40Speaker 1: she had about forty times the standard therapeutic dose. Now.
- 45:45Speaker 1: Scopolamine is a drug usually prescribed in very small amounts
- 45:48Speaker 1: to treat motion sickness or nausea following surgery, but in
- 45:52Speaker 1: larger doses it has a different reputation entirely. It's sometimes
- 45:56Speaker 1: called devil's breath because of its extreme side effects, which
- 46:01Speaker 1: our disorientation, hallucination, blurred vision, drowsiness, and even memory loss.
- 46:07Speaker 1: It can render someone so mentally impaired that they can't
- 46:10Speaker 1: think clearly or fight back. It makes a person basically
- 46:14Speaker 1: completely vulnerable and incredibly easy to control.
- 46:18Speaker 2: Oh okay.
- 46:20Speaker 1: Amy had never been prescribed scopolamine. There was no medical
- 46:24Speaker 1: reason for it to be in her system, and certainly
- 46:27Speaker 1: not at that level. This clearly was not accidental. Someone
- 46:31Speaker 1: had given it to her. The only question now was
- 46:34Speaker 1: who and when. Now the timeline starts to come together
- 46:38Speaker 1: through digital breadcrumbs, investigators looked at Amy's phone and saw
- 46:43Speaker 1: that shortly after lunch November thirteenth, the day that she died,
- 46:47Speaker 1: she had tried to look up why she felt so awful.
- 46:50Speaker 1: At one forty eight pm, she visited a Wikipedia site
- 46:53Speaker 1: about vertigo. A minute later, she attempted to type into bing,
- 46:58Speaker 1: but the text came out garbled. She typed quote du
- 47:02Speaker 1: U space y end quote, and then also quote e
- 47:08Speaker 1: space y E space e end quote, and later quote
- 47:15Speaker 1: diy space vw space hh end quote, all in caplocks.
- 47:23Speaker 2: Oh my heart just goes out to her so much
- 47:26Speaker 2: right now.
- 47:27Speaker 1: Yeah, these weren't meaningful searches. They were fragmented, confused, and
- 47:31Speaker 1: though she was she was trying to like figure something out,
- 47:33Speaker 1: but she could not think straight. Like I've been. I
- 47:38Speaker 1: don't want to say I know what she was going through,
- 47:39Speaker 1: but just for context, I've been so drunk before where
- 47:43Speaker 1: I could barely function and I'm like trying to text
- 47:45Speaker 1: you like stag party or something. Right, It's been a
- 47:47Speaker 1: couple times in my life, not gonna lie, not proud
- 47:50Speaker 1: of those moments. But I've tried to like text you
- 47:52Speaker 1: or whatever, call you to come pick me up, and
- 47:54Speaker 1: it that's I can't think straight, And that's what it's like.
- 47:58Speaker 1: And she was even beyond that. And I can't imagine
- 48:00Speaker 1: what she was feeling in those moments.
- 48:02Speaker 2: Yeah, well, she's trying to help herself and she just
- 48:07Speaker 2: she can't like why, like to at first google why
- 48:10Speaker 2: am I not feeling good or whatever? Right, and trying
- 48:13Speaker 2: to figure out a way to be better or get better. Yeah,
- 48:17Speaker 2: and then she's just spiraling downwards.
- 48:20Speaker 1: Yeah, she's just trying to understand what's happening to her.
- 48:23Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, what's happening to you is that your
- 48:26Speaker 2: husband sucks big time and he is just the worst
- 48:30Speaker 2: human being I feel like I've ever encountered.
- 48:33Speaker 1: I agreed. Now, according to him, she'd just gone to
- 48:35Speaker 1: lie down in the bedroom after lunch. But based on
- 48:37Speaker 1: everything investigators were seeing, she had been poisoned with a
- 48:40Speaker 1: powerful drug and then she was at her most disoriented
- 48:44Speaker 1: point and vulnerable that's when she was shot.
- 48:47Speaker 2: And I bet you she didn't even know, probably not
- 48:51Speaker 2: like it wouldn't have. She was so drugged up that
- 48:53Speaker 2: she it wouldn't have all clicked even for her that
- 48:56Speaker 2: oh my gosh, it was him this whole time.
- 48:58Speaker 1: No, she probably wouldn't have known the presence of the
- 49:02Speaker 1: skulp mean rewrote the entire story. This wasn't a woman
- 49:05Speaker 1: overwhelmed by stress or fear taking her own life in desperation.
- 49:08Speaker 1: It was clearly made to seem like it was, but
- 49:10Speaker 1: this was a planned, methodical poisoning to sign, to design sorry,
- 49:15Speaker 1: to incapacitate her, the kind of planning that pointed to
- 49:18Speaker 1: someone very close, someone who knew exactly what she was doing,
- 49:23Speaker 1: And all signs, every single last one of them, kept
- 49:25Speaker 1: circling back to Stephen Allwine. To begin with, he was
- 49:31Speaker 1: the last person to see Amy alive. He'd also told
- 49:34Speaker 1: police that he was working from home in the basement
- 49:36Speaker 1: office on the day that she died, But when investigators
- 49:39Speaker 1: contacted both of employers, both Optimon and United Health Group,
- 49:43Speaker 1: they confirmed that Stephen hadn't logged into their systems at
- 49:46Speaker 1: all that afternoon. So if he wasn't working, then what
- 49:49Speaker 1: exactly was he doing? Then came the analysis from the
- 49:52Speaker 1: family home surveillance system. The cameras which were set up
- 49:55Speaker 1: around the property showed no signs of anyone entering or
- 49:58Speaker 1: leaving the house in the time of the timeframe when
- 50:00Speaker 1: Amy was believed to have died. There's no mass intruder,
- 50:03Speaker 1: no suspicious vehicle, nothing. Whoever killed Amy was clearly already
- 50:07Speaker 1: inside the house. Stephen said that around five pm he
- 50:11Speaker 1: went to check on Amy and saw her kneeling at
- 50:12Speaker 1: the side of the bed, assuming she was praying. A
- 50:15Speaker 1: short time later, he left to pick up his son
- 50:17Speaker 1: Joe from Amy's parents' house, stopped for gas and grabbed
- 50:20Speaker 1: dinner at Culver's, their usual little Sunday tradition, and of
- 50:24Speaker 1: course kept the receipts very carefully, almost too carefully.
- 50:29Speaker 2: Imagine going out for dinner with your son just and
- 50:34Speaker 2: knowing what is about to happen, like when you get home.
- 50:37Speaker 2: I know, Oh my goodness, he is such a monster.
- 50:40Speaker 1: He then returned home at seven pm. Let Joe run
- 50:43Speaker 1: ahead into the house and discover, Yeah, the scene.
- 50:49Speaker 2: Discover his mummy. Yeah, the way that she was like that.
- 50:55Speaker 1: That alone horrified everyone. That Joe was the one sent
- 50:58Speaker 1: in to discover that. That Stephen let his young son
- 51:02Speaker 1: purposefully see this traumatic scene is horrifying enough, and everyone
- 51:09Speaker 1: was baffled to think that you have investigators that are
- 51:12Speaker 1: coming to this realization that he did that on purpose.
- 51:14Speaker 2: Yeah, it's uncomprehendible. Really.
- 51:17Speaker 1: Yeah. From a distance, it seemed like Stephen had timed
- 51:20Speaker 1: everything almost perfectly, a series of steps designed to create
- 51:23Speaker 1: an alibi, maintain normalcy. But there were too many things
- 51:27Speaker 1: that just didn't add up. Lumina. All testing in the
- 51:30Speaker 1: house revealed a story the naked eye couldn't see because,
- 51:33Speaker 1: as I mentioned, in the hallway outside the bedroom, there's
- 51:36Speaker 1: large amounts of blood that was discovered. It had been
- 51:39Speaker 1: cleaned up, not just white, but aggressively scrubbed. Someone had
- 51:42Speaker 1: tracked bloody footprints in the hallway, bathroom, laundry room. Investigators
- 51:46Speaker 1: could even follow a path. In fact, they realized Amy
- 51:49Speaker 1: hadn't even died in bed, She had died in the
- 51:51Speaker 1: hallway and her body had been moved. The scene was
- 51:54Speaker 1: clearly staged. And then there was more inconsistency, one more
- 51:58Speaker 1: specific one. Stephen had claimed not to know anything about
- 52:02Speaker 1: the Dark Web until FBI showed up earlier that year
- 52:05Speaker 1: and told him that, hey, there's a hit out right
- 52:07Speaker 1: mm hm. But Detective discovered apps on his phone designed
- 52:10Speaker 1: specifically for accessing it to be specific, Orbot and or Fox,
- 52:15Speaker 1: which allowed users to get onto the browser tour needed
- 52:20Speaker 1: to view these hidden sits in the wet dark web.
- 52:23Speaker 1: Not something you just accidentally download, right.
- 52:25Speaker 2: No, yeah, I would. I have no idea anything about
- 52:29Speaker 2: the dark web, to be honest, So.
- 52:30Speaker 1: I know what it is and I don't want to
- 52:32Speaker 1: fuck with it, That's all I know.
- 52:34Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I didn't even know you needed specific app,
- 52:36Speaker 2: so he is clearly well versed.
- 52:39Speaker 1: Yeah. The timeline started to take shape in February of
- 52:43Speaker 1: that year, right when dog Day God had started planning
- 52:45Speaker 1: Amy's murder through Bessa Mafia, Stephen's phone had pinged these
- 52:49Speaker 1: same bitcoin exchange sites that the user had referenced in
- 52:53Speaker 1: his messages. He looked up how to convert bitcoin, how
- 52:57Speaker 1: to use tail os, and even how to install privacy
- 53:01Speaker 1: focused operating systems that could mask his activity, all of
- 53:05Speaker 1: these searches happening within minutes of the same topics being
- 53:08Speaker 1: discussed in Bessa Mafia's messages. Then the smoking gun, the
- 53:13Speaker 1: big break that finally brought everything together. It didn't come
- 53:17Speaker 1: from a dramatic search or a late night confession. It
- 53:21Speaker 1: came from something so mundane it almost felt like a
- 53:24Speaker 1: gift to investigators, an automatic iPhone backup. Back in August
- 53:31Speaker 1: of twenty sixteen, just a few months before Amy's murder,
- 53:34Speaker 1: Stephen had backed up his iPhone to his iTunes account.
- 53:38Speaker 1: What he didn't realize at the time was that this
- 53:41Speaker 1: backup preserved even the content that was since deleted, including
- 53:47Speaker 1: a single note that investigators would later describe as the
- 53:50Speaker 1: final undeniable link to the murder of his wife. That
- 53:55Speaker 1: note contained a string of thirty four letters in numbers
- 53:58Speaker 1: meaningless to most people, but instantly recognizable to anyone familiar
- 54:03Speaker 1: with cryptocurrency. It was a Bitcoin wallet address, and just
- 54:09Speaker 1: twenty three seconds after that note was created, the exact
- 54:13Speaker 1: same address was sent in a message from dog Day
- 54:17Speaker 1: God to Bess Mafia to confirm payment. They had a
- 54:22Speaker 1: direct link. His wallet address linked to the hit payment address.
- 54:30Speaker 2: Oh and I bet everyone was just shocked as shit.
- 54:33Speaker 1: Hey, yeah, that was the moment it all connected. The
- 54:37Speaker 1: man who had spent months trying to hire a hit
- 54:40Speaker 1: man to kill his wife using the most secretive corners
- 54:42Speaker 1: of the Internet was in fact her husband, Stephen Alwine
- 54:46Speaker 1: and the digital paper trail that he thought he had
- 54:49Speaker 1: buried had been sitting quietly in the cloud the whole time,
- 54:53Speaker 1: just waiting to be found.
- 54:54Speaker 2: Yeah, this guy really was not near as smart as
- 54:56Speaker 2: he seemed to think he was.
- 54:58Speaker 1: No, he thought he was pretty, but he was Yeah,
- 55:01Speaker 1: not at all. So Steven had also conveniently made searches
- 55:04Speaker 1: for Amy's life insurance policy.
- 55:06Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, this it just keeps getting.
- 55:09Speaker 1: Worse, it does. It was a total payout of seven
- 55:12Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars. He was, of course the sole beneficiary,
- 55:15Speaker 1: and it wasn't hard to figure out the motive from there.
- 55:18Speaker 2: WHOA.
- 55:19Speaker 1: So, as it turns out, Stephen fabricated a lie about
- 55:22Speaker 1: being scammed by someone named Mark over the bitcoin purchases
- 55:27Speaker 1: on Bes of Mafia. So Stephen had actually reported this
- 55:31Speaker 1: to the Cottage Grove police in March of twenty sixteen,
- 55:34Speaker 1: fabricating a lie about the missing money, Okay, trying to
- 55:40Speaker 1: cover his trail his back some month Yeah right, So
- 55:43Speaker 1: he reported that loss right around the time that dog
- 55:45Speaker 1: Day was actually transferring bitcoin to Best of Mafia, and
- 55:49Speaker 1: police couldn't find any emails with the supposed Mark. There
- 55:52Speaker 1: was no trace of this transaction and when they checked
- 55:55Speaker 1: the email address that Mark had supposedly used. It led
- 55:58Speaker 1: right back to a disposable email count that Stephen himself
- 56:01Speaker 1: had accessed. So still, it didn't stop there. Investigators called
- 56:07Speaker 1: Stephen's browser history from his laptop on February sixteenth, just
- 56:12Speaker 1: after one of the darkest messages from dog Day God
- 56:14Speaker 1: had been sent, the one where he finalized a plan
- 56:16Speaker 1: for Amy's murder to look like a car accident. Stephen
- 56:19Speaker 1: has used his computer to search for the very dog
- 56:22Speaker 1: training event in Moloine, Illinois that was listed in the
- 56:25Speaker 1: hit request. In fact, he even used Google Maps to
- 56:28Speaker 1: calculate the drive time.
- 56:30Speaker 2: Oh Man.
- 56:31Speaker 1: The evidence was so strong it made police go back
- 56:35Speaker 1: to what they had already seen and to see if
- 56:38Speaker 1: Steven's name or actions could fit the bill on anything
- 56:42Speaker 1: else in the crime scene. In fact, those bloody footprints
- 56:44Speaker 1: in the hallway the sock bloody footprints. Investigators checked Stephen sock's.
- 56:49Speaker 1: They found a match. They retested his hands, and gunshot
- 56:53Speaker 1: residue was found on the right hand, not enough to
- 56:57Speaker 1: conclusively say he fired the weapon, but enough to say
- 57:00Speaker 1: he'd been very close when it happened. They reanalyzed the
- 57:03Speaker 1: nine one one call and they heard something strange in
- 57:07Speaker 1: the background missed the chaos. Stephen's young son Joe can
- 57:11Speaker 1: be heard asking quote, are you going to remarry? And
- 57:15Speaker 1: Stephen responded oddly, quote I don't know, Bud.
- 57:20Speaker 2: What the heck? That is really weird. Well.
- 57:22Speaker 1: Forensic psychologists later point to this being a situation where
- 57:27Speaker 1: not only did it suggest that he heard his dad,
- 57:31Speaker 1: like Joe heard Stephen talk before potentially about remarrying, it
- 57:36Speaker 1: also hints that Stephen had already begun laying the groundwork
- 57:38Speaker 1: for life after Amy.
- 57:41Speaker 2: What okay?
- 57:44Speaker 1: If Joe is asking are you going to remarry? That
- 57:47Speaker 1: suggests that the conversation of remarrying in life after his
- 57:50Speaker 1: month has already happened. Because remember, this isn't a conversation
- 57:56Speaker 1: you know, a day or two later, when the ca
- 58:00Speaker 1: it has time to ste This is the nine to one.
- 58:02Speaker 1: This has been minutes.
- 58:04Speaker 2: That is, that doesn't make sense. That's mind blowing to me.
- 58:08Speaker 1: So what began as a complex anonymous murder for higher
- 58:11Speaker 1: scheme on the dark web that had led it all
- 58:14Speaker 1: led back to one man, one phone, one catastrophic betrayal,
- 58:19Speaker 1: and now police had plenty enough to arrest him. You
- 58:23Speaker 1: don't say so, On January twentieth, twenty seventeen, Stephen Alwaine
- 58:27Speaker 1: dropped his son off at school and began what probably
- 58:29Speaker 1: felt like just another quiet drive back to his in
- 58:32Speaker 1: law's home. He had actually been staying there since Amy's death,
- 58:35Speaker 1: because they welcomed him in with compassion about the whole event,
- 58:39Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, the very people that he had taken everything.
- 58:41Speaker 2: From that's going to later make them just sick.
- 58:45Speaker 1: Oh probably. But as he made his way home that morning,
- 58:48Speaker 1: police were waiting. During a planned routine traffic stop, officers
- 58:52Speaker 1: placed Stephen under arrest for second degree murder of his wife,
- 58:55Speaker 1: Amy Halwine. The arrest marked the beginning of the final
- 58:59Speaker 1: chapter in a case that had taken nearly a year
- 59:01Speaker 1: to unravel. Stephen, ever, the calm and calculated individual, didn't
- 59:06Speaker 1: make a scene, but what came next was just as
- 59:08Speaker 1: strange as everything that had led up to this moment.
- 59:12Speaker 1: Bail was set for five hundred thousand dollars half a
- 59:15Speaker 1: million dollars, and Stephen paid it almost immediately, and he
- 59:18Speaker 1: bailed himself out of jail.
- 59:20Speaker 2: With his insurance money, most likely oh Man.
- 59:25Speaker 1: He returned to live to the same address on Cottage
- 59:28Speaker 1: Grove at same home where Amy had been murdered, the
- 59:31Speaker 1: same place where he staged the suicide, the same place
- 59:34Speaker 1: where he had deliberately sent his nine year old son
- 59:36Speaker 1: in first to find her body, knowing what would happen. Unsurprisingly,
- 59:40Speaker 1: the court imposed conditions. Stephen had to wear a GPS
- 59:43Speaker 1: ankle monitor and he was only allowed to supervise visits
- 59:46Speaker 1: with his son Joe. But those restrictions didn't seem to
- 59:49Speaker 1: bother him, because two weeks later he was rested once again,
- 59:52Speaker 1: this time for violating terms of his release by trying
- 59:55Speaker 1: to contact Joe directly.
- 59:57Speaker 2: The he just doesn't give a shit, this guy, No.
- 59:59Speaker 1: He really. The judge raised his bail to six hundred
- 1:00:03Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and again Stephen paid it, but after grand
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: jury reviewed the full scope of the evidence, the charge
- 1:00:09Speaker 1: was upgraded. On March twenty fourth, twenty seventeen, Stephen was
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: formally charged with first degree premeditated murder. His new bail
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: was set for one million dollars, and this time he
- 1:00:20Speaker 1: couldn't make the payment, so Stephen was to remain in
- 1:00:23Speaker 1: custody to await the trial.
- 1:00:25Speaker 2: Okay, when you had said second degree, at first, I
- 1:00:28Speaker 2: was like, what the yeah?
- 1:00:30Speaker 1: His trial began on January eighth. His trial began in
- 1:00:35Speaker 1: January of twenty eighteen. It was expected to be complex,
- 1:00:38Speaker 1: full of digital forensics and expert testimonies, and it was,
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: but in the end, the story came down to something
- 1:00:45Speaker 1: brutally simple. A man who wanted his wife dead and
- 1:00:48Speaker 1: who went to extraordinary lengths to make it happen was
- 1:00:52Speaker 1: the exact individual sitting in the courtroom. Prosecutors argued that
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: Stephen had carefully poisoned Amy with scopolamine around lunchtime on
- 1:01:02Speaker 1: November thirteenth, when she started feeling dizzy and disoriented. He
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: called her father, asking him to come pick up Joe.
- 1:01:09Speaker 1: That got his son out of the house, and then
- 1:01:12Speaker 1: once they were alone, Stephen waited for the drugs to
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: take its full effect. Amy could barely stand her words
- 1:01:18Speaker 1: were slurred. He then shot her in the head in
- 1:01:22Speaker 1: the hallway, then drug her body into the bedroom and
- 1:01:26Speaker 1: cleaned up the scene. He pulled her pants down, slightly,
- 1:01:29Speaker 1: left the gun by her side, arranged her body all
- 1:01:32Speaker 1: in an attempt to try and make it look like
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: she had taken her own life, then calmly picked up
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: Joe from his in law's house took him out to
- 1:01:39Speaker 1: dinner and brought him home to find her. It was cold, meticulous,
- 1:01:45Speaker 1: and it fit perfectly with everything they now knew about
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: Stephen and his life. The man who stood in front
- 1:01:51Speaker 1: of the jury was no longer the church leader and
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: a loving husband. He was a manipulator, a liar, and
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: a serial adulter who had made multiple affairs. When asked
- 1:02:03Speaker 1: why he hadn't just left his wife, the prosecution gave
- 1:02:07Speaker 1: the answer Stephen never would. Divorce was against his religion.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: But I guess murder and adultery though, aren't we aren't.
- 1:02:15Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like, is all this other stuff not? Or
- 1:02:18Speaker 2: he just thought he would be able to get away
- 1:02:20Speaker 2: with it.
- 1:02:20Speaker 1: I guess I think it's public view if he can
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: do these things and get away with it without people knowing.
- 1:02:26Speaker 1: He did, But he couldn't do that as a divorce
- 1:02:29Speaker 1: without people knowing, right, So it came down to what
- 1:02:32Speaker 1: he can do behind the scenes and maintain the facade
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: of the perfect man that Stephen thinks he is.
- 1:02:39Speaker 2: But he's also a complete idiot. Yeah, because I'm sorry,
- 1:02:43Speaker 2: but you didn't do any of this stuff. Well, no,
- 1:02:45Speaker 2: you're not going to get away. You didn't get away
- 1:02:47Speaker 2: with it.
- 1:02:48Speaker 1: Exactly if you're going online to say, can you kill
- 1:02:52Speaker 1: my spouse for me? First red flag that you're doing
- 1:02:54Speaker 1: something dumb and stupid, just saying mm hmm. Now. Amy's
- 1:02:59Speaker 1: family filled the courtroom. They sat through testimonies about digital currency,
- 1:03:03Speaker 1: ENCRYPTID software, fake hit man, websites, and a man they
- 1:03:06Speaker 1: had once considered family. They heard how Stephen had tried
- 1:03:10Speaker 1: to cover his tracks, how he failed, and how through
- 1:03:13Speaker 1: pure luck that an iPhone backup had preserved the evidence
- 1:03:17Speaker 1: needed to convict him in court. After eight days of testimony,
- 1:03:21Speaker 1: the jury took six hours to deliver the verdict of guilty.
- 1:03:26Speaker 1: Stephen Allwine was sentenced to life in prison without the
- 1:03:29Speaker 1: possibility of parole. Amy Allwine's murder, planned through the shadows
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: of the dark web, has become one of the most
- 1:03:37Speaker 1: infamous modern examples on how online criminal tools are revolving
- 1:03:41Speaker 1: and how the real consequences can actually be in the
- 1:03:45Speaker 1: real world. For law enforcement, the all Wine case prompted
- 1:03:49Speaker 1: a hard look at how serious dark web threats are treated.
- 1:03:53Speaker 1: In the months before Amy's death, the FBI knew something
- 1:03:56Speaker 1: and someone like something was going on, and someone was
- 1:03:59Speaker 1: trying to get to and trying to have her killed,
- 1:04:01Speaker 1: but the limitations of technology, jurisdiction, and anonymity tied their hands.
- 1:04:06Speaker 1: Amy was told she was being targeted, yet nothing could
- 1:04:09Speaker 1: be done to protect her from the men sleeping beside
- 1:04:11Speaker 1: her every night. Her murder proved that the next person
- 1:04:16Speaker 1: placing an order on a hitman site might not actually
- 1:04:19Speaker 1: be scammed, they might follow through with it. In the
- 1:04:23Speaker 1: cybercrime world, the fallout was just as dramatic. Ethical hackers
- 1:04:28Speaker 1: like Chris Monteiro, who had been sounding the alarm about
- 1:04:31Speaker 1: Bess Mafia long before the murder, were both validated and frustrated.
- 1:04:36Speaker 1: His efforts to expose the scam site had uncovered real danger,
- 1:04:39Speaker 1: but warning signs had gone largely unheard. After Amy's murder
- 1:04:45Speaker 1: and Stephen's arrest, Chris Monteiro continued monitoring the dark web
- 1:04:49Speaker 1: hitman sites, collecting and forwarding information on more than two
- 1:04:53Speaker 1: hundred murdered for higher plots to authorities, but still the
- 1:04:58Speaker 1: response was sluggish. As for most recent reporting, only a
- 1:05:02Speaker 1: hand of full of these ones and plots have actually
- 1:05:05Speaker 1: resulted in actual arrests or investigations. Eura, the name of
- 1:05:10Speaker 1: the individual behind Besa Mafia, faded into the background but
- 1:05:14Speaker 1: never really disappeared. After Bessa Mafia collapsed, he rebranded under
- 1:05:19Speaker 1: different names like Crime Bay and Nosa Nostra. Sorry, Costa Nostra.
- 1:05:26Speaker 1: He kept continuing to have these run and be this
- 1:05:29Speaker 1: hitman scam for profit sort of situation. Now while his
- 1:05:33Speaker 1: services were fake, the people placing those orders were real
- 1:05:36Speaker 1: and very dangerous. In time, Ura even actually began cooperating
- 1:05:40Speaker 1: with journalists, occasionally passing along information that led to the
- 1:05:43Speaker 1: prevention of further crimes, But the ethics of that collaboration
- 1:05:47Speaker 1: and Eury's own motives remain a big point of debate.
- 1:05:52Speaker 1: Amy's legacy is one of tragedy, but it's also one
- 1:05:55Speaker 1: of warning. She was not someone living a high risk
- 1:05:57Speaker 1: lifestyle or tangled in criminal activity. She was a mother,
- 1:06:01Speaker 1: a business owner, a church volunteer, someone who lived her
- 1:06:05Speaker 1: life in kindness and in faith. Her murders showed that
- 1:06:08Speaker 1: violence doesn't always come from strangers, and that even the
- 1:06:11Speaker 1: darkest crimes can unfold behind well maintained facades. Stephen Allline
- 1:06:16Speaker 1: is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
- 1:06:20Speaker 1: He never confessed. In fact, he still maintains his innocence
- 1:06:24Speaker 1: to this day, even as the evidence against him leaves
- 1:06:27Speaker 1: absolutely zero room for doubt.
- 1:06:30Speaker 2: So that just shows that he is no remorse really, hey,
- 1:06:33Speaker 2: or I guess he's just continuing with this frickin facade
- 1:06:36Speaker 2: that he is a good guy.
- 1:06:37Speaker 1: He's trying to still maintain who he is. And I mean,
- 1:06:41Speaker 1: even in the face of like absolute no room for doubt,
- 1:06:46Speaker 1: you did this thing. It's like, no, not me, I
- 1:06:49Speaker 1: am perfect little Stephen.
- 1:06:50Speaker 2: And no regard for his son either, no, because now, like,
- 1:06:54Speaker 2: where the hell is his son? I mean, I'm sure
- 1:06:56Speaker 2: someone is looking after him, but there would have been
- 1:06:59Speaker 2: a time there where he had nobody and he lost
- 1:07:01Speaker 2: both his parents.
- 1:07:01Speaker 1: He lose both his parents, but Joe is actually growing
- 1:07:04Speaker 1: up with Amy's family, so he is surrounded by love
- 1:07:07Speaker 1: like stability, and those who knew and still remembered her. Right, Okay,
- 1:07:11Speaker 1: they remember her compassion, her unmistakable joy and those sort
- 1:07:15Speaker 1: of things are brought into his life. That's good, But
- 1:07:18Speaker 1: they also do remain remember things like the dog training,
- 1:07:21Speaker 1: right as well, because there is that community that she
- 1:07:23Speaker 1: helped build, and he continues to live on with many
- 1:07:26Speaker 1: of them honoring her name at events and gatherings too.
- 1:07:29Speaker 2: Okay, well, good, so her life.
- 1:07:31Speaker 1: And the way it was taken continues to be studied, mourned,
- 1:07:34Speaker 1: and remembered. And that is a story of amy online.
- 1:07:39Speaker 2: Oh i'm I didn't expect that ending. No, I'm not
- 1:07:44Speaker 2: gonna lie. I thought that she would live.
- 1:07:47Speaker 1: Well, I was hoping so, but no, the.
- 1:07:49Speaker 2: Fact that she didn't is just bullshit.
- 1:07:53Speaker 1: Also, he can just maintain the profile of the perfect
- 1:07:59Speaker 1: churchgoer who wants to sleep around with people, and hey,
- 1:08:04Speaker 1: get a life insurance pay it while he's at it.
- 1:08:06Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't understand, Like, who is this guy think
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: he is? Obviously he is just he never was good really.
- 1:08:14Speaker 1: No, not at all. He was a piece of shit
- 1:08:17Speaker 1: from the start, one hundred percent. Because he knew going
- 1:08:20Speaker 1: into this relationship that you know what, with your religion,
- 1:08:23Speaker 1: with what religion she had, like they adopted a son together.
- 1:08:27Speaker 1: He knew what he was building and then he had
- 1:08:30Speaker 1: no care in the world to just throw it aside,
- 1:08:33Speaker 1: not even throw it aside in the terms of having
- 1:08:36Speaker 1: the balls to divorce, having the balls to face that
- 1:08:40Speaker 1: it's not a life he actually wanted. He made a mistake. Instead,
- 1:08:44Speaker 1: he made other people suffer for the mistake. He then
- 1:08:47Speaker 1: later learned that he made.
- 1:08:49Speaker 2: Okay, sorry, did you say how much time he got
- 1:08:51Speaker 2: in jail? And I just like rage, like I didn't
- 1:08:54Speaker 2: hear that a life term, Okay, yeah, I mean which
- 1:08:59Speaker 2: is good? Like, oh man, I don't know. Sometimes I'm okay,
- 1:09:05Speaker 2: life is good, but it's like still sometimes I think
- 1:09:08Speaker 2: it's just like not good enough, you know, when Amy
- 1:09:11Speaker 2: literally just doesn't isn't alive anymore. So yeah, anyway, that
- 1:09:16Speaker 2: is a whole nother story or podcast.
- 1:09:18Speaker 1: Right, definitely, Oh, I feel like sneeze coming on. Oh wait, no,
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: it's good, it's gone. That was like the worst feeling
- 1:09:26Speaker 1: in the world because I love sneezes and I had
- 1:09:27Speaker 1: to force it to leave because I've got the micd
- 1:09:29Speaker 1: on me.
- 1:09:30Speaker 2: So well that sucks.
- 1:09:32Speaker 1: Yeah, it does suck.
- 1:09:33Speaker 2: Okay, Well, now I guess you can continue on with
- 1:09:36Speaker 2: your day being sick.
- 1:09:37Speaker 1: Oh right, Hopefully I didn't sound too terrible in today's episode.
- 1:09:41Speaker 1: I know it got a little bit if he had
- 1:09:43Speaker 1: a couple of points I stopped to blow my nose
- 1:09:45Speaker 1: or get a good coffin things like that, but hopefully
- 1:09:48Speaker 1: it wasn't noticeable.
- 1:09:50Speaker 2: Hopefully you heard some cute little chickies.
- 1:09:52Speaker 1: Yeah, they've been making some noise, so because.
- 1:09:54Speaker 2: They're freaking adorable. We need to actually post them in
- 1:09:57Speaker 2: patreons some photos we should.
- 1:09:59Speaker 1: That'll be up to you. You do it. You're all about
- 1:10:01Speaker 1: taking the photos of them.
- 1:10:02Speaker 2: So I did a whole damn reel of them.
- 1:10:04Speaker 1: Yeah that was for you, your own personal social.
- 1:10:07Speaker 2: I know I'm a little extra apparently with He's chickens.
- 1:10:10Speaker 1: Yeah you are. But anyways, thank you for being here.
- 1:10:12Speaker 1: Hopefully enjoyed today's episode. Don't forget to like subscribe all
- 1:10:16Speaker 1: those things. I know this isn't YouTube, but you can
- 1:10:18Speaker 1: do those things on some of the platforms that you're
- 1:10:19Speaker 1: listening on right now. You can also do things like
- 1:10:21Speaker 1: join our Patreon check out the description for things like
- 1:10:24Speaker 1: our website social media. You can even give us a
- 1:10:27Speaker 1: review where an indie podcast host produced and read research
- 1:10:30Speaker 1: all on our own. Are a little lonesome here in
- 1:10:33Speaker 1: your tiny home, so your support goes a long way
- 1:10:35Speaker 1: with us. So thank you very much.
- 1:10:37Speaker 2: Yeah, sure does. Thank you. And I just have to say,
- 1:10:41Speaker 2: don't hire a murderer.
- 1:10:44Speaker 1: Don't hire a murder Words of wisdom for the Day.
- 1:10:46Speaker 2: From Nicole Cole. Yeah, like that is just I wish
- 1:10:50Speaker 2: shit like that didn't exists.
- 1:10:52Speaker 1: That just says, don't hire a murderer.
- 1:10:54Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 1:10:55Speaker 1: Period, No, it'll be like Nicole.
- 1:10:58Speaker 2: Quote from Nicole my quote of the day. Oh my god, don't.
- 1:11:02Speaker 1: Hire a murderer.
- 1:11:03Speaker 2: Anyway, until next time, stay wicked,