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Eli Weaver - The Amish Stud Murder Plot · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to just, you know, close your eyes
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: for a second. Well, assuming you aren't driving, of course.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely keep your eyes on the road if you're
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: behind the wheel.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Right, exactly. But if you can, just picture the absolute
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: quintessential image of an Amish community. Like what immediately pops
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: into your head?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, you're probably seeing those peaceful, rolling, emerald
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: green farmlands, right? Like Apple Creek, Ohio.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. You can almost hear that rhythmic, hypnotic clicking
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: of the horse-drawn buggies going down a misty country road
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: at dawn.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: It's idyllic.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It really is. You just think of this life that
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: is completely, unwaveringly dedicated to faith, to family, and to
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: this really unbending commitment to agrarian simplicity.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a place where all that crushing noise of
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: the modern world just, well, it just doesn't exist. Right.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Right. The incessant buzzing of cell phones, the toxic churn
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of social media, all that relentless 24-7 digital chatter that
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: completely exhausts the rest of us.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: It's this picture of utter, enviable tranquility. And it's an
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: incredibly powerful image.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And it's one that those of us in the outside world,
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: or the English world, which is what the Amish call
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: everyone outside their faith, we really tend to deeply romanticize it.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure. We look at that engineered simplicity and
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: we just automatically conflate it with moral purity.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: There's this pervasive assumption that if a community is walled
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: off from modern technology, well, then it must inherently be
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: walled off from modern sins, too.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Right, like modern psychological manipulation and violence just somehow can't
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: cross the county line.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which is just not reality.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, which is just not reality.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Not at all. So now I want you to imagine
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: taking that idyllic, picture-perfect postcard of Apple Creek, Ohio, and
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: just shattering it into a million jagged pieces.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is where it gets really dark.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: Imagine dropping right into the middle of that pristine farmland
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: a secret hidden cell phone.
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Just glowing in the dark.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: Right. Imagine the glowing blue light of an online dating
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: profile illuminating the dark wooden interior of an Amish farmhouse
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: at midnight.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: And under a pretty wild username, too.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Yes. A profile operating under the incredibly audacious moniker Amish Stud.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's so jarring to even think about.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: And then, on top of all that, imagine a cold-blooded,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: meticulously calculated, and brutal murder plot.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly what we are getting into today. It is.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Today for this deep dive, we're pulling from a really
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: unsettling piece of investigative writing by Hannah Riley Holtz.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Over all that's interesting, right? Yep.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: The article is titled The Crimes of Eli Weaver. And
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: our mission for this deep dive is to unpack this
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: absolutely shocking duality.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: We are going to map out this crazy secret double
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: life of Eli Weaver.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: But I think more importantly, we really want to examine
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the systemic vulnerabilities within these highly insular closed loop communities.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the invisible cultural scaffolding that allows terrifying domestic abuse
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: to just hide right in plain sight. Exactly.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Ultimately, we're looking at the chilling reality of how an
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Amish housewife, a devoted mother of five, was betrayed in
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: the most profound way conceivable.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: And betrayed by the exact person she was commanded by
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: her faith to trust the most.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: It's just heartbreaking. So to really grasp the sheer gravity
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: of this betrayal, we have to establish that the baseline
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: physics of the world we're stepping into.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Right, because this isn't just a group of people who,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you know, prefer a slower, more rustic lifestyle.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: No, not at all. The Weavers belong to a very
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: conservative subgroup of the Old Order Amish.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: Which means they live under a rigid, religiously mandated, and
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: heavily surveilled code of conduct.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: The Ordnung, right?
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly, the Ordnung. The rules governing their daily existence are
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: completely explicit and non-negotiable.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: We're talking no cell phones, absolutely no internet.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: They aren't even permitted to take photographs of themselves.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? No photos at all?
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: None. No photos, no painted portraits. Doing so is viewed
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: as a promotion of vanity and pride.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Right. It's about idolizing the individual over the collective.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Exactly. So they travel exclusively by horse and buggy. Their
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: entire societal structure, their economy... There's spiritual life. It's all
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: built around this concept of separation.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Right. Maintaining a literal and spiritual wall against the temptations
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: of the modern world.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So when we talk about Eli Weaver acquiring a
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: secret cell phone and building an online dating profile.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: He isn't just bending some minor community guideline.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: No. He is systematically and consciously violating the foundational tenets
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: of his entire culture.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: And his eternal salvation in their eyes. Right.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: It's a massive, massive transgression.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: You know, it makes me think of like a perfectly
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: constructed Hollywood movie set.
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's a good way to look at it.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If you're standing on the street as a tourist
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: looking at the front of the buildings, it's beautiful.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: It's serene. It looks totally, perfectly solid and historical.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But if you walk around to the back of
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the set, you realize it's nothing but a facade.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: It's completely hollow.
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Hollow and held up by this decaying, unstable, incredibly dangerous scaffolding.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: And that's really what we're asking you to do today
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: as you listen. We want you to step behind that
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: facade with us.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Step behind the movie set of this seemingly perfect Amish
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: marriage and really look closely at the rotting wood holding
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: it all together.
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: Because that visual perfectly encapsulates the illusion of the Weaver marriage.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: Right. It looked totally structurally sound to anyone just casually
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: walking past.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: And to understand the depth of the horror that unfolds,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: we first have to look at that public facing facade.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: So Barbara and Eli Weaver had been married for 10 years.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: They were raising five young children in this really picturesque setting.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: And by all external accounts, they were a pillar of
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the Apple Creek community.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: The neighbors had nothing but glowing things to say about them.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Like Hannah Riley Holtz highlights this one perspective from a
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: neighbor named Mary Eicher.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she described Barbara, who's only 30 years old at
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: the time. as this incredibly friendly, sociable person.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: A gentle soul, I think she said.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Right. A really laid-back, gentle soul. And Eli, he was outgoing.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: He was polite.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Mary specifically noted that Eli possessed a tremendous amount of charm.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: Which is such a red flag in hindsight.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Oh, totally. Like, he would frequently come over to her house,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes late in the evening, just to ask for rides.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: And he was always incredibly considerate about it.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, practically bending over backward to apologize for interrupting her evening.
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: Well, let's dissect how Eli was actively weaponizing that charm,
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: because it's so textbook. Right.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: It's a huge pattern in the architecture of severe domestic abuse,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: isn't it?
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Perpetrators of coercive control often go way, way out
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: of their way to cultivate this pristine, unassailable public reputation.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So by being the outgoing, polite, apologetic neighbor who just
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: needs a quick favor... He's building a shield.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: He's constructing a psychological shield, exactly. He is ensuring that
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: the community views him as a considerate, friendly family man.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Because of the collective consensus that you are just this harmless,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: gregarious guy.
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: The community is significantly less likely to scrutinize your private behavior.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: And, crucially, they are far less likely to believe any
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: accusations against you if the victim ever tries to cry
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: for help.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It's a preemptive strike against her credibility.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: But wait, I struggle with the logistics of maintaining that shield. Like,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: it's one thing to turn on the charm for 10
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: minutes on your neighbor's front porch.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: Sure, when you just need a lift into town.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Right, but how does someone maintain that sophisticated mask 24
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: hours a day, 7 days a week, in a community
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: that is this suffocatingly tight-knit?
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: It's difficult.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, we're talking about an agrarian society where everyone
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: literally knows everyone's business. Homes are physically close, there are
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: no fences.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: And your social life revolves entirely around church and communal labor. Exactly.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: So how do the cracks not become glaringly obvious to
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: the elders?
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: Well, the cracks absolutely do show. But insular communities often
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: possess these powerful built-in cultural mechanisms to aggressively gloss over them.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, interesting.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: We'll dive into the theology of that in a bit.
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: But first, you have to look at who he was charming.
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, you mean Mary Eicher? Yeah. The neighbor with the
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: glowing character reference? Yeah.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Mary's a really fascinating figure in this ecosystem because she
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: was a Mennonite taxi driver.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Which, just that phrase, Mennonite taxi driver, it sounds like
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a complete oxymoron if you aren't familiar with Anabaptist subcultures.
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Can you break down how that actually functions for the listener?
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a vital sociological piece of this puzzle. So
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: the Amish refused to drive cars, right?
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Because they view car ownership as a tether to the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: secular world. Exactly.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It promotes mobility away from the family and the church.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: But they still exist in the 21st century.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Right. They have modern needs.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: They need to travel distances that are just physically impossible
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: for a horse and buggy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Like a 50-mile trip to a specialized lumber supplier or something.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: Or visiting a distant hospital. Or going out of state
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: for weddings. To solve this, they hire drivers from the outside.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And very often, they specifically hire Mennonites.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. because Mennonites share a common Anabaptist historical root with
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: the Amish. They broke off from the same tree centuries ago.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: So they share a lot of conservative Christian values. the
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: modesty in dress, the focus on community.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: But Mennonites generally embrace certain modern technologies, most notably electricity
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: and automobiles.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: So they basically serve as this incredibly specific cultural bridge?
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Precisely. A Mennonite taxi driver like Mary Eicher operates in
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: this highly unique liminal space.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: She's an insider because she understands the nuanced cultural faux pas.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: She probably speaks Pennsylvania Dutch.
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: And she shares the religious ancestry.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: But she is definitively an outsider because she operates a
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: motor vehicle.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: She holds a driver's license.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: And she provides a modern secular service for cash.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: Right. So Eli targeting her with his charm is a
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: highly strategic move. She is his literal and metaphorical vehicle
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: to the outside world.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's wild. Yeah. And ironically, that very specific profession,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: the Mennonite taxi driver, becomes the absolute fatal focal point
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: of the entire tragedy later on.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: That is so deeply eerie when you step back and
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: see how these sociological pieces lock into place.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: It's all connected.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So Eli has this bulletproof public persona. The elder see
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a charming guy, a submissive wife, five kids, a decade
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: of marriage.
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: The perfect movie set.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. But those cracks you mentioned, he wasn't letting
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: them show in the physical reality of Apple Creek.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: No, he was hiding them in a dimension where no
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: Amish bishop or elder would ever in a million years
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: go looking for him.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Right. He hid his true self in the digital realm.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: And this is where the profound, staggering duality of Eli
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: Weaver really takes shape. He acquired a secret cell phone.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: He started frequenting online chat rooms online. He was plunging
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: headfirst into a world that his religion literally viewed as
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: the domain of the devil.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: And he wasn't just like quietly observing from the sidelines.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: He created a highly active, aggressive online dating profile.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Under the name Amish Stud.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Amish Stud. It's almost comical if it wasn't so dark.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Hannah Riley Holtz's article notes that his profile actually included
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: shirtless selfies.
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, just think about that.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: He is soliciting affairs on the Internet, and his opening line,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: his carefully crafted icebreaker to women across Ohio, was literally,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: who wants to do an Amish guy?
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Spilled with the number two.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Spilled with the number two. It's so cringy, but also
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: so deliberate.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Well, consider the extreme psychological compartmentalization required to actually execute this.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not just breaking a minor rule like sneaking
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a cigarette behind the barn.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: He is actively, intentionally exploiting his sacred religious identity as
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: a fetishized novelty.
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: He's keenly aware that to the outside secular internet, an
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Amish guy is a curiosity.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: It's taboo. It is the ultimate forbidden fruit for these
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: chat rooms.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: Right. And he is leaning hard into that taboo to
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: attract women, commodifying his own cultural isolation for sexual gratification.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: And the deepest, most suffocating hypocrisy of all this is
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: that while he's doing this.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: While he's living this entirely secular, rule-breaking, hyper-modern double life.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: Right. He is simultaneously returning home to his farmhouse and
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: demanding absolute, strict adherence to Orthodox Amish tradition from his wife, Barbara.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: The blazing irony of this situation is just incredible to me.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: It's infuriating.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: He is utilizing the very technology, a cellular device, wireless data,
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the internet, digital photography, that his religion views as worldly
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: and corrupting.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: And spiritually fatal.
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, spiritually fatal. Yet his entire marketing strategy on these
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: dating sites relies 100% on the pure, simple, untainted Amish
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: brand to attract these women.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: He is selling them the fantasy of the innocent, rugged,
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: apple creek farmer. while wielding the exact modern tools that
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: completely destroy that innocence.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: It is the ultimate paradox of his personality. But you know,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you really have to wonder about the immense logistical effort
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: involved here.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: The sheer mental bandwidth required to maintain this infrastructure of
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: lies is staggering.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about those logistics, actually, because this is the
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: part that completely short-circuits my brain.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's get into it.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Imagine you are the listener for a second, How do
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: you hide a secret cell phone life when you are
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: old order Amish?
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Right, because you do not have electricity in your house.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You can't just plug an iPhone into the kitchen
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: wall at night while your wife sleeps.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: No, absolutely not.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: How is he charging this thing? Where is he keeping it?
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Well, the investigation revealed a really critical detail here. Eli
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: ran a gun store. Oh, okay. Operating a specialized business
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: provided him with a unique level of independence. And crucially...
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It gave him frequent, sanctioned interaction with non-Amish suppliers and customers.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: Right. So a business environment, even if it's just a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: small outbuilding on an Amish farm, it provides immense cover.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It provides a physical space away from the domestic
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: sphere of the house to just hide a physical device.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: So maybe he charged it using a 12-volt car battery adapter.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Or maybe he used an outlet at an English supplier's
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: warehouse when he went to pick up stock.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: Exactly. And more importantly, the business provided a reason to
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: have an opaque stream of income.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: Money that might not be scrutinized penny by penny by
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: his wife or the community elders. OK, so charging it
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: at the shop makes physical sense. But what about the billing?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: That's the trickier part.
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is 2008, 2009. You need a data
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: plan for Internet access. In a community where cash is king,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: where bank statements aren't a normal part of household management.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: And where the daily mail delivery is probably highly visible
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: to everyone in the family. Right.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: How is he paying for a cellular plan without Barbara
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: noticing money disappearing or the mailman dropping off a Verizon
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: bill at the farm?
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: It strongly implies a hidden, off-the-book stream of cash. Or
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: perhaps a transactional arrangement with an English acquaintance who was
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: willing to put the phone in their name.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, and then Eli just slips them cash under the
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: table at the gun shop.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly. What this really demonstrates at a psychological level
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: is his relentless calculation.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: This wasn't just a crime of sudden passion.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: No, it wasn't a momentary lapse in moral judgment. Maintaining
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: this double life requires daily conscious deception.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: He has to lie about where he is, who he
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is talking to, why he is staying late in the shop,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: where his money is going.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: Every single day he wakes up and makes a conscious
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: choice to deceive everyone in his orbit.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: And that level of deception, that insatiable need for absolute secrecy,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it requires total authoritarian control over your physical environment.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: Which leads us directly to what was actually happening behind
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: the facade of that movie set.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Because Eli's secret life wasn't just about infidelity and shirtless selfies.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: It was fundamentally about power.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: And that demand for power bled violently into his daily
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: treatment of Barbara. This is where the narrative really shifts,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: doesn't it? From a story about a hypocritical, philandering husband
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: to a deeply disturbing study of severe, systemic domestic abuse.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: It does. The reporting shows that Eli began systematically withholding
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: money from Barbara.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: He refused to give her funds for the most basic
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: human necessities.
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: Things like groceries for the house or care for their
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: five children.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: And we know for a fact that his gun store
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: was doing fine financially.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, the business was solvent.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: So this was not a case of a struggling farmer
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: who literally did not have the cash to feed his
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: family because of a bad harvest.
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: No. Barbara's sister Fannie Troyer actually went on the record
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: and explicitly stated that this starvation of resources was not
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: about a lack of money.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: She said, quote, it was about control.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Which is so telling.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Financial abuse is one of the most effective, insidious methods
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: of coercive control available to an abuser.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Especially in a society where women are already culturally barred
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: from holding bank accounts or owning property independently.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: By stripping Barbara of access to physical cash, he is
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: systematically stripping her of any agency.
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: She cannot leave. She cannot hire a taxi to run away.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: She cannot even buy a loaf of bread for her
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: children without his explicit, humiliating permission.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: She is reduced to a state of total manufactured dependency.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: And the terror wasn't just financial, unfortunately. The reporting indicates
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: that the children reportedly witnessed physical abuse in the home
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: God, it's so awful. So we have a woman who
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: is being financially starved, physically battered, and emotionally shattered.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: And we know she was processing this deeply, too.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, because she actually wrote letters to her counselor.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Those letters are just profoundly heartbreaking.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: They really are. One quote from these letters, she wrote,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: Where did my friend, love, trustworthy husband go to? He
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: hates me to the core.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: She's completely lucid. She knows exactly what is happening to her.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: So you have to think about this. Why doesn't she
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: report him to the local Ohio police? Why doesn't she
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: scream for help to the neighbors who think she's this
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: gentle soul?
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: To understand her silence, you really have to examine the
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: systemic theological barriers built into the community itself. Right.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Why couldn't she report the abuse?
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: Because... The structural response of her society was designed from
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: the ground up to protect the institution of marriage above
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: the physical safety of the individual.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: The Amish practiced this concept of submission and yielding to
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: higher authority. Yes.
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: An Amish leader was actually quoted in the aftermath explaining
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: exactly what would have happened if Barbara had come forward
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: to the elders with bruises or complaints.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: And what did he say?
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: He said she would have been looked at and asked,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: what did you do that your husband would treat you
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: like this?
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: Stop right there. What did you do? I want the
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: listener to really internalize what that means for a victim.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: If your entire support system, your religious elders, your parents,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: your siblings, your neighbors, is inherently programmed to question the
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: abused rather than confront the abuser.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It ceases to be just a bad marriage.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It becomes a psychological prison. There are no iron bars
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: on the windows of that farmhouse, but she is locked
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: in a cage just the same.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: It is the clinical definition of a closed system.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Put yourself in the terrifying, all-encompassing isolation Barbara Weaver must
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: have navigated every single day. Let's just map out her
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: reality for a second.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, let's map it.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: She has no cell phone to call 911.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: She has no internet to secretly Google the location of
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: women's shelters or domestic violence resources.
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: She has absolutely zero financial independence because Eli controls all
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: the physical cash.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: She's not legally or culturally permitted to drive a car
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: to physically escape the county.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Her entire religious community, which is her only lifeline, defaults
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: to a theology of victim-blaming.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: So where does she go? Who does she tell?
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: She is on an island, entirely surrounded by an ideology
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that insists she is somehow spiritually responsible for her own
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: physical suffering.
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: It is suffocating just to conceptualize.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: It really is. And meanwhile, Eli is out playing the
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Amish stud, charming the Mennonite taxi drivers... running a successful
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: gun shop and living it up online.
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: The disparity in their realities is nauseating.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: But, you know, it begs a massive glaring question.
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: If the marriage was so miserable for him to, and
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Eli clearly despised the restrictive rules of his religion so
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: much that he was dedicating all this energy to a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: double life, why didn't he just pack a bag and leave?
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: Right. Why stay and actively torture her?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Exactly. That is always the logical question from an
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: outsider's secular perspective. If you don't like the life, just
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: leave the life.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: And the truth is, Eli actually did try.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: He did?
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The historical record notes that on two separate occasions
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: during their marriage, Eli left his family and the church
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: to live as English.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: To fully immerse himself in the outside world.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: And what happened? Did he just get homesick for the farm?
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: No, the reality was much more revealing of his character.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Both times, he completely failed to adapt to secular society.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: Really? Yeah.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: He would stay away for a few months, and then
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: he would come crawling back to the community, begging the
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: elders for forgiveness.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Wow. Rebecca Morris, who wrote that brilliant book on this case,
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: A Killing in Amish Country.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Oh, yes, an excellent book.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: She provided a really piercing analysis of his failures out
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in the English world. She pointed out that Eli found
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: life on the outside to be incredibly hard.
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: Because he actually had to figure out how to make
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: a living without the communal safety net.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Morris concluded that he simply wasn't mature enough to
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: handle the crushing realities of adult life, modern responsibilities, and marriage.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: That makes so much sense when you think about it.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: It really does. He goes out into the English world
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: where he theoretically has all the freedom he's been craving, right?
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: He can use a cell phone out in the open.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: He can date whoever he wants. He can wear whatever
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: clothes he wants.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: But out here in the modern capitalist world, nobody is
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: going to automatically defer to him just because he is
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the patriarch of a household.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: Nope. Out here, he has to pay rent. He has
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: to file taxes. He has to show up for a
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: modern job on time.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: And he has to be accountable without the massive, invisible
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: safety net of the Amish community bailing him out when
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: he fails.
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: Right. He discovered the psychological trap he had built for himself.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: He deeply desired the absolute freedom of the English world,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: but he violently rejected the work and individual responsibility that
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: comes with it.
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: Conversely, he enjoyed the comfort, the predictability, and the built-in
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: patriarchal power he held by default in the Amish world.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: But he despised the rules restricting his impulses.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Exactly. He was caught in a no-man's land, entirely unsuited
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: to be a responsible, functioning adult in either civilization.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: Freedom without work. versus comfort without rules. He's basically throwing
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: a lethal tantrum because he realizes he can't have his
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: cake and eat it too.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: It's incredibly childish, but so dangerous.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Right. But let's look at the chilling logic that kept
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: him from just going to the courthouse and getting a
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: legal divorce.
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: Because there is a very specific logic to it in
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: his mind.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, his own attorney, Andrew Hyde, laid out the stark
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: reality of the situation in the reporting. Hyde said, quote,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: if he had left, he would have been shunned. if
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: his wife is dead, they pat him on the back.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: God, that quote is astounding in its bluntness, but it
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: is culturally accurate.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: It is incredibly twisted social mathematics.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Break down what that attorney is actually saying for us.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Well, in Eli's mind, based on the strict rules of
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: his society, the ultimate sin was not murder.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Right. The ultimate social sin, the thing that would permanently
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: ruin his life, cut him off from his family, bankrupt
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: his business, and destroy his social standing was divorce and
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: abandoning the church.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: To Eli, a dead wife makes him a tragic, sympathetic widower.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: A divorced wife makes him an outcast, subject to the maidan,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: or the shunning.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: We really need to explain what shunning actually entails.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's not just people ignoring you on the street.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: No. If Eli divorces Barbara and leaves the church, he
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: is excommunicated. His own parents cannot eat at the same
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: table with him.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: The community cannot do business with his gun shop. He
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: becomes a social ghost.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Which raises a profoundly disturbing question about how religious doctrine
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: can be warped.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. When you have strict, unyielding rules designed to preserve
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: community cohesion, like shunning someone who breaks their sacred vows.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And those rules are processed by a sociopathic, narcissistic mindset.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: The outcomes become monstrous.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Eli manipulated the doctrine to conclude that plotting a murder
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: was a more viable, socially acceptable exit strategy than going
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: through a legal divorce and facing the community's judgment.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: He genuinely believed the community would embrace a grieving widower
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: but would completely destroy a runaway husband.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: It is cold, calculated self-preservation achieved at the absolute highest
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: cost to someone else.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So deciding that his wife needs to die is step
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: one in his twisted playbook.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: But based on what we just discussed about Eli, that
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: he is deeply immature, that he runs away from hard
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: work and adult responsibility, he isn't the type to get
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: his own hands dirty, is he?
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: No, not at all. He desperately wants the result, but
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: he absolutely refuses to accept the risk or the effort
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: of the execution.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: He needs a proxy.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: He needs a weapon he can control. He needs someone
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: else to do the heavy lifting of murder.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: And the investigation revealed that in the months leading up
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: to the tragedy, Weaver had actually been asking several different
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: people in his orbit to kill his wife.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Wait, just casually bringing it up in conversation?
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Like, hey, weather's nice. Can you murder my wife for me?
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. He was floating trial balloons. Wow.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: And unsurprisingly, most people didn't take him seriously.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: They likely brushed it off as incredibly dark humor or
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: just the inappropriate venting of a frustrated, unhappy husband.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: But he kept casting his net, waiting for someone to bite.
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: And eventually, he found someone who didn't.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: Brush it off. Enter Barbara Raber.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Raber, because her involvement is where this
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: story pivots from a tragic case of domestic abuse into
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: a bizarre true crime conspiracy.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the dynamic completely shifts here.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: We talked earlier about the unique social role of the
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: Mennonite taxi driver. Well, Barbara Raber was another Mennonite taxi
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: driver operating in the Apple Creek community.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: The records show they met back in 2003.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: At the time, she was 33 years old and Eli
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: was only 23, and they began having a prolonged affair.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: They had a long history, a complex power dynamic built
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: over several years of secret rendezvous.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: But by the fall of 2008, the tenor of their
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: conversations shifted drastically. It went from maintaining an affair to active,
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: lethal plotting.
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: According to Eli's later testimony, when he finally mentioned the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: idea of killing his wife to rape her, she didn't
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: recoil in horror.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: She didn't call the police. No.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: She, quote, ran away with the idea.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: Ran away with the idea. That phrasing implies an enthusiasm
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: that is just deeply unsettling.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: And the undeniable proof of that enthusiasm is found in
• 28:48
  Speaker 2: the massive digital footprint she left behind.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: The investigators later discovered that Barbara Raber performed an astonishing
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: 840 internet searches on various methods of poisoning.
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: We really need to dwell on that number for a second.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: 840 searches.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: That is not a passing intrusive thought. No.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: That is not a moment of intense anger where you
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: type something into Google to vent and then immediately shut
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: the laptop in shame.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: That represents obsessive, sustained, meticulous research over a long period
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: of time. She is studying, comparing, and analyzing how to
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: end a human life.
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: And because they were coordinating this via cell phones, investigators
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: also unearthed a massive cache of text messages between Weaver
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: and Raber discussing their various options.
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: The casual, almost domestic nature of these texts is what
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: truly makes my blood run cold.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, read one of them.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: At one point, Raber texts Eli saying, I thought if
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: we could get that fly poison stuff in a spice cupcake,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: she might not detect it.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: A spice cupcake.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: A spice cupcake. It is such a quaint, domestic image
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: paired with something so incredibly lethal.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: But Eli's response is even worse.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's impatient. Maybe he thinks poison is too slow
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: or too uncertain. He texts her back, maybe you could
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: blow up the house.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Blow up the house.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And Raber, apparently acting as the voice of logistical reason
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: in this completely insane conversation... texts back to remind him,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: what about your kids?
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Because there are five innocent children sleeping in that house
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: every single night.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And Eli's response to the very real possibility of blowing
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: up his own five children.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: He writes, the kids will go to heaven because they're innocent.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's sickening.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I am utterly appalled by the cognitive dissonance of his theology.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: He is utilizing his religion. The exact same religion he
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: flouts every single day to sleep around, use a secret
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: cell phone, and browse the internet to justify the collateral
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: damage of his own children.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: He is effectively stating, it is completely fine to murder
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: my five kids, to burn them alive in a gas explosion,
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: because their souls are insured by God.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: How does a co-conspirator, how does Barbara Rayburn look at
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: that text message on her screen and not immediately drop
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the phone and walk away in absolute horror?
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: It speaks volumes to the deeply disturbing psychological dynamic between
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: the two of them.
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: You really have to question the psychology of a 39-year-old
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: woman who is so entirely captivated, so deeply under the
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: manipulative spell of this 29-year-old man.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: That she is willing to entertain the logistics... of blowing
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: up a farmhouse with five children inside.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: She has spent months digitally researching how to assassinate a
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: mother of five.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: It strongly suggests a folie a deux, a shared psychosis
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: or shared delusion.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: Where their intense desire to be together completely short-circuited and
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: overwrote their moral compasses.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: Eli's immense charm, which we analyzed earlier, must have been
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: operating at maximum capacity on Rayburn.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: Manipulating her into believing that this horrific act was the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: only logical way they could achieve their twisted version of
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: happy ending.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate weaponized manifestation of his coercive control.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: He didn't just control his wife in the physical world.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: He psychologically manipulated his mistress in the digital world into
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: becoming an assassin.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: So they eventually discard the poison cupcake idea.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: They discard the house explosion idea.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: And they settle on a method that is far more direct, brutal,
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: and intimate.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: They decide to use a gun.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Which brings us to the actual execution of this nightmare
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: on the early morning of June 2nd, 2009.
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: The timeline of that night is a masterclass in calculated
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: premeditated cruelty.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Walk us through it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Okay. At 3 a.m., Eli wakes up and leaves the house.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: He is going on a preplanned fishing trip on Lake
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Erie with several friends.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: A fishing trip. It is the perfect airtight alibi.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: He is going to be miles away on a boat,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: surrounded by reliable witnesses, completely removed from the scene of
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the crime.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He leaves for the lake, and crucially, he intentionally
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: leaves the basement door of the farmhouse unlocked for Raber.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: An hour and a half later, at 4.30 a.m., Barbara
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Raber arrives and enters that unlocked door.
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: She's carrying a 410-gauge shotgun.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: And the detail here is stunning.
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: The gun she brings was taken directly from her own
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: husband's gun cabinet.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Think about the physical and forensic reality of this versus
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: the Amish setting.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: This whole scenario plays out like a classic locked room mystery.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But the room is a tight-knit, trusting agrarian community where
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: people routinely leave their doors unlocked because they genuinely believe
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: in the inherent goodness of their neighbors.
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: Raber uses that communal trust to walk right into the house.
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: And the murder weapon? A gun stolen from her own husband.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: The layers of betrayal here are staggering.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: Eli betrays his wife.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Raybur betrays her husband by stealing his weapon to kill
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: her lover's wife.
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: It is a dense web of ultimate deception.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: So Raybur navigates through the dark, quiet house, finds Barbara
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: Weaver asleep in her bed, and shoots her to death
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: at close range.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: And the immediate aftermath of this act is where Eli's
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: cruelty reaches its absolute sickening peak.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Think about the juxtaposition of their locations. At the exact
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: moment that shotgun goes off in the farmhouse... Eli is
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: likely arriving at Lake Erie.
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: He's setting up his fishing gear.
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: He's breathing in the fresh, cool morning air with his buddies,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: acting completely normal, knowing full well what is happening back
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: in his bedroom.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: But infinitely worse than that, he knew exactly who was
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: going to find the body.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: He left the house at 3 a.m. The murder happened
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: at 4.30 a.m. Who was going to wake up next
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: in that house?
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: The children.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: The records state that early that morning, one of the
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: young Weaver children woke up. discovered their mother dead and
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: covered in blood in her bed and had to run
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: in absolute terror to a neighbor's house for help.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: It's just horrific.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Eli Weaver engineered this entire plot knowing with absolute certainty
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: that one of his own children would be the first
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: responder to their mother's mutilation.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: It reveals a profound, chilling lack of empathy, a true
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: sociopathic void. Yeah.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: So when local investigators arrived at the farmhouse, they immediately
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: started piecing together the chaotic scene.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: And one crucial detail stood out immediately. There was a
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: pile of cash left sitting out in plain sight in
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: the bedroom.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Which completely changes the trajectory of the investigation on day one.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. Because if a house is broken into and a
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: person is murdered, the first assumption by law enforcement is
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: often a robbery gone wrong.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Right. An English intruder looking for a quick score who
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: panicked when the homeowner woke up.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: But the cash left untouched in plain sight is the
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: ultimate tell to any seasoned detective. This wasn't a robbery.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: No thief breaks in, commits murder, and leaves cash behind.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Exactly. This was a targeted, specific assassination.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: So Eli is out on the lake, casting his fishing line,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: fully believing he has committed the perfect crime.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: He has his alibi locked down. He thinks the community
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: will rally around him in pity. And he assumes Raber
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: has handled the dirty work cleanly.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: But his flawless plan starts to unravel almost instantly.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Because while he thought he was outsmarting everyone with his
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: modern technology, he completely underestimated the immense power of analog
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: community intuition.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: He fundamentally miscalculated.
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: The highly insular nature of the community, which had protected
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: him and his secrets for so long, suddenly yerked against him.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: Neighbors and friends of the family immediately pointed the police
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: in the direction of Barbara Raber.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: Wait, how did they know?
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Well, even if they didn't have internet access or cell
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: phones to track his digital life, people observed things.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: They likely knew about the rumors floating around. They saw
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the lingering interactions.
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: They knew Mary, the taxi driver, wasn't the only Mennonite
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: woman in Eli's orbit.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: And when the police, acting on these community tips, went
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: to speak to Barbara Raber, her alibi completely fell apart.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: She could not account for her whereabouts at 4.30 in
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: the morning.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: And when cornered by investigators, Raber's initial defense strategy was
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: truly bizarre.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she admitted to taking the shotgun from her husband's cabinet.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: She admitted to driving to the farm and entering the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: Weaver home at 4.30 in the morning.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: But she claimed she didn't remember loading the weapon, and
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: she told police she only meant to scare Barbara Weaver.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: She claimed the gun discharged accidentally in the dark. I mean.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: Who sneaks into a pitch black house at 4.30 in
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: the morning carrying a loaded shotgun just to scare a
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: woman who is fast asleep in her own bed?
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: It is a patently absurd defense.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: But you have to wonder, does it show that she
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: was already realizing the immense crushing gravity of what she
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: had done?
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Oh, definitely. She's desperately trying to walk back the intent
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: to downgrade premeditated cold-blooded murder to a tragic, clumsy accident.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: Because the stark reality of pulling that trigger was just
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: too much for her own brain to reconcile with.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: It is a classic panic response when a perpetrator realizes
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: the forensic evidence is mounting against them.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: But what's truly fascinating from a criminal justice perspective is
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: how rapidly the broader conspiracy collapsed.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: You know the old adage, honor among thieves? Well, there
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: is definitively no honor among murderers.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: Never. The second the pressure drops, they turn on each other. Yep.
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: By June 10th, just over a week after Barbara was killed,
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: Eli Weaver felt the heat of the investigation closing in.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: And true to his deeply established pattern of avoiding hard consequences,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: dodging responsibility, and letting.
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: Others take the fall, he immediately flipped.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: He confessed to conspiring with Raber to kill his wife,
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: and he brokered a plea deal.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder in exchange
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: for throwing Raber completely under the bus.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: He agreed to testify in open court against the very
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: woman he had manipulated into committing the physical act for him.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: It is so perfectly on brand for him.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: He wants the ultimate result. He makes someone else do
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the terrifying work. And the absolute second there is a
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: bill to pay, he hands it to her and runs
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: in the opposite direction.
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: He takes a 15 years to life plea deal to
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: save his own skin.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And that sets the stage for a truly wild courtroom showdown.
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: It does.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: In September 2009, the trial of Barbara Raber begins. And
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: with Eli fully cooperating with the prosecution, the courtroom becomes
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: this desperate theater of blame-shifting.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: Raber, realizing that Eli has completely abandoned her to save himself,
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: drastically changes her story.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: She recants her initial confession entirely. Now she claims she
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: was never in the house at all that night.
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: Her defense attorney points out that the murder weapon was
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: never definitively recovered by police. And Raber's fingerprints were not
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: found inside the Weaver home.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: So what is her defense team's new theory of the crime?
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: Who do they say pulled the trigger?
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: They argue the most plausible alternative.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: That Eli Weaver is the one who actually pulled the trigger?
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: They claim he shot his wife before he left for
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: his fishing trip at 3 a.m.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: So she is sitting at the defense table saying, I
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: didn't do it. The mastermind did it.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: And Eli takes the witness stand and says, no, I
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: was fishing. She did it, just like we planned.
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: It is a classic prisoner's dilemma, but it is playing
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: out under oath in front of a jury.
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: Both of them are desperately trying to rewrite history to
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: minimize their own guilt and maximize the others.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: But here's the thing.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: They can lie on the stand all day long. They
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: can point fingers and cry, but they cannot erase the
• 41:05
  Speaker 2: digital breadcrumbs.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: Imagine the scene in 2009, bringing printed logs of text
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: messages into a courtroom to explain a crime in an
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: Amish community.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: The trial essentially came down to evaluating the word of
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Eli Weaver, a demonstrably known liar, a serial adulterer, and
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: an abuser, versus a woman who was caught in an irrefutable,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: massive web of digital evidence.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Those 840 internet searches on poisoning.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: The text messages about spiced cupcakes and blowing up the farmhouse.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Those digital records are the silent, unblinking witnesses in the
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: courtroom that neither of them can cross-examine. intimidate or charm.
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: And Eli delivered a specific piece of testimony that likely
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: sealed the deal for the prosecution.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: He testified that on June 9, exactly a week after
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: the murder, he and Raber met secretly in his barn.
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: According to Eli, Raber apologized for the mess of everything,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: described the murder to him in graphic detail, and then
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: asked him a very specific, highly technical question.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: She asked him how to properly clean a gun so
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: it didn't look like it had been fired recently.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: Let's dissect that barn meeting testimony.
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: Eli Weaver is the owner of a gun store. He
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: is the local firearms expert.
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: It makes perfect logical sense that if she had fired
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: a weapon and desperately needed to hide the residue and
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: physical evidence.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: He is exactly the person she would go to for
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: advice on how to clean a barrel. It grounds his
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: testimony in a very believable, pragmatic reality.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: And the jury certainly found it believable, especially when they
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: paired that testimony with her own extensive digital footprint.
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: With the substantial help of Eli's testimony, Barbara Raber was
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: convicted of murder. She was sentenced to 23 years to
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: life in prison.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: And Eli, the puppet master, the man who set the
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: entire nightmare in motion, the man who commodified his religion
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: and tortured his wife for years, gets 15 years to
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: life simply because of his plea deal.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Is it justice that the mastermind, the literal architect of
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: the suffering, gets a lighter sentence than the pawn who
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: pulled the trigger?
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: It is a frequent, incredibly frustrating reality of the criminal
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: justice system.
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: The person who is willing to talk first, the person
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: who can offer the state a guaranteed slam-dunk conviction of
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: the other party, often gets the better deal regardless of
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: their actual moral culpability.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Eli traded his silence for a substantial discount on his sentence.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to the aftermath. And to the
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: present day, because this isn't just a piece of ancient history.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: No, it's highly relevant now.
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: We're recording this on October 5th, 2026. Based on his
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: 15 to life sentence, Eli Weaver is actually eligible for
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: parole next year.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: In 2027, the Amish stud could walk free and reenter society.
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: Barbara Raber, on the other hand, will not be eligible
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: for her first parole hearing until 2032.
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: The historical weight of this crime on the Amish community
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: cannot be overstated.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Author Rebecca Morris highlighted a staggering sociological statistic in her research.
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: She noted that in the entire 250-year history of the
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Amish living in North America, there have been only three
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: documented spousal murders. Three.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Two and a half centuries, and you can count the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: number of spousal murders on one hand with fingers left over.
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: It really underscores what a complete statistical anomaly Eli Weaver was.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: He wasn't just a bad apple. He was a catastrophic
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: system failure that deeply, deeply shook a culture that prides
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: itself above all else on pacifism, peace, and separation from
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: modern violence.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: It sent shockwaves through their entire cultural foundation.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: But as we close this deep dive, I think it
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: is vital to bring the focus back to the victim.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Back to Barbara Weaver.
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: She was a gentle soul who was systematically destroyed by
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: the man who was culturally and spiritually supposed to protect her.
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: Yet, in one of her final letters to her counselor,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: despite the horrific physical abuse, the forced financial starvation, and
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: the infidelity she suspected, she wrote something that is almost
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: impossible for a modern, secular mind to comprehend.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: She quoted the words of Christ on the cross, writing
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: about Eli,' Forgive him, for he knows not what he does.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Farber's capacity for grace in the face of absolute suffocating
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: darkness is just astounding.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: It is a profound testament to the deep sincerity of
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: her faith.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: But it leaves you with a lingering, very uncomfortable question
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: to mull over.
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: What's that?
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: In a close community built entirely on the beautiful ideals
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of radical forgiveness, humility, and strict adherence to the rules,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: did that Very expectation of silent endurance inadvertently provide the
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: perfect cover for a predator hiding in plain sight.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Think back to that movie set scaffolding we talked about
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: at the beginning.
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: When the front of the set looks so holy, so pure,
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: and so dedicated to forgiveness, nobody wants to look behind
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: the facade to see the rot.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: It is something to seriously think about the next time
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: you hear someone romanticize the simple life.