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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Caroline Herrling · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

• 0:46
  Speaker 1: School of Humans.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: guilty in a court of law. Nothing in the podcast
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: is intended to state or imply that anyone who has
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
• 1:30
  Speaker 3: In December of twenty twenty, police and Los Angeles received
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: a call from a neighbor of sixty nine year old
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: Charles Wilding, a reclusive man who lived by himself on
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: Kingswood Road in Chairman Oaks. Charles lived in a home
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: situated just over the hill from Hollywood in the San
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. Charles's neighbor told the LAPD
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: that they were worried about Charles because Charles, who had
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: lived in his home for approximately thirty five years, had
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: not been seen for months by anyone in the neighborhood.
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: At first, this didn't seem like an emergency. Charles had
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: always been a private person. He didn't drive, and he
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: rarely strayed far from home. This was an affluent, quiet neighborhood.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: People who lived near Charles sometimes saw him walking to
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Whole Foods, and when they did, he was polite and
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: would wave to them. Charles was an only child, and
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: after his mother, June Wilding, died in twenty seventeen, he
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: seemed to become even more isolated. During the early months
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: of the pandemic, Charles put signs around his property saying
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: that he had COVID and telling people not to come
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: near the house. Then, sometime around September of twenty twenty,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: Charles disappeared from the neighborhood, but neighbors started to notice
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: someone else. A woman had moved into Charles's house. The
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: woman had red hair and she was younger than Charles,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: but she wasn't his daughter or another relative. She appeared
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: to be in her forties and she told people her
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: name was Caroline Hurling and that she was the trustee
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: of Charles's estate. Some of the neighbors thought there was
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: something strange going on. They were seeing strange people coming
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: and going at all hours of the night, and that
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: phone call was just the beginning, because investigators would eventually
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: uncover a conspiracy involving forged wills, false identities, stolen real estate,
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: millions of dollars, and a body dismembered and dissolved in acid.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: I'm Catherine Townsend.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: Over the past eight years of making my true crime podcast,
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Telling Gone, I've learned that there's no such thing as
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: a place where murder never happens. I've received hundreds of
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: messages from people all around the country asking for help
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: their communities. If you have a case you'd like me
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: and my team to look into, you can reach out
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: to us at the Helen Gone Murder Line at six
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: seven eight seven four four six one four five. That's
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: six seven eight seven four four six one four five,
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: or you can send us a message at Helen Gonepod.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. This case was covered
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: on the Netflix series Worst Neighbor Ever, but when I
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: started digging into it, I found out there was a
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: lot of information that the show didn't cover. So who
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: was the mysterious redhead living in Charles Wilding's house. It
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: turns out that the answer to that question is complicated.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: The woman known as Caroline Joanne Hurling used a lot
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: of aliases. Federal court records identify her as Caroline Hurling,
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: but some people knew her as Carrie Phoenix. She told
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: a former friend who was interviewed for the Netflix series
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: that she was an actress, But Caroline told others that
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: her job was helping people who were facing legal problems.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Her LinkedIn biography said, quote, I specialize in providing comprehensive
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: litigation support and crisis management to individuals and organizations who
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: were facing a broad spectrum of issues and challenges.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: End quote.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: This LinkedIn profile says that Caroline is the founder and
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: managing partner at Publicly Correct, where she advertised litigation support services.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: The problem is Caroline was not licensed to practice law
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: in California or anywhere else. Investigators would later say that
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: Caroline did sometimes represent herself as an attorney. She would
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: say that she dealt with properties whose owners were vulnerable, absent,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: or somehow unable to protect themselves. I also looked on IMDb,
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: the Internet movie database and I found entertainment credits online
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: for a woman named Carrie Phoenix. There's almost no information
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: about Caroline online. I was fascinated by that, but from
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: the information that I could find, it seems as though
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Caroline had family who lived in Wisconsin. At some point,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Caroline moved to Los Angeles. According to her IMDb page, Caroline,
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: who went by the stage name Kerrie Phoenix, was born
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: on December twenty eighth, nineteen sixty two, in Los Angeles.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: But if that's true, Caroline Hurling would not be forty four.
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: She would probably be around ten years older than that
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: in her fifties. Carrie Phoenix has only appeared in a
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: few things, and those listings were from the nineties. She
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: was featured in projects including the anthology series Erotic Confessions.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: She played a cheerleader and a redhead, and she played
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: a secretary in the TV movie Hefner Unauthorized. Carrie Phoenix
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: also appeared uncredited as a student in Halloween h two
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: twenty years later with Josh Hartnett in nineteen ninety eight.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: She was also listed as a casting director for one
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: episode of the television series City Guys in two thousand
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: and one, and she appeared in a TV commercial in Japan,
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: but other than that, there are no acting credits listed
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: since nineteen ninety nine, so it's hard to pin down
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: both the truth about her career and her real age.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: This is only more evidence of someone who constantly kept
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: people guessing. After police got that first call about Charles Wilding,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: Adult Social Services opened up a case, and LAPD officers
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: went to Charles's home to conduct a welfare check. When
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: they got there, they found Caroline and another younger brunette,
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: who Caroline introduced as her assistant. Caroline told police that
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: she operated a sober living home out of that house
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: and that she was helping people battle their addictions. She
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: said Charles was alive and staying with friends in a
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: beach town called Carpenteria, which was approximately an hour away,
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: but she said she didn't have an address for Charles,
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: only a cell phone number, which the officers tried but
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: couldn't get an answer. Caroline said she was the trustee
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: of Charles's estate. She said she was helping clean the
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: house because there was a large build up of black
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: mold there. The police went in and checked the head
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: else that day. They found a lot of items and
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: clutter in the home, but no sign of Charles Wilding,
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: and Caroline had all of the right paperwork as a trustee,
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: so police left the scene. In January of twenty twenty one,
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: a caseworker with Adult Protective Services spoke on the phone
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: with someone who claimed to be Charles, and the agency,
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: apparently satisfied with the responses they got, closed its investigation
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: for months. The system accepted this voice on the telephone
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: as proof that Charles Wilding was alive. Meanwhile, the pandemic
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: was playing out in the background, meaning that social services
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: and in person visits were strained, and that it was
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: becoming more and more normalized for people to avoid public
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: appearances for months and sometimes even years at a time.
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: By October of.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: Twenty twenty one, approximately a year had passed since anyone
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: in that neighborhood had seen Charles. That's when an anonymous
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: caller reached out to the LAPD. They said they believed
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: that something bad had happened to Charles Wilding. They were
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: afraid that he might be dead and that other people
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: could be using Charles's identity for financial gain, So the
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: LAPD opened a missing person's investigation into Charles Wilding. That's
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: when Detective Mark O'Donnell, who talked to the Worst Neighbor
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: Ever program, got involved. Detective O'Donnell talked to Caroline Hurling,
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: and she continued to say that Charles was alive. She
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: gave the detective a phone number that she said was Charles's,
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: which he called. According to court documents, a man on
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: the other end of the phone said he was Charles,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: but when Detective O'Donnell asked Charles to provide information, including
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: his social Security number, the man on the phone didn't
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: know it. When Mark O'Donnell went to interview Caroline, she
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: gave him a second cell phone number that supposedly was Charles's.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: But when Caroline left the room, the detector have noticed
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: a cell phone bill on the table indicating that Caroline
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: had purchased a cell phone just a few days before
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: talking to the detective with that same phone number that
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: she had just given him as Charles's phone number attached.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: Now by this point, detectives are realizing that Charles is
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: probably not alive. The detective kept digging and discovered that
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: Caroline had actually paid someone else five thousand dollars to
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: lie about having recently seen Charles. According to police records,
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: the guy she paid told police that Caroline wrote a
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: script for him laying out what he was supposed to say,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: which was basically that he last saw Charles with a
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: pocket full of money. So Caroline's story was unraveling fast.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Detective O'Donnell was trying to figure out if there was
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: anyone who could confirm that they had had contact with
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: the real Charles Wilding, and he was also trying to
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: figure out how Caroline knew Charles. She claimed that she
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: had been friends with Charles's late mother Wilding, but police
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: were finding out that that was not true. Caroline Hurling
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: was not a lawyer or a paralegal, but she understood
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: how legal documents were supposed to look. She knew how
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: to fake signatures, and she also knew things like real
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: estate trust, powers of attorney, ESCRO documents, and probate filings,
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: and according to federal prosecutors, Caroline understood how to use
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: those systems against people who lived alone. Caroline Hurling was
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: not actually making a living as an actress or an attorney.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: She was what LA magazine, who did a story about
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: this case, called a professional squattern. Prosecutors say She would
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: drive around expensive neighborhoods using online mapping systems, and she
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: with her co defendants would identify wealthy properties.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: They would look for the houses that were.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Unkempt, with overgrown shrubs, abandoned landscaping, and swimming pools that
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: had turned green with algae. They were not necessarily looking
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: for empty houses. They were looking for houses where someone
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: might be still living but who was either older, isolated,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: or somehow vulnerable and unable to maintain the property. The
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: appearance of neglect told them that the person inside might
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: not have anyone checking in on them, like friends or family,
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: or paid staff like nurses or caretakers. Charles Wilding's house
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: appeared to be exactly that kind of property, but according
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: to court records, Caroline was not the first person in
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: her group to find Charles. That person was fifty two
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: year old Matthew Jason Croft, aka Speedy.
• 13:25
  Speaker 4: Federal prosecutors said that Speedy.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Was involved in a lot of different criminal activities, including
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: drug dealing and mail theft. He would steal people's mail
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: and use it to rip them off somehow, either by
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: stealing their information or for applying for credit cards in
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: their name, and other frauds. It's not exactly what Matthew's
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: relationship was with Caroline. He was described in the TV
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: show as kind of an on off love interest. But
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I did some digging and found out Matthew was actually
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: living at a motel with his pregnant girlfriend when he
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: was arrested. But Matthew and Caroline were definitely co conspirators
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: and they shared a bank account. In the summer of
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty, Matthew told prosecutors that he started watching Charles
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: Wilding's house and marked it as a residence that he
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: believed would be easy to rob, so he broke in.
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: But Matthew claimed when he broke in to steal mail
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: and some other items, that Charles confronted him, and Matthew
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: told Charles he was performing a welfare check. That was
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: his story for the break in, and then Matthew claimed
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: that he left the house. He went back to Charles's
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: house months later, sometime around September of twenty twenty, and
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: he said that when he did he found something horrifying.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: He claimed that Charles was dead. Matthew said that when
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: he broke into Charles's house that Charles's body was lying
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: on the floor and appeared to have been there for
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: a long time, so long that Charles's remains has started
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to seep into the floor. What happens next comes from
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: Matthew Crost's account from the federal investigation and the court documents.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: In the Netflix series, Matthew Croft was seen describing rats
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: coming out of Charles's mouth, but instead of calling nine
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: one one, Matthew claimed he took this opportunity to steal
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: jewelry and mail, and also personal information that could be
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: used to access Charles's.
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: Identity and his assets.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Then Matthew contacted someone who he believed could help him
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: use this information to steal even more money from Charles,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Caroline Hurling. That was when, according to the Justice Department,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: Caroline first became aware of Charles Wilding. The information that
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: Matthew gave her was enough for her to take over
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: Charles's life and his assets. So no one ever called
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: police to report Charles's dead body. Instead, Matthew claimed that
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: he and Caroline left the body inside the house and
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: eventually moved it to the garage.
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: In fact, Caroline.
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: Later told investigators that Charles's body was actually in the
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: house when police had done that. Welfare check in December
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: of twenty twenty, but she stated that the garage was
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: so packed with items from Florida ceiling they didn't see
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: Charles's body. As long as no one reported Charles dead,
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: he could still exist on paper. According to investigators, Caroline
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: used a forged power of attorney form to claim that
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: Charles had authorized her to manage his real estate and
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: financial accounts. She was also listed as the trustee of
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: a family trust supposedly created by Charles's late mother, June Wilding,
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: who had died back in twenty seventeen. Investigators determined that
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: the whole thing, including the trust, was a complete forgery.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: There never was a trust at all, and Caroline had
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: never known June Wilding or Charles Wilding, and it turned
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: out that Caroline Hurling had other victims. According to court documents,
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: Caroline used information from Charles's house to get data about
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: June's safety deposit box. Inside that box, she found the
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: name of another woman who was also debt, Jackie Shields Lowenstein.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: According to court records, the will named Charles as Jackie
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Lowenstein's executor and beneficiary, and Jackie Lowenstein's estate was worth
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: more than one point seven million dollars because Jackie had
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: supposedly left her estate to Charles and Charles was not
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: alive to object. This gave Caroline control of someone else's estate,
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: and investigators later figured out this whole thing was a
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: fraud too, But it took a long time to unravel
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: this mystery, and in the meantime, Caroline and her co
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: conspirators were allowed to operate unchecked and to target even
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: more victims. Between Jackie and Charles's estates, prosecutors say Caroline
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: was able to access.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: Around four million dollars.
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: Meanwhile, in June of twenty twenty two, Detective O'Donnell talked
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: to a process server who said that they had seen
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: Charles Wilding in the flesh. The process server said they
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: had served documents on Charles Wilding twice because Charles was
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: being sued by banks for credit card debt. The process
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: servers said he met twice with a man claiming to
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: be Charles Wilding, and then when he spoke to Charles,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: Charles was lying in bed at Caroline Hurling's apartment on
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: Beverly Glenn. The process server said that a read headed
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: woman was there too and told them that she was
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Charles's daughter. Detective O'Donnell believed that this woman was Caroline Hurling,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: but he was beginning to realize Charles Wilding was only
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: the tip of the iceberg. According to court documents, Caroline
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: had perpetuated frauds on other people because not only did
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: she fraudulently transfer Charles Wilding's house to herself, she then
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: rented it out to tenants. The detective talked to a
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: man and woman who had moved into the home. The
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: tenant told them that she replied to an advertisement on
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: a veil dot com to rent the property on Kingswood Road,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Charles Wilding's house. The tenant said she contacted Caroline Phoenix
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: and met with her at a local coffee shop. Caroline
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: provided the tenant with a rental agreement of four thousand
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: dollars a month. The tenant said she gave Caroline six thousand,
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: seventy five dollars and was supposed to send the rent
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: payment to an address in Santa Clarita. The detective drove
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: out to that address in September of twenty twenty two
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: and found that the address where the tenant was supposed
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: to send the rent payments was just a boarded up property,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: So now police believed that Caroline was collecting rent and
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: security deposits from the tenant with no intention of actually
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: renting the property out. Caroline also gave the tenant a
• 20:03
  Speaker 3: bogus phone number, and then she just took these people's
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: cash and left.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: The criminal complaint.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: Alleges that Caroline Hurling had other victims, including a man
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: named Robert Taskan who owned a home in Encino, but
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Robert didn't live in that home and his absence gave
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: Caroline an opening. Robert Taskin had moved to Abilene, Texas
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: with his common law wife, Miricle Williams, around twenty eighteen.
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: Miracle later told investigators that Robert struggled with alcoholism and
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: that they had moved south to get away from bad
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: influences and get a new start. The detectives from the
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: LAPD ended up teaming up with the United's State's Postal
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: Service to investigate this case because it got very complicated.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: According to a United States Postal Inspection Service report, Robert
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: Tasking came from a wealthy family. They had established two
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: trusts for him in California. The trust provided Robert with
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: income with monthly payments, but by twenty twenty one, he
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: had run through most of the money. He had only
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: one asset left his house in Encino, so Robert was
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: planning to sell it and to use the profit for
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: him and Miracle to start a new life. But Robert discovered,
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: to his shock, there were squatters in his house. And
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: if you know anything about California, it's one of those
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: states where removing squatters can take a long time. So
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Robert took the squatters to court. He won the legal
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: battle to get them out of his house. Finally he
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: thought he could sell his house. But that's when he discovered,
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: to his horror, his house had already been sold and
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: someone had taken all his money. In September of two
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: thousand twenty one, Robert's Encino house had sold for around
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: one point five million dollars, which investigators say is around
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: half of what the house was worth. The seller was
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: Caroline Hurling. She told the buyer, a real estate developer,
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: that her name was Caroline Phoenix. She explained the low
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: sale price by claiming she was a licensed California attorney
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: who represented distressed property owners who needed to sell their
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: homes quickly. According to prosecutors, that's when Caroline and her
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: co defendants Matthew and another man, Barram Hassan Shasi, whose
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: nickname was Persian Shawn, cooked up another fraud. Caroline created
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: an ID card in Robert Taskin's name and a forged
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: power of attorney document with a false notary stamp. To
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: add to the fraud, Caroline enlisted the help of an impostor,
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: a person who appeared in front of an attorney and
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: pretended to be Robert Taskin, and this person signed the
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: sale documents. She and Matthew also forged documents claiming that Sean,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: their co defendant, was the seller. As part of the transaction,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: the notary recorded the signer's thumb print. Investigators later compared
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: that print with Robert's real thumb print and learned that
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: the two prints did not match. But for Robert Taskin,
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: that realization came too little, too late. On September eleventh,
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty two, Robert died by suicide at his home
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: in Texas. He was fifty three years old. A police
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: report noted that he had a history of mental illness,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: but it also reported the fact that he was involved
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: in litigation over this fraudulent house sale. According to court documents,
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: The police report indicated there was no witness to the
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: shooting and Robert's body was cold by the time it
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: was discovered in the evening. The last person to see
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: Robert alive that morning, according to court documents, indicated that
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: Robert was fine when the roommate saw him before leaving
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: for work, and there was no suicide note. Robert's partner, Miracle,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: said in court she believed that Roberts losing his house
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: and Encino had contributed to his death. Robert Taskin had
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: planned to leave his assets to Miracle Williams, but after
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: the house was sold, there was almost nothing left for
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: her to inherit. According to the federal investigation, approximately nine
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand dollars from the sale was transferred
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: into a joint bank account controlled by Caroline Hurling and
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: matthew Croft. Caroline admitted that she took the money and
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: deposited it into bank accounts connected to her, and that
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: she had used proceeds connected to this transaction to help
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: purchase her a home in West Hills. Matthew Croft later
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: admitted he received around one hundred thousand dollars from the sale.
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: In October of twenty twenty, four authorities arrested Sean and
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: accused him of participating in the property theft. The charges
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: against him were allegations that were contained in a criminal complaint,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: were not a conviction. According to that complaint, Sean signed
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: multiple escrow documents on Robert's behalf as the seller, which
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: allowed Seawan to pocket one hundred and eighty thousand dollars
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: from the proceeds. Shawn first claimed that he had met
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: Robert in prison. He said he loaned a money and
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: that later Robert had given him permission over the phone
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: to clear this alleged debt by selling the Encino.
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: House for him.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Investigators believed that this story was bogus. When Robert discovered
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: what had happened with his house, he did challenge the
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: sale and try to get his house back. Travis Hartgraves
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: was Robert's lawyer and case manager. He told investigators the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: legal battle over the house had consumed Robert. He said
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: Robert believed that he would never get his house back
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: and that it crashed him, even though Robert had struggled
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: with alcoholism and mental health problems in the past.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: There was another co.
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: Conspirator who investigators linked to Caroline and Matthew Krouse forty
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: six year old Jason Canner, who, according to the sentencing papers,
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: didn't quite fit the typical profile of someone who turns
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: to crime at a desperation. Jason's father, Paul Canner, was
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: a prominent art dealer in Los Angeles.
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: He specialized in modern art.
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: Paul died in two thousand and two, and Jason moved
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: to Coming, Georgia. Jason admitted that he forged a trust
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: agreement for June Wilding, Charles's mother to give her property
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: to Caroline, and stated he made around sixty four thousand
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: dollars from those transactions. Jason pleaded guilty in October of
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty four to one federal count of conspiracy to
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: commit wirefraud. He avoided prison, but he was ordered to
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: pay restitution of just over four hundred and seventy seven
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: thousand dollars. According to the US Attorney's Office, the investigation
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: into Caroline and her co defendants was a massive undertaking.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: It involved the LAPD, the United States Postal Inspection Service,
• 26:35
  Speaker 3: and Valley Bureau Homicide, among others. In January of twenty
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: twenty three, police questioned Caroline Hurling about the Robert twysk
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: and sale, she denied being responsible for it. She claimed
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: that she had driven Robert to meet a notary. Caroline
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: claimed Robert had paid her one hundred and fifty dollars
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: for giving him that ride, but when investigators asked her
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: to describe Robert, she said that Robert had been wearing
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: a hat and a mask and so she wasn't really
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: able to do it. Later, when investigators said they didn't
• 27:06
  Speaker 3: buy her story, Caroline admitted that she had taken money
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: from Robert, but she said she didn't leave him destitute.
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: The Robert Taskin case was connected to the Charles Wilden
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: case through the people involved, the false documents, and the
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: same basic method. Two men, both of them debt, were
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: connected to the same ring of scammers. In the end,
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: prosecutors were able to prove that Caroline and Matthew stole
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: nearly three point nine million dollars in total from their victims,
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: using forged legal documents, stolen identities, and the impostors who
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: Caroline had paid to impersonate people and read scripts. Caroline
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Hurling was arrested and taken into federal custody. After police
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: had Caroline in custody, they pressured her to tell them
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: the truth about what really happened to Charles Wilding.
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: Caroline stalled, but finally.
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: Told investigators the truth, or at least what she claimed
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: was the truth about what happened to Charles Wilding. She
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: said that after Matthew found Charles's body, that she and
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Matthew started stealing Charles's assets and stashed his body in
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: the garage.
• 28:29
  Speaker 4: But after the police.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: Showed up in December of twenty twenty, Caroline and Matthew
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Crouse knew there were neighbors asking questions and that the
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: police were not giving up, so they decided to get
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: rid of Charles's body. Caroline put the body in her
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: vehicle and drove Charles's remains to her Beverly Glenn apartment.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: Then she decided to dismember him. This was a shockingly
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: gruesome crime. Caroline and the woman she'd introduced as her
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: assistant bought a plastic tub, kind of like the scene
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: in Breaking Bad where Walter and Jesse get rid of
• 29:04
  Speaker 3: a drug dealer's body by dissolving it in a bathtub,
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: And like on the TV show, Caroline's plan didn't work.
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: During this time, neighbors who lived in Caroline's apartment building
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: in Beverly, Glenn told the worst neighbor ever show. They
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: were hearing things, sawing sounds, and furniture moving around, but
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: they chalked it up to Caroline partying with her shady friends.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: They never imagined the horror that was actually going on
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: inside that building. According to the sentencing memorandum, prosecutors stated
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: that Caroline purchased a cadaver bag, gloves, chemicals, and a
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: products to mask the odor of a corpse.
• 29:46
  Speaker 4: The neighbors had.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: No idea that a man's remains were being dissolved on
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: their common roofs terrace. A few days after, the plastic
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: itself was beginning to warp and melt, but Charles's remains
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: were still visible. They had not dissolved, so Caroline took
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: a hose and ran it from the terrace of her
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: apartment building down to the ground floor. A neighbor on
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: the ground floor complained that the flowers around the bottom
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: of that pipe were.
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: Dying, but no one knew why.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: Caroline used a hammer to smash Charles's teeth, and then
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: Caroline and her assistant scooped up the rest of the
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: remains and placed them in vacuum sealed bags and transported
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: them to northern California.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: After that, Caroline met.
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: Up with another one of her co conspirators and used
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: a sailboat to help dump Charles's remains into the San
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: Francisco Bay.
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: To my knowledge, Caroline's assistant has.
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: Not been convicted for her alleged role in Charles's dismemberment.
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: The charging documents described Caroline's demeanor during this time as
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: being very cold and uncaring, and they actually say that
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Caroline treated the body disposal dump as a mini vacation.
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Caroline returned to Los Angeles on a private jet. By then, however,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: investigators were closing in. Detectives had uncovered the fake Charles
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: Wilding and figured out that Caroline had paid this person
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: to give them a bogus story. They had followed the
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: money and found the paper trail, including the forged trust
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: and the transactions through bank and each trade accounts that
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: Caroline and Matthew had access to, and they had identified
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: the equipment and documents that they believed were being used
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: to manufacture new identities. Federal search warrants were executed at
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: Caroline Hurling's current and former residence, and investigators found a
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: lot of evidence, including stolen and counterfeit identification documents, passports,
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: social Security cards, birth certificates, and credit cards. They also
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: found a machine that could make documents look older and
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: a device that could fake signatures, plus pages containing practice
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: versions of June Wilding's signature. They also found a lot
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: of guns, including ghost guns that were untraceable. They found
• 32:01
  Speaker 3: drugs including mushrooms, black tar, heroin, and methamphetamine, and they
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: found fake federal IDs for the Drug Enforcement Administration and
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: a badge for a Beverly Hills Police detective. Now Caroline
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: claimed these were just Halloween costumes, but authorities believed she
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: had a much more sinister purpose for having those ideas.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: In March of twenty twenty three, Caroline pleaded guilty to
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: one count of conspiracy to commit wirefraud. Matthew Jason Croft
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: pleaded guilty in October of twenty twenty three to one
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: count of conspiracy to commit wirefraud and one count of
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. According to his plea agreement,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: he admitted that he gave his co conspirators the victim's
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: mail so that he could impersonate Charles and steal his assets.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: He also admitted he had one hundred and twenty grams
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: of methamphetamy and was planning to sell it. Prosecutors say
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: that matthew Croft ended up pocketing almost two million dollars
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: from his victims. In March of twenty twenty four, Caroline
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: Hurling was sentenced the statutory maximum of twenty years in
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: federal prison. She was ordered to pay almost three point
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: nine million dollars in restitution. So what really happened to
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Charles Wilding was Caroline's account of the events. Real investigators
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: believe Charles Wilding died sometime around September of twenty twenty,
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: but authorities have not determined the manner of death, and
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: the federal case ultimately didn't charge Caroline or the other
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: conspirators with causing his death. Because Charles's body wasn't recovered
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: and Caroline and her co conspirators removed so much evidence,
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: even pulling up the floorboards where Charles day, we may
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: never know for sure there were other alleged co conspirators.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: According to caroline sentencing documents. Investigators found the documents that
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: someone used to impersonate Robert Taskin on the phone of
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: Caroline's living boyfriend. In my opinion, I can't believe that
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: more people weren't charged, and I can't believe that Caroline
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: only got twenty years. Another question I have is how
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: do we know that matthew Croft was telling the truth
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: and that Charles Wilding was really dead when he broke in.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: He and Caroline lied about so many things, it's hard
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: to know for sure. I wanted to do this episode
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: for another reason. First of all, I was obsessed with
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: the case and I wanted to find out everything that
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: the Netflix program did not show. Secondly, though, Caroline and
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: her partners in crime were able to target Charles and
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: others because they were so vulnerable, So I wanted to
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: do a PSA to anyone listening to this podcast and
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: ask them to please get a power of attorney. I
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: want to make sure that you aren't vulnerable to a
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: stranger taking control of your assets and your life. And
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: these types of frauds are so widespread. On my other podcast,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Red Collar, I talk about these real estate frauds a lot,
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: and they're not just happening in California. They're happening everywhere,
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: which brings me to my next PSA.
• 35:00
  Speaker 4: There is a.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: National elder fraud hotline one eight three three Fraud eleven.
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: They have case managers and it is possible to reach
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: out for help, but a lot of people are so
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: embarrassed about being defrauded that they don't want to admit
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: that someone took advantage of them, and they're reluctant to
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: reach out for help. However, experts say reporting fraud is
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: a crucial first step, which brings me to one of
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: the scariest things about this story, in my opinion, in
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: some ways even scarier than the dismemberment or the apparent
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: total lack of remorse by Caroline Hurling. While detectives were
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: searching Caroline's house in West Hills, which she had bought
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: with the stolen money from Robert Taskin's house, they found
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: something horrifying, a spread sheet with a tab called air Index,
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: which listed columns with people who inherited money and the
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: balance in their bank accounts. There were also searches on
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: Caroline's digital devices, according to court documents, listing things like
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: millionaire and obituary, suggesting she was looking for rich, dead
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: people who would be good targets for her inheritance fraud schemes.
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: She also had fake wills and other names, and there
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: was evidence she had been searching on the La County
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: Coroner's office. Who knows how many more potential victims or
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: actual victims of Caroline and her co defendant, some of who,
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: by the way, have not been charged or out there.
• 36:24
  Speaker 4: To this day.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Charles Wilding's remains have never been found. I'm Catherine Townsend.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: by Etily's Perez Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: research assistance and Sarah Burns for legal review. Noah Camera
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Ben sa Lee, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and LC Crowley. Listen to Helen Gone ad free by
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts.
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: Helen gonpod. If you have a case you'd like me
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: and my team to look into, you can reach out
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: to US at our Helen Gone murder line at six
• 37:16
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• 37:18
  Speaker 4: That's six seven eight seven four four six' one four.
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: Five school Of humans