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One-of-these-people-is-hiding-something · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: In today's episode, I'm going to tell you two stories.
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Speaker 1: In the first story, it's ultimately about this person who
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Speaker 1: is so set on making a change in their lives
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Speaker 1: that they take drastic measures to affect that change, with
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Speaker 1: some very unfortunate consequences. The second story is about this
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Speaker 1: town in California where there was this perceived threat and
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Speaker 1: it was sort of normalized and people were not that
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Speaker 1: worried about it until it totally spiraled out of control.
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Speaker 1: But before we get into today's stories, if you're a
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Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format,
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Speaker 1: then you come to the right place, because that's all
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Speaker 1: we do, and we upload two, three, even four times
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Speaker 1: every week. So if that's of interest to you, please
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Speaker 1: get into today's stories. Early in the morning. On February fifth,
1:19
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, fifty seven year old Laverne pavlinok stood in
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Speaker 1: the kitchen of her Wilsonville, Oregon apartment. Making some coffee.
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Speaker 1: Mornings were the best part of LaVerne's day because she
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Speaker 1: had the whole apartment to herself. Now she lived with
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Speaker 1: her boyfriend John Sasnovsky, but he worked at a nearby
1:35
Speaker 1: mill and had to be out early in order to
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Speaker 1: catch the bus there, and each time he left, Laverne
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Speaker 1: felt like a huge weight lifted off of her because
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Speaker 1: when John wasn't home, Laverne could go about her day
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Speaker 1: and pretend she was safe. But that's all it was.
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Speaker 1: It was pretend. John in reality was an incredibly violent man.
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Speaker 1: I mean, he was seriously physically abusive, especially when he
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Speaker 1: was drunk, which was basically all the time. So Laverne
2:02
Speaker 1: had actually been married, but her husband had died of cancer,
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Speaker 1: and she had ultimately met John following her husband's death,
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Speaker 1: and so when they met, Laverne was very vulnerable and lonely,
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Speaker 1: and she really hadn't realized the kind of person John
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Speaker 1: was until it was too late. It had been ten
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Speaker 1: years now, and Laverne still had not built up the
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Speaker 1: courage to leave him. I mean, the reality was is
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Speaker 1: she was just scared of how he would react, and
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Speaker 1: so she sort of felt trapped. Now she sat down
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Speaker 1: at her kitchen table with her coffee and she opened
2:32
Speaker 1: up the local paper, and as soon as she did,
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Speaker 1: the first thing she saw was a big black and
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Speaker 1: white photo of a smiling young woman who likely was
2:39
Speaker 1: in her twenties. The photo was connected to an article
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Speaker 1: about a recent murder that happened thirty miles away, just
2:45
Speaker 1: northeast of Portland. The victim had been identified as a
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Speaker 1: woman named Tanya Bennett, and Tanya Bennett was the girl
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Speaker 1: in the photo. The article said she had been beaten
2:54
Speaker 1: and then also strangled with a rope, and then she
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Speaker 1: had been left on the side of the highway. When
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Speaker 1: Laverne read about the area she actually had been dumped,
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Speaker 1: she realized it actually was only about a mile and
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Speaker 1: a half down from this famous scenic overlook that Laverne
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Speaker 1: had actually been to before, like she was familiar with
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Speaker 1: this area. And so Laverne she's she's reading the article
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Speaker 1: and she's looking at this picture back and forth, and
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Speaker 1: it was like something was sort of forming in her mind.
3:21
Speaker 1: She just had like this weird sense that she she
3:24
Speaker 1: knew something about this case. And then as she stared
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Speaker 1: at this photo for a little bit longer, it's like
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Speaker 1: it all came together, and she realized almost certainly that
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Speaker 1: she knew John very likely killed this woman. And so
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Speaker 1: even though she loved her peaceful, quiet mornings with her coffee,
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Speaker 1: Laverne immediately stood up. She grabbed the phone, and she
3:45
Speaker 1: called the police. After she hung up with police, Laverne
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Speaker 1: was very shaken up. I mean, her heart was still racing.
3:51
Speaker 1: I mean, this was this was a very risky thing
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Speaker 1: she was doing because she had no way of knowing
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Speaker 1: if what she had just given authorities was enough to
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Speaker 1: arrest John. If it wasn't, it was entirely possible that
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Speaker 1: John would discover this betrayal of her calling the police
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Speaker 1: about him implicating him in a murder, and he would
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Speaker 1: probably just continue his abuse, if not amp up his
4:15
Speaker 1: abuse of Laverne. And so the way she saw it
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Speaker 1: is either what she just did was going to end
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Speaker 1: the chapter with John and he was going to go
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Speaker 1: to jail for murder, or Laverne might wind up being
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Speaker 1: the next dead girl on the side of the highway.
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Speaker 1: A little over a week later, on the morning of
4:32
Speaker 1: February sixteenth, Detective John Ingram sat with his partner in
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Speaker 1: a very clean living room in Wilsonville, Oregon. Ingram was
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Speaker 1: the lead investigator on Tanya Bennett's murder case, and he
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Speaker 1: was there to speak to Laverne, who was sitting on
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Speaker 1: the opposite couch, and Laverne seemed really nervous and kept
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Speaker 1: fidgeting constantly and offering Ingram and his partner refreshments. It
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Speaker 1: was just very clear that there was a lot on
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Speaker 1: this woman's mind. So Ingram knew that Laverne had a
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Speaker 1: week earlier called in a tip about the victim's killer.
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Speaker 1: She thought it was her own boyfriend, John Sasnovsky, And
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Speaker 1: right now Ingram was very eager to hear what she
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Speaker 1: had to say about her boyfriend, to basically elaborate and
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Speaker 1: sort of give the full story of why she believed
5:13
Speaker 1: what she believed, in part because Ingram's case so far
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Speaker 1: had absolutely no other leads like this was it. The
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Speaker 1: victim's body had been found on a grassy slope so
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Speaker 1: close to the edge of the highway that you could
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Speaker 1: see her from the road, but Ingram and his partner
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Speaker 1: had not been able to find any witnesses. A few
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Speaker 1: people had claimed to have seen Tanya along with some
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Speaker 1: man at a bar earlier in the night before she
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Speaker 1: went missing, but no one had been able to effectively
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Speaker 1: describe that man. It was just some guy she was with.
5:42
Speaker 1: And so Ingram and his partner had basically talked to
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Speaker 1: just about anyone they could think of that might have
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Speaker 1: known Tanya. They'd canvassed her neighborhood, that interviewed her family,
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Speaker 1: coworker's friends, and they still had not been able to
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Speaker 1: find anybody who fit as a suspect. They also hadn't
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Speaker 1: found any good physical evidence at the scene, fingerprints, or
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Speaker 1: helpful forensics. So now Ingram was hoping that Laverne was
6:06
Speaker 1: going to be the key to his whole case. And
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Speaker 1: so eventually Ingram looked at Laverne and said, whenever you're ready,
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Speaker 1: tell me what you know. Tell me the story of
6:14
Speaker 1: why you believe John killed Tanya. Now, at first, Laverne
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Speaker 1: just continued to squirm in her seat, and she was,
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Speaker 1: you know, obviously very nervous. But eventually, after Ingram told
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Speaker 1: her to just you know, take a breath, calm down,
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Speaker 1: it's okay, We just want to hear your story. Eventually,
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Speaker 1: with a shaking voice, she told them that on the
6:32
Speaker 1: night of the murder, John had come home around maybe
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Speaker 1: one or two in the morning and immediately got in
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Speaker 1: the shower. Now this was unusual, I mean, this is
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Speaker 1: not something that he typically did. He didn't shower at
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Speaker 1: two in the morning. But Laverne really hadn't thought much
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Speaker 1: of it until the next day when they went to
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Speaker 1: a local bar and she'd literally overheard John bragging to
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Speaker 1: somebody about murdering Tanya, describing how he had picked her
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Speaker 1: up at a truck stop, killed her, then took her
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Speaker 1: to the Highway Columbia River Gorge to dump her body
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Speaker 1: by this scenic overlook. As Laverne spoke, I mean, Ingram
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Speaker 1: and his partner were shocked. I mean, basically, Laverne had
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Speaker 1: overheard effectively a confession, and the details of that confession
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Speaker 1: did seem to line up with what they had heard
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Speaker 1: so far. Tanya had been seen out late at night
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Speaker 1: with some man, although nobody could really describe the man,
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Speaker 1: and also where her body was found, you know, it
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Speaker 1: was near the scenic overlook, something that was you know,
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Speaker 1: publicly known. But still, I mean, that's what Laverne heard
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Speaker 1: John say. It lined up, but he kept a poker
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Speaker 1: face and just told Laverne to please keep going, keep
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Speaker 1: elaborating and so Laverne. She continued speaking, and she went
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Speaker 1: on to say that the reason she didn't come forward
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Speaker 1: right away was because she was scared of John. He
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Speaker 1: was a violent alcoholic who abused her, which is also
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Speaker 1: part of the reason why this seemed real to her.
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Speaker 1: I mean, she was totally not shocked at the idea
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Speaker 1: that maybe John killed someone, but she was basically fearful
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Speaker 1: that he might kill her too, And so she had
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Speaker 1: kept it to herself and until she had seen the
8:00
Speaker 1: article in the paper and also saw the picture of
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Speaker 1: the girl, and she just looked so young and innocent,
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Speaker 1: and she just couldn't help but feel like she owed
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Speaker 1: it to that girl to come forward. Now, at this
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Speaker 1: point Ingram's mind was whirling. I mean, if this was
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Speaker 1: all true, it was huge for this case. I mean,
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Speaker 1: potentially this just solved the whole murder. I mean, this
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Speaker 1: is what happened potentially. But he also knew, you know,
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Speaker 1: right now it was just one woman's story, you know,
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Speaker 1: he needed actual proof. He couldn't just take LaVerne's word
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Speaker 1: for it. So he asked Laverne if he and his
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Speaker 1: partner could just go ahead and search the apartment and
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Speaker 1: as soon as Leverne nodded, the detectives jumped to their
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Speaker 1: feet and got to work. Laverne led the detectives down
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Speaker 1: the hallway to the master bedroom and then from there
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Speaker 1: she backed off and just you know, let the men
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Speaker 1: get to work and the detectives they immediately split up
8:47
Speaker 1: and spread out to cover more ground. Ingram had actually
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Speaker 1: brought along a list of stuff that they were theoretically
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Speaker 1: looking for, and one of the things on his list
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Speaker 1: was a swatch of denim from the front buttons of
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Speaker 1: Tanya's jean. It had been missing when they found her,
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Speaker 1: like it had been intentionally cut out, which was obviously
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Speaker 1: pretty unusual, and it made him think that Tanya's killer
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Speaker 1: had taken a trophy or something. But after a few
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Speaker 1: minutes of searching around the bedroom, Ingram did not see
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Speaker 1: this Denham patch. In fact, he actually didn't see anything
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Speaker 1: at first glance that connected John to Tanya until he
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Speaker 1: went over to look through this cardboard box of papers
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Speaker 1: and began sifting through them, and when he pulled out
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Speaker 1: a torn piece of scrap paper and read what was
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Speaker 1: on it, he froze. On this piece of scrap paper
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Speaker 1: was a handwritten message that just said, quote t Bennett
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Speaker 1: good piece. Ingram immediately called his partner over, who walked
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Speaker 1: over and looked at the note, and both of them
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Speaker 1: are like, Okay, obviously we need to bring John in
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Speaker 1: right away for a chat. But after leaving the bedroom
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Speaker 1: and walking towards the door to leave, who comes in
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Speaker 1: the front door none other than John Sasnovsky. Hey, guys,
10:00
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10:05
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10:14
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10:18
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10:21
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10:35
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11:08
Speaker 1: Get your tickets and enter the sweepstakes today. I can't
11:11
Speaker 1: wait to see you at the show. About an hour later,
11:15
Speaker 1: Ingram sat at an interrogation table in the Sheriff's office,
11:18
Speaker 1: staring across it at John, and John had a very
11:21
Speaker 1: confused look on his face, but otherwise seemed relatively calm.
11:25
Speaker 1: Back at the apartment, when John had walked in the
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Speaker 1: door and sort of saw the detectives and didn't know
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Speaker 1: what was going on, Ingram had told him who he
11:32
Speaker 1: was and why he was there, and John had really
11:35
Speaker 1: just seemed surprised, but had quickly agreed to go with
11:38
Speaker 1: them to the station if they wanted to speak to him.
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Speaker 1: But Ingram knew from experience that, you know, just because
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Speaker 1: John was acting very cooperative did not mean he was innocent. Now,
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Speaker 1: Ingram slid a picture of Tanya across the table and
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Speaker 1: asked John if he knew who she was or had
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Speaker 1: anything to do with her murder, and John didn't deny
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Speaker 1: it or act horrified or offended to be asked. He
11:59
Speaker 1: just said he didn't really remember. And when Ingram showed
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Speaker 1: him the note they found in his bedroom that said T.
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Speaker 1: Bennett good Peace on it, John just sort of squinted
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Speaker 1: at it and said he really wasn't sure if he
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Speaker 1: wrote that or not. So these were all very straightforward
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Speaker 1: questions and it was highly suspicious to Ingram that John
12:18
Speaker 1: apparently just couldn't answer them, at least not cleanly, And
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Speaker 1: really the rest of his interview went the same way,
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Speaker 1: with John giving mostly just vague non answers to everything
12:28
Speaker 1: Ingram asked, no matter how binary the question was supposed
12:31
Speaker 1: to be. And Ingram was just sort of struck by
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Speaker 1: how nonchalant John seemed whenever he responded, even though, I mean,
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Speaker 1: he was being questioned about his connection to a murder.
12:41
Speaker 1: This was not a time to be nonchalant. This was
12:43
Speaker 1: a time to be forthcoming. However, despite Ingram's very high
12:47
Speaker 1: suspicion of John, realistically, the only evidence he had on
12:51
Speaker 1: John at least at this point was all circumstantial and
12:54
Speaker 1: so was not nearly enough to actually arrest John. What
12:57
Speaker 1: they needed in order to do that was some form
13:01
Speaker 1: of hard evidence that directly connected him to Tanya's murder.
13:05
Speaker 1: So ultimately, at the end of this interview, despite how
13:08
Speaker 1: weird the whole thing had been, Ingram decided and told
13:12
Speaker 1: John that for now he could go. Four days later,
13:16
Speaker 1: Ingram had just got into his office for the morning
13:18
Speaker 1: when his desk phone rang. He picked up and was
13:21
Speaker 1: surprised to hear LaVerne's voice on the other end. But
13:24
Speaker 1: before he could ask her what this was about, Laverne
13:27
Speaker 1: told him she had found something in her car that
13:29
Speaker 1: morning and felt like he needed to see it. And
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Speaker 1: when she told him what this thing was, Ingram said
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Speaker 1: he would be right over then. He immediately hung up
13:37
Speaker 1: and ran to find his partner. As he drove to
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Speaker 1: LaVerne's he found his heart was racing. I mean, over
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Speaker 1: the last few days, they hadn't found any additional evidence
13:45
Speaker 1: to prove John was their killer. In fact, if anything,
13:49
Speaker 1: they had actually lost some evidence since that note they
13:52
Speaker 1: found inside of John's things in his house ended up
13:55
Speaker 1: being a dead end because their analysts couldn't actually match
13:58
Speaker 1: the handwriting to John, so they didn't know for sure
14:01
Speaker 1: if it was him. But now, based on what Laverne
14:04
Speaker 1: had just told him on the phone about what she
14:06
Speaker 1: found in her car, he was pretty much positive that
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Speaker 1: this was the break he needed. Within the hour, Ingram
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Speaker 1: and his partner were standing in LaVerne's garage with Laverne
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Speaker 1: staring into the open trunk of her car. Laverne had
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Speaker 1: told Ingram that she kept her car and really her
14:23
Speaker 1: whole life very very clean, like her apartments clean, everything's
14:27
Speaker 1: clean all the time. And when she went into her
14:30
Speaker 1: car that day, she noticed there was a little swatch
14:33
Speaker 1: of Denham sitting in the trunk, and she knew that
14:37
Speaker 1: she had not put it there, and considering she was
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Speaker 1: sort of on high alert about John and about his
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Speaker 1: connection to this murder, it just seemed like something worth
14:45
Speaker 1: flagging to police and for Ingram and his partner as
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Speaker 1: they're staring into the trunk at this little swatch of
14:50
Speaker 1: Denham that looks very much like the swatch of Denham
14:53
Speaker 1: they were secretly looking for. They had not publicly revealed
14:57
Speaker 1: that the killer had taken a little swatch of Denham
14:59
Speaker 1: from time his jeans that was private. They're looking at
15:02
Speaker 1: this thinking, oh my goodness, like, this is the break
15:05
Speaker 1: we needed. Clearly that's the denim from Tanya's genes, and
15:10
Speaker 1: so Laverne was right to call this in. This is
15:12
Speaker 1: potentially huge. Now, obviously Ingram knew that they would still
15:16
Speaker 1: have to get this denim tested to make sure it
15:18
Speaker 1: really was Tanya's. I mean, it's entirely possible that it
15:21
Speaker 1: was actually LaVerne's or John's or was unrelated. But circumstantially
15:26
Speaker 1: this felt like hitting the jackpot, and so Ingram watched
15:28
Speaker 1: as his partner picked up the swatch put it into
15:31
Speaker 1: an evidence bag, and then they left and said they
15:33
Speaker 1: would have it tested and they would be in touch.
15:36
Speaker 1: The following morning, Ingram was at his desk reviewing all
15:39
Speaker 1: the evidence that they had so far, and by this
15:41
Speaker 1: point they had a lot of evidence. The previous night,
15:45
Speaker 1: after finding the denim, they had brought John in for
15:48
Speaker 1: a polygraph test and he had completely failed it. The
15:51
Speaker 1: test administrator had even noted that in his opinion, John
15:55
Speaker 1: definitely knew what had happened to Tanya. So now realistically
15:59
Speaker 1: Ingram was just sort of on confirmation that that fabric
16:02
Speaker 1: was a match, and then at that point they could
16:04
Speaker 1: go and arrest John. And when Ingram's phone rang, he
16:07
Speaker 1: picked it up immediately and it was the lab and
16:10
Speaker 1: so Ingram sat up straight, ready for some good news.
16:14
Speaker 1: But the tech on the other line sounded sort of glum,
16:16
Speaker 1: and he told Ingram that the denim from LaVerne's car
16:19
Speaker 1: did not match the jeans that Tanya was wearing, so
16:22
Speaker 1: it was not hers. And at this Ingram was just
16:25
Speaker 1: completely stunned. I mean, the idea that they had just
16:28
Speaker 1: found the same unique cut of denim in a car
16:31
Speaker 1: in their main suspects house could not be a coincidence.
16:35
Speaker 1: I mean, it was not typical for people to have
16:37
Speaker 1: little swatches of denim lying around like this is not
16:40
Speaker 1: something that you just happened to have. It felt sort
16:42
Speaker 1: of specific, and so there just had to be more
16:45
Speaker 1: to this than met the eye. And even though Ingram
16:47
Speaker 1: tried to work out some kind of reasonable explanation for
16:50
Speaker 1: why that swatch was there, the only thing that actually
16:54
Speaker 1: made sense was that the fake denim was planted there.
16:58
Speaker 1: And so feeling a mix of again shock but also
17:01
Speaker 1: just frustration here, I mean, he thought he was so
17:03
Speaker 1: close to solving this thing and now he was sort
17:06
Speaker 1: of back to square one. Ingram realized that the next
17:09
Speaker 1: stop had to be LaVerne's. He needed to go speak
17:12
Speaker 1: to her again. Later that morning, Ingram and his partner
17:15
Speaker 1: were once again back in LaVerne's living room, with a
17:18
Speaker 1: very nervous looking Laverne sitting across from them. This time,
17:22
Speaker 1: Ingram was going to be a little tougher on her
17:24
Speaker 1: because he now knew that, you know, whatever she had
17:26
Speaker 1: told him before very likely was not the full story.
17:30
Speaker 1: And as soon as Ingram asked Laverne point blank if
17:33
Speaker 1: she had planted that evidence that denim inside of her car,
17:37
Speaker 1: Laverne just kind of looked back at him, and her
17:40
Speaker 1: face began to sort of quiver, and then she just
17:42
Speaker 1: started sobbing, and she told them she was so so sorry.
17:46
Speaker 1: She explained that she had caught up some jeans and
17:50
Speaker 1: put that front button part in her car and pretended
17:53
Speaker 1: to have found it so that they'd be able to
17:55
Speaker 1: arrest John. She said she had just gotten so worried
17:57
Speaker 1: when they let him go after interviewing him, because she
18:00
Speaker 1: knew John killed Tanya. He had to have. She heard
18:03
Speaker 1: him talk about it like he did it, and he's
18:05
Speaker 1: dangerous then she just wanted to make sure the police
18:08
Speaker 1: held him accountable. Now, when Ingram heard this, he could
18:11
Speaker 1: hear like the earnestness in her voice, like, clearly, this
18:15
Speaker 1: woman is scared of John and thinks he did this.
18:18
Speaker 1: She believes he did this, and so he wanted to
18:21
Speaker 1: believe her angle here as inappropriate as planting evidence was,
18:25
Speaker 1: But critically he knew Laverne still was definitely not telling
18:29
Speaker 1: him everything, because there was simply no way she could
18:33
Speaker 1: have known to plant that unique cut of the genes
18:38
Speaker 1: unless she had intimate knowledge of the crime or some
18:41
Speaker 1: other inside information. But there was just something missing here.
18:44
Speaker 1: Why would she randomly choose that front cut of denim
18:48
Speaker 1: as just the evidence. Oh, here's some evidence that's gonna
18:51
Speaker 1: make John look guilty. Why would she choose that? That's
18:53
Speaker 1: way too on the nose. And when he pointed this
18:56
Speaker 1: out to Laverne, it was like LaVerne's energy comple completely shifted,
19:01
Speaker 1: you know, from from sobbing and sadness and remorse to
19:05
Speaker 1: just pure like hesitation, like she didn't really know how
19:08
Speaker 1: to react, but there wasn't any more sadness. It was like, uh, oh,
19:11
Speaker 1: something's off here. And then Laverne kind of took a
19:14
Speaker 1: deep breath and she looked at Ingram and she said,
19:18
Speaker 1: I was lying. You're right. My story about planting the evidence,
19:23
Speaker 1: that was a lie. But she went on to say
19:25
Speaker 1: that the reason she had lied was because she had
19:28
Speaker 1: ultimately been too afraid that if the police knew the
19:31
Speaker 1: whole story, that she would get in trouble too. Then
19:34
Speaker 1: Laverne explained what really happened to Tanya on the night
19:38
Speaker 1: that Tanya was murdered. Laverne said John called her that
19:42
Speaker 1: night and he was sort of frantic, and he said
19:45
Speaker 1: to her that he was in trouble and that she
19:47
Speaker 1: needed to meet him at the bar that he was
19:48
Speaker 1: at and to bring along a shower curtain. And so
19:52
Speaker 1: Laverne said, because she was very scared of John, and
19:55
Speaker 1: you know, it was just fearful of asking any questions,
19:57
Speaker 1: she had just done what he said and she got
19:59
Speaker 1: the shower and she'd driven out there and she found
20:03
Speaker 1: John in a parking lot standing over a body. It
20:06
Speaker 1: was Tanya, and she was just lying there on the ground, motionless.
20:10
Speaker 1: Laverne said she was horrified and didn't know what to do,
20:13
Speaker 1: so she just helped. She literally helped John put Tanya's
20:17
Speaker 1: body into her car. LaVerne's car wrapped her up in
20:21
Speaker 1: that curtain she'd brought along, and then together they dumped
20:24
Speaker 1: her body at a spot along the highway. But as
20:27
Speaker 1: Laverne continued to talk, her story suddenly got much darker
20:31
Speaker 1: because she actually eventually confessed that actually Tanya had not
20:36
Speaker 1: been dead when she had first arrived, but instead she
20:39
Speaker 1: was still clinging to life, and at John's request, Laverne
20:44
Speaker 1: had tied rope around Tanya's neck and held it tight
20:48
Speaker 1: while John sexually assaulted her. Leverne said, after he was done,
20:52
Speaker 1: Tanya was no longer breathing. Ingram could barely conceal his
20:55
Speaker 1: shock when she explained this, I mean, here was this gentle,
20:58
Speaker 1: soft spoken lady who was now telling him that she
21:01
Speaker 1: had actively participated in the sexual assault and murder of
21:05
Speaker 1: this young woman. It was hard to wrap his head
21:08
Speaker 1: around it. And at the moment all Ingram could think
21:11
Speaker 1: was this can't be real. But what Laverne was saying
21:15
Speaker 1: just fit. It explained John's cagy answers to his questions,
21:20
Speaker 1: his failed polygraph, and how Laverne knew the right part
21:24
Speaker 1: of the jeans to cut out and fake his evidence
21:27
Speaker 1: because she and John had been the ones who actually
21:30
Speaker 1: made the cut on Tanya's Jean's they knew. But despite
21:34
Speaker 1: getting this earth shattering confession here, Ingram wanted to be
21:38
Speaker 1: completely sure that this version of the story Laverne was
21:41
Speaker 1: telling him was actually the truth, and he knew exactly
21:45
Speaker 1: how to prove it. The following day, Ingram was behind
21:49
Speaker 1: the wheel of his cruiser next to his partner, and
21:52
Speaker 1: Laverne sat in the back, sort of absent mindedly staring
21:55
Speaker 1: out the window. They were driving down the highway northeast
21:58
Speaker 1: to Portland, and Ingram had instru did Laverne to let
22:01
Speaker 1: him know when they reached the spot where they dumped
22:04
Speaker 1: Tanya's body. Now, the newspapers had published the general location
22:09
Speaker 1: of where the body had been found, but certainly not specifics,
22:12
Speaker 1: so Ingram knew that if Laverne could point out the
22:15
Speaker 1: exact spot, well, that meant she was telling the truth.
22:19
Speaker 1: As they began to get closer and closer to the
22:21
Speaker 1: spot Ingram knew was the spot, he sort of felt
22:25
Speaker 1: his heart rate pick up, but he didn't drive any
22:27
Speaker 1: faster or slower. He didn't signal that it was coming up.
22:30
Speaker 1: He just kept on driving. Steady going straight, sort of
22:33
Speaker 1: expecting Laverne to call it out any moment, But the
22:36
Speaker 1: cruiser drove right past the actual spot where the body
22:40
Speaker 1: had been found, and Laverne didn't say anything for a
22:43
Speaker 1: few minutes. They just kept on driving down the road
22:46
Speaker 1: in total silence, and you know, Ingram's feeling really disappointed here.
22:50
Speaker 1: And as they're driving along, suddenly Laverne says, hey, wait
22:54
Speaker 1: a minute, turn around, so Ingram did, and soon they
22:57
Speaker 1: were headed back the way they'd come. And this time
23:00
Speaker 1: when they passed the actual crime scene, so the actual
23:03
Speaker 1: spot where Tanya had been found, Laverne called it out
23:07
Speaker 1: and said that's where she was stop. As Ingram parked
23:10
Speaker 1: the car, he looked back at Laverne, who was staring
23:12
Speaker 1: intently out the window right at the exact spot on
23:16
Speaker 1: that slope, right off the highway where the body had
23:18
Speaker 1: been found. Then once they were parked, all three of
23:20
Speaker 1: them got out of the car and Laverne went over
23:23
Speaker 1: to the edge of the road and pointed like right
23:26
Speaker 1: to the exact spot where Tanya had been found on
23:28
Speaker 1: the slope. And even though Ingram tried to keep his
23:31
Speaker 1: expression neutral here, internally he was sort of amazed I
23:35
Speaker 1: mean clearly Laverne was telling the truth. It would have
23:38
Speaker 1: been impossible for her to have chosen that specific spot
23:41
Speaker 1: without having prior knowledge of where Tanya had been, Meaning
23:44
Speaker 1: she was telling the truth, she must have been involved
23:47
Speaker 1: in killing Tanya. As they all climbed back into the car,
23:51
Speaker 1: Ingram knew they now had more than enough to formally
23:53
Speaker 1: arrest John and also Laverne. She'd done the right thing
23:57
Speaker 1: by coming forward, but of course now there were going
24:00
Speaker 1: to be consequences. On February twenty first, so sixteen days
24:05
Speaker 1: after Laverne called with her first tip, John Sovsnovsky was arrested,
24:10
Speaker 1: and five days after that, Laverne was arrested as well,
24:14
Speaker 1: and both of them were charged with murder. About eleven
24:17
Speaker 1: months later, LaVerne's trial started, and at that point Laverne
24:20
Speaker 1: actually tried to change her story again. She tried to
24:23
Speaker 1: recant her confession and said no, I didn't actually do this,
24:27
Speaker 1: But the jury didn't buy her change of heart and
24:30
Speaker 1: convicted her of murder and she was sentenced to life
24:33
Speaker 1: in prison. As for John, two months after LaVerne's sentencing,
24:37
Speaker 1: he was given the same sentence, life in prison, and
24:40
Speaker 1: that should have been the end of the case, at
24:42
Speaker 1: least from the legal perspective, But for the next three
24:46
Speaker 1: years following sentencing, Ingram just couldn't stop thinking about Laverne
24:50
Speaker 1: and John and Tanya Bennett. Despite what Laverne had done,
24:54
Speaker 1: he felt a lot of empathy for her. She'd obviously
24:57
Speaker 1: been under John's control and it seemed genuinely terrified of him.
25:01
Speaker 1: But more than that, Ingram had this horrible, nagging feeling
25:05
Speaker 1: that they'd gotten something wrong here. Then one March afternoon
25:09
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four, Ingram was in his office at
25:12
Speaker 1: the Sheriff's Department going over some paperwork when his desk
25:15
Speaker 1: phone rang. When he picked it up, it was the
25:17
Speaker 1: prosecutor who'd worked Tanya's case, and the prosecutor said they'd
25:22
Speaker 1: just gotten a very strange letter about Tanya's murder. And
25:26
Speaker 1: as soon as the prosecutor described the letter's contents, Ingram
25:30
Speaker 1: felt sick to his stomach. Ingram had been right to
25:33
Speaker 1: worry that he and his partner, and really the whole
25:36
Speaker 1: legal system had potentially just gotten something wrong with this case.
25:41
Speaker 1: You know, it just felt like there was something left unsaid,
25:44
Speaker 1: there was some loophole, there was some loose sense, something
25:47
Speaker 1: but he didn't know what it was. It would turn
25:49
Speaker 1: out the thing that was wrong was Laverne, because their
25:54
Speaker 1: star witness. Laverne was not just this sweet, older lady
25:58
Speaker 1: afraid of her abusive way friend who had come forward
26:01
Speaker 1: and told the truth despite the consequences, that wasn't really
26:05
Speaker 1: the story. In fact, basically everything she told Ingram and
26:09
Speaker 1: his partner was a lie. What was true and what
26:13
Speaker 1: ultimately drove Laverne to do what she did was she
26:18
Speaker 1: really wanted to break up with John, but she didn't
26:21
Speaker 1: know how to do it, and so what she ultimately
26:24
Speaker 1: did to attempt to rid herself of John was to
26:28
Speaker 1: frame him for murder. And at first she did an
26:31
Speaker 1: incredible job. You know, she read everything she could, you know,
26:34
Speaker 1: little details about the murder and the news. She also
26:37
Speaker 1: snuck a peek at Ingram's list of evidence during that
26:39
Speaker 1: early interview that was done at her apartment, and so
26:41
Speaker 1: that's how she knew about, you know, that swatch of
26:44
Speaker 1: denim they were looking for. And she also just happened
26:47
Speaker 1: to take a few really lucky guesses, like when she
26:49
Speaker 1: pointed out the spot on the side of the highway
26:51
Speaker 1: where the body was found, she just guessed but it
26:54
Speaker 1: happened to be right. However, the problem was, despite you know,
26:58
Speaker 1: basically nailing the frame of John and getting him wrapped
27:02
Speaker 1: up with a murder conviction, she also sort of inadvertently
27:06
Speaker 1: implicated herself, you know, when she came out and said,
27:09
Speaker 1: while I participated in the murder, her thinking was, they'll
27:13
Speaker 1: take pity on me and they'll blame John. He'll go
27:16
Speaker 1: to jail and I'll be okay. But now she also
27:20
Speaker 1: got convicted of murder and went to jail as well.
27:23
Speaker 1: And Laverne and John were literally in prison basically writing
27:27
Speaker 1: out their life sentences. When the actual killer, the real
27:32
Speaker 1: Tanya Bennett killer, sent a letter to authorities confessing to
27:36
Speaker 1: his crime. That was why that prosecutor called Ingram. It
27:39
Speaker 1: was to tell him, like, I think there's been a mistake.
27:41
Speaker 1: They clearly didn't do it. After the real killer was
27:44
Speaker 1: arrested in nineteen ninety five, Laverne and John were both
27:47
Speaker 1: released from prison. In total, they both served four years
27:51
Speaker 1: in jail, all because of LaVerne's lies. One morning in
28:10
Speaker 1: early November of twenty twenty three, a seventy one year
28:13
Speaker 1: old woman named Patrice Miller stood in front of her
28:15
Speaker 1: fridge in her little home in the rural town of Downeyville, California,
28:19
Speaker 1: and she saw she was running low on food, which
28:22
Speaker 1: meant it was time to place an order with the
28:24
Speaker 1: market in town, which delivered her groceries for her. Getting
28:27
Speaker 1: her food delivered was essential for Patrice and where she
28:30
Speaker 1: was at in her life right now. She lived alone
28:33
Speaker 1: and had a whole house to take care of, which
28:35
Speaker 1: was definitely getting harder the older she got. She'd also
28:38
Speaker 1: had some health problems lately, so it was getting more
28:40
Speaker 1: difficult just to move around, you know. She even had
28:43
Speaker 1: a walking stick just to prop herself up. As Patrice
28:46
Speaker 1: stood in front of her fridge wondering what she was
28:48
Speaker 1: going to add to her grocery list, she heard one
28:50
Speaker 1: of her two cats meowing outside, and this reminded her that,
28:54
Speaker 1: amongst some other chores, she needed to feed her cats.
28:57
Speaker 1: So she decided to make her list later, and she
29:00
Speaker 1: just closed the fridge door, put some cat food in
29:02
Speaker 1: a bowl, and then grabbed her walking stick and headed outside.
29:05
Speaker 1: Patrese carried the cat food out onto the porch. She
29:08
Speaker 1: had some other things to do outside, but she couldn't
29:11
Speaker 1: hold a lot of things at once because of her
29:12
Speaker 1: walking stick. So once she had put the bowl down,
29:15
Speaker 1: she then headed back inside to get her compost and
29:18
Speaker 1: then took that back outside to her garden. And she
29:20
Speaker 1: tried to do all these outdoor chores really quickly because
29:24
Speaker 1: she didn't like being outside these days. She had lived
29:27
Speaker 1: in Downeyville for a long time, but over the past
29:30
Speaker 1: few years it had gotten really dangerous there. Now. She
29:33
Speaker 1: hadn't realized how bad it was at first because she
29:35
Speaker 1: mostly kept herself, but eventually she learned that her neighbors
29:40
Speaker 1: were starting to get intruders on their property. There had
29:43
Speaker 1: also been a clear uptick in vandalism in people's yards
29:46
Speaker 1: and to their homes, and in fact, over the past
29:48
Speaker 1: few months, Patrese herself had begun to experience this directly.
29:53
Speaker 1: In fact, she had dealt with so many attempted break
29:56
Speaker 1: ins at her own house that she had become convinced
29:58
Speaker 1: that she had a stock her. She'd even put bars
30:02
Speaker 1: on her windows as a security measure. So that's why
30:05
Speaker 1: Patrice did not like being outside. She felt exposed, like
30:09
Speaker 1: her stalker or whoever it was that was doing this,
30:12
Speaker 1: was going to be watching her and would come over
30:14
Speaker 1: here and attack, And so as fast as she could
30:16
Speaker 1: she dumped the compost in her garden, turned around, hustled inside,
30:20
Speaker 1: and shut the door behind her, And as soon as
30:22
Speaker 1: she had done that and was safely inside her house,
30:25
Speaker 1: she felt hugely relieved. A few days later, on November eighth,
30:29
Speaker 1: at the market in town where Patrise typically got her groceries,
30:33
Speaker 1: a fifty five year old cashier named Cassie Coke rang
30:36
Speaker 1: up a customer at the register, but as she bagged
30:39
Speaker 1: their purchases, her mind was elsewhere. She was thinking about Patrice.
30:43
Speaker 1: Cassie was typically the person that delivered Patrice's grocery order,
30:47
Speaker 1: but over the years they had become closer than just
30:50
Speaker 1: a customer provider relationship. You know, they were friends. In fact,
30:53
Speaker 1: these days, the two of them would speak on the
30:55
Speaker 1: phone fairly, often just a chat. But now Cassie realized
31:00
Speaker 1: she hadn't heard from Patrise in days, which was very odd,
31:03
Speaker 1: both because of their friendship, but also because she knew
31:06
Speaker 1: it had been a while since Patrise made her grocery order,
31:09
Speaker 1: and so Cassie had begun asking around at the store
31:12
Speaker 1: and had found out that nobody else had heard from
31:14
Speaker 1: Patrise either. Now Cassie knew it was possible that Patrice
31:17
Speaker 1: was just busy, and for pretty much anybody else, you know,
31:21
Speaker 1: one misorder or even a couple misorders wouldn't be enough
31:24
Speaker 1: to make Cassie worry. But in this case, Cassie was
31:27
Speaker 1: extra concern because she knew about Patrice's stalker, and she
31:31
Speaker 1: knew that Patrice had even called the authorities about it,
31:34
Speaker 1: but they really hadn't been much help. Remember this is
31:37
Speaker 1: a tiny rural town in California that had experienced a
31:40
Speaker 1: lot of exactly what Patrise was experiencing, break INDs, harassment,
31:44
Speaker 1: and other kinds of vandalism or damage. However, neither Patrise
31:48
Speaker 1: nor anybody else had reported any actual violence, so authorities
31:52
Speaker 1: were basically overwhelmed with a flood of what they considered
31:56
Speaker 1: sort of relatively minor complaints, and Patrese's situation really he
32:00
Speaker 1: didn't seem much worse than anybody else's in town. And
32:03
Speaker 1: also officials just didn't have the manpower to deal with it,
32:06
Speaker 1: and so ultimately all authorities did was just advise Patrise
32:10
Speaker 1: on ways she could handle it herself, which was why
32:13
Speaker 1: she'd installed those bars on her windows. All this is
32:15
Speaker 1: to say Cassie knew that Patrice was genuinely terrified of
32:19
Speaker 1: her stalker, who Patrice referred to as Big Bastard, and
32:24
Speaker 1: she was worried about what the stalker might do next.
32:26
Speaker 1: So after Cassie was done with her shift that day,
32:29
Speaker 1: she tried to get in touch with Patrice one more time,
32:31
Speaker 1: but when she couldn't reach her yet again, Cassie called
32:34
Speaker 1: the police and asked them to go to a wellness check.
32:37
Speaker 1: That evening, a deputy from the Sierra County Sheriff's Department
32:41
Speaker 1: drove up to Patrice's house and parked in front, and
32:44
Speaker 1: immediately he could tell something was wrong. The front door
32:47
Speaker 1: of her house was clearly smashed in, and there was
32:50
Speaker 1: a garden hose that was laying across her port steps
32:53
Speaker 1: and was spraying water everywhere like the water had just
32:56
Speaker 1: been left on. And so the deputy got out of
32:58
Speaker 1: his cruiser and he walked over to the house. He
33:00
Speaker 1: found the turn off for the water on the side
33:02
Speaker 1: of the house, and then he walked up the front
33:05
Speaker 1: steps of the porch. And as he did this, he
33:07
Speaker 1: was constantly looking around and listening, trying to figure out
33:11
Speaker 1: what was going on here. I mean, he didn't know
33:12
Speaker 1: if there was an active threat inside the house. He
33:15
Speaker 1: had no idea what he was walking into. And so
33:17
Speaker 1: he's on the porch and before going in through the
33:20
Speaker 1: front door, which was obviously, you know, smashed open, he
33:23
Speaker 1: looked in a window to see if he could see
33:25
Speaker 1: into the house to gauge what was going on here.
33:28
Speaker 1: And when he looked inside the house, the first thing
33:31
Speaker 1: he saw was blood all over the floor, and at
33:33
Speaker 1: that point he unholstered his gun, and so now with
33:36
Speaker 1: his gun raised, the deputy stepped into the house and
33:40
Speaker 1: he slowly walked through the living room, listening for any
33:43
Speaker 1: signs of sudden movement or an indication there was someone
33:46
Speaker 1: still in the house, but he didn't hear anything, and
33:50
Speaker 1: so there didn't appear to be an intruder present right now.
33:54
Speaker 1: But there was also no sign of Patrice. All he
33:57
Speaker 1: saw was that blood towards the front of the house.
33:59
Speaker 1: That was it. And so the day deputy he left
34:00
Speaker 1: the living room and walked towards the kitchen, and as
34:04
Speaker 1: soon as he stepped across the threshold into the kitchen,
34:08
Speaker 1: he breathed in and just kind of held his breath
34:10
Speaker 1: because what he saw was just chaos. All the cabinets
34:13
Speaker 1: were open, and all over the floor were remnants of
34:16
Speaker 1: all the food that likely was in the cabinets, like
34:19
Speaker 1: pieces of food and ripped up packaging and broken jars.
34:23
Speaker 1: A window at the far end of the room was
34:24
Speaker 1: also smashed, and the security bars that Patrice had put
34:28
Speaker 1: on the window were bent and hanging by their hinges.
34:32
Speaker 1: There was actually so much just debris and just chaos
34:36
Speaker 1: in the kitchen that at first the deputy didn't register
34:40
Speaker 1: what was actually laying in the center of the kitchen
34:43
Speaker 1: on the floor, But then when his brain sort of
34:45
Speaker 1: processed it, he realized what he was looking at was Patrice,
34:51
Speaker 1: at least what was left of her, but she no
34:54
Speaker 1: longer looked human because her body had literally been torn
34:59
Speaker 1: apart the deputy he quickly left the house and called
35:01
Speaker 1: in his terrible discovery to the sheriff, and within an hour,
35:05
Speaker 1: Pateresa's property was swarming with police and crime scene texts
35:09
Speaker 1: and a forensic expert who specialized in this type of
35:12
Speaker 1: scene and detectives fanned out all across the area and
35:15
Speaker 1: began speaking to Patrese's neighbors and because pretty much everyone
35:19
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood had been experiencing the same type of
35:22
Speaker 1: break ins and property damage that Patrice had, been. It
35:25
Speaker 1: actually didn't take long for police to develop a profile
35:28
Speaker 1: of Patrese's killer. Their conclusion was that very likely the
35:32
Speaker 1: killer was the same individual who was harassing everybody else.
35:36
Speaker 1: But what officials couldn't understand is why had everybody else
35:41
Speaker 1: experienced effectively minor vandalism, but Patrese went from minor vandalism
35:47
Speaker 1: to really excessive violence. And this required developing a profile
35:52
Speaker 1: of Patrese. And so as police searched for her killer,
35:55
Speaker 1: they were also working on reconstructing Patrese's movements on the
35:59
Speaker 1: final day of Veroe life. And at first in their efforts,
36:02
Speaker 1: really they were just stumped. I mean, all she had
36:03
Speaker 1: done on that day, as far as they could tell,
36:06
Speaker 1: were some basic chores. But as they dug into what
36:11
Speaker 1: those chores consisted of, they found two things that actually
36:15
Speaker 1: explained everything. It would turn out that every day for
36:19
Speaker 1: the past couple of years, Patrice had been making two
36:22
Speaker 1: terrible mistakes. She fed her cats out on the porch,
36:27
Speaker 1: and she emptied her compost into the garden, and these
36:31
Speaker 1: two actions ultimately were what sort of attracted her stalker,
36:35
Speaker 1: Big Bastard, to her home. Because Big Bastard was a
36:40
Speaker 1: black bear, he loved to eat cat food and kitchen
36:42
Speaker 1: compost scraps, and eventually he decided that Patrise was food too,
36:47
Speaker 1: So on that day in early November of twenty twenty three,
36:50
Speaker 1: when patrese fed her cats and emptied her compost for
36:53
Speaker 1: the last time, Big Bastard waited until Patrise was in
36:57
Speaker 1: bed and then broke into her house, then savagely killed her.
37:01
Speaker 1: By the time the deputy arrived at Patrice's home, big
37:05
Speaker 1: Bastard had been eating Patrise's body for days, and so
37:08
Speaker 1: what he saw in the kitchen was what was left
37:11
Speaker 1: of her. Black bears are not typically dangerous to people.
37:15
Speaker 1: In fact, Patrise was the first known black bear fatality
37:18
Speaker 1: in California history. But it was exactly that sort of
37:23
Speaker 1: lack of perceived danger, which is why officials didn't help
37:26
Speaker 1: Patrice or any of our other neighbors get rid of
37:29
Speaker 1: these black bears when they were coming into their neighborhood
37:32
Speaker 1: and causing all this property damage and all this alarm.
37:35
Speaker 1: They basically said, Eh, what's the worst they could do.
37:44
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching today's episode. Let me
37:47
Speaker 1: know what you thought of it in the comments below,
37:49
Speaker 1: And remember we have a whole playlist of places you
37:52
Speaker 1: can't go. Episodes ready for you to binge right now,
37:55
Speaker 1: so go ahead and click here and give them a watch,
37:58
Speaker 1: all right, until next time. Zero