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Sex Lies Murder Suicide · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

• 0:07
  Discretion is advised. Ten needed murder. Chari was born in Flint, Michigan,
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  on October thirteenth, nineteen seventy one. By sixteen years old, she
• 0:36
  was already out on her own. She was drawn to the seedier side of
• 0:41
  life, and it welcomed her with open arms. By nineteen she was married
• 0:45
  with the child. That marriage was short lived. Chari bounced around from one
• 0:50
  man to another. She eventually had three children with three different fathers. And
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  don't get me wrong, I'm not saying anything necessarily negative about this, because
• 1:00
  life happens. People make mistakes, get mixed up with the wrong people,
• 1:03
  and before they realize, boom pregnant. What I'm saying is this aspect is
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  part of a behavior pattern that helps tell the bigger story. Shari did get
• 1:12
  married a second time, but that husband went to jail for hitting one of
• 1:17
  the kids so hard that it fractured their skull. It seemed as though she
• 1:21
  attracted men of questionable character. And this is what I'm saying, three baby
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  daddies isn't exactly the problem. It's the type of person she's associating with.
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  Shari had a way of making any man feel like he was the most important
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  man in the world, and she was able to make many men all feel
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  that way at once. She could juggle the men in her life at the
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  bars and the online chat rooms better than most circus performers. She found an
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  outlet for her wild side in online chat rooms. She could be whoever she
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  wanted to be and say whatever she wanted to say. But her life online
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  didn't pay the bills. Ninety seven, she was twenty six years old and
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  selling Mary Kay cosmetics, but needed more work. She applied for a job
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  working in the office at B and D Salvage Yard. The owner, Bruce
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  Miller, was kind and willing to give Sharie a chance. He was twenty
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  years her senior, but the two started dating, which may explain why he
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  hired her with zero experience. He had money, he provided stability, and
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  he liked her children. It seemed like Chari may have finally found the prince
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  in her fairy tale, and in nineteen ninety nine they got married. But
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  Cherie wasn't some helpless princess that needed rescuing. Most people in town didn't know
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  that she got married because she was still frequenting the bars and flirting shamelessly with
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  the men buying her drinks. While she was working in her husband's office,
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  she had plenty of time to get on the computer and check in with her
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  chat room romances. I'm from the nineteen hundreds myself, and in the early
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  days of the internet and chat rooms, we called these people men and women
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  alike chat hose. And one of the men that she started talking to was
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  Jerry Cassaday. Cassaday was once a cop with aspirations of joining the FBI.
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  In his cop office, he exposed an issue and then was shunned by his
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  coworkers. He eventually quit the force, and he started drinking too much and
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  his marriage crumbled. He was lonely, but found a new career as a
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  pit boss at a casino in Reno. Cheri told her husband that Mary Kay
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  was having a convention in Reno. She planned a trip to go see him.
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  Her face stayed flush the whole time she was in Reno, but not
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  from her Mary Kay blush. Cherie and Cassaday had moved from an online romance
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  to a full blown physical relationship. He was absolutely crazy about her, and
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  she filled his lonely nights with passion. Their whirlwind romance consisted of several actual
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  visits and many many online chats. She wasn't one that liked to be tied
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  down, maybe fityly, but not metaphorically. She could get divorced, but
• 4:02
  she needed Bruce Miller's money. Her problem seemed to have resolved itself on November
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  eighth, nineteen ninety nine, when she found out that her husband had been
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  killed at work. Bruce was late coming home, and she called her brother
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  in law and asked if he had heard from him. He went to go
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  check the office and found Bruce dead. He had been murdered, shot with
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  a twenty gage shotgun. The police had little to go on. They speculated
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  what it looked like a robbery gone bad, and the case went cold.
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  Miller and Cherie had not even been married a year. They were practically still
• 4:38
  newly wet. But while the family was planning the funeral, Cherie was once
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  again visiting the bars as Bruce Miller's widow. She got the salvage yard,
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  which she sold, got the money in the bank accounts, some stocks he
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  owned, and the cash from his life insurance policy, and just two weeks
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  after Bruce's death. Two weeks now, Cherie had a new boyfriend move in
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  with her. This new boyfriend was not Jerry Cassaday, so what happened to
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  him? They seemed like teenagers in love Romeo and Juliet fighting to be together
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  against all odds. Cheri had ended that relationship with Jerry almost immediately following her
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  husband's death. Maybe it was guilt over the affair. Maybe it was not
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  wanting to be in another serious relationship so soon. However, Jerry couldn't get
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  past the love that he thought that they shared. In February of two thousand,
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  Jerry Cassaday was found dead in his home. He committed suicide. They
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  also found a briefcase under his bed. There was a note taped to the
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  outside of the briefcase, addressed to his parents, but what was inside was
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  about to destroy the new life Schurie had carefully constructed. At what point Cheri
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  started to develop her plan is unclear, but she intricately spun a web of
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  lies that pulled Jerry Cassaday right in those ways she used to lure him.
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  After they initially met, She sent him a video of her pleasuring herself for
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  him to watch whenever he missed her. Jerry wanted her to leave Bruce,
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  but she told him that she couldn't leave. Bruce was abusive and tied to
• 6:15
  the mafia. Now hold on, it gets worse. She sent Jerry Cassaday
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  a video of a sonogram and told him that she was pregnant with his child.
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  He was ecstatic, although that excitement was soon replaced with rage when Cheri
• 6:30
  told him that her husband had raped her until she lost the baby. She
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  sent Cassaday pictures of bruses from fights that they had. Then Cassaday started receiving
• 6:40
  emails from air Quotes Bruce. The emails were cruel, taunting, and full
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  of threats. Cassaday thought the safety of Cherie's life was literally in his hands.
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  He went to Flint, Michigan, walked into Bruce's office, and he
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  shot him and went back home, waiting to hear that Cheri was safe and
• 7:00
  they could finally start their life together. But that call did not come.
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  In fact, Schari wouldn't respond to his emails or phone calls. Eventually,
• 7:09
  she told him that she was seeing other people and that they were done.
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  Jerry Cassaday must have been pretty confused. After all, Chari had asked him
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  to kill her husband. Suri had even planned the whole murder. Was he
• 7:23
  just a pawn in her twisted evil game. Maybe that's when he started to
• 7:27
  discover the truth, the truth being that Bruce Miller was actually a decent man.
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  He helped Shari with her kids, He didn't abuse her. She used
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  makeup for the bruces and the pictures that she sent to Jerry. He had
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  not even sent the threatening emails. Schari created a fake account and sent those
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  emails, pretending to be Bruce to Jerry. And she was never pregnant with
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  his child. She had a tubal ligation years before. He was devastated,
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  maybe even racked with guilt, realizing he had been played and tricked into murdering
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  an innocent man. But when Cassaday took his own life, he made arrangements
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  to take Schari down with him. In the briefcase, the police found videos,
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  pictures, and copies of their online conversations, more than enough to link
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  Shari to the crime. In February of two thousand, Shari Miller was arrested
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  without bond. On December twenty second, the jury found her guilty of all
• 8:24
  charges. On January twenty ninth, two thousand and one, a judge sentenced
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  her to life in prison for the conspiracy to commit murder and second degree murder,
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  but in August of two thousand and eight, a federal judge overturned the
• 8:37
  conviction and ordered a new trial, stating that the suicide note from Cassaday should
• 8:43
  not have been entered in evidence since he was dead and not available for cross
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  examinations without Ouiji board. So on July sixteenth, two thousand and nine,
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  a federal judge ordered that Shari be released from jail until her new trial.
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  The prosecutor from Genesee County did not agree with the disay decision and ordered that
• 9:01
  she be immediately arrested upon release from the prison and brought back to the county
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  jail. On July twenty second, she was once again arraigned. The new
• 9:09
  trial was set to start in October. Cheri's attorneys filed an appeal and the
• 9:13
  trial was put on hold. Not only did they manage to postpone the trial,
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  but on July twenty ninth, she was released on a one hundred thousand
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  dollars recognisance bond. Chari was out of jail, she visited with family and
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  friends, planned to shower for her pregnant daughter. Wrote to her son serving
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  overseas, took photography classes, went to counseling, and met other men both
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  online and in bars. While she was enjoying her freedom, the wheels of
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  justice continued turning. On June twenty first, twenty ten, the US Court
• 9:46
  of Appeals agreed that Cassaday's suicide note was not admissible. On November fourteenth,
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  twenty eleven, the U. S Supreme Court vacated the Court of Appeal's decision
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  and sent the case back to the Sixth Court Circuit of Appeals. The Court
• 10:00
  of Appeals sent the case back to the district court. It's all pretty confusing,
• 10:05
  but throughout the entire process, Shari Miller maintained she was innocent and wrongfully
• 10:09
  accused, although once she returned to prison, she wrote the judge a letter
• 10:13
  admitting her guilt to the murder. Her letter sounded remorseful, she said,
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  spending the last few years where her family and friends had made her really realize
• 10:22
  which she took away from Bruce Miller and his family. She admitted to manipulating
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  Jerry Cassaday to kill her husband. She even claimed that she always wanted to
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  admit that she was guilty, but that her lawyers would not let her as
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  emotional as her letter may have seemed. On August twenty eighth, twenty seventeen,
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  the judge denied Cheri's motion for relief from the judgment. Not only that,
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  her lawyer said that at no point ever in life that she ever asked
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  to plead guilty that would have actually simplified the case, allowing her to just
• 10:52
  take a plea deal with a shorter sentence. The story has been featured on
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  multiple TV shows, including In Investigation, Discoveries, Deadly Women. A book
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  called Fatal Error was written about the case and turned into a movie. Even
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  while in prison, Shari has continued communicating with men. During the case,
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  the prosecutor issued a public warning to be careful when meeting people online. You
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  never really know who you may be talking to. That's ten minute murder for
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