Latest / Crime and Horror / He gave his lawyer $10K to solve his own murder - MrBallen
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: One day in the spring of two thousand and six,
- 0:02Speaker 1: a detective stood next to a refrigerator in her police
- 0:05Speaker 1: station holding a container of evidence. She knew that what
- 0:08Speaker 1: she was about to do with this evidence was a
- 0:11Speaker 1: breach of protocol and could definitely get her in a
- 0:14Speaker 1: lot of trouble, but that was not going to stop her.
- 0:17Speaker 1: But before we get into today's story, if you're a
- 0:20Speaker 1: fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format,
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- 0:28Speaker 1: every week. So if that's of interest to you, please
- 0:31Speaker 1: offer to do the like Button's laundry, but just fold
- 0:35Speaker 1: all their dirty clothes and give it back to them. Also,
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- 0:41Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay,
- 0:44Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. On the afternoon of Wednesday,
- 1:08Speaker 1: April twelfth, two thousand and six, doctor John Yelnick finished
- 1:11Speaker 1: up his final exam of the day at his dental
- 1:13Speaker 1: practice in the rural community of Blairsville, Pennsylvania. He handed
- 1:17Speaker 1: his patient to toothbrush and told her to come back
- 1:19Speaker 1: in six months. Then he headed into his back office
- 1:22Speaker 1: to pack up. Once he gathered up all his things,
- 1:24Speaker 1: he walked out through the reception area and told the
- 1:27Speaker 1: receptionist to have a great night. She waved and gave
- 1:30Speaker 1: John a big smile. However, as soon as John actually
- 1:34Speaker 1: left the building, the smile faded from his face because
- 1:37Speaker 1: in reality, he had a lot of problems right now
- 1:40Speaker 1: and pretending to be happy all day was actually really exhausting,
- 1:43Speaker 1: and so John walked across the lot, climbed into his car,
- 1:46Speaker 1: and then began the half mile drive from his dental
- 1:49Speaker 1: practice to his house. So John had actually grown up
- 1:53Speaker 1: in Blairsville and it had been his lifelong dream to
- 1:56Speaker 1: raise a family here. So when he graduated from dental
- 1:59Speaker 1: school thirteen years earlier, he could have set up shop
- 2:02Speaker 1: at a big city and very likely made a higher
- 2:05Speaker 1: salary right off the bat, But instead he joined the
- 2:07Speaker 1: practice of his own childhood dentist right in downtown Blairsville,
- 2:11Speaker 1: and it would actually turn out that John was able
- 2:14Speaker 1: to make a lot of money right here in his hometown.
- 2:16Speaker 1: This dental practice really took off in part because John
- 2:20Speaker 1: himself was really charming and great with kids, and so
- 2:23Speaker 1: lots of families wanted to come here. And so what
- 2:25Speaker 1: John had done is with the extra money he was
- 2:27Speaker 1: making basically above and beyond what he expected, he took
- 2:31Speaker 1: that extra money and invested it into real estate and
- 2:34Speaker 1: became a millionaire by the time he was in his thirties. However,
- 2:37Speaker 1: it was not until John met his wife, Michelle that
- 2:40Speaker 1: he really felt like he had made it in life.
- 2:42Speaker 1: Michelle was a single mother with two children, and to
- 2:45Speaker 1: John this was actually perfect because it meant that she
- 2:48Speaker 1: came with a ready made family. Now, John's friends were
- 2:52Speaker 1: sort of worried that Michelle only wanted John for his money,
- 2:55Speaker 1: but when John's mom got sick with cancer, Michelle took
- 2:58Speaker 1: on the responsibility of being her full time caregiver, and
- 3:01Speaker 1: for John that was all the proof that he ever
- 3:03Speaker 1: needed that Michelle truly cared for him. And so the
- 3:06Speaker 1: pair got married in nineteen ninety seven, and they actually
- 3:09Speaker 1: adopted a little boy named JJ shortly after their marriage,
- 3:12Speaker 1: and so all together they had three children, and together
- 3:15Speaker 1: this new big family moved into this big house with
- 3:18Speaker 1: a pool and a hot tub. It was like everything
- 3:21Speaker 1: was perfect. However, now, as John arrived back home and
- 3:25Speaker 1: pulled into the driveway of his very modest home, and
- 3:28Speaker 1: he sat there just staring at this new place he
- 3:30Speaker 1: was currently living. He just thought to himself, like, how
- 3:34Speaker 1: had everything fallen apart so completely? These days? John was
- 3:38Speaker 1: very tight on money. He'd lent tens of thousands of
- 3:41Speaker 1: dollars to a bunch of people because he was quite generous,
- 3:45Speaker 1: but now he was having to ask for it back
- 3:47Speaker 1: because he literally needed the money. And then on the
- 3:49Speaker 1: marriage side, he and Michelle had hit this horrible rough
- 3:52Speaker 1: patch that just didn't end, and they both admitted they
- 3:55Speaker 1: had had affairs, and so now they were living separately,
- 3:59Speaker 1: which was why John was here at this little house
- 4:01Speaker 1: instead of coming home to the big family house with
- 4:04Speaker 1: the pool and the haunt tub. However, the financial stress
- 4:07Speaker 1: and the marital stress, as bad as they were, they
- 4:10Speaker 1: were not nearly as bad as a third stressor in
- 4:13Speaker 1: John's life, and that was that John was absolutely convinced
- 4:18Speaker 1: that somebody was going to murder him. Now, this all
- 4:21Speaker 1: started two weeks earlier when somebody vandalized John's car with
- 4:25Speaker 1: spray paint and the police looked into it, but they
- 4:28Speaker 1: couldn't figure out who had done it. And you know, objectively,
- 4:31Speaker 1: you know, having your car spray painted vandalized in some way,
- 4:34Speaker 1: does not, you know, therefore mean someone's trying to kill you.
- 4:37Speaker 1: But he just had this feeling that this felt really personal,
- 4:41Speaker 1: like somebody was targeting him. And so eventually, over several days,
- 4:45Speaker 1: John went from my car got vandalized to my car
- 4:49Speaker 1: got vandalized, and it makes me feel like someone's trying
- 4:51Speaker 1: to kill me. And John believed this so completely that
- 4:55Speaker 1: he actually went to his attorney and gave her ten
- 4:58Speaker 1: thousand dollars just in in case he wound up dead
- 5:01Speaker 1: she could use that to investigate his murder. Now, John
- 5:05Speaker 1: got out of his car and he walked up his
- 5:06Speaker 1: porch steps and into his home, and he closed the
- 5:09Speaker 1: door and locked it behind him, and right away John
- 5:12Speaker 1: just felt like this house, you know, it's already so depressing,
- 5:14Speaker 1: but it was so quiet because nobody was here. I mean,
- 5:18Speaker 1: he wished his adopted son JJ was here because he
- 5:21Speaker 1: would have made the whole house just feel alive. But
- 5:23Speaker 1: you know, these days John didn't see JJ very much.
- 5:26Speaker 1: He would go long stretches between visits. John took off
- 5:29Speaker 1: his shoes and walked into the living room, and there
- 5:32Speaker 1: on the coffee table, he saw a legal document that
- 5:35Speaker 1: he had been avoiding. That document was a stack of
- 5:38Speaker 1: divorce papers. Michelle had actually filed for divorce three years earlier,
- 5:43Speaker 1: in two thousand and three, but she and John had
- 5:46Speaker 1: not been able to actually come to an agreement. Now,
- 5:48Speaker 1: to be clear, they were not fighting to save the marriage.
- 5:51Speaker 1: Like the marriage was done. Michelle was actually already living
- 5:54Speaker 1: with a new boyfriend, a Pennsylvania state trooper named Kevin Foley. However,
- 5:58Speaker 1: what John and Michelle had been fighting which had caused
- 6:01Speaker 1: this divorce to drag on, was Jj, their adopted son.
- 6:05Speaker 1: Michelle wanted full custody, but John didn't want to give
- 6:08Speaker 1: up his son. However, John knew in less than twenty
- 6:11Speaker 1: four hours this would all finally be over. Their lawyers
- 6:14Speaker 1: had finally settled on a shared custody agreement, and Michelle
- 6:18Speaker 1: had already signed the paperwork, and tomorrow it would be
- 6:21Speaker 1: John's turn to sign. And so John took a seat
- 6:23Speaker 1: on the couch and turned on the TV, but he
- 6:25Speaker 1: couldn't even focus. He was just too restless. So instead
- 6:29Speaker 1: he called his aunt, who he was very close to,
- 6:31Speaker 1: and he talked with her for a while about the
- 6:33Speaker 1: divorce and about the custody agreement, and then eventually When
- 6:36Speaker 1: they said their goodbyes, John hung up, He stretched out
- 6:39Speaker 1: on the couch, and he fell asleep right there. The
- 6:45Speaker 1: next day, around three thirty pm, a nine year old
- 6:48Speaker 1: boy named Zach Huss who lived next door to John,
- 6:51Speaker 1: walked out the front door of his parents' house and
- 6:53Speaker 1: across the lawn towards John's house. Zach wanted to see
- 6:56Speaker 1: if John's son JJ could come out and play. He
- 6:59Speaker 1: wasn't sure or if JJ would actually be around, since
- 7:02Speaker 1: JJ did split time between his mother and his father's place,
- 7:05Speaker 1: but you know, he figured it was worth a shot.
- 7:07Speaker 1: But when Zack reached the front steps to John and
- 7:10Speaker 1: JJ's house, he stopped because he saw there was this
- 7:13Speaker 1: little glass panel to the left of the front door
- 7:16Speaker 1: that had been broken shattered, there was glass on the porch,
- 7:20Speaker 1: and also Zach could see streaks of what looked like
- 7:23Speaker 1: red liquid that had dried underneath the broken panel. Immediately,
- 7:27Speaker 1: Zach got scared. I mean, he sees this and thinks
- 7:30Speaker 1: it's blood. He wants to turn and run away, but
- 7:33Speaker 1: he thought about his friend JJ, and he was worried
- 7:35Speaker 1: that maybe he was in some kind of trouble, so
- 7:37Speaker 1: he couldn't just abandon him and so sort of mustering
- 7:40Speaker 1: all the courage he could, Zack slowly and very nervously
- 7:43Speaker 1: climbed the rest of the steps to the front door,
- 7:46Speaker 1: and he tried the door knob, but he found the
- 7:48Speaker 1: door was locked, and so as carefully as he could,
- 7:51Speaker 1: Zack actually reached his hand through that broken panel to
- 7:54Speaker 1: the left of the door, you know, being careful not
- 7:56Speaker 1: to cut himself, and he reached inside the house and
- 8:00Speaker 1: unlocked the door from the inside, and then he opened
- 8:03Speaker 1: it up. And as soon as he stepped into the house,
- 8:05Speaker 1: he saw there were papers strewn everywhere and there was
- 8:09Speaker 1: a body laying motionless on the floor, covered in blood.
- 8:12Speaker 1: At that point, Zach turned around and he ran. About
- 8:21Speaker 1: fifteen minutes later, Corporal Janelle Lydick of the Blairsville Borough
- 8:25Speaker 1: Police Department was driving with her husband and four children
- 8:28Speaker 1: when she got a call from dispatch. A nine to
- 8:31Speaker 1: one to one call had come in from a normally
- 8:33Speaker 1: very quiet residential street, but the details were still a
- 8:36Speaker 1: bit confusing. Despatch just said there had been a cardiac
- 8:40Speaker 1: arrest and that Corporal Lightick was needed at the scene.
- 8:43Speaker 1: There was no other information available, so thinking the call
- 8:47Speaker 1: was sort of a run of the mill, heart attack,
- 8:49Speaker 1: Lydick with her family just drove straight over there. However,
- 8:53Speaker 1: when she actually pulled up to the home and got
- 8:55Speaker 1: out of her vehicle, she could tell that this was
- 8:58Speaker 1: not a heart attack. She saw the was a patrol
- 9:00Speaker 1: officer waiting for her on the porch, and his face
- 9:03Speaker 1: looked grim. Lydac walked over to him, and he immediately
- 9:06Speaker 1: pointed out that broken glass and the blood that appeared
- 9:09Speaker 1: to be stained to the ground, and so she asked him, like,
- 9:12Speaker 1: what's going on here? I was told this was a
- 9:14Speaker 1: cardiac arrest, and all he said was, you know what,
- 9:17Speaker 1: it's probably best if you just go in and look
- 9:19Speaker 1: for yourself. So Lydik she turned and waved to her
- 9:23Speaker 1: husband and kids, sort of signaling like everything's fine, just
- 9:25Speaker 1: give me a minute, And then she stepped inside the house,
- 9:29Speaker 1: and right away she was sort of struck by what
- 9:31Speaker 1: she saw. I mean, the whole floyer was splashed with
- 9:34Speaker 1: blood all over the floor and the walls, and there
- 9:38Speaker 1: in the center of it, amongst you all these papers
- 9:40Speaker 1: strewn about, was the most mutilated body she had ever seen. Now,
- 9:45Speaker 1: Lydac had never actually worked a homicide before, but she
- 9:48Speaker 1: knew as she tried and failed to count the number
- 9:52Speaker 1: of stab wounds on this man's body that what she
- 9:55Speaker 1: was looking at here was definitely not a cardiac arrest.
- 9:59Speaker 1: This was her very first murder case. She also knew
- 10:01Speaker 1: she needed backup because this call had been recorded erroneously
- 10:06Speaker 1: as a cardiac arrest. But what that meant is the
- 10:08Speaker 1: police had not sent a full emergency response, and so
- 10:12Speaker 1: Lydac and this other patrol officer were the only people onseen.
- 10:16Speaker 1: Lydac was afraid the killer or killers could still be
- 10:19Speaker 1: in the area, or maybe even in this house. They
- 10:21Speaker 1: hadn't even secured the house yet, and she's thinking. She
- 10:24Speaker 1: brought her kids and her husband with her, So she
- 10:26Speaker 1: immediately instructed the patrol officer to search the rest of
- 10:29Speaker 1: the house, and then she went back out into the
- 10:31Speaker 1: front yard to basically stand guard between the murder scene
- 10:35Speaker 1: and her family, with her hand on the gun in
- 10:37Speaker 1: her holster. Luckily, though, it wasn't long before Lydac heard
- 10:41Speaker 1: a bunch of emergency sirens approaching in the distance. Also,
- 10:44Speaker 1: at the same time, that patrol officer came out of
- 10:47Speaker 1: the house to tell Lydic that it was empty, so
- 10:50Speaker 1: the killer or killers were gone. The only new discovery
- 10:53Speaker 1: this officer had made was he had found a huge
- 10:55Speaker 1: puddle of blood in the basement where the victim had
- 10:58Speaker 1: bled through from the floor above. And so at this
- 11:00Speaker 1: point Lydac sent by to her husband and her kids,
- 11:03Speaker 1: and she sent them home, and then she went back
- 11:06Speaker 1: into detective mode and went back inside the house. It
- 11:09Speaker 1: was around this point that somebody on scene told Lydac
- 11:12Speaker 1: what the victim's name was. They said his name was
- 11:14Speaker 1: John Yelnick. And so as the crime scene technicians began
- 11:17Speaker 1: their work processing the physical evidence inside the house, Lydac
- 11:21Speaker 1: began a slow walk through each of the rooms inside
- 11:23Speaker 1: the home, trying to get a sense of who John
- 11:25Speaker 1: was and also how he died. John's body was close
- 11:29Speaker 1: to the front door, but it was clear that the
- 11:31Speaker 1: attack that preceded his death had been very long and chaotic.
- 11:34Speaker 1: There was blood all over the living room floor, which
- 11:37Speaker 1: was also strewn with divorce papers. John's body was also
- 11:41Speaker 1: found barefoot. However, there were bloody shoeprints in the house,
- 11:45Speaker 1: and these prints were far too big to belong to
- 11:47Speaker 1: that little boy who found the body. Zach so Lyda
- 11:50Speaker 1: figured they must belong to the killer or killers, and
- 11:53Speaker 1: so the crime scene texts were already measuring the prince
- 11:56Speaker 1: to try to determine the killer's shoe size. As Lydac
- 11:59Speaker 1: continued walking through the house, she didn't see anything that
- 12:02Speaker 1: at least overtly looked like it could have been used
- 12:04Speaker 1: as a murder weapon. She also didn't see any evidence
- 12:07Speaker 1: of a robbery. The TV hadn't been taken, no drawers
- 12:11Speaker 1: or cabinets appeared to have been opened, and so on,
- 12:13Speaker 1: and to Lydik this actually made sense. I mean, the
- 12:16Speaker 1: murder appeared to be extremely violent and so very likely
- 12:20Speaker 1: quite personal, which suggested that whoever the killer was or killers,
- 12:25Speaker 1: the only thing they'd really wanted when they entered this
- 12:27Speaker 1: home was apparently for John to die horribly. She finished
- 12:31Speaker 1: her sweep of the scene, ending up in the living room,
- 12:33Speaker 1: where it looked to her like the attack had begun,
- 12:36Speaker 1: and that's when she noticed a check on the coffee table,
- 12:39Speaker 1: right next to some of the divorce papers. The check
- 12:41Speaker 1: was made out to the victim, John Yelnick, for fifteen
- 12:44Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and attached to the check was a note
- 12:48Speaker 1: asking John to hold off for a few days before
- 12:50Speaker 1: he deposited it. The check and note were from somebody
- 12:53Speaker 1: named Melissa Use, and when Lydac saw that, she did
- 12:57Speaker 1: a double take. Use was the last name of the
- 13:00Speaker 1: neighborhood boy, Zach, who had discovered John's body, and so
- 13:04Speaker 1: Lydac wondered if Melissa Use was related to Zach Use,
- 13:08Speaker 1: the boy, And so now Corporal Lydak realized that here
- 13:11Speaker 1: on the coffee table she had her first two legitimate leads.
- 13:15Speaker 1: One her victim was in the middle of a divorce,
- 13:18Speaker 1: and someone, maybe his next door neighbor, if Melissa was
- 13:22Speaker 1: connected to Zach, owed him a lot of money that
- 13:25Speaker 1: apparently she couldn't quite afford to pay back in one
- 13:27Speaker 1: go that she had to tell John to don't cash
- 13:30Speaker 1: this right away. It was evening by the time Lydac
- 13:42Speaker 1: finally stepped back outside the house, and when she did,
- 13:45Speaker 1: she saw there was a group of neighbors and reporters
- 13:47Speaker 1: jostling around each other out on the street. So Blairsville
- 13:51Speaker 1: almost never had murders, and so Lydoc knew this was
- 13:54Speaker 1: obviously going to be a huge story. But for now,
- 13:57Speaker 1: as much as she knew she was going to get
- 13:59Speaker 1: hounded by reporter as she passed by them, she just
- 14:02Speaker 1: needed to keep on walking because she had to get
- 14:04Speaker 1: back to the station to get organized for interviews tomorrow,
- 14:07Speaker 1: like with suspects. However, before she could even walk down
- 14:10Speaker 1: the front steps, one of the other officers on scene
- 14:13Speaker 1: came over to her with an update. Over the last
- 14:15Speaker 1: few hours, the police had fanned out across the neighborhood
- 14:19Speaker 1: to speak to people to see if anybody had seen
- 14:21Speaker 1: or heard anything unusual, and the police had come back
- 14:25Speaker 1: with two very interesting accounts. The first came from a
- 14:28Speaker 1: woman who said that the previous night, around one thirty
- 14:31Speaker 1: in the morning, so technically early that same morning, she
- 14:34Speaker 1: had woken up to the sound of a scream, and
- 14:37Speaker 1: so she sat up she heard the scream, but she
- 14:39Speaker 1: said the screaming didn't continue, and so she had ultimately
- 14:42Speaker 1: just gone back to bed. The second account came from
- 14:44Speaker 1: another neighbor who had also heard something around that same
- 14:47Speaker 1: time the previous night. This neighbor said they heard a
- 14:50Speaker 1: man yelling in what sounded like a very heated argument. Now,
- 14:54Speaker 1: the neighbor couldn't make out everything the man was saying,
- 14:56Speaker 1: but there was one sentence that was yelled very clearly,
- 15:00Speaker 1: and that was I'll never loan you money again. And
- 15:03Speaker 1: so instantly when Lydac heard that she thought of the
- 15:06Speaker 1: fifteen thousand dollars check on the coffee table like this
- 15:09Speaker 1: seems to add more credibility to the idea that maybe
- 15:12Speaker 1: money was behind this. However, the officer said he wasn't done.
- 15:16Speaker 1: He said he had one more important piece of information
- 15:18Speaker 1: for Lydick. In addition to the witness statements, a lot
- 15:21Speaker 1: of John's neighbors had told the police that there was
- 15:24Speaker 1: one family in particular on the block that detectives really
- 15:28Speaker 1: ought to look into, and that was the Use family,
- 15:31Speaker 1: because word around the neighborhood was that Melissa Use and
- 15:35Speaker 1: John Yelnick had been having an affair. The following day,
- 15:40Speaker 1: April fourteenth, Lydac was at the police station, sitting at
- 15:43Speaker 1: a table inside of an interrogation room, across from Melissa
- 15:47Speaker 1: Use and her husband Tom. Now again, Lydac had never
- 15:51Speaker 1: done a murder case before, but she was a very
- 15:53Speaker 1: methodical investigator, and she had a plan for interrogating her
- 15:57Speaker 1: persons of interest. First, she was going to go very
- 16:00Speaker 1: hard at Melissa and Tom Yuse, even though they were
- 16:03Speaker 1: not her top suspects at this point. Her top suspects
- 16:06Speaker 1: were John's soon to be ex wife Michelle and her
- 16:09Speaker 1: new boyfriend Kevin, for the simple reason that in a
- 16:11Speaker 1: murder case, from what she had been told, the divorcing
- 16:14Speaker 1: spouse and their new partner are always suspects number one
- 16:18Speaker 1: and two. The night before, Lydac had sent an officer
- 16:21Speaker 1: to tell Michelle that her soon to be ex husband
- 16:24Speaker 1: was dead, but when the officer got to Michelle's house,
- 16:28Speaker 1: she already knew, although she said that she had heard
- 16:31Speaker 1: that John had died of a heart attack. So this
- 16:33Speaker 1: officer had to break the news to Michelle and also
- 16:35Speaker 1: her new boyfriend Kevin, that this was actually a murder,
- 16:39Speaker 1: and they both seemed genuinely shocked. Corporal Lydik actually knew
- 16:43Speaker 1: Michelle's boyfriend Kevin personally because he was a state police trooper.
- 16:46Speaker 1: They had actually worked together. But now, you know, Lydoc
- 16:49Speaker 1: was going to have to investigate her colleague Kevin, you know,
- 16:52Speaker 1: because he's one of the suspects, which was obviously very touchy,
- 16:55Speaker 1: especially amongst cops. And so what Lydac wanted to do
- 16:59Speaker 1: was gat there more information before she spoke to Michelle
- 17:03Speaker 1: and Kevin. First, what she wanted to do was rule
- 17:06Speaker 1: the uses out as suspects, and she wanted to also
- 17:09Speaker 1: get the results of the autopsy, which was scheduled to
- 17:11Speaker 1: take place later that day. So now Lydac looked across
- 17:15Speaker 1: the interrogation table at John's neighbors, Melissa and Tom Use,
- 17:19Speaker 1: and Lydoc began by asking them what the deal was
- 17:21Speaker 1: with that fifteen thousand dollars check Melissa had written to
- 17:24Speaker 1: John that was found near his body. Melissa answered in
- 17:28Speaker 1: a very shaky voice. She explained that she and John
- 17:31Speaker 1: had been friends since about ninth grade and she was
- 17:34Speaker 1: planning to open a new bakery in town and John
- 17:37Speaker 1: had just loaned her fifteen thousand dollars to help her
- 17:40Speaker 1: out with that, but then, sort of out of nowhere,
- 17:42Speaker 1: he'd asked for the money back. Melissa said she'd been
- 17:45Speaker 1: really disappointed when he did this, but she also knew
- 17:48Speaker 1: John was in the middle of a very expensive divorce,
- 17:50Speaker 1: so she understood. She said that she had only had
- 17:53Speaker 1: fourteen thousand dollars in her account when she wrote the check,
- 17:57Speaker 1: and so that's why she had also left that note
- 18:00Speaker 1: for John along with the check, asking him not to
- 18:02Speaker 1: cash it for a few days until she got that
- 18:05Speaker 1: last thousand together. Lydoc watched Melissa closely as she said
- 18:08Speaker 1: all this, she did seem truly distraught over John's death
- 18:12Speaker 1: and that the money really didn't seem like a big
- 18:14Speaker 1: issue to her at all relative to John's death. But
- 18:18Speaker 1: for Lydick, the obvious warmth that Melissa clearly felt for
- 18:22Speaker 1: John raised another more sensitive question here, and she decided
- 18:27Speaker 1: that she really just couldn't dance around it. Even though
- 18:30Speaker 1: Melissa was literally sitting next to her husband, Tom, Lydac
- 18:33Speaker 1: looked right at Melissa and asked her straight out, was
- 18:36Speaker 1: she having an affair with John? Melissa immediately flushed and
- 18:40Speaker 1: said no, and she said they'd been close friends, but
- 18:43Speaker 1: really nothing more. At this point, Lydac turned to Melissa's husband,
- 18:47Speaker 1: Tom and just asked him the same thing, was his
- 18:51Speaker 1: wife having an affair with John? And for a second
- 18:53Speaker 1: Tom just went quiet, But then when he finally spoke,
- 18:57Speaker 1: he didn't sound angry or upset. He just seemed really
- 19:01Speaker 1: nervous and he basically refused to answer the question and
- 19:05Speaker 1: instead he just kept repeating that he really had to
- 19:07Speaker 1: go take care of his kids. Now. Now, Lydoc knew
- 19:09Speaker 1: this had been a very blunt thing to ask, but
- 19:12Speaker 1: Tom's reaction to this question was really suspicious, and so
- 19:16Speaker 1: by the time Lydoc told Melissa and Tom that they
- 19:19Speaker 1: could go. Tom had firmly established himself in Lydoc's mind
- 19:23Speaker 1: as a clear person of interest. Before Lydac left the
- 19:29Speaker 1: station for the day, she checked in with one of
- 19:31Speaker 1: her officers who she had sent to go observe John's autopsy.
- 19:35Speaker 1: The officer told her that the forensic pathologist had determined
- 19:38Speaker 1: that the killer used a one sided blade to repeatedly
- 19:42Speaker 1: slash John during the fight. In addition to the knife wounds,
- 19:45Speaker 1: John's jugular had been cut by glass, and John also
- 19:49Speaker 1: had defensive wounds on his hands, as well as cuts
- 19:52Speaker 1: on his back, which suggested he had at one point
- 19:54Speaker 1: tried to run away. I mean, Lydoc already knew this,
- 19:57Speaker 1: but to hear the details from the autopsy reinforced how
- 20:01Speaker 1: truly brutal this murder was. And so what Lydoc thought
- 20:05Speaker 1: after hearing these details was Wow, whoever did this must
- 20:08Speaker 1: have truly hated John, and Lydox already thinking, you know,
- 20:13Speaker 1: I already have one suspect in Tom Use whose wife
- 20:16Speaker 1: might have been having an affair with John. Certainly that
- 20:19Speaker 1: would be enough to inspire Tom to hate John. Despite
- 20:22Speaker 1: Lydoc's you know, obvious inexperience with murder cases. She felt
- 20:27Speaker 1: really confident at this point that she'd be able to
- 20:29Speaker 1: solve this as long as she was allowed to work
- 20:32Speaker 1: slowly and methodically, like she always had on every case
- 20:35Speaker 1: she had worked in. However, the case was already getting
- 20:38Speaker 1: a lot of attention in the news, and so Lydoc
- 20:41Speaker 1: knew there would be pressure to show results fast. If
- 20:45Speaker 1: she moved too slowly, this case might either get taken
- 20:47Speaker 1: away from her or another police agency might get called
- 20:51Speaker 1: in to help to speed it up. Now, Lydoc didn't
- 20:54Speaker 1: want that to happen, but she also really didn't want
- 20:57Speaker 1: to compromise her methodical investigative process either, and so she
- 21:01Speaker 1: figured she would have to strike a balance. That officer
- 21:04Speaker 1: who had gone to the autopsy had come back with
- 21:06Speaker 1: John Yellnick's fingernail clippings, blood samples, and tissue samples, which
- 21:10Speaker 1: Lydic was supposed to send off to a state police
- 21:13Speaker 1: lab for DNA testing, but Lydac decided, now that she
- 21:16Speaker 1: had these samples that she was not going to do that.
- 21:20Speaker 1: Lydoc really wanted to keep her investigatory options open and
- 21:24Speaker 1: to guarantee that she knew every single thing going on
- 21:28Speaker 1: with her evidence. In this case. And so after Lydac
- 21:31Speaker 1: got these samples, and after this officer had left, she
- 21:34Speaker 1: went to the department refrigerator and put them in there,
- 21:38Speaker 1: and then she went home. The next day was April fifteenth,
- 21:41Speaker 1: so two days after John Yellnick was murdered. By this point,
- 21:44Speaker 1: Corporal Lydac had spoken to a number of John's friends
- 21:47Speaker 1: and family members, and they'd painted John generally as as
- 21:51Speaker 1: a great guy and a very dedicated father. Today, Lydoc
- 21:54Speaker 1: was going to John's dental practice to talk to his
- 21:56Speaker 1: colleagues to see if they had anything different to say.
- 21:59Speaker 1: Soon as lyc arrived at John's office, she was glad
- 22:03Speaker 1: she had decided to go there because the dental hygienis
- 22:06Speaker 1: and the receptionist had a lot to say about John's
- 22:09Speaker 1: soon to be ex wife, Michelle Yelnick. And this was
- 22:12Speaker 1: because during that long, multi year fight John and Melissa
- 22:16Speaker 1: had over their divorce, Michelle had at one point lodged
- 22:19Speaker 1: allegations against John that he abused their adopted son JJ.
- 22:24Speaker 1: Even Michelle's own family had not believed her, and officials
- 22:28Speaker 1: had declined to press charges. But at one point during
- 22:31Speaker 1: the back and forth, Michelle had accused John of violating
- 22:34Speaker 1: a stay away order, and police had come and arrested
- 22:38Speaker 1: him at work, and so John's colleagues thought Michelle was
- 22:41Speaker 1: a total nightmare. She also called the office regularly to
- 22:45Speaker 1: demand money, and John often caved and gave it to her.
- 22:48Speaker 1: But actually, according to one of the hygienis, Michelle had
- 22:51Speaker 1: called just a few days before the murder, and that
- 22:54Speaker 1: time John had actually refused to speak to her. And
- 22:57Speaker 1: this detail definitely caught lydox year. It was not just
- 23:01Speaker 1: the you know, colleagues at the dental practice that said
- 23:04Speaker 1: Michelle was money hungry. A lot of John's friends said that.
- 23:07Speaker 1: They said it was Michelle who wanted the big house
- 23:10Speaker 1: with the pool and the hot tub. But John, it
- 23:12Speaker 1: really had never felt comfortable with that you know, flashy lifestyle.
- 23:16Speaker 1: And to many of John's friends and colleagues, it was
- 23:19Speaker 1: that contrast between he and Michelle that ultimately sort of
- 23:23Speaker 1: drove them apart. And so Lydoc began to wonder, you know,
- 23:26Speaker 1: maybe John and Michelle had a fight about money a
- 23:29Speaker 1: few days before his murder. You know, where Michelle's calling
- 23:32Speaker 1: trying to demand money, John's not taken her call. Could
- 23:35Speaker 1: that have been enough to inspire Michelle to murder John maybe.
- 23:39Speaker 1: But also what Lidick discovered is that Michelle was actually
- 23:43Speaker 1: listed as a beneficiary of John's life insurance plan, and
- 23:47Speaker 1: so if John died, she stood to inherit literally millions
- 23:50Speaker 1: of dollars. And so now there's like a twofold financial
- 23:53Speaker 1: reason for Michelle to want to bring harm to John,
- 23:57Speaker 1: basically all because of money. But it didn't seem possible
- 24:01Speaker 1: that Michelle would be capable of overpowering John and delivering
- 24:05Speaker 1: all those stab wounds and killing him. It just seemed
- 24:07Speaker 1: like John would be able to fight her off if
- 24:10Speaker 1: she was the killer. But Lydoc thought, you know, maybe
- 24:13Speaker 1: Michelle hired somebody else to do it, somebody else that
- 24:16Speaker 1: was much larger and more physical. She certainly had the
- 24:18Speaker 1: money to do that. And so as Lyadick left the
- 24:20Speaker 1: dental office, she began to think about how she was
- 24:23Speaker 1: actually going to approach Michelle. Given the sensitivity of the
- 24:26Speaker 1: fact that Michelle was dating a cop, Ladak did not
- 24:30Speaker 1: want to make her move too soon without enough ammunition. First,
- 24:33Speaker 1: I mean, this was not just the first murder case
- 24:35Speaker 1: she had worked. I mean this was, you know, the
- 24:37Speaker 1: first murder case and the biggest case period that she
- 24:41Speaker 1: had ever worked. Reporters were calling her constantly. This was
- 24:45Speaker 1: a really big deal, and she didn't want to screw
- 24:48Speaker 1: anything up. John Yelnick's funeral was held on stay April nineteenth,
- 25:01Speaker 1: so six days after the murder and corporal Lydoc knew
- 25:04Speaker 1: that his friends and family were already beginning to get
- 25:06Speaker 1: pretty antsy about why the investigation seemed to be moving
- 25:10Speaker 1: so slowly. But I mean, Ladik did understand where they
- 25:13Speaker 1: were coming from. I mean, from day one, there was
- 25:16Speaker 1: an enormous amount of media pressure, just very public pressure
- 25:19Speaker 1: to solve this thing right away, and so that was
- 25:22Speaker 1: weighing on friends and family, and also John himself, before
- 25:27Speaker 1: he was killed, had this paranoia that he was going
- 25:30Speaker 1: to be murdered, and now he's turned up dead. It
- 25:33Speaker 1: just seemed like a crazy coincidence, or that John knew something,
- 25:37Speaker 1: that this really was a prediction that came true. But
- 25:40Speaker 1: Lydoc also felt like John's friends and family just didn't
- 25:43Speaker 1: understand why this was taking the time it was taking.
- 25:47Speaker 1: She wasn't just being slow, she was being careful. That
- 25:51Speaker 1: was her way. Without any real departmental guidance on how
- 25:55Speaker 1: to actually work a homicide, Lydac had developed a very
- 25:59Speaker 1: you know, care full method of her own. And for
- 26:02Speaker 1: the next several months, Lydac continued to follow her protocol
- 26:07Speaker 1: and she did take her time, but again with intention.
- 26:10Speaker 1: The crime scene unit had not turned up any matchable
- 26:13Speaker 1: DNA or fingerprints at the crime scene, and the bloody
- 26:16Speaker 1: footprints they found didn't belong to any of Ladoc suspects,
- 26:20Speaker 1: and so for now Lydac was really relying heavily on
- 26:24Speaker 1: interviews and lydic I mean she would run down every
- 26:27Speaker 1: single tip and rumor that she could find, systematically ruling
- 26:31Speaker 1: things out one by one. And as she did this,
- 26:33Speaker 1: she always kept tabs on her three best suspects, Tom Use,
- 26:38Speaker 1: Kevin Foley, and Michelle Yelnick, but she made no move
- 26:41Speaker 1: to arrest any of them. Sometimes, the complaints from the
- 26:44Speaker 1: public and from John Yelnick's own family about her failure
- 26:48Speaker 1: to solve this case more quickly did get to her,
- 26:51Speaker 1: but she was determined to manage the case her way.
- 26:54Speaker 1: She felt like she was on the right path. That
- 26:56Speaker 1: was until Melissa Use, so John's alleged fair partner and
- 27:01Speaker 1: next door neighbor, hired a pair of psychics. It was
- 27:09Speaker 1: the summer of two thousand and six so about three
- 27:11Speaker 1: months after the murder, when Lydik got a call from Melissa,
- 27:15Speaker 1: Lydak had actually been pretty surprised to hear from her,
- 27:18Speaker 1: and then even more surprised when Melissa told her she
- 27:21Speaker 1: wanted to meet at John's house. And then when Lydoc
- 27:24Speaker 1: showed up, Melissa was there, but she wasn't alone. She
- 27:27Speaker 1: was standing on the sidewalk with these two older women
- 27:30Speaker 1: who she introduced as psychic's sisters. She said that she
- 27:33Speaker 1: had met them at a psychic tea party and they
- 27:36Speaker 1: had visions about the case. And Lydoc was really not
- 27:40Speaker 1: happy about this, and she was even less happy to
- 27:43Speaker 1: learn that John's own family had given permission for the
- 27:46Speaker 1: psychics to enter John's house. But Lydoc also knew that
- 27:50Speaker 1: John's family was getting really edgy and if she wanted
- 27:53Speaker 1: more time to work on her case, she needed to
- 27:55Speaker 1: placate them. If that meant working with these psychics contacted
- 27:59Speaker 1: by one of the suspects wives, then that was what
- 28:01Speaker 1: Lydoc was going to do. And so Lydac followed Melissa
- 28:05Speaker 1: and the psychic sisters as they walked into John's front
- 28:08Speaker 1: yard and began saying they felt hot and cold patches
- 28:11Speaker 1: and lydac is doing her best not to roll her eyes.
- 28:14Speaker 1: And then when they went into the house, which had
- 28:17Speaker 1: not been cleaned out after the murder and so was
- 28:19Speaker 1: still splattered with blood, the psychic sisters had a premonition
- 28:23Speaker 1: that told them the killing had happened in the dining
- 28:25Speaker 1: room area. And then the psychic said they saw a knife,
- 28:28Speaker 1: and they saw stab wounds and a bloody footprint, and
- 28:30Speaker 1: they said the the killer drove a black or red car,
- 28:34Speaker 1: and that the killer was not Melissa used his husband
- 28:39Speaker 1: Tom now Melissa, as she listened to the psychic speak,
- 28:42Speaker 1: she seemed really excited by this, but Lydoc thought it
- 28:45Speaker 1: was all ridiculous. The blood that they were literally looking
- 28:49Speaker 1: at inside the home made it pretty obvious where the
- 28:52Speaker 1: killing had happened, and the details of John's death and
- 28:55Speaker 1: the huge police investigation that followed had been all over
- 28:58Speaker 1: the news, and so the thing the psychics were saying
- 29:01Speaker 1: were easy to learn before showing up here. These are
- 29:04Speaker 1: not revelations, and the fact that these psychics, who Melissa
- 29:07Speaker 1: herself had brought here and hired, were now exonerating Melissa's
- 29:12Speaker 1: husband was not very convincing, and so as the group
- 29:15Speaker 1: finally left, the house. The only thing Lydoc thought these
- 29:18Speaker 1: psychics had been good for was taking some of the
- 29:21Speaker 1: pressure off her slow but steady investigation. She knew that
- 29:25Speaker 1: at this point John Yellnick's family had lost faith in her,
- 29:28Speaker 1: but what they didn't know is she still had one
- 29:31Speaker 1: more thing she wanted to try. She just had to
- 29:33Speaker 1: wait for the right time to use it. Fast forward
- 29:36Speaker 1: to February of two thousand and seven, so ten months
- 29:40Speaker 1: after the murder, and at this point, poor por Lydack
- 29:43Speaker 1: finally got her chance. John's cousins made an impassioned plead
- 29:47Speaker 1: to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's office to take over the investigation.
- 29:52Speaker 1: Lydick's cooperation with those psychics had bought her a little time,
- 29:56Speaker 1: but ultimately both John's family and Melissa Huse had got
- 30:00Speaker 1: more and more agitated by Lydoc's very slow pace. They
- 30:03Speaker 1: felt like the psychics had basically given them as much
- 30:06Speaker 1: information as the police had, and the Attorney General ultimately agreed,
- 30:10Speaker 1: which meant Lydoc was losing her case. And on the
- 30:14Speaker 1: one hand, this was quite literally the exact thing that
- 30:18Speaker 1: Lydac had been most worried about, that some bigger agency
- 30:21Speaker 1: would come in and take over her investigation. But on
- 30:24Speaker 1: the other hand, the Attorney General's office was not the
- 30:28Speaker 1: agency that Lydac had expected. And so now, even though
- 30:31Speaker 1: this definitely stung, Lydoc realized that she could actually finally
- 30:36Speaker 1: make that play she'd been sitting on for almost a year.
- 30:40Speaker 1: And so Lydac went to that refrigerator in the Blairsville
- 30:43Speaker 1: Police station and took out that little container of fingernail
- 30:46Speaker 1: clippings and other tissue samples from John Yelnick that her
- 30:49Speaker 1: officer had brought to her after John's autopsy. She had
- 30:53Speaker 1: been told she needed to send these samples off to
- 30:55Speaker 1: the State Police crime lab pretty much right away, but
- 30:58Speaker 1: she hadn't. In a total reach of protocol, Lydac had
- 31:02Speaker 1: decided to not do that and instead put these samples
- 31:05Speaker 1: in the fridge and wait. But now with the Attorney
- 31:09Speaker 1: General very publicly stepping in and getting involved in this case,
- 31:13Speaker 1: it sort of made the case way more high profile,
- 31:16Speaker 1: which in turn allowed lydec to send these samples not
- 31:20Speaker 1: to the state Police crime lab but to the FBI
- 31:24Speaker 1: crime Lab, a higher wrung on the hierarchy. Now, normally
- 31:27Speaker 1: the FBI would never take samples from sort of a
- 31:31Speaker 1: small town murder case, but now that it was this
- 31:33Speaker 1: huge public case, national news. Lydoc knew she could take advantage,
- 31:38Speaker 1: so she repackaged those fingernail clippings in the other samples,
- 31:43Speaker 1: and she sent them off to the FBI, and she waited.
- 31:45Speaker 1: The day the results came back in. Lydoc was very nervous.
- 31:49Speaker 1: There was a chance that she was about to look
- 31:51Speaker 1: very stupid for sitting on this evidence for as long
- 31:54Speaker 1: as she had. But as she sat at her computer
- 31:56Speaker 1: and opened the email with the DNA results, her eyes
- 32:00Speaker 1: went wide. She almost couldn't believe what she was reading.
- 32:04Speaker 1: Because her strategy of intentionally slow playing this investigation and
- 32:09Speaker 1: sitting on this evidence until right now had totally paid off. Finally,
- 32:15Speaker 1: lydec on her computer was looking at the name of
- 32:18Speaker 1: John's killer based on evidence collected at the crime scene
- 32:26Speaker 1: and tested by the FBI. This is a reconstruction of
- 32:29Speaker 1: what authorities believe happened to John Yelnick in the early
- 32:32Speaker 1: morning hours of April thirteenth, two thousand and six. Around
- 32:43Speaker 1: twelve thirty am, the killer drove their red car onto
- 32:47Speaker 1: a quiet residential street in Blairsville. They eventually came to
- 32:50Speaker 1: a stop in front of a modest brick home. There
- 32:53Speaker 1: they cut their lights. The killer climbed out and looked
- 32:56Speaker 1: around the neighborhood to make sure no one was watching,
- 32:58Speaker 1: but it was dark, and so the killer left the
- 33:02Speaker 1: street and walked around to the back of this home
- 33:05Speaker 1: and then slipped inside of it through an unlocked back door.
- 33:08Speaker 1: Once inside, the killer walked through the dining room and
- 33:11Speaker 1: then into the living room, where they found John Yelnick
- 33:15Speaker 1: sleeping on the couch. The killer gripped a single edged
- 33:19Speaker 1: knife in their fist and they walked right up to John,
- 33:21Speaker 1: and they raised the blade up and then brought it
- 33:24Speaker 1: down directly onto John. Instantly, John woke up and began screaming,
- 33:28Speaker 1: and he put his hands up to try to protect himself,
- 33:30Speaker 1: and he even tried clawing at the killer, getting the
- 33:32Speaker 1: killer's skin under his fingernails, and so John eventually rolled
- 33:36Speaker 1: off the couch, desperate to get away. John eventually got
- 33:39Speaker 1: up and sort of began to stumble away, but the
- 33:42Speaker 1: killer chased him down and the two began to wrestle.
- 33:45Speaker 1: And as they're struggling and the killer is stabbing John,
- 33:48Speaker 1: John's flailing his arms around and he eventually hit the
- 33:50Speaker 1: divorce papers on the coffee table, throwing them everywhere, and
- 33:54Speaker 1: then eventually, somehow, just on pure adrenaline, John broke away
- 33:58Speaker 1: from the killer and tried to for the front door.
- 34:01Speaker 1: John eventually did make it to the front foyer, and
- 34:03Speaker 1: he actually reached for the front door, but the killer
- 34:07Speaker 1: actually shoved John as he did that, and John went
- 34:10Speaker 1: flying towards that pane of glass to the side of
- 34:13Speaker 1: the door, and his head went through the glass. And
- 34:15Speaker 1: when his head went through, some of the glass severed
- 34:18Speaker 1: his jugular and then John bled to death right there.
- 34:22Speaker 1: The killer watched until John was totally still. At that point,
- 34:25Speaker 1: they walked back out of the home, tracking John's blood
- 34:28Speaker 1: right back out the door. The killer was very confident
- 34:32Speaker 1: they would never be caught, primarily because the killer knew
- 34:36Speaker 1: people trusted them with their lives. The killer was Michelle's
- 34:40Speaker 1: new boyfriend, Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Kevin Fully and the
- 34:45Speaker 1: fact that he was a cop was the very reason
- 34:48Speaker 1: Corporal Lydac had decided not to send all of that
- 34:51Speaker 1: evidence to the state Police crime lab. Lydoc knew Kevin,
- 34:55Speaker 1: and she liked him, and she basically trusted him. But
- 34:58Speaker 1: as soon as her investigation began and she began to
- 35:01Speaker 1: hear about how much Kevin seemed to hate John, in
- 35:04Speaker 1: part because of the allegations that Michelle had made that
- 35:07Speaker 1: John had abused JJ. Even though those allegations were ruled
- 35:11Speaker 1: totally unfounded, it seemed that Kevin ultimately believed them, and
- 35:15Speaker 1: so Lydac had become increasingly paranoid that Kevin was the
- 35:18Speaker 1: killer and that her case would be taken over not
- 35:21Speaker 1: by the Attorney General's office but by the state police.
- 35:25Speaker 1: And she was afraid that if Kevin was guilty here, well,
- 35:28Speaker 1: she couldn't really trust the state police crime lab to
- 35:32Speaker 1: not potentially cover up evidence, or maybe Kevin would get involved,
- 35:35Speaker 1: find out and he would cover it up. It just
- 35:37Speaker 1: was too risky, and so she didn't want to send
- 35:39Speaker 1: the evidence to the state crime lab. So Lydac had
- 35:42Speaker 1: done something really risky to keep complete control over her investigation.
- 35:47Speaker 1: She'd kept the fingernails and all the tissue samples that
- 35:50Speaker 1: were collected at the autopsy, even though she knew they
- 35:53Speaker 1: very likely contained the DNA of John's killer. Then she
- 35:57Speaker 1: slow played her investigation, biding her time until she could
- 36:01Speaker 1: figure out what to do with those samples, and luckily
- 36:03Speaker 1: the answer came about a year later, when the Attorney
- 36:06Speaker 1: General took over the case and Lydok then got access
- 36:09Speaker 1: to the FBI crime lab. The FBI scientists did finally
- 36:13Speaker 1: test the DNA that was found under the fingernails and
- 36:16Speaker 1: found that it was a match for Kevin Foley, and so,
- 36:19Speaker 1: in the end, State Trooper Kevin Foley was found guilty
- 36:22Speaker 1: of first screen murder and was sentenced to life in
- 36:24Speaker 1: prison without parole. As for Michelle Yellnick, she was never
- 36:28Speaker 1: actually charged in connection with the case. Hey everyone, just
- 36:38Speaker 1: a reminder, I'm going on tour this year, which means
- 36:41Speaker 1: if you go, you can experience never before heard stories
- 36:45Speaker 1: from me, live and in person. We did this in
- 36:48Speaker 1: twenty twenty four and people loved it. So get your
- 36:50Speaker 1: tickets today at tour dot bollinstudios dot com right now
- 36:54Speaker 1: before they sell out. That's tour to Bollinstudios dot com.
- 36:58Speaker 1: I can't wait to see you all at the shows.
- 37:01Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what
- 37:03Speaker 1: you thought of today's episode in the comments. And remember,
- 37:06Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of true crime episodes ready
- 37:08Speaker 1: for you to binge right now, so click here and
- 37:11Speaker 1: give them a watch. All right, until next time, see ya,