Latest / Hell and Gone: Murder Line / Hell and Gone Murder Line: Stephen and Carole Baxter

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Hell and Gone Murder Line: Stephen and Carole Baxter · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

• 0:46
  Speaker 1: School of Humans.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: Helen Gone Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: an effort to raise public awareness, invite witnesses to come forward,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: their statements should not be considered evidence and point to
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: remind listeners that everyone is presumed innocent until proven.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Guilty in a court of law.
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: is guilty of any wrongdoing.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: This week, I was working on a case and I
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: needed a little bit more time to investigate it. So
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: I have a special treat for you. Here's an episode
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of Red Collar. This is my other podcast that focuses
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: on financial crimes and con artists who kill. Next week,
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I'll be back with a regular episode of Hell and
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Gone Murder Line. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Red Collar. On Easter Sunday, April 29th, 2023, 21-year-old Ellie
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Baxter went to check on her parents at their home
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: on Mercia Island on the Essex coast in England. Ellie
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: was around five months pregnant, and she was worried because
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: she had not been able to get a hold of
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: her parents, 64-year-old Carol Baxter and 61-year-old Stephen Baxter. The
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Baxters ran a very successful business called Kaz Splash. Carol
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: had come up with the idea for the business after
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: getting frustrated that she couldn't find a bath mat for
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: a curved shower. Stephen, her husband, had an engineering background,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: so he worked on the business side. And more recently,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Ellie had also been helping them out with the business,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: which they ran from their home. Ellie arrived at the
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: house with her partner, Marcus, and immediately noticed that something
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: seemed very off. The blinds were still closed, even though
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Stephen had a habit of opening them every morning. They
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: knocked on the door, but no one answered. So Ellie
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: and Marcus started walking around outside, trying to look for
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: another way in the house. There was a spare key,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't in its normal spot. Then Ellie looked
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: through the living room window, and that's when she saw
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: her parents sitting in their usual reclining chairs next to
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: each other. But they weren't moving. At this point, Ellie
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and Marcus started trying to break in. A neighbor heard
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the commotion, came over, and had a claw hammered. So finally,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Marcus was able to break into the house. That's when
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: they saw that Carol and Stephen's hands had turned blue.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: There was liquid around Carol's mouth. They were both sitting
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: upright in their chairs, dead. I'm Katherine Townsend. This is
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Hell and Gone Murder Line in collaboration with Red Collar.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Soon after the police came to the scene, Ellie's brother
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Harry and a family friend, Luke DeWitt, who also helped
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: out at the business, showed up on the scene. Everyone
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: agreed that what made this scene so weird was what
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: investigators didn't find. Because there were no obvious injuries on
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Carol or Steven. There were no signs of a violent struggle.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: There was no weapon. There was no indication of foul
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: play at all. The house was neat. Nothing seemed to
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: be taken. So it didn't look like robbery was the
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: motive here. This was just a couple who looked like
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: they sat down in their armchairs and died at about
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: the same time. But what are the odds of that?
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: What actually happened to them? Ellie's first thought was that
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: maybe this could be a case of carbon monoxide poisoning.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: When she first went into the house, she started opening
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: doors and windows just in case. But investigators didn't find
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: any sign of a carbon monoxide leak. Carol did have
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a pacemaker, and when detectives looked at that pacemaker, they
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: did find a clue. they could see that Carol's heart
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: had stopped sometime between approximately 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: on Saturday, April 8th, the day before the bodies were discovered.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: So now police seem to have a pretty narrow time
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: of death, but still no clue as to a cause. Also,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: if Carol was dying, we're talking about the middle of
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the day. So what were the odds that Stephen would
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: just sit there, sit down next to her and die
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: without calling for help? The medical examiner started working on
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: the post-mortem exam, and they found that neither Stephen nor
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Carol had any suspicious injuries or defensive wounds. However, both
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: of them did have some health issues. Stephen had recently
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: had knee replacement surgery, while Carol had lived for years
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: with Hashimoto's disease, an autoimmune condition that affected her thyroid.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: But neither medical history explained why both of them had
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: suddenly died in the same room. None of these conditions
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: they had were fatal. So for the first few weeks
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: after Stephen and Carol Baxter were found dead, their deaths
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: were treated more as mysterious and unexplained rather than anything
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: involving obvious foul play. But that was all about to
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: change because then the toxicology results came back and everything
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: shifted because those tests showed that both Stephen and Carol
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: had died from fentanyl overdoses. They had massive amounts of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: fentanyl in their systems. Carol also had potentially fatal levels
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: of another drug called promethazine. It's described as a sedating antihistamine,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: and there was a lot of it in Carol's blood.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Neither Stephen nor Carol had been prescribed fentanyl. There was
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: no known history of drug use on either of their parts,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: and investigators found no injection marks on either of their bodies.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: So now police have a new mystery to solve. How
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: did two people who apparently have no reason to be
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: taking fentanyl both end up with fatal quantities of one
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of the world's most powerful opioids in their systems? Police
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: started looking at Carol and Steven's family and people close
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: to them. They were trying to see if they could
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: figure out any reason why anyone would want to harm them.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Carol had been suffering from health problems. And even though
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: we said before they weren't fatal, they were increasingly serious
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: for years. And apparently that had been depressing her. At
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: one point, about a year before she died, Carol had
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: to rush to the hospital with severe abdominal pain. It
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: turned out doctors discovered a 17-millimeter nail inside her colon,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: and she was unable to explain how she swallowed it.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So now police are looking at everything out of the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: ordinary that happened to Carol and looking at it through
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: the lenses of her and Stephen's sudden death and wondering,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: was this abdominal issue she had just some kind of
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: weird accident, or had someone been targeting Carol even back then?
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: As her pain got worse and worse over the years,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Carol made new friends. She joined an online community for
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: people who had Hashimoto's disease and started communicating with an expert, Dr.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Andrea Bowden. Now, Dr. Bowden started giving Carol advice that
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: some of her family believe was a little bit out there.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: They started to believe that the people in this group,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: including Carol's online friends named Cheryl Herring, Linda Edwards, and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: Marnie Pantry, were becoming kind of like a cult. Whenever Dr.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Andrea would tell Carol something that contradicted her GP's advice,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: her regular doctor, Carol would ask the other women in
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: this online group what they thought, and overwhelmingly, these women
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: all supported Dr. Andrea Bowden. So police were also taking
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: a closer look at the women in this online support group.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Police found evidence that when Carol became skeptical of Andrea Bowden,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: she actually contacted another doctor, Dr. Alan Mandel. And over time, Dr.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Andrea was encouraging Carol to reduce contact with people who
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: might cause her stress. So now police are wondering, were
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the people in this community just a little bit eccentric
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: or were they actually dangerous? Police were looking at Ellie's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: friends as well. They found out that Ellie had been
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: trying to launch a singing career, and she had a
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: friend named Jenny Trencher. This person was a theater producer
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: who was encouraging Ellie to pursue her dreams. Police found
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: out also that there had been friction between Ellie and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: her parents. Ellie would talk to her friend Jenny about
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: her difficulties with her parents, about the business, and about
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: her parents' will. Since Jenny, Ellie's friend, also knew details
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: about the Baxter's finances, which by now police are obviously
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: looking into, Jenny got added to the people of interest
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: who police were trying to interview. Police also started looking
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: at the Baxter's financial situation, the whole picture. The family business,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Kaz Splash, was actually having money problems. So investigators did
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: have to consider whether this had been some kind of
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: assisted suicide of some kind. whether Stephen and Carol might
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: have deliberately taken the drug together, or whether one spouse
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: could have administered the fentanyl to the other spouse before
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: taking their own life. But there was no note, and
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: there was also nothing in either Carol or Stephen's history
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: to indicate that this was any kind of a motive.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Friends and family said Stephen appeared happy and in a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: good mood shortly before his death. The Baxters had also
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: been talking about a future and they were talking about
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: retirement and travel and spending more time with their family.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: Once toxicology transformed this investigation, police went back through the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Baxter home much more carefully. Inside the wicker container where
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Carol's medications were stored, police found four empty packets of
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: fentanyl patches. This discovery was hard to explain because again,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: neither of the Baxter's had a prescription for fentanyl. There
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: were no marks indicating that either of them had been
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: wearing the patches before their death. So did someone drug
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: the Baxter's by putting patches on their skin and then
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: remove the patches at some point later? Police didn't think so. Instead,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: investigators formed a theory that the drug had been consumed orally,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't determine precisely how that could have happened.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: There were no incriminating traces on the glasses or on
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: the cookware or utensils in the house, and no obvious
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: container that could explain how two fatal doses could have
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: been prepared and consumed. The location of the empty packets
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: was mysterious as well because emergency personnel had looked through
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: Carol's medication after the bodies were discovered. Apparently, they hadn't
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: noticed the fentanyl packaging. Now it was sitting at the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: bottom of the medication container. Had it simply been missed
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: during the initial examination or had something changed inside the
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: house after Stephen and Carol died? Carol and Stephen did
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: have a will, a will that left everything to their children.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: But then investigators found something else in Carol's home office,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: a document headed with words to the effect of what
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: should happen in the event of Stephen Carol's death. It
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: appeared to be an attempt at a codicil, a document
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: that's intended to amend an existing will. And it dealt
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: with the couple's house, their possessions, and most importantly, their company,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Cat Splash. According to the new document, their daughter Ellie
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: would become the company's sole shareholder, while Luke DeWitt, the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: family friend who sometimes helped with the business, would become
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: a director and exercise significant control over its operations. I
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: have seen estimates that they were worth between 1.5 and
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: 2.5 million pounds, but a lot of their net worth
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: seemed to be equity in their property rather than cold,
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: hard cash. The document also directed that $ 60, 000 from the
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: Baxter's estate should be put into the company. The codicil
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: specified that when Ellie turned 30 years old, she and
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Luke were supposed to share the directorship and she would
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: not be permitted to remove him. This codicil was dated
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: November 22nd, 2022, several months before the couple's deaths. But
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: there were serious problems with this document. So first of all,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: Carol and Steven did have a regular lawyer. They had
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: used this attorney to prepare the will that they had
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: from 2021, the one that left their estate to their children.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: And the lawyer told police they had never said anything
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to him about amending it or creating a new document.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: And this newly discovered document was not signed by Steven
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: or Carol. But most mysteriously, police found the wording on
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the document strange. The discovery of a quickly written and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: kind of unprofessional document like that inevitably forced investigators to
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: look closely at the people who appeared to benefit from it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: One of them was Carol and Stephen's daughter, Ellie. So
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: law enforcement were reviewing all communications between the Baxters and
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: their daughter, Ellie. They found that Carol had previously told
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Ellie that the company would eventually belong to her. But,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Some of the messages also showed tension surrounding money and
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: arguments between the Baxters and Ellie about their frustrations with
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: her having limited involvement in the company. Carol had complained
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that her daughter wasn't very good with managing money and
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: had shown relatively little interest in the business. Meanwhile, Ellie
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: told investigators she had no idea how serious Kaz Splash's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: financial problems had become. So Ellie started talking to the
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: attorney who prepared this codicil. His name was Martin Ellison,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: and Martin assured Ellie that this was legit, that he
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: had written it up himself, and it was completely above board.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Ellie at the time was also dealing with the very
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: real emotional consequences of having been the person who discovered
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: her parents' bodies. She was pregnant when she looked through
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the conservatory window and saw her parents dead in their chairs.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: The shock caused her to start bleeding heavily. and she
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: was scared that she might lose her baby. A medical
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: examination fortunately established that her pregnancy was continuing normally, but
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: I'm sure this was terrifying for her. In the weeks afterwards,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: she was simultaneously grieving her parents, organizing their funeral, and
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: trying to avoid further stress to her or her unborn child. Meanwhile,
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: police were also looking at someone else who had been
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: very close to the Baxter family, 31-year-old Luke DeWitt. Luke
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: DeWitt had a background of working in IT. He had
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: been working at the Baxter's business for a few years.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: Luke was known around town for being kind of a nerdy,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: quiet guy, but someone who was very kind, who did
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: volunteer work. In 2021, Luke's father had died of cancer,
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and after that, he got even closer to Stephen and Carol.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Luke ended up being diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. And
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Carol and Steven supported him through that, through the brutal
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: chemotherapy appointments and the treatments. And Luke also helped them.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: When Carol was going through her health issues, Luke would
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: prepare healthy meals for her. They weren't just coworkers, they
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: were like family at this point. In fact, Luke was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: one of the last people to see Steven and Carol alive.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Luke had visited the house on Friday night while Carol
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: was asleep and Steven was cooking dinner. Remember that Carol's
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: pacemaker indicated that she was alive after that, after Luke left.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: She died sometime on Saturday afternoon, and Luke had left
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: the house by then. This was verified by a security
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: camera that covered the front of the property. That camera
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: did not record anyone coming or going from the house
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: on Saturday. Now, it was possible someone could have approached
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: from another direction and maybe avoided the camera, especially someone
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: familiar with the house, but police didn't know for sure,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and they didn't have any evidence that that's what took place.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: So now, police were taking a hard look at Ellie,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: her husband, and Luke DeWitt. But no one could believe
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: that Luke would do anything like that. Everyone said he
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: was known as having good character. He apparently volunteered at
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: soup kitchens. He would pose as Santa Claus for local
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: events in town. After his father died, Luke lived with
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: his mother. Now, trial reporting would later describe the adult
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: son and mother as sharing a bedroom. So there were
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: rumors flying around that Luke's relationship with his mother was
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: a little bit odd and close. I am not suggesting,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: by the way, there was anything inappropriate about the mother-son
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: relationship at all. The rumors that were flying around were
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: more along the lines of them being very close and
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: it may be being unhealthy. But in spite of that,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: everybody described Luke DeWitt as a good guy. One article
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: described him as someone who, quote, was known locally as
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: an eccentric but generally harmless computer enthusiast, end quote. As
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: far as everyone could tell, other than volunteering and working
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: in IT, Luke DeWitt's main hobby was playing video games.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: And Luke had been so helpful. After the bodies were discovered,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Luke came over and helped communicate with emergency services when
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Ellie was too distraught to explain what was going on.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: He also assisted in gathering Carol's medication for paramedics. Afterward,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: he helped Ellie organize the funeral. He even babysat her
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: son while she went on her pregnancy doctor's appointments. To Ellie,
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: he was one of the people supporting her through the
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: worst period of her life. However, now police were wondering
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: if there was a dark side to Luke staying so
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: close to the family in that way. Then, in June
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: of 2023, police came to Ellie's house and arrested her
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: on suspicion of murdering her parents. Ellie said she was shocked.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: She denied having anything to do with their deaths. She
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: told investigators she hadn't even known that fentanyl had killed
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: them until police revealed it during questioning. But Ellie was
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: not the only person arrested that day. Police also arrested
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: her boyfriend, Marcus, and they arrested Luke DeWitt. Ellie later
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: said that this was horrific and stressful. She was heavily pregnant,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: and now she was being questioned in connection with her parents' murder.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: But very quickly, Ellie and Marcus were released from police custody,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: but Luke DeWitt remained there. And what police were beginning
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: to uncover would completely change the story of Stephen and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: Carol Baxter's deaths. Because when Luke was arrested and police
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: looked through his rucksack, they found lots of fentanyl pouches.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: When Luke was questioned he had a reason for having
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: these patches. He said that he had the fentanyl because
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: it had originally been prescribed to his father who had
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: died from cancer two years earlier. When police searched Luke's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: house they found more fentanyl. Again Luke told them investigators
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that there was an innocent explanation for all this. He
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: said he had just been going through his father's things slowly,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: had collected the leftover medication, and eventually he said he
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: was going to take it to the pharmacy for disposal.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: He just hadn't had a chance to do it yet.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: But when investigators compared those patches with the empty fentanyl
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: patches discovered among Carol's medications, they found that they were
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: from the same batch and that Luke's fingerprints were on
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: the packets found at Carol and Stephen's house. Those fentanyl
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: patches changed the entire direction of the investigation, but they
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: were far from the only disturbing things police found. Luke
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: also had a large quantity of an over-the-counter medication that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: contained promethazine, The same sedating antihistamine that was found at
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: potentially lethal levels in Carol Baxter's blood. Some of the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: tablets have been crushed into powder. And investigators even found
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: what appeared to be a makeshift pestle and mortar among
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Luke's belongings. Now again, Luke had an explanation. He claimed
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: he ground up that medication so he could combine it
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: with a cream to treat his eczema. But police were
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: not convinced. Especially since at the foot of his bed,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: investigators found another bag and this one contained empty pill capsules.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: Luke said he had brought the bag home from the
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Baxter's house and that it wasn't his. But investigators developed
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a very different theory. They believed the crushed promethazine had
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: been put into capsules that Luke had created pills that
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: contained several times the therapeutic dose of this medication. That
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: offered a possible explanation for something that had puzzled Carol's
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: family and doctors long before her death. Those periods when
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Carol said she was becoming profoundly drowsy and confused and disoriented.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Then police found something even more shocking. Remember Carol's hospitalization
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: due to abdominal pain that was such a mystery? Well,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: police found a bag that contained dozens of metal nails.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So investigators now believe that accident wasn't an accident at all.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: They believed a nail was put inside a capsule and
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: given to Carol without her knowledge. Something that once looked
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: like an isolated medical mystery was now being examined as
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: an act of deliberate poisoning. But the physical evidence was
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: only one part of what police seized. Luke had an
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: extraordinary quantity of electronics, around 80 devices, according to reporting
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that was broadcast in a documentary about this case called
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: The Millionaire Murders. This included phones, computers, tablets, smartwatches, hard drives,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: and USB devices. Some of the phones were unregistered, and
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: investigators found technology that allowed telephone numbers from numerous countries
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to be used remotely. Now, given Luke's background in IT,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: none of this was necessarily criminal on its own. The
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: significance emerged only after investigators began the enormous task of
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: reconstructing what those devices had been used to do. Then
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: they found out that Jenny, this person she had been
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: talking to online, was not who she appeared to be.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Jenny wasn't real at all. She was a persona invented
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: by Luke DeWitt. Investigators even recovered evidence suggesting that Luke
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: had researched ways to alter his voice during telephone calls.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: And they found recordings where Luke appeared to practice speaking
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: in a woman's voice as Jenny. This makes the hairs
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: on the back of my neck stand up as I'm
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: reading it because it's so creepy. Ellie had no idea
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: that the person she was pouring her heart out to
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: about her troubles with her parents was actually Luke DeWitt.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And the deception continued even after Stephen and Carol died.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: But that was just the tip of the iceberg because
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Jenny wasn't Luke DeWitt's only persona. Luke also invented Martin Ellison,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the attorney who told Ellie that this weird document concerning
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: Casplash was authentic. Luke lied about everything. He lied about
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: his academic credentials and medical records showed he never even
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: had bone cancer. He had never gone through cancer treatment,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: but he had stolen from the Baxters. police found jewelry
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: belonging to Carol in Luke's house. So there was now
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: a much darker way of interpreting Carol's deterioration. For roughly
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: two years, she had been consuming various homemade tonics and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: mixtures that were recommended by this medical network she trusted.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: And Luke was the person who would prepare the drinks
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and encourage her to listen to the online doctor, Andrea Bowden.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Carol trusted him so much that she apparently made jokes
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: about him being her mixologist. Investigators believed that some of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: these tonics that Luke gave Carol had been dosed with promethazine.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Carol's mysterious worsening illness, the drowsiness, the confusion, the erratic
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: behavior were at least in part because she was being
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: deliberately poisoned. None of the reporting that I've read about
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: this case covered this, but I definitely wondered, did she
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: ever really have an illness at all? Or was this
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: all Luke's doing? This may shock you or you may
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: have figured it out by now, but Luke was also Dr.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Andrea Bowden and every single friend in the online support group.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Luke used his online personas to completely manipulate Carol. If
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: she became confused or exhausted, the online doctor could attribute
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: it to her illness. If she questioned any of Dr.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Andrea's treatments, the other doctor who was also Luke DeWitt
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: or the other supposed patients could encourage her to keep
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: taking the health tonics. Luke controlled Carol's entire online world.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: And Luke was obviously there in person as well to
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: make Carol her health tonics, the ones that were laced
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: with deadly drugs. To me, Luke DeWitt definitely fits the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: profile of a red-collar criminal pretty much to the T.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: This has all the hallmarks of a fraud detection homicide. Remember,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: red-collar criminals strike out when their fraud is about to
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: be exposed. So usually there's an inciting incident. What was
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: the inciting incident here that pushed Luke to kill Carol
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and Steven when his deception had been going on at
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that point for years? It turned out that shortly before
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: Carol and Steven died, police found evidence that they were
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: getting more and more uncomfortable about Luke spending so much
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: time at their house. Steven felt that Luke stayed too long,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: involved himself excessively in Carol's life and upset her with
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: what Steven described as mind games. they were finally catching
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: on to Luke. Carol said sometimes she felt as though
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Luke was following her. But Stephen discussed those concerns with
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: someone who he believed understood Carol's health and the family dynamic, Dr.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: Andrea Bowden. And of course, Andrea, who was actually Luke DeWitt,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: defended himself and said Luke was caring and helpful. But
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: then Stephen began discussing his concerns with Luke. So for once, Dr.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Bowden hadn't calmed the situation down. Stephen began telling Luke
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: effectively he didn't want him around the house so much.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: Luke knew he was running out of time. So in
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the weeks before their deaths, Stephen and Carol were preparing
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: to put distance between themselves and Luke DeWitt. They also
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: told Ellie they wanted to give her access to the
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: business passwords. Luke controlled the passwords, but because they were
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: considering removing him from the business, they were reportedly worried
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: that if he reacted badly, he might interfere with the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: company's computer systems or records. Of course, unbeknownst to them,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: he was preparing to do something much worse. But investigators
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: still needed to answer some questions. They needed to figure
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: out how Luke could have killed them when he wasn't
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: even there the day that Carol and Steven died. CCTV
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: showed Luke arriving at the Baxter home at approximately 10.20
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: on the morning before they died. Now, the prosecution's case
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: was that Luke used fentanyl patches that were left over
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: from his father's treatment to lace their liver cleanser smoothies.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Luke made sure they drank the smoothies and later returned
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: to the property at around 4 p.m. Now, prosecutors argued
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that when he came back to the house that day,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: what he was actually doing was checking on the effects
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: of the drugs and removing evidence of how they had
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: been administered. Before leaving the Baxter house that evening, Luke
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: transferred 6,000 pounds from the Baxter's personal bank account into
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: a business account he controlled. He described the transaction as
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: a loan. Police believed Luke had put a camera inside
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: the house and that even though he wasn't physically there,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: he was able to monitor what was going on. And
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: that explained how he had been able to drug the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: couple and watch the drugs take effect without physically being there.
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: And it just keeps getting worse because after Luke witnessed
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: Stephen and Carol gasping for breath, police say he actually
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: went out to dinner with their daughter Ellie and her
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: partner Marcus and acted completely normal. Even though at that
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: moment when he was eating dinner with her, By then,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Stephen and Carol were either dying or already dead. He
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: watched them die and then calmly went to the house
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: and was a shoulder to cry on for Ellie the
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: next day. Investigators believed that Luke placed the empty fentanyl
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: packets back in Carol's medications because they suspect he was
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: trying to create a murder-suicide explanation. And this is common
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: for a lot of red collar criminals as well. If
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: you listen to the podcast, you'll know that even though
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: red collar criminals often believe that they are the smartest
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: person in the room, yet they very often do terrible
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: jobs at actually executing their schemes. Because for someone who
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: spent years methodically masterminding this horrific plan, Lute did a
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: terrible job of actually putting it together. The codicil he
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: faked was a total mess. Rather than being created in
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: November of 2022 as the document claims, investigators found evidence
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: that Luke drafted it on his phone at 6.54 a.m.
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: on the morning after the Baxters were found dead. So
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: was Luke's motive totally financial? Because yes, he stood to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: benefit from Stephen and Carol's deaths, but it turned out
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the scenario was a little more complicated than Luke merely
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: stealing money. because police say the business, Casplash, was struggling.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: They owed money to people. It turned out at one point,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Luke actually loaned the Baxters 15,000 pounds of his own
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: money so that they could put it into the company,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: which is why police believe the fake codicil directed that
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: 60,000 pounds from Stephen and Carol's estate would be injected
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: into the business. Luke wanted to get paid back. That
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: would give the business a cash infusion. And also, crucially,
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Luke would retain control of the business. By the time
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: investigators finished assembling this evidence, this case was no longer
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: simply about two fatal doses of fentanyl. It was about
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: years of alleged manipulation. It involved fictitious doctors, made-up patients,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: false friendships, a nail hidden inside Carol's body, fabricated illness,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: stolen jewelry, and an apparently fraudulent document created after two
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: people were already dead. Most disturbing of all was the
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: possibility that Carol Baxter had spent the last few years
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: of her life believing she was becoming sicker, while the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: person she trusted most to help take care of her
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: was allegedly engineering both the illness and the elaborate fictional
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: world that explained it. This whole thing is mind-blowing to me.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Luke DeWitt denied murdering Stephen and Carol Baxter. And when
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: this case went to trial, he would offer the jury
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: a radically different explanation. not only for the deaths, but
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: for the extraordinary cast of imaginary people who investigators found
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: living inside Luke's electronic devices. By February of 2024, prosecutors
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: were ready to present their case against Luke DeWitt at
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Chelmsford Crown Court. He faced two counts of murder, along
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: with charges related to fentanyl possession and the theft of
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Carol Baxter's jewelry. He pleaded not guilty. The prosecution argued
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: that by creating this network of fictitious people, he gained
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: control of Carol and Stephen's business and pretty much Carol's
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: entire life. Luke started working for the Baxters around 2012
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: or 2013. He helped build the company's website and eventually
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: he became deeply involved with its technology and operations. Ellie
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: testified that her parents paid him about 15 pounds an hour.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Over time, the financial relationships became increasingly blurred. Luke loaned
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: money to Stephen and Carol's business. It came out in
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: court that he also personally loaned money to Ellie, more
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: than 7,000 pounds. In fact, the day before she discovered
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: her parents dead, Ellie testified she borrowed another 400 pounds
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: from Luke to pay for repairs to her car. So
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: that meant the Baxter's death was not just an obvious
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: opportunity to inherit a thriving company and become rich. That
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: business needed money. However, prosecutors argued that financial gain was
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: Luke's primary motive because they said Luke knew, given the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: business's problems, it had no realistic means of ever repaying
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the money he put into it. So that's why the
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: prosecution claims he created the fake codicil. That way, he
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: would get his investment back and also profit from Stephen
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: and Carol's deaths. That's also why the prosecution claimed that
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: he stole the jewelry. But money doesn't completely explain this case.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Even investigators acknowledged they could not know precisely what was
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: happening inside Luke DeWitt's mind. Money was part of it,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: but at sentencing, the judge went further into this ambiguity.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: The judge said that Luke's motive in his opinion was
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: not simply this indirect financial gain. The judge believed that
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: what Luke really wanted was to control people. If the
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: sole objective had been money, much of this elaborate deception
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: would have been unnecessary. He didn't just forge paperwork or
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: steal from an account. According to the prosecution's evidence, Luke
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: spent years creating people who didn't exist and then having
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: those people manipulate the entire Baxter family. Luke admitted that, yes,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: he had created false identities. He testified Stephen had asked
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: him to do it. According to Luke, Stephen wanted Carol
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to have people she could communicate with and confide in.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: She was lonely. So Luke said with Stephen's permission, he
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: created these people for Carol. But the prosecution argued that
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: this didn't seem to make a lot of sense because
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: Stephen had corresponded with the fictional identities as well. And
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: from all the communication that police had seen, it seemed
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: as though Stephen believed these people were real. So why
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: would he do that if they were fictional? Luke DeWitt
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: was found guilty of murdering Stephen and Carol Baxter. He
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: 37 years. The judge described the murders as cruel and
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: senseless and emphasized the devastation that Luke DeWitt had inflicted
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: on Stephen and Carol's children. After Luke was convicted, police
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: said they believed that he was so dangerous that he
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: could have killed again. According to the BBC, authorities did
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: review what they had uncovered to determine whether there were
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: reasons to examine other deaths connected to Luke, including those
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: of his father and his grandfather. In August of 2026,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: they gave an update. Law enforcement announced that they had
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: closed all of their inquiries. As I mentioned before, there
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: was a documentary about the case on ITV called The
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Millionaire Murders. Ellie appeared on this documentary. She told the
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: BBC she had appeared on the show to clear her
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: name because she said that a lot of people had
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: shunned her after wrongly suspecting that she had a role
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: in her parents' deaths. She said that they would openly
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: stare at her when she went into the shops. And
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: she said even after Luke's arrest and conviction, some people
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: still whisper that she was the mastermind behind the whole
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: thing because apparently they can't believe that a nice, normal
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: bloke like Luke would do something like this. Ellie later
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Her parents, who
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: had been looking forward to retirement and more time with
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: their family, never got to meet their granddaughter. The community
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: is also reeling. They're trying to figure out if they
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: missed any signs. No one who was interviewed thought that
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Luke was capable of violence. But as people who have
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: listened to this podcast before know, many red-collar criminals start
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: out as white-collar criminals like Luke did. And many of
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: them have zero history of violence until they do. Red-collar
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: offenders are described as having antisocial qualities such as extreme entitlement, narcissism,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and psychopathy. I'm not a medical professional, but I would
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: guess that entitlement and psychopathy could be present in someone
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: who would manipulate people in this way for years. Ellie
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: later said that her parents reached out to Luke because
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: they felt bad for him, because he had lost his father,
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: and because he had cancer, which of course was not
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: even true. it brought up some really interesting discussions in Essex,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: in their community, and around the globe. And that's one
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of the main reasons why I wanted to cover this case.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: Because normally, when we talk about grooming, we're thinking about
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: kids or young teens in sexual situations. But this was
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: another type of grooming. Grooming of seniors, which is much
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: less talked about. The Essex police put out a statement
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: saying they cooperated with the Millionaire Murders documentary, partly to
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: raise awareness about this issue. They teamed up with a
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: UK charity called Hourglass to raise awareness of abuse of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: older people. That charity is specific to the UK, but
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: as someone who works on these cases all the time
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: involving cons and fraud, this is a massive issue and
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: it's definitely a huge problem in the United States as well.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I've seen so many cases and families where manipulation and
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: lies involving older people lead to tragic results. I'm hoping
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: that showing what it can look like might help someone
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: out there if they have a friend or family member
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: going through something similar. One friend of the Baxter's, Kate Dawson,
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: was quoted as saying, he was never rude, but just
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: very odd, an odd character. He wouldn't say a lot.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: He'd just be sitting around having a cup of tea
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: with them, but he was always there. I'm Katherine Townsend.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: This is Red Collar. in collaboration with Hell and Gone
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: Murder Line. Hell and Gone Murder Line is a production
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast. It's written and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: narrated by me, Katherine Townsend, and produced by Edelise Perez.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: James Wheaton for legal review. Noah Kammer mixed and scored
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Salih. Executive
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: producers are Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and LC Crowley. Listen
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: to Hell and Gone ad-free by subscribing to the iHeart
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you are
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: can follow the show on Instagram at hellandgonepod. If you
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: have a case you'd like me and my team to
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: look into, you can reach out to us at our
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Hell and Gone murder line at 678-744-6145. That's 678-744-6145. School
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: of Humans.