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The Tiger by the Tail - Meet, Marry, Murder · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to take a second and just imagine
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a life where every single box on the traditional American
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: dream checklist is completely tick off.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Like you have the perfect storybook marriage. You live in
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: a sprawling, beautiful house in a really safe neighborhood.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: You have five gorgeous children and, you know, a thriving,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: incredibly lucrative career that everyone in your community just totally
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: looks up to.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: The whole package.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Exactly. You've spent your entire adult life building this impenetrable
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: fortress of success. And then I want you to imagine
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: all of it, the entire facade just shattering into a
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: million pieces with a single knock at your front door
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the night.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: It is the kind of instantaneous collapse that we usually
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: associate with a natural disaster, right? Like an earthquake or
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: a flood. Right, yeah. We don't typically associate that level
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: of sudden total devastation with domestic life, But that is
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: exactly what we're looking at today. It's totally binary in
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: its destruction.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: I mean, at 9.54 p.m., the structure is standing tall.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: And by 9.56 p.m., it's just entirely gone.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: OK, let's unpack this. We're exploring the incredibly tragic, deeply
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: complex case of Ashley and Emmett Corrigan. And I'm your host,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: by the way.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: And I'm the resident expert on this deep dive. Right.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: So if you look at this story from a distance,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: it begins as this picture-perfect Mormon romance. But it ends
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: in the cold, harsh reality of a deadly Walgreens parking
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: lot confrontation. Yeah. And our mission today for this deep
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: dive is not just to walk you through another true
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: crime timeline. Based on the sources we have, we are
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: going to deconstruct the anatomy of a double life.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Which is so important to do.
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: We want to understand how glaring, flashing red flags get
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: ignored by smart people. We're going to examine how unchecked,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: powering ambition can breed just reckless deception.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: And most importantly, we're going to look at what happens
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: to the people who are left standing in the blast
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: radius when it all goes off.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: Because that blast radius, it extends so much further than
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: anyone anticipates. It doesn't just hit the immediate victims in
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: the parking lot.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: No, it doesn't.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It alters the psychological landscape of the children, of extended family,
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: of colleagues, literally for generations.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the ripple effects are huge.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: So when we look at Ashley Boyson and Emmett Corrigan,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: we really have to start at the foundation of that
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: storybook life. We have to understand how the building was
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: constructed if we want to understand why the collapse was
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: so absolute.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Let's start with Ashley then. Long before the collision, Ashley
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Boyson was someone who, from a very young age, was
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: just a take-charge kind of person. Oh, definitely. She was
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: a cheerleader, eventually the head cheerleader at several different schools.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: She had this vibrant, upbeat exterior. But beneath that, her
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: early life was actually defined by a profound instability.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Right, her family situation.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, her father decided to go back to school to
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: become a chiropractor. That required him to travel all over
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the country. He was always studying, up late, up early,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: constantly stressed out.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Which is a lot for a family to handle.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It put a massive strain on her parents' marriage, which
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: ultimately ended in divorce about a year after he finally graduated.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: And that divorce is the critical psychological anchor for Ashley's
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: entire adult life. Yeah. She noted in the source material
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: that watching her parents' marriage dissolve made her grow up
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: much faster than she had planned. It introduced this harsh
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: reality that the safety of a family unit is, well,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: it's never guaranteed. Right. But what is fascinating is how
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: she responded to that trauma. Instead of making her cynical
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: about marriage or hesitant to commit, it actually pushed her
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: in the complete opposite direction.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: It really did.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: It instilled in her this intense awe. almost singular drive
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: to create the perfect, unbrainable family. As a kid, she
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: played with dolls constantly, pretending to be the mom. She
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: even talked about wanting to become a family or marriage
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: counselor to help other families avoid the exact pain hers
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: went through.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: She wanted to be the Galoo. She was actively looking
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: for a partner who could build that fortified family unit
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: with her.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she was very intentional.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: And she was very clear on her criteria. You know,
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: someone who had the capacity to love her deeply, who
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: loved God, and who wanted a house full of kids.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: So cut to Ashley at 26 years old. She's working
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in a gym on the campus of Utah State, cleaning treadmills,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: when in walks Emmett Corrigan.
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: Emmett is 27 at the time. He's about 5'10, or 5'11,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: intensely dedicated to fitness. And he just radiates this undeniable charisma.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: He really had a presence.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: People described him as having bright eyes, long eyelashes, and
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: a massive smile. He had this specific energy where if
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: you were talking to him in a crowded room, you
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: felt like you were the only person that mattered.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: He made you feel like you were his best friend.
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: He was highly ambitious, already mapping out a plan to
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: become a prominent lawyer.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Their meeting is just straight out of a romantic comedy script.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Ashley's roommates wanted her to go on a group date
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: with them, but she hadn't asked anyone. And the date
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was starting in literally one hour.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow. Talk about pressure. Right.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So she just looks at this cute guy on the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: treadmill and says, do you want to go on a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: date with me in an hour? Ho, ho, change. I'm
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: going to pick you up.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: I love that confidence.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: And he says, yes. They go to a movie, then
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: they extend the date to dinner, and they just keep talking.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: But the pivotal moment isn't the spontaneous invite. What really
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: seals this connection is the conversation at dinner.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is wild.
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: Within five minutes of actually sitting down and talking to
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: each other, They realize they share a profound commonality. Both
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: of their parents were divorced.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Which is wild to think about. Five minutes into a
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: blind date, and they are laying down their deepest foundational
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: traumas right there on the table.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It is an instant recognition of shared trauma. And to
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: be clear, this isn't a trauma bond, which is a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: clinical term for the attachment a victim feels toward their abuser.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: This is simply two people bonding intensely over a shared
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: past wound.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Right, right. Important distinctions.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: But they framed this shared history as a mutual mission.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: They determined right then and there that they would never
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: let a divorce happen to them. They made a vow
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: on date one to always fight for each other.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: That's a lot for a first date.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: For Ashley, Emmett seemed to possess unlimited potential to fulfill
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: her lifelong dream. He wanted to do things big. He
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: loved big. He played big.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: I am curious about the shadows here, though. Because even
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: early on, Ashley's friends and family noticed he wasn't really
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: her usual type.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, there were some red flags.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: Her dad explicitly mentioned Emmett was on the wild side.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: And a friend noted that if Emmett disagreed with someone,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: his energy would drastically shift.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: In what way?
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: He'd get this protective, almost aggressive edge saying things like, oh,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: I'll take him out or I'll beat them up.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And he had a known history of playing the field, partying,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: having multiple girlfriends. How does someone looking for stability ignore
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: that kind of volatility?
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Well, because he had recently made a significant life choice
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: that sort of neutralized those concerns in Ashley's mind. He
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: Ashley loved that he had fought for his faith on
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: his own, that he wasn't just born into it. That
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: spiritual commitment provided a veneer of safety.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Combined with his confident edge, which friends rationalized as protective
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: rather than dangerous, Ashley felt like she had found her
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: ultimate partner.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So they escalate the relationship incredibly fast. Just two months
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: into dating, Emmett takes her out to this old bridge
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: near Utah State, where his family used to have a
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: home before his parents split.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Oh, full circle.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he proposes right there on the bridge. It
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: is breathtakingly fast. Even Ashley's dad was shocked.
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: I bet.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: He wanted to intervene and tell them to slow down,
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: but ultimately decided to just bite his tongue and be
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: happy for them.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: And the wedding itself... It really reflects the sheer unstoppable
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: momentum of this relationship. It was a massive community event.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Like how massive?
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: There were so many people there from their respective families
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: and churches that Ashley and Emmett never even got to
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: cut their cake or share a traditional dance.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: Wait, really? No cake?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: No cake. They just stood in a receiving line for
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: hours because there was this overwhelming outpouring of support for
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: this seemingly perfect union.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: Wow. But if we strip away the beautiful wedding photos,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the reality was that they were broke. Emmett is preparing
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: for law school, so their master plan was to get
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: him through undergrad, get Ashley graduated, and then tackle the
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: massive financial hurdle of law school.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: A huge undertaking.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: And in the middle of this huge educational undertaking, they
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: start having kids. Yeah.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: By 2005, they are blessed with identical twin girls, Boston
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: and Bailey. Two years later, a son, Tiege.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: Wow, three kids already.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: And right as Emmett is finishing his final grueling year
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: of law school... They have another little girl, Kalaya.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: That is four very young children in the house, while
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the primary earner is navigating the crushing demands of a
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: law degree. I can't even imagine the stress.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: Ashley described their dynamic during this time as highly functional.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: They did everything together, bedtime, chores, studying. It was all
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: hands on deck.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: But I have to push back on this idea that
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: this was a perfect plan. When I look at this
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: era of their life, I don't see an unbreakable fortress.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: I see a highly vulnerable structure. It makes me think
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of a suspension bridge.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Oh, I like that. Expand on the engineering there.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: Well, a suspension bridge is a marvel, right? It looks beautiful,
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: and it is incredibly strong when the force is distributed
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: exactly the way the engineers designed it to be.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Usually straight down.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Right, carrying the weight of the traffic. But if a
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: strong wind blows from an unexpected horizontal direction, the whole
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: thing can start to sway violently, catch its own resonance,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and literally tear itself apart.
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: That's a great visual.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: Ashley and Emmett's life plan was built entirely on relentless
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: forward momentum and perfectly executed traditional roles. Emmett works multiple
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: jobs and goes to school. Ashley stays home, manages the chaos,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and raises four babies.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: It works as long as the conditions remain exactly as
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: they designed them.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But what happens when the environment changes?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: That is a phenomenal way to look at it because
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: you are highlighting the extreme rigidity of their survival mechanism.
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: Their marriage was highly functional, but it required total sacrifice
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of individual needs.
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: Which you can't sustain forever. Right.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: People in their community constantly praised Emmett for sacrificing his
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: time to work so hard and provide. But that community
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: praise masked a dangerous reality. Ashley was carrying an immense
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: domestic burden entirely alone.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all by herself.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: And Emmett was normalizing a state of constant exhausting absence
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: from his own home. He was learning that being a
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: good husband meant working all the time, not actually being present.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Which takes us to the transition point. All this hard
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: work finally pays off. Emmett graduates law school. And unlike
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of his peers who are struggling to find
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: entry-level work, Emmett lands an amazing job.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: He really did.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: He is poised to be this rising star. But the
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: catch is, the job is 200 miles away in Meridian, Idaho.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: This move is the unexpected lateral wind hitting your suspension bridge.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: They are uprooted from their support system and thrown into
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: a completely new life. Right. They upgrade to a huge house,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: which on the surface looks like the ultimate realization of
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: the American dream they had been chasing. But structurally, the
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: dynamics have radically shifted.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: Ashley is left completely isolated in this massive new house,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: still in her role as a stay-at-home mom. But now
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: she's pregnant with their fifth child, a boy they would
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: name Titus.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: She doesn't have her friends. She doesn't have her family
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: nearby to help with the four toddlers. And Emmett, he
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: is suddenly thrust into a hyper-competitive relationship Fast-paced legal environment.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, his colleagues describe him working from 7-0 or 8-0
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: in the morning until 9-0-0 or 10-0-0 at night. He
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: is entirely consumed by the identity of his career.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: The pressure on him is immense. He is the sole
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: provider for a family of soon-to-be seven living in a
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: massive new home with a huge mortgage trying to prove
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: himself as a rookie attorney.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: And his solution to this overwhelming pressure is baffling, yet
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: entirely in character.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: What does he do?
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: He decides to pile on even more work. He decides
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: he wants to supplement his income by doing criminal law
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: on the side, essentially starting an extra independent law practice
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: on top of his firm duties.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Which requires an assistant. And this is where the catalyst
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: enters the picture. Emmett comes home one day and casually
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: tells Ashley that his current paralegal introduced him to another paralegal.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Someone who thinks he is amazing. Right.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Who wants to work for him and is going to
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: help him build this new firm. That paralegal is Clindy Hall.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Let's look very closely at Condie Hall based on what
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: her colleagues, investigators, and court documents noted in the sources.
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Tell me about her.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: She is in her early 40s, making her about 10
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: years older than Emmett. She is described as highly intelligent,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: meticulously put together, beautiful, and extremely charismatic.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: And much like Emmett and Ashley, Condie and her husband,
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Rob Hall... were also relatively new to the Meridian area. Right.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: They had been married for over 15 years. They had
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: two teenage daughters. And this move to Meridian was supposed
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: to be a fresh start for them, too.
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: Because, frankly, their marriage was a toxic disaster.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Rob Hall was an ex-law enforcement officer, and colleagues at
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: the law firm noted that Clundy frequently came to work
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: with physical evidence of abuse.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they saw bruises on her arms and legs that
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: looked distinctly like they were left by a grabbing hand.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: That's awful.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: It was an open secret in her professional circle that
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Rob was emotionally and physically abusive.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Furthermore, Condi confided in those same colleagues that Rob had
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a history of having affairs, which had completely decimated her self-esteem.
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: So you have a woman who is naturally charismatic and
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: thrives on attention. but who is currently trapped in a
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: deeply abusive marriage where she feels entirely devalued, physically threatened,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and betrayed by her husband.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, she throws
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: herself into this new job working for Emmett. And Emmett,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: who is overworked and stressed to the absolute breaking point,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: is suddenly spending his 14-hour days with a woman who
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: is 10 years older, completely dedicated to his professional success,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and frankly, Desperate for positive attention.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I look at this and I don't just see a
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: cliche office romance. I see Emmett looking for a release valve.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I imagine for Emmett, he is suffocating under the pressure
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: of five kids and this perfect Mormon patriarch image that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: he has to project at home and at church.
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: Condi doesn't need him to change diapers. She doesn't need
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: him to worry about the mortgage. She just sees the
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: hotshot lawyer. She is his escape hatch.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Your intuition is spot on. If we look at the
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: psychology of why this specific combination of people was so explosive,
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: it becomes very clear that this wasn't just physical attraction.
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: How was it?
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It was a devastating psychological lock and key. You articulated
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: Emmett's side perfectly. He wanted to shed the overwhelming responsibilities
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: of his real life. But for Condi, having an affair
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: with a younger, handsome, rising star attorney was the ultimate validation.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: It was an ego boost. that counteracted the degradation she
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: suffered at home.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: That makes a sick kind of sense.
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: A colleague even explicitly speculated to investigators that Connie's affair
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: with Emmett was largely about payback. She wanted Rob to
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: feel the exact same pain of betrayal he had caused her.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And this intoxicating escape hatch didn't stay a quiet, subtle
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: workplace flirtation for long. It morphed into an incredibly reckless, brazen,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: open secret.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: The audacity of their behavior is actually... Quite shocking when
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: you look at the source material.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Tell me about it.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: They weren't just slipping away for quiet lunches across town.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: They were waiting for the law office to clear out
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day and having sex right
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: there on the desks.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: Wow. Really?
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah. They were renting hotel rooms during work hours. They
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: were going to the homes of Condi's friends and using
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: their spare bedrooms.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: They were even hooking up in their cars in public
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: parking lots.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: It's so obvious that everyone in the office suspected it.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: The tension must have been thick enough to cut with
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a knife.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: I can't even imagine working in that environment.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: And meanwhile, Ashley is at home, heavily pregnant, trying to
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: figure out why her husband is completely absent.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: She's getting these constant, seemingly valid excuses from Emmett. He
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: has to be at the county jail with a client.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: He has a late deposition. He can only meet a
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: witness at a certain time.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Plausible deniability. Right.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: If you've ever had a partner look you dead in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the eye and tell you that a conversation you explicitly
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: remember never happened, or that your gut feeling is just paranoia,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: you know exactly the kind of psychological vertigo Ashley is
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: experiencing here.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: But she is experiencing it on a massive, life-altering scale.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: She is being systematically gaslit. Her intuition is screaming that
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: something is fundamentally broken in her marriage, but the facts
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: she is being fed by a trained attorney don't align
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: with her gut.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: She actually goes to the office one day to try
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and ground herself in reality. She's super pregnant, about to
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: have her fifth baby, And she waddles in unannounced.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And the physical reaction of the office staff is incredibly telling.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: She noted that they looked at her with sheer panic,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: like they were terrified she was going to discover the
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: truth right then and there and blow the place up.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ashley walks past the reception area and sees Emmett
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: and Condi sitting across from each other.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: And what does Ashley register in that moment? She doesn't
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: find a smoking gun they aren't touching, but she registers
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: a multitude of sensory red flags that her brain can't ignore.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Right, like what?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: She notices Cundy's signature style short skirts, low-cut tops, and
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: high heels, which a colleague described as scandalously revealing for
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: a conservative law office.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: Definitely out of place.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: But even more viscerally, Ashley notices the smell. The small
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: office room smells overpoweringly of a woman's perfume.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's such a specific detail.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: Ashley leaves that office feeling entirely out of place in
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: her own husband's life. She later said she felt like
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: the crazy fat pregnant lady that everyone was avoiding making
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: eye contact with.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: That is just heartbreaking.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: She drives home just knowing in her bones that something
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: is deeply wrong with this woman, that she doesn't want
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: her in her husband's office or anywhere near their lives.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: But when she confronts Emmett about it that night, this
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: is where the manipulation becomes truly sinister. We have to
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: talk about how he specifically used his legal training against
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: his wife.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Emmett uses his skills as an attorney... to expertly
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: dismantle her reality. He doesn't just deny it. He cross-examines
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: her insecurities.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: He turns it around on her?
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: He laughs it off dismissively. He's like, oh, no, no, no.
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: She's like a mother figure to me. She's 40 years old.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: She just believes in my career. Wow. He leverages Condi's
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: age and her professional role as a paralegal to make
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Ashley feel completely foolish for even suggesting anything untoward is happening.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: He makes her feel like she is insulting his professional integrity.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: And his cruelty escalates. One night, Ashley leans in to
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: simply kiss Emmett as he walks in the door from
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: work and he physically recoils, moving his head away from
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: her in disgust.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: That hurts.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Then later that same evening, Ashley's in the kitchen and
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: the baby monitor is on. She overhears Emmett. He's in
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: a back room on his phone and he is actively
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: making up horrific, baseless lies about her. To whoever is
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: on the other end.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Of the line. Presumably Condi.
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: Presumably. He is claiming that Ashley isn't taking care of
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: the babies, she's a terrible mother, and even worse, that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: she's out sleeping around on him.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: That projection is textbook behavior in cases of chronic infidelity.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: He is engaging in an affair and entirely neglecting his
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: family to manage his own cognitive dissonance, to avoid looking
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: at himself in the mirror and seeing a villain, and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to justify his actions to his mistress. He projects those
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: exact behaviors onto his innocent wife.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: He has to make her the bad guy so he
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: can be the victim who deserves an escape.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I am continually hung up on the fact that he
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: was talking on the baby monitor. I'm so remarkably careless.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: It really implies he didn't even respect Ashley enough to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: hide his betrayal well.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: But the question that always arises in these cases is
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: how does an intelligent, capable woman let herself be convinced
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: she is the crazy one? I mean, she is actively
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: checking the garbage for receipts. She is trying to guess
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: the passcode to get into his phone while he's in
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: the shower. But she keeps hitting dead ends.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: She hears him lying on the monitor and her heart
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: just rips out of her chest. How does she stay?
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Is it just fear of being alone?
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: It is much deeper than a fear of being alone.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Accepting the truth means initiating the immediate destruction of the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: life you have spent your entire adulthood building. Ashley said
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: it herself. They had made a plan a long time
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: ago about what their life was going to look like,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: what their marriage meant and what they were going to
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: give their children.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: To admit that Emmett was intentionally destroying that plan was
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: psychologically unbearable. So the human brain protects itself. You cling
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: to the slivers of doubt.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: You tell yourself. There is no way the man I love,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the man who promised to protect our family from divorce,
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: would do this.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: Gaslighting is so effective because the victim desperately wants the
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: alternate reality to be true.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: It's a devastating trap. While Ashley is desperately trying to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: hold her family together in the dark, the rest of
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Emmett's world is being dragged directly into this impending collision.
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: Because Candy's husband Rob is not entirely in the dark.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Right, he doesn't have a blind spot when it comes
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: to his wife.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Rob Hall is highly suspicious, and we have to remember
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: his background. He is an ex-cop.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: That's a huge detail.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: He knows how to surveil, he knows how to track people,
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: and he knows human behavior. Candy even tells a colleague
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: a chilling story. While she and Emmett were out shopping
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: during the day, Rob actually followed them in an unmarked
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: county car. Oh my god. He suspected Candy was spending
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: entirely too much time with her young, handsome boss.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And Candy's reaction to being actively tailed by her abusive
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: armed husband is incredibly dismissive. She tells her colleague that
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Rob is just jealous because she's working for a younger,
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: better-looking man. It's almost like she's relishing the danger.
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: She absolutely is. A colleague noted to investigators that Candy
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: 100% enjoyed the attention of having two men fighting over her.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: It fed that desperate need for validation we discussed earlier.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: It made her feel powerful in a life where she
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: otherwise felt powerless.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: And Emmett completely buys into this narrative. He decides to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: play the white knight.
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he tells Ashley that the real reason he's working
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: such late hours and is so stressed is that he's
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: trying to help his paralegal, Candy, navigate a messy divorce
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: from a stupid, abusive husband.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: He even admits to Ashley that he went over to
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Rob and Connie's house and got into a massive, screaming,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: verbal confrontation with Rob right in their front yard.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I'll pause and look at the sheer delusion of control
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Emmett is exhibiting here. Yes.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: The hubris is staggering. It's like Emmett is treating his
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: actual messy human life like a sterile legal case where
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: he can just confidently negotiate a settlement and walk away clean.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: He really thinks he can orchestrate everyone.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: He thinks he can manage his pregnant wife at home
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: with lies, string along his mistress at the office with promises,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and aggressively confront his mistress's armed ex-cop husband in the street,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: all without any real-world consequences.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: It's a God complex.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: He is entirely ignoring the volatile, violent, emotional reality of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the people he's manipulating. He thinks he's the smartest guy
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in every room.
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: This God complex culminates in a bizarre, frankly delusional plan
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: that Emmett and Connie formulate together. They decide they are
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: both going to get divorced from their spouses.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: But they aren't going to get a new apartment or
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: start fresh. They plan to literally move into Rob's house
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: together once he is kicked out. Wait, what?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: Move into Rob's house?
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, move into Rob's house. And as for Emmett's five children,
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: he plans to just split them with Ashley 50-50, one
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: week on, one week off, as if you can just
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: casually have a family of seven.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: That is insane. They had it all completely mapped out
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: in their heads.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: They were so confident in this fantasy that they actually
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: sat down with their colleague, Kelly Riker, to formally announce it. Oh,
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: to Kelly? Yeah, Kelly is getting ready to leave the
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: office to go to church. And Emmett sits her down,
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: looks dead serious, with Candy standing right behind him and says,
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: We've got something to tell you. We're together.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: And Kelly's reaction is basically, yeah, obviously. Everyone knows.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: Right. But Kelly also immediately recognizes the acute danger of
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: the situation. She stated later that she knew right then
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: this was not going to end well.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Because she understood Candy's psychology much better than Emmett did.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Kelly knew Candy was never actually going to leave Rob.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: If she hadn't left him after 15 years of severe
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: abuse and infidelity... She wasn't going to leave him now
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: for a 27-year-old with five kids and massive debt.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: This was a dangerous game of revenge for Condi, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: Emmett was a pawn who confidently thought he was a king.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the inevitable collapse of this delusion.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: It all comes crashing down on a single night in March.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Let's walk through the timeline of this collision very carefully,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: because every minute matters. It starts at the Corrigan house.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: Ashley and Emmett get into a tense confrontation.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: Ashley is still fighting for the marriage. She begs him
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to stay home for the evening. She pleads with him.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Let's figure this out. Let's figure out our family. Don't
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: leave again.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And Emmett's response is incredibly cold and definitive. He looks
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: at her and says, don't tell me what to do.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to Walgreens and I'll be right back.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: He walks out into the garage and slams the door
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: so hard it reverberates through the house and wakes up
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: the baby. Ashley grabs her phone, calls him multiple times,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: texts him nothing. No response. She lays her head on
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: her pillow, crying, just wishing her husband would stay and
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: fight for her, exactly like they promised each other on
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: that very first date at the dining hall.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: But Emmett is not going shopping for household items.
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: No, he's not.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: He has made a prearranged plan to meet Condi. Surveillance
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: tape from the local Walgreens shows Emmett arriving in his truck.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Shortly after, Condi pulls into the same parking lot in
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: her BMW.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: She gets out of her car... gets into the passenger
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: seat of Emmett's truck, and they drive off together, leaving
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: her BMW parked under the lights.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: And this is where the domino effect of sheer, terrible
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: coincidence turns deadly. While they are doing this quick car
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: swap in the parking lot, one of Condi and Rob's
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: teenage dyers happens to be driving by that exact Walgreens.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: What are the odds?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: I know, right? She glances over and sees her mom's
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: distinct BMW sitting there empty. Knowing the extreme tension and
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: suspicions at home, She immediately picks up her phone, calls
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: her dad, Rob, and tells him Condi's car is sitting
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: abandoned in the Walgreens parking lot.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: For Rob, every paranoid suspicion he has harbored is instantly validated. Meanwhile,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Emmett and Condi are completely oblivious to the fact that
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: they have been spotted. Video surveillance from another business captures
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: them driving to a nearby gas station to fill up
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: Emmett's truck.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: Just going about their night.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: From there, according to what Condi later told investigators... They
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: drive to a quiet, unfinished subdivision in Meridian and have
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: sex in the cab of his truck.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: But the real world rudely interrupts their fantasy. Rob calls
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Condi's phone while she is still in the truck with Emmett.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: And she answers?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: She answers, and the tension explodes. Rob and Emmett actually
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: end up yelling at each other over the phone. Condi
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: takes the phone back, tells Rob to stop yelling, and
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: says she is coming right back to get her car.
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: So Emmett puts the truck in gear and they head
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: back to the Walgreens parking lot.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: What's fascinating here is the calculated predatory movement of Rob
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Hall in these intervening minutes. At 9.55 p.m., the Walgreens
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: surveillance tape shows Rob's truck arriving at the store.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: He parks, gets out, and begins physically pacing the aisles
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: inside the store, looking for them.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: The tension in that visual is awful. He's just pacing
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: the linoleum floors, hunting.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: After a few minutes, he realizes they aren't inside the store.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: He walks back out to his truck. But he doesn't leave.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: What does he do?
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: He pulls his truck out of its original parking spot
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: and slowly backs it into a space on the far
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: side of Cundy's BMW. He deliberately moves his vehicle into
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a structural blind spot completely out of the line of
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: sight of the store's exterior surveillance cameras.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: All we can see on the tape are the red
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: taillights of his truck illuminating the dark pavement. He is
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: laying in wait.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: And we have to examine the specific weapon he brought
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: to this ambush. Rob is an ex-cop. He usually carries
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: a specific standard issue style handgun. But the gun he
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: brought to the snur that night, the one he is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: sitting in the dark with, was a gift to him
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: from Candy.
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: That is just Shakespearean in its darkness.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: It really is. You have two men, completely driven by ego, possession,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and pride, converging on each other in the most mundane
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: suburban setting imaginable, a brightly lit Walgreens parking lot.
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: The physical confrontation happens entirely off camera in that blind spot.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: But the audio from the 911 call that Condi makes
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: shortly after paints a chilling, undeniable picture of the mechanics
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: of the shooting.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: It's the cadence of the shots that is so haunting,
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and it becomes a massive piece of evidence later. On
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the recording in the background, you hear pop, pop, then
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: a distinct, agonizingly long pause, and then a third pop.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Emmett is shot twice, once directly in the head and
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: once in the heart. Rob is shot once, sustaining a
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: minor grazing wound to his own head.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: When emergency services are both men are rushed to the hospital,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: but Emmett's wounds are catastrophic and unsurvivable.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: While this chaos is unfolding in the parking lot, we
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: have to cut back to Ashley. It's just after 10 p.m.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: She is at home, and that rising panic feeling is
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: gripping her chest. She just keeps thinking, something's not right.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: He said he'd be right back. And then, there is
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: a heavy official pounding on her front door.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: It is the moment every spouse dreads, but Ashley's reaction
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: in that split second is incredibly telling of the psychological
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: state she was trapped in.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: It breaks my heart every time I think about it.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: She hears the knock, she gets out of bed, and
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: she is almost excited.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: She thinks, okay, he was driving recklessly because he was
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: mad at me, and he wrecked his truck, he's in
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: a hospital bed with a broken leg, he's going to
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: need me, he's going to see me, and the kids
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: gathered around his bed... And this crisis is the exact
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: thing that is finally going to snap him out of
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: this funk.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: Everything is going to go back to the way it was.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: She genuinely thinks this is the cinematic turning point in
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: their love story that will fix her marriage.
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: She opens the door, fully expecting to be called to
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: her husband's bedside to start their healing process. Instead, she
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: is met by three strangers police officers who won't even
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: look her in the eye.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, man.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: They ask a question that makes no sense to her.
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: They ask if she knows a woman named Condie Hall.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: And that's when the world just stops spinning. She says yes.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: She's a paralegal at the law office. And the officers
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: tell her there has been a violent incident at Walgreens.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Her husband's mistress's husband showed up and Emmett was shot
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: in the forehead and the heart. He didn't make it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: Ashley described feeling like she couldn't pull oxygen into her lungs.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Like the entire weight of the house was suddenly crushing
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: her chest as all these different horrific realities tumbled down
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: on her at the exact same time. The infidelity, the murder,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: the sudden widowhood.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: The next morning is a landscape of pure devastation. Ashley
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: wakes up in a daze to dozens of missed calls
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and texts from people who have seen the news.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: At around 9.0 or 10.00 a.m., she needs answers. So
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: she calls Kelly Riker, the colleague Emmett and Condi had
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: confided their delusional 50-50 plan to.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Kelly answers the phone, completely unaware of what has happened overnight.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Ashley just asks in a flat voice, do you know?
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: Kelly is confused and Ashley drops the bomb. Emmett's dead.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: Rob Hall murdered him last night.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: Kelly physically falls backward onto a chest at the foot
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: of her bed in shock. But even in the midst
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of this profound grief, Ashley needs to know the truth
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: about her own sanity. She has to know if she
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: was crazy all those months.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: She demands that Kelly tell her everything, right then and there.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: She asks, did you know that Emmett and Condi were
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: having an affair? And Kelly, sobbing, confirms it. She tells
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Ashley the truth.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Ashley called it the darkest hour of her entire life.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: All of her greatest fears, her husband cheating, her husband dying,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: her family shattering happening simultaneously.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: But her very first emotion, just for a fleeting 30 seconds,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: was immense relief.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Relief that she wasn't crazy.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: Exactly. She realized, I was totally being gaslit. I wasn't paranoid.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I wasn't a bad wife. The puzzle pieces finally fit
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: together perfectly. Her intuition was right the whole time.
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: But that relief evaporated almost instantly because the reality set in.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the man who had been lying to her, manipulating her,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and destroying their family behind her back was also the
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: man she deeply loved. The father of her five children,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: and he was gone forever.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: There would be no confrontation, no apology, no reconciliation, just
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: an abrupt, violent end.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: And we absolutely cannot ignore the impact on those children.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Ashley's father, John, who had driven through the night to
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: be there the next morning, said the most difficult thing
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: he ever had to do in his life was wait
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: for his grandbabies to wake up so he could tell
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: them their daddy was dead.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: That is just awful.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: The family was sitting in the living room weeping, and
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: one of the sweet little identical twins just looked up
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: and asked in this innocent, confused voice, My daddy died.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: It is an unfathomable trauma to inflict on a family.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: But while Ashley's family is drowning in grief and trying
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: to figure out how to plan a funeral, Candy Hall
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: is busy spinning a rapidly shifting narrative to the police
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: in an interrogation room.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: This is where Candy's survival instincts kick into overdrive. And
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: the mechanics of the investigation become fascinating because the truth
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: becomes very muddy.
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Initially, on the phone with Kelly Riker mere hours after
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: the shooting, Condi's story is that Rob aggressively killed Emmett.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: She claims there was a verbal altercation. She stood between
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: them to stop it, turned to walk away, and when
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: she turned back, she saw Rob pull a gun from
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: his hoodie.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: She explicitly stated to Kelly that she saw Rob shoot
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: Emmett in the head and chest in cold blood and
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: then turn the gun on himself, shooting himself in the head.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: But when she actually sits down with the homicide detectives
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: that night, her story begins to pivot dramatically. First, she
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: completely denies the affair. She looks the cops in the
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: eye and tells them that she and Emmett were just
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: colleagues meeting in a dark parking lot at 10 p.m.
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: to talk about work stuff.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Which the detectives immediately know is a lie. They have
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: her phone records. They know the context.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: She is the sole living witness to a murder. And
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: she is actively lying to the police about the fundamental
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: motive for the entire confrontation.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And how do the police break those lies? They let
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: her talk, they let her lock herself into a story,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and then they present the physical evidence.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: But as the days go on and Rob is arrested
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: and charged with first-degree murder, Condi's story changes even more drastically.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: She pivots to protect the man who just murdered her
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: supposed soulmate.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: Wait, what does she say now?
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: She eventually claims that during the argument, Emmett was actually
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: the aggressor. She tells investigators that Emmett lunged at Rob,
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: a violent scuffle ensued, and Rob's gun accidentally fell out
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: of his pocket onto the pavement. According to this new version,
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: Emmett picked up the gun and shot Rob first, and
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: then Rob somehow managed to shoot Emmett in self-defense.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: It is profound emotional whiplash. Candy goes from planning a
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: life with Emmett to watching him die emotionally. to completely
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: throwing him under the bus to save her abusive husband
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: from a murder conviction. Why?
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: Because this is where we actually see a true trauma bond.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Despite the abuse, despite the murder, she was deeply psychologically
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: tethered to Rob. Investigators noted that she had actually reconciled
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: with Rob after his arrest.
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: She wanted to stay married to him.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: She had an extreme motivation to say whatever was necessary
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: to get Rob acquitted and maintain her twisted status quo.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: Is it really just that she wanted to stay married, though?
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: Or is it that she was terrified of what an
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: abusive ex-cop would do to her or her daughters if
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: she didn't cover for him?
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: It's likely a complex mixture of both. The fear of
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: an abuser often masquerades as loyalty. But regardless of the
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: internal motivation, her external actions were entirely focused on sabotaging
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: the prosecution's case against her husband.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Which leads us directly into the trial of Rob Hall
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: in October 2012. It is a massive media spectacle in Idaho.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: He is on trial for first-degree murder, which requires premeditation,
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but he is claiming self-defense. The defense team leans heavily
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: into this narrative that Emmett was the raging aggressor.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: They argue that Emmett, who was heavily into bodybuilding, had
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: steroids in his possession and was suffering from roid rage
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: that night, making him violently and irrationally attack Rob in
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: the parking lot.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: But a self-defense claim requires reliable testimony, and the trial
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: hinges on Condi Hall. she proves to be an utterly
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: disastrous witness for the defense.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Her story has changed so many times, wildly contradicting her
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: initial statements to the police, her statements to Kelly Riker,
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: and the physical evidence that the judge actually takes a
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: highly unusual step. He pauses to address the jury about
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: her credibility.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the judge states on the record that in his
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: three decades on the bench, presiding over countless trials, he
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: had never seen a witness as thoroughly and completely discredited
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: as Condi Hall.
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: It is a stunning judicial rebuke. The defense's star witness
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: was essentially declared a chronic liar in front of the jury.
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Furthermore, the physical evidence utterly destroyed the self-defense narrative. Remember
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: that audio recording of the 911 call?
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: The shot cadence of pop, pop, pause, pop.
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Exactly. That heavily contradicts the idea of a chaotic close
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: quarters struggle where Emmett shot first. Emmett was shot twice
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: with lethal precision. Rob was grazed once. The prosecution argued
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: that a calculated move to back his truck into a
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: blind spot proved premeditation. He lay in wait.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: So the jury deliberates, weighing the roid-rage defense against the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: blind spot and the 911 audio. They return, and they
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: find Rob Hall guilty of second-degree murder, not first-degree.
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: Why second-degree?
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: It seems likely the jury felt that while Rob didn't
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: go to Walgreens with a meticulously planned assassination plot, which
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: would be first-degree, he did act with extreme malice and
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: intention in the heat of the moment when he moved
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: that truck. He is sentenced to 17 and a half
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: years in prison.
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: And you would think this would be the moment of
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: absolute vindication for Ashley, right? The bad guy goes to jail.
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: The nightmare is over.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: But her reaction in the courtroom is incredibly complex and
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: deeply empathetic.
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: It is a profound testament to her character. She later
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: said she expected the reading of the verdict to be
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: this huge healing moment, a weight lifting off her shoulders.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: But when the word guilty was read, all she could
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: see were two mothers in that room. She saw herself.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: a young mother whose children had violently lost their father.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And she looked across the aisle and saw Rob's mother,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: an older woman who was weeping as she lost her
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: only child to the state prison system.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: Ashley realized that everyone in that room had lost something profound.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: The verdict didn't fix her life. It didn't bring Emmett back.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: It just finalized the tragedy on paper.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: And the blast radius of that tragedy continued to echo
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: through her children's lives for years.
• 39:21
  Speaker 2: We heard explicitly from her daughter, Bailey, who was just
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: a little girl when this happened. Bailey described entering a
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: deeply dark time characterized by severe PTSD, night terrors, and
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: crippling anxiety.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: She lived in constant waking terror that Rob, the man
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: who killed her father, was going to break out of jail,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: find their house, and come back to kill the rest
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: of them.
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: Bailey spent years unable to sleep. She would wander the
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: halls of their home in the dead of night. physically
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: guarding her mother's bedroom door to protect her from killers.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: She was having nightmares every single night that her mom
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: was going to be murdered because her mom was the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: only parent she had left. She felt completely responsible for
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: Ashley's survival.
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: That is the true hidden cost of Emmett and Tondi's
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: reckless game. It didn't just end a marriage. It robbed
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: a little girl of her childhood and replaced it with
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: a perpetual state of hypervigilance. Here's where it.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Gets really interesting, though. How do you survive that level
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: of pervasive suffocating darkness? How do you raise five kids
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: when you are drowning in trauma?
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: For Ashley, the path forward required something that seems almost
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: impossible from the outside forgiveness.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And she is very clear about what forgiveness means in
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: this context because it's often misunderstood. It wasn't about excusing
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: what Condi and Rob did or even what Emmett did.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: She had to forgive the husband she is still cleaning
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: up after, whose massive debts she inherited, whose children she
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: is raising entirely alone. She realized that forgiveness wasn't a
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: gift to them. It was a spiritual necessity for her
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: own basic survival.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: If we look at the psychology of trauma recovery, holding
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: onto that level of justified hatred is like intentionally setting
• 41:04
  Speaker 2: your own house on fire just to ensure the smoke
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: ruins your neighbor's day.
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: You're the one who burns. You're the one who loses everything.
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: Ashley realized the anger was smothering her. It was literally
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: killing her from the inside out and preventing her from
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: being the mother her kids needed. Forgiveness became an active,
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: daily decision to just put one foot in front of
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: the other, to let go of the expectation that someone
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: else was going to come and fix her life for her.
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: She accepted the goodness. She still had her children, her faith,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: her own remarkable strength. She decided, they took a lot,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: but they didn't take everything from me.
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: And now, she actually writes books and holds workshops to
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: help other people navigate their own catastrophic traumas. She helps
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: people remember who they are when the world tells them
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: they are broken.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: It is a profound synthesis of her original teenage goal
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to be a counselor and help families born out of
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: the ashes of her own family's destruction. She became the glue,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: just not in the way she originally planned.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: So what does this all mean for you listening right now?
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: When we look at the totality of this story in
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: this deep dive, we see the extreme danger of projecting
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: a flawless, perfect image at the expense of raw honesty.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: We see how the destructive, insidious mechanics of gaslighting can
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: systematically dismantle a person's sense of reality.
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: But we also see the incredible, almost defiant resilience of
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: the human spirit in those left to pick up the pieces.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: We all construct narratives about our lives, but true resilience
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't come from hiding behind a beautiful facade or a
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: rigid plan. It comes from having the courage to face reality,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: no matter how ugly or terrifying it is. and deciding
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: to rebuild anyway.
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The facade is fragile. The truth, even when it hurts,
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: is the only solid ground you can actually build a
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: sustainable life on.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Which brings us back to that knock on the door
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: and the shattering of that perfect life. I want to
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: leave you with a final thought to mull over on
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: your own. What is it? If the ultimate betrayal in
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: a relationship isn't just the physical affair, but the systematic
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: theft of a person's reality through gaslighting, making them believe
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: they are crazy for seeing the truth, How do we
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: ever rebuild trust in our own instincts once they've been
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: so thoroughly dismantled by someone we love?