Latest / NO FILTER / The murder of Linda Stein [True Crime Documentary](MP3_160K)
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: In the autumn of two thousand and seven, a shocking
- 0:03Speaker 1: murder rocked New York's Fifth Avenue and captured headlines across
- 0:06Speaker 1: the country. Linda Stein had become known as the realtor
- 0:10Speaker 1: to the stars after decades of selling Manhattan properties to
- 0:13Speaker 1: some of the world's wealthiest and well known celebrities. The
- 0:17Speaker 1: boisterous former rock music manager and icon in her own
- 0:20Speaker 1: right was found murdered in the living room of her
- 0:23Speaker 1: three million dollar penthouse. Had the brash, loud, and occasionally
- 0:28Speaker 1: abrasive professional finally crossed paths with someone who had enough
- 0:32Speaker 1: of her larger than life personality. Maybe Linda pissed off
- 0:36Speaker 1: the wrong person. Hi everyone, I'm Kevin and welcome to
- 0:42Speaker 1: Just Thought Lounge. Here at JTL, we deliver serious, well
- 0:45Speaker 1: balanced coverage of the cases that really make you think.
- 0:48Speaker 1: If that sounds like your type of true crime, then
- 0:51Speaker 1: you've come to the right place. The case we're about
- 0:53Speaker 1: to look at may seem straightforward on the surface, but
- 0:56Speaker 1: there may be much more to this story than meets
- 0:59Speaker 1: the eye wore the camera's lens. Let's take a look.
- 1:15Speaker 1: By all accounts, Linda Stein was a force of nature, loud, witty,
- 1:19Speaker 1: and harsh in her use of language. Linda was a
- 1:22Speaker 1: successful and wealthy real estate agent based in Manhattan. She
- 1:26Speaker 1: ran in the kind of social circles that many only
- 1:28Speaker 1: dreamed of. In her younger years, Linda was known as
- 1:32Speaker 1: a fixture at CBGB, the Mud Club, and Studio fifty four.
- 1:36Speaker 1: She counted Sir Elton John and Whoopee Goldberg amongst her
- 1:40Speaker 1: closest friends. Linda's assent to the celebrity class began in
- 1:44Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies when she met her future husband, Seymour Stein. Seymour,
- 1:49Speaker 1: already establishing himself in the music industry, was to become
- 1:52Speaker 1: the president of Sire Records, which he founded, and vice
- 1:56Speaker 1: president of Warner Brothers Records. Linda quickly left her teaching
- 2:00Speaker 1: position in favor of a managing partnership with her husband,
- 2:03Speaker 1: and she was about to see big things. After their
- 2:08Speaker 1: founding in nineteen seventy four, Linda co managed the highly
- 2:11Speaker 1: influential New York based punk rock band The Ramones. During
- 2:16Speaker 1: their eight year marriage, Linda and Seymour had two daughters,
- 2:20Speaker 1: Samantha and Mandy. They remained close friends following their divorce
- 2:24Speaker 1: in the early nineteen eighties. This is also when Linda
- 2:27Speaker 1: began to transition her managing role into a lucrative career
- 2:31Speaker 1: in real estate. Leveraging her many celebrity connections as well
- 2:36Speaker 1: as her unique charisma, Linda sold multimillion dollar homes in
- 2:39Speaker 1: New York to clients like Madonna, Bruce Willis, Angelina Jolie,
- 2:44Speaker 1: and Steven Spielberg. Lind Stein's life was not just about
- 2:50Speaker 1: schmoozing with the stars and high commissions. She battled breast
- 2:54Speaker 1: cancer for years, resulting in two mssectomies, a fan of
- 2:58Speaker 1: self medicating, Linda Devens affection for marijuana, as well as
- 3:02Speaker 1: an unrelated and unfortunate addiction to alcohol. In two thousand
- 3:07Speaker 1: and seven, Linda had fought back against the cancer and
- 3:10Speaker 1: had done so optimistically, but at the age of sixty two,
- 3:14Speaker 1: she was facing a new enemy. Doctors had discovered a
- 3:18Speaker 1: benign tumor on her brain. Although it was noncancerous and
- 3:22Speaker 1: did not require surgery, the tumor was making an impact
- 3:25Speaker 1: on Linda and her life. She was taking a series
- 3:29Speaker 1: of mood stabilizers designed to mellow her out from sudden
- 3:32Speaker 1: outbursts and mean behavior caused by the tumor's placement. Acquaintances
- 3:37Speaker 1: were sadly not shocked when they heard the news that
- 3:41Speaker 1: someone had bludgeoned the New York Icon to death. Some
- 3:45Speaker 1: thought Linda had finally pissed off the wrong person.
- 3:50Speaker 2: She was a little bit kooky, but she was a
- 3:52Speaker 2: lot of fun and we all loved her, and I
- 3:54Speaker 2: think everybody in the industry felt that way.
- 3:56Speaker 1: For me, it is frightening.
- 4:00Speaker 2: I mean, she probably had a bunch of enemies because
- 4:02Speaker 2: she was tough, but harder.
- 4:07Speaker 3: This a different ballgame.
- 4:10Speaker 1: Mandy, who lived full time in Los Angeles, had been
- 4:13Speaker 1: staying with her mother in New York for a short
- 4:15Speaker 1: visit in late October two thousand and seven. When she
- 4:18Speaker 1: returned to her mother's home, a penthouse on Fifth Avenue
- 4:21Speaker 1: at roughly ten thirty pm on the thirtieth, Mandy encountered
- 4:25Speaker 1: a devastating scene, her mother on the floor of the
- 4:28Speaker 1: living room, not moving. She rapidly dialed nine one one
- 4:32Speaker 1: on both the landline and her cell phone. She also
- 4:35Speaker 1: called out for help in the building. Mandy needed to
- 4:38Speaker 1: hand off the phone part way through the call as
- 4:41Speaker 1: she lost her composure over the scene.
- 4:49Speaker 4: I just called please, I need an ambulance. Okay, what
- 4:53Speaker 4: happened to man ma'am, I hello, what happened? I dream
- 5:07Speaker 4: home and my mom? Is there a part of wisely? Yes? Hello, yeah,
- 5:16Speaker 4: patient breathing in a way?
- 5:17Speaker 1: Is this nine one once?
- 5:18Speaker 3: Yes, it is.
- 5:19Speaker 4: It's for a male or female? For a female? How
- 5:22Speaker 4: old is patient approximate?
- 5:25Speaker 3: How old? Elderly? Young?
- 5:29Speaker 4: Sixty?
- 5:30Speaker 1: Sixty?
- 5:30Speaker 4: What's walter? She's lying on the floor, a lot of
- 5:33Speaker 4: blood from her head.
- 5:37Speaker 3: Her daughter just came in and found her like this.
- 5:41Speaker 2: She's bleeding heavily.
- 5:42Speaker 4: Shirt support.
- 5:43Speaker 3: Lease, he's bleeding heavily.
- 5:44Speaker 4: He's not moving. What happened to tell?
- 5:49Speaker 3: She heard herself? I don't know me up with your listen, mister,
- 5:53Speaker 3: she's conscious.
- 5:54Speaker 2: She's not conscious, she's not moving.
- 5:57Speaker 3: A big question now, is she's breathing?
- 5:59Speaker 4: Set?
- 6:00Speaker 1: She is not crating?
- 6:03Speaker 3: I don't think so. They helm okay.
- 6:10Speaker 4: The ambulances enrapped to that location sixty two.
- 6:14Speaker 3: Thank you, mister.
- 6:16Speaker 1: Linda was found in a pool of blood with the
- 6:18Speaker 1: hood of her sweatshirt pulled over her head. When emergency
- 6:21Speaker 1: responders arrived, they pulled back the hood. The state of
- 6:25Speaker 1: the scene removed any doubts that Linda could have fallen
- 6:28Speaker 1: and accidentally caused the injuries, or that they could have
- 6:31Speaker 1: been self inflicted. She had five lacerations on her head
- 6:35Speaker 1: caused by a blunt metal object, according to the coroner,
- 6:38Speaker 1: but she had been struck many more times over twenty
- 6:42Speaker 1: Linda was a petite woman, standing at five foot three
- 6:45Speaker 1: and only one hundred and thirty two pounds. Her years
- 6:48Speaker 1: of cancer treatments and new medications had also left her weakened.
- 6:52Speaker 1: The corridor assessed that she was likely unconscious by the
- 6:55Speaker 1: time she fell to the ground. There were no bruises
- 6:58Speaker 1: on her hands to indicate that she fought back. The
- 7:01Speaker 1: time of death was not exact. The attack had to
- 7:04Speaker 1: have occurred hours before Mandy found her mother, but beyond
- 7:08Speaker 1: that it was determined to have occurred at some point earlier.
- 7:11Speaker 1: That same day, investigators found no missing items or signs
- 7:15Speaker 1: of forced entry. It seemed unlikely to be a stranger
- 7:19Speaker 1: or a robbery gone wrong. An investigative reporter located a
- 7:23Speaker 1: signed door to the building that was unlocked and could
- 7:26Speaker 1: have been used as the potential entry point to the
- 7:28Speaker 1: apartment building. However, this unlikely lead was set aside in
- 7:32Speaker 1: favor of a more direct one. There are surveillance cameras
- 7:36Speaker 1: capturing the front entrance to Linda's building as well as
- 7:39Speaker 1: inside the penthouse. Investigators examining this footage began to piece
- 7:44Speaker 1: together a timeline, and there was one individual with access
- 7:47Speaker 1: to Linda in her home that day that stood out.
- 7:53Speaker 1: Twenty six year old Natavia Lowry had, just like Linda,
- 7:57Speaker 1: grown up middle class in New York with dreams of
- 7:59Speaker 1: rising in the ranks. After a short lived stint at university,
- 8:03Speaker 1: Natavia had worked at a PR firm briefly before signing
- 8:06Speaker 1: with a temp agency in two thousand and seven. This
- 8:10Speaker 1: agency placed her in the demanding role of Linda Stein's
- 8:13Speaker 1: personal assistant. In the few months that Natavia had held
- 8:16Speaker 1: the role, she had experienced some ups and downs. Linda
- 8:21Speaker 1: was not an easy woman to work for, a fact
- 8:23Speaker 1: that was made obvious with the abrupt firing of her
- 8:25Speaker 1: previous assistant, either due to a payment dispute or a
- 8:29Speaker 1: personal affair that turned sour. Natavia had success in the role.
- 8:34Speaker 1: Linda was said to have complimented her to others, but
- 8:37Speaker 1: there was also reported awkwardness in her tasks. Natavia was
- 8:41Speaker 1: expected to run personal errands to accompany Linda in her
- 8:44Speaker 1: daily walks in Central Park, and she needed to navigate
- 8:48Speaker 1: Linda's mood swings. Natavia was captured entering the building just
- 8:54Speaker 1: before noon at eleven fifty six am on the thirtieth.
- 8:58Speaker 1: At that time, she carried a single, large Manila envelope.
- 9:02Speaker 1: She walked past renovation workers inside the unit and waited
- 9:05Speaker 1: to gain access to Linda in the living room, which
- 9:08Speaker 1: was unfortunately not covered under surveillance. The time spent with
- 9:12Speaker 1: Linda is just over an hour. At one nineteen pm,
- 9:16Speaker 1: Natavia is shown exiting the building. The timing of Natavia's
- 9:20Speaker 1: visit with Linda raised suspicions. When leaving, she carried two bags,
- 9:26Speaker 1: a red one and a green one. Investigators examining the
- 9:31Speaker 1: footage were struck by two observations. First, they determined that
- 9:35Speaker 1: the red bag appeared laden, as though Natavia is carrying
- 9:38Speaker 1: a heavy object from the building. The murder weapon, what
- 9:42Speaker 1: was suspected to be a blunt metal object, was not recovered.
- 9:47Speaker 1: Also curious was the state of Natavia's trousers. Her cargo
- 9:51Speaker 1: style bottoms have large pockets shown clearly on the camera
- 9:55Speaker 1: as she enters at noon, but as Natavia leaves, she
- 9:59Speaker 1: appears to be wearing the cargo pants inside out. If
- 10:02Speaker 1: Natavia was responsible for Linda's injuries. Was she attempting to
- 10:06Speaker 1: conceal blood spatter on her clothing despite the messy scene.
- 10:10Speaker 1: What the cameras do not capture is anything resembling blood
- 10:14Speaker 1: on the young assistant. But was it possible that she
- 10:17Speaker 1: sufficiently concealed any stains by turning her trousers inside out.
- 10:23Speaker 1: The lack of blood visible on the key suspect, despite
- 10:26Speaker 1: the significant spatter at the scene, was not the only
- 10:29Speaker 1: potential inconsistency in the working theory. Linda's daughter Samantha, initially
- 10:34Speaker 1: told police that she last spoke with her mother at
- 10:37Speaker 1: two pm on the day of her death, calling into
- 10:39Speaker 1: question the timeline presented by their surveillance footage, which showed
- 10:43Speaker 1: Natavia exiting the building well before that time, at one
- 10:46Speaker 1: p nineteen. In the hours after Natavia left, she continued
- 10:51Speaker 1: to run the regular errand set out by Linda. She
- 10:53Speaker 1: fielded calls from clients and Linda's family members, including a
- 10:57Speaker 1: call from her ex husband Seymour, and she had had
- 11:00Speaker 1: lunch with a friend before calling it a day. Natavia
- 11:03Speaker 1: left a message for Linda.
- 11:06Speaker 4: Hey, Linda, if Stevia just wants to let you know
- 11:09Speaker 4: that I'm leaving work at five point thirty. Hopefully the
- 11:13Speaker 4: walk in the park was actually good. I left everything
- 11:17Speaker 4: of this at the door and called.
- 11:22Speaker 1: Natavia. Just like others close to Linda spoke with police
- 11:25Speaker 1: immediately after the realtorm was found murdered, but as more
- 11:29Speaker 1: information came to light and the surveillance footage was analyzed,
- 11:33Speaker 1: detectives were keen to question the assistant more intensely, and
- 11:37Speaker 1: they got their chance days later, when Natavia called the
- 11:40Speaker 1: police to complain about reporters camped outside her front door.
- 11:43Speaker 1: She was invited into the police department to speak further.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Detective Antonio Rivera and his partner began questioning Natavia Lowry
- 11:51Speaker 1: at a police station in Lower Manhattan. Natavia started by
- 11:55Speaker 1: reiterating her innocent and straightforward version of the events, a
- 11:59Speaker 1: work day as you usual. But hours into the interview,
- 12:02Speaker 1: the detectives began to apply pressure. They began to reveal
- 12:06Speaker 1: what they knew about the young assistant and her criminal passed.
- 12:11Speaker 1: Depending on who in Natavia's life you spoke to, a
- 12:14Speaker 1: very different pitcher emerged of the young professional. To family,
- 12:17Speaker 1: she was amongst the kindest people one could possibly encounter.
- 12:21Speaker 1: An ex boyfriend told the press that Natavia wouldn't hurt
- 12:24Speaker 1: a fly that landed on her, but some older friends disagreed.
- 12:28Speaker 1: Natavia had allegedly used an old high school friend's identity
- 12:31Speaker 1: to take out a phone contract and credit cards in
- 12:34Speaker 1: their name and run up the balance. This old friend
- 12:37Speaker 1: called Natavia a pathological liar. She reportedly skipped out on
- 12:41Speaker 1: rent and was sued for the funds, though family said
- 12:44Speaker 1: this was due to a roommate's error, not Natavia's. What
- 12:49Speaker 1: NYPT detectives soon learned, however, was that the assistant had
- 12:53Speaker 1: been taking some liberties with Linda Stein's accounts, and not
- 12:57Speaker 1: to the tune of a few hundred dollars as her
- 12:59Speaker 1: old friend had claimed. Natavia had been making charges for
- 13:03Speaker 1: her own use on Linda's credit cards. On the day
- 13:06Speaker 1: of the murder, she withdrew eight hundred dollars from one
- 13:09Speaker 1: of Linda's accounts, But that was just the tip of
- 13:11Speaker 1: the Iceberg. Detectives believed they could trace nearly thirty thousand
- 13:15Speaker 1: dollars stolen from Linda by Natavia during the brief four
- 13:19Speaker 1: month period she worked for the realtor. Did Linda discover
- 13:23Speaker 1: these transactions and confront her assistant on the afternoon of
- 13:27Speaker 1: the thirtieth of October. The argument could have escalated, leading
- 13:31Speaker 1: to the attack, or perhaps Natavia made a calculated move
- 13:34Speaker 1: to murder her boss before she was reported for the theft.
- 13:39Speaker 1: According to police, Natavia first told them that a masked
- 13:43Speaker 1: man came into Linda's apartment while she was with Linda.
- 13:46Speaker 1: This man was a stranger that Linda told her to
- 13:48Speaker 1: let in. The strange man was wearing all black and
- 13:51Speaker 1: had his face covered. Linda began screaming at the man
- 13:55Speaker 1: until her assistant heard seven thumps. The man told Natavia
- 13:59Speaker 1: threateningly that he knew where she lived, so that probably
- 14:03Speaker 1: explains the murder. Unconvinced, interrogators kept hammering away at what
- 14:07Speaker 1: they dubbed Natavia's Ninja story, but it is important to
- 14:11Speaker 1: note that at this point the interview was not recorded.
- 14:16Speaker 1: That changed, however, when it seemed to detectives that a
- 14:19Speaker 1: confession to the murder was forthcoming. After twelve hours in
- 14:23Speaker 1: the interrogation room, Natavia began to speak about Linda's behavior
- 14:27Speaker 1: towards her that afternoon, how the realtor was angry, cursing
- 14:31Speaker 1: and waving around what she called a yoga stick at her, and.
- 14:36Speaker 3: She's just say yelling and screaming and cursing, and I'm
- 14:41Speaker 3: looking like like asking myself, who the heck, Like what
- 14:46Speaker 3: the heck is going on? You know, I'm like why
- 14:49Speaker 3: am I here? Like what's going on? How did I
- 14:52Speaker 3: get to this point? You know, I'm asking myself that,
- 14:54Speaker 3: and I'm like looking at her like, okay, what's wrong
- 14:59Speaker 3: with her? You know? Because she just looks crazy right now.
- 15:02Speaker 3: Her hand is, you know, going like that. And then
- 15:04Speaker 3: she had like her it's like a wooden baton type thing.
- 15:10Speaker 3: You know, it's a.
- 15:11Speaker 2: Native wood or some other material.
- 15:13Speaker 3: It's what okay? And what is it used for yoga?
- 15:18Speaker 1: Yoga?
- 15:19Speaker 3: Your goes for walks? Okay? And can you describe it
- 15:22Speaker 3: to me? It's like, I don't know, if you ever
- 15:25Speaker 3: see people through yoga? They put it on, they shoulders,
- 15:28Speaker 3: they stretch, they turn.
- 15:30Speaker 2: It looks like a king and and how long is
- 15:32Speaker 2: it about?
- 15:33Speaker 3: M Probably like the the less of a king, but
- 15:39Speaker 3: without that oh huh. So she's pointing the kinge at
- 15:44Speaker 3: me now right? So uh move the kne you know
- 15:49Speaker 3: how you just like slap it?
- 15:51Speaker 2: Where were you still on the couch?
- 15:54Speaker 1: Natavia continue to explain how her boss had been constantly
- 15:58Speaker 1: yelling at her and everyone else else. How she had
- 16:01Speaker 1: blown marijuana smoke in the assistant's face that afternoon and
- 16:04Speaker 1: insulted her with a racial slur. This comment was the
- 16:08Speaker 1: last straw for Natavia.
- 16:11Speaker 3: So I still on a couch. So she's like Craven
- 16:17Speaker 3: and Kine and stuff at me, and it's like, I
- 16:22Speaker 3: don't know, like after that remarked and stuff in you know,
- 16:26Speaker 3: her screaming and yelling, I just snatched it from her.
- 16:30Speaker 3: My side had took it, and it's like I just hit
- 16:32Speaker 3: her with it where like right here, but it is long,
- 16:39Speaker 3: so you know.
- 16:42Speaker 1: It was Linda's treatment of her assistant that caused her
- 16:45Speaker 1: to snap. Natavia claimed to have blacked out and lost
- 16:49Speaker 1: track of her own actions. She said the verbal abuse
- 16:52Speaker 1: from Linda was unbearable, and she was repeatedly denied even
- 16:55Speaker 1: a ten minute break, But she also insisted that their
- 16:58Speaker 1: working relationship at price to that day i'd been a
- 17:01Speaker 1: good one.
- 17:03Speaker 2: After the first time she fell and then you continued
- 17:07Speaker 2: to hit her on the head with the stick.
- 17:11Speaker 3: Yes, do you know how many times you hit her?
- 17:19Speaker 3: That wasn't myself. I don't, I can't count. It was
- 17:26Speaker 3: just like that was mad. That was confused. I was angry, paranoid.
- 17:40Speaker 3: It was like the feeling like I never had before.
- 17:49Speaker 3: It was like it felt like she was saying my
- 17:52Speaker 3: worst enemy, you know. So it was like, how do
- 17:57Speaker 3: you go m somebody you know, like a best friend,
- 18:02Speaker 3: you know, to an enemy, you know.
- 18:08Speaker 1: Natavia told her interrogators that Linda was routinely inappropriate and
- 18:12Speaker 1: at times used racist language. This point would later be
- 18:16Speaker 1: hotly contested by many people that knew Linda well.
- 18:20Speaker 3: I used to talk with her and just be like,
- 18:23Speaker 3: you know, cause she used to always curse people out
- 18:26Speaker 3: and stuff like she didn't care. She would, you know,
- 18:30Speaker 3: always say like little racial things, and I'd just be like, like, Linda,
- 18:36Speaker 3: you can't do that, you know.
- 18:39Speaker 2: And did you feel feel insulted when she didn't say
- 18:42Speaker 2: these racial things right?
- 18:45Speaker 3: You know? And then it's I'll say sorry to the person,
- 18:48Speaker 3: you know, and I'll just be like, I'm so sorry.
- 18:52Speaker 1: Natavia Lowry was formally arrested and charged for Lindestein's murder.
- 18:56Speaker 1: She pleaded not guilty and promptly recanted her confession. According
- 19:01Speaker 1: to Natavia's aunt, Julia Carro, the police took her niece
- 19:04Speaker 1: in the interrogation room and told her that her mother
- 19:07Speaker 1: would be filling out a missing person's report if she
- 19:09Speaker 1: didn't confess. They refused to let her call her mother
- 19:13Speaker 1: or her lawyer. She claims the detectives lied and informed
- 19:16Speaker 1: her that her lawyer had been contacted. She was kept
- 19:19Speaker 1: in the room all night, and then when she came out,
- 19:22Speaker 1: they said she'd confessed. Her defense attorneys argued that the
- 19:26Speaker 1: statements were coerced. She just needed to make something up
- 19:29Speaker 1: to get out of the room. Natavia's confession more or
- 19:33Speaker 1: less aligned to the physical evidence already collected by NYPD
- 19:37Speaker 1: detectives in that Linda was struck in the head. The
- 19:41Speaker 1: other details offered by Natavia's alleged confession are more ambiguous.
- 19:46Speaker 1: It was odd that there was no physical evidence left
- 19:48Speaker 1: on Natavia's clothing, and a thorough search of her home,
- 19:52Speaker 1: which included pulling out the draints to test for DNA,
- 19:55Speaker 1: returned absolutely nothing.
- 19:58Speaker 2: Did you own check it closed to treated in me?
- 20:00Speaker 3: Blood on you? Nothing?
- 20:04Speaker 2: What did you do with the.
- 20:04Speaker 3: Pants that you were marry?
- 20:07Speaker 4: So happened so.
- 20:10Speaker 2: You know?
- 20:11Speaker 3: Have you washed the pants at the top the top? No,
- 20:15Speaker 3: I think I took the pants and I think my
- 20:20Speaker 3: mom washed it.
- 20:24Speaker 1: The murder weapon. The yoga stick has never been found. Nonetheless,
- 20:29Speaker 1: the case was becoming known in the media as the
- 20:31Speaker 1: yoga stick murder. Although that name became ubiquitous, few people
- 20:36Speaker 1: could actually describe what a yoga stick actually was. It
- 20:40Speaker 1: could have been a pilates bar, or maybe something used
- 20:42Speaker 1: to correct posture, but it has not been made clear.
- 20:46Speaker 1: According to Lindestein's private yoga instructor, she had never heard
- 20:49Speaker 1: of a yoga stick. She reported that Linda did not
- 20:52Speaker 1: have any type of exercise stick or poll in her
- 20:55Speaker 1: multimillion dollar apartment, and that Linda's only pieces of exercise
- 20:59Speaker 1: equipment were a few small dumbbells, which could hardly be
- 21:02Speaker 1: confused with a stick or a pole. As Natavia's trial
- 21:06Speaker 1: date approached, the NYPD were queried about the alleged murder weapon.
- 21:12Speaker 1: Their reply was that they never said the yoga stick
- 21:14Speaker 1: was the weapon. The spokesman stated, we said she told
- 21:18Speaker 1: detectives it was a yoga stick. She may well have
- 21:21Speaker 1: used something else. The second area of contention where the
- 21:25Speaker 1: nature of the insults Natavia claims were leveled at her
- 21:28Speaker 1: by Linda, specifically the alleged racial comments. This assertion, in particular,
- 21:34Speaker 1: did not sit well with friends and family, who strongly
- 21:37Speaker 1: argued that the punk rock pioneer would simply not have
- 21:40Speaker 1: spoken in this manner. It did seem possible, however, that
- 21:44Speaker 1: her illness and medications could have impacted her behavior to
- 21:48Speaker 1: this extreme. Furthermore, those close to Linda also believed that
- 21:52Speaker 1: Natavia's assertion that her boss was blowing mare Juana smoke
- 21:56Speaker 1: into her face rang untrue. Friend said Linda way unfailingly
- 22:01Speaker 1: discreet with her smoking habits. For instance, she would leave
- 22:04Speaker 1: the room or open a window, and in this assertion,
- 22:08Speaker 1: Linda's friends were vindicated. Results from the autopsy showed no
- 22:12Speaker 1: trace of marijuana in her body. She could not have
- 22:15Speaker 1: been blowing it at Natavia that afternoon. Additionally, the assistant's
- 22:20Speaker 1: description of hitting her boss about six times over the
- 22:23Speaker 1: head was conservative. Linda was struck far more than half
- 22:27Speaker 1: a dozen times. If Natavia had been provoked into attacking
- 22:31Speaker 1: her boss, it did not happen in the way Natavia
- 22:34Speaker 1: had stated. At trial, Natavia also faced charges of theft
- 22:41Speaker 1: for the month's long fraud she had been committing on
- 22:43Speaker 1: her boss. To these charges, she had no real defense,
- 22:47Speaker 1: and it certainly gave her a motive for the murder
- 22:51Speaker 1: to the murder charge. Natavia's new legal counsel, ron Kobe,
- 22:55Speaker 1: argued that the videotaped confession the police maid is basically
- 22:59Speaker 1: a hostage video in which she said the things the
- 23:01Speaker 1: police needed her to say. He attempted to establish reasonable
- 23:05Speaker 1: doubt by pointing to a financial motive held by Linda's daughter, Mandy.
- 23:10Speaker 1: Mandy had a strained relationship with her mother, and according
- 23:13Speaker 1: to defense assertions, she was also financially dependent upon her.
- 23:17Speaker 1: Both daughters inherited what was described as a large fortune
- 23:22Speaker 1: after Linda passed. Detective Rivera was pressured to explain why
- 23:27Speaker 1: a construction worker in Linda's apartment that day was found
- 23:31Speaker 1: with scratches on his hands but had not been considered
- 23:34Speaker 1: as a suspect. The worker explained that he had hit
- 23:37Speaker 1: his hand on the wall, an explanation that the detective
- 23:40Speaker 1: believed was reasonable and therefore accepted. N HYPD Investigators found
- 23:46Speaker 1: one individual with motive entered the room where Linda Steine
- 23:49Speaker 1: was later found dead, and then that person later confessed
- 23:54Speaker 1: to this. Ron Kubi concluded by suggesting another point of
- 23:57Speaker 1: doubt the absence of the murder weapon and questions surrounding
- 24:01Speaker 1: its use a yoga stick could not have been the
- 24:04Speaker 1: murder weapon, he argued, because there is no such thing
- 24:08Speaker 1: as a yoga stick. Natavia Lowry was convicted of second
- 24:13Speaker 1: degree murder and three counts of grand larceny, as well
- 24:16Speaker 1: as a series of others relating to the thirty thousand
- 24:19Speaker 1: dollars in stolen funds from Linda. She received a sentence
- 24:23Speaker 1: of twenty seven years to life. Natavia is currently an
- 24:27Speaker 1: inmate at Bedford Hill's Correctional Facility, a New York state prison.
- 24:32Speaker 1: After the verdict, she reasserted her innocence. This case was
- 24:35Speaker 1: turned into a media circus. It was never about evidence.
- 24:40Speaker 1: Linda Stein was fondly remembered by her many friends, with
- 24:43Speaker 1: both Sir Elton John and Madonna issuing statements of grief
- 24:47Speaker 1: upon her death. Liz Rosenberg, vice president of Warner Brothers,
- 24:52Speaker 1: where Linda's ex husband once worked, also released a statement
- 24:56Speaker 1: those who are lucky enough to know Linda will forever
- 24:58Speaker 1: remember her as a force of nature with a huge
- 25:01Speaker 1: passion for life, a wicked sense of humor, and an
- 25:04Speaker 1: abiding love for music. Thanks for watching. I'm Kevin. This
- 25:12Speaker 1: is just thought lounge, and I'll see in the next one.