Brot
hers Erik and Lyle Menéndez were convicted in 1996 for the murders of their parents, José and Mary Louise (“Kitty”) Menéndez (see episode 169 for testimony from Lyle’s girlfriends).
The trial had many subplots. One of the most juicy involved the brothers’ therapist, Dr. Jerome Oziel, and his mistress / patient, Judalon Smyth. Erik Menéndez, torn apart by guilt after the murders, apparently confessed to Oziel, who then told his mistress, Judalon Smyth, who went to the cops. The affair was a stormy one (Judalon said she once made Oziel an IOU for 500 sex acts). Judalon said Oziel was obsessed with her; Oziel said it was the other way around. In fact, the affair seems to have been a folie a deux. This episode contains testimony from both parties.
Erik and Lyle Menéndez are currently both serving sentences of life without parole in the California Department of Corrections. Jerome Oziel lives in Portland, Oregon where he offers relationship and marriage seminars. Judalon Smyth is an EMT technician in Beverly Hills, California.
This episode contains testimony from the Murdaugh family’s longtime housekeeper, Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson, during South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh’s trial for the murder of his wife Maggie and youngest son, Paul. Simpson testified that said she never knew Alex and Maggie to argue, other than “some minor disagreements” over things like like over the paint color of their beach house remodel. But Maggie also told Blanca that the couple were worried about a lawsuit against Paul, who had been recently involved in boating accident in which a friend had been killed. Maggie said she was very concerned about money, and felt Alex was “not being truthful” with her about the lawsuit.
This episode contains more audio from the trial of Sandy Murphy and Rick Tavish for the murder of Ted Binion. Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino’s poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin addiction and associations with known criminals, he’d recently lost his gaming license and his ties to the casino. His wife Doris had moved out, taking the couple’s daughter, Bonnie, after learning of Ted’s affair with a topless dancer named Sandra Murphy. Just before his death, he discovered that Sandra was cheating on him with a man named Rick Tabish.
This episode returns once again to the 1992 trial in which Jeffrey Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane to the murder and dismemberment of 15 boys and men. A number of psychiatrists testified at Dahmer’s tril. Judith Becker, a professor of psychiatry and psychology, was the second expert witness for the defense. Dr. Becker diagnosed Dahmer as a necrophiliac, although she added that Dahmer was not a “classic” necrophile in that he preferred comatose sexual partners to deceased ones “75 percent of the time”. In this excerpt from the trial, Dr. Becker, reading from her notes, summarizes Dahmer’s crimes in a remarkably monotone voice. Dahmer was found guilty and sentenced to life. He was killed in prison on November 28, 1994.
Renegade Mormons Lori Vallow Daybell and Chad Daybell developed their own doomsday cult, telling their small circle of followers that demons had turned their family members into “zombies” or “vampires” who needed to be killed. On May 14, 2023, a
Dixie Shanahan, 36, a hard-working nurse’s aide from Defiance, Iowa, was abused by her stepfather all through her childhood, then, in 1995, she married an abusive husband. Scott Shanahan, 40, had a violent temper, was twice convicted of beating Dixie, and once tied her up with wire coat hangers, and locked her in the basement for three days. One night, Scott threatened Dixie and her unborn baby with a loaded gun. Dixie, afraid for her daughter’s life, waited until Scott was asleep then shot him in the back of the head. Then, instead of calling 911, she pulled the covers of Scott’s body, closed and locked the bedroom door, and never went in there again. A year later, when police entered the room, there was nothing left but skeletal remains.
This episode features a phone call between Jodi Arias and Travis Alexander, whom she was dating intermittently between February 2007 and Alexander’s death in June 2008. A member of the LDS church, Alexander presented himself in public as a virgin and politely courted a number of LDS women while keeping his highly sexual relationship with Jodi as a “dirty little secret.” Eventually the two broke up, but Jodi continued to drive from her home in Yreka, CA to visit Travis in Mesa, AZ. As Travis increasingly ignored her in favor of “pure” Mormon women, Jodi became increasingly erratic and unhinged. On Wednesday, June 4, 2008, during a visit to Mesa, the pair got into a fight and Jodi shot and stabbed Travis to death.
In December 2019, in Celebration, Florida, police performed a wellness check on the home of the Todt family, who hadn’t been seen for some time. Anthony Todt, 44, was discovered unkempt and shaking. Wife Megan, 42, was found dead, along with their three children: Alek, 13; Tyler, 11, and Zoe, 4. They had been stabbed in the stomachs and smothered to death, and lay decomposing with crucifixes gripped in their hands. Also dead was the family dog, Breezy.
This episode contains testimony from public hearings of the Mollen Commission, a board established in 1992 to investigate police corruption in New York City. First is testimony from rogue cop Michael Dowd, who agreed to appear before the commission after being turned in by his partner. Dowd describes to commissioners how he and other officers at Brooklyn’s 75th and 94th Precincts began colluding with drug dealers to rob their rivals and sell cocaine, finally graduating to extortion, grand larceny, conspiracy, drug trafficking and racketeering. Next is testimony from “Mr. X,” a widely used law enforcement informant, who spoke about corruption among officers of the 9th Precinct.
