The Cheat Sheet: Plazas and Pizzas

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[00:01:56] Quince.com slash msheet. Content warning, this episode contains discussion of rape, murder and violence and may also contain some profanity. So today on the murder shoot, we're going to five states, probably more than that, actually. But we're going to at least New Jersey, New York, Maryland, California and New Mexico. We're going all around and we're going to talk about some cases. So all aboard.

[00:02:24] How? Why would you do that? No, I'm not going to pit the button. That's just. Is really that the energy you want to be bringing to our true crime podcast is a button right there? Sad. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist. And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:02:52] And this is The Cheat Sheet, plazas and pizzas.

[00:03:41] So don't worry, folks. I've been silently remonstrating with Kevin for the past few seconds as the music played, reminding him that this is not a podcast about Thomas the Tank Engine. It's about crime. You can't complain. It's time for the cane train. What the? First stop, I believe, is New Jersey and Maryland. Yeah. So, I mean, first two stops, I guess. Timetables off, man. So these are two cases that were sort of both recommended by listeners.

[00:04:11] The one from New Jersey was emailed in by a listener. And then the other one was posted in our wonderful Facebook group that we love. And you should totally join as long as you're not going to break the rules. So this is these are two cases that were recently solved by forensic genetic genealogy. So this IgG, as it's often called, investigative genetic genealogy, is been very much a tool in the solving of cold cases around the country.

[00:04:37] And both of these are kind of good examples of what tends to happen. So this first one took place in 1999 in New Jersey. You had a young woman named Nancy Noga. She was only 17. She had just recently enlisted in the United States Air Force and was preparing to go to basic training when she left her job at a store.

[00:05:05] And was, you know, not her father reported her missing after she didn't come home on January 7th, 1999. Five days later, January 12th, 1999, her frozen body is found behind the Minnie Mall Plaza Shopping Center, which is about a 15 minute walk from her apartment where she lived. So her family has had to endure that unsolved case, you know, since 1999. This is a young teenage girl. She's found face down covered in snow.

[00:05:34] She died of blunt force trauma and she had been raped. And recently, in 2021, to be precise, through investigative genetic genealogy, a man named Bruce Szymanski, who's now 52, was arrested. Just recently, he was found guilty. He was sentenced to life with 30 years of parole ineligibility. So I imagine that would mean he'd be in his 80s if he survives that long before he could get out.

[00:06:04] Interestingly enough, his sister-in-law, Madeline Elizabeth, has posted all over Facebook a handwritten letter from this man talking about how, you know, he's so innocent. He's so innocent that he didn't take a plea agreement. Wow. Where have we heard that before? And everyone should read all the pages of Discovery because, you know, Kevin, this may blow your mind, but the Discovery has other suspects in it. Wow. But it's so weird.

[00:06:30] The weird thing is that none of their DNA was found on the murder victim who had been raped. So it's almost like we can kind of disregard that. It sounds like it. You know, I'm so glad we have these, you know, legal titans weighing in who are justifying their horrible relative. This is something from his letter, a quote from his letter that I wanted to read. Quote, DNA doesn't make a person a murderer, and it also doesn't mean a person was kidnapped or sexually assaulted either. End quote. Okay.

[00:06:59] This is actually a sentiment that I do agree with and I wanted to expand upon. So I agree with Szymanski's general point here. Oftentimes, I think in true crime, DNA is talked about in a somewhat inaccurate or facetious way. If a body is found and there's some DNA on the person's shoe or they have a hair on them from somebody else, you know, that kind of DNA can be pretty transitory.

[00:07:25] I don't know if that's the word, but sometimes somebody's hair can get on something and it doesn't really necessarily tie them to the crime scene. Like, if you live with somebody, maybe their hair gets at the crime scene. You know, this is – hair gets everywhere. I mean, like, this is just what happens. But there's a huge difference between that and somebody's semen getting somewhere in a rape-murder case when there's no tie between the victim and that person.

[00:07:56] So had Szymanski been dating this young woman at the time or had some kind of connection and there could have been some explanation, okay, there was consensual sexual activity. Then she was murdered. That can be a discussion. But it seems like the evidence in this case, the circumstantial evidence, is that this woman was abducted, raped, and murdered. And the fact that there were other people who came up over the years of investigation whose DNA did not match the scene is irrelevant.

[00:08:23] One interesting thing I found when I researched this guy, because I was just trying to figure out, like, who is this person? He actually comes up on a website called Sedition Hunters, which is an online community that identified a lot of people who were present during the attack on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. And he was not someone who got into trouble over that. He was someone they identified as being on Capitol grounds wearing a hat that said, fuck you, pay me.

[00:08:51] So they linked him to that. They linked him to the Proud Boys far-right organization. So that seems to be, you know, something in his background. But he is obviously now incarcerated. My sources for this were NewJersey.com, MyCentralJersey, and Sedition Hunters, as I mentioned. But, yeah. I do think it is important, though, about the DNA thing, because sometimes I think DNA is overstated. You know, people say, oh, let's just test it again.

[00:09:20] It's like, if it's touch DNA, who cares? You know, that's not necessarily super damning unless someone had absolutely no reason to be there. Yeah, that makes sense. Now let's talk about the next one, kind of a similar theme. This is my information from Newsweek and a press release from the Prince George Police Department. So a young woman named Catherine Donahue was murdered many, many years ago.

[00:09:48] So I think it was in 1979 in Maryland. She was a young woman from Arlington. She was 31, had her whole life ahead of her, but unfortunately was beaten, raped, murdered, and left in a parking lot in Maryland in Prince George's County. So, fortunately, in that case, the police preserved DNA evidence or traces of DNA evidence.

[00:10:14] And at a certain point, they were able to, through advances in technology, submit that. And they had some help from the FBI. The FBI, specifically their IGG team, as well as Othram, which of course is a company that does a lot of these IGG cases. And, you know, they, these different agencies worked together and they were able to identify a suspect. And that was Roger Zotus Brown.

[00:10:44] He's 82. And he's living his life in North Carolina. And they came in and arrested him. And I would say, you know, good. Oh, and there's some additional reporting from the pilot that I also cited. So, this is a case where, you know, you have a lot of, I think one thing people have a hard time with is the idea that someone can do something like this and go live their lives. But I think what people are forgetting is that some people are awful. And they can do that.

[00:11:13] And that's fine for them. You know, I don't, too much is made about that. You can't really understand the kind of thinking from somebody who would willingly kill somebody in order to achieve an orgasm. Or in order to, you know, sexually gratify themselves or work out their rage. Or why ever, why on earth anyone would ever attack, rape, and murder a stranger. I mean, I don't think we can, I don't think people who are not going to do that can necessarily fully fathom why that happens.

[00:11:43] So, when people say, well, you know, it's serial killers or bust, that I think fundamentally understands that just sometimes people do one really, really awful thing and then they go back and live their mundane little lives. Not everything's a serial killer, but it doesn't make it any less heinous. No, not at all. Person's just, just dead. Yep. So, on to the next case, I think. So, we're going to.

[00:12:08] Well, as we ride the rails down to New Mexico, which is the next case, I got to take credit for you picking this case because as we were looking for cases, I said, oh, Anya, this is an interesting headline. And I read it to you and you cried out, I want to do that case. This headline was so wild. It's, this headline was from ABQ Raw, which is sort of a blog that compiles a lot of news in the Albuquerque area.

[00:12:34] And the headline was, third scumbag teen arrested and murder a beloved scientist slash cyclist. So, this is one I thought it might be also interesting a little bit to talk about like how, how headlines and how angles can sort of shape coverage. Right? So, at a lot of publications, this kind of headline would not fly. You know, calling someone who's alleged to have committed a crime a scumbag in the headline would not fly.

[00:13:02] Even if people agree with the sentiment. I don't think you see that like in the New York Times. No. Maybe the Post. Maybe the Post, yeah. The Post would probably put scumbag in quotes because they got somebody to say that. You know, but, you know, it's just important to remember when you're reading different, like it's, I think, I mean, this had some really interesting information. So, I'm not actually criticizing it necessarily. It's just more of like we have to be very aware when we're reading different things. There might be different perspectives. There might be a different angle.

[00:13:31] There might be a different way of framing it. And all that's fine. We're humans. We're all going to frame it in a way. But just be aware if that's like influencing your opinion, you know, it's just going to be different. Yeah. Also, I guess at this point we should in our heads be hearing not scumbag but alleged scumbag. Alleged scumbag teens. And I also got some information from KOB, KOAT. They have done a lot of extensive reporting on this.

[00:14:01] And I'm going to read from something from the Department of Justice as well because it kind of gets at the heart of the matter here. So, there was a horrible, horrible situation involving teenagers who killed a 63-year-old man named Scott Dwight Habermel. This was a man who was a scientist. He was cycling to his job at the Sandia National Laboratory.

[00:14:30] And, you know, very early in the morning. And a group of adolescents, teens, what have you, filmed themselves purposely crashing into him with a stolen car, killing him, running him over. It was a horrible thing. And these children posted this on social media. So, now you have a beloved man who is dead. This occurred on May 29th, 2024.

[00:14:58] But despite some of the evidence, you know, I think the video resurfaced later. But despite some of the evidence, arrests have kind of come about lately. I think this was an investigation where they were really looking at the fact that they posted it online, figuring out whose account it belonged to. But, you know, of course, these kids are not just – this is not just like a random one-time thing.

[00:15:23] The kids involved are 15-year-old William Garcia, 13-year-old Jonathan Overbay, and then an 11-year-old who, interestingly enough, I think in typical circumstances, someone as young as 11 is not necessarily named by the media. And I think I'm going to make the editorial call of not naming the 11-year-old, but it's out there. I mean, if you find it, I mean, it's, you know, pretty easily accessible.

[00:15:51] And I think even some of these sources name him. But this 11-year-old was reportedly basically perpetuating a one-man or one-boy, I should say, crime spree throughout these different neighborhoods in Albuquerque. He was part of a group.

[00:16:07] They were stealing cars, throwing rocks at homes, stealing alcohol and cigarettes, driving a car into a convenience store, and, like, to the point where police say that after he was, you know, apprehended, like, the crime rate went down. So, I mean, this is just kind of classic, or maybe classic is wrong, extreme delinquency, juvenile delinquency from these kids. Yeah.

[00:16:37] But the one who was driving was seemingly Jonathan Overbay, the 13-year-old. The other two were, like, egging him on, like, oh, let's hit him, tap him, you know, and whether or not the intent was to kill, obviously, when you're hitting a cyclist with a car, I mean, it's pretty reckless disregard for human life. These kids have been arrested. And a lot of people I've seen in the commentary is, like, where are the parents?

[00:17:06] What causes an 11-year-old to go that bad? What causes a 13-year-old, a 15-year-old? I mean, these are kids. So what gives? Well, I thought it would be interesting to go over some of this. And so I looked at – this is kind of an older report. It's from 2003, but I thought it was still interesting. It's from Michael Schrader. It's called Risk Factors for Delinquency and Overview. It's from the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency.

[00:17:33] So these are the risk and protective factors, okay, and they're by different domains based on individual, family, school, peer group, and community. Protective factors is, like, the opposite of a risk factor. What can prevent or what are some factors that kind of point away from delinquency? So they've divided it up by early onset, which is delinquents 6 to 11. So I guess one of these kids would certainly fall into that. Late onset, 12 to 14.

[00:18:00] So I want to go over some of these because it might be interesting for people to be aware of, like, what – Absolutely. What points to kids possibly going bad? So for individual, when you see an individual ages 6 to 11 who is already engaging in general offenses, who is engaging in substance use, who is a male, who is an aggressive young male, who is hyperactive, who has a problem or antisocial behaviors,

[00:18:30] who has a lot of exposure to television violence, who has medical or physical problems, who has a low IQ, who has antisocial attitudes and beliefs, and a dishonest male. Those are some factors, some risk factors. For late onset, for the individual, you can also have general offenses. You have a sense of restlessness. For males, a difficulty concentrating. Just general risk-taking.

[00:19:00] For males, aggression. Again, being a male is a risk factor. Physical violence, antisocial attitudes or beliefs, crimes against persons, problem or antisocial behavior, low IQ, and substance use. So those are some of the things you are going to get. Here are protective factors. An intolerant attitude towards deviance, a high IQ, being female, positive social orientation, or perceived sanctions for transgressions.

[00:19:29] So if you do something bad, there's not a permissive attitude. There are consequences. So these are ones that have to do with the domain of family. For early onset, we see low socioeconomic status or poverty, antisocial parents, poor parent-child relationship, harsh, lax, or inconsistent discipline, broken home, separation from parents, other conditions. That's pretty vague. Abusive parents or neglect.

[00:19:56] For late onset, it's poor parent-child relationship, harsh or lax discipline, poor monitoring, supervision, low parental involvement, antisocial parents, broken home, low socioeconomic status or poverty, abusive parents, or for males, family conflict. Interesting that it's harsh, lax, or inconsistent discipline. You'd think, okay, maybe someone who's really – the parents are way too harsh. The kid rebels by being a delinquent. Or if there's two lax, they rebel.

[00:20:25] But it's really either can kind of be a problem. It's better to have a more democratic family where people are kind of treated with respect and, you know, kids have input, but they're not running the show. I think that – the moderation kind of comes in there. That's interesting. For protective factors for family, warm supportive relationships with parents or other adults, parents' positive evaluation of peers, and parental monitoring are all protective factors.

[00:20:54] A few more for school for early onset, poor attitude performance. Same thing for late onset, but add to that academic failure. For protective, there's commitment to school, recognition for involvement in conventional activities. For peer group, for the early onset, it's weak social ties, antisocial peers. For late onset, it's weak social ties, antisocial delinquent peers, and gang membership. No surprise there. For protective factors, it's friends who engage in conventional behavior.

[00:21:23] Community, there's nothing for early onset. For late onset, it's neighborhood crime, drugs, neighborhood disorganization, and no protective factors. So it's not only parents. It's not only parents, and it's not only lax parents. It can be overly authoritarian parents, too. But either way, parents are obviously – parents and familial upbringing are an important part of this. And certainly, I'm of the attitude – and I'd be curious of what your take on this is, Kevin – but I'm of the attitude that parents can do most things right.

[00:21:53] Hard to do everything right, but parents can do most things right, and kids can still turn out bad for whatever reason. Generally, though, when you have an 11-year-old who's engaging in a one-kid crime spree in Albuquerque and having guns and stuff, that seems to be some level of failure in parenting, I would imagine. I would imagine, too. So, yeah. Yeah. It's important to get kids to remain in school.

[00:22:21] It's important to have kids be doing activities when they can so that they do not fall into sort of the gang lifestyle and develop sort of this antisocial clique when then they're going around and mowing down cyclists and ruining Batman's family's life because they have to live with this horrible thing that happened to their loved one and ruining their own lives. It's just not a good situation. I agree. Shall we move on? Yes.

[00:22:47] Well, let's journey over to California, a short journey. And my source is Fox 5 San Diego. And I'm going to do my best both with this and the case we're going to conclude with. But knowing me and my history with such matters, I think there's an excellent chance I'm going to be mispronouncing some names. And so I do apologize for that.

[00:23:12] Is it a cheat sheet if we don't badly mangle some pronunciation and humiliate ourselves in the process? That's what the people want. No, it's not. It's definitely not judging from our inbox. So this is a case I'm often drawn for whatever reason. I don't know what it says about me is I find interesting.

[00:23:30] The case is where someone ends up getting charged with murder and they did not wake up that morning intending to kill someone or expecting this to happen in their lives. And this is the story. And again, I apologize for surely mispronouncing this woman's name. Michaela Rylersdom. She is a 31-year-old woman, apparently has an account on OnlyFans.

[00:23:59] She also advertised on a website for escort services. And so a gentleman named Michael Dale, 56 years old, reached out to her to procure her services. And they had an exchange of texts and emails. And Mr. Dale had some very specific fetish requests.

[00:24:26] As Anya is across from me reading some of these requests, I see her making some faces. He wanted to be wrapped up in saran wrap like a mummy. He wanted a woman's boots glued onto his feet. He wanted adhesive on his eyes to seal them shut. He wanted a bag placed over his head and apparently sealed.

[00:24:50] And while this is going on, he wanted the woman to be performing sexual acts on herself. And she agreed to this. And she was going to even film some of these acts and put on her OnlyFans site. And perhaps not surprisingly, some of those activities he was interested in are inherently dangerous. And he ended up suffocating and dying.

[00:25:18] So clearly, this woman did not intend to kill him. She was only doing what he asked. So he was consenting, even though I believe he was intoxicated at the time of the encounter. But it resulted in his death. And there was a certain recklessness to taping a bag over someone's head and not checking in on them. And so she has been charged with second-degree murder. Eesh.

[00:25:47] What are your thoughts, if any, on the matter? Well, I was making faces because some of this just seemed very dangerous to be doing this. You know, like I think the news article talks about BDSM and those practices. I think, you know, whatever somebody's fetish is, if they're doing it with other consenting adults and it's safe that, you know, for the most part, I don't really see how other people can object to that.

[00:26:17] If there's consent and it's safe. Obviously, this had consent, but it was not safe. To me, I don't know. Maybe it's because he asked her to do these things. Maybe that's what's hitting me. It feels a little harsh to be a murder charge, frankly. Obviously, there's some recklessness. And I certainly think there should be some accountability here. I'm not saying that. Because her actions led to him suffocating. So I'm not saying, well, you know, he paid for it.

[00:26:46] No, it's not that. It's just that, I don't know. So it's different in different jurisdictions. To me, murder just is. To be clear, I should specify this is second degree murder where specific intent is not required. So this would be compared to like if someone goes out drinking and then gets in a car accident and kills somebody or something like that. Yeah, that's fair. There's not specific intent. Okay.

[00:27:15] But the argument would be there's a recklessness there. Certainly seems reckless. I think I'd have to. She's saying she didn't put the bag on his head. So if he was all saran wrapped, then I don't know how he could do it. I'd be curious to see what the facts come out.

[00:27:30] I guess for me, when I'm seeing a case where someone obviously didn't intend to kill somebody and, you know, like, I feel like maybe there's some room there for some kind of plea deal where it acknowledges the severity of what happened without necessarily like, you know, ruining somebody's life if it was really, truly unintentional. And the tragedy. You know, I guess I'm just. For what it's worth, she fully cooperated.

[00:27:55] She let police review and take material from her phone, you know, presumably some of the text messages and emails, which indicated the details of the encounter.

[00:28:35] Maybe I'm being too utilitarian. But like, I would think someone who is doing this would know don't put a plastic bag over somebody's head. That's just like, I don't know. That's so that's so incredibly dangerous. I feel like you hear all the time about people, you know, a kid suffocating by accident or something through that is just like it just kind of boggles my mind that people, you know, somebody would think that that was OK in any. She told police this is the first time she had done this sort of fetish service.

[00:29:03] So, OK, obviously, there's safe ways to gratify yourself and gratify your fetishes. And she just didn't have the experience to do that. But when we talk about punishment, maybe we should have an entire show about this at some point, because when we start trying to figure out, oh, is this punishment right or is that punishment right? It goes to the issue of why do we believe we as a society are punishing criminals?

[00:29:32] Is it simply to keep the public safe? Oh, this person did something dangerous. Let's lock them up so they don't do it to someone else. Is it revenge? This person said did something bad. Let's get them. Is it rehabilitation? Is it something else? Well, I know the popular thing and the civilized sounding thing is to, you know, oh, it's all about rehabilitation. But let's it's obviously not. There's also there's an argument. Is it for a deterrent?

[00:30:00] If someone does something bad and they're punished and that's publicized, then perhaps other people who might be contemplating such a thing would see that and then not do it. So these are the different arguments. Maybe we should have a discussion. Yeah. I mean, for me, there's certain crimes. There are certain crimes where. Personally, this is my own personal opinion. I don't care about rehabilitation. You know, if you're if you're a child predator who murders victims. I don't think you should be out anymore.

[00:30:30] I think you should not be out in society. You're you're done. Bye. You know, I don't I people who are who are sexually motivated criminals, people who are doing that. You know, I'm I'm personally not overly concerned with trying to, you know, get them on the same page with everyone else who's not doing such offenses. As far as I'm concerned, they should be. Walked away and forgotten.

[00:30:53] And, you know, resources can be best expended elsewhere for people who are in other situations in crime. I think rehabilitation should be more of a focus. You know, if you have people who are falling into drugs due to addiction, due to a lack of economic opportunities, providing them with help that they need to get sober or that they need to get on a better path and paving the way for them to be successful in that, I think is wonderful. And that should be the goal.

[00:31:23] I don't think I don't think that's necessarily reflected in how the system currently works, though. But, yeah, that's I don't know. That's my opinion. What do you think? I think it's a very complicated issue. Wow. Dodging the question. I don't want to go into it in like a 30 second thing. Well, I'm just curious. Maybe we should do an episode on it at some point. I went into my 30 second thing. So I think in this case, though, I mean, there obviously wasn't the intent. So I guess to me.

[00:31:52] If you see a person where they're not likely to reoffend and it's kind of a specific situation, there's negligence. I think there needs to be accountability here. Absolutely. Absolutely. But I think that could be balanced with some measure of looking to, you know, not not necessarily throw the book at someone. That's just my take. I don't know. People can disagree. Yeah. And yeah, it's. It's very sad that this man lost his life in this way.

[00:32:18] And I would I would hope that stuff like this would, you know, as things like only fans and, you know, sort of this Internet sex work culture kind of become more prominent. I think it's important that, like, above anything else, whatever is going on, safety is really important. And doing things like obstructing somebody's breathing in any way, even if they're asking for that, is just not a good idea. At all.

[00:32:48] Yeah, I believe earlier on the cheat sheet a while back, we had some sort of similar story where a person had a sexual fetish involving a specific type of anesthesia or something. Chloroform. And they ended up dying. Yeah, that's exactly. You know, I'm in that in that case, I think the post death behavior was a lot less open, if I recall correctly. So, I mean, for me, there's a big difference between I killed somebody by accident and I'm kind of covering it up versus I killed someone by accident. I'm immediately.

[00:33:18] She called 911. Yeah, I'm immediately open about it. And while on the scene, she she provided the evidence from her phone about what had happened. Right. So it's it's a it's a situation where I think that for me does play a bit of a role in this. But with the chloroform death, it was the same thing. You know, he. He it kind of obstructed his breathing when you're when you're doing something like that. It's just. The risk is usually, I imagine, too great.

[00:33:47] And obviously neither of these people knew what they were doing. But at the same time, like, I think if you knew what you're doing, you wouldn't even try it, probably because it's just too dangerous. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, this other guy, this other young man who or this other man who was killed, a 40 year old Thomas Crider. He. He was a chloroform case. Yeah. He was reported missing. And then a few days later, this guy shows up and says there's a dead guy in my house.

[00:34:16] So that that to me doesn't look as good. Why would you wait? Well, let's go all the way back across the country near where we started out to New York. And my source for this is the New York Post. Oddly enough, I think we referred to them earlier in this very episode. And this involves an Iranian woman named again.

[00:34:45] I apologize for the name. It looks like Masih Alinajad. You don't apologize for the name. You apologize for mispronouncing it. Yes, it's a beautiful name. And I should do better. I apologize. I'm pronouncing it. Masih Alinajad. She lives in New York. Actually lives in Brooklyn where we used to live. And she advocates for women's rights. And she encourages women in Iran to do things like show their hair.

[00:35:13] And this is seen as a dangerous message for women in Iran. And so the government of Iran indicated they would pay big bucks if someone would come to America and murder her. So that's horrible. That's absolutely horrible. It shouldn't happen, obviously.

[00:35:35] But if you ever find yourself in a situation, heaven forbid, where a hitman has been sent to kill you, you really would want it to be a hitman like the hitman that was sent to kill this woman. This is a man named Khalid Medivav. And his first move was, well, what I should do is I should insinuate myself into her life.

[00:36:06] And so his first step was he sent her a text, the letter U, followed by the best journalist. Which is interesting because that's like the first message I sent you. I knew that was going. That didn't get the response he wanted. So then another text he sent her was, quote, hey, how are you? I want to make immigrants paper. Do you can help for that?

[00:36:35] And not surprisingly, she did not respond. And he apparently one of his assassin buddies said, you know, it's not a good idea to be texting your victim. Come up with something better. So his next step was I'm going to like stake out her house. And he parks his car out there and he stakes out her house. But then, you know, what if you get hungry?

[00:37:02] Well, what he did was then he called and had pizza delivered to his car in the middle of his stakeout. Which also is a way of letting you leaving a record of where you are. Oh, my gosh. Wow. And he's from Yonkers. Another point, he just walks up to her door and says, well, you know, what the heck? What have I got to lose? And he tries to open it and it's locked. So what are you going to do?

[00:37:31] And of course, she has a ring camera. So that is picked up and recorded. So there's a great deal of evidence out there about his behavior. He ultimately is arrested. There is a loaded gun in his car and a ski mast. He was going to use the ski mast to try to disguise himself when he killed her.

[00:38:00] And he revealed to authorities the names of the people who had hired him for this. Rafat Amirav and Polat Amirav. And in fact, at one point when he is incarcerated early on, he's able to get his hand on a cell phone. He's he get a smuggled cell phone and he actually called up.

[00:38:26] Umarav and Omarav wasn't too happy about that. Umarav started screaming, where the F you at? How the F are you in jail? You were the journalist's house. And Omarav also threatened to kill the assassins, the attempted assassins family in rage. So at this point. He is cooperating with authorities and he's testifying against the two people he said hired him to do this.

[00:38:55] And their defense is, well, obviously this guy is an idiot. So the whole thing was just a scam. We were trying to like prank Iran out of all this money. It's just a hoax. It's a scam. And they're saying this guy is such an idiot that proves we weren't serious about trying to kill this woman. Oh, gosh. Doesn't sound like a terribly compelling defense, at least according to what I read about this case.

[00:39:24] But it'd be interesting to see what the jury makes of all of this. What do you make of all of this, Ms. Kane? Baffling. I mean, just. Yeah. Also, the text and such sound. Sound like it's not just a prank, bro, or whatever. I don't know. You good journalist. You good journalist. I feel terrible for this woman. It sounds like she survived a couple of assassination attempts from Iran, and that's horrible.

[00:39:50] I think, yeah, this is, I mean, what a bumbler. I mean, it's basically everything you can do wrong as a hitman, which is fortunate in this case. You don't want competent hitmen because then people get murdered. But, jeez. Like, I mean, the pizza thing is just shocking. Honestly, like, but I think, I think for as much as we kind of celebrate, in a way, hitmen and like kind of assassins and all that stuff. Do we celebrate hitmen?

[00:40:20] And like, we make them often out to be really cool and competent in most TV shows. But I think, you know, I think a lot of people watch those and they think I can get away with murder if I'm really careful. But I think more things are probably in line with what this guy's doing. Maybe not as extreme of what this guy's doing in terms of the level of incompetence, but kind of some of those key mistakes and not being really able to rise to the challenge. Yeah, ordered pizza. That sounds like something I would do. I'm really bored.

[00:40:50] Let me, yeah. But I mean, I wouldn't be trying to kill anyone. So that. I think you'd pack a lunch. I know. Pack a lunch. Pack a lunch. Do a light lunch. I wouldn't be trying to kill anybody. I could just see you. That's what you should be saying to your wife. I could just see you in the kitchen with a lovely little sundress packing a little punch. Punch. Packing some punch is part of our lunch. So now you're helping me. I don't. I think. I think killing people is awful. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't want to be involved in something like that.

[00:41:19] But yeah, this guy just seems generally unprofessional as well. And I shouted out Yonkers because I grew up near Yonkers. So that was kind of fascinating to see Yonkers getting involved in something like this. So kind of a hometown story. Hometown story. Not really a hometown hero, but certainly a hometown disgrace. And this guy trying to kill this woman for exercising her speech.

[00:41:47] So the cane train ends its journey for the week in your hometown or near your hometown. Not in my hometown. Just near it. But yeah, well, that's I guess kind of our episodes for this week. If you haven't already, please buy our book, Shadow of the Bridge, about the Delphi murders. It's available for pre-sale now. Pre-sales help us. That's what we've been told. So if you can, you know, get someone to buy it. Also, we verified it. It's not like we just somebody told us that on the streets and we believed it. How have we verified it?

[00:42:17] How do we verify? We've talked to people in the business about pre-sales and they say, Anya and Kevin, they matter. That's what I said. But I'm saying I don't really know how or how that works. That's all I'm saying. Why are you calling me out? I'm just saying we verified it. I didn't say we had it unverified. I just said people tell us this. I don't know why. Well, people tell us that because they know it's relevant to our business. Oh, my gosh. I'm saying I don't.

[00:42:45] Do you know how pre-sales help us? Do you want to explain that? You want me to? I don't. I don't know. So the way things work is. Who cares? This doesn't even matter. So you don't want me to explain. Don't because I don't. No one cares. I just don't really know why. But I'm just saying the important thing is that we've told them. Well, if people care, I'd be delighted to explain it next week. Kevin can explain it to you later. I understand it. Kevin can come to your house and explain it. You'll order pizza. It'll be great.

[00:43:14] I understand why they matter. Okay. Wow. So informed. You're so ornery today. You and your freaking cane train gag and now this. Anyways, what else are we? The T-shirts, if you want to buy them, they're also available in our show notes. The link is there. And Anya once wrote an article of Business Insider about her experience on a train. Not the cane train, but it was a train. You're like shouting. You're like plugging my old article.

[00:43:44] People are interested in the cane train. You actually wrote an article about you riding a train for a long time. It's more interesting than that. It was actually one of those articles. It was like a lot of pictures with like really big captions. And you wrote it before I knew you.

[00:44:12] And I remember reading it before I knew you well and wondering if I had competition. Because you make a reference in there to a friend. And it wasn't a romantic friend. It wasn't. So I was fine. So you were like doing reconnaissance on me is what you're saying. Don't you think that was the smart thing to do? You look at a person like you. Meanwhile, you're social media. You can go either way. Your social media presence was so baffling to me that I didn't know what the hell was going on.

[00:44:40] Like my recall was just like why does this man have a Facebook profile that is a picture of a taxidermied passenger pigeon? Doesn't that sound like a red flag, folks? What the hell was I thinking? Anyways, glad it worked out. I still don't understand that. I think it's whimsical. This is weird. It's whimsical.

[00:45:11] See, you're laughing with delight. No, if I recall correctly, you had it as that and then you turned it back to something more normal. And then you had it as that again. You're like this passenger pigeon thing. Everyone loves it. I'm bringing it back, folks. Because you came and said we're going to be interviewing people together. You should have a Facebook profile with your picture on it because otherwise people will think you're a nut. Yeah. And so I temporarily made it my picture again.

[00:45:39] And then when you left, because we weren't a couple then, I put it back to the passenger pigeon. Back to the passenger pigeon. Give the people what they love. Oh my goodness. What are we even talking about? Should we wrap this up or do you have something else you want to say? Push the button. Okay. Thanks so much for listening to the Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheet at gmail.com.

[00:46:08] If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities. If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com slash murdersheet. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com slash murdersheet.

[00:46:37] We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook. We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much.

[00:47:04] We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening. Before we go, we just wanted to say another few words about VIA. This is really a wonderful product. I think it's really helped both of us get a lot better rest. VIA is pretty much, I guess you'd say, the only lifestyle hemp brand out there. So what does that mean?

[00:47:32] It means that they're all about crafting different products to elicit different moods. Kevin and I really like their non-THC CBD products. Specifically, Zen really helps me fall asleep. Some Zen can really just kind of help me get more into that state where I can relax and fall asleep pretty easily. And they've been such a wonderful support to us. They're a longtime sponsor. We really love working with them, and they really make this show possible. I'm going to say this.

[00:47:58] You may not realize this, but when you support our sponsors, you're supporting us, and it kind of makes it possible for us to do this show. So if you or one of your loved ones is interested in trying some of this stuff, you're going to get a great deal. It's very high quality, high value. Anya, if I wanted to give this discount you speak of, what do I do? Okay, if you're 21 and older, head to viahemp.com and use the code MSHEET to receive 15% off. And if you're new to VIA, get a free gift of your choice.

[00:48:27] That's V-I-I-A, hemp.com, and use code MSHEET at checkout. Spell the code. M-S-H-E-E-T. And after you purchase, they're going to ask you, hey, where did you hear about us? Say the murder sheet because then it lets them know that our ads are effective, and it really helps us out. So Anya, before we let people go, I wanted to talk again about the Silver Linings Handbook.

[00:48:52] And more specifically, I want to talk about Jason Blair because certainly there have been times when something happens and we don't know what to do. We're just out here rubbing two sticks together. And we need to turn to somebody for advice. I'm sure everybody's had that experience. We need to turn to somebody for advice. And one of the people we turn to most often is Jason Blair. And he's always been there for us. He's always willing to give you time. He's always willing to give you great advice.

[00:49:22] And so now what's wonderful is that everybody within the Sound of My Voice has access to his insights and his compassion and his advice because you can find all of that on his podcast. Yeah, he's this podcast is a bit like being able to sort of sit down and sort of hear some interesting insights. I always feel inspired by it.

[00:49:43] He's had on some really incredible guests recently, and they've had just such like heartbreaking, real conversations with people like Jim Schmidt, who his daughter Gabby Petito was murdered. Jim just came across just as such a real and empathetic and wonderful human being. He was even given one of Jason's friends kind of told him recently about some abuse she had suffered. Jim was giving advice. I mean, it was really incredible. I'm thinking of Kimberly Loring. Her sister went missing in Montana.

[00:50:12] It's another case involving a native woman. So raising awareness about that, talking to the woman who lost her father, who was a Los Angeles Police Department detective. He was murdered so he couldn't testify at a robbery trial. Just like awful stuff. But ultimately, really focusing on the compassion and allowing people the space to tell their stories. I think Jason shines as an interviewer because he has that natural empathy and curiosity, too.

[00:50:39] Whenever I'm thinking of a question like, oh, I hope they get into this, he's asking it two seconds later. So it's a really enjoyable listening experience. And I feel like whenever we listen to it, you and I end up discussing some deep stuff like religion or what kind of positivity we want to share with the world. So I think if you're looking for that and you're looking to have those kind of thought-provoking conversations in your life, this is the show for you. 100%.

[00:51:03] So I would just say that if you're interested, subscribe to The Silver Linings Handbook wherever you listen to podcasts.