S1: E32 – The Search for Bethany Correira, Part 2

Summary

American Homicide: S1E32 – The Search for Bethany Correira, Part 2

Release Date: May 29, 2025

In the riveting second part of "The Search for Bethany Correira," hosted by Sloan Glass, American Homicide delves deeper into the mysterious disappearance and eventual murder of 21-year-old Bethany Carrera in Anchorage, Alaska. This episode meticulously unpacks the investigation, the involvement of the Lawson brothers, and the subsequent legal proceedings that culminate in a gripping courtroom drama.

---

Bethany Carrera: The Vanishing

Bethany Carrera, a vibrant 21-year-old college student, moved to Anchorage, Alaska, seeking new opportunities. Her sudden disappearance sent shockwaves through her community, raising immediate concerns given her well-connected life—she had a job, a place to stay, and was in regular contact with her family and boyfriend.

Quote:

"Bethany was somebody who needed to pick her brother up from the airport and who had a plan with her mom the next morning and was supposed to call her boyfriend."
— Ron McGee [02:15]

Despite these strong ties, Bethany vanished without a trace, leaving behind her keys, cell phone, and purse in her apartment, suggesting a deliberate act rather than a simple miscommunication or oversight.

---

Suspicion Falls on the Lawson Brothers

Investigators quickly honed in on Mike Lawson, Bethany's property manager, and his brother Bob Lawson. Mike's past, including a conviction for sexual assault in the 1980s, cast a long shadow over the case.

Quote:

"Mike Lawson failed to disclose that he was a convicted felon, which gave the police a warrant to arrest both Lawson brothers for fraud."
— Julia O'Malley [03:53]

The police aimed to leverage Mike's criminal history to pressure the brothers into cooperation, hoping one might betray the other under scrutiny.

---

A Flipping of Allegiances

Contrary to expectations, both Lawson brothers implicated each other in Bethany's disappearance. Initially, Bob Lawson reported that Mike had called him in distress, leading Bob to discover Bethany's body under grim circumstances.

Quote:

"Mike phoned him in a panic... he saw Bethany's naked body on the floor."
— Julia O'Malley [04:32]

However, subsequent betrayals unfolded, revealing deeper layers of deception and guilt within the Lawson brothers.

---

The Wiretapped Confession

In a strategic move, the Anchorage police bugged a jail phone line, capturing pivotal conversations between Mike and Bob. These recordings became instrumental in unraveling the truth.

Notable Quote:

"But there was something that happened before that you don't know about that I'm not taking her into before she..."
— Mike Lawson [08:10]

This conversation hinted at Mike's involvement in illicit activities, suggesting that Bethany might have unintentionally stumbled upon a drug deal, thereby placing her in mortal danger.

---

Discovery of Bethany's Body

An early spring thaw in 2004 facilitated the recovery of Bethany's remains from a gravel pit, exactly one year after her disappearance. The grim discovery included personal belongings and indications of a violent struggle, solidifying the case against Mike Lawson.

Quote:

"When we found the body, the body was partially clad. She was naked from the waist down."
— Sloan Glass [10:54]

The emotional toll on investigators and Bethany's family was profound, mingling relief with heartbreak.

---

Bob Lawson's Tragic End

As the trial against Mike Lawson progressed, Bob Lawson became a key witness. However, the immense pressure and guilt led him to take his own life in 2006, depriving the prosecution of crucial testimony and complicating the case.

Quote:

"I helped do one of the most terrible things imaginable, and I can't live with that."
— Bob Lawson's Note [18:45]

---

The Trial: A Battle in the Courtroom

Mike Lawson stood trial on multiple charges, including first and second-degree murder, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence. The absence of Bob Lawson's testimony posed significant challenges for the prosecution, which relied heavily on the previously recorded phone calls and the testimony of Mike's colleague, Franco Besnise.

Key Moment:

"I'm just trying to figure out why there's no clothes, no running."
— Mike Lawson [33:00]

Prosecutors argued that the lack of Bethany's clothing indicated malicious intent rather than an accident, especially under Alaska's legal framework where a death occurring during the commission of another felony is automatically classified as second-degree murder.

---

Verdict and Sentencing

After four tense days of deliberation, the jury convicted Mike Lawson of second-degree murder and tampering with evidence, rejecting his defense's claim of accidental death. The sentencing culminated in a 99-year prison term, effectively the same as a first-degree murder conviction.

Quote:

"So my boss calls me and said, hey, Mike says, you're stealing money from the company... I can't tell you anything about what's going on."
— Franco Besnise [25:37]

The meticulous strategy in court, combined with the damning evidence from wiretapped conversations and physical evidence linking Mike to Bethany's death, secured his conviction.

---

Aftermath and Reflections

The resolution of Bethany Carrera's case provided a semblance of justice for her family, though the scars of loss and betrayal remained. Sloan Glass reflects on the emotional journey, emphasizing the profound impact such cases have on both the victims' families and those pursuing the truth.

Quote:

"The pain that I'm feeling is so bad because I have to forgive him... that helped me in my life to move forward and I hold on to any regrets or anything, things that I do. I have to keep moving forward and the only way I can is forgiveness."
— Bethany's Father [38:03]

---

Conclusion

"The Search for Bethany Correira, Part 2" offers a comprehensive exploration of a harrowing true crime case, highlighting themes of betrayal, justice, and the human capacity for forgiveness. Through detailed narration and poignant interviews, American Homicide presents a compelling narrative that underscores the complexities inherent in solving and prosecuting violent crimes.

---

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "I can't imagine what an agonizing decision that would be to have to squeal on your brother like that."
  — Sloan Glass [01:12]

• "But there was something that happened before that you don't know about that I'm not taking her into before she..."
  — Mike Lawson [08:10]

• "We the jury, find the defendant, Michael Lawson, guilty of murder in the second degree."
  — Jury Verdict [35:48]

• "For me, it felt so good to be able to put this man away."
  — Sloan Glass [38:03]

---

This episode not only sheds light on the intricate details of Bethany Carrera's tragic story but also examines the broader implications of crime, loyalty, and the pursuit of truth within the American justice system.

Transcript

[Sloan Glass]

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[Julia O'Malley]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Sloan Glass]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the and the son he'd never known.

[Sloan Glass]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Julia O'Malley]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Two brothers are blaming one another for the murder of a college student.

[Sloan Glass]

I can't imagine what an agonizing decision that would be to have to squeal on your brother like that. But your brother's done a terrible thing. Your brother's done a horrible thing.

[Julia O'Malley]

Anchorage police have to figure out which brother was telling the truth.

[Sloan Glass]

Someday when I'm eulogized, all I want somebody to say is I stood up and did the right thing. I always tried to do the right.

[Julia O'Malley]

Thing and in the end, one brother would do the unthinkable.

[Sloan Glass]

It's a hard decision, but I think it was the right decision to make and it resulted in this tragedy.

[Julia O'Malley]

Today we're in Anchorage, Alaska for the conclusion of the search for Bethany Carrera. I'm Sloan Glass and this is American Homicide. Just a note that this episode contains some graphic content. Please take care while listening.

[Ron McGee]

Alaska is a place where people disappear and where people find bodies. In the springtime, we have really high rates of violence against women and women become victims of violent crime a lot.

[Julia O'Malley]

Journalist Julia O' Malley covered the case of 21 year old Bethany Carrera.

[Ron McGee]

Bethany was a college student coming to Anchorage looking for a place to stay. It must have felt pretty exciting, snagging a job, getting furniture, setting up.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bethany's move to Anchorage was supposed to be exciting, but instead she disappeared.

[Ron McGee]

So it wasn't somebody who had like lost touch with their family and gone up to Alaska and just kind of quit talking to anybody. It was somebody who like needed to pick her brother up from the airport and who had a plan with her mom the next morning and was supposed to call her boyfriend. You know, she was somebody who was watched after and very connected to other people. So when she just dropped out of her life, it just seemed very apparent that something had happened to her.

[Julia O'Malley]

Inside bethany's apartment were her keys, cell phone, and purse.

[Ron McGee]

It was as if she had gone out to take out the trash and just not ever come back.

[Julia O'Malley]

Detectives were looking at Bethany's property manager, Mike lawson, and his brother Bob as suspects.

[Ron McGee]

The lawsons were just these really shady characters.

[Julia O'Malley]

If you remember from the last episode, Mike lawson served time in prison for sexually assaulting his girlfriend back in the 1980s. After his release, Mike moved to alaska and started a roofing business with his brother bob.

[Ron McGee]

The cops were looking for something to bring him in on so that they could have some leverage to see if they could get one of them to talk.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike slipped up on a loan application for his business. Mike lawson failed to disclose that he was a convicted felon, which gave the police a warrant to arrest both lawson brothers for fraud. Once in custody, detectives hoped that one brother would flip on the other. But no one expected both brothers to flip on each other. First, it was bob who flipped on mike. Bob told detectives that on the Saturday morning Bethany went missing, Mike phoned him in a panic. Here's what he told investigators.

[Sloan Glass]

He said, I'm in trouble. I need you to help me.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike lawson was in the apartment next door to Bethany's and told his brother bob to bring him some heavy duty garbage bags and duct tape. Bob said he was reluctant but did what mike asked. And when he arrived, he said he saw Bethany's naked body on the floor.

[Sloan Glass]

I just remember thinking, jesus. I said something like, what have you gotten me into here? I said, if I was smart, I'd walk right now. And I didn't. What did your brother say to that? Nothing. He didn't say anything. He said, well, at some point during this thing, he said, it's not your fault. He said, I did it. And he said, I'm sorry I got you into this.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bob saw a bowling ball sized hole in the wall from Mike's struggle with bethany. If you remember, that's where the police found human hair, and lab tests confirmed it belonged to bethany. Bob said he patched the drywall, helped mike roll Bethany's body in plastic garbage bags, and put her in the back of Mike's suv.

[Ron McGee]

Then that he and his brother took her north to, you know, a gravel pit along the highway and left her body.

[Julia O'Malley]

Later that night, Bob said he and Mike returned to the empty apartment and set it on fire. Then the two went out to the bars that evening to establish an alibi. And that brings us to Mike. Mike was Bethany's landlord, who for months denied having anything to do with Bethany's disappearance. But then Mike said his brother Bob killed Bethany.

[Sloan Glass]

He.

[Julia O'Malley]

He even offered to wear a wire to prove it. So now you have two brothers blaming one another. Detectives didn't know who or what to believe, so they came up with a plan. In April 2004, nearly a year after Bethany's disappearance, the police bugged a jail phone line so they could hear the two brothers conversation. Here's some of what they heard.

[Sloan Glass]

This whole thing ain't going away, Mike.

[Julia O'Malley]

That's Bob telling Mike how this whole thing was eating him up.

[Sloan Glass]

You know, I've been drinking. Every night I go to the bar. I. Two shots of crown to every beer. I just need to talk to you. I don't know how we can talk about this, but I don't want to talk unless I can talk to you stark ass naked in a room where I know you're not wearing a wire and nothing's bumped.

[Julia O'Malley]

I know it's hard to hear, but Mike told his brother Bob he's not talking unless he was sure Bob wasn't wearing a wire.

[Sloan Glass]

Well, I don't know how in the hell that would ever happen.

[Julia O'Malley]

Here's more from Bob.

[Sloan Glass]

Mike, I'm just trying to understand. I haven't been able to talk to you. We never talked about it. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Mum was a f ing word.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike told Bob that they did talk about what happened and that mum was the word. And then Mike went off.

[Sloan Glass]

Once you did it, you. You're their star witness. You're their pupil. You something. Don't you get it? For the cat scar, the kitty litter. You showed everything.

[Julia O'Malley]

You may have missed it, but Mike yelled at Bob for telling the cops what the cat buried in the kitty litter. Well, that's not a direct confession. It's the closest thing to Mike saying they threw Bethany's body in the gravel pit. And then Mike revealed something that would completely change the way investigators pursued the case.

[Sloan Glass]

But there was something that happened before that that you don't know about that I'm not taking her into before she.

[Julia O'Malley]

Ever said that again. And I know it's tough to hear this audio, but Mike said something happened before she, meaning Bethany, ever showed up.

[Sloan Glass]

Just give me a name. Mike. Who is there and who else? Coca Cola.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike was there with Coca Cola. Well, the Cops translated that to cocaine. And that's important because that morning, Bethany was supposed to meet Mike at a vacant apartment in her building. And she may have unknowingly walked into a drug deal.

[Sloan Glass]

Can I ask you one more question? Yeah. Was there any sex involved? No. I'm just trying to figure out why there's no clothes. No running. No what? No running. No running. Get away. Oh.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike claimed Bethany wasn't wearing clothes so she wouldn't run away. And before their call ended, Mike wanted to make sure Bob wasn't cooperating with the cops.

[Sloan Glass]

No, I'm not. I swear. Our mom's great.

[Julia O'Malley]

And then Bob had one final thing to say to his brother.

[Sloan Glass]

I want to be able to tell you I love you, Pike. I love you, too, Bob.

[Julia O'Malley]

The secret recording confirmed everything the police had suspected about Mike Lawson. That he was responsible for killing Bethany Carrera, not his brother Bob.

[Sloan Glass]

They allowed us to wire them, and they were very incriminating conversations. That is essentially what sealed the case.

[Julia O'Malley]

Ron McGee worked for the Anchorage PD. They were still searching for Bethany's body. In early 2004, Bob led investigators to a gravel pit where he and his brother Mike buried Bethany months earlier.

[Sloan Glass]

And this is Alaska, and there was three feet of snow on the ground. And we couldn't recover the body until some of the snow melted. So we had to wait for the snow to melt.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mother Nature delivered a warm spring in 2004. That meant an early thaw, which allowed the Anchorage police to resume their search for Bethany's body. On May 3, 2004, exactly one year to the day she disappeared, a search crew returned to the same gravel pit. Officers very quickly found a blue and black fleece jacket. It was a woman's size, small. Then they found a bra that looked like it had been pierced by a bullet. It was near a puka shell necklace, the same necklace Bethany's boyfriend gave her just before she went missing. And then they found what was left of Bethany.

[Sloan Glass]

When we found the body, the body was partially clad. She was naked from the waist down. So immediately, we suspected that there was some sexual aspect to the crime. We had always suspected that, but this just confirmed in our mind that there was some sexual aspect to the crime.

[Julia O'Malley]

Finding Bethany's badly decomposed body was a bittersweet moment for investigators.

[Sloan Glass]

I think everybody had sort of got to know her a little bit and fall in love with her. She's such a wonderful young lady. And I think that the sense was of relief that we can bring this beautiful young lady home to her parents. Oh, it's heartbreaking. It's a very heartbreaking thing. And I pray I don't know him, but I pray that they find some peace with this.

[Julia O'Malley]

The Anchorage police charged Mike Lawson with first and second degree murder, sexual assault, arson, kidnapping, and tampering with evidence.

[Sloan Glass]

And of course, the brothers confession was a big part of this.

[Julia O'Malley]

It was Bob who would be a key witness in the trial against his brother Mike. But a tragedy would change everything. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley season one.

[Sloan Glass]

I just knew him as a kid.

[Julia O'Malley]

Long silent voices from his past came.

[Sloan Glass]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Julia O'Malley]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Sloan Glass]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was no longer just telling the story. I was part of it.

[Sloan Glass]

Every time I hear about my dad is, oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Sloan Glass]

If the cops and everything would have done their job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Julia O'Malley]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Sloan Glass]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Sloan Glass]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Julia O'Malley]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive, exclusive content. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Hi, listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of what happened to Talina Czar? It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who try to find her. I didn't want to be talked out of this plan. After I post this, I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason. I kept just kind of asking everybody.

[Sloan Glass]

Anyone else think this is strange? You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there.

[Ron McGee]

I'm an action kind of girl.

[Julia O'Malley]

You can now get access to episodes of what happened to Talina Zhar? 100% ad free with an iHeart True Crime plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeart TrueCrime plus and subscribe today.

[Sloan Glass]

What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel.

[Julia O'Malley]

I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying.

[Sloan Glass]

When we step beyond the edge of what we know, to open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. And we turn I clinically died. The heart stopped beating which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Bush. My mission is simple to find, explore and share these stories. I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who is smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. There's a story behind every murder, but is there an ending? That's the question being asked by Murder True Crime Crime Stories, a crime House original podcast powered by Pave Studios. I'm Carter Roy. Join me every Tuesday as I tell the story of a famous solved or unsolved murder. Each episode dives into the darkest corners of true crime, unraveling chilling narratives, examining compelling clues, and most importantly, seeking the truth. What sets Murder True Crime Stories apart is the focus on humanizing the victims and the effect their deaths had on their families, friends and community. We'll always leave with the knowledge of why their stories need to be heard. New episodes release every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, Just Search for Murder Colon True Crime Stories.

[Julia O'Malley]

The search for Bethany Carrera ended exactly one year after she went missing. Her body was found in a gravel pit just outside of her hometown of Talkeetna, Alaska, and nearly two hours from her apartment in Anchorage.

[Sloan Glass]

Not only did they find the actual bullet that she was shot with the round, but they found her necklace as well as her remains.

[Julia O'Malley]

Walt Monaghan was the Anchorage chief of police.

[Sloan Glass]

Such a beautiful young lady was victimized as she was. Well, she didn't deserve it, you know, losing a child and actually I lost one. It's a wound that will never heal.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike Lawson, Bethany's building manager, was charged with her murder.

[Sloan Glass]

She said that she had to go meet the manager and. And that was the last anybody heard of her. He was a convicted sex offender, which kind of doubled down on why he should be a suspect. So it was just a matter of doing due Diligence and eventually make a case against him.

[Julia O'Malley]

Prosecutors had a star witness in the case against mike lawson, his brother, bob lawson, who led investigators to bethany's body.

[Sloan Glass]

The suspect's brother eventually kind of broke down and revealed what he had done to help his brother dispose of the body.

[Julia O'Malley]

The prosecution moved quickly with this. They wired bob, Recorded incriminating conversations, and had what they needed to convict mike lawson of bethany carrera's murder. It all weighed heavily on bob. He saw bethany's dead body and knew what the future looked like for his brother.

[Sloan Glass]

He committed suicide, and that kind of took him out of the picture, literally.

[Julia O'Malley]

In March of 2006, Bob Lawson's roommate found bob dead in the garage of the house they shared.

[Sloan Glass]

Basically, it boiled down to he was feeling guilty. He was feeling torn between doing what was right and loyalty to his, his family.

[Julia O'Malley]

Sitting among a collection of beer and liquor bottles was a note bob left behind.

[Sloan Glass]

To my family. I'm so sorry. I miss my brother so much. Life has become unbearable. I can't endure the pain any longer. I helped do one of the most terrible things imaginable, and I can't live with that. Please take the money in my wallet and my final wages and give it to mike.

[Julia O'Malley]

So what was that terrible thing Bob did? Was it helping to move bethany's body or turning on his brother?

[Sloan Glass]

I don't know. I think that he knew what had happened was wrong, and I think that was weighing heavy on him. But again, it's hard to judge family.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bob's lawyer told reporters that bob struggled with doing what was right versus his loyalty to his brother.

[Sloan Glass]

I think that his personal guilt of what he was feeling and what he had done was his choice to avoid being disloyal and possibly going to jail himself.

[Julia O'Malley]

Not only was this sad news for bob's friends and loved ones, but of course, it was also damaging to the state's case against mike lawson.

[Sloan Glass]

It would have been better if the brother had not committed suicide. I think at the press conference, I mentioned that this case will haunt me for a while. Still does.

[Julia O'Malley]

All eyes were on the courtroom as mike lawson's trial began.

[Ron McGee]

People were worried because bob lawson had killed himself. They were worried that the prosecutor wouldn't have enough to go on.

[Julia O'Malley]

Journalist Julia o' malley covered the trial.

[Ron McGee]

This case, it's really high profile. The public's paying a lot, has been paying a lot of attention to it. You know, there is a way in which the whole state is a small town in which one person's child is everybody's Child. That might have been one of the reasons why the public followed that case so closely.

[Julia O'Malley]

The case got even more challenging for prosecutors when the judge ruled to exclude testimony about Mike Lawson's sexual assault conviction from the 1980s.

[Ron McGee]

The jury is just there to look at what the prosecution can tell them and what the defense can tell them about law, the facts of the particular case and how that applies to the charges, and then consider the evidence and whether it fits so they're not trying to convict him on a previous crime.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike Lawson faced eight felony charges, including first and second degree murder. During opening statements, Mike's defense attorney gave a surprising admission.

[Ron McGee]

The defense admitted that he had killed her. They said it was an accident.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike Lawson, who repeatedly told the police he had nothing to do with killing Bethany, now said he did do it, but it was an accident.

[Ron McGee]

They were going for a lesser charge than murder.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike's lawyer confidently told the jury that it was manslaughter, which carries a lighter sentence. But the prosecutor wasn't having any of it.

[Ron McGee]

The prosecution's story was that she had entered the apartment, and she may or may not have witnessed some illicit activity because there was some evidence that he was involved in sort of cocaine trade.

[Julia O'Malley]

That's where the taped phone call between the two brothers came into play.

[Ron McGee]

Bob Lawson's in jail. He's calling his brother, and he's trying to get him to. To say if there was anybody with him at the time of the killing.

[Sloan Glass]

Just give me a name. Mike, who was there and who else? Coca Cola.

[Ron McGee]

Michael is, like, all cagey, and he just says, you know, it was me and Coca Cola. So the prosecution took that to mean that he had been cutting cocaine at the time. They never found evidence of drugs in the apartment, but it was like a theory that was put forward by the prosecution.

[Julia O'Malley]

Since Bob Lawson took his own life before the trial, that recorded phone call was key for the prosecution. It also meant that Mike's colleague, Franco Besnise, would now be the prosecution's star witness.

[Sloan Glass]

For me, I was ready. I was willing to do whatever it took. And when I was testifying, Mike was so frustrated with everything I was answering, and I could see the frustrations in his eyes and the way he was. He couldn't stand me. He hated me so much, he didn't want to even see my face.

[Julia O'Malley]

Franco told the jury about Mike's white suv, how it was always filthy, and how Mike suspiciously had it detailed right after his first visit by detectives. And how a week before Bethany's murder, Mike's fourth wife Left him that night. Franco remembered Mike being livid.

[Sloan Glass]

He told me that he went out to some bar and had met some woman. And he was basically telling me that when he was with this gal that he just met that he was beating her while he was having sex with her. To me, that's rape. So you don't meet somebody for the first time and do that and call it sex. That's not what it is. A week later, Bethany Carrera comes up missing. That drew attention to me to really think that he had something to do with her disappearance.

[Julia O'Malley]

Franco remembers being at Mike's house right around the time Bethany was first reported missing.

[Sloan Glass]

So I've been there numerous times, and I've always had free rein just to walk around, do whatever I wanted to do. Never had any problems about where I can go and can't go. For some reason, he wouldn't let anybody, including me, go upstairs. Nobody was allowed to go upstairs. So I thought that was odd. And that was always why I thought he had something to do with it in the first place.

[Julia O'Malley]

Franco said he eventually relayed his fears about Mike to the police and that soon afterwards, the police had him wired up. So throughout their investigation into Mike, the police were always listening.

[Sloan Glass]

Literally, every encounter that I had with.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike was recorded for nearly six months. Franco's toolbox and tool belt contained recording devices. And at some point, he thinks Mike caught on.

[Sloan Glass]

This is, you know, 2003. And they handed me this, like, basically like a Walkman little cassette recorder. And at the end of the cassette, it makes this loud beep. And it was so loud, it was beep. And I'm sitting there. I turn out the radio, I roll down the window, and I'm hitting my chest. He heard it, but he didn't know what it was.

[Julia O'Malley]

And that's when Mike turned on him.

[Sloan Glass]

So my boss calls me and said, hey, Mike says, you're. You're stealing money from the company. He goes, I gotta let you go. So I got fired. And I looked at my boss and said, you're making a huge mistake. I can't tell you anything about what's going on. Maybe someday I will. My own boss turned against me. So Mike had a way to manipulate people into believing that he was innocent or whatever was going on.

[Julia O'Malley]

Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield. And in bone Valley Season 1, I.

[Sloan Glass]

Just knew him as a kid.

[Julia O'Malley]

Long, silent voices from his past came.

[Sloan Glass]

Forward, and he was just staring at me.

[Julia O'Malley]

And they had secrets of their own to share.

[Sloan Glass]

Gilbert King. I'm the son of Jeremy Lynn Scott.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was no longer just telling the story, I was part of it.

[Sloan Glass]

Every time I hear about my dad, it's, oh, he's a kid killer. He's just straight evil.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was becoming the bridge between a killer and the son he'd never known.

[Sloan Glass]

If the cops and everything would have done the job properly, my dad would have been in jail. I would have never existed.

[Julia O'Malley]

I never expected to find myself in this place. Now I need to tell you how I got here.

[Sloan Glass]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bone Valley Season 2 Jeremy.

[Sloan Glass]

Jeremy, I want to tell you something.

[Julia O'Malley]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear the entire new season ad free with exclusive content. Subscribe to Lava for Good plus on Apple Podcasts. Hi listeners. I'm Melissa Jeltson, host of what Happened to Talina Czar? It's the story of a woman who disappears in the early days of COVID lockdowns and the group of online sleuths who who try to find her. I didn't want to be talked out of this plan. After I post this, I am turning off my phone for exactly this reason. I kept just kind of asking everybody.

[Sloan Glass]

Anyone else think this is strange? You'll notice that about me. I don't lurk. I'm out there.

[Ron McGee]

I'm an action kind of girl.

[Julia O'Malley]

You can now get access to episodes of what Happened to Talina Zhar? 100% ad free with an iHeart True Crime plus subscription. I'm a subscriber and you should be too. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search iHeart TrueCrime plus and subscribe today.

[Sloan Glass]

What happens when we come face to face with death? My truck was blown up by a 20 pound anti tank mine. My parachute did not deploy. I was kidnapped by a drug cartel.

[Julia O'Malley]

I just remember everything getting dark. I'm dying.

[Sloan Glass]

When we step beyond the edge of what we know, to open our consciousness to something more than just what's in that western box. And we turn. I clinically died. The heart stopped beating, which I was dead for 11.5 minutes. My name is Dan Busch. My mission is simple. To find, explore and share these stories. I'm not a victim. I'm a survivor. You're strongest when you're the most vulnerable. To remind us what it means to be alive. Not just that I was the guy that cut his arm off, but I'm the guy who was smiling when he cut his arm off. Alive Again, a podcast about the fragility of life, the strength of the human spirit, and what it means to truly live. Listen to Alive Again on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or web wherever you listen to your favorite shows. There's a story behind every murder. But is there an ending? That's the question being asked by True Crime Stories, a crime house original podcast powered by Pave Studios. I'm Carter Roy. Join me every Tuesday as I tell the story of a famous solved or unsolved murder. Each episode dives into the darkest corners of true crime crime, unraveling chilling narratives, examining compelling clues, and most importantly, seeking the truth. What sets murder True crime Stories apart is the focus on humanizing the victims and the effect their deaths had on their families, friends and community. We'll always leave with the knowledge of why their stories need to be heard. New episodes release every Tuesday. Wherever you get your podcasts, just search for murder colon True Crime Stories.

[Julia O'Malley]

Imagine that you're Bethany Carrera's parents who had to wait a year to lay their daughter to rest. Their family would forever be broken, but their fight for justice had just begun. Bethany's parents sat in court every day.

[Ron McGee]

They're paying close attention there, just really witnessing it, and it's super hard.

[Julia O'Malley]

Journalist Julia o' Malley was also in the courtroom.

[Ron McGee]

You gotta imagine losing someone like that and then having to go through the trial and having to hear all the things that happened. Like no one, no one needs to go through that.

[Julia O'Malley]

Throughout the trial, there is something else present in the courtroom.

[Ron McGee]

There's this backpack sitting with her dad and in it were her ashes.

[Julia O'Malley]

Bethany's favorite backpack, the gray north face, was sewn on patches from New Zealand, Nepal and Australia. Was perched on a chair next to Bethany's dad. Her dad said he thought it was appropriate for Bethany to to have a presence in the courtroom.

[Ron McGee]

I think it was important for them, though, to have closure in a certain way.

[Julia O'Malley]

For two long weeks, the Carrera family heard graphic testimony, learning in real time what happened to their daughter. At times, it was just too much for Bethany's mother, who would exit the courtroom in tears.

[Ron McGee]

Bless her parents. I really can't even process what that must have been like for them.

[Julia O'Malley]

It was a tense setting as prosecutors struggled to make their case without their key witness, Bob Lawson. Their one saving grace was that they could play the 32 minute taped phone call between Bob and Mike.

[Sloan Glass]

Don't you get it? You're their star witness. You're their pupil. You Sent me. Don't you hear it? Where the cats buried the kitty litter. You showed everything.

[Julia O'Malley]

You showed them what? The cat buried in the kitty litter.

[Ron McGee]

It was pretty damning. Just that recording which they were able to play.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike Lawson's defense was that he accidentally shot Bethany. That's where the prosecutor honed in. She said that there was one thing in that conversation that Mike Lawson told his brother that one thing weakened Mike's defense, that he accidentally shot Bethany.

[Sloan Glass]

I'm just trying to figure out why there's no clothes, no running. No what? No running. No running. Get away. Oh.

[Julia O'Malley]

Mike said he accidentally shot Bethany, but he removed her clothes so that she wouldn't run away. In her closing arguments, it was something the prosecutor wanted the jury to think. So all this time, you have her.

[Sloan Glass]

Sitting there without her clothes on, alive.

[Julia O'Malley]

With a bullet in her chest. The prosecutor argued that this was no accident, and it definitely wasn't manslaughter. And here's where Alaska state law comes into play. If Mike was involved in some sort of drug activity, that meant a felony was happening when Bethany was killed. When a death occurs during another felony, Alaska law says it cannot be called an accident. It's automatically second degree murder. On May 3rd of 2003, Michael Lawson, the manager of those apartments, murdered Bethany Carrera. Mike Lawson never took the stand in his own defense, and his lawyer did not call any witnesses. Instead, Mike's lawyer told the jury that Mike might have been getting high at the time Bethany unexpectedly walked in and that she startled him, and that's why he shot her. And the reason Bob walked in and found Bethany with her clothes off. Well, his lawyer said Mike wanted to check her injuries.

[Ron McGee]

I mean, it was clear that he killed her, and he admitted it early in the trial. But why? Like, what caused it? That never got totally answered for me.

[Julia O'Malley]

Chances are, if a journalist sitting in the courtroom is thinking that, so, too, is one of the jurors. And when the case went to the jury, deliberations dragged on for days. Four days, to be exact. And then the judge announced the jury had reached a verdict. Bethany's parents nervously sat next to their daughter's backpack, the one that contained Bethany's ashes. Whether Mike Lawson knew it or not, he had to face Bethany once one more time. On the most serious charge of first degree murder, the jury found Mike Lawson not guilty. On the arson charge, the jury found Mike Lawson not guilty. On the kidnapping and sexual assault charges, the jury found Mike Lawson not guilty. With Bethany's family clutching that backpack even tighter, they listened as the Jury announced their verdict of the final charge.

[Sloan Glass]

We the jury, find the defendant, Michael Lawson, guilty of murder in the second degree.

[Julia O'Malley]

The jury didn't buy Mike Lawson's claim that Bethany's murder was an accident and convicted him of second degree murder as well as tampering with evidence.

[Ron McGee]

Because that would have meant the difference between like a 20 year sentence for manslaughter or like 99 years.

[Sloan Glass]

Mr. Lawson, I sentence you to 99 years.

[Ron McGee]

The judge was really forceful in the sentencing, and it was his opinion that Michael Lawson was a predator, A ticking time bomb like that. He was just waiting to harm somebody else.

[Julia O'Malley]

Coincidentally, Mike's 99 year sentence was the same sentence he would have received if the jury found him guilty of first degree murder.

[Sloan Glass]

So that verdict was announced, and all along I was just smiling, knowing that I helped put this man away and it mattered.

[Julia O'Malley]

Franco Bezniais was Mike's former colleague. They used to play chess together. After the verdict, Franco couldn't help but think about one match with Mike.

[Sloan Glass]

Early on, I remember one of the games, I actually lost my queen, which is brochure loss. And they kept telling me, hey, we got you, we got you. I said, no, we're going to continue to play. And I ended up winning that game, which even frustrated me even more. The game of chess is like, you must know what the other opponent's doing. They as well as have strategy yourself. It actually played forward into the courtroom. At the end when they were giving him his sentencing, I stood up in the courtroom as he was walking right by in front of me. I said, check mate Mike. All along, he didn't know what I was doing. He didn't know my moves. So I thought to myself, what a perfect time to be able to take check Nate. After he just received 99 years, Mike.

[Julia O'Malley]

Lawson remains incarcerated at an Alaska state prison. He'll be eligible for parole in 2073.

[Sloan Glass]

For me, it felt so good to be able to put this man away. And so there was peace for me and, like, peace for the parents. I mean, they lost a child. There's really no peace to that. And I met the father for the first time right outside the courtroom. And he actually looked at me and we were talking and he said that. He goes, franco, he said, I can't keep going on. The pain that I'm feeling is so bad because I have to forgive him. I said, you're going to forgive Mike Lawson? And he said, yeah, that way I don't have to live with this pain. And that was the first time I witnessed a man actually forgive somebody that took something from him. I can't even imagine losing any of my children. They gave me a hope. I'm so glad that I witnessed that because that helped me in my life to move forward and I hold on to any regrets or anything, things that I do. I have to keep moving forward and the only way I can is forgiveness. The way he showed me.

[Julia O'Malley]

Hello, I'm Sloan Glass. Thank you for listening to this season of American Homicide. Make sure you're subscribed to our feed to be notified of any updates on future bonus episodes and brand new content. If you enjoyed American Homicide, leave a review. It helps others find the podcast. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing [e-mail] that's AmericanHomicidePodmail.com American Homicide is hosted and written by me, Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with I Heart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Ganz. The series is also written and produced by Todd Ganz with additional writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer is Kristin Melchuri. Our I Heart team is Ally Perry and Jessica Cronchak. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aruka. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser Music Library, provided by MyMusic. Follow American Homicide on Apple Podcasts and please rate and review American Homicide. Your five star review goes a long way towards helping others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. Something unexpected happened after Jeremy Scott confessed to killing Michelle Schofield in Bone Valley Season one.

[Sloan Glass]

Every time I hear about my dad is oh, he's a killer. He's just straight evil.

[Julia O'Malley]

I was becoming the bridge between Jeremy Scott and the son he'd never known.

[Sloan Glass]

At the end of the day, I'm literally a son of a killer.

[Julia O'Malley]

Listen to new episodes of bone Valley Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sloan Glass]

You're listening to an iHeart podcast.