Missouri Snake Breeder Murder: The Ben Renick Story

Summary

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Clues with Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore

Episode: Missouri Snake Breeder Murder: The Ben Renick Story

Crime House | March 25, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, hosts Morgan Absher and Kaelyn Moore take listeners deep into the bizarre and tragic murder of Ben Renick, a renowned Missouri snake breeder whose death stunned both the reptile community and his small-town neighbors. Initially believed to be the victim of a deadly python attack, clues soon pointed to a complex murder tied to secrets, financial intrigue, and betrayal. Morgan and Kaelyn trace the web of evidence, unspool the tangled family and business dramas, and analyze the pivotal clues that brought justice for Ben.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Discovery of the Crime Scene

• Date & Location: June 8, 2017, Montgomery County, Missouri
• Initial Assumption: Ben was presumed to have been killed by one of his snakes.
  • “So when Ben was found face down in a pool of his blood inside of the snakehouse, people obviously assumed it was a python that attacked him.” – Morgan Absher [00:42]
• Key Clue: Shell casing found at the scene — evidence of homicide, not a snake attack.
  • “There’s a shell casing that’s wedged under his right armpit...Ben had been shot eight times, mostly from behind...” – Kayla Moore [06:11–06:58]

2. Background on Ben Renick

• Snake Breeding Prodigy: From a childhood obsession to a million-dollar snake business, Ben’s rare “morphs” (color variations) fetched up to $25,000 each.
  • “...by his teenage years, Ben had begun breeding these reticulated pythons...In 2008, 21 year old Ben officially incorporated his company Renick Reptiles.” – Kayla Moore [09:03–09:49]
• Personal Life: Married Lindley Gallatin, co-owned the successful reptile business, and had a blended family.

3. Early Suspects & Clues

a. Suspicion on Ben’s Brother, Sam

• Motive: Excluded from family inheritance after their father's death.
  • “So Lindley told detectives Sam and Ben had been fighting about the property in the weeks before the murder...‘You need to give me half of the property,’ Ben was like, ‘No, I can’t jeopardize my family and this business.’” – Kayla Moore [15:15–16:24]
• Cleared: Provided an alibi, fully cooperated, and passed a polygraph test.

b. The Renick Family’s Troubled Past

• Father, Frank Renick, involved in alleged insurance fraud (1992 house explosion) and a $7 million Ponzi scheme.
  • "Frank tricked more than 250 people into investing...He had also lost his wife, Ben’s mother, three years before losing their father to suicide." – Morgan Absher [20:23–22:23]
• Motive for Revenge: Theory that victims of the father’s schemes may have lashed out at Ben.

c. Robbery or Snake Theft?

• Financial motive considered, as Ben’s rare snakes were worth millions, but crucially, no snakes or equipment were missing.
  • “If stealing high value snakes was the motive, one, they’re not gone, and two, they’re going down in value because they’re suffering.” – Morgan Absher [25:52]

4. Shifting Suspicion to Lindley Renick

a. Life Insurance & Financial Moves

• Ben’s million-dollar policy, with Lindley as sole beneficiary, raised eyebrows.
  • "Within days of Ben’s death, Lindley got ready to sell the Renick family property...And she also got in contact with other snake breeders to tell them that she’d be selling off Ben’s remaining snakes." – Morgan Absher [29:59–30:33]

b. Affairs & Deception

• Confessed to having two extramarital affairs, including a relationship via Ashley Madison.
  • “She admitted to an affair with someone who actually worked in marketing for her spa...her co-worker revealed Lynley wasn’t having just one affair, she was having two.” – Morgan Absher & Kayla Moore [31:29–33:28]
• Phone records revealed suspicious contact patterns, especially with ex-boyfriend Michael Humphrey right before Ben’s death.

c. Alibis and Polygraph

• Lindley failed a polygraph on the murder-related questions but maintained her innocence, pointing blame at others.
  • “They were like, when we asked you if you killed your husband—that’s the one you failed. And she just shrugs it off.” – Kayla Moore [36:16]

5. The Investigation Stalls

• Years pass with no charges. Lindley closes her spa, sells the family property (forcing Sam out), and pursues court battles over Ben’s assets and life insurance. She starts a new relationship, has a child, and custody of Ben’s children shifts to her family. [39:47–41:17]

6. Key Breakthrough: Jailhouse Informant

• In 2020, Lindley’s new partner Brandon Blackwell trades evidence for his freedom, alleging:
  • Lindley first tried to poison Ben with a smoothie laced with Percocet.
  • Detailed planning with help from friend Ashley Shaw and ex-boyfriend Michael Humphrey.
  • On the day of the murder, Lindley left her phone at her spa as an alibi, then lured Ben to the snakehouse and shot him with Michael present.
  • "As Ben was cleaning the snake habitats...Lindley grabbed the gun from Michael’s vehicle, walked in, and shot Ben eight times." – Morgan Absher [41:50–45:03]

7. Verification and Arrests

• Ashley Shaw, threatened with prison, cooperates in exchange for immunity: Confirms poisoning attempt and Lindley’s expressed motives (abuse allegations, fear of losing children).
  • "She was able to fill in a lot of gaps for the investigators...truth about the Percocet smoothie, claims of abuse, and attempted hiring of a hitman." – Morgan Absher [47:58–49:10]
• Michael Humphrey, confronted, ultimately leads investigators to the murder weapon, corroborating involvement. [52:22–53:05]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Ben was like an American Steve Irwin almost...bursting with enthusiasm for snakes.” – Kayla Moore [09:53]
• “You’re awful lucky, ma’am. You’re going to get out in your 40s. My 40s weren’t too bad. I just hope you don’t kill again.” – Judge Kevin Crane’s statement to Lindley at sentencing [56:40]
• “She gets out around 40...What’s to stop her kids from just giving it [the estate] to her? It’s a very complex situation.” – Morgan Absher [59:34]
• “I sit here deeply unsettled with the clues presented in front of me. It is...a very, very bizarre case.” – Morgan Absher [58:33–58:41]
• “At the end of the day, I can understand if listeners also don't appreciate the snake breeding thing...There's a lot of ethical concerns with the type of snake breeding he was doing.” – Kayla Moore [60:07]

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Timeline of Key Segments

• [00:35–01:59]: Introduction to Ben Renick, discovery of body, initial suspicions
• [06:05–09:03]: Discovering evidence, Ben’s background, rise in snake breeding
• [14:09–21:36]: Interviews, family financial history, and shifting suspicion
• [28:31–36:19]: Financial clues, Lindley’s actions after death, affairs revealed, investigation focus narrows
• [41:50–47:47]: Jailhouse informant, arrest of Lindley, Michael, and Ashley
• [49:20–53:05]: Trials, testimonies, role of witnesses
• [54:48–58:41]: Verdict, sentencing, reactions of hosts and judge
• [58:46–61:21]: Aftermath: custody, estate, ethical questions about breeding, lingering questions
• [61:42–62:58]: Missing person of the week

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The Verdict & Aftermath

• Michael Humphrey found guilty of first-degree murder (later reduced to second-degree in exchange for testimony).
• Lindley Renick was found guilty of second-degree murder and armed criminal action; sentenced to a total of 16 years, likely to serve only into her 40s.
• Lindley banned from Ben’s estate; assets redirected to Ben’s children, who were placed with Lindley’s family and have had no contact with the Renicks.
• The community, once supportive of Lindley, felt betrayed after her arrest.

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Ethical & Emotional Reflections

• The hosts repeatedly reflect on the emotional complexity: the impact of betrayal, aftermath for children, and the convoluted justice of such sentences.
  • “There’s a lot to feel very conflicted about...she murdered a person. She took her kid’s dad away from them. Like, there’s a lot going on.” – Kayla Moore [60:07]
• The episode closes with a note about ethical concerns in snake breeding, suggesting listeners check savethesnakes.org for conservation advocacy and resources.

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Audience Engagement

• The hosts invite listener feedback, emphasizing the conflicted legacy of the case and their unsettling feelings after reviewing all the clues.
• [61:05] – “Very complex case. And again, I sit here and I’m just like...I feel like a lot of us are going to be unsettled and confused...”
• Listeners are encouraged to share thoughts, theories, and participate in discussions on social media.

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Missing Person Highlight (Unrelated to Main Case)

Sebastian Wayne Drake Rogers

• 14-year-old missing from Hendersonville, TN, since Feb. 25–26, 2024.
• Details: Autism, vulnerable, left home with possibly only a yellow flashlight.
• Reward and contact info shared for leads. [61:42–62:58]

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Final Thoughts

Clues’ exploration of the Ben Renick case is riveting, highlighting forensic nuance, family drama, financial intrigue, and ethical ambiguity. Kaelyn and Morgan’s balanced analysis, critical questions, and engagement with listeners unpack not just how Ben’s killer was identified—but the enduring complexity left behind.

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Transcript

[Kayla Moore]

Hi, Crime House community. It's Kaylyn from clues and I've got some really exciting news for you all. CLUES has been nominated for a Webby Award for best crime and justice podcast episode. Now we really, really need your help to bring home the People's Voice award. Head to vote.webbyawards.com and cast your vote for clues. Voting is open now through April 16th. That's vote.webbyawards.Com thanks everyone.

[Morgan Absher]

Foreign. This is Crime House.

[Kayla Moore]

Ben Reddick spent his entire life handling exotic snakes and people warned him about how dangerous the creatures were.

[Morgan Absher]

So when Ben was found face down in a pool of his blood inside of the snakehouse, people obviously assumed it was a python that attacked him. Until they started looking at clues and determined that it was anything but a normal attack.

[Kayla Moore]

This case is full of money, it's full of secrets, it's full of betrayal. And today we're going to break down the clues that revealed what really happened inside of Renx reptiles.

[Morgan Absher]

Hi guys. Welcome back to clues, where we sneak past the crime scene tape to explore the key evidence behind some of the most gripping true crime cases.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm Kayla Moore and I'm going to be the one digging deeper into the time timelines, the backstories and the court files released for these cases.

[Morgan Absher]

And I'm your Internet sleuth, Morgan Absher. I'm the one who's diving into anything I can find online, looking for those lesser known details and pulling out the threads that just don't add up. Don't forget to share your thoughts on social want ad free listening and early access. Subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts and make sure to go back and listen to our previous episodes wherever you get your podcasts. Now let's get into Ben Renick's case and the clues that defined it.

[Kayla Moore]

Can I shout out a listener from one of our last videos that we put out? Of course. So we talked about the case of Susan Powell and in it I mentioned that I wasn't a huge fan of children being interviewed by police for crimes. And that comes from this article I was reading about this woman. It was from the perspective of a mother wrestling with the idea of do I allow my 10 year old to testify in this crime where something horrible happened? How much is this going to retraumatize him? And ultimately she decided to not let him testify and they didn't press charges against the person who did something, which is. I can't even imagine having to make that choice as a parent. But we got A really interesting comment from one of our listeners, Caitlyn. She said, I work in child welfare, and the kids were probably interviewed using techniques specific to interviewing children who have either been victims of abuse or neglect or have witnessed a crime. We have a child child advocacy center here, and there are protocols for forensic interviews that allow the child to be interviewed once in a very comfortable setting that is audio and video recorded and can be used in court. The police, district attorneys and other people, like victim witness coordinators, are in a separate room watching the interview and have the trained forensic interviewer ask all the questions they need. It's actually a great way for kids to be able to tell their stories while also giving tons of information. They never ask leading questions, and they let the kids say, set the pace. So I just thought that was so interesting.

[Morgan Absher]

I love getting comments like that. It just shows how cool our community is and how much knowledge there is. It's. It's kind of the whole reason we wanted that phone a scientist button. Yeah, Lawyer button. Because we're not lawyers, we're not psychologists. We only know what we know and the research we get into. So that's a really, really good comment. And just shows like, they do take a lot of necessary steps to protect the kids. And, you know, maybe to that little one, it's like I'm just getting babysat and having a good conversation in this odd living room with some toys that aren't mine.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Which is way better than some of the interrogations you see with adults.

[Morgan Absher]

The more, you know. Thank you, Caitlin, for commenting that. Love that.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Thank you for reaching out.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. There's gonna be a lot on today's case. I think we're gonna need some comments on.

[Kayla Moore]

Yes.

[Morgan Absher]

Because we're diving into the world of reptiles, which we have our lovely snake friend here on set today.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

But it is like this exotic world of, like, rare snakes and breeding for color and all of the chaos that ensued because of it, essentially.

[Kayla Moore]

Absolutely. So let's dive into it. And just a quick reminder, if you're watching this episode on YouTube, you're going to see some videos and pictures, things that help you visualize the case. And if you're listening on audio, you can check out our Instagram that's at Clues podcast, and you can see all those same pictures and videos.

[Morgan Absher]

And just a warning before we begin. This episode does contain talks of suicide and alleged sexual violence. And a warning to any of the Cluminati who have a fear of snakes. We're going to talk about them a lot. So please listen with care and snake

[Kayla Moore]

breeding in captivity, which I know some people are not fans of.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, yeah, it's, I mean it's a very interesting conversation that I think we're all going to learn a lot from.

[Kayla Moore]

This case starts on June 8, 2017 in Montgomery County, Missouri. At 6:36pm a 29 year old woman named Lynley Renick calls 911 and we're going to play a clip for you here.

[Morgan Absher]

911 with the address, the emergency. Husband's on the ground and there's blood everywhere. Okay, do you know what happened to him?

[Kayla Moore]

Okay, hold on just a second.

[Morgan Absher]

Mommy. By the sounds of the call, she sounds very distraught, very, very upset.

[Kayla Moore]

She says through tears, quote, my husband's on the ground and there's blood everywhere. Lindley tells the dispatcher that she did doesn't know what happened to him. Then she hands off the phone to her husband's older brother Sam. And he does seem to know because he says, quote, he got killed by a snake. He goes on to explain that the victim breeds and raises large snakes with some of them weighing up to £200. So when deputies arrive from Montgomery County Sheriff's department, they're on high alert.

[Morgan Absher]

High alert, you guys. Immediately you're going to see some videos of them walking in. They're going in armed with shotguns.

[Kayla Moore]

They think there's killer snakes in there or snakes that are loose, that are capable of killing people. So the investigators make their way into this huge warehouse like barn and there's rows and rows of caged live snakes. Hundreds of snakes in this room. There's no time to check each tub and figure out which of the snakes are missing. Somewhere in there, there is a man who needs medical attention. And finally they find him. See, towards the back of this massive building is a man who's lying face down in a pool of his own blood. And when they turn him over, the deputies find something completely unexpected. There's a shell casing that's wedged under his right armpit. Which means that the man, 29 year old Ben Renick, probably was not killed by a rogue python after all. By the time the EMTs realized that Ben had in fact been shot, coroner Dave Colbert was already on the property. And as Dave approached the body, he saw that there were these divot marks in the floor. There was also a gunshot wound in the victim's head. And there was another shell casing on a shelf above the body. Right away, no questions asked, he knows that this is a homicide. Ben had been Shot eight times, mostly from behind, with at least one of those being at close range. Meanwhile, Lynley and Sam stood outside watching in shock as law enforcement was processing the scene and as the two people who reported Ben's death. They were also the first people that police wanted to speak to, obviously. But before we get into how the investigation started unfolding, I want to take a step back and I want to talk a little bit more about Ben and who he was. Ben was born on August 4, 1987, and he grew up on his family's 72 acre property in rural New Florence, Missouri. Ben about an hour and 15 minutes northwest of St. Louis. About the time that Ben was born, the town's population was only around 800 people. It's a really, really small town. That's quaint, very quaint. And Ben kind of never left. From an early age, he loved searching the woods for snakes. He was always obsessed with snakes. And When Ben turned 7, his parents, Frank and Charlene, got him his very own pet snake. Frank owned a pet supply company called Spectrum Pet Foods, so he supported his son's love of pets, even the unusual ones. But as Ben got older, his love of snakes started turning into an obsession. Ben had a gift for understanding snake color genetics, which allowed him to breed snakes with these rare morphs, as they were called, or specific color pattern and variations.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, we went through his whole YouTube channel that's up, and I'm not a snake girl, but these were some beautiful colors. Really beautiful, really cool, like neon albinos, calico colors, like really cool patterns. So, yeah, we'll be sure to insert some clips of that for you guys.

[Kayla Moore]

By his teenage years, Ben had begun breeding these reticulated pythons that are the longest snakes in the world, as well as anacondas. He converted a barn on his dad's farm into a snakehouse, and he slowly started expanding his collection from there. And Frank kicked in some startup funds to help Ben with his snake breeding business. Because there's money to be made in this, and Ben snakes were already selling to collectors for some pretty high prices. In 2008, 21 year old Ben officially incorporated his company called Renick Reptiles. And within a few years, he was considered a rock star in the snake breeding world. His rare color snakes would sell online at auctions for up to $25,000.

[Morgan Absher]

That's one snake, you guys. $25,000, it's insane.

[Kayla Moore]

That's like 10 times what a designer dog costs.

[Morgan Absher]

I mean, that's a new car.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, Ben was like an American Steve Irwin almost. He was clean cut, he was bright eyed, he always dressed really nicely and he was bursting with enthusiasm for snakes. This was definitely his passion. But the success didn't necessarily go to his head. His snakes remained the most important thing in his life until 2011 when he reconnected with a former teenage acquaintance of his. And that was 23 year old massage therapist Lindley Gallatin. Ben fell hard and fast for Lindley. Within the first year of dating, he invited Lindley to move into his house on his family's proper. And by this time both Ben and his brother Sam lived in their own separate homes. There Lindley brought along her three year old son from a previous relationship. And over time, Ben became the little boy's father figure. That first taste of parenting really made him want to have more kids. So before their first anniversary as a couple, Lynley was pregnant and they had their daughter. In early 2012, after three years of dating, 27 year old Ben and 26 year old Lindley married in this small ceremony that they had in 2014 and and Lindley now co owned Ben's reptile business. And it was really highly profitable at this point. But the money wasn't necessarily easy. It was still hard.

[Morgan Absher]

It's a lot of work having all those snakes.

[Kayla Moore]

They had to maintain a really large snake collection to produce those rare snakes. And that occupied most of Ben's time. And Lindley was very happy to help out with all of this for Ben. But she also had ambitions of her own. She was an experienced massage therapist and she always wanted to run her own SPA. So in 2016, Lindley finally opened one in Columbia, Missouri. That's about 50 miles away from their home in New Florence. And in 2017 it really seemed like both of them were living their dreams. They both had made some headway in their careers. As Ben approached his 30th birthday, his snake collection was worth reportedly millions of dollars. And 29 year old Lindley also owned her own business. And their five year old daughter was becoming a snake lover just like her dad. They had this picture perfect family, but that is until June 8th when Ben was found dead in his facility.

[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

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[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

I mean he talks about how you can make your communication more impact full the importance of oral storytelling which is what we do for work every day.

[Kayla Moore]

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[Morgan Absher]

let's get back to the day after Ben's death. Sam and Lindley Renick were interviewed separately by investigators. And they both had their own ideas on who had killed Ben. Who would want him dead. Which brings us to our first clue. Their competing theories. 29 year old Lynley started by telling the police about her previous day. She claimed she worked a full day at her spa, leaving only to run a couple of small errands. But at around 5:45pm she got a call from her kids school saying that they hadn't been picked up yet. After getting the kids she went to the snake house to look for her husband Ben. They were supposed to have a date night, and they had already booked a babysitter, so it's weird that he's just not around. So she walks into the barn, and that's when she finds him on the floor. She first makes a panicked call to Ben's brother Sam, and then calls 911 at 6:36pm by this point, they've determined that Ben's time of death was around 3:45pm which, according to Lindley's timeline, puts her In Columbia, Missouri, 50 miles away from the barn when Ben's death occurred. But Lynley, she had an idea who might be responsible. She actually thought Ben's brother Sam was responsible. You see, Ben had actually inherited the entire family property after their dad's passing five years earlier in 2012. That was the same year that Lynley and Ben welcomed their daughter. But Sam got nothing completely left out of the will. Essentially, after the wedding, Ben and Lynley jointly owned all 72 acres. No mention of a prenup, while Sam and the kids remained tenants on the family farm. But the brothers themselves kind of had an idea why their dad would have left Sam out of the will. Ben's snake business brought in more than enough revenue to maintain the family property and pay all of the taxes on it. Sam worked at a rent to own business at the time, earning way less. So I think they assumed dad thought, hey, Ben will take care of Sam. He'll let him live on the farm. And so Lindley told detectives Sam and Ben had been fighting about the property in the weeks before the murder. It kind of all came to this boiling point. And she said, quote, sam kind of basically just went to Ben and he was like, you need to give me half of the property. Ben was like, no, I can't jeopardize my family and this business. So, you know, he just said a lot of really hurtful things to Ben, end quote. There was another reason for Sam to potentially be upset. Lindley said that Ben was planning to sell a part of the business, which meant that Sam was probably going to have to move. So wheels are turning for detectives. They're like, that could be a motive. Getting kicked out of your family home, no roof over your head. But if you're a detective too, are

[Kayla Moore]

you also like, oh, interesting that you thought that the brother might have killed your husband and your first phone call was to him. That to me, I would immediately start being like, what?

[Morgan Absher]

Immediately? And like, you're pointing the finger very quickly. Yeah, very quickly. You know, detectives, they were on it. They quickly jumped to speaking to Sam that very same day because Lindley's accusations raised their suspicion exponentially. However, when they met with Sam, they found him to be extremely cooperative. He was happy to take a gunshot residue test, which Lindley also voluntarily took. And while both tests came back negative, Sam offered up an alibi as well. However, that alibi has never been made public, but it was one that investigators were at least comfortable with. He also agreed to take a polygraph test. And as for the farm, yeah, Sam admitted that he was hurt by his father's will. But on the same hand, he understood why the decision was made. He said, quote, life's not fair. I can't afford the farm. That's an expensive place to live. And so the more that these detectives spoke to Sam, the more they realized that he really didn't have any real financial motive to kill Ben. It actually might have been more helpful for Ben to be alive and kind of look out for his brother and, hey, I'm selling the business, but you can still live here. And honestly, with Ben gone now, Lindley stood to inherit the family property, along with Ben's huge collection of valuable snakes, potentially worth millions. Not Sam. Sam was entitled to nothing. Sam had a theory of his own. In his interview, he said the murder might have been either a robbery gone wrong or an act of revenge against the family. Because as it turns out, their father, Frank Renick, had quite a few skeletons in his closet. So as the Missouri State Highway Patrol began their investigation, they found out some things about the Renick's dad that could not be overlooked. And it was not pretty. These revelations are clue number two for us today. The Renicks actually made local headlines back in September of 1992 when their home exploded. The blast was so violent, it actually sent their washer and dryer flying before it crashed into a neighbor's property. Nothing was left of the home, but basically the bare foundation and insulation which kept raining down from the sky for over an hour. Thankfully, the family of four five year old Ben, his older brother Sam, their parents Frank and Charlene, were in St. Louis, Missouri, that night, 75 miles away. Which was lucky, but maybe a little bit too lucky, investigators thought. When the fire marshals dug into the cause, they found that plugs had been removed from the family's gas line, which basically allowed all this petroleum to just seep out and ignite. The insurance company actually denied Frank the dad's claim, saying that, hey, insurance fraud, buddy. Not, not real.

[Kayla Moore]

Whoa.

[Morgan Absher]

No criminal charges. Were filed. But 20 years later, in 2012, Frank was accused of fraud again. On May 30, a grand jury indicted him on three counts of felony mail fraud for swindling investors out of more than $7 million.

[Kayla Moore]

That's a lot.

[Morgan Absher]

That's a huge amount of money. According to the Department of Justice, between 2006 and 2011, Frank tricked more than 250 people in into investing in his company, Spectrum Pet Foods. Frank had allegedly told people that the company was poised to go public, meaning its value would double and investors were guaranteed to profit. Prosecutors said that Frank had spent about 800,000 of his investors money on luxuries for himself, like a cruise.

[Kayla Moore]

I just always am so confused when people do that, how they think they're going to get away with it. Like if you're going $800,000 in the hole because you have to take a cruise, like just what do you think is gonna happen?

[Morgan Absher]

I do not know. Also telling your investors you're guaranteed a profit.

[Kayla Moore]

I know that's also no investments are guaranteed very Bernie Madoff. Like you can't lose money doing this.

[Morgan Absher]

Like, yeah, if an investment person tells you you're not gonna lose, Red flag. Yeah, they're, they're lying.

[Kayla Moore]

Makes me nervous.

[Morgan Absher]

It also turns out that Renick Reptiles also allegedly received $70,000 of this money. Although Ben was never accused of any wrongdoings. And who's to say he even knew where that investment from his father was coming from?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

But on June 4, 2012, 62 year old Frank was arrested. He faced up to 60 years in federal prison with a fine of up to 750,000 if convicted and a trigger warning here for suicide. Ben, who's 24 at this time, he. He's getting ready to celebrate his first Father's day on Sunday, June 17, when his dad Frank died by suicide. Sadly, Ben was the one to discover his father's body on the family farm. Frank was just really struggling at this time between these charges and this fraud. He had also lost his wife, Ben's mother, three years before losing their father to suicide, not long after the death of their mom. It must have been extremely hard for the two brothers.

[Kayla Moore]

I also wonder too, how much you feel guilty for the crimes of your father at that point.

[Morgan Absher]

Absolutely.

[Kayla Moore]

And people have probably lost everything.

[Morgan Absher]

Everything. And who's to say, you know, the very roof over your head, your, your family farm with your reptile business. What if that got seized? I mean you.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, because you got dirty money.

[Morgan Absher]

You got dirty money. Like you have no idea at that point in time, how it's all going to play out.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. The feds are gonna take your snakes. Maybe.

[Morgan Absher]

Maybe it's. I mean, it's a huge weight of unknown burden over your head.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

And both of these brothers had their own lives, their own families. In Sam's own words, quote, there's a lot of people that lost a lot of money, you know, due to my father.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Like, clearly is hanging over them.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. So this could be a huge motive. I mean, this. This made sense. And before ruling Frank's death as suicide, investigators did look into the possibility that he was actually murdered by one these alleged fraud victims. And we say alleged because obviously Frank did not live to see his criminal trial. However, a 2016 ruling found that Frank had misled investors. The state imposed about $109,000 in civil penalties. We don't know if the victims were ever paid back. But by the time of Ben's death, Sam believed there were people still angry enough to kill over it.

[Kayla Moore]

And obviously, killing Ben wouldn't bring back the money that Frank lost them. But still, the Renicks believed that Frank's victims might have resented Ben's success with Renick reptiles and thought, there's money there to be made. I lost everything. Like, maybe I can get in on some of that money. And the timing was pretty suspicious. In early 2017, a few months before the murder, Ben had agreed to sell the python breeding portion of his business to a professional hockey player named Robin Lehner for $1.2 million. The deal with Robin required Ben to continue caring for and breeding the collection himself. And in exchange, Robin would pay monthly boarding fees for the pythons. Ben's unique snake breeding talents were a huge part of the business's value. It's not really like someone could buy the business and continue it on themselves, because Ben was very uniquely skilled at doing this in a way that, like, no one else was. But because of that, Ben needed to be alive for the business to continue. So Robin needed Ben to be alive or else he would have wasted all of that money. So it didn't necessarily seem like Robin was a suspect. Plus, Ben had already received a substantial down payment when he died. The remaining amount was due to be paid in quarterly installments of $200,000. It was a very lucrative deal, and it got a lot of publicity amongst reptile hobbyists, which started sparking a different theory about a financial motive. Maybe it had nothing to do with Frank. Maybe it actually just had to do with Ben's seven figure snake collection. Ben owned some of the most in demand snakes in the world, including rare colored anacondas that were like we had talked about earlier, worth $25,000 each. Someone could have killed him because they wouldn't necessarily need him to continue breeding the snakes. You could just kill him, take the snakes and sell them for $25,000 a pop, and they would have access to the best specimens in the entire world. But at the time of his death, one thing that made it seem like that was less of the motive was there were no snakes missing from his collection. Can you imagine being the cop that has to go through every bucket and look at all the snakes and be like, my run roll call on all these nightmare snakes.

[Morgan Absher]

My literal worst nightmare. And none of them missing. But also with Ben's death, who's taking care of them? I know their condition immediately starts suffering. I mean, no one else has the knowledge base or the time to go in and feed these snakes, give them the little rats. It immediately becomes an issue that these snakes and their quality of life is like, immediately going down post murder. So if stealing high value snakes was the motive, one, they're not gone, and two, they're going down in value because they're suffering.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. If you wanted the snakes, if the point of the murder was the business you really like, I don't know, cut off the legs of the business of

[Morgan Absher]

like, yeah, you shot yourself in the foot completely.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. Also, all of the valuable equipment was still there. So it's not like people wanted to steal the equipment so they could start their own snake breeding business. So detectives ultimately ruled out robbery as a motive, Though revenge was very much still on the table. And the issue of money just kept coming up, including this whole other reveal about Ben's finances, which led the investigation in an entirely different direction.

[Morgan Absher]

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[Katie Ring]

Think about some of the cases that defined true crime in America. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey dahmer. The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart. The Karen retrial. Some crime cases are so shocking, they don't just make headlines. They forever change a country. I'm Katie Ring, Host of America's most impact infamous crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal Cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities. Unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night. And investigations that changed the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes, released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's most infamous crimes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[Morgan Absher]

As detectives started looking into Ben's finances, they learned that he had a million dollar life insurance policy. Huge motive right there.

[Kayla Moore]

Which also, I mean, that kind of feels low. If your business is worth so much money and you like, you are sole person that can keep it going. Like a million dollars. I mean, that he was worth a lot of money.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, I mean, worth a lot of money. And Lindley, his wife was the sole beneficiary, which is why this life insurance policy is our third clue. So detectives actually get the agent that sold Ben his policy on the phone. And get this. Just a day or two after Ben died, Lynley had gotten in touch with that agent. She wanted to learn when the policy would pay out.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. When I first read about that. Okay. Giving her the benefit of the doubt. You have a family to take care of. And now this person who's running an incredibly successful business and the business cannot continue anymore is gone. So you are, you. You do have to think about finances, like right away, think about finances the next day. I don't know.

[Morgan Absher]

Don't you have enough in your, like, your just checking account to get you by.

[Kayla Moore]

Write in the comments when you feel your husband died. At that point it starts being suspicious to look in on their life insurance policy.

[Morgan Absher]

I mean, if anything happened, I would be catatonic. And I know everyone grieves differently, everyone handles stress and all of these things differently, but next day you get that agent on, you got him on speed dial.

[Kayla Moore]

I'm curious what people think about it.

[Morgan Absher]

And Lynley at this point is she's making other financial moves too. This isn't just it. Within days of Ben's death, Lindley got ready to sell the Renick family property, which she now fully owned.

[Kayla Moore]

That's when it starts getting a little bit more suspicious.

[Morgan Absher]

She also got in contact with other snake breeders to tell them that she'd be selling off Ben's remaining snakes. And I get this. You know, they needed specialized Care. Their cages required constant cleaning. Some of the snakes were the only ones in the world with their particular color. Genetics. Again, rare, valuable snakes.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, you have to get the snakes to someone who can take care of them immediately.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

Asap.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. She begins immediately starting to pass off some of these snakes, especially the rare ones that, you know, if never bred, the genetics would just be gone at this point. So one of the people she started passing off snakes to was Megyn Kelly. And the amount that she sold or, you know, agreed upon to hand over those snakes has never been revealed. But they are some of the most valuable snakes on earth.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

Is what our research tells us. And detectives, at this point, they're curious why she was doing all of this. I mean, it's a lot of logistical and financial rearranging so soon after Ben's murder. And there was a lot still up in the air. I mean, we've got a professional hockey player, Renner, that came in and is making payments to buy a portion of this business and some of the snakes. So how do you kind of account for that?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah, he owns part of the collection.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. So there's a lot of pieces here. And Renner's going to come back up again for us a little later. But in our timeline, like, Lindley doesn't care. So 11 days after Ben's death, on June 19, they bring Lynley in for another interview. And it's in this interview that she makes a shocking confession. Detectives start probing because thanks to an investigation into Ben's Facebook messages, they learned that Ben had been suspecting Lynley of cheating, which is our fourth clue. Lindley's extramarital affairs. Detectives assumed Lindley would deny it, but they hoped the accusation would at least rattle her enough to reveal something. Much to their surprise, though, she admitted to an affair with someone who actually worked in marketing for her spa. She said that she began the fair the year before in 2016. It was purely sexual. She admitted to seeing the guy for sex once or twice a month for about a year. But Lynley said that her infidelity had nothing to do with Ben's death. Instead, she continued to place blame on Ben's brother Sam. And at this point, she didn't know that police had already cleared Sam of any suspicion. And Lynley's admission of an affair also made her co worker a suspect. He did have a rock solid alibi, though. But police started looking at everyone at her spa. Who else could Lynley have talked to? Who else might know something? And so they started Looking at a friend and employee named Ashley Shaw. Ashley knew everything about Linlee's personal life. And in her first interview with detectives, she revealed Lynley wasn't having just one affair, she was having two. And the second affair started just a few days before Ben's murder. According to Ashley, Lindley met a man named Brandon Blackwell through a dating site, Ashley Madison, which is a site that's kind of targeted towards married people seeking affairs.

[Kayla Moore]

Do you remember those billboards being up? Like, don't you think you're it's time to have an affair in like 2008.

[Morgan Absher]

Turns out Brandon also married, so hence why he used the site. And he had two kids as well. Earlier in the week of Ben's murder, Lindley and Brandon had hooked up for the first time. Police checked her co worker's story against phone records. They did confirm that Lindley was in contact with Brandon. And when police tracked him down, he also had a solid alibi. Brandon was out as a suspect. But Lindley's phone records brought another name into the conversation. In the days leading up to Ben's murder. And on the day Ben died, Lindley had texted someone in her phone named Mike H. After Ben's death, those text messages just stopped. Investigators thought that was a little suspicious. And Lindley, having already admitted two affairs, they kind of expected this to be a third. When police asked her about Mike H. She said that he was the son of a regular client who now came to the spa himself. But after pressing her further, she admitted he was actually an ex boyfriend, a 33 year old guy named Michael Humphrey. Lindley said that they had started dating back in 2009, and in between splitting up with her son's biological father and meeting Ben, they broke up in the fall of 2010. By that point, they were both struggling with addiction to prescription painkillers. And she kind of blamed Michael for that addiction that she had. But after the breakup, Lynley said she quit cold turkey and hadn't struggled with substance use disorder since. Michael, however, did have a criminal record for a drug offense, which supported at least part of the story that Lynley was sharing with investigators. So investigators track him down to his home. He insisted that he knew nothing about the murder. He said that he had only briefly talked to Lynley because she needed a car stereo installed. But this car stereo story didn't really explain why they talked regularly for weeks before the murder and then just stopped the day Ben died. Like why? Yeah, you have this relationship, your friends, air quotes, like you have something going on where she'd ask you at least to help with a car stereo. But then day he dies, just stop. Yeah.

[Kayla Moore]

The timing is so suspicious.

[Morgan Absher]

Very, very suspicious.

[Kayla Moore]

And that's why just two weeks into the investigation, Lindley had become the primary suspect. But investigators knew that they had to keep that to themselves. They had nowhere near enough information to actually get an arrest warrant. And they couldn't be too aggressive because they thought that she would stop cooperating with them. And at this point, she'd been pretty cooperative. She like gets the gunshot residue test, multiple interviews. Exactly, exactly.

[Morgan Absher]

She's like willing to talk, she's singing like a canary.

[Kayla Moore]

But as the weeks ticked by, she does start distancing herself from the investigation. And according to Sam, at this point, Lindley closed her spa, she packed up her kids, and she cut off all contact with the Renick family. Lindley did show up for voluntary interviews with the police and she was questioned a total of six times. Meanwhile, she kept trying to sell the Renick family property and Sam, who was still living there, ended up suing her in order to stop her. And during this time too, the remainder of Lindley's inheritance from Ben gets tied up in court. And a court appointed administrator was put in place to represent Ben's interests during the lengthy process of settling his estate, which was very complicated, as we know. Until the probate process was complete, Lindley would have to apply to the court for allowances from the estate if she needed part of the money for her own living expenses. And it's not clear if she would even be able to access any profits from the farm when it sold, because that was also a part of Ben's estate. But she pressed forward with her attempts to sell it anyway, even though the farm had been in the Renick family for about 40 years. And selling it meant evicting her own daughter's young cousins. As for the police, they only grew more and more suspicious of her as they were watching this entire process unfolding. Mind you, the home is still an active crime scene. So if she was worried about figuring out who killed her husband, you would think she would also want to maintain this active crime scene. And yet she's trying to sell the property as fast as she can. There wasn't much police could do, though, about their suspicions at the time. They didn't have a murder weapon, they didn't really have any forensic evidence, and they did not have any witnesses to the crime. Someone was going to have to either slip up or confess, which is why on October 5, 2017, investigators had Lindley come in for a polygraph test. They hoped that the pressure would get her to confess to what she had done, but it didn't really work. She continued to maintain her innocence the entire time. And when she was asked, did you shoot that man? Lindley answered, no. But the polygraph said that she was lying. Though Lindley shrugged it off, police did confront her and basically tell her, you failed one question in the polygraph. Guess which one it was. She's like, I don't know which one. And they were like, when we asked you if you killed your husband, that's the one you failed. And she just shrugs it off. She says, quote, I can't explain why I just failed that, but I didn't kill Ben. So, yeah, she fails her polygraph. But, detectives, their plan fails, too. There was no confession, and even with that, the case remained open. But after October 2017, which was five months after the murder, there was not really any progress in the case for a long time. Lindley started a relationship with Brandon Blackwell, the guy that she met on Ashley Madison right before Ben's murder. What about his wife, Brandon? While he left his wife for her in early 2018, they found out that they were expecting a child. Meanwhile, Lindley sold the renick Farm for $740,000, kicking Sam and his family out. His attempt to stop the sale in court failed, and he ended up settling with Lindley for just $18,000, not enough to buy a new home. But that wasn't the only court battle over Ben's assets. Renick Reptiles ended up in litigation over the incomplete sale to the hockey player Robin Leonard. And after the murder, Robin stopped paying. There was no more business to handle.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. Ben's gone.

[Kayla Moore]

Like, yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

Why make payments still?

[Kayla Moore]

Well, you would think Renick Reptiles sued him to complete the purchase, even though part of the fine print was that Ben had to be alive and taking care of the business while Robin was.

[Morgan Absher]

I want to pay a monthly boarding fee.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And so Robin basically countersued. He claimed that Ben's murder had thrown the whole snake breeding operation into chaos.

[Morgan Absher]

I mean, Lindley had been giving snakes away, selling them, but we don't know the amount exactly.

[Kayla Moore]

Without Ben present, Robin's lawyers argued that the snakes were breeding uncontrollably, which devalued the collection, because it's not like the. The curation of the snakes and, like, the. The special colors and stuff that, like, Ben was known for. They were just completely being bred without any rhyme or reason. And that was going to cost Robin millions to maintain Both lawsuits were eventually settled out of court. Meanwhile, In February of 2018, Lindley submitted a claim to the estate. She wanted $15,000 as a homestead allowance, meaning money for a place to live, and $4,025 a month for a family allowance, which would cover her living expenses. Her request would have to be reviewed by a court, which, you know, that can take years. Plus, Lindley hadn't gotten the life insurance money either, since the murder investigation was still open. But that wasn't the only thing that was going sideways for Lynley at this time. Her relationship with Brandon really started falling apart in May of 2019. And Brandon, after that, was forced to pay 760amonth in child support. And according to Lindley, that's when Brandon started threatening her. So she goes back to court. She takes out a protective order against Brandon to make sure that nothing bad could happen. But Lindley claims that after that, even with this protective order, Brandon kept stalking her. So she contacted the police, and Brandon ended up going to jail because of that. He was slapped with five counts of violating the order and two counts of stalking. And so that's where Brandon was in January of 2020, when his father called the police and told them that Brandon was ready to talk about the murder of Ben Renick.

[Morgan Absher]

Finally, when investigators spoke to Brandon on January 14, 2020, it was clear exactly what he wanted. His freedom in exchange for information. Simple. Brandon opened the conversation by saying, quote, my main concern is getting out of that cell. So Brandon told the investigators his story, and that story is our fifth clue. Brandon claimed that when law enforcement spoke to him back in 2017, he didn't really know anything about Ben's murder. But as his relationship with Lindley progressed, she started to reveal what actually happened to her husband. Lindley said leading up to the murder that Ben was planning to leave her because her spa was losing a lot of money and forcing the snake breeding profits to cover her losses. And if the couple divorced, Linley believed that Ben would hire a lawyer and get full custody of both of her children. And she suspected that he might even weaponize her history of substance use to get that custody. So according to Brandon, Lindley told him that she struck first in May 2017 with the help of that friend from the spa, Ashley Shaw. She allegedly served Ben a smoothie that was laced with, quote, an enormous amount of narcotics. Ben got sick, but he didn't die. It's unclear when that was, but after that, Lindley and Ashley moved on to plan B. Lindley's ex, Michael Humphrey, at Some point, Brandon said that they went to Jefferson City, Missouri, found him at his home, and apparently they had both convinced Michael to help them kill Ben. They picked a date for the murder. June 8, 2017. Lynley planned a date with Ben for the night so he wouldn't get suspicious. That afternoon, she met up with Michael at the spa. Both Lynley and Michael left their cell phones there with her co worker, Ashley. Their cell activity and location histories gave them both alibis and made them look like they were there in Columbia, miles away at the time of the murder. And then Lindley and Michael drove over to the farm to meet Ben that afternoon. But at the last minute, allegedly, Michael backed out. He thought Lynley might regret it later, and he didn't want to be blamed for anything. So according to Brandon, Lynlee decided to do it herself, with Michael there for support. So as Ben was cleaning the snake habitats along the back wall of the building, Lindley grabbed the gun from Michael's vehicle, walked in, and shot Ben eight times. Michael picked up all the shell casings that he could see, but clearly missed the ones that the EMT and coroner found. Michael then drove Lynley back to the spa, where she showered, changed into clean clothes, and bagged her old ones for Michael to then destroy. After that, Lindley went home and discovered Ben's body. She then placed that 911 call at 6:36pm but this is all coming again from Brandon Blackwell. This is just his side of the story. And Lindley disputed all of this. She claimed that he made it all up just to get out of jail. So now investigators are sitting here questioning who's telling us the truth.

[Kayla Moore]

And I will add here, too, that the detectives did have reason to be cautious about Brandon's information. Informants who are incarcerated and expect to receive leniency or other benefits in exchange for their testimony, which they're known as jailhouse informants, frequently do give false information. And according to the Innocence Project, nearly one in five DNA exoneration cases involve a jailhouse informant who contributed to the wrongful prosecution.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, so investigators know they kind of have to take all of this with a grain of salt. There's a lot more digging to do, especially when they look at the reason why Brandon is in that cell. Yeah, for violating a protection order. So clearly, he can't be trusted.

[Kayla Moore]

Totally.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, exactly. So investigators go back to their case files. They're hoping to just find something to verify Brandon's story. Which brings us to. To clue number six. Investigators read all the way back Through Ben's Facebook messages and something that kind of seemed mundane before starts to jump out at them. Lindley and Ben had a message exchange about a protein shake on May 23, 2017. Ben said it made him feel extremely sick. And a little over two weeks later, he was found dead. And that little hint wasn't the only, the only thing they find buried in Ben's Facebook messages. There were also conversations about the spa struggling financially, putting a strain on their marriage. Shortly before the murder, Ben found out Lynley owed back rent for the spa. And in these messages, it kind of sounded like he was running out of patience with her business failures. One message from Ben to Lindley read, quote, no more lying, no more keeping things from me, no more not paying people and thinking it's okay to pay. Later, investigators found that Lindley was behind on basically all of her bills and frequently was overdrafting the spas account. Basically these messages confirmed a lot of key elements of Brandon's statement. Lindley was losing money, it caused conflict in her marriage, and she gave Ben a smoothie that made him sick just before he died.

[Kayla Moore]

From that point on, investigators moved pretty quickly. On January 16th, two days after Brandon's jailhouse interview, 31 year old Lindley was finally arrested for murder. 35 year old Michael Humphrey was arrested separately on January 16th. But there was still one more suspect. Ashley Shaw, Lindley's co worker, who Brandon claimed was in on the poisoning and also in on the shooting. The investigators had a different plan for her though. They presented her with a choice. She was either team Missouri or team Lindley. You're basically on the side of the truth or you're on the side of your friend. And which, which side are you going to take?

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah. If you don't get on the state side, you're going to jail.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And so she picked team Missouri. She did not want to go to jail for this. And in exchange for immunity, she told the detectives everything she knew.

[Morgan Absher]

She was able to fill in a lot of gaps for the investigators. Which brings us to our seventh clue. Ashley's side of the story. She revealed the key ingredient in that toxic smoothie. Yes, that was true. About 15 Percocet pills, which she ground up at Lynley's request. And upon hearing this, investigators are like, why, why, why would you get involved? Why would you help? Why would you, why would you be the one to grind the pills? And this is where Ashley says that Lynley claimed Ben was sexually abusing her. Lindley told Ashley that leaving him wouldn't solve the problem because he would take her kids and keep them from her. So he had to die. And Michael did later confirm that Lynley also told him that Ben was abusive. There were also some Facebook messages between Ben and Lindley where Lindley had confronted him directly about allegedly abusing her while she was asleep. So after that smoothie didn't work out, Ashley agreed to help Lindley with her second plan. Lindley said that she would look into hiring a hitman, but apparently she couldn't afford the prices charged by the, quote, Mexican mafia. And that is when they got Michael involved. And now investigators are hearing all this, and to them, it is clear who their star witness is going to be. And they were ready to move forward.

[Kayla Moore]

As word spread about Lindley's arrest, there was a lot of outrage in the snake lover community. Fellow breeders had rallied around Lindley and her children after Ben's death. They raised $40,000 for her.

[Morgan Absher]

It's a lot of money.

[Kayla Moore]

And now Ben's fans were realizing that they may have sent their money to ultimately his killer. Ben's friends and fans would have to wait a while for justice, though, because first Michael Humphrey had to go to trial. And also there was a global pandemic, because that was around the time that Covid happened. On February 19, 2020, Michael was officially charged with one count of first degree murder and one count of armed criminal action. And a few weeks later, Covid happened and it shut down the courts. Jury selection for Michael's trial officially began, get this, on October 14, 2021. That was more than four years after Ben's murder and over a year and a half after everything got started for his trial. And the trial started just four days later on October 18, Michael's defense attorneys pointed the finger at Lindley. They said Michael actually had no idea that she was planning on killing Ben and that he was just looking to help an ex out of her. An abusive partnership. According to Michael's lawyers, Michael was so convinced by Lindley's claims that he gave her a gun, which he delivered to the spa in case she needed it for self defense. When Michael went to the farm with Lindley, his lawyer said that he thought they were there to pick up her kids and to tell Ben that she was leaving him. But Lindley instead whipped out the gun and shot Ben. Michael was so shocked by this, he ran out of the door. And meanwhile, the prosecution leaned heavily on Brandon Blackwell's statement that Michael had agreed, agreed to help kill Ben, but backed out on the day of the murder, which Forced Lindley to shoot him herself. Under Missouri law, helping someone commit murder will get you charged with murder, even if you don't do the killing yourself. So if the jury believed the prosecution's version of events, Michael would be found guilty even if Lindley was the one that pulled the trigger. Both the prosecution and the defense rested their cases after just two days. That was on October 20, 2021. And a few hours later, kind of because of everything I just said. But the jury delivered a guilty verdict. Even if it wasn't him pulling the trigger, he was guilty of murder. It's the law in Missouri. A first degree murder conviction means an automatic sentence of either capital punishment or life without parole. But Michael's sentencing didn't happen right away because prosecutors had another idea. After Michael's first degree murder conviction, prosecutors saw an opportunity to shore up their case for Lindley's trial. They were never going to offer Michael immunity, but they wanted his testimony against Lindley. So they make him this offer. They say if you cooperate in Lindley's case, they could use their special post conviction, pre sentencing legal maneuver to reduce his conviction to second degree murder. He was basically going to go to prison no matter what. But a second degree conviction at least gave him a shot at parole, so maybe he could get out in his life time.

[Morgan Absher]

Before finalizing this deal, though, the prosecution wanted Michael to prove that he could provide more than just the story that his lawyers told at his trial. They wanted new evidence. They wanted something substantial, and he delivered. Which also gives us our eighth and final clue. On October 29, 2021, law enforcement announced that Michael had led them to the murder weapon. It was actually hidden in his ex girlfriend's mother's attic the whole time. And he procured it just in time for Lynley's trial. And upon evaluation, it was indeed a match for the shell casings found at the scene.

[Kayla Moore]

Lindley's trial began on December 6, 2021. She was charged with one count of first degree murder and one count of armed criminal action. The prosecution's two star witnesses, Ashley Michael, both testified on the first day of the trial, and a few new details came to light. First, Michael changed his story about the day of the murder, saying that Lindley did initially ask him to kill Ben, but he refused. Michael also testified that on the day of the murder, he offered Lindley methamphetamine to get her amped up for the confrontation. And the rest of the story, besides those two details, was pretty much the same. Another employee, Rachel Hunt, testified that she found out about the plan on the day of the murder, June 8, 2017. And according to Rachel, she and Lindley talked during their smoke breaks about ways to kill Ben. This didn't bother Rachel because she did also believe that Ben was sexually assaulting Lindley. The witnesses were strong, but to get a first degree murder conviction, the state needed to prove not only that Lindley pulled the trigger, but that it was premeditated. So they leaned really heavily in on her text messages. They revealed to the jury that Lindley sent nude photos of herself to Ben hours before the murder. They argued that she was trying to set up Ben to be killed by convincing him that they were about to have a sexy date night. And in the hours leading up to the murder, Lynley also texted Ben to say she loved him and then switched to her conversation with Michael to ask if he was on his way yet. And then after the murder, while the coroner examined Ben's body, Lindley flirted with one of her affair partners via text. They also showed evidence that Lindley was the sole beneficiary on Ben's million dollar life insurance policy and that she expected to make money from his snake operation, proving that she did have motive.

[Morgan Absher]

On December 7, 2021, the defense tried to convince the jury that it was Michael that pulled the trigger and Lindley knew nothing about his intentions until after he shot Ben. According to the defense, Lindley didn't even know that Michael brought a gun to the snakehouse until they were actually inside of it. And when he revealed the weapon and pointed it at Ben, Lynley said she ran away. Both her father and best friend took the stand to say that Lindley had never been violent, had very little experience with guns, and was genuinely distraught after Ben's murder. According to their testimony, Lindley was so grief stricken she had to be hospitalized for dehydration. She couldn't bring herself to eat or drink anything afterwards. Still, the defense admitted that Lynley was present during the murder and at the very least knew Ben might have been shot. On the third day of the trial, December 8, Lynley took the stand in her own defense and testified for hours. She admitted that she had spent years lying to everyone in her life about what happened that day. She even offered a tearful apology to Sam Renick from the stand, but she insisted that this time she was actually telling the truth. She just wanted a divorce. Michael made his own decision to kill Ben that day. After 12 hours of deliberations, the jury found Lynley guilty, but not of first degree murder. Of second. In other words, they thought that she killed Ben, but they weren't convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the murder was premeditated. The jury also returned a guilty verdict on the other charge, armed criminal action. They recommended a 13 year sentence for second degree murder and three years for the armed criminal action charge, a much lighter sentence than Michael got. He would actually still be serving life in prison with the possibility of parole. And Lindley was so thankful to the jury that she actually mouthed a thank you several times from her spot. At the defense table, Judge Kevin Crane visibly struggled to hold back his anger at the jury's recommendation of a light sentence, saying, quote, you're awful lucky, ma'. Am. You're going to get out in your 40s. And my 40s weren't too bad. I just hope you don't kill again, which I don't know if anyone else is sitting out there feeling deeply unsettled by all of that, but such a light sentence, I mean, it's just. To me, it's so confusing because I look at, you know, all the clues we have, all the holes in this case, all of the motive, and to be like, I didn't know my random ex boyfriend who I just started getting in contact with would kill my husband.

[Kayla Moore]

Right, Right.

[Morgan Absher]

I had no idea that I got in the car with him and a gun, going to the farm. And, oh, yeah, I kind of knew he got shot, but I didn't call for help for 911. I went to him, and then I

[Kayla Moore]

misled the investigation and actually started accusing his body brother who had nothing to

[Morgan Absher]

do with anything to get an innocent person potentially involved.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

And I know she didn't have gunshot residue on her hand, but quick Google search will tell you there are ways to get that off. And she had hours. She went back to her spa. What kind of chemicals do you have at your spa?

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah.

[Morgan Absher]

What kind of acids for treatments or things do you have that could have cleaned your hands of gunshot residue?

[Kayla Moore]

It seemed like she had an exact game plan of what she wanted to do afterwards with the. What to do with the snakes, what to do with the estate, how to get in touch on the life insurance.

[Morgan Absher]

And it wasn't premeditated yet. She tried to kill him with a 15 percocet pill smoothie.

[Kayla Moore]

Yeah. And then there's a smooth. Actually, that's like how everything we said, I think it's. It's weird to say, like, yeah, I had tried to kill him two weeks

[Morgan Absher]

prior, but I didn't kill him that day.

[Kayla Moore]

But I. Yeah, I was like someone else that day. That is very strange.

[Morgan Absher]

I'm very confused. I sit here deeply unsettled with the clues presented in front of me. It is.

[Kayla Moore]

It's a very, very bizarre case.

[Morgan Absher]

I need to know everyone's thoughts, comments. But let's get into some of the loose ends here.

[Kayla Moore]

So, in 2022, Lindley was actually officially banned by a judge from collecting on Ben's estate. Any remaining proceeds went directly to his children. According to Ben's brother Sam, via Facebook, Ben's daughter and stepson have had no contact with the Renick family since Ben's 2017 funeral.

[Morgan Absher]

No contact.

[Kayla Moore]

And they're living instead in Jefferson City, Missouri, with Lindley's sister.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, I believe she actually transferred custody to her sister before the trial. I mean, I've seen a clip from Ben's brother Sam, and he's beyond devastated that he doesn't get to know his niece and nephew.

[Kayla Moore]

And, well, he's already lost his parents, he lost his brother, and then his home. His home. And then he loses his brother's kids as well. Yeah, you've lost your whole family.

[Morgan Absher]

Well, and like the judge said, she gets out around 40. She even gets credit for time served against that, you know, that sentence she has. And so looking at who's gonna manage the kids access, it's. Is she truly banned from accessing that money? What's to stop her kids from just giving it to her? I mean, it's. It's a very complex situation, and I'm sure there's safeguards in place, but are they actually gonna be enforced? I mean, we. We see how the system can not work as it is intended sometimes.

[Kayla Moore]

No, absolutely. I think at the end of the day with this case, there's a lot to feel very conflicted about. There's a lot of very complicated ethical things happening. Whether, you know, Lynley was making accusations against Ben. He was not alive to ever be charged with anything. Lindley also did stuff that, you know, she murdered a person. She took her kid's dad away from them. Like, there's a lot going on. And, like, at the end of the day, I can understand if listeners also don't appreciate the snake breeding thing that he was doing too. There's a lot of, like, ethical concerns with the type of snake breeding he was doing. When we talk about activism at the end of our cases, you know, we'll talk about different organizations that are related to crime, but we wanted to highlight actually the snakes in all of this that you can, if you really care about snakes and care about snake rescue. You can check out savethesnakes.org and they are advocates for snake preservation and they're doing a lot of good work. And so that would be the, the thing that I want to highlight at the end of all this.

[Morgan Absher]

Yeah, absolutely. Very complex case. And again, I sit here and I'm just like, I'm on, I, I feel like a lot of us are going to be unsettled and confused and how should we feel? And so yeah, I feel like the

[Kayla Moore]

snakes deserve justice at the end of the day and deserve to be protected,

[Morgan Absher]

deserves just health, happiness, quality of life, not to necessarily be exploited. And you know, there, there's a comparisons from this type of breeding to puppy mills and it's, I don't know, it's very, it's complex. It's very, very complex. But on that note, let's move on to our Missing Person of the week.

[Kayla Moore]

This week we're highlighting the case of 14 year old Sebastian Wayne Drake Rogers, who vanished from his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee during the night on February 25th or 26th, 2024. The day before his disappearance, Sebastian spent time with his mother, Katie Proudfoot. The two went shopping at a department store, played video games at a bowling alley and had din before returning home. They said good night sometime between 9 and 10pm and later that evening, Katie heard a loud bang from Sebastian's room shortly before 10pm when she asked if he was okay, he responded that he was and Katie then spoke on the phone with her husband who was out of town for work for nearly two hours before going to sleep. At midnight the next morning, Katie went to wake Sebastian for school but discovered that he was missing. She searched the neighborhood and drove to his nearby school before returning home and her husband contacted emergency services to report him missing. Investigators have found no signs of forced entry and Sebastian appeared to have left without clothes, shoes, money or his cell phone, which was still on the dining room table. The only item possibly missing was a small yellow flashlight. Despite extensive searches and tips, Sebastian has never been found. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to his whereabouts. Sebastian was wearing a black sweatshirt, black sweatpants, black square framed glasses.

[Morgan Absher]

Sebastian was 5ft 5 inches tall, around 110 to 115 pounds when he was last seen. He has brown hair and eyes that look hazel or brown. Sebastian has medical conditions including autism that may impair his ability to return safely without assistance. If you have any information concerning the whereabouts of Sebastian Rogers, please contact the Sumner County Sheriff's office at 615-451-3838 or the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation at 1-800-TBIFIND or you can email at tipstotbitn.gov all of those will be in the episode

[Kayla Moore]

description and that's all we have for you guys today. Now we turn it over to you. All your thoughts, feedback, theories, anything you have on this case. We're so interested in hearing it. We read through a lot of the comments. So now it's time for the community to chime in.

[Morgan Absher]

And and as always at Crime House, we really value your support. So please again share your thoughts on social media and remember to rate, review and follow, subscribe to Clues to help others discover our show. That's all we got. Until next time.

[Kayla Moore]

Thanks guys. Bye.

[Katie Ring]

Some crimes are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week, I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history. Serial killers who terrorize cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that change the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.