MYSTERIOUS DEATHS OF: Steven Altman & Mary Ann Hayes

Summary

Crime Junkie Podcast Summary

Episode: MYSTERIOUS DEATHS OF: Steven Altman & Mary Ann Hayes
Date: February 26, 2026
Host(s): Ashley Flowers and Britt Prawat
Podcast: Crime Junkie

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Overview

This episode explores the mysterious deaths of Steven Altman and his mother, Mary Ann Hayes, initially ruled suicides over a decade apart. The episode follows Robyn Altman—daughter and sister of the deceased—as she unearths deeply troubling inconsistencies and uncovers evidence that both deaths may have been murders staged as suicides. Through first-hand accounts, police records, expert reviews, and advocacy, the hosts delve into Robyn's journey for truth and justice, highlighting systemic failures and the challenges of confronting “hidden homicides.”

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

A Family Tragedy Raises Red Flags

• Robyn Altman's suspicions: Robyn never believed the circumstances of her brother Steven's (1984, age 21) or her mother Mary Ann's (1996) deaths were suicides, despite police rulings.
• Inciting incident: While recovering from surgery in 2013, Robyn starts digging into family history and connects with Rachel Kunin, a friend of Steven’s who also found the deaths suspicious.
  • [03:59] Ashley: “Rachel responds pretty quickly… She put his name on her [family] tree because she wanted to make sure there was some kind of record of him online.”

Steven’s Death: Unanswered Questions

• Timeline & Behavior: Steven was last seen by friends, appearing upbeat and planning to return to them after an “errand for his stepdad, Don.” He never returned and was found the next morning, hanging at Don’s workshop.
  • [06:14] Ashley: “He’s giving every indication… that he wasn’t planning to kill himself. He was planning on coming back.”
• Lack of Police Investigation: Robyn learns, via a Freedom of Information Act request, that Chicago PD has no records or reports on Steven’s case; only Don was interviewed.
  • [07:59] Ashley: “They talked to Don… but it seems like that is the only person police talked to… No documents. Right, but even suicides, though, should have some sort of record.”
  • [07:54] Britt: “And they basically ruled it a suicide without talking to anyone in the family. That’s weird, right?”
• Possible Motive: Later, evidence surfaces linking Steven’s behavior prior to death (cocaine, possible forgeries) to Don’s business, but it remains unclear.

Mary Ann’s Death: Contradictory Evidence

• Discovery & Scene: Don finds Mary Ann in their home, dead with an extension cord wrapped around her neck; she is in her underwear and shirt, with fingernail clippings scattered and a broken, bloody nail.
  • [10:15] Britt: “That doesn’t read suicide to me.”
• Forensic “Red Flags”:
  • Extension cord was not attached to anything, suggesting possible manual strangulation.
  • Vaginal swabs revealed an unknown male DNA profile; fingernail evidence contained DNA, but there was not enough to profile.
  • [12:32] Ashley: “She told [police] in no uncertain terms that her mother was not suicidal.”
  • Mary Ann’s wrists were recently shattered—making self-strangulation nearly impossible.
• Narrative Manipulation: Police reports on interviews with Robyn include false statements or things taken out of context, notably exaggerating Mary Ann’s mental health struggles and suicidal intent.
  • [13:57] Britt: “It feels to me like police were just cherry picking facts from interviews to fit their narrative…”
  • [14:17] Ashley: “Not exactly. There was someone pushing a suicide narrative, and that was Don.”

Investigation (and Missteps) Revealed

• Police Failures:
  • Testing on collected evidence is never completed; Don’s statements heavily shape both the divorce and suicide narrative despite evidence to the contrary.
  • [17:32] Ashley: “Oh, it was in there. But officers framed that as just another bad thing in Mary Ann’s life that could have contributed to her suicide…”
• Reopening the Case (2018): Robyn persuades Northfield PD to reexamine evidence. DNA found under Mary Ann’s fingernail can’t be profiled due to insufficient sample. Unknown male DNA is present in the original and current testing.
• Suspect Interview: Police interview an unnamed individual (name redacted), who ultimately refuses to provide DNA after consulting an attorney. No further suspect or evidence pursued.
  • [19:47] Britt: “Does Robyn know who it is?”
  • [19:49] Ashley: “She believes she knows who it is… it’s not proof. It’s just her opinion.”
• Police Inaction: At the sign of resistance, case is again closed.
  • [20:35] Britt: “So are subpoenas not a thing anymore? Like, what are we doing here?”

Advocacy and Expert Testimony

• Alliance for Hope International: Robyn hires this organization, which brings in expert forensic pathologists to review evidence.
  • [21:47] Quote – Dr. Megan Quinn: “The cause of this woman’s death is ligature strangulation, and the manner of death is homicide.”
• Dr. William Smock (forensic pathologist):
  • Highlights that self-strangulation is “extremely rare,” requiring a locking mechanism not present in this case.
  • Identifies two distinct ligature marks, suggesting multiple attempts or staging.
  • [23:14] Ashley: “[Dr. Smock] points out that self strangulation is extremely rare... there are two different ligature marks on her neck.”
• Missed Warnings:
  • A month before death, Mary Ann told a friend she believed Don was following her and planning to kill her—this was reported to police but not investigated.
  • [24:23] Ashley: “Apparently… after Mary Ann died, a friend… told a detective that… Mary Ann said she thought Don had been following her and was going to kill her.”

Parallels and Patterns

• Don’s Role and Motive:
  • Benefited financially from Mary Ann’s death, pressuring children to relinquish property inheritance.
  • Don’s narrative and behavior behind both deaths are highlighted — both deaths have odd similarities (paranoia, statements about being followed, multiple ligature marks).
• Steven’s Death—Further Questions:
  • Bruising on Steven’s face at time of death inconsistent with hanging; last seen alive and well.
  • [26:22] Ashley: “Steven’s face is actually covered in bruises as well. When I look at these photos, he looks like he was beaten up beforehand.”

Justice Sought, and Justice Denied

• Rejection by Authorities:
  • 2021: Alliance for Hope delivers a 26-page report to the Cook County State’s Attorney Cold Case Unit; the new Chief Medical Examiner refuses to change the official cause of death.
  • [31:23] Britt: “What do you mean, that’s it?”
• Ongoing Advocacy:
  • Robyn and Alliance for Hope continue to educate and advocate, using the case to train police nationwide.
  • Legislative efforts: “Marianne’s Law” introduced to improve law enforcement’s handling of staged deaths, currently pending in Illinois Senate.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• [06:14] Ashley Flowers: “He’s giving every indication… that he wasn’t planning to kill himself. He was planning on coming back.”
• [14:17] Ashley Flowers: “There was someone pushing a suicide narrative, and that was Don.”
• [21:47] Dr. Megan Quinn: “The cause of this woman's death is ligature strangulation, and the manner of death is homicide.”
• [23:14] Ashley Flowers: “Self-strangulation is extremely rare… the cord in Marianne’s death did not have any kind of locking device.”
• [26:22] Ashley Flowers: “Steven’s face is actually covered in bruises as well. When I look at these photos, he looks like he was beaten up beforehand.”
• [20:35] Britt: “So are subpoenas not a thing anymore? Like, what are we doing here?”

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Key Timestamps

• [03:14] – Robyn’s chance encounter with Rachel opens the investigation
• [06:08 – 08:22] – Revealing new details about Steven’s last night and gaps in police reports
• [09:26 – 10:15] – The suspicious scene surrounding Mary Ann’s death
• [12:29 – 14:17] – Contradictory statements in police records
• [17:28 – 19:20] – Reopening Mary Ann’s case and new DNA analysis
• [21:47] – Expert Dr. Quinn declares case is clearly homicide
• [23:12 – 24:23] – Forensic details, ignored warnings, and possible motive
• [26:22 – 28:04] – Steven’s medical photos and evidence of foul play
• [30:18 – 31:23] – Official closure despite mounting evidence

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Conclusion & Takeaways

Despite clear inconsistencies, lost or missing records, new forensic reviews, and persistent advocacy by Robyn Altman, the deaths of Steven Altman and Mary Ann Hayes remain officially closed as suicides. This episode highlights the complexity and tragedy of “hidden homicides”—deaths staged or misconstrued as suicides—compounded by confirmation bias, procedural failures, and influence by those with potential motive.

Robyn continues to fight, both for her family and by contributing to broader reform through potential legislation and law enforcement training—which, thanks to Alliance for Hope, may prevent other hidden homicides from remaining hidden.

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Contact Information

• For tips related to Mary Ann Hayes: Northfield Police Department – 847-446-2131
• For tips related to Steven Altman: Chicago Police Department – 312-744-2422

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This episode exemplifies Crime Junkie’s style: highly detailed, empathetic, and filled with both frustration and hope as families and advocates confront systemic barriers in pursuit of justice.

Transcript

[Ashley Flowers]

Okay, Britt, remember how growing up on Nancy Drew made us think that, like, every investigation had an answer?

[Britt]

Yeah. Like if you just followed the clues long enough, everything would start to make sense.

[Ashley Flowers]

Except for that's not real life. Like, the more we've gone down the rabbit hole, the longer we've been crime junkies. We know that that's not always the case. Sometimes all we're left with is the unknown. And I love a mystery, especially one with theories to explore. So, of course, you know, I'm obsessed with everything supernatural.

[Britt]

I'm so obsessed. You used to host a show about it.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, and I don't host anymore. I the baton, but I still listen to that show every week. So Supernatural every week dives into real stories about unexplained phenomena. Unknowns everywhere, and there are tons of theories to examine, which honestly makes it

[Britt]

the perfect podcast to stringboard night with your bestie.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. So if you love exploring the unknown just as much as I do, then you're gonna love so Supernatural just as much as we do, too. You can and should listen to so Supernatural wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

[Britt]

And I'm Britt.

[Ashley Flowers]

And today's story is about two deaths in one family. A mother and her son. And on paper, both died by suicide. But their daughter and sister, Robyn Altman, had this nagging feeling for decades that something just didn't add up. And that feeling builds when an old friend of her brother's tells her some things that Robyn has never heard before. And it leads her on an investigation of her own. Because what if these weren't suicides at all, but murders staged to look like suicides? And if that's true, who would want both her brother and her mother dead? This is the story of Stephen Altman and Mary Ann Hayes. In 2013, 51 year old Robin Altman is recovering from surgery at her home in Charleston, S.C. laid up in bed and kind of going a little stir crazy, she starts poking around on Ancestry.com just to, like, pass the time. And she's curious because there is a lot about her family's history that has never sat right with her. Her brother Steven took his own life unexpectedly back in 1984 when he was just 21. And then her mom, Marianne, died by suicide 12 years later in 1996. And both deaths just never made sense to her. I mean, few suicides do make sense to those closest to the people who are left behind. But little things made her suspicious that maybe one or Both of them could have been murdered. But she'd never known what to do with those suspicions. I mean, honestly, she still didn't know what to even do. Now as she's poking around the Internet, because, like, truthfully, she doesn't know what she's looking for on Ancestry.com.

[Britt]

yeah, I was gonna say what would be there.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, not the place that I would think to go for like the whys or the clues to a murder. But whatever it was that pulled her there, whatever little voice was in the back of her head, it knew something. Because when she starts typing in her family members names to the search bar, what comes up surprises her. It's an entry for her brother and her mom, but they're in a family tree made by a woman named Rachel Kunin. Now, Robin actually knows this woman. Rachel went to high school with her brother Steven, but she also knows that they're not related. So curious why she would have made this thing, she reaches out to Rachel, like, hey, long time no talk. Why'd you do this weird thing?

[Britt]

Yeah.

[Ashley Flowers]

And Rachel responds pretty quickly. And she tells Robyn that she was really close to Steven. She actually had a big crush on him when he was a teenager. And so she put his name on her tree because she wanted to make sure there was some kind of record of him online. And then she just added Marianne to the tree too, which is okay. It's a little odd. And Robin was a bit confused, but, like, nothing about this seems malicious or sinister. I don't know, maybe the same little nagging thing that brought Robyn to this brought Rachel there as well. Because it turns out that these two women needed to find each other. And I don't know if there would have been any other way. Now the two of them end up connecting, and when they get to chatting, the conversation is circling a lot around her brother and his death. Really how? Robin was blindsided by it because he didn't seem to be experiencing suicidal thoughts. From what she knew, he'd been making plans for the future. He was excited about a date that he had the very next day after he died. And that is when Rachel begins to unload. She, her sister and her mom, who Steven was close with, all thought his death was suspicious too. Rachel actually tells her the night before Steven died, he drove past her house. Bunch of their friends were like, together hanging out, and he told them that he was just going to run this errand for his stepdad and then he was going to come back in an hour. But then he just never returned. Next thing she heard he was found dead. And that detail stops Robin in her tracks, because that would have been one of the last times someone saw her brother before he died. And she never knew that he was going to run an errand for their stepdad. She just knew that at 7:15 the next morning, her brother was found hanging by his neck from a crane hoist at their stepdad's workshop in Chicago. Now, their stepdad, Don, hadn't been there when Steven was found, so everyone just assumed that Steven had picked that place. I don't know, maybe so his family wouldn't have to find him. I mean, Steven, like, worked at the shop from time to time, so it wasn't odd for him to be there or anything like that. But Don had never said anything in all those years about Steven running an errand for him the night before.

[Britt]

Yeah, so that would make this, like, brand new information that never came out for, like, decades.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yes. And listen, him running an errand for Don might not even have really been what he was like doing. Like, who knows what he's telling his friends or what he was, like, really going to do. I mean, I think the part that really sticks out to Robin is just the fact that the very night that Steven, like, right before he dies, he's telling someone he's going to be right back. He's giving every indication in the hours leading up to his death that he wasn't planning to kill himself. He was planning on coming back. Now, Rachel went on to tell Robin that her mom had such a weird feeling about this whole thing that she actually called the Chicago Police Department, urging them to investigate. She'd been a sheriff's deputy before, so she hoped that they would maybe give a little weight to her suggestion. But according to Rachel's sister, Becky, their response, like the Chicago police's response, was something to the effect of like, please stop calling us. Now, this obviously isn't proof of anything, but whatever tiny suspicions she had planted deep inside of her being Robin, it grew larger that day. And this gave her the push she needed. Cause that same year, 2013, she filed a FOIA request with Chicago PD for her brother's records. And you know what? While she's at it, she submits one with Norfield PD for her mom's case, too. Now, when the response comes back for Stephen's case, she's a little shocked. All Robyn receives is this short letter from Chicago PD saying they searched for the records and they don't have anything, which doesn't seem right. Like, she knows that they didn't do a big investigation. I mean, police never so much as called her or her mom for an interview. I mean, they never asked, like, any questions.

[Britt]

And they basically ruled it a suicide without talking to anyone in the family. That's weird, right?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, I mean, they talked to Don because he ended up showing up that morning to work, and then he found police over at his workshop. But it seems like that is the only person that police talk to, apart from maybe like, a couple of employees. There's. And we have no idea what those employees said either because, like I said, no documents. No documents. Right, but even suicides, though, should have some sort of record.

[Britt]

Yeah, but there's just nothing.

[Ashley Flowers]

There is nothing in Steven's case, the one that she was getting the most suspicious of. But it turns out it was actually her mother's death that was really going to unlock the mystery, because in the same year 2013, her FOIA for Marianne's file is approved. And it is the total opposite of Stephen's case. There is a treasure trove of documents that paint a picture of her mother's death that is completely different from the story she has been living with for the last 17 years.

[Josh Dean]

Every true crime story has one thing in common. Nothing is as it seems. And no podcast knows that better than Chameleon. I'm Josh Dean, and my podcast, Chameleon explores hidden identities concealed by con artists and scam. So mind blowing, it'll have you questioning everything you know. If you're ready to uncover the biggest lies in history, listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ashley Flowers]

The police reports Robyn had in front of her included a handwritten statement from her stepdad, Don, explaining how he'd found his wife dead in their bedroom on September 25, 1996. Don told police that he had tried calling his wife from work that day, but no one picked up. And when he got home at his usual time, he found her laying on the floor in just her underwear and a shirt with an extension cord wrapped around her neck, like, three or four times. Now, by the time police arrived at the scene, dawn had already removed the cord from her neck and placed a towel over her legs. There's no note, and strangely, it looks like Marianne was in the middle of trimming her nails when she died, because they found and collected some nail clippers, fingernail clippings, and one of Marianne's broken fingernails, which had blood on it.

[Britt]

That doesn't read suicide to me.

[Ashley Flowers]

No, not at all. Especially because it's not like the extension cord was tied to anything. It was Just, like, wrapped around her neck like a ligature someone would have held and then tightened around her neck. And someone must have seen the obviousness of what this really looked like, because Northfield police at least started an investigation. The reports detail that they collected all of the stuff that I just mentioned, along with the cord, which had stains on it. And they took vaginal swabs at Marianne's autopsy. Now, those swabs turned up an unknown male profile, and the crime lab recommended performing an analysis if DNA from any suspect suspects were collected, which, no surprise, based on the later ruling of suicide, it never was. Now, police also questioned Robin alongside her younger half brother and sister, who are Marianne's children with Dawn. And the reports from police recounting those interviews were in the file. And this is when Robyn realized that she was really onto something big, because she said most of what the report about her interview says wasn't true. It says that Robyn told them three major things that I assume is what, like, helped shape their suicide theory. One, that her mom had struggled with mental health issues and had been refusing to go get treatment on a regular basis. Number two, that her mom had threatened suicide before. I mean, it specifically mentions one time when dawn threatened to divorce her. And it says that she had even been hospitalized for attempting suicide a couple of years earlier. And the third thing, that two weeks before her mom's death, dawn took her and her half siblings to dinner without her mom to tell them that their mom was suicidal. And Robyn couldn't believe what she was reading because none of that is what she said or, like, part of it is what she said, but it is all taken so out of context, and then some stuff is just, like, downright made up. So, like, yes, her mom had struggled after her brother's suicide. She felt deep guilt and sadness after Stephen's death, and that took a toll on her mental health over the following 12 years.

[Britt]

Yeah, I would imagine, naturally.

[Ashley Flowers]

But she says not only did she tell the police that her mom had been regularly going to mental health treatments for years, she says she told them in no uncertain terms that her mother was not suicidal. And, yes, that dinner where dawn took her and her younger siblings out did happen, but there was a key piece from her interview that was missing from the report. She told us that when dawn said at dinner that Marianne was suicidal, Robyn pushed back. She did not buy it when Don was saying all of this. And she didn't believe it after her mother's death when she was talking to police either. Now, as for the past attempts at suicide this is the one that totally blows her away, because according to Robyn, her mom had not tried to take her own life back, ever. There was this one time, 10 years after Steven died, this would have been 1994, where Marianne's younger son, Brian, walked in on his mom with this bathrobe tie around her neck, as if she was choking herself, which, to be fair, could be construed as a suicide attempt. But Robyn says that's not really what was going on, because she shared a letter with us that Marianne wrote to Brian after this incident, where she explains that she wasn't trying to harm herself, she would never leave her children. She wrote that she just wanted to feel what Steven was feeling. And we did reach out to Brian to ask about this, but we haven't heard back as of this recording.

[Britt]

It feels to me like police were just cherry picking facts from interviews to fit their narrative from her.

[Ashley Flowers]

Definitely. Yeah.

[Britt]

But I don't even get where the suicide narrative is coming from. Like, she's telling police her mom wasn't suicidal. The scene isn't reading a suicide. Did they just pull this out of thin air?

[Ashley Flowers]

Not exactly. I don't know what conclusions they came to on their own, but there was someone pushing a suicide narrative, and that was Don. In his own written police statement, he said that the couple had been talking about divorce, but Marianne didn't want one. He's the one who told them about her threatening suicide over it. And that seems to have bled into Robyn's statement, even though she never said that. And in a later conversation with police, when they asked him if he had had sex with his wife recently, he said he didn't recall 100%, but more than likely they did, which could explain away anything they may have found when testing the vaginal swabs. So I believe everything they learned from him played a huge role in how this case shook out. Maybe they assumed that if they found any DNA, it just would have been her husband's, and he's saying she was suicidal because he was going to leave her. She's been a mess since after her son committed suicide. What a dark, sad family. So they never ended up testing the evidence that they collected. And the ME ruled Marianne's death suicide by self strangulation. And with that, the case closed. But according to Robyn, Don, who seems to be the basis for their ruling, should not be considered the most reliable narrator when it comes to their relationship. The couple had been together for 28 years, but it sounds like their marriage was always pretty rocky. Robyn says that dawn was Controlling and verbally and emotionally abusive. And she said that, yeah, they had talked about divorce, like Don said, but her mom was actually happy about it. According to a letter that Marianne had written her son Brian, Don offered to buy her out of their house in Northfield and then give her a condo that they had in Florida. And in the year leading up to her death, she spent months fixing that condo up. She was jazzed and ready for a new chapter. But just a few months before she died, something happened. Mary Ann moved back into their Northfield home where dawn was. But according to Robin, it's not like they were back together. They were still separated. They slept in different bedrooms. And Robin says that Don took back the condo offer. But listen, put all the divorce stuff aside. It could be considered like a he said, she said. Right? And people might argue that a mother might not share the realities of her marriage with her daughter, even if her daughter was grown and in her 30s at that time. Fine, whatever. But there was something else that always bothered Robyn about the idea of ruling her mother's death self strangulation. Something she even told police back in 1996. Robin says that sometime in the eight weeks before Marianne's death, her mom had tripped and shattered both of her wrists so badly that one wrist required bone grafts. And she was still healing from that, that is, just eight weeks before shattered. So in her mind, she always felt like it would have been super hard for her mom to even pull the cords tight enough around her neck on her own.

[Britt]

Was that even mentioned in the report, or did they leave that out, too?

[Ashley Flowers]

Oh, it was in there. But officers framed that as just another bad thing in Marianne's life that could have contributed to her suicide. Like, it's so odd. But listen, by the time Robyn is done reading everything, she's no longer just suspicious about her mom's death. She is convinced that her mom's suicide was actually a murder. So Robyn reaches out to Northfield PD in 2018, and luckily, she finds someone at least willing to listen. And she lays out everything that doesn't add up. And she requests that they reopen her mom's case. I mean, at minimum, they should still have the physical evidence that they could test and see what comes of that. And it seems like at first, Northfield PD actually does take her seriously. Nearly 22 years after Mary Ann's death, they decide to reexamine the evidence. The vaginal swabs, the broken fingernail, and the stains from the cord. It's all resubmitted to the northeastern Illinois Regional Crime Lab.

[Britt]

Like, I've been doing this long enough. I'm honestly kind of still surprised that they had the evidence.

[Ashley Flowers]

Oh, yeah. Same. Now, it takes a little bit of time, but when the results come back, there's not, like, much that's new, because even though they tested a lot of things, the cord didn't yield anything. Now, they did get a DNA sample from underneath Marianne's broken fingernail, which would have been great, but there wasn't enough DNA for profiling on that one. And then her vaginal swab, they just got the same unknown male profile like they did the first time they tested it back in, like, the 90s.

[Britt]

And if it's Don's, he's just going to say they had sex before she died, even though he's not what, was 100% sure?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. I assume that he is the first one that they're going to want to at least test so they can say he's in or out. Right. Because if he's in, complicated. Right, Right. If he's out, very black and white and. Right.

[Britt]

Yeah.

[Ashley Flowers]

Now, is he the person that they go to first? I don't know. We have the files that show after they get these results, they bring someone in for questioning, and they ask them, that person, to provide a DNA sample. This person initially said yes, but then they asked to speak with a lawyer, and when that happened, they end up refusing to give a sample. Okay. So problem is, I can't tell you who the person is because the name is redacted.

[Britt]

Does Robyn know who it is?

[Ashley Flowers]

I mean, so she's seen the redacted file. She believes she knows who it is. I'm told by our lawyers I shouldn't say who she thinks because it's not proof. It's just her opinion.

[Britt]

I've also got an opinion.

[Ashley Flowers]

I.

[Britt]

There's only so many people it could be, right?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. I cannot speculate, but when this person refuses to cooperate, police don't go looking for anyone else. I mean, I know that much because the very next sentence in the report is that the case will remain closed.

[Britt]

So are subpoenas not a thing anymore? Like, what are we doing here? Because clearly they saw it was suspicious. They reopened, they test again. All their tests, like, pretty much confirm it's suspicious. But they run into, like, one little roadblock, and it's like, sorry, we tried everything.

[Ashley Flowers]

I know.

[Britt]

We'll just keep it a suicide.

[Ashley Flowers]

I guess it, like, it stinks to high heaven. And Robyn is not about to give up. Every corner she turns, every rock she Flips over. She just keeps finding stuff that's telling her she's on the right track. So she decides after this to hire an organization called alliance for Hope International. That was started by two former prosecutors who are experts in what they call hidden homicides or homicides staged to look like suicide.

[Britt]

I mean, this one was barely even staged.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, which is why they're quick to take this case on. And as they interview Robyn about her mom's story and they start reviewing the evidence, the inconsistencies just keep piling up. So they call in not one, but two different forensic pathologists to do a review. One of them is Dr. Megan Quinn, and it is so black and white to her that she calls the investigation into Marianne's death a cataclysmic failure. She says, quote, the cause of this woman's death is ligature strangulation, and the manner of death is homicide. End quote. And they're gonna prove it.

[Josh Dean]

Every true crime story has one thing in common. Nothing is as it seems. And no podcast knows that better than Chameleon. I'm Josh Dean, and my podcast, Chameleon explores hidden identities concealed by con artists and scams. So mind blowing, it'll have you questioning everything you know. If you're ready to uncover the biggest lies in history, listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ashley Flowers]

Alliance for Hope brings In another expert, Dr. William Smock, whose name probably sounds familiar for some crime junkies. He's come up in a number of episodes in a number of different series even, but in this case, he was asked to review Marianne's autopsy. He combs through the crime lab reports, the Emmys findings, the photos, and he finds a lot of problems. He points out that self strangulation is extremely rare. And in the cases that do exist, the ligature has to have some kind of locking mechanism to keep pressure on the neck. Without that, as the person begins to lose consciousness, their hands fall away, blood returns, and they wake up. The cord in Marianne's death did not have any kind of locking device. The second thing that Dr. Smock finds is that there are two different ligature marks on her neck.

[Britt]

What does that indicate?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, it means. It just means that the cord was placed around her neck tightly enough to choke her two times. Now, someone who's going to try and say, oh, this is a suicide, would probably just argue his first thing, right? Oh, yeah, she lost consciousness, woke up, rewrapped it, and, like, did it again.

[Britt]

But by that same, like, logic, she probably would have woken up again, Right?

[Ashley Flowers]

It Seems more likely to me that someone else wrapped it around her neck twice. Either because they had to get their grip again, or maybe she wasn't dead when they thought she was the first time. Or Marianne could have been strangled and then the cord was just wrapped around her neck a second time. To stage the suicide, the two prosecutors who run alliance for Hope also uncover a bunch of other wild stuff, mostly stuff that shows if anyone had motive to kill Marianne, it was her husband, Don. Apparently, alliance for Hope reviewed a police report, which we have as well, that after Marianne died, a friend of hers, Donna Heller, told a detective that over two months before her death, Marianne said that she thought dawn had been following her and was going to kill her.

[Britt]

Wait, she told this to them early on?

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah, but this just shows up once in the police report. It doesn't look like anyone followed up on it. And we reached out to Northfield police about Marianne's case, but they wouldn't comment. Now, when alliance for Hope dug in on Don, they found that he stood to gain financially When Marianne was out of the picture, Don got the Northfield home. He retained partial ownership of the condo. And Robin claims that because Marianne didn't have a will, Don pressured the kids into signing away their portion of their property inheritance from the Northfield home. And we have documentation of that quitclaim that Robyn signed. Now, Robyn says she's not sure if there was any life insurance that he got, but she knows that she didn't see any insurance money after her mom's death.

[Britt]

And no matter whose idea it was, we know that they might have been separating.

[Ashley Flowers]

Right.

[Britt]

Which is always a super dangerous time for spouses.

[Ashley Flowers]

In the end, alliance for Hope thinks that there was a lot of good reasons to look closely at Don. He had means, motive, opportunity. But here's the twist. They think police should look hard at Don, not just for Marianne's death, but Steven's as well. Because they couldn't just ignore Steven's case when they got into things. And they identify some weird similarities between his and Marianne's deaths. First, just like Marianne was telling her friends, she thought someone was following her before her death. Rachel's sister Becky, remember her? She says that right before the time of his death, Stephen was paranoid and he thought that someone was out to get him, but he didn't say who. And apparently he told his friends that he was fleeing to Kentucky or even the Caribbean. And get this. Stephen also had two ligature marks. One high up on his neck and another below where the rope was found.

[Britt]

Wait, how do they know I thought there were no files on Stephen's case.

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, it took years, but Robyn was eventually able to get her hands on a medical report from Stephen's death. It was obtained by wgn. This, like, local TV station, and we have it as well. The report includes photos that show that Stephen's face is actually covered in bruises as well. And we know that a person's face can show signs of bruising during a hanging. But this was different. I mean, when I look at these photos, he looks like he was beaten up beforehand.

[Britt]

And I assume he looked fine when Rachel saw him. And he said he was going to be right back.

[Ashley Flowers]

Correct. No bruises. So Rachel alleges that he's going to go run this errand for Don. Right. So if that's real, what is the errand? Well, when you dig into Steven's life, there is a bunch of weird stuff happening around this time. Becky told us that right before Steven's death, he was going around with this big bag of cocaine and was just like, giving it away to friends for free. Steven's neighbor told us that he and Steven used to party together a lot. And to this day, that was some of, he says, the purest cocaine that he's ever had.

[Britt]

So he was dealing drugs?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, this is the thing. Becky says she's not sure, like, he wasn't known to be a dealer or anything. His friends say that he was, like, crashing on couches, but somehow he has, like thousands of dollars worth of cocaine and just like, giving it away.

[Britt]

Okay, so that's one piece of a very confusing puzzle.

[Ashley Flowers]

But there's something else interesting that Marianne wrote to Brian in that letter after the bathrobe incident. She mentions that Steven wrote bad checks from the business to buy coke.

[Britt]

Don's business.

[Ashley Flowers]

Robyn thinks that she has to mean Don's business. That's the only business that they would be talking about. But she's not 100% convinced that even the bad checks thing is real. Like, she doesn't know. But if you combine those two little pieces with the facts that we know from when he died, Steven goes to run an errand. It's said that he was last seen by co workers at Don's business, alive and well at 5:45am and that person told Steven, you know, since it's so late, or technically early in the morning, Stephen may as well just stay there at the business till morning. But an hour and a half later, around 7.15am, another employee found him dead, hanging by his neck. That employee cut him down, and when police arrived, Steven was laying on his back with a nylon rope around his neck. Don is interviewed by police for both cases. And you know what he told them about Marianne. But he also said some similar stuff to police about Steven. He told them that Steven had an incident when he was a teenager where he crashed his car into a lamppost in what Don called an attempt at self destruction. But Steven's friend told us that Steven was drunk and fell asleep at the wheel.

[Britt]

So it sounds to me like police again are just taking Don's word right now.

[Ashley Flowers]

The circumstances around Steven's death don't feel as black and white as Marianne's seem to be. So all in all, when all is said and done, it's her case that the alliance for Hope really focuses on. Dr. Smock writes a letter to the original medical examiner, Dr. Kogan, with copies of the original autopsy photos, explaining that this is not consistent with self strangulation. He also mentions that he spoke to Marianne's psychiatrist, and by the way, she told him that she saw Marianne the day before her death and that she didn't mention suicidal ideation. But he gets no response. Dr. Smock says Dr. Kogan simply returned his materials to him without a single word or comment on the matter.

[Britt]

Excuse me.

[Ashley Flowers]

Yeah. Now, he does eventually get a chance to speak with him on the matter. And Dr. Smock said it was obvious that he hadn't even reviewed the photographs and he was unable to explain the second ligature mark. And we'd love to ask Dr. Kogan about this, but he hasn't returned our request for comment.

[Britt]

So what now if the original Emmy won't do anything?

[Ashley Flowers]

Well, so now alliance for Hope puts together this whole 26 page report saying all of the above. And in 2021, they submit all of this to the Cook County State's Attorney's cold case unit. And during a meeting with Northfield police around that time, the cold case unit expressed concern about the original Emmys findings. And then they meet with the chief medical examiner for Cook county to elevate said concerns. Now, this is someone new. She wasn't involved in Marianne's case when it first happened in 96. Whatever meeting they have, it lasts exactly 25 minutes, according to the police file. And she tells them, you know, she's reviewed the original Emmy's findings and she will not be changing the manner of death. And she also claims that after doing her own research, she found a case of documented self strangulation, but she doesn't actually cite whatever specific case she's talking about or cases. Now, we Reached out to both the current chief ME and the Cold Case unit for commentary, but again, we have not heard back. And so that was it.

[Britt]

What do you mean, that's it?

[Ashley Flowers]

That's it. I mean, it's. It's shocking. In spite of all of the evidence Robyn pieced together, all of the efforts of alliance for Hope, all of the phone calls and meetings with Northfield PD and Cook county and the cold case union, the chief medical examiner, in spite of everything Robyn has done. Yeah. And in spite of her really dedicating her life to this at this point. To this day, both Marianne Hayes and Stephen Altman's cases remain closed. Dawn Hayes has never been charged or convicted with a crime in association with either Stephen or Marianne's death, and he has been described as cooperative by the police. Robyn is continuing to press for these cases to be reopened. Steven's is tough because there was no investigation, but Marianne's is a different story. Robyn believes that there is more than enough evidence to change the manner of death to homicide, and she is hoping that the DNA under her mom's fingernail can maybe be retested. To this day, alliance for Hope uses the case of Marianne Hayes to train law enforcement officials on identifying hidden homicides. They also helped Robin get a bill submitted, Marianne's Law, that would provide training to law enforcement so that they could be better equipped. Equipped to identify deaths that have been staged as suicides, especially in cases involving domestic violence. It's currently pending at the state Senate in Illinois. Robyn's journey to get justice for her mom and her brother has felt like pushing a boulder up a mountain. But she also says that there has been hope along the way. I mean, she is grateful to the alliance for Hope, for everything that they've done, reanalyzing the evidence in these cases. And through that organization, she's been able to connect with other families who may have loved ones who are victims of hidden homicides, too, which is making her feel less alone. So if you have any information about Mary Ann Hayes death, you can contact the Northfield Police Department at 847-446-2131. Or if you know anything about Stephen Altman's death, you can call the Chicago Police Department at 312-744-2422. And if there's anything you want to share with us, email tipsoudiochuk.com Sam. Crime Junkie is an audio Chuck production. I think Chuck would approve. Hi, everyone. Ashley Flowers here. If you're like me, diving into true crime is about more than just the details of a kitchen case. It is also about giving a voice to the victims and understanding the lives behind the headlines. And this is what host Kylie Lowe does each week on her podcast, Dark Down East. Every Thursday, Kylie dives into New England's most gripping mysteries, uncovering stories in a way you won't hear anywhere else. And she digs through archives, connects with families, and shines a light on the voices that deserve to be heard. From cold cases to moments of long awaited justice, Dark down east is the perfect blend of investigations and honoring the stories behind them. You can find Dark down east now, wherever you're listening.