Susan Leibowitz (3:00)

You know, we. We kind of commented at some point that viewers will need literally a notepad to write down all of the people and how they're related and arrows and kind of like a playbook. Right. Because once we get into this and once we really start diving into this marriage, and then there is another woman and then there's another man. And how are all these people connected? It takes a lot to kind of pull together this convoluted motive. But, yes, from the very beginning, investigators looked at Scott and said, what in the world is up with this guy? I mean, this man was somebody who is military trained. He's a tall gentleman. He was carrying a firearm at the time. Not only is he proficient in firearm use, but he had a gun on him. And they're wondering, why not go into the house? And, you know, when I spoke with Detective Johnson and a number of people were saying, listen, if I thought that there was something wrong with somebody that I cared about in the house, there's not a force on earth that would stop me from going inside. So.

Josh Mankiewicz (3:52)

Particularly if I were armed, you know, and.

Susan Leibowitz (3:55)

And yes. And military trained. Right. So that screamed suspicion from the second they got to the crime scene. And then the suspicion only grew. There was the scene. And I think that this was something that really struck with a lot of people, but where he was talking to himself in the interview room.

Josh Mankiewicz (4:12)

Oh, yeah.

Susan Leibowitz (4:12)

And telling himself to stay calm and keep cool. You know, the red flags were just piling up. Right. Moment after moment, and everyone's looking at him.

Josh Mankiewicz (4:19)

In the Jodi Arias case in Arizona, the cops leave the interview room for a few minutes and she starts doing yoga poses. And I was thinking about that when I watched him, because I'm like, man, you know, the talking to yourself and all the body language. You do think to yourself, if this guy did it, he didn't think this part out terribly well.

Susan Leibowitz (4:41)

Yeah, it's interesting because nobody knows how you're going to act if you find yourself in a police interrogation room. Right. Hopefully, you or I never find ourselves in that situation. But if we did and we didn't do it, you would think that you wouldn't have to kind of whisper to yourself to stay calm and to keep it together.

Josh Mankiewicz (4:59)

I think that you Know, if you're in that kind of traumatic situation and you had absolutely nothing to do with it, the natural reaction is you're going to be anguished. You're going to seem anguished and upset and miserable and scared and horrified and. And realizing, you know, one, that this person you loved is gone, and second, that, like, they're looking at you for it when you had absolutely nothing to do with it. I think there are some very natural reactions, but what he exhibited are not among that selection of natural reactions that looks like somebody basically coaching himself. And this might be a good time to mention it. Never charged.

Susan Leibowitz (5:34)

Yeah. Never charged.

Josh Mankiewicz (5:35)

Never charged. This, I think. I'm sure that Susan Nall, who is the keeper of the official dateline institutional memory, will inform me that I am wrong, but I do not remember a story in which previous military service and trauma experienced on the battlefield came back in which that was a factor in determining how someone might behave in a stressful situation.

Susan Leibowitz (6:03)

Yeah, it came up in several ways. And so he was deployed to Iraq. He spent time in Iraq, served in Iraq. And afterwards, one of Desiree's friends said, you know, this is somebody that she had known since middle school, and she said that he seemed to be acting different. But also, when I asked one of the friends about perhaps, you know, he's seen a lot of things that you or I or most of us have never seen on the battlefield. Was his response just kind of a downplayed response when he found out that his wife was killed because he had seen so many things? Was this a defense mechanism? Was this somebody who was just naturally stoic? And she said that she believed that. Yeah, that's kind of who he was to a degree.

Josh Mankiewicz (6:44)

Yeah. I mean, I think that one of the things that we sort of don't know a lot about is how that kind of trauma and that kind of stress affects people when they leave military service and return to private life? Despite that, there are clearly people in this story who think he knew what had happened. Maybe he didn't do it, but he knew what had happened.

Susan Leibowitz (7:04)

Yeah. We spoke to three friends who have known Desiree through almost her entire lifespan, going back from middle school through high school to early marriage to, I mean, the day she was killed. Right. Some think that, yes, there was a conspiracy to get her out of the way. Others are just like, you brought this woman and who brought this man into Desiree's life, and all of it ended with her dead. So you bear some responsibility as well. But again, never charged.

Josh Mankiewicz (7:28)

I mean, when he says, you know, I decided not to come back until the next morning, I think. Oh, and then I stayed the night with a friend. Okay, well, who was it? Well, it was a friend of mine named. Well, let's see. We go through my Rolodex. Yeah. I mean, yeah. Come on, dude.

Susan Leibowitz (7:44)

When I asked the investigator about that moment, of course, that was a big turning point for them, right? Because it was, okay, you're out with family. You're staying with family. Wait, now we have a new name. Okay, and wait, it's a woman's name. Okay. And wait, you stayed at her house. Right. So suddenly, this kind of kicks things into a whole different level that. And, as you know, investigators then have to spin off on. Let's dig deeper into this marriage.

Josh Mankiewicz (8:05)

We've had throuples on Dateline before. This is not the first time that's come up, but it certainly added to the intrigue. And when you start hearing about that, that's when I think, like, oh, wait. Everything I thought I understood about this maybe is a little bit wrong, because now there's somebody else involved. But then it turns out there's a whole layer beyond that.

Susan Leibowitz (8:26)

And one of the big pieces in this whole thing, Josh, is what exactly was this relationship? Right. Scott and Paige made it seem as though everybody's happy. This is kind of a cozy little throuple, if you will, but. But then when you look at those text messages, it was very clear. Desiree at some point grew tired of Paige being in their relationship. She was very concerned about her marriage to Scott. When I spoke with her friend Michelle, you know, they would go on walks around the school, and that was something that came up often in their walks. Just concerns about the health of her relationship and not being able to talk to her husband about. And I should mention, too, we reached out to Scott. We've tried a number of ways to get him to talk with us. He would not. He's remarried now and didn't want to talk to us for this episode.

Josh Mankiewicz (9:12)

I'm asking you this, admitting beforehand that without talking to Scott or Desiree, we might not know the answer here, but you think Desiree's infidelity maybe gave Scott what he thought. I gotta pass now, you know?

Susan Leibowitz (9:28)

Well, and this is an important nuance. And so Scott was in basic training when Desiree had her infidelity. Before he was deployed to Iraq. It was also before they were married. And so I put that in there because it's, you know, not apples to apples. Nobody should cheat on anybody. Not a great idea. But certainly not while they were married is when that happened, which is an.

Josh Mankiewicz (9:48)

Important distinction to some people. When we return, we will have an extra clip from Blaine's interview with the woman at the center of this extremely complicated weird case. Paige Blades.

Jenna Bush Hager (10:08)

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Al Roker (10:19)

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Blaine Alexander (10:36)

It was late past midnight when they broke into the farmhouse.

Marty (10:40)

Never in a million years would you.

Susan Leibowitz (10:41)

Think that you'd see your parents house.

Marty (10:43)

Taped off by that yellow tape.

Josh Mankiewicz (10:46)

And they said, you remember daddy being killed?

Blaine Alexander (10:49)

They left behind a wall of blood and a clue that took a case of double murder on a long, strange trip.

Susan Leibowitz (10:55)

She looked at me and she said, I'm screwed.

Blaine Alexander (10:58)

Murder in the Moonlight, a new podcast from Dateline. All episodes of Murder in the moonlight are available now. To listen ad free, subscribe to Dateline premium on Apple podcasts, Spotify or Dateline premium dot com. Hey, everybody. I'm Al Roker from the Today show. Let's kickstart your wellness journey with the all new Start Today app. Everything you need for a healthier you all in one place. Fitness challenges for all levels, meal plans that are easy and delicious and so much more. It's built to fit your lifestyle and our experts will guide you every step of the way. Come on, let's do this. To subscribe, download start today from the app store on your Apple device now. Terms apply. Cancel anytime through Apple. Under profile settings.

Josh Mankiewicz (11:46)

Paige texts Desiree, I'm fairly convinced that in the event of your demise, I would be the chosen one. First of all, when you're that age, right, you don't talk to your friends about like, you know, if you die, nobody's gonna die at that. What are you talking about? That's not an age where you think about people dying and you replacing them. I just thought that was really weird. And the other thing I thought was really weird was Paige's text saying, I've been wanting to do away with you because she was done away with.

Susan Leibowitz (12:16)

She ultimately was. You know, the text messages. I have to say what Paige said one, she said that she didn't remember it clearly, but she said what she believes was that they were talking about life insurance or arrangements or something like that. And Then I pushed her on that. I said, you know, we have all of the 40 pages of text messages or something. The context before, the context after has nothing to do with life insurance or anything like that. It kind of goes on to talk about Desiree saying she would be upset if there were anything sexual that were to happen between her husband and Paige or if they were together. In talking to Paige, Paige says that it was actually Desiree who invited her to live with them. I think that diving into those text messages, there was a portion in there where, though they never explicitly said it, certainly kind of alludes to the fact that there was a more than platonic interaction between Paige and Desiree at some point. But it's also very clear that this wasn't an ongoing, long lasting relationship between. Between the two of them.

Josh Mankiewicz (13:20)

There were people you interviewed who clearly suspect that Paige either knew more than she was telling or was involved to a greater extent than she is sort of given credit for by law enforcement. But it's Paige who points the finger at Marty, right? I mean, so you gotta ask yourself, I mean, if. If she did this, if she wants Scott all for herself, and says to her friend Marty, who will do anything for her, hey, you need to. You need to get rid of Desiree. For me, it's kind of counterproductive to call up the tip line anonymously and say, you know, here's Marty, because if you're going to do it to save yourself, then you go in with an attorney and you say to the district attorney, I need a deal here, which is, I don't have any charges and I'm going to tell you who it was. But she doesn't do that. She just calls the tip line and hopes that the cops will focus on Marty. And that suggests a lack of any responsibility and a desire to have somebody brought to justice.

Susan Leibowitz (14:21)

Good point. One, not everybody is as savvy as you are, Josh Mankiewicz. Not many people might have thought to go in and say, hey, I need an attorney first.

Josh Mankiewicz (14:29)

Squeal gets the deal.

Susan Leibowitz (14:31)

Very true.

Josh Mankiewicz (14:32)

Go ahead.

Susan Leibowitz (14:32)

That is very true. But, you know, in talking with Paige about this and questioning her a number of different ways about this, she says and maintains and believes that she put her safety on the line to essentially help bring Desiree's killer to just justice. That because she ratted on Marty, spoke about Marty, turned him in, that he has reason to be angry with her, he's going to be getting out of prison in a few years. And so, you know, she is concerned about that.

Josh Mankiewicz (15:00)

This feels like a Good time to listen to your extra sound that you brought. That did not make our episode. This is your interview with Paige, and let's listen to that.

Susan Leibowitz (15:10)

Considering the fact that he will be out in several years, are you concerned personally about Marty getting out of prison?

Kayla (15:19)

Absolutely. That has been a concern since day one.

Susan Leibowitz (15:24)

You felt like he could possibly hurt you?

Kayla (15:27)

Absolutely.

Susan Leibowitz (15:28)

Even though he was doing so many things for you, even though he was a friend, he was helping you in so many ways, was your savior in many ways.

Kayla (15:36)

Any amount of safety that I felt surrounding Marty or any of the assistance that he had given me was shattered when it turned out that the information that I had was helpful to detectives. It was life changing. It was shattering.

Josh Mankiewicz (15:53)

Very, very odd relationship between Paige and Marty.

Susan Leibowitz (15:59)

Paige, I asked her about this, right? I said, what would you describe him as? Friend? I mean, they were co workers, they worked at the same place. Her mother had actually set her up on a blind date with Marty. Thought that this was a stable. He's making money, might be a good guy for you. She said, okay. She was doing her daughterly duty, as she put it, went out on a date, and then kind of thought, okay, great, it's over. Bye. Marty didn't see it that way, according to Paige. And so that plus the fact that they worked together, she said she was trying to make things not awkward. And so when he would, you know, say hi, she'd kind of keep going and, you know, talking with him, but that kept growing. But what's interesting is Paige said that at some point she was in a very difficult situation, that she was trying to leave. Whether it was a relationship, I'm not sure, but just a difficult situation situation. And Marty was giving her the money to do that, right? Like helping her financially, helping her make a, you know, a. A deposit on a new apartment, helping her with gas money, helping her with groceries, with her car. Things that she couldn't have done on her own. And she said because she was so desperate, at first she was uncomfortable with it, but, you know, always the arrangement was, hey, I'll pay you back. She said she did pay him back for some of that. But again, it. All of it goes beyond the normal kind of scale of a friendship.

Josh Mankiewicz (17:15)

Well, it's this sort of odd devotional relationship in which he's making. He's probably made it clear to her a hundred times, you're the only woman for me, even though you're not interested.

Susan Leibowitz (17:25)

And even though he was married, even though he got married, I'm gonna always.

Josh Mankiewicz (17:28)

Carry this torch for you, even though, right? I'm in another relationship. You're. It doesn't matter. You're the one for me forever. I can only imagine that. Taking advantage of that, you know, to get out of some terrible relationship that you were in, which is the situation Paige describes, and sort of encouraging the Marty in that relationship, you know, to sort of like, okay, well, now I am leaning on you for something. Right. That's a very awkward. That's a difficult choice to make. And I'm sure Paige is probably looking back on that.

Susan Leibowitz (17:59)

Well, she is. I mean, it's. You know, I wondered if there was any point at which she was disturbed with this relationship. And she said. I mean, he would say things like, you know, I would do anything for you, or, you know, his undying love. He professed his undying love for her, those types of things. And I said, how did that make you feel?

Josh Mankiewicz (18:16)

Yeah. She says something like, he worships the ground I walk on, or something like that.

Susan Leibowitz (18:20)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She said that. She said, that's a police. And so, you know, that. That brings forth just the questions about, how did you feel in all of that? And she said, yes, it was awkward. It was weird. But at some time, I mean, at many times, he was literally the only person she had to turn to. You know, she was a single mom at this point. She says she didn't have many friends, any other friends, so that was kind of her resource.

Josh Mankiewicz (18:41)

I felt bad for Marty's wife, Beth. I did. Who just sort of was a kind of an unwitting passenger in this story.

Susan Leibowitz (18:48)

Yeah, I did, too. From the beginning, she was very concerned about Paige. And by concerned, I mean Marty made Paige the best man, quote, unquote, in the wedding. Beth didn't like that.

Josh Mankiewicz (19:00)

Didn't like it any more than Desiree did.

Susan Leibowitz (19:02)

Probably didn't like it any more than Desiree did. And she was already kind of seeing, okay, there's this other woman. But amidst all of those things, never did Beth. And in her telling to me, never did she think that police were going to show up on her doorstep and say, hey, we're arresting your husband for murder, or, we're questioning him, then we're arresting him for murder. Right. So that was something that completely caught her off guard, understandably. Obviously, she's divorced him now. She's moved on. She's got a new boyfriend. But she said this was a very difficult thing for her to get through, to get over afterwards when she just kind of thought about her own judgment and all of this, and how she was like, you said un unwittingly brought into all of this.

Josh Mankiewicz (19:40)

Quite a story. Quite a story.

Susan Leibowitz (19:43)

This was an interesting one.

Josh Mankiewicz (19:44)

Blaine, thank you.

Susan Leibowitz (19:45)

Absolutely. So good to be with you my friend.

Josh Mankiewicz (19:48)

And when we come back, I will be joined by DATELINE producer Susan Leibowitz and we will answer some of your questions from social media.

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Blaine Alexander (20:30)

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Jenna Bush Hager (21:00)

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Josh Mankiewicz (21:32)

Okay, I'm back with the producer of this episode. Susan Liebowitz is here to answer some questions of yours from social media. Hi, Susan. Nice to see you.

Marty (21:42)

Hi, Josh. Always good to see you.

Josh Mankiewicz (21:44)

This was a very complicated episode to put together. Tell me about how difficult this was.

Marty (21:49)

It was difficult because there were a lot of different players because this investigation went a lot of different directions and we had to follow every direction it went in and get people to talk about each of those. And even on social media, I saw people were just saying there's so many people in this episode.

Josh Mankiewicz (22:04)

All right, we have some audio questions from the audience. Let's listen to those. First, is Wendy Barron on Facebook?

Kayla (22:10)

Hi, Blaine. And the rest of the DATELINE family. I just wanted to say that the last part of the show, Blaine, when you stood with your arm around Kayla, I think that just brought the level of compassion and empathy in your show to a whole new level. And I thought it was amazing to see my question this week is regarding the unknown DNA that was found under Desiree's fingernails. It was stated in the beginning that they had actually found unknown DNA that did not match any of the suspects. Was this followed up on at all? Does law enforcement have any theories as to where this unknown male DNA came from?

Marty (22:49)

They have no idea whose DNA it is, and they have no plans at this point to follow up on it. She didn't go out that Saturday. On Friday, she was with her friend Michelle, who was in our episode. They were running around trying to find a place where she could find a printer because she had to print out documents for insurance because they'd been broken into. So she was running around on Friday. Maybe she touched somehow, picked up some male DNA. The cops at this point, we asked them about that, and they have no plans to follow up on that DNA as of now.

Josh Mankiewicz (23:19)

Next question is from Latasha McClellan.

Kayla (23:22)

Hi, Blaine.

Marty (23:23)

I am wondering, how did Desiree's family feel about the Alphra plea being taken? No one who knew and loved Desiree was happy about the Alford plea. Their family was not happy, but they felt they had no choice.

Josh Mankiewicz (23:35)

It's very rare that Alford pleas are taken, and frequently, like, no one's happy with the Alford plea.

Marty (23:41)

Right.

Josh Mankiewicz (23:42)

Lynn Wallace from Facebook says, did Marty mention anything about Paige putting him up to the murder of Desiree? I'm wondering why he wouldn't dime her out if she put him up to this. Also, did Scott go to any part of Marty's trial?

Marty (23:55)

Okay, answering the second part first. There was no trial. There was just that sentencing hearing, and Scott is sitting in the back with his dad. I looked at the footage, and there he was sitting in the back. So he definitely was at the sentencing hearing. He did not speak like her mom and aunt and other relatives. Marty never said Paige put him up to this. I mean, if he had, it would be. This case would have gone in a different direction. He just.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:19)

Right. Because he would have been a witness against Page and she would have been charged.

Marty (24:23)

But he never admitted he did it either. So if he had, that would be sort of admitting it, like, hey, Paige put me up to it.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:29)

Because an Alford plea does not require admission of guilt, just that there is sufficient evidence to convict you.

Marty (24:35)

Correct. And I wrote to him if he'd tell me something. He did not want to tell me anything.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:40)

You wrote to Marty?

Marty (24:41)

Yeah, Marty, I emailed through that jail email, and he said to leave him alone, and he wasn't gonna say anything. He knew what the truth was. But he wasn't gonna share it with me.

Josh Mankiewicz (24:52)

Basically, Felicious 1908, who is a friend of mine in real life, writes in and says Paige really wants us to believe that she can't remember telling a friend that she wants someone gone permanently.

Marty (25:06)

Well, you know, we can't fact check her memories. So, I mean, she did remember some things. She didn't remember some things. One of our producers who met with her thought, you know, that she legitimately doesn't remember things due to her own issues. But who knows? I don't know.

Josh Mankiewicz (25:22)

Work, right. Com says, hard to believe Scott and Paige aren't mixed up in this somehow betting Scott and Paige wanted Desiree dead, Paige manipulated Marty into doing the dirty work. That's certainly the popular theory. And there isn't anything actually to support it. Beyond suspicion, right?

Marty (25:38)

That's correct. They couldn't find any evidence. I mean, when the digital evidence came in, they spent a long time pouring through every text, every bit of digital communication between those two, and they didn't find anything that in any way indicated they were tied to the murder.

Josh Mankiewicz (25:53)

And the physical movement of their telephones around the area doesn't tell you anything either.

Marty (25:58)

The phones were where they were supposed to be.

Josh Mankiewicz (26:01)

Susan, thank you very much. Thanks for coming on Talking dateline. Thanks for having me, and thanks to everybody for listening. Now remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or any case you think we should be covering or pretty much anything else, you can reach out to us on social at Dateline NBC. That's a DatelineNBC. Or if you have a question for Talking Dateline. If you want to hear your voice on Talking Dateline, well, you can leave it for us in a voicemail at 212-413-5252. That phone rings on Keith's desk 24 hours a day and you can record yourself and send it to us via DM on social media. You can also do it that way. And don't forget to tune in this Friday. Andrea takes us back to the very chilling murder of a doctor in Central New York. It's a good story. Thanks. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.

Jenna Bush Hager (27:09)

With the Venmo debit card, you can turn the spa day that your friends paid you back for into concert tickets that you can earn up to 5% cash back on, where a spa day.

Al Roker (27:20)

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