Busted

Summary

Deadly Mirage – Episode: Busted

Release Date: December 17, 2024
Host: Josh Mankiewicz, NBC News

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I. Case Overview

Deadly Mirage, a gripping podcast by NBC News’ Dateline, delves into the mysterious and tragic murder of Robert Lamone in the affluent Silver Lakes community of California’s Mojave Desert. The seemingly perfect life of Rob and Sabrina Lamone—complete with two young children, a beautiful home, and a close-knit group of friends known as the “Wolf Pack”—unravels when Rob is found murdered. Investigators soon uncover a tangled web of sex, friendship, and religion, revealing deep-seated secrets that challenge the community's facade.

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II. Arrests and Investigation

On November 17, 2014, exactly three months after Rob Lamone's murder, Sabrina Lamone and her lover, Jonathan Hearn, were arrested under murder charges. Josh Mankiewicz narrates the tense moments leading to their custody:

[01:04] Josh Mankiewicz: "It was around 11 on the morning of November 17, 2014, three months to the day after her husband's murder, that Sabrina Lamone was taken into custody at her children's school."

Sabrina's sister, Julie Lamone, recounts the shock of the arrest:

[01:54] Julie Lamone: "I just couldn't believe it."

Simultaneously, investigators began scrutinizing the Lamone household, uncovering documents from life insurance companies and communications between Sabrina and Jonathan, turning what was once considered a steamy affair into a focal point of evidence.

[02:21] Detective Randall Meyer: "From Sabrina's residence, we were able to obtain lots of documents regarding financial stuff... every text message and every sales receipt... were now called evidence."

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III. Sabrina Lamone's Interrogation

Sabrina’s interrogation revealed the complexities of her relationship with Jonathan and the possible motives behind Rob's murder. Initially, Sabrina admitted to an on-and-off affair with Jonathan but was evasive about the details.

[05:21] Sabrina Lamone: "I had had a relationship with him."

Det. Meyer pressed her on the financial benefits of Rob's death, highlighting substantial insurance payouts:

[03:19] Detective Randall Meyer: "There is a Financial benefit to Robert Lamone dying... $300,000 in insurance and potentially $2 million... Settlement with a railroad."

Despite the mounting evidence, Sabrina maintained her innocence, struggling to reconcile the investigation's implications with her faith.

[06:13] Sabrina Lamone: "I have tried to figure that out. I have no idea how could he be gone. So I have to. I put my faith in God."

Her initial cooperation faltered when Detective Meyer employed tougher tactics, emphasizing the inevitability of Jonathan's imprisonment:

[06:25] Detective Randall Meyer: "We have evidence that will prove Jonathan Hearn murdered Robert Lamone."

Ultimately, Sabrina’s reluctance to divulge further information led to her release due to insufficient evidence against her, leaving the case hanging in uncertainty.

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IV. Community Fallout

Sabrina’s release did not mark the end of her ordeal. Instead, it triggered a severe backlash from the Silver Lakes community. Friends and neighbors ostracized her, leading to threats and hostility against her and her family.

[22:00] Chris Wilson: "If you're arrested for a crime that you didn't commit, that you didn't commit, wouldn't you reach out to your husband's family and say, I did not do this."

Her sister, Julie Lamone, describes the community's cruelty:

[22:36] Julie Lamone: "The people out in Silver Lakes were so cruel, they would try to ram her car."

The relentless pressure forced Sabrina to homeschool her children and eventually relocate 145 miles away to Camarillo, seeking refuge from the animosity she faced.

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V. Legal Proceedings and Defense

Jonathan Hearn’s legal journey took a pivotal turn when his defense attorney, Clayton Campbell, discovered critical gaps in the prosecution’s evidence. Campbell found that key evidence from Jonathan’s residence—such as the motorcycle and helmets—was missing from the prosecution's case file.

[03:07] Clayton Campbell: "There were things at Jonathan's house that I was aware of that they didn't have."

Despite the shaky case against Sabrina, the prosecution held firm, primarily relying on the affair and circumstantial evidence. Campbell faced a moral dilemma when Jonathan expressed a desire to confess his involvement.

[30:52] Clayton Campbell: "His reason for that is that he actually has a conscience. He knows what he did was wrong... he feels that maintaining a not guilty plea was dishonest."

Campbell grappled with balancing his professional obligations and Jonathan’s personal conscience, ultimately striving to protect his client while addressing the ethical concerns posed by Jonathan’s willingness to confess.

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VI. Jonathan Hearn's Confession and Plea Deal

In a dramatic turn of events, Jonathan Hearn decided to cooperate with authorities, offering critical information about the murder plot against Rob Lamone. This decision was influenced by his deep remorse and desire to unburden himself of his guilt.

[35:34] Jonathan Hearn (J): "I did plan the poisoning of Robert with some necessary assistance from Sabrina."

Jonathan detailed their plan to poison Rob, describing the meticulous steps they took to conceal the evidence, including hiding the murder weapon and creating a homemade silencer.

[35:44] Jonathan Hearn (J): "I needed to know what kind of food he would be sure to eat... We discussed the location where this should take place."

In exchange for his full cooperation, Jonathan struck a plea deal to plead guilty to manslaughter, ensuring a significantly reduced sentence of 25 years and four months, as opposed to life without parole.

[38:27] Clayton Campbell: "All the stuff that was hidden, we wanted to make sure they got all that stuff so that it couldn't be used against Jonathan."

This deal effectively shifted the focus onto Sabrina Lamone, muddying the waters of the investigation and leaving Sabrina to reckon with her family's fractured trust and community’s disdain.

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VII. Aftermath and Reflection

Sabrina Lamone’s life became a testament to betrayal and isolation. Her departure from Silver Lakes, compounded by the public’s harsh judgment and the fading connections with her children’s extended family, painted a poignant picture of the personal costs of secrets and lies.

Rob Lamone’s sisters, Chris and Lydia Marrero, struggled with the immense grief and betrayal, especially as Sabrina remained silent following her release.

[25:34] Chris Wilson: "Because my faith. With my faith, I forgive him. Because God forgave me, I truly forgive him."

Their forgiveness, rooted in faith, underscores the complex emotional and moral landscapes navigated by those left behind.

Detective Randall Meyer’s relentless pursuit of the truth, juxtaposed with Clayton Campbell’s ethical struggle, highlights the intricate interplay between justice, morality, and personal conscience in the American legal system.

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Notable Quotes with Attribution and Timestamps:

• Josh Mankiewicz [01:04]: "It was around 11 on the morning of November 17, 2014, three months to the day after her husband's murder, that Sabrina Lamone was taken into custody at her children's school."

• Julie Lamone [01:54]: "I just couldn't believe it."

• Detective Randall Meyer [03:19]: "There is a Financial benefit to Robert Lamone dying... $300,000 in insurance and potentially $2 million... Settlement with a railroad."

• Sabrina Lamone [05:21]: "I had had a relationship with him."

• Detective Randall Meyer [06:25]: "We have evidence that will prove Jonathan Hearn murdered Robert Lamone."

• Chris Wilson [25:02]: "As a parent, I would never want to lose my child. And mom lost her only son. She just declined."

• Jonathan Hearn (J) [35:34]: "I did plan the poisoning of Robert with some necessary assistance from Sabrina."

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Conclusion

Episode Busted of Deadly Mirage masterfully unravels the complexities of a murder case steeped in personal betrayal and community illusion. Through meticulous storytelling and impactful quotes, Josh Mankiewicz paints a vivid picture of how intertwined relationships and hidden motives can lead to devastating consequences. For listeners seeking a profound exploration of human frailty and the quest for truth, Busted stands as a compelling narrative within the Deadly Mirage series.

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For those intrigued by this harrowing tale, follow Deadly Mirage on Dateline Premium via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or datelinepremium.com. Subscribe now to gain ad-free access and early episode releases.

Transcript

[Narrator]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

It was around 11 on the morning of November 17, 2014, three months to the day after her husband's murder, that Sabrina Lamone was taken into custody at her children's school. Like Jonathan Hearn, who had been arrested earlier, Sabrina was placed in the back of a patrol car and driven to the desert town of Boron, which was the closest Kern County Sheriff's Department substation. It was there that the couple's long journey through the American justice system would begin. Jonathan Hearn's family had already been notified of his arrest. Sabrina's sister Julie had been told by investigators that somebody needed to make arrangements to take care of her kids because she had been detained.

[Julie Lamone]

I was at work and I got the call on my cell phone. They said that they had arrested Sabrina and Jonathan Hearn. I needed to pick up the kids from school. We weren't able to talk to Brena. I just couldn't, couldn't believe it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

While Jonathan and Sabrina were being transported to Boron, teams of investigators fanned out to begin searches of their homes.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

From Sabrina's residence, we were able to obtain lots of documents regarding financial stuff from life insurance companies, from BNSF railroad, letters from Jonathan to Sabrina, every love.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Letter, every racy photo, every text message and every sales receipt were no longer just proof of a steamy, illicit affair. They were now called evidence.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

From Jonathan's residence, we were able to seize the motorcycle that was ridden. We seized two styles of helmets.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

In this episode, you will hear how some critical evidence was missed during those searches.

[Clayton Campbell]

There were things at Jonathan's house that I was aware of that they didn't have.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You'll hear about a motive for murder far more tangible than vague notions of God's purpose.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

There is a Financial benefit to Robert Lamone dying.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

$300,000 in insurance and potentially $2 million.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Settlement with a railroad.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And you'll hear how one of those suspects was seemingly able to walk away free and clear to start life anew.

[Julie Lamone]

She didn't know anything about it, and I believe in her innocence.

[Chris Wilson]

They said there just simply wasn't enough evidence.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Josh. I'm Josh Mankiewicz and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Episode five Busted. The arrests of Jonathan Hearn and Sabrina Lamone on murder charges were a huge story in the high desert Communities of California.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

24 year old Jonathan Hearn, a firefighter paramedic, is charged with first degree murder.

[Lydia Marrero]

Sheriff's officials say Sabrina Limone, seen here.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

With her husband, husband Robert, planned his death with Hearn.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

And they say that Hearn and Sabrina Limone exchanged thousands of text messages.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The Kern County Sheriff's deputies who'd conducted the months long investigation into Rob Lamone's death were justifiably proud of their work.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes, it was a great feeling. Thousands of hours were put into the investigation, listening to phone calls and surveillance. And so it did feel good.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And you finally got your man and your woman.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

In the hours after his arrest, Jonathan said little to investigators beyond asking for a lawyer. Sabrina, on the other hand, seemed willing to talk, perhaps because her interrogators told her she was not under arrest.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

You are detained, but you're not under arrest.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

I want to make that perfectly clear to you.

[Narrator]

Okay?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That may have been a distinction without a difference, but Sabrina was game. She readily admitted to having an on and off affair with Jonathan Hearn.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I had had a relationship with him.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

She was vague about when the affair began, when it resumed, and how often she'd spoken with Jonathan in the months, weeks and hours before her husband's murder. Of course, the investigators already knew the answers to all of that. I can give you the amounts of text messages and phone calls that were made prior to, during, and after Robert was killed. I do this for a living. I'm not playing games with you. For 30 minutes, they went round and round, Sabrina talking about her dead husband, her kids, and God's purpose. You keep saying it's God's plan. What?

[Sabrina Lamone]

I tried to figure that out. I have no idea how could he be gone. So I have to. I put my faith in God.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's when the cops got straight to the point.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

We have evidence that will prove Jonathan Hearn murdered Robert Lamont.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Are you serious?

[Detective Randall Meyer]

He is going to prison for the rest of his life. Okay. If I wasn't clear to you in the beginning. This is your one chance not to join him. Do you understand that? This is your one chance.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I understand that. I can't. I can't wrap my brain.

[Lydia Marrero]

We don't believe you. We know everything.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

It is your turn to tell the truth.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

If Sabrina's interviewers were waiting for some kind of confession, an admission that she knew her lover had murdered her husband, they were disappointed.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I mean, there's no way that Jonathan's the one that murdered Robert. I mean, there's just. There's no way.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The interview ended when Sabrina asked for a lawyer. At that point, she was arrested, and deputies drove her to Bakersfield for formal booking and fingerprinting. It was in Bakersfield that she asked to speak with Detective Randall Meyer. The next afternoon, Sabrina was led to the same interrogation room where she'd met Detective Meyer a week earlier.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Sorry for not being honest with you, Detective man.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

It's okay. Give me a second here, okay?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

She was still wearing the tight fitting gray jeans and white jacket she'd worn the day before when deputies had picked her up at her children's school.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

I need to basically put it on the record that I didn't force you to come here, that you came here because you decided you wanted to talk to me, right? Yes. And I need to read your rights again.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The detective was his same old congenial self. He said he understood why Sabrina had lied to him.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

You were probably upset and scared and you didn't know what to say. So I know tons of stuff about all this that's gone on, and I want you to tell me the truth.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The detective wanted Sabrina to tell her story again, starting with that first meeting in Costco and the critical moment when Jonathan Hearn asked for her phone number.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Our friends. Friends were having a party, and they were fire department people. And I said, are you going to that party? Kind of thing. And then he's like, well, maybe I'll see you there. Like, what's your number? And I had never given out my number to, like, a stranger before. And I did. I instantly, like, felt guilty. Like, oh, my gosh.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

An innocent mistake. She told the detective she thought Jonathan knew she was married, even though she never wore her wedding ring while she was working.

[Sabrina Lamone]

But then he called and messaged me, and I was just like, oh, my gosh. Like, I got myself into. So I didn't answer it or respond. And he apologized. He was like, are you married? I'm so sorry. And then I put, yeah, I thought that you knew that she could have.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Ended it right there. But she didn't do that. And Jonathan, he did not back away either. So together they tiptoed into that treacherous swamp colloquially called friends with benefits. It was a gradual thing, to be sure. A romantic attraction that only became noticeable when it was absent. It was pleasant to meet, pleasant to talk, pleasant to anticipate the next meeting, fun to exchange gifts and trinkets.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Did you feel guilty about that?

[Sabrina Lamone]

You know the funny thing? After I told him I was married and he was sincerely sorry, I didn't feel that bad because I social. I talked to a lot of people and Rob and I were open, like Rob was. He was pretty casual with me.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

As casual as swinging on Grandma's porch. Oh, yes, the swinging. Sabrina told the detective about that, too.

[Sabrina Lamone]

And we have had open relationships, parties, and just kind of like that kind of a lifestyle. More. More like now. The kids weren't exposed to that firsthand.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Right. I know we've talked about your open relationship before, and you told me you didn't have one.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I was dreading. I didn't want any of this to. To come out, you know.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Did you think this would ever come out?

[Sabrina Lamone]

I've been dripping, you know, I've been. It's. It's shameful.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

There's an old saying that for some men, marriage is just a word, while to others, it's a sentence, the kind you serve. To the late Rob Limone, marriage wasn't a word or a sentence. It was more like a theme park. And he wanted to climb onto every ride. Well, that's if you believe Mrs. Rob Lamone. According to Sabrina, the whole open marriage thing was all Rob's idea. And it began six years earlier when she and Rob started spouse swapping with another couple.

[Sabrina Lamone]

That's where the door opened. I hate to talk about him, Ellie, you know, because I don't want to.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Dishonor him, but he was a man.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Yeah. So he was all about it, you know, to the end of their, like, whatever we had to do. And this went on.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Sabrina was fuzzy on dates. She couldn't remember exactly when she met Jonathan. 2013, maybe. She also didn't remember when they started sleeping together six months later, eight months. She did, however, remember quite well the night her husband discovered a large batch of love texts from Jonathan on her phone.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Robert had found my phone.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Tell me about that.

[Sabrina Lamone]

He's like, who's. Who's this dude? And he'd seen him out once before, so he was just like, you know, what's up? How did this. How did this go down? And I just kind of told him, like, I don't know, it just happened.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

So did you think it would be okay, I mean, with Rob, if. If you were seeing Jonathan? Because, you know, you guys kind of had that open relationship.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I guess that's how I justified it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The detective, of course, already knew a lot of this. He'd heard it from a couple of members of the Wolf pack, Rob and Sabrina's Silver Lakes friends, Jason and Kelly Bernatine. According to the Bernatines, Rob was not okay with his wife having an affair with Jonathan Hearn, an outsider who was not a Wolfpack member. Rob had demanded it stop.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Jonathan apologized to Robert, talked to him, he apologized to him. And we felt bad. And Rob and I just kind of kept going, and Jonathan and I stopped talking.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Then after a few months, Sabrina said she and Jonathan resumed their affair.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I just. Wow. You know, I mean, we. We got deep.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

We got deep for you and Jonathan. So Rob's going to work, and then he's working overtime shifts and stuff. And Jonathan would be at your house sometimes, late at night when the kids were sleeping or whatever.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Not always or.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Yeah, if they were gone after taking a short break. So a crime lab tech could come in and take a DNA sample, fingerprints and photographs.

[Julie Lamone]

Take an ID photo real quick.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The detective pressed Sabrina on how much she'd known about her lover's plan to murder her husband.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

How did Jonathan know that Rob was going to be working in Tachby?

[Sabrina Lamone]

Well, he wasn't supposed to be working in Tashby, but I did tell him.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Sabrina told the detective she typically kept Jonathan posted whenever Rob was working one of those 12 hour shifts into Hatchapi because that was time she and Jonathan could possibly spend between the sheets.

[Sabrina Lamone]

We were possibly gonna get together, but he was doing other stuff.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

He told them where the shop was at off the freeway right there.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I'll say. Yes, I have. I think I've explained just like times we went up there and the building, how the building was, you know.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Did you give him the address or anything?

[Sabrina Lamone]

No, I don't know the address.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Okay.

[Sabrina Lamone]

I just kind of explained how it is.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The detective knew firsthand. The railroad shop into Hatchapi was hard to find. The building wasn't marked.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

It's your husband's place of business. Why would you specifically tell him that it's a business rather than freeway and Hatchby, that's where he works at?

[Sabrina Lamone]

I don't. I don't know. It was in conversation. I don't know.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

You know what? I think if you would have Never told him that. He would have never been able to find it. Because it's not on the map. You can't Google it and find it. I tried.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Sabrina had no answer for that. For 30 seconds, she said nothing. Then she hung her head and whispered.

[Chris Wilson]

Why did I tell him?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Why did I tell him?

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes or no? Did you ever suspect him of doing it?

[Sabrina Lamone]

Yes. After seeing the video and conversations. Could have been me, but it could have been planted. We could keep going over all these things. They could say this. We could do this, you know, kind of thing. We went over a lot of that kind of stuff. Like, a lot.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Sabrina insisted it had been the affair that she and Jonathan Hearn had wanted to hide all along, not murder. She said she'd never wanted to believe that Jonathan was a killer.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

It wasn't about the affair. This is about him concealing the fact that he murdered your husband, and he didn't want people to find out about it. And he thought he was doing God's work because you were living a life of sin, and he wanted to save you from that.

[Sabrina Lamone]

What do I do now?

[Detective Randall Meyer]

What do you do now? You tell me everything you know. Cause I'll be honest with you. What I get out of this interview is gonna make a huge decision. And if you ever touch and see your kids again, ever in your entire life.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Yeah, No, I feel like I've been just completely, like, out of my mind.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

If Sabrina Limone knew anything more about her husband's murder, she didn't say it. Even when the detective told her that Jonathan Hearn had asked to speak to him.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

What do you think he's gonna say?

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That was not true, of course. It was just more bait. A last ditch effort to chum the waters enough so that Sabrina might flip on her lover, close the case, maybe even salvage a plea deal for herself. Sabrina did not bite.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Jonathan's gonna tell me that you started all this and you talked him into it.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Well, that wouldn't be true.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

He's gonna tell me exactly what happened.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Well, good.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

After four hours of watching Sabrina's interview from the next room, department brass decided they'd seen enough. Another investigator stepped into the room and brought it all to an end. If you don't have anything for us, I think we need to get you to jail.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Okay.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

What I need you to do is I need you to stand up and turn around. And with that, Sabrina Lamone, mom, widow, wolf pack member in good standing, was handcuffed and taken back to jail.

[Narrator]

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[Lydia Marrero]

I really love my life.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

On November 20, the day after Sabrina's long post arrest interview with Detective Meyer, the Kern County District attorney charged Jonathan Hearn with first degree murder. That done, the DA felt the case against Sabrina Lemone was weak.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

The supervisors felt at that point in time that we needed some follow up investigative work done with Sabrina.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Just not enough against her at that point.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Correct.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The problem was this. Out of hours and hours of wiretaps, Sabrina had said nothing incriminating.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

No smoking gun is what we would call it. She didn't admit to being involved or committing the murder of Rob Lamong.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

So a few days after being picked up by Kern county deputies, Sabrina was released from custody.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

I actually had met with the district attorney that was assigned to the case at the time and she had given me what we call a wish list. It's a list of items that they would wish or want us to get.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Done before they can charge her.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

What were those items?

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Obviously they wanted the admission which we weren't going to get. They requested we speak to the friends again and find out if anybody had any idea that this was occurring. Speak with Jonathan's friends to assist with the investigation.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Sabrina Lamone may have been out of jail, but she was not free from suspicion, not from the law, and certainly not from former friends like Jason and Kelly Bernatine. And so now she's back in Your town, living her life. Does she know you guys cooperated?

[Chris Wilson]

Yeah.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Do you ever talk to her? No. Are you afraid of her?

[Chris Wilson]

No.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Are you telling me the truth?

[Chris Wilson]

Yes. I am not afraid of her. I'm afraid of somebody else that she might talk somebody into not her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The American writer Thomas Wolfe famously said, you can't go home again a lot of the time. That's certainly true. And it didn't take Sabrina Lamone long to learn her hometown had turned on her.

[Julie Lamone]

The people out in Silver Lakes were so cruel, they would try to ram her car.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's Sabrina's sister, Julie.

[Julie Lamone]

There was one time and I went to the Little Market and one of the friends said, oh, yeah, that golfer that was out in the front yard at their house.

[Lydia Marrero]

It's gone.

[Julie Lamone]

And I should have taken that. People were like vultures and wanted things of Roberts and theirs. It was just. It was nuts. It was just crazy.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

It wasn't just hard for Sabrina to show her face in town. Julie says the kids were taunted and teased. It got so bad, Sabrina decided to homeschool them. And eventually she decided to leave town.

[Julie Lamone]

In fact, when we put the house up for sale, we didn't even put a sign outside because she was scared of the way that everyone was being so cruel to her and turned on her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Once the house sold, Sabrina packed up the kids and moved 145 miles away to Camarillo, a small town north of Los Angeles. There she rented a three bedroom condo and tried to start a new life amid neighbors who knew nothing of her old one. Of course, leaving one's past behind is not that easy. Sabrina still had Rob's family to contend with. The kids had a grandmother who wanted to see them, aunts and uncles and cousins who wanted to know what happened. What about them?

[Lydia Marrero]

She hasn't called or made any attempt to make contact with me.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's Lydia Marrero, one of Rob Lamone's sisters. If she did call, what would you say to her? What do you want to know?

[Lydia Marrero]

What's the truth? What's happened, Sabrina? What led to this? Sabrina has more answers to the questions, and she just doesn't want to admit to it.

[Chris Wilson]

Well, when we didn't hear from her, we wondered, well, she. She must be guilty.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And that's Chris Wilson, another of Rob's sisters.

[Chris Wilson]

If you're arrested for a crime that you didn't commit, that you didn't commit, wouldn't you reach out to your husband's family and say, I did not do this. I had no part of this.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And I'm living in this nightmare.

[Chris Wilson]

Yes. Here I am. And they're accusing me. And I did. I had no part of this.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You didn't get that call?

[Chris Wilson]

Never got that call.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Mm.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Mm.

[Chris Wilson]

Never. My mom never got that call.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You have any contact with her after that?

[Chris Wilson]

No. I have sent the kids cards for Christmas, their birthdays. We had to find her because she moved from Helendale. So we had to find her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Lydia says the silence from Sabrina after her release spoke volumes.

[Lydia Marrero]

Her silence, her absence from everybody, you know, all that just tells me she's very much involved and she might feel that not talking to anybody's gonna prevent any implication on her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Chris Wilson says her mom was devastated by Rob's sudden death and the loss of contact with her grandchildren. Chris says her mother's health suffered a steep decline and In June of 2016, she died. She was only 68.

[Chris Wilson]

She died of a broken heart, losing her son.

[Sabrina Lamone]

Mm.

[Chris Wilson]

As a parent, I would never want to lose my child. And mom lost her only son. She just declined.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

His death killed her.

[Chris Wilson]

Yes. Yes. And she to know how that it was his wife that was involved. That was even harder for mom.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's the thing about betrayal. Sometimes the person we should fear most is the one we trust most. That was a lesson Sabrina Lamone was about to learn the hard way.

[Narrator]

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[Josh Mankiewicz]

Before they'd even met, defense attorney Clayton Campbell had a feeling he was going to like Jonathan Hearn. He liked Jonathan's parents. When they came in to discuss the case, they believed strongly in their son's innocence, and they seemed like his kind of people. That's because they were devout Christians, just like Clayton. They'd told him Jonathan had been homeschooled, just like Clayton.

[Clayton Campbell]

I'm a bit older than Jonathan, probably 13 years or so older than him.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's Clayton Campbell, Jonathan Hearn's defense attorney.

[Clayton Campbell]

I figured we had something in common, and I could relate to him in that respect. I also kind of knew, you know, how to relate to his family a little bit.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The things Jonathan was accused of were nothing short of terrible. Murdering the husband of a woman he was having an affair with. Awful. Well, the more Clayton Campbell dug into the case and examined the evidence, the better he liked his chances at trial.

[Clayton Campbell]

I thought, hey, we have an actual shot at developing a defense. And of course, we ended up with a much better shot than I than I thought once we started digging into the reports.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

After all, what did the prosecution have? An affair. Security camera video, a motorcycle and some guns. Well, Campbell thought the security video was too blurry to identify anybody. And the motorcycle? Well, there must be hundreds of motorcycles in Southern California like the one Jonathan owned. As for the two handguns that were registered to Jonathan, the prosecutor couldn't prove either of them was the murder weapon.

[Clayton Campbell]

They tested all of Jonathan's firearms. Not one of them matched the bullets that were used to kill Robert.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That was encouraging. However, there was one big problem. Clayton Campbell's client wanted to confess his sins right from the jump, just like King David did in that Bible story involving Bathsheba.

[Clayton Campbell]

His reason for that is that he actually has a conscience. He knows what he did was wrong, and he felt that maintaining a not guilty plea was dishonest and that what he should do is he shouldn't make the fact that he killed someone worse by lying about it and maintaining a lie.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

For a lot of defense attorneys, that might have been an easy call. Let the client cop to murder, collect the fee, and call it a day. Next. Well, not Clayton Campbell. To him, this posed a moral dilemma.

[Clayton Campbell]

I have the same religious moral viewpoint that he has But I have these professional obligations as his attorney. I'm supposed to protect him. It's very difficult to find some kind of a way out where we satisfy both his conscience, where he admits wrong, and at the same time protect him from life without the possibility of parole.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

The lawyer prayed with his client. He pleaded with Jonathan to not confess his guilt to anyone, not even his family. So for two years, Jonathan Hearn sat in a jail cell, presumably speaking only to God about his guilty conscience. And perhaps his prayers weren't answered because he did receive forgiveness from an unlikely quarter. That was Rob Lamone's family.

[Chris Wilson]

I have forgiven him for what he has done.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's Rob's sister, Chris Wilson. How can you do that?

[Chris Wilson]

Because my faith. With my faith, I forgive him. Because God forgave me, I truly forgive him.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Well, God forgive you. You didn't kill anybody.

[Chris Wilson]

Right? Right. But that's. That's where I am.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

As the days and weeks ticked down to Jonathan's trial date, Clayton Campbell pored over the lists of evidence that prosecutors intended to produce for a jury. It was then that he noticed a lot of evidence he expected to see there was missing.

[Clayton Campbell]

There were things at Jonathan's house that I was aware of that they didn't have.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Jonathan had not only told his lawyer details of the affair with Sabrina and details about the murder of her husband, he'd also told where he'd hidden key evidence. For instance, shortly after the shooting, Jonathan told the lawyer how he had replaced the barrel on the murder weapon with a new one. The actual barrel that fired the fatal shots, Jonathan told his lawyer, was hidden in a chicken coop behind his house, along with a homemade silencer he'd fashioned out of a flashlight. Clayton Campbell saw the makings of a deal.

[Clayton Campbell]

My hope was, okay, we'd give them all that information. Then if they. Then they couldn't find it, never use it against him. If they decide to pull a rug out from under us and back out on the deal, we actually were prepared.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

To go to trial on Jonathan starting January of 2017.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's lead detective Randall Meyer, Jonathan's attorney.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Approached the district attorney and spoke with him and said that Jonathan could provide information that would lead to the possible prosecution of Sabrina Lamone.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

After years of professing his undying love for Sabrina and praying for God's help in keeping their secret, Jonathan Hearn prepared to turn on her. God's purpose, it seemed, had just become Jonathan's proffer. On 3rd January, 2017, talks between the defense and the prosecution team began at the Sheriff's Department. For Jonathan Hearn, those meetings must have seemed heaven sent, because finally he had an opportunity to confess his sins, which included at least two of the seven deadliest.

[Clayton Campbell]

Well, that first meeting, I got the feeling that Jonathan felt that this was more of his chance to basically get it off his chest and confess. And so it did scare me a little bit that he was more focused on his own guilt at that meeting than on sharing all the information they needed about her.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Jonathan told prosecutors and investigators he and Sabrina spent months plotting to kill Rob Lamone. In fact, he said they had once conspired to poison him.

[J]

I did plan the poisoning of Robert with some necessary assistance from Sabrina.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That's the voice of Jonathan Hearn.

[J]

I needed to know what kind of food he would be sure to eat. She provided me a couple suggestions. We discussed the location where this should take place. We agreed upon Tehachapi to send him some food laced with poison.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

According to Jonathan, they settled on putting a fatal dose of arsenic in some banana pudding, Rob's favorite. Jonathan told investigators he had ordered the arsenic online, calculated the fatal dosage by weight, and then tested it on a dog.

[J]

I experimented with that on a neighbor dog who had caused me considerable issues in the past and put the arsenic on some meat and gave it to the dog to see what would happen.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

Jonathan said he did not see the dog again after that. So a few days later, he made a family sized batch of banana pudding with Nilla wafers for Sabrina's family. Then in a smaller Tupperware bowl, he said he put a single portion and he put the arsenic in that. Jonathan said he delivered the two pudding containers to Sabrina's house one day when Rob was at work.

[J]

She told me that she put the smaller portion for Robert, put it in his lunch the next day, whatever. His next shift was out to Hatchby.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

You guys didn't know anything about the poisoning until Jonathan gave that to you? That's correct, Detective Randall Meyer. They actually ended up giving it to Rob.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

And then at the last minute, Sybrina got cold feet and told Rob not to eat it.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

Yes. He said they had conversations and were worried about law enforcement looking at their phone records. And so he had talked to Sabrina and they felt that they would ditch the plan for now.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

To back up his story, Jonathan told investigators that he stashed the leftover arsenic in the garage attached to his house, hidden in an empty paint can.

[Clayton Campbell]

I made sure we included everything that we were aware of that could possibly be discovered and harmful to Jonathan.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That was a Key condition of the plea deal says Clayton Campbell. Any evidence Jonathan helped investigators find could not be used against him.

[Clayton Campbell]

All the stuff that was hidden, we wanted to make sure they got all that stuff so that it couldn't be used against Jonathan, even if a deal wasn't reached.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

That night, Clayton Campbell went home and prayed that investigators would find everything Jonathan had told them was hidden in and around his home. After all, a couple of years had passed since Jonathan lived there.

[Clayton Campbell]

I don't know whether the paint buckets were. Are still there, thrown away. Who knows? And I'd seen that garage.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

There were.

[Detective Randall Meyer]

It's.

[Clayton Campbell]

It's like, you know, a lot of garages. There's a lot of stuff in there. And sure enough, late at night, it must have been 10 or 11 in the evening, I hear back from Detective Meyer that they found it.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

With the blessing of Rob Limone's family, the Kern County Prosecutor's office told Clayton Campbell they would make a deal with Jonathan Hearn. In exchange for Jonathan's full cooperation in the case against Sabrina Limone, the district attorney would let Jonathan plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Instead of a possible life without parole for murder, Jonathan would receive a predetermined sentence of 25 years and four months in prison. Clayton Campbell felt good about that. Jonathan would be a free man around the time he turned 50. Considering what he'd been facing, that was good. Now Campbell had to tell Jonathan's parents their son had just confessed to murder.

[Clayton Campbell]

That was probably the hardest conversation I've ever had with a client's family, you know, is to tell these people who were very hopeful that Jonathan was innocent and that he would be vindicated, that he, in fact, was guilty and that he was admitting that and making a deal with the prosecutor. That was, you know, as you can imagine, difficult for them to hear.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

While Clayton Campbell was meeting with the Hearn family, Detective Randall Meyer and a team of investigators were just turning onto Ventura Boulevard in Camarillo. They were on their way to arrest Sabrina Lamone again. Coming up next on Deadly Mirage. My wife and I and Robin. Sabrina would engage in sexual activities, but it was not wife swapping. Good morning, sir.

[Lydia Marrero]

Can you tell us your name and spell your first and last name for the record?

[J]

Yes, sir. My name is Jonathan Hearn. Last name spelled H E, A, R.

[Josh Mankiewicz]

N. She was nowhere involved in the murder of her husband. It was a deal that he cut to get himself out from underneath being convicted in life without the possibility of parole. Deadly Mirage is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beacham is the producer, Brian Drew, Kelly Law Dean and Marshall Housefeld are audio editors, Carson Cummins is associate producer, Adam Gorfain is co executive producer, Paul Ryan is executive producer and Liz Cole is senior executive producer from NBC News. Audio Sound mixing by Katie Lau Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.

[Narrator]

It's the holiday season and the perfect time to gift yourself with a new home for the new year. For a limited time, take advantage of incredible savings and incentives during Dr. Horton's it's your Year Savings event going on now through December 22nd. Your perfect home for every holiday season is waiting for you. To find yours, visit any of our participating Dr. Horton communities or visit [e-mail] and discover the Dr. Horton difference. Dr. Horton America's builder an equal Housing Opportunity Builder.