3: The Ambush

Summary

Hell in Heaven: A Mysterious Death in Paradise

Episode 3: The Ambush

Host: Becky Milligan
Date: October 16, 2025

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Overview

In this gripping third installment, host Becky Milligan unpacks the dramatic "ambush" that heightened the Benders’ paranoia and led to the couple’s transformation of their Costa Rican paradise into a heavily fortified and fear-filled enclave. Through interviews, first-hand accounts, and chilling new revelations—including the apparent involvement of mercenaries—Milligan sheds light on how a routine-seeming business errand erupted into armed chaos, exposing the deepening sense of threat surrounding John and Ann Bender. The episode scrutinizes the ambiguity of the supposed police intervention and the darker currents below, raising new questions about who was after John and why.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Retracing the Benders’ Journey to Rosemary Bradley (02:01–08:25)

• Becky and her producer Poppy visit Rosemary Bradley, a British soil microbiologist living in Costa Rica, to revisit the critical 2001 visit by the Benders.
  • They recreate the journey across a treacherous hanging bridge, evoking the perils and isolation of the area.
  • Rosemary’s business sells native seed blends designed to combat erosion, a significant issue due to hillside building.
  • The Benders, intent on ecological solutions for their new mansion, sought Rosemary’s expertise.
  • Rosemary recalls Ann’s ongoing health struggles (Lyme disease) and notes John’s charisma.

"She limped a lot. She used a walking stick because of the Lyme disease. ... She was kind of shy, timid, whereas he was less so. I would say deep, deep voice. Yeah, yeah, nice guy. I mean, he was good looking too. I was fascinated by them, fascinated."
— Rosemary (08:25)

• Rosemary sympathized with the couple’s desire for privacy and isolation, reflecting her own experience as a foreigner in Costa Rica.

“I think you can get quite paranoid here as a foreigner and feel that everybody's against you and just live your own little private life. And I think that's what they were doing. You create your own bubble. I mean, we've done that here.”
— Rosemary (09:24)

2. The Ambush Event: Chaos on the Bridge (11:12–15:58)

• As the Benders return to their car after making the purchase, shots ring out—Anne screams for help through the intercom.
• Marco recalls how he rushed to the scene, crossing the dangerous bridge to find a white pickup truck blocking the drive, armed men jumping out, and John infuriated.
• Initial panic gives way to confusion as Rosemary and Marco recognize one of the armed men as someone they knew—a revelation that the "attackers" are police, not robbers or kidnappers.

“He fired the gun between John's legs and held it up to John's head. Anne was terrified.”
— Becky Milligan (13:12-13:49)

• John and Anne, shaken, are informed that the incident is merely about "documents" and are forced to accompany police to the station, language barriers compounding their distress.

3. Unpacking the Police Encounter and Its Aftermath (16:06–19:09)

• At the police station, the focus is on John and Anne’s Grenadian passports—a notorious tax haven. The oddness of the strong-arm tactics and their targeting grows.

“Apparently, the passports had aroused the police's interest. John's father, Paul, says that he was worried about his son's decision to give up U.S. citizenship and move his fortune abroad.”
— Becky Milligan (16:08)

• John’s father Paul expresses his disapproval:

“I guess the one thing that bothered me about what he was doing was when he started thinking about moving offshore and not living in the United States. And I said, why are you doing that? And he said, to avoid taxes and stuff. And that I did not like.”
— Paul Bender (16:45)

• Despite the police saying the incident was about IDs, suspicion lingers that something else was at play—possibly the police acting on behalf of a creditor.

• The assault triggers a surge of paranoia: John is traumatized, believing people are after him and Anne, prompting an escalation in personal security.

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4. The Security Response: Enter “El Toro” (19:09–22:09)

• Jose Pizarro, former chief of Costa Rica’s police (nicknamed "El Toro"), is hired as Benders’ head of security.
  • He finds the couple traumatized and quickly fortifies their estate with armed guards and new protocols.
  • Jose senses that the police operation was highly irregular and possibly not “routine” at all, further fueling suspicions of a setup, perhaps related to a lawsuit filed against John by a former associate.

“This was totally out of line. That wasn't the proper protocol. ... In the end, John sued the police and they were all fired.”
— Jose Pizarro via Becky Milligan (22:09)

• No conclusive evidence of a true kidnapping or extortion plot is uncovered by Jose, though he admits his own investigation was limited.

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5. Mercenary Revelation: “Michael” and a Parallel Plot (24:39–29:20)

• Milligan tracks down a shadowy figure known as “Michael,” a retired “private contractor” (mercenary) with a past in covert international ops.
• Michael claims he was contracted to intercept John Bender and send him to the US—a clandestine extraction seemingly unrelated to police activity.
  • He describes arriving at Rosemary's property with three associates, only to find Costa Rica’s equivalent of the FBI already there.
  • A tense standoff ensued, but Michael receives the order to abort after about 30 minutes; he never captures Bender.

“Basically that's what it is. … So wherever the army can't go in or won't go in or whatever, they usually send us. ... I was contracted by a third party to kind of intercept Mr. Bender and send him to the States.”
— “Michael” (24:56–26:07)

“I don't know if it was a fluke or it was coincidence or what happened exactly, but that day, we actually bumped into local law enforcement, kind of the equivalent of the FBI Costa Rica. … It was kind of pretty intense for a few minutes.”
— “Michael” (26:30–26:50)

• Michael will not reveal who hired him, but says the employer was “very interested” in extracting Bender, possibly over owed millions.
• There is no corroboration that Michael was present—Rosemary saw no other car, staff refused to comment, and the claim remains unsubstantiated.

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6. Aftermath and Ongoing Questions (29:44–31:36)

• The attempted abduction—whether by police, mercenaries, or both—explains the Benders’ descent into fearful isolation.
• The podcast teases further investigation: Were police serving papers or acting for shadowy creditors? Was “Michael” genuinely involved, and who wanted Bender taken out of Costa Rica?
• Emphasis on the psychological toll: the incident marks a turning point toward extreme paranoia and defensive measures.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On paranoia as a foreigner:
  “You create your own bubble. I mean, we’ve done that here.” — Rosemary, (09:24)

• John and Anne’s terror:
  “They were trembling. They were terrified.” — Rosemary, (14:00)

• Jose Pizarro on the scale of police action:
  “This was totally out of line. That wasn’t the proper protocol.” — Jose Pizarro via Becky Milligan, (22:09)

• Michael the mercenary describing his work:
  “I don’t like the term [mercenary] … but basically that’s what it is. ... I was contracted by a third party to kind of intercept Mr. Bender and send him to the States.” — Michael, (24:56–26:07)

• The episode's haunting question:
  “What kind of man would let this happen to his family?” — Repeated by Becky Milligan, (10:00, 18:00)

• On John Bender's mentality (preview for next episode):
  “Is that what he believed himself to be? A sort of genius of sorts?” — Becky Milligan (31:19)
  “Oh, absolutely. … There was not a question about it.” — Interviewee (31:21)

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Important Timestamps

• 01:31: Episode narrative begins after adverts.
• 02:01–05:53: Arrival at Rosemary’s; revisiting the seed farm and backstory.
• 07:55–09:39: Initial Bender meeting with Rosemary; mutual isolation.
• 11:12–13:49: The day of the ambush—gunshot, panic, confrontation.
• 14:00–16:06: Realization it was police; aftermath and trip to station.
• 16:45–17:12: John's father, Paul Bender, discusses his concern.
• 19:09–22:09: Jose "El Toro" Pizarro fortifies the Benders’ estate.
• 24:39–29:44: Interview with “Michael” the mercenary; claims of extraction attempt.
• 29:44–31:36: Reflection on the fallout; ongoing fears, next episode preview.

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Conclusion

This episode peels back the layers of the Benders' growing fear and isolation in Costa Rica, revealing how much more was at stake than simple cultural misunderstandings or legal confusion. Through tension-filled reenactments, interviews, and the shadowy confession of a supposed mercenary, it suggests that John Bender may have had very real reasons to feel hunted in his jungle refuge. The narrative ends with lingering uncertainty about who was truly pulling the strings, encouraging listeners to follow the investigation further in the episodes to come.

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Transcript

[Becky Milligan]

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[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

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[Becky Milligan]

He's sick.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

The system failed these families.

[Becky Milligan]

Devil in disguise.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Becky Milligan]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Ryan Seacrest]

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[Becky Milligan]

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[Becky Milligan]

$15 per month equivalent required. New customer then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com so look, there's another little road down here. Do you think there's a bridge down there? In 2001, a year after they'd arrived in Costa Rica to live in their four story roundhouse in the middle of the jungle, John and Anne Bender went to see Dr. Rosemary Bradley.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Hi.

[Becky Milligan]

Is Rosemary there?

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Uh huh.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Hi, Becky.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Did you get here all right?

[Becky Milligan]

My producer Poppy and I are retracing their journey.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

You have to cross the river over a bridge.

[Becky Milligan]

It was a spring afternoon in late April. John and Anne set off in the car, heading for the outskirts of Perez Zeladon. They had no idea what was about to unfold. That the old life John had left behind in America was about to collide with his new life in Costa Rica. And the utopia they'd carefully constructed around them would be shattered. It would lead to Anne and John, who shared a battle with mental illness, to fear for their lives. Their acute need for privacy had already made them unpopular in the valley. Now paranoia would take Hold. They would retreat further and further into the jungle and isolation. And they would ramp up their security. Their lavish home high on the hill would become a fortress. The Benders. Its prisoners from exactly right Media and iHeart podcasts produced by Blanchard House. This is Helen Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter 3 the Ambush we arrive at Rosemary's.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Did you get here all right?

[Becky Milligan]

Well, we're outside a big sort of green gate.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Okay, yeah, yeah, I'll just go across.

[Becky Milligan]

You'll just come across. Rosemary appears a few minutes later, husband in tow.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Hello, you're Becky in your pocket.

[Becky Milligan]

They take us through the gate and a little further down a small road. And at the bottom is a fast flowing river with large boulders. The only way to get to their house is across a narrow, rusty hanging bridge which bounces and creaks as we walk across. It's slatted so that if you misstep, you go straight through into the river below. This was where the Benders came that afternoon back in 2001. An afternoon that would change them both. Safe on the other side and up through their lush gardens, we come to their house. It's surrounded by trees with views of the valley. Fantastic.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Yeah, that's called the India Dormida.

[Becky Milligan]

Rosemary points to the dramatic mountain range the Sleeping Indian. She says the peaks form a distinct profile of a woman lying down as though asleep.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

If you look at her, she's pregnant. See, that's her nose, that's her chin, that's her breast. And then there's her pregnant belly.

[Becky Milligan]

She overlooks your house. They have an airy, spacious outdoor area with a concrete floor, corrugated roof and wire fencing for walls. Rosemary is 71, with alert, intelligent eyes. She's a scientist, a soil microbiologist to be precise. Her partner, Marco, is Costa Rican. Rosemary is originally from the UK.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

I came to Costa Rica in 1989 and found this beautiful place to build a house.

[Becky Milligan]

Back in 2001, she ran a business selling her unique mixture of native seeds.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

One was a grass and one was a legume.

[Becky Milligan]

The idea was that if you planted them, they would grow to provide an eco friendly, nutritious diet for cattle, to.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Substitute the imported maize and soybeans, and.

[Becky Milligan]

Also to nurture the soil and prevent erosion, because the legume in particular has long roots. It was at the time a revolutionary idea and one the Benders were interested in. It's growing in her garden.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

They get fertilized and then goes down there and then it digs down into the soil. In fact, you can see where it goes. There's one, for example.

[Becky Milligan]

Oh, yes, I see. Goes deep down and keeps the soil in place. Back in 2001, Rosemary was busy. People would come from across the country to buy her unique blend.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Lots of people bought our seeds, and one of them was John Vanderbilt.

[Becky Milligan]

It was Rosemary's produce which had brought the Benders on a rare trip away from their home. Their dream house was being built on top of a hill and close to the ocean. The slow unraveling of that dream was a few years off. For now, their concerns were very practical.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Soil erosion, you often see that in that part of the coast, is that houses are being built on very steep slopes and some of them are actually just falling down the hillside. I mean, it's crazy what people do, where they build their houses. They must have known about us through the grapevine right here. Everybody finds out about what's going on through just talk, talk, talk. Everybody talks a lot.

[Becky Milligan]

On that afternoon in April 2001, around 3 o', clock, the benders arrived and parked on a quiet country road on the outskirts of the town, near Rosemary's house. They crossed over the bridge to meet Rosemary in her laboratory. Rosemary remembers the couple clearly. Ann, she noticed, was badly affected by Lyme's disease. Remember, Ann wasn't being treated by a conventional doctor for her condition. John was trying to fix her himself by using plants in the jungle.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

And she limped a lot. She used a walking stick because of the Lyme disease. But she had a very pretty face. She was kind of shy, timid, whereas he was less so. I would say deep, deep voice. Yeah, yeah, nice guy. I mean, he was good looking too. I was fascinated by them, fascinated.

[Becky Milligan]

Rosemary and Marco were excited to meet people who took a real interest in their business and what they were trying to do for Rosemary. That was pretty rare.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

We tried to make friends with them, you know, we invited them round and stuff, but they didn't, they didn't want to.

[Becky Milligan]

They weren't offended. In fact, Rosemary sympathized. She hadn't found it easy to run a business in Costa Rica, trying to do something new, something different. Sometimes it was hard. She'd had her own dreams of a flourishing global seed business. It wasn't to be. These days, she and Marco find themselves very hard up.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

I think you can get quite paranoid here as a foreigner and feel that everybody's against you and just live your own little private life. And I think that's what they were doing. You create your own bubble. I mean, we've done that here.

[Becky Milligan]

So the Benders and Rosemary had a lot to talk about.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

They were very interested in these seeds of this foraged peanut and how they were produced and so on.

[Becky Milligan]

John and Anne bought some of Rosemary's seed, and while Rosemary prepared their order, they went back over the bridge to their car.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Presumably it was to get the money.

[Becky Milligan]

Then Rosemary froze. What kind of man would let this happen to his family?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Becky Milligan]

On a story about the Murdaughs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Becky Milligan]

It's only cheating if you get caught.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

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[Becky Milligan]

Tell me what you heard.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

All I heard was a shot at.

[Becky Milligan]

This point in our interview feet and starts gesticulating towards the bridge. He remembers very clearly what happened next. It was three in the afternoon, he says. He'd been working at home and he'd heard the phone ring. It was the intercom from the external gate across the bridge. It was Anne's voice shouting and screaming, help. Help.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Help.

[Becky Milligan]

Vamos, he says, See?

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Vamos. Come, come, let's go.

[Becky Milligan]

And moves quickly to the bridge. We try and keep up. He wants to show us what happened next in situ.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

He went running ahead because they were saying, help, help. They're kidnapping us.

[Becky Milligan]

He shows us how fast he went across that rickety bridge after hearing the gunshot. It's not easy at speed. The whole structure feels pretty dangerous. Rosemary was close behind him. Marco takes us to the front drive and slightly breathless, he describes the scene which confronted him the moment he came through the gate. He points to the road. There was a white pickup truck blocking the drive. He turns and points to the gate. There, he says. Anne was there, standing by the intercom.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Pero furioso, furibundo.

[Becky Milligan]

John was furious. And now Rosemary picks up the story.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

John was a huge guy, right? He got really angry. He raised his voice and they don't like that. They don't like that. If you just. If you live in Costa Rica, you must never lose your temper. That is a very important rule.

[Becky Milligan]

Rosemary and Marco's staff, who were in the roadside office, were also terrified. They'd seen everything. A vehicle screeched to a stop blocking the drive, boxing in the Bender's car, and armed men jumping out, waving guns in the air. What did they tell you that happened? That staff member saw one of the armed men shoot at the ground near John. The gunshot Rosemary and Marco had heard back at the house. Anne said later she thought it was a kidnapping. He fired the gun between John's legs and held it up to John's head. Anne was terrified.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

So that was what was scary about it. They thought they were being attacked by robbers and they were gonna be robbed. That's what they thought.

[Becky Milligan]

And John and Anne were in a bad way.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

They were trembling. They were terrified.

[Becky Milligan]

Once Rosemary and Marco had taken in the scene, they suddenly recognized one of the armed men. It was someone they knew. These weren't robbers at all, but law enforcement.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

And then we found it was a friend of ours, right, Who'd actually fired the shots.

[Becky Milligan]

Rosemary reassured John that they weren't being kidnapped.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

We were just trying to calm him down, if I remember correctly, that it was okay, that it was just a matter of documents.

[Becky Milligan]

They tried to find out precisely what the problem was. What had the Benders done wrong? The police wouldn't tell them, but they did want to see the couple's id. John and Anne were having problems understanding the police officers. Their Spanish wasn't that good. So Rosemary said she would go with John to the police station and help translate, while Marco would go with Anne back to their house to pick up the passports. Rosemary and Marco were used to hearing gunshots and shooting around the place. John and Anne would have been, too. Kidnappings and vigilante groups are quite common where Rosemary lives. In fact, there was a banner stretched above the road when we arrived. A picture of a rat, a symbol for a criminal crossed out, and a message that vigilante groups are operating in the area. The sign read, trapped rat, Lynched Rat. The banner itself had more than a dozen holes made by gunshots. Rosemary told us there'd been a recent killing a few doors down, just a.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Couple of weeks ago, driving a motorbike up here. One of these delivery guys with a Pete's. So they attacked him. And it's two guys who live just across the road, and the police don't do anything about it.

[Becky Milligan]

Marco and Anne went to get the couple's passports. They arrived to meet John and Rosemary at the station, ready to sit down with police.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

We were there for hours.

[Becky Milligan]

Rosemary and Marco didn't understand what it was all about. They would find out later. They eventually left John and Anne to it. But Marco did notice something which he thought was odd about their documents. John and Anne's passports were from Grenada. That's a notorious tax evasion hub. There's no inheritance, wealth or capital gains tax. Apparently, the passports had aroused the police's interest. John's father, Paul, says that he was worried about his son's decision to give up U.S. citizenship and move his fortune abroad.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

I guess the one thing that bothered.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Me about what he was doing was when he started thinking about moving offshore and not living in the United States. And I said, why are you doing that? And he said, to avoid taxes and stuff. And that I did not like.

[Becky Milligan]

Did you tell him?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Yeah, I totally didn't. Yes, but he did that, and that was disturbing.

[Becky Milligan]

For Paul, using tax havens like this, giving up your passport went against the spirit of the law he had committed his life to upholding as a legal scholar and expert. He was also worried about his son not having the protection that a US Citizen is entitled to. But it wasn't all about passports. There was another reason for the police pulling John and Anne in one which would fuel John's suspicions and convince him that his enemies were after him. A few days later, Rosemary called Anne to find out if they were okay. They were fine. John and Anne were kept at the police station until late and released the same day. But that wasn't the end of the matter. Far from it. What kind of man would let this happen to his family?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Inspired by shocking actual events, I'm working.

[Becky Milligan]

On a story about the Murdochs. Their abuses of power are playing out in real time.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Starring Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette and Jason Clark.

[Becky Milligan]

It's only cheating if you get caught.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Hulu Original Series Murdoch Death in the Family New episodes Wednesdays on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers. Terms apply.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through November 4th. Shop the annual beauty event and save $5 when you spend $25 on select beauty products. Shop in store or online for items like Dove Body Wash, Native Body Wash, Cetaphil gentle skin cleanser, Dr. Squatch body wash, Neutrogena Hydro Boost Water Gel, Dial Liquid Hand Soap and Olay Body wash. And save $5 when you spend $25 or more. Offer ends. Nove restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details.

[Becky Milligan]

The police operation had deeply upset John and Anne. John couldn't shake the feeling that people were after him, that he and Anne were vulnerable. Osvaldo, their head of staff, remembers him being completely traumatized. John decided that they needed more protection. Jose Pizarro, former chief of Costa Rica's police force. A popular guy who was better known across Costa Rica as El Toro the Bull. He's a solidly built man with a broad smile and well known for being a friendly guy, he tells me. So friendly and light that if people saw him walking down the street, they would call out, el Toro. Jose agreed to meet John at his house, Boracayan. He'd had enough years in the police force to recognize trauma. He knew instantly how threatened they felt. John told him that it had changed his life. He was especially worried about Anne's safety. He says he thought their house was beautiful but isolated, so his priority was to make it secure. John told him he wanted him to set up an entire security system. Jose brought in more armed guards, secured the entire 5,000 acre property, and became their personal bodyguard. A bond of trust developed very quickly between us, he says. They were very special people. Jose tells us that John had his own nickname for his new head of security. Colonel. When Jose went to town with Anne, he tells us that John would call out, you take good care of my wife, Colonel. It's the only reason I'm relaxed, because she's with you. Jose told us that John and Anne's extreme reaction to the arrest was. Was not only down to the way it was carried out. Of course, if they believed they were being kidnapped, it would be extremely frightening. John confided in Jose that he suspected that the police operation was a cover for something more sinister. The questions about their passports were a ruse. John felt there was something very strange going on, Jose tells us Jose agreed there was something which suggested this was far from a routine check on the couple's papers. And he knew the police officers. These were police officers attached to the Special Investigations Unit in an unmarked car and in plain clothes. The strength used was so unnecessary. Jose told us John disclosed something else to Joseph, which he believed backed up his hunch that people were after him and Anne when they were at the police station. There was another man, a lawyer who he didn't know, who served him papers, which means John was being notified of a lawsuit against him. John, Jose told us, was being sued by a former associate who claimed that he was Owed millions of dollars by John, the state were extremely high. Were the police acting on behalf of someone else? Was someone after John? Was there a threat of kidnap and abduction? Or were these the rantings of a man in shock? Jose says that the way the police went about the arrest was strange. This was totally out of line. That wasn't the proper protocol. Jose says John sued the police in the end and they were all fired. Jose did look into whether there had been a kidnapping plot to get him out of the country, or maybe extortion or blackmail. I personally never found any evidence of that, Jose says. But it wasn't an extensive investigation. Jose was more focused on setting up the security around John and Anne and their property. After all, Jose's job was to protect them. John's theories that people on the ground had been hired to kidnap him or abduct him might appear implausible, especially as Jose had looked into it and found nothing. Perhaps it was a symptom of living in extreme isolation with a wife whose health was going downhill and John was slowly and steadily detaching from reality. But then we came across a witness who suggested just the opposite, that John may have had every reason to be paranoid. Testimony which throws a completely different light on what happened that afternoon at Rosemary's Seed Farm. We were given the man's number and told to ring him. We had no other information. The man who we're calling Michael was quite elusive at first, but I eventually got through. He didn't want his voice used, so we're using an actor for his side of the conversation. My audio is from the original call.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Yes?

[Becky Milligan]

Oh, hi. My name's Becky Milligan.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Uh huh.

[Becky Milligan]

My colleagues and I work for a podcast company and we're doing the story about John Bender. First up, I asked Michael to explain what he does for a living. So what would you call yourself? What, what would, how would you describe your job?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

We're not related to military at all. It's really interesting. Basically, I don't like the term. I don't like the term. What do you call it?

[Becky Milligan]

Mercier.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Correct. I don't like that term. But basically that's what it is. I worked for different governments in the Middle east for many years. I worked for the us, I worked for the Israelis, I worked for Spain. And I was basically a private contractor. So wherever the army can't go in or won't go in or whatever, they usually send us. So when they had a potential interest in a person in particular, for whatever reason, obviously it was all related to terrorism. And all that. Then we would go in and extract that person and hand them over to the party that was contracting us.

[Becky Milligan]

Are you involved in this sort of work still?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

I retired in 2008, but I still have some clients in Central America.

[Becky Milligan]

It sounds like a pretty dark and murky world. I wondered what he was asked to do when it came to John Bender.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

I was contracted by a third party to kind of intercept Mr. Bender and send him to the States. So we'd worked on intelligence to get Mr. Bender's whereabouts, and when we did, we mounted an intervention to kind of capture him.

[Becky Milligan]

The problem was that when he turned up, it seemed he wasn't the only person interested in John Bender. Why did you all get there at once?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

I don't know. I don't know if it was a fluke or it was coincidence or what happened exactly, but that day, we actually bumped into local law enforcement, kind of the equivalent of the FBI Costa Rica.

[Becky Milligan]

We heard Rosemary and Marco's version of events. This is how Michael says it played out on the ground.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Everybody kind of got to the location where we had decided to intercept Mr. Bender, and they didn't know who we were either. So it was. It was kind of pretty intense for a few minutes. I was going to get paid when I got Mr. Bender, right? So if I didn't get Mr. Bender, then I wasn't gonna get paid. I wasn't there to play around.

[Becky Milligan]

Michael, realizing that his mission might now be scuppered, contacted the contractor, who, by the way, he wouldn't name. And there was a back and forth.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

And at the end of the, let's say, 20 minutes, half an hour of the intervention, I was told to pull back and not intervene.

[Becky Milligan]

The contractor said he'd get his money anyway.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

This was not foreseen and therefore not my mistake or my problem. But if they told me, you've got it, bring him to us, then. I don't know. I mean, we were ready for that, but up to a point. So anyway, very, very, very intense. Very, very intense.

[Becky Milligan]

I asked Michael if he'd been told why his employer had asked him to abduct John Bender.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

The person that gave us the contract was apparently very interested in getting Mr. Bender back to him somehow. So I guess he was either involved with Mr. Bender or Mr. Bender owed him something, because it was quite obvious that we were going to intercept Mr. Bender and get him out of the country, back to these people.

[Becky Milligan]

Sorry, I just want to get this straight in my head. So were you on your own?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

No, no. I had three people with me.

[Becky Milligan]

Oh, you had three people, too. Do you remember it quite well?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Very clearly.

[Becky Milligan]

Do you know when you were asked to do this, did they give you a reason why? Or, I mean, did you know why they wanted him? And, you know, because it's sort of basically, for want of a better word, sort of kidnapping him and sort of bundling him out into America, I suppose.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

I don't. I don't know what their intentions were exactly, but. But they were there for him, and they were there to arrest him.

[Becky Milligan]

You wouldn't have arrested him, would you? You would have just sort of.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

No.

[Becky Milligan]

What would you have done?

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

Well, taking him away, I guess we can. We can discuss that when you're here. I was going to be told where to bring him, and then we're going to fly him out.

[Becky Milligan]

He said he'd meet us in Costa Rica. He stood us up. We made another date again. He didn't show, so I left him a voice message. It's Becky here. Just checking if everything's okay. I've been waiting at the front desk. We'll be around all day, so just give us a ring or message and let me know.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

All right.

[Becky Milligan]

Cheers.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Bye.

[Becky Milligan]

We asked Rosemary whether she had seen another car at the scene. She had no recollection of one. The staff who'd witnessed what had happened didn't want to talk, so we can't be sure that Michael was really there. We have no way of standing up his story for now. We did speak to someone who did confirm that they had hired an investigator on the ground, but they wouldn't go on the record. And we don't know if that investigator was Michael. Knowing what had happened only a year or so after they'd moved to Costa Rica makes more sense of all those armed guards and the barbed wire fencing around their property. They were a couple who didn't just protect their privacy. They were terrified because they believed that people were after them. And those papers that were filed at the police station we investigate in the next episode, was the passport issue a ruse for the police hired by a creditor to serve him? And who hired Michael? The same people or another interested party? Just who exactly had John pissed off? And were they working together to bring him back to the U.S. next time, it's a real change of scene. We head to the streets of Philadelphia to the 1980s in search of a young John to find out who he really is. Is that what he believed himself to be? A sort of genius of sorts? Oh, absolutely.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Absolutely.

[Becky Milligan]

He knew it.

[Ryan Seacrest]

There was not a question about it.

[Becky Milligan]

We would be together and he'd say, you know, I was just talking to.

[Ryan Seacrest]

This guy, he's like a famous math professor at Harvard.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

But can you believe what an idiot this guy is?

[Ryan Seacrest]

He was on another level.

[Becky Milligan]

And when it came to the big money and you're in that game where you're playing for high stakes, there was no Mr. Nice Guy. Just who was this guy who amassed a 600 million dollar fortune and believed he could cure his wife's serious illness and who somewhat someone wanted to kidnap? You've been listening to Hell in Heaven from Exactly Right Media and I Heart Podcasts Produced by Blanchard House Hosted, written and produced by me. Becky Miller. The producer and co writer is Poppy Damon. Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmanel and Toby Matamol. The sound recordist and head of sound and music is Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer is Vulcan Kizletug. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for Exactly Right Media. The executive producers are Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Harding Stark and Danielle Kramer with consulting producer Lily ladawig and associate producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosie Pye. The executive producer and head of content at Blanchard House is Lawrence Grisel. Listen to Hell in Heaven on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ryan Seacrest]

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway this fall. Take care of the little ones in the family with Baby Club Savings now through November 4th. Spend $25 on select Baby Club products and save $5. Shop for items like Pedias shore bottles, Pedialyte powder packs, Huggies baby wipes, Huggies diapers, Gerber puffs and Gerber pouches. And save when you buy. $25 or more on participating products. Offer ends November 4th. Restrictions apply. Offers may vary. Visit albertsons or safeway.com for more details.

[Michael / Alec Murdoch (various male voices)]

This is Alec Murdoch. I need police and an ambulance immediately.

[Becky Milligan]

Murdoch Death in the Family official podcast is here. I'm joining Patricia Arquette, Jason Clark and the cast to uncover all things Murdoch family first to unravel the story piece by piece. Piece was really surprising because you don't want to believe it. Murdoch Death in the Family Official podcast Wednesdays and stream Murdoch Death in the Family on Hulu and Hulu on Disney plus for bundle subscribers terms apply.

[Ryan Seacrest]

It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month. LifeLock is here with tips to help protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report scams and update your software. And for comprehensive identity protection, LifeLock is your best choice. Lifelock alerts you to suspicious uses of your personal information and fixes identity theft. Guaranteed or your money back. Start your protection today with a 30 day free trial at LifeLock.

[Rosemary / Marco / Staff (various local voices)]

Com.

[Ryan Seacrest]

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