← Juicy Crimes with Heather McDonald
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- [00:00]
A
We all have that moment.
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B
Ugh.
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A
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B
Learn more at Dropbox.com-hello and welcome to Juicy Crimes. I'm very excited for my guest. She has a great podcast called Murderish, and she's a friend of mine, but also Jamie Rice is who my guest is. We met for the first time in person many years ago when you came on Juicy Scoop, because you had written in my Facebook group, Juicy Scoop Obsessed, that you had just finished serving on a murder trial. And I reached out to you, and I was like, would you want to come on the show? I just never talked to anybody that really sat on a trial. Yeah.
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A
And I said, yes, of course. Yeah. I mean, I loved your show. Like, I was still so new to podcasts then. I was just like, a baby podcast listener. Like, not a podcaster. Not. And I was like, hell, yeah, I'll go on your show. And so that was the most fun experience. And I knew you were going to be fun and cool, and you were. And you and I have, you know, been friendly ever since I saw you on a plane. I saw, you know, I've seen you. I've gone to your shows.
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B
Like, we saw each other at Countess Luann.
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A
We saw each other at Countess Luann, which was interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But I. It was so much fun.
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B
Oh, wait, didn't you also go to the show in Nashville that Keith Morrison went to? Because. Because you were at the crime con.
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A
Yes. So you. And I ran up. So I got drunk in the morning with some friends. Podcaster friends got. And it was my friend's fault. Cause she's scared to fly, so she has to get drunk. So I had to keep up. We were taking shots, and I saw you from across, like, the airport, like, lobby. We get on the plane. So I knew you were on the plane, so I was like, I'm gonna say hi. So I said hi to you. We proceeded to get more drunk on the plane. And I even think that I wrote a rap for you, because I write raps for people as you do.
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B
I want it.
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A
I literally wrote a rap.
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B
Where is it?
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A
I thought, did we give it to you? I don't remember. It's so fuzzy.
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B
We'll write a fresh new one.
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A
Okay. I will try to look in my icloud if it's still there. Okay. I write raps for all the people I love, but any. And they're not good. But okay. But anyway, I saw you on the plane and then I came to your show with Josh Manx and.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Keith Morrison. And there was like a drunk girl at your show harassing them because they're the guys. And you and I have stayed in touch.
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B
And that was like, before they, before the Dateline podcast started and I had had them each already on my show. And they were, like, fascinated that there was such an interest. And I was like, the first person to, like. I don't wanna sound like a Bethany Franklin when I say the first person, but I'm saying I don't think they'd really had someone interview them. That's from our demographic of women who love true crime and why. But. And I just saw a very funny, like, meme or whatever. So that said, the reason women are so obsessed with men who murder is because it's the one time they planned follow through and clean up the floor after.
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A
You know, like, not on your anniversary to get a great hotel and a diamond necklace. Like, you know. No, it's when they're gonna murder your ass.
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B
Yeah. Then they're like, they go, they did a shopping list. They know how to follow it.
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A
Yeah.
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B
So I think that both of them were really, like, intrigued that I was like, you know, knew every case and I was asking all the questions. Like, I was like, okay, now I know when the angle is this tight on the person's face, now I know that they are the murderer because you don't want to show the orange jumpsuit. When did you start having them wear sweaters instead? And then he'd be like, oh, we would have. Sometimes they bring in clothes and so that we could do this and you wouldn't know that they're the murderer. And so they were both so great. And now, of course they, you know, of course Dateline finally was like, why aren't we doing our own podcast? And I do, like, I do enjoy that podcast too. And especially when I'm driving to like, a La Quinta or whatever, it's hard to find one that I don't know.
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A
Or it's fresh murder. You know, the crime. Exactly.
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B
You know all of them. Yes. One time, I have to say, one time there was a bad crime that happened recently and we found out who was doing it and who was gonna go on trial. It was Pretty obvious that it was this person. And my son goes, now I'm kind of mad that we know, because now when this documentary comes out, I'll know who did it. And I'm like, welcome to my life.
- [04:56]
A
Exactly.
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B
Welcome to being my age.
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A
Spoiler alert. You know it all before it happens. Like that Unknown Number documentary.
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B
Right.
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A
TikTok obviously spoiled it for me. It was still an interesting documentary. Although I would say.
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B
But you don't remember when it happened five years ago, because I covered it on Juicy Scoop. Five years ago.
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A
No.
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B
Yeah. I remember reading about the woman, and I was just like, oh, my God. And that's where I messed up and thought she was a teacher. Cause I just remember reading about it and it was that she was like a volunteer coach at the school.
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A
So some reason, kind of like a.
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B
Teacher thought she had to do something at the. And then. But of course, you know, especially in the crime world, the fans get very mad when you mess up the facts or whatever. I know. And so that's why I'm like, juicy. This is Juicy Crimes.
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A
You gotta keep it like that.
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B
And I am not. I don't have a staff of 200. I'm gonna do my best. Sometimes it's gonna be wrong, but it's always gonna be juicy. And I like to bring on guests like you. We're gonna cover some stuff and, you know, you. You'll be a little bit more of the expert of the crime that you cover. But no, getting back to how we met, I thought it was really great to have you on. And I remember reading all the comments and people saying, oh, my God, I loved her. She should have a podcast. She should have a podcast. And that is one thing I really do love about what I built for the last 10 years, is the amount of people that have come on to go and actually have a successful podcast. And yeah, so it's great to see all that you've done and, like, run into you and everything. And I like your style and how you do it.
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A
Thank you.
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B
So in booking you today, I saw you at Stu's birthday party, and I said, is there a crime besides the one that you sat on, which did result in a conviction?
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A
Yes.
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B
Did he. Is he still behind bars?
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A
Yes, still behind bars. And when you and I have drinks.
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B
The crime was that he hit. He killed his girlfriend.
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A
He killed his. He actually killed his wife in his apartment in Newhall, which is near where I live.
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B
Right.
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A
And we convicted him of first degree murder. And there's some weird shit that happened, like, after what I put that story out there. Like, I don't know if you recall, but when I was in the courtroom as a juror, there was this mysterious man. All of us on the jury could not figure out who this man was. And it was, like, one of the only people that was sitting on the side of the. Of the accused. Right. He didn't really have, like, a lot of support in the gallery. We're like, who is this person? Is this, like, media. Who is this guy? Well, I found out who it was because he emailed me after I did a podcast episode that was my very first podcast episode of murderish was my experience being a jury foreman on that murder trial. And he said, introduce himself. And he said, I am the stepfather of Robert Arvizu. The murder. You know, the convicted murder. Yes. And he goes. And I was there because I needed to be able to confirm for myself and his daughters who I'm raising, because Rob had given up custody or lost custody of his daughters from a very young age. And now they were teenagers, and the stepdad and Rob's mom had been raising them in, like, Alaska. He said, I needed to.
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B
Oh, because they were not the children of the woman that he murdered.
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A
No, they were not previously previous. And. And Rob had issues with. With drug abuse and all kinds of stuff. Gave up or lost custody, I don't know which. And the stepdad had been raising him. Stepdad reaches out to me and says, I heard your episode. Thank you for telling it factually. You did represent what happened in the courtroom factually. And he goes, and because I said on that trial, I now know that you, as the jury, came to the right decision. I needed to be able to tell his daughters whether he did this or not. I needed to sit in on every day of the trial to be able to get the actual facts so I could go home and tell his daughters, yes, he did this, and here's why. And so he was very cordial, very, very nice, and very supportive. But he said he didn't. These are not his words, but it was kind of like a mind f for him because, you know, he still loves Rob. Like, that's his stepson, you know, and he's raising Rob's daughters. But he knows now in his mind, after sitting in on the trial in the gallery, that Rob did this horrible thing.
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B
And just to remind me they were so. They were husband and wife, and just summarize what happened with their relationship and where it led to the point where he killed her.
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A
They were, like, 25 years apart in age Rob was about 50, 52, she was like 25. And they had met, like, I wanna say, at the gym. They fast relationship, fast quick wedding in Vegas. And even on the night of their wedding, he went home and horrifically abused her to the point where she had petechia in her eyes. Because he. I don't know how deep I can get this podcast. I strangled her. And the hotel security was called law enforcement. She stayed with him, as is often the case, you know, they woo you back into the relationship. That was on their wedding night. So not long after their wedding night, like they met, like, let's say in January. She's dead by May, like a few months later, they go to a house party at their friend's house, get into a knockdown, drag out argument. She, Courtney Arvizu, his wife, leaves on. Leaves barefoot, just, I'm out of here. Leaves the party. Long story short, Rob finds her back at their apartment in Newhall, confronts her, physically assaults her in a horrific way to where she's rendered unconscious. She lands face down on the carpet floor. He gets. He proceeds to get on top of her and smother her to death. And that was where we got to first degree murder. Because.
- [10:22]
B
Because you had a moment to premeditate.
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A
Yes.
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B
So it went beyond crime of passion.
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A
Yes, it did. She was not dead, but she was rendered unconscious. She was no longer a threat to him laying on the floor. But you chose in that moment to get on top of her and do that. So we did convict him. We, the jury. There was 12 of us of first degree murder. And he was sentenced. We didn't get involved in sentencing, but he was sentenced to 27 years to life, I want to say, because he also. We also convicted him of assault because he also beat up his best friend that night at the house party.
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B
Oh, wow.
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A
Yeah. So he was a d. Dangerous guy. And there were ex girlfriends who testified. And what was eerie, Heather, is that all of his ex girlfriends and Courtney, his wife, who he murdered, all looked alike. Like he had a type. And he did the same thing to them that he did to Courtney. But fortunately for them, they didn't lose their lives, but they were abused by him, according to their testimony. So he was like a ticking time bomb, you know, And.
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B
And with. So now he. Do you know what prison he's at?
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A
Yes, it's. Well, something else weird happened.
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B
Sure. He has a girlfriend.
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A
You know how that goes, probably. And I try not to keep up because he. He freaks me out. It was weird standing or sitting in the courtroom and making eye Contact sometimes. Because sometimes he would look back, you know, if. Just something, you know, at the jury. And it's like, ooh, don't look at me. You know, I would, like, look down.
- [11:48]
B
You know, Like, I always think I've never been on a jury. I came close to being on one for a malpractice thing. And to be honest, I did. I. At first, I wanted to be chosen because I was working on Chelsea lately, and they were like, every day you're done at 4:30. And I was like, oh, my God. I could have a couple weeks where I'm home by, like, five. That was my whole initial thing. I was coming home at, like, 8. So I'm like, if I come home by 5 for two weeks. But it was gonna go, you know, on a Friday, a couple weeks from then, I was going to go perform somewhere that I would have to cancel. And then that was a good paycheck. So I was like, I need to get out of this thing. So I remember they called me, and I was kind of like. And I wasn't lying. I was just like, I think it's really hard for. I don't know who would choose to be a doctor nowadays. Like, so I was saying, like, I'm going to be on the defense side. And they were just like, no, we think that you could be unbiased and all this other stuff. And I was like, he reminds me of my dad. Like, I was just, like, trying to.
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A
Get whatever it is.
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B
But isn't it. When you say, look back, was it like what we see on TV, where it's the table with the attorneys and the murderer or whatever accused, and then to the left is the jury trial, or to the right is the jurors.
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A
I mean, for us, it was exactly as you explained, two rectangular tables. Defense on. So this is looking at the judge, right?
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B
Okay.
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A
From the gallery, looking at the judge in the middle of the front of the courtroom, to the left is the defense table and his attorneys. To the right is another table with the prosecutor and, you know, whoever their team. Then beyond the prosecutor, to the right is the gallery. So, I'm sorry, is the jury box. So the jury box is. Is situated. Like, if you're sitting in the gallery looking at the judge, you would look over to your right, and you would see us all up against the wall in two rows. So I was juror number six. So I actually sat closest to the people in the gallery, which was also a challenge because Courtney Arvizu, the victim, her family was there almost every day. And they're emotional. And how do you not get emotional? Like, I'm a mom, I'm a parent, you know, like. But you can't make it about yourself. You have to truly, like, put your feelings on a shelf and, and not cry as they're showing these photos. And it's awful.
- [14:06]
B
This sounds like there's a pretty slam dunk person. He was. Was he trying to say someone else didn't do it or is he.
- [14:12]
A
His attorney tried his best. He had a public defender and the guy. The guy was kind of interesting, but he tried to have like an ulterior. Like, well, maybe it was like this person over here that one eyewitness may or may not have seen, you know, but it really was a very strong case for the prosecution. It really, the evidence was like, overwhelming.
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B
So then when you go, okay, they go, now work on it. So now you go to the room and is it like we see in the movies? Like, right away, everybody just write what they think and if we're all on the same page, we can get the F out of here or what is it?
- [14:45]
A
It wasn't quite like that. So we spent. Gosh, I forget now, was it two days or four days? I want to say it was two full days that we spent. And we even took a weekend to decide, like, are we going to convict a first degree murder or second. Or second. Exactly. So we went into the jury room and it was really interesting because there was another rectangular table that it was almost like I was sitting right in the middle. And then everybody to my right, including myself, is very outspoken. Not a problem sharing our feelings and breaking down how we. We critically thought about the evidence. Over to the left is all the quiet people who don't want to say a word about what they thought about what they saw during trial. So I was the jury foreman, so it was like my job to make sure the people, the quieter ones, had a chance to speak. Like, you don't have to force them. You don't want to feed them their opinion, but you want to be like, hey, what do you think about what we just discussed? Like, what do you think about what you saw? So we fairly quickly, like the first day of deliberations, we fairly quickly came to a guilty verdict on the two assault charges. It was obvious he beat the shit out of his best friend. Yeah, like, that was obvious. But then we're like, okay, let's talk about the murder. And I don't want to say quickly, but we, we all were able to get to second degree murder. I think by the second day where we were hung up, most of us agreed that this probably is first degree murder, but we really need to, like, take our time. So we took the weekend. We could have wrapped things up on a Friday. And we were like, you know what? Let's not think too quickly. Let's take a break. Let's come back with fresh minds on Monday. Monday, I think, is when we all decided, like, this actually does level up to. Yeah, it's premeditation. Premeditation can happen in seconds, minutes, weeks, or months or years. There was one juror, and he actually kind of drove me crazy. And I'll never forget, he had, like, an east coast accent, like a. I don't know where he was from, but New Jersey or something. And he. He could not get over. He basically was like, but wait a minute. You know, Rob, kind of the defendant, he can't help himself. Like, he thinks that his wife's cheating on him. So he blew up. He just snapped. And we're like, no, that's not how it works. Because the average everyday human being, Heather, if you think your husband's cheating on you and you get really upset, 99, whatever the percentage is, you're not going to go and murder your husband for that. You're gonna get really pissed off. You might throw a glass, you might do whatever. But, like, most average, everyday people are. That's not the normal behavior to go, okay, I'm murdering you now that I think you and I have no evidence that you've cheated, but I'm mad and I think you did, so now let me kill you. So we're like, no, that doesn't give him an excuse like this. And also, she. There was no evidence that she cheated on him. He was a person. Rob Arvizu, the defendant, who always accused every girlfriend of cheating. He was a deeply insecure cheater himself. And so he would get. And he was jealous, so he accused her of cheating. There is no evidence that she cheated. So it would be a different. We were trying to explain to him. We're like, it would be a different story if, like, Rob walked in on his wife having sex with another man. That is a crime of passion. Doesn't make it okay. But that's a crime of passion. That's a whole different story. Emotions are heightened. Yeah, he made it up in his head that, like, with no evidence to back it up. And he had accused every other girlfriend of this with no evidence that she cheated. But he never saw her cheat. He never, you know, so it doesn't give Him a pass to go, okay, we'll just get you on second degree because you thought, you know, you accused her of cheating, you were mad, so you murdered her. We're like, no, this was first degree murder because he rendered her unconscious. She's, like, not a threat to him at all. And he chose to take a second step that. That's premeditation, to get on top of her and then end her life. So ultimately, that guy. It's like, you can't bully somebody into going, no, you need to believe the way I believe. But we all agreed, except for him on first degree. And he eventually was like, I see. I see that now, like, the premeditation. And so he did agree, and then we all agreed.
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B
Interesting.
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A
And what was interesting, Heather, too, is that, you know, in the Karen Reed trial, there was like, a mistrial, and. But it was like, basically all the jurors came out. A lot of jurors came out after Karen Reed was. It was a hung jury. Some of them came out and even signed affidavits saying, oh, no, we all agreed that Karen Reed is. Was not guilty. We just were confused by the jury form. Like, we didn't know what to check. And had the judge or somebody in the courtroom pulled the jury to make sure that this was our actual verdict, we would have told her, no, we don't. We don't think she's guilty of second degree murder. We all agreed on this. So that also. That did happen in my trial. One of the attorneys asked the judge, can you pull the jury? And I didn't even know that was a thing when I was a juror. I was like, what is pull the jury? And basically, it's when the judge looks at every single juror in the face and says, is this your verdict? Guilty of first degree murder? Yes, it is. Is this your verdict? And we all nod in the affirmative. And that didn't happen in Karen Reid's trial.
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B
And.
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A
And if it happened in the first one. You mean in the first one. Right.
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B
I have a photo of Elizabeth Banks up because she's gonna be playing her in a movie, but continue.
- [19:57]
A
Yeah, yeah. So if the jury had been pulled in Karen Reid's first trial, theoretically, based on the information that's come out post first trial, they would have learned that the jury actually all said she agreed that she was unanimously that she was not guilty of second degree murder.
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B
Well, anytime I talked about Karen Reid and I kind of gave different scenarios, then she was completely set up by a corrupt police department and some crazy shit going on I would get some hate there, too.
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A
And of course.
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B
But I don't know, you know, look, I can say I wasn't on the jury. I was not wearing pink in there every day. I wasn't watching everything Turtle boy had put out. So I just kind of was like. Would hear bits and pieces. Listen to a couple stuff from the trial, like, driving around, and I was like, oh. And I'd hear the prosecution state their claim of why they think she backed into him. And I was like, yeah, I could see that. And the, you know, thermometer. Not thermometer. The speedometer of, like, how fast it went and what that would be. But I always said if I was to have to make a decision as a juror, I definitely would not have convicted her for any kind of murder type of thing. Because first of all, there was so much that went wrong, that even if she did do it, like, even if it was from the car, there's too much question. Not without a doubt. There was so much doubt, so much reasonable. So much doubt. And I see that they are. There is gonna be a. The family of the victim is going to do a. Sued her civilly. Yeah, that's happening for. And it's crazy that they are so convinced of this when. I don't know, though, you know, like, I don't know. I just think sometimes you just want the answer that you want. But I mean, like, if you watch the whole thing, how could you. How could they not have some, like, strong doubts about it?
- [22:09]
A
Yeah. I've watched both trials because they were televised. So it's like, while I was not a juror, I did get the privilege of watching both trials. You know, all the evidence presented, all the eyewitnesses, all the things I have watched a ton of. There's two particular lawyers, Peter Tragos, the lawyer you know, as well as Emily D. Baker, who covered the both of Karen Reed's trials at length. I have watched all of their videos on that. I've tracked Turtle Boy a little bit. I know that he absolutely blew this thing up. And he helped her raise money. Karen Reed, for her defense fund. And what I will say is that the evidence in this trial is evidencing. It is beyond strong for the defense to. To not only prove that there is so much reasonable doubt, at the very least, there was a absolute botched investigation. Right. But that she is very likely factually innocent. Like, she absolutely did not do this. The evidence is so strong, even if.
- [23:09]
B
She did do it, because. Okay, here's the only. Okay, so I always think, like, there needs to be more females, you know, being attorneys and whatever in crimes like this. Because, I mean, there's just certain things that as I get older, I realize men just don't realize how women do things.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
For example, you know, I'm doing this live Juicy Scoop, right on November 14th, hello, in Vegas. And my agent is like, yeah, it's selling really well. You know, we'll see. Maybe we, whatever, do another show. I'm not sure. Because Vegas is a place where people buy tickets last minute. I'm like, but what you don't realize is that this is women planning a trip to come for Ravicon.
- [23:57]
A
And women plan ahead.
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B
And we have to plan way ahead.
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A
Absolutely.
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B
We're not guys that go, hey, on Thursday, do you want to grab your clubs and go to Vegas? This isn't that. This is. I got a sitter. I have my ex husband switched weekends with him. I brought, you know, it's also my friend's 40th birthday. We got the hotel, we booked the massages. Like it's the same type of thing that sometimes I think men don't realize and why there's been certain things in cases that I've been hung up on her leaving the angry messages. I am like, there is no way that if she consciously knew that she backed him up to kill him that she would leave that many and that many angers and just that is a drunk woman. And as someone who's been drunk in my life, a drunk woman who is doing all that. But then on the other hand, I thought, if she may, I always kind of thought possibly she could have, like he could have been beat up by people.
- [24:57]
A
Sure.
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B
Been stumbling out, saw that she was still there and was like, wait. At that moment she was like, fuck you. You didn't come out, possibly hit him somehow and then still left. And there's something in her brain that when she Woke up at 5am and he wasn't there, I always thought it was really strange that she went right to the panic something happened to him. If you thought he was cheating, if you thought he was fucking around, you would just be like, this fucker spent the night with that whore. I wouldn't think at 5am my man is dead. I would think he really is done with me. He is really pushing the envelope with like spending the night, getting extra wasted, doing drugs, whatever she thought he was doing. And I was like. And I think that with that there was that little moment when you've been really drunk and the next day you wake up and you're still probably a little drunk. There was something that was like, I do remember reversing and feeling something. Which is why when she got there and saw him and she immediately said, I hit him, I must have hit him. I think there was something. And when she did that three point turn or however she turned around, she may have felt something. Maybe it wasn't him, maybe it was just a rock.
- [26:16]
A
But I always thought there was a.
- [26:17]
B
Slight, not enough to convict. Forget it. Sure, you fucked it way hard. You know, right from the start, they should have just, you know, went just for the, not for the murder. Even if they'd done, you know, right away, like reckless driving or something, you know, she probably, maybe she would have taken that. I think they could have convinced her. I think they could have convinced her right at the front. Like if they had gone for a lesser charge. And then like, look, you hit him, you were drunk, whatever. It's a plea. Three years. I think she might have gone like, okay, because I don't think she knew. I don't to this day, I don't think. How does she remember after 14 drinks?
- [26:57]
A
Right. Well, they overcharged her. This case should have never been brought to trial. It was a very weak case to begin with. It was a waste of taxpayer dollars, especially the second trial, and that's ongoing right now. But the problem with her even having hit him at all, whether she knew it or not, the injuries, the lack of injuries on his body tell another story, that he was never hit by a vehicle. There were multiple credible medical experts that have dealt with many, many, many, many patients.
- [27:26]
B
So you don't think after you.
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A
She never hit him?
- [27:28]
B
Since you've really studied? Not even. What about if it was the beginning of the backup and it was a bump?
- [27:34]
A
No, no, no. Because why does he have all these cruel, these wild injuries on his face?
- [27:38]
B
Why is he. Because I think he got in a physical fight, definitely and maybe stumbled out there.
- [27:45]
A
But there was a.
- [27:46]
B
Why do you think. Let me ask you this. Why do you think? So then in your opinion? Because there's all these. What happened?
- [27:51]
A
Sure.
- [27:52]
B
How did he get to the corner of the thing left in the snow? Did he stumble out there after being beat up, fall and pass out and die? Or did they consciously put him out there so saying, oh, it'll. Karen will think she hit him?
- [28:07]
A
Based on the evidence? I think he was in an altercation inside that house.
- [28:12]
B
Yes.
- [28:14]
A
Excuse me. I think that there were several hours from the time that it happened. I don't think it was planned I don't think anybody meant to kill John o' Keefe that night accident. I think the dog Chloe jumped in, attacked his arm because that's what German shepherds do. I have a German shepherd when a physical fight starts. Yeah, absolutely. And I think they had several hours to go, fuck, we have a dead man or a dying man in our basement or wherever in this house, allegedly. What are we going to do? They made a bunch of phone calls. They go to a lot of mysterious places. Higgins goes back to, you know, and they planned it and they placed him in the yard and they pretended as if he never went in that house. I don't think they knew at that moment that they were going to pin it on Karen Reed. I think that after Karen Reid got in the car with what's her face mastermind Jen McCabe and the other woman, Carrie Roberts, and Jen and Karen Reed admittedly said something like, could I have hit him? Did I hit him? Did a snowplow hit him? She started saying things. I think something clicked at some point after the death of John O' Keefe or after he's rendered unconscious that Jen McCabe's like, you guys, Karen Reed asked if she hit him, why don't we change it to she confessed to hitting him. And that's when that narrative. And they're like, yes, let's run with that theory. She already said, could I have hit him? She was drunk.
- [29:35]
B
Yeah. I mean, that makes a lot of sense. I always. I think it's very weird. I wonder. I. Okay. Another thing I think is really weird. If you really believe that the Jed McCabe knew that he died, that he was already dead when she got home for her then to go look up the daughter's soccer schedule or whatever. I was like, so I kind of think she didn't know he was dead at that point.
- [30:02]
A
I think she absolutely knew.
- [30:04]
B
And she was still looking up the soccer schedule.
- [30:05]
A
Yes. And she also looked up just trying to be productive. She made that Google search has long to die in cold at a critical time when literally a man is dying in the cold as you're searching it. And yes, that was the way that I absolutely be. And I know that the I know that the pros. The Commonwealth tried to say she didn't make that Google search.
- [30:25]
B
She didn't.
- [30:25]
A
She only made the 6:00 clock one after, you know, Karen told her to do it. Is that Jen McCabe not only looked up Haas long to diet in the cold at 2:27 in the morning when a man is literally dying in the cold. She also went and later erased that search. So you took two steps. How are you explaining not only the Google search, then you have to explain you went and erased that Google search. There was evidence that she erased it. Why are you doing it?
- [30:50]
B
No, I mean I, I definitely think, I definitely think what you said is what happened. I just thought at one point, could it have been that he was beat up and was hit? But no, I do think they knew what they were doing. And also if my friend that I was just with five hours ago called me at 5am and was like, oh my God, oh my God, John's not home. We have to see where he is.
- [31:15]
A
We have to find.
- [31:16]
B
I'd be like, okay, let's chill the fuck out, right? Let me call my sister. Let me call my brother in law. He came in the house. We didn't know why you didn't come in. But then I left before he left. So honestly, I don't know. But let me. I wouldn't. At 5am after drinking 15 drinks the night before and looking at my daughter's soccer schedule, go, let me get in the car and let's drive around on the snowiest day. I just wouldn't, I'd be like, why are we three women looking for an, an off duty cop, right? Like of all the things, it's not like we're looking for your 15 year old daughter who didn't come home from a party. Then I'm in at 5am Sure. I always thought that whole thing was just so weird. Like what, two girls that you aren't even that close with, right, Are gonna like, go hop in the car, girl, let's find your cheating husband that may.
- [32:05]
A
Have also died would be going, he's fine. He didn't get hit by a snowplow. He's not somewhere dead. Like he's fine, he's passed out on the couch somewhere. What's even weirder than that, Heather, is that Jen McCabe's sister lived at 34 Fairview, the very home where John O' Keefe was found in the front yard. There was an afterparty that night, right? Wouldn't you think that Jen McCabe, as she pulls up on John O' Keefe's lifeless body in the front yard of her sister's home, don't you think she would run inside that goddamn house and go, sister there, John o', Keefe, our friend, who she claims at trial is her best friend or good friend, he's laying in the yard.
- [32:41]
B
Yeah, that whole thing was so Weird. What the fuck? Yeah, that. That was so strange. Yeah. So we'll see what happened. I saw that she's just living with her parents. I mean, obviously she's not gonna go back to being a professor. I thought she would have started a podcast by now. I heard that she's also working on a film that Ben Affleck might be involved in.
- [33:03]
A
Interesting. I haven't heard the Ben Affleck part. I do know that she secured a very lucrative bag, so to speak. I think that her and her attorney, Alan Jackson, who helped her, they secured money for a film which is not in production yet, but they said that it's coming out. Karen Reed did say. She does not.
- [33:22]
B
Maybe Ben has endorsed. Maybe Ben has something to do with it.
- [33:25]
A
Okay, so Karen Reed says she does not endorse the one that's coming out with. What's Banks.
- [33:29]
B
What's her name? Yes, Elizabeth Banks. And I think there'll be a bunch like that because it is so juicy. Look, I've talked. Done too many episodes to count. We just walked through it again, and I said, you know, I bring this up a lot, but when the Long Island Lolita happened, which was the young girl that slept with Joey Buttafuoco and shot his wife, there were three lifetime. There were three made for TV movies. One was her story of, like, how she was groomed and how she didn't mean to kill her. One was his story when his wife was in support of him, where this was just a obsessed psycho girl that wanted her dead and he had never touched her. And then there was a reporter's point of view and three different stars. Drew Barrymore played her, Alyssa Milano played her, and somebody else played her. And, you know, so I'm like, I think there'll be many projects that are done.
- [34:24]
A
I think you're right.
- [34:25]
B
From, like, a more cheesy Lifetime movie to, like, a more gritty to. And we won't get tired of it. Just like the OJ we'll not get.
- [34:33]
A
Tired of these stories. This case, the Karen Reed case, and really the case of Officers John o', Keefe, who's the victim. Like, we. This case absolutely should be studied in every law school from here forward. It is absolutely the most wild and complex, interesting, fascinating, and tragic case from so many fronts that we can all learn so much. Because if you believe that Karen Reed is innocent, and spoiler alert, I absolutely believe she's factually innocent based on the evidence that I saw. You know, this is not only the. It's. It's. It's a corrupt law enforcement, in my opinion, corrupt DA's office, in my opinion, corrupt other law enforcement officers who were at that party who testified, in my opinion. It is a framing of an innocent person by members of law enforcement, in my opinion. Like it's just. And she didn't do it based on the evidence and, and to it in two trials they could not convict her. And that is because the evidence was not evidencing in their favor. And it is what it is at this point. And I think going back to your original point when you said like, you know, the family members, John o' Keefe's family members still believe and are staunchly against Karen Reed, they're suing her and they have the right to do that. And I have so much empathy for them. And at the same time I can be a bit frustrated with them because it's like you saw the same evidence that we all saw.
- [35:59]
B
When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no.
- [36:13]
A
One forgets mom 60th and never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end to end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp message process privately with everyone. Learn more@WhatsApp.com and it's very strong that she.
- [36:27]
B
Yeah, I always wonder when, when a family member of a victim, you know, ever changes their mind. I mean, sometimes even when it 20 years later with DNA evidence you find out this poor guy wasn't the murderer and they're still like, because they don't want to, like, what a horrible feeling. It must be all that over again that like, not only did I lose my child, but I cursed this person for 20 years and thought he did this awful thing. And now black and white DNA proves that he didn't do it. Like it's such an odd. And sometimes those people will still be interviewed and be like, no, I still think he did it. And because that's the only way they can like justify, I don't know, like to suddenly go, oh, guess what, I was wrong. Sorry, you did 20 years. Let's switch gears a little bit to a juicy story of financial crime that you were a part of. Yeah, explain.
- [37:18]
A
Oh gosh, this one's a wild one, Heather. But it happened right here in la, so it's gonna be interesting. So I met you in 2017 when I was a guest on your podcast. At that time I was working at a commercial bank doing commercial real estate financing in downtown la. And I worked with this team of bankers that I'd worked with at other banks as well. We were all really tight and, and every couple of years, like we would get recruited together to go to another bank. You know, like we, we all kind of rolled together and we became really close friends. We were working at bank of California in downtown LA in 2017 when my colleague was referred a client. So that happens a lot in commercial banking, right? You know, attorneys, CPAs will refer us clients who need lending for their businesses. This woman, Mary Carol McDonnell, was referred to my colleague by a very like, what we thought was like a very well known, high powered Beverly Hills entertainment lawyer, a guy by the name of Barry Rothman. Barry Rothman calls my colleague and he had done this before, like, hey, I've got a very substantial client, Mary Carol McDonnell. She is a very wealthy heiress to the McDonnell Douglas fortune. McDonnell Douglas being the company that merged with Boeing Airplanes back in the day. So she's from this substantial family, she's an heiress to their fortune. Her, her, her, you know, cut of this for this, whatever it is. This estate is like $80 million that she's going to get in the next couple years. Oh, and by the way, Mary Carol is also the CEO of a true crime TV production company here in Los Angeles called Bellum Entertainment. So by all accounts, she's this substantial businesswoman heiress. She gets referred to my colleague and Barry explains that she needs a $15 million bridge loan. And that was actually pretty common. Like wealthy people actually borrow money all the time. It's not weird, like just to handle their personal finances. They've got, she's got this big windfall coming in from the estate, but it's not quite here yet. She needs a $15 million bridge loan. So my colleague starts working on the loan with, with Barry Rothman for Mary Carol McDonnell. And Barry Rothman's kind of acting as like her, her handler. Like he's submitting the financial documents that are needed, the tax return, stuff like that. And through the month, this is like late 2017, I would go to lunch every day with my colleagues. We would talk about all the deals we had in the pipeline and they, he, you know, my colleague would always bring up Mary Carol, Yep, I'm working on this one deal. He was not excited about the deal, to be honest. It was kind of like a out of the box kind of loan and he didn't really want to deal with it. Admittedly the deal had warts on it, meaning, like it wasn't the. She wasn't a, like a slam dunk borrower. Okay, I will say that. And we can get more into that, but he's just like, whatever. I need to appease Barry Rothman and get this loan done for her. Like, I'm going to do what I can. So fast forward to, I want to say, March of 2018, right before the loan, the loan ends up being approved by the bank that I worked for. And right before it's about to be approved and funded, my colleague, we're sitting in like a pipeline meeting where there's like a whiteboard and all the loans that we're working on, we walk through, like, what stands stage of progress. Like, are you doing loan docs on this loan today? Are you? Whatever. And Mary Carol's name was up on the board. And my colleague's like, oh, by the way, you guys, actually, Mary Carol is going to come in to our office today with, with pies, homemade pies, to thank us for, like, all the hard work that I've done with the team here to get her this loan. And I thought that was odd. That's the one thing I will say I thought was odd. Everything else I believed. I believed she was an heiress. I believe she was this rock star CEO of this TV production comp. All these things fit. But I'm like, why is they.
- [41:01]
B
I'm just curious. Did they say where she lived in la?
- [41:04]
A
She lived in La Canada Flintridge. That is true. She had a multi million dollar mansion. Very, you know, La Canada, it's beautiful there. Her kids, she had two twin sons, Sean and Mac. They grew up in, like the private school system, which is very pricey in LA Canada, as you also know. So everything fit. She drove a Porsche. She had a yacht named Semac after her son.
- [41:25]
B
I have some photos here. This is like, when she first got.
- [41:27]
A
Married, she had been married. She's been married a total of three times. I want to say that was her second marriage to the father of her children.
- [41:34]
B
Okay.
- [41:35]
A
And that is a picture of her with her current husband, Dr. Jeffrey Nillis, who also is a doctor in the La Canada Flintridge area. I want to say an ophthalmologist in like, the Glendale area. Okay, that is true. So that's her third husband. So she did eventually divorce her second husband, who said that.
- [41:53]
B
So was she with the third when she was asking for this loan?
- [41:56]
A
Yes.
- [41:56]
B
Okay.
- [41:56]
A
Yes. So he tells us like, hey, Mary Carol, McDonald's gonna come in and bring us homemade pies to thank us for this Loan. And I thought it was weird that such a substantial woman is gonna drive her Porsche all the way from La Canada Flintridge to downtown LA in Traffic park, come up to the 20 something floor where we worked in this high rise building where we actually don't even see clients of that building. It's not like a traditional bank branch where we go see clients at that level. Like, clients don't come to us. We go to their business and sign loan documents like we cater to them. Why is this substantial heiress and CEO gonna like, go through all this trouble to thank us for this loan and bring us homemade pie? I thought it was weird, okay? But I was interested to meet her because by that time I had started my podcast, Murderish.
- [42:42]
B
Okay?
- [42:42]
A
So I was a true crime podcaster and she was the CEO of a true crime TV production company.
- [42:47]
B
Yeah, that could be a good connection, right?
- [42:48]
A
It could be. I wanted to interview her, right? So I even told my colleague, I'm like, I wonder if she'd let me interview. Or like, I was just like this baby podcaster, and she had produced all this true crime TV that I'd probably consumed at some point or another. So, sure enough, she comes in. Our pipeline meeting was inside this all glass. Like you could see who's walking in the building, right? So security, she comes in and the bitch looks rich. Like, she looks the part. Like she's this. She's this lady in her 60s. She had these nice blue jeans on that were cuffed at the bottom. She had these camel color, color, like heels. She had this like white button, button up, you know, cuffed, you know, boyfriend button up, like, collared shirt. Good.
- [43:29]
B
That's a quiet, quiet luxury.
- [43:31]
A
Quiet luxury. Had a Birkin or what looked to be a Birkin. Yeah. I was like, ooh, girl is rich, you know? And she had a Birkin on one hand, one arm, and two homemade pies in a bag on the other. And she gave us these pies. And I went out and introduced myself to her because I was kind of thirsty. Like, dude, I'm a true cry. I want to interview you, you know. Oh, nice to meet you. Da, da, da. She looked rich, she smelled rich, everything. So then she leaves, we freaking go face down in these pies. I'm not even a pie person. It was the best pie I've ever had. And I was like, wow, that's so nice of her to come down and thank us. So, long story short, after that, that's the only time I ever met her. The bank approves the loan funds the Loan like you're good to go. You can start drawing on this line of $15 million line of credit. So sure enough, Mary Carol McDonald starts calling the bank and requesting like, okay, I need a 700,000 doll on the loan, but. And to be placed into my checking account every time, even though the loan was approved, it's such a substantial loan that every time she would request like a $500,000 draw, $2 million draw, she. It needed to be approved by credit every single time. So not only did credit approve the $15 million loan, they have to approve every single draw that's going to be put into her bank account. And they did. So she drew down on that thing I want to say to the tune of like 5. $14.3 million. Damn near all of it in like a quick amount of time.
- [44:53]
B
Like what, less than a year?
- [44:54]
A
Oh, days, days. Like not long, like days. Okay, maybe even a couple weeks max. Like she was calling like almost every day. I need this, I need that. And they, they put it in her bank account. So then third, about 30 days later, after the loan was approved and funded, the first payment comes due. No fucking payments made.
- [45:16]
B
And do you recall what she was supposed, how much the payment was supposed to be?
- [45:19]
A
So it was an interest only loan. So whatever the balance was at the time on the line of credit, which was about $14.3 million, multiply that by the interest rate and divide it by 365 and times it by 30. That's her monthly payment. Like it was an interest only payment. So it was like a substantial monthly payment to the average everyday person.
- [45:38]
B
Just approximately. What do you think that would be?
- [45:40]
A
Gosh, I have to do quick math. I just ran through just approx. A few thousand. Like, I don't know, I could literally pull out my calculator. Not even 20,000, I don't think. Okay, but, but a few thousand probably.
- [45:52]
B
Okay.
- [45:53]
A
And the paint, she doesn't make the payment. And obviously that is a huge red flag if you miss your very first payment. Like, we're in trouble. This was really kind of the oh shit moment for the bank. They're like, well, why the she not making her payment? So then my colleague starts calling her. No answer. Then the credit team who approved her loan is like, well, we're going to make a phone. They can't get a hold of her. And this is truly when they're like, where the fuck is Mary Carol and why is she not making this payment? And what you need to know is that bank of California is a publicly traded bank like, you could go buy stock in the bank tomorrow, which means there are investors, which means if $15 million goes missing from a bank, that's a big deal. Like, people are going to get fired. The investors are going to. It's going to be in the financial, you know, media, whatever. So this is precisely when, like, the credit team's probably clinching their assholes. They're like, oh, fuck. We approved this loan. Where's Mary Carol? She's nowhere to be found. So the credit team decides to make a phone call to another bank called Northern Trust as part of the loan. The way that it was structured, because the deal had warts on it, and Mary Carroll really wasn't that great of a borrower, her credit sucked. There was all kinds of, like, warts on the deal. Not a great borrower. They took a $28 million investment account that Mary Carol owned and had at another bank and used it as collateral for the $15 million loan so that if for any reason she can't make her payments or pay the loan back, we could go and cash out.
- [47:20]
B
They did that before they granted it or after?
- [47:22]
A
Yes, before. This was part of the deal, like, to make us safer. Like, if we're in a no shit moment, we could go and just get our collateral and be made whole and be on our way. So the credit guy, who actually ultimately was the one who approved her loan, makes a phone call to Northern Trust and like, hey, we can't find. Can't get a hold of Mary Carol. Just want to make sure that that, like, $28 million investment, investment account is, like, good and secure, still there, like, everything. And they're like, we don't have a client by that name. And we don't have a $28 million investment account at all. And they're like, but that's our collateral. And they're like, that's not our client. We don't have. So this whole shit was fake, but who failed to not check, Heather? That is the question, and that is what gets me to this day, is that the bank clearly made mistakes. Bank of California, that's your collateral. Before you approve and fund a loan, you better make damn sure, number one, that the collateral is real, right? And that it's secure, that we have a pledge on it that nobody can touch it, only we can touch it if she defaults on the loan. Obviously somebody effed up. That didn't happen. They thought they had 28 million in collateral. They did not.
- [48:35]
B
So then what happens?
- [48:37]
A
So then that's when we knew that's when the bank's like, oh, shit. We've been defrauded out of $15 million. Everything was fake. Everything was a lie. We're. And, like, the investors are going to kill us. Like, this is not going to make us look good. So basically, the bank from there calls in corporate security to start investigating. What the hell happened? How did it happen? The FBI gets called in because it's a publicly traded, a federally regulated bank. So the FBI, this is a, you know, FBI has to come and investigate. And they're interrogating all my colleagues because they're probably trying to figure out, like, were my colleagues involved? The ones that brought her in a client.
- [49:13]
B
Yeah.
- [49:14]
A
Which, spoiler alert, they weren't. We all truly believed everything was on the up and up. Nobody, including myself. And I think I'm fairly astute, you know, Like, I truly thought, she's an heiress, she's rich. You know, I knew the deal had warts on it, though. Yeah.
- [49:28]
B
But nobody had checked the 80 million. Like, trust. Like, I would think you'd have to show that there is a trust account that you get to draw from or you do. You get at a certain amount. So those were all false records.
- [49:43]
A
Everything was false. Okay. And so. And Barry Rothman had provided most of the documents. Exactly.
- [49:50]
B
So was he in. So is he in on.
- [49:52]
A
We'll get to that. Okay, answer is yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So basically, the FBI comes in. My colleagues get put on administrative leave. My colleague who brought her in as a client, our direct boss who also helped with the deal, and then our department lead, the head of our commercial lending unit, all got put on an administrative leave because they're the people who brought her in as a client. Well, what pissed me off, and what you're probably thinking too, is like, why the fuck is nobody from credit who actually approved the deal and analyzed her financials and bank statements and didn't secure their collateral? Why didn't they get put on leave? They were all like, fine. Which I always thought was weird. They put. They put the salespeople on leave, but not the credit people who actually prove the deal. So they're gone. We're ordered not to talk to them while the FBI is there investigating. I can't talk to my boss, I can't talk to my colleague, and I'm just like, nobody can even concentrate on work. It's like the biggest deal ever. Like, what the is going on? What is going on?
- [50:52]
B
You, at a certain point, are you like, I want to just drive by this bitch's house?
- [50:55]
A
Oh, 100%. I wanted to go investigate the whole thing. I had so many questions. And I remembered that my colleague had shared with me one time while he was doing this deal. He's like, yeah, Mary Carol, she had a brother who, like, died mysteriously. Like, you know, And I'm like. I'm like, oh, you know, I'm all into true crime. I'm like, ooh, mysterious. Like, what happened to her brother? And then after this happens, I'm like, fuck, did she kill her brother? Like, what's going on? But then. So I had all these questions, right? Like, who is this woman? How'd she pull this off? Like. And I literally still thought she was an heiress. That's what a bonehead. I was like, truly? Like, I was like, why is an heiress and a CEO stealing all this money? It's like, okay, you idiot, she's not an heiress. But, like, we thought she was. So my colleagues are on leave. We're all like. It's all we can think about. The FBI is just crazy, cruising around our offices, like, investigating. Then we're all sitting on a meeting. I think the meeting was unrelated to this whole fraud thing, but.
- [51:50]
B
So while they're investigating everything, she's just not answering her phone. But nobody's going to her house. No one's arresting her, because the FBI has to build the case first before they arrest her.
- [52:00]
A
They probably, in the background, unbeknownst to us, probably did go to her house and. But we don't know.
- [52:05]
B
Okay, got it.
- [52:06]
A
And we. You know, it's like, we are. We. We have no clue. We found out later why she was mia, so I'll get to that. Sorry. Too. Yeah, no, you're good. But I love the questions that are coming up because they're all, like, very good questions. We're all sitting in on a meeting. The FBI's investigating. My colleagues are on leave. Can't talk to them. Everything's crazy. And somebody gets an alert on their phone that Barry Rothman, the attorney who referred Mary Carol to the bank, died unexpectedly in the dental chair. Just went to the dentist and died in the chair. We don't know how. We don't know why. What the fuck? We literally are like, my true crime brain is. Well. Well, she didn't want to share the money with him, or he knew too much. She killed him. Like, and what about her mysterious death with her brother? Like, is she this diabolical, like, black widow type? Yeah, like, I was like, oh, my God. And it was so crazy because the bank security. Actually, we didn't know what was going on or what Mary Carol was capable of. But they were so scared for us after Barry Rothman died mysteriously. And suddenly in the mix of all this, that they literally blocked all access and had security guards guarding the entrances to our office doors so that we were safe. Because we were like, nobody knew. Like, is Mary Carol gonna come and do something here? Like, it just was. It sounds crazy, but we didn't know. Like, these people are dying mysteriously in the dental chair. She's nowhere to be found. The money sounds.
- [53:30]
B
And this is still 2018.
- [53:32]
A
This is 2018. This is all going down early. 2018. So Barry Rothman's dead, and now I'm like, what happened to him? So I.
- [53:40]
B
What did happen to him? I mean, you can't. She didn't hire a dentist to kill him.
- [53:45]
A
No, she did it. So I'll get to that. I promise. I promise I will get to that. So I was miserable at the bank because my. I could see the writing on the wall. They were going to fire. They were going to terminate my colleagues, and my colleagues were the only reason that I was at that bank. Right. And they did eventually terminate them because somebody has to go down when 15 million goes missing.
- [54:03]
B
Yeah.
- [54:03]
A
I had started interviewing at other financial institutions. I was like, get me the out of here. This is a shit show. I want out. But then, right, I interviewed. I had secured a job at another bank. I was ready to go. And then on a Friday, I was sitting at a Starbucks near my house, working from home, about to accept another job. Get out of bank of California. My husband calls and he's like, oh, my God, he's panicking. His right hand person in his business quit unexpectedly. And this is the person that he, like, trusted most with the finances and the husband's partner. My husband's. Yeah, Business. Like, it was like his cfo, right? And I'm just, in my mind, I'm like, well, I know finance. I've worked at banks for 20 years. Like, why don't I just not take this job at this other bank over here? I'll do your finances. Like, in the interim, this won't be long term. I'll have to eventually go back to banking. That's what pays the. Helps pay the bills and gives me, you know, 401k, blah, blah, blah. He's like, done, whatever. And I'm like, I know you can't pay me what I'm making at the bank, but, like, maybe if you just, like, take on more of the bills at home and just pay Me what? You can pay me, and I'll be your little CFO in your business. And that's what we did. So I turned down the job offer at the other bank, started working for my husband. What that allowed me to do was spend more time on my podcast and really churn out more content, better content. But what happened was I got picked up by a podcast network because I was able to, like, really focus on it and not be, like, commuting every day to downtown LA and podcasting. And now I have the flexibility. So I got picked up by a podcast network, and I basically was like, listen, I had a meeting one day, and I was like, you guys, I cannot stop thinking about this heiress that stole this money from my bank. Like, what the fuck, right? Let. What if I. I pitched them on the idea of doing, like, a serialized podcast, like a deep dive and find out what truly happened. What's the bigger story with her? What's her past? How'd she do it? So they greenlit it right away, and they're like, cool. Take however long you need to investigate. I hired a researcher, somebody with a law enforcement background. We started to investigate and deep dive, and we found out that the story of Mary Carol McDonald was, like, so much bigger and wilder than we ever could have imagined. And we put a podcast out about it. It's called Dirty Money Women in White Collar Crime, Season one is dedicated to the phony heiress. And through that investigation, before I put the podcast out, is when I really found out everything, all the answers to the unanswered questions. So, number one, first thing I found out, bitch is not an heiress. I mean, obviously, like, she's not even related to the McDonnell Douglas thing at all. Like, her parents are these two small business owners, you know, from, like, the Midwest. So that was a lie. Also, Mary Carol McDonnell had always told people she true, but what I found out was true. She was the CEO of Bellum Entertainment. You can look it up. It is an actual TV production company that churned out a lot of true crime content over the years. She was the CEO, but it was a house of cards. It wasn't what it looked like on the surface. It really was like a poorly run company. She never, you know, she didn't pay employees. There were wage complaints, yada, yada. But she was also. Where is I going with that?
- [57:14]
B
You're going through all the things.
- [57:15]
A
So she wasn't in there.
- [57:16]
B
She did have the crime thing.
- [57:18]
A
Oh. She had always told people. So she ran in, like, big circles in the TV industry. She Did. She did hold a lot of high positions in various, like, TV production companies. Right. So she knew a lot of people, a lot of the players in the business. She had always told people, and all of her employees knew this to be fact, that she had a little sister named Holly back in the day, who was kidnapped, held for ransom, and murdered by her kidnappers. And it was a very traumatic thing that Mary Carol went through. And what that does is it makes people think that you are from a substantial family, because nobody would abduct and hold for ransom a little girl unless there's, like, a big ransom to be got. So Mary Carol was always spending her life trying to convince people that she. She was from this McDonnell Douglas family. She's rich, always been rich, she's wealthy. Her sister.
- [58:13]
B
So she would tell this story of this little sister story.
- [58:16]
A
Yes.
- [58:17]
B
And to. Also, that's maybe why she has an interest in crime and blah, blah, blah.
- [58:23]
A
Exactly.
- [58:23]
B
And I'm guessing there was no little sister.
- [58:25]
A
There was a little sister.
- [58:27]
B
Oh, there was a little sister.
- [58:27]
A
There was a homicide, but it was not an abduction, held for ransom murder. What happened was her little sister, Holly was born with special needs. And I forgot around the. I think she was around 11 years old. She makes her way outside and is playing in the backyard with this neighbor boy, who's about 14, who also has special needs. Mary Carol's a bit older than Holly, but, you know, still young. And the little boy, the neighbor gets a hold of a hunting knife, stabs Holly in the back.
- [59:00]
B
Oh, my God.
- [59:01]
A
She dies on the way to the hospital. And this was Mary Carol's, like, best friend. Not only her sister. This was her best friend in life.
- [59:11]
B
And who was her best friend?
- [59:12]
A
Her little sister, Holly, who was killed by the neighbor boy. So it was a homicide, but the neighbor boy had special needs. I highly doubt that. It was like this premeditated murder.
- [59:23]
B
How horrific.
- [59:23]
A
It was horrific. And so no doubt Mary Carol had been through something very traumatic. Very traumatic. But it was not that her sister was abducted, held for ransom, and murdered, but she took a little bit of truth of a tragic event and spun it into a lie to bolster her narrative that she is this substantial person from a substantial family, which was not true. But everybody in her life, including her employees and friends and family, believed it was true.
- [59:51]
B
As sick as this sound, it's like a sexier, juicier story than my sister who had special needs, was murdered by another special. I mean, that is just like a bummer of a story. I mean, so is being kidnapped for ransom. But it's like. It just. It seems it's a more exciting story to tell.
- [60:12]
A
It's more. Unfortunately, it's more of like a Hollywood movie type script, you know, the abduction held for ransom. But I think, more importantly, now that I think back on helped paint Mary Carol as a substantial person, which would help her later commit Sara scams against very smart people, which we'll get into it. Made them believe she's this substantial person, she's very elite, she's very wealthy, very educated, like all these things. But she was always trying to escape her Midwest past. She really wasn't as substantial and wealthy as she always wanted people to believe. But that's what she always. But people did believe it and they believe the kidnap for ransom story. So I found that out, and that was not true. I also found out that the bank of California scam was not at all her first scam, but it was her biggest get yet. It was her most successful scam. But she had been scamming and defrauding financial institutions and wealthy people who she knew for decades. She was a prolific scam artist to the tune of like $50 million in scams from the time she started to the time she took the money from bank of California.
- [61:24]
B
This is what I always don't. This is what I always wonder about these. When it's these big monies, like whether it's Madoff or whoever, where is all. What were you spending? A la is nice, but it's not that nice.
- [61:35]
A
No.
- [61:36]
B
Where was all the money going?
- [61:37]
A
That is a great question. And do you know what she did with at least half of it? This is a very smart. This is a very, I should say, classic scam artist move. They sort of like. They know that at a certain point that if they commit enough scams, people and institutions are going to be breathing down their neck and that. That they might end up in jail, they might end up arrested, they might end up with a house foreclosure. So they know at a certain point they have to pay some of the money back, right? So she would go to like, a payday loan company or wherever she went to. This is all documented. She, like, committed all this fraud against all these financial institutions, let's say, to the tune of like $5 million. And it would get so bad, so many phone calls would come in. Her credit got bad. Her they're threatening to take her car or house or this. She would go and like, pay a couple of them back just to take the heat off so she could continue scamming in the future without, like, ending up in prison and with no house. So half the money that she scammed she actually would pay back at a certain point because she knows she has to to keep the scam going. You can't commit $50 million in scams and not have it catch up with you at some point and end your freedom. Right.
- [62:49]
B
So what happened with the eye doctor husband?
- [62:51]
A
Oh, my God. So she was married three times, once right out of college. That didn't work out. Divorce. Then she meets Tom Carroll, who's the father of her two only sons, twin boys who are now, like, I think, in their 30s. Sean and Mac. Tom Carroll. That doesn't work out. They divorce in while she's with Tom Carroll. And afterward, she was a scam artist, but not most people. Did not know. I think Tom had his suspicions about some things, but certainly didn't know the bigger that she was doing it on this scale and didn't know all the things till he heard the podcast. But then.
- [63:25]
B
Did you hear from him?
- [63:26]
A
Yes. Yeah.
- [63:28]
B
You heard from husband number two?
- [63:29]
A
Yeah.
- [63:29]
B
And what did he say?
- [63:30]
A
Oh, that he absolutely believes everything in it and that there were some red flags with her and that she was a liar. That he did question her about the. The McDonald Douglas connection. Like, it doesn't make. Like. I think he kind of did a little research and was like, I don't think you're. You can't be the father.
- [63:48]
B
When he married her. Where. Who, who, who from her family was there if he thought he was marrying this heir. So he thought he was marrying an heiress that was going to get 80 million one day.
- [63:58]
A
He thought that she was. He believed the heiress to a certain point. And then, like, he was like, oh, wait a minute, I have questions. And when he went to question her about it, it only made him think, like, oh, she's a liar. Like, it only confirmed his suspicions. And they eventually broke up over.
- [64:14]
B
But then they had two kids, and.
- [64:15]
A
They had two kids and blah, blah, blah. So there were red flags. He definitely clocked some of it, and it definitely ended their marriage. He said she was horrible with money. He. He also thinks that she committed, like, an insurance scam back in the day. Didn't know it was a scam at the time, but now looking back and listening to the podcast, what kind of.
- [64:32]
B
What was it?
- [64:33]
A
It was. It was like a house fire type thing. If you listen to the pod, if you listen to Dirty Money Moves, it is like, all in there.
- [64:39]
B
So, okay, a couple more questions. And then, of course, people should need to listen to all your podcasts. But what happened to the dentist chair?
- [64:47]
A
So that's what's. So I immediately was like, what the fuck? So I ordered Barry Rothman's death certificate and basically what I found out and through interviews I was able to find out that he did in fact go to the dentist that day, as he often did and oh, we have to get to the dentist. This is the juicy part. Right, so we'll get to that. He did go to the dentist that day, did have like a somewhat routine ish procedure, went home and essentially had like a heart attack. And he did have preexisting health issues. He was not a healthy guy at all. So it was nothing to do with Mary Carol, but it just the timing of seemed like more shocking than it actually really was. He went home and like dropped dead at home and his wife was there. He had a young wife at the time. So it wasn't anything, you know, that she did nefarious to him.
- [65:39]
B
But you think he totally knew that she was a scammer too?
- [65:42]
A
Absolutely. So I'll say in my opinion, based on all the evidence and research documents, court documents, did he get any of.
- [65:50]
B
That 15 million before he dropped dead?
- [65:53]
A
No, not that I have and I don't have any.
- [65:55]
B
But you don't think they were like boning or anything?
- [65:58]
A
I don't think they were. What I found out in my investigation is that Mary Carol and Barry Rothman had actually met like decades before they pulled off this bank scam together. It's my opinion that he helped her. Right. Based on the evidence they had met decades before and so I had always thought so. Barry Rothman. This part is true about Barry Rothman. He is a like Beverly Hills entertainment attorney who previously had represented the Rolling Stones, the who Yolanda Hadid from the Housewives with when she was a model. So he's was a substantial legit. Right. So if he refers a client to your bank, it only makes her seem more legit.
- [66:37]
B
So then why, what do you think the motivation was for him to get involved? If he didn't get any of the.
- [66:42]
A
14, he died before he could get the money. Right. So he didn't plan on dying. Right. So he had helped her pull off this scam. And the reason I know that he, I think he helped her pull off this scam is that what I found out was yes, Barry Rothman is an attorney, but he had his bar license suspended. He had all these Panama shell accounts trying to transfer and hide money from his ex wife. He had claims from numerous previous employees that he was verbally abusive. Didn't pay them. Shady, Shady. Shady McShaderson, like, definitely had had his Rolls Royce Corniche, what do you call it? Confiscated or whatever. It was repossessed because he was not making his payments to his ex wife. He was very, very, very vindictive against his ex wife. Didn't want to pay her a dime, even though he owed it to her. It was court ordered. He was just as shady as Mary Carol McDonald, if not worse. So they were two scammy peas in a pod. They were too. And we didn't know it, though.
- [67:46]
B
So what happened to her? Did she ever get arrested? What is she doing?
- [67:51]
A
So. And remind me to circle back to Barry Rothman and Michael Jackson. You're not going to.
- [67:55]
B
No, we'll just tell that right now.
- [67:56]
A
Okay. So what I also found out, in the event. This is so fucking like. It's like wild. What we found out in the investigation is that Barry Rothman had this particular dentist. His name is escaping me, but it's all Googleable. Basically. He had this dentist in Beverly Hills that he would always go to and they became friends. What I also know is that Barry Rothman was a big pussy. He did not like to be in pain. So when he would go to the dentist, he would get, like, somewhat like, routine, just a cleaning, just a clean whatever, and be like, put me under anesthesia. I don't want to have pain. So he would bring like his own anesthesiologist to the appointment to literally put him under for, like, routine shit. It was wild. Cause he did not like pain. Okay? So he did. So he went to the dentist. He became very close to his dentist. Then the dentist had a son named Jordan. I think that he went by Jordy for short. One day, Barry Rothman goes and visits his dentist. The dentist says, you're not going to believe this, Barry. These are not his words, but this is the sentiment. You're not going to believe this, but my son Jordy, I was doing dental procedures on him and he was under a certain drug. It's all in the podcast. Can't remember the name of the drug, but my son was under a certain drug so he could get. So I could work on him. His teeth. And he admitted to me that Michael Jackson has been abusing him. So before all this shit happened with Mary Carol McDonald, Jordy and his parents, his the dentist dad and the wife at the time, Jordy's mom, through random circumstances, met Michael Jackson, the king of pop, at, like, an auto body Shop. Somebody's car broke down. I want to say it was Michael Jackson's limo or something had broken down. And like, Jordy and his family were there. They met Michael Jackson and Michael Jackson took a liking to Jordi and Jordi and his family. This Beverly Hills dentist start spending all this time with Michael Jackson. They become, like, really close. There's pictures of them together. Like, this is all, like, documented, right? So I'm telling you, Heather, you're gonna be like, bullshit, Jamie, this shit's true. Yeah, it's crazy. So then fast forward to Barry Rothman, the attorney, goes in for dental cleaning, whatever dentist is like, I was working on my son Jordy the other day. He. He's under this drug or whatever, and he says in a haze that Michael Jackson's been abusing him, you know, unbeknownst to us. So the dentist dad tells Barry Rothman, Barry Rothman, basically, these are not his words, but this sentiment was like, basically, don't say shit. I'm gonna help you get rich. I. We are going to get $20 million from Michael Jackson. We're not gonna go to the authorities, we're not gonna go to the press. We're gonna go directly to Michael Jackson's people. You and I are going to get a payday from this. So this dad doesn't go to the authorities to protect his son, who allegedly is saying, Michael Jackson's abusing me. He listens to his attorney and they together conspire to extort the King of pop out of $20 million for these claims that Jordy allegedly made. Well, Michael Jackson's camp is having none of it. They're like, yeah, no, nope, not. Not going to happen. Somehow it gets leaked to the press. And then. So basically, Barry Rothman and this dentist dad and Jordi are the first people who. Who actually brought child abuse charges against Michael Jackson. They were the very first ones. So after it gets leaked to the press, they do bring it forward. Like, yes, Michael Jackson did this to Geordi. And it gets leaked to the press. It's a huge story. What ends up happening is Michael Jackson's insurance company does end up paying out, I want to say, $20 million, something very substantial to Jordy and his family. Barry Rothman gets $0. So the plan flopped on his end. He got no money from the extortion scheme, but the insurance company did pay out Jordy and his parents, which. So Jordy got multi millions. The two parents, the mom and dad, I want to say they got like a couple million each. All of it Was substantial. But that way, Michael Jackson didn't have to say. Didn't say, oh, yes, I admit guilt. It's just an insurance payout. You know what I mean? Like, you know how that works, right? Like, my insurance company's gonna pay you out to make you go away. But that doesn't mean I did this to your son.
- [72:07]
B
Right?
- [72:08]
A
So then what happens is, once it gets leaked to the press and it, like, becomes this big story, Jordy's dad becomes, like, the most hated man in America.
- [72:18]
B
That dentist.
- [72:18]
A
Yes, that dentist. Because everybody's like, why the f. Did you not go to the authorities? If you truly loved your son and wanted to do right by him, you wouldn't go straight to Michael Jackson and try to explain, extort him with your shady lawyer. You would have gone and brought criminal charges. You would have been like, hello, my son.
- [72:34]
B
Let's stop this from happening.
- [72:36]
A
Thank you. But they didn't do that. So. So this scheme to extort Michael Jackson really affected Jordy's father's life. He was, like, the most hated man in America. Everybody was talking about him. And so what happens is Jordy's mom and dad end up divorcing. Jordy goes on to emancipate from his parents and goes out on his own. And basically.
- [72:57]
B
So he leaves the parents before he's 18.
- [72:59]
A
Leaves the parents before he's 18. This is all documented. Jordy's dad. I don't remember. It's all in the podcast. But if it was right before Michael Jackson died or right after Jordy's dad is found dead in his apartment, I wanna say, in New York, he dies by suicide. So he. His life was never the same after he tried to extort with Barry Rothman 20 million out of Michael Jackson.
- [73:22]
B
So.
- [73:22]
A
But.
- [73:23]
B
So Barry Rothman dies in his chair.
- [73:26]
A
Like, basically not in his chair, but he goes to the dentist, goes home and dies.
- [73:31]
B
And then that dentist go. Kills. Kills himself.
- [73:34]
A
Correct. Years later, where is Mary? So sorry. The dentist dies first. The dentist actually dies first. Then Barry Rothman dies while all this Mary Carol stuff is being investigated.
- [73:45]
B
So he goes to a different dentist.
- [73:47]
A
It was a different dentist that he went to the day that he died.
- [73:49]
B
And got too much anesthesia and then dropped.
- [73:52]
A
Probably. Yeah. And I don't think that Barry's death had anything to do with anything related to what he had done at the dentist. It was just a coinky dink. Like, you went to the dentist, but you already. He already had health problems. Okay, Maybe it was tied to that. Maybe it wasn't but mostly he was not in. Good.
- [74:06]
B
So what happens to Barry?
- [74:08]
A
Oh, my God. So Mary Carol McDonald. So obviously this big investigation's going on. We're all like, where the f is she? We find out that essentially she got that 15, $14.3 million from bank of California. She hopped a plane to Dubai. So she's in the United Arab Emirates. And she has never been back on American soil that I know of since that day in 2018 when she took off. She's been there ever since.
- [74:34]
B
Where is the eye doctor husband?
- [74:36]
A
So the. He's with her. And this is the crazy part, Heather. He was a reputable. You can look him up on Yelp. Like, you can look up. He had recently retired from his medical practice. Many people would go to him. They were. He was their trusted doctor.
- [74:49]
B
Well, he did. He retired in Dubai with her.
- [74:51]
A
He did. So he. He's on, essentially. So she's on the run because about a year after she pulled off the bank heist of 15 million, she gets indicted on seven federal charges here in Los Angeles by a grand jury. So she's a wanted woman. There are seven federal indictments against Mary Carol as we speak, related to the bank heist. But she's never come back for the court appearances. She's written people through email and told the courts, oh, I'm just handling business in Dubai. I'll be back when I'm done. But she's never come back. She is in Dubai as we speak, that I know of. On the run, has never come to face her seven federal charges. I've been in touch with the FBI.
- [75:32]
B
How is it that Bravo didn't hire her for the Real Housewives of Die?
- [75:36]
A
It would have been so, so good.
- [75:40]
B
I mean, I can't believe she's in Dubai because obviously the biggest mistake that Bravo's made was not to find her and hire her, because that would just go with the criminal as a housewife. Yeah, the criminal housewives.
- [75:51]
A
Her and Jen Shaw. Yeah.
- [75:53]
B
Didn't have it in Dubai. Okay, so where are we now with everything?
- [75:57]
A
So something I failed to mention, like you talked about Dubai, that she is currently in Dubai. And we, you know, we know where she is. So through tips, random circumstances and tips, we actually know where Mary Carol is. We have a picture of her at a restaurant. And from what I hear from tipsters, she is still running schemes in Dubai. And on the topic of her scheme, something I didn't tell you was Mary Carol McDonnell, she had two major schemes that she would run over the decades. Her first scheme was she Went to various like financial institutions and would present fake documents, misrepresent the truth, get multi millions of dollars over the years and, and not pay it back. So she defrauded multiple financial institutions and in fact one time she even forged her twin son's signature on fake documents to make them like a guarantor on the loan. And so their financial situation got like wrecked for a while because they got sued by the financial institution because the institution's like well your signature's on these documents. So she even wrecked her own sons for a time like financially which is probably part of the reason they don't talk to her her anymore. That was one scheme. But her bigger scheme and her more diabolical scheme was that she, you know, she ran in big circles in the TV business. She had a lot of wealthy contacts. She had rich friends who were attorneys, TV executives, things like that. She approached several of them and basically was like hey, like these are not her words but hey, like you know, I'm, I'm an heiress. Like I'm gonna you know, inherit about 80 million dollars which is my portion of my family's 400 million dollar trust estate. And by the way, I'm also the executor of this trust and I have been authorized to run a gifting program. So I have had other people, and I can put you in touch with them who have invested you know, a hundred thousand, a million dollars with me and I can guarantee you through my gifting program. A gifting program, mean it's literally like to, to, to sort of dumb it down. It's like if you invest, if you give me $100,000, I will go and invest it for you in this program and you will get 20% more a year from now. That will be your return on investment and something like that. And she says so, so in, in long story short, through the years, many of her trusted friends who thought she was this legitimate businesswoman, air of superiority like woman, trusted friend, they invested hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars. These are very smart, successful people. They fell for it. You know, and so she, that just tells you how good she was at this. And surprise, surprise, they would never get their money back. There was no gifting program, There was no 80, $400 million estate for her wealthy family. Like none of it existed, existed. But there's all these lawsuits. She has been sued by multiple financial institutions for defrauding them out of multi millions. She's been sued by individuals who fell for her gifting program. They will probably never get their money back. From her. And she is so prolific that over the decades of being a scam artist, we calculated it to be about $50 million in scams that we could count that she was able to pull off the. So she's like Anna Delvey but like on steroids.
- [79:21]
B
Wow. Well, I yeah, this could be so juicy. I hope it becomes a doc or something where they someone travels to Dubai and like approaches her or I'm guessing also she's going to scam the wrong person and that could be deadly. Maybe. But wow. Well, where what is this podcast called for people that you were just saying about this one, right.
- [79:46]
A
For the deep dive on The Mary Carol McDonald Hollywood Heist Story. That's Dirty Money Moves Women in White Collar crime. It's my podcast about female scam artists which was launched season one with the Mary Carol McDonald story. So you can listen to a D. There's like 13 episodes. So there's a lot that I just for time's sake couldn't cover here, go listen to Dirty Money Moves season one. You will just be blown away by It's Wild. And then my other other podcast is Murderish. And Murderish is, you know, true crime stories told by me every Monday. Sometimes on Saturdays I talk with my bestie about reality TV as well, because I'm also into reality tv, as you know, and that's Murderish and that's available on all platforms. If you want to link up with me on social media or YouTube, I'm @Jamie on air. J A M I on air on every platform.
- [80:33]
B
Well, it's so awesome. Thank you for coming. I'm so happy for all your success and everybody you know, go to heathermcdallin.net make sure you subscribe to Juicy Crimes and Juicy scoops. Leave a 5 star review, blah blah blah. Thank you.
- [80:48]
A
Bye bye. Thank you. Heather.
- [81:10]
B
Sam.