← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Goodbye Uncle Jack (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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- [00:00]
Mr. Ballin
Hey, prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Late one afternoon in the summer of 2014, a pawn shop owner was updating his inventory logs when the bell above the front door jingled. A young couple walked inside and approached the counter, and the young man said he had a few items to sell. Then he proceeded to open a drawstring bag and dumped the contents onto the counter. There was a collection of gold chains, rings, and watches, and many of the pieces were twisted and mangled. Instantly, the hair on the pawn shop owner's neck stood up. Because everything about this interaction, from the large quantity of damaged jewelry to the careless way the pieces had been thrown in a bag together, told him that these items were stolen. And this made the owner extremely nervous. Because he had cash in the register and didn't know what these thieves might be capable of, he needed to get them out of the store quickly without revealing that he was onto them. So he told the couple he didn't have enough cash to buy the jewelry right now, but he would send some pictures of the jewelry to his broker to see if maybe they were interested. The couple agreed and let him take the photos. And then after the photos were taken and the couple had left, the owner called the police. And it soon became clear his gut instincts were right. However, he'd stumbled onto something much bigger than just theft, because it would turn out this jewelry was linked to a murder case. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast, because that's all we do. And we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, please change all the hotkey commands on the follow button's computer so that every single command just restarts the computer. Okay, let's get into today's story. When you think about businesses with really good sales, like Death Wish Coffee or Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty, with each of them, you've got an in demand product, a strong brand, and some really good marketing. But an often overlooked secret to their success is that they have phenomenal infrastructure behind the business, which makes selling and buying a lot simpler. And for millions of successful businesses like those, that infrastructure is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify, home of the number one checkout on the planet, and the not so secret secret that their shop pay boosts, conversions up to 50%, which means way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. 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One afternoon in mid July 2014, 59 year old Jack Parks and his fiance Carol Lapia walked through their neighborhood of Kennedy Township, Pennsylvania. Jack sported a black fedora, wireframe glasses, and a lopsided grin beneath a graying mustache Carol hung on his arm, smiling at how her engagement ring sparkled in the sunlight. As they walked, they passed by several neighbors who were outside doing yard work or talking. Jack and Carol waved each person as they passed and everyone waved back. Their neighborhood was a close knit working class community 10 miles outside of Pittsburgh, and everybody seemed to know each other. In fact, Jack even had family on this street. One of his nephews, Bradley Johnson, lived nearby. As Jack and Carol passed by Bradley's house, Jack slowed down, trying to see if Bradley was home. His nephew had mentioned wanting to talk to him in person about something serious and urgent, but Jack could see that the house was empty, so that conversation would have to wait. Which was fine, because today Jack and Carol were on a mission. Inside of Carol's purse was a large stack of wedding invitations and they were on their way to drop these invitations in the mail. Which was huge for them because their wedding had been an unusually long time coming. So Jack and Carol had met at a bar 25 years ago. They'd fallen for each other quickly, but Jack had dragged his feet on proposing. And then, when he had felt ready, Carol was swamped at work, then Jack was busy. The timing was just always bad, and the longer they put marriage off, the less important it seemed. And anyways, they were in love and totally committed to each other. They didn't need a marriage license to prove that. But last February, Jack's mother had passed away. Her death had made him realize that he wasn't getting any younger and he really wanted to marry the woman he'd loved for decades. So a few months ago, he'd finally proposed. And ever since, their days had been consumed with wedding preparations. They had the venue, the dress and the rings. And now it was finally time to send out the invitations. The couple came to the end of the block and stopped in front of the mailbox. Carol took the envelopes from her purse and then joked that this was their last chance to cross anyone off their invite list. Jack just laughed and said they were not cutting anyone. So Carol pushed the envelopes through the mailbox slot until only one invitation remained. Carol hesitated for a second, looking at the name on that last envelope. It was her nephew, a 22 year old named Michael Lapia. She and Jack had been angry at Michael this whole past year. Their broken relationship with him was a sore spot for both of them. So Jack and Carol did not have children of their own, but they'd always doted on their nieces and nephews. When the kids were younger, Jack and Carol would have them over for slumber parties where they'd stay up late watching movies and eating popcorn. And as the kids got older, they'd all stayed close, except for Michael. A few years back, Michael had started drifting away from Jack and Carol and the rest of the family and getting into lots of trouble. He joined the army, but gotten dishonorably discharged for marijuana possession. And ever since, he'd suffered from PTSD and began experimenting with harder drugs. But that was actually not what caused the rift. Jack and Carol had supported Michael even through his struggles. Until one day. The previous September, during a Labor Day party that Jack and Carol had hosted, guests had seen Michael go into the couple's bedroom. And when the party was over, Carol had discovered that her expensive jewelry was missing. Jack and Carol had confronted Michael, who denied taking anything, but they hadn't believed him. They told him he was no longer welcome in their home, and things had been extremely tense between them ever since. But now Jack and Carol were ready to make amends by inviting Michael to their wedding. So, standing on the sidewalk, Carol took a deep breath and then dropped Michael's invitation into the mailbox. And suddenly, both Jack and Carol felt a whole lot lighter. The invitations were out, and good things were ahead. Jack and Carol turned away from the mailbox and began heading back home. As they reached their driveway, Jack waved to a few men standing directly across the street outside of a small factory called Silver Star Meats. The workers were outside in their aprons smoking, and they waved back. Jack was about to go over and talk to them when he noticed Carol's irritated expression and so he thought better of it. Jack liked the guys from the factory, but he knew they made Carol uncomfortable. She hated that they took their smoke breaks so close to their house and she thought their blood stained aprons were kind of unsettling. So Jack just turned away and then he and Carol walked up their porch steps and into their A few days later, on Monday, July 21, Carol sat at her desk at work reviewing her to do list for the wedding. The ceremony was just six weeks away and there was still a lot to figure out. But then at 10:45am her cell phone rang and to her surprise, it was Jack's realtor. Jack had hired this realtor to sell his mother's house after she had died, and now the realtor said some potential buyers wanted to see the house that afternoon. She wanted Jack and Carol to meet her there at 4pm this was all good news because Carol and Jack had been eager to sell that house as quickly as possible. But before hanging up, Carol asked why the realtor called her instead of calling Jack. The realtor said they did call Jack first, he just didn't answer. This seemed odd to Carol. As soon as she hung up, she tried Jack's cell phone and it rang several times before going to voicemail. She left him a message, then hung up and called the house. And as it rang she expected to hear Jack's voice any second. But again the call went to voicemail. Carol just sat there, trying to ignore the sick feeling of dread in her stomach. Jack knew what a worrier she could be, so he always answered her calls. But she told herself that maybe he was in the shower or maybe outside mowing the grass without his phone on him. He would probably call her back any minute. But the clock kept ticking and by noon Jack still had not called and so Carol tried him again, but he still didn't answer. Frustrated, she dropped her phone back in her purse and just focused on her computer, trying to ignore her mounting anxiety. But by 2:30pm when still Jack had not called. So now it's been three and a half hours since that first missed call. Carol just couldn't take it anymore, so she left work and began heading straight home. Twenty minutes later, Carol pulled up outside of her and Jack's house and right away she saw that the garage door was open and Jack's car was inside, which meant he had to be home. Carol felt relieved. She was sure Jack would explain why he had missed her calls. And better yet, they'd still be able to make their 4pm appointment with their realtor. But as Carol got out of her car and started up the walkway, she saw something that made her stomach drop all over again. So Jack and Carol's front porch was enclosed by a gate. And both Jack and Carol always kept the gate closed because their dog was a runner and they wanted to make sure he didn't get out. But now Carol saw the gate was wide open. Carol rushed through the gate to the front door and turned the knob. But even though the doorknob turned, meaning it was unlocked, the door didn't budge when she pushed on it. That's when Carol realized the deadbolt inside, which they never used, was must be locked. And now her anxiety turned to actual fear. Between the deadbolt, the open gate, and Jack not answering his phone, she was certain something had to be wrong here. Carol's hands shook as she dug through her purse for the house key, then struggled to get it into the lock. Finally, she did. The deadbolt turned, and the door swung open. Carol stepped inside with her heart pounding, but the house was silent and still. She took a few steps further in, and then her eyes suddenly fell on something under the coffee table inside of the living room. For a second, her brain couldn't even compute what she was looking at. But then when it clicked, she let out a scream. Because underneath the coffee table was Jack. He was lying face down on the carpet with a pool of blood under his head. Carol rushed over to Jack and shook him, but he didn't move or make a sound. And so, in a panic, she found her phone and dialed 911. When the dispatcher picked up, Carol shouted that there'd been some kind of horrible accident. Her fiance must have fallen and hit his head on the coffee table, and she begged the dispatcher to please send help. Now, moments later, police and first responders arrived, and they had to physically drag Carol away from Jack's side. Carol watched as they knelt beside her fiance and checked for a pulse, but they didn't find one. Carol's world crumbled. She knew Jack was dead. A short while later, Detective Lori McKeel of the Allegheny County Homicide Unit arrived on the scene. A perimeter was already established, and the house was crawling with police. But before Micheal went in, she looked around outside. Neighbors were watching the activity from their front lawns, and Micheal noticed a specific group of people huddled together on the sidewalk, consoling a Sobbing woman whose hands were covered in blood. Micheal guessed this must be the victim's partner, and the people around her were her family. But before speaking to her, the detective quickly made her way across the yard and went inside of the house. Inside, officers and forensic techs searched the front room for evidence. Makeel had already been briefed on this case, so she knew the victim's name was Jack Parks, and his fiance had found him dead after an apparent fall. Micheal went into the living room, where Jack's body lay face up, partially underneath the coffee table. There was a lot of blood, and at first glance, a fall didn't seem out of the question. However, when she crouched down to get a better look, she found a small hole behind Jack's right ear toward the back of his skull. It was a gunshot wound, which meant this was no accidental fall. This was a murder. Micheal stood up and told the other investigators nearby to keep their eyes peeled for bullet casings or a gun. Then she continued scanning the house. The house was lived in, but relatively neat, with boxes of what looked like wedding favors stacked in the hall. But when Michiel stepped inside of the master bedroom, she saw this room had been totally ransacked. Dressers were overturned, and drawers were pulled out. Several jewelry boxes lay empty and discarded on the carpet. Either this was a robbery, or someone had staged the scene to make it look like one. As Micheal made her way back to the living room, she saw several photos of what looked like a seemingly loving couple about to get married. But Makeil's training told her not to take anything at face value. Every relationship had its problems, and a deadline like a wedding, could bring tension to the surface. So before McKeel did anything else, she wanted to speak to Jack's fiance. If there were any skeletons in the couple's closet, she needed to know about them. Later that afternoon, Detective McKeel sat with Carol in an interview room at the police station. Knew that so far, nobody had told Carol much of anything, including the fact that Jack's death was a murder, not an accidental fall. And from Makeel's point of view, this was a good thing. The romantic partner was always the primary suspect in a murder, and so Makeel wanted to study how Carol behaved in their interview before she told Carol anything about the investigation. So Makeel started slowly, asking basic questions about Carol's relationship with Jack. But as Carol calmed down and opened up, McKeil began to probe deeper. She asked if either Carol or Jack was getting cold feet about their wedding. And why did it take them so long to get engaged? Were there suspicions of infidelity? What about money problems? McKeel watched Carol for any hint of defensiveness or anger. But while Carol did deny having any problems with Jack, she didn't seem mad at being asked about it. She just seemed confused. So McKeel decided to ask a question that she knew would increase the pressure by making it obvious that Carol was now a suspect in a murder. The detective looked into Carol's eyes and asked her if she owned a gun. And at this, Carol froze. After a second, she asked why she was being questioned about a gun when her fiance had fallen. Micheal stayed quiet and watched as Carol's expression changed from confusion to understanding. Carol just looked at Micheal and said, are you saying Jack was shot? And then Carol just began sobbing. Even though McKeel could not officially rule Carol out as a suspect yet, she did think Carol's reaction to this was very genuine. So Micheal handed Carol a box of tissues and asked in a gentle voice if Jack had any enemies. Through tears, Carol said no. In fact, if anything, Jack was sometimes too friendly. Recently, Carol said she'd come home to find Jack hanging out in the living room with one of the workers from the factory across the street. Carol said she'd been mad at him for letting a stranger inside of their home. And then after that, Carol just broke into more sobs. McKeil narrowed her eyes as she thought back to Jack and Carol's ransacked bedroom. Crime scene techs were still processing the scene, but it had looked like theft was at least part of the motive. So if Jack really had no enemies and his murder was not personal, then this being a robbery by a stranger, like a factory worker, was a definite possibility. McKeel knew that if Jack and Carol's home really had been robbed during this murder, then whoever did the robbery would likely try to unload the stolen goods quickly. And the easiest way to do that was to sell them to a local pawn shop. So the day after Jack's murder, McKeel got a list of the items missing from Jack and Carol's home, which included several expensive watches, rings, and other pieces of jewelry, and contacted every pawn shop in the immediate area. But none of them claimed to have any of the missing jewelry yet. So Makeel left descriptions of the items along with her number. Michiel also contacted the City of Pittsburgh Pond Division, which kept an extensive database of pond items and gave them descriptions of the stolen jewelry as well. It was sort of like she was fishing. And so Makil knew she had to be patient. So while she waited to hear back, she began looking into the workers from the Silver Star Meats factory.
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Mentos
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- [20:26]
Mr. Ballin
Hey listeners. Big news for true crime lovers. You can now enjoy this podcast ad free on Amazon Music with your prime membership. Listen to all episodes of my podcasts, Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries and Mr. Ballin's Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories along with a huge collection of top true crime podcasts. Completely ad free. No more wading through cliffhangers or dealing with ads. Because, let's be honest, ads shouldn't be the most nerve wracking part of true crime. To start your ad free listening journey, download the Amazon Music app for free or head to Amazon.com ballen that's Amazon.com B A L L E N Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today. If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good you are a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious. And if that's the case, then I've got some good news. We just launched a brand new strange, dark and mysterious podcast called Mr. Balin's Medical Mysteries and as the name suggests, it's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years and we finally decided to take the plunge. And the show is awesome. In this free weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between. Each story is totally true and totally terrifying. Go follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts and if you're a Prime member, you can listen early and ad free on Amazon Music.
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Wondery
Imagine this. You help your little brother land a great job abroad, but when he arrives, the job doesn't exist. Instead, he's trapped in a heavily guarded compound, forced to sit at a computer and scam innocent victims, all while armed guards stand by with shoot to kill orders. Scam Factory, the explosive new true crime podcast from Wondery, exposes a multi billion dollar criminal empire operating in plain sight. Told through one family's harrowing account of sleepless nights, desperate phone calls, and dangerous rescue attempts, Scam Factory reveals a brutal truth. The only way out is to scam their way out. Follow Scam Factory on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Scam Factory early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus.
- [23:03]
Mr. Ballin
Within a few days of the murder, Micheal led a team of officers to that factory, and as soon as she stepped out of her car, she could see that anybody standing right outside of the factory would have a clear view of Jack and Carol's front door and garage. From speaking to Carol, she knew Jack had been friendly with several factory employees and on at least one occasion had invited them into his home. And so those types of visits would have been perfect opportunities to learn the layout of Jack and Carol's house and to figure out where they kept their valuables. Once inside the factory, McKeel and her officers began interviewing close to 40 workers one by one. And pretty quickly they identified the man who'd been invited by Jack into their home. His name was Ronald Blevins, and he had a criminal history of petty theft and assault. To Makeel, this was promising, but Blevins had not been at work on the day of Jack's murder because he was on a scheduled vacation. Now, McKeel did not think this made him any less of a suspect. But this early in the case, there wasn't any physical evidence to connect him to the crime, so she couldn't arrest him. As Makeel and her team left the meat factory, she felt a bit deflated. She really needed the forensics to come back if she was going to make any real progress on this case. Fortunately, though, there would be new evidence for her waiting back at the station. A copy of Jack's autopsy report was sitting on Makil's desk. She opened it and began reading, and right away she saw something important other than the gunshot wound. There were no bruises or scratches found anywhere on Jack's body. There was no sign of a struggle at all. And so Micheal knew this could mean that the killer broke into the house and then surprised Jack and shot him from behind. Or it could mean Jack knew his killer and had let this person inside of his house. Makhil kept on reading the report, and as she got towards the end of it, her eyes went wide. The coroner had made a major discovery. A bullet had been extracted from Jack's skull, and they determined it came from a.380 caliber handgun. This was extremely helpful. Michiel still did not have the actual murder weapon, but now she knew what kind of gun she was looking for. And so she wanted to find out if somebody close to Jack, someone, let's say, he would have welcomed into his home, owned a gun like that. Over the next few days, Detective McKeel interviewed Jack's friends and family, and most of them echoed Carol's comments that Jack got along with everybody, and no one McKeel met with claimed to own a.380 caliber handgun. And so McKeel felt like she was quickly running into yet another dead end. That was, until a few people mentioned a fight Jack had had with Carol's nephew at a Labor Day party. And also folks mentioned that one of Jack's nephews, so a different nephew, was looking to hash out a serious and urgent matter with his uncle. In the days right before the murder, the people who mentioned those two nephews said that the nephews had been really close with Jack for most of their lives. But McKeil knew those relationships could have turned bad as soon as jewelry or money got involved. So she went to interview both men immediately. Foreign. The first house she went to belonged to Carol's nephew, Michael Lapa, the Army veteran who Jack and Carol had accused of stealing at their Labor Day party. When she began questioning Michael, he didn't deny that he and his uncle had a falling out, but he also insisted Jack was wrong about him stealing. More importantly, though, Michael denied having anything to do with Jack's death. He said he'd been busy on the day of the murder at a doctor's appointment to treat his ptsd. And then he had also gone shopping with his girlfriend, and he showed McKeel receipts to prove it. And also, Michael did admit that he had lots of guns and he knew how to use them after his time in the military. However, the one gun he didn't own was a.3 80 caliber handgun. After the interview, McKill contacted the Veterans Affairs Medical center and confirmed that Michael attended his appointment on the day of the murder. She was also able to verify that charges had been made on his credit card in a different city around the time of Jack's death. All in all, Michael's alibi seemed solid. So Detective McKeel headed back to Jack and Carol's neighborhood to meet with the second nephew that Jack's friends and family had mentioned. This was Jack's nephew Bradley, the one who lived on the same street and had been apparently wanting to speak with Jack in person about something serious and urgent. Now, from what other people had already told her, McKeel knew Bradley was mad at Jack for selling his mother's house because Bradley thought the property should stay in the family. She also knew Bradley and Caril didn't really get along. To Makeel, this sounded like a pretty deep rooted dispute and she expected Bradley to be cagey when they spoke about it. However, once they sat down at Bradley's kitchen table, what Bradley actually said blew McKeel away right off the bat. Bradley said that at 10:30am on July 21, which was the day of the murder, he'd waited until Carol had left for work and then walked over to Jack's house to confront him. Bradley said once Jack let him inside, he'd immediately asked Jack to halt the sale of his grandmother's house. Bradley was struggling financially and wanted to move into his grandmother's house with his girlfriend to save money. Bradley said Jack seemed open to the idea, but he refused to make a decision right then because he wanted to speak to Carol first. And at that point, Bradley knew he was not going to get the house because he knew Carol would not like the idea and and she would convince Jack to keep trying to sell the house. So Bradley told McKeel he'd just given up and left Jack's house sometime around 11:15am a little more than three hours before Carol would arrive home and find Jack dead. As Bradley finished up the story, McKeel was stunned silent. Bradley had just openly confessed to being inside of Jack's home alone with him on the day Jack died. And also Bradley admitted that he had been there arguing over a property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But amazingly, Bradley still wasn't done with his story. Just as McKeel was about to leave, he casually revealed one more fact. He told her that he did in fact own a.380 caliber handgun. Michiel confiscated Bradley's gun, then raced back to the station to have it analyzed by the ballistics lab to see if it was the murder weapon. It would take a while for the results to come in, but Makeel barely had to wait before she got another huge break in the case. That day, a member of McKeel's team told her he'd finally received a call back from a Pawn shop owner in a nearby town. According to that owner, a young couple had come into their shop on July 21, the day of Jack's murder. And this couple had wanted to sell a bunch of jewelry, including gold chains and rings. And the owner noticed that several of these pieces had been smashed and mangled, which made the owner suspect that these could be stolen. And so, as a result, he had not purchased these pieces of jewelry. But he'd convinced the couple to let him take a few photos of the jewelry. And then after the couple left, he contacted the police in the area. And it had taken three days for those police to connect the incident to Jack's case and then get in touch with McKeel's team. But as soon as McKeel got this news, she went straight to the pawn shop to review the photos of the potentially stolen items. And when she saw these photos, there was no doubt that was Jack's jewelry. Now, this pawn shop did not have a security camera, so there was no footage of the couple who tried to sell jack's stuff. But McKeel showed the pawn shop owner some photos of local criminals, along with documents. Dozens of people of interest in Jack's murder case, which included Jack's nephew, Bradley. And as these pictures were being shown, the owner suddenly stopped McKeel and pointed out one person in particular and said, yep, that's the man I saw. And to Makeil's surprise, it was not Bradley. The man the pawn shop owner picked out was named Brian Gibbons. He had a record of theft, and the police knew of him, but they hadn't remotely considered him as a suspect in Jack's murder because Brian had no known connections to Jack. But now, armed with this new information, Makeel left the pawn shop and headed to Brian's house. And as soon as Brian saw her, McKeel could tell she'd taken him by surprise. Brian denied having any knowledge of the murder, but when Makiel looked in his bedroom, it was absolutely littered with with purses and jewelry. None of the items belonged to Jack or Carol, but a lot of the stuff had been reported stolen. This meant McKeel could charge Brian and hold him in custody while she looked for a connection to Jack's case. And so that's what McKeel did. She arrested Brian for theft. However, she still wasn't totally sure if he'd actually played a role in Jack's murder. McKeel had basically convinced herself that Jack's nephew Bradley was the killer. But now Brian had come out of left field, and he seemed like an equally strong suspect. And so McKeel wondered if maybe these two men had worked together with Bradley actually committing the crime and then passing off the jewelry to Brian to sell. But McKeel had no evidence that these two men even knew each other. And until the ballistics results came back, she didn't even know if Bradley's gun was the murder weapon. It was like suddenly McKeel had gone from having a case full of dead ends to to having a case with too many good suspects. It would take another week before the final piece of evidence fell into Place. On August 4, two weeks after Jack's death, McKeel got a call about a second pawn shop where a young man had stopped in the day after the murder, trying to sell a bunch of damaged jewelry. Unlike at the first pawn shop, the employee at this one had not realized the jewelry was stolen, so he had bought it. Police had already examined the jewelry and confirmed it belonged to Jack. But the most important thing about this pawn shop was that it did have a security camera. And when Micheal watched that footage, she knew who killed Jack. Based on that surveillance footage, evidence collected at the crime scene, and interviews conducted throughout the investigation, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Jack Parks on the morning of July 21, 2014. That morning, the killer woke up in agony. They lay in bed for several minutes, drenched in sweat. Their cramps were getting worse, and beneath the pain, a horrible, clawing hunger was growing. Demanding to be fed from the next room, their partner shouted that they were heading off to work. At this, the killer scrambled up, yelling for their partner to wait. The killer dragged themselves out of bed and stumbled from the room. With a wild look on their face. They told their partner to call in sick. Today. They were going for a ride. A short while later, at about noon, the couple pulled up to the curb one block from the Silver Star Meats factory. The killer eyed the house directly across from the factory. The garage was open and Jack's car was inside. He was home. The killer reached inside the glove box and took out a.380 caliber handgun. They told their partner to drive away if they weren't back in 30 minutes. Then they pocketed the gun, pulled the hood of their sweatshirt over their head and got out of the car. The killer's heart pounded as they hurried down the sidewalk, avoiding eye contact with the meat factory employees just standing about in their blood stained aprons. The killer reached Jack's house, headed up the walkway, went through the front gate and right to the door. They knocked and then waited. When no one answered, they urgently knocked again. The door opened. Jack looked out and quickly waved the killer inside. Jack turned away from the door and asked the killer if he could get them something to drink. But the killer didn't answer. Instead, they followed Jack through the doorway and into the front room. And there they stopped, drew the gun from their pocket, raised the barrel just inches from Jack's right ear and fired. The bullet struck Jack in the back of the head. He fell dead before he even touched the ground. And immediately the killer bolted upstairs to the master bedroom where they tore through the dresser, ripping out drawers and dumping the contents all over the floor. It didn't take long to find what they were looking for. They quickly dug through the room and found Carol's jewelry box and Jack's rings, chains and watches. The killer stuck the items into the pockets of their sweatshirt, feeling a thrill of victory. Soon that gnawing hunger would be satisfied. The pain would end. Then the phone in the house began to ring. And the killer just froze. The killer listened as the call went to voicemail. Carol's voice echoed from the machine, asking why Jack wasn't picking up his cell phone, telling him that somebody was interested in buying his mother's house and they needed to get there by 4pm to open it up. Then Carol said she loved him and hung up. As soon as the voicemail ended, the killer rushed back downstairs to the front door. They grabbed the key off an end table to lock the deadbolt. But then something caught their eye and once again, they froze. The killer saw Jack's feet jutting out from behind the coffee table. Beyond that, the killer saw the whole living room. It was a place with a lot of happy memories, where they, the killer, had spent countless slumber parties eating popcorn and watching movies with their cousins. A lump began to form in the killer's throat as they looked at a particular photo on the wall. Their 10 year old self was smiling right back at them. The killer looked down at the floor, said goodbye to their Uncle Jack. And Jack's nephew, Bradley Johnson had been high on Detective McKeel's suspect list. But when the results of the ballistics test on Bradley's.380 caliber handgun came back, it did not match the murder weapon. Also at that second pawn shop where they had surveillance footage, it was not Bradley who Michiel saw. Because Bradley didn't kill his uncle Carol's nephew, the disgraced army veteran Michael Lapa did. It would turn out Michael had been really struggling since his dishonorable discharge from the Army. Even worse than some of his family knew, he'd started using heroin and begun stealing to support the habit. And as his addiction worsened, Michael became increasingly desperate for cash. And in July 2014, he saw a quick way to get it by killing Uncle Jack and stealing his jewelry. Jewelry Michael pawned the next day for just a little over $1,000. Once Detective McKeel saw Michael on that pawn shop surveillance footage, she was sure she'd found Jack's killer. And soon after that, she dug into Michael's phone records and discovered that his phone had pinged off a cell phone tower near Jack's house around the time of the murder. Murder. Not long before, Michael had gone shopping with his girlfriend and to his medical appointment just to give himself an alibi. Eventually, Michael would confess to what he'd done. Michael was convicted of first degree murder and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His girlfriend and alleged getaway driver was never charged. As for Brian Gibbons, the jewelry thief who Detective McKeel thought could be connected to this case, he was ultimately cleared of any involvement. The pawn shop owner who identified him had simply made a mistake. A quick note about our stories they are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Foreign thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you like today's story and you're looking for more strange, dark and mysterious content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. They are this one, of course, the Mr. Bolland podcast. We also have Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run fool and Redacted. To find those other podcasts, all you have to do is search for Ball Studios wherever you listen to your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like the one you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. 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