← MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
MrBallen Podcast: Strange, Dark & Mysterious Stories
Three's a Crowd (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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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 on a June evening in 2000, a detective with the Easton, Pennsylvania Police Department sat in his car on a darkened neighborhood street, watching a house right nearby and waiting patiently. After what seemed like an eternity, finally somebody emerged from this house and in their hands were a couple of bulky trash bags. The detective tensed up, but they didn't move. The detective kept watching as this person placed the trash bags on the curb for pickup in the morning. And then this person went back inside the house. And right then is when the detective flung open his car door. And as quickly as he could, he darted across the street towards the house. But instead of going in to confront this person, he just grabbed their trash bags at the curb. Then, with these bags, he ran back to his car, stuffed the bags in his trunk, and he drove away. And as he drove away, he knew he was about to solve his 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 sneak into the Follow buttons home and super glue all their doors shut. Okay, let's get into today's story. When you've worked hard for your paycheck, waiting for it to hit your account can be frustrating, especially when you need that money right now. With Earnnn, you get the financial flexibility to access your earnings as soon as you need them, so you're always in control. Just download the earnnnn app, add your info, and you're good to go. Any money you access, plus any tips you choose to give, is automatically repaid from your next paycheck. Download Earnn today, spelled E A R, N I N in the Google Play or Apple App Store. When you download the Earn app, type in misterballen Podcast under Podcast when you sign up, because it'll really help the show. Mr. Ballin podcast under Podcast Earnnn is a financial technology company, not a bank. Access limits are based on your earnings and risk factors. Standard cashouts take one to two business days with no mandatory fees. Expedited transfers available for a fee. Tips are voluntary and do not affect the service available in select states. Terms and restrictions apply. Visit Earnin.com for full details. Download Earnnan now and take control of your pay.
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Dsw.Com On May 28, 2000, an 18 year old woman named Devin Guzman stood on a beach on the island of St. Croix in the Virgin Islands. She squinted her eyes from the sunlight as a tropical breeze blew lightly through her shoulder length hair. Standing facing her was her girlfriend, Michelle Hetzel, who was also 18 and who was holding a pair of gold and diamond rings in her hand. Devin almost began to tear up as Michelle slipped one of the rings onto her ring finger and then Devin reached out and did the same, placing the other ring on Michelle's ring finger. Then the young women held hands and recited vows to each other. Now there was no priest or marriage officiant present, but for Devon it didn't matter. She was spiritually and emotionally pledging to spend the rest of her life with Michelle, and in this moment she couldn't imagine she could ever be happier. Their private little makeshift wedding ceremony during their Memorial Day weekend vacation almost felt like a fantasy. St. Croix was hundreds of miles away from Northampton county in Pennsylvania, where Michelle and Devin both lived. Michelle lived in a city called Easton and Devin lived nearby in Forks Township, but life had been full of exciting changes recently for Devin. In the last four months, she'd moved out of her mom's house, gotten her own car, and started a full time job as a cleaning technician for a company that repaired and restored property damage. And now getting married to the woman she loved on a beach in the Caribbean felt like a romantic and fitting way to end a whirlwind couple of months. Now Devin took Michelle's hand and the two walked through the warm sand to a tourist trap bar to celebrate with some cold drinks. However, after they got a table and the afterglow of exchanging vows began to fade along with the late afternoon sun, reality began to set in. For Devon, getting married to Michelle in a tropical paradise was one thing, but dealing with the repercussions back home from this marriage was going to be something else entirely. It wasn't homophobia that she was worried about. In 2000, there was still some social stigma associated with being a member of the LGBTQ community. But Devin was confident and outspoken, and so this didn't bother her. What Devin was worried about, though, was the very complicated romantic situation that was waiting for her back home. Because despite the fact that Devin had just gotten, you know, spiritually married to Michelle here on this beach, she was actually already living with her other girlfriend, whose name was Carrie Renner. And that wasn't all. Her other girlfriend, Carrie, was actually also married to someone else, a man. Although Carrie and her husband had actually been separated since he had left for the army to go to basic training. But Devin's relationship with Carrie was a lot different than her relationship with her new spiritual wife, Michelle. Devin and Carrie fought a lot, and their fights often became physical. Sometimes the police would have to come to break them up. Devin looked down at the pager clipped to her waist, and she was actually a little surprised that Carrie had not been paging her nonstop. Devin was planning to break up with Carrie as soon as she got home, and she really was not looking forward to the fight that that would almost certainly cause. But she decided that for right now, she wasn't going to think about any of that. Instead, she looked up and clinked her glass against Michelle's, then took a sip of our cocktail. Later that night, Devin and Michelle were relaxing back in their hotel room. They were preparing to head back home the next day, and they were both sad and kind of stressed that their trip was almost over. Because going back home wasn't only going to be complicated for Devin, Michelle also had a difficult set of relationships waiting for her back in Pennsylvania. Just like Devin, Michelle was also married to someone else, a man named Brandon Bloss. Michelle had actually used Brandon's credit card to pay for this St. Croix trip. But also, just like Devin, Michelle was planning on breaking up with Brandon right when they got back home. However, Devin and Michelle had come up with a plan to make their transition into their new life of spiritual marriage together easier. And now, sitting on the hotel bed together, Devin put this plan into action. She picked up the hotel phone and called her father, Rick Guzman, who lived near her in Pennsylvania. When her dad answered, Deben told him about how she and Michelle had just gotten, you know, spiritually married and that she was planning to break up with Kerry. And then she asked if she and Michelle could come move in with him for a bit. Rick immediately said yes. And Devin knew just from the sound of his voice that he was actually thrilled with her news, because he knew all too well that her relationship with Carrie was sort of a nightmare. So Devin thanked her dad and said she loved him very much and hung up. Then she and Michelle went to sleep feeling happy. A few weeks later, at around 6:30pm on Thursday, June 14, Devin and Michelle were hanging out and drinking at Devin's father's house in Pennsylvania, like they often did these days. However, Devin and Michelle were not actually living there yet, like they had planned to do way back in St. Croix. And this was because neither of them had actually broken up with their other partners yet, or had even told them about their spiritual wedding with each other. I mean, basically, they had kept everybody in the dark. And as this night wore on and Devon and Michelle drank more and more, this fact started to become a point of contention between them and they started to bicker. Both of them were mad at the other for not fully committing. And so, a little after 9pm Devin and Michelle each left the house feeling really mad. And they got into their own cars and they drove off to their own homes. A few minutes later, Devin stumbled drunkenly up the stairs and towards the door of the apartment that she still shared with Carrie that was right above a bar in Forks Township. She paused before she walked in. She was dreading the confrontation she knew was waiting for her inside. Debin looked down at the palm of her hand, at a cut that had not quite finished healing yet. Only weeks earlier, after she had come home from St. Croix, she had tried to tell Carrie she did want to break up. But before she could say very much, Carrie had threatened to kill herself with a knife. And then when Devin had tried to wrestle that knife out of her hands, Devin had gotten this big cut on her hand, which required a trip to the emergency room. And so eventually, Devon Devin took a deep breath, then reached down and turned the doorknob and walked inside. As expected, Kerry was waiting and she was very upset. Devin couldn't hide the fact that clearly she had been out drinking, and also she couldn't hide who she had been out drinking with. And so naturally, they began to argue. And for the first time, Devin told Carrie that she and Michelle had exchanged wedding rings during their trip to St. Croix. And this made Carrie fly into a rage. And so she hit Devin, and Devin hit her right back. And then before it could turn into a full blown physical altercation, Devin's pager suddenly went off. She picked it up and saw that Michelle had actually been paging her nonstop. She just hadn't noticed. And so quickly she just walked away from Kerri and went into another room to call Michelle. And then a few minutes later, she Just came back into the living room where Carrie was still standing there fuming. And Devin told Carrie that, hey, you know, Michelle's not feeling well and so I'm going to go over to her house and check on her. And Carrie was sort of caught off guard and just said, well, I'm going with you. And Devin, not wanting to argue anymore or have this escalate any further, told Kerry that fine, she could come as long as she stayed in the car the whole time. So at around 10.30pm, Devin pulled her car up to Michelle's house in Easton with Carrie sitting in the passenger seat. Devin reminded Carrie to remain where she was. And then Devin got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Devin knocked and Michelle's husband, Brandon, answered. And unsurprisingly, he said he would not let Devin inside. However, the reason he gave was because his wife Michelle was upset that Devin had come here with Kerry. And so he told Devin that if you want to come inside, you first have to bring Carrie home. And so Devin just turned around, walked back to her car, got inside and informed Carrie that she was gonna have to drive her back home and that she really didn't wanna fight about it. And surprisingly, Carrie just sort of agreed because she didn't wanna fight either. And at around 11.30pm, Devin dropped her off back at the Forks Township apartment. Devin did go into the apartment with Carrie for a little while, but then at about 12:15am she went back outside and left to return to Michelle's place. About 30 minutes later, around 12:45am on that Friday morning, the phone at Devin and Carrie's apartment began to ring. Carrie answered and heard Michelle's voice on the other line and Michelle sounded really upset. She was demanding to know where Devin was. Carrie told Michelle to slow down here. She said Devin wasn't home because she had gone to your place. And when Michelle heard that, her voice turned frantic. She told Carrie that Devin had not returned to her house that evening and that she had been paging Devin over and over again, but Devin still had not called her back. Now, to Carrie, this seemed like classic Devin behavior. Devin had a habit of storming off dramatically and disappearing for a while and not talking to anybody, but she always came back. And so Carrie tried to reassure Michelle that, you know, Devin would turn up soon. However, trying to reassure Michelle only made Michelle mad. Michelle began accusing Kerry of lying and started insisting that Devin must be with Kerry right now and that Kerry was selfishly keeping Devin from seeing her. Then, very abruptly, Kerry heard Michelle slam the receiver down to hang up the phone. Kerry thought that was going to be the end of it. But about an hour and a half later, at about 2:30 in the morning, there was a loud knock on her door. And when Carrie answered, she found herself face to face with Michelle. And just as Michelle had done over the phone, she once again began to aggressively accuse Kerry of literally hiding Devin in the apartment. But Kerry told Michelle she had nothing to hide. And to prove it, she let Michelle come in and look around for Devin. Kerry figured, you know, once Michelle searched her apartment, she would chill out and realize Carrie was honestly telling the truth here. But Michelle did not chill out. Instead, after searching the apartment and not finding Devin, Michelle took out her phone and called 911. Hours later, still on that Friday morning, Carrie woke up in bed, where she'd finally collapsed after being awake most of the night. The cops had come to her place after Michelle called 911, but they seemed totally uninterested in the fact that Deben could be missing. And since it hadn't been 24 hours since she'd been seen or heard from, they really couldn't even file a missing persons report. Instead, the cops issued what's called an attempt to locate report, which as far as Carrie could tell, was basically the same thing, but just way less urgent. And before Carrie could even begin to sort out all her thoughts, there was another knock on her door. And so Carrie got up and she opened it up, and once again, there was Michelle. And she looked like she literally hadn't slept. And then she would say that, yep, she'd been up all night and all morning, just calling Devin's pager over and over again and just not getting an answer. Carrie rubbed her eyes and told Michelle to please calm down, that she was just making herself crazy here. But Michelle ignored her and suggested they should both drive around together and see if they could literally just go find Devin. Since it was obvious the cops were not going to be much help here, Carrie did not really want to go drive around with Michelle. But she figured, you know, at the very least, it would get Michelle out of her apartment. So Kerri got dressed and got into Michelle's car and the two of them drove around town, scouting all the usual places they would go to with Devin. But realistically, Carrie was barely paying attention. She thought the whole thing was a big waste of time and that Devin was sure to turn up soon on her own, that is, until around 1pm when they arrived at a place called Canal park, which was this gravel parking lot in Easton. Right next to a river because as they pulled into the lot, Carrie saw Devin's car, a silver Pontiac Sunfire with a rainbow sticker on the bumper. And so as soon as Michelle came to a stop, Carrie jumped out of the car and ran over to Devin's car and tried to open the door, but it was locked. She banged on the window in frustration and tried to look inside, but the windows were too tinted so she couldn't see anything. But then she remembered she actually had a spare key in her pocket. So she pulled it out, unlocked the door, opened it up, and when she did, she screamed.
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A half an hour later, Detective Barry Golazzewski of the Easton Police Department stepped out of his cruiser at Canal Park. As he slipped under the yellow police tape that cordoned off the area, Golaszewski mentally ran through what dispatch had told him. Two women had discovered the body of their friend, another young woman named Devin Guzman. He looked over and saw two crying women in the park and figured those must be the two women who found the body. Golaszewski just shook his head. Easton was not the kind of place where you would expect to find a dead teenager in a parking lot. Nonetheless, he walked over to the car to get a look for himself Peering in through the open rear door, Devin's body was curled up on the back seat, facing the rear of the car and covered by a green jacket. He slipped on a pair of disposable gloves and went in for a closer look. He peeled back the jacket, and right away he saw a gaping wound on the front of Devin's neck. But he noticed right away that there was very little blood for such a major injury. And her clothes weren't covered in blood either, which is what he would have expected. Instead, he just saw dirt and grass stains. He scanned the interior of the car and saw that it, too was pretty clean, although one of the floor mats was missing. But the strangest detail was what Devin had clenched in her hand. She was holding a kitchen knife. Something about this didn't sit right to Goleszewski. The knife in Devin's hand seemed to suggest she might have cut her own throat. But slitting your throat was a horrible way to die. Besides, there was almost no blood, barely any in the car, and none on the knife. So to Goluseski, he felt like this was not a suicide. This was a murder staged to look like a suicide. Just then, the coroner's car pulled into the gravel lot, signaling to the detective that it was time for him to get a move on. Golaszewski grabbed a cop standing nearby and told him to have both Devin's car and the car her friends had been driving when they found her impounded immediately. Devin's car for obvious reasons, but the friend's car as well, because the women had driven it so close to the crime scene. Then Golaszewski walked over to the two hysterical friends of his victim and told them he would give them a ride to the police station to get their statements. Around 3pm that afternoon, Golzewski walked into an interview room at Easton police headquarters and sat down across from Kerry, who had been crying so much that her eyes were red and bloodshot and her voice was hoarse. Golzewski started with the basics, asking Carrie how long she'd been friends with Devin. Now in a homicide investigation, Golzewski knew that everyone connected to the victim starts off as a suspect. But neither Carrie nor the other friend, Michelle, seemed particularly suspicious, at least to him so far. That was until Kerry started talking, because right away she explained to Golaszewski that she and Devin were not just friends, they were actually in a relationship together, although she admitted she was also technically married to somebody else, too. And Carrie didn't stop there. She told Golaszewski that Michelle, the other friend who had been there when they found the body, was also in a relationship with Devin. But like Carrie, Michelle was also married to someone else, another man, and she was living with him. Golaszewski could barely keep this straight, but he also just couldn't believe what he was hearing. In the first five minutes of his interview, he already had a list of four people, Carrie, her husband, Michelle and Michelle's husband, who were all romantically linked to the victim. The potential for jealous rivalries here was through the roof, and so they were definitely all suspects, and so they were all going to need an alibi. So Golzewski told Kerry to slow down and asked her about the last time she had seen Devin. Kerri took a deep, calming breath. Then she said that she and Devin had been fighting recently because Kerri was really upset about Devin's ongoing relationship with Michelle. She said that Michelle and Devin had recently gone to St. Croix together, and it just really upset Carrie. Golaszewski nodded, but inside he was thinking, this is sort of like textbook jealous rivalry here. However, Carrie went on to say that their most recent fight had not been as bad as some of their other fights. She admitted that on other occasions when they got into fights, that she and debon would get physical. But most recently, she said their fight had just been them yelling at each other. And then after this heated argument, Kerri said she had actually gone with Devin to Michelle's house, where Michelle's husband had told Devin to take Carrie back home again. And so Carrie said Devin came back to the car and did drive her back to the apartment. And she got dropped off at about 11:30pm and then Devin left again a little while later to presumably go back to Michelle's. But apparently she hadn't made it there because Michelle had called, asking Kerri, you know, where is Devin? And she said, I thought she was with you. When Carrie finished, Golzewski just sat there trying to make sense of this very complicated story she had just told him. Of all the romantic partners in Devin's life, it seemed to Goleski that Carrie was physically at least the closest to her, given that they lived together. And so that put her pretty high up on the suspect list. But on the other hand, she was being extremely candid about the ugly side of their relationship, which made him think, you know, she might not be trying to hide anything. After Golaszewski wrapped up the interview, he told Carrey she could go. Then Goliszewski walked out of the room, wondering what more his victim's other girlfriend could possibly have to say. But when Golaszewski sat down to speak with Michelle, Devin's other girlfriend, the other friend who found the body, he immediately sensed that this was going to be a very different kind of interview. Kerry had been almost shockingly honest, but Michelle seemed far less interested in talking much at all about her personal life. She downplayed her relationship with Devin, saying that while they had been romantically involved in high school, they were just friends now. So typically, a person lying about their romantic affiliation with a murder victim was a huge red flag for Golzewski. But this case was a bit different. In the year 2000, being gay or bisexual was not as widely accepted as it is today. And so it was actually more surprising to Goluseschi that Carrie had been so open about it than it was that Michelle was sort of trying to downplay it. And so he didn't press Michelle too hard on her romantic relationship with Devin. And besides, Michelle seemed to have a lot to say about Carrie. Michelle told Golaszewski that when Devin did not return to her house after dropping off Carrie on the night she disappeared, Michelle called Carrie to find out where Devin was. But Kerry had sounded totally unconcerned. And then when Michelle had literally gone to Kerry's house to look for Devin, she said the only reaction Kerry had about the whole situation was just irritation. Michelle said she had been the one to insist on calling 911. Like, we don't know where Devin is, we have to do something. But then when the police showed up, they didn't really take it seriously, which was upsetting. But what was even more upsetting was apparently Carrie's reaction to all this. Michelle told Golzewski that Carrie basically didn't care and had even tried to talk Michelle out of calling the police in the first place. Like she just didn't seem to care about Devin. After that, Michelle asked Golaszewski if Carrie had told him about the fight where Carrie had stabbed Devin in the hand. And Golzewski just shook his head and said no. And so she told Golzewski everything Devin had told her about that particular incident. And then at the end of telling the story, she told the detective that really that ordeal kind of summed up Devin and Carrie's relationship. And all of this did make Golzewski more suspicious of Carrie. But then again, this whole four way romantic relationship just generally seemed highly suspicious to Golizeschi. It was hard to try to sort out which of Devin's married girlfriends was lying about what and why, after wrapping up with Michelle, Golzewski had just one more interview to conduct that afternoon, and that was actually speaking to Michelle's husband, Brandon Blas. Some uniformed officers had gone to Michelle's house while Golusewski was talking to Kerry and Michelle and brought Brandon in. And so, after leaving Michelle, Golzewski went to find Brandon. At this point, he didn't know what to expect. And for a second, when he entered the final interview room, he got excited because Brandon was sitting there sweating profusely and looking incredibly uncomfortable. And Golaszewski's first thought was, that boy, he must be nervous. But then Golaszewski took in what Brandon was actually wearing, which was a long sleeve shirt and jeans in the middle of summer inside of a tiny interview room with no windows and weak air conditioning. And so quickly his excitement disappeared. Brandon was not nervous. He was just hot. The whole interview with Brandon turned out to be pretty unhelpful. He seemed to have no idea that his wife was romantically involved with Devin. And he also didn't know about their trip to St. Croix. In fact, he said that Michelle had told him that she'd gone on a business trip to San Francisco, not to a tropical island on vacation with Devin. Now, it was possible that Brandon could be pretending not to know anything about his wife's relationship with Devin. But given how tight lipped Michelle herself had been with the detective, Golaszewski was inclined to think that Brandon might really be in the dark here. Eventually, Golaszewski told Brandon he could go home. And once he was gone, the detective just sat by himself in the interview room, thinking over his entire suspect list. He had already ruled out Cary's estranged husband pretty much as soon as he had run his name through the system. Because what he found is he was in the military and living 250 miles away on a base in New York. And Michelle's husband Brandon didn't seem very promising either, since he appeared to be basically clueless about his wife's romantic dynamic. However, Kerry and Michelle, on the other hand, seemed like real possibilities. So Golaszewski wrote out two applications for search warrants. One for the apartment Cary shared with Devin and one for the home where Michelle lived with Brandon. Golzewski was pretty sure Devin had not been killed where her body was found, and he figured with one of these searches, he'd find the real murder scene. So far, the investigation had been moving extremely fast, and to Golase's delight, he was able to get both warrants granted right away. So the momentum continued. Late on the same night that Devin's body had been found, two teams of crime scene technicians descended on the two properties and began searching for evidence. Golzewski went first to the home where Devin had lived with Carrie. And the first thing he noticed was the place was in shambles. Furniture was overturned and strewn about, like a very intense fight had taken place there in the bathroom. A few members of the forensics team had found what appeared to be a car's floor mat in the shower, just like the floor mat that was missing from Devin's car. And so the running theory became amongst the people on the scene that the mat was there, because clearly it was being washed, and probably recently. And so Golaszewski watched as someone from forensics sprayed the shower floor beneath the mat with luminol, a chemical compound used by law enforcement to detect blood. And immediately, the area that was sprayed began to glow blue, suggesting that there was indeed the presence of blood either on that floor mat or in the shower. Now, the luminol test was not 100% accurate, but at this point, for Golaszewski, it was good enough. And so, as he stood there looking at the glowing bathroom floor, he realized he might very well be standing in the home of his killer. By the time Golaszewski made it over to Michelle and Brandon's house to check on how the search was going over there, it was past midnight, so he was tired. But he was also feeling pretty good about the state of his case. And initially, when a crime scene tech began walking him through Michelle and Brandon's home, he felt even better, because there was no blood at all inside of Michelle and Brandon's house. There was no sign of a fight either. But then the crime scene tech told Golaszewski that they had found some blood with the luminol test out in the backyard on a pool cover and on the nozzle of a hose. Golaszewski frowned. Until this moment, he had felt lucky to have found blood in one suspect's home. Now he had blood in both the homes where all his suspects lived, making this thing even more confusing. Now, he was fairly certain that Carrie, Michelle, and Brandon had not all worked together to kill Devin. And even if they had, they wouldn't result in two separate murder scenes miles apart. Kolasecki checked his watch, and he saw that at this point, he'd been awake for almost 24 hours. And so he decided to let the crime scene unit finish processing both homes and go get some sleep. He'd come back fresh in the morning and hopefully then things would look clearer. 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 ballin that's Amazon.com B A L L E N Dive into uninterrupted true crime stories today when Golzewski walked into his office the next day on June 16th. So one full day after Devin Guzman's body had been found, he found her autopsy report waiting for him on his desk. And it was gruesome. The wound to Devin's throat was a 4 inch long cut that went almost all the way to her spine. The cut had severed her tongue and also sliced in half both her right carotid artery and also her right jugular vein. When the coroner originally pulled her body from the car, they thought for a moment that her head had actually been completely cut off. Devin had lost almost all the blood in her body before she was placed in the car. So Golzewski had been right that she had been killed somewhere else, like Cary's shower or maybe Michelle's backyard. But as he continued reading, he realized he'd been wrong about something else. The coroner had put Devin's time of death somewhere between midnight and 3:00am until this moment, Golaszewski still thought that Kerry was his best suspect. But now he thought of something. Kerry didn't have a car. To kill Devin and leave her at Canal Park, Carrie would have had to walk eight miles back to her apartment, which would have taken at least three hours. And so obviously she had not done that because she had been at home when Michelle showed up looking for Devin at 2:30am and so suddenly Michelle was looking a lot better as Golaszewski's killer. And that's when Golaszewski's desk phone rang. An officer on the other line told the detective that he had the strange caller on hold and that this guy was saying really weird stuff about the Devin Guzman case. The officer said he would patch him through. Golaszewski dropped the stack of papers on his desk and picked up a pen just in time to hear the voice of a man who introduced himself as George Vine Jr. The man said he was a friend of Devin and Michelle. And a few months ago, Michelle had offered him sex or money to, quote, get rid of Devin. Now, at the time, he said he just laughed it off because he knew how volatile Devin and Michelle's relationship could be, and he figured this was just more of that. But now that Devin was dead, he wasn't so sure. And now neither was Golaszewski. And so Golzewski now had a whole new theory for this case, with Michelle, not Cary, at the center. But almost immediately, he started running into new problems. George Vine Jr. S story sounded like a slam dunk. But when another detective went to take his statement, he found that it was actually months old and pretty vague, and that vine had no corroborating evidence. And as Golaszewski and his team began the painstaking process of conducting interviews with every family member, friend and neighbor of Debbins, they could find more cracks formed in the Mischel theory. Two separate sets of interviews threw Golzewski off. The first set was with Michelle and Brandon's neighbors. They told police that Michelle and Brandon fought with each other constantly and that contrary to what Brandon had told Goliszewski, he did know about Michelle and Devin's relationship and he wasn't happy about it. And one of these two neighbors had actually heard Brandon arguing with Devin on the same night Devin was killed. And so this made Golzewski think that he should be looking more closely at Brandon. However, the second set of interviews muddied the waters even further and pointed him right back at Kerry, because her neighbors said that on the night of the murder, they heard fighting too. Now, Golaszewski already knew that Kerry and Devin had fought because Kerry herself had told him this. But Kerry had claimed that the last time she saw Devin was at about 12:15am When Devin left to head to Michelle's. Her neighbors, though, said differently. One woman said after hearing this fight, she had walked past their apartment at about 1:30am and she saw that the front door was open. And inside she said that she could see this woman laying on a couch wearing a green jacket. This was obviously significant because when Devin's body was found, she was being covered by a green jacket. If what this woman said was true, it meant Carrie lied about when Devin left her apartment. The final complicating piece of evidence arrived late that afternoon. The crime scene techs had tested the blood for found at both Kerry and Devin's apartment and Michelle and Brandon's apartment. The blood that was found in Michelle and Brandon's yard couldn't be matched to anyone because it was too diluted. But the blood in Kerry's shower was a match for Devin. Less than one week into his murder case, Golizeski now had three suspects. They all had motive and opportunity, and they had all lied to him. And Golusewski had witness statements and physical evidence that made all of them look guilty. But Golaszewski knew they didn't all murder Devin, and he was stumped as to how to figure out which one did. Devin's funeral was held on June 21, six days after her murder. 400 people attended her funeral. And right around that day, Golaszewski and his team sat down with all their files and went back to square one. They went through every interview, every piece of physical evidence, every observation that any of them had made during their investigation so far. And as they did this, they ended up stumbling upon this sort of unusual plan that they believed would point them to their killer. On June 28, about a week and a half after Devin Guzman was killed, Detective Golzewski sat in an unmarked police car parked on the side of a street. It was a Wednesday, which was important, because Wednesday was trash day, and Golzewski was waiting for one of his suspects to leave their home and bring their trash to the curb. Because their trash was not just trash in Golusewski's eyes, it was evidence. And in the state of Pennsylvania, once someone puts their trash out on the curb for collection, the trash is no longer considered private. And so the cops don't need a search warrant to go sifting through it. This kind of curbside search is called a trash pull. So now Golasewski was betting on bags of trash to close this case. Eventually, his suspect emerged carrying their trash. They put it on the side of the road, and Golisewski waited until they were back inside their home. Then he climbed out of his car, grabbed the trash, put it in his trunk, and drove to the police station. Once inside headquarters, Golzewski brought the trash bags into an evidence room, ripped them open, and dumped their contents out on a table. And then he began the very dirty work of sorting through all the smelly junk. The rotting food, the discarded receipts, the coffee grinds, the wet paper towels, and balled up clumps of newspaper. But then, right as he reached the end of the bag, he found something. This discovery would trigger the police to exhume Devin's body and look Inside of her mouth. And once they did this, they had their killer. Based on evidence collected by the Easton police department over the course of a nearly two month investigation, this is a reconstruction of what authorities believe happened to Devin Guzman. In the early hours of June 15, 2000, Devin Guzman had actually left her killer's home. But she eventually came back. And when the killer saw her, all the rage they'd been feeling for weeks exploded. And the killer lunged at Devin. But Devin fought back. And for a brief moment, Devin escaped their killer and began to walk away. But the killer took the moment that Devin's back was turned to come up behind her with a knife. And they reached around and they viciously slit her throat. Then, after Devin had bled to death, the killer dragged Devin's body to Devin's own car. She put her body in the backseat, along with a decoy knife in her hand, and. And then the killer drove the car all the way to canal park and left it there. Now, the killer might have gotten away with it, except for the bite mark. They didn't even realize Devin had left during the fight. And the reason they didn't realize it is because Devin did not bite the killer. She bit the killer's accomplice. And the accomplice, not really realizing how significant that bite mark was, had just dressed the wound as if it was just any other wound. They had put gauze and bandages over the bite mark. And unfortunately for them, but fortunately for law enforcement, those bandages, when they were discarded in their trash, well, police were able to actually see the bite mark on the bandage. It retained the bite mark and gave away. That's what it had been dressed over. Now, Golaszewski might have noticed the bite mark on the accomplice's arm when he interviewed them. Except the accomplice was wearing long sleeves. In the middle of the summer. The killer was Michelle, and her accomplice was her husband, Brandon. The blood identified in Carrie's bathroom was indeed Devin's, but it had not come from her murder. She had simply bled in the shower, Naturally, just close to the time that she was killed. The car mat turned out to not have any blood on it at all. Instead, it was stained with pickled beet juice, which Devon or Carrie had coincidentally tried to wash off in the shower. Devin's body was covered in dirt and grass stains, because she was likely killed outside in the backyard of Michelle and Brandon's home. As for the eyewitness who saw Devin on the couch at Kerry's house on the night of the murder, they were simply mistaken. About the time both Michelle and Brandon were arrested In August of 2000, they each blamed the other for the actual killing, although prosecutors presented evidence that suggests Michelle had been wielding the knife. On October 5, 2001, both Michelle and Brandon were convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. They later divorced. As for Carrie, she was completely exonerated and actually wound up reuniting with her estranged husband. 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. The Mr. Ballin podcast Strange, Dark and Mysterious Stories is hosted and executive Produced by me, Mr. Ballin. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of Production is Zach Levitt. Produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by by Seth Lundy Research and fact checking by Shelly Shue, Samantha Vanhus, Evan Beamer, Abigail Shumway and Camille Callahan Research and fact checking supervision by Steven Ear Audio editing and post produced by Whit Locasio and Cole Locasio Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain Production coordination by Samantha Collins Production support by Antonio Minata and Delaina Corley Artwork by Jessica Clogston Kiner Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugden thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin podcast. If you enjoyed today's story and you're looking for more Bone chilling content, be sure to check out all of our studio's podcasts. There's this one, the Mr. Bolland podcast, as well as Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries, Bedtime Stories, Wartime Stories, Run Fool Redacted Late Nights with Nexpo and a Twist of History. All you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you get your podcasts. To watch hundreds more stories just like this one, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's gonna do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time. See ya. 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 and before you go, please tell us about yourself by completing a short survey@wondry.com survey.
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