The Scariest Staircase - Highmore, South Dakota

Summary

Small Town Murder – "The Scariest Staircase - Highmore, South Dakota"

Podcast: Small Town Murder
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman
Episode Date: June 12, 2026

---

Episode Overview

In this episode, James and Jimmie travel (figuratively) to Highmore, South Dakota, for a quintessential small-town murder that’s as dark as it is bizarre. The hosts explore the murder of Tanya Jean Assoff—formerly Bushler—an ordinary farm wife whose suspicious death in 1999 exposes decades of abuse, small-town law enforcement quirks, and incompetence, culminating in a stranger-than-fiction trial. With their trademark blend of dark humor and meticulous research, the hosts peel back every jaw-dropping layer of the case, from the victim’s haunting premonitions to the inept police investigation and the ultimate legal fallout.

---

Setting the Scene: Highmore, South Dakota

• Location & Population: Highmore is described as a classic, deeply rural American small town—"right smack in the middle of South Dakota." It boasts a population of just 779.
• Noteworthy History: The town’s dueling double main streets, a remnant of 1880s rival development (“like Old West town drama”), and a streak of “Attorney General runs someone over” scandals set the scene for a weird energy.
  • [08:55] James (on the Attorney General hitting a pedestrian: “He said he called 911 after the crash and didn’t realize he’d hit a man until returning to the scene the next morning. He said he went looking for the deer he thought he hit, which is weird.”
  • [10:51] James: "...great place to get run over by a politician on the way home from a fundraiser."
• Town Life: Social life revolves around “rodeo, parades, sunflower festivals, and beef meals at the fire department”—the hosts riff on the utter plainness and slow pace of Highmore, which is key context for why everything in the story moves at the pace of molasses.

---

The Victim & Her Life: Tanya Jean Bushler/Assoff

• Background: Tanya was born in 1949, became a nurse, married farmer David Assoff in 1975, and raised five children on a massive farm.
  • [13:52] James: "It is an agricultural family, living on a farm in the middle of goddamn nowhere. David runs the whole operation."
• The Marriage: Outwardly a typical “American Gothic” marriage, but cracks appeared after 20 years—Tanya reported mounting abuse, control, and fears for her own safety.
  • [15:36] Tanya's chilling record: In 1993, she asked law enforcement to “[put it on the record]” that if she died, it might be David, but said nothing specific had yet occurred.
  • [19:31] Tanya's network: She told friends, a priest, a doctor, her sister, and even a car dealer about her fears of David hurting or killing her if she tried to leave.
    • Notable Quote [20:34]: “She would not walk in front of a vehicle if David was driving it because she was afraid he would just run her over and say it was an accident.”
  • [21:36] Divorce Attempt: Tanya attempted to file for divorce in 1994 citing “extreme cruelty” but withdrew to avoid effect on their children.
• David’s Control: The hosts repeatedly emphasize David’s controlling behavior: he tracked her finances obsessively, made her sign for everything she left the house with—from “half a jar of salsa” to “a box of fudge brownie mix" ([32:27]).
  • [33:05] James: “Once you open a jar of salsa, that’s only good for like a week and a half before weird shit starts growing...imagine your wife leaves with your kids and your biggest concern is: where’s my fucking salsa?”

---

The Murder: November 18, 1999

The Lead-Up

• [25:01] Tanya’s Escape Plan: After years of abuse and failed reconciling, Tanya decides to finally leave:
  • She buys her own car,
  • Takes her youngest and moves into an apartment,
  • Alerts her lawyer to file for divorce (“a noticeable difference in her confidence”—[34:10]).
• Explicit Threats & Insurance:
  • Tanya tells multiple people she thinks David will kill her if she leaves.
  • David carries $1.7M in life insurance policies on Tanya, with accidental death benefits ([63:18]). He discusses his intent to transfer property and even jokes about “killing the bitch” to his insurance agent shortly before Tanya’s death.

The Day of the Murder

• Court and Coordination: Tanya and David attend a meeting about one of their children’s juvenile cases and meet a lawyer regarding divorce proceedings.
  • [37:23] – [38:09] Timeline: Spotted by the sheriff together, they place a call to their daughter in Italy, after which Tanya goes missing.
• Discovery: David claims Tanya “fell down the stairs,” but:
  • He first calls a retired sheriff instead of 911 ([39:36]-[41:12])
  • Washes blood off himself, does laundry, runs the washer/dryer ([43:10]), and gives conflicting explanations for why.
  • Moves the body, cleans crime scene evidence, and is chillingly calm—all of which the sheriff and investigators bizarrely overlook.
    • Notable Moment [43:07]: “Yeah, I moved Tanya’s body...I just didn’t want the kids to see her.”
    • [44:01] James: “He just cleaned the crime scene. He just said, ‘well, I’ll just clean all this.’”
  • [44:29] James: "He turned [the washer] back on. 'Someone else must have started it.' Who the fuck else is here? It's you and a dead person."

---

The Investigation

• Crime Scene Bungling:

  • Investigation is slow: it takes hours for authorities and the coroner to arrive.
  • David is left alone on the farm between interviews, serves coffee to the police and continues chores (remarkably non-custodial and informal) ([48:42]).
  • Multiple Inconsistent Stories:
    • David says he was out buying a radiator cap but then admits to an argument and "a little pushing and shoving in the garage" before Tanya’s death ([53:17]).
  • Total lack of Miranda warning—he is questioned three times, all at home/at his dining room table.
    • [51:42] James: “I wanna do it at the dining room table. And the cop says, all right...Do all the cop things that you do when someone's dead. What are you doing?”

• Medical Evidence:

  • Tanya’s autopsy reveals extensive injuries: bruises, lacerations, skull fractures on both sides of the head, strangulation marks (with a broken voice box), fractured ribs, abrasions—all inconsistent with a fall down a (carpeted) flight of stairs ([57:54]-[59:00]).
  • Memorable Riff [58:03] Jimmy: “Unless the stairway was 14 stories long...and she tumbled down it, but only landed on her head the whole way down.”
  • Crime scene matches garage violence—not a staircase fall—with blood, cleaned areas, and Tanya’s hair found under a car in the garage ([62:10]).

• Legal Machinations:

  • David’s first call is to an ex-sheriff friend, not emergency services.
  • He evinces no remorse—and when asked about the rosary service by his insurance man, he says “[I] don’t give a shit, she deserved to die.” ([63:17])
  • He’s arrested only after prompting by the state's attorney ([54:43]), quickly released on bail, and only required to check in daily at the sheriff’s office.

---

The Trial

Pretrial Rollercoaster

• Disastrous Jury Selection:

  • The pool is so small a deputy rounds up jurors by “calling every third person in the white pages” from surrounding towns ([71:09]-[71:25]).
  • Issues of excluding Native Americans are addressed by the judge.

• Defense Strategy:

  • Focused on a single “particle” of skin found under Tanya’s fingernail that was male but not David’s—though this could not be further tested.
  • Claimed injuries were postural asphyxia from an “unnatural position,” not violence.

• Prosecution Highlights:

  • Assembled extensive testimony about David’s threats, insurance motives, and the physical impossibility of the injury scenario.

• Forensics:

  • Enter the “expert” physicist Dr. Sami Shaibani, who testifies the laws of physics make David’s story impossible—but is later exposed as a fraud (“he was the Dr. Nick of crime scene experts”—[78:52]).

Notable Quotes

• On David’s control:
  • “[He] made his wife sign for the fudge brownie she took from the home a week before.” ([74:06])
• On rural policework:
  • James: “This is like Fargo meets brain damage...” ([44:49])
• On evidence:
  • Jimmy: “Your story sucks.” ([69:52])

Sentencing

• Outcome: Guilty of first-degree murder, sentenced to life without parole.
• Reaction:
  • Prosecutor: “David was a cold-blooded murderer who had planned his wife’s death for years. The jury found the truth, and David will remain where he belongs, behind bars—forever.” ([77:16]-[77:28])

---

Aftermath and Lasting Impact

• Appeals: All denied, despite the expert witness scandal.
• Tanya’s Law: Her murder inspires ongoing efforts to bring no-fault divorce to South Dakota (one of only three states that still required mutual consent for divorce at the time).
  • [80:12] Mississippi, Tennessee, South Dakota are named as holdouts.
• **David remains in prison. Tanya is buried at St. Thomas Catholic Cemetery.

---

Notable Moments & Memorable Quotes

• [32:27] (on the signed “list” of what Tanya took):
  • “This is down to a jar of salsa and a box of fudge brownie mix, a box of mint, a box of not even completed brownies, everything down.”
• [43:07] (on destroying the crime scene):
  • “I moved Tanya’s body...I just didn’t want the kids to see her.”
• [44:29] (on the running washing machine):
  • “He turned the machine back on...Who the fuck else is here? It’s you and a dead person.”
• [51:42] (about the informal interview process):
  • “I wanna do it at the dining room table... What are you doing? Cop things. Do those things, stupid.”
• [78:52] (exposing the expert witness):
  • “In a letter to the Associated Press, the lawyer likened [Shaibani] to Dr. Nick on the Simpsons. Hi, everybody. Just a complete quack.”

---

Timestamps of Key Segments

• 05:18 — Arrival in Highmore/Setting
• 08:55 — Attorney General’s "deer accident"
• 13:52 — Tanya and David’s marriage beginnings
• 15:36 — Tanya puts fear for her life “on the record”
• 19:54 — Tanya's repeated warnings to friends and coworkers
• 25:01 — Tanya’s plan to escape
• 32:27 — The infamous “salsa and brownies” inventory
• 37:23 — Timeline of Tanya’s last day
• 39:36 — David’s suspicious calls after death
• 43:07 — Crime scene mishandling and cleaning
• 51:42 — Casual police interviews at the kitchen table
• 57:54 — Autopsy findings
• 63:18 — David’s incriminating quotes and insurance motives
• 71:09 — Jury selection antics
• 74:06 — The “brownie mix” anecdote shows David’s control
• 77:05 — Verdict and sentencing
• 78:52 — Fraudulent expert witness revelation

---

Tone & Delivery

James and Jimmie’s comedic, irreverent, and heartfelt banter cut through the darkness, calling out the absurdity of small-town life, rural justice, and malevolent control. They blend gallows humor with sharp commentary—never losing sight of the tragedy at the core while ensuring a wildly entertaining listening experience.

---

Final Thoughts

This episode is a masterclass in the examination of domestic violence, small-town secrets, and the failures of local justice, all delivered with gut-busting laughter and genuine empathy. If you want small-town Americana at its most dark (and ridiculous), look no further.

---

Transcript

[James Petregallo]

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

[Ad Voice]

Most people overpay for car insurance not because they're careless, but but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jeri could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI LibsinToday. That's J E R R Y AI Libsyn.

[James Petregallo]

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yay. And choo choo.

[James Petregallo]

Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[James Petregallo]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy, wild edition of Small Town Murder Express. They're always crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, yeah.

[James Petregallo]

And this is no exception. We got some wild stuff for you in a real rural, you know, kind of salt of the earth kind of area where there's some bad stuff going on. I love that. That's so great. I love when it's just this place where they're like, oh, it's just everyone here is so nice and everybody treats each other so well and then they murder each other and then we talk about it. So except for, except for this guy. So we'll get into that in a minute. Before we do, certainly head over to shutupandgivememurder.com get your tickets for live shows, everybody. After the summer is when they start up again. September 18th at Pabst in Milwaukee. Not a ton of tickets left for that. So if you want to get in there, I'd get those tickets now. And then the next night, September 19th, we are in Minneapolis at the State Theater.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get those yesterday.

[James Petregallo]

Get those. Also, don't listen, Minneapolis, you don't want.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Don't wait.

[James Petregallo]

You don't want Milwaukee people to embarrass you by coming out stronger. So do that. And then also September 3rd, or I'm sorry, October 3rd in Dallas, October 16th and 17th in San Jose and Sacramento. And then Tarrytown on November 13th. Boston, November 14th. So that is the schedule. Get your tickets, shut up and give me murder dot com. Listen to our other two shows to Crime in sports, which if you like cult stuff. You want to check out the series we're currently doing on crime in sports. It is on the Yahweh Ben Yahweh cult because one of the main enforcers and murderers of that cult was an NFL football player. So not a lot of sports involved in that. Just a lot of murder and cult stuff. So that's a lot of fun. Check that out. Also your stupid opinions. It's just the funniest show going. You gotta check it out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know what it is?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, it's hilarious. We make fun of people's reviews of things. So that's good stuff. Get yourself Patreon as well. You need it. Patreon.com CrimeInSports is where you get all the bonus material. There's a ton of it. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're going to get everything we've ever put out, including as soon as you subscribe, hundreds back bonus episodes you've never heard before. It's like almost 400. It's a whole feed in its own. And then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. You get them all. Just take them, every bit. It's all yours. This week. What we're going to do for crime and sports, it is nothing to do with sports. We're going to talk about hostage situations that have happened in the past and some crazy shit that occurs during them. Because after we did that Stockholm one, I started getting deeper into it and it's pretty interesting then for some.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Remember when that band held that radio station hostage?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, I do. I do remember that. They just wanted to get their tape played. That's all they wanted.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But that girl stole the master copy.

[James Petregallo]

Unbelievable. What are you gonna do?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, if you're dog pissed on it.

[James Petregallo]

If you're younger or older than us, you will not understand this at all what we're talking about. But it's a movie reference for small town murder. We're gonna do Corey Richards Part three because there's so much to cover. Her sentencing was wild because all of her kids statements came in which completely contradicted all of her statements to the police. I mean it's wild. And then her allocution's insane. Her face is. She's nuts.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's outrageous.

[James Petregallo]

We'll get into it there. That's patreon.com crimeinsports. That's her. You get all of that, so do that right now. You also get everything. We put out ad free as well. All the regular shows, crime and sports. Your stupid opinion. Small town murder, ad free. And then on top of all that, you get a shout out at the end of the regular show too. So you can't beat it. Get in there. Patreon.com crimeinsports that said, I think it's time, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Here we go.

[James Petregallo]

I think it's time to clear the lungs here. What do you say? Arms to the sky and let's all shout. Shut up and give me murder. Let's do this, everybody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Let's go on a trip, shall we? We are doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Where to?

[James Petregallo]

We're going to South Dakota this week.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah. We haven't been there in a while and South Dakota is interesting. This is Highmore, South Dakota, and we haven't done a ton in central South Dakota. That's the thing. A lot of it is kind of on the edges. And like Deadwood on the one side, this place is right smack in the middle of South Dakota. I mean, the middle of nowhere. It's about three hours to Sioux Falls to the east, about four hours to Deadwood to the west. And then it's about 50 minutes to our last South Dakota episode, which was in Pierre, which is how they pronounce Pierre because they hate French people, I assume.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Is this bordered by Idaho?

[James Petregallo]

This is bordered by a lot of South Dakota. It's right smack in the middle.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, yeah. Between the west side. What's over there on West Deadwood?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, yeah, yeah. Wyoming and Montana and all that stuff. Yeah, Montana is between that and Idaho. The last episode was episode 650. So it's been a bit. That was a deadly Blame game was the name of that. That was a wild episode. This is in Hyde County. H, Y D E. So it can be high. You never know. Like High park. Area code 605. Although they hate the French and anybody else like that, so I doubt they're pronouncing IT area code 605. Population. 779 here. Not a lot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

People.

[James Petregallo]

People. Well, way more.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cattle, probably 779.

[James Petregallo]

Not a lot. Median household income here, slightly below the national average. It's usually $69,000. Here it is $60,208. But that's affordable. If you look at the housing. The housing prices here. Median home price here, $111,300.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's amazing.

[James Petregallo]

Less than one third of the national average is what that is. That's incredible. The motto. And I'm telling you, some ad company back in the day went around and said we can make money just giving the same motto to every town that hires us. A great place to. What do you think, Jim?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Work and play to live.

[James Petregallo]

Work and play. That's the motto. We've seen that about 30 times already. Someone out there in small town murder. Listener Dom, please compile how many towns have had that motto and where'd they pay for it? Yep, I bet it's. And see if you can trace it back to an ad agency here. Now, history of this town. The reason it's called Highmore is because it is in the high plains. It's at high elevation, so they call it High Moore for some reason. Apparently the founding of had some rivalry here, which is pretty normal for the late 1800s. In 1882, developers A.E. van Camp and E.O. parker. Why did no one have a first name back then, by the way? No one had one. Established competing business districts along parallel streets. So mine's here and yours is here and we're gonna fight it out. Iowa Avenue and Commercial Avenue creating a unique kind of a dual main street layout back to back. Yeah, most small towns don't have like double main streets. And they do, they still have it. So the county's formal organization here was in 1883 and there was a lot of disputes over where the county seat was going to be and all that crap. As we know by 1884 they smoothed it all out. Now this place, Highmore, was the place that the South Dakota Attorney General. So the Attorney General of the state, Jason Ravensborg, struck and killed a pedestrian in 2020.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, fuck.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. Yeah. He said that he discovered. This is crazy. There was a guy walking on a rural stretch of highway and he fucking hit him and killed him. How? With his car.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, I get that.

[James Petregallo]

That's the joke. Yeah. Not with a clothesline out the window, obviously. How.

[Jimmy Wissman]

How the fuck do you do that? On accident.

[James Petregallo]

He was driving home from a fundraiser and apparently hit this guy. He said he called 911 after the crash and didn't realize he'd hit a man until returning to the scene the next morning. He said to look for the deer he thought he hit, which is weird.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He was.

[James Petregallo]

He knows. And he hit a 55 year old man named Joseph Bover, which is pretty fucking. What a. Yeah, there's still. There's still investigation going on into it and he's coming home from a fundraiser, which you know what they have at fundraisers do they have the alcoholic, a little bit of booze. I'm not saying that's what happened, but you know what I mean. He's driving home in a rural area,

[Jimmy Wissman]

you know, perhaps giving somebody a ride home that was leaned over the seat while he was.

[James Petregallo]

We could have a Ted Kennedy situation. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's so many speculations.

[James Petregallo]

You can have a lot for him to come out the next morning.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Right? That's the problem I'm having.

[James Petregallo]

That's the issue there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What the fuck? Sir.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. He said he called 911 right away. But nobody ever found this dead guy except for him the next morning. So I don't know what happened here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Sir.

[James Petregallo]

That could be an episode on its own. Reviews of this town. Here's five stars. It's only one review of the entire town that I could find. Highmore is the small town that you hear about on every TV show and movie. It's the place where you know everyone's first name and cars. It's the place where you know every single person in your school and are friends with mostly everyone. Highmore is home.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Great place to get a backwoods drunken

[James Petregallo]

get run over by a roadhead Blowy. Also great place to get run over by a politician on the way home from a fundraiser.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What an asshole.

[James Petregallo]

Right? So things to do here. There's only a couple old settlers days is one of them. Yeah, It's a three day deal. And Jesus, there's not a lot going on here. There's a lot of rodeo stuff. Ranch Rodeo at Highmore, Rodeo Arena, Rodeo Roundup Club. Yeah, that's pretty much a lot of that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Ran a rodeo and they're like, let's run it back tomorrow.

[James Petregallo]

They have a parade and the theme is Celebrating America. Which just reminds me of Drop Dead Gorgeous when they're doing the theme for it. It's the same every year. It's American made. Salute to America, Celebrating America. Same thing where they have floats and all that good shit here. Ice cream, roast beef meal at the fire department. I mean this is some small town shit. There's bull riding also, which is of course gotta have bull riding. It says there's music, but I'm not really finding any music.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You know what it is? It's chase mower.

[James Petregallo]

We get it. What's going on here?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fill it in. Just grab two first names and that's a guy.

[James Petregallo]

That's the guy. Or the lady.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or the lady.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, she might be trying to do that. And there's also a sunflower festival, which is just sunflowers.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, Little Miss Sunflower.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, it's just. Come look at the sunflowers. Really? I think there's like, sunflower seeds. You can get like a sunflower smoothie.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, sunflowers run wild. And sunflower season is so awesome in some areas of the country.

[James Petregallo]

They're pretty.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're just driving down the freeway. It's just as far as the eye can see down the stretch.

[James Petregallo]

Beautiful. So that said, let's talk about some murder here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Okay. Let's talk about Tanya Jean Bushler. B U E C H L E R. She'll only be Bushler for a very short time in our story anyway. And then she'll be Aesop. Aesop, Like Aesop like the guy who writes Aesop? Yeah, but with an horn, so I'm gonna say Aesop now. She's born October 8, 1949. Tanya is. She grows up. Seems to have a pretty uneventful life from what I can gather. Nothing crazy happened to no in South Dakota. Yeah. I can't find a lot on her childhood or anything like that. So usually that means uneventful for the most part. Yeah. I'm assuming four H and Sadie Hawkins and all that good shit. And that's what's going on. So October 1975 is when she mar David George Assoff. He's about three years older than her. And essentially they build their life on a farm outside Highmore. It's pretty big. They have five kids. Holy farm equipment. I mean, it is an agricultural family living on a farm in the middle of goddamn nowhere. David runs the whole operation.

[Jimmy Wissman]

So much work.

[James Petregallo]

He's the farmer. Tanya trained as a nurse over. Over the years and ended up being working part time at a hospital and a clinic in the next town over. So she gets out of the house at least a little bit, which is good for her.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Pretty much. Anybody with five kids should be a certified nurse, I think right away. I mean, you are one.

[James Petregallo]

You are one.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You've raised five kids. You're a nurse.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, man. Yeah. That's scary, though, when they try to be their own nurse and teacher. That's scary considering they have no training for that. But she actually has training for it, so it's good. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, don't go nursing or teaching anybody else's kids, but certainly.

[James Petregallo]

Or your own.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're a nurse or your own. Really don't take your advice.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, that's. I mean, I guess if you live out here, you kind of have to be too. It's not in the middle of nowhere.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You got to learn some first aid stuff.

[James Petregallo]

They own and lease 4,844 acres of land. 5,000 acres, 7.5 square miles. That's enormous. That's so big.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Square miles.

[James Petregallo]

Think about that. You own seven and a half square miles of shit. That's holy. That is too much. So the thing is, that's their life. So it seems like they have a pretty uneventful. They're that old picture, the American Gothic there with the pitchfork and the guy. That's who they are. Is essentially what you're picturing with their kids in the background here. But by the 90s, things start to kind of unravel a little bit here for them. They've been married 20 years at this point, almost.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's pretty easy to have some baggage.

[James Petregallo]

Apparently. Tanya, she wanted something on the record. She went to the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What do you mean?

[James Petregallo]

She went to the police, The Division of Criminal Investigation. She went to in 1993 and says she wants something on the record. She's not reporting a crime. She doesn't want anything done or any arrests made. But she wants to put something on the record. And this is the DCI Agent, Dan Jahala. And he said she had fears that she thought her husband may try to kill her if she tried to divorce him, or that he knew people that would have that done if she tried to leave him. So she wanted it on record with law enforcement that I'm not leaving my husband right this minute. And I haven't been threatened or anything. But I'm pretty sure if I leave and I end up dead, that's where you should look first. Basically put that on the record.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He hasn't threatened me. Nothing illegal has happened yet.

[James Petregallo]

Nothing that I want to report or that I want investigated or anything like that. But she said if it ever happened to me, he would make it look like an accident.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Do they take those reports?

[James Petregallo]

They'll take any report you give them, I guess. I mean, why not write it down? Who cares? You're sitting there talking about it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know if they take that.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, they'll take that as a report. They'll take a report about anything, really. Fuck, yeah. You could take. They'll take report on anything, literally.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Especially if we don't have to do any legwork. Fuck yeah. We like that report.

[James Petregallo]

We just want it noted and put in a file just in case.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

So she didn't even want to take his business card. Cause she was afraid David would find it and know what was going on. So she's like, I don't know, I just want to let you know that. And even if he doesn't put it on the record, if she ends up dead, he can go. That's the same lady who talked to me and said this. So it's something to look at. So she told the agent that David demanded she account for every penny she spent. And so the DCI agent advised her, well, why don't you leave the marriage? It sounds like you're not happy. You should probably leave the marriage. And she said she wasn't ready because she was afraid of what would happen if she tried. So she sounds like she needs a counselor, not some cop to talk to at this point. You know what I mean?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Sounds like she needs somebody to encourage her to go because this guy's just telling her, well, why don't you leave then? And then she goes, well, I can't. And he goes, all right, I guess I'll write it down. But. So the agent said she wanted us to be aware that this was going on, what her life was like. So in the event that something happened, we were already aware of the issues in her relationship with her husband. Does that answer. She needs a friend. She needs a friend? Yeah, a friend. A fucking therapist. I don't know. A particularly friendly cow. She can talk to somebody.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, he may have already. She thinks he knows people that get people gone. I think a farmer, all he knows are bulls.

[James Petregallo]

But how many degenerate farm hands that go from place to place does he know? Transient.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There are rumors in small towns about ranches that there's.

[James Petregallo]

Those guys are.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The man's got seven and a half square miles to make her disappear.

[James Petregallo]

That too. And he's probably hired 150 criminals over the last 25 years that he can go back in his little crime, Rolodex,

[Jimmy Wissman]

Alcohol and drug addiction problems.

[James Petregallo]

Now, she does have friends. She tells other people of her fears as well. It's not just the cops, but she wants that on record with the cops. She told her sister Robin that if David killed her, he would make it look like an accident. She told a priest, which that's going to. For counseling, a priest, Father Anderson, that she was afraid David would kill her. She told her friend Jan that she was afraid David would kill her. She told a co worker, a doctor, that David verbally abused her and shoved her around. She told her cousin Vicki that she felt threatened by David and that he verbally abused her. She told the same thing to her friend Carol. She told a co worker and friend, a woman named Wilma, that David Verbally abused her and shoved her around. She told a car salesperson, Janine Rathert, that David was going to kill her for spending money, which that could be. I mean, oh man, he's going to kill me when he finds out how much I spent on that. People would say that casually, but still,

[Jimmy Wissman]

if you come home and you replace the cabin air filter, we will have worse.

[James Petregallo]

There's going to be something.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can go to AutoZone and do that in five minutes.

[James Petregallo]

No shit. But this is to buying a car. She told her divorce lawyer, who she'll talk to later, Lee Byrd, that she felt threatened and if that David killed her, he would stage it as an accident. Then she told the DCI agent to put it on record. And two of Tanya's co workers were also told that she would not walk in front of a vehicle if David was driving it because she was afraid he would just run her over and say it was an accident. You know, like the Attorney General. Yeah, that's how things go in South Dakota. If you hit a guy, they go. I mean, there's a lot of space. Sometimes you get hit by a car and it just gets done.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Call tomorrow about it.

[James Petregallo]

What? In the morning? I'll go check it out. So one of their daughters said that their mother was, quote, treated like a slave. That's how she put it. That's okay. That's also not really accurate either because she is allowed in the main house and sleeps in there and stuff and, you know, is allowed to leave and, you know, that sort of stuff come and go at will. You know, things that slaves aren't allowed

[Jimmy Wissman]

to eat with the family.

[James Petregallo]

Oh yeah. She's even allowed to eat with the family. Yeah, it's ridiculous. So. Wow. So 1994. From the outside, if you looked at it, they look like a farm family. Looks like everything's going great. Unless you were one of Tanya's friends who have told her, who told a sob story and a horror story too. So in 1994, Tanya goes to a Sioux Falls divorce lawyer. Fancy going all the way to Sioux Falls, which is three hours and change away.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's all day.

[James Petregallo]

You gotta want that appointment. The grounds she alleged, were extreme cruelty. She said David abused her mentally, physically and verbally and described him as a husband who needed to control everything down to the penny. So that's what she wants. Now. Sometime after this, she withdraws everything and says nevermind to the divorce lawyer, Pulls the divorce away. Pulls the divorce away and goes back to the farm. It was never filed. She was filling stuff out and getting it all ready. And they never filed for divorce, technically. So she just says, never mind.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That still costs money, doesn't it?

[James Petregallo]

Oh, to get him to prepare it. Yeah. I mean, he said, I don't give a shit. Still billing you, but you can take it back or not.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You'll be paying for it.

[James Petregallo]

You're still paying for it. So she returned to the farm, and she said it was for the sake of their five children, which at the time that this was going on, were 9 to 17 years of age. So this would just. I mean, a divorce would. That's a real tough age group of five kids to put a divorce on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's all of their formative years.

[James Petregallo]

One of them are not in everybody's home still. Yeah, it's tough. So she kept her nursing job, and she just went back to what she was doing here. They actually end up seeking counseling together. So David's willing to go to counseling. But it didn't help any. Basically. No. Nothing happened. So a few more years go by of, I assume, uncomfortable silences and outbursts.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Terrible dinners.

[James Petregallo]

Terrible shit. Yeah. Terrible awkward dinners with. Yeah, like the old SNL sketch where you just hear their knives going. And Will Ferrell starts yelling at everybody that he drives a Dodge Stratus. It's that one. I drive a Dodge Stratus. Yeah. That's the meal, though. They look at each other. So David, in 1998, is arrested for DWI.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Uh.

[James Petregallo]

Oh. Which is not good for him.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What year?

[James Petregallo]

98. And he's convicted that same year of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest in a completely different incident. Wow. So David had some drinks in 98, let's just say a couple of times, which I don't know how the fuck you could live on a farm and not be a goddamn alcoholic.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I can't believe you would leave the house and drink.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I'm saying. I'd be done with the farming shit. And I'd be like, well, I gotta go to bed in about an hour if I want to be up at 4 and I better start drinking.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Stare at these cows and drink fucking whatever I've got in the fridge.

[James Petregallo]

Whatever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Angrily.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, just swig that shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Menacing snarls.

[James Petregallo]

Grunt at the kids when they ask something, and then you take a drink. So their daughter here said that during the 1999 harvest season, their father was especially shitty, which it seems like he's going through a period of some pretty decent alcoholism is what it sounds like here. So she said that her mother stayed home from her nursing job to help on the farm so the kids wouldn't have to miss school to help because

[Jimmy Wissman]

there was a lot to do during the harvest season. That should be the time that you smile the most. You're about to get paid, babe.

[James Petregallo]

I guess. But it's also a lot of work. I think it's the same thing. So October 1999, here, things are going very bad and Tanya decides, I gotta get out of this now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's done.

[James Petregallo]

She's done. So she emails her daughter one of the funniest emails ever here. Well, this is just the beginning of it. This is an email from her to one of her daughters where she says, quote, dad is being a poop head again, which is great line. I don't think I can take another three years, which is when the last kid would be out. Basically, I'm looking for a place in Faulkton, which is where she works. I'm just tired of the whole mess and I'm going to file for divorce. Okay. Now what she needs here to be able to get out of everything here, because she's kind of planning everything and setting it up like dominoes. She needs a car to get out. You can't leave without a car. How the fuck are you going to do that? So what she does is she wants to buy. She's going to buy her own car. She has her own money in a separate account from her job where she has money she's been saving up. So she goes to Har Motors in Aberdeen and she apparently bought a car and she told the assistant sales manager here, you know, later on, she ends up calling the next day, freaking out. This woman said she was, quote, frantic, bawling, screaming and hollering. She was calling to find out whether the dealership had cashed her check yet. Oh, and they said Tanya told the dealer here that her husband was going to kill her because she spent some money, even though it was from her account. So she bought the car, was like, I'm doing this. And the next day was like, oh, God, what's gonna happen when he finds out? Which is, I mean, screaming. Not just like, oh, boy, this is gonna be inconvenient. Like, oh, my God, he can't find out. Like, which is crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He's $36,000 out of my account. He's gonna flip.

[James Petregallo]

He's gonna flip. Yeah. So November 7th, 1999, Tanya takes off. Oh, she's gone. While David is sleeping, she and the youngest of the five children move to an apartment in Foxton. She takes a couple of the kids? Yeah, because a couple of them are gone by now. They've moved out of the house. Their 16 year old. They take the youngest of the five children. Yeah, the daughter, I think, here. Okay. Hey, everybody. Jessica to take a quick break from the show to tell you a much better way to feed your cat with smalls.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Smalls.com.

[James Petregallo]

oh, yeah, my little kitty, Brandy loves Smalls. I mean, yeah, loves her some Smalls. You get up in the morning and she is greeting you, hello, I would like my Smalls now because that is good food. It's good stuff. And let's be honest here. If you could have wishes, let's say you'd want your cat to live forever. Would you hang out with you the whole time? I don't know about genies, if they exist or anything like that. I haven't seen any, so I don't think we're gonna have that. So what you do is just feed your cat Smalls instead. It's the next best thing that's gonna make them the most healthy. Smalls is fresh, human grade cat food that does so much more than just feed your cat. It helps them live a full, healthy life and also will make you jealous of your cat's food, which is certainly a weird feeling to have. It really is to look down and go, hey, that's better than what I ate tonight. That's not fair. Most cat food out there is made with meat byproducts, cheap fillers and artificial ingredients. Basically stuff that isn't really good for your cat. So big pet food does this because that's what's cheaper and what they save on cost. Your cat's gonna pay for their health, though. That's with their health. That's the problem. Smalls is way different. Their fresh recipes are made with at least 80% animal protein, and they're gently cooked to retain all nutrients and flavor. They never add fillers, ever, or artificial ingredients. And their food is so healthy that 88% of cat parents say that after feeding Smalls, their cats have better digestion, softer and shinier coat, more energy to play. Because Smalls is actually good for cats. And it's true. I'm telling you, you're gonna see smaller, better poops. It's gonna be better in that litter box. This is as much for you as it is for the cat. I'm telling you right now. Your cat's health and longevity starts with what they eat. Try smalls and get 60% off your cat's first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life. When you go to smalls.com stm you should do this one last time. That's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life. When you head to smalls.com stm stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[James Petregallo]

Hey everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you how to keep all your finances straight with Rocket Money.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Rocketmoney.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

Rocket Money is fantastic. I'll tell you what, I got Rocket Money and I've told this story before on these, but I got Rocket Money and I had a subscription I was paying for for four years. Wow, I didn't even know was on there. Like I just hadn't noticed it. But it adds up after four years and Rocket Money takes care of it. And that's not even the best part of Rocket Money. This is all of that. I mean, it can help you do so many things, help you keep, keep organized. You're gonna wonder what to do with all this extra time now that you don't have to, you know, keep in and get everything from different places and put it into one place. Telling you right now, Rocket Money, it's great. It can track subscriptions, has the ability to cancel unwanted ones within the app with just a few taps, saving users over $880 million in canceled subscriptions. And you can set budgets and goals. There's also things for personal inbox sites and you can get regular reports and you get real time alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, low balances. Users who create a financial goal with Rocket money save over $70 on average within the first 30 days. It's going to save you money and it's just great to have everything in one place. There's automatic transaction categorization there, however you want to say that across accounts, plus a customizable categories and tags to reveal spending patterns so you can see what you're doing. And it's really, really, really insightful. You should do it. Do yourself a favor, save yourself some time, save yourself some stress, and most importantly, save yourself some money with Rocket Money. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. [e-mail] SmallTown Murder that's RocketMoney.com SmallTown Murder RocketMoney.com Small Town Murder now back to the show. So Tanya decides to Move out. And basically. This is fucking crazy. When she moves out, this is how to the penny. This guy is. David makes her sign a list of everything she took from the home. What, so she can't say she didn't take something and blah, blah, blah. Which would be fine if we're talking about German barabons that are untraceable and like, you know, fucking, you know, eggs or some shit, like priceless china. Things of the jewelry, things of that nature. No, no, no. This is down to a jar of salsa and a box of fudge brownie mix, a box of mint, a box of not even completed brownies, everything down

[Jimmy Wissman]

to things that cost $3.29.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, and the salsa, from what I understand, was open. So like a 3/4 open bar, like, already had some chips dipped salsa and a box of.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What about that third night can of pace. I want that taco.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, bring away. Where'd the rest of my salsa, where'd that go? Imagine that. Imagine your wife leaves with your kids and your biggest concern is, where's my fucking salsa? I brought some Tostitos home tonight. Now, this is bullshit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Meanwhile, it's a jar of it. It's not good.

[James Petregallo]

It's a shit jar of salsa. And once you open a jar of salsa, that's only good for like a week and a half before weird shit starts growing in there.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, before that, like, weird line forms

[James Petregallo]

around the lid and then you start getting mold in it and shit. You gotta go through a jar of salsa pretty quick.

[Jimmy Wissman]

A crusty ring around it that falls

[James Petregallo]

in it, and you're like, ah, you gotta pick it out.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm gonna have to eat that.

[James Petregallo]

So that's what's going on here. This guy, she's not bullshitting when she says down to the penny, he's cheap. Yeah. He says, I want my half jar of salsa and I want it now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So. Whoa.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She took it. I want that documented.

[James Petregallo]

Wow.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Cause if we're splitting it down the

[James Petregallo]

middle, hey, she owes me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I get a sixth of that.

[James Petregallo]

She owes me a third of a jar of salsa at this point. And I'd like it. That's half of what I get out of that jar.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'm entitled.

[James Petregallo]

I am entitled to that. And not for nothing, half a tray of brownies. If we're talking serious here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Does the labor to make them count?

[James Petregallo]

I mean, I don't think he would count it, but yeah, it should count. Should count towards something, shouldn't it?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

So November 16, 1999, she calls her divorce lawyer, Lee Byrd, to reinstate the divorce from 1994. Hey, can we get that going again?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Remember that thing five years ago that you probably threw out all the paperwork?

[James Petregallo]

He's like, you're gonna have to fill that out again. I don't have the form from back then. So he noticed a difference in her immediately from 1994. He said, 1994. She seemed beaten down and just kind of meek. She said now, quote, she was sitting upright in her chair. She was. She had a lot more confidence. He said, this bitch has got swag. Look at her now. She comes in. That's right, motherfucker.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, fuck him. I'm out.

[James Petregallo]

You know how much fucking salsa I got at home? What's up? Bring it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She got the swagger of a gal with a box of uncooked brownies with

[James Petregallo]

a chick with some Duncan Hines ready to go right now. Wow. So he also said, this is what Tanya wrote in her filing here. David has become so controlling over the years that we have become virtual prisoners on the farm. Okay, so that is November 16th. Now, November 18th, it is 1999, 9:30am Here. Okay. Tanya drives to the farm to meet David. They have a joint appointment in town with a court services officer about one of their son's juvenile cases. So one of the kids got in trouble.

[Jimmy Wissman]

One of the kids is the problem.

[James Petregallo]

He was probably shooting up signs or some country horseshit. That's. I don't know what he could have gotten into on a farm. Really? You stole somebody's fertilizer? What are we talking about?

[Jimmy Wissman]

You would be shocked how bad these motherfuckers are.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, they're bad. But I'm saying, what is there to get into? It's. There's. They own seven and a half square miles, so they'd have to go so far just to get off the property to get into something. That's what I mean.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Shooting somebody else's cows or something.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, I don't think they're holding up liquor stores. Probably because there aren't any. No, it's the only.

[Jimmy Wissman]

You're recognizable.

[James Petregallo]

They might. If there was liquor stores to hold up. So they ride into town together in David's pickup, not her newly purchased car. So right away, he's driving. Now, late morning after the meeting, David drives Tanya to the bank so she can make a deposit. Then the two of them sit down with an attorney in Highmore to discuss the divorce. Sure. Okay. All right, here's what. It's weird. Now, David believed that this Attorney. He arranged an attorney and said, okay, if you want a divorce, this is how we're gonna do it. And he thinks that this attorney's gonna represent both of them and it's just gonna be an amicable split and it's.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He can't do that.

[James Petregallo]

No, not at all. But in his mind, in his mind he can control it if he does this, you know what I'm saying? So he doesn't know that she's already hired another lawyer and she's just trying to keep him at bay. So she just goes, yeah, I'll come and meet with the guy. Sure. Like, you know, acting like she's gonna go along with it. She's with him. So at 11:10am, the Hyde county sheriff, Mike Volek, sees David and Tanya driving in David's pickup truck headed back to the family farm. It's only because they know everybody knows each other that they would even notice them. And he waves at them and that's that. So 1143 to 1155, David and Tanya call their oldest daughter Rebecca, who is currently in Italy as a foreign exchange student.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Nice.

[James Petregallo]

Everyone's got it together, I would say. She said, where's the farthest from this fucking farm I can get? I know Italy. Nothing like a South Dakota farm. Nothing. You can't get far in culture. You can't get farther away than that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

My brother is the biggest fuck up in town. I'm doing nothing like him.

[James Petregallo]

My parents are getting divorced.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We're on cliffs and ocean. Yep.

[James Petregallo]

I've been trapped on this thing. I want some guy in a Vespa with a shirt open to call me a very sexy lady and then take me for cappuccino. That's what I'm looking for.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I put my fingers through clean chest.

[James Petregallo]

That's what I'm looking for here. It doesn't have dirt and manure in it. So they talk for 12 minutes. Because I'm sure that's an expensive call in 1999.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

That's a real expensive call. So one o', clock, Tanya has an appointment with her priest, Father Randy Phillips, at the parish office in Falkton. At 1pm is the appointment. She never shows up. And the priest said she's normally pretty reliable, so he thought that was odd. But who knows? She's got a lot going on right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I think it's odd that there's a

[James Petregallo]

Catholic church up there, but okay, I agree with that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fascinating.

[James Petregallo]

Who knows? So at 1.08pm, David calls an implement dealer in Miller, South Dakota asking about a radiator cap he says he needs for phar equipment. At 2:08pm, David arrives at the dealership in Miller an hour after he called to buy the radiator cap. Now, he said that the guy at the implement dealer said that he didn't seem to be his usual self, David. He said, normally he likes to give you a hard time. And I was surprised he didn't. He comes in and breaks balls and now he's just coming and getting the cap and leaving. So that's where he is now. 3:01pm, David calls the former Hyde park or Hyde park, that's by me, sorry. The former Hyde county sheriff. Okay. And this former. The guy, a guy named Martin Wortman, and tells him that Tanya fell down the stairs and died.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, that's why you call the current sheriff. Motherfucker.

[James Petregallo]

I always say this. And people never call the cops first when they have someone dead in house. Ever on this show, when you watch documentaries, they always call a family member first. They call their mother, they call somebody

[Jimmy Wissman]

they trust, a guy that doesn't do the job anymore.

[James Petregallo]

I don't know if it's that people don't trust their own eyes or they have to tell someone they're close. Even in cases that aren't murder or anything like that, people tend to call other people first for some reason. I don't know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why have we trained ourselves to gossip

[James Petregallo]

before we solved the problem? Well, I think you go for emotional support, obviously. I mean, that's clearly it. I don't know. This person's dead in my house isn't exactly gossip.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, but that's what I mean, it sucks for me. It's not calling to fix the situation, you know what I mean?

[James Petregallo]

No, but it's. I need advice of what to do when the answer's the same every time. You got nines and ones on your phone, motherfucker. Well, use them.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why'd you call this number?

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, why are you calling me? That would be terrible. But that long story. But I have been called in this situation where I go, what? Call the fucking cops. Don't call me.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah, with a dead body.

[James Petregallo]

A dead body. Natural causes. But a dead body. I have had people call me, freaking out. I go, you're screaming at the wrong person. Call the goddamn cops. Then call me back when you're done. I'll help you pick up the pieces, but you gotta fucking at least sweep them into a pile first, you know what I mean? I can't go find him in the cops.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I'M glad I'm the bottom rung.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Or the cops.

[James Petregallo]

Jesus Christ. So he calls and tells this guy, the retired sheriff that he was friends with. So it's a familiar guy who is a, you know, at least there's a law enforcement connection. An ex. Yeah, he would know who to call or where to call. So then at 3:16pm, 15 fucking minutes go by. I don't know if he was on the phone with this guy for 15 minutes or what, but 15 minutes later, he calls the current sheriff, Mike Volek, the guy who saw them in the pickup truck that morning, and he tells them, yeah, Tanya's dead. What? I just saw you guys. Well, now she fell down the stairs and died, so there's that. That's it. So you might want to come over and take care of that. So at 3:45pm, the youngest daughter calls. She called to talk to her mother at 3:45. David told her that she couldn't come to the phone right now.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I mean, he's not lying.

[James Petregallo]

It's the truth. She said, he said, she's busy. And I asked again and he said, she's outside.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Those are both incorrect.

[James Petregallo]

Those are wild fucking lies.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he knows it's incorrect.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah, very much so. So then, 3:55pm, the sheriff finally arrives. No one's in a rush here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No kidding.

[James Petregallo]

I get that the farm moves at a slower pace, but for Christ's sake.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he told the sheriff, she's dead.

[James Petregallo]

She's dead at 3:16. It took this guy fucking this long to get here. That's crazy. So anyway, he shows up, he finds David coming out of the bathroom. When he goes into the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, I was taking a shit. Don't go in there.

[James Petregallo]

No, no. Yeah, so who? You don't want to go in there, boy. Who? He closes the door, the fan's going.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

He said when he saw him he was very calm and not emotional at the time. So David tells the sheriff that he had moved. This is crazy. He says, yeah, I moved Tanya's body. Yeah.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why'd you do that?

[James Petregallo]

This is why. So you destroyed Karen?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why'd you do that?

[James Petregallo]

You destroyed the crime scene is what you're saying here, you idiot. Wow. I moved her body. He said, yeah, I didn't want the kids to see her, you know, in case they came in. They said. And at that moment he was telling the cop that he was just got done washing blood off his hands and he was just wiping it down with the towels. He's like, I'm just destroying all the evidence, you know, just.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

Just hanging out, destroying things, making it impossible to really do a physical crime scene here, you know, that kind of stuff.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Welcome to the crime scene. You're half hour late.

[James Petregallo]

Then Volek looks over and notices the washer and dryer are running.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, my God.

[James Petregallo]

And inside the washer, we find out, is David's work coat. And inside the dryer is a pair of jeans, a mismatched pair of work gloves, underwear, shirts, socks and a towel.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He didn't.

[James Petregallo]

He just cleaned the Chrysler. He just said, well, I'll just clean all this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And he sorted the loads. He put the coat.

[James Petregallo]

Yep, Put the coat in separately. Everything up with this. Well, the coat's got to go on a gentle cycle, otherwise it'll mess it up. It's the other things, you know, we go regular.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's amazing.

[James Petregallo]

So it's in there and the cop fucking turned the washing machine off. And he said, who started the washing machine? And David turned the machine back on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

And then said, someone else must have started it. Who the fuck else is here? It's you and a dead person. Who the hell. Which one of you started this? Out of you and the corpse.

[Jimmy Wissman]

She's really into housework, sir.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. By the way, it's halfway through the rinse. What are we doing here? It's gonna be itchy if you put that on.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is going on?

[James Petregallo]

This is what I mean. No one takes this seriously. Like a dead person is here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

When you shut it off, if he goes to turn it back on, you have to tackle that person.

[James Petregallo]

He just turns it back on. Oh, someone else might have started. And they just go, well, okay. Stop doing things. This is like fucking Fargo meets Brain Damage is what this is. This is unbelievable. Fargo, they had. You know, Frances McDormand was a good cop. She was putting the crime scene together. At least these. These people are just like, who turned the machine on there, buddy? And. Oh, someone else.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Whoop.

[James Petregallo]

Okay, then let it finish.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, it'll smell.

[James Petregallo]

It's going to be all musty. You got to at least let it spin.

[Jimmy Wissman]

That's amazing.

[James Petregallo]

So Tanya's body was at the bottom of the basement stairs where he said she had fallen. He said he moved her, but then she's at the bottom of the stairs, which is weird. And he said, yeah, she fell down the stairs. Now there's no blood on the stairs, there's no blood on the railing, no blood on the walls, no blood, like, dripping down the stairway or anything like that. There's no blood here. So she tumbles down a flight of steps and the steps are completely clean, which seems off. She tumbles down hard enough to die, but never cracks the skin, which seems a little.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, she lost a drop on the way down.

[James Petregallo]

Seems a little odd. So David tells the cop, he says, well, you know, she apparently broke her neck. I mean, that's, you know, I'm not a medical examiner or nothing, but, you know, I would say she broke her neck. Then he said, yeah, I moved the wife's body. They said, well, did you attempt to revive her? And he said, nah, I just. I called the sheriff, talked to him for a while, you know, caught up on him, see how he was doing.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It took a while to get here, so I didn't think that that was necessary.

[James Petregallo]

They called the old sheriff first and, you know, he didn't seem real concerned. So I just threw a load of laundry in and stuff. And you know how it goes when your wife's dead at the bottom of the stairs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Felt like neither of you thought there was any bringing her back.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck it. No one seems in a rush. Everyone seems now, by the evening the investigators arrive here, they get there at 5:25. So then it's another hour and a half for the investigators to get there and the coroner doesn't arrive until 7pm or. And any of the lab people either. Yeah, wow. The lab director, the criminalist people who do the crime scene shit and collect evidence, and the coroner, none of these people show up till 7. This is insane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What does that think?

[James Petregallo]

I don't know if they're far away or I'm not sure here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I assume everybody's keeping it together while they're not there.

[James Petregallo]

One of the disadvantages of living in the middle of nowhere or advantages, if you want to kill someone in the middle of nowhere, you have a lot of time, do laundry and clean up. And it's this crazy thing too. He said, yeah, I was just washing up. Yeah, that's how it worked there. They said, well, you didn't try to revive her? And he said, no, because I knew she was dead.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No, there's no reviving her. No.

[James Petregallo]

I mean, on the farm you would know when things are dead. You've seen a lot of dead things and life and death happens on a farm. So they go and they're going to talk to David. They end up interviewing him three times this night. Never at a police station. Always in his own living room or dining room, just sitting at the dining room table, real cash, real chill in the crime scene still, you know, amazing so the first one is about 13 minutes, just a. What'd you guys do today? Where were you? I was here. Then I went there real quick once over just to get the timeline. The second one's about 45 minutes. And then the third one interviews about 60 minutes, so not very long. Here. They give him no Miranda warnings, no attorneys in the room. This is all real casual of why we all know each other. And this is real casual. What happened with your wife, it's so not legally

[Jimmy Wissman]

correct.

[James Petregallo]

It's like it's 1915 or something. This is almost the year 2000 already. We have crime scene procedures that we do, but they don't. They say that he's pretty calm, still real unemotional. He's making coffee for people. Hey, you want a cup of coffee? Gets up and makes it. He's giving people tours of the farm. What? It's real weird, real weird. And they say that it's not like, oh, he's okay. Then he breaks down. They said his demeanor never changes. He's just like. He invited everyone over for a barbecue. All day long, all night.

[Jimmy Wissman]

This is where we milk him. Where's their dead body?

[James Petregallo]

Where do you keep your corpses? Oh, that's at the bottom of the basement steps. So he talked on the phone with family members between talking to them, I mean, just walking around. He walks around the farm. He showed Lindbergh, the one investigator, his machine shed, made everybody coffee. And the cops are drinking the coffee too, drinking this guy's coffee. This is way too casual, way too small town. So they sit him down. The first interview, he says, yeah, you know, he helped Tanya load some Christmas decorations into her car after the call to her daughter. And he said, I left for Miller to get the radiator cap. I was gone about two hours. I came back and I was working on my trailer. And then when I came in, there she is at the bottom of the stairs. I don't know how long she was there. I wasn't even hearing when it happened. I have no idea. Then they sit him down for the slightly longer interview, not very much. And he says, well, Tanya sometimes feels dizzy. She gets dizzy spells.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, is that right?

[James Petregallo]

Maybe she tripped over the Christmas decorations on the steps. That could be a thing, he says. He says he's pretty sure he's, quote, pretty sure it wasn't him that hit her and knocked her down the steps. Pretty sure 20 minutes ago. He said, I was an hour away when it happened. I don't know. Now he goes, pretty sure I didn't knock her down the steps.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Why did he even say that?

[James Petregallo]

That's wild. And he said, they said that there was some blood on the left railing. Because they said, there's no blood on the stairs. He goes, well, there was some blood on the left railing, but I wiped it off.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I had to clean it up. It's gross.

[James Petregallo]

He said, you know, the kids were coming home. I thought they were coming home. So you clean up the blood. I saw some pesky fingerprints. I got rid of those. Like, what are you doing? So he's cleaning the crime scene blood. He's done laundry. He's washed blood off his hands. So they said that. He said, when I moved her, I got blood all over me. That's why I was washing up in the bathroom, you know, getting all of her blood all off of me. Can't have that on me. It's gross. Yeah. So they said, okay. Before he said, but I never laid a hand on her. I don't know what you're talking about. So then the cop says, before the third interview, why don't we go down to the sheriff's office for a quieter setting? There's a lot of stuff going on here. And David said, nah, I'm pretty comfortable here. Let's just finish up here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't wanna.

[James Petregallo]

I wanna do it at the dining room table. And the cop says, all right. And keep. No, take him to a fucking interrogation room. Make him sit there for two hours, stew. Do all the cop things that you do when someone's dead. What are you doing? Cop things. Do those things stupid. So, yeah, it's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I don't know how they're gonna get anything out of this. What fucking evidence could they possibly have?

[James Petregallo]

Well, during the third interview, he says some things, they start getting a little more accusatory because it's pretty obvious that the story is what happened. Very off. So at one point he says, quote, if you're accusing me here, maybe I should call my lawyer. And then they blow past that. And he says, don't you think I should talk to an attorney at one point? None of these things are, I want an attorney. At one point he says to the cop, you're making sense, Mike. I'm just afraid. I'm just afraid to admit to anything. Maybe I should have an attorney. I'm scared to death. Exactly. It gets more interesting. Then he said, I should really call Jeff my attorney. Everybody's on a first name basis here. By the way, I should really call Jeff my attorney. I don't know. I really can't And I maybe can add a little bit to it, but I just. I can't because they're trying to get him to elaborate on some stuff. So after the last. After the one he says there, I. Maybe I can lend a little bit to it. After that, the cop says, david, you add something to it. Please, for our sake, just add whatever. Just try to get him to talk.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Fix it.

[James Petregallo]

Fix it. So David says, well, I mean, maybe there was, quote, a little pushing and shoving out in the garage before she fell down the stairs. He said, you know, they argued because he was too harsh on the kids. So that's why they were arguing. And there might have been a little pushing and shoving.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay, I thought you were an hour away.

[James Petregallo]

Might have been slight domestic abuse is what that is.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There was a tussle.

[James Petregallo]

No tussle, as O.J. always put it. We were tussling, wrestling. You know what I mean? He called it wrastling and tussling. That was OJ's the whole time.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Imagine wrestling with your wife. That's crazy.

[James Petregallo]

Having a tussle. I've never had a tussle with any significant other I've ever had. No tussling ever.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I've never wrassled a soul.

[James Petregallo]

Never happened. Tits get in the way. No good air. Fuck all of it. So he says he freaked out when he saw her at the bottom of the stairs, and then he left her there and drove to Miller for the radiator cap and didn't go down and see if she needed help. That's his story. His story is there was some pushing and shoving, and then when I saw her, I just went, well, she'll be fine. And I went an hour away to get a radiator cap and came back and went, whoop. She didn't get up. Shit.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What he said is we pushed and shoved out in the garage. Then I saw her at the base of the stairs.

[James Petregallo]

That's it.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Then I went and got a radiator cap. Sir, that story has so many different spots that gotta be filled in.

[James Petregallo]

And why are you doing laundry? And why are you covered in blood? And why are you washing yourself off? And what's going on here? So at about midnight, on the direction of the state's attorney, because, you know, the cops wouldn't fucking do it. They arrest him, the state's attorney said his story makes no sense and his wife's dead. Fucking put cuffs on that guy. And they were like, oh, sorry, David. Oh, it's all right, Mike. You know, I get it. You're doing your Job.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Miss that damn coffee. Sir.

[James Petregallo]

Wow. He's released the next day, $100,000 bond. So he has to put up 10 grand in cash and he must report daily to the sheriff's office to show that he hasn't run away, which seems real old school.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get up to a 24 hour head start.

[James Petregallo]

That's all. That's all you can get. Got to know you're still here.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And then hang up the phone and get in the truck.

[James Petregallo]

Not call. He has to go to the sheriff's office every day. He can't call because then, you know, shit, he could be fooling him. He could be calling from Jamaica for all they know.

[Jimmy Wissman]

But if he stops by the station then gets in the truck and starts driving, he could be 24 hours away before they even fucking think about him.

[James Petregallo]

I don't think they're real good at any of this, so I think they're bad at shit. So the daughter here, this is Rebecca, she said, quote, he told me that she'd fallen down the stairs. My first impulse was, what the fuck did you do? What did you do? Yeah, the other daughter here, Jesse, who was the youngest child at the time, she was 16. She said that her father was not kind to her mother. She said he would call her fat or stupid or a dumb woman. He's abusive. She said her father was drunk and physically threatening her mother during an argument in the summer of 99. And he told her if she didn't shut up, he would throw her through a wall.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, he used that one then.

[James Petregallo]

Throw you through the wall. He used that one. Very common.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Back in 99. That was a pretty common one.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. I don't think I've ever threatened. That's like a dad threat. Not to a woman who heard that

[Jimmy Wissman]

threat or a woman.

[James Petregallo]

That's a threat. Your dad would say to you, when you're 12 and being an asshole, I'll throw you through this fucking wall.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Put you right through the fucking wall.

[James Petregallo]

So the autopsy comes, they perform it the next day. And remember, he said she fell downstairs and that was it. Here's what she has, quote, a blackened left eye, a large bruise on the left cheek, a through and through laceration on the lip. So totally split the lip, open tooth went through a large impact abrasion on the left side of the skull where the skin had been scraped away, and a smaller one on the right side. Petechial hemorrhages, which are the bursts in the eyes, in the skin associated with strangulation on the right temple and lower right eyelid bruising along the left jawline and the neck itself. A voice box bruised on both the left and right sides. Bruising on the left collarbone, four or five fractured ribs. Abrasions on both knees and the left ankle. Torn pantyhose at the knees and left ankle. And a bruise on the back of the right hand that they suspected was a defensive injury when you're trying to block your face. So unless she got dropped from an airplane down the stairs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, she jumped down those stairs.

[James Petregallo]

That's the craziest list of injuries. Unless the stairway was 14 stories long

[Jimmy Wissman]

and she tumbled down it, but only landed on her head the whole way down.

[James Petregallo]

Her head, her neck, her voice box. You know, strangled, beaten, stuff inside her skull. They found bruising under the scalp on both the left and right back side of the skull with skull fractures on both sides above and behind the ears.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Oh, boy.

[James Petregallo]

Injuries to both sides of the head suggesting an impact with a hard surface, then a separate blow. It's not just one shot to the thing. No underlying natural disease, no broken neck, nothing obstructing the airway. So, okay, she wasn't choking. So the conclusion is cause of death is manual strangulation and blunt head trauma. Wow. Which does not happen from falling down the stairs, obviously. They said they couldn't, by the way, this is a carpeted flight of stairs also. Hey, everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you about the best security you could possibly have. SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

SimpliSafe.com S I M P L I Safe.com Absolutely.

[James Petregallo]

In the United States, there's a break in every 26 seconds. That means over the course of this ad, like 3, 4 break ins will happen. That's a lot of break ins. And if you've listened to this show that you're listening to right now, small town murder. You know what can happen when a break in happens? Bad things. So the problem here is most security systems only alert you after the break ins already started. Which you know by this show is way too late.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Way too late.

[James Petregallo]

Way too. Half your family could be murdered by then. That's why we chose Simplisafe to secure our homes and businesses and everything else. Simplisafe makes us feel good and secure and have peace of mind. Using safe. That's the thing. Using the Outdoor Camera Series 2 and advanced AI alert, SimpliSafe's US based live agents identify threats on your property and help deter them. Stopping crime before it starts. That's peace of mind. Literally, they come up and they're like, get out of here. We're calling the cops. Cops will be there in two minutes. People run away. It's what it is. Telling you, it's so good. We use it for everything that we have homes, offices. If I had anything else to put it on, I would. It's so good. I bought it as gifts for people that want home security. It's so good. Simplisafe has been a real game changer for us and we love it, I'm telling you. And there's no long term contracts. That's a huge thing. It's so important that you're not locked in. You don't want to be locked in in case your life needs change. Maybe you, you know, whatever. SimpliSafe gets it. That means simply safe, has to earn your business every day and they don't mind doing that. And also, you know, you think about this, and I see so many shows we do where I'm like, oh, my God, I'm so glad we have Simplisafe because this, this could happen to us. You know what I mean? And it's so inexpensive, too. The monitoring and deterrence plans start at around a dollar a day. A dollar a day to secure your family, your home, your things, your pets, everything. It's ridiculous. And setting it up is so easy. I can't put together IKEA furniture and I can install a SimpliSafe system. It's excellent. And we want you to do it, too. We want you to experience the same peace of mind we do, which is why we've partnered with SimpliSafe to offer an exclusive discount to our listeners. Right now, you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com small that's half [e-mail] small there's no safe like SimpliSafe.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Now back to the show.

[Ad Voice]

Most people overpay for car insurance, not because they're careless, but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jeri could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit Jerry AI Libsyn today. That's J E R R Y AI Libsyn.

[James Petregallo]

So these injuries are not happening Going down a carpeted flight of stairs.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Those Are my favorite ones, by the way, to lay like and shoot down. You can fucking shoot down the party.

[James Petregallo]

Those were great when you were a kid. Yeah. So she's all fucked up now in the garage. When they do a crime scene on the whole house. The stairwell's very clean. The garage floor is not. Oh, the garage has scuff marks on the floor. On the lower inside panel of the garage door, there's blood spatter that matches Tanya's DNA. That's not good. Under a car parked in the garage is a clump of hair that belonged to Tanya. And the floor appeared to have been recently cleaned. Yeah, so the insurance guy, he has this insurance guy that we're gonna talk about. You have an insurance guy? Everyone has an insurance person. So this insurance guy came over to visit because he's out on bond. Came over to visit David and said that he can't make it to the rosary service because I have other things. I have something. I have a previous commitment. And David said, quote, I don't give a shit. She deserved to die. Oh, that's what he told the insurance guy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Okay.

[James Petregallo]

Speaking of insurance, they also find out that David had two life insurance policies on Tanya, naming him as the beneficiary, totaling $1.7 million that are payable in the event she died by accidental means. Took a tumble down the stairs. Yeah, so a $500,000 policy dated 4-6-94, when she was trying to leave him, remember? To which a $500,000 accidental death benefit was added later on. Then another second $500,000 policy dated June 21, 1996, with a $200,000 accidental rider added on. So that's $1.7 million. The second policy, he had told his insurance agent that he wanted to cancel the first policy and replace it with a cheaper one. So the guy wrote it up, but David never canceled the first policy. He kept them both. He was fucking lying. So that's interesting. And the guy, basically, he kept paying the premiums, therefore keeping them current. Yeah, that's it. So November 12, 1999, is when he had called. He called his insurance agent. This is six days before Tanya is killed. He called this agent and said that. Basically said that if Tanya died in an accident, he said, well, he's talking about the accident stuff, but this is just not about insurance. This is just chit chat with his buddy, the insurance agent. And he said, quote, I'm going to kill the bitch. You know, I can do it. Then he said, remember, she was the one that wanted the life insurance which this guy doesn't know that at all. Don't forget that in the same conversation, David asked this man whether he knows how to transfer farmland into his son's name and all that kind of thing. Now, David's phone records show he was in contact with an attorney, not the divorce attorney, a different attorney, during this week. 13 times he called this person in seven days. So David's bond, by the way, will later be revoked when he fails to abide by the conditions of his release. Which is funny. There's a long list of people he said incriminating things to, including a woman named Carol who lives about nine miles from the farm, which is probably the next door neighbor, I would assume. Fuck. And she heard David talk several times about killing his wife, but she didn't think he was serious. I mean, people talk about gonna kill my wife. You know how that goes, I guess. David had told this woman once that he would rather have to get rid of his wife or have her killed there. She said that she wasn't sure what he meant, adding that once he talked of hiring a hitman.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

She said, quote, he's not a stupid man. I can't believe that he would do it himself.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, I got news for you.

[James Petregallo]

He's pretty stupid. Her friend Vicky also said later that Tanya said in October her husband had been pushing, shoving and slapping and threatening to kill her as well. And yeah, she said when she had moved into the apartment, everything was looking up. She said she looked beautiful and relaxed and happy for the first time. Several other people said that David was abusive and all of that, but there is one piece of evidence in his face. 1.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What is that?

[James Petregallo]

Particle number 68. Particle? There was a piece of physical evidence here under one of Tanya's fingernails. Now keep in mind she just got with him at 9 o' clock in the morning. So anything could happen before that. It's not like they've been together exclusively in each other's company for a week. Under the fingernails, they recover a tiny pinpoint sized clump of tissue that's described as skin, like by the lab. They send it for DNA testing. It's male, but it does not match David. Okay, so could be anybody else, but

[Jimmy Wissman]

it doesn't even signify that it's his kids or any shit.

[James Petregallo]

No, no, not even that side.

[Jimmy Wissman]

It's just a. Okay.

[James Petregallo]

And they can't do anything more with it because the DNA test consumed the entire sample back in the 90s. Oh shit. That's what happened. So there was nothing else to do. Test so all they have is they have this piece of skin that's not David's under her fingernails. So they're wondering, will the interviews, the three interviews he did at his dining room table be allowed into court? Because he was never read his Miranda rights, mind you. But they said that. Listen. And the detective even said, listen, I tried to steer David away from lawyering up when he would talk about a lawyer. And this is standard operating procedure in an interrogation. They say you can call a lawyer, but if you do, that shuts off all your opportunity to tell us the truth. We can't help you anymore if you get a lawyer. Not that they're trying to help you by putting you in prison, but that's what they tell you. We can't help you if you get a lawyer.

[Jimmy Wissman]

We can't help you incriminate yourself anymore.

[James Petregallo]

We can't help tighten the noose around your neck anymore if you get a lawyer. So they said, in a custodial interrogation, this is something. But basically, he was not in custody. He was in his own house making coffee, walking around the ground. They never followed him to the bathroom. They let him do whatever he wanted. He had run of the house.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Well, I guess that means if you have run of the house, then you can say whatever you want.

[James Petregallo]

You're not in custodial. This is not a custodial interrogation. You're just talking voluntarily to cops now. They should Mirandize him if they think he's done anything, because that's the rule. But he's still not whatever. The defense argued everything should be thrown out. But the court said that he was not being sweated. He wasn't being kept in a room. The questioning happened in his own table, in his own home, by his own choosing. He said, I'll talk to you. The agents told him, you don't have to talk to us. They never restrained him. It's in fuck you, David, which is tough.

[Jimmy Wissman]

There's no exposed strategy happening. So that should let him know that he can tell them to get out of my house at any time.

[James Petregallo]

Absolutely. At the same time, if you're gonna bring up anything about a crime with a suspect that you have one inkling that he's a suspect, you gotta Mirandize him, too. That's crazy.

[Jimmy Wissman]

At that point, they didn't suspect it as a crime. Yeah, they had to.

[James Petregallo]

He said, I wiped the blood away. He's doing laundry. He said he moved the body, didn't try to revive. They're. Yeah, that's why they're talking to her. By the third one, they're like, dude, your story's changed, man.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Your story sucks.

[James Petregallo]

The third interrogation should have been at least they needed to once they were real suspicious. So he's charged with first degree murder, second degree murder, first degree manslaughter, and that's to give the jury a choice there. They move the trial to a different county, to southwest of Kennebec in Lyman County. The jury selection. And this is some small town shit. Oh, my God. Okay, okay. When the two summoned jury panels were. They went through by challenges and the people were all gone. They couldn't seat enough people. It was a small place. There's not enough. There isn't a lot of people. So the judge ordered the sheriff's office to, quote, go find more jurors.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Go get more people, please.

[James Petregallo]

So a deputy named Rob Parker gets on the phone and he rounds up 20 prospective jurors. The judge asked them, how'd you find these 20 people? So Deputy Parker explained that he probably. He said that he went to town to Owacoma, Reliance, Kennebec, Presho and Vivian, these towns, to try to get three people per town. That was the goal. Just driving down, hey, you 18?

[Jimmy Wissman]

Are you a people?

[James Petregallo]

You a people? Are you an American citizen at all? So he went to town to get three people. And he said, we started at the top, letter A. Every third person down was getting called. They opened the white pages and called every third person.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Holy shit.

[James Petregallo]

They said, if they weren't home, then we went to the next three. It was time consuming. So we went, quote, I bet they're home. We called them the.

[Jimmy Wissman]

George adored it.

[James Petregallo]

They did. When the judge said, did you call anyone you thought was pro law enforcement? He said, half the list. I'd say probably not. He said, there's a couple of them. Definitely not pro law enforcement. After we talked to them. And he said most of the people that he called didn't even believe it. They had to call the clerk's office because it sounded like a prank call. Hi, I'm the sheriff from another county, or I'm the sheriff from another town. Could you come to the courthouse and be a juror today? That's not how jury duty works.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yes, my refrigerator's running. Leave me alone.

[James Petregallo]

Oh, my God. Yeah, I got Prince Albert in a can, and I'll let him out. Don't worry about it. So obviously the defense lawyer said that it looked like a systematic exclusion of Native Americans from the jury because the deputy said he didn't call anyone from Lower Brule. And part of the Lower Brule Indian Reservation, explaining that a large number of the Lower Brule residents from the original pool hadn't shown up anyway. So he said, fuck him. I won't even try. So the judge says, you can't do that, stupid. So he ordered him to go back and recruit from there the next day. You gotta make it even. So they ended up. Three of those that he recruited that day ended up serving that had Native American surnames. A juror named Eagle Thunder deliberated through the verdict, and an alternate name, Middle Tent, was excused before deliberations. Now, we gotta go through this pretty quickly, but basically the prosecution's going, it's pretty goddamn obvious what happened. She's strangled and beaten, and there's no one else on the goddamn farm, so.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And the stairs can't do that.

[James Petregallo]

And the stairs can't do it. The defense attorney's like, it's an accident. That's what they say. They say, well, why was he trying to transfer land to his son a few days before? And they go, who doesn't want their son to inherit their land? That's literally what the defense said. Yeah. So they talk about the life insurance signatures, and they say, they're probably David's, by the way, and not Tanya's. She probably didn't even know this was on her. It's pretty goddamn. This is a tough trial, they said. The prosecutor said divorce for him was not an option. That meant his wife would get at least half the farm, and he wasn't gonna tolerate that. A guy that had so much control that he made his wife sign for the fudge brownie she took from the home a week before. He's not gonna let her have an acre of that place.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Unmade, you, Honor.

[James Petregallo]

That's unmade. Powdered. You need eggs still for this.

[Jimmy Wissman]

And oil.

[James Petregallo]

And he said the first mistake of marrying the defendant brought her years of pain and suffering. The second mistake was going alone with her husband to the couple's farm. That was her fatal mistake. It cost her her life. She was beaten from head to toe. You don't get that from falling down the stairs. This isn't an accident. This is first degree murder. Okay? So. And they say there's never been another suspect. The defense comes out and they go, there's a piece of skin under her fingernails. They've never. They never even looked at anybody else. They concentrated right on my guy right here. Then he says, this is amazing. This case is not over. Whether David was a good man or a bad man, the fact that he's Not a perfect husband doesn't make him a murderer. He's not on trial for being a bad husband. Right, yeah. So they bring out the forensic pathologist, they bring out everybody, DNA analysts, then they bring out a physicist, Dr. Sami Shaibani. God, how am I going to do this? Fast. Okay. He's an expert. Expert. He says he does something called injury mechanism analysis, a self described blend of physics, trauma medicine and engineering used to determine whether a given injury could have happened in the way someone claimed. He claimed he told the jury he was a clinical professor at Temple University, held four degrees in physics from Oxford in England and that he was a licensed professional engineer. A quote all over the world. He says, I don't even charge a fee for this shit. I do it as a community service.

[Jimmy Wissman]

I do it for the love of the game.

[James Petregallo]

That's it. The love of poking and prodding dead bodies. So he said, whichever way you slice it, it's impossible. Not consistent with the laws of physics. Now they had other just regular criminalists and crime scene people that said the same thing. The defense case, they tried. They really did. They brought on another criminalist who said that, but her position was postural asphyxia. And she was suffocated because of the unnatural way her body came to rest. And it's like, how did she get the bruising in her voice box? That asshole. That didn't quite work. David testifies in his own defense.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Awesome.

[James Petregallo]

He says he pushed her around in the garage a little bit, but she was a little bit dizzy and blah, blah, blah. And he said, when I found her, I cradled her head and got blood on my coat. So I dragged her body to the south side of the stairwell and I covered her with a blanket so the kids didn't see her. And that's why I was washing blood off of me. That's it. And he said during the interviews with the cops, I was just pretty much telling them what they wanted to hear, that's all. Okay. Interesting. So the defense closing is. Come on. They concentrate on the particle, that little particle under the nail. And he said it got there by scratching. It was somebody's, but it's not David's. The jury disagrees and finds him guilty of first degree murder.

[Jimmy Wissman]

First degree, it's too small.

[James Petregallo]

And he said, I'm gonna kill it. It all lines up. So the sentencing. You, sir, may fuck off. Life without parole.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Yeah.

[James Petregallo]

Yeah. So the prosecutor said David was a cold blooded murderer who had planned his wife's death for years. The jury found the truth and David Will remain where he belongs. In prison, behind bars.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Forever.

[James Petregallo]

Yep. And they said his testimony didn't help him. They said we would have gotten him convicted whether he took the stand or not. But he certainly didn't help himself by doing that.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No.

[James Petregallo]

Nope. And they said he has no remorse. Not an ounce. He's not shed a tear about this and he never will.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He hates her.

[James Petregallo]

Hates her. 2002, he appealed. Basically based on the particle and based on all this type of shit and the he's gonna kill me hearsay and all that kind of stuff. It's affirmed very quickly. Remember the Shabani guy? The self styled guy? Huge scandal. He's full of shit. Guy's completely full of shit. Complete fraud. Complete fraud. He tested.

[Jimmy Wissman]

He didn't love the game.

[James Petregallo]

He went in the Michael Peterson staircase case, which is similar to this case here. And the defense exposed him as a lie. The chair of Temple University's physics department wrote a letter saying denying any claim that he's ever been a member or ever been affiliated with the Temple physics department. He's a fraud that way. Plus they said that this guy said he had to write the same kind of letter once a year because Shabani kept trying to establish his bona fides as an expert witness, claiming a Temple affiliation that doesn't exist. They said he had once had a at loose courtesy of affiliation at best and essentially got parking privileges. But he had no anything.

[Jimmy Wissman]

No tenure or anything.

[James Petregallo]

No. So he's gotten a bunch of people new trials. A lawyer in Wisconsin said he's a fraud. Basically he was trying to create himself as an expert so he could run around the country and testify in these cases. Why? And in a letter to the Associated Press, the lawyer likened him to Dr. Nick on the Simpsons. Hi, everybody. Just a complete quack. So the Justice Department acknowledged his resume puffing as well. And yeah, that's his bullshit. That's when it came. So then there's another appeal based on the scandal. And they said either way you still would have been convicted because they had another pathologist saying the same goddamn thing. There's a federal habeas that doesn't go anywhere. 2014, they're trying to pass Tanya's Law, which is a law brought by some professor actually, that will allow a person to seek a divorce without proving grounds such as adultery or extreme cruelty. This is one of the few states at the time still didn't have no fault divorces.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What?

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Which, by the way, there's a lot of people trying to go back to, which is Fucking insane.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Get rid of that.

[James Petregallo]

Yes. Right now. There are three states that require mutual consent for a no fault divorce.

[Jimmy Wissman]

What? Where are they?

[James Petregallo]

One's Mississippi, which whatever Tennessee is. Another one. That fucking state's nuts too. And South Dakota. Those three. Currently, David remains in the South Dakota State Penitentiary, life without parole. And Tanya is at the St. Thomas Catholic Cemetery in Fossil. So there you go, everybody there is the farmer and his wife and some fucked up shit. We'll go through the end.

[Jimmy Wissman]

The farmer and the farmer's wife fell.

[James Petregallo]

Fuck, man. Real quickly here. Definitely head over to shut upandgivememurder.com well before that. Give us five stars or whatever the hell on whatever app you're listening on. Give us a thumbs up on Netflix. It helps out a lot. Shut up and give me murder.com. get your tickets for live shows and merchandise. It's all over the place. Tickets for live shows. September 18th, Milwaukee at the Pabst. Get those, they're going fast. September 19th, Minneapolis. Get those because Milwaukee's outselling you right now. Don't do that. What are you going to do, Milwaukee? Come on, Minneapolis. What are you doing here then? October 3rd, Dallas. October 16th 17th, San Jose. Sacramento. November 13th and 14th, Tarrytown in Boston. Get in there. Get your tickets. Shut up and give me murder.com. follow on social media. Altownmurder on Instagram, Smalltown pod on Facebook also patreon.com crimeinsports that's everything you want there. Anybody? $5 a month or above. You get everything we put out as soon as you subscribe. You get hundreds of back bonus episodes. About 400 to be exact. New ones every other week. One crime and sports. One small town murder this week. Crime and sports. Hostage situations. Crazy shit that goes down. Small town murder. Corey Richards part three. Her kids said everything she said is full of shit. And they call her a bad mom and detail it and she makes faces at it and she allocutes and she's full of shit and it's wild and can't wait to get into that shit. So do that. Patreon.com CrimeInSports you get a shout out at the end of the regular show. You get everything we put out ad free. You get it all, everybody. So do that and keep hanging out with us. Keep coming back. You want to follow us on social media, shut up and give me murder.com is where you find the all that. Keep coming back and seeing us. Until next week, everybody. It's been our pleasure. Bye. I started Ornad in 2013 and we make bike apparel. The best part of Shopify for me is our ability to run the business as essentially non technical people. We're able to admin everything on the back end, front end and sell things online easily. If Shopify were a bike accessory, I think it would actually be the bicycle. It's the thing that you do the thing on. We run the business on Shopify. Start your free trial on shopify.com hey everybody listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi.

[Jimmy Wissman]

Hello.

[James Petregallo]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy too. And this is an ad, but not an ad for a product. This is an ad for tour dates. Yes. Come see a live show, the 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville, March 6th in Durham, March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets though, to your stupid opinions. On the 21st of March, Salt Lake City, sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30, we have September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3 in Dallas. October 16 in San Jose. October 17 in Sacramento. November 13 in Tarrytown. November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. You're gonna have fun. Make some new friends like crazy. And make some new friends. Come out and see us. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you go for those tickets. Get them right now while they're hot.

[Jimmy Wissman]

See you on the road.