Episode 354

Summary

Sword and Scale – Episode 354 (June 7, 2026)

The Root Beer Float Murders: Surveillance, Greed, and Poison

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Episode Overview

In this disturbing true-crime episode, Sword and Scale explores the unraveling of a seemingly straightforward burglary in small-town Indiana that unexpectedly uncovers a far more sinister crime: the calculated poisoning murder of Harold Allen. Through raw 911 calls, police interviews, and candid, often chilling conversations with family suspects, the episode illustrates the darkness lurking beneath the surface of ordinary lives and the unraveling of a twisted mother-daughter conspiracy fueled by greed, manipulation, and betrayal.

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Key Discussion Points & Timeline

1. The Burglary That Triggered It All

[01:12–06:50]

• Marsha Allen, a 52-year-old widow, leaves her Indiana home for a trip and installs security cameras to watch over her house and cats.
• Her intuition pays off when, while away, her security app repeatedly alerts her to motion: two masked men are breaking into her home.
• Marsha captures 22 video clips, one showing the face of Stephen White—a friend of her daughter Ashley—who carelessly exposes himself to the camera.
• Marsha’s immediate actions: informs the sheriff, sends the footage, and rushes home, worried for her property and what was stolen (her safe containing family heirlooms and many firearms).
  • Quote, Marsha:
    “Well, the five minute one shows Steven’s face. Full face. And what cracks me up is he looked in the bedroom and he saw the camera. But the other guy distracted him and he forgot all about it.” ([07:01])

2. The Burglars’ Stories Unravel

[07:01–13:16]

• Stephen White is quickly tracked down and confronted by police. Initially, he issues absurd denials, blaming a stolen car and illness, but ultimately cracks, offering elaborate allegations that shift blame to Marsha herself.
  • Quote, Stephen White (dramatic, evasive):
    “My tongue is all swollen and sore and my mouth is red and white. So let y’all know that I’ve been having diarrhea shits all night.” ([08:40])
• Stephen claims Marsha orchestrated the burglary to hide assets from her late husband’s brother and offered him $3,000 to commit the crime, then escalates to accuse Marsha of orchestrating her husband’s actual murder through poisoning.
  • Quote, Stephen White (rambling):
    “Her name’s Marsha Buxton, and she asked me to get that shit because her husband, Harold Allen, passed away in December...She needed that life insurance money, but she did not get that life insurance money because the policy was set to go to his brother.” ([11:02])
• Police, at first skeptical, start tracing threads.

3. Was Harold Allen Murdered?

[13:16–18:56]

• Harold Allen was found dead on December 20, 2022. Initially, the cause is listed as advanced heart disease.
• But details from interviews and messages (uncovered after the break-in investigation) bring that cause into question.
• A trail of online orders and financial tensions surfaces—most notably, the purchase of poisonous ethylene glycol (antifreeze) sent to the house in the days before Harold’s death.
• The focus shifts onto whether Marsha, her daughter Ashley, or both poisoned Harold for financial gain and inheritance.

4. Mother vs. Daughter: Accusations and Evasive Answers

[25:32–46:00]

• Police obtain damning text conversations implicating both Marsha and Ashley Jones in burglary and discussing the logistics and aftermath of Harold’s poisoning.
• Ashley, confronted, blames her mother:
  • Quote, Ashley Jones (stoic, guarded):
    “I mean, I don’t know that she did, but, I mean, she’s capable of whatever. She’s very intelligent.” ([40:47])
• Meanwhile, Marsha adamantly denies any wrongdoing, admitting to root beer floats but denying knowledge of the antifreeze (ethylene glycol) order or any intention to harm:
  • Quote, Marsha:
    "We both made the root beer floats, so I did not put anything in anyone’s drink. I didn’t even know we had anything like that there." ([41:55])
• Police dig through messages—full of cynical discussions referencing symptoms, dose amounts, and complaints that “it’s taking too long”—suggesting Harold was intentionally sickened over time.
  • Notable excerpt from texts:
    “It moves slow and has to build. […] I wished it would reach its climax and be done. LOL. He’s snoring on and off...” ([47:00])

5. Patterns of Poisoning – The Foxglove Clue

[43:34–46:12]

• Police probe discussions of using foxglove (a poisonous plant) and other botanical toxins, learning Ashley had researched and possibly experimented with poisons before, even referencing prior suspicious deaths (her ex-husband Ty).

6. The Investigation Tightens

[52:00–55:51]

• Detectives, led by Lt. Adam Nicholson, are forced to play a patient legal game, unable to arrest Marsha or Ashley without a confession.
• Both women, when interrogated separately, refuse to acknowledge their roles. The texts indicate stalking, planning, and a deliberate attempt at subterfuge—while forensic evidence grows (deleted texts, internet orders traced).
• Quote, Det. Nicholson:
  “We had to sit there and play dumb, play nice, try to go along with what she was saying, try to act like I was believing...The moment I started pushing on her, she got very upset.” ([58:52])

7. Marsha’s Suicide and Final Shock

[61:09–64:20]

• Before police can arrest Marsha, she dies by suicide—possibly ingesting a substance—leaving Ashley as the key (and sole) suspect in Harold’s murder.
• When Ashley is informed of her mother’s suicide, her carefully maintained stoicism finally breaks for a moment.
  • Exchange:
    “She killed herself.” (Ashley, [62:15])

8. Ashley’s Jailhouse Plot – "The Prayer List"

[68:26–73:00]

• While forensics confirm Harold’s cause of death as poisoning, Ashley (now in custody) attempts to orchestrate the murder of key witnesses and her former associates—by sending a coded "prayer list" to a jailed acquaintance, hoping it will result in the deaths of her enemies and even a child.
  • Quote from Ashley’s prayer list:
    “I would like the following people to be added to the prayer list as soon as possible. Have the church lift these people as high as can be to the Lord so everyone may find rest in peace.” ([71:23])
• Her plot is foiled thanks to the acquaintance’s cooperation with authorities.

9. Case Resolution & Reflections

[74:27–End]

• Detective Nicholson observes that, if not for Ashley’s greed and the botched burglary, Harold’s murder might have never been discovered—and that further investigation might yet reveal more victims.
• Ashley Jones ultimately pleads guilty in 2025 to conspiracy to commit murder and is sentenced to 50 years in prison.
• The episode ends on a bitterly ironic note: the chain of betrayal and miscalculation at the center of small-town family life leading to exposure, not justice working from perfect forensics but thanks to criminals’ own arrogance and incompetence.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “One lie always leads to a second lie, second lie, and then a third lie and a fourth lie, and it’s going to make it look a hell of a lot worse, all right?”
  — Detective to Stephen White, ([09:33])
• "You just go to the fucking jail and set and rot. You get the stuff back and go to jail and set and rot."
  — Stephen White’s exasperated attempt at negotiation, ([10:51])
• “Was there ever chance when Ashley could have put something in there?”
  — Detective, probing the mother-daughter dynamic and opportunity for poisoning, ([42:04])
• "I mean, we know what happened to Harold. We've got evidence of that."
  — Interviewer/Detective confronting Ashley with the case, ([51:21])
• "If it wouldn't have been for Ashley's greed and if Ashley wouldn't have, you know, had to have set up this burglary at her mom's house ... we would have never found out ... There wouldn't have even been a murder case at all.“
  — Detective Adam Nicholson, ([74:27])

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Structural Observations & Episode Tone

• The narration is acerbic and unsparing; the host blends investigative reporting with sharp, often darkly humorous asides underscoring the sordid nature of the case.
• Raw interviews, authentic speech, and primary-source texts intermingle, offering listeners multiple viewpoints, from Marsha’s mounting paranoia to Stephen’s frantic attempts to deflect blame, to Ashley’s cold rationalizations.
• The episode steadily peels back layers—from a routine property crime to a deep family conspiracy riddled with past and possible future victims.
• The story’s emotional impact peaks with Marsha’s suicide and Ashley’s subsequent, chilling plotting from jail, culminating in a reflection on the nature of evil hiding in plain sight.
• The question lingers: how many others might have suffered at their hands?

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Timestamps of Notable Segments

• [01:12] – Marsha learns about the burglary via camera alerts
• [07:01] – Marsha identifies Stephen White in the footage
• [11:02] – Stephen's allegations against Marsha begin
• [13:16] – Revealing Harold's supposed “natural” death
• [29:12] – Police confront Marsha with Stephen's accusations
• [33:06] – Evidence of Ashley plotting with Stephen by text
• [35:48] – Ashley’s police interview: calm, guarded
• [40:47] – Ashley admits her mother is "capable of whatever"
• [41:55] – Marsha claims innocence in poisoning
• [47:00] – Texts referencing drawn-out poisoning process
• [58:52] – Det. Nicholson explains the careful investigative approach
• [61:46] – Ashley hears of Marsha’s suicide in custody
• [68:26] – Detective Nicholson details Ashley’s jailhouse murder plot
• [71:23] – Excerpts from Ashley's coded "prayer list" letter
• [74:27] – Detective Nicholson’s closing insights

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Conclusion

Episode 354 of Sword and Scale is a harrowing, darkly fascinating investigation into how a petty crime peels back the layers of a complex, lethal family conspiracy. Greed, jealousy, and hatred intersect with chance and technology, leading to the unraveling of a murder that almost went undiscovered. The rawness of interviews, chilling text exchanges, and the grim aftermath (including Marsha’s suicide and Ashley’s shocked reaction) offer listeners a sobering look at just how real—and close—the "worst monsters" can be.

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For further detail or raw audio, visit Sword and Scale’s feed or access the episode via their app.

Transcript

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[Narrator/Storyteller]

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

[Detective/Police Officer]

We got a call to go check on her welfare at her home and she's passed away.

[Marsha Allen]

What?

[Detective/Police Officer]

She passed away.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

It's mid September 2023. 52 year old widow Marcia Allen is away from her home in Freetown, Indiana. She's on a trip to Gatlinburg, Pigeon Forge, Tennessee with her parents. She leaves on Saturday, planning to return a week later on the following Saturday. Before the trip, she does something she's been wanting to do for a while. She installs cameras. She buys the system herself from Walmart and keeps it quiet. She wants to watch the house while she's away, mostly to keep an eye on her cats and because she feels unsafe since her husband died about a year ago. She gets them because she's never left her cats alone that long and she has a bad feeling in the gut of her stomach. So she wants to be able to check in on her pets wherever she is.

[Marsha Allen]

I've never left my cats alone for that long before and I had a bad feeling. I thought maybe one of them would have died or something and I felt bad if I didn't know about it and I got him to keep an eye on my cats. I'm still scared. That's why I got the security surveillance cameras, because every time I hear a noise I jump every I look at all outside cameras or even go outside and go to work because I don't want anybody to come out and jump at me.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Right. Okay. And you can watch it on your phone and. Yeah, because you were out of.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

You were actually out of town.

[Marsha Allen]

We went to Tennessee, Pigeon Forge, because it's mom and Dad's anniversary and they wanted to go and I knew I was gonna get ready to start going to work and they didn't. Couldn't take them along because Dad's getting dementia. So I took them.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Marcia has already lost her husband and she was in that phase of life where you're not sure how much longer your parents are going to be around. Starting to get there myself. It's not a good feeling. She notes that her dad has dementia and it was their anniversary. She's a good daughter. On her parents couch, she scrolls through the camera app. Suddenly there's a ping. Then another. The AI in the app is able to determine that there is a person in view, but no one should be inside her house. She nervously taps the first click and the view of the camera pops up on her phone. The shape slides across the frame. She pinches to zoom. Then another alert. Lands another clip. Cues. Her thumb keeps moving. Save. Save Save. She starts counting and she'll end up with 22 videos by the time this is over. One of them is nearly five minutes long. Obviously she's in a state of panic as she stares at her phone. There are two adult males wearing hoodies and moving towards her safe. And in that longer clip a face suddenly turns towards the camera. She watches more. The timestamps move toward 6 o'. Clock. A door that should be shut swings open and a view shifts down a hall she knows by heart. She studies the intruder's hands and clothing. The face flashes again, making her stomach drop. She recognizes it this time and says the name out loud, her eyes fixed on what she's seeing. She calls the sheriff's office and says where she is and what the app is sending, along with how many clips she has of the break in. She texts and emails what she can and then keeps the live view open to keep watching inside the house, drawers open and shut in one camera angle she sees the safe and catches her breath. She knows the sound that the safe makes when it opens. The live feed hiccups, then streams again. A second figure passes through a doorway. She listens for anything. Footsteps, a scrape, anything. She can tell deputies later. Then around 6pm everything suddenly stops. The stream freezes up and drops. No more alerts, no more clips. She refreshes. Nothing. She switches to another Camera. Nothing. She knows this means someone must have unplugged the router. She stares at the blank screen. The safe is massive. And she thinks about what's inside. Family rings, collectibles. And dozens of firearms kept for years. She starts a list in her head. She writes it down. She tells herself she can pull serial numbers when she gets home. And then she calls the sheriff's office again to make sure they got the videos. She tells her parents she needs to go back early.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay.

[Marsha Allen]

So did you get all the videos I sent you? 22.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I'm not sure if I got 22, but I got a lot of them. I'm not sure that I've been all the way through all of them, but.

[Marsha Allen]

Well, the five minute one shows Steven's face. Full face. And what cracks me up is he looked in the bedroom and he saw the camera. But the other guy distracted him and he forgot all about it.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And you called into the sheriff's department yesterday evening. Okay. And so do you think the other guy's Nathaniel?

[Marsha Allen]

I do. His. I know his voice and it sounds like his voice.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

She only recognizes the voice of one of the suspects, but the other. She saw his face and put a name to it. Stephen White. Deputies find him outside in the driveway at his parents place in Scott County. The officer took Stephen away from the house to a garage where his maroon four door sedan sat. Wearing a gray T shirt and dark sweatpants, Stephen presented as nonchalant, smoking a cigarette and waving his arms as he spoke with an open posture. After having his rights read to him, he gestured for his dog Hank to move along. And then he took off running. Not running with his legs so much as his mouth.

[Detective]

So do you understand your rights?

[Stephen White]

Yes, sir.

[Detective]

Okay, Hank, go on. So you have any idea why we're here today?

[Stephen White]

Well, they said that y' all got me on camera last night burglarizing the place.

[Detective]

Okay. So you and my husband, if that's the case, you know anything about it?

[Stephen White]

No.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Okay.

[Stephen White]

My husband and I stayed up last night till about 4 o' clock in the morning. Watching. Nope. He's off work today. He works at Jimpack. We started the movie a couple weeks ago. Haven't had time to finish it. I personally think I have strep or something. Been running a fever. My tongue is all swollen and sore and my mouth is red and white. So let y' all know that I've been having diarrhea shits all night. Like our kids was school this morning. That was about it. I stood up on the balcony and Said bye to the kids so they don't get sick.

[Detective]

They're at school right now.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Steven may have been sick and his kids may have been at school right now, but that didn't account for earlier that morning. The officer went on to tell him that he and possibly his husband had been positively ID'd in the video.

[Detective]

You know, I've been a police officer for a minute, all right? And one lie always leads to a

[Stephen White]

second lie, second lie, and then a

[Detective]

third lie and a fourth lie, and it's going to make it look a hell of a lot worse, all right?

[Interviewer/Detective]

And.

[Detective]

And it'll save embarrassment whenever I show the video or show the pictures. And you're like, well, you know, what can I say to that?

[Stephen White]

Because I was to see the video,

[Detective]

okay, I do, too, because I got three. I got a picture here.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

So the officer showed him the picture,

[Stephen White]

and I really do not have a hat. I don't even have a hat.

[Detective]

What about the car or the car that you're in there?

[Stephen White]

This is my car. Somebody stole it from me on Sunday night.

[Detective]

And how'd you get it back then?

[Stephen White]

Because I filed a police report and we found it over here. But I had three keys for this and I had my one set of keys in there. The other keys, I'm pretty sure is in my somewhere. Okay, so listen, I have my second.

[Detective]

So listen, I just want you. Want you to know, okay, that there's more than just that picture, all right?

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He went on to explain that the most important thing was to return the stolen items to the owner. And if the owner was happy, Steven might avoid charges.

[Detective]

We either get the stuff back or I think you know, probably what's coming.

[Stephen White]

You just go to the fucking jail and set and rot. You get the stuff back and go to jail and set and rot.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Steven was ready to talk some more. That is.

[Stephen White]

I can smoke another cigarette. I'll explain the whole thing. It is ugly because that lady is the lady who told me to go get the shit. Her name's Marsha Buxton, and she asked me to get that shit because her husband, Harold Allen, passed away in December, okay? And according to her, she needed that life insurance money, but she did not get that life insurance money because the policy was set to go to his brother.

[Detective]

How old is the lady that you're

[Stephen White]

talking about, Marsha Daxton?

[Detective]

50. 50. 51. Does she live there? Yeah.

[Stephen White]

And that house, she got it because whenever she married the man, you know where it's at? Sign? Freetown, I reckon. She gave me an address. She said hey honey, you go up in here. I need to grab someone and go up in here and kind of meet this dude up there. And I did and I went over there. She wanted us to get rid of it. And this woman has hated me for years, but I'm best friends with her daughter.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

She needed the life insurance money. But Harold's death certificate said he died of natural causes. He'd had a heart condition that was getting worse in the weeks before he died. It happened at about 2 in the afternoon on December 20th, the previous year.

[Stephen White]

91 1.

[Marsha Allen]

Yeah, this is 3287 North State Road. 135. My husband's in our bedroom floor. He's non responsive and I need.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay, what's your address again?

[Marsha Allen]

3287 North State Road 135.

[Stephen White]

Okay, how old is it?

[Marsha Allen]

He is 52. He's 52.

[Stephen White]

Sorry.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Did you find him like that?

[Marsha Allen]

Yeah, I worked from home and I went back there to check on him because he had been sick. And then when I went back there, he was just cleaning the floor. Like he was trying to get up and go to the bathroom or something. He's not breathing. Okay.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Do you want to start CPR if I help you?

[Marsha Allen]

Yeah, I could do that.

[Interviewer/Detective]

You just do your CPR and you

[Stephen White]

keep me on speaker, okay?

[Friend/Colleague of Harold]

Yeah.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Mara called for a medical emergency. Her husband was dying or likely already dead. But this was anything but a natural death. Sure, the medical report read cardiovascular disease, calcifying constructive pericarditis. Severe coronary atherosclerosis of the left anterior descending artery. But his death was way more complicated than all of those big complicated, fancy words. It was murder. Someone had murdered Harold Allen.

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[Narrator/Storyteller]

52 year old Marcia Allen was out of town in Gatlinburg, Tennessee with her parents while cameras monitoring her home in Freetown, Indiana started sending alerts about motion inside her house that shouldn't have existed. She saved 22 clips and around 6 o' clock the feed suddenly went dead. She called police, turned the videos over and gave a name. It was someone she recognized, a friend of her daughter Ashley. When officers tracked the burglar down, he gave them far more information than they were ready for, accusing Marsha herself of staging the burglary while she was out of town. He claimed that she directed him to pick up a guy named Richard on that very date and carry out the heist. According to Stephen, she was upset that she didn't receive the life insurance money she was entitled to after her husband died. She was upset that it went to her brother in law instead. Now she was afraid her brother in law was going to take the only inheritance she had left, a safe full of jewelry and expensive guns. So instead she would have her daughter's friend Steven, who already had a criminal History. Steal them, sell them, and give her the proceeds while taking a cut for himself. But the story was growing a bit out of control, as you'll soon learn.

[Stephen White]

She told me, and I already deleted all the messages. Like she asked me to say, I'll give you $3,000. You can go to my house. Gave me the safe code.

[Detective]

Marsha did.

[Stephen White]

Or yes, Marcia did. So you go down there, you can get this. And. And I need it all taken somewhere, please, because his brothers is trying to get into my house and they want to take me to court and take all of his Harold's guns and everything. I said, marsha, I'm a felon. I cannot have guns right now. I'm sick of. I'm really sick. Was on my way to the dumplings because I told her, this is a. I'm part of my friends.

[Detective]

No, you're fine.

[Stephen White]

But I said, listen, I'm not. I got two kids. My husband is schizophrenic, My dad is running from there. We got a lot of going on. I am not about to drive guns across this town. If you have this antique, so be it. I don't want no bullets and no other weapons in my car. And she took everything apart and she said everything exactly where it was supposed to fucking go. And I got what I could get. She told me to go on Monday night and Tuesday night. It sounds to me like she set me up real quick.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Stephen, being the sassy ass bitch that he is, was a felon and couldn't be caught with weapons. Also, he had a lot going on, clearly. A lot of problems, issues, kind of a up life already, it sounds like. But in the same breath, he said he did it anyway.

[Stephen White]

Her exact words. I want this to be removed from the house before I get back from Tennessee and set up my cameras because I need to be able to tell his brothers that all these things were gone because they're mine and I don't want them to try to fight me in court over it. Over an inheritance. You know what?

[Detective]

This was all done. This was all done from text.

[Stephen White]

Yeah, from a text. Now number that she had.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Steven already admitted that Marsha hated him. Apparently she was a racist who didn't like him and blamed him in some way for coming between her and her daughter. Allegedly, that is. So was she setting him up or did she just want the inheritance she. She felt she deserved and knew he could get it for her? Or was it even Marsha that texted him in the first place?

[Detective]

Are you sure that Ashley's not the one that messaged you to go do that.

[Stephen White]

I'm not.

[Detective]

Because. Because the information that we have or that we're getting could be a little bit conflicting on that part. Like Ashley. And if it is Ashley, just tell me.

[Stephen White]

No, I'm not. I'm. I'm really not sure if it's Ashley or Marsha. That's the thing. They've been like this their whole lives.

[Interviewer/Detective]

But do you have your phone? Is it labeled as Ashley if she was to text you?

[Stephen White]

No, not at all.

[Detective]

But the person that text said this is Marcia.

[Stephen White]

Well, she called me on my text now number. Sign in your favor. I said, who is this? And I got a call from a text now number. This has been a couple of months

[Interviewer/Detective]

ago, and then it was supposed to go down on this date.

[Stephen White]

Yes, pretty sure. Because it was TextNow. The call was on TextNow. But to be honest with you, Marsha and Ashley look just alike. Sound just alike, dress just alike. They're the same kind of psychopath.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Now, in case you don't know, TextNow is an app that allows you to text people from an anonymous number. He wasn't sure if it was Marsha or Ashley, but whoever was on the other end of the phone wasn't finished giving orders.

[Stephen White]

And tonight I was supposed to go back and completely do it and swimwear burn the house down. Because apparently when she was young, she burnt her house down in deputy.

[Interviewer/Detective]

She burnt her house down in deputy?

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Yeah.

[Stephen White]

She took her five year old daughter to her grandparents burnt house down in deputy.

[Interviewer/Detective]

But you were supposed to go back

[Narrator/Storyteller]

tonight and burn the house down.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I wasn't cool.

[Stephen White]

I wasn't gonna burn that damn house out. I'm not doing that. I was like, look, I'm not gonna do that. So if you don't burn it down, you need to make it look like you've broken in there and make it look vandalized so I can get the insurance money.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Steven's accusations were getting wild and he wasn't stopping.

[Stephen White]

This woman has hated me for years, but I'm best friends with her daughter.

[Detective]

Okay, what's the daughter's name?

[Stephen White]

Ashley Jones.

[Detective]

Okay, I'm just saying you're being awful truthful with us to be, you know, contradicted by.

[Stephen White]

By this one murderer. Okay, I know that I've not gone to nobody and said anything because I don't have no proof on it. This woman's a psychopath. And I'm telling you guys that right now. Harold Allen was her husband. She set a life insurance policy for him, went and married Him, I don't know when she married him. Because since I've left, I've been away from this woman straight. Came to my house one day and sent. Slapped me across the face and told me at 26 years old and told me if I ever talked to her daughter again that she was gonna kill me. I better watch. You better watch your foot. I was right up there at the house, right how I was like, what the. So was there anybody in her little car? And she dipped off and left.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Well, that was a fun little story. The kind of Lifetime movie someone of Harold's demographic would just eat right up. It's important to state that as far as we know and as far as the police know, Harold Allen died of natural causes. And all this verbosity about murder was just nonsense. What they did know was that this very vocal character was caught in the act of burglarizing Marsha's home on camera. And now he's got a whole lot of stories about what other people did instead. Whataboutism they call it.

[Stephen White]

Marsha's not stupid.

[Detective]

Here's what I do know.

[Stephen White]

Because she done killed her husband and her mother in law and got away with that shit.

[Detective]

So here's what I do know.

[Stephen White]

And if you need. And I do know how that happened.

[Detective]

You need me to ask these guys to go move to like inside or go somewhere else. But what I do know is that we need that stuff back now.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

It was Marsha who not only killed her husband, but also her mother in law as well, Right? If it were only that easy. They recovered the property and interviewed Marsha the next day so detectives could pin down the how and who behind the heist.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I'll tell you that we recovered these rings we made to the rest in this case.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

That would be Steven White. The other guy. Marsha only recognized Stephen because according to Marsha, he was too stupid to cover his face and he ran his mouth the whole time. She recognized the other man's voice and would later learn that he was a longtime friend of Steven's.

[Marsha Allen]

If you could get his phone, I can. I guarantee it's gonna be my daughter who texted him that combination of that safe, so.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And I was gonna ask you a little bit more about that too.

[Marsha Allen]

Three people in the world knew that safe is me, my husband and my daughter.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Only one name was linked to both the family and the suspect, and that was Marsha's daughter, Ashley Jones, a friend of Stephen White. She knew the players, she knew the layout, and she knew the safe's code. Plus she Was smart. Well, relatively. Logic solved the mystery. It was actually no mystery at all. The real mystery was connected to Harold's death. This is the detective who led that case.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

My name's Adam Nicholson, and I have two decades of experience in law enforcement at least. And all that's been right here in Indiana at the Jackson County Sheriff's Department. I've worked, you know, patrol for most of my career, and then in 2019, was promoted to lieutenant. And if the detective division would receive a big case such as this one that we're talking about, then I would step over to kind of help them, guide them with it. And this one just kind of worked out to where I ended up being the lead investigator on it, because we had had another murder within probably six months of this one. So this kind of was up my alley, you know, of what are things I like to do, the putting pieces together, facts, patterns, the human behavior.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Adam remembered that Harold Allen was someone that everyone seemed to like through the,

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

you know, the investigation of talking to family and friends and co workers. I mean, everybody basically said the exact same thing. Like, he was a very caring, loving man. He was a good, good husband. Loved his wife. Everybody at his work, you know, enjoyed being around him, and nobody had any complaints about him at all. And, like, everybody was really just sad for him, you know, like, because they could only imagine what he had been through and. But yeah, no ill words or anything about the guy. He was just. Everybody thought he was super.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

And here's what a friend said about Harold on his memory page.

[Friend/Colleague of Harold]

I'm heartbroken by Harold's passing. He was a wise mentor and very skilled teacher to me. Although he was too humble to admit it. Harold was always giving me advice, both professionally and about life in general. I continue to follow his guidance to this day. He could be rough around the edges, but you'd quickly realize that he was the most kind and most caring person you would ever meet. I find comfort knowing that he found love and met his wife, Marsha, who he spoke often and fondly of. My deepest condolences to you and your family.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Everyone who knew Harold praised him and believed he died of a heart condition. But back in the interview room, the detective was about to rip that apart with Steven's accusations, starting with Marsha's alleged involvement in the burglary.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And this is where it gets interesting. Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and make sure you understand this. Some of this is gonna be accusatory towards you because this is what he said. Okay? So you're not under Arrest. You are free to leave anytime you want. But I just want to make sure you understand that he's accusing you of some stuff, too. So here's what he says, and I may have. It was a lot. So if I get some of it wrong. If I get some of it wrong, I apologize, but. So he says that he received a call from textnow number and he says that it was back in. I think he said, like in May or June, so it'd been a couple months ago. And that basically it was a female on the other side. He thought it was. He said he thought it was you. But I think he may have said something to the fact that you and Ashley sound alike. So it could have been Ashley. And he said that. Basically. Something to the effect. And I could get some of the facts wrong in this, but something. Something to the effect that all these guns. Something about when your. When your husband passed away, that all these guns. Maybe some family members were wanting him or something. Well, what he's saying is basically that you said that you would give him $3,000 to go in the house and take the guns and have him take the guns and take them back to his place.

[Marsha Allen]

He's a liar. I did not do that.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay, then he also said something about. Something about burning down the house.

[Marsha Allen]

What?

[Interviewer/Detective]

Burning down your house?

[Marsha Allen]

He better not.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I don't know. If he was saying he was going to. I would have to go back because I recorded the whole interview.

[Marsha Allen]

Oh, wow.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I have to go back and see exactly what he said because there was a lot that he said.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

He wasn't exaggerating, and she was not prepared for what came next.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I'll tell you what else he said. He accused you of murdering your husband.

[Marsha Allen]

I did not murder my husband.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay. Something to the effect of some kind of. I don't know, some kind of seeds or something. Basically poisoning. Poisoning his drink.

[Marsha Allen]

That would show me a toxicology report if that happened.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Was there an autopsy done?

[Ashley Jones]

Yes.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I wonder if there was an autopsy.

[Marsha Allen]

Autopsy and toxicology. He died because he had pericarditis. That was undetected. Pericarditis. It's the inflammatory. The peri. Heart has pericardum around it, the lining of the heart that protects the heart when it beats. It went undetected, so it went along so long that the pericardium around the heart hardened and it stopped his heart and he had a little bit of blocked arteries. That's an autopsy report.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Okay, well, if that's what the autopsy said. That's what it said. But she Was still being accused of setting up the burglary.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Do you?

Because I don't know. And I haven't been able to talk to her yet. Do you think Ashley would have? I mean. Cause you said that only three the

[Marsha Allen]

bands are worth a lot of money.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Do you think Ashley would have had something to do with this?

[Marsha Allen]

She had to have. She's the only other than me would knew the combination. I would never give it out to anybody ever.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Ashley and her fiance had lived with Marsha and Harold for a while. But now Ashley was living in Missouri. The only way to get to the bottom of this was to call her. At the same time, detectives scoured Stephen White's phone and found some shocking evidence Messages between Ashley and him that confirmed the burglary conspiracy. This is a montage of some of the things Ashley said.

[Friend/Colleague of Harold]

I do have access next week to her home with a lot to steal and sell. It would be as simple as I load the truck, you go sell it. We look for more. Rinse, Repeat. I mean 100k worth of guns.

[Marsha Allen]

LOL.

[Friend/Colleague of Harold]

I already stole my guns to keep. She owes me. I'm about to grab the coins too. I just gotta get her out of the house. He only has AD&D and it will not pay out for natural causes. Only thing they can do is say yeah, you don't get it or where do I send the 200k?

[Marsha Allen]

LOL.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This was enough to bring Ashley in from Missouri for questioning. Meanwhile, detectives had access to Stephen's and Marsh's phones. The case went quiet for a few weeks. What surfaced wasn't another clip or a rumor. It was an online order by Ashley with a shipping label in the family name, Lynn Allen. All pointing to the Freetown address with dates, size and price attached. And the item in the center of those records hinted at a much larger crime. Was Stephen telling the truth? The burglary thread had become a lead. The paper trail pointed back to Harold and to his murder. When Marsha returned on October 16, the first question was the order. Who bought it, where was it shipped? And what phone number was on it? The detective shows her the paperwork.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So it was ordered through a place that was called KimBoys LLC.

[Narrator/Advertiser]

What's that?

[Interviewer/Detective]

It's some company. Like what was ordered from Said the order source was Peach Pay. So it was paid through Peach Pay. Do you have a Peach Pay account or anything?

[Marsha Allen]

I don't know what Peach Pay is.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Even though the order was sent to Lynn Allen, the address is Marcia's.

[Interviewer/Detective]

See what I'm talking about? Where it Says it's billing. The Lynn Allen is.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That's your address, right?

[Interviewer/Detective]

3287 State Road 130. Says shipping. Lynn Allen. And your address again, the phone number is associated with it. 812-521-2671. Is that Ashley's number?

[Marsha Allen]

I don't know.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The next day, they sat face to face with Marsha's daughter Ashley. While Marsha was fairly animated. Facial expressions, a tone of voice that suggested disbelief or curiosity. Ashley was extremely subdued and poised, almost quietly defiant.

[Interviewer/Detective]

We're not going to talk to you about the murders, okay?

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

That's not what we're here to talk about.

[Interviewer/Detective]

We actually. We talked to your mom yesterday for four or five hours. We had to talk to her about some things. She answered some questions for us. So we were going to talk to you about some of that. Okay, before we do that, I. I am going to read you your rights because you're in custody. Make sure you understand that A lot of what we talked about was about the death of Harold. We have some text messages from your mom's phone. She can send it to a download. And there was some text messages on there that we had some concern about the meaning of those text messages. We have an order where some ethylene glycol was ordered on December 13th. I think it was December 13th. December 14th, ethylene glycol arrived at the address of your mom's out in Freetown. 3287 North State Road 135. On December 19th. On December 20th, your Harold ended up passing away. Do you know anything about the ethylene glycol?

No, sir.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Ah, ethylene glycol. Otherwise known as antifreeze. It's a sweet tasting substance that you can sneak into your hubby's drink. And the best part is he won't even notice until he's dead. I guess he won't notice when he's dead either. In any case, it's the murder weapon of choice for those who don't like guns. You know women for the most part. The detective had screenshots of the ethylene glycol order being sent to that address under the name Lynn Allen. This was Marsha's middle and last name. They also had messages from Ashley to her mother asking for money for this particular order. According to Marsha, she knew nothing about was Christmas time. Ashley, her fiance, who was also named Ashley, and the kids were all living there and packages were just flooding in. Who can keep track?

[Marsha Allen]

At least 10 packages a day came

[Interviewer/Detective]

in that I Understand. But there was only one thing of ethylene bike all the time.

[Stephen White]

Right.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Well, there's a lot of packages that probably come at Christmas time.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

I get that.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I mean, we do the same thing I did. I'd rather shop online than go to a busy store, but. But I would remember a thing of Ethel and Geico coming to my house if I got it. The day that it does come, which is the 19th, and we know what day it was delivered. The tracking number, there's a message from Ashley saying, we have it delivered.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The focus closed in on mother and daughter. One bought the poison and used it on Harold. Did the other know? Did the other help?

[Interviewer/Detective]

So, you know, and part of this stems from also from, you know, talking to somebody who gave us some information and saying that Harold. The information we got was Harold did not die of natural causes. Basically that he was poisoned.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Really?

[Interviewer/Detective]

Yes. So when we follow up on that and we get these. Your mom consents to phone download, and we get all these text messages and we start going through these text messages, and it's between you and your mom, right? And like I said, one of the things, just one, there's a lot of them. One of them is on December 13, December 14. Around that time frame, ethylene glycol was ordered, I think you texted to your mom, if I remember correctly. And that tracking number matches the same tracking number that he was our other detective was able to get of the ethylene glycol that arrived at the house on December 19th. Information we received was that there was root beer floats that were made is put into the root beer float and that herald drinks it. And obviously the end result was that he died.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Marsha denied having any involvement in the poisoning. She denied everything. While her own daughter continued to point the finger at her in her calm, unbothered tone of voice.

[Interviewer/Detective]

If you know that your mom did something that she probably really shouldn't have done, I mean, your mom told us quite a bit yesterday. So you know that actually, I mean, do you think your mom's capable of

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

doing something like that?

[Ashley Jones]

I mean, I don't know that she did, but, I mean, she's capable of whatever. She's very intelligent.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

If Marsha was intelligent, Ashley was a genius. I'm being somewhat facetious here. Detectives had already confirmed that Marsha had nothing to do with the burglary. Ashley felt cheated out of her share of Harold's life insurance, and she was going to recoup in whatever way she could. Still, detectives pressed on with Marsha.

[Interviewer/Detective]

This is a word and the same

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

day that this is delivered, there's ruber floats.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And then the very next day, Harold's dead.

[Marsha Allen]

I did not kill him.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Who did?

[Marsha Allen]

As far as I know, he has heart condition. Dead.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay, let's we get the results back.

[Marsha Allen]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And it says there's ethylene glycol in his system. How did that get there? If you didn't do it, you didn't know anything about it. How did that happen?

[Marsha Allen]

We both made the root beer floats, so I did not put anything in anyone's drink. I didn't even know we had anything like that there.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Was there ever chance when Ashley could have put something in there?

[Marsha Allen]

I have no idea.

[Ashley Jones]

She. She literally.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Did you watch her? So did you?

[Marsha Allen]

No, I did not watch her.

[Interviewer/Detective]

That's what I'm asking.

[Marsha Allen]

I did not watch her the whole time. No, I did not.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Marsha was aware that Ashley was growing marijuana in the house. Okay, no big deal in 2026, I guess. But that wasn't the only botany Ashley was experimenting with. She was also into all sorts of new age domestic white woman horseshit. Like saging and cleansing, amulets and crystals, demons and things that would attach themselves to people. Even convincing Marcia that something evil had attached itself to Harold. Not because he was unkind, abusive or controlling, but because he was sick a lot. Surely that meant he had some sort of demon attached to him. And it was no wonder Harold was sick a lot. He did have a heart condition, after all. But was it natural? Or was it because he was slowly being poisoned? From the time Ashley temporarily moved in months before his death, Marsha remembered Ashley asking strange questions about poison plants under the umbrella of good parenting. According to Ashley, she wanted to know which poisonous plants surrounded the house. You know, so she could tell her little girl what to avoid.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So looking back on all that, ask

[Marsha Allen]

me stuff like what plant should I. I watch out for her because Violet's outside plant. I don't want her to get hurt if she tries to eat something because Violet sticks everything in her mouth still.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So say that again. She would say, like, I want to

[Marsha Allen]

know what the poisonous plants were around the region. So she would make sure Violet didn't get into it and stuff. Violet has an autoimmune problem since she was a pre. Means her kidneys didn't develop properly. And if Violet gets around certain things, she gets sick or she breaks out and has it. And she can't have emergency doses of steroids because her body doesn't produce the response to fight things.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Had she ever gotten into anything like that before.

[Marsha Allen]

She has, and she had at her er. She ended up on steroids.

[Stephen White]

Hmm.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Foxglove seeds. Is she a witch? Does she float? I'm starting to think the Salem witch trials weren't such a bad idea. The foxglove plant is native to North America and grows in shady, damp areas. If ingested, it causes dangerous heart arrhythmias and can lead to death.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Foxglove? Seems it's talked about.

[Ashley Jones]

Yeah, she asked me about that crap all the time.

[Marsha Allen]

Of course I never thought about it.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

But maybe she did think about it

[Interviewer/Detective]

when he went to the hospital. Because he went to the hospital twice, I think.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Yeah, maybe once or twice.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Face was numb.

[Stephen White]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Bleeding. Anal bleeding, actually. I think diarrhea, all that kind of stuff.

[Ashley Jones]

She told me just have the trooping face and throw it out.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Well, same thing. You know, they take. They did a blood draw. Is there any.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Is there. Is.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Is there going to be a good chance that that blood is going to have foxglove in it?

[Ashley Jones]

Probably so, yeah.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Okay.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Why do you think for sure? And just be honest. Again, just be honest.

[Ashley Jones]

Because she was ordering plants.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Fossil plants.

[Ashley Jones]

I think so. I know that she tried to get ahold of some mugwort, which I didn't know what that was.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Okay, tell me about the foxglove and where it was ordered from.

[Ashley Jones]

I think that she found some on Etsy.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This was Marsha's response.

[Interviewer/Detective]

You said, I need foxglove seeds. And she says, I think. Or you said, I think I can get them at Walmart.

[Marsha Allen]

They're pretty flowers.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And then she said, thank you. We are watching a new movie on Netflix with the kids and those are traceable.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

The entire foxglove plant is poisonous. So it could have been easy enough to believe that Marsha wanted seeds to plant because of the pretty flowers. Still, when Ashley followed up in a message saying the those are traceable, detectives knew this was bigger than they originally thought. The rest of the messages gave plenty of clues, but that was just it. They were clues. What became clear was that Harold had been sick for weeks and the reason was becoming apparent. Neither Marsha nor Ashley seemed to care about his misery either. All they cared about was their own Marsha messages Ashley saying she's irritated and she can't sleep. She needs for this to be over. She says it's hanging on by threats. It's so long. Cause he's big. Meaning something is taking too long because of his size and weight. Marsha and Ashley often referred to Harold as. As it, by the way. So that gives you A clue. Another character, Ashley answers, Marcia. It moves slow and has to build. Marcia then says she wished it would quote reach its climax and be done. Lol. He's snoring on and off and if he moved around it would go faster. End quote. Then Ashley responds yes, if he got moving it would be faster but we know he won't. Marsha went on to explain that Harold's stomach was hurting but his face was better. Yet he wasn't presenting like the stories, just vomiting and diarrhea. Ashley answers, we also have God knows how many that aren't reported or know how it grows. Only the stories of the self inflicted and we will see if not we will do something else but I think it's slowly doing it. The detectives were shocked by what they found and when they questioned Marsha, she had an explanation for everything, even if it didn't make sense. Ashley on the other hand, just kept pointing the finger at her own mother, even though they were clearly both involved. Probably the most shocking thing of all was the possibility that this wasn't the first time one of them had poisoned someone. Ashley was currently engaged to a woman and her previous partner was also a woman. But the father of her only child was a man. Well obviously. Cause you know biology. Anyway, guess what? He died in his early 30s from a supposed stroke. His name was Ty. Now ain't that a coinky dink. And then you wonder why people can't find a date in 2026.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So there's something and it's something along the lines like talking about how much he weighs and it's taking longer because he weighs a certain amount and ties drawn it up and how much tie weighed and you said love you too. I just want it done.

[Ashley Jones]

Lol.

[Interviewer/Detective]

She said me too like beyond over. Laugh out loud but we got it. You said like what's taking so long? He's off balance. Said he had trouble getting out of the car. She said the wait. It takes 12 hours for a woman at 180 to fill anything. You do the math. Laugh out loud, it's slow and previously ty was only 120 lol. So what's the weight? You said so it's going to take a while. She said 48 max. We will know. Also he's high still. I gave him a lot of weed butter.

[Ashley Jones]

Yeah she made brownies.

[Interviewer/Detective]

You don't know what he has because of that lol. Could be nausea happening and everything. Said about how loud he's making me mad.

[Ashley Jones]

He gets stupid when he's high in

[Narrator/Storyteller]

case you didn't hear? Marsha says he gets stupid when he's high. So it looked like Marcia and Ashley were slowly poisoning Harold and they couldn't really track his so called symptoms because they were giving him weed infused food to help with the pain and nausea. How kind. But then she mocks him for being stupidly high while Marsha deflected, played dumb and spun the texts in her favor with detectives. For hours, Ashley very simply maintained that this was all her mother's doing.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I mean, I'm just going to kind of get to the punch, okay? I mean we, I mean, we know what happened to Harold. We've got evidence of that.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Your mom come in yesterday, she told us a lot.

[Interviewer/Detective]

We got months and months and months of text messages from your mom's phone. And I mean, it's obvious that something happened to him. And I mean, basically now is your chance to tell us what you know about what happened there. Because I mean, like I said, these text messages, the order where this stuff came from, the confirmation numbers, I think

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

at some point she probably dragged you

[Interviewer/Detective]

into something that you didn't want to be in or there was something to do with those demons or something, you know, with that. But we just want to know the truth. I mean, what's your rela. Is your relationship with your mom good?

[Ashley Jones]

Yes and no. I kind of just put up with what she does. She's always trying to drag me into whatever she gets into and she's always

[Interviewer/Detective]

trying to drag me into stuff.

[Ashley Jones]

You see, anytime I get any type of financial gain on my own, you know, like how I sold my house, she wants it.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

This was a complete lie told by someone who had taken a large amount of money from her mother not once, but twice.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I can't imagine what you feel being

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

betrayed by your daughter.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And I can't imagine what it would feel like if I knew my kid had done something, you know, but at this, you know, at this point, I mean, there is so much

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

content there and I would almost call it evidence.

[Interviewer/Detective]

And like you said, we didn't go into detail in there what we make of those messages. I mean, we have more than just the messages. We have some of the results in the hospital, when he went to the hospital back in November, and the symptoms that he was experiencing, which, mind you, is the same day that you or within the same time frame on the

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

same exact day that the fox gloves

[Interviewer/Detective]

are mentioned, and the symptoms of foxgloves, what happens is the bleeding and the stomach and the face that you guys are talking about and Then one thing

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

that he didn't get to all the way down was on the 19th, whenever the.

[Interviewer/Detective]

The ethylene glycol gets there is the conversations then. But, you know, like, it's there. Then there were some pictures, you know,

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

like I said, the root beer and things like that.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Detectives gave Marsha every opportunity to point the finger back at Ashley or just come clean, but she refused.

[Interviewer/Detective]

I'm not going to be shocked at this point.

To be shocked, you would have to not believe any of the messages between you and Ashley to be shocked that it wouldn't be in this system or you wouldn't believe any of the stuff on the Google search that was never Google.

I mean, and what Stephen tells us, I mean, he says root beer float. And that's what we find, right? You know, not long after ethylene glycol is ordered, sent to your house. And the name that's addressed to is when Allen, but your middle name is Lynn, and it's your address. And so, I mean, we. I know you are. We've already told you all this and you already know all this, but that's why we're where we're at.

I mean, I mean, and I know you're smart.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

I mean, like you say, you already.

[Interviewer/Detective]

You know how this looks. I mean, this stuff doesn't look good. And then to have this on top of it. And I mean, there. There was enough. The, you know, the courts and judge and prosecutor, you know, have issued warrants for the. For the phones.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

And during the interviews, detectives went back to the phone copy. They saw gaps. Marcia had deleted a lot of texts. This is Detective Adam Nicholson again.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

And after she submitted to the phone downloaders or consented, she actually deleted the messages in the interview room between her and Ashley because Clint had to step out of the interview room for a second and grab the consent form for her to sign. So. And he couldn't, like, take her phone with him because, you know, she hadn't. She hadn't signed it yet, but she had consented. And while he's gone, she's going through her phone, she's deleting things. She told him that she was just deleting, like, pictures from her security camera, like, of her in the house or, you know, where she was, like, in her underwear and stuff. And she didn't necessarily want us to see that, which was understandable, you know, but when she gave us the phone, I thought, there's no way that there's anything on that phone. She. There's no way she would have gave it to us. So I think that she thought by deleting those messages that she was probably free and clear. And then she didn't hear back from us until October. That was September 20th. We showed up early in the morning on the 16th of October, this would have been 2023. And we had search warrants for her house, for all electronic devices like laptops, computers, old cell phones, memory sticks or flash drives, hard drives, things like that. She didn't know we were coming until we knocked on the door. Yeah, we knocked on the door early in the morning. She had just got out of bed. It appeared she was, like, in her still, like, pj' and you could tell then she was shocked. And I read the warrants to her, and the warrant actually mentions, like, to seize the property for evidence of murder, for the crime of murder. And I remember, like, her face is like, you know, if you. If you watch that video. Yeah, you can tell, like, she knows then, like. And she agreed. So she, me and Clint took her back to the sheriff's department while the other officers and detectives completed the search warrant. And so I think that was probably her first moment of, like, knowing, like, yeah, they. There's. There's. They know something.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

They knew. Ashley and her mother had discussed how long it would stay in someone's body, how no one would notice, and how to make it ready for use by saying, I need something that crushes this into powder. They also had testimony of Ashley's partner recalling that Ashley was grinding up something she put in Harold's brownies, throwing the grinder away afterwards, and telling her lover not to say anything about it. On October 17, Ashley interviewed with detectives from jail after being arrested for the burglary. They were surprised she said anything at all, because when they picked her up in Missouri for the burglary, she immediately asked for an attorney.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

I'm proud of Detective Burcham and the job he did and myself. And, you know, it was just one of those, though, that couldn't be at our best because our hands were tied. You know, like, we. We knew with Marcia because we were told. The prosecutor told us if we didn't get a confession, we couldn't arrest her. I mean, we kind of went in, you know, like, I wanted to know that if. If she told me to, you know, go screw off, that, you know, I could arrest her. But I didn't have that in my back pocket, you know, so I had to sit there and play dumb, play nice, you know, try to go along with what she was saying, try to act like I was believing. I mean, because if I. The moment I started pushing on her, she got very upset. And I could tell that she was close to probably saying, you know, like, I want an attorney. And if she would have said, you know, I want an attorney, then game over. That's the law, and we respect that. You can't. You can't keep questioning somebody once they say that. So we had to be very, very careful on how we approach that interview. You know, knowing how hard it is and having it happen to me before, like, how easy it is for somebody to say, I want an attorney. Like, you're done. And we had already been told, like, you can't arrest her if she doesn't confess. So we didn't get her arrested. And it was the same thing with Ashley, except we already had that experience with Ashley once, because she was. When she got arrested in Missouri, me and Clint Bertram, the detective, had also went out there, and they brought her back to their sheriff's department. We went in to talk to her just about the burglary, not about the murder at all. Like, we were just there to talk about the burglary and didn't want her to even know that we knew about the murder. And she requested an attorney. Like, almost immediately, they said, you know, she wanted an attorney. So when she got brought back to Jackson county, you know, we. We had hopes, but they weren't very high like we thought. You know, as soon as we go in there and tell her, you know, hey, we don't want to talk to you about the burglary. We don't. We can't talk to you about that. You request an attorney, but we want to talk to you about the death of Harold. Like, I thought 100% she was going to say, I don't want to talk to you. But she did.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

During that interview, Ashley talked, but her words mainly implicated her mother, which was no surprise. But the detectives had an unfortunate surprise for her.

[Detective/Police Officer]

So I'm here to talk to you about something completely different.

[Marsha Allen]

Okay.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Right.

[Detective/Police Officer]

It's not gonna be an easy conversation.

[Stephen White]

Okay.

[Detective/Police Officer]

After your mom was here yesterday and spoke with us, we got a call to go check on her welfare at her home, and she's passed away.

[Marsha Allen]

What?

[Detective/Police Officer]

She passed away.

[Stephen White]

What happened?

[Detective/Police Officer]

Without going into a lot of detail, she can't tell. She appeared that there was something ingested, possibly, and passed away.

[Ashley Jones]

You're serious?

[Detective/Police Officer]

I'm 100% serious, yes.

[Ashley Jones]

She killed herself.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That is what we.

[Ashley Jones]

The way you think this would.

[Detective/Police Officer]

That's what we believe happened yet. Yes, I'm in shock.

[Marsha Allen]

I'm sorry.

[Stephen White]

I'm sorry.

[Interviewer/Detective]

No, please.

[Detective/Police Officer]

There's nothing to apologize for. I felt it was necessary to let you know that I'm very, very sorry for your loss.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

In hours of tape, Ashley stayed flat, measured, careful, clinical. Almost. The only crack comes when detectives tell her Marsha, her mother is dead. That's when the mask suddenly slips. Her voice wobbles, her breath catches, and for one minute the room feels human again. It's a strange tragedy, mother and daughter so tightly bound together that they eliminate the person they feel is getting in the way. Harold they talked of plans to sell the place and move in together. But then the pressure begins mounting. Marsha knows that Ashley will likely be in prison for a very long time and they're coming for her next, so she takes an easy exit. If her daughter could betray her so easily, she would do the same. What Marcia couldn't have known was what Ashley would do next.

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[Interviewer/Detective]

Foreign.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Harold Allen died at home in Freetown, Indiana on December 20, 2022, five days before Christmas. His death was first certified as natural. Months later, a September 19, 2023, burglary at the same house drew detectives back. Marcia Allen, Harold's wife, had been out of town when home cameras captured Stephen White, who was happy to spill all the tea in the world. With plenty of dramatic flair, I might add. And phone messages tied the break in to Marsha's daughter and friend of Steven Ashley Jones. Detectives then shifted from burglary to death. Records showed an online order shipped under the family name to the Freetown address. And interviews on October 16th and 17th, 2023, focused on whether that chemical Ended up in Harold's drink, a root beer float. Marsha had denied the order. Ashley had pointed to Marsha. But soon evidence tied them both to the murder. Just before detectives would have arrested Marsha, they found her at home, dead in her bed of suicide. As for Harold, toxicology later reported ethylene glycol, and the death certificate was amended. Review of Marsha and Ashley's text messages alluded to an even bigger mystery. Was this Ashley's first attempt at poisoning? Detectives found it beyond strange that. Get this, Ashley's ex husband also died of supposed heart conditions or a stroke. Hmm, suspicious, wouldn't you say? He died at a very young age, just days after he received an inheritance. Could that be a coincidence? Ashley Jones was arrested and charged in October of 2023 with murder, conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder, and burglary tied to Harold Allen's death and the September 2023 break in. She later pleaded guilty in 2025 to level one felony conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder, and was sentenced to 50 years in Jackson Circuit Court. But Ashley, being the wonderful, well adjusted human that she was, wasn't finished getting rid of people. After only a few months of incarceration, she hatched a plan. It involved a jailmate named Anita. Detective Nicholson just happened to know Anita.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

You know, I worked in the jail for like five years prior to becoming a deputy in 2005. So from 2000 to 2005, I was a jail officer. So I'm familiar with a lot of the inmates. You know, they're in and out. And, you know, this case had been in the news a few times. So I'm sure that Anita probably knew that I was the officer that was working it. And she reached out to a jail officer to let her know that she wanted to talk to me. I actually knew that Anita was going to be getting released pretty soon. She wasn't on, like, any real serious charges. And Anita and Ashley were in that cell together. Well, word traveled pretty quick when Anita came in because Ashley had already been in jail and. And when Anita came in, word traveled pretty quick about who she was and who her connections were. And there's a. I hate to even call it a gang because it's really not a gang. And if they were a gang, they're not into like, killing people. It's not that kind of gang. But I think Ashley started, you know, seeing things like she's never been in jail. She didn't, she didn't know, you know, Anita, she didn't know what this gang was about. And she just heard the word gang and thought, why could, you know, sweet talk her and, you know, befriend her and in jail here and then get her to have these people that she's friends with in this gang go and kill the people that are mentioned in my case and gonna testify against me.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Yep, she was gonna have someone in this so called gang go and kill them all.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

She basically wrote a letter that was gonna go out in Anita's mail. And she gave, you know, Anita the letter to put in with her mail. And instead of sealing it, Anita took that part of the letter out and hid it and then waited until she could see me. And she provided me with the letter that Ashley wrote. And it was the letter that she wrote to so called hitman, you know, that she thought was a hitman and that tried was wanting him to go all the way to Massachusetts and kill her fiance and kill Stephen and Nathan that were in jail. Then there was some other people, and I can't remember exactly who else, but yeah, she was just trying to. To get people taken out before they'd have a chance to testify on her.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

If you thought the text between Marsha and Ashley were cryptic, wait until you hear about this hit letter. She pretended it was a list of people she wanted prayers for. A prayer list. How spiritual of her.

[Friend/Colleague of Harold]

A lot of things have been on my heart and mind, but I feel the best way to overcome and be set free from it is some prayer. I would like the following people to be added to the prayer list as soon as possible. Have the church lift these people as high as can be to the Lord so everyone may find rest in peace.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

She then lists out all the people with their first, middle and last names, as well as exact locations and what they had done to her, saying that prayer knows no bounds. I mean, you gotta give God GPS coordinates for each person you're praying for. Right? Here's just a snippet of the inmate's

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

interview that I wanted you to know

[Interviewer/Detective]

that we heard or that we thought we heard. I just want to make sure that there was a high powered rifle mentioned

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

and maybe two shots to the neck.

[Ashley Jones]

Okay.

[Marsha Allen]

Right here.

[Ashley Jones]

She said your people get guns, scopes, high powered rifle

[Marsha Allen]

right here.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Severs every nerve and kills you instantly.

[Ashley Jones]

Right here.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Okay.

[Marsha Allen]

All right.

[Interviewer/Detective]

So that's how she was wanting these people to take them out.

[Ashley Jones]

Ashley specifically.

[Detective/Police Officer]

Okay.

[Ashley Jones]

Right here and right here. Okay.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

She points to the base of her skull and to her forehead, saying, those are the two places Ashley said would cause instant death when struck with a Bullet.

[Interviewer/Detective]

Who was she wanting her to shoot?

[Detective/Police Officer]

Ashley Nedez.

[Ashley Jones]

And she just to take out the little girl.

[Detective/Police Officer]

And then you guys heard that.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

And I don't know if you guys heard that Ashley told Anita to take out Ashley, her fiance and her fiance's little girl. That would be the same little girl who lived with both Ashleys. You see, Ashley Jones hated. Hated her fiance's little girl. So why not take her out, too, while you're at it? In some of the text messages with Marcia, Ashley said, let her starve. I hate the kid. She just sits and just does nothing, looking fat, ugly, and stupid. Remember when they used to make fun of family values and the bigots that promoted them? Ah, those were the days. Let's all just hope Ashley sits in prison for the next 50 years doing nothing but looking fat, ugly, and stupid. In the meantime, Detective Adam Nicholson is writing a book on this murder. And who knows? If he digs harder, he might find even more bodies full of poison left in Ashley's wake. There's already speculation that she may have killed her ex husband as well. Yeah, he's dead. Detective Nicholson told Swordscale that this was one of the most bizarre cases he'd ever been involved with.

[Detective Adam Nicholson]

Or that there wouldn't have even been. There wouldn't have even been a murder case at all. Like, we would have never found out. Like, if it wouldn't have been for Ashley's greed and if Ashley wouldn't have, you know, had to have set up this burglary at her mom's house. And Steven getting caught and we. So what led me to Stephen was the burglary. It was Ashley's greed. Ashley wanted this burglary to take place, and she trusted that Stephen would do it. She had no idea her mom had installed a security system. And you know, Marsha would have never reported the burglary had she known that Stephen knew about the murder. If she knew that Stephen had been told by Ashley about the murder, there's no way that Marsha would have called in on Stephen and turned him in.

[Narrator/Storyteller]

Ashley's genius knew no bounds. The strong, independent woman that she was. Her master plan from inside the prison? Hire total strangers to cross state lines and kill people for her for free. Smart. Real smart. You know what else is smart? Ordering your murder weapons off Amazon. You know what else is smart? Telling your flamboyant and loudmouthed gay friend that you and your mom murdered someone. You know what else is smart? Staging a fake robbery with that same friend who can't stop talking to steal from your own mother and murder accomplice because you're a greedy, narcissistic and self centered piece of shit. How's that saying go again? There is no honor amongst cold hearted cunts. I forget. Oh, and before some Karen out there sends me an angry email lecturing me and calling me a sexist for using that forbidden word, realize that words are meant to describe the universe we perceive around us so we can effectively communicate. Even the four letter ones. And I can't think of a better word to describe Ashley. She's what that word was made for. Hope you like that. And by the way, last week we put up a video explaining how I fucked up all the pricing for Sword and scale television. Well, YouTube demonetized us, so there's only one place on earth you can find Sword and Scale Television now, and that's sword and scale.com or our app. And we lowered pricing to $10 to get access to it. Which means that you can now get the audio only version of Sword and Scale, the podcast on Apple Podcasts for just eight bucks. How do you like them apples?