Killer Story | 2. Why a Nurse?

Summary

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The Binge Cases: Killer Story

Episode 2: Why a Nurse?
Sony Music Entertainment — February 9, 2026

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Overview

This episode dives into why veteran TV journalist Lyndall Marks became obsessed with finding justice for Sabrina Kidd—a teenage girl who went missing and was later found dead in 1987. As Lyndall’s professional journey takes her from hard news to tabloid journalism, listeners discover how her own traumatic experiences fuel her quest for answers in Sabrina’s cold case. The episode weaves together personal history, newsroom politics, and the first big clue in Sabrina’s disappearance: the visit from a mysterious nurse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The State of the Cold Case

• Authorities recover an unidentified young woman’s body (later determined to be Sabrina Kidd) from a river in Arizona in 1987.
• Medical examiner describes preservation techniques: hands are removed to collect fingerprints for identification, but no matches are found.
• Authorities treat the case as just another body—no family steps forward, so the system moves on.

Memorable Quote:
"An unidentified body has no name, no history, no touch points with the world, with one exception: the system that processes the dead."
— Narrator (Steve Fishman), [01:14]

• Early suspicion lingers: Did Sabrina drown? The autopsy reveals otherwise; her lungs are dry, suggesting “something else happened.”
  Notable forensic detail:
  "She didn’t... she had dry lungs. Her irises were occluded."
  — Medical Examiner, [02:56]

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2. Lyndall Marks: Ambition and Transition to Tabloid TV

• Lyndall’s background: Fast-rising journalist, had worked at Australia’s “60 Minutes” and later at CBS’s respected “60 Minutes” in the US.
• Despite prestige, Lyndall laments being behind the scenes and seeks an on-camera role.
• She is recruited away by “A Current Affair,” a tabloid news show, trading respectability for the promise of visibility, higher pay, and adrenaline.

Quotes:
"It was a wonderful, welcoming, warm, sophisticated, civilized center for the best journalism I’ve ever experienced."
— Lyndall Marks on '60 Minutes', [08:34]

"There was a lot of angst, sure there was."
— Lyndall Marks, reflecting on the career leap, [11:30]

"It's a zoo. It's a crazy ass zoo. And I thought, have I made a huge mistake? Is this going to be not my people? Is this not going to be my world?”
— Lyndall Marks, [12:56]

• The chaotic newsroom culture is described as a “madhouse… vying for stories,” with little regard for traditional journalistic guardrails.

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3. Personal Trauma: Lyndall’s Dark Motivation

• Lyndall’s attachment to Sabrina’s case is rooted in a trauma she rarely speaks about: As a university student, she was brutally assaulted by an ex-boyfriend.
• The account is visceral: He pinned their drama professor, then turned to Lyndall and punched her repeatedly, smashing her nose and leaving her unrecognizable.

Memorable Moments:
"He literally full fist punches me in the face. Couple of times right on the bridge of my nose."
— Lyndall Marks, [19:00]

• After reconstructive surgery and immense emotional pain, Lyndall describes a pivotal hospital encounter with a compassionate doctor, who tells her,
  "You are not a victim. Don’t let this shape who you are."
  — Lyndall Marks, [22:31]

• She channels her pain into purpose:
  "I decided... I’m going to give a voice to people whose lives can take a turn they never had any say in. That’s not fair."
  — Lyndall Marks, [23:18]

• The attack’s aftermath led to distrust of men and an obsessive focus on her work, but also forged a deep empathy for “the defenseless”—like Sabrina.

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4. The Newsroom Partnership & Pivot to Personal Stories

• Lyndall is persistent despite her editor Dan’s resistance to the story, who sees the case as a dead end:
  "Teenager who went missing in Las Vegas four years earlier. Hard. No."
  — Narrator paraphrasing Dan, [25:59]

• Yet, Dan acknowledges Lyndall’s tenacity:
  "Whereas Lyndall had almost 100%. If she went out on story, she came back with a story, whatever the assignment."
  — Dan, [27:57]

• Their working relationship blossoms into romance, providing Lyndall with both professional support and personal companionship.

• Despite Dan's continued skepticism about the newsworthiness of Sabrina’s case, Lyndall uses her relationship to push for a trip to Vegas—a possible workaround.

Quotes:
"I had one thing going for me. I could get his ear privately on the pillow, and I use that."
— Lyndall Marks, [33:27]

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5. Crack in the Cold Case: The Nurse Clue

• To justify a Vegas trip, Lyndall pitches a sensational “showgirl” story, but her real motivation is to pursue Sabrina’s cold case on the side.
• Meets Sabrina’s friends, Jennifer and Crystal, the first people to take Sabrina's disappearance seriously.

Insight from Friends:
"We had to go downtown... sat in this white room... they asked questions... signed the report, and nothing came of that."
— Jennifer/Crystal, [36:00]

• The crucial breakthrough: Jennifer remembers Sabrina mentioned a nurse visit shortly before she vanished.
• Lyndall’s instincts flare—this visit, brief and unexplained, is highly suspicious since Sabrina was reportedly not sick.

Quotable Moment:
"She said a nurse came and she didn't stay very long. She just did a physical. And then I'm thinking... what? Wait, what?"
— Lyndall Marks, [37:36]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (Chronological with Timestamps)

• On Prestige vs. Tabloid:
  "You literally had to pick up a phone and say, Hi, I'm from CBS 60 Minutes and was like, whoa. You had credibility."
  — Lyndall Marks, [08:54]

• On Chaos at A Current Affair:
  "It’s a zoo. It’s a crazy ass zoo. And I thought, have I made a huge mistake? Is this going to be not my people? Is this not going to be my world?"
  — Lyndall Marks, [12:56]

• On Trauma and Purpose:
  "I am going to give a voice to people whose lives were—can take a turn that they never had any say in. That is not fair."
  — Lyndall Marks, [23:18]

• On Pushing for the Story Despite Resistance:
  "Screw it. I need to do this story. I really feel something’s wrong. Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to this kid."
  — Lyndall Marks, [27:28]

• On Newsroom Partnership & Relationship:
  "I just, honestly, didn’t think I was someone that guys wanted to be with. I was the career girl, and I was the career girl by choice. And that choice was made back when I was attacked."
  — Lyndall Marks, [32:23]

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [01:14] – The process of identifying unidentified bodies
• [07:51] – Lyndall’s background in journalism
• [19:00] – Lyndall’s personal trauma, brutal assault recounted in detail
• [23:40] – How the attack impacts Lyndall’s drive and professional ambitions
• [27:28] – Lyndall resolves to pursue the story despite limited evidence
• [33:27] – Lyndall’s relationship with Dan and how it aids (and challenges) her pursuit
• [36:00] – Interview with Sabrina’s friends, highlighting the police’s disinterest
• [37:36] – Revelation about the nurse’s brief, strange visit before Sabrina disappeared

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Central Takeaways

• Lyndall Marks’ drive to solve Sabrina Kidd’s case—and to fight for the voiceless—comes from her own experience with violence, shame, and disempowerment.
• The episode explores the tension between evidence and gut feeling in investigative journalism, as Lyndall goes against editorial reluctance to chase a story no one seems to care about.
• The key clue—a nurse’s mysterious visit—shifts the investigation, introducing a new suspect or angle and setting up the stakes for the next episode.

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Tone & Style

The episode balances journalistic rigor with tabloid pacing, alternating between hard-nosed newsroom banter and deeply personal, emotional confessionals. Lyndall’s Australian humor and candor, Dan’s New York bluntness, and the show’s investigative style keep the narrative urgent, raw, and accessible.

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End of summary.

Transcript

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Listen to all episodes of Killer Story ad free right now by subscribing to the binge. Visit the binge channel on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page or visit getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. The Binge feed your true crime obsession.

[Lyndall Marks]

The binge.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Previously on Killer's Story.

[Lyndall Marks]

And I'm sitting there one day and the phone rings and I pick it up, and this woman tells me that her niece is missing.

[Dan (News Editor)]

And I said, we don't do missing persons.

[Lyndall Marks]

I'm thinking, there is something going on here. This just doesn't sound right.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

We waited 24 hours and then we went to the police. We said, she's missing. Something happened. They just didn't believe us.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

An unidentified body has no name, no. No history, no touch points with the world, with one exception, the system that processes the dead.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

It was September of 1987. These boaters saw this body floating in the river and pulled her into Arizona's side of the water and then called the sheriffs.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

This body was Sabrina, though at the moment it was unidentified and unclaimed. A cold body drifting into the hands of the state. A local investigator explains.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

It was a little young girl. It appeared she had been in the water for a while. Water does awful things to people. She was placed in a secured body bag for transport to the morgue. And so a doctor did the autopsy the next day.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Everybody known or unknown must be cataloged.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

What takes place in an autopsy, you have to cut, like, around the area of your sternocleidomastoid muscle up here in your neck, and they slit down diagonally from one part of your neck and shoulder area to other side of your neck and shoulder area, your sternum. And then they do a long vertical line down your chest.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

As the medical examiner sliced open Sabrina's body, he went about assessing the cause of death. She was found in a river. But did she drown?

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

When you drown, you inhale all the water, and then your lungs become, like, pink and spongy and watery. You know, you can squeeze them and. But she didn't, you know, she had dry lungs. Her irises were occluded.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Sabrina's eyes were cloudy, so they couldn't.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

Even tell what eye color she was. The blood flow causes the vessels to pop. As a result of the water and the blood in her eye.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The medical examiners preserved body parts that might someday allow a body like this one to be identified.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

It was common to cut off the hands and send them to the lab. And the doctor just took a saw, cut off her hands right above her wrists. To get readable prints from the hands, you just place the applicable finger, dip it in ink, put it on that little square and you start from one side of the finger and you just roll it to the other side and hope you get good whirls and ridges. Then they would have sent those prints out everywhere. They were sent to Las Vegas, they were sent to California, all the surrounding areas to see if they had some young woman who fit her descriptors. But they couldn't find a family member to claim her.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

What would it take to connect Sabrina with those disembodied hands? And why would it be so important to a journalist to make sure that happens? Journalists have backstories too. This is killer story. I'm Steve Fishman. Episode 2 why a Nurse.

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[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

There's a reason Lindell immediately felt connected to the mother and aunt who called about their missing girl, Sabrina Kidd. And a reason she thought she was the one to find her. To find that reason, we need to start with Lindell's career. Linda Marks had an extraordinary TV news pedigree. Straight out of university in Sydney, Australia, Lyndall had landed a job at Australia in 60 Minutes, the most prestigious news weekly in Australia. Five years later, she was recruited to the big show CBS 60 Minutes, one of the most prestigious TV news shows in the world.

[Lyndall Marks]

It was a wonderful, welcoming, warm, sophisticated, civilized center for the best journalism I've ever experienced.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

60 Minutes did important stories about the world's most important people. Lindell reported from war zones, rubbed shoulders with world leaders.

[Lyndall Marks]

There's so much respect for this show. You literally had to pick up a phone and say, Hi, I'm from CBS 60 Minutes and was like, whoa. You had credibility.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

As you're probably gathering, Lyndall enjoyed being part of the esteemed club. She admired its celebrated members. She deeply respected its journalism. But admiration, respect, something was missing. Linda was in her twenties. She had places she wanted to go and go quickly.

[Lyndall Marks]

Yeah, yeah, I'm Ambitious. I think ambition's great. I think ambition equals passion and energy and, you know, love for what you're doing. I'm going to be ambitious till the day I die.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

For Lyndall, ambition meant being in front of the camera at 60 minutes, she'd been a producer, which she sometimes thought meant doing all the work and giving the on camera correspondence most of the credit.

[Lyndall Marks]

I really would love the experience of being on camera.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

She would have loved to have that experience at 60 Minutes.

[Lyndall Marks]

So, no, I didn't think they would ever even consider me.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

And so when a recruiter called Lindell out of the blue, she was primed to listen, even though he was from a very different kind of journalistic outlet. Lights, camera, scandal, lookout.

[Lyndall Marks]

Hollywood.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

A Current Affair is town.

[Lyndall Marks]

It's a Hollywood affair.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

At that moment, A Current Affair was just four years old, but already a smash hit for world affairs was a bit ho hum. For A Current Affair. It was the leader in the new TV genre, the tabloid. And that genre lived off celebrity, scandal, crime, gossip, strange diseases, psychics. In other words, our secret pleasures at A Current Affair. News was also entertainment. The wealthy weight loss man who may.

[Lyndall Marks]

Be leading a scandalous secret life.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

Thou shalt not lie. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor's daughter.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Lindell did some obligatory hand wringing. There had to be some whispering in the hallowed 60 minute halls along the lines of, is she thinking of leaving the New York City Ballet for a three ring circus? That kind of thing.

[Lyndall Marks]

There was a lot of angst, sure there was.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

But the recruiter said he wanted Lindell on camera going out to 30 million viewers a week. The same audience size, by the way, as 60 Minutes. He wanted to know, Lindell, what would it take?

[Lyndall Marks]

Oh, I just. You can double my salary. He goes, okay. And I went, oh, what? Okay. That was it.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

So Linda was ready to take on a new challenge, but was she ready for A Current Affair? It's 1991, and Lyndall has just pushed the up button on an elevator in a Manhattan office building. She's about to enter her new work place. No turning back now.

[Lyndall Marks]

As the elevator opened, it was suddenly this. This you hit with this noise, this chaos. Lots of swearing, lots of doors slamming. I'm like, wait, what? And there are people screaming, you. Well, fuck you too. And slamming the doors. It was kind of a lot of anger and excitement and all these emotions mixed up in one.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Hey, Lyndall. Welcome to A Current Affair.

[Lyndall Marks]

It's A zoo. It's a crazy ass zoo. And I thought, have I made a huge mistake? Is this going to be not my people? Is this not going to be my world?

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Lindell, with her splashy degree, was probably a bit more sophisticated than the average Current Affair reporter. But guess what? Lindell soon realized she loved the zoo professionally and temperamentally. For one thing, she loved the action. At A Current Affair, there was nothing. But Lindell would juggle five, six stories at a time. A Current Affair put two dozen segments on the air every week with just half a dozen reporters. And so the pace was relentless. Lyndall said it was like being on a treadmill. But she quickly went from complaining about the doors they were slamming and the fuck yous, they were screaming to the doors we were slamming and the fuck yous, we were screaming.

[Lyndall Marks]

Oh, I'm Australian, of course. I curse. I love to swear.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The girl was shaken off the shackles of her pedigree.

[Lyndall Marks]

The Current Affair was a madhouse of all of us vying for stories. And everyone in that room, everyone that worked on that show, was ambitious. We were cutthroat. We wanted to get the story and get it first. And if that meant yelling and screaming at each other and swearing and slamming.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Doors, okay, you found you loved it.

[Lyndall Marks]

I did. I loved it. I loved it. Oh, my God. Of course I loved it.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The most respected journalism outlets are religious about ethics. You can't pay for stories. You can't mislead. You can't threaten. The zoo, though, was not particularly pious.

[Dan (News Editor)]

There was no guardrails. None.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

That's Dan meaning again, Lindell's news editor. Part of his job was to negotiate the fees paid to sources. The Current Affair ethos was simple. Get the story no matter what. And so what did Lindell think when she wanted to investigate the disappearance of Sabrina Kidd and Dan told her to stand down.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

You know what?

[Lyndall Marks]

I'm gonna do my own thing. I am gonna tell a story, whatever story I wanted to tell. I don't care what anyone says. This is the story. This is how it rolls.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Why is she so attached to this story? Well, there is a reason. Lindell has a secret in her past, something she never talks about but can't escape. This secret gives her a special interest in finding out what happened to Sabrina. It will drive her beyond reason.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

We started at uni. I was doing a BA Dip ed, and Lyndall was doing communications and journalism.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

This is Annie back in Australia. She and Lindell were at university together, where they became fast friends. Annie experimented with Fashion Lyndall with stories and performing.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

She was so into drama club, anything to do with drama.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Annie's the friend we all want. She's game, happy to engage with her friends interests. So for a while she tried acting class too.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

And I've got to be honest, I hated every minute. I was so glad when it was over.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

But for Lyndall, it, acting was a passion and there was another benefit. Through acting she met a boy she liked.

[Lyndall Marks]

He was older and able to, I think, really entice me with being more mature, more sophisticated than the guys my age. I loved his intellect, I loved to be intellectually challenged.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

And she liked his attitude. He had a strong personality, stood up for himself.

[Lyndall Marks]

I love someone who doesn't let me take control in a relationship. I went, oh, that's pretty cool. We had a great start to the relationship. He was strong, he was very strong, very stocky and strong. And I think that was his way of showing off.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Annie was not a fan.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

To me, I found him quite shallow, a know all, you know, he knew everything. But I think Lyndall was in love with him. I guess she saw in him, oh my God, he's, he's a kindred spirit.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Annie, good friend that she was, kept her criticism to herself.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

It's a funny thing to say, but she was more girly, I think, around him.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Linda was 19 at the time and relationships at that age are auditions. This one failed. Soon Linda was disenamored quite quickly.

[Lyndall Marks]

He started being unfaithful and dating other girls, you know, and then I just called it off because things just weren't gelling. That was it.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Curtains on that. Personal drama, but drama on the stage. Lyndall's still enamored of that one weekend. She and other actors are practicing a play at their drama professor's place in the Sydney suburbs.

[Lyndall Marks]

So we all went to his place and we had the play rehearsal and the kids were asleep. And then it was maybe 10 o' clock at night or something and everyone was leaving and I was on the front steps of this house. I was the last to leave and I'm about to go, but we're just chatting and then we turn around and there's this car with its headlights off and its engine off and it's just coming down. Creepy. So creepy coming down the street. The street had a gradient so it's just rolling down the street. And I looked, I went, what the hell? That's, that's my ex boyfriend. And it pulls over and he comes up the stairs really fast. And you could almost smell the alcohol. And he goes for this professor and he pins him against a wall. And I screamed out. I said, stop. What are you doing? And he turns around and he literally full fist punches me in the face. Couple of times right on the bridge of my nose.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The ex boyfriend disappears as suddenly as he arrived.

[Lyndall Marks]

No. I didn't know what was going. All I could. My face. I looked and literally my nose was all over my face. There was blood everywhere. And my hands started shaking. I'm like, what? Your body's just going to. What's going on? The professor, he grabs the kids, throws them into his car. He takes me up to the hospital, into emergency. It happened so fast. There was no conversation. There was no, what are you doing? There was no.

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

Oh.

[Lyndall Marks]

Like, why. Why did this guy feel the need just to. Just to attack?

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

Why?

[Lyndall Marks]

Cause he was drunk. Because he just, you know, he wanted to be with me. Cause he was angry that we'd split up. But no, he had the need to. Just to smash my nose into my face. I ended up in hospital and I had to have surgery. They needed photos of when I was a little girl to show them what I actually looked like. Cause it was such a bad hit. My bed was covered by a curtain. Cause I didn't want anyone to see me. They didn't have mirrors there. Cause they didn't want me to see myself. A friend of mine came to visit me, and she just walked in. And I remember the shock on her face.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

A terrible, terrible shock. To see what was left of her face, you couldn't really see much because the severity affected everything. All the upper. Her eyes couldn't open properly. Just bruising and a battering. Hideous. Absolutely awful.

[Lyndall Marks]

She's like, oh, hey, you know, he'll be okay. I'm like, no, this is not okay. This is not okay.

[Annie (Friend of Lyndall)]

I felt an incredible sadness because I could feel that it was going to have an impact on her for the rest of her life. And not in a good way.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Annie left. Linda was alone.

[Lyndall Marks]

And I remember this doctor, young doctor who came in, and I'll never forget his face. I'll never forget him. He just literally. I was sitting on my own at night, and I was in tears. I'm just like, what is going on? And he came in and he opened the curtain. He just sat on my bed. He said, hey, can we talk? And he took my hand and he said, you're gonna go on and you're gonna do great things. You're gonna be okay. You are not a Victim, don't let this shape who you are. And I think it's that experience that made me realise that I can do two things. I can roll up into a fetal position and just give up. No. And be depressed and just go, I'm obviously not worthy. And I decided not. And I just went, I am going to give a voice to people whose lives were can take a turn that they never had any say in. That is not fair.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

But the trauma of the attack wasn't over yet.

[Lyndall Marks]

As I was in the hospital, my father called the police and filed a report. And then it was incumbent on me to continue that, to say, right, yep, I want to take this guy into court. I am going to file a case against him. And I just went, I can't, I can't. I cannot do this. I just want it to go away. I pushed it aside because I didn't want to be the victim then.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The assault did have a profound impact on Lindell's life. She'd have difficulty trusting men. Instead, Lindell invested in her career. Head down and work, she said. So Linda won't let the attack define her, but it will shape her.

[Lyndall Marks]

I'm in a position where I can do something because I'm a reporter. I want to hold out my hand and grab that story and grab that situation and say, I'm going to give a voice to this. Because you know what? I didn't even give myself a voice until now.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Until this podcast. I think you can hear the emotion in Lindell's voice, the sadness, the anger. Lindell saw herself in Sabrina. She sensed that something had happened to Sabrina, that she'd been victimized by something or someone, and certainly by a system that seemed indifferent to her fate.

[Lyndall Marks]

With Sabrina, this young girl, something was not right. I completely connected to what happened to me. I was beaten up, beaten to a pulp. With an unrecognizable face, Lindell had let.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Her own assailant skate free. She wasn't going to let Sabrina's story go. She was dead set on finding out what happened to Sabrina and in doing so, get her own revenge, if only by proxy. All she had to do now was figure out how to get her editor, Dan on board. Dan was clear about Sabrina's story or non story. A teenager who went missing in Las Vegas four years earlier. Hard. No. Dan had bosses too, and they expected him to assign stories that had a good chance of getting on tv. So. Okay, Lindell, your heart's in the right place. Kudos. Now get me a story I can put on the air Lindell understands.

[Lyndall Marks]

I was feeling unsure about the story because there was no proof. I had nothing. I had feelings, but I had no proof. I had no. I had no qualitative proof. Proof that I could take to the police or take to our lawyers and take to Dan and say, here. Here is the proof.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

It was not a good feeling.

[Lyndall Marks]

You feel like you're chasing ghosts. And you don't want to chase ghosts, Lindell.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Those are your ghosts. Other people can't see them. Even Dan doesn't know about Lindell's past. Whatever was propelling her ghosts or a sense of duty to the defenseless, Lyndall made a decision.

[Lyndall Marks]

Screw it. I need to do this story. I really feel something's wrong. Something's wrong. Something's happened to this kid.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

I asked one of Lindell's colleagues from back then if this story was a good career move, if this wouldn't have worked for Lyndall. Her career at A Current Affair may have come to a dead end. Dan had other ideas for where Lindell should invest her energies. He had a lot of story slots to fill every week.

[Dan (News Editor)]

A couple of reporters on the staff that used to talk up a big story and always be that one interview away from getting it. Meaning he's never gonna fucking get it. Okay? Whereas Lindell had almost 100%. If she went out on story, she.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Came back with a story, whatever the assignment.

[Lyndall Marks]

The pastor told her she was possessed by demons. Yeah, there were alien stories, too. I did a story on crop circles. Some say it's magnetic fields. And then, of course, there are those who are convinced it's the work of visitors from another planet.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Dan and Lindell became quite a team. Lyndall knew how to get his story, and Dan knew exactly what worked on television.

[Dan (News Editor)]

My job was to get in there at 5:15 in the morning. USA Today used to have, in every state, they had these little stories in the back, right? I used to go through that with a magnifying glass and I find this little story, and it's that this guy had been arrested for having sex outside his house.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

And then the.

[Dan (News Editor)]

The final line was the guy saying, I half expect A Current Affair to be knocking on my door, and I'll tell him to go to hell. And so I called up Lindell. I said, get your ass over to this address as soon as you possibly can. Knock on the door and say, hi, I'm from Current Affair.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

It was perfect for television. Out of this professional partnership, something else was developing.

[Lyndall Marks]

Dan and I just struck up A great relationship. I hadn't had any relationship with anyone for many, many years.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Neither Dan nor Lyndall was a big drinker or partier at the after work watering hole. They might sit off to the side talking shop, reviewing possible current affairs strike.

[Lyndall Marks]

Stories in a crazy office like A Current Affair. Dan was someone I felt I could connect with. Dan was someone who I could talk to. He would actually stop and talk to me and cared for me. He was safe. He felt safe.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

In the rom com version, imagine a Meg Ryan vehicle. Here, Lindell's an outsider, intrepid but isolated, cautious. The camera catches her and Dan at the bar, off to the side, one staring at the other. In another scene, they're screening a segment, crowding around the same monitor, shoulder brushing against shoulder, agreeing on the camera work. He admires her spunk. She appreciates his grit, even when he scoffs at her best idea. And then it dawns on her.

[Lyndall Marks]

And unbeknownst to me at the time, he liked me. When I realized that actually he liked me. And I went, well, actually, I like him too. And we had this beautiful friendship which evolved very, very quickly. Dan doesn't do things half heartedly. He goes all in, very fast. Our first date was the Macy's Day balloons. The parade.

[Dan (News Editor)]

Listen, if you're taking a girl on a first date, you can't do any better than that. We watched the balloons being blown up right by Museum of Natural History. They lay out Superman or Snoopy and they blow them up there.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

They ready them for the parade the next day. It's kind of magic. Those flattened cartoon characters are spread out on the street like colorful, rubbery puddles. Then the helium goes in and they rise little by little, emerging from the sidewalk like a new life form.

[Lyndall Marks]

And I'm going, wow, this city's insane. And these balloons are crazy.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

And when Lyndall's not intense, she's bubbly, talkative, fun. I just.

[Dan (News Editor)]

It was very nice. And we just had a really, really good time. We really did.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

In the chaos of a new city and a punishing news cycle, Lyndall had found her people or her person.

[Lyndall Marks]

I never thought any guy was interested in me. I honestly just. I just, honestly didn't think I was someone that guys wanted to be with. I was the career girl, and I was the career girl by choice. And that choice was made back when I was attacked. This is the path I was on. So to have this gorgeous, handsome New Yorker paying attention to me and wooing me and buying me little gifts and making Me dinner and introducing me to chicken wings that were too spicy for me. And he'd introduced me to cute little restaurants and bars, and we'd be walking through Times Square, and it was just. The whole thing was living a dream. I did get swept up in it.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Soon, Dan and Lindell were mostly living together. He was her boyfriend and also her boss. And as her boss, he still wouldn't okay her Sabrina project.

[Lyndall Marks]

I had one thing going for me. I could get his ear privately on the pillow, and I use that.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

She told Dan she just wanted to get more facts.

[Lyndall Marks]

Yes, there was me trying to cajole him into letting me get to Las Vegas.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Dan still won't authorize a trip to Vegas. Not on a current affairs tab, but. Well, maybe there is a workaround.

[Lyndall Marks]

Then there was the idea that maybe I needed to find another way.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

If Lindell can find a story out of Las Vegas, one that Dan can actually put on tv, sure, then he can pay for the trip. And if then Lindell took an extra day for some extracurricular research, he'd be none the wiser.

[Lyndall Marks]

I scoured the Las Vegas press to try and find some sexy stories because I knew that those sexy stories were would drive the viewers.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

And then, there it was. Jonna Steele, the woman voted the prettiest showgirl on the famed Las Vegas Strip, had a secret. And she was prepared to go national with it. Lyndall, what are you waiting for? Get your ass to Vegas. Cue the sound of a jet taking off.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

Just about. Not everybody in Las Vegas knows showgirl Jonna Steele. She packs them in with her nightclub act. And she found more fame when she won a local beauty title. Lyndall Marks went to the gambling capital of America for this exclusive report. Luck be a laddie. Tonight.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Lindell had talked Janna into telling America her secret.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

I was born a male.

[Lyndall Marks]

A little boy.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Perfect for tv. Yeah, and a perfect cover for Lindell, who now turns to her real interest, Sabrina. Lindell calls Sabrina's two great girlfriends Jennifer and Crystal. She'd gotten their names from Sabrina's aunt and mother. Lindell is eager to meet them. Maybe they can provide a clue to Sabrina's whereabouts. Jennifer takes Lyndall through the details of their meeting with the police four years earlier. They'd gone to report a missing person. Their friend Sabrina.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

We had to go downtown. We'd wait. We had to go in the office. It was like a white room with, like, a little table, and you sat down and they asked you questions. They had their notes and they took the notes.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

The officers wrote a report, the girl.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

Signed the report and nothing came of that.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Yeah, Lindell figured she knew what happened.

[Lyndall Marks]

These are young girls and these are kind of party girls and they're very pretty girls and I don't think that they were. That their stories were given any credibility.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

From the cops perspective. Here were two 17 year olds saying that a girl they'd met at a party a few months earlier had gone missing. Probably one more runaway in a city full of runaways, don't you think? Four years later, when Lindell meets them, Crystal and Jennifer are no longer teenagers. They're 21 years old and they are still concerned about their missing friend.

[Jennifer or Crystal (Friends of Sabrina)]

I was glad somebody was investigating it and I remember being glad somebody believed us.

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

From Jennifer, Lindell gets a clue. Jennifer mentions offhandedly what seems like a non sequitur. But the more Lindell thinks about it, the more provocative it appears. It's something Sabrina told Jennifer in the weeks before her disappearance.

[Lyndall Marks]

She said something about a nurse went to see her. Was she sick?

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Not that Jennifer knew.

[Lyndall Marks]

Why would a nurse go and see her? She said, well, she said a nurse came and she didn't stay very long. She just did a physical. And then I'm thinking, I'm like, what? Wait, what?

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

It was strange. And it seemed stranger when just a few days after a nurse administered a brief physical exam, Sabrina disappeared. Lyndall had to learn more about that nurse. Next time on Killer Story.

[Lyndall Marks]

Bobby sue actually spoke to them and they did say, yes, we, we think we might have something with the name Sabrina Kidd. Then I looked at it. I went, what the hell?

[Medical Examiner / Investigator]

Foreign?

[Narrator (Steve Fishman)]

Don't want to wait for that next episode. You don't have to unlock all episodes of Killer Story ad free right now by subscribing to the Binge podcast channel. Search for the binge on Apple Podcasts and hit subscribe at the top of the page, not on apple. Head to getthebinge.com to get access wherever you listen. As a subscriber, you'll get binge access to new stories on the 1st of every month. Check out the Binge channel page on apple podcasts or getthebinge.com to learn more. Killer Story is a production of Orbit Media in association with Signal Company. Number one creator and host is me, Steve Fishman. Executive producers Arlindo Marks, Kevin Wardes and Jonathan Hirsch from Sony Music Entertainment. Producers Jackie Pauley, Hannah Beale and Austin Smith. Production coordinator Austin Smith. Series consultant Emil Klein. Sound designer Brit Spangler. Fact check, Ryan Alderman. Our lawyers are at Claris Law. Special thanks to Emily Racik, Steve Ackerman, Catherine St. Louis, Sammy Allison, Allison Haney, Fisher Stevens. And the glamorous Rhea Julian. We also thank our agents at wme, Evan Krasek, Marisa Hurwitz, Ben Davis. And a special thanks to Shelly Shenoy for voiceover casting. And a special special thanks to the inimitable Emil Klein, SA.