Josh Mankiewicz
Appearances
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Well, good. After four hours of watching Sabrina's interview from the next room, department brass decided they'd seen enough. Another investigator stepped into the room and brought it all to an end.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
And with that, Sabrina Limon, mom, widow, Wolfpack member in good standing, was handcuffed and taken back to jail. On November 20th, the day after Sabrina's long post-arrest interview with Detective Meyer, the Kern County District Attorney charged Jonathan Hearn with first-degree murder. That done, the DA felt the case against Sabrina Limon was weak.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The problem was this. Out of hours and hours of wiretaps, Sabrina had said nothing incriminating.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
So a few days after being picked up by Kern County deputies, Sabrina was released from custody.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Sabrina Limon may have been out of jail, but she was not free from suspicion, not from the law, and certainly not from former friends like Jason and Kelly Bernatine. And so now she's back in your town, living her life. Does she know you guys cooperated?
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The American writer Thomas Wolfe famously said, you can't go home again. A lot of the time, that's certainly true. And it didn't take Sabrina Limon long to learn her hometown had turned on her.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
In this episode, you will hear how some critical evidence was missed during those searches.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
It wasn't just hard for Sabrina to show her face in town. Julie says the kids were taunted and teased. It got so bad, Sabrina decided to homeschool them. And eventually, she decided to leave town.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Once the house sold, Sabrina packed up the kids and moved 145 miles away to Camarillo, a small town north of Los Angeles. There, she rented a three-bedroom condo and tried to start a new life amid neighbors who knew nothing of her old one. Of course, leaving one's past behind is not that easy. Sabrina still had Rob's family to contend with.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The kids had a grandmother who wanted to see them, aunts and uncles and cousins who wanted to know what happened. What about them?
Deadly Mirage
Busted
You'll hear about a motive for murder far more tangible than vague notions of God's purpose.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That's Lydia Marrero, one of Rob Lamone's sisters. If she did call, what would you say to her?
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Chris Wilson says her mom was devastated by Rob's sudden death and the loss of contact with her grandchildren. Chris says her mother's health suffered a steep decline. And in June of 2016, she died. She was only 68.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That's the thing about betrayal. Sometimes the person we should fear most is the one we trust most. That was a lesson Sabrina Limon was about to learn the hard way. Before they'd even met, defense attorney Clayton Campbell had a feeling he was going to like Jonathan Hearn. He liked Jonathan's parents when they came in to discuss the case.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
And you'll hear how one of those suspects was seemingly able to walk away, free and clear, to start life anew.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
They believed strongly in their son's innocence, and they seemed like his kind of people. That's because they were devout Christians, just like Clayton. They'd told him Jonathan had been homeschooled, just like Clayton.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The things Jonathan was accused of were nothing short of terrible. Murdering the husband of a woman he was having an affair with. Awful. Well, the more Clayton Campbell dug into the case and examined the evidence...
Deadly Mirage
Busted
After all, what did the prosecution have? An affair? Security camera video? A motorcycle and some guns? Well, Campbell thought the security video was too blurry to identify anybody. And the motorcycle? Well, there must be hundreds of motorcycles in Southern California like the one Jonathan owned.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
As for the two handguns that were registered to Jonathan, the prosecutor couldn't prove either of them was the murder weapon.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That was encouraging. However, there was one big problem. Clayton Campbell's client wanted to confess his sins right from the jump, just like King David did in that Bible story involving Bathsheba.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
For a lot of defense attorneys, that might have been an easy call. Let the client copped a murder, collect the fee, and call it a day. Next... Well, not Clayton Campbell.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 5, Busted. The arrests of Jonathan Hearn and Sabrina Limon on murder charges were a huge story in the high desert communities of California.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The lawyer prayed with his client. He pleaded with Jonathan to not confess his guilt to anyone, not even his family. So for two years, Jonathan Hearn sat in a jail cell, presumably speaking only to God about his guilty conscience. And perhaps his prayers were answered because he did receive forgiveness from an unlikely quarter. That was Rob Lamone's family.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
As the days and weeks ticked down to Jonathan's trial date, Clayton Campbell poured over the lists of evidence that prosecutors intended to produce for a jury. It was then that he noticed a lot of evidence he expected to see there was missing.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Jonathan had not only told his lawyer details of the affair with Sabrina and details about the murder of her husband, he'd also told where he'd hidden key evidence. For instance, shortly after the shooting, Jonathan told the lawyer how he had replaced the barrel on the murder weapon with a new one.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The actual barrel that fired the fatal shots, Jonathan told his lawyer, was hidden in a chicken coop behind his house. along with a homemade silencer he'd fashioned out of a flashlight.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
After years of professing his undying love for Sabrina and praying for God's help in keeping their secret, Jonathan Hearn prepared to turn on her. God's purpose, it seemed, had just become Jonathan's proffer. On the 3rd of January, 2017, talks between the defense and the prosecution team began at the sheriff's department.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
For Jonathan Hearn, those meetings must have seemed heaven-sent, because finally he had an opportunity to confess his sins. which included at least two of the seven deadliest.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Jonathan told prosecutors and investigators he and Sabrina spent months plotting to kill Rob Lamone. In fact, he said, they had once conspired to poison him.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
According to Jonathan, they settled on putting a fatal dose of arsenic in some banana pudding, Rob's favorite. Jonathan told investigators he had ordered the arsenic online, calculated the fatal dosage by weight, and then tested it.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Jonathan said he did not see the dog again after that. So a few days later, he made a family-sized batch of banana pudding with Nilla wafers for Sabrina's family. Then in a smaller Tupperware bowl, he said he put a single portion and he put the arsenic in that. Jonathan said he delivered the two pudding containers to Sabrina's house one day when Rob was at work.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
You guys didn't know anything about the poisoning until Jonathan gave that to you. That's correct. Detective Randall Meyer. They actually ended up giving it to Rob. Yes. And then at the last minute, Sabrina got cold feet and told Rob not to eat it.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
It was around 11 on the morning of November 17th, 2014, three months to the day after her husband's murder, that Sabrina Limon was taken into custody at her children's school. Like Jonathan Hearn, who had been arrested earlier, Sabrina was placed in the back of a patrol car and driven to the desert town of Boron, which was the closest Kern County Sheriff's Department substation
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The Kern County Sheriff's deputies who'd conducted the months-long investigation into Rob Limon's death were justifiably proud of their work.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
To back up his story, Jonathan told investigators that he stashed the leftover arsenic in the garage attached to his house, hidden in an empty paint can.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That was a key condition of the plea deal, says Clayton Campbell. Any evidence Jonathan helped investigators find
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That night, Clayton Campbell went home and prayed that investigators would find everything Jonathan had told them was hidden in and around his home. After all, a couple of years had passed since Jonathan lived there.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
With the blessing of Rob Lamone's family, the Kern County Prosecutor's Office told Clayton Campbell they would make a deal with Jonathan Hearn. In exchange for Jonathan's full cooperation in the case against Sabrina Lamone, the District Attorney would let Jonathan plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. Instead of a possible life without parole for murder,
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Jonathan would receive a predetermined sentence of 25 years and four months in prison. Clayton Campbell felt good about that. Jonathan would be a free man around the time he turned 50. Considering what he'd been facing, that was good. Now, Campbell had to tell Jonathan's parents everything.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
While Clayton Campbell was meeting with the Hearn family, Detective Randall Meyer and a team of investigators were just turning onto Ventura Boulevard in Camarillo. They were on their way to arrest Sabrina Limon again.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
And you finally got your man and your woman. Yes. In the hours after his arrest, Jonathan said little to investigators beyond asking for a lawyer. Sabrina, on the other hand, seemed willing to talk, perhaps because her interrogators told her she was not under arrest. You are detained, but you're not under arrest. I want to make that perfectly clear to you, okay?
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Deadly Mirage is a production of Dateline and NBC News. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
That may have been a distinction without a difference, but Sabrina was game. She readily admitted to having an on-and-off affair with Jonathan Hearn.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
She was vague about when the affair began, when it resumed, and how often she'd spoken with Jonathan in the months, weeks, and hours before her husband's murder. Of course, the investigators already knew the answers to all of that.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
For 30 minutes, they went round and round. Sabrina talking about her dead husband, her kids, and God's purpose.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
It was there that the couple's long journey through the American justice system would begin. Jonathan Hearn's family had already been notified of his arrest. Sabrina's sister Julie had been told by investigators that somebody needed to make arrangements to take care of her kids. Because she had been detained.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
If Sabrina's interviewers were waiting for some kind of confession, an admission that she knew her lover had murdered her husband, they were disappointed.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The interview ended when Sabrina asked for a lawyer. At that point, she was arrested, and deputies drove her to Bakersfield for formal booking and fingerprinting. It was in Bakersfield that she asked to speak with Detective Randall Meyer. The next afternoon, Sabrina was led to the same interrogation room where she'd met Detective Meyer a week earlier.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
She was still wearing the tight-fitting gray jeans and white jacket she'd worn the day before when deputies had picked her up at her children's school.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The detective was his same old congenial self. He said he understood why Sabrina had lied to him.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
the detective wanted Sabrina to tell her story again, starting with that first meeting in Costco and the critical moment when Jonathan Hearn asked for her phone number.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
An innocent mistake? She told the detective she thought Jonathan knew she was married, even though she never wore her wedding ring while she was working.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
She could have ended it right there, but she didn't do that. And Jonathan, he did not back away either. So together they tiptoed into that treacherous swamp colloquially called Friends with Benefits. It was a gradual thing, to be sure. A romantic attraction that only became noticeable when it was absent.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
It was pleasant to meet, pleasant to talk, pleasant to anticipate the next meeting, fun to exchange gifts and trinkets.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
As casual as swinging on Grandma's porch. Oh, yes, the swinging. Sabrina told the detective about that, too.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
There's an old saying that for some men, marriage is just a word. While to others, it's a sentence. The kind you serve. To the late Rob Lamone, marriage wasn't a word or a sentence. It was more like a theme park. And he wanted to climb onto every ride. Well, that's if you believe Mrs. Rob Lamone. According to Sabrina, the whole open marriage thing was all Rob's idea.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
And it began six years earlier, when she and Rob started spouse swapping with another couple.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
And this went on. Sabrina was fuzzy on dates. She couldn't remember exactly when she met Jonathan. 2013, maybe? She also didn't remember when they started sleeping together. Six months later? Eight months? She did, however, remember quite well the night her husband discovered a large batch of love texts from Jonathan on her phone.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
While Jonathan and Sabrina were being transported to Boron, teams of investigators fanned out to begin searches of their homes.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The detective, of course, already knew a lot of this. He'd heard it from a couple of members of the Wolfpack, Rob and Sabrina's Silver Lakes friends, Jason and Kelly Bernatine. According to the Bernatines, Rob was not okay with his wife having an affair with Jonathan Hearn, an outsider who was not a Wolfpack member. Rob had demanded its stop.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
After taking a short break so a crime lab tech could come in and take a DNA sample, fingerprints, and photographs.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The detective pressed Sabrina on how much she'd known about her lover's plan to murder her husband.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Sabrina told the detective she typically kept Jonathan posted whenever Rob was working one of those 12-hour shifts in Tehachapi. because that was time she and Jonathan could possibly spend between the sheets. We were possibly going to get together, but he was doing other stuff.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
The detective knew firsthand the railroad shop in Tehachapi was hard to find. The building wasn't marked.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Sabrina had no answer for that. For 30 seconds, she said nothing. Then she hung her head and whispered. Why did I tell him? Why did I tell him?
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Sabrina insisted it had been the affair that she and Jonathan Hearn had wanted to hide all along, not murder. She said she'd never wanted to believe that Jonathan was a killer.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
Every love letter, every racy photo, Every text message and every sales receipt were no longer just proof of a steamy, illicit affair.
Deadly Mirage
Busted
If Sabrina Limon knew anything more about her husband's murder, she didn't say it. Even when the detective told her that Jonathan Hearn had asked to speak to him. What do you think he's going to say? That was not true, of course. It was just more bait, a last-ditch effort to chum the waters enough so that Sabrina might flip on her lover, close the case, maybe even salvage a plea deal for herself.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
As soon as he could, Hearn said, he found a place to change out of the clothes he'd been wearing and strip the adhesive flashing from his motorcycle.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Hearn told the court that by the time he got to the Four Corners intersection at Kramers Junction, his motorcycle was running on fumes. He had to stop for gas. Of course, the prosecutor knew that part of the story well. He had it on video. and played it for the jury.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Jonathan Hearn said he hadn't taken his cell phone on that trip to Tehachapi because he didn't want investigators looking at the GPS tracking feature and learning where he'd gone. According to Hearn, he called Sabrina as soon as he got home.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
In this episode, we'll take you inside the California courtroom where two ex-lovers were brought together again for the first time in nearly three years. You'll hear what Sabrina and Jonathan had to say about each other and about the murder of Rob Lamone.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Everything was about to change. That might very well have been the truest thing Jonathan Hearn has ever said. As the trial entered its third week, its focus changed as well. This would be Sabrina Limon's turn to take the stand. For the better part of three weeks, defense attorney Richard Terry sat beside Sabrina Limon and listened to the prosecution's case. It had been brutal.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Photos of his client hugging her now dead husband. Intimate details about their marriage. Hours of cringeworthy phone conversations between Sabrina and her lover.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
I love you back. All of it topped off by Jonathan Hearn's assertion that she had been his partner in crime.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Terry saw it this way. Jonathan was at the rail yard. Jonathan had his hand on the gun. Jonathan's gun. Jonathan admits being the murderer. And there's absolutely nothing on the wiretaps where Sabrina admits to knowing about or taking part in Jonathan's plan to kill her husband. So then, how does Jonathan get the deal? And Sabrina is looking at maybe life in prison.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
The way attorney Terry saw it, Sabrina Limon was a victim of circumstance. A high school dropout who'd married young. A people pleaser who went with the flow. And when her husband suggested sex with other couples, well, she'd always been a team player.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
In other words, it was fun to have this open marriage, but it was also nice to have somebody who was totally devoted to you and not dating anybody else. Right. In many ways, Richard Terry's defense began with his cross-examination of those who had turned on Sabrina, like Jason and Kelly Bernatine.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
And when your husband, Jason, was present... He got them to admit that, yes, they too had had sex with Rob and Sabrina. Here's how Terry's cross-examination of Kelly Bernatine went.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
When cross-examining Jonathan Hearn, Richard Terry questioned his religious sincerity.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Was all that religiosity intended to fool Sabrina into thinking of him as more virtuous than her husband?
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Though Jonathan testified he and Sabrina had emailed with each other about their plan to kill Rob, Richard Terry questioned why investigators had found no evidence of that. After all, they'd recovered his internet searches on arsenic poisoning and on railroad death benefit payouts.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
After calling several of her family members to vouch for Sabrina's good character, Richard Terry then made a bold but risky move. The defense attorney's gamble was that given the chance to compare Sabrina's story with Jonathan's, at least one juror might find Sabrina's version more credible. more sympathetic, so he called his client to the stand.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Yes. As the years passed, Sabrina said she felt less special to the man she'd married.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Nevertheless, Sabrina said she felt trapped and controlled by the swinging lifestyle. Her marriage, she said, had become emotionally unsatisfying. Then came Costco, and the day she met Jonathan Hearn... Jonathan was something different, she said. A straight arrow type, smart and curious. The kind of guy who could talk about anything.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
As the relationship progressed, becoming sexual, Sabrina said she and Jonathan also became more spiritual. They coped with their guilt over the cheating, she said, with prayer. Jonathan quoted the Bible to her, encouraged her to memorize certain verses. Sabrina was all in with that. Though in hindsight, she said, Jonathan used religion to manipulate her.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
To hear Sabrina tell it, she was satisfied with the double life she was leading with two different men. And she saw no reason to change that.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Sabrina said she'd been devastated when Rob died. In those darkest of days, she said, she felt Jonathan was her rock. Somebody she could cling to. Someone who would take care of her and the children.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Sabrina said she not only lied to investigators about her lifestyle, she said she had lied about her affair because Jonathan had told her they'd both be in for a world of hurt if investigators ever found out about it.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 6, He Said, She Said. On September 11th, 2017, the trial of Sabrina Limon opened in the packed Bakersfield courtroom of Judge John R. Brownlee.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Yes, him and I. According to Sabrina, she never discussed killing Rob with Jonathan. There'd never been any poison pudding plot. And she had never imagined Jonathan would ever want to harm Rob. Yes, she admitted, she had told Jonathan where Rob worked, but only in passing as a small part of a larger conversation. And yes, she had told Jonathan Rob would be working in Tehachapi that day.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
And that was only because Tehachapi days were long days for Rob, and typically a time when she and Jonathan could meet up. Her defense against all those accusations was a familiar one to any follower of true crime. Yes, I lied to my husband about the affair. Yes, I lied to police about it too. But murder? I never thought of it. And you can trust me on that.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Even after investigators told her they suspected Jonathan of killing her husband, Sabrina said she didn't believe it.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
According to Sabrina, Jonathan Hearn had used the shame she'd felt for her days as a swinger to manipulate her. During his cross-examination, prosecutor Eric Smith questioned that.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
On the morning of October 3rd, the jury got the case. They had spent the better part of three weeks listening to testimony. And they had heard the confessional testimony of Jonathan Hearn, the man who murdered Rob Lamone in cold blood. And they had seen the dead man's widow up close. At mid-morning, they sent a head-scratching note to the judge saying,
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Jurors wanted to see that sparkling snow globe Sabrina had given Jonathan for Christmas, nine months before Rob's murder.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
That's Michael Fleeman, the true crime reporter who would later write a book about the case titled Better Off Dead.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
A few hours later, another note, this one asking if the attempted murder count in the list of charges pertained to the poison pudding plot. Yes, the judge replied, it did. Then, a little after 4 p.m., the jury sent one last note. They had reached a verdict.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Because it was late in the day, the judge delayed announcing the verdict until the next morning.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Sabrina Limon dropped her head as the clerk read the remainder of the verdict form. Guilty of premeditation. Guilty of conspiracy. Guilty of accessory. But on the attempted murder charge in the poison pudding plot, the jury found her not guilty.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
There had been no physical evidence presented that would have supported Jonathan Hearn's claim that Sabrina Limon had put arsenic-laced pudding in her husband's lunch.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
After the jury was dismissed, Sabrina Limon cried softly as she was shackled and led away. Outside the courthouse, family and friends of Rob Limon gathered and spoke with the assembled media.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
That's the voice of Olivia LaVoice. She covered the trial for NBC affiliate KGET in Bakersfield, which also live-streamed the trial online.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
It was an emotional moment for the sisters, who had not only lost a brother and a sister-in-law, they had also lost contact with their niece and nephew, who were living with Sabrina's sister, Julie. Here's Rob's sister, Lydia Marrero. I love my niece and nephew. I send out my love to them.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
On November 16th, 2017, almost two years to the day after he was arrested and charged with murder, Jonathan Hearn was back in court for his sentencing.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
With Rob Lamone's sister sitting just a few feet away, Hearn read a long statement he'd composed while waiting for his sentence to be handed down. The calm and unflappable demeanor he had worn like a coat of armor at trial was gone.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
In comments addressed to the court, to Rob Lamone's family, to his own family, and also Sabrina's family, Jonathan Hearn begged for forgiveness.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
When all was said and done, the judge sentenced Jonathan Hearn to the agreed upon 25 years and four months. However, not long after Jonathan began serving his sentence, the California legislature passed a new law giving youthful offenders the opportunity for early parole. In Jonathan Hearn's case, that means he could be released from prison before his 40th birthday.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
In February 2018, Sabrina Limon was sentenced to 25 years to life for her role in her husband's murder. An appellate court upheld her conviction in 2022. And last year, the California Supreme Court denied her petition for review of the case. Neither Sabrina nor Jonathan responded to our requests for an interview for this podcast.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
So ends a story that began more than a dozen years ago in a busy shopping aisle at Costco. An ordinary day, except for the fateful meeting of two strangers. If not for the unique makeup of those two people and the astounding number of bad choices they made, their story might well have ended right there. A closer reading of the Bible might have been useful back then.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
It's the book of Hosea that talks about how mistakes from the past can cause those who made them to reap the whirlwind. Sometimes the lessons from scripture and from real life are one and the same. Deadly Mirage is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer. Ryan Drew, Kelly Laudeen, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins is associate producer.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Adam Gorfain is co-executive producer. Paul Ryan is executive producer. And Liz Cole is senior executive producer. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to see the two lovers face off in court to hear two versions of a story that had resulted in murder. For prosecutor Eric Smith, the case was about a conniving woman who conspired with her young lover to have her husband murdered in cold blood.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
For defense attorney Richard Terry, the case was about a confessed killer who was willing to lie about his mistress in order to avoid life without parole.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
It was Friday, January 6th, 2017, when Sabrina Limon heard the knock at her door. When she answered, she saw a group of men standing there. One had a familiar face. It was homicide detective Randall Meyer. Strong hands pulled Sabrina's arms behind her back, and handcuffs were snapped onto her wrists.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
As soon as Sabrina's sister Julie saw Detective Meyer, she dialed Sabrina's attorney, Richard Terry, in Bakersfield. He had assured Sabrina she had nothing to worry about. Now, the cops were at the door.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
In his opening statement, the prosecutor told the jury the circumstantial case they were about to hear would leave no doubt about Sabrina Lamone's involvement in her husband's murder.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
According to Prosecutor Smith, the plot to kill Rob Lamone was about more than romantic bliss. It was also about money.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
As with most murder trials, the prosecutor began his case with a series of foundational witnesses. Detectives and first responders described the crime scene and the evidence recovered. Other witnesses, such as Sabrina Lamone's former friends, Jason and Kelly Bernatine, told the jury what they knew about Sabrina's love affair with Jonathan Hearn.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
All of that, of course, was just the opening act. The main attraction, the reason why thousands were watching a live feed of the trial, was Jonathan Hearn, the confessed killer.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
For a few moments, there was silence in the courtroom as Jonathan Hearn stared intently at a spot on the floor about six feet in front of him. Sitting a few feet away, Sabrina Limon's long blonde hair hid her face and as she seemed to be studying the back of her hand.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
The jury was about to hear a story, the prosecutor implied, about a young man in the clutches of an older woman. In the prosecution's telling, Jonathan Hearn had been inexperienced in the ways of the world until he met Sabrina Limon.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
According to Hearn, he and Sabrina met for trysts anywhere and anytime they could be together. And that wasn't all.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
And so it went, month after month, the increasingly slippery slope of infidelity. When Rob Lamone discovered the affair in the spring of 2013, Hearn said they broke it off. That resolve did not last.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
For Christmas 2013, Sabrina gave Jonathan an engraved snow globe. It captured an idyllic scene, much like the future they had imagined together. In the first few months of 2014, Jonathan said they had talked about Sabrina possibly divorcing Rob, but she did not like that option.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Just as Sabrina was being placed in a patrol car, Julie says she heard the lawyer on the phone say, don't say anything. Within hours, secrets from Sabrina's past life were once again leading local newscasts.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
According to Hearn, talk about Rob Lamone's death had started in jest. As in, wouldn't our lives be simpler if Rob wasn't around? Then, by early 2014, he says, those late-night musings about Rob Lamone's demise had progressed from mere wishful thinking to a serious plan of action.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Poisoning. Hearn testified he and Sabrina had first planned to kill Rob with arsenic-laced banana pudding in April 2014. Jonathan said that attempt was called off when Sabrina began to fear their affair might be revealed.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
So he said they decided together it was better to wait and put some time between Rob's murder and all that activity on their phones. Hearn said he bought Sabrina a burner phone and kept it loaded with prepaid minutes. It was while waiting for his next opportunity that Hearn said he had second thoughts about the idea of poisoning Rob.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Few things are more direct than a .45 caliber slug at point-blank range. That became Jonathan Hearn's plan. He says he spent the next few months prepping for murder. He cased the railroad shop where Rob worked in Tehachapi. He took photos and noted where the security cameras were located. He bought clothes and a mask to disguise himself, and adhesive flashing to disguise his motorcycle.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
When Sabrina told him her husband would be working in Tehachapi on that Sunday in August 2014, Jonathan says he told her he was ready.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
On the day of the murder, Hearn said, he arrived in Tehachapi around mid-afternoon. After parking his motorcycle in a secluded spot, Hearn said he donned an old man mask and set out on foot, walking with a limp. He was looking for the unmarked shop where Rob Lamone worked.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Unable to determine exactly which building Rob Lamone worked in, Jonathan said he was about to call it off and go home. Then he said he saw Rob Lamone pull up to one of those buildings in his service truck and open the garage door.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Hearn said his mind was filled with conflicting thoughts at that moment. One of those thoughts, he said, was, Thou shalt not kill. And another, God's purpose. All that stuff he and Sabrina had been saying about God wanting them to be together.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
That's right. Sabrina's lover had turned on her. The plea deal was announced in open court a few days later.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
And so, just before he stepped into that shop to murder his romantic rival, Jonathan Hearn said he paused to pray.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Rob Lamone was sitting in the office when Jonathan Hearn entered through the open garage door. Hearn told the court that when Rob Lamone saw him, he came out of the office to meet him.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
What must Rob Lamone have been thinking in that moment? A stranger standing in his railroad shop on a Sunday afternoon, wearing an old man mask. And that voice... Did it sound familiar? Did Rob know who he was talking to? We will never know. Just as we may never know what those two men said to each other in those final seconds.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
According to Jonathan Hearn, Rob turned his back on the masked man and walked to the kitchenette area in the rear of the shop. He opened the fridge and grabbed a Gatorade. Hearn said he intended to shoot Rob then. but the silencer on his gun was wedged in the corner of his backpack. and he could not get the gun out of the bag.
Deadly Mirage
He Said, She Said
Hearn said he walked to the office and ransacked it. He also took a laptop in hopes of making investigators think Rob's death was the result of a robbery and that maybe Rob was collateral damage. As he was headed for the door, Hearn said an unsettling thought suddenly popped into his head. What if Rob Lamone was not dead?