Josh Mankiewicz
Appearances
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
I mean, I get why it made her family. It would make me crazy if that happened, but ultimately he did get the, he did get the punishment that the legal system would have doled out regardless of whether he had gone to church first or not.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
There's a there's a great deal more writing. But even so, there's stuff you have to leave out. You have to make some of the same choices that you do when you're doing a piece that lasts a minute and 10 seconds for the evening news.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Yeah. OK, coming up next, your questions from social media. Okay, we are back with social media questions. Well, we got a lot of questions on a lot of topics. Jim Kelly from Facebook said, it showed how tech can use DNA to render an image of the killer and aid in their apprehension. Truly amazing. Now, here's the thing.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
There's an enormous amount of debate within the forensic scientific community over whether or not DNA phenotyping is is is legit or junk science. But Parabon does not market this as we're going to give you an image of the killer. They market this as we're going to provide you with a lead. You still need to do basic police work after that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
We have an audio question from Brandon Elkins. Let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Another audio question. This one's from Catherine Eipert about the timing of Ryan's confession.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
I do love it when people call in with audio questions. It's nice to hear everybody's voice.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Dateline fans, as we already know, are dog lovers. Patricia N. The Mutts says, always take issues of animal cruelty seriously. Ryan Riggs committed animal cruelty. It escalated from there, resulting in the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman. And it is true that a lot of rapists begin with cruelty towards animals, specifically cats, since that's perceived as a more feminine animal.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Patricia also said that the Good Samaritans that went out looking for her and found her in this place where no one ever goes, she says that was divine intervention, which I'm guessing people in that church might agree with.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So as you might expect, as we all might expect, Shantae's family and friends were watching. Linda Lamond wrote, thank you so much for telling Shantae's story. Blaine, you did a wonderful job. I agree.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Shantae's mother, Michelle, said, thank you all so much for telling my baby's story. She deserves this.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Um, my prediction is that you will still be in touch with some of these people in a few years.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So let's talk about the episode. The locals referred to that farmhouse, which was off the map in a lot of ways. They call that the haunted house. What was that place like?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Who is the greatest. Congratulations to both of you. Very, very good story. Good episode. And a great sort of tale from start to finish.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Remember, if you have any questions for us about stories you think we should cover or about Dateline, you can reach us 24-7 on social media at at Dateline NBC. And if you have a question for us here on Talking Dateline, you can leave it for us in a voicemail at 212-413-5252 for a chance to be featured on a future episode. And that phone rings on Keith's desk, just FYI.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And since we're talking about Keith... Be sure to check out Keith's new podcast, which is called Murder in the Moonlight. It is about a double homicide and a single shiny clue that helps investigators crack the case. You can binge the entire series right now, wherever you get your podcasts.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And coming up this Friday, convicted murderer Lori Vallow Daybell, who some of you may know as Mommy Doomsday, speaks with Keith Morrison in her first ever television interview. We will see you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And I also thought the town was much more of a character than a lot of localities are when we do Dateline. You know, a lot of them are in bigger cities. This really felt like a movie. You know, I mean, the drone shots of those dirt roads and those long straightaways. I mean, you get a sense of how sort of isolated it must have been at the time.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So go there, listen to it, or you can stream it on Peacock if you want to watch it, and then come back here. So to recap... This is about a young woman named Shantae Blankenship, and her remains were found in a deserted and very scary-looking farmhouse in Brownwood, Texas.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
She made a tremendous impression on people. And Shantae did. Watching the story, I thought you were able to get a really good sense of sort of what she was like.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So for the first hour I'm watching this, I'm thinking, okay. This is the boyfriend. Like, I don't even know how you guys are going to sustain this for two hours because it's so obviously him. I mean, you come in, you're the boyfriend, right? So you're got to be close to the top of the suspect list and you delete texts from your phone.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
I mean, that is that that is like, you know, wearing a sandwich board that says I did it.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And then, of course, it turns out he's not the guy. He doesn't have anything to do with it. And he ends up being like a really important interview.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Hey everybody, I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Blaine Alexander. Hi. Hello. Hello, hello. So Blaine is here to talk about her episode called The Haunted House Confession. Now, if you have not seen it, you, the listeners, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And law enforcement worked for a long time to track down her killer because they were certain that somebody in that church-going community was behind the murder. And it would take a confession in church to crack that case. Now, for this Talking Dateline, we have some extra sound from a couple of churchgoers, Linda and Russell Lamond.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
When we get back, we're going to have an extra clip of churchgoers Linda and Russell Lamond, the couple who were there for the killer's confession in church in front of the congregation and what they learned about compassion from that. So the Texas Rangers, they have to wear that hat. That's not choice.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
That is a requirement. And if they do an interview without it, they will get in some trouble, I think.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So I did a story with the Rangers once. The guy wore his hat like the entire time. I never saw the top of his head. And we don't do a lot of stories with people who wear hats.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Absolutely. One of the things I thought that really came out in this was the sort of zigzag nature of some of these investigations in which You know, they looked at the boyfriend, they looked at her grandfather, they looked at the pastor, they looked at that other guy who got very combative in the police interview. And that's how these things go. I mean, that's not just Dateline storytelling.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
That is, you know, you're looking at these guys and you want to know, you know, do you have an alibi? And sort of, you know, what kind of read do we get off you when we ask you these tough questions?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And they're going to talk about how their proximity to this awful crime gave them a new perspective. So let's talk Dateline. I am delighted to be here because this is your first two-hour episode as a Dateline correspondent.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Let's talk a little bit about that sketch. Yes. The Hail Mary sketch done by Parabon. Now, phenotyping to get a portrait is extremely controversial. Andrea did it in an episode, which I think was called Facing the Music. And they made a sketch of her based on her DNA. And it didn't really look like Andrea. You certainly wouldn't have looked at that sketch and thought, oh, that's Andrea.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
So sometimes it doesn't work and it can be incredibly misleading is the criticism. But in this case, it led to the guy.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
I was struck by how much the sketch looked like him, particularly in the eyes. Yes.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
yes yes you know there's a lot of police generated video in this which i thought really sort of helped help the viewer kind of live in the moment you really see a lot of things and i'm actually going to say that this is one of those episodes where it really is important for people to go look at it and not just listen to the audio because you're going to learn some stuff from the pictures that you're not going to learn otherwise
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
A lot of times, you know, it's very hard for killers to recount what it is that they did. He just he just talks about it like like he was having lunch. One of the other things that I thought was was fascinating was there's those weird markings on her, which, you know, maybe makes you think like this is some kind of like devil worshiping cult. She's killed on Friday the 13th.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
And then it turns out none of that really has anything to do with it. But again, it's one of those things that if you're working on this murder, like you're going to look at those possibilities because that does all seem like the stars are kind of lining up.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
This feels like a good time to play the extra sound from the Lamans who talked about what that confession sort of did to them.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
Now, you know, you are a veteran TV reporter, but I'm guessing that you were experiencing the same thing I did when I joined, which is, you know, you go from stories that are, you know, a really long story is two and a half minutes long. In your old life. And now you're doing two hours, which means a lot more can be included. You can tell a longer story.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Haunted House Confession
I'm always stunned when I hear people talking about forgiveness and compassion for people like Ryan in a case like this. I am. I would find that hard to conjure up, but they don't, clearly.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
That part was super creepy. Okay. After the break, we will be back with Dateline producer extraordinaire, Ann Priceman. And she will answer some of your questions from social media. We are back and we are joined by Dateline producer Ann Priceman. Hi, Ann.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
I'm good. I love having you here on Talking Dateline.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
We are going to take some questions from social media, which Anne is going to help us answer. But first, Anne, tell us about sort of your journey with this case.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Yes, yes, yes. Was it as intimidating to work with Keith in 1998 as it is now? Hmm.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
We have. Let's talk about some social media questions which have come in. Now, they're more statements than questions. But here's one from Tammy Minoski, who we know very well here at Dateline. She said, Kenny probably has no idea how to live without his mother. And I have to say that sounds true to me because she is like dominated his life, controlled almost every aspect of it forever.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
And he's like a bunch of other people that we occasionally interview on Dateline, which is I'll do the interview, but I don't want to talk about the thing that you want to talk about, which is the only thing anybody wants to interview you about.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Okay. One, I think you're right to stop kissing up to Keith.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
I think I like Ann better than I like you, Josh. Oh, first of all, I don't have any question that that's true. Most people feel that way. So you're definitely the majority. Joan GVS says, I had to go to the bank four times in a month to answer for everything in my life to buy my house. Over 20 pages of information proving we're not laundering money was completed. It was crazy.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
How do these people get away with it? Uh, you know, uh, first of all, the answer is one of the answers is it was easier to do that previously than it is now.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Stacey Delilah writes in to say, if these people had put this time and effort into a legitimate business, they could have been successful. And that's probably true. But going straight's not as much fun, is it? No, that wasn't the point.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
in the business of conning and scamming people sort of have contempt for, for like, you know, the squares who, you know, work every day and don't break the rules.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Now, Andrea and Blaine got a question last week that they want us to listen to. So let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Yeah, Andrea could not be more wrong. No, she clearly doesn't know us well at all. Andrea is correct. Keith is one of those people that you never hear anything bad about. And now that I've gotten to know Keith a little better, I do understand why, because he is a pro and a great journalist.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Everybody loves him. What is he doing? Keith is so great. La, la, la, la, la. I can't get enough of Keith. Yeah, yeah. It's like the rest of us don't exist. Okay. There you go. All right. I feel better now. Okay. So that is Talking Dateline for the week. Thanks very much, Keith and Anne. And thanks to all of you for listening.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or any case that you think we should be covering, you can reach out to us on social media at at Dateline NBC. Or you can send us an audio message. for a chance to be featured in our next Talking Dateline episode, which I know there's fistfights to do that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
And don't forget to tune in Friday for my all-new episode on Dateline at 9 o'clock Eastern, 8 Central about the April 2023 murder of the guy who founded Cash App, a man named Bob Lee. It's a story you've heard about. And now we're going to tell you about the hunt to find his killer. See you on Dateline on NBC.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
It's the kind of story that makes people want to get into journalism. I mean, it's a long, endless, twisting yarn that touches on all different localities, different people, different crimes. I mean, like Sante, her big talent clearly is that she doesn't come off as being as dangerous and as homicidal as she actually was.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
To be a criminal, to be a sort of small-time criminal.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Because I don't think she understood for a long time. One, what a huge service she did for him by talking him out of that life. And second, how lucky she was to be finished with that world. That's right. Because she could have been in a landfill somewhere.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Well, what's interesting is that Sante was arrested a few times and had a criminal record, and that didn't slow her down. But the possibility that might happen to him clearly did slow Kent down.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Now, this is the story of a criminal mastermind, someone you might have heard of. Her name is Sante Kahn. She became famous back in the 90s when investigators who were looking for a missing millionaire uncovered a very, very creepy, dark history of crimes and her surprising partner in those crimes and those murders, her youngest son, Kenny. Right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
You know, frequently on Dateline, we cover the stories of murders, and the murder is the point of the person's criminal activity, which is, like, they want to get rid of their husband or wife or, you know, boyfriend or whatever, right? Or whatever. But in this case...
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Frequently, the murders were were to cover up other crimes, financial crimes, insurance fraud, check kiting when they would be found out like they were with that bank examiner. Right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Like they killed that guy like they didn't gain anything from his death except that he was no longer investigating them. And, you know, they clearly killed that poor old woman in New York City just because they wanted to either, what, live in her house or sell it and cash it out.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
great police work in this one and also some incredible luck in which one officer recognizes the sketch put out by a different part of the department.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
When we come back, Keith has some extra sound that did not make the broadcast that he's going to play for us from his first interview with Kent Walker. You know, most moms don't lead their kids into lives of crime, but that is a position of some colossal influence. I hear my mom's voice when I have not made the bet, right? I hear my mom saying, go make the bet. And I do, and I'm good at it too.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Keith. Hi, Keith. Oh, hello, Josh. So this episode is called The Devil Wore White, and it's the kind of story that we almost never do at Dateline because it's less about the relationship between killer and victim and almost entirely about the relationship between killer and other killer.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
That's all Holly Mankiewicz. But most moms don't groom their kids for a life of crime, you know. And the idea that one son couldn't break away and the other one knew he had to is such a great part of this story.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Now, if you have not listened to this broadcast yet, it is the episode right below this one in the list of podcasts that you chose from. So you can go there. You can listen to it. You can watch it on Peacock. And then when you come back, Keith has an extra clip that he wants to play for more of his interview back in 2001.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
I don't excuse his behavior at all. I don't. He's right where he belongs. He's a killer. Yeah, exactly. But one does sense that he sort of never had a chance. Right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Well, I mean, first of all, you do this. He does this interview, you know, but I don't want to talk about my mom.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
That's a guy who sort of is disconnected from reality now as he was when he was under his mother's thrall.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
He wouldn't have been able to have one before he was incarcerated. Right. I will never understand that. Although I did work years ago with a woman who was dating a guy and he was locked up. And I assumed wrongly that they had been together before he got locked up. She's like, no, I met him, you know, after he was. And I'm like, why are you? Why are you dating somebody who is incarcerated?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
And she said to me, well, you always know where he is. It's right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
with kent walker who was you know sort of the heart and soul of this show in a lot of ways and later we're going to be joined by one of my favorite people and that is dateline producer ann priceman who worked on this broadcast and she will also help answer some of the questions that you may have from social media so stick around for that or stay tuned as we often said in 1961 keith you remember saying stay tuned i remember saying that
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
And they say that our culture is flawed. Just imagine. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
That was a harrowing story. You hear anything from Kenny that sounded like remorse to you?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Yeah, we're big on that in this country, on confession and redemption. Oh, yeah, and not believing the confession for a long time. Maybe more cynical. Um, so was it difficult to get Kent to sit down and talk about this?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
This feels like a good time to play the extra sound from Kent Walker. This is a piece of the interview that did not make the broadcast, and he's talking about some early memories with Sante.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
You're in a drugstore or something with your mother.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Did police have anything to say about whether or not Sante and Kenny are suspects in any uncharged murders? Are there other people out there that they killed?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
Yeah. There's no tuner anymore. That's the problem. So let's talk Dateline. So as I said in the intro, this is the kind of story we don't usually do here at Dateline. That is absolutely correct. This is less about killer and victim and more about killer and killer. And it's a crazy, crazy story.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: The Devil Wore White
They're both on the hook for these murders. Kenny confesses to save her. It's like the last act of this controlling relationship that they have.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
We are here to discuss Andrea's episode called Poison Twist. Now, if you have not seen it, it's the episode right below this one on your Dateline podcast feed. So go there, listen to it. You can also watch it on Peacock and then come back here. Now, just to recap a little bit, this is about the death of a chiropractor named Mary Yoder back in 2015.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
But I got a tremendous amount of interest in your story on social media on Friday night. I mean, a lot of people ask me, like, what's going on here? What is this? Who is this? I'm like, you should be directing these questions to Andrea. Like, I'm actually not covering this. But. A lot of people very interested. Fred Hines on Facebook said, interesting show tonight.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
It's really hard to know who the real killer was, which is one reason this was such a great episode. I suppose it comes down to just three people, husband, son, son's girlfriend. If no one outside the family was involved, then it has to be one of those three. Those would appear to be the possible choices, although, as we've discussed, Adam or Bill were not charged.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
One of our questions from Offy32 concerns the search warrant that was thrown out. I understand that Katie won her hearing and her conviction was thrown out because of a flawed search warrant regarding her cell phone. Why can't law enforcement administer a new and legal search warrant for its contents? Evidence obtained illegally is still evidence.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
To help us answer that, here is NBC legal analyst Danny Savalas. Thanks for joining us. here on Talking Dateline. Thank you for having me.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
And, you know, if this is her being framed by Adam, which I'm not taking a position on, but if it is, it's one of the great frame-up jobs of all time.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Let's say they write it for some other phone and they get it off that phone, for example. Right, exactly.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Right. Or if she if she mailed it to herself on her Gmail account, on her computer or something like that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Thanks, guys. A lot of viewers had a difficult time watching Katie's latest attorney, Melissa, seeming so happy. She was happy because as an attorney, she'd won her case. A lot of people have difficulty with the idea that defense attorneys work to free people who are convicted of crimes, some of whom are not guilty and some of whom probably are.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
And everybody deserves representation. And it makes the prosecution prove their case. They can't just say their case. They have to prove it. And you would want that, you, the viewer, if you were ever accused of anything.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So this is a question of how messy it is. adam's jeep was um uh you know if adam was innocent this is a les g jv uh les g one day you're going to be promoted to the varsity never doubt that um i'm not sure who did it but if adam was innocent why was he so hesitant to let them search his jeep well Well, he did let them. Yeah.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Also, if your Jeep looked like you were living in it, which it kind of almost did. Catherine Wilcox points out it was a pigsty. Maybe that's why he was embarrassed. Maybe. And finally, we come back to Katie's motive. Christy Michelle Bennett says, this one really has me baffled. Katie seems so sweet and innocent, but all the evidence points to her. What motive would she have had?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
And we talked about this. I can't think of a good motive for Katie. I can think of this convoluted idea that... Losing Mary might make Adam come back to her, which sort of happened in a kind of way, but it didn't last. And that feels like a lot to go through to get your boyfriend to notice you again.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Why would you keep it anywhere? Why would you not throw it out the window?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
to bring someone on murder charges. No, but maybe the fact that they, basically the fact that they got two hung juries almost might have something to do with the fact that they didn't have a really good motive.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Congratulations, Andrea. I thought this was a great episode.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
That's it for Talking Dateline for this week. Now, remember, if you have any questions for us about stories or about Dateline or things we should cover, you can reach us 24-7 on social media at at Dateline NBC. Now, if you have a question for Talking Dateline, you can record a message and send it to us on social media, or you can leave a voicemail at 212- 413-5252.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
It's not like the colchazine is a gun or something you want to hang on to to use later. You know what I mean? It's not a possession of yours. It's the thing you gave somebody to kill them. You would not want to keep that with you, I would think.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So the TV series House had an episode called Occam's Razor about somebody taking colchazine. It wasn't a murder plot. I think it was a pharmacy error. They took one drug instead of another, but colchazine poisoning was a feature of that episode. Do we know whether Katie ever saw that episode? Was she a fan of House? We don't know. I'm not aware of that question.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I checked after I heard about the Colchisian and House, which was a 2004 episode. My cousin, John Mankiewicz, was an executive producer of House that year. So he was probably one of the writers of that. Yeah.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So let's talk about the evidence that remains against Katie. She is free on what sort of in, you know, normal parlance is a technicality, right? The search warrant wasn't done correctly. Yeah. But the evidence that is eliminated from the search warrant is not at issue. There's not any question as to whether or not that phone was used to search for the poison.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
The question is, was she doing the searching or was somebody else doing the searching?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
That turned into a criminal investigation, and it turned out she had been poisoned. And a very weird anonymous letter eventually led them to a possible killer who was Mary's office manager, a woman named Caitlin Conley, also known as Katie. And there's a new development, and it's turned all of this kind of upside down. And it's a great whodunit.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So the thing I kept thinking while I was watching this is... Okay, it has to be her, but it can't be her, right? Because it doesn't make any sense. Like, why would she want to kill Mary? All of the possible motives, like removing Mary from Adam's life would make Adam come back to her. That's like out of some nutty movie. Any evidence that, like, you know, Mary was going to let Katie go?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I mean, the abuse allegations that, you know, Adam denied it, then kind of admitted it. I mean, did Mary even know about that? We don't know.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
At the beginning of the episode, Mary shows up at her sister's house and she sort of is hinting that she has something to talk about. We're never going to know what that was. What do you think that was?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Andrea. Hi, Andrea.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
It feels to me that my husband is having an affair with my sister is more likely than my office manager is trying to kill me.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
When we get back, we will have that extra clip from Andrea's interview with Melissa Swartz, Katie Conley's latest attorney, and her very strong opinions about the previous defense teams. In January of this year, Katie's conviction was overturned and she was released. And she went to McDonald's. Yeah. Went to McDonald's.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I think this is an important talking dateline question. If you'd been locked up for seven years, Andrea, what would your first meal be? Because I don't think it would be McDonald's.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I tend to eat McDonald's only – it's, it's always like a last resort because some other place that you wanted wasn't available or it's too late or you're, you're exhausted or, you know, and in my case, like changing planes at DFW, right. Or O'Hare or somewhere. And you know, you're not getting in until really late. That's when the sirens call of the golden arches. Yeah. Yeah.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So for this Talking Dateline, we have an extra clip of Andrea's interview with Katie Connolly's latest attorney, Melissa Swartz. And later on, we'll be joined by our very own legal analyst, Danny Savalas, to answer one of your social media questions. So let's talk Dateline. Katie Conley is no longer behind bars. And one kind of gets the sense that she might not be retried again.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
And the corollary to that is if I'm in certain places in the Midwest, it's Culver's. And if I'm in Texas, it's Whataburger because Whataburger is the greatest. Yeah.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
All right, so one of the interesting things about this is that, you know, her conviction has been thrown out and she gets a new trial because of something that just about never happens, which is ineffective assistance of counsel. We have an audio question about that. Let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I have covered one case in all my years at Dateline that I can recall in which that happened, in which somebody's conviction was thrown out in a new trial order. I mean, generally, the bar for that is so high.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Can you automatically, instantly tell when somebody's Canadian?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
I know. This feels, by the way, like a social media contest that is upcoming. I can see this coming. Since we're talking about ineffective assistance of counsel, let's listen to... Katie's latest attorney, Melissa Swartz, because she has a lot to say about the previous attorneys on this case. So let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Well, I mean, I think she I think she clearly did a great job because she she triumphed in a way that most attorneys do not. And those other two guys that came before her. I mean, if you can battle the prosecution to essentially a draw when the when the jury says we can't make a decision, that means you did a pretty good job.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Sounds like trying her again is going to be a lot harder than trying her the first couple of times.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So if you're Katie, you're going out into the world knowing that a large number of people think that you literally got away with murder.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
That's the interesting thing about this. I don't mean to dismiss Katie's parents. And I have no doubt that they actually do believe in their daughter's innocence. Parents almost never feel any other way. No one wants to admit they raised a monster or a killer. And this is true across the board.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So that was less surprising to me than the fact that Mary's family was really sort of steadfast and still is.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Police looked into the alleged affair and say Bill's phone records appear to confirm his account. And wouldn't it have been very hard for him to give her the colchicine in an appropriate time frame unless you believe that she got it like 12 hours earlier or something like that?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
No question. It's more difficult now that the cell phone evidence can't be used.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So if you believe that this happened at lunchtime, which is what the prosecution says, then it's pretty much got to be Katie.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
Over the course of Katie's trials, both Adam and Bill... ended up with transactional immunity because they testified in front of a grand jury. Now, for people who have committed crimes, transactional immunity can be this giant gift because what essentially is, it says, we will not prosecute you for anything you admit to in this proceeding, in this session.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So you better confess to everything because you will not be prosecuted for it under the law.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
So, you know, that suggests that Bill or Adam could not be charged, at least not based on whatever they said in the grand jury. But again, they didn't confess. Neither one of them said, yeah, I did it.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Poison Twist
The question is going to be whether Katie gets tried again, not whether somebody else gets tried. Absolutely. Up next, you, and by you, I mean the home listener, had a lot to say about who you thought killed Mary Yoder and about the investigation and about everything that happened. We will be right back with your questions from social media. OK, so this is not my story. This is your story.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I don't want to be in there. And then it turns out there's a whole other subterranean thing beneath the surface.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
And when we come back, I will be joined by Dateline producer Susan Leibowitz. And we will answer some of your questions from social media. Okay, I'm back with the producer of this episode. Susan Leibowitz is here to answer some questions of yours from social media. Hi, Susan. Nice to see you.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
This was a very complicated episode to put together. Tell me about how difficult this was.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
All right. We have some audio questions from the audience. Let's listen to those. First is Wendy Barron on Facebook.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
It's very rare that Alford pleas are taken and frequently like no one's happy with the Alford plea. Right. Lynn Wallace from Facebook says, did Marty mention anything about Paige putting him up to the murder of Desiree? I'm wondering why he wouldn't dime her out if she put him up to this. Also, did Scott go to any part of Marty's trial?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Right, because he would have been a witness against Paige, and she would have been charged.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Because an Alford plea does not require admission of guilt, just that there is sufficient evidence to convict you.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Felicious1908, who was a friend of mine in real life, writes in and says, Paige really wants us to believe that she can't remember telling a friend that she wants someone gone permanently.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Work right, calm. says, hard to believe Scott and Page aren't mixed up in this. Somehow, betting Scott and Page wanted Desiree dead, Page manipulated Marty into doing the dirty work. That's certainly the popular theory, and there isn't anything actually to support it beyond suspicion, right?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
And the physical movement of their telephones around the area doesn't tell you anything either.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Susan, thank you very much. Thanks for coming on Talking Dayline.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
And thanks to everybody for listening. Now, remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories, or any case you think we should be covering, or pretty much anything else, you can reach out to us on social at DatelineNBC. That's at DatelineNBC.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Or, if you have a question for Talking Dateline, if you want to hear your voice on Talking Dateline, well, you can leave it for us in a voicemail at 212- 413-5252. That phone rings on Keith's desk 24 hours a day. And you can record yourself and send it to us via DM on social media. You can also do it that way. And don't forget to tune in this Friday.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Andrea takes us back to the very chilling murder of a doctor in central New York. It's a good story. Thanks. See you Fridays on Dateline on NBC.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
In the Jodi Arias case in Arizona, the cops leave the interview room for a few minutes and she starts doing yoga poses. And I was thinking about that when I watched him because I'm like, man, you know, the talking to yourself and all the body language. You do think to yourself, if this guy did it, he didn't think this part out terribly well.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I think that, you know, if you're in that kind of traumatic situation and you had absolutely nothing to do with it, the natural reaction is you're going to be anguished. You're going to seem anguished and upset and miserable and scared and horrified and realizing, you know, one, that this person you loved is gone.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
And second, like they're looking at you for it when you had absolutely nothing to do with it. I think there are some very natural reactions, but what he exhibited are not among that kind selection of natural reactions. That looks like somebody basically coaching himself. And this might be a good time to mention it. Never charged. Yeah, never charged. Never charged.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
This, I think, I'm sure that Susan Nall, who is the keeper of the official Dateline institutional memory, will inform me that I am wrong. But I do not remember a story in which Previous military service and trauma experienced on the battlefield came back in which that was a factor in determining how someone might behave in a stressful situation.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that we sort of don't know a lot about is how... That kind of trauma and that kind of stress affects people when they leave military service and return to private life. Despite that, there are clearly people in this story who think he knew what had happened. Maybe he didn't do it, but he knew what had happened.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I mean, when he says, you know, I decided not to come back until the next morning, I think, uh-oh. And then I stayed the night with a friend. Okay, well, who was it? Well, it was a friend of mine named, well, let's see. Let me go through my Rolodex. I mean, yeah, come on, dude.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Hi, everybody. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and we are talking Dateline today with Blayne Alexander. Hi, Blayne. Hello, hello. So this episode is called Deadly Entanglement. It's about the 2013 murder of a woman named Desiree Sunford in her home in Yakima County, Washington, and the very, very complicated relationship that ultimately led to her murder. Thank you so much.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
We've had throuples on Dateline before. This is not the first time that's come up. But it certainly added to the intrigue. And when you start hearing about that, that's when I think like, oh, wait, everything I thought I understood about this maybe is a little bit wrong because now there's somebody else involved. But then it turns out there's a whole layer beyond that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
is watching the episode in addition to listening to the podcast and then listening to Talking Dateline. And if you don't have any time for the other things in your life, like your family, that's your problem. So go there, listen to it, and then come back here.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I'm asking you this, admitting beforehand that without talking to Scott or Desiree, we might not know the answer here. But you think Desiree's infidelity maybe gave Scott what he thought, I got to pass now, you know?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Not a great idea, but certainly not while they were married is when that happened, which is an important distinction to some people when we return. We will have an extra clip from Blaine's interview with the woman at the center of this extremely complicated, weird case, Paige Blades. Page texts Desiree, I'm fairly convinced that in the event of your demise, I would be the chosen one.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
First of all, when you're that age, right, you don't talk to your friends about like, you know, if you die, what is going to die at that? What are you talking about? That's not an age where you think about people dying and you replacing them. I just thought that was really weird.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Now, when we come back, Blaine has an extra clip that she's going to play for us with her interview with the woman who's absolutely at the center of this page, Blades. Later, I'm going to be joined by Dateline producer Susan Leibowitz. who will help answer some of your questions about the broadcast from social media. So stick around for that. And now let's talk Dateline.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
And the other thing I thought was really weird was Paige's text saying, I've been wanting to do away with you because she was done away with.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
There were people you interviewed who clearly suspect that Paige either knew more than she was telling or was involved to a greater extent than she is sort of given credit for by law enforcement. But it's Paige who points the finger at Marty. Right.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I mean, so you got to ask yourself, I mean, if if she did this, if she wants Scott all for herself and says to her friend Marty, who will do anything for her, hey, you need to you need to get rid of Desiree for me. It's kind of counterproductive to call up the tip line anonymously and say, you know, here's Marty, because if you're going to do it to save yourself.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Then you go in with an attorney, and you say to the district attorney, I need a deal here, which is I don't have any charges, and I'm going to tell you who it was. But she doesn't do that. She just calls the tip line and hopes that the cops will focus on Marty, and that suggests – A lack of any responsibility and a desire to have somebody brought to justice.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
This feels like a good time to listen to your extra sound that you brought that did not make our episode. This is your interview with Paige, and let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
All right, so one of the great things about this story is that from the get-go, you're like, all right, well, it's pretty clearly the husband, right? I mean, that guy's a liar. He's acting like out of a textbook, like how to make the police suspicious of you right after something is happening. I don't want to go in the house, but I want the cops to find the body, right?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Very, very odd relationship between Paige and Marty.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Well, it's this sort of odd devotional relationship in which he's making, he's probably made it clear to her a hundred times, you're the only woman for me, even though you're not interested.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I'm going to always carry this torch for you, even though, right, I'm in another relationship. It doesn't matter. You're the one for me forever.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I can only imagine that taking advantage of that, you know, to get out of some terrible relationship that you were in, which is the situation Paige describes, and sort of encouraging the Marty in that relationship, you know, to sort of like, okay, well, now I am leaning on you for something, right? That's a very awkward... That's a difficult choice to make. And I'm sure...
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Yeah. She said something like he worships the ground I walk on or something like that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
I felt bad for Marty's wife, Beth. I did. Who just sort of was a kind of an unwitting passenger in this story.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Deadly Entanglement
Didn't like it any more than Desiree did, probably. Didn't like it any more.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
This is not something you get over. Nope. It's why I hate the word closure so much. I mean, she's locked up and she didn't get parole, but there's no closure here.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
No, you were like, you saw this, I'm thinking, through the bars of your crib.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And in at the next one, I mean, increasingly jurisdictions around the country are releasing older prisoners so they can stop paying for the cost of their health care. Assuming that Susan does not cause more problems behind bars, the odds go up just for that, that she's going to be released or that a parole board will want to release.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
I was 15. Okay. All right. Because I was, I think, 65 then. Shut up. Uh, I remember, I remember this story. I was actually, um, not only was I a TV reporter at this, at this stage, I was not working. I had not come to Dateline yet.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And the parole board sort of didn't buy it 30 years later. No. Did that surprise anybody? Was there anybody who thought that was going through? No.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Craig, thank you for joining us. After the break, I'm going to be joined by Dateline producer Carol Gable, and together we will answer some of your questions from social media. We are now joined by producer Carol Gable. Hi, nice to see you. Good to see you, Josh.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
You started working on this episode for Dateline back in 1994, which was actually even before I joined Dateline, which is what you and many other people refer to as the good old days. Tell me a little bit about your journey with this case. What sort of kept you working on it for so long?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And I was working for a show that had stopped producing episodes and we were all just kind of getting paid, waiting for them to figure out what they were going to do next, which turned out to be nothing. So I had a lot of time to watch coverage of this. And I did, I remember watching a lot of it.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
The thing that everybody asks about is remorse. What do you detect from Susan Smith under that category?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Let me ask you a question that is not among the social media questions that we're going to be answering today, but it is one that I know is out there. Why are you, Dateline and Carol Gable and Craig Melvin, giving this woman a platform to whine about her problems? She's a terrible person. She committed a horrible crime. She's right where she belongs. Why are you giving her any airtime?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Now we're going to listen to some audio questions, which were sent to us on social media.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
That's when they realize, okay, this person's lying. There was no question about where the call was placed from at the time the call was placed because it was from that woman's house that she ran to.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Here's another audio question. This one from Gail Pannis on Facebook.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
That's it for the audio questions today. Now we're going to go to other questions from social media. Southern Beach Girl says, I'm sure David or other family members would have been happy to take those babies in and she could still have run off with the other guy.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Eight Lawana says, I can't believe it's been 30 years. Those little boys would have went to college and had lives of their own, if not for Susan's selfishness. And that is something I always think about when kids are involved, which is the life that went unlived.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Carol, thank you very much. And thanks, everybody, for listening. Now, remember, if you have any questions for us about our stories or any case that you think we should be covering, you can reach out to us on social at at Dateline NBC, or you can send us an audio message for a chance to be featured in our next Talking Dateline episode.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Also, do not forget about Keith's all-new podcast called Murder in the Moonlight. It's very, very good. And I know that because Keith told me that personally. So you can listen to the first two episodes of Murder in the Moonlight right now for free.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
For early access to future episodes and to listen to all Dateline podcasts ad-free, which I know you want to do, subscribe to Dateline Premium on Apple, Spotify, or at datelinepremium.com. See you Friday for an all-new Dateline on NBC.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And I'm presuming that even when the TV wasn't on, everybody was talking about it. It's all anybody could talk about. You know, the detail of her story, I remembered this when I saw it in your broadcast. The guy jumps in the car, supposedly, and says, you know, he's got a gun. He's like, just drive. And she said, and the boys were crying.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And I remember thinking, like, man, they must have been terrified. Like, they could tell something was wrong. They knew how frightened she was. That was the moment where I thought, oh, my God, how awful that must be. And, of course, all made up.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
I mean, she she sold this really well. It wasn't like she was refusing to talk to anybody or wouldn't speak afterwards. I mean, correct. She absolutely played her part.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
So this episode is called Return to the Lake, and it is about a horrifying case that everybody of a certain age, that being me, will remember. It's from 1994. It's the story of Susan Smith, who murdered her two young children.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say it was a simpler or more innocent time, but it may have been a less suspicious time because without, without social media and the internet, uh, The impulse was to believe her story. She's telling the truth. Yep. And people did believe it.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And then, clearly, I mean, at some point, law enforcement starts doing what I think was a pretty good job, like figuring out, like, her story about the stoplight couldn't have been true. That's a... That's pretty good police work in a time when there weren't cameras at every intersection.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Can't track her, nothing. No, no. Old school. Right. I mean, today that story wouldn't stand up because of technology. Back then? You know, you told it and you sold it. And she did. You guys got some conversations, some audio from those conversations. Now, those have not been played before. And they're chilling, I thought.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Now, for this episode, Craig spoke with her ex-husband, David, in a very rare, very revealing interview about how this case, this loss, how it impacted him and how he is fighting to keep the woman that he once loved behind bars. Now, if you've not listened to this episode yet, it is the episode right below this one on the list of podcasts that you just chose from.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Yeah. So, you know, Susan Smith initially, I mean, after she eventually told the truth, she first said that she sort of tried to drown herself along with her sons. Anybody believe that?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
Hi, everybody. It's Josh Mankiewicz, and we're talking Dateline today with Craig Melvin. Hi, Craig. Josh, how are you, Mank? Good, and congratulations on that new non-Dateline job that you have. I see you trying to fit in around your Dateline responsibilities.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
You know, over the years, Carol Gable, our producer, sort of kept in touch with Susan Smith and wrote her all these letters, I think knowing that this story was going to come back one day. Yeah. And you included some of those. Is Susan Smith still selling the story, you think?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
When we come back, we will have an extra clip from the interview with the chief of SLED, Mark Keel, who remembers where he was when Susan Smith confessed to killing her two sons. You know, when I saw Mark Keel in your episode, I realized that I had interviewed him before. I immediately recognized him and his name.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And I have been racking my brain unsuccessfully, as it turns out, to try to remember what story it was that I interviewed him for. I can't remember. Now, he has not really talked about this case.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
This is full circle for him. I mean, he went from being like part-time on a pilot and now he's running sled and he's still on this story. Yep. Yep. We have a little bit more of Craig's interview with the chief of SLED, Mark Keel. And he remembers very well what was going on back then and in the days after. Let's listen to that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
So you can go there and you can listen to it and come back here or you can go to Peacock and stream it. Now, when you come back, Craig and I will talk about the episode. Craig also has an extra clip that he wants to play for us from the chief of SLED, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Mark Keel. And then later, we're going to be joined by a special guest.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
No, I completely agree. Because there's no way that that was quick or painless.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
And that is Dateline producer Carol Gable, who exchanged letters with Susan Smith for 20 years. And she's going to talk about that and also answer some of your questions about the broadcast from social media. So stick around for that. And now let's talk Dateline. You were a small child when this happened. I know that. It's not a small child.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
This is one of the things we've talked about before on previous episodes of Talking Dateline and elsewhere, which is there's this ripple effect to murder. It's not just the person. It's not just the immediate family. It doesn't go away because the person gets convicted or locked up. And those people that approach you in the supermarket, like they're well-meaning. Yes.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Return to the Lake
But they're not letting you move on from this. Right? Nope. it also defines your life. Right. Whether you, and you probably don't wish that, I mean, when you don't want it to, but it will anyway.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
You've got to know the facts of the story before you go in, because people, not everybody, but people are going to try to sell you a different version of it. And, you know, that's sort of part of the job here.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Yeah, I mean, it was long, and many people thought it went past the amount of time that the judge had told the jurors, this is how long the trial will take, including your deliberations. So many people, this reporter included, many people thought this is going to be a mistrial, which would have been... I think a pretty big victory for the defense.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
I think that would have been exactly what Sam Zangan wanted. Because look, I mean, in a mistrial, like you've already seen the other guy's hand, you know, you know what cards they have, you know how they're going to. And I don't know that there were that many more ways to present the evidence that the prosecution had presented. I mean, they they put it out there.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
And the motive was always kind of convoluted. That's one of the harder things to understand. The forensics, they're a little more clear. The video, that's a little bit more clear. You sort of know that Nemo was the last person to see Bob before he was stabbed. But then at the last minute, they came out with a verdict.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Not guilty of first-degree murder, but guilty of second-degree, which is going to be when he's sentenced, it's a 16-year minimum. I think the prosecution was happy with a 16-year minimum. I think the family sees a measure of justice in this. I mean, here's one interesting thing.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
At the beginning of this case, people saw this as, you know, crime is the great equalizer because even the rich can't protect themselves in the streets of San Francisco. And of course, that wasn't what this was about. This wasn't about how much crime there was or wasn't in San Francisco. But in the end,
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
The Lee family are like a lot of other families we cover, which is they got the verdict that they wanted, or at least one close enough to it. But they've discovered that the criminal justice system is not a time machine. And whatever happens to Nima Momeni now... This trial, that verdict doesn't bring back Bob Lee. And your life is split in half.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
that it can sort of rob us of one of the things that we need for Dateline, which is sort of the suspense. So in this case, you have a certain base of knowledge out there among the public. The thing that really I thought helped us in this is that, first of all, we covered the trial and we're airing pretty close after the trial ended. It was just a couple of weeks ago.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
And in that way, the Lee family is like all the other people that we cover on Dayline, which is there's the part before and then now there's the part after.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
The answer is, we don't know for sure, but there was discussion from many people that what Bob used to do cocaine was a collar stay. One of those little plastic things that fits inside your shirt collar to keep it stiff if you're wearing it with a tie. And that that would have been about the right size to be the object shown in the video.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
By the way, I believe that no collar stay was recovered from Bob, which doesn't mean anything because he could have thrown it away. Men tend to have a lot of those. I mean, I probably have hundreds of them.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
No, I've never seen anybody carry them around. But it... Sometimes when you send your shirts out, sometimes they come back with those stays in them. Usually when you buy the shirt, they have them. And you're supposed to take them out before you send them to the laundry. Otherwise, they'll get pressed into the shirt, which is not good. So you want to take them out before the laundry.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
This is the vital premium content that Talking Dayline listeners expect, by the way.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
I mean, there's a guy on Turner Classic Movies who does it all the time and it's really irritating. But I can't think of anybody else. Well, I mean, you know, I mean, maybe technically. But no, I don't. But, you know, that's who Sam Zanganeh is. Like, I certainly took no offense at any of that. That's how he talks normally to everybody. But, you know, hey, I've been called better.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
the video, what's called the pantomime video, which is Nima, depending on who you ask, either pantomiming or not pantomiming, stabbing Bob Lee in a conversation with his then attorney's private investigator in a parking lot. The defense argued that that was attorney work product. Talking to an investigator is like talking to your attorney.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
You obviously would not be able to take a video of a person talking to their attorney inside the attorney's office, That's clearly attorney-client privilege. The issue was that it happened in public, that it happened in a parking lot where anyone could have seen it. The video was blurred because the judge, I think, was sort of splitting the baby here.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
And we have one more advantage, which is sort of what you thought You, the viewer, what you thought when this happened turns out to be not really the story that was there. You know, a lot of people saw that video of Bob Lee stumbling around downtown San Francisco and then sort of didn't really connect with anything after that because, you know, just the general flow of news.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
and saying, okay, you can see what he's doing, but I'm not going to let you hear what he said because anybody walking by might not have heard what he said. So that's why the court blurred Nima's mouth so you can't try to make out the conversation, but you can see what he's doing. And what the prosecution says he's doing is pantomiming, stabbing Bob Lee twice, and then throwing the knife away.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
I want to encourage everybody to submit audio questions.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Well, first of all, Keith, you know, does tower over me when Keith is over six feet. I'm five nine and Keith is over six feet tall. But Sergeant Dittmer, I think, is six five. And a lot of people on social the other night were saying things like, wow, is Josh like five three? I'm like, and he's normal sized. I'm like, no, he's very tall.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
They remember, oh, yeah, that guy got stabbed in San Francisco where the crime is so terrible. That's sort of what what people thought. And then it turns out, of course, it really wasn't that at all.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
I think a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that this had to do with the crime problem on the streets of downtown San Francisco. And it didn't.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
The police certainly knew immediately that this wasn't a robbery, but they sort of the police did an interesting thing, which is they kind of did not say anything to refute that part of the story saying, we don't really know what this is, but we're pretty sure what it's not. They didn't do that because what they were fine with was the idea of that story being
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
The robbery stories just sort of sitting out there because they thought, well, whoever is responsible and we don't know who that is at this point, they're going to think we're looking for, you know, downtown stick up men or something. And we aren't.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Right. Yeah. Right. That's what you want if you're doing an investigation.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Yeah. I mean, then the police went out. They got all of this stuff. That's one of the first things that happens in an investigation. They were able to not just see where Bob was walking around before he collapsed and before the police and paramedics found him after his 911 call. But they sort of went back in time on the video, and they saw that white car.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
And then they follow that white car, and it leads back to the Millennium Tower. And the video gets progressively better of the car, like, as they sort of go back in time. Like, the first video at the crime scene is not so good. But then they see it a couple of blocks away heading toward the crime scene, you know, sort of going back in time. They're like, okay, that's a little better.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
They go back a little farther. They go to the Millennium Tower, and that's pay dirt. And you have this kind of Rashomon thing where they're walking out of the Millennium Tower, he and Nima. So the question is, what do you see when you see that video? Is that one guy who knows he's about to commit a murder and the other guy who thinks the danger, whatever it was, has passed? We're fine.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
We're going to go hang out. We're good. Or is that Nima who is no longer angry at Bob and Bob who is carrying a knife and planning on attacking Nima?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Cash App, Square, MobileCoin, you know, in a way. This was robbery because we got robbed of all the stuff that Bob Lee would have created down the line. Right. So many of the things that Bob Lee was involved in and would have done would have continued to change people's lives and make life easier for everybody and better for a lot of small businesses and people like that. So.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
You know, he was an interesting guy in that when police began their investigation, they couldn't find anybody that didn't like Bob Lee. Everybody talked about him as being a wonderful guy, a great friend, a really supportive coworker, a guy who had made a lot of money. but who had turned down probably bigger money because he wanted to help people.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
And the interesting thing was, I didn't know his name. You may not have known his name before this happened, but you knew his work. And inside the tech world, he was very well known. So this kind of hit like a bomb because this was a guy that was very well known, very well liked, and very well regarded.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
No, I mean, look, I mean, look, a lot of these guys are just like, you know, world's biggest nerds who have, you know, conquered the world through tech. And what do they do on their time off? Sometimes, as one guy said, it's playing Wii tennis all night long until dawn. And sometimes it's doing something at a different level.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
You know, sometimes it's drinking all night long and sometimes it's it's it involves the drug world. You know, one interesting thing. There was a lot of talk about sex at the beginning of this case, that that was going to be part of this sort of Silicon Valley party underworld that was going to be unearthed. Yeah. In the end, this was drugs.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Drugs ended up being sort of the through line that connected all these people. And it turned out to be way less sex than I think people were initially expecting to hear about.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Bob's friends were pretty open about it. Krista, his ex-wife, who remained extremely close to him, was open about it. And nobody was really worried about it except Bob's brother, Oliver, who was concerned about the extent to which he thought Bob was self-medicating because there had been some depression in their family and he thought Bob was dealing with that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Krista was not worried about his drug use. She never saw that as impairing him personally, him professionally, or his relationship with the kids. And the kids clearly did not feel like they had sort of lost part of him because of that. They were both very attached to him and saw him as a really involved, caring, thoughtful, present parent.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
What did you learn about her through the course of this? Her conduct... played a huge role in setting in motion whatever happened next, whatever you believe. But she said something or did something. She suggested a scenario in which something happened that made Nima angry. This is the prosecution's point of view and made him angry that Bob had put Kazar in that situation.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Now, we do know that whatever happened to Kazar, whatever it was, and that's very murky at this point, we know that Bob wasn't present. We know that Bob had already left at that point. Did Kazar, in some subsequent conversation with her brother, blame Bob for what had happened to her? Or did Nima just kind of take that from her, that inference?
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Like, oh, Bob must have had something to do with this. You know, that we're sort of never going to know. The sense that you got from this trial was that she would have said or done just about anything to keep her brother safe. out of prison. I mean, she's on the stand and she says, you know, my brother is not the person that killed Bob Lee. She said that.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Well, her brother admits being the person that killed Bob. I mean, that was sort of the problem with her on the stand is he had said, yeah, I did do it, but it was self-defense. That was their defense was he tried to kill me and I ended up stabbing him with his own knife.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Which is something you don't hear every day. In the end, the question of what happened that night between Kazar and Bob and Jeremy Boivin is is. murky. Jeremy Boivin very explicitly says there was no sexual assault and Kazar later apologized to me. We don't know exactly what happened and we don't know exactly what Kazar said about what happened.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
We do know that Bob was not present at the time, which makes that motive, as you said before, really convoluted because it requires that Nima be furious at Bob for something that Bob was not present for. That's the problem with the prosecution motive.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Kazar testified she was heartbroken about Bob's death.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Yeah. Without taking anything away from Oliver, because I completely understand him in this, there was some relationship between Kazar and Bob. I mean, it appears to have not been primarily romantic or sexual. It appears to have been social, and it certainly also connected over drugs. But were they close? They were, because she sent these texts that night.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
after bob died but she didn't know that bob was dead sort of thanking him for handling nema's anger in such a classy way which was a big part of the prosecution's motive was these texts that in which kazar essentially acknowledged nemo was furious at bob and bob calmed nema down so um i i do completely understand where oliver is coming from but the relationship clearly did exist
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
I mean, no one else has faced charges. I think what Krista is referring to is not just the issue of whether or not evidence was disposed of, but the question of whether
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Bob and Kazar's relationship and what Kazar said to Nima about what happened that night, which in the eyes of the prosecution and also the Lee family made Nima so angry that he took a knife from Kazar's apartment and then stabbed Bob with it. And so that's why they say that family.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
He was wearing – when we first met – well, actually, both times when we met, he was wearing a very expensive suit and some very expensive loafers with a big logo on them. This was a guy – I mean, look, Sam Zangaday is a guy that if you – If you are in serious trouble and you have some serious coin, he's the guy you want. So make no mistake about this.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
Well, it makes booking interviews a little more difficult because when you're the only people covering a story, it's much easier to deal with the people that you're trying to book for an interview because they don't have 100 other requests. But the thing that makes covering a national story on Dateline difficult is.
Dateline NBC
Talking Dateline: Under the Bay Bridge
They came, I thought, that close to getting a mistrial in this case. They did a very good job. Look, it's fun sparring with guys like that. You'll be doing plenty of that in the months and years ahead.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
I was worried that unless we had more, that this would be a case where everybody knew that he did it, but nobody could prove it. So time to take a harder look at the evidence. A defendant who seems quite confident. There was a certain swagger that he and his team had. I think they felt that they could win it.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
He could reasonably argue that the crime scene, particularly his apartment, wasn't adequately secure. Uh-huh. Sure. And that other people had access. Indeed they did. And therefore, you can't prove I did it. Yeah. So there was a certain swagger there. that he and his team had, I think they felt not unreasonably that they could win it.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
The DA asked them to take another look. I thought there is no way that this guy committed this kind of murder and doesn't have an internet history that would blow your mind. So he asked the experts to look for anything related to Loren Giddings for sex and violence. And when they did, it just exploded. It's obvious that he has a fascination with sadistic pornography.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
Here was a predator in the final stage of planning. He was spying in there to see if she was home. because that is the night I think he planned to kill her.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
He admitted that he came into her apartment in the middle of the night and that he attacked her.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
It was an obsession for him. His dream was to commit murder and to get away with it. And he almost succeeded.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
The body would have never been discovered. And we never would have captured Stephen McDaniel. And we never would have gotten justice.
Dateline NBC
The Watcher
He had a thumb drive of Lauren's. He had all of her pictures. We had a sick individual we had to find.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
This story about a mother and son grifter team. This was a diabolical duo.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my neck. And he did say to me, this is a hostage situation.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
The interview was at noon. The corrections officer brings me to an empty cafeteria. There were two chairs. And Kenny walks in in his prison garb, and I'm sitting down with my two-man crew. And right away, I could tell something was going on, like his mind was racing. Are you saying, though, that Mrs. Silverman was aware that you were sharing the apartment with your mother? Yeah, absolutely.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
Absolutely. And after about 10 minutes, he said, can I go to the bathroom? So he went to the bathroom the first time. Asked him a couple of more questions. 10 minutes must have gone by. Can I go to the bathroom again?
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
Then finally, the third time, he said to me, Maria, I'm really hungry. Would you mind getting me something to eat?
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
It all happened incredibly fast. Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my neck. And he did say to me, this is a hostage situation.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
I said to him, Kenny, why are you doing this? And he basically said, I want to be extradited to Canada. My mother is an elderly woman. She can't live the rest of her life in prison.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
I finally said, do you know how to pray? And he said, yes. And he actually was very receptive to it. I know I needed some comfort. So we said the Lord's Prayer together. There was a hostage negotiator that after we prayed together, he said to Kenny, Kenny, I'm going to try to help you. Here is my business card. And he pulled out a business card and he reached out to Kenneth.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
They must have just all jumped on him, and I heard him grunting and groaning, and I didn't look back.
Dateline NBC
The Devil Wore White
Next thing I know, he's around my back with his arm across my neck.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
Before I joined a CPO last month, I was a MobileCoin advisor and investor.
Dateline NBC
Under the Bay Bridge
It is just one of the latest high-profile crimes. It's increased safety concerns around the San Francisco area.
Dateline NBC
Verdict in the roommate murder trial. Mom accused of murder by fire and van. And, actor Dennis Quaid.
30 years. Yeah, hard to believe. Now, you know, it kind of depends on how you measure time.
Dateline NBC
A murder suspect's brother under scrutiny. Breakthrough in parents' quest for answers. And should jurors question witnesses?
Wow.
Dateline NBC
A murder suspect's brother under scrutiny. Breakthrough in parents' quest for answers. And should jurors question witnesses?
There's a hole in our lives. Our life is not complete.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
And what did they tell you had happened?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
He may have thought that gesture made a good impression. It did not.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
At about the time the railroad men were leaving Sabrina Limon's house in Silver Lakes, a redheaded man stepped out of the darkness and ducked under the fluttering crime scene tape into Hatchipie. That man was Kern County Senior Deputy Sheriff Randall Meyer. He didn't choose this case. It kind of chose him. Meyer was the on-call detective that night. He'd been at home in Bakersfield.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Jonathan had known all along that taking Rob's place and winning over Sabrina's family would not happen quickly. Even so, he was committed and convinced he and Sabrina would be married soon. And why was he so sure? Well, because he felt it was God's will.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
So this person stopped somewhere to change clothes? Yes. Once again, the security camera was unable to provide a clear picture of the motorcycle's license plate. It did record the rider walking into the gas station's mini-mart.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
When word came, there'd been a murder.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
You see, God had a course mapped out for Jonathan Hearn. He might be living the cramped and cluttered life of a 24-year-old now, but he was certain God had big plans for his future.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
That sounds like somebody who knows that that whole transaction is being recorded on video and wants to make sure that you can't identify him. Yes, that was very suspicious. After prepaying with cash at the register, the rider goes outside and without ever taking off his helmet, refills his tank and rides away. I'm sort of hearing the word search warrant here.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Okay. How many of you worked that scene?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
After a quick briefing from first responders, the sergeant told Meyer to take the lead. That was a big moment. Because even though Detective Meyer had been a lawman for 17 years, he'd only been with the county's robbery homicide unit a few months.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Jonathan knew Sabrina stood to collect $300,000 and perhaps more than that in death benefits from the railroad. He knew that kind of money could come in handy if he and Sabrina married. But he told her he wasn't thinking about the money anymore. God would take care of that.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
The problem was this. Out of hours and hours of wiretaps, Sabrina had said nothing incriminating.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Up until then, the detective had found a lot of probable, but not much cause. The phone records of Sabrina Limon and Jonathan Hearn changed all that. Using an Excel spreadsheet, investigators were able to chart all of the calls and texts between the two since the day they first met in that aisle at Costco two years earlier.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
The night had turned chilly by the time Detective Meyer stepped into the railroad shop to take a look at the crime scene. Everything there was just as it had been when Sean Ware arrived two hours earlier.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
So a few days after being picked up by Kern County deputies, Sabrina was released from custody.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
There were times during Jonathan's talks with Sabrina when it seemed every fifth word was either love or God, prayer or purpose. And the Bible? Well, that was an unending source of inspiration. Psalms 51 says, was a favorite.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
No cartridge casings, but there was a bullet found on the cement floor, a big one, maybe a .44 or a .45. The lab techs would have to figure that out. The door to the fridge in the kitchenette area was open, blood spatter inside the door. Bottles of water and Gatorade were on the floor. It looked as if maybe there'd been a struggle.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
But now the detective wondered if those phone records might also be evidence of a murder plot. As the detective studied two years worth of calls and contacts, he noticed a sudden break in the pattern that looked suspicious. In the spring of 2014, just three months before Rob Lamone's murder, those communications between Jonathan and Sabrina
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
You'll hear Jonathan and Sabrina's intimate conversations as they try to match wits with the detective investigating them. Some of the questions that the detectives ask me, just like how much of our story to tell kind of thing.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It's about faith and faithlessness, murder, and the thrill of moral escapism.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Over in the office area, evidence techs dusted for prints and took photos. Right from the start, Meyer thought the office scene looked staged.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
You'll hear the bedroom secrets of a bedroom community on the high desert.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Fact was, there were no signs of forced entry. Robbery didn't make sense. Neither did the idea that Rob Lamone's murder was somehow work-related. Coworkers had nothing but good things to say about Rob.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Meaning it's a pay-as-you-go phone, a burner. Possibly, yes. The kind of phone that somebody would use if they were either committing a crime or having an extramarital affair. Yes, yes. The number of calls and texts from Jonathan Hearn's phone to and from that new number was overwhelming. 7,000 of them from April through October of 2014.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
In David and Bathsheba, they have an affair, she gets pregnant, and David has her husband killed. But she's not involved. David's later forgiven for that, I think. Yes. The parallels were far from perfect. Even forgiven sins have consequences. Jonathan seemed to have missed that part of Scripture.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
In this episode, you will hear how some critical evidence was missed during those searches.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Once everything had been photographed, measured, and dusted, the team from the coroner's office bagged Rob Lamone's hands to protect whatever evidence might be under his fingernails. And they removed his wallet from his hip pocket. Then they wrapped him in clean white bed sheets and zipped him into a black body bag for transport to the coroner's office in Bakersfield.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In the weeks leading up to Rob Limone's murder, those phone logs showed nearly 2,000 text messages between the two numbers. The detectives suspected Sabrina Limone was the person using the burner phone to communicate with Jonathan Hearn, but there seemed to be only one way to know for sure. The investigators asked a judge for permission to wiretap those phones. Difficult to get that warrant?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
As he listened in, the detective felt Jonathan's affinity for that powerful Bible story was essentially a confession. Is that sort of how you thought they perceived what had happened? That Jonathan had had Rob killed and expected later to be forgiven?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Inside the wallet, the detective found an ID which confirmed what he already knew. Rob Lamont, age 38, lived in Hellendale in San Bernardino County, about 90 miles to the southwest. Home address? a house on Strawberry Lane. In the office area, the detective found a Samsung flip phone which appeared to be Rob's. The last outgoing from that phone was at 5.28.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Do you ever hear anybody use a story out of the Bible to justify having an affair and killing the other person's spouse?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In addition to showing a judge there was reason to believe Jonathan Hearn had conspired with Sabrina Limon to kill her husband, they also argued that a conspiracy to cover up that crime was, at that very moment...
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It was Rob telling a friend that he'd briefly checked out a car show that was in town earlier that afternoon. That meant Rob had been killed sometime after 5.28 and before Sean Ware discovered his body an hour and 20 minutes later. The last text on Rob's phone came in at 8.13. It was that text from Rob's wife, the one that read, Babe, I'm worried about you.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
In the days after Sabrina Limon's latest sit-down with Detective Meyer, the cops in the wire room remained on high alert, waiting for either Jonathan or Sabrina to slip up and say something clear and unambiguous about the murder of Rob Limon. That never happened. Instead, Jonathan and Sabrina behaved as if the murder investigation was behind them.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Monitoring those phones 24-7 would be a huge job. Too big for the eight officers who made up the Kern County Robbery Homicide Unit. So they enlisted the aid of other departments and agencies. and borrowed the DEA's wire room in downtown Bakersfield.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
The detective figured that text was to Rob from his wife. And he knew he'd have to talk with her sooner or later. But first, he wanted to review security camera video from that afternoon. The industrial complex where Rob Limone was murdered is on the way to nowhere, shaped like a wine bottle. There's only one way in and one way out.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
That Sunday, Sabrina brought Jonathan to church along with her kids and his sister Emily. It felt as if a new blended family was being forged. For Jason and Kelly Bernatine, who'd initially told Detective Meyer about Sabrina's affair with Jonathan, and who were among the first to suspect him of murder. That was a demoralizing development.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
You'll hear about a motive for murder far more tangible than vague notions of God's purpose.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
That's Lydia Marrero, one of Rob Lamone's sisters. If she did call, what would you say to her?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
In this podcast, you'll hear from people who loved that man found lying on the shop floor in August 2014. He became my best buddy.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
With five security cameras stationed around the warehouse complex, Detective Meyer thought he had a decent chance at catching a glimpse of Rob's killer through at least one of those lenses. Here's the tale of the tapes. At about 4.11 that Sunday afternoon, Rob Limone could be seen headed west, leaving the complex. Presumably on his way to check out that car show he'd texted his friend about.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The guys in the wire room did not have to wait long for their monitoring screens to light up. Just as expected, that call was Sabrina Limon's burner phone to Jonathan Hearn's cell. Hey, baby.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
The next day was Monday, November 17th, and it marked the three-month anniversary of Rob Lamone's murder. At 6.34 that Monday evening, Meyer called Sabrina's home phone and left a voicemail. The detective told Sabrina the re-release of security camera video of the man on the motorcycle had worked as planned.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
At 4.15, the same camera picked up a motorcycle rider headed east, in the direction of the railroad shop. At 5.11, Rob Limone's truck returns. On video, you can see Rob returning to the warehouse where he was killed. Yes, sir. Is he alone?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
And you will hear that couple's earnest prayers for God's guidance. as investigators listened in on their private phone calls. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
two things were immediately clear from that very first wiretapped call. Sabrina Limon and Jonathan Hearn were as in love as moonstruck teenagers. I love you. I love you.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
He said a secret witness had just phoned the sheriff's department and said they thought they recognized the man on the motorcycle.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
And everything looks normal? Yes. Then at 5.21, 10 minutes after Rob was seen headed back to the shop, a hunched figure is seen walking in the same direction before passing out of sight. 18 minutes later, at 5.39... The same figure is seen limping away from the direction of the railroad shop. The images were grainy and blurry and too far away to see anything identifiable.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
I love you back. And in the weeks after Rob Limon met his maker, his wife and her lover were spending a lot of time praying for guidance and forgiveness.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
And you'll hear how two murder suspects turn to the Bible for guidance and absolution. As the pressure mounted.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
When cross-examining Jonathan Hearn, Richard Terry questioned his religious sincerity.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Meaning that if that were true, you'd be getting close. Yes. You were playing Sabrina and Jonathan like a couple of violins.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
Lydia says the silence from Sabrina after her release spoke volumes.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
I'm surprised you didn't have sheet music.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
That said, they were absolutely intriguing.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
Was all that religiosity intended to fool Sabrina into thinking of him as more virtuous than her husband?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
True to form, Sabrina called Jonathan at the fire station as soon as she heard that message.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
So no one who worked there could come up with a good reason why there would be this limping guy on the property? No. Given that the last outgoing text on Rob's phone was at 528, the detective thought there was a good chance that limping man could be the killer. So now here's the thing. Remember that motorcyclist, the one that was headed toward the railroad shop at 515?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In practical terms, their purpose seemed to include spending as much time as possible together. Just weeks after her husband's death, Sabrina was including Jonathan in outings with the kids. When 8-year-old Leanna and 11-year-old Robbie were in school and work schedules allowed, they'd get together at Jonathan's place for sex. When the kids were in bed asleep, Jonathan dropped by for sleepovers.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Sabrina told Jonathan a secret witness had apparently come forward after seeing the re-released video. The police didn't know who the witness was, but thought the information sounded credible.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Well, a security camera caught a glimpse of that motorcyclist leaving the complex a half hour later. Had there been two different people in the area of the railroad shop when Rob Limone was murdered? Or were the limping man and the motorcycle man the same man?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
There was a long pause on the other end of the line as Jonathan Hearn processed what he was hearing. Then he said, Not, gee, great news. Not, hallelujah. I hope they catch the guy so we can get on with living our lives of purpose. No, what he said was, someone is trying to frame us. And who might that someone be? Well, Jonathan had a pretty good idea. He thought it was Jason and Kelly Bernatine.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
And when they could not physically be together, they were on the phone. At times, Jonathan and Sabrina seemed to suspect their calls were being monitored. There's a clicking on the phone. Do you hear it? However, they did not do anything about it. They didn't get new numbers, nor did they stop using that burner phone. No, they talked and talked about mundane things. Kids, work, family.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Mostly, they talked about God and the importance of keeping their affair a secret.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It was about 1.30 in the morning when Detective Meyer, who was still at the scene, finally finished looking at the security videos and found a quiet place to call Rob Lamone's widow.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
And you'll hear how one of those suspects was seemingly able to walk away, free and clear, to start life anew.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
There was just one thing. Jonathan didn't think Kelly or Jason even knew he owned a motorcycle.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The one thing they didn't talk about was Rob Lamone's killing, at least not on the phone.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
By then, Sabrina had heard through the railroad grapevine that Rob was dead. No one had told her he'd been murdered.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
No, they don't know. Like a quiz show contestant who's been stumped, Jonathan decided to ask a friend and called the man upstairs for help.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In an effort to get them talking about the case, Detective Meyer began providing Sabrina with little updates on how the investigation was going. Sometimes the things he told her were true. More often, they were not. Inside law enforcement, provoking conversations between people you're surveilling is known as tickling the wire. Over the next week, the detective would become very adept at tickling.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
At times during the call, Jonathan and Sabrina both seemed to understand the detective was throwing out some bait, toying with them, just to see what they would say.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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...
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
That seemed to be enough for one night. The detective knew the widow would have many more questions once he said the word murder. And he wanted to have answers. So no, words like murder and homicide would have to wait. This was not the night for that. At 9.30 Wednesday morning, three days after Rob Limone was shot to death, his remains arrived at a Bakersfield lab for autopsy.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The first attempt came on a Sunday morning, November 9th. The detective sent Sabrina a text asking her to give him a call. It worked like a charm. Almost immediately after he sent that text, one of the monitoring screens in the wire room lit up. Hello?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
He was 100% correct. And yet, the two continued to discuss the investigation on a line they now had ample reason to believe was tapped.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
Yes. As the years passed, Sabrina said she felt less special to the man she'd married.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
There were likely more than a few smiles and knowing glances exchanged back in the wire room when the eavesdroppers heard that one. Remember, please, what they had not heard, at least so far, was anything like a confession, an explicit comment that could be used to convict at a murder trial, proof of guilt. What they did hear through the bad cell reception was a creeping sense of dread.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
And you'll hear from the newly minted homicide detective whose job it was to find the killer or killers responsible.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
As for the two handguns that were registered to Jonathan, the prosecutor couldn't prove either of them was the murder weapon.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Dr. Robert Whitmore, a forensic pathologist under contract to the Kern County Coroner's Office, unzipped the body bag and unwrapped the three white sheets that had been used to enshroud Rob's body on Sunday night in the hatchery. As evidence texts snapped photos, Dr. Whitmore and his team removed the clothes Rob Lamone had worn to work that day.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Episode 4, David and Bathsheba. As Sabrina Limon walked to the Kern County Sheriff's Office that morning for a scheduled meeting with the detective investigating her husband's murder, Sabrina must have felt as if she'd already put in a full day.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Both Jonathan and Sabrina seemed to sense they could be arrested at any moment. I don't think they're going to come tonight, do you?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Their prayer was briefly interrupted when Sabrina's daughter, Leanna, walked into the room where her mother was on the phone.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
No doubt they were feeling the heat. So the detective decided to amp up the pressure. He sent one more text. Hold on. Detective Meyer.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
With Dictaphone in hand, the doctor began describing the body before him. Orange safety shirt, black tank top, gray pants and boxers, black belt, socks and shoes. For the next two and a half hours, the wounds on Rob Limone's body were examined. The clinical facts were clear. Rob Limone had been shot twice with a large caliber weapon, once in the chest, once in the face.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Once the little girl had been sent away to watch TV... Jonathan resumed praying. God, please help her. Please give us wisdom.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Then Sabrina picked up her home phone and called the detective.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
In this high-stakes game of nerves, the detective had just played his last card. He'd sent Sabrina a still frame from a security camera video, the one from that pilot gas station in Kramer Junction. It showed a man on a motorcycle stopping at the gas pumps about an hour after Rob Limone was killed. A black helmet.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The detective told Sabrina that although his investigation had hit a dead end, he was going to re-release the security camera video of the man on the motorcycle to the local media in hopes of generating new calls to the tip line.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Either wound would have been fatal. The chest wound was most likely the first shot fired and the most deadly. The bullet's path was at an extreme upward angle. Abrasions around the entrance suggested it had probably been fired at point-blank range during a struggle.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
And you'll hear what a jury of nine women and three men decided.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Okay. Was it true? It wasn't. No matter. The ploy had the desired effect. After hanging up with the detective, Sabrina immediately called Jonathan as investigators listened in. Hello?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
That's the voice of Dr. Whitmore.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
No. It looks like the whole face is covered. It was then that Jonathan said something odd.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
For weeks after the murder of Rob Lamone, Detective Randall Meyer had chased shadows. Then, thanks to a tip from the murdered man's friend, Jason Bernatine, Detective Meyer now knew several things he had not known before. He knew that Rob Lamone's wife, Sabrina, had been having an affair with a young firefighter named Jonathan Hearn. He knew the murder victim had had words with Hearn,
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
From there, the bullet ripped through neck muscle, severed the jugular vein, and entered the brain. That was it. The quick and brutal facts of death. Now it was time for Detective Meyer to go see Rob Lamone's widow and learn more about his life. On Friday, August 22nd, five days after Rob Lamone's murder, Detective Randall Meyer and a partner hit the road.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
If Sabrina wondered why Jonathan would think the man in the photo was him, she didn't say anything. She was focused on why the detective thought the man wearing the shorts and tank top was the man who'd killed her husband. The detective, of course, was expecting her call.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The next day, Monday, November 10th, the detective decided to give the old wire another coochie-coo nudge. He sent Sabrina another text that said, call me.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
That's Rob's sister, Chris Wilson. How can you do that?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
He didn't have much to tell her, only that the fuzzy still frame he'd texted her had come from the security camera video at the pilot station at Kramers Junction. Though Meyer had that video for weeks, he told Sabrina it had just come in and was being sent out to experts for enhancement. When Sabrina told Jonathan what the detective said, he told her he could see the writing on the wall.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It was a two-hour drive to Hallandale, east on Highway 58, up through the Tehachapi Mountain Pass and a phalanx of windmills, and then across the sun-punished plains of the high desert. There would have been a lot to talk about on that ride. The crime scene, the limping man, the motorcyclist seen riding in that industrial park on the day Rob Limone died.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline. Life in the Mojave Desert can be tenuous. It's remarkable, really, that anything survives in this vast, dry version of nowhere. The sun, high and blinding. Bone-chilling nights. Days so hot, the highways seem to ripple and heave in the heat. Even at high speed, the Mojave looks formidable. Distant mountains seem to recede,
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 2: The Man on the Motorcycle
That's what this story is about. It's peeling apart the layers, and you go deeper and deeper into Hellendale and Silver Lakes, and things are not as they appear. I'm Josh Mankiewicz, and this is Deadly Mirage, a podcast from Dateline.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Good news, if that were true. Except it was not. Then the detective asked Sabrina if she would be available to come to Bakersfield for another in-person interview.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Everyone who'd worked with Rob had liked him. Nice guy, they all said, family man. What about his wife, Sabrina Limone? What would she say? Once they hit Hellendale, the two detectives wound their way towards Silver Lakes and the Limone home on Strawberry Lane. They found the front door, tucked away on the left, just past the garage.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
According to Jonathan, the best thing they could do now was try to get some rest and then start looking for a lawyer first thing in the morning.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Jonathan and Sabrina had been on the phone for nearly an hour when he offered up one last plea for deliverance from a reckoning he feared was arriving with the sunrise.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Inside, the front living room was full of friends and neighbors murmuring softly. Sabrina Limone was a tall, thin blonde. She greeted them. She looked pale and drawn, but composed. The detectives flashed their badges and asked if there was some private place where they could speak. Sabrina led them to a back bedroom.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Jonathan Hearn had his hands full when Sabrina called that Monday night to ask him about it. It was dinner time at the firehouse, and Jonathan was on kitchen duty.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
It's unlikely Sabrina or Jonathan slept well that night. They probably tossed and turned, their minds replaying recent conversations and events in a constant loop. At 6 a.m. the next morning, they were at it again. They spent more than an hour rehashing theories of who the detective's secret witness might be. They prayed. And they agreed that if asked, Sabrina should admit she knew Jonathan.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
All right. What picture of Rob Limone emerged from his wife?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Sabrina told Jonathan she'd talked with Detective Meyer, and he wanted her to come to Bakersfield on Wednesday for another face-to-face. Jonathan didn't like the sound of that any more than Sabrina did.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
By then, Sabrina knew her husband had been murdered. So the detective asked the question all good detectives ask when speaking with someone whose partner has just died suddenly in a particularly violent or mysterious way.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
This development definitely called for a meeting in person. The problem was Jonathan was on the clock and couldn't break away for an in-person chat with Sabrina before her Wednesday meeting with the detective.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
I know. I know that it's not him. When Sabrina checked in with Jonathan 90 minutes later... it seemed the time for talking hypotheticals was over.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Okay. Then the detectives asked about Rob. They'd found pictures of topless women on his phone. Selfies shot on a boat. Not unusual. Cops find plenty of stuff like that on people's phones. Even so, they had to ask.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Bummed? Oh, yes. Jonathan knew enough about police work from his arson investigation classes that he was certain the detective intended to bamboozle Sabrina into saying something incriminating.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
For Jonathan, it was as clear as the desert sky. His life as he'd known it, as he had imagined it might one day be, was over. It turned out an arrest was not as imminent as Jonathan thought. Minutes passed that probably felt like weeks. The watchers down the street were perched like birds of prey, waiting. An hour passed. Still, they didn't move.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
She'd been up since before dawn, getting the kids dressed and fed and off to school. Then there was the two-hour drive she and her sister had made from Silver Lakes to the Kern County Sheriff's Department in Bakersfield. Inside the low-slung building, Sabrina followed Detective Randall Meyer down a bright hallway to a small interview room straight out of a TV drama.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Okay. The detectives thanked Sabrina Limon for her time. On their way out the door, Detective Meyer handed out a few business cards, and the two detectives left town. Both felt the Lamone marriage deserved a closer look. This had not seemed the right time or place to press that issue. Rob's memorial service was less than 24 hours away.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
Even after investigators told her they suspected Jonathan of killing her husband, Sabrina said she didn't believe it.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
A little after nine, Jonathan told Sabrina they should use their free time while they still had it to look for an attorney.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Jonathan assumed the detective had been looking at their phone records and knew about the affair. It was those records, he told Sabrina, that had captured the detective's attention.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
This next meeting with the detective was going to be high stakes. And Sabrina needed to be prepped. The only solution, Jonathan thought, was delay.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Hundreds of mourners packed the sanctuary and an overflow room of the Grace Bible Church that Saturday.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
And he knew that Sabrina Limon had lied to him about all of that.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
That was the last time Sabrina Limon spoke with Jonathan Hearn. Shortly after the call ended, the watchers made their move. Jonathan was arrested while sitting in a fire truck. And Sabrina? Well, she went to her children's school for a parent-teacher conference, blissfully unaware that her lover was in custody or that she was under surveillance. Coming up next on Deadly Mirage.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The next day, Sabrina called the detective and postponed the interview. Later, when Jonathan and Sabrina finally met face-to-face to prepare, Jonathan quite possibly reminded her of something he'd said earlier on the phone.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Rob's widow, Sabrina, had been too upset to plan the service or to speak. So Kelly Bernatine, one of her closest friends, did that.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Yes, Jonathan suspected the detective would be fishing for something he did not have. So, with Sabrina still on the line... He appealed to heaven for help in keeping it that way.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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,
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
You guys didn't know anything about the poisoning until Jonathan gave that to you. That's correct.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
When a video played which showed pictures of Rob's life from childhood to fatherhood, there was not a dry eye in the sanctuary. Those were the images of Rob Lamone his friends remembered. It was a life now reduced to memory, both bittersweet and sad. Little did anyone suspect that in the weeks and months to come, one of those in that room that day would become a murder suspect.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
They actually ended up giving it to Rob. Yes. Deadly Mirage is a production of Dateline and NBC News. Tim Beecham is the producer. Brian Drew, Kelly Laudeen, and Marshall Hausfeld are audio editors. Carson Cummins is associate producer. 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Coming up next on Deadly Mirage. I've been reading Psalms 51.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
Jurors wanted to see that sparkling snow globe Sabrina had given Jonathan for Christmas, nine months before Rob's murder.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Do you ever hear anybody use a story out of the Bible to justify having an affair and killing the other person's spouse?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
She had an affair. Her husband found out about it. It caused some, sounds like some significant stress in that marriage. Yes. The detective did not know how those lives collided or why Rob Limon wound up dead on a shop floor in Tehachapi. In the months to come, The friends and family of all three filled in the blanks.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
That was a key condition of the plea deal, says Clayton Campbell. Any evidence Jonathan helped investigators find
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Coming up this season on Deadly Mirage, boiling passion in the desert heat.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Deadly Mirage is a From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Thank you. From NBC News Audio, sound mixing by Katie Lau. Bryson Barnes is head of audio production.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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,
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
Because it was late in the day, the judge delayed announcing the verdict until the next morning.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Shimmering dry heat causes visions of water to appear on sandy plains in front of you. Nevertheless, thousands of people live here, many in communities scattered along the highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. One of those towns, about two hours east of LA, is Hellandale. It's the primary setting for much of the story you're about to hear.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
No sooner had the detective settled into his chair than a man wearing a blue shirt walked in. Sabrina had never seen him before.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
That's Rob Limon's sister, Chris Wilson.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: He Said, She Said
That's crime reporter Olivia LaVoie again.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The backstory on Rob and Sabrina began in the late 90s, when Sabrina met Rob at a backyard barbecue in Prescott, Arizona. Rob would have been 21 back then. Sabrina, just 18. Old photographs show them the way they were. Rob, a thick-shouldered construction worker with a shaved head. Sabrina, willowy and blonde, with an incandescent smile. Rob liked dirt bikes. And Sabrina?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Once the supervisor left, Detective Meyer reminded Sabrina their meeting was being recorded and that she could leave anytime she wanted. Sabrina nodded. and Meyer started the interview.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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. so so
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
A few feet away lay a bullet and a line of broken fluorescent glass, white and powdery, like a line of drugs. For more than an hour, silence hung over this scene of death and disorder. A quiet broken only by the occasional sound of a big diesel rig out on the highway. Then shortly before 7 p.m., a man scheduled to work second shift walked in. And that silence was replaced by screams.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Well, she liked whatever Rob liked. There's a photo of them from those days. Rob is sitting astride a motorbike, his bald head gleaming in the sun, Sabrina sitting right behind him, grinning from ear to ear. It was after one of those days spent careening across the sage-dotted desert outside Prescott that Rob's family met Sabrina.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
With that, Meyer scooted closer to the table and started outlining the way a lab would analyze the fictitious DNA sample that he told Sabrina was found at the scene of her husband's murder. There was a company called Cybergenetics, he said, that analyzes DNA with unbelievable precision.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Yes, like a mirage. Lushly green silver lakes is about as genuine as a plastic Christmas tree in front of a chemical Yule log. Regardless, it's home sweet home to the retirees and young families who've chosen to live there.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Lydia Marrero, one of Rob's four older sisters.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
For 30 minutes, they went round and round. Sabrina talking about her dead husband, her kids, and God's purpose.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Sabrina sat and nodded as the detective went on and on about alleles and lines and patterns. Scientific gibberish she couldn't really follow.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
The body lay on the shop floor, the man's shaven head leaning against the front left tire of a service truck. There was a dime-sized hole in his chin and a pool of blood slowly congealing on the concrete floor. Scarlet stained the front of his shirt, which was stiffening in the dry desert air.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Their eyes met in a busy grocery aisle at Costco. She was handing out tasty samples, maybe some crackers with a new savory spread. She did not know when he approached that this stranger wearing a firefighter's t-shirt was also walking into her private life. And he? Well, he never suspected the oversized role she would soon be playing in his.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
It was a routine encounter like thousands of others, unremarkable in every way except for this. That fleeting moment in the grocery aisle and the events that followed had lifelong ramifications for both of them and for everyone who knew them.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Sounds kind of wholesome, doesn't it?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
And that's the voice of Chris Wilson, another sister.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It's no wonder real estate boosters dubbed Hellendale as the happiest place in the high desert. And Silver Lakes? Well, it might have been the happiest place of all. You see, a dozen or so years ago, there was a close group of 30-somethings in Silver Lakes, and they liked to party hardy.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
He said, I think I'm going to marry her. And you thought, great or mistake?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
The detective kept saying this was a huge deal, and it might help them identify the killer. Sabrina, who'd been leaning across the table and craning her neck to follow the detective's drawings, seemed to understand.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
three other special ops guys, who were also part of the rotating surveillance detail. Surveillance work can be tedious work. Hours on end spent on stakeout, waiting, watching closed doors and windows while an oven-hot wind blew off the desert. By contrast, this was nice. It was air-conditioned, and here at least they could grab a hot slice and a cold drink.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
A cursory review of the biographical details would have told the detective that Sabrina and Rob were married in August of 2000. Soon after, they moved to California, where Rob had gotten a job at the sprawling Burlington Northern and Santa Fe rail yard in Barstow. The happy couple settled in the Silver Lake section of Hellandale to be near her parents.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
They called themselves the Wolf Pack, maybe because whenever they got together, they howled. When the Wolf Pack wasn't living it up at house parties, they hired babysitters and took the show on the road.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Then the detective switched gears and said he just wanted to go back over her history with Rob Lamone, starting from the very beginning.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Sabrina talked about Rob's job with the railroad and moving to California.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
She talked about their wedding and the children and the fact that Rob had been killed two days before their 14th wedding anniversary.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In 2003, the Lamones added a baby boy to their family. They named him Robbie. Three years later, they welcomed a daughter, They named her Leanna.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
there were boisterous takeovers of local bars.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Thank you. And some wild adults-only weekends on the Colorado River. A casual observer might be excused for thinking them a group of high schoolers on spring break. Oh, no. The Wolfpack all had jobs, mortgages, and kids. Of the six to seven couples that made up the core of the Wolfpack, one foursome stood out, the Bernatines and the Limones.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
She told the detective the last time she spoke with Rob was around lunchtime on the day he died.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Those were the years when the Lamone home on Strawberry Lane was filled with the sounds of kids and cartoons. The clack and clatter of plastic toys. Situation normal. Then in 2008, something unseen and undetectable to others occurred in the Lamone home. How it happened is a mystery. Only Rob and Sabrina know why it happened.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
The pizza joint was about half full when the undercover cop walked in. A midweek crowd having dinner out, parents studying menus, while kids played the video games along the wall. Beyond the front register, the cop caught a glimpse of Sabrina Limon's blonde head bent toward Jonathan Hearns, both deep in conversation. At the next table over, he saw some familiar faces.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
Sorry for not being honest with you, Detective Randall. That's okay.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
They were inseparable and always seemed to be at the center of the action. Kelly Bernatine first met Sabrina Limone back in 2008. when Sabrina came into Kelly's place to get her hair done.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Rob told her he'd had a tuna melt for lunch and that he intended to take a nap once he'd finished the repair and was back at the shop.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
It was then that Rob and Sabrina decided to open their marriage and to enter into a sexual relationship with another couple.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
The detective was his same old congenial self. He said he understood why Sabrina had lied to him.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
That's Kelly Bernatine. Later, she says, Sabrina invited Kelly and her husband Jason over for dinner. That was when the Bernatines met Sabrina's husband, Rob Lamone. The two couples hit it off immediately.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
After a short break in which Meyer left the room to consult with investigators who were watching in another room, he returned and asked Sabrina again about her marriage.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
I had a good marriage. Meyer leaned back in his swivel chair and kept his eyes locked on hers.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Kelly Bernatine says she heard about the Lamones' open marriage from Sabrina.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Kelly says Sabrina told her their relationship with the other couple only lasted a few months and ended when the other couple split up. However, Sabrina's sister, Julie Cordova, says she suspected that little foursome was not a one-off.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
The detective rubbed his chin and briefly paused before asking a question that seemed to catch Sabrina off guard.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
No, Rob Lamone was a teddy bear. And as far as the wolf pack was concerned, he was the straw that stirred the drink. A lot of drinks. When someone had a few too many, Rob drove them home. If someone needed help with a home project, Rob was there.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
That certainly could suggest that he wasn't ashamed of it. Here's what we're doing. Almost like they're showing you vacation pictures.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Her partying days were in the past, Sabrina said. Then, looking the detective in the eye, she addressed him by his first name, as if she were a politician who'd gone through media training.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Above all, Rob Limone was a railroad man through and through. Most days he worked amid a blurring rush of metal and movement at the busy Burlington, Northern, and Santa Fe rail yard in Barstow, inspecting and maintaining the railroad's rolling stock.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
the detective did not know much about Jonathan Hearn, the third player in this particular love triangle. But a little back-of-the-envelope math revealed Hearn had been young, just 18 years old in 2008. That was the year Sabrina and Rob Limone opened their marriage. According to Rob Limone's friend, Jason Bernatine, Hearn had been a smooth-cheeked kid who liked to hang out at firehouses...
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
It was pleasant to meet, pleasant to talk, pleasant to anticipate the next meeting, fun to exchange gifts and trinkets.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Maybe it was the smell or sound of trains that appealed to Rob. Maybe it was the feeling of freedom that came from working outside under the great bowl of the western sky. But whatever it was, Rob loved it. He loved it so much that he'd frequently drive an hour and a half to Tehachapi to make some extra money at the railroad shop there.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
With that, the detective excused himself again to confer with the other investigators. When he returned, he gave Sabrina the number for free counseling and asked if there was anything else she wanted to tell him.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
He'd been one of several junior volunteers in the San Bernardino Youth Fire Explorer program back then. Despite that, Bernadine told the detective that seasoned firefighters could tell Jonathan was a cut above. He was thoughtful, well-spoken, and already taking college classes. He said he wanted to be a paramedic when he got older, maybe even an arson investigator.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
As casual as swinging on Grandma's porch. Oh, yes, the swinging. Sabrina told the detective about that, too.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
When working in Tehachapi, Rob filled in as a rapid responder, meaning it was his job to be on call and repair any of the freight trains that broke down while climbing the mountain pass west of town each day. Those were some long days, 12 hours, seven to seven. Well, the money was good, and Rob had a family.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
So was this fixed or fated, ordered and ordained? If she'd been off that day, if he'd turned down a different aisle, would any of this have happened? That is unknowable. What is known is that the lives they led leading up to that moment gave no hint of what would come after it.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
The Bernatines remember being with Rob one Saturday night when a call came in asking if he could cover for a friend. The Wolfpack gang was having one of their nights out, this one at a baseball game.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
And as anyone in the firehouse who'd spent 10 minutes talking with the kid could tell, Jonathan Hearn had the brains to be whatever he wanted.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
And that was that. The detective stood and thanked Sabrina for coming in. She thanked him again.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
But he does remember working a couple of dozen shifts with him at different firehouses over the years. Jason says he was proud of the way the kid's career had taken shape.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
the cop took a seat at the table with his buddies and joined them in trying to eavesdrop on the couple at the next table. Sabrina and Jonathan spoke in hushed tones while her kids played video games. The cops couldn't make out what they were saying, but they did note the couple's body language.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
And it began six years earlier, when she and Rob started spouse swapping with another couple.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Rob Lamone rose before dawn. He dressed in the dark, kissed his sleeping wife, looked in on his two children. Robbie was 11. Leanna was 8. Then he eased out the front door. For the next 90 minutes, Rob Limone would have been alone with his thoughts. He had an 85-mile drive from his home to Tehachapi. The night sky was clear that morning, dusted with a thousand stars.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Jonathan Hearn had clearly been a young man in a hurry, and the more the detective learned about him, the clearer that picture became. Born the second of six children, Hearn had been raised in a devoutly religious home where church attendance and Bible study were mandatory. Like his siblings, he had been homeschooled.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
With her sister Julie sitting right there beside her, Sabrina didn't seem to want to go into much detail about her meeting with the detective.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
And as the sky slowly lightened, revealing mountains rising like camel humps in the distance, Rob Limone might well have considered himself a fortunate man. lucky to have a good family and cool friends lucky to witness another dawn in the desert of course he had no way of knowing that just days past his 38th birthday this morning would be his last
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
When she called him back later to arrange for a full in-person debrief, she said some of Detective Meyer's questions had been unsettling. Some of the questions that the detectives asked me, just like... How much of our story to tell kind of thing?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
That's Nicole Hearn, Jonathan's older sister. When I spoke with her years later, she told me her brother had been so busy with school and work in those days that he never seemed to have time for girls.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
While Jonathan and Sabrina were being transported to Boron, teams of investigators fanned out to begin searches of their homes.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Did you guys have an open marriage? Jonathan did not like the sound of that.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
No, as far as anyone could tell, Jonathan Hearn's first steady girlfriend had been Sabrina Limon, a married woman more than 10 years his senior. He'd been 22 that summer day in 2012 when he went to the Costco in Victorville to pick up some supplies for his firehouse.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
That was one of those conversations he preferred to have in person. Firefighter Jonathan Hearn had been off duty the day Sabrina drove to Bakersfield to meet with Detective Meyer. A lot of 24-year-olds might have slept late or taken a ride on their motorcycle. Jonathan did not. He stayed home, pacing and praying, just as he had told Sabrina he would.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
At some point while he was wandering through the cavernous store, he rounded a corner and saw a pretty blonde woman handing out samples. Their eyes met as he pushed the shopping cart in her direction. and an invitingly brilliant smile flashed across her face. Jonathan Hearn stopped to chat.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Years later, Sean remembered that when he pulled up to the shop, something seemed as wrong as two left shoes.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
Then, after a few months, Sabrina said, she and Jonathan resumed their affair.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Almost two years to the day after that fateful meeting in Costco, the Silver Lakes Wolfpack gathered to celebrate the 38th birthday of one of its most beloved members, Rob Lamone. there was a big cake with candles and a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Sean says once he opened the large garage door, he saw Rob's service truck parked inside and a shattered fluorescent bulb on the floor in front of it. The door to the office was open, and the office had been ransacked.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Thinking about Sabrina's meeting with Detective Meyer had been stressful. And the two-room garage apartment Jonathan rented from his grandparents probably felt smaller than usual. As if the green and maroon accented walls... were closing in.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
After taking a short break so a crime lab tech could come in and take a DNA sample, fingerprints, and photographs.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
If not for that irritating detective and his murder investigation, Jonathan probably thought he and Sabrina would have been well on their way to living the lives God intended for them, serving his purpose, just the way they'd always said it would be.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
As usual, Kelly Bernatine was there to videotape the occasion for posterity. You look at that video, what do you see?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
The detective pressed Sabrina on how much she'd known about her lover's plan to murder her husband.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Yes, for sure. For sure. the wiretaps were like a window into Jonathan Hearn's mind. For instance, the detective learned that God's purpose almost always lined up perfectly with what Jonathan wanted. And when it did not, well, Jonathan seemed to think that was what forgiveness was for.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Rob Lamone, a solid six foot 200 pounder, wasn't going to wake up ever. Rob's bald head had a huge lump on top of his skull. Blood was crusted on one side of his face and there was a hole in the little tuft of beard he always wore on his chin.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
It seems ironic now, of course. How could any of them have known that Rob Lamone was celebrating his final birthday?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It's about long shadows cast by old sins.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Three days later, Rob Lamone was dead and the detective found himself relying on those friends to catch his killer. It was on a September morning in 2014, a month after Rob Lamone's murder, when Kelly Bernatine noticed a strange motorcycle parked in the driveway at the Lamone house. The bike had the word FORGIVEN stenciled on the gas tank alongside a cross.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
The way Jonathan saw it, everything had been going according to plan. That is, until the detectives started calling every day with updates. After Rob's death, he and Sabrina had brought their relationship out of the shadows, laundered it, and presented it as something new and natural without a trace of dishonesty.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
The detective knew firsthand the railroad shop in Tehachapi was hard to find. The building wasn't marked.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
At about that time, 85 miles away in Silver Lakes, Sabrina Limon was beginning to wonder why she hadn't heard from her husband. It was past 7 p.m. Rob should have been on his way home by now. This was normally a time when they would talk. On this Sunday night, nothing. He wasn't picking up. And he wasn't responding to her texts.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Jonathan's younger sister, Emily, had gone with Jonathan to Sabrina's home for that initial sympathy call and later acted as a kind of chaperone and witness to their blooming romance.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Kelly did not know who the bike belonged to, but she had her suspicions. She wrote down the license number and gave it to Detective Meyer. Turns out it was registered to Jonathan Hearn, the man the detective suspected of killing Rob Lamone.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Emily and Sabrina got along so well, in fact, that Jonathan likely imagined they'd make good sisters-in-law someday.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
That's the voice of Sabrina Limon. Over the next hour, she made 11 calls to her husband's phone. Some merely minutes apart. All of them went to voicemail.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
Encouraging? Yes. The detective had now identified a man who'd been sleeping with the murder victim's wife, who owned a motorcycle similar to the one caught on camera near the scene of the crime. And that wasn't all he knew.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Of course, as the cops knew, this wasn't just any other couple out for pizza with the kids. In this episode, you'll hear how Sabrina and Jonathan reacted when confronted with a critical piece of evidence. He appeared to be very panicked. And what does he say in that phone call? Does it look like me?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
Maybe, but by 8.13, panic was setting in. She called her older sister Julie and her parents, who also lived in Silver Lakes, and told them she was worried. And then she sent another text to Rob. Each line of it punctuated with exclamation points. Babe, I'm worried about you. Call me. Leanna wants to say goodnight. Ten minutes later, she made her last call to her husband's number. No answer.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: Busted
Every love letter, every racy photo, Every text message and every sales receipt were no longer just proof of a steamy, illicit affair.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Sabrina had met his mom, and with the holidays coming, Jonathan no doubt anticipated introducing Sabrina to the rest of the family. As for Sabrina's people, well, he'd met her parents and sister at Sabrina's house shortly after Rob died. They came over.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The detective was now certain Jonathan Hearn was the killer he had been looking for. If the man on the motorcycle was Jonathan Hearn, then he was a long way from home. And at some point, the detective figured he'd have had to stop for gas.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
In this episode, you'll hear about the lives of that misaligned pair in the Costco aisle, from those who knew them best and loved them most.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
It's about the pairings of flawed souls, unholy alliances that spiraled out of control.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
And then came a knock at the door. Out on the porch stood two officials from BNSF. The railroad Rob worked for. Sabrina's sister, Julie Cordova, was there when the railroad man told Sabrina her husband had been seriously injured on the job. Something to do with his head.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 5: 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.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 6: 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?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
Jonathan had been eager to make a good impression that day and strike just the right note of respect, sympathy, and support.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
since that would have been the quickest and most direct route to Jonathan Hearn's home. Detective Meyer asked a fellow investigator to visit those gas stations and look for security camera footage of a man on a motorcycle. Since the motorcyclist in Tehachapi was last seen leaving the industrial park at 5.48 a.m.,
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 1: Death in the High Desert
What'd she look like? What was she saying?
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 4: David and Bathsheba
In an effort to impress Sabrina's folks and also demonstrate his honorable intentions, Jonathan volunteered to cook dinner for them.
Dateline Originals
Deadly Mirage - Ep. 3: Tickling the Wire
The detective guessed the rider would have likely stopped for gas in Kramer Junction around 6.48 or so. It didn't take long for the other investigator to report back. Bingo. Security footage from a Kramer Junction gas station called the Pilot Travel Center showed a motorcyclist wearing a black helmet and backpack pulling up to a pump
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
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The Kern County Sheriff's deputies who'd conducted the months-long investigation into Rob Limon's death were justifiably proud of their work.
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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.
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That was a key condition of the plea deal, says Clayton Campbell. Any evidence Jonathan helped investigators find
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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For 30 minutes, they went round and round. Sabrina talking about her dead husband, her kids, and God's purpose.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The detective was his same old congenial self. He said he understood why Sabrina had lied to him.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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It was pleasant to meet, pleasant to talk, pleasant to anticipate the next meeting, fun to exchange gifts and trinkets.
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As casual as swinging on Grandma's porch. Oh, yes, the swinging. Sabrina told the detective about that, too.
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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.
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And it began six years earlier, when she and Rob started spouse swapping with another couple.
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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.
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While Jonathan and Sabrina were being transported to Boron, teams of investigators fanned out to begin searches of their homes.
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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.
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After taking a short break so a crime lab tech could come in and take a DNA sample, fingerprints, and photographs.
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The detective pressed Sabrina on how much she'd known about her lover's plan to murder her husband.
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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.
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The detective knew firsthand the railroad shop in Tehachapi was hard to find. The building wasn't marked.
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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?
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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.
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Every love letter, every racy photo, Every text message and every sales receipt were no longer just proof of a steamy, illicit affair.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Photos of his client hugging her now dead husband. Intimate details about their marriage. Hours of cringeworthy phone conversations between Sabrina and her lover.
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I love you back. All of it topped off by Jonathan Hearn's assertion that she had been his partner in crime.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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When cross-examining Jonathan Hearn, Richard Terry questioned his religious sincerity.
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Was all that religiosity intended to fool Sabrina into thinking of him as more virtuous than her husband?
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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.
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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.
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Yes. As the years passed, Sabrina said she felt less special to the man she'd married.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Even after investigators told her they suspected Jonathan of killing her husband, Sabrina said she didn't believe it.
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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.
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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,
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Jurors wanted to see that sparkling snow globe Sabrina had given Jonathan for Christmas, nine months before Rob's murder.
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That's Michael Fleeman, the true crime reporter who would later write a book about the case titled Better Off Dead.
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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.
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Because it was late in the day, the judge delayed announcing the verdict until the next morning.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That's the voice of Olivia LaVoice. She covered the trial for NBC affiliate KGET in Bakersfield, which also live-streamed the trial online.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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According to Prosecutor Smith, the plot to kill Rob Lamone was about more than romantic bliss. It was also about money.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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According to Hearn, he and Sabrina met for trysts anywhere and anytime they could be together. And that wasn't all.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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That's right. Sabrina's lover had turned on her. The plea deal was announced in open court a few days later.
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And so, just before he stepped into that shop to murder his romantic rival, Jonathan Hearn said he paused to pray.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?