October 9, 2025 • 35 mins
A jungle compound. A midnight emergency call. The mystery begins. At the centre of it all: John and Ann Bender. Young, brilliant and impossibly rich, they set out to build a vast mansion and wildlife sanctuary in the Costa Rican rainforest. But something is off. Not everything in paradise is what it seems.
Hell in Heaven is a production of Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts, produced by Blanchard House.
From Blanchard House
Hosted, Written and Produced by: Becky Milligan
Co-Writer and Producer: Poppy Damon
Original Music: Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nanke-Mannell and Toby Matimong
Sound Recordist, and Head of Sound and Music: Daniel Lloyd-Evans
Lead Sound Designer: Volkan Kiziltug
Managing Producer: Amica Sciortino Nowlan
Creative Director: Rosie Pye
Executive Producer and Head of Content: Laurence Grissell
From Exactly Right
Artwork: Vanessa Lilak
Executive Producers: Karen Kilgariff, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer
Consulting Producer: Lily Ladewig
Associate Producer: Jay Elias
From iHeart Podcasts
Executive Producers: Katrina Norvell, Anna Stumpf and Nikki Ettore
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
January the seventh, twenty ten, where outside the house of
John and Anne Bender, a young American couple who've built
an extravagant home and wildlife refuge in the middle of
the Costa Rican rainforest. John made a multi million dollar
fortune on Wall Street. Ann is his bright and glamorous wife.
(00:35):
It's now one in the morning. The emergency call came
in an hour ago.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You just are cast a shooting.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And a casualty. That's the voice of Carlos Morra. He
was the ambulance driver who was on the scene that night.
I've tracked him.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Down ell Mico.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, He's attended hundreds of violent incidents over the years,
but this one stands out. He's never experienced anything like
it before or since. And he's not alone. All the
people I've found while reporting on this story remember it
in vivid detail. I'm Becky Milligan eyebroke stories for the
(01:22):
BBC for almost thirty years, and I've reported on some
pretty strange events, but this one is the strangest of all.
So back to that night. Carlos enters the Bender's house
and he gets in the elevator and just like everything
(01:43):
else in this house, this is no ordinary elevator. It's
a round, open platform that rises up through the building.
Carlos grips onto the handrail. He sees each floor as
it passes. The house is incredible, he says. He's never
(02:06):
seen a place like it. It's like an enormous spaceship. Inside,
it's all stainless steel and shiny black floors, reflective like
pools of water. There's a lot of money here. Who
could own such a house? He asks himself. Quiet is
(02:27):
a drug trafficker?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Like I say?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Carlos is anxious. Guards and security are everywhere, armed with
heavy caliber weapons. They're speaking to each other in hushed voices.
He's been told he has to go up to the
fourth floor, the master bedroom. He passes the first floor,
(02:52):
the second floor, a vast kitchen, the third floor, the
fourth floor, the bedroom, and on the bed a body
curled up as if asleep. But as Carlos gets closer,
(03:15):
he takes in the horror of it all. The gunshot
wound at the back of the head, the victim's left
arm dangling off the bed, blood dripping from it, forming
a pool on the highly polished marble floor, and near
it on the floor, the gun a semi automatic. At first,
(03:39):
the police will assume this is a suicide, but not
for long. And here's why. The gun seems to have
dropped from the victim's left hand, yet the entry wound
is on the right side of the head. Not only
(03:59):
that the bullet was fired from behind from exactly right.
Media and iHeart Podcasts produced by Blanchard House. This is
(04:19):
Helen Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter one, The House of Secrets.
(04:51):
Our story begins and ends with a house built and
owned by Anne and John Bender. This place is their
dream home. When they first move here, they're both in
their thirties. He's made his millions and now he wants
to put them to good use, to enjoy them by
creating a wildlife sanctuary. So our couple are young, and
(05:15):
they're in love, completely in love, devoted. It seems they
live only for each other and all the beloved animals
they've rescued. John also has his rare orchids, and Anne
has her collection of Tiffany lamps, hundreds of them. So
Anne and John have everything they need right here in
(05:37):
their house in the middle of the jungle, a house
unlike any other, and which will in time be the
scene of a terrible tragedy and a mystery. So I
land in Costa Rica to investigate this story, and by coincidence,
my eighteen year old daughter is already here, working on
(06:00):
a conservation project elsewhere in the country. She's been messaging me,
telling me all about protecting turtle eggs on pristine beeches,
relaxing in camp as monkeys play in the trees, and
about how she showers in the open air as hummingbirds
hover close by paradise. But as I arrive in the
(06:21):
country and discover more about this story, about the dark
side of life in Costa Rica, the more I start
to worry about my daughter and worry about myself, turning
into some sort of Internet meme, a hysterical, over protective
mother convinced her daughter is about to die. Not only
(06:41):
that I'm not coping too well with the climate either. Gosh,
it's quite diring, isn't in this He doo whoo. Scotland
in autumn is more my thing, and that's a lot
cooler than it is here. My producer, Poppy and I
have driven four hours from the capitol San Jose, a
(07:01):
hair raising drive around hairpin Bends with sheer drops on
either side. But we're now deep in the rainforest searching
for John and Anne Bender's house. First, through a slight clearing,
we come upon the deer Monte Waterfall, which gives this
valley its name.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Oh wow, that's it, My good.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
It's so high up in the water tumbles from a
high ridge down the cliff face and is swallowed up
by the forest below. Blue, green and yellow birds flutter
above our heads, and the noise is intense and strange
roars echo in the distance like dinosaurs. Sounds enchanting, But
(07:53):
the truth is we're already on edge. We've been spooked
by a phone call we made just before we set out.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
It's like warm in the daytime, kind of cool at night,
crystal clear spring water blowing out of the mountains. Fruits
and vegetables grow really easily, nice vegetables, tomatoes, bananas. We
never thought we were coming back.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That's John Colvick, who knows the area and used to
be the Bender's neighbor. And John had a warning.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
There was my wife and I and that was about it.
So you're alone on this giant farm in the deep
jungle most of the time. It's a strange thing. Sounds morbid,
But a lot of people die off there, and a
lot of people go kind of crazy. They lose it.
They actually lose it. Struggling with anything in the jungle,
(08:44):
You're gonna face your inner demons.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
John's words really unsettle us.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
There's folklore about the Diamonte waterfall. I'd be damned if
all the people that move in and out of there
don't go that shit. You know, the hippies has some
very the vortex of energy that spins off the waterfall.
The Indians say it's a curse because they will run
off their land any way you cut it. The families
go nuts, they fall apart, people die. I don't know
(09:11):
anyone who's lives facing that waterfall that just set up
shop and enjoyed this majestic view and just soaked it
in long term, I really don't. Sometimes I think it's
from isolation, you know, cabin fever. They go DUTs. You
could have cabin fever. My wife asked me, She says,
are you ever going to put clothes on again? I
(09:31):
would go three or four days in my rubber boots.
You know, I didn't see anyone.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
It sounds like an exaggeration that people go mad and
lose it, but by the end of our story you
won't think so shit.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
At that place is the darkest jungle you've ever seen
in your life. You have no clue.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
We leave the waterfall behind and walk even deeper to
the jungle in search of John and Anne Bender's house,
which they called or a Cayenne. Okay, I'm seeing some
barbed wary fence.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
I think we're getting close.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
That even looks like cut loaf.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
It does.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right up the slope there we see the slopes of
the gardens first, and then through the trees and foliage.
Oh my god, that's really it.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
It's just anormous.
Speaker 6 (10:29):
It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a
hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.
It's like four stories with this dome at the top.
It's constructed from huge concrete slabs and columns and fifty
thousand square feet around the same size as a soccer pitch,
(10:50):
and it's round. Imagine that on a jungle hilltop, rising
way above the tops of the trees, and you get
an idea of what it looks like and how out
of place it is. The views are incredible, In the evening,
John and Anne would sit and look out across the jungle,
enjoying the glorious sunsets, enjoying each other's company. In the daytime,
(11:12):
they'd zoom around on their five thousand acres of land
on a quad bike, busying themselves with their wildlife refuge,
caring for all the animals. They'd saved a great black hawk,
a jaguar arundi, which is a wild cat on the
verge of extinction, and Anne also had her dog, a
German shepherd called Millie. It really is an astonishing place,
(11:37):
but being here now there's a sinister edge to it all.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I can see why they loved it. It's completely isolated.
But their gates here a couple of guards, and there's
no entry. There's just no way we can get in.
And even at the top I can see a guard
sort of the perimeter.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I think he is coming.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
In fact, he was filming us. They're getting a bit
tense all regards.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Oh goodnight.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
We'd ask permission to go inside weeks before and hadn't
received a response. But just as we're leaving, a man
turns up in fatigues.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
They Orlando, Are you Orlando? We're making a documentary about
Anne and John. But it's not possible to go inside.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Isn't He puts his hand up and shakes his heads.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Have a good day bye as we go.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
The house is up for sale, empty and there's a
sadness about it, almost like the structure holds memories of
what took place here.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean numbers of it. In Bury Lordes.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Twenty years ago, as Voldo Rochas had been preparing to
meet his new boss. He knew nothing about him apart
from his name, John Bender and that he brought up
some land in dear Monte Valley. He ended up working
for the Benders for ten.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Years Perzalon until Persillon.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
As Welda was grateful for the job, and grateful too
to his former boss, also an American, Jimmy. Jim had
sold his farm to the new arrivals John and Anne,
but made sure his young maintenance man wouldn't lose his
well paid job, which were pretty hard to come by
in Paris.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
All okayondo, I understand there was a close in the
contract where Jim, the previous owner, specified that I had
to continue working on the property when this cell was made.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Why I stayed to take care of the property until
John Bender arrived.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Back then, everyone in town was gossiping about the new
gringos moving to the valley. Gringos is what Costa Ricans
call Americans. Most foreigners are gringos. The locals are called ticos.
What was clear was that they were rich gringos. Nobody
knew how rich. But then nobody really knew who this
couple were at all, least of all as Faldo. He
(14:10):
remembers the day they arrived very clearly because he was
a bit nervous and wasn't sure what to expect. Before
the house was built, the new couple were staying at
a place in town.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
John I remember being surprised when they show up in
the little car. They were mostly reserved people, especially young.
He didn't like to interact much with daughters. He would
prefer the mountains, and he said something like, I hate
this property. I've been deceived. He never realized that the
house was so close to the center of town until
(14:43):
they arrived. We didn't realize how young they were. We
expected to see an older couple. He was a big man.
She was thin and pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Benita that was the word everyone used to describe an
and six foot five, was built like an American footballer,
a guy who clearly worked.
Speaker 8 (15:04):
Out, hugely muscular, gorgeous, blue eyes, dark hair.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Carol Vaughan, an ex pattern author who moved to the
town a few years later, was taken by how glamorous
the couple were.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Just handsome, movie star handsome. She was petite, delicate, moved
like a ballerina. She reminded me a lot of Audrey Hepburn.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Despite his physique, John was a gentle soul. He was
kind to all animals, even the tiniest insect. Back home
in the US, he'd taken in dozens of stray cats,
and he was incredibly smart, good with numbers, and meanwhile,
had been the most popular kid at school. No doubt
(15:56):
they were a striking couple. There's a photo of them
taken on their new property. John is standing behind Anne
in shorts and a T shirt, one arm wrapped around
her chest, the other around her waist in a protective way.
He towers above her, and Anne, in jeans, is holding
onto his arms and leaning back slightly against him. Their
(16:18):
dream is taking shape around them. They look happy and relaxed,
the perfect couple. It's hard to look at that photo now,
knowing everything that would happen. John and Anne arrived in
(16:46):
Costa Rica with a reported six hundred million dollars, an
eye watering fortune which would in time be bitterly fought over,
but that comes later in our story. All anyone knew
at this time was that they wanted land and they
had the money to pay for it, author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
And when the word got out, people were desperate to
make a killing off Americans because it happens a lot,
and their venders found their mailbox just stuffed with people's deeds,
saying here it is, Bamy.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Is that right? They were so desperate they just wanted
the money.
Speaker 8 (17:26):
They wanted the money, yep. And they didn't want to
be the only one in the neighborhood who didn't make
a fortune off the gringos. I mean, if Raoul is
making one hundred thousand dollars, I should make one hundred
thousand dollars. I haven't got a deed here, Bamy.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
In total, the Benders brought up five thousand acres from
expats like gym locals and small farmers, some of whom
had grown coffee on their land for generations. It was
in a perfect position. From the top of their hill,
they had great views of the jungle, Dear Monte waterfall,
and the sea beyond, a romantic setting to watch the
(18:05):
famous Costa Rican sunsets turn the sky to a burning red,
orange and yellow. This was where they would build their
enormous house, which they would christen Bora Cayenne. You're probably
wondering what that means. We wondered too. Apparently it's the
name of a local plant. Construction work began. John Bender
(18:28):
had a vision for his new property to create a
new way of living, unconstrained by normal rules. Building a
house on this scale in the middle of the jungle, well,
it was a huge undertaking and massively ambitious. But then
John was like that, Hi, Hello, thank you so much.
(18:57):
I met John's parents in Phoenix, Arizona. We'd already talk
quite a bit online before I met them in person.
You know what's amazing is seeing you on zoom and
now being here. John's mum is a teacher. John's dad
is an eminent law professor and worked in the Clinton administration.
This was the first time they'd invited journalists to their
(19:21):
home to talk about their son. Their love for John
is playing to see they hold hands under the table
as they talk about him, But they couldn't really relate
to John's life making millions on Wall Street. Money isn't
important to them, and they worried about the path he'd chosen.
So when John decided to set up the wildlife sanctuary,
(19:43):
I get the feeling they were relieved he was leaving
the world of high finance behind.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
Though.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
When John told his dad about the plans for their
enormous house, Paul was pretty surprised.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Well, he was going to build this high tech fim
in the middle of the jungle, basically, and it seemed
to me impossible to do that. And the way he
did it was to decide where he wanted to put it,
and they have the people come there and builders, so
he had like an army of people building this thing.
And what you've seen what turned out. It has nothing
(20:18):
to do with the jungle, but it was. It was
exactly what they wanted. I have a lot of pictures
that we took down there.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Paul fired up his computer and scrolled through, showing us
photos of the house being built. In the photos, the
structure was up, but not much else. It was an
empty concrete shell.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That's the house.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Oh gosh, is that under construction. Oh my goodness. Paul
showed us more photos when the new floors have been
put in. That granite is it is like almost like
a mirror, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
She really liked that.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It's obvious that Margie and Paul are so proud of
what John achieved. He had a dream and he made
it real.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
I don't think John ever thought there were limitations to things.
If he wanted it to be round, it could be round.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
What they really wanted to do was what they did
was find the place that was away from most of
the world, in a beautiful place which had a lot
of animals and a lot of greenery that they really
wanted to be away from school, from the world.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The house took a total of four years to build.
The vendors moved in before it was finished as well,
though the head staffer stayed at the couple's house in
town and watched the Jungle Retreat take shape.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now, just as hated.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We were there from the beginning. It was a huge
building site. We could see the workers on the street,
like one hundred and fifty workers spread all over it.
We saw the house going up little by little.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
One of his jobs was to clean the house, and
so he can tell us precisely what it was like inside.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Quite a piece of fact.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
The fourth floor was all the bedroom, with the bed
in the middle and some rustic furniture made to order.
He didn't like anything lavish.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
The third floor was empty. John had planned to put
in a greenhouse for his orchids, but never got round
to it.
Speaker 7 (22:18):
On the second floor was the kitchen, which was enormous.
Four kitchens could fit inside it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It was like no other house in the whole valley,
standing on top of the hill, a four story round home.
It came with huge pools of water, road gutters to
prevent flooding. And there was one feature in particular that
said this couple had serious money, because when John and
Ann came here, they didn't make that four hour car journey.
(22:48):
They would fly in and out, landing on a helipad
below the main entrance. Locals came to call the house
the dome because of the shape of the roof, which
could be seen from miles around.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
And you could not make this shit up.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
There's one other detail about the house which people never
fail to mention, including expat Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
The house has no walls.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yes, the house has no walls.
Speaker 8 (23:16):
There's screens that are pulled down from the ceiling at
night that keep bugs and animals at but during the
day it was wide open. Designed by John with Anne's
decorating touch. The house is magnificent.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
It was open on all sides and you felt that
you were really in the jungle. The bathrooms had walls.
I think there was a concession that he made to
the inside was just open space. What are you going
to do with all this space? I never got the
answer to that. I don't think I ever did anything with
all that space.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Some describe it as looking like an anniversary clock, a
shopping mall, or a car park. Not very flattering. But
whether you like the design or not, it was an
amazing fear. Hundreds of people were employed to build it
and paid well, and it changed as Fada's hometown for good.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
Practical as we say, John came to put the town
on them up. This was an abandoned place in two thousand.
There was not even electricity. When John arrived. He brought
life to the place. He brought jobs, and foreigners became
interested in buying land, so the economy began to move
after being practically abandoned, like many other places here in
(24:29):
Costa Rica.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
When the house was complete, John and Anne threw a
party for all the workers and their families, but as
Valdo says, it was the only party the Benders ever had.
The house would never see so much life and light again,
as John and Anne retreated from the world and their
lives became shrouded in darkness. The house wasn't just a
(25:08):
sanctuary for John and Anne, but for animals too, of course.
Speaker 7 (25:13):
The Commissi we had two large parods and a parod
with a broken wing, some monkeys this love, of course,
and a baby.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
A black creature from the weasel family, which John loved
and called Leo. He lived alongside two injured Persian cats
which John had adopted. There was the duck, and the falcons,
and the snakes. That's only the beginning. And Anne had
Peter the sloth.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Oh yeah, but it slept all the time, So three
told saw the name has.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Come from this proclivity to sleep all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And and John loved all animals ever since they were children.
As adults, they both said they got on better with
animals them with people.
Speaker 10 (26:01):
John also had.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
A good feeling about animals, just the magician of animals.
So we always had a lot of animals, and I
think both kids really enjoyed them.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It was a menagerie. One reason for the absence of
wolves was to be at one with the jungle. The
animals could come and go as they pleased. Sometimes when
Anne and John had a bath, parrots would perch beside
them and keep them company. They wanted to turn back
the clock, restoring the land to its wild state before
(26:31):
it was farmed.
Speaker 9 (26:32):
He was feeding, and he was bringing back the food
that the land had had when it was natural and
grew its own weeds if you want to call them that,
and other things. He was trying to get that back
into the soil.
Speaker 7 (26:44):
Is Then, after three or four years we did start
to see more animals around.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As the years went by, John and Anne would become
increasingly isolated, hold up alone in their house with no walls.
They had few visitors, but early on, before their home
was completed, they made an exception for Zach Schweger and
his dad Jack, who John had invited to come and
see the house. Jack and John were friends.
Speaker 11 (27:12):
He said, Hey, you know I should come down sometime.
So when my son graduated in high school and he
wanted to take a farther suntrip that sounded like a
little bit of an adventure. I said, hey, you want
to go to Costa Rica to John and Am Bender's compound.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Zach Schweger was just nineteen, my first time kind of.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Like out of the country, people speaking different languages.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
They were picked up by a land cruiser.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
And we're driving for what I remember was hours. It's
hard to describe this part of what it was like
to get there because it was like truly out.
Speaker 10 (27:48):
Of a video game or a movie.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
You can't really see much because like you pull in,
it's a dirt road, but it kind of leads up
and up and up the roads.
Speaker 11 (28:00):
You could lose a jeep in the pottles.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
And then everything around you is rainforest, just like large thick,
lush trees.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
I had no idea, like this is what it was like.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
My dad had undersold this by a million percent, like
we were we were in.
Speaker 10 (28:20):
A movie set.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Then he met their host, who'd taken up the traditional
way to cut through the jungle.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
It's just like this big brute of a guy kind
of like had a good, good healthy beard and a
machete on.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
His waist straight off. He loved John, who took them
on a tour of his property.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
He almost had like a skip but a stomp to
his step, you know what I mean, Like he walks
like that jungle very confidently.
Speaker 11 (28:46):
He was proud of what he was doing. He loved
the rainforest, you know, so I think a good deal
of self satisfaction that he was protecting this land.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And Johnanan seemed uniquely matched, a.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Couple that doesn't need to ask for things, like a
couple like where John sits down like she knows he's
thirsty type of thing, but like she willingly wants to
make sure Jonathan is not a thirsty person. There was
a lot of just like warmth and care.
Speaker 10 (29:12):
They came from from hand.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
So we're special, And I'm like, man, this person is
just such a sweetheart.
Speaker 11 (29:16):
He and Ann were very much in love as far
as I could tell.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Zach remembers the trip vividly, and one conversation in particular
illustrated John's fierce intellect.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
One evening, it's just three dudes kind of like hanging out,
shooting and shit. And and this is maybe like where
I felt a little out.
Speaker 10 (29:38):
Of my ole event.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But Jonathan super intelligent and my father super intelligent.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then John turned to Zach and said, I.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Don't need to ask like such a random question, but
are you familiar with quantum superposition?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yes, quantum superposition.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
So John like took my dad deeply through your quantum superposition, basically.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
This idea that based on you know.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Waveforms, that electrons can.
Speaker 10 (30:05):
Exist in two places at once.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
He was walking through several experiments like one where like electrons.
Speaker 10 (30:11):
Were shot at like a gold leaf.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
But that like kind of changed my life in the
sense that I was opened up to this whole world
of like reality or not reality, and like Jonathan had
kind of brought me into this place of where for
the first time, like I questioned, like what's real and
what's not real, and nobody had ever done that.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
For Zach, still in his teens, who'd never been to
a foreign country, meeting John on his jungle reserve made
a lifelong impression on him.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
It was like this very weird time where everything was perfect,
Like the wind was perfect, the temperature was perfect, like
the seats were uncomfortable, the beer was still cold, and
the sky was just this like perfect orange and you know,
everything was super green. John was like some on center
stage without like detracting from like this perfection. It was
(31:05):
like just one of those moments where like the second
that it was happening, you're like, please, God, like do
not let this end, Like, don't whatever you do, just like,
do not have this moment stop.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
But everything would change and the vendors would find themselves
becoming further and further divorced from reality. Even then, the
signs were there. This might have been a piece of paradise.
But in this paradise, Zach noticed one thing that seemed strange,
a puncture on the otherwise perfect scene.
Speaker 10 (31:41):
And all of a sudden, there's guys with guns.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
And definitely something my father never said to me is
like there's going to be men with guns, like and
lots of men with guns. They weren't friendly, they didn't
say hi, they weren't like hey, like I know, I'm
a random dude with a gun that doesn't speak the
same language as you.
Speaker 10 (31:57):
Don't be frightened. They just kind of they were kind
of there.
Speaker 11 (32:01):
Those guys were for assault rifles, you know. The gate
and like you would imagine if it was a drug cartail, right,
the armed people he had working for them would do
these patrols, you know, like round the clock and stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Why did they have guns.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, that was my very first question, and it was
quickly answered with we're concerned about poachers.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Poaching might explain all those guns up to a point.
Remember John Corvick from earlier who used to live in
the valley. He told us about the poachers and their
dogs who would come at night and cause havoc.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Oh, there's poachers everywhere. I used to hunt the poachers.
There's poachers and sons of bitches. You can never find them,
but you'll find their dogs. And I used to go
out with my bulldogs. At first we try to find them.
The poachers would driving me nut. My dogs would start barking.
I could hear them barking up in the hills.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
If this was just about poaching, John and Anne went
to extreme lengths. They put up a barbed wire perimeter
fence around their property and had guards wearing fatigues patrolling.
Twenty four signs reading keep out private Property were erected everywhere.
So the people in the valley costa Rican's expats hips
(33:09):
in search of a piece of heaven. The message was clear,
and the couple were rarely seen. Occasionally people would look
up and see their helicopter leaving and returning to the
hilltop reserve. So rumors and conspiracies germinated and began to grow,
carried swiftly along the grapevine, whispers about those wealthy Americans
(33:32):
who flew in by helicopter and brought up all the land,
And were all those guards really there to scare off poachers? Jesse,
their neighbor, asked, all those.
Speaker 7 (33:42):
Questions, we don't know, and we can imagine, but we
don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
What do you imagine?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Well, I personally thought he was probably somebody very big
in the drugs personally, and obviously they were doing something secret.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I own was the perfect place to live in splendid isolation,
and that, in the end, was at the root of
everything that was to follow. And Jesse is right. The
house with no walls was full of secrets. Where did
they get their fortune? Why were they so help bent
(34:22):
on protecting their privacy? Why all those guns? And why
would one of them end up dead? You've been listening
to Hell in Heaven from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts,
(34:45):
produced by Blanchard House hosted, written and produced by me
Becky Milligan. The producer and co writer is Poppy Damon.
Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmanell, and Toby Matthamol.
The sound recordist and head of sound and Music is
Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer is Vulcan Kiseltook.
(35:08):
The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for Exactly Right Media.
The executive producers are Karen Kilgarreth, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer,
with consulting producer Lilly Ladderwig and associate producer Jay Elias.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosy Pye. The
(35:29):
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
Lawrence Griselle. Listen to Helen Heaven on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
January the seventh, twenty ten, where outside the house of
John and Anne Bender, a young American couple who've built
an extravagant home and wildlife refuge in the middle of
the Costa Rican rainforest. John made a multi million dollar
fortune on Wall Street. Ann is his bright and glamorous wife.
(00:35):
It's now one in the morning. The emergency call came
in an hour ago.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
You just are cast a shooting.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
And a casualty. That's the voice of Carlos Morra. He
was the ambulance driver who was on the scene that night.
I've tracked him.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Down ell Mico.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Well, He's attended hundreds of violent incidents over the years,
but this one stands out. He's never experienced anything like
it before or since. And he's not alone. All the
people I've found while reporting on this story remember it
in vivid detail. I'm Becky Milligan eyebroke stories for the
(01:22):
BBC for almost thirty years, and I've reported on some
pretty strange events, but this one is the strangest of all.
So back to that night. Carlos enters the Bender's house
and he gets in the elevator and just like everything
(01:43):
else in this house, this is no ordinary elevator. It's
a round, open platform that rises up through the building.
Carlos grips onto the handrail. He sees each floor as
it passes. The house is incredible, he says. He's never
(02:06):
seen a place like it. It's like an enormous spaceship. Inside,
it's all stainless steel and shiny black floors, reflective like
pools of water. There's a lot of money here. Who
could own such a house? He asks himself. Quiet is
(02:27):
a drug trafficker?
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Like I say?
Speaker 1 (02:32):
Carlos is anxious. Guards and security are everywhere, armed with
heavy caliber weapons. They're speaking to each other in hushed voices.
He's been told he has to go up to the
fourth floor, the master bedroom. He passes the first floor,
(02:52):
the second floor, a vast kitchen, the third floor, the
fourth floor, the bedroom, and on the bed a body
curled up as if asleep. But as Carlos gets closer,
(03:15):
he takes in the horror of it all. The gunshot
wound at the back of the head, the victim's left
arm dangling off the bed, blood dripping from it, forming
a pool on the highly polished marble floor, and near
it on the floor, the gun a semi automatic. At first,
(03:39):
the police will assume this is a suicide, but not
for long. And here's why. The gun seems to have
dropped from the victim's left hand, yet the entry wound
is on the right side of the head. Not only
(03:59):
that the bullet was fired from behind from exactly right.
Media and iHeart Podcasts produced by Blanchard House. This is
(04:19):
Helen Heaven. I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter one, The House of Secrets.
(04:51):
Our story begins and ends with a house built and
owned by Anne and John Bender. This place is their
dream home. When they first move here, they're both in
their thirties. He's made his millions and now he wants
to put them to good use, to enjoy them by
creating a wildlife sanctuary. So our couple are young, and
(05:15):
they're in love, completely in love, devoted. It seems they
live only for each other and all the beloved animals
they've rescued. John also has his rare orchids, and Anne
has her collection of Tiffany lamps, hundreds of them. So
Anne and John have everything they need right here in
(05:37):
their house in the middle of the jungle, a house
unlike any other, and which will in time be the
scene of a terrible tragedy and a mystery. So I
land in Costa Rica to investigate this story, and by coincidence,
my eighteen year old daughter is already here, working on
(06:00):
a conservation project elsewhere in the country. She's been messaging me,
telling me all about protecting turtle eggs on pristine beeches,
relaxing in camp as monkeys play in the trees, and
about how she showers in the open air as hummingbirds
hover close by paradise. But as I arrive in the
(06:21):
country and discover more about this story, about the dark
side of life in Costa Rica, the more I start
to worry about my daughter and worry about myself, turning
into some sort of Internet meme, a hysterical, over protective
mother convinced her daughter is about to die. Not only
(06:41):
that I'm not coping too well with the climate either. Gosh,
it's quite diring, isn't in this He doo whoo. Scotland
in autumn is more my thing, and that's a lot
cooler than it is here. My producer, Poppy and I
have driven four hours from the capitol San Jose, a
(07:01):
hair raising drive around hairpin Bends with sheer drops on
either side. But we're now deep in the rainforest searching
for John and Anne Bender's house. First, through a slight clearing,
we come upon the deer Monte Waterfall, which gives this
valley its name.
Speaker 4 (07:21):
Oh wow, that's it, My good.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
It's so high up in the water tumbles from a
high ridge down the cliff face and is swallowed up
by the forest below. Blue, green and yellow birds flutter
above our heads, and the noise is intense and strange
roars echo in the distance like dinosaurs. Sounds enchanting, But
(07:53):
the truth is we're already on edge. We've been spooked
by a phone call we made just before we set out.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
It's like warm in the daytime, kind of cool at night,
crystal clear spring water blowing out of the mountains. Fruits
and vegetables grow really easily, nice vegetables, tomatoes, bananas. We
never thought we were coming back.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
That's John Colvick, who knows the area and used to
be the Bender's neighbor. And John had a warning.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
There was my wife and I and that was about it.
So you're alone on this giant farm in the deep
jungle most of the time. It's a strange thing. Sounds morbid,
But a lot of people die off there, and a
lot of people go kind of crazy. They lose it.
They actually lose it. Struggling with anything in the jungle,
(08:44):
You're gonna face your inner demons.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
John's words really unsettle us.
Speaker 3 (08:49):
There's folklore about the Diamonte waterfall. I'd be damned if
all the people that move in and out of there
don't go that shit. You know, the hippies has some
very the vortex of energy that spins off the waterfall.
The Indians say it's a curse because they will run
off their land any way you cut it. The families
go nuts, they fall apart, people die. I don't know
(09:11):
anyone who's lives facing that waterfall that just set up
shop and enjoyed this majestic view and just soaked it
in long term, I really don't. Sometimes I think it's
from isolation, you know, cabin fever. They go DUTs. You
could have cabin fever. My wife asked me, She says,
are you ever going to put clothes on again? I
(09:31):
would go three or four days in my rubber boots.
You know, I didn't see anyone.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
It sounds like an exaggeration that people go mad and
lose it, but by the end of our story you
won't think so shit.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
At that place is the darkest jungle you've ever seen
in your life. You have no clue.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
We leave the waterfall behind and walk even deeper to
the jungle in search of John and Anne Bender's house,
which they called or a Cayenne. Okay, I'm seeing some
barbed wary fence.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
I think we're getting close.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
That even looks like cut loaf.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
It does.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Right up the slope there we see the slopes of
the gardens first, and then through the trees and foliage.
Oh my god, that's really it.
Speaker 5 (10:27):
It's just anormous.
Speaker 6 (10:29):
It's like a spaceship's landed on the top of a
hill in the middle of the jungle in Costa Rica.
It's like four stories with this dome at the top.
It's constructed from huge concrete slabs and columns and fifty
thousand square feet around the same size as a soccer pitch,
(10:50):
and it's round. Imagine that on a jungle hilltop, rising
way above the tops of the trees, and you get
an idea of what it looks like and how out
of place it is. The views are incredible, In the evening,
John and Anne would sit and look out across the jungle,
enjoying the glorious sunsets, enjoying each other's company. In the daytime,
(11:12):
they'd zoom around on their five thousand acres of land
on a quad bike, busying themselves with their wildlife refuge,
caring for all the animals. They'd saved a great black hawk,
a jaguar arundi, which is a wild cat on the
verge of extinction, and Anne also had her dog, a
German shepherd called Millie. It really is an astonishing place,
(11:37):
but being here now there's a sinister edge to it all.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
I can see why they loved it. It's completely isolated.
But their gates here a couple of guards, and there's
no entry. There's just no way we can get in.
And even at the top I can see a guard
sort of the perimeter.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
I think he is coming.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
In fact, he was filming us. They're getting a bit
tense all regards.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Oh goodnight.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
We'd ask permission to go inside weeks before and hadn't
received a response. But just as we're leaving, a man
turns up in fatigues.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
They Orlando, Are you Orlando? We're making a documentary about
Anne and John. But it's not possible to go inside.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Isn't He puts his hand up and shakes his heads.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Have a good day bye as we go.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
The house is up for sale, empty and there's a
sadness about it, almost like the structure holds memories of
what took place here.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean numbers of it. In Bury Lordes.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Twenty years ago, as Voldo Rochas had been preparing to
meet his new boss. He knew nothing about him apart
from his name, John Bender and that he brought up
some land in dear Monte Valley. He ended up working
for the Benders for ten.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Years Perzalon until Persillon.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
As Welda was grateful for the job, and grateful too
to his former boss, also an American, Jimmy. Jim had
sold his farm to the new arrivals John and Anne,
but made sure his young maintenance man wouldn't lose his
well paid job, which were pretty hard to come by
in Paris.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
All okayondo, I understand there was a close in the
contract where Jim, the previous owner, specified that I had
to continue working on the property when this cell was made.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Why I stayed to take care of the property until
John Bender arrived.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Back then, everyone in town was gossiping about the new
gringos moving to the valley. Gringos is what Costa Ricans
call Americans. Most foreigners are gringos. The locals are called ticos.
What was clear was that they were rich gringos. Nobody
knew how rich. But then nobody really knew who this
couple were at all, least of all as Faldo. He
(14:10):
remembers the day they arrived very clearly because he was
a bit nervous and wasn't sure what to expect. Before
the house was built, the new couple were staying at
a place in town.
Speaker 7 (14:22):
John I remember being surprised when they show up in
the little car. They were mostly reserved people, especially young.
He didn't like to interact much with daughters. He would
prefer the mountains, and he said something like, I hate
this property. I've been deceived. He never realized that the
house was so close to the center of town until
(14:43):
they arrived. We didn't realize how young they were. We
expected to see an older couple. He was a big man.
She was thin and pretty.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Benita that was the word everyone used to describe an
and six foot five, was built like an American footballer,
a guy who clearly worked.
Speaker 8 (15:04):
Out, hugely muscular, gorgeous, blue eyes, dark hair.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Carol Vaughan, an ex pattern author who moved to the
town a few years later, was taken by how glamorous
the couple were.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Just handsome, movie star handsome. She was petite, delicate, moved
like a ballerina. She reminded me a lot of Audrey Hepburn.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Despite his physique, John was a gentle soul. He was
kind to all animals, even the tiniest insect. Back home
in the US, he'd taken in dozens of stray cats,
and he was incredibly smart, good with numbers, and meanwhile,
had been the most popular kid at school. No doubt
(15:56):
they were a striking couple. There's a photo of them
taken on their new property. John is standing behind Anne
in shorts and a T shirt, one arm wrapped around
her chest, the other around her waist in a protective way.
He towers above her, and Anne, in jeans, is holding
onto his arms and leaning back slightly against him. Their
(16:18):
dream is taking shape around them. They look happy and relaxed,
the perfect couple. It's hard to look at that photo now,
knowing everything that would happen. John and Anne arrived in
(16:46):
Costa Rica with a reported six hundred million dollars, an
eye watering fortune which would in time be bitterly fought over,
but that comes later in our story. All anyone knew
at this time was that they wanted land and they
had the money to pay for it, author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 8 (17:07):
And when the word got out, people were desperate to
make a killing off Americans because it happens a lot,
and their venders found their mailbox just stuffed with people's deeds,
saying here it is, Bamy.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
Is that right? They were so desperate they just wanted
the money.
Speaker 8 (17:26):
They wanted the money, yep. And they didn't want to
be the only one in the neighborhood who didn't make
a fortune off the gringos. I mean, if Raoul is
making one hundred thousand dollars, I should make one hundred
thousand dollars. I haven't got a deed here, Bamy.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
In total, the Benders brought up five thousand acres from
expats like gym locals and small farmers, some of whom
had grown coffee on their land for generations. It was
in a perfect position. From the top of their hill,
they had great views of the jungle, Dear Monte waterfall,
and the sea beyond, a romantic setting to watch the
(18:05):
famous Costa Rican sunsets turn the sky to a burning red,
orange and yellow. This was where they would build their
enormous house, which they would christen Bora Cayenne. You're probably
wondering what that means. We wondered too. Apparently it's the
name of a local plant. Construction work began. John Bender
(18:28):
had a vision for his new property to create a
new way of living, unconstrained by normal rules. Building a
house on this scale in the middle of the jungle, well,
it was a huge undertaking and massively ambitious. But then
John was like that, Hi, Hello, thank you so much.
(18:57):
I met John's parents in Phoenix, Arizona. We'd already talk
quite a bit online before I met them in person.
You know what's amazing is seeing you on zoom and
now being here. John's mum is a teacher. John's dad
is an eminent law professor and worked in the Clinton administration.
This was the first time they'd invited journalists to their
(19:21):
home to talk about their son. Their love for John
is playing to see they hold hands under the table
as they talk about him, But they couldn't really relate
to John's life making millions on Wall Street. Money isn't
important to them, and they worried about the path he'd chosen.
So when John decided to set up the wildlife sanctuary,
(19:43):
I get the feeling they were relieved he was leaving
the world of high finance behind.
Speaker 5 (19:49):
Though.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
When John told his dad about the plans for their
enormous house, Paul was pretty surprised.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Well, he was going to build this high tech fim
in the middle of the jungle, basically, and it seemed
to me impossible to do that. And the way he
did it was to decide where he wanted to put it,
and they have the people come there and builders, so
he had like an army of people building this thing.
And what you've seen what turned out. It has nothing
(20:18):
to do with the jungle, but it was. It was
exactly what they wanted. I have a lot of pictures
that we took down there.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Paul fired up his computer and scrolled through, showing us
photos of the house being built. In the photos, the
structure was up, but not much else. It was an
empty concrete shell.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
That's the house.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Oh gosh, is that under construction. Oh my goodness. Paul
showed us more photos when the new floors have been
put in. That granite is it is like almost like
a mirror, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
She really liked that.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
It's obvious that Margie and Paul are so proud of
what John achieved. He had a dream and he made
it real.
Speaker 9 (21:02):
I don't think John ever thought there were limitations to things.
If he wanted it to be round, it could be round.
Speaker 4 (21:08):
What they really wanted to do was what they did
was find the place that was away from most of
the world, in a beautiful place which had a lot
of animals and a lot of greenery that they really
wanted to be away from school, from the world.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
The house took a total of four years to build.
The vendors moved in before it was finished as well,
though the head staffer stayed at the couple's house in
town and watched the Jungle Retreat take shape.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Now, just as hated.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We were there from the beginning. It was a huge
building site. We could see the workers on the street,
like one hundred and fifty workers spread all over it.
We saw the house going up little by little.
Speaker 1 (21:52):
One of his jobs was to clean the house, and
so he can tell us precisely what it was like inside.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
Quite a piece of fact.
Speaker 7 (22:00):
The fourth floor was all the bedroom, with the bed
in the middle and some rustic furniture made to order.
He didn't like anything lavish.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
The third floor was empty. John had planned to put
in a greenhouse for his orchids, but never got round
to it.
Speaker 7 (22:18):
On the second floor was the kitchen, which was enormous.
Four kitchens could fit inside it.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
It was like no other house in the whole valley,
standing on top of the hill, a four story round home.
It came with huge pools of water, road gutters to
prevent flooding. And there was one feature in particular that
said this couple had serious money, because when John and
Ann came here, they didn't make that four hour car journey.
(22:48):
They would fly in and out, landing on a helipad
below the main entrance. Locals came to call the house
the dome because of the shape of the roof, which
could be seen from miles around.
Speaker 8 (23:01):
And you could not make this shit up.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
There's one other detail about the house which people never
fail to mention, including expat Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 8 (23:11):
The house has no walls.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yes, the house has no walls.
Speaker 8 (23:16):
There's screens that are pulled down from the ceiling at
night that keep bugs and animals at but during the
day it was wide open. Designed by John with Anne's
decorating touch. The house is magnificent.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
It was open on all sides and you felt that
you were really in the jungle. The bathrooms had walls.
I think there was a concession that he made to
the inside was just open space. What are you going
to do with all this space? I never got the
answer to that. I don't think I ever did anything with
all that space.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Some describe it as looking like an anniversary clock, a
shopping mall, or a car park. Not very flattering. But
whether you like the design or not, it was an
amazing fear. Hundreds of people were employed to build it
and paid well, and it changed as Fada's hometown for good.
Speaker 7 (24:07):
Practical as we say, John came to put the town
on them up. This was an abandoned place in two thousand.
There was not even electricity. When John arrived. He brought
life to the place. He brought jobs, and foreigners became
interested in buying land, so the economy began to move
after being practically abandoned, like many other places here in
(24:29):
Costa Rica.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
When the house was complete, John and Anne threw a
party for all the workers and their families, but as
Valdo says, it was the only party the Benders ever had.
The house would never see so much life and light again,
as John and Anne retreated from the world and their
lives became shrouded in darkness. The house wasn't just a
(25:08):
sanctuary for John and Anne, but for animals too, of course.
Speaker 7 (25:13):
The Commissi we had two large parods and a parod
with a broken wing, some monkeys this love, of course,
and a baby.
Speaker 1 (25:23):
A black creature from the weasel family, which John loved
and called Leo. He lived alongside two injured Persian cats
which John had adopted. There was the duck, and the falcons,
and the snakes. That's only the beginning. And Anne had
Peter the sloth.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Oh yeah, but it slept all the time, So three
told saw the name has.
Speaker 9 (25:49):
Come from this proclivity to sleep all the time.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And and John loved all animals ever since they were children.
As adults, they both said they got on better with
animals them with people.
Speaker 10 (26:01):
John also had.
Speaker 4 (26:02):
A good feeling about animals, just the magician of animals.
So we always had a lot of animals, and I
think both kids really enjoyed them.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
It was a menagerie. One reason for the absence of
wolves was to be at one with the jungle. The
animals could come and go as they pleased. Sometimes when
Anne and John had a bath, parrots would perch beside
them and keep them company. They wanted to turn back
the clock, restoring the land to its wild state before
(26:31):
it was farmed.
Speaker 9 (26:32):
He was feeding, and he was bringing back the food
that the land had had when it was natural and
grew its own weeds if you want to call them that,
and other things. He was trying to get that back
into the soil.
Speaker 7 (26:44):
Is Then, after three or four years we did start
to see more animals around.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
As the years went by, John and Anne would become
increasingly isolated, hold up alone in their house with no walls.
They had few visitors, but early on, before their home
was completed, they made an exception for Zach Schweger and
his dad Jack, who John had invited to come and
see the house. Jack and John were friends.
Speaker 11 (27:12):
He said, Hey, you know I should come down sometime.
So when my son graduated in high school and he
wanted to take a farther suntrip that sounded like a
little bit of an adventure. I said, hey, you want
to go to Costa Rica to John and Am Bender's compound.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Zach Schweger was just nineteen, my first time kind of.
Speaker 5 (27:32):
Like out of the country, people speaking different languages.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
They were picked up by a land cruiser.
Speaker 5 (27:38):
And we're driving for what I remember was hours. It's
hard to describe this part of what it was like
to get there because it was like truly out.
Speaker 10 (27:48):
Of a video game or a movie.
Speaker 5 (27:53):
You can't really see much because like you pull in,
it's a dirt road, but it kind of leads up
and up and up the roads.
Speaker 11 (28:00):
You could lose a jeep in the pottles.
Speaker 5 (28:02):
And then everything around you is rainforest, just like large thick,
lush trees.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
I had no idea, like this is what it was like.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
My dad had undersold this by a million percent, like
we were we were in.
Speaker 10 (28:20):
A movie set.
Speaker 1 (28:21):
Then he met their host, who'd taken up the traditional
way to cut through the jungle.
Speaker 5 (28:26):
It's just like this big brute of a guy kind
of like had a good, good healthy beard and a
machete on.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
His waist straight off. He loved John, who took them
on a tour of his property.
Speaker 5 (28:38):
He almost had like a skip but a stomp to
his step, you know what I mean, Like he walks
like that jungle very confidently.
Speaker 11 (28:46):
He was proud of what he was doing. He loved
the rainforest, you know, so I think a good deal
of self satisfaction that he was protecting this land.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
And Johnanan seemed uniquely matched, a.
Speaker 5 (28:58):
Couple that doesn't need to ask for things, like a
couple like where John sits down like she knows he's
thirsty type of thing, but like she willingly wants to
make sure Jonathan is not a thirsty person. There was
a lot of just like warmth and care.
Speaker 10 (29:12):
They came from from hand.
Speaker 5 (29:13):
So we're special, And I'm like, man, this person is
just such a sweetheart.
Speaker 11 (29:16):
He and Ann were very much in love as far
as I could tell.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Zach remembers the trip vividly, and one conversation in particular
illustrated John's fierce intellect.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
One evening, it's just three dudes kind of like hanging out,
shooting and shit. And and this is maybe like where
I felt a little out.
Speaker 10 (29:38):
Of my ole event.
Speaker 5 (29:39):
But Jonathan super intelligent and my father super intelligent.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then John turned to Zach and said, I.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Don't need to ask like such a random question, but
are you familiar with quantum superposition?
Speaker 1 (29:51):
Yes, quantum superposition.
Speaker 5 (29:54):
So John like took my dad deeply through your quantum superposition, basically.
Speaker 10 (30:00):
This idea that based on you know.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
Waveforms, that electrons can.
Speaker 10 (30:05):
Exist in two places at once.
Speaker 5 (30:08):
He was walking through several experiments like one where like electrons.
Speaker 10 (30:11):
Were shot at like a gold leaf.
Speaker 5 (30:13):
But that like kind of changed my life in the
sense that I was opened up to this whole world
of like reality or not reality, and like Jonathan had
kind of brought me into this place of where for
the first time, like I questioned, like what's real and
what's not real, and nobody had ever done that.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
For Zach, still in his teens, who'd never been to
a foreign country, meeting John on his jungle reserve made
a lifelong impression on him.
Speaker 5 (30:41):
It was like this very weird time where everything was perfect,
Like the wind was perfect, the temperature was perfect, like
the seats were uncomfortable, the beer was still cold, and
the sky was just this like perfect orange and you know,
everything was super green. John was like some on center
stage without like detracting from like this perfection. It was
(31:05):
like just one of those moments where like the second
that it was happening, you're like, please, God, like do
not let this end, Like, don't whatever you do, just like,
do not have this moment stop.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
But everything would change and the vendors would find themselves
becoming further and further divorced from reality. Even then, the
signs were there. This might have been a piece of paradise.
But in this paradise, Zach noticed one thing that seemed strange,
a puncture on the otherwise perfect scene.
Speaker 10 (31:41):
And all of a sudden, there's guys with guns.
Speaker 5 (31:43):
And definitely something my father never said to me is
like there's going to be men with guns, like and
lots of men with guns. They weren't friendly, they didn't
say hi, they weren't like hey, like I know, I'm
a random dude with a gun that doesn't speak the
same language as you.
Speaker 10 (31:57):
Don't be frightened. They just kind of they were kind
of there.
Speaker 11 (32:01):
Those guys were for assault rifles, you know. The gate
and like you would imagine if it was a drug cartail, right,
the armed people he had working for them would do
these patrols, you know, like round the clock and stuff.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Why did they have guns.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
Yeah, that was my very first question, and it was
quickly answered with we're concerned about poachers.
Speaker 1 (32:20):
Poaching might explain all those guns up to a point.
Remember John Corvick from earlier who used to live in
the valley. He told us about the poachers and their
dogs who would come at night and cause havoc.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Oh, there's poachers everywhere. I used to hunt the poachers.
There's poachers and sons of bitches. You can never find them,
but you'll find their dogs. And I used to go
out with my bulldogs. At first we try to find them.
The poachers would driving me nut. My dogs would start barking.
I could hear them barking up in the hills.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
If this was just about poaching, John and Anne went
to extreme lengths. They put up a barbed wire perimeter
fence around their property and had guards wearing fatigues patrolling.
Twenty four signs reading keep out private Property were erected everywhere.
So the people in the valley costa Rican's expats hips
(33:09):
in search of a piece of heaven. The message was clear,
and the couple were rarely seen. Occasionally people would look
up and see their helicopter leaving and returning to the
hilltop reserve. So rumors and conspiracies germinated and began to grow,
carried swiftly along the grapevine, whispers about those wealthy Americans
(33:32):
who flew in by helicopter and brought up all the land,
And were all those guards really there to scare off poachers? Jesse,
their neighbor, asked, all those.
Speaker 7 (33:42):
Questions, we don't know, and we can imagine, but we
don't know.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
What do you imagine?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
Well, I personally thought he was probably somebody very big
in the drugs personally, and obviously they were doing something secret.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
I own was the perfect place to live in splendid isolation,
and that, in the end, was at the root of
everything that was to follow. And Jesse is right. The
house with no walls was full of secrets. Where did
they get their fortune? Why were they so help bent
(34:22):
on protecting their privacy? Why all those guns? And why
would one of them end up dead? You've been listening
to Hell in Heaven from Exactly Right Media and iHeart Podcasts,
(34:45):
produced by Blanchard House hosted, written and produced by me
Becky Milligan. The producer and co writer is Poppy Damon.
Music is by Daniel Lloyd Evans, Louis Nankmanell, and Toby Matthamol.
The sound recordist and head of sound and Music is
Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer is Vulcan Kiseltook.
(35:08):
The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for Exactly Right Media.
The executive producers are Karen Kilgarreth, Georgia Hardstark and Danielle Kramer,
with consulting producer Lilly Ladderwig and associate producer Jay Elias.
The creative director of Blanchard House is Rosy Pye. The
(35:29):
executive producer and head of Content at Blanchard House is
Lawrence Griselle. Listen to Helen Heaven on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Emma Jane Kirby
Becky Milligan
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!