October 30, 2025 • 35 mins
It’s midnight in the jungle. The Benders are alone. A single shot rings out. One person is dead. As police arrive on the scene, they initially conclude it’s a suicide. But suspicion grows and the scene raises questions. But soon, the suspect is out of reach of detectives.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
A warning about this episode. It contains descriptions of suicide
and suicidal thoughts. Please take care when listening. It was
ten years since the Benders moved to the middle of
the jungle in Costa Rica with a big dream and
a reported six hundred million dollars author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They wanted to live in the clouds and not have
to deal with anything.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They built their extravagant four story mansion and created a
nature reserve full of animals and birds. But their dream
slowly and relentlessly crumbled around them and it was.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Just doomed, just doomed. All that money and it was doomed.
They couldn't make it happen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
After the police arrested John and Anne on the roadside
in two thousand and one, they felt targeted. Then armed
invaders came within two high hundred feet at the house.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And they were confronted with violence. People trying to kill them,
people trying to kidnap them, people trying to get their
money out of them. So that made their neuroses and
their paranoia even worse.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The couple bought guns and learned how to shoot. They
both felt compelled to defend themselves from outside forces. Despite
previously being anti gun ownership. Locals were suspicious of them.
Their staff were afraid. Arm guards patrolled twenty four to seven.
But their lives were falling apart on the inside too.
(01:40):
By the time we get to two thy and ten,
they're living in extreme isolation. They have virtually cut off
all contact with the outside world, and and John have
disconnected from reality. On top of this, Anne can now
barely walk. John had failed to find a natural They
(02:01):
remained together high on the hill inside their Wallace mansion,
losing their minds. Carol Vaughan wrote the book on these events,
and her eyes intensify as she leans in and tells.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Me the two of them suffered from mental illness, and
in the isolation and loneliness of Costa Rica, their condition
got worse and they sort of wite.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Nuts until in the early hours of January the eighth,
twenty ten, events reached breaking point. From Exactly Right Media
and iHeart Podcasts produced by Blanchard House, This is Helen Heaven.
(02:50):
I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter five. The night of Thursday, January
(03:21):
the seventh, twenty ten. It's been a warm, humid day.
John has been creating a stone mineral garden, his latest project.
Near the entrance of the house, rocks as large as
cars had been forklifted into place. He was planning to
arrange them in a particular way. As Valdo Rojas, head
(03:43):
of maintenance, has seen box after box of stones arrive,
many remain unopened.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
John said that the stones were beautiful and conveyed a
certain piece.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Anne is now desperately thin. Walking as difficult. She has
a cane to help her or is carried by John
like a small child. As the day comes to a close,
John and Anne complete their usual evening rituals. They watch
the sunset from the balcony.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And just stand there, hugging each other and wait for
the sun to go.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Down, listening to the Twilight Jungle chorus our sunset thing
and calls it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think they were totally in love with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They played John's favorite video game, Fallout three for a
couple of hours, an action series which is set in
a post apocalyptic world. The main character, alone Wanderer, searches
for his lost father. After dinner, John then carries Anne
up to the fourth floor master bedroom. The elevator system
(04:56):
is locked. Anne is in bed. John is arranging pillows.
He has a particular way he likes them to be placed.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
He slept on a stack of three pillows. He slept nude.
He slept with ear buds in because he couldn't stand noise.
And the jungle at night is hugely noisy.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Remember those earplugs. They'll be important later.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was just the two of them in the bedroom
that highly secured. Only way to get there was through
a locked elevator.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's nearing midnight. The Bender's bedroom is far from ordinary.
It's huge, of course. And then there are the lamps,
hundreds of lamps, stained glass tiffany lamps, all of them
around five hundred and fifty blazing. They're switched off, leaving
only the darkness. The jungle vibrates with an incessant hum
(05:56):
of insects, frogs, geckos, and the rustles of nocturnal animals.
Eerie sounds echo through the darkness. Inside the house, it
is still. One of the guards settles in for what
he expects to be just another uneventful night, But at
(06:20):
a quarter past midnight, he leaps up. That sounded like
a gunshot. He frowns, but before he can call his supervisor,
the walkie talkie crackles into life. It's Anne. She's frantic,
crying and yelling for help. The guard alerts his supervisor, Aguila,
(06:45):
it's the start of the nightmare. Aguila immediately calls his boss.
Jose Pizarro, the Bender's head of security, is relaxing at
home in San Jose. He's left a guiler in charge
at the Bender's house that evening. When his phone rings
after midnight, he's surprised who calls this late. He hears
(07:08):
a guiler on the end of the line.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Me evil.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
He says, Colonel, we heard a shot inside the boss's house.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
In the urgency In a giler's voice makes Jose instantly
sit up. He is now fully awake and alert.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
It sounds very weird to me. Nothing like this has
ever happened before.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Then he hears Anne's distraught voice coming across on the
walkie talkie, crying and pleading for someone to help. He
tells a guiler to try and find out what is
going on. Remember, the Benders locked the elevator before they
went to bed. A guiler has never had to unlock
(07:51):
it before, so he doesn't know how. It takes five
minutes to work it out. He then rises up to
the master bedroom where the sound of the gunshot came from.
It's the first time he's ever been on the fourth floor.
It's dark, but he can see Anne kneeling by the
(08:12):
side of the bed. She's crying and shaking, stroking John's hand.
Something horrific has happened. He looks at Anne more closely.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And she is just completely falling apart. It's covered in blood.
She's beside herself. The guard immediately started trying to help
an saying, how can I help you? What do we
need to do? Do you need to take something?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Nearby the guard Aguila sees a gun, John's gun, a
semi automatic nine millimeter Ruga P forty five. Then he
realizes John is motionless and there's a pool of blood
around his head. John is dead. Having taken in the scene,
(09:16):
Aguila continues speaking to Jose on the phone. Jose remembers
the call clearly.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
He told me Anna's crying. She's in total shock. I said,
what's going on? And he told me that Anne is
saying that John shot himself.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Jose is shocked. He's trying to take it in his employer.
His friend John has killed himself, shot himself with his gun.
It doesn't make sense why. He orders a guala to
take Anne to the second floor as quickly as possible.
(09:54):
Jose immediately calls the police and the Red Cross Ambulance Service.
He will coordinate everything from now on. He rings John
and Ann's lawyers as he prepares to drive to the
Bender's house. It's three to four hours away. Over and
over in his head he asks the same question, how
could this have happened? It will be an hour before
(10:18):
the ambulance gets to the house, a little more before
the police arrive. Ambulance driver Carlos Mores is woken by
the phone ringing. It's about twelve thirty in the morning.
It's from the Red Cross HQ. There's an emergency in
(10:41):
a remote area of the jungle Swuicilien.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There was talk of a suicide, but a security guard
that committed suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Carlos and a colleague pick up their medical equipment and
set off into the darkness of the Costa Rican jungle.
Half an hour later, at one in the morning, another
phone is ringing, this time in the house of Aswoldo
Rojas in Perizelodon, the nearest town to Borichayanne. He's been
(11:11):
the Bender's head of maintenance for ten years. Up till now,
he's had a regular day. He left Borachayanne at three
in the afternoon as usual and spent the rest of
the afternoon and evening at home with his wife. They
went to bed and were fast asleep when the phone.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Rang Hello, Amja Madon about one am. They called me
to say that John had apparently killed himself and that
I should go there because Anna was desperate.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Oswaldo, like everyone else, is shocked. So much is going
through his mind as he rushes to Bori Chayanne. Ambulance
driver Carlos, the Bender's head of security Jose, and maintenance
man as Voldo are all now on the road heading
to or Acheyanne. The police are also on their way.
(12:06):
At the house, Anne is now on the second floor
in a severe state of shock.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
She took something to ease the drama and stress.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
She emails her parents, then calls her brother Ken Patton
in Michigan, waking him up in the middle of the night.
Her first words to him will be significant in all
that follows. He finally did it, she says. There are
more calls to make but first Aguila. At the request
of Jose Pizzaro makes sure Anne has all her medications.
(12:42):
The ambulance driver, Carlos and his partner are en route.
It's around one in the morning. They take a rough
road on the left, deeper into the jungle.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It was actually a very nice night, a bit dark
because there was no light thing with lot of the windows,
and heard the sound of the jungle and we were
the only ones on the road.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
He knows the area a bit, but has never heard
of Bora Kayanne. Jose, head of security, is also on
his way. He's going as fast as he can, pressing
his foot down on the accelerator. He rings a Geala
again to check up on the situation. His main concern
now is Anne's momento yah Yo.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Ask her if she feels okay. If she does, she
needs to stay in the house, but keep an eye
on her. If she gets worse, take her to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
At around one fifteen in the morning, Carlos pulls up
at the gates of Bora Kayanne. He can't believe what
he sees.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
The first thing we saw the big gates. I was
impressed because there was a lot of secure Two girls
were standing at the front edd and as we got
closer we saw there's a hugely illuminated house. It it
looked like a flying saucer.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He turns to one of the security guards at the
gate and asks if the casualty is a colleague of.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
His loon is the boss the boss who shot himself?
Speaker 7 (14:19):
I asked, where is he? He tells me on the
fore floor.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Carlos and his partner rush up the stairs to the
front entrance. They passed John's precious orchids in the car.
Jose makes more calls, first to the police. He knows
some of them very well since he used to be
head of police in Costa Rica and was popular known
(14:44):
by his nickname El Toro the Bull.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
I kept in touch with everyone that night to advise
of what was going on there.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
His head is still full of questions. Back in the house,
ambulance driver, Carlos and his partner are shown to the elevator,
which will take them to the fourth floor. He's taking
in the large number of armed guards and the luxury.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Los Pizos and lump interiors, the furnishing, the floors, the elevator.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
There's an odd atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He thinks, no, no, i Cilenzio.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Everything was silent, nobody cried so an.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
They already told us that she was the boss's wife.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
And seemed come I didn't see her crying at all.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Carlos begins to wonder if the house could be owned
by a big drug lord. That might explain the guns
and the opulence.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
Still, there's too much money in here.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It seemed to me like we were walking into a
Bablo Escobar soap opera. I don't know what has happened to,
who else is inside the house, or what else happen.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
He feels a deep sense of unease. Could someone have
broken in? Could this person still be in the property?
Like the house, the elevator has no walls. It is
like a rising platform. Carlos can see each floor as
he goes up. A kitchen, beautiful wooden furniture. He sees
(16:21):
all those lamps, the Tiffany lamps. Everything is so shiny,
he says, made from stainless steel, granite or marble. They
reach the fourth floor on amos a piece.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Then the elevator stops and there is a single, huge bedroom,
the walls not even for the bathroom, and there's a
big bed and lots of gems on the shows.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
His pulse quickens. He can almost hear his heart beating.
Then he sees it, the body on the bed, the
boss of the house lama on the piece.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And I could see the gun on the floor, the
trail of bloods is angry.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
He switches on his flashlight and takes a closer look.
The man is clearly dead. There's nothing they can do.
They try not to touch anything and tell the guards
not to let anyone else up here until the police arrive.
Carlos whispers to his partner that he's scared. He has
an overwhelming desire to leave, to get out of there
(17:28):
as soon as possible, but he has to wait for
the police. It doesn't take long. When the first police
officers arrive, Carlos debriefs them the man is dead and
there's nothing they can do. It's now two point fifteen
(17:50):
in the morning. Maintenance man as Voldo.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Arrives to Pierson. I went up to the second floor
to see Anna. She was sitting on the couch and
I walked to her. She clung to me, crying and
said that John had killed herself.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
That's all she said.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
At Anne has already told her family that John has died.
She hasn't yet called John's parents. It's in the early
hours of the morning when the call comes through to
Paul and Margie Bender in Phoenix, Arizona, a horrific call
(18:31):
for any parent. At first, they find it hard to
grapple with what has happened and make sense of what
Anne is telling them.
Speaker 6 (18:40):
She said that this accident had happened, and she tried
to describe what happened. I did not understand why it happened,
but she said he had died from this accident, and
that she was terribly upset about it. And she wasn't
quite sure why, but he was. He was under a
(19:03):
lot of pressure. She did not think that he committed
suicide or I didn't like that, but she said, it happened,
and what are we going to do? It happened.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Paul struggles to talk about his son's death. Anne would
later tell reporters that a few months before his death,
John had spiraled into a dark place his favorite bird
had been killed. That seems to have hit him particularly hard. Remember,
(19:37):
he and Anne were both animal lovers, and that was
a key reason they'd moved to Costa Rica. But there
was something else. John had entrusted his money to a
Costa Rican lawyer. In fact, he'd given him power of attorney,
meaning the lawyer now controlled the Bender's fortune. Not a
(19:57):
smart move. John was starting to say, suspect that the
lawyer was screwing him for millions of dollars. Anne showed
the CBS series Forty eight Hours an email from John
read here by an.
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Actor, such a total fucking loser River getting involved with
those scumbags. Losing my fucking mind right now, burst sick again,
and now this shit Today's a total fucking nightmare, and
tomorrow get worse. Just when I was feeling I could
learn to be happy, now I get this and I
want to be dead.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
The emails terrified Dane. John also obsessed about Anne's health.
Why couldn't he cure her? None of his homemade concoctions
had worked. She only got worse and could barely walk
unaided lymes disease had infected her spinal cord and brain.
John couldn't bear it. Had he failed her and himself.
(20:53):
This is what Anne would say later, voiced by an actor.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
We were dealing with so many things at the same time.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
He was talking about suicide every day.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Anne also said that for the first time in eleven years,
they were suffering a dreadful depression at the same time,
and the six weeks before John's death were harrowing. Every
day we would sit down and he would take all
the medications we had, she said, and put them in
piles and say, okay, when am I going to start
(21:26):
taking the pills? They were suicide dress rehearsals.
Speaker 7 (21:30):
Anne said.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
She told CNN that there was definitely something to the
concept of the two of them having gone mad together.
This is Anne's account of what happened in the early
hours of January eighth, twenty ten. She has told and
retold this story many times to reporters, the police, and
(21:53):
to author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
She went to bed first and was falling off to sleep,
and she was awakened by something. She says she thinks
it was voices. She heard him say something she thinks
it was, You'll now know what it's like to wake
up next to your dead husband.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You'll now know what it's like to wake up next
to your dead husband. And opened her eyes. It was dark,
but she could see that John had a gun pointed
at his head. It was loaded and cocked ready to fire.
He was lying back on the pillows. At first she
(22:34):
was stunned, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
She jumped up onto her knees and lunched for it
in her hands and closed his hands. She says she
never touched the gun, but the gun went off and
shot him in the back of the head and killed
him instantly.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Anne picked up the walkie talkie and called for help,
she would later tell reporters. At this point, I already
knew he was dead because I had heard the death rattle,
that last breath in the master bedroom. Carlos and his
partner are about to leave. There is nothing more they
(23:22):
can do. They both feel anxious.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
I was afraidful my safety.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I mean, if someone had come into the house to
kill this guy, you could still be around and start
to shootout.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
They go down in the lift. They need to see
Anne before they go, to check her blood pressure and
how she's doing.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
I've always said that when I saw her, she was fine.
She wasn't crying, she wasn't everything was fine.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
The Bender's head of security, Jose Pizzaro, nicknamed the Colonel,
finally arrives at the house around three am. He rushes
in to see Anne so army.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
She hugged me as she was saying, Colonel, I tried,
I tried. I tried to stop him. I tried. She
kept saying this. It was very tough as.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
Well a comento.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Jose found it hard hearing her anguish. She was very ill,
he tells me, devastated by John's death and confused and
tells Jose what happened.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
She was there with John with a gun and she
yelled no, John, please don't and tried to grab him
by the arm as well.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So the maintenance man is still at the house. The
police are in the master bedroom.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Okay, And we thought when the police arrived the process
was going to be quick and simple. It would date
perhaps three to four hours to remove the body because
this was supposed to be a suicide.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
But the atmosphere suddenly changes. The police are taking longer
than expected. After their initial inspection of the bedroom, the
police now say that they think John may not have
killed himself. The staff start to wonder what really happened
(25:22):
on the fourth.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Floor, Ivander, so that's where we all started to speculate.
They ask everyone to leave the scene and they stay
up there carrying out all the investigations.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
The room is cleared, forensics move in. Had someone broken
in and killed John? Jose has already taken a look
at the master bedroom. As a former police chief in
Costa Rica, he has seen a lot of crime scenes.
When he looks around the bedroom, he doesn't see any
evidence of an intruder.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
John's body remained there on his side. There was nothing
out of place except the sheets were a little messy.
None of this made me think that someone could have
broken in to kill him. If that had been the case,
they would have killed down two. But the scene was
simply John's body and the pool of blood. The police
were already taking photos and doing their job.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
But the police have their own theory. The crime scene
doesn't make sense. This is no longer a case of suicide.
They now believe John was murdered and their main suspect.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
Is Anne. This is very mysterious.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
It doesn't look like a suicide because of the way
that we found the gun in the warm. There's something
really weird going on here.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
There are two things that don't add up, things that
will be endlessly scrutinized later on. Number One, John had
his ear plugs still in. He couldn't sleep without them.
But why would you wear ear plugs if you were
just about to kill yourself? And number two, the gunshot
(27:18):
wound was on the right side of John's head, but
John was left handed, and not only that, the wound
was on the back of his head. Only two people
were in the room. Only one person knows what really happened.
(27:38):
Sitting in the ambulance outside the house, Carlos calls the
Red Cross to notify them about John's death. When it's over,
he turns to his partner.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And says, don't you think this is already word?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I'm afraid that were I want to leave quickly. I
don't feel well, and he was, yeah, I feel the same.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
He and his partner are relieved to leave the house.
They're both still on edge. Carlos says to his partner.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
And I said, only leave this way. I don't want
to be here. We don't know how kill this guy.
What if there's a cartel waiting to ambush and kill
them all?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
With us here, engine on seat belts fastened, they can't
get away quickly enough. Early the next morning, Anne is
taken to the police station. The first thing they do
is test her hands for gunpowder residue, and it comes
(28:43):
back positive. John's didn't How can she explain that? She
tells them she didn't shoot John. She tells them that
she lunged for the gun and it had gone off.
After being questioned, she's really but it isn't over for Anne.
This is just the beginning. The finger is being pointed
(29:07):
at her. The police are questioning her story. They think
it's a pack of lies and that John didn't kill himself.
They think Anne murdered him. They're now gathering evidence to
back up their story. Anne, under suspicion, is in a
(29:28):
terrible state. The Bender's head of security, Jose Pizarro, is
worried about her. She needs medical help. She's already so weak.
He thinks Anne's years of struggling with mental illness and
Lymes disease have ravaged her mind and body. She's in constant,
agonizing pain. According to Jose, a few weeks before John's death,
(29:52):
she'd stopped eating, drinking, and she wasn't washing. She wasn't
doing anything to take care of herself at all. Jose
tells us what he told Anne at the time.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Listen, there's no way you can stay here. You're very ill.
What just happened is very hard. You need to get
medical attention right now.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
Don't work out.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
John and Anne's dream had come to a sudden and
tragic end. Their heaven had turned to hell. In the
months that followed, Anne would look back and think about
the mansion on the hill with no walls, and what
she and John had tried to create, the nature reserve
(30:39):
and their animals, and the restoration of the land to
its former glory. She told CNN. Seeing the clouds roll
through your living room with the lamps lit up every day,
it was a beautiful experience and ever changing. Jose was
(31:00):
devastated too. He'd been John's chief of security for nearly
ten years. His death had been a terrible shock.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
The truth is I was very sad. It was a
terrible loss of a good friend, a great person.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Jose remained loyal and practical for Anne's sake. He had
a grim task collecting John's body from the morgue.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
I had to take him to be cremated and then
take the ashes back to Anne.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Meanwhile, he kept tabs on the police investigation as well.
The day after John died, they made a discovery, and
in the minds of detectives it gave Anne a motive
for murder.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
I remember the police found a small suitcase filled with jewelry.
There are all kinds of little gems. From that moment on,
they began to whisper among themselves, how strange that was.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
In total, it was reported that over three thousand gems
were found in the house. They were collected by John
and Anne over many years. Precious stones, rubies, opals, diamonds,
a stunning array, all bright colors, like a pirate's booty
or royal collection, and the police started to believe that
(32:28):
they were connected to John's death. They strongly suspected that
the gems had been brought into the country illegally, no taxes,
no receipts, a way of hiding assets from the authorities
to detectives. Anne's motive was clear. She'd murdered her husband
(32:49):
to pocket the gems and would deny all the accusations.
The intensely private couple in the big house on the
hill were now public property. John was gone. Now a
long shadow of suspicion fell on Anne. Was it murder, suicide,
(33:12):
or an accident. All sorts of theories about what happened
on the night of John's death begin to form. The
police's suspicions are hardening, but things are about to get
even worse for Anne. The next day, her health failing,
She's rushed to hospital in San Jose. Next time on
(33:39):
Hell in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
She was sick, sick, sick. When she was admitted to
the hospital after he died, she was barely alive. She
was just hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
You've been listening to Helen Heaven from Exactly Right Media
and iHeart podcasts 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 Nankmnell,
and Toby Mattamol. The sound recordist and head of sound
(34:26):
and Music is Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer
is Vulcan Kiseltook. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for
Exactly Right Media. The executive producers are Karen Kilgarath, Georgia Hardstark,
and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lilly Ladderwig and associate
producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is
(34:52):
Rosy Pye. The executive producer and head of content at
Blanchard House is Lawrence Griselle to Helen Heaven on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
A warning about this episode. It contains descriptions of suicide
and suicidal thoughts. Please take care when listening. It was
ten years since the Benders moved to the middle of
the jungle in Costa Rica with a big dream and
a reported six hundred million dollars author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
They wanted to live in the clouds and not have
to deal with anything.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
They built their extravagant four story mansion and created a
nature reserve full of animals and birds. But their dream
slowly and relentlessly crumbled around them and it was.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Just doomed, just doomed. All that money and it was doomed.
They couldn't make it happen.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
After the police arrested John and Anne on the roadside
in two thousand and one, they felt targeted. Then armed
invaders came within two high hundred feet at the house.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
And they were confronted with violence. People trying to kill them,
people trying to kidnap them, people trying to get their
money out of them. So that made their neuroses and
their paranoia even worse.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The couple bought guns and learned how to shoot. They
both felt compelled to defend themselves from outside forces. Despite
previously being anti gun ownership. Locals were suspicious of them.
Their staff were afraid. Arm guards patrolled twenty four to seven.
But their lives were falling apart on the inside too.
(01:40):
By the time we get to two thy and ten,
they're living in extreme isolation. They have virtually cut off
all contact with the outside world, and and John have
disconnected from reality. On top of this, Anne can now
barely walk. John had failed to find a natural They
(02:01):
remained together high on the hill inside their Wallace mansion,
losing their minds. Carol Vaughan wrote the book on these events,
and her eyes intensify as she leans in and tells.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Me the two of them suffered from mental illness, and
in the isolation and loneliness of Costa Rica, their condition
got worse and they sort of wite.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Nuts until in the early hours of January the eighth,
twenty ten, events reached breaking point. From Exactly Right Media
and iHeart Podcasts produced by Blanchard House, This is Helen Heaven.
(02:50):
I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter five. The night of Thursday, January
(03:21):
the seventh, twenty ten. It's been a warm, humid day.
John has been creating a stone mineral garden, his latest project.
Near the entrance of the house, rocks as large as
cars had been forklifted into place. He was planning to
arrange them in a particular way. As Valdo Rojas, head
(03:43):
of maintenance, has seen box after box of stones arrive,
many remain unopened.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
John said that the stones were beautiful and conveyed a
certain piece.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Anne is now desperately thin. Walking as difficult. She has
a cane to help her or is carried by John
like a small child. As the day comes to a close,
John and Anne complete their usual evening rituals. They watch
the sunset from the balcony.
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And just stand there, hugging each other and wait for
the sun to go.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Down, listening to the Twilight Jungle chorus our sunset thing
and calls it.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
I think they were totally in love with each other.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
They played John's favorite video game, Fallout three for a
couple of hours, an action series which is set in
a post apocalyptic world. The main character, alone Wanderer, searches
for his lost father. After dinner, John then carries Anne
up to the fourth floor master bedroom. The elevator system
(04:56):
is locked. Anne is in bed. John is arranging pillows.
He has a particular way he likes them to be placed.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
He slept on a stack of three pillows. He slept nude.
He slept with ear buds in because he couldn't stand noise.
And the jungle at night is hugely noisy.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Remember those earplugs. They'll be important later.
Speaker 2 (05:22):
It was just the two of them in the bedroom
that highly secured. Only way to get there was through
a locked elevator.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It's nearing midnight. The Bender's bedroom is far from ordinary.
It's huge, of course. And then there are the lamps,
hundreds of lamps, stained glass tiffany lamps, all of them
around five hundred and fifty blazing. They're switched off, leaving
only the darkness. The jungle vibrates with an incessant hum
(05:56):
of insects, frogs, geckos, and the rustles of nocturnal animals.
Eerie sounds echo through the darkness. Inside the house, it
is still. One of the guards settles in for what
he expects to be just another uneventful night, But at
(06:20):
a quarter past midnight, he leaps up. That sounded like
a gunshot. He frowns, but before he can call his supervisor,
the walkie talkie crackles into life. It's Anne. She's frantic,
crying and yelling for help. The guard alerts his supervisor, Aguila,
(06:45):
it's the start of the nightmare. Aguila immediately calls his boss.
Jose Pizarro, the Bender's head of security, is relaxing at
home in San Jose. He's left a guiler in charge
at the Bender's house that evening. When his phone rings
after midnight, he's surprised who calls this late. He hears
(07:08):
a guiler on the end of the line.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
Me evil.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
He says, Colonel, we heard a shot inside the boss's house.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
In the urgency In a giler's voice makes Jose instantly
sit up. He is now fully awake and alert.
Speaker 5 (07:27):
It sounds very weird to me. Nothing like this has
ever happened before.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Then he hears Anne's distraught voice coming across on the
walkie talkie, crying and pleading for someone to help. He
tells a guiler to try and find out what is
going on. Remember, the Benders locked the elevator before they
went to bed. A guiler has never had to unlock
(07:51):
it before, so he doesn't know how. It takes five
minutes to work it out. He then rises up to
the master bedroom where the sound of the gunshot came from.
It's the first time he's ever been on the fourth floor.
It's dark, but he can see Anne kneeling by the
(08:12):
side of the bed. She's crying and shaking, stroking John's hand.
Something horrific has happened. He looks at Anne more closely.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And she is just completely falling apart. It's covered in blood.
She's beside herself. The guard immediately started trying to help
an saying, how can I help you? What do we
need to do? Do you need to take something?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Nearby the guard Aguila sees a gun, John's gun, a
semi automatic nine millimeter Ruga P forty five. Then he
realizes John is motionless and there's a pool of blood
around his head. John is dead. Having taken in the scene,
(09:16):
Aguila continues speaking to Jose on the phone. Jose remembers
the call clearly.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (09:24):
He told me Anna's crying. She's in total shock. I said,
what's going on? And he told me that Anne is
saying that John shot himself.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
Jose is shocked. He's trying to take it in his employer.
His friend John has killed himself, shot himself with his gun.
It doesn't make sense why. He orders a guala to
take Anne to the second floor as quickly as possible.
(09:54):
Jose immediately calls the police and the Red Cross Ambulance Service.
He will coordinate everything from now on. He rings John
and Ann's lawyers as he prepares to drive to the
Bender's house. It's three to four hours away. Over and
over in his head he asks the same question, how
could this have happened? It will be an hour before
(10:18):
the ambulance gets to the house, a little more before
the police arrive. Ambulance driver Carlos Mores is woken by
the phone ringing. It's about twelve thirty in the morning.
It's from the Red Cross HQ. There's an emergency in
(10:41):
a remote area of the jungle Swuicilien.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There was talk of a suicide, but a security guard
that committed suicide.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Carlos and a colleague pick up their medical equipment and
set off into the darkness of the Costa Rican jungle.
Half an hour later, at one in the morning, another
phone is ringing, this time in the house of Aswoldo
Rojas in Perizelodon, the nearest town to Borichayanne. He's been
(11:11):
the Bender's head of maintenance for ten years. Up till now,
he's had a regular day. He left Borachayanne at three
in the afternoon as usual and spent the rest of
the afternoon and evening at home with his wife. They
went to bed and were fast asleep when the phone.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Rang Hello, Amja Madon about one am. They called me
to say that John had apparently killed himself and that
I should go there because Anna was desperate.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Oswaldo, like everyone else, is shocked. So much is going
through his mind as he rushes to Bori Chayanne. Ambulance
driver Carlos, the Bender's head of security Jose, and maintenance
man as Voldo are all now on the road heading
to or Acheyanne. The police are also on their way.
(12:06):
At the house, Anne is now on the second floor
in a severe state of shock.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
She took something to ease the drama and stress.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
She emails her parents, then calls her brother Ken Patton
in Michigan, waking him up in the middle of the night.
Her first words to him will be significant in all
that follows. He finally did it, she says. There are
more calls to make but first Aguila. At the request
of Jose Pizzaro makes sure Anne has all her medications.
(12:42):
The ambulance driver, Carlos and his partner are en route.
It's around one in the morning. They take a rough
road on the left, deeper into the jungle.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
It was actually a very nice night, a bit dark
because there was no light thing with lot of the windows,
and heard the sound of the jungle and we were
the only ones on the road.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
He knows the area a bit, but has never heard
of Bora Kayanne. Jose, head of security, is also on
his way. He's going as fast as he can, pressing
his foot down on the accelerator. He rings a Geala
again to check up on the situation. His main concern
now is Anne's momento yah Yo.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
Ask her if she feels okay. If she does, she
needs to stay in the house, but keep an eye
on her. If she gets worse, take her to the hospital.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
At around one fifteen in the morning, Carlos pulls up
at the gates of Bora Kayanne. He can't believe what
he sees.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
The first thing we saw the big gates. I was
impressed because there was a lot of secure Two girls
were standing at the front edd and as we got
closer we saw there's a hugely illuminated house. It it
looked like a flying saucer.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
He turns to one of the security guards at the
gate and asks if the casualty is a colleague of.
Speaker 4 (14:14):
His loon is the boss the boss who shot himself?
Speaker 7 (14:19):
I asked, where is he? He tells me on the
fore floor.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
Carlos and his partner rush up the stairs to the
front entrance. They passed John's precious orchids in the car.
Jose makes more calls, first to the police. He knows
some of them very well since he used to be
head of police in Costa Rica and was popular known
(14:44):
by his nickname El Toro the Bull.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
I kept in touch with everyone that night to advise
of what was going on there.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
His head is still full of questions. Back in the house,
ambulance driver, Carlos and his partner are shown to the elevator,
which will take them to the fourth floor. He's taking
in the large number of armed guards and the luxury.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Los Pizos and lump interiors, the furnishing, the floors, the elevator.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
There's an odd atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
He thinks, no, no, i Cilenzio.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Everything was silent, nobody cried so an.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
They already told us that she was the boss's wife.
Speaker 7 (15:34):
And seemed come I didn't see her crying at all.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Carlos begins to wonder if the house could be owned
by a big drug lord. That might explain the guns
and the opulence.
Speaker 7 (15:48):
Still, there's too much money in here.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It seemed to me like we were walking into a
Bablo Escobar soap opera. I don't know what has happened to,
who else is inside the house, or what else happen.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
He feels a deep sense of unease. Could someone have
broken in? Could this person still be in the property?
Like the house, the elevator has no walls. It is
like a rising platform. Carlos can see each floor as
he goes up. A kitchen, beautiful wooden furniture. He sees
(16:21):
all those lamps, the Tiffany lamps. Everything is so shiny,
he says, made from stainless steel, granite or marble. They
reach the fourth floor on amos a piece.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Then the elevator stops and there is a single, huge bedroom,
the walls not even for the bathroom, and there's a
big bed and lots of gems on the shows.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
His pulse quickens. He can almost hear his heart beating.
Then he sees it, the body on the bed, the
boss of the house lama on the piece.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
And I could see the gun on the floor, the
trail of bloods is angry.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
He switches on his flashlight and takes a closer look.
The man is clearly dead. There's nothing they can do.
They try not to touch anything and tell the guards
not to let anyone else up here until the police arrive.
Carlos whispers to his partner that he's scared. He has
an overwhelming desire to leave, to get out of there
(17:28):
as soon as possible, but he has to wait for
the police. It doesn't take long. When the first police
officers arrive, Carlos debriefs them the man is dead and
there's nothing they can do. It's now two point fifteen
(17:50):
in the morning. Maintenance man as Voldo.
Speaker 3 (17:54):
Arrives to Pierson. I went up to the second floor
to see Anna. She was sitting on the couch and
I walked to her. She clung to me, crying and
said that John had killed herself.
Speaker 5 (18:08):
That's all she said.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
At Anne has already told her family that John has died.
She hasn't yet called John's parents. It's in the early
hours of the morning when the call comes through to
Paul and Margie Bender in Phoenix, Arizona, a horrific call
(18:31):
for any parent. At first, they find it hard to
grapple with what has happened and make sense of what
Anne is telling them.
Speaker 6 (18:40):
She said that this accident had happened, and she tried
to describe what happened. I did not understand why it happened,
but she said he had died from this accident, and
that she was terribly upset about it. And she wasn't
quite sure why, but he was. He was under a
(19:03):
lot of pressure. She did not think that he committed
suicide or I didn't like that, but she said, it happened,
and what are we going to do? It happened.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Paul struggles to talk about his son's death. Anne would
later tell reporters that a few months before his death,
John had spiraled into a dark place his favorite bird
had been killed. That seems to have hit him particularly hard. Remember,
(19:37):
he and Anne were both animal lovers, and that was
a key reason they'd moved to Costa Rica. But there
was something else. John had entrusted his money to a
Costa Rican lawyer. In fact, he'd given him power of attorney,
meaning the lawyer now controlled the Bender's fortune. Not a
(19:57):
smart move. John was starting to say, suspect that the
lawyer was screwing him for millions of dollars. Anne showed
the CBS series Forty eight Hours an email from John
read here by an.
Speaker 8 (20:11):
Actor, such a total fucking loser River getting involved with
those scumbags. Losing my fucking mind right now, burst sick again,
and now this shit Today's a total fucking nightmare, and
tomorrow get worse. Just when I was feeling I could
learn to be happy, now I get this and I
want to be dead.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
The emails terrified Dane. John also obsessed about Anne's health.
Why couldn't he cure her? None of his homemade concoctions
had worked. She only got worse and could barely walk
unaided lymes disease had infected her spinal cord and brain.
John couldn't bear it. Had he failed her and himself.
(20:53):
This is what Anne would say later, voiced by an actor.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
We were dealing with so many things at the same time.
Speaker 7 (21:00):
He was talking about suicide every day.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Anne also said that for the first time in eleven years,
they were suffering a dreadful depression at the same time,
and the six weeks before John's death were harrowing. Every
day we would sit down and he would take all
the medications we had, she said, and put them in
piles and say, okay, when am I going to start
(21:26):
taking the pills? They were suicide dress rehearsals.
Speaker 7 (21:30):
Anne said.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
She told CNN that there was definitely something to the
concept of the two of them having gone mad together.
This is Anne's account of what happened in the early
hours of January eighth, twenty ten. She has told and
retold this story many times to reporters, the police, and
(21:53):
to author Carol Vaughan.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
She went to bed first and was falling off to sleep,
and she was awakened by something. She says she thinks
it was voices. She heard him say something she thinks
it was, You'll now know what it's like to wake
up next to your dead husband.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
You'll now know what it's like to wake up next
to your dead husband. And opened her eyes. It was dark,
but she could see that John had a gun pointed
at his head. It was loaded and cocked ready to fire.
He was lying back on the pillows. At first she
(22:34):
was stunned, and then.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
She jumped up onto her knees and lunched for it
in her hands and closed his hands. She says she
never touched the gun, but the gun went off and
shot him in the back of the head and killed
him instantly.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Anne picked up the walkie talkie and called for help,
she would later tell reporters. At this point, I already
knew he was dead because I had heard the death rattle,
that last breath in the master bedroom. Carlos and his
partner are about to leave. There is nothing more they
(23:22):
can do. They both feel anxious.
Speaker 7 (23:27):
I was afraidful my safety.
Speaker 4 (23:29):
I mean, if someone had come into the house to
kill this guy, you could still be around and start
to shootout.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
They go down in the lift. They need to see
Anne before they go, to check her blood pressure and
how she's doing.
Speaker 7 (23:44):
I've always said that when I saw her, she was fine.
She wasn't crying, she wasn't everything was fine.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
The Bender's head of security, Jose Pizzaro, nicknamed the Colonel,
finally arrives at the house around three am. He rushes
in to see Anne so army.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
She hugged me as she was saying, Colonel, I tried,
I tried. I tried to stop him. I tried. She
kept saying this. It was very tough as.
Speaker 7 (24:17):
Well a comento.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Jose found it hard hearing her anguish. She was very ill,
he tells me, devastated by John's death and confused and
tells Jose what happened.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
She was there with John with a gun and she
yelled no, John, please don't and tried to grab him
by the arm as well.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So the maintenance man is still at the house. The
police are in the master bedroom.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Okay, And we thought when the police arrived the process
was going to be quick and simple. It would date
perhaps three to four hours to remove the body because
this was supposed to be a suicide.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
But the atmosphere suddenly changes. The police are taking longer
than expected. After their initial inspection of the bedroom, the
police now say that they think John may not have
killed himself. The staff start to wonder what really happened
(25:22):
on the fourth.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
Floor, Ivander, so that's where we all started to speculate.
They ask everyone to leave the scene and they stay
up there carrying out all the investigations.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
The room is cleared, forensics move in. Had someone broken
in and killed John? Jose has already taken a look
at the master bedroom. As a former police chief in
Costa Rica, he has seen a lot of crime scenes.
When he looks around the bedroom, he doesn't see any
evidence of an intruder.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
John's body remained there on his side. There was nothing
out of place except the sheets were a little messy.
None of this made me think that someone could have
broken in to kill him. If that had been the case,
they would have killed down two. But the scene was
simply John's body and the pool of blood. The police
were already taking photos and doing their job.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
But the police have their own theory. The crime scene
doesn't make sense. This is no longer a case of suicide.
They now believe John was murdered and their main suspect.
Speaker 7 (26:38):
Is Anne. This is very mysterious.
Speaker 4 (26:48):
It doesn't look like a suicide because of the way
that we found the gun in the warm. There's something
really weird going on here.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
There are two things that don't add up, things that
will be endlessly scrutinized later on. Number One, John had
his ear plugs still in. He couldn't sleep without them.
But why would you wear ear plugs if you were
just about to kill yourself? And number two, the gunshot
(27:18):
wound was on the right side of John's head, but
John was left handed, and not only that, the wound
was on the back of his head. Only two people
were in the room. Only one person knows what really happened.
(27:38):
Sitting in the ambulance outside the house, Carlos calls the
Red Cross to notify them about John's death. When it's over,
he turns to his partner.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
And says, don't you think this is already word?
Speaker 4 (27:54):
I'm afraid that were I want to leave quickly. I
don't feel well, and he was, yeah, I feel the same.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
He and his partner are relieved to leave the house.
They're both still on edge. Carlos says to his partner.
Speaker 7 (28:12):
And I said, only leave this way. I don't want
to be here. We don't know how kill this guy.
What if there's a cartel waiting to ambush and kill
them all?
Speaker 1 (28:20):
With us here, engine on seat belts fastened, they can't
get away quickly enough. Early the next morning, Anne is
taken to the police station. The first thing they do
is test her hands for gunpowder residue, and it comes
(28:43):
back positive. John's didn't How can she explain that? She
tells them she didn't shoot John. She tells them that
she lunged for the gun and it had gone off.
After being questioned, she's really but it isn't over for Anne.
This is just the beginning. The finger is being pointed
(29:07):
at her. The police are questioning her story. They think
it's a pack of lies and that John didn't kill himself.
They think Anne murdered him. They're now gathering evidence to
back up their story. Anne, under suspicion, is in a
(29:28):
terrible state. The Bender's head of security, Jose Pizarro, is
worried about her. She needs medical help. She's already so weak.
He thinks Anne's years of struggling with mental illness and
Lymes disease have ravaged her mind and body. She's in constant,
agonizing pain. According to Jose, a few weeks before John's death,
(29:52):
she'd stopped eating, drinking, and she wasn't washing. She wasn't
doing anything to take care of herself at all. Jose
tells us what he told Anne at the time.
Speaker 5 (30:06):
Listen, there's no way you can stay here. You're very ill.
What just happened is very hard. You need to get
medical attention right now.
Speaker 6 (30:16):
Don't work out.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
John and Anne's dream had come to a sudden and
tragic end. Their heaven had turned to hell. In the
months that followed, Anne would look back and think about
the mansion on the hill with no walls, and what
she and John had tried to create, the nature reserve
(30:39):
and their animals, and the restoration of the land to
its former glory. She told CNN. Seeing the clouds roll
through your living room with the lamps lit up every day,
it was a beautiful experience and ever changing. Jose was
(31:00):
devastated too. He'd been John's chief of security for nearly
ten years. His death had been a terrible shock.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
The truth is I was very sad. It was a
terrible loss of a good friend, a great person.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Jose remained loyal and practical for Anne's sake. He had
a grim task collecting John's body from the morgue.
Speaker 5 (31:33):
I had to take him to be cremated and then
take the ashes back to Anne.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Meanwhile, he kept tabs on the police investigation as well.
The day after John died, they made a discovery, and
in the minds of detectives it gave Anne a motive
for murder.
Speaker 5 (31:54):
I remember the police found a small suitcase filled with jewelry.
There are all kinds of little gems. From that moment on,
they began to whisper among themselves, how strange that was.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
In total, it was reported that over three thousand gems
were found in the house. They were collected by John
and Anne over many years. Precious stones, rubies, opals, diamonds,
a stunning array, all bright colors, like a pirate's booty
or royal collection, and the police started to believe that
(32:28):
they were connected to John's death. They strongly suspected that
the gems had been brought into the country illegally, no taxes,
no receipts, a way of hiding assets from the authorities
to detectives. Anne's motive was clear. She'd murdered her husband
(32:49):
to pocket the gems and would deny all the accusations.
The intensely private couple in the big house on the
hill were now public property. John was gone. Now a
long shadow of suspicion fell on Anne. Was it murder, suicide,
(33:12):
or an accident. All sorts of theories about what happened
on the night of John's death begin to form. The
police's suspicions are hardening, but things are about to get
even worse for Anne. The next day, her health failing,
She's rushed to hospital in San Jose. Next time on
(33:39):
Hell in Heaven.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
She was sick, sick, sick. When she was admitted to
the hospital after he died, she was barely alive. She
was just hanging on by a thread.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
You've been listening to Helen Heaven from Exactly Right Media
and iHeart podcasts 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 Nankmnell,
and Toby Mattamol. The sound recordist and head of sound
(34:26):
and Music is Daniel Lloyd Evans. The lead sound designer
is Vulcan Kiseltook. The artwork is by Vanessa Lilac for
Exactly Right Media. The executive producers are Karen Kilgarath, Georgia Hardstark,
and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lilly Ladderwig and associate
producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is
(34:52):
Rosy Pye. The executive producer and head of content at
Blanchard House is Lawrence Griselle to Helen Heaven on the
iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Emma Jane Kirby
Becky Milligan
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