November 13, 2025 • 34 mins
The second trial concludes with a verdict that stuns Costa Rica. Ann Bender adjusts to a completely new way of life as a terrible tragedy shatters her world further. Meanwhile, public opinion dramatically shifts. A second trial is granted, the defence sharpens their case and judges consider the evidence one last time.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
On May twenty seventh, twenty fourteen, Anne Bender was in
court awaiting a verdict for the second time. She'd been
re tried for murder, which is allowable under Costa Rican law.
The trial had lasted seven days. Anne was shaking. The judge,
Adolpho Calderon began.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
An absol He told the court that John Bender could
not have shot himself because he had a wound at
the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
The judge said other evidence that the crime scene also
made suicide impossible. The blood, the bullets, the position of
the body. It all pointed to only one conclusion. Anne
had argued during the court case that John suffered from
bipolar disorder and that he'd attempted to take his own
life before the judges weren't convinced by her defense. Finally,
(01:03):
Judge Calderon announced the verdict without a doubt. He said,
the court agrees that the death of John Felix Bender
was homicide. Ann had murdered him. She was guilty. The
sentence was twenty two years in prison. From Exactly Right
(01:35):
Media and iHeart podcasts produced by Blanchard House, This is
Helen Heaven, I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter seven, A second chance
(02:15):
and was led away by gods. In total shock, she fainted.
Do you remember her reaction?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Stunned?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Author Carol Vaughan witnessed the verdict.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I think she and her legal team neither one thought
that that was going to happen. I think her legal
team had done a very good job of defending her.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And do you remember her walking out or what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I remember they tried to get her out as quickly
as possible through a side door, which you're not supposed
to use, things like a fire door, but she could
barely walk. She was overcome. It was awful, and we
were all looking at each other just in total disbelief.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
She was immediately remanded to a psychiatric hospital, where she
was held under guard and put on suicide watch. When
she was over the shop and considered well enough, she
was moved to the prison.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And I didn't know how awful it was where they
were sending her and what they were doing to her,
and how you'll equipped she was for it. Had I known,
I would have been flopping out also, because it's just
being in jail as a woman in Central America is
just no day at the beach.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The verdict horrified Anne's family and everyone who'd supported and
believed in her. What worried the most was that Anne
might not survive being in prison. The stress of the
trial and the verdict had weakened her. She was frail
and very thin. Ken Anne's brother, was her spokesman throughout
the trial and outside the court. Speaking in perfect Spanish,
(03:53):
he told reporters.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Nois.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
My sister is not a killer. The second trial was
a fallacy, a dark day for Poisseladon very ugly. Friends
and family had to move fast and make a lot
of noise about what they believed was an appalling miscarriage
of justice. They created a gofund me page and started
a petition Free and Bender on the popular change dot
(04:21):
org platform to mobilize supporters. An actor reads what one
of her friends wrote on their page.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
We family and close friends are doing everything in our
power to end this nightmare. An innocent woman is dying,
and we can make this write we can.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Her lawyers also sprang into action, preparing an appeal. Anne
had one other person fighting her corner, a man named
Greg Fischer. Anne met Greg in San Jose, where she'd
been living around the time of her first trial. Originally
(04:59):
from New New York. Greg had lived in Florida, Arizona,
and then Costa Rica. Just like John had been, Greg
was into bodybuilding and fitness and liked to ride motorbikes.
He was handsome and, according to friends, kind and compassionate.
It was a second chance for Anne. They lived together
(05:20):
in an apartment in a smart suburb of San Jose
and even got a puppy. But then came the second trial,
and just over a year after they'd started their relationship,
Anne was found guilty and started her twenty two year
prison sentence. All hopes of that new life were taken away.
(05:43):
Greg now dedicated all his time to fight for her
release and visit her in prison. An actor reads his
Twitter bio at the time.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Working every day to help save Ann Bender from the
terrible injustice doneder her by the people she trusted the most.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He and s Amavan's friends and family contributed as much
as they could to her campaign. Greg was always thinking
of new ways to raise money to help Han's calls.
They also took to social media and tweeted everyone from
The New York Times to Fox News, hoping a journalist
or campaigners or politicians would pick up her story, and
(06:21):
someone did pick up the story. But closer to home.
I'm at a cabin on the outskirts of pere Zeladon,
in the shadow of those beautiful mountains. It's owned by
Carol Vaughan. She lives here with her dog, Garbo. You'll
(06:42):
have heard from Carol throughout the series. She's dressed in
her Hallmark Loud Hawaiian shirt and red lipstick. In her
younger days, back in America, she was a tap dancer.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was an avid tap dancer. I don't tap any
anymore because of my age, but had a tap dance studio,
taught it, continued to perform it in nightclubs both in
New York and in Washington, DC. And I feel like
in my heart I'll always be a tap dancer.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Carol even danced with Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood star in
the forties and fifties. She gave up the love of
her life, I e tap and moved to Costa Rica
in twenty twelve, where she could have retired relaxing on
her rocking chair on the verandah, taking it nice and easy,
but she isn't a type to do that. Instead, she
(07:37):
dived right into a new career as an investigative reporter
for a local newspaper, The Tico Times. Before we can
sit down to chat, we're off for a walk with
her dog, Garbo, and she starts to tell me how
one story took over her entire life and still dominates it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It's so embarrassing. I became possessed and obsessed with the
story of the Benders. It's raining you, guys. We're going
to cross and go down just a bit, and he
should poop.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Okay, and shallah, we'll wait for the poop. Back in
the cabin, we start from the beginning how she became
possessed and obsessed with the Benders. One day, her editor
gave her a new assignment covering an Bender's murder trials,
starting with the second, the one in which she was convicted.
(08:32):
Carol had no idea what she was about to get into.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My Spanish was pretty good, but I wasn't great. And
in court you have to be quick, and you have
to pay attention, and you have to understand legal things
that I didn't understand. So when he first said this
is your assignment, that I want you to go do this,
it's like, well, you know, I'll try it. But I
can't promise that it's going to be great. First day trial,
(08:56):
I thought, oh, I'm going to do this because this
is to the reaction of the people in the courtroom
and the looks on people's faces. And there are three
judges in all court cases here, criminal court cases, and
they would fight with each other and say nasty things
to each other and things that would never happen in
American court. So the drama was so intense. I realized
(09:21):
that it wasn't just a writing assignment. It was also
my telenovela, my soap opera of the day.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Did you know about the case already? I mean, did
people talk about it? Was it just a big thing here?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Everyone talked about it. It was in all the local papers,
on all the local radio and TV.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And was now in the only all women's gennel in
Costa Rica. Originally a convent, it was now a fortress with.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Gun turrets, guys walking around with guns. She was in
an ambito with twenty women.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's a prison dorrmitory.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
There weren't enough mattresses for everyone, so they would share
mattresses or some people would just have to sleep directly
on the floor. You have to wear your own clothes,
but you're not allowed to replace your clothes. So people
are in like Robinson Crusoe, torn outfits. Their women there
who are pregnant. They're women there who have their own
(10:19):
children with them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Let's just stop here for a moment. Imagine what it
must have been like for this privileged woman, an American
used to the comfort of Buracaeyanne in the middle of
the jungle, protected by armed guards, surrounded by staff, beautiful jewels,
tiffany lamps, watching the sunset every evening over their own
private jungle. Now she was in jail, convicted of murder.
(10:46):
The contrast couldn't have been more extreme.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The food is inedible. I mean, they'd be maggots crawling
out of the of the rice. I don't know how
she survived. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And you went to visit her in prison. Can you
recall the conversation you had.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
While she was in this dormitory with twenty people. I
think they let me go with her outside. I was
not allowed to tape, but I was allowed to take notes.
She in general always wore black, and she wore skirts
all the way down to the floor usually, and then
long sleeves because there's no climate control.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
In jail, right, Well did she tell you?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I was very concerned with how she was if she
was being treated well as well.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
As a journalist, Carol was working as a volunteer for
the American embassy. In fact, her father had been a
diplomat in Latin America.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I said, you know, we'll get your soap, We'll get
you toilet paper, because there's no toilet paper in jail.
Let us know what you want, we will get it
to you. So that was the most of the conversation
was are you taking care of your health? She had
a heartport and she couldn't keep it clean because she
was only allowed to bathe once a week.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
What is a hart court.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
It was something that would allow them to inject medicine
right into her heart because her heart was not strong.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So she was really seriously, oh yeah, off, that sounds
quite frightening for her if she can't actually, you know,
keep it clean.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So all of that stuff about just human human How
are you holding up?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's a question lots of people were asking how was
she surviving day in day out, especially as she was
so frail. The answer Carol got to her question surprised her.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
She confessed to me that she was actually well accompanied,
that she felt very comfortable with the women that she
was living with, and that they were taking very good
care of her, and she felt kind of good about that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
It's amazing, isn't it? To go from a sort of
house she was living in on top of a hill,
a mansion, yes.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
With just one other person, and now she's thrown into
a dirt bin with twenty and she's okay, how does
that happen?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Luckily, Anne had won the sympathy of the other inmates.
They seemed to pity her.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
The women rallied around her, recognizing she was a wounded birdie.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
They saw her as a wounded bird.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They brought her clothing to wear, Their families brought her
food from home. And Anne suffered a lot from the cold,
so they would heat water forward to pour in her
pail so that she could get a little comfort there,
and then they would take her out to the back
so she could sit in the sun and try to regroup.
(13:43):
They were very sweet to her.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
What was it about her do you think that made
people sympathize?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I think she reads as a wounded, wounded person. She
was very sympathetic always to wounded animals where they lived,
and I think it was because she was one. She
just got bury with the broken wing.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
It was hard for anyone to survive in there, let
alone an American who was used to a certain lifestyle.
But those women rallied around her, cared for her, helped
her survive, and there was.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Greg Ann's boyfriend would bring her food and then enough
food to share among the other prisoners so that they
would take better care of her.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Carol also helped her.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
After the health issues of how are you, what can
we do for you? The embassies looking after you. We
will visit you. Here's a number to call if you
get in trouble. Telephoning in jail as a huge problem
because there's only one phone and you're allowed two minutes
on one kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Carol felt like she and Anne were connected. Their fate
had brought them together.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Because here I am. I'm a single American woman here
in Costrica with not very much knowledge to the country
or the language or anything. And I felt that a
kindred spirit. She was a female. She was wrongly accused,
I thought, and it wasn't one hundred percent sure she
was getting good legal help.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Carol was also fascinated by Anne's story, and she had
an article to write, one which would eventually become a
book titled Crazy Jungle Love. So she had to ask
the harder, more probing questions.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I said, well, Anne, you you know what happened. I
didn't want to say did you kill him? Just you
know what happened? And she told me what she's told everyone,
that she was awakened by his voice, and that John
always came to bed with a gun. And she roused
herself after she heard him say something she thinks it was,
(15:50):
You'll now know what it's like to wake up next
to your dead husband. And she saw that he had
a gun pointed at his head, and she tried to
grow and the gun went off and he died instantly.
He was shot in the back of the right occipital
and it never came out.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The occipital is a particular part at the back of
the head. What do you do make of that explanation?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I think that's what she thinks happened.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Though it was twenty fourteen, four years after John's death
and with prison time ahead, AND's story didn't change, but
what had changed was public opinion. During the first trial,
she'd won over many Costa Ricans. They were sympathetic. After
she was convicted, that changed. What did people think about
(16:55):
her in Costa Rica?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I think I've never asked someone that. Who has told me,
especially a man who has told me Anne's innocent. I've
never ever heard anyone say Anne was innocent. They say
she was a black widow. She was just gunning for
him until he dies so she could have all those
jewels and property to herself. They were both crooked, but
(17:22):
she took him out. She wasn't a well liked person.
I mean, neither of them were well liked, frankly, but
here the blame went to her. There people convinced she
kills them. I mean, that's not even a question.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
The story became bigger than Anna and Joan. It had
a knock on effect on all Americans who had come
to Costa Rica to settle. All expats were now on trial.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Americans are so self entitled. They think they own the world.
They think everything revolves around them. They think they can
come into this developing country and just do whatever they
want and no one's gonna put a stop to them.
And you watch, We're going to put a stop to them.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Someone else who was on the trial each day was
Kevin Serrano, a cameraman for a Costa Rican TV news station.
He was more used to recording sports events, but now
he'd been put on the trial of the century.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
It's the la mauria bonando being only externo.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
When a foreigner from any country comes to live in
Pusto Rica, people would normally think this is good because
they might bring investment or aid and development to the
communities or whatever. So at first the opinion was these
are good and nice people who came to support the community.
But when all this starts to come out, people thought, hmm,
maybe none of this was what they made it out
(18:42):
to be.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And unlike any other trial in Costa Rican history, the
public could read and watch every twist and turn of
the story. It became a soap opera and everyone was
talking about it.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
In most trials, it's requested not to be pressed or
media present. Understand, Anne's defense did not want the media
in the courtroom, but since this was a case of
public interest, all media could be at the trial.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The speculation could be as fantastic as it was cruel.
There was miles and miles of newsprint discussing every theory
under the sun, including one which suggested Anne may not
have pulled the trigger but paid for the hit on John.
So this was all swirling around while Anne's lawyers fought
(19:27):
her conviction. Then, unbelievably, another tragedy was to strike Anne.
Six months into her sentence, she got some news. Greg,
her partner who'd been dedicated to the campaign for her release, died.
It was November sixteenth, twenty fourteen. It's easy and tempting
(19:49):
to assume Greg's death must be connected to everything else,
but Greg died from an asthma attack. It was totally
random and awful. Nevertheless, speculation and conspiracy theories once again flourished.
Anne was devastated, grieving again, this time for her boyfriend Greg,
(20:09):
wondering if she would ever get out of prison. But
then there was a major development. It was nine months
into her sentence. Anne was in her cell. It was
a regular day inside as far as she was concerned,
until a guard appeared out of the blue. He told
(20:29):
her that her case had been thrown out, there was
going to be a third trial, and she was to
be released immediately. She was free to go. Her lawyers
had been working round the clock to secure a retrial,
and they had succeeded. A judge had reviewed the case
and made the decision. She said this to reporters. An
(20:50):
actor is speaking Anne's words.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
They just told me to get my stuff together and
I left the prison. I'm really grateful that the appellate
court made the right to time.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Even though the prospect of a further trial must have
been terrible. It was another chance to prove her innocence
and get out of the country. Carol again had a
ringside seat.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Then there was a third trial, which was longer than
the first two and better attended than the first two.
It was war to war people, I mean, you couldn't
get into the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Anne was now not only fighting for her freedom, but
her life. She knew what prison was like and probably
knew that if she went back she might not survive
the terrible conditions. Shortly before the trial, the defense team,
(21:47):
including Anne's family, moved to a local hotel in Perizelodon
Hotel zimmer.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
My name is Santiago. I'm from Costa Rica. We live
in Sanny Sidro.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That's Santiago, the laid back manager of Hotel Zimma. And
next to him is his wife Anna. We're sitting outside
in the shade of a large tree. We have to
stop our interview at times because the parrots are so loud.
This is where Anne and her entourage stayed. It's tucked
away in the back streets of the town, but also
within walking distance of the court. I asked them to
(22:27):
describe the moment that Anne Bender arrived at their hotel.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Everybody wants to meet her or see her, you know,
the first time, and we were waiting for her, that
she was coming and she was dying. She said, hello,
how are you? She says the whole thing, but she
was kind of tired.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Along with Anne came her own personal protection.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
She got two guys, armed guys in the main entrance. Yeah,
well you don't see their arms like undercover, but they
have big guns.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And was supported by her family.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Her father, mother.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And her brother Kevin. Even doctor Lozano, her psychiatrist, who
we heard in an earlier chapter, stayed at the hotel
preparing to give evidence. It was quite a spectacle for
this quiet town taken over by the international media. Santiago
took me to the streets to show me where it
all happened. At the time. Roads were closed in order
(23:31):
to cope with the huge level of interest in the trial.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
This is the courthouse. Reporters were from that corner to here.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Reporters all the way along and in.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
That in that I walked too, from there to there
all the still like yes, just sitting there wait waiting
for and there were cameras. That one over there was
closed because it was a lot of people, so it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Was it was like a really big moment for the
whole town.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
And there were guards all over the court over there. Yeah,
the Howard patrol were there stopping the cars to go
this way and the other way too.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That must have been. That's quite a spectacle, isn't it.
And how long did that go on for?
Speaker 5 (24:22):
That was maybe maybe one week. Every day were they
were waiting and waiting waiting for results from from the tork.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's crazy, isn't it. The couple really felt for their guest.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
She looks devastated every day, you know, she was so sad.
She was every day dressed in black. She was using the.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Crashes, using crutches to walk because she was physically weak.
Santiago and Anna told us that Anne would come back
from the trial to the hotel and cry. There was
a bubble of sadness around her, but they felt helpless.
How could they make her feel better? They couldn't. The
(25:06):
only relief for Anne would be her freedom.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
We were looking to set up the shelter to live
a calm and peaceful life here.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
It's May twenty fourteen inside the court and testified again,
this time in painstaking detail, explaining how John was suicidal.
She started with his physical health problems, the stroke that
encouraged them to change their pace of life in two
thousand and told her story in her own words. An
(25:39):
actor reads her testimony.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
It just highlighted b us that moving here to stop
hustling too hard was the best thing to do. John
had never had a physical problem before. He could work
twenty two hours a day, but that summer he was
at a breaking point, and then he really learned that
it was best to continue with the plan we'd decided.
So we were looking to set up the shelter to
(26:01):
live a calm and peaceful life in San Jose.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
She continued to detail their ever worsening health problems, including
her limes disease.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
So they were about five or six years when we
were trying to understand what was happening to me physically,
and in early two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
My disease was quite advanced.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
John got some type of chicken pox and he was
having trouble with terrible sores. We lost some animals from
the shelter and it really affected my husband.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Then there were those gemstones, which many suggested were a
tax dodge. She explained them away as secure investments during
a period of financial uncertainty.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
So John decided, with the advice of this man, to
invest in gyms, and this was something a lot of
people were doing then, so there was an economic recession
at the time.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And she told the court about John's previous suicide attempts.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
I saw him when he tried to commit suicide twice,
you know, I'm aware of two times. I saw that
he tried to electrocute himself. That was at the end
of two thousand and eight, and then in two thousand
and nine, at the end of November, he tried to
jump down the elevator.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That's the elevator at the house, which wasn't enclosed, just
a platform that went up and down.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
We were dealing with so many things at the same time.
My symptoms were getting worse, and we're getting information from
the trustee that there were problems with the money. John
decided on the advice of the trustee to invest in
gems and jewels, and so he thought that because the
trustee said that that we were having cash flow problems,
(27:49):
and John was really blaming himself for all of it.
He felt that, and we talked about this every single day.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
He felt that it was his fault.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
John felt like a complete failure, not only when it
came to investments, but also he was trying to look
for a way to help me with my illness.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
She explained, how have mental health declined to.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
You know, my type of bipolarity manifests in a more
typical way, So there are times sometimes years where I
might not have a single episode at all. And John
and I were able to find that over the years,
I could do certain things to stay in a good
state of mind, like if I slept well and ate well.
(28:34):
But John is manifested in what's called rapid cycling. He
was talking about suicide every single day.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Carol Voo listened to all this with great sadness.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Well, I feel he died way too young, and he
had so much more to live for and he was
doing such great work on the reserve. He felt he
was gonna find a cure for a len disease from
which she suffered. He was very much into natural medicine
(29:10):
and thought the cure for Anne, both her mental problems
and her physical problems, was right there on the nature reserve.
It was just a matter of time until he found it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And what do you think in the end affected him
so deep? People, what happened to him.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I'm only guessing. I'm never I never met him.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Carol has her own view on what happened, as we
heard in the last episode, but she doesn't deny that
John was in a very dark place.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
From what I read about his problems, he just couldn't.
He couldn't hack it. He couldn't. It's so hard living
in a foreign country, really, and he just couldn't, couldn't
keep it up. He was I was going into our
financial tailspin. Apparently he was losing money. His investments weren't
(30:06):
working out, and he just couldn't cop And I feel
very bad for him because it could be any of us.
I mean, I don't have huge investments, but the little
ones I've have, if I had problems that'd be be curtains.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
But the trial wasn't just about whether John had been depressed.
That was never disputed. It was about that crime scene.
Remember we told you about those who believe Anne is
guilty always look at two pieces of evidence, the ear
plugs and the wound will This trial was the first
time the weaknesses in that evidence were properly scrutinized. After
(30:44):
getting out of prison, facing money problems and connected with
a team from CBS, A news crew who had hired
a married forensic duo, Selma and Richard eicklem Boom. In
a glitzy broadcast, the forensic pair looked at the I'm
seen and then demonstrated that there could be another explanation
(31:04):
to how John had died based on the forensics. They
argued that if Anne had pulled John's arm back, almost
like a bow and arrow, the gun could have gone
off at the back of his head and crucially on
the right hand side. It's all very US television crime show,
but actually it gave Anne access to experts who ended
(31:26):
up testifying at her third trial. They said the police
messed up, that their investigation was sloppy, and the ear
plugs they could be explained a million ways he could
have put them in to soften the noise of the jungle,
or never intended to actually go through with pulling the trigger.
(31:46):
Doctor Lozano, the psychiatrist, testified this time too, arguing Anne
wouldn't have been able to carry out a murder. Anne's
third trial would last for a week. Would all these
testimonies be enough? Would Anne get the verdict she longed for.
(32:07):
Her ninety seven year old grandmother was among the family
praying that she would be freed. As the judges retired
for the third time, she waited. One problem facing Anne
was that her passport had been seized. If she was freed,
she wouldn't be able to leave. This is where Carol
stepped into help.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
But I knew that she didn't have a passport, and
you know, get out of ghostreat go without a passport.
So talk to the embassy, and the embassy said, relax,
We're going to get her a replacement passport.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
On the last hour of the last day of the trial,
someone was deployed to ensure that Anne received her passport
and secretly gave it to her. Anne kept touching her
pocket to check it was there. It was her ticket
to freedom. Then the judges walked in Dan walk free
(33:02):
or return to prison for twenty two years.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We recognize we were getting to the end of the
third trial and no one had any idea whether she
was going to be found guilty or innocent, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
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 Nankmanell,
and Toby Mattamol. The sound recordistant head of Sound and
(33:48):
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 Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lillie Ladderwig and associate
producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is
(34:13):
Rosie Pye. The 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.
On May twenty seventh, twenty fourteen, Anne Bender was in
court awaiting a verdict for the second time. She'd been
re tried for murder, which is allowable under Costa Rican law.
The trial had lasted seven days. Anne was shaking. The judge,
Adolpho Calderon began.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
An absol He told the court that John Bender could
not have shot himself because he had a wound at
the back of the head.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
The judge said other evidence that the crime scene also
made suicide impossible. The blood, the bullets, the position of
the body. It all pointed to only one conclusion. Anne
had argued during the court case that John suffered from
bipolar disorder and that he'd attempted to take his own
life before the judges weren't convinced by her defense. Finally,
(01:03):
Judge Calderon announced the verdict without a doubt. He said,
the court agrees that the death of John Felix Bender
was homicide. Ann had murdered him. She was guilty. The
sentence was twenty two years in prison. From Exactly Right
(01:35):
Media and iHeart podcasts produced by Blanchard House, This is
Helen Heaven, I'm Becky Milligan. Chapter seven, A second chance
(02:15):
and was led away by gods. In total shock, she fainted.
Do you remember her reaction?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Stunned?
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Author Carol Vaughan witnessed the verdict.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I think she and her legal team neither one thought
that that was going to happen. I think her legal
team had done a very good job of defending her.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And do you remember her walking out or what happened.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
I remember they tried to get her out as quickly
as possible through a side door, which you're not supposed
to use, things like a fire door, but she could
barely walk. She was overcome. It was awful, and we
were all looking at each other just in total disbelief.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
She was immediately remanded to a psychiatric hospital, where she
was held under guard and put on suicide watch. When
she was over the shop and considered well enough, she
was moved to the prison.
Speaker 3 (03:08):
And I didn't know how awful it was where they
were sending her and what they were doing to her,
and how you'll equipped she was for it. Had I known,
I would have been flopping out also, because it's just
being in jail as a woman in Central America is
just no day at the beach.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
The verdict horrified Anne's family and everyone who'd supported and
believed in her. What worried the most was that Anne
might not survive being in prison. The stress of the
trial and the verdict had weakened her. She was frail
and very thin. Ken Anne's brother, was her spokesman throughout
the trial and outside the court. Speaking in perfect Spanish,
(03:53):
he told reporters.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
Nois.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
My sister is not a killer. The second trial was
a fallacy, a dark day for Poisseladon very ugly. Friends
and family had to move fast and make a lot
of noise about what they believed was an appalling miscarriage
of justice. They created a gofund me page and started
a petition Free and Bender on the popular change dot
(04:21):
org platform to mobilize supporters. An actor reads what one
of her friends wrote on their page.
Speaker 4 (04:29):
We family and close friends are doing everything in our
power to end this nightmare. An innocent woman is dying,
and we can make this write we can.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Her lawyers also sprang into action, preparing an appeal. Anne
had one other person fighting her corner, a man named
Greg Fischer. Anne met Greg in San Jose, where she'd
been living around the time of her first trial. Originally
(04:59):
from New New York. Greg had lived in Florida, Arizona,
and then Costa Rica. Just like John had been, Greg
was into bodybuilding and fitness and liked to ride motorbikes.
He was handsome and, according to friends, kind and compassionate.
It was a second chance for Anne. They lived together
(05:20):
in an apartment in a smart suburb of San Jose
and even got a puppy. But then came the second trial,
and just over a year after they'd started their relationship,
Anne was found guilty and started her twenty two year
prison sentence. All hopes of that new life were taken away.
(05:43):
Greg now dedicated all his time to fight for her
release and visit her in prison. An actor reads his
Twitter bio at the time.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Working every day to help save Ann Bender from the
terrible injustice doneder her by the people she trusted the most.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
He and s Amavan's friends and family contributed as much
as they could to her campaign. Greg was always thinking
of new ways to raise money to help Han's calls.
They also took to social media and tweeted everyone from
The New York Times to Fox News, hoping a journalist
or campaigners or politicians would pick up her story, and
(06:21):
someone did pick up the story. But closer to home.
I'm at a cabin on the outskirts of pere Zeladon,
in the shadow of those beautiful mountains. It's owned by
Carol Vaughan. She lives here with her dog, Garbo. You'll
(06:42):
have heard from Carol throughout the series. She's dressed in
her Hallmark Loud Hawaiian shirt and red lipstick. In her
younger days, back in America, she was a tap dancer.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I was an avid tap dancer. I don't tap any
anymore because of my age, but had a tap dance studio,
taught it, continued to perform it in nightclubs both in
New York and in Washington, DC. And I feel like
in my heart I'll always be a tap dancer.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Carol even danced with Mickey Rooney, a Hollywood star in
the forties and fifties. She gave up the love of
her life, I e tap and moved to Costa Rica
in twenty twelve, where she could have retired relaxing on
her rocking chair on the verandah, taking it nice and easy,
but she isn't a type to do that. Instead, she
(07:37):
dived right into a new career as an investigative reporter
for a local newspaper, The Tico Times. Before we can
sit down to chat, we're off for a walk with
her dog, Garbo, and she starts to tell me how
one story took over her entire life and still dominates it.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
It's so embarrassing. I became possessed and obsessed with the
story of the Benders. It's raining you, guys. We're going
to cross and go down just a bit, and he
should poop.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
Okay, and shallah, we'll wait for the poop. Back in
the cabin, we start from the beginning how she became
possessed and obsessed with the Benders. One day, her editor
gave her a new assignment covering an Bender's murder trials,
starting with the second, the one in which she was convicted.
(08:32):
Carol had no idea what she was about to get into.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
My Spanish was pretty good, but I wasn't great. And
in court you have to be quick, and you have
to pay attention, and you have to understand legal things
that I didn't understand. So when he first said this
is your assignment, that I want you to go do this,
it's like, well, you know, I'll try it. But I
can't promise that it's going to be great. First day trial,
(08:56):
I thought, oh, I'm going to do this because this
is to the reaction of the people in the courtroom
and the looks on people's faces. And there are three
judges in all court cases here, criminal court cases, and
they would fight with each other and say nasty things
to each other and things that would never happen in
American court. So the drama was so intense. I realized
(09:21):
that it wasn't just a writing assignment. It was also
my telenovela, my soap opera of the day.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Did you know about the case already? I mean, did
people talk about it? Was it just a big thing here?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
Everyone talked about it. It was in all the local papers,
on all the local radio and TV.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
And was now in the only all women's gennel in
Costa Rica. Originally a convent, it was now a fortress with.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Gun turrets, guys walking around with guns. She was in
an ambito with twenty women.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's a prison dorrmitory.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
There weren't enough mattresses for everyone, so they would share
mattresses or some people would just have to sleep directly
on the floor. You have to wear your own clothes,
but you're not allowed to replace your clothes. So people
are in like Robinson Crusoe, torn outfits. Their women there
who are pregnant. They're women there who have their own
(10:19):
children with them.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
Let's just stop here for a moment. Imagine what it
must have been like for this privileged woman, an American
used to the comfort of Buracaeyanne in the middle of
the jungle, protected by armed guards, surrounded by staff, beautiful jewels,
tiffany lamps, watching the sunset every evening over their own
private jungle. Now she was in jail, convicted of murder.
(10:46):
The contrast couldn't have been more extreme.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
The food is inedible. I mean, they'd be maggots crawling
out of the of the rice. I don't know how
she survived. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And you went to visit her in prison. Can you
recall the conversation you had.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
While she was in this dormitory with twenty people. I
think they let me go with her outside. I was
not allowed to tape, but I was allowed to take notes.
She in general always wore black, and she wore skirts
all the way down to the floor usually, and then
long sleeves because there's no climate control.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
In jail, right, Well did she tell you?
Speaker 4 (11:26):
Well?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I was very concerned with how she was if she
was being treated well as well.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
As a journalist, Carol was working as a volunteer for
the American embassy. In fact, her father had been a
diplomat in Latin America.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
I said, you know, we'll get your soap, We'll get
you toilet paper, because there's no toilet paper in jail.
Let us know what you want, we will get it
to you. So that was the most of the conversation
was are you taking care of your health? She had
a heartport and she couldn't keep it clean because she
was only allowed to bathe once a week.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
What is a hart court.
Speaker 3 (12:00):
It was something that would allow them to inject medicine
right into her heart because her heart was not strong.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Gosh.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
So she was really seriously, oh yeah, off, that sounds
quite frightening for her if she can't actually, you know,
keep it clean.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
So all of that stuff about just human human How
are you holding up?
Speaker 1 (12:22):
It's a question lots of people were asking how was
she surviving day in day out, especially as she was
so frail. The answer Carol got to her question surprised her.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
She confessed to me that she was actually well accompanied,
that she felt very comfortable with the women that she
was living with, and that they were taking very good
care of her, and she felt kind of good about that.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
It's amazing, isn't it? To go from a sort of
house she was living in on top of a hill,
a mansion, yes.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
With just one other person, and now she's thrown into
a dirt bin with twenty and she's okay, how does
that happen?
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Luckily, Anne had won the sympathy of the other inmates.
They seemed to pity her.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
The women rallied around her, recognizing she was a wounded birdie.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
They saw her as a wounded bird.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
They brought her clothing to wear, Their families brought her
food from home. And Anne suffered a lot from the cold,
so they would heat water forward to pour in her
pail so that she could get a little comfort there,
and then they would take her out to the back
so she could sit in the sun and try to regroup.
(13:43):
They were very sweet to her.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
What was it about her do you think that made
people sympathize?
Speaker 3 (13:49):
I think she reads as a wounded, wounded person. She
was very sympathetic always to wounded animals where they lived,
and I think it was because she was one. She
just got bury with the broken wing.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
It was hard for anyone to survive in there, let
alone an American who was used to a certain lifestyle.
But those women rallied around her, cared for her, helped
her survive, and there was.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Greg Ann's boyfriend would bring her food and then enough
food to share among the other prisoners so that they
would take better care of her.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
Carol also helped her.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
After the health issues of how are you, what can
we do for you? The embassies looking after you. We
will visit you. Here's a number to call if you
get in trouble. Telephoning in jail as a huge problem
because there's only one phone and you're allowed two minutes
on one kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Carol felt like she and Anne were connected. Their fate
had brought them together.
Speaker 3 (14:53):
Because here I am. I'm a single American woman here
in Costrica with not very much knowledge to the country
or the language or anything. And I felt that a
kindred spirit. She was a female. She was wrongly accused,
I thought, and it wasn't one hundred percent sure she
was getting good legal help.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Carol was also fascinated by Anne's story, and she had
an article to write, one which would eventually become a
book titled Crazy Jungle Love. So she had to ask
the harder, more probing questions.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
I said, well, Anne, you you know what happened. I
didn't want to say did you kill him? Just you
know what happened? And she told me what she's told everyone,
that she was awakened by his voice, and that John
always came to bed with a gun. And she roused
herself after she heard him say something she thinks it was,
(15:50):
You'll now know what it's like to wake up next
to your dead husband. And she saw that he had
a gun pointed at his head, and she tried to
grow and the gun went off and he died instantly.
He was shot in the back of the right occipital
and it never came out.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
The occipital is a particular part at the back of
the head. What do you do make of that explanation?
Speaker 3 (16:18):
I think that's what she thinks happened.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Though it was twenty fourteen, four years after John's death
and with prison time ahead, AND's story didn't change, but
what had changed was public opinion. During the first trial,
she'd won over many Costa Ricans. They were sympathetic. After
she was convicted, that changed. What did people think about
(16:55):
her in Costa Rica?
Speaker 3 (16:58):
I think I've never asked someone that. Who has told me,
especially a man who has told me Anne's innocent. I've
never ever heard anyone say Anne was innocent. They say
she was a black widow. She was just gunning for
him until he dies so she could have all those
jewels and property to herself. They were both crooked, but
(17:22):
she took him out. She wasn't a well liked person.
I mean, neither of them were well liked, frankly, but
here the blame went to her. There people convinced she
kills them. I mean, that's not even a question.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
The story became bigger than Anna and Joan. It had
a knock on effect on all Americans who had come
to Costa Rica to settle. All expats were now on trial.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Americans are so self entitled. They think they own the world.
They think everything revolves around them. They think they can
come into this developing country and just do whatever they
want and no one's gonna put a stop to them.
And you watch, We're going to put a stop to them.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Someone else who was on the trial each day was
Kevin Serrano, a cameraman for a Costa Rican TV news station.
He was more used to recording sports events, but now
he'd been put on the trial of the century.
Speaker 5 (18:16):
It's the la mauria bonando being only externo.
Speaker 6 (18:21):
When a foreigner from any country comes to live in
Pusto Rica, people would normally think this is good because
they might bring investment or aid and development to the
communities or whatever. So at first the opinion was these
are good and nice people who came to support the community.
But when all this starts to come out, people thought, hmm,
maybe none of this was what they made it out
(18:42):
to be.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
And unlike any other trial in Costa Rican history, the
public could read and watch every twist and turn of
the story. It became a soap opera and everyone was
talking about it.
Speaker 6 (18:56):
In most trials, it's requested not to be pressed or
media present. Understand, Anne's defense did not want the media
in the courtroom, but since this was a case of
public interest, all media could be at the trial.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
The speculation could be as fantastic as it was cruel.
There was miles and miles of newsprint discussing every theory
under the sun, including one which suggested Anne may not
have pulled the trigger but paid for the hit on John.
So this was all swirling around while Anne's lawyers fought
(19:27):
her conviction. Then, unbelievably, another tragedy was to strike Anne.
Six months into her sentence, she got some news. Greg,
her partner who'd been dedicated to the campaign for her release, died.
It was November sixteenth, twenty fourteen. It's easy and tempting
(19:49):
to assume Greg's death must be connected to everything else,
but Greg died from an asthma attack. It was totally
random and awful. Nevertheless, speculation and conspiracy theories once again flourished.
Anne was devastated, grieving again, this time for her boyfriend Greg,
(20:09):
wondering if she would ever get out of prison. But
then there was a major development. It was nine months
into her sentence. Anne was in her cell. It was
a regular day inside as far as she was concerned,
until a guard appeared out of the blue. He told
(20:29):
her that her case had been thrown out, there was
going to be a third trial, and she was to
be released immediately. She was free to go. Her lawyers
had been working round the clock to secure a retrial,
and they had succeeded. A judge had reviewed the case
and made the decision. She said this to reporters. An
(20:50):
actor is speaking Anne's words.
Speaker 4 (20:53):
They just told me to get my stuff together and
I left the prison. I'm really grateful that the appellate
court made the right to time.
Speaker 1 (21:00):
Even though the prospect of a further trial must have
been terrible. It was another chance to prove her innocence
and get out of the country. Carol again had a
ringside seat.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
Then there was a third trial, which was longer than
the first two and better attended than the first two.
It was war to war people, I mean, you couldn't
get into the courtroom.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Anne was now not only fighting for her freedom, but
her life. She knew what prison was like and probably
knew that if she went back she might not survive
the terrible conditions. Shortly before the trial, the defense team,
(21:47):
including Anne's family, moved to a local hotel in Perizelodon
Hotel zimmer.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
My name is Santiago. I'm from Costa Rica. We live
in Sanny Sidro.
Speaker 1 (22:04):
That's Santiago, the laid back manager of Hotel Zimma. And
next to him is his wife Anna. We're sitting outside
in the shade of a large tree. We have to
stop our interview at times because the parrots are so loud.
This is where Anne and her entourage stayed. It's tucked
away in the back streets of the town, but also
within walking distance of the court. I asked them to
(22:27):
describe the moment that Anne Bender arrived at their hotel.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Everybody wants to meet her or see her, you know,
the first time, and we were waiting for her, that
she was coming and she was dying. She said, hello,
how are you? She says the whole thing, but she
was kind of tired.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Along with Anne came her own personal protection.
Speaker 5 (22:50):
She got two guys, armed guys in the main entrance. Yeah,
well you don't see their arms like undercover, but they
have big guns.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
And was supported by her family.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
Her father, mother.
Speaker 1 (23:08):
And her brother Kevin. Even doctor Lozano, her psychiatrist, who
we heard in an earlier chapter, stayed at the hotel
preparing to give evidence. It was quite a spectacle for
this quiet town taken over by the international media. Santiago
took me to the streets to show me where it
all happened. At the time. Roads were closed in order
(23:31):
to cope with the huge level of interest in the trial.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
This is the courthouse. Reporters were from that corner to here.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Reporters all the way along and in.
Speaker 5 (23:44):
That in that I walked too, from there to there
all the still like yes, just sitting there wait waiting
for and there were cameras. That one over there was
closed because it was a lot of people, so it.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Was it was like a really big moment for the
whole town.
Speaker 5 (24:04):
And there were guards all over the court over there. Yeah,
the Howard patrol were there stopping the cars to go
this way and the other way too.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
That must have been. That's quite a spectacle, isn't it.
And how long did that go on for?
Speaker 5 (24:22):
That was maybe maybe one week. Every day were they
were waiting and waiting waiting for results from from the tork.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's crazy, isn't it. The couple really felt for their guest.
Speaker 5 (24:34):
She looks devastated every day, you know, she was so sad.
She was every day dressed in black. She was using the.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
Crashes, using crutches to walk because she was physically weak.
Santiago and Anna told us that Anne would come back
from the trial to the hotel and cry. There was
a bubble of sadness around her, but they felt helpless.
How could they make her feel better? They couldn't. The
(25:06):
only relief for Anne would be her freedom.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
We were looking to set up the shelter to live
a calm and peaceful life here.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
It's May twenty fourteen inside the court and testified again,
this time in painstaking detail, explaining how John was suicidal.
She started with his physical health problems, the stroke that
encouraged them to change their pace of life in two
thousand and told her story in her own words. An
(25:39):
actor reads her testimony.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
It just highlighted b us that moving here to stop
hustling too hard was the best thing to do. John
had never had a physical problem before. He could work
twenty two hours a day, but that summer he was
at a breaking point, and then he really learned that
it was best to continue with the plan we'd decided.
So we were looking to set up the shelter to
(26:01):
live a calm and peaceful life in San Jose.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
She continued to detail their ever worsening health problems, including
her limes disease.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
So they were about five or six years when we
were trying to understand what was happening to me physically,
and in early two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
My disease was quite advanced.
Speaker 4 (26:23):
John got some type of chicken pox and he was
having trouble with terrible sores. We lost some animals from
the shelter and it really affected my husband.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Then there were those gemstones, which many suggested were a
tax dodge. She explained them away as secure investments during
a period of financial uncertainty.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
So John decided, with the advice of this man, to
invest in gyms, and this was something a lot of
people were doing then, so there was an economic recession
at the time.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
And she told the court about John's previous suicide attempts.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
I saw him when he tried to commit suicide twice,
you know, I'm aware of two times. I saw that
he tried to electrocute himself. That was at the end
of two thousand and eight, and then in two thousand
and nine, at the end of November, he tried to
jump down the elevator.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
That's the elevator at the house, which wasn't enclosed, just
a platform that went up and down.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
We were dealing with so many things at the same time.
My symptoms were getting worse, and we're getting information from
the trustee that there were problems with the money. John
decided on the advice of the trustee to invest in
gems and jewels, and so he thought that because the
trustee said that that we were having cash flow problems,
(27:49):
and John was really blaming himself for all of it.
He felt that, and we talked about this every single day.
Speaker 1 (27:56):
He felt that it was his fault.
Speaker 4 (27:58):
John felt like a complete failure, not only when it
came to investments, but also he was trying to look
for a way to help me with my illness.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
She explained, how have mental health declined to.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
You know, my type of bipolarity manifests in a more
typical way, So there are times sometimes years where I
might not have a single episode at all. And John
and I were able to find that over the years,
I could do certain things to stay in a good
state of mind, like if I slept well and ate well.
(28:34):
But John is manifested in what's called rapid cycling. He
was talking about suicide every single day.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Carol Voo listened to all this with great sadness.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Well, I feel he died way too young, and he
had so much more to live for and he was
doing such great work on the reserve. He felt he
was gonna find a cure for a len disease from
which she suffered. He was very much into natural medicine
(29:10):
and thought the cure for Anne, both her mental problems
and her physical problems, was right there on the nature reserve.
It was just a matter of time until he found it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
And what do you think in the end affected him
so deep? People, what happened to him.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I'm only guessing. I'm never I never met him.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Carol has her own view on what happened, as we
heard in the last episode, but she doesn't deny that
John was in a very dark place.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
From what I read about his problems, he just couldn't.
He couldn't hack it. He couldn't. It's so hard living
in a foreign country, really, and he just couldn't, couldn't
keep it up. He was I was going into our
financial tailspin. Apparently he was losing money. His investments weren't
(30:06):
working out, and he just couldn't cop And I feel
very bad for him because it could be any of us.
I mean, I don't have huge investments, but the little
ones I've have, if I had problems that'd be be curtains.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
But the trial wasn't just about whether John had been depressed.
That was never disputed. It was about that crime scene.
Remember we told you about those who believe Anne is
guilty always look at two pieces of evidence, the ear
plugs and the wound will This trial was the first
time the weaknesses in that evidence were properly scrutinized. After
(30:44):
getting out of prison, facing money problems and connected with
a team from CBS, A news crew who had hired
a married forensic duo, Selma and Richard eicklem Boom. In
a glitzy broadcast, the forensic pair looked at the I'm
seen and then demonstrated that there could be another explanation
(31:04):
to how John had died based on the forensics. They
argued that if Anne had pulled John's arm back, almost
like a bow and arrow, the gun could have gone
off at the back of his head and crucially on
the right hand side. It's all very US television crime show,
but actually it gave Anne access to experts who ended
(31:26):
up testifying at her third trial. They said the police
messed up, that their investigation was sloppy, and the ear
plugs they could be explained a million ways he could
have put them in to soften the noise of the jungle,
or never intended to actually go through with pulling the trigger.
(31:46):
Doctor Lozano, the psychiatrist, testified this time too, arguing Anne
wouldn't have been able to carry out a murder. Anne's
third trial would last for a week. Would all these
testimonies be enough? Would Anne get the verdict she longed for.
(32:07):
Her ninety seven year old grandmother was among the family
praying that she would be freed. As the judges retired
for the third time, she waited. One problem facing Anne
was that her passport had been seized. If she was freed,
she wouldn't be able to leave. This is where Carol
stepped into help.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
But I knew that she didn't have a passport, and
you know, get out of ghostreat go without a passport.
So talk to the embassy, and the embassy said, relax,
We're going to get her a replacement passport.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
On the last hour of the last day of the trial,
someone was deployed to ensure that Anne received her passport
and secretly gave it to her. Anne kept touching her
pocket to check it was there. It was her ticket
to freedom. Then the judges walked in Dan walk free
(33:02):
or return to prison for twenty two years.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
We recognize we were getting to the end of the
third trial and no one had any idea whether she
was going to be found guilty or innocent, no idea whatsoever.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
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 Nankmanell,
and Toby Mattamol. The sound recordistant head of Sound and
(33:48):
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 Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer, with consulting producer Lillie Ladderwig and associate
producer Jay Elias. The creative director of Blanchard House is
(34:13):
Rosie Pye. The 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
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