January 3, 2022 • 25 mins
As detectives start to narrow in on the murder suspect, an unexpected guest arrives at the homicide office. And startling allegations against the monastery change the course of the investigation.
Hosted by Paula Barros and Melanie Bartley
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Less than twenty four hours before life at Holy Crost
Academy was turned upside down by the murder sister Michelle Lewis.
The monastic candidates got a break from their routine. Instead
of praying and studying, they spent most of their day
living like normal teenagers. Were happy? Were the rest of
the boys happy? As far as I saw that? Yet,
(00:26):
that Saturday morning, this candidate, Sasha Corsack, and another Mihailo Kofel,
who they called Misha, got dressed in their usual black
clothes and went off to the Miami Dad Youth Fair,
a huge yearly festival with carnival games, prizes, fried food,
and rides. You gets rides. But after their morning escape,
(00:57):
it was back to ordinary monastic life. After the youth Fare.
Did you come back to the monastery? What did you
do that? Yeah? Launch the us things? Oh? Is that
your usual thing to do on Saturday? Between the house?
What happened in between the house? You know, to place
(01:20):
some poms? What sport did you play? Well? Did Misha
participate in the basketball game? Yes? After you make a basket,
do you guys congratulate each other? Yeah? How do you
do that? Sometimes? High five? Did Misha say he couldn't
do any high fives because he had a problem. Did
(01:42):
you notice any injuries on Asia's hands at that time?
Any injuries on his face? He was fi But by
the next morning, even before anyone at Holy Cross noticed
Sister Michelle was missing, Sasha saw something different about me.
Halo testify the moment ago about some scratches on the space.
(02:04):
After you notice the scratches on his face, did you
notice anything else? Did you take a look at his hand? Yeah?
What could you say? That was just? Did you hear
anything else he said about his hands? He told me
that he caused himself on Friday? When did he tell
(02:24):
you that? Good morning him? What did you say that?
I asked him how he did this? So he explained?
What did he said? So that he was wasshing him
who loves and he dropped it? Did he tell you
what day he did this? On Friday? What did you
(02:44):
think about that? It was strange because say you didn't
see anything, Well, then I'm Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie
Bartley and this is sacred scandal. Only from what I've
learned in my many years hom Tide experience, you don't
(03:07):
stab somebody nine plus times without a lot of rage
being involved. I've been to enough scenes where I didn't
try and decide what was going to happen. I was
gonna wait to see what it was. I don't know.
Maybe they could have told me she had a lover,
maybe she was involved with the priest. There's a lot
of passion that went into the killing of Sister Michelle,
(03:30):
and usually because there's so much passion, there's a strong
reason behind that. And that's the the other end of
this case, to set out the reasons why. In this episode,
(04:07):
we shift back to the hunt for Sister Michelle's murderer
and the secrets locked away and Holy Cross start to emerge.
We pick up our story after police knocked in a
bloodstained door inside the house of the monastic candidates and
the nineteen year old murder suspect emergence. Here again is
(04:27):
Miami Dade homicide Detective Art Nanny, and I remember it
was dark going over to the monks uh quarters. The
monk that came the door was fill. When he came
to the door, he had bantages on both hands. While
we were waiting, he put his hands in his pocket.
(04:50):
He was a little nervous. When he took his hands out,
there's no more vantages on his hands. And they realized
that the blood on the door, this guy's a bandages
on his hand, thinking they observed a scratch on his face.
Now you gotta remember, other monks are being talked to
and they're saying, hey, the day before we were playing
(05:10):
basketball with them. Never noticed and he cuts on his
hands or cuts on his face. How did this guy
get cut? So that alone is now raising the red flags.
Our investigations now starting to focus in on him because
he's the only one that's injured. It was just highly suspicious.
(05:34):
I asked co Fell to step out of the monk's house.
We walked somewhere everybody of the church and nursing religious
statutes and stuff, kind of like walking around the statutes,
and he was kind of telling me his activities that day,
about getting into the wine and ready for church and
(05:54):
getting to do Mass. And there come a point where
I said, well, okay, we're interviewing everyone, but I need
you to come to the homicide office so we can
take your statement and talk to you about how you
got your cuts. I mean, we were pretty straightforward with him.
I mean he was over eighteen. He agreed, and uh,
(06:15):
you know, I didn't have speak to any of the priests.
So we rode with him to the homicide office and
we didn't really speak a lot. But once we got
him there, then we sat down. We run him as
rights and once through the whole nine yards, we aired
on the side of caution to make sure he understood
(06:36):
his rights. But I wasn't sure whether he was still
a subject or not. You know, he didn't have the
outward appearance of possibly being the killer. He was somewhat
mild and mannered. Uh. Co Fell was not a big guy.
I'd like to pass here and getting Larry's control. All right, Well,
(06:58):
my name is Larry bell Hu and uh. I worked
the case with lead investiator or Annie. I was working
midnights at that particular night, and we worked midnight's one
long week, one very long week. Where are you supposed
to be sleeping? But Art says, don't go home. I
(07:21):
need your help. Detective Larry Bellow was on the scene
at holy Cross for most of the day, but now
late in the evening, Detective Nanny needed his partner by
his side to help question the suspect in Hilo co Fell.
This is where me and Larry were sitting in there.
We're talking to him and we're going back and forth,
(07:42):
you know, on how we cut his hands, and he
was giving us a story about a glass broke and
he cut his hands. And he didn't really have an
answer about his face. And he may said he was
playing basketball. I'm not really sure, you know. Once we
got co Fell to the it's a homicide office, and
as we are speaking to him, we didn't really have
(08:04):
a whole heck of a lot. It was a pure
and simple we didn't have anything. The fact is that
we were developing our rapport with him, uh, talking a
little bit about the Ukraine, his family background, were trying
to get to know him, his likes, his dislikes. What
(08:24):
you have to realize is you had to be their buddies.
And that's what Party and I did for most part
of our lives. You know. It's like, I'm your buddy,
let's talk this through. But that's probably after the second hour,
in the third hour and the fourth out. But we're
probably going on four o'clock in the morning, and Kofield
(08:48):
was probably there at least ten pm eleven pm. But
the more he talked about sister Michelle more that we
realized that he did not like her. You know, I
mean she would under his desk asking questions about this
and that, and when he would answer, she would be
little in in firm of all the other students with
(09:09):
comments about the way he talked. You can start to
tell that he had a dislike for her. Didn't mean
he killed her, but he wasn't saying anything that he
had anything to do with her murder. So we took
a different approach. It was at this point that detectives
Nanny and Value started to consider the evidence that could
link a suspect to the crime. There were those tallest
(09:31):
footprints stamped across campus and the standout drop of blood
found on sister Michelle's body. So here's what we're gonna do. Uh.
I think Larry ended up getting swabs from him, mouse swabs, uh.
And we took him down and asked if he wouldn't
mind being printed, take his shoes off. We printed the
(09:53):
bottom of his feet, and as soon as I saw that,
I said, son of a bitch. But at some point,
as we're speaking to him, probably about another hour later,
Larry has stepped out and uh, he came back in
(10:14):
and whispered in my ear and then I said to
Cofel got you, We got your DNA, And that kind of,
I believe set him back on his keyster a little bit,
because at that point he didn't think we had him.
But we went through the whole nine yards about what
(10:35):
we knew from the crime scene and kind of just
kept reiterating the fact that you cannot run from your
d N. A once he gave us a swab that
opened up another door, forced to explore, and all we
did was kind of put the bait out there. He'd
been on the bait. He had to believe that we
(10:58):
had him, based up on strong evidence, so, you know,
a few hours in, eventually he admitted that he was
the one that killed sister Michelle. Halo stopped resisting. He
dropped the story about the broken glass and confessed. Later on,
(11:21):
he decided to tell us why coming up after the
break a killer's confession, a surprise visitor, and the web
of secrets at Holy Cross starts to come undone. Welcome
(11:58):
back to Sacred Scandal. Within twenty four hours of the
initial nine on one call, Mihailo Kofel, a monastic candidate
at Holy Cross confessed to the murder of sister Michelle.
Police wasted no time. He gave an official statement and
was formally charged. After that, the nineteen year old from
(12:21):
Ukraine was thrown into the American criminal justice system almost
as soon as the murder was reported. It was assigned
to prosecutor Gay Levine. Levine was the assistant state attorney
and she was no stranger to high profile work. She
made her career getting convictions in big death penalty cases.
(12:44):
That's the path Mihailo Kofel was now heading down. She's
a hard nosed prosecutor. Yeah, if you got her, if
she was assigned one of your cases, Uh, you knew
you had a big case. Gay Levine would be responsible
for assembling the narrative of the crime should the case
go to trial. Here's the story as she told it
to Paula and me about ten years ago. Cole Felt
(13:06):
tells us and we had we know from the other
boys that they went to the Miami Dade Youth Fair.
They went in their white shirts in their black pants
and they got to ride on a ride and then
the afternoon was over, were pointed at them and he
was very, very distraught. They went to the grocery store.
Mikaylo had the keys to go put food in Gregory
(13:30):
wentz Mother's house. She had a house on the property.
Father Damien through the keys to Mikaelo and said, put
the groceries in Mrs Went's home, and that's how he
kept the keys. Father Damian forgot to ask for them back.
At that point, they went about their Saturday evening as
they usually would, an hour for television, studying, go to sleep.
(13:52):
He broke into the church portion of the property. They
have some wines there that are used for religious rituals,
and he drank an entire bottle. He says he was
drunk or feeling the effects of that. Somehow he got
himself a latex glove. The week before, he had to
(14:15):
take with him a stake knife from the barry house.
He took the fire poker. He took a roll of
duct tape, and he walked across the soccer field, across
the football field, and across an open field. He had
the key. He opened the back door. Syster Michelle was asleep,
(14:36):
and opened her door, and quietly, without any socks or
shoes on his feet, began to beat her about the head,
and he pulled her off the bed, pulled her onto
the floor, where she tried to fight for her life.
It's obvious to us that she must have gotten up
once because her blood is smeared, not just matt spatter,
(14:59):
but her body form is smeared across some dressing cabinets
and things like that that were in her room. He
then did get her down, and he was stabbing her
the whole time. The medical examiner counted ninety two stab wounds.
She did not have a chance. He finished with himself
(15:21):
on top of her, stabbing her to death. He then
proceeded to get up. He threw the items that he had,
the duct tape, the knife, the wine bottle, things across
the field, across a hedge into a house that was
next door. But he lost the key along the way,
(15:41):
or he left it in the house, and so he
felt that Sister Michelle had a duplicate key, so he
could cover up his crime and give the key back
to Father Damien. The next day he looked for the key.
He broke into sister Michelle's office. He used to fire
extinguisher to break the window. He rummaged through everything, and
(16:04):
he went back to the house, wandered his clothes, put
them immediately in the washing machine, stayed up until they
were clean and dry. And the next morning, when he
was getting some orange juice out for breakfast before the
morning service, one of the monastic candidates said to him,
what happened your hands? And he said, oh, I caught
(16:26):
it on a glass I broke Friday evening. The following day,
detective Bellu and mi Heiloko Fell returned to the grounds
of Holy Cross Academy. They searched for all the items
he tossed around the grounds on the night of the murder.
(16:49):
One by one they found them, the wine bottle, the gloves,
the tape, and it was everything that he said to you.
So on. So on Monday after the murder, did you
guys have school? Yeah, we went to school. We went
to school Vibe. We had actual class and it was
(17:12):
everything sort of asn't normal. And I remember being a
classroom and looking out the window there was a news
truck like you know how they go up or whatever,
and it was like right outside our window. It was
like news cruise trying to film the inside of the
classroom and you could see like the caution tape like
the police tape. Yeah, you could see the caution tape
(17:33):
was still there. And then on the way to assembly,
we saw the bloody footprints. Um, they were still there.
It was surreal, to say the least surreal. And what
was assembly like? I mean, I did they talk about it?
Father went called us together because he wanted to, you know,
have a meeting. Basically, he addressed everybody and he said,
(17:55):
we're going to pray for sister Michelle's body, and we're
going to pray for um whoever did it? Were you scared?
Like we're people afraid. We were afraid because we had
no idea who it could have been that Monday. So
Monday we were so like, is the killer still here? Who?
Who could have done this? By now, police and prosecutors
(18:24):
were certain that they had their man, but they were
still unsure about a motive. Let me add the woman
was stabbed by need plus times, so there's a lot
of anger. Where's the anger come from? There's got to
be something else going on here? And that triggered my
mind right off the bat. After a break, an uninvited
(18:47):
guest arrives at the homicide office and co Fell reveals
more to police than they ever expected, stay with us,
(19:13):
Welcome back to Sacred Scandal. By the time he Hilo
co Fall confessed to the murder and break in at
Holy Cross Academy, Sunday evening had shifted into Monday morning.
After his admission, he was formally booked and taken into custody.
(19:34):
But just as police and prosecutors thought things were going
to settle, a surprise guest in a long black robe
showed up in the lobby of the Miami Dade Police
Department going over our briefings are evidence people have interviewed,
and we get a call, Hey, the priest downstairs. It
was father Abbot Gregory went. He brought with him one
(19:55):
of the monastic candidates, an attorney and a need for answers.
I said, hello, I'm Gayl vine On, the asistant state attorney.
Can I help you? And he said, we'd like to
know what's going on here. Did you get a sense
when father went to the police department what was this purpose?
This purpose was to get co Fell out of there,
(20:16):
and I mean you know they were there demanding that
co Fell be released back to him. Did you get
a sense that co Fell wanted to be released? He's
used to bullying people, and that's where he did at school,
and he couldn't bully us, so he was just wasted
his time. Yeah. So first he wanted to know why
(20:41):
we had him there, uh, and one told him it
was none of his business. That sent him over the edge.
When he said they were there to take him home,
we told him he wasn't going anywhere because he's already
confessed to a murder that sent him over the edge.
And then the fact that I how did he get here?
And when I told him he came on his own accord.
(21:02):
You know, that sent him over the age, because why
didn't you tell me you're taking him? I didn't have
to tell you anything. In his world, you had to
tell him everything. And he was given every opportunity too.
If he wanted to leave, he could have left. I mean,
once he made his confession, he wasn't going anywhere. Of course,
(21:22):
he came into our department. We went down and spoke
to him. He was arrogant, uh, claiming that we were
holding this kid we should not be talking to him.
And he basically asked was he saying anything against of
(21:44):
the Holy Cross School. My comment to him was, glood,
you have a dead woman on your property. And your
biggest issue to me is is he saying anything bad
about the school. You've got some serious problems here. But
at that moment, detectives Nanny and Bellu, and the prosecutor
(22:04):
Gail Levin all knew something that the priests might be
worried about. Everyone needs an excuse, because when you do
something that heinous, there's a reason why. I mean, from
all the interviews that Marying Larry did, no one really
wants to admit to kill someone unless there's a reason
(22:26):
or they have an out. After telling the detectives that
we killed sister Michelle, Mihailo walked them through his past,
a childhood stained by alcohol, violence, and claims of abuse
by his dad, all of this set against the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Coming to Miami was supposed to
(22:48):
be away for him to escape a difficult life in Ukraine,
but the move was not the perfect restart he was
promised by the priests. In fact, the priests he said,
we're the problem. That morning in the homicide office. Yeah,
I look claimed that the priests were sexually abusing him. Yeah, yeah.
(23:11):
The the first time it was was um, when we're
going I mean, I'm we're going to to the ghosts,
so we're became able in the car and where we
want to in the car, you know, you put it
hand over my time. That was the first time, and
then eventually called me, called me to to his room,
(23:36):
and that's from that's where they were the abuse starting.
You have one minute remaining, tell me to call it.
Call you later. Sure, yeah, yeah, if you want to.
If you want to keep talking, we can. We can
talk again tonight. Yeah. Okay, sounds good. Okay, I'll talk
(23:59):
too soon. Fight you for using Global Tell link next time.
On Sacred Scandal, Mihailo tells his story. Sacred Scandal is
(24:21):
a production of Exile Content Studio in partnership with I
Heart Radio's michaela Podcast Network. Sacred Scandal was created and
produced by Melanie Bartley and me Paula Burrows. Our senior
producer is Dennis Funk of Written in Air. The executive
producers are Rose Red and Nando Villa. Our production assistant
(24:46):
is Imani Leonard. Story editing by Rachel Ward. The show
is fact checked by Kimberly Winston. Original music was composed
by Patrick Hart, Audio editing by Konis, with final audio
mixing from Dixo, and special thanks on this episode to
(25:07):
Krey Tchaikovsky and Travis Roy
Less than twenty four hours before life at Holy Crost
Academy was turned upside down by the murder sister Michelle Lewis.
The monastic candidates got a break from their routine. Instead
of praying and studying, they spent most of their day
living like normal teenagers. Were happy? Were the rest of
the boys happy? As far as I saw that? Yet,
(00:26):
that Saturday morning, this candidate, Sasha Corsack, and another Mihailo Kofel,
who they called Misha, got dressed in their usual black
clothes and went off to the Miami Dad Youth Fair,
a huge yearly festival with carnival games, prizes, fried food,
and rides. You gets rides. But after their morning escape,
(00:57):
it was back to ordinary monastic life. After the youth Fare.
Did you come back to the monastery? What did you
do that? Yeah? Launch the us things? Oh? Is that
your usual thing to do on Saturday? Between the house?
What happened in between the house? You know, to place
(01:20):
some poms? What sport did you play? Well? Did Misha
participate in the basketball game? Yes? After you make a basket,
do you guys congratulate each other? Yeah? How do you
do that? Sometimes? High five? Did Misha say he couldn't
do any high fives because he had a problem. Did
(01:42):
you notice any injuries on Asia's hands at that time?
Any injuries on his face? He was fi But by
the next morning, even before anyone at Holy Cross noticed
Sister Michelle was missing, Sasha saw something different about me.
Halo testify the moment ago about some scratches on the space.
(02:04):
After you notice the scratches on his face, did you
notice anything else? Did you take a look at his hand? Yeah?
What could you say? That was just? Did you hear
anything else he said about his hands? He told me
that he caused himself on Friday? When did he tell
(02:24):
you that? Good morning him? What did you say that?
I asked him how he did this? So he explained?
What did he said? So that he was wasshing him
who loves and he dropped it? Did he tell you
what day he did this? On Friday? What did you
(02:44):
think about that? It was strange because say you didn't
see anything, Well, then I'm Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie
Bartley and this is sacred scandal. Only from what I've
learned in my many years hom Tide experience, you don't
(03:07):
stab somebody nine plus times without a lot of rage
being involved. I've been to enough scenes where I didn't
try and decide what was going to happen. I was
gonna wait to see what it was. I don't know.
Maybe they could have told me she had a lover,
maybe she was involved with the priest. There's a lot
of passion that went into the killing of Sister Michelle,
(03:30):
and usually because there's so much passion, there's a strong
reason behind that. And that's the the other end of
this case, to set out the reasons why. In this episode,
(04:07):
we shift back to the hunt for Sister Michelle's murderer
and the secrets locked away and Holy Cross start to emerge.
We pick up our story after police knocked in a
bloodstained door inside the house of the monastic candidates and
the nineteen year old murder suspect emergence. Here again is
(04:27):
Miami Dade homicide Detective Art Nanny, and I remember it
was dark going over to the monks uh quarters. The
monk that came the door was fill. When he came
to the door, he had bantages on both hands. While
we were waiting, he put his hands in his pocket.
(04:50):
He was a little nervous. When he took his hands out,
there's no more vantages on his hands. And they realized
that the blood on the door, this guy's a bandages
on his hand, thinking they observed a scratch on his face.
Now you gotta remember, other monks are being talked to
and they're saying, hey, the day before we were playing
(05:10):
basketball with them. Never noticed and he cuts on his
hands or cuts on his face. How did this guy
get cut? So that alone is now raising the red flags.
Our investigations now starting to focus in on him because
he's the only one that's injured. It was just highly suspicious.
(05:34):
I asked co Fell to step out of the monk's house.
We walked somewhere everybody of the church and nursing religious
statutes and stuff, kind of like walking around the statutes,
and he was kind of telling me his activities that day,
about getting into the wine and ready for church and
(05:54):
getting to do Mass. And there come a point where
I said, well, okay, we're interviewing everyone, but I need
you to come to the homicide office so we can
take your statement and talk to you about how you
got your cuts. I mean, we were pretty straightforward with him.
I mean he was over eighteen. He agreed, and uh,
(06:15):
you know, I didn't have speak to any of the priests.
So we rode with him to the homicide office and
we didn't really speak a lot. But once we got
him there, then we sat down. We run him as
rights and once through the whole nine yards, we aired
on the side of caution to make sure he understood
(06:36):
his rights. But I wasn't sure whether he was still
a subject or not. You know, he didn't have the
outward appearance of possibly being the killer. He was somewhat
mild and mannered. Uh. Co Fell was not a big guy.
I'd like to pass here and getting Larry's control. All right, Well,
(06:58):
my name is Larry bell Hu and uh. I worked
the case with lead investiator or Annie. I was working
midnights at that particular night, and we worked midnight's one
long week, one very long week. Where are you supposed
to be sleeping? But Art says, don't go home. I
(07:21):
need your help. Detective Larry Bellow was on the scene
at holy Cross for most of the day, but now
late in the evening, Detective Nanny needed his partner by
his side to help question the suspect in Hilo co Fell.
This is where me and Larry were sitting in there.
We're talking to him and we're going back and forth,
(07:42):
you know, on how we cut his hands, and he
was giving us a story about a glass broke and
he cut his hands. And he didn't really have an
answer about his face. And he may said he was
playing basketball. I'm not really sure, you know. Once we
got co Fell to the it's a homicide office, and
as we are speaking to him, we didn't really have
(08:04):
a whole heck of a lot. It was a pure
and simple we didn't have anything. The fact is that
we were developing our rapport with him, uh, talking a
little bit about the Ukraine, his family background, were trying
to get to know him, his likes, his dislikes. What
(08:24):
you have to realize is you had to be their buddies.
And that's what Party and I did for most part
of our lives. You know. It's like, I'm your buddy,
let's talk this through. But that's probably after the second hour,
in the third hour and the fourth out. But we're
probably going on four o'clock in the morning, and Kofield
(08:48):
was probably there at least ten pm eleven pm. But
the more he talked about sister Michelle more that we
realized that he did not like her. You know, I
mean she would under his desk asking questions about this
and that, and when he would answer, she would be
little in in firm of all the other students with
(09:09):
comments about the way he talked. You can start to
tell that he had a dislike for her. Didn't mean
he killed her, but he wasn't saying anything that he
had anything to do with her murder. So we took
a different approach. It was at this point that detectives
Nanny and Value started to consider the evidence that could
link a suspect to the crime. There were those tallest
(09:31):
footprints stamped across campus and the standout drop of blood
found on sister Michelle's body. So here's what we're gonna do. Uh.
I think Larry ended up getting swabs from him, mouse swabs, uh.
And we took him down and asked if he wouldn't
mind being printed, take his shoes off. We printed the
(09:53):
bottom of his feet, and as soon as I saw that,
I said, son of a bitch. But at some point,
as we're speaking to him, probably about another hour later,
Larry has stepped out and uh, he came back in
(10:14):
and whispered in my ear and then I said to
Cofel got you, We got your DNA, And that kind of,
I believe set him back on his keyster a little bit,
because at that point he didn't think we had him.
But we went through the whole nine yards about what
(10:35):
we knew from the crime scene and kind of just
kept reiterating the fact that you cannot run from your
d N. A once he gave us a swab that
opened up another door, forced to explore, and all we
did was kind of put the bait out there. He'd
been on the bait. He had to believe that we
(10:58):
had him, based up on strong evidence, so, you know,
a few hours in, eventually he admitted that he was
the one that killed sister Michelle. Halo stopped resisting. He
dropped the story about the broken glass and confessed. Later on,
(11:21):
he decided to tell us why coming up after the
break a killer's confession, a surprise visitor, and the web
of secrets at Holy Cross starts to come undone. Welcome
(11:58):
back to Sacred Scandal. Within twenty four hours of the
initial nine on one call, Mihailo Kofel, a monastic candidate
at Holy Cross confessed to the murder of sister Michelle.
Police wasted no time. He gave an official statement and
was formally charged. After that, the nineteen year old from
(12:21):
Ukraine was thrown into the American criminal justice system almost
as soon as the murder was reported. It was assigned
to prosecutor Gay Levine. Levine was the assistant state attorney
and she was no stranger to high profile work. She
made her career getting convictions in big death penalty cases.
(12:44):
That's the path Mihailo Kofel was now heading down. She's
a hard nosed prosecutor. Yeah, if you got her, if
she was assigned one of your cases, Uh, you knew
you had a big case. Gay Levine would be responsible
for assembling the narrative of the crime should the case
go to trial. Here's the story as she told it
to Paula and me about ten years ago. Cole Felt
(13:06):
tells us and we had we know from the other
boys that they went to the Miami Dade Youth Fair.
They went in their white shirts in their black pants
and they got to ride on a ride and then
the afternoon was over, were pointed at them and he
was very, very distraught. They went to the grocery store.
Mikaylo had the keys to go put food in Gregory
(13:30):
wentz Mother's house. She had a house on the property.
Father Damien through the keys to Mikaelo and said, put
the groceries in Mrs Went's home, and that's how he
kept the keys. Father Damian forgot to ask for them back.
At that point, they went about their Saturday evening as
they usually would, an hour for television, studying, go to sleep.
(13:52):
He broke into the church portion of the property. They
have some wines there that are used for religious rituals,
and he drank an entire bottle. He says he was
drunk or feeling the effects of that. Somehow he got
himself a latex glove. The week before, he had to
(14:15):
take with him a stake knife from the barry house.
He took the fire poker. He took a roll of
duct tape, and he walked across the soccer field, across
the football field, and across an open field. He had
the key. He opened the back door. Syster Michelle was asleep,
(14:36):
and opened her door, and quietly, without any socks or
shoes on his feet, began to beat her about the head,
and he pulled her off the bed, pulled her onto
the floor, where she tried to fight for her life.
It's obvious to us that she must have gotten up
once because her blood is smeared, not just matt spatter,
(14:59):
but her body form is smeared across some dressing cabinets
and things like that that were in her room. He
then did get her down, and he was stabbing her
the whole time. The medical examiner counted ninety two stab wounds.
She did not have a chance. He finished with himself
(15:21):
on top of her, stabbing her to death. He then
proceeded to get up. He threw the items that he had,
the duct tape, the knife, the wine bottle, things across
the field, across a hedge into a house that was
next door. But he lost the key along the way,
(15:41):
or he left it in the house, and so he
felt that Sister Michelle had a duplicate key, so he
could cover up his crime and give the key back
to Father Damien. The next day he looked for the key.
He broke into sister Michelle's office. He used to fire
extinguisher to break the window. He rummaged through everything, and
(16:04):
he went back to the house, wandered his clothes, put
them immediately in the washing machine, stayed up until they
were clean and dry. And the next morning, when he
was getting some orange juice out for breakfast before the
morning service, one of the monastic candidates said to him,
what happened your hands? And he said, oh, I caught
(16:26):
it on a glass I broke Friday evening. The following day,
detective Bellu and mi Heiloko Fell returned to the grounds
of Holy Cross Academy. They searched for all the items
he tossed around the grounds on the night of the murder.
(16:49):
One by one they found them, the wine bottle, the gloves,
the tape, and it was everything that he said to you.
So on. So on Monday after the murder, did you
guys have school? Yeah, we went to school. We went
to school Vibe. We had actual class and it was
(17:12):
everything sort of asn't normal. And I remember being a
classroom and looking out the window there was a news
truck like you know how they go up or whatever,
and it was like right outside our window. It was
like news cruise trying to film the inside of the
classroom and you could see like the caution tape like
the police tape. Yeah, you could see the caution tape
(17:33):
was still there. And then on the way to assembly,
we saw the bloody footprints. Um, they were still there.
It was surreal, to say the least surreal. And what
was assembly like? I mean, I did they talk about it?
Father went called us together because he wanted to, you know,
have a meeting. Basically, he addressed everybody and he said,
(17:55):
we're going to pray for sister Michelle's body, and we're
going to pray for um whoever did it? Were you scared?
Like we're people afraid. We were afraid because we had
no idea who it could have been that Monday. So
Monday we were so like, is the killer still here? Who?
Who could have done this? By now, police and prosecutors
(18:24):
were certain that they had their man, but they were
still unsure about a motive. Let me add the woman
was stabbed by need plus times, so there's a lot
of anger. Where's the anger come from? There's got to
be something else going on here? And that triggered my
mind right off the bat. After a break, an uninvited
(18:47):
guest arrives at the homicide office and co Fell reveals
more to police than they ever expected, stay with us,
(19:13):
Welcome back to Sacred Scandal. By the time he Hilo
co Fall confessed to the murder and break in at
Holy Cross Academy, Sunday evening had shifted into Monday morning.
After his admission, he was formally booked and taken into custody.
(19:34):
But just as police and prosecutors thought things were going
to settle, a surprise guest in a long black robe
showed up in the lobby of the Miami Dade Police
Department going over our briefings are evidence people have interviewed,
and we get a call, Hey, the priest downstairs. It
was father Abbot Gregory went. He brought with him one
(19:55):
of the monastic candidates, an attorney and a need for answers.
I said, hello, I'm Gayl vine On, the asistant state attorney.
Can I help you? And he said, we'd like to
know what's going on here. Did you get a sense
when father went to the police department what was this purpose?
This purpose was to get co Fell out of there,
(20:16):
and I mean you know they were there demanding that
co Fell be released back to him. Did you get
a sense that co Fell wanted to be released? He's
used to bullying people, and that's where he did at school,
and he couldn't bully us, so he was just wasted
his time. Yeah. So first he wanted to know why
(20:41):
we had him there, uh, and one told him it
was none of his business. That sent him over the edge.
When he said they were there to take him home,
we told him he wasn't going anywhere because he's already
confessed to a murder that sent him over the edge.
And then the fact that I how did he get here?
And when I told him he came on his own accord.
(21:02):
You know, that sent him over the age, because why
didn't you tell me you're taking him? I didn't have
to tell you anything. In his world, you had to
tell him everything. And he was given every opportunity too.
If he wanted to leave, he could have left. I mean,
once he made his confession, he wasn't going anywhere. Of course,
(21:22):
he came into our department. We went down and spoke
to him. He was arrogant, uh, claiming that we were
holding this kid we should not be talking to him.
And he basically asked was he saying anything against of
(21:44):
the Holy Cross School. My comment to him was, glood,
you have a dead woman on your property. And your
biggest issue to me is is he saying anything bad
about the school. You've got some serious problems here. But
at that moment, detectives Nanny and Bellu, and the prosecutor
(22:04):
Gail Levin all knew something that the priests might be
worried about. Everyone needs an excuse, because when you do
something that heinous, there's a reason why. I mean, from
all the interviews that Marying Larry did, no one really
wants to admit to kill someone unless there's a reason
(22:26):
or they have an out. After telling the detectives that
we killed sister Michelle, Mihailo walked them through his past,
a childhood stained by alcohol, violence, and claims of abuse
by his dad, all of this set against the collapse
of the Soviet Union. Coming to Miami was supposed to
(22:48):
be away for him to escape a difficult life in Ukraine,
but the move was not the perfect restart he was
promised by the priests. In fact, the priests he said,
we're the problem. That morning in the homicide office. Yeah,
I look claimed that the priests were sexually abusing him. Yeah, yeah.
(23:11):
The the first time it was was um, when we're
going I mean, I'm we're going to to the ghosts,
so we're became able in the car and where we
want to in the car, you know, you put it
hand over my time. That was the first time, and
then eventually called me, called me to to his room,
(23:36):
and that's from that's where they were the abuse starting.
You have one minute remaining, tell me to call it.
Call you later. Sure, yeah, yeah, if you want to.
If you want to keep talking, we can. We can
talk again tonight. Yeah. Okay, sounds good. Okay, I'll talk
(23:59):
too soon. Fight you for using Global Tell link next time.
On Sacred Scandal, Mihailo tells his story. Sacred Scandal is
(24:21):
a production of Exile Content Studio in partnership with I
Heart Radio's michaela Podcast Network. Sacred Scandal was created and
produced by Melanie Bartley and me Paula Burrows. Our senior
producer is Dennis Funk of Written in Air. The executive
producers are Rose Red and Nando Villa. Our production assistant
(24:46):
is Imani Leonard. Story editing by Rachel Ward. The show
is fact checked by Kimberly Winston. Original music was composed
by Patrick Hart, Audio editing by Konis, with final audio
mixing from Dixo, and special thanks on this episode to
(25:07):
Krey Tchaikovsky and Travis Roy
Host
Jasmine Romero
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