The Backstory: Murder and the Family Next Door

We comfort ourselves by thinking that murder is something that happens to people when they aren’t careful about when, where, and who they mix it up with. But sometimes, as in these two cases, the scariest stories are actually the ones you don’t see coming.

Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all know there are certain places not to go
in the dark. But what if the most dangerous place
isn't a dark galley or a deserted road, but a
place that looks perfectly safe. A beautiful, peaceful vacation home,
a lovely drive on a gorgeous road. Now imagine photos
of a smiling family. Their light from the outside looks

(00:22):
almost too perfect. This is about two families separated by
fifty years, but tied together by one pretty unsettling thought.
I'm Patty Steele. Sometimes the greatest danger lies in the
most unexpected place. That's next on the backstory. The backstory

(00:44):
is back. Fear is a strange thing. The anticipation of
something frightening happening can be absolutely chilling, But the fear
of the completely unexpected a's the element of shock. Let's
head back to the summer of nineteen sixty eight. It's
the end of June. We're in Good Heart, a peaceful
lakeside community in Michigan. The upper middle class Robison family, Richard,

(01:08):
his wife Shirley, and their four kids have rented a
cottage for a quiet family vacation, but they never came home.
Family and friends, as well as Richard's employees figure they're
just extending the vacation, but weeks pass and folks realize
something might be wrong. The mail has piled up, neighbors
get nervous, and when police finally enter the cottage in

(01:32):
Good Heart, they discover that the entire family has been murdered.
No signs of a break in, no obvious struggle from
the outside, just silence. It didn't seem random. Investigators eventually
zero in on a guy named Joseph Scalaro, a business
associate of Richard. He has financial motives, a connection to

(01:52):
the family, and was seen in the area, but there
isn't enough evidence to make it a rest, so the
case lingers for four years. Finally they think they have
enough evidence to charge him. But here's where it becomes
a problem. Before he could be formally charged, Scolero, by
then thirty four years old, kills himself. Now for decades,

(02:13):
the case lingers in a strange space, technically unsolved, no
dramatic courtroom ending, no full confession, just a family gone
and a likely killer who took the truth with him.
Now fast forward fifty years, different place, different family, but
the same illusion of normalcy. It's the California cliff crash

(02:35):
that shocked the country in a completely different way. Jennifer
and Sarah Hart. There's the name Hart again. We're seen
as a progressive, loving couple raising six adopted children, do
pretty much everybody. They had a storybook life, smiling kids,
road trips, hugs, and viral moments of kindness online. One

(02:55):
photo in particular does stand out. A little boy tears
in his eyes hugging a police officer during a protest.
It spread everywhere. It felt like proof of love, compassion,
hope and understanding. Problem is, behind the scenes, something wasn't right.
There had been reports neighbors noticed the kids asking for food,

(03:18):
concerns about discipline. There were quiet warnings that never fully
got anybody's attention. Then whatever problems were simmering exploded. It
was March twenty eighteen. The family's suv was cruising along
the beautiful Pacific Coast Highway in California when it suddenly
veered off a cliff, crashing onto the beach upside down

(03:40):
one hundred feet below, killing everyone. At first, it seemed
like a tragic accident, but investigators quickly uncovered the unbelievable truth.
There were no skid marks, no signs of trying to stop.
Toxicology reports showed substances in Jennifer, the driver's system as
well as her wife, Sarah says. Then investigators see that

(04:02):
the suv had been at a complete stop facing the cliff,
and the engine was suddenly gunned before it flew over.
This wasn't an accident, it was intentional. So two families,
two tragedies. But here's what connects them and why these
stories stay with us and chill us. In both cases,
the danger didn't come from a stranger. It came from

(04:24):
someone inside the circle of trust. In Michigan, it was
a business associate, someone welcomed into the Robison families world.
In California, it was much closer. Parents, protectors, people who
children depended on. Completely. It's deeply unsettling because we're taught
to look for danger in obvious places, suspicious strangers, dark corners,

(04:48):
warning signs that stand out. But these stories remind us
sometimes the warning signs are quiet, sometimes they're ignored, Sometimes
they're hidden behind smile else happy photos appearances. The Robison
case left questions that were never really answered. What exactly
happen in those final hours? Did the family know their

(05:11):
killer in a really meaningful way. Before this happened, could
it have been prevented? The heart case leaves a different
kind of question, how does a family that look so
full of love unravel so completely behind closed doors? Weeks
before the murders, a coworker said Sarah told her she
wished she'd known how difficult it would be to have

(05:32):
so many children that she and Jennifer never would have
adopted them all. Maybe the hardest question of all is
how often do we miss what's right in front of us?
These aren't just stories about tragedy. There're stories about perception,
about how easy it is to believe what we see
and how difficult it is to recognize what we don't

(05:53):
quite see. So think about the scariest murder mysteries, where
often the most dangerous, most frightening scenario is the one that,
at first blush looks perfectly normal. Hope you're enjoying the
backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review and follow
or subscribe for free to get new episodes delivered automatically,

(06:14):
and feel free to dm me if you have a
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.

(06:34):
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the Backstory with Patty Steele, the pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.