June 19, 2025 • 38 mins
In our season finale, five years have passed since Talina disappeared, but Jess continues to obsess over the details. Meanwhile, Talina’s family searches to define closure as a murder trial remains elusive.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heads up to listeners. This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence.
Please take care while listening. In the summer of twenty twenty,
that first COVID summer, a few months after Teleina went missing,
before anyone had been arrested, a licensed realtor in Mina,
Arkansas gets a phone call. The person on the other
(00:24):
end of the line is a woman eager to buy
some land in the area, but not just any land,
a specific parcel. Here's how she later described that call,
as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
When I answered the phone, she said there was a
piece of property she wanted to buy.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The realtor looks up the property on her computer. It's
a four acre plot of undeveloped forest in Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
She asks the.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Woman if she wanted to be shown the property, they
could do a tour.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And she said no, she had already looked at it,
she'd walked every step of it, and she just loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Weird but okay. Then the woman says she's planning to
live there, but the realtor can see from the plot's
description that that might be difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And I said, you do understand. There's no utilities, there's
no water, no electric nothing there.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The woman is undeterred, and she said.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, I'm going to live there and I'm going to
buy this piece of property, and I want to buy
it today.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
A sale is a sale. So the realtor pulls up
some forms and asks for the woman's information.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
She said her name was Deb Bomily or something like that.
Her first name was Corey, but she said she didn't
use that name. She used the name of Deb.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Even though it's getting late in the day. The realtor
prepares a contract for the sale of the property and
Corey signs it just after midnight, but the contract is
rejected by the seller because of financing issues. The realtor
updates Corey.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I talked to her several times and we text back
and forth because it was rejected, and she said she
still wanted to buy it, and I asked her how
she wanted to do that, and she said she was
going to sell some stuff and just come pay cash
for it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
The realtor follows up to check on the progress of
Corey's cash flow.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I called her and I never got a reply, so
that was the end. I just filed everything away.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The property remains unsold. Seven months later, police will descend
on this unassuming plot of land off a dead end
logging road called Woody Lane from iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jell.
(03:01):
This is what happened to Telena's our.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
We could solve what happened, We could fix it. Maybe
the first thing that happened, she gets bad migraines.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
By then, we all had a suspicion that something bad
had happened.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
We're armchair investigators over here, so we just didn't know
something like that could have happened to Tolena.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
He was like, I've been talking to Corey trying to
get her to tell me what happened.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
So what happened?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
In a nutshell? And then Sherry told me the exact
story of what had happened.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
If you suspected something like that happened, who would be
the people you would suspect the most.
Speaker 8 (03:40):
All of a sudden move, already thought, no explanation, No,
this is what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I don't know she was willing to forgive him for
whatever it happened, or maybe he had paid her back.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
Oh my god, this just certainly can't possibly be what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And I come back and crying.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And everysing what happened, Episode eight Horizon. I want to
take you back to this moment when Telena's body is found.
It's the dead of winter in a forest in Arkansas,
and a deputy is standing over a white box freezer.
(04:20):
He opens the lid to find visible human remains, but
standing just a few paces behind him is a woman
watching all this unfold. She's the woman who found the
freezer and called the police. She's also the woman who
seven months earlier, saw a suspicious truck and trailer drive
(04:41):
down Woody Lane and Park. At that time, she wrote
down the license plate number of the truck on a
small piece of paper. Even though it's been seven months,
she still has it. The woman hands over the paper
to investigators. Police run the plates and they matched Tolena's truck,
(05:02):
the two thousand and seven Dodge Ram that Corey later
sold for scrap metal. This small piece of paper is
the evidence the detective Joel Weber has been waiting for.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
With this new information, investigators began looking again at the
data retreat from Corey Bamiley's cellular phones on previous search warrants.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
They discover evidence from Corey's phone that she had been
in the area of Arkansas, where Teleina's body was found
multiple times in June and July. And they also find
out that the very day that Teleina's truck was spotted
parked on Woody Lane, Corey tried to buy that exact property.
Speaker 9 (05:41):
Investigators found that corey bamily had been attempting to purchase
the very plot of land where the body was found
from a realtor in Mina, just hours after she was
seen there. The realtor advised Corey was adamant about purchasing
the land. Corey refused to meet the realtor to tour
the land, but stated she had already walked on every
(06:02):
foot of the property and demanded that she be able
to purchase it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Now able to connect Corey directly to Tellina's body, Wagner
detectives jump into action. They apply for an arrest warrant
for murder. Corey is currently living in Wisconsin with her mom, Janet,
so the Wagner cops coordinate with the Dane County Sheriff's
office in Wisconsin to track her down. On January twenty first,
(06:30):
twenty twenty one, a week after Tellina's body is discovered,
a few squad cars are dispatched to Janet's home with
no immediate sign of Corey. Police follow her mom as
she goes about her day. We've recreated what happened based
on police reports.
Speaker 10 (06:49):
Subjects seen departing the Meadow Road address on two separate occasions.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Sometime in the afternoon, Corey's mom leaves her house once
more and drives her Chevy Equinox to a mechanic.
Speaker 10 (07:02):
Subject parked in the parking lot for a number of
minutes before a second subject was observed walking towards the
Equinox and getting into the front passenger side seat.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Corey gets in the car with her mom behind the wheel.
Speaker 10 (07:15):
The decision was made to attempt a traffic stop in
the appropriate location and take Bamilei into custody on the
afforementioned warrant.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But arresting Corey isn't going to be so easy.
Speaker 10 (07:26):
At approximately two forty two PM, I pulled behind the
vehicle and activated my squad's emergency red and blue lights
in an attempt to stop the vehicle. However, it did
not stop.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I don't know what the conversation was in the car
between Corey and her mom, if she explained what was
happening or pretended to be clueless or if they honestly
didn't see the police car behind them, But they don't
pull over. Corey's mom keeps driving, so a deputy puts
on his siren.
Speaker 10 (07:56):
And again the vehicle did not pull over.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
One of the detectives in another squad car speeds up
and cuts in front of them.
Speaker 10 (08:03):
He did begin to break slightly, and it appeared as
though the operator then saw my squad behind her, and
she immediately pulled to the right shoulder of the road
and stopped.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Gun drawn, the deputy approaches Corey's side of the car
and tells her to step out of the vehicle.
Speaker 10 (08:19):
Bombily asked what am I under arrest for? And my
response was murder charges out of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Corey also wants to know had they found her missing
roommate's body. The next day, Wagner County District Attorney Jack
Thorpe updates the public on Corey's arrest.
Speaker 10 (08:43):
I charged her.
Speaker 11 (08:44):
With first degree murder of Tolina Galloway, and we allege
that those crimes did occur here in Wagner County, Oklahoma.
Speaker 12 (08:51):
Corey Bomily is also charged with desecration of a corpse.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
She is presumed innocent.
Speaker 11 (08:57):
Of both of those charges, and that presumption will remain
throughout the duration of this investigation and prosecution up to
and if she is proven guilty by proof beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Speaker 12 (09:12):
It is very important for me to note to you
this that this is still a very active investigation and
it will remain so for some time after today. If
you do have any information, or you may know of
someone that has some relation or knows something about this case,
please have that person contact the Wagner County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I would agree that I have never had a case
involving these kinds of details.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
After her arrest for murder, Corey retains a lawyer, Janet Hudson,
who defends her client in an interview with KATUL, a
television station out of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think she's shocked. I think she's concerned. Anybody who's
been charged with such a serious assas should be shocked
and should be concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Corey's lawyer adds that she's worried about her client getting
a fair trial.
Speaker 8 (10:09):
I realize there are going to be those that see
this as sensational and frightening and have opinions, and I
have to fight against that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Soon afterwards, Corey is extradited from Wisconsin to Wagner. A
short video taken by a local reporter shows her in
handcuffs being escorted by police into the station. She's walking
with her head down, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Corey,
what do you have to say about Telena's family, Corey says, nothing.
(10:44):
Doesn't even look back. More than four years later, as
I write this episode in June twenty twenty five, Corey
is still awaiting trial on these charges.
Speaker 13 (11:00):
One day, I was driving on the freeway, riding in
the freeway with my husband, and we passed a trailer
that had a freezer on it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
The details of Teleina's death, they'd be difficult for anyone
to stomach. Here's Nicole, Talina's friend in Tennessee, who still
fills the trauma long after receiving the news.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And again, I just had a complete meltdown. I had
to get him to pull over because I couldn't be
next to that freezer on that trainer.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Talina's friends have had a lot of time to ruminate
on the events that occurred in the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Here's Greg to you know, basically, murdered her and chop
her up and put her somewhere where nobody would ever
find or it just I Caro, in the world can
somebody even contemplate doing so? How evil can one person
(11:59):
really be? Tolena was a good lady and did not
deserve what happened to her. For me to be involved
in this whole situation just blows my mind. And like
I said, I live a really boring life here in Oklahoma,
and me and my wife we watch tram stories, but
for us to live you know, living Wood, it's totally different,
(12:21):
and it makes us not want to trust anybody. It
makes us look at people a little bit differently now
and be a little bit more untrusting about what they're
saying or what they're telling us. And I don't want
to be that type of person because I feel like
I'm a person of faith and I feel like I
want to get everybody the opportunity to prove me wrong,
(12:45):
you know, show me that they're bad. But you know,
through this Coury situation, I I look at people a
lot differently now.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
For Tolena's Oklahoma friends in particular, it's hard to wrap
their heads around what Corey's been accused of Within months
of Corey settling into Wagner, she had woven herself into
their worlds, eating dinner in their homes and sharing beers
around backyard fires. Was she manipulating them the whole time?
(13:18):
Was she waiting for just the right opportunity to enrich
herself or to pull off some long held devious fantasy.
Neighbors are left re examining every moment with her, wondering
if she exploited their goodwill. For Greg, it's the mattress
frame he discarded for Corey that bothers him the most.
(13:41):
Did his actions help Corey get away with murder for
a while? At least?
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I look back on that and I'm like, oh, I
just still at that point didn't even have a clue
of what was transpiring, what had happened, And she was
that comfortable around us and doing the things that she
was doing under our noses. You know what, what else
is she capable of? Or what has she done in
(14:10):
the past.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
No one ever really prepares you for her, small men.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
There's no amounts of training that can't prepare you for
how to feel or what to.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Expect for Aris. She can't stop thinking about this moment
a week after Telena went missing, when she brought over
sausage that Telena had paid for, but Corey wouldn't take it.
Speaker 8 (14:34):
She wasn't me and said, you guys should go ahead
and take it. Our creator is stuffed full of meat.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I didn't find out about how she was found until obviously.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Months months, months, months after that interaction.
Speaker 8 (14:49):
But what I read the details is how her remains
were found.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I collapsed.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Well, I connected those who coming back conversation that information together.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
How would you say that?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Certain stories from Corey's past also take on new meaning,
like the rumor she once worked at a coroner's office,
or how she told people she cut up her horse.
Here's Rachel, Telena's friend and fellow animal lover.
Speaker 14 (15:20):
She had this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Horse dye and apparently it had this horse for yours.
Instead of calling somebody to come pick this animal up
and or even finding somebody with a back hoe that
could help her bury it, she cut it up like
it was literally just a piece of meat.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
What who even knows how to do some work like that?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Whoever did cut up Telena's body appeared to have had practice.
The Arkansas Medical Examiner who performed Telena's autopsy, setting court
documents that the dismemberment appeared to be almost expertly done.
The incision point points were so clean, so precise, that
there was only one cut mark on a bone, no
(16:06):
saw or chop marks at all. The medical examiner added
that the way it was done required some knowledge of
how joints are structured so that they could be cut
around and the limbs removed. As far as the cause
of Telena's death, the medical examiner found that she died
from blunt force trauma to the skull. Because of the
(16:30):
lack of injuries on the rest of her body, he
believed she was killed before she had a chance to
defend herself.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
What do I think happened? Like my theory.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
In the years since Corey's arrest, Jess our internet sleuth
in Minnesota, has had plenty of time to refine her
theory of what exactly happened to telena'sar I asked her
to lay it out from start to finish her best guess,
based on the research she's done and the people she's
talked to.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I think Telina found out that Corey had either opened
a credit card in her name or ad used one
without her permission, and then once the pandemic hit, Teleina
was no longer traveling for work and she was home
looking at the bills, and that's when she found it,
and I think she confronted Corey and told her she
had to leave. But I think Corey also played to
(17:23):
Telina's feelings and was like, I have nowhere to go,
give me some time. After speaking to her ex husbands,
I learned that Corey was all about waiting on end
times of sorts, and I think she believed that that
was coming. When COVID hit, she thought this is it
and that's when everything started to spiral.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
The mayor today calling the spread unpredictable and.
Speaker 10 (17:47):
When get indicated, they die.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
The psycho repeat, and that's when Corey started planning her murder.
I think she either poisoned her over time to make
her week, or slip something into her food or drink
that night's make her extra sleepy.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
She was going to lay down.
Speaker 8 (18:01):
For a while and said that she would chat with
her later.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And once Teleina was completely out, Corey probably hit her
in the back of the head. I think she started
cutting her up in the bathtub in the master bedroom
because it was big, and then I think after that
she moved her into the garage and finished there because
that's where the freezer was and it was closest.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
When we got to the kitchen, we noticed the freezer
was not there.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I think she then wracked up Telina in garbage bags
and put her in the freezer and waited. Eventually she
brought the freezer in the white trailer over to Billie's
and plugged it in to keep the body frozen.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Saw an orange extension cord going into the back of
this trailer. That's weird.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And then when she went to the interview with Weber,
he asked her about the trailer and she freaked out,
and that's why she sold it and rented the U haul.
Speaker 9 (18:58):
They said there was some sort of travel trailer in
the driveway, a white cargo trailer.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Yeah, it's old.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
She took the truck, hitched up the rented trailer with
the freezer, and drove to Arkansas to the remote property
she'd been looking at buying.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And she said, well, I want to buy it today.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
After she returned, she scrapped the truck and tried to
tie up loose sentence, but the truck was in too
good of shape to actually scrap so it raised some alarms.
As for the motive, Corey had nothing. She had no job,
no money, no car. The car she was even driving,
the G six, belonged to Telina, So.
Speaker 9 (19:37):
Doing things as an executor before we know she's dead
is presumptuous.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And she realized she'd been caught and she started scrambling,
and there's really nothing else.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Jess has had little doubt about Corey's guilt pretty much
from the beginning, but today she is still on shore.
If Corey acted alone and if Marty was involved in
any way. She even shared these concerns with the district attorney.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I get the number for Jack Thorpe, and I put
Rosie on three way on conference, and I said, will
you just mute yourself and just be there, like emotionally,
just just so I know somebody else is there. And
I can remember what said later on like I'm really upset,
And I said, I think Marty helped. I literally told him,
I'm positive in my mind that he had something to
(20:29):
do with all of this.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Jess mentioned that she had been communicating with Marty regularly
throughout this whole time. She had a lot of material
that could potentially be useful.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I shared an album with him on Facebook, I think
the same one that I shared with you, because he
wanted all of our screenshots, but two and two together.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Still, after their call, Jess was left with the distinct
feeling that the DA disapproved of how much she inserted
herself into the case.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
He was kind of scolding me. I mean, he made
me feel I'm sure he's really good at his job.
I'm not saying he's not saying his bedside manner. Maybe
isn't that cool. He made me feel like I was
responsible for something that I'm not the police.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I'm some girl just on the internet and I didn't know.
I didn't know what I had until afterwards.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Since Corey's arrest for Telena's murder, she's also been charged
with attempted murder in Wisconsin, accused of trying to fatally
poison her former neighbors, Sherry and Mike Siegler using homemade ricin.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We came home to stuff kitty litter or broken sheet
rock material scattered throughout our house, especially on my side
of the bed and in my underwear drawer. This was
very personal and I felt particularly scared.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's unclear why but prosecutors decided Corey should face charges
in Wisconsin first before standing trial for Telena's murder. The
rice In trial has been delayed for years, but finally
it's scheduled to take place in June twenty twenty five,
just a week after this episode airs. I'll be attending
(22:16):
and I'll update you all from Wisconsin. Still there's no
trial date set for the murder of Tilena. Her loved
ones are waiting, clinging to the hope that a murder
trial will bring long overdue answers about what really happened
in the confusing, chaotic early days of the pandemic. There's
(22:38):
no question that COVID hindered the efforts of the official investigation,
made it harder to see people behind their masks, isolation, fear, distraction.
These were unprecedented challenges in a world gone mad for
a while, and maybe that's exactly what the perpetrator was
(22:59):
hoping for. Talina's family worries that the more time passes,
the harder it may get to prosecute the case, that memories,
evidence could be lost to the winds of time.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
There's the typical process of this, there's the murder, the investigation, hopefully.
You know, somebody is a family you know and arrested,
you know, and the family, you know, they bury their
loved one and then two three years down the road
(23:36):
there's a trial as typical. Correct, That is not our case.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Over many conversations, Talina's sister, Cheryl told me that her
family was struggling with the fact that Talina's body wasn't
yet cremated according to her wishes, They were unable to
give her a final resting place.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
We do not blame authorities. What happened was they determine
that they needed her body. This case is more circumstantial
than evidence wise because of the time frame she went missing.
The body wasn't found for several months, badly decomposed in
(24:21):
a freezer, and so they said we need to keep
the body. We haven't. It's beyond the initial trauma. It
She just said, when I woke up today, she is
in pieces in a freezer. In my moon't and we
(24:45):
woke up today, she's in pieces in a freezer. When
we woke up yesterday, she was a piece of in
a freezer, And when we wake up tomorrow she will
be in pieces in a freezer. And that's our reality.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We accept that.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
It doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, it's gotten harder.
Our biggest source of pain in a lot of ways
is how much pain my mom is seen. Her horrific
grief that my fore mom, she's in worse pain for
(25:32):
her entire exists. Is the worst pain anyone could ever feel.
And we can't do anything to consult her. And we
know that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For many years after Telena's murder, her family did not
speak openly about what happened.
Speaker 8 (25:54):
I had worked at my place of work for eighteen years.
I know many people, I work with them four years,
and until about a year ago, a year ago, for
the very first time I uttered the words to someone
outside the family, my sister was murdered. It took me
(26:16):
that well to be able to save those words to
someone else. She can't tell, she said, you know, moham,
I can't. I've never even talked.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
About this.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
Until she said a couple of months ago, her good friend,
she said, she was telling me about some mystery things
she'd seen on TV, a dateline type of thing. You know,
as she said, my aunt was murdered, the first time
she had uttered those words. And all of this time,
my oldest daughter Serisia's never ever said anything outside the family.
(26:56):
Teacher and my youngest daughter, Telsea her too. I know
my mom outside of the coach. He has a small
church group, so of course you know the news got there.
Outside of that, no, nobody. We haven't been able to
even say it outside of our own in our own
(27:21):
world that is so raw and painful because of where
we're trapped.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Agreeing to do this podcast has meant that Cheryl has
been able to talk more openly about Telena to me,
to the world, but also to her family, and those
long overdue conversations seem like the next step in a
healing process.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
We haven't lost side. We have the horizon. We are
still looking at the horizon. We know these days will ahead,
these times will come. We will be able to gather,
lay flowers and remember my mom. Her biggest fear that
she expresses is she says, I don't want her to
(28:17):
be forgotten. And I know she says that because there
is not a gathering place of remembrance yet for her,
and for some reason in her she fears her daughter
will just be forgotten.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I'm just really grateful that you decided to do this
for to Lena not for me, but for her. Everybody's
going to know, hopefully, and I think they need to.
Speaker 14 (28:53):
When you tell people about this whole thing, like how
do you explain it to people?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Like what you were involved in? Usually tell people I
helped solve a murder, because I do feel like the
effort that I put forth, along with you know, Nicole
and all the people I talked to, did help catch Corey.
Granted I didn't arrest her or build a case that
I could take to court. I don't take any credit
(29:18):
for that, and anybody with half a brain knows that
a civilian can do that. But I do said I
contributed to it because I truly feel like I did.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Jess is proud of the work she and the online
sleuths did to bring to Lena's case to a close.
The true extent of how much they helped the investigation
and any ways they may have unintentionally hindered it will
likely come to light when Corey finally goes to trial
in Oklahoma. Jess will be right in the middle of
(29:50):
that too. It's still early days, but the defense has
indicated it plans to subpoena Jess as a witness. In
a court document, lawyer wrote that Jess would be expected
to testify about documents she provided to the police and
the DA and conversation she had with Nicole Marty, Corey's
(30:11):
ex Alec Adams, and other Wagner folk like Airis and Greg.
Jess would also be asked to testify about quote any
credentials she possesses regarding a homicide investigation.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I do, at this point feel like I'm almost a
Corey expert. I mean, when you stalk somebody essentially for
almost five years, you know them. I feel like I
know who she is. My obsession might be a problem.
This might be a problem, This might be an issue.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
A true crime obsession, coupled with the isolation of early
COVID is what got Jess and the online sleuths started
down this path. But as time passed, Rosie, Brittany and
the others moved on their real lives, taking over the
virtual ones they had created.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
I found out that I was actually pregnant, so I
remember I messaged them. I was like, hey, guys, I
don't know how much help I'm gonna be. I'm gonna
have to take a step back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
But I still follow all the.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Updates and stuff all the time, and I'll message her
and ask her about stuff.
Speaker 13 (31:23):
Slowly, as time has gone on, and this has sort
of become less of a forefront in our lives. You know,
we went from talking hours a day with each other
to less and less and less.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
For Jess this case, this calling only became more central
to her identity. The obsession grew shifted focus. These days,
the narrative just tells herself about what happened to Tolenazar.
Is less of a who done it and more of
an epic tale of good versus evil?
Speaker 14 (32:00):
And what did you learn about yourself during this process?
This five year process, I've.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Learned a lot about myself, some of it not so endearing.
Keep thinking about how I lied, and these people are
going to think my bad person. I think the biggest
thing I learned is that my sense of right and
wrong is very black and white. I don't have much
of a gray area anymore. I'm even lumping myself in
with the bad guys for being a liar.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
In this version of Jess's story, She's uneasy about some
of the things she did in her search for the truth,
but ultimately the ends justified the means. She took on
a villain and won.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Any regrets you have about getting involved, no, I think
the only thing I would have done differently is I
would have gone straight to Oklahoma. I think I would
have just driven there and help look for and confront
Corey literally had on I feel like, and I'm not
saying I could. I just a feeling that I had
is that I could have like provoked her enough to
(33:01):
get angry and say she did it. I would have
sat outside her house harassing her. Literally just sat there
and stared at her house until she came out and
blew up, and I could have got her in trouble
for something. That's my only regret is that I didn't
travel there. I don't regret this at all. I don't
think I ever will.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Teleina's murder trial is still very far off. First, Corey
must stand trial for attempted murder in Wisconsin, and Jess
will be there. Of course, she is now friends with
Sherry Ziegler and will be staying at her house, the
house where Risin was found while she attends Corey's trial.
(33:41):
Jess is eagerly anticipating the moment when she finally gets
to see Corey in person. In handcuffs, being held to account.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It would just be interesting to see how she acted
in the courtroom, and I could see her testify if
she will. I read a couple books on it, eating
body language, and I'm by no means an expert. I
read some books, but I feel like I could pick
up something on her. I just want to. I'd have
to know. I feel like it's a neat. It's not
even a want, It's like I need it. You're looking
(34:13):
at me like I might be crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Jess and Corey their fates forever intertwined. Jess is convinced
that Corey's got more to hide, that beyond Sherry Ziegler
and Tealina Tzar, there might be other victims in other states,
other bodies in remote forests. Who's going to dig up
that history if not her.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I think there's so much more to Corey and so
many more crimes. It feels like this isn't going to
be over for years. I really love to just when
she's convicted, sit down and be like, just tell me,
just tell me what else did you do so we
can all stop wondering. Because I don't think this is
ever going to be over for me. I know Corey's
(34:59):
done more just from knowing who she is. I know
she's done more.
Speaker 14 (35:04):
So you're not going to put it down.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I don't think I can. I don't know if I
want to. It's that terrible.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
A few weeks before the Wisconsin trial was scheduled to begin,
I got a series of text messages from Cheryl, Telena's sister.
After years of waiting, Tealina's body had been cremated and
her ashes sent back to her family in a box.
Cheryl purchased a special urn, white with purple butterflies, just
(35:55):
to Lena's style, and sent it to her mother. Talina's
mother placed the ashes into the urn by herself alone
in her apartment. She said it was her role to
lay Teleina to rest. Cheryl sent me a photo, and
I have to admit when I received this image, I
(36:18):
was hit with an overwhelming sense of relief. I have
felt for Teleina's family, particularly Telena's mother, and how difficult
it was not to have a place of memorial for her.
I'm glad that they at least got that, even as
they await answers on what happened to Teleina during her
final days. You can't see this photo, but I want
(36:41):
to describe it to you. At the top of a
bookshelf Toleina's urn sits between two framed photographs. On the right,
a picture of Teleina's brother as an infant, on the left,
a photo of Telena and Cheryl as toddlers, dressed in
matching white sweat and matching banks, smiling at the camera,
(37:03):
looking very much like twins. On this top shelf, the
family is together. Thank you for listening to What Happened
(37:36):
to Tealinazar. Although this is our last full episode, we
will be releasing bonus episodes from the Wisconsin trial and beyond,
so make sure you're subscribed. I'm always looking for tips
and feedback, so if you have anything to share, you
can email me at m J E L. T. S
e n at gmail dot com. What Happened to Tealina
(38:03):
Czar is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
reported and hosted by me Melissa Jeltson, with writing and
story editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Carl Catele.
Fact checking by Maya Shukri Zoey Denkla is our associate producer.
(38:27):
Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original music by Aaron Kaufman,
with additional music by Jeremy Thal and Gideon Crevishet. Additional
sound design by Marita Spee. Episodes are mixed and mastered
by Carl Catle. Voice acting by Lizzie Gore, Chris Berry,
Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, Ethan Richard, and Molly Maslin. Our
(38:50):
logo is designed by Edo Moore. Thanks so much for listening.
Heads up to listeners. This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence.
Please take care while listening. In the summer of twenty twenty,
that first COVID summer, a few months after Teleina went missing,
before anyone had been arrested, a licensed realtor in Mina,
Arkansas gets a phone call. The person on the other
(00:24):
end of the line is a woman eager to buy
some land in the area, but not just any land,
a specific parcel. Here's how she later described that call,
as read by a voice actor.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
When I answered the phone, she said there was a
piece of property she wanted to buy.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
The realtor looks up the property on her computer. It's
a four acre plot of undeveloped forest in Arkansas.
Speaker 3 (00:49):
She asks the.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Woman if she wanted to be shown the property, they
could do a tour.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
And she said no, she had already looked at it,
she'd walked every step of it, and she just loved it.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
Weird but okay. Then the woman says she's planning to
live there, but the realtor can see from the plot's
description that that might be difficult.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
And I said, you do understand. There's no utilities, there's
no water, no electric nothing there.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
The woman is undeterred, and she said.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, I'm going to live there and I'm going to
buy this piece of property, and I want to buy
it today.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
A sale is a sale. So the realtor pulls up
some forms and asks for the woman's information.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
She said her name was Deb Bomily or something like that.
Her first name was Corey, but she said she didn't
use that name. She used the name of Deb.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Even though it's getting late in the day. The realtor
prepares a contract for the sale of the property and
Corey signs it just after midnight, but the contract is
rejected by the seller because of financing issues. The realtor
updates Corey.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
I talked to her several times and we text back
and forth because it was rejected, and she said she
still wanted to buy it, and I asked her how
she wanted to do that, and she said she was
going to sell some stuff and just come pay cash
for it.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
The realtor follows up to check on the progress of
Corey's cash flow.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
I called her and I never got a reply, so
that was the end. I just filed everything away.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
The property remains unsold. Seven months later, police will descend
on this unassuming plot of land off a dead end
logging road called Woody Lane from iHeart Podcasts. I'm Melissa Jell.
(03:01):
This is what happened to Telena's our.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
We could solve what happened, We could fix it. Maybe
the first thing that happened, she gets bad migraines.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
By then, we all had a suspicion that something bad
had happened.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
We're armchair investigators over here, so we just didn't know
something like that could have happened to Tolena.
Speaker 6 (03:23):
He was like, I've been talking to Corey trying to
get her to tell me what happened.
Speaker 7 (03:29):
So what happened?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
In a nutshell? And then Sherry told me the exact
story of what had happened.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
If you suspected something like that happened, who would be
the people you would suspect the most.
Speaker 8 (03:40):
All of a sudden move, already thought, no explanation, No,
this is what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
I don't know she was willing to forgive him for
whatever it happened, or maybe he had paid her back.
Speaker 8 (03:49):
Oh my god, this just certainly can't possibly be what happened.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
And I come back and crying.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
And everysing what happened, Episode eight Horizon. I want to
take you back to this moment when Telena's body is found.
It's the dead of winter in a forest in Arkansas,
and a deputy is standing over a white box freezer.
(04:20):
He opens the lid to find visible human remains, but
standing just a few paces behind him is a woman
watching all this unfold. She's the woman who found the
freezer and called the police. She's also the woman who
seven months earlier, saw a suspicious truck and trailer drive
(04:41):
down Woody Lane and Park. At that time, she wrote
down the license plate number of the truck on a
small piece of paper. Even though it's been seven months,
she still has it. The woman hands over the paper
to investigators. Police run the plates and they matched Tolena's truck,
(05:02):
the two thousand and seven Dodge Ram that Corey later
sold for scrap metal. This small piece of paper is
the evidence the detective Joel Weber has been waiting for.
Speaker 9 (05:13):
With this new information, investigators began looking again at the
data retreat from Corey Bamiley's cellular phones on previous search warrants.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
They discover evidence from Corey's phone that she had been
in the area of Arkansas, where Teleina's body was found
multiple times in June and July. And they also find
out that the very day that Teleina's truck was spotted
parked on Woody Lane, Corey tried to buy that exact property.
Speaker 9 (05:41):
Investigators found that corey bamily had been attempting to purchase
the very plot of land where the body was found
from a realtor in Mina, just hours after she was
seen there. The realtor advised Corey was adamant about purchasing
the land. Corey refused to meet the realtor to tour
the land, but stated she had already walked on every
(06:02):
foot of the property and demanded that she be able
to purchase it.
Speaker 1 (06:07):
Now able to connect Corey directly to Tellina's body, Wagner
detectives jump into action. They apply for an arrest warrant
for murder. Corey is currently living in Wisconsin with her mom, Janet,
so the Wagner cops coordinate with the Dane County Sheriff's
office in Wisconsin to track her down. On January twenty first,
(06:30):
twenty twenty one, a week after Tellina's body is discovered,
a few squad cars are dispatched to Janet's home with
no immediate sign of Corey. Police follow her mom as
she goes about her day. We've recreated what happened based
on police reports.
Speaker 10 (06:49):
Subjects seen departing the Meadow Road address on two separate occasions.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Sometime in the afternoon, Corey's mom leaves her house once
more and drives her Chevy Equinox to a mechanic.
Speaker 10 (07:02):
Subject parked in the parking lot for a number of
minutes before a second subject was observed walking towards the
Equinox and getting into the front passenger side seat.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Corey gets in the car with her mom behind the wheel.
Speaker 10 (07:15):
The decision was made to attempt a traffic stop in
the appropriate location and take Bamilei into custody on the
afforementioned warrant.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
But arresting Corey isn't going to be so easy.
Speaker 10 (07:26):
At approximately two forty two PM, I pulled behind the
vehicle and activated my squad's emergency red and blue lights
in an attempt to stop the vehicle. However, it did
not stop.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
I don't know what the conversation was in the car
between Corey and her mom, if she explained what was
happening or pretended to be clueless or if they honestly
didn't see the police car behind them, But they don't
pull over. Corey's mom keeps driving, so a deputy puts
on his siren.
Speaker 10 (07:56):
And again the vehicle did not pull over.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
One of the detectives in another squad car speeds up
and cuts in front of them.
Speaker 10 (08:03):
He did begin to break slightly, and it appeared as
though the operator then saw my squad behind her, and
she immediately pulled to the right shoulder of the road
and stopped.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Gun drawn, the deputy approaches Corey's side of the car
and tells her to step out of the vehicle.
Speaker 10 (08:19):
Bombily asked what am I under arrest for? And my
response was murder charges out of Oklahoma.
Speaker 1 (08:26):
Corey also wants to know had they found her missing
roommate's body. The next day, Wagner County District Attorney Jack
Thorpe updates the public on Corey's arrest.
Speaker 10 (08:43):
I charged her.
Speaker 11 (08:44):
With first degree murder of Tolina Galloway, and we allege
that those crimes did occur here in Wagner County, Oklahoma.
Speaker 12 (08:51):
Corey Bomily is also charged with desecration of a corpse.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
She is presumed innocent.
Speaker 11 (08:57):
Of both of those charges, and that presumption will remain
throughout the duration of this investigation and prosecution up to
and if she is proven guilty by proof beyond a
reasonable doubt.
Speaker 12 (09:12):
It is very important for me to note to you
this that this is still a very active investigation and
it will remain so for some time after today. If
you do have any information, or you may know of
someone that has some relation or knows something about this case,
please have that person contact the Wagner County Sheriff's Office.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I would agree that I have never had a case
involving these kinds of details.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
After her arrest for murder, Corey retains a lawyer, Janet Hudson,
who defends her client in an interview with KATUL, a
television station out of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think she's shocked. I think she's concerned. Anybody who's
been charged with such a serious assas should be shocked
and should be concerned.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
Corey's lawyer adds that she's worried about her client getting
a fair trial.
Speaker 8 (10:09):
I realize there are going to be those that see
this as sensational and frightening and have opinions, and I
have to fight against that.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Soon afterwards, Corey is extradited from Wisconsin to Wagner. A
short video taken by a local reporter shows her in
handcuffs being escorted by police into the station. She's walking
with her head down, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Corey,
what do you have to say about Telena's family, Corey says, nothing.
(10:44):
Doesn't even look back. More than four years later, as
I write this episode in June twenty twenty five, Corey
is still awaiting trial on these charges.
Speaker 13 (11:00):
One day, I was driving on the freeway, riding in
the freeway with my husband, and we passed a trailer
that had a freezer on it.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
The details of Teleina's death, they'd be difficult for anyone
to stomach. Here's Nicole, Talina's friend in Tennessee, who still
fills the trauma long after receiving the news.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And again, I just had a complete meltdown. I had
to get him to pull over because I couldn't be
next to that freezer on that trainer.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Talina's friends have had a lot of time to ruminate
on the events that occurred in the beginning of the pandemic.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
Here's Greg to you know, basically, murdered her and chop
her up and put her somewhere where nobody would ever
find or it just I Caro, in the world can
somebody even contemplate doing so? How evil can one person
(11:59):
really be? Tolena was a good lady and did not
deserve what happened to her. For me to be involved
in this whole situation just blows my mind. And like
I said, I live a really boring life here in Oklahoma,
and me and my wife we watch tram stories, but
for us to live you know, living Wood, it's totally different,
(12:21):
and it makes us not want to trust anybody. It
makes us look at people a little bit differently now
and be a little bit more untrusting about what they're
saying or what they're telling us. And I don't want
to be that type of person because I feel like
I'm a person of faith and I feel like I
want to get everybody the opportunity to prove me wrong,
(12:45):
you know, show me that they're bad. But you know,
through this Coury situation, I I look at people a
lot differently now.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
For Tolena's Oklahoma friends in particular, it's hard to wrap
their heads around what Corey's been accused of Within months
of Corey settling into Wagner, she had woven herself into
their worlds, eating dinner in their homes and sharing beers
around backyard fires. Was she manipulating them the whole time?
(13:18):
Was she waiting for just the right opportunity to enrich
herself or to pull off some long held devious fantasy.
Neighbors are left re examining every moment with her, wondering
if she exploited their goodwill. For Greg, it's the mattress
frame he discarded for Corey that bothers him the most.
(13:41):
Did his actions help Corey get away with murder for
a while? At least?
Speaker 5 (13:47):
I look back on that and I'm like, oh, I
just still at that point didn't even have a clue
of what was transpiring, what had happened, And she was
that comfortable around us and doing the things that she
was doing under our noses. You know what, what else
is she capable of? Or what has she done in
(14:10):
the past.
Speaker 6 (14:12):
No one ever really prepares you for her, small men.
Speaker 7 (14:14):
There's no amounts of training that can't prepare you for
how to feel or what to.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Expect for Aris. She can't stop thinking about this moment
a week after Telena went missing, when she brought over
sausage that Telena had paid for, but Corey wouldn't take it.
Speaker 8 (14:34):
She wasn't me and said, you guys should go ahead
and take it. Our creator is stuffed full of meat.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
I didn't find out about how she was found until obviously.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Months months, months, months after that interaction.
Speaker 8 (14:49):
But what I read the details is how her remains
were found.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
I collapsed.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Well, I connected those who coming back conversation that information together.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
How would you say that?
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Certain stories from Corey's past also take on new meaning,
like the rumor she once worked at a coroner's office,
or how she told people she cut up her horse.
Here's Rachel, Telena's friend and fellow animal lover.
Speaker 14 (15:20):
She had this.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Horse dye and apparently it had this horse for yours.
Instead of calling somebody to come pick this animal up
and or even finding somebody with a back hoe that
could help her bury it, she cut it up like
it was literally just a piece of meat.
Speaker 5 (15:39):
What who even knows how to do some work like that?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Whoever did cut up Telena's body appeared to have had practice.
The Arkansas Medical Examiner who performed Telena's autopsy, setting court
documents that the dismemberment appeared to be almost expertly done.
The incision point points were so clean, so precise, that
there was only one cut mark on a bone, no
(16:06):
saw or chop marks at all. The medical examiner added
that the way it was done required some knowledge of
how joints are structured so that they could be cut
around and the limbs removed. As far as the cause
of Telena's death, the medical examiner found that she died
from blunt force trauma to the skull. Because of the
(16:30):
lack of injuries on the rest of her body, he
believed she was killed before she had a chance to
defend herself.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
What do I think happened? Like my theory.
Speaker 1 (16:43):
In the years since Corey's arrest, Jess our internet sleuth
in Minnesota, has had plenty of time to refine her
theory of what exactly happened to telena'sar I asked her
to lay it out from start to finish her best guess,
based on the research she's done and the people she's
talked to.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
I think Telina found out that Corey had either opened
a credit card in her name or ad used one
without her permission, and then once the pandemic hit, Teleina
was no longer traveling for work and she was home
looking at the bills, and that's when she found it,
and I think she confronted Corey and told her she
had to leave. But I think Corey also played to
(17:23):
Telina's feelings and was like, I have nowhere to go,
give me some time. After speaking to her ex husbands,
I learned that Corey was all about waiting on end
times of sorts, and I think she believed that that
was coming. When COVID hit, she thought this is it
and that's when everything started to spiral.
Speaker 9 (17:42):
The mayor today calling the spread unpredictable and.
Speaker 10 (17:47):
When get indicated, they die.
Speaker 3 (17:50):
The psycho repeat, and that's when Corey started planning her murder.
I think she either poisoned her over time to make
her week, or slip something into her food or drink
that night's make her extra sleepy.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
She was going to lay down.
Speaker 8 (18:01):
For a while and said that she would chat with
her later.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
And once Teleina was completely out, Corey probably hit her
in the back of the head. I think she started
cutting her up in the bathtub in the master bedroom
because it was big, and then I think after that
she moved her into the garage and finished there because
that's where the freezer was and it was closest.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
When we got to the kitchen, we noticed the freezer
was not there.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
I think she then wracked up Telina in garbage bags
and put her in the freezer and waited. Eventually she
brought the freezer in the white trailer over to Billie's
and plugged it in to keep the body frozen.
Speaker 5 (18:45):
Saw an orange extension cord going into the back of
this trailer. That's weird.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
And then when she went to the interview with Weber,
he asked her about the trailer and she freaked out,
and that's why she sold it and rented the U haul.
Speaker 9 (18:58):
They said there was some sort of travel trailer in
the driveway, a white cargo trailer.
Speaker 5 (19:04):
Yeah, it's old.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
She took the truck, hitched up the rented trailer with
the freezer, and drove to Arkansas to the remote property
she'd been looking at buying.
Speaker 2 (19:12):
And she said, well, I want to buy it today.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
After she returned, she scrapped the truck and tried to
tie up loose sentence, but the truck was in too
good of shape to actually scrap so it raised some alarms.
As for the motive, Corey had nothing. She had no job,
no money, no car. The car she was even driving,
the G six, belonged to Telina, So.
Speaker 9 (19:37):
Doing things as an executor before we know she's dead
is presumptuous.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
And she realized she'd been caught and she started scrambling,
and there's really nothing else.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
Jess has had little doubt about Corey's guilt pretty much
from the beginning, but today she is still on shore.
If Corey acted alone and if Marty was involved in
any way. She even shared these concerns with the district attorney.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
I get the number for Jack Thorpe, and I put
Rosie on three way on conference, and I said, will
you just mute yourself and just be there, like emotionally,
just just so I know somebody else is there. And
I can remember what said later on like I'm really upset,
And I said, I think Marty helped. I literally told him,
I'm positive in my mind that he had something to
(20:29):
do with all of this.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Jess mentioned that she had been communicating with Marty regularly
throughout this whole time. She had a lot of material
that could potentially be useful.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
I shared an album with him on Facebook, I think
the same one that I shared with you, because he
wanted all of our screenshots, but two and two together.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Still, after their call, Jess was left with the distinct
feeling that the DA disapproved of how much she inserted
herself into the case.
Speaker 3 (20:57):
He was kind of scolding me. I mean, he made
me feel I'm sure he's really good at his job.
I'm not saying he's not saying his bedside manner. Maybe
isn't that cool. He made me feel like I was
responsible for something that I'm not the police.
Speaker 6 (21:10):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (21:12):
I'm some girl just on the internet and I didn't know.
I didn't know what I had until afterwards.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Since Corey's arrest for Telena's murder, she's also been charged
with attempted murder in Wisconsin, accused of trying to fatally
poison her former neighbors, Sherry and Mike Siegler using homemade ricin.
Speaker 7 (21:38):
We came home to stuff kitty litter or broken sheet
rock material scattered throughout our house, especially on my side
of the bed and in my underwear drawer. This was
very personal and I felt particularly scared.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
It's unclear why but prosecutors decided Corey should face charges
in Wisconsin first before standing trial for Telena's murder. The
rice In trial has been delayed for years, but finally
it's scheduled to take place in June twenty twenty five,
just a week after this episode airs. I'll be attending
(22:16):
and I'll update you all from Wisconsin. Still there's no
trial date set for the murder of Tilena. Her loved
ones are waiting, clinging to the hope that a murder
trial will bring long overdue answers about what really happened
in the confusing, chaotic early days of the pandemic. There's
(22:38):
no question that COVID hindered the efforts of the official investigation,
made it harder to see people behind their masks, isolation, fear, distraction.
These were unprecedented challenges in a world gone mad for
a while, and maybe that's exactly what the perpetrator was
(22:59):
hoping for. Talina's family worries that the more time passes,
the harder it may get to prosecute the case, that memories,
evidence could be lost to the winds of time.
Speaker 8 (23:12):
There's the typical process of this, there's the murder, the investigation, hopefully.
You know, somebody is a family you know and arrested,
you know, and the family, you know, they bury their
loved one and then two three years down the road
(23:36):
there's a trial as typical. Correct, That is not our case.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Over many conversations, Talina's sister, Cheryl told me that her
family was struggling with the fact that Talina's body wasn't
yet cremated according to her wishes, They were unable to
give her a final resting place.
Speaker 8 (24:00):
We do not blame authorities. What happened was they determine
that they needed her body. This case is more circumstantial
than evidence wise because of the time frame she went missing.
The body wasn't found for several months, badly decomposed in
(24:21):
a freezer, and so they said we need to keep
the body. We haven't. It's beyond the initial trauma. It
She just said, when I woke up today, she is
in pieces in a freezer. In my moon't and we
(24:45):
woke up today, she's in pieces in a freezer. When
we woke up yesterday, she was a piece of in
a freezer, And when we wake up tomorrow she will
be in pieces in a freezer. And that's our reality.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
We accept that.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
It doesn't mean it's easy. In fact, it's gotten harder.
Our biggest source of pain in a lot of ways
is how much pain my mom is seen. Her horrific
grief that my fore mom, she's in worse pain for
(25:32):
her entire exists. Is the worst pain anyone could ever feel.
And we can't do anything to consult her. And we
know that.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
For many years after Telena's murder, her family did not
speak openly about what happened.
Speaker 8 (25:54):
I had worked at my place of work for eighteen years.
I know many people, I work with them four years,
and until about a year ago, a year ago, for
the very first time I uttered the words to someone
outside the family, my sister was murdered. It took me
(26:16):
that well to be able to save those words to
someone else. She can't tell, she said, you know, moham,
I can't. I've never even talked.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
About this.
Speaker 8 (26:31):
Until she said a couple of months ago, her good friend,
she said, she was telling me about some mystery things
she'd seen on TV, a dateline type of thing. You know,
as she said, my aunt was murdered, the first time
she had uttered those words. And all of this time,
my oldest daughter Serisia's never ever said anything outside the family.
(26:56):
Teacher and my youngest daughter, Telsea her too. I know
my mom outside of the coach. He has a small
church group, so of course you know the news got there.
Outside of that, no, nobody. We haven't been able to
even say it outside of our own in our own
(27:21):
world that is so raw and painful because of where
we're trapped.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
Agreeing to do this podcast has meant that Cheryl has
been able to talk more openly about Telena to me,
to the world, but also to her family, and those
long overdue conversations seem like the next step in a
healing process.
Speaker 8 (27:53):
We haven't lost side. We have the horizon. We are
still looking at the horizon. We know these days will ahead,
these times will come. We will be able to gather,
lay flowers and remember my mom. Her biggest fear that
she expresses is she says, I don't want her to
(28:17):
be forgotten. And I know she says that because there
is not a gathering place of remembrance yet for her,
and for some reason in her she fears her daughter
will just be forgotten.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
I'm just really grateful that you decided to do this
for to Lena not for me, but for her. Everybody's
going to know, hopefully, and I think they need to.
Speaker 14 (28:53):
When you tell people about this whole thing, like how
do you explain it to people?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Like what you were involved in? Usually tell people I
helped solve a murder, because I do feel like the
effort that I put forth, along with you know, Nicole
and all the people I talked to, did help catch Corey.
Granted I didn't arrest her or build a case that
I could take to court. I don't take any credit
(29:18):
for that, and anybody with half a brain knows that
a civilian can do that. But I do said I
contributed to it because I truly feel like I did.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
Jess is proud of the work she and the online
sleuths did to bring to Lena's case to a close.
The true extent of how much they helped the investigation
and any ways they may have unintentionally hindered it will
likely come to light when Corey finally goes to trial
in Oklahoma. Jess will be right in the middle of
(29:50):
that too. It's still early days, but the defense has
indicated it plans to subpoena Jess as a witness. In
a court document, lawyer wrote that Jess would be expected
to testify about documents she provided to the police and
the DA and conversation she had with Nicole Marty, Corey's
(30:11):
ex Alec Adams, and other Wagner folk like Airis and Greg.
Jess would also be asked to testify about quote any
credentials she possesses regarding a homicide investigation.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I do, at this point feel like I'm almost a
Corey expert. I mean, when you stalk somebody essentially for
almost five years, you know them. I feel like I
know who she is. My obsession might be a problem.
This might be a problem, This might be an issue.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
A true crime obsession, coupled with the isolation of early
COVID is what got Jess and the online sleuths started
down this path. But as time passed, Rosie, Brittany and
the others moved on their real lives, taking over the
virtual ones they had created.
Speaker 6 (31:04):
I found out that I was actually pregnant, so I
remember I messaged them. I was like, hey, guys, I
don't know how much help I'm gonna be. I'm gonna
have to take a step back a little bit.
Speaker 3 (31:15):
But I still follow all the.
Speaker 6 (31:18):
Updates and stuff all the time, and I'll message her
and ask her about stuff.
Speaker 13 (31:23):
Slowly, as time has gone on, and this has sort
of become less of a forefront in our lives. You know,
we went from talking hours a day with each other
to less and less and less.
Speaker 1 (31:38):
For Jess this case, this calling only became more central
to her identity. The obsession grew shifted focus. These days,
the narrative just tells herself about what happened to Tolenazar.
Is less of a who done it and more of
an epic tale of good versus evil?
Speaker 14 (32:00):
And what did you learn about yourself during this process?
This five year process, I've.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
Learned a lot about myself, some of it not so endearing.
Keep thinking about how I lied, and these people are
going to think my bad person. I think the biggest
thing I learned is that my sense of right and
wrong is very black and white. I don't have much
of a gray area anymore. I'm even lumping myself in
with the bad guys for being a liar.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
In this version of Jess's story, She's uneasy about some
of the things she did in her search for the truth,
but ultimately the ends justified the means. She took on
a villain and won.
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Any regrets you have about getting involved, no, I think
the only thing I would have done differently is I
would have gone straight to Oklahoma. I think I would
have just driven there and help look for and confront
Corey literally had on I feel like, and I'm not
saying I could. I just a feeling that I had
is that I could have like provoked her enough to
(33:01):
get angry and say she did it. I would have
sat outside her house harassing her. Literally just sat there
and stared at her house until she came out and
blew up, and I could have got her in trouble
for something. That's my only regret is that I didn't
travel there. I don't regret this at all. I don't
think I ever will.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Teleina's murder trial is still very far off. First, Corey
must stand trial for attempted murder in Wisconsin, and Jess
will be there. Of course, she is now friends with
Sherry Ziegler and will be staying at her house, the
house where Risin was found while she attends Corey's trial.
(33:41):
Jess is eagerly anticipating the moment when she finally gets
to see Corey in person. In handcuffs, being held to account.
Speaker 3 (33:51):
It would just be interesting to see how she acted
in the courtroom, and I could see her testify if
she will. I read a couple books on it, eating
body language, and I'm by no means an expert. I
read some books, but I feel like I could pick
up something on her. I just want to. I'd have
to know. I feel like it's a neat. It's not
even a want, It's like I need it. You're looking
(34:13):
at me like I might be crazy.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Jess and Corey their fates forever intertwined. Jess is convinced
that Corey's got more to hide, that beyond Sherry Ziegler
and Tealina Tzar, there might be other victims in other states,
other bodies in remote forests. Who's going to dig up
that history if not her.
Speaker 3 (34:38):
I think there's so much more to Corey and so
many more crimes. It feels like this isn't going to
be over for years. I really love to just when
she's convicted, sit down and be like, just tell me,
just tell me what else did you do so we
can all stop wondering. Because I don't think this is
ever going to be over for me. I know Corey's
(34:59):
done more just from knowing who she is. I know
she's done more.
Speaker 14 (35:04):
So you're not going to put it down.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
I don't think I can. I don't know if I
want to. It's that terrible.
Speaker 1 (35:32):
A few weeks before the Wisconsin trial was scheduled to begin,
I got a series of text messages from Cheryl, Telena's sister.
After years of waiting, Tealina's body had been cremated and
her ashes sent back to her family in a box.
Cheryl purchased a special urn, white with purple butterflies, just
(35:55):
to Lena's style, and sent it to her mother. Talina's
mother placed the ashes into the urn by herself alone
in her apartment. She said it was her role to
lay Teleina to rest. Cheryl sent me a photo, and
I have to admit when I received this image, I
(36:18):
was hit with an overwhelming sense of relief. I have
felt for Teleina's family, particularly Telena's mother, and how difficult
it was not to have a place of memorial for her.
I'm glad that they at least got that, even as
they await answers on what happened to Teleina during her
final days. You can't see this photo, but I want
(36:41):
to describe it to you. At the top of a
bookshelf Toleina's urn sits between two framed photographs. On the right,
a picture of Teleina's brother as an infant, on the left,
a photo of Telena and Cheryl as toddlers, dressed in
matching white sweat and matching banks, smiling at the camera,
(37:03):
looking very much like twins. On this top shelf, the
family is together. Thank you for listening to What Happened
(37:36):
to Tealinazar. Although this is our last full episode, we
will be releasing bonus episodes from the Wisconsin trial and beyond,
so make sure you're subscribed. I'm always looking for tips
and feedback, so if you have anything to share, you
can email me at m J E L. T. S
e n at gmail dot com. What Happened to Tealina
(38:03):
Czar is a production of iHeart Podcasts. It's written and
reported and hosted by me Melissa Jeltson, with writing and
story editing by Lauren Hansen. Our executive producer is Ryan Murdoch.
For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are Jason English and Carl Catele.
Fact checking by Maya Shukri Zoey Denkla is our associate producer.
(38:27):
Jeremy Thal is our editor. Original music by Aaron Kaufman,
with additional music by Jeremy Thal and Gideon Crevishet. Additional
sound design by Marita Spee. Episodes are mixed and mastered
by Carl Catle. Voice acting by Lizzie Gore, Chris Berry,
Stephanie Frame, Pete Monica, Ethan Richard, and Molly Maslin. Our
(38:50):
logo is designed by Edo Moore. Thanks so much for listening.
Host
Melissa Jeltsen
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