November 22, 2023 • 39 mins
Air Force Staff Sergeant Nathan Paet was shot multiple times in his garage in Las Vegas, Nevada on December 1, 2010. The motive behind the murder was revealed to be a life insurance policy taken out by Paet, with his wife, Michelle, as the beneficiary. Michelle Paet and her boyfriend, Michael Rodriguez, were arrested and charged in connection with the murder, leading to a high-profile trial that unfolded the details of the conspiracy to commit the crime.
Sources for this episode:
Oxygen - Why Was Military Staff Sgt. And Devoted Dad Of Four Gunned Down Outside His Las Vegas Home?
Review Journal - Man gets life in prison without parole for slaying of Nellis airman
Cinemaholic - Nathan Paet Murder: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
KSNV 3 News - Michelle Paet sentenced to life without parole for conspiring to kill her husband
American Monster - Season 3 Episode 6, Watch Your Back
Sources for this episode:
Oxygen - Why Was Military Staff Sgt. And Devoted Dad Of Four Gunned Down Outside His Las Vegas Home?
Review Journal - Man gets life in prison without parole for slaying of Nellis airman
Cinemaholic - Nathan Paet Murder: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
KSNV 3 News - Michelle Paet sentenced to life without parole for conspiring to kill her husband
American Monster - Season 3 Episode 6, Watch Your Back
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe most June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some you haven't, and some
you'll wish you hadn't, all witha Texas twang. All right, well,
welcome everyone. We're so glad you'rehere. Absolutely, and if you're
(00:54):
here for the first time, goback and just choose an episode that you
want to hear and just star aren'tthere and just listen to all of them.
Yeah yeah, I say, doit, bing it. It's worth
it. Maybe not, but we'regoing to pretend it is. It's absolutely
worth it. I think it is. I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
(01:15):
Anyway, what's in your mud today? Well, in my mug,
I am actually just drinking the breakfastblend coffee with a French vanilla creamer because
you know, I just just Ihad to. I had to. But
I can say because the weather finallyis starting to cool off again, I'm
(01:37):
actually gonna go to the box opodsand I feel unfortunately there's a lot of
like pumpkin spice stuff in there,so I'm not I'm not one of those
people have fun. Okay, allright, well, thank you, thank
you very much. So what doyou have in your mug today? Probably
(02:00):
something that's gonna get me grounded becauseI didn't tell you. Uh oh,
I'm drinking my what No puppies,No, no, no, I do
not have puppies in my mug.I do have a puppy in my floor,
but not my mug. Okay,h No, I am drinking the
Biscoff coffee, yes, oh yeah, yes, oh my goodness. And
(02:25):
we got it on our trip toSan Francisco, and I ground up some
beans and I ruined me some ofthis coffee and it tastes so good.
It tastes very similar to the cookies. It goes really well with the cookies.
Because I do still have some ofmy cookies left because I have self
control, I have none and Ieat all of mine when we got back.
(02:50):
Yeah, I have. I havea few few little packages left.
That's why I got mine individually wrapped. They come in package. It's each
package has three in it. Yeah, so I did that that way,
I wouldn't eat them all at once. Huh. So I still have cookies
to go with my coffee. Veryvery nice. Anyway, this coffee is
delicious. It's creamy, It's gotlike a nutty flavor to it, almost
(03:15):
like a cookie flavor to it.It's got a little hint of cinnamon to
it, which I wasn't sure aboutthe cinnamon, because you can really smell
the cinnamon when you're like grinding thebeans and brewing the coffee, and I
was like, eh, that's reallystrong cinnamon. I'm not going to be
a fan of that. But it'snot a strong cinnamon. It's like just
a just a barely hint at theend cinnamon, and it's it is good.
(03:38):
Nice. Yeah, as soon I'mgoing to make some as well.
I'm thinking very soon because like Ishould be getting a couple of days off
because we do have Thanksgiving coming up, and so we want to wish everybody
happy Thanksgiving. So yes, soI'm gonna be home and so we want
(04:01):
to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving andsafe travel travels. If you're traveling,
it's me. I'm traveling. YeahI'm not yay, but yes, so
I do plan on making like alot of coffee and I'm gonna try mine.
I can't wait. It is good. You're gonna like it. Oh,
(04:24):
I'm excited and you're gonna like it. You're gonna like it, and
you're gonna be mad because you cannotorder it online? Really, oh my
god, Well we might just haveto take another trip. Then. I'm
just showing you. Yeah, youcan't order it online. You can't.
I was. I was surprised.Wow, I'm surprised too, I really
(04:46):
am. Yeah, me too.Well, I was shocked. I did
all sorts of internet sleuthing and couldnot find a word to order it online.
You can't order it online. Iwas very sad and crushed, as
were my in laws because I madethem try some a few weeks ago.
The first time I tried it andthere and my father in law was like,
(05:08):
oh my god, I need thiscoffee in my life. And I
was like, you can order itonline. I'm sure, no, you
can't. Ah. Well, thatmakes me sad, but kinda still makes
me happy because I have some soI still get to try it. Yeah,
I have very little left. Ionly have some left because I make
(05:29):
half a pot at a time.Mm hmm. So that's the only reason
I still have some left. Nice. Great, it's good. You're gonna
enjoy it. Well, I havea case for us today. I'm right
tea. We are gonna go todrum roll please Las Vegas, Nevada.
(05:51):
Ooh yes, please, unlet's winbig while we're there. That'd be nice.
Yeah, it'd be real nice.Did you know that Las Vegas,
when translated from Spanish to English,translates as the Meadows. Hmmm? Okay.
(06:12):
Now I've never been to Vegas,but isn't it in the middle of
a desert? Yeah, kinda,there's like nothing around really okay. I
was just making sure I wasn't crazy. Well, maybe they named it the
meadows because maybe some places are reallygreen and lush and things like that,
because you know, Hoover Dam isthere not far from okay, but it
(06:34):
was named Las Vegas long before anyof that came along. Well, I
don't know then, I don't knowanyway. It is the twenty fifth most
populous city in the United States andthe most populous city in Nevada, with
a population in twenty ten of aboutfive hundred and eighty four thousand. Wow.
(06:57):
And it is the sixth most visitedcity in the US. I can
see that, and I guarantee youNew York is like probably number one.
I can't remember. I think thatwe talk. I think it might be
number one. I know it followsbehind. The only ones I remember were
New York, San Francisco, LosAngeles, I don't want to say Orlando,
(07:20):
and then there was one or twomore and I don't remember where they
are. Yeah, wow, okay, all right, I have been to
San Francisco, Yes there, Ihave once and it had a lot of
fun. It was a lot offun. It's on the list. I
just haven't made it yet. Okay, all right. Well, so Nathan
(07:43):
Pyette and his wife Michelle met whilethey were in high school. They grew
up in Guam. They were reallyin love with each other, and shortly
after high school they had their firstson. They would end up having a
total of four kids by the way, oh wow, yeah, three boys
(08:03):
and one girl, but at thispoint they only have one. They just
have the one son. And afterhis son was born, Nathan felt the
pool to make sure that his littlefamily was taken care of to the best
of his abilities, so he joinedthe US Air Force. Nice after he
graduated boot camp his family was assignedto a base in Alaska, and off
(08:26):
they went to start their grand adventure. Oh, Alaska's cold, Yeah,
but I'm pretty sure it gets warmish in the summertime. Yeah, but
I I think that I heard themosquitoes are horrible. Okay, yeah,
I would believe that. Yeah.When Nathan's brother was getting married, Nathan
(08:50):
was his best man at his weddingand the couple had at the time of
this wedding, I want to saythey had three kids at the time of
the wedding, two boys and agirl. Anyway, this was a destination
wedding in Hawaii. Well, acouple had a blast. They went from
Alaska to Hawaii for this wedding.Like I would love to have had a
(09:16):
destination wedding. My destination wedding wasat the county courthouse. It's fine,
it's fine, no big deal,no regrets. I have no regrets about
it. I just wish I wasfancy enough to be able to afford a
destination wedding. Yeah. Well,you know, the good thing is you
didn't have a destination wedding. Butyou can go to destinations now, so
(09:41):
it's fine. You can go tomore than one and I've been doing that.
This has been a year of travelfor me. It's weird. It's
awesome. Weird. Anyway, backto our case today, all right.
Anyway, so they're in Hawaii.They're having a blast. They're enjoying the
weather, the scener the fact thatthey're with their family. You know,
(10:03):
it's just it's a great adventure.Nice. The following year, i want
to say it was about eleven monthsafter this wedding, they had their fourth
child, their third size. Okay, about a year after that, in
two thousand and eight, Staff SergeantNathan Pyette was given yet another assignment.
(10:26):
He and his family were headed tothe Air Force Base in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Nice, very very nice. Michelle was super excited about this.
She wanted to put roots down hereand to top it all off, the
cherry on the icing on the cakewas only it was only a five hour
drive from San Diego, where herbrother in law and sister in law lived,
(10:48):
along with their new baby. Oh, yes, that's awesome. Yes,
so they were. They were superexcited. Well, Nathan had a
seeker though. He had a bigold surprise for his wife. He had
secretly been squirreling away some money,which he used to put down as a
(11:11):
down payment on a twenty four hundredsquare foot house in an upscale neighborhood in
Nevada. Oh wow, that's awesome. Oh my god, and the bad
they need the square footage with fourkids. I know, they're a family.
That's crazy, I know. Butafter they got the house, they
(11:35):
were kind of starting to struggle alittle financially. Michelle isn't working, she's
staying at home with the kids,so they're depending on Nathan's Nathan's money.
He's not making bad money, buthe now has all these bills he has
to pay. Plus you know,he's feeding a family of six. Plus
he's got this big house payment thatthey didn't have before, you know,
(11:58):
so so money's a little tight.Michelle started getting a little bit more on
edge with the financial strain that wasgoing on, and she was getting a
little more upset, a little moreagitated. So Nathan got to thinking what
can I do to help my family? And he was like, oh,
I have it. So in twothousand and nine, just a year later,
(12:20):
he put in for a voluntary assignmentoverseas and he went to Iraq,
which would give him a decent paybump and Michelle got a part time job
for a telemarketing company. Okay,okay, this guy's got a plan about
everything. That's awesome. Yeah forsure. He's like, yeah, getting
(12:45):
it, getting it, getting it. So he left for his overseas assignment
in June of two thousand and nine. Christmas two thousand and nine, six
months later, he returns home.He's happy to be back home with his
family, and with the extra moneyhe got from his overseas assignment, they
had a wonderful Christmas. He wasable to give his family all kinds of
(13:07):
good stuff for Christmas, and thingsseem to be getting back on track for
the family of six. Nathan wasdescribed as always being the life of the
party. He liked having his friendsover to the house, to seeing karaoke.
He was when he was at hisbrother's wedding. He was the cameraman
for you know, the rehearsal dinnerand the reception and all that, and
(13:31):
he's just behind the camera and he'sgoing around everywhere getting everybody involved. And
he's just always gregarious. That's agood word. He was very gregarious and
outgoing and just in your face thereright right, making sure everybody's having a
good time too. Yes. Yeah. At this point though, Michelle started
(13:52):
feeling like she couldn't quite join inon the fund since she has her kids,
she has this new job, andshe was going to school though I'm
not sure exactly what she was goingto school for. Like she would go
to work and then she would goto school after that, and then she
would come home. But I don'tknow what exactly what she was going to
school for. So, but itseemed like her and Nathan were kind of
(14:13):
starting to drift apart a little bitbecause he's busy working, she's busy working,
going to school, et cetera,et cetera. Right, life,
life happens. Yes, and they'vegot four kids, m Yes, and
you know, a couple of themare are little, they're little kids.
The youngest was born in what twothousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
(14:37):
something like that. Yeah, we'rein twenty ten, so the youngest
is like three yeah, yeah,yeah, so I remember three year old
days. Don't want to go backme neither. Well, in twenty ten,
it's now Thanksgiving time. His brother, Nathan's brother and his family come
(15:01):
up to Nathan's and Michelle's house.To have Thanksgiving dinner, and you know,
they get there and they said,you know that Michelle and Nathan were
a little different. They seemed alittle more strained. Something was off kilter,
but they couldn't quite figure out what. Okay, okay, just something
in general, but they knew itwas something right. You could like feel
(15:24):
the tension in the air, okay, Michelle confided in her to her sister
in law. You know, whenher sister in law said, you know,
hey, is everything going okay?She said, you know, there's
there's just a lot going on.There's just a lot going on, and
that's all she would say. Hisbrother assumed he was having some financial difficulty
because there wasn't like a whole lotof food in the cabinets or the fridge
(15:46):
or anything like that, you know, And he noticed that his brother was
more withdrawn, more quiet, standoffish, a little seemed a little more
tense. And when he asked hisbrother about it, the only thing Nathan
would tell him was it's complicated,bro, It's complicated. But he wouldn't
(16:06):
elaborate. Okay. So three dayslater, the brother's family packs up to
load up and go back to SanDiego, and they said that the goodbye
this time was a little a littlemore weird, Like Nathan was a little
closer to them when they were gettingin their car, and he walked with
(16:27):
them much further out, and hewas just like on top of their car
and in the way of them gettingin their car and leaving, almost like
a I don't want you to go, or be take me with you,
or almost like he had something hewanted to tell them. He just didn't
know how to tell them, orhe hadn't quite worked up the nerve to
(16:48):
just blurt it out yet, andhe was trying to get there, but
he just never could. So thefamily leaves. They finally, you know,
they say their goodbye leave and thebrother said, you know, hey,
maybe we should go back, andhis wife said, you don't know,
you know, whatever it is thathe wanted to tell us, if
(17:10):
he wanted to tell us, he'dtold us before we left. Like he's
had three days, four days,you know, and he hasn't said anything.
He's not ready to tell you yet. It's fine. So they went
on home. Well, now we'reup to December first, twenty ten,
just a few days after Thanksgiving.At eleven thirty pm, Michelle calls nine
to one one to say that Nathanhad been shot and was bleeding in her
(17:36):
floor. Oh no, of course, cops get there super fast and they
find her holding Nathan, who hadbeen shot in the neck. He's not
able to speak. They rush himto the hospital, you know, because
the ambulance is hot on the copshills. They rush him to the hospital,
but unfortunately there was nothing the doctorscould do, and Nathan did pass
(17:56):
away. Oh no, this poorfamily. He was twenty eight years old.
Oh my goodness, yeah, ohmy goodness. Well, they talked
to the wife there at the sceneimmediately, you know, to try and
get a timeline of events so thatthey can get, you know, nowhere
(18:17):
to start to look for the killer, right right, What happened? What
happened? And she said, youknow that he had gone outside to get
ready for work, and then sheheard a lot of gunshots and he stumbled
into the house from the garage andhe was covered in blood and she freaked
out and called the cops. Andhere we are, I mean, sounds
plausible to me. Yeah, Sothe cops ended up taking her down to
(18:38):
the station a little bit later fora formal statement to get a formal statement
from her, and what she toldthe cops was, you know, the
day that her husband had been killedwas a little bit different from their normal
routine. She said that usually afterwork she would go straight to school and
(19:00):
she would stay there at school untilabout ten forty when or she would get
home from school at about ten forty, which was only five minutes before Nathan
had to leave out the door togo to work. Okay, that was
normal, but the day that hewas killed, she wasn't feeling real well,
so she came home from school early, and she got home at about
(19:21):
five thirty, and they kind ofsnuggled up on the couch and fell asleep
and started taking a nap or whateveron the couch, and Nathan's alarm either
didn't go off or he didn't turnit on, or she's not real sure
what happened, but they woke uplate. They woke up at about eleven,
and Nathan's like, oh my gosh, I'm totally late for work.
(19:44):
And he starts rushing around the houseand he rushes upstairs to take a shower
real quick, and then he rushesdownstairs to go out the garage and put
his boots on and get his jacketand get in his truck and leave and
go to work. Okay, Andshe said when he went out into the
garage, that's when she heard theshot. The cops were like, well,
why didn't you go out there tocheck on him? And she was
like, well, I heard theshots, the kids heard the shots.
We were all scared. And hestumbled in right after. And you know,
(20:07):
so that's why, Okay, I'msorry. If I hear gunshots,
I'm not running towards them either.Well I'm not either, but a cop
is trained to do that. Sothat's probably what they think somebody's first reaction
should be, because that should bea cops first reaction, right, right,
But I'm not a cop. I'mnot gonna That's not what I'm gonna
(20:30):
do. Well, this, thisneighborhood was not one that you would expect
a murder to occur in, Like, it was a nice, upscale,
hardly any crime ever here neighborhood,right, But occasionally things do spill over
into nice neighborhoods as well. Yeah, so the cops are thinking, well,
maybe this was a loan shark comingafter him because they've been having financial
(20:53):
trouble. Maybe he had a gamblingproblem and maybe that's why they have financial
difficulties, or maybe he had agirlfriend on the side. Oh, but
they found zero evidence of any ofthat. Okay. They found that Nathan
was nothing but a good guy,a family guy, doing his best to
(21:14):
take care of his family. Sothey're out talking to the people in the
neighborhood, you know, trying tosee, you know, hey, did
you hear anything, did you seeanything? You know, when when this
serviceman was killed, And they cameacross one neighbor, one neighbor that said,
yeah, I was I was outwalking my dog last night and I
heard the shots and I look overin the direction where the shots came from,
and I noticed it was at thePiette house. And I saw a
(21:37):
guy in a black hoodie running fromthe Piette House to this car. It
was like a four door car,maybe a Cadillac, and it was black.
Oh my goodness. And the copsare like really, and he's like
yeah, And when this guy jumpedin this car, the car just like
sped off really fast, and they'relike, all right, all right.
So they bring Michelle down to thestation again and they're talking to her and
(22:00):
they said, hey, you know, we got this lead on this car
because there's thousands of black Cadillacs inLas Vegas. So they ask her,
do you know of anybody that drivesa black Cadillac? And Michelle goes,
no, no, wait, yeah, I do this this guy, Michael
Rodriguez that I know he drives ablack Cadillac. And they're like, well,
(22:25):
who's Michael Rodriguez. She goes,He's this guy I work with.
He's a coworker of mine. We'rekind of friends, you know, like
work friends. M hm. Andthey're like, do you think he'd have
any reason to hurt your husband?And she's like, no, you know,
you just asked it if I knewanybody that drove a black Cadillac,
you know. And they're like,oh okay. So they go and they
(22:48):
do their fancy little cop Google andit turns out that Michael Rodriguez had a
record, oh one for anything major. He'd been convicted of attempted forgery,
you know, nothing violent or anything. And so they're like, hmm,
okay, but we're going to talkto him anyway because he does have a
black Catillac, right. So hecomes in to be questioned by the police
(23:11):
to be interviewed by him. He'sall cool, calm and collected, you
know, everything's fine. He evencalls his Beyonce to say that he's going
to be late because the cops wantto talk to him, and they're search
in his car and he starts talkingto the cops and you know, the
cops ask him about Michelle and he'slike, oh, yeah, you know,
we're work friends. That's all,you know, I know, we're
(23:32):
from work. And they're like,well there, you know there been any
anything not right between you and Michellethanky panky yeah, and he's like,
you know, well, okay,we're kind of flirty work friends, but
it's it's you know, not evergone anything further than you know, just
offhanded flirting at work, okay.And the cops are like, so no,
(23:55):
no, nothing, no, nofunny business and he's like no,
no, no, no, absolutelynot. We've joked about it, but
it's been a joke, you know, like like she's my work wife type
thing. Yeah, okay, Andthey're like, okay, well where were
you the night of the murder?And he had this fantastical meeting with this
(24:19):
ex porn star that he ran intoat a Walmart at like nine o'clock that
night, and he was like,hey, baby, let's go to this
hotel over here, and she's likeokay. And he said that they got
to the hotel at like eleven o'clockor midnight somewhere in between there. He's
not real sure where. He wasn'treally paying a whole lot of attention to
(24:40):
the time. And they get intothe room and it's like instat banging.
Oh and by the way, Ihave video evidence if you want to see
that. And the cops are like, uh no, bro, we're good.
I wonder if his fiance has seenthis and probably, Oh my god.
So they go to check it alRodriguez. Wow, damn, mister
(25:03):
Rodriguez. So they go to checkout his ALBI and confirm it. You
know, they find this lady andfirst they go to the hotel to pull
the security video footage and they dosee him and this lady walking in close
to midnight or so to check in. And they go in and they check
(25:25):
in and they go to the roomand they're in the room for hours and
hours and then they leave. Andso they go and they find his date
from that night and she says,you know, yeah, I was.
I was with him all night.Like it's yeah, it's it's true.
That's totally what happened. And thecops are like, okay, but uh
oh, I'm not sure I likethat. But but six days after Nathan
(25:51):
was killed, his albi, Michael'salibi, calls the cops and says,
hey, I need to come talkto you guys, and they said okay,
hey, m hmmm. So shecomes in and she says, look,
I've seen the news about this NathanPiet guy. He was killed in
his driveway the night that you know, I was with mister Rodriguez over here,
(26:14):
and I wasn't completely honest with youwhen I told you I was with
him all night. See what happenedwas uh oh. My my friend Jordana
over here, she called me andshe said, you know, hey,
my boyfriend Corey Hawkins and his friendMichael, Michael Rodriguez, they're gonna go
(26:36):
rob this drug dealer, and bothof these guys are gonna need an alibi.
Will you come be Rodriguez's alibi?And the porn star lady said sure,
why not? Like I don't haveany ething going this night, you
know, it's fine. Oh okay, and she said, you know,
so she goes to Jordana's apartment.By the way, Jordana is not her
(26:59):
real name. Okay, yeah,I kind of beggar that, but yeah,
I mean, okay, So shegoes to Jordana's apartment and she's hanging
out with Jordana waiting on the guysto show back up. And the guys
come in, she said, atabout eleven thirty. They rip off their
clothes, they throw them to Jordana, who throws them in the fireplace and
burns their clothes, and then herand Rodriguez rush out and they rush out
(27:22):
to the hotel where they check inand just you know, hang out for
a while. Okay, And theywere like, really, okay, So
his alibi's falling apart. He doesn'thave a violent history. His only connection
to Nathan is the fact that he'sMichelle's co worker. Like, this is
(27:44):
right, this is weird. Youknow what, yeah, what, this
is not making sense. On Decemberseventh of twenty ten, the base had
Nathan's memorial service there and you know, all of Nathan's family is there and
they realize, you know, hey, Michelle's not here, but that's not
(28:06):
you know, she's probably super traumatizedand super grieving and she just can't handle
being here. It's a week afterher husband was killed and basically died in
her arms. Yeah, so,I mean I kind of get that,
but still so, now the memorialservice at the base has is not like
a funeral memorial service. Okay,so it's just mainly for his immediate family
(28:33):
and his but more for like hisplatoon, his squadron or whatever they're called
in the Air Force, his workbuddies. Okay, for them to be
there, got you. But yeah, like I said, Michelle wasn't there,
and the family didn't think it tooodd. They're like, you know,
she's probably super grieving, too distraughtto be here, because it was
(28:56):
really hard for them to be there, but they went anyway, right.
What they didn't know was Michelle wasactually down at the police station being questioned
again. Oh wow wow, Okay. The cops told her that they had
looked into Rodriguez's phone and they hadfound some questionable text messages and they wanted
(29:19):
to ask her about them. Mhmmm. Rodriguez had evidently texted Michelle at
eleven twelve the night of the murder. He said hope you are feeling better,
just about done with Van Dyke's contractfor tomorrow. He's a pain in
the ass. And then two minuteslater he sent another text that said,
if you don't feel up to it, let me know and you can take
(29:41):
a few days to rest up.I appreciate your help. And then they
found that Michelle replied at eleven nineteenthat says, my husband just woke me
up and he's trying to rush outthe door. I guess he's late.
Lol. Sorry, that contract isa pain. And the cops were pretty
sure that they were talking about thismurder encoded texts. Hmm. But I
(30:03):
mean, to me, it justsounds like they're talking work, because she
worked at night anyway and took offearly, and so I mean, I
get it well. And they alsofound and showed Michelle that they saw where
she had text Rodriguez again two hoursafter her husband's death, a smiley face
(30:27):
emoji. Oh no, that doesnot look good over her. So they
asked her again, was it reallyjust a work friendship? And she said,
Okay, here's the thing, notreally, hmm girl. She admitted
(30:51):
that they were involved in a sexualrelationship of sorts. They would meet in
her car during their lunch breaks atwork, and she said that Nathan had
recently begun to suspect that she washaving an affair, though you know,
he wasn't really for sure. Herand Rodriguez had been talking about how to
(31:14):
kill Nathan. Wow, because Michelledidn't want to just leave him and divorce
him, because if she he waskilled while she was still married to him
and they were together, she wouldget two life insurance policies that Nathan had,
a four hundred thousand dollars life insurancepolicy provided by the military, and
(31:37):
an additional two hundred and fifty thousanddollars policy that they had separately from the
military policy. Wow. So sixhundred and fifty thousand dollars altogether. And
she wanted that money. Eh,greedy, greedy, greedy. Yeah,
(31:59):
so oh, she said. Youknow, but here's the thing. When
it came to the night of themurder, I was having second thoughts.
I didn't want to do it.I didn't want to go through with it.
So I turned Nathan's alarm off sothat his alarm wouldn't wake him up.
I didn't unlock his truck doors likelike Rodriguez had told me to.
I was doing everything I could tothwart this, you know, to sabotage
(32:23):
these murder plans. You know.I made sure that he was running late,
so that maybe Hawkins and Rodriguez wouldbe bored sitting out there waiting for
him, and they would leave beforehe ever left for work, and none
of this would happen. Right,The cops weren't really buying though. They
end up arresting Michelle Pyatt, MichaelRodriguez, Corey Hawkins, and his girlfriend
(32:51):
Jordana all in connection of the murderof Nathan because what had really happened,
Michael and Corey were waiting outside forhim to leave for work, and then
they were going to kidnap him,drive him out into the middle of the
desert, kill him, and leavehim there. But when they went to
(33:12):
the garage to get him and kidnaphim, Nathan was like, uh,
I don't know, you broke getout of here, like, are you
kidding me? Back off, andthat's when they shot him. Oh my
goodness. Rodriguez ended up being foundguilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to
commit murder and was sentenced to lifewithout parole. Nathan's family asked the prosecutors
(33:37):
to take the death penalty off thetable for Michelle because they said, it's
not going to do anything. I'drather she sit in prison and live with
the fact that she killed our brother, she killed our son, she killed
her children's bother, and they're goingto know that. We want her to
live with that. Yeah, Soshe agreed to plead guilty to first degree
(34:01):
murder and conspiracy to commit murder.She also got life without parole. Corey
Hawkins turns out he was a ninetime convicted felon h and he ended up
pleading to murder and burglary charges inorder to avoid the death penalty. He
swore Rodriguez was the trigger man,although Rodriguez swore Hawkins was, but the
(34:27):
porn star alibi lady said, well, Rodriguez told me that he shot him,
so they're pretty sure Rodriguez did theactual shooting, right, But guilty
by association on this dude, doesn'tmatter if he pulled the trigger or not.
You were involved. But Hawkins endedup getting life without parole. His
(34:49):
girlfriend, Jordana, she ended upstriking a plea deal with the prosecution,
and she pled guilty to conspiracy tocommit murder. But I couldn't find anything
about a sentence anywhere for her.Oh wow. And that's why I chose
not to use her real name,because if I looked in the offender registry
for Nevada, she's not listed inthere either. Even if she were out
(35:13):
on parole or probation or whatever,you know, the sentence would be,
she would have been listed there,right, And I couldn't find her listed
there at all. So I chosenot to use her real name because there's
probably a reason I can't find anythingabout a sentence for her. So true.
But yeah, that's my case.That's the murder of Nathan Piet.
(35:35):
His wife turned into a greedy psychobitch. And I want to say,
I read somewhere that his children arebeing raised by his parents in Guam.
Wow. Wow, So now hischildren actually end up getting the insurance money
(35:57):
and she gets nothing. Yeah,serves are right. Oh no, that's
right. She gets to set injail for a bir yes forever. Wow,
that's crazy. People don't be greedy, don't don't try to kill people.
(36:17):
No, No, that's not cool, bro. I don't care what
they say. If they say thecool kids are doing it, they're lying
to you. Oh yeah, theylie because you're not cool if you're doing
that. Wow, that's absolutely crazy. Yeah, it's just just walk away.
(36:40):
Just get divorced and walk away.Yeah, that's my advice. Yeah,
don't know. Yeah, I'm gokilling people. No, or don't
go trying to convince somebody else tokill some people. No, No,
it's crazy. And you know,don't get involved with your coworkers either.
(37:02):
I always heard my dad always toldme that you do not shit where you
eat, you know, and it'strue. Yeah now ew ew you know.
But yeah, that's my case.That's what I got for you this
week. We hope that you guyshave a super happy and safe Thanksgiving us
(37:28):
We did want to say one morething, and we'll probably say this at
the beginning of next week's episode becauseif some people are like me, they
might not listen to the end ofevery single episode, right right, So
just in case they skip this part, we'll announce it again next week.
But if you would like to joinour Patreon by December fifth, we will
(37:52):
be doing Christmas goodies for our Patreonmembers over there this year. Yes,
yes we will. If you joinat any level, you will have goodies
coming at you just make sure thatwe have you know, when you sign
up, you have your actual youryour current address so that you can receive
(38:13):
your goodies that we have for you. Yes, yeah, so yeah,
until December fifth to get that done. Nice, very very nice, and
I'm excited about that, so excited. And each different tier of the Patreon
membership gets different goodies. Sweet.Yeah, so you know, hop on
(38:38):
over there if you want to getin on any the Christmas gifts this year.
If not, that's totally fine,we get it. No heart feelings,
it's cool. But yeah, that'swhat we got for you this week.
We'll be back again next week withanother new episode. Hope you're here
again to listen to us babble onand on about probably some terrible, horrible
(39:00):
case and it will be until then. Bye, okay bye
Welcome to Crime on My Coffee.This podcast contains graphic descriptions and adult content
mature audiences only. Please Hi,y'all, and welcome to Crime with My
(00:31):
Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess withthe most June, and I'm Suzanne.
We're gonna tell you some stories you'veheard, some you haven't, and some
you'll wish you hadn't, all witha Texas twang. All right, well,
welcome everyone. We're so glad you'rehere. Absolutely, and if you're
(00:54):
here for the first time, goback and just choose an episode that you
want to hear and just star aren'tthere and just listen to all of them.
Yeah yeah, I say, doit, bing it. It's worth
it. Maybe not, but we'regoing to pretend it is. It's absolutely
worth it. I think it is. I like it. Yeah. Yeah.
(01:15):
Anyway, what's in your mud today? Well, in my mug,
I am actually just drinking the breakfastblend coffee with a French vanilla creamer because
you know, I just just Ihad to. I had to. But
I can say because the weather finallyis starting to cool off again, I'm
(01:37):
actually gonna go to the box opodsand I feel unfortunately there's a lot of
like pumpkin spice stuff in there,so I'm not I'm not one of those
people have fun. Okay, allright, well, thank you, thank
you very much. So what doyou have in your mug today? Probably
(02:00):
something that's gonna get me grounded becauseI didn't tell you. Uh oh,
I'm drinking my what No puppies,No, no, no, I do
not have puppies in my mug.I do have a puppy in my floor,
but not my mug. Okay,h No, I am drinking the
Biscoff coffee, yes, oh yeah, yes, oh my goodness. And
(02:25):
we got it on our trip toSan Francisco, and I ground up some
beans and I ruined me some ofthis coffee and it tastes so good.
It tastes very similar to the cookies. It goes really well with the cookies.
Because I do still have some ofmy cookies left because I have self
control, I have none and Ieat all of mine when we got back.
(02:50):
Yeah, I have. I havea few few little packages left.
That's why I got mine individually wrapped. They come in package. It's each
package has three in it. Yeah, so I did that that way,
I wouldn't eat them all at once. Huh. So I still have cookies
to go with my coffee. Veryvery nice. Anyway, this coffee is
delicious. It's creamy, It's gotlike a nutty flavor to it, almost
(03:15):
like a cookie flavor to it.It's got a little hint of cinnamon to
it, which I wasn't sure aboutthe cinnamon, because you can really smell
the cinnamon when you're like grinding thebeans and brewing the coffee, and I
was like, eh, that's reallystrong cinnamon. I'm not going to be
a fan of that. But it'snot a strong cinnamon. It's like just
a just a barely hint at theend cinnamon, and it's it is good.
(03:38):
Nice. Yeah, as soon I'mgoing to make some as well.
I'm thinking very soon because like Ishould be getting a couple of days off
because we do have Thanksgiving coming up, and so we want to wish everybody
happy Thanksgiving. So yes, soI'm gonna be home and so we want
(04:01):
to wish everybody a happy Thanksgiving andsafe travel travels. If you're traveling,
it's me. I'm traveling. YeahI'm not yay, but yes, so
I do plan on making like alot of coffee and I'm gonna try mine.
I can't wait. It is good. You're gonna like it. Oh,
(04:24):
I'm excited and you're gonna like it. You're gonna like it, and
you're gonna be mad because you cannotorder it online? Really, oh my
god, Well we might just haveto take another trip. Then. I'm
just showing you. Yeah, youcan't order it online. You can't.
I was. I was surprised.Wow, I'm surprised too, I really
(04:46):
am. Yeah, me too.Well, I was shocked. I did
all sorts of internet sleuthing and couldnot find a word to order it online.
You can't order it online. Iwas very sad and crushed, as
were my in laws because I madethem try some a few weeks ago.
The first time I tried it andthere and my father in law was like,
(05:08):
oh my god, I need thiscoffee in my life. And I
was like, you can order itonline. I'm sure, no, you
can't. Ah. Well, thatmakes me sad, but kinda still makes
me happy because I have some soI still get to try it. Yeah,
I have very little left. Ionly have some left because I make
(05:29):
half a pot at a time.Mm hmm. So that's the only reason
I still have some left. Nice. Great, it's good. You're gonna
enjoy it. Well, I havea case for us today. I'm right
tea. We are gonna go todrum roll please Las Vegas, Nevada.
(05:51):
Ooh yes, please, unlet's winbig while we're there. That'd be nice.
Yeah, it'd be real nice.Did you know that Las Vegas,
when translated from Spanish to English,translates as the Meadows. Hmmm? Okay.
(06:12):
Now I've never been to Vegas,but isn't it in the middle of
a desert? Yeah, kinda,there's like nothing around really okay. I
was just making sure I wasn't crazy. Well, maybe they named it the
meadows because maybe some places are reallygreen and lush and things like that,
because you know, Hoover Dam isthere not far from okay, but it
(06:34):
was named Las Vegas long before anyof that came along. Well, I
don't know then, I don't knowanyway. It is the twenty fifth most
populous city in the United States andthe most populous city in Nevada, with
a population in twenty ten of aboutfive hundred and eighty four thousand. Wow.
(06:57):
And it is the sixth most visitedcity in the US. I can
see that, and I guarantee youNew York is like probably number one.
I can't remember. I think thatwe talk. I think it might be
number one. I know it followsbehind. The only ones I remember were
New York, San Francisco, LosAngeles, I don't want to say Orlando,
(07:20):
and then there was one or twomore and I don't remember where they
are. Yeah, wow, okay, all right, I have been to
San Francisco, Yes there, Ihave once and it had a lot of
fun. It was a lot offun. It's on the list. I
just haven't made it yet. Okay, all right. Well, so Nathan
(07:43):
Pyette and his wife Michelle met whilethey were in high school. They grew
up in Guam. They were reallyin love with each other, and shortly
after high school they had their firstson. They would end up having a
total of four kids by the way, oh wow, yeah, three boys
(08:03):
and one girl, but at thispoint they only have one. They just
have the one son. And afterhis son was born, Nathan felt the
pool to make sure that his littlefamily was taken care of to the best
of his abilities, so he joinedthe US Air Force. Nice after he
graduated boot camp his family was assignedto a base in Alaska, and off
(08:26):
they went to start their grand adventure. Oh, Alaska's cold, Yeah,
but I'm pretty sure it gets warmish in the summertime. Yeah, but
I I think that I heard themosquitoes are horrible. Okay, yeah,
I would believe that. Yeah.When Nathan's brother was getting married, Nathan
(08:50):
was his best man at his weddingand the couple had at the time of
this wedding, I want to saythey had three kids at the time of
the wedding, two boys and agirl. Anyway, this was a destination
wedding in Hawaii. Well, acouple had a blast. They went from
Alaska to Hawaii for this wedding.Like I would love to have had a
(09:16):
destination wedding. My destination wedding wasat the county courthouse. It's fine,
it's fine, no big deal,no regrets. I have no regrets about
it. I just wish I wasfancy enough to be able to afford a
destination wedding. Yeah. Well,you know, the good thing is you
didn't have a destination wedding. Butyou can go to destinations now, so
(09:41):
it's fine. You can go tomore than one and I've been doing that.
This has been a year of travelfor me. It's weird. It's
awesome. Weird. Anyway, backto our case today, all right.
Anyway, so they're in Hawaii.They're having a blast. They're enjoying the
weather, the scener the fact thatthey're with their family. You know,
(10:03):
it's just it's a great adventure.Nice. The following year, i want
to say it was about eleven monthsafter this wedding, they had their fourth
child, their third size. Okay, about a year after that, in
two thousand and eight, Staff SergeantNathan Pyette was given yet another assignment.
(10:26):
He and his family were headed tothe Air Force Base in Las Vegas,
Nevada. Nice, very very nice. Michelle was super excited about this.
She wanted to put roots down hereand to top it all off, the
cherry on the icing on the cakewas only it was only a five hour
drive from San Diego, where herbrother in law and sister in law lived,
(10:48):
along with their new baby. Oh, yes, that's awesome. Yes,
so they were. They were superexcited. Well, Nathan had a
seeker though. He had a bigold surprise for his wife. He had
secretly been squirreling away some money,which he used to put down as a
(11:11):
down payment on a twenty four hundredsquare foot house in an upscale neighborhood in
Nevada. Oh wow, that's awesome. Oh my god, and the bad
they need the square footage with fourkids. I know, they're a family.
That's crazy, I know. Butafter they got the house, they
(11:35):
were kind of starting to struggle alittle financially. Michelle isn't working, she's
staying at home with the kids,so they're depending on Nathan's Nathan's money.
He's not making bad money, buthe now has all these bills he has
to pay. Plus you know,he's feeding a family of six. Plus
he's got this big house payment thatthey didn't have before, you know,
(11:58):
so so money's a little tight.Michelle started getting a little bit more on
edge with the financial strain that wasgoing on, and she was getting a
little more upset, a little moreagitated. So Nathan got to thinking what
can I do to help my family? And he was like, oh,
I have it. So in twothousand and nine, just a year later,
(12:20):
he put in for a voluntary assignmentoverseas and he went to Iraq,
which would give him a decent paybump and Michelle got a part time job
for a telemarketing company. Okay,okay, this guy's got a plan about
everything. That's awesome. Yeah forsure. He's like, yeah, getting
(12:45):
it, getting it, getting it. So he left for his overseas assignment
in June of two thousand and nine. Christmas two thousand and nine, six
months later, he returns home.He's happy to be back home with his
family, and with the extra moneyhe got from his overseas assignment, they
had a wonderful Christmas. He wasable to give his family all kinds of
(13:07):
good stuff for Christmas, and thingsseem to be getting back on track for
the family of six. Nathan wasdescribed as always being the life of the
party. He liked having his friendsover to the house, to seeing karaoke.
He was when he was at hisbrother's wedding. He was the cameraman
for you know, the rehearsal dinnerand the reception and all that, and
(13:31):
he's just behind the camera and he'sgoing around everywhere getting everybody involved. And
he's just always gregarious. That's agood word. He was very gregarious and
outgoing and just in your face thereright right, making sure everybody's having a
good time too. Yes. Yeah. At this point though, Michelle started
(13:52):
feeling like she couldn't quite join inon the fund since she has her kids,
she has this new job, andshe was going to school though I'm
not sure exactly what she was goingto school for. Like she would go
to work and then she would goto school after that, and then she
would come home. But I don'tknow what exactly what she was going to
school for. So, but itseemed like her and Nathan were kind of
(14:13):
starting to drift apart a little bitbecause he's busy working, she's busy working,
going to school, et cetera,et cetera. Right, life,
life happens. Yes, and they'vegot four kids, m Yes, and
you know, a couple of themare are little, they're little kids.
The youngest was born in what twothousand and seven, two thousand and eight,
(14:37):
something like that. Yeah, we'rein twenty ten, so the youngest
is like three yeah, yeah,yeah, so I remember three year old
days. Don't want to go backme neither. Well, in twenty ten,
it's now Thanksgiving time. His brother, Nathan's brother and his family come
(15:01):
up to Nathan's and Michelle's house.To have Thanksgiving dinner, and you know,
they get there and they said,you know that Michelle and Nathan were
a little different. They seemed alittle more strained. Something was off kilter,
but they couldn't quite figure out what. Okay, okay, just something
in general, but they knew itwas something right. You could like feel
(15:24):
the tension in the air, okay, Michelle confided in her to her sister
in law. You know, whenher sister in law said, you know,
hey, is everything going okay?She said, you know, there's
there's just a lot going on.There's just a lot going on, and
that's all she would say. Hisbrother assumed he was having some financial difficulty
because there wasn't like a whole lotof food in the cabinets or the fridge
(15:46):
or anything like that, you know, And he noticed that his brother was
more withdrawn, more quiet, standoffish, a little seemed a little more
tense. And when he asked hisbrother about it, the only thing Nathan
would tell him was it's complicated,bro, It's complicated. But he wouldn't
(16:06):
elaborate. Okay. So three dayslater, the brother's family packs up to
load up and go back to SanDiego, and they said that the goodbye
this time was a little a littlemore weird, Like Nathan was a little
closer to them when they were gettingin their car, and he walked with
(16:27):
them much further out, and hewas just like on top of their car
and in the way of them gettingin their car and leaving, almost like
a I don't want you to go, or be take me with you,
or almost like he had something hewanted to tell them. He just didn't
know how to tell them, orhe hadn't quite worked up the nerve to
(16:48):
just blurt it out yet, andhe was trying to get there, but
he just never could. So thefamily leaves. They finally, you know,
they say their goodbye leave and thebrother said, you know, hey,
maybe we should go back, andhis wife said, you don't know,
you know, whatever it is thathe wanted to tell us, if
(17:10):
he wanted to tell us, he'dtold us before we left. Like he's
had three days, four days,you know, and he hasn't said anything.
He's not ready to tell you yet. It's fine. So they went
on home. Well, now we'reup to December first, twenty ten,
just a few days after Thanksgiving.At eleven thirty pm, Michelle calls nine
to one one to say that Nathanhad been shot and was bleeding in her
(17:36):
floor. Oh no, of course, cops get there super fast and they
find her holding Nathan, who hadbeen shot in the neck. He's not
able to speak. They rush himto the hospital, you know, because
the ambulance is hot on the copshills. They rush him to the hospital,
but unfortunately there was nothing the doctorscould do, and Nathan did pass
(17:56):
away. Oh no, this poorfamily. He was twenty eight years old.
Oh my goodness, yeah, ohmy goodness. Well, they talked
to the wife there at the sceneimmediately, you know, to try and
get a timeline of events so thatthey can get, you know, nowhere
(18:17):
to start to look for the killer, right right, What happened? What
happened? And she said, youknow that he had gone outside to get
ready for work, and then sheheard a lot of gunshots and he stumbled
into the house from the garage andhe was covered in blood and she freaked
out and called the cops. Andhere we are, I mean, sounds
plausible to me. Yeah, Sothe cops ended up taking her down to
(18:38):
the station a little bit later fora formal statement to get a formal statement
from her, and what she toldthe cops was, you know, the
day that her husband had been killedwas a little bit different from their normal
routine. She said that usually afterwork she would go straight to school and
(19:00):
she would stay there at school untilabout ten forty when or she would get
home from school at about ten forty, which was only five minutes before Nathan
had to leave out the door togo to work. Okay, that was
normal, but the day that hewas killed, she wasn't feeling real well,
so she came home from school early, and she got home at about
(19:21):
five thirty, and they kind ofsnuggled up on the couch and fell asleep
and started taking a nap or whateveron the couch, and Nathan's alarm either
didn't go off or he didn't turnit on, or she's not real sure
what happened, but they woke uplate. They woke up at about eleven,
and Nathan's like, oh my gosh, I'm totally late for work.
(19:44):
And he starts rushing around the houseand he rushes upstairs to take a shower
real quick, and then he rushesdownstairs to go out the garage and put
his boots on and get his jacketand get in his truck and leave and
go to work. Okay, Andshe said when he went out into the
garage, that's when she heard theshot. The cops were like, well,
why didn't you go out there tocheck on him? And she was
like, well, I heard theshots, the kids heard the shots.
We were all scared. And hestumbled in right after. And you know,
(20:07):
so that's why, Okay, I'msorry. If I hear gunshots,
I'm not running towards them either.Well I'm not either, but a cop
is trained to do that. Sothat's probably what they think somebody's first reaction
should be, because that should bea cops first reaction, right, right,
But I'm not a cop. I'mnot gonna That's not what I'm gonna
(20:30):
do. Well, this, thisneighborhood was not one that you would expect
a murder to occur in, Like, it was a nice, upscale,
hardly any crime ever here neighborhood,right, But occasionally things do spill over
into nice neighborhoods as well. Yeah, so the cops are thinking, well,
maybe this was a loan shark comingafter him because they've been having financial
(20:53):
trouble. Maybe he had a gamblingproblem and maybe that's why they have financial
difficulties, or maybe he had agirlfriend on the side. Oh, but
they found zero evidence of any ofthat. Okay. They found that Nathan
was nothing but a good guy,a family guy, doing his best to
(21:14):
take care of his family. Sothey're out talking to the people in the
neighborhood, you know, trying tosee, you know, hey, did
you hear anything, did you seeanything? You know, when when this
serviceman was killed, And they cameacross one neighbor, one neighbor that said,
yeah, I was I was outwalking my dog last night and I
heard the shots and I look overin the direction where the shots came from,
and I noticed it was at thePiette house. And I saw a
(21:37):
guy in a black hoodie running fromthe Piette House to this car. It
was like a four door car,maybe a Cadillac, and it was black.
Oh my goodness. And the copsare like really, and he's like
yeah, And when this guy jumpedin this car, the car just like
sped off really fast, and they'relike, all right, all right.
So they bring Michelle down to thestation again and they're talking to her and
(22:00):
they said, hey, you know, we got this lead on this car
because there's thousands of black Cadillacs inLas Vegas. So they ask her,
do you know of anybody that drivesa black Cadillac? And Michelle goes,
no, no, wait, yeah, I do this this guy, Michael
Rodriguez that I know he drives ablack Cadillac. And they're like, well,
(22:25):
who's Michael Rodriguez. She goes,He's this guy I work with.
He's a coworker of mine. We'rekind of friends, you know, like
work friends. M hm. Andthey're like, do you think he'd have
any reason to hurt your husband?And she's like, no, you know,
you just asked it if I knewanybody that drove a black Cadillac,
you know. And they're like,oh okay. So they go and they
(22:48):
do their fancy little cop Google andit turns out that Michael Rodriguez had a
record, oh one for anything major. He'd been convicted of attempted forgery,
you know, nothing violent or anything. And so they're like, hmm,
okay, but we're going to talkto him anyway because he does have a
black Catillac, right. So hecomes in to be questioned by the police
(23:11):
to be interviewed by him. He'sall cool, calm and collected, you
know, everything's fine. He evencalls his Beyonce to say that he's going
to be late because the cops wantto talk to him, and they're search
in his car and he starts talkingto the cops and you know, the
cops ask him about Michelle and he'slike, oh, yeah, you know,
we're work friends. That's all,you know, I know, we're
(23:32):
from work. And they're like,well there, you know there been any
anything not right between you and Michellethanky panky yeah, and he's like,
you know, well, okay,we're kind of flirty work friends, but
it's it's you know, not evergone anything further than you know, just
offhanded flirting at work, okay.And the cops are like, so no,
(23:55):
no, nothing, no, nofunny business and he's like no,
no, no, no, absolutelynot. We've joked about it, but
it's been a joke, you know, like like she's my work wife type
thing. Yeah, okay, Andthey're like, okay, well where were
you the night of the murder?And he had this fantastical meeting with this
(24:19):
ex porn star that he ran intoat a Walmart at like nine o'clock that
night, and he was like,hey, baby, let's go to this
hotel over here, and she's likeokay. And he said that they got
to the hotel at like eleven o'clockor midnight somewhere in between there. He's
not real sure where. He wasn'treally paying a whole lot of attention to
(24:40):
the time. And they get intothe room and it's like instat banging.
Oh and by the way, Ihave video evidence if you want to see
that. And the cops are like, uh no, bro, we're good.
I wonder if his fiance has seenthis and probably, Oh my god.
So they go to check it alRodriguez. Wow, damn, mister
(25:03):
Rodriguez. So they go to checkout his ALBI and confirm it. You
know, they find this lady andfirst they go to the hotel to pull
the security video footage and they dosee him and this lady walking in close
to midnight or so to check in. And they go in and they check
(25:25):
in and they go to the roomand they're in the room for hours and
hours and then they leave. Andso they go and they find his date
from that night and she says,you know, yeah, I was.
I was with him all night.Like it's yeah, it's it's true.
That's totally what happened. And thecops are like, okay, but uh
oh, I'm not sure I likethat. But but six days after Nathan
(25:51):
was killed, his albi, Michael'salibi, calls the cops and says,
hey, I need to come talkto you guys, and they said okay,
hey, m hmmm. So shecomes in and she says, look,
I've seen the news about this NathanPiet guy. He was killed in
his driveway the night that you know, I was with mister Rodriguez over here,
(26:14):
and I wasn't completely honest with youwhen I told you I was with
him all night. See what happenedwas uh oh. My my friend Jordana
over here, she called me andshe said, you know, hey,
my boyfriend Corey Hawkins and his friendMichael, Michael Rodriguez, they're gonna go
(26:36):
rob this drug dealer, and bothof these guys are gonna need an alibi.
Will you come be Rodriguez's alibi?And the porn star lady said sure,
why not? Like I don't haveany ething going this night, you
know, it's fine. Oh okay, and she said, you know,
so she goes to Jordana's apartment.By the way, Jordana is not her
(26:59):
real name. Okay, yeah,I kind of beggar that, but yeah,
I mean, okay, So shegoes to Jordana's apartment and she's hanging
out with Jordana waiting on the guysto show back up. And the guys
come in, she said, atabout eleven thirty. They rip off their
clothes, they throw them to Jordana, who throws them in the fireplace and
burns their clothes, and then herand Rodriguez rush out and they rush out
(27:22):
to the hotel where they check inand just you know, hang out for
a while. Okay, And theywere like, really, okay, So
his alibi's falling apart. He doesn'thave a violent history. His only connection
to Nathan is the fact that he'sMichelle's co worker. Like, this is
(27:44):
right, this is weird. Youknow what, yeah, what, this
is not making sense. On Decemberseventh of twenty ten, the base had
Nathan's memorial service there and you know, all of Nathan's family is there and
they realize, you know, hey, Michelle's not here, but that's not
(28:06):
you know, she's probably super traumatizedand super grieving and she just can't handle
being here. It's a week afterher husband was killed and basically died in
her arms. Yeah, so,I mean I kind of get that,
but still so, now the memorialservice at the base has is not like
a funeral memorial service. Okay,so it's just mainly for his immediate family
(28:33):
and his but more for like hisplatoon, his squadron or whatever they're called
in the Air Force, his workbuddies. Okay, for them to be
there, got you. But yeah, like I said, Michelle wasn't there,
and the family didn't think it tooodd. They're like, you know,
she's probably super grieving, too distraughtto be here, because it was
(28:56):
really hard for them to be there, but they went anyway, right.
What they didn't know was Michelle wasactually down at the police station being questioned
again. Oh wow wow, Okay. The cops told her that they had
looked into Rodriguez's phone and they hadfound some questionable text messages and they wanted
(29:19):
to ask her about them. Mhmmm. Rodriguez had evidently texted Michelle at
eleven twelve the night of the murder. He said hope you are feeling better,
just about done with Van Dyke's contractfor tomorrow. He's a pain in
the ass. And then two minuteslater he sent another text that said,
if you don't feel up to it, let me know and you can take
(29:41):
a few days to rest up.I appreciate your help. And then they
found that Michelle replied at eleven nineteenthat says, my husband just woke me
up and he's trying to rush outthe door. I guess he's late.
Lol. Sorry, that contract isa pain. And the cops were pretty
sure that they were talking about thismurder encoded texts. Hmm. But I
(30:03):
mean, to me, it justsounds like they're talking work, because she
worked at night anyway and took offearly, and so I mean, I
get it well. And they alsofound and showed Michelle that they saw where
she had text Rodriguez again two hoursafter her husband's death, a smiley face
(30:27):
emoji. Oh no, that doesnot look good over her. So they
asked her again, was it reallyjust a work friendship? And she said,
Okay, here's the thing, notreally, hmm girl. She admitted
(30:51):
that they were involved in a sexualrelationship of sorts. They would meet in
her car during their lunch breaks atwork, and she said that Nathan had
recently begun to suspect that she washaving an affair, though you know,
he wasn't really for sure. Herand Rodriguez had been talking about how to
(31:14):
kill Nathan. Wow, because Michelledidn't want to just leave him and divorce
him, because if she he waskilled while she was still married to him
and they were together, she wouldget two life insurance policies that Nathan had,
a four hundred thousand dollars life insurancepolicy provided by the military, and
(31:37):
an additional two hundred and fifty thousanddollars policy that they had separately from the
military policy. Wow. So sixhundred and fifty thousand dollars altogether. And
she wanted that money. Eh,greedy, greedy, greedy. Yeah,
(31:59):
so oh, she said. Youknow, but here's the thing. When
it came to the night of themurder, I was having second thoughts.
I didn't want to do it.I didn't want to go through with it.
So I turned Nathan's alarm off sothat his alarm wouldn't wake him up.
I didn't unlock his truck doors likelike Rodriguez had told me to.
I was doing everything I could tothwart this, you know, to sabotage
(32:23):
these murder plans. You know.I made sure that he was running late,
so that maybe Hawkins and Rodriguez wouldbe bored sitting out there waiting for
him, and they would leave beforehe ever left for work, and none
of this would happen. Right,The cops weren't really buying though. They
end up arresting Michelle Pyatt, MichaelRodriguez, Corey Hawkins, and his girlfriend
(32:51):
Jordana all in connection of the murderof Nathan because what had really happened,
Michael and Corey were waiting outside forhim to leave for work, and then
they were going to kidnap him,drive him out into the middle of the
desert, kill him, and leavehim there. But when they went to
(33:12):
the garage to get him and kidnaphim, Nathan was like, uh,
I don't know, you broke getout of here, like, are you
kidding me? Back off, andthat's when they shot him. Oh my
goodness. Rodriguez ended up being foundguilty of first degree murder and conspiracy to
commit murder and was sentenced to lifewithout parole. Nathan's family asked the prosecutors
(33:37):
to take the death penalty off thetable for Michelle because they said, it's
not going to do anything. I'drather she sit in prison and live with
the fact that she killed our brother, she killed our son, she killed
her children's bother, and they're goingto know that. We want her to
live with that. Yeah, Soshe agreed to plead guilty to first degree
(34:01):
murder and conspiracy to commit murder.She also got life without parole. Corey
Hawkins turns out he was a ninetime convicted felon h and he ended up
pleading to murder and burglary charges inorder to avoid the death penalty. He
swore Rodriguez was the trigger man,although Rodriguez swore Hawkins was, but the
(34:27):
porn star alibi lady said, well, Rodriguez told me that he shot him,
so they're pretty sure Rodriguez did theactual shooting, right, But guilty
by association on this dude, doesn'tmatter if he pulled the trigger or not.
You were involved. But Hawkins endedup getting life without parole. His
(34:49):
girlfriend, Jordana, she ended upstriking a plea deal with the prosecution,
and she pled guilty to conspiracy tocommit murder. But I couldn't find anything
about a sentence anywhere for her.Oh wow. And that's why I chose
not to use her real name,because if I looked in the offender registry
for Nevada, she's not listed inthere either. Even if she were out
(35:13):
on parole or probation or whatever,you know, the sentence would be,
she would have been listed there,right, And I couldn't find her listed
there at all. So I chosenot to use her real name because there's
probably a reason I can't find anythingabout a sentence for her. So true.
But yeah, that's my case.That's the murder of Nathan Piet.
(35:35):
His wife turned into a greedy psychobitch. And I want to say,
I read somewhere that his children arebeing raised by his parents in Guam.
Wow. Wow, So now hischildren actually end up getting the insurance money
(35:57):
and she gets nothing. Yeah,serves are right. Oh no, that's
right. She gets to set injail for a bir yes forever. Wow,
that's crazy. People don't be greedy, don't don't try to kill people.
(36:17):
No, No, that's not cool, bro. I don't care what
they say. If they say thecool kids are doing it, they're lying
to you. Oh yeah, theylie because you're not cool if you're doing
that. Wow, that's absolutely crazy. Yeah, it's just just walk away.
(36:40):
Just get divorced and walk away.Yeah, that's my advice. Yeah,
don't know. Yeah, I'm gokilling people. No, or don't
go trying to convince somebody else tokill some people. No, No,
it's crazy. And you know,don't get involved with your coworkers either.
(37:02):
I always heard my dad always toldme that you do not shit where you
eat, you know, and it'strue. Yeah now ew ew you know.
But yeah, that's my case.That's what I got for you this
week. We hope that you guyshave a super happy and safe Thanksgiving us
(37:28):
We did want to say one morething, and we'll probably say this at
the beginning of next week's episode becauseif some people are like me, they
might not listen to the end ofevery single episode, right right, So
just in case they skip this part, we'll announce it again next week.
But if you would like to joinour Patreon by December fifth, we will
(37:52):
be doing Christmas goodies for our Patreonmembers over there this year. Yes,
yes we will. If you joinat any level, you will have goodies
coming at you just make sure thatwe have you know, when you sign
up, you have your actual youryour current address so that you can receive
(38:13):
your goodies that we have for you. Yes, yeah, so yeah,
until December fifth to get that done. Nice, very very nice, and
I'm excited about that, so excited. And each different tier of the Patreon
membership gets different goodies. Sweet.Yeah, so you know, hop on
(38:38):
over there if you want to getin on any the Christmas gifts this year.
If not, that's totally fine,we get it. No heart feelings,
it's cool. But yeah, that'swhat we got for you this week.
We'll be back again next week withanother new episode. Hope you're here
again to listen to us babble onand on about probably some terrible, horrible
(39:00):
case and it will be until then. Bye, okay bye
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