April 18, 2025 • 9 mins
If you're ever curious about what crime took place on today's date in true crime history, kick back and grab a cup of coffee while you listen to Morning Cup of Murder. Your host, Korina Biemesderfer, will take you through a dark history lesson, with tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and more every day in this short-form true crime podcast.
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Morning Cup of Murder: https://morningcupofmurder.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reverie-true-crime--4442888/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everyone. If you love true crime but don't always
have time for a full hour long deep dive, I've
got a podcast you'll want to check out. Morning Cup
of Murder delivers daily true crime stories in quick, bite
sized episodes, perfect for your morning routine or whenever you
need a true crime fix. With over two thousand episodes
(00:23):
and more than forty million downloads, it's clear that listeners
keep coming back for a reason. Carina, the host, has
a way of making each case compelling, whether it's a
well known crime or one you've never heard of. I'll
let you hear it for yourself. Here's a short clip
from Morning Cup of Murder. If you like what you hear,
(00:45):
just search for it wherever you get your podcasts. There
were two more murder. It's fifteen miles away in the
Silver Lake section of Los Angeles. We have a weird homicide.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Coup murdered. Sometimes it takes decades to finally learn the truth.
On March eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, a woman died and
her cause of death was listed as a suicide. It
would take almost three decades for police to finally prove
what they suspected all along, that she was the victim
(01:24):
of a homicide. So if you like your coffee hot
but your bones chilled, sit back and start your day
with a morning cup of murder. In the year nineteen
eighty five, Meg and Scott Perk were happily living in
an apartment in Akron, Ohio, preparing for the arrival of
their very first son. Married for three years by this point,
(01:47):
Meg wrote a letter to her grandmother in New York
about the couple's impending arrival, talking about how excited she
was and how the grandmother was going to be a
great grandmother any day now. Just five days after this letter,
on March eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, Scott Perk called the
police and told them that he found his wife hanging
(02:08):
from the second floor railing of their apartment. He claimed
he was in the bathtub at around eleven am when
he saw Meg walk past the doorway. Minutes later he
made this shocking discovery. He told police that he cut
his twenty four year old wife's body down from where
it hanged and tried like hell to administer CPR while
(02:29):
waiting for the ambulance to arrive and hopefully save her.
When they did, they found Meg Perk completely unresponsive and
in full cardiac arrest. They managed to restore her pulse
and rush her to the hospital, but both she and
the baby she was carrying for nine months passed away.
(02:49):
Immediately after hearing the news of her death, Akron police
felt something wasn't adding up with Scott's story. They suspected
foul play from the very beginning, but could not find
enough evidence to prove it. Things got even more complicated when,
despite their suspicions, a physician named doctor Roberto Ruiz came
(03:10):
in and concluded that Meg Perk died of heart slash
lung failure from asphyxia and noted just mild abrasions at
the front of her neck and under her chin. The
doctor was never trained in forensic pathology, yet the former
Summit County coroner, William Cox, signed his report based almost
(03:30):
solely on the statements given by Scott Perk, the only
other person in their apartment at the time of Meg's
alleged suicide. Doctor Luiz also noted that Meg, again based
on what Scott said, struggled emotionally and had attempted suicide
in the past. Meanwhile, Scott Perk took two polygraph tests,
(03:52):
one of which was inconclusive, and the other he passed.
Police said that there were some quote conflict in the
twenty two year old story about the day that Meg died,
namely his assertion that there was a suicide note that
was now conveniently missing. There were also claims made by
Scott that his wife was incredibly ill throughout her pregnancy,
(04:15):
yet when speaking with others, they said she wasn't sick
for the first seven to eight months. No one could
quite understand why these seemingly happy women on the cusp
of being a mother would end her life, especially her
own mother and Metcalf, who never accepted suicide as her
daughter's cause of death. She would call the police once
(04:36):
a year to see if they would reopen Meg's case,
but each time they told her that they could not
do so without new evidence. Meanwhile, within that first year
as a widow, Scott Perk was convicted of a string
of burglaries in the Akron area. Dubbed the ninja burglar
because he carried nunchucks or throwing stars, he would target
(04:58):
the homes belonging to sing women and leave with a
pair of their underwear as a trophy. He was charged
with multiple counts of aggravated burglary, as well as grand
theft for a dozen or so crimes, and pleading no contest.
In May of nineteen eighty six, he was sent to
prison and paroled in nineteen ninety three. He managed to
(05:19):
stay completely off police radar for the next decade or
so until the home he shared with his second wife
and two children suddenly caught fire in March of two
thousand and nine. Scott Perk, his wife, Tammy, and their
two teenage children woke at three am to find their
home engulfed in flames. They managed to flee without any injury,
(05:43):
but when firefighters arrived at the scene, they immediately noticed
a burn pattern consistent with arson. Also suspicious was the
fact that, despite claiming they woke up to the fire
already a blaze, they somehow managed to have their vehicle
already filled with personal sentimental items, ones they would be
devastated to lose in a fire, almost as if the
(06:05):
car was loaded up with the items prior to the
fire being set. At the scene that night just so
happened to be then Sergeant Ken Mifflin, the lead investigator
in Meg Perks murder decades before, here was a man
who already suffered from a tragedy one police long suspected
he was involved in, who now sat there telling the
(06:28):
sergeant all about what he did the day before the
fire when he suddenly went off on a quote tangent
and brought up Meg's death. Sergeant Mifflin was shocked and
immediately suspicious, so Meg's case was relooked into alongside Scott's
possible involvement in the arsen While that was happening behind
(06:48):
the scenes, a second suspicious fire happened a block or
so away from where the Perks were now living, about
a year after the one that claimed their home. A
resident at the Burger Abvide duplex was fast asleep when
a neighbor alerted her to a fire in her unit.
Gathering evidence for this particular incident, police found enough to
(07:09):
tie the entire thing back to Scott and Tammy Perk,
a couple they already believed set fire to their own
home to collect insurance money, and who were now suspected
of setting this second fire in an effort to make
it look like a serial arsonist was active in their area.
They were eventually indicted for attempted murder aggravated arson and
(07:31):
insurance fraud. Meanwhile, the investigation into the death of Meg
Perk hit a major upswing when, just days after Scott
was indicted for arson, his first wife's body was exhumed
and retested by another doctor. This time it was doctor
Dorothy E. Dean, a forensic pathologist. Noting the bruce pattern
(07:54):
on her neck, she determined that Meg likely quote died
from ligature strangulation rather than self inflicted hanging, and voiced
suspicion that the ligature was likely a belt. In addition
to finding bruce patterns that matched the stitching of a
belt and the lack of V shaped bruise indicative of hanging,
(08:15):
doctor Dean also found rope burns across Meg's chest, leading
to the belief that she had been pulled into position
by a rope, so her death could be staged as
a suicide. There was also a bruise on her back
that was never mentioned in the original autopsy report that
the doctor now claimed was from someone's knee pressing down
(08:36):
with significant strength, possibly in an effort to hold Meg
down while she was being strangled to death. As far
as doctor Dean was concerned, Meg Perk died of ligature strangulation,
and her death was officially deemed a homicide the same
year her body was exhumed. Scott Perk pleaded guilty to
the arson in January of twenty thirteen and was sentenced
(09:00):
to twenty eight years in prison, while the charges were
reduced or dismissed for Tammy, and she got just one
year probation. Then, in twenty fifteen, Scott was brought to
trial a second time and charged with the murder of
Meg Perk, despite arguments from the defense saying the initial
autopsy was correct, enlisting her cause of death as a suicide.
(09:22):
The jury found him guilty of both murder and tampering
with evidence, and he was sentenced to life in prison
with the possibility of parole after eighteen years. He remains
behind bars. Thank you for joining me in my morning
cup of murder. Please join me again tomorrow to hear
what terrible thing happened on March nineteenth. Don't forget to
rate and subscribe and let me know how you like it.
(09:44):
If you want to help support the podcast, there's always
Patreon or just sharing it with your true crime obsessed friends.
And remember, stay safe.
Hey everyone. If you love true crime but don't always
have time for a full hour long deep dive, I've
got a podcast you'll want to check out. Morning Cup
of Murder delivers daily true crime stories in quick, bite
sized episodes, perfect for your morning routine or whenever you
need a true crime fix. With over two thousand episodes
(00:23):
and more than forty million downloads, it's clear that listeners
keep coming back for a reason. Carina, the host, has
a way of making each case compelling, whether it's a
well known crime or one you've never heard of. I'll
let you hear it for yourself. Here's a short clip
from Morning Cup of Murder. If you like what you hear,
(00:45):
just search for it wherever you get your podcasts. There
were two more murder. It's fifteen miles away in the
Silver Lake section of Los Angeles. We have a weird homicide.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Coup murdered. Sometimes it takes decades to finally learn the truth.
On March eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, a woman died and
her cause of death was listed as a suicide. It
would take almost three decades for police to finally prove
what they suspected all along, that she was the victim
(01:24):
of a homicide. So if you like your coffee hot
but your bones chilled, sit back and start your day
with a morning cup of murder. In the year nineteen
eighty five, Meg and Scott Perk were happily living in
an apartment in Akron, Ohio, preparing for the arrival of
their very first son. Married for three years by this point,
(01:47):
Meg wrote a letter to her grandmother in New York
about the couple's impending arrival, talking about how excited she
was and how the grandmother was going to be a
great grandmother any day now. Just five days after this letter,
on March eighteenth, nineteen eighty five, Scott Perk called the
police and told them that he found his wife hanging
(02:08):
from the second floor railing of their apartment. He claimed
he was in the bathtub at around eleven am when
he saw Meg walk past the doorway. Minutes later he
made this shocking discovery. He told police that he cut
his twenty four year old wife's body down from where
it hanged and tried like hell to administer CPR while
(02:29):
waiting for the ambulance to arrive and hopefully save her.
When they did, they found Meg Perk completely unresponsive and
in full cardiac arrest. They managed to restore her pulse
and rush her to the hospital, but both she and
the baby she was carrying for nine months passed away.
(02:49):
Immediately after hearing the news of her death, Akron police
felt something wasn't adding up with Scott's story. They suspected
foul play from the very beginning, but could not find
enough evidence to prove it. Things got even more complicated when,
despite their suspicions, a physician named doctor Roberto Ruiz came
(03:10):
in and concluded that Meg Perk died of heart slash
lung failure from asphyxia and noted just mild abrasions at
the front of her neck and under her chin. The
doctor was never trained in forensic pathology, yet the former
Summit County coroner, William Cox, signed his report based almost
(03:30):
solely on the statements given by Scott Perk, the only
other person in their apartment at the time of Meg's
alleged suicide. Doctor Luiz also noted that Meg, again based
on what Scott said, struggled emotionally and had attempted suicide
in the past. Meanwhile, Scott Perk took two polygraph tests,
(03:52):
one of which was inconclusive, and the other he passed.
Police said that there were some quote conflict in the
twenty two year old story about the day that Meg died,
namely his assertion that there was a suicide note that
was now conveniently missing. There were also claims made by
Scott that his wife was incredibly ill throughout her pregnancy,
(04:15):
yet when speaking with others, they said she wasn't sick
for the first seven to eight months. No one could
quite understand why these seemingly happy women on the cusp
of being a mother would end her life, especially her
own mother and Metcalf, who never accepted suicide as her
daughter's cause of death. She would call the police once
(04:36):
a year to see if they would reopen Meg's case,
but each time they told her that they could not
do so without new evidence. Meanwhile, within that first year
as a widow, Scott Perk was convicted of a string
of burglaries in the Akron area. Dubbed the ninja burglar
because he carried nunchucks or throwing stars, he would target
(04:58):
the homes belonging to sing women and leave with a
pair of their underwear as a trophy. He was charged
with multiple counts of aggravated burglary, as well as grand
theft for a dozen or so crimes, and pleading no contest.
In May of nineteen eighty six, he was sent to
prison and paroled in nineteen ninety three. He managed to
(05:19):
stay completely off police radar for the next decade or
so until the home he shared with his second wife
and two children suddenly caught fire in March of two
thousand and nine. Scott Perk, his wife, Tammy, and their
two teenage children woke at three am to find their
home engulfed in flames. They managed to flee without any injury,
(05:43):
but when firefighters arrived at the scene, they immediately noticed
a burn pattern consistent with arson. Also suspicious was the
fact that, despite claiming they woke up to the fire
already a blaze, they somehow managed to have their vehicle
already filled with personal sentimental items, ones they would be
devastated to lose in a fire, almost as if the
(06:05):
car was loaded up with the items prior to the
fire being set. At the scene that night just so
happened to be then Sergeant Ken Mifflin, the lead investigator
in Meg Perks murder decades before, here was a man
who already suffered from a tragedy one police long suspected
he was involved in, who now sat there telling the
(06:28):
sergeant all about what he did the day before the
fire when he suddenly went off on a quote tangent
and brought up Meg's death. Sergeant Mifflin was shocked and
immediately suspicious, so Meg's case was relooked into alongside Scott's
possible involvement in the arsen While that was happening behind
(06:48):
the scenes, a second suspicious fire happened a block or
so away from where the Perks were now living, about
a year after the one that claimed their home. A
resident at the Burger Abvide duplex was fast asleep when
a neighbor alerted her to a fire in her unit.
Gathering evidence for this particular incident, police found enough to
(07:09):
tie the entire thing back to Scott and Tammy Perk,
a couple they already believed set fire to their own
home to collect insurance money, and who were now suspected
of setting this second fire in an effort to make
it look like a serial arsonist was active in their area.
They were eventually indicted for attempted murder aggravated arson and
(07:31):
insurance fraud. Meanwhile, the investigation into the death of Meg
Perk hit a major upswing when, just days after Scott
was indicted for arson, his first wife's body was exhumed
and retested by another doctor. This time it was doctor
Dorothy E. Dean, a forensic pathologist. Noting the bruce pattern
(07:54):
on her neck, she determined that Meg likely quote died
from ligature strangulation rather than self inflicted hanging, and voiced
suspicion that the ligature was likely a belt. In addition
to finding bruce patterns that matched the stitching of a
belt and the lack of V shaped bruise indicative of hanging,
(08:15):
doctor Dean also found rope burns across Meg's chest, leading
to the belief that she had been pulled into position
by a rope, so her death could be staged as
a suicide. There was also a bruise on her back
that was never mentioned in the original autopsy report that
the doctor now claimed was from someone's knee pressing down
(08:36):
with significant strength, possibly in an effort to hold Meg
down while she was being strangled to death. As far
as doctor Dean was concerned, Meg Perk died of ligature strangulation,
and her death was officially deemed a homicide the same
year her body was exhumed. Scott Perk pleaded guilty to
the arson in January of twenty thirteen and was sentenced
(09:00):
to twenty eight years in prison, while the charges were
reduced or dismissed for Tammy, and she got just one
year probation. Then, in twenty fifteen, Scott was brought to
trial a second time and charged with the murder of
Meg Perk, despite arguments from the defense saying the initial
autopsy was correct, enlisting her cause of death as a suicide.
(09:22):
The jury found him guilty of both murder and tampering
with evidence, and he was sentenced to life in prison
with the possibility of parole after eighteen years. He remains
behind bars. Thank you for joining me in my morning
cup of murder. Please join me again tomorrow to hear
what terrible thing happened on March nineteenth. Don't forget to
rate and subscribe and let me know how you like it.
(09:44):
If you want to help support the podcast, there's always
Patreon or just sharing it with your true crime obsessed friends.
And remember, stay safe.
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