Miriam and Richard Illes

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
I am Rich and I'm Tina.

Speaker 3 (00:02):
And if there's one thing we've learned in over twenty
years of marriage.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Some days you'll feel like killing your husband, and.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Some days you'll feel like killing your wife.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Welcome to love, Mary Kill.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Hi, Tina, Hey Rich, How are you.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I'm good? How are you?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I'm good.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
I'm a little nervous about recording today.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Though, because everyone loved Emma, yes exactly.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
The last thing we recorded was your special Mother's Day
episode and everyone really appreciated Emma.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
So I think everyone appreciates you too. It's just nice
to hear a different voice sometimes.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
So you're saying I do have job security.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Absolutely, Oh that's good.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, this is a nice break. I was working on
the toilet so doing a podcast, as you.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Just told me you were on the toilet. I was like, oh,
but then you.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
I was working with the toilet. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:03):
I was replacing the seal under the toilet, which is
a horrible job. I really respect plumbers who do that.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, they work really hard.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
I like this waxy stuff under there and you can't
get it off, Like you can wash and wash and wash,
but it just doesn't come off.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
So that's toilet residue on your hands. That's nice.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, that's what I'm dealing with.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
So are you going to go right into toilet talk
to snack?

Speaker 1 (01:27):
Probably?

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, yeah, classy.

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Before I go into snack, though, I have I have
a major announcement to make.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
You're leaving me for a younger woman.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
No, no, an older woman. I think I have a
new favorite apple variety.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh wow, this is breaking news. Breaking news.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Everyone we've talked before. I've always been a Fuji guy.
You've always been a honey crisp kind of gal.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I mean I like a gala too.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
Galas are good too. But we tried Envy apples the
other day and they're so good. I think it's my
new favorite.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
Wow, They're juicy, they're sweet there, they're just lovely.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
You know, normally we do buy two varieties of apples.
Believe it or not, we do eat apples.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
A lot and apple a day.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I don't need an apple a day. You are very
regimented in lots of areas of your life, including the
way you eat.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I usually have an apple for lunch.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
You just have a sandwich and an apple, and I
like to mix it up.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, so you like the envy apples too, though.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yes, I was going to say they're a happy medium
for both of us. I could see although a honey
crisp in the fall, nothing beats like a Michigan honey
crisp apple in the fall, so you know, nothing, they're
so they're like twice as expensive as other apples, so
you know, I don't really buy them a lot other
than in the fall.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, I have a snack for you today.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
It is not an apple.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
It's not an apple. I think it's very special snack though,
because our listener Lana sent.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
It to us.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh, Lana is the best.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
She is from Indiana, and I think it is a
local treat from Indiana.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Oh awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
There are like ten things in this box. There's a lot,
but most to them are from the Albanese gummy and
Tacol company.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
That's amazing. You opened this and I did not.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Yes, I opened it and looked inside and Lana sent
us all these great things. There's a couple of different
gummy I.

Speaker 2 (03:14):
Did not realize that Albanese was from Indiana.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
I did not either. It's from u Meryllville, Indiana. There's
a gummy ice cream cone and there's a whole bunch
of little chocolate things in there too, So I don't
think we're gonna be able to try everything, but let's
have a little sample.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
How did you like those Indiana snacks?

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I loved them.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
They were really good. What did you try?

Speaker 2 (03:42):
I had a few gummy bears and I had the
pecans so so good.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Good.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yeah, and the gummy bears are I think they sell
We sell the same ones here, like if you go
to bushes near us. I think they have the same ones.
They're just a really nice gummy bear. They're just really
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
They are really good either.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
I had the dark chocolate covered pretzels and toffee. Those
are a really good to do it for both chocolate.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Yes, well I went for the gummies.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
Oh you did?

Speaker 4 (04:08):
Okay?

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Yeah that was so good.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah, thank you so much, fun snack.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Thank you so much, Lana. We really appreciate you. We've
had a lot of very sweet listeners send us snacks lately,
so if you've sent us something, it might take us
a little while to get to it, but we really
appreciate it so much.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
Wh It's always so fun to see what people send
from different parts of the United States or we've had
a couple in the world, Canada and the world, so
we really do appreciate it so much.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
Today we're going to tell the story of Miriam and
Richard Illis, and this case was a recommendation from our listener, Chelsea.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Thank you, Chelsea. You've told me a couple of little
tidbits about this case, and I'm really looking forward to
hearing the whole thing.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
It's an interesting one. It was a cold January night
in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Snow had fallen earlier in the day,
blanketing the town in white. Inside a quiet suburban kitchen,
forty seven year old Miriam Illis was on the phone
with a friend in Montana. It was a normal conversation,
the kind people have every day, until it wasn't. A
single gunshot shattered the window behind Miriam. The bullet pierced

(05:07):
the glass, struck Miriam from behind, and ended her life
in an instant. Miriam was a devoted mother, a respected
medical professional, and the estranged wife of one of the
area's most prominent heart surgeons, doctor Richard Illis. From the outside,
doctor Illis seemed to have it all, a thriving career,
a beautiful family and the admiration of his community. But

(05:29):
the Illesses marriage had been unraveling for years. By nineteen
ninety nine, they were locked in a bitter, high stakes divorce,
battling over money, property, and custody of their five year
old son, Ritchie. At first, the evidence pointed nowhere, no witnesses,
no fingerprints, unknown DNA, And yet the deeper investigators dug,

(05:49):
the more they uncovered a portrait of a man who
had everything to lose and would stop at nothing to
keep control. Some would later call it a crime that
was almost perfect. Before the gunshot, before the investigation, before
the courtroom drama, there was just a couple. Miriam Zambi
was born in the US to a Catholic Lebanese American family.
She was smart, warm, and deeply rooted in her faith.

(06:12):
By the late eighties, she had built a respected career
as a profusionist, someone who operates the heart lung machine
during open heart surgeries. I had never heard of that
profession before.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
So essentially, the patient's life is in their hands right
because they're pumping their heart for them during surgery.

Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, it's an intense, high pressure role. It demands precision
and focus. And that was how she met Richard Illis.
At the time, Richard was training to become a heart surgeon.
He was ambitious and confident, already making a name for himself.
They were both dedicated professionals, and neither had been married before.
In nineteen ninety one, they started dating, and about a

(06:49):
year later they tied the knot. Richard had grown up
in rural Pennsylvania. He often spoke fondly of his upbringing
and the man he considered a father figure, Uncle Joe,
who taught him how to hunt and handled guns. Richard
wanted to return to those roots, so after the wedding,
he and Miriam moved from Saint Louis to Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
Williamsport is a quiet town of about thirty thousand people,

(07:12):
surrounded by hills and woods. Richard joined Susquehanna Health System,
and by nineteen ninety four he was working as a
cardiothoracic surgeon at Williamsport Hospital. Within a few years, he
rose to chief of the department. He was considered one
of the best in the field. By the mid nineteen nineties,
his income had topped a million dollars a year. They
bought a sprawling home in the suburb of Cogan Station.

(07:35):
They hired help, joined the country club, took lavish vacations
to the outside world. They were the definition of success,
but Miriam remained grounded. She had the house and the lifestyle,
but she didn't care much for status. Her world revolved
around their son, Richie, born in nineteen ninety three. She
gave up her career to raise him full time. She
joined the PTA led Sunday School, started a children's education

(07:59):
program at their church. One friend would later say, quote,
Miriam made more friends in five years than most people
do in a lifetime. While Miriam built a life around
family and community, Richard buried himself in work. The hours
were long, the pressure intense, and he didn't hide his temper.
Colleagues said he was brilliant but demanding, and when something
didn't go his way, he let people know. As the

(08:21):
years passed, the couple grew further apart. By early nineteen
ninety eight, things had reached a breaking point. That February,
Miriam left town briefly to visit her family in Atlanta.
When she returned, Richard told her they were done. He
claimed that she had abandoned the marriage by leaving the
state and told friends they were separated and that he
had no intention of reconciling.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
How long had she been gone for?

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Not very long at all.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I think he just used that as an excuse to
make the make the cut. Miriam decided she needed to
act quickly to protect her interests. She went to the
bank and withdrew three hundred thousand dollars half of the
money from their joint account. Richard stole formed into the
bank later that day. Furious that no one had notified him,
he closed the account and moved the remaining money into

(09:06):
an account solely in his name.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
So their bank account had six hundred thousand dollars in it.
It's funny, that's it's exact same amount. That's an arc, Yeah,
Gary Quincy, five hundred and ninety five thousand dollars.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, with those actions, the battle lines were drawn and
it was just going to get uglier from there. They
were both still living in the house, each refusing to
leave until Miriam finally gave in. She filed for divorce
and rented a place about fifteen minutes away. Richard responded
with a custody complaint demanding sole possession of the house
and primary custody of Richie. In May, a judge ordered

(09:45):
Richard to pay over eighty eight hundred dollars per month
in spousal and child support. A few months later, that
number jumped to more than thirteen thousand dollars. Oh, I
thought that was a lot, But then when I looked
at it compared to his income. If he was making
a million dollars a year, it's only one hundred and
fifty six thousand a year, so it's really not that
much for him. I'm sure it felt like a lot,

(10:06):
but in the grand scheme of things, pretty small.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Okay, if you say so.

Speaker 3 (10:12):
Then came the final blow. In July, Miriam discovered that
Richard was in a relationship with a woman from the hospital,
Catherine Swowyer. Miriam had once suggested hiring Katherine as her
replacement when she left her job to raise Richie. Now
Catherine had replaced her in more ways than one. That summer,
Catherine moved in with Richard. Miriam was devastated, but more

(10:33):
than that, she was scared. She was worried about custody,
about money, about what Richard might do. The legal battle
intensified in the fall Richard's attorney accused Miriam of dragging
out the divorce just to keep collecting spousal support. There
were arguments over property over payments. Richard fell behind, and
in November he was served with a contempt petition. In December,

(10:56):
a nurse at the hospital overheard Richard say to a
colleague quote, I wish the bitch were dead. My life
would be a whole lot easier. In early January nineteen
ninety nine, just one week before Miriam was killed, she
testified in court that months earlier, Richard had made significant
withdrawals in an attempt to hide money from her. He
claimed the cash was for a gambling trip to Atlantic City,

(11:18):
something that he said he did regularly. By that point,
they had settled into a fragile routine. Miriam lived in
her rented home with Ritchie during the week, Richard had
him on weekends. Miriam had begun to regain her spark,
spending more time with friends and reconnecting.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
With her community.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Richard too appeared to be moving on, but beneath the surface,
the resentment was still simmering.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
On Friday, January fifteenth, nineteen ninety nine, Richard Alice arrived
at Miriam's home on Sheridan Street to pick up their
five year old son, Ritchie for the weekend. He was
about an hour late, but that wasn't unusual. He told
Miriam they might go snowmobiling at the family cabin or
perhaps visit his relatives in Downingtown. He hadn't decided yet.

(12:01):
Nothing about the exchange seemed out of the ordinary. Later
that night, Richard called Miriam again to say they were
headed to Downingtown after all. On Sunday morning, two days later,
Miriam's friend Susan van Fleet was at church wondering where
she was. Miriam was the director of Bible Studies. It
was an important part of her life. She rarely missed

(12:22):
a Sunday and if she did, she always called. But
there had been no call. Susan fileden for her that morning,
then told her husband to Wayne, we need to go
check on Miriam. When the van Fleets arrived at Miriam's house,
they saw mail in the mail box and the newspapers
still on the porch. They ring the door bell, no answer,
only the sound of Miriam's dogs barking from inside. They

(12:45):
walked to the back of the house, where Dwayne peered
through the kitchen window. Miriam was lying face down on
the floor. Susan called nine one one. When the police arrived,
they found all the doors locked. They forced their way
through the back and entered the house. Miriam was pronounced
dead at the scene. She was forty seven years old.
She lay on the kitchen floor with a cordless phone

(13:06):
beside her. There was a hole in the window above
the sink, and small shards of broken glass scattered on
the counter. A single bullet had come through the window
and struck her in the back. The fragments tore through
her lungs, her heart, her aorda. The autopsy later determined
she would have died within a few seconds of being shot.
I would think whoever Miriam was on the phone with

(13:27):
would have called nine one one.

Speaker 3 (13:29):
I just find it so horrifying to think about the
fact that you can just be standing in your kitchen
on the phone and suddenly, you know, totally out of nowhere,
bullet just comes through the window and kills you.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
It's just so Behind Miriam's house was a gully that
ran parallel to the street, lined with trees, separating Miriam's
backyard from the backyards of the house's one street to
the south. Investigators quickly found where the shot that killed
Miriam had been fired from. There was a tree about
seventy feet behind her house, and based on the shoe
print and the snow that had fallen on Friday, it

(14:02):
seemed clear that the killer had taken up a position
behind the tree. He possibly steadied himself against the tree
once he had a clear shot. Near the base of
the tree was a cigarette butt. From there, the footprints
continued west, passed a locked chain link fence surrounding a
tennis court. Inside the fence just a few feet away
with something else, a home made silencer. It looked like

(14:24):
the killer had fired the shot, unscrewed the silencer, tossed
it over the fence, then walked away. The trail of
footprints ended about two hundred feet away near Limehurst Parkway.
That was it. Three pieces of evidence, a cigarette butt,
oversized shoeprints, and a homemade silencer. Nothing else. No white witnesses,

(14:45):
no shell casings, no sign of a forest entry. Just
a single sniper shot by someone who had waited for
the perfect moment to strike. At five point twenty that
Sunday afternoon, while police were still processing the scene, Richard
returned to drop Richie off. He found his estranged wife's
house surrounded by police cars and crime scene tape. When

(15:05):
detectives told him Miriam was dead, he appeared stunned, but
one thing stuck with them. The first words out of
his mouth were has any evidence been found? Not what
happened or who did this? Just has any evidence been found?
To homicide detective John McDermott, it was an immediate red flag.
McDermott was also surprised when five minutes later Richard's demeanor

(15:29):
abruptly shifted from grief to matter of fact as he
was questioned about his whereabouts over the weekend. Early in
the investigation, there seemed to be only two possibilities. By
all accounts, everyone loved Miriam Illis, everyone that is, except
for maybe the man with whom she was entangled in
a bitter and contentious divorce. Richard was certainly one possibility.

(15:51):
If he killed Miriam and got away with it, he
would be given custody of Richie, and it would benefit
him financially as well. Not only would it eliminate the
thought of dollars that he was paying in spousal support,
there was also a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
life insurance policy on Miriam. He was still the beneficiary
despite the fact that they'd been separated for months. If

(16:12):
you're going through divorce, you should probably change your beneficiary
as soon as possible and let your partner know. Yeah,
your ex partner knows.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
Well.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
It's interesting because I think Richard managed those affairs in
their marriage, the insurance and things like that, and he
had there were two policies, one on himself and one
on Miriam. And he actually did change the policy on
himself to have Catherine, his new girlfriend, be the beneficiary,
but he didn't change the policy on Miriam from him
being the beneficiary.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
I'm not liking this guy so much now. The other
possibility was some sort of random shooting, something like the
DC sniper that would dominate the headlines a couple of
years later, a homicidal maniac targeting people at random. That
possibility set the community of Williamsport and surrounding areas on edge.
The initial evidence points in the direction of the random

(17:01):
shooter scenario. DNA found on the cigarette butt was not
a match for Richard. Some small hairs had been found
on the silencer, and those didn't match Richard either. And lastly,
Richard wore a size nine and a half shoe, while
the shoe prints found on the scene were size thirteen
or fourteen. The last confirmed time Miriam was seen alive
was around five pm on Friday, when Richard arrived to

(17:23):
pick up Ritchie for the weekend. At that point, investigators
were left with a wide window for the time of
death sometime between Friday evening and Sunday morning, but a
critical break narrowed that window to almost the exact moment
Miriam was killed. Remember the cordless phone that was found
next to Miriam's body on the floor. A check of
her phone records found that the last phone call that

(17:44):
Miriam received was on Friday at ten ten pm, her
friend Mary Dixon called her from Montana. The two women
chatted for twenty five minutes when Mary suddenly heard a
noise that sounded like a dish or glass breaking. Mary
heard her friend exclaim, oh my God. That was followed
by noises that could have been labored breathing or moaning.

(18:04):
Although at the time Mary thought there was just some
sort of problem with a phone line, there had been
a snowstorm that day. After all, Mary hung up after
a minute and called back, but she got a busy signal.
She tried again the next morning, this time getting the
answering machine. Mary didn't realize what had happened until the
police contacted her after checking Miriam's phone records. Imagine her

(18:26):
whoror when she realized that Miriam was shot and killed
while she was speaking to her.

Speaker 3 (18:30):
So that is the answer to the very astute question
you asked earlier. So Mary didn't realize that Miriam had
been shot. Maybe she should have, but I think she
just thought, oh, the phone line went dead, and you know,
didn't know what happened and couldn't get a hold of
her after that.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
But I think I probably would have called the police.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
Yeah, she probably wished that she had.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
In hindsight, Yeah, that call had ended at ten thirty
seven pm on Friday night, meaning that Miriam was shot
one or two minutes before then.

Speaker 3 (18:58):
That was a big break for the police because knowing
that if they hadn't been able to narrow down the timeline,
it would have been much more difficult because they would
have had like a two day window to try to
figure out when she was killed. So knowing exactly when
she was shot was a really important piece.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
Of the case.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Knowing the exact time of death. Let's take a more
detailed look at Richard's timeline that evening. This is something
that the police did to try to figure out whether
he could have committed this crime. We know that Richard
picked up Richie around five pm. After leaving Miriam's house.
With Richie, Richard said that he went into his office
and dictated some notes, and then he and Richie swung
through the Burger King drive through and got dinner, which

(19:46):
they took back to Richard's house, arriving there between six
thirty and seven pm. After eating, Richard called Miriam at
seven o'clock to let her know that he had decided
to head south for the weekend to see his family
in the Downingtown area, about.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
A three hour drive on a good day. He said.

Speaker 3 (20:01):
He then began packing for the trip. Richard's friend Dwayne,
the one who would see Miriam's body through the kitchen
window a couple days later, called Richard's cell phone at
seven seventeen pm. Richard told Dwayne he was leaving soon
to go see his family. Dwayne told him to be
careful because the roads were snowy and slippery. It had
snowed earlier that day, with somewhere between three to eight

(20:23):
inches of accumulation, depending on which part of central Pennsylvania
you were in. Although the snow had ended around noon,
the roads were still not great. Richard claimed that he
and Richie left for the trip south around nine thirty
PM and that it was slow going due to the roads.
Sometime around eleven PM, although Richard wasn't sure of the
exact time, Richie got hungry and had to use the restroom,

(20:46):
so they stopped at the McDonald's in Lewisbourg. On a
good day, Louisbourg would only be a forty five minute
drive from Richard's home. After driving another fifteen miles, Richard
decided that they should find a hotel for the night.
He was tired, having been up early that morning for surgery,
and the drive on the icy roads was stressful. Richard
called his sister at eleven twenty four pm to let

(21:08):
her know, but then drove another forty five miles to Harrisburg.
Because there were no decent hotels until then, he stopped
at the Sheridan Inn in Harrisburg around twelve twenty am,
but there was a busload of people checking in at
that time, so they drove a bit further to a
Hampton Inn, where they checked in for the night. An
employee of the Sheridan confirmed that Richard had come in

(21:28):
and that she advised him that the Hampton Inn might
be a better choice because of the group that had
just arrived. In order to see if Richard's timeline would
make it possible for him to have been the shooter,
the best thing to look at is the eleven twenty
four pm phone call to his sister, which was forty
eight minutes after Miriam was shot. While his exact location
at the time of that call couldn't be determined, the

(21:49):
cell tower data shows that he was somewhere between the
city of White Deer, which is just north of Louisbourg,
and Selinsgrove. If the roads had been fine, that would
mean that he was between twenty five and forty six
minutes away from Miriam's house. We know that the roads
were not fine, but even if Richard had been driving
at sixty percent of a normal speed, it certainly would

(22:10):
have been feasible for him to have shot Miriam and
be at that point on the roads at that time.
The police did several simulations where they drove all the
routes that Richard would have taken that night if he
had been the killer. They started on foot from the
tree behind Miriam's house through the gully to the tennis court,
then to where his car would have been parked. From
there they drove to the McDonald's and onto the Sheraton,

(22:33):
then the Hampton Inn. They did one simulation where they
took up a position by the tree behind Miriam's house
at exactly ten thirty five PM on a day when
it had snowed heavily and the roads were in similar
condition to the night that Miriam was killed. They went
through all the steps that Richard would have gone through
and determined that although the timeline was tight, it was
definitely possible.

Speaker 2 (22:54):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (22:56):
It's really nice now that we have Google Maps and
you can look at this stuff and say, oh, it
would have taken this amount of time or whatever. But
in nineteen ninety nine the police had to basically try
to recreate it and do simulation to recreate the situation
as best they could.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah. Well, especially we having to wait for a snowy day.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
I think a guy like Richard, though, hires most things
in his life out.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
Hmmm, that's a good point.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
And would he really do that with Richie in the
car waiting.

Speaker 3 (23:23):
I mean, that's a really good question. That's really horrible
to think about it.

Speaker 4 (23:26):
He probably would.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
But detectives wanted to interview five year old Richie, hoping
that he could shed light on his father's movements that
Friday night, but Richard refused. He said that Richie couldn't
be questioned unless a child psychologist was present. For months,
he continued to put up roadblocks ensuring the police wouldn't
get access to his son. On Monday, the day after
Miriam's body was discovered, Richard called the waste management company

(23:51):
that normally picked up his trash and asked them to
come by the next day. This was curious because Tuesday
was the normal day for his garbage pick up. Anyway,
he claimed during the phone call that they had missed
him the last couple of weeks and so that's why
he was calling. The police in this case were really smart.
They also called his garbage hauling company and asked if
they would keep Richard's garbage separated and turn it over

(24:13):
to the police for the next few weeks, and they agreed.
I think that was really smart of the police. And
I don't know if that's a normal thing that they
do during an investigation.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Like this sometimes, Yes, I believe they do that.

Speaker 3 (24:24):
Yeah, it makes sense. Searching through his garbage, investigators found
some empty containers of super glue, a small piece of wire,
and a rifle barrel with holes drilled through it. The wire,
it's not at all suspicious. The wire seemed similar to
material that was used to make the silencer that they
found at the scene. The holes in the rifle barrel
were very similar to those drilled in the silencer as well,

(24:46):
almost like the rifle barrel had been used to practice
the construction of the silencer.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
Really dumb to throw those things into your own trash.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Yes, very dumb. When police later searched Richard's home, they
found a workshop containing materi burials similar to those used
in the silencer. Richard, however, was known to work on
guns as a hobby, so the presence of tools and
parts wasn't damning on its own.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
Richard had an explanation for why there may have been
a match between materials found in his workshop and material
used to make the silencer. On January twenty third, about
a week after Miriam was killed, Richard contacted the police.
He said that when he came back home after being away,
he could tell someone had been in his house. He
said that lights were on, which he said he was

(25:31):
sure had been turned off when he left, and some
things had been moved around from their usual spot. The
police asked if he wanted to file a report, but
he declined. It seemed that his intent was to ensure
the police knew that perhaps someone else had access to
his workshop.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
So basically, he's trying to make the story that someone
broke into his house, built a silencer in his workshop,
and then used it to kill his wife, apparently to
frame him.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Well, if you were going to frame someone, I think
that is a good idea.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:01):
While the police suspected Richard from the beginning, they didn't
have much to go on. There was no physical evidence
tying Richard to the scene. All they had were shoeprints
that were much bigger than Richard's shoe size, a cigarette
butt with someone else's DNA, and a homemade silencer with
some hairs on it that belonged to someone else. Do
you have any more information about these hairs that were

(26:21):
on the silencer?

Speaker 3 (26:22):
No, other than that they were able to test for
DNA from those hairs, because sometimes with a hair you
can test for DNA, like if the root is there.
Other times you can't. They must have had enough to test,
but that's that's all I know. It wasn't a match
for Richard.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
So we know that it's cold, it's wintertime. The shooter
would have had a hat on, and it would have
made it less likely for hairs to fall right one
the cigarette pot that was right there at the scene
with someone else's DNA on it. I mean that seems
like it's exculpatory evidence right there, right, I mean, yeah.
Six weeks went by without much progress. On March first,

(26:57):
the case took a strange turn when a mysterious letter
arrived at the office of George Lupley, Richard's attorney. The letter,
written in block letters using a pencil, read in part quote,
I shot Miriam. The Lord ordered me to harvest the
wicked racist ones of this town. It was signed soldier
of God, soldier of a quality, soldier of death. Well

(27:19):
that's strange. The letter was baffling, to say the least.
No one had ever accused Miriam of being a racist.
Was it somehow tied to the fact that she had
a Lebanese background, even though she was a devout Catholic.
Maybe someone saw her Arabic ethnicity and thought she was Muslim.
Did they have a hate crime on their hands? Or
was this just an attempt at diverting the police from

(27:40):
the real killer. Or maybe it was just a crackpot
who sent the letter wanting to be part of the story. Crackpot.
There were no discernible fingerpt prints on either the envelope
or the letter, and no DNA was found on the
stamp or the envelope flap. There was a tiny hair
stuck in the envelope flap though it was tested for DNA,

(28:02):
but it didn't match Richard's DNA. It didn't match the
DNA from the cigarette butt either or.

Speaker 3 (28:08):
The hair that was found on the silencer. So now
we have like three different DNA samples.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Wow. So two more months went by. In early May,
another letter arrived at Attorney Lepley's office. It was written
in the same block letters as the first one, and
this letter, the writer claimed that he had a higher
IQ than everyone in the police force, spoke several languages,
and had several advanced degrees. The letter seemed intent on

(28:34):
convincing the police that Richard Illis was not their man.
It said, quote, doctor Illis could not have been the
killer of his evil wife. It went on to explain, quote,
I had free access to his home while he was
on vacations and used many of his supplies to fabricate
my equipment. Oh there we have it, Yes, exactly again.
The letter was signed Soldier of God, Soldier of Equality,

(28:56):
Soldier of Death. The letter seemed like a thinly veiled
attempt at framing doctor Inche Zama, who was Richard's partner
in cardiothoracic surgery at Williamsport Hospital. Doctor Zama fit the
description to a tee. He had several advanced degrees and
was fluent in multiple languages. He was friends with both
Richard and Miriam, so he could have had access to

(29:17):
Richard's home while he was out of town. Investigators wondered
if perhaps doctor Zama had been involved with Miriam, maybe
they had a fling, or maybe doctor Zama hit on
her and was rejected. The police questioned doctor Zama and
checked on his alibi for the night of January fifteenth.
It was solid. After receiving the anonymous letters, one of

(29:37):
the officers recalled seeing a book on Richard's bedside table
during a search of his home. The book was called
they wrote their own sentences the FBI's Handwriting Analysis manual.
Investigators got a copy of the book and inside found
that there was a chapter about anonymous letters. It included
sections about the challenges presented in identifying the writer of

(30:01):
black letters and letters written in pencil. Interesting. By June,
Richard appeared to be preparing to flee. His girlfriend Catherine Swayer,
saw him reviewing some papers. When she asked, he told
her they were a list of countries with and without
used extradition treaties. He also obtained a passport for Richie

(30:21):
and bought a book titled How to Hide Your Assets
and Disappear. This was something the police only discovered later.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
So clever, So there were.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
So many of these books and other like small clues.
Do you think it's because he was entitled and he
just didn't think that he was going to be a suspect?
I think And I'm here, I'm like putting the Carbehore. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
I think it's pretty clear at this point that Richard
may have had some involvement in this, But I think
he thought he was really smart guy and like thought
of everything. But obviously he missed some pretty key things
like leaving these books on his shelf. But Richard didn't
flee the country. Instead, he got mayor worried. Six months
after Miriam was murdered, doctor Illis married her replacement, Catherine Swawyer.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Well, it's nice he didn't have to worry about that
pesky divorce, isn't it.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, very convenient.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Keith is here with us, so a lot of times they.

Speaker 3 (31:13):
Just use your channeling Keith Morrison exactly. While Richard didn't
flee the country, he did leave the state. As the
primary suspect in Miriam's murder, his reputation was in tatters.
He interviewed for jobs around the country, but prospective employers
would receive anonymous letters with newspaper clippings saying that doctor
Illis was a suspect in his first wife's slaying.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Oh interesting, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (31:36):
I never found out who was sending.

Speaker 3 (31:37):
These these letters, but I love this for him, I
do too. Eventually, Richard did land a job in Texas,
but then he moved again to Spokane, Washington. He couldn't
get a job as a heart surgeon, though, so he
opened a plastic surgery clinic instead. Around this time, Illis
spoke to the press about the lycoming County DA publicly
naming him their prime suspect. Said quote, he can call

(32:01):
me whatever he wants, but this isn't going to make
me the person who did this. I could not have
something to do with such a horrible, horrible thing. Yes,
I was separated from my wife. We were seeking a divorce,
but God, she was the natural mother of my only child.
He went on to talk about how being under a
cloud of suspicion affected his life, quote, I'm horrified by it,

(32:21):
and I'll tell you why. For five years, I was
considered the doctor in Williamsport. Everybody loved me. Everybody who
now has something bad to say about me once considered
it important to be friends with me. With no apparent
progress in the case, Miriam's family put up a two
hundred and fifty thousand dollars reward for information leading to
an arrest and conviction. In the summer of nineteen ninety nine,

(32:43):
the police got a significant break. A man named Matthew
McKay was looking for minnows in a creek to use
as fishing bait. He happened upon a small rifle lying
in the creek bed less than twenty feet from the road.
This was about two and a half miles southwest of
where Miriam was killed. Seeing the gun was loaded, McKay
removed the clip and took the rifle to the police.

(33:04):
There was no DNA found on the gun and the
serial number had been drilled out. Many times criminals will
use a file to scrape the serial number off of
a gun, but the police can sometimes still make out
the number by using acid etching. Drilling out the numbers
with a drill press, however, made it impossible to determine
the serial number.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Here you are giving tips to murderers again.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
No, the weapon was somewhat unique. Though the barrel of
the rifle had been sawed off and there was a
set screw screwed into the top of the barrel. It
fit perfectly with the homemade silencer they had found on
the tennis court. This, along with ballistics testing, confirmed that
they did indeed have the murder weapon. Firearms experts were
brought in to try and determine what type of gun

(33:47):
it was. Eventually they came to the conclusion that the
gun was a Savage Model twenty three D. Only sixteen
thousand guns of that particular model had been manufactured between
the years of nineteen thirty two and night nineteen forty nine.
At that time, it was considered the best rifle available
for shooting varmints such as prairie dogs and ground dogs.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Unfortunately, harry dogs and ground dogs groundhog, I get confused,
they're different, I guessed I.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Get confused to that also.

Speaker 3 (34:19):
Unfortunately, that was before ownership records were kept, and so
there was no way to trace the origins of the rifle.
It was an important find, but it seemed like another
dead end.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
The Richard had a gun collection.

Speaker 3 (34:31):
Yes, he was known to He had quite a few guns,
and he was very good and.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
He liked antique guns.

Speaker 3 (34:37):
He I don't know if he liked antique guns in particular. Yeah,
he had a lot of guns. I think he had
some old, some new, and he liked working on them too.
He was somewhat of an amateur gunsmith. So the gun
seemed like a dead end Until January of two thousand,
a year after Miriam's death, investigators were trying to learn
more about Richard Illis as a person. Who was he,

(34:59):
what was his up like, anything that might give them
a clue. Richard's friend Dwayne Van Fleet told the police
that Richard had confided in him once about his father.
The man that Richard had known as Uncle Joe, the
one who taught him to hunt, had actually turned out
to be Richard's real father. Unfortunately, Joe Kowalski had died
in nineteen ninety eight, so the police couldn't interview him. Instead,

(35:21):
they talked to Joe's sister, a woman named Jean Maltesta.
Jean told them that her brother Joe had been a
gunsmith in the military and had continued to work on
guns whose entire life he had been close to. Richard
had taught him everything he knew about gunsmithing, shooting, and hunting.
When Joe died in nineteen ninety eight, he left most
of his guns to Richard. During the visit, Jean pulled

(35:44):
out a photo album and showed the detective's old pictures
of Joe. The detectives did a double take when she
showed them a picture of Joe dated nineteen forty seven.
In the photo, he was holding a dead groundhog in
one hand or maybe it was a prairie dog, I
don't know, and in the other he was holding a rifle.
It looked an awful lot like a Savage Model twenty
three D. Although it couldn't be definitively determined that the

(36:07):
gun in the photo was the same one used to
kill Miriam, it was an important piece of the puzzle
connecting Richard to the crime. They were getting close, but
it still wasn't enough to make and arrest. The police
had made numerous attempts at interviewing Richie to get his
recollection from the night in question, but they had been
blocked by Richard and his lawyer every step of the way. Finally,

(36:29):
an agreement was reached and Richie was interviewed in September
of two thousand. It had been twenty months since his
mom was killed, and Richie was now almost seven years old. Unfortunately,
he wasn't much help. Any memories he may have had
of that night had faded with time. The police speculated
that perhaps doctor Illis had drugged Richie that night to
ensure that he slept while his dad was waiting in

(36:51):
the woods to take his shot. Unfortunately, there's no way
to know for sure. We'll be back after a break.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
Finally, in December two thousand two, the police convinced the
Lycoming County DA that there was enough evidence to make
a case against Richard. An arrest warrant was issued and
officers flew to Spokane, Washington. It had been almost four
years since Miriam was murdered. The police had been warned
by Richard's acquaintances that he carried a gun with him

(37:25):
at all times, so they were very cautious in making
the arrest. He was taken into custody without incident and
extradited back to Pennsylvania. A search of Richard's home revealed
some compelling new evidence. First, some of the guns they
found matched the list of guns known to have been
owned by Joe Kowalski. They had gotten this list from
Joe's sister Jane. This confirmed that Joe had indeed given

(37:49):
several of his guns to Richard when he died. Even
more interesting was the unfinished manuscript found on Richard's computer.
It seems that doctor Illis had aspirations of becoming an author,
although he had only completed fourteen pages of his book.
You're very smirky over there.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
I'm just I'm jealous that you get to read this part,
because I just think this part is really interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
The book was called Heartshot, the Murder of the Doctor's Wife.
In the pages that Richard had drafted, he described his
life with Miriam, and then, without admitting that he himself
was the killer, puts himself in the mind of the killer.
He describes from the killer's point of view, his actions
and thought processes. So this is kind of like when

(38:31):
OJ wrote.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Yes, it's very much like that before OJ wrote that book,
but it reminded me a lot of that.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
For example, he wrote, quote the killer knew the investigation
would be difficult for the authorities, and that he knew
quote his actions would confound them and lead them down
the wrong path. Multiple times. He thought really highly of it.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
He really bit me.

Speaker 2 (38:53):
He describes patiently waiting outside of Miriam's window on seven
different nights prior to the actual shooting, waiting for the
right moment to present itself. He describes how he steadied
himself against a tree while Miriam was on the phone,
and leaving a cigarette butt in the snow just before
the shooting. So when his book the character is named Miriam.

Speaker 3 (39:15):
Yes, I believe he referred to Miriam as the character's
name in the book.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
It's like, is it fiction or nonfiction? I don't really know,
but I think it's intended to be fictions.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
Only fourteen pages. Yeah, after the shooting, he wrote about
walking to the portal of death, meaning the window to
confirm that no follow up shot was needed. Then he
describes the feeling he had after the deed was done. Quote,
the killer made his way to the warmth of his
waiting car and felt an almost orgasmic catharsis as he

(39:46):
congratulated himself on another mission well done. After all, to him,
killing was better than sex. Well that left me a
little speechless. We're both sitting here with their mouth singing
open like that.

Speaker 3 (39:59):
Wow, you can tell he really fancied himself a wordsmith too,
write the almost orgasmic catharsis. I mean, oh boy, it's.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Gross that he was gloating over murdering anyone, let alone
the wife, his wife and mother of his child.

Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yeah, it really does remind me a lot of the
OJ writing the book.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
If I did it It's almost.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Like he really wanted people to know about how smart
he was and how brilliant he was. But he thought
that by writing it as like a fictional portrayal, that
that would be okay in some respects, or that people
wouldn't be able to piece those things together. It's just
it's kind of bizarre, definitely.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Although Richard had been arrested, it was still largely a
circumstantial case. He was the only person with a motive,
and they could show that the timeline was plausible. The
gun being tracked back to his father, Joe Kowalski, was
a solid piece of supporting evidence, as was the unfinished
manuscript on his computer, but still there was no physical

(40:58):
evidence linking him to the crime scene. In March of
two thousand and three, as the prosecution was preparing for
a trial, a few police officers went to do some
additional searches in the area where the rifle had been found.
Less than a quarter of a mile from where the
gun had been found, they came upon a pair of sneakers,
size fourteen rebox sneakers. To be exact, the tread pattern

(41:19):
matched the shoe prints found at the scene exactly. There
was a small hair on one of the shoes that
was tested. Disappointingly, the DNA didn't match Richard, and a
last dish attempt to connect the evidence to Richard, investigators
decided to compare the DNA to Richie's. It wasn't an
exact match, but it was pretty close. Ninety seven percent

(41:40):
of the population could be excluded from matching the hair,
but Richie could not be excluded. It wasn't definitive, but
it was the first evidence that could at least come
close to connecting Richard to the crime scene.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
It's kind of bizarre that they found these shoes over
four years after the murder.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
And I know it's a wooded area, but still.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
In years to pick up this gun, or not years
to pick up the gun. The gun was found like
six months after, right, Yeah, but the shoes, Yeah, Like,
why wouldn't he have achieved them?

Speaker 3 (42:07):
I don't know why he Yeah, I mean, not only
did he not retrieve them, but he left them in
places that weren't that far from where the shooting took place.
Richard's trial finally began in January two thousand and four,
just over five years after Miriam was killed. The prosecution
laid out their case. Richard planned every last detail. He
planned to have an alibi by being out of town

(42:28):
with his son. He planted false evidence at the scene
with someone else's DNA. He bought size fourteen shoes to wear.
He wrote anonymous letters pointing the finger at other suspects. Ritchie,
now ten years old, took the stand for the defense.
It was a dramatic moment, but ultimately had little impact
either way, as his memories of that weekend were hazy

(42:48):
at best. He vaguely remembered seeing his aunt Sue that weekend,
and he remembered seeing police cars at his mother's house
when they returned, but that was about it. The trial
took over four weeks. The jury deliberated for three days.
At one point they were deadlocked and sent a note
to the judge. As in so many other cases, the
judge asked them to keep deliberating, and soon they came

(43:10):
back with a verdict. They found Richard Illis guilty of
first degree murder. Later, it was revealed that at the
point the jury had been deadlocked, it was ten in
favor of guilty and two who voted not guilty. Eventually,
the two holdouts were convinced it may have been mostly
circumstantial evidence, but there was a lot of circumstantial evidence.
At the end of February two thousand four, after his conviction,

(43:33):
but before his sentencing hearing, Richard attempted suicide while in prison.
He used the end of a paper clip to puncture
a vein on the back of his left hand, and
then used part of a plastic ballpoint pen to keep
the wound open. He lost about a leader of blood
before being discovered by another inmate. The human body has
about five leaders of blood, and most people can lose

(43:55):
up to two leaders before passing out. Losing three leaders
is generally fatal.

Speaker 1 (44:01):
Wow, As a way.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
Of taking your own life, that seems like a really
you would have to be really, really determined to do
that because it was the main on the back of
his hand, which I'm sure doesn't bleed super quickly, and
you would have had to hold that open for a
really long time to lose that amount of blood.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
It mads possessions are searched all the time, I think
to keep them safe and keep them from taking their
own life. But yeah, that's a pretty creative method.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
A suicide note was found in Richard's cell, but the
contents have never been released. He was moved to a
mental institution for a time, delaying his sentencing hearing. At
his sentencing, Miriam's brother, Joseph Zambi, addressed Richard directly, quote,
we took you into our lives, we gave you our sister,
and you murdered her. Richard interrupted him, No, No, I

(44:48):
did not, Joe. Joseph replied, yes, you did. When given
the chance to speak, Richard said, quote, I have been
convicted of this, but the conviction is wrong. I had
absolutely nothing to do with it. He was sentenced to
life in prison with no possibility of parole. Rest in peace, Miriam,
and best wishes to Richie, who would be thirty one
years old by now. Custody of Richie was granted to

(45:11):
relatives of Miriam. I haven't been able to find anything
out about his life today, but I certainly hope that
he's doing well.

Speaker 2 (45:17):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Like so many of these cases that we talk about,
one of the biggest tragedies is that a child lost
both his mother and his father. Richard has now exhausted
the appeals process and will spend the rest of his
life in prison. He has continued to proclaim his innocence.
Several articles and TV shows have referred to this as
almost the perfect murder, and I originally thought that as well.

(45:40):
I think the false evidence that he planted, the DNA
that he planted at the scene in the form of
a cigarette butt, and the hair on the silencer, they
all seem kind of ingenious at first, but ultimately I
think a lot of that proved to be his own downfall.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
I'm curious what you think. Was it almost the perfect crime?

Speaker 2 (45:57):
I'm planting this cigarette but was pretty genius. The timeline
that he constructed was pretty good, and I think the
snowy weather kind of made it a little questionable as
to whether he could have gotten back right. And the
size fourteen shoes. I don't know if I saw this
on a movie or a TV show one time, but
I thought, if you, like, if you because you have
like a size nine feet, if you put a size

(46:17):
fourteen shoe on, I thought that police could tell from
your the footprints, Yeah, that the shoe didn't really fit correctly,
because you know, you wouldn't leave like a complete impression
or something.

Speaker 3 (46:29):
Yeah. I did a little research on that actually, and
they can't necessarily tell for sure that you're wearing a
size shoe that's different, but the prints can look less
even or or more sloppy if you're wearing shoes that
aren't the right size. If they can see you walk,
like if they have like a video and they see
you walking and you're in different size shoes, that definitely
looks different, Like your your gait would be sort of

(46:51):
different if you were wearing the wrong size shoes. But
with shoe prints, it's sort of like hit or miss.
I think you can maybe tell that they might be different,
but not for shoes.

Speaker 2 (47:00):
I just had an idea for a true crime fiction book.
If any of you guys write it, I will sue.
But hairdresser who is a serial killer, Oh, because she
has access to all this hair. What do you think
brilliant plant hair are all over?

Speaker 3 (47:15):
Oh man, you're really brilliant.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
But I bet that forensically you could see that the
hair could be like it was a fresh, hot cut.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Yeah. Probably. So.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
The cigarette butt thing, I think is an interesting one
because when I first read about it, I thought, oh, yeah,
that was really smart too. But if you think about it,
like if you're you're standing in the woods outside of
a house getting ready to shoot somebody. Are you really
going to be like smoking a cigarette?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Well, absolutely, I think so.

Speaker 3 (47:40):
I wouldn't think so, because the smoke could like people
might see the smoke or or smell the smoke, and
it might alert somebody that you're standing there. And also,
the investigators didn't find any ashes near the tree, which
I thought was interesting too, because it was on a
snowy surface, right, and so if someone had actually smoked
a cigarette there would probably be on the snow and

(48:01):
they didn't find that, So that was kind of a
clue to them that this was just planted there and
not actually smoked at the scene.

Speaker 2 (48:08):
There would be plenty of other items that you could
leave at the scene with someone else's DNA, like a
glove you found on the side of the road or right.
You know.

Speaker 3 (48:15):
The one thing that baffles me a little bit is
why Richard left the silencer at the scene, because I think,
like the cigarette butt and the shoes, I think that
was pretty smart on his part to try to point
the investigators in a different direction. But the silencer kind
of baffles me because he was known to have.

Speaker 1 (48:31):
Worked on guns.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
He had a lab in his house or a workshop,
he had the materials, So why leave the silencer there?
That seems like really kind.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Of an accident. Maybe he forgot I.

Speaker 3 (48:43):
Mean it was thrown over a fence in the tennis court,
so he pretty clearly intentionally left it there. But that
one seems like a big.

Speaker 1 (48:50):
Mistake to me.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
I think sometimes criminals don't realize the extent of the
search that's done after a crime.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
The other interesting piece of evidence for me is the
anonymous letters, because those made it seem just so obvious
that he was ridiculous, Like especially in the letter, you know,
he writes, there's the way doctor Illis could have done this.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Like, yeah, that was super super dumb.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I think ultimately Richard had a massive ego and he
thought that he could outsmart everyone, and I think he
over he overthought it, and you know, he made he
made mistakes because he thought he was so smart.

Speaker 1 (49:24):
He got really cocky.

Speaker 2 (49:26):
Can I ask you an unrelated question?

Speaker 1 (49:28):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (49:28):
How big is your ego?

Speaker 1 (49:33):
It's about yeap, No, I don't.

Speaker 2 (49:35):
The other day I asked you a question. I was
so surprised by your answer. Do you remember? Do you
know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 1 (49:40):
I can't remember exactly what.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
I think I said. How smart. Do you think you are, like,
what compared to the rest of the population.

Speaker 3 (49:48):
You said, I think I said ninety nine, and I was.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
Like, okay, I mean you're not dumb. You're definitely not dumb.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Well, when I when I was thinking when you said
that was about like standardized tests that.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
You might take.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Oh my gosh, here we go the g Matt.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
Test or things like that, And traditionally, when I've taken
those tests, I'm usually like.

Speaker 1 (50:12):
Does he sound I mean, there's cocky, but there's you know.

Speaker 2 (50:15):
Test taking does not indicate intelligence.

Speaker 3 (50:18):
I know, but I'm just saying that was what I
was really good at taking tests.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Some people aren't as good at taking tests.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
I am really good at taking tests. All right, maybe
I'm a little cocky.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
I think I'm pretty humble, but maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
I think I asked you how intelligent you were as
a follow up, and I can't remember what you said.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
It was definitely, well, part.

Speaker 2 (50:39):
Of intelligence is memory, and apparently you know you don't
have a very good I don't have memory. I'm just cheating.
I don't know. Bottom five percent.

Speaker 1 (50:49):
We're not in.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
The bottom five percent of intelligence. I think you're pretty
smart cookie.

Speaker 2 (51:02):
Groundhogs versus prairie dogs.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
I was hoping you were.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
Groundhogs also are known as woodchucks, and they are on
the larger size. Remember at our old house, we had
that like stone wall, and there was I think those
were groundhogs, Okay, because they are like four to nine
pounds up to two feet long. They live in forest, edges, fields,
suburban areas. They're in the eastern and central United States.

(51:27):
They are known to have solitary behavior. They burrow deep
but relatively simple ground systems. They're quiet, they're true hibernators.
They are herbivores. They eat grasses and veggies.

Speaker 3 (51:40):
And they're really good at forecasting the weather.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
Also, they actually are not good at that at all, but.

Speaker 3 (51:46):
Prairie dogs are. They're the ones that just pop their
heads upright and down.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah. They're smaller, one to three pounds, tend to sixteen
inches long. Known to live in grassland lands and prairies,
central and western United States. They're highly social, live in
large colonies, extensive underground towns and tunnels. Very vocal. They
have chirps, sparks, and alarms. Some hibernate, some don't. They
are also herbivores, and they're widely known just as prairie dogs.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
So I don't think we really have prairie dogs in
our area, do we is mostly like a Southern thing.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah, and that makes sense, Like I said, like we
did have that. I don't know if it was one groundhog,
one groundhog that just kind of was always around and
never really saw it with anyone else.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Well, thank you for educating me on that.

Speaker 2 (52:30):
You're welcome. Also, I have a story to tell. This
case reminded me a little bit of like a core
childhood memory. My dad was a hunter. You know, you
nor only know this story. Yeah, my dad was a hunter.
Hunted deer, and he had a whole closet full of
you know, rifles and shotguns and all sorts of things.
And one time there was a deer and we had

(52:53):
like a pond in our backyard and the deer, you know,
a beautiful deer, was like walking up towards our house
and my dad ran and got a shot gun and
he didn't break the window, but he like op tore
open the window and shot through the screen and I
believe he missed gratefully, he was.

Speaker 3 (53:08):
In the house and shot through the window.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Into the back of the screen.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
Yeah, And how old were you at this point?

Speaker 2 (53:15):
It was I think I was pretty little, probably like
seven or.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Eight, a little traumatizing.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
Well, you know my dad, I do.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
I vividly remember the first time I met your dad
and he sat me down on the couch and I
had never held a gun before in my entire life.
And he brought out a gun, a very large gun,
and he handed it to me and he said.

Speaker 1 (53:37):
What do you think of that?

Speaker 2 (53:38):
He was measuring your manhood? And I think you failed
this test pretty bad.

Speaker 3 (53:42):
It was like a magnum. It was whatever gun Clint
Eastwood used in Dirty Harry, Because he handed it to
me and he.

Speaker 1 (53:48):
Said, what do you think of that? He said, do
you do you feel lucky?

Speaker 3 (53:50):
Or something like that, And I was like, oh my god,
I'm about to die.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Some girls marry their father. I did not. Okay, I'm
over here deleting gummy beer. So I hope you guys
can't hear meet you, but I want to play a
game with you. I'm gonna give you I'm going to
put a gummy bear in your mouth, okay, And I'm
going to send you a message and I'm going to
see if you can guess what color gummy bear I've
given you to eat.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Okay, okay, all right, all right.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
So I put the same color in my mouth, okay,
And I was trying to send you a mental message.
So I want to see how in sync we are. Okay,
what color or flavor was the gummy bear?

Speaker 3 (54:26):
I really have no idea, but I am going to
say orange. That was the first thing that kind of
came to mind.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
When you were close?

Speaker 1 (54:33):
Really red? No, yellow?

Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yellow? Yeah, yellow, so close. I think we're still pretty insane.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Yeah, I think we are too.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Do you think that you're psychic?

Speaker 1 (54:44):
No? I don't.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
When I was a kid, I used to always do
psychic experiments, like we would watch different shows, you know
about psychics, and we would as kids, me and my
brothers and my sister. We would do things like car
trying to like mind read what car am I holding
up and things like that, and never never really worked
out there.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
Do you I think I'm psychic? Absolutely can read your
thoughts right now? How dare you? I'm doing just five?
Everyone loves me, even though people sometimes make mean comments,
It's okay, they still love me.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
So you have some major life news here, and.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
It's not just about my apple flavor, right, Yeah. No,
I actually have a new job. I am starting one
week from today.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Nice.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
So it's a little bit sad leaving my old job
because I did get to travel to Paris and New
York and all these amazing places. But I got a
new opportunity. It's with a startup. It's a very small company.
It's like maybe sixty people or so, and I'm very
excited about that.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah. How many jobs have you had?

Speaker 1 (55:51):
Jobs have I had?

Speaker 2 (55:52):
So this is probably like five jobs ago. I was like,
I wish that you would have saved a business card
from every job in position you wish I had to,
because it's it's been a lot.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Luckily, I have like a T shirt from everything.

Speaker 2 (56:03):
You don't even have that. I wish you would. I
wish I would have, say it'd be a big stack.

Speaker 3 (56:06):
I would say on average, I have changed jobs about
every four years.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
You've changed jobs a lot.

Speaker 3 (56:12):
Yeah, I think four years is a good amount of
time to be somewhere.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
I don't which gets fired every three and a half year.

Speaker 1 (56:19):
I have never been fired, Yeah, not gone? Would it is.

Speaker 2 (56:23):
Crazy that you've never been I mean, is that crazy.
You've never been fired.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yeah, it's crazy. I've never been like laid off. I
guess there's you were once. I thought, well I was, but.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
I think you had another job lined up already, so
it didn't really happen.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
I knew it was coming. I had another job lined up,
So yeah, I don't really count that. But yeah, I
mean it's been a fair number of jobs.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
But uh, because your oldest dirt, well.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
I think in this case, I everybody at my old
company already knew about our podcast, so I had to
go somewhere new so that I could bring our podcast
to new people.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
I probably should have gone to a bigger company.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
So there, you're implying that that people keep listening, that
we retain listeners.

Speaker 1 (57:02):
I think we probably do. Before we go.

Speaker 3 (57:05):
I want to give a few quick shout outs. So
on Reddit and Facebook, there are groups of people that
talk about true crime podcasts, and I kind of monitor.
I look at those groups and kind of see what
people are talking about. A lot of the posts in
both the Reddit and the Facebook groups are asking for recommendations.
They're like, oh, I love this podcast, what else would

(57:25):
you recommend? And once in a while people recommend our podcast,
and I want to thank the people who do that
because it really means a lot to us, because if
people are hearing about our podcast from other listeners, that
means a lot more than us promoting our own podcast. Right,
So I want to give a quick shout out to
some redditors this cellist eighty six seventy pocket full of Rocks, okay,

(57:49):
win to seventy five thirty six and I'm the Princess too.
Thank you so much for recommending our podcast and on Facebook, Vicky, Nancy,
Maren and and I'm probably missing some. I apologize if
I missed you, but thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
We really appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
It does mean so much we have and I think
I say it, I try to say it almost every episode,
but it's true. We have so many like super kind
and I'm like getting emotional listeners that support us and
that they're so loyal and it means so much. You
can make fun of me if you want to, but
I think gratitude is really important, and I try my
best to be very grateful for the things that we

(58:28):
have in our life, and so I truly am so grateful.

Speaker 1 (58:31):
I wouldn't make fun of you for that right.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Well, I think someone recently did, but it's okay. And
a special shout out to a newer listener named Wesley
who has been listening to our podcast while he is
a cross country trucker.

Speaker 3 (58:45):
Yeah, and he said he has recommended us to other
truckers as well.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
Yeah, we appreciate that so awesome.

Speaker 1 (58:49):
Yeah, we sure do.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
That's a really important job and it's hard work and
you're away from your family and your home a lot.
So shout out to all the truckers out there.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Thanks again, Lana for sending those snacks. That was so
kind of you, and thanks Chelsea for the case recommendation.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Good luck on your new job.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Well, thank you.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
Please rate, review, follow and subscribe. Find us on social
media and YouTube now, or send us an email at
lovemarykillat gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (59:15):
The best way to support our podcast is to join
us on Patreon. Go to patreon dot com slash Lovemrykill.
For only five dollars a month. You get early ad
free access, and a monthly bonus.

Speaker 3 (59:26):
Episode until next time.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
Don't kill your husband and don't kill your wife. The

(01:00:04):
compan

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Miriam and Richard Illes