The Operator

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Unspeakable, a true crime podcast where I tell
stories of real crimes with real victims, whose cases are
so shocking that many are left wondering how is this
even real? I use my experiences in law enforcement corrections,
and combined with my years as a criminal justice educator,

(00:28):
dig deep into complex cases of evil acts.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Some so evil many feel they are unspeakable. Warning.

Speaker 1 (00:51):
Unspeakable as intended for mature audiences. If you are easily offended,
then I'm not your girl. Listening discretion is advised. Hey, y'all,
it's kJ back for another episode of Unspeakable.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
If you were watching right now.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I am new, I am improved. I got my old
lady glasses on just for you.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
I swore I.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
Wasn't gonna wear them, but today's the day and put
them on, and so, hey, don't look different?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Is it still me? I hope? So listen.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
I'm excited to tell y'all that I now have some
new merch that is out and it's trucker hats. And
I had a lot of men that messaged me and
were like, hey, you got any hats, You got this,
you got that? So I put those out. You can
find those on my Facebook Unspeakable. I've got them on
my website on speakable the podcast dot com and you
go to the merch tab and there they are. So hey,
if you're into the hats, go check those out.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I think they're cute.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I've got also some that are Camo, I've got some
that are not some plane whatever. So go see what
you see and if you like, get you on and
sport that while you're out. And about now the case
I'm covering today, I've got to tell y'all, I have
wanted to do this one for so long because it's
a case that I learned about a long, long, long
time ago, up far before I even started the podcast,

(01:57):
and it was one that always stuck with me, and
it just me a few days ago I said, girl,
you need to get on that one. So I'm gonna
do this one, and you're gonna have to come with
me to Ocean City, Maryland. And this is gonna take
place in May of two thousand and two. This is
where Martha Crutchley had planned a Memorial Day weekend getaway

(02:19):
with her boyfriend of two years. His name was Joshua Ford.
Now this was kind of an interesting relationship because Martha
was much older than Josh, even though that was her boyfriend.
And when I say much older, I'm not talking five years.
I'm not talking ten years. I'm not talking fifteen years.
I'm talking twenty years. There was a twenty year difference
between them. But Martha was the cougar for Josh, and

(02:40):
their chemistry was just simply undeniable.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
They had met.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Two years prior to this date at a Christmas party
in Boston, and they just hit it off from the jump,
and I just that was so cool to me that
the age gap didn't change the fact that they just
fell for one another and Josh jump in feet first.
He just fell for her quickly. Now let's talk about
Josh for a minute. Josh was a very tall and

(03:08):
handsome guy. Very He was ten, with dark hair and
dark eyebrows. Thin but handsome, and he had a lot
going for him. He attended Norfolk State University in Virginia
before he did a stint in the army, which you know,
I always hats off to my military people.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
It just shows I think that he was a driven.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Guy and he had a way he wanted to go
in life, and he knew it. He was taken life
by the reins, so eventually he would get out of
the military, he would get that education, and he would
work to become an accomplished mortgage broker. And he was
a dedicated employee at the job where he worked, very respected,

(03:50):
did an excellent job, and outside of work, he was
somebody that was super close with his family. Now a
little bit of background about him is that he had
previously been married before he met Martha, but the two
decided after some time that it just wasn't working out,
and they decided to divorce amicably, but not before having

(04:10):
a son together whom they raised with love, although not
together and separately. But it seemed to be just a
great setup where two adults understood that this just wasn't
working out, but the child is who took the center stage,
and they did everything together.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
To give that child a good life.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
That child, at the time of this story was now
eight years old, and Josh was just a proud papa,
so proud of his kiddo, and they loved to hang
out doing their father's son time. And one of the
great pastimes that Josh had was that he was an
absolute fan of the Celtics, and that was one of
the things he loved to do was to watch them
playball on TV. And then he also made time in

(04:52):
real life to help people because he liked to volunteer
as a youth counselor at the Turner Memorial, a me
church in Washington, d C. Now, interesting about that is
that this is a predominantly black church. It's a historically
black church from what I understand. But he loved pouring
into the youth of that area, regardless of the fact

(05:13):
that he wasn't black himself. He just believed in outreach
and that you can help change the life of a child,
or at least impact that child's life. Now, the girlfriend Martha,
she didn't go by Martha is that not just a
dated name in twenty twenty five, But she went by Genie,
So for this story I will call her Genie. Jeanie
was in her early fifties, like I told you, but

(05:35):
very young at heart for sure.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
She loved to have fun. She was always smiling.

Speaker 1 (05:41):
She was interested in going out and having drinks, listening
to bands, and just having good quality time with her
boyfriend Josh. She too, was extremely successful. She was a
successful insurance executive and the fact that she was dating
a much younger man that didn't stress her out at
all because this relationship, the word I guess I would

(06:04):
use to describe.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
It is gentle. I don't want you to get a
thought about these two that she.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
Was some kind of like cougar trying to look younger
and get a younger man, or it is not that
at all. Genie very much looked her age. She very
much lived appropriately as the age that she was, and
Josh kind of seemed like an old soul from what
I understand about him. This relationship was just an amicable

(06:31):
meeting of two souls that saw just a wonderful connection
when they got together. And Jennie was very secure in
herself and everything that she had to offer to Josh.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
She appreciated the fact that.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
He was only thirty two years old, but he carried
this maturity with him that balanced with her life experience.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Genie was cute too, y'all.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
She had this dirty blonde hair, it was cut just
above her shoulders, and she had bangs that casually kind
of above or righted or eyebrows. Together as a couple,
they created a kind and most generous duo that friends
and family felt was just destined for nothing but happiness
and success together. So just recently the two had moved

(07:16):
in together too in Fairfax, Virginia, and now they were
looking to go do a little rest and relaxation when
they drove to Ocean City for the weekend, so they
made reservations to stay at a condo that was right
near the beach and also right really central to the
night scene going on there. They made it safely whenever
they drove into town and they unpacked their things in

(07:38):
the condo. This couple was also neat, They were orderly,
They did not make a big mess of the place
whenever they got there. And then at some point, once
they settled in, they decided to go to the store
and they bought a few things, like they got some
snacks and some drinks or whatever, and then they just
turned in for the night at the condo. And the
following morning they got up. I don't know if they

(08:00):
slept din or not, but I feel.

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Like they would have.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
It was it was a vacation, right, But they got
up and drank their coffee lazily, kind of hung out
and looked over the water and really were enjoying each
other's company. They spent that day relaxing and having some
fun in the sun before night fell, and when night fell,
they wanted to go out and really experience not only
dinner a good dinner too.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
But some nightlife.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
That's why they were there, and as is custom in
vacation areas like Ocean City, the couple used a bus
system to get around town and from point A to
point B. So eventually, after they had dinner and everything,
they decided to check out a local popular nightclub called Secrets.
Now you may not care about this, but I'm gonna
tell you it's spelled Sea cr et S, so Secrets

(08:47):
it's kind of a play on the word c. So
this is exactly two the area and the place that
you would expect of the type of beach nightlife. Neon signs, DJs,
food and just a really relaxed atmosphere. And they have
this live entertainment at night. There's waterfront dining in that area.

(09:08):
There's eighteen bars in one area, so definitely gonna be
a fun night, no matter really where you ended.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Up on that strip of where the bars were.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
So the couple loaded into a bus that was going
to take them downtown to that area, and when they
got in they settled down into the seats next to
each other, cuddled up and excited for the night to
come because they were going to do some drinking and
they were going to do some dancing and it was
going to be fun. And we all probably can relate
to this feeling of when you it's the evening, you've

(09:38):
been at the beach, you've had just a little bit
too much sun, you've had a fresh bath, you put
on your cute clothes that you brought for vacation. It's windy,
hot nights on that waterfront. Can you feel what I'm feeling?

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Because I know exactly, I know exactly.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
What they were going through while they were there, and
your love is with you and you're having drinks and
it's just the perfect mis of a fun night to remember. So,
as the bus is driving down though to get to
the night life, it stopped. Obviously it stops to pick
up more people, and the kind couple decided that they
wanted to help out another couple who got on the

(10:14):
bus and didn't realize they had to have exact change
in order to pay for the ride.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
It was just a requirement for the bus fare.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
So chuckling at the kind gesture, Josh told them, hey, look,
I'll pay for it. We have exact change, but you
got to buy us a drink whenever we get to
the bar.

Speaker 2 (10:31):
And it was just such a friendly thing to do.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
It's something that I would enjoy doing, you know, just
pay for somebody's fare, what was it, three bucks and
then make a friend in the making. So the couple
looked at them, was like, deal, bro, you'll get us there.
We don't have any problem buying you a drink, and
so they all high fived as they took their seats,
just having been saved a long walk down to where
the night life was. So the bus carried everyone down

(10:55):
there and everybody onloaded, and the couple who had gotten
on and were short on change were going to be
people of their word too, And that was great because
after they all entered the bar, that couple eventually did
bring drinks to Josh and Genie and were like, hey,
we so appreciate it, thank you so much. Handed them
the drinks, which led to them sitting down at the
table with Josh and Genie and they all sat around talking,

(11:17):
joking and enjoying the music and everything that you would expect.
They went over the howdy does, and names and jobs
and where are y'all from? Just a little get to
know you is that you do whenever you meet people
when you're out of town. And then they got to
hearing stories from home from each other, you know, just
casual talk, and they laughed throughout the night as the

(11:38):
drinks flowed and the music continued to just be loud
and making that atmosphere fun. The couple that was also
on vacation that brought those drinks to Josh and Genie.
Their names were Erica and Benjamin Seifert, and they were young.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
They were cool. They were easy going and fun people.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
They had a life that wasn't quite like Geni and
Josh too, because while Geniy and Josh had more reserved
and predictable lives with these established jobs and you know,
everything was kind of ABCD, Benjamin had stories that rivaled
that of action movies. He wasn't just some dude y'all either.

(12:23):
Benjamin was a Navy seal Okay, that is big time.
He had been raised in Minnesota and his family wasn't
rich or anything, and the fact was that he really
sucked at school. He wasn't good at it. But whenever
he got out of high school. That's whenever he enlisted
in the Navy. And once he enlisted in the Navy,

(12:44):
that's when everything changed.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
His calling had been found.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
And there's such a beautiful, amazing feeling when you feel
like you've actually met your calling in life. I knew
for a fact whenever I was teaching high school students
about criminal justice that once I got on steady ground
and got a grasp of what I was doing, that
I was right where I was meant to be. I

(13:09):
knew it for a fact. I would go home. It
just elated in those years that I was doing that.
And now I feel like I really am where I'm
supposed to be. Now, do you Because if you don't
go find it. I know I'm in the middle of
a story right now, but go find it. Life is short.

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Go chase those passions. And that is what happened with Benjamin.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
So while bookwork and note taking were not his jam
whatsoever in school, swimming and fighting were so. In nineteen
ninety seven, that's whenever he had finished first actually in
his Elite Seals class. It wasn't just that he was
a Navy seal. He finished first in his Navy seal class.

(13:50):
So for context, if you don't know much about that,
to finish first in Navy seal training, this means that
you're graduating at the top of your class. But graduating
doesn't necessarily mean like GPA okay, and that you're the
smartest person in the room.

Speaker 2 (14:05):
It requires more.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
It requires more than just intelligence, more than just physical
strength and endurance. It means that you display exceptional mental
toughness on wavering commitment, and that you have the ability
to perform under extreme stress, sleep deprivation. And basically, what

(14:28):
I'm telling you is that if you are the number
one in your seal graduation class, you're the frickin' beast
amongst other beasts.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
To put it as best I can.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
So when I'm talking about Benjamin, by the way, he
goes by Ben or BJ. So you may hear me
say both, but it's the same person. Erica and BJ
had met in a bar while she too was a student,
but she was at Mary Washington and they met two
years after he had completed his seal training. Now she
Erico was nobody to just you know, kind of laugh

(14:58):
off either. She was an excellent basketball player. When I
say excellent, I mean the best and so good so
that her parents, even from what I remember, had built
a basketball court at their home so that she could practice,
you know, all the time, and keep her skill up.
So she was an excellent basketball player. And then she
also had obtained her bachelor's degree in history. So the

(15:21):
two when they met felt also an instant connection and
so much so you might find this crazy, but they
got married just like three weeks after meeting, in a
whirlwind romance turned marriage.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
They didn't tell anybody.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
They flew to Vegas, they got married, and then when
they got back they told their parents, which caught them
way off guard, and they were at first like, excuse me,
you don't even know each other. You know, you've known
each other three weeks, how could you get married. But
eventually everybody kind of settled in, everybody chilled out, and
the married couple went.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
About their lives.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
But maybe that's why, in one way that they got
along so well, because excellence in any form recognizes excellence, right,
and you don't normally see, normally see a complete loser
making it in life with a total winner.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
You want to be similar in life.

Speaker 1 (16:14):
And the other couple that they just met up with
Genie and Josh were also excellent people with excellent lives,
and so no wonder they all became friends that night.
There was another couple too that would come up and
become friends with them. Their names were Anne Carlino and
Jeff Heisey. So these six adults partied, told stories, and

(16:34):
really just danced the night away. Definitely going to be
a vacation for the books. So the following week rolls
around and it's now Tuesday of the following week, and
Jeanie's workplace was very alarmed whenever she no showed to
work after the weekend, and I even did a little
more looking into this. Not only did she not show,

(16:54):
but she actually was kind of like the boss that
had set up a meeting, and she had never in
the history of her employment called for a meeting and
not shown, nor had she never just not shown up
to work. So it was very alarming to everybody that
knew her and knew how prompt she was and how
dedicated to the job she was. So they contacted the
Fairfax City Police, who then after taking the report, turned

(17:18):
around and they got in touch with the Ocean City
Police to see had Genie been arrested or were there
any reports involving a couple that may have been hurt
or were they at the hospital or or anything of
that nature, but there were none. There were no reports
of any problems that weekend, so police agreed to follow

(17:39):
follow up. The city police at the Ocean area. They decided, look,
we will follow up. We're going to continue to see
if we can figure anything out. And so they ended
up go finding the condo where Josh and Jeenie had rented,
and they decided to go there to see if maybe
they had gotten sick or something in that realm of

(18:00):
of what was going on. So there, when they got there,
the first thing they noticed was they found Jennie's car
still in the parking lot of the condo and they
could tell just by looking at it that it had
not been moved in literally days. And I know, you're like, well,
how would they know that? That's kind of a weird thing. Well,

(18:20):
where this condo was, obviously there's sand, and so if
a car stayed parked for a couple of days with
the wind blowing and everything, sand would actually build up
on windshield wipers. And the sand was there, it was
piled up. The location of the vehicle was also kind
of strange because when they located the vehicle, it was
actually at the very end of the parking lot near

(18:44):
the road, which meant that whenever they must have arrived
to this condo, the parking lot was packed because remember
it was Memorial Day weekend when they got there, and
so they had to get a crappy parking spot way
far away from the entrance to the condo, really almost
to the highway, but that was now over and the
parking lot was empty basically because it was a Tuesday.

(19:05):
But her vehicle had never moved from that further spot away,
and there were tons of empty spaces between them and
the building, which tells anybody obviously the car had not moved.
It also seemed like the car had not moved since
their initial arrival because they were only going to be
there for two days. So police were able to finally
make injury entry into their condo, and there they found

(19:29):
all the couple's belongings still inside, and the condo looked normal.
It looked like someone had come in set down their
stuff and that they had plans to return, but they
weren't there. They searched the condo and they were not there.
It was just empty with all of their things, So.

Speaker 2 (19:46):
Police did what police do.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
There was a trash can there, and they decided to
go through the trash can see if maybe that would
give him some insight to what was going on.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
And in that trash can.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
They found a receipt and it was the receipt from
when they had gone to the store when they first arrived.
So that receipt had a few things listed.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
On it as well as a timestamp and everything.

Speaker 1 (20:07):
But the things that were listed on the receipt were
also all still located in the condo, and not only that,
they were unused and the snacks were uneaten, so that
again tells you that they got the stuff but never
came back around to use it.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
There was no struggle.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
There was nothing odd that was seen in the condo
other than they were not answering their phones nor could
anybody find them.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
So more searching would reveal.

Speaker 1 (20:36):
That neither of the couple had made any outgoing calls
from their cell phones nor made any credit card or
banking card purchases since the twenty ninth, that would have
been the second night that they were there on their trip,
So this is obviously some big time red flags, and
the police agreed, all right, we've got to actively be

(20:57):
looking for this couple because something is definitely wrong. They
checked at the hospitals, they were not there. They were
nowhere in the jails, nothing like that. They seem to
have just simply disappeared. The other issue here is that
Josh would never, when I say never, never, not in
a million years. Josh would never leave his son and
not answer calls. Nor would Josh ever not show up

(21:21):
to work. And guess who else didn't show up to
work Josh. So something problematic had happened for sure, but
there was just nothing lending itself to what or really
when exactly that happened. So as all of this news
is traveling back home and people are getting wind of it,
Jennie's ex husband had contacted investigators about his missing ex

(21:46):
wife because Geni had been married before, and those investigators
kind of started having red flags raised about him because
he would call multiple times, multiple times a week, like,
constantly updates on if they had found Genie and if
they knew anything. So they decided to look into him
a little bit because most people, as we all know,

(22:08):
most people who come in contact with foul play tend
to know their attackers. Not always, but that is statistically true.
The divorce, they found out, though, had been amicable. There
was no history of violence between Genie and her ex husband.
There were no police reports, nothing of that nature. Matter
of fact, the ex husband was sickingly worried, and when

(22:30):
they went and talked to him, he had nothing but
good things to say about Genie. Everything he said was positive.
He seemed genuinely upset that she was not accounted for.
So they asked, you know, where have you been? Where
were you during all of this? And they found that
he had a rock solid alibi about his location the
days that Genie and Josh had gone missing. I'm talking

(22:51):
rock solid. So he was pretty much ruled out as
a suspect. So then the police are wondering, well, well,
is it possible that maybe Josh or Jeanie hurt each other,
like maybe they got into a fight that turned big.
But everyone that they spoke to literally laughed at that.

(23:14):
You don't know, you don't understand, you don't know this couple.
No freaking way, not possible, just not possible, and they
really wouldn't even entertain it. So days would go by
with no leads whatsoever to the missing couples whereabouts, and
then the following weekend would come. So the Ocean City
night shift was on duty. This was Friday, May thirty first,

(23:36):
around midnight when an alarm was sounded at the local
Hooters restaurant and bar. So when the alarm company notified
nine to one one officers were dispatched to the location
and they made it there within minutes, and it didn't
take them long to nab the suspects either, because it
looked like this was an attempted burglary that was going

(23:59):
on of a closed Hooters, and they had an adult
male and adult female suspect detained on the curb. So
when the police had arrived, they noticed that there was
a jeep Cherokee right there on site and the couple
was actively loading merchandise from the Hooters into the vehicle

(24:19):
when the police swarmed them.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
So, like, who the house steals Hooters merch? I mean, like,
if I'm.

Speaker 1 (24:26):
Thinking about it, I guess I would be flattered if
someone broke in and stole like unspeakable merch, But like
Hooters really is is that what we're going to be
stealing these days? Not money, but Hooters merch, so that
in and of itself is strange as hell, but considering
that their vehicle was still on site, the woman's purse
was still in the vehicle, so it wasn't really hard

(24:48):
to idea the burglars because they had their IDs right
there on them, including the purse, and the couple was
none other than Ben and Erica Cipher It. So I
can tell you that catching a Navy seal and a
college graduate burglarizing a Hooter's was not on my bingo
card for back in two thousand and two, but it

(25:08):
was in fact what was happening so incredibly too, to
give you some insights his mindset. Incredibly then the Navy
seal told police, hey, can.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
We just put it back? Because if we can just
put it back, you know, we'll be cool. We'll leave.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
Like what how about no? How about a hard no
on that. It's like ridiculous that you would even ask that.
And then, as is way more common than you would
ever believe if you've never done law enforcement, it is
so common, Erica began to have a self diagnosed panic
attack right there on the scene.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Y'all.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
It's shocking if you've never were law enforcement you probably
wouldn't believe me, but you'd be shocked how many people
when they realize they're in trouble or that they're going
to jail, all of a sudden they have a heart condition.
All of a sudden, they have a heart attack. All
of a sudden, they can and not breathe, and they
need to go to the hospital. But that's just the
delay tactic.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
You're still going to the hospital. I mean, you're still
going to the jail, right, But.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
She started freaking out, and she explained, Look, I have
a severe anxiety problem. I need my xanax. I need
my paxel. It's in my purse. Please get it all right,
So real quick suggestion from me, you'res truly if you
have anxiety, how about you don't do high intensity things
like burglarized places, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
I mean, I'm no.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Expert on stress reduction, but that would probably be a
really good place to start. But before that would happen,
the suspects would need to be searched. Now, if you aren't,
again familiar with procedure, maybe you're a good person and
you've never been arrested. Hey, you might be a good
person and you were arrested to that note. But either way,
it's called search incidental to arrest. It's common, and that's

(26:50):
basically when you're searching the person to see if they
have any hidden weapons or to ensure that they don't
destroy evidence before they get to the jail, if they're
hiding something or whatever. Well, this would prove obviously a
really good move on police part, because it turns out
the couple wasn't just burglarizing Hooter's merch. They were armed,
and they were weren't just armed with a pocket knife

(27:13):
or something along those lines. Ben had a nine millimeter
pistol on him, like physically on his person, as well
as a knife, and then hidden tucked in the small
of Erica's back in her blue jean waistband, they found
a fully loaded three fifty seven magnum revolver as well
as a knife on her.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
So these weren't just some little hootie duties, you know,
showing up.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
It really seemed like they were willing to almost have
a shootout if possible, but they got caught with their
hands literally full, and so they didn't have the opportunity
maybe to pull their weapons. But now that the couple
was disarmed, an officer. His name was Sergeant Bean. He
did go grab her purse to look for the pills.
I'm gonna just tell you another side note real quick.

(27:56):
I seriously doubt that he was going to give them
to her. But considering she said I need you to
go in my purse, that now was like open game.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
I'm just gonna go in your purse.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
He could have done it anyway, but just let me know,
I don't think he was about to feed her some pills.
But inside that purse was a brown leather pouch, and
inside of that pouch he only found one of the
types of pills that she was requesting, so he had
to keep looking through the purse right and he also
found a red pouch in the purse that had medicine

(28:28):
bottles in it, but again they weren't that medication that
he was looking for which she requested. But there was
a zippered pocket on the back of the purse which
he unzipped and looked in there and again no pills.
But it was curious to him that he discovered four
three fifty seven casings that were spent, as well as

(28:50):
one live round in the purse. So he continued to
search and he came upon another little like gray change purse.

Speaker 2 (29:00):
There.

Speaker 1 (29:01):
The thing was, when he opened it, there were pictures
inside of it. So he pulls them out and he
shines his flashlight on it and realizes these weren't just pictures,
these were IDs like licenses, and whenever he flashes the
light on him to see good in the dark, he
was stunned when he read them because they were the

(29:23):
IDs of the missing couple. They had all been on
the lookout for for a week. It was Genie and
Josh's licenses, so obviously this now puts someone high alert,
and the officers searched the entire jeep to see what
else they could find, and in there they found more
than just Hooters shirts and drinking glasses. Inside the trunk

(29:47):
they found ski masks, flex cuffs, and another forty five
caliber weapon. So the couple was read their rights as
they were formally arrested, charged with their burglary and everything,
and they would be had to the jail. But there
were more pressing issues at the moment than this burglary.
Why the hell did these two burglary suspects have a

(30:09):
missing couples IDs? So their thoughts were, well, maybe this
is an identity theft situation or something along those lines,
and so they decided to do more digging to see
what connection they had with these IDs. However, considering that
the couple Genie and Josh, had not been heard from
in a full week, this gave cause for concern that

(30:32):
maybe the couple was physically in trouble or possibly even
being held against their will. Considering they found flex cuffs
and ski masks and all of that inside the Cipherd's jeep.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
So whenever the.

Speaker 1 (30:45):
Investigators were looking through the jeep, that's when they noticed
that there was a parking pass hanging in the rearview
mirror from a local condo rental called the Rainbow Bingo.
Is what police thought. That's where we need to go
in head. Let's go see if that's where this couple
was staying. So again I want to point this out,

(31:06):
Ben and Erica were not from there. If I didn't
mention that already, they too were just vacationing. They were
from Pennsylvania. They're on vacation, but still their condo that
they were staying at. They want the police wanted to
go make sure that Genie and Josh weren't there, and
tied up or something, and believing fully actually that they
were about to find Genie and Josh. A detective on

(31:28):
the way there actually radioed ahead and said, go ahead
and get me an ambulance or two there to save time.
He so believed he was going to find them injured
or tied up or whatever things in his mind were.
This could be very critical whenever we arrive. So when
the police got to the Seifertz condominium that they were
staying at, they also realized they were staying at the

(31:49):
penthouse of the Rainbow Condo. So this was going to
be a big, a big room that they were in,
and the condo when they got inside was not out
of sorts. Nothing actually looked to be a miss. So
they go in guns drawn, and they're clearing the room
or or the condo room by room, and they ended
up clearing the whole condo and no sign of Genie

(32:13):
or Josh. But after that they started taking a closer
look around and they started seeing small but yet concerning
things about the condo. First and foremost, there was a
stack of pictures that were laying on a glass table,
and so an officer picked him up and he's looking
through them, and that's whenever they realized it wasn't just
pictures of the Cipherts that were out on vacation.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
It was also a few pictures in.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
The stack that were of Genie and Josh out and
about at local restaurants and such, and so they're like, okay, well,
now we have another link because Geni and Josh are
clearly alive and well, and now this couple has photos
of them mixed in with their own photos. Disturbingly too,
considering what we know so far, is that there were

(32:58):
also a few Blok bullets on that table next to
the photos, so they weren't new bullets either. I want
to point that out. These were the spent casings. They
were the empty casings that were there on the table.
So those were collected as evidence because one of them
seemed to have blood on it or a substance that looked.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Like it could be blood on it.

Speaker 1 (33:18):
And then on another table, investigators found a room key,
but that room key had a tag hanging on it
and it was not for the Ciphert's condo. It was
actually for another place, so it too was taken as evidence.
But the police were going to have to determine if
it had any value to the missing couple or not.
They didn't know, so while again this is circumstantial, they

(33:43):
also noted and took some photos of cleaning supplies on
the floor next to the master bathroom door in the
Ceifer condo. Well, considering everything so far, crime scene technicians
were brought in to try and process the area. And
so when they came in, they did an in depth
processing of the condo, and doing so it required that

(34:07):
they would have to like remove vanities and such. That's
how in depth they went, because they uncovered tiny spots
little I'm talking little, tiny, little spots that were believed
to be bloodstains, but there were none in large quantities,
just tiny, tiny specks, and a majority of those would

(34:29):
have been in that master bathroom as well. They found
them on the top of the counter, they found them
underneath in the underside of the countertop, a spot on
the floor, a spot under the vanity, then the backside
of the bottom drawer of the vanity, under the mirror.
Then they found them under the base board, under the

(34:49):
hot tub faucet, on the the hot tub step. There
was a sailboat candle on the hot tub. There was
blood on that and then they found some on the
wind as well as the shower. Again, it it wasn't
a lot. I don't want it to seem like there
was blood everywhere.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
It wasn't.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
It was just like specks of it, tiny ones. And
blood in a bathroom is not necessarily criminal, but it's
certainly something that they wanted to have tested. I mean, again,
this is a temporary rental. God knows how many people
have been in and out of it, and you don't
ever know what people are doing in a rental either way.
It could have been menstrual blood, it could have been
somebody got in a fight. You just don't know. There

(35:29):
was fresh paint on the walls in the bathroom too,
which was odd because who had done the painting. Police
didn't know if the property management had painted recently or what.
But it sure did seem ridiculous that a couple that
was renting a condo would do like a repaint remodel.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
You know, that just doesn't make sense.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
So investigators continued looking and that's when one bent down
looking underneath the vanity and he located a very small
hole in the back and that back wall. But he
didn't just find it by seeing it, they decided to
scrape away some of the fresh drywall repair behind some paint,

(36:10):
and it was in there that they found this tiny hole. Well,
none of this amounted too much like in the moment,
and it certainly didn't put them any closer to finding
where Genie and Joshu were. But what it did do
was prove that the arrested couple, at some point in
the night of Assuming the twenty ninth, had been together,

(36:31):
and the photos that they had found proved it that
this had happened. But more was gonna need to be
learned about who the two really were and if they
had a reasonable cause to possibly hurt josh or Genie,
or if they even had just stolen their wallets or
something they just didn't know. So looking more into Erica,

(36:53):
she did have her own problems. Okay, she struggled making friends,
and she did have have an extreme case of OCD,
so very meticulous about the way that she did things,
and she would do things over and over and over again.
And talking to people that knew her, they also found
out that she was an extremely jealous person. Extremely jealous

(37:18):
she could not handle the fact that bj was going
away for the Navy training right after their marriage. Now
understand wives are going to be sad whenever their husband
goes away for training, completely understandable.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
But this was not sad.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
This was jealous and obsessive because her issue was that
if he leaves and he goes to training, then he
may leave me, and so she got this complex of
believing that if he left, he was never going to
come back. So she did what any not normal woman
would do, but she packed up all her shit and
she moved and went to Alaska where BJ was being stationed.

Speaker 2 (38:00):
And this is the thing.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
The rule state you cannot live with your spouse during
this training.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
Its Navy rules.

Speaker 1 (38:07):
But she didn't care. She was going to do whatever
she wanted to do. And when she showed up at
the base, he couldn't explain it. He didn't have an
answer for his superiors. And so because of all of that,
BJ had been placed on probation. Not only that, they
shipped his ass off, made him leave that base, and
they sent him to Camp Lujune. What they found out

(38:31):
about BJ, and what was realized by BJ superiors in
the military too, is that he had to have structure
at all times, because if he did not, he had
an absolute propensity to go wild, like buck ass wild.
So they as they're investigating kind of his behaviors and whatnot,

(38:53):
they found that BJ was clearly impulsive, very impulsive, shortsighted
in his decision aching despite all of that mental fortitude
and perseverance that he showed in his seal performance. And
the more that Erica came around and the more that
she kept complaining to him that she needed him and

(39:14):
she couldn't be away from him, the more he started
to basically throw in the towel.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
But it wasn't in like an I give up type
of way.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
It was more like, if I can't have Erica be
with me, or if I can't go be with Erica,
then watch this motherfucker's It was like he went into
complete defiance behavior. He became incredibly insubordinate, and he did
things that anyone with an ounce of common sense and

(39:45):
just a lick of a moral compass would recognize as
dead ass inappropriate, especially for someone wearing the distinguished title of.

Speaker 2 (39:54):
A Navy seal.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
So case in point, just so to give you a
taste of what I'm talking about, he went and got
a massive swastika tattoo across his chest. I put pictures
of this on Patreon for you too, so you can
check it out. A massive swastika on his chest. Anyone
with common sense would know that's inappropriate. Erica also went

(40:19):
and got tattoos, including a cross that was on her hip,
but stop because it wasn't like, I love Jesus, let's
put a cross on our hip. No, she put a
cross on her hip because it was inspired by the
movie Natural Born Killers, not Jesus. So I don't know
if you're into literature or looking over movies, but I'll

(40:41):
give you a quick dive for a brief second. The
characters in that show, Mickey and Mallory, are depicted as
violent and destructive, but they have a profound connection and
love between them and the tattoo. As far as people
who you know analyze Little Journ all of that, the
tattoo is believed to be a symbolic of a personal

(41:05):
creed or like a twisted spirituality that's like a bond
throughout all of their violent acts and this fatalistic journey
that they're on together.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
That's what that tattoo is about.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
So they go get these tattoos that are not good
and then BJ just up and goes a wall at
one point, so he continued to be an issue. He
continued to cause problems until his commanders finally had enough
of his shit altogether. So someone who wants was a
very clear leader was now the antithesis of anything that

(41:39):
a Navy Steel Navy seal would ever stand for. So
he ended up just being court martialed for a variety
of offenses, and he was ultimately dishonorably discharged from the military.
He is disgusting as far as I'm concerned in telling
anybody that he was a Navy seal, because you.

Speaker 2 (41:59):
May the had what it took at first, but you
let that go. It reminded me when I was reading
about this, it just makes me mad.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
For the true Navy seal, the guy who is just
straight testicular fortitude.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
And oohrah, you know, like it just makes me mad.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
I remember one time an old neighbor of mine broke
into our house and burglarized it, and whenever we went
to court, he stood up and said, well, I am
a military veteran, and I was like, hold the damn phone.
You can say you're a military veteran all you want to,
but don't you dare use your military training and experience
as like a get out of jail free card when

(42:36):
you come back, and then you piss on the very
thing that every you know, stand up soldier stands for.
Because that's no, they don't equate. It's a crutch that
you're using. It's not the reality of what the true
American soldier stands for. It sickened me, and this is
what made me think about it. So investigators were like, Okay,
maybe we aren't dealing with just two knuckleheads here, obviously,

(42:59):
but even more look into their life would include their pets,
and their pets even said a lot about them, So
I'm gonna take the time to explain their pets to you.
They collected snakes, and the names of those snakes were
just as off putting as the tattoo of the Swiss
sticka on BJ's chest, because what did they name their snakes?

(43:22):
Did they name them, you know, slinky and slither buddy. No,
they named them Hitler and HIV. You know, like everything
that you think about when you think of Hitler and
HIV is that it kills people terrible ways to die.
And then their other snakes were Bonnie and Clyde and

(43:44):
we all know how that went. So it's just like
a testament to the mindset here. Who the fuck gets
a pet and names it Hitler or HIV?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
It's dark.

Speaker 1 (43:56):
Now.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
If someone reaches out to me Jim and says, what
are you talking about? I love my cut Hitler? What
do I do? I don't think it is either. It's
just not normal anyway.

Speaker 1 (44:11):
So in talking to friends that or people that were
friends with a couple, they had a lot to say too,
because they kind of felt like this couple had really changed.
Like they said, yeah, I mean, you know, Erica and
bj were this way, but they somewhat had gone off
the deep end recently with drugs and sex and like
general disobedience it seemed. And again, none of this means

(44:36):
that they went and they hurt people. Okay, you can't
make that leap, but it surely is indicative of a
dark mindset, and their friends were kind of not in line.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
With who they were being today.

Speaker 1 (44:47):
So since the couple was now at the police station
and under arrest for the burglary of the Hooters, police
now had a literal captive audience that they wanted to question.
And first of all, are you wondering, was you know
who would burglarize a Hooters? Because I needed to know
more that I couldn't just let that go. I needed more,

(45:07):
and I have the answers for you. So basically, Erica
and BJ had an online eBay business where they sold things,
and they did, from what I understand, pretty good with it.
But Erica had an obsession. When I say obsession, I
don't mean like, oh my god, I'm obsessed with Leani dogs.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
No, like an.

Speaker 1 (45:23):
Actual obsession with collecting Hooters memorabilia. So she would stop
at Hooters wherever they went when they were traveling, and
she collected everything that she could get from them, and
then she would also sell a lot of that merchandise online.
Thus it made sense why they were trying to get
all of the merch It would equal money, and she

(45:46):
was also obsessed with it, so she wanted to get
all that she could. So now I've got that weird
question kind of answered and out of the way. Well,
the interrogation by police would not reveal much from BJ himself.
All he said when they pulled him in was if
you want to know what happened, how about you ask
my wife?

Speaker 2 (46:03):
And I want a lawyer. That was it. That's what
they got from bj.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Erica, though, she was a lot more frantic from the jump,
and she started to word vomit like she had the
freaking criminal flu I mean, it was just coming straight
out of her mouth. And she started to explain that
they were with Josh and Genie and they were drinking
at Secrets, and she and Josh had invited them back
to the condo to keep hanging out after they were

(46:32):
done at Secrets, and once they arrived at the condo
after some time, that's whenever Erica realized that her purse
was missing, and she was really upset by this, clearly
upset by this. She believed that the new people that
they thought were their new friends had just pulled a
fast one on her, and she was sickened by the

(46:53):
whole thing. And on top of that, because she had
her grandmother's ten thousand dollars diamond ring in that now
missing purse, and it meant a lot to her. As
matter of fact, she also told police she was so
convinced that her purse had been stolen from that new couple,
Genie and Josh, that she even called nine one one

(47:14):
to report it.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
So investigators are obviously skeptical about this, and.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
They kind of caught back and they're like, yo, you
do know that if you call nine one one that
that's all recorded, right, so we can easily check and
see if you're lying does and she called their bluff.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
She said, well, then go check I'm not lying to you,
which they did, and shockingly what Erica said was true.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
On Sunday, May twenty sixth, at three am, there was
a call just like Erica had said, and that nine
one one call does end abruptly with her hanging up,
but go ahead and give it a listen ter nine
one one, get emergency.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yes, I have an emergency at my apartment.

Speaker 1 (47:57):
There are people in my house I don't know, and
my approach is suddenly missing, and I'm exciting.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
I'm going to have the robberies here. Okay, I people
in your apartment at this time. Yeah, I can make
it to the police. Hey what I'm I'm upstairs a
bedroom where they don't know where I am. Okay, I
can make it to the police. You can tell them, Okay, Okay, Hello.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
So can you believe it that Erica was actually telling
the truth, because I can tell you I was pretty
surprised by that. But Genie and Josh, for the record,
had no criminal history none, and they didn't have a
reason to have to rob anybody that they were well off.
Plus they were the ones missing, not Erica, who was

(48:49):
in possession of their things. So she did call nine
one one, for sure, but but it just didn't jive
with who these people were that were missing. So Erica,
They're like, why why was there this abrupt hang up
on the on the call, Erica explained, well, it was
abruptly hung up because without warning, BJ had pulled a
gun on Genie and Josh when they thought that they

(49:10):
had robbed them. And I'd like to point something out
to you here that you may have missed. Maybe you didn't,
maybe you're really astute, but something's there's a problem here
in this story.

Speaker 2 (49:19):
If you haven't picked.

Speaker 1 (49:20):
Up on it yet, well there's a lot of problems,
but specifically, just now, I was curious about why if
there was a nine to one one call, why didn't
police ever show up at the condo of Erica and BJ.
She never mentioned that they that they ever came for

(49:42):
the nine on one call, And so I started digging
into this and strangely, or I would guess I'd really
say unbelievably. I couldn't find anything on that call. And
the answer is because dispatch never send anybody to respond
to the call. That's insane. How do you dispatch one

(50:06):
oh one if someone calls you and then abruptly hangs up.
We are to assume the worst and someone should be
rolling right then, lights and sirens get there quick. And
that dispatcher did nothing. And I don't know how there
was not a lawsuit in response to that, but that's
the reality of it. Police never showed up after the

(50:28):
nine one one call because no one was dispatched to
the call.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's unbelievable.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
So either way, they're asking of the questions. And after
the hang up, she says, BJ then demanded the couple
undress to prove that they weren't hiding anything. So now
Josh and Jeanie are frightened beyond words.

Speaker 2 (50:50):
They're fearing for their lives.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
And they did exactly as they were told, both of
them at gunpoint, stripped down butt naked with these strangers
they had been hanging out and having a good time
with all night. Well as that was happening, BJ and
Erica took their eyes off of the couple to start
talking or discussing what was going on or arguing, And

(51:13):
in that moment, Genie and Josh made a break for it,
and they ran into that master bathroom, slamming the door
and Josh locking it behind them, and Josh was yelling
through the door, why are you doing this? Why are
you doing this? And Geenie, she said, was just sobbing.
She could hear just sobbing behind the door. And then

(51:34):
Erica went on to explain that when Josh was screaming
why are you doing this, it infuriated Bjay, who then
kicked down the door. And so Erica said, I didn't
go in the bathroom, but BJ said that BJ goes in. Okay,
Eric says, I didn't go to the bathroom, BJ goes in,
and then when he comes out, he tells her, I

(51:57):
looked Josh straight in the eyes and I said see
you later, motherfucker, before he pulled the trigger and executed
Josh Josh by shooting him in the head in front,
right in front of his beloved Genie. So something strange
about that to me is that when Eric is telling
the story, she doesn't mention that she heard the gunshots,
which she had to have heard them. But can you

(52:20):
imagine think about this. You're on vacation, You've been nothing
but kind to this couple. You paid their fare on
a bus out of your generosity and kindness. You party
all night with these people, you exchange stories, you get
to know somebody as far as that situation is concerned.
And then to think we're gonna go have fun and
continue hanging out with this new couple, just to be

(52:43):
forced to get naked and then shot and executed right
in front of your girlfriend. I don't know how you
make that leap, how that could even be the callousness
of bj to then brag that he puts a gun

(53:05):
in another man's face, naked and fearing for his life
and saying see a later, motherfucker, and then shooting that man.

Speaker 2 (53:11):
In the head.

Speaker 1 (53:12):
That is disgusting. That is not bravado. That's cowardice at
its finest. So when he shot him, Josh immediately collapsed
to the floor dead.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
It was over. He shot him.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
All Jeanie could do at that point, because she's naked,
literally and afraid and terrified on the ground, was shuffled
backwards on her feet in her hands, and she shuffled
back kind of underneath that vanity space where like the
bar where a stool would go to sit on, and
she was naked. She was cowering, begging for her life,
and was screaming in just blood curdling terror at what

(53:52):
she had actually just seen, which Erica says in her
own words, she says, quote, she was so scared and
whimpering like a baby. But before Erica said she could
do anything to help, she heard two more shots. So
the investigators look at her and go, so they're dead.

(54:14):
That's what you're telling me, Josh and Jeannie are dead,
And she said yes. So investigators ask her, well, then
where are they? And that's when Erica broke down the
next chain of events, which I'm going to warn you
are legitimately depraved. I am legitimately warning you this is

(54:35):
not showmanship or anything, so just be prepared. But in summary,
I'll start with the fact that she insinuates in the
talks that she's talking with to police that bj was
so scary in this moment that she then feared.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Erica started fearing for her own.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Life and that's why she knew she had to do
the next things, or else she would be killed next. Basically,
her whole argument is that she was battered and a
mentally abused wife, and so she had to help to
dispose of these bodies just so that she didn't get
killed herself. And that's when the couple together dismembered both

(55:18):
Josh and Genie in the condo. She explained that they
cut off their heads, they cut off their arms, they
cut off their legs because this would make for easier
disposal in getting them out of the condo.

Speaker 2 (55:31):
But this isn't the worst of it.

Speaker 1 (55:37):
After they cut them up, Erica said that she went
to another area of the condo for whatever reason, maybe
she was going to take a shower or something along
those lines. But when she returned later, she went into
the master bathroom and she found BJ in that hot tub,
And as she rounded the corner and went into the bathroom,

(56:00):
that's when she saw the heads of Josh and Jeanie
floating in the tub with BJ while he soaked and relaxed.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
That alone, I don't.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
Give a shit how scared I was for my life.
That would have had me running out of that condo
straight into the damn ocean, praying that a fucking shark
would take me down into the deep blue yonder to
get me away from it. But Erica said she was
just too scared watching her husband bathe in a hot
tub with two people's dismembered heads to do anything.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
All she could do was stand there.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
So after his literal bloodbath was done, that's whenever they
packaged all of the body parts separately, and then around
nine am they went and dumped the parts in a
dumpster along the highway behind this grocer store. So after
learning of absolute horror, that's this is on a level

(57:08):
of and I've talked about a lot of evil and
a lot of you know, destructive behavior.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
This is a new level of just depravity.

Speaker 1 (57:17):
There's nothing that can explain it or make it make sense.
But after the detectives learned of all of these horrors
that led to the demise of Josh and Genie, investigators
now set out to prove this was true and to
recover their remains. So, considering that the remains were in
a dumpster, the location now that it's been a week

(57:37):
that they would have to go look would be the landfill.
So at the landfill, it took a team of people
a whole team of people really to begin this rancid
search out in the hot sun, and it would take
them nine days from the date of the murders to
find them. But they didn't find all of them. Recovered

(58:01):
in the landfill would be Genie's left leg, which they
found about an hour into the search. They continued searching,
and eventually they did uncover a military style bag and
when they opened it up, they found Josh's torso in it.
And this is also where technicalities can be hurtful to

(58:24):
victims and their families.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Listen to this. Since only a piece.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Of Genie's leg, or Genie's leg single leg, was ever recovered,
her cause of death was never able to be officially determined,
although she was very clearly murdered. And it kind of
makes you wonder about now that we know that they're deceased,
But like I thought about their families and what about insurance?

(58:52):
What about if the victims got screwed over because of
the sheer depraved behavior of their killers.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
I don't always think about that.

Speaker 1 (59:01):
The victimization here just compounds past the actual murders.

Speaker 2 (59:06):
They couldn't recover the whole body, and since they don't
have the whole body.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
They can't determine a cause of death, like it's just
it's just almost.

Speaker 2 (59:13):
Too much that it could even go that way.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
Eventually, they did keep searching, and they did recover alongside
Josh's torso. They did find later on both of his arms,
but they never found their heads, either one of them.
This forensically, so to speak, would be a win because
the torso of Josh at autopsy they found had two

(59:39):
bullets in it. In the torso, they looked at those
bullets and realized that those were from a three point
fifty seven magnum, the very one recovered from Erica.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
At the Hooters the night of the burglary.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
So, in an effort to seal Bjy's fate, the state
decided to offer Erica a deal. Take a polygraph. Though,
before they would sign on the dotted line with the
paper of the deal, they told her take a polygraph
to prove you're telling the truth, the whole truth, so
help you God, and if you pass it, then we

(01:00:17):
will give you a solid deal in exchange for testifying
against your husband. Erica says, deal, I'll do it, no problem.

Speaker 2 (01:00:28):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
If you don't know this before, a polygraph is given.
There is what's called a pre interview. And I have
been polygraph tested myself, so I've been through this so
I can attest to it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
But you're given a pre interview. The pre interview is.

Speaker 1 (01:00:43):
Basically they go over the test that you're going to
be taking, what's going to happen. They answer any questions
that you have, and then they explain the questions to
you so that the purpose of all of that is
that they're not going to try to trick you. A
lot of detective tests is not about that. It's to relax you,
ease your mind, and if the truth is the truth

(01:01:05):
is the truth, then there's no reason for them to
spring all of this on you, okay. And part of
that when they start this test is that they have
to establish what's called a baseline of your autonomic responses.

Speaker 2 (01:01:17):
So they want to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:18):
See, like if your heart rate is already elevated, they
want to see if your sweat touch is already elevated.
If you're so, I'm high strung, right, So when I
had my polygraph test done, I will tell you I
was a nervous wreck.

Speaker 2 (01:01:29):
I had nothing to hide, I had nothing to be
afraid of.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
But it's just the fact that you're strapped in you
have all these wires around you. You're going to be
asked questions, even if you know you didn't do anything wrong.
You you're nervous, and if you're like, why we were
being polygraphed. I wasn't part of like a murder investigation.
It was part of a pre employment thing for law enforcement.
So part of that pre pre setup too, is that

(01:01:55):
if you have anything that you need to say or
clarify before the test, in some instances, they will allow
you to do that. So let me give you an example,
because it will matter. Let's say that you're gonna do
this polygraph and they ask you have you have you
stolen anything? Okay, well, let's be so for real. When

(01:02:17):
you were a kid, did you steal cookies from the pantry?
Did you steal your sister's favorite shirt? Did you you
know we've all done stupid shit. They're gonna let you
clarify that if you want to get that off your chest. Okay, Yeah,
I did steal three dollars when I was seventeen from
a friend of mine's book sack.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
Okay, cool, anything else you want to get off your chest?

Speaker 1 (01:02:35):
Yes, I so it's not like you're getting it's you're
not changing your story about what you're going to be
polygraphed about. It's just if there's anything on your chest
that may hold you back emotionally. I guess where your
autonomic responses fluctuate because you're like, well, shit, I did
steal something before. You know, you can clarify that, all right,

(01:02:57):
that's not I want you to know. That's not like
the if you were like no, if you're a polygraphic examiner,
that's not one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
That's the gist of it. Okay, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (01:03:05):
So Erica was then polygraphed by a special agent from
the Secret Service. When this was done, and Erica talked
about her life before being married, and then she began
to detail the relationship between she and her husband b
Jay Ciphert and Erica. Then after she kind of went
through that, she began to describe in great detail the

(01:03:28):
events of the evening of May twenty fifth, whenever this
was thought to have happened to Genie and Josh. And
you're like, okay, Kelly, you've already told us what happened,
you know, why are you going through it again? Just
like in the police. In the initial interrogation, she told
the story just like she had told them, but in
the polygraph that followed up, the story kind of had

(01:03:53):
some changes to it because Erica stated that they met
another couple while they were boarding a bus on their
way to Secrets nightclub, hung out with them all night,
and wanted to continue to party. But here's the other
part that she had not told investigators before. They then
took a bus to the Atlantis because that's where Josh
and Geni were staying, to pick up their swimsuits, and

(01:04:16):
then the four of them walked on the beach to
Erica and Bjay's condo and they all stayed out on
the beach for a little bit whenever Erica decided to
go up to the condo to grab.

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Some beers for everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:04:30):
After they she went and got the beers and all
that stuff, she came back down. They all decided then
that they were going to go up to the condo
because it had the big hot tub in it, and
so when they went upstairs to go get in the
hot tub, that's when Erica noticed that her purse was missing,
because it had been on the back of the couch
she had originally put it on the back of the
couch and now it was gone. That's when she stated

(01:04:52):
that her jewelry and her pills were missing. And that's
whenever she called nine one one to report it. She
hung up on nine when one when Josh came upstairs.
And so when Josh went upstairs, she yelled for BJ,
I guess to come back her up or something against Josh.
BJ came up there, and that's when Erica and BJ

(01:05:12):
accused Josh and Genie of the theft. She says, BJ
pointed the gun at them. They took off all of
their clothes while adamantly saying the couple saying, we didn't
take your stuff. We didn't take your stuff, and Erica said,
BJ told them get in the bathroom. That's when the
couple locked the door behind them, and that's when they

(01:05:33):
were yelling and pleading for their lives. And she added,
now that BJ asked her and this is a direct quote,
and I'm supposed to fucking waste them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:42):
Is that cool?

Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
The distress, Genie and Josh now were getting louder and
louder in the bathroom because they would realize later, you
know that Josh I'd even tried to open the windows
with his hands, and they were screaming for help, and
Erica told Bjay she just wanted them to shut up
because she was worried that neighbors or the police or
somebody might hear them. And she said Genie was yelling

(01:06:06):
help me, help me, help me, and banging against the
glass on the bathroom windows. Josh was yelling at this point,
why are.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
You doing this? Why are you doing this?

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
And that's when Erica admitted she told Bja to quote,
just fucking do it. You got him naked, you put
a gun to their heads, just go do it.

Speaker 2 (01:06:21):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
So at this point Erica was stopped for a minute
during the interview, and that's when she looks up at
the interviewer and says, now you have me on murder
to the examiner, And the examiner said, well, what did
you mean by just fucking do it? And Erica said,
I meant kill them. I mean I knew he wanted to.

(01:06:43):
Now remember it. That wasn't the original story at all, right,
BJ caught her off guard. She said then that BJ
shot the gun into the door and then he kicked
it in so hard that BJ himself fell backwards. When
he was kids, it like knocked him down. So the
bathroom door flew open and it like lodged itself in

(01:07:06):
the wall. When that happened, she said, Josh fell to
the right side of the bathroom against a closet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Where BJ then shot him. So he didn't immediately die.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
BJ shot him, and now Josh was in incredible pain.
He was shot in the chest, you know, and he
was screaming out again, why are you doing this? Why
are you doing this? And that's when BJ put the
gun to his head and took that head shot on him.
Erica said that she was so scared by this it
caused her to wet her own pants, and so she

(01:07:38):
went out of the bathroom and she went to sit
on the edge of the bed and quote waited for
it to be over, and that's when she heard two
more shots close together in about five seconds, and she
said BJ then walked out of the bathroom and he
was flexing his muscles that were now covered in blood,
which she said he had quote obviously put the blood
on himself and was now flexing the bloody muscles, and

(01:08:00):
that's when Erica said she went to the jeep to
get their radios and to check for their things that
they had all left, I guess on the beach, and
she wanted to go watch out for the police who
they thought would be showing up after the call to
nine one one that had happened. When she got back,
she said that bj then instructed her, and this is

(01:08:20):
another quote, baby, just open your knife like I taught you.
So Erica opened her knife. And that's whenever she got
down on her knees right by Jeanie in the bathroom,
who was still alive, huddled and naked in the fetal
position under that vanity Josh is dead. She scared out
of her ever loving mind, and without a second thought,

(01:08:42):
she leaned back and she stabbed Genie right in the
side of her abdomen, right above her right hip. And
she even told the interviewer that she was really surprised
at how much pressure it took to cut through Jeanie's skin,
because she had never stabbed somebody before.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
Now here's the kicker to that. First of all, it
was never mentioned before.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
Secondly, the interviewer says, so you stabbed her before verifying
that she was actually dead. Because Erica confirmed that Josh,
I mean that dj had actually shot Genie at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:09:18):
And then she went and she stabbed her.

Speaker 1 (01:09:20):
And the interviewer says, so you didn't verify that she
was alive before or dead before you stabbed her, and
Erica was like, no, so to me the listener right now,
as well as that interview where it's kind of like,
so that sounds a whole lot like you stabbed Genie
and she died right, not necessarily like she had been shot.
You don't actually know. All we have is a leg

(01:09:41):
to go off of, and there's no bullet holes in
the leg. Also, don't forget, you know, you stabbed somebody,
which you never mentioned in the original interrogation. You never
mentioned it until the polygraph began. So what happened after that?
And she says, well, then we went home and we
took a nap together before we cleaned the ba broom

(01:10:01):
the next day or the you know, it was the
early mornings. That's whenever they went to the dumpsters and
they made sure that they had been emptied because they
had already put the body parts in it. And while
they're driving, she even goes into detail saying that bj
told her at one point, man, you really did a
number on Genie's throat.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Well, wait a minute, you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Never even mentioned anything about slicing her throat, So this
is kind of like getting off kilter. So the polygraph
was stopped completely at this point. The interviewer looked at
her and was like, all right, look, we're stopping all together.
At this point, the plea deal is off the table
because you have not followed the agreement that we had.
But what you have done is you've now admitted that

(01:10:45):
you used this kind of like a game. You said
that you were going to follow the guidelines of the
deal and that you weren't going to change your truth.
Your story was the truth, the whole truth, and so
help you God. Yet all you've done now is introduce
completely new information that makes you more than complicit in
the deaths, not just their disposal. The whole point of
this polygraph was to confirm your original story and to

(01:11:06):
have you testify against your husband, not add new incriminating
action from it. So from that point forward, both BJ
and Erica were charged with the deaths of Josh and Genie,
and they would go on trial separately. But now it
gets even more interesting. BJ's trial was held in April

(01:11:26):
of two thousand and three, and they did exactly what
you would expect.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
Blame Erica.

Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
He claims that he was not in the apartment whenever
or the condo whenever the couple was killed. He said
that he was sleeping in the car after all that
drinking went down, and that he only helped dispose the
bodies because he had to. But the prosecution also brought
in at that trial an old Seal team member that

(01:11:51):
BJ was friends with, and they brought him in for
a reason. It was because of a specific conversation that
he had had with bjy years back, but it seemed
really important to mention it. The seal's name was Michael McInnis,
and the conversation that Michael and BJ had back in
nineteen ninety nine was when they were drinking and they
were at a strip club and they started getting on

(01:12:13):
the topic of how would you get rid of somebody if.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
You killed them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
It was a stupid what if scenario, But what BJ
said after that became very chilling because what he said
was he would lay down plastic in an open space,
remove the arms and the legs and the head with
a knife, and then dispose of the body in dumpsters
around town. Does that sound familiar to what I've just
told you, and jokingly Michael said, well, hell, you got

(01:12:38):
it all ready to go. I ought to get you
to whack my wife. Okay, I don't think that's funny,
but that's what he said. And it evolved into Michael saying, well,
what do you think the going radio is? Do you
have somebody killed? And that's whenever BJA responded twenty to
forty thousand dollars. So as much as I disagree with

(01:12:58):
what the jury would find in this trial, I'm gonna
respect their findings because they're the ones who sat through
the trial, not me. But they acquitted Bjay of all
charges in the death of Josh. They only got him
on second degree murder and assault of Genie. It was
like the jury seemed to believe what bj was saying.

(01:13:19):
But I'm gonna tell you something right now. Erica was
t tiny. She was like ninety something pounds. Erica didn't
kick down that door in that in that condo. And
I would dare say that the jury got it backwards,
that Erica.

Speaker 2 (01:13:33):
Killed Jeanie and he killed Josh. But it is what
it is.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
So obviously this made huge news and people were watching
this this trial because it was just so chilling, and
that included a woman by the name of Melissa Selling
whose jaw dropped to the floor when she saw the
pictures of Erica in BJ. And that's whenever she called
police and told them a story she they just couldn't

(01:13:57):
ignore her story, she said. A few days after Josh
and Geenie were murdered, this would have been the night
of the twenty ninth, She and her friend justin he
went by the name Todd, but they went out for
drinks and when she met up with Todd, he was
already drunk. He had made friends with a couple who
was also very clearly drunk, and it was none other
than Erica and BJ. Melissa was the only one who

(01:14:21):
was sober. She continued to bar hop with them throughout
the night, but she didn't drink, and the couple Erica
and BJ, invited them back to their condo to hang
out some more.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
She was afraid that Todd was too drunk to drive.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
Safely, so she followed him in his vehicle back to
the condo, and when they got there, Erica was so
drunk that BJ asked Melissa to help Erica up the
stairs so she wouldn't fall over now hindsight's twenty twenty,
but she realized. You know, Erica was so drunk she
could barely make it up the stairs without help. But

(01:14:54):
whenever they got to the top of the penthouse to
open the door, Erica was able to open her purse
and get the key, put it in the door, and
lock it with no problems and being polite. Melissa was
gonna leave, but Erica wanted to show him the really
cool penthouse that they were in, so she was kind
she stepped in to see it.

Speaker 2 (01:15:12):
Within five minutes of them.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
Being there, Erica and BJ accused them of stealing her
purse as well, and they forced Melissa and Todd to
look for it. So as Melissa and Todd are frantically
looking for this purse and they don't know where it is,
that's whenever BJ pulled a gun on them, and he
even told them with a gun in their face that

(01:15:35):
people had done this to them before, had tried to
rip them off, and that he was quote doing the
world a justice by ridding the earth of bad people
end quote, and he added if they if y'all are
ripping me off to he's going to kill you, he's
going to kill them the exact same way that he
killed those other people. End quote. So Melissa was terrified
and they kept looking around. Well, Melissa was sickened because

(01:16:00):
at one point, while she's searching for this purse with
a gun to her head, she noticed that there was
a bullet hole in the bathroom door. And the reason
it caught her attention is because the door wasn't on
the hinges. The door had been removed and was just
sitting next to the bathroom with a bullet hole in it.
She wasn't stupid, and she knew that that was a
bullet hole in that door. Amazingly, though, I'll wrap this

(01:16:23):
up kind of quickly, a bunch of stuff happened while
looking for but amazingly, the couple's purse was found, but
it was found in an area that Melissa herself had
already looked, but it just appeared back.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
There, and.

Speaker 1 (01:16:37):
She wasn't sure what exactly was going to happen, but
she said bj at one point shoved the gun directly
in her mouth. She put Melissa said he put the
gun in her mouth during the purse search and threatened
to kill her with the gun. So clearly he was
involved in these attacks, and clearly this changed a lot,
because now it was a pattern BJ and Erica liked

(01:17:02):
to play a game. How could Erica be a battered
and bruised and caught off guard wife with BJ's behavior
with Josh and Genie when they did the exact same
thing as a couple a few days after they killed
Josh and Genie. That's what me and the ranchers of
America would identify as a pile of bullshit. So, unfortunately,

(01:17:24):
BJ had already been sentenced by this point, and due
to the constitution, y'all know double jeopardy, you can't be
tried twice for the same crime.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
But it was now time.

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
Well, BJ had been already sentenced too. He was sentenced
to thirty years imprisonment for second degree murder, twenty five
years to run at the same time as an additional
five years for the assault and for the accessory after
the fact to the murder. But Erica was up for
trial two months later. Now, when she went to trial,
she continued to go on with this battered and abused

(01:17:54):
wife claims. But the insight now from Melissa coming forward.
She testified to the missing purse game that went on,
and that combined with the facts that the three point
fifty seven magnum that Erica had in her own waistband.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Had blood.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Or had shot the bullets that had blood on it,
and that blood was later tested and proven to be Josh's.
And the key that they had found the police had
found at the condo of the Seyfritz was proven to
be the key to Genie and Josh's condo. And also
they found a home depot worker that was able to
identify Erica as the one that went.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
And bought a door and was carrying it through.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
The home depot, which, by the way, they loved to
document their vacation. They also were able to find a
photo of bj out front of the home depot holding
cleaning supplies at that same trip, so they just liked
to document all of this, all of that together.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
Then they had photos after that the murders.

Speaker 1 (01:18:58):
They had pictures of them play mini golf, eating boiled crabs,
and swimming in the ocean, all smiles, and Erica's wardrobe
would become front and center because guess what was in
the photos After the death of Josh and Jeanie and
all of those fun photos they took together. Erica had
Josh's bloody ring on a necklace that she wore around

(01:19:19):
her neck for the entire vacation as well, as Erica
went and got a new tattoo after their deaths. It
was a dragon tattoo and she got it in the
exact same spot where she stabbed Genie as a memento
of what they did together as a team, her and
her lover's sick and twisted game. They also found that

(01:19:44):
Josh and Jeanie were dead and cut apart, and that's
when the couple had long discussions about whether they wanted
to cook and eat one of their legs. Like this
just was completely and totally unhinged, And they had also
discussed as a couple whether they should go kill Erica's
family and all of their money. So I guess Erica's
family also literally dodged a bullet. Now back to the

(01:20:06):
victims for just a second. Josh's family specifically suffered so
much and that I found that Josh's murder was one
of two horrendous blows to this family in less than
a year. Because Josh, when he was alive, had been
grieving alongside his brother Mark. Because Mark's daughter Kelly had

(01:20:31):
been found murdered right before Josh was found murdered. In
a completely different incident, Poor Mark lost his twenty three
year old daughter, Kelly, whose remains were found in a
shallow grave in Cape Cod by some beach goverers that
are playing frisbee, And in an unbelievable similarity, Kelly's head
was also missing and never recovered.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Her murders never been solved.

Speaker 1 (01:20:57):
And then just months later, after his daughter been beheaded
and buried, now he's suffering the loss of his beloved
brother too, Josh, who also had been beheaded.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Can you imagine that happening?

Speaker 1 (01:21:12):
Why some people suffer so greatly in this world that
on this level, I just have no words for that.
And to follow up on Josh and Genie's case, they
did turn on each other obviously during their trials, but
it was kind of interesting to me that although they
were both convicted in two thousand and three, they never

(01:21:32):
divorced until twenty ten, and they also continued to write
one another even though they were both supposedly victims of
each other. Bj was up for parole in twenty twenty one,
which he was denied. Erica was just up for parole
in twenty twenty four, which was also denied, and I'm
glad that they're both denied. They're right where they need
to be locked up. And I'm not going to downplay

(01:21:53):
the horrific things they did to Josh and Genie. Okay,
their deaths were horrible, But to that note, this dynamic
duo wasn't as good of criminals as they thought that
they were, and I'm surely not impressed. I've seen middle
schoolers with better lying skills and chaos potential. To me,
I see, I want to be Bonnie and Clyde, who

(01:22:14):
should have just stuck to burglarizing Hooters because they're not
even good at what they tried to do. And I
know I'm not the first person to ever do this case. Okay,
I've heard them referred to on television shows as the
perfect storm couple, who are this volcanic eruption of fire
and gasoline. But let's be real, everybody, because I know
vinegar and bacon soda when I see it

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