219: Unhinged Murder Plot Against The Hired Hitman | The Joe Rosebrook Case
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He puts his family through hell, especially Mary Ann Ritter. I do want to say that I'm sorry for the loss of the family. I know what you want. They will kill me. Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, your host, Annie Elise.

It's Monday, which means we've got a new deep dive. We got to go over this one and I'm going to talk to you about it in a minute here, but it also means it is the start of a brand new week. So whatever it is you're doing today, whether you're driving, cleaning, running, working, wherever you're at, whatever you're doing while you're listening to this, I just want to say I hope you had a great weekend and I am wishing you all the best for an amazing week ahead.

That being said, okay, there's always a but right now. That being said, we've got to talk about this case because as soon as I heard about it, there was no doubt in my mind. I was like, got to jump on the mic, got to talk to people about this because it feels honestly like it was ripped in

directly out of a Lifetime movie, or maybe even a Hallmark movie gone bad. Because you've got murder. You've got murder for hire. You've got a hitman. You've got a hit on the hitman. You have mistaken identity. I mean, this case is so convoluted and crazy that when I tell you the twists, they are a twisted.

We're going to go through all of it, but it is definitely like Mr. Toad's wild ride. Now it takes place in 2006. So just to paint the scene for you, that was what? 2006 was the year after I graduated high school. So it was like the mecca of the Y2K era. It was the simple life with Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie. It was the Y2K fashion. It was like peak 2000s.

So in the early morning hours of May 26, 2006, 31-year-old Daniel Ott and his girlfriend Marianne were woken up by the sound of their dog Mulligan. They thought that, okay, Mulligan must just need to go outside. Maybe he had gotten into something that he shouldn't have. This has happened before. So they weren't super stressed out about it. They knew they needed to go check on him or let him out, but they kind of took their time rolling out of bed to do so. And when they finally did get out of bed,

they noticed that things were different this time. It wasn't just that Mulligan needed to go outside, had to use the bathroom, or maybe, you know, had gotten into something in the trash can. Mulligan wasn't alone, and neither were Daniel and Marianne.

Someone had gotten into their house. Now, I know that this might sound insane, especially to all of you true crime listeners, but Daniel and Marianne didn't usually lock their door at night. They lived in Burton Township, Ohio, and it's a town east of Cleveland.

And most of the people there weren't that concerned about home security or robberies because the town just wasn't like that. It was generally a safe neighborhood. Burton Township hadn't had a single homicide for six years. And it is such a safe area that the local police department hadn't even bothered to fix their 911 call recording system, which, by the way, it hadn't been working right for months.

But because there were never any really incoming calls or any high crime, they didn't really have a sense of urgency to fix it. And that 911 recording system also wasn't working in the early morning hours of May 26th, 2006.

And that's why there's actually no recording of the 911 call that Daniel's girlfriend Marianne made that morning. She had called 911 to report that something horrifying had happened. But before we get any deeper, I want to take a step back and ask, okay, who was Daniel? And was there any reason that somebody might be inside his house, you know, ready to hurt him?

According to the people who knew him best, Daniel was one of those people who loved everyone. It was hard to find anything bad to say about him. He had shoulder-length brown hair, a very friendly smile, and he kind of just had this air about him that just felt safe, almost like you could count on him for whatever you needed. Now, Daniel was a lifelong Midwesterner. He was born in Ohio, and he had grown up there and spent his whole entire adult life there as well.

He had pretty normal hobbies. He loved to travel. He loved movies. He was also a bit of a thrill seeker of sorts. A couple of times a year, every year, he would hit up one of Ohio's best roller coaster amusement parks called Cedar Point.

And it's one of the like mecca amusement parks. So, you know, definitely like to have his fun too. And he would go there multiple times a year. He kept in close contact with his friends, his family, his co-workers. And he had a really great relationship with his girlfriend, Marianne. He worked for a local nursery called Urban Growers. And he was super talented at growing flowers and other kinds of plants.

So basically the opposite of me because I can't keep a succulent alive. I can't even keep artificial flowers alive in the sense that they always get dusty and dingy. So definitely a green thumb. I think that's the word, right? Not for me, for him. But anyway, just the fact that his job was growing and nurturing plants, I mean, it pretty much kind of goes to show, in my opinion, what a tenderhearted guy this guy was.

His job was literally to keep things alive, to keep them thriving, all so that other people could enjoy them for themselves.

And in fact, Daniel had such a great green thumb that he had recently gotten offered an amazing opportunity. A company in Grand Rapids, Michigan wanted him to come out and grow their plants for them. And this was a huge move that was going to get him a lot further than his current job. So he said yes, and he agreed to uproot his entire life. He even found a new place to live.

In fact, he had already shipped most of his belongings to his new apartment, including his bed. So that night, when Mulligan the dog woke up because there was that home intruder coming into the house, Daniel and Mary Ann were actually spending one of their very last nights together in Ohio before the big move. They were sleeping inside the room on an air mattress with a whole bunch of boxes that were just half-packed surrounding them. So in one sense, they knew that everything was going to change for them very soon, but

but they had no idea of realizing just how things were going to change. In fact, they had no idea of knowing that all hell was about to break loose that night. When they woke up, Mulligan was in the kitchen whimpering. So Daniel and Marianne, of course, got up to go check on him, thinking, okay, he must just need to get out, needs to use the bathroom. They knew they just had to open the door so that he could get out, do his business. But Daniel and Marianne didn't even make it all the way to the kitchen.

because the second that they stepped into the living room, they saw somebody just standing there, like he was waiting for them. A masked stranger had come into their house uninvited in the middle of the night, and now they were just standing right there in front of them in the dark. This stranger was also holding a shotgun.

It is just terrifying to think about. Now, they couldn't make out any real features on whoever this person was. All they knew for sure was that it was a man. The intruder also didn't say much either. All he asked was for them to lie face down on their stomachs.

Now, Marianne didn't recognize his voice or even the general look of him. I mean, from what she could see anyway, which wasn't much. And as this masked man began to tie Daniel's hands with duct tape, he also asked Daniel a very odd question.

He wanted to know what his name was, which asking somebody what their name is at that point when you're tying them up and literally intruding in their home, that's pretty weird, right? You would think that they would know the person. You would think that there would be some sort of connection. I mean, what was this guy's plan in all of this? And people who are breaking and entering aren't exactly known for making small talk. Like, hey, bud, what's your name? I'm just going to tie you up here really quick. It just made no sense.

So was he trying to make sure that he was in the right place, doing the right thing? At one point, when the intruder turned away for a minute, Daniel got himself free and then decided to take matters into his own hands.

He grabbed the first thing that he could find to protect himself and to protect his girlfriend, Marianne. Some reports indicate that what he grabbed was a lamp. He knew that it wasn't much, but it was all that he had in that moment to defend himself. Now, some reports also say that the intruder was actually walking away when Daniel made his move.

Maybe the guy was even leaving, who really knows. But even if this guy was on his way out, Daniel still didn't know what he had planned or if he was going to come back. His life was on the line, and he felt like he had to do something in this moment. So Daniel ran over and he tried to grab the intruder. Now I'm guessing that he was also trying to protect Marianne in all of this. He didn't want to just get away and get him and Marianne to safety. He wanted to stop this guy before he could get away or do anything else.

But here's the thing. The intruder had a gun, and Daniel didn't. Maybe he only had a lamp. Again, the reports were a little bit vague on what exactly he grabbed. So the intruder ended up struggling with Daniel. And while they were fighting, while they were in this struggle, the intruder fired a single shotgun blast into Daniel's chest, randomly.

right there at point-blank range. Then he ran outside, and when he did, a maroon Ford was outside waiting for him. He had actually only been inside the house for a few minutes at that point, although I'm sure for Daniel and Marianne, it probably felt like a lifetime. So Marianne called 911 just a couple of seconds later, and she was insanely shaken up.

However, she wasn't hurt, thank God. The first responders made it there pretty fast, and they did what they could do to save Daniel's life. It seemed like he was going to pull through, too. He was responsive, and he even talked to Marianne for a little while. Then they loaded him into the ambulance, and they took him to the hospital.

However, sadly, later that day, he died of his injuries. And he was just 31 years old, on the cusp of starting this entire new chapter of his life, this move, this new job, this career, all until somebody came into his home, the place where he felt the most safe, and stole his entire future from him. So the biggest question was, of course, who would do this? Especially because, again, Daniel didn't seem to have any enemies.

He just wasn't the kind of person to make enemies. He didn't have any of them. He was really just such a sweet guy. So the police asked everybody who had known him if anybody could come up with any theories, any ideas of who could have possibly done this. But there weren't any real leads at first.

Daniel's dad, Leroy, said that he had last talked to his son a week before the murder. And at the time, apparently Daniel had been pretty angry. And he was angry because his dad, Leroy, had cut his own grass by himself while he was sick. Which, this again just illustrates who Daniel was. Because, in other words, Daniel was annoyed because his dad didn't let him do it for him instead.

So he got mad at his dad, like, why would you cut your own grass? Why wouldn't you let me come and do it for you? Which, again, how does a guy like this end up being murdered? Who would ever have a problem with this guy? Even the cops couldn't make sense of it. Daniel's girlfriend, his parents, his friends, and anyone else that the police talked to who knew him were just flabbergasted. As much as I hate that word, they just could not make sense of it.

Everybody they talked to were also extremely cooperative, and they helped with the investigation in any way that they could. Now, as for the evidence at Daniel's home, surely there must have been something for the investigators to go off of, right? But unfortunately, there wasn't.

According to the police, there were no signs of forced entry. They also didn't believe that anything of any value had been taken. And because that door had been unlocked that night like so many other nights, it's not like they could even limit their investigation to the people that Daniel and Marianne had known or people who had access or a key. And as far as witnesses went,

there weren't any besides marianne and she couldn't remember which way the getaway car had even turned when it drove away from the house she didn't see the man's face either but she did think that his height was somewhere around 5 foot 10 but it wasn't nearly enough information for the cops to go off of or for them to narrow down any sort of suspect list the murder weapon also was never found and maybe it's worth taking a second to think about that

that. The intruder came to the home with a shotgun, which I have to say is kind of an odd choice for a weapon if you're planning to just rob a house. They're big, they're bulky, they're huge, and they're usually reserved for things like, you know, self-protection in your home, hunting, things like that, maybe even hunting a person, but not just a home invasion robbery plan. So the best theory that the police could come up with was that the crime had all the markings of a mafia-style hit.

which a professional would be able to get in and commit the murder without leaving any real evidence. I mean, it makes sense, but does that mean that somebody could have been trying to get to Daniel before he left town since he was right about to move?

The problem was that the police were missing one key piece to this puzzle, a motive. In the meantime, leads came and went and came and went. And for a while, it seemed like every time the cops tried to connect the dots and talk with somebody outside of Daniel's circle who, you know, might know something, they would just wind up right back at the same place, square one. We understand it takes courage from fourth in this type of aesthetic.

and do the right thing, we would ask people to come forth and do that. We have been diligent, as we have with the media. I mean, you saw this from day one. This is not how we typically handle press issues. We have been very cautious to protect those who have worked with us, and we're going to continue to do that. So anyone who might have additional information, please come forward.

There were also a lot of questions that the cops just simply didn't have answers to. One of the biggest was, why was Mary Ann left alive? She straight up witnessed the murder of her boyfriend. So, why wouldn't the killer have tied up the loose end and killed her as well? It didn't make any sense. And I know what some of you are probably thinking here.

Always look at the significant other, right? That's generally the rule of thumb. Even if you don't think that the boyfriend, the girlfriend, the husband, or the wife did it, you gotta at least rule them out, right? That's standard protocol. However, here's the thing. Mary Ann was never treated as a suspect.

And Daniel's family also always maintained that they had the most utmost respect for her, that they never had any reason to question her, to doubt her, nothing. So eventually, the investigators asked for the public's help. They said that if anyone had a tip or any information about this murder,

they needed to come forward ASAP. But here's where things get super weird, or start to get super weird, I should say. Every now and then, investigators would find someone who seemed like they did know something, but that they didn't want to admit it. It was like they were holding back for some unknown reason, like they were under some sort of gag order, that they were scared for their life, or maybe even scared of someone. ♪

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Upgrade your selling today and get the same checkout that Rare Beauty uses. Investigators ran into a number of people who seemed like they had information that could help solve Daniel's murder. But every time that they were about to get somewhere with it, the cops would just hear the same thing. Detectives repeatedly ran into the phrase, I know what you want, they will kill me. And people flat refused to talk.

Now for this next part of the story, I need to take you about 200 miles away, and I promise it will all make sense, but just roll with me on this. So for now, I need to tell you about a prison called London Correctional Facility. Now stay with me, because things are about to go from, hmm, that's a little weird, Annie, to absolutely bizarre pretty quickly. So there was an inmate in this prison at the time of Daniel's murder, and his name was Joe Rosebrook.

He was serving 10 years for a whole slew of crimes like theft, obstruction of justice, tampering with vehicle identification numbers, and also the biggest of all, conspiracy to commit murder. Now, the first charge was because he had ordered a hit on a former mechanic of his,

a guy named Curtis Frazier. See, Joe was the head of a ring of chop shops, if you will, you know, where they deal in stolen cars. They chop them apart, sell them for parts, break them down for parts, all these things. And his was one of the biggest operations like that in the country, in fact.

Basically, he and some other guys would steal all kinds of cars, trucks, vans, you name it. They would tear them apart, and then they would either put them back together so that they could sell them without being traced, or they would just sell the parts so that they could get money pretty quickly. And he had been running this multi-million dollar crime ring for years.

He had been doing it out of a 75-acre property in Logan County, Ohio, which also just so happened to be a three-hour drive from where Daniel was killed. But I don't want to make it sound like this car ring was the first time that he had done something illegal. It certainly wasn't. In fact, Joe was quite the career criminal, and that is putting it lightly, or mildly, I should say.

His first arrest was back in 1983. Back then, one of Joe's partners in this illegal business, a guy named Ray Payne, got in trouble for stolen car parts and also for insurance fraud. And when the police caught up to him and started questioning him, he sang like a bird and he gave them Joe's name. Now, obviously, this didn't sit well with Joe. He was pissed. And in fact, just a few days later, Ray got into his car...

turned on the ignition, and the car just exploded and went up in flames. Now, nobody could ever prove that Joe had anything to do with the explosion of Ray's vehicle, but everybody, even the police and Ray, who actually lived to tell the tale, they all thought that he did it. And I mean, Joe's whole background was kind of like

that. These weird crimes that nobody could quite pin on him. People either turning up dead or going missing, but nothing that anyone could actually ever prove. There was one disappearance that jumped out to me too when I was doing my research. It's a disappearance that possibly involved Joe, but the cops had a very difficult time proving anything.

Now, to be clear, even now, I can't say for sure whether or not he did it, but I'm going to tell you what happened and you come to your own conclusions. So back in the 90s, a guy named Michael Latimer was working for Joe. Michael was only 18 years old at the time. He was just starting out in life.

And at the time, Joe, along with some of his friends, already had a reputation for breaking into empty houses, mostly swiping antiques from older people, elderly people who had moved into nursing homes at this point. But eventually, Michael joined in on these break-ins. However, he got caught pretty quickly. And when he did...

The cops cut Michael a deal. The plan was simple. Michael would turn and spill everything that he knew about Joe, and in exchange, he would walk away without anyone knowing that he had even ever been caught. But of course, things didn't go as smoothly as the cops had hoped in all of this. Michael just couldn't keep quiet.

and he ended up telling Joe that he was in trouble. The cops even think that Michael gave Joe a heads up that he was giving the police information on him. Then, soon after that, Michael was picked up once again by the cops, this time for drug charges. And when they did this, the police officially made arrangements to keep him safe.

However, on November 23rd, 1999, right after making bail, he got a phone call that seemed to be from Joe. And after this call, he immediately left his house. Witnesses then saw Michael getting into Joe's car near a local post office.

And just a couple of days later, he missed his family's Thanksgiving dinner. And that is when everybody started to worry. There was no sign of him, and also no indication of whether foul play was involved or not. It was kind of just like one day, poof, you know, he vanished into thin air off the face of the earth. And it has been literally decades since then. More than 20 years at this point. And still, nobody has any idea whatever happened to Michael.

no body has ever been found, we don't know if he is alive or dead for sure. There have always been some whispers, of course, about what might have happened to him, and the word on the street was that Michael was supposed to testify against Joe for an upcoming court case. And I think that it should be very clear by now that Joe was definitely not the sort of person that you wanted to make angry. Again, no one has ever proven that he had anything to do with Michael's disappearance, but I think you can certainly see why people would have opinions about

it, right? So even now, after all of these years, Michael is still just a missing person, and his case is unsolved. His disappearance is still a mystery, and even though there is a ton of speculation going around about Joe, he was never formally charged in connection with it.

And it also sets the tone for what Joe could have been capable of doing, right? I mean, to think of a grown man who would kill an 18-year-old boy just starting out in his life, and not only killing him, but leaving his family without answers, justice, and closure about their son's disappearance and, you know, possible murder even, and doing this for years. It's just sick and very, very twisted. And

And even though he was never charged with anything related to Michael, and maybe did, in fact, get away with murder, I will say that throughout the 90s and the early 2000s, Joe was in and out of prison. However, he always managed to get out at some point. Not that he would escape from prison, not that sort of thing. It just seemed like he never really got nailed for anything that would keep him behind bars for very long. And finding people to testify against Joe was very difficult.

because most of them were all afraid that if they were to talk, they would end up dead. But in the mid-2000s, the cops did manage to find one person who was willing to talk. They were ready to talk all about Joe. And not only that, but this person was willing to work with the authorities and actually double-cross Joe. And this person was none other than Daniel Ott.

Now we know that Joe was clearly a very scary guy and had a very checkered past to say the least. But are we supposed to believe that Daniel, this nursery green thumb tender-hearted guy, was somehow wrapped up in this criminal enterprise?

That he was helping Joe with crimes, with chopping cars, with whatever work he was doing? Was he secretly moonlighting as some sort of car theft snitch? Could that have been the reason that Joe wanted him dead? I mean, hey, if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, and if you follow true crime, you know that people are definitely good at hiding things and leading separate lives. You know, living a full-on secret life at that. It definitely wouldn't be the first time that we've seen something like that.

So the question that you might be asking right now is, okay, what was Daniel really involved in? And how did he know Joe? Well, as it turns out, Daniel Ott and Joe, they went back for years. And at some points, they were even running in the same circles.

That is until, of course, Daniel went behind his back and Joe now had a reason to want him, you know, wiped off the face of the earth. But there's just one little problem with this whole thing. Even though it finally feels like it might be making sense and all of the things are tying together, it's not.

Because what nobody knew, not even Joe, is that there were two different men named Daniel Ott who were both living within 50 miles of each other. That's right. We're dealing with two different Daniel Otts.

Two guys with the exact same name who lived extremely different lives. One was known to be involved very heavily into crime, and the other one was the one that we talked about at the beginning of this episode. A friendly, young, Midwestern guy with his entire future ahead of him. So I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this, right? Joe, this sleazeball idiot Joe, took out a hit on the wrong Daniel. The wrong Daniel was murdered.

But it doesn't even end there. Not even close, guys. Now, let's talk about that for a moment because the odds have to be astronomical, right? And then, remember, it's 2006 we're talking about. I mean, Google did exist. So wouldn't a hitman know who they were supposed to be going after?

And wouldn't you think that the person ordering the hit would be pretty specific about who they were supposed to go and kill? Now for the sake of clarity, since we're now dealing with two different Daniels, I'm going to refer to the Daniel who was killed as Daniel and the new criminal Daniel as Dan. Okay? Criminal Dan and sweet innocent Daniel.

And here's what we know about criminal Dan. Dan was older, almost 40 years older than Daniel, actually. And he had sort of this, like, nice grandpa vibe to him, if you will. At first glance, you'd never guess that this white-haired, fragile-looking guy with wrinkles all over his face could possibly ever have a hit out on his life. I mean, I'll be honest, he looked more like he belonged in a retirement community,

playing shuffleboard, or a guy just doing like a Sudoku or a crossword puzzle, rather than the type of guy who's associated with Joe Rosebrook or guys like him. Now, the Cobbs didn't even know about this second Dan until six months after Daniel's murder took place. However, once he got on their radar, he never left it.

And it turns out, looks can be quite deceiving. Now, Dan had lived an absolutely insane life, and he was one of the worst criminals ever. It all began when he was just 13 years old. That's when he stole his first car, at just 13.

And apparently the feeling that that gave him the rush of it all, it was something that he could never quite shake. According to some estimates, Dan stole over 1,000 cars over the course of his life. And each time that he would steal a car, he would just turn around and sell them, sometimes bringing in as much as $30,000 to $40,000 per month. And he didn't stop at cars either. He also learned how to fly planes at one point,

And according to his own words, he quote, only stole four of those, but literally learned how to fly planes. There were also bulldozers, tow trucks, RVs, backhoes, and basically, if it had wheels, Dan would eventually try to steal it. And a lot of the time, he was successful in doing so. At one point in the late 1970s, Dan said that he even stole a car that belonged to Elizabeth Taylor.

You know, the old school, super famous Hollywood actress. According to him, her dog was also in the car at the time, so he made off with her dog too. Now, according to Dan, he gave this dog to his cousin without ever hurting it, but this is just something Dan claims happened. There's absolutely no clarity if it's true or not.

Now his favorite cars to steal were Corvettes. They were actually his specialty too because they were worth a lot of money and they were easy to unload, aka resell. Some reports say that out of the different kinds of cars that he stole over the course of his, you know, career at this, 100 of them were Corvettes. And rumor has it that one time he even showed up to a court date in a Corvette leather jacket. I mean, the audacity, right? Now sometimes he didn't just steal for himself.

other people would hire him to steal cars for them if they needed something specific, and he would charge them about $1,200 per car. But needless to say, he just couldn't keep that up forever without being caught, right? So he spent his time going in and out of jail. He went to prison at least six times and to county jails way more times than that. He had one of those rap sheets that would make most people think like,

Okay, how was this guy not locked up for life? And you would think that with a record like that, he would be facing even more serious time behind bars. But somehow, just like with Joe, Dan always managed to just slip through the cracks. No matter how many times he got caught, he would always find his way back out, and he would find his way right back into the thick of the criminal world. I mean, I guess it's really the only world that he knew, right? So given their similar backgrounds,

it's no surprise that Joe and Dan eventually crossed paths. And at one time, Joe actually really trusted Dan. In fact, Dan was so trusted that he worked directly with Joe as part of his chop-shop ring, his enterprise.

Now, by the mid-2000s, Joe had been arrested on different charges relating to all of that car stuff. And while he was on house arrest awaiting trial, he got word that there was a witness who was going to testify against him. And that witness was a man named Curtis Frazier, that former mechanic from Joe's Chop Shop ring.

And Joe couldn't let Curtis testify against him. So he reached out to somebody that he thought that he could trust. Someone who might be willing to carry out a hit on Curtis for him. And the person that Joe trusted, who he believed would be able to carry out this hit and pull it off, that was Dan. So Joe offered him $2,000. Here's a $2,000 down payment. And then once the job's done, I'm going to give you another $13,000.

$15,000 all in all if you just kill this witness for me so that he doesn't testify against me. However, instead of carrying out this hit and getting that $15,000, Dan did something totally unexpected.

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Alright, let's talk about that scene. You know the one. The one that you replay over and over again. Maybe it's the Bridgerton carriage moment, or maybe it's like a fiery chapter in one of your books, but what if I told you that there's an app full of stories like that? Meet Dipsy. Dipsy is a female-founded app for spicy audiobooks crafted by women for the female gaze, with over 1,000 stories from rugged cowboys and fae princesses to forbidden romances. You will find your next obsession in genres like contemporary, historical, romance-y, and more.

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Punishable offense. But I was just sitting quietly in class. I didn't do anything. I've been lenient with you before. But I am afraid that there will be consequences. What sort of consequences? You know that my colleagues, my students, my boss are all in this building. I didn't mean to upset you. It's too late now. You have to be punished.

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Instead of carrying the hit out on Curtis, Dan went to the police with information, just like Curtis Frazier and Michael Latimer had done before. He also reportedly agreed to wear a wire and record his next conversations that he had with Joe. And when he did...

the cops had exactly what they needed, evidence that Joe was conspiring to murder Curtis. Joe had already been convicted of some smaller charges, so he was in prison, but this was officially enough to put him behind bars for longer, for an entire 10 years. And you might be wondering, okay, well, how did Dan go from being this trusted partner of Joe's, this guy in this criminal enterprise with him, to now double-crossing him? Well, Dan and the police have two very

very different versions of what went down. And if you ask the police, they say that Dan agreed to the wiretap in exchange for not getting charged with another car theft that they had linked to him. But according to Dan, the call had already been recorded without his knowledge, and he had never even agreed to kill Curtis. He simply said that he would find somebody else to do it.

Which, I gotta just say, I think that I'm inclined to believe the police's version here and not the career criminal, but let me know what you guys think. So either way, Dan now at this point had made an enemy. And like I said before, Joe was not the sort of person that you would want to ever betray, that you would ever want against you. Not the kind of person that you would want as an enemy.

Maybe Dan might have thought that he was safe because Joe wasn't a free man anymore, that he was going to be locked away in prison for a long time, and that he couldn't hurt him from behind bars. But if that's what Dan was thinking, boy oh boy was he wrong. See, Joe still had friends, and he still had ways of getting in touch with the kind of people who would be willing to do dirty work for him.

It didn't matter if he was going to be locked up or not. And at one point during his prison stay, someone even smuggled him in a track phone, one of those bulky prepaid cell phones that were popular back in the early 90s. I think you might know what I'm talking about. They're like huge. But somebody smuggled it in for him. And Joe was still calling all the shots and running his chop shop from behind bars. And he was also still trying to murder people, apparently.

Now, obviously, it didn't really take Joe very long to find out that Dan had apparently crossed him. And let's just say it really, really did not sit well with him. And I mean, we've heard about what Joe did to people who snitched on him, right? So anyway, Joe had shared a cell with a guy named Chad South, and Chad was about to be released after serving just over a year for a burglary that he had committed in 2004. So Joe asked Chad if he would kill Dan for him, and Chad agreed.

Of course, he said he was only going to do it, though, if he got paid. So Joe's brother Jeff was supposed to make sure that Chad got paid after the hit was done. And on May 25th, 2006, the day before Daniel's murder, Chad drove to Burton Township, he stayed with a friend who lived in the area, and he started planning everything out.

And the next day on May 26th, Marianne and Daniel were woken up by that masked man who was an intruder in their home. Now remember in the beginning of this episode when we learned that the intruder asked Daniel what his name was while he was tying him up? Well, the theory is that Chad asked him that because he was genuinely confused. He knew what Dan...

"Criminal Dan" was supposed to look like, and he knew that Daniel was way younger than the man he was supposed to kill. So he was probably saying something to himself like, "Uh, this doesn't seem like the right guy, but he says his name is Daniel, so I'm not sure what to do here, let me just tie him up, or should I even be killing this guy?" Like, he probably had a lot of reservations.

However, as we know, in the end, he went through with it anyway. Maybe he panicked in that struggle as Daniel was chasing after him. Maybe he wanted the money that he had been promised. Who knows? But either way, after Daniel's murder, it

it started to look like chad had killed a completely innocent man that day all over a case of mistaken identity the investigators theory of the whole thing being a hit gone wrong was spot on from the start however proving it that took way longer than they would have hoped it wasn't just about knowing how everything happened and why they needed time to gather the evidence and piece everything together to make their theory stick

And that might be the craziest part of this case, because if you think it's wild now, I'm about to throw a hard left for you in a few minutes here. Now, one of the craziest parts of this case was that everyone involved got away with it for over nine years. And here's what the county law enforcement had to say about that. Numerous search warrants, wiretap warrants were obtained.

and the matrix, the network of this criminal operation became clearer and began to come into focus. The investigation was never closed, was never a cold case, and frankly looking back over the last nine years, I doubt that a week would go by without some action by the detectives in following up the investigation and in working the case. You can imagine the difficulty

investigating a homicide when frankly they got the wrong guy.

Thankfully, the truth, or some version of it, eventually came out in 2015. Now, the big key to this whole case was something that I already covered. How Mary Ann saw the intruder, Chad, hop into a getaway car before then peeling away on the morning of the murder. Well, the person driving that car finally came forward and started talking to investigators, but it took them nine years. Now, this person was a woman named Mindy Stanifer.

It's not clear why she now suddenly wanted to talk. Mindy was in her mid-20s when everything went down, and by her account, she was abusing controlled substances at the time, and it's believed that she only agreed to help out with the hit because she thought that she was going to get some drugs and some money out of it. Now, according to Mindy,

When Chad hopped into that car after shooting Daniel, he was covered in Daniel's blood. So much so that she actually threw up just from looking at him. She was so disgusted and it made her so sick that she just threw up right then and there. And that's not all. Apparently, when Chad got into the car, he said something to the effect of, I just killed the wrong guy. Although Chad would later deny that he ever said that.

And the investigators are kind of beating around the bush in this clip, but here's what they think happened. Obviously, Dan Ott, as I understand, he was a renter in the Clarendon Troy home, the Dan Ott and Burton Township. Is there any indication of how South came to learn that Dan Ott was in that home?

We do, but I'm not able to elaborate at this time as to how that may have been. He was typically provided with information and may have lost the right information and looked it up on his own, but I'm not going to get into that one.

Unfortunately, the cops quickly learned that Mindy wasn't the most reliable witness. She had a knack for really changing her story. She was also a little too cooperative. She would agree with certain statements, then she would change her mind and say, oh no, that's not what I meant. You know, like kind of going back and forth, wishy-washy, that kind of thing. But still, she told the police just enough that they were able to connect the dots and finally start solving Daniel's murder. And it's what finally led the cops to all of the conspirators. To Chad...

to Joe, to Joe's brother Jeff, who was handling the payments, to another person named Alva Jacobs, because Mindy said that Alva was also in the getaway car with her and Chad, and this was all enough for the police to finally indict Joe, Jeff, and Chad for Daniel's murder. Charges for Mindy and Alva, those came later. Chad South is currently in the Joggett County Safety Center. Joseph Rosebook picked up near Dayton.

He is currently in the George County Safety Center. I'm sorry, he was picked up in Florida by mistake. And brother Carl Jensen Rosebrook was picked up near Dayton, Ohio.

and is currently being held in the safety zone witness intimidation as i'm sure you can imagine was a huge factor in this case so the investigators were extra careful about keeping everything under wraps i mean pretty much until the trial began and it all became public anyway they didn't want to say which witnesses they were working with who was testifying what evidence they had they didn't want to say any of it the stakes were so high that even the cops had to tread carefully

They were worried about the potential repercussions from Joe and what he might do. So Joe was charged with aggravated murder, two counts of kidnapping, and one count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. Chad, the actual gunman, was charged with Daniel's murder plus two counts of kidnapping.

Now Joe's brother Jeff wasn't just any ordinary guy. He was actually a member of a nearby town's board of trustees. So this added an extra level of scandal to everything. He didn't seem like a career criminal like the others who were involved in this scheme. He just seemed like a legitimate businessman.

Except allegedly, while Joe was locked up, Jeff was the one who was handling his money. And I mentioned before that Jeff was the one who was supposed to pay Chad after the murder happened. But that was just one piece of it.

He was doing all kinds of work for Joe, but all he was charged with was murder. Not that murder is a minor or small charge, but it does sound like he could have been guilty of so much more than that. Now, Mindy, the getaway driver, thought that she had struck a deal that would keep her completely out of trouble.

She figured she would talk, then she would walk away from all of this without any consequences. But the investigators, they had other plans. They ended up charging her with involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and obstructing justice. And finally, there's Alva Jacobs, who was the third person in that getaway car that day.

Now, Alva might not have been directly involved in the actual murder plot, but Alva wasn't off the radar either. He was charged with obstruction of justice. Now, as for Dan, the actual target, criminal Dan, this isn't even close to the end of his story. Like I said, it gets even more twisted. It is like a Lifetime movie, guys, all the way to the end.

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So how did Dan fit into this case? Well, he didn't. Not in any legal way anyway. So he was never charged with anything. The only thing that he was guilty of is he just so happened to share the same name as the victim. Now the trials for everyone involved happened separately. So let's start with Joe Rosebrook.

It should come as no surprise that Joe was not going to go down without a fight. He wouldn't accept any sort of deal, and he chose to plead not guilty to the charges. On September 12, 2016, his trial began. A bunch of witnesses against him were other inmates that he had been in prison with, and apparently he had asked around a lot until he finally found somebody to actually be his hitman.

Now, of course, Joe's lawyer challenged their credibility, basically saying, how could someone with a criminal history and drug abuse be believed? But thankfully, in the end, a jury sided with the prosecution, and Joe Rosebrook will never see the light of day ever again. All right, the courts reviewed the verdict forms, and I note for the record that they've been signed by all 12 jurors, together with the specification forms. And I'll proceed to read the verdicts to...

Verdict on count one, conspiracy to commit aggravated murder or murder. Through the jury being duly impaneled and sworn and affirmed by the defendant, Joseph Rosebrook, guilty of the offense of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder or murder, set forth in count one of the indictment, a first degree felony that appears to have been signed by all 12 jurors. Verdict formed for count two, the complicity to commit aggravated murder or the lesser included offense of complicity to commit murder

With the jury being duly in panel and sworn and affirmed, I'm the defendant Joseph Rosebrook, guilty of the offense of complicity to commit aggravated murder, is charged in the indictment at count two, an unclassified penalty. There's accordingly no verdict on the lesser included offense. The specification to count two

The jury being Dillian, Tandem, Suwan, and the firm-funded defendant, Joseph Rose, for a person who was complicit with respect to the specification attached to count two, guilty, and that is signed by the 12 jurors.

The verdict formed for count three, complicity to commit aggravated murder based on aggravated burglary. We, the jury, being duly in panel and so on, in the front, find the defendant, Joseph Rosebrook, guilty of the offense of complicity to commit aggravated murder based on aggravated burglary. Count three, indictment on classified felony.

And the specification to count three, were the jury being duly damned and sworn in the firm's mind that you Joseph Rosebrook, or person with whom he was complicit, with respect to the specification attached to count three, guilty. And that appears to be signed by all 12 with respect to both the verdict and the specification. Count four, the complicity to commit kidnapping with respect to

Daniel Ott, with the jury being duly impaneled and sworn and affirmed, find that defendant Joseph Rosebrook guilty of the offense of complicity to commit kidnapping of Daniel Ott, is charged to count four for the indictment of first-degree felony. And further, with respect to the specification, the jury being sworn and affirmed, find that defendant Joseph Rosebrook, the person with whom he was complicit, with respect to the specification, is charged to count four guilty. And those are...

verdicts that are signed by all 12 jurors. The last and fifth count, the verdict with respect to the kidnapping, the complicity to commit kidnapping with respect to Mary Ann Ricker, recites that we, the jury, bring dueling account will be sworn and affirmed by the defendant Joseph Rosebrook, guilty of the offense of complicity to commit kidnapping to Mary Ann Ricker.

The specification, the jury sworn and affirmed finds Joseph Rosebrook a person who was complicit with respect to the specification attached to count five guilty. And as well as that entire verdict for count five and specification is signed by. Now here's what Daniel's father had to say in court to Joe, the man who was ultimately responsible for killing his son. Joel.

This family does not accept your apology. We put this family through hell, especially Mary Ann Ritter, okay? And my wife, Linda, my daughter, took the life of our son. We live with it every day. And I hope you spend the rest of your life in prison. I sure hope you behave yourself. Hope you learn your goddamn lesson. That's all I got to say. And I'll spend the rest of my life thanking law enforcement, prosecution, all the detectives, especially Detective Vedder back here.

that worked so hard and the love and support they show and all the detectives for our family we appreciate it thank you detectives that's all i have to say i'll spend the rest of my life thinking about these people won't think for one moment about you joe i just hope you behave yourself you took the life of an innocent man if you would have served 10 years and served your time dan dan would have probably hired you give you a second chance at life

But you pulled all this crap, so no mercy for you. That's all I got to say. Now, as for Chad, well, he was kind of a loose cannon when he had his day in court. He actually seemed pretty unhinged. And at one point, he was going off on the judge about how his trial wasn't fair because everybody thought that he did it from day one. And his lawyer actually had to tell him to, like, chill out at one point. I don't want the convictions to be believed by this court. If I had stabbed my lady seven times, you might believe me like Richard Carter.

Go ahead, take that on home with you. That's all I got to say. Also expected from you, Mr. Sands. That man's a bold-faced liar and he bought everything. Why? He had to give you. Misverified. Anything more you wish to say? Go ahead. Horrible. Horrible, man. Horrible, man. I mean, is this the... You think it's funny? You really think it's funny? Keep on smiling. Tell the judge some more about it. You lied up there, too. Sure you ain't never talked to Chad Black? She lied, too.

Anything else you want the court to know? I'm sorry I didn't hear you. I said it doesn't matter what I say. I was guilty before I got here. Anything else?

There's nothing for anyone. Chad was also found guilty, and he was sentenced to 15 years to life with the chance for parole after 28 years. And Mindy, the getaway driver, she initially pled not guilty to her charges, but then she changed her mind and gave a guilty plea. She was hoping for a less harsh sentence by doing this. She even tried begging for mercy in court. Take a listen. I just want to say that I guess it would be real easy for

people to assume that because of this situation that I'm a real bad person or a heartless person and that I'm really not. I do have a lot of sympathy for this whole situation. I think it's a horrible situation. There are a lot of people that are suffering because of the situations on both sides. And my heart breaks for that.

some good has come out of the situation. I have made friends with a lot of really good people that have helped me strengthen myself and my relationship with God. You know, I'm grateful for that. I'm very grateful.

I ask for mercy if possible so that I can showcase what I've learned. Eventually, whatever happens, wherever I go, it's not going to be for nothing. Wherever I go, I'm going to make as positive of this situation as I can. I'm not going to turn back to the

to the life that I used to live. You know, I'll be the first to admit I've made a lot of mistakes in my life. A couple years ago, I started to turn that whole situation around. I completed treatment. I regained custody of my daughter. I was doing very well. That's where I was at when the police came to my house in Florida in December. And, you know, I'm very capable of...

making the right decisions. You know, there was a time in my life I didn't believe that I was capable of that. Hasn't been until recently in my life that I've realized that. It's been a slow process, but I promise you that I have seen in myself and others have seen in me a lot of growth in the past few years.

That's going to continue no matter where I go. So I just really hope that, you know, I'm shown a little bit of mercy today. I do want to say that I'm sorry for the loss of a family, you know, in this situation. And I pray for forgiveness, you know.

And I have the Lord forgive me, so that's where my comfort is the most. That's all I'm going to say. She ended up getting 18 years. Daniel's family was rightfully disappointed in her. I mean, remember, she waited nine whole years before she came forward to the police to share what she knew about Daniel's murder. I'm Daniel, I'm his father. Mindy, I have no compassion for you. You had a chance to come clean with these detectives, worked very hard.

And you decided, you made the choice. You didn't want to come clean. And you had the opportunity. And you probably could have got off a real life sentence if you would have cooperated. But you chose not to. You made our life hell. You deserve the full sentence. I have no compassion. My wife and I, our family, have no compassion for you. You made a choice. You could have come clean. But you made a choice. Now you've got witnesses here. You want to come clean. You're doing all this good stuff. You had a choice right here.

Joe's brother Jeff accepted a plea deal, and he ended up only having to pay a $1,000 fine plus some court costs, which it honestly seems like he got off super easy here, which is a little disappointing. Jeff apologized to Daniel's family in court and said that his brother Joe has been, quote, an embarrassment for our family since the 80s.

Which, ouch, that feels like a big burn. But also, it's pretty rich coming from the guy who pled guilty and admitted to being a part of this whole murder plot and scheme, right? Then there was Alva Jacobs. Now, Alva also took a plea deal, namely for just 30 days in a county jail. So far, Joe, Chad, and Mindy have tried filing appeals, but no sentences have been overturned yet. Now, Daniel would have been 49 years old this year.

And even though his family finally has a little bit of closure and answers as to what happened to their son that day, it's really hard to say that justice has ever been served because, frankly, there is no justice that can bring Daniel back. Now also, let's talk about Dan. Because remember earlier when I said that Dan's role in this story wasn't done yet either? Yeah, it's true. Because Dan went on to survive two more attempted hits on his life after Daniel's murder.

Two more attempts, and he survived both of them. No one ever got caught or charged with those other two hits, though, so we technically can't say who was behind them. But basically, everybody who's close to this case thinks that they know who ordered them. And I'll give you one guess. Joe, of course. But if you think that this whole experience and having three hits on you might make you wake up and see the light and stop your criminal behavior and maybe Dan would change...

you'd be fooling yourself. Because in 2016, at the ripe old age of 78 years old, Dan confessed to at least five theft-related charges, all while he was out on supervised release. This included stealing a county drug task force trailer.

Which he said that he didn't do that, that he was just involved, whatever that means. After he served six more months in jail for that, he then got in trouble again. In 2019, Dan was sentenced to a year and a half for two different counts of burglary in different counties. He would have been up for parole in January of 2021, but he never made it to that day.

He died in prison before he ever had the chance to steal another car. Now, if he had lived to see the outside world once again, I think we all probably know where he would have gone next, right? For stolen car number 1001. Dan just could not quit being a criminal. He couldn't let go of the thrill. He couldn't let go of the rush that it made him feel all the way up until he was almost 80 years old.

But because of that, because of all of the criminals involved in this, including criminal Dan, 31-year-old Daniel, his life was forever changed. It was quite literally snuffed out completely senselessly. He was the one who paid the ultimate price for all of these dirtbags crimes. It's just an absolutely insane case when you really think about it, because I know it was pretty layered, but it's like...

you have a con artist, thief, criminal, hire a hitman to commit a murder, then they flip, so you hire a hitman to kill your hitman, then they kill the wrong person. I mean, it is just so crazy. It's like I need like a flowchart behind me because you're hiring a hitman to kill your hitman, then finally you do get the hit that you wanted, but it's on the wrong person. It's like

What's really going on here? It's just such an insane case. And if you take anything away from it, besides don't be a criminal, please take away the fact that you need to lock your doors. Lock your doors all the time. At night, in the day, in the afternoon, in the morning, all the time, keep your doors locked.

I don't know that that would have necessarily changed the outcome here for Daniel, but it certainly may have helped. It's just, again, one of those very wild ride rollercoaster cases. It truly makes you wonder, like, how people are capable of such horrific and atrocious behavior. But...

They never cease to amaze me, and I'm sure they never cease to amaze you, right? There are so many of these sleazeballs out there. All right, guys, I hope that you are having a great week. I will be back on the mic with you on Thursday with headline highlights where we are talking about everything happening this week in the true crime world.

new cases case updates everything so make sure you check back for that it'll be released on Thursday if you haven't subscribed to the podcast yet take a quick second to do so it only takes literally five seconds it's also totally free just whatever podcast app you're listening on go to the corner and there's probably like three dots or something and just hit follow that way you won't miss any of these episodes as they get released and spoiler alert

Sometimes I release bonus episodes that are outside of the regular release calendar, so you won't miss those either. And again, it's totally free. You just subscribe. All right, guys. Thank you again. I will be back with you on Thursday. And until then, lock your doors. Stay safe. Be nice. Don't kill people. Always watch your back. All right. Bye.