Poisoned Her Husband With Horse Tranquilizer?! Laren Sims & Larry McNabney
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Hey guys and welcome back to my channel. So today we are talking about a really wild case.

And we are talking about a woman who has many different names. So you're going to have to try your best to keep up with this one. And there's a ton of information to go over here. So let's just jump into it. So Lauren Renee was born January 20th, 1966 in Attleboro, Massachusetts to her parents, Jesse and Jackie Sims. Lauren, her siblings and her parents moved to Brooksville, Florida, where she spent the majority of her youth. Now information about

Lauren, when she was younger is quite limited, you know, her early life. There's not that much information out there, but we do know that she was very, very smart and had a really high IQ. In fact, her IQ was one 45, which qualified her as being highly gifted. She was always known as an incredibly bright student at Hernando high school. Lauren really had a lot going for her and she

She was looking forward to the future ahead. However, her plans kind of changed because she ended up getting pregnant with her first child. And she actually had two children with two different fathers in a relatively short period of time. She had a son named Cole and a daughter named Haley. And Haley was born January 29th, 1985.

When it comes to Cole, however, there really isn't much information about him or what role, if any, he had in his mother's life. Her daughter Haley was different. She actually grew up in her mother's care. It doesn't seem that Cole did. And Lauren's care was pretty limited as well. I mean...

She was involved with her daughter to an extent. I mean, her daughter has talked about how she grew up, had to grow up incredibly fast. You know, she had to learn how to feed herself, take care of herself when she was really young because her mother raised her kind of from a distance in a way. And after Lauren had Haley, she began a lifelong career, you could say, of stealing and

and identity theft. Now her habits started out kind of small. It was mostly petty theft here and there, and she would take things that she needed, but eventually she started stealing things that she didn't need and she enjoyed it. It kind of gave her that rush and, uh,

Gave her a little bit of excitement to get away with stealing. And like I said, Lauren was smart. So she learned how to get away with stealing things very easily. And she knew how she had to go about doing it and how she would have to move from city to city to avoid any repercussion. And because of that, she rarely got caught, but she had to spend a lot of time stealing things. And it consumed a lot of her thoughts. Haley even remembers thinking that her mom just wasn't capable of putting her needs first.

before her own. She was never able to provide a stable place for Haley to grow up in. And Haley's entire childhood was spent on the run, which as you can imagine was incredibly difficult for her and very, very stressful. And Haley was used to that from a young age, you know, constantly knowing that her mom had to get up and leave like every six months she would get caught or something would happen and they would have to move to a new place.

And Haley sadly got used to that. Haley even said that she remembers feeling like something bad was chasing them everywhere they went, but she never really knew what it was. I mean, she was too young to understand what was happening, but even though she knew something wasn't right with her mom, she did love her. And she tried to make her mom's life easier by behaving and taking care of herself for the most part. And at some point, Haley even began balancing their checkbooks. That's right. She took that on as a child to help

try to manage their finances better. When Haley was only eight years old, Lauren told her that she had to leave Florida and never come back. And this time it was because she got caught stealing a hair coloring kit by L'Oreal from a Woolworth's store. I'm sure some of you are very familiar with that chain. I've never heard of that before. And wow, that is a mouthful. And this location was located in Tampa. Lauren was actually given probation, but

violated the conditions of the probation by illegally using a credit card. This meant she was going to be sent back to jail. And in her mind, that just absolutely couldn't happen. It was just not an option. So instead she cuts off her ankle monitor and tells her daughter that she had to make a choice. She could either stay with her grandparents or she could come with her on the run. And at that time in her life and, you know, being so young, Haley felt like her best option was to go with her mom. I mean, she loved her mom, even though she,

There were challenges in their life. She wanted to be with her. And this was not Lauren's first or last arrest. And every time they changed locations, Lauren took on a completely new identity. And normally she would steal the names of women who she had come across while she was spending time in jail. Lauren actually used 38 names.

different names in total. And one thing about Lauren is she had a huge passion for horses. She absolutely loved horses and she had been involved with riding horses in whatever capacity that she could and even taught Haley to ride since the day that she could walk.

And to this day, Haley herself loves horses. So when she decided to leave Florida, Texas seemed like the perfect place to go. There are many areas in Texas where they could, you know, get access to the countryside and ride horses, but also they were high in tourist volume. So that was always an important factor for Lauren.

Haley said that she would always try to find a place with a lot of tourists so that they could blend in easier. But their time in Texas was pretty short lived because it didn't take long for Lauren to get caught shoplifting again, of course. And it was 1993 when she got caught and arrested in Texas, but she made bail like she always did. And once again, they were on the run. And this time she decided Las Vegas would be their next move. And Vegas went pretty well for them because

They were there a lot longer than they were in other places. Like they were actually starting to kind of feel at home. Haley was really happy to have been able to stay put in a place for longer than just a couple of months. And Lauren also met a man in Vegas and his name was Ken. But at the time that she met him, she was using the alias Elizabeth Barash. Haley said that her mom spent a lot of time with many guys over the years that she just did not like. She said,

She kind of got the ick from, but this guy was different. She really liked Ken. She said he was an incredible guy. So she's in a more stable home. They've been there for a little while. Her mom has this new boyfriend that she actually likes. Haley's starting to feel like maybe they have a chance at a normal life. And Ken was always really nice to her. He almost was becoming kind of like a father figure to her in a lot of ways. He and Lauren, who is now going by Elizabeth, um,

ended up deciding they wanted to get married. And so they did at the drive through chapel with Haley right there in the backseat of the car.

haley was really happy that their life was going so well and she also really enjoyed where she lived in her home and she felt like things were stable for once in her life but of course with lauren being her mom that didn't last long turns out she had been using ken's credit card without his permission now he actually knew about this before he decided to marry her but

He just decided to kind of look past it, even though she was straight up stealing from him. You know, he was kind of under her spell and, you know, wanted to just hope that she would change. You know, he wanted to see the best in her. And when people talk about Lauren, they always talk about how she was stupid.

so charming that she was really able to put these spells over men. She was very charismatic. She had a beautiful smile. And Haley said that it was just kind of hard not to love her mom. So that brings us to 1995 when Lauren meets the next man that she wants to put this spell on.

And she's still married to Ken at this point, but she ends up coming across a job posting for an office manager position at a law firm called Larry McNabney and Associates. Now I'm sure a lot of you have seen one of those videos

law firm attorney ads. They're so tacky. I know we have a few in our state that I've literally memorized over the years. If you want big settlements, you call Frank Azar. 1.25 million, 1 million, 2.4 million. Not only do I get the big settlements, but I get them fast. He got me $450,000. Call me. I'm attorney Frank Azar, the strong arm. And Larry McNabney had his own. You've been heard in an

So Larry was a California lawyer. He was born on December 19th, 1948. And just like Lauren, he was very smart from a very young age. And one of his closest friends from law school said that on his worst day in court, Larry was still 99% better.

than all of the other lawyers. People say that he was very funny. He could always put a smile on your face, make you laugh. And Larry was also known as being very generous to the people that he loved. Because of his financial success as a lawyer, he'd always pay for his friends when they'd go out to get a drink. And he was known for saying things like, your money is no good here and you can't put a price on a good time. But Larry definitely faced some demons, as you could say, in his life. And it made things difficult for him.

One thing he really struggled with was drugs and alcohol. And sometimes he would even disappear for a week at a time. Larry was six feet tall, 200 pounds, and had a very athletic build. People in his life say he was quite the ladies man. And he actually had a few marriages, but his problems with drugs and alcohol disappeared.

brought a lot of them to an end. He actually met his first wife right out of high school in 1967 and then he got his first divorce three years later. Larry's second wife was a woman named Cheryl and he had gotten temporarily sober before meeting her and the first several years of their marriage were happy ones. Two weeks after I met him I knew I was in love with him. Between

Between his two wives, Larry had three children, Tavia, Joe, and Kristen. And his kids say that Larry was a great father, but his drinking made him a bad husband. And just like Lauren, he had a huge love for horses. He spent decades showing quarter horses across the West Coast, and he was really successful with that.

And he also took a lot of time off practicing law because he was pursuing horses and he joined what many people would call a meditation cult. Details on this cult are pretty limited. All we know is that Cheryl said it was really good for them and Larry was sober throughout this time. So it was great for their marriage.

But eventually he went back to practicing law and by 1991, his business was more successful than it ever had been. And at its peak, he was making upwards of 300,000 a month. Cheryl said that being in this world wasn't good for him. And he eventually turned back to drinking. And she also said that he was starting to get really caught up in the money.

In 1995, he decided to open a second office for his business in Vegas, which the first office was located in Reno. And going back to Lauren, this is when she finds that job posting for his law firm. And when she applies for this job, she applies as Elisa Rettlesberger, which she actually got this name from another woman she had met in jail back in Florida. And so this doesn't get too confusing for you guys. I'm going to keep referring to her as Elisa Rettlesberger.

So Elisa was hired for the job immediately. And Larry was very excited about having her on his team. She actually had told him that she had her MBA and he was very excited about that.

Although this was a lie. And some of the other qualifications she told him that she had were also lies. And at the time that she was hired, she was 30 and Larry was 47. And it didn't take long for their professional relationship to turn personal. Haley even remembers the first time her mom told her that her boss wanted to take her out to dinner. And she thought it was weird, even though she was young because her mom was still married. In fact, Larry was still married.

And of course, just like the classic story, Larry and Elisa both end their marriages to pursue a relationship with each other. And Haley, like I said, loved Ken and he was something stable and good in her life. So she was devastated by this and cared way more than her mom did about ending that marriage. And just like everything in Elisa's life,

Things moved fast, not only with Larry, but with work. It actually only took a few weeks till she was promoted in her job. She went from office manager to being responsible for office finances and client trust accounts. For a thief like Elisa...

She had really kind of struck gold. And she's dating Larry, who likes to spend his money on other people. So as you can imagine, Elisa was living her best life. They were buying horses together, taking private jets to horse shows together, enjoying expensive dinners. He was buying her gifts. And of course, he wanted to ball out on bottles of wine. And Elisa was great at enabling his alcohol problem.

especially because the less coherent he was, the more she could take from him. And no surprise, not long after Elisa had been working at Larry McNabney and Associates, Larry starts receiving calls from clients who are noticing discrepancies in their accounts. So he decides to hire a CPA to check over their books. And that's when he discovers that $74,543 is

It's just missing. Obviously, it's Elisa who is stealing this money. And unfortunately for Larry, the Nevada State Bar got involved. And as a result, he lost his license to practice law in Nevada and had to close down his Las Vegas and Reno offices. And you would think that someone doing this to you would be a deal breaker, at least at work.

but you'd hope their relationship too. However, neither of those two things happened. She was not fired. He didn't report her to police. Instead, he decides to marry her. They got married January 6th, 1996. And Elisa didn't even tell her daughter that she was marrying him until it was already done.

Haley expected this kind of behavior from her mom and her springing things on her like that. But what she didn't expect was how she was going to be treated by Larry, especially going from Ken to Larry. The more that Larry drank, the worse he became to both of them. Haley remembers that Larry became physically abusive to her mom and that that abuse

really only got more and more serious over time. However, I gotta say, Larry's family denies the abuse. They said that their dad would never do that. But Haley says she remembers many times where Larry was very abusive and she actually feared for her and her mom's life. And one example of that is the time that her and her mom decided to

run away and he ended up tracking them down and said that if they didn't come back he would kill them and then kill himself another time Elisa actually sent her daughter Haley back to Florida because she

She found Larry choking her. But despite all of this abuse, they ended up staying together. People describe this as this type of toxic love, you know, where they couldn't live with each other, couldn't live without each other. So the two of them end up moving to Sacramento, California, where Larry still had a license to practice law. And he opened a new office in 1998.

When they moved to Sacramento, Elisa had finally distanced Larry from his friends and family. Not only were they in a new state, but he had also really isolated himself from people in his life because his bad behaviors were worse than ever. And even though he had just opened this new law firm, Larry was actually very hands-off of...

of his firm and the work that needed to be done. And instead, Elisa pretty much ran all the day-to-day operations. But of course, she couldn't do it alone. So in early 2000, she put out an ad in the newspaper for a part-time legal secretary job that paid $3,000 a month. And that's when Sarah Dutra comes into the picture.

She was a Sacramento State art student from the East Bay and saw this ad and decided to apply. And she and Elisa hit it off immediately. I mean, there was no doubt that she's going to be getting this job. Many people believe that she actually kind of saw a lot of herself in Sarah, which is why she wanted her around. And to say that the two of them became close would

would be a bit of an understatement. They had a 10-year age gap, but the two of them became best friends and a little obsessive with each other. They would go out together all the time. They were constantly making plans, wear the same outfits, shop together, and have sleepovers where they would sleep in the same bed. And of course, Larry's money is funding the

All of this. And Sarah often joined Elisa and Larry at the horse shows and other activities completely unrelated to her job as their legal secretary. Larry's passion for horses and his passion for drinking kept him so occupied that Elisa and Sarah could pretty much get away with whatever they wanted. But eventually it started to bother Elisa.

Larry, that Elisa was spending so much time with Sarah. It kind of started putting a wedge between him and Elisa. But instead of like firing Sarah or something, he ends up finding a new secretary to join them. And her name was Ginger Miller. And part of the reason that they hired her was because Sarah was busy. She was busy

off with Elisa shopping, you know, going to different social events, going to dinners, and that stuff kept her busy. So Ginger came in to manage the phone lines, cash checks, while the two of them were off spending Larry's money. And this is weird, but Ginger started working there in 2001, and she actually never met Larry, the man that she had been hired by. So that brings us to September 2001. Larry was starting to get more and more annoyed with Sarah. And

and feeling like she was taking a lot of his time with Elisa. And all that tension kind of came to a head on September 9th, 2001. Larry and Elisa were in Los Angeles at the Pacific Quarter Horse Classic when Sarah showed up. This was no surprise to Elisa, but...

But Larry was furious. And that night, the three of them went out to dinner and Larry ended up yelling at her while they were there and told her to go home. And he also told Elisa to fire Sarah as soon as she could. But that was not going to happen because Elisa loved Sarah. I mean, she was incredibly close with her. And if one of them had to go, it certainly wasn't going to be Sarah. And so she came up with a plan quick.

After dinner, after Larry had yelled at Sarah, she and Elisa went to the horse trailer where they grabbed this medicine bag that contained horses.

horse tranquilizer. I'm sure most of you know this, but when horses have to travel in trailers for long periods of time, people often give them this gentle tranquilizer to calm them down and keep them from hurting themselves in the vehicles. And it's not lethal to horses, but it is lethal to humans. And Elisa knew that if she could get some of that horse tranquilizer into her husband's system,

that that would end his life. So the two of them end up emptying out a bottle of Visine, like the eye drops, and they fill the bottle back up with horse tranquilizer. And that night when Larry goes to sleep, they drop a few drops in his mouth. And at first, Lisa only ended up giving him a few drops and it wasn't actually enough to kill him. But the next day he was definitely off.

It was September 10th, 2001, and people at the horse show noticed that something was different about him. He was making a lot of mistakes out on his horse, and people knew how good of a rider he was, so it didn't make a lot of sense. Some people thought maybe he was sick or drinking, and he actually did too. He thought he was sick. So that night, instead of going out to dinner, he collapsed on his hotel bed.

And that's when Elisa and Sarah decided to give him what they thought was a lethal dose of the tranquilizer. Then the next morning is September 11th, 2001. We all know what happened that day. So the world was quite distracted by that news.

And that kind of made it easier for Elisa and Sarah to pull this off. They end up renting a wheelchair and they wheel Larry right out of the hotel into his truck. And a few witnesses actually do remember seeing him in the wheelchair, but people said they were distracted by 9-11. Also, some people that had seen him knew that he was ill the day before, so they thought he was just kind of slumped over. They have him in the back seat and they start driving and they decide to go to U.S.

Yosemite National Park, which is somewhere that Elisa had spent a lot of time in her life. So they make it out there and they start digging and they plan to bury him there when they realize that he is still alive and they feel too guilty to bury him alive.

So they abandoned this plan. The horse tranquilizer was working and he was starting to slowly wake up. So they decided they needed to give him more. So they gave him the final dose that day. And that's when Larry McNamney died at age 52. At that point, they drive back to Sacramento and they put his body in a wine fridge, literally empty out all the wine and stuff him in there. And then they,

they come up with another plan of how to get rid of his body. And what's so crazy about this case and these two is they go back to work where he owns this law firm, right? And they pretend he's still alive, mostly so that they wouldn't have to deal with people asking questions. They could figure out what to do, but also because they wanted to continue spending his money. So remember they have a new secretary that works there named Ginger and she had never actually met Larry. And she,

She wanted to meet him at some point. I mean, she had just started working there. And of course, she was not going to be meeting him. So Elisa starts telling her that

he'll show up eventually. He's, you know, he's at a golf tournament. He's doing something with his horses. He's out with friends. She made up so many things. She even said he was at a yoga retreat. Sometimes she would just say things like, oh, you know, you just missed him. He was just here. And so it didn't really strike Ginger as very odd. And she had no reason to not believe her. But she did take note that

that Elisa and Sarah seemed extremely close. She also noticed how much they liked to dress up and they always had fancy new clothes and they were always shopping and buying very expensive things from expensive stores. And there was actually a short period of time where Ginger said she kind of felt like she was in with them, like kind of a little part of their girls group. You know, that's because they had to make her feel good at her job.

to keep her from questioning where Larry was. They kept just making up stories about different places that Larry was, why he wasn't coming in ever. And it wasn't just Ginger that they had to lie to. They also had to lie to his kids, to his clients, people...

were starting to notice that Larry hadn't been seen in a while. And of course, they could also lean heavily on his addiction and tell people that he had kind of disappeared for a few days here and there, which is something that he would do. And part of Ginger's job was to tell people where Larry was, and she'd have to tell them all these excuses that she was getting from Sarah and Elisa.

And eventually she just started to get suspicious after weeks of doing that. And when they first returned from that horse show on September 12th, knowing what else happened over those days, Ginger was asked to transfer money from Larry's work accounts to an account owned by Elisa. And that made her really suspicious when she started thinking back on that. But one day in late November,

she decided that she had to do something. I mean, it was getting so weird. And what really got her was that Alisa threw a fit when she got a letter in the mail stating that Larry's license to practice law in California had expired. Of course, that's because this meant she wouldn't be able to take money from any of their clients or get any new clients. Obviously, Ginger didn't know exactly what was up at that time, but the way that Alisa reacted, she said,

just said it all to her. She knew that something was very off because she was, you know, just devastated getting this letter. She was so upset, so mad and seemed incredibly stressed about it when it was Larry's law license that had expired. So eventually on November 30th,

Ginger has had enough. She knows something's going on. She's not exactly sure what, but she knows there's something. So she goes to the local police station and lets them know. And she actually told them that she thought Larry could be dead and that she felt like Elisa and Sarah had something to do with it.

She explained to them that she was in charge of moving money from Larry's accounts to Elisa's, and she also had to cash checks she had written with Larry's forged signature. But ultimately, police, of course, need physical proof that, first of all, the murder happened, but also any illegal activity.

So they sent Ginger back to work and they told her to, you know, keep gathering information on them while police began to investigate and search for Larry. The first thing that she did was collect names and numbers of some of Larry's clients and

who were used to talking to him a lot and the police called them and interviewed them asked them you know when they last spoke to larry what their last conversation was about and everyone that they spoke to hadn't seen or heard from larry in weeks ginger spent all of december and the beginning of january keeping track of what elisa and sarah were up to and meanwhile elisa had been selling off all of

All of Larry's assets so that she could take the money and run. And by January 2002, she had already pocketed approximately $500,000. Eventually, Elisa started getting suspicious that people were onto her. So one morning, January 11th, 2002, she calls Ginger into work.

and tells her she needs help moving all of her stuff. And that's when she tells her she's moving to Arizona and she would need help packing their trailer. And of course, Ginger agreed to help, but on her way to help Elisa pack up her stuff, she ends up calling the police. They had taken separate cars to the trailer, so Ginger knew that Elisa would be a few minutes ahead of them. So Ginger's helping her pack up her things. She knows the police are hopefully on their way. And...

Elisa must have kind of caught the vibe. I mean, something about Ginger's behavior must have tipped her off because she decided it was time to get the hell out of there. And by the time that police arrived, she was gone. She was off in her new red Jaguar XK8, but she wasn't able to escape with everything because in her rush to avoid police, Elisa left behind the horse trailer that contained a very detailed history of her criminal past, including the

a 114 page rap sheet. That's right, guys. 114 pages of history. So that's when police ramped up their investigation big time. And they also figured out her real name was Lauren Sims. They actually tracked down the real Elisa, who, like I said earlier, Lauren met while she was in jail. And this Elisa confirmed that Lauren was actually the person who they were looking for.

So with Elisa, Lauren on the run, they have to turn to her business partner, Sarah.

who was expecting to run away with Elisa, but Elisa clearly had other plans and left without her. Instead, she ends up telling Sarah to meet her at the airport that morning. She said they were going to go to Arizona for a horse show and that there would be a ticket there just waiting for her at the airport. But when she arrived, surprise, surprise, there was no ticket and Elisa was nowhere to be seen. Turns out Sarah had also been fooled.

by Lauren Sims. And of course she was angry that she had just left her like that. I mean, they were best friends, but she couldn't really turn her in because she was guilty of the same crimes. And at this point, the search for Lauren was in full swing with information being shared across the country. There was also a secondary search going at this time to find Larry, but without a body and all his, you know, personal belongings gone, they had very little to work off of. They knew that finding Lauren, Elisa,

was going to be their best chance of finding Larry. And Sarah was their closest link to Lauren. So Sarah was brought in for questioning by San Joaquin police and she maintained her innocence the entire time. She even brought her dog Ralph with her to the police station. And when asked about Lauren's strange behavior the last few weeks and her excuses about where Larry was, Sarah told investigators that she believed she may have been covering for him while he was off doing work

quote, whatever he was doing. She even told investigators about the trip to Arizona and how when she arrived at the airport, there was no ticket waiting for her. And she was unable to reach Lauren after that. And it was after Lauren disappeared that Sarah says she called Ginger and she told her that she was going to look for a new job because their boss had run off. And Sarah swore to the police that she had no idea where Lauren was. And with no proof that Larry was actually dead, I mean, they didn't have a body or anything,

And no way to prove that Sarah was in on it or knew Lauren's plan was

they could not make an arrest. But it actually wasn't long till police found what they needed. It was the morning of February 5th, 2002, and a local farm worker in Linden, California, spotted a flock of vultures swarming over a nearby vineyard. And when he got closer, he spotted what appeared to be a human leg. Police arrived and it was quickly confirmed that the body of Larry McNabney had been buried in a shallow grave. We can't have justice. We can't.

Let everything go with our dad. We just ask for your help. But what was peculiar and interesting is his body was actually in pretty decent condition. There was nothing physical that could, you know, immediately point to his cause of death. And based on the condition of his body, it didn't seem like he had been buried there forever.

much longer than a month or so ago. And then they did a toxicology report and it actually came back negative for a huge list of common poisons. So that's when Sarah is brought back in for questioning. And now investigators had their body. And once again, Sarah maintained that she knew nothing about where Lauren was or what she had been up to since they met in 2000. And at first,

They decide not to tell her that they found Larry's body. They wait until partway through the questioning to see how she reacts. And when she's told, she hardly acts surprised. Of course, they ask her, who do you think killed him? And at first, she tries to just act like she has no idea who could have done this, who would have wanted to do this to poor Larry.

after being asked a few times i mean she's realizing it's in her best interest to just come forward so she says hmm maybe maybe it was elisa she even starts to say that you know maybe i didn't really know who elisa was maybe i've been tricked this whole time and one officer even tells her you know you got to think really long and hard about your association with elisa and

you know, what role you could have in all of this, but she maintains her innocence. And so once again, with no proof that she was involved, she walks free. Then March 5th, 2002, a federal warrant was put out for Lauren's arrest. The only problem is they didn't know where the hell she was. Now, in reality, Lauren was actually in Arizona, just like she had told Ginger and Sarah she was going to do. And she also decided at this point to reconnect with her daughter, Haley.

And as soon as they had gotten together, Haley said she knew something was up.

Her mom's behavior was weird, but eventually Lauren decides to admit everything to Haley. She tells her, I have to tell you something, but don't freak out. And that's when she tells Haley that they killed Larry. And Haley said when that came out of her mom's mouth, she was just in absolute shock. She said everything kind of went, you know, fuzzy, like white noise, that she felt numb. At that moment, she knew that she either had to...

turn her mom in or help her continue to run. And by this time it had been about a month since Larry's body was found and the two of them had settled down in Destin, Florida. And at this point, Haley was done running. She decided when they got to Florida that she was going to stay put there no matter what her mom decided to do. Because up until this point, while they were reconnecting, the two of them were on the run together.

But she said there was something about the way her mom spoke that made her really nervous. She thought that her mom might harm herself or take her own life. She said her mom just seemed...

So empty. And at that point, she decided to call the police and turn her in. Now, while this was happening, Lauren had not surprisingly already met a guy and had asked to borrow his car. And he actually found this suspicious and reported her to police who realized that the car this woman left behind was a red Jaguar XK8.

the same one driven by a wanted fugitive, Lauren Sims. That call and the call from her daughter Haley allowed them to zero in on Lauren's location. On March 18th, 2002, Okaloosa County authorities were walking along Walton Beach in search of their perpetrator when Lauren left.

literally just walked right up to them and she told them, I am the one that you are looking for. So she made their job really easy that day. And at this point, Lauren had dropped down from a size 10 to a size three. She had cut all of her hair off. She had really long brown hair. So she was brought into police custody and made a three page written confession, not only naming herself as Larry's killer, but she also spilled the beans about Sarah's involvement.

First, she tells them about how they went to her trainer's truck for the medicine bag of tranquilizers. And then she explains how they wheeled him out to the truck and drove him to Yosemite. But he was still alive, so they couldn't bury him there. And then she even told police about the wine fridge and how they removed everything so his body would fit. She also explained that she put his body in the vineyard because he had always liked wine.

wine. But when asked about digging the hole for his body, she noted that it was obviously not deep enough. And the next day, March 19th, Sarah was also arrested for charges of murder with special circumstances. So Lauren spent about a week in jail while she waited for her extradition to California from Florida. But she never made it there because she actually took her own life on

on March 31st, 2002. She did this obviously to avoid prosecution. And in her suicide note, she said that she felt helplessly responsible for the media scrutiny her family was forced to endure. And in her note, she asked that her lawyer sue the police department for allowing her to go through with suicide. And she even added that her daughter should receive the money won from this lawsuit.

And she even talked about how the best chance for her daughter was not having her in her life. And even without Lauren, police were still able to prosecute Sarah for the crimes committed on September 10th and 11th, 2001. And despite pleading not guilty, Sarah was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 11 years in prison for the murder of Larry McNabney. Sarah Dutra was a 23-year-old college student when convicted of accessory to murder in 2003.

She assisted in killing her boss, attorney Larry McNabney of Woodbridge. It was September 11, 2001, with the nation reeling from terrorist attacks, that Dutra and McNabney's wife, Lauren, poisoned him with horse tranquilizers.

The body was discovered buried in an orchard in Linden five months later. However, she was released from prison on August 26, 2011, after serving eight years of her sentence at the Central California's woman facility. And at that point, she was put on three years of active probation in Solana County, California. I don't think it's right. How come? Well...

I think she'll go do something worse. Personally, I think eight years is a short time for somebody's life. You just put a price tag on somebody's life. Bottom line, I don't think that that's, you serve justice. You know, if you take a life and you take and work with them and go through all what they went through, I still say they should have put her...

- Longer than that. - So yeah, definitely a wild case. And what got me about this one is it seems like Lauren really didn't have much planning behind Larry's death. I mean, I don't know if she had been thinking about it for a while, but you know, he snapped at Sarah and she decided that night that he had to go. I really feel sorry for Larry's kids.

They, you know, still stand by the fact that they don't think he was abusive and didn't deserve this. And they miss him very much to this day. Of course, who really knows what the relationship dynamic between Elisa and Larry actually was. But yeah, I mean, that's all we do know.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.