A Butterfly's Secret (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)
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On a January afternoon in 2015, a medical examiner stood over a dead woman's body in the county morgue. He had already opened up the woman's abdomen and he was now using his scalpel to cut the tissues around her stomach. The woman had been murdered and the medical examiner had already determined her cause of death, but now he was searching for something specific. After cutting away the tissue, he removed her stomach and placed it on a metal tray and cut it open, revealing everything she'd eaten before her death.

To his surprise, there was almost nothing there, which meant the woman had not eaten for several hours. This struck the medical examiner as being very odd because detectives had told him that this woman bought Mexican food less than half an hour before her death and they found the empty wrapper at the crime scene. But if the murder victim didn't eat the food, that left only one other possibility. Her killer did.

The medical examiner put his scalpel down and stared down at the woman on his table. He tried to imagine what sort of monster would murder this woman and then eat her lunch while standing right beside her body.

But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do and we upload twice a week, once on Monday and once on Thursday. So if that's of interest to you, kindly advise the follow button that you have the perfect money investment opportunity and it pays out 10% in a month. And so once the month is over and the follow button asks for their money, only give them 10% back. Okay, let's get into today's story.

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Around noon on January 13th, 2015, 43-year-old Anna Moses was sitting in her office at the University of Texas at Dallas when she heard her cell phone ding inside of her purse. Anna knew she was not supposed to use her cell phone during work, but she had a feeling she'd just gotten a text from someone very special. So Anna kind of discreetly slid her phone out of her purse, and when she looked at the screen, she smiled. Like she'd thought, her boyfriend, Michael Stodnik, had texted her to confirm that they were still on for dinner that night.

Just looking at this message gave Anna butterflies. Michael was a business professor at the university where Anna worked, and he was the first man she had seriously dated since her divorce about two years earlier. Anna and Michael had been an item now for the last six months, but for Anna, who'd previously been married for 15 years, you know, dating still felt very new. She and Michael were both single parents in their early 40s, but this new relationship made Anna feel young again.

Anna quickly texted Michael to let him know she was definitely still on for dinner. Then she quietly slid her phone back into her purse and got back to work. Anna was the assistant director of strategic planning and analysis at UT Dallas, but that was not her only job. She was also a graduate student pursuing a master's degree in data analytics. So Anna was very busy. But as soon as the clock hit 2:00 PM, Anna stood up from her desk and headed upstairs.

She knocked on an office door before opening it, but really the knocking was just a formality. The person sitting at the desk inside, University Vice Provost John Warkowski, always expected Anna for afternoon tea. When Anna walked in, the 71-year-old administrator greeted her with a smile and called her by a special nickname, "Pobochka." It meant "butterfly" in Russian, and hearing it made Anna feel nostalgic for the country where she grew up. Anna sat down across from Dr. Warkowski, and right away he handed her a steaming cup of tea.

Dr. Warkowski had wild gray hair, big glasses, and he always smelled like cigarettes. Anna was not particularly fond of the smell in his office, but she still felt very comfortable with him because over the past two years, she'd spent hours in this office confiding to him about her personal life.

Dr. Warkowski knew things about Anna that most people simply didn't, like that she'd immigrated to the United States in 1998 just to marry her now ex-husband, Bob Moses. He and Anna had met in Russia when Bob was visiting as a tourist, then they kept in touch through email for months until he finally asked her to marry him. Bob had been Anna's anchor in America, which made their divorce that much more painful for her.

Anna and her ex Bob were still on very friendly terms, but at this point Dr. Warkowski had really taken over the role of being Anna's rock now.

That day, Anna and Dr. Warkowski's conversation centered around Anna's 20-year-old son, Igor, who was a student right there at UT Dallas. Anna said she was worried that she and her son might be growing apart. The previous weekend, Igor had driven the 15 miles from his dorm to her home in Frisco, Texas, as he usually did, but Igor had seemed quiet and distant all weekend. It made Anna worry that he had some problem that he didn't want to talk about.

Dr. Warkowski sipped his tea, then told Anna she was a great mother and not to worry. Sometimes children, especially adult children, just need some space. He assured her that whatever was going on with him, you know, Igor would eventually tell her when he was ready. Anna sighed and said, you know, you're probably right. Then she finished her tea, gave the doctor a hug, and headed back downstairs to her office. A couple hours later, at around 5 p.m., Anna turned off her computer and grabbed her purse.

It was cold outside in the 30s, so near freezing, so Anna put on her coat and two scarves before waving goodbye to her coworkers and walking outside to the parking garage. She got inside of her blue Hyundai sedan and then headed into rush hour traffic. Part of the way home, Anna's stomach began to growl. She was hungry.

Ana looked at the clock and saw that it was 5:30, which meant her boyfriend Michael would not be picking her up for dinner for another two hours. So she decided to pull off the highway right then and go to a fast food restaurant, a Taco Bell that served Mexican food, and she went through the drive-thru and she bought a chicken quesadilla. Ana was really hungry, but after receiving the food, she didn't eat it in the car, instead she just set it on her passenger seat. Ana generally preferred to keep her surroundings really tidy and so she never ate in her car, it was just too messy.

About 15 minutes later, Ana turned into her neighborhood. As she approached her two-story brick house, she stopped beside her mailbox and rolled the window down to grab her mail. Then, she pulled her Hyundai into the garage. Ana shut the garage door behind her, she gathered up her purse, her mail, and her quesadilla, and she got out of the car. She walked towards the door that led into her home, thinking about how excited she was for her date that night with Michael. But as she reached for the doorknob, Ana heard the sound of rustling behind her, followed by a loud clap.

Just after 7:30pm on the same day, Michael pulled up to Anna's house and he noticed all the lights were off as if Anna was not home. Michael was confused but he got out of his car and knocked on Anna's front door. When she didn't answer, he called her but she didn't pick up. Michael thought about going inside, Anna had actually recently given him a house key but he knew Anna always turned on her alarm system when she left the house and he didn't know the code to disable it and he didn't want to set it off and cause a scene in such a quiet neighborhood.

Michael began to feel cold just standing outside, so he turned around, went back to his car, and tried calling Anna again. But Anna's phone, again, went to voicemail. Anna had never missed a date with Michael before, but Michael told himself, you know, Anna was very busy, she was a grad student and a mother, she could have easily gotten sidetracked with any number of things. So, even though he was very disappointed, Michael decided to go home and wait for Anna to call him back. He was sure she would explain everything as soon as she could.

The next morning at 9am, Michael once again pulled into Anna's driveway. He had continued calling and texting her until 11pm the previous night, but she never responded. Michael even contacted Anna's friends to ask about her, but they too had not heard from her. And so when Michael woke up on this morning with no text or no calls from Anna, the first thing he did was drive to her house.

Michael knocked on the front door and when there was no response, instead of going in, he instead called the Frisco Police Department. He told the dispatcher that he hadn't heard from his girlfriend since the previous afternoon when she was working at UT Dallas and now he was at her house knocking on her door and she wasn't answering and she wasn't answering phone calls or text messages and so he asked if somebody could come out to her house to make sure she was okay.

The dispatcher was obviously empathetic, but they told Michael that for this type of thing, protocol was he would need to call the university's campus police first, and then if for some reason they couldn't handle it, then they would ratchet this up to the Frisco Police Department. And so Michael hung up and then looked up the number for the university campus police and called them, and they promised him they would look into the situation right away.

Michael thanked them and hung up, and even though he still felt very uneasy about this, he had to get to work. So he got into his car and drove away. Less than an hour later, Frisco Police Sergeant Jay Ream received a call from the University of Texas Dallas Campus Police. They told Sergeant Ream they were looking for a university employee named Anna Moses. Her boyfriend had just called to request a welfare check, and the campus police had quickly learned that Anna did not show up for work that day, which her co-workers said was highly unusual.

Because Ana was not actually living on campus, the university officer asked Reem if he could go check her home in Frisco. Reem said he was on it, and a few minutes later, he was out the door, headed towards Ana's address. Reem got there at 10:50 a.m. and knocked on the door. When nobody answered, Sergeant Reem tried the doorknob, but it was locked. Reem knew he could knock down Ana's door, but that seemed extreme. Instead, he called the campus police back and asked if they knew anyone who could let him inside.

Over an hour later, at 12:05 p.m., two cars pulled up outside of Ana's house. A campus police officer stepped out of one, and Ana's son, Igor, got out of the other. The university police had been able to find Igor on campus, and he told them he had a key and knew the alarm code to his mother's house.

Igor nodded curtly at Sergeant Ream, then unlocked his mother's front door and walked inside and disabled the alarm. As Ream entered Anna's home, Igor walked past him and back outside. He did not seem concerned at all about his mother, he just said he'd be out in the car waiting for whenever they were done. Sergeant Ream thought Igor's behavior was strange, but he couldn't worry about that right now. Instead, he and the university police officer walked into Anna's foyer. The house was totally silent except for the officer's footsteps on the tile.

They searched the first floor, but they didn't find any sign of Anna, and they were about to head upstairs when the sergeant remembered they should scope out the garage. Ream made his way to the door that led to the garage, and he opened it. And right away, even in the darkness, he could tell Anna's car was not parked inside, making the garage feel very empty. Then he flipped on the overhead light, and he gasped.

Ana was lying on her back on the garage floor with blood coming out of her mouth and there were bullet casings all around her. It was obvious just from looking at her that she was deceased.

The university officer came over and looked into the garage too and instantly brought a hand up to his mouth in shock. Neither of the officers had ever seen anything like this before. Frisco was an extremely safe community with very few violent crimes. It actually had been called one of the safest cities in the entire United States. But that only made Ana's apparent murder that much more shocking. Her quiet suburban home was now a crime scene. Even though he rarely worked homicide cases, Sergeant Ream knew the protocol.

First, he and the university officer backed out of the garage and closed the door so they would not disturb any evidence. Then they checked the rest of Anna's home to make sure nobody else was there. Once they confirmed the house was empty, Rehm called the Frisco Police Department for assistance. Rehm then slowly walked outside towards Igor's car parked by the curb. As he got closer, Igor rolled down the window and looked at the sergeant without saying anything.

Once he reached the car, Ream took a deep breath and told Igor that he had terrible news. His mother was dead, and it looked like she'd been murdered. The sergeant watched Igor for a reaction, but the young man's face was blank. Then Igor just furrowed his eyebrows and asked if his mother was "in one piece." Sergeant Ream was so surprised by this question that he just said, "Well, yeah." Igor nodded and then said he had to go because he had class.

Reem had no idea what to make of Igor's very bizarre reaction. It was so odd, but Igor had just received this life-shattering news, and Reem knew, you know, shock can make people behave in totally inexplicable ways. So for now, Reem decided to give Igor a pass, and he just figured, you know, they would do everything they could to find out what happened to his mother. Then the sergeant heard a siren blaring, and he looked up to see a Frisco PD cruiser heading his way. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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A few minutes later, Frisco detective Brian Schuette and Texas Ranger Ruben Manken stood inside of Ana's garage. The two men were from different agencies, but they'd both been assigned to lead the case together. The crime scene made Schuette feel totally sick. He was a very young detective, and this wasn't just the first time he'd be leading a murder investigation. This was his first murder case that he'd ever worked on.

Detective Schuette squatted next to Ana's body. She was still wearing a heavy coat and two scarves, but he could see a bullet wound in her neck. And scattered on the floor around her were a few unopened envelopes, an empty Taco Bell wrapper, and a black purse. There were also a handful of bullet casings, which the detective identified as coming from a .22 caliber gun.

Detective Schuette told Manken that it seemed like Anna had been outside, which is why she was wearing warm clothes, and she had come in and was carrying her mail, purse, and fast food trash when somebody shot her in her garage. Schuette figured that Anna had likely been killed the previous evening when she came home from work. Ranger Manken nodded in agreement, but he pointed out that Anna's car wasn't parked in the driveway or the garage, so he wondered if her killer had stolen it. Maybe Anna had been killed during a robbery.

But then, Detective Schuette opened up Anna's black purse, and it didn't seem like anybody had rifled through it. And Anna's wallet, which contained $300 in cash, was still inside her purse. And the inside of Anna's house also looked totally undisturbed. So if this was a robbery, the only thing the killer stole was Anna's car, which didn't really make any sense. Schuette told Manken that he really wasn't sure about the robbery theory, it felt kind of weak. But the missing car did give them a good place to start.

So, Schuette radioed the Frisco Police Department and asked a fellow officer to put out a bulletin about Anna's stolen vehicle. But at the same time, Schuette was thinking to himself that it seemed most likely that Anna had been killed by somebody she knew. After all, the killer had clearly gained access to the garage without breaking in, and the young detective couldn't stop thinking about the very strange statements and behavior of Anna's son, which the local police had briefed him about. Schuette really wanted to interview Igor as soon as possible.

Later that afternoon, Detective Schuette sat down across from Igor inside of an interview room at the Frisco police station. Igor looked remarkably calm and when he spoke, his voice was flat and emotionless. The detective asked Igor to please talk about his relationship with his mother.

Igor said that he and his mother had always been very close. They both loved music, and when Igor joined a Christian rock band as a teenager, his mom supported him and came to almost all of his shows. Even now that Igor was living on his own at college, he still went home to visit her every weekend. Anna kind of babied him by doing his laundry and cooking for him, but Igor kind of liked it.

But, he said seeing Anna divorce his dad had been really difficult. Bob actually was not Igor's biological father, he had adopted him. And so for Igor, you know, he looked at Bob as his father, that was his dad.

And when Igor said that, Schuette stopped him because he hadn't realized Bob was not his biological father. But Igor explained that his mother had actually been married twice, once briefly to a man in Russia and then to Bob in the United States. The Russian man was Igor's biological father, but Bob had legally adopted Igor when he was just 4 years old. And as Igor talked about his dad, Bob, he became emotional.

Igor said he, personally, Igor, had been diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer when he was just 8 years old and his dad had always been there to support him. Igor's cancer eventually went into remission, but the experience showed Igor that Bob genuinely loved him like he was his own son. Detective Schutte couldn't help but feel moved by Igor's story, but he wanted to stay focused on the horrible crime he was still investigating. So he asked Igor if there was anyone who would want to hurt his mother.

Igor thought for a moment and then said no. But he added, whoever killed his mother should be forgiven. Igor said he was a devout Christian and he believed all people, even killers, should be treated with mercy. Schuette was shocked. Igor did not seem to care at all that his mother was horribly murdered, but the detective just stared at the college student trying to remain professional and followed up by asking Igor where he'd been the previous evening.

Igor said he had been in class from around 5.30pm to 9.45pm, and he had classmates who could vouch for him.

Schuette did not have any evidence that would allow him to hold Igor any longer, though he still felt very suspicious of him. But despite Schuette's inexperience as a detective, he still knew the worst thing an investigator could do right now was get tunnel vision about one suspect. For now, he knew he needed to explore every possibility, and he knew exactly who he wanted to talk to next, on his ex-husband and Igor's dad, Bopp.

After Schuette told Igor he was free to go, the detective went to his office and he saw Ranger Manken had left him a note about the progress in his investigation and that the medical examiner had sent a copy of Anna's autopsy report over.

Manken's note explained that he'd been able to reconstruct Ana's last day by obtaining security camera footage from UT Dallas, local toll roads, a Taco Bell, and also an elementary school near Ana's house. After reviewing this footage, Manken estimated that Ana got home from work between 5:50 and 5:55 pm on January 13th and, based on the crime scene, he felt certain she was killed almost immediately when she went inside.

Next, Schuette looked over the autopsy report that was sent over, which largely supported Manken's theory about when Anna was killed. The medical examiner said Anna had been shot at close range six times. All of the bullets came from the same .22 caliber gun and the wounds were grouped tightly together, which made the medical examiner think her killer had some level of experience using firearms.

But there was one odd detail that really stood out to the medical examiner. The detectives had told him before he did the autopsy that Ana had bought a quesadilla at around 5:30 pm, which would be less than half an hour before she was killed. And considering they found the empty wrapper for this quesadilla next to her dead body, it suggested she had eaten it. However, when the medical examiner examined Ana's stomach contents, it looked like she hadn't eaten for many hours prior to her death.

And if Anna didn't eat that quesadilla, well, according to the medical examiner, it seemed highly plausible that her killer did. Schutte was so disturbed by the idea of somebody who could shoot someone in cold blood six times, kill them right in their house, and then pick up their Taco Bell and eat it over their body. It just seems so unbelievably psychotic. And so Schutte called Ranger Manken and said he knew it was late, but they did not have time to waste. They really needed to dig in right now.

So, shortly before midnight on Wednesday, January 14th, Schuette and Mankin knocked on the door of a medium-sized home in Frisco. This is where Bob had been living since his and Anna's divorce. He was renting a room and sharing the home with three other men. Bob answered the door. He was wearing pajamas and looked confused to see the police. He asked if everything was okay, and Detective Schuette just said no. They needed to speak with him about his ex-wife, but it would be better if they talked at the police station.

But Bob didn't move right away. Instead, he stayed in his doorway and just kept asking, you know, like, "Really, what's happening here? Can you tell me anything else?" And finally, Detective Schuette said, "I'm sorry, but unfortunately your ex-wife is dead." As soon as he said it, Bob's face just fell, and he agreed to go with them to the station.

Bob's interview began at 1 a.m., so it was now Thursday, January 15th. And it wasn't until Schutte, Mankin, and Bob were actually sitting in the interview room that they told Bob Anna was not just dead, she had been murdered. Bob looked horrified, and his first question was, is Igor okay? The police assured Bob that Igor was fine. Then Ranger Mankin asked Bob where he'd been on the evening of January 13th, the night that Anna was killed.

Bob said he'd been home watching TV till about 7pm and then he went out for dinner, and he said his three housemates could easily confirm his story. Bob admitted he owned five guns, three of which were .22 caliber, and he agreed to hand them all over to police for ballistics analysis. And when detectives asked him for a DNA sample, he gave them a swab without any hesitation.

Ranger Manken thanked Bob for his cooperation and told him he was free to go. After Bob was gone, both Manken and Schutte agreed that Bob did seem honest and seemed genuinely distressed at his ex-wife's death, but they still needed to follow up on his alibi. However, it was super late, nearly 2am, and so Schutte and Manken decided to call it a day.

But just then, Schuette's phone rang. A Frisco Police Department patrol officer told him that they had just found Ana's stolen car in a residential neighborhood a few blocks away from her house, and the patrol officer was pretty sure they could see blood inside. Schuette's heart started to race. He told the patrol officer to make sure nobody touched that car. In the meantime, he would arrange for a tow truck to bring the vehicle to the crime lab for analysis.

After a few hours of sleep, Schuette arrived at the Frisco Police Department crime lab early on Thursday morning. Anna's blue Hyundai sedan was there, and a technician was waiting to brief the detective on what they'd found. The technician said the vehicle was remarkably clean inside, except for a few things: there was an empty Red Bull energy can, there was a cigarette butt, and there were two small bloodstains, one on the right side of the driver's seat and one on the center console. Schuette was really excited at this news.

And so he had the can, cigarette, and swabs of the blood sent off for DNA testing, along with the swab that Bob had given them during his interview. But Schuette knew it could take weeks to get these results back, so for now, he still had to continue with old-fashioned detective work.

The most obvious person to interview next was on his boyfriend, Michael. He agreed to come in for an interview, then soon, Schuette was sitting across from the business professor at the police station. Michael leaned forward and ran his hands through his short brown hair. He looked anxious, and before Schuette even began the interview, Michael asked if he should have a lawyer. The detective promised him this was all totally routine.

Michael picked at his fingernails as he told Schuette that he and Anna had not been dating for very long, but their relationship had been moving in a good direction. He said a few days ago on January 13th, he'd gone to Anna's house to pick her up just after 7:30 and he'd been confused by her absence. And now he was horrified to know Anna had been lying dead in her garage the entire time he was there.

Once Michael began talking, he started to open up a bit more, but as soon as Schutte asked him for a DNA sample, he clammed up. Then he asked again about maybe getting a lawyer. The detective said that really wasn't necessary, but he would give Michael some time alone to decide whether he wanted to cooperate.

Schuette left, but what Michael didn't know was that the detective could still see and hear Michael through a camera in the corner of the room. So, Schuette watched as Michael began mumbling to himself. The detective could not make out all the words, but at one point, Michael asked himself, "Am I overreacting?" A few minutes later, the detectives went back in and asked Michael if he had made a decision. Michael said yes. He said he would give a sample of his DNA.

Schuette smiled, and then he got the swab from Michael and told him he was free to go. Then Schuette sent this newest DNA sample to be tested against the other items from Anna's car.

While they waited for the DNA results, Detective Schutte and Ranger Manken interviewed some of Anna's friends and co-workers. And quickly, the investigators soon learned that Bob and Michael were not the only men in Anna's life. Anna's friends pointed detectives towards a man named Jerry Caspel, a poet who they said had a deep spiritual bond with Anna. Her co-workers also mentioned a vice provost at UT Dallas named Dr. John Warkowski, who seemed to be Anna's mentor.

Detective Schuette contacted Jerry first, and when he arrived for his interview, he was totally overwrought and on the brink of tears. He told the detective that Anna was his muse, and without her, he didn't know if he'd ever be able to write poetry again.

Schuette narrowed his eyes at Jerry's very melodramatic display, but he let him keep talking. Jerry explained that he met Anna at a public speaking course a few years back, and they'd bonded over their love of art. They often went to the opera together, and Anna would read and edit Jerry's poems. He'd publish two books of poetry and dedicated them both to her. Schuette thought this connection sounded very intense, so he asked Jerry what Anna's boyfriend thought about them being so close, and Jerry looked surprised. He said he didn't even know Anna had a boyfriend.

But regardless, he insisted their relationship was not romantic, it was purely spiritual. The detective found the whole tale pretty hard to believe. He asked Jerry if he owned any firearms, and Jerry said yes, he had a .22 caliber handgun. But he quickly agreed to let the police analyze it, and he also gave them a DNA sample.

Next, Schuette asked where Jerry was around 6pm on January 13th. Jerry said he was driving home from work on a Dallas toll road that was very far away from Ana's home, and the toll records would certainly reflect that. Schuette thanked Jerry, and as soon as the poet left, Schuette just shook his head. It did not seem like Jerry was a viable suspect. So, he called the next man on his list.

A few days later, Detective Schuette began to interview Dr. John Warkowski. The university administrator explained that he met Anna through work and they grew very close during her divorce. Then, Dr. Warkowski said something surprising. He told the detective that he and Anna once had an affair.

Schuette stared at the man, who was 70 years old, making him 27 years older than Anna. Dr. Warkowski said he knew that he and Anna seemed like an unlikely pair, but it really was true. He said Anna wanted to have a relationship with him, and he had had to cut it off because of their age difference, it just seemed totally inappropriate. But they still remained close friends, and so Dr. Warkowski knew very intimate details about her life, like how she struggled emotionally and financially after her divorce.

Dr. Workowski said he considered it his privilege to help Anna with money. In fact, in the two years since her divorce, he'd wired her a total of 46,000 US dollars. Dr. Workowski insisted this money was given as a gift with no strings attached,

But Schuette was not convinced. He wondered if maybe during one of their intimate conversations, Anna had learned something about the administrator that he wanted to keep hidden. What if those gifts were actually hush money payments? Or maybe he was paying Anna for sex and she was threatening to expose him.

Thinking about the items found in Ana's car, Schuette asked Dr. Warkowski if he drank energy drinks or smoked cigarettes. Dr. Warkowski said he didn't like energy drinks, but he definitely smoked. And when the detective asked for his whereabouts on the evening of January 13th, the administrator said the same thing Jerry did. He was driving home from work on a toll road that was far away from Ana's home, and certainly the records would reflect that.

Schuette made a note of this, but unlike Jerry, he didn't think this let Dr. Warkowski off the hook. So Schuette asked the administrator if he'd be willing to give a voluntary DNA sample. Dr. Warkowski said he was happy to do anything that would help the police solve this case. So he let the detective swab the inside of his cheek before he left the police station.

At this point, Detective Schuette felt like he had five strong suspects: Ana's son Igor, her ex-husband Bob, and her boyfriend Michael, plus the poet Jerry, and the university administrator, Dr. John Warkowski. They all claimed to have alibis, however, none of them had been corroborated yet. Detective Schuette briefed Manken on everything he'd discovered about these suspects, and Manken agreed that they couldn't rule any of them out quite yet.

Shortly after that, the detectives got disappointing news from the ballistics analysis on Bob and Jerry's guns. None of the guns matched the one that killed Anna, so they still didn't have the murder weapon. Schuette sighed. Until he got the DNA results and Manken finished investigating their suspect's alibis, he had no other leads to pursue.

But Detective Schuette didn't want to just sit around waiting for other investigators to do their work, so he started wondering if maybe he should go back to Anna's house and have another look around. Police had done an initial search, but there was always a chance something got missed. So Schuette obtained a search warrant, and in late January, about two weeks after Anna's murder, he returned to her home.

When he got there, he saw there were two cars parked outside. So he went up to the door and knocked and was surprised when Anna's ex-husband, Bob, answered the door. Igor was standing just a few feet behind him.

It turned out the father and son had moved into Ana's home a couple weeks ago, one day after her body was found in the garage. This struck the detective as a very strange thing to do, but Bob quickly explained that he and his son were grieving together, and because Igor lived in a college dorm and Bob lived in a house with three other men, Ana's home was the only private place they could go to.

Schuette said that did make sense. However, even though they wanted private time, he held up a search warrant and said he needed to come inside. So Bob immediately opened the door wide and said, come on in.

The first thing Schuette did is he went into Anna's home office. There he dug through her desk drawers until he found something that stopped him in his tracks. It was a copy of Anna's life insurance policy. Anna had taken out a policy worth $750,000 US dollars and she had named one person as the sole beneficiary, her son Igor. Suddenly it looked like Igor, whose behavior had struck investigators as very odd from the onset, stood to gain a lot from his mother's death.

Then, Shuti managed to jimmy open a locked drawer in her desk and he found something even more interesting. It was a handwritten letter, mostly in Russian. He couldn't understand what it said because he didn't speak Russian, but he figured it must contain something very private since Anna had kept it in a locked drawer.

Schuette quietly slid the letter into an envelope and then left the desk and finished searching the rest of the house. He didn't find anything else in the house of note and so after he left and got back to the police station, he sent a copy of that letter to the FBI so an agent who spoke Russian could translate it for him. In early February, Detective Schuette received a translation of that letter from Anna's desk and suddenly Anna's murder started to make a lot more sense.

Anna had written this letter herself about one of the police's suspects, and it cast her connection to this man into a totally new light. Next, Ranger Manken reported back that he had checked out all five men's alibis, and he'd been able to verify all of their stories except for one of them. The person whose alibi could not be confirmed was also the same person Anna had written about in her letter.

And finally, Schuette got the results of the DNA analysis. DNA from the Red Bull can and cigarette butt in Anna's car did not match any of the suspects, and it didn't match anybody in their criminal database, but those bloodstains found in Anna's car did match a suspect. The same one who did not have an alibi and who Anna wrote about.

And so, based on this evidence, along with further investigation into this primary suspect, here is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Ana Moses when she returned home from work on January 13th, 2015. Late that afternoon, Ana's killer crouched in a corner of her garage clutching a .22 caliber rifle. He'd been able to slip inside a few minutes earlier because he knew the code to open the garage. Now he was waiting for Ana to get home.

Just past 5:50 PM, the killer heard the sound of the automatic garage door sliding open. Light began to fill the dark garage, and so as it did, he pressed his body back against the wall, trying to be as small and out of sight as possible. He watched as Ana pulled her car inside. The garage door shut, and the killer heard Ana's car door open and then close, then he listened to her footsteps as she walked towards the door to her house. But before she could open it, the killer stood, raised his gun, and fired three shots into her back.

Ana spun around in shock. She dropped her mail, purse, and the quesadilla she'd been carrying but not eating. Before she could say anything, the killer fired three more shots. Two hit Ana in the chest, and the other hit her in the neck. Ana crumpled to the ground with blood flowing out of her mouth. Ana's killer slowly lowered his rifle and walked towards her. He watched her chest for any sign of movement, but it wasn't moving. She was not breathing.

So, he picked up her car keys off the floor and was about to get into her car when he saw the uneaten chicken quesadilla on the floor. So, he picked it up, ate it right next to her body, and left the wrapper behind. The killer then got into Ana's car, opened up the garage door again, backed out, and shut the door as he drove away. But he didn't realize that he had a cut on his right hand and it was leaking blood onto Ana's car seat and center console.

The following evening, the killer abandoned the Blue Hyundai in a neighborhood a few blocks away from Anna's home. And as law enforcement investigated Anna's murder, her killer did his best to appear very cooperative. He agreed to be interviewed and he agreed to give a swab of his DNA. But at the same time the killer was kind of putting on this act, in the background he was doing everything he could to profit off of Anna's death. And that's what police understood as soon as they read the translation of that Russian letter.

It was a note that Anna had written to her lawyer in 2013 during her divorce from Bob, and she told her lawyer that Bob was now threatening to kill himself and frame Anna as his murderer just so her son Igor would hate her.

When Detective Schutte read this, he realized Anna and Bob's divorce was not nearly as amicable as people thought. In fact, the couple had a long history of problems. In 2008, Anna visited a counselor after learning Bob had an affair. She wanted to leave him, but said she felt indebted to him because of how much he'd helped her during Igor's cancer battle. And years later, Anna had called one of her close friends crying, saying she had locked herself in a closet because she was afraid Bob was going to kill her.

Anna hid these ugly realities about Bob from her son because she knew her son loved Bob. Bob was the only father figure Igor had ever known and Anna didn't want to damage that relationship even if it meant she had to act friendly towards a man she feared. But Bob was angry that Anna divorced him and he was filled with jealousy over Anna's relationship with Michael. Adding to Bob's bitterness, Anna got total ownership of the large two-story house they used to share.

Bob claimed that at the time Anna was killed, he was at home watching TV. But his housemates told police they did not remember him being home at that time. And while none of Bob's guns matched the murder weapon, he was a military veteran with experience using guns. And so police believe Bob must have taken apart the murder weapon and hid or destroyed the pieces. And if police had any doubts that Bob was the killer, well, the DNA evidence totally erased those doubts.

It was clearly Bob's blood inside of Anna's car, likely from a cut on Bob's right hand that he had bandaged by the time he met with police.

On February 26, 2015, Detective Schuette and Ranger Manken arrested Bob at Anna's home. Bob maintained his innocence and pleaded not guilty at his trial. Bob's defense argued that there were too many unanswered questions in Anna's murder, like whose DNA was on the Red Bull can and the cigarette butt found in Anna's car. But the prosecution argued that Bob may have planted this evidence just to confuse investigators. In the end, a jury found Bob guilty of murder and a judge sentenced him to life in prison.

Bob would appeal his conviction in 2018, but an appeals court upheld the jury's original ruling, and to this day, Bob remains incarcerated.

Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballin Podcast. If you enjoyed today's stories and you're looking for more strange, dark, and mysterious content, be sure to check out all of our studios' podcasts. They are this one, of course, Mr. Ballin Podcast, and we also have Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, we have Bedtime Stories, and also Run Full. To find those other podcasts, all you have to do is search for Ballin Studios wherever you listen to your podcasts.

To watch hundreds more stories just like the ones you heard today, head over to our YouTube channel, which is just called Mr. Ballin. So that's going to do it. I really appreciate your support. Until next time, see ya.

I'm Dan Taberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like...

I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back. Well, you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, well, yeah.

You know, it's hysteria. It's all in your head. It's not physical. Oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since The Witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here. Something's not right. Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical.

Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery+.