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WBUR Podcasts, Boston. Hey, hey, it's Anne-Marie, back in the main feed for the first time in a little over a month since the regular series wrapped.

And I've spent that month reading your emails and jotting down your questions. Thank you so much to those of you who sent those in. I've gone to therapy for the first time. Yay, therapy. And I've been making Beyond episodes. These are those extra episodes that supporters of the show receive in a private feed as our thanks.

And it's not too late to get those, by the way. If there's a Beyond All Repair shaped hole in your life, there's a link to become a Beyond member in the show notes of this episode. Or you can go to wbur.org slash beyond. And there will be a few of those extra episodes already waiting for you, including one where we go down some truly tantalizing rabbit holes in the case that we didn't mention in the regular series. She stole that bracelet from my sister that day. There's no way.

There's another one where I have a follow-up conversation with Lynn Page. This was the good friend of Marlene and Richard Johnson who told me to, quote, do it anyway, dig into the case. I would still like to know where Sophia was when Marlene was killed. And then there's one in which we hear from jurors in Sophia's trials about where their heads were and the impact that that experience had on them.

Did you walk away from this experience feeling more hopeful or less hopeful about our criminal justice system? No, I think the system's fucked. We have a couple more Beyond episodes in the pipeline, and I keep saying we because I've been joined in a couple of those episodes by Beyond All Repair producer Sophie Codner, whose name I always tried to say with like a big...

hug in my voice, if you could hear that. And she's here with me today to help answer your questions about the series and the case in our listener Q&A episode. Sophie, hi. Hi, Ammo. Thank you for having me. Oh, of course, of course. You know, we were truly in the trenches together, I think, of the case file, the trial footage, all of the interview tape, all of the

you know, just the scripts and the rewrites and the, it's. We were in it. We were in it. And so you are, you are the best person to be doing this with me. And we, we just dived right back into it to answer some of these questions. But I have a question for you. You've worked on a wide variety of projects in your time as a producer. I'm curious how this project felt different, if at all.

I would say that this project more than any other, where we started, what we thought we were making in the beginning was not at all where we ended up. And I think, you know, that happens to some degree in most journalistic projects, but this more than others was a twist. There were surprises along the way that neither of us were expecting.

Yeah, I would agree. I appreciate that. So, Sophie, here's what I thought we would do. There are some questions that require a bit of a deeper dive into the case file and the trial footage, and then there are some that I think we can tackle a little more rapid fire, as rapid fire as I'm humanly capable of accomplishing.

So I figured we'd start with a little rapid fire warm up and then dig into some of the meatier questions and then maybe go back to some rapid fire at the end. How does that sound? That sounds great. Let's do it. Okay. Why don't you read the first one? All right. So this came in from a listener named Kaylee. Apologies if we pronounce anyone's name wrong. Here we go.

In the very last episode, a five-second clip of the phone recording between Sophia and her brother Sean was played, but I could not tell what they were saying. What was said in that five-second clip?

Oh, Kaylee, you were so far from alone and not knowing what was said. And I feel terribly about that. This clip that Kaylee's talking about is an excerpt of the call that Sean made to Sophia three days after the murder, the wiretapped phone call. And we first hear some of this call in chapter two. And I come back to it in chapter nine and make a point of these five seconds that

But then in chapter 10, I didn't repeat what those five seconds were. I didn't say it after you heard the cut and the tape was a little bit hard to understand. So first, let's listen to the moment that Kaylee is talking about, because I set this up as being a big deal for me, that it's Sophia's confession to Detective Harper, plus these five seconds that really solidified my belief that she hasn't told me the whole story about the day of the murder.

Okay, Sophie, help the listener out here since I failed to do so in Chapter 10.

In those very important five seconds, Sean says, I think they know Sophia. Sophia says, mm-mm, don't say anything over the phone. Sean says, Sophia. And Sophia cuts him off by saying, don't say anything over the phone. Yes. Yes.

And this is, you know, pretty close to the beginning of the phone call. So before there is any context about what Sean is talking about in that conversation or why he has called, he's saying, I think they know. And she, to me, really sounds like she's trying to shut him up in these five seconds.

I have a question for you, Amory, which is, I remember when we first were talking about putting this phone call into the series, you knew from the beginning that this was going to be something that you wanted to come back to multiple times and that we would play different parts of the call depending on, you know, where you were in your investigation. Right.

Why was that always something that you felt like you were going to return to? And why choose to play only certain parts along the way? So I hint at this in the episodes themselves, but, you know...

I took the listener on the mental journey that I myself went on. So, you know, if the listener felt like they had the rug pulled out from under them when they find out that Sophia lied on the stand, and up till that point, they were feeling one way about her, and then after that, you know, it all changed. That's how I felt. Or not that particular moment, maybe, but there were moments along the way it felt like

You could ask me day to day while working on this where my head was and how I was feeling, and I might have a different answer for you day to day. I'm not kidding about that. That's not an exaggeration. And when I first heard this phone call, I feel like I was maybe the only person on the team that thought...

This doesn't really look that bad for her. She's not admitting to anything. And she's already told me that she, you know, she suspected the call was being recorded because she said that Brad recorded all their calls. And there were moments where I felt like the only one that heard that call that way, which is not to say that I didn't hear the call and take note of things that

didn't look great for Sophia. Like, I literally have a transcript of this call where I've highlighted things in red, yellow, and green. And red is, this looks really bad for Sophia. Yellow is, this looks iffy for Sophia. Green is, this actually makes her look really good, I think. Or this is, you know, this is a drop in the innocent and maybe not even involved at all bucket for her. So

Yeah. I mean, I guess, like I said, it really was after the Harper report that I stopped being able to tell myself certain things about the call. I stopped being able to convince myself that I didn't think she knew what Sean was talking about. You know, she claimed to me much later that the times in the call where she is silent...

these times that I think don't look great for her. She said, you know, I couldn't really grasp what he was saying in the moment and I didn't know how to respond. But then I listened back to these five seconds and he says, you know, I think they know. And she jumps in immediately, not with, wait a minute, you think they know what? She jumps in with, mm-mm, don't say anything over the phone. Mm-mm.

I guess I just stopped being able to explain that away for myself. Not everything in life is explainable, but and this alone certainly is not enough to convict her of murder. Of course. But in my opinion, this solidified for me, there is more to the story. And I just want to know what that is. And I don't think I ever got it.

I appreciate that you were willing throughout the series, throughout your investigation to want to hear things differently or leave space to be able to leave, to hear things differently. But, you know, we got a lot of questions about these five seconds. Another question that a lot of people had, including a listener named Heather, was why are Sophia and Morgan on the run? Hmm. Okay. So,

I touched on this for people who are Beyond members. I did touch on this in one of the Beyond episodes. But for the rest of the glorious listening pool, I was vague about this in the series. And some of that is intentional because I think, you know, Sophia and Morgan are in a vulnerable position right now and I don't want to make them more so.

But I feel like there are two ways to answer this. One is, you know, you have heard that they feel, Sophia feels, and Shane to some extent, you know, feel threatened by their father and by Sean. And so before episodes of the podcast started coming out, Sophia and Morgan changed location. And I don't know where they are now. I haven't for quite some time.

But unless they are in Guyana, they are somewhere where they are likely not supposed to be. And so it has been safer for them to change location.

Another question we got a handful of times that also had to do with something that was left a little bit vague was this one. One of the first episodes mentioned a fourth sibling. Are you able to share the story behind that sibling and why they were not included in the podcast?

You know, Sophie, I so wondered if we were going to get this question. I really did, because I do reference a fourth Coria sibling. I say there were three boys and a girl and two parents that were never not fighting. And yes, there is an eldest sibling, an eldest brother.

And I don't mention that sibling for a number of reasons. The first being they didn't want anything to do with the podcast. They didn't want to talk to me, and that's just fine. The other is that sibling moved away, went to live with other family when they were, I think, like in their preteen years. So when a lot of the turbulence that I reference in the Kriah household was happening, he was not there.

there anymore. And he did not bear witness to some of the incidents that Sophia and Shane described for me. So that made it easier to put that sibling aside for the purposes of the podcast. And, you know, this story has a lot of people in it already. And sometimes you, I think, sacrifice

all of the details for the sake of trying to get the listener to just stay with you on the the the people and the details that that you need them to remember um but very astute very astute uh for the the people who did write in and say wait a minute you said this but then we never heard anything else about them and it's like yes and that was intentional

You know, you all had enough S sibling, you know, there were enough names and people to keep track of. So speaking even more about the Coria family, let's go a little deeper now with some questions because many of you asked about Grace Coria, Sophia, Shane and Sean's mother.

who went to Sophia's house on the day of Marlene's murder because she was having troubles with her bank account, if you guys remember. I think we first bring that up in chapter three. So grace is a really a complicating factor for Sophia in the story in terms of the murder because Marlene,

On the one hand, she says that Sophia didn't answer the door when she went to her house in the early afternoon. Albeit, she says she knocked lightly. She says she knocked twice and lightly. But still, you can see how it doesn't look great that her daughter presumably isn't home at the time that she's there. Now, on the other hand, Grace is really the closest thing that Sophia has ever had to an alibi on the day of the murder.

Because Grace and Sophia go to the bank together at some point that afternoon. So the question, Sophie, is when? When did they go to the bank together? Could this be an actual alibi or not? So the first thing to remember is Marlene's time of death, which, as we say in Chapter 2, was 1242 p.m., and that's based on when Marlene's watch was broken and stopped.

So, in Grace's first interview with detectives, which was two days after Marlene's murder, Grace says she thinks she went to Sophia's house the first time, when Sophia didn't answer, at about 1 o'clock. Then she goes back to Sophia's house at about 2.30 or quarter to 3, she thinks, and then they went to the bank together. There's another person who lays out a timeline for

for that day, and that is Michael, Sophia's ex-husband, her first husband. And in his first interview with detectives, which happens about a month after the murder, he remembers Grace telling him she'd gone to Sophia's house around noon, and when she wasn't home, Grace showed up at his office just before 2 p.m. to see if he could help her with her bank account.

So at 2 p.m., he calls Sophia, who says, you know, tell my mom to come over. I'm home. I've been home this whole time. So we have two timelines so far that put this at around, you know, sometime after 2 p.m. Because that's when he gets the call. Grace says she's there by 2.30. So what does Sophia herself say to detectives initially? Remember, Marlene is attacked at 12.42 a.m.

Sophia, in her first interview with detectives, which was the night of the murder, January 10th, she's interviewed with Brad. And I think we should just read a short excerpt here. Sophie, do you want to read this? This is when her mom, Grace, has just arrived at her house for a second time. She's agreed to go to the bank with her mom. And Sophia says...

I told her, she's talking about Grace, her mom, that Brad's mom was coming over for lunch and that I would have to give her a call because she wasn't at our house yet. And she was late. It was about 2.15 at that time or so, because I remember looking at the clock. I go, well, where is she? And then I said, well, I'm just going to give her a call and let her know because she has keys for our house. She could just come on in if I'm not here.

Okay, so Sophia herself is placing her mom's second visit and the trip to the bank at at least 2.15. So is that bank trip with her mom an alibi if Marlene is thought to be killed at 12.42? I'm going to say not quite because...

We know that the drive from Marlene's house, the Johnson's house, to Sophia and Brad's house is about 20 minutes, I believe. So it is possible that Sophia was at the Johnson's at 1242 and still made it back in time to go to the bank with her mom at or after 215. Yeah.

All right, we're going to take a quick break, but Sophie and I will be back in a minute to answer many more of your questions. Stick around. It's Madeline Barron from In the Dark. I spent the past four years investigating a crime. When you're driving down this road, I plan on killing somebody. A rock. A rock.

A four-year investigation, hundreds of interviews, thousands of documents, all in an effort to see what the U.S. military has kept from the public for years. Did you think that a war crime had been committed? I don't have any opinion on that. Season three of In the Dark is available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm Meghna Chakrabarty, host of On Point. At a time when the world is more complex than ever, On Point's daily deep dive conversation takes the time to make the world more intelligible. From the state of democracy to how artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live and work to the wonders of the natural world. One topic each day, one rich and nuanced exploration. That's On Point from WBUR. Be sure to follow us right here in your podcast feed. Okay, next up...

We have a big one. I think this was one of those things, Sophie, that I was like, next episode, we're going to talk about this. And then it's like, the next one, we're going to talk about it. And then the next one, we're going to talk about it. Just when we were first outlining what the series might look like. And we never talked about it. And there are reasons for that. But now it is time to talk about this person. Susan Parker Correa. C-O-R-R-E-I-A.

Counsel? Thank you, Your Honor. Susie, Sean's girlfriend at the time of Marlene's murder, who was his second wife and the mother of his second child by the time she took the stand as the prosecution's first witness in Sophia's first trial. You asked all kinds of questions about Susie. What did she tell detectives? Why did she lie for Sean? Wait, did she lie for Sean? And here's what I can say.

By the time Susie spoke to detectives for the first time on January 12th, two days after Marlene's murder, the part of the story that she could tell for the day of the murder, which is, you know, the part leading up to dropping Sophia and Sean off at Marlene Johnson's house before she says she had to go babysit her nephew, was the part that she could tell for the day of the murder.

Susie's story for detectives matches Sean's story. It's, you know, they go to Sophia's house in the morning to work on Sean's divorce papers. Susie drives the three of them to the Johnson's house so Sophia can get a coat that she says has money in the pocket. She can't find the coat. They leave. They pull over at a mini mart so Sophia can quote unquote think, she says.

Sophia offers Sean money to skip work that day and help her clean the carpets at her in-law's house. And then Susie takes Sean and Sophia back to Marlene Johnson's house. And let's pick back up right there with Susie on the stand in Sophia's first trial. I pulled up. Sophia got out of the car. Then Sean got out of the car also. Sophia said that she would have her mother-in-law drop her and Sean off at my house after they were finished.

I said that I would not be done babysitting until probably about three. She said that was fine because they probably wouldn't be done until then. And they got out of the car. Sean tried to blow me a kiss. I turned my head because I was frustrated with him for missing work. And I pulled away and went home. Had you mentioned to Sean your frustration with him of what had worked that day? I told him I didn't think that it would be a good idea for him to call into work. I mean, he had just...

He had worked hard to get that job, and he had only had the job for a little while, and I didn't think it was a good idea for him to miss work. But I didn't say directly to him, I'm angry with you. But I'm sure he could tell by my body language. You didn't return the gesture of blowing a kiss, did you? No, I did not. So a few things to say about this. I used the phrase, by the time Susie spoke with detectives two days after Marlene's murder, because...

you know, on the one hand, two days is more than enough time to kind of get your story straight or agree on a new story if Susie was actually going to help Sean lie to detectives. And, you know, you could say she had a couple reasons to do that. One...

I know from pretrial hearings and interview transcripts that Susie didn't like Sophia, really. To be clear, she didn't really know Sophia. She had only met her one other time before the day of the murder. But Sean and Sophia didn't have a good relationship. And it's clear that Sean had kind of painted Sophia in a certain light for Susie. So if someone was going to go down for the murder...

You could say in Susie's perspective, it's better for it to be Sophia than Sean. And two, Susie is about five months pregnant with Sean's child at the time of the murder. And, you know, they're both working and trying to save money to move out of her mom's place and into a place of their own. They're trying to build a life together. So does she have reason to lie to protect him? No.

Yes. I mean, not saying that she would, but yes, you can understand that, which is in large part why this case was still essentially a sibling he said she said. But did Susie lie for Sean? There are a couple things, Sophie, that nag at me when I'm trying to answer this. And one is there are more details in Susie and Sean's story about the hours leading up to the murder and the immediate aftermath.

That don't feel all that significant to the murder, other than the fact that I'm not sure how they would have known them and why they would have included them if Sophia wasn't with them that day. So, for example, the cleaning the carpet story is more fleshed out in both Susie and Sean's accounts today.

So here's Susie on the stand again, explaining the reason Sophia gave her for why the carpets needed to be cleaned, which had to do with a time when Marlene was looking after Brad's dog, Jake. She mentioned the incident again where she had given the dog X-lax and he had diarrhea over the carpet. She said that she wanted Sean to help her steam clean the carpet because her parents

So Marlene had recently been taking care of Jake, the dog. And Susie is saying Sophia told her that she gave Jake laxatives beforehand. Jake shat on the carpets at the in-laws' house, and that's why they needed to be cleaned.

Which is kind of oddly specific, right? So strange. Why would she give a dog laxatives to begin with? Yeah, I mean, that's strange, but also, like, the detail is strange. That she would know that is strange, especially for someone who didn't know Sophia much at all and didn't know about Sophia's feelings towards Jake, Brad's dog. Yeah.

But we do have at least a window into how Sophia felt about Jake because in the case file are a handful of pages of a journal Sophia kept at the time. And in an entry on December 8th, 2001, so just about a month before Marlene's murder, Sophia writes, "...sometimes I really hate the dogs, especially Jake. I always hate him."

Watch and see whenever he does something to me. I will hit him as hard as I possibly could. The journal entry, that's the part about Jake, but I'm going to keep going because the next two sentences are, I think, kind of telling. She says, I really want to talk to someone, but I guess that it's not going to happen. I don't have any friends, and even if I did, this is not the kind of shit that I would be saying to them. What do you think of that, Sophie?

The first thing that jumps out to me is the fact that she is admitting here that she does hit the dogs, which we know Marlene's friends were especially concerned about and had heard about, but maybe didn't know from personal experience, hadn't necessarily seen her do it. And it also, I mean, it just makes me sad. She says, I don't have any friends. We know she had this really lonely moment in her life where Marlene was basically her only friend.

Yeah. We mentioned this in a Beyond episode, how Lynn Page is really good at bringing us back to, you know, two things can be true at the same time. That she took some feelings out on Jake, the dog. Maybe Jake and her didn't have, you know, a great relationship. Not every human and dog have a great relationship, but also she's in a

She's in a lonely, emotional, frustrated place. And so, you know, people do things for a reason. But yeah, we do get the sense from this that she didn't like Jake. Did she give Jake laxatives? Did that actually happen? I don't know, but...

Susie doesn't necessarily have a reason to know about Sophia's relationship with Jake and anything that she may or may not have done to Jake without that information coming from somewhere. So that jumped out at me. The second thing that kind of nags at me about this is...

Susie may have had time to get on the same page with Sean before talking to detectives two days later. But the question I really had is, did she say anything to anyone else before then? When did Susie start talking about that day to other people?

So the answer is yes. She did say something to other people before talking to detectives. She told her mom the night of Marlene's murder about the events of the day. And she spoke to her sister. Her sister's name is Gina. She talks to Gina earlier in the day because Gina is the sister that she was babysitting for. It's Gina's son, Susie's nephew, that she's looking after that day.

And Gina calls her a couple hours into Susie's babysitting shift to see how things are going. And Susie was allegedly already complaining to Gina about Sophia. So, Sophie, why don't you read an excerpt here of what Gina tells detectives? Okay. Yeah.

For some reason at that point in time, she said, I'm trying to think of a way to get out of having to take Sophie anywhere else or to have her go to the courthouse with us or something like that. I can't remember exactly what she said. And she said, I just don't want to have to take her anywhere. I didn't know I was going to have to take her anywhere this morning. You know, I'm not going to be her taxi cab. I think Susie might have told me then.

Buckner asks Gina on the phone. Gina replies, this morning, yeah. I think she might have told me on the phone. I have to say, Sophie, in the beginning, I thought Susie was going to be the ticket to this whole thing. Like,

If I could get Susie to talk to me, if only I could reach Susie, maybe she would tell a different story today than she did back then. You know, now that she's no longer married to Sean and hasn't been for a while, and now that their daughters together are adults. But I was also aware that she might still have some connection to Sean and maybe some loyalty to him as the father of their daughters. So...

Who's to say? You know, if she had lied for him about the day of the murder back then, would she do the same today? Or did she never lie for him and she, you know, she told the truth the day of the murder? Either way, I thought Susie was the key. And who knows, she might still be. But I mentioned in Chapter 8 that I did try to reach her a number of times.

struck out on that front. I did reach Gina, Susie's sister, who gave me a heads up that, you know, Susie was not in a good place to talk about Sean or about Marlene's murder. So if there is a different story to hear from Susie, I haven't heard it yet. And obviously, if that changes, we will let you listening out there know.

Okay, but speaking of Gina, Sophie, there is more to say about Gina, the sister.

Gina Salt is her full name. And she comes into play in the next listener question that we're going to tackle, which has to do with why detectives started looking into Sean in the first place. So if you remember from Chapter 2, Detective Rick Buckner told the jury that the inquiry into Sean started with a phone call. 911 had received an anonymous phone call from a payphone saying,

and the person refused to give their name or anything. Okay, that's what you heard in the episode. But Buckner actually goes on to say this. Subsequently, that same person called back, and it turned out to be not Gina Salt, but Robert Salt. Okay. Sophie, who is Robert Salt? ♪

Okay, let me try to say this correctly. Robert's... Good luck. Robert Salt is Gina Salt's brother-in-law. So Susie's older sister's husband's brother.

Also, that beautifully illustrates why we left this at an anonymous tip, because initially it was an anonymous tip. Right. So how do we get to how do we know that this was Robert Salt, Susie's older sister's brother in law?

Right. So as you said, initially, it was an anonymous 911 call that was placed on January 11th, the day after the murder. It comes from a payphone in Vancouver. The caller says they have information related to the murder, but then they just hang up. However, the caller does try again later that evening and agrees to come into the police station to talk to detectives later.

Robert Salt knows about Sean because of Susie. And he actually refers to him as a drug kingpin to detectives. Which that might be just kind of...

family gossipy lingo, you know, where you're like, oh, my sister-in-law's younger sister is dating a drug kingpin. Like, we don't know that to be true. Right, right. Robert doesn't seem like a huge fan of Sean, but he says that he has heard through basically, you know, family grapevine that Sean and Susie went to Sophia's house in the morning to get money for the divorce paperwork. And then he...

He says that Sophia offered Sean more money to help him clean the carpets, as we've heard. Susie dropped them both off. But then he also says, quote, they later put the clothes that had blood on them in the dumpster. They went back and took them out of the dumpster and disposed of them someplace else. That is a spicy meatball. That detail shook me when I reread it because it's,

That question of would Susie lie for them? Did she lie? I think that if Robert Salt really had heard that and if what he says is true, then Susie didn't tell the detectives anything about a bag of bloody clothing. So to me, I was shocked that Susie would have that information about what happened to their bloody clothes.

Right. And this is, you know, the bag of bloody clothes thing, that is a shocking detail. But that, I will say, is where this does start to feel a little bit like a game of family telephone. Because Susie does eventually talk about bags in a dumpster, but they're not bags of bloody clothing. So I'm going to read a short excerpt from an investigation report written by a detective named Scott Shanaker after Susie's first interview with...

Here's what it says. Susie also remembered that when she was at Marlene's house with Sean and Sophia, the first time, when Sophia came out of the house, Sophia was carrying two bags. She then put the bags in the back seat of Susie's car, saying that they were just junk and that they needed to be thrown away. It was later on in the afternoon, when Sean had come home, that he had gone to throw the bags away into the dumpster of the apartment to the east of Susie's apartment.

So he's throwing them away in the dumpster of another building, not their apartment building, another one. Susie noticed that there were two wrapped presents in the bags. Susie had Sean unwrap the presents so she could see what it was they were throwing away. She described a bottle of wine in one and some sort of a serving-type dish in the other. So I bring this up because...

Again, these are just very specific details that both Susie and Sean end up sharing with detectives. And, you know, the wrapped presents, the bottle of wine, the serving dish, the bags of garbage into the dumpster, taking them out, like, these are not impossible details to make up. They're just strange. So, yeah, the lingering questions are, did she lie for Sean? But also, like,

you know, if this anonymous tip, well, now Robert Salt, we know, but if Robert Salt had not called in Sean, would Susie have turned Sean in? Would she have said anything about dropping them off at the in-law's house? Would, you know, what information would have come forth without Robert Salt and how quickly and who would have been the first to say something? That we can't necessarily know. So...

Frustrating, but that's where that sits.

I feel like people at this point are like, okay, we wanted an answer, but whoa. Because, like I said, there's the bags. The details about the bags are just, I don't know what to do with that. Yeah, yeah. I think we've obsessed over many parts of this. And then, you know, an episode like this maybe lays bare why we, what stays in and what is saved for kind of like nerdy deeper dives like this. But yeah.

That's why we're here. Hey, nerds. Yeah. Hey, hey. Okay, so moving along to something else that people had a lot of questions about, Marlene's alleged $10,000 stash of cash. Variations on this question, but basically, did it actually exist? How would Sean have known about the stash of cash? Who knew about it? When? Sophie, what do we know?

So this gets a little complicated. Yeah, this question of when did the $10,000 stash come into focus for the detectives? So the first time we see it is in a conversation that Sean has with Detective Kevin Harper on January 13th, three days after the murder.

Sean tells Harper that while he and Sophia are at Marlene's house that morning, Sophia tells him that Marlene had this $10,000 stash hidden in a secret place in Marlene's bathroom. Sophia tells Sean in that moment that Brad had told her about it.

Okay, this is interesting. I mean, it's already interesting, but this is jumping out to me this time that if he's specifying a secret hiding place in Marlene's bathroom...

Marlene, we know, did have like a little hiding, a little hidey hole, as it was called, in her upstairs bathroom, her bathroom on the third floor of the house. And I did not remember that Sean gave that specific detail, not just about cash in the house, but in a hiding place in Marlene's bathroom. So that's interesting. And so then Buckner, also on January 13th, asked Sophia,

in an interview if Richard or Marlene kept money around the house. So I think he had heard this from, through, uh, Harper, uh,

Sean had mentioned that maybe there was money in the house. So Buckner asked Sophia, was there money in the house? And Sophia tells him, first she says no. Then she says, well, actually months ago, Marlene told me that she did have some money saved up and that it was in a secret hiding place. Sophia didn't know how much money it was. And she and Brad talked about it at one point, but it was kind of just like a random thing that was said, not really discussed. So

However, Sophia says that Wednesday before the murder, the day before the murder, she and Marlene did talk about the money again briefly. Sophia says she told Marlene, you know, you should keep it somewhere safe. What are you doing? And Marlene said to Sophia, apparently, according to Sophia, the day before the murder, do you want to see where the money is?

So they're at the Johnson's house and Marlene offers to show Sophia where the money is hidden. But Sophia is like, no, and they don't end up looking for it. A key piece is that Sophia also tells Buckner that there is no way, that's a quote, quote, no way Sean could have known about where Marlene's money was. And she also says it's not something that him and I would talk about. Yeah.

You know, I'm remembering that Sean's story about when he learned about Marlene's stash of cash changes. So at one point, he says Sophia didn't tell him about it until they were driving back to her house in Marlene's stolen van after the murder. But at another point, he says Sophia told him about it at the house, like as she was looking around for it.

And there are so many other details that change about what happened at the house. You know, at first, Sean tells detectives he hears someone cry out something like, you know, please stop, no. But then on the stand, he says he didn't hear any words, just a weird screech sound.

Another example is at first he tells detectives that Sophia wasn't holding anything when he went down to the basement and first saw her. But on the stand, he says he saw her holding the fireplace tongs strike Marlene one time. So...

Obviously, memory under the influence of a traumatic experience is probably even more fallible than our regular memories already are. But when a case like this relies on eyewitness testimony so heavily and any change in detail happens,

is hard to swallow, especially significant changes in detail. Like, did Sean or did he not know about a stash of money at Marlene's house? Or did he or did he not see his sister with fireplace tongs in her hand? Yeah. I mean, I will say it does seem like Sean couldn't have known about Marlene's stash without Sophia having told him at some point.

But, or... You know, some people might say, or Brad and Sean had this relationship and connection that people didn't know about. Because that would be, you know, that would be the other way. Yeah. But overall, you know, it's just, it's very true that Sean's story changed a lot. And, you know, the very first thing he told detectives was, oh, I was never at the Johnsons that day. I went over to Sophia's. I went home. That's it. So...

Who knows? A couple quick follow-up questions that also have to do with the stash of cash that came from listeners. Was a stash of cash actually ever found in the house? No, not that we know of. And according to the friends that we heard from in Chapter 4, Lynn and Linda, they only knew of the stash existing as a sort of secret bank account, a bank account that Richard, her husband, didn't know about.

Another question we got a lot of was, was Sophia's coat with the divorce money in the pocket ever found in the Johnson's house? And the answer to that is also not that we know of. You know, that wasn't there was never a coat that was submitted into evidence as, you know, whose coat is this? So hard to say. Yeah, we got some other money related questions.

This next one is from listeners Daniel and Jess. Several people wrote in about this, though. They wrote, did Marlene have a life insurance policy? What were its terms and who knew about it?

Great question. So there's a lot of life insurance paperwork in the case file, you know, what we have of it thus far. All of that paperwork appears to be for Richard Johnson, Marlene's husband, which all name his beneficiary as Marlene B. Johnson, wife, if living, otherwise trustee of the trust named in will dated September 15th, 1977, or any successor in trust.

All the monetary amounts in these documents have been redacted and all the policies that make up this paperwork date back to the 80s. So I can say we're not seeing proof of a life insurance policy taken out right before Marlene's murder like you sometimes unfortunately do in murder cases.

But there is, however, something called a community property agreement between Marlene and Richard that dates back to 1975. And that declares that all of their current property or future property, so, you know, money, physical property, pensions, real estate, stocks, etc., that's all shared 50-50. And if one of them dies, it all goes to the other one.

And there is a copy of Richard's will in what we have of the case file thus far, which confirms that in the event of his death, everything would go to Marlene. If she didn't survive him by four months, it would all go to Brad. If Brad didn't survive them, then it would get, you know, dispersed to more nitty-gritty places. Relatives, you know, and the amounts there are all redacted, too. There are also a lot of bank records in the case file, too.

So what was the total amount of that, you know, bank account that Marlene had, if it existed wherever it existed? We don't know. So long answer short, if Marlene had a will separate from that community property agreement with Richard, A, I don't have it in what I have of the case file, and B, it was seemingly all going to go to Richard first. ♪

So that's the will question, the life insurance question, as far as we can answer it. We're going to take one more quick break, but we'll have more answers to your questions in just a minute. Okay, we're back with more of your questions, the we being me and Beyond All Repair producer, Sophie Codner. This next one is also a pretty big one. I'll say. We had a

A lot of people wrote to us with questions about Kevin Harper, the detective who interviews Sophia in federal custody down in California in 2010, the Harper of the Harper Report. You had questions about Kevin Harper himself. We got so many variations on the question. Why would Sophia tell you about talking to Kevin Harper if she knew you might talk to him?

This is hard to explain, but could it be that Sophia just remembers the confession differently and didn't remember giving Harper all of the details that she gave Harper? Maybe she doesn't know if I'm going to reach Harper. Maybe she thinks Harper isn't going to want to talk to me. I don't know. I'm not, you know, I can't put myself in Sophia's head in that way, but I can say that it, it

All along the way, she was telling me to talk to everyone. You know, I don't know. Do you do you answer? Do you have a different answer for that? You think? I don't have an answer to the question, but my main thought is that, wow, I really wish that audio video recording was not destroyed right before you requested it. It's just that would make all of our lives a lot easier. Me too, because, you know, Morgan has told me I didn't give all that detail because

to Kevin Harper, and he has told me, you know, Kevin was feeding me information, and I can't confirm that one way or the other. Sophia herself told me I did give Morgan that amount of detail. So those two things I don't think can actually be true, that, you know, Sophia saying she gave all this detail to Morgan and

to take to Kevin, he gives it to Kevin before she then gives it to Kevin. She could not have given him all that detail and Morgan saying, no, no, because we know that Morgan gave a lot of detail to Kevin first before Sophia did. So those two things are very hard to square. I don't think when Sophia said, you know, I talked to Kevin Harper and it was clear that I was going to reach out to Kevin Harper,

I'm not sure that she was imagining a physical report that would still exist. I wasn't imagining a physical report that would still exist. Obviously, you always hope for something like that, but you don't know what you, you know, if you request something, how long it will take, what's still there. Obviously, the audio and video wasn't, and that's such a shame. But it's Harper who says, you know, man, if you can get my notes, that could make all the difference.

And that's when I put in the request. There's another side to the Kevin Harper coin that I didn't talk about in the series, but that some of you found through your own Googling, which is I mentioned that he's former Detective Harper, but I don't say why. So the reason is in 2017, so seven years after the Harper report, just for context,

Kevin Harper resigned from the Clark County Sheriff's Office after being investigated for having an affair with a known heroin user and giving money to her. So he's investigated for misconduct and potential criminality involved in the affair. But Harper resigned during the investigation, and no charges were ever brought against him ultimately. So, Sophie, I'm not sure if I told you this, but...

One source asked me after the series wrapped if Kevin Harper only agreed to talk to me if I didn't bring that up, the reason for his resignation. Oh, wow. Yeah. And the answer is no. I did tell Kevin early in my outreach that I was aware of the conditions of his resignation, but also that that's not why I wanted to talk to him. But no, I made no such promise to not bring it up.

I will say Kevin was pretty self-deprecating during our conversations and referenced, you know, general mistakes often. And Sophia has too, obviously. So, you know, if people are thinking, well, here's this crooked detective, you know,

You know, it's the calculus of, well, who can you trust the least between Sophia and Kevin Harper? That just feels bad. And in the series, I wanted to focus on the content of the Harper report because, you know...

Yes, there are lies. There are mistakes all around. And what Sophia and Morgan told me before I got the Harper report, what's in it, what people told me after, that's what I wanted to focus on. Not on what Harper was discovered to have done seven years after the report and, you know, something that was unconnected to what we were talking about. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So we've...

We've gone on a journey. Those were kind of the bigger questions. We'll do a few more rapid-fire ones, although I'm not sure how rapid I was, obviously, answering the first ones. But, Sophie, what's up first? Okay, so we have one from a listener named Nestor. Nestor asks, Did you ask Anthony Snow, a.k.a. Sophia's brother Sean, if he was left-handed? Well...

First, I watched a lot of Papa Snow YouTube videos, a lot of videos, cooking videos in particular, because I know that I use my dominant hand when I'm cooking personally. And it was hard to tell in these videos because if you look closely at some of them, you'll notice that

Some of the writing in the background, like products that are on the shelves, it's backwards, which means, you know, his camera kind of films the mirror image. And what I thought was him using his left hand a lot on first glance was actually his right hand. So to the question of did I ask Sean if he was left handed? Not directly, no.

I was far enough into my conversation with him that I really didn't know what to believe. So I attempted to arrive at an answer another way, which is I asked him about a particular video online of him getting attacked by a dog.

And this dog was then subsequently put down. So this is that very awkward exchange. Oh, that's so unfortunate. How badly was your arm hurt? Could you still write with it? Could you still use it? I don't know which arm it was, but... Well, I was fixed. I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm now about to use my arm.

halfway decently and exercise again. Was it your dominant hand? One of my friends just had that happen and she couldn't write with it for months. No, it wasn't my dominant hand.

That's good. Well, I really appreciate your time. I mean, if there's anything else that you want to add, I'm all ears. I'm sorry. I just thought about it and that sounded like such a forensic question. I had to smile. Wow. But yeah, but no, I miss my dog.

Oh, my God. I love this. I love this little moment. Oh, man. Anne-Marie, I feel like you're being very, you're being smart. You know what you're doing. And yeah. Well, can I just say it feels bad. It feels bad to do this. And I am not

I really don't want to be a gotcha kind of journalist. But when you're not sure, when you want the truth and you're not sure that someone is going to tell it to you, you start trying to figure out, like, what is the way that you could arrive at that? You do ask, is it your dominant hand? I mean... I know. Unlike the dog, he does not bite. No. No. No.

Wow, Sophie, that was a good one. That was a good one, except I'm very sad about the dog, but that was a very good one. Yeah, so I tried. I failed. Can I prove that Sean is either left-handed or ambidextrous? I cannot. And I looked like an ass.

in the process. Okay, moving along. A lot of you wanted to know what happens from here with the case. Great question. Specifically, will Sean ever be charged with the murder? Yeah, will he and can he are two different things, right? So seemingly he can. Will he? That's something Shane has actually been looking into more and more since the podcast wrapped. And he sent me this update.

I've had some conversations with the district attorney's office in Clark County since the wrap-up of the podcast. Right now, I've turned over the investigation files and highlighted some of the key evidence that was covered in the podcast, as well as things that weren't, that could make a prima facie case against Sean. In terms of what are the chances, I mean, it's possible, but it'll require the district attorney to want to do it.

There have been extraditions from Guyana, and there were two of them in 2022 for rape charges, two separate incidents in Florida and Pennsylvania that were successful, and those individuals were prosecuted and are going to be serving out time for their crimes. But in terms of, you know,

What happens next, it is ultimately up to the DA to decide. And I hope, of course, that they do decide to pursue the clearest evidence because everything that has come since then has been based on their decision to ignore DNA evidence and listen to Sean and make him their star witness that has caused 20 years of confusion and pain and ambiguity that...

I don't think is fair to keep going when there is such strong evidence to pursue. It's not fair to Marlene or her family. It's not fair to my family. And it's certainly not fair to let someone get away with murder. So you heard Shane refer to a prima facie case against Sean, and that's just legalese for a case where there's thought to be enough evidence to take it to trial. Yeah.

I should say I did follow up with the Clark County Prosecutor's Office about halfway through Beyond All Repairs release, and I still have never received answers to my questions about this. Will it be reopened? What will it take? But I'm very glad that Shane is hearing from them and has some communication with them now. And if there are updates to this in the future that I can share, I will definitely do so. Let's do another listener question.

Here's one. Are Sophia and Morgan still together? Does Morgan still believe in Sophia's innocence? As far as I know, Sophia and Morgan, yes, are still together. And as far as I know, Morgan does still believe in Sophia's innocence. You know, I would say Sophia and Morgan are each other's ride or dies. You know, there have been times where it truly has felt like it's them against the world. And...

At this point, I'm not sure that there's anything that would convince Morgan otherwise. Maybe some new undeniably definitive physical evidence, but I think he believes Sophia. And that's, you know, when you believe someone with your whole heart,

That's where you stand. And so we got more questions, actually, that are kind of like this with regards to Sophia lying on the stand and Morgan finding that out over the course of this process. And, you know, we do hear Morgan say, yeah, I feel like I got punched in the face when he first watches that trial footage, seeing her lie. But something that we ended up cutting from that episode, this was chapter seven, was

Was Morgan explaining something to me about a week or two after he watched Sophia's testimony for the first time? Here's that. I figured out why she lied. You did? Absolutely. Because it's the only day her mother shows up to trial. I think that's why she was crying so hard. I think that's why she lied.

Why? Why do you think Grace's presence made Sophia lie? I think that Sophia, in the need to take care of her mom's feelings, had to, instead of just saying, listen, I believe my brother committed this horrible thing. I think he went to burglarize his home. Whatever, you know, whatever easy things she would have said about her own knowledge, she had to then take care of her mother's feelings.

So Morgan's theory here, Sophie, is that by making Marlene's murder out to be the result of a plan conceived by Brad, as Sophia said on the stand, rather than something originating with one or two of Grace's own children, Sophia is really trying to spare her mom's feelings. What do you think of this?

I think it's a really nice idea. I think that it's hard to question your own beliefs, especially if it's about someone that you love. I am also touched by the spirit of this, not just the idea that she might have been doing this to spare her mom's feelings, but really the fact that

in wanting or needing to believe Sophia Morgan's instinct isn't just, you know, what have you done, but why did you do it? You know, trying to understand why she would lie on the stand. It's like some might view that as a desperate attempt to explain away something that's

inconvenient or intolerable, but there's something to that in a world where I think we really are too quick to write each other off when we hear that someone has done something quote-unquote bad. You know, we focus so much on the what and not on the, well, why? Why did they do it? So that's the part of this that stays with me. Okay, next up, hit me.

Oh, I love this one. So how did Amory make the music for the show? And what is she saying in the intro song? Because I also have this question, Amory. You have never told me what you are actually saying in the intro song. And I think I have an idea at this point. Oh, really? But please, are you going to tell us? Are you going to tell us?

Okay, well, first I'm going to say I did not, I can't say that I made the music for the show. I did make the theme music for the show. But the whole show, this is like really a point of pride in the team that we have that all of the music in Beyond All Repair is original. And the vast, vast majority of it was written by my brilliant colleagues Paul Vycus and Matt Reed, the sound designers of Beyond All Repair. And I think that's a really good point.

And I just pinch myself every time I would listen to a mix and go, oh my god, this is the Beyond All Repair score. It's still just so freaking cool to me. But yes, I did make the theme music and the credits music. I won't talk right now about how I made it because we're going to do a Beyond episode that explains the theme music. Maybe I will tease what I say. Yeah.

in the song because it's one of those things that like once you hear it, I don't think you cannot hear it. And I'm equal parts shocked and delighted that you, that for most of this, at least you did not know what I was saying or maybe still don't know what I was saying. So what do you think the one lyric of the theme song is? Okay, my guess is, is it What Have You Done? Yes, it's What Have You Done. Wow. Wow.

The intention for it was that every episode you're kind of asking that of a different person, you know, whether it's Sophia or Sean or Shane for, you know, wanting to dig into the case file or Buckner or Richard or Brad or me. What have I done, you know, in digging into this episode?

So that's that. Mystery solved. And if you are a Beyond member, you'll get to hear there are things in that song that I don't think you would pick up on just from a first listen. There are some very intentional sound effects that we snuck in there. So that will be in the Beyond feed. And it's not too late to be a Beyond member and hear more about the making of the theme music.

So thank you for that question. I do appreciate it. I don't take it lightly. And a huge, huge round of applause, really, to Paul Vycus and Matt Reed, who just scored the shit out of this, I gotta say. Hear, hear. Okay, we have a few kind of big picture closer questions. One of them came in several times in several different ways, but it was basically asking about the structure of the series. You know, people saying...

ah, I'm so frustrated because it felt like in the beginning you were setting me up to think that Sophia was completely innocent and that she had been totally set up. And by the end, you find this Harper report and I'm, you know, now I'm, I think something totally different. Did you set me up to think that way? And I, yeah, go ahead. Well, I will, I will just say that, uh,

When people bring this up, my answer is what you experienced as a listener is true to Anne-Marie's experience as a reporter and our experience as a production team. I think that while the perception of the truth or what this series is really about shifts, it is 100% accurate to the reporting experience. That's what I think. Yeah, that's it.

If you are frustrated, I am too. And if you feel differently at the end than you did at the beginning, I did too. And the report, we already had, I think, two or three or maybe even more episodes written when I got the Harper report. So, yes, that's how it happened. Not what we thought it would be, but...

We were on the same narrative trajectory, I guess you could say. And it became more important to us to actually add in windows into Anne-Marie's thinking to those earlier episodes once we got that Harper report when we knew basically Anne-Marie, the reporter, was going to become part of the story. Yep, that's a good point too.

Okay, another one. Is Sophia willing to speak with Amory again after the final opinion slash closing remarks in the final regular episode? I will just say that I have not spoken to Sophia. I haven't heard from Sophia. She hasn't reached out directly to me since the series has wrapped. So I don't know. I don't know.

The next one says, I'm curious what Amory thinks Sophia intended to get out of this exercise. It seemed like quite a risky endeavor on her part. Yeah, we should both answer this one too, I think. Do you want to go first? I think maybe she underestimated you, Amory, and how deep you were going to go. And I also think that she perhaps at this point really does think she told you 100% the truth.

I'm with you, I think. I mostly wonder if Sophia just doesn't remember or has changed things enough over time that she didn't want to believe something had gone the way that it did, and so she changed it. And it may have happened little by little. I don't know. But at the beginning of this, this was a real question of mine. It's like, well, yeah, I mean, if you've

If you've committed some terrible crime or been involved in some terrible crime, why would you ever want to bring it back up? That just didn't make any sense to me. But I would put that to people. I would put that to the Johnsons. I would put that to the friends. And the general answer that I got was, well, you don't know, Sophia. That was really it. It was...

You know, she thinks that she can... She's not happy with how her life is going, and she wants to try again to tell a different story to someone that she thinks will believe her this time. And, I mean, I guess the short answer is she wanted to tell her story to someone who she hoped would believe it and help her be believed. And that can be interpreted as benignly or as maliciously as you want it to be. And I...

I will forever be conflicted about the intentions behind that. Okay. One more question that I think we should both take. This is from a listener named Denise.

Denise wrote, Sophie, Amory, I love that she started with you. So I really, really, really do. Sophie, Amory and all the others who have been working on this. Yes. And all the others. Has it changed your perception of people? Meaning has working on Beyond All Repair changed your perception of people or yourself or your beliefs about people in general? Does it make you suspicious of things you're told by others? What have you learned from it?

A buffet of questions in here. Let's get deep. Yeah. Sophie. You know, a few things come to mind. I love what you say to Sophia. I believe this is in the very last episode. And I think it came in part from a conversation that we had with Zach Suarponte, the editor. When you say, we're not all good. We're not all bad. We're complicated. And...

Even if you did this, I don't think it means that you don't deserve to meet your son. I think that this has reiterated the importance to me of not making clear black and white lines about what is good and what is bad and allowing some of that gray to seep through. And I also think relating to something you said earlier about Morgan and wanting to know why Sophia did what she did.

People make decisions for a reason. Whatever they do makes sense to them at that time. And if you can try to understand someone's motivations, maybe you can get to a level of understanding. You can hold on to a compassion and empathy for them. That all really resonated with me, Sophie. And, you know, we've said that...

Where we started and where we ended are not necessarily what we thought. But I should say, I didn't go into this thinking, Sophia is innocent. I went into this thinking, if she's telling me the truth, then something went really, really wrong here. And...

You know, I still think many things went really, really wrong here. And I think trying to understand what went wrong and like you said, why things went the way that they did and not just what happened, but why is important and is something that we should always keep striving for. I think I'll always want to give someone the benefit of the doubt as long as I possibly can. And I did that here, I think, because

Until I hit a point where I felt like I was being dishonest with myself about where I landed with everything. But yeah, to what you said, I think we need to keep listening and we need to keep trying to understand the why. Because we're all going to keep making mistakes throughout our life. And that's just the deal of being human. Yeah.

You're born, you make a lot of mistakes, you hopefully love real hard in the meantime, and then you die. And hopefully you die knowing that you did your best, and that's all we can do. It's true. Well, Sophie...

I just want to say thank you for being my ride or die on this project. Beyond All Repair would not have crossed the finish line without you. So thank you for being there every step of the way, even through the listener Q&A episode. Thank you, Anne-Marie. I'm forever, forever grateful to you.

And if there are major developments in the case or the story, you will be hearing from us. And until then, like I said, you can go deeper in the Beyond episodes. We have a private feed as our thanks for supporting the show. There's a link to that in your show notes. This episode was produced and co-hosted by Sophie Codner and by me. And it was mixed by Paul Vycus with original music by Paul Vycus, Matt Reed and me.

Please keep telling people about Beyond All Repair. Leave us a review in your podcast app if you haven't done so already. It all helps. And of course, keep going for walks, eating treats, taking naps, listening to good music, and for goodness sakes, telling people you love them often. Will ya? Thank you so much for listening. ♪♪♪