142. Larry Wells - The Toys “R” Us Murder
39:11 Share

It's that time of the year. Your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, relax, and think about work. You really, really want it all to work out while you're away. Monday.com gives you and the team that peace of mind. When all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync, things just flow wherever you are. Tap the banner to go to Monday.com.

All right, you guys, we are jumping into an ad and I wanted to let you know that listening on Audible helps your imagination soar. Whether you listen to stories, motivation, expert advice, any genre you love, you can be inspired to imagine new worlds, new possibilities, and new ways of thinking.

Listening can lead to positive change in your mood, your habits, and ultimately your overall well-being. Audible has the best selection of audiobooks without exception, along with popular podcasts and exclusive Audible Originals. All-in-one, easy app.

app. Enjoy Audible anytime while doing other things, household chores, exercising, on the road, commuting, you name it. Audible makes it easy to be inspired and entertained as part of your everyday routine without needing to set aside extra time. You guys, since becoming an Audible member, I've found it so easy to fit more stories into my day. Recently, I've actually been listening to Twilight on audiobook and it's been a game changer during my daily walks.

So there's more to imagine when you listen. New members can try Audible now for free for 30 days with your first audiobook included. Visit audible.com slash MWMH or text MWMH to 500-500. That's audible.com slash MWMH or text MWMH to 500-500 to try Audible free for 30 days.

Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Before we hop into the episode, just a reminder that Apple subscriptions are ad-free and you get bonus episodes and same with Patreon. You can check that out on Apple or on Patreon if you're interested. All right, we're ready for your 10 seconds. Well, Peyton and I are actually going to Disneyland this week. So we are pretty excited about that. We're actually recording this episode a little ahead to give us some...

Some free time as the holidays come up. But when this comes out, we'll be going to Disneyland. So we're pretty excited about that. A couple of shows we've been watching. We started Wednesday. We're watching season three of Dead to Me. Wednesday's really good. We've been loving that.

If you're not watching on YouTube, I have my hair and braids this week to honor Wednesday. As a tribute to Wednesday. And the last thing for my 10 seconds is last night, Peyton and I both couldn't sleep because I need to stop. I need to stop this podcast. I'm sorry, everyone. I'm going to have to stop doing the podcast.

I'm not going to be in it anymore. I apologize. I love you all. Because last night, I woke up in the middle of the night. What time is it? Like 1 a.m.? Because our door somehow opened. The door to our bedroom, which was closed. Literally, I don't know. I don't even want to think about it too much or overthink it. But somehow our door just opened. And then literally the entire night, I was just ready to fight whoever was going to come through the door.

And because of that, I couldn't sleep the entire night. I couldn't sleep either because it opened up so loud. It popped open. Yeah. Which it normally does. You kind of have to push it to get it open. I was like, someone's going to come in. I'm going to have to fight someone. And it woke us both up out of our slumber. We both looked up at the door at the same time. I literally was sleeping on my back, which I hardly do. And my eyes just opened.

And I was like, what is going on? So anyways, if I'm not on here next week, you know why. And on that note, we'll hop into this week's episode. Our case sources are Legacy.com, BizJournals.com, BuffaloNews.com, Oxygen.com, Nine.com.au, and Newspapers.com.

Today we are going to be talking about Toys R Us, which is a toy store in America if you are unfamiliar. And this chain previous to 2020 had been struggling for a while. Like a lot of brick and mortar retail stores in the age of Amazon and online shopping, sales had been declining for years, leading to the chain filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy back in 2017.

And this came after five consecutive years of not turning a profit.

So they had already begun shutting down stores years ago with the last remaining storefront shut down in 2021. But if there's a bright side, it's that the brand isn't totally dead. You can still shop at the Toys R Us website. And now as of this year, the chain opened many stores inside 400 Macy's locations across the U.S. I did not know that. Me either. But you might say it's a bit of a downgrade if you knew the original Toys R Us.

It's like crashing on a friend's couch after getting evicted. But for anyone with fond memories of this brand, at least it's still around. Like at least it still exists. And our story today, in fact, does take place at a Toys R Us store. And it centers on the last thing you might expect to find at Toys R Us, a murder. But it's the first thing that you'd expect tuning into Murder With My Husband. So if we're talking about Toys R Us, chances are it's because someone died there.

So there, now you already know what's inside today's episode before we've even gotten into it, but I think you'll still find a fair number of surprises in store for you, so let's discuss it. Today's story takes us to Hamburg, New York. It's a suburb just outside Buffalo, 10 miles to the south, just a bridge away from Canada, and less than an hour's drive from Niagara Falls.

Now, Hamburg is considered by its residents to be an ideal place to live and to raise a family, a place where violent crime is virtually non-existent. And I know it's cliche and we say it all the time, but a lot of Hamburg's residents don't even lock their doors at night. So it's June 29th, 2013.

Early in the morning before dawn, stockers are working the warehouse at the Toys R Us store on McKinley Parkway at the edge of town. Isaac Mallett-Lloyd and Cindy O'Connell have been working through the night, unloading merchandise to stock the shelves for the upcoming week. Larry Wells, the store manager, arrives at 3.55 a.m. to help unload the truck and get the store ready for opening.

The next employee to arrive is Anthony Armstrong, who gets to the front door at 4:53 AM and radios to Larry, his manager, to be let in. The store hasn't opened yet, keep in mind, so the doors are locked and the manager has to unlock them to let employees inside the store.

Now, Larry, the manager, lets Anthony inside the store. And that means now Isaac, Cindy, Anthony, and Larry are all now inside of the new Toys R Us working. Shortly after Larry lets Anthony in, another store employee named Richard Shepard gets there, showing up

to work a little bit late just after 5 a.m. now Richard radios Larry to let him in just like Anthony had done but unlike Anthony Larry doesn't respond to Richard this leads Richard to walk the perimeter of the Toys R Us to knock on the side door but once he reaches it he finds the side door open which is surprising to him this wasn't something they did they usually kept all of the doors closed but

But anyway, he goes inside, he punches the clock and he starts work as usual. And like most Toys R Us stores, this is a huge building. I mean, Toys R Us for me growing up was like heaven. Oh, huge. You go in there and any toy you want is there. And the ceilings are so high and the aisles are so long. It literally is like heaven for a child. If you're not in the U.S., it's kind of hard to picture. But if you're in the U.S., it's

I assume everyone who's listening already knows what Toys R Us is. If you're outside the U.S., there was this store that I used to go to all the time in Spain. I think it was called Media Mart. It's basically like a Best Buy version in the U.S., but it's like Media Mart if Media Mart only had toys.

Barbies, cars, GI Joe, Nerf guns, anything, bikes, helmets, like anything that a kid can want Toys R Us had. And so this is the type of building that Richard is walking into. So these employees are off doing their own thing, stalking different departments, which is why Richard doesn't find it odd that he hasn't run into any other employees yet once entering the building.

At around 5.40 a.m., Isaac, one of the first employees who arrived that morning, begins hearing this repetitive noise that sounds like an alarm going off somewhere in the store. And it starts to get on his nerves. So he picks up his walkie-talkie and he radios the manager. "'Larry, would you turn off that alarm? It's driving me nuts.'

But Larry doesn't copy. So Isaac radios again and once more gets no response. So he then radios Cindy and asks her to go find manager Larry and get him to turn off the alarm. Sure, she says, I'll go check. And I have to pause here because this situation reminds me so much of that scene in Final Destination where the emo couple is working in that hardware store and they're stocking the shelves after hours and one of them gets nailed to death by that nail gun. I haven't seen this. What? Yeah.

I don't think I've ever really watched an entire Final Destination, but let's keep going. Don't get too sidetracked. Okay. Well, if you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about. Super big building. You can't really, like no one knows where everyone is. And this is the atmosphere I'm getting thinking of all of these employees inside this huge toy store, knowing that others are there, but not being able to see them because they're so far apart. So about a minute after asking Cindy to go grab Larry to turn off the alarm, Isaac hears Cindy scream.

So he runs towards the manager's office following the scream and inside he sees Larry, the manager, on a chair, either dead or unconscious, bleeding from what looks like a bullet wound to his chest. Cindy reaches to pick up the phone receiver but notices that it's already off the hook. It seems as though Larry had already tried to call for help but passed out in the process.

Now, freaking out, Cindy quickly dials 911 as the rest of the employees gather around because of the commotion. She's crying and trembling as she tells 911 to send help right away. She thinks her manager has been shot and she doesn't know if he's dead or alive. The four employees, Isaac, Cindy, Anthony, and Richard, then evacuate into the parking lot in case the shooter or whatever happened is still inside of the store.

Help arrives about five minutes later. The first officer at the scene checks Larry's pulse, and even though Larry is non-responsive, his heart is still beating. Paramedics strap him into an ambulance and rush him to Mercy Hospital, but sadly, it's too late to save him. Larry Wells is pronounced dead from blood loss resulting from three stab wounds.

So as it turns out, he had not been shot as Cindy had originally thought, but he was stabbed. Okay, so they found him in the chair, almost dead. And did they find anyone else around him? No. So Larry Wells was only 35 years old and he left behind a pregnant wife and a little girl. Police knew that the only way to figure out what had happened once they cleared the building was to first get to know the victim. Who is Larry Wells and why had he been stabbed?

Now, Lawrence C. Wells II, he was known as Larry to everyone else who knew him, had met his wife, Jill, when they were both in the ninth grade at Pine Valley Central School, and they were obviously high school sweethearts.

and then they both attended SUNY at Fredonia, where they were college sweethearts. And this set the tone for their relationship. Larry and his wife did everything together, pretty much all of the time. Larry graduated from SUNY with a degree in elementary education and went on to earn a master's from Walden University. He had a passion for working with children. He worked for a few years as a tutor and a substitute teacher teaching elementary school children,

But times were tough, and Larry had a hard time landing a permanent teaching job. The students he taught regularly remembered him fondly, though. He had a kind and nurturing heart. His wife would later recall that, quote,

But Larry also wanted to have children of his own. He wanted to buy a house with his wife and start a family. So he needed to make ends meet and find secure and steady work. In 2006, he began working for Toys R Us and his warm, empathetic personality and upbeat attitude made him likable to everyone he worked with.

And what had begun as a temporary sort of plan B situation for Larry became a second career as he got promoted from employee to manager. By the time his wife gave birth to their daughter Maddie in 2009, he was pretty well positioned. And even though he worked long hours, often going into work at four or five in the morning, even on weekends, he spent every free moment he could with his family. He and little Maddie were regulars at Chuck E. Cheese and Bounce Magic,

which was an indoor playground. Chuck E. Cheese. And they made frequent visits to the neighborhood park together. I've actually never been to Chuck E. Cheese. Oh, I'm going to take you. My parents hated me. I'm just kidding. But needless to say, these were happy years for the Wells family. I mean, Toys R Us, Chuck E. Cheese, Bounce Magic, especially going into 2013. That's when Jill learned that she was pregnant again. And that's when the family made some special memories with a summer vacation to Myrtle Beach.

But now, in the early morning hours of June 29th, 2013, their family was shattered forever by an unknown assailant's knife. Police were processing the scene at Toys R Us as the other store employees began showing up for work. Shocked to learn that their beloved manager, Larry, had died a violent death at their workplace, which was now sealed off with yellow crime scene tape. Before we get too far into it, I feel like there has to be cameras. It's 2013.

We're at a Toys R Us. We're at a retail store. There has to be cameras. Please tell me I'm right. Oh, just you wait, Gary. All right. The initial suspects at this point were obviously the four employees who were at the store when Larry was stabbed. It kind of feels like a big game of Clue. Like all four of these employees are here and none of them knew what happened to him, but he ended up stabbed. Police immediately interview each of them. Cindy, of course, was the first to find Larry. So that kind of made her a prime suspect.

Richard was late to work and couldn't offer up any kind of alibi as to why. Isaac, they noticed, seemed nervous and evasive. And Anthony acted strangely and actually refused to cooperate or answer any questions. The police really wanted to view the surveillance tapes from the cameras inside of the store. So they called Larry's boss. Hopefully he might give them access to the videos. So yes, there are surveillance cameras inside. Okay.

Bernard Grushka was the vice president for loss control for the region. It was he who had hired Larry for his manager position. Now, when Bernard got to the Toys R Us parking lot, he hugged and consoled the other employees and then led police inside the building into the manager's office where the surveillance system was set up. They began viewing the videos from the stores of various surveillance cameras, hoping it would give them the answers that they were looking for.

but little did they know it was about to make things a whole lot more confusing.

Okay, you guys, shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall can be a challenge, but I'm telling you right now, my Quince products that I have, my Quince clothing items are my go-to staples in the fall. They make it so easy. They have timeless, high quality items. I use their silk skirts. I literally wear them in so many ways with boots, with tights, with a sweater, with a crop top.

They have cashmere sweaters from $50, pants for every occasion, washable silk tops, so much more. And the best part is that they are priced so well because they partner directly with top factories. So they cut out the cost of the middleman and then they pass the savings onto you. So you are literally getting cashmere sweaters for $50. I love it.

I just got a cashmere sweater from quince that I am going to be wearing I also have a pair of their linen pants. I'm actually just going to pair them together I will post it on my social media and you will see it So make switching seasons a breeze with quince's high quality closet essentials go to quince.com husband

for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns you guys if you want free shipping make sure to do quince.com husband that's q u i n c e dot com slash husband to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com husband they have the cutest clothes you need to go check it out okay let me guess your medicine cabinet is crammed with stuff that does not work

You still aren't sleeping, you still hurt, and you're stressed out. That's how it was for me, so I cleared out my cabinet and reset my health with CBD from CB Distillery. CBD Distillery's targeted formulations are made from the highest quality clean ingredients, no fluff, no fillers, just pure effective CBD solutions designed to help support your health.

In two non-clinical surveys, 81% of customers experienced more calm, 80% said CBD helped with pain after physical activity, and an impressive 90% actually said they slept better with CBD. I have personally used CBD before to help me sleep. I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping and I couldn't figure out what to do to help. And honestly, CBD did help. And if that's something you're struggling with, yeah.

Give it a try. Check it out. If you struggle with a health concern and haven't found relief, make the change like I did to CBD Distillery. And with over 2 million customers and a solid 100% money back guarantee, CBD Distillery is the source to trust. You guys, we have a 20% discount to get you started. So if you've ever wanted to do CBD, now is the time. Visit CBDistillery.com and use code husband for 20% off. That's CBDistillery.com.

Cbdistillery.com code husband. The video showed that at 4:20 AM that morning, roughly 25 minutes after Larry Wells had arrived at work, a male subject used some kind of instrument to manipulate the lock and gain entry into the store through the babies are us section. The surveillance videos were really grainy and low resolution. So it was difficult to make out a lot of detail.

but the man was apparently wearing a mask, a scarf, and a black and gold baseball cap and sweatpants with some kind of lettering down the side. In his hands was what appeared to be a knife or another sharp instrument. And he appeared to be snaking around

through the aisles of Toys R Us like a ninja trying to dodge the surveillance cameras. Oh my gosh, okay. And then at 4.36 a.m. What an idiot. This individual walked into the manager's office and closed the door behind him. Three minutes later, the videos stopped.

So apparently this man had gone in the office and pulled the plug on the DVR surveillance system and disabled it. So it's obviously someone who works there because who else knows how to do that? Right. It was assumed that sometime after that, Larry Wells then entered the office with the man hiding inside of it. And that's when the man stabbed him with whatever weapon he was seen carrying.

Bernard, the loss prevention VP and boss told the police he had no idea who the subject in the video could possibly be. And now realizing it was most likely none of the other four employees in the store because they saw them first.

shelves and other parts. Investigators on the scene then had those employees look at the video and ask if they recognize the man either. They are assuming as well as you did, this has to be someone who knows this store. Did no one else hear anything? Like how far away is the office from where they were stocking shelves? Like I don't understand how that's not possible. No one heard any commotion, anything happening in the office. It wasn't until Cindy went in and screamed

that they even knew something was wrong. Okay. And it also seems like no one who was working at the store that morning while the intruder was there snaking through the aisles. So he literally got in and out of the store with no one even knowing he had showed up.

The only other significant detail the police could glean from the video was that the man was between 5'9 and 5'11, which was not that hard to figure out based on the height of the shelves that he was walking past. Now, during their search, the police found what appeared to be a key piece of evidence.

The black and gold baseball cap the killer had been wearing was found at the scene. He'd apparently dropped it in the manager's office right next to where Larry was found. It was a 2007 Florida Gators championship hat. But again, none of the employees recognized it or could think of anyone who had worn it.

The Hamburg police released the surveillance video footage and a picture of the hat in case someone in the community might recognize anything. They sent the hat off to the lab for DNA testing and the video they sent to experts at the FBI lab in Quantico. These were technicians who specialized in video enhancement and upscaling, hoping to improve the quality.

Toys R Us, in addition to having really low res surveillance cameras, did not have any cameras outside of the building. So there was no footage of the suspect leaving in a vehicle. That seems so weird. Right? Especially 2013. Yeah. There was actually some public backlash about this, about the low resolution of the video and the lack of exterior cameras in 2013. So when this hit the news, people were like,

What the freak? Like, why don't they have cameras? Yeah, like iPhone cameras at this point are better than those cameras. And some people were actually blaming Toys R Us for their not having been in arrest in the case so far due to the inadequate video surveillance setup and the lack of investment in employee safety. So people are like, hey, if you guys had done, if you had invested more, they would probably have more to go off of right now.

Investigators conducted ground and aerial searches and they viewed hours and hours of surveillance video from the cameras of nearby businesses but they didn't find anything that was valuable to their investigation. Police were at a loss and even the motive was unclear to them. How does someone get stabbed in Toys R Us with four other employees there and no one knows?

They decided the best angle was working from the theory that it may have been a botched burglary. Larry Wells was laid to rest on the 4th of July, where employees like Isaac and Cindy and Bernard Grushka showed up to pay their respects.

Meanwhile, the investigation continued. The store had dozens and dozens of employees and the police wanted to interview each and every one because, you know, just like the spouse or partner is often the first person police want to clear in many murders with circumstances like these, they start with the employees first.

They want to rule out the possibility that it was an inside job. So they started with the employees and then they went to talk to each employee's family, neighbors, anyone in their circles, anyone who might have had the knowledge or motivation to break into the store. And throughout the early days of the investigation, the Hamburg Police Department was posting daily updates on their Facebook.

even posting updates when there was no new leads. I kind of wish all police departments were as motivated and transparent as Hamburg's, just like keep everyone up to date, keep it crystal clear.

In mid-July, they announced on their Facebook page that they were now offering a $26,000 reward for information leading to Larry's killer. As the investigation dragged on without an arrest, Larry's wife, Jill, feared for her own life. And so she temporarily moved out of her home for her and her child's safety. She said, I'd look around if I'm in a store or somewhere and just wonder, could it be that person?

If this person is never caught, I'll always be watching and wondering who it could be. And you have to, I mean, her husband was stabbed to death. What if she's next? Meanwhile, the crime lab was able to develop a DNA profile from the hat that the suspect had left behind. That profile was uploaded to the national and local databases, but they got no hits. It didn't match anyone on file. So police began pursuing DNA samples from employees of the store in order to begin ruling them out.

They eventually realized, though, that there was one outlier whose DNA profile was missing. And that was Bernard Grushka, the regional vice president of loss prevention that had walked them into the store that morning and showed them how to run and get video surveillance. The guy who basically hired Larry. Interesting. Okay. I didn't even think about that.

had been so helpful early in the investigation, maybe even overly helpful, some of the detectives had felt. But now they were having a hard time getting another face-to-face meeting with him to collect his DNA. He was always too busy to lock in a time, always skirting around actually giving it over. Maybe he was having a rough time with what had happened because he had to take a leave of absence from Toys R Us and was also no longer living at his house. So police are kind of like, okay,

Okay, we can get him on the phone, but when it comes to finding him in person, we can't. But the reason for him not living at home actually had nothing to do with work. It had nothing to do with what had happened at Toys R Us. Police would soon learn. His wife, in fact, had taken out a protective order against him just a few weeks before Larry Wells was murdered.

What had happened was late one night, it was around one in the morning on June 2nd of that year, Grushka had a heated argument with his wife, which reached a boil when he pushed her and then ran upstairs to the master bedroom. And from there, his wife heard a gunshot. So she raced upstairs to check on him and found him face down on the floor. And when she rolled him over, he appeared perfectly alive and okay and said to her, I just wanted to see if you still loved me.

Oh my gosh. That's insane. So he'd actually fired the gun out the window and into the grass, which this is so extreme, but also like a level of petty that I'm, I'm like, okay. Oh. And like, you got issues. Like that's not, you can't do that. That's not okay. No. Well, Taylor Swift once said, I didn't have it in myself to go in grace. And apparently neither did Grushka. Like he was like, I'm going to come up here and pretend to kill myself and

To manipulate my wife into following me up here. It's awful. So the next morning, his wife called the police who confiscated the gun and arrested him on charges of criminal possession of a weapon and harassment. She's like, you can't do this to me. Yeah.

And you know, this wasn't even the first domestic incidents at the Grushka home either. This was like the third. This had been a troubled marriage and even Larry Wells knew it. Larry told his wife about how Grushka, his boss, had cheated on his wife frequently and wasn't discreet about it either. He was outright bringing girlfriends to Toys R Us with him. Like,

He would just bring his girlfriends to Toys R Us and go in the manager's office and hang out with them. Yeah, they were just hanging out. They were just talking, you know? And the sad thing is Bernard Grushka's wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008, a year after he'd begun working for Toys R Us. Oh, this...

At this point, it seems obvious. Right. Well, the medical bills pushed Bernard off the cliff financially as he and his wife were already drowning in an ocean of debt when she was diagnosed. From credit card balances, unpaid utility bills, and tax bills from over half a dozen investment properties the couple owned.

and they also had their children to feed and care for. It all got so much that in 2009, Bernard Gruszka had to file for bankruptcy. By this time, the total of debts the couple had accumulated exceeded $1 million, which far outstripped their assets. Bernard was making $90,000 annually at Toys R Us, which is nothing to sneeze at back then or even now. And his wife earned $500 a month through merchandise sales from her online shop.

But this was still far less than they'd been spending. But then after he filed for bankruptcy, Bernard received a big chunk of money from a relative who'd received a lawsuit settlement payout. And with his debts cleared by bankruptcy, Bernard was using that money to buy more things.

Both he and his wife liked the finer things in life. They had a fleet of new cars, a Cadillac Escalade, and they lived in a sprawling home that they had built for themselves with a rock-lined swimming pool, fireplace, expensive chandeliers, and two acres of land. And just the previous Christmas, Bernard and his wife were interviewed by the Buffalo News in a story about Christmas shopping. And at the time, they were carting bags that were bursting with presents that they just bought for their children at the local mall. It doesn't matter how much debt you

going to yeah as long as you're getting stuff it's all that matters right shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you sell at every stage of your business from the launch online shop stage to the first real life store stage all the way to the did we just hit a million orders stage shopify is there to help you grow shopify helps you turn browsers into buyers with the internet's best converting checkout up to 36 better compared to other leading commerce platforms

and sell more with less effort thanks to Shopify Magic, your AI-powered all-star. Peyton and I love Shopify. We have been using it for, I mean, I've been using it for six years now, so many years, and it's amazing. It just keeps getting better and better with more updates. It's easy to use. It's user-friendly. Shopify powers 10% of all e-commerce in the US, and Shopify is the global force behind Allbirds, Rothy's, and Brooklyn, and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across 175 countries.

Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash husband, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash husband now to grow your business no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash husband. Hola. ¿Cómo está? Hola, ¿cómo estamos? Want to learn a new language? Well, the best way is to uproot your entire life, move to Spain, and live there for the rest of your...

I made that up. I went off the ad. Let me go back to the ad read. The best way is to uproot your entire life. Drop your... Oh. You literally followed the ad. I didn't read the rest of that. Drop yourself in the middle of a new country and figure it out from there. I just want to let everyone know that's what I did. But... That's what I did. It worked. If you're not ready for that, you can still learn a new language the next best way, and that is with Babbel. See...

Speak like a whole new you with Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that gets you talking. Wasting hundreds of dollars on private tutors is the old school way of learning a new language. Babbel's 10-minute lessons are quick and handcrafted by over 200 language experts, ready to get you talking your new language in three weeks because talking is the key to really knowing any language.

Designed by real people for having real conversation, Babbel gets you talking. You guys, I actually use Babbel to brush up on Spanish when we travel. I love it. It is so easy. And then I can actually kind of keep up with what's going on. And with over 16 million subscriptions sold, Babbel's 14 award-winning language courses are backed by a 20-day money-back guarantee. So there's no pressure. Buy Babbel and travel.

Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now. Get up to 60% off your Babbel subscription, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash husband. Get up to 60% off at babbel.com slash husband spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash husband. Rules and restrictions may apply.

But although Bernard outwardly appeared to be a caring husband behind closed doors, we know that their marriage was unraveling. And after the incident in early June where he pretended to kill himself, it seemed things were about to get worse. Now, I don't know if he was able to keep news of his arrest that June from reaching Toys R Us, because keep in mind, he was like...

higher up in Toys R Us. He must have known the chain would frown upon its regional vice president of loss control having a protective order against him for domestic violence from his wife as well as gun charges on top of it but he somehow kept it secret.

Police had grown eager at this point after learning this to obtain Bernard Grushka's DNA, but they were having, again, trouble locating him. So they began reaching out to his relatives, and one of them in a nearby town was able to help connect them to Grushka, who was staying with his father at this time. Police showed up at his father's house on August 14, 2013, and told him they really, really needed a DNA sample from him so that they could eliminate him. They were getting all the employees.

simplify their investigation basically so sure he said and they swabbed his mouth and left okay it took a little under two months for the results to come back oh my gosh it seems like such a long time but honestly probably fast we've talked about this before but i know there's such a big backlog i'm not sure the process like are you able to test it in three days

Because, I mean, I assume it doesn't actually take two months. I assume it's just this big backlog that kind of screws everything up. Right. But the DNA that they collected from Grushka matched the profile from the baseball cap left by the killer. Okay. So now they had a prime suspect and it was kind of the unlikeliest of suspects. But still, what's the motive here? Like, what does he, what happened?

I mean, come on. The regional vice president of loss control for Toys R Us kills one of his own employees. Like why? They went to where Grishka was staying. He was now living with a girlfriend to confront him with the DNA evidence. And he continued to maintain his innocence, which is absolutely incredible how these killers always continue to insist they didn't do it. Even when they know that the DNA makes it pretty irrefutable. We've seen this before.

Grushka's first line of defense, which is one we've seen so many times, was to dimly pretend like this was all some nightmare. Burying his head in his hands and telling the police, whatever, great, I didn't do it. This is crazy. I can't explain why my DNA wasn't me. I have no idea. So the cops immediately

immediately place Grushka under arrest, obviously, and charge him with second-degree murder. They then executed search warrants on both the home he was currently staying and the home he had shared with his wife before the protection order, as well as his computers. And they couldn't believe what they found. Bernard Grushka, the loss prevention guy.

had been ripping off Toys R Us for years. I was just going to say he's stealing from Toys R Us, isn't he? Which is so ironic because he's lost prevention. He's literally the guy that says, oh, here's our numbers. He was stockpiling stolen Toys R Us merchandise in his house and then turning around and selling it on eBay, brand new and sealed. How are they in all this debt if one, he's making a salary, two, he's ripping off Toys R Us?

Like, where's all the money going? He had been earning pretty massive amounts of, I mean, what you might call supplemental income doing this. He was uniquely well-suited to rip off the company that employed him, U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul said. And he continued doing it after the murder.

Only he'd moved on to stores in Pennsylvania where Toys R Us locations in that area had been plagued with burglaries in recent months. I guess Grushka began realizing he wasn't getting out of this one. So when a plea deal was offered, he decided to take it. And the family of Larry Wells was totally okay with this.

The plea deal required Grushka to admit all criminal activity and plead guilty to first-degree manslaughter in exchange for a reduced sentence of 25 years. After this, he then admitted the full scope of his theft from Toys R Us. And the amount of loss that this loss prevention specialist was responsible for was over $200,000. He admitted to stealing like nearly a quarter of a million dollars in merchandise and reselling it online. That's staggering. And also like horrible.

hard work. That's a lot to like go take this product and then list it online and then have to send it out. Like it just feels like a hard way to steal money. He also admitted to stealing $19,000 in cash from those stores in Pennsylvania. Grushka claimed that he entered the Hamburg store that morning with a key. So that was the instrument that he was seeing in the grainy surveillance video manipulating the locket was actually just the key.

He admitted that he entered with the intention of stealing money from the safe, which was in the manager's office, and he didn't intend to kill anyone.

larry had just walked in on him doing it so he had to but then why bring a knife like why are you armed with a knife if you were going and just and not intending to kill anyone hundred percent why stalk through the store with a knife in your hand when you know other employees are elsewhere in the building it would be so much easier to be like hey sorry i ran into you than to run into him ninja walking with a knife with a mask and right yeah

And the other irony is that aside from being in charge of loss prevention for the chain that he ripped off, Grushka had earned a degree in college in criminal science. So this also made him aware of criminal investigations and how to behave and avoid suspicion. He'd been so helpful in the early stages of the investigation because he'd wanted to keep tabs on it.

So the judge in this case sentenced Grushka to the maximum penalty, 25 years in prison followed by five years of probation. He also separately pleaded guilty to the gun charge, which was a federal charge, illegal possession of a firearm while facing a domestic violence order of protection. It was learned that he had purchased the gun, a 38 caliber pistol from a mail order dealer based in Florida. And then at some point he had lied to authorities and told him he destroyed the gun when in fact he hadn't. So

So Grushka was sent away for a long time and for Jill Wells, Larry's widow, justice was served. But of course, it still wouldn't bring back the love of her life and the father of her now two children who would grow up without their biological father. Not only that, the kids don't have a dad and she doesn't have a husband, but Grushka as well. I mean, their kids aren't going to have a dad. Not

Not that he shouldn't be in prison, but it just affects more than who he killed, which is absolutely horrible. In her victim impact statement, Jill described Larry as her best friend. Remember, they did everything together. We're high school sweethearts.

We were supposed to grow old together, she said, raise our children together and watch them grow up. But instead, he was taken from us. That's horrible. His daughter, Maddie, missed Larry every day. Jill said that Maddie couldn't have asked for a better father. He was amazing. And Maddie kept telling her mother how badly she wanted to talk to her dad. And so that's what they started doing. Jill would take Maddie to the local park, the one that her father would take her to, and she'd write messages to her father on Post-it notes. This is so sad. This is...

A prime example of a child, a mother who has lost her partner and her best friend trying to help her child cope with the fact that she no longer has her dad. It's just devastating. Also because you were talking about how good of a guy he was and he wanted to work with children. Like it sounds like this guy has never done anything wrong his entire life. And for what? Because he walked in on Grushka stealing money? Yeah, it's ridiculous.

And so as they're at the park writing these letters to her father on post-it notes, they would then stick those cards to helium filled balloons and release them into the sky towards heaven where they believe Larry now is. So they're basically trying to deliver these notes to her father. And a local journalist, Matt Chandler, who covered this story, got to know the Wells family very well through it.

And he felt that he even knew Larry well, later saying that he never covered a murder victim who had been as universally loved as Larry was. And I think that says a lot. This case really touched something in Matt Chandler's heart. And he collaborated with the family and with an illustrator named Vicki Freeh

On a children's book that was later published, a book called Balloons for Heaven, all about the Wells family and how they were dealing with the loss of a loved one. On the one-year anniversary of Larry's death, the book launch was celebrated at an open gathering in the park.

Matt Chandler was joined by Larry's family and friends and by more than 200 parents with their children who all wrote messages on post-it notes for departed loved ones, put them on balloons, and released them all at once, filling the sky with a patchwork of colors. And I include this because...

Because I always find it so inspiring that people who are victims of these type of crimes can turn around and impact other people's lives in such a great way because of it. I think that is such a hard thing to do. And it's so admirable when we see it happen in these stories. And that is the case of the Toys R Us murder. I hate, I guess I hate all these cases, but I hate that

I hate just that people are killed for no reason. Not that when there's a reason it makes it any better, but it just sucks being killed for no reason. He didn't do anything. He did nothing. He was just going to work that day. Someone just came in and killed him, and that just makes me so mad. And just such a great guy. Yeah. All right, you guys, that is our episode, and we will see you next week with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.