226. The Final Performance - The Murder of Sam Herr and Julie Kibuishi
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Thank you so much for joining me today.

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Earn It is a financial technology company, not a bank. Subject to your available earnings, daily max, pay period max, and location. See earnit.com slash TOS for details. Bank products are issued by Evolve Bank and Trust, member FDIC. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Marland. And I'm Garrett Marland. And he's the husband. I'm the husband. Well, another week, another Murder With My Husband. Everything's good in the world again, isn't it? Kind of all I got. What do you got?

I think I'm ready to hear your 10 seconds. There's probably, there's a couple more merch. There's still some merch. So if you haven't gotten your merch, go and check it out. It's really cute. It's really fun. It's different than some of our other merch. And it's, again, limited. It's a limited drop. Yeah, I love it. I think it's really cute. Okay, what are you going to hit us with with your 10 seconds this time? I narrowed my legs again. I think I am maybe like two times a year. I'm like a narrer.

I feel like Nair should sponsor me two times a year to be honest because about two times a year I use about a whole bottle of Nair and I Nair my legs and my thighs a little bit higher than my thighs but that's none of your guys's business and I Nair everything not from head to toe just from legs to toe I guess and it just all comes wiping off it's crazy I actually don't even really get any rashes or irritations it feels weird in the sheets like at bed

Like at night time. At bed. I have purse. I have purse. It feels weird at night time for a couple of days. Like when I'm sleeping, my legs feel like they're sweating for no reason. Yeah. But they're not sweating. Mine feel like that when I shave sometimes. Oh, yeah. So mine feel like that when I nare. And it works though. I'm not going to recommend that you nare because I hear a lot of people have bad reactions and they don't sponsor me. So don't go nare. But it works for me and I love it.

I don't love it. I just have to do it twice a year because I grow a lot of leg hair. I'm kind of like a little grizzly bear. But it's nice because in the winter, I stay nice and warm. And that's what I got for my 10 seconds today. If you're a guy and you haven't tried narrowing your legs or shaving your legs ever, I didn't until about, I think, two, three years ago was like one of my first times. And it's kind of nice to have some smooth legs for a little bit and just change things up.

That's all I got. So, you know, let's hop into today's case. Wait, if you were an animal, you would be a grizzly bear? Or like, what would your animal be? No, I don't think I'd be a grizzly bear. What would you think you would be? My animal? Yeah. Like, I can pick any animal? Or it's an animal I think I am? It's an animal that you think you are. Not one you want to be, one you think you are. What animal represents you? I don't know. Maybe like an elephant. Yeah.

I can see it. I feel like I could be an elephant. Any reason? If I need to throw down, I'll throw down, you know? Yeah. But majority of the time, I'm just kind of walking, chilling, doing my thing, swinging my trunk around. Not in an inappropriate way. Just swinging my trunk around. Just stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. But if I needed to throw down, I'll throw down.

So don't upset me. I'll hit you with my trunk. On that note, again, do you want to talk about what animal you are? Should we do that next week? That's fine. You can talk about what animal you are if you want real quick. We can make this a longer 10 seconds. What animal do you think you are? I think that I'm a black cat, but I wish I was a bat. I could see a black cat. I feel like that's pretty on par. Any reasons why?

I just think I can be sassy. I feel like I can be like, you know how sometimes cats demand attention in an annoying way? I feel like I'm kind of like that in an annoying way. Like, yeah, like I'm like, sometimes I, yeah. But at the same time, I feel like I can just go into my own little world and like survive. You know what I mean? And like hunting mice, mouse, mice, mouse.

I have purse. I have purse. I have hat on head. Okay. I know. I could see that. It's a good one. But I wish I was a bat because I like to fly. Like I wish I could fly. You don't need a fly to be a bat. They fly and they hang upside down and they sleep. Yeah. You don't sleep as much as you used to. True. Yeah. Okay. All right. Good one.

Our sources for this episode are abc.com, people.com, yahoo.com, latimes.com, oxygen.com, abcnews, insideedition.com, dailymail.com, cbsnews, and wikipedia. All right, so we all have that one thing that we're good at, whether that's dancing, golf, hosting a podcast. It really is nice to have something that you pride yourself on, something you can hang your hopes and dreams on. But there will always be that one goal that we just can't quite reach.

Knowing that is what keeps us humble, honest, human. But that's not what the predator in today's story believed. It was a man talented enough to be on the path to Hollywood. An actor who believed he could take on any role. And when it came time for him to prove his innocence, he acted his butt off. Only no one bought his performance. Because as it turns out,

Playing an innocent man is a challenging role to take on when you are actually a monster. So it's May 2010. We're in Costa Mesa, California.

26-year-old Private First Class Sam Herr is back from his tour in Afghanistan. And after doing some additional traveling through Israel, Prague, and Germany, he is ready to slow the pace, put that chapter of his life behind him, at least for now. He's taking classes at Orange Coast College using the $60,000 he banked in combat pay.

Because Sam knows the best way to spend it is by investing in his future. Good for him, man. However, anthropology, one of his studies, isn't his strong suit. And he's having a tough time in the class, which is when he recruits his friend, Julie Kibuishi, to help him out.

Sam's been tight with the 23-year-old Julie for some time now, but their relationship is totally platonic. More of like a brother-sister scenario. Just two friends that are going to college together and that study together and hang out.

They're so close that she's actually even met some of Sam's fellow war buddies. And they all say that she's an absolute angel. She's a dancer. She's an aspiring fashion designer. And she's a bit of a goofball, just like Sam. And they both love

love to have a good time, keep things light and fun, and they both would do anything for the people they care about, including helping the other one out with their classwork when needed. So not only does Julie help Sam with his anthropology studies, she actually gets him an A. So Julie and Sam are in a really good place when she gets a text from him on the night of May 21st,

2010. Payne did some of my homework when we were in the same class together in college. That I did. Did you get an A? I don't remember. I don't think so. I think I got a B.

So Julie is out to dinner that night with her brother. It's a special evening because he's just asked her if she'll be in his wedding. And he's even given her a little tiara as a gift along with it. But when that ding comes through, that celebratory night sours a bit because the message from Sam that Julie gets on her phone is a little bit alarming. It reads, quote, Can you come over tonight alone? Going out for a bit. Very upset. Need to talk.

But it doesn't quite sound like Sam because it's followed up by, quote, Now, naturally, Julie finds this strange because she and Sam are not like that. They have never crossed that line before. So why would he assume that tonight they're going to have sex? I mean, maybe he's just putting it out there. You got to respect him for that. Still, she replies, quote,

yeah that's fine sam i'm here for you like family so julie tells her brother that she has to cut the evening a little short that night and within the hour she is heading over to sam's apartment still wearing the tiara that her brother gave her from dinner yeah

But the next morning, when Julie still hasn't come home from Sam's place, her family starts to worry. So they begin calling all of her friends, but no one has seen or heard from her since last night. And it's completely out of character for Julie, who is constantly checking in with her family. And by the afternoon, it's a major cause for concern, so they decide to call the police. But at the same time, another family is panicking.

And that is Sam Hurst's family. Because all morning, his dad, Steve, has been calling his cell phone, which is going straight to voicemail. And this is unusual for him, too. So Steve says to his wife, and remember, Steve is Sam's dad.

I'm going to drive over to Sam's apartment and just make sure that everything's okay. So he goes there. He gets there. He knocks on his son's door, but there is no answer. So he uses the spare key that Sam gave him and he lets himself inside and everything looks clean. It's in place. He's calling Sam's name out. Still, no one's answering. So then he walks into Sam's bedroom and this is when he sees something. Okay.

It's not Sam, his son, who is missing. It's Julie, his son's friend, who came over the night before. Yep. And she is dead on the edge of Sam's bed. She has been shot in the back of the head. She's still wearing the tiara and her jeans are pulled down around her knees. Oh, my gosh. Plus, it looks like something has been scribbled in marker on the back of her gray sweatshirt.

In sloppy writing, it reads, quote, all yours, F you. But the real word. That is horrible. Very, very demeaning, very derogatory. Dehumanizing. Yes. Now, Steve, heart pounding, searches the rest of the apartment expecting to find Sam because this is Sam's apartment. This isn't even Julie's apartment.

But there is absolutely no sign of his son. So Steve knows what he has to do and he dials 911.

Now, when detectives arrive, they say they've never seen anything quite like this before. Someone graffiti-ing their victim in this way. Remember, we're in Costa Mesa. Wait, I'm remembering. I know what this is. I was waiting. I was waiting for you. It took me a second. I know exactly what this is. So we, for those who don't know, on Thursdays, we haven't done it in a while, but we...

stream on twitch and we watched this interrogation footage interrogation not the whole background and all this that you're telling me but we watched interrogation footage in this case i was waiting to see when you would pick up on it crap okay i know where this is going okay yep so yeah garrett actually has watched the interrogation footage i don't really remember

Okay, I don't remember a lot of it. This is good. Yeah. Okay. I'm actually impressed you caught on that fast. I caught on. Like a minute before that, I was like, you kept saying Sam and I was like, wait. Yeah. I feel like I know a case with the Sam. Yeah.

So they're seeing Julie and they're like, this is awful. The detectives are. And then they find Julie's phone. And that's when they read the text from Sam the night before. They see how Sam got her over to the apartment, telling her, you know, he was having family issues. He needed to talk.

But this comes as a shock to Steve. So the detectives see this and then they go to Steve and they're like, hey, Sam asked her to come over last night. Your son, who's still missing, by the way, because he said he was having family problems and needs to talk. And Steve, his dad, is like,

what he's talking about there are no issues between the family and Sam currently so the police at this point feel like maybe they have an idea of what's happened here they believe that Sam has killed Julie and that he is now on the run because his car is missing his phone and wallet are gone his passport is missing and when police look into Sam's past they actually find another reason to believe he is the one who committed this crime

Because it turns out Sam has been arrested and charged with murder before going into the army. So this was back when he was just 18 years old. During this chapter of his life, Sam had gotten mixed up with some local gangs. And when one of their members was killed, Sam and 23 others were accused of luring the guy out to a parking lot and murdering him in retaliation. That's not okay. Here's the thing.

While some of those men were convicted of the crime and sent to prison, Sam was actually found not guilty. And after he was acquitted of those charges, he said that he needed to turn his life around. That's when he enlisted in the army. He went to Afghanistan and then he never looked back.

So changed man or not, with this kind of record, police are like, okay, it's just weird. They know one thing. They need to find Sam, her, which is easier said than done because Sam's phone is off and there's no sign of him or his missing vehicle for days after this. Until.

There's a transaction on his debit card. It's a withdrawal from an ATM in Long Beach, California. And then there's another charge a few minutes later, a purchase at a pizza place not too far away. So the police move fast. They pull the surveillance footage from the ATM during the time of that transaction. But the guy withdrawing from Sam's account is not Sam Herr who is missing. It's a teenager.

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So they take some screenshots, they head over to the pizza place and they show one of the employees the photo. And he's like, yeah, I know that kid. He comes in here all the time. He even offers up the kid's address and name. It's 17 year old Wesley Freilich.

So that same day, police rush over to the Freilich home where teenager Wesley is still eating the pizza that he bought with Sam's card earlier that day. And they sit him down for questioning. Now, Wesley says he knows he was using a guy named Sam, her credit card, but he has no idea who the guy is. He says the card was actually given to him by his theater mentor.

a 26-year-old actor named Daniel Wozniak. Oh, my gosh. I'm starting to remember all this, man. This is crazy. This case, this is nuts. Right. This is nuts. So police are like,

what the heck we find Julie because Steve is looking for missing Sam who is still missing by the way and then we track Sam's credit card and it shows up tracking to this teenager named Wesley who was like yeah I know it's Sam's card but I don't actually know Sam I was just given this card by my mentor Daniel.

Daniel Wozniak is the one who gave me this card. So now police are like, okay, now we have to go find Daniel because we're chasing our tails around trying to figure out still where Sam is, who they believe is the top suspect who killed Julie in his apartment. Yeah.

So Daniel was a community theater actor who was always landing the starring role in the local production. In May of 2010, he was performing as the lead in the musical Nine alongside his 23-year-old fiance, Rachel Buffett. Listen, we'll probably put a snippet in here, but if you heard Daniel's voice, you wouldn't like it. I came here because I know you better than any other person.

It's just and maybe it's because I know what it's gonna happen.

It is not. It is so cringy. It is quite the voice. It is quite. All right, let's just keep going. We're going to get into this. So Daniel and Rachel were basically like the prom king and queen around the local theater. Rachel, who formerly worked as a princess at Disneyland, first met Daniel through the theater company. And in late 2008, he proposed to her.

Other players at the theater described Daniel as boisterous, but fun. Someone who was friends with everyone. And ironically, that included Sam Hurst. So the connection is actually real. See, Sam and Daniel were actually neighbors back in that Costa Mesa apartment complex where Julie was found in Sam's bedroom. Mm-hmm.

In fact, Steve Herr had spoken to Daniel the night of Sam's disappearance when he was calling all the friends. So Steve's the dad, he actually called Daniel to say, "Hey, have you seen Sam?"

And the conversation definitely stuck out to Steve. He said that Daniel did seem nervous on the phone and he repeated a weird detail from the case that Sam had told him he was having family problems. So remember when Steve shows up to the apartment and police are like, hey, he texted her saying yes. Yeah. There's no family problems. Steve's like, I've heard this before because Daniel said the same freaking thing to me on the phone.

the night before when I was looking for Sam. So Steve still knows it's untrue, but it's a lie that has come up twice now in the case, which is why police begin wondering, why was Sam even saying that? And more importantly, why did Daniel Wozniak have Sam's

Sam, his neighbor and friends, who's missing, debit card. Yeah, who the F is Daniel at this point? And why did he give it to 17-year-old Wesley? Well, according to Wesley, Daniel had come to him with a favor. He told Wesley he was working for a bail bonds agency and he needed him to take out money for the card's owner to pay for his bail.

So Daniel goes to 17 year old and says, Hey, Sam, the owner of this card is in jail. I need you to go withdraw money so I can pay the bail.

wesley said it seemed strange but he trusted his mentor daniel even showed him paperwork that looked legitimate and so he did as he was told daniel even gave him a little kickback as promised so now the police realize they need to get to daniel wozniak and they think that maybe he's covering for sam her doing him some sort of favor to help him get out of town right or maybe he he's

He's even being blackmailed into this in some way. So five days after Julie's murder, they track down Daniel Wozniak. And when they find him, he's actually out celebrating his bachelor party because he's getting married in two days to Rachel, his fiancee. Yes, I remember this. On May 28th. Okay.

So the timing of all this could not be worse for Daniel, who's juggling the final touches of the biggest day of his life while also starring as the lead in this local production alongside his future bride. And now he has been pulled literally from his bachelor party and pulled into station to talk to police about Sam, who's missing, and then also Julie, who's dead in the apartment.

So he thinks that the last thing he needs right now is to be the key witness in a murder investigation. But here he is. And because of how much is on his plate, he is seemingly willing to cooperate with police. Daniel tells them, look, I will help you out in any way as long as you make sure that I make it to my wedding this weekend. Like I cannot push my wedding. Rachel will kill me. I will help you out. I will talk to you, but you need to have me out of here in time for my wedding.

And so when they start questioning Daniel, he offers up the following. He says,

But when Sam got back into Daniel's car after the drop-off, Daniel could tell that something was wrong. He was panicked. And when he asked him what was wrong, Sam admitted, okay, I have done something terrible. This is when Sam tells Daniel, his neighbor and friend, that there is a dead body in his apartment and that he killed his friend, Julie, in a drug-induced haze. Yeah.

But when Daniel hesitated, he said Sam threatened him, told him he knew where he lived, and if he didn't help him, he would kill Daniel too and his bride-to-be, Rachel. Now, eventually, Daniel said he gave in out of intimidation and fear, which is how he even ended up with Sam's credit cards in the first place. And later that evening, after returning to the apartments, Daniel said he watched Sam get into a car with a man in a black hat. And after that, he hadn't seen or heard from Sam again.

Daniel keeps insisting to the police that he has no idea where Sam has gone. This was his role in this story and that was it. So Daniel has just implicated himself and police definitely have enough to arrest him for being an accessory to murder after the fact, right? Like he helped a murderer get away. But while Daniel's putting on a pretty good performance, their gut instincts tell them otherwise.

They believe Daniel knows more than he's letting on. Still, four hours into the interrogation, Daniel sticks to what he's been saying. He's insisting. No, he has no idea where Sam is. So the police figure, okay, two can play this game. So they turn up the heat by telling Daniel they're gonna need him to do a cheek swab. They need a DNA sample to rule out his involvement in the crime.

And this threat actually works because that's when Daniel changes some parts of his story. Because at this point, he's like, no, no, no, I didn't have anything to do with the body, right? Like, I was only helping with the cover-up. So police are like, we're going to take your DNA to run it against any DNA that could possibly be found in or around the body. Okay, yep. And so he panics and he blurts out in the interrogation. Okay, fine. He came down and said, help me. I went upstairs and yes, I saw the...

is that what you want to hear no we want to hear the truth that is the truth okay i saw the goddamn body okay is that what you want to hear and when they asked him what he saw when he laid eyes on june oh my gosh daniel says he saw two gunshot wounds to the back of her head

which is going to be a colossal mistake in this interrogation on Daniel's part. Worst actor ever. Because when detectives first surveyed the scene, they only believed there was one gunshot wound to the head because Daniel,

The second just wasn't visible because of how large the first wound was, right? Like you wouldn't have been able to tell there was one versus two. You would have just seen a shot in the head. Unless you did it. So the fact that he points out two means he knows more than he's letting on. It was only during Julie's autopsy that they even discovered there had been two gunshot wounds.

So Daniel couldn't have just seen the wound. So police believe, okay, he might have not done it, but he had to have been there to hear two gunshots go off to know there was two wounds. And it's probably likely that he at least witnessed the murder.

But before they can get more out of him, they try another angle. They decide to bring in Daniel's fiance, Rachel, to see if she offers them something that could implicate her soon-to-be husband. So they bring her into a different room and they begin talking to Rachel.

And by this point, it is now Thursday, May 27th. Rachel's literally supposed to walk down the aisle and marry Daniel Wozniak the next day. So when police sit her down and tell her that her fiance has been arrested as an accessory to murder. She freaks the F out. You would think so, right? Not only might her wedding not happen, but the man that she's supposed to marry is in jail. Like he's in jail and he's probably going to be there when guests are arriving at their wedding.

But no, Rachel seems calm. She's composed. She's oddly unfazed by the entire situation. Makes no sense. She insists. She has no idea about the crimes until they became public, and she has no involvement whatsoever. She does, however, repeat one similar detail to Daniel's. On the night of Julie's death, she also saw Sam drive off with a man in a black hat.

And it's something that police will remember later on. So while Rachel maintains her innocence, Daniel spends the rest of the day in jail awaiting bail. And that afternoon, he makes a call to Rachel. Oh, gosh. We got to play this call, right? Yes.

Because they're not talking about postponing their nuptials or alerting guests and caterers. You need to listen to this call because it is one of the craziest things. Is it the call I think it is? Yes. This is one of the craziest calls. When I was listening and she and he said what they said, I lost it. I lost my mind. Right. Completely lost my mind.

So I'm going to play one part of it, but I'll give a little backstory so you don't have to listen to the whole call. The whole entire call, they're not worried about their wedding. Rachel's not saying like, did you know that's why the heck it's possible?

are you doing they are talking about a backpack and during that conversation Rachel claims to have spoken to Daniel's brother Tim earlier that day Tim says he has evidence with them or he knew where it was or something and he mentioned that Daniel had given him a backpack full of evidence that he'd asked him to get rid of so Rachel's confronting Daniel saying hey I spoke to your brother he said you gave him a backpack of things to dispose of when Rachel asks if this is true Daniel tells her yes and

And if his brother never got rid of this backpack, he tells Rachel that he's doomed. So at this point, Rachel starts panicking on that call. And she reminds Daniel that they're being recorded because he's calling from jail. And she says she's going to have to tell detectives the truth.

But before hanging up, Daniel says to her, and this is the part we'll play. So after he says this to Rachel, which is basically like confessing that there's something going on, minutes later, he's telling the jailer that he needs to speak with detectives immediately.

14 hours after he was first brought in for questioning, Daniel Wozniak is now ready to tell police the entire story. And while they think Daniel's finally about to give them Sam Hur's location, he delivers them something completely different. Because police are thinking Daniel and Sam were either in on this together or Daniel knows more than he thinks and Sam is on the run, right? But Daniel comes in and says... I'm crazy and I did it. You did what? I did it.

I killed Julie and I killed Sam. And he says he killed him just hours before he then killed Julie. So police are like, wait, you killed them both? Dude, could you imagine sitting there as a detective and you're just like, what? We were totally off. They thought Sam killed Julie. What the...

F word, everybody. I want to say it, but this is a family-friendly podcast. So what the F word? So here's what Daniel says what happened. On the evening of May 21st, Daniel texted his friend and neighbor Sam to say he needed some help moving supplies down at the Los Alamitos Theater where he was performing that night. Sam, always willing to go in above and beyond for his friends, was happy to help. So Daniel texted him the address and the time and Sam showed up as promised.

and when he got there daniel brought him up to the attic of the theater and asked him to help with a heavy box and when sam turned his back daniel fired a gun in to his friend sam insane insane but sam the war veteran is still alive and completely unaware of what had just happened so he began asking daniel for help saying

He felt like something had hit him. Like an electric shock had just gone through his back. Because he doesn't realize that his friend had just shot him in the back. That's how out of the blue and for no reason this was. And just as Sam was trying to piece together what happened, Daniel fired the gun at him again. And this time it was fatal.

Daniel, horrible, horrible man, then left Sam's body in the attic, went downstairs. And just a few hours later, he performed in that evening's musical production of nine. After just killing his friend in the attic, he goes down and performs an entire night.

Production. He doesn't even miss a beat. Scum of the earth, man. Like literal scum of the earth. In fact, and we'll put up some footage of him acting. He's like screaming on stage and acting like he's full blown performing. Should I settle for less? I came here because I know you better than any other person.

The last days of a director's once glorious career. Here's a place where I have never been. In fact, other actors recalled his performance that night saying he was better than usual, that he gave them goosebumps. He brought the crowd to their feet.

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But as soon as the curtains went down, Daniel Wozniak was ready for his next act. And he's a complete monster because there's absolutely no reason to do this. Using Sam Hurst's phone, he goes back up to his dead friend, grabs the phone. Daniel texted someone he knew was very close to Sam. And that was Julie. That was Sam's friend. He told her he was having family problems and he needed her to come over to his apartment. He's pretending to be Sam. But why? Why?

Because Daniel had thought this entire thing out. He needed to make it look like Sam had raped and killed Julie and then went on the run in order to cover up his own crime. So he thinks, I'm just going to kill someone else to try to make this first crime make sense. I don't understand how a human being can do these things and just not think twice or just, I can't. It's just, he's just doing, he's just acting. He's just committing these crimes.

insane horrible acts so it was around 10 30 p.m that night when julie showed up to sam's apartment expecting to console her friend who's having family problems but when she got there it wasn't sam who opened the door it was sam's neighbor a friend that she had met a few times before daniel wozniak now daniel invites her in and says there's something he needs to show her in sam's room so she follows him in and he tells her to lean over the bed that there's something on the other side and

As she does that, Daniel shoots her too. Not once, but twice, like he told detectives. He then staged the scene to make it look like some crime of passion committed by Sam. He even wrote that message on the back of her sweatshirt and left her body there to be discovered at a later point in time. Then at the end of the night, Daniel Wozniak walked back over to his apartment and slept beside his fiance, Rachel Buffett.

Oh, God.

To Daniel, it felt like he was playing a part. And this is a part of this interrogation that has gone pretty viral. And I'm going to play it here about, please ask him, what did you feel like while you, like, what were you doing while you were dismembering the body? And this is what he says. What was going on in your mind when you were dismembering the body, dismembering Sam's body? I was actually smiling and laughing at him.

He told the police, quote, I was actually smiling and laughing. It reached a point to where I couldn't even believe I was doing this. But over the next day or so, Daniel's diabolical scheme was coming to a wrap. He spread Sam's remains around town, hoping they'd never be found. Dude, I just, I don't know. I don't have words, man.

So the police are completely baffled by Daniel's confession. This is like up until this point, they truly believed that Sam Herr was the one to blame for Julie's murder and that Daniel was just simply an accomplice who helped this guy escape. But as they look closer at the evidence, it all starts to add up.

That backpack he mentioned on the call with Rachel is found outside his parents' house and inside it contains Sam's bloody clothes, his phone, his wallet, his checkbook. There's also shell casings from the shots fired during Julie's murder. Casings that belong to a gun that Daniel's father says was stolen from his collection. Right. I forgot about that. And even more incriminating are the Google searches they found on Daniel's computer that were made prior to the murders. And I think that's a good thing.

And I never understand why people do this, but it seems like he searched terms like how to hide a body, quick ways to kill people. Everyone always does it. It's almost as if this guy wanted to get caught. So not only now do they have a confession, they have a whole lot of evidence. The only piece of the puzzle that's missing is why did Daniel kill Sam? Like why in the first place? And I'm pretty sure I remember the reason. And it was, I guess I'll just say it if it's right. It was just for...

They needed some money, right? Yep. And it ended up being only for like a couple hundred dollars. Well, remember earlier how I mentioned that Sam Hur had about $60,000 in combat pay. Yes, that's right. This was money he was using to fund his new chapter in his life. He was going to go back to school. He was going to get a fresh start.

Well, Daniel Wozniak knew about that 60K that Sam had. Sam had told him all about it. And Daniel believed that he needed that cash more than Sam. But then when they went and took the take the card, it only let them withdraw a certain amount. And it only ended up being like 500 bucks, right? Yes.

So Daniel believed he needed the cash more than his friend Sam because he was an unemployed aspiring actor whose only gig was in the local theater. He had almost no money to his name and he was actually on the verge of being evicted from the apartment and he had a

a wedding to pay for that was only a week away. Not to mention he wanted to take his bride on the honeymoon of their dreams at the Sandals Resort down in Mexico. Apparently this was based on his Google searches. - All right, man. - So how does a starving artist afford to keep his blushing bride? By killing his friend, stealing his credit cards and checkbooks, pretending his friend committed a murder and left Dodge, and then cashing out all of his accounts. - Killing somebody else as well. - To Daniel, it seemed like a foolproof plan.

one that he might have gotten away with had he stuck to the script that he'd written for himself.

But on that call with Rachel, Daniel had broke character and he let that mask down for a minute. And it turns out Daniel just wasn't as talented as an actor as everyone thought he was. So he later told police that he'd left Sam's torso in the theater attic, which was retrieved on the day of Daniel's would-be wedding. So on the day he's supposed to be walking down the aisle, they are pulling Sam's torso out of the theater. The following afternoon, May 29th, would have been Sam Hurst's 27th birthday.

birthday. And that day, Daniel led detectives to El Dorado Nature Center in Long Beach where he revealed the burial location of Sam's head.

and other remains. Daniel was then charged with two counts of first-degree murder, and despite that confession he made to the police, he was going to enter a not guilty plea to both. Afterwards, Sam Herr was given a hero's burial with full military honors. Good for him. But what the Herrs really wanted was justice for their son, and unfortunately, it would take the system almost five years to try Daniel Wozniak.

who in the meantime milked his infamy for all it was worth, including making an appearance on the documentary series Lockup, where Daniel joked to the cameras about being an Aries who enjoyed long walks on the beach.

But police didn't forget about Daniel's brother, Tim, who helped him hide that backpack of evidence. Remember, they got rid of the backpack. So after he was arrested, Tim pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to three years of informal probation. And in exchange for such a light sentence, Tim would have to testify against his brother during trial. Okay, that makes more sense. Now, this is weird.

where this story takes a turn. And Garrett, I don't remember if you remember this, but there is a phone call. Yes. That happens basically once Daniel has admitted to what he's done. He calls Rachel. This call has got to be the craziest call I've ever heard because of what Rachel says. So you guys need to listen to this. And it's going to lead to years. Because Daniel says something and you go, what in the?

Freaking world. And then she says something and you go...

Now I'm even more confused. They are both absolutely insane. Why did you do this to me? I thought it was the only way I could take care of you because I was a failure. I'm sorry I couldn't be the man that you needed. So, baby, why did you leave your family then? If I left them, it's because I almost reached a point where I almost killed them. Did you almost reach a point where you killed me? No, never. You're never going to see me again. I'm never going to be with you again, Leslie.

Okay, so that's not the response you are expecting to hear from Rachel, right? Like that is just not it. And there is more to Rachel. So once police hear this,

and they start learning about Rachel, we are going to go down a long road of Rachel Buffett. So police were feeling confident that she'd lied to them repeatedly during interrogations. For example, Rachel failed to mention to police that a man named Chris Williams was at their apartment the night Julie was killed. He came to collect a loan that he'd given the couple. Now, when Daniel returned to the apartment that night, he gave Chris $400 in cash, but Chris said the couple was acting extremely anxious.

indicating that Rachel might have also known more than she let on. And while Rachel insisted she had no idea her fiance was involved in the murders until after his arrest, there were witnesses who said otherwise, like a detective named Michael Cohen, an ex of Rachel's who also happened to be interviewing Daniel right before his arrest.

And according to Michael, there was a night when Rachel went out drinking with him and had a little bit too much. And during that drunken evening, she supposedly confused Michael with Daniel and blurted out to him, I told you to burn the body.

So then Detective Michael is like, wait, this is weird. And now he's interviewing Daniel. So it's a whole thing. Police also suspected that Rachel and Daniel had previously come up with the story about Sam leaving with a man in a black hat since that was proven to be a lie once Daniel confessed. But Rachel had also told the same lie. So why would she be in on the lie if she had no idea what was going on?

Now her attorney comes forward and is like no Daniel was a master manipulator he borrowed money from people without her knowledge she knew nothing he lied to her about everything regardless in 2012 police had enough to arrest and charge Rachel for her involvement in the crime and she was slapped with three felony counts of accessory after the fact.

Then finally in 2016, six years after the death of Sam, her and Julie, Daniel Wozniak's trial began. And as 23 witnesses took the stand during his four day hearing, Daniel sat there smirking as he watched the fate of his future unfold before him. It was as if it were just some climatic scene in his own biopic. Like he wasn't even taking it seriously.

What Daniel didn't realize was he was the antagonist in this story, the villain who would get the unhappy ending he deserved. And when the jurors returned after only a two-hour deliberation, they announced that Daniel Wozniak was guilty on all charges. In September of that year, Daniel returned to the courtroom to hear statements from Sam and Julie's family as well as his final sentence. It was decided that Daniel Wozniak's crimes deserved capital punishment.

Yes, sir. No, sir. Blah, blah, blah. So instead...

Daniel's sentence was changed to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Two years after Daniel's sentencing, Rachel Buffett went to court in September of 2018. She pled not guilty, but after a week-long trial, the jurors decided otherwise. And they found Rachel guilty of being an accessory to murder,

after the fact and she was sentenced to 32 months minus time served and good behavior so she was actually released a year later in 2019. that's crazy man rachel told the press that she regrets it all that she wished she had never even met daniel wozniak a man she claimed manipulated her with his talent

lied to her, deceived her, and used his skills for evil. But no matter how good of an actor Daniel Wozniak might have been, he wasn't talented enough to act his way out of a life in prison charge, and that is the story of Sam and Julie. The whole thing's crazy. I think more than anything, just to kind of where to end it is, it's so sad for Sam and his dad, right?

And Julie, I mean, they didn't deserve it. And of course, no one deserves it. And it was just so pointless. And it's just horrible. The whole thing. The whole thing. It's just crazy. It's it's diabolical. I mean, let me just say this. Daniel Wozniak is where he belongs. All right, you guys, that is our case for this week. And we will see you next time with another one. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.