248\. The Dark Web Killer - The Murder of Amy Allwine
44:11 Share

Got great ideas, but no idea how to build a website? Get Bluehost. Their AI design tool creates high-quality WordPress sites super fast. Whether you're a blogger, influencer, or launching a side hustle, Bluehost helps boost your growth with built-in marketing and e-commerce tools.

Upgrade to cloud to get 100% uptime and 24-7 security to stay online all the time. Why wait? You've got the vision. Make it real. Visit Bluehost.com to get started. All right, you guys, the holidays are my favorite time of the year, but figuring out gifts for everyone honestly can feel like a full-time job. But then I saw that Skims did their holiday shop drop, and now I'm 100% in love.

the gifting zone. It's literally the go-to spot for all of my gift shopping. Plus I've definitely got my eye on a few things for myself. This year, everyone I'm gifting is getting skims. I can't wait for them to try it. Honestly, the fits everybody scoop bralette, which I'm wearing right now and fits everybody cheeky briefs are my absolute favorite. Show them.

They also have these cute little holiday sets with festive prints. You guys, they are so cute. Just fun to put on. You feel like you are in the holiday spirit. The fabric is so, so soft. Garrett has actually seen me in the holiday sets. What do you think?

I don't know, man. I love the holidays. And they come like gift wrapped. So it's kind of all taken care for you. So shop Skims Holiday Shop at Skims.com. Available in styles for women, men, kids, and even pets.

If you haven't yet, be sure to let them know we sent you. So after you place your order, select podcast in the survey and select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. Again, go to Skims, shop for their holiday and let them know we sent you. It's a great way to support the podcast. I 100% back Skims. I love them. Go check it out. You're listening to an Ono Media podcast.

Hey everybody and 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. That was a little weird. Why? Oh no, I just said it differently than I normally do. Well, Garrett and I prepared a little special something for you guys for the holidays. So here we go. Three, two, one. What are you doing?

I was not informed about this. Nobody told me about this. Did I miss the memo? No, I just thought about doing that right before we pressed record. It was good though. I thought you were going to send them to do the Mean Girls dance for them. Oh, I was going to and then I got tired.

What's your favorite Christmas song? Probably Jingle Bell Rock, to be honest. I know it's so... Really? I know it's so cliche. Yeah, I like that. I like, here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus, right down Santa Claus Lane. Yeah. I like that one. I don't know. Frosty the Snowman. I like that one too.

You got weird ones. Those are very normal. What are you talking about? I like it. What is yours? Or what are yours? See, that makes me depressed. I don't even know if that's my favorite. I just really want to sing that. What's my favorite? What's my favorite? What's my favorite? What's my favorite? Little drummer boy. A litter litter. Little drummer. That one's good, too. That's a good one. That one hits you right in your feels. Happy holidays. If you're celebrating holidays. If you're not.

Happy murder day. Happy murder day. Happy murder with my husband. If you're watching on YouTube, I'm sorry the lighting is off. We usually have blackout curtains right there. They are not there right now, so our set looks different. Doesn't look great, but we're getting it fixed as quick as we can. Thank you for being here. And Peyton and I are probably just at home next to the fireplace hanging out while you're listening to this.

And we love you all. Okay. You have 10 seconds for this amazing, beautiful episode. Honestly, I don't have anything crazy. I think for the most part, I hope everyone's having a good holiday. I hope that you feel loved today. And if you don't, Peyton and I love you. You are loved. You are loved. Hopefully that is good enough. Daisy has not been a great dog today. So that's been kind of making me a little angry, but that's okay.

We all have bad days. That's what I got for my 10 seconds. I don't really have anything crazy. Oh, I do have something crazy. Peyton won't know it yet, but in two days, I'm giving her a gift. Two days? Why two days? No, two days from when this comes out. I will be giving her a gift.

I think she's going to be really excited about it. I think you guys are all going to love it as well. What? I'm so confused about what it is. Peyton has no idea. I can't say it. There is more I can say, but I can't say anything more than that. How is it? Because I don't want to give it away. It's nothing bad, right? It's nothing bad. It's something amazing. Something amazing, I guess. There is somebody else that knows. In my family? You will never, ever in a million years guess. You're scaring me.

It's not going to be bad. It's going to be great. Is it a dog? I'm excited for you guys to see it. It's not a dog. And on that note, let's hop into today's episode. Okay. Leave us all hanging. I will. I have to.

All right. Our sources for this episode are newser.com, startribune.com, cointelegraph.com, thetimes.com, metro.co.uk, twincities.com, fox9.com, caselaw.finelaw.com, cbsnews.com, republicaneagle.com, thesun.com, securitynewspaper.com, and oxygen.com. So you can find absolutely anything on the internet nowadays, from old video games dating back to your childhood, to that obscure song you heard once and never thought you'd find again, to a

to, of course, more nefarious things like weapons, drugs. Honestly, on the internet, you can even find murder for hire.

But the wild and scary thing about the internet, especially thanks to the help of unregulated currencies like Bitcoin, is that it can all remain pretty anonymous. Now, you never know who's soliciting these services. It's hard to find out who is buying them. And most of the time, people have no idea that they are the target.

So if you piss off the wrong person, all it takes is a few clicks of the mouse and a quick Bitcoin transaction to land a bullseye on your back. Which I don't know. So we're going to be on the case today. Can I say I do have a decent knowledge of cryptocurrency? I will say that is true.

but kind of like not true at the same time um i'm just gonna sum it up really easily everyone has um a wallet basically right and that wallet has an address so if you do figure out who owns that address you can then basically track it

You can track things from there. What if it's just like a fake address? If it's sent to another, there can't be a fake address. It's got to be a real address, right? So it can go to another address and then you track it from where the address originally came from, where that's going from there, then when it's going from there, and then when it's going from there. I've worked with cryptocurrency quite a bit. Granted, I'm still learning. There's a lot of things I might have wrong. So if someone wants to correct me, go ahead. But it is interesting that

It is true. It's like, if you know what he knows, whose address that is, then yes, I mean, it can stay hidden, but that address can be tracked. Like as far as you have to put in some information, they'll, they'll just figure out, they know someone sent it. Right. Cause that address is still linked to whoever sent that. So if they figure out whose address that is, I mean, game over. Interesting. Anyways, just thought I'd let everybody know that. I guess I just like, okay, this is very off topic and I'll say it really fast. I just don't even understand why,

the concept of, of there's a lot, there's a lot to it. Cryptocurrency. Yeah. There's, it just doesn't even make sense to me. There's a, there's a ton to it, but I guess we do the same thing with money. Kind of. We just print more money. It's not what kind of what they're doing with Bitcoin. They just dig more Bitcoin. Welcome to the United States of America. But it's just confusing because like, yeah,

Yeah, it's confusing. We just created another currency. We'll do an episode another time all about cryptocurrency. No, if you want to find out about cryptocurrency, go ahead and watch our Twitch live streams on Thursdays at 530 PT. Garrett will be talking...

All about that plus more. But yes, yes, I will. Come watch me. So anyways, all that to say, you could possibly hire someone to kill someone in your life and then pay them Bitcoin and might not be able to track it. 100%. And that is seemingly what happened to the victim in today's case. 43-year-old mother, Amy Allwine.

At least this is what everyone thought happened at first glance, but we're going to obviously get into it. So the year is 2016. We are about a 30 minute drive southeast of Minneapolis, Minnesota. It's a suburban area known as Cottage Grove, which is like the cutest name for a little city, you know.

It's where 43-year-old Steven and Amy Allwine have called home for some time now. The couple actually married 20 years prior, back in 1996. They were college sweethearts who met and fell in love at a Christian university. And to most people, as life went on, they seemed to live a pretty typical middle American lifestyle.

Quiet, content, happy. Steven was a freelance IT expert. Amy owned her own dog training business. So there were always tons of furry friends in this couple's orbit. Both were deeply involved in their local church, the United Church of God.

So much so that Stephen actually became a church elder, someone who gave sermons and offered guidance to other members of the congregation, like counseling couples in their marriage in times of need. So the Allwines were seen as good people. They'd even adopted a little boy back around 2006 that they named Joseph, who now in 2016 is nine years old.

And Joseph was everything to mom Amy. Those who knew Amy said she lit up like a Christmas tree anytime there was a mention of her adopted son Joseph. She would go to the ends of the earth for Joseph and the family that she had built. But in November of 2016, the Allwines faced the absolute unthinkable. November 13th, 2016.

That morning, Stephen was working from home in his basement office like he often did. And around noon, he went upstairs for his lunch break and he ate lunch with Joseph and Amy. But that's when Amy told Stephen that she wasn't feeling well. So she was going to head upstairs to lay down, maybe just take a nap, rest for a bit. And Stephen said, OK, I will wrap up my workday so I can watch Joseph.

Now, around 1 p.m., Amy's dad comes over to help them finish some project that they were working on in their home. But around 2 p.m., Amy says to her dad, hey, can you take Joseph over to your house for a bit so Steven can take me to the doctor? So her dad says, of course. And Amy says, we'll be by to pick Joseph up no later than 530 p.m. for dinner.

Now, when 530 rolls around, Stephen is the one who swings by Amy's dad's house. So he's alone to get their son, Joseph. And when her dad is like, hey, how did the doctor go? Like, what did they say? Stephen is like, oh, Amy changed her mind about going and she just stayed in bed. So after a little bit longer conversation, Stephen and Joseph get back in the car and go home at around 6.50 p.m.

And they go inside their house. And when they get to the master bedroom to check on Amy, they find her on the floor. She's in a pool of her own blood and she has a gun beside her. She has been shot on the right side of her head. So Steven, the husband calls 911 and he tells the dispatcher, Hey,

I'm pretty sure that my wife has died by suicide. Now, this call is pretty disturbing and also memorable to the operator for a few reasons. One, because Joseph is heard in the background asking his father why his mother would do that to herself. Oh my gosh, it's horrible. So obviously we're not going to play it.

But he's only nine years old. And then Joseph, the son, asks Stephen another odd question on the 911 call. Also, I don't know. I guess I'm not going to speak to it. I was just going to say, it's every parent's different. You can parent however you want. But wouldn't you take your kid out of the bedroom and be like, hey, let's not...

Like, this is not something for, I mean, I think it's pretty obvious. That's not something for a nine-year-old to see. In the heat of the moment, you're not thinking clearly, obviously. I wonder if it was more important to get on the phone with 911 to possibly save her than to take measures to get the kid out of the room. It's just, you just don't want a nine-year-old to see that. That's horrible. Well, the other odd thing that you can hear in the back of the 911 call is Joseph asks his dad, Stephen,

Are you going to remarry? Now, kids say weird things. As a nine-year-old. Especially in moments of distress. But it's actually Stephen's reaction to the question that sticks with the operator. Like, as she's on the phone, she's like, what the? Because Stephen, the dad, who is calling to report that his wife has died by suicide and him and his nine-year-old son just stumbled upon it, laughs at his nine-year-old son's question and just says, I don't know, buddy.

So meanwhile, Sergeant Gwen Martin hears the dispatch call come over her radio. And when she hears the address and that a female has died by suicide, she has this sinking feeling in her stomach because she knows that address. She knows who lives there. In fact, Sergeant Gwen knows Amy pretty well.

She taught her in an eight-week course recently, one that teaches civilians about emergency services and law enforcement. This was a topic that Amy had become interested in. So Sergeant Martin had literally just seen the victim two weeks earlier. Okay.

And to her, to Gwen, Amy seemed like someone who was planning for the future. She was definitely someone who would do anything for her kid. So this sergeant thought Amy showed zero signs of someone maybe battling with suicidal thoughts. Now, obviously, we never know. But she just was stunned, I think, as most of us would be. But she also knows in this line of work, you can never be certain what sort of demons someone deals with behind closed doors.

So unfortunately, Sergeant Martin is also one of the first people to arrive at the crime scene. And some of what she sees that day kind of validates these thoughts of hers that I just don't think this is suicide. Now, when she first sees Amy, she's like,

She's lying face up on the floor and her pants are partially unzipped. Okay. And then she notices a smell. There is something cooking in the family's kitchen. Amy had a pumpkin roasting in the oven. Sergeant is like, who puts dinner in the oven? And then decides to go upstairs and die by suicide. Which I get that, but also. Again, it's a hard question.

I don't think there's a correct way to- - Or guidebook. - To do that, correct. - Yeah. - But I get the suspicions, it makes sense, especially with how weird the call was. You're like, okay, something's off. - It's also the cops job to question everything. - Yeah, 100%. - Right, like they're investigating. - I appreciate that, 100%. - You guys, we are getting into an ad and I need you to think about businesses with mind blowing sales like Death Wish Coffee or Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty. Sure.

Epic products and fire marketing come to mind. But the real game changer? It's the behind-the-scenes magic that makes shopping a breeze. For tons of businesses, that magic is Shopify. Peyton and I are big advocates for Shopify. It is easy to use. It is intuitive. If you are selling online at all, use Shopify. I've been using it for, what, seven years now, babe? Yes. It's insane. Like, I love Shopify. I'm a big advocate for them. I will always...

Have anyone choose them over anybody else. Go check Shopify out. Nobody does selling better than Shopify. Home of the number one checkout on the planet. And you know why? It's the not so secret secret. Shopping!

ShopPay will be the death of me, but also it boosts conversions up to 50%, meaning way less carts going abandoned and way more sales going. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout Rare Beauty uses and us.

Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash husband, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash husband to upgrade your selling today. shopify.com slash husband, all lowercase.

Thank you. Did you know that today is a great day to warranty? Well, actually, every day is a great day when you're not worrying about your appliances and home systems. And that's what you get with an American Home Shield warranty. With an American Home Shield warranty, unexpected breakdowns like a leaky faucet or a faulty water heater won't break the bank. And that's because covered repairs or replacements are taken care of. Just like that. Actually...

It's really, I was gonna say funny, but amazing. We had a few people come to us and say they use American Home Shield warranty and that they absolutely love it. Some of them were customers, some of them were people who

work through home shield warranty to fix other people's broken things. Check it out. Choose a plan that works for you and your budget. And then it's simple. When a covered item in your home breaks, contact American Home Shield and their trusted and qualified pros will fix or replace it based on the coverage limits in your agreement. Right now, you can take 20% off. Go to ahs.com slash husband now to save 20%.

That's AHS.com/husband for 20% off any plan. American Home Shield. Don't worry, fee warranty. The AHS.com/contract for coverage details including limited amounts, fees, limitations, and exclusions. - So once forensics get involved, there's even more that doesn't add up to this story. The gunshot wound to Amy's head. It's on the right side, but the gun is resting on her left arm.

There's also no blood spatter or gunpowder on her hands, which if Amy was the one to pull the trigger, she would have both. And then cops realize there's a few drops of blood in other parts of the primary bedroom, which makes them wonder, did someone move her body here and clean up the actual crime scene?

Now, sure enough, when they do a luminol test, they discover that the room had been recently cleaned, but was covered in bloodstains and footprints. Ones that led from the primary bedroom to the mudroom and bathroom on the main floor, and then to Joseph's bedroom. How do you make it so that doesn't happen? What I'm trying to ask is how do you hide that? Just lots of bleach? Is there a certain chemical?

mask it so it doesn't so it's not shown by the yes there is something i think it has to do with if the like the grout is has been recently sealed it the blood won't get into the grout well what if it's on wood like what if it's hardwood you know what i'm saying yeah i think about that or not sure no because when they luminol test you can see blood

like splatters and like pools so even if you did clean it up like i wonder if there's i'm sure it's a good question i'm sure there is a certain chemical it's probably just something that you have to specially buy yeah so unless you plan out everything methodically also the way blood is and how it splatters it's i'm sure it'd be extremely hard to get yeah sometimes there's only one drop that you miss you know

So I also think it's safe to say that detectives are like, well, you can't die by suicide and then clean up your own crime scene afterward. Right. So by the following day, they already have an autopsy report on Amy's body and they find Amy had died somewhere around 315 p.m. that day. I just love how we can figure all this out like this. Right. But they also find evidence that is inconsistent with suicide.

Mainly because Amy had scopolamine in her system, and this is a drug that is used to treat nausea. And not only was it about 20 times the regular dose, Amy did not have a prescription for that drug. So how did this large of amount of this drug get into her body?

Now, typically in cases like this, the first person that you're going to suspect is the husband. But this becomes a little more complicated for detectives. For starters, Stephen kept saying that he wasn't home during Amy's time of death that day.

And while I'm not sure where he claimed to be, there were other witnesses who said they saw an anonymous vehicle speed away from the house shortly after her time of death. So the husband is saying, I wasn't home at that time, 3.15 p.m. And the neighbors are saying we also saw an unknown vehicle leaving around that time.

Plus, Stephen seems cooperative. He's willing to go down to the station for questioning. Not to mention, there's something else that the police have to consider once they get to know Amy and her past. Because Amy had actually been approached by the FBI the past spring. So Amy was already in law enforcement radar. But the FBI, why the FBI?

Because the FBI was doing an investigation of their own completely unrelated and found Amy's name on a dark web hit list. Holy crap. Okay. So back around. How scary would that be? To have the FBI show up at your door and be like, someone put a hit out on you. That's wild.

I mean, now you understand why maybe the husband isn't the first suspect. So back around May 31st, 2016, this is about five months before Amy's death. She was called in to the cottage Grove police department to speak with them and the FBI. And they asked her the one question that no one ever wants to hear. Amy, do you know of anyone who might want you dead?

Do you think she told her husband about this or went without him knowing? I'm sure you know the answer. So just keep going. I'll just make that a rhetorical question for now. So it turns out the FBI had just learned about a murder for hire site on the dark web and

called the BESA Mafia. And so they had received a giant cache of data, including email exchanges between BESA Mafia and their clients. So basically the FBI uncovered this dark web hit list place that you could hire. So they have this website, they have the clients, and then the everyday people who were on the

The hit list. Now, it's important to say that the clients didn't use their real names, obviously, but the people on the hit list, it was their real names. And Amy Alwine was one of them. They also had the username of the person who had ordered the hit on Amy. And it was someone named Dog Day God.

Now, something I learned from this story was you cannot just access the dark web through Google. You actually have to have some special software to access sites like the BESA mafia. What's interesting is this technology was actually created by the military to hide their secrets on backdoor websites.

So it's sort of ironic that the military created this loophole on the internet and now it is used for so much illegal activity. But the Besa Mafia is a whole other level of dark web criminals.

The site claims to be operated by an Albanian mafia, but it seems like it's run by this evil overlord, a guy who goes by Yura. And basically, Yura and his website will recruit anyone who's up for the challenge, meaning they literally post invites for prospective killers to essentially send in audition tapes to become hitmen for this dark website. Holy crap.

A quote from one of yours videos on the site says, if one searches online for, and I quote shot dead on street, eat one, we'll find plenty of news about people being shot dead in the street by unknown people that shoot and then leave. Those are our hit men. We will be waiting for you to come place your orders and then get rid of your problems. Gosh, I can't,

I can't believe it's real. And literally on this website, there is a menu of item options from $4,000 for a basic killing to $10,000 for a shoot and run. And then something as high as $50,000 for a high profile sniper murder.

They say it depends mostly on how challenging the job will be to pull off. Like if the target has a bodyguard, they're going to charge more. And by the way, on this website, you cannot pay with a visa. The only currency they accept is Bitcoin because of the anonymity, meaning it isn't tied back to anyone's name or IP address. By the time the FBI discovered the base of mafia, they

They already had a list of 282 hits on this website that had been ordered across 60 different countries. I mean, there's like 17-year-old girls in Canada looking to kill ex-boyfriends on this website. Literally, anyone can log on and with a few clicks of the keyboard, it's boom, revenge at your fingertips. Oh my gosh, what?

But Amy, this woman is seemingly harmless. She's been happily and faithfully married for the last 20 years. She's a working mom who makes YouTube videos dancing with her church elder husband. Who would want this woman dead and for what? Well, it turns out the FBI got those answers through the leak. There was 60 pages worth of correspondence between both.

Dog Day God, this is the username that took the hit out, and the Besa Mafia. So this had all started back in February of 2016, actually Valentine's Day to be exact. That's when Dog Day God first reached out to the Besa Mafia saying, I am looking to hire you for a hit, but what is the recommended way to convert cash to Bitcoin anonymously? After a few more emails were sent back and forth negotiating a price, Dog Day God said,

Dog Day God agreed to send over $12,000 in Bitcoin for the hit job. And they finally revealed their target was a woman named Amy Allwine.

The words they used were, I need this B word dead, so please help me. The message continues, said that Amy had stolen clients from this person's dog training business. But it suggested the betrayal went far beyond that because the email also implied that Amy not only was stealing clients, had been sleeping with the business competitor's husband. All right, so it sounds like there may be another wife involved, but let's see.

They even offer up the perfect opportunity for the hit to happen. They told the base of mafia that Amy had an upcoming business trip to Moline, Illinois. And we have actually been to Moline, Illinois in the podcast history before. And I pronounced it Moline. Okay. And everyone told me little Peyton, it is Moline. So I'd like everyone to know it is Moline, Illinois.

They even give them the hotel that Amy is going to be staying at, a description of her car and the route that she would likely take. And on top of that, they offer up ways they would like for Amy to be killed. Oh my gosh. They want it to look like an accident and they don't want the son or the husband to be harmed in any way.

Now, clearly, nothing happens to Amy during this business trip, as you know. But this exchange continues for the next four months as Dog Day God works with the BESA mafia to help coordinate other options for this hit.

They give them daily updates on Amy's movements when she was at the grocery store, the gas station, heading out of town. I mean, Amy has a full-time stalker who's now trying to take a hit out on her. So when the police sit down with Amy in May of 2016, they uncover all of this. They pull Amy in. They're like, lady, you are in trouble. And she is, of course, shocked about the whole thing. She tells the FBI everything.

I've never had an affair. She offers the FBI a couple names of people. It could be interesting, but she's like, I don't know anyone in my life who fits this description.

Stephen, her husband, even asks the police, is there any way they might have gotten the wrong Amy? But apparently, Dog Day God had even sent BASA Mafia pictures of Amy. So there's no confusion. They have the right Amy, which is why the FBI says to the Allwines, we think you should take these threats seriously.

And they have to because they don't stop once the FBI gets involved. In July of 2016, five months before her death, Amy receives two anonymous emails, presumably from Dog Day God. They say, quote, Amy, I still blame you for my life falling apart. Here's what is going to happen. I will come after everything else that you love. Here is how you can save your family. Commit suicide.

So why not do it now and save them? Oh my gosh. I mean, that's terrifying. It's horrible. That would be so scary to get that email.

So Amy does the right thing. She shares these emails with the FBI who begin interviewing suspects, including some of Amy and Steven's work colleagues. They don't find anything, mainly because that email from Dog Day God was untraceable. So they tell the Allwines the best thing for them to do now is get a home security system, install a few cameras, buy a gun. But Amy's

But Amy is living in absolute fear at this point. I mean, she's afraid to even be in her own home. She's worried someone is going to come in during the night and kill her. So now you can see why all of this is especially scary when in November of 2016, Amy Allwine dies by suicide.

So naturally, her friends and family are furious with the FBI and local police. They're like, you were warned that she was going to be killed and you did nothing. She was just alone in her house, even though they claimed they had increased security patrols in the area to keep a closer eye on her.

She still was killed. And so to many, the hired hitman possibility makes a lot of sense. Not only did people report cars fleeing from the neighborhood that day, the mastermind of the BESA mafia, the guy known as Yura, actually releases a video on the site after her death and says- Her being killed?

Yeah, and he masks, no, not of her being killed. He masks his voice and his face and he says, hey, this website should be taken seriously because we are responsible for Amy's death. We took that hit out. But even if BASA Mafia carried out the hit, it still didn't answer the question of who ordered it.

it. So far, many of the names the Allwines had given the police just didn't check out, which is why they also haven't totally ruled out the possibility that maybe Stephen, the husband, was somehow involved, especially because of how he acted the day his wife died. Not only did he have that odd conversation with his son on the 911 call where he laughed and they talked about remarry, well, he also seemed a bit too calm when he came in for questioning and

Plus, as police dig further into Amy's case over the following days, they find one really incriminating detail. Remember how Dog Day God had to pay for the hit using Bitcoin? He bought Bitcoin, didn't he? Well, in order to do that, the user had to send a 34 character wallet code to make that transaction. This is kind of something Garrett was talking about earlier.

And that same exact wallet code was later found on Stephen's computer. See? Yeah. So it's not it. You can definitely hide yourself, especially if no one ever finds that you own that wallet. There's no name on it. But if someone does game over, they can obviously going to track the husband's computer. Correct. So they learn all of this and they're like, okay, so the husband, Stephen Allwine was dog day. God,

So the question was at this point, why would this church elder want his wife dead? Here's a little detail about Stephen and Amy's church. Not only did they not believe in divorce, if a church elder was ever found committing adultery, they would be asked to leave the congregation. He was cheating on his wife. Well, this was something that was definitely problematic for Stephen, who had been seeking out affairs over the internet for the last two years.

He was actually doing this on the site Ashley Madison, to be exact, which ironically he learned about while offering marriage counseling to one of the couples at his church. For anyone who doesn't know, Ashley Madison is a popular website that rose to fame in the mid-2000s that encourages extramarital affairs. I thought it was a dating website. No, so you can get on, create an account online.

And it's literally to cheat. Like everyone on there is stepping out on their marriage. I literally thought it was, I mean, probably a good thing. I don't know what it is, but I thought it was a dating website. That's crazy. Yeah. So it's kind of like GoDaddy.

when I wasn't old enough to know what GoDaddy was, I was like, that sounds like a porn website. Later on, I'm like, Oh, it's just domains. Yeah. Kind of funny. So actually there was a huge leak from Ashley Madison's database in 2015. Uh,

which is not good. This is not the website that you want to leak because it threatened millions of users. It ruined a lot of lives, a lot of marriages. So whether or not Steven was involved in the leak, I actually have no idea, but it's very possible. It scared him into making some pretty rash decisions because this just happened a year earlier. A bunch of people who were using this site get leaked and he's using this site. Do you guys know that solving mysteries keeps me on my toes, but staying fit,

That used to be the real challenge, but enter Peloton, my partner in crime fighting and fitness. Let me tell you, Peloton has been a game changer in my hectic life, whether I'm deep into researching or juggling podcast recordings, Peloton has got my back. They've got everything from quick 10 minute workouts when I'm crunched for time to longer sessions when I need to really decompress after a heavy episode.

And I love that I can switch it up too. One day I'm doing yoga to clear my mind, the next I'm on a virtual run. And the best part? It's all on my schedule. Live classes, on-demand workouts, Peloton fits into my unpredictable life like a perfect alibi. With the all-access membership, I can work out at home or use the app when I'm out.

It's honestly like having a fitness accomplice wherever I go. So whether you're in your true crime era, your busy parent era, or just you're trying to stay sane era, Peloton's got what you need. So find your push, find your power with Peloton at onepeloton.com. You know when you discover a new show to binge or a song that you listen to nonstop and you have to share it with your friends so they can experience just how awesome it is?

That's kind of what it feels like when you discover that. Mint Mobile offers premium wireless for $15 a month when you purchase a three-month plan. It's such an awesome deal that there's no way you can keep it to yourself. It's insane that you can get an amazing wireless plan for $15 a month. And you guys, you heard Garrett. Go tell your friends about Mint.

15 bucks. Murder with my husband and... 15 freaking bucks. Mint Mobile, okay? Friends, don't let friends overpay for wireless. Say bye-bye to your overpriced wireless plan and switch to Mint Mobile. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and bring your phone number along with all your existing contacts.

To get this new customer offer and your new three-month premium wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash MWMH.

That's mintmobile.com slash MWMH. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash MWMH. $45 upfront payment required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Speeds slower above 40 gigabytes on a limited plan. Additional taxes, fees, and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details.

Now, I'm not sure if Amy knew about the at least three different affairs that he was having. But I do know that Stephen realized there was no way to actually be with any of these new women if his church didn't allow him to get divorced. So maybe Stephen had to come up with a different plan. Maybe he needed to have his wife killed so he could go on and be a free man.

which was when Stephen possibly took to the dark web and stumbled upon the Basa Mafia. Maybe he thought it was an easy way for him to walk away with his hands clean. So maybe he forked over the Bitcoin, around $12,000 to be exact, and then waited and waited and waited and talked to this website. But there's also the possibility that he was met with every single excuse. They would just keep making a new plan, a new plan. Stephen would send more money.

Obviously, we know nothing was coming of it, which is why probably in July of 2016, Dog Day God emailed Amy themselves, remember, and told them that they would kill her whole family if she didn't kill herself. But when Amy went right to the FBI with those emails, maybe Stephen realized his plan wasn't working the way he expected it to. And it seemed like the base of mafia, this website on the dark web that he had paid, they were never going to pull through. And Stephen wasn't wrong.

You know why? They took his money. The entire website was a scam. Okay. This website on the dark web was a con to make money off of pathetically desperate people who were trying to get someone out of their lives for good. That's so wild. That's honestly...

For the first time, I'm kind of glad that they were scamming everybody because one, they weren't killing people. And two, they were scamming people that wanted to kill other people. And here's the thing. Robin Hood, maybe. Amy's death actually promoted this website because the website made a video in 2016 after she died saying, look. But it wasn't even them. Yes. It was obviously her husband. But they said, look, we took a hit out. That's crazy. Someone took a hit out on her and we did it. Look, she's dead. That's crazy.

So it was all a marketing ploy. Why wouldn't they take the credit? It legitimized their fake business. Now, I guess it never occurred to Steven that $12,000 for a hit was suspiciously cheap. Like that does feel...

Very cheap, but it was low enough for them to rope in the cash. And if they were paying with Bitcoin, there's no way he's ever going to see that money again. Now, once Steven finally figured out that he'd been scammed, he was already so committed to the idea of having Amy killed that he chose a new path. He's like, I'm just going to do it myself. But again, he actually used the dark web as a tool. So this is where I'm getting into what Steven actually did.

This time, when he realizes, hey, this website is not going to kill my wife, he goes online and begins searching for drugs, and he found a site called Dream Market. And for one reason or another, he decided to purchase a large amount of scopolamine, that's the anti-nausea medicine that was found in her system, which in large doses can make people loopy, disoriented, even compliant. And remember, Amy had 20 times the normal amount in her system when the coroner did her autopsy.

So on the afternoon of November 13th, 2016, or in the days leading up to it, Stephen had begun slipping Amy that large dose in her food or drink, which was why Amy felt so sick that afternoon when her dad came over. Now, once the dad took Joseph and the son was out of the house, it seems Stephen took advantage of the state that he'd put Amy in. He grabbed the gun the family had bought to protect themselves from this hit and

And Steven then used that gun to kill Amy and stage her death as a suicide. Okay.

Now, maybe others think that Amy had decided to protect her family from those mysterious threats after all. No, not with all the evidence that shows she didn't shoot herself. Right. Now, Stephen denies all of this. He insists, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't do this. It has to be whoever took the hit out on her. There was no way he would ever do anything to his wife and leave his son motherless. However, as we know, there was a lot of evidence to suggest this was another lie.

So there's a lot of things I find ironic in this case, but maybe one of the biggest things is that Stephen was an IT guy. He should have known how to cover his tracks, at least when it came to computers, right? And yet his computer was some of the best evidence against him. For example, Stephen had a browser set up on his computer that could let him access the dark web as well as on his phone. So he was definitely accessing it.

Dog Day God first contacted the base of mafia on Valentine's Day. Shortly after sending that message, Stephen's computer showed him Googling how to use Bitcoin. I remember the first message was, how do I use Bitcoin? The following day, he was looking up Amy's itinerary for her business trip to Moline, Illinois, and figuring out what drive she would take to get there. Now, remember that message was this exact information.

On March 6th, Stephen downloads a picture to the family's desktop. It's of Amy on their recent trip to Hawaii. Oh my gosh. And that's the picture that we take in the email? That is the picture that is sent. Okay. Days later, there's an email from the base of mafia to Dog Day God explaining how to purchase Bitcoin and that he should then report that money stolen to his bank to cover his trail.

Now, immediately after, Stephen calls the Cottage Grove police and says he's been a victim of a scam. So while police couldn't exactly trace Dog Day God's IP address, it's detail after detail like this that basically proves this was happening from Stephen's computer. So unless someone is repeatedly breaking into his home, accessing his computer and keeping up this charade for months,

leading up to Amy's death, it has to be him, which is why he's finally arrested and charged with second degree murder in January of 2017. However, once he got in front of a grand jury, those charges were escalated to first degree murder because everything is screaming premeditation, right? So there's an eight day trial and Steven is like, hey, I didn't do any of this. I mean, there were plenty of female friends in her life who had access to their home and computer. He's like, someone had to have been coming in and

using my computer. He also was like, the police did such a bad job. There was also this hit out for her. But as we know,

After years of doing this show, the simplest explanation is often the most likely. So after the eight day trial, the jury deliberated for six hours to conclude that Stephen Allwine was guilty of first degree murder. Yes, sir. At his sentencing, the judge gave Stephen an earful before handing down a sentence saying, quote, You're an incredible actor, a hypocrite and a cold calculating killer.

Then he was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. Now, as for the BESA mafia and their scam website, nobody knows who they are. The FBI has since traced the website to a location in Romania. And as of 2022, at least five members of the fraudulent organization have been arrested and are facing charges like murder, organized crime and money laundering.

But the website and others like it are still operating in corners of the dark web today. And that is just the reality we live in. That's so wild. And that is the case of Amy Allwine. That's so sad. Amy was just a good mom. Because they couldn't get divorced. It's just so ironic. It's just so sad. It's so ironic to me too that you're having three affairs.

So you don't want to be with your wife anymore because you want to be a member of this church, right? You want to be an elder of this church. So your solution is to murder one of like the most important commandments. You know what I mean? It's just like the reasoning for the murder is because you want to stay at church. That just like doesn't even. Yeah, it's just hypocritical. It's crazy how much it happens.

All right, you guys, that was our episode for this week. We hope you have an amazing holiday and we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.

At Fry's, an annual Boost membership just got even better. Now you can choose from Disney+ with ads, Hulu with ads, or ESPN+ on us when you sign up. Plus, enjoy unlimited free delivery, double fuel points, exclusive offers, and free items. Sign up for a Boost membership today. It's an easier way to save, including new streaming options to relax with while we deliver your groceries.

Fries, fresh for everyone. Restrictions apply. See site for details.