cover of episode Episode 228 - Jack in the Box - The Mysterious Case of Robert Caraballo

Episode 228 - Jack in the Box - The Mysterious Case of Robert Caraballo

2024/8/11
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The Minds of Madness - True Crime Stories

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Cicely Caraballo
旁白
知名游戏《文明VII》的开场动画预告片旁白。
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旁白:本集讲述了发生在密歇根州的一起离奇凶杀案,死者身份不明,尸体被烧毁严重。警方经过多年调查,最终确认死者为Roberto Caraballo,其妻子Beverly McCallum涉嫌谋杀。案情扑朔迷离,涉及多名嫌疑人,最终Beverly McCallum在意大利被捕,引渡回美国受审。 Cicely Caraballo:作为Roberto Caraballo的女儿,Cicely Caraballo讲述了她童年时期的不幸经历,以及母亲Beverly McCallum的犯罪行为。她回忆了父亲失踪当晚的场景,以及母亲事后编造的谎言。她成年后与父亲家人取得联系,并最终得知了父亲遇害的真相。Cicely Caraballo在法庭上对母亲进行了控诉,表达了她对父亲的思念和对母亲的谴责。 Chris McMillan:Chris McMillan是参与此案的关键证人,他详细描述了Roberto Caraballo被杀害的过程,以及他和Beverly McCallum以及Deneen Ducharme一起处理尸体的细节。他的证词为警方破案提供了重要的线索。

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Detectives in Grand Haven, Michigan, attend the burial of an unidentified victim, later known as Jack in the Box, whose body was found burned and stuffed in a metal box.

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The opinions expressed in the following episode do not necessarily reflect those of the Minds of Madness podcast. Listener discretion is advised. Four detectives stood in the rain, wearing their suits and ties.

It was late September 2002 in Grand Haven, Michigan, and the skies matched their somber mood. They'd just arrived at a cemetery near the shores of Lake Michigan. It was time to bury the body of a victim they'd spent the past four months trying to avenge. But so far, it had all been in vain. The detectives watched as the minister conducted the service, and there was no family, relatives, or friends present.

Because absolutely no one knew who the victim was. Inside an inexpensive particle-bore casket lay the body of an unknown man. He'd been the victim of a brutal murder. His body stuffed into a metal box and burned beyond recognition. Raindrops pattered softly on the casket as the body was lowered into a grave in the potter's field.

The tombstone simply read, "Unidentified Male, May 2002. Known only to God." For the four detectives, the funeral was a chance to recommit themselves to finding justice for the victim. Despite being a John Doe, the detectives had decided to give the victim a name they would refer to him by, until they found out his true identity. And that name was Jack in the Box.

Calling him Jack was their way of humanizing him, making him real and reminding themselves never to stop caring or searching for the identity of his killer. To them, Jack's case had become personal. He mattered, and they were determined to do whatever it took to restore his real name and find the person, or people, responsible.

Join me now as we take a look at an infamous cold case that haunted western Michigan for nearly 20 years. You'll hear how the body of an unidentified victim was discovered by a farmer in a blueberry field, and how detectives eventually uncovered the horrifying truth when a gruesome secret buried for decades finally came to light.

In the spring of 2002, blueberry farmer Gordon DeVries was busy preparing his fields for the upcoming growing season in western Michigan. As part of his routine, Gordon often drove around the rural area inspecting his fields between Holland and Grand Haven.

It was May 8th, just around 2pm, when Gordon pulled off a country road and onto a two-track dirt path that led through the woods and into one of his fields. But as he did, he noticed something. Something strange in the woods to his right. A patch of scorched earth and trees in an almost perfect circle. Strangest of all was the large metal box that sat in the middle of the burned area.

It was obvious someone had tried burning whatever was inside the box. And it would be Farmer Gordon who discovered what it was. - See 152nd and Winan. - Okay. - About 100 yards to the east of 152nd on Winan. - East of 152nd on Winan? - Yep, I'll be there with a pickup.

Gordon had used a neighboring farmer's cell phone to call 911. What he'd found inside that metal box was a badly burned body.

The responding officer who first arrived at the scene would later admit he initially thought the whole thing was just going to be some kind of hoax. But from the moment he arrived at the blueberry patch, he knew it was real. The distinct smell of burned flesh was overwhelming. The smell of gasoline still lingered in the air. And inside the metal box were the charred remains of a man who'd been crammed inside.

Hindered by rain that threatened to wash away evidence, a forensics team carefully transported the body in the metal box to the medical examiner's office. Detectives hoped that by examining both the body and the box, they'd be able to unravel the mystery around what appeared to be a disturbing homicide. How was the victim killed? Who was responsible and why?

But before delving into motives and suspects, they first had to face the crucial task of identifying who the victim was. Without identifying documents or recoverable fingerprints due to the damage caused by the fire, the medical examiner had to build a victim's profile using measurements, scales, and a size 30 tag on the victim's underwear.

A 5'7", likely white or Hispanic male, weighing approximately 135 pounds. They'd find their first breakthrough when the medical examiner discovered the victim had had extensive dental work done, including a custom dental plate and several artificial teeth. Detectives hoped this clue could eventually lead to the victim's identification.

As the task of identifying their John Doe continued, detectives began referring to the victim as Jack in the Box. An autopsy would later reveal the cause of death had been blunt force trauma to the head, with five distinct wounds to the skull. One severe enough to embed a circular fragment about the size of the head of a hammer.

A Timex watch was found on the victim, showing the time frozen at 10:05, likely indicating the time of the fire on the night of May 7th, 2002. The absence of soot in his lungs and normal levels of carbon monoxide in his blood confirmed the victim was murdered before being burned.

Inside the metal box, which appeared to be a footlocker, detectives found what they believed were the potential murder weapons. A charred broken baseball bat and a fiberglass claw hammer. They also discovered a ratchet, a nylon rope, and a plastic bag, suggesting the possibility Jack had been suffocated in addition to being bludgeoned.

Detectives began their investigation by looking into the only potential suspect on their list, the man who discovered the body on his own property, Gordon DeVries. But from the very beginning, Gordon was fully cooperative and it didn't take long for police to cross him off the list. In the days and weeks that passed, police became increasingly surprised when no one came forward to report any missing persons.

which then caused detectives to theorize their victim probably wasn't from the area. Investigators knew their best chance at identifying Jack came from his unique dental work, so they spoke with every dentist and orthodontist in the county. But no one could match Jack to any of their own records.

The overwhelming census was that the work appeared to have been at least 10 years old and that it didn't appear to be work done in Michigan. Some speculated it had been done in Mexico or some other country south of the border.

But after receiving roughly 60 tips over two years, including leads on drug deals, missing migrant workers, and sex trafficking, all avenues eventually led to dead ends, and the case turned cold. To detectives, the mystery surrounding the unidentified male victim continued gnawing at them month after month and year after year.

When they finally accepted they probably weren't going to solve the case on their own, they turned to Professor David Schock at Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Professor Schock and his students had made a name for themselves in 2003 after creating a true crime documentary called "Who Killed Janet Chandler?" A former student at Hope College, murdered in 1979,

Not only had the documentary reignited interest in the case, but by the end of 2005, a confession was obtained from the primary suspect after detectives asked him to watch a particularly emotional scene from the film. Investigators in the Jack in the Box case were hoping Professor Shock could strike gold the second time.

offering him full access to their evidence, case file, and the investigators themselves. They asked the professor if he'd consider making a film about their infamous John Doe, and he did. A film he called "Jack in the Box." But instead of attempting to solve the case, the film simply laid out all the evidence and information investigators had collected.

Although their intent behind the film was to uncover Jack's true identity, a few detectives also discussed potential theories regarding who might have been responsible. Ottawa County Sheriff Gary Rosema even speculated they were looking for more than one suspect. I think there's a second person. And that's what we're hoping. Because we always like it when there's more than one person involved in a crime. And, uh...

Because someday we can offer one of those people an opportunity to cleanse their soul and, you know, get a deal on a case. The sheriff's words would wind up being extremely prophetic. But police in Ottawa County would end up having to wait 10 years before making any further progress.

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In April 2015, an anonymous email was sent to the Ottawa County Sheriff's Office claiming to know the identity of the Jack in the Box victim. The emailer had recently seen Professor Shock's documentary online. Detective Bob Donker, the lead investigator on the case since 2002, was intrigued by the first lead in years.

The tipster provided cryptic clues, suggesting the victim was a man named Roberto Caraballo, and he was from Charlotte, Michigan, a town about 90 minutes east from where the body was discovered.

The email claimed Roberto had served time in prison in the 90s under the alias Juan Citron and alleged that his wife Beverly McCallum was responsible for his murder, possibly with the help of her 21-year-old daughter, Danine Ducharme. Though skeptical, Detective Donker found the lead worth pursuing.

What he soon discovered was that the man named Juan Citron did exist and had been paroled from prison in 2001, and he moved to Charlotte, Michigan, with his listed address as 334 Horatio Street. Additional investigation confirmed the emailer's claim that Juan Citron was an alias Roberto Caraballo had used after moving to the United States from the Dominican Republic many years earlier.

Most importantly, Detective Donker now had access to Roberto's dental records, which turned out to be a perfect match to the charred body found in the box. After 17 long years, they finally had restored the victim's true identity. Now, it was time for investigators to finish the job they started on that rainy spring day in 2002. Find out what really happened to Roberto Caraballo.

Cicely Caraballo was around 7 years old in 2000 when her family moved to 334 Horatio Street in Charlotte, Michigan. Here Cicely lived with her mother, Beverly McCallum, her 9-year-old stepsister, Tasha, and her 19-year-old stepsister, Deneen Ducharme. All three of the kids had been born to different fathers.

Throughout her entire childhood, Cicely's father Roberto was in and out of prison on various drug charges, and it seemed as if they were constantly moving to live closer to wherever her father was being held. Her mother, Beverly, was also no stranger to the law. Since 1993, Beverly had been arrested no less than six times for theft, forgery, and fraud.

According to Cicely, her mother often involved Deneen in her misdeeds as well. My entire childhood observing their relationship wasn't a typical mother-daughter relationship. It was more like a wingman or a henchman. It wasn't a healthy mother-daughter relationship. I just recall, you know, Deneen doing...

Things that my mom asked of her, whether it was to beat someone up or something, I witnessed a lot that I shouldn't have when I was a kid. Cicely's move to Charlotte promised a fresh start for the family. There she was surrounded by Beverly's extended Italian family, giving the children a sense of grounding they'd never had before. It was actually Roberta who suggested the move to Charlotte.

He knew he'd be released from prison soon, and he wanted to live as far away from his old criminal associations. He intended to put his past behind him and become a real father to Cicely for the first time in his life. And after his parole in 2001, Roberto reunited with his family at the house on Horatio Street. It was the first time that he was living with us full time.

It was one of the first times in my childhood that I remember actually being involved in extracurricular activities. He would take me to gymnastics and swimming across the street from the Horatio home at the recreational center. And he got me involved in playing softball. He was a big baseball fan. I hated it at first, but I grew to love it.

The house on Horatio Street contained an unfinished basement with stone walls, a bare ceiling, and a concrete floor. But when Roberto moved in, he cleaned it up and turned it into his own private space. A place where he could go and be alone, read books, and write daily letters to his family back home in the Dominican Republic. A man cave.

To support his family, Roberto got several jobs. Working as a part-time handyman and delivering the local newspaper, he'd often bring Cicely with him on his paper route to reconnect with his only biological daughter. Still, even with her father home, it was abundantly clear to Cicely who was really in charge.

My mom was always the matriarch in charge of the household. Like I said, my dad, he hadn't been with us full time before, so it was always just her. Whenever there were disagreements between Roberto and Beverly about the kids, it was always Beverly who prevailed. I remember my mother telling me after school to go home and change into my play clothes.

And once I did so, I could go and bake cookies with the neighbor kid. He and his dad shared a backyard with us at the Horatio home. And I remember that my father was adamant about me staying home with him and spending time with him. But at that time, like I said, he was barely a full-time parent in my life. I was used to taking direction from my mom and not him. So I did as my mom told me.

And after changing into my play clothes, I went over, I ran through the backyard to go bake cookies. By the spring of 2002, Cicely was still adjusting to life with her father around full time. It was chaotic at times because he and Beverly were struggling to get along. Their relationship appeared to be on the verge of breaking up entirely.

Roberto even wrote a letter to his brother back home that he wanted to leave Beverly, but he wasn't willing to give up being close to Cicely. Things between Beverly and Roberto were coming to a head, and then one night, something strange happened. I remember being startled out of my sleep and rushed into our family van, and I was

I was used to the turmoil, so somewhere along everything I was asleep in the back of the van. I know we were driving for quite some time just because I know Charlotte is a small town and we were in there for a while on the road. Cicely, who was nine at the time, remembers being placed in the back seat of her father's delivery van along with her stepsister Tasha. Beverly and Deneen were also in the van.

The sky was like early morning or late at night, like past midnight type. I remember falling asleep and being woken up by an explosion in the woods. I sat up and looked out the back of the window where the explosion was coming from. I noticed my half-sister running from the woody area away from the fire.

Our van was already pretty much moving. The door was open and she was trying to catch up to the vehicle as if it was a getaway van. Before I could ask or even be too concerned about what was going on, my mother told me to lay back down and go to sleep. So I did. Again, I was used to the turmoil, so I was too scared to ask questions. I laid back down and went to sleep.

Cicely woke up the next morning and went to school as she always did. But when she came home, she immediately noticed something was different. A part of my regular routine was to come home after school and go to the basement to greet my father and let him know that I was home. So there was a padlock and it wasn't accessible anymore.

My mother told me and my sister, Tasha, that my dad had taken off to Canada to go back to his old life without us. And so I just remember feeling strange about everything. You know, although she told me that he took off to Canada, I at the time could connect that Canada was within driving distance and his vehicle was still in the driveway.

Beverly told the same story about Roberto to family and friends, that he'd decided to leave them and move to Canada. For Cicely, the news was devastating. She'd finally just started believing she had a normal family, all for it to be torn away from her once again. I pretty much was...

A little brown girl being raised by everyone with different color than me. So I had those moments of wishing that my dad was still here, that somebody that looked like me was there. So I know it came up a lot in my childhood. And every time my mother would just kind of scare me away from the topic of like, if he found out where we were, he'll steal you from me. You never want to see me again. Is that what you want? You know, things like that.

Or like if I was to be disciplined or something, she'd say, like, I should send you to go live with your dad so he could, you know, take care of you. Or, you know, like as if he'll be more hard on me with the disciplining compared to her. As Cicely grew older, she would occasionally think about contacting her father's family in the Dominican Republic.

On several occasions, his family even reached out to her. There was a few times in my juvenile stages of life that my people would try to contact me through social media and I would mention it to my mom and she would just shut it down. She would make me deactivate my page or, you know, I would want to be on there with my classmates, you know, MySpace, Facebook, what have you. And

The only way she would agree to me having an account is if I use like an alias or a different name. Cicely would go on to graduate high school without ever seeing her father again. Yet despite her fairly hard Scrabble upbringing, she'd go on to college and studied psychology at Oxford University. As an adult, Cicely moved to West Texas and joined the National Guard.

It wasn't until she was fully independent from her mother that she'd again consider the idea of reaching out to her father's family.

I, at this time, was on my own living my early adulthood in the military and school full time. At that time, I was living on my own with my partner in West Texas, San Angelo. So like seven hours from where my mom was residing at the time in Houston. In 2014, my paternal cousin from my dad's side of the family, she reached out to me on Facebook and asked me

Not long after connecting to Roberto's side of the family, Cicely learned that her grandmother had passed away in the Dominican Republic. Knowing how close Roberto had been to his mother, Cicely knew her father would have to be in attendance.

So she decided to buy a plane ticket and fly out to the DR to hopefully see him face to face for the first time in years. And I wanted to have the opportunity to face my dad and kind of, you know, let him hear it. Like I was rehearsing a whole speech for him. But when the day of the funeral came, Roberto was nowhere to be seen.

It wouldn't be until Cicely started speaking with other members of the family that she'd learn not a single person from Roberto's family had heard from him since 2002. It was then Cicely began to realize that Beverly had been lying to everyone all these years. For the first time, Cicely considered the possibility that her father hadn't run off to Canada like her mother had told her. And that perhaps...

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Perhaps coincidentally, around the exact same time in 2015, when Cicely had flown out to try and see her dad, Detective Donker started receiving anonymous email tips about the Jack in the Box victim. Over time, Detective Donker would learn, to his surprise, that the anonymous tipster was actually Deneen Ducharme, who was now living in Houston, Texas.

He would also learn that Deneen decided to report her mother to police because of a heated argument they'd recently had over money. After flying down to Texas, detectives interviewed Deneen, who had quite the story to tell. According to her, Beverly had murdered Roberto in the basement of their home back in 2002.

Deneen confessed that she had a friend named Chris who had helped Beverly dispose of Roberto's body and also cleaned up the crime scene after. In order to get rid of Roberto's body, she stated they'd placed it in a footlocker that belonged to Beverly, then carried the box with the body inside out to Roberto's van and placed it in the trunk.

Not wanting to leave the two young children at home alone, 9-year-old Cicely and 11-year-old Tasha were taken from their beds and placed into the van, and then they drove out to dispose of the body. When they got back home, Deneen stated that her and her mother cleaned up the basement with bleach, then poured a small pad of fresh concrete down to cover up any traces of blood.

To corroborate these details, a forensic team was sent to the old address at 334 Horatio. By now, the home was completely abandoned and appeared to be on the verge of collapse. But sure enough, after going down into the basement, investigators quickly spotted a patch of concrete that was visibly newer than the rest. And beneath the slab, they found Roberto's blood.

Based on Deneen's story, detectives knew they had to speak with Beverly, her other daughters, and Deneen's friend Chris, whom she claimed had participated in the cover-up. But Deneen claimed she neither remembered Chris' last name nor knew where to find him. Detectives then hit another snag when they learned that Beverly had fled to Pakistan when she caught word of the renewed investigation.

She'd met a man online and agreed to marry him if he took her out of the country. Detectives then turned to Cicely and interviewed her in the fall of 2016. When asked about her father's disappearance, she told them everything she remembered about that night in the van. She also told them she had her own suspicions of her mother.

In fact, Cicely had confronted Beverly not long after returning from her grandmother's funeral in the Dominican Republic. Cicely told detectives how her mother had admitted to killing Roberto, but in Beverly's version, it was self-defense. I remember being very direct with her.

like, you know, showing up in her house and she was kind of like surprised and I just approached her with, "Mom, I need you to sit down and tell me what happened to my father or you're gonna lose me forever." I've always been the apple of her eye, so I was hoping that she would take me seriously in that moment. She immediately went into tears and she began to tell me her version of the story. Her words were,

that they had been arguing down in the basement and she was trying to get away and as she went to go walk up the stairs, my dad began to pull her by her ankles to pull her back down and that she grabbed the nearest thing she could with her right hand. My mother's left-handed, which happened to be a crowbar is what she said.

and she swung it like that to try to like get away from him and that her words he started bleeding profusely from the head. I do remember like

asking her right away, and what did you do? Did you call the police? Did you call the ambulance? Like, I'm sure he had a chance. There was a history of domestic violence. Like, what did you do? And she said that she couldn't do anything before she knew it. Deneen and her friends were heading downstairs to finish him off.

After hearing Cicely's story, detectives spoke with her older sister Tasha, who provided them with the most valuable clue so far: an old photograph of Deneen's friend Chris from 2002. She remembered Chris had lived with them in their home, but didn't know his last name either. Using the photo, police scoured Facebook, looking for the elusive friend named Chris.

Eventually, in 2018, they found the profile of Chris McMillan, who lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan. He certainly looked like the man in the photo, give or take 15 years. When Chris was interviewed in 2018, it didn't take long for him to admit he'd once lived with Roberto, Beverly, and Danina 334 Horatio.

Over the course of three interviews, detectives would finally learn the full story of what had happened to Roberto Caraballo. Chris recalled that he'd moved to Charlotte from Texas and that he was 25 years old at the time he first met Deneen at a local gas station buying cigarettes. So I could hear that she had a Southern drawl. I was like, you know, I...

Talked to her a little bit and went out to the truck. I went to give her my number and she was coming out the door to give me her number. We met up at a McDonald's. We talked a little bit there. Had some of the same interests. We both like to smoke pot. So we would go to the park in different places and get high and talk and hang out. Turned into quite regular.

Although Chris originally wanted to date Deneen, he soon learned she was in a relationship with a woman, something she'd hidden from her father. Instead, they became inseparable friends. During that time, Beverly didn't have a job and would hang out with Chris and Deneen almost every day. Even when Deneen wasn't around, Beverly and Chris would smoke, drink, and play cards together.

When Roberto came home from work, Chris and Deneen would often go down to the basement and smoke pot with him. One day, out of the blue, Deneen surprised Chris by informing him that she and Beverly were planning to kill Roberto. Deneen and Beverly wanted to get rid of him because he was abusing the kids and Beverly physically, mentally, sexually. Deneen told me that Beverly wanted to knock him unconscious and suffocate him.

The next day, Chris and Dineen were alone in the basement when Dineen again brought up the subject of murdering Roberto.

She told them that she and her mother had already come up with a plan. A plan that included Chris. Deneen and Beverly wanted me to hit him in the head with a baseball bat and put the bat over his head and suffocate him. There was a bat in the basement I played with all the time when we went down there. I used to play baseball. I'd pick it up, play with it while we were smoking weed. Beverly was going to have him come down. And when he comes down the stairs, hit him inside the head.

When he knocks out, the bag was going to go on his head and then we're going to... Dineen and Beverly was going to suffocate him. Chris claimed that he was never convinced they would carry out their plans against Roberto. But just three days later, while he and Dineen were hanging out in the basement, he realized the terrible plan was already happening. The basement door opens, down comes Robert and Beverly was behind him. They come down a few steps.

Beverly kicked Robert down the stairs. I swung the bat. I hit the post. I broke the bat. He was kind of at his knees and he wasn't really getting up. He had his hands out like he was going towards Deneen. Deneen was right in front of him. And Beverly starts to tell Deneen, give me the hammer. Give me the hammer. Deneen takes the hammer and with her right hand, wants to hit him a couple times on the left side of his head.

Beverly jerks the hammer away and with their left hand on the right left side of the head hits him like three or four more times until the hammer was in his head. So he was on his knees with the hammer sticking out of his head. I took the hammer. I pulled the hammer out. There's a hole about half dollar size. I turned back around and there's a bag on his head. Deneen's behind him. He's laying on his back with a rope. Deneen was holding the bag. Beverly was sitting up on top of him to keep him from moving.

And he laid like that until the bag quit moving in and out and he quit breathing. Later that night, after dark, Beverly enlisted Chris and Deneen to carry the footlocker out to the van. I see that Robert's in the trunk because it wasn't closed all the way. And I lifted the lid up and tried to close it. I couldn't get it closed. We put him in the back of a van that Robert owned. We put a gas can back there because we were going to burn the body.

On their way to dispose of Roberto's body, Chris claimed they stopped at a gas station to fill up the van along with the jerry can.

They then drove west until they found a random road to a road. He opened the hatch of the van and pulled Robert out on a cushion or a piece of carpet. And we pulled him up under, Deneen and I pulled him underneath the gate. Deneen and I pulled Robert up the two tracks a little ways.

and then put him off in the bushes a little bit. We went to the van to get the gas. Beverly wanted a ring off of Robert's hand, so we went back out to the body. Deneen dug around in the trunk and tried to take the ring off his hand. Deneen and I went back to the van. Beverly really wanted the ring, so Beverly and I went back out to the body. Beverly got the ring off his hand. I'm not sure if she spit on the finger or how she did it, but she got it off.

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After removing the ring, Chris claimed Beverly poured the entire can of gasoline on top of Roberto's body. But it was Chris who lit the match. On the way back to Charlotte, Beverly apparently made everyone take off their shoes and throw them out the window. She didn't want to take a chance of any of their shoes being connected to any prints left at the burn site.

Later that day, Chris said he and Beverly replaced the tires on the van just in case they had left tracks in the dirt road. A few weeks later, Beverly got rid of the van entirely. Within two months of murdering Roberto, Beverly packed the kids up, sold the house, and moved their family to Jamaica, a place she'd previously lived and attended university. But Deneen decided not to go with her and moved to Houston with her girlfriend instead.

After arriving in Jamaica, the family moved in with a man named Riney McCallum, who was Beverly's old love affair. She'd known him for more than 20 years, and soon Beverly married him and they had a son together. Up until 2007, the family lived in Jamaica until Beverly decided to leave abruptly and move to Houston. Mysteriously, Riney has been considered a missing person in Jamaica ever since.

After Chris' full confession and third interview with police, he was arrested and soon warrants were being issued for Deneen and Beverly's arrest as well. Deneen was quickly apprehended in Texas, but Beverly had already fled the country years earlier to live in Pakistan. Authorities knew that extradition from Pakistan would be a painstakingly long process at best.

But they soon discovered that Beverly had gone on the run again and her whereabouts were unknown. It was looking increasingly doubtful that Beverly would ever face justice for her crimes. With Chris and Deneen behind bars, Chris decided to take a plea deal in exchange for his testimony against his other co-conspirators. Deneen, on the other hand, refused to take a deal and pled not guilty.

Instead, she claimed that Beverly was solely responsible for killing Roberto. Because of his plea agreement, Chris was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to a minimum of 15 years in prison. Deneen, however, was convicted of first-degree murder and received a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole.

In February 2020, Beverly checked into a small hotel in Rome, probably not realizing that all Italian hotels are required to upload the names of their registered guests into a law enforcement database. As it turned out, Interpol had issued an international warrant for her arrest, and she was quickly arrested and held in an Italian jail.

Beverly did her best to fight extradition by appealing to the European Council of Human Rights. But based on their findings, Italy agreed to extradite Beverly on the condition that her charges be reduced to second-degree murder. She was then returned to Michigan in 2022 to face trial, which took place in April 2024.

Once back in Michigan, Beverly pleaded not guilty and placed all the blame for Roberto's murder on Chris and Deneen. While taking the stand in her own defense, Beverly claimed she had nothing to do with the murder whatsoever. Instead, she said the murder happened down in the basement while she was in her own bedroom directly above. She claimed she didn't hear anything suspicious.

No screaming, no commotion, not even the sound of the wooden baseball bat being broken against a wooden post in the basement. The next thing she knew, Deneen and Chris had loaded the kids into the van and were asking Beverly to drive them. Deneen gave specific directions and told Beverly to stop when they came to the blueberry field in Grand Haven Township.

Chris came back to the van running and screaming, "Go! Go! Move! Move! Go!" I turned back to ask him, "Go where? Where am I going to go? Where's, like, where's Deneen?" She comes running and he's screaming, "Go, go, go!" And Deneen was trying to... But then I started to move the van a little bit.

And Deneen was jumping into the van and that's when the whole earth shook. What do you mean by that? I mean, the whole earth shook. I mean, it was like a big explosion. Huge. Huge. What did you see? When I look back, all I can see is fire and big flames. In the end, Beverly's entire defense came down to the matter of he said, she said.

It would be up to a jury to decide whether they believe Beverly's version of events or the version provided by Chris McMillan during his testimony for the prosecution. But when it came to witness credibility, Beverly simply came across as an incredibly bizarre and deceitful witness. In fact, her performance on the witness stand ranks right up there with the strangest we've ever seen.

While being cross-examined, Beverly often gave conflicting answers, attempted to dodge questions, interrupted the prosecutor's questions, and had to be reminded not to mumble on dozens of occasions. At one point, the judge became so irritated by Beverly's consistent interruptions that she swore out of complete frustration.

While spending several hours on the stand, Beverly's accent appeared to be a strange mix between Italian and Spanish, often wavering between the two, and then sometimes it disappeared altogether.

She also frequently seemed to be fishing for the right words, as if the English equivalent was escaping her. The prosecutor addressed what he suspected to be a fake accent with the very first question during cross-examination. So I'm confused and I don't want to be disrespectful. Is English your second language? No. No? Okay. You seem to speak Italian. Why is that?

I speak several different languages, sir. I'm sorry, I'm not understanding the words. I speak several different languages. You speak several different languages and so Italian is the dialect you're giving us today? I don't have a dialect. He would address it again during his closing arguments. But how did the defendant portray herself? I had to actually ask because I didn't know if English was her second language.

Even though she admitted that she grew up in Connecticut and Michigan, she was American. But yet on Friday, she portrayed herself as a fragile old Italian woman who didn't seem to understand English. While it's true Beverly's family came from Italian heritage, there was little doubt that Beverly was putting on a deliberate performance in front of the jury.

The Let's Read podcast features a wide array of horror stories, ranging from true crime and paranormal encounters to creepy personal experiences, making it a must-listen for fans of the genre. Many of the stories are submitted by listeners, providing a diverse and authentic range of terrifying tales that resonate with a broad audience.

Hosted by Joel, whose storytelling prowess creates an immersive and chilling listening experience, perfect for fans who love to be on the edge of their seats. Dive into a rich archive of episodes with spine-tingling stories that include everything from haunted houses and ghost sightings to unsettling true crime cases and creepy encounters. Join a vibrant community of horror enthusiasts who engage with the podcast,

sharing their own stories and experiences, making it an interactive and dynamic show. Stay tuned for special episodes and themed story collections that explore new and exciting facets of horror storytelling. Search for Let's Read on your favorite podcast platform and remember to hit follow so you never miss an episode. After spending less than two hours deliberating, the jury found Beverly guilty of second-degree murder.

The only reason it wasn't first degree was because of the extradition agreement with the Italian government back in 2022. However, there are many who believe that Beverly might in fact be a serial black widow. Outside of Roberto, Beverly had been married four other times. Both Deneen and Tasha's biological fathers died, officially of natural causes, and her husband from Jamaica remains a missing person to this day.

Her fourth and current husband reportedly keeps in touch with Beverly from Pakistan. But these same people believe that it's only a matter of time before Beverly is charged with more murders. When it came time for Beverly's sentencing, the judge elected to exceed the guidelines of second-degree murder and throw the book at her, and she was sentenced to spend 40 to 60 years in prison.

And because Beverly was 63 at the time of her sentencing, it was effectively a guaranteed life sentence. During victim impact statements, Roberto's daughter Cicely, who is now a mother herself, gave a heartfelt tribute to her father, along with the scathing condemnation of her mother. But before Cicely gave her statement, Beverly asked the judge if she could leave the courtroom.

She didn't want to hear what her daughter had to say. The judge immediately shot the request down and forced Beverly to hear every word. Visiting my father's home in the Dominican Republic to meet his family and his childhood friends revealed a striking contrast to what I know is the truth on your end.

Roberto Alejandro Caraballo was dearly loved and respected by many, and his memory continues to be cherished and missed by all who knew him, even now. Since detectives showed up at my door in October 2016, I have not spoken directly to my mother. Despite her ill will and disgraceful parenting,

I am here to face her today as a human you cannot take credit for.

It is through what I can only describe as the grace from God that I was able to discern the life that I wanted to lead despite the hand that I was dealt. I am a proud mother, a partner, sister, friend, and veteran to our country. May these next words make their way to what was once the soul of my mother.

This will be the last time that you see me in the flesh and the last time you hear my voice in the same room. While I do not expect empathy or regret from you, I am compelled to speak my truth for my own peace and to be rid of you from this day forward. As the mother of two beautiful children, I cannot fathom your hatred and your greed and lifetime of terrible

actions you've committed to your own family and all those you've ever lured into your presence. But my journey into motherhood has and always will be guided by the vision of what little Cicely deserved. Little Cicely deserved a loving family. She deserves stability and she deserved parents who wanted to be their better selves. Despite these devastations,

I have found comfort in the fact that you are not my only parent. I know now that you were not my only chance at a family. I created my family and I've reunited with the family that my father left and gave to me.

While you may have taken my father's life, you will have no hand in his legacy. I am his legacy. My children are his legacy. And his legacy will live on through us. Your legacy will end with you, Beverly. Just prior to sentencing, Roberto's body was exhumed from the grave in the potter's field and his remains were cremated and given to Cicely.

As she stood in the courtroom confronting her mother for the last time, she placed her hand on the urn containing her father's ashes and gave one final promise. She would bring Roberto Caraballo's ashes back to the Dominican Republic, where he would be buried next to his beloved mother for eternity.

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