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- Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today's Monday, which means it's murder mystery. I forgot my intro. It's murder mystery and makeup Monday. If you're new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays, I like to sit down and talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my noggin and I do my makeup at the same time. If you're interested in true crime and you like makeup, I would say, hey,
Subscribe. And if not, that's okay too. But other than that, I will shut up and get into today's story. It includes the early ages of the internet. You know, AOL chat rooms. The World Wide Web. And today's story is considered to be like, by most sources, to be the very first internet-based murder. And I think most of us here, we know what the World Wide Web is capable of. It could be great, right? Fun, educational, and other things.
And then the other side where it can be really dark and just unfortunate, really. Anyhow, back in 1999, oh, the internet was still oh so new. And the things that unfold between a couple of strangers that we're talking about today, twistier than you can even imagine. This is the part where I would name something that has a lot of layers to it, like
Like the layered t-shirts you wore in high school. So many layers to it. There's just so many layers to today's story and there's so much to uncover and it's kind of confusing. So I'm setting it up in a way that's kind of not confusing. Okay, great. So today's story actually begins not with murder but with someone unaliving themselves. So a little trigger warning here.
It goes downhill very quick. So we're gonna start off on February 11th, 2000 in Odessa, Missouri. A woman named Lynn Llewellyn discovers the body of her husband's cousin, 39 year old Jerry Cassaday in the basement apartment where he lived on their property. So this guy, Jerry lived with his cousin in the basement apartment.
Got it? Great. So Lynn and her family hadn't seen Jerry for like a couple of days at this point, which might seem odd, right? But it wasn't like unusual to them. Whenever Jerry had been upset or needed to work things out, like in his head, he would go down to his basement apartment and like,
just hole up there. Many would say that he was struggling with just a bit of depression because like the previous years had been so rough for Jerry. Like he had been going through it. But as the days were going on at the house, Lynn started to notice a rather
odd smell happening, you know? So that's when Lynn goes down the stairs and sees Jerry sitting in his big armchair. And she's like calling out to him, but he's not responding. The armchair was turned around. It was like facing the window away from the door. So she couldn't see his face. So that's when she walks up to him and she notices when she's getting closer and closer, the smell was getting stronger and stronger. And that's when she...
you know, gets close enough to see that Jerry was dead. He like died from a self-inflicted situation, you know? Oh, sad, sad. Jerry's family and friends, understandably, very devastated. They really could not wrap their heads around what led Jerry to do this, right?
So it's just sad. And the days go by and then it comes down to the family now having to like clean out Jerry's room, clean out all of his stuff, you know. So they're cleaning out the room and while they're cleaning out Jerry's room, underneath his bed, they come across a black briefcase. And bitch, when they open up this briefcase, it was a treasure trove of secrets. And this is
is where like things really start to unravel. So, okay, who is Jerry, right? Who's Jerry and what the hell's going on? What happened to freaking Jerry? Jerry was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1960. He was the youngest of four boys and pretty much anyone who talked about him just really...
adored him. His mother would talk about how like competitive he was with his older brothers and how they loved to go fishing and like spend time together as family does. So a pretty normal
family upbringing. And then as he got older, Jerry decided that he wanted to become a police officer and it had been a somewhat promising career for him. Like he becomes a police officer and he does really well. He moves up the chain pretty quickly. He first got like promoted to being a lieutenant and then he moved on to becoming a homicide detective. Career wise, I mean, Jerry was doing
Also in his personal life, it was going pretty well. Jerry was married to a dispatcher at the department that they both worked at and her name was Barbara. The two of them, they would go on to have like three kids together. Two of the kids were from Barbara's previous marriage and then they both, Jerry and Barbara had one son.
Overall, things were good. I mean, it was simple, middle-class living, just living a good life, you know? Well, things were good until 1998. You see in 1998, Jerry was 37 years old. And at this point he was still working at the police department or for the police department. And at some point Jerry like noticed that something fishy is going on within the sheriff's department. Like he had proof that high ranking officials
had falsified documents in a murder investigation. Jerry saw this, he saw what was really going on and he decided to say something. He spoke up, he went to the higher ups and he became a whistleblower of sorts, you know? See something? He was like, "I'm gonna say something."
And he did. Well, Jerry was correct. I mean, this was going on and it ends up leading to like a bigger investigation. But in the end, the officers who falsified the documents, they do get in trouble. They got fired from their position and-
At first, you're like, oh, way to go, Jerjer. You know, like standing up for what is right, calling these people out, doing the right thing. Great. But unfortunately, it was great for everyone but Jerry, I guess, because all of his coworkers and stuff had turned on him for doing the right thing. Mm-hmm.
He ended up getting like demoted because they couldn't just outright fire him, right? They had to do the legal way. They being his employer, right? They can't just fire you. They have to have a reason for firing you. So like they end up demoting him, writing him up for like really petty, stupid stuff. And then eventually he ends up getting fired.
And of course the department would be like, "Oh no, he was late five times or something." But really Jerry was like, "It's because I ratted these guys out. Like I know that's why." And he gets fired. So when all of this happens, Jerry, he's devastated. He loved this job. He even said that like he really enjoyed the recognition he received. He was a part of something much bigger in life, you know, like doing the right thing. And like, it gave him a sense of purpose.
And now because of this moral obligation he felt to rat those guys out, he lost everything. Could you imagine like fighting that demon? Like, look, I did the right thing. And in the end, it bit me in the ass. That's why it's so hard for people to do the right thing in these big places because they do this shit to you. They do this shit.
Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart.
We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at prma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma. Okay, so this happens. And Jerry, he's not doing well at this point.
He's like, okay, yeah, I'm sad, but he still has bills to pay. So he needs to find another job. And he ends up finding a job at a local Harrah's casino. I guess they had just built and like opened up a new one not far from where Jerry was living at. And he got a job as like a security officer there.
I guess he really enjoyed this position. He did kind of get into a bit of a party phase. Like he was really trying to drown all of his sorrows and working at a casino, probably not the best place if you're, you know, struggling with drinking. Yeah.
gambling, drugs, anything, because it was all available for him. But after some time of being at Harris Casino, he was like, you know what? I need to change a pace. So he put in a request to be transferred to Reno, Nevada. And they ended up doing so. They transferred him. And Reno, baby, let me tell you all about Reno. I've never been to Reno. I don't know what it's like. But I've seen Reno 911. So...
It's like that, I'm sure. Anyway, so Jerry, he moves there with his whole family. And once again, they're doing pretty all right. He's working at a casino and he's working as like a dealer at the table, you know? And I guess he's making very good money. But Jerry was really struggling with things. He started drinking a lot.
He starts partying more, drinking more. This just leads to everything going downhill for him pretty quick. His wife doesn't want to put up with it anymore. So she ends up leaving with her two kids and going back to Missouri. And she just like leaves them, you
you know? So after this, Jerry really just has a string of bad luck for a long time. Like he gets in trouble with the law a couple of times. In the end though, his family, you know, they could see that Jerry was struggling and that's when they're like, hey, you should probably just move back to Missouri, right? Just like, let it go. Reno's not for you. You can move back in
move actually in with your cousin because he was like more than welcome to let him stay. And then that's when he moves in with the cousin and that leads us to his
Suicide. So after Jerry commits suicide, you know, they have to do the cleanup, which falls on Jerry's older brother, Mike, to clean out his apartment. Like I had mentioned at the beginning, that part's gotta suck, man. But while he's gathering up all of Jerry's things, that's when he makes that little crazy discovery. That's when he finds that black briefcase
underneath Jerry's bed. On top of the briefcase, there are three letters taped to it. And all of these letters are addressed to like his family members. I guess they were essentially suicide notes. These were like really organized, very highly organized.
one of the envelopes was addressed to Mike, his brother, and written next to it in bold letters, it said, "Do not open alone," with lines under it. Like, "Do not open alone." Now, I can't speak for you guys, but I know for me personally, I would probably open it anyways and pretend I didn't later, but Jerry's brother, Mike, he knew better. Jerry, again, former homicide detective, if it said, or if he said, "Do not open this alone," Mike would be like, "You know, hands up, all right."
I won't do it. I'll follow the rules. You convinced me." So Jerry's family gets an attorney to make sure, you know, they're all protected no matter what they find in there. There are those three letters that are addressed to three different people. In them are his confessions. Through the letters, Jerry is able to explain why he ended his life, but also confess his ultimate sin. His ultimate sin being that
Three months prior to Jerry dying, Jerry had actually committed a murder. He killed a man in Michigan by the name of Bruce Miller. Our Jer, like, this is what? He would never, he would never. So this was like just...
What? He killed somebody? Yeah. So we'll come back to this, but now we're gonna go over, we're gonna hop, skip, skadoodle right on over to Flint, Michigan on the night of November 8th, 1999. Bruce Miller, he worked in the General Motors plant in Flint, Michigan, and he worked there for like ever until all of them closed down, you know? But he also had a passion for just like
Tinkering with stuff, working on cars, building and taking apart machinery. You know those people, they're very handsy. They're very handsy people. They like to tinker. They like to do. He was one of those. So Bruce, he actually owned his own like junkyard, which was like his own personal Disney world. Well, he was working over at the yard on the night of November 8th when he gets a phone call. Oh yes, he gets a phone call, bring, bring, bring,
"Hello?" It's his wife, Cherie. So she's calling him. It's like the end of the night. She's like, "Hey, can you bring home a pizza for dinner?" You know? "Great, I'll do that." Click. So that you end up hanging up the phone. And then someone comes out of fricking nowhere, shoots Bruce, leaving no evidence.
No trace, no footprint, no fingerprint, no little piece of hair, nothing in sight. Well, this case had been ongoing, but now three months later and a ton of miles apart, Jerry's suicide note on his briefcase said that Bruce Miller's murder had been staged, that Jerry had traveled to Michigan with the sole purpose of executing Bruce.
What? I know, just go with me on this. It's a journey, not a race. Now we're gonna do one more jump to Bruce's wife, Cherie Kittley. So Cherie was at home, obviously just got off the phone with Bruce while she was waiting for him to come home with some pizza. When instead the police officers show up to the door to deliver the really bad news that her husband had been shot and murdered. And Cherie, obviously,
devastated. She was on the floor in hysterics. You know, who would do this? Who would kill her husband in cold blood? She didn't know it was this Jerry guy yet. So Cherie, which is such a cute name. Cherie, I love that name. It's a bummer she's an awful bitch. She ruined it. Anyway, Cherie, she was born and raised in Flint, Michigan in 1971. She was born...
kind of like everybody in this fricking story, born into just a very typical suburban home life situation. Of course on the outside, it looked perfect, happy, bleep, blah, blue. But on the inside, I guess it was also not the greatest. Cherie's mom was not around a lot. She was pretty absent. And when she was around, there would be different men coming and going. She always had to have a man in her life. One of those.
But sadly, a lot of times when you're growing up in this situation, there are people coming and going all the time. A lot of the times it can lead to some form of abuse. So it's safe to say that her upbringing was not abusive.
As she got older, she started to seek love in all the wrong places, which led Ms. Cherie with three kids by her mid-20s, which is a pretty rough start. So she has three kids, she's in her mid-20s, she's living in Flint. There are not a lot of different job opportunities
for her out there. Oh, also she was going through a divorce. I couldn't really find that much information about this divorce, but she seemed to get married a lot and divorced pretty quickly. I think this was like her third or second, not even sure, whatever. It's not part of the story really. So what we do know is that Shireen needs money and she's working like some little jobs here and there. For a time she was like working at a nursing home. And then also on top of that, she was selling Mary Kay products.
You know, Mary Kay. But at the end of the day, she needed like a steady income, okay? So that's when she ends up getting a job as a bookkeeper at Bruce. Remember Bruce? Bruce's Junkyard. When Bruce and Sheree first met, Bruce was like 47 and Sheree was like,
27? I think there was a 20 year age difference. But despite their age gap, the two of them just really hit it off and became close friends. But Cherie seemed to be very infatuated with this man. She would go around and tell different people that she really liked how Bruce was nothing like the men she had dated in the past, you know? He had his stuff together. Hello? He was a business owner. She was impressed.
Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart.
We control what medicines you get and what you pay at the pharmacy. That's why today, more than half of every dollar spent on medicines goes to middlemen like us. Middlemen are driving medicine costs, and you don't know the half of it. Get the whole story at phrma.org slash middlemen. Paid for by Pharma.
Sheree said in like a later interview that she was the one who actually pursued Bruce and it worked because Sheree, like shortly after they met, like I think it was maybe like a month, two months later,
Sheree was moving in with Bruce. She moved quick. And like, it was again, just a few, like a month or two after. And it wasn't just Sheree, mind you, it was Sheree plus her three kids moving in. So they move in and according to Sheree, Bruce,
really took her kids in and he became like a loving stepfather figure to her children. Now, right before Cherie moved in with her new boo, do you remember the Montel Williams show? She was on the Montel Williams show. Now, I,
I don't know how to say this because some people say she went on this strictly for like attention and whatnot. And some people say she went on with like a greater purpose. She went on the Montel Williams show because her child had been a victim of abuse and she was trying to spread awareness about child abuse. And she like told,
her whole story about her son being abused and whatnot. And then she moved in with Bruce. And the part that was like kind of weird was like she didn't even tell her new husband, Bruce, that she was going on the show or that she went on the show and that it was going to...
air on television. Like, wouldn't you mention that, right? Or like even mention what was going, it's just, it adds really nothing. Well, it could add to the story because if she did go on it for attention, it makes sense, the coming parts, but maybe, but I don't know. And I don't want to discredit her child being abused, you know, but she had a little cameo on Montel Williams. Dude, Montel Williams was a shit though.
Oh, I miss all that. The daytime talk show sitch. Montel raised me and Sally and Ricky and Jenny Jones and Oprah. Again, moving fast here. In April of 1999, Bruce and Cherie, they run off to Las Vegas, baby, and they get married. Cherie would be Bruce's fourth wife. He had been married obviously for other times, but he always told people around him that he loved being married,
slash getting married. So he just liked it and like good for Bruce. He wasn't alone there, you know, this would be Cherie's third marriage. So that's good, should work out. Either way, Bruce was incredibly supportive of her and it was said that he like really loved her kids. He had money and supported her career, whatever she wanted to do. And he also bought her a computer to help her better sell her Mary Kay product.
products. She could reach a much wider audience that way. But that computer, it opened up a whole can of worms and that can of worms was called America Online. You've got mail. Remember AOL? Yeah. So it's the 90s. Well, it's the late 90s, early 2000s. AOL is everything. Okay. We know this. We live this. We are this. The
Thank you. Well, on AOL, you can access like a bunch of different chat rooms on all sorts of different topics. There was like book chat, girl chat, boy chat, teen chat, BDSM chat, cat chat. There was a chat for everything.
And anytime you would go into one of these chat rooms, it wouldn't take long for a 69 Blondie4U420 to enter the room. You know that screen name. 69 Blonde4U420. 69 69 kitty cat meow 420. 69 69 69.
There's always a 69 in these damn screen names. Anyhow, so it wouldn't take long for Ms. Cherie, the newlywed Cherie, was a really big fan of these chat rooms. You know, instead of using the interwebs to help her sell Mary Kay products,
She instead like found herself just spending most of her time jumping around from chat room to chat room. And she really found it entertaining to just flirt with people, right? And chat rooms really gave people the opportunity to just kind of be whoever they wanted to be, act completely different and live a completely different
different internet life. Well, Cherie, she had a ton of different screen names, like a ton. They were all described as quote unquote sexy, but when you look at them, they're really quite silly. Like one of her screen names was quote, "I want to be laid."
It was just right to the point, you know? So I want to be laid. So just cutting straight to the chase. Well, she would end up spending most of her time flirting with randoms on the computer, even at the work computer, which to be fair, I was really unclear if it was the same computer, like if they had one at home and in the office, or if it was just the one in the office.
Either way, she was using the computer to just really have dirty talk with a lot of different people. I know you're like, well, what about her husband, Bruce? No offense, he was a much older gentleman, you know, so he had really no idea what was going on. He thought she was doing bookkeeping and selling her products, you know? She's over there doing numbers stuff.
So it was easy for her to keep this from him. But this whole new internet world was just a total freedom for Miss Sheree, you know? She could be whoever she wanted to be. And to her, it was just an addicting, erotic free-for-all.
She would flirt with just about anyone who sent her a message in the chat and she was having fun while doing it. So as these relationships online progressed, she started sending like photos of herself in lingerie or just doing sexual things to herself, to different people she was talking to. She also recorded herself on a camcorder doing, you know, things to herself.
And she would record this on VHS tapes and then she would mail these off to different people she was talking to with this footage of herself. Which there's no shame, like do what you want, right? But then again, she's married. So I'm not trying to shame, but at the same time I'm judging because of where we are today, obviously. It doesn't go right. In later interviews, Sheree would say that having these chats and whatnot was freeing, but it was very addicting.
the attention she was getting was like a high. It was never enough. She wanted more. She wanted more. She wants someone new. She wanted... It was just never...
It's never enough. So while Cherie is going through these chat rooms doing her thing, that's when she comes across Jerry. Oh, circling back to Jer. Jerry and Cherie, they meet in a chat room, they're messaging back and forth, and they are talking a lot. I'm talking hundreds of thousands of messages and emails were sent between the two of them. But the two just really connected.
They really liked each other. Jerry seemed to be comfortable enough to open up to Cherie about his recent struggles in life, like his divorce, his job, just everything. And Cherie would be on the other side, messaging back like words of encouragement and trying to motivate him to just be better and happy and blah, blah, blah. And she would also motivate Jerry by flirting with him and like sending him provocative images of herself.
'Cause that motivates people. I mean, it does. Look, getting these sexy messages made Jerry feel good about himself. I mean, he was coming out of his hole a little bit. I mean, most guys aren't gonna have a bad day if they get to see some titties, you know? So...
These words of encouragement from Cherie and the titty pics just were really doing it for him. He was excited. So everyone lies a little bit on the internet, especially during this time. So Cherie was telling Jerry that she was like super wealthy. She owned a bunch of different nursing homes throughout Flint and that she had been currently going through some lawsuits, which would most likely be resulting in like a major payout for her, which none of this was true, but she's telling him that.
Then she goes on to tell Jerry, like, "I could help you financially." And he's getting excited because this might be his way out of his current situation. Mind you, when he's having this conversation with Cherie, he's in Reno. It's like after his wife left him. Forgot to say that. So it's like easy to talk to somebody who isn't your next door neighbor, right? Like he stays away from her. So she's having some fun. She doesn't really think anything of it.
According to her. So after telling Jerry that she's wealthy and all that, I mean, Jerry's hooked. He's in. He's all in, baby. I mean, she's basically fulfilling every want this man could have. She has money, time, whatever. You know, like Cherie said that they would write these long fairy tales to each other about their love story and just fantasize and talk dirty to one another. They were both just...
doing their thing. They were all in. Jerry and Cherie have been talking for quite some time and she makes a plan to go visit him in real life. Mind you, this was literally one week, one week after she married Bruce. So yeah. Well, she, Cherie, ends up telling her husband that she's going to Reno because they're having some kind of like Mary Kay convention or something in Reno. He believes her. Why would he question her? She ends up
just leaving her kids. Remember she has kids? Yeah. She leaves them with Bruce for the weekend and she heads off to Reno. So Cherie and what's his name? Jerry. They had done like a little bit of pre-planning. Well, of course they were going to do like a little bit of role play. So when Cherie would walk up, cause he would be working at the blackjack table,
and Shuri was gonna walk up to the table where Jerry was dealing and she would be like dressed all sexy or whatever. She was gonna pretend that she had no idea who he was, you know, and be like,
"How do you play black?" "Hit me." So that's what their plan was to do a little role play. I'm not sure if she was supposed to win or lose, but either way, that's what they did, hot. I don't know the ending of the storyline, but great. But one thing that was noted was that like Jerry went around the casino where he worked and like introduced Cherie to everybody. I mean, it was obvious to everyone who worked with him that this man was in like full blown love.
They ended up staying the night together, have their romantic affair for the weekend, and then Cherie goes back home, you know? The two of them continue their relationship
through email. She sends like many more sexy images of herself to Jerry and he is just loving this woman, right? Jerry even calls his mom a handful of times and tells her like how much he's loving her. And it was really intense. The two of them were in their own little internet worlds, you know? Cherie would change her AOL screen name to like
"Jerry's fool." And then Jerry would change his to "Sheri's fool." So it was pretty serious. To be fair, Sheri is obviously into him as well, as much as she would later deny, but like, she's into him.
Obviously, by the way, she's talking to him. And plus, she loved the attention she was receiving from this man. And they just keep continuing and they decide that they should meet more often. So Cherie would continue telling her husband that, you know, she needs to go out to Reno for Mary Kay conventions or meetings. And he just goes along with it because, again, the internet's so new. Like, this isn't even crossing his mind that this is happening.
'cause nobody even knows this can happen yet. This is, you know, you get it. Great, I'm glad we get it. Everyone gets it? We all get it. Bailey, we get it. Cherie and Bruce had only been married for like a few months at this point.
But Cherie saw this as an opportunity to really escape her old life. Now that she was married to Bruce, she actually had money to go on these trips, to escape her kids, to escape home life, you know, and just live this really exciting, different life, which is pretty fucked up for Bruce and her kids, but she was on one.
Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart.
But a few months into the steamy affair, across state lines, Cherie tells Jerry...
that she's pregnant with his child. She does it like through email, first of all. I just don't feel like that's how you do a pregnancy announcement is through email, but whatever, who am I to judge? But she does. And Jerry receives the news that she's pregnant and he is thrilled. I mean, he really wanted to have a family again. And it felt like it was his chance to get his old life back in a way. And with this new woman, it was a new opportunity to like start over, have a child again,
be a family, and what I'm getting at is that he's 100% on board. So Cherie would send emails of like a picture of the pregnancy test or a picture of the sonogram. She also sent a photo of herself with a little baby bump, which if you see the photo, it's literally just her like with a food baby. She's like pushing it out.
And she's like, "Pregs." And you're like, "Okay, girl, I've had that same burrito." Sure. Anyway, so again, Jerry's just living for this and he is thrilled. So as the days pass, AIM comes through, remember? Instant message, great. And it's to Jerry from Cherie. And she tells him over the chat that Bruce, her ex lover,
or the guy that she's living with. I'm not sure how she presented Bruce to Jerry, but she tells Jerry that Bruce had found out about the affair and in turn, it led him to becoming like very violent.
and that he ended up like beating the crap out of her and that she lost the baby because of it. Now, after the two have this like heartbreaking 8:00 AM chat message session, Cherie sends Jerry photos through email showing like her stomach and I believe her back, it might just be her stomach, but it has like bruise marks all over them, which later you find out that
that wasn't bruising. She used her Mary Kay makeup to create some bruising. When Jerry finds this out, devastated, devastated. It absolutely broke him. And he ends up responding to Cherie telling her like, "No one is going to get away with this. No one is gonna be allowed to do these things to you. And I'm gonna stop him." It was essentially like that with like all caps. He was angry. Jerry, he doesn't know Bruce at all. Only just like the little information that Cherie shares.
And Cherie always seemed to like change her story about Bruce, but she told Jerry that Bruce was not a good man. He was abusive. And she just made all these wild accusations about him and that she couldn't leave. But then she tells Jerry that Bruce was part of the mafia.
Yeah. She tells Jerry that he's pretty well known or really high up in like the mafia world. And because of this, like she's scared she can't do anything because he'll kill her. So she tells him that he's like super high up in the mafia, especially in Michigan. And he operates like money laundering schemes and that he was dangerous and violent with her and
pretty much anyone else that he met. That his salvage yard was just a front for his mafia dealings and that every day Cherie was not with Jerry, it was because Bruce was keeping her on lockdown. But Jerry, if you remember, has a background in the police force, right? And it's like, who is more of an enemy to a police officer than organized criminals? You know, like, so what I'm getting at is that Jerry was triggered. He was getting all worked up.
He was ready to help in any way that he could. Plus he was just angry that this man Bruce had killed his unborn child. So Jerry was becoming obsessed, but most of all, like he just wanted to be the white knight, the one to like save Cherie from this awful situation and this awful person. So Cherie and Jerry, they kind of let things cool off for a bit, right? Tensions are kind of high. People are angry. People are in their feelings.
Weeks later, Cherie writes to Jerry via email to share some good news once again. This time she's pregnant again. She's pregnant again. She writes Jerry a little email. Dear babe, I'm pregnant again. This time she wasn't pregnant with one baby. She was pregnant with twins. Twins. Yeah. Are you catching?
What Cherie's putting down? If you haven't yet, she's not pregnant. She's just messing with this fucking guy and it's sick. So now she's pregnant with twins.
Wow. Isn't that weird? They haven't seen each other in weeks, but okay. Must be like some kind of miracle. Maybe it's the twins of Jesus' past. I don't know. But she's pregnant with them. Anyways, Jerry, once again, poor guy. He's really excited. He wants to be a father. He did question how did this happen, but he really didn't push on it too much because honestly, he was just thrilled.
He found it a little odd, you know, how closely it came after the miscarriage, but that was as far as he really didn't push, you know? So once again, Jerry is happy and he's motivated to start his new life with Cherie. But then November 5th, 1999, Jerry opens an email labeled from Bruce McClure.
Apparently it was in all caps, so you know he's pissed. And it said, quote, "Sheri is growing fat with two bastards in her. She has decided she doesn't like the excess weight and is going to get an abortion." End quote. Okay, you know, Jerry rightfully freaks out a little bit. I mean, this is his woman.
He's all upset and he starts calling the different hospitals in Flint, Michigan, and he is calling Cherie's cell phone, but he's not getting an answer. So he writes her that he's worried and he gets a response the next day from an unknown screen name that said, quote, "This is Cherie. I'm going away for a few days. I will contact you sometime next week." And then there was another email that was from Bruce that said, quote, "Bring me back to the hospital.
In all caps, of course. "Well, Jerry, she told me to let you know she would be home soon. I think the abortion went fine. She sounded like she felt better knowing she wasn't having any more kids.
Thank you for making my relationship with my wife better. I don't know what the fuck is going on. Okay, I don't, but this woman is bored. Okay. Now, if all of this seems like complete buffoonery to you, well, I am here to inform you that it is indeed buffoonery. Ms. Cherie was lying to Jerry about his wife.
She was lying about being pregnant. She was lying about Bruce being abusive towards her. She was lying about the emails coming from Bruce's account because it was in fact, Cherie sending those emails. The photos of her with the pregnant belly were literally just photos of Cherie pushing her stomach out. The bruises on her stomach from the abuse received by Bruce, again, it was all just,
Everything she had told Jerry was a really big lie. Bruce, her husband, again, no idea what was going on, but he also had no idea about Jerry or even how the internet worked. I don't even think he knew how to turn on the computer, really. He was just minding his own business, working in his yard, existing. You know, like, damn, leave this guy alone, Cherie. Poor Bruce, well, and Jerry, but like Bruce was just like, la dee fuck da, going about his day.
He doesn't even know. Okay, so you know this, I know this, but Jerry doesn't know this yet. He doesn't know.
He doesn't know that we know that they know that though everything about them knowing, he doesn't know. I know, I know you know that I know that I know we know that Cherie is a little fucking idiot. I hate this bitch. Anyway, to make matters worse, Cherie added fuel to this damn fire. She sends Jerry a follow-up email going on to say that she did not have an abortion, that Bruce was lying, but what really happened
was that she was quote, "gang raped by Bruce's friends in the mafia repeatedly in order to miscarry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." She was just creating such disturbing sick lies. I hate her. Okay, but this time, this email is the one that just sets Jerry off. I mean, he's like, you know what? She's no longer safe. Her kids aren't safe. If she gets pregnant, like,
He's just upset, very upset. Jerry sends Sheree a message saying that he's heading towards her, he's coming, and he's on his way. And Sheree goes on to tell him like, "Jerry, I'm so scared. I'm so scared. If this doesn't work, I don't know what's gonna happen. He's gonna kill me." And then from there, Jerry writes back like, "What's the fastest way into the yard?" He's asking for directions to his, Bruce's yard.
And then the two share emails about how much they love each other and like, "I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you." Cherie asked him at some point, like, "Can you really do this?"
It's like, do what? Do what? Cherie, do what? Jerry had driven to Michigan from his new apartment in Missouri. With him, he brought a 20 gauge shotgun. And on November 8th, Jerry snuck into the offices of Bruce's salvage yard. While Jerry was making his way inside, Bruce was on the phone with Cherie telling her he was about to leave and that he would be picking up pizza on his way home.
Remember in the beginning, the pizza guy? Obviously, Cherie was a person of interest to the police, but I guess she had a pretty solid alibi. She was at home in Bruce's house taking care of the three kids while her husband was at work. It was pretty airtight. And on top of that, when the police went to her house that night to inform her that her husband had just been murdered, police noted that she had a quote,
I guess she was like on the floor crying, sad, you know? So they were like, appropriate. Appropriate response. Yep. Noted. Hi there. I'm a PBM. I'm also an insurance company. We middlemen are often owned by the same company. So, hard to tell apart.
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Well, with nothing really connecting Cherie to the murder of Bruce, they really had their eyes set on another man. And like, I could go on forever about this in itself because they're trying to ruin this poor man's life, okay? Bruce had this old friend named John. They really wanted to pin the murder on this John guy because Bruce owed John money. And John had got like really upset one day and said like, if he doesn't give me my money, I'm gonna kill him.
And like someone heard that and then police were like, that's our guy. And they were going in on him and questioning him and bringing him in and like getting, trying to poke him until he confessed. And this guy, John, he should have gotten an attorney, but he didn't.
He had the mindset, if I'm innocent, then I don't need an attorney because I'm innocent, right? Which is what we all think. But it's like, it doesn't always work that way because our system is so fucked up. It doesn't matter. But eventually, John ends up telling police that Bruce's wife, Cherie, was trouble because Cherie and John had dated at some point. I know.
I know. Sheree and Joan had dated at some point, and he was like trying to tell Bruce, like, don't mess with that woman. Don't mess with her. Like, she's trouble. Get as far away as you can from her. And of course, he didn't listen.
Bruce. So John tells us to police. He's like, yeah, I tried telling him like, she's no good. She's bad news. And he wasn't able to give any type of evidence or proof or anything, but that was enough for police to go off of. Because they had nothing on this poor John guy. They were just like ruining his freaking life. I watched like this thing where they were questioning him and it's just sad because it's like he's innocent and
He doesn't think, you know, it was just sad to watch innocent people start talking to police and they'll get you. Next thing you know, you've admitted to something you did not do. Two days after Bruce was found dead, some locals claim that they saw Cherie at a local bar and that she seemed to be like enjoying herself just fine. There were various versions of it, but pretty much people said that she was quote, bringing it,
on the dance floor. Oh, she was bringing it. Many who knew her were like, "Hmm, you know, it's pretty odd for someone who just lost her husband to be bringing it so hard on the dance floor, but okay, girl." With the investigation seeming to stall out, Cherie stayed living in the home she shared with Bruce and her kids. And a few months later, this messy ass bitch
she moved in a new guy into the home. I don't know, some guy she just picked up and started seeing.
Mind you, mind you, this messy, messy woman, when she moves this guy in, like she's still talking to Jerry. I know, it's just like, what the, like how does she even have time for all of this? I don't know. So she now has this new guy living with her in her dead husband's house. It's not funny, it's just I can't believe some people, huh? But of course we're here, so...
What was her big mistake, you ask? Well, she ghosted her hitman. She ghosted Jerry. That's where she messed up. You see, this was deeply upsetting to him. I mean, he couldn't understand why, but this gave him time away from her to give him some sort of clarity. After he had came and he shot Bruce and then he went back home, kind of like,
Weird that he like didn't go to her house or something afterwards. They were in the same neighborhood. You'd think he would make a little pit stop, but he didn't. Anyways, okay, so now that he has some time alone though, because she ghosted him, he's getting some clarity. Her lies are starting to add. He was putting the pieces together.
And for the first time, Jerry was starting to realize that Cherie, she was full of shit. Okay? Oh my God, for reals though. She lied to him about everything. Now, this is when like Jerry's coming to terms with the fact that he was manipulated by this woman that he thought he loved and she manipulated him into committing murder. And this...
seems to be the real reason that Jerry would hit rock bottom. He was basically used like a weapon to kill poor Bruce and all for what? This sick woman's game, this sick woman's game. And like, not to be rude or anything, but I'm sure that must've been extremely humiliating as well. I'm sure that's humiliating.
Shameful? I don't know what the word is, but right? But like also on top of that, Jerry was not a stupid man. He knew how to gather evidence. So it turns out before he died, he went through all of his back conversations with Cherie. He laid all of them out, he printed them all. And then he went through their like chat logs, all of their emails, printed all of those. Every photo she sent him, printed. Fake sonogram, pregnancy test.
printed, he printed everything and put it in that black briefcase under his bed. Now alongside the trove of evidence, Jerry had left his suicide note and in it that's when he confessed to killing Bruce Miller and he even described in great detail how he had done it. Like I said earlier, like he had driven to Michigan for the express purpose of killing Bruce. In the letter he described like
how he entered the salvage yard, what kind of tools he used, how he knew Bruce would be there, everything. He even shared how Cherie's lie, like deeply her lies, deeply affected him. He even wrote a letter to his mom apologizing and saying that he loved her and that he drove and killed this man because he thought Cherie was pregnant with his babies. And that was enough to make him do that.
Do you know what I'm saying? I hope you know what I'm saying. When you read like the full content of his letter, it's obvious that Jerry believed every word Cherie told him about the fake Bruce that she had made up. He genuinely thought that by killing Bruce, he was saving Cherie and his unborn children. And when you think about it like that, it's like, well, not to justify a killing, but you know, it's like, no wonder he was so worked up and like went after Bruce. And then in his letter, his suicide note, and in all of the evidence,
He said that Cherie was involved and helped set it all up. And he had all the proof and all the evidence he needed to send it to police. And he even said in the note, "She will get what's coming."
Love to see that, love to see that. Michigan police were eager for Cherie's side of the story, you know? So when she was brought in for questioning, this time she wasn't acting mournful or sad or anything. Instead, she was very defensive right off the bat. And she was just saying like, "I can't believe you. "What they got anything to do with this?" And a lot of people noted that like this was
just not like her. She should have been crying and stuff. But if police are accusing you of like murdering someone, wouldn't you be defensive? I just didn't feel like it. I don't know, whatever. It was noted again that she wasn't very remorseful.
These police, they like noting that kind of stuff. Not remorseful this time. But thanks to Jerry's briefcase with all those online conversations, all that hardcore evidence just right there, you know? She could not deny, I mean, she could deny all she wanted, but the police actually had the letters and stuff with them, which, ooh, must be so nice. Like, "Oh, you didn't do it?
"Here, read this. Is that you right there? I want to get laid. Is that your screen name?" So with everything they needed, they didn't even need a confession out of her. They had all the evidence. Police were able to arrest her. Wowzo, right? And remember, this is in 1999. This is like completely new, different, wild, what? Like a lot of people, their minds were blown.
Nobody was thinking about the fact that their online conversations could be saved and perhaps shown up in court one day. It was just wild. Media, of course, was all over the shit. Throughout Cherie's trial, she tried to feed the jury, you know, that she was just trying to get Jerry to leave her alone. She's like, yeah, I had an affair with him, but like, I didn't do anything. He wouldn't leave me alone. He kept trying to talk to me.
She would tell the jury that like all of her lies were attempts to get Jerry to leave her alone. Yeah, telling a man that you're pregnant, definitely gonna get them to leave you alone. Actually, in some cases.
They sure do disappear, don't they? But that's what she kept going back to in court. She was like, I was just trying to get him to leave me alone. He was just obsessed with me. He wouldn't leave me alone. What was I supposed to do? What was I, you know, it's such an eye roll. This was like the whole trial. She was like, I was trying to break up with him, but he was so obsessed with me. So I just like, I tried and I just kept trying and like, I don't know. I'm just a sad Cherie.
So yeah, it just didn't make sense to just about anybody, especially when there was so much evidence. Police were able to confirm some of what Jerry had told them in his note that Cherie had helped him plan the whole thing. They found phone records indicating that after Bruce had been killed, Jerry used whose cell phone? Bruce. Jerry used Bruce's cell phone after he killed him to call Cherie at home.
So it was like a signal they set up. He would let the phone, Cherie's phone ring once and then hang up. And that was a signal that the two of them had agreed on, you know, that he, that the deed was done. Cherie lied some more. She's a professional liar. She thinks once again, she's going to get away with it. Like she was lying so much that you could honestly tell that she believed herself, which is not great.
Not a good thing. Cherie told the court that like, Jerry was after Bruce's money and that like, she just had gotten like a little carried away with it talking to strangers online. And Jerry had just gotten too tangled up in their game, you know? Like he took it too seriously and she was just having fun. One of the biggest takeaways from the evidence in Jerry's briefcase was that for so long,
Jerry kept trying to convince her to leave her situation. But Sheree was very insistent that it just wouldn't work out because of the mafia. In the trial, the prosecutors, they end up reading like a bunch of her instant messages. And like Jerry is trying to tell her that she should come live with him in Missouri and that he could protect her and her children there. But Sheree responded with like,
I don't wanna sit in Kansas City and become a rotten bitch knowing he's still breathing out there. I don't know, Cherie, it seems like you were a rotten bitch no matter where the location. Thank you. So a lot of people were asking, okay, like Cherie obviously played a huge role in this, but like, what was the motive?
Was she just playing a silly internet game? Well, apparently, and this is coming directly from Cherie, but she had done one big thing when she and Bruce first got married. She spent
all of his money. Like when she and Bruce first got married, she maxed all of his credit cards out and whatnot. And she shopped, she had fun. And the courts were like, well, maybe that was like a little bit of motivation. It was like she was living this life that she quote unquote always wanted.
I know, like that's kind of hard to prove what her motive is because what I think it was attention and who doesn't want money? I don't know. But like she wasn't after some kind of jackpot. She was just sick.
and fucking bored. Give this girl like some hobbies. How about you pay attention to your kids, Cherie? Hey, wait a minute. That's a crazy thought. Well, Cherie did end up being convicted of second degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder, separate charges that left her with a combined life sentence on top of an additional 54 to 81 years for the murder itself.
But don't get too excited because on July 16th, 2009, a federal court judge ordered Cherie's immediate release from prison on bond pending a new trial. So there was debate whether or not the suicide note should have been even allowed into evidence in the first place. Yeah, I don't know why. I don't know why this was like a question, but
It was a debate. So this goes on for like quite some time. But during this point, Sheree was out. She was out and free to do whatever the hell she wanted to do until like the new trial started. During this break that she had from prison,
She was able to like reconnect with her own children for the first time, it sounds like. And she ends up getting like really attached to them. It's a little late, Martha. I mean, Cherie, but okay. Anyways, but the courts, they end up deciding to uphold her original conviction and she ends up going...
back to prison, my friends. But I guess seeing her kids had a really lasting impression on her because according to her, when she was heading back to jail with her daughter, her daughter was there like to drop her off. She said she just had this switch in her brain. Yeah, they always have a switch when they go to prison, don't they? She had a switch in her brain where she realized that she was ready to drop the act for good.
She was like looking at her daughter and she realized that Bruce and Jerry's families would never be able to see them again. And even though like it's sad, she's going to be behind bars, at least she would be able to see her own kids again. So when Cherie was 44, she finally admitted for the first time to arranging for her husband to be killed by Jerry. She wrote a letter to the judge who presided over her trial and
She confessed to everything. She said that she did it. She went on on how she did it and just said that she's guilty. This is a side note, but like something like this never happens. Never, never, never. Cherie even said, quote, I knew the murder was going to happen and I allowed it. I allowed a man to kill another man based on my lies and manipulation, end quote.
End quote. With this, she basically is agreeing to never appeal her conviction again. Pretty brave, pretty bold. Good for her. She just realized that she belongs in prison and what she did was wrong. Many asked like, okay, why? Why did you do it in the first place, right? And Cherise said, quote, it was like a video game and each man and each relationship was another level to me and each level was harder. It was seeing how much I could get away with, how much I could make somebody believe.
And while she sounds like she's really owning her shit, the families were very about it. Many of them not fully believing her. Jerry's mom said that she felt that the letter and everything, the apology, it was inauthentic, which is totally fair, right? If Sheree had killed my own kids, I'm sure I'd be like, uh, fuck you. So...
Yeah. But I will say her writing this confession and stuff is pretty bold. It means she can never appeal ever again and she's gonna spend the rest of her life in prison. And I think that's exactly what she should do because she really did that shit. She really did. Sadly, two men had to die because of fucking Cherie. Damn girl, you sick. Okay, I think that's it. I mean, it's definitely not. I had to leave out some stuff, but like, boy.
Sheree was exhausting. She's currently in prison for life. She'll be up for parole in 2055 when she's like 84 years old. So we'll see. I doubt she's gonna get out. And yeah, that's the web of lies Sheree frickin' created. Like insane. Like...
Oh my God. I guess a little end note here that I didn't know where to put into the story so much, but when Sheree was in jail, she ended up getting married one more time. Hey, she loves love, I guess. Have you heard of the true crime show? It's called Snapped. It's on the Oxygen Network. I know you do.
So they actually did an episode on Cherie in November of like 2007. And there was an older gentleman who was watching television that night and saw her story. And apparently this guy just like fell in love with Cherie. Now this man, he thought that she was completely wronged and was just a delicate little damsel in distress and
she needed saving. So he wrote her a letter and she responded. He visited her in prison and on that very first visit, he proposed to Cherie and she accepted. And I think they got married. Is that a meet cute? I keep hearing people say meet cute. Is that one? Well, I think they ended up breaking up, but for a minute they got married. Honestly, like am I? No, mm-mm. What an idiot. If they're in jail, I just,
Well, they can't leave you if they're in jail. Where else are they gonna go? Maybe some people like that. I don't get it. Never will. Anyways. I could go on. I got so deep into this story because it was just like, wait, what? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Pretty much like my general consensus of Cherie was that she was just a freaking squatter. She would meet somebody,
move in with them and her kids and just stay there until she found her next situation, her next whatever, opportunity. Most people are just so fucking annoying. It's a shame that someone sucking so bad can lead to others dying. Like that's sad. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. You make good choices. Be safe out there, please. And I will be talking to you guys later. Goodbye.