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Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. We just want to say thank you so much for listening and watching. If you are watching on YouTube, please give us a thumbs up and subscribe and turn on notifications so that you know every single time we upload. And then also if you are just listening and are able to leave us a review, please do it. Please let it be a five star. Just kidding. We don't want it. If it's a one star, you don't have to leave a review. Okay.
But thank you anyways. Thank you so much for listening. We love you guys so much. All right. You got your 10 seconds? I think I do have my 10 seconds. You got your 45 seconds? I kind of mentioned this in the... Well, actually, it was kind of funny. A bunch of people were commenting and saying and messaging in that...
You're like, dang, you really rushed Garrett last episode for his 10 seconds. I know. I'm trying to remember because sometimes I get him confused. I think we kind of just jumped into the 10 seconds and we jumped into the episode. Right. Well, I think what was happening is I was worried it was going to be like we were going to banter during the episode. Mm-hmm.
Gary. Just kidding. And so I wanted, I know you don't love sitting here for too long. So I just wanted to make sure we got right into it. Also. Well, I kind of mentioned it on the patron episode. We were just in California. Uh,
And we went to some fun restaurants. Peyton and I love eating food. Good restaurants, like whatever it may be. Anything that has a good food, Peyton and I will be there. Yeah. We had a bonus Patreon episode drop, but we're recording like at the same time. So it's kind of 10 seconds are going to be the same. And so we went to this one restaurant and on like the item that I wanted, it didn't have the price. It just had like, I think it said, I forget what it said next to it. Like chef's special or like something. It said like MP or...
Like market price is what I assume it stands for. I didn't even look. Anyways, it tasted great. It tasted really, really good. It did taste very good. It was really good. Well, actually, all of our food there was really good. Yes. But mine in particular was delicious. And I'm trying to hype it up in my head because it definitely cost a lot more than we thought it was going to cost. I actually still don't even know... How much it cost. How much it cost. I like...
I didn't really look. You just signed the ticket. I just assumed what the bill was going to be. And then I got the bill and I was like, wait, what the heck?
It's like, well, what happened? And then I was looking through and I was like, my dish must have been way more than I thought it was going to be. Yeah. And so we were laughing about that. Yeah, we were cracking up. But it did taste good. So sometimes you just got to take the hit. It's all that matters. You know, if there's one thing I like spending money on, it's food. Me too. And your truck. And my truck. And my truck. No, I do too, though. Cars in general. It's a bad habit. I like good food. Well, if you guys have any good food recommendations...
We need to make like a Google sheet or something. So every time we visit a city or a state, we have food recommendations. Payne and I are going to work on that. So you guys be thinking of all the restaurants that you like to go to.
All right, that's my 10 seconds for this week. Enough about food. Well, I know it's not my 10 seconds, but I have something to say. Ah, la, la. Go ahead, Vivi. I've been re-watching Bridgerton because the new season just came out, and I was a really big fan of season one. So if anyone's watching Bridgerton, you can comment, and then I'll talk to you about it because I'm really excited for it. Is that your 10 seconds? Yeah. Thanks, Vivi. Harder than you think, huh? No, very easy. Pretty hard.
All right, our sources for this week are allthatsinteresting.com, thecinemaholic.com, medium.com, Wikipedia, and 48 Hours Hollywood Horror Story. So as Garrett just kind of said, we were just in Los Angeles last week for the Podcast Movement Convention, which was super fun. And as we know, LA is famous. I mean, everyone around the world knows Los Angeles. And before we jump into that real quick, Peyton gets starstruck.
I just wanted to say that. Little Dickie walked into one of the restaurants we were in and Peyton jumped out of her seat. Well, I didn't go up to him. No, no, she didn't go up to him, but she was just excited. Yeah, I whacked Garrett super hard. I was like, look, look.
It's a little dicky. Yeah. Anyway, just had to point that out. Well, but that is the beauty of Hollywood. True. Like, that's what I'm trying to get across right now is it's the place where people go to chase their dream. Yep. Acting, singing, fame, and fortune. L.A. has it all. But Hollywood especially. Our case begins with someone doing just that, chasing their dreams in Hollywood. Yeah.
Blake Leibel is the son of a wealthy Toronto real estate developer and has just decided to move to Hollywood and pursue a long wanted career in entertainment, film and graphic novels.
And all of this was purely just about chasing the dream. It had nothing to do with money because money wasn't an issue coming from his wealthy family. Blake Leibel had a reputation for being born into money and people sort of appreciated him for that luxurious lifestyle that he led according to 48 Hours.
Think Anna Delvey kind of thing. People were just drawn to him because he was luxurious. Blake's father was actually former Olympic sailor, Lorne Leibel, who then made his fortune in Canadian real estate.
When Blake's mother tragically passed in 2011 after his parents divorced, Blake actually fought for her $12 million estate in court and was awarded half of it. But it was during this time in Hollywood that he met a beautiful woman named Yana Kassian, who was becoming a model but working as a translator on the side.
Yana was actually raised in Ukraine and I was pretty taken aback to stumble across this information while researching, knowing what we know now and what's happening. I just want to say that our hearts are with the citizens suffering in both Ukraine and Russia during this awful time. But while Yana was in Ukraine, she studied law and actually went on to work as a prosecutor at the Ukrainian tax service during her 20s.
But in 2014, she immigrated over to California for the same reason most do, to chase her dreams. And for Yana, that was becoming a model, which she should have because she is stunning.
Yana was curious and adventurous, and after having a successful life as a prosecutor in Ukraine, she moved and absolutely fell in love with L.A. In fact, Yana would tell her mother, Olga Kosyan, back home in the Ukraine, all about her new life in California and eventually about the new man she had met, Blake Leibel. And I mean...
Blake was a good catch in the stereotypical way. I mean, on top of everything, he had found some success in Hollywood, small jobs here and there. According to all that's interesting.com, Blake had directed a low budget film called bald and managed to contribute to the animated series called space balls.
But his most successful... Oh, like the movie Spaceballs? It was like an animated series. Oh, it's like... Okay. Is there a movie Spaceballs? Yeah. I didn't know that. I'm sure a lot of people listening will know what it is, but it's a... I feel like it's a classic. But Blake's most successful project was actually a graphic novel that he wrote called Syndrome.
The story is about a psychologist who uses an infamous serial killer that murders women for a brand new experiment to find out how to cure murderers by making them feel empathy.
Which, I mean, like the concept of it would actually be very beneficial and we probably wouldn't have a podcast. So Yana and Blake hit it off basically right away. Although she was a little older, he seemed like the ideal partner. And pretty soon she was telling her mother all about how she had found the guy she wanted to marry.
When Yana's mother met Blake, she immediately understood the infatuation and actually agreed with her daughter. Blake was a catch. He was a nice guy. He was successful. He was wealthy. He had a great personality. And as the relationship grew and it grew fast, only after a couple months, Yana confessed to Blake one of her biggest dreams in life.
She wanted to be a mother. She wanted to have a baby, and she was set on Blake being the father. So on May 3rd, 2016, two years after moving to LA and a year after meeting Blake, Yana gave birth to their daughter, Diana.
And Blake and her were the happy, normal, young individuals still chasing dreams, but now together as a family living in West Hollywood. Okay. But just two months after giving birth...
Yana's mother, Olga, was beginning to worry about her daughter. It had been days since she had heard from her. And this was weird, especially since having a newborn. Olga had called and called, but the calls went unanswered, going straight to voicemail. So she contacted the California police and asked them to conduct a wellness check on her daughter. What year are we in again? 2016.
Okay, thanks. After some complication, police arrived at Yana and Blake's apartment where they discovered one of the most horrific murder scenes they had ever seen. Which I feel like a lot seeing in LA. Right. I feel like there's a lot of crime in big cities. Right. Before I walk you through the state of the apartment and what police discovered...
I want to back up and give you some more context. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm leaving you on a cliffhanger. I'm used to it. Previous to that day at the apartment, uh,
There were so many things that Yana didn't know about her boyfriend and baby's father, but one of them was a closer look at his wealthy family. Blake actually had a brother named Cody Leibel. From a young age, they were friends and enemies. They hung out, but the competition between the two was relentless. Blake was always jealous of his father's relationship with his brother Cody.
Cody was just closer with their father and Blake was closer with their mother. So much so that when their parents split, Cody went with their dad and Blake went with their mom. But Blake and his mom weren't left to fend for themselves after the divorce. Her father, Blake's grandfather, had made a fortune in a plastics company. So there was money on both ends. Like her family was rich and his family was rich. So Blake had rich grandparents on both sides.
Cody lived with his father in the most prestigious neighborhood in the area, and Blake with his mother in the second nicest neighborhood around. By the time Blake's mother passed away, he was almost completely cut off from his dad. What was the reason?
Just didn't like him. His dad didn't like him. This was why he had to battle in court for his mother's inheritance. And when he got it, he no longer had access to his father's money. So when he won his mother's inheritance, his father cut him off. But I mean, he was already almost cut off. He said, yes, it wasn't, it wasn't that big of a thing. And as they grew, but I think money wise, it wasn't that big of a thing, but to Blake's
heart and to Blake's relationship, it was a huge thing. As they grew up, Cody helped their father develop real estate. So he was just taking after the footsteps of his dad. And he also owned a record label of his own. One other part about Blake that Yana had no idea about was certain details from his past relationships.
Blake had not only had serious girlfriends in the past, he had been married before. Okay. And not only had he been married before, he had a child with his ex-wife. And Yana didn't know this. Well, I mean, she knew some of it. So not only did he have a child with his ex-wife, he also had another one on the way the day he met Yana. All right. And he left his pregnant wife for Yana.
So not only had he stepped out on his pregnant wife and child for a unsuspecting Yana, he was also seeing a mistress around the same time. So he had three women going on. Oh my gosh. And Yana had no idea. She was under the assumption that Blake was divorced.
and now single and living as a bachelor when they met. No idea about the children, no idea he wasn't divorced and had just left his pregnant wife. And he has a bunch of money, correct? Was his mom's inheritance pretty large? Yeah, it was roughly $7 million, and he's working on top of that. So, I mean, if you invest correctly, yes, he has a lot of money. Yeah, he's chilling. So he has an ex-wife, Yana, and a mistress. Back in...
Back in 2006, Blake, who was trying to make a name for himself and navigate life on his own, actually met a different model named Amanda Braun. And Amanda was the wife that he would end up leaving for Yana. Amanda was very much a socialite. And when they began dating, she urged them as a couple to begin a life of LA events and parties. And this is what kind of introduced Blake into this life. Which, going back to the money thing...
I feel like if he's living that luxurious of a life, I mean, you can blow through money pretty fast. Right. And this was kind of the issue in the first marriages. He was like, oh, let's just stay home. Oh, and he's got other kids and wives as well. Well, this is the wife. Yeah, but...
Together, him and his first wife began climbing up the social ladder. Got it. And after some time dating, Blake and Amanda were married. And they continued on life together, eventually getting pregnant and having a son. By 2015, Blake had worked on all of his projects and was in a full-blown family life with Amanda, the first model he married. And she was pregnant again. But Blake, who was already cheating on Amanda with a mistress...
had also just met Yana and would have soon abandoned his current family for her. So we all caught up now. So now that Blake has left his last family for Yana and created a new one, his relationship with his brother Cody is still strained, but at least they are on speaking terms unlike him and his father. But around the time that Yana got pregnant, Blake began expressing concern about his brother Cody to anybody that would listen.
Cody lived a very loud lifestyle in L.A., even more luxurious than Blake. He touted his father's money around, driving fast, nice cars, and hanging out at all of the coolest clubs and restaurants. According to Blake, Cody had recently gotten involved in some heavy-duty gambling ring with mobsters and sharks.
This exact ring that Blake is talking about is actually an underground ring and nicknamed Molly Poker. And it would go on to have a movie made about it in 2017 called Molly's Game with some pretty big names acting in it.
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Celebrities, politicians, and criminals alike became a part of this circuit and it was a whole, this is a whole nother story all on its own. Blake says that Cody was in this circuit and in a lot of debt and that he owed a lot of bad people money. I feel like it's always like this. Like, it always looks so perfect on the surface, then you dig into something and it's just this huge explosion behind it. And on the other hand,
On such different levels because we see this in the stories we talk about when it's just one small family living, you know what I mean? But then also we get to Hollywood and we're talking about elites and celebrities and it's the same thing. Everyone has the same thing going on. Yep. So Blake tells people that Cody has been in debt upwards of a million dollars at times.
It doesn't seem like a lot though if his dad is that wealthy. Okay, so this is what I'm about to say. Okay. This seems odd to me despite the fact that he has a steady stream of money coming in from his father. Like he's not cut off from his father. His father has a lot of money and he's working for his father. So to me, unless he's gambling millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars. Which he could be. Which he totally could be. But even then, kind of what you said is like you're still just playing around with money at that point. Yeah.
Blake expressed concern that Cody's habits had now potentially put his family and friends in danger, like physical danger.
And in the months leading up to what is happening in 2016, he is like becoming erratic about this. He's going around telling everyone about how Cody's in so much debt and he, and my family's going to get killed because of it. And, and I'm in so much danger. He's telling anyone who can hear. And by early 2016 with a pregnant Yana about to birth his child, Cody's possible debt was not the only problem in Blake's life.
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Blake had only recently moved out of his house in Beverly Hills to officially divorce his first wife, Amanda, which Yana had no idea they weren't even divorced yet, and had now moved into his new condo with Yana.
They each had no idea. And on top of all of that, he was still consistently seeing another third woman, this one named Constance, whom he had bought a house a couple miles away from his and Yana's. Oh, he does not have enough money to be doing that. Right. Blow through all his money. It's safe to say that he had multiple lives. And in mid-May 2016, it was all catching up to him. Just a week before Yana was murdered, Constance,
Constance accused Blake of sexually assaulting her in the house he bought for her. She called police and said he sexually assaulted me. Blake was arrested and put in jail. Yana bailed him out and subsequently found out about his affair. Their baby was not even two months old.
So on top of him running around kind of acting erratic and being off enough that people are starting to notice, he also just got arrested for sexually assaulting one of his mistresses. Got it. So this is all just his life is really boiling up at this point.
Man had $7 million and a steady income if he just would have freaking chilled for a little bit. Olga, who was visiting to help out with the baby, she's coming from Ukraine because her daughter just had her first baby, remembers how traumatic it was for Yana to find all of this out.
that the life she had built in LA was now crashing down around her. Blake had a wife that he had lied to about divorcing. He had a mistress. She had just had to bail him out of jail. Blake was not who he claimed to be.
For fear of losing this life, though, unsure of what to do and a new mom, Yana decided to house Olga and her daughter with Blake's money in an apartment nearby so that she could focus on her marriage and what to do moving forward.
What? Yeah, he said,
He threatened to abandon her and the baby, just like he had his first wife, who he lied to about that whole situation. I'm saying deuces to that. And all of this while Yana is still recovering from a C-section, but she's scared. She moved here. She moved her whole life here. And now this person that she fell in love with and had a baby with isn't who she thought he was.
When Olga realized what was happening, she begged Yana to move out and to move in with her and the baby. But Yana was too scared. On May 23rd, 2016, Yana was seen on security footage going shopping with her mother, Olga, in L.A. And Olga explains that while there, Yana started getting very demanding texts and calls from Blake.
and she just grew very anxious she couldn't even concentrate yana immediately jumped up and quickly told her mom she needed to get home immediately olga asked for an explanation like okay you don't have to leave this fast but yana wouldn't tell her she can be seen on camera leaving the shopping center while on the phone with someone and that was the last time her mother would see her alive
The next day, Olga couldn't get into contact with Jana. She called, she texted, but there was nothing. And Olga had a feeling, mother's intuition, that Jana was not okay. She called the police, but the language barrier was making things complicated. Yes, ma'am. He won't open the door. They already tried to do that, and they tried to knock, but he doesn't know if he won't open the door. Okay, we'll do another welfare check.
Police were not taking her seriously. So by the next morning, Olga took a taxi to Yana's home, her and Blake's apartment, to try and figure out what was going on. She can be seen on security footage standing outside of the condo gate trying desperately to get in, and it's so heartbreaking. Oh my gosh. Also because there's a language barrier, so she can't communicate very well with people to try to tell them what's going on.
Olga noticed a man standing in the apartment window and realized it was Blake. So she called out to him. She was like, Blake, Blake, open the front door. Let me in. But nothing. Eventually, someone opened the gate to leave and Olga rushed in to find her daughter. Baby Diana was in a friend's care back at Olga's home. She was ringing the doorbell over and over, standing at the front door, knocking. Once again, she called police and this time they showed up.
When police showed up and figured out what was going on and when no one answered the door, they tried to call Blake, but he didn't answer. They told Olga that there was not much they could do. They didn't have probable cause to go into the apartment. She's a grown adult. So they ended up leaving. Olga needed to get into that apartment, but she also needed to get home to baby Diana. So she too left unsure of what to do with no police help. Where does she go from here? The next day,
The next morning, Olga called the police once again while standing outside of the apartment building. And this time, they agreed that maybe Jana was in medical distress if it's been another day. She just had a baby. Maybe something's wrong. So they agreed that they'll break the door to try to get in and just do a wellness check on her. When police arrived, they made Olga stay down at the main entrance when they went in.
They unlocked the door and realized it had a hotel-style lock locked from the inside, which if you think about that, means someone had to be inside. But no one's been answering the door for two days, but the door is locked from the inside. So they break down the door, and then they were there in the crime scene. When police entered the apartment, they walked into a living room that was disheveled and messy.
As they made their way through calling out for Yana, they noticed that the hallway door leading into the bedrooms was locked and barricaded. So they ended up having to take the whole door off the hinges to get in. Holy crap. When police glanced into the guest bedroom, they saw blood in the room. And this was the first time that they were like...
Oh, shoot. Like something awful is going on right now. So they called out Blake, Yana. No one's seen them. No one's heard from them, but no one answered. Like you said, someone has to be in there because the door is still locked. Correct. And the doors are being like the doors are barricaded. Like more than than one person. Right. Right.
They made their way towards the primary bedroom, but also found it barricaded this time with a mattress from the inside. And as they push in the door, trying to knock the mattress down, trying to get in, they realize that the door is pushing back.
At first, they think it's the mattress until the sudden realization that someone else is in the apartment with them despite the fact that they have been calling out for people the whole time. They're taking a door off the hinges. They're going through the apartment. Pushing back. Like this dude's pushing back against it. Like what's going through your mind at this moment? They've announced themselves. Whoever's behind the door knows it's the cops. Like, oh, I'm pretty sure I can outpush.
All these policemen in my room right now. Someone is not responding to calls or identifying themselves, just holding the door closed. So they call out again. They say, hey, we know someone's in there. We know you're standing there. We know you're pushing against the door. And finally, someone answers. It's Blake. He tells police that Yana isn't there. Yana's not home. I know who you're looking for. She's not home and I'm not coming out. Oh my gosh. Police are like, okay, well, we're not leaving.
From inside the condo, Blake calls a friend on his phone who rushes over to the condo because police are like, you have to come out. They're having a standoff at this point. They're like, we have to check on her. We have to make sure she's okay. You have to come out. No one's seen her. And his friend begs Blake to come out. He tries to convince him to come out. And eventually he opens the door and emerges wearing only boxer shorts.
He has bruises and scratches on his face and a huge bite mark on his arm. Now, I can't even explain to you. If you're watching on YouTube, you know what this guy looks like right now. You need to get on our social media, Murder With My Husband, and take a look at the picture. Because when I saw what he looked like coming out of the apartment, I was like...
He looks, I can't even explain it. I can't even explain it. You just need to go look at the picture. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. Once Blake is evacuated, police begin clearing the rest of the apartment. And once they walk through the primary bedroom, they were overcome by the scene. They noticed something in the bed that stops them in their tracks. Yana laying in the bed covered in a Mickey mouse blanket all the way up to her chin.
but police didn't need to uncover her body to know that she was dead. Just looking at her head poking out was enough. The injuries she had suffered were horrendous. And now I'm going to go into a little graphic detail here. So if you don't want to just go ahead and skipped, but Yana had been scalped. What? The skin on the back of her head all the way down to her neck was
and jawline was missing. Why would you ever, ever do that to somebody? Her left ear was missing. It was only bone. She had bite marks and bruises to what was left of her face. Her body was unusually pale. Like they look at her and they're like that she has no blood left in her body.
Police found a pair of Blake's pants with his passport and $4,000 in the pocket. Blake was arrested as Olga tried to make her way into the apartment to still check on her daughter. Oh no. Police kept her out of the apartment and informed her that her daughter was not alive anymore. Blake is smiling in his arrest photo, but not like a cute smile, like a
a very scary smile. Yeah. But when police questioned him, he denied having anything to do with what was happening in the apartment. In fact, a freak. I don't even like, I don't even know how to explain somebody like, right. In fact, he says, I didn't even know Yana was dead in the bed.
Even though she was missing her scalp. What are you even supposed to? Right. That's crazy. He says he didn't kill her. He has no idea who did. And the only thing he can say over and over is that science would tell them who did it. Science would tell them who did it. And a crime scene specialist began breaking down the science in the apartment to do just that. Okay, you guys, shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall can be a challenge. But I'm telling you right now.
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This apartment was covered in blood, huge pools of blood all over the primary bedroom, the bathroom, the guest bedroom. In fact, the whole apartment was covered in these large pools of blood. It had just been cleaned up. All of this explained how brutal and prolonged this murder was. And we will put a picture up of the luminol light, like lighting up in the apartment so you can see how much
Yana had bled out in every single room of this apartment. And based on the autopsy, she bled solely from her head. Her cause of death was exsanguination, which is death by blood being drained from a body. Detectives believe it took roughly six to eight hours for Yana to die in that apartment. It's a brutal way to die.
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As crime scene techs are figuring out what happened, they found the trash chute to look for all the evidence that the blood evidence was showing was missing. Like, if he cleaned up all of this blood, where is the evidence that this was even here in the first place? And they found 11 bags full of blankets, cleaning products, bedding, towels, and more in
the apartment trash chute. Like he didn't even leave the apartment to go through all of this evidence away. It always confuses me too. I mean, I'm sure they're just in the moment. So they're like, oh, I got to clean this up. But
Like if you killed, like, what do you think is going to happen? Right. There was no, I mean, none of this is logical, so I can't expect them to think logical. Right. But it just doesn't make sense. One item they found was actually a bed skirt that had a full bloody handprint on it. Like that's how much blood was going on in this scene. And the handprint shows that part of the pinky finger is missing. So it's a short pinky. Turned.
Turns out Blake is missing part of his pinky finger from a previous accident. And it was a perfect match. His hand in her blood on a blanket. Science will tell everything. So like this is just open and shut, right? This had nothing to do with Cody's debt. Police looked into it and actually found no concrete evidence that he even owed anybody money from gambling. They don't believe it was a jealous ex-girlfriend or girlfriends or wife.
Blake killed Yana, it was certain. But why? Like, what's the motive to even do this? Police drug test Blake to see if this was a possible drug-fueled attack, like, because he was offering nothing. But he only had a small amount of marijuana in his system. So as much as we are sitting here wondering why, so were police.
They are struggling to find the motive. They ask Blake why he would have done this. But once again, he doesn't admit to anything other than an out of context. Women don't like me. If I didn't have money, women wouldn't talk to me. It's all about him, him, him, him. Police wonder if this has anything to do with Yana's murder because this really has more to do with Blake than her.
I mean, this wasn't any typical murder. This was a brutal, violent murder. Like I said at the beginning, every cop who worked this case said I had never seen a scene like this. Something was clearly wrong with whoever did this. Blake.
With no help from him, detectives try to dig deeper into Blake's background. But everyone in Blake's life, family members, classmates, teachers, and then girlfriends, friends, employers, no one would talk to police or the media. Really? Well, you're getting up into some wealthier, like, people, like, I don't think anyone wants to be involved in it. That's such bullcrap. A court psychiatrist found Blake liable, competent to stand trial.
The only scenario the prosecution could think of was that Blake grew up as a kid who got everything he ever wanted until his parents split and he became alienated from his father. This alienation and threat of being cut off led him into a power struggle from an early age competition with Cody. He began having a need for
for more power and control than his father had and developed an underlying violent fantasy that he'd been rehearsing in his mind for years. This all peeking through in his writings of syndrome. Remember that graphic novel we talked about?
And OK, I'm just going to say here, this feels like the same argument as if you like listen to true crime podcast, you're going to be a killer, which we know isn't true. But I guess if a killer does listen to true crime podcast, I'm sure that it's saying something in trial. I don't know. I don't know what I don't know the psychology behind that. But without a clear motive, the state anyway decides to take this theory to trial.
It was in June, two years after Yana's murder, that Blake went to trial and he looked completely different at trial than he had before. We will post pictures. We've seen this happen before. But Blake had his natural hair now. He'd gained weight. Honestly, he kind of looks like he turned into a middle-aged man, whereas two years earlier, he was honestly looking kind of like a young kid who just had money. So...
Also, again, I'm going to say here, his eyes are so creepy. Like at trial, his eyes are just so creepy. Syndrome, the book was a main part of the trial and talked about a ton, which once again is interesting to me because I feel like the crime scene, him barricading himself into the apartment with her dead body, the handprint, this is cause enough. Like this feels like
pretty substantial evidence enough. Granted, I'm not a prosecutor and I know nowadays you need more than physical evidence to get a conviction, but I think using someone's interests or art to depict what kind of person they are is a sketchy route because jurors might be like, that doesn't mean anything. I like dark stuff too. You know what I mean? So it's weird to me to focus so heavily on that, except for, I do have to say, this was the only part that was super chilling to me. The cover art for the syndrome book is,
is a toy baby doll with its scalp missing oh my gosh no way just the brain is showing and like some blood around the edges was found dead the same way and she was scalped okay and in the book there is a part where the killer hangs two of his victims upside down so the blood will drain from their head oh my god she was drained of her blood so i wonder if maybe why would he do that like but
But either way, he was a part of this book and then she dies like this, which is why I think the state brought it up. Prosecutors present at trial that Blake tortured Yana during those eight hours that she was still alive without her scalp.
Like she was scalped and still alive. And during that time, it can be seen on security footage that he had food delivered multiple times during those eight hours, meaning he could have stopped at any time and called for help or changed course, but he chose not to. Olga Kostin sat through the entire trial and heard everything.
every single detail and saw every single graphic photo of her daughter's body. The pain that families of victims have to endure throughout an entire case will always be unfathomable and heartbreaking to me.
Cody came to the trial in support of Blake, but his father never showed up. I'm surprised that he came to support Blake after he's on trial for killing and torturing someone. Yes. Right. But I think more often than not, we do see families standing by murderers. So, I mean, I guess it's just the same thing.
After just three hours, the jury comes back with a guilty verdict. Three hours. That is so short. First degree murder. When it was announced, Blake showed absolutely no emotion on his face. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Olga believes that if police had broken down the door on Wednesday, when she was there with them the first time, Yana might still be alive. Police have come out and said that the forensic pathologist proved that Yana was already dead at that point.
I think it goes without saying that looking back on it now that we know everything we do, of course they should have broken the door down. But there's so much more that goes into a wellness check. Laws that police have to work around. It's just an awful situation and a heartbreaking one for Yana and her family. Olga got custody of baby Diana. And at the time of this story was raising her in Ukraine to honor her daughter, right?
But no one from the libel family has ever reached out to Olga about Diana. No concern, no wish to see her, no money to help support and try to apologize for what happened.
In 2019, a judge awarded over $30 million to Yana's family as part of a wrongful death suit. Wow. As of August 17th, 2021, Olga and baby Diana were still in Ukraine with Yana's sister. And I tried researching. I dug and I dug.
But to find a name on a list of unknown links is almost impossible. I can't tell you guys where Diana and Olga are now. I don't know if they're still in Ukraine. I don't know if they got out.
The world is messy everywhere, but especially over there. I can't imagine the terror and the heartache people are living through and dying in. And I wish I could tell you that they're all right, but I just don't know. Once again, my heart and my prayers go out to not only Yana's family today, but to everyone suffering in this war. We have attached some secure foundations to donate to if you guys are interested, but that was the story of Yana Cassian.
That is so brutal. That was so brutal. I think. I can't even think. That was unbelievable. Truly a Hollywood horror story. Like truly. How do people like that exist? And just like what? Why? We still don't have an answer. We and Yana's family. Like they're really. He never came out and said why. He's a.
I don't even know. But to sit in there with her for days and then to barricade himself in there. And then as police are going through the apartment for minutes, like 30 minutes, they're in there not knowing he's in there. Just weird. And he just sits there in silence with her dead body in the bed. Yeah.
I don't even know what to say. It's just so creepy. So creepy. And my heart goes out to Yana and her family. I hope he stays in jail or prison for the rest of his life. He had life without possibility of parole. Good, good, good. It's just such a brutal thing and also so devastating for Yana to move to LA to try to chase her dreams and then for this to happen and for her family to have to fight for baby Diana and then...
Also, baby Diana. She's real. She's a real person. So my heart just goes out for them. And a reminder that these people that we get the honor of telling their stories are real people and we can do our best by thinking about them today. All right, you guys. We love you so much. Thank you for listening. A reminder that a bonus Patreon episode drops this week. So if you want to check it out, it's at patreon.com slash murderwithmyhusband. And we will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. I hate it. Goodbye.