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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder Express. Yay! Choo-choo! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I am Jimmy Wissman. Thank you, folks, so much for joining us today on another wild, crazy Small Town Murder Express episode all aboard the murder train as we pull away from the station. We got some crazy stuff, and it'll be in Arizona this week, so
All right. It's a place both of us are familiar with, and we'll have a lot of fun with it. So that'll be... It's crazy stuff, though. I don't want to say it's too fun, but it's fun anyway. At least making fun of the place will be fun. Sure is. That's sad. We can talk any shit we want about the Valley. Oh, yeah.
Between the two of us, we've spent like 60 years there. Yeah, it's plenty of... We've done time there, we'll say. So that said, I think we'll start here and just say, head over to shutupandgivememurder.com. Certainly get your tickets for live shows, number one. And most of all, there's also merch there. But September the 20th, Minneapolis State Theater, this big, beautiful theater that's way too nice for us. Here we go. Let's sell it out. Oh, shit.
And let's tell awful dick jokes there and really class the place up a little bit. Sure. Let's do it. The next night we'll be in Milwaukee. Those tickets are almost gone, so get them right this second if you want them. Get those the rest of the year, too. Oklahoma City, Austin, Boston, New York, and Kansas City. We added extra tickets. There you go. So there you go, everybody. You can head over to Kansas City and see us there. Shutupandgivememurder.com, patreon.com. Oh.
slash crime in sports is where you get all of the bonus material. We have so much. Anybody $5 a month or above, you're going to get the whole back catalog of all sorts of Patreon stuff, hundreds of episodes you've never heard, new ones every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder.
This week is no different. You get all of it. This week for crime and sports, which you'll get, has nothing to do with sports. It's horrible industrial disasters we're going to talk about. Why does OSHA exist? We'll tell you. We'll tell you. Well, I mean, this is like, you know, if two people die in something, it's tragic. But if like 100 people get immediately incinerated by steel, it's so crazy you can't even process it.
So we'll talk about that. Then for small-town murder, we're going to talk about, I think it was about 10 years ago, the cannibal cop who was... Wild stuff, yeah. Really wild stuff. This guy is a New York City cop and...
really had these fantasies of cannibalism and we'll talk about is that illegal is that what is that exactly and we'll talk all about that stuff it's a thing patreon.com slash crime and sports is where you get all that and you get a shout out at the end of the show before also you should listen to crime and sports and you should also listen to your stupid opinions which is so damn funny i think you love it so that said i think it's time everybody here we go i don't care where you are right now it
It doesn't matter where you are. What are you, in the middle of a yoga class and in some weird pose? That's okay. I want you to let out the biggest fart you can and then jump to your feet, look around at the shocked people, arms to the sky, and let's all shout. Shut up and get it.
Murder. Let's do this, everybody. Here we go. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Let's go. Let's go. We're going local Arizona. Here we are. Yeah. And it's in the valley, but definitely not part of Phoenix. Is it? We're going to Maricopa.
Oh, that is not the valley. No. Well, I mean, technically, I guess. I know. But it is so far. Oh, boy. It's so nice to give you. It's about 45 minutes from downtown Phoenix. So it's where everybody was like, I could get a giant house out there for like twelve dollars. It literally was a reason. It was like one hundred ten grand for like a thirty five hundred square foot house because it's just.
It's out there. There's like that one 347 that goes out there that you sit in traffic on and people get killed constantly on it. It goes out that way. And it's just that area where every time there's a monsoon season, that giant dust cloud rolls right through their place. That's it. Just goes right through Maricopa. I used to do a show at the Harrah's Casino out there. I had to go there every fucking day.
for rehearsals for like three weeks. Every goddamn day. It was horrible. It's just a nightmare of a drive. So Maricopa, it's about 45 minutes to downtown Phoenix, like we said. It's a bring a snack ride. You're bringing a snack. That's how long it is. You're bringing like at least some Cheez-Its or something with you. You're stopping for a drink for sure. Oh, definitely. You're going to have to pee before you get there. About an hour 42, our last episode in Arizona, which was Catalina Foothills outside of Tucson. Yeah.
That was episode 455, an explosive and terrible mystery. Right, in the parking lot. That was fucking messed up, dude. That was a wild episode. You should listen to that if you haven't. Population here, you're going to be shocked at this population because it used to be very small. Is it 40,000? 57,000 now.
Now they're up to – there was nobody there 25 years ago. Literally, there was like 1,000 people there 25 years ago, and now there's 57,000. It was – this and Gold Canyon were the big draw during the housing boom in 2006 or whatever. Yeah, and then all those people were like, oh, shit, now my house is – Oh, no. Now it's worth nothing.
Median household income out here is a little higher than the national average, about $82,388. Median home price has gone up like crazy out there now, $370,500.
To live in the middle of the desert. There's literally no attraction to it. There's no draw. It's just like a few strip malls and a lot of houses. It's a piece of shit. Piece of shit. And the motto, let's see if they incorporate their shittiness into the motto, quote, proud history, prosperous future.
It's like 10 years old. What are you talking about? I don't hear the word shit mentioned in there anywhere. I think they're lying. Historical shit, and we love it.
Well, historically, Maricopa has been in three different locations over the years. This is the third time they've tried to mount a Maricopa. Third incarnation? First, there was Maricopa Wells, which was made around natural water. That's where they put up a little town. Then there was Maricopaville.
Yeah. Wasting away in Maricopaville. That's the worst fucking town name I've ever. Margaritaville would be a more legitimate town name than Maricopaville for some reason. Maricopaville is exactly where that song should take place. Where you're drinking away your sorrows. That's it. Because you live in Maricopa. Yes. You're all the way out there and you're like, they said it was like Phoenix. Yeah.
And then it was Maricopa Junction, which eventually turned into just Maricopa. They just dropped the junction after a while. Yeah, because the negative connotation of Apache. I think out there that's what they were thinking. So it started out as an oasis around a series of watering holes.
which was about eight miles north of where Maricopa is now. And then they moved it after those dried up and it ended up here, basically. And it's grown so much. Between, let's see, between 2000 and 2010, it went from 1,040 people to 43,000 people.
Jesus. In 10 years. It's crazy. That's insane. The reviews of this town, because we've talked some shit, as we do about any local Phoenix thing, but what do other people think? Let's find out. What do the locals believe? Maybe it's different. Maybe it's different. Maybe we've just had bad experiences, us and everyone we know that's ever been there, too. Maybe they've all just been wrong.
Here's five stars. I would love to see more inside activity options for children. They kind of get tired of playing in the McDonald's play place. I can't even get it out. The McDonald's play place because that's the only thing to do.
Yeah. This is boring. It's too hot outside most of the time for them to even play at the park. Yeah. You'll burn yourself on monkey bars. Build a pool and put up some shade nets at your house because that's all there is to do in Arizona. That's it. It's so tough. Here's three stars.
I hate living here. That's a didn't bury the lead there. Three stars to get anywhere important. You have to drive on the two lane road out of town. And that is an absolute joke, especially during rush hour. Right. Food here is awful. If you want a good sit down restaurant, don't even bother here. You can have 30 different Mexican restaurants if you want to, though, or two different McDonald's owned by the same person.
If you want to do some fun shopping, go out of town, you'll only find junk here. Nothing is worth it. Live anywhere else but Maricopa. That sounds like one star. That's every suburb in Phoenix. Yeah. That sounded like a one-star review. Yeah. And they gave it five? They gave it three. Okay. Here's three stars, very short and sweet. Quote, I haven't been the victim of a crime yet. Yes. So I'm expecting it any day now. It's coming. It's awesome. It's coming sometime. Yeah.
Fingers crossed. Yeah, I know they exist here. Two stars. Horrible people in Maricopa. Okay. They complain about everything here. Very rude and unpolished people. Oh, they're very, very rough, apparently. Unpolished. A lot of tarnish around here. Break out the old English spray. These people are...
Unpolished. Just harnessed folks. I hate to say it, as I'm sure not all are this way, but the majority rules. 347 is a death trap. That's the road that you have to travel on to get out of here. If I knew then what I do now, I would have run. Not even. I would have run.
I wouldn't have even driven. I would have skipped the car, left it there, and just cut a path across the blue sky. I'm out this bitch. On his horse. Straight in a straight line. Two stars. I don't like how nobody turns on their house lights at night.
It can be a safety issue as people can easily hide in the dark. Okay. If all you need is dark and everyone's hiding, your town has bigger problems. I don't like it when the sun goes down around here. It's dangerous. One star lived in Maricopa for a year and couldn't stand it. My husband and I just moved last week. If you like being stuck on a road, poop smell, and tons of flies, Maricopa is your place. There's farms around it. There are so many farms. That's it.
Things to do here. Number one, traffic. You can sit in traffic on the 347. Or you can go to the Wild West Music Fest. Yeah. Yeah. That's happening out there. You know who's playing there? Is it the casino? There's all sorts of mechanical bull riding and all kinds of shit like that. But there's also, I don't even know where the fuck it is. Somewhere here. It's got to be. Well, here's who's performing. You've got Flo Rida. Flo Rida.
Yeah. You got Nelly country. Nelly. We've talked about Nelly on a crime and sports a lot. These are the reason that Hardy lost his wife. There's a lot going on there. Young MC will be here. Well, uncle cracker will be here. Who's also not country. Then Fillmore. I don't know who Fillmore is. Uh,
I don't know them either. And then a chick with a guitar named Deanna Carter. So I assume she's country. Oh, Deanna Carter's great. She's country, yeah. There you go. I knew that. She's terrific. That said, let's talk about a murder. That's the worst lineup ever. That's the whole lineup. It's such an odd lineup.
Flo Rida opening for Kenny Chesney. What? Why? Who is watching that whole show? There's not one person who's like, I like all these people. Nobody. It's so strange. It's such a weird show. It's like we're hoping people like two people on here. There's going to be a lot of people from Maricopa that love Deanna Carter that are going to see her that are going to be screaming the N-word for an hour and a half before her show. Get off the stage.
Holy shit. Get off the stage, N-word, and I mean Nelly. Just kidding. All right. Let's talk about a murder here. Yeah, here we go. Here we go. Let's talk about a man first. Here we go. Let's talk about Michael Agerter. Okay. Agerter. It's A-G-E-R-T-E-R. Agerter. Agerter.
agit agitur i'm sorry agitur that's a really fucked name it's a hard name to say it's really hard it's not easy it's like it for scrabble it would be decent you got a lot of vowels to work with and shit but r and a t is good you like that a couple r's but otherwise it's difficult to work with golly he's born july 26th 1985 uh he's born in valparaiso indiana
So he's an Indiana guy. He's oldest of four kids. So he's the he's the older brother. And his brother, Nick, said that Michael was always caring and really passionate. He was my role model always. And I think that rubbed off on me. OK, so he's the good older brother. He's not right. You know, the shithead older brother where the parents are like, don't be like your older brother. Look what happened to him.
Nick's the way he is because he looked up to his brother. Well, the older siblings are an example one way or the other. They're going to go, look at how your brother fucked up his life. Don't do that. Don't do that. Or look at your brother. He's doing great now. Come on. So one of those things. In 2002, when he was 17, the family moved to Urbana, Ohio, and he played high school football and his dad was the high school football coach.
Yeah. So he's having like the most all American upbringing. That's beautiful. Ever here. Yeah. He's in the Midwest with his dad as the football coach and he's out there on the team. Yeah. This is John Cougar. Mellencamp is just like taking notes in the background. He's stalking them. Oh, yeah. What's he doing now?
Okay, listen to Bob Seger in truck. Okay, good. Excellent. Damn it, I love Bob. All right, good. Yeah, we just had a big Bob Seger discussion before this. Yes.
And I think I really, I figured out his marketing that he should have had 45 years ago. You can sum him up in one sentence. Every album should be called the innermost thoughts of your dad. Your dad's innermost thoughts. Volume one, volume two, volume three. He could have done it infinitely. Feeling up tits in the woods.
Numbers never stop, Bob. He used to be in a band and he was on the road and smoking his last cigarette at the end of the night and the whole deal. Is that a man or a woman? Your dad's fucked up, you guys. Listen, your dad thinks about shit. Your dad has to go to another place in his mind to be able to survive you. That's the thing.
He has to go to that time he fingered a girl in that 60 Chevy. To not kill his entire family, he's got to think about, remember that 60 Chevy? That's what keeps you alive, families out there. All of us are alive because our dad had memories of feeling a girl up one time. That's why we're all here right now and alive. I could have eaten a few sandwiches more back then. Could have done it.
So Michael goes into a year of college. He goes to Ohio State. And he decides, though, that he wants to get out of college and get right into the workforce. All right. He has a plan for this. And that's the thing. If you kind of have a plan for a way that you're, you know, something you want to do that's not really required to have a college education, then you don't really need to.
spend a lot of money on it it's one of those things so college ain't necessary you can just get your basics in and yeah but he wants to be into in the banking industry which i would think college would help college serves that at least on the high end i would seems like they got some math classes some counting something right that's what i was thinking i was usually yeah if i go into a bank and somebody's trying to talk me into an investment and i go did you go to college
Because I didn't is why. So I want someone who did to tell me about this. I need you to know the laws and stuff behind this. You need to know better math than me. That's how this works. So he first worked for First Ohio Mortgage, and then he ended up getting a job at Chase after that. And then in 2010, when he was 25, he wanted to get out of Ohio.
And he wanted to move. 25 years old. Yeah. Wants to see the world. Wants to move out west. So he applies for a job with Wells Fargo and their mortgage department in Phoenix. And he likes the hot weather. He likes the whole deal. Really? A lot of people that are from the Midwest and the Northeast...
When they get out there, they're like, ah, here we go. Look at this. Yeah, it speaks to them, the lack of trees, the open sky. It's something about it. Awful. To me, it's a nightmare. But to them, they go, ah, this is what I've always wanted. I don't know. It happens all the time. There's not a tree to be found. What are you talking about? I love it. You can see the sky. Too much of the sky. That's the problem. It's all sky with sun in it that beats down on you unmercifully.
So he moves there. He just packed up his car and drove like fucking cousin Larry from perfect strangers in the beginning. He just got in there. Mary Tyler Moore hit right down to the fucking find him a Balki right there. Yeah. Come on. Balki. Fine. I need a Balki or a Rota. Let's do this.
So he found another guy that ended up, he got a roommate with a guy he knew in Ohio, ended up moving out there as well, a guy named Chris Grindy, or Grindy, G-R-I-N-D-E-Y. Grindy, we'll say. He moved to Arizona within a year of that, and they decided to get a place together.
sure so we'll be roommates they got an apartment in tempe together which if you're young single guys and chris has recently chris has recently divorced his friend oh fuck he got divorced needs a fresh start now he's a guy in his 20s walking around in tempe which is like oh my god that's a yeah that's your that's your bridge in the gap yeah there's like oh what is there five million fucking college age girls around here like it's a
I can understand why you'd want to live there, the two of them anyway. We'll be elder statesmen to 22-year-olds. Let's get it. Yeah, that's how you teach them how to drink and shit properly. Show them how not to throw up. Yeah, I got tricks for you guys. Hold on. Yeah. You have no idea. I'm sure you had to stick with one drink and not mix, you fucking moron. Yeah. No, you don't go from that to that. That's the problem. If you're drinking beer, you're drinking beer. Yeah, stick with it.
Beer before liquor, never been sicker. You know that one? No, and that's why, because you're too young for it. You've had a lot of bad tomorrows, haven't you? That's the reason why. Because you start out just having a couple beers, and it's fun, and next thing you know, there's shots, and then bad day tomorrow. Bad day. You have to know what you're going to drink. So in 2013, he's lived out there for a couple years. He's Chris's roommate for a couple years. He decides that he wants to try to find a girl to kind of,
He wants a girlfriend. He wants some love. He's tired of meeting people, and it's hard. And especially in Tempe, these are all college girls or young people. It's difficult. So he's like, I want to meet somebody who's trying to find somebody. So he decides he's going to get a dating app, and he's going to do it that way. Oh, no. Which you're better off just going to bars in Tempe probably, I think, at that point. If there's a silver lining to my marriage, I sidestepped apps, and I could not be happier to have missed all of those. Thrilled. Thrilled. I never want to be a part of that.
Yeah, I never want somebody to have that story. Oh, it's awful. No, thanks. So the Tempe bar scene is basically like a dating. It's like Tinder in person, essentially. That's what the bar scene is there. It's crazy. Except everybody fucks. Yeah, well, Tinder in person. Yeah, I guess that's right. Everybody's gross. Yeah, they don't care. So he meets a woman, the first woman he meets on the site.
Is that right? The first woman he meets is a woman named Catherine Sienkiewicz. S-I-N-K-E-V-I-T-C-H. Sienkiewicz.
It's Russian. Yeah. She's born in 1985. They're the same age. She works at a call center at this point in time. So, you know, not making much money because I've worked at call centers in Phoenix before. Not a lot of money in that at all. No. She is, her family's Russian. Now, I don't know if her parents are from Russia or how far back it goes, but it seems to be a big part of her family's identity here. She's the youngest of eight kids.
Oh, boy. That's a lot. That's a lot of kids to be the youngest of. Yeah, they were making babies in the 70s. Man, that sounds like some Russian, we need somebody to pick the potatoes shit there. I don't know. And she's got older parents, huh? They must be if she's the youngest. Well, they are older. I don't...
We'll talk about her parents. She doesn't have them for very long is the problem. She grows up in Southern California, first of all. Her father died when she was very young. I don't know if he just died from being drained and having eight kids around him.
Empty balls. Or if he blew his brains out, which would be one of the two. I can see that. If I have eight kids, I'm dying in some way, shape or form. Either the world will take me. I can't afford Southern California anymore. Yeah, that's a lot. And then her mother ended up dropping dead in the kitchen when she was 13. And lucky Catherine was the one to find her.
Really? So found her dead mom when she's 13, dead on the kitchen floor. Yikes. Not good at all.
And now both parents are dead. Both parents are dead. And she's the youngest. A lot of her siblings are like adults at this point, too. So it's not like that big of a support system. She ends up being taken in and raised by one of her sisters, by one of her older sisters, obviously. So has to. She apparently as an adult here, she does not like to tell a lot of private information to people.
She's very private. She doesn't like to give a lot of like family info or, you know, oh, one time when I was a kid, we were doing this. Like none of that happens really from her.
You don't get a lot of stories or anything. Yeah. If she's in Tempe, she probably doesn't want to talk about that with those people. There's a lot of fucking rich kids there. Oh, yeah. Yeah. If she found her dead mom and then was raised by her sister, there's not a lot of monetary gain. You know what I mean? Her life is probably not real rich. There's also like a shitload of Asian kids over there, though, that are from countries where they're like, you know, I grew up without a floor, but I'm so fucking smart. Here I am. You know, there's like...
Yeah. If you walk around the math, I had to do, I was a process server. I had to serve one of the departments there, and I was walking through the math thing, and it's all Asian kids. That's it. There's not a fucking white kid in the math shit. No. No.
The number one high school in Arizona is 68% Asian. Yeah, yeah. It's what it is. That's where the education is. That's a talk stereotypes, but fucking good at math, apparently. The whole fucking department is all Asian people. Apparently, that's a true one, obviously. They're figuring it. They're figuring it. So they're typing it. There we go. That figure is this. There it is. So Michael and Catherine immediately click.
off the bat. Now, he's outgoing and she's pretty reserved, but she's also kind of like, she's not scared of a lot of shit. Michael's father says that one of the things about Catherine was that she was a little bit daring. She liked to try things. On one of their first few dates, they went skydiving.
First few? I think that might be revealing too much on one of the first few dates. To show how you shit your pants exactly in a situation of crisis. I don't think someone needs to know that yet, right?
What elevation? Yeah. How high pitched of a scream can you make while shitting your pants? I don't think a woman you just met needs to know that probably. I'm never doing that. It's never happened. No, not happening. Whose fucking idea was that? It's got to be his, right? It seems like a dare, like skydiving. I'd go skydiving. Well, so would I. Well, I would. Well, fuck, let's do it. Let's go. Let's go right now. I know where the place is. Yeah. So they date after a few months.
He brings her home to Ohio to the family. Yeah, he's going to show that that's getting serious. I mean, dead serious. Yeah. Here's my Tinder date. No, it's a 1500 mile trip to show off your Tinder date. So she brought her to Ohio and the sister Marley. This is Michael's sister said she seemed like a good person for Mike. Just seemed great. So she ends up moving into the apartment with.
Chris Grindy and Mike. Oh, she moves into the apartment, which for Chris is like, I had this bachelor pad with my buddy and all this. And now his girlfriend's moving in.
That would suck, man. That would suck. So much for having fun. Yeah, thanks a lot. Now she's always on the couch with us. Hey, bro. No, you can't. Never mind. I was trying to get you to bring college girls here so I can impress them with weed. She's giving you dirty looks every time you're doing shit. Like, you're not my girlfriend. I'm giving me dirty looks. She is nice to him, though. She buys Mike a dog. Or adopts a dog for him. A little tiny dog named Darwin. So.
So she gifts him a dog. So this is your dog and all that. And also Mike helps her transition from call center work into a job in the insurance industry. She ends up working like insurance and then she'll end up doing like mortgage stuff later on too. Really? Yeah. So she ends up, you know, kind of professionally doing that kind of thing. Yeah. So in 2015, uh,
as we'll talk about, they're going to get their own place because they have some problems. At one point, she's working for Movement Mortgage. She's going to work there for the next couple of years. Now, the problem, there's problems before this, but in 2016, she's pregnant. Wow. Now, Mike's happy about it. Really? He's happy about it. He's not real happy with Catherine, but he's happy to be having a baby.
He wants he does want a baby. And apparently they the family was like, well, you haven't you guys been fighting and everything? And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that's OK. It's not OK. They'll listen to this shit. She was very controlling is the problem. Super control. Yeah. Yeah. Controlling and jealous also. Yeah. Oh, she would constantly accuse him of having affairs.
Including now, this is why some guys you go, well, maybe he's fucking around or maybe he's talking to people. But when you hear about the person she accused him of having an affair with, you go, OK, you're just a crazy person. And she accused him and really made a big deal out of it, of having an affair with his sister, his own sister, who lives in Ohio, by the way.
That's crazy time. Your little sister who lives in Ohio, you're fucking her, aren't you? Yeah, that's what's going on. Couldn't wait to. How did she get there? She's a little off in the fucking head. And then she becomes physically abusive after that as well. And everybody notices it. This is the thing. She's been put back on the shelf a couple of times, I feel like. Yeah.
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Now back to the show. The sister said, quote, she knocked him out two or three different times. She had headbutted him.
She is tough. Yeah, you know what? That's the thing about going out with a Russian girl. Their heads are very hard. They'll knock you right out. Very thick forehead. Very thick forehead on these Russian girls. You know how it works. So she headbutts him and knocks him out on several different occasions. She had to get stitches another time we'll talk about here. That's her super move. That's what she always does. Yeah, that's her fucking finisher there. That's her finishing move.
So 2016, this is all going on. Now, the family was happy to hear the news of the pregnancy, but was like, I thought you were having problems. The friend Chris, and this is great because I heard it. I saw it come out of his mouth on a documentary thing. He said, quote, I told him, I hope you're not going to marry her. Like, you're not going to marry that fucking crazy bitch, are you? Like, that's no right.
And he was like, no, no, of course not. But I do want to be a part of my kid's life and support my child. So, you know, yeah. At one point, Chris said, quote, he tells me she just bit me. I had to get stitches. Bit me. God damn it. Bit me to the point of getting stitches. That's so deep. Would she take a chunk out of him like he's a hamburger? That's...
Maybe she had one of those Looney Tunes fantasies where you look like a big chicken. She fights so dirty, man. This is ridiculous. So that's dirty. Yeah, headbutting and biting. Yeah. So Michael asks his friend Chris, can you help me get the hell out of here and away from this woman? Because they're still living together at this point. Oh, God. So he's like, help me and Darwin extricate ourselves from this, please. I'm bringing Darwin with me. Bringing Darwin with me. So he gets a place out in Maricopa in 2016. Wow.
A place of his own, a house with a garage and all that. Nice house. The 43,700 block of West Sagebrush Trail is the road he's on. So they move out there. This really pissed Catherine off, by the way. She was not thrilled about this at all. Like, how dare you run from me?
I'm going to headbutt you so hard when I catch up to you. You're leaving? Oh, boy. Yeah, so she didn't, and he didn't tell her where he was going either. So she didn't know where he was, and she was pissed off. I believe it. So she hired a private investigator to find him. You can't do that. I guess you can, because if you say, I'm pregnant, and the father of my child is supposed to be paying for stuff...
He took off and moved away and I got to find him. Anybody would be like, oh, well, yeah, you need to find that guy. Fuck him. What a dick. You know what I mean? I mean, you can Google, you can find anybody online and know where they're at. Yeah, go to the assessor's office. Seems illegal, but all right. It's...
She finds his ass, though. Well, he's renting a place, so you couldn't even it would have been harder to find him. You need a private investigator to be able to go into like electric files and find the lease and shit like that. Otherwise, the property isn't in his name. Right. So she not only finds out where he lives, she comes to his house and steals the dog.
She stole Darwin. Kidnapped the dog. They had a tiny doggy door and she just stuck her face in and said, come here, Darwin. And he fucking came and she snatched his ass. This dog stealing bitch. You can't do that. And she tricked the dog. She tricked the dog.
She's a bad lady. That's not nice. Yeah, she knows the words that make him come here. That's not nice. Darwin, come here, buddy. Yeah. Hey, buddy. Probably at a treat or something, and that's that. Yeah, that little whistle. I got the whistle. My dog comes. There's a specific whistle, and Vaughn knows it, and he comes right to me. He knows what's going on here. So-
Yeah, the dog's gone. So he's like, what the fuck? She came to my house. She stole my dog. So he gets a restraining order against her. Yeah. And it's not just the dog that causes the restraining order. The dog was the final straw. There also was the time that she allegedly we don't know if it was her, but I can't imagine it was anybody else. Someone tried to set the house on fire.
Yeah. From the outside. They tried to burn the place down by using a torch on the garage door and the front door. There's burn marks all over it from someone. Garages are steel, lady. No, no, this was not a steel garage door. Oh, he's got a wood garage door? Yeah, one of the older homes. That's a nice house. Yeah, and they fucking tried to set that. You know how long that takes to burn? With a torch? He's just trying to, with doors? This is crazy. So, yeah.
And apparently that while there's burn marks all over the fucking house now and now they couldn't prove that she was responsible for that because he called the cops and was like, I think my ex-girlfriend tried to burn my house down. Right. You know, they're like, that's juicy and all, but it's just burn marks. Yeah. That's really interesting gossip and shit. I mean, that's tell me more.
But I don't think we can do anything about it. Sorry about that, page six, but we can't do anything. Yeah. I mean, do call back when you have more info, though, because I want to know stuff. Holler when you see her. So he goes to the landlord and asks if he can please install security cameras all over the fucking house on the outside of the house. And they allow him to. So he installs all these cameras everywhere.
around including a door on the front home or he had a couple different ones and one of the the front door that would document if she came over and tried to you know set the door on fire or anything like that so the son is born here okay she has the baby in 2016 it's in august it's a boy yeah michael wants to see the baby he hasn't seen it yet he's trying to avoid her he has a restraining order on her and shit so he petitions the court for visitation rights
You know, codify parental rights and all that kind of thing. They go to court and she stands up in court and says he's not the father. He can't have the baby because he's not the father.
So he says, I really think I am the father, though. And she said, no, you're not. You're not the father. So the judge says, I know a way we can figure this out. These are real easy to solve. Super easy. Open your mouth for two seconds and we'll figure this out. How about that? So they said the judge determines DNA testing is the only way to solve it, obviously.
So they have to go through all this DNA shit. December 16, 2016 now is DNA test day for Michael. He's got an appointment in the early afternoon. He goes to do the DNA test, and then he's going to go home after that. Nice half day from work today. That's nice. Easy peasy. So he's returning from taking his DNA test. It's a little after 2 p.m., and he's on the phone with his sister, Marley.
who I assume is the one that Catherine thought he was having an affair with because he talks to his younger sister. Oh, you weirdo creep. How dare you talk to your siblings? So she's on the phone with him for his drive home from the DNA testing facility, which I assume is probably in Phoenix, so it probably took him a while to get home. Yeah, or Mesa. Or Mesa, yeah. It might be just right over there, yeah.
Could be there. So he's pulling into the garage of his house and she says, quote, this is Marley. I was talking to Mike through the Bluetooth in his car. He had asked me to hold on to switch over to the phone instead of the car. Does he have it on the speaker? And the next thing was he said, holy shit, really loud. And then I heard three gunshots and then I didn't hear anything.
So I knew something was wrong. Yeah, it's a horrible phone call. Holy shit. Pop, pop, pop. That's not great. Hey, Mike. And then she tried calling back. He's not answering the phone. He's not answering the phone. So she freaks out. She calls her father. Okay. Doesn't call the police. Calls her father up and says that. And she said very specifically, I told my father that I heard three booms because if I said I heard three gunshots, he would say I was being dramatic.
What the fuck? He's got a Bob Seger memory in his head, and he's like, oh, it's a goddamn drama all the time with gunshots. Oh, for Christ's sake. It was probably a garbage truck dumping shit. Against the wind. Against the wind. Shut up. I got a memory. Just stop right now. A gypsy wind is blowing warm tonight. God damn it. Points. Hollering out. You understand?
So she says that, though, and this is terrifying. I don't mean to make jokes here, but we're comedians and we can't help it. That's crazy that he would say that. That's what he would say to her? You're being dramatic. Calm down. Old football coach dad, he's going to go, gunshots? That's drama talk. 50 squat thrusts now. Right now. Let's do it. You keep talking about gunshots. I'm going to run your ass some stadiums. You're going to be hearing your heart beating in your ears from squat thrusts. You won't need to hear no gunshots.
So the and the daddy seems like a nice guy. We're just still. So the police arrive here because neighbors heard gunshots and a Maricopa out there like half the neighborhood called because it's the middle of the day and there's gunshots outdoors. Right.
It's pretty loud. Literally half the neighborhood called. And these homes are butted up to each other. A gunshot echoes. It's going for blocks. Forever. And there's no trees or anything to deaden the sound. Bouncing off houses all the way down the road. Bouncing off Mexican tile roofs. That's all it is. Everything. Just fucking adobe and Mexican tile. So the the Americopa police sergeant said when the first units got on the scene, they observed the house with an open garage door.
and a Lexus sedan in the garage that was running. He's doing great. Yeah, he's doing fine. So there's a running car in the garage with the garage door open. So they've seen the body cam footage. They come up to the side of it, and you can see that there's glass broken and bullet holes in the rear, like the driver's side back passenger window. Okay, yeah. There's bullet holes in it. Yeah.
And immediately the cop is like, hey, buddy, you there? Hey, buddy. All right. Stay in. But there's nobody responding at all. So they said one of the officers could see wounds on the head and blood coming out and shattered glass on the driver's side of the car.
So they said because the car was still running and Mike had his sunglasses on still. Yeah. So, I mean, he obviously didn't even get out of the car. Right. He didn't even take his sunglasses off when he pulled in the garage yet. Right. Which, when you do that in Arizona, people, we got to say this, it's so fucking bright out. Wherever you live, imagine your computer screen is your house. Yeah. Turn the brightness all the way up, and that's what it's like in Phoenix. Like, it's so wild. And then pull in somewhere.
After staring into that and see if you can see a goddamn thing. You pull into your garage with sunglasses on. It's pitch fucking black. So you take them off. So that's how quickly this happened. I mean, he didn't even switch over his phone to from Bluetooth to Bluetooth. Right. You didn't even switch that off yet. So it's right there. So the cops immediately think, well, this guy just got ambushed when he got came in.
So at this point, they don't know if there's a shooter in the area. They don't know if somebody ran in the house. Right. They don't know if there's somebody around. At first, they didn't know if it was a suicide. And then they said, well, it'd be hard to shoot yourself through your back window. So that'd be difficult. So probably not. Then they pulled out his he had his wallet on him and his driver's license identifies him as Mike. And they look at the picture. Same fucking guy. OK. Yeah.
They said there's an obvious gunshot wound to the head, and then they said he'd been hit in the neck or in his upper body as well, in his torso. There's three shots fired altogether. They find three casings right there. One of them got stuck in the beam of the door. The column there? It got caught in the column. Another one went through the door, through the seat and lodged in his body. And the other one went through the window and into his head.
What caliber is this? Yeah, they're dead serious. It's like a 9mm. It's nothing huge, but nothing tiny. You know what I mean? Wow.
Yeah, they said he had the gunshot hole through the rear driver's side window. That's the one with the bullet through his head. The officers on the scene said it was pretty gory, actually, a lot of blood. And they believed that it was, quote, premeditated, personal, and extremely cold-hearted. Seems like it, yeah. It looks like a hit, basically. I mean, the guy pulled in, pop, pop, pop, and some
Somebody left. Disappears. Who knows? Well, they don't know. Is it still in the house or whatever? So they haven't gone in there. They're kind of locking down the perimeter. Then they're going to go into the house. Out of nowhere, five minutes into this, Chris shows up, the roommate. Oh, he shows up on the scene because the sister that he'd been talking to on the phone called Chris up and said, can you go check on Michael? I heard this and I don't want to be too dramatic or anything, but please go check on him.
Sorry, too much drama. And so Chris pops up, and they talk to Chris. He said, I'm his best friend. And they said, OK, anybody around here that he's close to? And he goes, I mean, not really. He knows people. But me and, well, his ex-girlfriend, not family, but his ex-girlfriend who just had a baby with him and everything, that might be somebody that he's close to. Now, witnesses, the neighbors, recall hearing gunshots.
First, they recall seeing a white van parked in front of Michael's house across the street. Not like a cargo van, but like a minivan, like a big minivan, basically. One of those parked in front of the house. Multiple neighbors recall seeing the van fleeing as well because people heard the gunshots that went outside. And what the fuck was that? And a white van is leaving. They see a white van. Problem is everybody they talk to has a different description of the driver of the van.
And when I say different description, I don't mean one said they look tall, one said they look short. We're talking one said black male, one said Hispanic female, one said black female, one said white female.
Bunch of racists. This is a rainbow coalition driving this car. This is fucking insane. Wow. So this is why witnesses are terrible and literally the least reliable form of anything is eyewitnesses because this was 15 fucking minutes later and nobody knew what they saw. Nobody had a clue anymore. Nobody had a goddamn clue. So the cops go into the house and the other thing here is to see if it's been...
Did he have something valuable that somebody knew of? Yeah, was it ransacked? Right. No ransacking. Nothing appears stolen. Everything's in place. Nothing's out of place. It looks in order. It's not a robbery. But they do find in his closet a big home surveillance system.
Oh, yeah. They're like, oh, he's got home surveillance. This is fucking... There are lights blinking all over the place. This is helpful as shit. Yeah, this is great. So they got access to the surveillance footage. They got a judge to sign off on a warrant for this. And they see from the camera, from the front door, they see a small person, probably a woman or a small man, in a hoodie with the hood up, get out of the white van,
Quickly walk up toward the house as after the see him pull into the garage. Then you see this person hop out and run up to the garage. OK. And into the house. Dark hooded sweatshirt, dark pants, shoes, gloves, carrying papers in one hand with a had a bag like on her shoulder, like a messenger bag or a purse.
So this then the person goes out of view of the camera, which is obviously into the garage because that's where they're headed for 11 seconds.
So these three shots are in 11 seconds of this. They're out of camera range for 11 seconds. So that's for them to get past the camera range into the garage, shoot, and be back. Yeah. And then you see the person running away and getting back in the van. Shit. So then, yeah, that's how that happened there. So the authorities contact Michael's family in Ohio, obviously, and tell them what happened. And they talk to the friend, and the friend says, I would check out Catherine. Right.
Right. So they do a background check on Mike and they discover that he had several legal disputes with her where he called the cops because she tried to burn him out. He's got a restraining order against her. There's accusations of domestic violence against her. So they're like, OK, well, I mean, if we're looking for a subject, that's the subject. Let's look her up.
Or a suspect on a subject. I guess a subject, too. Yeah, both. So they look up Catherine, the motor vehicle, because they're like, I bet you she owns a white fucking van. Could it be possible? Look it up. Nope. She owns a Mitsubishi Mirage, which is nothing like a van. That's a little car. That's a little tiny car. Nothing like the van. It's like a gray Mitsubishi Mirage. Grayish blue. Damn it. So they go, fuck. Okay. They end up going to Mesa to talk to her. Because they find her in Mesa. Yeah.
And when they pull up, there is her grayish blue Mitsubishi Mirage in the driveway. And she's at her co-worker's house, a woman named Bridget. And her co-worker, there is a white Chrysler Town & Country car.
Van in the driveway. Yeah, that's parked outside. So they go, well, that looks a lot like the van we saw in the footage. I would say that's pretty good. It was parked in the driveway next to her. OK, they found out the van belongs to her co-worker, Bridget.
This is Catherine's co-worker. So they bring them both down. First, they get everybody out of the house. We're talking this Bridget has a husband and kids and shit. And they had to pull him out of the house too. And he's like, why are you bringing your crazy friend over here? This is why I tell you not to make friends with everybody at work. You know what I mean? Just because you work with somebody, you don't have to be fucking friends with them. This is why. So...
They bring Bridget and Catherine down to the station to have a little chit-chat with them here. Looks like you have motive and you have the van. You have a car. What's going on here? Yeah. So Catherine tells the investigators that both she and Bridget were at work all day. She said, I dropped my baby off at the sitters in the morning, went to work by 8, got off at 5, picked up the baby, and went over to Bridget's house, and that's where you came and talked to me.
There you go. And they said, okay. But then they tried to get more details. And she said, I'm not answering any more questions without a lawyer. I told you where I was. If you have any more questions, then you can ask my lawyer.
Which honestly isn't that suspicious. If she's just said, I'm not talking at all, I want a lawyer. First of all, that's legally the smartest thing to do. But the fact that she said, I'll provide you with my alibi, I'll do that. But I'm not going to play your police games where you're going to ask me 15 times to say it backwards and forwards. I told you where I am. You don't believe me. You can talk to my lawyer. You know what I mean? So that's what she says. Wouldn't answer any more questions. So they talk to the coworker and they're like, okay.
this lady doesn't have motivation to kill this guy. Yeah. If you know, if she's a part of it, she's going to, she's going to crack here. And this Bridget said, no, she was at work all day. Yeah. So was I, we were both at work all day. My van was at work all day. It didn't get home till five o'clock with me. Yeah. Plenty other white vans. If you don't know in Phoenix, half the cars are white by the way, literally because of the sun. So the other half are silver. The other half are silver. Yeah. And then there's like four idiots like me with black, with a black car out there.
Just sweating all day. Not the air conditioning. Everyone's like, they're so hot. What do you not have air conditioning in there? If you have air conditioning, you're fine. It takes so long to get them cool. You just can't touch it on the outside. That's the problem. You've got to hire a guy to open the door for you. ♪
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So she said, yeah, outside of going to pick up lunch, that's the only time my van was not at work. And we were both at work the whole day, all of that. So Bridget's expressing complete shock that they're even asking about Catherine in this way. She's like, what are you talking about? We were at work all day and she's not going to kill anybody. She's like a new mother and shit. This is ridiculous. So they release both women from custody. They have no alibi backed up. They do seize the vehicle, though.
To search if they get a court order to do that. Now, then they talk to some people at their job to corroborate the story, whether she was there. And they have some stories about Catherine. Really? Check out what this dog stealing bitch said. Okay. Wow. One point she said she was, quote, not very happy about Mike's efforts to establish paternity.
One coworker told the police that Catherine once questioned a bunch of coworkers on whether any of them had a newborn she could, quote, borrow for the day.
for a dna test just to show it's not a kid to drag some dna out of it yeah let me borrow your kid take him and they'll just swab his cheek not like they're gonna finger his butthole and then i'll take him home it's no big deal and then i don't have to deal with this guy anymore which is fucking diabolical do that to somebody that's disturbing a different co-worker said that
and Bridget and another co-worker would say that it would be easier if Mike wasn't around at all. That would be so much easier. Just wish he wasn't even around. That would be so much easier. So they're like, who hasn't said that?
That's right. Yeah. Who hasn't said, Jesus, I wish this bitch would fucking fall off the face of the earth. I wish this, I wish this fucking asshole guy wouldn't fall off the face of the earth. My lawyers heard me say a lot of awful things. Yeah. That's what I mean. Yeah. We've all said crazy shit, but not at work. No, no, no, no, no. And the DNA thing to shut the fuck up. The DNA thing was wild. Yeah. That guy can't say that legally. He's pretty much the only guy you can tell that to. That's why he knows.
So they're like, let's take a closer look at that alibi, why don't we? Because I don't trust this at all. There's nobody else that would kill this guy. It's not like people are mad at him. He's got no enemies. He works at a bank, for Christ's sake. He's not doing wild stuff. He doesn't do drugs or anything. So they look at security video from the building where they worked. And they show the Bridget's van leaving about 1230 on the day of the murder.
which they said that they went out for lunch and came right back. They did. Problem is it doesn't return until 3.19 p.m. Oh, that's a long lunch. That's a long, that's a three-hour lunch. That's a luxurious lunch. Yeah, your boss is not happy. No, that is like, we went out for like a tasting menu or some shit. You put a paper mache you in your chair? How did you stay out for so long? We went to Fogo de Chão and just really tied one on, man. I'm sorry.
Meat sick as it gets. Hammered the skewers. Just hammered it. And Michael was murdered between 2 and 2.30. So dead center there. There's time enough for them to get food after the murder. Absolutely. And security key swipes indicated that Bridget left the building during the period the van was gone. However, the security camera footage revealed it was actually Catherine using her key card. Oh.
Wow. Yeah, so they had this all fucking planned. Yeah, so the security swipes indicate that.
So the investigators also learned that during the time of the murder, because they do a trace on her cell phone and find out her locations, her cell phone was off during the time of the murder. It was going in and out of service of being off and on. So they said the tracking recorded that she left her workplace around 1230 p.m. This is Catherine, the day of the murder, traveled to an area nearby her residence. Then the phone drops from the cellular communications network around 130 p.m. So she turns it off.
Yeah. The phone doesn't reappear on the cellular network until approximately five minutes before video surveillance shows the white van returning to the parking lot at work at 319 p.m. And she reenters the building a minute later. Yeah. What's more what's more obvious that or having your cell phone at the crime? That's what I mean. It's just as bad. Right. You would have been better off just leaving it at fucking work and saying, well, I forgot it at work. Bring it.
Just leave it at work the whole fucking time. I forgot it at work. I didn't have it. If you turn it off and you normally don't, that doesn't look good. And who the fuck turns their cell phone off while they're driving around? You should be listening to Small Town Murder and your stupid opinions on crime and sports. Jesus Christ. Especially this is 2016. You could have been listening to crime and sports right now, Catherine. You blew it, Catherine. You would have been laughing and all this. You said, I'm not going to kill this guy. That's crazy.
I'm not going to steal his dog. That's nuts. Worst I've done is headbutt somebody. I'm going home. Yeah, and she just learned that from one of our MMA fighters. That's all. She tried to borrow a baby, James. That's for DNA. That's unbelievable. May I borrow your newborn is a very strange for a medical procedure. It's an odd thing to ask. Very forward for a co-worker. Very forward. Yeah, this isn't like her sister, like, let me see your baby. I know.
That would have been one thing. So her work computer also shows that she had searched for instructions on how to make her phone untraceable on her work computer. What an idiot. What a fucking dummy. Plus, there is indication, obviously, they knew that she knew when he was taking the paternity test.
Yeah. She knew when the appointment was. Of course. Yeah. So she knew when he would be home because she knew how far it was away. And the one of the county attorneys here said it could not have been just anyone. The person who murdered Michael executed Michael had to know he was coming home that afternoon because normally he wouldn't be home at two thirty is at work. Right. Yeah. So that's the thing. This is you had to know.
So the police say, okay, she is a cold Russian. She won't give a shit. She's not playing. Yeah. She lawyered up already. So once you lawyer up, we can't talk to her anymore. So unless we have evidence to arrest her, then we got nothing.
So they said, we need to flip this coworker because this coworker knows what happened. Yeah. She took the van. So they confront Bridget. They confront Bridget. Listen, Bridget, you know, cough it up. They say, we know that she used your key card.
To create it, you know, so it looked like she was here the whole time and you weren't. And all of that. And she used your vehicle as well. We're positive of that. So what the fuck happened? And Bridget, Bridget's not as cold-blooded here. Bridget isn't exactly, she's not exactly like a Gambino family member. She gives it up pretty quick. Yeah. Yeah.
She said, well, we bonded over relationship problems because I've had bad relationships before and I know what she's going through. And she said Catherine was determined not to allow Mike any access to his son at all. And she said she'd do anything she had to to do that.
So they said, will you do a sting operation for us? You call her and talk about this shit and bring it up and get her to talk. Right. So there's blood in my town. Yeah. Hey, there's a newborns playing with a fucking 32 automatic in the backseat of my town and country. You know anything about that? So she she said, OK, why not? I'll do it.
So she said that she called up and said, listen, Catherine, the cops are trying to implicate me in this murder plot. They're saying I did it. I'm scared. They're going to arrest me, my family. This is crazy. But she was just like she wouldn't say anything. Catherine wouldn't say shit. They said all all Sinkovich would say she would sit there and say they can't prove that if I did it or not do this. That's what she said.
They can't prove if I did it or not over and over. Well, they can't prove it. Well, they can't prove anything. And then finally she just hung up. She hung up on Bridget. So she apparently knew what was going on, it seems like. So they go to arrest Catherine at her home. But when they get there, they find her and the baby and all their shit are gone. She's on the run. She's on the run. Newborn on the run. I bet it was the baby's idea. Yeah.
Fucking shifty kid. Turn the page. Turn the page. So the police attempt to trace her location using cell phone data, but it keeps dropping and disappearing. She's...
She's on. She's off. She's on. Yeah. She uses it, which is crazy. And they found from her laptop that she had searched how to turn emergency 911 tracking off on cell phones, which turn it off is how you do it. If it's off, it's off. Nothing's on. That's it. So she, if anybody out there is wondering anyway. So later she asks a co-worker if she could go to his house and stay with him because, you know, she's on the run from the cops on a murder beef.
I'm wanted for murder. Can I sleep next to you? This is a co-worker. He works at a mortgage company. Right. You know what? I don't know. I have some closings this week. If you work at a mortgage company, you like a quiet life. You know what I mean? That's not a crazy, wild-style life. You go to work. Your hours, you know when your hours are. You know when you'll be home. Pretty boring fella. Pretty boring. He's like, hmm, do I let a...
crazy woman with a newborn on a run from a murder beef stay at my house or do I know I'm gonna call the police and he called the police it was like get this dog stealing twat out of my house please and they find in the quote northwest outskirts of Phoenix so basically your neighborhood they find her in do we have an address I don't have an address on this I want the hundred block of what street absolutely looked for it because I'm like I wonder how close to Jimmy's this is I gotta look
The guy that used to live in my house used to let strippers stay in the fucking place, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's him. It might be him. Is he a mortgage guy? I don't know. So the cops rush there, and they take her into custody, and they also find her car there. Now, in her car, which is hilarious, she has two stolen license plates hidden in her car.
So they trace where these license plates came from. They're both within walking to two different license plates because it's Arizona, so you don't have to have a front and back. It's just two backs. Just the rear. Yeah, this is to keep on the move. They're both from houses within walking distance of her house. This lazy asshole. She went for a walk and just stole her neighbor's plate. She couldn't even go to a Walmart parking lot and just go snag a fucking. She walked to her neighbor's place. I'm my next door neighbor. I'll get that one and this one. Lazy, lazy.
Nothing I hate. I don't care if you walking distance. I can forgive being a murderous asshole. This is just lazy, though. I can't forgive slop like this. This is terrible.
How do you do that? Pathetic. Even if walking distance could be a couple of blocks, you're going to walk a couple of blocks carrying somebody's life? And a screwdriver. And a goddamn screwdriver. Get your Phillips head in one hand and somebody's plate in the other. Oh, my God. They also found a large plastic bin packed with clothes as well. Like, she's on the run. In there, they find a hoodie, by the way, with gunpowder residue. Sure. Yeah.
Also, another hoodie with gunpowder residue as well in there must have rubbed up against the one. Yeah. And they said that it did come back and show that there was significant residue in the minivan as well. Oh, there's gunshot residue in the minivan in Bridget's van. They found a dark. That's where they found the second hooded sweatshirt. She took it off and threw it in the van. And then she had another one she must have put on, but still got residue on it because her hand was on her hands.
So they found a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt in Bridget's van. They found that. They also, in search of the computer, revealed that she had received a report from a private investigator talking about his address. And then she had recently searched for the address on Google Maps. Again, make sure she knew where to get there. Now, by the way, you might be curious.
If anybody out there has ever seen a Maury episode, you're probably curious. Oh, is he the father? Was he or wasn't he?
Mike, you are the father. He is the father. She's just a really bad person. She knew that. She's just terrible. That's why she wanted to borrow a baby. Yeah, that's discovered. But still, now we have definite proof here. And Mike's father said, quote, that he never saw his son before he was murdered. And the paternity results later confirmed it was the father. So he never got to see him. He never saw his baby. That's fucking horrible. So May of 2019...
Trial time. Yeah, she's got a plea, right? No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Really? She's saying she didn't do this. Even though there she is, there she is, here she is on the footage and the card. I mean, it adds up. You don't have to be a genius to fucking put this one together, especially gunshot residue on her hoodie. Yeah.
It's not good. So May of 2019 is the trial. Did they find the murder weapon? No, I don't think they ever did. No, she must have ditched it somewhere. Yeah, she got rid of it. Got rid of it good, I guess. So during the trial here, they bring one of her coworkers in, a guy named Jared Cook. And he remembers Catherine joking about how much easier life would be without Mike around. Yeah.
But she did it all the time. It wasn't just like one offhanded comment. It was like her shtick, you know, take my wife, please kill my husband, please kill my baby daddy, please.
I bring my baby daddy everywhere, but he finds his way home. He's doing Henny Youngman bits and shit. She's such a dick. She's going to get child support for Christ's sake. He didn't even have to do this. He was happy to pay it. She could have got a weekend to herself once in a while and some child support, but she had to do this shit. This co-worker said that these comments made him uncomfortable because it seemed like she was pretty serious most of the time. She wasn't saying it, joking around like, you know what I mean? Too bad. She was like,
You know, it would be easier if he wasn't around. Do you got a free afternoon for me? Then she'd put her finger on her chin and go, hmm. So when someone's doing that, you think they're pretty serious. Yeah. He recalled Catherine leaving work for a couple hours on December 16th. He said, I don't know where she went, but when she returned, she was very quiet, he said at that point.
Real quiet. She came back all solemn here. At least she didn't come in like, fuck yeah, everybody. What's up? High five for you. High five to the lunchroom. Having a great afternoon. Boom. Like crotch shopping and shit. What's up, bitches? Who's getting a mortgage today? Wow.
So... We're blowing them out the door. We're blowing them out. Oh, man. Come on, baby. We're blowing it out. The interest rates are so, so low. Like my shirt's cut, baby. Look at them titties. Pow! Crazy! We're crazy down here. We're husband-killing crazy.
So not husband, boyfriend. So in the closing arguments here, the state, the prosecutor, highlights the motivation. And everybody says he wants him dead, said the figure entering the garage door carrying papers in one hand. Right. And the prosecutor says that she wanted to say something, wave the papers in his face right before she executed him. Oh.
Oh, that's why there's 11 seconds because it doesn't take 11 seconds to fire three shots. She said something to him and then buck the shots. We think the sister didn't hear anything, though. So who knows?
The prosecutor then reminded the jury that those papers or some papers related to the paternity dispute were found in her vehicle. So we think that's what it was. She's like, is it worth this? Maybe it was said between the lag of the Bluetooth to the phone. Yes. There's a lag there. Yeah. Wow. She could have just said, what about this motherfucker? Who knows what she said? And he said, holy shit, Papa.
Pop, pop, pop. Pop, pop, pop. So the verdict comes back here, and not much of a... What are you going to do? Yeah. You know, yeah, not too much fucking really drama here. Sort through? Just put through a better word. I was trying to remember drama. It's drama. Not a lot of drama. So verdict comes in guilty of all charges here. First degree murder. During sentencing...
They give her a human. They fuck off life without parole. Oh, my. Forever done. Is that right? I think she's 33 at this point.
Oh, shit. Yeah. She's the youngest there, probably. She's very young. And not only that, this baby is going to end up having it worse than she did. Yeah. Dad's dead when she's young, just like when he's young, just like her. And mom is now might as well be dead. What's the difference? Yeah. Life without parole. We can take him there every week. Oh, let's go talk to mom. She's going to read to you like.
You just gave your kid the same life you've had. Same exact life. Good job, dickhead. Meanwhile, he had a father that was interested in him and wanted to be a part of his life. The kid's life would have been fine. So that's sad. Life without parole. The reaction, the family, Mike's family releases a statement to the press and says, on behalf of Mike's friends and family, we would like to extend our sincerest gratitude to everyone involved in achieving this verdict.
from the first officer on site that continuously talked to Mike even though it was clear he was gone through the ranks. That was weird too. He's like, all right, stay with me, buddy. The guy's fucking dead. It's deader than a doornail in the fucking thing. Why do you keep talking to him? He's very dead.
Not like hanging on. He's obviously dead. He's been dead for a little bit. He's been dead. Yeah, that's what it is. Through the ranks to Detective Denison, Deputy County Attorneys David Aul and Sean Jensvold, we thank you. The behind-the-scenes effort, work, and support given by, and it goes into paralegals, paralegal Christine Forbes and victim advocate Sonia Campos were incredibly invaluable to our family.
I really want to thank the fucking stenographer. I want to thank these. Yeah, she did a great job. But if I ever want to look at the transcripts are all there.
The team spent countless hours away from their families so ours would finally attain peace. Also to the jurors who were tasked with making the painful decision of enacting justice for Mike, he took every legal precaution to protect himself and he was trying to do the same for his child. Domestic violence knows no boundaries. Mike's attempts to protect the child he never met escalated her aggression towards him, ultimately leading to his death.
Um, she tries to appeal in 2020 saying the prosecutor failed to prove that the paternity case papers found in her vehicle are the same ones carried by the person on video walking to the garage. That's what they said. They were like, it really doesn't fucking matter. It was kind of harmless error. If there was any errors, how they put it. And then they, they talked about, she tried to have, she tried to flee basically the flight instruction. And she said that there was no evidence supporting a flight instruction. Um,
Just a license plate collector. A license plate collector with all of her clothes in the back of her car. Yeah, that's normal when you have a newborn. You just take all your shit and stay at a co-worker's house for a while.
So they said, yeah, that's tough shit. They said the evidence supporting the inference included her Internet search for how to avoid cell phone detection. That shows she's fleeing appearance and disappearance of her phone from the network as she traveled toward the outskirts of Phoenix and stolen license plates. Keep on keeping on, bitch. And they send her back.
By the way, you dog-stealing asshole, don't ever do that. Now, the baby, you might be wondering, well, where's the fucking baby? The baby, which is being raised by Michael's parents...
Which is great because they raise nice people. And it's much more favorable to being raised by Catherine or, you know, wolves, basically, because that's the same thing as Catherine. It's the other option. Yeah. The other option. So he's back in fucking Ohio? I guess so, yeah. Indiana, wherever? Ohio, Urbana, Ohio. So, yeah, the family's raising him. And like I said, they raised...
Seems like four nice kids. But they're old, right? They're older people now. Golly. So maybe hopefully the other kids help out. I assume his brothers and sisters would probably help out. They seem like they're very family-oriented people. So they're very nice. Catherine's there forever, and there is Maricopa, Arizona. Wow.
Quickly, before we end, I have to say there's articles that I was reading about the number of unsolved homicides in the Phoenix area is it's it's it's staggeringly higher than any other major urban place for some fucking reason. And a lot of it. And I'm going to this is a weird person.
person, people to blame. First of all, you blame the police who don't do their fucking job and solve this shit. But second of all, every other fucking place I look, you know how hard it is to find a murderer in Arizona that has enough information? The press just doesn't look into things or ask questions. Whatever the police department releases a thing of, we arrested this guy, this guy's convicted, they just post that.
They just fucking they print that and that's what they have. There's no like investigative journalism. Nothing. If the Phoenix New Times doesn't do an article on this person's dead and nobody's fucking looked into it, then they'll look into it because then they get pressure. Otherwise, there's just rotting cases. Remember when they found how many fucking cases of child abuse were backlogged that they didn't fucking investigate? What is happening out there?
Wild West, man. It's too hot. Wild West, they didn't fucking... There's plenty of taxes out there, so Wild West, my balls. It's too hot, James. You gotta go outside to do it. Yeah, put your suit coat on. Is that what we need to do? Homicide detectives are allowed to dress casual now? I don't care. Put some shorts and a t-shirt on and get out there. Dress like those landscapers, whatever they got. The hat with the fucking cloth down the back of their neck. Do that shit. I don't know what to tell you, but...
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Was there a crime committed?
As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't. Guilty by Design dives into the wild story of Alexander and Frank, interior designers who in the 80s landed the jackpot of all clients. We went to bed one night and the next morning we woke up as one of the most wanted people in the United States. What are they guilty of? You can listen to Guilty by Design exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.