Forensic Transmissions

Ted Binion was a wealthy American gambling executive and one of the sons of Vegas casino magnate Benny Binion, owner of the Horseshoe Casino. Ted, a multi-millionaire, loved the high life and ran the Horseshoe for a while, hosting the casino’s poker tournaments. But in 1998, Ted, 55, was having problems. Due to his heroin addiction and associations with known criminals, he’d recently lost his gaming license and his ties to the casino.  His wife Doris had moved out, taking the couple’s daughter, Bonnie, after learning of Ted’s affair with a topless dancer named Sandra Murphy. Just before his death, he discovered that Sandra was cheating on him with a man named Rick Tabish.

On September 17, 1998, Ted was found dead from a combination of Xanax, heroin, and Valium. He’d recently bought 12 pieces of tar heroin from a street drug dealer, and had a Xanax prescription from his next-door neighbor, a doctor. Police believed the scene was staged by Sandra Murphy and Rick Tabish, who wanted Ted’s money (after losing his gaming license, Ted had taken all his gold out of the Horseshoe safe and buried it in a 12 foot deep underground vault in Pahrump, Nevada). In 1999, Sandra and Rick were found guilty of murder, but the verdict was overturned, and after a second trial, they were acquitted.

This episode contains testimony from the second trial, in May 2005, featuring a line-up of memorable Las Vegas characters. On the stand in this segment are Jan Jones, Ted’s friend and mayor of Las Vegas, followed by Laura Brown, longtime friend and the wife of Ted’s attorney.

Roderick Ferrell and Heather Wendorf were best friends at school in Eustis, Florida before Rod moved with his mother to Murray, Kentucky. In Kentucky, he began dressing in black and talking about vampires. When he visited his friends in Eustis over Thanksgiving of 1996, he said he’d formed a vampire cult and got four of them to leave home and join him: Heather Wendorf, Scott Anderson, Charity Keese, and Dana Cooper, all teenagers. But Rod’s car was too cramped to fit all five, and they needed money, so before they left, on November 25, 1996, Rod and Scott broke into Heather’s parents’ house, intending to steal their 1993 Ford Explorer and some cash. Richard Wendorf, 49, was lying on the couch watching television. Rod tells the detective how he attacked Mr. Wendorf with a crowbar and “smacked the fuck out of him until he finally quit breathing so yes, I’m admitting to murder…. it took him about twenty fucking minutes to stop breathing, I swear, I thought he was immortal or something.” When Ruth Wendorf, 54, emerged from the shower, Rod says he was going to let her live, but “she clawed me, clawed me, spilled fucking scolding hot coffee on me, pissed me off” so he killed her, too. “I just took the bottom of the crowbar, and kept stabbing it through her skull and whenever she fell down I just continually beat her until I saw her brains falling on the floor.”

During her 17-year marriage, Betty Broderick worked and raised four children while her husband, Daniel T. Broderick III, went through medical school and law school. When Dan finally qualified, he was in high demand as an attorney in medical malpractice cases. The family moved to a lavish house in San Diego, and Betty no longer needed to work. Not long after the move, however, Dan, unhappy that Betty had aged and put on weight, began an affair with his 28-year-old secretary, Linda, who many said looked like a younger version of Betty. Eventually, he divorced Betty and married Linda. Betty, 41, angry at being cast aside, became obsessed with Dan and Linda. Finally, on November 5, 1989, she broke into their home and shot them both to death. She said she had been driven over the edge by years of physical and psychological abuse. Her first trial, in 1990, ended in a hung jury. At her second trial on December 11, 1991, she was convicted of two counts of second degree murder and later sentenced to 32-years-to-life in prison. The case received extensive media attention. Middle-aged women in particular sympathized with Betty’s ordeal. She is now 73 years old, and incarcerated at the California Institute for Women in Corona.

This episode contains the testimony of Betty’s boyfriend after her divorce, businessman Bradley T. Wright, who describes how he found the bodies and called 911; L.A.Times reporter Amy Wallace, and Betty’s friend Helen Pickard.

On April 7, 2006, Kari Baker, an elementary school teacher, was found dead in the family home near Waco, Texas. Her husband Matt, a Baptist minister, said that Kari had been depressed and suicidal since the death of the couple’s young daughter Cassidy some years earlier. However, Kari’s family and friends did not believe she was suicidal, and suspected Matt was responsible for her death.

Melissa Pileggi Grosvenor said she met Phil Spector in New York in 1991 when she was a waitress, found him “very charming, quick-witted,” and was in a platonic relationship with him for a year and a half. She testified that after a dinner in Beverly Hills she went back to his house, but when she told Spector around 2 a.m. that she was tired and wanted to go, he left the room and returned with a gun, which he holstered and “started walking back and forth, cursing and talking crazy.” She said after she returned to New York he started asking her out. She said when she declined he left such messages as, “I’ve got machine guns and I know where you live.”

May 10, 2007, Melissa Grosvenor testified at the trial of Phil Spector in Los Angeles. Later in the trial, Melissa’s estranged sister’s Angela Pileggi-Silverstein takes to stand to describe how her sister once stole a plaque in Georgia and boasted about being in Court TV. However, this did nothing to refute Melissa’s testimony. Many other women testified that Spector also pulled a gun and threatened them when drunk.

Two years after testifying in the Spector trial, Angela Pileggi died from a drug overdose on a Caribbean cruise in December 2009, aged 45. On April 13 of that year, the jury found Phil Spector guilty of murdering actress Lana Clarkson. On May 29, 2009, he was sentenced to nineteen years to life in state prison. He died in prison in 2021.

In this episode, Norma Jean Towers, of South Tampa, Florida, tells the jury that she was a regular at a met karaoke bar, where, in 2009, she met Michael Keetley, 49, a quiet, charming ice cream man. In 2010, she learned that Keetley had been shot four times and his ice cream truck robbed. He was left permanently disabled, and his injuries required surgery and therapy. He was forced to move back in with his parents and slept in a hospital bed in the dining room. He told a detective that “he wished every day that the people who did this would be brought to justice.”

Michael and Sara Lynn Colucci had been through some ups and downs in their marriage. Sara, apparently had never fully recovered from the suicide of her first husband. She was smart, quick-witted, and impulsive, but also prone to depression. At first, she seemed to have been happy in her marriage to South Carolina jeweler Michael Colucci, but due to some bad business decisions, money had become tight and the couple were facing significant financial losses.

On the way back from a difficult discussion money issues with their attorney on May 20, 2015, Sara apparently asked Michael to pull up outside a warehouse they owned so she could slip through the fence and use the bathroom, as she had done many times before. When she didn’t return, Michael went to investigate, and found that Sara had hung herself with a garden hose. However, evidence collected at the scene did not support Michael Colucci’s version of what happened, and indicated there was a fight or struggle.

In April 2017, while Michael Colucci was awaiting trial, his father Ivo Colucci, owner of Colucci’s Jeweler’s in Summerville, S.C., shot and killed his wife Doris in the family jewelry store. He was determined unfit to stand trial because he suffered from dementia; he was prone to violent outbursts. Ivo Colucci died in 2018, aged 84. In December 2018, a mistrial was declared in the Michael Colucci case, and he remains in prison, awaiting retrial.

This episode contains the testimony of the Coluccis’ neighbor of seven years, Dorothy Montijo.

Listen to the episode here.

Listen to the episode here.

On July 28, 2014, Alexandria Chery, 16, an Olympia, Florida High School student, told her mother she was feeling well and wanted to stay home from school. Her mother, Haitian immigrant Rosalie Joseph, agreed. She tried to call Alex at various times during the day, but her daughter didn’t pick up. When Joseph got him, her daughter was missing. She found blood in Alex’s bedroom, along with bleach that appeared to be used to cover up the blood splatter.

Police investigators learned that Alex had told her friends and her older brother Fanzo that her stepfather Sanel Saint Simon, who had raised Alex since she was 5, had begun touching her inappropriately. Fanzo tried to be sure his stepfather was never alone with his sister. However, Saint Simon began entering Alex’s room at night, when everyone was asleep. Her body was found near the Osceola-Polk county line a few days later with stab founds and skull fractures, and Saint-Simon was ultimately charged with first-degree murder. During the trial, Saint-Simon and Joseph testified through a court translator. Saint-Simon was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

In this episode, Alexandria’s friends Alia Garrett and Dana Saint Clair describe how, during a FaceTime chat with Alex and their mutual friend Dana St. Clair, Sanel Saint Simon knocked on the door of Alex’s room, and she asked them to stay on the line because she was afraid. After he left the room, Alex told her friends that her stepfather had “tried to touch my boob.” Defense attorney Peter Schmer tries to ask Alia whether her stepfather had an erection, but Alia, confused and embarrassed, does not know what an erection is. Her honest response foils the attorney’s line of questioning by showing that Alex and her friends are sexually innocent.

Listen to the episode here

(1) In August 2009, Lynea Hambrice, 36, jumped to her death from the 12th-story balcony of the Coeur D’Alene Resort in Idaho. Her boyfriend Ian James, 38, called 911 to report what happened. The couple were visiting the area from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Ian told police that Lynea threw herself off the balcony during an argument. When an autopsy showed she had a blood alcohol content of .23 (and Ian passed a polygraph), the death was ruled a tragic accident.

(2) In Oct. 2009 several people who had paid more than $9,000 to attend a motivational retreat in Sedona, Arizona, fell unconscious while taking part in a 2-hour “sweat lodge” session. After one man fell onto the burning rocks, panic broke out and people tried to get out of the lodge. An on-scene nurse attended to the victims and then dialed 911 for help. When dispatchers arrived, more than 50 people needed medical assistance, many of whom were lying on the ground, unable to move. Two participants, James Shore and Kirby Brown, died, and eighteen others were hospitalized after suffering burns, dehydration, breathing problems, kidney failure, and elevated body temperature. Liz Neuman, another attendee, died on October 17 after being comatose for a week. Guru James Arthur Ray was convicted of two negligent homicides and spent 20 months in prison, before being released in 2013.

(3)  In Feb. 2007, shoppers at the Trolley Square shopping center in Salt Lake City, Utah, called 911 to report gunfire inside. Police responded and tracked down Sulejman Talović, 18, who was armed with a shotgun and handgun. For an unknown reason, Talović shot and killed five persons, injured another four, and was killed by police. Police radio audio follows 911 calls from shoppers.

(4) In August 2009, police in Glynn County, Georgia responded to the New Hope mobile home park in response to 911 calls, and found the bodies of seven dead people. Two other persons were injured, including 19-year-old Michael Toler, who died the following day. Later that day, police arrested Guy Heinze, Jr., 20. On October 25, 2013, Heinze was convicted of all eight murders and sentenced to life without parole. Drugs and money were apparently the motive. The first call is Heinz’s neighbor, who hands the phone to Heinze and later the to the trailer park maintenance man. The second call is from the trailer park manager, who had been called by the maintenance man.

Listen to the episode here.