Episode Transcript
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That's audible.com/TCAT or text TCAT to
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500 500. Hello
1:50
everyone and welcome to episode 383 of
1:52
the True Crime All the Time podcast.
1:54
I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as
1:56
always is my partner in true crime,
1:59
Mike Gibson. and give me, how are you? Hey, I'm
2:01
doing good. How about you, man? I'm doing really well.
2:03
I've had a great week until
2:05
today. Until today. I
2:08
have a loose cricket in
2:11
my basement in the studio.
2:13
Yeah. And I'm worried
2:15
that there's gonna be some noises
2:17
in the background. You know,
2:20
my daughter has these geckos. Right.
2:22
And somehow, when she goes to
2:24
get crickets, these crickets get loose.
2:27
Well, we can name him Jiminy. We
2:30
could. We can pick up the tar,
2:32
start strumming it to
2:35
scare him off. Maybe, or maybe he'll come on over
2:37
and wanna sing with us. And then you
2:39
keep him busy while I put the cup over
2:41
him. Okay. Well, I haven't heard
2:43
him in a while, so hopefully he's gone
2:46
on to somewhere else. But let's
2:48
go ahead and give our Patreon
2:50
shout outs. We had Rodney. Hey,
2:52
Rodney. Stephanie Leopold. What's going on,
2:55
Stephanie? Rama Johnson. Oh, thanks, Rama.
2:57
Eric Ass. Hey, Erica. Wyler. Wyler?
3:00
Wyler. Okay. Lindsey Clark.
3:02
Hey, Lindsey. Aaron Manning. Oh,
3:05
what's going on? Peyton, sister,
3:08
cousin. Somebody related
3:10
to Peyton Manning. You know,
3:12
there's some other famous mannings too. Yeah,
3:15
his brother. He's got a brother. Jess.
3:18
What's going on, Jess? Donnell Stacy. Well,
3:20
thanks, Donnell. And don't think I'm letting
3:23
it slip that you said cousin. With
3:26
AT. We had Deborah
3:28
Watts. Well, thanks, Deborah. And last but not
3:30
least, Sage. Sage, I like that. Yeah, and
3:33
then if we go back into the vault,
3:36
this week we selected Cassandra
3:39
Rupert. Hey, thanks, Cassandra. We
3:41
also had a great PayPal donation on
3:45
behalf of Theo
3:47
and Christopher, the Greek boys.
3:50
Oh, the Greek boys, man. I love
3:52
that Greek tzatziki. You like that, huh?
3:54
Yeah, you ever had that tzatziki? Is that the
3:56
little sauce? Yeah, a little, you know, I don't
3:58
know, cucumber. Cucumber. Yeah.
4:01
Yeah. Yeah. I like, uh,
4:04
Mediterranean type food. You know
4:06
that. Oh yeah. Olives. That's
4:08
my favorite. Any
4:10
type of, uh, different meats,
4:13
and cheeses. I do like those.
4:15
Yeah. Yep. I've had those a number of
4:18
times. It's tough. So we appreciate all
4:20
the support. We do. Because we
4:22
have an episode out right now on
4:24
True Crime All the Time Unsolved, where
4:26
we're talking about Rebecca Coriam. She
4:29
was a 24 year old British woman
4:31
who was working on a Disney cruise
4:33
ship. And
4:35
she disappeared from the ship in March, 2011. So
4:39
there are a lot of theories about what happened
4:41
to Rebecca. We'll go through all
4:43
those in the episode from, you
4:46
know, her being swept overboard to
4:48
her being pushed overboard after,
4:53
you know, some type of horrible event. And
4:56
there's some video on the ship
4:58
too to talk about. So always makes me
5:00
nervous because lately you see quite
5:02
a few stories around people falling
5:05
off cruise ships or not sure how
5:07
it happened, but they're missing. It makes
5:09
me a little nervous about ever going on a cruise. You
5:12
just went on one. Yeah, I just went on one. But
5:14
if you think about it, you are
5:16
out in the middle of an ocean.
5:19
Yeah. And granted
5:22
I'm assuming, especially today, there
5:24
are cameras everywhere. So
5:26
I don't know how you could get away
5:28
with a whole lot, but you
5:30
know, if you, if you were
5:33
standing next to somebody, you're on the
5:35
balcony, it's not like
5:38
all of those railings are so tall that
5:40
you couldn't push somebody overboard. You
5:42
definitely could. Yeah. At least
5:44
not the ones I've been on. I had that fear
5:46
of being in open water by myself. You
5:49
should. I don't think anybody
5:52
should take that
5:54
lightly. Yeah. Yeah. All right,
5:56
buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of true
5:58
crime all the time? I am ready. We're
6:00
talking about Stephen Allwine. Stephen
6:03
had a normal, seemingly happy
6:05
life. He was married, had
6:08
a son. He was even
6:10
an elder at his local church. In
6:13
2016, the FBI became aware
6:15
of a contract to
6:17
kill his wife, Amy. The Allwines
6:20
were warned and encouraged
6:22
to increase their home security. But
6:24
Amy was killed months later. And
6:27
as often happens in these types of
6:29
cases, you know, the investigators are going
6:32
to look at the husband. But
6:34
I would just want to take a minute
6:36
to kind of talk about what that would
6:38
be like. You're reached out
6:41
to by the FBI and
6:43
they're saying, Hey, we've
6:45
got some information that
6:48
there's a contract on your wife's
6:50
life. Okay. Increasing my
6:53
home security. That's
6:55
a given. For sure. There's going to have
6:57
to be at least more than that. I
7:00
would think the FBI might even
7:03
say, let's have a park
7:05
car outside or something, right? Yeah, I don't know,
7:07
you know, how they
7:09
make those decisions, but that
7:11
would be scary. No doubt about it.
7:14
Stephen and Amy Allwine married in either
7:16
1996 or 1998. And
7:20
this happens a lot, but we had two
7:23
different sources that reported this information
7:25
48 hours had
7:28
one year and state
7:30
versus Allwine had another.
7:33
You wouldn't think that would happen, but it
7:35
happens quite a bit. Oh, so many times.
7:38
Both Stephen and Amy were 43
7:40
years old when Amy was
7:42
killed. The Allwines lived in
7:44
Cottage Grove, Minnesota, a
7:47
suburb of Minneapolis. Stephen
7:49
was a freelance IT expert
7:52
and worked from home. Amy ran
7:54
a dog training business on their
7:56
property. Well, you know, that's a
7:58
good business. Got to train those. dogs, right? But
8:01
it's also kind of cool that they both
8:03
were able to kind of work at
8:05
home. If, if that
8:07
works out, right? Sometimes people can't work
8:09
together. Well, when you say work
8:12
together, you mean work even
8:14
separately, but be home at the same
8:16
time. In the same space. 24
8:18
seven. Yeah. I do remember
8:21
during the kind of the height of
8:23
COVID, when my wife was home, she
8:26
was teaching, but
8:28
remotely. And obviously I
8:30
was working from home as I have for
8:32
a number of years. It was
8:34
a little different. Yeah. Let's,
8:36
let's put it that way. I'll
8:38
use a euphemism. Yeah. Just leave
8:40
it at that. Right. There is
8:42
something about, you know, being with someone
8:45
essentially 24 hours a day,
8:48
every day. Now, maybe for some
8:50
couples, that's great. They love it. Others
8:53
need a, just a little bit of
8:55
a break. Just a
8:58
little separation. Yes. And then when you do
9:00
see that person, you're like, Oh, I haven't seen
9:02
you in eight hours because I've been at work
9:04
or you've been at work. And, you know,
9:07
that kind of makes, that keeps the marriage
9:10
fresh. Right. Let's spend the next half an hour together
9:12
and then we'll go a couple of ways. Again. Yeah.
9:14
Steven and Amy adopted a son named
9:17
Joseph who was nine years old when
9:19
his mother was killed. According
9:21
to 48 hours, the All wines had
9:23
a quote, quintessentially
9:27
American life. And this
9:29
is not unusual. We talk about people
9:32
quite a bit who, and I
9:35
always say, you know, you're looking at it
9:37
from the street level.
9:40
Right. Into the home. And you
9:42
would say, Oh, these
9:44
people got the perfect life. You know,
9:46
they got the great house. They've got
9:48
some money. They've got a great marriage.
9:50
They seem to be doing wonderfully,
9:53
but is that really the case?
9:55
Because, you know, from the outside
9:57
looking in, you don't know what's
9:59
going on inside someone's
10:01
house. There's just no way for you
10:03
to know it. No way, man. Cause
10:06
I, I, I live that, that
10:08
neighbor that used to live across me. Oh,
10:11
the one that killed someone? Killed his wife and kid.
10:14
Yeah. And you would have thought, Oh, it's a great
10:16
guy. They acted like they were the perfect
10:19
family. They were so happy. And then
10:21
to find out. No, not
10:23
the story. Steven and Amy
10:25
were members of the local branch
10:28
of the United Church of God.
10:30
Steven was a church elder. He
10:32
gave sermons and counseling to members
10:34
of the congregation. The United
10:36
Church of God does not condone
10:38
infidelity or divorce. According to state
10:41
versus all one, the United
10:43
Church of God website states, even
10:45
if couples have a short courtship, fail
10:48
to counsel before marrying or
10:51
have dysfunctional backgrounds, none
10:53
of these recognized troubles justified
10:55
the later putting away of
10:58
an imprints. These, it says divorcing
11:00
a mate with the freedom to
11:02
remarry marriage is a commitment for
11:05
life. Failure to plan
11:07
properly is not grounds for the
11:09
future dissolving of a marriage.
11:12
I think there's a few churches that
11:14
follow that. Um, way
11:16
of thinking. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree
11:19
with you. Now we know that for
11:22
some people, you, there
11:24
comes a point where they just realize
11:27
they're, they can't function together.
11:29
They can't live together. They can't
11:31
overcome their differences or
11:33
whatever it is. But
11:35
if you belong to this church, okay, what
11:38
do you do? You're either leaving
11:41
the church or you're
11:43
staying in a marriage that could
11:45
be potentially toxic. Yeah. Either one of
11:47
you or both of you are unhappy
11:49
being in. If a church
11:52
elder is caught committing adultery, they
11:54
lose their position and maybe ask
11:56
to leave the church. And
11:58
this is important because. even had
12:00
at least three affairs starting in
12:02
2014. Well,
12:04
look, if you're going to be a
12:07
church elder leader and part of your rules
12:11
is that you are not allowed to have
12:13
affairs, can't get divorced. If you're
12:15
a leader, you need to lead by example. So
12:18
I, that's a problem, right? I
12:20
mean, do I believe that you can't
12:22
get divorced? No, I think if you want divorce,
12:25
you get divorced, but for that church and for
12:27
what he was doing, you lead
12:29
by example. So you shouldn't be having
12:31
affairs, you know, if you're going to
12:34
be a leader. Well, it's, it's obviously
12:36
very hypocritical. Sure. Right. He, we mentioned
12:38
it. Here's the guy who's giving sermons.
12:40
He's counseling other members.
12:43
And I'm sure a lot of that was,
12:46
you know, don't have affairs,
12:48
don't commit adultery, all this while
12:50
at the same time he's out
12:53
flandering. Doing what he's telling them not to do. In
12:56
early 2016, a contract
12:58
was taken out on Amy
13:00
Allwine's life. Once the police
13:02
became aware of the plot, it
13:05
took months to prove who
13:07
was behind the contract. In
13:10
February, 2016, a person
13:12
with the username dog
13:14
day God visited base
13:17
mafia, a site on
13:19
the dark web advertising hired hits
13:22
base mafia claimed to be affiliated
13:24
with Albanian organized crime,
13:27
according to the Washington post
13:30
that Albania organized crime, tough
13:32
guys. Well, let's talk about the dark web. Yeah.
13:35
Have you ever been on the dark web? Now,
13:38
you know, I can't answer that. Well, that's true.
13:41
I can say I have not. What
13:43
I will say is I have thought
13:45
about it because you kind of see
13:48
it in movies. And sure. You know,
13:50
you have this fascination of what's
13:53
on there. Yeah. And, but I've
13:55
always been scared
13:58
because I think, you know, you. You
14:00
have, I'm sure all these hackers on
14:02
there and that's
14:04
a frightening thought that
14:07
they would somehow get control of
14:09
my computer, but I think the
14:11
bigger fear is that
14:14
I would accidentally stumble into some
14:17
site that would be illegal.
14:20
And obviously I would not want that to happen.
14:22
I'll tell you what, at the next break, I'm
14:25
going to set my laptop right here. Well,
14:27
I'm gone. Click on the little tiny
14:30
little black box in the corner and
14:33
browse. So that you
14:35
have a plausible deniability, as they would
14:37
say. Exactly. Okay. Are you going to
14:40
put in your government clearance for me
14:42
to really, it's there already. Oh, it
14:44
just, I have the software
14:46
that just automatically does everything. Yeah. Yeah.
14:50
But you know, it is a real thing. This
14:52
dark web. I kind of thought when I first
14:54
heard it years ago, I thought
14:56
people were just kind of making
14:58
that up, which I think was as a website
15:00
that had a dark background. I had no idea
15:02
what it really was, but you know,
15:05
over the years, obviously it's been proven
15:07
that it's real and you
15:09
can hire hit men, you can
15:12
view all kinds of illegal
15:15
pornography, you can buy
15:17
drugs, you can do
15:19
things that you can't do.
15:21
And shouldn't be able to do anyway,
15:24
but can't do on the, uh, the
15:26
regular internet. Very bad people out there.
15:28
Yeah. But you know who else is out there? Very
15:31
good people. I hate crusaders like
15:33
yourself. Dog
15:36
Day God messaged a
15:38
user by the name of Yuria on
15:41
the base of mafia site. Dog
15:44
Day God wanted Amy killed in a
15:46
car crash that was supposed to look
15:48
like an accident. Dog Day God
15:50
told base of mafia that Amy
15:53
quote, tore my family apart
15:55
by sleeping with my husband and
15:58
is stealing clients from my. business
16:00
per the Washington Post. So
16:03
I think when you hear that
16:06
quote of what this
16:09
person dog day, God wrote
16:11
that lead you to believe that
16:14
dog day. God is a woman. Yeah.
16:18
That's what most people would make
16:21
that conclusion. Dog day. God
16:23
sent a second message to base
16:25
a mafia requesting that Amy be
16:27
killed while she was at a
16:29
dog training convention in
16:31
Moline, Illinois, which is
16:33
right next to Moline, Illinois, which
16:37
I know you're very familiar with. I'm
16:39
familiar with everything and every place in
16:42
Illinois. Yeah. Yes. And that's one of
16:44
your favorite States. 48
16:46
hours published the following messages dog
16:49
day. God wrote, I'm looking to hire you
16:51
for a hit. Urea replied,
16:54
we can plan the hit when you're traveling
16:56
outside the city for a day or two,
16:59
this makes everyone know you could not
17:01
be the murderer. Okay. I
17:04
don't want to give people like this credit, but
17:06
you know, that's smart. Good
17:08
alibi. Right. That's a good alibi.
17:11
Doesn't mean you couldn't have arranged
17:14
for something, but it does mean that
17:17
you couldn't have pulled the trigger or
17:19
done the deed yourself.
17:21
Exactly. Dog day. God
17:23
wrote the target will be traveling
17:25
out of town to Moline, Illinois.
17:28
What is the price in Bitcoin for
17:30
a hit and ideally making
17:32
it look like an accident? You're
17:35
a wrote back normal killing by gunshot is
17:37
$5,000 killing to make it look like
17:41
accident is 5,000 plus max 4,000. Okay.
17:46
That does not seem like
17:49
a lot of money. It really doesn't. It sounds
17:51
like a hit. Okay.
17:53
It's not too bad of a
17:56
price. Now I am not
17:58
admittedly familiar. with Bitcoin,
18:01
but my understanding is that Bitcoin
18:04
is what kind of makes
18:07
the dark web run because
18:09
it's not as traceable, I
18:11
guess, or something like, you're not putting in
18:13
your credit card is what I'm saying. Yeah,
18:16
it's more harder
18:19
to track down. I
18:21
don't own any Bitcoin, I've never bought any,
18:23
so I really don't know how all that
18:25
works. Well, I own some, but I bought
18:27
it the wrong way. I
18:30
typed in coin bit, and
18:33
so I own some coin bit. Which
18:36
is worth nothing. Exactly. Dog
18:40
Day God gave base of mafia,
18:42
the address of Amy's hotel, a
18:44
description of Amy and her vehicle,
18:47
and a photo of Amy. Dog
18:49
Day God paid base of mafia
18:52
with Bitcoin. Originally, base
18:54
of mafia asked for $6,000 in Bitcoin,
18:56
at one point claiming that the
19:01
hit man had been arrested, and
19:04
the price increased to $12,000 worth of Bitcoin.
19:08
It's a pretty good way to get some more money.
19:10
I mean, if it didn't really happen that
19:12
way, right? Well, the guy I hired for you
19:14
got your money, but he got arrested. So
19:17
if you want this done, you're going to have
19:19
to pay another six so I can make it
19:21
happen for you. Well, let's be honest. If
19:24
you're on the dark web negotiating
19:26
with a hit man,
19:29
or an organization that will do
19:32
a hit, I don't know
19:34
that it's always going to be a real
19:37
reputable interaction. Well, that's
19:40
true. You know, I mean,
19:43
you're going to get taken for a ride, I
19:45
would think, because how are they going
19:47
to come back? What are they going to do? Call the
19:49
police and say, hey, I'm trying
19:51
to get this hit put out on my
19:53
wife, but yeah, money.
19:55
This guy's extorting me. He's like, and
19:58
for a pinch and for. a
20:00
pound. I think it's penny. Oh,
20:03
but we'll go with pens. Prosecutor
20:07
Jamie Krausser told
20:09
48 hours that dog
20:11
day got use Bitcoin
20:13
because Bitcoin is untraceable
20:16
because when you use Bitcoin, it's done
20:18
through what is called a wallet. So
20:21
it makes a lot of sense, right? Why that's
20:23
the preferred currency on
20:25
the dark web. Sure. If
20:27
you're buying drugs, if you're
20:30
buying things that are
20:32
illegal, if you're arranging hits, obviously
20:35
you're paying somebody, but you don't want to
20:37
be traced. And the more
20:39
that I'm learning about this dark web,
20:41
the more I know I'll never go
20:43
on it. Cause it sounds scary as
20:45
all get out. Dog day
20:47
God's messages became more impatient as
20:49
time passed. For example, on March
20:51
20th, 2016, dog day God wrote,
20:56
I want her gone. I
20:58
need her gone. Okay. Just
21:00
break down those two
21:03
little snippet. Yeah. There's some
21:05
urgency there. Sure is. I
21:08
want her gone. Okay. That's one thing.
21:11
I need her gone. Well, there's
21:13
a, that's a different level of urgency.
21:16
At one point dog day, God
21:18
said, I need this bitch dead. So
21:21
please help me really begging at
21:23
this point, pleading in
21:25
May 2016, the FBI
21:28
discovered the base of mafia website
21:31
after a hacker published the customer
21:33
list. The FBI discovered
21:35
dozens of requests for contract
21:37
killings all over the world,
21:39
including the hit on Amy
21:42
all one. And you know, you hear
21:44
the word hacker, you kind of think
21:46
of somebody doing something bad.
21:49
Yeah. But that's not always the case.
21:51
No, sometimes they do good things. Yeah. The
21:54
FBI went to the cottage grove
21:56
police with this information. Detective Terry
21:58
Raymond met with Steven and Amy
22:00
on May 31st, 2016. Detective
22:05
Raymond told 48 Hours that the
22:08
FBI did not tell him about
22:10
BESA Mafia or the user
22:12
Dog Day Guy. All they said
22:14
was that the murder was ordered on the dark
22:17
web. Amy was shocked by
22:19
this news, but she was able to
22:21
provide a list of people who could
22:23
potentially have a motive to kill her.
22:26
There was no evidence of the Dog
22:28
Day account on any of
22:30
their devices. Still a little freaky,
22:32
right? If the FBI comes to your door and
22:34
tells you that there's a hit
22:37
on your life, can you provide me a
22:39
list of people that might want you dead? How
22:42
hard would that be for you to produce that list? For
22:44
me? Yeah. Not
22:46
as hard as it would be for you. Oh, I
22:49
have the right list. You'd have to take a week off
22:52
just to compile that
22:54
list. Yeah. I
22:56
mean, because you're talking internationally and all
22:58
the things you've done around the world,
23:01
you know, I'm pretty confined here
23:03
in the state of Ohio. Yeah. That's
23:06
true. And you don't make
23:08
a lot of enemies from your
23:11
basement. Very true. But
23:14
in all seriousness, you know,
23:16
you can imagine sitting on the couch
23:18
in your living room, husband
23:20
and wife with the
23:22
FBI learning that there's a
23:25
hit out on the wife's life.
23:27
I mean, you know, how do you, number
23:30
one, process that? And
23:32
then what do you do or what
23:35
steps do you take moving forward? The
23:37
police advise Steven and Amy to
23:40
increase their home security. Like
23:42
I said earlier, that would be a given, right? It's
23:45
like minimum, right? Minimum. If
23:48
you don't already have good
23:50
home security, well, you better get it.
23:53
You might want to get
23:55
a German Shepherd or Rottweiler and
23:58
some other dog. Chihuahua? No.
24:02
Although, this could be a
24:04
good alert dog. That's true. They
24:06
installed a video surveillance system
24:09
and obtained a permit for
24:11
a 9mm handgun. As
24:14
a TCAT listener, you know the world
24:16
can be a dangerous and unpredictable place.
24:19
With every case we've studied, we've learned
24:21
one thing. Your best line of defense
24:23
is your vigilance and preparation. That's why
24:25
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24:28
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There's no safe like
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SimpliSafe. This episode is brought to
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you in part by June's Journey. Picture
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it, the glamour of the
25:42
roaring 20s wrapped in a mystery that
25:44
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25:49
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iOS and Android. Your
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adventure awaits. Over
26:16
the next few weeks, Amy received
26:19
anonymous emails telling her to end
26:21
her life. Emails came
26:23
from a person identifying themselves
26:25
as Jane. Jane accused
26:27
Amy of stealing her husband. Emails
26:30
contained details that suggested
26:32
she was under surveillance.
27:00
This is coming from a woman
27:02
now identifying herself as
27:05
Jane. Vice
27:08
published an excerpt of an email that
27:10
said, commit suicide. If you
27:13
do not, then you
27:15
will slowly see things taken away from
27:17
you. And each time you will know
27:19
that you could have stopped
27:21
it, which will eat you apart from
27:23
the inside. And that is horrible.
27:26
It is. To tell someone
27:28
to do that. I
27:30
understand there are people who make
27:33
that decision to end their life, but
27:36
no one should ever be
27:38
told to do that in
27:40
a, especially in a
27:42
bullying sort of way. Yeah.
27:45
I mean, they're trying to dictate how you should do
27:48
things. And if you don't, bad things are
27:50
going to happen to you. In July, 2016, Amy
27:53
was sent another death threat via
27:55
email. It said per 48 hours,
27:57
Amy, I. still
28:00
blame me for my life falling apart.
28:02
Here's what's going to happen. I
28:04
will come after everything else that you love.
28:07
Here's how you can save your family, commit
28:09
suicide. So why not do it
28:11
now and save them? I
28:14
think your anxiety would really increase at
28:16
this point. Oh, through the roof. I
28:18
think you'd have trouble sleeping, all of
28:20
that. But what I
28:23
really want to break down here is
28:25
that, you know, in these two
28:27
emails, yes, the person is
28:30
saying bad things are going
28:32
to happen to you, but they're not
28:34
saying that they're going to kill Amy.
28:37
They are wanting her to end
28:39
her life herself. They're going to try
28:42
to keep pushing on her until she does
28:44
what they want her to do. Now,
28:46
this email only increased Amy's
28:48
worries because now she feared
28:51
for her son's safety. The sender
28:53
managed to anonymize their
28:56
email, making it untraceable. Still
28:59
the FBI started an investigation.
29:02
Steven and Amy's coworkers were interviewed
29:04
and two laptops were searched, but
29:06
there really were no leads. Amy
29:09
Allwine was murdered on November 13th,
29:12
2016. So
29:15
this was just a matter of months after
29:18
she received that second
29:20
email. I was trying to figure
29:22
out how, uh, their coworkers seen
29:25
this and thought about this. Well, I'm
29:27
sure they had to be worried for Amy,
29:29
but I think at the
29:31
same time, there was probably some,
29:34
some self preservation worries, right? They
29:36
would have known that they didn't send the
29:38
emails, but I think anytime you're being looked
29:41
at by any
29:43
agency and maybe especially
29:45
the FBI, you're going to be
29:47
a little concerned. Steven
29:50
got up just before 6am that
29:52
morning and went to his office
29:54
in the basement to get some work done
29:56
around 12pm. Steven
29:59
went upstairs to. have lunch with Amy and
30:01
their son. After lunch, Amy
30:03
told Steven, she felt dizzy and
30:06
lightheaded and was going to rest in
30:08
bed. Amy searched for symptoms
30:10
of vertigo on the day
30:12
she died. And this is a little
30:14
scary to me because I think I mentioned it to
30:16
you. I have been having some of this off and
30:19
on, right? I had it kind of pretty
30:21
bad for a week or two, and then
30:24
it went away for a while. And
30:26
now recently it's come back. It's
30:28
like, whenever I stand up, get
30:31
out of bed, or when I lay down, I'm
30:33
having this room spinning
30:35
feeling. According to Allwine
30:38
versus State, Steven's last employment action
30:40
occurred at 1251 PM. At
30:44
one PM, Amy's father arrived
30:46
at the house to finish a home
30:48
project. He started a few days earlier.
30:51
Steven told him Amy was in
30:53
bed because she wasn't feeling well.
30:56
Amy's dad didn't see her the whole time
30:58
he was in the house. He left at
31:01
2 PM, but Steven called minutes
31:03
later and asked him to come
31:05
back to pick up Joseph so he could take
31:07
Amy to a clinic. Amy's dad
31:09
returned to the house and picked up Joseph.
31:12
Steven and Amy were alone in the house.
31:15
So nothing too bizarre, right? We've all been there.
31:17
You know, when we've asked our mother-in-law,
31:20
father-in-law, somebody to come
31:22
over and help out. Yeah. And I
31:24
think, you know, on the part
31:26
of Amy's dad, he probably wouldn't have thought
31:28
that this was weird at all. You
31:30
know, all right. My daughter's not
31:33
feeling well. She's laying down in the
31:35
bed. I'm not going to
31:37
go up and bother her. I'm just going
31:39
to, you know, do my project and leave,
31:41
let her sleep. And then
31:43
you get a call saying, okay,
31:46
she's obviously still not feeling well. Steven
31:48
wants to take her to the clinic. So
31:51
I'll come back and pick up
31:53
Joseph. Now all that seems very normal.
31:55
At 5.30 PM, Steven came to
31:57
his father-in-law's house to pick up.
32:00
Joseph. Amy's dad asked
32:02
about her diagnosis at the clinic.
32:04
Steven said Amy changed her mind and
32:07
decided not to go. Steven
32:09
and Joseph got home at
32:11
approximately 652 pm. Joseph
32:13
found Amy on the floor with a pool
32:15
of blood around her head. He called
32:18
911 at approximately 7
32:20
pm. During the call he told
32:23
the dispatcher, I think my
32:25
wife shot herself. There's blood all
32:27
over. According to 48 hours,
32:30
Joseph asked during the call why
32:32
did she shoot herself. He also
32:34
asked his dad, are you
32:36
going to remarry? Steven said,
32:38
I don't know bud, followed
32:41
by a chuckle. That's
32:43
really weird. That is so
32:45
bizarre. Now, you
32:47
know, a young kid probably
32:50
in shock asking questions.
32:52
Is that abnormal?
32:55
No, kids ask a lot of
32:57
questions in all kinds of different
33:00
circumstances. The are you
33:02
going to remarry question is
33:04
a little strange, but the response
33:07
is even more strange. You know, I don't know
33:09
is the right answer, but
33:12
who's chuckling, laughing
33:15
during the 911 call after
33:17
they have found their wife
33:19
dead? Yes. So strange.
33:21
And I don't even know if I
33:23
would answer. I don't know. I think that moment
33:25
you're just like, no, you know, it means like
33:28
my wife is here leading,
33:30
dying. I'm not even have the
33:33
mindset to answer that question. Officers
33:35
entered the primary bedroom and found
33:37
Amy face up on the floor.
33:40
Her body was still warm. Her
33:42
pants were unbuttoned and unzipped and
33:44
her hands were at her side. A handgun
33:47
lay on her left forearm. Amy
33:49
had a gunshot wound to the right side of her
33:51
head and I'm no expert,
33:54
but, and I'm sure it's
33:56
something that, you know, we'll talk about later
33:58
on. But it did seem
34:01
strange to me, it jumped out, that
34:03
if she shot herself in the
34:05
right side of her head, the gun would
34:07
end up on her left forearm. Now
34:10
could it fall down and tumble that way?
34:12
Yes, I get it, it could happen. But
34:15
there was something in the back of my
34:17
mind that just thought, well that's a little
34:19
strange. According to the
34:21
Twin Cities Pioneer Press, there were no
34:23
powder burns on her head, which
34:26
suggested the gun wasn't against her head
34:28
when it was fired. There
34:31
was also no blood spatter or
34:33
gunpowder on her hands. And
34:35
all of those things, to me,
34:38
are really bad signs pointing
34:41
away from Amy Allwine
34:44
shooting herself. You
34:46
know, how do you have no gunpowder,
34:49
no blood spatter on your hands? And
34:52
we've talked about it in many episodes,
34:54
right? The powder burns, kind
34:56
of denoting a contact wound.
34:59
Well, how many people would
35:02
shoot themselves in the head holding
35:05
the gun at full
35:08
arm's length reach? Very
35:11
unlikely. Very unlikely. Captain
35:13
Randy McAllister noticed the smell of a
35:15
pumpkin, roasting in the oven when he
35:17
entered the house. He thought this
35:20
was strange and questioned why
35:22
Amy would start roasting a pumpkin
35:24
before shooting herself. And those
35:27
are questions that we've asked before.
35:29
There are things in
35:32
certain stories where it's
35:34
debated whether someone
35:37
took their life or someone
35:40
murdered them. And they
35:42
did kind of all of these different
35:44
things before they died. And
35:46
some of it did seem strange.
35:49
Doing the laundry, folding the laundry,
35:52
cooking dinner, or whatever it is, if this plan was in
35:59
your head. It was also noted that
36:01
it was on that the pistol was in
36:03
the crook of Amy's left arm, she
36:06
was right hand. And it
36:08
goes back to that thought that I had. If
36:10
you did that test a hundred times,
36:13
my thought is the majority
36:15
of the time that guns going to
36:18
end up on the right side. Yeah,
36:21
I completely agree. It's going
36:23
to be more rare for that to happen. I
36:25
would think so. Now we're not forensic experts, but
36:27
that just seems like, you know, common sense to
36:29
me, Captain McAllister noted satellite
36:32
blood drips that were outside
36:34
the pool of blood in
36:36
the bedroom. This meant that
36:38
at some point Amy's
36:40
head was suspended above the blood
36:42
drops. This suggested someone
36:44
might've moved her to the bedroom
36:46
where she was found. And you
36:49
know, all of this stuff is fascinating to
36:51
me when you get into
36:53
some of the forensic type
36:55
stuff. And what it can
36:58
tell investigate. And
37:00
I just think Gibbs, that there are a
37:02
lot of people out there
37:04
committing crimes that don't
37:06
have an understanding of
37:08
this type of stuff, and
37:11
they think that they can
37:13
get away with something and that
37:15
all of these different types
37:18
of forensic evidence is not going to prove
37:20
them wrong. Yeah, for sure. There's people out
37:22
there that think they're smarter than the system.
37:24
Yeah. Well, and there's a lot of people
37:26
that don't watch the CSIs
37:28
and those types of shows or
37:31
listen to podcasts or whatever it is.
37:35
Steven agreed to go to the station for
37:37
questioning. He said he last saw Amy at
37:39
5 29 when he left
37:41
to go pick up their son. The police
37:43
noticed that Steven was called despite
37:46
the fact that he just found his
37:48
wife's body. His tears
37:50
seemed fake. Additionally, he had
37:52
gunshot residue on his right
37:54
hand. And to me, that's
37:57
never good. If there were two people
37:59
in. the house. One
38:01
of them has gunshot residue on
38:04
their hand and the other one doesn't.
38:07
Pretty hard to think that the one that doesn't was
38:09
the one that pulled the trigger. It's almost
38:11
like a telltale sign. Is
38:14
that similar to a telltale sign?
38:17
Very close to it. But it's more
38:19
direct and less believable because
38:21
it's a tall tale. I
38:24
think the problem that the police had though was
38:26
that there really was no obvious
38:28
motive for Steven to kill Amy.
38:31
Steven and Amy's son Joseph was
38:33
questioned. He said his mom wasn't
38:35
feeling well so his dad took
38:37
her to a clinic. They
38:39
went to a restaurant after his dad
38:41
picked him up from his grandparents house
38:43
when they got home. He saw his
38:45
mom on the floor and asked why
38:47
she was asleep. Steven told him
38:50
she's probably dead and called 911. Yeah,
38:53
she's probably dead. Can you imagine saying that to
38:55
your son? Well, I don't know how
38:58
he said it. Now granted,
39:00
she was laying in a pool of blood. Sure. So
39:03
I think that assessment
39:06
would have been correct.
39:09
But it's a strange thing I think to say
39:11
to your son. I think so too. I think
39:13
you'd try to shelter. Shield
39:16
him at that point. Yeah. Scientists
39:18
from the Minnesota Bureau of
39:21
Criminal Apprehension arrived at the
39:23
Allwine residence to analyze the
39:25
crime scene. Investigators sprayed
39:27
luminol and found bloody footprints
39:29
going back and forth to
39:31
the mud room and the
39:33
bathroom on the main floor.
39:35
The footprints also went
39:38
into Joseph's bedroom. It
39:40
appeared that there had been some
39:42
type of cleanup. I almost kind
39:44
of wish that they had like
39:47
CCTV or whatever up when
39:49
they're doing their investigation and
39:51
put the potential suspect in a room,
39:54
let them see all this happening. It'd
39:56
be like, oh shit, I didn't know that.
40:00
know they could do that. Yeah, they got me.
40:02
I better go ahead and confess. Forensic
40:04
experts and the medical examiner
40:06
concluded that Amy's position on
40:08
the floor and the
40:11
blood patterns on her face
40:13
were inconsistent with suicide. And
40:15
I think, yeah, there seemed to be a
40:17
lot of things that pointed
40:19
to the fact that she did not end
40:22
her life. When the police
40:24
checked the couple's security system, they saw
40:26
that the cameras did not record anyone
40:28
coming or going from the house during
40:31
the relevant timeframe, besides Steven
40:33
and the police. There's a
40:36
big problem. Well, I think at
40:38
the very least it rules out anyone
40:40
else coming in, right? And
40:43
killing Amy. Amy's
40:45
autopsy was performed on November 14th.
40:49
The medical examiner agreed that Amy died
40:51
around 3.15 PM
40:54
or earlier on November 13th. The
40:57
evidence was more consistent with
40:59
homicide than suicide. Amy
41:02
had what was described as
41:04
an enormous amount of
41:07
scopolamine in her
41:09
system about 45
41:11
times higher concentration
41:13
than a therapeutic dose.
41:16
And this is not, you know, a medication
41:18
that I was familiar with. I had to look it
41:20
up. Scopolamine, if I'm even
41:22
saying it correctly, is an
41:25
anti nausea drug that can have
41:27
some pretty serious side effects. According
41:30
to the criminal complaint, scopolamine
41:32
is known to erase a
41:34
person's memory, rendering them
41:37
incapable of exercising their
41:39
free will. The drug is made
41:41
into an odorless and tasteless powder
41:44
that quickly dissolves in liquids and
41:46
is commonly put into drinks or
41:49
sprinkled on food. It's like
41:51
something you need to be really careful taking. Yeah.
41:53
I mean, obviously in prescribed
41:56
doses or over the counter doses,
41:58
I don't know. how this thing
42:01
is sold, but in whatever
42:03
dose you're supposed to take it, I'm
42:06
sure it works to, you know,
42:08
stave off nausea. But
42:11
if you take 45 times more than
42:13
you're supposed to, or you're
42:15
given 45 times
42:18
more than you're supposed to take, it
42:21
can apparently erase a person's memory.
42:23
Wow. So what does that
42:25
make you think? Could someone have
42:27
been trying to get Amy to shoot
42:30
herself in the head while she was
42:35
on the effects of this
42:37
drug? Maybe it didn't work exactly
42:39
the way they thought it would, but
42:41
I can see, you know, a
42:44
theory where that was someone's
42:47
attempt. And it sounds like
42:49
the drug pretty much and keeps
42:51
you from doing anything. Like
42:54
you lose your ability to fight back
42:56
if you lose your free will. Investigators
43:00
found Steven's computer equipment in
43:02
his basement office. Over
43:04
60 devices were seized and
43:06
taken to a computer forensic
43:08
expert. Okay. My first question is who
43:11
in the hell has 60 different devices?
43:14
That's a lot. I feel like I have a
43:16
lot of electronics. I'm kind
43:18
of a, an electronics person, right?
43:20
I don't think I have 60 different devices.
43:24
Quickly you can look around here and probably come
43:26
up with 20. Yeah. You know, but
43:29
I don't know what's behind that door because
43:32
you never allow me to go through that door.
43:34
Nobody's allowed through that door. But it
43:36
sounds like there's something back there cause I hear
43:38
a lot of that, you know, that low hum
43:40
noise, like, yeah, yeah. And there's
43:42
like, I mean, you can see, you can't
43:45
deny it. There is like a strange
43:47
light coming underneath the door crack.
43:50
That's all you need to know. Investigators
43:54
discovered that Steven was
43:56
visiting a website called
43:58
Ashley Madison. Ashley Madison
44:00
is a site for married people looking
44:02
to have affairs. It made
44:05
headlines in 2015 after
44:07
the client list was leaked, which exposed
44:09
the names of rich and powerful people
44:11
in the U S when you ate,
44:14
if your real name and
44:16
the world world was Ashley Madison, like
44:19
everywhere you go, people go like, Hey,
44:21
are you that Ashley calling you
44:23
a home wrecker? That's right. According
44:26
to prosecutor Jamie cruiser,
44:29
Steven dated at least three women via
44:31
the internet, the relationships range
44:34
from one date to
44:36
a prolonged sexual relationship
44:39
and let's, you know, keep in mind
44:41
he's married during this period of time
44:44
and he was a church
44:46
elder exactly, not supposed to
44:48
commit adultery or
44:50
anything like that. Not
44:53
that anybody is, but I think
44:55
what this showed to investigators
44:57
was that Steven no longer wanted
45:00
to be married to Amy and
45:02
provided them a potential motive for murder.
45:05
Pretty good motive. Captain Randy
45:07
Macalester said Steven was not an
45:10
official suspect until December 12th, 2016.
45:14
In March, 2016, Steven filed
45:16
the police report claiming
45:19
that someone stole $6,000 worth
45:22
of Bitcoin from him. Investigators
45:24
found a 34 digit
45:26
Bitcoin wallet code on Steven's
45:29
computer. This same code was
45:31
used by dog day God to pay
45:33
for Amy's murder on the dark web.
45:36
Okay. That seems like some pretty good
45:38
evidence to me. Pretty rock solid
45:40
to me tying Steven to the
45:42
murder. And it
45:45
really did effectively prove that
45:47
Steven was dog day God
45:50
upon further inspection of Steven's
45:53
dark web internet activity,
45:55
investigators learn that dog
45:57
day God purchase scapula.
46:00
Polymy on the dark web
46:02
right also very damning, you know For
46:05
the dark web thing to work kind
46:08
of needs to be anonymous. Yeah. Yeah,
46:10
you can't File police
46:13
report on the Bitcoin that you
46:15
got beat out of because
46:17
it defeats the purpose. Well, didn't we say earlier?
46:20
What kind of numb nuts is going
46:22
to engage in criminal activity and
46:25
then? You know file
46:27
a report. I think we found that in I'm
46:29
nuts once they get scammed out of $6,000
46:32
or whatever it is worth of Bitcoin and
46:35
why would you keep your little Bitcoin code
46:37
where somebody could find it? down
46:39
the road why even keep the Computer,
46:43
you know device that you use. Yeah,
46:46
you know, it's hard to Explain
46:50
right why some people do the
46:52
things they do or don't do some
46:54
of the things That you think they would do
46:57
a lot of the times. I just
46:59
think it's because They believe
47:01
in their minds. They're smart
47:03
enough to get away with this So
47:06
there's no reason to get rid of anything
47:08
because the police are gonna believe me. They're not
47:10
going to come and seize all of my
47:13
Electronics, they're not going to search it Prosecutors
47:17
theorize that Steven was frustrated after
47:19
waiting nine months for Amy to
47:21
be killed So he drugged
47:23
her and then shot her with
47:26
the gun that was supposed to be used
47:28
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on amazon.com today. Steven
48:49
Allwine was arrested and charged with
48:51
second degree murder on January 17,
48:53
2017. I
48:57
think the prosecution's theory is a
48:59
pretty good one. You know, with
49:01
everything that we've kind of laid out, he
49:04
tried to get someone to kill his wife. It
49:06
didn't happen. It sounds
49:08
to me like they effectively
49:10
stole his $6,000, right? Didn't
49:15
find someone to murder his wife.
49:18
Nine months goes by and he
49:21
says, I guess I'm going to have to
49:23
do it myself. Yeah. And
49:26
he comes up with this, what really is
49:28
kind of a ham handed
49:30
story, um, set up. Turns
49:34
out to be. Yeah. Like he
49:36
didn't really think it all the way through, but I don't, uh,
49:39
I don't like the fact that, uh, you know,
49:41
they, uh, charge him with second degree.
49:43
I feel like he should have got, uh,
49:45
charged with first degree. Yeah. I
49:48
mean, it did seem strange. He
49:50
was released after posting his half
49:52
a million dollar bail, but was
49:54
arrested again after he tried to
49:56
contact his son and track him
49:58
with a smartwatch. stevens
50:00
charge was upgraded to first-degree
50:02
murder after grand jury indicted
50:04
him in march two thousand
50:06
and seventeen i know we're
50:08
on track and that does make sense stevens
50:11
defense attorney kevin before argued
50:14
that investigators had tunnel vision
50:17
and ignored other possibilities the
50:19
board hold forty eight hours they
50:22
would ask yours to believe the
50:24
device named s all wind iphone
50:27
which uploaded in creating evidence
50:29
to stevens computer was
50:32
not actually stevens i thought divorce
50:34
said there were women in a
50:37
means why that had access to
50:39
her home internet including her friend
50:41
and colleagues who was a woman
50:44
or someone claiming to be a woman who
50:47
tried to get a me to kill herself
50:49
before she was murdered the woman
50:51
was angry with a me for allegedly
50:53
having an affair with her so
50:56
this all goes back to you know
50:58
what we talked about it does
51:01
seem like there either
51:03
was really someone angry with
51:06
a me woman or someone
51:10
was pretending to
51:12
be a woman to throw police
51:14
off the trail however
51:16
the police found no evidence that
51:18
amy was having an affair but
51:21
they easily found out that
51:23
he was having at least three affairs yeah
51:25
and so i think the kind
51:27
of lead you in a
51:29
certain direction right on the team if
51:32
they can find a single shred
51:34
of evidence of her having
51:36
an affair pretty hard to
51:38
believe that there's a woman out there who's
51:40
angry with her sending her
51:42
emails telling her to kill herself
51:45
opening statements and stevens murder trial
51:48
began on january twenty third two
51:50
thousand eighteen prosecutors argued
51:52
that stevens didn't want
51:54
to divorce amy because he would
51:56
lose his standing within the church
51:59
stevens was also the beneficiary to
52:01
Amy's $700,000 life insurance policy. Pretty
52:07
healthy. Yeah, that is a healthy amount.
52:10
When you talk about motive
52:12
for murder, how often does
52:14
it come down to money or
52:17
not wanting to get
52:20
a divorce for a number of
52:22
reasons, one of which can also
52:24
be giving up your money. Right. Here
52:27
you have the church kind of
52:29
intertwined. He doesn't want
52:31
this to come out. Yeah,
52:33
he wants to protect his reputation
52:35
and profit off of her
52:38
murder. Prosecutor Jamie Kruiser
52:40
told the jury that Steven
52:42
learned about the Ashley Madison
52:45
website through his position as
52:47
a marriage counselor. Investigators
52:50
identified at least two women Steven met
52:52
through the site. The defense
52:54
argued that the timeline leading up to
52:56
Amy's death would have made it impossible
52:58
for Steven to be the killer. They
53:01
did acknowledge Steven's affairs, but
53:03
argued that his infidelity didn't
53:06
mean he killed Amy. Well,
53:09
yeah, you can make that statement, right? People
53:11
can have affairs, doesn't mean they're going to be
53:14
a killer. No, that's a true
53:16
statement. It doesn't mean
53:19
that he killed Amy. Could
53:21
it be a factor in determining that he
53:23
did? Yeah. Yeah, you sprinkle all
53:25
the other stuff along with it, it kind of changes that. But
53:28
I think that's true with a lot of things. If
53:31
you just take one thing in
53:33
a vacuum, it might not
53:36
mean all that much, but
53:38
combined with all the other
53:40
evidence, it does
53:42
a lot of times form
53:44
a pretty convincing picture. The
53:48
defense questioned the credibility of
53:50
the computer analyst who examined
53:52
Steven's devices and claimed the
53:54
investigation of the house was
53:56
contaminated. I mean,
53:58
I haven't said it yet. to me, it kind
54:01
of felt like going into it, right? The
54:03
defense was up against it. Yeah.
54:06
I think their back was up against that
54:08
wall. Yeah. They, they were going to have
54:10
a tough time, but they were going to
54:12
have to try a lot of different things.
54:15
They were going to have to try
54:17
to attack the evidence,
54:20
the investigation, all of that,
54:23
at least three neighbors claimed they saw
54:25
Amy outside the home on
54:27
the night of her death, neighbors also
54:30
heard two vehicles racing out of
54:32
the neighborhood around the same time.
54:34
According to the defense authorities
54:36
also failed to follow up on
54:38
an unknown user who remotely
54:40
access Steven's computer the
54:43
day of Amy's death. That's the way to
54:45
put some doubt out there, right? Right.
54:48
Who are these people racing out of
54:50
the neighborhood? What was this
54:53
person doing if they
54:55
access Steven's computer remotely? You
54:58
know, could they have been dog
55:01
day? Got. Do you remember what
55:03
I used to remote into your computer? Did
55:05
you not know that? I did not know that.
55:08
Oh, just move on. Sorry. On
55:10
January 26th, 2018, the United church of God issued a
55:12
statement about Steven's trial.
55:17
The church said that media
55:19
outlets had published inaccurate comments.
55:22
Part of the statement read, here are
55:24
the facts about the United church of God
55:26
and its beliefs. We highly value
55:28
scripture and regard the Bible as
55:31
the authoritative word of God. In
55:34
respect to marriage, the
55:36
church positively teaches it
55:38
involves a lifelong commitment
55:40
of mutual love, respect,
55:42
and selfless service. Marriage
55:44
is a holy covenant that reflects
55:47
our relationship with Jesus Christ. The
55:49
church also strongly follows the biblical
55:52
command that murder, even the mere
55:54
thought of murder is
55:56
condemned to sin and can
55:58
never be justified. Unlike what
56:01
some may have insinuated, our ministers
56:03
are called to be humble servants,
56:05
as stated in the New Testament.
56:08
These pastors must be men of
56:10
blameless lives, because they are
56:12
God's ministers. They must not
56:14
be proud or impatient. They must
56:17
not be drunkards or fighters or
56:19
greedy for money. So it
56:21
sounds to me like the church
56:24
was maybe being cast
56:26
in a bad light, as
56:28
though it was this stance against
56:30
divorce that had caused Stephen
56:33
Allwine to kill his wife. And
56:35
they were kind of, I guess,
56:39
trying to defend themselves in
56:41
a way. Yes, saying, it's not really
56:43
true. Here's where our stance is. This
56:45
is what we mean. And we obviously
56:47
don't believe in murder. The
56:49
state called on the computer
56:51
forensic expert who examined 66
56:53
devices seized
56:56
from the Allwine residence, including
56:59
a MacBook Pro with the
57:01
username S. Allwine and
57:03
an iPhone 6s named S.
57:06
Allwine's phone. The computer
57:08
forensic expert testified that
57:11
user S. Allwine downloaded
57:13
Tor, a web browser
57:15
that people use to access the dark
57:17
web, on the MacBook Pro
57:19
seized from the house. He found the
57:21
note on the computer with
57:24
the email address sharklasers.com.
57:27
This allows users to send
57:29
anonymous emails. I did
57:31
not know that. I'm assuming you did. I
57:33
did. But that is not me
57:36
that sends you those certain emails.
57:38
Well, somebody needs to stop doing it. User
57:41
S. Allwine composed an anonymous
57:43
email on the MacBook Pro.
57:46
And I think some of this testimony really
57:49
kind of gets to the heart
57:51
of the matter. Who was using
57:53
that computer to access the dark
57:55
web? Because that's where
57:58
the hit lies. ordered. Right.
58:01
Who sent anonymous emails?
58:04
Because we know Amy received
58:06
anonymous emails instructing her to
58:09
end her life. Telling her,
58:11
threatening her. It's not looking good for
58:13
him. It's really not. The
58:15
user dogdaygod first used the
58:17
dark web to contact Besa
58:19
Mafia on February 14th 2016.
58:21
On February 15th, Stephen used his
58:27
MacBook Pro to search Amy's
58:30
itinerary for the dog training
58:32
convention in Moline, Illinois. He
58:34
also did a search for
58:36
the distance between Chicago and
58:39
Moline. Two minutes later, Dogdaygod
58:41
messaged Besa Mafia per
58:44
Fox 9. The
58:46
target will be traveling out of town to Moline,
58:49
about a three-hour drive from Chicago.
58:51
What is the price in Bitcoin for
58:53
hit and ideally making it
58:56
look like an accident? And
58:58
to me, you know, this is kind of fascinating because,
59:00
you know, if you just look
59:02
at someone looking up
59:05
his wife's itinerary and
59:07
how far away it is, that
59:10
doesn't mean anything to me. No,
59:13
you're thinking, well, I just wanted to see
59:15
how far away from Chicago, one of the major
59:17
cities that she was going to be from. Yeah.
59:19
And well, you know, what is she doing that day? What
59:22
does she have going on? But
59:24
when that activity
59:27
is immediately
59:29
followed by messaging
59:32
the hitman or the hitman arranger
59:35
and giving that information to them.
59:38
Well, obviously then it puts it in a
59:40
much different light. On March
59:42
5th, user S. Olwine used the
59:44
MacBook Pro to view Amy's Facebook
59:46
and browse her photos. And
59:49
it was the very next day that
59:51
Dogdaygod sent a picture of Amy to
59:54
Besa Mafia. This occurred
59:56
moments after Steven downloaded the picture
59:58
from his home. So
1:00:01
again, with the technology, they're able to kind
1:00:03
of see when all of this stuff happened.
1:00:05
And it looks very bad. It
1:00:08
does. For Stephen Allwine. Basa
1:00:11
Mafia told Dog Day God how to
1:00:13
purchase Bitcoin and how he could cover
1:00:16
his tracks by reporting it stolen. A
1:00:20
few days later, Stephen purchased Bitcoin
1:00:22
and reported it stolen. So, you
1:00:25
know, when you look at all of
1:00:28
the things that Stephen did, and
1:00:30
then all of the things that Dog
1:00:33
Day God did, pretty
1:00:35
hard not to believe
1:00:38
that Dog Day God is Stephen
1:00:40
Allwine. Yeah, I mean,
1:00:42
if you look at it, you know,
1:00:45
it looks like it's him, smells like
1:00:47
it's him. Yeah, it's
1:00:49
him. According to Fox 9,
1:00:52
he purchased 15.5 Bitcoins worth more
1:00:54
than $6,000. What
1:01:00
I found amazing was that
1:01:02
they said in that same article that it would be
1:01:04
worth about $870,000 today. I
1:01:09
think more like $920,000, but, you
1:01:11
know, we'll go with that. Who
1:01:14
are they versus who I am? And
1:01:16
I don't know exactly. I can't remember
1:01:18
when that article was written. So you
1:01:20
could be right today, but yeah,
1:01:22
that Bitcoin, I should have got in on that. A
1:01:26
lot of people wish they got in on it. And there's
1:01:28
a lot of people wish that they got out on it,
1:01:30
you know, got out on it at the right time. Yeah,
1:01:32
it's gone up and down, right? Throughout the years. We
1:01:35
talked about this Bitcoin wallet, which
1:01:37
I think is an important piece of
1:01:40
the puzzle because it's what
1:01:42
helps to allow some
1:01:44
of these transactions to be untraceable.
1:01:47
You know, Stephen's Bitcoin wallet had a
1:01:49
unique 34 digit character
1:01:51
code. That's a lot of
1:01:54
characters. That is a lot of characters. On
1:01:57
March 22nd, Stephen copied the
1:01:59
code. to the notes
1:02:01
app on his iPhone. 23
1:02:03
seconds later, Dog Day God
1:02:06
sent the same code to base a
1:02:08
mafia to pay for the hit.
1:02:10
Again, all of these things, they
1:02:13
are just tying Stephen
1:02:15
Alwine and Dog
1:02:17
Day God together as
1:02:20
being the same person. Not
1:02:22
that smart of a guy. 40 seconds
1:02:25
later, the note was deleted
1:02:27
from Stephen's iPhone. The
1:02:29
deleted note though was copied to
1:02:31
iCloud and was backed up onto
1:02:33
a new iPhone 6 on
1:02:36
May 27. Yeah, you know
1:02:38
what it's hard to get rid of?
1:02:40
The cloud. Yeah. I always like to
1:02:43
write things on a piece of paper and then
1:02:45
burn it or eat it. Okay.
1:02:48
Eating it seems a little extreme, but I
1:02:50
gotcha. It's fiber. But we're gonna see
1:02:52
more and more of this, right?
1:02:54
With all of this technology,
1:02:56
the cloud and everything kind
1:02:59
of auto syncing, backing up.
1:03:01
A lot of people may not realize that what
1:03:04
they thought they deleted or what they thought they
1:03:07
got rid of is actually out
1:03:09
there sitting on the cloud somewhere. Yeah,
1:03:11
a lot of that electronic stuff leaves
1:03:13
some type of footprint, you know?
1:03:15
Unless you're very, very smart and
1:03:18
know how to clean it out, which
1:03:20
most people won't know how to do, you're
1:03:23
gonna be screwed.
1:03:25
Or you could just not do anything
1:03:28
bad. Well, that would be
1:03:30
the awesome thing, right? Just don't
1:03:32
do anything. Don't murder anyone. Don't
1:03:34
commit any types of sexual
1:03:37
crimes. Don't hurt anyone.
1:03:40
Just don't break the law. No. And then you
1:03:42
don't have to worry about what's on your computer.
1:03:44
You know, if you want to break the law,
1:03:46
do this. Go to your mattress
1:03:48
and rip those tags off. Okay. You know,
1:03:51
I got you, but I didn't endorse that.
1:03:53
Or walk across the street right in the
1:03:55
middle. Don't even go to the
1:03:57
crosswalk. That's right. Go ahead and jay walk.
1:04:00
We're not advocating that either. No. Moonwalk?
1:04:03
I'm down with. How about
1:04:05
you moonwalk across the crosswalk? I can
1:04:07
do that. Totally legal. According
1:04:10
to the Twin Cities Pioneer Press,
1:04:12
Stevens searched for the names of
1:04:14
Amy's family members on his computer.
1:04:17
In July 2016, Amy
1:04:19
received anonymous emails threatening to
1:04:22
harm her family. I think
1:04:24
he didn't know what their names were. Yeah,
1:04:26
I thought that was a little strange. I don't
1:04:28
know how far he had to branch out. On
1:04:31
August 3rd, Stevens iPhone was backed
1:04:33
up to his MacBook Pro. The
1:04:36
backup included the Bitcoin wallet
1:04:38
code. An officer in
1:04:41
the medical examiner testified that
1:04:43
the evidence at the Allwine
1:04:45
residence was not consistent with
1:04:47
suicide. And I don't know how, you
1:04:50
know, just from the rudimentary
1:04:52
knowledge that you and I have,
1:04:55
it was pretty clear to see that
1:04:58
it didn't appear to be suicide
1:05:00
at all. No, especially knowing
1:05:03
that he had GSR on his
1:05:05
hand. And she didn't. No
1:05:07
contact wound. On
1:05:09
January 31st, 2018, Stephen
1:05:12
Allwine was found guilty
1:05:14
of first-degree murder. Stephen
1:05:17
was sentenced to life in prison without the
1:05:19
possibility of parole. On January 31st, 2018, Stephen
1:05:22
Allwine was found guilty
1:05:25
of first-degree murder. Stephen
1:05:27
was sentenced to life in prison without
1:05:29
the possibility of parole on
1:05:31
February 2nd, So
1:05:35
we didn't go into all
1:05:37
that much detail when
1:05:39
it comes to the trial, but I didn't
1:05:41
feel like we really needed to. We hit
1:05:43
the highlights of the evidence
1:05:45
against him. It doesn't seem
1:05:48
to me, Gibbs, that it would
1:05:50
have been that difficult for a jury
1:05:52
to put this together. It kind of seemed like
1:05:54
a slam dunk. Stephen spoke
1:05:56
in court and said he had always
1:05:59
loved Amy. me and didn't kill
1:06:01
her. He said per Fox nine, I've
1:06:04
never asked for anything except to
1:06:06
work for God. He continued. I
1:06:08
never went to sleep. I never
1:06:11
woke up without kissing her. The
1:06:13
grief of losing her is tremendous.
1:06:15
No one ever talked bad
1:06:17
about our relationship. Kind
1:06:20
of makes me sick. And you know,
1:06:22
there might even be some truth in
1:06:24
that statement, but to me
1:06:26
at a certain point, he felt differently.
1:06:29
He started having the affairs and
1:06:32
then obviously he started
1:06:34
having thoughts about wanting
1:06:37
her debt because instead of
1:06:39
asking for divorce that he
1:06:41
knew the church would not approve
1:06:44
because he wanted to keep his reputation there,
1:06:47
keep his money, keep his money, get
1:06:49
her money, get her money. He chose
1:06:51
to go out to the dark web
1:06:53
and orchestrate this murder
1:06:56
for hire. And when that didn't
1:06:58
happen, he chose to do it himself. He
1:07:00
told the judge how he had been doing
1:07:03
Bible study at the county jail. He
1:07:05
met people addicted to drugs, child
1:07:07
molesters, and kidnappers. He added, I'm
1:07:10
going to take my Bible to St.
1:07:12
Cloud prison and see what happened.
1:07:15
Okay. Good on you. Yeah.
1:07:17
Where's all this goodness? Right.
1:07:20
When it really counted, you know. The judge
1:07:22
told Steven, you are an
1:07:24
incredible actor, a hypocrite and
1:07:26
a cold and calculating killer.
1:07:28
Love that. Yeah. I mean,
1:07:31
just lay it out there. You know,
1:07:33
here's a judge and I think a lot of them
1:07:35
are like this. They're not pulling
1:07:37
any punches. They're telling it like it
1:07:39
is because I think they hear so
1:07:42
much BS, right? From people,
1:07:44
you know, here's Steven talking about
1:07:46
doing Bible study, counseling,
1:07:50
people addicted to drugs and child
1:07:52
molesters. Okay. Maybe you are, but
1:07:55
it doesn't change any of what you
1:07:57
did. No, you need some counseling yourself.
1:08:01
The United Church of God also issued
1:08:03
a statement after the sentencing, part
1:08:05
of which was published by Fox
1:08:07
not the church said, because of
1:08:09
the sensational nature of the facts
1:08:11
surrounding the case, a
1:08:13
considerable number of international and national
1:08:16
media outlets covered the events leading
1:08:18
up to and including the trial.
1:08:21
It is our fervent hope that all
1:08:23
will continue to pray to our
1:08:25
merciful father about the entire situation
1:08:28
and be compassionate about what the
1:08:30
extended families are going through. Here
1:08:33
is an important point. While we
1:08:35
certainly respect the verdict at
1:08:38
the same time, we personally are
1:08:40
not to sit in judgment.
1:08:42
We can have confidence that
1:08:45
our all-knowing God is aware
1:08:47
of all aspects regarding this
1:08:49
tragic situation. As a
1:08:51
result, we will not be making
1:08:53
speculative comments about the verdict. Well,
1:08:56
that's there for event right. Yeah, and I don't
1:08:58
even know what that means. The
1:09:01
speculative comments about
1:09:03
the verdict, they're not going
1:09:05
to speculate, I guess, about
1:09:07
whether the verdict was correct
1:09:10
or not correct or not. The
1:09:12
verdict. I'm not sure. Stephen
1:09:14
filed an appeal with the Minnesota Supreme
1:09:16
Court in May 2018 in late September
1:09:21
while the appeal was pending. GBS
1:09:23
aired an episode of 48 Hours
1:09:26
titled Click for a Killer, Part
1:09:28
1. This episode featured
1:09:30
the Allwine case and
1:09:33
included interviews with lawyers and law
1:09:35
enforcement who were involved. 48
1:09:37
Hours conducted a six-month investigation
1:09:40
and discovered murder plots that had already
1:09:42
been paid for but were not carried
1:09:45
out. They identified
1:09:47
an individual who identified
1:09:49
himself as Jura who claimed
1:09:51
he is the man behind
1:09:53
the international murder empire
1:09:56
called Besa Mafia.
1:09:59
CVS obtained clips from Yura's
1:10:01
video diary where he said, a
1:10:03
hit man marketplace is like any
1:10:06
other auction site. It
1:10:08
brings customers and vendors together.
1:10:10
Any hit man is welcome to sign
1:10:12
up, but not all will be accepted.
1:10:15
Basically his website invited
1:10:18
potential killers to send
1:10:20
him audition tapes. I
1:10:22
wonder what that's like. Hey,
1:10:25
I'm John and I've got
1:10:27
some certain level skills.
1:10:30
And I think I could be a valuable
1:10:32
asset to your, uh, company.
1:10:35
I don't know. I think they probably
1:10:37
be pretty strange videos. Well, my
1:10:40
thought was an audition tape
1:10:42
would include some
1:10:44
type of criminal act.
1:10:47
Yeah. Here's my last three
1:10:49
hits. I don't
1:10:51
even know. Yura said in a
1:10:53
video diary, if one searches
1:10:55
online for, I quote, shot dead
1:10:58
on street, one will find plenty
1:11:00
of news about people being shot
1:11:02
dead in the street by unknown
1:11:04
people that shoot and leave the site. Those
1:11:07
are our hit men. We will be
1:11:09
waiting for you to come place your orders and
1:11:12
get rid of your problems. It's almost
1:11:14
like he's really trying to hype this thing
1:11:16
up to get more customers. Yeah. 48
1:11:19
hours spoke to Eileen Ormsby and
1:11:22
Australian writer and CBS consultant who
1:11:24
learned about Amy's case while researching
1:11:26
for a book about the dark
1:11:29
web. Eileen found
1:11:31
Chris Montero and it
1:11:33
specialist and what is
1:11:35
referred to as a white hat hacker
1:11:38
who also discovered VESA
1:11:40
mafia. And I kind of mentioned
1:11:43
this before, right? Not all hackers are bad.
1:11:45
A white hat hacker is also
1:11:47
called an ethical hacker. They use
1:11:50
their skills to identify security
1:11:52
vulnerabilities. When they are legally
1:11:54
allowed to do so. Chris
1:11:57
Montero has been writing about dark
1:11:59
web murder. for a higher site since 2015. He
1:12:03
told CBS that many of the sites
1:12:05
are scams to steal money. In
1:12:08
2016, he noticed that someone edited one
1:12:10
of his posts about the
1:12:13
BESA Mafia site, insisting
1:12:15
it was legit. Okay, well
1:12:17
let's face it, a lot of things
1:12:20
are in fact scams intended
1:12:23
to steal money. You
1:12:25
know, especially when you're dealing with the internet. It
1:12:27
doesn't even have to be the dark web. I
1:12:30
mean, how many people get phone calls from
1:12:33
allegedly Amazon customer support?
1:12:36
Oh yeah. I got
1:12:38
one earlier today. I
1:12:40
couldn't hang up fast enough. I get calls,
1:12:42
I get text messages that I
1:12:44
don't even know who they're from. Montero got
1:12:47
into an online argument with Yura
1:12:49
from BESA Mafia. One day he
1:12:51
received a video from Yura that
1:12:53
showed a person holding a piece
1:12:55
of paper with his domain name
1:12:57
written on it, standing in
1:12:59
front of a burning car. Okay,
1:13:02
a little intimidation. Yeah. He
1:13:04
continued receiving threats in the following weeks.
1:13:07
Montero decided that he wanted to take
1:13:09
this guy down, but Yura's
1:13:11
sites were encrypted and he
1:13:14
regularly changed website names. Now,
1:13:17
it's one thing to intimidate
1:13:20
someone on the web. Right?
1:13:23
That happens. We know it
1:13:25
happens. We know who you shouldn't intimidate
1:13:27
or try to intimidate, a very
1:13:30
skilled hacker. You
1:13:33
might be skilled yourself, but you might run
1:13:35
up against someone who's better than you. Montero
1:13:38
developed a special computer code to
1:13:41
hack the BESA Mafia website. This
1:13:43
allowed him to see communications between
1:13:45
Yura and his customers. He told
1:13:47
48 hours, I
1:13:50
discovered there are lots of sick people out
1:13:52
there. And in many cases, being
1:13:55
very graphic about how
1:13:57
they want the person to suffer. It's
1:14:00
really scary. It is a scary thought.
1:14:02
It is. We already know
1:14:04
that there are a lot of people
1:14:06
who have thoughts about killing. There
1:14:08
are a lot of people who kill. We
1:14:10
cover quite a few of them. When
1:14:13
you add this kind of dark
1:14:15
web element to it, it
1:14:18
does change things up a little bit. You're
1:14:20
talking about potentially
1:14:23
anonymous transactions for murder,
1:14:26
and that is a very scary thing.
1:14:29
The Montero found a user
1:14:31
named DogdayGod asking to kill
1:14:33
Amy, all one. He
1:14:36
found messages between DogdayGod and
1:14:38
Yura discussing how, where, and
1:14:40
when the murder would occur.
1:14:43
He was so concerned he reached out to
1:14:45
the FBI. He told
1:14:47
them about the messages trying
1:14:49
to solicit murder, but didn't
1:14:51
mention any specific plots. He
1:14:54
felt like the conversation went nowhere and
1:14:56
he eventually gave up. Disappointing.
1:14:58
Yeah, that would be disappointing when you
1:15:00
have what could be pretty
1:15:03
credible information. Montero
1:15:06
learned about Amy's death in
1:15:08
January 2017 after Steven was arrested. Montero
1:15:13
claimed that Yura tried to frame
1:15:15
him by claiming he was
1:15:17
the one running the hitman sites on
1:15:19
the dark web on February 4, 2017.
1:15:23
The police raided his house and
1:15:25
arrested him for incitement to murder. The
1:15:28
charges were later dropped. So
1:15:31
you have what seems to be two
1:15:33
pretty skilled hackers, both
1:15:35
probably capable of doing some nasty
1:15:37
stuff to the other. It
1:15:39
almost sounds like a future Netflix
1:15:42
movie. Why everything is a
1:15:44
future Netflix movie. That's true.
1:15:47
Including movies that have already been made,
1:15:49
as we discussed about on Patreon. That's
1:15:51
true. And they're running for the lead
1:15:53
role in Urban Cowboy remake. Are
1:15:56
you? Yeah. They're just trying to
1:15:58
find my sissy. the
1:16:00
decision to go much, much older in
1:16:03
this remake. Maybe
1:16:06
it's a sequel. Sequel. Yeah. Whatever
1:16:08
happened to, I don't remember what
1:16:10
his name was in the movie.
1:16:13
Uh, and I can't think of it
1:16:15
either, but, and, and yeah, John Travolta's
1:16:17
character and Sissy. Yeah. So
1:16:20
if they're going to go that route, John Travolta
1:16:22
could just play it. Yeah. Or you
1:16:24
could play it. I didn't think that went through. Yeah.
1:16:28
In a video sent to 48 hours,
1:16:30
Yura said the murder of Amy Allwine
1:16:33
was committed by base of mafia. He
1:16:35
said the base of mafia hit
1:16:37
man visited the Allwine residence
1:16:39
and shot his wife with her
1:16:42
gun and then left the
1:16:44
location driving in a hurry by the
1:16:46
time of Steven's trial in January, 2018. Yura
1:16:50
shut down the site and started
1:16:52
the new one called. Co-sonostra.
1:16:55
How original. Not,
1:16:57
not being too, uh, inventive
1:16:59
with the names 48
1:17:02
hours message Yura on the dark
1:17:04
web. He agreed to an
1:17:06
interview in London, but never showed
1:17:08
up. He believed 48 hours was
1:17:11
being followed by British intelligence. Probably
1:17:13
a pretty good assumption. He sent an
1:17:15
email that said, I do have several
1:17:18
millions to live a nice life and
1:17:20
start several businesses. Why should I risk
1:17:22
being arrested and end up in jail?
1:17:24
Yura did give 48 hours, the names
1:17:27
of murder targets from his sites. 48
1:17:30
hours contacted the police and reached out to
1:17:32
the targets. Their tips led to
1:17:34
four arrests. So, I mean,
1:17:36
I think this is scary from
1:17:39
that standpoint that, all
1:17:41
right, he may have been
1:17:43
scamming people, but that doesn't
1:17:45
mean that there weren't real
1:17:47
people on the other end who
1:17:50
wanted someone dead. Not only
1:17:52
dead, but in a very gruesome
1:17:55
way. Some of them wanted them to
1:17:57
suffer and all that Chris
1:17:59
Montero. And researcher Eileen
1:18:01
Ornsby came to the conclusion
1:18:04
that you're a murderer for higher sites
1:18:06
or scams. You're established a
1:18:08
pattern with potential customers. After
1:18:11
he was paid, the job was
1:18:13
not completed. When people express their
1:18:15
frustration, you're asked for more
1:18:17
money to make the hit happen faster. You
1:18:19
know what you're not going to do
1:18:21
if it doesn't pan out? You're
1:18:24
not going to run to the police and say, I've
1:18:26
been scammed out of $10,000. They
1:18:29
never murdered my wife. Yeah,
1:18:31
you'd never put it that way. Now, Steven
1:18:34
did go to the police and say someone stole
1:18:36
$6,000 in Bitcoin. But
1:18:39
I think even that ended up biting
1:18:42
him in the ass because it, it
1:18:44
kind of. Maybe led
1:18:47
to further investigation into the
1:18:49
Bitcoin, his online activity
1:18:52
and all of that. After
1:18:55
the 48 hours episode aired,
1:18:57
the Minnesota Supreme Court granted
1:18:59
Stevens motion to stay his
1:19:01
direct appeal to allow
1:19:04
him to file for post conviction relief
1:19:06
in district court. Stevens appealed to the
1:19:08
Supreme Court of Minnesota was denied on
1:19:11
August 18th, 2021. In
1:19:14
November of that year, Stevens spoke
1:19:16
to Fox nine and protested his
1:19:18
innocence. He said he was framed
1:19:21
adding, when you look at all the
1:19:23
scientific evidence, when you look at the
1:19:25
hard physical evidence, I couldn't have
1:19:27
done it. If you know me as an individual,
1:19:29
I couldn't have done it. And that sentence
1:19:31
I have to be honest with you made
1:19:34
no sense to me. If you
1:19:36
look at the scientific evidence, if
1:19:38
you look at the hard physical evidence,
1:19:41
I couldn't have done it. If you
1:19:43
know me as an individual, it seems
1:19:45
like those are two different things. Absolutely.
1:19:48
He's saying people who
1:19:50
knew me or know me, they
1:19:52
know that I'm not capable of this. Okay.
1:19:56
I understand that. If you want to make
1:19:58
that statement. But coupling
1:20:01
that with the scientific
1:20:03
evidence, all of
1:20:05
that seems to point to you actually
1:20:07
doing it. Steven said the
1:20:10
killer planted evidence on his devices,
1:20:13
duplicate him in the murder, and
1:20:15
suggested that investigators ignored crime
1:20:18
scene evidence that could
1:20:20
exonerate him. Steven said
1:20:22
he believes he knows who committed the murder
1:20:25
and alleged it was someone Amy was
1:20:27
working with. When asked about the
1:20:29
Bitcoin code on his computer, Steven
1:20:32
said, my supposition, I
1:20:34
don't have evidence to back this up, is
1:20:36
that someone else got it posted to the
1:20:39
cloud. And then the cloud
1:20:41
syncs with my MacBook and brought it
1:20:43
there. He's got an answer for everything.
1:20:46
He does, but I'm
1:20:48
struggling with how to
1:20:50
make sense of the answer. So
1:20:53
he's got this suspicion that it
1:20:56
was someone Amy was working with.
1:20:58
Okay. If that was the
1:21:00
case, what would the motive have been? We
1:21:03
don't know. And
1:21:06
it doesn't mean that coworkers don't kill.
1:21:09
We know that they have. But
1:21:11
the motive for Steven to want to kill
1:21:13
his wife is obvious. It's
1:21:15
out there. I mean, you
1:21:17
can offer up all kinds of
1:21:20
alternate theories. But at
1:21:22
the end of the day, number one, they
1:21:25
have to make sense. And then number two,
1:21:27
you have to have something to support them.
1:21:30
Mark Lanterman, the expert who
1:21:32
analyzed Steven's devices told Fox
1:21:34
nine, in this case,
1:21:36
the evidence was overwhelming. I
1:21:38
would say this is probably the most
1:21:40
compelling case I have ever worked on
1:21:42
in the last 30 years.
1:21:45
That says a lot. Yeah. I mean, how
1:21:47
many cases has this guy worked on in 30 years? But
1:21:50
you know, this is a pretty compelling case
1:21:52
when you think about it, not the
1:21:54
fact that a husband
1:21:56
wants his wife murdered. We've
1:21:59
seen that. Quite a bit. I
1:22:02
don't want to downplay it because it's horrible. Sure. What
1:22:05
was compelling to me about this case
1:22:07
was the dark web,
1:22:09
the trying to hire hit man,
1:22:12
the use of the Bitcoin and
1:22:14
all of that, thinking it was
1:22:16
kind of an untraceable transaction
1:22:19
only to find out
1:22:22
that you're being scammed. You're
1:22:24
not getting a hit man and then making
1:22:27
the decision that you're going
1:22:29
to do it yourself. Lanterman also
1:22:31
noted that there was no
1:22:34
evidence any of Stevens devices
1:22:36
were compromised. Stevens latest
1:22:38
appeal to the Supreme Court of Minnesota
1:22:40
was denied on July 19th, 2023. You
1:22:45
know, as we wrapped this one up, like
1:22:47
I said to me, it was and is
1:22:50
a pretty compelling case. Stephen
1:22:52
Alwine thought that he could get away
1:22:54
with murder because now
1:22:57
he knew a little something about
1:22:59
computers, right? He was an IT
1:23:01
guy probably considered himself an expert.
1:23:04
He did have apparently
1:23:06
some experience navigating the dark
1:23:08
web, but in the end
1:23:10
he used his personal computer to
1:23:13
solicit the murder. This
1:23:15
device contained evidence that proved
1:23:18
he was the one sending messages
1:23:21
requesting the hit. And
1:23:23
when you look at the motive and we've kind
1:23:25
of already talked about it, but you know, he
1:23:27
wanted to have Amy killed because divorcing
1:23:30
her would cause him to lose his
1:23:33
position as church
1:23:35
elder. I also think
1:23:37
that money probably played a big
1:23:39
factor as well. He wanted
1:23:41
out of the marriage. My thought is he's
1:23:43
having all these affairs. Maybe
1:23:46
he met someone with
1:23:48
whom he wanted to be with, right? More
1:23:50
than he wanted to be with Amy. He
1:23:53
knows he can't get a divorce, but
1:23:56
he also doesn't want to give up any of that money. And if
1:23:58
he can get seven. $700,000 on top of it, even better for them.
1:24:03
There's a lot of motive there to
1:24:05
want her debt. And we've seen this
1:24:07
quite a number of times, you
1:24:10
know, men, especially believing
1:24:13
that their best course of
1:24:16
action is to murder their
1:24:18
wives rather than get a divorce.
1:24:22
And I think it's just really
1:24:24
hard to fathom coming to that
1:24:26
conclusion in your head. I
1:24:28
mean, does anybody really want to
1:24:30
have to get divorced? No, nobody
1:24:32
gets married with the thought
1:24:35
that, well, yeah, I know we're getting divorced.
1:24:38
That's not the thought you have when you get married,
1:24:40
but sometimes marriages don't
1:24:42
work and people
1:24:44
end up wanting to
1:24:47
separate divorce. I get
1:24:49
all that. What I don't get is
1:24:52
thinking that your best
1:24:54
way out of a marriage is to
1:24:56
kill your partner. That's the
1:24:58
part I struggle with. But we
1:25:01
see it all the time. We do. But
1:25:03
that's it for us on the Stephen
1:25:06
Allwine case. We've got some voicemails, Gibs. You want to
1:25:08
check those out? Let's hear them. Hi,
1:25:10
Gibby and Mike. This is Michelle. I
1:25:12
was listening to your Matthew Owens case
1:25:14
and Gibby, you sounded like you were
1:25:17
from New York, not Boston. You're like,
1:25:19
cool, see you're Boston. That's
1:25:21
New York City. In Boston, we talk
1:25:24
just like this. I'm a lifer. In
1:25:26
Boston, I love it. From the Red
1:25:28
Sox to the now Doc Troughton Patriots
1:25:30
to Celtics and Bruins. Those are your
1:25:33
Boston teams. Also, there was a person
1:25:35
who called in to ask you for
1:25:37
advice on her graduate education, and I'm
1:25:40
curious that each time somebody asks
1:25:42
you what your degrees are in,
1:25:44
you just give the degree title
1:25:46
of a PhD doctorate, master's, but
1:25:48
you never say the concentration. I
1:25:51
have a degree in special education
1:25:53
and in applied sociology
1:25:55
focused on social policy, both for
1:25:57
a master's degree. So I'm wondering.
1:26:00
what prevents you or why
1:26:02
you refusing to mention what
1:26:04
your degree concentrations are in.
1:26:07
Thanks for answering my questions. Mike,
1:26:09
I love you. You've got some
1:26:11
really good comebacks. Thanks. Bye.
1:26:14
Yeah, Gibb. Why do you
1:26:16
refuse to get into specifics
1:26:19
regarding your numerous alleged
1:26:22
degrees? Talking to me. Are
1:26:24
you talking to me? You like apples?
1:26:26
Yeah. How do you like them apples? Yeah,
1:26:29
I think it's in world studies. World
1:26:33
studies. I don't know what that is. General
1:26:36
studies. I guess we just leave
1:26:38
it at you may or may not have a
1:26:41
number of different degrees. They
1:26:43
have most likely. Or unwilling
1:26:47
or not knowledgeable enough
1:26:49
to tell everybody what they're
1:26:51
in. I don't like to boast
1:26:53
about myself. Yeah, you're not a braggard. Oh,
1:26:55
that's for sure. A little key. A
1:26:58
little key. A little key. Hey,
1:27:00
Mike and Gibb. This is Janice Colling from
1:27:02
New Hampshire. I've listened to you guys for
1:27:05
like a few years. But
1:27:07
something that's been burning in my brain for
1:27:09
a year was last year during Nurses Week,
1:27:13
which is starting today, which is May
1:27:15
5th, and Cinco de Mayo,
1:27:17
of course. There
1:27:20
was a story that you ran during that week
1:27:22
about a nurse that was murdering
1:27:25
patients. I'm
1:27:27
just hoping that this year during Nurses Week
1:27:29
that you don't share a
1:27:31
story that's about a nurse murdering
1:27:33
patients. I love your show.
1:27:35
I love both of you. I've been listening
1:27:38
for probably about three or four years now.
1:27:41
So just keep up the
1:27:43
good work and keep your own time
1:27:45
ticking. Thank you. Well,
1:27:48
we love nurses. Well, we do. And
1:27:50
that turned out to be one of
1:27:52
the more unfortunate coincidences. Yes. Of
1:27:55
the podcast. We just didn't know
1:27:57
it was Nurses Week. Just
1:28:00
so happen that we picked that case now
1:28:03
didn't happen this year because my daughter
1:28:06
is in Nursing. Yes
1:28:08
at you know the university
1:28:10
she's attending She made sure to remind me
1:28:13
so that we could tell all
1:28:15
the nurses Happy nurses week.
1:28:18
Yeah, happy nurses week. We
1:28:20
had one thing in the mailbag But it
1:28:22
was a really cool package sent to us
1:28:24
from the Watts family. They're
1:28:26
in Guantanamo Bay Yeah, some
1:28:28
really cool t-shirts like American
1:28:31
Forces Network
1:28:33
t-shirts radio shirts. Yeah, and
1:28:36
some pretty cool coins to go with
1:28:38
them very heavy coin Yeah, nice and
1:28:40
heavy. So we appreciate that very very
1:28:43
much All right, buddy That is
1:28:45
it for another episode of true crime all the
1:28:47
time so for Mike and give me stay
1:28:49
safe and keep your own time ticking You
1:28:59
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