Talking Dateline: Death at the Spa
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So this episode of talking date line is featured a date line episode called death at the far, which is quite the title. And this is a very good episode from josh manky z, hello, josh.

Hi andrey.

Um yeah, I can't wait to dig into this one. There is so much to talk about. We have a lot of spoiler's coming up.

So if you haven't listen to the show yet or watched IT on T V, I see the episode right below this one on the list of podcast. So go there, listen to IT or watch IT on T. V, and then come back here.

And when you come back, I ve got a ton of questions for josh. And apparently, so do you. A lot of people posted questions on social media about this one.

And the last thing we should mention, josh is going to play as an extra clip from one of his interviews that didn't make IT into the broadcast, which this is a good one for an extra clip. This there's a little teeth for you because it's something that you won't see coming from the episode. So sticker on for that um and you will hear that right here on talking deadline. okay. So let's talk date line, josh.

The first.

He is hope for those of you who can't see this, he is holding up a sign that says, um i'm wearing a while a very funny moment not that murder is funny, of course but i'm sorry, I laugh, uh, when that happened, when you held up that sign because I want to have .

thought of that as I the maybe I watched too many movies in T, V shows, but that kind of thing does happen when people are being recorded and they want to tip off the other person. Oh, no. In that staying, we're a little ahead of ourselves here.

But in that one, the FBI was watching as well as listening. But I presume there was an opportunity for to hold up a just like that. And I ask to worry about, and he says that he did not.

So all right, look right out of the game I thought, okay, this is an episode for me um I I am a huge real house wife span um and an orange county is actually my favorite um of the franchise.

my number one.

And as I started watching I thought to myself, minus the murder, all of this could be in the real housewives. I mean, IT was so fitting, all of the the drama and the men and the women and the tax and the, I mean.

and it's also a huge tragedy because, you know, elva was a mom and a friend, and he had a great neck for making people feel brighter, lighter beer and SHE connected with her client. So, I mean, this is, you know, I people love to her. You know, ildico had a lot of boyfriend, and he did not always tell each one of them about the others.

That's usually no problem in life unless you get killed. And then all of those relationships are going to get looked. Which is what happened here.

on one hand, was like, oh, L, D, O, you're playing with fire. And then there was a part of me that was like, look, I guess he knows what he wants. Know, this is a woman who sort like, this is me.

He was sort of constantly looking for the right guy. You know, he went through a lot of guys to find that. But as her friends told us, you know, he would believe that he had the right guy and SHE get bored and SHE move on to another right guy. And you know, one of the things that this episode sort of bears at is that, you know, homicide investigations have a nasty habit of laying beer, everybody y's secrets, including those held by people who don't really have an anything to do with the murder.

IT certainly gives a lot of suspects instantly. You've got this long list for a long enforced many of people who could want her dad. Yeah.

there was a lot of drama in the in in this story. There was and certainly a lot of IT was generated by that relationship between ilda and the and the man he had been seeing and his wife I was with that.

So ildico was leeming with Elizabeth husband at .

at one point.

yes. So Elizabeth goes and confronts to go at the SPA. Yeah.

both of them. And there was a fight. There was a shouting fight. And somebody shows somebody else not quite clear how that happened.

Who began that right after the right after the explosion, when the all that goes husband and Stephen deal both tell law enforcement about that other couple and about how angry eliza's at bitor SHE want Elizabeth SHE got her husband back from ildico, and that didn't even slow down how angry he was an ildico. She's sending ilda photos, which we would never be able to show on T. V, uh, essentially saying, I got him.

You lost. No, the feeling I got from from IT was with pa was that he was more interested in gloating than he was in hurting anybody. You know, he was trash talk at her more than SHE was like actually going to go on her but IT was about you that I think he knew and said us that that SHE expected that the police would be at her door .

after SHE heard the alley been killed um all right this this is like really scary when you're dealing with a an explosion as A A method of murder. I mean, you're putting other people in danger, not just your target, but like anybody. I mean, that was a big explosion in a commercial area.

but particularly when it's a you know that bomb was not remotely dette and I wasn't like put in somebody y's car where you can see who IT is and push a button. I mean, that bombing was going to go off whenever that package was open. And if I was ill to co.

Who opened IT, then SHE was going to get killed. And if somebody else, them, that they were going to get killed, if there were three people standing around when that happened, they were going to get killed. Evil and IT opened up the walls of the building. And that's why people thought was a story because I was that kind of like super powerful explosion and there were two women in the SPA, uh, at the time, they're just been her clients and that's when they they get this this huge flash and an explosion and then the roof caves in.

Can you Better in .

the fear both of those women have dealt with serious health concerns since then .

and not just physically, but imagine there they are, the mental trauma that they you would experience from something like that. It's just not something you see very often, you know, of a way to target someone. I mean, this requires skill to a .

lot of to know how .

to do this and also to know where he is when she's there, that there's a good chance sh'll be the one to open IT. I mean, a lot have thought has to go into this.

and that's one of the things that sort of narrows the field. I mean, you know there are a lot of things that LED investigators, Stephen bell, I mean, he had gone out whether he clearly was disappointed that they weren't together anymore. He had the chemicals in his house that could have been used to make the book any, but that battery, uh, just a few days before the explosion, which they believe is the battery, the power, the bombs, and they be bought that box that is very much like the one that the the, the other women in the space soil to go open. So I mean, it's kind of circumstantial in that case.

The detective work was really incredible on this with down to the C. V S. Video of buying that battery. I mean that that was, that was really good.

That was an investigator who saw the video of Stephen bill getting cash from that machine and he knew that area and he said, you know what, there's a cvs right across the street and down a little bit and he's like, let's just go get their tape and see what we say and so they get the tape and they finds Steven deal buying one battery. That that was definitely a sort of clinching piece of evidence. I think .

one of the things I just could not understand was why Stephen would insert himself and come in without even being asked. I i'd love your take the time .

on deadline that we've seen somebody walk into law enforcement and engage them. And you know the guys that i'm trying to be helpful and what they're trying to find out is how much you have. He certainly came across as a guy who thinks he's the smartest guy in the world, walking in law enforcement, volunteering all this information, and when he leaves, he's under much more suspicion .

that he maybe in thought, well, the real killer wouldn't volunteer and wouldn't come in, surely will think i'm innocent, but she's killed by a bomb and that is such a specialized thing. And you're in her world, you're in her circle. And you know how to do that kind of thing.

You ve got those chemicals at home online of how to mixed explosive chemicals. And he had to have known that that was out there um you know he also had to know those those chemicals were in his house and would be found in a search one. I mean, you know, looking back, the smartest thing you going to do was retain council immediately and not speak with law enforcement. But absolutely, when you scrub your .

house of if you've just committed a murder like that, I wouldn't you have like, gotten rid of all of your chemicals and .

you're explosive. I ask about that. I presume the answer could be that any traces of those chemicals could still be detected even if you get rid of them. That you know, A A sort of, you know, explosive snifty dog is still gona know that there was explosive chemicals stored there at one point. And that may look worse for you then if you just leave them there and say, well, I build model rocket so you, I have this in the garage and they ve been a long time.

True um but if you don't volunteer yourself, you IT may never get to the point where they can even get a search warrant for your house.

Oh, that's true. Steam deal made laender cement jobs here by walking in and not being able to shut out this. No question .

about so Steven, one of the things we .

we teased earlier on earthquake .

OK is anything falling?

I saw .

you shaking.

No, this is. It's still shaking. My g shaking.

Not a giant one, but definitely bigger than the last few that we've had. Okay, well, everything here IT looks impact. So let's continue.

Never a dull moment on talking date line.

No, look at me, right?

Um the other thing that was just unbelievable to me was um this the the acting gig that he got in twelve angry jars.

What are the odds?

And then I was dying when you tell us that not only was date line in the audience but .

so is the FBI. There's the o you tell six people wearing the same gray suit. Audience, maybe that's mean, you know, if the play is like something from James sphere, that is one thing.

This is a play about a murder trial. I mean, come on, and he's the jury format in the play now was great. I mean, you know, art, art in the dating life and life in the dating art.

And no kidding, when we come back, josh has a clip to play for us from his interview with Steven's daughter.

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Here was, I thought, the big weakness in the government's case, and it's the same. One of the defense point of that in both trials, both the midrib and the eventual verdi, is I see the chemicals and I see the the very specialized set of skills that that you would need to have to make a bomb like that. I see the access, and I see the motive.

What I don't see is the Venus, which, you know, we've covered a lot of cases like this in which guys kill their their axes, or the woman who broke up with them and they usually telegraph that punch. It's not hard to see coming. You know, they're furious. And I said to the government, like, where's the text where he said, you'll never get away with this or you know, you have humility, me, you will pay for and that I just didn't see they're still exchanging sort of these these cuddly texts right up dolly.

And because he's like a bomb himself that's about to go off, it's all bottled up inside. It's if you just need to delete the views know that's .

exactly what the government said, which is he's not a person person angry yeah he's gonna some summer action, the that when IT kills you will not be solo。

One of the things that was not in the show, which is kinds big, I was kind of surprise IT wasn't in the show, Stephen. This is not the first death of someone he is supposedly cared about.

No, it's not in a two thousand and eight. His wife, Christine fell down the stairs in the home that they had in the in the long beach, erie. We have a clip of sharlee Brown, a Stephen deil's daughter, on that time.

So my mom and dad start Carrying the dresser .

down the stairs.

He on the top. She's on the bottom.

If I were doing this, I be on the downward and my wife would .

be at the top.

Not if you're my mom. He was strong enough. Oh yeah. And something happened.

He lost his grip. Basically, they lose their baLance. So SHE falls and the dressing falls on top of her abdomen and my dad falls on top of the pile.

And she's hurt pretty badly.

Yeah, he was hurt pretty badly.

Mom was convinced that was completely .

was completely an accident.

Ah you convinced .

as an accident and anything else to the contrary is absolutely absurd.

Wow, SHE has some lingering injuries from that and he has to go um back to the hospital a few more times over the next couple of weeks and then eventually he dies from those injuries um but the death is attributed not to that only but also to some complicating factors a one of which being that he had a lot lead in her system and no one's quite clear where that came from. So SHE SHE dies.

Is this suspicious to some people? Will certainly in light of the ogle situation, IT is. But even back then, I was enough for law forced me to take a look at IT.

The reason I didn't include that is that I didn't have the time to tell the older code story and this other story that could be a whole separate deadline except IT doesn't lean anywhere. No charges were ever filed. At one point, the insurance company did not want to pay the settlement to Stephen bill. Um for the for the accidental death of his wife um and there was a lawsuit about that and he want and they pay IT my so he must have some argument that the that he died legitimately as an accident and that's why we decided not to spend any time on IT because to tell that story kind of suggests to the audience that there's more there than actually is there.

Can we talk about valery vallery? Valery .

vallery.

I just wanted to shaker like why? Why are you staying with him?

Well, that's the question. I mean, you know, they had just seeing each other when he got arrested. SHE stuck with him.

They dropped the charges. She's there to pick him up from the slam. Now I will say this. I thought that vallery sort of was doing the best that he could in in the situation that he was in. And you I mean, as I said, the gallery there were any men available who were not already facing a federal endicott.

I mean, there are you don't have to take the Stephen bills of the world who who are locked up, but he was on board by and he cared for him and I think he thought, will you know, he says, this is nothing, therefore I believe in and when the FBI came to her and put a lot of pressure on her, um you know, vallery sort of said, luck. Uh, I will do the right thing here. I will be undercover where wired and i'll be at this wired you weekend away, uh, with the FBI listings in the next room and watching on video and I will try get into confess and nobody, not the prosecutors, not the FBI. Nobody claims the valery did not try. SHE tried to get Steven to say something incriminating.

and he did not. And I got the other side of the coin. You know, the one side is your sign, right? And then the other side is he was doing everything he said he was doing, he was being truthful and and he didn't bite. And so that, you know, made her feel Better that, like, here we are in private and he's not, you know, confessing to this. I feel Better about this.

I think his lack of confessing didn't make her feel Better. And I believe that vallery was maybe more surprised by the verdict than a lot of people.

Well, he was also very surprised by your revelation that that s um which wow, i've never seen anything like that on deadline before yeah when you told her about these text messages to ilda that Stephen was sending when they were together and he thought he was over her and I mean, that was just all that was so painful to watch her face in real time getting that news about that you he was still in love with L G.

And that was not pleasant for me either. Value was on the witnesses for both trials. So SHE wasn't there when those text were read in court.

So that information that was available to everybody except her and you know, she's not talking to the government. They're not breaking down the case for now. Steven's defense was, I didn't hate you ago, in fact, I D already moved on. I was in another relationship, and it's this woman about .

the text messages would say otherwise.

And the governments argument was that the whole relationship with value was sort part of his alibi, that he did IT as part of the cover up. I there really is anything to prove that. And vallery, I think, certainly felt like that was a genuine relationship.

And and then you present her with these text messages that was enough for her to to break up with them. Correct was at the beginning of the end. I think the .

beginning of the end was probably killing anyone and maybe that that sort of pusher, you know, a little .

bit quicker, right? Well, this this was a very fascinating, fascinating episode coming up in just a minute. I'm going to ask joh some of your questions about the show.

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So josh, a lot of viewer response. As we mentioned earlier, we got one comment from vir named fully sha, who is fully ous nineteen o eight.

I should say felicia is a friend of mine in real life because we met at one of those, one of those date line viewer events. And then SHE, I have kept in touch since this, a couple of pictures of us set next to each other, and we've stayed in touch on twitter or whatever they're gone. That now.

well felicia's very intuitive. And he has caught on that Stephen was talking in past tense about.

well, which was one thing that the cops realized that Stephen bill was talking about l co. In the past hence, and that was before they had identified her as the person who was killed in the blast. He's talking about her in the past tense. This is one of those things that you and I come across all the time, which is that the getting away with murder is harder than you think. That is like you think, okay, i'm gonna come flag my involvement in the scheme, but then you can be tripped up by something as small as you're talking about the person as if they're dead and the police even even identified the victim yet that's a tale yeah for sure.

Are right south. Uh, underscore nine, eight, two, seven, six. O what a talker. How many hours of interviews did he give? Steven, I feel like I was more than average.

H like ten hours. I think that for Stephen bill, the urge to sort of see where the investigation was going was irresistible. He walked in and just couldn't shut up.

I said this on two and the other night, which is a if you are guilty, don't do that. If your innocent, don't do that. If what you really like is facing a lot of scrutiny for law enforcement, then do that. I mean.

the only time if you're not guilty that you would want to do that as if you genuinely had really important information and you know, you tell the police this could help you solve this crime. This is really important that I give .

you this information. I don't go and talk to the police. I'm saying that whether you're innocent or what are you guilty going in and sort of making light of the situation and telling jokes, doing a magic track, that's something else.

Uh, okay, so china SHE bossed eighty five. Um we're not doctors, we're not therapies. But could a nurse is pass a polygraph?

Certainly possible. Look, you don't have to be a nurse is to pass a boy graph um it's one reason why they're generally not admissible in in court cases and certainly not in the instance of but like a Stephen bail um and you know that's why because if you can convince yourself, sometimes you can convince a machine and and therefore your responses will .

appear to be truthful. Another really big fee of response was in regards to gallery. So, uh, jazz and summer said, why is josh embarrassing this woman on TV by reading those text? But then fish a felicia one hundred hundred who we already talked about that and glad josh read for the text SHE really was prepared um to wait for him. And then another person said, josh burst waist bubble with those tax. So you know that this was a very unique moment in a date line.

for sure. I did not enjoy telling gallery that Stephen was still thinking about the l go at a time when he was telling gallery that he was thinking only about her and that he and the elder o was in his review when SHE clearly was not. But on the other hand, IT fall, like IT, was time for some tough love, which I think after you've spent years and years and years kind of sitting around waiting for this guy to be available with your own life on hole, I think finding out that the basis of the relationship which was alight from him to her is something that everybody needs to know.

In the end, I thought that that he needed to hear that. And I think that was a wake up call for her. And I think that was the silver lining of that .

uncomfortable moment. So I think ultimately they um there is a Better place because that yes.

absolutely. And I want to give a shout out before we go to um pebble bs. She's SHE we .

we love pebble because he loves .

you and he loves date line and yes, he loves you so much. Yes, did SHE named her tat mak and SHE calls IT baby bank. And I guess the show got baby bank kind of worked up because baby may got the hick ups and they were making his entire body jump.

IT got adult man gonna worked up to you. Take that look, I think more and more people need to a need to name their pets after their favourite deadline course month.

Now, although Andrea would be Andrea, such a strange name for a pet.

I don't like a plan of this, right? What if it's like a beautiful bird, right?

Okay, maybe someone out there will name their bird after me as long as it's pretty one. Um well, thank you, josh uh, for all of your insight um that is IT for our talking date line for this week and thanks, everyone for listening to us. We love hearing from you so much. So remember if you have any questions about our stories or date line or true crime that's on your mind, reach out to us on social at date line and bc and we ll see you on fridays on date line.

Hey, i'm yara shahid, and i'm the host of the up project. This is the podcast that asks what gives you hope. Each week I sit down with change makers you may or may not know from comedy, music, academia and more to uncover what inspires them to create a Better tomorrow.

Join us as we find out ways that we can cultivate optimism in our own lives. You can find the optimism project wherever you get your podcast. Don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.