Hello? My God. Are you there? Yeah. Can you hear me? Yeah. It has been crazy to try to get in to see you. I know. I don't know why. They don't either. You're listening to a recording of a conversation between a prisoner, Jill Blackstone, and one of her friends. How are your spirits? Fine. Fine. I'm just reading a lot and
Until she ended up behind bars, Jill Blackstone had a great reputation. She was a talented TV producer for shows like Dr. Drew, Divorce Court, and Jerry Springer.
Jill was also respected and admired for what she did when she wasn't working. In fact, somebody once called her a saint. Because not only had she started her own animal rescue, where she found new homes for dozens of abandoned dogs, but she also took care of her disabled sister, Wendy Blackstone, who had serious vision and hearing problems. The sisters had been roommates for almost two decades.
Until one Saturday morning in March of 2015, when an ambulance was dispatched to Jill's house in Studio City, California. Paramedics find Jill in her bedroom. They find Wendy and the sisters' three rescue dogs, Izzy, Bruce, and Bentley, out in the garage. All four are laying motionless on the ground. Nearby is a toppled-over portable barbecue grill. Ashes are spilling out across the floor.
First responders check Wendy for a pulse. Nothing. They check the dogs. Izzy, curled up right next to Wendy's body, is dead too. The other dogs are alive but barely breathing. At first glance, it appears everyone might have fallen victim to carbon monoxide poisoning. One of the paramedics opens the main garage door to let fresh air in, and as the light pours over the scene, he spots a letter close to Wendy. He reads it and immediately calls for police.
When detectives arrive, they begin an investigation that will lead to the arrest of the big sister Wendy Blackstone loved and trusted more than anyone in the world. Just be careful. This is a recorded line. Yeah, I got it. This is season two of Bad, Bad Thing, The Blackstone Sisters. And I'm Barbara Schroeder.
Police arrested veteran television producer and animal rescue activist Jill Blackstone. It was two days after police found Wendy and the dogs in the garage that they arrested Jill Blackstone. She was arrested on suspicion of murder due to the evidence found at the scene.
Tabloid media coverage of the Blackstone sister story was sensational. TMZ's headline read, Jerry Springer producer arrested for murdering deaf sister. The New York Daily News ran a story with this odd detail. Jill Blackstone found alive naked from the waist down. And the London Daily Mail ran an article that revealed an unconfirmed theory about Wendy's death, reporting that Jerry Springer producer got cold feet at last second in Suicide Pact.
Now TMZ reports a suicide note was found, but authorities thought it was suspicious. Officers have not told us why. At this point, they will only say the investigation is extremely complex and sensitive. And then there was this local news report offering yet another explanation and a possible motive. Allegedly, Jill Blackstone had produced her sister's murder to make it look like an accident because Jill had been suffering from caretaker fatigue.
Now, homicide detectives believe Jill Blackstone staged the entire accident. They say she killed her younger sister because she was frustrated and did not want to provide long-term care.
But Jill Blackstone's attorney, Danny Davis, said at a press conference that police had it all wrong. Jill did not kill her sister. She loved Wendy, had cared for her their entire lives. Davis wouldn't answer any of the obvious questions, though, like why was Wendy alone in the garage with the dogs? He would only say that the sisters had been having a barbecue and Wendy's death was accidental. This is a horrific, tragic accident that is not that uncommon.
For people to conduct barbecues, particularly in a garage setting or out on a patio where carbon monoxide blows into people inside and they die from a odorless, tasteless gas that can poison you quite quickly.
Normally, when a suspect is arrested, their first public appearance in court is for an arraignment, and that's when they're officially charged. But that step did not happen in this case because of a big development. The 52-year-old faced a murder charge until today when the district attorney's office dropped the charge against her and Blackstone was released. The district attorney had decided there wasn't enough evidence yet to prove that Jill killed Wendy, but the DA didn't close the case.
In fact, they wanted police to keep investigating. Even though Jill Blackstone has been released, LAPD is not ready to clear her name as a potential suspect. The DA, the case was presented to the DA and they said, "Look, we need more of an investigation." And so just a few days after Jill Blackstone had been arrested, she was released from jail. Photographers were there to capture the moment. She got into the passenger seat of a friend's car.
Jill was wearing oversized sunglasses and a New York Yankees baseball cap tilted down over her face. One of the tabloid headlines later announced, Hollywood producer in tears returns to home she shared with murdered blind sister. A few months later, Wendy Blackstone's autopsy results were released. Her official cause of death was from carbon monoxide poisoning and something else they found in her system, a sedative, alprazolam, also known as Xanax.
A medical examiner said that the Xanax most likely slowed down Wendy's nervous system, rendering the carbon monoxide fumes more lethal. But after that report, news coverage dwindled. Police were no longer giving updates, and Jill Blackstone left Los Angeles. She moved back to the East Coast to be near the rest of her family. And so the story of the big-time TV producer and the curious death of her disabled sister faded away.
A year went by, two, then three years, and suddenly, Jill Blackstone was back in the news.
In fact, today we just learned that LAPD Valley homicide detectives tracked the television producer to a Baltimore hospital. That's where they arrested TV talk show producer Jill Blackstone. We're still unclear about exactly why she was there. She is now charged with one felony count of murder and three felony counts of cruelty to an animal. Bail was set at more than $2 million. The producer is facing real-life drama more serious than any daytime talk show, a possible life prison sentence. We're tracking these developments.
Jill Blackstone was brought back to Los Angeles, and this time she was arraigned and charged. She entered a plea of not guilty. Her preliminary hearing was held in January of 2019, and Jill was ordered to stand trial. It was around this time, after the prelim, that I started following this case. Like everyone, I wanted to know what really happened to Wendy.
But I was also really curious about something that hadn't been made public yet. Why did it take three years to arrest Jill Blackstone again? What evidence did police find that made them believe Jill did kill her sister? So I started going to Jill's pre-trial hearings to get information. Seeing her in person for the first time was kind of ironic because Jill Blackstone's job as a producer had been to put other people at their worst in front of TV judges and cameras.
And now here she was, walking into a real courtroom, wearing a faded neon orange prison outfit. She was in handcuffs that were shackled to a chain around her waist, all that metal jangling as she walked by, and sat down to face a judge and one small camera, my own, as in my cell phone,
The judge had approved a request. This was the first time he was letting anyone use their own camera in court. The hearing began and within minutes, the prosecutor, Gretchen Ford, and Jill's defense attorney, Danny Davis, were arguing. Davis wanted the judge to throw out an interview that police had conducted with Jill right after Wendy died. He didn't want a jury to hear it for some reason.
Apparently, Jill had talked with investigators for over three hours. But the prosecutor was arguing the jury should absolutely get to hear that interview. It was a key piece of evidence. The judge said he would think about it and issue a ruling later. And then for reasons that weren't entirely clear, Davis took a verbal swipe at the prosecutor. Something about how she was making it difficult for him to prepare for trial.
There's been no cooperation, ever. This discussion went on for several minutes. The judge, Thomas Rubinson, was getting irritated. I'll put it in context, Your Honor. I don't need any more context. I've heard a half an hour of context.
I don't need to hear any more of it. I get it. This was when Rubenson stepped in and did what good judges do really well. He offered some sage advice. All this seems like it's pretty personal already, and I'm not sure that that's necessary. A lot of times, a little bit of communication will go a long way. If that was hard to hear, Rubenson was encouraging the lawyers to communicate better. It goes a long way, as he put it.
The judge then asked Jill a question. Was she okay with waiving her rights to a speedy trial, since it sounded like several issues still needed to be resolved? Just as this hearing was winding down, Jill Blackstone did something unexpected. She turned around, looked out into the gallery, and her gaze locked onto my phone for just a split second.
She glanced at me briefly, then turned back around, no expression on her face. I was a little taken aback, but also kind of impressed that her seasoned eye clocked the only camera, and such a small one at that, in the room. Jill was then taken out of the courtroom, back to her jail cell. On my way out of the courtroom, I asked the prosecutor if she could answer some questions, but she said no, she wouldn't be talking about the case. When I approached Jill Blackstone's attorney, Danny Davis, he seemed eager to talk.
The first question I asked him was, why was he trying to get Jill's police interview thrown out? He explained that Jill had been under the influence of carbon monoxide and wasn't speaking coherently. He also accused the detectives of not reading his client her rights before they started asking questions. He claimed the officers waited for almost an hour to Mirandize Jill. The way they conducted the interview over a three-hour period probably doesn't meet current standards.
California and constitutional law on how it's done kosher. To me, it was sort of an old salty version of, you know, schmooze and chat. You intend to get at what you can, but you're not going to tell her any Miranda rights. And then after everybody's had tea and a couple of crumpets, you know, then say, oh, by the way, and you have to give us your statement.
She's a smart woman. She's a producer. She's familiar with court. She's been around the court system. She talked for three hours. She could have said at any time, get me a lawyer. What's your point? That she talked. She willingly talked. Most people do. Yeah, for three hours. Let me explain something. My experience is most educated people immediately cooperate with the police, particularly if they're tricked over a long period of time after a death and almost loss of her own life.
admissibility of the lengthy interview is going to challenge everybody in this case, including the good and intelligent judge. Next, I asked Davis what triggered Jill's second arrest. He dodged the question, but predicted that the three-year gap between arrests would actually work in his client's favor. They're at fault for leaving the gap. You know, it's a problematic case. Because? Well, they just walked away from the scene and dropped the case.
And I'm going to let them explain to the judge beforehand why that evidence is gone. The blood, the crime scene, the specimens taken from poor Wendy's body after this happened. This could be a big embarrassment before it's over.
What has Jill said to you about Wendy? Does she express regret or does she miss her sister? Of course. She's very close to her sister. She raised her sister. She gave up a lot of her life socially and personally for her sister. And is there a possibility that it just got to be a little bit too much for her and she... It probably got to be accidentally a little too much for her.
That's a pretty good way to frame it. Davis still wouldn't discuss any specifics about the case, so I tried one last question. I wanted him to let me listen to the Jill Blackstone police interview in order to confirm what he alleged happened. That got me a quick no.
I tried submitting a FOIA, a Freedom of Information Act request, to the courts to get a copy of the interview, but they weren't going to release anything before trial. I also made an attempt to talk with the LAPD detectives who interviewed Jill, but I couldn't get past press relations. So for now, the only thing I could do to move this story forward was to try to find out more about Jill and Wendy Blackstone. I wrote to Jill a few times. She never wrote back. I also reached out to Jill's other middle sister, Lisa, and their mom and dad.
After the tone, please leave your message. No one ever returned my calls. I was able, though, to find some other people who knew the sisters. I went to the neighborhood where Jill and Wendy used to live in Studio City. Studio City is a suburb of Los Angeles. It's north of and just over the hill from the famous Hollywood sign. The sisters used to live on a quiet, tree-lined street with lots of older, traditional one-story homes. Their house had been torn down, a new one built in its place.
The only thing left from the time the sisters lived there was an old sycamore tree in the yard and a good neighbor, Lynn, whose dog Daisy used to play with Jill and Wendy's dogs. And you liked them. I mean, when you heard this, did you... They were good people. I liked them both. We used to go have play dates with groups next door. Daisy's best friend was Bruce the Rottweiler.
Oh, so this dog that we're hearing now was friends with? Yes, the one raising a ruckus. What do you think happened? I don't know. At the time, did everybody say, oh, it was a tragic accident, or were people saying Jill did it? Depends on which neighbor you talk to.
Lynn told me that a few months before Wendy died, Jill had sold her house, downsizing, to save money. But Jill was having trouble finding a new place to live that would take their three dogs. Izzy was a pit bull mix, Bentley a Doberman, Bruce was a Rottweiler, and they were all big dogs, around 100 pounds.
Another problem, Jill said that prospective landlords wouldn't let her install new light fixtures to make things brighter for Wendy so that she could see better with what little vision she had left. Jill had asked for some modifications to the place that they were going to rent and the landlord refused, which I think is illegal. But I think that was the straw that broke the camel's back. Lynn had a new theory about what might have happened to Wendy. She wondered if maybe Wendy thought she was a burden to Jill.
and decided to kill herself to make Jill's life easier. Wendy probably at that point thought, well, she was a problem and the dogs were a problem and she was just going to fix it. I don't think it was really premeditated on the part of either sister. It's a little bit of a mystery, you think? Yeah, I don't think it's that tidy.
Lynn suggested that I talk to the person who probably knew the most about Jill and Wendy, the sisters' dog walker, Wanda Rudler. Wanda had been at the Blackstone home almost daily for the past four years. Lynn gave me Wanda's number, I called, and left a message. And then I looked online to see what I could find out about the Blackstone sisters. Their social media accounts had all been deactivated, but other people posted stories and photos.
Jill and Wendy never really looked much like each other. In her professional photos, Jill's wearing expertly applied eyeliner and coral red lipstick, an attractive look with her dark brown eyes and shoulder-length hair. Wendy was a few inches taller than Jill, with light brown eyes and striking golden red hair, cut short with bangs. She had a very sweet look about her.
Friends said that it was hard to tell just by looking at Wendy that she had vision problems. She was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa when she was a teenager. That meant she was slowly losing her vision. And then, in her 20s, her hearing started to get worse. And she found out she had a rare form of RP, called Usher syndrome. I found an essay that Wendy wrote several months before she died. It was about a dog named Oliver.
Wendy called him her once-in-a-lifetime dog. And she described Oliver as a big, cuddly, golden-brown Leonberger mix. Oliver had become Wendy's guide dog of sorts, a constant companion for 12 years. And when he died of cancer, Wendy wrote a tribute. She called it The Story of Us. Here's an actor reading some of it. Jill and I have had dozens upon dozens of dogs in our lives over the past 10 years. But there was only one special guy who stole my heart, Oliver.
It seemed like Oliver sensed my needs were changing. When my world was dark and muffled, when I couldn't see or hear a thing, Oliver alerted me to things that needed my attention. He became my eyes and ears when my own didn't do the job for me. We were inseparable. When I was watching TV, he was at my feet. When I was at the pool, he was at the edge. He would paw at me when there was something needing my attention, something that I didn't hear or see.
Someone posted this comment on Facebook: "When Oliver died last May, I didn't know if Wendy would ever recover.
Wendy's friends tried to comfort her, but it was something her sister Jill did that helped the most. Jill wrote a letter to Wendy as if it was from Oliver, the dog.
Here are some excerpts, also read by an actor. To Wendy from Oliver. I need you to know you're not alone and will never be alone. I'm here with you now when you sleep, when you're sitting and thinking about me, when you're watching TV, playing on your iPad, feeding the other dogs, gardening, and every other minute in between. I'm watching you and I hear you every single time you tell me you love me and you miss me.
There were some negative comments about Jill Blackstone online. But most people had only good things to say.
These two wonderful ladies love dogs and each other, and to think anything else is reprehensible.
It's an abusive industry. We work tons and tons of hours. This is Anthony Frere, a former TV talk show producer. He used to work with Jill Blackstone. Anthony left his successful producing career to become a therapist. He is now the clinical director of the Soho Center for Mental Health Counseling in New York. And Jill had asked him to be an expert on mental health.
on a new show she was producing. She was very pleasant when I was going to be the therapist on the show and felt very warm and empathetic. What was your reaction when you first heard about Jill being arrested? I was obsessed. I was just obsessed. You know, there's a part of me that knows Jill is a good person. What did you think of the reports that it was a suicide pact?
So first I'm going to say it would be really rare for two people to be two people in the same house to be suicidal. I mean, that just I don't I'm not sure I believe that. Do you think it's possible that Jill could have produced the scene to make it look like a suicide scene?
Of course. I mean, you know, we're producers. We could do anything. So yeah, she absolutely could have done that. For someone who's such an activist and loved animals, that part doesn't make sense to me. The animals. It's almost easier to believe she killed her sister than it is to believe she killed the animals. Even if she hated her sister. Even if that had gone... Like, she was just fed up. To kill animals, which is very...
I want to talk about sociopathy. We don't really use the term sociopath anymore, but antisocial personality disorder. It's weird to me because you don't pretend to be an animal activist and love animals. No one really pretends to do that and really hate them.
My name is Deandra Bowling. I'm a TV producer. I knew Jill because we worked together at a show called Divorce Court. Jill actually hired me and promoted me. When I first met her, I thought she was very smart and I thought she was tough. She had that whole New York thing. She was funny. I remember she was a little funny. She could make people laugh. What was Jill's reputation as a producer? I think people respected Jill for being smart. She was very...
knowledgeable. I can tell she's been in the business a lot longer than me, but I don't think people liked her. Honestly, she wasn't like the most friendly person. To me, she was a little socially awkward. She was addicted to dogs, like dog crazy. If we walked in the door, we could not walk in the door before the dog. That's how she was. If it was time to eat at the office, those dogs had to eat first. If you were working and that dog jumped on you and ran in your office and pooped, oh well, clean that poop up.
If I sat down, the dogs would jump up on you. They just, and if you couldn't say anything or she'd get pissed. Luckily, I like dogs, so I was okay, but. Was she the kind of producer who was like the crazier, the worse, the better? Or did she have any, did she have a moral compass? You know what? That's funny that you ask that. I mean, I can't really say. Now, did I think years later she would be capable of killing her sister? No.
I would never think in a million years Jill would hurt a dog. I just don't know what happened. She's not the Jill I knew. I think she would recognize that she's a good story, that this is a very sensationalistic, you know. And you know what's interesting is they keep referring to her as a Jerry Springer producer.
And she's produced so many other shows, right? Like Jerry Springer's a blip on her resume. And I think, you know, even that message, right? Like everybody knows Jerry Springer as being this out of control, like anything goes, punching screen, you know. It's almost like they're adding fuel to the fire by sort of labeling her that. Like she worked for other shows.
I don't want to judge Jill because I don't know all of the circumstances. And I don't know what she did, but clearly something, she did something and it wasn't good at the end of the day.
My name is Wanda Redler, and I was best friends with Wendy and Jill Blackstone. When Wanda, Jill's dog walker, called me back, she was really grateful for the opportunity to talk about Jill and Wendy. They were both my friends. I met them through their dogs, walking their dogs, taking care of them. And so I was there.
Every day, almost. Wendy was amazing. Wendy, you know, she was hard of hearing. She wore hearing aids. And she was going blind. Wanda wanted her daughter, Shawna, to join our conversation. My name is Shawna Leilani, and I know Jill Blackstone and new Wendy Blackstone because my mother was very good friends with both of them. And she was also their pet sitter. And so there were a few times that I was over there and I did know them and I helped take care of their dogs.
Wendy was always really sweet and really nice. She was always excited to see my mom and talk. I enjoyed talking to her when I got to see her. She was blind and deaf, but it wasn't 100%. So when you walked in the house,
If you just spoke really loudly, she could hear you and she would stop what she was doing and talk to you. And she'd look at you, but it wasn't really looking at you. It was looking past you. So she could tell that there was a person there. I don't think that she would have ever been able to describe my facial features or my eye color, but she could see a person. So she could kind of see.
What was her daily routine like? What could she do? Well, I don't know. She'd get up in the morning and take, obviously, let the dogs out and do all this. And then she worked out every single day. She got on a treadmill and she would run or walk for 45 minutes every single day.
Or, you know, if I came over, maybe she'd be outside. You know, she loved to garden and she would be in her garden. She would be, and she would, Monica, come over here. Is there any bugs? And she's always looking for bugs in her lettuce or kale or whatever she was making. She was active inside the house. And then she didn't like to go out, like to restaurants and stuff like that because there's so much background noise.
that her hearing aids would pick up. So it was hard for her to be in a conversation because she's got all this racket going on. And she kept herself busy with different things. I remember one year for Christmas, she macrame-ed my mom a bracelet.
and it was like a friendship bracelet. It was really sweet and had a little white dog paw print on it. How could she do it? Because people think she couldn't see. She could see a little bit, you know, just oval right in front of her, you know, and in bright overhead light, she could see. I remember seeing one of those really big magnifying glasses. And so Wendy would like work under that. And she would cook, you know, meals.
But still, Jill was at work. Wendy was the one making, cooking the meals and cleaning up the house and looking after the dogs. And you didn't feel sorry for her? No, I never felt sorry for her. Wendy didn't want anyone to feel sorry for her. She didn't want... She was very capable. And so she didn't want all that, you know, oh, poor, poor Wendy. She's one of those people that lifted your spirits and just the kind of person you wanted to be around.
Describe Jill for us. You know, just busy on the go and just like always being very productive, always in go mode. So she never really seemed super relaxed, but some people just aren't. And I just assumed that was her personality. She put on a front a lot. I felt that this tough little, little TV producer lady. And then when she was with the dog, she was just a melted, you know,
Give me a quick description and the name of each dog. Okay, well, Bentley, he was a big, goofy, shy, and he took forever to go in and out of the doggy door. And then there was Izzy, who was just full of energy and life. And then Bruce, he had this, he wanted to play all the time with his ball. Anybody, play with me. Were the two sisters close as children? Yes. There were three sisters.
And the youngest sister also had the same disease as Wendy with the-- - The retinitis. - Yeah. Wendy and Jill were very, very close. And when they got in their little bickerments as sisters, it was Wendy would email Jill, "Well, in case you haven't noticed, I'm not speaking to you today."
And I would hear that and I would see that and I was like, that's so funny. And that was Wendy being very strict and stern, yeah. And so, yeah. But they did, they were like how some siblings are a team. They were a... They were, yeah, absolutely, they were a team. You know, and it was like... And they liked each other. Yeah, they actually liked each other. It wasn't like, oh, I have to take care of you because you're my sister. Did they have fun together? No.
Yeah, yeah, they did. And they were goofy together and stuff like that. The last thing I emailed to Wendy, and that's how we spoke to each other mostly, was I said, I'll always have you, Wendy. And that was the last thing I wrote to her. I miss just being able to talk to her, just, you know, everyday, you know, life.
You know, she had great advice. She was funny and sweet and she had a heart of gold. And so I just always, I just miss her. But she just loved Jill. Jill was her best friend, her sister, her, you know, everything. She just absolutely worshipped Jill. She did. Let's go to the day that you heard this horrible story. Where were you? What happened? And what did you think when you heard it? Well, I was at home and I got a phone call from Tracy
And Tracy is Tracy is Jill's other friend, the vet. And she said, you know, I have some bad news. And I said, well, what? And I thought at first she was going to say that maybe there was a fire, you know, the house. She said that Izzy had died. And I'm like, Izzy, you know, because Izzy was my favorite, you know. And she said, yeah. And she said, well, Wanda, you know, Wendy also passed away. And.
I thought, come on. And I just hung up on her because I thought it was a prank call because come on, you know, and I called the house right away and no one answered. And then she called me back and she said, Wanda, you know, I'm not playing with you. It's it's real. And this is what happened. And I said, well, where's Jill? Did she pass away, too? And she said, no, Jill's in the hospital.
I'm like, well, if Jill's in the hospital, then, you know, but I didn't, I didn't get it. The whole story wasn't, you know, so I hung up and no sooner had I hung up as Jill called from the hospital. Wanda told me she was too shocked to answer Jill's call, so she let it go to voicemail and she kept the recording. Hey, it's Jill. I know this has been really hard, hard for me too, but I'm sure hard for you as well.
Jill was calling because she wanted Wanda to do her a favor.
I'm like, she's acting awful weird. If my sister and all my dogs just died, I'd be devastated. And she's acting like... So I thought maybe she's in the hospital. They gave her something, you know. And I called my daughter, Shauna, right away. My mom called me and she just said, Shauna, Wendy's dead. And...
You know, like, what do you say to that? I'm like, are you kidding me? My first reaction was just shock, and I did think it was an accident. Like, it's just not, I mean, I guess accidents happen every day, but you just never assume that it's going to happen to somebody you know. Wanda told Jill, of course she would help her. We went to a house, and because I had the keys. Up until this moment, both Wanda and Shawna believed with all of their hearts that Jill could never have hurt Wendy or the dogs. Wendy must have died by accident.
But now they were at the sisters' house, about to go in, they will see some things that had not been there before, and their faith in the once-revered Jill Blackstone will crumble. So I opened up the door, and as soon as I opened up the door and we walked in, and all over the house, there were... What Wanda and Shawna found inside the Blackstone house, coming up next in Episode 2. Thanks for listening. ♪