Episode 6:  Pray For Me
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Tracy, okay, first of all, you're probably going to cry and say you're not strong enough and this is too much. This is a letter that the FBI forensic search extracted from Jill Blackstone's computer. You're plenty strong enough and the only one I trust to do this. Or you're pretty mad and thinking I'm selfish. Could you just do me a favor and put a pin in that? There will be time later for blame and judgment. Okay.

The letter sounds like a suicide note. Believe me, I wish I could have taken care of everything myself and spared everyone the drama of this. But I had to keep this to myself, and there was only so much I could do in advance. I would have cleaned, organized, and packed more. But I was afraid of calling undue attention to the situation. So, logistics first. As for the stuff in the house, the overall theme is this.

Jill not only left specific instructions on what to do with her and Wendy's belongings, but she also wrote several pages listing phone numbers of family, friends, and doctors who should be notified of her death.

She rewrote this letter several times, finally ending on this as her last paragraph. This has been my plan for a very, very long time. I explored every avenue I could think of to try and find help. I don't think anyone could understand what it's been like to live this life, to realize that Wendy's needs and my lupus would consume me. I think it was easier for everyone to believe I was unbreakable.

As I type this list, I'm sitting on a chair in the den. The same chair where I sat with the dogs every night for so many years. I'm sitting here, looking out at the patio and backyard. The late afternoon breeze is blowing through the wind chime, and the dogs are running and playing. It's beautiful and joyful, and I am lucky to have even one day like this. Most people never do. If I could make this moment last forever,

I would. This is Episode 6, our final episode of The Blackstone Sisters, and I'm Barbara Schroeder. The new evidence from the FBI files gave Detective Jones and Castor the clearest picture yet of what they would come to believe Jill's motive was for killing Wendy. That Jill had a deep desire to free herself from her sister, but she felt like she couldn't make that happen. And one of the reasons why was her family.

In the weeks before Wendy's death, Jill had been asking her parents to help pay for the care facility she'd found for Wendy. You said you've been evaluating your finances now that your rental income has stopped. So all I am asking is what, if anything, you might be able to contribute monthly. And in this heated email exchange between Jill and her mom and dad, her parents are wondering why Wendy couldn't just come live with them. Don't waste my time telling me she can live there. She can't.

You can't meet her needs. And when I brought up the idea of us moving back together as a family, her exact words were, the idea of going back there makes me physically ill. I'd rather you just kill me. Jill's father said they had to think about all of this, and he wanted more information about the place Wendy would stay. If you're saying we might have some money, but only if we approve...

Don't worry about it. This stopped being your responsibility a long time ago. Wendy is 49 years old. She has a glazed-over look she can barely see or hear. She has never held a job. She never had a normal social life. She's never had a romantic relationship.

You have not done her any favors. You have babied her, but not parented her. You have not given her any tools to cope in the world. You choked on the words hearing aids for years, and to this day you'd rather grab her elbow instead of fostering her independence by making her use her cane. You treat her like the village idiot.

Periodically, I tried different ways to get you to hear me. For 30 years, I talk, you go blank, and there's the trademark Blackstone silent treatment. I have stopped hoping that you would ever acknowledge what I do, how I live every day, what I have sacrificed for my sister. She has cognitive decline as her brain struggles to process the visual and auditory signals.

The dogs dug a hole in the yard and she nearly broke her leg stepping into it. Now she can't even walk in the backyard. I don't know if I should worry every time I leave the house or just never leave. When we are in public, I don't take my eyes off her. I have to be on high alert every second. Here is the email that Jill's mother sent back. It's also being read by an actor. I am in a state of shock that's unbelievable.

Jill's father wrote that they would think about what they could contribute financially. Jill's response...

Jill never told detectives about any of these emails, but they seem to have sent her spiraling emotionally because the forensics report also revealed Jill's internet search history around this time. She was looking up terms like gun suicide success rate and suicidal thoughts. And then a while later, Jill started researching carbon monoxide poisoning advice, painless death, and explanations of how carbon monoxide affects humans.

Carbon monoxide is an odorless colorless gas produced by devices that burn fuels. Carbon monoxide is taken in like normal air with no irritation to nose or throats. Then, the molecules attach to blood cells instead of oxygen molecules, starving the body's organs from the oxygen they need. Most people die in under an hour.

Another big find in the FBI forensics materials, the officers finally got information from the elusive third Blackstone sister, Lisa. Not in person, she never would talk with them. But now they had Lisa's emails to Jill. You'll recall Lisa and Wendy were never really close, despite both having the same eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa.

But Lisa and Jill had a pretty tight bond, one that came undone in this email exchange. Lisa was trying to patch things up between Jill and their parents and trying to get Jill to understand she could send Wendy home. You know that I share the same disabilities as Wendy. I also know that coming to the house where she grew up should not cause any further damage, as you say, to her. She grew up in this house. She knows the house. She knows the people. She knows the surroundings.

You, like them, are not being realistic. You share the same disabilities. Hers are more rapidly advanced. She cannot see or hear. She could go to our parents' house, go to New Jersey, sit in the one room that has lights and be isolated and depressed, and have no social interactions with anyone besides family. They'll drive her to her appointments and worry and be depressed, which will speed up their aging process.

Eventually, they die, and she comes back to me. If Wendy is a burden right now, she has a safe place to be here. You can't worry about what could come down the line because it doesn't sound like the present situation is so peachy anyway. You have to do what's right for now. As for our parents, what they have done and how they have done it through the years may not have been the way that you would have done those things. But you know in your heart that not a day has passed when they didn't try to do everything they could for you.

What you said was cruel. I am alone. I have been alone in this forever.

I have asked for help like a drowning sailor screaming for someone to throw a buoy, and I am still alone. For 25 years, which I can document, I have asked, begged, pleaded, reasoned, tap-danced, demanded that they support my efforts to have boundaries for Wendy. They have only continued to enable her. She is friends with your friends. She is part of every part of your life, and I don't see you standing there and saying, "'No, Wendy, this is not okay.'"

You let it happen, and then you blame your parents. The sad truth is that if you want there to be changes with Wendy, you have to institute them. Right or wrong, good or bad. You have also enabled her all of these years. You talk a lot about boundaries, but you don't seem to make any when it comes to Wendy. You do not have to be alone, and you did not have to be alone through any of this. By the way, you do have a second sister.

I am alone in the most real sense. Literally alone. I have spent my entire adulthood sacrificing my wants and needs and dreams. You are my sister and I love you and we have great memories. I love your family and miss them but right now what you are bringing to me is not positive. Blame and reminders of responsibility.

So, I'm dropping off your radar. You won't hear from me for a while. You dropped off the radar a long time ago. You know where we are when what we have to offer is good enough for you. Sometimes people ask me about you and I say, you're really nice. This last statement shows the real you. No acknowledgement. I'm drowning out here and alone. So we're done.

About a week before the deadly barbecue, despite having emailed her parents that she wasn't going to communicate with them anymore, Jill did reach out again, but this time with an ultimatum. The deadline to move out of her house was looming, and Jill had lied to Wendy about the fact that they had to leave soon. Wendy doesn't know this. I've let her believe that the move-out date is flexible with the new owner because she is so anxious about managing in a place not customized to her needs.

For a million reasons, Wendy has no idea what a burden she is to me, and I am not selfish enough to tell her. She would die inside if you told her any of this. She would die inside if she went back to live in your dark, unhappy house, and then you would die, and she would come back to me older and more damaged. You like to say, we were the wrong parents for Wendy.

What you mean is, this isn't the kid you wanted. So you sacrificed me. You dumped your kid on me, and that makes you the wrong parents for me. But you have one more chance to do right by Wendy.

According to one of Jill's friends, her parents offered to give Jill what they felt they could afford, $500 a month to help care for Wendy. Jill said that was not enough. Then she wrote this to an acquaintance.

I'm struggling to keep a grip on my sanity. I know that I'm barely functioning and losing the ability to care about anything. Wendy told a friend, who told me, that she has to walk on eggshells because I keep having blow-ups. I'm almost dead inside. Not dead enough to feel nothing, but dying. I cannot maintain my health and continue doing this. So, we'll see what changes, but something's got to give."

On March 11th of 2015, two days before the deadly barbecue, Jill changed the executor in her will from her sisters Lisa and Wendy to her friend Tracy Reese, and the papers were notarized.

I think a lot of people might wonder if Jill did this for money. What was the life insurance situation? Was there money involved if Wendy died for Jill? Wendy did not have an insurance policy. I don't think she did. I mean, the financial that I see in it is Jill not wanting to have to pay out for Wendy anymore. Detective Jones showed me a photo from the FBI files that had caught her attention, one that Jill had taken of herself, apparently just days before Wendy died.

In this picture, Jill is not smiling. She's holding up a light blue piece of paper with black sharpie writing on it. It reads, These are dark days. Pray for me. There is an exclamation mark at the end.

Jones and Castro took all this new evidence from the FBI forensic search to the district attorney's office. It was their third trip. And this time, an experienced prosecutor who was new to the Blackstone case agreed with the detectives. Charges would be filed. Gretchen Ford, when she saw the case, I thought she was on board from the get-go. And she felt the same way, like...

This is a murder. She was dedicated, I don't know, as much as you were, Johnny. Gretchen Ford is a phenomenal district attorney. Outstanding. The other district attorneys that helped her, Courtney Armendariz, Nicole Fleck. You're talking about three women district attorneys that are just phenomenal in what they do. But Gretchen Ford took this on instinctively.

and read through everything. And I'll never forget, after she had gotten everything I'd given her, she says, I'm going to read this on the way up on vacation. I said, okay, and called me on the phone and said, hey, this lady killed her sister. I said, yes, she did. And she says, okay, we're going to prosecute this case. We're going to get there. And so three years after Jill Blackstone's first arrest, Johnny Jones headed out to New Jersey to arrest Jill Blackstone again.

We found out that she had changed her mail address to her parents' house in Bayonne, New Jersey. And we went to go see if we could find Jill Blackstone at her parents' house because that was her mailing address. I went with another partner, Detective Marco Evans was my partner then, and we went and

When the officers got to Jill's parents' house, her car was there, but she wasn't, and Jill's family wasn't cooperating. And I said, listen, this is just not about Jill.

your family at this point. This is strictly about Jill Blackstone and I'm here to find her and I'm here to find her for Wendy." And they were very upset about that. They got very upset with me about that and made some remarks to me, but it didn't matter at that point because it was going to happen. We went and talked to Lisa through her husband. She would not talk to me at all.

Where was Jill? Jill was nowhere to be found. But someone must have notified Jill and her attorney that police were looking for her because the next day came word that Jill had been located. My boss called me and advised me that the attorney had called the Los Angeles Police Department, called OVB Homicide, and said where she was at. And we found her at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

So she had checked herself in the hospital? Do you think that was because she was trying to evade you? Did she have a heads up? I believe she did. I had Baltimore PD go out and make sure that we had the correct person, and they sent me a photo of her, that she was in the hospital. They said the attorney did not talk to me, but talked to my other boss and had advised him that she was very ill and very seriously ill in the hospital. When

We sent Baltimore out there. They basically said that the doctor advised them that she was there for a migraine headache and that she could be released. So she was taken into custody by Baltimore PD and housed there until we had driven from Bayonne out to Baltimore. And what did she say to you? When we went to do the interview with her, she said,

I sat down and I told her, hello, Jill, do you remember me? And she said, oh, no, I don't remember you. I said, you don't remember who I am. I'm Detective Jones. I identify myself. Again, I have a different partner, Marco Evans. I introduced him. I said, but I'm the one that arrested you and I'm the one that's arresting you again on this warrant. And she told me that, oh, I don't remember really anything from what happened. I don't even know what I said. Was her attitude like resigned or was it like you got me?

No, it was the same it was before. I didn't see Jill act any different than when the first time I talked with her. Very confident. She said, I have a lawyer and I'm going to invoke my rights. This time she didn't talk. Right. Jones and her team took Jill Blackstone into custody, returned to L.A., and Jill was taken to the county jail.

For the next few years, the Blackstone case wound its way through preliminary and pretrial hearings, the COVID delay, and eventually resolved with that plea deal arrangement when Jill pled no contest to voluntary manslaughter and animal cruelty charges. Let's talk about how this case resolved. It was not a guilty plea. It was not a not guilty plea. Jill Blackstone pled no contest. How does that plea sit with you, the fact that Jill pled no contest?

We respect everything that was done with the district attorney's office and how they handled the case. The pleading no contest to the charge, I would think that if Jill wanted to say she didn't do it, she could have just went to a trial with it. The fact that Jill, according to the district attorney when we spoke, did have a couple illnesses, I think that's

Wendy's life, though, was taken, and we can't forget that. And Wendy lost her life, and she did not want to lose her life. She didn't want to go. And Jill made that decision for her. I would say that it would be nice to know if Jill Blackstone will sit down with her family and possibly at one point in time tell them everything. Because I do not think, unless you go to a trial, that they know all about this case and the evidence that was going to be brought against Jill Blackstone.

For us, we're not the judge and jury, is what I always say. So when I walk out of court, I know that I did my job, and I know that the detectives that worked with me, we all did the best we could, and we were prepared for trial. So I would think Jo would maybe one day want to tell her parents and her family the truth.

So do you think that Jill backed out at the last minute and got cold feet? Or did she accidentally survive?

And that's up in the air. I know Detective Jones and I have thoughts on that. I think she may have made an attempt. I think she struggled with it, and I think she may have been, that may have been her plan. But then things changed for her and then said, nope, I'm not doing this and made that decision for herself. What do you think?

Because you do differ a little bit. Yes, and that's what always makes a good combination of a team when you go out and do investigations like this. And this starts out as a death investigation. We're not sure exactly what we're looking at. But to me, to have those indicators that those trash cans were put right in front of that detached garage for first responder, whoever responded first to see those. And for me, I think it was...

the fact of how Wendy Blackstone was left and where she was left. Detective Jones believes Jill was never going to kill herself because if Jill's plan truly was for both sisters to die, Jill would not have chosen a garage setting. I don't know why you would want to die in a garage.

with dogs that are obviously in distress. I don't know why I wouldn't want to do it in their home or at least somewhere other than a garage. I asked the detectives if they could ask Jill Blackstone one more question and she had to tell the truth. What would they most want to know? Listen, I'm a straight shooter. I'll say, listen, Jill, we know this was in an accident. What I do want to know, though, is were you really going to go along with committing the suicide?

Or was your intention to back out of there, inhale some smoke and just get out of there? I do. I want that answer because I know for there's no question in my mind this was not an accident. Therein lies the mystery of this case. Exactly. When will the real truth ever come out? May never come out. That's true. And that happens. Unless she decides to tell it. Correct. Yes.

I think what makes this case interesting is that it can be one or the other, and the only person who has the answer to that is Jill. You know, she's really the only person who knows the answer.

Anthony Frere, Jill's former colleague turned therapist, is conflicted about what Jill's intentions really were when she planned the barbecue. If I were to speculate, I'm not sure Jill was the type of, I don't know. I don't know if she woke up every day for nine months and was like, I'm going to kill my sister and I'm going to kill myself. I don't think so.

That might have been the case. Maybe a couple of days were going on where she might have been feeling depressed. Her normal coping skills just were not able to get her through like they got her through for the last whatever, how many years. Anthony, who wanted to remind everyone that he's never treated Jill as a patient, thinks that it is possible Jill was intending to kill herself, too.

You know, death can mean freedom to a lot of people, right? Like just needing to be free. Free from, you know, being bound and shackled to life because life is too hard. When someone comes to me and they're having suicidality, like thoughts of suicide, my question to them is often, "Do you want your life to end or do you want the pain to end?"

And their answer is almost always, I just want the pain to go away and I don't know how else to do it except to end my life. And so my response is always, what if I can show you how to end the pain? Maybe that's what I would have told Jill, right? Like, if you give me the time to...

then I can teach you to not feel the pain. Right? Like suicide, we always say there's a saying in the therapy world, you know, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. So let's go with the scenario that Jill was going to commit suicide

Murder-suicide, but then what happened at the last minute with the suicide part? The suicide part, right? You know, our brains are built to help us survive death at all costs. It's why it's really hard for you to hold your breath underwater and drown yourself. Drownings are usually accidental because your brain won't let you do it.

But is it fair in the end to blame the parents? If the parents had done something different, would this not have happened? How much blame do the parents, does the family have? I mean, look, at the end of the day, I think,

Even the worst parents in the world are doing the best that they can with what they know how, right? It doesn't mean it's right. It just means they don't know how to do it different. And I think, right, so can we blame them? Every, you know, my parents have a lot of, I blame my parents for a lot of things, but that doesn't do me any good. My responsibility is for me to go and figure out how to reconcile what I wanted versus what I got.

In our first conversation, I asked you, what would you ask Jill? And you mentioned things like I'd ask about her mental state, what was going on before. Based on everything you've read now and that you know about this case, what would you want to tell Jill? I wouldn't minimize what she was experiencing. If everything she's saying is true, I wouldn't minimize what she was experiencing. But

Meaning taking care of Wendy, taking care of someone who's disabled. Sure, all of that can cause fatigue and depression and feelings of guilt and all of these things, right? I would just say to her that I think she catastrophizes in her mind what's going on and really minimizes the resources that she thinks she has. The parents would have taken her. Friends would have taken her. They would have given Jill a break.

Sure. What I thought about that was, you know, there's this thing that happens particularly around domestic violence. And I'm not saying there was domestic violence at all, but just this quality of if I can't have you, no one can. Maybe the same thing with the dogs, right? I think she loved Wendy. I think she did. But I think there was also a part of her that resented this whole piece. But could anyone take care of her as well as she did? Yeah.

Right. And so if no one can, like, I'm going to take her with me. There's ways in which Jill almost wanted to produce Wendy's life. Like, Wendy's life should be this. And because it's not, it must be poor quality. And I would say, like, who I would say to her, like, who are you to who are you to say that? Right. Like, I think we have to ask Wendy, like, what would it like? Is this life good enough for you? Somebody did actually ask Wendy once about her life. Her friend Wanda.

Wanda told me something heartbreaking that she's never shared with anyone until now. She said Wendy was very aware that Jill wanted to live alone and was looking to put her in a care facility. And so Wendy started making plans of her own. She decided if she and Jill couldn't find a place to live together, she would surprise Jill with this news. Wendy and I had actually been talking about Wendy moving out on her own.

And at first I said, well, why don't you do it? And she's like, I couldn't do that. I'm like, why not? Why wouldn't you be able to get an apartment? So the more we talked about it, you could see the excitement on her face. And she would be like, do you really think I can do it? I'm like, yeah, you know, because disability, you can have disability. People can come and check you. I always come in and check, you know, and hang out because that's what I do. And she's like, oh, you know, and then we talk about it more. And Wendy was ready to go on her own. It's so tragic.

Because all of this happened and Jill killed Wendy for no reason. She wanted to be rid of her. Wendy was ready to go on her own and try it. She lost her life and the lives of the dogs. And Jill lost her life too because she's in jail.

Wanda's story reminded me of what Judge Rubinson said at one of the pretrial hearings when he admonished the lawyers who were at odds to try communicating better. His words at the time, good communication goes a long way. Like here we have two sisters who might secretly have both wanted better lives for each other, wanted to get out of each other's way and never talked about it, right? And ended in tragedy. If only, if only...

Jill had confided in someone that these thoughts were more than just frustration. I think if she had just reached out and, I mean, she had a therapist for Christ's sakes, right? Like, if anything, I wish she had learned more coping skills or learned how to create boundaries if only Jill had done that. Is it possible that Jill Blackstone was just, you know, evil?

I don't know. You know, as a therapist, I'm trained to believe that people aren't evil, that people are a product of their environment, right? And so, you know, Maya Angelou has a great saying, and I'm not going to do this good because I'm not Maya Angelou, but essentially that we are all human beings. Anything that a human being can do is not foreign to me. Right?

Right? That we all have the same traits and characteristics so that the batterer, the murderer, we all have those components in us. Right? And so I use my components for good, hopefully. Some people make really poor choices and it's sort of like, don't hate the person, hate the behavior.

and try to figure out what was going on for this person that they thought this was the best decision they could make in that moment. Like, I'm really, that makes me really curious. A Nobel Prize winning poet, Louise Gluck, who grew up with one sibling, a sister, once wrote this, of two sisters, one is always the watcher, one the dancer.

For most of Jill and Wendy's 50-year sisterhood, you could say that Jill was the dancer, a driven producer who loved rescuing dogs and taking care of her sister, Wendy always her audience. But maybe it was the other way around, and it was Wendy who had been the dancer all this time, making the most out of the cards she had been dealt, and loving the life she had. A little over a year before Wendy Blackstone died, she had to put down her beloved, favorite dog ever, Oliver.

There's no other way to say it. Holler is going to die soon. It's an aggressive type of tumor located between the colon and the spine. The doctor described it as being a sizable mass. They can't operate. I think it's going to be tomorrow. I thought I was all cried out for today, but I just got up from laying down with him, and I'm starting to see it in his eyes that he's getting ready.

Oliver died the next day. Wendy was holding him as the vet gave him a tranquilizer, then injected him with the euthanasia drugs that rendered him unconscious. Oliver passed away in Wendy's arms. Today will go down as the most difficult day of my life because I picked out a special urn with an engraved plaque. It's made of oak and is in the shape of a doghouse. The plaque will say Oliver on the top, and then underneath it'll say, my beautiful boy. I told him every single day that he's my beautiful boy inside and out.

And then a short while later, Wendy wrote a kind of thank you essay that explained how her life had changed because of the love that had been in her ever-darkening world.

It sounds like I have clogged ears that just won't unclog. What most people don't understand is that being visually impaired makes being hearing impaired that much harder because you don't have the luxury of being able to read lips. On a day-to-day basis, I'm one of the happiest people on earth. But I'm also human and I have my down days now and again. It wasn't until Oliver came into my life that I realized what was missing in my life was true happiness.

On the days when my disabilities brought my spirits down, Oliver gave me a reason to just be. I would look at him and think, he knows I have a lot left to accomplish. And so, I tried new things. I contacted the Braille Institute for white cane training. I started wearing a button on my shirt whenever I went out that says, I am legally blind.

This button helps tremendously. For instance, the other day when I was having lunch with a friend, the waiter put my dish in front of me. He made a point of saying, "Your sandwich is on the left, fries on the right." And then I got myself an Access Services card, which is a door-to-door transportation service provided to those who are unable to get around on their own. And with all this came something I hadn't known in years: some independence. I had even more confidence to go out and do more with what I don't have.

I've stopped believing long ago that my vision will ever benefit from any research that's being done now. But I hope and pray that a cure is found and that younger generations will never have to go through what I did. In her last emails to friends, Wendy seems concerned about Jill having sold their house and that some big life changes were in store. But she said she was trying to stay optimistic. Maybe the sisters would find a place to live together after all. The final words Wendy will ever write are from the afternoon of the barbecue.

She texts a friend that she is so looking forward to the evening hanging out with Jill and the dogs. Jill has brought out a portable speaker, Bruce Springsteen songs are playing, and in the garage, Jill set up two bright blue plastic Adirondack chairs, some pillows, and blankets for the dogs.

Wendy describes the scene. The charcoal briquettes have been lit. Jill has mixed a drink for Wendy. Burgers are on the grill now, sizzling. The smell of the sister's favorite Peter Luger steak sauce is wafting through the air. After dinner, Wendy relaxes into a chair. The dogs, tired from chasing tennis balls, lay down nearby. The late afternoon golden hour is dissolving into nighttime. Wendy is tired too, but happy. She leans her head back,

Eyes closing now. It's been the perfect Hollywood night. And finally, of course I can't finish without thanking Jill. She's been a wall of strength for me, and I wouldn't have gotten through this without her. There are places to turn for anyone who needs help with anxiety, depression, caregiver burnout, or suicidal thoughts. Like the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, or by dialing 988-THE-SUICIDE-AND-CRISIS-LIFELINE.

Thank you.

Voice talent is Kathy Nagel in the role of Jill Blackstone, Robin Seidel reading as Wendy, Jenna James as Lisa, and additional voice work by Drew Patterson, Jeff Bacon, Thomas Reed, Pamela Robinson, and Melinda Barrington.

Special thanks to blindness casting consultant Joe Strache, veterinarian Dr. Annie Hernandez, Yvonne Chester, Corey Hart, and Suzanne Rico for helping with this production. And finally, we want to thank you for listening.