The Mystery at Pictured Rocks
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It's so quiet on the cliffs that sometimes all you can hear is the wind. It was special to them. That's where they went when they first got married. It's a story that begins in McBain, Michigan, more than 200 miles away from those windswept cliffs. There, Tom and Juanita Richardson were living the Midwestern edition of the American dream in a modern-day log home Tom had built for his wife and their three kids, Laysine, Lindsay, and

and Levi. He was a man of integrity. He worked long hours and hard hours for our family. Tom made a solid living driving a truck for FedEx. Juanita was a secretary at their local school. He taught a youth group at their church. She sang in the choir. She knew how to be a great mom but still be able to have a friendship with us. How'd your parents get along? Great.

They didn't argue? I think every couple argues they weren't perfect, but they loved each other. The Richardsons' 23-year marriage was now entering a new phase. As Levi graduated high school, Mom and Dad had an empty nest at last. They could now take a long-deserved vacation. Tom called it a second honeymoon. Just the two of them.

Their destination: Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. She was really excited to go up there and spend time with my dad. It was June 22, 2006. A cloudy, misty morning. The fourth day of their vacation. Juanita and Tom were out hiking. She was taking pictures of sights along the trail. At 10:55, Juanita snapped a photo of Tom sitting on a grassy patch along a cliff at a place they called their honeymoon spot.

Then Tom left her and walked to the bathroom at the visitor's center. When he got back, Juanita was gone. He ran for help. His initial report was that she was essentially missing and unaccounted for. But within 45 minutes, park rangers found Juanita Richardson. Mrs. Richardson's body was in plain view at the bottom of the cliff. The pastor of our church called me and told me of the news. It was such a blur, I can't remember much, but...

I think he said that she had fallen off of a cliff. Their dad later called them in tears. Hello? Hi, girl owner. Hi, Daddy. How you doing? Okay, how are you? I'm a mess. Are you coming home? Yeah, I'll be at it out as soon as I can get out of the road.

Tom made the four-hour drive home to McBain, where the Richardson kids comforted him and each other through the memorial service for their mom. He looked like a broken man.

He's trying to hold himself together, but couldn't do it. But as Tom Richardson was mourning his wife with his family, investigators had become deeply suspicious of his story. When he first talked to Deputy Sheriff Steve Blank hours after Juanita was found, Tom told him that he left Juanita to go to the bathroom at the visitor center and return to the honeymoon spot, but Juanita was gone. He said because he is so deathly afraid of heights, he got down on his hands and knees.

crawled to the cliff site, looked over and seen something white at the bottom. And because his wife had a white jacket on, he assumed that was her, got up and ran as fast as he could back out to the visitor center to report that his wife had fallen. But at about 10:30 that night, Deputy Blank would hear a different story. He says, "I came back from the visitor center and this time I saw her standing there." Yes. Waited to make eye contact with her.

And once the eye contact was made, she turned and jumped. And she screamed, oh my God. The suicide of Juanita Richardson, witnessed by her husband. I asked Tom why he waited to tell me this. Tom said that he was trying to protect Juanita's reputation. He didn't want anybody to think that she was crazy. But what happened the next morning was even stranger. Tom told Blank yet another version of what happened.

This time, what did he say? When he walked up to the cliff site, Juanita was standing there as though she wanted to show him something, and she kind of turned and just fell over. So now it's an accident. Now it's an accident. Three stories of how Juanita died in the first 24 hours after her death.

Blank began to think something more sinister had happened up on that cliff. And so did Juanita's parents, Don and Jenny Culver. Suicide's out of the question. She's not going to get close enough to the edge of a cliff. She didn't like heights. She's not going to fall off. There's only one thing left. And that's murder. That's murder.

Juanita's parents and her sister Jeanette both openly admit they never much cared for Tom. Verbally abusive. Oh, yeah. Like what? Oh, get your head out of your ass. You're so stupid. Anything she did, it was never right. But Tom and Juanita's children say they never saw anything like that. We were around them the most, and there was never a stormy marriage. It was just a normal marriage. In their hearts, the three kids knew their dad would never have hurt their mom.

much less kill her. There's no way he would be capable of that. The three would form a united front supporting their dad as the police began investigating him, with much of their detective work focused on one woman. She was, to this case, what Amber Fry was to the Scott Peterson case.

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The investigation of Tom Richardson shifted to his hometown in McBain, Michigan, and into the hands of Detective Jeff Herwire.

The first things HerWire found out was that the Richardson's perfect marriage wasn't so perfect. Seven years earlier, Tom had an affair with another woman. Did your mother ever talk with any of you about divorcing your father? Not about divorcing him. She had talked to us about her vows, that when she made her vows, for better or for worse, that is what she meant till death do her part. And she was the one talking about trying to reconcile.

And within a year, the couple did reconcile. Tom had told investigators they'd been happy together ever since. But Detective Herwire learned otherwise. Tom told people that he wished he hadn't reconciled. Right. So this wonderful sort of Indian summer of their marriage, fantasy? Major fantasy. I didn't buy it.

But even if Tom were unhappy, what motive could he have for killing Juanita? For one thing, money. Herwire learned Juanita's insurance policies would net Tom nearly a quarter of a million dollars. That wouldn't make him rich, but it would free him from the pile of debt they'd racked up building that expensive new home.

And a tip led investigators to another possible motive. Her name, Kelly Brophy. She worked at a convenience store on Tom's FedEx route. You think they had an affair? Yes, I do. Kelly says it never happened. No. She says she and Tom were just close friends who talked on the phone while they both worked at night.

And what would you guys talk about during these calls? Usually Bible studies. If true, there was a lot of Bible study going on. Investigators learned they talked on the phone 383 times in less than 10 months. I just was a friend, just being a friend. But was Kelly just a friend? Investigators kept interviewing her and were shocked by one revelation.

Tom had told Kelly that Juanita would soon be dead. Tom told you that his wife wouldn't be alive by Christmas? Right. He told you Juanita had cancer? Yes. I believe that he thought she had cancer. Juanita had found a lump in her breast, but there was no cancer. Was Tom telling the truth to Kelly? And if not, why would he lie? Maybe because of something Kelly once said to him about her requirements for a husband.

You said you wanted someone who had a relationship with God, who wasn't a smoker or a drinker, and who didn't have a living ex-spouse. Right.

And Tom had a question for Kelly. Juanita is sick and when she dies will you wait for me? I said, yeah, I'm not going nowhere. That's what a friend would do. A friend would stand beside him no matter what. These two friends talked on the phone a lot, but one call was particularly intriguing to investigators. Tom called Kelly from Pictured Rocks on his cell phone the night before Juanita's death.

They spoke for 13 minutes. What did you guys talk about in that call? Nothing. I remember I was in bed sleeping and I just listened. Whatever had been going on between Tom and Kelly ended shortly after Juanita's death. Tom began asking friends to fix him up. We always said Tom was pretty much our best witness throughout this whole investigation. Tom...

Could not keep his mouth shut. And on February 6, 2007, police thought they had enough to charge Tom Richardson with first-degree murder. Nearly two years had passed since Juanita Richardson's mysterious fatal plunge from that cliff at Pictured Rocks. Did she fall? Could she have taken her own life? Or did her husband Tom somehow force her off that cliff 140 feet to the rocky shore below?

All right. With no eyewitnesses, prosecutor Karen Barman's case would have to focus on Tom Richardson himself. You'll learn that he wanted out of this marriage and that he chose murder over divorce by weighing the pros and cons of being widowed versus being divorced. She began with those three conflicting stories he first told investigators in the hours right after Juanita's death. Story one, he didn't see anything.

Story two, he saw Juanita turn and jump. And story three, he saw her accidentally fall. Which of those stories did you believe? I didn't believe any of them.

Dozens of the Richardsons' friends and neighbors would provide scenes from a marriage with an abusive husband. I've heard him call her a dumb B-I-T-C-H. He made her cry. He called her horrible names and he always acted like he just despised her. Prosecutor Barman painted a portrait of a man who had simply had enough of his wife and envisioned a new life without her.

With the insurance payments from Juanita's death, Tom could live debt-free, a much better prospect than a costly divorce. Ms. Brophy, would you come forward, please? Financially secure, Barman said, Tom might then be able to pursue that murky relationship with Kelly Brophy, who denied she and Tom ever had an affair. Do you recall telling the investigators that Tom had asked you that if you weren't married, if you two could date? Date? I don't recall dating.

What do you recall him asking? Just if I'd wait for him. Kelly had agreed to wait, but according to prosecutors, Tom's plan for his post-Juanita life had one problem. Juanita didn't have a will. So six days before their vacation, Tom had a meeting with an attorney. How would you describe his level of urgency? Excessively adamant.

Sitting on the edge of the chair, we got to have a will, we got to have a will, we got to have a will. Attorney Anthony Badovinik was surprised that anyone would so urgently need a will before going on a short vacation to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. And what did you end up giving him as advice at that point?

Chill out. Calm down. If, God forbid, one of you should die, it's going to go to the other. See you later. She had a lot of injuries. Then came the coroner, who testified about Juanita's injuries. And one injury in particular, a mysterious double bruise on her right thigh. I think...

Those two linear bruises are the result of one impact, something that was sort of elongated linear, like a rod or a stick. A stick? Or maybe a kick from Tom to knock Juanita off balance and off that cliff. No further questions. After five weeks of testimony, the state rested. Now it was up to the defense to explain how Tom Richardson's three different stories could all be true.

Attorney Carl Newman brought in a psychologist who testified that Tom was telling the story as he recalled it, piece by piece. It's a classic symptom of post-traumatic stress. He just saw the most traumatic, horrifying event of his life. He blocked it out. He could remember everything leading up to, he could remember everything following, but he could not remember the trauma of seeing his wife go over the cliff.

As for Tom's second story that Juanita killed herself, Newmanan says that came from police. When you're in that kind of confusion, and when you're being peppered with questions by the authorities, he came to the same conclusion that they came to when he said what he wanted them to say. Newmanan argued that the state had provided no evidence of a murder at Pictured Rocks. Not a shred of evidence.

Not one. But Newman said there was evidence that it was an accident. Juanita, he said, had suffered a series of leg injuries over the years. She's got permanent instability in her left knee. She has a stubbed toe with perhaps broken toes on her left foot.

She's wearing sandals. But what about that testimony about how eager Tom was to get a will down on paper? It wasn't Tom who made the appointment with the attorney. Juanita went and she purchased that will. She made the appointment with attorney Badovinic. And what about the other woman, Kelly Brophy? It was a prosecutor's number one motive to support her theory of the case. And where was the evidence? There wasn't any. Zero. Did you ever have sex with Tom? No.

Did you ever kiss him? No. Ever hold hands? No. Did he ever tell you that he was going to leave his wife for you? No. As for that mysterious double bruise on Juanita's thigh, Newman had an explanation. It came not from Tom, but from Juanita's fall. Under cross-examination, the coroner himself conceded that was possible. Certainly there's a possibility it could occur during the fall.

Could you tell us your name? Levi Richardson. For Tom's case, the defense had three star witnesses who knew Tom better than anyone. His kids. My dad was a very honest and trustworthy person. He had such good morals. How valuable were the kids? It would have been a wholly different trial if the kids were sitting on the other side of the courtroom. But they weren't. They were supporting their dad.

For her closing argument, prosecutor Karen Barman returned jurors' attention to the last photograph Juanita took before she died. A picture that speaks a thousand words. Of Tom himself. He needs to create this reason for her to stand or walk near the edge, and he tells her to take his picture in that spot. And the expression on his face is not exactly evocative of marital bliss.

That expression says very clearly, I'm going to get you, bitch. Defense attorney Carl Newman ended by denouncing the investigation of Tom Richardson as a rush to judgment of an innocent man who loved his wife. Tom Richardson was a suspect before they even dragged Juanita's body off the rocks. The way the interrogation was conducted was purposely designed to gather incriminating statements. It would now be up to the jury to decide his fate.

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Hi, my name's Patrick Adams. You may know me as Mike Ross on the TV series Suits. And I'm Sarah Rafferty, and I play Donna Paulson on Suits. And we have a podcast called Sidebar, where every week we watch and discuss an episode of the show. Because here's the thing, neither of us have really watched it. That's true, at least until now. So we're going to cover all nine seasons. Share behind-the-scenes stories. And talk to our co-stars and friends like Gina Torres and Aaron Korsh. So look, if you love Suits...

Amazing. This podcast is for you. And if you've never watched Suits, also amazing. You can join us and we'll watch it together. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. Listen to Sidebar wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. Work management platforms. Ugh. Endless onboarding. IT bottlenecks. Admin requests. But what if things were different? We found love.

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Did Tom Richardson murder his wife Juanita, shoving or forcing her off the tall cliffs at Pictured Rocks? The case was now in the hands of the jury, and they kept returning to that autopsy photo of Juanita, the one with the strange double bruise. And then an extraordinary thing happened in the jury room. Jurors Paul Scott and Dave Brain got up and decided to see what might cause a bruise like that. And I just pushed.

That's when he went forward. I didn't actually even kick. I just pushed with my foot. And that did it, that demonstration? It almost made the hair stand up on the back of your neck, that everybody was at the same point in thinking that, oh, my God, that's probably exactly what happened. After 11 hours, they had their verdict. We, the jury, find the defendant Thomas David Richardson guilty of murder in the first degree.

Tom Richardson had been found guilty of murdering his wife Juanita with a mandatory sentence of life in prison. He never did take the stand in his own defense, but he did talk to Dateline. Do you understand how telling essentially three different stories to investigators in the first few hours after your wife dies is going to make investigators think that you are A, lying, and B, responsible?

Yeah, I understand that, but we're talking from the time the incident happened until 1.30, 2 o'clock in the morning. That's not a few hours. Okay, what is it? Less than 24? It's a long time when you're in shock, you're being traumatized. It's a pretty short time to tell three different stories. Not when you've been going through mental blocking and you've got some guy that you feel is trying to brainwash you into the fact that your wife's

just committed suicide or possibly committed suicide. And what about Kelly Brophy? They've tried to paint that into this plan I had, you know, he planned on killing his wife, he planned on having a relationship with Kelly, blah, blah, blah. None of that's true. There is no romantic relationship with Kelly Brophy. Period. There never has been. So what is true? Is Tom Richardson a cold-hearted killer?

Or just a broken-hearted husband. I was with Juanita since 1981. And when you lose somebody like that, it's like you have this big hole inside you. He remains defiant. The truth is the truth. And making me a villain doesn't change anything. We've been through a trial. Don't we know the truth? No. You killed her. No. I did not kill my wife.

You have no idea how offensive it is to hear somebody say that when you didn't do it. But for Juanita's family, the case is closed. After the trial, Juanita's sister, Jeanette, went back up to Pictured Rocks. I feel like Juanita's there and I don't want to leave. I don't want to go home. And last night, the rainbow over Pictured Rocks just told us, you know, she's saying, I'm okay, I'm good.

Hey, this is Jeff Lewis from Radio Andy. Live and uncensored, catch me talking with my friends about my latest obsessions, relationship issues, and bodily ailments. With that kind of drama that seems to follow me, you never know what's going to happen. You can listen to Jeff Lewis Live at home or anywhere you are. Download the SiriusXM app for over 425 channels of ad-free music, sports, entertainment, and more. Subscribe now and get three months free. Offer details apply.