LaNell Barsock // 509
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What is going on, true crime fans? I'm your host Heath. And I'm your host Daphne. And you're listening to Going West. Hello, everybody. I hope you're doing well today. Thank you so much for tuning in to Going West.

Big shout out to Anna for recommending today's case. I feel like I've been saying this so much lately, but the twist in this case genuinely shocked me. I almost did not want to give anything away with this case because it really is an absolute shock and such a devastating story as well. No, it truly is. We are going to talk about a very hardworking woman today, and I don't want to say anything else because I will give it away. So

But before we dive in, I just want to mention we did tease this already on Patreon and our bonus series on Apple as well. If you want to be the first to hear about some very exciting news that Heath and I are going to release in the middle of June...

Join our bonus series. Also, you'll get over 130 bonus episodes of fascinating true crime stories you haven't heard from us before. Yes, the patrons and the Apple subscribers, they're going to get this news first. But if you want to get it as well, then just go subscribe. You can either do $5 or $10. It really helps out our show. And like Daphne said, you get a ton of

of bonus content of Going West that you wouldn't regularly get. Yeah, you guys are going to be excited, we hope, and we foresee when we drop this news. It's something Heath and I have never done before. So stay tuned, and without further ado, let's just dive into today's case. All right, guys, this is episode 509 of Going West, so let's get into it. ♪♪♪

In June of 2010, a 29-year-old nurse was found shot to death in her California home with a note that seemed to point to a particular person embedded in her life. But as detectives unraveled the case further...

The twisted truth came to the surface in shocking fashion. An affair, an obsession, and an unsuspecting killer hiding in plain sight. This is the murder of Linnell Barsak.

Linnell Barsock was born on July 27th, 1980 in Englewood, California, which is just south of downtown LA, where LAX is actually. And according to her family for her whole life, she was known for putting smiles on the faces of others. And she had a real knack for making everybody feel at home and just feel comfortable.

Her friends described her as warm, generous, and giving, qualities which are precisely what made Lynelle interested in becoming a nurse.

So following her graduation from high school, Linnell trained to become a licensed vocational nurse. But after a few years, she decided to return to school and completed her degree as a registered nurse. And it was there she met a young man named Louis Bonheur, who is taking English classes at the same school.

Now, Lewis had just moved to California in 2005, so one year prior, as a refugee from Haiti. And in typical Linnell fashion, she struck up a casual conversation with him as he was waiting for the bus and then wound up offering him a ride home after they had such a nice conversation. And things really just flourished from there. So they started dating and eventually moved in together.

Both in their 20s, Lewis got a job working for a maintenance center in Hawthorne, California, which, by the way, is just south of Inglewood. And Linnell graduated nursing school and started working at a medical center in L.A.

So she was busting her ass in school trying to get to the career that she wanted to. And four years later, in 2009, after saving for many years and maintaining a happy relationship together, Linnell and Lewis bought a house on a roomy property together in Palmdale, which is about 60 miles or around 100 kilometers north of central Los Angeles and just north of the Angeles National Forest.

And this is where Southern California starts to enter the desert. So Palmdale is kind of more desert-y vibes, but definitely more affordable than Los Angeles proper. So, you know, they were really happy with this development and just the opportunity to build their dream house together and this life together. So while they tackled projects around the place, they also looked forward to eventually getting married and having kids. You know, they weren't engaged yet, but they were very much on vacation.

Yeah, they were kind of talking about it. However, in the short term, Linnell wanted to convert this spacious house, which was about 3,500 square feet, into a living care facility for elderly patients so that she could make some money back and continue to work a career that she loved. But despite their excitement for the future, Linnell and Lewis couldn't ignore that their relationship had been feeling kind of strained ever since they moved in together.

After four years of dating, Lynelle was just kind of getting tired of being the more financially responsible partner, as well as the more motivated professional. Like, she just kind of wished that Lewis would match her energy.

She complained that he lacked direction in his career and that he was too comfortable settling for a job that had very little upward mobility and very few responsibilities. Makes sense. She was super motivated. She was really hardworking. And even though she likes being with Lewis for other reasons, she's kind of like, man, I wish he would pick it up on this side of things. Yeah, just kind of meet her in the middle.

Well, they even talked about breaking up, and she confided in friends that she was no longer feeling romantic or sexual interest in Lewis. So it was tough because on one hand, you know, they had this kind of good thing going, and they were getting closer to the life that they wanted, but it also felt one-sided in a lot of ways for Linnell. Like she was just pulling all the weight.

And Lewis could see this. He could feel her slipping away from him. So, instead of shaping up and just trying to become a better partner for Linnell, he actually started to act possessive and jealous and began exhibiting traits of controlling behavior that he claimed was otherwise totally outside of his nature.

This included taking Linnell's phone and looking through her text messages, calling numbers that he didn't recognize, and even responding to people from her phone as if he was Linnell. He would also occasionally call the clinic where she worked to make sure that she really was there, and was even known to swing by her office and stake it out so that he could watch her come and go throughout the day.

But then, things escalated. So, in April of 2010, police were called to their home after reports of a domestic disturbance. But the police were dismissed because the couple hadn't gotten into a physical fight with each other. It was just kind of more so like a verbal altercation.

But another time, Linnell's mom, Bobby, remembers Linnell calling her in tears after Lewis actually chased her daughter off the road in his truck and had gotten so close to Linnell's car that he actually broke its window. And that all happened after Linnell told him that she was leaving him, so he chased her down.

But no charges were filed regarding this incident. And Lewis even denies that this happened at all. But I mean, I don't really know why Linnell would like call her mom crying if this wasn't true. So it's possible that it did happen and she just didn't report it to the police. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised because it does seem like in some way she's making excuses for him. Of course, she loves him. They've been together for years. They own a home together now. They're very intertwined in each other's lives.

But she's also telling friends that she's not romantically or sexually interested in him and he doesn't have traits in a partner that she really wants. So it does feel like she's kind of caught in being comfortable and being in a relationship that she knows and then leaving for something that she feels like she deserves. So I'm not really surprised that she wouldn't report that. Yeah. You know, it's kind of like, again, because a lot of people don't do that. They feel like that's a really serious thing to do. Right. Right.

Well, obviously, Lewis acting this way was not helping his case at all, because now not only was he unmotivated and unsupportive, but he was aggressive and, like Heath is saying, possessive. So Linnell continued to float away from him. Thus, she started looking elsewhere to get her emotional needs met by turning to Fling.com, which markets itself as, quote,

The ultimate dating playground for the curious and bold. I was wondering if this was like a kink website. Well, I was wondering that too, just because they say for the curious and bold. No, it's literally just a dating website. Yeah, like it's not bold to go out and try to find a partner, you know? No, it's a weird tagline. Yeah, this is just like a dating website.

And it was through Fling.com that Linnell eventually connected with a man named Ike, whose charm and apparent emotional availability were a stark contrast to the coldness that she was feeling with Lewis. Now, they met in February of 2010, so four months before she was murdered.

Ike, who worked as a flight nurse in Sacramento, California, so that means that somebody who gives medical aid on emergency air transports, seemed to offer her this stability and romance that she was missing from Lewis and more of the lifestyle that she craved.

And being in Sacramento, he was about a five-hour drive north of her. So something that she felt like she could manage for the time. I feel like anybody who lives in California knows that's not that far. It's still in the same state. It feels like it would be far, but it's not too out of reach. Yeah, and actually it was Ike who placed that domestic disturbance called a 911 from Sacramento there.

hearing Lewis scream at her in the background of their phone call. So when that happened, she was literally on the phone with Ike. That's kind of crazy to be honest. It's pretty messy.

Well, just three days before Linnell was murdered, Lewis accused her of cheating on him and revealed that he had discovered that secret phone that Ike had got her, which makes things even more messy. So she vowed to Lewis, you know, she's admitting, yes, you're right, you've caught me,

But she's saying that she's going to end her relationship with Ike so that she can remain with Lewis. So she's not taking the opportunity to say, yeah, I have been cheating and I'm going to leave you for Ike. She's saying, yep, you're right, but I want to be with you. Yeah. So that's kind of interesting.

But Ike was so concerned over her well-being still that he actually reached out to her mom, Bobby, and begged her to keep vigilant watch over her daughter to keep her safe. Texting Bobby that he cared about her well-being, quote, even if she does not want to be with me.

On the day of her murder, Wednesday, June 16th, 2010, Linnell had plans with a friend named Lorraine Austin, who was coming over to Linnell and Lewis' house to do Linnell's hair.

And just a little backstory on their friendship. So according to Lorraine, she and Linnell were both born and raised in South Los Angeles and had been friends since high school. So for about 10 years by that point. And they both lived in the Palmdale area now at this point in the story. So she would stop by their home occasionally, you know, sometimes several times per week to hang out, help Linnell with her hair like they were good pals. Right.

Well, that fateful Wednesday, Lorraine arrived at Linnell's suburban home on Rocky Lane in Palmdale at around 10 a.m. to get started on her hair. Linnell confided in her friend that she couldn't find the cell phone that Ike had gotten for her. But unbeknownst to her, Lewis had taken it.

When Lewis found it, she had told Lewis that it was no longer in use, that it was just a burner phone that now had no minutes left on it. So just remember that. And then Lewis left for the day and headed towards Los Angeles, where he was actually meeting with Lorraine's boyfriend, who worked in an auto body shop for some help fixing up his truck. So the boyfriends are together and the girlfriends are together. Exactly.

But when Lewis had charged the phone to continue snooping, he found that it had actually recently had minutes added to it. Which means that she's still trying to talk to Ike. Exactly. So this whole facade of like, oh, yeah, there's no minutes left on this was not true. So upset by this, he turned the car around and headed back to the house to confront Linnell about her intentions with Ike.

By Lorraine's account, Louis burst in angrily, wielding the phone, which Lynelle then snatched away from him. And just wanting to keep the fight at bay, Lynelle left the house with her friend Lorraine, and the two young women headed to a nearby beauty supply store to pick up a few more things that Lorraine would need in order to do her friend's hair. But Louis followed them to the store, and confronted Lynelle in the parking lot.

Wanting to put an end to the fight once and for all, Linnell gave in and she handed the phone back to him, which kind of seemed to satisfy him enough to leave them alone. Linnell and Lorraine then picked up a pizza, went through a drive-thru for drinks, and then headed home to finish up Linnell's hair. But with Lewis at the house, Lorraine later claimed that the energy in the house remained contentious,

So much so that she was growing uncomfortable just being there. Makes sense. Nobody likes to be around their fighting couple friend. Yeah, it gets really awkward sometimes. So by around 1.30 p.m., they were still fighting, and Lorraine decided that she needed to give them some space. She's saying, why the hell am I here watching this unfold? Yeah, I can be somewhere else. Yeah. So she later said, quote,

I left so they could talk. I told her, I said, look, y'all have some issues and y'all need to talk and I don't want to be here. So she walked to a park near the house, staying there for a few hours, just hanging out and kind of waiting. And by the way, that park, Dominic Massori Park, was 1.3 miles or two kilometers away from Linnell and Lewis's house. So definitely a little bit of a walk.

Now Lorraine waited there for about five hours, she said, from around 1.25 p.m. to 6.30 p.m. in the mild midday California heat, which hovered around 75 degrees for the entirety of the day. So pretty warm day, but also sounds like a really nice day to just like sit around a park. Yeah, true. And relax. But that is quite a long time to be at a park, five hours? No, it definitely is. And to explain this, she said that to pass the time,

She was watching children play and just being in the peace of the park, especially after such a stressful day. She was just hanging out. So when she returned to her friend's house around 6.30 p.m., she walked into a scene of sheer horror. Entering through the dimly lit garage, she hardly noticed the blood spatter on the floor until she slipped and fell in it.

A short while later, she burst into the Palmdale police station covered in her friend's blood. And breathlessly, she told police that she had gone back to her friend's house and attempted to go in through the garage, but it had been dark and she slipped on something viscous. So confused, she told police, quote, "'I'm looking at the blood, and then when I looked, I saw her legs. And then I walked around the corner, she had a bag over her head.'"

Now, on the floor of the garage, she saw Linnell's bloodied body lying lifeless next to her car. So, completely horrified, Lorraine stepped into the house and said that she heard a noise from upstairs. And then, she locked eyes with Louis.

descending the stairs towards her. So completely panicking, you know, the last thing that she saw was Linnell and Lewis in a fight. Now Linnell is dead and Lewis is coming for her. So she's freaking out. She can't find her phone. So Lorraine ran to her own car and raced to the nearest police station to report that her friend had been murdered.

While she was driving there, she said that Lewis was chasing behind her in his truck, but that he had turned around after realizing that she was heading towards the police station. So when detectives reported to and then surveyed the house, they found no sign of Lewis, who seemed to have suspiciously fled. But inside the living room, they noticed the outline of an area rug imprinted into the carpet, which seemed to have been moved.

Multiple bloody towels were discarded haphazardly in front of the washing machine, and the cement floor of the garage was lined with even more smeared blood, the pattern of which gave the impression that someone had attempted to wipe up the blood after it was spilled. On the floor of the garage were more bloody towels, as well as plastic sheeting from home improvement projects, which Lorraine had slipped on.

Now, Linnell's BMW was still parked inside the garage with its trunk popped open. And in the trunk were trash bags stuffed with more bloody items, including sheets and blankets from Linnell and Lewis's bed. Blood and bloodied items all over the place. Yes, just everywhere. The spare tire had been positioned beneath the open trunk, and detectives kind of posited that it was originally being used as sort of a stepstool to get Linnell's body into the back of the car.

But whomever had been doing so had just given up on the attempt to conceal her body in the car and left her recumbent on the side of her vehicle instead. So they were just like, I'm just going to leave her on the floor right next to the car. And this is where 29-year-old Linnell was found lying parallel with her BMW. Her feet positioned towards the front of the vehicle with her head positioned towards the trunk. And wrapped around her head was a black plastic trash bag.

So early the following morning, while the crime scene was still being processed, investigators spoke extensively with Lorraine, who told them all about the couple's problems. I mean, obviously, you know, they're best friends, so of course they're going to talk about Linnell and Lewis's relationship, so she's just relaying this to police that, hey...

I saw that they were having problems before she was murdered. Yeah, and in fact, here's what happened today with their fighting. Yeah, exactly. Well, she was asked to take a polygraph test, and she did agree to do this, but it never ended up happening.

But detectives were mostly eager to speak with both men in Linnell's life, Lewis and her new boyfriend, Ike. Yeah, especially because Ike was brought up that very day and she seemed to still want to be pursuing that relationship with Ike.

Police are like, something has to give in this direction. Yeah, they're going to figure it out one way or the other. So when they connected with Ike, law enforcement learned that he had expressed genuine care over Linnell's well-being prior to her murder and that he was devastated to hear the news of her mysterious passing.

He also, by the way, had an ironclad alibi for the night that she had been killed. He was attending a job interview in Sacramento, so five and a half hours northwest of Palmdale at that very time. So it would have been impossible for him to personally, at the very least, commit the murder.

Now, of course, heavily suspecting Lewis's involvement, law enforcement sought to speak with him next. And though they initially assumed that he had fled from the scene and could be anywhere...

They found that he had actually stayed with Linnell's mom, Bobby, in her Englewood home on the night of the murder. So that's obviously very, very strange. Yeah, he didn't come home and now he's at her mom's house and he still apparently doesn't know that she was killed. So Lewis was brought in early the next day before he was even officially still informed about the murder for which he was being considered a suspect.

In his interrogation, he said that he left the house to get his car fixed at 12.30 p.m. But when pressed, he admitted that he had returned to the house to confront Linnell and that he had then followed them to the beauty supply store and then followed them back home, which Lorraine, as we remember, had also told the police.

But he maintained that he then left the women alone after this, driving to Lorraine's boyfriend's auto repair shop in the Florence Graham neighborhood of South Los Angeles, which is about 70 miles or 112 kilometers south of Linnell and Lewis's home. So he was in a totally different area.

The two had planned on picking up parts from a few different auto parts stores and then working on Lewis's truck. So he was at least an hour and a half away. And Lewis was even able to offer receipts for these trips, but detectives wanted to verify his presence through security camera footage in these two stores to make sure that he wasn't lying. Because they're like, well, what if you got...

got the receipts from your friend. What if the receipt was from... Well, I guess it would probably have the time stamp on it. Yeah, it would. I was going to say, maybe it was from a different day, but yeah, they would be able to... But yeah, they're like, did he fake this? You know, we got to make sure that he was really there. Due diligence. And guess what? Lewis could clearly be seen on the footage in both stores. At 2.50 p.m., he was spotted at a locally owned auto parts store, and then...

Just after 4.30 p.m., so a little over an hour and a half later, he was seen at an AutoZone. Around 5, which is a store, by the way. AutoZone is like a car parts store. Well, around 5.30 p.m., he then headed back to the same auto parts store that he had visited earlier in the afternoon, like I said, at 2.50 p.m.,

So Lewis was close by where he worked in Hawthorne. So rather than driving home to Palmdale and then having to return in the morning, he opted to stay the night with Linnell's mom, Bobby, and headed to her house that evening to avoid a long commute. He arrived there between 6 and 6.15 p.m. on June 16th, so the evening that Linnell was killed.

Meaning Lorraine's story about Louis being in his Palmdale home just after 6 p.m., chasing her around the house, could not be true.

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That's goldbelly.com, promo code GIFT. So now, without a doubt, we know that Lewis could not have personally been at the house when Lorraine claims that he would have been. But, Linnell's mom, Bobbie, had noticed something kind of suspicious while he was there.

Lewis had been looking at airline tickets to Miami and had also been shifting money around between bank accounts, which kind of piqued detective suspicions because it seemed as if he was kind of paving the way for an escape. They wondered if perhaps he was booking a connecting flight from Miami to his native Haiti to flee before he was pinned for Linnell's murder.

When detectives asked him about this, Lewis maintained that he was not attempting to leave and assured detectives that he and Linnell were happy together and that he didn't want to leave her. But here's the thing, guys. Detectives noticed a scratch across his cheek and mused that he may have been hit by Linnell during a confrontation that ended in her death.

When asked about the origin of the scratch, Lewis readily admitted that the scratch had come from Linnell, but said that it was from a simple confrontation and not from him inflicting any sort of violence against her. While also among the evidence removed from their home was an incriminating breakup note, which read, quote,

Dear Louis, I'm leaving you for Ike. He makes more money, so you can do whatever you want to do with the house. I am moving out of state with Ike, so that why I gave you that phone. We're getting married, so just leave me alone. You can have everything in the house. I've been sleeping with him for four months now, and he's the one that pay my car notes, so good luck in life. Goodbye, Lanelle.

And then scratched out was a footnote that said, quote, Now, obviously, the typos featured in the note would be strange ones for a registered nurse to make, and the syntax didn't seem to be in her cadence, which was noted by police. And when confronted with this note, Lewis claimed that he didn't know what they were talking about and that he hadn't even seen it.

I mean, Lewis is just like all kinds of confused right now. You know, he's still, by the way, at this point, doesn't even know that Linnell is dead yet. So he's at the police station. He doesn't know why. And or allegedly he doesn't know why. Right.

And now they're saying, oh, yeah, we found this breakup note. So you guys broke up. She broke up with you. And he's like, what note? Yeah, you should have seen this note that she wrote about, you know, I'm taking one TV or one of the TV, one of the TV. So, yeah, it's like Lewis apparently doesn't know what's going on. And the officers are doing this on purpose. I think we said this in the last episode, I think. Oh, yeah. On Carol Kennedy, we were saying how, please.

Police are like slowly releasing the information, gradually releasing it to see how much the other person knows. Yeah, they just want to kind of test the waters here. Exactly. So that's what they're doing here. They're trying to see if Lewis knows that she's dead, knows anything about what happened to her. So obviously confused, you know, this is his girlfriend, serious girlfriend of many years. He's asking, OK, so where is Linnell? What is going on?

And when they told him that she had succumbed to a gunshot wound to the head, he broke down in immediate sobs. And now they got to figure out if these are real tears or if they're crocodile tears.

Through whales, he said to them, that's not me. And why would they do that to her? And who would do that to her? So kind of interesting that he says, why would they do that to her? Yeah. Like it's almost implying that there's more than one person responsible for this attack. Yeah. And like maybe at first he knows who it could be, but then he's saying who would do that to her? And it's kind of them playing...

The part of, well, I don't know who would do that to her. Why would somebody kill her?

So he implored them through tears to pursue and punish the guilty party. But despite his grief, police seemed certain enough about his involvement that they were ready to make an arrest. And Lewis, who was about 30 years old at this time, was detained for the murder of his girlfriend. As Lewis waited in custody, the crime scene left behind inside the house was analyzed very carefully for evidence that would support their conclusion.

But the scene of the crime was a sloppy one. Heath did a great job at telling us how messy it really was, how much blood there was, how much random shit strewn around there was. Yeah, there was just like bloody towels laying in front of the washer. There's towels all over the house. And like you said, somebody clearly tried to put her body in the back of the car and then they literally gave up and just dropped her next to the car and then left. So it's like super messy scene.

You know, almost like the killer had been apprehended halfway through cleaning up or like they had just given up halfway through cleaning up and just fled. Yeah, they probably just got scared and they're like, I got to get the hell out of here. Yeah, like, wait, this is a way bigger job than I thought, which is something I love about Psycho. The movie is that they really offered Hitchcock really made you realize how hard it is to clean up a crime scene and how.

You know, it's a job. Absolutely. It would be very, very strenuous. And you'd probably have to, in order to leave nothing behind, you'd have to use bleach and all sorts of shit, rubber gloves. And they can still find that. So just don't murder. Don't murder. Don't be a piece of shit and murder. No, really, don't do it, guys. So in the open trunk of Linnell's car, there was a pillow that had this small hole inside.

Burned through it. Through the entire pillow. Straight through. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of you guys probably know or kind of understand what that pillow is for. But if you don't, we're going to explain that right now. Well, police did too. They had a hunch right when they saw it. But then they had an even bigger hunch when they found traces of gunpowder on it. Which led them to believe that whoever shot her had actually pressed the pillow between the gun and her head.

to silence the sound of the gun going off. Which a lot of people have seen it. They use a lot in movies. You know, you put a pillow over somebody's face. Yeah, they do. Yeah, absolutely. They put a... What are you laughing at me for? They put a pillow over somebody's face and then they... It almost acts like a silencer because it just, you know...

It mellows the sound, I guess. Well, it's interesting that the person would have that knowledge to say, I'm going to try to silence this in the first place. Yeah. And then...

use a pillow. Well, clearly that just shows that this was kind of premeditated. It wasn't just like a spur of the moment. Oh, I had to pull out my gun and shoot you because we're in an altercation. It's like the passion. Yeah. I I'm setting you up to murder you. Yeah. So true. Very good insight. So just as detective suspected, the area rug had been removed, removed from the carpeted living room.

and shoved haphazardly into the back seat of Linnell's unlocked car, which was still in the garage again and next to her body. And on the underside of the rug was a bloody footprint. And discarded on the floor of the garage were two latex gloves with blood on them, as well as a plastic pitcher with a bloody fingerprint on it. So...

Like you're saying, Heath, it's almost like they were trying to set this up in a certain way, but it's like, you leave the gloves behind, which are obviously going to have your DNA inside of it. Yeah, you did a really shitty job here. And then you touch something with blood on your hands. Well, a luminol test of the floors in the home revealed a trail of bloody footprints leading away from where the area rug had been in the living room. So detectives believe that the murder had taken place inside the living room,

atop the area rug as they had originally suspected. Alongside the footprints was a consistent stream of spilled blood moving from the living room, through the kitchen, and into the garage, making it seem like Linnell's body had been dragged there after she was murdered. Though initially thought to be a victim of blunt force trauma due to all of this blood...

A shell casing was found on the floor of the living room. So obviously now they know that it was from a gun. Which of course they knew when they found the freaking gunpowder and the hole in the pillow, but everything is matching up. Yeah, they had to obviously confirm all of this. Well, strangely, Lewis didn't even own a gun. And the timeline that Lewis gave to detectives all but ruled him out anyway. So they wondered if he had at least orchestrated the murder with the help of somebody else.

So, Lewis was held in jail for weeks while police attempted to confirm or deny his presence at the scene of the murder. But with the eventual confirmation of his phone records, it became increasingly obvious that Lewis was not home at the time that Linnell would have been killed.

Because his cell phone records were consistent with the timing that he gave police, placing him farther and farther away from Palmdale as the afternoon of the murder wore on.

On the afternoon of her murder, Linnell actually called Lewis on his cell phone from their home landline at 2.30 p.m. And within 20 minutes of answering this phone call, he was at the auto parts store and then made his two additional appearances on security camera footage at other auto parts stores in that neighborhood.

According to Bobby, he arrived at her home in Inglewood between 6 and 6.15pm as we mentioned before, so this wouldn't have left him enough time to sneak all the way back out to Palmdale, commit his girlfriend's murder, and then report back to the area to stop in the store again.

At 4:00 p.m. that day, Bobby placed a call to her daughter, which she did not answer. So police believe that her murder took place between 2:30 p.m. when she spoke to Lewis on the phone and 4:00 p.m. when that call was placed.

So this meant that Lewis could not have committed this murder and he was officially cleared of suspicion and released from confinement. But as we know, Lorraine had said that she was gone from like, what'd she say? 1230 to six or six ish. Exactly. So she said that she was out the whole day. So then you're like, okay, well then who was there? Yeah, exactly. And this doesn't really, you know, it kind of,

It's also kind of confusing because Lorraine is saying, hey, I locked eyes with Lewis and he chased me to the police station. And then when I got close, he turned around and headed back. So all of this is kind of like making you suspicious. It's not adding up. And of course, officers did keep tabs on Lewis in case something had snuck by them. And he did, at the very least, orchestrate this killing. So police placed a tracker on his car.

But detectives admitted that he hadn't been up to anything suspicious following his release. So it's like they're tracking him for days and they're realizing that he's not doing anything weird. He's out trying to flee to Miami. He's not trying to flee to Miami. He's not trying to flee to Miami or Haiti or anywhere else. He's just staying put. Yeah, he's just going about his normal day.

Well, to the frustration of Linnell's friends and family, the investigation seemed to take a step back. I mean, everything was originally pointing to one person at first, and now it's clear that it wasn't him. So police were just totally dumbfounded. And when scrambling to appoint a new suspect, detectives recalled a strange detail about the night that Linnell was killed.

The morning after Linnell's murder, her mother, Bobbie, was headed into the Palmdale Sheriff's Station for questioning as Lorraine was heading out. And spotting her in the hallway, Lorraine warmly embraced Bobbie and offered her condolences. You know, she knows who Bobbie is. She's saying, I'm so sorry about what happened to your daughter. She had been one of the last people to see her daughter. So Bobbie thanked her kindly.

But puzzled, she later asked detectives who this woman was. Oh man, this is getting crazy. And when they told her that she had been Linnell's best friend for a decade, Bobby informed them that she had never met or even seen that woman in her entire life. And she said...

That's not my daughter's best friend. I don't even know who that is. Yeah, it's like Lorraine is painting this picture of, hey, I knew Linnell for so long. Then how would Bobby not recognize you in any sort of way? But that's what's kind of weird is like she recognizes Bobby and Bobby's like, who the hell are you? Yeah. I'm the owner of this house.

What are you talking about? You haven't seen that TikTok? No, I just think we have two completely different algorithms. I think we do too. I think somebody out there knows, right? So additionally, detectives had noticed that when Lorraine was searched up, you know, they looked her up when she first arrived at the sheriff's station. When they originally questioned her, of course, they look into everybody's background, right? Yeah.

But they also noticed that when she got there, she was still covered in her friend's blood, which was kind of weird because she wasn't there. So they're like, did she...

her body to see if she was still alive. That would make sense, right? Sure. But also she had two bullets in her purse. And when they ran that background check, it didn't appear that she owned a gun. So they don't know where these came from. So now they're kind of looking back on this. They're remembering what Bobby had said. They're thinking about the two bullets in her purse. So they're really acting on this hunch. And they ran a background check again on Lorraine.

And due to the unique spelling of Lorraine's name, so you might be thinking it's L-O-R-A-I-N-E. Yeah. But, or two R's, one R. Maybe two. I don't know. You can picture it. But, you know, that's how a lot of people spell it. She didn't spell it like that. She spelled it kind of like Linnell spelled her name. Yeah. It's L-A apostrophe R-E-N-E.

So it may have actually been incorrectly entered the first time they looked her up. Of course. They're like, hey, your name's Lorraine. All right, cool. We're going to put your name in the system. But they didn't know that it was spelled the way it was spelled. So obviously that was just a, you know, kind of like a error. It's another it's really actually like they're looking her up for the first time because it's

When they put her name in correctly, they found out that she owned the exact type of gun that killed her friend, a Smith & Wesson pistol with 9mm bullets, which she had purchased on February 18, 2010, just four months before Linnell's murder.

So, obviously, you guys are kind of wondering, what the hell is going on here? Well, finally, four months after Linnell's murder, the truth came spilling out through a messy trail of evidence that Lorraine left behind. I think we're going to have to say the word messy a few more times in this episode, because truly... It was! It was, it just was. This whole fucking story is a mess. So...

A search of her online activity revealed that she and Linnell had not in fact known each other for 10 plus years, nor had they met in high school and they certainly were not best friends. The women had actually met only one month prior on Craigslist in the women seeking women section. After Lorraine posted an ad about desiring to have a sexual relationship with a woman,

So it's just kind of crazy that she says they were best friends for 10 plus years and they went to school together. They're like strangers. When you know someone for a month, you don't know them at all. Yeah, come to find out that they really hardly knew each other. Now, it's unclear if her own boyfriend had known about this, but Lewis said that he certainly had not. He did not know that his girlfriend, Linnell, was seeing another woman before.

And another person outside of himself and Ike. This is kind of a crazy scenario, though, because we've obviously got Linnell and Lorraine, and they're, you know, obviously kind of together, sort of. And then we've got Louis and Lorraine's boyfriend. Yeah. And neither one of these guys know that their girlfriends are potentially into women. Yeah, which makes it messier because...

They're hanging out together in front of their boyfriends and neither of them know, or at least again, I don't know about Lorraine's boyfriend, but at least Louis didn't know that they were having a sexual relationship. Yeah. The guys are just like, oh, well, the girls are hanging out today, you know? Yeah. But the fact was Linnell and Lorraine had started casually dating and sleeping together. They were not just friends. So Linnell,

Again, she was not only talking to Ike during this part of her relationship with Lewis, but she was physically seeing someone else locally, this woman, which is someone she also seemed to consider a friend, you know, enough to do her hair and hang out with her in person, even, again, hanging out with her and her boyfriend. So, you know, five days before her murder, actually, Linnell cut off her romantic and sexual relationship with Lorraine

to focus on Louis, which is what she said she did with Ike. So suddenly, there is somebody else in the mix who has a motive. Well, let's talk about this relationship severing. So on June 11th, 2010, like Daphne's saying, five days before Linnell's murder, she texted Lorraine, quote, I'm getting quite serious with my boyfriend, and I don't want anything sexual with you anymore. I enjoy your friendship and would like to keep it that way.

Well, to this, Lorraine responded, quote, I understand. I just seeking friendship as well. I think you're a cool person to hang out with. And if you can't tell, this text bore eerie similarities to the note riddled with grammatical errors that had been left behind for Lewis, which had supposedly been written by Linnell. So detectives came to find that Lorraine had been unemployed for long stretches of time on and off and still lived at home with her mom.

and feeling restless and unhappy in her own life, she sought out somebody else's. According to Jason Carino with the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office, he said, quote, She absolutely saw Linnell Barsak as someone who could take her out of that and give her a better life and was infatuated with that and really, really wanted that. And when it was taken away from her very quickly, in an instant,

she ultimately lashed out and decided to kill Linnell as punishment for it. So it kind of seems like Lorraine became so fixated on Linnell that she actually began impersonating Linnell online. Because around the same time that she met Linnell, Lorraine also met and dated two other women, who she introduced herself to as Crystal, which is Linnell's middle name.

She also told these women that she drove a blue BMW, which is what Lynelle drove, so that's obviously weird. And Lorraine was in communication with three more women on Craigslist as well, and was offering up similar stories.

So now at the center of the investigation, Lorraine's DNA was tested against the evidence found at the crime scene. And it was her DNA on the black latex gloves, her fingerprint found on the plastic pitcher, and her footprint on that rug.

And her script even matched the handwriting of the note left behind, and not that of Linnell's. So police believe that while standing behind Linnell and styling her hair, Lorraine grabbed a throw pillow, placed it between Linnell's head and her gun, and shot into it to muffle the sound. Which is just so messed up, and it's also terrifying because of course we then know that she went there that day...

planning to murder her. There's no other reason for her to have a gun on her. And the fact that she knows I'm going to be doing her hair, I'm going to be standing behind her. And Linnell is none the wiser. She's sitting there, head turned to her friend and ex-sexual partner of a few weeks. And then she just shoots her. Yeah. So this was a completely premeditated plan.

And also, detectives believe that she was attempting to load Linnell along with all the bloody towels and blankets and the rug into the car, and she was planning to drive that car and the evidence and Linnell's body out to a remote stretch of desert nearby and discard of it all, perhaps setting it on fire. And then she just gave up and left a shit ton of evidence behind. Yeah, I'm assuming that either...

it was too difficult for just the fact that like the, the spare tire was laying on the ground behind, like behind the trunk. Yeah. And how police believe that that was kind of like a stepping stool. I'm assuming that it was just too hard for Lorraine to pick up Linnell's body and move it into the trunk. So that's why she just gave up. And then she gave that weird ass story. By the way, we thought that was weird and we didn't want to point it out earlier, but yeah, sitting at the park for six hours. That's weird. That's fucking weird. Yeah. And, but that was her kind of way of,

Not having, you know, because there's no... Not putting herself at the crime scene when the crime happened. Or putting herself somewhere where there would be evidence of the contrary, that she was not there. But if she's at a public park, nobody would really notice if she was there. True, yeah. And she could just say that she's sitting there, even though it's like, you're sitting at the park for six hours by yourself doing nothing but watching the children play? Okay. Well, at 4.44 p.m. on the day that Linnell was killed...

Lorraine received a call from her boyfriend telling her that Lewis was coming home early unexpectedly. Her boyfriend not knowing that Lewis was actually staying at Bobby's house. So her boyfriend is like, by the way, like Lewis is coming back. Just so you know, not that he was a part of the murder plan. Yeah, he was just kind of like letting her know casually. Yeah. And so now this is kind of getting the gear going because 444 p.m. is after Linnell is already murdered.

So it was from that moment that she decided that she was going to frame Lewis.

In her panic, she wound up concocting a story that was incapable of being true, unbeknownst to her, of course, given that Lewis was actually hours away at the time. So after finally being convinced that the culprit was Lorraine and not Lewis after all, the Palmdale Sheriff's Office issued a warrant for her arrest. But this is crazy because by the time they came to this conclusion...

Lorraine had fled and she wasn't apprehended for almost a year. And here's how they caught her. So while she was still on the loose after months with no leads on her whereabouts, Linnell's case was featured on America's Most Wanted alongside a picture and description of Lorraine. They're trying to get the word out. Yes, love this. America's Most Wanted coming in clutch. I know this is actually what got her caught because an informant happened to see this

and tipped off the FBI because they knew where she was. They said that she had been in Belize. So girl fled the country. On January 25th of 2012, over a year and a half after Linnell's murder, the FBI hunted Lorraine down and she was extradited back to the U.S. First to Houston, Texas, where she made her first court appearance. And she was then sent back to her home state of California.

While detained for questioning after being on the lam for over a year, Lorraine was cagey and defensive, saying, quote, So that's what I did.

When asked about her portrayal in the media, she said, quote, that kind of rubbed me the wrong way that I was plotting on my friend for financial support. For what? Financial support or something like that? Or basically trying to mooch?

Well, despite the evidence stacked against her, both Lorraine and her defense attorney maintained that Lewis was the true murderer. Obviously, he could not have been because we already proved that he couldn't have been. No, there's no evidence proving it was Lewis and literally all the evidence proving that it was her.

But on August 13th, 2015, she was found guilty of first-degree murder and was sentenced to two terms of 25 years to life. Lorraine is currently imprisoned at the California Institute for Women in Chino, California, and she will be eligible for parole in February of 2032, though who knows what will come of that. She probably will not be released.

On the other hand, Lewis has since gotten married and had a child. And he maintains that he was never violent with Linnell. One of Linnell's best friends from nursing school, Marcel, who, like Lewis, was new to the States when Linnell met him, said that he will never forget the gratitude he feels for her taking him under her wing and calls her his guardian angel. ♪

He even named his daughter Linnell after her. Thank you so much, everybody, for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode. I'd love to hear your comments about Lorraine. When I found out that it was Lorraine, I literally was like,

What? Yeah, I know. Me too. I was like, are you, you gotta be kidding me. Like this had to have been Lewis, but you know what? It wasn't. It was Lorraine the whole time. It wasn't. This was such a crazy episode to research and dive into. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. And also again, big shout out to Anna for recommending it.

putting this case on our radar. Appreciate everybody listening. And I just want to say in a little over a month from today, my debut thriller novel Nightwatcher comes out. It is about a masked serial killer in Portland, Oregon. It's a super creepy book. Please pre-order it. It would mean the world to me. You can do that anywhere that you get your books. And I just want to say

that you should pre-order that book. It's a banger. I'm sure you guys are going to love it. Nightwatcher, make sure you pre-order it. Also, just before we go, if you want to hear that really exciting news and have the first opportunity at that really exciting news,

Join us on Patreon or become an Apple subscriber. You can do that by going to patreon.com slash goingwestpodcast or it's very, very simple. On your Apple app, you just subscribe right there. It's so easy. And we have over 130 bonus episodes. They're full length, just like these regular ones. But we leave the country a lot. And those, I feel like we're a little bit, maybe a little looser on the bonus episodes for some reason. But we have fun over there. So check it out.

All right, guys. So with that, for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.

♪♪♪

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